You know, we all have our own strengths and that's something to really be proud of.
The various talents and gifts that we have pretty much make us who we are.
But what if you found out that someone else has the exact same talents that you have,
you know, that you thought made you special?
And not only that, but what if they were better than you at those things?
How would that make you feel?
How would you react?
Well, today we're going to look at how one character handles that exact feeling of inferiority
and how he uses that feeling to go further than he ever has before.
And of course we're talking about the primitive sorcerer, Chrome.
Hey what's going on guys, my name is Nate and you're listening to the Otaku Liberation.
A show will help you break the chains that are holding you back here in life by connecting
some biblical principles from themes from your favorite anime.
And hey guys, before we go into the main points today, I just want to thank each and every
one of you for tuning into today's episode.
Honestly, your support means the world to me.
And if I can help out one person every week with these episodes, then hey, I feel like
I've done my job.
So yeah, without further ado, let's get right into it.
So Chrome, Chrome is a funny guy.
Again, like I kind of covered a little bit with Senku last week's episode, Chrome is,
I guess for lack of better terms, I guess is the stone age version of Senku, as in he's
a scientist in a world that doesn't really have science.
So he was the de facto expert in his field because no one else really understood how
science work, how things were things work the way they did.
And so Chrome initially thought, you know, he was, he was the man, right?
You know, he was the head honcho in terms of, you know, this whole science thing until
this weird guy with celery hair just pops up and completely blows them out of the water.
And initially this hurt Chrome's ego, understandably so.
I mean, when you think you're the best around mainly because you have no other kind of competition.
And then this random dude just shows up and completely dominates you in the field you
thought you were an expert in.
I mean, I think that that would do a number on any of our egos, right?
And Chrome, you know, is just initially taken aback by this, right?
And as we see throughout the story, I think his journey with Senku, I mean, he grows to
respect them and aspire to be more like Senku.
And you know, I know that that journey seems to be kind of fast in the, in the context
here of Dr. Stone, but I know in real life, not everyone gets to that point or not.
Honestly, not everyone can even see that opportunity to see the opportunity to grow, to get better,
to learn underneath this person that's better than you at, you know, this skill, this job
or whatever that you thought you were a master of, you know, and it takes a lot to humble
yourself and just admit, hey, maybe I'm not as good as I thought it was.
And let's see what I can learn from this guy.
But we're going into too much deeper for Chrome's aspect of it.
I want to cover this verse in its Proverbs chapter 18 verse 15.
And it's the mind of the discerning, the mind of the discerning acquires knowledge in the
ear of the wise seeks it.
And essentially what it is, it's the title of this episode is just keeping an open, an
open mind, really don't get so tied down and bogged down into what you think, you know,
and then now you come to find you'd really don't know as much as you thought you did.
And there's so much more wealth of knowledge and wisdom out there just for the taking.
But if you are, if you're content or you really think that you know it all already, then I
hate to break it to you.
That's not the case.
And that case was broken, was broken to Chrome.
So again, come like how I already touched on Chrome has this key.
He has a gifted intelligence, right?
He is smarter than most of the other villagers in the stone village.
That's not to say that they're dumb.
He's just he he's just he has a gifted intellect, right?
You know, that's like how it is in life.
There's you know, you we all know that one person or a couple people in class that are
at the top of the class, every, every test, every project, every everything.
And it seems like it's it's effortless for them, right?
That's how it looks from the outside looking in.
And then that may be true.
They may not be true.
You don't know how much work they're putting into these things.
But what I want you guys to understand is that just because they're good at, you know,
schoolwork or doing getting good grades, things like that, that doesn't mean that you aren't.
That doesn't mean you aren't good at these things.
It just means you have to put more work into it.
Right.
And that's the difference between not being good at something and not working hard enough
to, you know, to really get there.
If that makes sense, kind of talking over myself.
But again, it's like the whole hard work versus talent type thing.
Just because someone's talented at something doesn't mean you can't be as good at that
thing as they are.
Right.
Especially if they don't work hard at it.
Right.
I know a lot of people think just because they're good at something naturally that they
don't have to work on it, they don't have to hone it and really sharpen it.
And someone who's not as skilled at it as they are naturally, they can outwork them
all day and then next thing you know, they're running circles around them.
And so that's pretty much the main message I want you guys to get is that, hey, just
because you're good at something doesn't mean you don't have to work hard and just really
be on the lookout.
So and that's kind of what it was with Chrome here.
So Chrome calls himself a sorcerer.
Again, because they don't understand the concept of science.
So he just calls himself a sorcerer.
And because he's been able to discover just different chemical reactions and other experiments
just throughout his young life.
And that's mainly because he goes out, he gathers, he just likes to observe and just
try out different things.
He has a very hands on approach when it comes to science.
And that's how he sharpened his natural talent.
He's good at these things.
So he keeps doing it.
And over and over time, he just gets better and better at it.
So I just want to ask, so what are some things that you are good at?
And how can you leverage that strength?
Right?
You know, if it's, you know, speaking, maybe you're maybe you're maybe you're a chatterbox,
right?
You just love talking to people you love.
Because learning more about people, you know, telling your stories, things like that.
If it deals with talking to somebody, that's you.
You're there.
You're in it.
And how can you use that to, to, you know, how can you leverage that strength?
How can you use it to, you know, lift other people up?
How can you use it to brighten someone else's day?
How can you use it to brighten your own day?
Right?
Now, what are some things?
What are some ways that you can use to really, you know, pump up this, this gift, this innate
gift that you that you have?
And if you can't think of any ideas, go back to the Blue Lock season, where I really covered
into the different gifts and talents that we all have and how the characters there honed
them.
But so back to Chrome, right?
So again, Chrome is a natural gatherer.
He's naturally inquisitive.
He likes to he just likes trying out different things.
And that's how he's gotten to, you know, this stature that he's at now.
And then the humbling comes right now.
Again, Chrome wasn't as arrogant as for say, like someone like Vegeta or a borrow like
that.
He wasn't arrogant by any means.
But again, he was the only one in his village that even knew what he was talking about for
the longest time.
So naturally, that kind of inflates your ego just a little bit.
You know, you think you, you know, you know it all because no one else around you even
knows what you're talking about half the time.
But when Senku comes around and comes to the village and Chrome realized this guy's actually
a quote unquote threat to my authority as a science leader here.
He initially challenged Senku to a battle of wits.
And we as the audience know how this is about to go.
But Chrome thinks he actually has a chance.
And of course, he was defeated.
But in this defeat, Chrome actually, he gained a very valuable friend in Senku because now
for the first time ever, he has someone who not only who he can talk to about, you know,
this thing that he called sorcery, but in terms of find out science, but he also has
someone who's who can mentor him in the same field.
Right.
And it's one thing to have somebody who shares similar interests with you that you guys can
discuss and kind of just talk about it and just enjoy the love of it.
But there's another thing to have that and to have somebody who can essentially show
you the ropes, right?
Who can show you the areas that you you may have just neglected because you weren't aware
of them, you know, just show you show you where you are now and what's the next level
is something that you can aspire to go towards.
And for me, it's it's really, really just always is awesome.
I can think of a better word, saving is awesome.
If you love something so much and you know, there's another level that you can go and
you have somebody who has that same passion, the same drive, that same everything.
And they're already at the next level that you want to be yet.
And they're willing to help you, man.
That's a done deal.
That's a that's a done deal.
And when it comes to it's like mentorship and just being open back to the whole thing
of having an open mind.
Right.
I want to talk to both generations of people.
Right.
You know, the older generation and the younger ones, I guess, I guess all three in the ones
and currently in my generation, right.
The the 20, the 20 year olds, the ones younger than us and the ones older than us.
And it's what all of us to realize that we have things that we can learn from each from
each other.
Right.
And I don't know how many times I've just seen and observed in my young life, you know,
whether it is at home, whether it's at work, you know, or just out and about where the
young young kids think they know everything because, you know, we've all gone through
that same phase and hormones are kicking in.
And you just you think you're bigger than the world and you think you just know everything.
Right.
And then on the other hand, you got the adults who have experienced more life, who've gone
through, who've lived much longer than any of us have sometimes.
And they're just like, you don't know what the world is really like.
And this, that and third.
And I feel like there's just this disconnect between the two sides because, again, on one
hand, the young people, they can't be told anything because they think they know everything
because, you know, they feel invincible.
On the other hand, you have the older older generation who can't be told anything because
they think they know everything because they've experienced more life.
Right.
And it's like, I think we just both sides just take the time to sit down and have a
discussion.
We can have more opportunities for mentorship like Chrome does with Senku.
Right.
If we put our our egos and just, you know, the bravado away and aside and really have
that open mind to have those type of discussions, it's like, OK, you know, only generation,
just because the young generation haven't experienced as much life as you have doesn't
mean they haven't experienced at all.
And you have to realize that the world now is different than when you were coming up
then when you were their age.
Right.
The world has changed drastically.
And I'm just I'm just thinking now, you know, my my young sister, our age difference is
so huge.
So it looks completely different.
Her like now than when I was her age.
Right.
And we're we're still technically in the same generation, I think.
But again, the last 10, you know, 10 years or so, it looks completely different than
when I was her age.
So just imagine that, you know, 10, 20, 30 years ago from our parents, grandparents,
things like that.
And so just just realize that the world is different than when you came up and when you
grew up in.
And now that doesn't discount that doesn't discredit anything that you've gone through.
Right.
I think there's a wealth of wisdom there.
And I do believe that.
And now but that also doesn't mean that you can't learn something from the kids that are
coming up now, you know, because they're again, the world is just different.
The things are way more advanced than it was back then.
And things some things have changed for the better.
Some not.
But I think if we have the open mind enough to listen and to talk and to really understand,
then I think I think your message will come across better to the younger generation and
younger generation.
And again, just because you guys are living in this, you know, technology, the technology
world, everything super advanced, you know, everybody own every kid in school and has
an iPad for some reason.
And you know, things like that, that doesn't mean you know everything because you don't.
You just don't.
We don't.
Right.
We know I'm closer to you guys and I am some of the older generation.
So we don't know everything.
There's a lot of the world that we have not seen and that we haven't gone through.
And honestly, I pray that we don't go through that some people in the older generation have
in order for us to have the things we have now.
Right.
And I think the point for us to take a step back and just kind of really understand the
sacrifices that had to be made in order for us to have the quality of life that we have
now.
And and again, just to really, really, you know, all of this kind of just comes down
to having a conversation, right?
Just be able to to sit down, you know, with your parents, with your grandparents, with
your teachers, your mentor, whoever you feel comfortable with, who experience more life
than you and who you know is has an open enough mind to be able to listen.
Because again, listening goes both ways.
It's not hearing each other, but listening and just, man, I just I just know if if we're
able to have open dialogue with, you know, again, the different generations that have
they've come before and wanted to come and get now, I mean, this this world will be it
wouldn't be in as much chaos as it is now.
I truly believe that.
And because there's a wealth of knowledge and wisdom from both sides that we can learn
that we can learn from each other and pull from.
And again, and it's pretty much exactly what happens with Chrome and Senku, because even
though physically they're the same age, more or less, Senku is thirty seven hundred years
older than Chrome, right?
And again, Dr. Stone, they've they've been petrified for almost four thousand years.
So this pretty much perfectly has this example where, you know, the super old generation
and the new generation is coming up.
And again, after the initial kind of bruised to the ego, Chrome was like, you know, this
dude knows more about this stuff than I even knew was possible.
So let's see what I can I what can I learn from it?
What can I gain from this from this relationship?
And like I said earlier, he gained a valuable friend in Senku and then vice versa Senku
and Chrome, because these two guys together honestly are are kind of like the dynamic
duo when it comes to scientists or science in general, because Senku has a lot of the
theoretical and some of the practical knowledge to of how things work in in how to build it.
Chrome has the real life experience of gathering the materials, knowing what to look for and
honestly just in improving a lot of the stuff that he may need.
I mean, he broke himself out of jail.
Spoiler.
But he broke himself out of jail after being captured by Tsukasa's people because of the
experiments him and Senku went through.
And he uses his brand of science, as he calls it, you know, which is just gathering up materials,
seeing what he has and then making the best out of it.
And honestly, it's those two together showing that how, you know, you can you can know a
lot about your own domain, a lot about your skill set, a lot about your area of expertise.
But there's still more that can be learned, even if it's not new knowledge, it can be
a new application to the knowledge that you already have.
And so I kind of I can raise these questions like how do you react to being challenged
in your own domain?
Right.
When you like not so much when you're just starting off and when you've you've been established
a little bit, let's say I use martial arts as an example.
Right.
Let's say so you're not you're not at the lowest level anymore.
You're just say you're about midway.
You're you're midway through and you're kind of the top of the top of your class.
Let's say that and you're your sensei or whoever comes in, you know, challenge you, pushes
you harder than they push you beforehand.
You know, like the training gloves are off now.
You've experienced more of the style.
So now you can handle more.
How do you react to that adversity?
Right.
And I know maybe martial arts isn't the best example because you're taught that from the
beginning that you need to expect adversity in order to improve yourself.
But it's the same it's the same type of concept.
So whatever skill, whatever domain that you're in, just think about how you react to somebody
who comes in and really challenges you on what you know.
I'm not saying like these these fake gurus or something like that who you can tell immediately
they don't know what they're talking about.
But somebody who really does know more than you and they're pushing you to just broaden
your horizons, really to think outside of the box because we have a tendency.
Once we get familiar with something, we get comfortable.
And once we get comfortable, we we start pigeonholing ourselves into a certain way, a particular
way of doing things.
And that's kind of how we get to the whole that's how we get stagnant, really.
So we need someone else from the outside who can push us, who can really challenge us to
remember what it is back at the basis, back when we started to think outside the box,
to open our minds to different possibilities.
And that kind of leads the next question is, are you are you a know it all or are you humble
enough to admit that there are people out there who are better than you?
Right.
Because, you know, whether you admit it or not, that that's the case.
Right.
There are people out there who are better than us and in on the end in everything.
Right.
You know, it's just, you know, some people who are out there who make more money than
us.
Some people out there who can lift more than us in the gym.
Some people out there who can sing sing better than us.
Some people out there who, you know, can get hundreds on all of their tests while we can
only get ninety nines.
Right.
Things like that.
There's always someone out there who is better than you.
Not be and sometimes it's not because it's an inherent thing.
Sometimes they just outwork you.
They just work harder than you or they work more efficiently than you.
I think that's the best way.
That's a better way to put it is that they work more efficiently, not necessarily hard
because hard work isn't necessarily smart work.
Right.
You can you can be you can be busy, busy, busy, busy bodies.
Because I think right now in this day and age, we glorify being busy over being productive.
You know, I think it's like a badge of honor saying that we have, you know, like from I
shouldn't have I shouldn't have a nine to five on Saturday.
Like if I'm not working, but literally from nine in the morning to five in afternoon,
I'm doing something all day, like these little different projects and stuff like that.
You know, that's not and it's not really accomplishing anything.
It's not.
No, it's crazy.
It's insanity.
Right.
Because that's why I made a clear distinction in my own life between being busy and being
productive because if I'm doing something that is of a of a benefit, right, if I'm not
just doing busy work, I'm doing things like I mean, like recording, honestly, recording
this podcast episode, writing up the outlines for the podcast episode, watching the anime
for the podcast, which, you know, that's my favorite part of this, this whole thing.
Right.
It's just watching a different anime and like, yeah, yeah, I'm making content.
But no, seriously, it's it's again, just the whole idea of, you know, just open your mind
up to the different possibilities, different avenues of, you know, what's out there.
None of us know everything, but we all know something and it's about how we can use what
we already know to what what we don't.
Right.
And how can we go about learning what we don't know, right, whether it's getting a mentor,
doing more research, getting creative with the things that we have at our disposal is
really keeping your mind open to the possibility.
I can't can't stress that enough because I because I know, you know, we all heard the
saying about being set in your ways.
Right.
You again, when you get older, you get comfortable, you get familiar and then you get stagnant.
And then at that point, it's almost it's almost too late.
But I do believe as long as you have breath in your lungs and a functioning mind, you
were all capable of change, were all capable of improvement, which is the whole goal of
this entire this entire thing.
The otaku liberation is to be free of these type of things that are going to hold us back
from our potential and hold us back from who we were called to be by God.
Right.
And really is again, just keep a discerning eye, keep an open mind, keep an ear, keep
ears open to to just everything because you never know.
You never know where that next big idea is going to come from.
So in summary, just kind of going over Chrome's gifted intelligence and his his ability to
be taught.
Right.
It is open.
His open mindedness is kind of aligned with this whole idea of going back to basics.
Right.
And that's where it's highlighting the significance of recognizing and utilizing our own natural
strengths or the things that we've worked on, the things that we've cultivated over
time, as well as being open to experiencing new things, to learning things from other
people.
Right.
That's kind of what all this means in a nutshell.
So yeah, that's pretty much it.
So again, just want to thank you guys for tuning in to today's episode.
And I pray that you get what you needed out of it.
And hopefully you learn something new about yourself.
And if you got any value out of it, feel free to subscribe and share this episode with anyone
who you think would benefit from it.
Seriously, I mean, if you guys have, you know, listened to me this thus far, right.
And you really think you really like the content I'm putting out, the idea that I that I'm,
you know, saying, then feel free to share it to people who you think would like it to.
Right.
Even not at first.
Who knows?
But that now is at the worst of it.
They may just start watching anime, which is again, it's what it's what the real mission
of this whole podcast is to get more otakus out there.
But hey, come back next week because on next week's episode, we'll be taking a look at
someone who takes the kiss method.
Keep it simple, stupid to heart.
Bonus points for anyone who gets that reference.
And it's someone who shows that progress doesn't have to be complicated at all.
And that of course is Taiju Okie.
So again, come back next week, guys.
And always remember, you are the main character of your story.
And that story doesn't end until he says so.
All right, be blessed.