You know, standing firm and taking on life with a smile is honestly one of the hardest things somebody can do.
I mean, it's easy to give up and be discouraged when life seems to be going against you all the freaking time.
But today we're going to look at a character from Dr. Stone who stands tall no matter what the circumstance is.
And he's always determined to do his best no matter what.
And that character is the lovable oath, Taiju Oki.
Hey what's going on guys? My name is Nate and you're listening to the Otaku Liberation.
A show where we help you break the chains that are holding you back in your life by connecting some biblical principles with themes from your favorite anime.
And hey guys, again, before we get into the main points today, I just want to thank each and every one of you for tuning in to today's episode.
And if you like what you're hearing, then feel free to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss another episode.
Alright, let's get right into it.
So to kind of understand Taiju, you know, Taiju is essentially the brawn to Senku's brain.
And funny enough, you know, Taiju is almost like the dumb jock type that you see in most media, things like that.
Except he's a nice guy, right? He's a nice dumb jock.
And what's so lovable about Taiju is, like I said, he always has a smile on his face pretty much no matter what is happening.
And he goes through life with his own degree of mental toughness, right?
I know when we covered Senku's episode, we talked about his mental toughness and the fact that he stayed conscious for almost 4,000 years, right?
Counting the seconds.
But in Taiju's case, is that resilience, both physically and mentally, that I think a lot of us are missing in our normal lives because, you know, life just beats you down, right?
It's just constantly coming at you, you know, death right front back. It's constantly getting bogged down with just the nonsense.
But to be able to go through that with the smile on your face and you should stand tall, like you just get up, dust the shoulders off and keep on moving.
That's the superpower in of itself in all honesty, at least to me.
And when I was writing this episode for Taiju, the verse that really stood out to me was Proverbs chapter 24 verse 16.
It says, though a righteous person falls seven times, he gets up again, but the wicked one stumbles into ruin.
And essentially, the main part I really want to focus on is that righteous persons fall seven times, he gets up again.
Now, we can, you know, the context says righteous person.
I don't want you to think you have to be, you know, holier than thou to get the point of this is really just painting the picture that, you know, no matter how many times that you fall,
as long as you keep getting back up again, then you're going to make it right.
I mean, it may not look how you want it to look. I mean, that be what you expected it to be.
But as long as you are willing to get back up and to continue moving forward and to try, then nothing, nothing can stop you.
Nothing you you you will be rewarded for your diligence and your hard work.
And that's kind of this really kind of the biggest, biggest points of this of this whole thing in general.
Right. This whole life, this whole concept of self-improvement, self-development, personal development, you know, whatever you want to call this type of niche.
And it all boils down to you not giving up on yourself.
You know, you don't give up on you, give up on your dreams, don't give up on you being the best version that you possibly can be and just really get up and just keep trudging forward.
No matter how hard it seems. Now, I know it's it can be really, really hard.
There are days where you just don't feel like even moving out of your bed. Right.
And honestly, I know I've been there. We've all been there.
They just like to wake up and feel like this is any of this even worth it.
Right. But I'm here and I just here to encourage you that it is worth it.
And there there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
So they kind of give more details into is it tied you saying some of the qualities that he exhibits, at least from what I've seen in Dr.
Stone, is that one, he's determined and reliable.
I mean, he follows Senku's instructions to the letter and he gives it.
He gives it his all, even though 95 percent of the time he doesn't completely understand what the heck Senju is talking about.
Like Senju, we just give him, you know, just not in a commanding way.
He's like, hey, I need you to do X, Y and Z.
Even if I do doesn't understand X and Y, he's still going to do do everything to the best of his ability.
And and I know for me, that was something I had to learn is just that I don't have to understand everything before I take action.
You know, and I mean, I'm sure you guys have heard of paralysis through analysis or something.
Something similar is where you overthink or you think so much that you never take any action.
And again, that's played that on display through my entire life.
Right. I think I was first made aware of it when I was in high school trying to play trying to play football.
And I remember my coach, my position coach just told my dad, yeah, he has you know, he has the physical capability to play the position right.
And I could tell that he's a super smart kid.
But that's that's his issue is that he's smart.
He's so smart that he's overthinking everything and is causing them to be a half step slower than everybody else.
And to all my overthinkers out there who know exactly what it is that I'm talking about, it gets better.
It does get better. But you have to learn to to let go some of that control and just go with the flow.
I know. I know. I hear you now. It's not that easy.
It's hard to do. You know, but why? You got to understand.
I get it. I completely understand. But again, we're trying to be more like Tide you here is all right.
You go forward at 110 percent. No plan.
No, I'm kidding. Please don't don't do that. If you out there, please have some sort of plan before you just start, you know, free balling it.
But the key, the key thing here is to not get so caught up in the details that it prevents you from starting.
All right. You can figure out the rest of it as you're doing it, but you have to start it first before you can get to that point.
And again, Tide you is a perfect example of he just he just does what send you what send you what Senku says.
And, you know, even if he doesn't understand it, he know he knows and trust Senku's judgment and that eventually he thinks he's going to explain it anyway later on.
And then that kind of leads into another thing where Tide you never gives up no matter how bad circumstances may seem.
I mean, he was even optimistic in a fate in the face of Senku supposed to death at the hands of Sukasa.
So, again, those, you know, early on in the series, Sukasa, Senku and Tide you and Yuzuhira,
they were all kind of just together trying to survive in this stone world and Sukasa's ideology of not reviving the adults
clash directly with Senku's ideology of bringing everyone back and bring back modern society.
And Sukasa saw Senku as actual threat to his ideal and he killed him.
Like he just straight up he went and killed him because Senku was that much of a threat to him. And even in that even in that moment,
I mean, again, Tide you just lost his best friend, right? He just lost his best friend as far as he's aware of.
And even in that moment, he he keeps his chin up, right?
I mean, he grieves he's deeply heartbroken, but he doesn't let it break him.
He continues to move on, he continues to to stay strong in the face of something like that.
And for me, that's, you know, I can't even imagine if somebody I love who was that close to me,
whether it was a friend, a family member, whoever, you know, when they die, just be able to hold it together like that, you know,
and not and not to be stoic or just like, you know, you feel nothing like you see it. If you read it, you know,
Tide was just bawling his eyes out. But it wasn't he didn't seem like it was the end of the world.
You know what I mean? It didn't seem like it was. Oh, no.
Whatever. What can I do now? You know, life is life is meaningless now. It was a man.
My buddy is gone. Never going to see me. This hurts. This hurts a lot.
But I know I can't stay here. I know I can't stay in this pain.
I can't stay in this place, you know, physically, mentally.
I have to be able to move on. So he took the time he needed to process, you know, thank you, death and to move
and then just to go forward, go forward with it. And now, granted, thank you.
Death was essentially faked by a second himself because he's just that much of a genius.
And it's all right. The whole the whole couple of episodes were very, very hilarious
because Senku uses the power of science in ways that I wish we could use in real life.
Anyway, but even as so even in the face of something like that, I just like, no, I'm going to keep going.
I'm going to stay strong and not going. I'm not going to let this thing beat me.
And it kind of brings home the point that, you know, thriving a life requires a lot of perseverance and tenacity
that we that we just have to learn to cultivate within ourselves. Right.
You have to have a certain level of, you know, I'm sure you guys have all heard, you know, they got him.
He got that dog in him. She got the dog in there, something like that.
You have to have that. You have to have that dog in you to get through life. Right.
And for those who don't really understand what that dog is, is exactly what I just said.
The perseverance and tenacity to stick through whatever you just stick through life.
You know, when life starts beating you down and it will, you don't let it beat you. Right.
You keep getting back up. You keep moving forward. You keep pushing.
You know, just keep going on. And you just you don't allow yourself to stay in that in that dark place and that sad place.
You don't you don't start throwing pity parties for yourself and things like that.
You get up, dust yourself off and you keep going.
And I know and I know nowadays a lot of us are unfortunately missing that because everything just so I don't know how to say how to describe it is put it this way.
Even though I know even when I when I was coming up, it was different from my parents were coming up.
Right. And you know, they you know, people from their generation, they're just built different and all honesty.
And the things they had to go through and live through with from their parents and just the way the world was at that time is completely different from nowadays.
But even when I was growing up, there wasn't any really, you know, there was no participation trophies for just showing up or things like that.
And I was like, no, you you got second place. You lost. You lost. You got to hold that L and either just be upset about it and quit or you're going to take that frustration and use it to improve yourself so that next time you can be the winner.
Right. And I think a lot of that has unfortunately fallen out with in today's world.
Everyone just gets a trophy for showing up where that's not how life works. Right. You have to put forth the effort.
You have to, you know, put in the time, put in the effort to even have a chance of winning.
I'm say that again, you got to put forth the time and effort just to have a chance of winning.
And just because you work hard doesn't mean you're going to win. Right. Just because you you believe so strongly in your vision and your goals and you put in the time.
It doesn't mean it's going to be successful in the time in the time span that you want it to be.
And I think sometimes a harsh reality is that sometimes the vision and the gift God gives you isn't for you to fulfill.
It's for you to lay the foundation and the groundwork so that your future generations, your kids or your kids kids can really make it a reality.
Right. And that that constant of itself takes a lot of perseverance to lay the foundation, the groundwork for things that you're not even going to be able to reap the benefit of in your lifetime.
But you're still doing anyway. And it just think about the fortitude of the faith you have to have to do something like that.
I mean, it's hard enough for people to do things that benefit them now.
Like, you know, look at something as simple as, you know, working out or eating healthy and things like that.
Those things are directly benefiting you and your body and keep you healthier.
You know, help you live longer because, you know, your body's not to have all this extra just pound and things just clogging up your arteries and stuff like that.
But you can talk to them in a room full of 10 people and guarantee six of them are saying, no, either they don't work out or they say they don't like it.
You know, they do it every so often and things like that.
And that's something that requires effort and perseverance to do and to see the results of.
And that's directly benefiting them. Yet they still don't do it.
So to take that and do something that is not going to directly benefit you, but may benefit others down the road.
Hey, that's that you really do have to have the dog in you in order to to even fathom that.
Right. And in honor and honestly, that's something I envy and some other people.
And that's why I'm cultivating and working on it myself is to really have that perseverance in that tenacity to do the thing that I set out to do, do the things I said I was going to do and to not fall short.
Right. And honestly, it's the determination and reliability.
Yeah, they both highlight the need to stay focused on our goals and to maintain a positive mindset, even when circumstances are tough, because again, not everything sunshine and rainbows, but not everything's doom and gloom either.
Right. You got to find it. You're going to find your balance, your peace.
You find you have to find the place where you can go to have peace, even in the storm.
And and again, that's easier said than done is going to take a lot. You have a lot of lumps. You take a lot of lumps to figure this thing out.
But when you do have it, you do find that you're going to be just nothing. Nothing's going to be able to touch you anymore.
In all honesty, and part of that comes from, again, this concept of leveraging your strengths. Right. So that's what in reference to Tide you. Right. You know, as with most of the post stone humans tied, you greatly relies on his physical strength and endurance to navigate the stone world, which again, from the modern.
You remember the post stone humans are the people like like Chrome who were born after the the petrification event happened.
And again, they're kind of they're primitive compared to Senku and the other modern day, you know, people.
But tied you fits right in with the post stone world people because he's you know, he's just navigates the world using what he's what he's got, which is his freakishly large amount of stamina and his strength to match it.
And this this kind of ties all the way back to the concept of this whole season. Right. Is going back to the basics and in finding out what you have that you can use when you have to start over and things like that.
And tied you cases, you know, just leveraging his actual physical strength to do some of the more labor intensive things for the kingdom of science, you know, whether it's building something or help gathering materials or things like that.
And for us is figuring out, OK, what are what are my strengths? What are the things that I can leverage to essentially climb my way back up to basically get myself to that next level?
What are what are the things that I'm good at that I know I'm good at? Right. And and the key part of that is to is is the confidence in it.
Right. You know that, OK, I know I'm good at these things because of X, Y and Z. Like me for me, I know I'm good at, you know, dealing with this computer technology and troubleshooting issues like that, because I've been doing it for the last five, six years as a hobby and as a profession.
So that's that's a skill set, a strength of mind that I know I'm good at. And that translates to beyond just computers and things.
I know I have I a good problem solver and things like that, because, you know, anyone who's worked with, you know, any type of engineering field, right?
Your problems are going to arise that you're not going to know what to do with, but you have to know what to do.
You have to know how to how to fix it because you're the only one who can write and you got to do what you got to do. And is the the process, the thought process behind it, that is the true strength.
Right. So I do encourage everyone to to you really just take, take stock, take stock of, you know, the things that you know that you're good at.
I mean, write them down and then try to break them down to, you know, if you're if you're a good football player, what what makes you a good football player? Break it down to OK, maybe I'm really good with my technique.
I mean, I'm good. You know, I have a good physique, you know, that I've been blessed with and I've been working on throughout the throughout the years.
Right. And my hand, eye coordination is on point, stuff like that.
And really break it down to the minute details and then see how you can leverage those things to to get to the next level.
What do you need to improve on from your strengths?
And then the ones that that you already are pretty solid and OK, how can you bring those to like the next level?
How can you really put your own type of spin on it?
And again, some of the things can be easier than others. We all have different gifts. We all have different things that we're good at.
And we have some hidden talents that we don't know we're good at. Right.
Until we until we try them out. But in doing that, when you go on, you're taking the stock of yourself and your strengths, always remember to basically just keep it simple.
Right. Keep it simple. And another one of Taiju's strength, honestly, is his simplistic nature.
You know, he doesn't understand all the complexities of the the science world that Senku lives in, but he understands the value of a human life.
I mean, as strong and as durable and everything as tight as physically menacing as Taiju is, he's a pacifist by nature that refuses to hurt people.
Right. He just refuses to do it. And and also in the hustle and go atmosphere that we live in, let's not forget to take the time to appreciate the simpler things in life that bring us joy.
You know, just being able to get up in the morning and walk outside and see the sunlight. Right.
To be able to to get up and because there's so many people out there are unfortunately, you know, bedridden and they can't move the same anymore.
You know, they don't they they can't move on their own. Some of them can't eat on their own.
And it's just simple things to us that we take the most granted to take the most granted.
And for me, it was I have to consciously make an effort to thank God each and every day, you know, in my prayer for, you know, being able to see, you know, to hear, smell, you know, taste, touch people and be able to breathe on my own and be able to walk upright and to do all the things that I do in a day to day basis.
Right. Yeah. Even, you know, sometimes my job frustrates me and like, man, this sucks. I still got to remember to think, you know, I thank the Lord that I have a job in the first place to be able to, you know, provide for my family and do the things that I need to do and the things that I want to do, too.
Because again, life's not all about knowing what you need to do, the things that you have to do. You know, you take some take some time to, you know, take care of you, do some fun things, whatever your hobbies are.
Make sure you take the time to do those things. And again, we don't have to overcomplicate it.
And I think this episode is more for me than any of you guys. And honestly, it's just to keep it simple. Keep everything simple. You don't have to overcomplicate it with, you know, so many details. You don't have to bust out the diagram. You don't have to, you know, draw out different charts and graphs and all this stuff. Just keep it simple.
Find out what your strengths are and what two to three things you can do to improve upon them and then go do it. Just go do it. You'll figure out the rest as you're as you're doing as you're going by.
And and I think the most important thing is you don't have to have it all figured out before you even start before you even get there, even while you're doing it, doing whatever the goal, the journey is, whatever you're trying to accomplish.
You don't have to have it all figured out even while you're going through it. Right. Because you just you just you just don't know. Right. None of us know the future. I think for this way.
I don't know the future. If you're a psyche out there, then you leave a comment and tell me because I need to get some lottery information from you anyway.
But again, just keep it simple. Keep life fun, man. Let's let's live life and not just survive it.
And that's been my goal on the last couple of years is just is to live life and to enjoy it, not just be caught up in the same hamster wheel of just just in the cycle of I got to get the next thing, get the next thing, get the next thing, get to have more and more and more and more.
And now I'm just taking a step back and just enjoying what I have, be grateful for what I have, but always thinking about ways I can improve but not necessarily have more. Right.
And I think there's a there is a difference there is just to you can improve yourself, improve upon things like your living conditions and stuff like that without necessarily having to pine after more and more and more and more.
Because the world tells you that's what you have to do. You don't you really don't.
But again, guys, remember, keep it cool. We got to be resilient to this this world because it's going to try to beat you down.
It's going to try to get in your head and tell you that you're you're less than you're not going to make it.
And I know there's a lot of things like that, but just keep your head down, keep running, keep working and just never stop moving forward. Even if you go backwards, it's OK.
As long as you get up and keep moving forward after that, then everything else is everything else is going to work out.
In summary, you know, Tide you determination, his reliance on his strengths and his simplistic nature. You know, they all align back to this idea of going back to basics to basically stay focused, tap into our strengths and prioritize genuine human connections.
You know, really, really connect with people and connect with yourself and not be so worried about everything else. Right. Keep it simple. Keep it to yourself. You're closing your close net of people who are in your life.
And they get through this challenging and complex life together.
But anyway, so thank you guys for tuning in to today's episode. And I pray that you get what you need out of it and hopefully that you learn something new about yourself.
And don't forget to tune in to next week's episode because we'll be taking a look at someone who falls through on whatever task they are given.
I mean, you tell them to do something, they're going to do it to the T by the book, no matter what gets in their way.
And someone that does everything to the best of their ability, despite the odds, that's going to be Yuzo Hira Ogawa.
And guys, always remember, you are the main character of your story and that story doesn't end until he says so.
All right. Be blessed.