Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Sheepkitsheared podcast of your host, Austin Creed.
My friends, I want to welcome you to the show this morning.
I think it's incredibly important we talk about the journey that changed the world,
by the world I mean mine.
There's an old saying that I learned a couple years ago that says that if you can save one
person it is though you have saved the world, because you've saved their world.
And I know it might sound cliche, it might even sound silly to you if you're a cynical
individual such as myself.
But the reason I think it's important is when I talk about the trip that I've been
on in the last couple weeks, through Croatia, Bosnia, and I'm actually, I'm in Ireland
right now on my way back to the States.
I thought it'd be important to share with you a loyal audience of the Sheepkitsheared
podcast and the great members of the community to discuss with you the takeaways of this
journey that I've given you bits and pieces along the way and an attempt to share some
knowledge with you that I wish I had my entire life, frankly.
And one of the things I would encourage you before you even start to talk about this is
you need to travel, you need to see the world, you need to understand that whether it's your
town, your state, even your country, there's so much more to the world than what you've
seen.
I don't care if you live in a multi cultural city like New York City, or Chicago, or Dallas
Texas, Austin, Texas, San Francisco, California, I don't care where you are.
There's more to be seen, and I'll tell you something right now, when I'm in Ireland
I have seen more rainbow flags per capita than anywhere else in the world and I live
near San Francisco for most of my life.
But I should tell you something, but again I contrast that with Bosnia, I did not see
a single rainbow flag in Bosnia, and Bosnia is a predominantly Muslim country, even during
so called pride month, I didn't see a single one and you look and you see the stark difference.
Even though they're both considered part of Europe, they're vastly different.
And so that's why I want to talk about lessons from the Balkans today, because the Balkans
before I went there, I had heard about Franz Ferdinand getting a fascinating starting
in World War I, I knew a little bit about the history and the politics and whatnot,
but I had no idea how deeply rooted the conflict and the hatred is in that area of the world.
I had no idea how much a religion or religious orientation can so deeply change people that
are neighbors, and you know, I will remember one especially important meeting, and I'll
tell you guys a story.
One of my most important lessons that I wonder what you'll think about it, because I had
never heard of explaining like this before.
So we went to Bosnia, to Mostar, it's actually an old, it has like an old Muslim kind of
feel to it, because it was actually the bridge there that was unfortunately destroyed in
the 90s, had stood there for hundreds of years, it was actually financed by a guy that you
might have heard of, Suimand Magnificent, Ring of the Bell to Anybody, Ottoman Sultan,
playable character in Age of Empires 3, you know a lot of strategy games that have certain
civilizations will have certain important figures to represent that civilization, while Suimand
Magnificent was one of the most important sultans of the Ottoman Empire, and he helped
finance this bridge that I actually walked across multiple times.
Now I highlight the war in the 90s, because that town, Bosnia in general, Bosnia, Serbia,
and Croatia, they have a very complicated history, and a lot of it is based off of religion.
Bosnia is very predominantly Muslim, Croatia is predominantly Catholic, and then the Serbs
in Serbia are predominantly Orthodox.
And you might think, oh that's not a big difference, because you know in America, we're
pretty used to being surrounded by religion, now arguably since 9-11 there's been a heightened
sensitivity to Muslims because of the rise of radical Islam and its influence around
the world, but when you look at those three countries, Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, they
have a history that spans hundreds of years of war, raiding, conflict, racism, everything
you could possibly imagine, and the war in the 90s was a huge catalyst that brought
neighbor against neighbor over the most trivial things, ethnicity, religion, things that would
be almost inconsequential to the average American.
And I highlight this not to show that America is inherently superior, which I mean arguably
of course it is, but that's not the point.
The point is, the underlying human challenges will always remain, we like to think that
we're immune to things because we live with a smartphone and a developed country, we like
to think we're different than everybody else, we like to think that you know what, I don't
have to worry about all this, these historical events, yeah you know they're kind of important
I guess, you know I don't think it's all that important to me, it doesn't affect me
directly so it's not important, it's not a warning of any kind, you know kind.
It's so important when you look at the gender debate, the cultural differences, the war
that happened in the 90s right before I was born.
These are, and some of you who are older who listen to the show, maybe you lived during
that time and you heard about the violence, the genocide, all this stuff that was happening.
To me it was shaping my life as a younger guy, I feel old but people keep reminding me
that I'm a younger guy, that the historical scars are still left in places like that.
The guy who was served in the military, I never actually saw combat but when I go to
places like New Brovnik or I go to places like Mostar, I go to places like Sirievo,
I see the effects of war, the shrapnel in people's bodies, I see the effects that war
has on people and that's not a new thing per se, it was just a different perspective
that I had not yet seen.
And so my friends, these are just a couple of the lessons I pulled away from this and
I know this is not what we normally talk about, normally we talk more about relationships,
normally we talk more about politics and you know what, trust me there will be a lot of
that to come.
But I wanted to tie this all together because a lot of people don't really travel much
and even if you read about it, reading about it's great, reading is wonderful, it gives
you a perspective that you could not give yourself.
But it's different to walk down these streets, talk to these people, get a view that you
cannot replicate through your own mind's eye, which is what you would do through a book.
And another aspect that I wanted to share with you gentlemen is I met this older guy
who was a, he was a kid when the war was going on.
My older, I mean he was about in his 40s, 45 I think something like that.
By my standards he was a little bit older, he wasn't old, but you get what I'm talking
about right?
Golly.
But anyways, he was a, he's a coffee shop owner, he loves coffee, coffee is his passion.
And when I asked him, why is coffee your passion?
He stopped me and he said Austin, I want to tell you something.
It's not the coffee that's my passion per se.
Coffee is great, but what I love is sitting with my cup of coffee and just meditating with
it, not grabbing it so I can run to my job, not grabbing it so I can run to the grocery
store, not grabbing it so I can go somewhere, go from nowhere to somewhere less important.
Now he says I get it so I can sit there, I can make my coffee with very precise movements,
I then can sit there on the porch at my restaurant, I can get to know the people who also like
coffee, I can understand them, we can have a conversation, I can get to know an experience
that I myself do not know or do not understand.
But it was so powerful that he said that was my, that's my me time every day.
He told me I don't drink like four cups and a lot of Americans do.
I'll keep in mind this guy is a Bosnian.
He was, he comes from Muslim heritage.
He told me he's not a Muslim, but he has Muslim ancestry and he's growing up in a
predominantly Muslim country.
And he's sitting there, he's talking to me and he's saying, look, I am my own guy.
I do my own thing, but coffee is my me time every day, every morning.
And he talks about it like it's his ritual that like taking your vitamins or going and
having like what Marcus Aurelius might be talking about when I'm constoicism and having
that time to meditate.
And a lot, you look at Americans, you look at Brits, you look at a lot of people in the
West and what we do is we just grab coffee as a way to pick me up, get me through the
rest of my day.
It's not a slow, almost meditative process for most people.
And for me, it was so powerful.
It was a lesson that I learned from this man.
Just like how people might smoke a cigar and have a conversation, he uses coffee to do
that.
And for me, that was so powerful.
I never thought about that before.
And he said, I brought neighbors together.
It helped to bridge a gap between people who were different than him.
I thought that was so powerful.
If little things that you might think, oh, you hold some giant piece summit.
Well, we're just, we're just another, we're just guys.
We're just another, we're just other men.
Average Joe's going around our day.
And to bond over something as simple as coffee or a cigar or even a drink is powerful to
me.
And you might say, Austin, I already know this, this is nothing new.
Well to me, this was something extremely powerful.
It was part of the journey that changed my life.
And my friends, I think if society, if as a society, we focused more on things that brought
us together, because trust me, the differences are always going to be there.
Differences are always going to be present.
But if I can study a region like Bosnia and the Balkans and Croatia and Serbia, and they're
all inherently neighbors.
It's very easy for us to isolate ourselves from our neighbors, whether it's due to scars
left by others, whether it's by preconceived notions, economic problems, politics, gender
differences, my friends, we need to be able to live with our neighbors.
That's why I'll tell you when I was in my rage phase of the of the red pill, I had such
a hard time talking with people because I was so angry.
But now, now I can easily have a conversation with people, even though I can hear what they're
actually saying, not what they're telling me, because that's when you know you've reached
the next level is when you can hear the normies kind of give you the chickenbock of classic
garbage that you hear from everybody, but you don't get there.
You're not mad.
You understand why they're doing it.
You understand that they're talking in code, but you got the decipher, you can understand
what they're saying.
And you just keep it to yourself.
You don't get mad.
You don't try to translate it to them.
No, no, you just sit there and you listen and you glean what you can't.
This is how you learn and how you grow as a man, and you can build your own future by
using what others give you to create and enhance what you already possess.
I hope this isn't coming across as too preachy, because that's not what I'm trying to do.
I'm not trying to see here and tell you that I'm just wise, see you now and you have to
listen to me now.
No, I'm just trying to.
I hope that you can gain something and we can bond over an experience that I wish you
were along to share with me.
Frankly, but my friends, the future of America, the future of the West, the future of your
existence is important to me.
And so I hope that you learn something from this brief little talk about one of the two
about some of the darkest times of the Balkans I learned about and the little nuggets of
wisdom that were taken away that I wish you were there to experience because it would
have changed your life as well.
But my friends, I do have a couple of things I want to say before I wrap this show up.
Number one, I'll be traveling so I might not be able to print out a show tomorrow, but
I will try my best.
Number two, I have great per multiple people's request on the channel and my own desire to
step up my game.
I have blown my entire budget out of the window of money that I've been saving up doing my
side hustling gigs.
And we're going to totally upgrade the entire podcasting hardware.
I got I got the whole thing in the mail and my old home setup.
We're going to make it 100% better.
We're going to step up the game because I'm sick and tired of the sound being not good
enough.
I want this show to be a community.
I want all of you to be a part of it.
And so you were already a part of it.
Despite the fact that we were still very early on.
But my friends, I wanted to say that I appreciate you.
I appreciate your continued support.
All of you are a blessing.
I don't take you for granted at all.
Not for one second.
I take you for granted.
So anyways, I'm not sure to flatter you.
Should I tell you how I actually feel, which I don't normally do.
I'm normally talking about my feelings because I never want to cares.
But number two, I just want to be honest with you.
So I hope you'll enjoy it and you'll see it in the next coming days.
But my friends, you take care of yourselves.
I appreciate you.
Think for yourself.
Let me know what you think about the little lessons.
And if you want to hear more about it, I have multiple more stories to tell.
But this show would be an hour long and I did that.
So just let me know what you think.
If you want an hour show, I can do an hour show.
My friends, you take care of yourselves.
Let me know what you think.
Anything you wanted to add, subtract, you let me know.
I'm out.
Thanks.