Hello friends, welcome back to another episode. Our guest today is Matthew Gere. He is a philosophy
teacher, real estate investor, and business owner. The modern world has done away with
traditional gender roles, and many wonder what role they should play as man or woman.
Have we lost anything by eliminating strict gender roles in society? Today, we'll discuss
what Gere thinks is wrong with the modern conception of masculinity, his experience learning from
masculine role models, the drawbacks of traditional masculinity, why it's so hard to find a life
partner, his struggles with suppressing fear and sadness, and much more. If you're enjoying these
episodes, I'd ask you to do one small favor for me. This show only grows from word of mouth,
so please go ahead and share it with someone that you know, be it on your feed, or with a friend,
family member, or colleague who you think will enjoy it as much as you did. Thank you for listening.
Welcome on Gere. Thank you David. Good to have you here. Good to be here. What's wrong with modern
masculinity? Wow, just starting deep. Modern masculinity. Are you asking what's wrong with
our conception of masculinity, or what's wrong with males, or both? Both. It seems like there's been,
or at least you would believe that there's something we've been, we've lost along the way
in masculinity. Like young men aren't really masculine anymore. I mean, I don't know a lot
of young men, but I've heard, I mean the ones I'm around, like you, you seem like you've embraced
masculinity. Somewhat masculine. I also have a nose piercing and earrings. I don't dress well, so
yeah, it takes away from me. I don't think those things are anti-masculine. No, no, no,
they're like not conventional masculinity. Right? So there's been like some positives towards people
being more able to be themselves as opposed to constricting towards just like this one conventionally
masculine thing where it's like, I'm hard, I'm like rustic, I like wood, I like guns, and that's it.
That's the whole thing, and knives. Sports maybe. Maybe that's more modern. That is probably. Like
your classic, easily masculine man wouldn't be super into sports. Like why are you like watching
what about playing sports? Oh yeah, that would be. I guess what century do you think is the,
are we looking at? Well, which one do you think had the ideal of masculinity?
I mean, in many ways, the conception of man,
males and females probably was best when Christianity was most embraced. So the
medieval period, even though there's a lot of crazy shit that went on in the medieval period,
the mentality probably understood what, you know, males and females are, or what they should be,
or what they should strive to be. But yeah, certainly there were, like I said, crazy shit
that happened. And I'd like your point, like, of discovering who you really are, not being afraid
to explore and embrace yourself. And so if we had a period where people felt pressured to
be conventional excessively, I think that is a problem. So yeah, I guess I don't want to
be too hard on modern males or modern mentality of masculinity, but I think that
I mean, we were talking before the podcast about telos, which you hadn't heard of. So telos,
this is a Greek word meaning the end or the goal. So yeah, how do we know what a thing is? Well,
one of the things is, at least in Aristotelian terms, is what is the final cause? What is the
purpose for which something was made? And that's how we can often discover what it is, what it
should be. And so what is the purpose of the chair? What is the end the chair Smith had in mind?
It's fulfilling its purpose, I think, pretty well right now. It's giving us the ability to sit and
relax. So what is the goal? What do the telos of a male or a female? And often we can know,
obviously, males and females share many things, but we also have differences. So we can know
what we are by looking at females and by looking at how we share with them and how we differ.
And I think one of the things that's maybe too cliche, a little too cliche, but we're
physically stronger typically, right? So we can know what we are by looking at females,
but we're physically stronger typically, right? Obviously there are exceptions. There's plenty
of women who can lift more than a lot of men, but in general, if a man works out, trains,
the same activity a female does, he can be better than the average female. The average
males are going to be better than average females. We'll say that. Yeah, they'll be stronger.
They'll have more bone density, be faster, etc. Exactly. Obviously there are elite women who are
better than 90% of elite men, but there's no elite women that are better than elite men.
And so average women in that sport are typically not as good as average men. So what does that
strength mean? Is there a reason that we were built to be stronger than women? That's my question.
So if we get to the ultimate end of it, what is the purpose of a man? What does it tell us?
Yeah, I guess in many ways it's to embrace that strength and to use it for the good, to help
others, to help the women in his life. Hopefully there's some women in his life. He has a mom,
he gets married, he has a wife, I think he gets married to a woman, he has a wife, he has daughters,
and then ultimately to teach his boys, if he has boys, to then become men and repeat. So protection,
protection, building things. Again, these are all cliche things. And I think most boys, if you leave
them to, if you give them all the options, they're going to enjoy things like building things,
fighting things that require strength and courage. And so should we nurture that or should we
discourage it? I guess that's the question. Well, do you think we are discouraging men to be courageous
and strong? I think somewhat. I think you also have to recognize that we have a telos, we have
a goal, but we also have forces acting against us. And so one of those forces is comfort and laziness.
So is it easy to fall into like, you know, laziness and eating shitty food and just following your
whims? Absolutely. But does that make us happy? I guess that's the question. I mean, whenever I
tried to live like that, I'm less happy than when I live with excellence and discipline myself.
And again, you hear guys like Joe Rogan preach this all day. So maybe it's becoming too cliche,
like, just be disciplined, be a man. Like, yeah, but I don't think he's, you don't hear a lot of
guys saying, I tried that. I tried. I was so disciplined in my 20s, and I was unhappy. And so
now in my 30s, I'm just morbidly obese. And I just follow my emotions and do whatever the fuck I want.
And I'm so much more happy. I don't see a bunch of dudes saying that. So I think he's onto something.
But wouldn't you, like, we have these things like food that's easily available, fast food,
all these things that push for comfort and make life easier for us. Right. But we wouldn't want
that for men or women, right? Like a woman should also not be lazy and be correct. Eating unhealthy
food and doing all these things. So like, how is this an attack on masculinity?
I mean, yeah, it's attack on humanity. So yeah, but I think for a man to be, to give into that
is perhaps more unnatural or more offensive, if you will, to, for a man to just be,
you know, soft and just seeking comfort. I think there is parts, you know, a woman,
we could, we could explore her. What gifts was she given? It seems like women have been given
the gift of like empathy and sensitivity, you know, the nurturing aspect. Why? Probably because
they're going to, you know, bring up children. They're going to be the main, and by main, I don't
mean like she has to do 99% of the work, but she's got boobs and she's going to breastfeed, right?
She's going to, she's going to carry the child for nine months, deliver the child and then
breastfeed the child for months. Men cannot do any of those things. Maybe that's controversial now,
but it's probably not to you. So, so she's been giving the gift of empathy to the child.
So, so she's been giving these, these abilities that are innate to her. So being more like,
being more emotional or more aware of like a child's emotional needs, I think is a good thing.
My ideal is if I raised a bunch of boys by myself, I would be training them to be like
300 soldiers from like day one. And I don't, I think that would really fuck up a child.
Like you're trying to fight with a sword at two years old. Oh yeah. Yeah. So like,
if I ever get married and have children, hopefully their mom will not let me do that from an early
age or maybe like limit that, that time that I spend in warrior training and she'll teach him
how to be, you know, empathetic and maybe enjoy life's delicacies. And I think that's a gift that
women have that, that men often don't. And again, I'm speaking in crazy stereotypes, I know, but
that's, I think if we just look at what, what the differences are,
and maybe I'm taking them to the extreme, but like that seems there's some element of, of us
that has that purpose. Now again, if, if there's a, if there's a male who's more sensitive and,
and you know, the finer arts and he marries a woman that's more like athletic and into fitness,
is that a problem? No, I don't, I don't think that's a problem. Like a woman can teach
her children how to do athletics and sports and be, be tough. And a, a dad can teach his children
how to like, you know, be musical and artistic and emotional and empathetic. That's not, I'm not
saying like, oh, it's disordered. There are exceptions, of course, but in general that it
seems like that's how things are. So what are we losing then? Or what have we lost? I think most
guys I know are, tend to be on the assert, more assertive side, more masculine, maybe like lifting
weights, et cetera, stuff like that. So are we losing masculinity? Not necessarily. Like again,
as long as you, as long as we're giving boys and girls the freedom to explore the things they want
to do and not shame them for the things they want to do, assuming the things they want to do are
like not, they're generally socially acceptable, right? Like we shouldn't encourage like, you know,
being a bully and doing crazy physical harm to the other. So, so yeah, as long as we're like
giving boys the opportunity, but I don't know that we often are. And I don't know if like for me, I
didn't have a strong male role model and maybe I don't have it. Maybe I shouldn't like
be upset because I eventually did. I didn't see had football coaches and wrestling coaches in high
school. Before that, I didn't have a lot of like great male role models. And so I didn't really
know how to explore how to be like a virtuous man. But again, I think I turned out all right. So
maybe, maybe I, maybe there isn't a problem. Maybe we have, maybe things are the way they should be.
And like you said, there's, there's plenty of guys who are into the things that are stereotypical,
stereotypically masculine and, and vice versa. And I think, I think more and more you see, you see
guys who are unashamedly like exploring that. The question is, are, are women in the same situation
as men into those guys?
You don't think women are into guys who are maybe more emotional, more artistic?
No, no, the opposite. In fact, I think modern, often we've, we've maybe trained our girls to
kind of want to take charge, which is again, a female who's like a badass kicks ass, like can
be nothing wrong with that. But if she's taught to fear a guy who's like, who's a leader or who,
I don't know, has strong, strong views and has a strong, I guess, sense of masculinity,
that might be a problem. Yeah.
But I mean, in the end, we, we just know the people we know, right? Otherwise we're like
watching fucking TV and we see things online and we hear all these problems. You hear Jordan
Peterson talk about all this shit and they're like, oh, all these, these men that are, don't
know how to be men. Yeah. And I, part of me believes it, but maybe not. Maybe he's full of shit.
Jordan Peterson's just, I mean, just saying shit to make money. The thing is that they probably
exist, but they probably don't interact with the world very much. Right? Yeah. Like you're,
you're classically man who doesn't know how to be a man might be inside, like playing video games,
watching pornography, maybe like grinding on some goal that they want to do, but they're like not
really interacting with the world, not being social. Yeah. So like, it's probably very hard
to actually observe these types of guys who exist. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I guess I can say I've,
I've had a number of roommates who like, don't seem to want to do the things that I like to do.
Maybe they want to, they just don't do it. Yeah. Like I've had a garage gym for like 15 years
and I've probably had maybe 15 different roommates in the past 15 years and none of them have really
like gotten excited about working out, but it could be I'm intimidating or they don't feel like
it's their domain, but they're not lifting like it at another gym. So, and again, lifting weights
isn't like the, the end of the, of being a man, but you think there'd be at least one or two,
especially when instead they're often playing video games or watching TV or, you know, so I think,
I think if we compare like not to be too judgmental, but if, if you compare activities like video games
versus working out, and I'm not saying video games are bad, but if you, if you spend two hours a day
working out versus two hours a day playing video games and that's all you had time, free time for.
And of course you could have other, you could spend two hours, I don't know, meditating, two hours
being with a girl, like obviously you have time to do, if you have two hours of free time,
I'm going to compare video games versus working out. I would love to have a debate on what,
which is better because I'm, I'm a hundred percent certain.
Well, I don't know if anyone would make the argument that playing video games is better
than working out for two hours.
Okay. There we go. So I think that's maybe not controversial, but maybe I'm biased because I
work out and I don't play video games. So I'm not saying like, if you, if you worked out like five
days a week and then two days, you played video games, I think that's, that's fine. But if like
every day you had that choice and you only played video games, I think again, you're to me, you're
kind of falling into that. Like I'm going to do what's easy. Yeah. And it doesn't take a lot of
discipline to sit and play video games. Yeah. I mean, at least my opinion is that the greater
attack on men isn't really just like we're losing masculinity. I think it, most men want to go,
like, I don't know, they want to work at something and help people and do all of these things that
are masculine. They want to provide, but the pornography and video games are kind of what
attracts. Yeah. Yeah. That would distract them. And video games one gives you the opportunity to
video games one gives you this sense of progression, the sense of growth, which is
something that as a man, you might be trying to get when you're going out into the world. Yeah.
And then pornography gets you this sense of, Oh, I'm getting, I'm having sex. I'm like doing well,
automating market. I'm like, I'm doing well, right? Like it simulates it, but you're not actually,
you're not talking to any girls. You're not actually being out in the world and doing that.
Right. So I think it actually comes down to the kind of these two things that
attract men and nobody's really figured out how do you, if you're stuck there, how do you even
really move past that? Like you're addicted to pornography or video games. Yeah. Yeah. So you're
asking me how to get out of that? I don't know. Maybe you know, maybe we need none of us know.
And it's just a dilemma that we're stuck in. Um, I mean, I think there are kind of time-tested
things. Like you just got to like do it in a way like, or you have an accountability partner, like
obviously everyone has some free time. And so if you're like debating whether I should work out
right now or should I sit at my computer and check my email and you know what's going to happen next,
but it's so easy to do that. It's so easy. So I'd say accountability partners, like,
I mean, if you don't know a man in your life or a woman or somebody in your life, who's willing to
like, like tell you some hard truths, then call me or call David. And basically what I would say
is like every time you look at porn, you have to like do something like 10 pushups, like something
small. It doesn't have to be crazy. And eventually like you're going to build up like at a certain
point, you're probably say, well, rather than looking at porn, I'm just going to do the pushups
or rather than looking at porn, I'm going to go actually do a workout. So I think the hardest
thing is getting started for a lot of people. Like how do I start? I don't know how to do anything.
I don't know. I can't do a pushup or I can't, I'm too fat. I can't do a sit up. Well, there's,
there's plenty of other things you do. So maybe that's part of it. I don't know. Maybe we should
talk to someone who's like overcome it because I, I never had a strong addiction to pornography.
I've played a lot of video games in my youth, but ultimately sports were a lot more attractive.
Once I, you know, started real sports and I didn't really have time for video games, I chose sports
over video games. And I think that's kind of the natural progression with a lot of males is I'm
either going to like spend time with my kids and my wife or my girlfriend or play video games. Well,
my wife and kids are much more attractive than video games. So that's the natural progression
for a single man. Yeah, that's where you don't have those, those things calling you.
You have to use other things like again, an accountability partner or, you know, a roommate,
like hopefully one of your roommates is like halfway like open to like becoming a better
person and you just have a deal like, Hey, my door shut and it's during the day. I'm probably
watching porn. So knock on my door. I never had that problem when I had a roommate. I mean, I
shared a room. Oh, there you go. There was no way to do that. Where did everyone watch the porn?
I don't know, dude. Yeah. Just on like in their phone. I think, I think my roommate was hiding
in the corner. What was that like when you didn't have a male role model?
Before you got into sports, how did you navigate the world? I mean, I still played sports, but I
didn't have, and I had probably had some great coaches growing up, but I just didn't get to know
them in a way that I did in high school. I don't know. I guess I was just a normal boy, but I,
I didn't aspire to anything great until, until I met some of these men in high school and then
I'm like, Oh, I want to be like, I want to be as strong as, you know, coach Nance or is like,
you know, as crazy, you know, of a tackler, like just, just a killer mentality is
coach Robin. These are football coaches. So
and then they seemed like, you know, good men off the football field, like, Oh, this guy's a good dad.
Like, okay, maybe there's something to that. So I mean, every, I think every kid's a little lost,
but, and so I mean, I didn't know what I didn't know. So I don't know if that answers your
question. Yeah, I guess I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm
just asking your question. Yeah. I guess I'm more curious on what the effect was in the real world
that they actually had on you and how you went through the world. Like once I once I met them or
like, what does gear look like having never met these people? What does gear look like?
Wow. If I never met any of the, like the, the people I look up to or looked up to,
yeah, maybe I would have been one of those Intel video gamer, you know, gamers, who,
But I probably would have killed myself.
I mean, no offense to anyone who's a gamer or an incel, but I just know like...
And me, I don't know.
It's a good question.
Like if I would have just been raised by like women who never played athletics, did sports,
like with my body, I've not craved it as much.
I don't know.
I mean when I look at guys who just like can like go week in and week out without like
doing anything physical, I'm like I'm just amazed because if I go more than a day or
two without doing something physical, I get restless and I just want to like do something.
Do something that like...
So is it just a matter of like that's my genetics or that's...
Or did I train myself to need that?
I don't know.
I mean, do you have an opinion?
I think you might have had this innate desire to do that anyways.
I'm more curious as to like you're growing up.
Yeah, sorry.
That is kind of a tangent.
So if I never met these men...
Like did you have like moments where you were like, oh, I want to do this, but I look up
to this guy so I'm going to do this other thing instead.
I remember like in...I remember my eighth grade year, I got kicked out of eighth grade
and went to a different school and so I didn't have a sport.
I think I probably ran like track normally in the spring.
So I played football in the fall, played basketball for my first school and then I got kicked
out in like second semester, started a new school.
And I was just a new kid and I didn't...probably it was too late to register for track or something.
So I didn't play anything second semester of eighth grade year and I just remember being
so like just so restless and I didn't really know how to work out.
Like I knew how to do pushups and sit-ups but it wasn't much and I didn't really like
have that discipline.
I just remember sitting around watching TV and life just seemed terrible.
And of course I was in a new place.
So yeah, I probably was kind of depressed.
So I would think I would just be depressed and that's why I say I would kill myself.
You can only take so much depression where you're just like this is life sucks.
I want this to end.
So I don't think I...I mean it's kind of like dramatic but I don't know if I'd be alive
if I didn't find like an outlet to deal with like this angst.
And of course it's not just like I work out and so now I have purpose.
I can get depressed if I don't have purpose besides working out.
I've had times when I just work out four hours a day and I don't have like a bigger purpose
in my life and I get kind of depressed.
I mean I feel good.
I get that endorphin fix for that time but then outside of that I'm like what's the point
of life?
So I need, I think I need, I need both.
Like a purpose like I need that physical exertion and like a bigger picture purpose.
And so without meeting these people I don't know that I would have been inspired to look
towards something bigger.
What did that actually look like?
Like what did they provide you actually that was what made you have find this larger P
purpose and how did you even find that larger P purpose?
Like you knew these guys and you think they're cool, you think they're awesome.
But what was that internal experience actually like?
I mean ultimately it wasn't just them.
It was meeting like Jesus, having an encounter with God that gave me ultimate, ultimate purpose.
Because you can only have so much worldly success and life is still meaningless without
like an ultimate, because you're all, we're all going to die unless we, someone figures
out you know how to live forever.
But we haven't yet so we're all going to die.
What's going to happen after?
Who the fuck knows?
But Jesus claimed to and Christians claim to so it makes life like, it makes life, it
makes this world worth living.
Like I want to be the best version of myself in this life so that I can be an even better
version of myself in the next.
So they ultimately and of course not all of them directly but indirectly showed me that
there's something that gives meaning to everything.
And so that's it.
I mean Jesus.
What do you think your purpose is?
It's crazy that I probably haven't fully figured it out.
I mean probably no one has until they die but like you know I'm unmarried.
I'd love to get married and have kids and I think that serves a purpose for a lot of
people and rightly so.
It's an incredible endeavor to marry somebody, to say I'll be with you forever no matter
what and then make new people with them and make them hopefully good people.
So I'm hoping that's part of my purpose.
You know even that's probably limited.
Like if that's your only purpose is to reproduce.
I mean that's a noble purpose.
But I think most people have even not bigger but other purposes than that.
I don't know.
I mean you look at like and not to get too like biblical or you know Christian but I
think the Bible, the Old Testament especially shows a lot of people, a lot of like prophets
who are like trying to figure out what the hell did God put me here for and I like Samson
maybe because I don't know he's a strong dude and he got the girl but he really didn't
know his purpose until like his last minutes.
Like his strength was given to him to like topple the pagan temple and he was searching
his whole life for that purpose.
So with some people they have the luxury of knowing their whole life like this is why
I was put on this earth and I'm going to do it.
Others have to wait till like the last minute.
And I hope eventually everyone figures that out.
Maybe that's a tragedy is when people have lived their whole life and never discovered
and die without that discovery.
So I can't say I know for sure.
I mean maybe people from the outside can be like well here you've been given these traits.
You were put here in Broomfield or you came to Broomfield for this reason.
Maybe they can see things better than I and they can tell me.
But I mean for a time I was a teacher and I really enjoyed that.
Hopefully I had an effect on people, a positive effect.
And I might go back to teaching someday but let's say I don't.
Hopefully I change some lives there.
So I think I see glimpses of purpose but nothing like no big picture yet.
Yeah and you're kind of in this place now where you don't really have any obligations
in your life which like maybe a lot of people strive to.
Like a lot of people save for retirement.
They're like I can't wait till the day where I can do nothing and just hang out and then
I'll figure out my purpose.
But you're already in that position where you can sit around and contemplate what your
purpose is and think about all these things.
So is it useful to even strive to get to that position?
Of having enough money so you can sit around?
And is it even helpful for finding a purpose?
Maybe.
I think I mean I don't sit around much.
That's what I get criticized a lot by some people is that I don't like to sit around.
I mean I do think maybe I do think a lot while I'm doing things.
But to answer your question I mean money certainly can't buy happiness but it sure can help in
some ways.
Like for people who are like just grinding and can't get ahead like having money to be
ahead would be huge.
But then for others having too much money is a curse.
Especially if they can't if they're not self motivated or disciplined.
Like then they do probably sleep in every day.
They don't do a lot.
It is kind of a curse.
So I guess I'm grateful that I did have a period of my life where I had to grind financially
and now I can reap the benefits.
I'm not I'm certainly no multimillionaire.
I just have enough to like to get by.
Without working.
I have a business that I don't have to give 40 hours a week to more like 10 or 15.
And that's kind of where I wanted to be.
I don't necessarily want a shit ton of money.
I'd like to buy some more things.
I'd love to buy some land and farm.
Not like full scale farming but like raise some cattle and chickens.
Yeah and then eat the chickens.
Yeah.
I mean my brother tried that with cows and he's much more committed than I am to that
and he kind of gave up so it's probably a lot harder than I think but might as well
try.
So I have goals like that like you know and laying out here is not cheap.
But your main goal right now is to get married right?
I think so.
And why do you think you haven't made it there yet?
I was talking with a mutual friend who was like bro if Keir isn't married like there's
no chance for any of us.
Because theoretically you're like in this position, you have a lot of time to yourself,
you can spend a lot of time on dating, you don't really have to grind for any cash, you're
already fine there and like you're jacked.
You're a decently attractive guy.
All these different things that people would be like oh I just have to get there and then
I can get married and I'll settle down right?
Like you have all those things that maybe a lot of young men would say they have to
get before they can settle down and get married.
So what do you think is going on?
Yeah I used to think that too.
Like you used to think you had to?
Yeah acquire a certain amount of wealth, be in a certain amount of shape, have a certain
amount of like I don't know social aptitude which I think to some degree is true.
But I think probably the biggest quality is a willingness to love someone no matter what
and have the time, or not the time, have the willingness to give the time.
And so I think probably one of my problems is because I wanted to like better myself,
I wasn't as focused on giving time to another especially a girlfriend.
And so yeah you can get selfish.
You can get like because I obviously have a lot of free time but I also want to do certain
things every day.
Like I want to get enough sleep, I want to eat the right food, I want to work out.
And if any of those things start to lack I get anxious and like it's a problem.
So are you addicted to bettering yourself?
Maybe.
And there's no space for anyone else?
I wouldn't say that.
There's probably not a willingness to give up everything which I think you kind of need.
It's not that you have to give up.
Like obviously married people sleep and eat and some work out.
They stop after that.
But it's like you come at least second.
Once a child gets there it's third or fourth or fifth.
And I guess I'd like to think I'm willing to do that but my last relationship I felt
like I was there.
Maybe she didn't, maybe that's why it didn't work out.
But I thought that I was there and if like the next…if I have the same attitude that
I had with her, I have that with like the next girl and that fails and then I try again
and that fails then at a certain point I'd say like I'm the problem.
Something's wrong with you.
Yeah.
I am unwilling to give what it takes.
But I think not everyone requires the same amount of like your time.
There are plenty of women who also want to get plenty of sleep, want to eat the right
food and want to work out every day.
And so like time alone might only be like a good hour a day.
Whereas other women it might be like no we need like a quality quality like two to three
hours a day.
I mean some women it's like one hour a week maybe or two hours a week.
So maybe my last relationship we were a little misaligned there.
I don't know.
This is where it's like I'm kind of in new territory where I'm really…I have
the time, the money and at least I think I have a willingness to try and I guess we'll
see.
We'll see how the next one goes.
Now you have no excuses right?
I don't know.
I don't have enough money.
I don't have enough time.
I mean if some girl is looking for a gold digger with like 10 million then I'm not
the man for her.
But that's not the person you want anyways.
Like you have enough money to get by.
Yeah to take her out a few times a week.
It's very easy to cope with those things where you're like oh I can't date because
I don't have the money.
It's like there's plenty of guys who date and don't work at McDonald's right?
Absolutely.
That's not a limiting factor.
Don't have the time.
They work 12 hours a day and they still date.
It's very easy to hide behind these things.
Yep and I probably did in the past.
Do you think you wish you dated more in the past and kind of didn't grind as hard as
you did?
Not necessarily.
The only reason I would say yes is if I have gotten to a place where I'm unable to like
pivot.
If I am really that possessive of my time and I'm completely unable to change which
I don't think any human is unable to change if they're willing.
So only if that was the case would I have regretted.
I mean some say I want to have kids and I prime my life.
Well maybe the prime is still here.
Maybe if you keep working out your prime is through your 60s and 70s.
So that's my hope.
Do you think you would have had an easier time maybe if you like found someone when
you were younger and kind of got here together with them?
Yeah I mean that's what they say is if you marry young you're so ignorant and you just
grow together.
You'll figure it out.
I guess my fear, well I mean I shouldn't have a fear because it didn't happen but like let's
say I did get married at 19 and my 90 year old married self becomes my age and we meet.
And like if I like that man better than I like myself I'd be like yeah, hell yeah.
But if I'm like bro like you're broke and you're divorced and you're pathetic then of
course I'm glad I didn't do that.
So I guess it's hard to say.
I could see how certainly marriage is good for you and could have made me a better man
absolutely but it could also like if you don't marry well then it can really fuck you up.
It can destroy your life.
And I didn't really have anyone in my life to like make sure that I was going after the
right girls.
So I guess my fear would be I would have married someone that was bad for me.
Married the wrong person?
Yeah.
Do you still think you'll marry the wrong person?
I don't think so.
I mean if a girl is willing to like date me and she sees what I'm all about she's probably
going to be pretty aligned with me or she's going to pretend for a while and then eventually
be aligned with me.
Like I don't know.
I don't see myself like meeting a girl who's like a stronger personality in me and has
a much different lifestyle and like having me conform to hers.
But you never know.
Are you kind of asking the same from the woman's side?
What do you mean?
Or you said you won't date someone who's kind of wanting you to conform to their way of
doing things?
Yeah.
I think ideally I find a woman who's who are pretty much aligned.
Okay.
And they don't have to conform.
No.
But you think that's possible to find one person where you don't have to give anything
away?
You have to certainly give.
No.
You have to give.
You have to give your emotional energy and there are going to be like changes in me for
sure.
But if she's like you can't work out.
I would laugh.
That would be pretty extreme.
Yeah.
Or you can't I guess we have to like 10x our net worth and like buy a huge fucking mansion
and eat like the premier foods and like have like a housekeeper and I would laugh like no
we're like I'm not going to I'm not going to 10x my I mean I could hit a big sure on
one of my investments but like we're not going to let's not plan on that.
Or if she's like you have to give everything away we're going to live in poverty.
I would laugh like you know I like you can live as simply as you want but I'm going to
keep my jam.
I'm going to keep like I'm going to have a decent you know vehicle and like I want to
have money to look for like trips.
We don't have to live like luxuriously but luxuriously but so like I can think of all
many things where a girl could say something and it's just obvious we're not aligned.
Yeah.
You know or no we're going to start you got to start doing marijuana with me and like
getting drunk every night or we got to eat shitty food.
We're going to eat it in and out every night.
Become a stoner.
That'd be pretty for the girl.
Yeah.
I don't think I don't think a girl's going to convince me of that.
Yeah.
So it's more of the values behind what you do.
Yeah.
I think so.
And like the faith question I think is huge like I mean I think I'm open to dating non-Catholics
but again there's those the alignment would be would be tough.
Like if she's an open person like I'm going to share with her what I think is true and
she can share with me what she thinks is true and we'll see we'll see where it goes.
I found this out about Aquinas the other day.
He had four things that he kind of called the thing that were the apparent goods that
people would kind of fall to and there was four of them.
Yeah.
Which one of them was it was power wealth honor prestige status.
And then the last one was another P word I think the pleasure pleasure pleasure power
wealth and prestige.
Yeah.
Those are the four.
Yeah.
And so if you had to eliminate these one by one which one's the first one that you kind
of get rid of so we can kind of find which one you're attached to the most which one
I have gotten rid of.
No.
Which one would you get rid of you have these four things which one do you care the least
about.
I guess it depends on what you mean by pleasure.
So power power wealth pleasure.
What was the fourth and power wealth pleasure prestige prestige status status which is different
than power.
So it's OK.
I would say yeah if by pleasure mean like oh I just need a soda like I just taste so
good like that's not attractive but if it's like I need the pleasure of working out or
the pleasure of seeing beautiful things but I think there's some pleasures that obvious
that that are good that.
So I think Aquinas I know Aquinas pretty well I think he's talking about disorder pleasures
like the attachment to sinful pleasures.
So so which one do you get rid of.
I'd say sinful pleasures.
OK.
Yeah.
When you have power prestige and wealth.
Yeah.
So what do you care rid of next.
I really care for pleasure as much probably prestige next.
OK.
Don't give a fuck.
You don't care to be liked by other people.
I want to be like but I'd like to also but you would rather like to not get any folks.
Yeah I'd rather I want to be liked by the right people.
I want to be liked by people who are respectable.
I want to be liked by the good by good people.
So yeah I think just like a massive like a celebrity where everyone knows your name like
that that's actually a huge burden that I don't think any celebrity actually wants once
they have it.
So I think that'd be easy to get rid of.
And you have wealth and power left.
Wealth and power.
Those are tough because what is wealth like if like if is that like being a billionaire
or just having like everything you like put them all the resources put them both to the
extremes you're a billionaire or you're like the dictator of the U.S.
Oh I don't want to be a billionaire.
Like if I could buy any house I wanted that'd be nice.
You don't need to be a billionaire to have like the nicest house in Broomfield.
So if I could just have the nicest house the coolest house I wanted and that's not being
wealthy then I'm cool with getting rid of wealth.
And you'd be left with power.
So that's the thing you care about the most.
I mean I guess I've I don't want to be controlled and so it's the powerful people that can control
us.
I think we can like combat that by being just as powerful as them.
That'd be cool.
You'd have control over others right.
Yeah but I who are like you who don't want to be controlled.
Yeah so I hopefully would retain that.
Yeah.
So like if I was ever like a senator I don't want to be president but if I like was a senator
hopefully I would retain that awareness that no people especially Americans want freedom.
Like let's get rid of stupid taxes and let's people allow people to do what they want with
their money and not require shit like you know mandatory taxes or whatever else the
government thinks they you know need to control us with then sure.
Although I'm I think I will contradict myself to some degree because I do think certain
environmental things are are good.
How do you think power plays into the struggles that you have in your life or a desire for
it.
I mean I don't have any major struggles but I could see myself especially when I have
kids like wanting to yeah you're wanting to to educate them in the way that I think is
best yeah things of that nature where I feel like the government is trying to control the
way I raise my children.
But yeah right now I have a fair amount of autonomy.
I think taxes are ridiculous but I'm doing all right.
Since that was the last one left you'd have more of a propensity to desire power in your
regular life.
I think so just to combat like people whom I think are overreaching more more readily
because yeah I think even though I'm staunchly independent libertarian I do I'm still impacted
by like when I see someone who seems to have power whether it's a celebrity or a politician
say something you know I kind of want to like agree with them because I assume they which
is a false it's illogical to assume they they know what they're talking about but there
it still has influence on me and so I have to like you know really step back and think
okay is what they said really something true and do I really want to agree with that.
So I guess in influencing people to to think about higher things or better things or think
I guess be better people be better better citizens be better friends better husbands
wives so if I if I could use power to help be a force of good then yeah sign me up.
Why do you become a teacher not something with more more influence more power?
Why did I or why did you?
I think that was probably it.
Like I realized how much of an impact you can have and how much of an impact I had I
received from my teachers.
Yeah because if you read something some celebrity or politician says something you read it like
okay or you read a nice quote in the newspaper it sticks with you for like you know a day
at most but like a teacher if you think back to the people who influenced you the most
is your parents and your teachers and your friends.
So like if I if I could be that for some some people then I think my life was was worthwhile
and hopefully I've done that.
What was the impact you had on your students and that they had on you?
I mean you'd have to ask them.
Has nobody ever told you?
I think they've told me I mean not all of them obviously but you know some some
say you know gear I think about I think about your class like not every day but I think
about a lot.
It influences the way I go to work or why I'm still Catholic or yeah how I approach this
this or that so that's that's flattering when I hear that and the fact that you know former
students keep in touch with me like like they want to still be involved in my life and they
want me to be involved in theirs.
I've been to a number of weddings so it shows that they want me in their life.
I think people don't want people in their life that they think are negative or bad influence.
So what impact has teaching had on you?
It definitely has given me perspective like you know no two humans are alike fully alike
and you know I taught a diversity of students and it definitely refined my views probably
made me less idealistic in the negative sense or ideological realizing that you know there
are a lot of these movements in the world that that seem toxic but but there are people
in them who mean well and probably are good-hearted.
So it's it's it's given me less like I guess I'm less judgmental because they've shown
me that yeah your perspective is that my perspective is limited.
I still think that I have a lot to share and you know the Catholic Church has a lot to
give but oftentimes the way the truth is presented is not done with love and not done with enough
nuance and not done with enough awareness of the audience to whom they're speaking.
So yeah definitely widened my perspective.
And looking back on your life up till now you were a teacher real estate investor and
you grinded for a long period of your life is there anything you would go back and tell
your younger self to learn before that took you too long to learn?
Mobility.
What do you mean?
Flexibility.
I and yeah I probably work out too much but I did definitely didn't stretch enough in
my teens and 20s.
Flexibility as in like actual flexibilities?
Like I do Pilates now multiple times a day to make up for many days of not stretching
and just grinding and not paying attention to like the need for rest.
So if I could have like started Pilates in my 20s I'd probably be even in better shape.
True.
And be able to move a lot better.
Exactly.
And while I said I didn't regret not dating as much I think practicing empathy is something
I didn't do until probably like really practicing it probably like starting 10 years ago which
is kind of sad that I waited that long.
But it's certainly I hadn't really heard that word until my 30s.
My early 30s.
So yeah if I would have been told like hey it's great to be tough and it's great to
keep grinding but also like you need to have an availability for the people who don't have
that capacity or don't have that desire or discipline.
So yeah and I think that's part of being humble too.
Nobody wasn't really emphasized in wrestling or football.
So somehow yeah hearing if I could have heard that from like the right people I'm sure someone
told me at some point.
And you came in one ear and went out the other.
It probably wasn't told to me by someone I respect.
You're like that's feminine.
Yeah exactly.
It's not tough.
Yeah.
So I wish my wrestling coach for example would have you know obviously you don't say that
like in the middle of a match but like maybe that's during the off season or something
or.
How do you learn it?
How do you learn humility?
No how did you learn empathy?
What turned you on to it?
Like going 30 years without it seems pretty brutal.
I know.
Probably meeting probably two people specifically is Joe Domko and Matt Mondragon.
Very respectable men.
Very different.
And yeah became close friends and just seeing how much more they saw in life that I was
missing out on I guess was my the reason I started to really like oh my gosh this is
something I have to take seriously and work on.
And of course teaching theology like you read about it but it's like I just glossed over
it usually.
Like what's this word?
Empathy?
I don't think that's in the dictionary.
Not the gear dictionary.
I mean empathy is not often talked about in Catholic circles.
It's humility is and it should be.
Empathy should be discussed more.
Did you guys you were younger than I you went to Catholic school.
Did you hear that word in grade school?
Really?
Yeah.
No.
Okay.
Did you hear it in high school?
I think I heard it in high school.
Okay.
Not for my teachers probably.
No.
So there you go.
So I can't necessarily blame myself because I probably wasn't talked about.
What do you think is kind of your biggest sticking point in life now?
I mean my hip in some ways but I think it's good.
I think it's on its way to being healed but I think I'm still pretty idealistic.
So I was just like reflecting last night on how like I'm really trying to like find the
perfect diet which probably is impossible.
Like that's why I want to like have land and grow my own food.
So I was thinking about I was just kind of burdened for a moment like this is going to
take so much time and it was almost crushing like not to traumatize it but it's like just
for a moment I was like because I don't like to give up on things so I'm just like thinking
I'm because I know I'm going to do this so like am I going to spend 90% of my day like
worried about like you know my crops and my animals and like then like obviously you have
to harvest them and like prepare them like that's a lot of work.
Starting a farm.
Yeah.
It's a whole job.
Exactly.
So I think just being maintaining like reasonable expectations for that.
Obviously there are people who farm and there are people who even as like a recreational
farm and they hopefully still have some semblance of a life but it's after doing it for so long
things get you know streamlined and you get good at things.
So just being I guess being patient with myself and not and realizing that okay maybe at a
certain point I'm going to realize that raising cows is not going to happen and it shouldn't
happen.
I've fed beef at Whole Foods and sprouts and just settle for that or buy it become friends
with a farmer and buy one of his cows like so I'm marrying a girl who has a cow.
There you go.
Comes in the dowry.
Yeah exactly.
So like I guess just being being patient pursuing the ideal.
Our podcast is all about kind of living more bravely.
Yeah.
Bragously and so we always ask the guest at the end of the podcast to make themselves
a carrot which is a two week challenge to live more bravely in whatever way that that
manifests in your own life because some people might be braver around things that seem scary
and some people might unexpectedly have fears around things you wouldn't expect them to.
So what would be your carrot?
I mean do you sense somewhere an area just knowing me do you sense an area because I
could just make something up and it might not be actually that challenging for myself
but do you see an area in my life that I might need some courage?
I don't know I don't have the lived experience of your life.
It's true.
I'm sure you feel fear sometimes around things.
I'm just afraid of marrying the wrong person or healing my hip so pretty superficial things.
Marrying the wrong person isn't superficial but it's probably not going to happen so I
don't know if you guys have challenged me before to do things that I didn't realize
I was afraid of so.
What do you think is behind the fear of marrying the wrong person?
Having a life that's chaotic or being with someone who really fucks up my life.
And I don't want to get divorced.
I grew up in a divorced family and I in a way I'm better for it.
I think I'm a strong person because of it but I also see that I have major wounds because
of it and I'm still recovering from it.
So I guess I don't want to pass it on to the next generation.
So I have that fear of divorce but then I have simultaneous fear like I don't want to
be stuck with the wrong person because I'll be afraid of leaving her.
So I want to make sure I get it right.
What's fearful about chaos and divorce behind that?
Seems like there's some fear around getting things right, around making mistakes.
Well yeah because again I don't want to fuck up my kids.
But let's say you never have kids.
If I never have kids?
What's still scary about making that mistake?
I guess still dealing with the chaos is scary.
And maybe this is my desire for control.
I want to have my life with my lifestyle.
I want to be able to work out and sleep and eat healthy food and go see beautiful things,
go travel.
But if I'm constantly worried about is this relationship going to fall apart at any minute
that seems like I wouldn't be able to live that kind of lifestyle.
Yeah and it sounds like you're very hard on yourself when you don't do all these things.
And what's behind those things?
Why do those make you you?
And then if they go away why are you now anxious and a mess?
Because again you need sleep and food.
Well not even that but it has to be perfect right?
You have to get your workout in, you have to get your pilates in, you have to get your
healthy food.
Sure you can do it to a minimum you still feel anxious.
Yeah maybe.
Yeah I'm probably control free.
Like you're trying to live up to these ideals and all of a sudden you feel horrible when
you don't.
Not horrible just like not like I'm living my best life.
So what behind all of these things that what's left?
You mean if all those things somehow went away.
Well ultimately I'm loved by God so that's where you know life ultimately gets its worth
is that you're a child of God but yeah it's easy to forget.
Do you fully believe it because it seems like these things have a lot of weight right?
They do.
I think he has to remind me a lot.
So yeah I have days when I'm more aware of it than others.
My theory would be you're afraid of losing the identity of yourself you created.
I think you're probably right.
So are you going to challenge me to?
You've attached to it.
Like this is.
Not do the things I like to do for two weeks.
Well the carrot is up to you.
I don't know if that would be it would be productive for you to do that.
It probably wouldn't.
I mean we could we could say I could do things.
Well I mean I'm going to be in three weeks from now I'm going to be walking in Spain
12 to 15 miles a day with my brother and his six children and his wife and there and my
brother's wife's brother who's his brother-in-law who is a priest.
So we'll have our own priest.
So I won't have any access to Pilates.
I won't have access to really healthy food.
I mean I'm sure I'll have food but I have no control over what food it is and I'll be
sleeping in hostels.
So I might get bad sleep.
So I might have a self-imposed sabbatical from the things that are that I like to do.
But I've already made that commitment.
So maybe for you you just need to even just explore inside of yourself.
But what's going on in there?
Absolutely.
You're off.
You're always moving right?
I'm always moving.
Like how often do you go in and contemplate the stories about yourself that you think
are true that you've never questioned?
Yes not that often.
I mean I have done some therapy and I've actually started meeting with a new guy.
He has many methodologies but internal family systems is his is the thing I'm seeking and
it I'll give a quick explanation.
You basically have because I'm very excited by this.
It basically is a therapeutic approach that maintains that we have parts of ourselves
that are kind of frozen in time that essentially explain our emotional outbursts or behaviors
that are not typical of us.
And these parts are they represent trauma in our past that made that part of us kind
of be stuck.
So and you have essentially two parts the exiles and the managers.
So the exiles are the parts of you that you've kind of suppressed.
You don't let come up and those managers kind of protect them.
And so when we get in situations where the manager one of them is a firefighter and a
firefighter it's a great image because firefighters when they see a problem what do they do?
Are they like worried about the blinds or like a vase in your house when there's a
like they're rescuing like a child or a cat?
You know they're like smashing windows fucking kicking in doors like they don't give a shit
about your house.
They're going to rescue that cat or that baby and that's what our firefighters do.
I need something and I'm going to kick down doors and do whatever the fuck needs to happen
to get what I need.
And so we can actually we there's a lot of insight into our erratic behavior from this
this theory so I'm doing this internal family systems with this guy to really explore especially
my exiles because I think there's exiles in me that have not been allowed to speak for
many years like I think fear is one of them.
You're not allowed to feel it as a masculine guy.
Exactly.
Yeah fear and sadness are probably the two exiles that I really need to explore.
So yeah I'm going to really explore and dig into that.
What would that look like in the next two weeks?
I mean I'm going to meet with him.
I met with him two days ago and I'm going to meet with him again in two weeks from two
days ago.
So in the meantime he's giving me some homework on yeah just really exploring.
He had me take a number of psychological exams.
I mean they're not like crazy just like some yes and no and like scales.
And so it kind of points out like what kind of your excesses are and one of them is like
attacking bullying which I was kind of surprised at that I and kind of not like I'm a fighter
but he's like he was asking me questions like do you have you ever been like violent with
a woman or and I'm like no I'm not I don't I don't believe in hitting women.
And so he was actually like making me concerned about myself and concerned that he thinks
I'm like some crazy bull and he's like he brought up he's like I imagine Mike Tyson's
wife probably feels like very much attacked or like because he's like crazy like obviously
he's a very aggressive guy and I think he's had some domestic abuse stuff.
I don't know if he still is like that.
No offense Mike Tyson I'm cool with you.
We don't need to fight.
Anyway that I'm supposed to explore that like the aggressive part of me and he's given me
a number of talks that I'm supposed to listen to to really explore that myself.
Sounds like a great thing to explore.
Yeah.
Usually there's a stick attached to the to the challenge to the carrot.
Yeah.
But if you don't feel it's necessary and skip that part.
So the carrot is to do to do my homework.
Is that what you're saying?
Yeah.
I mean I would probably do it in the stick.
I mean I probably would.
But you want to think of something that I wouldn't normally do.
Just something you wouldn't want to do if you don't do your homework.
Oh.
Exploring that.
Okay.
So if I.
Yeah.
I would say if I don't do my homework then I should probably take away something I really
like.
Which I guess is like Pilates.
Or stretching.
Which wasn't the case two years ago.
So I'm supposed to watch I think five episodes you could say if I don't listen to all five
or if I don't listen to three I have to go to Pilates three times less.
Can't go to Pilates for two weeks.
Okay.
And that doesn't count the Camino trip that's outside of the Camino.
Yeah.
Yeah it doesn't count.
Okay.
All right.
Cool.
Thanks for coming on.
David this is great.
Where can people find you?
In Broomfield.
Do you have any social media or anything you'd want them to find you?
I think I'm Gear Fit 303 but I don't have that many followers.
Like maybe 500 so this might boost me up I don't know.
Cool.
All right.
Yeah.
Good having you man.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me.