Scott: 00:03

Hello everybody and welcome in to yet another episode of the 2 Parachutes Podcast. I am Scott Olson, one of your co hosts. I'm a retired FBI agent, and I bring the grandfather perspective. Over to my partner.

Shawn: 00:17

Thanks, Scott. I'm Sean Baker Garcia, the other co host of 2 Parachutes Podcast, and I am still the happy accidental CEO and global security enthusiast. And I'd like to think I bring the average citizen's perspective, but Scott always tells me I'm not average. So we'll we'll we'll say that's still on the table for debate.

Scott: 00:38

Yeah. That's good. We're getting t shirts made that say nothing average about you.

Shawn: 00:43

Yeah.

Scott: 00:44

But word I'm not feeling a huge fire in the belly today, but we got a little interesting one that, Sean, you shared with me that's happening over in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, which is near where So I over to you for the start point for today's jump and, popping silk on the 2 Parachutes Podcast.

Shawn: 01:11

Fantastic. And so while, Scott, you may not have a fire in your belly today, the Internet assuredly does. And that fire in the Internet's belly today is a little critter that we're calling Jimothy. And you heard me, folks, that is exactly right. It is not Timothy.

Shawn: 01:31

It is Jimothy. And Jimothy is the most adorable little feral raccoon that is, as you mentioned, Scott, hanging out in your sort of neck of the woods in the Ballard, I guess, neighborhood. Is that I don't know if that's appropriate to call it a neighborhood.

Scott: 01:49

It is a neighborhood. Yeah.

Shawn: 01:50

Yeah. Of Seattle. And so I told Scott he would get bonus points from me if if he managed to go capture, like, a yeti, like, a sighting of the infamous Jimothy, and and even more points if he can send photographic evidence, of his existence. But, you know, it was just such a remarkable thing. Sometimes I I you know, the Internet is kinda chaotic, and every now and again, it produces a gem like little Jimothy.

Shawn: 02:19

And and what's so special about this little critter is that he has some sort of what would appear a birth defect. He it seems he was born with something called, and I'm probably not gonna get this exactly right, I'm just going off memory, but short spine disorder or something. And it is exactly what it sounds like, which is that whatever this creature is, and I don't think this is limited to just raccoons. You know, I think this actually occurs in many animal species, to include humans, I would imagine. But they're just their spines never fully develop, or, you know, to the extent that they should.

Shawn: 02:55

And so they have sort of a compressed, as it were, look about them, right? Well, in Jimothy's case, that turned into this miraculously adorable little ball of a raccoon with weirdly long legs. And it's every bit as and it looks exactly like that, folks. What you just pictured in your head is exactly what Jimothy looks like. And and he's just the the remarkable thing about him that I've just been enjoying is watching the videos that are posted of him just going about his raccoon business, you know, without any relative understanding of any kind of suffering or pain he might have experienced in his life up till now, or what lies ahead for him.

Shawn: 03:38

But it's just such a story of pure animal existence in the sense that he doesn't know he has this. He's just living his best raccoon life, and he's doing it pretty successfully. He's making more money now, probably, than most, you know, educated adults. So go Jimothy, you know, representing sort of the, you know, the average animal kingdom citizen. But, so I just, my heart, and millions of people around the world are now, you know, familiar with this little guy, and and he's adorable, and he's he's always busy.

Shawn: 04:16

He's got he's got stuff going on. He's like, I don't have time for the paparazzi. And you would just, you know, it's just a metaphor, I think, you know, for how we should maybe aspire to live our lives as humans. And, you know, know, I'll kick I'll kick us off with a concluding quote, you know, to get us going, which is, in a world of humans, be a Jimothy, you know? And so with that, I'll turn it over to you for some reflections on on that little anecdote of the week.

Scott: 04:47

Yeah, Mike. Mike, you can get Jimothy T shirts. It was just a matter of punching Jimothy in Seattle into my phone and it came up with t shirts and my my favorite is a sketch of Jimothy with the words stay weird which is which is a great attitude. It's it's sort of that be yourself. There's There's a lot of lessons here, and it pulls me in number of different directions.

Scott: 05:14

So, Jimothy actually so I live on a lake here in Seattle, Lake Washington, and I have lots of animals. I've got golden eagles, I think I have a brown eagle, ravens, a variety of different types of ducks, herons. I've got some river otters, and at least I can't tell the difference between raccoons. So the raccoon that comes through my yard occasionally it might be several raccoons, but they're they're they're big and they are the prince of the land they walk on. They they're they're strong they're they're about 20 pounds so they're like a large cat or a small dog and they're aggressive and they don't fear anything and they they go down and eat and and come back and then you look at Jimothy and Jimothy is not aggressive.

Scott: 06:11

He's a ball. He's got these long cartoon legs. His face seems to be a normal size for a raccoon but it's stuck on this tiny ball of a body. What really strikes me is I get past the notion that, you know, here we are at the 2 Parachutes Podcast, and we're talking about the hard work of interacting and giving people and talking to people about the things that they can notice in the world and sort of this deep stuff. Now today we're grabbing something that's sort of popular on the internet and entertaining, but that's living too.

Shawn: 06:52

Yeah.

Scott: 06:53

And so I'm getting past my, hey, what are we doing with the podcast here? And launching into Jimothy, and what I see is when you look at animals, animals are varying levels of intelligence, and raccoons are certainly intelligent. And you look at Jimothy, and I got to think he's intelligent enough to know that he's different and that things might be more difficult for him, but he doesn't appear to feel sorry for himself. And that takes me down this whole road of, are we uniquely, as human beings, capable of feeling sorry for ourselves? Feeling like victims where animals are not.

Scott: 07:38

And I can think of so many examples. Know, every time you see a dog that has three legs, that dog is running around like it doesn't have three legs and it's not feeling sorry for itself, it's just living. I had a friend who kept rabbits as pets, and she would rescue rabbits that had congenital defects, and she had one or two that were on these little wheel carts because their hind legs had some deformity or didn't function, and they would just enjoy life and appear not to feel sorry for themselves. I think of I remember seeing a program on lions in Africa, and so the male lion comes in, and this is sort of the brutality of nature. The male lion comes in and kills the cubs, and that puts the females into estrus, and so the females look sad.

Scott: 08:43

I mean, they defend their cubs against the lion. They lose. The cubs get killed. But then they go into estrus and they mate with the lion that killed their cubs. They don't have I mean, have sadness.

Scott: 08:59

You can see in their face that they feel loss.

Shawn: 09:02

Right.

Scott: 09:03

But they don't feel like victims. I you gave a quote from was it C. S. Lewis?

Shawn: 09:12

No, D. H. Lawrence.

Scott: 09:13

D. H. Lawrence. It was two initials on the name. So DH Lawrence, with due apologies for my lack of specificity, but it was such a wonderful thing and I just wonder, you know, what the we function differently as humans than most of the rest of the animal kingdom, or all of the rest of the animal kingdom.

Scott: 09:37

And I think it's easy for us to put ourselves as we're better, we're higher functioning at least. There are some people out there that say, Oh no, we're equivalent, and there's the whole vegan world of people who think that we should not consume animals, and we can go down that road. Happy to have that debate. Love the debate, as long as we don't ridicule. But I wonder if the ability to feel like a victim and the ability for self pity and self loathing, if it's unique to humans, actually makes us better.

Scott: 10:15

Maybe it doesn't make us better. Maybe by struggling with that we grow. I don't know, but what's the quote? I love that quote.

Shawn: 10:24

So, yeah, D. H. Lawrence, you know, and I remember this from being a kid, the first time I ever saw this one, which is just and it's part of a bigger work of his, I think, entitled Self Pity, but essentially, it's, I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. And I think, you know, the implication obvious to that statement is exactly what he's implying, which is that, you know, what is it about humanity that makes us pity ourselves, or kind of linger in our disability, or our dysfunction, or our problems, right? And, you know, we've mentioned many times in previous episodes this notion of, you know, you can be in pain, but you don't have to suffer.

Shawn: 11:18

Like, you know, like and and and the way and maybe I'm kind of mincing that up a little bit, and we said it in a slightly different way. But I think that the intention behind the statement is is still is consistent, which is simply to say that when human beings experience discomfort or outright pain, physical, emotional, or otherwise, you know, I think often time our first response is just simply, how do I get out of this? Like, you know, and go back to a precondition where that wasn't true. And then depending on the severity or the sort of pervasiveness of the experience. Like, meaning, is it a short, acute, you know, getting my finger slammed in the door is a short, acute, rage inducing experience that, you know, I will go through a whole gamut of emotions about, right?

Shawn: 12:19

You know? At some point, you know, you're not really suffering. Like, eventually the pain abates. You get some painkillers. You're all right.

Shawn: 12:26

And then it just takes time to heal. But then there's like longer term hurts and pains, you know? And if this is going to be a big jump, but I think it's relevant, and it's a good illustration of what I mean by this is, you know, my youngest sister has been having a hard time the last six months, eight months maybe. She was recently diagnosed with stage four brain cancer. She lost her home, you know, unexpectedly through some, you know, unfortunate sort of internal family dynamic circumstances.

Shawn: 13:04

And she, despite, you know, her best efforts and my best efforts, and those of a community that she has supporting her, she found herself, you know, without home, you know, for the last few months in the condition that she's in. And, you know, and that's a whole other episode altogether, is just this sort of condition of homelessness and the correlation of, like, you know, doing the hard work of interacting with those who are homeless and those who are kind of find themselves in such dire straits. But the point I'm trying to just make here is she had every opportunity to feel sorry for herself. She had every opportunity, and nobody would have blamed her for sort of indulging in a little bit of self pity or woe is me, like, you know, or frankly just giving up. You know.

Shawn: 13:57

And I can't go through every single thing that she has experienced in the last few months, being in this condition that she's in. But suffice to say that every possible bad thing you can imagine happening to a, you know, female homeless person who's in a debilitated state of health, and you know, without a lot of resources, she faced it. You know, whether it was, you know, physical safety issues stemming from other human beings, from wild animals. Like, you know, it's a big- I just can't overstate how traumatic it has to be for those people who have to live like that. But, you know, I've drawn inspiration from her because she has not once just fallen into this self pitting.

Shawn: 14:50

And, you know, it's funny, Scott. Like, the less self pitting she was, it's like the more I wanted to help her. Like and and and that sounds crazy. Like, I mean, I wanted I wanted to and was helping her regardless. Right?

Shawn: 15:04

But there's other people that I've stepped into helping my life throughout my life that I felt less good about helping. You know what I mean? Because I either felt like it was expected or entitled, or they were wallowing and kind of, you know, part of the problem, not the salute. You know what I mean? So but when you see somebody who's just like, of course she was sad.

Shawn: 15:24

Of course she was scared. Of course she was, you know, frustrated. But her outlook was always one of a warrior. She was just like, nope, here's what I did today to take care of my problem and problems. And I'm sad, and I'm having hard days, but I'm doing this.

Shawn: 15:45

And, you know, she always expressed gratitude, like just chronic gratitude. So, you know, so yeah, I think she's a bit of a Jimothy, you know? She was she still trying was to, you know, she's that example of a human being who, you know, was capable of just saying, I'm not going to suffer. I'm really in a bad place right now, no doubt. But were all the other waking seconds of the day that I'm not in immediate physical danger, that I'm grateful to be alive, and I'm grateful for this beautiful thing called life where she would send me pictures.

Shawn: 16:23

She'd go out to a lake nearby in our hometown, and she would just she still found the beauty in things. Yeah. And she still saw the joy in things, even if it was something as simple as like a cloud formation, and she would send that to me, because that's, you know, that's what she was, like, appreciating for that moment. And so I don't know. So yeah, I think that I don't think it makes us better, to go to your point.

Shawn: 16:47

Of course, I mean, we're all God's children in my book, so we're, you know, and animals are an extension of that creation. So we're all, you know, important to him, I believe, fundamentally. We have a bigger responsibility, though, because of our consciousness. And part of that responsibility is not only how we treat others, but how we treat ourselves, frankly.

Scott: 17:09

Yeah, and that's the I think there's an important point that we need to make here that may get hidden. And it gets hidden in what we do as humans, which is what we hear is that we hear what we expect to hear, and we see what we expect to see. And the reason I want to stop for a second and make this point is because it's very important for everybody who's listening to understand that this is not about, when you're having a difficult time, here's what you must do. Choose the high road. If you're in pain, you don't have to suffer, so choose not to suffer and live your life this way because it's better.

Scott: 18:01

And all of those things may be true, but what it starts with is just noticing, not really even understanding, but just noticing that if it hurts, you don't have to feel bad. It's very easy when you hurt to feel bad, because it hurts and you don't want it to hurt, and so it's a very short road to feeling bad, but you actually don't have to, and I think that there are many examples like your sister, and thank you for sharing that, because it's amazing when you look at a person who's going through something and you think they should be suffering and they're not. Now you've noticed that, you've got the notice part done, and now you're trying to understand and understand that choice. And again, this is where we get blind. A person looks at another person in a situation, and the way they process it is, how can you not be suffering?

Scott: 19:11

And what they really mean is, I imagine if I was in that situation, I would be suffering, therefore you must be suffering, and therefore if you say you're not, you're either lying to me or lying to yourself, and so we need to get to the root of this. But it's all about those layered presumptions that are very easy to follow if you don't first notice that the person who is not you, the person being observed, is their own person. They are a different human being. They have their own humanity, and they may be processing this differently than you think you would. You can't know how you would process something if it actually hasn't happened to you.

Scott: 20:01

I can think about how terrible it would be to be homeless and, you know, living under a bridge. And I've done a lot of, you know, hiking and climbing and living in tents for a week at a time, but that's very different. At the end of that week, I go back inside to indoor plumbing and a bed and a shower, and it's just, it's fundamentally different. So I can think I know, but I actually don't know, and I don't know how I would respond. And so it's very important to understand this beginning part and notice this beginning part that it doesn't correlate.

Scott: 20:42

Pain doesn't correlate to suffering and your sister certainly understood that and she chose a different way. I'll tell you a funny story about one of my daughters, my youngest. She was so I have girl, boy, girl, they're spaced six years apart, like three and a half between the first one and the second, and two and a half between the second, who's my boy, the third, who's my daughter, my youngest. And so a big thing for an eight year old girl, at the time she was an eight year old girl, is getting her ears pierced. And you know, everybody had their ears pierced and she wanted to get her ears pierced and had to convince her mom and on and on and on and so finally we went down to the place and my oldest daughter was telling my youngest you know how much it hurt and everything and the ear piercing person oh it doesn't hurt all that much and so my eight year old is sitting there and they mark her ears and they snick that first one in and she didn't make a noise but her entire head turned red You could tell that it really hurt and she just had this stoic look on her face and didn't say a word and when they said are you ready for the next one?

Scott: 22:02

She nodded her head, snick they put the second one in and we went home, never a peep. Two days later she's messing around in the living room, in socks on a hardwood floor, slips, falls, bangs her head into the coffee table, dissolves in tears because she banged her head. And I come in and, you know, she's in pain and she's crying and it's horrible and I pick her up, hold her, sit her on the couch and get her calmed down. And then I said, I need help understanding something because I really don't understand. You just fell and hit your head, and I know it hurt because I heard the thump and I've hit my head before, and I know it hurts, and I know you cried, but two days ago you got your ears pierced, and that was every bit as much pain, and you didn't cry, and you didn't get upset.

Scott: 23:04

What's the difference? They're both pain, they both happen to your head, and she looked at me like I was stupid. Eight year old girl. She looked at me like I was stupid and she said, Dad, it's because I wanted to get my ears pierced, but I didn't want to bang my head.

Shawn: 23:24

Completely

Scott: 23:25

different. And that's an eight year old kid can And understand that you know, okay, so there are a ton of things here. Talk to eight year old kids, they understand stuff. But it's also absolutely in her own language this illustration of pain does not mandate suffering.

Shawn: 23:47

Yeah. So Yeah. Back to

Scott: 23:50

you for any thoughts that that might have shaken loose.

Shawn: 23:55

Yeah, well, so I think that that's a brilliant philosophical manifestation, like from an eight year old. And so I don't even know how to like, explain how I feel about that anecdote, because it's so powerful. It's so, so powerful. And I, you know, man, how do you follow that up? Like, she just hit it right on the head.

Shawn: 24:21

And what I think it speaks to is human free will. And I think that we all take it a lot harder when some pain, mental, emotional, physical, when some kind of a pain is inflicted upon us outside of our free will, right, is really what she's describing. So that mental, changes like, equation for how we react. Because if it happens to us outside of our ascent, then, you know, two hurts have now occurred. Whatever the actual hurt is, in addition to having your agency stolen from you in some

Scott: 25:07

way. That's interesting.

Shawn: 25:11

So, it's like mad, mad It's a mad reaction. It's like, I'm, again, this goes back to the whole getting caught on the stupid handle, you know, with your shirt, right? Like, it results in a completely disproportionate amount of rage for most human beings for that to happen. And the reason being is it takes you off guard, first of all. It usually is happening in the most unusually mundane of, existences.

Shawn: 25:47

You're just moving from one part of a kitchen to the next or a room to the next. But it's also an unex because it's so unanticipated, the brain immediately goes into, what do we have to kill? You know what I mean? It's, you know, because the brain doesn't, the brain is acting faster than your own consciousness in some sense. Or maybe it's the, you know, maybe it's that's the other way around.

Shawn: 26:11

But, you know, so I think that the, I don't, what I would be curious to actually think through is what evolutionarily does the practice of self pity, if any, have? You know, like what role does that play in terms of our survival instinct, or our survivability? You know, is that if I feel sorry for myself, others bigger and stronger will come care for me so I'm more protected? Is it if I feel sorry for myself and, you know, yeah, maybe it's to make me look less threatening so that others will be closer to me or want to protect me? But what I think, regardless of what the answer is, and I don't know what it is, to be honest, but I think what happens is as human beings, we lean too hard into it.

Shawn: 27:16

You know? And because at some point, it's almost like there's actually many examples of how this is true. So like, you know, it's like that old John Lennon song. It's like, they hate you if you're clever, but they despise a fool. Well, it's like, were always walking that fine line, right, of being too much of something or not enough of something.

Shawn: 27:42

And so in your emotional reactions, it's like, you know, you're you know, being sort of vulnerable and being in some kind of duress is okay because there is an like, there are nurturers in the world who are gonna come around and rally around you and wanna take care of you. But if you're just milking it, then all of a sudden, it's like, well, you're making a choice to be living in this mental state or this anguish. And other human beings don't see that as something that's, oh, this is a valuable member of our tribe. We need to protect this individual. Quickly, goes from that to all of a sudden, you might be a liability to the tribe, because you are so eroded in stature of, you know, strength of character, or strength of physiological prowess, that you now represent a potential weakness in our sort of like existence.

Shawn: 28:49

And to follow on from that, as my brain is trying to sort all this out, it's kind of like you're then, like in today's day and age, it's like we are exporting this condition of victimhood and self sort of indulgent suffering. Right? And it's actually maybe there's a larger lesson on the macro level level of human relations, which is like saying that the reason why a lot of these sort of recent activists are not making a lot of traction is simply because it's essentially holding up victimhood as a protected class of human that certain people want to just grow because everywhere they look, they see victimhood. But for the human species to evolve successfully, or to live and thrive successfully, that is not conducive to that goal. Because it introduces too much threat and risk to the human tribe.

Shawn: 30:05

Right? Because it's like, we can't so you do you kinda see where my my head is going with that a little bit?

Scott: 30:11

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And it it it brings me back to, this is why we call it the hard work of interacting.

Shawn: 30:22

Yeah.

Scott: 30:22

It's the way that humans interact is complex because we have all this stuff that we struggle with, and it's our own self worth. Each individual wants to feel good, but it very quickly becomes a competition. I want to feel good, but if somebody else feels good, is that a threat to me? It reminds me of an interesting story that happened about a year and a half ago. I have a niece out here who is in the Greater Seattle area, my sister's daughter, who is a paramedic, and she's probably about 30, and she is a tough person, and very focused and did extraordinarily well going through the paramedic training, which is a year of on-site medical training.

Scott: 31:25

It's it's very difficult and it is very competitive. They keep track of everything that you do and one of the things that's so important for a paramedic is intubation. It's this notion of you have somebody that's in an emergency situation, they're lying somewhere on the ground outside whether it's on the street or in the woods and you need to open up their throat so you can slide a tube down so that they can breathe so that they don't die and so doing it the first time instead of doing it and missing and doing it and missing and doing it and missing is one of the skills that differentiates a good paramedic from an average paramedic, and so they teach everybody how to do it, and then every practice, or if they're out doing a ride along, if they are allowed to do the intubation on an active patient, every single time they attempt an intubation they both add that to the count how many have you done and how many did you do on the first round and the person with the the best score the the highest number and it's some sort of math but it's the highest number combined with the percentage gets recognized at the end of that paramedic class at the end of the year as as the best one and she won.

Scott: 32:52

She did some number that was was big and I can't remember if it was 25 or 55 but it was it was a lot and she never missed. She 100% of the time she put the tube in the first time and she was very proud. We were all very proud of her and the fascinating thing that happened is she went up to get her award, and at the end of the ceremony and everything, I could tell she was upset, and I went up and talked to her, and I found out that the reason she was upset is that nobody in her class congratulated her. She maybe one or two people came up and sort of half heartedly congratulated her, but she was expecting everybody to share the joy that she felt about winning this award and none of them did. And the reason none of them did is because they wanted the award and, you know, the guys didn't like being beaten by a girl and the other girls didn't like that another girl was better than them and she was really upset and so I threw her the Arnold Schwarzenegger quote, which is hate is earned because everybody loves a loser and so you know whether a person agrees with that or not, see it in the world.

Scott: 34:19

Losers aren't a threat and so you love a loser. Know when you see somebody who's not as good at you at something, hey, that's great man, you tried, you're doing a good job, keep trying, but as soon as they keep trying and keep trying and get good, now all of a sudden it's oh, well, we're not friends and again the paradigm here is notice it you don't have to notice it and do something about it but when you go out into the world and you start looking for that you start seeing this this insincerity this lack of of genuineness, you know, everybody, everybody in the in the crowd is is you know clapping for the, you know, the person who gets the the Oscar or the Emmy or the Grammy but everybody who didn't get it is, you know, they're clapping like this, should have been me, should have

Shawn: 35:14

been me. Know, and it's So true.

Scott: 35:17

Yeah, it's not genuine. So when you look across how we function as a society, not just today, but you know, part of noticing is looking at history. Go back, back, go back, read stuff, look at old film. When a person helps another person, they're helping them but they're not helping them to be as good as the person that's giving the help. The person giving the help generally is doing it because they don't want to feel bad that there's somebody that is in pain, but they're generally not lifting that person up and ensuring that they are better than the person giving the help.

Scott: 36:10

You do see some exceptions to that and you know people are probably screaming right now into their phones and into their computers you know, I know this person, I know that person, and my attitude is great, let's have that debate, let's talk that through. But generally, when you look at things like, and we've talked about this before, and this is going to blow us all up, right? When you see programs that are designed to specifically help disadvantaged people, It all starts with saying, you're disadvantaged. You're not good enough on your own, so I'm gonna help you be better. But it never, there's no help that can be issued that gets past that initial presumption of you're not good enough to do this on your own and it circles us back to the story about your sister there may be people out there saying well, if your sister had cancer and was homeless, you should have brought her into her house.

Scott: 37:22

You should have done this. You should have done that and should have done the other thing. And the dynamic there is quite apparently much more significant than what you were able to share and talk about in a five minute recitation of the story. But again, the hard work of interacting, it is always much more complex. And it still is if she's coming to live with you, you're helping, but what do you do now?

Scott: 37:54

Does she always live with you? Does she go on her own? Are you throwing her out at that point? Have you gotten her to the point where, you know, she can build and go on her own? So many different options in the world of human interactions, but it starts with noticing.

Scott: 38:16

Noticing that other people are human. Noticing that we always have the opportunity when something we don't like happens to us to feel agony, and it's not binary. You don't have to choose between agony and something else. You can just choose not to feel agony. You can just choose not to suffer, and again, we're not giving you a recipe.

Scott: 38:40

It's like, hey, Scott Olson, you're up there on a podcast being a brilliant guy. You say that I can be in pain without suffering. Show me how, genius. And my response is the grandfather response. It starts with noticing that those two things don't correlate.

Scott: 39:00

It then goes to understanding that you have this challenge, because when it hurts, you want to feel sorry for yourself. And then figure it out. I'm not President Trump calling the head of FIFA to get rid of a red card, you know, like he did for the US team. I'm coming down to the locker room and going, Hey, you guys just kind of got screwed. How about that?

Scott: 39:25

Yeah. You know, can I get you some water? Can I get you a towel? How are you guys going to figure out how to go and play this next game down a man? What are you going to do?

Shawn: 39:35

Yeah.

Scott: 39:36

I'm here to help. But what are you going to do? And that's human. And and a lot of people don't like that. And a lot of people don't like that.

Scott: 39:46

And again, I want to have this debate because I I love I love learning other people's approaches because it helps refine my approach as well but a lot of people don't have enough of a level of comfort letting somebody else struggle because why? They think if they were in that situation, they would feel bad and they don't want that person to feel bad. Yeah. And so, they're gonna take away their right to struggle not because it's good for them, but because it's good for the person who feels bad seeing someone struggle. Living is not for the faint of heart.

Scott: 40:28

It is not for the faint of heart, but it is a wonderful thing too.

Shawn: 40:33

Yeah, you're hitting on so many important points. I'm trying to focus where I want to comment first, because, no, there's a lot there that I think is essential. You know, so And just maybe I'll start with the low hanging fruit is, you know, in my sister's case, one of the most important things that you can do for somebody who's going through that kind of an experience is to check your own emotional instinct to do more than what they want for them. And I know that probably sounds a little counterintuitive.

Scott: 41:18

Can you say that again? Because that is huge. That is so great.

Shawn: 41:21

It is. It is. So it is essential when you're in your desire to help somebody, or if you're feeling sorry for a person in their situation and your instinct is to help, one of the most important elements of your then offering and giving that help is to preserve the receiving person's autonomy and agency in what kind of help that they want to receive. In other words, don't impose your benevolent goodwill attempts to assist in the situation. Take the lead from the person who's on the receiving side.

Shawn: 42:03

Because, you know, you mentioned me like, you know, like, Greg and I may be having her come stay. The obvious superficial solution is, oh, we'll just bring her out to Virginia and have her live with you. I assure you those discussions were had. You know what I mean? And for many, many reasons that I won't go into at this stage without her explicit permission to share, you know, there were reasons that she did not want to exercise, or could not exercise that option, right?

Shawn: 42:34

So that's the other thing, right, is I think there's too much in the world of people not having enough visibility, because frankly, it's none of their business about situations, and then making assumptions, and as a result, drawing conclusions about people and how they're alleged to be reacting in a situation that do not actually accurately convey the situation. So there's that. Is, you know, sometimes there is such a thing as too much compassion, too much aid. And going back to your point of not, of being strong enough to let people struggle. And I don't mean in the existential, like, you know, wasn't exercising strength to allow Tricia, you know, my sister, to struggle.

Shawn: 43:23

That wasn't it at all, actually. If anything, I was struggling to resist, you know, from basically going and buying her a house. You know what I mean? Well, when we don't have the money to do that, so, you know, we did the best we could. But, you know, but I think that the lesson I see in all of it is, you know, people are hap she did suffer in the sense of, like, the term, you know, meaning that, like, somebody is chronically exposed for a length of time to really bad conditions that hurt them in some way.

Shawn: 44:00

Like, that's not, like, so that's an external definition of suffering, what it means to actually suffer through something. You have to suffer through a thing, because it sucks, and you got to deal with it. But she wasn't self suffering, meaning that she wasn't sort of indulging in pity and and sort of defeatism and and sort of fatalism. She always woke up every day with, like, you know, some reason to love being alive, even though she was in pain and having a very difficult inhuman time of it. So, you know, and I loved your point as well about we're not prescribing anything here.

Shawn: 44:40

What we're trying to do is just call attention to be more observant in your human experience. Like, you know, because I think one of the things that technology has eroded in us as human beings is our observational skills, both the desire to exercise them and the actual ability to exercise them, right? And one leads to the other. If you initially absent mindedly because you're distracted by a device all day, forget to observe, pretty soon it becomes a choice to not observe. Because observing when you go back to a condition of being present and observing in the world, it feels unfamiliar, boring, and uncomfortable.

Shawn: 45:30

And so your brain is like, no, no, no. I want the dopamine hit. Go back to the phone. So then it becomes a choice. At some point, that's the danger, right, is a slippery slope of accidentally, you know, kind of no longer being observant to then all of a sudden now you are aware that you are not, but now it's less comfortable to just be distracted.

Shawn: 45:52

You know, it's more comfortable to be distracted than it is to nurture the muscle, the observation muscle that's atrophying in real time. This so is I think this is the crux of what the point is for us in this podcast, which is, again, we're not saying This a judgment free zone in the sense that It's judgment free in the sense that you can choose to live your life however you want to. What we're hoping that you do you know, what each of our episodes unlocks for the audience is just different ways to be out in the world honing that human observation skill set, because that is the thing that makes you human. And, you know, you can't systematize compassion, even though there's a very large number of people in this country who I think have convinced themselves that you can do that, whether it's through DEI programs or, you know, other programs. I'm not saying there shouldn't exist certain legal frameworks to combat systematized discrimination and things like that.

Shawn: 47:00

Of course, you know- and for the most part, I think we have those, right? Like, I think those are well in place, and they're used when they need to be used. But again, it's that whole idea of like going too far with something, right?

Scott: 47:14

Yeah.

Shawn: 47:15

You know, the system isn't going to take care of my sister as well as I'm going to take care of my sister.

Scott: 47:23

Yeah. And just, and what I'm hearing, what I'm getting from what you're saying is it's not a one way Street. It's actually not all about you.

Shawn: 47:35

Yeah.

Scott: 47:35

And and I think what people do without realizing it is they decide the way they want the world to be. Yeah. And then the very short step is the world would be a better place if it was the way I wanted it to be. And so I'm now going to go out into the world and try and make it so. And when I can't make it so, when, not if, when I can't make it so, I'm going to rage against the machine.

Scott: 48:02

And it's what you're describing is very human because it's a two way street. You seem to be suffering. I see your suffering. I am not immune to it. How can I help?

Scott: 48:19

And that makes you vulnerable, right? That opens you up to a reply of, well, isn't it obvious? Can't you do more? Won't you do this? Won't you do that?

Scott: 48:30

Now your sister didn't respond that way, she responded in a very human way. But the thing that we're trying to do here is to take people who appear to be functioning as if they're blind and deaf and saying, you have eyes you can see, you have ears you can hear, you just have to choose to see, You have to choose to hear. You have to choose to interact, not decide what you think is right and impose that, but interact with other human beings and understand, try to understand, what they think is right, and then figure it out from there. I think that it's so easy to blame today's problems on today's technology. But if you look at history, the Luddites who were out in the street protesting mechanized looms as the end of the world, People don't even know what luddites are, and people don't even think about the impact of mechanized looms putting loom operators in 1903 out of work, and then the industrial revolution, and then electricity, and then internal combustion for the masses, and then and then and then.

Scott: 50:01

It's so easy to blame today's problems on today's technology. What we're trying to do here at 2 Parachutes Podcast is say, look at today's technology and begin noticing what impact it has. One of the impacts I see, and see if all of you who are listening see it as well, is when we have a screen that can get us anything, we think that we can get everything. When I can get every question answered, I think I can get any question answered. We actually think we can have it all.

Scott: 50:43

We think we can have, each individual is beginning to think that he or she can have the world exactly the way that they want it, and it's a very short step from I want the world the way that I want it to the world now has to agree with me, and now the world now has to approve of me. It's fascinating to me that a person who will not continent debate over whatever the issue is, know, this is my gender, you know, global warming is a problem, global warming is not a problem, electric vehicles are going to save us, electric vehicles are a disaster, Whatever it is, they demand of other people what they absolutely reject for themselves. They demand 100% agreement without a conversation from somebody who doesn't agree, and they don't see. And this is why I say, yeah, you have eyes but you don't see. Your eyes are closed and you say, well I see perfectly well.

Scott: 52:01

No, open your eyes. When you demand a person accept you without conversation, you are demanding that they do the core thing that you refuse to do, and that rejects humanity. And it comes back around to, it is the hard work of interacting. Living is hard, and it goes right down to the pragmatics. We see a lot of it today in this push that we're seeing in The United States towards socialism, and they're saying, well, you know, it's not fair that some people have money and some people don't and my response and again I'm your grandfather I'm not here to help you I'm here to open your eyes and your ears making money is hard Over the course of my life and I'll tell you personally, I've been flushed sometimes, I've been broke sometimes, and I've been the same guy each I'm time along not a different guy, I'm the same guy and it's because making money is hard and keeping money is hard and you don't fix it by saying, well we're just going to take everything and we're going to put it in the hands of government.

Shawn: 53:21

Yeah.

Scott: 53:22

And the banal winning critique of that is, show me an example ever in the history of the world ever that that has worked and don't tell me Scandinavia because go look at Scandinavia, that's not what they have. To, you know, everything will be great if I just, you know, have a place to live and food to eat and a job to do. Guess what? As soon as you get a place to live, food to eat and a job to do, what do you want? You want more.

Scott: 53:57

You want more.

Shawn: 53:58

That's right.

Scott: 53:58

You want more. And that's, again, it's not, is that good or bad? Should we not do that? It is, notice the way we function. Look at other people.

Scott: 54:10

Notice what's there. And then begin to understand. But always, if you don't recognize your own humanity and the humanity of others, you are going to be in pain. And you may not understand why. And again, I'm not saying you have to recognize the humanity in others.

Scott: 54:37

What I am saying is if you hurt, if you personally are in emotional pain, one of the things to look at as you try to unpack that, if you choose to unpack that, if you don't want to be in pain anymore, is where are you on the whole question of humanity and recognizing humanity?

Shawn: 55:00

Yeah. I think that's a pretty, pretty powerful sort of, like, potential place to stop and leave people with that question even. Well, you know, because really, that's what it comes down to is is you have to be willing to practice what you're preaching. And you have to be consistent. And consistency matters, because consistency is the litmus test for whether or not your opinions are sincere.

Shawn: 55:29

Because if you're willing to apply the math to your own actions, then that's a credible, you know, that's at least a consistent principle to hold. If you're unwilling to apply the same math because it somehow compromises you in your estimation, then you don't really believe in the principle. You know what I mean? You know?

Scott: 55:51

What I'm hearing you say when you say consistency is reciprocity. Is that what

Shawn: 55:56

Yeah. You Yeah.

Scott: 55:59

Because I just I love this concept of of growth too, you know, when you get different facts, when you get better facts, when you understand the facts better, when you notice things. Yeah, your opinions are definitely going to change. You know, the opinion that that grandfather Scott Olsen has is different than, you know, new dad Scott Olsen had. And it's the same for you. And it's the same for everybody, but reciprocity.

Scott: 56:31

You know, it's the I remember, I don't remember the book, but it was a science fiction book. And, you know, it's the denizens of one planet and the alien invaders coming in. And what one group said to the other was, What would you do if you were us? What would you do if you were us? And it's an interesting question, but in some ways it's not a useful question, because why?

Scott: 56:59

Because you're not us.

Shawn: 57:01

Right.

Scott: 57:02

You know, it's the golden rule, treat people the way you want to be treated. The platinum rule, treat people the way they want to be treated. But you know, what's the next rule when you struggle with, you know, treating a person in the way that they wanna be treated that is inconsistent with your own values as a human? What do you do then? Well, I think we know the answer to that question right here on the 2 Parachutes Podcast.

Scott: 57:28

You engage in the hard work of interacting, and it is hard. But it is wonderful. Wonderful, too. Yeah. So Thank you, Jimothy, for a wonderful Yeah.

Shawn: 57:44

Jimothy is the way. Like, again, I'll close with that. In a world of humans, be a Jimothy. He's he's just the best.

Scott: 57:55

That is a that is a great last word, Thank you as always for a great hour, and everybody go out and notice things.

Shawn: 58:04

Absolutely.