[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
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[00:00:21] Speaker A: There may be some out there that are religious. You have faith, you believe you are of whichever denomination that you follow and for whatever reason, might have been from childhood, might have been after the fact, born again.
But there are people out that share whichever religious beliefs. I was watching, I don't remember what it was something on YouTube and the topic, oh, it was about that flat earth nonsense and a lady was called in to talk about it and they were attacking her because she kept saying, allegedly there's something in the Bible that supports flat earth theory.
I didn't look because I wasn't going to because it was not of interest to me. And the reason it wasn't of interest to me is the same as what this lady said when she was called in, which was that when you have faith in whichever, such things don't matter anymore. I'm paraphrasing what she said. But effectively, when you have faith in whichever, you're not preoccupied with these things. These are worldly concerns. They are not born of faith. And so when you cite the Bible to justify your argument, you're basically saying nothing else really matters because the person that was attacking her was basically saying you believe in God, but yet your Bible, your Bible that you say you have faith in says that it's a flat earth. Again, I haven't seen this myself, but she's saying maybe it does, it doesn't matter because I believe in the God itself, the being.
And I get the question on occasion, not too frequently anymore, but certainly when I was younger. But I get the question on occasion about faith and religion and beliefs. And I've taken a different stance over time. I believe this is my belief. I believe everybody who wants to pick one specific religion is ultimately setting themselves up for failure. By which I mean if you say that you follow one specific religion, you might be surprised to understand that you probably follow multiple. A lot of religions have foundations in other religions or basis in other religions or their variations on a theme. There are some that are completely different in the way they present and the way that you follow. You know, the idea of congregation is not uniform across religions.
I was interested and fascinated to find just how much I have, I'll say an alignment to Amish faith. Amish faith. For those that don't know, Amish faith is Ultimately a form of, let's say, traditionalist Christianity. When I say traditionalist Christianity, I'm trying to toe the line here because I'm not purposely trying to offend people. But I want you to understand why I say this is kind of where I lean mentally.
If I were to be one, which I'm not, but if I were, I lean Amish. The Amish are by the book. When I say by the book, it's they. They will cite specific scripture and say, because of this, that's what we do.
Things like being photographed. It actually is in the Bible cited about not being photographed because it's seen as a form of, you know, ego. It's seen as putting yourself out there that you're not supposed to be, you know, prideful. It's considered an invasion of privacy. And they cited in this case Exodus 20:4, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water underneath the earth. Meaning that's the King James version, by the way. Meaning that photograph in general, not even of yourself, but photographs in general that you're not supposed to take these. You're not supposed to take photos, you're not supposed to memorialized. Well, if you think about, let's say, non traditional Christianity, as in standard Christianity, that is not by the book, Bible following, that's it. It's been a standard for countless centuries. The idea of taking photos, you, if you go back and check your ancestry, they were taking photos. And I'm sure that the vast majority of them would consider themselves devout Christians, but yet this was one thing that they would not follow. The idea if you go on a trip somewhere that you're not supposed to take photos of the trip, and obviously you're not supposed to put yourself out there or do those things.
Amish also are. They do not use electricity, they do not use technology, they do not do television, they don't serve in the military and in youth. So when their kids are coming up, they don't send their kids to higher education. They stop at basically middle school.
And the reason was ironic. They believe that going any further is, you know, you're basically putting yourself worldly. You're not staying true to yourself by doing this.
They're very, I don't want to say isolationists, but they're essentially isolationists. And fundamentally it's because in their mind, the outside culture, so outside of their scope, is morally polluting. Well, we all know that's True, Yes.
The promotion of pride and greed. These are things spoken about in the Bible of things to avoid Sodom and Gomorrah. Right. These are standard things we've all heard at some point. The Amish practice it arguably to a T. They're not. They don't flex on it. And I was very impressed with how fervent that they do.
They believe that, you know, you hear Christians will say, you know, God will judge, only God can judge me, etc. But you also see them do things that you know would not be accepted. If we follow the spirit of what the Bible says, no pun intended. Whereas the Amish straight say in their own, if you were to speak to one, they would tell you, no, we believe you will be judged on how you follow church rules. Not just a physical building, but the rules that are governing in this religion that they have.
And if you put yourself out there, if you expose yourself to those outside of this sphere of influence, it makes it harder for you to follow those rules. In other words, part of the reason that people, let's say, fall off the wagon, to use the term, is because you're being improperly influenced by outside factors that are causing you to slip off. Well, there are variations of this in the devout Christianity. The idea that you should be very studious with who you befriend. Right. Stay away from these sinful things, obviously. But we know that most, I would argue my statement, my show, most that are devout Christians stumble. It's what they do, whether that's how they raise their kids, whether that's alcohol, whether that's some sort of drugs, whether that's cigarettes, whether that's bars. I could go down the list.
But they make the statement, but they don't follow through. There are people who started in the church, devout Christians, who would have been described as devout, as you could find. And they fell off. And a lot of that came from military duty. A lot of that came from where they lived, states, cities, crime, all these external factors, that's what the Amish basically are saying. The more you expose yourself and your kids to a lesser extent to these external factors, the greater the risk that you fall off the wagon and you fall short of what you're expected to do once God judges you. And again, I'm paraphrasing, these are not direct statements. I'm paraphrasing. I'm describing this thought process. Because if you consider yourself a devout Christian, these are things that you're like, well, yeah, obviously, but let's be honest, most don't Follow it to that letter of the T. They don't follow it as strict as the Amish do. And some actually even get offended when called out that they don't.
They cite an actual verse, and I remember this one.
Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the lord. This is Second Corinthians 6:17, King James. I remember that. But it's so wide open in interpretation when you hear it. But it's very clear as to what the intent is behind what that says. Now, we all know that. I would argue almost all, not all, but almost all devout Christians follow the polar opposite of what that says.
The whole idea of congregation is by its very spirit. You obviously are coming together with people who should share the faith. But at the same time, you also are more willing to congregate with others because you want to go out and meet other people, because you want them to hear the word of God. The whole messaging was around embracing outsiders, not pushing them away. The Amish aren't rude. They're not rudely pushing away. They simply say, we're going to stay our own thing and we're not going to put ourselves out there because if we do that, it may cause us to fall to temptation, which violates the very spirit of our religion. And we thus don't want to do that. We don't even want to put ourselves in that situation. I found that inspirational.
They believe dark clothing, which. Anybody who listens that may know me understands the value of dark clothing. That has always been. That's inexplicable. But they believe dark clothing itself.
If you wear clothing that is not dark clothing, that is patterned clothing that is brightish, that it attracts attention. Which is true.
And there are times when I might want to do that myself because I'm obviously not Amish. So for mine, I may want to do that, but it is the exception to the rule. The vast majority of my clothing is dark clothing. Non patterned, very simple, basic things, as in right now, dark blue, simple gray, nothing fancy. This is because there's. I'm not trying to impress anybody. I'm just trying to go about my own business. And I'm cool with this.
The dark coloring and the desire not to stand out comes from their humility. They don't want to be perceived as anything other than who they are. This is in addition to them not putting themselves in circles where they might be subject to falling off the wagon, as it were.
I was going through, in my mind, why exactly is this, why exactly is this such an exception to the Rule. Why is it that there is no the by and large of religion in general, but mostly Christianity, but the by and large of religion in general? I would say Muslims to some degree, but even they slip at times.
Taoists to some degree. I think Taoists are much closer, certainly I think Buddhists can be, but they slip at times, you know, all the ones. There's kind of this, I don't want to say them against us, but there's kind of this segment of the crowd that this is really what we believe it should have been and should have stayed. That is in contrast to the advancement of society, despite the fact that a lot of the things that they have shunned for centuries are things that were taken standard, taken for granted for those same centuries.
Again, photography, photography has always been a thing. And you can't archive your history, you cannot do encyclopedias, you can't learn, you can't develop, you can't pass down, you can't really do anything legacy wise without something so simple as imagery, for example.
But the Amish don't care about it. They don't. They literally don't care. To them, we're here, we're in the now. We create families, we work the farms, we do communicate, but it is face to face. There is no technology getting in the way. There's no cars, we're in wagons. We get around, we manage.
And we're not really concerned with trying to be anything other than we are.
And they persist.
Some might think, what is purpose? What exactly is purpose in life? His purpose to be a celebrity is purpose. To be like George Foreman who just passed, may he rest in peace, is purpose. To be someone like that, who starts as a bully in school, gets into boxing, goes on a tear, literally knocking people out left and right.
Loses to Muhammad Ali, the greatest at the time, still goes on a terror, still a quality fighter. Eventually gets beat, retires for a minute, creates the George Foreman Grill, which becomes a household name for a very long time.
Most people had one.
Is a shrewd businessman, is a pastor in the church, comes back to boxing, becomes a champion, the oldest at the time, and continues being a businessman. He's doing commentary, he's doing all sorts of things that you. It's like the American dream.
But everything that he did, Mr. Foreman, everything he did was completely counter to the lifestyle that an Amish would do.
And then one has to really reflect, well, which life would you want? Would you want to live the life that the Amish put forward, which is true to the spirit of the religion that you practice, but all you ever will be is what you are now. You're. You're not supposed to go above and beyond your own limits. You're not supposed to be a standout. You're not supposed to be heralded, you're not supposed to be worshiped. You're not supposed to be photographed. You're not supposed to be on video. You're not supposed to be texting, you're not supposed to be emailing. You're not supposed to do anything. Just be. Just exist. And you exist to be judged.
And you exist to support how you are judged later and others and how they're going to be judged later. That's it. That's life. Or do you strive to be like a George Foreman? Or do you strive to be like some celebrity of status?
Do you strive to be more, greater, larger than life? There are people in the past who would tell you if they had to do it over again, they wouldn't want to be celebrities. They regretted it. There's child abuse, all in the Catholic churches. There's child abusion. Hollywood, there's all sorts of crazy things that. Drugs, right? So many die from drugs. Prince, you know, Winehouse. There's random sketchy business that goes on. The Disney fiasco, for example.
So they at the time say, that's what I want. I want that.
And then after they get it, they realize it wasn't that good to begin with because there were things they did not know and nobody was there to protect them. On the other side, on the Amish side. And I'm using them as an example, but not just them on the Amish side, they just exist as who they are and they serve their master only in that. And they do not need to stand out. And they live simple lives.
I was even envious, and this is petty, but I'm telling the truth here. I was even envious about the whole bonnets, the prayer head pieces that the women wear. So simple in concept. Now, I believe there's a little bit of deviation in how this is practiced, but the idea is if they wear a white bonnet, they're married. If they wear a black bonnet, they're single and available. It's kind of both.
So simple, right? And when you're outside of it, it's a guessing game. There's no transparency, there's no honesty about it.
It's a guessing game. It's all gambling.
Whereas there, in the purest of societies, they want it clear who's already married with someone and who's not. Even if the One that's not has children. There's still that transparency that you cannot replace. Like there's value in that. There's value in being able to transparently, no. And then on the men's side, it's I believe it's a bead necklace of some sort that distinguishes ones that are married versus not full transparency. You can say, well, wedding ring, wedding band. We all know not everybody is honest about their marital status or their dating status or any of these things. And in a lot of cases, the reason they're not honest is because they're not satisfied. As I gave on a past episode about, you got married and you didn't really understand what you were getting into. And then irreconcilable differences happen. And that's because you didn't know what to expect. Well, if you're sharing the same belief system as with again what the Amish promote, obviously you're still going to have those situations where things don't work out, but it's arguably significantly less than those that are. The so called quote, English, English in their vernacular are ones that are not Amish. It's everybody else, the rest, you know, me, you. And so I'm not selling you one way or the other. I'm challenging you to think about what really is the dream. Is the dream to be somebody who did everything, which is what George Foreman did, he did everything. Muhammad Ali, he did everything. Prince, he did everything.
These people did everything. They reached that top, they reached that pinnacle. Regardless what you think of them as people, they did everything. Muhammad Ali served in the military, he had businesses, he boxed, he made a lot of money, he did xyz.
Do you want to be everything to everybody or do you want to just be yourself? And within yourself you accept you'll be judged and you behave as if you're going to be judged. With the idea being that you want to be judged positive. You follow the edicts of the Bible that you should be reading, right?
Explicitly. And it's not just a book and it's not just words and it's not just something you hear told to you in a church.
It's part of who you are, which one of those is the way you want to be. And that is the reason, the single reason that question I'm challenging is the single reason when asked, I don't follow any one religion because I understand there's blend, right? You take bits and pieces from multiple different thought processes and you turn it into your own. That's why I refer to it as the religion of self because you have to kind of create your own. That works for you and it may not work for other people. And you accept that. And the ramifications of that decision, that doesn't mean. And this was a story Foreman told as I wrap up about his chats with Muhammad Ali before he passed. Was obviously Ali. I believe he was Muslim. I believe.
Or Islam, rather Islam. And of course, you know, Forman's Christianity. And they.
You. You can't get to more diametrically opposed mindsets. The. The thought process is different, the approach is different and everything is different. But he said the common ground that they met in the middle. Ultimately there's good people and there's bad people. And you can embrace both if you want. There's nothing wrong with that. You just have to recognize there's good people and bad people. And it doesn't matter what your religious belief is. Simply that there's good people and bad people. I do think that's a bit oversimplifying. But I took pieces of that thought process and said it's a little bit different than that.
It's more that there are people that think and people that don't. There's people that feel and people that don't. There's people that simply go, they just do. There is no motivation behind their actions. So there's this differing opinion from people about how they should act and how they should behave and how they should think and how they should work and how they should feel, etc. For me, I can flip a switch and say I will think differently as long as somebody can change my mind, which is not easy. That rhymes. I can feel different long as somebody can put the work in, which is difficult. And I understand. I purposely made it so now it's perceptive. I perceive ultimately everybody around me is extremely emotional. That's just I, it's. I can sense it without even talking to people. I can sense it. I can sense it in their body language. I can sense it in how fast they walk. I can sense it in how they carry things. I can sense it in how they dress. I just dealt with this with a contractor where I could tell he had energy. He had a lot of energy that I knew he was going to try to throw my way in his excitement for the work to be done. I appreciate it, but it's not what I need. I need just a down to earth bottom line. This is what it is. Cost. I'll write you a check if I see that the cost makes sense and we move on. Which the Person that's going to be doing the gutters. That's how he was. He came out, he took a look at it. He was very low energy. He wasn't boring, but he was low energy. Is right on my wavelength. Met him in the middle. I said, give me a quote. He gave me a quote. He even said, which I love to hear. I don't even take money from you till the work's done. Because I want to make sure you're satisfied with it. Great.
That working with somebody, getting along with people is never good. You're never going to get along with everybody. That's a fallacy, I believe, of many people. They don't get. You're never going to get along with everybody, nor should you try. You're never going to be on the same wavelength as everybody, nor should you try.
You have to choose what you're going to be, how you're going to be, how you're going to behave. And that has nothing to do really with any one religion. It's simply a way you choose to be because of what you expect, not what you want, what you expect from people. And you take that expectation and you share it in kind.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is part of it, but not all of it. If you expect to be treated with respect, then you demand it.
By demanding it, you don't need to come at them necessarily any different than you would come at somebody else that you assume already has that respect. You are consistent in the behaviors. Well, that is less about religion and more about yourself. That's why it's religion of self. You choose how you're going to present yourself to other people.
And you choose how you're going to behave in your daily life and daily walks. I made the choice.
Not having any sort of electronics around me is an unacceptable decision.
Primarily because I understand I am not physically capable of doing the type of labor that the Amish do readily. I'm simply not. I'm not at that point anymore. I physically am not able to do it anymore. When I was physically able to do it, I didn't fully embrace that culture. It was never presented in any form that I could have consumed properly. And it's likely I wouldn't have been accepted there anyway.
So although there's these edicts and I understand it, I also had to accept. I'm not gonna be able to follow it as solid as they do. But I can from a distance, respect it and mind it. And take bits and pieces of inspiration from what they do. And try to use it and blend it into my own ball of yarn, that is myself, and then turn that into something that ideally would. Would inspire other people, not that they should be me, but simply they can take bits and pieces of what I present and integrate it into their own. The main thing I can arguably say is part of that inspiration that I get as feedback on a consistent basis. People, even people that are not natively English speaking, speak highly of the way that I speak because I speak intelligibly, to the point it's not expected. Similar to the way Chris Eubanks speaks, but not necessarily as posh. But I have that same messaging. And it's a messaging that commands, I want you to listen. Whether you listen or not. I'm not going to force it. I'm going to put it out there and people will hear or they won't. And the beauty is it'll continue to be out there even if I'm not here to continue putting it out. So it may be people find it long after I'm gone. And that's to me, more thrilling and more exciting and more my speed than complete isolation. That's complete isolation. Sounds great, it truly does. But I also understand if you fully isolate from this is my personal. If you fully isolate, there's a lot of valuable knowledge and experience and inspiration that is lost generation by generation. And I would rather contribute what little I can do my little part versus isolate it and it's lost. That's why I like to mentor people in the workplace, because I want to have that knowledge not be lost.
Things are easy now for me. Not physically, but mentally. They're easy. They're easy to communicate, they're easy to explain, they're easy to understand. My memory shot. But everything else, it's easy. It's easy for me to put these things out. I want it to be easy for more people. Obviously, our education system's in the trash, but within what I can do, that's what I share and that's my contribution. And once again, I'm inspired. That at least part of what I do and who I am and how I present has inklings in the simplicity of the Amish. Even though I have the drive and the passion of someone like a George Foreman and taking the two and blending them together into a Persona that I can hopefully pay forward, that's where I get my excitement from.
Oh.
