Episode 16: Pride

There are many aspects to pride, how it develops, how it affects and impacts our behaviors and beliefs. JD and Mordecai examine the effects of pride on their own lives and perspectives.

Timestamps:
0:45-2:19       How Pride Develops 
02:19-7:20    Pride and The Ego
7:20-12:21    Pride and Praising 
12:21-17:47  Humility      
17:47- 27:17 Perspective 
27:17- 32:09 Pride and Beliefs
32:09-43:13  Pride and God

Transcript

Mordecai Rosenberg: 0:00

JD, I'm very proud to be coming to this podcast this week. Are you feeling proud? It's a loaded question.

JD Stettin: 0:12

Yeah, I was gonna say I think I think the answer is, is gotta be yes. I, you know, I am actually I am proud that we are doing this that we've kept up with this pretty much every single week for what is it three months? So I guess Yeah, I do feel I do feel pride in that.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 0:34

Well, I hate to break it to you. That means you're losing the spiritual war.

JD Stettin: 0:42

Maybe man? So probably something I don't know.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 0:45

Yeah, exactly. So this week, we're gonna start talking about pride. And it's a little confusing to me, to be honest, because it says a pride is considered a negative emotion here. It leads to ignorance. And it's a block of spiritual development. But when we're when you're growing up, or if you're a parent, let's you know, your first day would tell you. First you would, you know, you thought that was the right thing to say to your kid would be like, Oh, I'm so proud of you. And they did something. And then at some point, it became well, no, you shouldn't tell him that. You're proud of them, you should teach them to learn to be proud of themselves. So you should say, oh, Aren't you proud of yourself that you accomplish that? But you know, I mean, I remember as a kid, right? I mean, like, what's better to hear from a parent? Like, what do you what else do you want? Other than for your parents who say, Oh, I'm proud of you. So, and that feels really good and wholesome. But here, they're saying that pride is negative. So it's certainly like, I mean, right to someone who's proud is too proud, right? I mean, that would have a negative connotation. So I just saw I'm struggling with the line of like, well, what is it good to be proud of yourself? Like, should I be should i Is it if I'm proud of that we've made that we've that we're doing this podcast, like, is that bad? Like, what's the you know? I don't know. I'm having I'm struggling with what the line is.

JD Stettin: 2:19

Yeah. Yeah, this does feel interesting, or like we're getting to a place on the on the Hawkins spectrum, where you can almost feel the gears shifting. Right, right. Like we started off in shame and guilt and depression and sadness, and sorrow and anger or like, moving into pride and then you know, we're gonna get to courage, spoiler alert and things like this. So it almost feels I think, his language or his wording on this came off a little strong, because easy to look at it and think, oh, pride, like we made it into Happy Camp, you know, into into lala land and he's like, not not so fast. And not that pride is necessarily so bad. And I say that in scare quotes. Because, you know, as I think we've been reiterated throughout, any of these states are bad. They're just states that allow you to open up and experience more in the states that kind of lock you in and close you up a bit. So I don't think pride is bad, but but I think he is raising or he sounding an alarm with the cautionary pride that hey, you might say we to your point more than we might have been trained up or brought up like pride is good pride of authorship, pride in your work pride in your identity, pride in your habits, and Harkins saying, a hold up, there's actually a lot here in pride that I think can be very limiting. And, and that's an interesting place to kind of, dive in and, and explore because like you said, I think in our cultures, pride seems to be celebrated. Right? We're told we shouldn't be be proud of how you look and be proud of how you dress. You're proud of what you do be proud of your work product. You want to live a life you can be proud of. When you look back, you want to be proud and we talk about like you said pride in your children that they you know, did it didn't turn out a certain way. And so it's interesting to have that called into question and taken to task fairly sternly, this seems to me in this in this chapter by Hawkins so yeah, my initial response to that is just, I'm with you. It seems like he really comes out swinging. Swinging at Pride. And I think to me what when I when I read or reread this, thinking about it. You know, aspects of it seem like there may be good or strong or positive or innocuous. But the more I've read and listened to this chapter and felt into this, I think, I think there's a way in which pride how to say this, like pride feels so directly keyed in to ego. in the sense that I think of that Anthony de Mello line where he talks about people would would tell him, Oh, wow, your retreat center is so beautiful. It has the most beautiful trees in India. And he's like, I didn't plant these trees. I just happen to live here. It's not my like, I'm glad you like things. But just because I'm Indians, it doesn't mean I have any kind of there's no propriety around these trees there. They're not somehow mind. Pride to me, I think where it can be pernicious or where Hawkins maybe it's cautioning us is it's an overblown sense of self and accomplishment and maybe agency. Like being proud, let's say, of the businesses we've built, it's like, oh, yeah, I did such a great job with Carnegie capital. And I had no background in this and my partner and I bootstrapped it from from from scratch. And here we are this successful business. There's something about that, that, you know, it's like, it kind of reminds you that that line and the cautionary line in the Bible, (Hebrew) right with my own strength and the whatever force of my hand, have I brought myself this valor, that there's a little bit of a reality check there again, that I actually like, knit my own bones, do I beat my own heart? Am I the one who gave me the brain that I had, and the, you know, culture and society to which I was born, I didn't actually do any of those things, identifying with them, and identifying with that, like achievement feels a little bit ignoring the kind of just like luck and Grace factor in our life.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 7:20

Right. Yeah, I guess it is kind of identifying with something external to you. You know, one of the questions that I asked was, you know, so again, like, then parenting, it continues to evolve. And they say, Well, okay, well don't praise, accomplishment, praise Effort. You know, you want to receive and have grit. So you say, Oh, well, you tried so hard, you did your best, right. That's what should be praised. But again, that is pride. In a certain respect, really? It does. And I guess like, the question is, do you want to be proud? Or do you want to be happy? Because whatever, you when you're proud of something, I feel like you are putting something up on a pedestal. Right, that now can be knocked down. I remember Elon Musk a couple years ago, yeah, he decided he announced that he was going to be selling all of his properties. He didn't want to own anything. And his line was, well, because it's just another it's just another attack vector. Right? And I didn't really know what that meant. Like, what does that mean? Like, it's an attack vector. It's like what I the way I understood it was that people can now just like the media can say, Oh, look at all these things that you have. But it's also getting a sense of self worth from your belongings. Then if you don't have those belongings anymore, then you feel a loss, right? You feel a certain amount of like humiliation from like, you know, if you if you live in a big mansion, and then you go to like, a very nice house, or you feel like oh my gosh, I don't live in you know, a mansion anymore, right? If you have a, whatever, you know, you go from driving a Porsche to driving a Chevy. It's like, Well, I'm not I don't have that anymore. So even Effort, Right, let's say there's some days that you are really motivated and you put in a lot of effort and then there's some things that you're just tired and you just don't have the energy to do anything. So on those days where you're tired and you don't do anything and you just give your your body permission to rest. Do you not want to feel happy with yourself because you didn't drive yourself to the bone? I don't think so.

JD Stettin: 9:29

Yeah, I feel like that's such a great questions to beautiful framing and it also makes me think that you know, nothing exists in a vacuum or by itself and there's a way in which I think if you have pride, it means correspondingly that their shame like if you to your point if if you raise your kids like oh you should be proud of what let's just say it kind of parochial example you know, you should be proud when you do well in school. The Ergo when you don't do well in school, you shouldn't be ashamed I mean, it does sort of set that up implicitly. If you're if you should be proud of accomplishments or efforts and to your point, the day that you were just like, you know, I'm just gonna rest or I don't feel like work today, you should be ashamed of yourself. Right? So by propping up pride, we are also propping up shame in a way that we were talking, I think the other week about desire, right? What's wrong with desire. And again, nothing's wrong with any of these things. I feel like I say that, for my own benefit as much as anyone elses. They're just features of the human, the human the emotional ecosystem, but, but at the same time, putting a lot of stock in desire. Similarly, makes you feel empty when you don't get the things you want. And putting a lot of stock and pride I think, calls for feelings of shame. When you realize or think like, oh, I don't know that I can be proud of this, or this wasn't a proud, a proud moment. And, and a theme that I think has also come up for us as we explore these is, there's a way in which, again, pride and putting a lot of stock in it. These are things that sometimes can be at odds with, with what is right, like, what is the reality is, let's say I screwed up at work. And now, you know, I don't feel very proud. Or rather, I did something rather very watchful, very proud of it. And it's like, oh, yeah, I'm so good. I did so good. I did so much. It's sort of like, again, Did Did I did I do like, Who is this? I? That's so proud. That's doing so much. And what, what did he do like? Like, maybe another way of saying this is, instead of pride in some of these circumstances, what if we tried to cultivate more gratitude? Let's say when your kid does well at school or gets praised or like, oh, wow, that's really great. So how wonderful how grateful, am I that my brain and behavior pattern resulted in like learning well, and all these nice things happen? Like, oh, how pleasant, and instead of like, ooh, look how good I did.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 12:21

Yeah, it's interesting. I was looking up last night, in preparation, that humility is a good thing. Humiliation is a bad thing. It's just kind of funny, like humiliation is to make someone feel humility. But yet, humiliation is a bad thing. One of the definitions I saw was to cause a painful loss of pride, self respect, or dignity. So the definition of humiliation is to cause a loss of pride. Which is ties into exactly what you're saying that that if you when you feel pride, you have an attack vector for humiliation, you know, and that's when you feel humiliated. You actually don't necessarily feel I don't think it's the same thing as feeling humble. So yeah, I think it sets you up for that potential loss and source of, you know, unhappiness and anger and grief and fear and all that stuff.

JD Stettin: 13:19

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting humility and humiliation. I don't think I've ever made that connection. Although hearing and now it seems fairly, fairly obvious, in, in a way, and again, how interesting that when one adopts it oneself, we think of it as this like, lovely, healthy, positive thing. And when it is forced upon someone, it feels really devastating. In the absence of pride. Yeah, it's, yeah, don't even say it, like be proud of oneself. I feel like that's even in a lot of like therapy and healing modalities, like pride in oneself, to your point, pride of efforts or even, even if we want to understand the efforts more loosely, like, hey, being proud of being true to yourself. And then the example before if that means like, lounging around or not doing your work, because that's what your body your system needed. The pride of, of like, oh, I listened to my body or I did the, you know, there's a way in which it's not about, you know, is that a bad thing? Does that feel feel bad to be proud of that? And, again, maybe, maybe it's not so much that pride is bad so much as noticing it come up and trying to understand like, Hmm, what what is what is the pride for, you know, is it in ego with pride? Is it a rigid pride? Is it a pleasure? And I think also with a lot of these emotion and emotion states, there exists the opportunity through being with them hanging out, to let them expand. And, and again, part of letting go being with this is feeling like Okay, so maybe example I gave in a therapeutic sense. So for people who their whole lives, I'll speak from my own experience. So someone who for his whole life has thought that doing things and achieving and accomplishing and staying on top and in charge was really important and good and needed to be done around the clock for me leaning into being a little less. So coming on down a little bit letting go more not being as in control feels like a direction I'm exploring and interested in. And there are moments when I when I feel like I have the opportunity to like grab the reins and pull or further slack in my grip. And recently I've been trying to slack in my grip a bit more. And there is a bit of a pride there of like, Hey, I'm you know, I'm doing this new thing, I'm experimenting with this underutilized skill set, and it feels like a part of my healing and understanding journey and like, hey, that feels good. And so maybe noticing that being like, Ah, okay, there's a part of me that feels proud. And just being being with that, and I think it's not again, it's not that we're trying to banish these emotions, it's that maybe by being with the pride and noticing, okay, there's still a part of me that wants that desires, right outcomes and desire certain behaviors and has an image of who I am and my space itself and an image of healing. And maybe there's a bit of a linear path and progress there. And the more I can deal with that, hopefully in being with that, and recognizing, like, oh, yeah, I'm being proud about this, that can maybe melt away, I can let go of it. And that'll allow me to feel whatever's next on our color wheel. And, and kind of again, just kind of unlocking these channels, maybe thinking about them in a way of like of like chakras. And I don't know very much about this, but that not that the higher chakras are necessarily good and the lower chakras are bad. It's maybe sometimes that it's hard to access your upper chakras, your higher chakras if your loved ones are blocked. So something proud of necessarily bad although I think and I think per your notes, we might transition to this soon, you know, the, the dangers inherent in being stuck in pride, but I think like all of these emotions, some of these lower emotions being stuck on them not being able to let go can bring up some really toxic knock on effects. But the feeling itself, if we can just be with it, you recognize Oh, yeah, I'm exhibiting pride here. You can let go. That just opens us up to you know, what comes next. The courage to love.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 17:47

Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's, it's just one of those weather weather patterns, right? We shouldn't feel shame about our pride. That would be ironic. I had a weird thought about a potential like exercise that that I had, I had this this morning, and I'll run it by you and see if I'll see if it comes out the way I imagined it in my head. But it's about I feel like there is like my wife and I joke about like, she's, you know, she always say like, oh, my gosh, like, I would love to just be in her head for about a day, but for like, a few minutes just to see, like, what, what it's like, and she's like, you can handle it. You know, it's to be right. And I feel like we all have that. That feeling right that that, you know, if I said like to invite someone else into their head and said, Oh my gosh, you got to experience this. Like, this is awesome. I feel like most people would say like, no, no, like, you have no idea. Like, I know you think everything looks cool. You have no idea what it's like being inside my head. Yeah, it's just it's a Looney Tunes, Carnival of, you know, the most demented things and you just don't You don't you don't want to be there. Right. So first, what do you agree with that? That like, I don't think people in general would feel would want to invite someone else into their own head. Do you agree with that?

JD Stettin: 19:10

That people wouldn't invite--

Mordecai Rosenberg: 19:13

Like you wouldn't want someone else to be inside your head. You feel like your people feel like you don't like you don't want to see that. It's it's a scary place. Or it's, you know, it's I don't know. I mean, do you think that--

JD Stettin: 19:32

That's an interesting thought. I mean, there's a part of me that wants to say like, what any of us want more than to feel like seen and heard in a certain way, right? For our especially with our close loved ones, and we don't necessarily want to broadcast it on television, but like, for our loved ones to really like, get us and really get our pain and our fear and be able to hold that and see the dark inner beauty that some maybe we only get to see your tap into sometimes. So there's a part of me that feels that really resonates with that. And then I guess there's a part of me it's your point is also like, I don't want anyone to know what all my crazy, you know, insecurities and deep dark weird thoughts and proclivities are. So I feel, I feel I feel like strongly on both sides of this like truly ambivalent.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 20:30

Yeah, it's like, I want I want to feel known. I just want to feel that no. Right. So now, all right, so now let's pretend for a second that you could go into someone else's head, right? You could just it's almost like there. There are so many movies like like this where it would that just did it with someone. Yeah, we're bodies switching places like the like the the judge Reynolds was in it with maybe with, I forget who who was in but you know, like a switch or you change change bodies with someone else. But that's still they have their brains. But imagine you're able to, like, step into my mind. Right actually step in and now it's like, you're able to see like, oh, wow, like, these are more these thoughts like this is what more more are you seeing? You know, this is his hand like, like, how does that feel? Like raise my hand does it feel the same way that I know, it feels for me to raise my hand like, you know, right? You know, and then to like, notice, Oh, wow. He's like, actually nervous about catching this flight later today. Like, huh, that's interesting. Like, yeah, I have that feeling also like that feeling of like stress, like, that's so familiar to me. It would be an interesting thing, right to be able to step into someone else's head and not just inhabit their bodies to actually have it their minds and feel their their thoughts and emotions, and have their memories, you know. Now imagine, you know what we're talking about pride. You said at the beginning that pride is about like, agency. I think it's also about ownership. Right? There's this idea that I am me, right that this body is mine, you know, if I if I if I am you know, if I if I buy a nice piece of clothing, and I look good, like my clothes and my body in my face, that looks good. But if you could imagine for a second that you are actually someone else that's just stepped into your own mind, for a look around. Now, all of a sudden, if I see that, if I'm feeling Oh, wow. Like, like Marty's really getting frustrated about about that. It's like, Wow, that's so interesting. Oh, he goes outside, I guess that's his car. Right? There's a car there that you drive. So I guess that's his car. But not that it's I don't know if any of this if all this sounds like nonsense, or if it resonates, but I thought that in terms of like pride, if you were able to look at your body is just, I think part of the Enlightenment destination, supposedly, is recognizing that like you're not your body, right? And you're just love or energy, and everything is one and all that. Right? So then and then you just you're like Byron, Katie talks about how she never makes a decision. She just watches her body make the decision and knows it has a wisdom and it knows what to do. So there's a distance that's created from it. And she doesn't feel pride in her body. It's she just watches it. So that so that exercise of pretending like you're a guest in your own head. I wonder if that is a useful exercise. And also if it helps us look at really all of our feelings and emotions. But you're that pride of ownership a little differently. Reactions. Yeah.

JD Stettin: 23:57

In a way it feels like almost like a meditation modality of sort of, you know, watching the watcher, right, what what would it be like to really like, see one's oneself. I talked about this a lot in behavioral econ, I forget what the name of the bias is. But the bias that most humans, excuse me exhibit is when it comes to, you know, actions that seem like pleasant or unfavorable outcomes. When we think of ourselves, we think like, oh, well, of course, I did that. And that's, you know, I did it because of these things. And I always do the right thing when it comes to other people, we might think it's more of a fluke. And the reverse is true when it comes to like regrettable behaviors or outcomes we didn't want we would save ourselves. Well, that was a one off. You know, I was just tired that day. But when it comes to other people would say oh, yeah, John, always, you know, he's always late or he's usually later or Miss Jones. keeps the ball. And then there is this way in which the agency and the ownership, we take over our own experience. And again, it feels like very much a feature of human cognition, but also feels in this way, like Byron Katie's discussing some of these other ideas you mentioned, it feels like it's an illusion. Right that we there is this illusion of ownership and agency of like, somehow, you know, JD, I am some like, separate automaton, and I can control what I do in a way that is different from the rest of the world around me, when maybe zoomed out, there's this perspective from which we're all just, you know, these small features of a much larger super living organism, entity, whatever we want to call it. And we are all kind of just doing whatever it is we're going to do. Because that is the nature of the universe as as it is, and, and that, and that's where I think, maybe in this way of like pride in you know, is it good? Is it bad? What is it? Pride does feel very linked to your point of possession to individualism in a way, and that's possibly, you know, at least in this framework, a bit of a false god? Right, a believing that we actually, you know, there is a JD to be proud of things. Yeah, it's like, well, sort of, it's like, I'm an already like, proud that the the squirrel proud that it just jumped from the tree and found was not an eight it like, I don't know, it's just doing what it does. Right, it was the graph proud that it grows. You know, I don't know, it sounds like JD proud for doing what JD is like, I couldn't be but it seems, it almost seems like not foolish, but kind of like an irrelevant than metric. When when we conceive of ourselves in the world in a certain way.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 27:18

I think that that's right. I mean, it's, again, with with these things, it's not that we have to defeat them, right, I think we can just be aware of them. I think another thing that that in effect of pride is that, in some ways, like it cuts you off from relationships from other people, you know, so let's say intellectual pride, right? Or religious pride. Let's say if I have this idea that like that, my idea is right, and yours is wrong, then how can I have a conversation with you? Right, how can I even entertain it? I don't, I guess this is private also. But I find that it's so interesting, like the political landscape now about how like, you have to toe the party line about everything, right? So if you're a conservative, like why can't I be a fiscal conservative, but still care about the environment? Or in maybe I can't even believe in global warming, you know, if you're a conservative, so what you'll have is right, so there will be a conversation now about, let's say, if I if I self identify as a conservative, and the topic comes up about global warming, or gun control, or abortion, or whatever, you know, I'm already convinced that my idea is right. And so I don't even have the ear to listen to someone else's opinion. And therefore, like, if I'm talking to someone, now, let's say that that person is your son, right? Your child, now, you've kind of cut off the ability to have a real, real open relationship, if you're still stuck on this idea of like, No, I'm right. And everyone else is wrong. What do you what do you think about that?

JD Stettin: 29:09

Yeah, I think, you know, that relates to to one of the note points you sent over for our discussion. Well, in this case, I think in the book, he talks about the dangers of religious pride, but the fields related to religion, we should talk about, because, because of I think the pride in the identity, and the SIRT the certainty and the foregone conclusion, the nature of it, and I think pride is concerned with being right. And it's hard, I think, to actually arrive at truth, or, or even if we don't believe in that, and it's hard to arrive at love or understanding or compassion, when there is pressure to be right And, and that feels particularly alive to me in the human the political examples you mentioned, where if if politics or if our leaders were really concerned with, you know, how can we bring understanding and love and quality of life to everyone, we would just have a completely different system. Maybe there wouldn't be a bipartisan system. I don't think for one, but people but pride is concerned with being right with being on the right side with again, it seems to your point also like identity, whether it's religion, politics, like people take pride in their I'm a staunch you know, insert madlibs here, Republican, conservative, Jew, Catholic, you know, Hindu whatever, this pride, I'm proud of being this way. That to me, feels very that there's a rigidity to that. Yes, there's a rigidity. There's a one sidedness. There's an ego. There's, you know, and I think that's where, leapfrogging from when you brought up politically to his point about the dangers of religious pride crusades, Inquisition cetera. Yeah, I think there's pride. Again, there's certainty. And there's a rigidity. And I think that's what's dangerous about that. Because even if you think you did the right thing, and you feel proud about it, there's a there's what if it wasn't the right, you know, like, what it wasn't right thing? Okay. So maybe you're proud because you closed this big deal or something? I don't know. Is that necessarily great for you for the environment for the workers for all the shareholders for the you know, HUD who ensured this loan that maybe it was fully leveraged in difficulty? I don't know. They're just there's so many things at stake, any given situation in our very interconnected and complex world to really hang out or hang on to pride? Yes, like, yeah, it feels limiting.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 32:10

Yeah. In the Talmud, in I think it's an getan, which is about divorces. It there's a section where it talks about why the temple was destroyed. And it says one of the things it says, because of the humility of Zaharia been of coulis the temple was destroyed. Right. So it wasn't been humility of this rabbi. And the introduction to it is it says ASHRAE a done the fatty Tamid is like, which is fortunate is the one who is always not fearful but aware. Like circumspect, is what I'd say. Right? You know, fortunate is one who's always circumspect. So the Talmud tells this story about how the I think it was the Roman emperor was tenuous relationship with the Jewish people in Israel. And there was one person who wanted to see the downfall of the Jewish people. So what they did is they said, he went to the Emperor Roman emperor and said, Look, send a sacrifice, send an animal to the, to their temple. And you'll see they won't bring it if it's from you. Right, so now, what does this guy guy do? He takes the animal right to the Empress, like, What are you talking about? Since the animal now this guy scratches the eye of the animal, because he knows that there's a law that any animal that brought into the temple needs to be perfect, it can't have any any, any wound or blemish on it. So and this is just a slight scratch, like on the retina or something. So they come to the animal, they come to the rabbis at the temple. And now there's a big debate. So they say, like, look, we have to bring this, this, this, this animal, because otherwise, like, we're gonna offend the Emperor of Rome, and he'll obliterate like, our temple. This guy, Rabbi is the husband of the coolest, says, Well, if we do that, then people are going to think that you're allowed to bring an animal that has a scratch in their eye. And that people will think that that's permitted. So we need to protect the law. And we can't bring this animal so that it's what happens. They don't bring the animal. The Roman Emperor gets pissed off, and comes in and steamrolls the entire temple. So that is, it's, it's it says because of the humility of of this Rabbi, I think really, it's like a really, it's the pride, right? They he thought that God cares more about that little about not bringing an animal with a little scratch in the eye, then the welfare of the of the entire Jewish nation. You know, and it's It's interesting that the tama gives us as an example of like no, because of that religious pride about these little detail of Jewish Law, the temple was destroyed. So I thought that was like, that's an example of, it's not like religious pride, like you have with with the crusades in the Inquisition where they actually killed people directly and crucified them. But that's also held out by the Talmud, as that pride resulted in the destruction of the temple. Is that interesting?

JD Stettin: 35:39

It's always interesting when, I don't know, I mean, everyone, I guess people interpret these Talmudic stories differently. But it's interesting to think that this like one seemingly small incident, right brought about the destruction of the temple. And it feels like maybe rather, I'll say this, my read of that is kind of an interesting, maybe take on just that interconnectedness. Like we were talking about before, like being proud of I was using an example and kind of a line of work that we do being proud of closing a certain deal or financing. But like, we don't actually know what knock on effect that has in the world. And and so you know, this Rabbi thinking he's being extra scrupulous by letter of a lot cetera, turns out, not only was he making the wrong decision, then but based on that, you know, God, or the universe force or whatever that brought about the destruction of the temple. So I think it's an interesting and potent reminder to have even things that seem like wow, I worked really hard. And I did this, and it seems so like, unassailably good, right, you just wrote a big check to the, you know, Red Cross for Ukraine relief or something. I mean, we just don't know how that's gonna turn out maybe the shipment of food that that your money funded was actually expired and made a lot of people sick, or whatever year, you know, you gave the Ukrainian resistance that the Russians found it and seized it and got more, who knows, right? It's just, again, it's not to say we shouldn't try to act out of love and do whatever it is we're doing. It's just this reminder, when we feel that pride, I think welling up noticing. That's pride, that's me thinking that I am somehow this independent act or an agent, and I have control and I know what's right. And I did something admirable III, you know, and, and I'm just noticing that notice that come on, noticing that, that spacesuit ego separate self really rising? Yeah. And again, I think if we can notice it, that helps keep it in check. If you don't notice it, or if we just let it run. That's where I think pride can be a really destructive and powerful force. And if we really buy into that, like I am, right, I know what's best. I do good things what what, you know, my ego self decides is important and my will shouldn't be done. That's dangerous. Being You know, I think that is a dangerous space. And I think he you know, he, it feels to me very right for Hawkins to raise red flags and sound the alarms around this one.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 38:37

Yeah, I have a good friend, Aaron Hargrove, who is, I guess, part of my like, spiritual seeking posse. But yeah, he says that, that, you know, when he prays, he asks God, he's like, show me where else I'm wrong. Right. And that's, I feel like that, that if we can take that mindset, right of as we notice ourselves, feeling pride. All these things are, it's like a radar system, right? And alert when you have that feeling of like, Oh, I feel pride, or I feel I'm judging someone that I think I'm right, or they're wrong, or I'm better than them or whatever. You know, it's like, oh, well, what are you? What's your belief there? Right? Oh, my belief is I am. That yeah, they're, they're talking about like other people and like, total BS, and I only talk about ideas and spirituality and all that. It's like, okay, and you think that makes you better than them? Right. If that's your belief, and then it's like, Well, okay, yeah, I guess. No, like, that. That'd be like ridiculous, right? So it's use it as as a as a little alarm, that sounds that tells us that we are wrong or feeling wrong, that we're wrong about something and then look at where we're wrong. And maybe that's a good exercise that we can take take with us.

JD Stettin: 39:59

Yeah, I think that's great and to use that pride of like, noticing when I feel private meetings that I think I'm right about something like almost by definition, and just I'm just Yeah, exactly checking in and questioning that or at least recognizing, okay, well, my belief in this case is that, you know, closing deals or doing things is somehow good or desirable. And that's, you know, and that I somehow did this. And I'm just checking in, and some of that may or may not resonate. And some of that may feel a little weak, or we're just less attached as we bring them into the kind of light of awareness and consciousness. And that's really, you know, wherever you are, is your path, as we think been talking about and noticing. And so if you're noticing pride, it's a great, okay, that that's my path through life in this moment is pride. What what assumptions are part of that? What is this feel like? And I think something as it relates to that, thinking back to your kind of Xserve proposal exercise of like imagining being in someone else's body. One of the interesting things or something that just jumped out at me was, how different the interoception itself might be, like, there's the sense of like, oh, you know, what is? What is Morty? If I'm imagining being in your head, what is Morty worried about? Or how does worry or anxiety or fear even manifest in his body, and your voice, it feels like to lift his head, like, we take for, I don't know, for granted or we, we assume in a lot of ways that our experience of things is the experience of things. Right? I mean, so often telling a friend Oh, man, I just had this new, whatever taco pizza, I don't know, you name it, you're gonna love it. It's so good. It's whatever it's like, I don't know, that's I mind tastebuds and my digestive system. It's so specific to my experience. Obviously, some people like have overlapping palates with others, but even the sense of these emotions we talk about, what's it like to feel proud or feel pride, I suspect we might have different embodied senses of that and or another way of saying that is similar. interoception might yield different emotional states. There might be a quickening in my stomach and like a fluttering feeling in my head. And I might interpret that as worry you might interpret that as pride you know, I don't know. Interesting. I think that's such Yeah, that to me feels like such another interesting angle on on that part of the experience that that those things are really do very human to human. That's just another interesting aspect of this is not only do we not know what's going on in each other's heads, we don't even really always know like, what does it mean, to jump in? Feel these things on a very, like biochemical feeling?

Mordecai Rosenberg: 43:13

Level? Yeah. Well, JD on that note, I'll leave you to go back to your Clark Kent of fighting fires, even as we know that the spiritual Superman law lies within.

JD Stettin: 43:32

That's right, I have to stop being totally perplexed and start doing some some solving but

Mordecai Rosenberg: 43:39

--you got to get back to clarity and pride.

JD Stettin: 43:45

That's right. Excuse me while I abandoned everything we just talked about. I'm learning and go back to being who I am. Yeah. pleasure as always. Yep. Stay perplexed and I will talk to you soon.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 43:58

Sounds good. Talk to you soon. JD.

JD Stettin: 44:01

Thanks, Mordy. Bye.