Speaker 0 (0s): Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the true life podcast. We are here with our friend, an amazing scholar, an amazing man. Who's wrote an amazing book called the seven deadly sins. And we are working our way through them today. We are on envy, which I gotta, I gotta tell you, Dr. Solomon, as I've read through these sins and we speak with them, I feel like I live these sins every week because I'm studying them, I'm reading them and I'm more aware of them. And this is kind of a tough one. It's one hit home for me.

It's a,

Speaker 1 (34s): Yeah, it makes, it makes you a little bit more self-conscious about things.

Speaker 0 (39s): It really does. It really doesn't, especially this one, I felt that this one is something that kind of seeps into me. And I, I find myself trying to be the best human I can, but sometimes you see other people and they have these things and you, you look for reasons why you don't have them and that's probably the wrong path to go down.

Speaker 1 (1m 1s): Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the problem, right? It's not a question of, and envy really isn't about, I want what that guy has it's that I don't like that he has it and that I don't, it seems unfair. And so in this chapter, I talk a lot about the distinction between equality and equity, right? It's really what we're talking about is we want, we want equity. We don't really want equality and envy becomes most often a question about justice.

It just, it doesn't seem fair that you have a nice car and I don't, and it's not necessarily the case that I want to take it from you. It's just that I, I, I am envious of the fact that you have it. And I don't, because as I say, it just seems to be a question of fairness and in the chapter, I mean, I started the obvious place, which is the story Cain and Abel two brothers who, you know, don't, don't exactly have the relationship with God in the book of Genesis that is equal to be sure.

And when Abel is blessed by God, Cain becomes envious. We, we, we more often today say jealous, but it really is envy. And as a result, he, he kills his brother. But he's warned about it ahead of time. I mean, you know, the text talks about sin crouching at the door, and you have to be careful. You have to watch for that. And I'm, and I, I opened the chapter with a story of hitting my, my own brother in the head where the block, when we were, when we were young and for, for probably for a similar reason of being envious.

But in that case, I, as I say, the book I received, no punishment, Kayden's punishment is a little bit more severe. And it, it, it's an interesting legacy that he leaves then of course,

Speaker 0 (3m 3s): Yeah. The fact that you've carried it with you for so long, I don't know about the punishment, you know,

Speaker 1 (3m 9s): I it's so funny. It's so, so, so the story is my, my brother and I I'm I'm three years older than he is. And when we were very, very young, I think I was probably, I don't know, I was probably six and he was probably three. And I don't even remember what, what perpetuated it, but I hit him in the head with a block, a wooden block and opened up a gash. And as far ahead, and of course my mother completely freaked out and we went on there.

I remember we went down to the, to our pediatrician who was, who lived in our building as was not unusual in New York city of the sixties and seventies. And he needed stitches. And I remember walking around in the hallway, outside the, the examination room, hearing my brother screaming, thinking, this is just horrible. And I wanted to go in there and save him. But it was the hilarious part about this is that my mother never knew the truth about it until we were both in our mid thirties. And we had come home to visit once and we were watching home movies.

And for some reason got onto that, that, that topic. And we told her what had actually happened, that she was absolutely horrified because the story that we had told was that the block fell off the shelf and hit him in the head. And she, she bought that for, for about three decades,

Speaker 0 (4m 33s): Man. It's, you know, it's bringing it back to the story of cannibal in the book. You say he was a exile, not for envy, but for the murder of his, but that's kind of an interesting point right there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (4m 47s): I mean, you know, we, we think about Kane as being the first murderer, right. And he's always invoked in that kind of a, of a, of a situation. But I mean, really, I mean, before the murder, what he's guilty of is the sin of envy. And he really, that is what compels them to commit the murder in many ways. And his exile is, is a punishment. I mean, he is, of course he, he, he complains, he worries that, you know, people will see him and they're going to want to kill him as retribution.

And so God gives him a, what's called the mark of Cain, the mark on his forehead, warning people not to kill him, that he needs to live out his life in exile with that guilt.

Speaker 0 (5m 36s): Yeah. It's, that's, that's a second point where, you know, envy can actually change your appearance in that particular story. I guess he gets the mark, but it's still changing his appearance. And then you also talk about, you know, NB having the ability, we hear stuff like green with envy and how it shapes your appearance.

Speaker 1 (5m 57s): It kind of changes once countenance, right? It, it, it changes your, your physical appearance, but also in some ways your emotional appearance, if you will, you project differently. And, you know, to be sure we talk about people being green with envy, and that's, that's an old medieval trope, but no, one's really sure where it originates from, but it, it, it, it's the sense that, and I think the Genesis texts also refers to canes, countenance changing, right?

It's just his, his entire sense of being has shifted. And that, that, you know, w w we have often sort of characterize somebody who's being envious as, as it just being pretty ugly, right. Envy is an ugly thing. And I think that we, we use that word as a, as a euphemism, but, but it, it has some credibility because of course, as you say, I mean, Kane's appearance does in fact change.

Speaker 0 (7m 5s): Yeah. It, when I look at it in myself and if I ever find myself slipping into it, I feel that changes the way I see the environment. And it changed the way I act in the environment. Not only that, but it's, it's contagious. It's like looking for other people, a hint, you see what these people have, or do you see that? And hopefully you have someone around you strong enough to be like, Hey, what's wrong with you, man. Look at all this stuff you, yeah.

Speaker 1 (7m 28s): Yeah. It's a problem of falling into, to, to comparing yourself with everybody else. And of course, you know, the age of social media has just been an unbelievable black hole for that, right? I mean, social media is all about comparison with others. And I, I talk in the chapter quite a bit about how social media has contributed to our culture, being more and more hung up on envy and being envious of other people.

And oftentimes of course, the, the, the real sort of tragedy of this is that oftentimes when you're envious of someone on social media, it's, it's actually pretty empty because the, what they're projecting that you're envious of is, is a complete artifice it's it's made up. It has no very little to no relationship to what reality really is like. So, you know, I'll have friends on social media, on Facebook who will post and seem like they're living this, this ideal life.

And, you know, for a moment, you know, I do have these pangs of envy and say, gee, you know, I wish I were living that kind of a life, but that I have to take that step back. As you say, George, and, and, and separate myself from the situation and say, well, that's not entirely real. And that's not the whole story. We can all project what we want online. There's that, that famous Yorker cartoon from, oh my gosh, it must be the early nineties, late eighties where, you know, the dog says, no one knows you're a dog online, any kind of persona that you want.

And a lot of people do that, right? They, they, they, they curate their, their persona for an online world.

Speaker 0 (9m 15s): Yeah. Like, no one, very few people go online and show like the sadness of their life or the, Hey, I don't get to spend any time with my child. Look at me just working all the time, you know, or,

Speaker 1 (9m 28s): And if they do, it's almost as if that's a pendulum that's swung too far to the other end. Right. And that's the sort of the, the, the woe is me sort of poster who does nothing but complain about their existence in the hopes of securing some sort of sympathy and empathy from, from others. It's, it's, I forget what the kids call it, but, you know, when you post these sort of, open-ended strange postings that are sort of just this really nebulous sort of thing.

And it's like, what, something's wrong. I sort of want somebody to say, you know, oh, what's wrong. And maybe that's just, you know, part of it is a, is a characteristic of, of modern life, I guess. And, and the fact that people tend to, especially after COVID to be very lonely and, and social media can really reinforce that loneliness and exaggerate it. And as a result, people feel the need to post these sort of, you know, cryptic messages that evoke interaction from their, their, their friends online.

Speaker 0 (10m 40s): Yeah. That's, it's so sad in a way it's, it's almost like people are envious that people have real friends where they're envious of relationships, where they're lacking relationships of some sort.

Speaker 1 (10m 52s): Yeah. I mean, it it's, it's, you know, modern life is a tough thing, isn't it? You know, and, you know, w we, we can, we can go back and say, oh, well, everyone has always said that, right. That contemporary life is difficult. They probably said it in, in the 18th century. And they probably said it in the fourth century, because we always see, see the world through our own lens, but it does seem that we are living in incredibly complicated times.

And, and of course the irony of it is that we ourselves are really responsible for, for making it that complicated.

Speaker 0 (11m 31s): Yeah. It, if we will fast-forward and we'll come back.

Speaker 1 (11m 37s): Sure.

Speaker 0 (11m 37s): Jean Jean, I'm going to butcher her last name, Jean Julliard. Is that how you

Speaker 1 (11m 41s): Say that

Speaker 0 (11m 43s): Sean, you write in your book about his imagine 1981 treaties, the simulacra simulation and that modern day society has a simulation and invitation to the real world, which I think ties nicely with social media that we're talking about. Can you explain that a little bit?

Speaker 1 (12m 1s): Yeah. I mean, boatyard a brilliant French philosopher and his theory of the simulation is essentially that our existence is a simulation that there, that he would argue that there's very little to our existence. That is real in the true sense of the word. And when I talk about what that would students, I always use the two easiest examples, which is we're sitting inside in the classroom with artificial light and artificial heat or air conditioning.

That's a simulation. None of that is real. And so I think that that certainly social media, what we once called the virtual reality, although I guess that that phrase is sort of falling out of favor is, is completely a curated constructed artifice. And if we get sucked into it as, as sadly many people do with things like, you know, Instagram, especially kids, it can really be, have a tragic outcome where you just lose all ability to become objective and you see everything through the lens of, well, I don't have what he has.

I'm not doing what she had is, you know, I mean, and, and some of it is, is certainly social media, the way that it is constructed invites that, right. If you, if you, I mean, I have an Instagram account, I don't post on it because I still not entirely sure how it works, but I, I do kind of look around on Instagram and I see people posting just the strangest strangest things.

It's, it's, you know, there's this whole obsession with posting your food that you're like, but I could see someone sitting there saying, oh, well, you know, that looks really good. And here I am, you know, with my TV dinner. And so what am I doing wrong? And so it really does beg that kind of constant comparison. And of course, almost always, it's a comparison where you come out on the short end, Why am I not as good as them?

And it's a, it's a, it's a, as, as the case with a lot of these sins that we've talked about, a lot of it ends up being very, very damaging to self-esteem.

Speaker 0 (14m 43s): Yeah. It's true. What, in the event that we run with the simulation theory, do you think that in the event that it is a simulation is envy the antidote to the simulation? Like, is it like, oh gosh, like I, I can see envy. That means that it's just a simulation and I shouldn't worry about it. Or is it more of this tapping into to get you to perpetuate it? What, if

Speaker 1 (15m 13s): You can see that it's envy,

Speaker 0 (15m 16s): Right.

Speaker 1 (15m 16s): That it's a positive thing and you've broken out of the simulation, right? If you have an inability to see that it's envy, then you are stuck inside the simulation and you're caught up in the, in the Whirlpool. So I, you know, a lot of this comes down to again, perspective and something which we talked about in one of our first conversations, the, the problem of objectivity and subjectivity and, and are, are growing in the ability to be objective about the world around us.

Speaker 0 (15m 45s): Yeah. I, I'm glad you brought up that book. It seems like just doing that research and reading it, it tends to be French philosophers. For some reason, it really nailed this thing down. Like I think a good companion book, his guide to boards, the spectacle of the society. And he talks about the degradation of, you know, being into having like we're, we're human beings. And now it's like, we're not, we're no longer being, we're just having, and then having slips into the appearance of having, and it just continues to degrade. And if you can see that timeline, like I can see it in my own life.

Like you used to own a house. Now you have a mortgage and you, you have a house, but you just kind of have the appearance of, because you never really own it, especially if you have homeowner fees, you know? So

Speaker 1 (16m 27s): It's

Speaker 0 (16m 28s): W what do you think it is about these? I'm sorry,

Speaker 1 (16m 31s): Part of it is, is, is our, our obsessive only material culture, right? It's, it's a problem where we still do measure ourselves and measure our worth, oftentimes in terms of the things that we own or the, or as you say, the things that we have, we probably don't even own

Speaker 0 (16m 56s): Them.

Speaker 1 (16m 59s): And, and, and that's, that's a problem. It's, it's, it's, it's an economic problem. It's, it's a psychological problem. It really does just create a whole just mill. You have people who are just obsessed with having an owning things. It's the, it's the supersize culture, right? It's it can't be big enough.

It can, you know, give, give me bigger. And we were talking, I was talking about this with my wife the other day. It was funny. We were, we, I forget where we were. We we'd gone out to lunch on Saturday, something we rarely do. And we just went to a burger place. My wife is vegan and I'm vegetarian. And they had, they have a veggie burgers at this place. And we, we literally ordered veggie burgers, fries, and a soda, and it costs us 40 bucks. And it was just, you know, when did that happen?

And we, you know, both became, thinking about when we were kids and how much that would've cost. I mean, I very, very vividly remember going into a luncheonette one summer when I was probably about 10. It was the first time anyone ever called me, sir, I had babysitting money and I wanted to treat myself to lunch. And it was a luncheonette. It was a burger fries and a soda for a dollar 99. And man, it was good, but you know what happened that now it's 40 bucks to go out and have a couple of burgers and fries.

And I think that the economics of it is troubling. I can't say I understand that all I'm not an economist, I've been trying to read and study more about what capitalism has really done to our culture, but it is difficult because it's very politically charged that the, those discussions. And so it's difficult to really sort out what what's going on there.

But as, I mean, you know, George, you live in Hawaii, I'm sure your prices are much higher than my price is living here in Virginia. Even when it wasn't, COVID in a war in Ukraine, but you know it, so I don't know. I don't know what the solution is there. I don't know what, I don't know what the solution is. I think that that part of the issue, as you mentioned earlier, is having that ability to be objective about it. So if you're not objective about envy you're, and I'll, I'll say this again, you're in the simulation.

If you can be objective about it, then you're outside of the simulation looking in.

Speaker 0 (19m 50s): Yeah. Let me, let me, let me ask you this question and bring it back in doing so we've spoken about what we know today about in, and that's social media and that's seeing our lives change. Obviously there wasn't social media back in the days of Cain and Abel and the biblical times, however, the, the rich awareness of it had to be stoked by something. What was it that people were envious of back then, or what inspired people to, to know how powerful of a sin this was back then?

Speaker 1 (20m 22s): Yeah, well, I think in many ways people have always been envious of power. And so only when it comes down to it, even when we say being envious of, you know, my neighbors, nice car, it's still a power issue because that means that he has the power to buy that car. And I don't. So a of it does come down to who has the power. And that was the issue when a lot of the preaching through the middle ages on this.

And even as we get into the, the English Renaissance and a great poem, like Milton's paradise lost where I'm in his Satan is, is a picture of envy. When he first sees Adam and Eve in the garden, I love his first line. He says, oh, hell, he sees them. He sees how much they love each other. And he's envious of that relationship that they have so much so that he even says at one point in a different situation, I could love them, but he's out for revenge.

And so he can't, but he does feel those pangs of envy. It's one of those curiosities about human beings, right? There was a, there's a conundrum that's gone on, on for a long time. And it's the conundrum of forbidden knowledge. We, we, we were given the ability to be curious and to want to know, but I had some strange way, if we are going to go back to the garden of Eden, we were told that we weren't allowed to know because it's the tree of knowledge that we're not allowed to eat from.

So it's, it's, it's dangling something in front of us that then we're not allowed to have. And that's very confusing. It's very confusing. And I think that for a lot of people, if they could figure out that the answer to that problem, they can lead a heck of a lot more just rich and fruitful life, if they can understand that, that issue.

I mean, I, and I mean, I, I, I, I speak from experience because I've gone through it myself, right? I mean, th this idea that, well, we have the ability to know we were created to be curious, but we're not allowed to, that doesn't make any sense. And even Satan in Milton's paradise lost even notes that when he here, he overhears them talking about the fact that they're not allowed to eat from that tree. Satan even says, you know, I, I don't understand what, what could be so bad about knowing they're not allowed to know.

And really that's, what's driven us as a species for millennia. Is this desire to know, I mean, even if you look at what's happened in the last few years, mapping the human genome, what an incredible thing, what an incredible thing only happened, because we are incredibly curious and we want to know now the problem that could come up as some have suggested is if we get to the point where we have answered all the, then what, what are we left with?

And so, you know, it's like when I teach Shakespeare and students say, oh, well, there's nothing more to say about Shakespeare. Everybody's already said it like, well, if that were the case, we wouldn't be talking about it. They'll, they'll ask a question about something that happens in a, in a particular play, in a passage. And I'll say, well, there are several different takes on this. What do you think? And you know, of course the, the very logical folks in the crowd say, well, what's the answer, right? There must be a right answer to this.

And it's not a mass problem. You know, human nature is not, not solvable in that way, but that's what, that's what makes it a joy to live, I guess, you know, that's, that's a, that's a, as you call your podcast true life, right.

Speaker 0 (24m 37s): That's right. Yeah. It's amazing. The mysteries that continue to unfold once we think they're solved. And the further we go along, the further we go along, the more we realize we didn't know anything, whether it's the planets being in glass or the spheres or us being the center of the universe, there's always these moment Galileo moments where like, oh gosh, darn it. I forgot who said it, but someone said science progresses the death of one professor, one scientist at a time.

Right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25m 12s): Okay. But even if you go back to Socrates, I mean, right. I mean, Socrates said the one thought, one thing he was sure about is that he didn't know anything, you know, and, and that's really, that's a way of approaching this. And it's something which, which I particularly really love about, about Plato is that attitude about knowledge. That it's something that we don't, we don't, we don't really know anything. And, you know, you can go, I mean, you mentioned Galileo. I mean, you can go to somebody like take carte, right.

They car who has to start all the way at the beginning. I think, therefore I am right. That's where he says, I don't understand anything in the universe. I got to start from scratch here. And the first thing I got to start with is my own existence. Do I exist? And he said, okay, I think, therefore I am. And they car was a Catholic. He had faith, but he had to start from scratch because largely what it occurred in the, in the preceding hundred years is a complete shift in the, the really the, the literally the ground that we stand on with the Copernican revolution and Galileo discovering that, gee, this the earth isn't at the center of the universe.

And so, you know, an entire generation and, and that, that shift, that paradigm shift, right? What Thomas Kuhn calls a paradigm shift. We've experienced another one in the last 50 years with computers and the internet. It's just, it's happened so fast. And it's moving so quickly. That few people have had time to really assess what the hell has happened. Whereas in the 16th and 17th century, things are moving slower, right? I mean, till you're the great scholar called it, the Elizabethan world picture, right?

That the, the, the world picture had shifted the entire attitude about the way the universe works had shifted from the earth is at the center to the sun, is at the center and the earth just revolves around it there. Oh my God, that's just unbelievable. And we've experienced shift like that shifts like that as well today. It's just, everything happened so quick. We barely have time to digest one thing before the next thing's coming along. I saw an ad this morning. First time I've seen this ad and it's being run by, I think it was being run by a PA.

Yes, it wasn't. It was a political ad because they wanted you to write to Congress and it was opposing self-driving cars. And it was this cavalcade of video from inside Tesla's self-driving Teslas of them either getting into accidents or nearly getting into accidents. And it was just one after another, there must have been 10 of them. And then it was this, you know, write to your Congressman and tell them to, you know, outlaw this, you know, and I, I use that example a lot with, with my students and say, you know, we've got self-driving cars.

We just have to figure it out, whether or not we should. Right. And so much of what technology and science and what happens in the name of progress while it may be ultimately beneficial to mankind and womankind and positive for us as a species, we don't give ourselves enough time to really reflect on whether or not it is cause we're onto the next thing. Now that wasn't the case back in the, in the, in the Renaissance, for example, I mean, you know, the telescope, which Galileo used to prove Copernicus's theories was something which had been invented for commerce.

You, you, you, you looked out at seated to predict when shipping was going to arrive. So you could set the price on your goods. Galileo pointed it up in the sky and the stars and said, oh my gosh, look at this. You know, those kinds of things are just incredible and they're still happening today. It's just a fear that we don't hear enough about them because we're just moving so fast. If you want to read some, some, a really great scholar, a guy I really respect.

And, you know, in the one, on a one in a million chance that he's listening to this, please contact because I've tried to contact you. His name is Hillel Schwartz. Hallel Schwartz is an independent scholar. He's written, oh, I don't know, five or six books. And he's written three in particular, which are they're they're mammoth they're they're they're doorstops. And they are about things like sound or the fact simile and copy culture.

And they're intriguing. They're incredibly meticulously researched and, and very, very well written. And he oftentimes has been able to pick up on those little nuanced changes and inventions that made a big difference, but because it was happening so fast, we barely caught it. You know, I was reading this morning that, that Thomas Edison said something to the effect that he didn't invent anything, that it was all out there.

He just was kind of pull it together. It was a very interesting approach. An attitude about invention for a guy who holds, I think some of the most important patents in, in, in the history of the United States, to be sure if not of mankind.

Speaker 0 (30m 53s): Yeah. That seems par for the course. If you listen to Tesla, he says, oh, I, you know, I, they, I was told this information or a lot of these inventors say, oh yeah, well, I just, it was always there. I just put it together, you know? Yeah. It makes me, it may, maybe that the idea of philosophy, this idea of going all the way back to the beginning of like, okay, let me start from scratch. I think, therefore, maybe that is the cure for envy. Maybe once you become envious, it's a signal for you to say, okay, I'm way out in the weeds.

You know? And I think in your book, you write that envy is a sort of poisoning of the mind and it causes you to no longer see the world the way it is. In fact, you see this tainted idea of self-conscious, you know, falling or something like that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31m 44s): Yeah. And that idea that, that, that the, that the, you know, as you say, Tesla said, you know, they came to him and Edison says, he's kind of pulling things together. It reminds me of the, the, the, the piece of Jewish folklore that before we are born, we have all knowledge. We, we know everything. And there's a folk tale that at the moment of our birth and angel comes down and presses his finger on the top of your lip.

And that gives us that little indentation in which biologists know has a medical name that I can never remember. And when the angel does that, it takes away all knowledge and we're born tabula, rasa, clean slate, and from a Jewish perspective, that is the equivalent of the punishment for original sin that Catholics have haven't needs to be baptized to rid of. So we are, that is Jewish, the Jewish punishment, in some sense for original sin is we had all knowledge, but our punishment is now we got to start from scratch.

And so there's this idea it's philosophical, it's, it's theological as well, that the knowledge is all out there. Right. I mean, it, it's the kind of the youngian idea of the collective unconscious. It's all out there. It's just, we have to figure out how to tap into it. And yeah.

Speaker 0 (33m 10s): And you see that sometimes with like the mystic, the mystic tradition, or some, the burning Bush or these, these people that get a glimpse of a remembrance made.

Speaker 1 (33m 20s): Yeah. It's either a glimpse or I like that you say remembrance, right. Because it it's, it's there somewhere. We just have to be reminded of it. And so, you know, there are people who have an incredible propensity for learning languages. Now, aside from the psychological phenomenon, which is a real, which is, I mean, some people just their, their minds function in a certain way. And, and they're more likely to be able to pick up languages like that. There are others who would think that, well, you know, you, you know, it all, it's just a matter of you being able to piece it all together in the right way.

And I think there's something to that. There's something to the idea that a lot of these, I don't want to say facts, cause they're not really facts, but a lot of these nuggets, as a terrible word, a lot of these nuggets are there. They're back there in our collective unconscious. And it's our job as human beings on that journey on the th th the journey to individuation, to piece together the pieces of the puzzle.

And sometimes the pieces don't fit. And sometimes the pieces make a really ugly part of the puzzle, but we still have to deal with that because it's all part of the big picture. And without that, and without our, our, our desire to put the puzzle together, not to belabor the metaphor, you know, I mean, then what have we got? We've got this disconnected kind of existence, which is just a bunch of pieces sitting out on the table and we can't really figure out it it's, it's the, the age old question of, you know, why, why am I here?

What's my purpose. And, you know, we would be probably, probably would be a good place to start with somebody like Descartes and say, well, I think therefore I am right. We are thinking human beings. And some of us use that ability to a greater extent than others. And some of us are more curious than others. And I think that's part of that's what makes the world go round?

Speaker 0 (35m 39s): Yeah. It's interesting too. I, I w when you look at it from that angle, it seems to me, while language is our greatest gift, it seems so inadequate. It's so difficult to thoroughly explain to someone exactly what you're seeing or you're feeling, you know, interpretation means means, oh, is most of this one up it's when you interpret something, you, you what's, I can't think of the word, but yeah. The way the language may be one reason why we envy people, because we don't understand why they have things.

We just know that we don't have. Yeah. And so you can't explain it. There's no linguistic pathway. And so then you become this irrational thinker, this irrational way of looking at life, which just, it sends you down like the wrong rabbit hole. And then we get back to the, you know, you make a good, a great point about equality evokes in V what do you mean by that?

Speaker 1 (36m 38s): Well, if we really want equality is not really what we want. We want equity. So equality is, everybody has the same stuff, right? Everybody has the same thing. Everybody has access to the same exact thing. And that's not really what we want because that doesn't allow for any kind of merit. If I do something better, if I happen to be harder working, what we want is equity. We want the, the, in many ways we want the ends to justify the means, right?

We, we, we want what we get to make sense and be just according to some law of the universe that we only have only we can construct now for, for many people, that law is constructed for them, right. In various forms of organized religion and codes, but for more and more people today, it is, it is a law, which we construct ourselves and it's almost made up, it's almost a smorgasbord of the different religious traditions.

Right. You know, so maybe I, I prescribed to the, the 10 commandments and I, I, by that code, but it doesn't mean that I buy everything that's in, in the book, in the old Testament. And instead, I'm going to look at the four noble truths of the Buddha, and I'm going to throw that, you know, it becomes a kind of a stew. And that I think is where we have gotten to, as a species here in the 21st century, right.

Through all of our challenges to faith and our challenges to science that we've come to an interesting point today where we're we're. And we w we'll talk about this when we do our, our wrap up on the, on the book and a couple of weeks, we really are, I think, sort of on a precipice here, and it's an exciting time, but it's also scary.

Speaker 0 (38m 47s): Yeah. It's it does seem like that to me. I've got, I truly believe we are in a Copernicus moment. Like we are building up to something greater than we could possibly imagine. You know, we are, we are, we have breaking down so many barriers and so many walls, and it's, it's, it's everything dissipates before it comes back together. I heard a good, a good analogy. One time, I think it was Alan Watson said, think of us as like a bottle of ink and you take it and you throw it against the wall and smash in all the ink begins to flow down the walls blot.

And then as it gets down, it makes these really beautiful curly Q's and intricate marks. And then we look at those little intricate parts of, oh, that's us, you know, but actually it's all of us, we're all the same thing. And it's, it's us becoming. And maybe that's part of envy, maybe part of envy is saying like, yeah, that is you. Like, look at that, look how awesome that is, that's you, congratulations. You did it, you know, or this can be you. And if people can learn to see in V from, instead of it inside the simulation where it's upsetting you and it's poisoning you, maybe the, the idea of envy can be like, Hey, congratulations.

Look at us, look at what we did. We, we, this is love, you know, in V in B can be a form of love if you're willing to notice that other as yourself, maybe that could be a better definition of what envy trying to show.

Speaker 1 (40m 15s): Yeah. I mean, I think, I think you're right. I mean, envy can transform into love and respect, give them the right, the right mindset. But that if you are really engaged in envy and you are a truly envious person that is really going to be a challenging thing for you to, to, to overcome, to get to that point where you can move away from, you know, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm envious of what you just did to, I respect what you just did and congratulations.

Great job. That's, that's difficult. And it's difficult, I think, because we've been taught from a very young age to compare ourselves to others. No.

Speaker 0 (40m 55s): Yeah, yeah. It's I think in, in the latter part of this chapter, you begin to talk about how it's, I think you quote Charles Taylor and say that it's an idea of radical reflexivity. Yeah. Can you talk about that a little?

Speaker 1 (41m 13s): Yeah. I mean, so Taylor's a, is a, is a Canadian philosopher written several really, really important landmark books. And he talks about this concept called radical reflexivity, which largely really grows out of Augusta. And it is this idea of just this extreme ability to reflect, to, to look within, instead of constantly looking without, and we tend to, especially in the Western world, be so focused on the exterior that we've lost our ability to really do that kind of reflexivity that he's talking about, where we can reflect and look inward.

It's a very important part of being a human being. And in many ways it is something which has been lost. And again, I don't mean to beat a drum, but a lot of it has been because of technology and our inability to, to shut off, turn off, you know, I mean, w what was Timothy Leary's thing about it was

Speaker 0 (42m 21s): Turn on tune in and drop outs.

Speaker 1 (42m 23s): It, yeah. So, I mean, this is, this is sort of the opposite, right. Idea that Know really what we need to do. And people, people do that now. Right? I mean, they go on these, these treats where they give up their cell phone for a week or whatever it is. And it's just, it's, it's very strange that we have to do that, but it's that insidiousness of the, of the technology that we just, we can't get away from it.

And it does really promote that, that comparison that constantly, you know, I, I, I'm one that, that, that responds to email as soon as I get it. If I get an email I'm responding right away. And to be honest, most of that is because I'm afraid that I'm going to forget. And because I get so much email, but it's going to go down into my inbox and I will forget. And so people are saying, oh, you respond, you're very quick about responding. And that will set up a comparison.

I'll say, oh, well, I don't, I don't respond. You know, I'm, I'm really bad about doing that. It's like, but why does there have to be that constant comparison and one isn't necessarily good. Right. I'm not proud of the fact that I constantly, that I respond in an email. I don't think it's always necessarily a good thing, but it's that we're always set up comparing ourselves to others. And as I say, you know, it started in the school yard, right? Yeah,

Speaker 0 (43m 55s): Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's a, it's it appears to be a system of, of self worth in a sad sort of way. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44m 7s): Yeah. It really is. And, and, you know, and then we, we just reinforce it as kids grow up with, with our obsession, with, with standardized testing and, you know, while you're in the accelerated group and, and, you know, then we do class rankings. I mean, it goes right up the ladder here. And, you know, I think the thing is we want to recognize excellence. We want to appreciate it. As you said earlier, we want to love it. We want to respect it, but we can do that and not set it up so that, oh, you're better than him.

It shouldn't be always that, you know, well, let's look at the two of you together, and you're really a lot better than this other guy. And I don't know how we get away from that. I mean, I guess part of it is we have to be that way in some, in some sense, I mean, you have to think about when you interview people for a job, they all want the job. One person is going to get it because one person is the better candidate for whatever reason, arbitrary or not.

But it, it, it can be really troubling because it can promote a society in which there's a lot of resentment.

Speaker 0 (45m 30s): Yeah, yeah. You right about that, that, you know, envy can turn into resentment and resentment is just this it's like gestures, terminal cancer. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45m 42s): It's like a festering wound. And the guests to that point, it is very, very difficult to rid yourself of, you know, we can be envious on, we can, we can do envy light if you will. You know, and then if it gets really serious, it becomes resentment and resentment is almost visceral. I mean, even when you say the word, it sounds visceral resentment. It's, it's, it's very painful to, to have that feeling of resentment.

Speaker 0 (46m 18s): Do you think the resentment is, is like part of you dying almost like it's, it's like, you've lost part of you when you become resentful. And then all of a sudden, it's not the thing that you were envious or resentful of it's that you don't have this thing inside of you anymore.

Speaker 1 (46m 32s): Yeah. And really that's what all of these sins are about is that part of you dies when you, when you commit these, the sins, when you engage in this kind of activity, a part of what makes you a human being is, is, is lost. And I think that there, there is the possibility of regaining it. I don't think it's lost forever. There is redemption in, in, in a, both in a religious and a, in a secular sense, but it is, it does make us a little bit less human.

And that really is what the early writers on these sins. People like a vigorous Porticus in Gregory. The great that's, what they keep coming back to over and over again, is engaging in this kind of activity makes you less human, which then of course, you know, begs the ultimate question. What is it to be human?

Speaker 0 (47m 33s): It's amazing. The wisdom that those who came before us had, this is some really deep thinking on a really long timeline. And, you know, regardless of, of whether or not people are religious, or if they're, if they have a faith of monotheism or, or pantheism or whatever, faith, they have to take time to think about these particular areas, these sins that we call them. It's so amazing to me, that people had the ability to think this stuff through and to like in one person's lifetime, it's very difficult to come to the, the ideas that these people have had.

It's been thought about for so long. And they're so true. It's, it's, it's like this owner's manual. And, you know, and like you said, it's always changing, which is like Shakespeare. You can look at these senses and see them through the filter of George Monte or the filter of David Solomon. And they're all different. They're like an Instagram filter, you know, since we're talking about that kind of stuff, and it's maybe one thing is for us to do what we're doing and give people our interpretation so they could take a piece of that and use it and use it that way. It's, it's just amazing to me how much power they have.

Speaker 1 (48m 44s): Yeah. I mean, I think it's important for us to, to, to discuss this and give our different different takes. I mean, it was Nietzsche who said, you know, there are no facts only interpretations, right? So, you know, it, it really is about interpretation. And I think the more that you read about this, the more that you think about these kinds of issues about what it is that makes us human. It does advance us just as human beings. I mean, I started reading a novel that I had gotten about two years ago.

I had read somewhere something of Paul Valerie's writings that his favorite novel was this book called against nature. It was written by a French writer in the 19th century. I'd never heard of the guy. I never heard of the book and I ordered a copy of it. And it's been sitting on my shelf and I finally pulled it down the other day and started reading it because I wanted to see what he thought. I mean, this was his favorite book. What was just so brilliant in here. And, you know, I'm only about 30 pages in, but I can already start to see it, but the, the, the issues that come up, I mean, it's a very heavily philosophical book for lack of another way of putting it.

It is a book about ideas. It is not a book about action. This is not Harry Potter. It is a book about ideas. I mean, there's four pages about color, but it's brilliant stuff. And it really is being inside a fictitious character in this case, if a Tisha's characters mind and all that comes with that, that is both good and bad. There are aspects of him that have already surfaced the first 30 pages that are despicable, but there are aspects of us that are not very likable.

And oftentimes we just don't like to deal with it. It is again, you know, going back to young, it's, it's looking at that shadow self and, and reconciling one with it in order to come out the other end. So I th I think that that constant quest right life as a quest life is a journey and a quest. And this again is, you know, Joseph Campbell, right? Pure Joseph Campbell. Well, you know, incredibly our theory, right? The, the, the question, but this, this really, this idea of life as a quest, that we are all looking for something, and it's probably different for each one of us.

And we might not even be able to articulate exactly what it is, but we probably don't stop looking for it. And in fact, and maybe this is the tragedy of, of existence, we're probably not gonna find it. We may get glimpses, I'll allow the mystic actually hold it in the Palm of our hand for any extended period of time, probably not going to happen. But that doesn't mean the quest isn't worth going on.

You know, Arthur's Knights pretty much knew most of them. We didn't find it. The holy grail, we even know where it is in most cases, it's this, you know, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be looking. We shouldn't, we shouldn't be searching. And in some ways it's, it's, it's existentialism, it's this looking at our existence and what it means to exist, which is one of the things that I, that I, I liked so much about, about somebody like Sean, Paul SART, and really looking at those questions about what does it mean to be, what does it mean to exist?

And then when you go to somebody like Samuel Beckett and waiting, fuck a DOE, it too is about that same question. What does it mean to exist there? Waiting for a character named goodo. They, wait, wait, wait. He doesn't come. The play ends that's existence. We are constantly waiting. And maybe that thing never arrives and then our lives end. And so how do we reconcile all of that with our existence to justify our existence?

Because I think that's what a lot of us are trying to do and to make our lives worth living and worth being around for other people.

Speaker 0 (53m 20s): Yeah. I, I'm leaning towards the great OT for my idea of what existence is. Like. I just decided, you know what? That is a dragon and I am going to slay it. Why not?

Speaker 1 (53m 39s): Even as the window blades smack you in the head,

Speaker 0 (53m 45s): Minnie and Rosen on, Hey, we are writing out there to figure this thing

Speaker 1 (53m 48s): Out. There you go. That's what we got. Yeah. And I think that people who live that kind of, I don't want to call it a fantasy life, but there is something about, about using our imagination and everyday existence. I mean, if we imagine ourselves as being on that quest, like Don Quixote, right. You know, maybe let's not something so bad about that. You know, we, we, we looked down our noses at that and say, well, isn't that silly?

And that guy's delusional, but you know, some of the craziest people in history have been geniuses. Right?

Speaker 0 (54m 31s): Yeah. I, I think that's how Walter Isaacson and Steve jobs biography starts the book by saying the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are usually the people that can

Speaker 1 (54m 43s): Yeah. And Isaacson has made that point clear in his books, on mine, sign his books on Vinci. Right. It's, it's, it's the same thing.

Speaker 0 (54m 52s): Yeah. And I, in some ways, you know, when we look about envy or these, these ideas, sometimes if, if, if you can break the simulation, you can see the absurdity of it. Like if you watch the Kardashians, like these people have fake everything, like what, this is so absurd, but some people are so enamored by like, oh, whoa. And they, or the, the real Housewives, you know, and when you, I remember it was watching the real houses, my wife one time. And it was this old episode where, you know, the guy ended up committing suicide and he was abusive.

And it's like, what are you, what are we watching this? I can't watch this. This is ridiculous. This is horrible. You know? And when I think of envy, one, one way for me that I'm able to pull myself out is to see, Hey, this is, you could be envious about this, but maybe this is an example of what I need to work on. Or maybe this is an example of what the problem is that I can help. You know, what, if you can just shut off the, the bells and whistles for a minute and go, okay, what is this really telling me?

Okay, I need to work on myself here. You know, that's a good way to get out of it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55m 59s): George, you're a bit, you're big on the mirror, right? That, that you see, you see this, this stuff as, as a mirror to look at yourself, which is an interesting way to be, to engage in that kind of radical, radical reflexivity, right. To really use those experiences and say, well, what does that mean? And what does that say about me? And I think that that's a, that's an thing to do. I think, sadly enough, people don't do it.

And, and you know, all you have to do is see the, the, the, the popularity of, of all of that kind of reality television, which boggles my mind. I just don't get it. And I, and I, and I often wonder, you know, people watching it, a lot of them will say, oh, I know it's not real. And it's like, okay. So then I have to ask her, so why are you watching it? And, you know, I have a, a good friend who is listening to this podcast at social, appreciate this, but she likes to watch the, the hoarding shows and the, my 600 pound life, or whatever the heck that show it's like, why are you watching that these people are miserable?

And, you know, some of it is, let's bring it back to envy. It's well, you know, I'm better than them.

Speaker 0 (57m 28s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57m 28s): Right. You know, it's, regardless of how bad I might be, at least I'm not that bad. And I, I don't know. That's, that's just a, a troubling sign of our times, I think, to the prince song.

Speaker 0 (57m 47s): Yeah. This is what it sounds like when doves cry. Yeah. I

Speaker 1 (57m 55s): Be on the road next week. Folks.

Speaker 0 (57m 57s): Yeah. The revival revival. Well, fantastic. I want to be mindful of your time. Is there anything else you want to leave us with as far as envy or sins or what we got coming up next?

Speaker 1 (58m 12s): I don't think so. I mean, next week we'll talk about Slav, which is, is essentially most people think of as laziness, but it isn't really laziness. And we'll talk about why. And it is the last sin that I covered in the book, perhaps not ironically. And we'll talk about what that means and why it is a sin considered a sin. And then from there, we'll move on the following week and then wrap things up and, and solve all the world's problems.

Speaker 0 (58m 44s): Oh, that's people would probably so envious. All right, doctor. Well, I appreciate your time. Have a great rest of your day and we'll get back at them next week.

Speaker 1 (58m 54s): Thanks.