(0:00 - 0:07) Hi everybody, I am Madison Holmes. And I am Maycee Holmes. They picked me up off the street, held a gun to my head. (0:07 - 0:24) I'm here against my will, please send help. And this is Holmes Squared! Yay! So, this is our special guest today, Sebastian Holmes, which is our brother. He's the eldest, though you wouldn't know it. (0:24 - 0:36) Oh my gosh. Damn. Any feelings they'd be hurt? Okay, this is not a filler episode. (0:36 - 0:40) I promise, guys. Oh, a hundred percent. It's not, it's really not. (0:40 - 0:48) Me and Maycee had an idea, we were talking yesterday. How far the mighty have fallen. No, we were going to talk about... Assuming we were mighty at all. (0:49 - 1:15) Academics versus blue collars is kind of what we wanted to talk about because there's like this weird paradigm that we've seen. But then, Sebastian and, you know, us three ended up talking all morning and then, as Sebastian was going on a very smart rant, I went, you know what, why did I never think of it? We should have him on Holmes Squared. And I was like, hey, Seb, are you willing? And he's like, uh, no, but yes. (1:16 - 1:34) Yeah, basically just said, well, you're going to have to tell me that we're doing it and only then will I do it. Because if you ever ask me, hey, are you in the mood to sit in a chair for an hour and talk about things like you're educated about it, but you're not really? The answer would be no, ten times out of ten. He's not insulting our daily job. (1:34 - 1:50) Not at all. So this is where we are now. And one of the things that I was thinking we could touch on is we've heard, I mean, people have accused me and Maycee of having an echo chamber. (1:51 - 2:28) And since all three of us are here, it is also another perspective of growing up in a household where, I mean, technically we can even talk about the academic paradigm too, because as kids, one of the things that, we never grew up understanding the government was trying to kill us or anything along those lines, but we did understand a bit more of the psychology route because we started with Peterson and all that jazz. And so we grew up as kids looking at ourselves and other kids going the line that dad always said, love a lemming, don't be a lemming. And so psychology was something that we always grew up with. (2:28 - 2:51) But I think also because of that, we all grew up thinking that we knew something about the human disposition which made us a little bit better. I know some, like Sebastian, you said in the past that you kind of got, it was like a curse and a gift you hadn't decided yet because, again, all of us felt that disconnect. Right now we can't talk to kids our own age because we can see them acting dumb, even though we were also acting dumb. (2:51 - 3:18) But we thought we were on a higher playing field. And that's kind of a similar disposition to academics where I think they ignore the real life consequences of the metal meets the meat, as dad says, because they think they have knowledge that the average pleb doesn't, which they do, but that doesn't justify ignoring the reality and consequences of their of and such. So, I thought maybe we could touch on that a little bit. (3:18 - 4:12) Dude, the first thing I want to touch on is the fact that you brought up, hey, so, we've been accused of being on an echo chamber, so what we're going to do is set the record straight by getting your brother on the podcast to talk about things, and we're going to bring up a topic that we mostly are on the same page about, just to prove you guys right. No, it's the experience that we have is all different and one thing people don't see is that even this morning, when you were going on your Sebastian rant, we don't agree on everything. That's why most conversations, as you always like to say, they go on a little bit longer than they need to because it's how things play out that we never agree upon, which is where the right hemisphere is concerned anyway. (4:12 - 4:52) There's what things are, sure, we can agree on the core values, but how they manifest in the world and how you should pursue them and all those jazz, that's where the individualistic right hemisphere comes involved, and we never we sometimes align on it, but otherwise conversations wouldn't go as long as they do in our family, because then we would just, well, we wouldn't really need to say anything, we would infer everything, we'd be on the same page, but when our family gets talking and when the three of us get going, there goes the day because we spent the next last three hours, which was supposed to be like a 30-minute breakfast into a three-hour tea session. I know how we can solve this. What's something we disagree on? Anything. (4:52 - 5:04) First thing that comes to mind. Gaming. What's your position? Well, I know your position, so I instantly want to give context to your position. (5:06 - 5:32) Hate it or love it. It's not that dichotomous. To me, it reminds me of scrolling, where sometimes you'll take the time out of your day to just your version of relaxing is either going on your phone or doing a video game, for example, but to me, it's not that I don't necessarily understand gaming, because there's a difference. (5:32 - 6:06) I understand why people want to take that time to relax. The thing that sometimes gripes me, and I think Maddie to some degree, is because when we're done our job, which is not as labour-extensive as your jobs have been, but when we're done our job and our day finishes for cleaning houses, my go-to is like, oh, okay, so what can I do productive-wise? I gotta probably get in a workout, so can I get in a workout? Probably can. I have to edit some things. I have to post for the social medias. I have to post for the channels. And all of that jazz. (6:06 - 6:52) And even this pursuit of this podcast is such a like, you were talking about in the beginning before we even started this was like, oh, how we all kind of put our resources together towards this podcast and the room and all the equipment, and then we don't really end up using it, and then afterwards we're kind of like, oh, somebody should probably pick up the loads. Then Maddie decides to learn all of the intricacies of how to operate this, and then I was like, well, I'll help too. And then I think it was just because of Matthew's work, and because we watched Dad growing up, and he like Maddie said, we knew of psychology, but later on we got into, oh, okay, like, when we woke up, Dad was consuming massive amounts of information, and we were kind of like, I just didn't want to necessarily like- Fall behind. (6:52 - 7:49) Fall behind. Yeah, because I was like, this seems like important an important thing to understand about the world we live in, otherwise I feel like I'm just going to be subjugated to the same bullshit that a lot of people who don't necessarily know the I guess how the game can be played sometimes, right? And then it led on to the pursuit of, okay, what can we do more research, and like, can we get in our daily dose of reading a chapter a day, right? To try and get our minds more educated, and then can you articulate it, like you were saying, as if you actually understand it, right? And that was, that's where, like, so mine's like more of a I like the fact that there's something a bit more in us that is wanting to pursue something further than just our career, but you're a guy, so you obviously have a different perspective than- Well, 100%. I agree with everything you just said. See, problem solved. All I have to do is wait for one of you to say what your point is, and then I'll just change my opinion. And then we'll always be on the same page, and we'll prove these guys right. (7:49 - 8:14) Oh my gosh. And then indefinitely there will be an echo chamber. Yeah, gaming sucks, bro. I don't- Never- I'm gonna pack up my Xbox tonight. No, you're not. No, you're not. Sell it to the first person that comes to the door. No. I guess that would be- See how short that conversation, if we all agreed with one another? Sebastian's like, I'll demonstrate real time. (8:15 - 9:02) Yeah. No, no, but I get what you're saying. You're talking about the nuances between each person's perspective. In a household there are a lot of crossovers, but because of the different life experiences we've each shared, there just is a difference in specifics. Mhm. Yeah. And watching that manifest, again, people are probably never gonna get the nuances of it on a screen, but that also kinda comes back to the academic versus the blue collar. So, one of- On what Sebastian was kinda ranting on this morning, and that's something that me and Maycee have heard him talk about lots, is building golden bridges, cause we're- Nice segue. But also models. (9:02 - 9:12) But also models. That's what he was ranting on as well. Maddy has- it's funny, so this is- she's gonna have grabbed onto other stuff that she deemed important in your rant, but I'm gonna have to grab onto other stuff that I deemed important. (9:12 - 9:19) So, Maddy, you go ahead first. Well, we've been doing more Plato dialogues. I think Dad has like three left, and then he'll be done. (9:19 - 9:37) But we've been slowly trekking behind him. And cause we've heard a lot of academics who praise the Socratic method. And Sebastian said this, for all the benefits of the Socratic method, it's too slow for today's day and age. (9:37 - 11:53) And then he gave examples, because you have worked in security in the past, and so you've talked to people for contacts in Alberta. AHS, Alberta Health Services, and people in hospitals, nurses, it's typically politically left. So maybe you're an NDPer or you're a liberal, whatever stupid categorisation that you want to put on it. And so somebody in a family of, you know, seven now, we're a bit more conservative in our values. And so Sebastian's had to real-time negotiate with people that are supposedly on the opposite spectrum regarding things, even the example he was giving this morning is the gun issue. You know, should you have more guns or less guns? And so he was just criticising the cause in the Socratic methods for those who haven't done them, there's always this initial agreeing of terms. First Socrates will define the term, be like, do you agree that this is the definition of said thing? And only then can you go on to define the parameters of said thing and then how it plays and if you agree with that said thing and build those bridges from there. But Sebastian, you know, you were saying this morning, it doesn't work because everybody's so fast-paced and I think also we have a bit more of a left-hand for society, so the attention spans are much smaller. You have to, what did you say? You have to beeline it, is how you said it. So that's one thing that I didn't think about and that plays into because you have different experience than me and Maycee do, that also why just calling a family in echo chamber still doesn't work because you've learned different things and you've applied different skills to said things because of your experience that I haven't yet totally had to do. You know, we have different even friend groups, so where I might have to build a golden bridge with somebody, maybe it hasn't been as difficult or as blatantly bipolar as what you faced in the workforce. So there's things that you can, if we were in an echo chamber, you couldn't teach me anything. (11:54 - 15:32) But you still teach me stuff all the time and even, I've read a bunch of articles and sometimes I'm like, oh shoot, is this right? Am I this kind of person? And then I send it to you for verification and then you read it and you go, actually no, there's some nuance here that she's missing and then I get my head pulled out of my butt. So we couldn't teach one another things if we were in an echo chamber, unless I'm missing that, but because we still learn from one another and then build upon one another, I think that also proves that we're not in an echo chamber. Well, we at least try very hard not to be. I mean, when it comes to the basics of building that golden bridge, what I was really just trying to get at the base is when you're talking with somebody that has a difference of opinion from you, I find it's not as important to get off what you wanted to say or make the points that you wanted to make because you probably already make them with yourself in the shower or the mirror. Everybody has that argument they lost and they replay it in their head at work while they're doing a task that kind of idles the mind. Well, it's kind of like that, right? It's not really important about getting off what I want to say. It's more so, are we even speaking the same English? Because I find often times the case we're not speaking the same English at all. You know what I mean? Like, one word, something stupid simple as a word like freedom could mean something entirely different to anybody across the political aisle than how me or even you mean it on a case by case basis. So, right away you just got to figure out, are we speaking the same English before we can even get to the topic that we wanted to discuss because otherwise you're just going to end up getting caught in the weeds. And I mean, I think that's what we mainly see online is just a lot of people sorting through essentially white noise. Yeah, like I'm pretty, like Sebastian, what I've admired about him is the fact that he can always get it to actually a bit more of the 30,000 foot view. Because like he was saying even yesterday that all of our family is pretty like, we care about logical structures and logistics, but a lot of the real world is not necessarily based on just their logistical systems and whether or not they're adhering to them. And like even what you were talking about with the definition of terms and just even freedom as the example. I think it was in our last episode that we did with Seth, he was saying that it's like, I think his idea would be centred around the government being able to take care of the people, right? And someone could argue, well that doesn't sound like freedom, right? Because it's self-sovereignty and the ability to grow your own food or be able to have all your skills to yourself, even in the larger scale, be able to manufacture your own things, right? Some people would be like, Costco is basically a sort of slavery type system, right? But even that differentiation in the sense where one's going like, I think that I'm understanding where it's like, okay, government should we want the government to be morally equipped to be able to help us take care of ourselves? But at the same time, my brain just instantly goes, well we should be able to take care of ourselves. So I'm like, that would be my definition of term when it came to freedom. (15:33 - 17:31) Well yeah, and I mean if you're talking to somebody that did feel strongly about something like the vaccine back during COVID, they would argue that, well, I got my vaccine and it gave me my freedom. I was able to go to the theatre where I was able to go eat out with my friends and I would disagree with that person. Right? But I mean, to them, they got their freedom. That's their version of freedom. It's not so much about telling them they're wrong, because who the hell am I? It's more so, okay, so we have different understandings of what I thought was the same thing. Okay, so let's maybe explore that before we bother with vaccines, government intervention, pandemics and virus theory and all the little branches that come off of that tree. Well yeah, because someone, I think, looking in that model would think, well, my freedom to be safe in an environment like a theatre where I don't have to worry about getting sick by someone with COVID, that is a breach of my health freedom. So they're like, well, therefore, that's why you should be getting your vaccines in order to have access to this thing that previously everybody had access to. And then, you know, maybe someone with common sense would go like, regardless of, you know, past ailments or viruses or whatever that people had. And then, of course, that goes into the real questioning, the narrative of, well, was that even real, right, that COVID virus? Was the implications really as bad as it was being portrayed, right? But that's when you're getting into the really nitty gritties, and I don't even think that you scratch that level until you can find something to figure out how to reach across. Yeah. Yeah, that's the biggest thing is reaching across, and I mean, it's a tough one, because you basically have to exercise a form of active listening that even I don't have the patience for, more space. (17:32 - 18:15) I mean, you essentially have to listen to them drawing on about things that you probably vehemently disagree with them on, and then you have to turn it into a little bit of a game where you go, okay, well, hey, maybe this is a more reasonable way to interpret it rather than just, you're an idiot, you have no common sense, and I don't like what you're saying, and here's a pamphlet I have actually right here. It's full of stats and statistics here that I'm going to beat you over the head with and further entrench you in your views and further entrench me in mine. Right? Yeah, there was... I think we were talking the other day, and that's kind of like that investment, I guess, investment into the conversation or the outcome. (18:16 - 19:05) We've talked to people... There's a book that somebody said to me, and it was called Let Them, and it's just the idea... It's a new popular theory that... I forget the woman who came up with it, she wrote that book, and it's her own theory of kind of like a... Like approach things with a bit more of a... I don't want to necessarily say hands-off, because again, we already kind of know from the Hemisphere's work where if you already have the Let Them mentality, it basically says you're essentially thinking in your own brain, allow them. Is it like a live and let live? Kind of, yeah. Kind of, yeah. I think so. I've never read the book, so I don't know. I'm just guessing. (19:07 - 19:31) I haven't read the book either. Yeah, neither have I. I've just listened to some of her lectures. That's like some of the popular talking points. Did you guys explore that, or did you guys just kind of read it? For the book? No, I haven't read the book. It was... But I talked to... Because somebody said it was popular, no? Yeah, because it's in Costco. That's how you know it's popular. (19:32 - 19:38) Well, I was going to say the woman's on social media. I just unfortunately forgot her name. Well, right here. (19:39 - 20:03) Mel Robbins. Yeah, and she's been popping up on feeds as of lately. Did that say number one TikTok release? That's hilarious. Did it? That just goes to show how far behind the curb I am. I didn't know TikTok was releasing books. Oh my gosh, it did! The number one book. Wow! I didn't even see that. That's a top right for those who... To be fair, I didn't even know that either, because me and Maddie don't have TikTok. I kind of refused. (20:07 - 20:15) We're going to have a captured audience of people between the ages of like 40 and 60. Yeah, these youngsters hate TikTok. Me too. (20:17 - 20:28) Never even bothered getting an iPhone. Yeah, I mean the book Let Them was basically live and let live. Because you can't... You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. (20:28 - 20:42) And so you can't change people. You may be able to influence them. And we were kind of talking about that just in terms of influencing friends and groups around us to not be invested in the outcome. (20:42 - 20:50) And I think that's what that book is saying. To just let people do what they want to do. Now, there is still a fine line because morals. (20:51 - 21:11) You can't do this post-modernist where people can decide their own values or just make up values, which is something C.S. Lewis talked about too. You can't pull it out of thin air. But you can look, even in every religious text, the Quran, the Bible, the Torah, there's a reason that there's so many similar parables in all of them. (21:11 - 21:25) Because there is a middle ground that most people because of the brain, the way we're made up, just what we were divined, we all share in common. And those are the middle things. So you don't want to disregard those. (21:25 - 22:01) But in terms of the nuances, the how things manifest, which is what we were talking about earlier, people living their lives and choosing to go about whatever action it is, that, there's so many nuances, you can't pick that. And so, going that, like you said, who am I to tell this person how to live their life or how to think about a said thing? So I think that's kind of just what the book was saying. Maddie, are you on Telegram for your own personal account? Because I just sent you something that you can pull up on a screen if you want to of Mel kind of talking about it. (22:02 - 22:11) The first thing that came to mind was just an extreme example. Like somebody looks at you and they go, well, I want to eat cake every day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. (22:12 - 22:17) That's the only thing I have lived for, live on. I don't know if I can let them do that. That's my go-to. (22:19 - 22:33) Dude, in that situation, what the hell do you say? No, you can't do that. I'm going to go to every grocery store, every bakery, and I'm going to buy up all their stock. And then I'm just not going to sell cake to you. (22:34 - 22:53) No, no, no. The thing that I would ask them is, like, why? And, of course, they could give, well, it's delicious, right? Well, then you go, okay, but it's delicious. Like, is that your highest priority, to get things that are delicious? Well, my next question would be, do you want to die sooner, too? Because that's going to be the result. (22:55 - 23:16) She was talking about just the different similarities between different cultures throughout history in all of their writings and how there's just so many similarities and the first thing that just went to mind is, well, at least collectively, humanity has figured out that we cannot eat cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So that's a start. That is a start. (23:16 - 23:26) We're getting somewhere. Oh, my gosh. So I don't know if this will... Don't know if that's the kind of similarities or crossovers you were talking about, but the intrusive thought won. (23:27 - 23:50) Yeah, that definitely, yeah. Okay, now, I don't... You're in a good mood or that you've met their expectations, and here's what I've learned. When you actually stop giving your power to other people's opinions and to their moods and to their expectations of you and you take the power back and you say, well, let me focus on what I think about myself. (23:51 - 24:19) Let me focus on what my values are and what my intention is and let me act in a way that is aligned with that as best as I can and let me actually learn how to respond to my own emotions like a fucking adult instead of vent texting at everybody or pouting in the corner or gossiping or bitching or taking it out on other people. Let me be the mature adult here and let me work on this. When you actually put your time and energy there, a funny thing happens. (24:19 - 24:27) All the other stuff takes care of itself. Oh, my God, Rich. Like, when you're proud of yourself, you actually don't think much about what other people think. (24:28 - 24:52) When you are kind of focused every day on just doing little things that make you proud of yourself or that are aligned with the things that you care about, you're not worried about what other people's expectations are. If you screw up and hurt somebody's feelings, it's not like World War III is broken out. You literally just know your intentions so you can take responsibility for the impact it had and apologise and move on. (24:52 - 25:11) Like, it doesn't become this noose around your neck and you don't feel this sense that you're responsible for everybody in your life. Yeah, that's probably the core of it. Honestly, podcasts are usually just a lot of people talking about their life experience. (25:11 - 25:27) And the first thing that went to my mind is somewhere in her history, she has a very vehement memory of losing an argument in a comment section. Just like, let me tell you what I think. And then just being pissed about it for like three quarters of a day. (25:27 - 25:37) Oh, my gosh, no kidding. Took her like five years to write a book, find somebody to read it on Audible for her to figure out. That probably wasn't a good use of my time. (25:38 - 25:42) Yeah, rules. It's okay, I still haven't figured it out. Don't read the comments. (25:42 - 26:09) Now, the exception is we do read Mark Sparks' comments because he comments on every video and he actually has some really cool things today to say. And one of the things that he actually did comment recently that got me and Maycee thinking was kind of what you alluded to. You said the older generation, you know, because we're not on TikTok, we're going to have this generation of 40 to 60 listening, or 40 up basically, and then we won't basically any young people we won't have an audience for. (26:10 - 26:30) And he brought up the idea what you said according from the perspective of the seniors, we're youngsters. And he said, but by a couple century ago, by their standard, we're already old. How old are you? 26. (26:30 - 26:39) And I'm 23. And then Maycee's 21. So by that standard, technically, we're already old. (26:40 - 27:01) We're supposed to have kids if we were in Ben Franklin's time. I don't think so. I've worked with quite a few older gentlemen of a particular vintage and man, I'm 26 and sometimes I gotta get my head out of my rear about looking at myself like, oh, damn, I'm four years away from 30. (27:02 - 27:09) What am I doing with my life? And they look at me and they're like, oh, you're 26. You're a young guy. You'll figure it out. You're fine. You got your whole life ahead of you. And they're telling me that at 26. (27:10 - 27:26) I'm like, well, okay. Maybe I gotta shift my perspective a little bit. So, I don't know. I'd say we're still we're still in that freaking youngsters you and your TikTok and your emojis. Yeah, that's one well, that's because we do so much work on the brain. That was the one thing. (27:26 - 27:44) I got the argument in the sense of because he was going off of the context of our conversation with Samantha Steinke. She's the VP of cons on the UCP board. And all of them look at me and Maycee and go, oh, you're doing well for the young generation and all that jazz. (27:45 - 28:53) It's nice to see young people getting involved. And even remember when Dad was first starting to get on boards and get involved, they called him the young one because he was 45 instead of 60. Dude's got salt and pepper in his beard and his hair and they're calling him young. I found that pretty hilarious. And so, I think it's the same principle because there's just such an apathy amongst the youth and there's this disengagement amongst that generation. We, even though we are objectively young and our brains are not done developing, that's one thing that people don't consider. Yes, you can play around with, you know, Ben Franklin was running for boards and people were inventing things at 14, 16. It's like fantabulous. I'm glad they were doing that and I want my kids to be just like that when I have kids. However, their brain was still not developed until at least 25 and that's something that you can't just throw away even though I do get the aiming for a higher cultural value and trying to raise the younger generation to a higher standard. I get that. I mean, like when I first like when you said that when I first read it, like I got the impression of, oh, okay. (28:53 - 29:18) So, he's kind of just trying to say that like there were 12 and 13 year olds and 11 year olds that were able to like navigate by the stars, right? Or they were able to take up their parents' estates and have upwards to 250 employees by age 14 or something, right? And like to me, I thought of course context, right? Here's the context. That sounds miserable. You're 13. (29:19 - 29:43) You're still at the age where you kind of want to like take a magnifying glass to ants and then suddenly a family member dies from like pestilence or something worse and then all of a sudden you're like, hey, you have 250 mouths to feed and if you mismanage this at age 13, a lot of things are going to go wrong for you. Have fun, bud. Well, I mean, it's interesting. (29:43 - 29:54) I understand in the sense where it was a different time. Like, because even mom brought up the point where she said, well, most people were not like dying. I mean, sorry, were dying by relatively like younger ages. (29:55 - 31:22) But granted, I mean, even in Benjamin Franklin lived up to like 80 something. So, to me, I'm like, yeah, it's null and void on that point. But when it comes to like the times, it's like even today you could make the argument that things are a lot harder in terms of what's been going on and you could. You could say like chemicals in the food, in the air, right? All sorts of different things. They're making the frogs gay. They're springing up things that create like... Wages aren't the same today as they were. Waves of autism, right? Or, yeah, like even today, like the version of slave labour, right? It's like that. The British system has always been the British system, so it never really stopped. It's just now you could say that even with the rise of social media. Now there's just more distraction. But to me, I'm like, even when I read Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, he also brought up the point where it was just like vices are still vices, you know? So, during that time, what he noticed with his groups of friends is they'd be like, prostitutes, gambling, right? And like these are things that they can gravitate towards as distractions, like anybody else in our society gravitate towards distractions. Sure. And so, I mean like, even the concept maybe of like, was there a lot more psyops? As in as much as there is today? Probably not because things couldn't travel as fast. They had the newspaper, and I think that was about it, right? And they had like telegrams in terms of giving it through like dove. I don't know. (31:25 - 32:58) Hold on, I'll reply to your letter. Just give me three months. Yeah, right. Exactly. And so, I understand the sentiment in the sense where it was, um, you still had the opportunity though to use, like, left hemisphere has not really gone away, so there's still always a chance no matter what time of era it was to, you need to conquer it. So if you have your distractions, then conquer them, right? Or don't, and then you do the thing, right? And so then, but when he like put forward that comment, it did kind of make me think that it is sad that our expectations are looking at Samantha Steinke, who I think might have been in her 30s, 40s, and she's like one of the youngest on the board of directors, right? And that, and then even looking at me and Maddie at like in our 20s, saying, oh, it's so nice to see youth involved, right? And to me, I'm just like, well, I mean, we haven't done much, like, you know what I mean? Because even people like a Benjamin Franklin, like, that guy physically accomplished things and invented shit. And then he even came up with the Juno Club. So that's what, the Juno Club was the concept that Matthew Arad has done basically with, and Cynthia with the Rising Tide Foundation was, how do we get a bunch of people together to read and talk about and write all of the things that they are learning in the world? And then, they took it a step further where the guys in the, like the gentlemen in the Juno Club, they created their own clubs. And then they kept on branching it, and all, like the big HQ was Juno Club, right? But the mini-secs that were created by the different players from the original onset, they didn't necessarily know about the original. (32:59 - 35:06) They just knew that, oh, so-and-so who was from Juno, right, is setting up a thing, and so they attended, right? And they were kind of like, it was almost like the nexus of, it made me think of Freemasonry, but if it was actually used as a, like, it's a tool, depends on how you use it. Like a conduit for good kind of thing? Conduit for good, exactly. And so then how that transpired, though, was then you had people that were writing articles for the newspapers, right? And then you had people that were actually stepping up to be congressmen, and all of that fun jazz, right? And so then, like, of course, my heart and my soul was just like, yeah, like, it's sad to see the times that we're living in, but at the same time, like, I'm not, we're just gonna keep on trekking. So what I'm hearing is, the solution is like the Dead Poets Society movie, we're gonna get everybody together, and we're gonna write and read in a cave. Because honestly, if you did that kind of crap in public, you'd get mocked, and hopefully one of them invents the equivalent of the light bulb or the Canada Post. I like this plan, I think it's gonna work real well. Now, to comment on his comment, it's kind of difficult because even in the beginning, when I gave a little bit more care to politics, I don't remember what his name was, but he was sitting all of us down, and he was trying to ask, hey, you guys are young, how do we get more young people involved? You know, I came up with ideas about, well, instead of handing like 300 brochures to the young people as they walk through the door, knowing they're only gonna fold it, put it in their back pocket to be polite, and then toss it into their trash the minute they get home, why don't we use QR codes? But honestly, it's kind of getting caught up in the details. Young people... I can't even really make the statement like, oh, well, all the young people, let me tell you what they're interested in, because I honest to God don't know. But when it comes to interest, it's just such a broad topic, you can't really choose what people are interested in. (35:07 - 37:07) You can sort of sway it into a particular direction, but, I mean, even looking at the internet as like the greatest example, you'll try and send people in a direction and then some sort of fad comes seemingly out of nowhere from that, that people are more interested in than the actual original content matter. So, really just, I guess, do your best to be engaging, you know what I mean? Create content that young and old alike can engage in, and, you know, give them something in common to talk about, you know? Nothing's more, uh, what would you say? Nothing's better at building relationships than having something in common, you know what I mean? When I'm talking to some of the older guys, even at work, and you know, they're making references to television shows that aired when I was just a twinkle in my dad's eye, and I can't really relate, but the two guys that were talking about it, it's a really funny joke, I mean, they're laughing, they're laughing really hard, and I'm going, did I miss something? Like, am I on the outside of an inside joke here? And that's just it, but the minute I show interest in something that they're interested in, or you know, we've had a similar experience, maybe in a particular situation or a scenario, there's that instant connection, and then from there everything kind of opens up. So, just do your best to be engaging and give the people something that they can talk about at the cafe, the local cafe, that's about the best you're going to be able to do, because the rest, I mean, it's entirely out of your control, I think. And speaking of cafes, everybody. Oh my gosh, she had it like this. Yep. Me and Maycee drink matchas on a daily basis. It's a quotidian routine of ours because of the health benefits, which I will get to eventually. But, that being said, I have finally opened up for the sake of cuteness. (37:08 - 37:35) Buy me a matcha! So, if you guys want to fuel our healthy habit, feel free to drop five bucks at our buy me a coffee and buy us a matcha, because they're about five bucks on average when you do it outside of the house, I'm just saying. That one audience member that mistook this for one of those, like, solve your problem fast rumble ads is now just sending you more coffee money than you could ever hope to need. No. (37:36 - 38:27) No. Whoops, sorry. No, no, no. Take it back. Take it back. Yes. Please take it back. Um, so, we could, I could expand a little bit more on the, because his comment on the youth and the age thing, he was basically telling us kind of not to not think of ourselves as old and behind the times, so to speak, to set the standard so people stop kind of celebrating mediocrity and not aiming to raise the standard. Um, which to me makes sense in terms of the philosophy to hold like in our minds, which I think we already do. (38:27 - 38:37) I think most of us here anyway, I think I'm behind on a daily basis. I don't know about you two. I mean, it's that line, you know, the older I get, the more I realise I know nothing. (38:38 - 38:47) Right. Yes. So, by that standard, I mean, that's why kind of back to the beginning, we grew up thinking, Dad always said, watch people's actions. (38:47 - 38:59) Love a lemming, don't be a lemming. And so, I think all of us got the comment of, oh, you're an old soul. You know? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I've gotten that a couple times. (38:59 - 39:45) And also, it's just so fun, like, okay, this might be like a little bit of a dig, but when it comes to, like, I honestly think that sometimes when you get that comment when you're younger, it's because you clearly said something an adult agreed with, and then they're like, oh, wow, look at the young little 12-year-old saying exactly what I think. Well, you're such an old soul, right? And it's more like a, no, I just, I'm happy that you agree with me, right? And it's just funny because the child hasn't necessarily like gone through anything to really edify why they just said what they said. I think it's the same as, you know, old souls something I've heard, but I've also heard, you know, you're wise beyond your years. (39:45 - 40:50) Right? And I mean, not to read into it too much, but wise beyond your years kind of sounds like to me like, hey, you know, you're a young one and you've just said something pretty insightful. Maybe you don't quite have the same experience, you know, maybe you haven't quite gone through what I've gone through, but it sounds like you've got a good head on your shoulders and you're, you know, and maybe in their set, if you don't from their perspective, it could be a bit of a vote up. Like you seem headed in a better direction than maybe the next 17, 18, 19-year-old I ran into today. So I choose to give it like a more generous interpretation because honest to God, I have no idea still to this day what old soul means. I mean, we could Google it. Maybe we should do that. We should just see what the Google AI's understanding of old soul means just to give people context. Although I have a feeling with this audience, we probably have a lot of old, old souls and young, old souls already. I mean, they typically gravitate towards this kind of thing. (40:51 - 41:09) Want to read this, Seb? You don't want me to read it. The term old soul generally refers to a person, especially a child or young individual who demonstrates a maturity, understanding, or seriousness that is typically of someone much older. Yeah, and see, you guys know me really well, so that doesn't work. (41:11 - 41:20) No, it depends on the circumstance. So most? Well, I was gonna say, you're right. It's not so dichotomous. (41:21 - 41:49) I think that when you get told that you're that thing, it can come from either the standpoint of maybe just because kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. And I think that, honestly, at this rate, I think that people have been saying that for a bit now. I mean, unfortunately, like I was mentioning before, which is all of the distractions and then the vaccines and just all the things that have been ruining children's frontal lobes. (41:50 - 42:23) Yeah, like, are they a lot smarter than we think they are? Well, we're making them dumber by the day, but in terms of them being, I guess, providing something wise that maybe is an unexpected thing for an adult, and maybe the adult didn't even think of it themselves. I could be wrong. It's not necessarily that the child's agreeing with something they inherently know. They might have just presented something to the adult where they're like, whoa. Even I gotta think about that. That's what I was gonna say this morning, too, Seb. (42:23 - 42:36) He alluded to that. Even in the workforce, the old dog teaching the new dog tricks, and vice versa, the young dog teaching the old dog. You were commenting on that, too. (42:37 - 43:19) Because you can get the people that you can get the old person that thinks the young person can't teach them anything, but if you make the statement you're an old soul, I feel like you naturally are more likely to be willing to be taught by a young person. So that's where I was gonna say it depends. Sometimes, and I did see a thing, and unfortunately this is where a lot of, I think, the divide can happen between older generation and younger generation, is if you are that type of person, and you make that nice assumption where they said, oh, you're an old soul, it might mean that later on down the line they're more willing to let younger voices have their input, have their say. (43:20 - 44:03) It's frustrating when it's tailored so they could flip it on you. I've been told I'm an old soul, or I've been told why it's beyond my years, or I've been told, oh, I thought you were 30. But when it comes to, by the same person, in another sense though, what can happen is I say something that they don't necessarily agree with, or they feel I'm targeting something that maybe is a bit more personal for them, and whether I knew it was something personal for them or not. I didn't know it was gonna hit lemon juice on the wound even though it was there. Then all of a sudden you're like, they flip it, and they'll be like, well, you're just inexperienced. Oh, well, you're too young to understand. (44:03 - 44:27) So it's like, one minute you said I was this, and then the next minute because I hit a wound, now you're saying I'm inexperienced and I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't know too much about the specifics of the circumstance. I mean, usually when somebody's trying to throw around their experience, it's like you said, because you might have stepped on a landmine. (44:27 - 44:48) But in those situations, I kind of just had it happen the other day. We were doing a job a particular way, and I had just finished working a couple of days ago with a guy that was way more efficient than the gentleman I ended up working with in this story. And he ended up doing the job the most efficient way I'd ever seen. (44:50 - 45:08) And this guy that I was working with on this particular day just was bewildered as to how it took him so long to do about half the amount of work that the other guy did in half the time. So he was just beside himself. I mean, he was really choked about it. (45:08 - 45:33) And the thing is, I mean, I was aware he probably didn't want to hear it, but he asked. So I just said, hey man, the guy I worked with the other day, this is the way he did it. And the job looked good, the customers were happy, we gave them exactly what they wanted, and we were able to double our productivity. (45:34 - 45:51) And he goes, well, you know, I've been doing this for 15 years, and that's just not the way we do things. I mean, that's unprofessional, and that's why I don't like doing it that way. And I said, well, fair enough, and that's why we got half the amount of work done in twice the time. (45:52 - 46:10) I get paid by the hour, I'm fine with the result either way, so you know. Yeah, that's where it's one of those things where the whole, like, work smarter not harder, right, versus the whole if it ain't broke, don't fix it kind of thing mentality. And that's what you're kind of alluding to. (46:10 - 46:30) A lot of the times the line that gets thrown around the shop is, well, they're very stuck in their ways. But I mean, to some extent, we're all stuck in our ways. So I kind of take it with a grain of salt when they say that, because I've been able to get older gentlemen that don't look at me very fondly because I'm a new face, not a lot of experience. (46:30 - 47:13) And, you know, I don't know how to do something as simple as, you know, back up a trailer or train a, you know, chain a truck. And then, you know, after him watching me screw it up, you know, five or six times, and you watch his face go ketchup red because he's just pissed beyond reason. You know, his piss is at a boil. I just looked at him, I said, Hey, honestly, treat me like I'm five years old. Explain it to me like I'm six and then show me how to do this. And, you know, I didn't expect it to go anywhere. And then he did. He goes, well, here's how you do it. And then I tried to replicate it and it worked on my first attempt, whereas previously I was really, really struggling. (47:13 - 47:25) But that actually changed the course of our relationship because how we worked together from then on is he would sarcastically, with the intention of making me feel like a moron. Hey, fair enough. I am. (47:27 - 47:37) Explain it to me like I'm five. But man, did it help me understand how to help him, which was my whole job in the first place. I was a labourer. (47:37 - 48:36) And that actually ended up being the way I got him to sort of change his ways. You know what I mean? It's not like he explained it to me in a way that was gonna make me feel better. He didn't explain it to me in a way that considered my feelings, but when he changed how he communicated, how to do this task, I was able to understand it. And then suddenly he didn't have to sit and watch and get frustrated because I don't know what I'm doing. And so even in my own life, I've ran into people who are stuck in their ways, but nobody's or at least maybe they have, and they just didn't find a way that stuck, tried a way to open up a line of communication that works for both parties. Right, and that takes also a bit of humbleness on your part because you have to, even with, okay, yes, we're technically old, our brains are almost developed, and we should be setting a standard for the younger people. (48:36 - 49:58) In order to do something like that, or to be an older person that wants to call a younger person an old soul or have a younger person teach them, be able to be taught, you're like, you have to be willing to look at yourself as if you were a five-year-old, I know nothing year-old, you know? And that's something that, it's a mode of attention that everybody can lose, especially as you get older, but I feel like even regardless of that, because if you have the left hemisphere proclivity or you get stuck on something specific, whatever it is, you're going to lack the ability to put yourself, be willing to play the fool. You literally embodied, treat me like I'm five, and then maybe that's degrading, but it's also, if it allows that possibility of something new to come about and to be able to work with someone that maybe isn't pinging as well as you just did, they might ping afterwards because you just did that thing and you were willing to look the fool, act as if you were a young, dumb person, even at the age of 26. So, that kind of brings up even as you get older, being able to still learn from the younger generation, you do have to what is that Peterson quote? You know, act as if someone has something to teach you. (49:58 - 52:57) Someone has something to teach you. And somebody that gets stuck in their ways or they don't know how to revitalise, they're not willing to change, it's because they haven't, they've lost that ability to look at themselves as if they are a five, young, dumb year old. And so there is like a good there is benefit to being able to look at yourself as if you are still young and inexperienced, even inexperienced, which is... Yeah, and it's funny because you'll have the, I guess older folks that'll kind of go like, oh kids and technology, right? And they'll be like, I'm bad with technology and haha. And it became a bit of like a, it's a bit of a cliche now. But it's like, well that same mentality that you've applied where it's like, oh I have no idea, right? The problem is you don't really take it a step further if you're the type where it's like, oh I don't know how to use that stuff and so you just don't. You just don't even try, right? It's the, it's like, well no, like call over like Larissa or whatever, your niece and be like, okay, come help me out and figure out this thing, right? Because then it shows that you're willing to look like the five-year-old fool, right? And so like I think that that would be a relatively, because Sebastian was describing the cycle, right? And it's like the young person's ethos, kind of starting out, is a lot of what their parents were, what the people like the guardians, adults, whoever, because everybody's different, right? Who the adults in their lives were kind of setting up for them. And then as that child's kind of developing, I think that the funny part is that like whether it's the parent or the guardian or whoever the adults are, right? That are kind of helping raise up this young person, they kind of forget that this young person's gonna be damn near very similar to you, right? And then you're gonna, you can either get caught in the, ugh, like, I don't like how they're so much like me like when I was that age, right? But at the same time it's like, well, you don't understand that a lot of what you put into them is now in them. And then later on, I think the thing that might help for, I guess, a young person trying to reach their hand forward to teach someone older and maybe the older person receiving it, is kind of helping that older person remember that it's like, well, I am you, right? Like this young version of me. Like I would say to my dad or my mom, I'd be like, well, I am doing exactly what it is that you were doing because of all the stories you told me, of all the experiences you told me, all of which I never lived myself, but all of which I adopted the models of thinking surrounding it because I haven't lived long, right? In order to form my own conclusion now. And that's where Sebastian's experience is still, I think, supersedes mine in terms of the communications with people because he's been doing it for a lot longer, right? And so now he has his own model and ethos of how to try to communicate with people to form those bridges. I should come on this podcast more more often. I could just get smoke blowing up my rear leg. (52:58 - 53:11) This is great. Two things. One, for the one person that's in every comment section that has too much time on their hands, I want you to comment the number of times I rock in my chair during this podcast. (53:12 - 1:08:39) Two, don't waste your time, please. To your point, I've honestly, I've worked with people that are super old and they have a better headspace towards learning new things and I've just in that same point met people that are as young as me, that are more stuck in their ways than guys in the same industry who have been working in that industry for say like 20 years. So I would take it on a case by case basis because you're just going to end up running into, the biggest thing for me is I really don't care if a person puts me in a category, whatever helps you understand what you think you understand about me, I'm not too worried about it because I'm going to do the same thing to you and when you're specifically talking about relationships maybe at work or even a lot of friendships are based on this, you kind of just find like the level on the shelf that you two are both most comfortable operating at with one another and those are just based on assumptions and only when something like really freaking irritating happens do you guys actually figure out where you stand because everybody in their past has that like friend fight that you think about in the shower in your adult life and you're like god that was cringe just such a stupid thing to argue about, but I mean if you guys hadn't gone through that relationship, maybe hadn't blown up or not blown up, you wouldn't actually understand about as much as that person as you would have if you had never actually gone through it, so when it comes to that kind of situation I would just urge you to maybe understand that they're doing it to you just as much as you're doing it to them and honestly that's okay this is why instead of case by case basis it's a brain by brain race you're dealing with which hemisphere, which hemisphere and which gender, how old are they those are all the things, yeah but I think if I said that to a bunch of blue collar like concrete cutter, carpenters, plumber, who's electricians, they'd be like are you using big words because you think you sound smart? You look homeless stop trying you're here with us you didn't make it, no one's reading your book and I'd be like yeah true and there's the balance that me and Maycee might touch on in another episode which is the academic paradigm versus the blue collar because there's definitely a lack of a cohesion between the two I think it's getting better today because we have more people than ever that are listening to podcasts you know understanding oh shoot I need to understand some things because there's other people's intentions being inflicted upon me that I didn't realise so we do have more people that are like blue collared maybe they are a construction worker or maybe they are a rigger like even our interview with Grant Prior, he's a rigger you know he does the two on two off and yet he's listening to podcasts in the meantime to learn and tries to run for mayor and tries to run for mayor but we have more blue collared people that are bridging that stereotype of not being the academic and I actually, that's something that was said in the Plato which Plato dialogue was it he was talking about wisdom and it was Socrates talking about wisdom and he said out of every all the classes, the politicians the judges the poets he said it was the artisans the people that actually create and manifest things my comparison is the blue collared he said it's them that were the closest to understanding what wisdom was and I think it's because them having the real world experience, it's easier for them to then cross the boundary into the academia world versus if you start in the academia world, going to blue collar when you have no experience you've lived your life in a book I think it's harder for them to go to the blue collar versus blue collar going to an academic route Oh probably, but I mean the nice thing, and this is really going to piss off all of the pessimists in your audience but people are way freaking smarter than we think, I mean just as a general rule, like I have learned some pretty interesting things in my life from people that look and sound like a mix between a Lomotomite and a Neanderthal but man if I hadn't been able to put my own checks in balance, I wouldn't have realised that value and it would have been completely lost on me I don't know too much about the difficulties of the crossover from academic to blue collar blue collar to academic I think we have all these, like you said podcasts, we have so much media that we can access and I think regardless of the format, whether it be long form conversation kind of like we're doing right now or whether it's a YouTube short giving you a 30 second breakdown on the economy and you figure you're going to go and start trading stocks like you know what you're doing and probably lose a lot of money there's just more things to talk about, there's more things to explore and so as hilarious as it's going to sound especially when we're talking in politics on a lot of podcasts that I've listened to you guys have probably also heard something the same like oh man we're more divided than we've ever been we're so much divided there's so much division, dude there are like something like 16 million people that watch Joe Rogan and that guy has like a different guy on everyday that's talking about something different like you can probably throw a dart at a dart board with a blindfold on and hit like 16 topics you can talk about to the guy next to you on the subway and you can probably end up having one of the most interesting conversations in your life and if you're lucky and honestly you don't even have to be that lucky he can probably teach you something, even if it's what not to do so that is definitely I think we learn what not to do I think is most most accurate in terms of how we learn rather than what to do especially being young and then taking a different route we've our family lineage I mean we're so disconnected from our external family that most of what we're doing here going forth is an experiment yeah but we made our extended family I mean real talk that's true everybody's heard that line you can pick your friends but you can't pick who you're related to I mean it's true in the real sense of the word but yeah I was just going to say it's low key a little bit false I can think of a couple of family members won't name names or titles but I don't really give a damn what they do or if they ever text, phone call, or wish me a happy birthday but we have some family friends and they were no more than strangers to us they left like a couple years ago and man they are more family than family so you just never know when people special can show up in your life well speaking of people showing up that are special this has been a very special episode with Sebastian Holmes we had an hour already? we're an hour and a minute I was only going to keep you for like 30-45 minutes honestly it's fun just talking about nonsense I mean that's what I really wanted this to be was just the three of us talking kind of like we do maybe at the dinner table or while we're washing dishes even though he rants way longer than he's ever talked on this particular episode nobody's going to tune into this episode they're like dude Sebastian Holmes oh man I can't wait to hear what he has to say that's not true though because you have real life we're going to blow some more smoke hey I'm fine with this yeah just make me look good Sebastian you need to like elevate your chair while I just well not to cut you off but like everybody watching us every single person in the audience has real world experience so I don't know how much mine really holds a candle I know a couple people they really don't have experience they got none well give them time it just so happened it might be their lifetime yeah maybe not even that but give them time yeah eventually is the format for these things an hour they're whatever we want they're whatever we want we can keep going but I feel like it'd be smarter to do a two part then I was already thinking that's the fun part about editing we can do whatever we want we can take everything I've said out of context jumble the words together and get me to say some random nonsense well you've already been talking random nonsense that's my point that's exactly what I wanted from this podcast and I got it you put a mic and a camera in front of my face you're doomed no but it's like when Jordan Peelson first got on the scene and there's just a tonne of YouTube videos of him being clipped and edited into saying just random nonsense someone has too much time on their hands 100% way too much time and I promise I'm doing only 100% productive things with that time I wouldn't lie to you no we established at the beginning of the episode I agree with you this is an echo chamber he's full of shit part of it might be that I wanted to say something and then you threw my rhythm off no I wanted to say this is kind of a we will have you on again he didn't say no he can't say no on camera but he'll say it off oh I can, no I'm just kidding we'll have you on again one because this is really fun was this fun for you? oh yeah it's been a blast I mean honestly half of the things that came out of my mouth I'm going to forget them in 20 minutes I do though and if anybody found them insightful you should get your head checked but thanks for giving us your eyeballs for an hour and some change and or your ears no the people in your viewership they only have eyeballs it's the only useful part anyway nobody listens to Moe's sure whatever you want it's your podcast actually I was going to kind of make that comment this podcast actually wouldn't have we wouldn't have half of the equipment we wouldn't have the inspiration if it wasn't for Sebastian he's not just he made a joke before we hit record he made a joke before we hit record he's like oh I want to talk nonsense with you guys we're just going to talk as if we were at the kitchen table and he said you know think about where this started my 12 year old pipe dream of becoming a YouTube gamer but the reality is so glad we felt the need to share that with your audience yes and you know what's great about that is I probably frickin look it too no no you have a beautiful beard it took you that's a hard earned beard oh and by the way it took him a while for him to grow that no no hey there's some people I haven't shaved since I was 6 no who is that hockey player in Edmonton and it took him till he was he just figured out how to grow a little bit of a moustache he didn't even get a full beard we don't watch hockey anymore I don't know who that is I can't remember his name I really hope he didn't phrase it that way I really hope he didn't get in an interview and he was like yeah it took me my whole life to figure out how to grow a beard every Movember and then it took him and then he's like I finally got it this Movember I got one but I was trying to say because before we hit record it may have started with a 12 year old pipe dream but then never actually really got invested in we've all really believed in you know our dad and our dad has a great brain on his shoulders and we've mimicked him for a lot of things but you did the most investment with the actual equipment in this room to help get the idea of the family podcast going and now it's delayed yes but it's here now so you've been behind the scenes one of the biggest investors because you've actually helped buy the equipment you say that but like one cheap camera from Best Buy and not even the full price of the PC you're running this whole setup on because I'm pretty sure other people had to contribute in order to make it happen I'm like if you put it on a pie chart you barely get the skinny so you should probably go somewhere else for your information these two they're a bunch of fibbers actually we do have a podcast on misinformation disinformation malinformation if you want to check and they provide it wow yeah we do provide it no but everybody thank you very much for tuning in to Madison, Maycee, and Sebastian, yeah, thanks for entertaining my shenanigans yep you've just run into the classic example of this is the home kids undervaluing our contributions to the world because we don't think we're worth anything yeah there's no complex there I think without further ado this has been Holmes Squared