Japan To Jamaica: Finding Culture, Connection, & Stillness In A World Moving Too Fast & Loud

<p><!--block-->&nbsp;Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey. I'm here with Steve Wright, uh, I would say a dear friend and coworker of mine. He's been on the show twice before. They say it's either three strikes you're out or third time's your charm, so this is his saving or defining moment right here. Yes. But ladies and gentlemen, we've long talked, Steve and I, about doing something called Japan to Jamaica, and I know it sounds like it should be its own podcast, and it should. No one copyright that yet. But, uh, we wanted to do this episode. We're gonna talk about cultural identity, we're gonna talk about travel, exploration, the pains of moving, the lack of Mison plus. We've got a lot to get into today. But ladies and gentlemen, I introduced something wrong here, and so I wanna just clarify for anyone listening Yeah, man. Well, me deh in a Jamaica right now. Hi, I'm Steve Wright. Uh, Mr. Whiskey and I go back a while now, so, I mean, this is beautiful. And, yeah, it's always, it's always a pleasure. Each ti- he, he, uh, he hijacks my weekly, um, uh, water cooler drop-in event. I go live on LinkedIn every week. And when Wis- when Whiskey's there, it's ga- it's gloves are off. Everything's, uh, everything's open. But I'm- Ladies and gentlemen ... I'm glad to be on your platform. Ladies and gentlemen, I will say that Steve Wright has had quite the number of characters, for lack of better words, on his drop-in event, and I am not- Oh ... the highest ranked up there. We won't name names, but I know maybe you're thinking- ... of the same person I'm thinking of. Uh, yes, I am. But, uh- Yes, I am, I accept ... they also have a large hat, so maybe that's the theme. If they have a large hat- Oh ... they're kinda strange, maybe. Shame, yeah. No- 'Cause they gotta keep all their thoughts contained within the hat. I wasn't thinking of that lady. That's the- Oh ... that's a, that's a recent idea. I was thinking of one earlier than that, was a little bit zany, that we had to- Oh, okay. Well- We both, we both, we both got, we both got stalked by her. But, but there you go. Okay. Interesting. I'll leave it, I'll leave it at that. Yes. Mm. Uh. Well, well, maybe we're talking about the same person. Don't, you know what I'm talking about? The, the artist- I think we're talking about the same person, yes. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I don't know who you thought I was talking about. Does she wear the hats? Oh, I see. Okay. Oh, I... Well, so I don't wanna name people on, on your show. But anyway, we'll leave it- Yeah ... we'll leave it at that. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm looking forward to this chat because we go- And, and Steve Wright- ... all over ... you know, he's been stalked many times, uh, especially by older women, and so much so that he had to move from Britain to Jamaica recently, going on about 10 days here, which according to him in, uh, Jamaican Island time is, like, two or three weeks. So obviously he's settled- Yeah ... in. Not yet a native. That takes about, I think they say six months, which I guess is, you know, a good timeline. I, I don't think so because six months, you're not a local yet, you know? Maybe you've accustomed- Yeah ... to some of their dialect, to some of their culture, but- I mean, there are people who spend six months or four months at a time at a military base. I mean, are they locals, you know? But the one thing I do wanna start the conversation off with, an, an amazing Jamaican introduction there. Uh, my Japanese got a little butchered, but, uh, you know, you didn't know what I said, and I didn't know what you said, so it's all good. Uh, we were actually insulting each other. But, you know, what I've learned in my travels, and Steve, I'm sure you've already seen this in Jamaica, a lot of times when we do intercultural exchange, we focus on the differences. Uh- Yeah ... not in a bad way, uh, oftentimes in a good way. What's different about the food, the way they talk- Mm ... the way they live. One thing that we don't focus on as much, which I think is so important for the global, you know, humanity mission is, like, I go to a lot of parks. I'm a people watcher, and I'll sit at the park in my travels by myself, and I'll watch these families barbecue. Their, their kids are at the playground. The adults are talking. People have their dogs. And what I have found throughout all of Japan, uh, drastically different than the United States in many ways, is at the end of the day, people just wanna have a happy family life. You know, they wanna be able to go to the restaurants that they go to, shop, go to the parks, and have a sense of peace and security and joy with one another. And I think that's- Yeah ... what we often forget sometimes. We project so much cultural difference that we forget about that unifying factor is we're all striving for the same means and goal, which is just to make it through life and hopefully- Yeah ... happily. Yeah. And we are, and we are essentially social animals. We forget, we forget that in a society, you know, all the social media and all that stuff, we are social animals. We are built for connection, and part of that connection is sometimes being still. I, I love people-watching too. I mean, I ... Jamaica's a place where things can run at their own timing, and having people just sit around, literally just sit around, is kind of almost foreign in some, you know, some busy first world cities, where you, where you're seen to be loitering because you're not doing anything productive. Um, but there is a, there is a value in, in being still. It's ... The scripture says, "Be still and know I am God." I mean, that stillness where you actually engage in society from a place of being still while it's moving around you, rather than moving ... Oh, you can move through it too, but rather than moving through it, you s- you are still and it moves around you. It's a very different way of absorbing culture and similarities. Um, and also seeing differences. I mean, differences are, are helpful, um, because you need to be discerning. But at the same time, it's ... Yeah, I like s- like you said, it's nice. They are ... We have a common bond wherever we are. We just wanna get through life, um, make sure our kids grow up well, and, and leave the place better than we found it Right. And you know, I think, uh, a few things I wanna address there. First, I'll talk about the common bondness, like even humor and comedy. So I applied to perform some comedy shows while here in, you know, Japan, specifically in Tokyo. And I was talking to some local people about comedy, and they're like, "Oh, you do comedy and stuff?" And, you know, that was a common thread, that people like to laugh. And we know that scripture says, you know, that a crushed up spirit dries the bones, but laughter is- Yeah ... and good cheer is medicine, right? And- Mm-hmm ... that's a common thread, too, you know? And I think it's interesting that comedy can be universal, and there's also the thread of, hey, you have to know your audience. And I think you and I just talked the other day- Yes ... about, you know, maybe performing about a subject that an audience isn't familiar with. Uh- Yeah ... it could be about sports or it could be about a type of cultural habit, you know? And like, for example, if the Jamaican culture is much slower paced and there's a lot more stillness, but I don't know that- Mm-hmm and you're trying to joke about it, I... m- maybe it'll come off the wrong way. Like, "Hey, he... this guy's just, like, calling Jamaicans lazy," or something. But maybe you're trying to highlight something different, you know? And I think- Yeah ... there's also a blend of, you know, what is funny in terms of a stereotype, what has some truth to it as a stereotype, and then what is just blatantly racist, you know? Comedy is knowing that balance as well. And- Yes ... how you address it. I'll give you an example. Uh, I watched a white comedian the other day who is married to a Black woman, and they're having a debates because the Black side of the family has a very particular name culture compared to the white side of the family. And he was joking about it, you know, because his Black in-laws said, "Kaitlyn? No, no, no, no." He said, "Well, what if it was Kait'lyn with a Q and an apostrophe?" And then they were like, "Okay, okay," you know? But he wasn't saying it to make fun of the culture, right? He's married into that culture, and it's commentary, and they're trying to find common ground. Um, so that, that's a huge thing. But wherever you go, like, I was surprised that- Japan was so receptive to comedy, but at the same time, no, because I've watched a lot of Japanese comedy, but it's different. They have game shows that are drastically different compared to the US, and I'm sure if I was gonna do stand-up comedy in Jamaica, it would, it would be pretty different, you know? Um, but when I, I was performing comedy there, as long I w- as I wasn't a jerk chicken, you know, um- ... referencing Steve Wright's upcoming book. But yeah- ... I think comedy is a common thread, right? And that goes back to people wanna be happy, people wanna laugh, people wanna have a good time, and I think comedy can be a very unifying thing when done properly, and can be a very dividing thing when done not so properly. Um, you know, I won't name names, but, uh, a very famous comedian, uh, made some domestic violence jokes, if I'm not mistaken, that, uh, got a lot of backlash. You know, there are certain topics that- Hmm ... the way you joke about them and, and how you do them can come off as encouraging or enabling or as insulting, especially to survivors. And, you know, I think the other thing I wanted to talk about was stillness. Now, Steve- Hmm ... I agree with you. There is so much value in stillness, but how can we be still now when there almost is no more stillness? That is to say, because of social media inundation Because of our phones, which carry entire Pandora's box in our pocket at all times. A lot of people try to be still, and they get warped into it, or they open up. They go sit down at the beach, "I'm gonna be alone." And then they open up Pandora's box in their pocket because their mom texted them, or maybe that hot date texted them, or whatever it is, and then they... Once they open their phone, it's very hard to close. It's over. Right. Because the algorithm is programmed for that addiction, for that keeping you in that world. Mm-hmm. So how do we achieve stillness when everything is telling us to not be still, and everything is actively trying to take away that stillness? M- At, the, the answer to the question is, the answer to the question is rooted in the answer to most questions. The first thing is awareness. Awareness of the issue is the first domino, the first card to fall with regards to making a change. You must be aware of it. Um, and sometimes you're aware after the fact. You've got- You pick your phone up, and you realize a- an hour's gone by, and you haven't done anything but, but scrolled on your phone. Once you, once the hour is gone, you can't get it back. But be aware that starting your phone at 10 o'clock and finishing your phone at 11 has cost you an hour that you may have enjoyed, because you wanted to do that, or you may have hated because you only went on there for, to check a, to check a text, and you've, you've gone down that p- that path. So awareness is the first thing. Once you're aware, then you can start looking for the things that can help you deviate or at least put a rope around your waist before you go into the rabbit hole. Um, so there's lots of things that you can do, um, but, uh, it starts with the awareness. And you have to want it. I think we are... The, the danger is that we, we get inundated with the soundbite so much that it doesn't matter what the soundbite is- We s- auto- we go into an automatic shutdown because there is a soundbite. Because something's coming at us, we shut down everything, and that includes our awareness of things coming at us. So we are less discerning because there's so much messaging now. We don't, we don't choose between one and the other. And part of the answer I wanted to... I wrote down something while you were talking about, about comedy, 'cause humor is one of those things where you can get seriously right and seriously wrong with the same joke. Um, so context is everything. So context- Mm ... is big in terms of, in terms of understanding and being aware. Once you've got awareness and you've got context, now you can start piecing things together. I know if you've got an app, you know, i- iPhone has an app that tells you how much screen time you have, and it can tell you what your screen time, um, habits are. So in the week, you might have less screen time 'cause you're doing other things. In the weekend, you go crazy and you've got a lot of screen time. Being aware of those things help you make the decision, but you have to want the decision too. Um, and you've gotta have something better on the other side. Why do you want to have less time on your phone? Your phone serves you. If you're waiting around and you've got nothing else to do, or you don't wanna seem like, uh, you're, you're, um, not a victim, but you're just sit- You're n- you know, you're standing there. You're in a bar, all right? You're at a table waiting for somebody. Sometimes it's easier to be on your phone than actually- Mm-hmm engage with some, you know, people around you. Mm-hmm. So in some ways it makes you safer to, to keep yourself preoccupied. Like wearing headphones and not listening to anything. It stops people from, it stops strangers and strange people from coming up to you, 'cause you just pretend you're listening to something or you're on the phone. Um, so I get it. Some- in some cases, those contexts help you. When it doesn't help you- Realize as quickly as you can and look for ways to mitigate those rabbit holes, those things, the slippery slope, the rabbit hole. Those metaphors are, are there for a reason, because they catch us really quick. But don't turn off. Don't, don't hate everything. Uh, sometimes people, um, they're so sick of sound bites that they listen to nothing. Um, I would go the other way. Don't listen to sound bites. Listen to long form or read long form. Read a newspaper instead of getting your news on the phone. Why? Because it's later. It's... Someone had to write it and print it before you see it versus getting stuff the instant it happens, the context could be shifted. Mm-hmm. The, you know, the, the, the reason for it coming into your feed may not serve you. Sometimes it's better to have day-old news because you've got a chance for it to sort of, you know, justify itself. If it's not around for a day, then no harm, no foul. If it stays for longer than a day, then maybe you should pay attention. So there's, there's definitely things that we can do. We just have to take the energy to make the energy- Mm ... take the energy to do it. Right. And I really love what you said about long form. I think if you're gonna be spending time on your phone, you should be listening to the One to One Thing podcast by Steve Wright. I mean, that's probably the best, you know, time filler. If you're gonna be avoidant at a bar or you don't wanna look like you're a loner, then you should feel like you're having a one-to-one thing with Steve Wright and his guest at least, you know? I, and I would say the same for Couple of Muks. I mean, your stuff- Oh, thank you your, your stuff, your stuff has, your stuff has long... You've, you've got some long chats, and you've got some, you've got some short content too. Oh, yeah. And, and you know what? It's, it is, it's helpful. It's helpful to get things in a broader context. Take the time to listen. Take the time to pay attention. We're losing that skill. I mean- Mm ... I'm, I'm a generation older than you, Mr. Whisky, and, um- A few. You're a few generations older than me, actually. Oh, wow. Wow. Thank you. Yeah. And oh, I'm a, I'm a pre, I'm a pre-Google baby, right? You know, so I, I, I'm a, I'm a dial-up internet guy. So that's, that ages me significantly. But it... I say that because there was a time when it, when you had to work harder to get information. Mm-hmm. And that work was on, that work was on me, not the technology. Now we've got technology that makes it so easy to get information. There is no work on my side at all, and I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing. Right. And well, the declining attention span is another thing too, because it doesn't just affect our social media habits, it affects our relational and, you know, human conversation habits. You know, people are getting... That shorter attention span is applying to everything, and not just- Yeah ... on a mental and psychological level, but on a chemical level as well- Yeah which we know there's a lot of studies about that. One thing I want to talk about, stillness. A really great sermon piece I saw the other day online not too long ago was that- Mm ... people were like, "God hasn't spoken to me." You know, Pastor, like, "I keep trying to listen for God's voice." And he goes, "When are you listening? If you're always on your phone, always reading something, always being bombarded by information..." He goes, "People used to hear God more because people used to be still more. They used to be having some silence more. It's not just about your prayer time, it's throughout the day God is trying to speak to us about things, and you can't hear Him because you're so busy plugged into whatever is on your phone." And I really thought about that. It's not just about God talking to you, but about talking to yourself. We are- Yeah ... avoiding our inner dialogue, these moments where you're waiting in line somewhere, waiting on the train, waiting at a bar, whatever it is, where you could be reflecting on a problem or having an inner dialogue and instead you're just filling in that space with mostly... The truth is, and, and Steve and I know this, we've had a lot of conversations about this, with, they call it brain rot, right? I mean, how- Mm ... how, how do you hear that term and not have concern? It's rotting your brain. They call it brain rot. And people are joking, "Oh, that's just another term for memes and humor and content." Uh, no, there's a difference between, you know, genuine humor and brain rot. And a lot of the internet now is that. And what we see is Steve and I, we post stuff about human connection, about, on my end, the prevention awareness of domestic violence, human trafficking, sexual assault. Those do not get pushed out by the algorithm. Some of them have zero views because they have the w- the word rape in them or sexual violence or whatever it is. The algorithm refuses to push it out. Seth Rhyne runs the School to Embassy Project. He's been on my podcast twice. Does school shooting prevention and safety. Um, they basically block his content. You know- Wow ... meanwhile, and I've, I've shared this example before, my ex-fiance had showed me if you... There was a video of a guy, he goes around, he sticks his finger in ant holes, and he, uh, rates them on a scale of one to 10 on ant biting power, on the coarseness of the dirt and stuff. Each video he had had over one million views or likes. You know, meanwhile, I'm posting a clip, "Hey, it's Men's Mental Health Awareness Month in some places." Yeah. "And here's some stuff about men's mental health that you probably didn't know that is really important." Yeah, and it doesn't get pushed out. Interesting. And so it's not just about what you consume, it's about what the algorithm puts out. And so that time can be spent reflecting on problems. And this isn't just a waking hour problem. All this inundation is being processed while you sleep. Interesting. Every meme, every brain rot, every- News article or clickbait flashy information, right? 'Cause you talked about the filtration process being completely down now. Uh, so many- Mm-hmm ... fake news articles and, and now they're, it's harder than ever before to discern fake news because AI can write it in the most realistic news style. All right? There are fake Bible passages out there that I've gotten to read that- Wow ... AI used ancient Hebrew literary form to make it seem realistic, and people believed it. People believed- Mm ... I read a, it was a whole Bible scene where Satan shows up on the, at the crucifixion and is telling Yeshua on the cross, "You died for people who are gonna become corrupt political leaders in America. They're gonna become rappers and gangsters, and you died for these people." And people believed it. Um, you know? Mm. So your brain is processing all of this at night, you know, and that's why we're- Mm-hmm ... seeing even more. I mean, phones in general interrupt sleep habits. We already seen that. I've had plenty of sleep experts on this show. I had the FBI sleep instructor on my podcast, so I've gotten some great information, and y'all can check that out. But checking your phone in the middle of the night, reactivating your brain to a certain degree in the middle of the night, having anxiety over, I mean, FOMO, right? Fear of missing out. Mm-hmm. Huge, right? I mean, that's always been a thing to the level it is now. On my show, we've talked about social media's effect on, uh, women committing self-harm, especially- Mm-hmm at the ages betw- of e-eight to nine years old, as young as- Yeah ... that. And then, um, men and suicide when it comes to older stuff. Pornographic exposure at eight or nine years old. So there's a lot going on with social media. Yeah. And all that information is playing in our brains instead of what we could be focusing our energy on, which is, one, leaving room to hear God, leaving room to hear our inner dialogue, and leaving room to reflect on what other people said in our life. You know? And properly, yeah. We're kind of pushing everything else out listening to all this nonsense. Yeah. And, and you know, and that's maybe, you know, um, I, I liked your, uh, the example of, of the, um, the person saying they couldn't hear God yet. Is that why preachers shout so much? Is that why they preach, they have to shout? Yeah, I mean, that's a- To be heard ... that's a good example. I mean, I, you know, if I had a live audience, some of my sermons would be fiery. I g- I've got a sermon coming up that has that. So Steve, actually I think I, I discussed with you, I was diagnosed with, what is it? BPE, Black Pastor Energy, based on- ... the, um, and this was ChatGPT diagnosed me so it's take it with a grain of salt, but- Of course do you remember I, there was a, uh, um- a trend going around where it was like, "Hey, ChatGPT, generate me at the Met Gala." I think the year was art or something. And it generated me as a middle-aged Black man with a beard in this elaborate megachurch style robe with green radioactive crosses and gems, because my ministry is called Radiating Faith. It leaned really heavily into my ministry side more than my podcast side. Of course, the ministry is in- Mm-hmm ... uh, integrated with the podcast. Mm-hmm. But, um, they said, "Based off your sermon notes and the way you talk, you have BPE," which is Black Pastor Energy, which is that- Amen ... you know, and it could be good or bad. You know, there are false prophets who use BPE, and there are good people who use BPE. Yes. Yeah. Um, and that's one of the funniest things about being a podcaster, you know, is the, the way people can interpret you without seeing you. There's a lot that- Yes ... that's said in that. I've had some people who listened to my podcast, they come to guest on the show and they say, "Whoa, Mr. Whiskey, I thought you were 42 years old," or, "I thought you had a beard," or, um, and unfortunately, the response I've gotten in real life is, "I thought you were a lot taller, uh, than, you know, we watched your podcast and we thought you were a lot taller in real life." So that, that one hurts. Um, but everything- I'm sh- I'm short, I'm short too. I'm, I'm, I'm short too. I'm below, I'm, I'm below average male height. I wouldn't say that I'm- And so I get, I get that ... short, but I think that the cowboy hat projects that. I guess the classic American stereotype is that cowboys are tall. I mean, that's kind of just like- Yeah ... the thing. And you're thin. You're thin too, so. Right. I, I'm wiry- Yeah. Good thin ... and lean and the, the hat and, uh, luckily the boots make me taller. And you know- Six inch ... I don't think it's a cheat. Asian women wear eight-inch black platform shoes. I wear cowboy boots. We're all even, you know? Um, I, I went on a date once, the woman was in nine-inch heels and, um, I didn't even notice because, you know, I was focused on her face and, uh, then she took them off and went fwoomp. I mean, that, that ... I was like, "Whoa. Oh, okay." Yeah. Where'd she, where'd she go? I know. I was sad because when she was leading me, you know, by my hand through the, through the place and, you know, everyone's looking like, "Wow, how did he score that? Such a tall queen." And then later on, you know, now it's like I, I'm like, "Where'd she go?" You know? Um, and, and yeah. But anyway, uh, point being, yeah, I... So it's funny that seeing like how ChatGPT evaluated me, how other people have, how- It's really interesting. You know, I think about too, like I just did a episode the other day, 'cause it was my birthday a few days ago, I did a reflection episode- Oh on youth and entrepreneurism, and I talked about from Jeremiah and Timothy, you know, where God says to them- Yeah ... "Do not say you're too young, for I am going with you." Yes. And I talked about- Yes ... unfortunately some of the judgment I have gotten when it came to speaking on stage or other engagements, uh, constantly being called 12 years old, 17 years old, um, just belittling terms. You know, there's a, "Hey, you look young." Yeah. And then, "Hey, you're 12 years old." And this was a lady, I was trying to buy lottery tickets too, and I, and Steve, you saw my, my comedy ski- I said, "Not alcohol, not cigarettes." Yes. "They only ID me," I don't smoke cigarettes, but, "They only ID me when I go to get lottery tickets." And then it's like the dangers of the Powerball or Gr- But they'll sell me, they'll sell me a whole thing of whiskey. Well, they must know who I am, so I guess it makes sense. They, they must know who I am. A whole thing of whiskey. But I forgot I'm Mr. Sasaki today. Yes. Watashi wa Mr. Sasaki. Mr. Sasaki. But, uh, yeah. And, um- Uh, yes. Yeah, go on, go on. Yeah. Uh, no, I was just gon- I was just gonna re- reflect on what you're s- what you're saying just about, about things, things being picked up and things being disingenuous because AI can, can manipulate and, and even just people's perspectives and when they, when they hear you and don't see you, or sometimes when they see you and don't hear you, or when they see you from a distance and don't engage with you. Um- Mm. Classic. I had a classic example. I mean, I'm Black British, born in the UK. I s- um, I was 18 living in Zambia, and we talk- we'll talk about where, where we've lived in the world as well. Yeah. We're gonna go through travel and stuff. But I li- I was living in Zambia by Victoria Falls, and I walked into a garage, um, and I was after something, um, and there seemed to be no one in the sh- in the, in the shop. And then I sort of called out, said, "Hello." And there was a guy that I, I saw his legs under a, under a vehicle. So I came out and said hello, and he pulled himself out from under the vehicle, and he looked at me, and he looked around As if to say, "Who was talking to me?" 'Cause he saw a Black guy, thinking I was- Right that I'm African-sounding. And then I, I spoke to him again, and he's like... It- You could see the lights, the lights kind of went on, or he kind of- Why is he British? ... researched, researched it. And then ... And I've, I've had that. I've had that in a, a visit a school in, in Soweto, and this is in 19- in the '80s, early '80s. And, um, and every question from the school children. We were the, we were a mixed group traveling through- Mm ... southern Africa. This is post-apartheid, but still very much entrenched in the society. So the signs were down, but the apartheid in hearts and minds and s- and society was still very strong. And, um, we went to a... We visited, a mixed group, uh, white and Black. I was the only Black in the group. Um, we went to a school, and every question in this, in this classroom, this, uh, Soweto school, so it's a Black school, uh, was to me. You know? They never asked another question of anybody else. They wanted to know where I was from, where I was really from, which is an interesting question, you know, 'cause England didn't cut it. They thought I was American or Canadian or- Right. And, and you know, my fiance- I said- ... gets that a lot as well. Like- Mm. Right, but you're from the Philippine. 'Cause she's Filipino American. She was born here. Yeah. She gets that a lot. Yeah. Um, you know- Yeah ... like, "Where are you, you, you really from?" You from from. Right. And it's like- The from from. The from from. Right. And, and that, and that's been going on for a long time. I've seen a lot of, also a lot of, uh, humor sketches about that, you know, making fun- Yeah ... to call to light that kind of behavior. 'Cause when you- Yes ... watch someone else say it, you're like, "What an idiot. How rude." But then sometimes you don't realize it's your, your own actions. And I, I remember, if I'm not mistaken, one time on the Water Cooler, which is your weekly virtual event, as you mentioned earlier. Mm-hmm. I believe you shared a story, uh, from, from many years ago, where you were actually not allowed in the building. Uh, you were the only Black gentleman in your group, and I think you said- Mm-hmm ... you were told you weren't allowed inside. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah, we... That, again, that was many, many moons ago. I keep all, I keep all the memories under my hat, so they don't- And you've... Really. No dogs. Yes. They... You're like, you're like, you're like Ratatouille there. You've got some on- you've got something on you- I know ... they're pulling out. I've also got a picture- Little, little mementos ... of you in black and white playing soccer that I keep under my hat. Oh. That one. Actually, you might have to send it to me 'cause I can't find it. But, uh, but yes, yeah, it was, yeah, it was Jake's- Elon Musk can print it from my mind using the chip in my brain. It'll be like a Polaroid. It's gonna come out of my mouth, you know. Like, "Here you go, Steve. Let me shake it off first before I hand it to you." Yeah, shake it off. Yeah, shake it like a Polaroid picture. But it was, yeah, it was, uh, it was on that same trip, and, and we'd stopped to get some, get some snacks. And every- everywhere we stop, I, I do a, I do a, like a Jason Bourne re- recovery. You know, I do a rec- reconnaissance of the space. Can I... Are there any signs? Are there, are there Black people being served? Are there Black people working in there? Um, you know, does this look like a place that I would be okay in? And, um, we actually went into the store, and it was a food place, so like a bakery. Um, but they had a space inside to eat, and we thought, "Oh, let's, rather than be out in the sun, let's go and sit in the back." So the group went to sit at the back, and I followed them thinking that since I bought food there, I could eat it there. And the owner came out and said, "No, no, no. Not you. Out. You've got to take it out." Yeah. And it was like, you know, it's okay. Interestingly enough, this, again, w- in the, in the, in the age of... This is back in the '80s. So in the age today of the quick cal- the quick ca- uh, cancel culture or people being so enlightened that it, they'll be outraged by it- Um, in the moment you have to be discerning. In the moment you have to be gracious even to your enemy, you know, even to somebody who is despising you. Y- you have to have that, that pause between your, um, what's happening to you, the stimulus, and your response. Mm. If you don't have that pause, you end up in a lot of trouble most of the time, because the stimulus leads to a response without the pause, and more often than not, your response isn't, isn't gonna be, um, appropriate for the stimulus, regardless of what the stimulus is. Right. You know? And sometimes we need to go- Well, there's a biasing to how they receive your response. 'Cause you could say, "Hey- Mm ... I'm coming off as a very polite gentleman." Uh, but they always, they already have this preconceived notion that you're a rebel or a troublemaker, you don't respect authority. And now- Mm-hmm ... you're trying to not talk back to them, but they're taking it as talking back, and then it's just gonna amplify so much. And I think there's a debate of will my response make any impact toward change, or will it just further already engraved notions? And I, I think that's a huge balance to have. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Of course, it's difficult to do because you wanna defend yourself and, and speak up of course, and, you know, shed light on that. Uh, but maybe the better response is, you know, be respectful, um, show them that respect, and then maybe on a different platform or a different time that's more appropriate, bring light to it like you are now. Yeah. And like you s- and like you said about, about the, the knee-jerk response of, of seeing you in person or, or seeing, or seeing you, seeing you or having heard you on a podcast and thinking, "Oh, I thought you were much older than, than that." And then almost- Flipping the script in, in terms of trying to be funny by saying you're 12 years old. You- that's, that's rude. It, it's- Right ... it's not be- it's not even being cleverly funny, it's just like- In, in the reverse- It's just ... re- is even more rude because I joked... So when I called to attention at Military Creator Con when I performed stand-up comedy, m- one of my opening jokes, which it's, I had to do it virtually because I, the video didn't record it for a second. So but I'll tell you- Mm ... the response. This joke did not land. I started off with, "You know, I'm so glad to be serving comedy for such a wide range of veterans, because a lot of you look like you are old enough to have served longer than I've been alive." Now, you know how many of them had said that to me themselves? Almost all of them. Mm. They thought it was funny. Yeah. Now, I brought it to light as the introduction to my set, and I got a bunch of, like, kinda grumbles and curses and complaints. Like, if you call... 'Cause I had this happen. I tried buying alcohol once, and this guy was giving me a hard time because cops were pretending to be underage children to route out establishments that were serving. So he was extra cautious, but he was very rude to me about it and, you know. 'Cause look, just check my ID, you know, if it's real, blah, blah, blah. And he kind of, like- was rude to me, so I got a little defensive and I was like, "You know what? I just got off of a submarine where people I served with are dead so you can have your freedom." And, and you know, I went into a whole, "We're old enough to die for you, but you're not gonna give us a drink?" And I, I got very upset 'cause I was tired of it. Yeah. I'm tired of it. Yeah. And he was like, "Well, I would take it as a compliment." He calls over a, a, a Black gentleman who's, like, in his 70s. He's like, "If I told you you looked, you know, in your 20s today, how would you feel?" "Oh, Lord, I'd be g-..." "Well, no kidding." I said, "From that perspective, of course." I said, "But from our perspective, it would be the equivalent of me saying, 'Hey, you look like you're 90 even though you're 60.'" Yeah. Right? Because you are saying it in a way that is detracting, not adding. Yes. I'm not at the threshold- Yeah where calling me younger than I am is a compliment as it is once you're advanced in years. I'm at the threshold where you are belittling my age- Yes, yes ... to a point of I don't have the rights or the maturity or the intelligence to be- Yes ... as wise the adult. And so- Yes, yeah ... I think what we're talking about really is actually in the Bible where God says, "I judge by the content of their character, not their appearance." Uh-huh. M- y- you know, the hearts of men judge by the outward appearance, right? That's why Saul was great. Unlike me and you, he was really tall, you know? And they said, "That's a great thing." "A king should be tall." And then he said, "Hey, Dav- you know, David's a young shepherd boy, but you know, he's got a heart after my own." Wow. That's what matters. That's it, yes. And so I think podcasting, I guess, is one of those interesting forms where you might only hear a person, and you're hearing their character before you ever see them. Yeah, yeah. And again, that might not be the truth. You and I have talked about, like, hey, if we met in person, guarantee I'd probably be wearing this hat, and you'd probably bring a jump rope. But- ... does that mean that's who we are? I think you and I, yes, the answer is yes, but there are some podcasters- Yes ... there is the age-old saying, "Don't meet your heroes in real life. It's all an act." Whoa. Right? We've heard that a lot. Yes, yes. That a lot of these celebrities- Yes ... um, what you see at the Grammys, the Oscars, on TV shows- Yes is not who they really are. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And you and I have talked about this before. The content of your character- As it is, not as it is portrayed. Make that as- Yeah. Character. Character, character, d- uh, it should, it should so not be underestimated. And like you said, you know, don't... Be, be careful about meeting your, your heroes in person. Um, and, uh, t- through the work I did with Tony, Tony Robbins, I, I met, I met Tony, I, I met Tony a number of times on- You watched him weep ... off stage. And I watched him weep. Yeah. We watched him weep, watched a movie together, and he was crying. That's, that's facts. I mean, I'm not trying to make this up to be impressive, but- You can check out the One Doing One Thing podcast or the last episode of Couple of Newks with Steve Wright where we reveal what movie it was what movie it was. And it did t- it did choke me up, too. But the point of that, the, the point is that character, character means so much more. And take the time to find people in contexts. The contexts are important when, when observing one's character. Because, because we're on this platform, we're on Zoom- Right I mean, I've got, I've got a, I've got a little studio light, I've got a ca- 4K camera, I'm sitting in- But you're real. You've got a bug that's been flying- I've got a- ... around this whole episode ... I've, I, I I've got lights on at night. I've got noise-canceling headphones on trying to keep the cicadas. They, they... It is so loud in the Caribbean at night in Jamaica. I- it's strange. Although it's nice. It's almost like white noise when I sleep. Mm. It doesn't bother me to sleep. But when I do- You trade off light pollution for noise pollution. You gotta have one of the two. You can't- I- You can never just have full stillness I... Well, we had, we had full, we had a, we had a, we had a island-wide power outage for nine hours yesterday, and that may have factored into... Well, not an excuse for not us meeting b- earlier, but that... In fact, it happened. And so yes, we can, we can get... Light pollution was not an issue. We have solar fortunately, so I had power. But, um, it is... Yeah, noise, noise is interesting. It's interesting at night that they come out, and because things are generally quiet you hear them more. Right. Or they're just communicating with each other at night because they can't see each other. So the nights get very, get very loud, surprisingly loud, es- especially if you're podcasting. Man, oh man, you've gotta make sure you cancel because- Well, in America it's the opposite way. Every morning that I try to podcast landscapers would show up, and it's like- ... it somehow f- it felt like they only ever showed up if I had a podcast scheduled in the morning. Like, my apartment complex at the time, they kept changing the schedule, and somehow, like, I think they had Mike Linley, like, in their computer system. Because every time I had a morning podcast, yeah, they, they, they called the guys. They were like, "Today," you know? "You gotta come in today." Now. And you said something really important that I wanna amplify on- The context of character in terms of what is going around. David Goggins, you know, he's one of my earthly heroes, uh, and he said, "People are talking about me. You don't know me, but you're judging me based off a five-second clip you saw some jerk off posted." Like, and he did a video that really spoke to me about the, the... his character. People made all these videos bashing him as a bad father, said he was a terrible father figure, he didn't pay his child support, he was abusive to his wife or daughter or whatever, and those videos got millions of views, people trying to tear down David Goggins. He... and he made a video. He go, he goes, "You know, I brought to light that situation. Uh, I have all the receipts." He goes, "You can attack me all you want. I have all the receipts, every time I paid child support, every time I reached out to my family," blah, blah, blah. He goes, "Now, people made apology videos once the truth came to light, but those, they didn't get millions of views. They got a couple thousand views, and guess what? They still kept up the original video because it's still trending." And that spoke a lot to me about what trends more, apologies or, or, uh- Wow ... defamation, right? Mm. He's like, "Millions of views because people want to see David Goggins fail." He gets it all the time. Yes. People wanna hear him fail. I'll quote one of his favorite sayings. "You know, when I got my knee injured, people were laughing. People were celebrating. I told you David Goggins was gonna fall apart one day." He's like, "People are preying on my downfall." Mm. And for, for what reason? What... Right? Because my, my training method they don't agree with or whatever. But he shares all the time, like, "You don't know me. You see a five-second clip someone posted of me running down the street, and they say X, Y, Z, or A, B, C. You know, people say, oh, he's not a Christian, because they show a clip where I, I, I used the F word." He goes- Yeah ... "But you don't see the scene where I'm on stage crying, thanking my mother in tears at, at a veteran ceremony. That one doesn't trend as much." And it's really like, what do we consume more, the truth or the, the drama, the entertaining story, right? Yeah. Yes. And, and that's the truth of it. People rather see those clips of, wow, David Goggins, this guy who everyone is praising, is actually evil, rather than, um, hey, we thought this guy was bad, but he's actually a good guy. And it goes back to one of my favorite Shakespeare quotes of all time, uh, and, and Mark Anthony's giving this speech about the death of, of Caesar. Um- Mm-hmm ... and he says this: "The evil a man does often lives after him. The good is often turned into bones." One of my favorite- Mm ... quotes of all time. Yeah. That's great. You know what- And it's not just when you're dead, it's when you're alive, too. Yeah. A- and it, you know, the thing, the, the, the thing about that, that, that halo effect, it is a f- it is a logical fallacy that the, that we paint someone who's an h- who's a hero, a justified hero in one aspect. We create this halo effect that they are the same kind of hero in all aspects. Mm-hmm. And that's where we get ourselves, and they get themselves into trouble because they speak on things or they act in ways in a different context where they have no place or they have- Mm ... no credibility in them, but they're using their halo effect to speak to things that they- Mm ... maybe should or shouldn't, shouldn't do. Especially singers and movie actors who have been so idolized and given such status, so much so that, uh, the, the bonds of covenantal marriage are willing to be violated. People have, I'm sure you've heard of it, Steve, like my celebrity hall pass. Like, I cannot cheat on my wife with her accepting it, but if it's Scarlett Johansson or Billie Eilish or Jenna Ortega, naming my favorites, you know, if it's one of those people No, I'm just kidding. Uh, but, you know, like- Watch out. Watch out, Scarlett. Right. Right, right. I mean- Yeah, I mean, but, um, I was gonna try to make like a, a Black Widow, and I was trying to think of- No, no ... like what Avenger I looked like. I don't know. Ghost Rider. I was trying to think of some... You know, I was trying to figure something out, like what Avenger has a cowboy hat? I was trying to figure it out, but- Um, you know, that is to say like- That's funny ... we, so we value marital intimacy so much, but if it's a celebrity, that changes everything. Why, why is Jenna Ortega no different than any other woman? Or why is Chris Hemsworth, um... And granted, he's almost as good-looking as me, so I get it, but why is he- True considered a hall pass, right? Bec- not because of their, their character necessarily. Sometimes a celebrity is a bad person, but they're still a hall pass, and are they really that much better looking or is it just we've elevated them, they- we've pedestalized them, you know? And I, I've done a couple sermons on modern idolatry, s- that kind of stuff. Yeah. And, and also, th- there's, there's a thing, there's a thing about... Tony, Tony talks a lot about this in, in, I don't know, one of his programs, I think it was Date with Destiny, which is one of the mastery programs we did, um, which really talks a, talks a lot about our makeup and, and, and who we are as people. And one of the things he talks about in terms of modeling behavior, you know, you want to, you want to aspire to be like somebody, you look at what they do, you look at their behaviors. If you do roughly what they do, then you might get some of the outcomes that they get, whether it's a, a, a health routine, a workout routine, and a, a, a work routine, whatever. But just doing what they, just doing what they do is never enough because you have to understand why they do what they do so that you- Mm ... can build a similar why. You need to have organizing principles behind the things that people do so that you understand it. Simon Sinek goes with start with why, you know? But even before, even beyond before the why, there has to be, there has to be a, a, a desire. There has to be a desire for the outcome for yourself, not just following somebody who has got something that you want. Because most likely you won't do what they do. I won't do what Goggins does because I don't h- I mean, even understanding a little bit of his organizing principles, they're not mine. So for me to try and pretend to be him doesn't make any sense. The danger is when celebrities... I think s- when celebrities believe their own hype When something is, something is ascribed to a celebrity that they didn't ascribe to themselves, but they end up believing it, whether it's because they're surrounded by yes people or that people are too scared to tell them, you know, their emperor's got no- That right there, what you said their emperor's got no clothes They're surrounded by yes people. Y- yeah. Um, and- That's not just celebrities. That's something we all could be trapped in. S- Yes ... sounding boards and echo chambers. Social media serves as that, but also as we've talked a lot, you and I, Steve, right, e- everyone in our space talks about the five inner, you know, the five people closest to you or whatever your inner circle is. Yeah. Being surrounded by that yes, and you know, I... And this is the difference between friends and accountability partners and allies. You know- Yes, yes ... are they sounding boards or not? Yes. And I, it's funny, that f- that, that five, the, the five people thing, I sometimes subscribe to it and other times dismiss it. And also I keep, I sometimes change the five people. I, I, I go through seasons and periods and understanding contexts where the five people may be different, and I'm o- I'm okay with, I'm okay with my five people being different at different times of my life or different- Mm ... contexts of my career. Um, and also I'm okay with not being in the five people for somebody else. I think I'm of an age where it doesn't bother me as much that I need to be in the in crowd or I need to be- Mm ... in that circle. So if I'm not one of the five in somebody else's five people, then that's okay. And if, if I, and if, if my five people change because my circumstances change or my context changes, then I have to be okay with that. I have to be resilient enough in my own skin- Mm ... to be okay with what life or what the world throws at me- Like just moving ... in order for me to- You just move Thank you. That's a great example of- ... when you- Yeah, my five people are very different ... your five people are gonna shift. Like, um, nowadays you still have online connections of course, but- Yeah um, the amount of time you spend in person with someone, you know, it's different than, than online. But I think- Yeah ... another thing too when we talk about the celebritization and, like, ascribing to their why versus getting their results, one thing that we need to mention too is a lot of- People project copy and paste mentality onto what celebrities have done, and it's not- Yes I like to use physical fitness as the prime example. Steve and I- Yeah ... are both really chiseled, godlike men in our bodies. But looking at some other people, they have different anatomies than us, and, and what I do is gonna be different for them, right? Like, I have, because of my metabolism, because of my muscle fiber design- Yeah because of my dietary habits, right, all this stuff is different compared to someone with a drastically different build, right? So a lot of these guys are trying to, you know, obsribe, prescribe to these different gym programs from these celebrity gym guys who it may not work on them. Some things are copy and paste, right? The same goes for our psychological and mental and emotional, you know? Yeah. What people did to make their income or make their mindset shift, uh, will be different than yours. In fact, that- Yeah ... individualization and customized treatment, treatment being not just a medical treatment, but how you change your life, is what I talk about on the show most importantly with addiction recovery, right? The 12 steps can copy/paste to a lot of people, not to everyone. I've had plenty of anti-12 step shows, uh, not to tear down the 12 steps, but to provide information on non-traditional systems and- Yeah ... m- methods of recovery. Look- Yeah ... I've had addicts on my show who cold turkey, they quit, started going to the gym three hours a day. They're sobered. I had some people, it took 30 years to get sober. Some people- Yeah ... really liked AA, some people hated it. And I think sometimes we think because someone is successful that we can just copy what they do. If that was the case and, and someone like Tony Robbins said, "Here's exactly how I made my income," then how come w- we all can just exactly copy it right now and make that same income, right? Yeah. A lot of things- Yeah ... were contextual. I've had some- Yeah ... people I interviewed, I had a gentleman. He made at, what would be equivalent to millions of dollars nowadays selling broken calculators in, like, 19 something something as random number generators. B- if you did one times two- Wow ... times three times four times five, it gave you a different answer every time. Yeah. The company wanted to see him fail as a salesman, said, "Try selling these broken calculators," you know, like, F you, Americano. And He sold them as random n- number generators. Sold every single one of them. Made millions, basically. You couldn't do that nowadays. That's not- You couldn't do that nowadays- 'cause the opportunity doesn't exist. Yeah. You can look for similar opportunities, but some things are only time relevant or contextual relevant- Yeah ... and can't be recreated. Yes. And I was gonna say, that's a great point in terms of, yes, you can't r- you, that, you can't, it's difficult to replicate that kind of success in that way. Mm-hmm. But what, but what was- But the creativity of the mindset. Yes. What was missing, what, what, what the, the superpower that that person had, that guy had, is that he was able to pick up on nuance. We don't use nuance anywhere near as much now as we did back then, 'cause we had more time, we had more space, we paused more, and we had to work harder to learn things. So given a calculator that creates a different number every time, you would have to see, you'd have to ask the question, what is the benefit of something that creates a different number every time? W- within a, w- whether it's within a decimal place, or whether it's between zero and 10, or whatever it is. Mm-hmm. And you find out what it does, and you lean into the benefit and not the, not the brokenness, you know? Sometimes we, we don't look at benefits 'cause we're so busy looking at what's broken. And for to have that time in, that time and space to actually present that broken calculator as a good thing in this one space, random generation, it's great. We do that now. You have a, you have a ran- you have a, a, a random function in Excel or, uh, in mathematics, and that generates numbers between a range, and we do that all the time. We need to do that in certain, certain co- coding s- scenarios. So having something on my desk that just gives me a ran- a number, I, you know, I could see the context. If you go to the right place at the right time, they'll bite your arm off to, to have that, uh- Right ... to have that piece of kit. But nuance is the key. You, it's, it's, it's that character, it's understanding context, it's understanding nuance. Nuance requires you to take the time to think, and we are taking less and less time to think- Mm-hmm because we think giving off, giving our thinking to something else is- Mm-hmm ... better, or it frees us up. To do what? What do we do with the time that we're supposed to, we're, we're supposed to get back? I rem- I remember the, the computer revolution, you know, and, um, and having fax machines. You don't have fax machines, you send emails. That all the paper we're gonna save, there's just as much paper being used now as there was back then. You know, we don't necessarily, we have these labor-saving devices But what do we do with the labor that we're supposed to save? Well, I think, uh, a good irony and contradictory point that I've seen is at the Planet... uh, not every one, but one of the Planet Fitness gyms that I had been going to, they have paper towel rolls, huge ones, at each station to clean down your machines. And in the bathroom they have a hand dryer and they say, "We're hand drying to save use of paper," because it saves this many amount of trees per square foot or whatever. Yes. And I said, "But you've got like, you know, probably 50 acres of dead trees- In tons ... outside in the gym." And then I said, "And then of course there's always something." I said, "Okay, so this hand dryer probably requires electricity. I know it's not from me on the chest press, though that could generate kilowatts for sure, but it must be coming from somewhere, which means we're killing something somewhere." Um, but yeah. And, and I remember- Yeah ... Steve, you told me about the first time you bought a random g- number generator. It was, I think, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, it was 1967, you were in London, and women just kept asking you for your phone number, and you couldn't keep making up fake phone numbers. So you actually downloaded a random number generator to make sure that none of them texted the same number. Dumbass. And I remember you actually reached an error at the app where it said, "We've ran out of," you know, the nine-digit combinations. Obviously I did, right? "We've ran out of the, that many combinations." And- Well, well, I, I, I'm gonna stand to correct you on a number of factors there, Mr., Mr., Mr. Steve. No pun intended. It couldn't have been 19- it couldn't have been 1967. I would have been, I, I would have been four at the age at that time, and then that is not the age that I would be. You were born good-looking. Thank you. But I was- Hey, maybe you're Benjamin, maybe you're Benjamin Button. Maybe you're actually now the youngest you've ever been. I mean, there are rumors that when you moved to Jamaica, you de-aged 30 years according to, uh- Well- ... some people ... Doc- Dr. Carl, I'll, I'll call him out on your show I didn't say it. I, I did not- Dr. Carl. When that was said, I just remained silent. I didn't nod my head yes. I didn't shake my head no. I just said, "I'll let Steve have it. I'll keep my opinions to myself." There you, there you go. There you go. There is something to be said for being in, for waking up warm and being in, being in a Caribbean climate. Uh, it definitely does, um, make you feel... I don't know, the days, the, the, the days feel more natural. There's a, there's a cadence. There's a cadence in the Caribbean that is very hard to replicate in other parts of the world. I mean- What I will say is- It just- ... if you capture all the cicadas and put them in like, um, a container- A blender for you to sleep on, you could have like a massage bed Oh, yeah. They'll, yeah, they will definitely, they'll definitely vibrate me off the bed if they, if I captured all the cicadas that are making noise around here. Right. Right. They, they definitely- That's, that's, that's the nuance turned into creation right there. I, I, w- I, it's not worth the effort, though. You could, you could, you could buy a, you could buy a device that, that would save you from capturing all those cicadas. But, but like you said, it's, it's taking the time, it's taking the time to do the work. Uh, we both know what it's like to, to labor, um, labor at something that you're passionate about, you know. Whether it's, whether it's topics in your space, um, that are really close to your heart. Um, and it's interesting 'cause your name came up a couple of times this week, uh, with regards to your, your pink flamingo sermon. Oh, thank you. Um, that I share, I shared with, I shared with, um, with, uh, with Chanielle, who, who runs a group called The Pi- The Pink Flamingo Way. Um, and that's where that whole thing came from. And also today, unfortunately, I was listening in on a, on a memorial service for a cousin of mine in the States, ex-Navy- Mm. ... um, that, uh, unfortunately succumbed to, um... He was ill for a while, but he had attempted suicide a number of times. Right. And just, it's, I don't bring it up, I... You know. You, you know intimately what it's, what it's like to have that stigma of bringing up those sorts of topics- Right ... in certain spaces. Um, and, uh, and it's interesting because of who, because of who I know you to be, um, when we're, when I was listening in on the, um, on the s- on the service, it was streamed today, um, you came to mind. Mm. Because, because y- you know too well, um, what kind of dynamic that brings up for, um, for surviving family members, for, for people that have been touched by it. Um, and my family's been touched by it. So, uh, you know, those are the sorts of things that if you don't take the time to contemplate, like you said, to introspectively think on things, they will just go over your head and you'll get stuck in another brain rot. A- activity Right And the wo- the world is, the world is not moving faster. Um, you know, only those people who, people get old, they say that the world is spinning faster. It feels like the world is speeding up because you're getting older. But in actual fact, the world has always span at pretty much the same rate. As long as we've been on it, it's run, it's been on, been on the same rate as far as we're concerned. So it's not the world getting faster, it's something else, and we don't stop to think about what are we doing to... Why are we accelerating our lives? Why are we accelerating- Um, to the, to the degree that we think more is always better, faster is always better. I don't know where that came from. Um- Well, you and I have shared a different saying a few different times from the Navy. It's one of the few Navy sayings I like, which is- Yes ... slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Yes. We've, we've talked about that a few times. It's one of the few- Yes sayings from the Navy I liked. And then first time quality impression, which is, hey, if you do the work right the first time and you take the time to do it, uh, then you don't have to redo it. That's a, a shorter day- Yes ... than taking shortcuts and then you get caught and now you have to stay however many hours to fix it or it goes wrong. Yeah. And I think there's a lot to be said to that, and I think a lot of people are taking shortcuts nowadays. And I think my biggest pet peeve is people who are using AI to generate content and aren't even fixing errors with it. Like, if you're gonna generate an image- It's the best. ... or a prompt, at least take the time to fix it, especially if it's a big brand thing or if you're using a, a virtual assistant. So let's just say one of the events that I'm a part of, I was very disappointed. They have a virtual assistant who I believe made their shirts, or AI made their shirts, and the event was for a cruise, and the word cruise was spelt wrong, and every single shirt was misprinted. And now, now everyone who wants to make content with that clothing can't, who wants to promote it can't. Or if they do, it's making you as the founders look lazy or, uh, for lack of better words, stupid, right? Because it's such a- Yeah ... minute error, but you let your whole brand be represented by that. Or I actually, I interviewed- Yeah ... someone who their logo was made by AI, could tell, and one of the... All the letters were superimposed over the image except for one, and it's on all their shirts. They made a neon custom sign about it, and at that point it's like, do I tell them? And, uh, you know. But it's like slowing down because people... And I, I used to do this. Like, the first few fictional books I published, reading back, there's, there's typos, there's, there's stuff that I wish I'd worked on more, but I was just so hot to tr- I want it out there now. We always want it out as soon as possible, and slowing down kind of just has come with time for me. You know, for me, and you and I talked about this in our cadence in Ca- Escaping the Calendar: Setting Your Own System episode together. Amazing episode if I say so myself. You know- Yeah ... I talked about my milestones used to be every year when I went to the same conference, I needed to have more books or more episodes or whatever it was. I, I was chasing, "I need to get to 100 episodes" or, "I need to get to 200 episodes," or, "I need to have at least two new books a year, otherwise, uh, I'm not showing improvement or growth to these circles." Yeah. And for me now it's like, hey- Yeah, God Versus Non-Human Spirit was supposed to be released a year ago. Uh, you know, I'm developing m- more, and that's more important than getting it out as soon as possible. I, look, I could plug- Yeah ... the idea into ChatGPT right now and have the whole book be done by tonight. Oh. But the idea is like I wanna make sure it comes from the heart. I wanna make sure that it's right. And, you know, w- do I care more about the, the quality or the pacing? Like you said, we're so accelerated- Yes It's part of the environment, because we're competing with people who are pumping out stuff every day. You know, now we've got artists who do stuff by hand- Yes ... racing against machines that can do it in seconds, you know? Yes. W- and the thing is, we're, it's, it's bizarre, it's bizarre that we think that, we think that getting something out, um, getting something out quicker and getting something out- Mm-hmm ... automatically, um, makes it- More of a bigger response ... makes it, makes it okay. The thing is, the, the, the, again, it comes, it's a f- it's a, it's a circular argument here. The, the, the quality, the ability to discern, that's biblical. You have to discern. Um, and the understanding of nuance is an interesting word, because we talked about c- we talked about this again in, in the, in the context of comedy. Because it's the nuances in com- it, it's the nuances in, in our stories that could turn them from tragic to comedic. Mm. Uh, and, and understanding that skill, I think that's what you're developing now as a s- as a stand-up comedian. And kudos to you for doing that. I remember when you were talking about your first, you know, your first stand-up, um, opportunity. My knees were weak, my palms were sweaty. And, uh I had vomit on my sweater. It was Steve Wright spaghetti. Um, you know. So, so, you know, in terms of that, in terms of that growth and that development, it comes, it comes with nuance, mastery, the ability, the de- the desire to get better at some art or craft. Mastery isn't about lording your skill over somebody to demean them so that you can be, seem to be higher. It's developing your craft for you. Mm. Making sure that you, you get out of it what you want to. You put into it what you wanna get out of it. You are, it's an, it's, uh, another fancy word, it's an atelic activity. You're not doing it for the outcome, you're doing it because it's important to do. You find it important and valuable to do it. Mm. Um, I, I, I did that with dancing. I, I, you know, the, I took up social dancing, um, salsa and kizomba. I did that with music. Oh, okay. I took up, you know, I took up a, took up a percussion instrument. And they weren't, they weren't things for an outcome as much as things that were just good in themselves to explore. And, and the outcomes were, were great, you know? I op- I widened my social circle with social dancing, which was fantastic. Um, and, uh- Well, it led to your days of stripping ... similarly with music. I remember when you were- ... voted Britain's, Britain's number one- The backup dancer ... Jamaican British stripper. And I know a lot of the moves you used, people were like, "Where did you learn this? How did you hone this craft?" And it was, yes, dude, just like, just like that. But I think one of the things that we're talking about, to, to word it a certain way is- We believe that the cadence output is more impressive than the work itself, right? It's not, "Hey, Mr. Whisky published a new book." It's like, "Wow, Mr. Whisky, that's y- that's your third book since I last saw you. How do you keep up that cadence, man? You are so impressive." The impression is in the output of the work, not the quality of the work. And like you said, we- Yes ... we want it to be, "Hey, it's not that I can play 20 songs half-heartedly on the guitar." It's like, "Hey, I have one song and it'll bring you to tears 'cause I put my heart and soul into it." Or, um, on, uh, what, what's the drum you have? You have a special type of drum. I've got c- it's, it's called a, it's called a cajon. C-A- Yeah ... C-A-J-O-N I, I don't have my li- ... which is- I don't have my kinor with me Spanish ... we could play some music together if I had my- Yeah ... my biblical kinor. But the, but the thing, the, the thing is, is that, is that, um, the assumption is you output more because people want to consume more. Mm. And the sad f- the sad fact is that people are consuming more- But less ... and the more they con- the more they consume, the less quality- Mm it is. So they are... So, and they're not making the new... They're not making the distinction between what is real and what is AI or, or what is... If it gets me... If it, if it, if it satisfies me, if it, if... Brainrot doesn't care how good it is. Brainrot is actually a race to the bottom. Because that stuff- Yeah ... is really just about getting as much out there into the ether as possible. And the more you get out there- What, what is the minimum that we can output that people will be entertained by, is really what it is. Like, how low quality of a AI video can we make? Yes. And a lot of the low quality AI videos rely heavily on known characters. So because- Mm ... Peter Griffin from Family Guy or SpongeBob is in it, I don't care how low quality it is, I wanna consume that content. And I think one thing we've talked about when it comes to learning styles, 'cause you and I are both educators, you more officially than me- Mm-hmm ... um, we talk about, you know, a mile wide, an inch deep, or an inch wide- Yeah ... a mile deep, you know? And I think people- Yeah ... are consuming, like you said, more content but lower quality. Uh, mo- most reels only get listened to a few seconds, or now we've got that fast-forward button on them, which helped consume more but at a faster pace. And, you know, you could, you could speed read, for example, the Bible. You could probably read the whole Bible in, in, in a week or a month, right? Mm-hmm. But what is the level of engagement and retention compared to if, hey, it took me a year, but, like, I could quote scripture to you, I can tell you what happened- Yeah versus- Yeah ... hey, I listened to it on four times speed and half of it went in one ear and out the other. Yeah, yeah. Like my recent haircutting experience. I... And, and bringing this back to real practicalities, you can't speed listen your partner. You can't speed listen your child who's going through something. But you can ignore them. You can't speed listen a friend. You can ignore them, that's true. I mean, the thing is, i- if they don't sound, if they don't sound like, if they don't sound like brain rot or you're not interested in the story, then you will ignore them. The sad thing is, is that, is that it's, it's what is the substance? What is... If you're making... If you're, if you're dealing with things that are of low quality, then what is the stu- what is the stuff your life is made of- Mm ... if, if, if, if you're, if it's a race to the bottom? And that's, that's what we're, that's what... I think that's what we're, uh, that's what we're trying to, we're trying to stem that flow, right? Um, you know, this has been a long form, a long form discussion, and maybe we'll grab soundbites out of it whereby we want to let people know some of the interesting things we talked about because we went all over the place. And the meandering is good. The wandering is good. Because, because you have to, you have to hear people wander to f- to work out what's important to them. You know, there's things that you've said and I've come back and we've put... and, and sort of touched on a point, and you've done the same for me. I've said something, you go, "Oh, that's a good point," and you've come... you've touched back on it. Those are the elements in a discussion, in a conversation. We're doing this virtual. I've never met you in person, but I know our interactions are deep enough for, for me to be consistently- trusting that if when, not if, when we meet It'll just be, it, it's, it'll be, it'll just be a continuation of- Over- ... what we do ... Jamaica. Boy, I want to take you to... Oh, wait, wait. Sorry, that's the wrong song. Well, after- I know where that is ... I leave you, on the, on the plane ride away from you, Steve Wright, I'm gonna record me in the plane. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, like, make it a fake proposal so I can record in the middle of the aisle without people giving me a hard time. I'm gonna be like, "Come back to Jamaica." Jamaica. Jamaica, Mistaka, whatever Jimmy Buffet wrote. It's not even a... I, I, I heard this song and I, I wasn't that- It's not even that good of a song, yeah. It's not, it's not even... I wasn't even twice into the song and- The reason I love that song was the first time I ever heard it, I thought of you. No homo. I just, I was like, "Oh my goodness, I gotta sing this to Steve Wright," you know? Like, that's, that's the thing. You know, it's, um, you know, when you encountered a, a, a suicide experience, military experience, you thought of me. When I heard a song about Jamaica- Yeah ... I thought of you. You know? It's just the, it's- There you go ... it's what we know each other for. There you go. I passed a Jamaican restaurant and I thought of you, and, uh, probably 'cause you're the only Jamaican I know, but you know. Um, and, and it's funny- Well, that, but- ... because you were in Britain for so long, so I'm like, my only Jamaican representative is N- he has not culturally a- Is not living in Jamaica ... culturally adopted many of the Jamaican ways. He's much more, he's got the British accent. He eats donuts with chopsticks. He drinks tea, right? He's not... I've never seen someone in Jamaica use chopsticks to eat a, a vegan donut. But- You know, I- It's funny, it's funny 'cause I didn't pack any, I didn't pack any, I didn't pack any chopsticks. I have, I have, I have a, I have half a dozen chopsticks in my, in my, in my drawer. Yeah. And I didn't pack any- Maison plush. In Japan, it is maison plush. You have to have them, yeah. You can find rice and chopsticks at any time. In fact- And I- ... check this out. I got, I got, I keep chopsticks under my hat at all times. I, yeah, I miss them. I have to... I, there, there's enough, there's enough Chinese, there's enough Chinese, uh, stores here that I'm, I definitely have to pick up a set of chopsticks when I'm out again. Well, Steve, for your next birthday I'm gonna get you a pair of chopsticks where it's a figure of me on one and a figure of you on the other. Aw. I mean, yeah. It, the, the- I, it's kind of, yeah, that sounds kind of gross, actually. I was gonna say, it sound- sounds a little, uh, yeah, like we're a little- Little scary closer than podcasters. But I think it's funny. Yeah, well, 'cause they- It's funny ... I, I, it made me think of it because here they have a lot of, uh, figure chopsticks where there's dragons or Godzilla or other stuff on the end of them. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Uh, maybe I'll get one of my dog. You know, I'll get my, my dog as chopsticks. Oh, Whiskey Shot, Whiskey Shot. That would be cute. That would be very cute. I miss her. Every dog here is only, like, three pounds, and they all get pushed in a stroller, and it would be her, like, paradise. She would have so many friends. Um- Oh ... it would be dangerous for me because being a good-looking dog dad in a cowboy hat With all these Japanese women and their small dogs Yes. My bae I mean, it would just be- My bae ... trouble for me. It would be trouble for me. It really would be because nothing pleases me better than when women who English isn't their first language say, "How to say you're very, very hot? Is that correct?" And I'm like, "That's very correct." That's the best English I've ever heard in my life. Or, you know, sometimes- Very hot ... they'll whisper to me during a haircut, and they said they didn't speak English. They'll say, "Very handsome." Like, "Oh, okay. You know that word." You know? I, I don't know if she went to the back of the room and typed into her phone. She, she, she ChatGPT like, "How to impress American cowboy?" I- ca- 'cause a lot of them come up to me. Like, I... It, it is funny. Everyone assumes I'm from Texas. Uh, in America they assume that. Yes. I was gonna say. All the more so in, in Japan, and when I perform comedy- Yes ... I'm gonna be joking about that. And, um, you know, I, I had a guy at the top of the Skytree. He's like, "Excuse me, sir. You know, your outfit, very cool." And I was like- ... "Oh, thank you. Thank you." But, um, as my friend liked to say, he goes, "You know, Mr. Whiskey, if you walk down the street in America and a Japanese guy passed you wearing a samurai helmet, that's what you look like to them. Like, that's-" "You're wearing what is like the American samurai helmet." And I was like- Yeah ... "You know what? I guess so. I guess so." I think cowboys were not as honorable as samurai. I mean, they had their flaws but- You, you... Well, you know, I'm gonna say something here. Look it up. Patrick Duffy on Dallas. That's who you look like Okay. Uh- A young Patrick, a young Patrick Duffy on Dallas. Forget JR. You're J- JR's younger brother. I forgot his name now, in the s- in the TV show Well, I think the white hat is so much better than my black hat. I mean, I love the black hat, don't get me wrong. Yeah. But I am digging this brand-new white hat I got- Yes ... on my way to Military Career Congress. It w- it works, it works with your hair, with your hair coming out through the sides. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it's not all blended together. The black, yeah, it's all blended together. I actually just got a haircut, which you know about that experience. Looking sharp. You know about the haircut experience. My favorite experience in Japan so far. Very naughty. And, uh- Very naughty ... I think it's funny- How are you doing? I usually tell people, like I jokingly say I'm like Clint Eastwood's grandkid, you know? I just, sometimes I'll just say that. I'll just throw it out there, you know? Um- There you, there you go. There you go ... I maybe I could be his great-grandkid. He's, he's old now, actually. He's old. Yeah, he is, yeah. I might, maybe I'll say his great-grandkid. Actually, what I tell most people- There you go ... is that I am, um, I don't remember how many generations away, but I tell them I'm basically the grandson to the whatever exponential power of King Solomon. Um, because d- I definitely sometimes feel like King Solomon or David, so. And, um- There you go ... there's a high genetic chance that I am related to them considering, um, you know, a thousand, thousand women served. Yeah, pretty wild in that day. You know- Yeah. ... King Solomon's kind of like McDonald's. Solomon had a few. He's like, "1,000 served." Yeah. Yeah, he was pretty prolific, and he- Yeah ... he did write Ecclesiastes. But, um, speaking of- You know, at the, at the end of it, at the conclusion of the matter, the conclusion of the matter. Mm, don't make me quote that. That's one of my favorite Bible quotes. I love it. "Of the reading and writing many books, there will be no end. Pay no attention to them, my son, for much study wearies the body. Listen to only these wise sayings. The conclusion of the matter is heard. There is but one purpose: to serve and glorify God." Yeah. There you go. Ecclesiastes 12. Um, the idea is that perhaps- He wrote it on his deathbed in repentance. We can only hope so. And, um, actually one of my favorite, uh, quotes in the Bible as more of a, uh, more of a brain rot joke, uh, is when King Rehoboam, you know, he takes over the throne after the passing of Solomon, and he asked the wise elders, "What should I do? The people are saying my dad was too harsh." And they're like, "Be a little less harsh. You're a brand new king. This could be great. If you are harsh or worse, they're gonna rebel." He goes, "Okay, I hear you. But young guys that I party with, what should I do?" And they're like, "Beat these people. Scorch them with scorpions." And he, he says, "My little finger is thicker than my forefather's waist." And I, I just love saying that. Um, there are theories that King Solomon was very overweight. If you look at-- I used to know exactly the number of, uh, cows, oxen, Wagyu oxen, sheep, and kilos of flour used in King Solomon's palace daily. And if you look at- Wow ... uh, the composition of how much flour and wheat and sugar was used, the idea is that he was eating a gourmet bakery every day. That's it. Yeah, every day. And, um- Wow. He's eating tons of pounds ... it, it's a shame because we often think-- I picture him as a very handsome man. He was known- Yes worldwide for his wisdom. He had the most prosperous kingdom. Women all over the world loved him for his wisdom, probably more than his looks, kind of like me. And, um, you know, I never thought that he was just huge. But if, if you have the richest kingdom and they're bringing you these t- you know, Michelin restaurant quality cakes every day- Yes. Yeah ... I, I doubt he was jump roping like you and I do. It was-- And, and, and in that culture, the, the, the, the, it may have been that if you were, if you were hearty in, in size, then you were obviously you had means. That's in the Navy. So the more mean-- the more means you have- That's the Navy rank system right now the bigger you are. In the Navy. The bigger you are. Yes. Except for officers, 'cause they have higher physical fitness standards. When you go from petty officer to chief- It's about a 75 to 100 pound increase. And then when you go from chief- Wow ... to senior chief, it's about another 25 to 50 pounds. And when you go master chief, you're now in the 300 plus range. And many chiefs in the United States Navy, they can't button their bottom button, and it's called the chief's button. And you'll s- and if you try to tell them like, "Hey, chief, your last button isn't buttoned." "That's my chief's button. Don't worry about it. It's in regs." Um, because it's kinda just like they, I don't know. They make more money- Right ... so they eat more. I don't know what it is, but like- Wow. Now, this isn't 100%, but like 85% of the time in the Navy you will see that weight and rank correlate. And I've heard from Marines and Army guys I've interviewed kind of the same thing. And, um- Wow. Yeah, so basically the skinny sailors are the new recruits. Cool. Uh, but one thing I wanted to talk to you about, some interesting commentary that you and I have kind of talked about before in the context of Black culture versus ghetto culture, and then, um- Mm-hmm ... my involvement in it. You, you have met Imani before at The Water Cooler. She's one of my best friends. She's a young Black woman. And she and I have had podcast episodes. I guess we haven't really talked about it on the podcast, but she was often, uh, for lack of better words, ostracized by most Black men for being, quote, "A white girl dressed as a Black woman." Because she wasn't doing what was more ghetto tendency in terms of her music interests or her clothing style or whatever it was. A lot of Black men felt like she was a fake Black woman because she didn't act like what they wanted to see in her from what a lot of music video culture put forward, what a lot of social media culture put forward. And I have gotten to experience racism through my friendship with her because everyone assumes we're an interracial couple. Like, if I take her out to dinner, I remember there was a time, and this was I guess the most awkward I've ever felt in my life in terms of, like, a racial, uh, situation, where I took her into this restaurant in Georgia, and it was breakfast time post church Sunday, and she was the only Black woman in, the only Black person in the whole building. And all these old white people, you know, not to be stereotypical, but that's who was there, all turned and kind of looked at us the whole time. They were whispering, staring over. Mm-hmm. And it's, it's interesting. But it's not just white people. We've had, um, Black people kind of, "You're a traitor because you're spending time with a white man." Especially a white man with a cowboy hat. That, I mean, it just does not help. It makes it a whole lot worse, 'cause- Yeah ... a lot of times they're like- Considered outside ... "Oh, you've got..." I'll, I'll use their exact words, "Oh, look, you've got your own plantation owner with you." You know? Like, that's the kind of stuff- Ah that has been addressed to her and I. Wow. And it's, it's just very interesting to see some of that culture perpetuated. And then the opposite, I remember watching an interview with a Black gentleman. He tried to talk to Black women in Atlanta, which is its own cultural subgroup in a way, the same way he would talk to white women. He grew up in a white community. And they got re- he got rejected as a fake Black man, as, a- as a, a white man posing as a Black man. Um, so- Yeah ... in the context of you and I talk about culture, cultural identity, and stuff, uh, I'd love definitely, I think you and I have kind of addressed it before, but to talk a little bit about that. Um, you know, especially being Black British culture, Black Jamaican culture- Yeah, yeah ... are different than Black American culture. I mean, even- Yeah ... I've spent a, I've, I've been on plenty of podcasts in Africa, and their culture and perspective- Yeah ... on what it means to be Black compared to American Black- Yeah is very different as well. Yeah, yeah. We get, again, it comes, the, the, the, the, the root cause, the root cause of all of this is, is not taking the time to think, and not getting- Mm ... outside of y- either your comfort zone or your sound bite echo chamber, right? Because, um, because y- everybody is, everybody is ind- everybody is unique. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, and we're made, we're made the way we're supposed to be made. And that goes for me, and it goes for you, and it goes for that person over there sitting next to that person over there. Uh, but if you never get to that point- To you listening right now ... and it goes to you listening right now. And if you never get past what it looks like because some, some stereotype has been ingrained on you because your feed has sent that, that algorithm to you, then, then you're always going to be at the mercy of some should out there that you... I'll say you have no control over. You do have control over it, 'cause you j- you can stop listening to it or you can take the time to go beyond it. So guy's got a cowboy hat sitting next to a Black girl and they're da, da, da at lunch together. That's, that's fine. I mean, there's nothing, there's nothing innocuous about that. They're just, there's just two people doing their thing. He's got a cowboy hat, cowboy hat on. That doesn't automatically make him anything, you know? Um, so if you don't want... If you don't scratch beneath the surface, then you're just gonna get stuck with what you've got. So yeah, you're gonna get called names. You know, you get called coconut, banana, you know, if you're Black on the outside, white on the inside or whatever. So yeah, I mean, and, and I've f- I, I mean, I've had my fair share of that. Lived in the States 17 years. Um, and- Oh, yeah, over in San Diego ... uh, San Diego. And military, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a military town. It's very diverse in that respect. Um, a lot of people- And California in general is very diverse ... I'm sure. Yeah. And, and d- and it's very, it's very different. You've g- you've got different, different kind of p- you got different kinds of Black people, just like Eskimos have different kind of ice You know? Literally, you, you can, you, you can, you can make the discernment of any, of any and every group. No group is better or worse than the other. Sometimes they're just working from a bad, they're working from a bad script- Mm ... or they're working from a, um, uh, they're working from a, a maligned, a maligned filter. The filter that they're using to see the world isn't, is not right. It's not quite, it's not the way it should be. Right. So they're looking at everything through that filter, and if they could fix the filter, they would realize that it's not the world that's wrong, it's the filter that they're using to see the world. Um, and we've gotta spend more time, we've gotta spend more time thinking past those, those knee-jerk response stereotypes, um, 'cause it doesn't serve you. It doesn't keep you safer. Um, you know, sort of ignoring Black men. You know, I, I've, I've had times when I've had to, I've had to sort of not walk behind people because I didn't want them to feel that they were threatened by me. Mm. Which is kind of strange. I mean, to, to come back to the same- No, that's how I feel here sometimes, actually. Like last night I was walking by myself, and there was this young Japanese couple, and I had to slow up majorly 'cause it felt like, uh, there's a lot of anti-immigration, a lot of American hate in Japan right now. Like, I got off the train- Mm ... in just a small local town, and they're handing out newspapers, anti-American stuff. And they tried to give one to me, and it's like, uh, why am I gonna read this? I, I don't think I'm... Well, that means I'm blending in as planned. I, I, you know, I was like, uh, yay. You know, I, I s- I try to speak Japanese- and try not to appear, um, that. But, you know, one of the things too is, like, I think there's a lot of blame. There's a lot of blaming another racial group for one's own problems. Like, you look at Japan, they believe- Yeah ... that Americans and immigration are destroying the Japanese culture. Well, let, let's look at it though. Japanese culture has shifted on its own because of technology advancements, because of changes in culture. It's not just a demand or consumerism. Like- Has American influencer culture spread a lot of Japan and does it perpetuate certain sides of it? 100%. However, it's not just the spread of that, it's the existence of it. So you could say, hey, a, a lot of influencers, they all go to the same club, which is like, um, Tokyo Burlesque, and it's, it's all video clips online of Asian girls just sleeping with any American guy. We love Americans, we love their bodies, we, we love this, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, so yeah, there's definitely a perpetuation of that on social media, but you also had that club set up to generate that traction to make money and to, uh, employ those women to do that. And it's like you can't blame Americans saying, "Oh, we made those to bring the Americans here." Like, you had that on your own accord for a reason, right? Yeah. And it's like you ... Like, a lot of the removal of, uh, uh, more historical cultures or styles of cities, that has nothing to do with American tourists. You developed skyscrapers in that culture on your own. The idea of- Mm-hmm ... oh, all our Japanese women are not sleeping with Japanese men now, our population is declining, that's not just a immigration issue. That's a cultural mindset issue of its own. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I can tell you the reason why. I've talked to a lot of young Japanese women during my solo travels, and the response I got was, "Traditional Japanese men are too closed-minded for what we now believe as Japanese women, so we're going to quote the open-minded white man." And I was like- Mm-hmm ... okay, I don't ... Not all white men are very open-minded, so be careful about that. Right. You know? Um, but yeah. You know, and that has nothing to do with us or a negative impact on their culture. That has to do with their own cultural issues inside it. But it's easier to say, "Hey, it's the Americans' fault. We're gonna make anti-immigration laws and- Yeah ... and we're gonna tax tourists." And it's like you created the tourist industry and it boomed, and now you wanna blame us- Yeah ... for partaking in it. Um- Yeah ... it's definitely a consumer and producer issue, but you know, that's just like there's a lot of groups that are blaming another group when it's, it's their own cultural thing. Like, look at- Talking about if a, if a Black man says, "I don't want, you know, a, a Black woman who isn't ghetto," well, what's the reason for that? Well, according to a lot of the ghetto leader industries, looking at, like, especially music videos, they're putting forward the stereotype that ghetto women are easier to sleep with, that they're, they're very sexualized. That they're, um... Or they're easier to make a, a baby mama or whatever it is, right? That's, that's some of the stereotypes they're putting forward, and some men are being attracted to that. So they're saying, "Hey, I don't wanna be with, um, a, a Black woman who isn't ghetto because I want something that is more sexualized or more accessible or more, uh, abandonable," right? Yeah. And you have to look at, like, who's putting forward that culture. I mean, you could say, "Hey, white people put it forward to keep Black people ghetto," but there's also a- Yeah ... the Black women who are making those lyrics that are all about... Some of those lyrics, I've read them. I don't know if you've read them, Steve. It's like I didn't know- I don't, I don't ... all these things exi- Try not to read them, but. Yeah. It's like they're also putting that forward, and you could say- Yeah ... either they sold out. Uh, but either way, it's not about who you sell out to, it's about did you choose to sell out just as much as it is. Well, as you, as you use the term, you use the term sell ou- You t- you use the term sellout, and, and part of me go, part of me says throughout this, this pod, this discussion, is follow the m- follow the money. Mm-hmm. There's, there's, there's something. It's, it's crass. It's crass to think that following the money will actually shine some light as to why peop- why particular behaviors are being per- being, um, perpetuated. Because i- i- it can't be the only answer, but it's often a strong one. It's, uh, we see in, we see in sort of dance hall culture in Jamaica, there's a, there's a lot of that. There's a lot of, through the, through the, the lyrics, the music. Um- Mm-hmm ... it's a dem-bay beat. It's a very, it's a very, it's a very, um, Afro, um, Afro-centric beat. Beat is great. Beat is great, and the, and the vibe is great. But then you, you throw on top of it lyrics that are, that are deliberately, um, antagonistic or, or create- Mm issues. Um, either being profane or being in, full of, full of suggestions or inuen- not even innuendos. Back in the day, back in my R&amp;B days, it was an innuendo. You know, you sort of say, "Turn off the lights," and, "Light a candle," and do all this sort of, you know, Teddy Pendergrass and those guys. Now- nowadays, you just say it so straightforward. Yeah. Now they just tell you straight, "I'm gonna..." Nowadays, you say, "I'm gonna take a candle and put it where the light doesn't shine." You know? I'm gonna extinguish that candle. So anyway. So, so the point i- the, the, the point is, is that, is that you've got, you, you've got something that, that has been, uh, has been sort of shifted and maligned. But then, but then somehow it struck a chord or it, it made money, and then, then it becomes now the blueprint. It's the copy and paste mindset that you get now. People go, "Oh, I'll just copy and paste that," and that's what is gonna, that's what's gonna drive it. And then if you've got... If, again, if, uh, if we're on a race to the bottom, then this is the way to d- If you're on a race to the bottom and it pays, we are screwed. Mm. We are absolutely screwed. And the thing is, the irony is, is that who is it paying? Because there's always gonna be a hierarchy. Even on the race to the bottom, there's gonna be a hierarchy. There's gonna be someone who's making serious bank, and there's gonna be a gazillion people who are trying to make bank and not doing it. But at the same time, they're pushing out crap. They're pushing out a, a narrative that is false, patently false. They... A narrative they don't w- they, they don't even believe in themselves. Mm. But because that is the thing to do, they'll do it on a, as a race to the bottom. And that, I don't know. We- Th- there's gotta be a point at which you sort of go, "I've reached the bottom, and I'll stop digging," or throw away the shovel, or, "I'll try and get myself out of this." But I don't know. Our capacity, our capacity to do crappy things seems to get deeper and deeper. Uh, we don't- Mm. We, we, we, we get a threshold. We go, "Oh, man, we'll never cross that line." And then, then before you know it, two minutes later, you just crossed it and go, "Oh, well, I'm really at bot- I'm never gonna go beyond this." Mm. Mm. And then two days later... And, you know, so we- Come on, Pastor. Preach it. We- I, I hear you. No. It's not even a, it's not even a pastoral thing. It's a s- No, no, I agree ... it's a soci- And- It's a societal, it's a societal thing because what happens is if a society is racing to the bottom, we have noth- we have nothing else to go for but extinction. I mean- Mm-hmm ... d- we are d- d- that... It's got to... I mean, it- Well- ... it sounds dystopian, but it, but- This is something that's gone on for a while because I'll give you some Shakespearean commentary on this. The women love Shakespeare. W- when you look at it- ... you know, you look at, I believe, oh, I think it was Macbeth. Hopefully it's not Hamlet. I think it's Macbeth. I'm gonna, I'm gonna 50/50 it. I'm pretty sure it's Macbeth. He goes and says to himself, "If..." And I'm gonna paraphrase it here so it's not gonna be in Shakespearean tongue. Actually, I'll say it in Japanese. No, I'm just kidding. Um- ... "If I wade halfway through a river of blood, to cross over further into immorality or to turn back and hold accountability is the same distance of blood to cross." And- Yes ... I love that quote. You look at it a few ways. You talk about the... And, and, and what you said applies to addiction, it applies to pornography consumption. Everything can be a, a gateway door where you say, "Hey, well, I've already done this, so I might... I've already cheated before, I guess I might as well do it again," or, "I already watch pornography, so..." W- an affair is just a step up from that, right? A lot of people who watch pornography to addictive means, they slowly get into more, uh, what they would say kinkier or more immoral sex- Yeah ... right? Which l- ultimately leads to bestiality, pedophilia, and other acts, right? When it started off as just a basic man and woman porn, right? Because you build not only a tolerance for that pain threshold, but also your morality slowly crumbles. Same thing with addiction. We've had episodes on when do you reach rock bottom in addiction? And for addicts, their rock bottom can be way further than a normal person's. For some of them, there is no rock bottom almost because- Yeah I mean, I had j- I had people on my show, I had, Mr. Whiskey, "I had three DUIs. I was arrested eight times. My wife left me, my children left me. Um, you know, I was in the hospital. I almost died, and I still just wanted to use." And it's like their, their rock bottom can be, be so much, and I think what you're talking about is our society's rock bottom keeps getting lower and lower, and I, I agree 100%, a race to the bottom, and it's just, it is really sad to see. Now, there are a few things I wanna address before we close off the episode, and I know how we're gonna end it is you're gonna have to share a Jamaican joke, uh, 'cause we've talked about from Japan to Jamaica. You know, you've gotta share some Jamaican humor with us. But, um, you know, you've moved to Jamaica now. You're exploring your identity as, uh, being, uh, genetically Jamaican, now kind of culturally embracing it at, I mean, you're over 60 years old. What... I mean, talk about that. Is it ever too late to become part of a culture that runs through our blood? Oh, that's a great question. Uh, it's ever too late to, to be part of a culture that runs through your blood? The, the short answer would be no, it, it isn't. And not everybody needs to take that journey. Um- Mm. And, and, and, uh, I've got a, you know, I've got a book, I've got a book that's on my heart, and I'll be, I'll be, I'll be leaning on my five people, and you're probably one of them, as authors to, to help me craft this book. But it really is about, to some degree, part of that. I've been, I've been born and raised in a, in a, in a place where my parents are not from Um, and then even moving, migrating to the US where I'm not from, and then having a ch- I mean, one of my, one of my daughters born in that, in that place, so she has, she has a stake. She has citizenship in the US. Um, to coming back to come in, to come in almost full circle, you know, my parents, my parents had re- retired and, and moved back. They were returnees to Jamaica. Um, there's a cultural, there's a cultural dynamic around that between people who'd never left the island to people who have left and came back to the island. Mm. Um, there's, there's a dynamic of the diaspora of Jamaica. Ja- Jamaica's impact on the world stage in many areas is much bigger than the island of Jamaica. There's only three million people on this island, but Bob Marley through music, the reggae, the reggae phenomena- Right ... even, you know, the, the yardie culture with, with marijuana, the cannabis. Um, so there's, there's been, there's impacts, there's impacts on society and social perspective of Jamaica- Right ... that is much bigger than the island. People know Jamaica as the Caribbean island, probably more than any other. Maybe Cuba's close, but I think Jamaica probably beats Cuba even in some areas. All that to say, um, yes, you, you... If, if you have a stirring, if you have a stirring to, to find out what home is and what home means, um, then you should explore that. And, and for me, moving my family across continents, um, the, the key thing for me was I had to make sure home was where we were. Home was the, we were the m- the nucleus. The, the microcosm of home was where we were. So, you know, safety, financial, psychological, uh, identity safety. Um, um, but at the same time, there's something that says I'm ni- I'm glad to be here. I always feel at home in Jamaica whenever I've visited. Um, I've got Jama- I've got Jamaican citizenship now. I have a Jamaican passport, and it's the only country that welcomes me home when I go through the airport Hmm Um, no other co- I mean, I have a British passport too, but no one welcomes you home in Britain. They're like, "Oh, this guy's back?" So- "We were hoping he didn't come back this time." You know? Wait, that guy. Yeah. But I, I have to ask you- Literally ... 'cause that kind of goes into my big question. I was wondering if you leave the island and return, or someone like you who is coming to the island but was not there originally, are you celebrated or kind of l- looked down on? Are you a, a, a fake, a, a Famacan, a, a fake Jamaican? Sorry. A Famacan. I'm sorry. A Fa- Sorry. A fake Jamaican, a Famacan. Right, but, like, what is the culture around that? 'Cause you said your parents left and came back. Was it like- Yeah ... "Look who came crawling back," or was it- Yeah ... you fake Jamaicans- There is- Or prog- prodigal- I think- prodigal son? There's a, there's another dynamic because it's, because up until 1962 Jamaica was part of the British em- British, um, Empire. You know? Mm. It was a, it was a colony. It was a colony. So there is a lot, there's a strong English in- a, a strong British influence here. Um, so maybe the reasons for leaving and coming back may be, may be different or excused. Also, the impact of, of, um, British culture on, or British, yeah, British colonialism- And I, I experienced that in, uh- ... uh, is, is, is different ... yeah, in the British Virgin Island of, uh, Tortola or, um... Is it Tortola? Yeah, I think so. Tortola? Mm-hmm. Tortola, yeah. Um- Yeah ... when I was there it felt like I was in Jamaica, but everyone said, "I'm British." And it- Mm. It was kinda strange- Mm ... because they had the Jamaican accent, uh, Jamaican-style attire, dialect, and everything- Yeah ... cultural mindset, but they get offended if you say they're Jamaican. You know? 'Cause I asked someone politely. I was like, "So do y'all, are you considered Jamaican or British?" And it was, I c- I got, like, a nasty retort like, "We're British." You know? Yeah. "Why would you ever even assume or associate us with Jamaican culture?" And it's like, well, you've got all Jamaican flags, and colors, and everything here. And, um, so it's- Yeah, Caribbean, yeah, yeah ... interesting seeing some of those dynamics. And to me it felt like they look down on Jamaican people, uh, because they had the British label, but the label and the actual cultural lifestyle weren't being aligned. And it's like does being labeled as British make you feel superior to people who are living the same culture as you, but they call themselves Jamaican? And so that, th- that was an interesting cultural dynamic that I felt very awkward in because I you know, she snapped at me. I was like, "Oh, okay. I just-" Yeah. Yeah. "... I'm just trying to understand." I'm not, I'm not, I wasn't trying to be racist and assume that, "Hey, you look Jamaican skin color-wise, so obviously you're not British." That's not what I was saying. It wasn't the skin color. Right. It was you literally have the whole Jamaican culture- Yeah ... at least in that particular island. Or, or Carib- Caribbean. I don't know. I mean, they, they, they're technically, they're technically not. It's... Torto- Tortola is tech- technically not Jamaica, so it, it's... But it's, it's the, it's the, it's the ca- There's a, there's a strong po- there's a strong colonial influence of, a- across the entire Caribbean. So, um, that, that was part of, that was part of the empire building. You know? Whether it was for labor or for resources or, um, I wouldn't say minerals back then, but it was probably plantation-type, you know, agricultural resources. You know? I, d- a lot of the cotton industry, the, the, the lace-making and cotton industry in the UK- was prevalent back in the 1700s. You know, a lot of, a lot of people were very wealthy and landowners because of it. But they never grew cotton, so where'd it come from? It came from somewhere. Mm. So there is a, there is that. There is the colonial element. I, I'm not, I'm, I'm not an expert on this space, so I don't wanna say anything- Yeah ... anything out of hand. But my feeling about it, and to answer your question about being a fake Jamaican, I don't think, I don't think there's an element of fakeness about, about it. Um, there's a strong influence in Jamaica from the US because of its proximity. Um, a- and, uh, and some of the economic, some of the economic ties are, are fairly strong in terms of, uh, visa programs- Mm ... and work programs. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of migration in that respect. Right. America, Canada, as well as the UK. Um- Well, are you comfortable to walk down the street, Steve, right, like, if you walk down the street, do you feel like a fellow Jamaican, or do you still feel like... Obviously, you've only been... You've been to Jamaica before, so it's not like- Yeah ... you just moved there on a whim. Like, you've been- Yeah ... you went for Christmas and everything post-hurricane, and, uh- Yeah, yeah I know you've been there quite a bit, so. Y- you have to, y- it's, it's, it's a socially, I, I feel very, I feel very comfortable. I feel very comfortable in Jamaica. Um, it's like anywhere in the world where, where there is the opportunity to be taken advantage of. If people see a, see a, an opening to, to malign or to manipulate, they might take it. But, but most act, most people are gen- uh, most people are genuine in what they're doing. They just... Like you said at the beginning, when you're, when you're people watching. You know, you're in the park watching people live life, do life, and most people doing life can't be arsed to try and trick somebody into or out of something, because that's too much work. Mm. Most people just wanna get on with what they're doing. They don't wanna be hassled un- unnecessarily, and, and they don't wanna be duped themselves. So most people will kind of just be, you know, straightforward. So I don't walk up, I, I don't walk up and pretend I'm Mr. Naive Black British and talk Cockney to everybody. You know? Um, and at the same time, some of the things I say culturally won't land- With Jamaicans. So I listen a lot more than I speak. Um, I look for commonalities, and that's a common thing wherever I've been. Cambodia, California, same thing. Right? You walk down the wrong side, you walk down the wrong neighborhood in California, you're in as much trouble as you are in a wrong street in Cambodia. All right? People are very different, but the risk is, the dynamic- Right ... can still be the same. So- But as long as you can find fish and chips and tea, you will be at ease. No, I don't eat fish 'cause I'm vegan. But that's your mantra. Isn't that your mantra? Vegan fish, chips and tea, I'm at ease. I'm, I'm at ease. I'm at, I'm at, I'm at ease when people, when people, when people take the time to see me for who I am, because I will give them- Yeah ... the time to see them for who they are. And, um, because I'm not, I'm not in a rush anymore. I'm not in- Yeah ... I'm not rushing any- my life isn't about rushing to something- Mm-hmm or through something. So if you give me... I'll give you the time if you give me the time, and, you know, if we, if we gel and there's a way to communicate and get things done collaboratively, great. If we- Mm ... don't gel, then no harm, no foul. Don't bother me, I won't bother you. Or like we said- So I think that, you know- Yeah I think that's the, that's the key ... I'm not rushing, I'm Jamaican. I'm not rushing, I'm Jamaican. I see, I see what you're saying. It's true in all senses. I'm not rushing. I'm Jamaican. Right. Well, I think, uh, and like you said, everything we've talked about, yes, we've wandered nomadically, but everything is interconnected. You know? Yes. It all comes down to ultimately your decisions, which is you can always give people the time of day, uh, but don't expect the return. You know, do your part, which is you can be, uh, slow to speak, quick to listen, and that doesn't mean you're gonna get the same behavior, but as long as you have tried on your end, then you've done your part. And with that, also be slow to speak and quick to listen when it comes to stillness, r- to, to God, to your inner dialogue, to those conversations. Yeah. But be- Quick to not listen to everything on social media. All these inundations- Yes ... these soundbites. Be- And of course- Be discerning. Be discerning. And, uh- Yeah th- that's always the number one thing I put forward whenever anyone asks me one lesson of faith, I say a, a spirit of discernment, you know? Uh, not just on a, a, a biblical level, but with everything you do, with all the choices you make. And I think one of the key parts in able to have discernment, what you said earlier, awareness and slowing down. So I think the whole lesson we've talked about is stillness starts with slowing down. We're living in a fast-paced world that seems to be spinning faster and faster because we're just constantly inundated with information or going after information, and we need to slow down. In fact, let's slow down and finish this episode with a joke. Steve Wright, you gotta share a Jamaican joke- ... or a British joke, you know? But it's Japan and Jamaica- ... so I prefer something cultural. Uh, uh, two, uh, uh, two guys- You had time to look one up, so ... two ... I did not. Well, I d- I don't, I, I did. Yeah. I, maybe I could have done one. But you were engaged with me, so. Well, l- yeah. I, one, one, it was rude to be looking up something while I'm- Yeah ... while I'm listening to you and to be- While we were having a one-to-one thing. Yeah. And yes, a very gre- a great one-to-one thing. And number two is I, I just, I, I wouldn't be able to learn it and get, and deliver it. But it's the, there's the, there's the classic, there's the classic one. There's the classic two guys, uh, two guys in the pub and, um, as they are in England, or here. Uh, well, no, in the pub in England. And, um, one of them, uh, one of them says to, one of them says to his mate, he says, "Uh, yeah, me and, uh, me and the missus are going to the Caribbean for our holidays this year." And his friend goes, "Jamaica?" And he, he goes, "No, she wanted to go by herself." I think, I think I'm tracking. Like, the, the- I'm pulling a Steve Wright. I'm laughing even though I don't get it. No, it sounds like, um, did, did she... I- it sounded like he was saying he, he thought, he asked did she- Are you gonna explain the joke now? Don't, don't explain the joke. If she doesn't land it, you got to. I wanna, I wanna make sure I'm tracking right. He thought his friend was saying, "Did she make you go with her?" For sure. Yes. Right? Did J- Jamaica, did she make you? Jamaica. Okay. Yeah. Jamaican me crazy. Did Jamaica? Yeah. Jamaica. I am Jamaican you crazy. Well, that's the, that's probably the most famous Jamaican joke is Jamaican me crazy, you know? Mm. You know. But- I, that's the punchline, but I don't know what the, I don't know what the setup is. Yeah, I don't know where it came from, but people say it all the time. But it's better to be Jamaican someone crazy- It's a pun ... than to be Jamaica Mistaka. You know? So Don't, don't you make a mistake. That's the... There you go. Um, I'm trying to think. Don't you make a- The only, the only Japanese joke I know off the top of my head, um- Is it clean? Mm, kind of. Um. It's, it's all right. Mr.- It's not, it's semi-clean ... Mr. Whiskey, you're getting very, you're getting very risky. Mr. Whiskey. Mr.- Mr. Uzaki. It's, um, basically- It's, "Hey," it's a, it's a pickup line. It's, "Hey, girl, are you from Asia? 'Cause I'm China to get in your Japanese." And, uh, it's just so stupid. Oh, China. It's so stupid. And, and the funniest part is, like- It is ... the guy who posted that joke said it to a Korean girl, so it's, like, none of the above either, you know? Um, no, I don't know any, but I, what I can say is- He, he, he sold out. He sold out sending, sending it to a Korean. Get it? He sold out. I, I guess so. Yes. No, I don't get it. Seoul, Seoul, South Korea. Oh, Seoul, Seoul out. Oh, Seoul. Sorry. Sorry. Oh, my God. I, I heard the D too strong. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Okay. But with that, I have to say- Oh, I think that was good. I thought it was a good pun actually, but never mind. It went over my head. Seoul, Korea. Yeah. It went over my head. There's just, I just didn't really feel the Seoul in that joke. No, you didn't. I didn't. It, uh, it went over my head and stayed under my hat, but I have to say, Shinshi Shuukjuu, Shuukjo. Sorry. I, I'm reading it here 'cause I, I only know so much Japanese. So I gotta say, Shinshi Shuukjo no minasama, honjitsu wa okiki itadaki arigatou gozaimashita. Ogenki da. Which just means, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening today, and take care. Steve, close us out in Jamaican if you can. Thank you. Thank you. You know, one love, one love. Um, the, the Jamaican motto, the Jamaican, um, coat of arms as the motto, out of many, one people. Mm. Um, that typifies the mixture, the, the true mixture of, of traditions and cultures in Jamaica. But that, that phrase goes further than just the, uh, just a coat of arms on a country. Mm. I think we, we have to, we have to recognize that we are out of many in the world, um, but we are one people. We're human. Mm. And so live that way, man. Live that way. No problem. All right. Kodomashite. Oh, yeah. Kodomashite. And, and Steve, I'm sure you know this one. Kodomashite. Sayonara de. Sayonara de. Mr. Whiskey, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.</p>