00:04:17.280And doing that allows you to be a better, literally everything.
00:04:23.200The more successful and victorious you are in your life, you're a better son, better father, better husband, better co-worker, better friend, better leader, better follower, better any of those things.
00:04:38.100and a lot of those things to too many of our folk as I've mentioned before we you know our people
00:04:45.400battle with soul sickness in a maybe in a unique way or certainly in a in a profound way
00:04:53.880that has affected generations of our folk and all of us are affected to one one degree or another but
00:05:01.600so many of our people have lost sight of trying to win things.
00:05:07.920There's a generation previous to myself and in all of the generations I can think of before that.
00:05:17.560That was the idea. That was the expectation.
00:05:20.320You tell your children, you know, you can be anything you want when you grow up.
00:05:24.940Our people had dreams and they reached for the stars and some of them even grabbed them.
00:05:31.600And there is so much that we can do, but we have, you know, a couple of generations in now to a lot of our people not realizing there's a whole lot they can do in their life to be successful.
00:05:43.440One of those things I see a lot of our people really struggle with is what we what we call adulting.
00:05:49.120And when I say that, I don't I don't say that as a laugh at, but I say it as a laugh with because it's something that, you know, in many different ways in my life, I've found myself, man, I need to figure this out.
00:06:05.840uh-oh, when did I get old? All of a sudden, I'm 43. When did that happen? And I think a lot of
00:06:12.620us are that way. And this, when I find myself at those moments in a lot of different areas of my
00:06:19.140life, this man is a guy I go to to talk to about just those things because he's figured out how to
00:06:24.000win in a lot of different ways. And so it is my pleasure to welcome him on the program today
00:06:30.160to talk to us about adulting and succeeding financially.
00:06:53.760I think overall, we in discussion conceived of this series with me approaching some of these topics that are uncomfortable a lot for a lot of people to talk about.
00:07:05.720People don't like to talk about money. They don't like to talk about a lot of the things that come around as being 43 or in my case, 44 to be an adult, you know, and to struggle with with a lot of these ideas.
00:07:21.440and and it certainly touches on uh it comes as a part of the soul sickness that you mentioned
00:07:27.600our civilization our society our communities have been fractured in many ways and we don't have
00:07:36.080the integrated uh top to bottom community to uh you know from uh where we used to be able to go to
00:07:47.120you know the uh the guy in the neighborhood or the guy above us in the church or you know our
00:07:52.800mom's friend who could uh who knew stuff and so uh i i really think that it is a proper function
00:08:01.760of the church our church to uh to help people with these issues it's certainly uh important
00:08:09.200to all the topics that we're going to touch on assuming that um you know that this series
00:08:15.280continues like I hope it does. It's important that we have discussions about the things that
00:08:24.580people need to know about. The religious part is absolutely important, but the community part
00:08:31.440is also important. That's one of the things that keeps me excited about being a member of the
00:08:37.520Austro Folk Assembly, the fact that we can be, that we can go to a Hoff or we can go to an online
00:08:45.400meeting and meet people and talk about things that we don't get to talk about in the way that
00:08:53.400we as a member of this community with this mindset and this worldview can talk about with a whole lot
00:09:00.500of people. So I hope to be able to bring some of these topics to the fore. Certainly I have a
00:09:06.140A long background, my practice, for anybody who doesn't know, has centered on bankruptcy exclusively since 1998.
00:09:16.180So I've worked with thousands and thousands of budgets.
00:09:20.380I know I have a general idea of what works.
00:09:23.540I have a general idea of some things that don't work.
00:09:26.260And I hope to be able to share some of that expertise tonight and help our people elevate the way that they approach their finances.
00:09:37.080So your practice, you say, does that mean that you are a legitimate attorney?
00:09:51.480No, I just wanted to, in case anybody out there doesn't know, yeah, you speak from a place of not just life experience credibility, but professional credibility in this arena.
00:10:07.240And it's really a valuable tool to have you here, not only to present your material, but also to answer any questions folks might have.
00:10:15.720So please keep in mind, as always, this show is either question-centric or on some of these episodes, certainly question-friendly.
00:10:28.600Any question you ask, I do not know how long the law speaker has with us tonight, but I will stay on the show until I get done answering all the questions.
00:10:37.220um but yeah please ask anything you like if it comes up and is relevant to how we're going
00:10:44.360depending on how Alan wants to present we may get to them in context and if they don't relate
00:10:51.420please ask them anyway and we will you know approach them at the end of the program when
00:10:56.140we have time left over uh I'd also like to um throw out a quick thing it's kind of a top of
00:11:05.760show thing before we get in the meat and taters here help us out word of mouth is our best friend
00:11:12.720when it comes to getting a message out there i talk to the folk builders a lot one of the things
00:11:16.960that prevents us from well prevents not the right word i guess one of the the avenues that
00:11:27.040is available to us we have so many people that should be coming home to our faith and the house
00:11:31.120true the thing the reason that they're not in large part at least vast numbers of them is they
00:11:36.720simply don't know we're here so if this is something you like if it's something that you find
00:11:42.400entertaining educational or spiritually beneficial to you please share like subscribe
00:11:49.200tell people about it invite your friends invite your family um yeah so those of you that don't
00:11:55.200know we come out live and are willing to take your questions at any point in time on uh youtube
00:12:02.400odyssey twitch x better known as twitter uh rumble and vk so we're live at you on all those
00:12:12.800platforms right now and we'll come out likely tomorrow as a podcast if that's how you want
00:12:19.040to consume it on apple podcast on spotify iheart radio and on amazon so there's a lot of places to
00:12:26.240get this if you're hearing it and you are a heterosexual white person that wants to return
00:12:32.640to the gods of your ancestors you should join the house to focus simply uh www.runestone.org
00:12:40.160read about things if you have questions you can ask them here you can send them to any of our
00:12:45.200contacts you can send them to me and we'd love to talk to you about it and uh yeah if if you
00:12:50.800should be here then we'd love to have you here with us we're doing really really special things
00:12:54.800together and we'd love for you to be part of um that's really all i've got for the top of the show
00:13:01.360alan please take it away okay thank you sir i appreciate that um as we used to say in a
00:13:09.680different fundraising context you know the usual disgusting plea for money um you know one of the
00:13:14.800things down toward the tail end of my notes is, you know, one of the reasons you want to be able
00:13:19.200to budget a little tighter is so that you can give the AFA a little more generously. We are
00:13:24.960doing great things. We are doing good things. We are certainly sound stewards of your money. So
00:13:32.720whatever you give us, we're going to ring 11 cents out of every dime. So I have a short
00:13:39.200presentation prepared. I assume that our technical advisor will enter in with a couple of forms that
00:13:47.600I sent him earlier this week. I prepared ahead of time, this time for a change. So the first thing
00:13:53.320I want to talk about is why we want to talk about budgeting. I think when we talk about money,
00:14:03.780it's one of those things that is sort of everywhere and therefore it ends up sort of
00:14:08.600being nowhere. You know, it's the sea that we swim in, in a lot of ways. And as a result,
00:14:15.940it is both the cause and the cure for some aspects of the soul sickness. We have become
00:14:22.600immersed in a materialist culture. As religion has become less and less a part of most people's
00:14:33.640lives. Materialism has stepped in to fill that void for a lot of people. What can I buy? What
00:14:39.740can I consume? And we have to break the hold of that. And the mindset, to me, a lot of it is about
00:14:48.320your mindset. And people who find their way here, for the most part, have been able to see through
00:14:54.880that false god of materialism. But we carry a lot of that chain along with us.
00:15:03.640So why we want to do that? I mean, we want to be able both to build wealth because money, like anything else, money is a tool and you want to be able to build wealth.
00:15:17.100And I'll give you pointers along the way as we go. But every dollar you spend, you should think of it as an investment.
00:15:26.580Is this the highest and best way to use, to make transportation?
00:15:33.440Is this the highest way to feed my family?
00:15:36.500Those are the kinds of things that if you, and there's a difference between being a miser and being frugal.
00:15:42.760I mean, being frugal just means that you get the most for your money.
00:15:45.540There's nothing wrong with drinking good beer or drinking nice coffee, but you just want to get the most out of it.
00:15:56.580So, you know, exactly. See? Consumed by the Monster Corporation. So here in a few minutes, we're going to talk about budgeting. So both as a tool, because most people, and I never did until I started working in this arena, but you should, it helps to think of your money in an organized way.
00:16:21.280Nick, if you're ready, let's put that first form up on the screen, the income screen, and people can print it, I guess, from, we can make it available for download or whatever.
00:16:32.520But one of the things that you need to be able to do, sorry, the dog's barking.
00:16:38.240One of the things that you need to be able to do is know what your gross income is and your net income.
00:19:54.320And I don't say that facetiously at all.
00:19:59.040the, you know, be the guy, you know, if you're working in a job, there's absolutely nothing
00:20:04.900wrong with that. I spent a long time as a wage employee. I showed up early. I stayed late. I
00:20:10.980did more than the boss asked me. I got promoted. Those are the kinds of things that, you know,
00:20:19.000that get you into a higher income bracket. You also save money. And there are ways to get there,
00:20:26.760it. Saving your money, but investing is an important part, as the old hack has it. Jesus
00:20:34.460saves, but Moses invests. And so that's how we get, you know, by having side income. And, you know,
00:20:46.860not everybody can get together enough money to have like a, you know, for example, a, you know,
00:20:53.380a rental property, but if you could get those sorts of things and it takes,
00:20:57.280it takes some work to get where you have, uh,
00:21:23.380you time off okay did it did we miss that part i broke the internet um so nobody owes you the
00:21:40.900you know uh you know some lifestyle that you think you're entitled to you have to get out
00:21:45.700there and get it um and that's about the philosophy of money um because the philosophy of it is both
00:21:52.260carrot and stick you know you have to have the ability to want more to get out there and get
00:21:59.140more or you can just live with less there is absolutely nothing wrong with living a very
00:22:04.660modest lifestyle and you know and keeping a realistic expectation with again with the goal
00:22:13.060being that you that you want to have a make the most out of what whatever it is that you are
00:22:19.140earning. So covered that. So then a couple of tips and then we'll go to questions and talk for a while
00:22:33.940longer about these sorts of topics. But certainly for me, one of the things that I know, I'm an older
00:22:42.880guy so i'm used to i've lived in an age before um there was all this internet money uh all these
00:22:50.160money systems um like that but uh you know or even and took me maybe because of the job that i do it
00:22:59.920took me a long time to get used to even having a credit card but certainly one of the one of the
00:23:04.720tips for saving money is to take that money that you have at the end of the month that disposable
00:23:10.240income that you have after your living expenses are paid, you take that disposable income
00:23:16.160and you put that amount of cash into an envelope and you spend until you try to have some money
00:23:24.480left over in that envelope when it's all said and done. You put that, you have your cash
00:23:29.200set aside and you spend cash because it's a lot harder to take money out of your pocket
00:23:36.760than it is to swipe that credit card or debit card, especially the debit card is, is to,
00:23:42.420you know, in a lot of ways is that evil invention because, you know, it takes, it takes no effort
00:23:48.940to swipe that debit card, 10, 15, $20 spending $20 is the same as spending $4 out of the debit
00:23:56.000card. It's the same swipe every time. Whereas, you know, taking that $20 bill out of your pocket,
00:24:02.480It's a different kind of decision. Do I need that, you know, do I, am I going to spend this money for this thing?
00:24:10.300It, it makes me cringe when I drive, every time I drive by and I don't want to pick on Starbucks, I have no, I don't hate them any worse than I hate any other corporation.
00:24:22.000But, you know, you drive by a Starbucks, there's 30 people in line waiting to spend $9 to get a cup of coffee.
00:24:28.320can make it home for 50 cents and that makes it just doesn't mark up with me i mean i've got
00:24:36.240um you know i i drink a couple cups of coffee a day i make them before i leave the house i make
00:24:42.320one at the office so it even if you're getting your copy at the there i guess there are zippy
00:24:50.960marks anymore what is it the circle k you know that cup of coffee that you get at the circle k
00:24:56.400that costs two 50, you know, you can make it home for 20 cents. Um, and another big thing,
00:25:03.080and it, you know, this is one where I finally got a, brought a lot of discipline into my life,
00:25:08.900um, is eating out and especially for lunch. Um, you know, that lunch that you go out and spend
00:25:14.70010, $15 now at, even at, uh, at a fast food place, uh, that's a, you know, that's a lunch
00:25:24.620you could make at home for $2. So, you know, if you, if you save, if you save $5 a day, every
00:25:33.200working day, $25 a week, you know, that's $1,200 a year that you could put aside for, you know,
00:25:41.840to put a down payment on a, on a house or to, you know, as a, you know, to pay off the debts that
00:25:47.940you have. Um, so it is absolutely critical that you, uh, that you spend money closer
00:25:55.880to the vest, and when you keep, don't have to work until you're, you know, 70, 80 years
00:26:22.420old so that you don't have to worry about where you're, whether you're going to be able to pay
00:26:28.740your bills on time, you know, because you got, you drain your bank account all the way to the
00:26:34.940bottom every month. Those are the kinds of things that, that make you live a more comfortable
00:26:41.280lifestyle, just an easier lifestyle. And those will allow you to have a, have more peace of
00:26:47.720mind. That's what a lot of all of this stuff is about to me is being able to live an, you know,
00:26:52.740just an easier, more comfortable lifestyle. And one of the things I harp on with a lot of people
00:27:00.380is about car payments. Maintenance is a lot cheaper than a car payment. You know, it saddens
00:27:10.940me really the way that car payments go five, six, $700 a month. Now I have clients that come in now
00:27:16.260that have $750, $850 a month car payments. And it's just, it's hard to dig that much money out
00:27:25.020of your, out of your work life. That's your time that you're giving to some big corporations so
00:27:30.920that you can drive a slightly newer, slightly nicer car. I mean, I've got the two cars that
00:27:37.300I have, you know, one of them is a 2010 Ford truck and the other one's a 2011 Toyota.
00:27:45.500So, and I keep it maintained, you know, you put $200 a month in that Toyota, it's going to live
00:27:52.460forever. And that's my goal is to drive it until there's 600,000 miles left. And by then I can
00:27:58.080save up enough money to buy a, you know, by then a 2015 Toyota or whatever it is that's,
00:28:08.400you know, that's going to be a nice, you know, a decent replacement of that car just gets
00:28:12.200you from place to place. Nobody cares what you, what your car looks like. Okay. As long
00:28:18.440as you get to work on time and as long as your family is safe and comfortable getting
00:28:23.760from place to place you don't need a you don't need a new car new enough you know it will get
00:28:30.560you there in florida you need air conditioning
00:28:53.760is that me fading out or is that the is that me driving
00:29:17.200sorry i don't know why that kept keeps doing that
00:29:21.040um we'll just blame it on the panhandle snow that's it well we were without power for
00:29:29.200uh 14 hours but um the maybe so there you go that was my house this morning or
00:29:36.000i guess that was my deck the view out my deck this morning so uh three inches of
00:29:40.880sleet last night and no power you're still good so so you feel time i i know i don't want to mess
00:30:03.360up his flow i know he's got a presence 16 hours okay yeah and i um and i was talking
00:30:10.800even when my picture was out so i'm not sure that that's uh so that that's what um what was hurting
00:30:16.240anything you know if you have kids um all of this a lot of this stuff becomes a lot more difficult
00:30:25.760to navigate i'll say it that way um we made sacrifices uh to allow my wife to stay home
00:30:34.400with the kids because i believe that that's an important aspect of um healthy childhood
00:30:41.440you know the house that we bought was in terrible condition and we put a lot of our time and effort
00:30:48.400into doing that sort of work ourselves so that uh so that the um equity that we built on that was not
00:30:57.120equity that came from my having to pay somebody else to do it it's equity that we put in by
00:31:03.120being able to do stuff like paint and do minor reconstruction work and electrical work that I
00:31:10.600can do and those sorts of things that were able to get us into a better position than we could
00:31:18.100have been if I was having to hire everything done. I used to work on home cars, but I wouldn't try to
00:31:24.160do that anymore. Everything's computerized, so you got to be good friends with your mechanic so that
00:31:29.280He doesn't overcharge you. But those are the kinds of things that allow you to, again, to live a good lifestyle out of the budget that you make instead of having to kill yourself to try to make more.
00:31:42.280I used to laugh at the, because I would look at my income and look in our newspaper, if
00:31:50.940you remember what a newspaper was, you know, that I used to get, but the newspaper that
00:31:56.000I got, they would have a little grid every month, like if you're making X dollars per
00:32:01.360month, you could, you know, you could qualify for this much house payment, and I thought
00:32:06.880was absurd and I think it is absurd the way that the banks will they they will loan you into
00:32:12.400bankruptcy because they will bust your budget trying to get you to pay too much for a house
00:32:22.320and yes theoretically you could make it if you you know if you sit in the dark and eat rice and beans
00:32:28.400three nights a week you could make the house payment that they think you could qualify for
00:32:32.240but that is not a quality lifestyle. I know people, I've had contractors that have come to
00:32:38.880me that talk about a lot of the houses in the richer neighborhoods, the wealthier neighborhoods
00:32:44.560around Tallahassee, where the people who are making, they're having to put so much into their
00:32:49.840house payment that they don't have money for furniture. You know, so they have this super
00:32:54.160nice house on a super nice street and they're living on furniture that's, you know, that's just
00:32:59.920awful, you know, plastic furniture and, you know, dormitory style, what's the thing, milk
00:33:08.940crates, you know, that they're eating off of because they're, because they're, they
00:33:13.200listen to a banker, they listen to a mortgage lender that, that let them qualify for a house
00:33:20.380that they really can't afford. You have to live below your means, live something that
00:33:25.820You can like with that budget worksheet that I showed you, if you, you know, if when you spend your way down, you can also work your budget backwards.
00:33:34.300You can say, all right, once I spend these other items, this much for food, this much for my car payment, this much for my car insurance, how much do I have left over for a mortgage payment?
00:33:44.960Can I pay $2,200 a month for mortgage payment?
00:33:49.620I mean, it just doesn't work that way.
00:33:51.840And what ends up happening then, if you overbuy, if you overbuy on a car, if you overbuy on a house, then you end up putting some of your regular monthly living expenses onto credit cards, and that's where you get sucked into the black hole of debt.
00:34:05.000and there's it's really hard to get out of that once you start once you get dug into that
00:34:13.600position it's really difficult to come back from putting two three six hundred dollars a month on
00:34:21.540a credit card and then pretty soon you're ten fifteen twenty thousand dollars in debt and
00:34:27.100there's no way and there's i guess there's a way to do it but it is really hard to dig out from
00:34:32.980that kind of hole so and then beyond that a couple of other tips a lot of a
00:34:43.900lot of it to me the the frugal lifestyle to me is about mindset that's one of
00:34:53.380the things and I you know people you know you're you're
00:35:02.980Okay, so Alan, you cut off that frugal mindset.
00:35:56.120The literal nickel coin is worth like seven cents right now.
00:36:00.260The copper and nickel that's in a nickel is worth more than five cents.
00:36:06.360So if every day, like one of the things that I do every day when I come home, I take all the nickels out of my change and I throw them in the nickel jug.
00:36:16.120And it's just one of those ways that I have of keeping myself focused on saving money, building wealth.
00:36:23.040Those are the those are the kinds of things that that that will put you ahead instead of keeping you behind on, you know, and staying just breaking even because you want to be able to take a breath once in a while.
00:36:44.620I am absolutely open to sitting here for a couple of hours and taking questions about how to do budgeting, how to do wills, how to get out from under if you are under, how to, you know, how to make more out of the money that you're making.
00:38:29.660You live your faith in all the ways that you do things in your life. And by being able to be successful, that furthers your efficacy to do the other aspects of your life and to be, you know, to live our values.
00:38:45.660values. Industriousness, perseverance, self-reliance. So many of these values come into play
00:38:54.660specifically through our ability to be successful. And I think we think really often of money as
00:39:03.360some kind of taboo bad thing, but it's not. It's a means to power in the world that we live in,
00:39:12.640where you can accomplish things that you want where you can help causes that you value you can
00:39:19.040help friends and family that you value it very much is a spiritual concept it's the first of our
00:39:27.920runes fehu is it's about wealth and not just wealth in the sense of dollar bills or stacks
00:39:35.200of gold or cows but in any ability to store up resource and then circulate said resource towards
00:39:45.840what you will it to do it's a very relevant concept and something i i would like for
00:39:52.800us to embrace as much as we can so we have a couple of questions lining up i would encourage
00:39:58.720you guys to ask some more, but the first, and feel free to answer this as vaguely or not at
00:40:06.820all if you don't want to, because it's really not people's business, but it's a relevant
00:40:11.100question, I think. So Finraith would like to know, are you rich? Are there AFA members who
00:40:18.580are rich. Alan, are you rich? No. I live a pretty frugal lifestyle. I still have a mortgage payment.
00:40:32.220So to me, that is one of the marks of being rich in that sense. That's one of my own personal
00:40:41.520goals is to try to get this house paid off. Um, but these are relative terms, you know, um, I
00:40:49.760have a rich abundance of friends, uh, of which, uh, Matt and Nick, I consider, uh, among. And so
00:40:57.600I have that, uh, richness, uh, going for me. I own three cars. So, I mean, that's pretty decent.
00:41:07.340I think I have, you know, a modest amount of personal property. So, I mean, so, you know,
00:41:17.580but rich in the sense of that, like when I hear that term, I think of someone with a lot more
00:41:26.300wealth than I have, but I think that's what everybody does. You know, I've seen some scales
00:41:32.740where, you know, people who have, you know, people who make $20,000 a year think people
00:41:43.060And, you know, people at $40,000 think $80,000 is wealthy.
00:41:47.420So I would say that I was on my way to being wealthy before my wife got tired of putting
00:41:57.240up with my, uh, oddball sense of humor and whatever other issues I have that I could not
00:42:03.280identify on a bet. But, um, and actually, you know, I, and I forgot to put it back in my notes,
00:42:10.020but that's actually one of the ways to stay wealthy is to stay married. And, you know,
00:42:18.020that's not always easy. I know we live in this transitional age where people, um, where religion,
00:42:24.400politics, approaches to money can be divisive things. And I know that's one of the things that
00:42:32.520I think worked at some of the seams of our relationship, but it's sad that two incomes
00:42:44.040that can barely support one household, then after a separation, have to support two households.
00:42:48.520I wish I I wish my mom had lived closer to Tallahassee and I would have moved back in with
00:42:58.460her I mean there is absolutely nothing wrong with you know that's why like some of it for a long
00:43:04.340time I used to drive through these areas and you know drive through downtown and there are these
00:43:09.720huge what I think of as mansions you know four or five six thousand square foot houses but you know
00:43:17.440when those homes were built in the 1800s, 1900s, early 1900s, those houses held three generations
00:43:28.740of people. And, you know, it was because people knew that the way to maintain wealth is to keep
00:43:34.760it in the family, literally, you know, be nicer to people so that they'll get, so you can get along
00:43:40.440and, you know, get, so that you can, you know, live that more comfortable lifestyle up close to people.
00:43:53.760That, I wouldn't say I'm the best example of being able to do that, but I mean, I know it's a theoretical possibility.
00:44:01.940Well, and that's something that I think folks need to, I think a lot of us.
00:44:10.440Make mistakes in our life, get ashamed of those mistakes, focus on those mistakes, and squander time and energy and everything else, trying to run from them instead of trying to stop digging and correct them.
00:44:32.740And wherever you find yourself, you can don't don't always look at the end goal.
00:44:43.340Look at the immediacy. If you try, you can always be better than you are now, wherever that is.
00:44:50.620The best time to start is 20 years ago. The second best time is right now.
00:44:55.560Absolutely. And the other thing is to be when you're on the other side, when you are the aggrieved person,
00:45:02.560The thing to do is to be, this is not a term that I advocate a lot, but to be a little tolerant, especially of our, you know, of your brother who errs in good faith.
00:45:14.160And I think that, too, is a symptom of the way that we, as the, you know, the first, maybe, you know, I'm among the first of what you might consider the television generation, where we were raised on sitcoms and movies.
00:45:31.420And you just get this idea that we can have this major problem and then we can get it all solved and get it all wrapped up.
00:45:39.620And then we're back to being best buddies all in an hour and 20 minutes.
00:46:37.500First, on the idea of letting things slide and having some forgiveness, I've said this on the program many times.
00:46:44.880for anybody who maybe it's first time they're hearing it or who needs a reminder and i think
00:46:48.640this is worth reminding all of us including ourselves also true is not a reaction to
00:46:56.240christianity sometimes people find also true and then oh christians forgive we don't forgive but
00:47:05.680that's nonsense and it's silly one of the fundamentals of our folk of our race of our
00:47:12.720faith is nobility. The point is you have a option to extend grace and forgiveness to someone you
00:47:22.300choose to. You're not obliged to. Austra doesn't make, you don't owe anybody forgiveness if you
00:47:28.140don't want to, but it's a mark of nobility for you being able to rise above pettiness and extend
00:47:35.200that in accordance with your will and with, you know, your judgment as a noble man or woman.
00:47:42.720i think that's something we should consider um but also back to is alan rich so well no because
00:47:51.520your point was really valid one of the reasons that alan is in fact rich is the fact that alan
00:47:58.320does not think alan is rich if you have low expectations and then you achieve them and
00:48:06.480then you sit atop them and crow about them that limits you in a tremendous way everybody thinks
00:48:12.720everybody's got people they look up to or a status or a place they want to be. If you ever
00:48:20.320find yourself, you have achieved the ultimate end-all goal of everything in your life and you
00:48:25.200stop, chances are very, very good that you are delusional and you are preventing yourself from
00:48:31.860making additional gains in your life. But I will say this, the reason he's on the program talking
00:48:37.720about what he's talking talking about most of the rest of us in the afa think alan is
00:48:43.480well off is is wealthy uh rich is kind of a loaded term like i don't think he has a money bin that
00:48:51.080he dives into but yeah he's been very successful whether he you know whether whether he is is
00:48:59.080claiming it or not the rest of us acknowledge it in uh you know are respectful that he's got
00:49:06.520some stuff figured out and the second half of the question was are there rich afa members
00:49:11.080really depends on what you mean we have got members from all across the economic spectrum
00:49:20.200um i would say we have a higher percentage of six financially successful membership
00:49:27.960now than we've had in the past we certainly have you know
00:49:32.760a percentage of members that are very well off um in their life have their stuff figured out
00:49:41.320have a you know have or have had a very successful career have saved up have a lot of means we have
00:49:48.200quite a few that way we've got a lot of people below that we've got a lot of people in between
00:49:53.480and we've got a lot of people that are really struggling but yeah we absolutely do have some
00:49:56.920afa members that are very well off i don't think we have you know billionaire members or tens of
00:50:05.320millionaire members but i would bet that we've got several members that their combined assets
00:50:10.280are you know a couple million or more um some other stuff kind of kind of stacking up talking
00:50:19.400about wheels well we're gonna get there because that's that's on my list and i interrupted your
00:50:25.320thing by trying to remind myself, not realizing you're reading the comments just as much as I am.
00:50:31.400So, oh, before we go further, Alexander, thank you very much. He bought us three coffees. That's
00:50:38.540$15 worth of donation. Thank you so much for that. We appreciate all you guys that have been
00:50:43.480so generous on the program and continue to do so. And thank you, Alexander, for your example of being
00:50:49.260such a hard, industrious worker, man. You're knocking some stuff out in your itself. So we
00:50:54.180are grateful for that as well. Those of you who don't know, Alexander Castro is a apprentice
00:51:01.620folk builder for the Astru Folk Assembly out of the, I don't know, greater Jacksonville, Florida
00:51:07.000area. And he is doing a tremendous job so far in a lot of different ways. And we very much
00:51:13.840appreciate the hard work you're doing, Alexander. Thank you. Gofie Trent East would like to know,
00:51:20.340law speaker. What was it about the AFA that made you want to join and commit so much of your life
00:51:26.420to its success? Back in my day, I will say that I was raised as a religious person. And then,
00:51:47.540You know, so religion was a big part of my life as a child. But then when I came into a young adulthood and began to question those sorts of things, especially when it became important to me, the idea of philosophical consistency.
00:52:08.920I had to have an integrated worldview so that my science and my philosophy and my religion all matched up in a, you know, in a complete framework that that that was compatible together.
00:52:23.920together um wandered long far away from christianity and then found um all's a true
00:52:31.360started practicing with um the groups that were around at that time there were some groups in
00:52:39.120florida some groups in the southeast that i got a lot of benefit out of and made a lot of
00:52:46.340association with. Hi, Bodie. We got to know some of the folk. And then in 2010, in the
00:52:57.280state park, right across the street, from where our hoff is now. See, that wasn't me that we.
00:53:11.880Okay, you're still in the midst, but you are telling a poignant story. So we're going to
01:13:48.120We have had people who are terminally ill and saw it coming for a long time and told us things that they wanted, but didn't make a will, and their family had different ideas.
01:14:03.580and that's what was done with their remains and their and their assets
01:14:10.620because it wasn't written down and that's really unfortunate we've also had people who
01:14:17.380you know have chosen to take their own life without going through that step of letting
01:14:23.560folks know what they want done with things and that's also left uh them and perhaps those that
01:14:30.100depended on them in a very bad way so please do you know i i have seen elderly people that see it
01:14:38.740coming a mile away that have long-term diseases that could get these things taken care of but
01:14:44.840i've also seen young people with every reason every expectation to live another 50 years
01:14:50.460to where tragedy strikes it's never too soon to get it taken care of and if you are a parent
01:14:56.860please get it taken care of so you can make sure your kids are raised in the way that
01:15:01.920you want them raised. That stalks us all. And so we should be as prepared as possible.
01:15:09.580Absolutely. Another question. So say you wrote a monthly budget, stopped eating out,
01:15:17.820make coffee at home, go thrifting instead of buying new at box chains, no car note,
01:15:24.060Do all of that stuff, yet still paycheck to paycheck. What then?
01:15:34.920The only other, well, first of all, congratulations, you're doing, you're living within your means. That's the first, that's the first step.
01:15:43.760Because if you were, if you were, if you're doing it the other way, coffee out, go to the big box store to buy whatever unnecessary stuff that you're, that you're buying, then you're going into the hole every month.
01:15:57.000And the only other, and so the rest of that answer is you have to make more money.
01:16:03.720And again, that's, you know, I don't say that lightly.
01:16:07.740I know that jobs that people get and develop momentum in have limitations in the earning capability, but there are lots of, you know, there are lots of, and I hate the term, but that's, you know, that's the modern parlance of it is the side hustle.
01:16:27.080You can get a part time job. I have clients who work three jobs in order to make their to make their to have to make their bills work.
01:16:37.040Um, because, you know, whether it's taking a second part-time job, like as a cashier at a grocery store or some, you know, uh, or, um, driving for Uber or Lyft or whatever, and, or, um, or whether it's finding some other thing that you're good at and like to do, it's, you know, it's sometimes just the oddest thing.
01:17:04.360Like I had a client who one of his one of his income streams was he played the cello.
01:17:14.620And so he had recorded some cello music and had uploaded it to.
01:17:21.860I don't think it was Pandora or YouTube, but it was one of those live streaming things.
01:17:27.140And so that was like he had residual income from that.
01:17:30.040Now, it was only like $30, $40, $50 a month, but that's the kind of thing where he liked doing it, and it gave him a little bit of extra money.
01:17:39.880You know, if you like building things out of wood, you can make little, you know, their stuff.
01:17:51.420I mean, look at the stuff that, like, oh, God, I can't, you know, that comes into the AFA auctions.
01:17:59.100you know the beautiful um artwork that people make crochet needlepoint those kinds of things that
01:18:05.180can be sold i mean you can you can go to the flea market and and sell those sorts of things
01:18:10.780and okay and again i know it's not easy to you know to uh you know to make that next nickel over
01:18:18.780and above that but but that's what it takes you know um i work two jobs all the way through law
01:18:26.060school so you know it it you know you you got to do what you got to do you know and then
01:18:35.660you know you can complete your education that's another big part of it um
01:18:43.180the bachelor's degree now is like the aptitude test used to be and i know it's going without work
01:18:49.820or going with a minimum work style for the four years or six that it takes to get a bachelor's
01:18:56.860degree but that is your that's the key to get into the door to get into management um for a long time
01:19:03.820i thought i was going to work and be i mean i welded did electrical work so uh you know because
01:19:09.260i was going to be the noble proletarian and work for my living um and there is absolutely nothing
01:19:14.300wrong with that if you can get into a professional career like being a plumber or a hvac tech or
01:19:20.360those sorts of things that require training those are highly paid skilled labor um but the grunt
01:19:26.940labor welding that i was doing was not going to get me anywhere so what it did put me back in
01:19:31.620school and you know so by getting in school and being pretty diligent about my education i was
01:19:40.680able to, you know, climb the ladder into self-employment. Wasn't easy, but, you know,
01:19:50.680but by being frugal and living a pretty modest lifestyle, I've become rich. I mean, modestly
01:19:58.660well off. Well, something else I'd like to say that I don't see our people doing in large number
01:20:05.880and other communities are very successful at and many of our you know ethnic communities when they1.00
01:20:15.480first immigrated here from Europe were very successful at we have bought into this hyper0.99
01:20:23.160individualism that's really weakened a lot of our potential us functioning as a community and
01:20:30.660thing that i want to see more specifically more afa members doing being willing to work
01:20:37.220together and help each other to accomplish your dreams on stuff if you're really at that spot
01:20:42.260where you've done every you've cut out everything you can you don't know how to get any squeeze any
01:20:48.020more out of it and you're still paycheck to paycheck and this is way more feasible sometimes
01:20:53.700for single people or younger people that are just getting their feet under them but
01:20:58.420going in together on something and pooling resources to where you're you know sharing
01:21:06.020stuff sharing a space to live getting a business together and employing friends keeping your money
01:21:13.140and your resources in your faith community to help others with jobs and things and we've seen
01:21:21.300you know recently all of us have seen uh the indian community do this really effectively
01:21:27.540of going in like hey let's get 10 of us to go in on this motel we can live here it's got a kitchen0.98
01:21:35.560it's got places for us to sleep places for us to stay we can work shifts and once we're you know
01:21:42.120getting rich off of it because it takes off we can use that to then fund the next guy's thing
01:21:46.780that they're doing and the next and the next and it's a really successful model but we've gotten so
01:21:53.420jaded at being part of a community or you know sharing our abilities that i think we miss out
01:22:01.100on a lot of that opportunity and and again the older you get with families and things it makes
01:22:05.840that much more difficult but it's something i wish more of our people would consider
01:22:08.800ah we got another question law speaker knowing what you know about debt and such who do you
01:22:16.020personally think are solid mainstream financial pundits slash writers such as dave ramsey etc
01:22:27.220dave ramsey's certainly one that i um recommend that uh that's where i get a lot of my uh tips
01:22:34.740from i think he has a lot of good ideas i i don't recommend as stringent a bunch as as dave does
01:22:43.140Because especially if you're already in debt, you know, I've heard him recommend to people that they give up their car and then try to pay off the difference, which I think is backwards thinking.
01:24:25.540I sell a couple of cars under his license every year.
01:24:28.320And so, again, but, you know, to get there, even then, I mean, you could work a deal like that, you know, to have, you know, for a low-end car dealer, for a low-end vehicle, you could get in there for $2,000 or $3,000.
01:24:48.340And, you know, you sell that $3,000 car for $4,000, and then you sell that $4,000 car for $6,000, and the next thing you know, you're a thousandaire.
01:24:58.320You know, but that's what it takes. Actually, years ago, I read that to turn $100,000 into $110,000 is a matter of course, but to turn $100 into $110 is work. But that's what you have to do.
01:25:16.040you know you like these guys and i don't like street hustles as general rule but these people
01:25:21.960that are out here selling flowers on the corner right they bought those flowers somewhere and
01:25:25.880they're selling them so they're you know they're they're doing their little part to make up you
01:25:31.800know to make a side hustle and to make a little bit of money that they wouldn't have otherwise
01:25:38.200and they're you know they're not sitting around bemoaning their fate they're getting out there
01:25:42.840doing something about it um so those are the three um that come immediately to mind and dave ramsey
01:25:50.600has made a career and and rightly so out of out of giving people advice on that case-by-case basis
01:25:57.800i'm glad to talk to you and give you like the
01:26:02.760six minute version of what i usually take an hour going through with my clients
01:26:08.200but i you know i will help you do budgeting and those sorts of things it's uh it's a difficult
01:26:15.400process if you haven't done it before um but it uh but it it can be rewarding to to turn that into
01:26:24.040uh something a little bit more than than what you had just by i don't want people focus you know
01:26:30.440the the opposite of that and the wrong way to look at it is to end up being too driven by money
01:26:37.240You know, people who money becomes their God.
01:26:42.760Money is a tool that can put you in a comfortable place to live a more.
01:26:50.520The thing that's important to me is to live a spiritual lifestyle.
01:26:54.700And the money that I have made and continue to make by this, by running this thing is, you know, allows me to.
01:27:07.240get up and meditate every morning yeah there's
01:27:16.360i don't know at different times um i feel like dave ramsey's stuff
01:27:22.280has helped me and my family on just you know right in the ship and getting a spot where you're
01:27:27.880comfortable progress is progress and everything doesn't have to happen all at once one of the
01:27:34.920things that i like the most is the idea that if you have lots and lots of debts instead of
01:27:41.720dispersing all of your resources to a variety of things if you put it all towards clearing
01:27:49.640the small debts or you know depending on how things are set up you're able to see progress
01:27:54.920one of the hardest things with accomplishment in general is we all have a really big
01:28:00.280goal in mind be that a fitness goal i've seen this with weight loss you get somebody who's spent
01:28:05.320you know 30 years in really poor health allowed themselves to get you know very obese and then
01:28:10.840they want to immediately fix it and they try so hard and they try for months and they're trying
01:28:15.160and they don't see a difference the distance between where they want to be and where they
01:28:19.560are is so hard i'm a big fan of stats and metrics and things so you can see incremental progress
01:28:26.280and if you've got a stack of debts, having one less, that's something. That's a win you can bank
01:28:32.840on and literally bank on and you can take some peace of mind in. And it gives you confidence to
01:28:39.480go after the next big one you go after. And it gives you that sense of accomplishment where
01:28:46.440you look at last month, like three months ago, I only had $20 in the bank. This month,
01:28:51.400i've got a hundred dollars in the bank you know that that's a that that you know i i i don't
01:28:59.400that's hard to do you know if you're when you're when when you're when you're living thin like that
01:29:04.600it's hard to make that sort of adjustment and it and you know like like you said with the person
01:29:09.480who's has a lot of weight to lose and if they think well i haven't lost 100 pounds so i'm not
01:29:15.960doing anything but to think well i lost two pounds so i'm making progress you know you gotta you know
01:29:21.880you that's part of the psychology of money is you have to think in small steps you know i have i'm
01:29:28.520better now than i was i'm you know i've got more in my bank than i i have one less debt this month
01:29:34.200than i had six months ago those are you know so pat yourself on the back um for those sorts of
01:29:39.320things i'll tell you and you know as i talked about before i uh you know i make a my my practice
01:29:49.560of law is about filing bankruptcy and in the way back when when i started this practice i did i
01:29:56.840admit that i felt a little bit bad about burning these banks down you know i thought people you
01:30:01.000made this debt you ought to pay it but man i've come 180 about that now these you know predatory
01:30:10.520i think every bank is a predatory lender um i think every loan is uh
01:30:18.520crime against humanity i mean they're you know it's i i i know that we're enmeshed in it and
01:30:24.520And there's not an easy way to get from where we are to where we ought to be.
01:30:31.480But. And I'm also aware of the guy like the maximum that to a guy with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
01:30:38.600But if you are struggling to pay your bills and you're spending more of your income than you're comfortable doing, paying toward your debt, if you have twenty thousand dollars credit card debt.
01:30:51.680It's time to think about filing bankruptcy.
01:30:55.400You know, and I can't make money off of your bankruptcy, so I don't care one way or the other, you know, in any kind of like it's not going to make me any money for, you know, but it's but it's something to think about because, you know, we we this is one of the other things that like in the political ramification of the way that we live our lives.
01:31:14.160We try to live lives of honor and nobility that, you know, and with those sorts of ideals in the back of our mind, the rest of the world, the corporate world, they don't live that.
01:31:24.520Okay. And we, you know, so there is nothing false about returning a life or a lie. And so, you know, if you're feeling frustrated about not being able to pay those sorts of bills, I would not hesitate to burn those guys down in a bankruptcy.
01:31:44.340you know that's it's one of those things and
01:31:50.540something that's a couple of things I've spent a lot of my life
01:31:58.300doing counseling or working with with people um I've done a lot in my capacity as as a go-thee but
01:32:07.840But before that, I used to work with children that were considered severely emotionally disturbed.
01:32:15.400And these kids had seen really, really rough things in their life.
01:32:18.960And there's this soft and I think really well-intentioned thing of coddling and telling them everything's, you know, awesome and everybody's a winner and all of these things to try to make them feel good.
01:32:34.920but reality has a way of stripping away things that are without substance
01:32:43.140very swiftly and shot in a shockingly brutal way but you can't take away real things
01:32:52.260The most subtle, small, insignificant win doesn't matter what horrible things happen afterwards.
01:33:06.200That kid can say, yeah, but in 2004, I was the best speller in Mrs. Johnson's second grade class.
01:33:15.580That remains true once it's in the record books, no matter what happens.
01:33:20.620and it seems little and silly but i've literally seen that make a world of difference if you're
01:33:28.220struggling and you make something happen that you get a win in the win column that counts you always
01:33:36.060have that and you can look back and how did you make that happen let's try that again on the next
01:33:41.900thing and it sounds really small but it can make a very big difference and the other thing is
01:33:47.180is getting to people to stop digging, especially, what's this, on the sunk cost fallacy, where you
01:33:56.380get, and we all have found ourselves doing this. You make a bad choice, make a bad choice,
01:34:07.140you invest in something you shouldn't have, and then you realize, uh-oh, and so you put more on
01:34:14.480it just in case well man maybe if I can float it just a little bit longer at a loss something will
01:34:20.120happen and eventually you build up so much crushing embarrassment and like you can't
01:34:31.820accept the loss that you keep throwing in good money after bad and that is a very human thing
01:34:40.640that I think all of us have felt at one time or another in financial situations, in relationships.
01:34:47.060If I just keep digging, I'm going to find the bottom of this hole.
01:34:52.760And I mean, miracles happen. I can't say that won't happen. If you spend all your money on
01:35:01.060And on lotto tickets, you might just win.
01:35:06.320But I think that the good odds, the vast majority of you, there's only a handful of winners.
01:35:13.320There's a whole lot of people who lose.
01:35:17.360To get you to stop, and this is all to say, one of the biggest things when you find yourself struggling, stop digging.
01:35:25.720and if you're in a spot where you can and you have to go to somebody like alan and you know
01:35:33.460turn in your hand and try to get a reshuffle sometimes that's the smartest play
01:35:40.500yeah keep that keep that in mind uh other stuff so
01:35:47.660the 401k thing really confuses me and i may have missed the touch on it he made because i was away
01:36:00.080from the phone with the kids i recently found out my company is taking 180 a month for my 401k
01:36:09.020i can opt out but they do match and i have been living fine without knowing that money was being
01:36:16.920taken should i keep putting it in since i can live without it or try to diminish my contribution
01:36:32.600well so there's a long history there's a long story about the philosophy of that's that sort
01:36:41.000of thing i um if you're a if you're in that posture i think a 401k is a reasonable a reasonably good
01:36:49.800um investment vehicle um especially where they are matching it so that 180 you know is really
01:37:03.560three you know it's really 360 dollars so the um without knowing a whole lot more about the
01:37:10.920situation and your philosophy about it i mean the because the other because the other part of the
01:37:15.960question is like you know is about risk aversion because you know i would certainly investigate
01:37:24.440where that money is being invested you know they're taking this 401k money and probably
01:37:29.640putting it into some sort of index fund. So if you're okay with, and again, a reasonably good
01:37:39.880index fund, which an index fund is an investment vehicle where you have basically a
01:37:49.080share in the stock market. And as the stock market goes up, your investment goes up.
01:37:52.680If the stock market comes down, the value of your investment goes down.
01:37:57.880um so the question it seems like to me the the question then becomes like if you had that 180
01:38:05.800in your pocket what would you do with it could you turn that 180 into 360 a month
01:38:13.400and also it's tax deferred which means that if you put that 180 back into your paycheck
01:38:19.560Now instead of $180, it's $160. And so now instead of $360 in a savings account that you will
01:38:28.840hopefully live long enough to get a big chunk of, now you have $160 that goes directly into
01:38:35.080your bank account. Now, if you could then turn that into something, if you paid down your debts,
01:38:43.560But if you're living without it, then it seems like to me that that's probably the best use of that $180.
01:38:52.760I mean, again, without knowing a whole lot more, I wouldn't advise you to change that pivot.
01:38:58.780And again, that's one of those ways of living out of your budget, like what I talked about at the beginning of this discussion.
01:39:05.680And if you can live without that $180, I mean, if that $180 was back in your bank account, back in your check, I'd be telling you to save that too, you know, or pay off your mortgage with it or whatever.
01:39:20.060But if you're living without it and living well enough, I would leave it in there because that $180 is really $360.
01:39:28.000And you'll get it eventually, or your kids will.
01:39:31.480Or you can adopt me, and I'll take it.
01:39:33.780there you go share with your kids fairly keep that in mind this man is up for adoption
01:39:40.560um is it okay next question is it true if a person who owes money on credit cards dies
01:39:52.200yes and no I mean it depends on um the the laws of the state that you live in um for most
01:40:03.740people the you know their estate is such that it um and the estate by the way is just like all of
01:40:15.980your property if you have eight hundred dollars in the bank and you don't own anything else you
01:40:20.460know you have a you have a phone and a bed and eight hundred dollars that is your estate when
01:40:25.740when you die. And so the so that that you can provide in your will that you're just debts be paid.
01:40:36.420And so that, you know, that that would be the executor of your will then would would be obligated to pay those credit card debts.
01:40:45.360But if you say, you know, I want any exempt because people each state has its own exemption, like you can have.
01:40:55.740X amount of property that passes to your heirs without being without your creditors being able to get their hands on.
01:41:03.140And if you're under that exemption, then the answer is that your, you know, that your debts die with you unless you provide otherwise in your will.
01:41:18.000Now, getting into the topic of exemptions, for most people, for most people who live paycheck to paycheck, you don't have anything that they can get unless you have wages that are subject to garnishment.
01:41:33.680But but if you have but if you're retired and your only income is pension and or Social Security and you don't, especially if you don't own a home or if you have your home, you know, homestead exempt state, you don't have anything that these creditors can get.
01:41:49.200They can sue you and get a judgment. They can't get any money from you. So you're not helping yourself.
01:41:55.340other than maybe, you know, stop the phone and running for a couple of months to pay those bills.
01:42:02.340But sorry, I know that's more answer than the question was, but the general answer to that
01:42:09.400question as a general rule is, yes, your debts die with you. Your credit card creditors cannot
01:42:15.340get any money out of your estate. Not true, though, for cars and mortgages.
01:42:22.360So please feel free to continue to answer more than the question implies, because one of the things I'm always trying to keep in mind, and I hope that the listeners understand this, too, because especially if I come at it with some kind of a reaction to the question, half of it is we want to give an answer to the person who's asking it.
01:42:46.940the other half is for all of the other people who are listening that are wondering
01:42:51.660we want to speak on the topic so that more people are able to benefit from it so we tend to and
01:42:58.620closely and closely related questions that's why i try to range um a little bit far afield from the
01:43:05.420you know from the narrow question well absolutely i feel bad because somebody will ask a question
01:43:09.660that would get me on a rant that i'm like railing against something it's not the original question
01:43:15.980i'm very happy all of those get answered it's to further the discussion for other people who
01:43:23.980are listening watching and are listening in the future who might have a similar question or be
01:43:29.420having similar thoughts or or whatever it's relevant to so please realize that when you
01:43:33.660do ask a question and that's kind of how we answer um the next question kind of for a different
01:43:40.860change pace a little bit. Since Tiers Hoff will be the first AFA Hoff to be built from the ground
01:43:47.580up, do you have any ideas of how you want the architecture to look? Will it be built like a
01:43:54.220traditional pagan temple, or will it retain the cathedral design of the other Hoffs? I wish the0.91
01:44:01.040other Hoffs had a cathedral design. That would be amazing. So a couple of pieces on that.
01:44:07.960the Hoffs we have have the design that they have because that's where our ability to get Hoffs
01:44:18.200falls so we certainly we want to find a building that suits our needs that's going to glorify our
01:44:24.700gods that's going to serve the function that we need from a house of worship being
01:44:30.900big enough building with a worship space but also a space together to eat to prepare food
01:44:40.660to you know have kind of a multi-purpose area where we can have discussions on things but also
01:44:48.680where we can do bloat and make offerings ideally to have a little bit of land or a spot where we
01:44:54.240can inter the remains of our loved ones. But that comes with a number of other things that, honestly,
01:45:02.420Christian churches are built in mind with. The idea of having a sanctuary space,
01:45:09.680a pretty building, a kitchen, and a place to gather and share a meal is pretty common. And
01:45:17.780it's kind of a built-in that that type of a building fits where others don't. The other
01:45:22.340thing that comes to play is a uh zoning to where we don't have to get into a battle with that or
01:45:29.300have unforeseen complications those buildings come with an existing religious zoning and so that
01:45:35.780matters quite a bit too and so that's why we have the ones that we have we're very thankful and
01:45:41.460appreciative and we love the hops that we have um the idea for tears off yes and no so i watched a
01:45:48.820little bit of the side chatter in the chat room truth is we don't have a lot of really good ideas
01:45:58.100of what original alsatru hoffs looked like we've got very little uh existent information on that
01:46:08.500because so often specifically in the part of the world that lasted so long
01:46:14.580hops were built out of wood that tends to decay and not leave the kind of detailed archaeology
01:46:20.820that we'd like to find on that we have examples in uh certainly in the mediterranean of european
01:46:28.260uh pagan temples in really grand uh hellenic or latin style and those are really cool that's
01:46:35.140an awesome option if we had massive resources in marble i think that'd be really cool to do
01:46:40.420and i'm not opposed to um realistically though yes we do very much have a vision for what we
01:46:46.500want to see tiershoff look like has to conform to kind of the space available our ability to
01:46:53.380make it happen but something that's been a guiding
01:47:00.420idea in our mind and i and i think this rings true we'll we'll see and and i'm hesitant to
01:47:07.140over commit because things change as time goes on and the realities of a project set in we have to
01:47:13.940make you know we have to adjust with the changing you know landscape of what we know and what we're
01:47:19.940capable of so that being said i am very much of the mind that the stave kirka in northern europe
01:47:30.100is the like one step beyond the ultimate evolution of alsatruhof i think you see that in the
01:47:42.100structure you certainly see that in the examples of the woodworking that we find from them and in
01:47:47.780the motifs you see a lot of alsatru imagery even in the nominally christian stave churches
01:47:56.500you see a lot of bits of our lore depicted in the carving you certainly see sometimes many of our
01:48:06.140gods in the carving I think they are the closest image that we have of like the height of what an
01:48:15.560Ausatru Hoth would have looked like at the time or at least conceptually I think that's a point
01:48:21.600we want to kind of harken back to and pick up from as far as a visual they're beautiful but i0.99
01:48:28.640think there's a lot of things to do the other thing that's really important is we don't want
01:48:33.240to be anachronistic there's no we don't want to make something that is old-timey for the sake of
01:48:39.420old-timiness truth is one of our values and we want to be you know honest and relevant in our
01:48:47.400in our depiction of things so we're certainly going to use modern methods and the you know
01:48:52.780best technology that we have the skill and availability for at our current stage to make
01:48:59.580something that's really beautiful and special for uh lord tier but that's kind of where we're
01:49:06.820thinking so far and we have actually this last week we have a very specific example and design
01:49:43.740that a lot of people probably think about but don't necessarily ask and i'm glad that you asked
01:49:48.140it uh finn right do you think that the gods can help a person win the lottery i always hear people
01:49:54.460of other religions like christianity and hinduism make make such claims alan do you think that our
01:50:03.100gods can do that the short answer is yes um but the but the longer answer and this goes back to
01:50:20.060a discussion that i had with a goatee who was in the afa at the time you know that um where we were
01:50:29.260It was a slightly different question that we were discussing, but sort of a similar question in the idea of if our religion entails the idea of magical thinking, and I think it does, and if our magic works, and I think it does, then why don't we run things like we used to?
01:50:59.260And the answer that this Gauthier posited and it has echoed for me in the long years since, it's because their magic works, too.
01:51:10.240And, you know, so if you're, you know, so if there's a thousand people praying to Jesus and a hundred people playing, praying to Vishnu and 10 people praying to Odin and they're all praying for the same thing.
01:51:27.920then you know then the the nominal change in the way that the universe unfolds
01:51:40.160is going to be pretty slight um i also think that sort of thing depends on your intention
01:51:48.400and you know so a lot of other things so i'll tell you in fact i'll tell you a short story right
02:00:25.180So I think the lesson that I learned from that is to live with gratitude, which I try to do anyway, but to live with gratitude toward the favors that our gods do grant us, you know, because maybe that was Thor teaching me a lesson to, you know, to recognize him in the place that he does play occasionally in my life.
02:00:48.240um i i have poured out many bottles of mead now on my horg since that in gratitude to
02:00:58.520one boon and another and um you know i i feel like i'm in a better place for having done that
02:01:05.560absolutely um a lot of us when we first come home to aussitrew
02:01:16.640you know every lightning strike is a personal message from thor every every raven is a
02:01:23.660the harbinger of the all fathers messages or
02:01:28.320when you have if you live in a place that has daily thunder and lightning
02:01:36.740you're less inclined to see every single one of those special occurrence when you live in a place
02:01:42.780lots of ravens that are eating out the dumpster it becomes less majestic every raven isn't a
02:01:49.380messenger from the all father every lightning strike isn't a message from thor some are
02:01:54.780and being open to having the discernment to recognize the one from the other is a
02:02:02.340an art and wisdom that that happens over the course of your life
02:02:06.240taking each of those opportunities to be thankful and to, you know, be reverent is always a good
02:02:15.580thing and never a bad thing. And I don't think that you err by having an excess of thankfulness
02:02:23.820or an excess of piety. I think that one often errs by having a lack of both of those things.
02:02:59.320So to learn one from the other is just is to is to live with that, to try to get there is just to live with that constant knowledge, that constant introspection that that that can help you learn one from the other.
02:03:15.360Um, and, you know, I certainly do it imperfectly, but it's, uh, but I, but I try to be aware
02:03:24.140and, you know, and open to the idea and open to the possibility that, uh, that occasionally,
02:03:29.460um, my ancestors and my gods open a door for me, that it is my responsibility to step through.
02:03:43.220Absolutely. Oh, a couple of things. I want to acknowledge this before we get a little bit too far away. Rachel bought us three coffees. It's a $15 donation. Just wanted to say how excited my youngest daughter got when she saw Witten Allen on the big TV. You have a little fan out here.
02:04:04.420um that's awesome i'm really glad that happens it's cool when kids get to see that um and thank
02:04:14.880you so much for your donation i look forward to hopefully seeing you next month you will
02:04:20.160not you rachel i was saying that you will see rachel and her beautiful family
02:04:28.680and i guess i'll see you too and i look forward to that as well oh i should mention so i've
02:04:34.560neglected the top of the show i'm sorry it's as good a time as any come on out come on out to
02:04:39.220nordshoff uh for charming of the plow february 21st through the 23rd that'll be next month
02:04:45.740both myself uh and the law speaker and rachel and uh my family will be there as long or along with
02:04:55.340with other AFA members and leaders and fantastic people that you would like to meet and associate
02:05:03.820yourself with. I would love to meet any and all of you that I haven't, or to see you again if I've
02:05:09.260met you already, but I'd love to see you there. Also keep in mind that a month following,
02:05:14.760from the 21st through the 23rd of March, is Ostara at Thorshof. That's in Linn. Okay,
02:05:22.940So Charming of the Plow is in White Springs, Florida at Njortzhoff, and Ostara is in Linden, North Carolina at Thorshoff.
02:05:33.480I'm excited to be out there and see all of our amazing people in the Thorshoff district and anybody else that is able to make it.
02:05:41.380I'd love to see you at both of those celebrations if we can.
02:05:45.800But yeah, keep that in mind and make sure you go to those if you can.
02:05:49.960and i would also like to acknowledge a five coffee 25 donation from gw farnsworth who
02:05:58.920donates just about every show that we have and it's very very appreciated so thank you very much
02:06:06.040so if you if you come to doards off try to get there friday and bring your favorite poem or
02:06:14.200For lore recital, that's one of the things that I'm trying to promote so that we can get it leveraged from the Friday program into Saturday into the like the more star-studded part of the show.
02:06:31.120Because, you know, Scaldic recital was always a part of the celebrations that took place at the hall.
02:06:38.520So, and it does not have to be directly also true. I mean, if you have written a song that you want to sing, or if you know a recitation that you want to recite, I promise I'm not going to do any of my Monty Python stuff, but I am going to emcee that part of the program.
02:07:03.460So please bring your favorite inspirational poem or prose, whether it's from the lore or not.
02:07:16.300So I look forward to hearing from all of our seniors, Gothar, with words of inspiration there.
02:07:26.040So a question is, are instrumental pieces welcome?
02:07:31.300All right. So if any of you guys are musical and you can bring your instrument or find somebody local to lend you one, we would welcome that as well.
02:07:41.940We'd love to see art flourish in Yastru Folk Assembly, be it visual art or performance art or written or consumable art.
02:07:54.860all the different ways that art and beauty are expressed by our folk a lot of different ways to
02:08:00.860do it right um because that's what community is absolutely it is fortunately i will not have my
02:08:10.300yay bahar ready by uh by this by february uh-oh uh matt does like consumable art and if you're
02:08:20.620going to present any consumable art i would like the option to test it to make sure it is suitable
02:08:27.260for the folk i would also like the option to opt out if it does not look suitable for me
02:08:36.700ah where are we at it says matt is a vegan you have to be really particular about the
02:08:42.460stuff that you present matt is not a vegan matt and matt likes the chemicals uh if there are
02:08:49.420chemicals that you withhold for Alan, if you could give me double, like two scoops of the chemicals.
02:08:57.660So, all right. Yeah, some red velvet cake.
02:09:05.100I can do that. So, okay, here's an intriguing question. If the AFA was a bigger religion with
02:09:11.340millions of members, and if we were richer like some religious organizations, how do you think
02:09:18.380money would be spent so i don't know alan go ahead and take a first swing at this if you'd like well
02:09:34.060so the here's here's one thing and i and like in comparison right one of the
02:09:41.740the characteristics of the Germanic tribes, as opposed to the Oriental tribes, by which we are
02:09:52.380now dominated, is that our kings were known as ring givers. Okay, we became prominent.
02:10:03.100But our leaders were prominent for their generosity, for their equanimity, for their generosity.
02:10:15.880You know, so I can tell you one thing that wouldn't happen.
02:10:19.900There wouldn't be crystal cathedrals and private jets.
02:10:23.760You know, there would be something that looked a lot more like a, you know, like a flattened out pyramid.
02:10:30.880And not, you know, our pyramid wouldn't have one guy at the top with this much and everybody else sharing nothing at the bottom.
02:10:42.480And I think the other part of it is that we would have these integrated communities that we are trying to build that that would be local communities of like minded people who share the traditional ideologies that would make these sorts of communities work, that would help each other, treat each other with fairness and kindness and truth.
02:11:12.480So that so that communities could be restored to the ideal that community used to have in this country up until maybe 100 years ago or so, and which still exists in a lot of communities.
02:11:26.600I'm not I don't say it's totally disappeared, but it's been certainly the idea has been strained by the foreign ideologies that dominate us both spiritually and politically.0.60
02:11:46.660So I think that would be the you know, that to me would be the one one big change, you know, that and I think the other part of it would be.
02:11:56.600that, you know, if we envision, I listen to a lot of books about history.
02:12:06.100And one of the things that I find shocking now is the wars,
02:12:13.380the desperate, bloody, legitimate wars that were fought over religious ideology.0.68
02:12:22.340You know, people, they were, you know, they were Christians, but they didn't pray the right way or they genuflected from right to left or whatever their whatever the issues were that made these little fine distinctions in the Christian sects.
02:12:36.340sects you know i don't think we would have that um and you know and and and that those lines have
02:12:44.740softened within christianity over the last hundred years or so but like the tribes the germanic0.87
02:12:51.540tribes i mean we would kill you and take your stuff don't get me wrong but we didn't care about
02:12:57.780your religious worship as a general rule you know the um the wars that were fought were never about
02:13:05.940religious practice and so i think in that sense there would be tolerance um you know fray has
02:13:12.660this church odin has this church the lord has this church it's you know and we all it's all part of
02:13:19.860the bigger scheme of our gods are manifested in the world but we don't we don't we wouldn't fight
02:13:28.340you because you're wanting to worship fray and sit and face south while you meditate or whatever
02:13:35.380those distinctions are it's such a it's such broad question and i think it's it's cool and
02:13:43.700it's certainly a cool one to think on and it's an easy one to get lost on when you get on particulars
02:14:47.980and I don't know that there wouldn't be crystal cathedrals,
02:14:51.060but there wouldn't be crystal cathedrals
02:14:53.200while our elderly are starving and not taken care of.
02:14:58.200There wouldn't be. And that's the thing. I think Alan's idea of the pyramid, I think we'd absolutely have hierarchy, but it wouldn't be, you know, this pyramid, the idea that we take care of, take care of the folk.
02:15:11.040that's something very important to me that I want us to do the best we can with the resources we
02:15:20.280have and I would love to be able to do in a more comprehensive way if we had you know the dream
02:15:27.160scenario of all those resources you mentioned I'm very proud of our AFA family and our ability to
02:15:35.880support one another to the extent we do with the limited resources that we have.
02:15:41.560When I've talked to banking people and I've talked to other professional peoples in different
02:15:46.300capacities when we're looking for land or properties for Hoffs and various things,
02:15:52.060they're always really impressed with our ability to accomplish with the relatively humble means
02:16:00.320that we have. And when they find out our member number, it's really surprising how well we're
02:16:07.020able to accomplish. And I think a lot of that is due to you guys being generous for us having
02:16:11.840members that are willing to commit and give of themselves. And also I think, and I hope that
02:16:17.360we've earned the favor of our gods and their blessings in a lot of this. And I believe that
02:16:22.400have um i mean one of the it's it's funny because yes in that kind of scenario it would be really
02:16:33.520nice to be able to have a clergy that we're able to have them and their family live well
02:16:41.440and devote themselves full time to ministering to our folk and uh
02:16:48.080furthering alsatru and religious service i think that's really important i would you know obviously
02:16:56.820want to have hoffs that are done not the way we can get the best for our money but the way that
02:17:04.980would be the best for our gods and our circumstance without having to you know we're in a spot right
02:17:11.080now to where we try to make the most responsible use of our money so we're
02:17:14.720where can we get the right lot with the right building near the right amount of our folk
02:17:24.380at the right price point and nothing of that's perfect but it's the best we can do responsibly
02:17:31.700with the situation that we have if we had you know but trillions of dollars wherever we're
02:17:38.180envisioning this scenario then we'd be able to build one at the level of grandeur we think
02:17:43.920appropriate with all the bells and whistles that we need exactly where we want but i think alan is
02:17:48.800absolutely spot on on as well and we're trying to do it now uh with the means that we have
02:17:54.800gather our folk together into communities to where we are able to live our day-to-day life in
02:18:03.680sharing with our brothers and sisters and having community institutions that reinforce our values
02:18:12.000and the things that we believe in and where we're able to care for our elderly our uh infirmed
02:18:18.800our our veterans our people that are struggling and help and help our folk
02:18:26.240and i think that you know obviously if we had all the money in the world or whatever the scenario is
02:18:30.800we'd be able to do that much better and we'd be able to carve out a more integrated holistic
02:18:36.800space for us and ours in the world and i think that'd be really nice if you said though today
02:18:42.000hey, Matt, we're going to give you $100 million, go.
02:18:48.700It would be irresponsible to just dump it all into some of these things
02:18:52.420because we need to build the infrastructure to support them.
02:18:56.640Right now, if I had all the money in the world,
02:19:00.640I would immediately get Frazehoff and I would immediately pay off Njordshoff
02:19:06.100and build Tiershoff and the great haul that we want at Sigerheim.
02:19:12.000and buy a private jet you've got to admit um i wouldn't but i may buy a tour bus
02:19:19.120i think like a like a band tour bus like a metal band tour bus to drive around with a bunch of us
02:19:26.400to events would be awesome or buy each half a bus so that people don't have the excuse of i
02:19:33.840i can't drive two hours to go to a half absolutely and no joke absolutely that tour bus again if we're
02:19:41.520driving through where you're at and we got the space hop on in um i think realistically something
02:19:46.960like that would be cool but we need to build up the spots of where we can do it before we're i i
02:19:53.680want people to understand from this i know we're having fun with with the vision and that's cool
02:19:58.080and i think it's important but on a very serious note it's not because i think it's really relevant
02:20:06.080to the topic today too we have reached a point in our efficacy which is really nice and you know i
02:20:13.360don't know what alan envisioned when he got involved with this but this is very far from
02:20:17.200being the case when either he nor i got involved with this to where now it's not the challenge
02:20:23.760isn't getting off somewhere we can do that we know how to do that we know how to do that
02:20:29.840well and to do that and pay that off in a relatively short amount of time that's
02:20:35.520i wouldn't say it's easy that's not the case but it is accomplishable and we know how to do it
02:20:40.080the thing that's important is it's an investment once we do that it's the maintenance and the
02:20:46.240taking care of and the treating it with the reverence it deserves and making sure that it
02:20:52.880is a lasting institution and not something that goes derelict or falls apart or you know once
02:21:01.040Once we're establishing a hof, we're making a commitment to the God of that hof that we're going to maintain that place of worship.
02:21:08.560And that's a really important responsibility.
02:21:10.680So the initial cost of the hof is something to consider, but also the ability and the resources, not just financially, but with manpower and commitment from that manpower to take care of that place and to keep it holy and well maintained.
02:21:26.160You know, and it dovetails that, interestingly, when you have that discussion, back to Go to the East question about, you know, how I felt or, you know, what drew me to the AFA or how I, you know, how I felt when I first came into the AFA.
02:21:45.000it it helped me understand or you know help self with that you know with that reinforced idea
02:21:56.440that we're the normal ones we we are the ones who are um who are whole and integrated and you know
02:22:06.840and traditional and and those sorts of things others are less so because they've been misguided
02:22:15.000But to come to a huff and there are 20, 30, 60 people in there who share this ideology, who share this love of tradition, the love for the gods of our people, which then it so naturally unfolds the understandings that can come.
02:22:40.680It really is, as we say, it's coming, you know, it really is that that sense of coming home.
02:22:46.220It, you know, it's like a family reunion every time I go to the Hoff,
02:22:50.220which is another way of saying if you haven't been, you need to go.
02:22:55.520Yes, it's pain in the neck, you know, the, and, and, you know, we get so many inquiries, you know, there's not a Hoff in my state.
02:23:04.900You know, when we, and that's what Matt was talking about, when, when I first joined the AFA,0.94
02:23:10.680in 2010, um, one Hoff seemed like a distant dream, you know, maybe one day we could get a Hoff
02:23:19.640and now we have four, but, you know, but, and then people are frustrated because we don't have
02:23:26.04050, you know, and I guess if there were 50, you know, well, you know, I can't drive from
02:23:31.640Cincinnati. I live in Cleveland or, you know, I, so you get out of it, what you put in it.
02:23:38.240And, you know, if you think about what travel used to be 100 years ago, you know, to, I mean, it was a three-hour commitment to go 15 miles.
02:23:52.640So to commit to come three or four hours once a month to come to the Hof to meet the people who think like you, who will recognize you as a friend and brother, that's a small price to pay for the feeling that you get, that you'll go away from the reinforced ideal that we're right with.
02:24:26.900so i'm trying to keep going because i knew you were uh knocking up finishing off that bag of
02:24:34.740chips well so just because it's unsightly but they're the quest protein chips so
02:24:43.520purveyors of gorilla snot and quest protein chips and kirkland rum i will gladly support
02:24:54.480you on the show you should consider advertising with the astro folks um
02:25:02.640something important you might ask me about rum when you get to the hall on they'll do next month
02:25:07.840um one of the other things about kind of the thing we're talking about the hops
02:25:20.320i've been over this with some folks too and it's a double-edged sword we get people that are
02:25:27.840very confused like why don't you guys have more hops why don't you get a half faster why
02:25:34.000The idea that having Hoffs to our gods has been so normalized that they just assume that they are everywhere, I think really it is frustrating to those of us who've been struggling for it.
02:25:54.520But on the other side of it, it's also gratifying that that's the reality of the world to these people.
02:26:03.480Because, I'll tell you what, seeing my daughter play now in the yards of all of our Hoffs, that's living the dream, that is.
02:26:19.760That is the height of what I could have ever imagined.
02:26:22.080and the fact that's a thing for so many people that's a testament that we're doing something
02:26:31.320right but the answer to that question is you know what's taking so long is because
02:26:37.080you know we need to give more money and you know you hate to have to say that you hate i know you
02:26:46.080don't like to have to ask people for money um but it's but it is absolutely the truth that that is
02:26:51.700what it that's what it takes to pay these that's what it will take to buy the next half that's what
02:26:56.360it's going to take to build tears off you know absolutely yes um and and again having worked
02:27:03.060with hundreds of of budgets and people who and and i've worked with not with probably with hundreds
02:27:12.300of people certainly dozens of people who live who have a very modest lifestyle you know who bring
02:27:18.480home $4,000 a month, which is, you know, which is decent, but not excellent. But, but lots and
02:27:29.440lots of those people who bring home $4,000 a month in turn, give $400 a month to their church.
02:27:38.120And because they, you know, that's a commitment, you know, and it's so, you know, for the guy who's given $15 a month and wonders why we don't have a Hoff in his town, that's why.
02:27:56.900Well, so there's a couple of things that I want to add on it.
02:28:00.320I mentioned this, I think, on last week's show, but since this one's about money, I'll take the liberty of mentioning it again.
02:28:08.120I mentioned earlier in the show, Ausatru isn't the anti-Christianity.
02:28:14.000It's its own independent religion that isn't related to Christianity in any way.
02:28:21.500We can talk about the modern practice of Christianity, and that's fine.
02:28:26.260But biblical Christianity has no relationship whatsoever to Ausatru.
02:28:32.500And so just because Christians do something and it's successful doesn't mean that we ought not to do it.
02:28:38.120it's not germane to the discussion. So, and I say that to say this, a lot of people think that
02:28:46.320the idea of giving a percentage of your income or of giving heavily to your church,
02:28:52.480oh, that's Christian stuff. We don't do that. We just want all the stuff, but we don't want to pay0.54
02:28:56.680for it. That's silly and it's childish. And it's also not the way of our ancestors. The word
02:29:04.340hoftoller isn't something that we came up with in this generation it wouldn't be wrong if we did
02:29:11.380but it was a concept that allowed the gothar and the haas to function in our ancestors day
02:29:17.460and i read something interesting you know just i think earlier this last summer maybe in the early
02:29:25.380fall uh in the elder gods by stephen paulington talking about uh the anglo-saxons and their
02:29:32.260also true practice during the like around the time of the conversion there
02:29:37.540and the christian bishop was admonishing his flock like man look at these you know also
02:29:44.420sure are out here lavishly giving to their temples and and to their gods and we can't
02:29:49.940even muster up and get our people to give the tithes like there was a time where our people
02:29:54.740gave generously to our hoffs when the when the christians weren't and were miserably with their
02:30:00.980funds so i thought that was really interesting the other thing besides just like um when people
02:30:06.660want to know the fastest way to get a hof in lubbock texas fastest way to get a hof in lubbock
02:30:17.460is to help us pay off new york's off in white springs florida
02:30:22.900and i know that's a hard thing to get our people to necessarily wrap their heads around
02:30:28.420but i think it gets easier every time we get a half and move one next one we have a process
02:30:36.020that we want to continue indefinitely as long as we have the means to take care of it and the folk
02:30:42.100to be part of it and attend it and to maintain it to continuously build hoffs to our gods and
02:30:51.540the we're building them in a certain order building them and or i say building we're
02:30:57.700establishing them in a certain order and we have to finish the one we've got before we move on to
02:31:05.060the next one and the quickest way to get us to continue that progress towards something closer
02:31:12.100to where you wish it was is to enthusiastically help us with the current one we're on and
02:31:21.380i mean i mean that i told literally because we had an event there um i was asked
02:31:27.700a year prior to us getting thor's off you know how do we get a hof out here and i said well you
02:31:32.900got to help me you know got to help me get us paid off out at odin's off and then we'll decide
02:31:39.860and then we'll figure it out it just so happened just so worked out that you know i think like a
02:31:45.860year and a month later we were able to get one uh in linden north carolina and get thor's off
02:31:52.580you know we've had people who've wanted to see a hof in florida for a very long time
02:31:56.900and when they ask you know how do you do that or what's going to happen or how do we get one near0.93
02:32:00.660us hey you need to help us pay off thorshoff sure enough you know two years after we got thorshoff
02:32:10.340we have nordshoff in florida so that really is a thing and i mean it and it will inevitably
02:32:15.940be true to some of you and to others of you you'd be like ah i wanted to get one in nova
02:32:20.180scotia and it's not there but if you keep with the plan it'll get there and i can't promise a win
02:32:26.500but we'll continue to do this and it'll continue to march forward as long as we have the support
02:32:31.540and the means to do so um a follow-up to the lottery question on the lottery thing do you
02:32:38.980think it is impious to pray to the gods for materialistic gain should we not instead focus
02:32:45.220on having devotion to our gods rather than trying to gain something i think that's a false dichotomy
02:32:52.340Alan, let's go ahead and have you take that first.
02:32:57.660I don't think it's impious at all to pray for material success.
02:33:09.480I mean, you know, Frey is the god of abundance and virility.
02:33:12.760So our gods in and of themselves recognize that material wealth as a tool is a way to provide for the folk and to provide for your, you know, to provide a lifestyle.
02:33:35.960Moderation in that sense, you know, is, you know, is the ideal to get there.
02:33:40.960So I don't think it I think it would become impious if you, you know, if that became the entire focus of your, you know, of your practice.
02:33:51.260But beyond that, to occasionally ask for a boon from the gods, again, I would suggest that your ancestors would be more appropriate and would be more directly involved and have a more direct interest in providing you with material assistance or opening the door so that you can provide better for your own material assistance.
02:34:20.440um that that i think would be better directed toward your ancestors but again in the range of
02:34:26.120things i would i certainly have no qualms as a part of you know a bigger wider ranging practice
02:34:35.040to ask for uh some abundance from i mean that's part of the charming of the plow is the you know
02:34:42.040so that we can ask for uh you know so that we can ask for abundance from from the earth to provide
02:35:18.360for good things that are beyond the veil and all these bad material things that exist in the world
02:35:24.920no the world is good life is good enjoying life wealth pleasure abundance those are all good
02:35:32.120things what is we are admonished against and we are reminded of no hoarding your resources
02:35:41.400and not circulating them not sharing them not being generous not practicing hospitality
02:35:48.360That's wrong, and it's sinful in our understanding of the concept.
02:35:54.780But having abundance allows you to do big, good things.
02:36:02.420I have every reason to believe that our gods want us to be successful and want us to be happy and want us to be fulfilled and want us to have nice things.
02:36:13.320I don't think that praying to them for those things is bad.
02:36:16.820I think it's something our ancestors, you know, it's well attested.
02:36:20.640That's why they would pray to our gods for a lot of reasons.
02:36:29.680You know, many of our gods are you pray to them for a successful trading expedition or your prayer on the Viking expedition isn't so you have max bloodletting.
02:36:40.840And it's so you're able to return home with maximum treasure and booty to contribute to your king or your cause or your estate or what you're doing with it.
02:36:54.240Developing wealth and comfort for you and yours isn't a bad thing and it isn't a wrong thing.
02:37:01.460I think being, again, being miserly, not providing hospitality.
02:37:08.220Alan mentioned earlier the concept of king was always, you know, not that it wasn't regal and not that it wasn't authoritarian and all those other things,
02:37:17.320but it was based on ring giving and providing and sharing that wealth with the kingdom and with your retainers and with the people
02:37:27.100and making sure that the people had their needs met.
02:38:48.600So a couple of things kind of with the question. AI does really cool things. It's capable of really cool things. But it's a tool. And if you condition the parameters of a tool to reinforce leftist political ideology, then it is very damaging to what you can produce with the tool.
02:39:09.000If you have the tool as a receptacle of all kinds of different knowledge that you have at your fingertips, it can be a really great thing.
02:39:16.460There's a lot of things you can do with it.
02:39:17.960I think one of the questions that is inherent to the question you asked is, is it really art at that point?
02:39:32.180It can be a really tremendous tool, but I think the creativity and the artiness of the art comes from the sculptor or the painter or the composer or the lyricist or whoever's doing the art.
02:39:53.100But again, I think as we grow in technology, it's going to look different.0.80
02:39:56.300I think Alan's, you know, old man thing is silly, but it's also true.1.00
02:40:01.620I think he feels that way to a degree. And I think I do too, as these things come on, things that are further from, you know, Alan's a little bit older than I am. And I'm, you know, a little bit older than a lot of you on here. I think that, you know, you're undoubtedly a little bit older than people that are coming up. And each of those new things may take you away from your comfort zone.0.99
02:40:20.900But I think there's a lot of ways it can be used as a tool.
02:40:26.580I think given free reign on a lot of stuff, I wouldn't want to see it only be generated by AI.
02:40:33.480If AI is a tool to help you accomplish things that you may can't accomplish otherwise, I think there's probably really good uses for it.
02:40:40.480but like other tools it needs to be used judiciously and i think
02:40:46.880you need the mind of an artist to really make something
02:40:52.400one of the oh okay so i'll say this too there's a quality about good art and some of this is in
02:40:58.880the eye of the beholder certainly because art affects all of us differently but there is a
02:41:03.920transcendent quality to art in its highest form that i don't think comes just from ai now if you
02:41:16.320know how to sculpt if you know how to utilize ai the way you would a paintbrush or a different tool
02:41:22.640to sculpt something again i don't know i think we're in the in the early days of ai to figure it
02:41:28.640out but it's something special that happens with the artist that makes the work transcendent and
02:41:37.760not just really cool and i'll say this about um our murals that we have at the hoffs i think we
02:41:45.440could get ai to make really cool stuff if we told them what to do on the mural to make fantastic
02:41:53.440things but the murals that's fawn does whatever critique of the exactitude or whatever skill level
02:42:07.840because he is a gofi who worships our gods something magical happens and something
02:42:15.680transformative happens to where that piece of art is transcendent and is in a way embodies
02:42:26.720the essence of that god in that place or serves as a um
02:42:31.120I don't know the correct word, and there probably is one, but in a way it is able to house for a
02:42:46.780time or serve as a place where that God can come and reside and be amongst the folk in a really
02:42:54.660important way. It's been described by a lot of people, and I feel this myself, when you go into
02:44:19.120Because what they're trying to do is make music or paintings or art or whatever that appeal to the highest number of people.
02:44:30.620So what they want, they, corporate art administrators, are trying to get that center 60, 70% of people to the exclusion of the everybody else.
02:44:51.340And I think we are the everybody else.
02:44:53.200So where algorithms are driving AI and they're driving art, modern art, you know, that's, I think it vulgarizes the entire idea of it, you know, and I'm, but if the question is, you know, I'm a, I'm a decent painter, but I need to do a little clip art thing to put a face in here.
02:45:15.580you know, that may be a different question, but the, you know, but I think it's also related to
02:45:21.640the idea that smartphones are making us dumb. You know, people used to have to remember phone numbers
02:45:29.000and directions and those sorts of things. And the more that you rely on that
02:45:34.480thing in your pocket, the less your brain works. Just like a, it's like having a little mechanical
02:45:41.560arm lifting stuff for you like the weaker your brain muscle becomes because it's being
02:45:47.560you know because you're letting the let that brain in your pocket do all the lifting
02:45:53.720yeah it's a you know again there's when we use term ai it applies to a lot of different things
02:46:02.460and as long as it's a tool the trouble is the eye part of it um i like that it can get a lot of stuff
02:46:10.020figured out on the back end quickly that would take you forever to like accumulate like I like
02:46:17.040about one of the coolest things about smartphones is language apps or like being able to look things
02:46:23.660up very quickly and go down rabbit holes because you can very quickly do a lot of learning but if
02:46:30.080you're not doing the learning in between if it's just a recitation thing you miss all the value of
02:46:36.560the learning if the tool is doing the creating and not just a tool to you know implement your
02:46:45.180vision if it is the one creating the vision then you're taking kind of the art out of it
02:46:49.540and there's a lot of cool stuff that it can do but I think the term art really
02:46:54.340throws a bit of a bit of a wrench in that but it's a tool
02:47:01.360So, another question, if it hasn't been asked, why is it important to pay off loans the AFA
02:47:09.860have on its properties, aside from being able to get more Hoffs?
02:47:18.640I'm trying to find the hidden question because it seems a little bit self-evident, but Alan,
02:47:25.160well that's that's certainly the you know that's a big part of it is you know the interest
02:47:32.680on the loan the the because interest accrues on the unpaid balance so the faster we can pay the uh
02:47:40.520the the the faster we pour money against the principal the less total interest we will pay
02:47:47.160and the less total money we will pay to uh to have new orders off and then that's more money
02:47:55.400that will then be in turn ready to pay uh to start paying on phrase off yeah absolutely and
02:48:01.720i think the other thing is a certain amount of security and this is one of the challenges
02:48:09.320it is sexy to raise money for man we don't have a hoff now well let's raise money and then a hoff
02:48:19.480will appear it's not really the efficient way it works what happens is you find the hoff you get
02:48:26.120it and then you backfill which is a less sexy raise money well why we already got the hoff
02:48:31.560like what does it matter how fast we pay it off and i get the instinctive but it exists so me
02:48:41.080paying it off doesn't make it any more corporeal it's already been manifested it's short-sighted
02:48:47.720for all of the reasons that alan mentioned and just you know a number of things and the security
02:48:54.360of it being ours. And it depends on the situation of what the loan agreement is or however
02:49:02.540we've done it to get the Hoth. If a loan involves a lending institution, then there's a lien
02:49:10.340on the property and it's not really ours. It's kind of ours, but if we default and we
02:49:17.100don't pay it off, it ceases to be ours and becomes theirs. That's most of the time the
02:49:22.840situation. If we're taking out a loan from somebody who is an ally to us in some way,
02:49:30.360then we're honor bound to do right by friends of ours that have extended themselves personally to
02:49:36.080try to help us achieve our goals. If it's a member of, you know, the AFA who's loaned us
02:49:43.960the money for it, then that honor obligation is redoubled. At least we owe, you know,
02:49:51.080them to come out whole on something they've chosen to extend themselves on for the good of us and
02:49:55.960for the good of the gods but yeah all those things the longer you're paying on it the more money is
02:50:02.360lost towards interest and not able to be utilized towards the other projects the afa is working on
02:50:11.240so as we talked about with finances earlier stacking up debts is a very quick way to
02:50:19.000completely cripple yourself economically, trying to free up and pay off debts is a very good way
02:50:25.900to shore yourselves up and enhance your functionality economically.
02:50:44.500Okay. So following on the AI question, do you think it would be right or wrong to have
02:50:48.900history books with ai pictures of historical figures we don't have photos of or books about
02:50:56.260like the gods using ai pictures again it's a tool i think that if because because reality is a thing
02:51:08.420if you don't have stuff and it needs to get you by i think it's a good placeholder i would
02:51:12.980rather have something that is like uh for example if you're trying to colorize an older picture or
02:51:24.980clear up a very fuzzy picture i think that's something i can do really well and i think that
02:51:29.700given the alternative that's probably a really cool thing to do but i think it's the judicious
02:51:35.460use of it as a tool as opposed to you know as alan mentioned especially the ai that you have access
02:51:45.060to now that's heavily burdened with political correctness it's very easy to distort history if
02:51:53.300you're not very careful and judicious with you know any kind of use you want to do of it
02:51:58.340but i think the circumstance matters and i think ai as it develops matters a little bit and i think
02:52:06.020another thing that's something to do is ai mock-ups for real people to then work from like
02:52:15.300ai helping you with idea generation of stuff and compiling data for you to then choose how
02:52:23.860you want to incorporate, I think, is another tool that artists use that makes a little bit of sense.
02:52:31.540But delve into the details on that. Oh, we have a donation of $30 towards the Baldershof steeple
02:52:38.080from Scott in Minnesota. Thank you, Scott. That's much appreciated. They've got really,
02:52:44.580really good plans on what they want to do for the existent steeple. Those of you who may not know,
02:52:50.720So the building that became Baldershof was left in very poor repair for a very long time, and our people have done an amazing job of restoring and taking care of and making that amazing place.
02:53:09.300But the steeple, with so much water damage, was not structurally sound, and it had to get truncated due to the weather damage.
02:56:28.360and i don't think that we have reason to believe our gods are inclined to
02:56:38.360be disproportionately charitable to people who continually make bad choices in their life
02:56:45.240um the idea of finding where enough is enough and too much is too much
02:56:55.140that's part of it what it means to be Aryan what it means to be noble is having the discernment to
02:57:01.260figure that out and make that decision and it may look different for you and may look different for
02:57:07.140Alan and it may look different for me but we have agency and with agency comes responsibility
02:57:15.240We're grown men and we have the responsibility to make wise choices and do wise things in our lives.
02:57:25.480And I think that our gods and our ancestors tend to reward us and look favorably when we are exercising our discernment in a judicious way than when we are squandering our resources on stupid things.
02:57:42.540i think that's a really good rule of thumb i appreciate you all joining us this evening
02:57:50.100i especially appreciate our guests this evening law speaker alan turnage
02:57:54.480um alan will be joining us the fourth wednesday of next month as well is that correct
02:58:03.440it is all right well we certainly look forward to that please
02:58:08.580store up or send to vns at runestone.org any questions specifically to line up for the
02:58:19.040law speaker next time he's on or we'll answer your all of your other questions on our next
02:58:23.980episode if you'd like again vns at runestone.org yeah thank you for joining us alan we appreciate
02:58:34.000you a great pleasure it was a pleasure to speak with you as always and uh to answer all the
02:58:39.200questions all good stuff and i look forward to seeing you in four weeks yeah it's coming up quick
02:58:45.120yeah all right guys we are i'm looking forward to talking to y'all next week
02:58:49.580until then hail the icer hail the folk hail the afa and remember victory never sleeps