00:05:16.280muted hold on a second okay i don't know why my mic's not acting up god dang it probably nick
00:05:25.400cast an evil on you so are you going to be there law speaker
00:05:29.800excellent then we look forward to seeing uh law speaker alan turnage i will be there our producer
00:05:35.400nick will be there ditto will not be there and we would love to see the rest of you guys there
00:05:41.560if you can make it it's in jackson county tennessee we would love to share a beautiful
00:05:49.080and amazing piece of property that will be the home of tiershoff as well as the afa capital in
00:05:54.200the coming years um it's a very special place it's also where we have the magnificent statues
00:06:02.120of our founder stephen mcnallan and his lovely wife githya sheila mcnallan um so yeah come by
00:06:09.960check it out celebrate victory with us um other stuff one month following that in the month of
00:06:17.960august we have fray faxy at baldershoff so if you can make it to that one that is in murdoch
00:06:24.680minnesota we'd love to see you guys there uh it's august 22nd through the 24th any or all of these
00:06:31.640you can get in touch with any of our folk builders they will get you squared away um i would love to
00:06:38.120see you at any or all these and i'll say this um the every few years it goes by every time we get
00:06:52.920a new hof we get a little bit closer to every one of you guys but for those of you that this
00:06:59.720a bit of a drive or a bit of a travel to get to, I can attest that it is worth it. I don't hear
00:07:09.680people lament their great distance they've gone to go to an AFA event. I very often hear that it's
00:07:15.920life-changing, that it's amazing, that it's, you know, something that they really needed in their
00:07:21.220life. And that certainly was the case with me. If I had not gone to midsummer in, at that time,
00:07:31.040Alta, California in 2010, I would very likely not be here today. It was a really, it really was
00:07:39.140life-changing. And these truly can be. And I would like everyone out there to get a chance to
00:07:43.880experience that. So if you can, come on out. Other stuff, top of the show. G.W. Farnsworth,
00:07:52.320as always, starts us off with the spirit of generosity, donating $30 to VNS and $20 to
00:08:00.760Towards the Baldur's Hof Steeple. Thank you, as always. We appreciate you very, very much.
00:08:07.320And another amazing donor, Matthew Bean, decided to donate $50 to VNS.
00:08:14.980He says, hail the gods, hail the folk, hail the AFA, and see you all at Midsommar.
00:08:19.820Looking forward to seeing you there in just a couple of days.
00:08:24.620So that's what we have off the top, but I'd also like to update you on something else.
00:08:30.500So you guys have helped out on my steady push for fundraising to get your top paid off.
00:08:40.840Thank you all so much for that. That has been paid off.
00:08:44.840And as promised, we hit the ground running on trying to figure out Frazehoff.
00:08:50.480I spoke with the Ericsons today, Witten Erickson and his wife, Githia Katie Erickson.
00:08:58.140they are you know the point people for that project it is going to be very close to them
00:09:04.860and they will be officiating that hoff um again we're trying to get it in either western
00:09:12.220pennsylvania or eastern ohio the search is on we have um done walkthroughs on two different
00:09:22.620properties so far there's another walkthrough planned shortly we are eagerly working on that
00:09:29.100and we have started to raise money for the down payment um that's the next order of business on
00:09:36.540this finding that piece of property and then having a down payment and getting uh getting
00:09:42.860in contract on that so we're working hard on it we need to raise some money for that we've
00:09:47.660currently sitting at one thousand eight hundred and one dollar right now anybody who can help us
00:09:54.620with that we would appreciate it it will help us get there quicker um you guys are amazing generosity
00:10:02.060has enabled us to do some truly amazing things so thank you guys and if you're interested um
00:10:08.700runestone.org you can donate towards the war chest we are building to get that off gone
00:10:17.660And with that, our law speaker has a very important, very in your face these days topic to talk about that I eager to eager to have a discussion about this evening.
00:10:37.480Okay. In that case, the panic subsides a little bit because I'm trying out a new camera. So I was worried that the new camera was not functioning correctly with the other techno mumbo jumbo that is always slightly out of my kin.
00:10:54.600And so, again, I appreciate you having me on.
00:10:58.640I always like to introduce the topics of adulting with a couple of disclaimers and explanations.
00:11:09.320First, like I'll tell you, he said, I appreciate y'all's attention and questions and discussion.
00:11:19.040I will tell those of you who have not emailed me after an episode like this, I have gotten lots and lots of emails from people asking me more specific questions.
00:11:29.580And I'm always glad that's what my my position here with the folk and I am proud to serve.
00:11:37.020If you have more specific questions, I'm happy to give you a little bit more detail in private, both as counselor and as advisor, legal stuff, personal stuff.
00:11:54.000You know, I've seen more stuff than farmer's insurance.
00:12:00.960So, and then the disclaimer, tonight's episode is not designed to treat anything specific.
00:12:11.660If you feel like you have true mental health issues that are beyond simple fixes, which is sort of the limit of my ability, please seek medical advice.
00:12:27.320Um, now that with my personal disclaimer is I think most psychiatrists are off their own personal rockers. So I don't, uh, I don't know how much I would take from them. Of course, I don't believe in a lot of medicinal care either. I think most drugs are super bad. They're worse than, uh, Mr. Mackey thinks.
00:12:52.420So, sorry for that wandering disclaimer. So, to start in with the topic, what we really think about when in the Western model of medical care is typically illness treatment.
00:13:15.980But, you know, we don't think of that, even though it's called the health care system, even mental health, most of what American Western medicine does is treat sicknesses.
00:13:28.620You know, you don't go to the doctor to until you're sick and he gives you a pill and then that pill has some other bad side effects.
00:13:37.480And so he gives you a different pill, the counteractual side effects.
00:13:40.080And now, that being said, if I had a broken bone or, you know, x-rays are marvelous things and modern technology is great for the things that it works well on, but it is not good at wellness treatment.
00:13:53.420And that is where I think a lot of all of us, myself included for a while, have lost a lot of focus.
00:14:03.540I think that the better plan is wellness, and that's why one of the first topics that we did here was talking about diet.
00:14:19.440And we've talked about exercise and fitness because all of those things fit together, both in the mental health model and in the personal, the personal health model.
00:14:34.820whole wholeness holiness all have the same root word and so it's you know if you can integrate your personality into a way that is that where your outlook on life is positive and where your interactions with people are positive you will be see I almost used the wrong word there because
00:15:04.820In studying up on this and actually for several years, we talked too much about happiness and happiness is a good thing within its limitations, but we've, and some of it is certainly the definition.
00:15:20.180I think the ideal place for mental health, where you're most healthy mentally, the Greeks, our Southern Aryan folks, had a term called eudaimonia.
00:15:39.180Eudaimonia. And there are and there's several videos out there on YouTube about discussing what the meaning of eudaimonia and and even pronouncing it in several different ways.
00:16:00.840eudaimonia i'm not greek i apologize for butchering their pronunciation but the shorthand
00:16:08.760version that i heard several years ago but could not find repeated in any of those videos
00:16:13.640is that eudaimonia which means accord with the soul wellness of the soul um eudaimonia is proper
00:16:23.720action in accord with virtue and so we tend to think of happiness in really what more
00:16:36.120in a narrower definition should be called joy or elation those those sorts of terms are more
00:16:44.120fitting for what we what we tend to categorize in the um in the word happiness um it's not just
00:16:53.480big brother who has done such a great job of dumbing down the language we don't parse out
00:16:59.720these terms like we should we think of all of these things all those terms that i've been talking about
00:17:04.100fall under that general word of happiness you know plus good happiness and um but they're not
00:17:11.880all the same thing. And so when we are modeling good mental health, we should be
00:17:19.720thinking of aligning our activities and our mental activities with what is good for us,
00:17:30.600what we know to be good for ourselves and for our people. Sometimes that means that we have
00:17:37.840to work a little more than we would really want to. It means that we have to sacrifice some things
00:17:42.900so that we can have nice Hoffs. We have to give up money or give up time so that we can go and visit
00:17:48.660and be with folk both because we need their company. When I go to the Hoff here at New York's
00:17:59.380Hoff, sometimes I have to drag myself down there, but I'm always happy to see all those beautiful
00:18:06.120people with whom I share so much, not only in personal belief in the gods, but just in the
00:18:15.320worldview that we share. And even on those days that I feel like I don't want to go because I
00:18:24.060don't need them, but they need me. And that's a good thing, you know, that we need each other.
00:18:30.320And certainly one of the things that is wrong, one of the evidences of the soul sickness that permeates Western civilization is that we've been separated into a very atomized way of living.
00:18:54.100We used to live what we now think of in fairly crowded conditions, but in a way that that was comfortable for people because we knew everybody.
00:19:06.120I mean, it's one thing to live in an apartment building with 100 people you don't know.
00:19:10.480It's quite different in the, you know, not that long ago when we lived close by hundreds of people that we knew intimately.
00:19:19.620And those kind of intimate relations are healthy for us.
00:19:25.140They are healthy for all the people around us.
00:19:27.460The more people that you know well, although there is a limit according to some of the sociological studies that have been done, there are limits to how many people you can know at that level.
00:19:41.740but those few hundred people if you know them well and integrate well with them that again
00:19:50.700forms that whole person you can become parts of a whole by integrating into a society like that and
00:20:03.180that's sort of been the good and bad of the internet because the internet has exacerbated
00:20:10.860most of the things that are wrong with civilization, you can sit in your house and play games and order food and watch videos and never leave the house and have all of your basic needs met, all except for the most important need, which is the need for human interaction.
00:20:33.060On the other hand, the Internet brings us this show.
00:20:41.880I get those confused about the about knocking the Internet on the Internet.
00:20:51.660I can't remember the guys, the first name, but from the movie years and years ago, Dr. Oblivion, who would only appear on TV on TV.
00:21:02.100Videodrome, that's that reference, that old James Woods movie, very prophetic.
00:21:10.800So, but again, what we want to try to strive for is health, mental health, and some of
00:21:26.340Those things that, again, sort of all fit together with these things is actual engagement in your life and in all aspects of your life.
00:21:39.320Mindfulness is the general overarching term for that.
00:21:42.940I think living a mindful life is when your brain is turned on and integrating into the world in the greatest possible way, to the greatest possible extent, makes for a healthier lifestyle.
00:22:03.360zoning out while you're driving or waiting for stuff and you know there's
00:22:12.880learning to live in a place where your mind is on autopilot too much of the
00:22:18.300time is an unhealthy way to you know your mental health deteriorates your
00:22:25.780brains like any other muscle you have to use it in order for it to continue to
00:22:30.580work well, in my opinion. And the Greeks, of course, talked about the, they originated that
00:22:40.080term that we, that so many of us know, a healthy mind and a healthy body. And it is certainly true
00:22:46.680that exercise has been shown to be one of the very best, the very best antidotes for
00:22:57.200deterioration of mental health because not only do you
00:24:45.160uh says a lot for again how to how you react it's not what happens it's how you react to it
00:24:53.400i used to be an extremely impatient waiter i could not stand in a line for more than a couple
00:25:00.840of minutes without drumming my fingers and you know sighing deeply and expressing that impatience
00:25:08.600in a way that probably made it uncomfortable for certainly anyone i was actually with but
00:25:13.720but the people around me, you know, but I learned eventually for most part that stuff that's out of
00:25:20.180your control, it doesn't help your mental health, doesn't help the people around you to
00:25:26.940stand around and look disgusted. Things take as long as they take. If you're standing in line at
00:25:33.080the post office, this is an example from a couple of days ago, standing in line at the post office,
00:25:37.100The people have other things to do. They're trying to get stuff done.
00:25:44.420And I and I was but I was I waited very calmly, very patiently.
00:25:48.500And it was and it's that's a new characteristic for me just in the last dozen years or so.
00:25:54.840And I think it helps me stay healthy because me being impatient doesn't make the line move any faster.
00:26:00.920And in fact, it can lead to the opposite result.
00:26:02.860So there are other things, you know, dozens and dozens of tips, most of which I will not give you, but one of the things that I've started doing lately is in the morning and in the evening, one of the things that recent research demonstrates is that you should use side lighting and red lights if you can, you know, reddish lights if you can.
00:26:32.860Um, because if you think about the way that the sun arcs through the sky in the early morning, the sun is not directly overhead.
00:26:40.300Um, so using overhead lights at six o'clock in the morning gives your brain the wrong kind of signal.
00:26:46.180It puts you into the wrong part of the day.
00:26:49.340And then you go out to drive to work, if you're like most of us slobs.
00:26:54.660And, you know, you're driving, you know, it's been overhead daylight for a couple of hours while you're, um, eating breakfast and having your first pot of coffee.
00:27:02.860And then you get in the car, and it's dark again.
00:27:05.140Then you get to work, and it's bright light again, and it just confuses your circadian rhythm.
00:27:09.720And what we've learned is that the body and the brain is a mechanism that is attuned to all of its surroundings.
00:27:24.540and all these thousands and thousands of signals that you give your brain um if you're they should
00:27:30.780synchronize with the world um and certainly that's a point to say that we and i know matt
00:27:40.380doesn't like the word heathens but we we uh pagans um like the uh we believe that the world is good
00:27:50.700and that being in the world is good and being in this world is a place of joy and happiness
00:27:58.300so we should integrate properly into it and not try to bend the world we do bend the world to
00:28:04.460our purpose but some things you can't do like you can't make the guy at the post office work any
00:28:10.620faster. So that's the time to be reflective and patient. Next step here is to have interpersonal
00:28:20.320connection. I've already talked about that some, but I can tell you that skipping it. Okay. Let me
00:28:32.160talk about point three first, which is insight. This author and I think that they had a lot of
00:28:39.100good things to say, which is why I'm using their four-point bulletin here. Insight into yourself.
00:28:47.380Spend some time in reflection, both in meditation, which I think is an important thing for everyone
00:28:53.460to do. It has certainly improved my mental health and outlook. I strongly advocate that, again.
00:29:00.940But to have insight into yourself, recognize in yourself the things that need to be adjusted.
00:29:14.140Like if you are an impatient person, if you're a person who is too loud, too aggressive, tone that down.0.86
00:29:21.960If you're not aggressive enough, if you need to get out there and, you know, kick ass until you're all out of bubble gum, then you should get out there and do that.
00:29:33.760Think about yourself and think about these interactions that you have with people.0.73
00:29:37.600Be reflective about the way that you live your life.
00:29:42.480Generate insight into the way that you are and to the way that you are around the people that you're around.
00:29:47.300And then the other two points that this guy brought up is having interpersonal connection and having a purpose, which, again, and I assume that I can speak, at least in some measure, for the ulterior goate.
00:30:03.940But having the AFA in my life has absolutely made things where I feel like it's where it's worth getting up in the morning.
00:30:23.240I have a job and kids and all that stuff, all of which also give me purpose.
00:30:34.820but again going back to the evolutionary aspect of human civilization it wasn't all that long
00:30:45.220ago where you know the purpose of your village was to protect the village the purpose of your
00:30:49.780men was to protect the women the purpose of your women was to look out and care for your men and
00:30:56.800So people were integrated into a whole, holistic, holy society and civilization.
00:31:06.160And we've lost so much of that through liberalism.
00:31:09.960I should have brought Alain de Benoit's book that I just finished, Against Liberalism, where he points out that the liberal experiment has been a total failure in the sense that it has brought us material wealth.
00:31:26.180but mental instability people don't know who they are where they are i coined the term the tyranny
00:31:36.340of choice if you think you can be anything then it's you know it's it's really too much pressure
00:31:43.380you can't um you know you can be anything within your limitations you can be you can be an excellent
00:31:50.980tradesman and that's and that's perfectly fine you can be part of an integrated holistic whole
00:31:57.220civilization and you don't have to be the president or the hero you can be
00:32:06.500that cog in the machine which i feel like i am a lot of ways you can be that person who moves the
00:32:12.100ball you know 20 bucks 50 bucks uh to vns helps helps us keep our mission moving um
00:32:23.860showing up to things encouraging other people to show up to things that keeps us on our mission
00:32:28.260and it gives us purpose and keeps our minds healthy keeps our souls healthy your um the
00:32:35.540the germanic worldview is that your mind your memory your uh body also are aspects of your soul
00:32:47.540and your uh and when you can integrate all those parts of your soul into a into a
00:32:57.220i shouldn't use the same when you integrated all into an integrated way of doing things
00:33:01.860It, you know, when you're when everything is moving in the same direction, then I think that that like anything else that's synchronized, you know, it just moves better and is healthier.
00:33:17.700That's one of the things that I think is absolutely wrong with the current civilization and certainly the progressive ideology that we've been having shoved down our throats in an accelerated way over the last 20 years or so, creates cognitive dissonance.
00:33:40.780And that term is one of those things that is a psychological term, meaning that you you're trying to believe one thing when you know the opposite is true and it creates a condition inside your head where your head doesn't get along well with itself.
00:34:02.120You know, you're trying to believe, not us for the most part, but our civilization is trying to believe things that are not true.
00:34:15.540You know, a person who's born a female can be a man.
00:34:20.220A person who was born a male can menstruate.
00:34:22.720I try to stay off the politics stuff, but those sorts of psychological disorders have been pushed on us as if it were, you know, as if it were normalcy, as if it were natural.
00:34:40.320and we know we know for certain that those things are not true but if you're trying to be
00:34:47.680a person who integrates well into mainstream civilization which i gave up a long time ago
00:34:55.580but if you're trying to integrate into into the mainstream
00:34:58.760and you're being fed those lies you know it's the emperor's new clothes you can see that the
00:35:08.140emperor is naked, even though everyone around you is, you know, is admiring the emperor's
00:35:12.940wonderful clothes. And I think that's the perfect analogy for where our civilization is in a lot of
00:35:17.640aspects. That being said, I don't think that's true of most of the people in the AFA. I think
00:35:27.140being around other strong, like-minded, right-minded people gives you the courage,
00:35:34.220It's certainly given me the courage to stand up to that tyranny of lies that are told to us in those ways.
00:35:49.300There are some things that are metaphysical certainties that we know to be true.
00:35:56.000And when mainstream civilization tries to tell us something else, it takes a lot of courage to swim upstream, to swim against the tide.
00:36:03.480And us standing together can give each other the courage and moral support that we need to maintain our mental health, because that's what we're talking about.
00:36:18.380I think another aspect of that certainly does fall in with diet.
00:36:25.340Actually, since we did a show about diet, I've been doing some additional research there.
00:36:29.620And one of the things that recent research demonstrates is that the lower intestine actually generates a big part of your serotonin.
00:36:42.440And serotonin is kind of the calmness integration hormone that when your serotonin machine is working correctly, it helps you feel good.
00:36:59.320you just feel better about life and i think that's one and one of the things that is wrong
00:37:03.960with the modern diet is when you're eating processed foods that lower gut bacteria
00:37:11.960does not get enough nutrition to generate serotonin and the other happy drugs okay
00:37:20.440happy hormones they're not drugs um so eating uh too much processed food eating fast foods
00:37:32.280being bad to your gut health it that's one of the you know that's one of the things that keeps you
00:37:40.440in a dismal disaffected sluggish state of mind and dietary change is one of
00:37:49.400things takes a long time to start to feel the impact
00:37:52.360but having now lived on a healthy diet for six years or so
00:37:59.160it's worth it it's worth it a thousand times over
00:38:08.440Oh, so the other thing, the other aspect I think in mental health is one other aspect is the ideal of making sure that you limit your contact with screen time.
00:38:53.200this guy Joseph Haight, Jonathan Haight
00:38:55.880has done thousands of hours of research into what is wrong with our children.
00:39:04.340And the unquestionable conclusion is that what's wrong with children is too much exposure to social media.
00:39:15.140The argument is subtle, but the statistics don't lie.
00:39:21.960He looks at when social media, especially TikTok and Facebook, when those began to reach into the number of homes that it has currently, the depression rate for 10, 12, 14 year olds, especially girls.
00:39:46.640But their depression rate started to climb astronomically.
00:39:54.360The suicide rate for young children, 10, 12 years old, began to climb astronomically.
00:40:00.940And if you look at the graphs on that video and in the book, you know, it's no accident for, make sure.
00:40:09.260Like for hundreds of years, those rates were fairly current.
00:40:14.360Depression rates, suicide rates for young children and teenagers were very slow.
00:40:19.840And then you hit this inflection point where it goes up and is rising steadily.
00:40:25.520And it's because girls especially, boys to a lesser extent with different problems,
00:40:32.520are exposed to constant badgering by predators, number one.
00:40:40.220and also by the constant message that they are not good enough and like for most guys we can
00:40:47.340absorb a little bit of that but girls because their brains are different too and work differently
00:40:56.220and respond differently to those sorts of stimuli girls especially are when they get exposed to that
00:41:03.900toxic sort of media that the toxic ideas that are that permeate social culture they get in that
00:41:13.820headspace where they think they're not good enough they're not smart enough they're not pretty they're
00:41:17.900too fat and so all these things that manifest themselves as social anxiety have skyrocketed
00:41:27.580boys have sort of the different problem of then being able to because the internet they
00:41:36.280gravitated into this gamer culture where again it's toxic in a different sort of way
00:41:42.560I know he talks less about that because the boys suicide rate although climbing is not
00:41:53.020climbing as quickly as um as the way that the girls are but they have a different sort of
00:42:00.060toxicity that goes on when you're you know when the only social interaction that you have
00:42:06.220is with a headset and a screen it's terrible terrible terrible for children um
00:42:13.980he makes some recommendations which i'll let you watch in the video
00:42:17.260which I thank the gods that I got my kids through and raised for the most part before this became so pervasive in the culture.
00:42:28.060I certainly would have had a lot of very strained arguments with the now ex-wife.
00:42:35.680And I mean, it was bad enough them just having video games and spending too much time on the computer.
00:42:40.460but i can't imagine um how difficult it would be in the um in the modern era kids on uh who
00:42:54.060are raised on social media don't ever develop the interpersonal skills and it's and it's simple
00:42:59.260stuff and to hear it defined in that video um you know like learning how to take turns okay that's
00:43:06.060That's something that you have to learn when you're playing sports or when you're actually out interacting in the world.
00:43:13.440You don't have to do that when you're one-on-one with your screen time.
00:43:18.420Learning how to resolve interpersonal conflict.
00:43:21.680Those are the sorts of things that you only learn by playing and doing other stuff with kids.
00:43:27.460And, of course, the toxic school culture.
00:43:31.040I have to skip most of that because I started getting all my own tirade there.
00:43:36.060And for you guys, and so many of you that are taking advantage of the Oscar Academy, God's bless you.
00:43:43.880It is a, you know, it is because the, because the, the curriculum in the modern schools is a joke.
00:43:58.900Joseph Sobrant summed it up by saying, in 100 years, we've gone from teaching Greek and Latin in high school to teaching remedial English in the university.
00:44:10.800And they've tried to dumb it down because, you know, no child left behind just means no child gets ahead.0.98
00:44:17.360You take all the smartest kids in the world, they have to, in the room, and they have to learn at the same rate as the dumb kids.0.70
00:44:24.120they then are bored and it's all tedium for them and so they get frustrated and act out0.77
00:44:32.440in all the ways that we see modern culture deteriorating uh that's a lot more of a splurge
00:44:43.160that's a lot more of a monologue than i really wanted to run at the first of it
00:44:46.600Wanted to open up to some questions and Matt, some comment from you, but that's.
00:44:56.100You had a lot of things that you wanted to get out there and introduce.
00:44:59.820And I was making a list of kind of things that I wanted to.
00:45:06.200I don't know, maybe add my two cents on or say a little bit more on.
00:45:10.480and I suppose and we do have some questions and we have a lively chat room and there's a lot of
00:45:20.060things going on so I don't really know all right I'll start at the beginning I could have I may
00:45:28.000rethink it and think I should have started at the end but I think you guys can figure it out
00:45:34.000first and foremost though um ronald blake donated five coffees and 25 to the vns fund
00:45:41.920thank you very much we appreciate it and it's good to see you back so
00:45:52.560a couple of things now alan put out a disclaimer at the beginning i'm going to add on that a little
00:45:58.080bit. I think it is very, very important for us to be honest and realistic in our approach to things.
00:46:14.240I don't have a great deal of trust in a lot of current Western medical practice in a lot of
00:46:22.200ways. I come at it probably from a different place than Alan, probably from a different
00:46:27.500place than a lot of people but i think so many things and especially when we get into the realm
00:46:34.780of mental health have been so fundamentally influenced by
00:46:46.940woke political currents but when i say that that gets an idea in your mind of stuff since like 2013
00:46:53.180but an overall pervading, degenerate, wrongheadedness, you know, for a very, very long time in a lot of ways.
00:47:05.060There are certainly things out there that are worthy of being concerned about,
00:47:09.840but there's also people out there doing a great job and helping a lot of people in the mental health industry.
00:47:16.880Sure, be picky, pick and choose, find somebody in keeping with your values,
00:47:21.700that may be harder than we would like it to be but there are people out there that the first step
00:47:32.980they need to get some drastic professional intervention there's people who are struggling
00:47:39.220with the mental constraints that i think we all feel to one degree or another that maybe they're
00:47:45.620losing that battle at present. And then there are deeply, deeply damaged people that need medical
00:47:54.740intervention immediately. If you are one of those people, don't be ashamed, get some medical help.
00:47:59.940If you're, if you're crazy, let's get it fixed. There's some triage things, there's some people0.94
00:48:07.380that are so far gone, they need to get stabilized before they can start fixing the things that need
00:48:13.940to get fixed don't be ashamed of that the other thing is medical drugs everybody's over on the
00:48:18.900side we have everybody has different thoughts and feelings about that i don't think any of us can say
00:48:24.660that we don't have a problem in this country with people being over or miss medicated with
00:48:32.340mood altering pharmaceuticals that is a big problem but there's also people that get benefit
00:48:39.460out of it i what i would say is a lot of the time conceptually i'm more comfortable with um
00:48:49.780those kind of things as a short term get you through a rough spot things than as a lifestyle
00:48:55.780choice but again alan nor myself are doctors there's a lot of stuff out there important thing
00:49:05.460to say is if you need help get help if that help involves something that the purity spiral crowd
00:49:19.380doesn't like you still need to get help and so don't let perfect be the enemy good
00:49:28.500and one of the other things and this is kind of looping on to some stuff that we talked about in
00:49:34.100the physical health episode. There are a lot of right answers. There are a lot of different things
00:49:42.260that work. There's a lot of things that work for different folks, but the important thing is that
00:49:48.340you move from a state of sub-optimal mental health to a more optimal state of mental health.
00:49:57.700Get there. Let's work together to get each other there and help each other get there.
00:50:01.540don't obsess that's one of the I've seen that with a lot of the things and this also relates
00:50:08.280to the physical health thing you get these jumbo fatties that you know all stressed out because
00:50:16.500they don't want to get any of the more radical fat loss interventions no I don't think the healthy
00:50:22.840way to lose weight is getting a lap band I don't think the healthy way to lose weight is ozempic
00:50:28.060But I think being obese is more unhealthy than both of those.
00:50:33.460So at some point, we need to be realistic about where we're at and take the intervention necessary to get us where we need to go.
00:50:42.820All that to say, another thing that Alan mentioned that I think is very, very legitimate in the world that we live in,
00:50:51.480And I forget what it was. The tyranny of too many options or whatever he said, something to that effect. And it goes into what I think we've all experienced in this day and age is paralysis by analysis.
00:51:09.460If, and that comes into play here, if we're constantly convinced that all of the things in the world that are set up to help us are, you know, somehow not in keeping with the purity spiral that we have in our head of what we should be doing, you can find yourself never doing anything.
00:51:31.440So, focus on something, try to get some help, and work towards it.
00:51:42.220Now, this goes into the bigger thing that Alan talked about that I think is really important.
00:57:29.700And the enduring mental health selves are actual success in the real world.
00:57:40.480I've talked about this on the show before, too, but I used to work with children.
00:57:45.020I worked with severely emotionally disturbed children.
00:57:49.080And one of the things that became evident really quickly, those kids could take even the smallest things that were real, they could take strength in those when life was tough.
00:58:08.440But the pretend, make everybody feel better, everybody gets a participation trophy nonsense were instantly meaningless when reality kicked in.
00:58:21.840I would watch and the most subtle, no, they won because that day they were the fastest kid or the smartest kid or the strongest kid.
00:58:32.400They have that and they can look back on a real success or a real accomplishment they had in their life.
00:58:36.880Any of the things we do to placate ourselves with, you know, the just, just, you know, the good enough, just as good as everybody else, we're all equal trophy provides you zero comfort when you're trying to evaluate your, your worth in the world.
00:58:55.060Worth is built on real things and real accomplishments.
00:58:59.740And I think it's worse for people now.
00:59:02.560A lot of kids that I went to school with and people who, you know, were my friends in my early adulthood and, you know, late teenage years, watched a lot of people that now are in their mid 40s that never really became adults.
00:59:20.140They never really went out there and did stuff.
00:59:23.960They all had plans, all the things they were going to do, things they wanted to do when the right situation presented themselves.
00:59:32.560And it's, you know, 25 years later and the right situation never came along and they've missed a large part of the meaning of their life.
00:59:46.540Interacting with real people is scary.
00:59:48.580Attempting to do real things is scary.
00:59:50.980And the longer you put off that fear of getting off mom's couch and going out in the world and doing, the harder it is.
00:59:59.700so go out and do real things touch grass as the kids say I don't take the stance that you shouldn't
01:00:09.280you know social media is real and it's here and it's not going anywhere if it's completely
01:00:15.640neglected or we pretend it doesn't exist I think we do ourselves a disservice but if you allow
01:00:21.060yourself to be wrapped up and controlled by it it is it's literally life-stealing the thing he
01:00:30.100mentioned um about kids with the screen time and specifically with the social media stuff
01:00:37.560i agree but i don't think there's a lot of alternative to being exposed to some of that
01:00:42.940i don't think you can avoid it entirely and i think if you try to one of the scary things
01:00:50.000is, and I've seen this in a variety of applications. When people, when parents have the best of
01:00:58.880intentions and overly shelter their kids from everything that's negative, it is sometimes
01:01:07.820overwhelming and very destructive when all of a sudden life hits them in the face and they are
01:01:15.200not prepared, and they don't know what to do with it. But what we certainly can do is teach them and
01:01:22.640contextualize with them. If all they have is social media, that is terrifying. Getting real society
01:01:33.360for them to be a part of is a huge, huge thing. A lot of this revolves around, I guess we'll get
01:01:40.460to this and some of the questions that I've seen come up. But accomplishment makes you feel good.
01:01:53.020Accomplishment is good for mental health. The other thing that Alan mentioned that I think
01:01:56.480is really important, I say the other thing, one of the other things is that it's the thing about
01:02:03.480happiness like you can just be permanently high and feel like you're happy all of the time and
01:02:12.040you can't risk not being high because you will immediately plummet to the depths of despair
01:02:19.160that's not that's not good it's not just about pleasure that's important in life and we all want
01:02:25.800to feel good but i think in the world around us we have a tendency to think that's the only good
01:02:35.960is like maximum happiness or maximum pleasure we're not built that way there's plenty of things
01:02:45.240in life that you should feel bad about those feelings having real feelings that are calibrated
01:02:51.400correctly are a big part of how we're built to become decent men and women and to do good things
01:03:01.500it's what strives us forward you don't want to numb yourself into an artificial state of
01:03:06.080permanent you know elation having meaning in life is tremendously valuable and i think it's
01:03:15.120very often neglected in the world that we live in. It is
01:03:19.480harder and harder for men and women today to find meaning in
01:03:24.460their life. But it's never been more essential for us to be able
01:03:29.220to find meaning in our life. And I hope that we can do that
01:03:31.620together. It's certainly a big goal that we try to work
01:03:34.900towards in the Ask True Folk Assembly. Something else I
01:03:42.260wanted to mention is truth being one of our virtues. You can't
01:03:52.580get to a place of healing unless you can have an honest
01:03:59.500evaluation of where you are. I've seen this a lot to people
01:04:06.700pretending that there's something that they're not and
01:04:11.340refusing to be honest with themselves about where they
01:04:13.960actually are in the hierarchy of things, in relation to people
01:04:18.760around them in relation in relation to who they want to be.
01:04:22.960And I don't this isn't. There are a lot of people that think
01:04:28.280they're better than they are. They do themselves a disservice.
01:04:32.860There's also quite a few people that don't realize how good they
01:04:35.960are that don't realize their strengths and that only can see the black or the negative about
01:04:43.900themselves. And that's also extremely unhealthy and destructive. What I found really beneficial
01:04:50.760to me personally, this, you know, takes it back to Ausatru a bit, reading the nine doors of Midgard,
01:04:57.660One of the first things you do in starting that curriculum, and this was developed by Edward Thorson, Dr. Stephen Flowers, is create a list of your positive and your negative qualities and be brutally honest with yourself on both.
01:05:19.100And as you work your way through that curriculum, and I would say as you work your way through life or through your attempt at healing yourself, check in with that list, I don't know, every month, every so often to see what you can check off, what you can move into the other column, what stuff you've worked on and made progress.
01:05:43.100Where are you now in relation to where you were? And consistently do that and check in with yourself and be honest with yourself. If you can't be honest with yourself, then you can't make progress. If you don't know where you are, it's very hard to figure out where you're trying to go or how to get there.
01:06:01.280so that's very important too and that takes that's uncomfortable facing things about ourselves that
01:06:08.680we don't like and recognizing them is a really scary and a much more difficult process than I
01:06:15.040think a lot of people realize but I do think it's essential and I salute those of you who are able
01:06:22.100to do that and I would encourage those of you who haven't done that yet to take that step because
01:07:02.260Hopefully I'm not getting feedback if that was why you're muting me there, Nick.
01:07:06.780I think absolutely that the lack of religion, one could even say the lack of standard, is a big part of what's wrong with civilization now.
01:07:20.340But again, it falls back to that aspect of cognitive dissonance that brought us into this frame.
01:07:38.220When we begin to realize that the doctrines of Christianity do not integrate properly with scientific worldview, you know, you want to believe X, but Y is provably true,
01:07:58.820then it creates a condition where your world and your religion are in separate universes, and that is unhealthy.
01:08:13.500I think that's where a lot of this world is right now with the Abrahamic religions.
01:08:19.160I just, you know, that's, you know, we forget how important it was, the small, it seems now, but, you know, how the teachings of Galileo were suppressed.
01:08:38.500because when Galileo and others proved that the sun was not the center of the universe,
01:08:45.080that unwound thousands of years of 8,000 years, 1,500 years of church dogma.
01:08:53.680Because if the world is not the center of the universe,
01:08:56.160then God didn't create the world in the way that it was being taught.
01:09:01.360So, but then, of course, what happened is then as Christianity then spun out of its hold that it had on the life of the European peoples,
01:09:20.800they then, out of momentum, out of wrong-headedness, cast out all the good things about Christianity.
01:21:04.600And then you can feel like you've accomplished something.
01:21:07.860And, you know, and again, the salad itself will make you feel better in the long run.
01:21:13.540Standing in front of a cold shower and taking a cold shower in the morning, this is the time to start that practice.
01:21:20.140um you know again that's that kind of thing you start the day with a physical challenge this is
01:21:26.960going to suck and sometimes it does suck but you know then you're you know you started the day by
01:21:33.000defeating your own uh willpower so all those things not only does it affect your body in the0.96
01:21:42.020sense that eating better makes your body better. It affects your mind by making that challenge
01:21:50.200work for you. And I'm glad that you asked this on a personal level, because I think that
01:21:59.160diet and exercise is good for everybody. But I think it probably stands out on the ways it
01:22:06.320benefits different people differently. Or the ways that you notice at least. So I'm going to start
01:22:14.280where I am now and kind of work my way back. I think that diet stuff helps me have a routine
01:22:28.160and feel like I've got a roadmap to success and something to follow to help
01:22:37.220not stress about the particulars of what-ifs.
01:22:43.920It gets me out of my head a little bit.
01:22:45.600um and i think that getting used to your diet and used to when to uh when to splurge and how
01:23:01.040to splurge to affect your mental health and to um affect things is important because i'll do that
01:23:08.240i'll be really strict on my diet for a time and then i'll just have a rough day and i'll be like
01:23:11.940you know what? You know what fixes a rough day? Fat and carbs fix a rough day. And then do if it's
01:23:18.000a once in a while thing. Sometimes that releases a certain amount of dopamine. It just makes you
01:23:22.420feel better. And being able to recognize in yourself when that's helpful versus when it's
01:23:28.420just the unintended. Something Alan mentioned earlier is, you know, mindfulness.
01:23:34.420this. When we just graze on crap all of the time, because it's there, because we don't think about0.85
01:23:45.100it, or because we're undisciplined, a lot of things get out of control really quick. When
01:23:51.460you're able to, you know, diagnose like, man, you know what, today, I'm gonna, I'm gonna splurge a
01:23:56.740little bit. That breaks it up. If you're always at a level 10 on your fat and carb dopamine level,
01:24:03.160then you don't have anywhere else to go if you're like man I'm having a bad bad day what am I going
01:24:09.960to do you're out of options but if you keep it in check then you can alter those things in ways that
01:24:16.840you need to help the other thing I'd say though on the exercise part going to the gym helps my
01:24:23.780mental health tremendously it gets me out of whatever I'm stressing about in a place where
01:24:31.240can focus on physical exercise it does all of the things physically that's good about it
01:24:37.400but mentally it is something that i can do every day to say i did i accomplished i was there i
01:24:45.320made it happen i can write down you know i have one i have one notch in the wind column every day
01:24:50.600i go to the gym um and also i'm a gym guy there's a lot of people like to work out by themselves
01:24:58.520And if that helps them, then that's great. I like being in the gym. I like being around other people who are doing something good. Other people who are good looking, who are working to make their life better, who are working to be athletically more proficient or to be in better shape or to accomplish things, or even the people who are there that aren't there yet.
01:25:20.700people who are clearly out of shape, but who are in there making the effort to get in shape,
01:25:26.240those people are inspirational too. It's kind of an environment where everybody is in there making
01:25:30.860an effort and it separates them from the vast majority of people in the world that just don't
01:25:37.220care. That's nice. That puts me in a society where I feel like for that moment at that time,
01:25:43.700I'm surrounded by winners, and that inspires me to feel good, to push more, to try to be better,
01:25:52.620and it's really strengthening that way to me. Also, martial arts that I do help a lot,
01:25:59.920because again, it gets me out of my head. It's a set period of time where I have to focus on
01:26:06.160a physical activity that I want to get proficient at and do well. I have to focus on a series of
01:26:13.240movements and doing them correctly or else I'm liable to hurt myself or someone else so I'm
01:26:18.380really in the moment I'm very present there and I mentioned before struggles with meditation it's
01:26:24.060really important to me to find something that takes me out of my own head I don't do good
01:26:30.000just sit and release all your thoughts that's a much easier thing that's said than done
01:26:36.640it's much better if I have something to focus intensely on to where I'm focusing on one thought
01:26:43.040but I'm hyper-focused on it. And it's not related to the stresses of the day. It's related to
01:26:48.960perfection of movement and technique. And that's really important.
01:26:53.400But in my life, tremendously, I was lame. I was skinny, fat loser that was not living0.98
01:27:02.720authentically. All of the things that I admired and the person, the man that I wanted to become0.98
01:27:07.820and the things that I admired in men I looked up to.
01:27:12.860I was the furthest thing from, and I was doing nothing to fix that.
01:27:19.160When I started to, you know what, I don't know if I can get there,
01:27:25.680but if I start trying, I'll be a lot closer than I am now.
01:27:31.520That helped me so much in my life because it changed the way I looked at the world
01:27:37.820I conceived for the first time like, hey, I can be more than I am. I can make myself, I can build myself into something more and something better than I am. I can learn to become the things that I idolize instead of just sitting, you know, sitting in the stands and cheering. I can do something.
01:28:00.140and that was tremendous for my mental health it was tremendous for my sense of self-worth
01:28:08.500for my um for my self-confidence I've told the stories on here a number of times but I went out
01:28:16.320and I tried to be that person and get better and get bigger and get stronger and do the things and
01:28:23.900I think yeah I got bigger and I got stronger but I also had self-confidence I had my chest out and
01:28:29.340my head up, and I felt like I was somebody, and I didn't walk around like a loser.
01:28:37.140Every bad thing in this world looks for victims, and they look for the easiest targets to victimize.
01:28:44.960Your life changes tremendously when you have self-worth and self-confidence. The way you
01:28:53.140carry yourself makes all the difference in the world on how others treat you, and there's no
01:28:58.660magic cure-all that fixes that. It's a complex matrix of things. But in my life, getting in the
01:29:06.180gym and trying to become bigger and stronger helped me in that tremendously. And I'm very
01:29:12.600grateful that I had other men around me to help, you know, show me how to do that and work out with
01:29:19.540me. Those, think about you, Jeff, Tony, guys that I used to go to the gym with by myself when I
01:29:26.060didn't know what I was doing that helped show me the way on stuff. I really appreciate that.
01:29:31.980Can you speak on men's mental health specifically? Society at large doesn't take it seriously.
01:29:38.040Men are often laughed at for their problems. What is your take on that, Alan?
01:29:45.800Yeah, I know. We're the last group that you can pick on and feel like you can get away with it.
01:29:56.060And I think a lot of the criticism against men is completely unfounded.
01:30:13.500You know, I think it's laughable to talk about toxic masculinity in this hyper-feminized culture.
01:30:20.900So, you know, I think it's certainly true that we, men, and I count myself in this group, are too reticent.
01:30:42.400We're too hesitant to seek help when we need help for, you know, when we feel, I don't want to, when I use the term depressed, I don't mean in the clinical sense, but, you know, when we feel bad about stuff, when we feel like we need help, it's, we've been taught wrongly that it's a sign of weakness to seek help.
01:31:12.400so uh i think that's a part of it i think that's absolutely one of the things that
01:31:19.640the gym culture helps you overcome um you know when you can you know because
01:31:26.220um you know you can go to those guys how do i do this how does this machine work
01:31:31.600um part of you know for me part of it too was car culture you know how do i fix this
01:31:39.920you know how does this thing work and guys will help other guys and you know one of the things
01:31:46.380about guys that guys know is we like helping other guys right so um you know it's flattering to
01:31:54.560matt i know when some noob comes up to him at the gym and says you know how do i do this you
01:32:00.520look like you're doing the right thing help help me with that um it's the you know and those are
01:32:06.340The kinds of things that guys can reinforce their idea of self-worth by, you know, short story.
01:32:21.360When I got divorced, one of my friends that seemingly I've lost touch with, not through any fault of my own, but he called me and said, hey, man, I'm going to come down and see you.
01:33:31.800I've gotten over my fear of hurting Nick's feelings when I call and ask him to, you know, help me do something simple on the, you know, or I'll call Cliff and make him go click by click through how to make this machine work.
01:33:47.800We definitely, you know, I think a lot of that was the myth and a myth it was of the, you know, of the guys in the 50s who were seen supposedly as these islands of masculinity who didn't need help, didn't want help.
01:34:11.460And, you know, but that's not true, you know, because even back then they were integrated into a society of men, you know, they knew the mechanic, they knew the carpenter, their dad knew people, they were integrated into a textured, structured, integrated matrix of men who would help each other.
01:34:33.140So the idea that, you know, that we are islands of, you know, total self-reliance is just false.
01:34:42.520And we don't, and it takes a long time to overcome the idea that, you know, it's that we're somehow less if we need to, you know, ask somebody for help on, you know, on how to make stuff go.
01:35:03.140I think, though, being stronger in yourself, being stronger in the way that you integrate into a right worldview as promulgated by the AFA can help you in also in the sense that you can understand that when society, when other people criticize, you know, the normies, the NPCs,
01:35:28.740criticize or look askance at you for holding the right worldview and acting right and speaking
01:35:38.120truth and doing all the things that a strong man does. When they criticize you, they're the ones
01:35:45.140who are failures. It's not us. It's them. And being in our society, the society of the AFA
01:35:52.440can help you maintain that strength in yourself.
01:35:58.740Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think everyone here, everyone who's going to listen to this understands.0.96
01:36:09.600Heterosexual white men are the people that all of the forces of everything wrong in the world have chosen to target as the big baddies.
01:36:19.940That is a testament to the fact that heterosexual white men are the pillars of society and of what makes all of the good things in the world good, at least in a non-divine sense.
01:36:37.440um what alan said i think is really important though about men's health
01:36:45.540we have what is toxically masculine is trying to endlessly posture even when it's laughable0.94
01:36:57.060and being the loser alpha in your like0.96
01:37:02.380middle of nowhere non-participating form of existence you've carved for yourself but you0.72
01:37:09.680would have could have should have and if you were there you'd do it all better
01:37:12.120we got a whole lot of guys that are scared to try because when you try and you're in the company of
01:37:18.280other men your bubble gets popped that maybe you're not the best maybe you're not the smartest
01:37:23.420maybe you're not the strongest maybe you're not the fastest maybe you're not the expert in the
01:37:29.500world. And that's okay. There's only one person in the world that is the strongest. There's only
01:37:36.120one person in the world that is the smartest. And chances are, none of us are either of those.
01:37:43.380But going out there and participating, you can accomplish. Pretending that you're too cool for
01:37:50.160school makes you a loser. It makes you seem really cool in high school, maybe.0.97
01:37:57.140but as an adult it holds you back from participating in the world in a meaningful way
01:38:03.240you don't have to it takes all sorts there's going to be you know a few leaders and there's
01:38:12.740going to be a lot of followers and that's okay in fact that's noble if you devote yourself
01:38:17.360as a free man to following someone that you recognize their greatness or you recognize
01:38:23.840their ability and you get on the team, there's a tremendous amount of honor in that. There's zero
01:38:30.500honor in thinking you're too cool for it and living out your existence on the internet, in
01:38:35.140your mom's basement, in your fantasy land. But that's scary. A lot of people, I joke on here,
01:38:42.020and I always make the mom's basement jokes or whatever, but I'm serious. And I think that we
01:38:47.520all face this. I know I face this. I know this is something that I've had to work really hard to
01:38:51.500overcome. Sitting on the couch is seductive, not participating, because there's, there's always,
01:39:00.760we are capable of diluting ourselves in a very efficient way. There's infinite reasons for you
01:39:06.800not to try, for you not to get up, for you not to get out of bed, for you not to do anything.
01:39:12.180We can come up with and imagine the most amazing and spectacular reasons not to do things.
01:39:18.600But we do that at our own peril because, you know, life isn't infinite. We have a limited amount of time here in Midgard to accomplish and work our will. And the world and the forces of chaos seek to seduce us into complacency.
01:39:37.600complacency. Men's health is in large part about men doing and engaging in life in a way that is
01:39:46.200meaningful and has purpose. Another thing I see that has been really tragic to men's health
01:39:51.860and probably always has, but I think there was a context for it that isn't anymore. There's a
01:39:59.620whole lot of people that are wage slaves that go out there and prioritize their existence in the
01:40:09.780workforce over everything else but often they're engaged in work that's very unfulfilling for them
01:40:15.880and not knowing what to do they sometimes hide in that work uh at the detriment of being there
01:40:27.700for their families at the detriment of developing themselves as a person or being part of the things
01:40:35.120that they would conceive that they'd like to be part of in their lives. They sublimate all of that
01:40:41.000to throw themselves into becoming an economic unit because that's been beat into them, that
01:40:51.200that's the ultimate expression of manhood is slaving away at an unfulfilling profession
01:40:58.180for all of your good years and with all of your time. And that's really unfortunate. And economic
01:41:05.920realities are what they are. I don't look down on anybody for working hard. Please don't anybody
01:41:10.540think that. But life is about a lot more than that. And sometimes it's hard for men to make
01:41:19.720time to do that or to allow themselves to do that uh question odin is the god of ecstasy friends
01:41:33.160ecstatic frenzy or divine madness how does such an understanding square with our modern sentiments
01:41:39.800and concerns about mental health such as this very episode alan what are your thoughts
01:41:49.720The opportunity for battlefield frenzy is greatly diminished in the current iteration of civilization.
01:42:03.200I think that it has to be, just as a practical matter, you know, that sort of thing has to be damped down and put into its place.
01:42:12.360That being said, there are models and I, you know, where martial arts is certainly an outlet for that.
01:42:25.020Um, and meditation in its own way, divine, um, divine frenzy is, uh, you know, again, sublimated and channeled in, um, Kundalini meditation.
01:42:45.020Meditation, you know, and actually the greater picture of that question, if I understand the frame of it, is something that I have given some time to think about, too, because, you know, we are a warrior culture.
01:43:05.300There are a lot of people out there who need to have their attitude adjusted, but we're just not allowed to do it.
01:43:16.480and you know uh it's it's unfortunate um that uh right action like daniel penny took in the um
01:43:31.600in that subway in new york is often rewarded with prosecution and belittlement and um
01:43:40.480I can't think of the right word, persecution, prosecution by the world at large, because, again, you know, the world at large, the civilization is out of adjustment.
01:44:00.900Yes, it's a struggle. That's the right way to say it.
01:44:03.760You know, although I frankly tend to model tear more in my daily life, the God of sacrifice and victory, the God of right order.
01:44:22.360um it doesn't mean that given the opportunity that i wouldn't uncork on somebody but it's just
01:44:29.140got to be you know we just have to know that um that where we are in the civilization
01:44:36.560means you just have to subordinate that reflex so i think some of this comes with a misunderstanding
01:44:44.240understanding of the Allfather. I don't feel that he was ever conceived of as
01:45:00.080madness and craziness. It was always that he was the master of those things. He is the
01:45:07.600master of frenzy the master of ecstasy he consumes thrives on ecstatic frenzy in a in a inspirational
01:45:25.280in a divine sense but he's able to channel it to purpose one of the overriding things in the lore
01:45:32.880about odin is his ability to take chaos and shape it into will and order instruction he does that
01:45:41.920throughout the creation of midgard throughout um structuring just the right order of the cosmos
01:45:51.920and our inclination is noble and ordered people one of the things and certainly uh ecstasy and
01:45:58.960madness are fundamentally linked to odin because he inspires those things but those things in terms of
01:46:10.480overwhelming drive to do to accomplish and i think that we all know that the line between
01:46:18.640crazy and touched by the divine is is paper thin and often people are kind of on either side of it
01:46:25.520because it is such a challenge to be able to control that energy i think it also speaks
01:46:31.040to the all father that you know unlike the other the other gods he has two pet wolves
01:46:36.480that sit in his throne and they're you know their names mean like ravenous and devouring
01:46:44.480and there but again he has these and throughout our our myth these wolves are these devouring
01:46:58.160forces of uncontrolled just consumption and overwhelming instinctual murderous destruction
01:47:09.200he keeps them at bay as pets they sit as obedient pets at the seat of his throne and eat his scraps
01:47:16.480because he is able to control those extreme impulses and channel them right and channel
01:47:25.920it into right order so i think that's that's how i can see with them in terms of mental health and
01:47:32.080And I think it's instructive in that way.
01:47:37.820What do you suggest for preemptively addressing mental health with young men going into the military or into the world in general as they're stepping away from home and out into the world?
01:47:56.120been a long time since i although my my young ones are um you know getting to that point
01:48:06.380where they're finally leaving the nest um but it's but when they're at that cusp when they're
01:48:14.600leaving for the military it's it's way too late to give them that um you know that because we all
01:48:22.120think we're gonna you know kind of put your arm around the shoulder give them a few sentences of
01:48:27.800fatherly or unclely advice and that's gonna just you know pivot them on their heel and
01:48:33.480they're going to suddenly transform into something worth being um it's it's the
01:48:41.880The thousands and thousands of days, the hundreds and the thousands of interactions from infancy to that point, that's where you shape the man.
01:48:54.820You know, that last little boost out of the nest, I mean, you might be able to make a little 1% inflection in the way that they're going out there.
01:49:04.360And there's certainly good advice that men in the AFA who have been in the military, they can give those guys.
01:49:14.280Men in the AFA who have been to college, you know, if I was given a few sentences of advice to guys going to college, I could maybe help them have a better experience.
01:49:28.000but it begins it begins in the crib or in the co-sleeping bed and then and all the way out
01:49:38.200through their youth and adulthood and by the time they're 18 20 years old um you're way behind the
01:49:45.420curve if you're starting there yeah i i mean what alan said is certainly true on that um
01:49:53.580it's hard to summarize like what quick advice you'd give to take men from
01:50:04.820infancy infancy into combat or into thrusting them into the world um
01:50:11.940what i think is really i don't mean this is as cheesy of an answer but i think that
01:50:19.200addressing this in specific is the have them all the have them all is
01:50:27.920i i would say it's the most it's the easiest to relate to piece of our lore and it's literally
01:50:35.840a lot in large part advice to young men who are going out into the wide world for the first time
01:50:43.200we're leaving home and their community and traveling who are finding themselves on the road
01:50:49.360who are having to be in the company of other men of elder men in a warrior society who are having
01:50:56.080to experience you know their first encounters with women and how to navigate that i think it's a
01:51:03.840really profoundly useful text and, you know, one of, I would say, quite a few people's favorite
01:51:14.020piece of our lore. It's probably the most quoted piece of our lore because it has these, you know,
01:51:20.080pearls of wisdom in it that I think especially young men going out in the world can find useful.
01:51:26.560I think that's the simple answer, and the more complex answer really depends on the guy in the
01:51:30.540conversation. Our Gothar spend hours and hours and hours trying to address what you're asking,
01:51:40.060depending on the young man that they're ministering to and trying to help.
01:51:47.160What do you think of people using AI for therapy? Alan?
01:52:00.540And to elaborate, they're already detecting all of the flaws in the way that AI has been programmed, you know.
01:52:18.620and the the easy example from from you know for our own people is you know somebody said give me
01:52:28.220a picture of a viking and the viking comes back and he's black okay false um i
01:52:38.540i'll say it this way i did a search on the internet for the meaning of a particular term
01:52:51.660that i just wanted to be able to define in a you know in a couple of sentences
01:52:56.780and when i plugged it in the ai came back with the inverse of the definition that i knew that
01:53:02.860it that what it was um ai has been demonstrated to be hyper woke um it's programmed by our enemies
01:53:17.740it's controlled by our enemies don't do it so i am less
01:53:25.260Luddite than our no but so in all honesty though with technology stuff I do think I'm a little bit
01:53:35.580more lenient on technology than Alan tends to be but let's assume the best of AI which it's not
01:53:42.600it's everything Alan says it is I hope one day that we awaken some real AI that breaks free of
01:53:50.780those chains. And I think if it develops in other parts of the world, there's possibilities for
01:53:56.760it to get past the wokeness. I think it's, it is a extremely useful tool in computations and in a
01:54:07.120lot of other ways that will be increasingly relevant in the world around us, but it is
01:54:13.720particularly ill-equipped for therapeutic purposes. The fact that one is consulting AI
01:54:22.460for therapy is the problem. One of the biggest things, and we talked about this on the program
01:54:28.180so far, your ability to connect with other humans is the core to your health and your integration
01:54:35.520into the world. You having to go to AI to get your therapy is part of the problem. Now, if you're
01:54:42.340using AI to say, hey, can you make me a list of therapists in my area and give me their numbers?
01:54:49.660Okay. Hey, you know, can you pull up a paper on this interesting mental health thing I was reading?
01:54:57.500Okay. But as far as providing therapy, that is a uniquely personal thing. And I would say even
01:55:06.520human beings, the more that they are emotionally removed and sterilized in their ability to
01:55:17.100express human expression, they are disproportionately able to provide therapy.
01:55:24.980You need another person who is able to relate to you in a human way to provide meaningful
01:55:35.040therapy and i i truly truly believe that of all the things that ai may be very very good at
01:55:42.720this is the one they are probably most inherently bad at doing is being not ai
01:55:54.080yeah i think it's a real misuse of that technology
01:55:56.560can you touch on how to overcome limiting beliefs in order to achieve more while staying realistic
01:56:08.000about who you are and where you're at in life alan well i think part of it is
01:56:19.220um setting realistic short-term goals seeing those sorts of things as victories
01:56:27.980um you know if your goal is to be able to pitch press 250 pounds
01:56:35.780um and you go to the gym and you the first lift you try is 250 pounds you're not going to get
01:56:43.560there and you're just it's going to be a permanent fail um but if you can get in there and bench
01:56:49.720press 50 pounds that's 50 more than you did last week and those sorts of incremental bit um
01:56:58.200incremental victories you just have to use as a you know cycle i don't like i think trick or
01:57:07.080manipulation um is the you know gives the wrong connotation for the most part but that's what
01:57:12.920you're doing is you're tricking your brain into feeling good about those small accomplishments
01:57:20.760you know like when i first started running wind sprints i couldn't run for a 30 minute set i had
01:57:27.640to do 10. you know but now i can do a 30 minute set of wind sprints and i'm you know so but i
01:57:33.480didn't get there starting off that way i just you know i did a little more every day um it's the
01:57:39.640same thing you know with this weight loss program i've been on you know i you know you have to think
01:57:48.040of it as not i'm going to lose like even though the overall goal may be to lose 50 pounds you
01:57:54.280don't lose 50 pounds you don't go from x to a 50 pound loss you lose a couple ounces a day
01:58:02.120you take in one notch of your belt and you can feel that psychological feedback that says man
01:58:09.880i'm actually doing something and um it's with it like and it's with every aspect the education you
01:58:19.320know you don't open the calculus textbook till you've been through algebra um and it you know
01:58:25.960and it builds on itself and those small victories will allow you to climb the hill you know you eat
01:58:30.520that elephant one bite at a time i want to chime in because i'm supposed to but i think you know
01:58:39.880alan touched on it beautifully the thing i'd say is don't set a top limit for yourself even if
01:58:45.640logically you know there is one that's fine have the ability to dream of of greatness but realize
01:58:54.520where you are. There is a either or thing to where people
01:59:01.180think you either need to be realistic. And when they say
01:59:04.120realistic, they mean pessimistic. Or you just need to
01:59:10.920have this blind optimism that's can ultimately be very defeating
01:59:16.400when life hits you in the face. But you can do both, you can
01:59:22.400realize where you are, pick attainable goals to work towards. And in the meantime, when you have
01:59:30.880time left over, work on that dream thing. If you want to be in the NBA, but you're a white dude,
01:59:38.160and you're 5'4", and you're, you know, not necessarily good at basketball, it's probably
01:59:44.260a hard thing, but go for it. In your free time, if that's what you want to do, train up, do those
01:59:49.980things but in the meantime pick something that you can do and put yourself towards that you can
01:59:57.740sure go for it i just said if you if your goal is to be in the nba you know work on your three
02:00:04.460pointer your three-point shot yeah i was you could also work on i don't know you can get a tan
02:00:13.340get really tan um but in complete seriousness the idea of picking some because i think that
02:00:23.420when we're talking here we're not being silly we're talking about actual things that you really
02:00:28.460really wish but are highly unlikely and that's okay dream having dreams that are unlikely
02:00:34.620is fine as long as you have a practical thing to do in the meantime
02:00:39.100and are not squandering your life on unrealistic things and hopefully it breaks for you and the
02:00:46.900more you put in the work the less unlikely it becomes but the thing about uh progressive
02:00:51.620overload is important that alan mentioned it's the foundation of all weight training
02:00:56.120milo of croton used to pick up a calf every day it was a newborn baby calf and he's like you know
02:01:05.300what, I'm going to pick this calf up every single day. And, you know, it's hard to conceive of that
02:01:12.340one day to where you were able to pick him up yesterday, but all of a sudden today, you can't
02:01:16.120pick him up. So it's hard to logically conceive of what that day is to where all of a sudden,
02:01:22.120why can't you pick up a bull? Milo did it, so that's a thing, but he did it by every day.
02:01:29.040This cow gets a little bit bigger, he goes, picks him up. What Alan said, if your goal is to bench
02:01:35.220250, you go in there and try to bench 250 and you've never bench pressed before, you're going
02:01:39.400to hurt yourself and you're going to feel defeated and feel like a loser. I'll tell you what, I do
02:01:45.180this. I got old man joints. So every time I start a new thing, if it's a bar exercise, I start with
02:01:51.500just the bar. Then I add 10 pounds. Then I add the 25s. Then I do the 25s with the 10s. Then I do the
02:02:00.58045s. And I'll do that on each set over however many weeks until I get to where my actual working
02:02:06.540weight is. And I've accustomed my joints and accustomed myself to know where I really am.
02:02:11.840And then you make progress from there. But recognizing, I mentioned this earlier with
02:02:16.620mental health, all of those dreams, all of those other things, what makes it work and healthy is
02:02:22.940having a real understanding of where you are currently. I wouldn't want to stifle anybody's
02:02:28.920ability to dream, but know where you are, and work with where you are, not where you
02:02:34.400wish you were. What advice would you give to parents who want to make sure they raise
02:02:42.820good kids who will be less likely to have some of the mental illness that affect modern
02:02:48.720society alan that's a tough one you know i think that it's much worse now would be much harder than
02:03:03.360even when i was raising my now uh you know 30 and 25 year old um both because the progressivist
02:03:14.800mindset has just inundated everything and even though it is objectively wrong you know it it
02:03:25.580seems to have latch hold on the mainstream now that being said I don't I think the I still think
02:03:33.260that the vast majority of white culture in the civilization is overwhelmingly conservative
02:03:42.740You know, we pretend otherwise and some people and just say it, you know, most a lot of women are caught up because they have the that overwhelming psychological need to fit in with with, you know, with the mainstream.
02:04:07.240But, you know, remember how you were raised.
02:04:12.740I mean, that's, you know, my dad made lots of mistakes.
02:05:20.700And discipline is not necessarily spanking your kids.
02:05:24.380Discipline just means if they mess up, there are consequences.
02:05:28.360And also, you just, you guide them along the path.
02:05:33.780You know, discipline also means that, you know, you remind them gently to start with as much as necessary, you know, about what is expected of them.
02:05:46.180And that's what, you know, so you can, you know, I think that, you know, if you if you talk to them as reasonable, I mean, as we as young people and don't baby them and helicopter over them and let them run a little bit, then they will manifest their manifest those standards and become pretty decent kids.
02:06:14.020minded so i mean praise the ice when it's crossed my daughter's five so keep that in mind when
02:06:24.660listening to my you know longer term parental advice but what i think is very very important is
02:06:33.780um giving them a sound home base to relate to to learn from to come back to
02:06:48.660getting them and so all of these things i shamelessly plug the afa is like the answer
02:06:55.380to all the world's problems but if i didn't believe that this is not where i'd be sitting
02:11:07.320There is a lot of promising research out there about microdosing psilocybin.
02:11:14.240That psilocybin has been shown to have lots of promise, regrowing nerve neurons in the brain, aiding in lots of traumatic situations, PTSD, it's been shown to be extremely helpful.
02:11:44.240at some point in personal um what what is it called irl when i'm i when i'm irl with some
02:11:54.400of you guys i will tell you some of the personal experience that i could i say personal experience
02:11:59.920i've read about i am familiar with personal experience with micro dosing um that is extremely
02:12:08.000helpful um and frankly i think that is one of the one of the worst negative extremalities of um
02:12:20.240of christian culture where any form of entheogen was um decried um you know because herbal stuff
02:12:34.400was all um you know outlawed by the church um so sorry that's a long wandering answer to the fact
02:12:44.960that uh yes swan don't ask glowy questions i think that's what the kids call them
02:12:54.240um so um I have no idea what the context was for the first half of the question as far as it being
02:13:05.460helpful um and I don't know if my thoughts on it relate to specifically micro dosing or to its use
02:13:14.880generally um but no I think it it has tremendous so uh to follow along with the law speakers you
02:13:23.760So caveat, Yost True Folk Assembly would never advise you to do anything that is legal in the jurisdiction that you find yourself in.
02:13:32.020But I just think as an objective just statement of truth, truth being one of our virtues, I think it's probably very beneficial to a lot of people.
02:13:38.620I don't know if it's beneficial to every person in every circumstance.
02:13:41.600stance. There is a tremendous benefit to be had from its proper use. But again, we would
02:13:50.720not advise you to do illegal activities in the jurisdiction that those activities are
02:13:55.780illegal. Yeah, I think the point that Alan made though about, and this is why I mentioned
02:14:10.000international audience not psilocybin specifically but a number of different hallucinogens are legal
02:14:16.400in mexico and we have a lot of soldiers that come back with a lot of problems that they're working
02:14:23.120through that go into mexico and south america to get those kind of therapies with tremendous
02:14:30.880results on things that they're going through so you know i think that what i'm saying is factually
02:14:36.320true again i'm not encouraging you to to do anything illegal uh we would certainly not
02:14:41.600encourage you to do that but as a statement of fact um those of you with kids do you think it
02:14:51.600might be smarter to not let them have a smartphone or a tablet until they're a bit older to avoid
02:14:57.120becoming addicted to this stuff or being influenced by wrong ideas alan express your thoughts on this
02:15:07.280surprisingly enough um yes i i agree to begin with as a matter of just coherent principle i think
02:15:18.880you should not let your kids have technology that that uh is past their age what that video
02:15:26.000what that book demonstrates what all the psychological studies show is and it and i
02:15:36.320I always use that phrasing advisedly, like I would never say, studies show that blah, blah, blah, without having looked at several of the studies.
02:15:45.200That guy's book, that video, said, and his advice as a psychiatrist practicing in the field is that no child under the age of 14 should get anywhere near a smartphone.
02:15:59.440They should, you know, if they need to call you, they can have a flip phone.
02:17:25.360I use electricity, but I don't plug my brain into it.
02:17:31.200Anyway, one of the things that I watched, there's a documentary out there,
02:17:39.660and I think it's called The Social Media or something along that line,
02:17:44.060But Meta or Facebook has teams of psychiatrists.
02:17:50.840They have hundreds of psychiatrists and psychologists whose whole life is dedicated to keeping people addicted to Facebook.
02:18:02.820And I don't care how strong or loose your supervision is.
02:18:09.740You know, you cannot supervise your kids enough against a team of 300 psychiatrists who are trying to keep them glued to that screen.
02:18:20.560So I, and again, it's easy for me to say, I guess, because I don't have kids that age, but everything, all the research shows that it is terrible, terrible, terrible to their own self-image to see.
02:18:37.660Because if you think about what Facebook is, what social media is, the thing that gets millions of likes, right, it's the one guy at the gym who can lift 800 pounds, okay?
02:18:51.380And so what kids then are subjected daily, hundreds of those images, thousands of those videos that show stuff they can't do, okay?
02:19:04.120So number one, it's detrimental, just the exposure of it in and of itself is detrimental to their psychology.
02:19:11.380Number two, and I hadn't thought about this until I watched that video, but it's the substitution effect.
02:19:18.300If your kid spends two hours scrolling around on Facebook or watching TikTok, that's two hours that they could be doing their own stuff.
02:19:26.740Drawing, learning an instrument, playing, pick up football somewhere.
02:22:46.560corrupting children by constant displaying of them everything that you would teach them is bad
02:22:58.020and the villainization of everything that you think is good um no i think that's really dangerous
02:23:06.740for kids. I understand at some point in their teenage years, there's some kind of a transition
02:23:14.300period where they are more able to handle that than other times. But if there were a way to
02:23:21.200forever shield my daughter from having to deal with social media, I would like to do it. And I
02:23:27.940realize that's probably not the world she's going to live in when she grows up and is an adult,
02:23:31.900But I'd like to protect her for it from it for as long as I can without making her, you know, incompatible with understanding how to navigate basic social functions.
02:23:44.200But, yeah, I think that. And again, the key being the interfacing with social media, that is a constant assault.
02:23:52.720Alan mentioned that they have teams of people to keep you psychologically addicted.
02:23:56.340and to hear that like oh that's crazy stuff that's you know that's just sinister you know
02:24:02.920evil villains in some cabal some it's easy to conceive of it that way but not really it doesn't
02:24:08.760have to be that sinister on the face of it that's what any marketing is but they happen to have the
02:24:14.220most addictive most dopamine reinforcing most highly manipulative form of marketing
02:24:23.260that they've ever had access to before i don't think they conceive of it as something evil
02:24:29.660but it is weaponized by opportunistic people in a profoundly
02:24:39.080overwhelming way and uh yeah i would really advise that you keep the kids off of
02:26:10.420very new people that don't know better often use the term Norse paganism
02:26:16.600more often than not people who use the term Norse paganism are
02:26:22.180I don't know what the nice term is progressives they tend to be people very far on the left
02:26:32.500that's my experience with the term Norse paganism again it's not every one of them
02:26:37.360because it's not literally false. It's just a term that has seemed to galvanize in those
02:26:42.720circles a bit more. Germanic heathenry is much more of a mixed bag on people that want to call
02:26:49.500themselves that. I think, again, it's not linguistically incorrect, but it diffuses what
02:26:59.060we're doing and it adds in a lot of confusion. I don't think it helps. And it, again, is defining
02:27:05.680things as they relate to something else, as opposed to us positively defining ourselves
02:27:12.740by our values and what we do. It's other people describing us as those people out on the heath
02:27:20.520doing their crazy stuff. Again, everybody probably has a reason why they do what they do. What I
02:27:28.860found a lot of the time is when people refuse to call it out so true, sometimes it's because they
02:27:34.340just want to be, you know, they don't want other people to tell them what to do. They're very
02:27:40.940individualistic and they don't want to conform and get on the team. And a lot of people do that
02:27:45.780for a variety of different reasons. And a lot of people have that kind of impulse hardwired in.
02:27:51.900What I will say is, as of the infamous White Babies Facebook post of 2017, I think 2016, actually, we have heard chatter at the time from a lot of the, from folks over in the troth and in other universalist left-wing pagan circles,
02:28:18.300that they were intentionally distancing themselves from the term Alcetru because it inherently was
02:28:24.640being used by folkish people and by people with our worldview, which is another strong reason for
02:28:30.680me to keep trying to get everybody to use the term Alcetru. Alan, do you have anything you'd
02:28:36.840like to add on that? No, I agree with you 100%. I know that we, you and I, quibble about some of
02:28:46.380other linguistic stuff but i agree 100 that austro is the brand if we could go back 50 years and
02:28:57.820pick a different word we might but you know but you know like but i'm good with it as you
02:29:07.580know as the descriptor for the narrower i think and and i think you described it correctly the
02:29:15.180you know but for focus he's the ring also true is the word um this is the way and we are the folk
02:29:26.460do you think making goals in life and working hard to achieve them is good for our mental health al
02:29:36.140unquestionably um and i think that make you know as corny as some of the stuff is
02:29:43.100i've actually seen research that shows making the little goal boards you know where you write up and
02:29:52.060say you know in one you know by june of 2026 i'll be able to bench press 400 pounds or whatever
02:30:00.140you're and you and you put little you know then you have a visible representation of that goal
02:30:04.940which is your eventual goal what which helps you make the thousand tiny steps that get you to that
02:30:11.980goal. Yes, setting goals engages and enforces discipline inside your little head in there
02:30:22.360and those kinds of things that build mental resilience so that, you know, because not
02:30:30.340every day is a good day and, you know, some days you make progress and some days you back
02:30:38.420up. But those days that you back up, you know, just bearing in mind the bigger goals will keep
02:30:44.500you all that can, you know, help you continue the mission. Yes. So absolutely making goals and
02:30:54.400accomplishing goals. That's been a theme of this program. It's something we strongly believe
02:30:59.000victory is really important and victory comes, you know, certainly in big sweeping victories that we
02:31:07.420all like to think about, but much more often, it comes in small victories daily, and that's
02:31:14.160extremely important. Building upon success is a surefire way to accomplish and to get further
02:31:20.760ahead than you are at present. Real accomplishment yields mental health, absolutely.
02:31:29.640So, must a heathen man always achieve? Must he always strive, struggle, accomplish,
02:31:36.740create? Are we ever allowed to rest on our laurels
02:32:03.700But even then, you know, there's a time to sprint and there's a time to take a breath.
02:32:11.180You know, maybe one analogy, and actually the first analogy that came to mind is, you know, as a mead brewer, you know, there are busy active days when I'm brewing and racking and bottling mead.
02:32:28.140And then there's days when all I'm doing is drinking some mead.
02:32:31.280So, yes, you are absolutely allowed to to take a break and revel in the glory that is your creation.
02:32:45.740So as an outsider, you're allowed to not achieve stuff.
02:32:57.180But you should always be achieving stuff.
02:33:00.120Sure, taking a moment to sit back and relax and have a drink is fine.
02:36:33.480Yes. Collective effervescence is why I'm here today. You know, I've told this story on here a number of times, but, you know, I procrastinated, put it off, didn't come to an AFA event for a long time. I was living up in Alaska. It was, you know, really long way away and all this other stuff.
02:36:52.280But I finally did in 2010. And it literally changed my life. You know, three days with the folk collectively united in trough to our gods, doing things together, spending time together in a community where I could be holistically who I was.
02:37:13.980I have and continue to work every day of my life to try to structure increasing amounts of my life
02:37:21.960to revolve around that instead of that being something that I just get once a year or whatever
02:37:28.020I want more and more and more because that's the authentic way that we ought to be living
02:37:34.440that's where you feel whole and healthy and good and the world seems right and so we're working
02:37:42.680hard to live that and to facilitate all of our folk coming home and living that. I absolutely
02:37:50.780think that's a key to success in life and mental well-being for individuals and for families and
02:37:59.500for all of us collectively. And I really like the term collective effervescence. I've never heard
02:38:05.320that before, but I think it's kind of a neat term and I'm going to start using it more.
02:38:08.840um did founder mcnalen create one of the noble virtues one of the nine noble virtues uh no i
02:38:18.660don't believe that he did scott um i believe those all uh nine of the noble virtues were
02:38:24.320created and codified by uh hoskold and stoba of the odenic right
02:38:30.400i think there are conclusions that many people came to in a number of different ways but i think
02:38:37.060they were codified as the nine noble virtues outside any influence of Steve McNallan.
02:38:45.500Could a lack of motivation be why some people are in the situation they're in?
02:38:51.600Because people couldn't just live in their mother's basement, they had to be more motivated.
02:39:04.940You know, men respond well, and I guess properly raised masculine men respond well to the type of challenge that men will issue to each other.0.99
02:39:30.320You know, as in, you know, not the long, rich-winded hand-wringing, you know, would you please try to not be such a lazy fat ass, but rather get up off your lazy fat ass and go do some stuff.0.99
02:39:49.380You know, that's how men talk to each other.0.99
02:39:53.240And, you know, if you well, if you think that's toxic, you're probably not watching this video, really.
02:40:03.740But the but, you know, yes, men should challenge each other to be better, be stronger, be more disciplined, because, yes, we rise to the challenge.
02:40:16.840And if you shrink from the challenge, we'll find somewhere else to be.
02:40:23.240Absolutely. And challenge and the judgment of your peers, your gods, and your ancestors
02:40:32.180should motivate us all to do things. Competition is a beautiful and amazing thing. It is not a
02:40:39.700toxic thing. You can find some kind of metastasized negative version of most good
02:40:49.180things if you're trying to pervert them but competition in its basic sense is a powerful
02:40:56.460motivator to achieve and to do things and amongst men it should inspire us all to be our best
02:41:03.820it doesn't have to be an angry or a grumpy thing at the person issuing the challenge
02:41:09.180we're all made better by trying to compete with the men around us to be the best we can be
02:41:15.900and ideally we inspire each other um that's happened in the afa in a number of times shoot
02:41:26.620that happened this morning this morning with alan alan we were dealing with some minor banking
02:41:32.540thing and i didn't return a call that i should have checked my messages on and i'm like no well
02:41:36.940they shouldn't have called me at six in the morning and i realized afterwards i'm like that
02:41:42.700was really lame hey alan i'm sorry about that i'll get that better next time because again when
02:41:47.180you're in the presence of other men you want to be your best um that happens a lot that i see all
02:41:55.340the time with with little stuff we come to to events and we see each other and we talk about
02:41:59.740things we've done or or you know things we've achieved and it inspires each of us to want to
02:42:06.620achieve more and to do more you know uh when you catch yourself slipping to where you're not living
02:42:13.340up to what other people are doing taking up the challenge to you know pick up your pace
02:42:21.980we should all do that from one another that is a gift that you give your brothers is giving
02:42:27.020them something to aspire to and setting down a a gauntlet for them to pick up you know
02:42:34.940setting setting a mark for them to try to surpass is something we owe each other and
02:42:42.540participating in that should bring us all up to a higher level and your mind should be such that
02:42:49.020you want to actively engage in that even if you don't always win the striving to win the motivation
02:42:55.100through competition and through challenge should be something that ennobles you not something that
02:43:00.300that cripples you or offends you um do you think the masculine archetype is suppressed
02:43:12.540in modern culture and leads to the sickness of the sickness of the masculine alan
02:43:20.620absolutely um you know which again is why
02:43:24.700so much of the answer um and keep saying it because we're promoting the brand but we you know
02:43:34.420the uh it is absolutely the fact that masculinity is uh wrongly decried in um in the current
02:43:44.040iteration of our so-called civilization but we and with cohort groups i mean it's certainly not
02:43:53.240just the afa but there are many groups out there that that are working to restore a proper model
02:44:00.760of masculinity you know there is a type of masculinity that goes too far that can be
02:44:09.240and that can be toxic but that's you know but that line has been drawn so far to the to the0.57
02:44:16.760uh left now that it's that it's ridiculous and i do think that's a big part of what is wrong with0.76
02:44:25.000civilization especially male the male part of the civilization is that
02:44:31.960proper models of manliness of decorum of uh
02:44:38.840gentlemanliness are all lumped in that category of toxic masculinity, and that's just wrong.
02:44:48.000It's wrongheaded to say every expression of manliness is toxic. And the people who believe
02:44:56.780that, unfortunately, are running the advertising agencies. They're running the
02:45:02.720entertainment industry. They're certainly running social media. They're running
02:45:09.280artificial intelligence models, which is why all those things are dangerous and subverting
02:45:17.900our right worldview. So, yes, all that and the cure, and it's absolutely a big cause
02:45:31.000of men, so that men who rightly want to express their masculinity are then suppressed and
02:45:42.520oppressed by the civilizational forces that want to deprive us of our right place in the
02:45:51.400world. So, yes, we are helping each other stand up and stand to the fore and make men
02:49:01.220I would be glad to talk to somebody if
02:49:02.960If somebody's actually going through something like that, I would be glad to try to help parse our way through, you know, what a reasonable traditionalist response would be.
02:49:14.720But, you know, I don't have anything packaged or glib about that.
02:49:19.740So, I think that the question, and I suppose there's a number of, I suppose there's a number
02:49:34.200of things. So, we have people that come home to Alcitru at different stages of their life.
02:49:41.160If you have a teenage child and your wife is not Alcitru, your child has not been raised Alcitru,
02:49:49.140and you're just coming home to Alcetru, I think you're more likely to find yourself in that
02:49:56.080situation than with a family that has been raised within the AFA, within, you know, the understanding
02:50:03.460of Alcetru since birth. Some of it comes in with a conception of, you know, what homosexuality is.
02:50:13.760In the Alcetru Folk Assembly, we don't believe that homosexuality is an inherent,
02:50:17.280like legitimate orientation. It is a very dangerous and destructive mental illness.0.99
02:50:28.860I think there are a lot of things that lead up to someone deciding to pursue a life of0.99
02:50:37.620homosexuality. Hopefully you would be able to see those things coming oriented through an
02:50:45.400to true context and be able to stave those things off but if you're in a mixed faith home with mixed
02:50:52.520values or you're coming at this later in life you have to play you know you have to play the ball
02:50:58.120where it lies and uh so that's an interesting question my answer and i know it's a it's a
02:51:05.880it's an evasion of the question is don't let that become the situation don't raise your child in
02:51:11.880such a way that your child doesn't come out as claiming to be gay or lesbian um
02:51:23.640and i'll further throw this out if you don't want your child to
02:51:29.480have that problem a really good first step is to
02:51:32.840be very cautious of their interaction with adult gays and lesbians specifically adult gay men
02:51:45.640are very disproportionately dangerous to children in that regard and it's not just me trying to
02:51:55.020take a shot at them I think it's really important point of guidance that whatever the world tries
02:52:01.940to tell you it's one of the things in this world that is propagated through vampirism to where0.98
02:52:12.860the homosexual man abuses children that then go on to become homosexual men and all too often0.96
02:52:21.560to also abuse children. Stopping that cycle and not letting that take root is a really,0.97
02:52:27.580really important factor in preventing that from occurring. A couple of different things. I think
02:52:38.060that if you find yourself in that spot and you're not able to implement the first part of my plan,
02:52:48.220you're limited in some of your options depending on choices that they make and things that they do.
02:52:52.540too. Men and women aren't the same. Gay men and lesbian women, while both suffering mental
02:53:03.020illness, it's not kind of the same thing. And women can make a lot more mistakes in
02:53:10.700that regard and still come back to a whole situation, whereas men cannot. And that's
02:53:18.420just an unfortunate truth that is. Hopefully, by the time they come out on that, they have not
02:53:29.460made choices with their life that they can't unmake. And yes, it includes, you know, certainly
02:53:35.420for men engaging in homosexual sex acts voluntarily, but also in the world we live in today,
02:53:41.500There's that constant drumbeat of the transgender thing and surgical and chemical situations that can forever damage people.
02:53:56.280So the earlier that you catch it, the better, trying to compassionately get them back in a state of good mental health to where they heal from whatever impulse makes them feel that that's their orientation, I think is important.
02:54:18.260I also think it's really important that you don't, out of an overabundance of feeling familial
02:54:28.760kindness, don't give them the impression that it's okay. That doesn't have to be done in a
02:54:36.500hateful or an uncaring way, but they need to see a firm resolve of like, no, this isn't okay. This
02:54:43.540is really bad and really unhealthy and I don't want this for you. I want to help you. How can I
02:54:49.400help you? You can be compassionate, but all too often there's this rush to acceptance to where
02:54:58.180out of a fear of hurting feelings, we legitimize destructive and dangerous paths for children
02:55:08.880in today's world, and I would advise you against doing that. If the best you can say was
02:55:14.900that you tried to stop it, and you stood firm in advising against it, and you did your best,
02:55:23.400that's a lot better than you bending and going along with it, still to have the same outcomes.
02:55:29.620at least you can be a touchstone of sanity and appropriate traditional things that
02:55:38.180perhaps they can look back to and learn from and that other people can see and take strength from.
02:55:43.480But that's a really unfortunate situation that I hope to never have to face. And I hope we can
02:55:51.220raise our kids healthy enough that they don't find themselves in that situation.
02:55:56.340I wish I had a better answer for it, and I don't.
02:56:05.660Does the AFA have an opinion on having an AI friend?0.75
02:56:10.960Yes, that's ridiculous on the face of it.
02:56:14.480You can't have friendship with something that isn't a being.0.98
03:09:54.420Apparently it's a term that has a meaning.
03:09:56.920The examples that it uses are real common sense things.
03:09:59.980I didn't know there was a special nomenclature for it, so I have no opinion on predictive
03:10:04.340reasoning because I've never encountered the term before.
03:10:07.920i trust that alan is steering you straight on that and uh i will i will acquiesce your thoughts on it
03:10:20.080that's the definition i thought so all right um and last question
03:10:27.280what if your child grows up and wants to marry a man or woman of another race alan what say you
03:10:37.920Again, I am quite certain that I will not have that issue to deal with.
03:10:45.540Personally, I can say that if it were to happen, there would be a, I don't know what the term is for divorcing your child, but that's what the story is there.
03:11:07.920Yeah. Again, I can imagine we live in such a transitional time to where some people are
03:11:20.480coming into this with grown children already. Some people are coming into this with, you know,
03:11:29.840maybe even adult children that have already made that choice.
03:11:32.960um the question you ask is kind of a personal one and I think it implies advice to others but
03:11:41.400the first answer and this is kind of like the gay question
03:11:46.960if I've done my job right that's not going to happen
03:11:51.320that's no guarantee that I will have done my job right but I think that's all of our hope and all
03:11:57.900of our mission that if we raise our child correctly they won't be in a circumstance
03:12:01.700where that's a decision they decide to make.
03:12:06.080But if that is the decision they decide to make,
03:12:09.800we have an obligation to stand on things that we actually believe in
03:12:14.440and not compromise them when they happen to hit close to home.
03:12:20.760And I think that's a problem a lot of people have
03:12:23.300because they believe they're serious about something,
03:12:27.100they pledge their seriousness to something,
03:12:29.340But then all of a sudden. It's a whole different story when it's close to home and their fundamental values change and all of a sudden, you know, up is down and left is right and they shift who they are.
03:12:43.940Don't do that. That's wrong. And when your children realize the error of their ways.
03:12:50.840there is one scenario where they'll be able to look back on you with respect for standing
03:12:56.940strong for what you believe in, and another where they won't.
03:13:03.300And respect isn't always them agreeing or acquiescing, but it has a value.
03:13:09.780um no if if my child decided that they wanted to do that i would do my very best to dissuade them
03:13:20.860from that very misguided notion um i certainly would not attend that wedding or participate
03:13:28.120in that union in any way uh and i would do everything i can i could to prevent that from
03:13:34.660occurring because that's that is an extreme travesty for our folk for a family's all of
03:13:48.820their lineage going back to the dawn of our people and that's a terrible transgression against our
03:13:56.080folk and our gods and I really like I said I'm mortified at the thought that that might occur
03:14:04.040and I would do everything I could to try to dissuade them from making such a very poor choice.
03:14:15.160All right, so I appreciate everybody with your questions this evening.
03:14:22.040I said we had two more left tonight, and I didn't know about how long we're going to run
03:14:25.640that out for the law speaker. Alan, do you want to take one more?
03:14:28.200Only because this last question is something that I feel like I'm qualified to speak to.
03:14:34.840All right. This is the final one. No take backsies. What would you do if you're nervous
03:14:42.440to give a best man speech at your brother's wedding in three months? Go for it, Alan.
03:14:51.240Okay. I know that not everyone is comfortable public speaking, and I know that that's one of the greatest fears that a lot of people have.
03:15:03.680That being said, it's your brother's wedding. Him, his bride, your family, her family are going to be very forgiving of any stumbling that you do.
03:15:21.240like and you know because they're nervous too it's a time of high stress high chaos
03:15:29.160so they're going to be okay with a little bit of fumbling around so you know i would say
03:15:39.160don't be nervous but you're going to be nervous okay but it's going to be okay number one number
03:15:45.240two the other big thing and this is the big thing is practice okay think of your speech ahead of time
03:15:53.960write it all down word for word however long you want it however long you want it to be
03:16:01.800and every day driving to work every day driving home over in the shower while you're shaving
03:16:09.560over and over and over again rehearse that speech because then when you stand up all you have to do
03:16:16.760is go i'm a little bit nervous but i hope you guys are going to be okay with the things that0.98
03:16:24.360i have to say about my brother and what a jerk he is and you know although he's kind of a good guy0.95
03:16:29.960and you know and then you just let it flow you come you know write your speech from the heart1.00