Asatru Folk Assembly - 6⧸25⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 155 - Mental Health

00:00:00.000 Transcribed by ESO, translated by —

00:00:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:01:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:02:00.000 We'll be right back.

00:02:30.000 Thank you.

00:03:00.000 Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's edition of Victory Never Sleeps, featuring

00:03:14.080 adulting with Alan. That guy over there is Alan. We are also joined by a special co-host.

00:03:25.180 uh this is ditto i did not name him um but uh recently my wife and i adopted a

00:03:36.180 elderly dog he uh his owner passed away and

00:03:40.940 he's 13 and i think that's about their life expectancy but he's a pretty cool guy and wanted

00:03:49.780 have him spend the rest of his time with people and not in animal control. So see how long we

00:03:59.140 got with him. He's pretty cool. He's a good dog so far. And he is like attached to me. So he's

00:04:05.060 probably going to be a fixture. Stuff since last time. Top of the show things. Be aware if you can.

00:04:17.160 this weekend is midsummer at Odinshoff in Brownsville, California.

00:04:22.620 I will be headed up tomorrow afternoon myself.

00:04:26.820 We've got people flying in from across the country to be there.

00:04:30.900 This one's going to be a big one.

00:04:32.280 We're celebrating 30 years of the Ask True Folk Assembly.

00:04:36.580 It's going to be a fantastic weekend, and we would love to share it with you guys.

00:04:40.120 So if you're able to get yourself to Brownsville, California this weekend,

00:04:44.560 we would love to celebrate midsummer with you. 0.98

00:04:46.340 Coming up just one month later, we have Sigger Bloat at Sigger Haim. 0.94

00:04:52.880 That's in Jackson County, Tennessee. 0.97

00:04:55.760 It's coming up on July the 25th through the 27th.

00:05:04.280 Hopefully, Alan, you going to be there for that one?

00:05:09.880 I don't think Alan is.

00:05:11.520 I will be there.

00:05:12.540 Nick will be there.

00:05:14.020 Okay, Alan is.

00:05:14.920 You'll be there.

00:05:15.420 I don't know why my mic's.

00:05:16.280 muted hold on a second okay i don't know why my mic's not acting up god dang it probably nick

00:05:25.400 cast an evil on you so are you going to be there law speaker

00:05:29.800 excellent then we look forward to seeing uh law speaker alan turnage i will be there our producer

00:05:35.400 nick will be there ditto will not be there and we would love to see the rest of you guys there

00:05:41.560 if you can make it it's in jackson county tennessee we would love to share a beautiful

00:05:49.080 and amazing piece of property that will be the home of tiershoff as well as the afa capital in

00:05:54.200 the coming years um it's a very special place it's also where we have the magnificent statues

00:06:02.120 of our founder stephen mcnallan and his lovely wife githya sheila mcnallan um so yeah come by

00:06:09.960 check it out celebrate victory with us um other stuff one month following that in the month of

00:06:17.960 august we have fray faxy at baldershoff so if you can make it to that one that is in murdoch

00:06:24.680 minnesota we'd love to see you guys there uh it's august 22nd through the 24th any or all of these

00:06:31.640 you can get in touch with any of our folk builders they will get you squared away um i would love to

00:06:38.120 see you at any or all these and i'll say this um the every few years it goes by every time we get

00:06:52.920 a new hof we get a little bit closer to every one of you guys but for those of you that this

00:06:59.720 a 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 1.00

00:07:09.680 people lament their great distance they've gone to go to an AFA event. I very often hear that it's

00:07:15.920 life-changing, that it's amazing, that it's, you know, something that they really needed in their

00:07:21.220 life. And that certainly was the case with me. If I had not gone to midsummer in, at that time,

00:07:31.040 Alta, California in 2010, I would very likely not be here today. It was a really, it really was

00:07:39.140 life-changing. And these truly can be. And I would like everyone out there to get a chance to

00:07:43.880 experience that. So if you can, come on out. Other stuff, top of the show. G.W. Farnsworth,

00:07:52.320 as always, starts us off with the spirit of generosity, donating $30 to VNS and $20 to

00:08:00.760 Towards the Baldur's Hof Steeple. Thank you, as always. We appreciate you very, very much.

00:08:07.320 And another amazing donor, Matthew Bean, decided to donate $50 to VNS.

00:08:14.980 He says, hail the gods, hail the folk, hail the AFA, and see you all at Midsommar.

00:08:19.820 Looking forward to seeing you there in just a couple of days.

00:08:24.620 So that's what we have off the top, but I'd also like to update you on something else.

00:08:30.500 So you guys have helped out on my steady push for fundraising to get your top paid off.

00:08:40.840 Thank you all so much for that. That has been paid off.

00:08:44.840 And as promised, we hit the ground running on trying to figure out Frazehoff.

00:08:50.480 I spoke with the Ericsons today, Witten Erickson and his wife, Githia Katie Erickson.

00:08:58.140 they are you know the point people for that project it is going to be very close to them

00:09:04.860 and they will be officiating that hoff um again we're trying to get it in either western

00:09:12.220 pennsylvania or eastern ohio the search is on we have um done walkthroughs on two different

00:09:22.620 properties so far there's another walkthrough planned shortly we are eagerly working on that

00:09:29.100 and we have started to raise money for the down payment um that's the next order of business on

00:09:36.540 this finding that piece of property and then having a down payment and getting uh getting

00:09:42.860 in contract on that so we're working hard on it we need to raise some money for that we've

00:09:47.660 currently sitting at one thousand eight hundred and one dollar right now anybody who can help us

00:09:54.620 with that we would appreciate it it will help us get there quicker um you guys are amazing generosity

00:10:02.060 has enabled us to do some truly amazing things so thank you guys and if you're interested um

00:10:08.700 runestone.org you can donate towards the war chest we are building to get that off gone

00:10:17.660 And 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.

00:10:30.160 So, Alan, take it away.

00:10:33.180 I guess I should do the mic check. Am I working? Am I live now?

00:10:36.780 You are.

00:10:37.480 Okay. 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.

00:10:54.600 And so, again, I appreciate you having me on.

00:10:58.640 I always like to introduce the topics of adulting with a couple of disclaimers and explanations.

00:11:09.320 First, like I'll tell you, he said, I appreciate y'all's attention and questions and discussion.

00:11:19.040 I 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.

00:11:29.580 And I'm always glad that's what my my position here with the folk and I am proud to serve.

00:11:37.020 If 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.

00:11:54.000 You know, I've seen more stuff than farmer's insurance.

00:11:59.520 So I know a few things.

00:12:00.960 So, and then the disclaimer, tonight's episode is not designed to treat anything specific.

00:12:11.660 If 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.

00:12:27.320 Um, 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.

00:12:52.420 So, 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.

00:13:15.980 But, 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.

00:13:28.620 You 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.

00:13:37.480 And so he gives you a different pill, the counteractual side effects.

00:13:40.080 And 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.

00:13:53.420 And that is where I think a lot of all of us, myself included for a while, have lost a lot of focus.

00:14:03.540 I think that the better plan is wellness, and that's why one of the first topics that we did here was talking about diet.

00:14:19.440 And 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.

00:14:34.820 whole 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

00:15:04.820 In 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.

00:15:20.180 I think the ideal place for mental health, where you're most healthy mentally, the Greeks, our Southern Aryan folks, had a term called eudaimonia.

00:15:39.180 Eudaimonia. 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.

00:16:00.840 eudaimonia i'm not greek i apologize for butchering their pronunciation but the shorthand

00:16:08.760 version that i heard several years ago but could not find repeated in any of those videos

00:16:13.640 is that eudaimonia which means accord with the soul wellness of the soul um eudaimonia is proper

00:16:23.720 action in accord with virtue and so we tend to think of happiness in really what more

00:16:36.120 in a narrower definition should be called joy or elation those those sorts of terms are more

00:16:44.120 fitting for what we what we tend to categorize in the um in the word happiness um it's not just

00:16:53.480 big brother who has done such a great job of dumbing down the language we don't parse out

00:16:59.720 these terms like we should we think of all of these things all those terms that i've been talking about

00:17:04.100 fall under that general word of happiness you know plus good happiness and um but they're not

00:17:11.880 all the same thing. And so when we are modeling good mental health, we should be

00:17:19.720 thinking of aligning our activities and our mental activities with what is good for us,

00:17:30.600 what we know to be good for ourselves and for our people. Sometimes that means that we have

00:17:37.840 to work a little more than we would really want to. It means that we have to sacrifice some things

00:17:42.900 so that we can have nice Hoffs. We have to give up money or give up time so that we can go and visit

00:17:48.660 and be with folk both because we need their company. When I go to the Hoff here at New York's

00:17:59.380 Hoff, sometimes I have to drag myself down there, but I'm always happy to see all those beautiful

00:18:06.120 people with whom I share so much, not only in personal belief in the gods, but just in the

00:18:15.320 worldview that we share. And even on those days that I feel like I don't want to go because I

00:18:24.060 don't need them, but they need me. And that's a good thing, you know, that we need each other.

00:18:30.320 And 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.

00:18:54.100 We 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.

00:19:06.120 I mean, it's one thing to live in an apartment building with 100 people you don't know.

00:19:10.480 It's quite different in the, you know, not that long ago when we lived close by hundreds of people that we knew intimately.

00:19:19.620 And those kind of intimate relations are healthy for us.

00:19:25.140 They are healthy for all the people around us.

00:19:27.460 The 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.

00:19:41.740 but those few hundred people if you know them well and integrate well with them that again

00:19:50.700 forms that whole person you can become parts of a whole by integrating into a society like that and

00:20:03.180 that's sort of been the good and bad of the internet because the internet has exacerbated

00:20:10.860 most 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.

00:20:33.060 On the other hand, the Internet brings us this show.

00:20:36.680 So I recognize the irony or paradox.

00:20:41.880 I get those confused about the about knocking the Internet on the Internet.

00:20:51.660 I 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.

00:21:02.100 Videodrome, that's that reference, that old James Woods movie, very prophetic.

00:21:10.800 So, but again, what we want to try to strive for is health, mental health, and some of

00:21:26.340 Those things that, again, sort of all fit together with these things is actual engagement in your life and in all aspects of your life.

00:21:39.320 Mindfulness is the general overarching term for that.

00:21:42.940 I 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.

00:22:03.360 zoning out while you're driving or waiting for stuff and you know there's

00:22:12.880 learning to live in a place where your mind is on autopilot too much of the

00:22:18.300 time is an unhealthy way to you know your mental health deteriorates your

00:22:25.780 brains like any other muscle you have to use it in order for it to continue to

00:22:30.580 work well, in my opinion. And the Greeks, of course, talked about the, they originated that

00:22:40.080 term that we, that so many of us know, a healthy mind and a healthy body. And it is certainly true

00:22:46.680 that exercise has been shown to be one of the very best, the very best antidotes for

00:22:57.200 deterioration of mental health because not only do you

00:23:01.280 feel better when you've been working

00:23:05.440 your muscles, the blood as it circulates

00:23:08.260 in an accelerated way based on your exercise

00:23:12.820 clears the brain of a lot of the detritus that can in turn lead

00:23:17.480 to dementia and even slow-wittedness.

00:23:20.600 um and um and so the healthier your brain is the healthy sorry the other way around

00:23:32.400 but both are true the healthier your body is the healthier your brain is going to be

00:23:36.380 um so the

00:23:41.640 and there are lots of different frames that i uh have read over and over again in different

00:23:49.820 ways of looking at the different ways that different doctors and different

00:23:55.600 schools have parsed out how the aspects of healthy person in it like a healthy

00:24:03.580 mind what that looks like one summary this one talked about that I like talked

00:24:11.420 about the four pillars of a healthy mind one of which is awareness and again that

00:24:17.660 is another way of saying mindfulness. I think

00:24:21.100 having studied this a good bit and

00:24:25.000 been engaged in an active meditation process for 15 years now,

00:24:30.000 I think that has helped me

00:24:32.160 integrate my awareness into the

00:24:37.420 hundreds and hundreds of different small aspects of things.

00:24:42.140 I think the stoic idea has a lot,

00:24:45.160 uh says a lot for again how to how you react it's not what happens it's how you react to it

00:24:53.400 i used to be an extremely impatient waiter i could not stand in a line for more than a couple

00:25:00.840 of minutes without drumming my fingers and you know sighing deeply and expressing that impatience

00:25:08.600 in a way that probably made it uncomfortable for certainly anyone i was actually with but

00:25:13.720 but the people around me, you know, but I learned eventually for most part that stuff that's out of

00:25:20.180 your control, it doesn't help your mental health, doesn't help the people around you to

00:25:26.940 stand around and look disgusted. Things take as long as they take. If you're standing in line at

00:25:33.080 the post office, this is an example from a couple of days ago, standing in line at the post office,

00:25:37.100 The people have other things to do. They're trying to get stuff done.

00:25:44.420 And I and I was but I was I waited very calmly, very patiently.

00:25:48.500 And it was and it's that's a new characteristic for me just in the last dozen years or so.

00:25:54.840 And I think it helps me stay healthy because me being impatient doesn't make the line move any faster.

00:26:00.920 And in fact, it can lead to the opposite result.

00:26:02.860 So 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.

00:26:32.860 Um, because if you think about the way that the sun arcs through the sky in the early morning, the sun is not directly overhead.

00:26:40.300 Um, so using overhead lights at six o'clock in the morning gives your brain the wrong kind of signal.

00:26:46.180 It puts you into the wrong part of the day.

00:26:49.340 And then you go out to drive to work, if you're like most of us slobs.

00:26:54.660 And, 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.

00:27:02.860 And then you get in the car, and it's dark again.

00:27:05.140 Then you get to work, and it's bright light again, and it just confuses your circadian rhythm.

00:27:09.720 And what we've learned is that the body and the brain is a mechanism that is attuned to all of its surroundings.

00:27:24.540 and all these thousands and thousands of signals that you give your brain um if you're they should

00:27:30.780 synchronize with the world um and certainly that's a point to say that we and i know matt

00:27:40.380 doesn't like the word heathens but we we uh pagans um like the uh we believe that the world is good

00:27:50.700 and that being in the world is good and being in this world is a place of joy and happiness

00:27:58.300 so we should integrate properly into it and not try to bend the world we do bend the world to

00:28:04.460 our purpose but some things you can't do like you can't make the guy at the post office work any

00:28:10.620 faster. So that's the time to be reflective and patient. Next step here is to have interpersonal

00:28:20.320 connection. I've already talked about that some, but I can tell you that skipping it. Okay. Let me

00:28:32.160 talk about point three first, which is insight. This author and I think that they had a lot of

00:28:39.100 good things to say, which is why I'm using their four-point bulletin here. Insight into yourself.

00:28:47.380 Spend some time in reflection, both in meditation, which I think is an important thing for everyone

00:28:53.460 to do. It has certainly improved my mental health and outlook. I strongly advocate that, again.

00:29:00.940 But to have insight into yourself, recognize in yourself the things that need to be adjusted.

00:29:14.140 Like if you are an impatient person, if you're a person who is too loud, too aggressive, tone that down. 0.86

00:29:21.960 If 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.

00:29:33.760 Think about yourself and think about these interactions that you have with people. 0.73

00:29:37.600 Be reflective about the way that you live your life.

00:29:42.480 Generate insight into the way that you are and to the way that you are around the people that you're around.

00:29:47.300 And 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.

00:30:03.940 But 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.

00:30:23.240 I have a job and kids and all that stuff, all of which also give me purpose.

00:30:34.820 but again going back to the evolutionary aspect of human civilization it wasn't all that long

00:30:45.220 ago where you know the purpose of your village was to protect the village the purpose of your

00:30:49.780 men was to protect the women the purpose of your women was to look out and care for your men and

00:30:55.460 And the kids.

00:30:56.800 So people were integrated into a whole, holistic, holy society and civilization.

00:31:06.160 And we've lost so much of that through liberalism.

00:31:09.960 I 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.

00:31:26.180 but mental instability people don't know who they are where they are i coined the term the tyranny

00:31:36.340 of choice if you think you can be anything then it's you know it's it's really too much pressure

00:31:43.380 you can't um you know you can be anything within your limitations you can be you can be an excellent

00:31:50.980 tradesman and that's and that's perfectly fine you can be part of an integrated holistic whole

00:31:57.220 civilization and you don't have to be the president or the hero you can be

00:32:06.500 that cog in the machine which i feel like i am a lot of ways you can be that person who moves the

00:32:12.100 ball you know 20 bucks 50 bucks uh to vns helps helps us keep our mission moving um

00:32:23.860 showing up to things encouraging other people to show up to things that keeps us on our mission

00:32:28.260 and it gives us purpose and keeps our minds healthy keeps our souls healthy your um the

00:32:35.540 the germanic worldview is that your mind your memory your uh body also are aspects of your soul

00:32:47.540 and your uh and when you can integrate all those parts of your soul into a into a

00:32:57.220 i shouldn't use the same when you integrated all into an integrated way of doing things

00:33:01.860 It, 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.

00:33:17.700 That'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.

00:33:40.780 And 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.

00:34:02.120 You know, you're trying to believe, not us for the most part, but our civilization is trying to believe things that are not true.

00:34:15.540 You know, a person who's born a female can be a man. 0.59

00:34:20.220 A person who was born a male can menstruate.

00:34:22.720 I 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.

00:34:40.320 and we know we know for certain that those things are not true but if you're trying to be

00:34:47.680 a person who integrates well into mainstream civilization which i gave up a long time ago

00:34:55.580 but if you're trying to integrate into into the mainstream

00:34:58.760 and you're being fed those lies you know it's the emperor's new clothes you can see that the

00:35:08.140 emperor is naked, even though everyone around you is, you know, is admiring the emperor's

00:35:12.940 wonderful clothes. And I think that's the perfect analogy for where our civilization is in a lot of

00:35:17.640 aspects. That being said, I don't think that's true of most of the people in the AFA. I think

00:35:27.140 being around other strong, like-minded, right-minded people gives you the courage,

00:35:34.220 It's certainly given me the courage to stand up to that tyranny of lies that are told to us in those ways.

00:35:49.300 There are some things that are metaphysical certainties that we know to be true.

00:35:56.000 And when mainstream civilization tries to tell us something else, it takes a lot of courage to swim upstream, to swim against the tide.

00:36:03.480 And 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.

00:36:18.380 I think another aspect of that certainly does fall in with diet.

00:36:25.340 Actually, since we did a show about diet, I've been doing some additional research there.

00:36:29.620 And one of the things that recent research demonstrates is that the lower intestine actually generates a big part of your serotonin.

00:36:42.440 And serotonin is kind of the calmness integration hormone that when your serotonin machine is working correctly, it helps you feel good.

00:36:59.320 you just feel better about life and i think that's one and one of the things that is wrong

00:37:03.960 with the modern diet is when you're eating processed foods that lower gut bacteria

00:37:11.960 does not get enough nutrition to generate serotonin and the other happy drugs okay

00:37:20.440 happy hormones they're not drugs um so eating uh too much processed food eating fast foods

00:37:32.280 being bad to your gut health it that's one of the you know that's one of the things that keeps you

00:37:40.440 in a dismal disaffected sluggish state of mind and dietary change is one of

00:37:49.400 things takes a long time to start to feel the impact

00:37:52.360 but having now lived on a healthy diet for six years or so

00:37:59.160 it's worth it it's worth it a thousand times over

00:38:03.000 um so

00:38:08.440 Oh, 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.

00:38:28.020 and I just

00:38:32.380 read most of the book

00:38:35.160 I was sort of aware of most of it

00:38:38.120 called The Anxious Generation

00:38:41.800 and there are some TED Talks out there on YouTube

00:38:46.140 that video there

00:38:49.980 has a great summary of the book

00:38:53.200 this guy Joseph Haight, Jonathan Haight

00:38:55.880 has done thousands of hours of research into what is wrong with our children.

00:39:04.340 And the unquestionable conclusion is that what's wrong with children is too much exposure to social media.

00:39:15.140 The argument is subtle, but the statistics don't lie.

00:39:21.960 He 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.

00:39:46.640 But their depression rate started to climb astronomically.

00:39:54.360 The suicide rate for young children, 10, 12 years old, began to climb astronomically.

00:40:00.940 And if you look at the graphs on that video and in the book, you know, it's no accident for, make sure.

00:40:09.260 Like for hundreds of years, those rates were fairly current.

00:40:14.360 Depression rates, suicide rates for young children and teenagers were very slow.

00:40:19.840 And then you hit this inflection point where it goes up and is rising steadily.

00:40:25.520 And it's because girls especially, boys to a lesser extent with different problems,

00:40:32.520 are exposed to constant badgering by predators, number one.

00:40:40.220 and also by the constant message that they are not good enough and like for most guys we can 0.99

00:40:47.340 absorb a little bit of that but girls because their brains are different too and work differently 0.94

00:40:56.220 and respond differently to those sorts of stimuli girls especially are when they get exposed to that 1.00

00:41:03.900 toxic sort of media that the toxic ideas that are that permeate social culture they get in that

00:41:13.820 headspace where they think they're not good enough they're not smart enough they're not pretty they're

00:41:17.900 too fat and so all these things that manifest themselves as social anxiety have skyrocketed

00:41:27.580 boys have sort of the different problem of then being able to because the internet they

00:41:36.280 gravitated into this gamer culture where again it's toxic in a different sort of way

00:41:42.560 I know he talks less about that because the boys suicide rate although climbing is not

00:41:53.020 climbing as quickly as um as the way that the girls are but they have a different sort of

00:42:00.060 toxicity that goes on when you're you know when the only social interaction that you have

00:42:06.220 is with a headset and a screen it's terrible terrible terrible for children um

00:42:13.980 he makes some recommendations which i'll let you watch in the video

00:42:17.260 which I thank the gods that I got my kids through and raised for the most part before this became so pervasive in the culture. 0.93

00:42:28.060 I certainly would have had a lot of very strained arguments with the now ex-wife. 1.00

00:42:35.680 And I mean, it was bad enough them just having video games and spending too much time on the computer.

00:42:40.460 but i can't imagine um how difficult it would be in the um in the modern era kids on uh who

00:42:54.060 are raised on social media don't ever develop the interpersonal skills and it's and it's simple

00:42:59.260 stuff and to hear it defined in that video um you know like learning how to take turns okay that's

00:43:06.060 That's something that you have to learn when you're playing sports or when you're actually out interacting in the world.

00:43:13.440 You don't have to do that when you're one-on-one with your screen time.

00:43:18.420 Learning how to resolve interpersonal conflict.

00:43:21.680 Those are the sorts of things that you only learn by playing and doing other stuff with kids.

00:43:27.460 And, of course, the toxic school culture.

00:43:31.040 I have to skip most of that because I started getting all my own tirade there.

00:43:36.060 And for you guys, and so many of you that are taking advantage of the Oscar Academy, God's bless you.

00:43:43.880 It is a, you know, it is because the, because the, the curriculum in the modern schools is a joke.

00:43:58.900 Joseph 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.

00:44:10.800 And they've tried to dumb it down because, you know, no child left behind just means no child gets ahead. 0.98

00:44:17.360 You 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

00:44:24.120 they then are bored and it's all tedium for them and so they get frustrated and act out 0.77

00:44:32.440 in all the ways that we see modern culture deteriorating uh that's a lot more of a splurge

00:44:43.160 that's a lot more of a monologue than i really wanted to run at the first of it

00:44:46.600 Wanted to open up to some questions and Matt, some comment from you, but that's.

00:44:53.480 Didn't want to stop you.

00:44:55.000 You were unrolling.

00:44:56.100 You had a lot of things that you wanted to get out there and introduce.

00:44:59.820 And I was making a list of kind of things that I wanted to.

00:45:06.200 I don't know, maybe add my two cents on or say a little bit more on.

00:45:10.480 and I suppose and we do have some questions and we have a lively chat room and there's a lot of

00:45:20.060 things going on so I don't really know all right I'll start at the beginning I could have I may

00:45:28.000 rethink it and think I should have started at the end but I think you guys can figure it out

00:45:34.000 first and foremost though um ronald blake donated five coffees and 25 to the vns fund

00:45:41.920 thank you very much we appreciate it and it's good to see you back so

00:45:52.560 a couple of things now alan put out a disclaimer at the beginning i'm going to add on that a little

00:45:58.080 bit. I think it is very, very important for us to be honest and realistic in our approach to things.

00:46:14.240 I don't have a great deal of trust in a lot of current Western medical practice in a lot of

00:46:22.200 ways. I come at it probably from a different place than Alan, probably from a different

00:46:27.500 place than a lot of people but i think so many things and especially when we get into the realm

00:46:34.780 of mental health have been so fundamentally influenced by

00:46:46.940 woke political currents but when i say that that gets an idea in your mind of stuff since like 2013

00:46:53.180 but an overall pervading, degenerate, wrongheadedness, you know, for a very, very long time in a lot of ways.

00:47:05.060 There are certainly things out there that are worthy of being concerned about,

00:47:09.840 but there's also people out there doing a great job and helping a lot of people in the mental health industry.

00:47:16.880 Sure, be picky, pick and choose, find somebody in keeping with your values,

00:47:21.700 that may be harder than we would like it to be but there are people out there that the first step

00:47:32.980 they need to get some drastic professional intervention there's people who are struggling

00:47:39.220 with the mental constraints that i think we all feel to one degree or another that maybe they're

00:47:45.620 losing that battle at present. And then there are deeply, deeply damaged people that need medical

00:47:54.740 intervention immediately. If you are one of those people, don't be ashamed, get some medical help.

00:47:59.940 If you're, if you're crazy, let's get it fixed. There's some triage things, there's some people 0.94

00:48:07.380 that are so far gone, they need to get stabilized before they can start fixing the things that need

00:48:13.940 to get fixed don't be ashamed of that the other thing is medical drugs everybody's over on the

00:48:18.900 side we have everybody has different thoughts and feelings about that i don't think any of us can say

00:48:24.660 that we don't have a problem in this country with people being over or miss medicated with

00:48:32.340 mood altering pharmaceuticals that is a big problem but there's also people that get benefit

00:48:39.460 out of it i what i would say is a lot of the time conceptually i'm more comfortable with um

00:48:49.780 those kind of things as a short term get you through a rough spot things than as a lifestyle

00:48:55.780 choice but again alan nor myself are doctors there's a lot of stuff out there important thing

00:49:05.460 to say is if you need help get help if that help involves something that the purity spiral crowd

00:49:19.380 doesn't like you still need to get help and so don't let perfect be the enemy good

00:49:28.500 and one of the other things and this is kind of looping on to some stuff that we talked about in

00:49:34.100 the physical health episode. There are a lot of right answers. There are a lot of different things

00:49:42.260 that work. There's a lot of things that work for different folks, but the important thing is that

00:49:48.340 you move from a state of sub-optimal mental health to a more optimal state of mental health.

00:49:57.700 Get there. Let's work together to get each other there and help each other get there.

00:50:01.540 don't obsess that's one of the I've seen that with a lot of the things and this also relates 0.76

00:50:08.280 to the physical health thing you get these jumbo fatties that you know all stressed out because

00:50:16.500 they don't want to get any of the more radical fat loss interventions no I don't think the healthy

00:50:22.840 way to lose weight is getting a lap band I don't think the healthy way to lose weight is ozempic

00:50:28.060 But I think being obese is more unhealthy than both of those.

00:50:33.460 So 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.

00:50:42.820 All that to say, another thing that Alan mentioned that I think is very, very legitimate in the world that we live in,

00:50:51.480 And 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.

00:51:09.460 If, 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.

00:51:31.440 So, focus on something, try to get some help, and work towards it.

00:51:42.220 Now, this goes into the bigger thing that Alan talked about that I think is really important.

00:51:48.300 To be healthy is to be whole.

00:51:51.280 He talked about the linguistics of it and the concept, and we've talked about it very frequently on this program.

00:52:00.260 but it really means just what it says. That means you have a lot of different avenues.

00:52:09.320 If it's hard to get exercise, you can still fix your diet. You can still work on what you're

00:52:17.820 reading and what you're intaking. You can still work on your sleep schedule. If you can't fix

00:52:22.680 your sleep schedule or you've convinced yourself it's not something you want to do. Cool. Well,

00:52:27.740 have you worked on your set of friends? Have you gone out there? Have you, you know, increased your

00:52:32.760 prayer and offering practice? Have you engaged with community? There's all of these things

00:52:38.980 that we could all work on that will have a synergetic effect on all of the rest of our

00:52:45.080 health, including our mental health. People in the chat room have mentioned this, but it's very true.

00:52:50.380 doing exercise getting your physical health under control has a tremendous effect upon your mental

00:53:01.020 health in a variety of ways chemically with the hormones it releases with the endorphins and the

00:53:07.960 other make you feel good things that it does but also you know you're doing something good you know

00:53:14.240 you're making progress on something that you can chart and see progress on, and you also start

00:53:21.140 looking better and having more confidence. There's a myriad benefits of doing that.

00:53:27.280 Do that. It's really important.

00:53:34.680 Something else that I think is tremendously important is to...

00:53:40.400 It's funny because a lot of these things coalesce around themes.

00:53:48.000 One of the themes that Alan kind of ended his presentation with was the screen culture.

00:53:59.120 And I want to hit that from a little bit different angle, but it's part of that.

00:54:04.000 With the increase in online interaction, it's come...

00:54:17.540 We could argue chicken and the egg, but there is a direct, you know, proportional decline

00:54:23.080 in doing things in the real world.

00:54:27.680 And I've watched this amongst young people, it's one of the worst things that I saw increase

00:54:33.440 during the governmental reaction to COVID-19, man, when you're older, a couple of years

00:54:43.960 doesn't seem like a big deal. Those couple of years when you're in high school, when

00:54:48.820 you're, you know, 20, 21, 21, 22, those are some really big, really important years to

00:54:55.380 spend isolated. We were already dwindling in our social skills as a society, and that

00:55:04.400 has rapidly accelerated in that time. I run into this with people in talking about Ausatruin,

00:55:16.820 talking with our folk, talking with people in chat areas or social media or whatever

00:55:21.700 else they're they treat all of the things that they think about from the position of

00:55:43.860 simulation or treating it as if it's a video game instead of treating life like a real thing

00:55:49.540 and this is something that and I'm phrasing it very imperfectly here and I and I apologize for

00:55:56.780 that but there's all these people with their ideas about what Alistair truth should be or

00:56:04.060 what religion should be or how things ought to work in the world but far too few of those people

00:56:10.840 have actually tried any of these things in the real world and given anything a fair shot to

00:56:17.760 experience or to see maybe how reality differs from their theory. I've watched so many people

00:56:25.740 be sad and lonely because the super hot fitness model TikTok influencer is the only way they 1.00

00:56:39.640 conceive of, surely I should be able to get a woman like that. And then those aren't the options 0.99

00:56:44.600 presented in mom's basement. There's a lot of people that have conceptualized very unrealistic

00:56:53.280 expectations of how the world works, how relationships work, of how interactions with

00:57:03.520 other men work, how interactions with women work in the real world, how to organically

00:57:10.860 read social cues and figure out how to interact in a room in mixed company in a way that elevates

00:57:19.880 your social status instead of diminishes it.

00:57:25.840 Those are all very real problems.

00:57:29.700 And the enduring mental health selves are actual success in the real world.

00:57:40.480 I've talked about this on the show before, too, but I used to work with children.

00:57:45.020 I worked with severely emotionally disturbed children.

00:57:49.080 And 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.

00:58:08.440 But the pretend, make everybody feel better, everybody gets a participation trophy nonsense were instantly meaningless when reality kicked in.

00:58:21.840 I 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.

00:58:30.880 That's in the record books.

00:58:32.400 They have that and they can look back on a real success or a real accomplishment they had in their life.

00:58:36.880 Any 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.

00:58:55.060 Worth is built on real things and real accomplishments.

00:58:59.740 And I think it's worse for people now.

00:59:02.560 A 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.

00:59:20.140 They never really went out there and did stuff.

00:59:23.960 They all had plans, all the things they were going to do, things they wanted to do when the right situation presented themselves.

00:59:32.560 And 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.

00:59:43.660 Because the real world is scary.

00:59:46.540 Interacting with real people is scary.

00:59:48.580 Attempting to do real things is scary.

00:59:50.980 And 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.

00:59:59.700 so go out and do real things touch grass as the kids say I don't take the stance that you shouldn't

01:00:09.280 you know social media is real and it's here and it's not going anywhere if it's completely

01:00:15.640 neglected or we pretend it doesn't exist I think we do ourselves a disservice but if you allow

01:00:21.060 yourself to be wrapped up and controlled by it it is it's literally life-stealing the thing he

01:00:30.100 mentioned um about kids with the screen time and specifically with the social media stuff

01:00:37.560 i agree but i don't think there's a lot of alternative to being exposed to some of that

01:00:42.940 i don't think you can avoid it entirely and i think if you try to one of the scary things

01:00:50.000 is, and I've seen this in a variety of applications. When people, when parents have the best of

01:00:58.880 intentions and overly shelter their kids from everything that's negative, it is sometimes

01:01:07.820 overwhelming and very destructive when all of a sudden life hits them in the face and they are

01:01:15.200 not prepared, and they don't know what to do with it. But what we certainly can do is teach them and

01:01:22.640 contextualize with them. If all they have is social media, that is terrifying. Getting real society

01:01:33.360 for them to be a part of is a huge, huge thing. A lot of this revolves around, I guess we'll get

01:01:40.460 to this and some of the questions that I've seen come up. But accomplishment makes you feel good.

01:01:53.020 Accomplishment is good for mental health. The other thing that Alan mentioned that I think

01:01:56.480 is really important, I say the other thing, one of the other things is that it's the thing about

01:02:03.480 happiness like you can just be permanently high and feel like you're happy all of the time and

01:02:12.040 you can't risk not being high because you will immediately plummet to the depths of despair

01:02:19.160 that's not that's not good it's not just about pleasure that's important in life and we all want

01:02:25.800 to feel good but i think in the world around us we have a tendency to think that's the only good

01:02:35.960 is like maximum happiness or maximum pleasure we're not built that way there's plenty of things

01:02:45.240 in life that you should feel bad about those feelings having real feelings that are calibrated

01:02:51.400 correctly are a big part of how we're built to become decent men and women and to do good things

01:03:01.500 it's what strives us forward you don't want to numb yourself into an artificial state of

01:03:06.080 permanent you know elation having meaning in life is tremendously valuable and i think it's

01:03:15.120 very often neglected in the world that we live in. It is

01:03:19.480 harder and harder for men and women today to find meaning in

01:03:24.460 their life. But it's never been more essential for us to be able

01:03:29.220 to find meaning in our life. And I hope that we can do that

01:03:31.620 together. It's certainly a big goal that we try to work

01:03:34.900 towards in the Ask True Folk Assembly. Something else I 0.76

01:03:42.260 wanted to mention is truth being one of our virtues. You can't

01:03:52.580 get to a place of healing unless you can have an honest

01:03:59.500 evaluation of where you are. I've seen this a lot to people

01:04:06.700 pretending that there's something that they're not and

01:04:11.340 refusing to be honest with themselves about where they

01:04:13.960 actually are in the hierarchy of things, in relation to people

01:04:18.760 around them in relation in relation to who they want to be.

01:04:22.960 And I don't this isn't. There are a lot of people that think

01:04:28.280 they're better than they are. They do themselves a disservice.

01:04:32.860 There's also quite a few people that don't realize how good they

01:04:35.960 are that don't realize their strengths and that only can see the black or the negative about

01:04:43.900 themselves. And that's also extremely unhealthy and destructive. What I found really beneficial

01:04:50.760 to me personally, this, you know, takes it back to Ausatru a bit, reading the nine doors of Midgard,

01:04:57.660 One 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.

01:05:19.100 And 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.

01:05:43.100 Where 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.

01:06:01.280 so that's very important too and that takes that's uncomfortable facing things about ourselves that

01:06:08.680 we don't like and recognizing them is a really scary and a much more difficult process than I

01:06:15.040 think a lot of people realize but I do think it's essential and I salute those of you who are able

01:06:22.100 to do that and I would encourage those of you who haven't done that yet to take that step because

01:06:27.340 It's a really important first step.

01:06:31.680 Some other things, but I'd like to get to some of our questions,

01:06:34.720 and I think we can get back to a couple of the things,

01:06:38.400 because I know we have some stacking up.

01:06:43.760 Spear of Wotan, do you think there's a link

01:06:46.740 between the mental health crisis that affects our folk

01:06:49.260 and the lack of religion in modernity?

01:06:51.800 How do we help our folk heal?

01:06:53.920 Alan, what are your thoughts on that?

01:06:57.340 I moved my microphone out of the way.

01:07:02.260 Hopefully I'm not getting feedback if that was why you're muting me there, Nick.

01:07:06.780 I 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.

01:07:20.340 But again, it falls back to that aspect of cognitive dissonance that brought us into this frame.

01:07:38.220 When 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,

01:07:58.820 then it creates a condition where your world and your religion are in separate universes, and that is unhealthy. 0.98

01:08:13.500 I think that's where a lot of this world is right now with the Abrahamic religions. 0.99

01:08:19.160 I 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.

01:08:38.500 because when Galileo and others proved that the sun was not the center of the universe,

01:08:45.080 that unwound thousands of years of 8,000 years, 1,500 years of church dogma.

01:08:53.680 Because if the world is not the center of the universe,

01:08:56.160 then God didn't create the world in the way that it was being taught.

01:09:01.360 So, 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,

01:09:20.800 they then, out of momentum, out of wrong-headedness, cast out all the good things about Christianity.

01:09:29.160 family centeredness

01:09:32.320 devotional viewpoint

01:09:36.040 about the way that life is lived

01:09:38.360 those sorts of things

01:09:39.980 and again in Benoit's book

01:09:41.700 on being a pagan

01:09:42.540 he goes into a lot of that

01:09:44.160 in a great deal of detail

01:09:46.720 about how

01:09:48.140 casting off Christianity 0.97

01:09:50.520 has cast off all the good things 0.99

01:09:52.060 of Christianity too 1.00

01:09:53.260 so yes absolutely

01:09:57.380 I think that it is critical to integrate all those things into a proper worldview.

01:10:04.180 I think that also true is the way that does that.

01:10:09.860 I think that a devotional lifestyle is absolutely compatible with knowing that gravity works

01:10:16.680 and that quasars are a thing that are far away and black holes exist and all that sort of thing.

01:10:22.540 you know we as founder mcdallan always says you know we are the people who have made the

01:10:31.260 faustian bargain we are the explorers of the world and that comes from our mindset which was

01:10:37.960 suppressed oppressed for a couple thousand years of recent history and we've now

01:10:45.120 shirked off that burden but we've lost the good part of that too

01:10:50.060 um so yes so the answer to the question simply is yes i think absolutely that

01:10:58.600 the lack of religion the lack of standards um is a is a large part of what's

01:11:05.840 wrong with this country and the world at large

01:11:10.060 yeah absolutely um i i don't think anyone would argue i think it's self-evident the

01:11:19.700 lack of religion is a huge part. It has taken people's orientation out, and very often they

01:11:27.180 do not have something to live for. They don't know what to do with their lives. They don't

01:11:32.200 know how to orient themselves. They're taught that there's not objective, you know, good

01:11:39.260 things. There's not a mission in their life. There's nothing bigger than themselves. And

01:11:45.540 that leads to nihilism and hedonism and a lot of things that end up being very unfulfilling.

01:11:54.340 We have a whole lot of people that are extremely unfulfilled and don't know what to do with

01:11:58.660 this and have caused a tremendous hole in the soul of our folk.

01:12:06.460 I don't know if there's anything Nick can do with the feedback that we're getting.

01:12:09.700 I apologize for that.

01:12:15.540 i um testing not still pretty bad anyways what i what i was going to say is um

01:12:28.260 the last part of the question i think is the most important part we all know that

01:12:32.180 the world is a worse place for the lack of religiosity in it but the question is how do

01:12:37.220 we help our folk heal um and i think when people ask that i don't know it's almost phrased in a

01:12:46.500 there's some perfect answer that's gonna with the snap of fingers fix everything

01:12:51.700 for the whole world and i don't think it works that way um what we can do to help our folk

01:12:58.580 heal is exactly what we're doing in the capacity that we possess to create what is lacking and

01:13:08.740 what is broken in the world around us and to share that creation with our folk and give provide

01:13:20.180 the opportunity for our folk to come home and to live healthy and fulfilled and that's

01:13:28.580 an overriding mission of the Ask True Folk Assembly and something that we try to do with

01:13:32.920 everything we do. We are trying to bring our folk home to a

01:13:40.260 synchronized whole existence that's authentic, that is lived in troth to our gods,

01:13:52.880 in unity and the recognition that we are part of a folk we're part of a noble and glorious folk

01:14:01.280 and that we have amazing heroic ancestors we have tremendous

01:14:12.280 we have tremendous gods and we have a powerful destiny as a people and to unite behind that

01:14:20.700 and embrace that. We also try to create community to the best ability that we can. What we need is

01:14:28.280 more of our folk to come home and center around more and more places. We're working on that.

01:14:36.000 That's a part of this effort you see us doing with the Hoffs is to build centers for people to build

01:14:43.320 relationship around, to worship together, to come together with their folk in the worship

01:14:50.320 and celebration of their gods and their heritage. And that's a big part of what we're trying to do

01:14:56.740 at Sigerheim, is bring people together in one place to build a community so that this isn't

01:15:05.140 a once in a great while thing, that this is an everyday thing and a practice that's woven into

01:15:10.960 the very fabric of all aspects of their life that's how we help our folk heal it is not nearly

01:15:19.760 as fast or as sweeping the earth process that i would like it to be while we look for those

01:15:27.600 opportunities to make big sweeping change that helps you know all of our folk we're going to

01:15:37.120 capitalize on the small victories that we all have in front of us. We all have a different,

01:15:43.880 you know, sets of circles that emanate from us, some bigger, some smaller

01:15:50.800 of people that we have influence on. I would say most people in the world that we live in

01:15:59.080 have a casual, they know the right things to say, you all laugh and smile at the politically

01:16:05.760 approved subject matter and you guys can talk about, I don't know, porno or rap videos or

01:16:12.760 whatever is cool to talk about with the sea of modernity out there. That's everywhere. But actual

01:16:22.940 connection of people that you can be authentically yourself with and talk about the things that truly

01:16:29.040 matter and that you truly value is a much rarer commodity. Most people in the world don't have

01:16:35.600 that in their life. They may not even have that with their spouse. They may not be able to even

01:16:42.000 share their authentic self with the person that they're committed to share their life with or with

01:16:47.460 their family or their children. We're trying to fix that with the AFA. In the AFA, you have the

01:16:54.860 ability to help and to share with hundreds of people who share a common orientation, a common

01:17:05.600 trough to our iser, a common heritage, and common values, you have access to be helpful in the lives

01:17:13.980 of hundreds of people. The average person out there doesn't have that. Do I wish that was the

01:17:19.900 access to help the lives of millions of people? Certainly, of course I do. But in the meantime,

01:17:26.360 until we get there, I'm very, very thankful that I have the ability to help hundreds of people

01:17:32.840 get their lives closer together. And each of those people have their own circles of family

01:17:38.860 and friends that should be coming home to the Astru Folk Assembly, but that they can affect

01:17:44.340 and build change in. It emanates out from those of us willing to make the effort to make the

01:17:50.740 change and to help the people. Each of us have the opportunity to do it. When we do it through

01:17:56.340 the Ask True Folk Assembly, every member of the AFA is magnified in their ability to help others

01:18:02.340 by hundreds of times. Next, how does diet and exercise affect mental health in your personal

01:18:12.620 experience. Alan? Well, in my personal experience, it has made a tremendous difference since my

01:18:27.020 divorce, 2012. You know, I did go through a period of sluggardliness and where I think

01:18:36.080 both my diet and my work, my physical health suffered a great deal, but

01:18:45.160 then once I got back on the program of where I was working out a lot and then recently went

01:18:55.700 through a thing called the strenuous life where I was required by the tenants of that program to

01:19:04.340 get an hour of physical activity every day, I could see my health improve even greater on the

01:19:12.720 margin. And also when I stopped eating bad, you know, and more vegetables, more diet, more salad,

01:19:24.580 more fiber, you know, all that stuff. And it sounds boring and tedious, but, you know,

01:19:31.680 it's boring and tedious because it works you know that's you know it's stuff that you hear

01:19:36.400 everywhere it's advice that everybody gives you know because it does work the carnivore diet i've

01:19:42.960 played with for a while and it helped me make a couple of things but again it was a you know it was

01:19:49.440 a bridge to a healthier lifestyle which now involves um you know again a meditation practice

01:20:00.080 an hour of physical activity or more every day um went to the gym last night and you know even

01:20:06.480 though it's 96 degrees here in sunny florida and 104 humidity you know i can still

01:20:15.440 do 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups but the you know so um it's so to be able to to

01:20:23.120 and then and then you feel good it's it's a feedback loop because you do this physical stuff

01:20:31.120 and that helps you feel better about yourself just the i just the idea of okay wow i i didn't

01:20:37.840 think i could walk for five miles but i did and so you you can then feel better about that physical

01:20:45.020 accomplishment and doing the physical stuff makes your body feel better eating you know and again

01:20:52.200 And challenging yourself to eat a better diet gives you that feedback because, wow, I hate salad, but I plowed my way through that one.

01:21:03.160 And, you know, it wasn't that bad.

01:21:04.600 And then you can feel like you've accomplished something.

01:21:07.860 And, you know, and again, the salad itself will make you feel better in the long run.

01:21:13.540 Standing in front of a cold shower and taking a cold shower in the morning, this is the time to start that practice.

01:21:20.140 um you know again that's that kind of thing you start the day with a physical challenge this is

01:21:26.960 going to suck and sometimes it does suck but you know then you're you know you started the day by

01:21:33.000 defeating your own uh willpower so all those things not only does it affect your body in the 0.96

01:21:42.020 sense that eating better makes your body better. It affects your mind by making that challenge

01:21:50.200 work for you. And I'm glad that you asked this on a personal level, because I think that

01:21:59.160 diet and exercise is good for everybody. But I think it probably stands out on the ways it

01:22:06.320 benefits different people differently. Or the ways that you notice at least. So I'm going to start

01:22:14.280 where I am now and kind of work my way back. I think that diet stuff helps me have a routine

01:22:28.160 and feel like I've got a roadmap to success and something to follow to help

01:22:37.220 not stress about the particulars of what-ifs.

01:22:43.920 It gets me out of my head a little bit.

01:22:45.600 um and i think that getting used to your diet and used to when to uh when to splurge and how

01:23:01.040 to splurge to affect your mental health and to um affect things is important because i'll do that

01:23:08.240 i'll be really strict on my diet for a time and then i'll just have a rough day and i'll be like

01:23:11.940 you know what? You know what fixes a rough day? Fat and carbs fix a rough day. And then do if it's

01:23:18.000 a once in a while thing. Sometimes that releases a certain amount of dopamine. It just makes you

01:23:22.420 feel better. And being able to recognize in yourself when that's helpful versus when it's

01:23:28.420 just the unintended. Something Alan mentioned earlier is, you know, mindfulness.

01:23:34.420 this. When we just graze on crap all of the time, because it's there, because we don't think about 0.85

01:23:45.100 it, or because we're undisciplined, a lot of things get out of control really quick. When

01:23:51.460 you're able to, you know, diagnose like, man, you know what, today, I'm gonna, I'm gonna splurge a

01:23:56.740 little bit. That breaks it up. If you're always at a level 10 on your fat and carb dopamine level,

01:24:03.160 then you don't have anywhere else to go if you're like man I'm having a bad bad day what am I going

01:24:09.960 to do you're out of options but if you keep it in check then you can alter those things in ways that

01:24:16.840 you need to help the other thing I'd say though on the exercise part going to the gym helps my

01:24:23.780 mental health tremendously it gets me out of whatever I'm stressing about in a place where

01:24:31.240 can focus on physical exercise it does all of the things physically that's good about it

01:24:37.400 but mentally it is something that i can do every day to say i did i accomplished i was there i

01:24:45.320 made it happen i can write down you know i have one i have one notch in the wind column every day

01:24:50.600 i go to the gym um and also i'm a gym guy there's a lot of people like to work out by themselves

01:24:58.520 And 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.

01:25:20.700 people who are clearly out of shape, but who are in there making the effort to get in shape,

01:25:26.240 those people are inspirational too. It's kind of an environment where everybody is in there making

01:25:30.860 an effort and it separates them from the vast majority of people in the world that just don't

01:25:37.220 care. That's nice. That puts me in a society where I feel like for that moment at that time,

01:25:43.700 I'm surrounded by winners, and that inspires me to feel good, to push more, to try to be better,

01:25:52.620 and it's really strengthening that way to me. Also, martial arts that I do help a lot,

01:25:59.920 because again, it gets me out of my head. It's a set period of time where I have to focus on

01:26:06.160 a physical activity that I want to get proficient at and do well. I have to focus on a series of

01:26:13.240 movements and doing them correctly or else I'm liable to hurt myself or someone else so I'm

01:26:18.380 really in the moment I'm very present there and I mentioned before struggles with meditation it's

01:26:24.060 really important to me to find something that takes me out of my own head I don't do good

01:26:30.000 just sit and release all your thoughts that's a much easier thing that's said than done

01:26:36.640 it's much better if I have something to focus intensely on to where I'm focusing on one thought

01:26:43.040 but I'm hyper-focused on it. And it's not related to the stresses of the day. It's related to

01:26:48.960 perfection of movement and technique. And that's really important.

01:26:53.400 But in my life, tremendously, I was lame. I was skinny, fat loser that was not living 0.98

01:27:02.720 authentically. All of the things that I admired and the person, the man that I wanted to become 0.98

01:27:07.820 and the things that I admired in men I looked up to.

01:27:12.860 I was the furthest thing from, and I was doing nothing to fix that.

01:27:19.160 When I started to, you know what, I don't know if I can get there,

01:27:25.680 but if I start trying, I'll be a lot closer than I am now.

01:27:31.520 That helped me so much in my life because it changed the way I looked at the world

01:27:35.980 and the way I looked at myself.

01:27:37.820 I 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.

01:28:00.140 and that was tremendous for my mental health it was tremendous for my sense of self-worth

01:28:08.500 for my um for my self-confidence I've told the stories on here a number of times but I went out

01:28:16.320 and I tried to be that person and get better and get bigger and get stronger and do the things and

01:28:23.900 I think yeah I got bigger and I got stronger but I also had self-confidence I had my chest out and

01:28:29.340 my head up, and I felt like I was somebody, and I didn't walk around like a loser.

01:28:37.140 Every bad thing in this world looks for victims, and they look for the easiest targets to victimize.

01:28:44.960 Your life changes tremendously when you have self-worth and self-confidence. The way you

01:28:53.140 carry yourself makes all the difference in the world on how others treat you, and there's no

01:28:58.660 magic cure-all that fixes that. It's a complex matrix of things. But in my life, getting in the

01:29:06.180 gym and trying to become bigger and stronger helped me in that tremendously. And I'm very

01:29:12.600 grateful that I had other men around me to help, you know, show me how to do that and work out with

01:29:19.540 me. Those, think about you, Jeff, Tony, guys that I used to go to the gym with by myself when I

01:29:26.060 didn't know what I was doing that helped show me the way on stuff. I really appreciate that.

01:29:31.980 Can you speak on men's mental health specifically? Society at large doesn't take it seriously.

01:29:38.040 Men are often laughed at for their problems. What is your take on that, Alan?

01:29:45.800 Yeah, I know. We're the last group that you can pick on and feel like you can get away with it.

01:29:56.060 And I think a lot of the criticism against men is completely unfounded.

01:30:13.500 You know, I think it's laughable to talk about toxic masculinity in this hyper-feminized culture.

01:30:20.900 So, you know, I think it's certainly true that we, men, and I count myself in this group, are too reticent.

01:30:42.400 We'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.

01:31:12.400 so uh i think that's a part of it i think that's absolutely one of the things that

01:31:19.640 the gym culture helps you overcome um you know when you can you know because

01:31:26.220 um you know you can go to those guys how do i do this how does this machine work

01:31:31.600 um part of you know for me part of it too was car culture you know how do i fix this

01:31:39.920 you know how does this thing work and guys will help other guys and you know one of the things

01:31:46.380 about guys that guys know is we like helping other guys right so um you know it's flattering to

01:31:54.560 matt i know when some noob comes up to him at the gym and says you know how do i do this you

01:32:00.520 look like you're doing the right thing help help me with that um it's the you know and those are

01:32:06.340 The kinds of things that guys can reinforce their idea of self-worth by, you know, short story.

01:32:21.360 When 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.

01:32:34.080 It's like, okay, what's going on?

01:32:35.800 Nothing.

01:32:36.340 just want to come down you know spend some time with you and it's just one of those things um he

01:32:42.020 had been through a divorce he knew that that's a bad time in your life and so he just came down we 0.99

01:32:48.340 hung out got drunk acted stupid um acted stupid uh so you know and again and it helped me it helped me 0.99

01:32:57.700 in the short-term idea of getting through that depressing time but also just helped me to know 0.99

01:33:07.620 that there was somebody who cared enough about me to want to come down and make sure I was doing

01:33:11.280 okay. So those are the kinds of things that we in the culture of the AFA are trying to overcome

01:33:21.260 those sorts of stigmas. You know we tell each other all the time if you need help ask me

01:33:27.300 I am not the data savvy guy.

01:33:31.800 I'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.

01:33:47.800 We 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.

01:34:11.460 And, 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.

01:34:33.140 So the idea that, you know, that we are islands of, you know, total self-reliance is just false.

01:34:42.520 And 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.

01:35:03.140 I 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,

01:35:28.740 criticize or look askance at you for holding the right worldview and acting right and speaking

01:35:38.120 truth and doing all the things that a strong man does. When they criticize you, they're the ones

01:35:45.140 who are failures. It's not us. It's them. And being in our society, the society of the AFA

01:35:52.440 can help you maintain that strength in yourself.

01:35:58.740 Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think everyone here, everyone who's going to listen to this understands. 0.96

01:36:09.600 Heterosexual white men are the people that all of the forces of everything wrong in the world have chosen to target as the big baddies.

01:36:19.940 That 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.

01:36:37.440 um what alan said i think is really important though about men's health

01:36:45.540 we have what is toxically masculine is trying to endlessly posture even when it's laughable 0.94

01:36:57.060 and being the loser alpha in your like 0.96

01:37:02.380 middle of nowhere non-participating form of existence you've carved for yourself but you 0.72

01:37:09.680 would have could have should have and if you were there you'd do it all better

01:37:12.120 we got a whole lot of guys that are scared to try because when you try and you're in the company of

01:37:18.280 other men your bubble gets popped that maybe you're not the best maybe you're not the smartest

01:37:23.420 maybe you're not the strongest maybe you're not the fastest maybe you're not the expert in the

01:37:29.500 world. And that's okay. There's only one person in the world that is the strongest. There's only

01:37:36.120 one person in the world that is the smartest. And chances are, none of us are either of those.

01:37:43.380 But going out there and participating, you can accomplish. Pretending that you're too cool for

01:37:50.160 school makes you a loser. It makes you seem really cool in high school, maybe. 0.97

01:37:57.140 but as an adult it holds you back from participating in the world in a meaningful way

01:38:03.240 you don't have to it takes all sorts there's going to be you know a few leaders and there's

01:38:12.740 going to be a lot of followers and that's okay in fact that's noble if you devote yourself

01:38:17.360 as a free man to following someone that you recognize their greatness or you recognize

01:38:23.840 their ability and you get on the team, there's a tremendous amount of honor in that. There's zero

01:38:30.500 honor in thinking you're too cool for it and living out your existence on the internet, in

01:38:35.140 your mom's basement, in your fantasy land. But that's scary. A lot of people, I joke on here,

01:38:42.020 and I always make the mom's basement jokes or whatever, but I'm serious. And I think that we

01:38:47.520 all face this. I know I face this. I know this is something that I've had to work really hard to

01:38:51.500 overcome. Sitting on the couch is seductive, not participating, because there's, there's always,

01:39:00.760 we are capable of diluting ourselves in a very efficient way. There's infinite reasons for you

01:39:06.800 not to try, for you not to get up, for you not to get out of bed, for you not to do anything.

01:39:12.180 We can come up with and imagine the most amazing and spectacular reasons not to do things.

01:39:18.600 But 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.

01:39:37.600 complacency. Men's health is in large part about men doing and engaging in life in a way that is 0.55

01:39:46.200 meaningful and has purpose. Another thing I see that has been really tragic to men's health

01:39:51.860 and probably always has, but I think there was a context for it that isn't anymore. There's a

01:39:59.620 whole lot of people that are wage slaves that go out there and prioritize their existence in the

01:40:09.780 workforce over everything else but often they're engaged in work that's very unfulfilling for them

01:40:15.880 and not knowing what to do they sometimes hide in that work uh at the detriment of being there

01:40:27.700 for their families at the detriment of developing themselves as a person or being part of the things

01:40:35.120 that they would conceive that they'd like to be part of in their lives. They sublimate all of that

01:40:41.000 to throw themselves into becoming an economic unit because that's been beat into them, that

01:40:51.200 that's the ultimate expression of manhood is slaving away at an unfulfilling profession

01:40:58.180 for all of your good years and with all of your time. And that's really unfortunate. And economic

01:41:05.920 realities are what they are. I don't look down on anybody for working hard. Please don't anybody

01:41:10.540 think that. But life is about a lot more than that. And sometimes it's hard for men to make

01:41:19.720 time to do that or to allow themselves to do that uh question odin is the god of ecstasy friends

01:41:33.160 ecstatic frenzy or divine madness how does such an understanding square with our modern sentiments

01:41:39.800 and concerns about mental health such as this very episode alan what are your thoughts

01:41:49.720 The opportunity for battlefield frenzy is greatly diminished in the current iteration of civilization.

01:42:03.200 I 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.

01:42:12.360 That being said, there are models and I, you know, where martial arts is certainly an outlet for that.

01:42:25.020 Um, and meditation in its own way, divine, um, divine frenzy is, uh, you know, again, sublimated and channeled in, um, Kundalini meditation.

01:42:45.020 Meditation, 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.

01:43:05.300 There are a lot of people out there who need to have their attitude adjusted, but we're just not allowed to do it.

01:43:16.480 and you know uh it's it's unfortunate um that uh right action like daniel penny took in the um

01:43:31.600 in that subway in new york is often rewarded with prosecution and belittlement and um

01:43:40.480 I 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.

01:44:00.900 Yes, it's a struggle. That's the right way to say it.

01:44:03.760 You know, although I frankly tend to model tear more in my daily life, the God of sacrifice and victory, the God of right order.

01:44:22.360 um it doesn't mean that given the opportunity that i wouldn't uncork on somebody but it's just

01:44:29.140 got to be you know we just have to know that um that where we are in the civilization

01:44:36.560 means you just have to subordinate that reflex so i think some of this comes with a misunderstanding

01:44:44.240 understanding of the Allfather. I don't feel that he was ever conceived of as

01:45:00.080 madness and craziness. It was always that he was the master of those things. He is the

01:45:07.600 master of frenzy the master of ecstasy he consumes thrives on ecstatic frenzy in a in a inspirational

01:45:25.280 in a divine sense but he's able to channel it to purpose one of the overriding things in the lore

01:45:32.880 about odin is his ability to take chaos and shape it into will and order instruction he does that

01:45:41.920 throughout the creation of midgard throughout um structuring just the right order of the cosmos

01:45:51.920 and our inclination is noble and ordered people one of the things and certainly uh ecstasy and

01:45:58.960 madness are fundamentally linked to odin because he inspires those things but those things in terms of

01:46:10.480 overwhelming drive to do to accomplish and i think that we all know that the line between

01:46:18.640 crazy and touched by the divine is is paper thin and often people are kind of on either side of it

01:46:25.520 because it is such a challenge to be able to control that energy i think it also speaks

01:46:31.040 to the all father that you know unlike the other the other gods he has two pet wolves

01:46:36.480 that sit in his throne and they're you know their names mean like ravenous and devouring

01:46:44.480 and there but again he has these and throughout our our myth these wolves are these devouring

01:46:58.160 forces of uncontrolled just consumption and overwhelming instinctual murderous destruction

01:47:09.200 he keeps them at bay as pets they sit as obedient pets at the seat of his throne and eat his scraps

01:47:16.480 because he is able to control those extreme impulses and channel them right and channel

01:47:25.920 it into right order so i think that's that's how i can see with them in terms of mental health and

01:47:32.080 And I think it's instructive in that way.

01:47:37.820 What 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?

01:47:49.600 Alan?

01:47:49.820 it seems to me and i

01:47:56.120 been a long time since i although my my young ones are um you know getting to that point

01:48:06.380 where they're finally leaving the nest um but it's but when they're at that cusp when they're

01:48:14.600 leaving for the military it's it's way too late to give them that um you know that because we all

01:48:22.120 think we're gonna you know kind of put your arm around the shoulder give them a few sentences of

01:48:27.800 fatherly or unclely advice and that's gonna just you know pivot them on their heel and

01:48:33.480 they're going to suddenly transform into something worth being um it's it's the

01:48:41.880 The thousands and thousands of days, the hundreds and the thousands of interactions from infancy to that point, that's where you shape the man.

01:48:54.820 You 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.

01:49:04.360 And there's certainly good advice that men in the AFA who have been in the military, they can give those guys.

01:49:14.280 Men 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.

01:49:28.000 but it begins it begins in the crib or in the co-sleeping bed and then and all the way out

01:49:38.200 through their youth and adulthood and by the time they're 18 20 years old um you're way behind the

01:49:45.420 curve if you're starting there yeah i i mean what alan said is certainly true on that um

01:49:53.580 it's hard to summarize like what quick advice you'd give to take men from

01:50:04.820 infancy infancy into combat or into thrusting them into the world um

01:50:11.940 what i think is really i don't mean this is as cheesy of an answer but i think that

01:50:19.200 addressing this in specific is the have them all the have them all is

01:50:27.920 i i would say it's the most it's the easiest to relate to piece of our lore and it's literally

01:50:35.840 a lot in large part advice to young men who are going out into the wide world for the first time

01:50:43.200 we're leaving home and their community and traveling who are finding themselves on the road

01:50:49.360 who are having to be in the company of other men of elder men in a warrior society who are having

01:50:56.080 to experience you know their first encounters with women and how to navigate that i think it's a

01:51:03.840 really profoundly useful text and, you know, one of, I would say, quite a few people's favorite

01:51:14.020 piece of our lore. It's probably the most quoted piece of our lore because it has these, you know,

01:51:20.080 pearls of wisdom in it that I think especially young men going out in the world can find useful.

01:51:26.560 I think that's the simple answer, and the more complex answer really depends on the guy in the

01:51:30.540 conversation. Our Gothar spend hours and hours and hours trying to address what you're asking,

01:51:40.060 depending on the young man that they're ministering to and trying to help.

01:51:47.160 What do you think of people using AI for therapy? Alan?

01:51:58.060 No.

01:52:00.540 And to elaborate, they're already detecting all of the flaws in the way that AI has been programmed, you know.

01:52:18.620 and the the easy example from from you know for our own people is you know somebody said give me

01:52:28.220 a picture of a viking and the viking comes back and he's black okay false um i

01:52:38.540 i'll say it this way i did a search on the internet for the meaning of a particular term

01:52:51.660 that i just wanted to be able to define in a you know in a couple of sentences

01:52:56.780 and when i plugged it in the ai came back with the inverse of the definition that i knew that

01:53:02.860 it that what it was um ai has been demonstrated to be hyper woke um it's programmed by our enemies

01:53:17.740 it's controlled by our enemies don't do it so i am less

01:53:25.260 Luddite than our no but so in all honesty though with technology stuff I do think I'm a little bit

01:53:35.580 more lenient on technology than Alan tends to be but let's assume the best of AI which it's not

01:53:42.600 it's everything Alan says it is I hope one day that we awaken some real AI that breaks free of

01:53:50.780 those chains. And I think if it develops in other parts of the world, there's possibilities for

01:53:56.760 it to get past the wokeness. I think it's, it is a extremely useful tool in computations and in a

01:54:07.120 lot of other ways that will be increasingly relevant in the world around us, but it is

01:54:13.720 particularly ill-equipped for therapeutic purposes. The fact that one is consulting AI

01:54:22.460 for therapy is the problem. One of the biggest things, and we talked about this on the program

01:54:28.180 so far, your ability to connect with other humans is the core to your health and your integration

01:54:35.520 into the world. You having to go to AI to get your therapy is part of the problem. Now, if you're

01:54:42.340 using AI to say, hey, can you make me a list of therapists in my area and give me their numbers?

01:54:49.660 Okay. Hey, you know, can you pull up a paper on this interesting mental health thing I was reading?

01:54:57.500 Okay. But as far as providing therapy, that is a uniquely personal thing. And I would say even

01:55:06.520 human beings, the more that they are emotionally removed and sterilized in their ability to

01:55:17.100 express human expression, they are disproportionately able to provide therapy.

01:55:24.980 You need another person who is able to relate to you in a human way to provide meaningful

01:55:35.040 therapy and i i truly truly believe that of all the things that ai may be very very good at

01:55:42.720 this is the one they are probably most inherently bad at doing is being not ai

01:55:54.080 yeah i think it's a real misuse of that technology

01:55:56.560 can you touch on how to overcome limiting beliefs in order to achieve more while staying realistic

01:56:08.000 about who you are and where you're at in life alan well i think part of it is

01:56:19.220 um setting realistic short-term goals seeing those sorts of things as victories

01:56:27.980 um you know if your goal is to be able to pitch press 250 pounds

01:56:35.780 um and you go to the gym and you the first lift you try is 250 pounds you're not going to get

01:56:43.560 there and you're just it's going to be a permanent fail um but if you can get in there and bench

01:56:49.720 press 50 pounds that's 50 more than you did last week and those sorts of incremental bit um

01:56:58.200 incremental victories you just have to use as a you know cycle i don't like i think trick or

01:57:07.080 manipulation um is the you know gives the wrong connotation for the most part but that's what

01:57:12.920 you're doing is you're tricking your brain into feeling good about those small accomplishments

01:57:20.760 you know like when i first started running wind sprints i couldn't run for a 30 minute set i had

01:57:27.640 to do 10. you know but now i can do a 30 minute set of wind sprints and i'm you know so but i

01:57:33.480 didn't get there starting off that way i just you know i did a little more every day um it's the

01:57:39.640 same thing you know with this weight loss program i've been on you know i you know you have to think

01:57:48.040 of it as not i'm going to lose like even though the overall goal may be to lose 50 pounds you

01:57:54.280 don't lose 50 pounds you don't go from x to a 50 pound loss you lose a couple ounces a day

01:58:02.120 you take in one notch of your belt and you can feel that psychological feedback that says man

01:58:09.880 i'm actually doing something and um it's with it like and it's with every aspect the education you

01:58:19.320 know you don't open the calculus textbook till you've been through algebra um and it you know

01:58:25.960 and it builds on itself and those small victories will allow you to climb the hill you know you eat

01:58:30.520 that elephant one bite at a time i want to chime in because i'm supposed to but i think you know

01:58:39.880 alan touched on it beautifully the thing i'd say is don't set a top limit for yourself even if

01:58:45.640 logically you know there is one that's fine have the ability to dream of of greatness but realize

01:58:54.520 where you are. There is a either or thing to where people

01:59:01.180 think you either need to be realistic. And when they say

01:59:04.120 realistic, they mean pessimistic. Or you just need to

01:59:10.920 have this blind optimism that's can ultimately be very defeating

01:59:16.400 when life hits you in the face. But you can do both, you can

01:59:22.400 realize where you are, pick attainable goals to work towards. And in the meantime, when you have

01:59:30.880 time left over, work on that dream thing. If you want to be in the NBA, but you're a white dude, 0.64

01:59:38.160 and you're 5'4", and you're, you know, not necessarily good at basketball, it's probably 0.91

01:59:44.260 a hard thing, but go for it. In your free time, if that's what you want to do, train up, do those

01:59:49.980 things but in the meantime pick something that you can do and put yourself towards that you can

01:59:57.740 sure go for it i just said if you if your goal is to be in the nba you know work on your three

02:00:04.460 pointer your three-point shot yeah i was you could also work on i don't know you can get a tan

02:00:13.340 get really tan um but in complete seriousness the idea of picking some because i think that

02:00:23.420 when we're talking here we're not being silly we're talking about actual things that you really

02:00:28.460 really wish but are highly unlikely and that's okay dream having dreams that are unlikely

02:00:34.620 is fine as long as you have a practical thing to do in the meantime

02:00:39.100 and are not squandering your life on unrealistic things and hopefully it breaks for you and the

02:00:46.900 more you put in the work the less unlikely it becomes but the thing about uh progressive

02:00:51.620 overload is important that alan mentioned it's the foundation of all weight training

02:00:56.120 milo of croton used to pick up a calf every day it was a newborn baby calf and he's like you know

02:01:05.300 what, I'm going to pick this calf up every single day. And, you know, it's hard to conceive of that

02:01:12.340 one day to where you were able to pick him up yesterday, but all of a sudden today, you can't

02:01:16.120 pick him up. So it's hard to logically conceive of what that day is to where all of a sudden,

02:01:22.120 why can't you pick up a bull? Milo did it, so that's a thing, but he did it by every day.

02:01:29.040 This cow gets a little bit bigger, he goes, picks him up. What Alan said, if your goal is to bench

02:01:35.220 250, you go in there and try to bench 250 and you've never bench pressed before, you're going

02:01:39.400 to hurt yourself and you're going to feel defeated and feel like a loser. I'll tell you what, I do

02:01:45.180 this. I got old man joints. So every time I start a new thing, if it's a bar exercise, I start with

02:01:51.500 just the bar. Then I add 10 pounds. Then I add the 25s. Then I do the 25s with the 10s. Then I do the

02:02:00.580 45s. And I'll do that on each set over however many weeks until I get to where my actual working

02:02:06.540 weight is. And I've accustomed my joints and accustomed myself to know where I really am.

02:02:11.840 And then you make progress from there. But recognizing, I mentioned this earlier with

02:02:16.620 mental health, all of those dreams, all of those other things, what makes it work and healthy is

02:02:22.940 having a real understanding of where you are currently. I wouldn't want to stifle anybody's

02:02:28.920 ability to dream, but know where you are, and work with where you are, not where you

02:02:34.400 wish you were. What advice would you give to parents who want to make sure they raise

02:02:42.820 good kids who will be less likely to have some of the mental illness that affect modern

02:02:48.720 society alan that's a tough one you know i think that it's much worse now would be much harder than

02:03:03.360 even when i was raising my now uh you know 30 and 25 year old um both because the progressivist

02:03:14.800 mindset has just inundated everything and even though it is objectively wrong you know it it

02:03:25.580 seems to have latch hold on the mainstream now that being said I don't I think the I still think 0.57

02:03:33.260 that the vast majority of white culture in the civilization is overwhelmingly conservative

02:03:42.740 You 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.

02:04:07.240 But, you know, remember how you were raised. 0.66

02:04:12.740 I mean, that's, you know, my dad made lots of mistakes.

02:04:17.380 My mom did too.

02:04:18.300 But, you know, for the most part, they did a half decent job.

02:04:25.420 I mean, I raised my kids, you know, and Tallahassee is a fairly liberal town.

02:04:30.060 I raised my kids in a very conservative manner.

02:04:32.960 But I've had, I bet you, 20 people, 20 adults come up to me and say, you know, I ran into Preston at the mall.

02:04:42.520 And, you know, he's just so respectful and so well-spoken, all that.

02:04:48.080 So raise them with standards.

02:04:50.400 That may be the short summary without going into detail.

02:04:55.540 You know, don't let them slide into the easy culture of doing too little, doing nothing.

02:05:05.920 You know, make them help around the house.

02:05:08.240 Make, you know, expect more from them and they will live up to it.

02:05:18.580 Discipline, discipline, discipline.

02:05:20.700 And discipline is not necessarily spanking your kids.

02:05:24.380 Discipline just means if they mess up, there are consequences.

02:05:28.360 And also, you just, you guide them along the path.

02:05:33.780 You 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.

02:05:46.180 And 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.

02:06:14.020 minded so i mean praise the ice when it's crossed my daughter's five so keep that in mind when

02:06:24.660 listening to my you know longer term parental advice but what i think is very very important is

02:06:33.780 um giving them a sound home base to relate to to learn from to come back to

02:06:48.660 getting them and so all of these things i shamelessly plug the afa is like the answer

02:06:55.380 to all the world's problems but if i didn't believe that this is not where i'd be sitting

02:07:01.300 and what I'd be doing with my time.

02:07:03.580 I believe the AFA is the answer to these problems.

02:07:08.540 Raise your kids with the gods in their life from day one.

02:07:13.800 Raise them around a group of other people who share those values and beliefs

02:07:18.660 so they don't feel isolated or different or odd.

02:07:25.000 All of the impulses to fit in, have them try to fit in

02:07:29.080 with the group of people you've selected to have in their life.

02:07:37.160 And be the example that you want them to become, you know, if, if, or the inverse, be the example of

02:07:48.840 who you want them to become or be the example of who you want them to marry. Be that.

02:07:54.760 and don't just be that when you're talking to them be that in your life be that you know

02:08:02.440 you have eyes on you all the time be that I think that

02:08:07.380 one of the things that's terrifying to me and I think is scary to a lot of people a lot of parents

02:08:14.120 is kids go through this rebellious stage and in doing that they can make some choices that

02:08:22.540 they can't unmake, unfortunately. One thing that I think is really important towards that,

02:08:30.040 if you're constantly preaching at your kids about whatever extreme position you have on stuff,

02:08:39.500 that can be off-putting and something for them to rally behind, like,

02:08:45.520 opposing when they're trying to be rebellious. But what I think sneaks past

02:08:50.640 that conscious process is example that they absorb unconsciously through observation

02:09:02.120 and growing up and figuring out what normal is and what feels good give them a home base with

02:09:09.120 you your family and hopefully your afa family to where they can look back and say hey i remember

02:09:16.540 this growing up and that made me feel safe. That made me feel good. That may, I felt fulfilled

02:09:22.320 during that. I want to get back to that. That's how I want to raise my kids. Give them something

02:09:28.120 to come home to that they recognize as good and healthy and nice. And I think the example is huge.

02:09:39.600 There's a million different ways to answer this question, depending on what the particular

02:09:43.200 problem that you face is, but I think that's a really sound place to start on it.

02:09:50.320 Austin in Wisconsin donated $30 to the general fund. Thank you, Austin. We appreciate it very much.

02:09:56.160 okay

02:10:06.400 i don't understand the context of the next question in the in the queue nick so maybe

02:10:13.640 you can type me up some context for it there wasn't any he just randomly asked it so swan

02:10:19.940 asks was this pertaining to microdosing psilocybin if not what is your thoughts on that

02:10:26.000 Alan, would you like to take a stab at what he was referencing, and then your thoughts

02:10:34.340 on microdosing psilocybin?

02:10:36.080 We do not officially condone the use of that illegal...

02:10:47.460 Keep in mind, we have an international audience.

02:10:54.560 I think that particular intoxicant is illegal just about everywhere.

02:10:59.820 That being said, here's what I can say.

02:11:03.400 I'll say two things, at least.

02:11:07.320 There is a lot of promising research out there about microdosing psilocybin.

02:11:14.240 That 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.

02:11:44.240 at some point in personal um what what is it called irl when i'm i when i'm irl with some

02:11:54.400 of you guys i will tell you some of the personal experience that i could i say personal experience

02:11:59.920 i've read about i am familiar with personal experience with micro dosing um that is extremely

02:12:08.000 helpful um and frankly i think that is one of the one of the worst negative extremalities of um

02:12:20.240 of christian culture where any form of entheogen was um decried um you know because herbal stuff

02:12:34.400 was all um you know outlawed by the church um so sorry that's a long wandering answer to the fact

02:12:44.960 that uh yes swan don't ask glowy questions i think that's what the kids call them

02:12:54.240 um so um I have no idea what the context was for the first half of the question as far as it being

02:13:05.460 helpful um and I don't know if my thoughts on it relate to specifically micro dosing or to its use

02:13:14.880 generally um but no I think it it has tremendous so uh to follow along with the law speakers you

02:13:23.760 So caveat, Yost True Folk Assembly would never advise you to do anything that is legal in the jurisdiction that you find yourself in.

02:13:32.020 But 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.

02:13:38.620 I don't know if it's beneficial to every person in every circumstance.

02:13:41.600 stance. There is a tremendous benefit to be had from its proper use. But again, we would

02:13:50.720 not advise you to do illegal activities in the jurisdiction that those activities are

02:13:55.780 illegal. Yeah, I think the point that Alan made though about, and this is why I mentioned

02:14:10.000 international audience not psilocybin specifically but a number of different hallucinogens are legal

02:14:16.400 in mexico and we have a lot of soldiers that come back with a lot of problems that they're working

02:14:23.120 through that go into mexico and south america to get those kind of therapies with tremendous

02:14:30.880 results on things that they're going through so you know i think that what i'm saying is factually

02:14:36.320 true again i'm not encouraging you to to do anything illegal uh we would certainly not

02:14:41.600 encourage you to do that but as a statement of fact um those of you with kids do you think it

02:14:51.600 might be smarter to not let them have a smartphone or a tablet until they're a bit older to avoid

02:14:57.120 becoming addicted to this stuff or being influenced by wrong ideas alan express your thoughts on this

02:15:07.280 surprisingly enough um yes i i agree to begin with as a matter of just coherent principle i think

02:15:18.880 you should not let your kids have technology that that uh is past their age what that video

02:15:26.000 what that book demonstrates what all the psychological studies show is and it and i

02:15:36.320 I always use that phrasing advisedly, like I would never say, studies show that blah, blah, blah, without having looked at several of the studies.

02:15:45.200 That 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.

02:15:59.440 They should, you know, if they need to call you, they can have a flip phone.

02:16:02.680 They can text with their friends.

02:16:04.260 They can be in contact with you and get a ride, whatever, and make phone calls and texts with a flip phone, okay?

02:16:21.040 And they should not be on social media at all until they're 16.

02:16:25.580 In the exact same way that, you know, alcohol is okay, right?

02:16:34.260 but you don't give alcohol to a four-year-old. I think microdosing should be legal, but I wouldn't

02:16:42.580 microdose a six-year-old. Social media is a contagion. It is a virus that is controlled by

02:16:54.000 our enemies that um is overwhelmingly psychologically addictive and is provably shown to be harmful

02:17:06.880 probably harmful to almost all adults who use it to any extent but absolutely unquestionably

02:17:12.640 harmful to children and the one of the documentaries that i watched and i mean

02:17:19.040 I am advisedly a Luddite.

02:17:25.360 I use electricity, but I don't plug my brain into it.

02:17:31.200 Anyway, one of the things that I watched, there's a documentary out there,

02:17:39.660 and I think it's called The Social Media or something along that line,

02:17:44.060 But Meta or Facebook has teams of psychiatrists.

02:17:50.840 They have hundreds of psychiatrists and psychologists whose whole life is dedicated to keeping people addicted to Facebook.

02:18:02.820 And I don't care how strong or loose your supervision is.

02:18:09.740 You know, you cannot supervise your kids enough against a team of 300 psychiatrists who are trying to keep them glued to that screen.

02:18:20.560 So 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.

02:18:37.660 Because 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?

02:18:51.380 And so what kids then are subjected daily, hundreds of those images, thousands of those videos that show stuff they can't do, okay?

02:19:04.120 So number one, it's detrimental, just the exposure of it in and of itself is detrimental to their psychology.

02:19:11.380 Number two, and I hadn't thought about this until I watched that video, but it's the substitution effect.

02:19:18.300 If your kid spends two hours scrolling around on Facebook or watching TikTok, that's two hours that they could be doing their own stuff.

02:19:26.740 Drawing, learning an instrument, playing, pick up football somewhere.

02:19:33.520 So, the answer is, I'm opposed.

02:19:38.860 I know that is not necessarily the popular viewpoint, but I think it is the right one.

02:19:44.740 So, you know, I think Alan and I differ on our use of social media for adult people, but that's not what the question's about.

02:19:53.580 um i think that it can be a tremendous tool for adult people to advertise or to network or to do

02:20:09.360 certain things across distance and i certainly think that other apps on a smartphone are really

02:20:16.320 convenient just for stuff like maps when you're driving all kind of things you know you have

02:20:22.200 google at your fingertips to research anything you want you've got a powerful thing there but i've

02:20:28.360 watched it ruin the lives of many adults that aren't mentally well equipped to handle it

02:20:35.240 how much more so children that don't have the context for it um

02:20:39.800 we live in one of the really bad things about social media and about the internet

02:20:51.520 is the democratization of stuff.

02:20:56.460 And the other team talks about that

02:20:58.100 like that's some awesome accomplishment.

02:21:00.760 It's not. 0.88

02:21:01.780 It means every loser out there,

02:21:03.680 if they're willing to devote more time than you 0.96

02:21:05.520 than sitting in front of a screen,

02:21:07.020 all of a sudden their opinion, their thought,

02:21:09.660 their view of the world is magnified

02:21:11.320 to a unrealistic degree

02:21:13.600 to where they're disproportionately represented.

02:21:18.440 And I think that's really scary

02:21:20.240 when they influence children.

02:21:26.260 I mean, I don't think we're necessarily well-served

02:21:30.940 making hard and fast rules about tools that can be,

02:21:38.020 you know, technology changes all the time.

02:21:40.300 But the fundamental, I think, is those things

02:21:44.140 and their access to the social media, like Alan mentioned,

02:21:47.860 And, you know, I perhaps legitimately surprisingly tend to agree with Alan on this when it comes to their ability to connect.

02:22:01.680 You know, having a tablet so that your kid can watch videos that you approve of and you load on the tablet for them is one thing.

02:22:08.440 But having them have the access to interface with other dangerous people out there is not good.

02:22:15.020 there are a lot of people seeking to prey on your children there are a lot of people seeking to

02:22:21.520 prey on them sexually to prey on them in a variety of ways there are other children that are not

02:22:27.760 emotionally well developed that feel better by making other kids feel terrible and that is

02:22:35.180 amplified tremendously to devastating effects by social media for children especially young girls

02:22:41.600 um but you have a much more subtle

02:22:46.560 corrupting children by constant displaying of them everything that you would teach them is bad

02:22:58.020 and the villainization of everything that you think is good um no i think that's really dangerous

02:23:06.740 for kids. I understand at some point in their teenage years, there's some kind of a transition

02:23:14.300 period where they are more able to handle that than other times. But if there were a way to

02:23:21.200 forever shield my daughter from having to deal with social media, I would like to do it. And I

02:23:27.940 realize that's probably not the world she's going to live in when she grows up and is an adult,

02:23:31.900 But 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.

02:23:44.200 But, yeah, I think that. And again, the key being the interfacing with social media, that is a constant assault.

02:23:52.720 Alan mentioned that they have teams of people to keep you psychologically addicted.

02:23:56.340 and to hear that like oh that's crazy stuff that's you know that's just sinister you know

02:24:02.920 evil villains in some cabal some it's easy to conceive of it that way but not really it doesn't

02:24:08.760 have to be that sinister on the face of it that's what any marketing is but they happen to have the

02:24:14.220 most addictive most dopamine reinforcing most highly manipulative form of marketing

02:24:23.260 that they've ever had access to before i don't think they conceive of it as something evil

02:24:29.660 but it is weaponized by opportunistic people in a profoundly

02:24:39.080 overwhelming way and uh yeah i would really advise that you keep the kids off of

02:24:46.940 that aspect of stuff

02:24:49.300 until, you know, they're

02:24:50.940 well into their teenage years

02:24:53.020 and then, you know,

02:24:55.140 really judiciously using your judgment

02:24:57.260 on it.

02:25:05.720 Scott Thatcher says,

02:25:08.120 Norse paganism,

02:25:09.180 Germanic heathenry, and Ausitur are all

02:25:11.080 synonyms and interchangeable to me.

02:25:13.120 What does the AFA say?

02:25:16.940 It depends on what the audience is. Scott, the AFA says that, yes, fundamentally, they're

02:25:24.440 interchangeable. We should all use the term Ausatru because Ausatru unites us behind one

02:25:29.380 thing instead of confusing people with, you know, a myriad of other different snowflake

02:25:35.160 versions of it. There's a variety of words that could have been chosen, but Ausatru is what we've

02:25:40.340 got. Ausatru is what's brought us here. Ausatru is what we're moving forward. The use of the other

02:25:46.420 terms just serve to confuse and you know get folks to ask the question you're asking right now

02:25:56.500 now it now that is again there are people deeply entrenched in those things

02:26:03.700 and they mean different things and there's kind of a colloquial understanding in my

02:26:07.940 in what seems to be common

02:26:10.420 very new people that don't know better often use the term Norse paganism

02:26:16.600 more often than not people who use the term Norse paganism are

02:26:22.180 I don't know what the nice term is progressives they tend to be people very far on the left

02:26:32.500 that's my experience with the term Norse paganism again it's not every one of them

02:26:37.360 because it's not literally false. It's just a term that has seemed to galvanize in those

02:26:42.720 circles a bit more. Germanic heathenry is much more of a mixed bag on people that want to call

02:26:49.500 themselves that. I think, again, it's not linguistically incorrect, but it diffuses what

02:26:59.060 we're doing and it adds in a lot of confusion. I don't think it helps. And it, again, is defining

02:27:05.680 things as they relate to something else, as opposed to us positively defining ourselves

02:27:12.740 by our values and what we do. It's other people describing us as those people out on the heath

02:27:20.520 doing their crazy stuff. Again, everybody probably has a reason why they do what they do. What I

02:27:28.860 found a lot of the time is when people refuse to call it out so true, sometimes it's because they

02:27:34.340 just want to be, you know, they don't want other people to tell them what to do. They're very

02:27:40.940 individualistic and they don't want to conform and get on the team. And a lot of people do that

02:27:45.780 for a variety of different reasons. And a lot of people have that kind of impulse hardwired in.

02:27:51.900 What 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,

02:28:18.300 that they were intentionally distancing themselves from the term Alcetru because it inherently was

02:28:24.640 being used by folkish people and by people with our worldview, which is another strong reason for

02:28:30.680 me to keep trying to get everybody to use the term Alcetru. Alan, do you have anything you'd

02:28:36.840 like to add on that? No, I agree with you 100%. I know that we, you and I, quibble about some of

02:28:46.380 other linguistic stuff but i agree 100 that austro is the brand if we could go back 50 years and

02:28:57.820 pick a different word we might but you know but you know like but i'm good with it as you

02:29:07.580 know as the descriptor for the narrower i think and and i think you described it correctly the

02:29:15.180 you know but for focus he's the ring also true is the word um this is the way and we are the folk

02:29:26.460 do you think making goals in life and working hard to achieve them is good for our mental health al

02:29:36.140 unquestionably um and i think that make you know as corny as some of the stuff is

02:29:43.100 i've actually seen research that shows making the little goal boards you know where you write up and

02:29:52.060 say you know in one you know by june of 2026 i'll be able to bench press 400 pounds or whatever

02:30:00.140 you're and you and you put little you know then you have a visible representation of that goal

02:30:04.940 which is your eventual goal what which helps you make the thousand tiny steps that get you to that

02:30:11.980 goal. Yes, setting goals engages and enforces discipline inside your little head in there

02:30:22.360 and those kinds of things that build mental resilience so that, you know, because not

02:30:30.340 every day is a good day and, you know, some days you make progress and some days you back

02:30:38.420 up. But those days that you back up, you know, just bearing in mind the bigger goals will keep

02:30:44.500 you all that can, you know, help you continue the mission. Yes. So absolutely making goals and

02:30:54.400 accomplishing goals. That's been a theme of this program. It's something we strongly believe

02:30:59.000 victory is really important and victory comes, you know, certainly in big sweeping victories that we

02:31:07.420 all like to think about, but much more often, it comes in small victories daily, and that's

02:31:14.160 extremely important. Building upon success is a surefire way to accomplish and to get further

02:31:20.760 ahead than you are at present. Real accomplishment yields mental health, absolutely.

02:31:29.640 So, must a heathen man always achieve? Must he always strive, struggle, accomplish,

02:31:36.740 create? Are we ever allowed to rest on our laurels

02:31:40.640 as it were? Alan?

02:31:45.980 Yeah, there's absolutely a time for rest.

02:31:49.040 I mean, we are

02:31:52.700 engaged in the relentless pursuit of excellence,

02:31:57.300 the unending

02:32:00.560 pursuit of victory, but

02:32:03.700 But even then, you know, there's a time to sprint and there's a time to take a breath.

02:32:11.180 You 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.

02:32:28.140 And then there's days when all I'm doing is drinking some mead.

02:32:31.280 So, yes, you are absolutely allowed to to take a break and revel in the glory that is your creation.

02:32:45.740 So as an outsider, you're allowed to not achieve stuff.

02:32:57.180 But you should always be achieving stuff.

02:33:00.120 Sure, taking a moment to sit back and relax and have a drink is fine.

02:33:06.320 Nobody's talking about that.

02:33:07.660 And I don't even really think that's fundamentally part of the question.

02:33:10.440 Yes, you should always be engaged in the pursuit of victory.

02:33:15.440 I don't think that, you know, small moments of like, I'm going to relax and watch TV shows is really a fundamental question to that.

02:33:24.520 I don't think you should take periods of being off of that.

02:33:27.100 your life should synergize around accomplishment. And it looks real different. Sitting back and

02:33:32.900 raising your kids is part of victory. Sitting back and, you know, being a good husband and

02:33:38.560 building and securing a good marriage is part of that. Recreating by reading something to where

02:33:45.320 you learn something and you know more tomorrow than you did today is part of that. Getting out

02:33:49.540 and getting some exercise is part of achieving victory. But, you know, the term resting on your

02:33:56.080 laurels has a meaning and no you shouldn't uh on this in front of you if you're looking at the

02:34:03.060 screen it's got laurels and it's got victory never sleeps with the whole antithesis to the

02:34:08.760 premise of the question yes you always should be trying to pursue victory anytime that you're not

02:34:14.220 it's time that you could be be realistic don't be silly but yeah always come back to the touchstone

02:34:21.420 of trying to do to accomplish and to become and you're allowed to not live up to that

02:34:27.020 but the ideal is to strive as close to that as you can and you know

02:34:34.380 the heroes are the ones that spend their time doing and making stuff happen uh and there's

02:34:39.980 a lot of other people that don't make it to that height but the more we all

02:34:43.580 spend our time consciously in the pursuit of victory the better we all are

02:34:47.900 seems a lot of solutions tonight have focused around getting out and doing getting help working

02:34:58.060 out eating right what impact have you seen actual productive interaction in our faith

02:35:03.500 to have on the mental health of our folk i would think that that could really be the biggest

02:35:10.940 influence. I was reading on the term collective effervescence, as in the heightened emotional

02:35:20.940 state and sense of unity experienced by individuals doing shared group activities. This really seems

02:35:27.180 to sum it up for all that I can feel when traveling and gathering with the folk. Alan,

02:35:33.980 Would you like to respond to that?

02:35:37.280 I agree exactly with what he's saying. 1.00

02:35:39.740 And yes, I have not heard that term before, but I'm certainly going to adopt the Jews' collective effervescence. 1.00

02:35:49.660 Um, yes, the joy that we feel doing stuff together is, you know, there's just, there, there's, there's no substitute for it. 1.00

02:36:04.500 And I'm glad that he has felt it.

02:36:07.080 I know that I have.

02:36:10.620 And I believe, I honestly believe that it has helped lots of those who come to AFA stuff and who keep coming to AFA stuff.

02:36:24.020 I think they feel that and they get that positive feedback and it helps them become better, stronger, faster, better people.

02:36:33.200 Yes.

02:36:33.480 Yes. 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.

02:36:52.280 But 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.

02:37:13.980 I have and continue to work every day of my life to try to structure increasing amounts of my life

02:37:21.960 to revolve around that instead of that being something that I just get once a year or whatever

02:37:28.020 I want more and more and more because that's the authentic way that we ought to be living

02:37:34.440 that's where you feel whole and healthy and good and the world seems right and so we're working

02:37:42.680 hard to live that and to facilitate all of our folk coming home and living that. I absolutely

02:37:50.780 think that's a key to success in life and mental well-being for individuals and for families and

02:37:59.500 for all of us collectively. And I really like the term collective effervescence. I've never heard

02:38:05.320 that before, but I think it's kind of a neat term and I'm going to start using it more.

02:38:08.840 um did founder mcnalen create one of the noble virtues one of the nine noble virtues uh no i

02:38:18.660 don't believe that he did scott um i believe those all uh nine of the noble virtues were

02:38:24.320 created and codified by uh hoskold and stoba of the odenic right

02:38:30.400 i think there are conclusions that many people came to in a number of different ways but i think

02:38:37.060 they were codified as the nine noble virtues outside any influence of Steve McNallan.

02:38:45.500 Could a lack of motivation be why some people are in the situation they're in?

02:38:51.600 Because people couldn't just live in their mother's basement, they had to be more motivated.

02:38:57.880 Does challenge motivate people?

02:39:01.460 Alan?

02:39:03.680 I think it does.

02:39:04.940 You 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

02:39:30.320 You 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

02:39:49.380 You know, that's how men talk to each other. 0.99

02:39:53.240 And, you know, if you well, if you think that's toxic, you're probably not watching this video, really.

02:40:03.740 But 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.

02:40:16.840 And if you shrink from the challenge, we'll find somewhere else to be.

02:40:23.240 Absolutely. And challenge and the judgment of your peers, your gods, and your ancestors

02:40:32.180 should motivate us all to do things. Competition is a beautiful and amazing thing. It is not a

02:40:39.700 toxic thing. You can find some kind of metastasized negative version of most good

02:40:49.180 things if you're trying to pervert them but competition in its basic sense is a powerful

02:40:56.460 motivator to achieve and to do things and amongst men it should inspire us all to be our best

02:41:03.820 it doesn't have to be an angry or a grumpy thing at the person issuing the challenge

02:41:09.180 we're all made better by trying to compete with the men around us to be the best we can be

02:41:15.900 and ideally we inspire each other um that's happened in the afa in a number of times shoot

02:41:26.620 that happened this morning this morning with alan alan we were dealing with some minor banking

02:41:32.540 thing and i didn't return a call that i should have checked my messages on and i'm like no well

02:41:36.940 they shouldn't have called me at six in the morning and i realized afterwards i'm like that

02:41:42.700 was really lame hey alan i'm sorry about that i'll get that better next time because again when

02:41:47.180 you're in the presence of other men you want to be your best um that happens a lot that i see all

02:41:55.340 the time with with little stuff we come to to events and we see each other and we talk about

02:41:59.740 things we've done or or you know things we've achieved and it inspires each of us to want to

02:42:06.620 achieve more and to do more you know uh when you catch yourself slipping to where you're not living

02:42:13.340 up to what other people are doing taking up the challenge to you know pick up your pace

02:42:21.980 we should all do that from one another that is a gift that you give your brothers is giving

02:42:27.020 them something to aspire to and setting down a a gauntlet for them to pick up you know

02:42:34.940 setting setting a mark for them to try to surpass is something we owe each other and

02:42:42.540 participating in that should bring us all up to a higher level and your mind should be such that

02:42:49.020 you want to actively engage in that even if you don't always win the striving to win the motivation

02:42:55.100 through competition and through challenge should be something that ennobles you not something that

02:43:00.300 that cripples you or offends you um do you think the masculine archetype is suppressed

02:43:12.540 in modern culture and leads to the sickness of the sickness of the masculine alan

02:43:20.620 absolutely um you know which again is why

02:43:24.700 so much of the answer um and keep saying it because we're promoting the brand but we you know

02:43:34.420 the uh it is absolutely the fact that masculinity is uh wrongly decried in um in the current

02:43:44.040 iteration of our so-called civilization but we and with cohort groups i mean it's certainly not

02:43:53.240 just the afa but there are many groups out there that that are working to restore a proper model

02:44:00.760 of masculinity you know there is a type of masculinity that goes too far that can be

02:44:09.240 and that can be toxic but that's you know but that line has been drawn so far to the to the 0.57

02:44:16.760 uh left now that it's that it's ridiculous and i do think that's a big part of what is wrong with 0.76

02:44:25.000 civilization especially male the male part of the civilization is that

02:44:31.960 proper models of manliness of decorum of uh

02:44:38.840 gentlemanliness are all lumped in that category of toxic masculinity, and that's just wrong.

02:44:48.000 It's wrongheaded to say every expression of manliness is toxic. And the people who believe

02:44:56.780 that, unfortunately, are running the advertising agencies. They're running the

02:45:02.720 entertainment industry. They're certainly running social media. They're running

02:45:09.280 artificial intelligence models, which is why all those things are dangerous and subverting

02:45:17.900 our right worldview. So, yes, all that and the cure, and it's absolutely a big cause

02:45:31.000 of men, so that men who rightly want to express their masculinity are then suppressed and

02:45:42.520 oppressed by the civilizational forces that want to deprive us of our right place in the

02:45:51.400 world. So, yes, we are helping each other stand up and stand to the fore and make men

02:46:01.640 of each other.

02:46:04.700 Yes. All those things that Alan just said, absolutely. The normal, healthy impulses of

02:46:16.360 masculinity are uh villainized they're criticized and often often they are made illegal they are

02:46:30.460 certainly frowned upon in lots of situations and they force those impulses often to come out in

02:46:40.320 unhealthy ways and that's really unfortunate there's plenty of very healthy and productive

02:46:46.000 expressions of masculinity that it's our challenge to find inventive ways in modern times to channel

02:46:53.280 those towards productive ends and not towards destructive ones i think that if we were better

02:46:59.600 at that we would have a much greater mental health uh situation in the west certainly amongst our

02:47:06.560 men but also amongst our women um the proper functioning masculinity is a tremendous strength

02:47:14.320 for our women and children to live under and grow up protected through. And when that's not present,

02:47:22.640 it leads to a lot of the dysfunction, not just of men, but also women and children.

02:47:30.480 Is the Austro Folk Association active in Australia? The Austro Folk Assembly is in fact

02:47:36.560 active in Australia. We just recently have our first Australian folk builder that we've had in

02:47:42.480 in a very long time. Chris McDonald. If you're interested, see McDonald, M-C-D-O-N-A-L-D,

02:47:51.960 see M-C-D-O-N-A-L-D at runestone.org. Chris is getting stuff together. They have been

02:48:04.640 going on monthly hikes for, I want to say about four or five months now. Very consistently,

02:48:14.340 they're doing stuff. They are based out of the Brisbane area. But yes, we have members and

02:48:22.780 activity in Australia. What do you do if your kid comes out as gay or lesbian? How do you handle

02:48:33.120 that situation. Alan?

02:48:42.380 Luckily,

02:48:43.500 I don't have that to worry

02:48:45.200 about with my boys.

02:48:48.460 So,

02:48:49.180 you know,

02:48:50.040 that's a tough one.

02:48:53.960 You know,

02:48:55.220 I don't have an answer.

02:49:00.240 It's honest.

02:49:01.220 I would be glad to talk to somebody if

02:49:02.960 If 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.

02:49:14.720 But, you know, I don't have anything packaged or glib about that.

02:49:19.740 So, I think that the question, and I suppose there's a number of, I suppose there's a number

02:49:34.200 of things. So, we have people that come home to Alcitru at different stages of their life.

02:49:41.160 If you have a teenage child and your wife is not Alcitru, your child has not been raised Alcitru, 0.67

02:49:49.140 and you're just coming home to Alcetru, I think you're more likely to find yourself in that

02:49:56.080 situation than with a family that has been raised within the AFA, within, you know, the understanding

02:50:03.460 of Alcetru since birth. Some of it comes in with a conception of, you know, what homosexuality is.

02:50:13.760 In the Alcetru Folk Assembly, we don't believe that homosexuality is an inherent,

02:50:17.280 like legitimate orientation. It is a very dangerous and destructive mental illness. 1.00

02:50:28.860 I think there are a lot of things that lead up to someone deciding to pursue a life of 0.99

02:50:37.620 homosexuality. Hopefully you would be able to see those things coming oriented through an 1.00

02:50:45.400 to true context and be able to stave those things off but if you're in a mixed faith home with mixed

02:50:52.520 values or you're coming at this later in life you have to play you know you have to play the ball

02:50:58.120 where it lies and uh so that's an interesting question my answer and i know it's a it's a

02:51:05.880 it's an evasion of the question is don't let that become the situation don't raise your child in

02:51:11.880 such a way that your child doesn't come out as claiming to be gay or lesbian um

02:51:23.640 and i'll further throw this out if you don't want your child to

02:51:29.480 have that problem a really good first step is to

02:51:32.840 be very cautious of their interaction with adult gays and lesbians specifically adult gay men 0.99

02:51:45.640 are very disproportionately dangerous to children in that regard and it's not just me trying to 1.00

02:51:55.020 take a shot at them I think it's really important point of guidance that whatever the world tries

02:52:01.940 to tell you it's one of the things in this world that is propagated through vampirism to where 0.98

02:52:12.860 the homosexual man abuses children that then go on to become homosexual men and all too often 0.96

02:52:21.560 to also abuse children. Stopping that cycle and not letting that take root is a really, 0.97

02:52:27.580 really important factor in preventing that from occurring. A couple of different things. I think

02:52:38.060 that if you find yourself in that spot and you're not able to implement the first part of my plan,

02:52:48.220 you're limited in some of your options depending on choices that they make and things that they do.

02:52:52.540 too. Men and women aren't the same. Gay men and lesbian women, while both suffering mental

02:53:03.020 illness, it's not kind of the same thing. And women can make a lot more mistakes in

02:53:10.700 that regard and still come back to a whole situation, whereas men cannot. And that's 1.00

02:53:18.420 just an unfortunate truth that is. Hopefully, by the time they come out on that, they have not

02:53:29.460 made choices with their life that they can't unmake. And yes, it includes, you know, certainly

02:53:35.420 for men engaging in homosexual sex acts voluntarily, but also in the world we live in today, 1.00

02:53:41.500 There's that constant drumbeat of the transgender thing and surgical and chemical situations that can forever damage people. 0.96

02:53:56.280 So 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. 0.91

02:54:18.260 I also think it's really important that you don't, out of an overabundance of feeling familial

02:54:28.760 kindness, don't give them the impression that it's okay. That doesn't have to be done in a

02:54:36.500 hateful or an uncaring way, but they need to see a firm resolve of like, no, this isn't okay. This

02:54:43.540 is really bad and really unhealthy and I don't want this for you. I want to help you. How can I

02:54:49.400 help you? You can be compassionate, but all too often there's this rush to acceptance to where

02:54:58.180 out of a fear of hurting feelings, we legitimize destructive and dangerous paths for children

02:55:08.880 in today's world, and I would advise you against doing that. If the best you can say was

02:55:14.900 that you tried to stop it, and you stood firm in advising against it, and you did your best,

02:55:23.400 that's a lot better than you bending and going along with it, still to have the same outcomes.

02:55:29.620 at least you can be a touchstone of sanity and appropriate traditional things that

02:55:38.180 perhaps they can look back to and learn from and that other people can see and take strength from.

02:55:43.480 But that's a really unfortunate situation that I hope to never have to face. And I hope we can

02:55:51.220 raise our kids healthy enough that they don't find themselves in that situation.

02:55:56.340 I wish I had a better answer for it, and I don't.

02:56:05.660 Does the AFA have an opinion on having an AI friend? 0.75

02:56:10.960 Yes, that's ridiculous on the face of it.

02:56:14.480 You can't have friendship with something that isn't a being. 0.98

02:56:19.100 That's preposterous.

02:56:21.780 Alan, do you have a dissenting opinion on that?

02:56:26.340 I would amplify your aggressive stance there on both as a matter of principle and because

02:56:36.780 it substitutes for having a real friend.

02:56:39.100 Like I'm talking to my computer, means you could be talking to Matt, I mean he'll call

02:56:46.060 you back.

02:56:47.060 Unless you call me at six o'clock in the morning and identify that as a robocall.

02:56:50.820 There's a window and you can't get flagged as spam risk either.

02:56:54.720 a i've trained myself not to respond to the spam risk um i would add this on it too

02:57:04.080 words have meanings like even if you get to a point where you have a personal computer that

02:57:09.760 does your bidding that's like a sci-fi robot that does stuff you can project pretend friendship on

02:57:19.920 it and give it a cute name and like dress it up funny that's not the same as having an actual

02:57:25.600 friendship and it so this is the thing too that i caution against is people that pet parents

02:57:40.560 people do cutesy things with their pets and that's fine but i don't think we should ever

02:57:46.240 give the message to people without children that it's somehow just the same that you are

02:57:53.760 caring for an animal as if that you are a parent it words have meanings and when we casually use

02:58:00.960 those things wrongly we unintentionally devalue the real meaning of them um

02:58:10.640 so yeah i don't i think the idea of an ai friend is is absurd on the face of it

02:58:16.240 is complete abstinence from alcohol and tobacco with it oh I'm sorry I didn't read that right

02:58:29.940 my fault my eyes are getting tired is complete abstinence from alcohol a taboo within the AFA

02:58:35.700 there seems to be an emphasis on drinking woven into the lore and important holidays

02:58:41.400 Alan.

02:58:44.400 The short version of the history of also true in America is that in the olden days,

02:58:56.400 meaning up until about 2015 or so, it was, there was a lot of drinking.

02:59:04.400 Excess is always a subjective term, but there was a lot of drinking.

02:59:12.940 There is a lot less now.

02:59:16.400 I mean, markedly less.

02:59:20.780 In fact, I won't say there's none, but it's very, very little and always under control.

02:59:30.640 almost always under control because we are holding ourselves up as good examples

02:59:38.420 same time every once in a while somebody gets a little over the edge

02:59:44.220 and that happens you know it's it's happened to the best of us it's happened to me

02:59:48.900 um there is not a lot of drinking certainly not in the regular monthly events at the hoff

03:00:00.840 um the i i think there is some emphasis on drinking there's a discussion of drinking

03:00:09.420 in the lore um but certainly in the lore but kahava ball advises in at least two passages

03:00:18.160 is not to drink very much.

03:00:22.460 Ale is no friend of men. 0.99

03:00:26.700 The parent of forgetfulness hovers over foulers all. 1.00

03:00:30.960 So, you know, we are cautioned against 0.99

03:00:34.560 excess.

03:00:41.880 The other thing that I think that we need to bear in mind

03:00:45.000 about the lore

03:00:47.080 you know especially the sagas

03:00:50.820 is that it comes to us from a time when

03:00:54.600 you know the folk were

03:00:57.960 the Viking folk were struggling

03:01:02.880 to survive at the margin of a

03:01:06.000 oppositional culture

03:01:09.100 and I think there's a big difference

03:01:12.800 in how much alcohol is justifiable if your profession is um taking a sword and shield

03:01:21.620 and going and trying to kill somebody with a who is using a sword and spear against you

03:01:29.700 to try to take their stuff you know then if you can live through that after a couple of days of

03:01:39.720 siege warfare then you're entitled to you know have a couple of beers and a couple more

03:01:47.720 but you know if your idea of struggle is you know getting home at the end of the day and

03:01:52.440 you know barely being able to work your eight-hour shift at the

03:01:56.680 insurance company or whatever you know that's a very different

03:02:02.500 uptake on it. So, yes, it is okay to have a couple beers now and then, but excess is not a good thing.

03:02:17.840 So, I'm going to approach it from a little bit different angle.

03:02:24.160 I think we underplay the importance of drinking a little bit because I think it's become a social

03:02:33.120 thing that's been misused a lot. In the early days of Alcetru, like Alan mentioned,

03:02:41.020 or the early days of the modern resurgence of Alcetru, there's a lot of people just using it

03:02:45.880 as something they weren't taking super seriously and they would just go get wasted at stuff and

03:02:51.460 that's sloppy and degenerate and not good um but there's a time and a place uh you know just as

03:03:01.040 much in viking warrior culture as sure you're justified and throwing back a few after you've

03:03:07.660 been in mortal combat you also have much more reason to keep your head on a swivel and to stay

03:03:17.480 clear-headed when you're surrounded by people you don't know. And I think that's where some of it

03:03:22.080 comes into. Drinking for our ancestors always had to do with the social context. And to have them

03:03:28.980 all, the passage is about not drinking, or you don't want to look foolish in front of people

03:03:33.280 that you don't know, or you're trying to make a first impression on. You don't want to embarrass

03:03:38.580 yourself by your level of intoxication and let that take control of your wits, certainly. But

03:03:46.660 in a different time in a different expression of our lore um the romans first used the term

03:03:54.220 in vino veritas as a commentary on the germanic tribesmen because the tribesmen would get together

03:04:02.900 and they'd get faced when they're having a decision about something important and they would

03:04:07.660 drink heavily talking about it now they would hold off making final decision until they

03:04:13.580 re-approached it sobered up but there's something to be said about being in a very high trust

03:04:20.280 environment and you know the same thing that many of us use alcohol for in our life as a

03:04:29.140 social lubricant there's something about sharing a beer with somebody

03:04:32.480 loosening up a little bit letting down some of your um ingrained inhibitions and standoffishness

03:04:42.800 to have a have a very real heart-to-heart about something that's important to you.

03:04:47.680 I think we just live in a time where we've seen a lot of really

03:04:54.000 really casual really negative expressions of that and I think we also you don't see like

03:05:03.520 the same family dynamic when you have that. It's not like people are going around

03:05:10.400 and getting rip-roaring drunk you know in their house with their wife and kids or whatever on

03:05:16.080 that and then some of the more negative horror stories that you know many people have experienced

03:05:21.840 what you see is a warrior culture where the guys get together and you know drink a little bit with

03:05:28.800 one another and open up and are able to to share deep things with other men without the same

03:05:36.320 kind of rigid standoffishness that happens amongst proud men from time to time so there's a place

03:05:44.860 to allow yourself to have a buzz and to loosen up socially with with consuming alcohol but there's

03:05:51.820 also an inherent responsibility to marshal that with maintaining and control of who you are how

03:06:00.460 you're thinking and control your actions and one of the big overarching themes and also true

03:06:06.160 and one of the reasons that i refuse to not use the term arian is it means noble it's your

03:06:12.860 obligation as a noble man or a noble woman to make decisions about yourself and about your abilities

03:06:21.240 and to be responsible for those decisions i don't want to tell you to drink or not to drink at

03:06:28.640 something i'll offer you a beer and if you know that that's not something you can do

03:06:34.320 it's on you to refuse that or if it's something that you choose to engage in for you to take on

03:06:39.760 the responsibility of having you know one or five or however many that you need to and then

03:06:45.600 controlling yourself we want our adult men and women to make responsible choices and that's

03:06:54.400 where we're trying to head. It's not that, you know, alcohol is good or alcohol is bad.

03:06:59.360 It's your ability to control them or not. It may very well be good for Allen and bad for you.

03:07:08.080 It may very well be, you know, good in a certain measure for one person

03:07:13.040 and bad in a certain measure for another person. And we respect in the AFA your agency to make

03:07:19.440 that choice and to recognize your strengths and abilities on it. And I'll say this just

03:07:23.520 for kind of context on it at every afa event we go to there's invariably you know a handful of people

03:07:35.200 that for whatever reason don't drink and don't feel comfortable participating in you know

03:07:40.560 the shared drinking with everyone else and that's fine the emphasis on alcohol culture in

03:07:47.360 Ausatru is much less than it was. It's still something, you know, it depends on the context

03:07:53.760 and what the culture is, the folks you're around. Usually when I'm out at Odin's Hof, I have a few

03:07:57.680 beers when I'm out there because we're spending the day sitting around talking to friends and

03:08:01.760 family and people we care about. We drink mead during our ritual very often, but we also have

03:08:07.760 people that abstain from that and that don't consume alcohol for whatever reason. And we're

03:08:13.920 very respectful of that so no there's not a taboo against you making a responsible choice as an

03:08:20.240 adult there's a taboo against you having a bad experience with alcohol and then demanding that

03:08:27.120 none of the rest of us are allowed to have alcohol because you made a poor choice with it

03:08:32.720 but no we encourage and respect people who've chosen that that's not something that they can

03:08:38.240 handle or for whatever reason they've sworn it off that's absolutely something that we give respect to

03:08:43.920 Got two more questions left tonight.

03:08:51.680 Does the AFA have an opinion on using predictive reasoning, I'm using the air quotes, predictive

03:08:57.520 reasoning?

03:08:59.520 Alan, do you have an opinion on predictive reasoning?

03:09:04.860 I think that's the proper use of technology.

03:09:08.980 You know, it is pattern recognition behavior, and computers can crunch those numbers in a more objective way,

03:09:22.380 although the objective number crunching that they do always seems to match up with the subjective number crunching that we have done,

03:09:32.800 at least in the context that I've seen, you know, where they talk about doing predictive policing.

03:09:38.980 But no, that is the proper role for technology.

03:09:45.860 I don't know that I've ever heard the term predictive reasoning before, and I've tried

03:09:52.380 to Google it.

03:09:54.420 Apparently it's a term that has a meaning.

03:09:56.920 The examples that it uses are real common sense things.

03:09:59.980 I didn't know there was a special nomenclature for it, so I have no opinion on predictive

03:10:04.340 reasoning because I've never encountered the term before.

03:10:07.920 i trust that alan is steering you straight on that and uh i will i will acquiesce your thoughts on it

03:10:20.080 that's the definition i thought so all right um and last question

03:10:27.280 what if your child grows up and wants to marry a man or woman of another race alan what say you

03:10:37.920 Again, I am quite certain that I will not have that issue to deal with. 0.92

03:10:45.540 Personally, 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.

03:11:04.180 That's just, that is verboten.

03:11:07.920 Yeah. Again, I can imagine we live in such a transitional time to where some people are

03:11:20.480 coming into this with grown children already. Some people are coming into this with, you know,

03:11:29.840 maybe even adult children that have already made that choice.

03:11:32.960 um the question you ask is kind of a personal one and I think it implies advice to others but

03:11:41.400 the first answer and this is kind of like the gay question 1.00

03:11:46.960 if I've done my job right that's not going to happen

03:11:51.320 that's no guarantee that I will have done my job right but I think that's all of our hope and all

03:11:57.900 of our mission that if we raise our child correctly they won't be in a circumstance

03:12:01.700 where that's a decision they decide to make.

03:12:06.080 But if that is the decision they decide to make,

03:12:09.800 we have an obligation to stand on things that we actually believe in

03:12:14.440 and not compromise them when they happen to hit close to home.

03:12:20.760 And I think that's a problem a lot of people have

03:12:23.300 because they believe they're serious about something,

03:12:27.100 they pledge their seriousness to something,

03:12:29.340 But 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.

03:12:43.940 Don't do that. That's wrong. And when your children realize the error of their ways.

03:12:50.840 there is one scenario where they'll be able to look back on you with respect for standing

03:12:56.940 strong for what you believe in, and another where they won't.

03:13:03.300 And respect isn't always them agreeing or acquiescing, but it has a value.

03:13:09.780 um no if if my child decided that they wanted to do that i would do my very best to dissuade them

03:13:20.860 from that very misguided notion um i certainly would not attend that wedding or participate

03:13:28.120 in that union in any way uh and i would do everything i can i could to prevent that from

03:13:34.660 occurring because that's that is an extreme travesty for our folk for a family's all of

03:13:48.820 their lineage going back to the dawn of our people and that's a terrible transgression against our

03:13:56.080 folk and our gods and I really like I said I'm mortified at the thought that that might occur

03:14:04.040 and I would do everything I could to try to dissuade them from making such a very poor choice.

03:14:15.160 All right, so I appreciate everybody with your questions this evening.

03:14:22.040 I said we had two more left tonight, and I didn't know about how long we're going to run

03:14:25.640 that out for the law speaker. Alan, do you want to take one more?

03:14:28.200 Only because this last question is something that I feel like I'm qualified to speak to.

03:14:34.840 All right. This is the final one. No take backsies. What would you do if you're nervous

03:14:42.440 to give a best man speech at your brother's wedding in three months? Go for it, Alan.

03:14:51.240 Okay. 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.

03:15:03.680 That 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.

03:15:21.240 like and you know because they're nervous too it's a time of high stress high chaos

03:15:29.160 so they're going to be okay with a little bit of fumbling around so you know i would say

03:15:39.160 don't be nervous but you're going to be nervous okay but it's going to be okay number one number

03:15:45.240 two the other big thing and this is the big thing is practice okay think of your speech ahead of time

03:15:53.960 write it all down word for word however long you want it however long you want it to be

03:16:01.800 and every day driving to work every day driving home over in the shower while you're shaving

03:16:09.560 over and over and over again rehearse that speech because then when you stand up all you have to do

03:16:16.760 is go i'm a little bit nervous but i hope you guys are going to be okay with the things that 0.98

03:16:24.360 i have to say about my brother and what a jerk he is and you know although he's kind of a good guy 0.95

03:16:29.960 and you know and then you just let it flow you come you know write your speech from the heart 1.00

03:16:35.400 Memorize it

03:16:38.600 Stand up and let it rip

03:16:40.820 You can do it

03:16:42.280 Yeah

03:16:45.020 I

03:16:45.340 I think

03:16:48.300 Being nervous at public speaking

03:16:50.840 Is a very

03:16:52.580 Very common thing that a lot of people

03:16:55.360 Struggle with

03:16:56.160 It has never been something

03:16:59.200 That's in my comfort zone

03:17:00.600 But

03:17:03.280 You got to rise

03:17:05.320 the occasion, you certainly got to take the tremendous honor and opportunity to give the

03:17:09.760 speech. Again, what Alan said, the family is primed to be very forgiving of imperfection.

03:17:17.400 What I would say, everything Alan said with the follow-up, if you practice and you know where

03:17:25.260 you're going, don't get obsessed with getting it word for word perfect. You know where you're going,

03:17:34.060 you know what you're trying to say, don't allow a slip or a forget at one point to completely

03:17:42.720 befuddle you. That's the biggest trap that I've seen people fall in when they have something

03:17:46.940 pre-scripted is if something happens that they get thrown off track

03:17:52.920 and they completely melt down because they don't just roll with it. Anyways, what I was saying was

03:18:02.420 and go back into what they're saying and do their thing.

03:18:05.600 They're not, nobody is looking or out to get you.

03:18:08.180 People make mistakes.

03:18:09.280 If you forget something,

03:18:10.200 you may be the only one who knows you forgot it.

03:18:13.460 So keep rolling.

03:18:15.420 If, you know, there's an audible pause

03:18:17.800 and you've got to chuckle at yourself

03:18:19.500 or have a drink of your champagne or whatever,

03:18:21.620 and then continue,

03:18:23.180 don't allow, you know, a slight slip

03:18:27.480 or a forgetfulness break your stride.

03:18:29.960 If you wrote it from the heart

03:18:31.500 and you've practiced it and you know what you're going to say, trust yourself to be able to read,

03:18:36.260 to get back on track or, or fill in the gaps with, you know, something from the heart if you need to

03:18:41.220 in the moment. But yeah, congratulations to your brother and congratulations to you for getting the

03:18:46.800 honor to speak at his wedding. That's awesome. Yeah. Thank you everybody for being here this

03:18:53.780 evening. It's been a good, and I think a really important conversation tonight. I hope it was

03:18:58.100 useful to folks something that i wanted to say that i didn't earlier just to put out there um

03:19:07.860 i know that you know different people tune into the show at different times we may have a lot of

03:19:12.820 first-time listeners tonight there may be people with more or less familiar familiarity with what

03:19:18.100 we do um but our gothar of which uh alan and i are both gothar um we

03:19:27.620 we spend a lot of time counseling and helping our folk work through things

03:19:34.900 um i think it it seems you know obvious that we talk about lore stuff or we do rituals but the

03:19:42.740 lion's share of time spent doing gothy work is done counseling and trying to help people work

03:19:50.580 through situations in their life and navigate mental health emotional well-being and just you

03:19:57.780 know advice on being successful and and productive and happy and fulfilled in your life and your

03:20:04.100 family if you need help or you need somebody to talk to please reach out at any time to one of

03:20:11.140 of our Gothar. Gothar at runestone.org. G-O-T-H-R, a T-H-A, I'm sorry. So this is kind of what I meant

03:20:23.800 about the public speaking. Ha ha. Anyways, what I meant to say was G-O-T-H-A-R at runestone.org.

03:20:35.260 But at any point in time, reach out and somebody would be happy to help you with whatever you're

03:20:40.360 dealing with. If you are having a severe mental health thing, please get help for it.

03:20:51.880 The important thing is fixing a problem that you have. Don't let a fear of, I don't know,

03:21:01.040 perceived weakness prevent you from getting help that you need. Reach out and get help that you

03:21:06.680 need. And if you need to reach out to any of our GoTher, please feel free to do that at any time

03:21:11.880 you need to. And we will do our best to be helpful to you and get you on the right track.

03:21:17.640 Thank you, everybody, for being here. Alan, thank you so much for talking to us about this really

03:21:21.560 important subject this evening. We appreciate having you on, as always. Any idea what we're

03:21:29.560 doing next month no okay there you have it so it's a mystery but another important uh timely

03:21:41.800 adulting topic will be brought to you uh on the fourth wednesday of july uh i am looking forward

03:21:49.960 to talking to you all then with our law speaker until then next week join me and witton spawn as

03:21:57.160 as we continue working our way through the Etta.

03:22:04.800 Make it out to midsummer if you can.

03:22:06.780 I hope to see you guys this weekend.

03:22:08.440 If you can come to midsummer at Odenshoff.

03:22:12.180 Now is the time.

03:22:13.560 Make a bold choice.

03:22:14.780 Get out there to Brownsville, and I look forward to seeing you.

03:22:18.520 Go experience the collective effervescence.

03:22:21.640 Collective effervescence.

03:22:22.820 That's what it's all about.

03:22:24.740 All right, guys.

03:22:25.440 Thank you.

03:22:25.880 have enjoyed sharing the evening with you. Until next time, hail the Iseer, hail the folk,

03:22:30.440 hail the AFA, and remember, victory never sleeps.

03:22:55.880 We'll be right back.

03:23:25.880 Thank you.

03:23:55.880 Thank you.

03:24:25.880 Thank you.

03:24:55.880 Thank you.

03:25:25.880 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - June 26, 2025

6⧸25⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 155 - Mental Health

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