00:05:13.860and it adds five percent, so I'll take it.
00:05:19.600Yeah, so anyways, that breaks down to $89 per member.
00:05:27.900We'd pay that off as a point of perspective.
00:05:32.860Also, the other thing we are pushing is our pavilion at Cigarhane.
00:05:40.100it is 31.2 percent paid off uh we still have about twenty four thousand and twenty three
00:05:51.740dollars that we are trying to raise on it um idea is to have that pavilion up and operational
00:05:57.700by einherjabloh we'll see how that comes a lot of that depends on you know you kind folks and
00:06:05.740your generosity. But this is much appreciated and awesome headway. Nick, do you have the picture
00:06:11.940handy of the progress that we made this last weekend? Of course, I don't. Give me two seconds.
00:06:21.060But you will hear you. You will while I'm still talking about it. So I'll tell you this.
00:06:24.640Talking about the lovely state of Tennessee, the area that we are in in Jackson County is quite
00:06:29.860abundant. This month we celebrated Lord Frayer and his abundance on the green growing things
00:06:36.720of the earth, and that is in full effect at Sigurheim. So with our zero-term lawnmower
00:06:44.180and a good head of speed and some folks manning a chainsaw, we cleared a chunk. That looks
00:06:52.280like a tiny little chunk, but it's quite massive. I think it's 48-ish by 70-ish, so that's going to
00:07:02.480make a really nice pavilion space. We cleared all that out, and we've got earthwork and foundation
00:07:09.260work incoming on it, so looking forward to that. Appreciate everybody's contributions,
00:07:13.520and that breaks down to $29 per member or, all right, $32 per member, my apologies, would pay
00:07:25.720that off immediately. But yeah, thanks everybody for your donations. Thanks for your generosity.
00:07:31.020And Gilbert Page, in the time I was speaking, you donated $150 towards Frazehoff. We appreciate
00:07:38.560you so much a consistent donor on the program and a uh stellar gentleman that it would do y'all well
00:07:46.640to get to know um that's what i've got as top of the show notes for people law speaker tell us
00:07:57.600about hobbies and such if you would okay i will and gilbert makes a nice transition because as you
00:08:04.880can see the carved axe handle right here gifted to me by that self-same Gilbert Page
00:08:17.360wood carver who can turn a block of wood into something very beautiful and
00:08:26.000and I much appreciate the display quality of that gift so thank you personally there Mr. Page
00:08:34.880Look, and I want to start off talking about hobbies by talking about why it's important to start developing hobbies and why it is adult level engagement with the multiverse.
00:08:55.480um and as you guys know i'm always on about this thing right here the sole bifurcation device but
00:09:04.680studies continue to show what uh harmful effects
00:09:11.840scrolling on that little screen has um on your posture but more importantly on your brain
00:09:20.400um i don't want to name any of the companies but we know who they are the vulgar um vested
00:09:31.520interests of the powers that be whose sole purpose is to keep your eyes attached to that device
00:09:40.680and so that's why to me it's both a topic and a religious a matter of religious import because
00:09:51.640this is because you're you're at some level your time is all that you have
00:09:58.520and your soul is the most important thing that you own sorry for that inartful phrasing
00:10:06.100but that is your most precious possession I'm not saying it that way so1.00
00:10:11.440to let so much of it leak away into that uh one-eyed idiot maker um is uh you know is0.99
00:10:22.240but I'm going to try to show you the path clear so um I was one of the I realized the irony0.99
00:10:30.400because, you know, I was watching a YouTube video
00:10:55.920It's whatever those infotainment things are that I don't participate in.
00:11:03.920But what they are designed to do is every time when you're scrolling or when you open a screen like that, it gives you a splash.
00:11:12.920And what that splash does, the splash effect in your brain causes a release of dopamine.
00:11:19.240dopamine, as you may know, is the pleasure chemical, like your brain gets this little wash of excitement, of thrill, of satisfaction when you, you know, open a post and it either angers you or titillates you.
00:11:42.840Either one of those can cause basically similar reactions that cause this release of dopamine and serotonin, and what happens as you continue that habit over weeks and months and years, it damps down your dopamine response,
00:12:08.540So that after just a few minutes of that, first of all, on the screen, after just a few minutes of scrolling or watching, let's say, short-form content on those various platforms, you develop a tolerance for dopamine.
00:12:36.040First of all, it depletes your dopamine reserve, and then your brain develops tolerance.
00:12:44.920So it's like if you put your hand in the heat enough, or if you live in the heat long enough, like some of us have, you just develop a tolerance for it.
00:12:54.940So it takes more and more of whatever, it takes more and more stimulation to cause your dopamine center to react.
00:13:06.040So it causes more and more elevation before you get that same feeling of
00:13:12.940satisfaction or that same feeling of excitement.
00:14:42.180that what this neurosurgeon related that he was an addicted doom scroller,
00:14:53.420although we call it gloat scrolling at the moment,
00:14:56.220But he said that when he first started researching this topic, that he was spending two hours a day, you know, just hunched over his phone, looking for the next little, to him, like, you know, at this rational level, you're looking for what's the next news story?
00:15:18.180What's the next cool little dance that I can react to?
00:15:24.280But at the animal level, you know, what it is, it's thrill and activating your final flight response and, you know, having this dopamine buzz going on all the time.
00:15:41.480So when he first started looking into it and realized how much danger he was putting himself in, he quit, but it took him a while to get off the habit.
00:15:51.740So what he realized was that he had to develop other hobbies. And so he had some examples. Of course, there are lots of examples out there. I'll give you a few of mine and those that have responded well with other people.
00:16:10.800But the first one that related well to me and relates back to topics that I've talked about before, being debt conscious, cash conscious, is cooking.
00:16:28.340I don't know if you, I mean, anyone who has accepted my invitation to come down to the property here and indulged in Ann's wonderful cooking, you know, that's, being able to cook at that level is not something that just happens.
00:16:47.580You know, that's accumulation of a lifetime of trial and error, of learning what works and what doesn't work.
00:17:01.300And that's a perfect example of this dopamine pivot that you have to make in order to maintain the integrity of your personality.
00:17:12.840Because cooking or lifting weights or doing Kung Fu, those are all things that the animal brain properly engages the dopamine response in the sense that like when you first get started, like when you walk into the gym, you know, there may be a little bit of feeling of dread.
00:17:39.820um there may be like the anticipation that this is gonna suck for a while um but then when you
00:17:47.400get finished you have a feeling of accomplishment and that's what the dopamine is for you know you
00:17:55.740you know you've you've faced a challenge you pushed through it and ah like we you get this
00:18:03.500little rush in your head um that is the reward the physio chemical reward for having done
00:18:13.740uh you know a rewarding and uh important activity that you can get that um by scrolling
00:18:27.180i'm not even gonna say it i said tick tock that's close enough you scroll through tick tock and get
00:18:32.540that little buzz every now and then or you can learn to cook and if you cook and make a wonderful
00:18:37.820meal that you can where you can feed your family for a third the cost of what it takes to get
00:18:44.300terrible food food that is terrible for you and doesn't cough doesn't taste as good as what you
00:18:50.380can make it on you know you're you you know that's a three-way win you're eating better food you're
00:18:56.780You're giving yourself a good, you're giving your brain a little good dopamine reward and
00:19:02.580you're saving lots and lots of money, so that's the trifecta of adulting, right, is doing
00:19:09.220hard things and feeling satisfied about those results.
00:19:16.320So the other kinds of hobbies that this guy suggests, and I've looked around at some other
00:19:23.300stuff like one of the um he divides it and i'm not going to necessarily use all his categories
00:19:28.660but one of the things he suggests is like nature hobbies okay take a walk out there in the uh you
00:19:37.940know on the outskirts of the development where the concrete hasn't quite killed the planet um
00:19:44.820Just this morning, I saw a barred owl out there on our property, and because I was leaving work early, I just stood there for 10 minutes and watched him, maybe her, groom himself.
00:19:59.800So that was just cool to get out there. Again, you know, when he flew silently away after getting tired of being under observation, you know, that I got this little, that was cool, man.
00:20:14.380You know, it was just neat to see that little piece of nature that I would have missed if I'd been in too much of a hurry, if I'd been leaned over my phone.
00:20:27.660Also, at the suggestion, actually, he didn't suggest it to me.
00:25:44.240uh to that closure of satisfaction is good practice and two hours is not a long time
00:25:52.160and you know unless you're so burned out on two minute videos that you don't feel like you can
00:26:00.880watch something like that to a conclusion which is a real shame and really suggest that that's
00:26:06.640you know that that's a spot that you need to be working on um
00:26:11.200the other thing that i thought was a good idea is to learn to knit or learn something like that
00:26:21.280and again you're you're making something um and this guy said that his mother had to do that
00:26:28.260because she was so you you know like after six eight years of having that phone in her hand all
00:26:33.940the time and scroll scroll scroll fiddle fiddle fiddle but she needed something to do with her1.00
00:26:38.420hands and that um you know that knitting can give you that little fidget so you can
00:26:46.820have a long conversation with people and engage in uh in that at a deep level um while keeping
00:26:55.340your hands busy and you know i've never been a smoker and luckily um but to me it would have
00:27:03.000The nicotine would have been certainly hard to get rid of, but the fidget, having something to do, I'm just sitting around, you know, waiting for something to happen.
00:27:15.440And now I admit I have had times on my phone where, you know, I spend too much time because it's because I want something to do.
00:27:33.000I won't torture you with any rendition of anything that I've started working on.
00:27:39.300But again, just, you know, I've started learning the guitar again after decades of just having the carrying that guitar all over the place with me, trying to learn to play that again.
00:27:54.120And so, you know, once again, that's another one of those hobbies that, like, in the moment, it's tough to spend that 20, 30, 40 minutes, you know, torturing the guitar.
00:28:12.400But then after I have played it for a little bit, you know, like after a week, I'll think, man, you know, that wasn't as bad as it was last week.
00:28:20.800So it wasn't quite as terrible as it was before.
00:28:24.120I also got my juggling balls back out.
00:31:05.140And again, that's a, you know, like it's been two years and I'm finally starting to get a little steady trickle of honey out of the hives and it's very satisfying to get that sort of reward out of something that takes a long time to manifest and is not, you know, instant flash and instant reward, but, you know, but takes a long time to turn into something that's worthwhile.
00:31:35.140Oh, the other part of this, and this is, I don't know the neurological terms for it,
00:31:50.900but one of the things that gave me added perspective after watching this guy's video was he talked
00:32:00.900about boredom right and that your that your brain is designed to be bored sometimes we've reached
00:32:11.860this place in our i hesitate the word culture or civilization because i'm not sure that either of
00:32:20.100those fits the current zeitgeist but there we're at this place in in history in the current
00:32:27.420manifestation where we have constant entertainment, we have a constant stimulation, and we're
00:32:41.020But that's one of the things that your brain needs to freewheel so that ideas can manifest.
00:32:49.680You can do some planning. Um, you can think about some of your longer term hobbies, like, is it time to get out there and take the, um, the roll mic treatment out of the bee yard? Um, is it time to go cut down muscadine vines that, you know, those sorts of things can, can come into mind.
00:33:16.180And if you are, if you leave your brains on idle time, reading a book, you know, it's, you know, again, it's slow form content.
00:33:34.240But, you know, but I just finished a book that was sort of an autobiography of this writer.
00:33:46.940He became a newspaper man and won the Pulitzer Prize for journalism, writing for the New York Times.
00:33:56.640after growing up in a very poor part of rural alabama which is you know about an hour from
00:34:04.480where my mother grew up so pretty cool to read about that guy um and just and reading in that
00:34:12.840sort of content is is just not something that you can get in the same sort of way from even watching
00:34:21.440it on video or uh because the when you're reading a book there's a it's a different part of your
00:34:27.840brain that is engaged in that activity it's a deeper uh more long-term part of the of of your
00:34:38.480deeper soul complex that uh that brings that sort of thing in and certainly um that's not for
00:34:46.880everybody some I try to have a mix of active and passive hobbies like that journaling it's another
00:34:57.120thing I was journaling pretty well for several months this year I let go recently and need to
00:35:05.300pick it back up but that too is one of those things like you can I wish I'd been doing it
00:35:09.960It's funny because when our historian, Chris Savage, when he calls me and he's like, you know, was this, what year was this?
00:35:22.460And I'm like, I wish I knew, you know, I wish I had better records for those sorts of things, you know, because I could tell more and, you know, but five years from now, I'll have five years worth of journaling.
00:35:38.960So everybody needs to think about doing that as well, just because, like, for your personal self, for the Ausitru movement, I think it'll be cool for people in the future to be able to know some of these details.
00:36:03.840You know, how did you guys dig out of it when BOA fumbled your authorized payments?
00:36:17.860And that's one of the things that he suggests, like in your boredom time, you ask your future self, like, what do I need to know right now?
00:39:26.740I also spend a lot of time looking at Facebook reels of nonsense, and I can't not instinctively
00:39:36.240look at my phone every few minutes and i catch myself doing it and then within 30 seconds i'm
00:39:44.000doing it again because it's become such an automated part of existence one thing i've
00:39:49.280noticed a lot i have a hard time focusing on sitting down and you know again watching nonsense
00:39:56.240but watching a show watching something with a plot where you have to engage in it and follow
00:40:00.560it through and go through a thing i find myself wanting to do that and trying to do that but in
00:40:06.560the meantime i'm looking at stuff on my phone i'm doing the thing i think that we all engage with it
00:40:12.720in a different degree and i don't think the technology is the problem i think alan hit on
00:40:18.640the point at the beginning that it is engineered to increasingly become a problematic and become
00:40:25.680addictive and i mean that's smart it's not ethical it's not right but it is smart um
00:40:33.680for them so figuring one of the things that i've always said about being arian and again for new0.94
00:40:39.920listeners i don't say the word to be scary i say it because it it's a it's a benchmark it's a it's
00:40:47.040a goal post it's a um exhortation to be noble in your existence and a part of nobility is
00:40:55.680choosing your actions and not just being reactive and the instinctive knee-jerk
00:41:02.880pavlovian look at your phone response all the time which i am as guilty or more guilty than
00:41:08.240anybody else is a thing and one of the things that um a couple a couple of things that alan
00:41:16.720pointed out that i just kind of wanted to check in on all of the things that i think are very very
00:41:20.800valid but art and imagination reading a book and again even reading a book on your tablet on your
00:41:32.560phone on your whatever but reading something instead of consuming a pre-packaged visual
00:41:40.480has your mind create a world of images and of sensation and of um
00:41:49.860it allows your imagination to create and to run and to get exercise at imagining and i think
00:42:02.400that's really valuable i think that's a key to a lot of art
00:42:06.280um one thing i would love to see more people do and that i wish i was better at is is art and art
00:42:14.800can take all kind of forms you've heard me on this show talk about different kind of art that
00:42:18.840you know we would love to see within within house true but any of that be it visual you know drawing
00:42:29.140sculpting carving or music or um you know poetry or story writing or you know any of those things
00:42:38.740flexing creativity is a very special human thing that i think is underdeveloped lately because
00:42:49.860so much of imagination is outsourced and again i don't think there needs to be some fatwa on
00:42:57.640cell phones but i do think it's worth thinking about and trying to be conscious about taking
00:43:05.240breaks and disengaging and doing other stuff i think it's important to figure out you know
00:43:11.400is it a tool that you are using or is it a tool that is using you and choosing judiciously or not
00:43:20.600but choosing instead of being compelled by unknown forces to engage make your choice and own it if
00:43:29.000you want to spend all day looking at reels like cool and if they're cool and send them to me but
00:43:34.200if you don't and you want to be productive on stuff and you want to get stuff done time really
00:43:41.080is um a finite resource that we have finding ways to be productive is incredibly important
00:43:51.160and you know i know we all have different schemes of multitasking whatever um you know children if
00:43:59.080you're listening to this go outside do some art do cool stuff adult people make adult choices
00:44:07.400you can do what you want but make sure it's what you want to do and not what you slip into or what
00:44:13.400you're compelled to do again long-term listeners to this show when i was bouncing you know i was
00:44:19.000um lead for for a time i was i was running security i told my guys like i'm game you
00:44:25.320know for whatever fight you want to get us into i got your back cool but don't make me be there
00:44:31.160for something you just tripped into because you weren't thinking about what you're doing
00:44:34.760If it's what you choose to engage in, then cool, I got you, but don't let me get pulled in because you're not paying attention or you're just getting drug into something.
00:44:45.020We always need to be conscious of making choices in our life and not being, you know, not having life make those choices for us where we can help it.
00:44:56.680And I think that's really important here.
00:44:58.040The other thing is comfort in silence.
00:51:36.060If you do something physical, if you go to the gym, if you do a martial art, if you do a sport or a physical hobby or whatever that is, I think psychologically that is tremendously helpful, even if it didn't release dopamine.
00:52:19.060One of the things in that regard is that, again, there's growing bodies of evidence that suggest get out there and in your bare feet, on the ground.
00:52:29.400You know, it's called grounding and there is an electrochemical reaction between your body and the surface of the earth that does all sorts, you know, releases good chemicals in your body and lets you ground off some of the, it's actually positive chemicals that cause overstimulation.
00:52:58.580But you can, you know, just by taking a short walk in or even just standing on a plot of ground.
00:53:07.620I think most of us live at least in a suburban environment, you know, where you got a little patch of grass somewhere within easy distance.
00:53:16.000So, you know, getting out there with your shoes off is very healthful.
00:53:20.340um uh you know and the other thing um you know matt when you mention those days that you're down
00:54:04.260They do that, and they do really well for a couple, three weeks, and then they have a slice of pizza.
00:54:09.520And then they go, oh, I've destroyed my whole diet.
00:54:12.440then they go eat a whole cake or you know they eat a whole loaf of bread or a whole bag of uh
00:54:19.000cheetos um which i'm guilty of by the way so um but so the important thing is like if you have a bad
00:54:27.640day um you know let yourself do that like we all stumble and you know so you know you just
00:54:38.360clean cheeto dust off of your fingers and you know and and get back up and knock them dead
00:54:46.120tomorrow you can't be 100 all the time nobody is and that is another real danger
00:54:56.680of social media especially you know we have access to national you know the people who
00:55:01.560get a viral video up there you know that's the few hundred people that day right out of the
00:55:08.420300 million people or the 3 billion people who are posting videos on these junk sites
00:55:16.320you know you're comparing your blooper roll against their greatest hits the hundred coolest
00:55:23.880things that happen in the united states are not going to play up to your life most of the time0.51
00:55:29.920But, you know, your life has something more important than any of that junk, which is you. And you should protect and preserve that resource because the, you know, whatever those influencers or whatever you call them, you know, all that stuff is window dressing compared to living a rich, full life with good friends.
01:01:23.340Appreciate your thoughtful response to my question last week.
01:01:26.800I've made it a personal project to learn the appropriate rooms to place upon different parts of the house.
01:01:31.560house built. Speaking of hobbies, how do you feel about fictional works which draw upon the lore?
01:01:39.460Ignoring Marvel Comics for obvious reasons, we've all seen various entertainment products
01:01:44.380which make use of our lore and myths with varying levels of respect for the source material.
01:01:49.400Would it serve our people and the gods to incorporate such themes into stories
01:01:53.960if they're told the right way are there any examples of this being done well thank you
01:02:01.640Alan what are your thoughts and also do you have any examples of that being well executed
01:02:08.960um I think it's absolutely appropriate um
01:02:15.380I think the lore, when it was taken down, was, you know, I mean, that was, when that was being written, when those stories were written, that was, you know, the modern iteration of the interpretation of the ancient wisdom of the gods.
01:02:39.800So, yes, with a respectful right view of those sorts of things, I think is absolutely appropriate to, you know, to bring in those, you know, to bring that into the into the modern era.
01:06:50.160Again, when you make historical fiction, I am very sensitive to mistreating real people who lived in history.
01:07:04.540Now, all of my qualms with the show, and there's plenty, but also, if you're going to depict real people, you, in my mind, are obliged to depict them accurately to the best of your reckoning.
01:07:20.160And like, if they're a character in a story, then it's like, got to do your best to be faithful to what we know of that person and that person's attitudes and how that person does things.
01:07:32.400It's very easy to take a historical person and put them in a story and then put whatever words you want in their mouth.
01:07:42.400And I think that's really disrespectful.
01:07:45.140As an example, it's not related to our world or anything else.
01:07:48.700really like Mel Gibson, I really loved Braveheart
01:07:53.060until I read the actual story about any of the people involved
01:07:57.100and then I was deeply, deeply offended
01:07:59.840at the complete, not even attempted, any remote accuracy
02:00:18.540loving our brothers no homo in what we do um but a lot of us and i say the no homo part is a joke0.90
02:00:28.100it's something i can tell alan man i love you and give the man a hug and it is
02:00:35.240a beautiful experience we're in a world where that kind of personal connection
02:00:42.680between um non-related people is seldom something that we get a chance to experience much less
02:00:55.620express whenever i send out a welcome email i talk about you know welcome to our afa family
02:01:02.820and i really really mean that um we build bonds and friendships and relationships that are lifelong
02:01:11.580within the austral folk assembly we genuinely love each other and we love what we're doing
02:01:17.260we love our people we love our gods a number of people when they get involved don't don't know
02:01:25.820how to do it and i think they fill their head with how they think they're supposed to do things
02:01:33.580I think it's a lot more simple than that.
02:01:37.720I think being able to bear your soul to the divine and genuinely worship and love your gods and your folk and your brothers and sisters in your faith community is a wonderful and beautiful place to start.
02:01:54.440we get so caught up in being warriors or being you know whatever it is there is always
02:02:05.160the need and the room for that that's what binds us it's what moves us forward it is at the core
02:02:12.280of devotional religion and it's at the core of building community and building bonds
02:02:18.600you can build upon that and make it intricately more complex if you'd like
02:02:24.960but having having that as a base is really really important
02:02:29.640this doesn't seem connected but it is to something that we touched on earlier and i meant to say it
02:02:36.960and i forgot to we talked about the effect that social media and society in general has on girls