Latest / Your Effin’ Love Story / Sunday Stroll 11 | Who Are You When Culture Has Been Telling You Who to Be?

Transcript

Sunday Stroll 11 | Who Are You When Culture Has Been Telling You Who to Be? · Your Effin’ Love Story

0:30
all right another sunday stroll with yours truly chase murphy
0:34
the blue collar buddha right here at your effin
0:37
love story all right so before i get into today's topic um
0:41
there's a couple things i want to cover again um
0:44
for those of you who don't know this um
0:46
because i don't know how many
0:48
of you've actually listened to whatever episode sunday strolls i try to avoid
0:53
politics But Sunday strolls are really just another
0:57
kind of experience with stream of consciousness.
1:00
All of my episodes are typically done stream of consciousness,
1:03
meaning I don't really walk into them with an outline.
1:06
I have an idea of what I want to talk about,
1:07
but I don't really have an outline per se.
1:10
So the difference between the regular contemporary episode
1:15
and the Sunday stroll is, I guess we could say it's very minute.
1:21
It's very small.
1:22
You know, this could be a traditional episode, contemporary episode, which it is.
1:29
But Sunday strolls, I kind of take the week, as it were,
1:36
and the things that I've experienced, something jumps out at me.
1:39
I make a mental note, and then I come home and I write it down,
1:42
and I let it marinate.
1:44
So I take that opportunity on Sunday to have those conversations with you all.
1:51
It's not, none of this stuff is meant to give you answers,
1:54
the big brouhaha about how to live your life
1:58
and how you need to be doing what it is that you need to be doing.
2:01
This is just a dude sharing his perspective on getting
2:04
from being a drunk to living a life that he absolutely enjoys.
2:09
All right,
2:09
so that being said,
2:11
I haven't done this in a while because I didn't think I needed to,
2:15
but apparently I do.
2:17
Y'all, this is not therapy.
2:19
We don't have a professional relationship.
2:21
I'm just a guy with an opinion sitting behind this microphone
2:23
or in front of the microphone and yapping.
2:26
That's really it.
2:27
So, you know, and another thing too, this is my opinion.
2:32
This is my life.
2:33
It is not meant to be,
2:35
it's not meant to be the totality of anybody else's life
2:39
or the history of the world.
2:40
I am not talking about the lexicon of human experience.
2:43
It is merely one person's experience
2:45
that I'm sharing with others from my own kind of whatever fucking experience
2:50
and position or perspective that may be so I hope we've got that clear if
2:57
not well I don't know what else to tell you I can make some shit up but that's kind
3:03
of a waste of time all right so today today today today um wow
3:10
man I culture culture
3:15
i it's it's a really interesting thing
3:19
and that well at least it is to me for example i will be 61
3:24
years old next saturday that's right my birthday baby oh yeah 61 years
3:30
on this earth and um wow that's true it's 61 years
3:34
and i was born right here in the united
3:38
states of america and without getting into the history of this country
3:43
from you know the well let me just stop right here born here
3:49
in this country so there is there is
3:52
the American culture and then we have what we call subcultures I guess or cultures
3:57
built within that culture so the American culture and being born
4:02
to black parents there is the black
4:06
culture right there is the male culture, if we can call it that.
4:11
And I'm taking some pretty significant leaps.
4:13
The idea is we have been in environments in this life
4:19
that have exerted however much pressure on us to fit within whatever
4:26
culture we may find ourselves in.
4:29
The American culture.
4:31
We have definitions of what masculinity is.
4:34
We have definitions of what femininity is.
4:37
We now have other conversations that are broader about what is male, what is female,
4:43
what is a man, what is a woman.
4:45
And I'm not getting into that conversation right now.
4:47
But my point is we have cultures.
4:48
We have external pressures that do exert force
4:52
on who we believe ourselves to be or who we want to be or who we think
4:57
we can be or who we think we
5:01
have to be.
5:06
Because sometimes that have to be, that has to be,
5:10
it is even beyond what we want to be.
5:13
Anyway, so imagine, and I'm not the only one.
5:18
I am not the only person.
5:20
I'm not the only dude who's going to say this.
5:22
You know, I sometimes wonder if my general nature bugged the shit out of my dad.
5:28
And maybe that's why he kicked my ass away that he did.
5:32
And this is purely speculative on my part because my father
5:36
and I never had this conversation and he's dead now.
5:38
So I can't say, yo, dad, what was going on?
5:40
You know, why did you beat my ass the way that you did?
5:42
Why did you toss me across the room?
5:43
Why did you and my mother do the fucking shit
5:46
that you did to me when I was growing up?
5:49
OK, so.
5:51
I was taught what it meant to be a black boy.
5:56
I was taught what it meant to be the firstborn.
6:00
I was taught what it meant to be in this country
6:06
as a black boy.
6:09
But that perspective was not necessarily my own.
6:12
That perspective was given to me from my parents.
6:14
And for those of you who are wondering, I'm not bitching and moaning.
6:16
I'm merely talking about facts,
6:18
about how some of my perspective about the world was shaped.
6:22
And so was yours.
6:25
Well, that's a pretty big assumption.
6:27
I'm going to assume, rightly or wrongly,
6:30
that you are aware of the culture that you're in.
6:33
It's your language, it's your dress, it's tradition, right?
6:39
You know, for example, we have Christmas here in the United States,
6:41
and there are people who would tell you that this is a Christian nation.
6:44
And again, without getting into politics, it's not really a Christian nation, okay?
6:50
Though Christianity may be the predominant religion here,
6:54
this is still not a Christian nation.
6:57
That being said, we still have a culture wherein you look at marketing,
7:01
you look at advertising during a particular season,
7:03
during a particular time of the year,
7:05
where it's more about Christmas trees than it is about Hanukkah.
7:11
Okay, it's more about Jingle Bells than it is about Ahuel.
7:18
And that was not intended to be racist.
7:20
My point is I was going to say something else,
7:22
but then I tried to edit it in my head before it came out.
7:25
So your marketing, your advertising, it says, OK, here is the American culture.
7:32
And right now,
7:32
the American culture seems to want to talk about Christianity, God and Jesus
7:36
and Merry Christmas.
7:37
But then we have this thing where we say, well,
7:39
we can't say Merry Christmas anymore because people are offended by that.
7:42
So now we say Happy Holidays.
7:44
This is cultural.
7:46
Again, my opinion.
7:48
So if that pisses you off, it's OK.
7:50
It's my opinion.
7:51
It doesn't mean that I have stepped all over your world and told you
7:54
that you're a fucking idiot.
7:56
That's not what I said.
7:57
It's just my opinion.
7:58
But what does that mean?
7:59
So if I am raised in a household as a black boy
8:02
by black parents who went through some significant changes in American culture
8:08
in terms of race relations, they then imparted that perspective and that
8:13
worldview onto me.
8:15
Now, here I am, this sensitive boy that is not interested in these things,
8:20
and yet they They are bound and determined to make sure
8:22
that when I go out into the world,
8:24
I am fully prepared to stand up for my rights as a black boy, now as a black
8:29
man.
8:31
So what do you do when you have that cognitive dissonance wherein your perspective,
8:35
your worldview,
8:37
and your actual world experiences don't line up with the things that your parents
8:42
have told you or the people who gave you your
8:45
walking papers and gave you your directions and gave you your instructions
8:49
on how you're supposed to be you in your culture.
8:53
When you have that cognitive dissonance, what do you do?
8:57
When you have that inner turmoil, what do you do?
8:59
Do you say, okay, despite what I'm experiencing in my own world,
9:04
I'm going to let what they're saying dictate who I am.
9:09
And that's what I did for most of my life.
9:11
How?
9:11
Ever.
9:13
There was never peace with that.
9:16
Hence, my delight in getting drunk.
9:21
And again, not advocating drinking, but for me, it helped slow my brain down.
9:25
It helped me deal with that thing inside of me
9:29
that I couldn't necessarily explain to other people.
9:31
All right.
9:32
I'm not this kind of dude.
9:33
My father wanted me to play football because that's manly.
9:37
I'm not saying it's not manly for some folks,
9:39
but me running around, getting my ass knocked out.
9:42
Fuck that.
9:42
I can do that shit at home.
9:43
I don't need to volunteer for it on this field.
9:46
You sound like you just kind of a pussy.
9:48
Nope.
9:50
I just have a different perspective on what meant something to me
9:53
that didn't necessarily line up with my father or the cultures.
9:58
So there I was in junior high school playing football and I fucking hated it.
10:02
I was good at it, but I fucking hated it.
10:04
And because I was good at it, my father just knew that's the way things go.
10:08
Now I have sometimes asked myself if me tearing up my meniscus
10:13
playing junior high football
10:15
wasn't psychosomatic now you say psychosomatic that's probably
10:19
the wrong word to use i'm wondering if and and again this
10:22
is one of those things might even be as close to woo as i'll ever get
10:26
but i really fucking didn't want to play football good at it my father loved it
10:31
and i will say this because my father loved it that was as close
10:34
as i'd ever been emotionally and
10:36
psychologically to my dad okay he was excited you know
10:39
the way he was looking at me that's my boy that's my boy
10:42
and then i fucking fucking tear up my meniscus my fucking left knee
10:48
was as big as my head they drove the
10:50
ambulance out onto the field because of what had happened to my knee you know what
10:53
my dad says there's nothing wrong with that boy boy
10:57
get up you can do this and i started crying okay but i turned my head away so my dad
11:02
couldn't see it he might have
11:04
known but you know how you swallow down those tears right you know what i mean
11:08
so anyway there i am and i remember the paramedic looking at my dad
11:11
like he had four heads and he said sir we have got to take him to the hospital
11:16
and get this address there's nothing
11:18
wrong with him talk about what the fuck what do i have to do for you to finally love
11:22
me that's what i was thinking and that's how i felt about god too so what fucking
11:26
culture do i fit into it's not the christian culture
11:29
because i don't necessarily perceive the god that
11:31
you're talking about in the way that you do
11:33
and i don't really have anybody who i can talk to that doesn't say well you just
11:38
like faith pray to god well what the fuck are you talking about praying?
11:41
And I've got a father who says there's nothing wrong with you.
11:43
He said that shit three times.
11:45
And yet I could not walk.
11:47
Now I've had three fucking orthoscopic knee surgeries on my left knee,
11:52
but nothing happened.
11:53
My point is there's that culture.
11:56
There's that pressure,
11:57
that external pressure to determine how you are going to relate to the world
12:01
around you.
12:02
Nobody talks about how you're going to relate to yourself.
12:04
So man,
12:05
when I found liquor at 17 you couldn't tell me shit i had found the elixir to make
12:10
all my pains go away of course nobody told me
12:12
that your body's going to get used to it so you're gonna drink more
12:15
and more to get the same result anyhow
12:18
but man there i was having my first miller light
12:21
and well yeah fuck it it was a miller light and i was like oh
12:26
that warmth that buzz like oh shit this hair all feels
12:32
so good to mate and then we went down that little merry path so you have
12:38
these moments let me rephrase i had
12:44
these moments where i was
12:45
trying to figure out well who the fuck am i well i didn't know now
12:51
as i'm going through all this i don't know
12:53
that i think i know who i am i am this dude i'm that dude to this person
12:58
and i'm the other dude when i'm
12:59
with this person you know and what is it called impression management i think
13:03
that's what it's called and i from some of the stuff i remember in my uh you know
13:06
we've got the masks right we wear masks depending
13:08
on what we're doing so it's impression management we're trying to manage what how
13:12
we think we're being
13:13
perceived by other people and the fucked up thing
13:16
is we i didn't spend as much time
13:20
with myself managing that that was
13:27
cigarettes and alcohol okay so cultural cultural pressures what does it mean
13:34
to be a 60 fucking year old black dude in the united states
13:40
with his
13:41
macbook pro yapping behind this microphone
13:44
and yes there's still that part of me that says what are people
13:47
thinking of me what will they think What will they say?
13:51
Because y'all, they light motherfuckers the hell up online.
13:56
Okay?
13:57
They,
13:57
if you say the wrong thing or piss some people off in a particular culture
14:04
or a particular group, they will light you the fuck up.
14:10
So there it is.
14:11
Keeping the head down.
14:12
As I learned to do as a child.
14:14
Children are to be seen and not heard.
14:16
Right?
14:17
To say what I want to say in my house I run the risk of getting my ass
14:20
kicked Literally So I learn to mimic I learn to say what I think other people
14:27
want to hear So I can avoid getting my ass kicked Avoid getting my feelings
14:30
hurt Avoid feeling that particular way That fucking sucks
14:33
But nobody taught me along the way How to listen
14:38
to me I'm not going to call it intuition I'm not going to call it
14:43
the subconscious I don't know
14:44
what the fuck it is I just know that there was a time when I would be in a space
14:51
thinking about doing a thing.
14:53
And this little voice inside of me would ask a question.
14:58
Never threatening.
14:59
Never belligerent.
15:00
Never hardcore.
15:01
Never threatening.
15:02
Just very peaceful.
15:03
Very chill.
15:04
Same thing with the statements that were made.
15:06
Questions.
15:07
Is this truly what you desire?
15:10
Fuck no, it's not what I truly desire.
15:12
But it's better than getting my ass kicked.
15:14
Well, how do you know you're going to get your ass kicked?
15:15
Shut the fuck up.
15:17
That's what I was telling myself.
15:18
I am not walking into this environment with, uhuh,
15:21
I'm not wearing my heart on my sleeve.
15:23
People have done to me shit for as long as I can recall,
15:27
and I'm not about to volunteer for any more of that shit.
15:29
So you can go fuck off.
15:30
These are conversations I'm having with myself, sometimes out loud.
15:33
Hopefully not many people have heard it, but yeah, sometimes out loud.
15:38
Prime example, cultural.
15:42
Okay, here we go with the whole man thing again, especially a black dude, right?
15:47
And I say that only because there's this feeling that to be black in America,
15:52
you've got to be stronger than everybody else.
15:55
My dad used to tell me that you've got to be twice as strong, twice as fast,
15:57
twice as smart, blah, blah, blah.
15:59
Bullshit, but that's what he told me.
16:01
Now, I say bullshit for me.
16:02
If that's how you're rocking and rolling, baby, do you.
16:05
I'm not telling you to do shit.
16:07
I'm just saying this was my walk.
16:10
So imagine, here I am at junior high school.
16:12
I'm in advanced placement English, and we have a field trip.
16:16
We have a field trip.
16:19
Hell yeah.
16:20
We go to the movie theater.
16:22
We're watching Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet.
16:26
Yeah, with Olivia de Hussey, and I don't remember what the dude's name is.
16:32
Romeo and Juliet, 1969, I believe it was,
16:35
Franco Zeffirelli's version of Romeo and Juliet.
16:40
So here I am, having already read Dickens' It Was the Best of Times,
16:45
It Was the Worst of Times, right?
16:47
Tale of Two Cities.
16:48
I have been in private schools because my parents
16:50
tried to give me the best education that they could.
16:52
I have read many, many, many books.
16:54
And here we are watching something that I had never experienced before, Romeo
16:58
and Juliet.
17:01
So there I am in this darkass theater watching this movie,
17:04
and I'm sitting by myself.
17:07
I was not in any cliques.
17:09
I was not in any group, so I'm sitting by myself.
17:13
And when I tell you that,
17:17
oh my God, I thought I could relate to the two of them, Juliet and Romeo,
17:21
wanting to love but being unable to love one another because of their families,
17:27
the Capulets and the Montagues.
17:31
Cannot happen.
17:32
Why?
17:33
Because of culture.
17:37
Because of culture.
17:39
But yet, they found a way.
17:42
So when they had that scene where they were intimate with each other, I was like,
17:46
oh, there is hope for me yet.
17:47
Now, mind you, I'm in junior high school.
17:49
I don't know what the fuck love is, really.
17:51
I'm not going to go down that path right now.
17:53
We'll do that another time.
17:54
But anyway, I hadn't had any physical intimacy with another.
17:57
Well, actually, I had, but there was sexual abuse.
18:01
It was raped by the neighbor on multiple occasions.
18:04
So that's not the kind of relationship that I was referring to.
18:08
I'm looking at that screen and I'm seeing this dude and this woman,
18:12
they're doing things.
18:13
And I'm like, oh, that could be.
18:16
And then, of course, you know what happens to Romeo and Juliet.
18:19
All right.
18:20
And if you don't, I guess I won't spoil it for you.
18:24
But there I was in that theater when he got to that scene and the friar, the priest,
18:30
the man of God makes that speech.
18:34
Oh, oh, oh.
18:38
I cried.
18:39
But there I was in the theater.
18:41
I cried, but I didn't get a chance to cry hard.
18:45
I looked around.
18:47
You know that cheapest look that you do?
18:48
You want to make sure who can see you and who might be looking at you?
18:52
Because you don't want anybody to know that you're crying like a bitch.
18:58
Like some kind of pussy.
19:00
Like some kind of little fuck up.
19:04
I could hear my dad's voice in my head, too.
19:06
Boy, what are you crying for?
19:07
I'll give you something to cry about.
19:08
so there i was i couldn't allow myself to sniffle either oh my throat was hurting
19:13
and i was getting that massive headache
19:15
that you get when you suppress emotion i didn't know that's what it was at the time
19:18
i just thought you know fuck it working too hard holding the
19:22
tears in culture what would the world have been like for me
19:26
if i could have sat in that theater and just let the tears flow
19:29
and i could have stood up and i could have told the world look at the beauty
19:33
look at what these two tried to share with one another but they were prevented from
19:36
doing so because a culture told him
19:38
that it was inappropriate for whatever fucking reason that the parents
19:42
and the culture and the society had determined was what it was.
19:46
These two just wanted to be with each other.
19:53
And that's how I felt most of my life.
19:55
Like I just was undeserving of being loved.
19:58
I related to Romeo and Juliet for many, many, many a year.
20:04
And I remember sitting in that theater thinking to myself,
20:07
why doesn't anybody love me why
20:13
my fucking parents don't even love me so
20:18
how can I ever have that anyhow y'all that's my little trip
20:24
down a conversation about culture baby
20:29
so in the end who
20:32
are you who do you want to be who do you think you are have you spent some time
20:36
with yourself asking these questions and I'm not talking about when you've got
20:39
a beer in your hand well I suppose that would work too but not in frustration
20:44
not in desperation
20:45
just the pen and a piece of paper and just go you know who the fuck am I actually
20:51
and what do I actually like to do culture
20:55
be who the fuck you are be you be real be free
20:59
that's probably as close as I'm going to get to
21:04
to to suggesting that you do seriously
21:07
all right so you know what i do on sunday strolls i started this last uh last sunday
21:13
and we're gonna do it again so rather than yeah fuck
21:18
it i i've told you all that i was a classically trained philatist i love to compose
21:23
i've got my keyboard over buying my mac mini up against the wall
21:26
is collecting dust now that i've found suno
21:29
ai no i don't get paid for these fucking things this i'm not no
21:32
this just that's what i'm using and i'm not gonna bullshit you
21:36
about i'm using ai now what i did do is i did do a little singing
21:39
all right so i copied my voice so that voice it ain't exactly mine
21:44
but it's close enough and
21:46
i do sing my own shit so if i ever put
21:48
that up you will like hey he really does fucking sing so you'll know
21:51
what i'm talking about anyway um this is another song that i wrote
21:55
and i'll just let you listen to the damn song and y'all
22:00
look be as kind to yourself as you're willing and able all right in the meantime
22:05
take care of yourself this is chase murphy your effing love story
22:11
and uh i'm
22:13
out see ya yeah damn even even i like that song that's uh how on earth
22:20
and i'm gonna have to decide
26:27
on something and I think I'm going to decide on this today so I did
26:30
this last Sunday too and again remember yeah I am I'm not a pro at this shit
26:35
so I don't have this scheduled and I'm working on it now
26:38
but in other words I don't have this idea
26:41
exactly of how things are going to go so that particular song as I was listening
26:47
to that I was thinking about the dude who was feeling that way so many years ago,
26:53
and that was me.
26:54
How on earth did you find me, you know?
26:58
How on earth do I thank you?
27:05
Sharon is in the bedroom right now,
27:07
and I'm out, you know, doing my thing behind this microphone.
27:12
And I was thinking about celebrity marriages.
27:15
Here again, we're talking about culture,
27:17
but I was thinking about celebrity marriages, and they get on television,
27:21
and they talk about how much they love this person that they're with,
27:24
And then at some point down the road, you will hear that they
27:29
ask for privacy as they go through their divorce and separation.
27:34
So we hear people a lot in the media.
27:38
We hear people on social media talking about how much they love this person
27:41
and how great the relationship is.
27:44
And this is my soulmate.
27:47
I'm not saying that they're not.
27:50
And, you know, Sharon and I have been together 15 years.
27:54
No, 15 years.
27:56
Fucking Jesus, 2014, where did 15 years come from?
28:00
Good God.
28:01
Wow.
28:02
We've been together since 2014.
28:04
Holy shit, where did 15, did you hear my wife laughing?
28:07
15 years, where the fuck?
28:09
I don't even know where that came from.
28:11
Anyhow.
28:13
No, we've been together since 2014.
28:20
I don't even recall what the fuck I was talking about now.
28:22
I said, what? No.
28:24
So there are no guarantees, really, that I'm aware of other than life and death.
28:31
You know, it's entirely possible, not probable,
28:34
but it's possible that, you know,
28:36
something might come along and throw Sharon and I off the grid of the life
28:41
that we have created for one another.
28:42
But I got to tell you, I have lived through some shit,
28:46
and she has done her cancers.
28:50
And rather than push us apart,
28:53
it has afforded us the opportunity to learn more about ourselves
28:56
and more about each other as individuals and in the context of this relationship.
29:02
Here's my point.
29:05
All of this shit, all of this stuff, all of these things, the website,
29:09
the workbooks.
29:11
I'm not trying to tell you what to do because I can't tell you what to do for you.
29:16
What I'm hoping is that the things that Sharon and I share with you,
29:19
you might have a moment as I've had, like with Romeo and Juliet.
29:22
Maybe you have a moment and say, oh, shit.
29:26
Maybe I am worth being loved.
29:29
Maybe I'm not the fuck up that I feel that I've been for the entirety of my life.
29:34
And what if I'm not?
29:37
If I'm not that fuck up, then who the hell am I?
29:41
Yeah, see, that's where we get to define some shit for ourselves.
29:46
That's why you don't hear me dogging anybody's way of doing things.
29:51
Whatever has worked for you, whatever works for you, my God,
29:53
just do for you what you need to do for yourself.
29:57
And this isn't about perfection.
29:59
I'm telling you right now,
30:00
when Sharon does get here and she shares her perspective on how she got here
30:04
and what her life has been like and what she did when she went through her cancers,
30:07
if she wants to share that,
30:08
and she talks about this relationship, she will have her own perspective.
30:12
And she's fucking supposed to.
30:15
I'm a chatty motherfucker, can you tell?
30:18
She's not quite as chatty as I am, except when she's talking to her family.
30:22
These are differences in culture.
30:27
It's a difference in perspective on family.
30:29
It's differences in definitions about life itself.
30:35
And here is the kicker, all right?
30:38
Sharon and I, as much as we adore, love,
30:41
and cherish one another, we do not have the same definition of love.
30:48
It is something that we work on together.
30:50
She has hers, I have mine,
30:52
but the value that I have put on the experiences
30:56
that I get to have with her far outweigh the bullshit
31:00
of the fucking culture.
31:04
Culture does not get to determine for me how I feel about this woman.
31:09
I get to ask myself, is what's coming out of my mouth right now?
31:12
Are my behaviors lending themselves to my happiness,
31:16
which in turn should hopefully lend to her happiness?
31:19
Is that what's happening here?
31:21
Or am I allowing some bullshit stuff that my parents may have told me or the culture
31:25
may have told me or the society may have told me, this is what a man is.
31:28
This is what a man does.
31:31
If that's your thing, do your thing.
31:34
But like that little boy in junior high school who cried with Romeo and Juliet.
31:40
It's okay for me to be sensitive.
31:42
It's okay for me to lay in my wife's lap.
31:46
It's okay for me not to be a hard ass.
31:49
It's okay for me to look at her and have that feeling,
31:52
that thing that goes on inside.
31:54
It's like this little wiggly feeling.
31:55
It's like electricity that I get every now and again just by looking at her smile
31:59
or watching her cooking in the kitchen.
32:03
I'm defining this shit as I go, and that's why I said a couple of episodes ago, man,
32:09
fuck what everybody else thinks, unless it supports your happiness and your joy.
32:16
And that's my opinion, baby.
32:18
So do you, and take care of yourself.
32:23
I'm out, really, this time, for real.
32:27
Have a nice day or night, so see you.