Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #57: How We Abandoned Life's Foundations for The Illusion of Freedom & How to Reclaim Those Lost Freedoms

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Episode #57: How We Abandoned Life's Foundations for The Illusion of Freedom & How to Reclaim Those Lost Freedoms · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and you might not be able to extricate yourself in a day, but you can extricate yourself over time.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Start saying, Well, I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna try to find this, not in the supermarket.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: A month later, I'm gonna try to find this, not in the supermarket.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: I love your first point, Cena, that what you have to do is change your perception because what you want here to to really motivate you to actually pull this off for yourself is not to be angry and frustrated against the man, against the system.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Recognize how dependent and and and uh controlled you've become or or even ignorant.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: We'll just say how how ignorant you've become, and I can put myself in that.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: We've become about the system.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're not angry.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is a change of perception that is positive.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Positive toward I'm moving toward.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to Beyond Labels.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your co-host, Dr.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Cena McCullough.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here with farmer Joel Salatin, who, by the way, blew me away this weekend with what has to be one of his top 10 talks of all time.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Joel and I um were at an event at Polyface Farm.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was co-hosted by Polyface Farm and Man Word Press.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we both had the privilege of speaking from a libertarian, um, freedom-loving perspective.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this, I heard Joel give a lot of talks, and I'm telling you, this was definitely top 10, maybe top five.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I asked him to share the talk with our audience.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's about abandoning life's foundations.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: All right, take it away, Joel.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Cena.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you jump in anytime, but the the thought, the thought occurred to me as I was uh preparing for this, what a uh what an inversion of of freedom thinking we've had.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for for a couple of generations now, our culture has been kind of um the the holy grail has been, can I get removed from the drudgeries of life?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh I call them the foundations of life.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't want my kids to have to fill the wood box.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to have to cook.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to have to mend clothes, I don't want to have to uh be responsible for my children's education.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I I and so we we have gradually uh kind of uh um uh uh un unmoored ourselves, unanchored ourselves from these uh old significant uh things that that occupied people's um occupied people's time, you know, uh um long ago.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And we thought we were we thought we were freeing ourselves up you know, with uh with TV dinners.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: We thought we were freeing ourselves up with um just you know send the kids off to school and everything will be fine.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and we thought we were freeing ourselves up by saying, oh, well, let's just um, you know, uh we can just uh get a pre-packaged, you know, pre-packaged dinner and and everybody can graze uh individual, you know, helpings or whatever.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's no dishes to even clean up, you know.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and and what's happened, what's happened is uh that we have uh by by doing that uh and and uh thinking that we were going toward uh uh freeing up ourselves uh to do more uh whatever, fun stuff, convenient stuff, enjoyable stuff.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: We have actually enslaved ourselves to uh the medical system, uh the education system, the food industry system, the pharmaceutical system.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we have enslaved ourselves to that.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh uh so so uh how do we what do we do?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, here here we find ourselves uh in enslaved.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um and so I I would simply suggest uh that uh what we're finding right now in our culture uh and Cena, you're an example of this, uh, is that we're we're seeing a new desire uh to uh participate.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's my operative word.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um we we thought we thought we could live uh healthy and happy and and you know uh whatever, satisfied um by not participating in food, not participating in education, not participating in in uh whatever, the economy, right?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um we thought we could live like that, uh and as it turned out, uh we can't.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so we freed ourselves uh from what we thought was drudgery, uh, and we've now become enslaved by uh by the system.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so the whole uh um uh you know, I I call it a homestead tsunami right now, people, you know, uh uh moving out of the city, looking for a little piece of land, looking for community.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we thought we could be individuals and not live in community, you know.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: We thought we could just uh do do uh cash and digitized economy and not barter.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so now we have this new desire to barter.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: We have a new desire to have neighbor to neighbor um, you know, trade and commerce.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking for um artisanal skills.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, we're not looking at the yellow pages.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we don't have the yellow pages anymore, but you know, we're we're looking we're looking to develop relationships with people who who who know how to whatever, you know, fix our uh, you know, fix our stuff, or even or even taking a class to learn how to fix it ourselves.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, so so this this participatory thing is a is a violent, uh, I would say it's a cultural violent reversal of the kind of the trajectory where we've been headed.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: We've been heading off to this this uh uh supposed place of freedom nirvana uh that doesn't have to participate anything.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: And we found ourselves mired down.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: You that's what they're teaching my child?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: You mean, you know, that's what's in this Velveeta cheese, you know, that's what's in this TV dinner.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and as we discover all this, guess what?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: We're learning, oh, maybe we better, maybe we better have a garden, maybe we better find a farmer, maybe we better find a friend who knows how to fix the lawnmower.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, maybe we'd better um, you know, learn some skills and some things.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, goodness, you know, stock in some firewood, whatever.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and so, so this, you know, there was um, I don't know how I don't know uh how many people now today remember the radio commentator Paul Harvey, you know, but uh Paul Harvey, I grew up with Paul Harvey.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean the day wasn't complete until you heard, you know, Paul Harvey, hello, Americans.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: This is Paul Harvey.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he he always he's he always used to say that uh civilization at its most agonizingly pace is gradual, is is agonizingly gradual.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um and and and the point was that that you know it takes a long time for that societal evolution to occur.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then when it does, then there's this kind of awakening in reality, and and and we've got to um you know get back to to foundations.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: So that was kind of the theme of the talk.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And and what what I was what I was um uh encouraging attendees to do is to uh is to embrace this new participatory thing, which includes embracing participating in your kitchen again, participating with growing some things again, participating with sourcing your food.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Just don't depend on a USDA label to you know to say it's all okay.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, participating in your child's education, whether it's homeschooling, reading the reading the lessons that they're doing, uh know what's going on.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, uh so this this participation thing has been has been really on my mind.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and it it it's I think it's fundamental.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we thought we thought we could extricate ourselves, turns out we can't.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and this really struck so many nerves with me.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like when you're when you're up there giving the talk, I was like, yeah, like and one reason is because what came up for me at one point was there's so much pressure, there's so much pressure from society to sever ties, sever ties with these foundations of life that you're describing, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of embracing um these skills, the skill set to be able to grow your own food or make your own medicine or you know, or teach your have the confidence to teach your children, there is this pressure to sever all of those ties.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: We don't necessarily value, we value those tasks in our culture.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of demonize them almost.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: We think of them as these menial tasks, right?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I don't have to make my dinner, why would I do that?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: If I don't have to clean my house, I can pay someone to do it, then why would I do that?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And did you know when I decided, um, because you know, after this after I got my PhD, it was after I was a director of research and development, and I decided I met my husband and I decided I want to stay home and raise my kids.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Did you see that I got immense pushback from my family?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: My stepmother actually said to me to my face that I was a disgrace to women everywhere, right?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: That I had just wasted my life because I was choosing to stay home and raise my children.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And my response to her was possibly the most important job I could ever have is to train up my children, you know, to be good citizens and to train them up in the way of the Lord.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And but I was, I was um, it was it was thought of as a menial thing.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody else should be doing that because you're wasting your talents doing that.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh Cena, I I've told this story numerous times, but I I still have uh almost uh you know emotional ticks from you know the from the last time I was in the guidance counselor's office in high school.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a I'm a you know coming up senior, and you kind of you're supposed to have this obligatory final you know curriculum check with your with your guidance counselor.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: I went in there and and she asked me, you know, well, you know, where do you really want to go in life?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I'm gonna be a farmer.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: This was, you know, so I'm in 11th grade, and uh, and she just about went into apoplectic seizure.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: She said, What?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, waste all those brains, waste all that talent.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and I mean, she just took me to the cleaners, and um and and you know, it it's it's it's below you.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so we we have this kind of societal uh stigma uh against these foundational tasks, being a mom, uh uh being a farmer, uh, you know, being a gardener, um, you know, the being an herbalist.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Goodness.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I mean, uh, we should be putting, we should be putting people who know how to um cure your your your things with herbs, they should be on as high a pedal as a medical doctor that knows how to administer, you know, pharmaceuticals.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm I'm I'm not trying to demean doctors.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm trying to elevate you know the knowledge of of herbalism.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: But but again, as a culture, as a culture, we thought, well, I don't have to know anything about herbs, I don't have to know anything about health.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: The professionals down the street, you know, if something happens, I I go to the professional, you know, and and and a lot of this um indigenous understanding that you know, maybe our grandmothers or our great-grandmothers weren't herbalists, but they had a lot of concoctions.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I mean, goodness, um uh my wife Teresa, you know, she always talks about, you know, when they got a a cough or something, here came, here came her mom, you know, with this uh we call it a mustard plaster, you know, and would put a mustard plaster on their chest, you know, to help, you know, pull out all that congestion.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and there were all sorts of old, you know, old remedies that that people knew.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: You can call it fake folklore.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's not fake lore, it's folklore.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of it was had stood the test of time and was working for people.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And um and in your, you know, your toxina, which was really excellent and was themed toward toward health, you know, you pointed out that uh that early on our medical colleges were basically grew up around someone who had healing talent.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just say healing talent.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that was somebody who had a remedy for something, an herbalist who was dealing with an issue.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: But but um when a person became acclaimed for healing talent, what happened was that a uh people would coalesce around him.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start a school to teach this.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that was kind of the basis of our of our medical schools.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And man, what a change.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: So so it was a it was a meritocracy based on participation and um and uh uh actual uh you know actual uh results, you know, within the system.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and gradually that's come to just a you know a paperwork licensure, and um uh and it's very separated from you know from from what's going on.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we've become free, but we've become free like a like a driverless car and free like a train without a track.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think many people are now trying to grasp for the steering wheel again.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: They feel you know out of control with their life.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't know how to fix anything, I don't know how to make anything, I don't know how to cook anything.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't know how to how to treat myself if I get sick or my child.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're grasping for for um you know for controls again.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And um and what that means is that we're looking for a way to come to to to participate in that in all that skill level, that knowledge that we abandoned on our way to freedom.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we're finding out that that freedom uh has led us to a wrong, to a to a bad place.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think it's so it's a little bit challenging, right?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like depending on who your community is, depending on who you're spending your time with.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're surrounded by a like-minded community who's on board with this message, you gain momentum, you gain strength and power in this stance, and you can you can come together and help each other to participate, right, in these life's foundations, as you're calling them.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're not surrounded by a like-minded community or you're in mixed company, right, which a lot of us are, I'm in a lot of mixed company, right?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Families on one spectrum, I'm on the other, but homeschooling homesteading friends are on this other spectrum with me.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it feels almost like you're trapped in the middle where you feel accepted by one group and they really get you.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: But the other group, you don't want to let go of them because maybe, like in my case, they're your family, so you're not gonna let go of them, but you feel somewhat judged and um almost like they're looking at you as though what you're doing is remedial task.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's not important, right?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: That you're you're enslaving yourself to this system.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so in meanwhile, I look at it and I'm like, well, what are they doing?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: What what did what did they trade it for?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like you said, it was it's this illusion of freedom that they have.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I look at what they're doing, they're you know, they're on the treadmill, they're running the kids from this league sport to that league sport, or you know what I mean?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're like running themselves ragged.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I don't want to conform with that either.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want to stand strong in my convictions and move toward participating in what I think is a true system of uh of freedom.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like, how do you walk that balance between them and and kind of withstand it?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, well, you know, yeah.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you brought up uh an amazing one.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um that I think you said, correct me if I'm wrong, that's that the average 60-year-old in America is on 13 drugs.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what you said?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, the average 60-year-old is on 13 pharmaceutical drugs.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and and so and so uh in farming, so you've just brought that in the health.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, talk talk about enslavement.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm not on any, you know, and I'm over 60, way over 60.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: So uh and I'm not bragging, I'm I'm I'm again, I'm I'm I'm humbly acknowledging that you you um you can participate in your health and uh and and make a better uh situation for yourself.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the but the second thing is in so we see that in the health community, but in the farming community, look at how farmers thought they were freeing themselves from having to um you know having to integrate their animals and plants.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I can just grow one thing, I don't have to know several things.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: I can I can make a a monocrop, a monoculture, and I can just buy this fertilizer in a bag, you know, or a truck.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even have to, I can just call the the business that sells uh anhydrous ammonia and they'll come and just you know inject it in my field.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and I don't have to um you shovel manure or or try to keep animals or uh deal with you know uh all that.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: And now guess what?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh fertilizer is four times expensive.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: We got the war in Russia, we got um you know, all sorts of erosion issues and soil uh depletion issues, and suddenly this this this freedom that farmers thought, I'm gonna be freed up from all these things that grandpa did, you know, shoveling and and and uh being being tied to home, tied to the farm.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: I can go to the Caribbean for you know three months when you know while the while the ground is fallow in the winter.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Suddenly that freedom has come with a high price tag.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we're seeing it uh throughout just like um you know, we we can disconnect ourselves from from uh uh you know goodness, you can take this as far as you want to U.S.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: manufacturing.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: We'll just do it all offshore, you know, we'll just offshore all this to you know to cheap labor and cheap places that don't have you know environmental regulations and and uh you know workmen's comp and whatever.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: And suddenly, boom, you know, uh China's got 66 million uh people locked down.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh, you know, uh we we can't get anything.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I mean, we're we're trying to put a new engine in one of our delivery trucks.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, any other time in life, this would have been about a one-month, a one-month project, and it's dragging on for five months.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're having to rent a Pinsky truck, you know, for four months to try to till we can get this truck back because they can't get parts.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: They can't get parts for it because of supply chain issues.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, so all this this freedom from um, you know, uh, you know, we don't have to produce any food here, we don't have to manufacture anything here, we'll just we'll just all live on the internet, you know, and other people, other other people can do all that kind of stuff.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh, we've got a lot of ponds on our farm.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: We built a lot of ponds, and I have never walked by a pond and had a frog uh tell me, uh, you know, uh, I don't know how frogs talk, but but they've got they've got a pretty deep voice, you know.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm I'm just I'm just not going to participate today.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna sit here and not participate.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um no frog ever says that.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and I feel like you know, we as people, we've we've kind of got that mentality that that we can we can levitate into some you know AI cyberspace uh uh uh thing and and and so and somehow our microbiome will adjust, our immune system will adjust, our hydration system will adjust, you know what I'm saying?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh and it it it it doesn't.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're still we're still way, way more like you know, like people living um 4,000 years ago uh than we are people in Star Trek.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean that that is such a good point, such a good point.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that so if you for me at least, when I decided I wanted to start participating, and this was a gradual realization, right?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: It came first with my health.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: But when I when I decided I wanted to start participating, um one of the first hurdles was learning to value, learning to value the the work I was gonna have to do in order to participate.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, which means going against the grain of society, right?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: So um I had to realize it was valuable.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, in my situation, it was pretty easy because I was literally about to die.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, there was a lot of value to be placed in um spending the time, money, and energy needed to learn about the healthcare system, to learn about the food system so that I could save my life.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I had a good motivation.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: But so I figured if someone's listening to us and they're like, okay, I get it, and I wanna start participating too, what are the steps, right?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: What are the steps we can recommend?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: So my first step would be change your own perspective.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right, change your perception that these um foundations of life, as you're calling them, are not menial tasks.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: These foundations of life are what free you.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: They free you from the system, from the oppression, right?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: From the serfdom.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: From so we have, we've we've taken on this position of being serfs.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you can free yourself by learning to participate.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: So hold that perception and hold it close to you so that when you do, if you do come up with against opposition, you can stand strong in it and know that what you're doing is for yourself for a good cause.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've got to make the time, right?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: You have to make the time to educate yourself so that you know how to participate.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's gonna require for a lot of us getting off the treadmill or at least a little bit, right?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like pushing this little button on the treadmill if you're not ready to just jump off of it, right?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because you most of us, that's that is one of the top complaints that I hear from people, from clients and like, is that they just don't have the time to speak, right?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so um we all have the same 24 hours in a day.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's up to you to prioritize what is important for you in that time period.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can start with just taking some a little bit, even if it's just five minutes a day in learning something, you know, reading one of our books, for instance, you know, just five minutes a day, a little bit at a time.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're I don't Jill, I don't think you're saying, like, all right, you gotta just buy a farm right now and become a farmer.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the point, right?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is at your own pace, just do something a little bit each day to start participating.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And to do that, I think the easiest thing to not overwhelm yourself is you have to take something off your plate before you add something back onto your plate.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: That is that is so wise.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that is so wise.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and but but it's but it's the it's the hardest thing to do because we love we love our routines, don't we?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: We love our routines and we get really uh we almost get addicted.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: We get addicted to our routines.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: I get up at this time, I do this, I do this, I do this.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and routine is uh routine is very uh satisfying and comforting.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's it's hard to change those.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know that there are plenty of people who, for example, can have a garden, uh, but but um jump on and uh find out when where where and when your local farmer's market uh occurs.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, uh start start looking at a couple uh on-farm websites.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, just when people ask all the time about, you know, how do I know what to buy in a supermarket?
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my first response is well, don't go to the supermarket.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and you might not be able to extricate yourself in a day, but you can extricate yourself over time.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Start start saying, Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna try to find this not in the supermarket.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and a month later, I'm gonna try to find this not in the supermarket.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now you'll still go, you know, to whatever, get some toilet paper and things like that, maybe, but um, but but you can start to to reduce that.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and I love I love your first point, Cena, that uh um what you have to do is change your perception because uh what you want here to to really motivate you to to actually pull this off for yourself is not to be angry and frustrated against the man, against the system.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what we're what we're saying is recognize, recognize how dependent and and and uh controlled you've become or or even ignorant.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: We'll just say how how ignorant you've become.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I can put myself in that, we've become uh about the system.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're not angry and and and you know, uh whatever, uh uh uh militated against that.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: So no, this is a change of perception that is positive, positive toward I'm moving toward.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I mean, by the time you were done with that talk and ran through your list of of herbs, you know, I'm thinking, my goodness, um if if if if I put uh 10 minutes a day um studying herbs in you know in a year, uh I'd know a lot about herbs.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and so it's those kinds of things, those kind of uh baby steps that you can um that you can then uh start participating.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, I'm a big believer in in giving up the Netflix uh subscription if you need to and uh and and uh you know uh uh putting some attention on this and uh and and view it as I have the privilege and the honor of being able to come down off the bleachers and play in the game.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to sit on the bleachers, you can come play in the game.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and and trust me, uh the system uh doesn't want us to play in the game.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they love us being on the bleachers.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so we've got to go to the concession stand and we've got to go, you know, all the things that that that you get in the bleachers, right?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they want us to be dependent on all that.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: They don't want us to be uh in the game.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: So uh so this has been good, Cena.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I I hope it's uh I hope it's um uh it's helpful for folks who sometimes sometimes we struggle with things and we can't really put our finger on what it is.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I I I know I know I'm I'm in turmoil a little bit, you know, emotional, spiritual, physical, turmoil.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: What is it?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: I I can't put my finger on it.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm hoping that in this episode we have we have helped to articulate maybe something that folks kind of intuitively are in turmoil about, but can't put their finger on.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: And let's embrace a new uh participatory response to this, you know, to this um uh this kind of problem that we have.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that would be uh encouraging and inspiring for all of us.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love it.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's even now, even though I've heard it before, it's still inspiring and encouraging to me.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we're gonna run with this theme in future episodes.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: As you know, we're gonna talk more about how to actually participate um in a step by step manner in all different um foundations in life and in all these different aspects of the foundation of foundations of life.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, Joel, thank you so much.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: We hope you enjoyed it, and we will see you next week.