Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Inner Battles and Global Shadows

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

This should have posted Friday, but did not...Regularly scheduled programming this Friday, listener submitted Q and A:  First, a question from a young Navy corpsman grappling with his identity and future as he transitions to a new duty station, seeking to redefine himself and find purpose. Then, a 26-year-old trucker and soon-to-be-married man shares his fight with obesity and the quest for physical and mental resilience, expressing a desire to protect and a fear of failure. Lastly, something more philosophical with a discussion on the impact of being exposed to the harsh realities of crime from a young age, how does awareness of humanity's darkest corners affect our psyche and societal responsibilities? The Speed of War Comic Series: https://www.thespeedofwar.com/ Check out the newest Cleared Hot Gear here: https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/  

All right, I got three questions for today. First, two are from people in the military. Different questions, though. And quite frankly, I forget what the third one was, but we'll get to it when we get to it. So here we go. Okay, copy. Where's to the smoke? I'm looking at danger close now.

All right, I have three questions for today. The first two are from people who are in the military asking very different things. The third one, I can't remember what it was, but we'll get to it when we get to it because I'm obviously going to read it. And yeah, let's dive right in. I am 21 and a hospital corpsman in the Navy. I'm a few weeks till I head to my next duty station in Jacksonville, Florida. The last three years that I had been in the Navy, I feel like I've just been coasting. Most of the time and even a little bit right now, I have hated being in the Navy.

I let the bullshit get to me, I think, and just let it ruin my day. I got deployed in November of 2022 and returned in June of 2023. And ever since I got back, I have felt lost. I've had problems with being myself and caring what people think. And in that case, I'd make my life riddled with lies to the point where I'm at now. Just plain in the way that I don't know who I am or the man that I want to be. I spend most days in my barracks room and occasionally will go out and drink with the fellas. I stopped working out, but I have huge dreams and ideas of starting to work out, being a better runner, and just to find happiness in the day.

I keep asking myself, should I be out partying and chasing chicks instead of sitting on a log in a field thinking and writing questions for me to figure out? My first duty station was San Diego, and I hated it mainly because I didn't want to be in, meaning in the military, and I'm now currently in San Antonio, waiting. to leave. I want Jacksonville to be a fresh start. I want to just be me. I want to gain weight. I want to work out. I want to build my spiritual, mental, and physical health, but it's the hardest fucking thing I've done. A big issue I have had recently was quitting porn. I was raised Catholic, but never really followed or wanted to follow till now, and I feel disgusted with myself whenever I look in the mirror. My therapist, as well as my family, say I don't give myself enough credit for the things that I've done, because, to be honest, I feel like I haven't done anything good or helpful.

I want to stop being such a bitch and just become the man I need to be or the son I should be or brother I got to be and so on. I just feel lost and I never get the small things right, which in the ends, which in the end makes me not achieve the big things. That's it for my question, which is probably 50 questions in one. But I've never been good at math. So thank you again. Wish you happy Easter and your old man is a stud. I agree with the last portion.

He's a unique problematic stud from time to time who has no understanding of electronics in the modern era. But I digress. Man, what an email. All right, you're 21. We'll get back to that in a minute. The bullshit of the military. If you're going to join the military, and I hope that I have been clear on this every time that I have answered questions about military service. There are pros and cons to the military.

The military will get their pound of flesh from you up front. They are going to get from you what the military needs, and in the tail end, you can start working to get your pound of flesh back. And that might be educational benefits. It might be occupational paths that you could follow. vocational training, whatever it is. There are a lot of ways that you can get an equal measure back from the military. But if you join the military or you are thinking about joining the military, there is some bullshit involved. There are rules and regulations that you're going to have to follow, whether or not you want to. There's going to be uniform standards, mustering times. And quite frankly, there are going to be things that you are expected to do from people who have a higher rank than you. And they really enjoy that position. And they are going to take advantage of that. And it is going to be a matter of dealing with petty bullshit from time to time. That was even in the SEAL community. I can peripherally at best talk about the fleet military from people that I know who served in that. It seems like it was a little bit worse.

But the bottom line is this. There is some bullshit involved with being in the military. You're not going to agree with everything. And that's just part of the balancing act that you have to decide whether or not you want to join. It can have immense impact on your life. You might meet some of the closest friends that you'll ever have. You might become part of a community that'll leave an imprint on your life for the rest of your life. You'll probably get to travel and see portions of the world on the government's dime that you never would have seen. You might learn amazing skills. You might have an incredible experience. And you're going to have good leaders along the way and good friends along the way and bullshit leaders along the way and people who are just in it for

themselves. The me is greater than we mentality, which is the opposite of what you should be looking for in the military. It's we is greater than me. And that just is what it is. And what I'll say to people is this, know that going in and just realize it is the minority, not the majority of the experiences you're going to have, but you are going to have to tolerate them.

So I totally understand what this person is. saying, you know, you just get tired of a little bit of the bullshit in the military. It's worth it in the end. At least it was in my experience. And also, the military experience you have for anybody, again, thinking about joining or somebody who is in early on in their career, the experience that you're going to have is more in your control than most people would want to admit. It's easier to say, I didn't have a chance, and this is what military service was, and

I had to do this, this, this, and this. like I said, a lot of those things are true. But you have your hands on the wheel and you really can choose the trajectory. How many of those ancillary programs that the military is offering are you taking advantage of? How many duty stations are you putting in for? How much input are you trying to have on your career? How many schools are you trying to go to? All of these things that if you don't make those choices, yeah, the military is going to make them for you.

And the military is not going to force you to partake in any of the educational programs that they have or other things. that they offer. So if you don't, that's not the military's fault. That is directly your responsibility. So just recognize that you can make a military career largely what you want it to be. You may not always be in the place you want to be or doing the exact job you want to do. But there are so many benefits that come from it. So just keep that in the back pocket, back of mine, whatever it may be. You know, you've been in for three years and you feel like you've been coasting. Kind of what I just explained on the trajectory of your career. The fulfillment and contentment of your career is also largely in your control. You are going to be surrounded by people in the military who are

coasting, who are trying to coast because they want to coast. And they see their military service. And I saw this pre-9-11, less post-9-11. And I've been out of the military now for over a decade. so I'd be curious to see what it has drifted back towards. But, you know, for some people joining the military is a ladder up from a social or economic situation. It's an ability to leave where they were to do something different than what they had an opportunity to do. And when they come out of that, they're just looking to move on in their life. It's just another piece in their puzzle that they're going to snap in and then move on. So, you know, they're not trying to be a plus plus fill in the blank job.

They're totally happy with the sea. welcome to also every other career in the world outside of the military and every other occupation as well. And some people could say, well, you know, fuck those people. They're just lazy. I mean, they're not lazy. I guess they could be lazy. We're all lazy from time to time. They just view their service differently. I would say use that as an opportunity to outshine those people. It's really not that hard to do so. If you're surrounded by people who are totally satisfied and comfortable with average, imagine how much different you look when that is not an acceptable end state for you. When it's, you're going to do the best you can in every situation that you are in.

And performance is the currency that you care about the most. I mean, you could either spend your time looking at those people and judging them or focus that time on yourself, put them in your rearview mirror. And again, that speaks back to the trajectory that your career could take. So, all right. So we talked about what military can get for you. You talked about the bullshit that is going to be involved with it for sure. One of the lines that jumped out at me is you struggle with, I have had problems with being myself and caring what people think. And in that case, I'd make my life riddled with lies to the point where I'm at now.

Everybody lies, right? We can, let's just all, let's start with that baseline. There are no perfect human beings out there. And from time to time, everybody will lie. And sometimes it's lying by omission. That means lying by not saying something. You know what the truth is, but you just skip it because you don't want to deal with the consequences. It's a different type of lying. It's still lying the same. Some people just lie about little shit. They want to avoid an argument, whether it's a significant other or apparent, right? We all have a degree from time to time where it's just like somebody asks you a question and you'll make up a stupid answer to it. I do the best I can to not do that. I'm not perfect either. nobody is but the sentence that you wrote out to me seems like it is an order of magnitude or orders of magnitude greater than that and I'm here to tell you I've watched some people who have created a lie for themselves about what their life is and every single time it catches up with them and the only variable in that is the amount of time before it catches up with them and you watch these people from a distance, especially when it starts to unravel, and you realize it's exhausting,

because they can't remember as their social circle gets larger, they can't remember what they told to who. And it becomes like managing this, I guess it would be like fiction novel in their head. And I think that they are the main character. I mean, we all want to be the hero in our own story. But it is from an outside perspective, exhausting. And if I took, if I had to draw one thing that I got from reading your email, it's that you are unhappy with yourself. Basically because you said that in the second paragraph. But being unhappy with yourself, you're not going to fix that problem by lying to other people about who you are and what you believe or any of those things. It's going to start with you being comfortable with who you are.

And what I'll say is this. At 21, the person that I thought that I was, I'm not saying I was a bad person, but I look back now at well over double that age, I didn't know who I was. I wasn't sure. In the moment when I was 21, I was absolutely sure of my beliefs and why and where they came from. And I look back on it now. And I'm not going to say the total opposite was true, but let's just say my opinions, my beliefs, and the person that I view and the person that I view and the rearview mirror at 21 was really far less sure about themselves than the person in that moment. So it's okay for you to be asking yourself questions like, who am I? Why do I believe these things? And you know, you said, you know, should I be out partying and chasing chicks instead of sitting on a log in a field and writing questions for me to figure out? I think you can do both of those things. I mean, a lot of people at the age of 21 are out drinking and chasing chicks. You don't have to do both. You don't have to do either. I'm just saying it's not uncommon to do that. If though,

you know, you want to spend more time sitting along asking yourself questions, you know, these more hypothetical questions or metaphorical questions about who you want to be in the grander scheme of things, I think that's great too. But at the end of the day, you're going to have to take action. So not that drinking and chasing chicks is a waste of time. It's probably not going to help you professionally in your military career. Maybe it'll help you find a partner. at some point in time, and sitting down and asking yourself these deep questions about life and philosophical questions about who you want to be. That's great too. But at some point in time, you have to take action on that. But if you're not taking action, or I should take that back,

if you are taking action on those things, but you're lying to the people that are around you, just understand that whatever road you put yourself on is going to eventually J-turn back to it falling apart. The wheels are going to come off the vehicle at some point in time if you can't arrive at a place where you're comfortable being who you are. So for me, it starts with that. You have to, and this is a tough one, because I still struggle with this. And I think everybody does to a degree. You know, it's easy. I've met a few people in my life and they'll say, well, I just don't give a shit what other people think about me. And some of them definitely seem to to live that, but others say that. And I wonder if that's actually true. Because again,

We're all human. I think we're defined by our similarities, not by our differences, the struggles that we go through, whether we open with the struggles or we're quiet about the struggles that we're dealing with, the internal thoughts that we struggle with, the external pressures and motivations that we all struggle with. I think we're very similar. Human beings are very similar in that respect. It's just whether or not we are open and honest enough to be able to say that. You have to do the best you can to develop. the ability to tell the truth. If your social circle is built upon lies and a caricature that you have built,

it's going to come apart. And I'm telling you right now those people aren't your friends because they don't actually know you. And maybe you'll have less friends if you are blatantly honest about who you are and what you believe and what values you have. And I think that's okay. I would rather have less friends at a deeper level who know who I am as a person. And I would say this same thing for finding a partner as well. Imagine entering into a relationship and that relationship is based off of a fairy tale. You think at some point in time that's not going to unwind itself that you're not going to get exhausted and slip up and say something or have a portion of your life that you were trying to hide rise to the surface? I mean, it's absolutely going to. I want, you know, I, oh, look at my own wife, I want Leah to love me for who I am. And that includes the, you know, the damage portion of the fruit sitting in the bowl, right?

It's not like a perfect apple and pear and a banana and they're all blemish-free and shiny because there's a little bit of wax on them. Like, sorry, like, there's a huge, like, brown area on that apple over there because I am not perfect. I have made mistakes in my life. But I want those mistakes to be open and honest and transparent so that she actually loves me for who I am, not who she thinks I am. Because that second one, you're going to be proper fucked at some point in time when that comes out. All right. Back into your email. I know how I got off on a tangent there.

If you want to sit in a log in a field and ask yourself these questions, that's great. You have to take action at some point. You feel disgusted with yourself when you look in the mirror, and you don't think you've done anything good or helpful. Well, how about this? You've already volunteered to join the military. You're probably three quarters, if not almost all the way through your first enlistment. It sounds to me like you have, you know, so you went from wherever you grew up, you graduated high school, you made that choice. you made that choice. The only person who is telling you that you're a bad person,

where was it? I want to stop being a little bitch and just become the man I need to be. The only person telling you that you are that is yourself. And you need to be really cautious about how you talk to yourself. I've mentioned this many times. My ability for negative self-talk is pretty incredible. The things I can say to myself in the morning, looking in the mirror, I would never say to another human being because they're so horrible. And I don't know why we are comfortable saying those things to ourselves, even though we know we would never treat another human like that. And that is something that I would work with your therapist in trying to find a way to interrupt that negative cycle. I recognize when I am being that way and I do my best to stop it.

For me in working with a counselor, it was about identifying the impact that that can have. and as early as possible, like working my way backwards, what was the origin or the inception point for the beginning of that behavior? If I can identify that, I can put a barrier around it or I can try to interrupt the behavior, especially once you understand how negative it is. That is something that I would work on with your therapist. It sounds to me like your therapist and your family are very supportive. but when you get to this place of negative self-talk and you're just on this doom spiral, you can't hear any of those things because the internal voice is so much louder than the external

one. Please recognize this. You have control over the internal voice. You may not be able to shut it off, but you can learn how to interrupt it. You can learn to let go of those thoughts. And you can learn to be a lot kinder to yourself, which is something that I would recommend for you. I don't know much about religion. I don't know really anything about Catholicism,

but I'm pretty sure that most religion is rooted in at least one of the foundational principles is forgiveness. And it sounds to me like the person that you need to forgive the most is actually yourself. So hopefully by finding your way back to your faith, you can help yourself with that. It's always wild to me. Actually, I don't know, maybe it actually does make sense. people who find their way to a religion that is based in forgiveness, they have an inherent ability to forgive other people. They struggle to forgive themselves. And I don't know why that is. I'm not smart enough to understand why that is, but that sucks because the person that you live with 24-7 in your ears with that potential negative south talk and that judgment and that weight that you can put on your shoulders is you. Aren't you equally as deserving of that forgiveness? I would say so. I would hope so. But again, I don't know how religion works. I need to become the man or the son or brother that I should be.

Give yourself time. You know, just because the United States government considers you to be a man because you're 18 doesn't mean that you are yet. You know, the science is very clear. The adult male brain doesn't stop or yeah, doesn't stop developing until about 26. meaning you as a person are going to change and navigate life up until that point. So it may not be possible for you to be the best version of yourself just yet because you're not done growing and developing and turning, not turning, but becoming a man. I feel like you have your head in a good place, meaning that you want to be better. and for you what I would suggest are incremental steps towards that you talked about you want to make Jacksonville Florida here's what I would suggest for you it's it's hard to reset who you are

like if you wake up on Saturday and you want to become a different version of yourself than you were on Friday and there's going to be a large change and you have a social circle and people or around you. That can be difficult. You have an opportunity here where you're going to be going to Jacksonville. And my suggestion to you would be this. Use that as an opportunity to reset yourself. And I would reset yourself to a place of absolute savage honesty. Use it as your opportunity to plant your flag in the ground and say, I am going to be the person that I know that I am absent whatever anybody else may think. And I'm telling you right now, maybe you will have less friends, but the ones you have will be better. And you won't have to tell a story to people. And you

won't need to have lies that you tell people. Just be honest with other people and also with yourself. And use that move to Jacksonville as the starting point, not the end point, because all these things that you want to do cannot be done overnight. Your spiritual, physical, and mental health. There are small steps that you take. And over time, it's the volume underneath. that curve that actually matters. It's not the angle, right? You're not going to just climb Mount Everest straight up. You need to set a lower trajectory and focus over time how much volume you have under that line. Physically, it takes time to work yourself into a good condition, mentally and emotionally and spiritually. And again, I don't know shit about spiritual aspect of it, but that's my assumption.

Look at it like that. But use that move to Jacksonville as that starting point. Maybe get a different counselor, I would also say, too. Just because somebody is seeing a counselor doesn't mean they're the right counselor for you. And then the last piece of advice I'll give you is this. Weight the things that you are successful in at life the same that you do as your failures. It sounds to me like you are really heavily weighting the things that you view to be negative and very underweighting the things that you view to be positive. And I say that because I am incredibly capable of doing that as well. It's like reading comments on the internet. You could see 100 positive comments, and inside of there, there's one that's slightly negative. The energy that

most people, to include myself, will focus on that negative one outweighs everything you put together in the positive. And it shouldn't be that way, because it's not a proper representation of the pros and cons are positive and negatives. It's very difficult to do, but until you learn how to celebrate your successes, and that might be a micro success, that is going and starting a day and completing that day having done the things that are going to help build that physical, mental, and spiritual health. You went to the gym and maybe you just got on the treadmill for 30 minutes and you walked. Guess what? That's a micro victory and you need to celebrate that as opposed to becoming overwhelmed and like, oh, I'm never going to get to where I want to go. Put that shit aside and focus on your day-to-day

micro victories. That is going to help you be much more successful and put you on that path towards where you want to be. It's going to take time. And fortunately, at the age of 21, you have a lot of it. So that is my advice. I hope that it helped. Question number two. Andy, Hope all is well. I'm in a bit of a bind. I would love some feedback and or guidance. I'm 26 and morbidly obese. And I've always been big, but it's gotten really bad. I'm a trucker by trade. I don't know why I thought this email came from somebody in the military. My bad. And newly engaged to the love of my life. I've been battling the feeling of inadequacy. I feel as though my ability to protect is non-existent. I shoot every chance I get to ensure a level of competency.

but the physical aspect just isn't there. When I go to the gym, I get lost in the analytics, if you will, and I get so overwhelmed I just don't know what to do. I want to get into learning Jiu-Jitsu, but I am concerned my weight will get in the way. The last thing I want to do is hurt someone because of my weight. Can you shed some light on how to find a good Jiu-Jitsu gym? I'm not trying to be taught by somebody teaching people the death touch. If you're not familiar with Madojo life, you need to go watch it

because it's full of people teaching the death touch, and I'm fascinated by those videos. Not by the person teaching the death touch. I'm fascinated by the people in the background who are in a group setting are all lying to themselves. I don't even watch the person teaching now. I just watch everybody in the background

and it is fascinating. Yeah, I don't know why I thought this email was from somebody in the military. Maybe it was on the next segment I was going to do. Okay. Shooting is great. Having that level of competency is great. Just understand that firearms aren't magic and they don't solve all problems.

If you pull a firearm out in a situation where a firearm is not needed to protect yourself, then you are entering into a world of legal shit. And I don't hope for that for anybody. I actually don't hope that anybody ever actually pulls out a firearm and has to defend their life or one of their loved ones' life. It's a heavy decision. It's a heavy burden, and it will leave a mark on you. There's a lot of ranges when I think about self-defense, and you were talking about your feelings of inadequacy or ability to protect.

There's ranges, far off distances, medium distances, and then the distance when somebody actually puts their hands on you. I'd say a grappling art or striking, you know, and it needs to be, jiu-jitsu's not magic either for everybody out there, right? There's no striking component to jiu-jitsu, no kicking component. A lot of it is fighting off of your back, and some of it is fighting in air quotes, I guess, the more sport jiu-jitsu in positions where if you were in an environment, where striking is allowed, you're going to get your face absolutely flattened. So use with caution.

There are no magic tools, but in combination, you can develop a very robust level and ability to defend yourself and other people. So what are you going to do out of the range of a firearm? The answer, if you haven't trained that, and at a far distance, you can control that by getting yourself the fuck out of there, right? Distance buys you time. Time makes you, or not doesn't make you, but it gives you the ability to make decisions. You can control that distance even more. And the best thing to do when you see a situation like that is to avoid it at all costs. That medium distance, the firearm could potentially help you there.

And then that really close distance when it gets to that point, well, if you've never trained in that world, I'm here to tell you're going to absolutely be dominated. In general, if you want to have competency and capacity at almost anything physically related, you have to address the flesh suit that we all walk around in. You are morbidly obese. Your words, not mine. You have to fix that. Can people lose weight by starting jiu-jitsu?

Yes, you can. Can you accidentally hurt somebody by applying weight at times that you shouldn't? Yes, you can. You could also hurt yourself just by slipping and falling or falling on somebody else. So that threat, not a threat. That danger is real. I don't want that to stop you. but I would recommend a two-pronged approach.

Don't think that Jiu-Jitsu is going to solve that problem alone. You need to get your ass into a gym. If you met the love your life, do you want to spend a short time with this person or as long a time as possible with this person, enjoying being around them, enjoying the experiences, enjoying living life with them? I'm going to assume it's going to be the latter.

The number one cause of death in the United States right now is obesity-related issues. We're fucking eating ourselves into this problem. For the vast majority of people, this is an optional condition that occurs over days, weeks, months, and years. To unwind it, it's going to take some time too. But how far do you want to let it go

before you start that process? My answer to that is no farther than you would be right in this moment. So the jiu-jitsu path is great. If you're a trucker, I know nothing about your life, but wherever you drive to, regardless of how tired you are, get out of your truck and at least go for a walk for 30 minutes. Just start right there. And if you can't get to 30, do five, then 10, 15, you get it. You know, cascade your way up depending on what your body's physically capable of doing. And if you don't have the motivation to do so, just imagine the love of your life sitting next to you in a hospital bed or looking at you in a coffin because you died 30 years before you should have. because you ate yourself into an early death. If that doesn't light a fire under your ass, I don't know if anything I say can help you because that level of motivation,

that image should hopefully for you drive an internal level of motivation that would make you unstoppable. Again, if it took you a long time to get morbidly obese, set a realistic expectation to get out of that. But that's your motivation. Finding a jiu-jitsu school,

my wife is better at answering this, and I've heard her answer this question a few times so I can repeat what she has said. you go in and talk to the coach and go in and watch some classes. Make sure that the people on the mat are of a good age variety, meaning it's not just all 22-year-olds and they're trying to kill himself, but it should be a good mix of male and female and young to older. There's a black belt I train with at SBG.

He's in his 50s. I know of another one who got their black belt in their 60s, and then we have we, they, SBG, has kids classes, teens classes, and adult classes. And it's a great mix of male to female. There are some people in there who want to compete. So they go to the competition class in addition. But a lot of them are just professionals who come in on their lunch because they want to get 0.01% better. And then the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day.

And over time you look back, you're like, holy shit, how did I get this far? One step at a time is the answer. So go in. You know, the internet's a great tool as well. You can research the schools. But go in and talk to the coach. Watch a class. Do a trial class.

And if you don't like the vibe, don't go back. Go to a different gym. And again, the biggest thing I would say to avoid for you is a gym full of 20 to 25-year-old dudes. They're in there just murdering each other. That's not the environment that you want to start in. But pair both. Start doing the jiu-jitsu. And then also just start walking.

Figure out something that you can do. Put a kettlebell in your truck. Put a dumbbell in your truck. The creative nature of what you can do with inanimate objects, you can destroy yourself with those things. You just have to find the right motivation to do so. And it sounds like you already have because you're about to marry the love your life. Last question. This may be more of a philosophical question than usual, but what are your thoughts on the idea of looking into the dark corners of the world and what does that invite into your own life? For context, I'm the son of two now

retired police officers. I found that growing up, and even as an adult, I have been lent a more clear perspective of criminality and human cruelty as a result of my parents' former occupation. They both spent a great deal of time pursuing and prosecuting low-level drug dealers and organized crime members, which would inevitably be discussed over dinner or evening tea. And as a consequence, I could see what gang activity looked like since I was maybe 10 years old. All of this to say, in comparing myself to my peers, I find a lot of them lacking the understanding of just how much shady shit happens just out of sight of the general public. I couldn't agree with you more, and I say this often. The veneer of safety that we live in is micro-thin.

And I can't help but wonder if it's unwise for an individual to go without educating themselves on these things, or even what an acceptable level of understanding is. In the context of human trafficking, which is, to my mind, among the darkest corners of human social psyche, how can we as a society even look at this issue without feeling like our own hands are dirtied in the process? And maybe we should feel that way, after all, we're not doing everything in our power to prevent it. I always think of human trafficking as being the darkest of criminality, or at least among the darkest, and it's troubling that knowing little about it means being unable to do anything about it. But even if I were well educated on the subject, I would then know all of the horrible shit that is involved with that. How can we look at this dark side of humanity without feeling like we're somehow complicit in it? Is there something unique to the individuals capable of tackling that kind of crime?

Anyways, I appreciate the work that you do, and hopefully you'll be able to share some insights on this. Our hands are a little bit dirty. Everybody's hands are a little bit dirty. Human trafficking is not something I understood until I started doing this podcast, and it's everywhere around us. And for most people, I think, they thought it was sexual trafficking was the majority of it. And it's not. It is workers. It is hotel staff. It is salon workers, the people who are doing your manny petty. It is people working in agricultural fields. It is everywhere. And it exists outside of the United States. And I say we all have our hands dirty to a degree because living in the first world, the vast majority of things that we have and that we buy that are created from

overseas and not everywhere. But you can do your own research and just figure out the working conditions, the living conditions, the wage conditions, the average age of the people who are developing and building and then shipping the things to us that we use in every day, they're not conditions that you have put your own kids in. So we are complicit to a degree. What can we do about it? You can make educated choices, and those are difficult because paying people a living wage, I'm actually wearing origin right now in one of their vests. Dirt to shirt. You know, American grown cotton all the way to a shirt or a pair of pants. I'm actually wearing one of their pants right now.

It's not cotton. So I'm not even going to guess what it's made out of. They control everything from the dirt till it gets to consumers' hand. They're paying a living wage. It's produced in America. And it costs more. So in times of economic struggle, it's difficult for people to make those choices. And I absolutely get it.

And don't get me wrong. I have bought plenty of things in my life from overseas. And I have no doubt that not intentionally, but indirectly, I have participated in the systems that you are talking about. And it sucks. So I do the best that I can to make educated decisions about the things that I buy and where they come from. That is one of the things that I love most about Origin USA and Pete and Jocko and Deco and the people who are associated with that brand. It doesn't solve the problem, but it gives you another option. The problem with it is sometimes is the cost and people aren't in a place where they can make.

that decision. Well, you have to live first, right? You have to survive first. If you get to a point where you're thriving or doing better, then you can start making those choices. Being aware of these things, though, I think is actually essential. I would rather have my own kids aware of the seedy underbelly of humanity and prepare themselves for it and never touch it, then live a life of this existential bliss where they think everything is perfect in this first world life of excess and then bump up against that seedy underbelly having not known about it and not being prepared for it. I don't think you need to spiral down the conspiracy rabbit hole. I don't think it has to be that level of everything that you look at and only focusing on the negative, much like the previous

question I answered. You have to balance the positive and the negative. But I don't think your parents sharing those things with you is negative. I don't know. at the age of 10, I'd been discussing that at the dinner table. But again, you have a much better idea of what human beings are capable of. That's a good thing. You're less likely to be surprised if you encounter it. The other side of it, I do think, is more dangerous. The ignorance is bliss mentality, and then you are touched by it, and you're completely and wholly unprepared.

Again, I have said it in the last question. Jiu-Jitsu is not magic. It's angles, leverage, weight distribution, it's strangling blood. and taking joints, their full range of motion, and then your partner taps, and then you reset. If you find somebody who grabs you on the street and they've never trained and you have, it's like child's play. I didn't believe it when I first started doing jujitsu. It's ridiculous how much control you can exert over another human being. And I'm not saying people should do jujitsu so they can go and break people's bones and choke them unconscious, but I want them

to know how to do those things before they are asked to do them by real life and they are unprepared. I'd rather have you train for 20 years and never get into a fight, which is likely the path for people who do jiu-jitsu because you realize like, oh my God, there's consequences of this, this can be painful, this can hurt, and I actually get to just fuck up my friends and fight my friends, and you're not actually hurting them, but you're going as hard as you can. You're learning, you're getting better, and you just get it all out on the You have no desire to fight anybody because you're fighting your friends every single day. It's amazing.

My closest friends are the ones that I fight every day. I don't hurt them and I'm not trying to. The last thing I want to do is hurt somebody on the street. But if somebody grabs me on the street, that's a poor choice. But most of the time, when somebody gets grabbed on the street, it's not a poor choice because they have no fucking clue how to defend themselves. Because they live in a world where they want to ignore the realities around them. The veneer that we have is thin. Where I live, there are far fewer police and firefighters on duty than most people would like to imagine.

A response time where I live could be 30 minutes 45, depending on where you live. That is a really long time to fight for your life or work your way through a critical situation. If you have spent your life telling yourself that everything is gum drops falling from the sky and beautiful rainbows and sunsets, when the reality is life can be those things, but there is another side to it as well. So maybe find a balance between the two. Don't live in any one of those things. But I think looking at the darker corners of the world will not only give you an appreciation for what you have if you're not in one of those spots, but it gives you a recipe for how to prepare for them. These are the things that you might encounter.

Oh, shit. Maybe those are things I should prepare myself for. Pretty straightforward. most people don't do it and they get away with it because the odds are in their favor. I don't like to play the odds because to me that's gambling. I'm willing to take calculated risks, but I'm never willing to gamble, not with my life, not with the life of the people that I love and care for and specifically not with my family either. So I do the best I can to expose them to the potential underbelly as well,

but just not harp on it and live there and only make them feel like the world is crashing down on them. Because for most of us, it's never going to do so. but when you get pushed into a corner, you know, you don't rise to the occasion. You fall to the level of your training. So, I don't know, maybe put some time and effort into training. So when that CD underbelly pokes its head up, you smack it right back down. And that's all I got for this Friday.