TrueLife - Diversity + Demographics = Dynamics

Episode Date: May 24, 2022

On the road to destruction, pay special attention to the pointless objects around you. On your left, you’ll see the worlds largest broken pencil…. It’s pointless! Now then, find the group with whom you least identify and with a smile on your face explain to THEM why they are responsible for YOURvproblems. Remember have fun and be creative!

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphene. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope this world is treating you the way in which you deserve to be treated. What a beautiful day. What an interesting time to be alive. How's everybody feeling out there?

Is the world treating you okay? Got a few questions I wanted to ask you. There are some questions that have been running around in my mind. Isn't it strange how much the world is drastically, frantically, trying to pull your attention away from the present. Hey, we're going to war. Hey, we got COVID going on.

Hey, don't get this vaccine. Hey, you have to get this vaccine. Oh, no, it's monkeypox. The Ukraine, it's nuclear war. We're all going to die. There's food shortages. What utter nonsense all this is? Does this not seem like hysteria to you?

I can't even get a breath of fresh air without some sort of news media, just flashing intensely, begging me, pulling on my shirt sleeve. Hey, look over here. Hey, what about me? Hey, look at this thing.

Hey, look at that. Not all of these things can be true, right? Sometimes I think it's best just to take a deep breath and say, what? The fuck is going on here. What's going on here? How can all these crises just be happening all at once?

It's like we leapfrog it from crisis to crisis to crisis to crisis. Sometimes I think it's a big giant distraction. Don't we have more important things to do than to worry about people halfway across the world that most of us will never even go to that country? Most of us don't know anybody there. Are we so Are we so caught up In the world

That we can't even live our own lives? Are our own lives Not more important than These Things that are happening In places that most of us will never ever go? I do think it's disturbing that We have so many problems in our own communities

Why would our government send billions of dollars to people we don't even know. Why would our government send trillions of dollars to help out a cause that may or may not be happening? You know, when you think about that for a little bit, you start thinking, wow, maybe that is, maybe that's the role. Maybe the role is that we are the people, we are the people, right?

We the people, maybe we are the cattle. We're just being sheared for our, wool at closer and closer intervals. It seems odd to me. It's all I'm saying. All I'm saying is it seems odd. Just constant jumping from crisis to crisis. But I have an antidote that I want to share with you.

I think the path forward is just maintaining one foot in front of the other. You've got some goals. You have some ideas that you want to work on. Don't allow yourself to be pulled in the direction. of the flashy object. Don't allow the siren, the sound of the slot machine, the red flashing lights or the blue flashing lights

to pull your attention away from what is most important. And that which is most important is the idea of what it is you want to do. For some of us it is concentrating on being the best leader in our family. For some of us, it is making sure that we nurture the relationships to those we care about the most. Whether it's your wife or your husband or your kid or your mom or your dad or your brother or your sister or maybe a teacher or aunt or uncle, I don't know what it is. but those are important and those should take precedence over any sort of tweet or bumper sticker

or argument that you may want to have with a neighbor another thing i have found that can ground yourself another thing that i have found that can help make your life less stressful is focusing on that which we have in common. Think about how you go through your daily life. And it seems to me, it's a pretty good, it seems to me it's a pretty nefarious advertising technique to draw attention to that which divides us. Hey, this is the best one.

Look at this thing over here. Hey, let me tell you why I like this over here. or I really like the cut of this jib over here. We're so focused on the little nuances, or even if they're made up nuances, we're so focused on that which divides us. Because there is a premium on being unique. However, what we focus on is what we feel. And if we constantly focus on those things that divide us, well that's how we feel we feel divided we feel division we feel like we're not part of the whole

and when you feel like that you really open up yourself to feelings that are less than positive right that's where the feeling of being alone comes in it's a fine line between being alone and being unique. Think about those words. Wow, this one's really unique. Well, what does that mean? Well, if it's unique, there's not a whole lot of them.

That sounds a lot like separation. That sounds a lot like being alone. Why is it that things that are, I mean, I understand that if something is rare, it's more valuable. However, if you as a person are rare, then you're alone, and you probably don't feel very valuable.

You probably feel alone. You probably feel like you want some friends. You probably feel like you want to go out. You've got to have some people in your circle. You're going to have a few people around you. I know a lot of us are alone. I like to be alone. I enjoy spending quality time with my family and friends.

However, I have a pretty big premium on being alone and thinking about life and what I care about and what's important and I know a lot of people like that as well. On the flip side, I know a lot of people that don't ever want to be alone. They want to be out with people

and when they are alone, they get pretty depressed. However, it's just an odd concept, right? It's weird to think about we put a premium on things that are rare and unique versus things that are alone. what would it look like how would how would it be if we described unique as a loan imagine being at an auction and you're like i'm going to bid on this rare artwork that's all alone hey here's a lonely piece of art no one ever says that right you want to bid on this really lonely piece of art that

no one has ever been around that's a funny way to say it next up is this lonely artwork, never around any other artwork. Here's my friend who's unique. This person's very unique. You know what? Maybe that's a trick right there. If you're ever feeling alone, just tell yourself that you're unique. I'm not alone, I'm unique.

I'm not alone. I'm rare. It may be an interesting way for you to change the way you see yourself or an interesting way for you to change the world. What else is out there that's like that? I often thought that if we could change the word diversity to unique, I think that might be a way we can get away from the divisive nature that is diversity. You ever think about that?

Why is it diversity is so divisive? don't we want diversity to be something that brings everybody together? But how can it be? Diversity divide. It's like the same root word in there. It's kind of, when you think about it like that, all these schools, all these corporations, all of these large institutions put a premium on diversity. And by doing so, they put a premium on diversity.

And by doing so, they put a premium on. division. Well, how can you get stuff done if you're always divided? Do you think that that is something that people thought about? You think it's a plan to be divisive? You think diversity is divisive? Has anyone thought about that? What if diversity by nature is divisive? How the fuck are we supposed to get anything done? All right, everybody gather around, gather around. I want these five people and hate each other just to sit in this group and talk about why each of the other individuals are awesome. That's not going to happen. There's deep-seated anger. You know what I mean? Like, I get it. I get it different people have different ideas and if they can come together, maybe they can

make something awesome. But that doesn't seem to be what diversity does. So what if we just said, we want to bring together groups of unique people. See, then you take away all the emotionally charged baggage. You want to have a focus group? Have a unique focus group where you can get dynamic people together to work together to come up with different ideas. See, you can get unique people from different backgrounds that want to work together to make things better.

However, as soon as you put the word diversity in there, now all of a sudden you've taken away the ability to select for uniqueness. You have put a label on there that says, give me someone from group A, group B, group C, group D. Where if you just said, let's bring in this unique group of people, that gives you much more room to be imaginative. that gives you much more room to find the dynamic connection between people. And I think that's what's missing from diversity is the dynamism. There's no dynamism in diversity. There is only forced participation. And that is a huge problem.

We could change the world just by changing the language we use. we can change the world by changing the chemistry between us and that is done with language is done by choosing the labels that we labor under I think it's something that you can do in your life whether you're rare or unique whether you're diverse or unique whether you see the world in a way that is full of opportunities

or you see us going into a recession you see far too many people allow the virus far too many people allow the linguistic properties no far sorry I'm just working out of my head here ladies and gentlemen just come with me far too many people are consumed by the

viral nature of language and it's weird how a negative or positively charged word can penetrate your being and then become contagious to other parts of your thinking you know what i mean by that Have you ever been having like a pretty good day and then all of a sudden somebody says something negative to you? And for a little bit you just brush it off. But then all of a sudden, like you start thinking a little bit more negative and the words that come out of your mouth are negative. And next thing you know, you're just passing on this negative virus to people. Doesn't that kind of seem like what's happening now? Maybe the real virus is this negative connotation of how we're seeing the world.

Right? And it is, it's self-limiting and it's very contagious. If you look at the world in which we live from that perspective, let me just throw this out at you here. Let's say that the world we live in right now is declining because of demographics. It may or may not be. I've heard some interesting stuff about it. But let's say that the boomers, the baby boomers are starting to get much older, the

way in which the United States and most of the Western world is consuming is becoming much different. The consuming habits of the people as an organism is changing rapidly. The outlook on life for a large number of people is changing rapidly. So that's going to have incredible effects on the economy. It's going to have incredible effects on the way we view ourselves and life and our country and our planet for that matter. It's going to have radical effects on the way in which the labor force participation rate is changing. I think a lot of that, I think a lot of just these changing demographics may be a way,

it might be the reason we're in the world of change that we're in. Does that kind of make sense? I know I'm kind of rambling a little. little bit. However, I think it's pretty fascinating to think about. You know, we like to think that maybe these events like COVID or climate change or Trump or Biden. We like to think that these things, these events are what change our life so rapidly. Oh, no, this guy's president. Oh, no, that guy's president. Oh no, there's a war. Climate change. We're all going to die. COVID monkeypox. Chickenpox. Smallpox. However, the more that I think about it, the more I think these are all just

stoplights on the road to change. These are just little stoplights that stop us for a minute. But the truth is we've been going down this demographic road for a long time. If you look at the population of baby boomers versus Generation Xers versus Millennials, I think it's the millennials right now that are larger than both the Jin Xers and the baby boomers. Now, I don't mean the baby boomers and the gin Xers together are larger than the millennials. But just as a generational group, the millennials are the biggest group. So let's run with this for a minute. Baby boomers retiring.

I think I read somewhere around 10,000 baby boomers a month are retiring. That's a radical shift in demographics. I'm a Gen Xer. My parents are retired, but they don't stop buying stuff. In fact, they're going on cruises and, you know, they are selling some things, but they're still consuming quite a bit. And they're no longer kicking into the tax system as far as payroll taxes or stuff like that. So we have that group changing their consuming habits. The second largest group in the United States is no longer in the workforce, but they're still buying things.

That means there's still a lot of demand. In fact, that's probably one of the reasons why you see such high employment numbers is that you have this ginormous group of people no longer working and every month, 10,000 of them leave, but they're still buying. So there's all these holes that must be filled by millennials and Gen Xers. Now, millennials are in a position to not really want the jobs that the boomers have. had. Not all of them. I mean, sure, there's some good ones that people in positions of authority have been sitting on for 30, 40, 50 years. However, I don't see a whole lot of millennials that are

lined up to become plumbers or truck drivers. And why would they want to be? If you're a millennial, you should probably want to be trying to work from home at some kick-ass tech company as a influencer or, you know, hopefully you've developed your set of skills that allow you a little bit more freedom of mobility. That's why we have all these holes in the, that's why there's, that's why right now if you are a Gen Xer or a millennial, you can pretty much quit your job and just find another job somewhere else. Gen Xers are getting older. They are buying their second house or they are probably have kids that are somewhere between the ages of oh i don't know say five and 20 and then you have millennials that are trying to get into the market right now and maybe trying

to buy their first home but prices are out of control i think there's i think i guess the reason i bring all this up is just it's fascinating to try and understand the generational breakdown and apply that to the world in which we live right now. And I think you're better off doing that. I think that there's more truth. I think that there's more facts. And I think that there's more meat in understanding the demographic breakdown of not only our country, but the rest of the world. I think that'll give you a better economic picture of what's going on versus running from crisis to crisis to crisis.

Boomers, Xers, millennials. There's more data. There's more true. understanding there. If you can identify the relationships between them, the relationships between boomers and consuming, the relationship between gin X and consuming, the relationship between millennials and labor. I think if you can figure out these demographics, you're going to get a much more detailed picture about the world you live in than just trying to understand COVID and monkey pox and recession and gas prices, which are the sleight of hand. It's all these stoplights

that I spoke about. It's all these flashy lights and loud sounds that are trying to grab your attention from the actual demographic crisis that we see. And if you just take some time to maybe put your blinders on when it comes to Twitter or plug you. your blinders on when it comes to social media or put your blinders on when it comes to watching television. I mean, it's okay to go on and check all that stuff out. However, just think the next level deeper. Just go one step further and say, wow, I wonder how this, and here's an example of it.

Let's just use COVID. So when COVID came, which group do you think was effective? the most. From what I've read, from what I've seen, from who I've talked to, it seems like the boomers. This is the group that was affected most. They were the most at risk. They're also the ones that got their information the most from outdated modes of technology, right? Like television. You know, it's, there's another interesting example. You can see how propaganda works on the different demographics. Television is for boomers. Social media platforms like the big ones, probably YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. These are for maybe Jin Xers. And then you have TikTok

and Twitch for the millennials. I guess they're all kind of forms of the same propaganda. However, the message for each propaganda platform was different because the people, the voices are different. The voices for each mode are different. And so you can kind of break it down like that. It's fascinating to think about, right? Especially if you can pull yourself out of the labels. For a minute, just forget,

if you're a boomer or an exeter or a millennial. Forget about where you stand in the demographics and try to see it from a third person point of view. Just try to see it as a bystander from the outside. This group gets fed this meal. This group gets fed this meal. And this group gets fed this meal. I know it's kind of, I don't know,

I guess it's kind of sad to look at it from the point of view of, groups of animals. And I don't really want to make that comparison, but I think it's okay to think about it from three different demographics being fed three different diets. Actually, that's a pretty good way to look at it. Three groups being fed three different diets. How do they develop? How are they the same? How are they different? How do they interact with each other? That's a great way to look at it. And if you do that, I think you can take out the the binge factors or the crazy factor. You know what I mean by that? You can you can stay away from the emotionally supercharged rhetoric.

If you can stand on the outside and see the groups grazing on different diets. And if you do that, you'll be able to to compare and contrast what's happening. Interesting thoughts, right? Well, that's what I got for today, ladies and gentlemen. Think about the world you live in from a different point of view. And by consequence, you will change the way you see yourself, the world, and your relationships. I love you. That's all we got for today.

Let's get up and get at them.