Practice Session #26

Thanks for checking out my show notes! I’ll be utilizing this to clarify and elaborate on points that I didn’t convey as well as I would’ve liked to. I’ll also provide links to further information and resources.

We record these weekly sessions on Sundays. Please note that I try to publish episodes the day after recording: Mondays. I generally will have the transcript and initial notes published on Mondays as well. From there, I may continue adding and modifying the show notes throughout the week.

I’ll be interspersing all my notes with the transcription from the audio, which will be displayed like this:

Intro.

CK: Okay, here we go.

Okay. Hey, yo, I’m CK and you’re listening to practice. I’m your functional systems integrator. And this is my podcast where practice is not just the theme of the show, but the whole purpose behind it. I’m using this platform to practice podcasting as well as speaking in general while espousing half thoughts and providing unsolicited advice as always, I’m fortunate to be joined by my practice partner and partner in life.

Pam,

Pam: Hey, that’s me.

CK: Pam is also my pattern awareness manager, and every Sunday we reflect on the past week. And my progress with this practice, we also talk about. Other lifestyle practices, as well as theories and ideas behind the virtues of practice itself. We’re doing this on the fly. So don’t hold me responsible for what I say here.

Make sure to check out my show notes where I’ll provide some fact checking, self psychoanalysis and commentary on things I could’ve done better. You may find this and more information about this project@forcesofequal.com slash practice today. Yeah, it is August 23rd, 2020. And this is our 26th practice session.

And we are closing in on half a year of practicing.

Pam: At what point do we get to stop practicing?

CK: Never. We’re always going to be practicing. What do you think about that?

Pam: I think it’s true.

CK: You can always learn and progress and get better. So today we are going to continue with our adjustments on the podcast and the sessions, and I’m just going to keep rolling along and we’ll start out with a quote. And this one comes from Seneca. One of the three prominent. Stoic philosophers aside from Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus.

And this is Seneca, the younger, I believe he is the son of plenty, the elder,

Pam: What makes sense? I guess

CK: I don’t know, Seneca, the elder.

Who is the son? Yeah. Who is the son of plenty? The elder. I’m not up to date with my stellar history. So check the show notes for any corrections or better information. Anyway, here’s the quote. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today.

You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control. And abandoning what lies in yours? What are you looking at to what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty live immediately. And again, that’s by Seneca and we’ll kind of, well, I’ll kind of try to base the theme of today’s session around that quote.

And so hopefully I’ll weave some topics in and out throughout the session that relates. I’m not exactly sure if I’ll be able to relate to it directly, but I there’s so much within that quote and so much with what I’ve been maintaining recently, that is definitely related. So. It’s going to be up to me to be able to form those relations.

So we’ll see how I deal with that. But before we get into that, let’s reflect on our week. And Pam, can you think of anything fun or memorable that happened this past week that pops into your mind?

Pam: Hmm, fun or memorable? Um, I wasn’t prepared for that.

CK: Throwing you a curve ball here.

Pam: yeah. Uh, well we had a photo shoot, so we went and did a photo shoot for kind of like professional photos for all of our websites and all of the podcasts that we’re working on. And it went really well. We got our proofs back the next day and we have almost 1500 photos to go through.

CK: yeah, crazy. I haven’t even started going through and yet.

Pam: I can’t stop looking at them.

CK: Oh yeah.

Pam: Yeah.

CK: Well, that’s a good thing.

Pam: Yeah, no, I’m, I’m really happy with how they turned out. I’ve done a couple of shoots before and never had as much success as this time. And I think it was a combination of a lot of factors. Um, but one of them is definitely that I. Uh, went in with confidence and didn’t feel like, Oh, I don’t belong in front of the camera or I’m, I don’t look good or, or whatever.

Um, and a lot of things into my ability to do that, but that was a big, big difference.

CK: Well, so what do you think went into your ability to do that? Or can you say, uh, some key points or anything?

Pam: Yeah. I mean, losing 20 pounds definitely helped. So there was that, but I have been on a big mental journey of taking up space and not, um, not going into things without confidence and just like trying to be able to, um, Just believe that I belong wherever I am and that I deserve to have what I have and to, to trust that I, um, that I know what’s best for me.

And to be able to, um, project that I guess, and to be able to be calm, be more confident. So that, that was a big part of it.

CK: Cool. Yeah, I would have probably mentioned the photo shoot as well. Obviously. That is something different that we did during our week. And we got to leave our home and go outside and interact with other people. Yeah. And, and I think that’s one of the things that made that photo shoot so fun. Well, actually it was my.

First photo shoot ever pretty much. I mean, other than like school pictures or soccer pictures or something like that, I’ve never modeled per se.

Pam: Yeah.

CK: So if this occurred before I know that I would have been really anxious about taking photos and I haven’t really taken a lot of photos. In recent years lately.

And there might be that there may be some function there of me not participating in social media as much. But yeah, I mean, there was probably also some, yeah, I’m not sure. I just don’t want my photos out there or my pictures taken or I guess maybe. Yeah. I don’t know. I it’s weird. I.

Pam: I didn’t know that.

CK: Yeah, I’m not sure. I guess I really just haven’t thought about it.

I just kind of ended up happening where I just started taking less and less photos and I, so, yeah, I don’t know. I’m just kind of thinking about all of it right now, but whatever the case. Before I would have been very anxious then I w I would have wanted to be such a perfectionist with the compositions and the shots and how he posed and stuff like that.

But this time around aye, barely even prepared for the shoot at all. And. I just went with the flow and just took everything as it is. And I think that’s kind of what made it fun. And there’s two factors relating to that, that I’m thinking of right now. One is what I’ve been talking about in terms of just basically not having expectations.

And that goes right along with today’s cook. Where it begins with Seneca saying the greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. So by having expectations, you’re thinking about the future and how, what you’re doing is going to what that’s going to result in or how that’s going to turn out.

So you’re not living in the present moment, your living, you’re living with these thoughts. Have a moment outside of that moment. So you’re thinking of the future. And you know, you also may be thinking of the past because of what you’re about to be doing is something that you’ve done before, or you’ve experienced somehow before.

And you’re thinking how that’s going to affect what you’re going to be doing. And then in turn how that will turn out in the future. So you’re very much out of the moment. So.

Pam: Or in that same vein, like you think that just because you’re doing the same thing again, that it’s going to be the same experience

CK: Yeah, great point.

Pam: You can do the exact same thing 10 times and have it be a completely different experience because of all the other factors involved, other people that are there, your mental state, their mental state, the environment, everything like everything else can be different and change the outcome or the experience of that exact same thing that you do again.

CK: Yeah, exactly. And there are a lot of stoic coats that relate to the saying that you can’t step in the same river twice. Basically. Everything’s always changing around you. And so every experience is going to be different. So the other factor was. Our photographer for me, she was awesome. So going in with no expectations and then having an awesome photographer, it was like, I almost don’t remember it as a photo shoot.

It was like, we were just hanging out all day, basically.

Pam: yeah, it was like hanging out. Well, a friend was taking some pictures.

CK: Yeah. And there may be some. Effect of not socializing so much over the past few months and then having to go out and socialize and interact with someone else that made things find in different. But

Pam: you’re also a lot different with strangers now.

CK: yeah, definitely. Definitely. And

Pam: as anxious.

CK: yeah, uh, I’ve had this weird notion within myself where. For some reason, I felt inferior to everyone I met before. Like I’ve always thought that people had something over me when I first met meet them. And then the times when I get to know them, you know, then I realized how irrational my initial thoughts and feelings were.

But now I I’m becoming much more mindful and I’ve. Resolved a lot of my anxieties. So yeah, my social experience in that sense is a lot different from what it was before. And it’s interesting to think about it now because we haven’t been going out and socializing and interacting. So there’s more of a contrast between when we’re home and when we’re interacting with others.

And so it’s interesting to see that contrast. And I think we may be able to observe it more deeply or actually currently no, because of that contrast, but whatever the case, shout out to Nicki, our photographer, Nikki cram, she she’s awesome. Her shots are awesome. I think she’s Nikki cram on Instagram. If you want to check it out, I’ll link it up in the show notes.

But yeah, we had an awesome time with her and I have a feeling we’ll be working with her again. And, um, hopefully

Pam: artist, Brittany Brown.

CK: yeah, that’s right. So yeah, she, they were both fun gals and we had a good time just hanging out all day, basically. And then we got a lot of awesome photos out of it in the end. So yeah, that was fun.

That was a good time for a week. And, you know, we got to practice. Um, well, I mean, I got to practice, um, living in the present and. I don’t know if I did it so much mindfully, but it’s something that I’ve just kind of been growing into and adapting with. So it’s cool to look back and reflect and see how it all went and kind of try to analyze, I mean, I don’t like saying analyze, cause it sounds too technical.

But yeah, but just kind of observe, you know, how you’ve grown basically. So, yeah, that was a good time. And let’s, uh, I guess we could leave it at that. Make sure to check out Nikki cramps photos. She’s got some great shots and she’s a very good lifestyle photographer. So check that out and we’ll go ahead and see if we can move on here.

So. I been talking about stoicism with this podcast a lot, and I’ve, I’m very much into the stock philosophy. And I believe I was introduced to stoicism first through Seneca’s writings. And again, Seneca is where the quote for today comes from. And I think I was introduced through Tim Ferris, who is also very much into stock philosophy and.

If I remember correctly, back when I was reading the four hour work week, it was around that time. He was also starting to create like audio books or something along the audio format for like the books that he was really into. But there was no. Audio book or format for that out yet. So he started creating some audio stuff for stoic philosophy if I’m remembering this correctly.

And one of them was letters from a stoic, I believe by Seneca. And that was my introduction to stoicism from what I remember. So it’s been over 10 years and I kind of been loosely following stoicism since then. And. I got back into it, maybe around 2015, 2016 with a book called resilience by Eric Greitens.

I believe his name is, and I don’t know if he’s still is, but he was, and maybe still the governor of Missouri or something along those lines.

Pam: I think he had some scandal. I’m not sure if he’s still

CK: Yeah. I remember some controversy around that too. And that, along with some other things kind of led me away from the philosophy for a little while, but it’s always kind of being, you know, in the background for me. Um, but resilience, the book itself is awesome. I think like there’s so much good content in there.

And Eric Greitens, he, I believe he was like a road scholar. And a doctor of philosophy or something like that. He was also in the military. I believe he was a seal or went through seal training. So he’s very experienced and he has a lot of knowledge and an intelligence around a lot of different subjects.

And so the way he laid out the stoic philosophy and kind of woven. Various details and related them to different things was really good. And, and it was really, uh, I listened to it first before I read it. And it was a really good listen as well. It’s a good read. So I’ve been into stoicism, you know, off and on since then.

And then a lot more lately, especially since picking up things like the daily stoic by Ryan holiday and also other books by. I’m not sure how to pronounce his name, Massimo Pega. Yuchi. I think he’s an Ivy league professor of philosophy and a lot of other texts. There’s so much around philosophy popping up these days.

So along with stoicism, I also have interest in Daoism and that was him. You know, the Eastern philosophy, ancient Eastern philosophies, like thousand Confucianism Buddhism. I’ve had some idea about them and I believe most people have some idea about them and I’ve had interest in I’ve kind of always had interest in the Eastern philosophies.

Obviously I come from or ever Eastern background as a Korean. And, uh, on that note, I don’t think I got it because I’m Korean and I don’t think my parents really. One over philosophy with me or anything like that. They’re very religious.

Pam: did she get it because of Bruce Lee?

CK: Well, that’s how I started really getting into $2 through Bruce Lee’s, dowel of and it’s through reading that, that I really started to understand dollars a more.

And then that started getting me more into the ancient texts, uh, like Lao, SUSE. Dow to Ching, which is the main delis on textbook. So there’s very much, there’s, there’s a lot of crossover between Dallas I’m in stoicism. But the interesting thing that I’ve been finding out lately that I’ve been finding out lately, as I’ve been getting deeper and deeper into these two philosophies is while they’re very much aligned with each other in terms of.

Practicing and observing reality versus being

I’m so influenced by emotion and, uh, like visceral reactions, like immediate reactions. So, uh, I don’t, I’m not sure what I just said, but it’s the difference between reason and emotion basically. And those two philosophies follow follow with that basic theme. But with stoicism, there’s a lot of propositional lines.

And some people say, you know, the beginnings of science even came out of is the logic of stoicism. So there’s a lot of like what I would say, trying to make sense of the world and putting together a patterns and creating models basically. So, I mean, and that leaves no question why I’m so interested in the philosophy, but on the contrary with Daoism, there’s more of it.

So that was him kind of rejects this logic and reasoning. And instead they. Wants you to practice more instinct and intuition and go with the flow of what the world is giving you or what the world is producing or where the world is at. And it’s like, Bruce, Lee’s be like water, you know, a cup. A water. If you know, a cup has the shape of a cup, obviously, and if you fill it, water has no shape.

But if you fill it in the cup, water will take the shape of the cup. So water will adjust and adapt to its environment. And, you know, in a river, the water will flow around objects. And so there’s this notion in Taoism of going with the flow and taking. You know, just going where nature takes you and not resisting, basically.

So it’s interesting because the contrast is almost between intellectual wisdom and not necessarily anti-intellectualism, but it’s like a, like a supra intellectual ism. Where it’s not really like intellectualizing something in terms of piecing out things and trying to solve the problems, but it’s just like intellectualizing it in a way that that’s how it’s supposed to be.

And it’s just there. And you have to live with it like that and find how best to live with it as it is. Um, actually, you know, I started getting into some logic there in terms of saying, finding how best to live the way it is, but in the end, total enlightenment or whatever. Um, where I, I’m not sure if enlightenment’s the right word, but.

In the end, like real Taoist practice is not necessarily finding the way to be with the way it is, but just being like, not even fighting, it’s just being,

Pam: Right. Being able to find the ability to in any circumstance just exist.

CK: Right. Right. And so, as I was researching and starting this, I kind of push back against terrorism initially because obviously I’m very much into logic and finding patterns, but then the more I thought about it, the more I realized that. I’ve been progressing towards just being and just going with the flow.

And if you’ve been listening over the past few weeks, I think you would notice this pattern because I been talking about just kind of taking things the way they are and saying, you know, it’s, it is the way it is. And that’s what I’m starting to notice in terms of my social interactions and the way I’ve been going about things.

And so like with all the troubleshooting that I’ve been doing over the past couple of weeks, you know, I’ve been getting frustrated. And I mentioned last week that I kind of snapped and I was a little disappointed with myself in the way that I reacted, basically. So I reacted instead of. Taking the space to reason.

And so what happened was that, you know, I’ve been working with all this audio software and post-processing and editing and stuff like that, and the computer and the software and how it all interacts and works together or doesn’t work together. Like it hasn’t been in the past couple of weeks, but now all that most, most everything’s working fine now.

But last week when I had that moment of. Uh, I don’t know what you call it. Just moment of, yeah. Yeah. I had a moment of anger because my mouse stopped working. So I had all this software and stuff configured and finally working the way I wanted to. And then of all things. My mouth is probably the most important thing in terms of doing all that stuff just stopped working.

And when it comes to how I use a mouse, like I put it on the fastest setting and like, people can’t use my computers because everything’s too fast, but me, I like to optimize everything and I’ve gotten used to the speed and I want to do stuff as fast as possible. And so I, my mouse is very central to the stuff that I do.

And so when that failed, I, you know, try to get it working. And then after like 15 or 20 minutes, I finally figured out that it was just dead. And so I threw it across the room. And so the thing is before, after I threw it, I would have. It would have lingered in the anger would have lasted a while after that, you know, if not days, at least a couple hours, but that last time that’s all I needed.

I just needed to throw it. And that was it. And

Pam: you just needed an outlet.

CK: right, right. So I might need to find. A better outlet, maybe get like a punching bag or something.

Pam: It’s like a pressure valve.

CK: Yeah. Yeah, totally. But so after I threw it, I, I was immediately disappointed in myself and then I took a breath and then I started reflecting and then I got into a better place and ended up fixing it.

And so now it’s all better and everything’s all good. And so that was. An instance that I know now that I could have dealt with better, but even looking back, I know that I dealt with it better than I would have before. And I know now that I can deal with it better than I had at that time. And so it’s all about mindset and it’s all about self reflection.

If you want to grow, you know, the self reflection that helps you look at how you were before and how you’re improving and to see if what you’re doing now. Is efficacious to what you’re doing or what you want to do and how do you want to get better? And so, you know, I’ve been just working with thoughts like that.

And on that note, something new that happened this morning, where I could have easily done the same thing. I was about to throw my blood pressure monitor across the room. Because.

Pam: The irony.

CK: Yeah, totally. So I have a familial history of high blood pressure and heart conditions. My dad had a quintuple bypass. When he was 53, I believe somewhere around there.

And at that time I had never even heard of a quintuple bypass. I’ve heard of a quadruple bypass, but I’m like, you can have more. And so after that I started getting more into my actual, like heart health and cardiology and all that stuff. But I mean, before I was into health in general health and fitness, but after that, I got into my own physiology and some specific markers.

So I started taking my blood pressure every day and my blood pressure monitor is pretty old now. And so it doesn’t work all the time. And this morning we had planned to do some more microphone testing and so. I set a time to do that after I got all my stuff done in the morning and you know, Pam wanted to know what time we were going to get started.

So I told her 10 30 and it was like nine, nine, 15 when I told her that. And usually I need about an hour with my morning routine at that point. And so I was like, you know, an hour and 15, 20 an hour and 20, that’s going to be plenty of time to leave me. And then, you know, I get through my routine and I’m starting to take my blood pressure.

And the blood pressure monitor is not working. It’s usually takes me under five minutes to take my blood pressure. Cause I take it three times and then average it out. But today I was sitting there in five minutes, goes by and it’s still not working. 10 minutes goes by, it’s still not working. And I’m like, uh, like the time when I plan out for no, when I plan extra time.

And then this happens and now it’s, you know, moving me back and then I have to tell Pam, you know, I need another 10 minutes and then all this stuff. So I was about to Chuck the blood pressure monitor across the room and not to mention if you guys remember my issue with my old futon that I had and all the white flakes that were annoying me.

So, um, I had this white futon with fake leather and it started flaking after a couple of years. And then after a while, every day I just had white flakes all over the place. It’d be sticking on my skin and my back and my legs and everywhere it’d be all over the place. And I’d just be so annoyed every day when I’d have to pick off these white flakes.

So the blood pressure monitor. Is also white and has like this fo letter material and that’s starting to flake off now. So not only is it not working correctly, it’s starting to create those annoying flakes. So,

Pam: old trauma brought up.

CK: yeah, so like looking back, I’m surprised. I just didn’t Chuck that thing across the room, but I was able to create space in that moment this morning, which is what I’m realizing.

Is happening more and more often now, like I am able to be more present and it’s weird thinking about it in the moment, because this is the stuff that I’ve been talking about doing and practicing. And this is the stuff that I hear people advocating and I understand the science behind it, but now like I’m actually.

Kind of living through it, almost outside myself and observing myself going through it. It’s really hard to explain, and this is kind of abstract. And I think it’s, it’s one of the reasons why it’s difficult for people to wrap their heads around it and get into this kind of practice and understand the benefits of it.

So I think it’s awesome that I’m able to do this right now, as I’m going through this kind of transition. And I’m trying to articulate what I’m going through and explain the changes that are happening as I’m going through them. But, you know, it’s still hard because a lot of these concepts are kind of abstract and it’s hard to get a grasp of and explain in a way that you think someone else is gonna.

Relate to in the way that you’re relating to it. So I don’t know. What, what do you think about what I just said?

Pam: I’m just wondering what you think changed that allowed you to actually start putting it in practice, because this is stuff that you’ve talked about for a long time. And I don’t know if I’ve ever expressed this to you, but there was always like this conflict of the, like, you’re always talking about stoic philosophy and all this stuff, but then you were very reactive.

And so it was like a little bit of a disconnect there.

CK: Yeah. So I think it’s a couple of things. So I think there’s, so obviously it’s a complex system and we talk about complex systems all the time. And I believe that I did practice a lot of mindfulness and stoicism, but in different arenas. So, you know, I may have been mindful with somethings and less mindful with other things.

And, you know, that’s the way it is. You have different reactions to different things and it all comes down. Well, it could come down to history like your history, with the things you’re experiencing, and I’m not sure how much we went into this before, but the way that your emotions stamp your reactions to things is rooted in how your brain is structured.

So really quick, if I can get through this, when you experienced something, especially something traumatic or something like a substantial. You experienced it with an emotion, you have an immediate emotional response to it. I mean, we’re human. That’s what happens. And this is, is all related to the, the ancestral parts of our brain, or even deeper than the ancestral parts.

It’s our lizard brain. It’s our reptilian brain, which is basically just. Based on stimulus and response. And so whenever something happens, you automatically respond to it. That’s like the reptilian part of our brain, and that’s where emotions come up. And usually it’s beneficial to get that immediate response and have an autonomic system reaction, whether it’s sympathetic, which is the stressful side or person pathetic, which is the peaceful side.

And have your body do adapt and react how it’s evolved to react. But now we have more evolved parts of our brains. So even in lower mammals, there’s this evolved part of the reptilian brain where you start learning. So after you experienced something, you learned something from that experience. So the next time that experience occurs.

You use the information from before to, and from inform your experience in that moment. So instead of just stimulus and response, there’s an added part of learning. And then with humans, there’s the evolved part. We have our frontal lobe and our prefrontal cortex where we, in addition to learning, we have language and we can communicate and we can.

Record history. And we can think about the future and prepare. So that’s a, basically three categories categories, categorizations of brain function, the reptilian function, and then the mem Malian function. And then the human function. Um, I don’t know how accurate those categories. I just said where, but hopefully you get the general idea and where, well, where am I going with this?

Pam: uh, you were talking about emotional reaction and what has allowed you to create separation and, and live in the moment, watching yourself

CK: Oh, right, right, right. Okay. So when you encounter something that is traumatic or substantial, like I said, you have an immediate emotional response, and this comes from your Italian brain per se. So when that happens, your Paralympic system, so your Olympic system is your brainstem, and this is what houses that ancestral or reptilian and the primitive parts of your brain.

And the Paralympic system kind of wraps around your Olympic system and is like a secondary process. So when you experienced something, your limbic system, your reptilian and ancestral part processes at first, this is where you get your visceral reactions and your immediate, like sensible, intuitive reactions.

And once that goes through Olympic system, your emotion. That occurs during that experience gets stamped through your Paralympic system. So that the next time you encounter a similar experience, you bypass your Olympic system and go straight to your Paralympic system where that experience was already stamped with that emotion.

So whenever you come up with when encounter similar experiences, Those same emotions from that first encounter with expanse rise up. So it’s a function of that where things like something like post traumatic stress disorder would come about because you, the same emotions keep rising up with similar experiences.

So there’s, if you’re mindful of that, and if you’re aware of that and if you know, How to mitigate that you can kind of erase that first, that first emotion that got stamped and basically recreate the experience with a different emotion or new emotion whenever it occurs. And this requires mindfulness.

And being in the present moment and I believe, I mean, it probably requires a lot of mindfulness. And so I, you know, I’m not sure where I’m going with this. I’m kind of rambling on and on, and I’m kind of calculating all this right now. And so, like I said, all this is kind of abstract to me as I’m going through it.

So I’m just kind of trying to explain it with some concepts that I know, but it’s just, I mean, When it comes down to it, it’s just repeated practice and self reflection and adaptation. So there’s no secret or magic bullet that I can think of. It’s just practicing. Yeah. So I know that was a pretty roundabout way of getting to that, but yeah.

Pam: important to understand how our reactions get mapped under our brains and why there can be something that happens and you. Always react in a certain way. Like something that your partner does always makes you angry. And then afterwards you regret being angry or you’re like, Oh, I’m so embarrassed that I reacted that way, but you don’t in the moment have control over it because it was stamped on there.

Like that was the way you reacted the first time. So now that’s the way you react to every single time. And to be able to create that space in that reaction, it’s really hard because you’re fighting against the systems of your brain.

CK: Yeah. And you know, if you think about it in ancestral terms, back when we were paleolithic and living in caves and out on the Savannah or whatnot in hunting, these mechanisms were beneficial to us having that. Initial reaction because there wasn’t as much stimulus as we have now back then, most of the stimulus was maybe not all that predictable, but it was, it was a lot more predictable because all the systems were a lot more similar in terms of the natural order of things.

And so. The these mechanisms in terms of stamping our emotions into our experiences was beneficial to us because the experience was were very similar. And the way we had to react back then was very similar as well. But today with all the different stimuli, that’s bombarding that we’re bombarded with it hijacks our natural processes and a lot of.

Companies and a lot of marketing strategies understand this and hijack our innate natural processes for their own benefit. And so, yeah, it’s basically a mismatch between our evolutionary biology and our current technology almost. I, you know, you can kind of generalize it that way.

Pam: We need a software upgrade.

CK: Yeah, exactly. But I mean, and that’s what this is, that’s what we’re trying to do. I mean, practicing and mindfulness and awareness is basically upgrading your software and broadening your perspective. You know, if you’re staying in this reactionary state and, uh, you know, Caving into your emotions. That’s a limited perspective that you’re living with and that’s a very narrow view and a very narrow mindset that you’re living in.

It’s un-involved and it’s just, uh, you’re going to end up specializing, which might sound good to you, but it’s not in terms of evolution. Because in terms of evolution, specialization is basically the path toward extinction because once you get too specialized and then you can’t adapt, then you die. If, you know, if you get too specialized and the only thing I’m trying to come up with an example,

Pam: only eat one

CK: yeah.

Pam: when pray or whatever for, or you can only live in one environment and that environment changes or the thing that you can eat, it goes extinct.

CK: right. And if you can’t adapt to that, then you’re dead. So yeah. Specialization is the path to extinction. So it’s better to be diversified and have mindfulness. So. I think we can leave it at that. We were over 40 minutes already and it’s hot in here today and I know Pan’s probably burning up and I got the champions league to go watch.

So we’ll leave it there for this week. Pam, did you want to add anything else before we sign out?

Pam: I don’t think so. Oh, well it’s Fargo season. Yes. Yeah. The sun is now in Virgo, so we are looking forward to a month of purification and organization and communication and clearing things out. So, um, and productivity.

CK: Yeah, that sounds awesome. That sounds perfect. So yeah, we’ll leave it there for this week. And Pam, where can people find you?

Pam: You can find me on Twitter, where I am at Pamela underscore Lund.

CK: You might be able to find me on Twitter at CK disco. No, maybe, you know, I’m trying to get back into things now and I’m starting to get more organized. I started journaling, journaling, writing pen to paper last week. So maybe we’ll go over that, uh, next week, but yeah, starting to get more organized in that sense.

So we’ll see how things go. But anyway, thank you to the listeners for joining me this week and thank you to Pam for joining me as always. And I hope you come back next week and keep on practicing to Lou. Ooh. Alright.