When I met it myself I say sorry me it's episode 43 Hello and welcome back to the rena 100 show a show where I rena 100 talk about a theme Every week that has been on my mind or hasn't maybe I just maybe I just came up with it Who knows what I do? Do you do I we don't know?
But either way welcome back happier here, and if you've been liking what you've been hearing, please Give it a like follow reviews five stars on whatever podcast form you're listening to That would be really great for me So thank you in advance So down to business the theme this week is us versus them very common thing occurring in human life feels very tribal to me Sports I feel like all of group sports is founded on this
Instinct that human beings have to divide us into groups of us versus them politics as well red versus blue Toronto versus Montreal no one's gonna relate to that one New York versus Boston. That's how they do it
That's not how we do it. These are much more benign examples of something that I think comes from a very violent Instinct from back in our tribal days although obviously I'm no anthropologist I've just watched it happen so much in my lifetime, and I've watched people crave it in the face of ambiguity and Why why haven't we moved past this oversimplification of groups of people? Why can't we let a situation? Be complicated and have gray area. Why can't we say?
has Donald Trump Horribly said there are good guys on both sides Why is it so much more complicated or sorry why is it so much more easy
To just be like they're bad. We're good and of story and Instead of doing the hard thing which is being like Hey There are people on either side of this issue that are trying to make it better and get together and Maybe we should support that instead of fueling the fire of disagreement between these elements I'm keeping this very vague because I Have no appetite to get into political discourse in my life ever again
for precisely the reason that people tend to their emotions rule as much as they're speaking in intellectual terms they're coming from an emotional place and and it and it generally leads to more anger and more hate more violence and Accomplishes exactly the opposite of what they want and I find that really ironic too that and I'm trying to remind myself right now in the haze of everything that's going on on social media that
Deep down people are coming. I hope from a place of just trying to help and just trying to ease pain and just wanting there to be less pain in the world and so even if it's translating into a place of oversimplification or rage Which are both not helpful in my opinion And some would say that rage is helpful and who am I to say who am I to disagree Maybe it has been in the past But to me, it's like if there's a conflict and you're adding rage
I don't see how that does anything other than expand the vibe of conflict generally Which is the opposite of what we want if we want less people to get hurt, right? I don't know. I don't have any answers I'm just talking like I do because That's my podcast and I I'll cry if I want to alright But I also noticed this in the face of COVID that people just craved someone to blame When in reality or who knows the real reality
But the general accepted reality about COVID is that no one's to blame. It was just a fucking shitty thing that happened to all of us And people wanted to blame. I mean racists wanted to blame China and a lot of us wanted to blame Donald Trump You know, but in the end it was a virus Why am I bringing up Trump so much? I really don't like thinking about that guy. But anyway, he's just he is what he is, you know He's bigly. Okay, I gotta stop But
You know you want to blame why do we want to blame right away? Well because then
It makes us it assures us. I think it's a good thing It makes us it it assures us I think it gives us a sense of reassurance that we are not responsible That we are not the ones causing the pain as long as they Are bad and we are good then we are not responsible for the pain And it's misplaced guilt a lot of the time When you know that these people halfway around the world have been suffering for a long time and you've done nothing
And suddenly there's a flare-up and for a week. It's very cool to post about it on social media You need feel the need to post a lot about it because you need to rid yourself of that guilt that you have done Nothing to help these people that you say you suddenly care so much about Oh, yeah, I said getting angry isn't helpful and i've already feeling myself Doing that but that's the easy thing getting angry is easy Actually helping that's what's hard
Actually looking into the face of the abyss into all the gray elements that go into this into the fact that every single person Is a different person from every other person and that they don't just amass Easily into these groups of evil and good And working with people who are doing the hard thing the people who have actually been Hurt by this and are still trying to work with the other side to build a better future
Those are the people you need to support not the people who want to keep hurting each other. Okay Ay, ay, ay, I gotta take my own advice about this And yeah, and the people who are shouting the loudest on social media are the ones with the shortest term memory, aren't they? Right, they're gonna forget about it next week. They're acting like this is their whole life their whole purpose We saw this during blm That that it's just that their whole
Life is about this right now and next week when will smith slaps somebody else. They're not going to give a shit anymore Because suddenly it's not going to be the story, you know I mean we saw this with ukraine too. Nobody's talking about it anymore It's whatever the opposite is of fair weather friends when something goes wrong. They're there But they're not really there. It's a social media thing
But so I guess it is fair weather friends. They're there when everybody's searching for it You're there when when the algorithm is pointing towards it And then suddenly when the algorithm takes its faceless robotic giant cyclops eye away from this issue So shall you And I just want I just want people to remember that people are people That's the whole take take this is a whole I heard one story on tiktok amid all the bloodshed And all the pain that has gone on Where there was one
Person who came into someone else's house and that woman thought her and her children were threatened And she was scared and he said i'm not going to hurt you and she was immediately relieved bananas on her counter. And he asked her, can I have one of the bananas? And she was like, sure. Yeah, you can have one of the bananas. And then that was it. That was the whole confrontation between them. And it's just everybody likes bananas. I don't know.
I just want us to remember that we're all just people right now. And that the psychopaths are not the majority. And then there's another story which is deeply disturbing to me. Well, not deeply, deeply disturbing. I don't know. Just the irony of this, that I saw a religious person on a TikTok who was saying the first three quarters of his video was so comforting. He was like, we just need to pray. Everybody just needs our prayers right now. We've got to support each other.
We've got to bring the vibes. And I was like, yes, yes. And then he was like, and anyone that goes against God is going to be swallowed by the earth. And they'll get what's coming to them. And I was like, what, bro? You were so chill for so much of this video. But then that's the yin and the yang. It's like the whole side is white until that little dot of like, what the fuck? So I challenge everybody listening to just sit in the shit of ambiguity. Try for the sake of humanity.
If you really want to help, let it be complicated. Let people be complicated. And just try to support the vibe. Try to support the bridge. Try to support the coming together. Try to support the people that are actually affected that are doing the hard work of rapprochement. Rapprochement. And just be kind to yourself. You're not responsible. And you don't need to take a side to know that. It's not your fault that all these crazy things are happening. All right. Well, that felt good for me.
I hope it did for you. Have a good week. Ah can you hear it?