all right so we are live i'm here with ben and ben how are you doing good life is beautiful you look good i like your little host plant in the back there hey thanks it looks you too that's pretty cool uh so what's going on i haven't talked to you in uh probably months weeks or months weeks or months uh life is beautiful i'm so i'm a minister and we're doing um um i would say i'm a minister i'm an interim minister so the church does a lot of internal work around um helping resolve any conflicts during their previous ministers time so life is rich focusing a lot on people um hearing each other um when there's differences of opinion and a lot of tenderness so you're actively involved in smoothing over uh relations or what yeah like helping people to um helping people to hear each other say what say what they want to say in a way that feels good for them and can be heard um figuring out what which ouches you know which ouches from five years ago should we address maybe if they're part of a pattern and which which one should we say okay i love you and forgive you and let's just let that go okay so do you want to give a concrete example or it's too it's too delicate okay it's not too delicate it's just private yeah yeah yeah that's what i meant yeah yeah and just clear the dirty air the dirty laundry yeah so that sounds like a fulfilling role you play there yeah it feels really valuable like it feels like the biggest one the most important challenges on the planet is how the 8 billion people get along and we're kind of practicing that with with our little group yeah so did you uh seek that type of job or that's just what happened in your rolling with it because i know you've always had an emphasis on communication since i've known you back in the early yeah i really like community and people hearing each other i would say yeah when i was a kid i was kind of shy and um didn't really speak my mind and you know people in school weren't like really mean just they weren't super skilled at including the quiet ones you know we were kids so um when i kind of found my voice i really valued spaces where where everyone's voice was was welcome and can you see a young child when they uh are in that same excluded situation or whatever you want to call it yeah it's like like they don't say anything and then you're just like there is a lot going on inside that person yeah that yeah and they're not other kids are running around and yelling and they're not saying anything but there's a lot there yeah and uh you know exactly how to approach these kids i'm using kids as an example because i think the most uh um that's when we could reach them earliest yeah yeah i would say i was a high i was i taught at an alternative high school for a bit and my experience with the younger kids is mostly uh my friends kids or you know just kids that were part of a of a community that i was a part of yeah and i just no i find that you got it they're like kids are like cats you gotta wait for them to feel comfortable uh yeah humans generally are like cats i think more than like dogs yeah so it's just a matter of of um just being a safe person showing that you're connected to their parents and you're part of the community um and and if if if they become comfortable and speak up they do and if they don't you know i feel sad about it but you don't you don't have a bunch of tricks you use to trick them into coming out of their shell with cats we have tricks with cats with with cats if you take you know something on the end of a string and flick it around the room they just start chasing it and uh and then if you go like this they think that's another cat's nose so they go right up to it so yeah i got a book for my wife how to speak to cats how to talk to cats uh no no with with kids because of the vulnerability of um because there's a lot of bad actors out there you don't want to be manipulative can you recognize how to teach kids to i'm i haven't had that experience fortunately as far as i know wow so i mean it's rare to find bad these bad actors you're talking about um i don't know how any any or they hide it well enough that you can't see it yeah i mean this is a question do you know free-range kids no sounds cool free-range kids is this movement to say actually the risk to kids is really low it's it's more dangerous to coop kids up than it is to let them walk to the park by themselves cool because they become resilient if you let them let them out of your sight for fun you know when we were kids we just played the kid we just left the house and at dinner time our parents rang a bell or whatever you said you're really normal and now you can go to jail for that sort of thing are you serious in a lot of places yeah so this the free free-range kid movement um is really saying we got it it's not as dangerous as you think in my opinion with my own kid i'll let my kid do whatever they want until they scratch their knee and then i won't let them out of their room until they're 18. so i don't think any anyone can know what they would do as a parent until they're apparent so i'm i won't guess well i was in the park with my wife and my friend anthony you know anthony he's been on the show and you know him in real life but uh i saw a child a young child maybe four about four years old um you know happy girl running around just walking down the sidewalk in the park park lafontaine and i'm like who whose child is this because he was just wandering like all the way down the path i didn't see any parents or any guardians i'm like oh my god we gotta make sure this child's safe whatever and anthony said you're gonna be a you would be uh if you were a parent you would be a horrible parent you'd be a helicopter parent uh and i mean maybe you never know until you have the kids and it's too late for me but um you know i am worried about uh the safety of children but i don't think that would mean that i'd be a bad parent i just want to make sure so someone knows where the kids are when they're in a busy park i don't know maybe i'm maybe i'm too paranoid but kids used to run around in the forest all day by themselves okay which forest um yeah in in cities kids don't have what they need to develop responsibility and street smarts if i were in the country and i saw a kid wandering wandering around in the woods i'd be less worried than in a city big city park with lots and lots of people and i know they're alcoholics drug addicts and everything right yeah so yeah if i were in the in the wilderness or well not the deep dark wilderness but like in the forested part of the countryside and i saw a kid wandering around happy uh i would think that i'm on this kid's turf but when i see the kid in the big city park i think he's or she's on adult turf you see the difference right right yeah so i would much prefer to create cities where it's considered safe for kids just like you can create a city that's safe for bicycles yeah i would love to you know in some city if i don't know if it's a four-year-old but a little kid can bite to their grandmother's house because biking is safe in the city okay um yeah i mean the question of drug addicts and mentally ill people that's a serious serious problem for sure um and perverts yeah i yeah i don't know how common that is um relative to um mentally ill people yeah like in some cities are in crisis with mentally ill people i guess there are enough adult quote unquote normal healthy sane adults around in the park that uh if something did happen i would like to think cooler heads would prevail and intervene and so they wouldn't speak up yeah but there are lots of psychological studies about that where that instinct fails right they've shown that that doesn't work oh if anyone could step in then nobody will yeah yeah yeah i think it's different with kids okay people apparently like the mother instinct as you said kicks off people over over engage i think yeah so it sounds you know you're involved in some pretty heavy work well so are catholics like god says you got free will you get to make your own mistakes yeah so yeah kind of the same thing yeah it's difficult it's dangerous it's dangerous free will yeah it's scary it's the scariest thing that's what i keep telling everyone your only enemy is that person in the mirror that's the only one you got to worry about we have found the enemy and he is us so what else are you excited about these days other than saving the world um am i excited about the new the new artificial intelligence program the trust pictures is pretty cool oh yeah i signed up for that uh early release thing like a part of the club when it gets released i can get i'll get a notification and i guess i can try it great because i'm an artist i've got on my list is to do it with sermons to see so not pictures but words to seed the program with my sermons and see what kind of sermons it can write but pictures are really fun even if you just type in like koala bear magician it's really fun when it comes out with space space dog it's called dali i'm on the wait list it's called the wait list so yeah i mean people talk about how evil ai is and all that sort of thing i i think that guns don't kill people people kill people and ai doesn't kill people people kill people with ai you know yeah it's a powerful tool it's what you do with it yeah and i mean i think there's a lot of depth that can be delivered because of the misuse of information manipulation of information and not to mention supply chain stuff right yeah who eats who doesn't eat yeah you know a friend says that oh this new technology we'll have new problems but we've always had problems so don't worry about it and then some people say no we won't be able to trust anything anything we see on tv could be fake yeah we're already there's already a lot of lies and trickiness on tv so i don't know how much this will level it up do you watch tv uh netflix okay did you hear most shows most most shows are mostly people arguing really like most tv shows really like if it's a one hour drama half of it is people just disagreeing with each other yeah really people like that you like that apparently apparently like the tv show lost i was just i thought it's a really interesting story line but take out all the arguing nothing left it's hey guys it's raining outside no it's not yes it is oh it is raining okay is it windy yes no it's not it's too much let's see what people are highly disagreeable yeah i wish in netflix you could choose the category of low on disagreeableness oh is that from jordan peterson it's from big five personality traits okay yeah yeah i would love that you value agreeableness because of everything you've said so far too much is too much too much agreement agreeableness or too much disagreeableness too much disagreeableness yeah you know there's so much more to the human condition than arguing yeah just um too much is too much if people are arguing about something important like like if a safe if someone who values safety is arguing with somebody values risk then that's interesting but if it's just two people disagreeing with each other that's not interesting so yeah yeah netflix what's the last uh disagreement you had that was a valuable and necessary disagreement if you don't mind sharing that uh i'm trying to think there's got to be something probably with your uh wife slash fiance is she your wife now your wife yeah nice congratulations i wish i could have been there thank you me too how many people were how many people were there uh two witnesses in the minister oh it was beautiful it was out in the park and we told the minister we said we want to improvise we want to semi-improvise this sentiment the service is that okay and she said yeah that's okay yeah it was a great way to do a wedding a friend of friends of ours copied us and did a similar one oh can you send me the video send me a link to the video so i can watch it no no video we've got photos uh did you hire a photographer no our friends their friends took photos because everyone's a photographer today right yeah most people three out of the five of us took photos cool that's cool what day was that date gosh roughly september 5th [Laughter] no you should it's not what's important it's really not what's important to you yes i don't think that's what's important it's not important to you no i think the first weekend in september is more important than one day okay day of the month do you remember what day of the month it was maybe the fifth okay let's google it how's that it's very important to me okay first okay uh september what what year was it i think it was the fifth this this past september let's do this uh it was saturday september 4th there you go you're off by only one day that's pretty good september 4th okay yeah i don't know what we've what we've argued about what time to go to bed okay like you want to stay up and she wants to go to bed or vice versa it depends on the day oh really oh yeah yeah sometimes you want to go to sleep yeah no i can think of a bigger deal but i don't want to announce it yeah yeah no problem no problem but just domestically i really honestly i thought we would have more arguments about my um i go through phases of having different mannerisms like the same like phrases yeah yeah yeah yeah and i really thought she'd she'd be like okay that catchphrase needs a break but she really maybe i'm learned to tune into that stuff by now uh does she ever explicitly say you're annoying or you're annoying me if i'm like like stroking her hair she'll just take my hand and move it she doesn't like she'll just she'll just take care of it she doesn't like that she doesn't like the stroking well it depends if she likes it great and if she doesn't she'll just okay if she can make the change herself she doesn't no need for sure no need for words that's pretty cool yeah and anna does the same thing but with words too lots of loud words a happy whatever just like i mean and that's just when i just gently touch her shoulder i'm exaggerating so i've so i've been listening to some of your um your live streams oh okay recent stuff yeah i think so yeah in the last month whatever pops up on the yeah yeah yeah so um it seems like you're much more active in the culture wars than you used to be yeah because of course because of it yeah yeah yeah yeah i hate the tyranny i hate it you know about rolling thunder i i've just saw it in the news the mainstream spin what's the mainstream spin um i'm i'm not familiar with it to know just what impression did you get did you get it um it's i got the impression that it's related to the freedom convoy but it's motorbikes okay and they said one thing they were changing was usa usa okay uh that's that's all i got out of it okay so i have no i have no idea i'm guessing they value freedom and think trudeau is a fascist yeah there was some kind of a priest or something they called him padre uh so might have been a catholic priest he had an owl bond and i'm hoping he was catholic because he gave a good speech for freedom and it was very loving message to trudeau like we love you we want you to repent and change your ways and all this sort of thing make kind of make canada great again that sort of stuff and uh so it was pretty cool i saw that i i didn't go to ottawa but uh for this bikers rally but i did watch uh a little bit anna made me watch some of the uh speeches she's very very she's been politicized like you you know you talk about me getting a little bit politicized she went from a zero to like full-on everyday following right-wing news every day wow every day what a change unbelievable it's amazing do you so is she now leading you is she now thinking david why are you so chill and mainstream about all everything she she [Music] she's a constant reminder of the tyranny to me right so it's an inspiration in that way but i was always a freedom fighter anyway i've always valued freedom and independence and the rights of the individual and uh one of the catholic principles that i love and cherish the most is mind your own business in other words leave me alone right and i've talked often on my podcast before covet about how i like to be left alone i like to be anonymous at church when people know me at church when people get to know me at church i switch churches i don't want to be known i don't want your nose in my business that's my personality i don't like having someone commenting on the choices i make right i mean if it's a friend that's great like you and i can disagree and you can tell me what you think whatever that's fine but strangers in public places in a church is a public place just strangers in public places uh putting their nose in your business i don't like that everything like that so are there any collective action problems what does that mean is there any anything going on in the world that requires us to collaborate yeah oh yeah everything everything okay but we should collaborate as individuals right not as the borg right we should be individuals working together with that principle that catholic principle of subsidiarity right so whatever can be downgraded to a lower level of authority should be you're morally obliged to give that power down give let the power flow down you're morally obligated to do that always so for example to me education in canada is a provincial issue okay if the if the different provinces want to collaborate on education yeah they should do it themselves the federal government should not get involved that sounds good yeah whereas whereas um the federal government does get involved and they say this affects everyone so we should be involved yeah maybe they have a point i don't know i don't know that much about it yeah but yeah i tend to i tend to feel like we should subsidiarity is important that we should bump as much down as possible so that when we do need to collaborate um people aren't afraid of of the borg where some people say no we need to practice collaborating so let's practice collaborating on everything so that we'll get good at collaborating let's turn everything into a federal issue yeah but you know i've worked for the government of quebec i've worked for the government of canada i've worked for private industry that big medium and small and micro right now i work for micro it's my favorite why because the decision making is more fluid and there's less of that bureaucratic passing the buck like we do it this way just because that's the way we do it and that's i was so frustrated working for the government because you can't make a change you can't make a good and effective change quickly and naturally and easily you can't because they're going to put pressure on you the borg is going to put pressure on you to stop making changes because that's not how we operate it's not how they operate they operate from top down so uh that was very frustrating to my uh my nature you know my particular proclivities when it comes to freedom and taking action like problem solving like we have a practical problem here i have the solution and you won't let me implement it because we have to go through all these steps which may or may not ever happen probably not yeah i hate that it frustrates me yeah you agree i i have sympathy for um for the for the need to like the need to coordinate makes makes things take longer and larger organizations i have sympathy for that yeah it's annoying for sure like i'm choosing to be in an organization of about 150 people yeah with like four staff and a lot of volunteers so at that at that level you can do a lot in a large group and sometimes you can take the initiative to make changes but yeah if i want to change too much um i need to get people on board first yeah i mean i should also um [Music] admit that i work in an office where there are three people right myself my supervisor and the big boss and even the secretary's not sure there she works from home uh since kovit but um you know i'm not trying to say that i can implement every change that i want to implement because it's not that's not the case but at least i can get the feedback right away and i'm frustrated sometimes with the reasons why it can't go my way but i also i've been married for 27 years i know i can't always go my way hello that's a two-person organization and i don't get my way i don't know what percentage of the time but i mean she gives me a lot of freedom she gives me a lot of freedom you know she lets me be me she hates my religions but she respects my choice i guess okay i have a question suppose that um you with covert the risks of covid yeah if you create a mathematical formula about about the risks and if we tweak the parameters let's say it was like a little bit more contagious a little bit more deadly yeah um at what point would you say okay we need to coordinate on this i'd say i would say what i say right now which is everyone can do whatever they want to do and the people that want to be part of the borg bullying everyone by being part of the borg bullying other people that aren't part of the board to be part of the board i tell them do if that's what you want to do do it i don't want to do that but that's your choice i don't think it's a good healthy saying choice but my principle is do what thou wilt it's it's what it's my principle when i was a satanist and it's my principle as a catholic it's the same principle the only difference is that now i choose individually i choose to be catholic you haven't made that choice a lot of other people haven't made that choice but i want you to i want you to do you do you boo nothing's changed nothing has changed do you continue to do trudeau but i want him and i ask him and i pray for him to change his choices to better choices and when it comes to the risk of covid everyone should always do exactly what they want to do if they want to form a gang and bully people they can do that but don't expect me to join in a cheerleader i'm not i'm going to fight that that's my choice okay different example i don't think you're really engaged with my questions a different example um suppose we all live in wooden houses next door to each other should your neighbor be allowed to have a have a fire light their house on fire light their house on fire like or do something that's risky like like say saying uh do i allow it it's like uh i take the perspective of god like god allows should there be people are people allowed to rape children yes god allows people to rape children do i want them to do it no do i advise them to change their ways yes should we should we coordinate as a society to reduce the likelihood yeah i mean the the first principle is life okay so uh i have the right the god-given right to life liberty and the security of the person and that's protected in the charter right and the canadian constitution those rights are protected by law right they're god-given rights but they're protected by law they're supposed to be so the first principle is life so i mean it's up to you do you want the rewards that come from seeking life or do you want to go the other direction choose wisely choose life that's what moses said choose wisely choose life truthfully so i'm you know you may not think i'm answering your question but it's very very important that we have that we know we have free will we have free choice and the choices we make matter and when it comes to uh you know regular regulating or whatever the word is regulating all this safety stuff i'm against it for the most part uh but if that's what people want to do and it seems like that's what people want to do and they should do it and you know i i understand the concern like we want to protect the vulnerable and all these sorts of things but i think it's natural and healthy to protect the vulnerable and i don't think we need to legislate it or enforce it i think it's just people like if you want to kill your grandmother by coughing in her mouth that's your choice i think it's a bad choice but i wouldn't send people to prison for that but yeah so that i would err on the side of freedom and i would err on the side of uh uh education like i would put emphasis on education what is life why uh you know what is human nature why do we why do we bother protecting human life when chickens are being lined up for the slaughter what's the difference what's the difference between a human and a chicken is there a difference get to the root of the issue like uh my god or is god god like this is what i would want to emphasize if i were to influence politics in canada or in any other nation it would be to emphasize life liberty security the person free choice and asking some fundamental questions about uh you know metaphysics so that we can have an education system that's grounded in sound principles that that actually serve life instead of serving death so i hope that uh answers your question well that was good my friend uh joe in the comment box he says what do you think about anarchy he says david you should be an anarchist human nature is selfish well we have a good nature but it's a fall in nature and he says david for president so you can just comment on those actions you're like uh starting with energy do i think you're an anarchist um i think we naturally um end up in hierarchies like if five people are in the room hanging out very quickly you know the extroverts take over yeah uh it's really hard to have not people not take over um so we could like try and arrange society to make it really hard for people to take over but that arrangement people would take over the arranging of that of course because when you tell the the irony like i tried to emphasize earlier the irony of telling people to do what they want is that a lot of people uh controlling other people is what they want to do so i mean the the other thing to mention about anarchy is like i do like the idea of individual liberty but i'm a catholic i respect the hierarchy like we've got god the pope the bishops the priests you know like the it's there's a i love the hierarchy if you listen to my podcast you'll know i love and value the hierarchy yeah you know very very much very much so just leave me alone let me be me let me do my thing and if you love me and support me and like like what you're saying ben about um allowing people to have we didn't say safe space but allowing people to be themselves i'm paraphrasing here but this is what i got out of your message was basically let people be themselves make them comfortable listen to them you know speak to them with respect and kindness and these sorts of things like i mean that's the key i mean i think that's the key to a healthy society period yeah like i i like free speech i'm really skeptical of free speech laws and when when it's your birthday i don't want anyone picking a fight with you about you know it's your birthday people should protocol yeah there's uh what do you call that there's like politeness protocols yeah yeah yeah i think you know on your birthday your friends shouldn't try and sort out your you know conflicts they have with you say that for another day have an intervention on your birthday yeah exactly so you've seen that happen i can some like i've had i've had holiday events where i thought do we really need to have this conversation today yeah they're seeing that happen and but sometimes it's the the intimacy of the special day is what makes it come out yeah um and i honor that as well okay um yeah so i'm conflicted i believe like i like voluntary groups that agree on restrictions like we we we choose as a group to speak to each other with compassion but i would not want a federal law that you have to speak with compassion yes that would get abused what do you think about uh veganism and these sorts of things do you think it's noble to try to do less harm to the animals yeah yeah i do and i'm uh omnivore right now i just accept i'm yeah i'm an imperfect being i was a vegan i was near vegan for a little while did you feel better psychologically yeah spiritually yeah just strive to just strive strive like i was talking to a guy at a party and he said he tries to respect the animal that he's eating like i love you thank you for giving your life to me and sorry if you suffered these sorts of things so that seems like a nice sentiment he got that from the native spirituality first nations yeah i think that's better than not caring but it's not as good as not killing [Laughter] yeah and yeah i'm amazed when i've expressed care like what i've said oh the natural order is predation that's awful the natural order is predation yeah like predation is part of the natural world yeah well since the fall yeah since the fall uh my friend joe was asking does ben believe in god so you can answer that in whatever way you want yeah i find the word so i'm an atheist who went to divinity school and i learned i learned to translate a lot of language so that it made sense to me so i use the word god but i don't use it in the way david does and i like for me where the energy of the universe came from i have no idea i just yeah i don't have an answer to that what about cannibalism he asks joe asks what about cannibalism humans eating humans got any comment on that i think it's a sin and a crime and just one of the worst things what about that plane crash in the mountains where they did it to survive people were dead anyway that's less culpable for sure yeah yeah i don't know might not be a sin i don't support killing people and eating them um i was joking about that question by the way but anyway go ahead it's still fun to answer yeah thanks joe thanks joe uh no but it's an interesting question of of if the body's right there why would you waste it and some you know then there's the question of do you trust taboos do you trust taboos or not well you you're the one that really opened my eyes up to the latent wisdom of the taboo that oh really you yeah you told me a story about this uh joe says i converted from cannibalism to veganism he must be joking anyway you told me about this where people would question a long-standing tradition they didn't understand the tradition and when they went against tradition bad things happen and then they realize oh that's why we have this tradition okay so you opened my eyes to this years ago do you remember that conversation i don't no i don't the lost wisdom of banner i'm really curious what topic it was uh it was probably economics and politics and stuff like that because that's what you're you're you're always interested in economics right yeah yeah does that ring it out this is that ring about exciting ideas tradition yeah yeah which traditions are are actually helpful um che imagine you know chesterton's fence don't take down a fence unless you know why it was put up but i might do you know that you must vaguely sounds very vaguely familiar he's catholic you must yeah i know him i know him i know many of his witty uh retorts but chesterton's chesterton's fence he says don't take down a fence unless you know why i was put up okay but i my response to that is but don't repair a fence until you know why it was put up i think it's worth learning the hard way so when when some people are making bad decisions now sometimes i feel like oh we need to learn the hard way like with free speech maybe we need to learn the hard way that it's valuable it's so it's so annoying what we're going through as a western culture now with all the policing and all the sensitivity over sensitivity i think and uh you know um trying to have a moral policing which i'm against you know i i think about the confessional when i go into the confessional and i confess my sins and you know it's disgusting stuff you know selfish stuff uh ben is canadian yes joe um we grew up in the same city kingston ontario but anyway i don't think you're allowed to talk about that but anyway so uh yeah in the confessional like just the gentleness of of christ in the person of the priest and just the lack of judgment this is when i have a good priest which is most of the time you know there's no finger wagging for the most part when you have a good priest and there's just that gentle call to repentance and to change of life and um so if you if you have a friend who is a quote unquote racist for example or sexist or whatever it is uh you know there's a way there's a way to help that person to come closer to the truth and to respecting their human nature and the human nature of the person that they have a prejudice against and uh our western society now is sick it's so sick and one of the manifestations of that sickness is the way that we treat people who are wounded um if they are you know they have sexual proclivities that are aberrant or whether they're very attached to their particular tribe or you know or become racist or whatever like i mean i just don't curse them use the force of the state against people who are making bad choices yeah it's not helpful and it's it's it's exacerbating these problems and it's it's widening the divide and um you know you and i have talked about uh racism before and how they're there are systemic or systematic i don't know what the word is um things in place that just keep the lower classes down and uh different ethnic communities down keeps them down and it's horrifying you know but uh i think it all comes down to the individual choices we make when we're communicating and uh if we can some summon up the energy to not make rash judgments and to not uh because you know words and attitudes can be harmful i think we need to i agree with the left we have to be aware that people uh deserve respect no matter what i agree with them on that but they at the same time speak out the other side of their mouth when they trash talk right and both sides left and right do trash talking and i don't belong to the left or to the right or i'm you know obviously more sympathetic to the right now because the way the left's going crazy but um just the uh the hypocrisy of claiming to never to want to harm people and then just trash talking them like you're a drunken truck driver or whatever it just doesn't make sense doesn't make a lot of sense that was hurtful that was hurtful [Laughter] i have to be careful what i say but uh you know part of part of the experience of being married for 27 years is you kind of learn how to play rough and to figure out how far you can push another human being and where uh where are the real dangers to harming someone's dignity and where are the playful [Music] ways where you can play rough and uh i think that's good i think it's a healthy thing for us to realize that a lot of the dangers are imagined they're only imagined a lot of these dangers you're gonna have to go soon right yeah i need to go soon yeah for me um yeah for me a part of humor is is towing the line of what's inappropriate to say you know you you you show you understand inappropriateness by making the joke you know that the joke's just on the line or maybe even slightly over the line and that shows that you understand where the line is yeah yeah and but i've learned not to do that with people who aren't in on the joke yeah yeah you've had some bad experiences there yeah yeah so that's a feeling out process like in a fight right people the boxers feel each other i would just say yeah yeah yeah that's fine yeah and there's and then i mean some people they figure out who their true friends are by can you take a joke can we joke about this yeah can i poke you and you'll poke back and then we're friends versus other people who who are they're testing their friendships by will you will you honor me if i say ouch so in in unitarian um youth groups on the weekend often they'll make a behavior agreement at the start of the weekend and one of the things is to honor ouches if someone says ouch you're really honored uh which is the exact opposite you know another group might make the behavior agreement um we agreed to ouch each other to prove our deep friendship you know so it's just different choices yeah yeah so what would you say about our uh long standing friendship in terms of those two caps ouch don't ouch because uh yeah i don't think we push each other there's buttons i think we enjoy disagreeing about things but we don't you know you never point out that i'm losing my hair what i just have a weird fetish for bald man i don't know what it is i've always liked bald men so it's a positive it's a positive for me my wife thinks i'm weird man every time there's a guy on tv not all of them but when there's a bald guy on tv i'm like that guy's good looking and she's like is it because he looks like ben no because he looked like fred so yeah i got a weird i got a weird fetish for bald man that's funny yeah so i don't think we we um push each other's buttons even when we disagree i think we just enjoy talking it through yeah yeah i pissed you off a couple times when i went too far with my religious stuff sometimes i remember a couple times i went a little bit too far yeah yeah i do remember uh i do remember that but yeah you're pretty good uh fun guy to chat with and easy goal in it yeah but one remember at the beer store when i said i want the cheapest thing you have and the guy said i'm sorry we're out of it you said you loved the look on my face i just got this look on my face and this guy is com complete and you enjoyed you and enjoyed that i was letting out this judgment and looking back yeah i was a little mean there oh that was that's a little mean of me to let that out you're a center man [Laughter] it's okay it's okay maybe he maybe he went away and thought about it and he's like wow he's like you've seen that meme where the guy's at the rave and he has a deep thought moment he's like yeah there's always a cheapest one in the store no matter which one it is there's always a cheapest one just like i i've done that too i went to the shoe store i just said i just want a pair of shoes i want the cheapest pair of shoes we have and they just refuse to cater to that they will not cater to that because it's not in their best interest right yeah so that's just business 101 i guess yeah that's what actually i let out i let out some attitude when i'm with salespeople yeah unfortunately it's not fair you know relative to my usual level i'm not saying well you've told me before you're very judgmental of people you get bored with people and you feel superior to everyone i'm paraphrasing i'm paraphrasing i'm paraphrasing thanks for announcing that to the world feel free to correct me i was overstating it just for fun yeah i can be judgmental i can be very particular or maybe in the past you're more like that yeah let's say this is all in the past it was in that it was definitely in the past i'm like it wasn't yeah yeah this one was just because this was years ago so don't feel bad that i'm aligning your character publicly milan kundera said you can see everyone as as lyrical and be like there's like a poem and be always disappointed because they're just not um behaving artistically or you can see everyone is like an epic adventure and then you're always excited by their quirks um so i'm trying to work on that needing people to be less edited and artistic well you know it's entertaining enough um looking at what i say when why why did i say that for example just what i just said but you know even when i'm sitting alone at home thinking my own thoughts i sometimes step back and look at that process and think how did that thought come to me and why did i follow that train of thought so if that's fascinating imagine how fascinating it is meeting another human being and listening to what goes out of their mouth like i mean so it's endlessly fascinating i think i mean not to say i don't get bored with people and i'd love to talk to you more about this particular aspect as i went to a party recently and i you know the certain people attracted to other people i just get bored after a few seconds of talking to them and i wonder why that is given the fact of what i just said that everyone is surprising and unique yeah that we can explore that next time but it's something i do notice with myself like i just can't fake it if i'm not interested in someone i just can't fake it yeah um i was at an authentic relating gathering do you know authentic relating no it there's they have workshops in montreal and online cool they're conversation structures that just invite total honesty and and once where i was doing in the small group four or five people and then someone was just completely bored okay and they mentioned i might have to leave my thoughts are just completely on my relationship and we're like what that's the whole point to say what's authentically on your minds and so then she started actually talking about it and she became completely engaged okay and so for me the challenge when i meet someone is helping them feel comfortable so they can actually say be real like if you're bored with someone who's just being pleasant i'm sure they're interesting they've got yeah it's just a challenge of getting there and that's something i'm working on that's pretty cool yeah yeah cool cool cool so thanks for coming on you gotta wrap things up here is there anything else you want to say love is good um god if you're out there forgive me there's a process for that forgiveness i can email you all the steps you need to take that's all right no but i appreciate you coming on at short notice i mean you didn't know that i was going to have you on here but uh it's always nice to see your face and when we chat on the phone my boss did buy me a smartphone by the way i do have a smartphone now okay instead of the flip phone so i could actually talk to you face to face on my smartphone if i wanted to i did i do as little as i can i keep my phone in its original box in a case a case within a case and it's off i don't hear it ring i don't hear anything wow good idea and my boss says we bought this for a reason you have to be open to communication we i tried phoning it go straight to your voicemail i'm like oh sorry sorry i'm not interested i want to be like do i want to up my level of slavery to like super slave where i'm always successful all the time no i don't thank you very much yeah you feel you feel the phone is a tool of slavery or no um not slavery yeah but addiction and destruction very distracting i would love to one of the things i'm working on now is my attention span so i only read my blogs once a week once a week instead of checking them four times a day wow that's pretty good example wow and i'm sure yeah and i'm trying to get twitter sometimes i can get twitter to one one session a week oh you're addicted to twitter i just got a twitter account because elon musk bought it not that i'm a huge fan of his but i just thought it was like seemed to annoy the left so i thought it might be fun to join but i just hate it i just hate it i've always hated it you'll find your niche for with yeah i wonder if elon if twitter is the is the ring from lord of the rings and elon musk is just put on the ring is it going to make big changes or uh it's too tempting not to i don't know like i think what he did with tesla is incredible okay uh in the boring company yeah yeah okay and the boring company sounds fabulous um but now he's put on the ring of power [Music] so we'll see he calls the shots so we'll talk soon thanks uh so much for coming on ben thank you love you too talk to you soon bye