Episode 4: What Are We To Make of Evil?

Welcome back everybody. We're glad to have you back. We're here to talk about wisdom from the aerial view. This is episode four and we're really glad you stuck around and you made it through the first three. So what's on your mind this morning, Mark Klein?

Well, we are recording this on the 2nd of January, so a couple of weeks before you're actually going to listen to this. And it's the day after we saw that horrific terrorist attack in New Orleans, where unfortunately many people died and many more were injured. And of course, there was likely a second attack in Las Vegas. So when these things happen, Ianda, you mentioned in one of the other episodes, about school shootings and these things that are just so distressing to all of us and how do we make sense of them. So I thought maybe, I know you didn't anticipate this, so sorry to spring it on you, but I think it's important to talk about this because it really gets back to purpose and why we need to evolve from inward focus to outward focus and

That's good. No, I like to be sprung upon.

You know, I think about this a lot in the terms of how do we deal with these aggressive violent acts, whether they be somebody pushing somebody into the New York City subway. We also saw that this in the last few days. Or these terrorist attacks, school shootings, all these things. all fall. You know, people separate them into different types of evil activity. But I don't. I put them all in the same basket because I think they come from the same place. And I think the solution also comes from the same place. Now, you won't be surprised to hear me say this solution comes from the aerial view. And we talked about purpose a good deal previously. I made the case, or I tried to make the case that if we don't agree on purpose, we won't agree on the sets of rules and regulations we agree to live by. Let's go back to if you don't agree on purpose, we won't have shared values. Our values won't be the same. And that will translate into activities, rules and regulations that we don't agree on. So if you're a terrorist, your view of purpose is likely very different than yours in it or mine. So for them, what is purpose? Maybe to serve some crazy, bizarre ideology?

Right.

that they think is going to take them to heaven and 72 virgins or whatever number is in vogue these days. And you and I look at that and think, and I assume probably everybody listening to this agrees that that's an insane way to look at life. And yet that's what their quote purpose is. Our purpose, our values are different, right? We see a different purpose. We talked about what I thought I think the purpose of life is, which is preparation. To succeed at that operation, you must evolve from selfish to selfless, from inward to outward focus. So really, to get into the mind of somebody who would create such a heinous act, whether it be pushing somebody on a subway or a school shooting or these terrorist attacks, they have a, in my view, and I think most people's view, a warped sense of life's value, life's purpose. And how do we get the society as a whole to move away from that. Violence of any sort, to me, as you know very well, I don't watch violent television, I don't watch violent movies. I think all our exposure to violence is very bad for us society. We'll get into that in another episode. But that's why the aerial view is so important, because it gives us a different perspective. It gives us an explanation of why the purpose of life cannot be... to murder, kill, and maim. It tells a totally different story. And so the more we expose people to this perspective and this view, the more likely we are to be able to convince more people to behave in a better way. Maybe not only the people who are committing these horrendous acts, but people who are violent in other ways, who create chaos and evil in other ways. So that's why this is so important. This is why I wrote this book and this is why we're having this podcast. So it's to try and move the individual forward, each of us to have less anxiety, less stress in our lives, more fulfilling and meaningful lives, and also to move the society forward. And that's to me what this is really all about.

Well, and I'm glad you brought this up. Obviously, we've all been thinking about this because we can't because it is nonstop. It's 24 seven on television. It's they have the chiron underneath it. They build logos now. Horror in Las Vegas, horror in New Orleans. mean, they do that. They push it on us in a way that you almost it's inescapable. And so because it is inescapable, becomes part of our own psyche. It becomes part of who we are as a society. It happened in Germany, it happened in France now, it's happening on our own shores. But so our value system then has become a part of a larger scheme of things. And maybe it is media driven, I'm not here to blast the media, but you said we'll talk about it at a later time. think let's talk a little bit about that now. If it has permeated the zeitgeist, everything we talk about is about We're all worried. mean, we are living in an era of angst. I know I am. I'm anxious about everything. You wonder, you get up in the morning, it's New Year's Eve, it's celebration, and then this happens. So my value system, your value system, how do we, but how, even if I'm looking at the world and you're looking at the world through the aerial view, how do we get that man who created that heinous act to think differently? How do you get people who are child abusers who are domestic violent abusers. How do you get them, how do we get them to start changing their values? How do we do that?

Well, I guess back to purpose, think it's the right question for sure. And I agree with you, everybody is anxious about this and appropriately so. know, a phobia is an inappropriate fear of something. Well, this is not an inappropriate fear. Yes, I agree. The media is nonstop. always interesting that you brought that up about these about these names when they started naming catastrophes or naming everything. Right. I'm thinking.

Yeah, yeah.

You're giving this a life. You're making it sound like it has, you're giving it value. If you name something, all of a sudden it has value, right?

That's right.

But these things don't have value. want to do the other way. I do believe very strongly, I have felt this way many, many years, that all the violence in our society, I do blame the media to a certain degree, not completely, of course, but they are culpable. And not only are they culpable, they could they can be the solution, right? They could be the solution. So instead of seeing all this horrible stuff all the time, if we had more media focused on the important things in life, how to treat each other, all the goodness that's out there. Look, you've spent your life, your career, I know I'm probably going to talk about this every episode because you're such an amazing person and admirable, all the work you've done, but you've spent your life feeding people, caring for people now, especially elder people. You you know what the, you have this idea of what's important, what's not. We don't name what you do, right? You just do it every day, right? And if it was more of that in the world and less of these violent episodes that we really celebrate, it would make a difference. The media, music, TV, everything, literature, you know, I know you and I have talked about this before, that if you watch Netflix or any of the series, anything other than network TV,

Yeah.

And now we have a network TV, even news, you'll hear the F word every three or four seconds, maybe even more frequently. I don't think a paragraph goes by without an F word flying around. And I think that's a really bad idea because it lowers the bar of society. I think it lowers the standards. Now, people going to think I'm a Puritan. I'm certainly not a Puritan. But I know for sure that we are susceptible. to what we hear and read. I'll give you a couple of examples. This might be getting a little off track, but I think it's worth talking about for a second. I remember when President Obama took office, first of all, it was a fantastic, was one of the greatest nights in American history, whether you voted for him or not. I think people were very excited that we had, was truly a transition had occurred, a lot of positivity. But that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is when the issue of gay marriage came up and Obama famously said in the beginning of his term that marriage is between a man and a woman. By the end of his eight years, Gay marriage was the law of the land. So I was amazed, not about gay marriage, I think whatever people want to do is absolutely fine with me and I think should be fine as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. But the fact that the consensus in this country flipped 180 degrees in such a short time, that was amazing. So why is that? Why did that happen? Because there was a concerted effort by the media, by the government, by lots of groups to

Yeah.

encourage this new paradigm. So that discussion should show you how fast things can change, right? If we could do that in a number of years, wow, that was amazing to me, which tells me that we can change a lot of things in a couple of years if we put our mind to it. So, you know, our emphasis on violence, I have been If it were up to me, there wouldn't be any guns in the world. On the other hand, I'm not, I recognize this is the Second Amendment and I'm not interested in taking anybody's rights away, whether it be that or abortion, anything. We'll talk about all these things down the road, I'm sure. But you can change people's minds. That was the point of that gay marriage discussion. You can change people's minds. And that's why you and I are doing this. It's not that we want to create, we want to brainwash people. We just want people to understand there's another perspective that is so liberating and frees people from anxiety and at the same time elevates the individual and the society. How great is that? And all it takes really, I know this sounds a bit foolish maybe, but really all it takes is a change in perspective. It takes the aerial view. That's why the aerial view is so powerful. It can do to the society what it can do to the individual. Raise you up, take the yoke of angst and anxiety off your shoulders. Free you up to be generous, to be kind. and consider it and judge people favorably. It can do all these things because once you understand what this perspective is and start practicing it and embracing it, it is amazing how everything changes. So let's go back to this horrible event yesterday in New Orleans on January 1st. Again, we recognize you're listening to this a few weeks ahead or least a couple of weeks ahead. But for us, it's very fresh as we discuss this right now.

So 15 lives were lost, many, many more were injured. So how do we deal with this idea of tragedy? You know, I think about those families who, you know, who lost 15 loved ones. I'm going to guess the majority of them were young because it was three o'clock in the morning on Bourbon Street. So people like you and I probably weren't out there in massive numbers. It's probably young people. So how do these families deal with this horrible loss? One of the things we're going to spend time on also in this podcast periodically is tragedy. How do you deal with tragedy? Well, here it is. It's right in our face. How do we deal with tragedy?

Right. Yeah.

So in the early part of tragedy, there's nowhere around it. Your heart's going to be broken. You're going to cry. You're going to be incredibly sad. But then question is, OK, what do do then? How do you move forward? I have a very good friend of mine. think you might remember this is actually in the book, who lost his son. His son had just turned 30 something, 35, 37. And I knew this kid since he was probably six or seven. was a good friend. And he died of a very unusual medical condition for his age, very rare. Suddenly, he was traveling on business and they found him in this hotel the next day. wasn't drugs, it wasn't suicide. He had this incredibly rare cardiac event for his age. And my friend was devastated, absolutely devastated. He would say to me, I don't think I want to live anymore. I lost my child. I don't want to live anymore. And, you know, sure, you know, it's understandable, but how do you get somebody like that past that? Right. And the way to get past that is to understand that what we talked about, we've already talked about and we will talk about more, which is the jukebox of time. The fact that we live on the records from the day we're born to the day we die. So let's just review the jukebox of time for a minute, because in case people haven't listened to the previous episodes, I'm not sure why they would ever not listen to these episodes. But occasionally people, they do foolish things, right? They don't listen to the right. Right.

Right.

Well, absolutely. This is right. And that is tragic in and of itself. Yes.

That has, that is. So time, in my view, the, not my view, but the way I, but Einstein and many physicists have explained how time works is that all moments exist in a sense contemporaneously. The past, present, and future, as Einstein said, is a stubborn illusion. So an easy way. analogy I like to use to explain this to people is the giant jukebox of time where there's an infinite number of records and each record represents a moment in time. And instead of operating like a normal jukebox where one record plays, then goes back into its slot, the next record plays, goes back into its slot, and the only one record is actively playing at a time. But in the jukebox of time, all records are playing simultaneously and forever, which means every moment lives in its own space, alive just as much as this moment that we're discussing forever. Okay. So we show up on this earth and we show up on our first record. The first record we show up on is the day we were born. Hooray, our parents are thrilled. Hopefully they're thrilled. But I never asked my mother, were you thrilled? But anyway, maybe she wasn't. My father, I know was thrilled, but my mother could go either way. I don't know for sure, but let's assume my mother was thrilled.

Yeah.

Sure, of course he was happy, he didn't have to go through the birth. She did. Anyway, go ahead. here you go.

Okay, fine, fine. There we go. So anyway, So that's the first day, that's the first record you're on. And then you go through your life and you're on every record until the last record, which is the day you leave this earth, the day you pass away. So that is a tiny number of records considering all the records in our infinite jukebox from before the Big Bang probably, or at least from the Big Bang, to who knows how far in the future. And as we discussed before, to me, it's very interesting that we're not really upset about the fact that we weren't on the records before that day we were born, because there were a lot of records, before that, we weren't on any of them. That's maybe 14 billion years worth of records. We weren't on them. Nobody says, I'm so sad that you weren't on those records beforehand, that you weren't around in the 1500s. Nobody's upset about that. We do get upset when we leave the last record. People get upset about that. So that's interesting. It's a very interesting idea because we know that our lives are finite. Really the question becomes, and this is going to be very difficult for me to couch in a way that people aren't going to think I'm a lunatic or a madman, but we don't, we know that everybody's going to die eventually. The only thing we don't know about that last record, one, is the time, the place, and the circumstance, but we know that record is coming. So really the fact, when that record comes, it seems like from the... There is a perspective from which you can say, gee, does it really make that much difference which day it is? And everybody would go, my God, what are you talking about? We want to live a full, meaningful, fulfilling, happy, joyful life, long, blah, blah. We talked about longevity previously. But when you step back a little bit, you think, hmm, we know we're going to die. We know that there's a final record.

Is it really that important which day that record falls on, whether it's our 30th birthday, 50th birthday, 80th birthday, 100th birthday? And, you know, the conventional wisdom and certainly the logical thing says, what do you mean? Who wants to die at 30? Better to die at 100. True. That would seem that way. And I agree with that. But the question is, is it a tragedy if you die before that? Well, to me, it depends what you've done during that time. We talked previously about Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, who said you only need to live a day and have a meaningful life. That's a very hard thing to get to understand. We'll talk about that maybe down the road a bit. But the point is that it's not, we all want to live as long as we can, but the critical thing is not how long you live. It's whether you make that evolution while you're here, you meet your mission of preparation, of becoming, of evolving from selfish to selfless, from inward focus to outward focus. And so getting back to the tragedy idea that Yes, it's sad when we lose somebody prematurely. But it's sadder if that person did not spend their life in a meaningful way or that we didn't help that person live their life in a meaningful way. These are the things that are important. And when you look at life from the aerial view in a removed, disinterested, dispassionate place, which is what the aerial view is, all these things become clearer. So if I had the chance to talk to any of these people that have committed these heinous crimes, two people who committed the terrorist acts yesterday, you know, I'd want to hear what they think their purpose of life is. And then not to think that I could... talk them out of it. But I think that's the goal. That's what we need to do to create an environment where people understand that that is not the reason you're here, that there is a purpose, that you're focusing on the wrong things. And that's the only way we're ever going to move the ball forward and move away from the violence and the terrorist activities and the things we all despise in this world. We have to change that paradigm, which is why are we here? What is our purpose?

Well, let me ask you, you talk, you're sort of intermingling two words, and I want to know your definition. You talk about purpose, purpose of life, and then you talk about do they live a meaningful life. Now, are you using those words interchangeably? Is my purpose different from my meaning, or are they the same in your view? In other words, is my purpose in life X? but it's only meaningful if I accomplished X or is it meaningful I'm a plumber? Is that a meaningful life as opposed to I'm a teacher? Which one is more meaningful or is there? And what is my purpose if I'm a teacher as opposed to if I'm a plumber? I'm gonna...

Well, plumber, teacher, doctor, president, equal, equal. You know, my, I'm always amazed. grew up. Well, you know where I grew up and my dad taught me how to do nothing in terms of technical skills. mean, really, I could do almost nothing. I joke around that in our house, we had base heating, radiator heating, and we had to, quote, bleed the radiators, which means get the air out of the radiators. We didn't even use a screwdriver. We used a kitchen knife. This shows you how I grew up. I knew how to do nothing. So I am totally in awe of people who can build things, fix things, repair things.

I do.

Right.

My wife's family were all plumbers. Most of them were plumbers. And they're not only they plumbers, they can build anything. She never in her life had a repairman in the house. Her dad or eventually her brothers would do it. They knew how to do everything. And I'm always amazed by these people. it doesn't matter where you're at. And I would tell them I'm like in awe and they go, you're a doctor. What are you talking about? go, no, no, I can see anybody had to be a doctor. But what you do, that's unbelievable. And I mean it. I'm in awe. Great teachers, great plumbers. don't care. Electrician. I don't care what you do. Right. If you do it in the sense that I want to

Yeah, sure.

do the best I can. We're going to talk about that at some point down the road. Why is it important to do the best you can? That's very important. We're going to get to that in one of the future episodes. meaning, so purpose versus meaning. So our purpose is, as I said, is to evolve from selfish to selfless, from inward to outward focus in preparation. Right? That's what the clues we've talked about previously have pointed out. Your meaning is in the sense to accomplish that goal.

Okay. Right.

And how you do that, there are thousand routes. So if a plumber comes into my house, I'll give you an example, this happens all the time. I have a couple of things that I practice routinely. For instance, whenever I go to restaurant, 100 % of the time, I ask the waiter or waitress there, is there her name? 100 % of the time, why? Because as soon as you do that, you establish a relationship. And all of sudden, that person is no longer your slave, right? But somebody you're interacting with who you appreciate what they're doing. And they have a sense that, hey, I guess I'm... Because I do have some value. Somebody's willing to call me by my name instead of, hey, you, right? When workmen come to my house for something, I always offer them something to eat or coffee or use the bathroom, whatever they want. Always. You know, because if I didn't, my wife would kill me. Number one. And number two is these are people, right? And if you want to establish a society where people feel like they're here for a reason, that they do have purpose and meaning, you've got to treat them like people.

Mm-hmm.

you

Correct.

And the last reason I do that, which you already know, is because that makes you feel great. I'll give you an example. We had some driveway work done last summer. The guy came, he was kind of a gruff guy, but we started chatting. And I asked him about his family and about his life and blah, blah, Before you know it, he's opening up. This is probably my doctor part coming out because I can't help but ask people questions. And by the time, so... And then you told me how much was going to charge to do the driveway. And I generally don't negotiate with people who are doing jobs for me. And that might sound bizarre, but here's my feeling. A, I'm in a fortunate situation where if it's another couple of hundred bucks, it's not going to change my life, but it could change theirs. So a couple hundred dollars to me at this point in my life,

Correct.

I know how blessed I am. I've worked a long, long time. You joked around that I made a lot of money. Doctors, you make money by stuffing chocolates in a box. It's how many patients can you see? So if you work a lot of hours and you work long for many years, you'll do fine, right? You're not going to be Jeff Bezos, but you're going to do fine. So anyway, getting back to it. So I'm in a position where if somebody overcharges me $100 or $200, I don't care. It is more important for me the day... And what I often will say though is I say, I'm going to trust that whatever price you give me is going to be a fair price. And that's all I say, right? Then it's up to them. If they rip me off, I'm not diminished. They're diminished. People go, no, come on, I just got ripped off for $200. I go, no, no. You can only be diminished by your own misdeeds, not by those of others. That's a very important rule, right? The only way you can hurt yourself is by something you do to yourself. If somebody takes advantage of you, that's their problem. They've got to live with that. You're fine.

But do you allow that? other words, I... Okay, tell me why you would. In other words, not everybody is in a position to say, well, it's only a couple hundred dollars. Okay, okay. Right, right. But if you know that somebody's not making a good decision by charging you more than it is, than it should be, than it's valued, don't you have an obligation

Yes, I do.

I understand that. That's why I said that. Right.

to maybe talk it through with that person about the value system that they're imposing on you, which is to rip you off.

Well, that would take a lot of time. that's why I got... So all I do is I say, look, I talk to them, I develop a relationship with them, ask them about their families, whatever it is. I do, have 100 % of time, not just to get a good deal, but because that's what I like to do. And I think that's the way the world should work, in my opinion, that every time you interact with somebody, it's a relationship. So you might as well...

Yeah, sure it would.

Mm hmm. Right. Right. OK.

Make it a good relationship. But I will often say, look, I trust, you know, I will trust. So he had his little wheel where he wheels around the driveway and measures everything, you know, and they come up some crazy calculation. He goes, okay, this is how much it is. And I said, well, I'm just going to trust you're going to give me a fair price. You know, I'm not going to negotiate with you. I'm just going to trust you're going to give me a fair price. Most of the time that will happen. Sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't, that's okay, because I've been true to what I believe is important. I don't want to rip.

Correct.

I would feel worse if I negotiated so hard with this person that it cost him or her $100 out of their pocket. Because I'm pretty sure that at my age and the number years I've worked in, the amount of money I've saved, that I can handle $100 better than he can. I'm going to guess that. I might be wrong, right? Maybe he's done so well that he's got 10 times more money than me, possibly. But I don't care about that. I'm going to guess that... that I'm gonna assume that that person needs that hundred dollars more than me. And so if he rips me off by a hundred dollars, okay, he's better off. I'm really not that much worse off. I don't take it personally because it's not about me. I behaved fine, he misbehaved. It's his problem. Because remember, life is preparation, right? That's what counts.

However, okay, he's working for, let's say he's not self-employed. He's working for large corporation, large company. Yes, yeah.

Can I interrupt you for a second? Let me interrupt you for one second. People are listening to this and they're think I'm insane, right? But I would like people who are listening to think about one thing. There is a possibility that I'm correct and that this is a better way to live your life for you, not for the people who you're paying, but for you. Because at the end of the day, you're gonna feel a lot better. Okay, sorry to interrupt you.

No, I'm glad you did, because I think that's important. And I think it's a different way of looking at things. Because normally, I was about to say that if he was self-employed, it's one thing, that that extra $100 is going directly into his pocket. But if he's working for a company, that $100 or $200 or whatever it is is not going into his pocket. It's going into the corporation's pocket. And so my point about talking to him as a individual, he's not going to see that $200. He's not going to see it at all. It's just going to be on.

That's true.

He gives it to the company. But in many respects, by having a conversation, and I realize it does take time, but having the conversation with him about fairness, about being fair to those you are serving, you might, well, and it's an important topic because it's about kindness and fairness and doing the right thing. And to me, that's meaningful in my life. And I've imparted something to that other person.

Ooh, one of my favorite topics.

Yes.

And I would say, Joe, I know you're not making that extra $200. I know that company XYZ is. But I want to talk to you about why, when you're making the calculation, driving around my driveway here and deciding how much it costs, I'm not asking you to cheat, but I'm asking you to think differently about the meaning of what we are doing, the transaction that we are entering into.

So in that situation, the person selling you the service is probably on a commission. So he is probably going to make more money if he charges you more money. So even the big corporations, that's how it works. These people, like you want a new roof? The guy who's going to hammer the nails isn't coming to your house, generally speaking. It's going to be some bigger company. The salesperson is coming to your house. And he or she is going to make money based on what they charge you. So the best you can do, again, it's the same rule.

Hmm.

That's right.

You set the ground rules, say look, you develop a relationship, a really short one, I just, you know, I expect, you look like a good guy, I expect you're gonna give me a fair price, that's all. I don't wanna negotiate, but I expect you can give me a fair price. Okay, if they don't, and I'm not telling people not to negotiate, you know, if you don't, like you said, for a lot of people, a $10 is a lot of money. I get that, right? We'll talk about this, but there were many years in my life when I had no money, right? I had been extremely poor, like, and sell and buy myself with no safety net, with nobody to help me. So I get it. I get that $10 makes a difference. So I'm not telling people not to negotiate. All I'm saying is to you is that don't rip your guts out trying to negotiate so that you feel all this angst, right? Because your goal is not to necessarily save that hundred dollars. Your goal is to create a persona, your personality that, that

Right. Mm.

is preparing that is making that transition, that evolution from selfish to selfless, from inward to outward focus. If you're doing that, you are winning the game. So that's really where the focus is. It's not the $100, right? One of my kids just went on a trip and cost a lot more money than he wanted to. And I said, look, you're young, you got a long future. Don't kill yourself about this. Don't be upset about it. And you made the decision to go, now go enjoy it. And at the end of the day,

Right, right.

50 years from now, it's not going to make any difference. So that's the reason we talk about this. Remember, we're trying to get rid of personal angst, individual stress, and also to move the society forward.

I love it. I love it because we can then, if we look at it from the aerial view, there's this man coming to do something in your driveway. You're right. I mean, it's the way we look at it, the way we even negotiate. And I think this is a great way to, this is a great ending point here for us. I think this is so important to think about taking the angst out of our lives, taking the anxiety out and looking at it in a different way, looking at it from the aerial view. So we'll stop here. so that people can go back to work or do what they have to do less anxiously, I hope. And we'll come back next time and we'll talk about something, continue this conversation about tragedy and what it means and where our lives are going. So with that, we'll end this podcast, this episode four, and hope to see you back for episode five. Have a great day. Less anxiously.

We hope.

Thank you everybody. Thank you Enid. Thank you listening people.

Thank you, Mark.