Show notes
00:00.00 mikebledsoe Welcome to Monday morning with Mike and max and today we're gonna be talking about ancient wisdom with modern technology because if you don't hold both of these at the same time really well in the year Twenty Twenty Two you're probably gonna have a hard. Time thanks for joining us max. 00:22.25 Max Shank Well, thanks for having me in the year Twenty Twenty two since we started counting because if you look at how long homo sapiens have been in this current form. We've been around a really long time and depend to you ask. Roughly two hundred thousand years does that sound correct to you I believe as homo sapiens. Okay, so it's ah it's really hard to actually imagine timelines that long it's. 00:46.53 mikebledsoe Ah sure why not? That's what they said on Discovery channel. 00:59.40 Max Shank Almost impossible to truly hold in your mind. The fact that ancient egypt was 3 to eight thousand years ago 3 to seven thousand years ago and what's interesting is a lot of the questions that people ask today and a lot of the. Ideas that people feel are unique Today have been asked and answered thousands and thousands of times both spoken and written over the years and I think considering a the fact that we are animals. Who basically look for survival sex and supremacy more or less in that order even without the spoken and written word is an important foundational point for this so human nature which is really animal nature has not. 01:50.34 mikebledsoe Um. 01:55.91 Max Shank Changed really at all in thousands and thousands tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of years but the technology has changed dramatically in that amount of time. 02:09.16 mikebledsoe Yeah, it's um I as we start talking about this I think about there's a ah 30 hour presentation on Youtube by John Vervaki Dr. john vervaki and it's called awakening from the meaning crisis Highly recommend it if you're a philosophical nerd. You're going to love it. Um, and so what he does is he walks you through the stages of human consciousness and really ah you know. Our written history is very short compared to that 200000 year span that max is just talking about and he basically is able to start ah a in-depth conversation about the development of consciousness with the jewish people. Hebrew people and then how it then makes it over to the greeks and the the way the greeks start making sense of things and I but I believe there was either socrates or aristotle who started talking about what makes us. Human is our ability to use logic and to be able to plan ahead of time to be human is to be rational and that is to have that self-awareness and then ask questions and to develop. Wisdom your job as a human being if you want to become more human he talks about developing wisdom which we're going to get into and also getting in greater touch greater contact with reality and in order to develop wisdom. You have to get into greater contact. With reality and so ah in in order to get in greater contact. We have to become more accurate with what is and this is why max and I get really likely notice that we get really deep into semantics because. Words matter because ah, each word creates a distinction of reality you know and if you have a limited vocabulary your ability to interact with other humans in a way and and with your own mind in a way that puts you in touch with reality can become very very difficult. So um. 04:38.86 Max Shank Well not only that not only that but the content of your thoughts determines your reality big time. 04:40.41 mikebledsoe I Think about. 04:46.19 mikebledsoe Absolutely yeah, you're you're projecting most of what's going on in what you would consider your reality as a projection of of the mind. Um, that's why 2 people can be sitting at the same event and. Have a completely different reporting of those events happens all the time in courtrooms and and then if we're if we're talking about anything beyond the current moment if we're talking about the past there has been a lot of research to show that people. Remember things. Not only do they remember things differently from person to person but they remember them differently over time and one of the studies that really stand out to me in regard to this is they did ah they researched people's ability to what did they report to the police. Ah, right? after a crime versus what did they say once they got on the stand and and then also what kind of impact did the questions that the police officers were asking the people how does that impact their memory of it and so. 05:53.99 Max Shank The. 06:02.50 mikebledsoe Um, I'm very wary of relying on my own memory or other people's memories to ah in order to be in contact with reality because I know that that simply may not be the case. Um, and so. Man Why am I talking about memories. Yeah, your your perception does does create a reality and how you remember things in the past paint how you're gonna behave now and so ah. 06:32.81 Max Shank Well I meant from a very practical standpoint. It started with it. It started with semantics right? And the reason we go through these semantics so much is if you hold the word depressed. 06:39.30 mikebledsoe Yes, yes. 06:50.10 Max Shank In your mind as meaning a certain thing or even worse as something with a very nebulous meaning you might attach a certain word to your identity and there will be a domino effect to your entire psyche which is going to have a domino effect to your entire life and so just. Being able to ah clean, the slate and have ah an emptiness that you can put stuff back into rather than being saddled down with all of these destructive half ideas. That aren't really fully formed so you don't have a grasp of what's going on in your own mind and it's this very circular destructive cycle if you're not very conscious about the words that you use with yourself and with other people. 07:40.38 mikebledsoe Yeah, well let's dig into because we're talking about ancient wisdom and and modern technology and in speaking of semantics. Let's Define wisdom max. What's your definition. 07:55.55 Max Shank Knowing yourself and acting accordingly. 08:00.30 mikebledsoe I Like that the um, the way I think about wisdom is that you um, you, you're aware of cause and effect you're watching when I do this. This happens when when other people do this this happens. You don't wisdom doesn't necessarily have to be all based on your own mistakes of her Failures. You can watch other people's mistakes and Failures. So I think that wisdom is largely. Um. 08:29.10 Max Shank Then. 08:37.80 mikebledsoe Built upon taking personal responsibility for the things that are going on in your world and because if you are if you ever look out at the world and or you look at your own life and you blame somebody else for the way something is turned out in your life. You're robbing yourself of wisdom and you're robbing your ability to see how the impact of your actions thoughts all these behaviors how they have created the current situation and so somebody who is wise typically people who are wise you look at them and go wow they made a lot of mistakes earlier in their lut in there. And their life and now they they now know what? like yeah you got the old guy in the corner going hey little Johnny you may not want to do that and I was like why not and then does it anyway and then gets fucked up. You go? Oh ah so the the wisdom is. A lot of times people will associate age with wisdom but it really has to do with you know where are you paying attention and were you were you looking for? What was my role in creating any situation that's happening so when I think about wisdom I look at it like that. There's. Individual wisdom that's developed and then obviously the the collective wisdom and looking at ah yeah, and this is where like these buddhist monks that get together and they all meditate together and and they're very scientific in a way they're studying you know. 09:56.62 Max Shank The. 10:10.97 mikebledsoe But when we do this? What's the result we get happens in yoga as well and there the collective wisdom is when you get a lot of agreement. It's like oh we all did this 1 thing together and we all got this result and there's ah, there's ah, a collaboration and then we write it down in a book. And that gets passed down and so this is this is where I I really do enjoy reading what would be considered ancient wisdom ancient text because there's so much. Um, there is a lot of wisdom in there and it can help you avoid a lot of painful mistakes. 10:48.49 Max Shank Yeah I think when you say wisdom to me that's knowledge because I think knowledge is knowing what to do and wisdom is doing what you know pretty much so the way I see it. There's a slight difference. But. 10:49.48 mikebledsoe As you move forward. 11:05.60 mikebledsoe Um. 11:07.81 Max Shank I Can also perfectly understand the logic to your definition too. 11:10.30 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah, so so we've got wisdom. We got a couple to you know knowledge Wisdom Ah, let's define. 11:20.60 Max Shank They all, they're answering ancient questions. Let's just put it that way a lot of questions have been asked since the beginning of human history where did we come from that's creation. What do we do while we're here. How do we balance out life and live life and then what happens after life death or destruction and basically every culture in the world has different myths or different stories. Ah, it's Funny. A myth is just ah. The the news a long time ago, right? So we asked the question hey where did we come From. How did we get here? How did everything get here. There are all these creation myths and there are a lot of similarities and differences we have How does how is balance. 11:59.35 mikebledsoe Yeah. 12:16.60 Max Shank Ah maintained. How should we live our lives and then what happens after we die and usually the way balance is maintained in our lives is there's a carrot or a stick upon our death that says if you lived a good life. You go to heaven if you lived a bad life. You go to? hell. And that is a very common thread in many different cultural fabrics so to speak you have the traditional heaven and hell you have ancient Egypt you have your heart weighed against a feather to see if you get to go. Ah, to the good place or suffer a second death. So a lot of these questions have been asked for many thousands of years of what to do with your life and what do you think? Mike? What should we do with our lives. 13:11.10 mikebledsoe I think it's I think we should I think one of the pieces of wisdom that I've adopted over the years is looking at what's useful versus true and i. 13:13.51 Max Shank According to wisdom. 13:27.81 mikebledsoe When we talked about oh where did we come from what was the origin of the the world where what happens after you die and of course every tradition has their stories and I think what you're getting at you got the the heaven and health Piece. What is the Utility. Of believing that you're there's ah, a heaven or a hell at the end of the lifetime and that is to get people to behave a certain way and and so the utility for society to adopt a religion is to to help create order. 13:55.20 Max Shank No doubt. 14:06.71 mikebledsoe And ah this is where a lot of Western spirituality goes is you know? Well we're preparing for something later. Not right now and so which does create order and then if you go to the east and you look at. 14:17.20 Max Shank Ah. 14:25.41 mikebledsoe A lot of those traditions and how they came about which um, ah, a bigger I think both have their their utility and in the east it's more of yeah, you're creating your own heaven or hell and in every moment and. Everything that's happening is a complete There's no progress so in western philosophy spirituality there's a beginning and an end and in eastern philosophy it tends to be circular like now there's no beginning and an end. It's just it's there's seasons and cycles. It's winter spring summer fall. They call that some sorrow and the ah I mean the truth is that that both exist. Yes, there is a progression of humanity over time. Ah, if you look at the universe. It's spiraling in a direction. There's an expansion happening. But it's also moving in a spiral. It's moving. There are seasons and cycles. So there are aspects of it that are predictable and then there are aspects of it that are not predictable so when I think about what's true if you talk to an eastern philosopher. They go. Well, you know it's just a season and cycle. It's not that important what's important is that you just maintain the quality of your own mind in this moment and create heaven on earth in this moment and then yeah, the the west says who gives a fuck about what's happening right? now go blow yourself up. For for allah and you'll get 72 virgins and so these these are extreme. Yeah, well, it's it's ah yeah, ah Hebrew um, yeah, well, it's it's not necessarily. 16:00.82 Max Shank They're they're they're from the west. Um I believe Middle East not to be a stickler for geography. 16:14.51 mikebledsoe It's east us. But when we but well when we look at. 16:16.90 Max Shank It's all relative right? There are different cultures and they have different ideas of how you achieve some sort of Nirvana or happiness or peace or fulfillment right. 16:21.40 mikebledsoe Or the. Yeah, well the origin of these philosophies that christianity came from which is what our culture is largely based off of based off judaism which is the same thing as based off of Islam. They're all come from. They're all considered western ah philosophy is is where it spring from so it went from. Ah, judaism hebrew to Greece and then came over whereas you had a completely different track going on in the east and that's why I talk about these 2 things. But then yeah, there's utility to both. So um, I really think about let's not get too attached to what's true or not. Because that is what happens as people get way too caught up on what's true instead of recognizing what's useful and so what I find to be useful is to say yeah, both of these things are true like we have no idea what's going to happen when we die and we. Have an opportunity to ah to create heaven on earth in this very moment. So why don't we just do both. Why don't we have a nice life while we're here in this moment and do well and help each other out and find peace in our own mind and let's also make some progress and see if we can. Make a better tomorrow than than what we have today. So I have no idea how I got to that point. What's that. 17:49.21 Max Shank So so productivity pretty much do so Productivity is the is the way to live. It doesn't matter what is true just do what is productive and make up your own goals. 17:58.99 mikebledsoe Yeah, well you look at I think it was up was it socrates you know, true, good and beautiful if you pursue those 3 things life is gonna be pretty good. Do what's true. Do what's good and do what's beautiful and i. 18:10.32 Max Shank That's a great way to go. 18:17.24 mikebledsoe When I hear true I think of being in contact with reality not necessarily like a and I when I think about the Capital T truth I Think about that. That's my simple. That's what I in my own but personal wisdom says the Capital T truth is. Simply what is is right here reality right? now anything o…
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