American Mystics and the Death of Manhood

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0:00 I want to do a brief interactive presentation on something that I find very fascinating. What I think is a a very incredible piece of American history and just some incredible people were born out of this particular movement which took place in the middle of the 19th century here in the United States. Um, so everybody has a copy of some Emerson. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ralph Waldo Emerson is the godfather of a a philosophical movement that took place in America. It was an era of unique literature titled the American transcendentalist movement. So, the American transcendentalist movement, it um it was a philosophical and literary movement that emerged in the 1830s and

1:04 the 1840s in New England. We're talking about uh Massachusetts. We're talking about Connecticut. Um that whole area. And essentially what you had happening at the time was you had eastern thought, eastern mysticism beginning to find its way to the English language. So where our country was primarily a um a Christian nation, you essentially had these eastern ideas that were beginning to reach the English English language in the 19th century. And those were starting to inspire uh these different movements at the time. Uh this would kind of go into the Victorian era where you had um like the discovery of Egypt would take place shortly after this the uh archaeological digs in Egypt and then we would have this huge cultural wave of they called it Egyptomania where everybody was

2:06 getting into the Egyptian stuff. So the 19th century was was a really fascinating time for um educated and interested people in the United States. So, we have this movement, the American transcendentalism movement, um, in America up in New England, and you've got you've got Ralph Waldo Emerson, you've got Margaret Fuller, you've got Henry David Thorough, and we'll talk about a few of these people. Now the focuses of this philosophical tradition are individualism, nonconformity to the society that you live in, thinking for yourself essentially. Can you guys see? Okay, cool. uh thinking for yourself, intuition, trusting your intuition, not having to go to a book for truth, trusting that God, this is a extremely spiritual movement, trusting that God can speak through your own mind

3:15 and that you don't necessarily have to go to a book to hear God's word. um and the the inherent goodness in humanity and nature. Now, tomorrow, uh Brian is going to kind of talk about some of the philosophers that would argue about are humans good, are humans bad, and and how that would turn into uh the American Constitution. Um but the American transcendentalists they believe that humans were inherently good and that nature is inherently beautiful and that there is this uh this shimmering beauty to life and everything around us and that was important to them. Uh so the the godfather of this movement is Ralph Waldo Emerson. Uh he wrote self-reliance. He he wrote he was an essaist. Um he wrote all the essays in that book that you have that that book has history, self-reliance, experience, the

4:18 poet, the oversoul, an incredibly transformative uh series of essays. So Ralph Waldo Emerson is the godfather of this movement. He preaches intuition, individualism, a relationship with nature, and most importantly, which is kind of the rebellious side of this whole thing, nonconformity. Super super big on not conforming to the standards of the society that you live in. That is essentially the uh the essence of the self-reliance essay. Uh and that's that's essentially the the hard stance that these guys take on society is that like do not conform. Conformity is the death of your manhood. The essence of of what they believed. Um so next we have you guys are probably familiar with these two guys. If not hopefully that changes. So Emerson has a uh has a protege Henry David Thorough.

5:27 Henry David Thorough he wrote Walden Pond very popular piece of literature. Um Thorough was Emerson's student. Uh he was the heir the uh you know carrier of this philosophical movement. Um and uh and and actually Walden Pond, which is where Thoro would move uh to to write Walden, um Emerson owned that land. So Thorro would move onto Emerson's land, build a cabin, live in it for two years, and write about that experience. We'll talk about that later, but that's a cool story. Um, but Thoro obviously took Emerson's writings about self-reliance very seriously because if you're gonna go build a cabin with your bare hands and live in it for two years, uh, you probably took what your mentor said to heart. So, he was he he he went and lived this to the fullest. He took this philosophy and he embodied it um, quite

6:28 absolutely and for that uh, we honor him. So the the main tenets of this uh philosophical lifestyle um and I'm just throwing these out there. I don't even necessarily agree with all these but we should examine the philosophy and see what we like and what we don't like. So the main tenants of of the transcendental philosophy number one nature and people are inherently good. Uh this is a uh something that's argued over uh quite a lot. I'm sure we know people who we don't think are too good. And I'm sure at times we've all had moments where we don't think we're that good, you know. But uh transcendentalists, human beings are inherently good. People are inherently good. Nature is inherently good. There is a shimmering beauty that is moving through all of this. And it's

7:34 pure and it's beautiful and it is of God. Um, society and its institutions tend to corrupt that goodness. It's an important part. Trust the purity of your soul, your thoughts, your mind over ideas that come to you externally. Trust yourself. It's hard. It's really hard sometimes to trust ourselves. But the transcendentalists, they want us to trust ourselves. They believe that we can trust ourselves. And they believe that that if we purify ourselves, if we live right, if we live close to nature, then we can trust that whatever is coming through our minds is real, is of God, and we don't have to doubt it. So uh number two, self-reliance and individualism. So you are not born broken. You're not born uh lacking. You're not born separated from

8:47 God. These are the philosophies of of these mystics. Um you have everything you need within yourself. It might not all be flipped on. All the switches might not be on. You might have to do some stuff to get things firing. But everything that you need is within yourself. If you work on bringing that to life, if you work on living in a way that activates that goodness, um then you can become this this spring, this well of life, of truth, of wisdom, independence of thought, spirit and action. Individualism is the highest virtue to the point where in self-reliance Emerson even writes about how when you meet somebody who is truly living in an original way like you can tell like this person is just being them. Even if they're doing something that's malevolent or bad, there's still

9:52 something that's like attractive about it. there's still something like beautiful about that person living their life in a way that is completely separate from the social standards or the influences around them. So when we talk about the independence of action, thought and spirit, it doesn't necessarily mean that those are all positive. You could have somebody who's thinking negatively independently but they they still are living from this this internal truth and there is still something unique about that. Uh be be wary of conformity. Being your true self matters more than meeting the expectations of others. So again conformity that's that's the huge lesson here. Have to be a nonconformist. a very spiritual movement. These these gentlemen were not atheists by any

10:53 means. So the spiritual virtues exist over the material virtues. Spiritual reality is more important than the physical material one. And again, you can kind of see if you've studied like Eastern mysticism, this is kind of where that that literature is kind of influencing how these guys were thinking. This transcendental transcending above the material world and lifting our minds to a place that's more pure, closer to God. Direct personal experience of the divine in nature, art or contemplation matters more than book knowledge or religious institutions. I think Ernest said something about this last night, right? Ernest was talking about the direct experiences. You can go read the book, but then you have an experience and that's really real. You know, maybe you have a dream. Somebody comes and speaks to you in a dream. Maybe you are driving down the highway and there's cups on an

11:55 overpass that shows you the message that you needed to hear at that moment. You know, those things, those direct experiences with with the divine circumstances. Um, those are important to uh believe in and important to look for. We have to be open to having that experience with the divine. Uh different people have different ideas of how you can become more in tune with that. um you know living soberly whether that's for some people it's not eating meat for some people it's not consuming alcohol for some people it's not gossiping but this purification process generally through some sort of self-denial is kind of traditionally how people have attempted to attain this um Christ's sermon on the mount is a sermon of self-denial to an extreme case, you

12:55 know, his sermon on the mount even says like go walk, don't even think about food, it will be provided for you. Like if you take the sermon on the mount seriously, that's really hardcore. But it's about self-denial. So that's the process of like trying to align ourselves um with with a direct experience with God and how that is more valuable to us, more personal than reading a book or an institution. So really important to the transcendentalists. Um intuition over reason. So deep truths are grasped through intuition rather than rational analysis. Again, if you're familiar with eastern thought, you have the idea of of a meditation where you're trying to silence the mind. You're trying to

13:55 meditate into a state where your rational thoughts don't exist. And that to them is a state of spiritual bliss, elevation. So again, just a a a direct echo of that eastern influence. Uh you have an inner light. Trust your gut. Trust your instincts. Trust your heart. Uh in the oversoul. This is an important an important concept here that uh we are not isolated. We are connected. Almost like if you imagine the ocean and you take a cup and you scoop a cup of water out of that ocean, that water is temporarily separated from that ocean in a vessel, but that water is of the ocean. It will return to the ocean. It's the same water. It's just having a different experience at that moment. So that's the idea of the oversoul. Some people call this the collective consciousness. um is kind of what it's become in the

15:01 new age philosophical circles, but it's the idea that we are, yes, we're in separate bodies, but we are having this illusion of separateness at this moment. In reality, we're more connected than than we realize. Um and perhaps when we die, we will melt back into this giant mass of spiritual bliss. This is what this is what they thought. You're not isolated. You're linked to all other beings, the grass, the trees, everything connected deeply and intimately with everything around us. And we live in a temporary illusion. So nonconformity, going to hear that word a lot, non-conformity and civil disobedience. If society's rules are unjust, it is your duty to resist them. And that means it's not a choice. It's your duty to resist them. Authentic living sometimes means

16:10 standing against the popular opinion. I would say that if everybody's your friend, if you have no enemies, if you seem to just like what everybody else likes, then it's probably none of y'all cuz you're here. But if that's kind of the lifestyle that you're caught up in, you're probably just, you know, just let you're letting your environment influence the entire essence of your life. You know, that's That's not what Emerson wants you to be. Emerson and Thoro, they want you to be that salmon swimming upstream. You have a goal. You're going for it. It doesn't matter what people are saying. It doesn't matter what the circumstances look like. You're doing what you want to do for a pure purpose. And you're not going to let anything stop you. And you're driven by that spiritual calling, that spiritual drive. So again, just to kind of cover some of the big points,

17:20 nonconformity, refusing to blindly follow social norms or traditions. Doesn't mean that all social norms or traditions are bad. Some of them are great. But you shouldn't follow them blindly just because that's what everybody else is doing. You should do it because it's what you think is right. Self-reliance, believing every man must carve his own path based on his conscience. And that path is different for everybody. We have different gifts, different talents, different duties. So this doesn't mean that we all need to be doing the same thing, but we do all have some sort of an inherent spiritual and moral compass that is pointing in some direction. And we should try to align ourselves with that and trust it. Civil disobedience, willing willingly breaking unjust

18:22 laws because moral law is higher than human nature. Thoro was a a huge abolitionist at the time. So this is, you know, he's writing in the 1840s. So a lot of the civil disobedience literature is around abolition. And then romantic idealism. Everything is beautiful. Like I said, there's this shimmering ethereal light passing through everything that life is not torturous. Life is not evil. And you know, this is perhaps where this philosophy does diverge from from uh the east because life is not suffering to these guys. Life is beautiful and something to be lived. So we'll talk about two uh books that are essentially the foundations of this philosophy. You have one of them self-reliance. This was written by Emerson. This is an essay written by Emerson

19:26 1843 I think 1840s something like that. And what we'll do is we will go through the main tenants and then we'll look at some direct quotes from the essay and then I would invite you to speak up. I don't really intend on this just to be a lecture this whole time. I I would really like for us to uh kind of engage in a Socratic style conversation kind of like what we did at dinner. So, when we get to the quotes, that's where I'd like for you to start thinking about uh, you know, what you would like to say. If one of them speaks to you, please speak up, share it with the room. I'd love for us to kind of get one of those going. So, trust yourself. Your intuition, instincts, and inner voice are the clearest guides to truth. It's not what your parents say. It's not what your church says. It's not

20:29 what social norms say. It's about that compass inside of us, that moral, spiritual compass, and learning how to connect with that, learning how to read that and trusting what that is. Uh you don't need external approval. Thoro went as far as moving into the woods for two years. So, how how how much do you trust yourself? Avoid conformity. Society pressures individuals to fit in, but true manhood means resisting that pressure. I'm not a father, but we have a lot of fathers here. Imagine if you just let your kids go do whatever society wants them to do right now. Where are you going to draw the lines? You know, draw the lines in our own

21:34 life, draw the lines in the lives of the people we're responsible for, children. But manhood is about drawing those lines. Conformity weakens the soul. Nonconformity strengthens it. value originality over consistency. I would say that a good way to understand this is consistency. I would say like habits, the things that we just fall into doing every single day is a good way to change the verbiage there. You must be willing to change, grow, and even contradict yourself. That last one's hard. You know Emerson in that essay he talks about how today speak your truth with hard words tomorrow speak your truth with hard words even if they contradict themselves. So whatever you are in alignment with kind of like what Ernest talked about that that alignment wherever you're at today don't be afraid to put it out there tomorrow if it's different great you changed you grew

22:40 that's the whole process we shouldn't be the same the whole time I have a quote that I when I read this earlier in the week that I really hit hard that's perfectly right in line with this um it's the other terror that scares us from selfrust is our consistency a reverence for our past afterward Because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loathed to disappoint them. But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about this corpse of your memory? Lest you contradict somewhat what you have stated in this or that public place. And that's that's that's something I encounter a lot in my life. who people perceive me as. There is this intrinsic draw to want to persist that because when people see you rapidly change, they can react confused or angry. But I think the identity is best considered as something that's dynamic instead of stag. There's 12 different versions of you exist in everybody's head in this room right now. None of

23:43 them are right. you know, like it's just all these jacked up opinions that are missing information. So, yeah, I mean that that that quote is is great. I mean, especially if you are well, I've gone through periods where I wanted to start doing something differently, acting differently, just a big lifestyle change. Like, I'm sure we've had periods in our lives where we made drastic changes. And then for me, like when I do that, there's always some people around you who like don't really get it or maybe they like you become the butt of some jokes or they just think it's weird and you kind of just need to roll it off and just stick to the plan, you know? But yeah, that's that's like this is all great for us to talk about here in this room like, oh yes, I'm going to go be a non-conformist, not care about what people think, but in practice it's hard. Like we're social creatures. So hardwired in us is the desire for

24:44 social approval, the desire for camaraderie, the desire for brotherhood. So this is more than just like writing this stuff down and doing it. I mean this is going against your human biological nature, which is again where this whole spiritual over the temporal over the physical kind of shows itself. Again, it's hard to to be a non-conformist. just to nonform a moment screen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What are some signs that you know you're aligned with self? Like if you had something Emerson might have said or something. Um you know for my life it's just like pure like vigorous energy. Like I think have you guys ever had like a project you're working on where like you don't need to sleep? Like you just feel like that you have just this infinite energy moving through you and

25:46 you're sharp like you're so locked in. That would be my experience personally of of when I believe that I'm really like aligned with my compass. If anybody else has something to share that relates to flow state in psychology if you're familiar with it. It's being in somewhere between the things that you're comfortable with, your skill set, and things that you don't yet know. You're not too deep in in something that you're completely out of your offer. Yeah. But you're you're right on the cusp of that. You get into a state where it's almost like it's coming through you and you're not even having to think about your actions and becomes upon. Yeah. Yeah. So, that would be my experience with it. If anybody else has ever experienced a feeling, I would say also sometimes my dreams like I I I try to pay attention to my dreams um and and try to listen to them like your dreams, your dream that got you here, you know. So I think that I think that um our dreams are a window into our subconscious mind. And I I would say that if we're having

26:52 dreams that don't make any sense or maybe they're, you know, negative, um I would say that maybe that would be a sign that we're offkilter. If we're having dreams where where things are are seemingly being delivered to us, messages um like very lucid emotional dreams. For me, when I'm having those dreams, I usually feel like my my life is uh is on a decent path. Um, number four, live authentically and boldly. You were put here to live out your unique purpose, not someone else's plan for you. Uh, some of you maybe have heard the phrase, if you don't have a plan, you are in somebody else's plan. Entrepreneurs um are probably very familiar with that. have a friendly. Yeah. Exact. Yeah. Exactly. So living in alignment with your highest principles

27:55 even if it costs you. So that's that's another question like what are you willing to sacrifice for this? Conformity is pretty safe and comfortable. You know, let me just do what everybody else is doing. Don't mind me. I'm kind of just doing my thing. Like nobody's going to attack you, right? Like you could just kind of, you know, play the corporate route and just, you know, do all that. Play it safe. Don't take any risks. You'll probably maybe work out. Probably won't have any like extreme victories or extreme losses. You'll kind of just ride it out. You know, we're kind of hardwired from birth, though. Um, when you look at a child, right, the first time that a child falls down and parents in her remember that they have that moment when something startles them, they're like and they look to you and they're like, "Hey, what what what am I supposed to

28:58 do? Am I supposed to be crying or is it going to be freaking right? Right. And and whenever they hit that, the first time they fall off their bike order, it's like, yeah, yeah. I'm looking because if mom's looking, it's going to be tears, right? With dad, you're like, and they'll be fine. But they learn those responses and that external validation and that's part of training. I mean, and then look at how we indoctrinate in school and everything else. It's like, hey, you did good. You did good. Good job. You did good. And so, you're constantly looking for that. It's safe. It feels comfortable to be like, "Hey, so I'm with everybody else. I'm good. I'm good." Yeah. To do that is very hard. Some people are more wired for it than others, but Yeah. I mean, you've got almost all of society that has made it very comfortable for you to put yourself in a little box basically because yeah, that's safe. Going back to Christ's sermon on the mount, are you willing to be despised? Are you willing to be despised? That's what Christ posed

30:03 to his apostles. I would love to um find some time during this weekend to open up the Bible with anybody that's interested and just go read that specific part of the Bible. You should Matthew Matthew 567. I think uh there's a Bible on the table. Yeah. Anybody wants to join me? I'd like to go outside. Yeah. It's it's powerful. So living in alignment with your highest principles, even if it cost you, what are you willing to sacrifice? Thoro was willing to go live in some beach cabin in the woods for two years. You know what? Are you willing to sacrifice? Are you willing to sacrifice your Instagram followers? I don't want to I don't want to lose any followers, dude. I don't want to put it up there. I'm taking my story down, man. um really know what we're willing to

31:03 sacrifice. I think we think about what we should sacrifice, but to actually take a step and sacrifice, I think that's where a lot of us fall down. We know it's the right thing to do, but to have the courage to do it, whole different level of uh this whole level of I think uh conviction. Yeah. or sometimes we don't know and you know we need to go through that process of aligning to to that voice you know there's a song that reminds me it's like I'm climbing the mountain top yeah just keep going American transcendentalism jumping off the cliff's catch you so some these are some quotes from the self-reliance essay just some of my favorite that that really summarize this idea. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion. It is easy in

32:05 solitude to live after our own. But the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. It's like we're here on the farm. It's quiet. The birds are chirping. I'm sitting out drinking my coffee. I'm I'm at peace. But on Monday, I'm going to be in Nashville. How do I carry this piece with me back to the city? That's what he's talking about here. How do I not go back to Nashville and become a city boy? So, this is probably my favorite quote from the entire essay. But what's beautiful about this essay, I hope you guys get a chance to read it. I mean, it's so good. Like, you read this slow. Like, this is the type of paper where like you read a sentence or two and then you almost need to stop and just think about those words. Like, it's

33:12 incredibly potent. He was certainly not trying to just fill pages. And again, this is all Ralph Waldo Emerson that we're looking at right now. Again, nonconformity. Who so would be a man must be a non-conformist. It's not an option. What lines are you willing to draw in the sand for yourself, for your family, for your friends, for your God? Who so would be a man must be a non-conformist. And here's a nice one. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Franklin kind of talks about this. Ben Franklin, he he says that um he who would give up liberty for security deserves neither. That's what society is. You you sacrifice some of your individuality for the security of the herd. That's just being an animal. Like those

34:21 cows out there, there's nothing out here really trying to eat the cows besides us. But if there were like black bear or brown bears running around here, if you're if you were in that herd and you straight away like that bear is coming after you, but if you're in that herd, you're pretty safe. So sometimes it seems like to be a non-conformist or to feel more confident in maybe some things that you want to take a stand on. Having a group of people around you as a support network 100% is really helpful I think to do trying to do on your own is uh I think there's a big barrier that we I encounter but to do it with like-minded individuals makes it uh makes it easier. I think that that's an amazing point. You know what's the happy medium between thorough and uh plugging into the matrix is having a group of guys to be non-conformist with because then you're not isolating

35:27 yourself but you're still living in that spirit of individuality. It's the American Revolution in essence founding fathers that was a a brotherhood of non-conformists. So it's essentially creating your own society through your as a leader. Creating your own society as a leader is the way to look at it. Yeah. It's important that each individual is self-reliant to a certain degree though and that's the key part is that instead of having one person who's self-reliant and four followers, you have five self-reliant individuals can do exponentially more. Has anyone here reading Ran's Atlas Shrugged? No, I've not read it. I strongly pretty good. I'm gonna read this. You got to read that. I have a copy of it. Bought a copy. It is essentially this the story of men and women about producers and people who are standing up

36:27 against the society norms deciding to withdraw and create their own uh experience. and who is John Gaul and they there's some it's an extraordinarily uh important book lays out a lot of sort of libertarian concepts before libertarian thinking was really truly understood and it's very very very very much inconsistent with this I have a problem like a a bad habit of buying books that I never read and that has become one of those but I'll read it now it's the first book I ever read that I went after I read it I went to Amazon and gave a review. Cool. Because I wanted other people to maybe see whatever the hell I had in my mind that thought most important. Does he cover active meditation as a pathway to discovering what um so my answer to that would be that being

37:28 in nature is the meditation. you know, you're not necessarily I've never come across literature of him saying like, "Sit down, close your eyes, uh, hum a few times, chant yours." Very mystical and practice that was really frowned on by the church and always has been. That's why women are burned at the state for doing this mystic, you know. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I've not come across anything like that type of active meditation, but you know, to these guys, like going on a walk around the lake would be that meditation. Um, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were some some practices like that. If anybody knows of anything, please share. I've just haven't come across them talking. Well, you would think back then was far easier to naturally meditate. Yes. didn't have all the distractions that we had. But as we like read it as a group of men, we do have to remind ourselves that we're not living in that era. Yeah.

38:28 We're in this new era that we have to be more purposeful about being in nature, more purposeful of being without our thoughts and sometimes those thoughts are going to arise and recognize which our thoughts are our thoughts or society's thoughts and distinguishing between the two letting go is not what's necessary. Yeah. AB that's getting into the non-conforming. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, I think like Emerson's ideal man, he his uber mench is probably a guy who is meditating 24/7. Like everything he does is a meditation. You do can be a meditation. Exactly. Like that's what he's saying. The garbage to drive down the road. Yep. So, so there's this there's this idea that you know once you whatever state you get to through your purification self whatever it is eventually perhaps we arrive at this state where the lights all come on and you know we see the beauty and everything that we've previously uh not seen. Well, even in the Bible there's scripture about incessant prayer, right? where it's like it's which I mean the

39:34 translation's a little different but I mean that is kind of like meditation and they don't absolutely meditation so much because it's more of the the eastern construct for but they would go commune with nature absolutely yeah which is very similar to a meditation yep absolutely orthodox monks will sit and they will they will literally pray all day pray pray go eat pray like constant prayer constant prayer constant prayer um what I do, what I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. So again, this idea of doing what is true to you, to us, this is all like great, normal, but to mid 19th century America, this is heresy. So yes, like even Yes. Even what we're seeing now, like this is like no bueno. Emerson got excommunic. He was a reverend. He got excommunicated from his

40:36 from his uh Christian community. Like this is like the devil's work. You know what I'm saying? So perhaps, you know, perhaps you went to church in the 90s like youth groups and stuff. Oh yeah. New age movement and meditations and all that kind of stuff and how it was the harbinger of evil. Yeah. So hippies right here. I think about meditations by Marcus. Great book. Yep. Also doesn't mention meditation, right? And if you think about it like that, it's all it said meditation. Where is the meditation? It's just Yeah. It's what he wrote down when he meditated though. Meditating is listening. Praying is is speaking. Meditating. So he listened and then he wrote it all down. Yeah. I mean it's you know like the the the act Yeah. the active the active uh meditation practice that that we are

41:38 familiar with is pretty much like is is pretty much like a purely eastern we're talking um Hinduism primarily like that that comes from India Tibet. the idea of sitting down for like 12 hours like these these other these other uh cultures like their meditations were different that like seated for extended period of time that is a uniquely uh eastern practice um which is very very popular now um yeah like to the you know to an ancient Greek your meditation was war like there were all these different all these different ways there's there's all these different like the idea to connect to God, you have to sit like there's different ways that people have connected to God through history. Um, and we also should see to to find our way. Like for me, maybe it's like going on a run or whatever it is or praying or meditating. Like there's all these different ways to

42:39 connect to the divine. There's not like one road to it, you know? Um and I and I think that Emerson would say that well he would say that nature is the universal magnet for sure. Um but he would probably agree that we are different and that we should try to find that unique aspect of our self that is a channel to God. But importantly remembering that na nature is the universal um exuberant like nature just it works for everybody. Um, when I just been reading that first sentence like nothing can bring you peace with yourself and I guess the first thing that came to my mind is what what role can God play in that because we as individuals may not be able to find peace without a reliance on a faith if that's our choice. Yeah. So he would say he would say that he would say that this word yourself is not excluding God like that is that is God that an extension of God we're always

43:51 with God a lot of times nature was scientist God's book of nature Yeah, it was a testament to God by study. Yeah, exactly. So, so yeah, you know, God, we are to to these guys, we are not separated from God. Um, although at times we may do things that isolate us in the illusion a little bit. God is constantly moving through. God is around us and constantly moving through us. And we can try to align ourselves with that voice. He talks about that. He talks about that voice that disappears when you go into society. Like, you know, after this talk, we'll go uh hit the canoes, walk around, and when you get out there, it's just the wind and sometimes you have those thoughts that just seem so real and so beautiful and so pure. And then when you go to the city, like that voice just is

44:55 not there. So that would that would be the idea of um of God moving through us and us being able to hear it or not hear it depending on on you know where we place ourselves. One of the whole purposes of all this is to hopefully, you know, help everybody in some way um get closer to where we can kind of hear that voice, come out on the farm, hang out, be around good guys. Hopefully, we're all kind of giving ourselves the space to hear that voice. So, what I must do is all that concerns me, not what not what the people think. So, performing our duties with self-fulfilling honor. And so, Joe is going to come talk about mythology and he's going to talk about Greek mythology and the Bavad Gita, Hindu religion later. And it's it's awesome how many sim like in the

45:55 talk later you'll see like all these themes come back up especially this one duty. What is your duty? Perform your duty on earth. Figure out what your duty is. Perform your duty regardless of what the consequences are. Regardless of who hates you, regardless of even life or death, perform perform your duty because it is your duty. for Scottish right Masons in the room uh you've heard that uh said to you in so many different ways perform your duty honors of life or the rewards of work your duty so performing our duty self-filling honor so now how long have I been yapping for all right um we'll talk about Henry David Thoro who again he this is the predecessor to Emerson. He was Emerson's pupil. And Thor Row, like I said, he took this Emerson stuff seriously. He said, "All right, dude.

46:57 I'm going to move on to your land. I'm going to build a cabin with my hands and live in it for two years." So, this is what he did. He went, this is in uh like New Haven. I think it's like New Haven, Connecticut area, I believe. W uh uh Emerson. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, so he goes essentially what happens is 1845 Thor uh Thorough Henry David Thorough moved out to the woods on Walden Pond and uh and he built a small cabin certainly smaller than this room. I think it was about the size of this rug and he lived in it for two years. and he wrote about it. So, he wanted to strip his life down to the bare essentials. And we'll we'll read a quote

47:59 here in a minute, but he wanted to make sure that when it came to him sitting on his deathbed, he wasn't going to look back and realize that he missed something or that he was tricking himself. So, he wanted to strip it all down and get down to the nitty-gritty and see what life was really all about. And for him, that was going into the woods, building a cabin, and as he describes it, living deliberately. He rejected materialism, routine, and social expectations. Reconnect with nature, truth, and himself. So, you guys should order a copy of Walden. It's a fantastic read. Very grounding. It's like 180 pages, 200 pages, maybe. It's It's not too long. Um, I wonder if back in that window of time, it feels like the distance between you and me deciding today to go into the

49:01 woods and try to do this extreme. is a greater distance than 1845 and deciding to go do this. You know, it I'm not I'm not sure what that says anything, but it's just observing. Well, you know, we live in like all these like technological structures now. So, like, you know, Thoro didn't have his bills on autopay, right? Like, so it was absolutely a different time for sure. However, we should perhaps if we're serious, what are we willing to sacrifice, Mark? Maybe we should, you know, let go of those excuses, right? and go build that cabin. You know, um we could come up with a thousand reasons why it wouldn't work for us. Thorough could have done the same thing, but if we're rationally analyzing it, yeah, it's totally different. Totally different. Um he didn't, you know, building permits to build this cabin. He didn't have to go uh tug on Freddy Oonnell's coat to get his permits. He might have started with some basic skills that some of us Yeah, he would. Yeah, he was a handyman. He would go and

50:07 like if you read the book, he goes and just does like random around town to buy bread and like he's just a handyman carpenter. Um, so most men waste their lives on trivial concerns. Simplicity, self-reliance, and a deep relationship with nature lead to true freedom. That independence is both a physical and spiritual discipline. And Walden Pawn is, you know, a a manifesto of Americanism essentially. I mean, this country, it's the greatest country on earth. And it was birthed out of the courage of nonconformists, a group of guys who stood up for what they believed in. and they were willing to risk their complete existence on that truth. Sign their death warrants. So our country's legacy

51:12 is is pure individualism and this is a you know a manifesto a continuation of that spirit of Americanism. So that's the big question. Am I truly living or just existing? Existing's comfortable for sure and like nobody's going to with you really. But um so just some quotes from Walden. I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not when I came to die discover that I had not lived. Sounds like regret. Regret. This this is the summary of what he was doing. what it had to teach. What is What is nature trying to tell us

52:35 that we just haven't ever stopped to listen? Everybody good on this? I'll send you guys presentation. We'll we'll send it or you take a photo. I'm just taking photos because I have it. Yeah, I'll also send this to everybody. Appreciate that. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. What's real? What kind of illusions have I been living in? Where am I lying to myself? You know, truth invites conflict though by its very nature, right? Because confronted with the truth, you have to decide whether you're pro or against with the truth. Like truth is like a lion, right? If you if you let it free, it will defend itself, right? So you don't need to protect truth necessarily. But when someone's like this is a truth, now comes the defense on is it true or not? You have to test truth to know it's true. Yeah. And that I mean that's the you know action of the philosopher is make your

53:40 argument in support or defense in and support or contradiction to whatever is being proposed. That's the that's the work of the philosopher is what you just described and that that T should be a c so if I'm if I'm that T should be a capital T by the way keep that in mind it's not a lowercase T. What's the difference between love and truth? Great question. Like truth is a great a greater love to me. But I think that we could philosophize about that all day. I think that you know what, if I'm going to throw some out there, thorough is he's removing himself from society. That means he's essentially taken himself out of the economy. He does handy work to buy bread and but he's removing himself from the economy. He's removing himself from the social spheres. And he's not

54:44 dating. Chicks aren't coming to your cabin, bro. Maybe he left it out of the book the whole time. He's just got these girls coming through. So, he's a handyman. starts writing about it, the flow will stop. So, I would say that I would say that what he means here is is is the body's desire for romance and the satisfaction that it gives to the senses. Yeah. I also imagine walking through the streets during that time would be kind of like now because, you know, you had newspapers promoting some agenda, trying to sell a product, someone on the street yelling, trying to get you to buy their shoes like all consumers, all this doesn't matter anymore. He's like, "Put me in a cabin. Put me in a cabin." Dude, there's also the assumption that truth exists. That is very loud to me because if you take that away, then you can't get to that, you know? I mean that would that would be the conversation

55:55 about I mean if God if God exists if God does not exist then this is all subjective none of it matters the the T is lowercase right you know if there is a divine force that is incomprehensible is the source of all things then the T is capitalized even though we can't really know its its essence we we can we see reflections of it around in the trees and our friends. You guys have read this one hopefully. The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Probably one of the most famous quotes from that book. I have nothing to add to it.

56:56 I would add and yeah desperate. Yeah. We're like, oh man, let's be quiet about it. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's what what kind of illusions am I living in? Where am I tricking myself? Where am I comfortable getting complacent? These are just the questions that I ask myself constantly every single day. Where am I what am I tricking myself out of doing today? And it gets worse when the media is constantly telling you that you're bad for being a man. Or men can get pregnant. Men are getting pregnant. super asset. It seems fringe but for some reason. So this is the final slide. Am I truly living or just existing? How do you measure that? You know, you say, "Okay, I want to make

58:05 sure I leave this retreat. Am I truly living or just existing?" Well, I think like maybe I'm existing. So I'm I'm going to be better. I'm going to be different. You know, I think it's it's difficult to know how far you're moving along that is is living the pursuit pursu of the self in a sense. Is that what that's referring to? doing something you discovering you and working through that state talked about earlier or is it I think that when he says living he means living a life that is coming from within and not from society's expectations being a nonconformist being a non-conformist you your god knows is your destiny without any to your idea you know, prayer, taking the time to listen. Like for me, if I'm not living right, I know

59:10 I'm not, you know, like if I'm really off track, like I may trick myself for a little bit, but you know, if when I'm sitting down for an hour or 30 minutes meditating, like, hits me in the face. So I think a lot of it is is giving ourselves the space to hear that voice and to experience that guidance from above or within. I think that if we're constantly distracting ourselves, which is really easy to do. I mean, if I could wake up, get on Instagram, and like go all day without actually thinking like a single thought. I could just work. I could get on Instagram. Then I could, you know, make food, go work, get on in, like I could go the whole day without any silence whatsoever if I really wanted to. If I did that over and over and over and over again, I'm going to be up. Like, I'm not going to have any

1:00:12 time to actually get any feedback from my higher self. So, I think that's a big part of this is giving ourselves the space to get that feedback from above or within. For me, like the times where I feel like I'm truly living, I'm in a state of immense gratitude. Whereas if I don't, if I'm taking things for granted or I'm not in a state of gratitude, I'm just existing, you know? Yeah, that's whether that's meditation or a state of prayer. That's my experience. I'm going to notice a difference in between living and existing. Find that gratitude. Yeah, I I agree, Matt. I mean, for me, like if I'm if I'm grateful, I feel pretty good. Like, if I really practice gratitude, like I pray gratitude, anxiety, fear just kind of washes away. If I catch myself not being grateful, then I'm like realizing that I'm trying to do it my way in a way that's not

1:01:16 really in tune with any sort of higher. Yeah, that's gratitude. I think that's like maybe even like an indicator like do you feel grateful? And then the kind of the changes that happen in my life when I start being grateful things change for sure. Yeah. Like when you're in nature, what are some of the feelings you have? I mean, it's one of just the just wow. Thank you, God, for making this so beautiful. How How'd you do this? Yep. It's gratitude. It's awe. I'm like I think I'm a big If I could put awe in a vitamin and sell it, I like I think everybody needs a daily dose of awe. Like something that puts you in a state of awe. For me, it's nature. It's beautiful architecture. It's beautiful music. It's reading beautiful literature. things that are just so beyond what my tiny brain is capable of. I know that it's making me better just by sitting with it. So I think that awe in gratitude are probably you know

1:02:20 nearly synonymous. I'd say this is uh this is kind of a call for for action with the true living existence. If anything about like for instance Walden we are very comfortable as a society uh when you are living in the field, in nature, camping, whatever, right? Your decisions, you have a much shorter cycle on whether that is important. Is that a waste of energy? Right? Did I, you know, because you'll sit around and waste time all day, right? Watching TV, playing a game, or brought back. Because you can't, right? You got bills on autopay, climate control, everything else. But when you're sitting there going, I'm be cold enough. I go get some firewood. Yeah. If I don't get this prepped. And so in this particular case, I would sayecally kind of you're doing any kind of retreat or anything like this you get that motivated thing you're like am I living am I existing like that's awesome and d and whereas the had his and and you know they had their their kind of we could use nature and you know people use

1:03:22 church religion as as a call back everyone needs that sort of fellowship checkin piece with it because you know um men will sharpen men as iron sharpens iron right like are you living youisting Because what'll happen is your brain, there's this little piece in your brain that loves anything that's ever made you feel good. Dopamine, whatever. You know, you're like, "Oo, I like that." Seroton that's good. I like that. And it will just convince you that, hey, you just want to keep doing that stuff. And it's easy to go from I'm living to I'm kind of existing and it feels okay. And you can rechallenge that by these type of retreats where you meet other people. Oh, you know what? You're right. Maybe I should. Now, in the past, that's been I'm communing or I'm regularly going to church or I'm a part of a fraternal organization or whatever. But because we have a social we have a social component to what it is being uh human, most people

1:04:22 need to have a check in with somebody else. And so, I think it's important to have that periodic check. You know, am I you how are you doing? I'm doing okay. What are you doing? All right. Is that living or is that existing? I don't know. And because you compare notes, that's how you you get that mirror to yourself. It's left to your own device. You just be like, I had no idea what I was doing. 10,000%. Like I'm a big advocate for myself. I I have some friends that I'll call and I'll just be like, "Dude, what have I been doing wrong these past few months? Like, I need an accountability check-in. Like, tell me where I've been an asshole." Because we're so blind to the mistakes that we make. So, I have like a few friends that I just call like every few months and hit him with that question. They're like, "All right, well," and I get like a check-in list, you know, and I think it's important to have guys like that. I mean, maybe, you know, there some in this room that you can connect with, but having somebody you can just call like once a quarter and hit them with that question like, "I need just pure unfiltered accountability feedback on how I've been showing up in life." And every time I do that, I always learn something that I haven't been noticing

1:05:28 and in and how I've been acting.