L.O.G. 239 Humans are constantly on transmit

Okay, alright. I think we've got everything on and going. Greg, good morning.

Good morning. Do we get a weather update? How much snow has fallen?

Oh, it's still snowing. Yeah, since we last talked. The funniest thing, though, is that I still decry people that say, "Well, it has to be a certain temperature to snow." So it's five below. It snowed overnight. It's five [degrees] now, it's snowing now. My hands are still cold just from going out and starting Shelly's truck. And I have to plow between our Mason Herman meetings. You know, if you get too much snow, it goes up over the plow blade, and then what happens is each subsequent pass you're actually tramping down the snow, creating ice, right?

Yeah, so, no, I love it. I mean, you know, poor Lanny. Lanny got called in again to the airport this morning, and Lanny hates snow and he hates cold. Why would you live? I don't want to ask him that because he'll take a swing at me. You know, he's half drunk all the time anyway. But the idea is that, you know, think about that: I live here because I love that, and there's a certain amount of insulation and isolation that goes with weather like this.

Yeah, right. So you have to kind of be part of that team.

Well, you have to be on that frequency to be able [to function]. Things are going to go slower, some things are going to shut down, you've got to be able to fend for yourself for a couple days if necessary. You know, I mean, that's, but that's that, which is the exact opposite of people where I live. But yeah, you live sort of a—and I'm not slamming this—but you live sort of a Mediterranean lifestyle there. But the cool thing, the Mediterranean survived.

Yeah, exactly.

You've survived so much that it's good for you and you thrive. You see, I stick out like a sore dick when I go to California all the time, and people are pointing and going, "Who, who's that gigantic man?" I just don't fit. But here I fit fine. I really do.

Well, on that note, go ahead and jump into... and that's our topic. Yeah, so first off, thanks everyone for tuning in and listening. We've got some updates and big changes coming up real soon, so you're all going to find out about that. We're super excited for it and it's going to be great. 2024, which is weird saying that every year when it gets another year later.

But today we're talking about stuff that we've talked about indirectly on every podcast, or everything we do, really, about humans being on transmit. And we'll give some examples and talk about some specific things about it. But obviously, everyone who listens to us knows that's something we kind of say all the time: people are always on transmit, you've got to tune into the right frequency. So we'll kind of give some examples of that, but it's sometimes more powerful than, I think, than people even realize. I mean, you can get into the minutiae, some people are more on transmit than others.

I love it when I kind of try to post some of this stuff on social media or as an example, and then you get a comment from someone who's like, "Yeah, no, not me. I do this." It's... I'm like, "You're on Instagram right now commenting. This is everything!" And so if we learn to sort of decipher that, you can find out a lot of meaning. And then we talk about how people get some of that stuff wrong, and they jump to unreasonable conclusions.

But I kind of want to start off today because there are a couple stories to start off with. One being, you know, a very serious one. If everyone remembers, the shooting in Lewiston, Maine. Was that just last year? A guy killed 18 people at a bowling alley and then killed himself. But, you know, there's an article. I know you sent me this article, and obviously when the investigations come out, you start finding out all the stuff. But one of his friends, obviously he knew what was going on, he was worried about him. And because these guys were in the Army Reserves together, this guy, Sean Hodson, actually texted his — their supervisor, I'm not exactly clear who, but he texted one of his superiors and said, "I believe he's going to snap and do a mass shooting." And then six weeks later, that's exactly what happened.

So obviously this person knew, they knew something was up, they were recognizing the signs. Did no one...? A lot of times what it is, and what we deal with especially when it comes to like schools and recognition of stuff, people don't know when it's, "Okay, well, is this person just saying all this stuff, or are they going to do it?" Right? Or is this person just want their say, or do they want their say and their way? And that can be seemingly difficult, although we have specific things that we look for. But the idea is, we're starting to see that where people are at least trying to report or they're saying something like, "Hey, this is one of those weird things." So obviously there's all kinds of different, you can—I'll attach the article in the episode details—because there's all the different pre-incident indicators, there's all of these things building up. And his buddy's going, "Hey, man, this is odd." Then he was even diagnosed with some different issues, he was hospitalized for a couple weeks, admitted to a psychiatric ward, those type of things. So he's constantly transmitting what's going on. So that's one example, and we'll jump into that.

But then the other one falls into a different bucket. And this was this guy out here, Anthony Garcia. He was a member of what was called the Rivera 13 gang out in Los Angeles County. And he was arrested originally, I think it was like a, you know, driving on suspended license or unregistered vehicle, something like that, a moving violation. And then because he had all these gang affiliation stuff, they took pictures of his tattoos. And so he had at the top it said, "Rivera Kills," and then he had this other drawing of a shooting, and it was a helicopter, and it was at a liquor store, and all that. So this other detective was going through stuff, and he goes, "Hey, wait a minute, wait a minute. This, this looks familiar to me." And he's looking at the picture of the tattoo and he goes, "Hey, this is the crime scene from an unsolved homicide from four years ago." So this guy literally tattooed the crime scene on him to show exactly what happened. And even his call sign, or whatever nickname was, was "Chopper," right? And so he had the helicopter, Chopper, like killing this person in front of the liquor store, exactly how it happened. I think I even read one story where the detective was like, "Even down to some of the angles of the shooting," like, that's how accurate this tattoo was. So that's a very obvious example of something, but sometimes it can be more subtle. So I wanted to start with those two and just this introduction about how humans are constant and transmit with everything that we do. And just sort of tuning into that frequency is a general way we talk about it and look at it. Now, we get into the weeds of how to actually do that—can't do that on a podcast—but I think just some more of these examples. So I'm going to throw to you, Greg, to kind of start it off, and I know you had somewhere you wanted to at least start with the discussion.

So I would say this to your comments: I would say that if I was driving around with a friend and I said, "Hey, you know who's getting to be good-looking? Your daughter. And I would love to rape her." If she doesn't consent to sex, there would be an ass-whooping. There would be a consequence. There would be even just at the first comment there. So then the same thing, if I was driving around with a few of my friends and we said, "Yeah, let's go by the mall. Yeah, that's where I love to pick up the kids I molest." Okay, same thing.

So when we say people are on transmit, sometimes people are very close to the bone and transmit details like the tattoo that are so incriminating that people have to say something. Hence the article about the Maine shooter where a number of things came to light over and over and over. "Look, you're saying, 'Oh, you're jesting.'" No, I'm not jesting. I'm taking a look at Isla Vista. I'm taking a look at Elliot Rodger. I'm taking a look at Ted Kaczynski. I'm taking a look at all of these people that were on transmit with the dial wide open to the point where people said, "Okay, it must be parody. It must be some sort of a joke." And that took their foot off the warning, "Danger, Will Robinson!" accelerator.

What we're saying is that when you see these things, and it's tantamount to a rape or murder or killing, I restricted it to life felonies, Brian. But it's an ideation and a fascination. Now you're talking about... So what do I mean by that? We're talking about tattoos. And it's funny to me that you take a look at the incident of tattoos in the U.S. prison system, and people that have tattoos are of a higher intellect than those that don't. I think that's amazing, and that's been tested and documented. The second part of that is that felons have a higher degree—now, let's not conflate that and say felons are a higher intellect group—but there's a message there. The message is that, just like Jay Leno, just like Larry King, after you're out of the bully pulpit, after you're no longer having the light shined on you and your opinion matters, you will still be on transmit. You will find a way, whether it's krill oil from the North Atlantic, or getting a spot on a rom-com, just to walk on.

The idea is, Brian, certain people, all people have to transmit all the time because that's our fragile ego system. But some people have to transmit even to the point where they'll incriminate themselves. Evidenced by the fact that what do we have? We have the Fifth [Amendment] where you can plead the Fifth because you don't want to accidentally incriminate yourself. That's up to other people to judge based on the evidence. So this is one of the few times where artifacts and evidence come from the horse's mouth because people can't shut up.

And I'll give you an example, a social media example like you did. I'm not on social media, but people listen to me, and every once in a while I'm accosted or met by somebody that goes, "Hey, I listen to your podcast," or, "Hey, I saw you and Brian on some social media." And that's amazing to me. The two most often comments I get are, "Why do I hate John Boyd?" which I don't, I hate you instead. And the second one is, "Why do you keep bringing up the allegory of the cave, because you're getting it wrong?" So let's abandon UDA, but let's talk about Plato's allegory of the cave. Plato was writing, and Plato was trying to write as a slap in the face to the intelligentsia because not everybody could read, not everybody understood it. So then when somebody else would read it, you would react. That was his idea. It was like making a film, and the cave was the theater. And then when you walked out and you were standing outside the theater, you go, "Who the fuck was that?" And then the other guy would talk. And so Socrates narrating, notionally, for Plato and Glaucon is the guy outside the theater going, "What did we just watch?" So the whole idea, the hidden message of Plato's Cave, is that all of us, the prisoners, can escape from ignorance by just taking that first step out of the cave. And the further you are back from that flame, the wilder the stories inside the cave get. Why? Because your intellect is on wide open, you're transmitting on wide open without any checks and balances.

So we love that because as a fly on the wall, or using a surveillance methodology, you can see people in their natural light. And when a person is either given a microphone or a camera on them, or writes a book, or is allowed to talk with other people thinking that their thoughts are private, they will be on transmit and release all of this information. So escaping ignorance means that you can't go back in the cave. So the problem we use the allegory, I guess, is that you can't un-ring that bell. And what do we mean by that? Once you tattoo something on your body, once you write it, once you play it, have rappers been convicted based on lyrics? Well, they certainly have gone to court on that. People they've recorded and talked about crimes they committed in those songs, and those were used against them in court. And that was actually... So why can't a tattoo? Why can't a tattoo be a non-verbal confession? I apologize for cutting you off, but I want to make sure I get that out there because I'll forget that.

No, no, no, no, I was just, I was just mentioning that. But the even the Key & Peele comedians made a sketch about that as a joke, and then it happened years later in real life. But no, about the tattoos admitted confession, I mean, it is. I mean, you're going to have the argument that, "Oh, no, this is, you can say whatever you want." Your attorney is going to play that. But, but, you know, you're showing how important. I mean, it's not unlike writing something down or telling someone or having a conversation and saying, "Yeah, I killed the..." I mean, you're doing the same thing, you're just doing it permanently on your body.

Yeah, your actions are so powerful that the court has something in present memory recollected. I'm not going to remember the exact comment, but there's a thing that prosecutors and defense attorneys can use when they're talking about like a cop that, you know, over-used too much violence in an arrest, or when a prosecutor is trying to say, "Look, this fits a pattern." So the pattern that it fits is that it's so ridiculously close to something that happened again and again that it's logical to infer that this was the original intent and that the person is just repeating their behavior. So that repeated behavior, and I can't think of the exact name of the case law right now, is accepted by every court in the land in the United States, all the way up to U.S. Supreme Court. So they can actually bring things in and go, "This on the 29th, and this four years later, and then this that we did yesterday are so close to the pattern that this person used when they were coming through." Again, pattern recognition. And the analysis would be that even a person that doesn't know this man or woman and doesn't know the case would be led to believe that it was all a pattern of abuse that they didn't... and you can bring that in the court.

So that amazes me because what we understand by law, by case law, by Supreme Court decisions, and then by tats and by the allegory of the cave, is that there's certain information out there that we all slap the table on. We acquiesce, we say, "Yeah, I will stipulate that that's true." And then there's other secret, insider, inside-the-velvet-rope information that people let out through song, through story, through poetry, through their clothing, through their messages that they're trying to send to us. And that if we tune into that frequency, Brian, because everybody's transmitting all the time, even on those subtle wavelengths, I think what we're saying is that the subtle wavelengths is where the juice is sweeter, where we're really going to get into some interesting information, right? I mean, anybody can, you know, put the, we joke about the "Hang in there, cat!" Anybody could put the platitude up, right? But when you start getting into a degree of specificity—and we're back to the body art—the degree of specificity of tattoos is why it's not allowed as evidence, because it's not specific enough. But the cases we're talking about are two incidents where the information was specific enough that a reasonable person said, "That's the exact thing." Right? That's a very simple...

So I want... yeah, so I want to do two things. First, because I want to go back to you brought it up with the allegory of the cave, and kind of like, you know, we would call those sort of failures in sensemaking. The people going, "You're not seeing clearly what's going on out there. That's why you're assuming or inferring incorrectly." But I just kind of want to start with two. Let's try to answer this question as best as we can: Why are humans constantly on transmit? Like, what is that? Meaning, because it's all done in... We gave different examples of how that, how that leaks out, right? Whatever medium it is, whether it's over social media, personal conversations, tattoos, the way you dress, how you cut your hair, all that stuff, it all tells me about you. But like, so what is it about us that we have to do that? Why are we always on transmit?

So that's such a great question. I'll give you a two-part answer. First, we have to acknowledge the fact that it is in fact ego driven and that everybody has it. So I'll offer my evidence: selfies. The entire idea about selfies, it's about me, "Look at me!" And some selfies kill me, some selfies are too close to the edge and I fall off the bridge. So the lure to making sure that I'm remembered is right there in a selfie.

Now, part two: We come into this world screaming for attention the very second that we pop out or cut out. And when we go, we have to have a eulogy, other people talking about us, and lead us to the snowy or cold cemetery where there's a stone slab memorializing my last words. So we cannot get away from talking. We're, in a little bit, transmitting. In a little bit, we're going to hopefully get a chance to talk about Aaron Hernandez. I'll tell you this one thing about the Aaron Hernandez case is that it shows that he knows what's going on because he writes "God Forgives" backwards in a tattoo. Well, who is that intended for? That's intended for a motto for him: "Every time I look in the mirror, I have my personal accountability." One quick more, he had "Killer Inside" tattooed after the convictions and some of the cases were thrown out. "Killer Inside" doesn't mean "I'm a killer inside," it means "I'm a killer and I'm going inside jail." He's telling people he understands, he's relating a story, in my estimation, Brian. In my...

Yeah, I mean, he could have been looking at it as, "Yeah, there's a killer inside of me," is the way he looked at it. But either way you do that, but that's another great example. And he even had, I think, the specific types of guns he used in those crimes. Remember, he killed someone before the one that he got caught for and went to trial for. He killed someone down in Florida, I think it was, and then he had those guns tattooed on him by the whole tattoo that said "God Forgives." I mean, so what would the thing that you would not do, Brian? Okay, why would you invoke the Fifth? Why doesn't an innocent person take the stand? Because you don't want to risk it, specifically in a jury trial, right?

So let me give you one more, and then I'll throw the towel in on this. O.J. Simpson. Okay, O.J. Simpson wrote a hypothetical book, "If I Did It." If I did it, and the "if" was kind of tiny and "I did" was... that was the lawsuit. And so HarperCollins said, "Hey, we're publishing the book." And then all the lawsuits came out and everybody said, "Hey, listen, we're going to cancel the book." And then the Goldman and Brown families came up... No, well, what they did was they, they changed it. So I think they got whatever it was, so that they could, they could... The "if" was like super, super tiny, so it just said "I Did It." They had a whole bunch of stories and information. And then, I can't remember the prosecutor name, the female, Marcia Clark, wrote her book about it.

But the idea here, Brian, is that we have to be tribal. We're not good alone. And to be a part of the tribe, we have to continuously prove our worth. And the easiest way to prove our worth is to demonstrate to others that we're worthy of something. So the earliest form of self-expression is a cave painting, cave art, of some form. And what is it about? "I know where fresh water is. I know where the hunting is. I know where we can gather firewood." Go look through it, I don't have to make that shit up. And when we take a look at it and see how old that stuff is, we understand that, "Look, I have to be seen, I have to be heard." Ötzi the Iceman, found in the Alps, was from 3,250 BCE, Before Common Era, had 61 tattoos on his body, Brian. What was that? A message to everybody else? "Hey, I'm the best finder of fish, follow me to the river!" Do you see what I'm saying? If I can't communicate with language, I'm going to find another way to communicate. And self-mutilation back then was a practice that I could get behind because it was easy to do. I stick a rod in the fire, do you get what I'm trying to say? Or I carve it in stone.

Especially you're talking about communicating, and maybe, I mean, this stuff goes back before the language that we know of it as today, as language, right? Communication's been around long before different interpersonal human communication. So there's only so many ways I can do that, especially if I'm interacting with people who I literally don't have the same grunts and clicks that your tribe does. Well, if I have something on my body that sends a message, this goes back to cave painting. They're saying they're finding even cave paintings that they think are even older than previously thought. So even pre-Homo Sapiens, there were cave paintings and drawings and different, different shapes and stuff like that that all humans draw, but it's a method of communication, is what you're doing. So it's wired in our DNA for this sort of communication, right? To be on transmit. And I think that's, that's, that really... And you can, you can get into this in a number of different ways and how important and how necessary that is for survival. It just, when you, when you tie, it's so necessary for survival, you just said it. Yes, as a human, I have to be a, I have to feel—that's an important word—feel that I'm a contributing member to the group that I'm in. And that ties back to even to like why some people commit suicide and stuff, they feel that they're no longer contributing value. But whatever the reason is, they feel that they're not contributing anymore, so it's like, "Well, I'm no good to everyone, so I need to, I need to exit stage left, man, because I'm, I'm slowing everyone down." But that's, that's when we say hardwired, that is in our DNA, biologically and physically manifest itself. You're exactly right, it comes out in different ways. But I just think that's from a historical point of why, why humans are on transmit, it's, you can't not be on transmit. You can't not.

Because you're helping me make a strong argument that all people need to express themselves. And the other side of the coin, champion their uniqueness. What do I mean by that? I have to be a member of this team and a contributing member that you take cave to cave to cave and that torch survives. But I also need to be known as fire-finder or fish-catcher, whatever it is, right? And so you just talked about a gang member that is complicit in killing. And he had two things he had emblazoned upon his flesh: the thing that got him into the gang, his killing at the liquor store, murdering people. And the second part is, "Who am I, Brian? I'm Chopper."

Yep, that's his identity.

So he has to have both. And you're also making a strong argument, like, "Look, why do I cut myself?" Because it's just for me, I have control. I control that same reason that people, some people get tattoos: "I control me, my body is my canvas." So as much as it's a part that I must be seen with this group, I want to associate. Look, I may want to associate with you, and you've never given me the opportunity or welcomed me in. So I go and I get a tattoo, and that means I'm part, one way or the other. "Accept me or don't accept me, but I'm part of that group."

And so what we have is we understand that when people repress what they need to say, that there's a higher degree of anxiety. We don't sleep very well. Our, you know, stomach, and including our stomach muscles, not just the chemistry of our stomach and our digestion, is all messed up. I can see that in our dog. I mean, you have a dog and you know the same thing. So if you see that, you know, "bad, you're bad," or something happens like that, that can ruin an entire day for a dog. And so now you add the element that dogs don't understand space-time. So now there's a tremendous amount of anxiety, and a dog can be depressed. Your neighbor can be depressed enough to go kill 18 people at a Lewiston bowling alley.

So obviously, since we had the baby, the dog gets less attention right now. I still try to, so I make sure I set out time to go throw the ball with her every day, you know, do this because it's like, she's, 'cause you can, you can sense it. So we had the baby, and my daughter (the "Insurgent") was playing with the baby on her bed. Well, here's the thing, that's where Bailey the dog sleeps. Dog sleeps on the bed with her, and then has a little, you know, dog bed in the corner sometimes when she moves around a lot when she sleeps. So she'll get up, the dog will get up and sleep in the corner, right? But that's her spot. She can chill there, she can sleep there. I love it because then, you know, the Insurgent's always got someone there with her and everything. And so she's playing a lot with the baby on her bed. Well, and then like we weren't letting, she wasn't letting Bailey on the bed, right? When the baby was on there, obviously, like, "Hey, stay off," you know, "I don't want them," because the dog will just accidentally, you know, step on them or whatever, you know. So, sure enough, that day when that happened, the Insurgent went in there to go to the bed and there's a big wet spot right there at the end of the bed, man. And Bailey had peed right there. And we're like, "What?" And it was very clear, it was just like, "Wow!" We instantly linked it like, "Okay, like, you, you know..." But that was the way that the dog could transmit that, "I'm upset! This was my space, this is my spot! You guys are taking all this attention! I'm part of this damn tribe too! Give me, you know what I mean? What are you doing?" And it was like, "Okay," and we did, you know, obviously cleaned it up and it was all good. And we said, "Alright, no more baby on the bed in there. Like, that's the dog's spot. Let's let her have her area," just because she's part of the family too. I mean, she has to interact with us. So it was, it was wild, you just brought that up and it reminded me that, and it just happened like a month ago.

It's such an important message. Everybody replay what Brian just said because now in Maine, why did the shooter kill themselves? Because they were done transmitting. "Yep, I am done. My message will comply out here." And damn, when we take a look at Elliot Rodger, same thing: when my message was done. We take a look at Eric Harris, when my message was done, what did I do? Now they either do one—it's one or it's, it's usually a binary choice: it's kill themselves or give up.

Exactly.

Now, why would I give up? Because I'm not done. I'm done with the killing, Brian, but I'm not done with what? I'm not done unpacking me. So now I assume that I... Kip Kinkel, perfect example. Kip Kinkel, how many interviews can one school shooter give? And Kip has given them from his teen years all the way now till he's an adult, and he's getting old and losing his hair and his teeth. Why? Because "I still have things to say." You see, the parallel, Brian, to me is so strong: "I'm done, so I die," or, "I still got a message, so I live." And when we look at it at that simplest level, we understand that getting out of the cave was freeing ourselves from the intellectual darkness. "You're not listening to me, so I'm getting a damn gun and I'm going to go to school and shoot a bunch of fourth graders in Uvalde." Why? Because "I'm bored and I have a message. Well, my message isn't very strong, so I'll exemplify it at the muzzle."

Yeah, you're going to get the attention. Because, and that's so why not, really, why is it... But can, can you explain sort of the difference? Because that's, that's definitely going. Some humans like this are, are, you can see it a mile away. They're constantly talking about what they're going to do, they're literally tattooing it on their body, spreading the word. Now, some people choose to almost go internal with it. So rather than expressing it outwardly, they, they go internal. And there's still, it's the same issue, but they almost, it's seemingly harder to identify. That's where like sort of the rage happens where all of a sudden someone blows up and then they, they, there's a, there's a horrible video, I can't remember where it was from, but a guy because he has a camera in his car, and he's all pissed off because the road's blocked because of the parade that was going on. And he's arguing with his wife on her, he's yelling and screaming, and you see it go, and it hits to rage, and he goes right into that parade and he starts hitting people and going. That guy was going internal for so long. Now it was manifesting. I'm sure people saw him going, like, "That guy used to blow up on people," or, "This was angry." But sometimes people choose to go internal with it, and that's when they still, "Alright, now I'm going to create my plan." That's the Ted Kaczynski. "Alright, I'm going to go move to the shed in the middle of nowhere, but I still need to get my message out, so I'm going to type on a typewriter and ride a bike a few miles to the post office to mail this so someone still gets my message." So it's the same concept, just sort of manifested differently, right?

And the part of why I'm bringing that up is that, you know, you can identify it either way, no matter which method someone chooses to use. And that's why we always do, most people want their say, not their way. But the danger lies in someone who wants their say and their way.

And both, exactly.

And so it's, it's, it's an oversimplified way to look at it, but it's not, I mean, it's really, if we think about it from these lenses, and that's why we talk about it, and especially tattoos and clothing and all that stuff, it just, but it actually, it ties right back to which why I love that you brought it up, the allegory of the cave. Am I outside the cave looking at this clearly, or am I still looking over a few people at the shadows on the wall and constructing my own story about what's happening? Am I getting that signal? So I just want to bring...

You're so smart. Listen, you're so smart because when you read it, you understood that "prisoners" was metaphor. "Prisoners chained to the wall in a cave." Ebenezer Scrooge when he sees Marley's ghost, right? Okay, the whole idea is that I'm carrying all this weight. So what's the cave? The cave is this, this movie theater again. And ideas are getting bashed around in there. And the further you are from the screen, so two old people going, "What? What did he say? Oh, that's the," you know, and Gilbert Gottfried again, you know, "He said this!" Waldorf and Statler up there, two Muppets, right? But if you get it wrong, if you get some of the information wrong, you're going to extrapolate that further and you're going to come up with the wrong conclusion. And so Plato knew this. So we have this need to express ourselves, and what happens is that anytime that we feel that we can't, that triggers our fight or flight. And so now what happens is we go, "Holy shit! Does the clan know something I don't? They're keeping me quiet. Is there a problem? Did I make a mistake?" There's the anxiety. And now that goes into violence, meaning fighting, meaning being argumentative, or real physical violence. Why do you think domestics are so dangerous? Domestics brew as a percolator for years and years and years. Or like a flare, they're really hot for a couple of months and then all of a sudden you're going to lose that, or you feel you're going to lose that, or you feel that you're misunderstood.

So when we take a look at most people that communicate in a manner like tats or art or a song or rap, most of the time it's self-expression. Some of the time it's, "I need more attention." Your dog, perfect example. And some of the time it's rebellion, "Hey, fuck you! This is who I am." So I've got that sort of, "Hey, wanker," you know, mentality from the Brit, Sid Vicious. Then we go and we have William Teacher Atkinson, where all of his tattoos are a personal narrative intended solely for him, not for his loved one, not for the other people that are around him. And then we've got a couple like our friend from Third Marine, which he got all of his tattoos after a night of drunken frippery, and no two have anything to do with anything else.

Why? One, any time that we start talking about secret or privates, it's a form of thrill-seeking. It's a form of risk-taking. Because, "Hey, what are the type of games that we play? Well, one time I did this." Well, Truth or Dare? Why? Because they get us close to fear or anxiety. They make our pulse increase, Brian. And so now we want to recreate that behavior. We already talked about displaying our individuality, being unique. And then the third reason is to boost our confidence, whether it's truth or a lie. Now, listen to what I'm saying, folks that are listening to me: "I want to boost my confidence, so I say these things about me." Well, it could be a pathological liar that needs a repeated boost of confidence, you get it? Or I could just have it as part of my job, used car salesman, right? Where, "Hey, you know, I want to boost your confidence, you're such a good guy, I want to get you into that car. Let me go talk to my manager." And I go out and I get a Frito-Lay chips and a Coke and wait 15 minutes, and come out and go, "Well, hey, here's the hard..." So the type of message that I put out there is so you understand how important I am to the rest of the tribe. And when you don't listen, I have to shake the cage a little bit. And that's when the beast comes out, Brian.

So rage is, "I'm being misunderstood." The incongruent message to my brain means I have to mask my emotions. And guess what? They'll only put up with that for so long before they break out of that shell like that little shit lizard in Jurassic Park. We have to be prepared for that because look what happened on Jurassic Park, all that shit went sideways fast, right? So why can't we control rage? Because rage has to run its course. Why? Because nobody listened to me, and now that trigger, that sense mechanism that I had, is going to force me to act this out. And we, we don't want to act it out, humans don't want to act it out. But why do we? Because it's a survival mechanism. We have to, so the tribe takes me as a legitimate member. And violence is coming.

And this is sort of the big "so what" behind a lot of this too is, is, don't, is almost, I know we're talking about a lot of different things, but we're tying it back to more so like neuroscience and really how the hardwired DNA in all human beings [works]. Because don't overcomplicate it. I mean, meaning, don't, don't extrapolate and come up with some story when these things happen, just because it fits your narrative or it fits what you think you want it to be. Because I see that a lot with different analysis stuff, especially when you get into anything with psychology because there's so much pop psychology BS and studies coming out all the time, which really add no value. I think the, and, and, and, you know, that's great if you want to research something at an academic institution and get some insight, but that doesn't mean anything because that could be, in a couple years, people [will say], "Oh, well, you can't actually replicate that," or, "That doesn't work," 'cause that's what happens with 90% of the stuff that comes out. And so this analysis is not good because it's unhelpful, and it's unhelpful because it doesn't give me any tools to recognize any of these things. And this is why we boil some of these things down to very simple concepts. All humans are on transmit. Okay, what is this person teaching me? What are they, what are they transmitting to the world right now? And writing that down on a yellow pad is the clearest way to understand it. And you don't have to make something up. It's not unknown. You, you can say, "Well, how do I do that with my family?" or, "When do I get to that point?" Right?

And so what I, what kind of pisses me off with a lot of this stuff too, is like, especially with tattoos, and everyone's... I've had someone tell me they were reading someone's tattoos, and, "Oh, this means that and that means this, and you can tell by the curvature here and the symbol here." It's like, no, that's what it means to you. You don't know what it means to that person. Because you'll go up to that person, like, "Oh, I thought this was cool, man. I saw it in the tattoo book and I took three images they had at the tattoo shop and I jammed them together and said, 'Put this on me.'" And it's like, "Oh, okay." So you have no idea even sometimes what it is that you're saying. And that's, you know, you see that when it's the difference between the gang graffiti showing ownership of that area, right, of that street, of that block, right? Versus the punk kid with a can of spray paint who draws a swastika on the school 'cause he knows, "Well, that's going to get some attention and that's going to piss people off." "Draw a penis on some car." Like, you know, it's like, "I'm a hero to the pre-adolescents." Right? It's, it's not, it's not the same thing. And it's the intent behind the message. But also understanding that these are psychological and sociological imperatives. I have to do this as a human. I have to get things off my chest. It will manifest itself in some manner, either externally, internally. It may build up for a while. Everyone's going to do it a little bit different, but we all do the same stuff. I mean, and so, you know, this is also why I want to, want to talk about it. And that's why just using that term, "All humans are on transmit." "Alright, well, what, what is this person telling me? What are they teaching me?"

So the simplest, Brian, the simplest way to encapsulate what you're saying there is to think about ourselves first and what, what does our Wall of Shame show? Where's that room or that one area where I keep my knickknacks, where I keep my coins, which used to mean something and have taken on entirely new meaning now? Where is that place where I keep those certificates? Is it in a drawer, Brian, or are they up on the wall where I can see them when I'm, you know, typing or whatever? If we take a look at that, because look, my clothes are meaningless. I assign no value whatsoever to how I dress, to my haircut, to how I'm seen by other people because I don't give a damn about that. But I send a strong message in other things that I do, right? So maybe I've got to shine that light back on me and say, "What am I transmitting? What, what is the message that I'm giving?" Because I don't want to be seen as "I don't give a damn about those things." I want to show that those things are less important than the words that are coming out of my mouth or the words that I write. You see, so that balance can be misconstrued by the receiver. And that's why we always give the, the admonition, "Listen, you have to tune in to the frequency that's out there rather than create a new radio station based on shit." You know what a teardrops tattoo means? I don't know. I know what they mean to a guy from MS13, the same as, but but in that context, if I go outside of that, the relevance changes. So I have to understand, "I'm on transmit." When I come up to a person, I've got to turn down the volume on me and turn up the volume on them to get good understanding. Now sometimes turning down the volume on me means that I have to acquiesce, I have to go with the flow, I have to back off, you know? And that's called, most times, scientifically, listening. And I have to listen with my whole body.

You good? Listen, feel.

Yeah, I have to sit down, and I have to come down off of transmit far enough that I can actually hear the signal. Where do things like, "You can't see the forest for the trees," where do that come from? Exactly the argument that we're putting forth here, that everything that you do is a message, and that message is going to be read by those people around you, whether you intended it to be read or not.

Yeah, no, I have to do that sometimes with my wife when she gets upset with something going on at work and then another thing and everything's stacked on and I've got this and that's happening. And I'm like, she'll go on and on, I'll be like, "Have you eaten yet today?" She's like, "What?" And I'm like, "Have you eaten yet today?" She's like, "Yep. Oh, no, I actually got busy." I'm like, "Why don't you have a sandwich and then think about that again, because you might just be hungry." And sometimes, sometimes it's that. She's like, "Oh, you're right. I just, I just..." I was like, "Look, man, like, it's all building up, so you don't know which contributing factor to your mood right now is the most significant." And in that case, it's like, you know, it's like, have the Snickers bar, right?

You know, listen, listen, you are so onto something. So you know that Shelly's mom, around the holiday weekend, had to go to the emergency room. She's been in the hospital now for the last couple of days. And the idea is that I knew she was sick and what the prognosis was, because she failed to transmit. Because every day she texted, she called. When you talked to her, there was a certain tempo, a meter, a timbre to how she talked and the topics that she would talk about. And guess what? No comms, no comms, no comms. So I was really worried and talking to Shelly about flying back. Then all of a sudden there came a couple of burst messages from the wilderness, and it was like, "This food blows. My room is cold." And I go, "Oh my God, she's going to make it. She'll be fine." Why? Because she was back on transmit. So simply that, simply that simple of a comparison. Your dog comparison is brilliant. When I see that, I have to assign value to it. And, you know, we're so egotistical, I'm sitting there thinking, "Okay, Shelly's lost sleep and she's not been eating and she's worried about her mom." And then I go, "Well, what about me? You know, what's your breakfast?" Why do we do that? Because when it comes down to it, it's about our own point of view.

Yeah, our point of view is, is so strong that we have to understand that that's the dog one too. Why is your dog always cheerful and happy? Because you feed it, you give that life. Like, if, and if, you know, if, if something happens to you, your dog's going, "Man, if something happens to this guy, then, you know, he's, I'm not, I might not get fed, so I better keep them happy." And that's so true on so many different levels. But you can also, even you, what you brought up with Shelly's mom is a great example too, you know, you're worried in the hospital, sick, and then she's, you know, complaining about the food and the temperature in your room. Okay, so now I know where their head's at. Why? Because if it was something, if there was something more serious or very going on, would she be complaining about the food? Wouldn't even have a thought. Probably wouldn't even be, "I have to get up early this morning for surgery and I'm worried," whatever.

Yeah, exactly, Brian. That balance that you just pointed out is the key to understanding another human. But when we go in with the amp at 11—shout out there to "This one goes to 11" (Spinal Tap)—the problem is that we can't hear that signal to noise. And in every signal there's noise, and in all noise there's a signal. And Brian, if we don't start taking the hay away to look for that needle, then we're never going to find it. And so we can go through our life, look, most people go through their lives uninspired. And they go to work and, you know, they do a good thing and then they die, and the influence around them is very small. Okay, other people have big lives. It doesn't matter which you choose, the idea is that you can choose another life if you change the way your message goes. Messaging, do we have messaging? Where's Luca Brasi? How did they tell us about him? He slept with the, what? The fish. How simple was the communication of fish that was wrapped in newspaper that meant something to everybody that was in that room? That's you, man. You can be that. You can be the one that's choking Luca Brasi and dragging the body down to the water, or you can be the person that's making the Renaissance, that's creating the change. It's you. And Brian, why does some people sit in their basement and carve a barrel off of their shotgun? Okay, because they fail to see that they make that difference. They failed to see that they impact the lives around them. So they say, "Well, I'm not impacting a life? Watch me, I'll show you how I impact."

Right.

Yeah. And so, so if we're in this business, which we are, and other people are in this business, they've got to stop. I'll give you an example. If I see one more article about, "Hey, here's the 10 books I'm reading," "Hey, kiss my ass! Enjoy reading your books. What are you doing with that information? What, what has it done to you? How have you...?" Look, I click thumbs up. Anybody that knows me knows I just have LinkedIn on every one of these self-help posts where the person's working out or they're losing weight or they're doing something like that. You know why? Because I'm seeing it, I'm seeing you walk your talk. But the other one with, "Hey, here's the top 15 that General Adams wants me to read before I'm 35 years old." Holy shit! You know, the knowledge is out there, don't be afraid of the knowledge. What are we? We're right back to the cave. One of the great things about Plato is Plato was always poking, poking the bear. So Plato goes, "Hey, listen, you can't go back in the cave and save the other prisoners." And everybody took that as metaphor for really going in the cave and pulling the people out of the burning house. Had nothing to do with it. What it means is that you can't unsee what you've seen.

Yes.

So you can never be that person again, you know? And...

Well, and there's a, exactly. Well, you can't unlearn something, right? You can't not know something and go, "Oh, well, I'm going to just crawl back in there," because now you know what it's really like. And to the other point of that too, is that they have to sort of see it for themselves, right? You can't, you can't go there and say, "Look, man, here's the answer," and then they all go, "Oh, got it. Let's all leave here now." That's not, that's not how it will ever, ever work. Someone has to...

That's why I always add the story, Brian. I add the story of the little kids and the old people that are further from the flame and they can't really hear what's going on in the next room, Brian. But through the flickers of the flame, they see them dancing around and talking about things, so they create their own reality. That's what we do. Create another's reality by looking at them and saying, "Look at that haircut. Look at their shoes aren't shined. Look at this." And we come up with a value system. What we're not doing is we're not recognizing the patterns that are coming out through that person's verbal and non-verbal communication, through their actions and their statements. We're not measuring that. What we're doing is we're doing the knee-jerk reaction to something and then that becomes the reality. And we do that not understanding that that will stick with us as a file folder for the rest of our lives.

No, and I actually, I take that approach with some of our social media stuff that I do, especially on Instagram too. Like, you know, you get different comments and, and, you know, there's some that are obvious that someone's just being a jackass or whatever, and that's fine. I usually don't respond; not responding is generally the best rule to follow. And then some people who say stuff and they clearly think they're right or whatever, and I try to go, "Oh, what do I want our followers to see? Like, what, what do I want them to see as my response? How do I, how do I want them to see me handle this?" So I keep it sort of very dry and like, "Hey, can you point to where in the post I actually said that?" You know what I mean? And they can't because they inferred information incorrectly. Right? They took it the wrong way. And then I'll say, I always say, "Hey, my intent with this post was this. If that wasn't clear, can you help clarify that for me?" And then sometimes you get people like, "Oh, well, it said this." And I go, "Oh, hey, I see that. I got it. Thank you. You know, that helps me going forward." Clear and to the point where some people argue with me. And sometimes they'll, they'll message, and I had a guy who was like, "Well, you can't say this." I was like, "Yeah, no, you, you can, and this is why, and okay, this." And he's like, "Yeah," and he's like, "Well, I don't think that..." I was like, "Okay." And I was like, "Well, should I keep engaging with this guy?" And then he, finally, he goes, the guy's like, "Well, hey, I, and this was not my intent, but he goes, 'Well, hey, you know, I, I looked at your, your textbook. You know, it's kind of expensive. Can you give me a discount if I order it?'" I was like, "Okay." And I gave the, so the guy went from arguing with me on social media to spending a couple bucks on our book. And it was not my, it was just to, to be clear, I just kept reiterating the same. He came out of the cave, he came to the realization like, "Oh, okay, I see what you're saying." And then guess what his, his response was? Because you can tell from the person, he wanted to know more, right? He really did. He wanted to understand it. But he was also had his own opinions and was coming in with sort of that, that bias from his opinions. But then he came to the realization. So, you know, you can do that stuff, you know, and just as long as it's on what that, your message is, but you have to know what your message is. You have to know what it is that you're transmitting first before you can kind of clearly see that. Because I might not know that in other areas, but when it comes to our content, what I'm putting out, I damn know what it means and I know what I'm trying to get across. Do I miss the mark a little bit sometimes? Well, of course, because you don't have to like me to read my message and infer something from it, right?

And you brought up two very good points, although they were sort of hidden in the dialogue, I just want to revisit them so people don't miss them. One: you're not for everybody, right? And just understand that, meaning that there are some people that no matter how hard you try, they just don't give a damn. And the second is that we deal in facts. So if a fact, through science or math or geography or something, comes to light and we now know more than we knew before, we will change. That's science, okay?

So first part of it, I'm not for everybody. So yesterday we were in a meeting and I made a joke about kissing the General's ass. And one of the grumpy people in the meeting didn't get it. "Hey, why don't you kiss my ass?" Yeah, you, you missed the joke completely. So, you know, sit and wait, I'll call your number, Francis. You get what I'm saying? And so my thing is that my message is and has always been consistent, so me saying that didn't surprise you. You know my sense of humor and you know I'm not afraid to mix it up, right? So you weren't insulted by that, and the people at the meeting shouldn't have been because they should have learned to expect it from me. And I have to be careful if I go into a new place and start there, I might be too loud, meaning I'm at 11, and you know, the people need me at a two. So that's me, that's a me thing.

Then the other part of it is that, hey, part of it is a you thing. Okay? So if my message is consistent, I'm telling only the truth unless you can convince me that your truth... Okay? Just because you go, "Yeah, but I don't agree with you." That's what's happened to the law now, is people go, "Yeah, well, I know it's a law, but I don't agree with it." Well, you don't have that right. Okay? We're in a democracy, we all voted about this shit. And so I get a kick out of that. And so that, for lack of a better term, two-pronged standard to me is very important. I don't say things to be argumentative. I say things because I want people to realize them in the same way I came to realize them. And what is that? That's walking out of the cave. And what is that? Understanding now that I see it in the clear light of day, vampires dragging in the sunlight. I'm going to say that a lot. That I can't go back. And the problem is that the Uvalde shooter wanted to go back. He wanted to go back to the time before. Why did he kill his grandmother? Because he knew he couldn't come back and he knew he wasn't going to... You know, Mark David Chapman, Charles Whitman, why did he shoot and kill his mom and his girlfriend? Whitman rather, Chapman's yet another one. Yeah. Why? Because I know I'm not coming back. So you've got to listen to those type of frequencies. Why am I leaving the car running out in front of the nightclub? Because I have no intent of valet parking that son of a bitch. I'm going in killing and I'm never coming out. The door open because I'm never coming back.

Subtle messages, Brian, are just as important as the loud bombastic ones that say, "Here I come!" And we have to be equally as conscious of the fact that every one of those forms of self-expression are important because the narrative that I create might not be the narrative that I'm reading. I have to come off of my pulpit and I have to shut up for a minute and I have to listen to what's being said and I have to compare that. I have to create an explanatory storyline and constantly challenge it. And if I don't constantly challenge it, then I'm just buying into rhetoric. And that's why some of the movements that are going on right now worry me. Because like, you know, there is a person that I respect some of their posts on LinkedIn, and then all of a sudden their neurolinguistic side of the house comes out and they go, "Hey, we do the same thing." Well, no, we don't. And then another person that says, "Hey, body language is hugely important, so I see that we're in the same line of work." No, we're not. No, it's not. You want, you want to listen to me about body language, I'll tell you about body language, right? But now if you're talking about hypothesis testing, Brian, yeah, that's, you've got me.

No, and you know, it kind of, kind of goes back to the, to the, to goes back to, to Plato and the allegory of the cave, of, of coming out of, out of the cave. Or what was the, what was the South Park episode where they did about Tom Cruise, "My God, come out of the closet!" Come on. So, no, no, they, they passed the legal standard on their end, maybe we didn't just now openly said he's, yeah, but it was referencing the TV show. But, but the, so no, it goes back to that, that allegory of the cave, right? And it, it goes back to, you know, kind of seeing things for what they are and making sense out of it correctly. And that's why we offer those kind of simple ways of looking at it, of people on transmit. And, you know, I'm being okay with not knowing what the whole story is and just being able to call the important pieces of evidence, the important artifacts, the important, what's the pure signal? Just understanding that is good. I'm never going to know the full story. I'm never going to know specifically maybe what this person was doing this for. But, but, you know, you can determine their intent, you can determine their, their future behavior based on what they've done in the past. And knowing that they're always on transmit is just writing those things down as those examples. And you can kind of come up within the situation what that means. I, I think it's a little bit easier than, than people think if you know how to look, how to listen, how to feel, how to, how to see it clearly without your own kind of sort of preconceived notions. And I know everyone talks about biases and that's great, but, but, you know, there's cognition biases that you need to worry about. And that's kind of what we're talking about here, I think.

So, so let me throw this at you, my last statement on this is that we jumped in and out of tattoos based on the fact of Chopper's tattoo. Well, they're great examples to talk about because if you're willing to, you know, mar your flesh for life, that's pretty important. So when I go back to Aaron, the folks understand, I do not care whether he did it or not because I wasn't involved with the case. If you asked me to look at it, I could look at the evidence and draw a reasonable conclusion and give you my expert opinion. What I'm saying, and I'm, I'm sorry that he likely committed suicide. I'm sorry that he felt that was the only way out. I'm sorry that he had a rough life. What I'm trying to tell you is that he used his body as a movie screen and portrayed some images that needed to be addressed. That's what I'm saying. So use that example: if you have somebody stuck on transmit and they're not wavering from their signal, you're probably getting a pure signal. So hypothesis test it. Look at what patterns they're using in and out of their life with their relationship. And I go back and defend what I said at the very beginning: if somebody started talking to you about rape or, "Hey, I'm selling fentanyl to that school down the road because I don't give a damn about those kids." Okay, you would take action. But that message is coming through loud and clear in other factors that we're not considering. So we have to make sure that we turn our volume down a little bit from 11 and turn theirs up a little bit and try to get the most pure signal before we do a knee-jerk and just draw an unreasonable conclusion. Brian, I would posit that an unreasonable conclusion is much more dangerous than coming up with a reasonable conclusion to you that the court finds, "Okay, well, you didn't know this information, would that change it?" And yes, I would change it. You, you get the point? I mean, sticking with something that's the round peg, square hole, is going to damage for a good long time, not just the case you're in, but tomorrow and months later and years later and how you deal with people. So you've got...

And, and, you know, and then, then the factor of, of time, right? What, what is it over time? The longer the period of time, the, the more reasonable your conclusion can be. Because if you've seen those, those things happen, those patterns over time is the biggest one. I mean, and the Maine shooter, and a person that was close to him writing something that was damning, "Hey, somebody's got to do something. I think this guy's going to be a mass killer." Come on!

And yeah.

And, and you can kind of, you can assume certain things based purely on, on behavior and, and math and, and how we operate, meaning, you know, if you, if you said someone said, "Hey, I quit smoking two weeks ago, how long do you think I'll make it?" And I would say right there, "Two more weeks." And then if they came back to me and said, "Alright, it's been four weeks, how long do you think I'll make it?" I go, "Another four weeks." And they'll come back to me at eight weeks and they go, "You know," meaning as long as you've been doing it is as long as you will continue to do it. So the longer you've been doing something, the more likely you are going to continue doing that. And so, you know, it's, it, the, the time element is, is a really important factor I, I, I would add to that.

That not all cues are equally weighted. Oh my God, if I had a dollar for every time I said that in public and I still don't think people understand. So you remember the Giffords shooting where the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, got the bag, loaded the weapons into the bag, got extra ammo, stole the family's car and drove to the location at the mall where Giffords was speaking to the public before an election and he took out the gun and shot people. How many clues do you have to have? Okay, "Listen, I'm a young man that's got mental problems. I'm transfixed with firearms. I tell you that I'm going to make a message, and the message is going to be resounding." And then I start loading. It reminds me of Talking Heads, my one of my favorite groups ever: "Got us a van loaded with weapons, packed up and ready to go." Okay, I don't need more cues, I need to do something. And then people say, "Well, what would I do?" That's the wrong answer. The answer is enlist the aid of others. And whether that aid is mental health or a doctor or a close family friend or a priest or the gosh damn cops, whatever it is, Brian, that's the point. And when the guy in Maine enlisted the aid of others, it fell on deaf ears. Or, appears to have fallen on deaf ears from what we read.

Yeah. And no, that's a, I think that's a good spot to sort of bring it in for a landing. And, and, you know, anyone has any questions about this obviously too, we have the Patreon site you can check out. And you can just message us on there and we go on there and do a recap and everything like that and answer any questions and, and dive into it. You know, and you can always reach out to us at leftofcg@gmail.com. But, you know, that, that's, we, we, we went over a lot. And it tied back to, I love how you, you go all the way back to Plato, the allegory of the cave, and even to the point of a legal standard of how humans are on transmit, that we literally have the Fifth Amendment so that you don't, because you just, yeah, I forgot. Well, you, you know, you brought up a good point where, you know, you go, "Why, if the person's innocent, why won't they testify?" And their attorneys go, "No, they might say something that, that is going to accidentally incriminate themselves. And or the person goes, 'Look at that body language there, it's hiding something.' We don't need that," you know?

Yeah.

And so, so that, that's the, that's the point that whether they're guilty or innocent, you don't want them speaking either way. Because, you know, you, you'll, humans are constantly on transmit and it will get inferred incorrectly, it will be put into the wrong category of, of, of importance or, or whatever. So it, that was the, "My cousin me, I, I killed the guy, I killed him!" You know, they're reading it out in court, why we do that all the time, see? Roner budy. So, alright, well, I appreciate everyone for tuning in. Like I said, you could check out the Patreon site, we've got even more coming, and stay in touch. And that way you can stay on top of what we're doing and where we're going. We've got a busy, busy year and we've got tons of stuff coming out, so we're super excited. We're excited about the, the, the change in, in the podcast here coming real soon, so get on board with that now. And we, it'll, you, you'll, you'll reap the benefits as it goes forward, I guess I'll put it that way. That, that's my little, my little nudge. But thanks everyone for tuning in, and we've also found that all you've got to do to get a discount on a book is call an ass, apparently. I don't know, someone's listening to that and goes, "Brian doesn't feel validated and wants, you know, something, whatever." Stop hiding in your own cave. Come out and share the light with us. Come on out, come on out, Tom Cruise! So thanks everyone for tuning in, and don't forget that training changes behavior.