Knowing Your Value

Jonathan [00:00:02] Welcome to Not Going Quietly, the podcast where we inspire growth, beat down biases and get into all sorts of good trouble with co-hosts Jonathan Beale and Brit Beast.

Britt [00:00:11] No topic is off limits as we explore ways to help everyone leap into life with a greater sense of clarity, passion, purpose and joy.

Jonathan [00:00:19] So get ready to join us for some courageous conversation because not going quietly. Starts right now.

Britt [00:00:30] Hey, everyone. Welcome to "Not Going Quietly," the podcast for outraged optimist and heartbroken healers all over the world where we have the conversations that nobody else wants to. I'm your host, Britt East with my wonderful co-host Jonathan Beale. And today we're going to talk about knowing your intrinsic value. Jonathan, what in the heck does that even mean? What is my intrinsic value?

Jonathan [00:00:55] That's a really great question, and I will do my very best to answer it. The best way to put it in my view, my opinion is that as individuals, we we hold value regardless of what we might produce or what we might do for others. We are inherently of value and that's been skewed a little bit over the years and societally. And I really want us to reclaim that right, because as existing as a life form is value enough. And if you look at nature. All animals, all life forms have value, not because of what they produce, just because of being a part of the what's the word I'm looking for? What's it called

Britt [00:01:54] the ecosystem

Jonathan [00:01:57] the ecosystem, yes. And while that may sound really lovely and perhaps a little bit rainbows and unicorns because it does look like, I believe there's truth in there and that we get to embrace that.

Britt [00:02:20] Well, OK, I'm an American, so I have questions. Yes. If we all have intrinsic value, then how will we know who's winning? 

Jonathan [00:02:34] OK. I mean. Why does anyone have to win?

Britt [00:02:44] Well if we don't know who's winning, then how will we know how much we should be getting paid?

Jonathan [00:02:54] OK. Right. So capitalism.

Britt [00:02:57] Yes.

Jonathan [00:03:01] OK. So an exchange of value for money. Right. So that that assumes that without true value, we don't deserve life or existence. Yeah, that's correct.

Britt [00:03:20] Yeah, and you know, I mean, I guess one of the things that I suspect a lot of folks watching this might struggle with or my question out of the gate is, you know, this is central to fairness, some degree of personal responsibility. And if so, do we need to collectively incent people to take responsibility? Or do they have that drive in themselves intrinsically? And even if they do have that drive, does it need to be stoked to bring out the best in them so they can win and make money?

Jonathan [00:04:13] So that's the interesting thing, right? We got to where we are today as human beings because somewhere along the line, we began having intrinsic value in tribal systems, right? We provided for each other. We learned how to operate in a world that was damn scary place and that wanted to kill us. And we did that without a wage. We did that purely because we figured out that every member of the tribe had some value and something to bring to the table and everyone got fed. Everyone looked after and everyone was able to exist fairly free of. Having a boss try to get somebody else to say that. And and so as organisms, I believe it is the systems and societal norms such expectations that lead to complacency, not our inherent desire to do nothing.

Britt [00:05:19] Yeah, so I mean, let me give some caveats and back up, obviously, Jonathan and I are not anthropologists or social scientists are just having a coffee klatch here and a thought experiment. So it sounds like there is a certain degree of, um, in indigenous societies, there was a certain degree of equity baked into the cake based on their their role with their environment, and through the industrial revolution, the advent of various technological leaps that role with the environment, their role with their environment changed somewhat, which irrevocably altered the way they treated each other. And then that was further distorted, perverted and magnified with colonialism. Is that too big of a leap?

Jonathan [00:06:15] No, that sounds like a pretty accurate description to me.

Britt [00:06:20] And capitalism started in England in the 16th century, something like that. I'm not a historian, but I think that's when it started. And then of course, it seems like quickly thereafter, England had to push out throughout the world to find new markets and new resources to bring to market, which also kind of accelerated the colonization of the planet. So I think it's all Jonathan's fault. Perhaps because you're the British guy, so.

Jonathan [00:06:54] Well, yeah, I mean, according to my "23 and Me" profile, perhaps not. But, you know, but I'll take that right. I am not above accepting the actions and thoughts of my ancestors and paying back for that right? And to your point, you can't get rich if you don't have more customers, you can't get rich if you don't have more resources. And so, you know, capitalism can only exist in a world where where someone wants more resources and more money, whatever you want to call it, and more people to exploit in the process. Right.

Britt [00:07:50] And I think you could even say winners and losers. Capitalism is based on a zero sum game of winners and losers, which gets back to my original point. How do I know if I'm winning?

Jonathan [00:08:01] Well, you're "winning" if you're Jeff Bezos, right? If what you've managed to do is exploit so many people that your bank balance is now so huge that it would take you many thousands of lifetimes to spend it, while the people you employ are suffering and unable to make rent, unable to put food on their table, and unable to live freely in this world. That's how you know you're winning.

Britt [00:08:29] So how do we resist that? Like I know there's concepts of universal basic income and things like that. How can we resist the relentless drive of capitalism to to further polarize winners and losers and create almost a second gilded age that we're living in?

Jonathan [00:08:51] Well, I mean, I think it starts with shifting attitudes, right? I think it's it's very difficult to break out of a system that we feel proud of. And, you know, working in the industry that I have done for, so for a long time, a hustle culture as one thing and you know, working yourself into an early grave for the sake of a few extra pounds or dollars is lauded as this magical thing that you must do in order to to exist in the system that we have. And it's it's almost a trophy, right? And so unless that attitude changes, unless we are willing to demand something different and see it for what it is, which is which is pure exploitation, right? Governments are doing it. Businesses are doing it. Governments in particular are doing it in such a way that made me lose my train of thought. So maybe I'll come back to it in a second.

Britt [00:09:57] Well, you got me thinking. You got me thinking that like, it almost sounds like conversations around reparations. So one conversation we're having in the US now about race is, and how should we, and how would we, create a system of reparations to in some way acknowledge or atone for the genocide of the indigenous peoples who lived here before white people arrived and/or chattel slavery? And how would it work? And it's one of those concepts where I think there's a lot of agreement among laypeople conceptually, but maybe not much awareness or many ideas of how to actually operationalize that. OK, so we want reparations, OK, so we want a universal basic income. What would that look like? How would it be and how do we come to some sort of, if not consensus, collective agreement?

Jonathan [00:10:57] Yes, and that's kind of that's where the difficulty begins, right, because things like universal basic income still exist within a capitalist system. And so but also within a monetary system that is, you know, inflationary and. And so leads us to a place where even if you decide on a set up, you are you are still trapped in capitalism. We are. We are trapped in a system. We're trapped in capitalism, which means that someone always has to win. And so even if we go down the route of universal basic income, someone is still winning because the money is going up, not coming down. And even if we're in a position where everybody is in a place where you know their rent is paid, they can put food on the table, they can pay their bills. We're still operating within that existing system, and I don't think that necessarily works. Why do I think it's a great step forward? While I think that that it would have dramatic effects on on productivity and the way that people engage with society and community at large and and I think it likely would encourage smaller businesses to be started and for people to follow their passions and for local economies to thrive. As a result, I think we're still in a world where big corporations end up receiving the bulk of it and that one man or multiple men because it is mostly get richer and richer and richer and more powerful, and that ultimately we're going to end up in "Blade Runner," right?

Britt [00:12:59] A movie I really like, by the way. But that's great. So yeah, but you did get me thinking that, you know, I think you might be right, because when you look at how wages in the US have increased recently, we've also experienced a sudden round of what we'd like to call "inflation," which is really just a cutesy pie way of saying rich people like money. That the equity owners of all the various companies are not lowering their prices, or even keeping their prices the same. They're raising their prices to match the excess demand, but not the increased earning power of the labor force, and there's all sorts of reasons for that. We're recording this episode in January 2022, where there's all sorts of exigent circumstances that we don't need to go into now. But I think the larger point still stands that as people have more buying power, by and large prices get increased. And so to your point, it kind of nets out. It's kind of self-healing self-protecting.

Jonathan [00:14:06] Yes. And not only that, we live in, we live in a world such that many of the conveniences that we enjoy are provided by big corporations, right? And so you look at Amazon as an example. It is much easier for somebody to purchase something that they want from a service that guarantees you'll get it over the same day or the next day, no matter where you live, then to go to a local business. Right. We are so entrenched in our ideas around convenience that that it wouldn't matter. We would still end up in a position where people are handing over well earned cash to to the very people that are causing the biggest issues in our world.

Britt [00:14:58] Now I've teased Jonathan for years that many of us in the US view the UK as a communist Third World country, so I was kind of curious when you were talking about it. Does this exist in the UK as well?

Jonathan [00:15:18] Yes, yes. And don't get me wrong, right? The UK is a welfare state, right? We are. We have National Health Service. We have benefits available to anybody for anything if they want it. And that's not strictly true, right? They do exist. But the culture here is very much one of if you accept, if you accept support from your government in any way, shape or form outside of public health care that you are sponging off the nation. And so that dissuades a lot of people from taking up the support that's available to them because nobody wants to be seen as stealing from the country, which is what it's labeled as right. And so yes, our experience is the same. Our our while we have while we have many benefits. You know, health care as one, which pretty much all nations, except for the US half, don't they? I think I think our experience is very much the same, it's one of if you were to look at our government, for instance, we have been essentially run by the Conservatives for all of time, by the odd few moments here or there where our liberal labor have taken power. And so there's a there's a really insipid and prevalent view on productivity and being that being a part of society means working your ass off for very little in return. We still here have very low wages for key staff such as health workers and, you know, every hour, everywhere else that don't allow an individual to live or, you know, eat and where previously. And it's similar in the US that an individual could support an entire family and purchase a house that absolutely isn't true now. And so circumstances, while they are slightly different, they are in many ways the same.

Britt [00:17:49] It seems a little odd to have all these services, more than like in in the US. It's like we don't have those services. We have a lot of stigma. And you know, there there's maybe, you know, it's not like it was in the thirties when the Great Depression where there was zero safety net. Now we do have a safety net for crisis management, you might call it. But you know, by and large, we don't have nearly the number of services that you do. We just have a whole lot of stigma, but it's like you have the services and the stigma seems kind of.

[00:18:24] Yes, we do.

[00:18:25] Why have those services then?

Jonathan [00:18:27] So the reason is that labor, mostly which is our liberal political party, set most of the services up and and the country to a large degree did believe for a long time that we should be supporting each other and therefore it makes sense for our government to support us through the taxes that we pay. And so that did exist for a long time, and certainly that was a that was a kind of postwar thing that happened here and. Then joining the EU and being involved in that project very much made us view public services as a thing that was important. And then the whole anti-EU rhetoric appeared and the Conservatives became just like your Republicans and only want power and money and nothing else. You know that people who were supposed to be working for us, not for themselves. But I digress. And the narrative shifted. And what we're actually seeing now is a slow erosion of our public services and a sell off and a privatization effort. And I think it's only a matter of time before the NHS is privatized. And I wouldn't be surprised if it's heading down the track that we're heading down, that we might even end up with an insurance based health care system like YouTube. Because. Conservatism has got its. Claws in. And whilst. I can respect a lot of conservatives, and I understand. Their policies and I understand the decisions they take.

Britt [00:20:28] I feel a big but coming.

Jonathan [00:20:30] The huge but massive but or an and maybe and there are there are certain actors who have bastardized what conservatism means. And and I see that in the US as much as I see and I follow us politics quite closely. So I see it in the US just as much as I see it in the UK. And there's a twisted nationalist populist version of conservatism taking over that. That that's sole aim is to make the value of humans less so that corporations and rich people can get richer.

Britt [00:21:13] It seems like one response that's gained popular traction, especially, I think, among the youth in this country. And I'm curious if it's similar in the UK is almost like a what I'll call a radical rest movement, where there is a movement to take time for yourself and indulge in all those things that have been stigmatized that you're not supposed to do, like take a nap or take a long walk on the beach. Or you know where previous generations in the US thought you're meant to be at work. And if you're not working, you're meant to be with your family or in church or something productive for society, you know, career at the top of the list. But you know, on country and religion and family know falling shortly thereafter, there's almost this individualistic resting movement as this kind of radical response to hustle culture and in what used to be called the American work ethic, which was kind of based on rugged individualism. And maybe what was before that kind of like the puritanical work ethic that we have sort of ascribed to our, you know what some people might call forefathers? Is there something analogous to that in the UK? Do you have that as well?

Jonathan [00:22:39] Yeah, we do. London is a is a great example. There's a horrific approach to productivity and a desire to be seen as as the person who's worked the most and not even necessarily the person that's produced the most, just the person that's worked the most, which is really sad. And I have more to say. Being the operative son may be on this podcast, right? Like just all of these times, I have something really interesting to say and it just leaves my mind. It's great.

Britt [00:23:17] Well, one of the, you know, the cool things that seems logical to me in that response is the rejection of the resistance of what you might call the lie of capitalism. Like you were saying that that there's some skin in the game or that my value is based on my compensation or productivity. And if your value increases, somehow mine is diminished. You're in that kind of lie, which results in a, you know, it's a zero sum game that results in a artificial constraints on opportunity. You know, one of the things that Jonathan I have been talking about before the show was that like, you know, there are these lies out there that's like, we shouldn't be exploring outer space, for instance, because we don't have the resources. We should spend that money here on the US. Yes. And that maybe that's a lie because we actually have enough money to cure poverty induced hunger if we only wanted to. We actually have we, meaning Elon Musk has enough money to cure, you know, to buy everybody at home. Yeah, you know, if we wanted to, we just don't want to. That's a little blurb, but you know, you get the point. And so that's one of the things that I respect about this. What I'm kind of dubbing this radical rest movement is that they're know, lifting the curtain on some of these lies that many of us don't have the capacity to question in our everyday life because we're so tired and busy and stressed on this work.

Jonathan [00:25:00] Yes. Yes. And you know, like I said, I follow US politics. So, you know, I'm really aware of the great resignation. Which I think is a fabulous thing, by the way. And this whole idea of forming unions, that was a it was the first ever Starbucks union formed in. I remember which state it was brilliant, right? Because somewhere along the line, we've been convinced. That we don't matter. The bottom line of the company that we work for does that we don't. And that that means that even if we did hold value, it's disposable and. All that matters is, is that someone is there to do the work required to make the money for the person that owns the business and. Doesn't matter who you are. It's just that someone's there, and what that means is that respect has been lost, respect for the employee has been lost and that's not always been the case. That was different, maybe even only 30 years ago. And so I'm I'm really on board with the rest revolution. All right. Anthropologically. And this is something that studies have shown. Hunter-Gatherers worked, actively worked their survival no more than 20 hours per week. The rest was for rest and fun and enjoyment, which certainly not working 80 hours a week for their food or survival. Right. And we are simply not designed to be working at that capacity. And if you look at any productivity studies, most people are not productive for anywhere near the amount of time they are at work. I think programmers in particular are in an eight hour, nine hour period, only coding for three hours. And so this whole idea that we are trading our time for money is so outdated and so ridiculous because I mean one, people can't afford to live and that's just not OK. But also, you know, if you wanted to shift that slightly, however, output for money. How about outcomes for money rather than I'm going to make you work eight hours a day for this thing. I know you're not working all eight hours. I know you're only doing about three or four, but I'm going to make you show up for that time. Suck the life out of you. And that's the point, right? They're trying to keep you, but trying to keep you in the system. When you get to the end of your day, you're so exhausted you can't figure out how to find a way out of it.

Britt [00:28:02] Yeah, and you think about the cost, all that is lost from society in terms of the rites of passage. It's not just that we would have the time to sit around playing video games or to needlepoint. It's that you could, in theory, actually commune with one another. We could cultivate healthier lifestyles. We could implement physical fitness regimens. We could love each other more, we could experience more togetherness, we could create more important art, all of that stuff. But I can hear Jonathan, a lot of listeners, especially in the US, saying, that's nice. Hunter-Gatherers were cool, but they didn't have penicillin. They didn't know. And so is there. What is the trade off and is it? Is it? Is it a false trade off? Like, is that one or the other? Or is there some way to craft this utopia where we get the best of both worlds because some technological innovation is obviously, you know, evil and others has really positively impacted the quality and quantity of life? Yes, and the generations that follow?

Jonathan [00:29:21] Yes. So there's a number of things in there, like one, let's talk about the whole automation thing. A.I. and automation was supposed to make us work less because because machines would do it for us, right? Quality of life was supposed to go out. We were supposed to have three day work weeks or whatever, and it just never materialized. We just ended up with Jeff Bezos and and and to to your point about the Hunter-Gatherer Thing, and that's nice. And if you look at pretty much all UBI Universal Basic Income studies and experiments, there is always a percentage of people who just want to sit on their ass, play video games. There always is. You cannot get away from that, but that is true of any society, any structure. The vast majority of people do spend more time on connection, do spend more time on the community at large, do spend more time on doing the things that they love and exploring the things that they love. And what I really see now is that societally people just need a job, which means that there are countless people doing work that doesn't fulfill them, that doesn't like them up there could be reserved for people who actually enjoy doing that right. But we're stuck in a system designed to keep people in jobs that they hate. There are probably countless Einsteins out there. There are countless, you know, artists and musicians that aren't putting their work out into the world and enriching our society because they can't because they don't have the opportunity to because they. Can't afford to live because the opportunities were never presented to them because they grew up in a place where poverty was designed as a function of society and clearly passionate about this.

Britt [00:31:12] Yeah, it's like you got the Holy Ghost and I was just going to let you go on. But I have a strange question for you. It's a little off the cuff and I've just made it up. Maybe I'm plagiarizing someone, but I don't think so. I think I just made it up. Are people the new countries? What I mean by that is, let's take an extreme example of people Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg. Are they now so powerful? They are actually nations, as in the US? You see that we are unable to hold them accountable for much of anything. They don't pay taxes. Much less are they held accountable for all the harm they're doing, like in our political system, et cetera, with their products and services. So in effect, not only them, but are all of us now nations? We now have these through technology, through the through the court and Zuckerberg and others for the Metaverse. We now have these worlds that are fingertips that we now create, like gods. Are we the new nations?

Jonathan [00:32:14] I don't think we are. I think corporations are. I think there are faces to corporations. As an example, if you look at Apple's market cap, it's just overtaken. Basically, the UK is GDP, I think, which is outrageous. Was it Germany might not be the UK yet, but almost is close. And so when, when, when an organization, when a corporation is larger than a country? Of course, of course. Right. How can you possibly hold an entity to account that has as much power and influence as it does? Because if it wants to change something, it just throws money at it, which we know makes the world go round our world?

Britt [00:33:06] Right? Yeah. And there are multinationals. So it's like, Yeah, I can just relocate at the drop of a hat. I mean, that's famously been done when Microsoft moving to Ireland and Apple's move around. So yeah, absolutely. One thing I did want to kind of back up on with the rest revolution is kind of talk about we talked about some of the positives. Let's talk about some of the negatives associated with that because it's part of a capitalist system. Inevitably, there is relentless continuous pressure to be consumed by that system. And what that I think can look like is the the bolstering of some of these cultural norms that we were talking about previously, like rugged individualism, meaning I deserve to rest a screw everybody else. I'm going to go take a nap and I'm going to go play this video game because I'm worth it. I'm perfect as I am, or because I want to like the some of those personal growth and development theories out there where the universe kind of becomes my ATM because I want it. I will get it. I will, I will manifest it. And it's can, I think, become another way to sell products. But most importantly, in services. Most importantly, it ignores all the people who lack the privilege to take that now because they're so busily just busy hustling just to survive because they stand at the intersection of race and maybe neurodivergent neurotypical thought and behavior, maybe ablest bias and bigotry, queer phobia, misogyny, they stand at intersections. I mean, we all stand at those intersections, but in particular, they're being harmed or they're working in industries that are now so beyond the pale. Big pharmaceutical industries, big agricultural industries that, like some of the technology companies we focused on earlier, are really kind of exploitation factories.

Jonathan [00:35:26] Yes. I forgot what your question.

Britt [00:35:29] So it's basically I just want us to acknowledge that there's a seedy underside to this and and then any conversation we have, we have to start with the harm and then follow it up with the privilege. Like, for instance, I have such a mix of privilege and adversity in my life, and I have the privilege of being able bodied. I have the privilege of being white, the privilege of being American and ostensibly male neurotypical. And I have an excellent job. All of that is all of that is privilege, meaning unearned advantages there. While I have done some work to earn my position in my company, there's plenty of other people who could have earned it and done just as good a job or not. Better yet, somehow I find myself here. And so for me, morally based on my moral code, it is incumbent on me to take as much of the income as I can afford to reinvest and those portions of society that don't have the same level of privilege. So, you know, engaging with queer owned businesses, minority owned businesses, giving, making as much as many charitable contributions as I can, and then also working on various fronts to kind of to help take down some of the structural, institutionalized, bigoted systems that keep the thumb on these people and prevent them from living what we here used to call the American dream, which is long dead now at this point.

Jonathan [00:37:02] Yeah, it's it's interesting because one of the things I've been writing about a lot recently is is the the inherent privilege in so many of these uprisings. Especially around things like the idea of manifestation and all of those things are so inherently privileged and and the idea that you can sit around and dream about something and exist pretty much only happens to white people. Well, in the West and and I think it kind of gets my back up a little bit right because I like I hate it. I hate it. And and there's an there's an element in in in flaunting your lifestyle that you have gained through mostly privileged means.

Britt [00:37:59] Instagram.

Jonathan [00:38:01] Yeah, I really owe it to whatever, wherever I write the I really I really struggle with because it is usually straight white people telling everybody that they can have whatever life they want. And that's just ridiculous in the system that we have and the set up that we have, it is unrealistic. It is shortsighted.

Britt [00:38:27] It is insulting and often a con job. But too often they're selling stuff. There's a lot of people just selling the dream for no money because a lot of other people are selling services to help, you know, help foster that lie. It becomes a pyramid scheme.

Jonathan [00:38:45] Yeah, no, it does. And and you know, I see people I have known some people selling those promises and and making a great deal of money out of people who want a better life, but aren't. Aren't perhaps aware that these people aren't doing it purely so that they can live the life they want and know that people will give them money because of who they are, because it's systemic because, well, they're saying it, so it must be true. And at no point to these individuals lift up. Minority groups or or people with voices that matter in places that don't get attention and. And that irritates me a lot.

Britt [00:39:39] Yeah, absolutely. In the same way that reality television is not reality. Instagram, Tick Tock, Facebook is not reality. It is not reality, and many of us lack the capacity to understand that. And the final point I wanted to make on the risk revolution, the negative sides of it is that globally, people that have to hustle to earn a living, turn a buck and feed their families don't need a nap. They need good working conditions. They need a fair wage. They need affordable health care. You know, so. So we shouldn't. We need nuanced conversations where we don't blame the people that are being oppressed for their own oppression. And it's so easy to slip into that, especially as straight white people that are part of an age that are part of this technology revolution. With social media, it's so easy to inadvertently or consciously become part of that problem, or we continue to and maybe even increase the stigma blaming people for their lot in life, their circumstances in which they find themselves in a given moment. They didn't work hard enough or they're not smart enough, or they weren't educated at the right place. However, the story goes, or maybe it's more implicit like you were describing with just a beautiful Instagram photos and Bali trying to sucker people in to have a similar life that by and large workers need is equity. Yeah.

Jonathan [00:41:15] Yeah, I am. I actually want to come back to something you said earlier, which was the whole idea of kind of the me first aspect of this, which is, you know, I deserve it and therefore I'm going to take it regardless. In a very isolationist kind of way. And and and to that point, I really, really, really deeply believe that the key to overcoming all of this is actually community, that the key to us realizing the power, perhaps that we have to to create better lives, not just for ourselves, but for everybody else, is to to come back to recognizing the power of community and and actually not in an echo chamber style way that things like Facebook have created, where there are singular views that unless you believe it, you're not allowed in in a really considered communicative, honest, uncomfortable way. Because when we're able to do that, we're able to see more of our commonalities than our differences and. And we are more likely to engage in activities and behaviors that support the whole over the individual. And that's where the value bit comes in. Actually, that's where the value of it comes in, because when engaging in community, when you are with your group of friends, often you don't need them around because of what they do for you. You, you want them around because of who they are, and they may add things to your life inadvertently or purely by accident and just by the nature of who they are or what they are. And that's. That's actually what I mean by inherent value. You it's not the doing, it's the being, it's the enriching of each other's lives in ways that only you can do. You can be rather. Yeah. I just wanted to add that point.

Britt [00:43:43] I think, yeah, I mean, I think togetherness in many ways is the antidote to capitalism. It's much it's much more effective to sell to individuals. One to one. Marketing is much more effective than one. Too many marketing people purchase as individuals, meaning we have, you know, by and large individual bank accounts. We don't have communal property other than in the family, but I'm talking about larger communities. And so what capitalism first must do is separate us.

Jonathan [00:44:16] In order to it does a mighty fine job at it, doesn't it?

Britt [00:44:19] Yeah, in order to effectively sell to us, the first must separate us and it does such a great job because it's been relentlessly distilled and perfected for generations now. If it started in the sixteen hundreds. Fifteen sixteen hundreds. And now we are in 2022. That's a long time to perfect its craft. And so it's it's we participate it, we participate in it unwittingly and all sorts of ways that we likely aren't aware of and don't acknowledge. And it's really tough in this day and age to extract yourself from a capitalist society and actually still just survive. Whereas in previous centuries you could do it depending on where you lived, you could go to India and live off the land, or you can have a self-sustaining community in the US. There are movements around that. And in this day and age, it's really kind of, I think, difficult in the US, if not the entire world, to fully extract yourself from that system and be self-sufficient. Yeah, I agree. So where do we go from here? I mean, you know, how do we start to focus on the collective care that you were describing yet still, you know, I mean, people are so tired. It's like trying to get anybody to concentrate on anything in this day and age, anti-racism, misogyny, anything. It's like people are so tired, so hungry, working, so hard feeding their families. Having multiple generations living inside their home can barely make rent living on wages from the 1970s. I mean, how do we start to make a change that's actually realistic and isn't just sort of like entitled privileged jerking off?

Jonathan [00:46:11] Well, I think it starts with stopping seeing each other as the enemy and and seeing the true enemy, which is those that seek to. Keep us small and malleable. And. And beyond that, I think it's very much an extension of exactly what I see happening in the US at the moment, which is demanding better, which is not rolling over, which is coming together to demand more. And and the reason that I talk so much about community is that. When you are not isolated, it becomes much easier to know that you are supported, and the more that we isolate ourselves, the more that we are forced to isolate ourselves because the system is designed to keep us that way. The harder it becomes to rely on the community, and so actually it begins with attributing blame in the correct place and ends with choosing to engage and choosing to be a part of either your local community or some form of community beyond the one that you already have, or maybe even the one that already exists for you being a much more active participant in that.

Britt [00:47:39] You know, I'm in the U.S., so I'm going to make it about money. I think that if at all possible or wherever possible, we can start to set aside small portions of our income devoted to our own self care and investing in our own health and wellness through all sorts of means. Whether it's reading books, joining groups, hiring coaches, mentors, teachers, going on retreats. You know, if we have the means as individuals to rest, we should rest and then leverage that replenishment to lift up others just like we can never set down privileged because it's always conferred upon us extrinsic. All we can do is leverage that privilege to lift up others. I think the same is true here, so we can literally set aside some money as we're able, even if it's pennies in a jar to start to invest in ourselves. And then as we as we the tide rises, as our replenishment gains, we can start to direct that money or develop new streams of savings, however small, that we then invest in other minority owned companies, for instance, so that we or charitable donations so that we're again the rising tide where we are putting the blame, where truly resides, which is in the large corporations, especially the multinational corporations, and then redirecting those hard won resources to the small individual businesses, particularly run and operated and owned by people who have experienced various forms of oppression. That's something small that we can all do over time. I'm not diminishing how hard it might be, especially in this day and age of 1970s wages to start to cultivate a prudent reserve to start to cultivate a savings. But even if it's pennies in the jar, I think we can start to stoke our awareness to read books for free or to purchase books, to purchase courses or participate for free and community programs to educate ourselves and then use all that. We gain leverage all that we've gained to redirect that, to lift up others. I think that is something that almost everyone can do in some way. If we were to get creative and and think about truly all that we have at our hands and fingertips.

Jonathan [00:50:16] Yeah, yeah, I think I think. Yeah, I think for those that really struggle with the monetary thing and I know there are many, you know, one of the key reasons that I referenced community so much is that so much of what you need doesn't require money. When you have a community that supports you. I know that because I experience it and. And I think that's wonderful.

Britt [00:50:48] Yeah. I mean, the best things in life really are free and unpurchasable even. Yes, yes. You know, they cannot be bought and we cannot be bought and sold much as capitalism lies to us and tells us we can. We actually none of us can truly be bought, bought and sold. There's some piece of us, at the very least, that remains untouched. And by investing in that peace and nurturing and it will grow, and over time we can, we can start to shine that light with the rest of the world and and lift each other up in a way that doesn't that isn't at the beck and call of these public held multinational corporations.

Jonathan [00:51:34] Yes, absolutely.

Britt [00:51:36] I think that's a good place to leave it. I really enjoyed this conversation today. I learned a lot. This is not something that I've necessarily studied in, and so it's really exciting to talk about it. And I and I really learned a lot by talking with you.

Jonathan [00:51:50] Yeah, absolutely. And I think I think, you know, we admit that we are not the source of information, all truth on this matter. And so we'd love to engage with you listeners on this. Leave his comments. Let us know what you think, because this is not an echo chamber.

Britt [00:52:11] Amen to that. Well, you have been listening to "Not Going Quietly." We're so glad you joined us on this episode. As we talked about knowing your intrinsic value and worth. I think it was a really enlightening topic, a really important topic, and I can't wait to hear your comments, as Jonathan said. And and I hope that you share this with the world. I'm Bret Easton. My co-host Jonathan Bill until next time. Thanks, everyone. Bye bye. You've been listening to not going quietly with co-host Jonathan Beale and Brit East,

Jonathan [00:52:46] thanks so much for joining us on this wild ride as we explore ways to help everyone leap into life with a greater sense of clarity, passion, purpose and joy.

Britt [00:52:54] Check out our show notes for links, additional information and episodes located on your favorite podcast platform.