 I really should learn how to use this gimbal. So I was out there in the waves and a lifeguard was yelling at me. I didn't even hear her. It must not have been very impressive because she came swimming out to check on me. Beautiful young woman, very fit. It's kind of nice having a beautiful young woman come check you out in the waves. Walking on the Santa Monica beach and this big Roe v. Wade procession came by like 150, like 80% women, 90% women protesting about Roe v. Wade. But I couldn't get my gimbal and my camera working. I tried to join them for a while. I was protesting religion, very fired up about Roe v. Wade. So I can't think of any ways that this doesn't help the Democrats, right? So I think it's just a question how much it helps the Democrats. So does it help them a little bit? Does it help them a lot? And it also raises the question like how much do you fight against the tide? I was once caught in a rip tide and the harder I swam to try to get back to shore. Like the more tired I got, the more desperate I got and like the worst position I got. And it's kind of like that in life, isn't it? Sometimes you don't want to be like fighting against the tide all the time. So when I eventually surrendered to the tide and started just going with the tide and swimming to the side, then everything got a lot better. Richard Spencer just talked about this in a recent phone call on his sub-stack that he got caught in a river and was trying to meet some people and the harder he swam, the further behind he got. So when he eventually surrendered to the tide and let it pull him around the corner, eventually got out and was able to walk to the place he wanted to go. So when I got caught in a rip tide in the ocean, I allowed it to take me out to sea and then I stopped fighting the tide directly but just swam to the side and eventually got out of the rip currents and was able to get back to shore. Maybe it's like that with a lot of social currents, right? How many social currents do you want to be fighting, right? Particularly in the workplace, you don't want to be fighting a lot of social currents and I think a lot of it depends upon your personality, right? Do you have an agreeable personality? The more agreeable your personality, then probably the fewer social currents you want to be fighting. Now, there are some extraordinary people who are highly disagreeable, right? So for them, they get a charge out of taking on everybody. They're always willing to disagree, they're always willing to fight. Not many people are highly disagreeable. So generally speaking, an agreeable personality is much more socially effective. So how much do you want to fight against the tides around you? Like if you're a conservative, do you always want to be saying homosexual when everyone around you is saying gay? Like if everyone around you hates Donald Trump at work, you really want to be fighting everyone around you. If all your neighbors hate, you know, MAGA, you really want to be fighting all your neighbors. If you go to an Orthodox synagogue, but you're out of step with Orthodox Judaism in some ways, you really want to be fighting the people you doven with and eat with and dance with and pray with and socialize with and cross not. So Richard Spencer was talking about you just go with the tide in many things and just let society progress. And maybe you can help pick up the pieces and things fall apart. So one of my favorite sayings is that which cannot continue eventually won't. So if one feels hopeless about certain trends in society, there are say anti-nature that are against the way that people walk against human nature, against reality, then maybe you don't have to waste energy fighting these tides. Maybe instead just let them play out and eventually the tide will beat you in a good place. If your Jewish and everyone around you is anti-Semitic, maybe it's time to move. So I mean, how much energy do you have to fight the social currents around you? I love the approach of 12 step, which says we no longer fight, need to fight anyone or anything. And that's really helped me. So I'm very rarely in conflict with the people around me to the best of my knowledge. And for all I know, I'm just sewing chaos and discord everywhere I go. But I'd largely, to my knowledge, I'd largely stop fighting with the people around me and I just try to see things with a sense of humor. I just try to see things in a sense of just trying to understand reality, just trying to understand what's going on and just try to understand. To me, that's a lot more helpful than like constantly being at war. Like being at war, fighting the tide is absolutely exhausting, but an attitude of curiosity, I find a lot more helpful. And an attitude of like, what's the, where's the humor here? You know, what's funny about this? Because fighting just wears me out. And I'm in constant fight mode. I get tired and make bad judgments. Doesn't seem to really serve me. So these days, I just want to be curious, because many of the trends in society, not in alignment with my generally conservative outlook on life, particularly when I live in Los Angeles. But the other thing that helps me, the 12 step philosophy is that God grant me the courage to change the things I can change and to accept the things I can't and the wisdom to make a difference. But I actually find it much more useful to take the acceptance bit first. Like let me just accept everything and then out of that comes serenity, right? It's not so much me needing to find the wisdom to decide the things I need to fight, the things I need to accept. Let me just accept reality around me. Then I find serenity and then it becomes clear where I can appropriately take action. So, I think we underestimate how much influence we really can have as long as we don't go about it in a desperate or rabid fashion, as long as we don't demand that people pay attention to us. We don't pressure people, right? We don't undercut people's dignity. We don't insist as long as we don't expect them to change. But when we just share our perspective on things, or share the books we're reading or the podcast we're listening to, then it's kind of surprising the impact that you can have. So, I think we underestimate the impact we can have as long as we don't go about it in a needy, demanding, strident, unappealing way. Then we do make a little bit of a difference in the world. Have a realistic understanding. Yeah, we can affect people, but without demanding that people change or bend to our will. But how do you deal with the currents and the tides of one society, particularly when you feel like most of them are going against you? And you feel like most of them are opposed to what you stand for? How much do you fight them? How effective are you? How much does that weigh you down? Is that really in your best interests? Do we constantly at war with the world around you? So I guess Christians have the attitude be in the world, but not of the world. Maybe that's one perspective. Another perspective is to largely retreat into your in-group. Because if you have an in-group that you're largely in harmony with, then that's what I experienced with Orthodox Judaism. I've got an in-group that I feel in harmony with. And so I'm not fighting my in-group over anything of which I'm aware. And so it's not tiring for me to spend time with my in-group. And so I just choose to spend most of my spare time with my in-group. And that way I'm not at war with the world around me. Yeah, to be in the world, but not of the world. But that's helpful, but I think one has to find that in-group as well. Because we are in this world and going through this world largely on one's own, it's just debilitating. It's just so much weaker. And so it's fine to go work a job with a bunch of people who, say, have perspectives on life that are completely antithetical to one's own. If you can then get recharged by spending the evening with your in-group, or at least spending the morning going to synagogue, or going to a 12-step meeting, or going to a yoga class, or wherever your in-group is, you've got to get recharged, man. Yeah, my in-group is the people that have been with used to me since the chat, where we're in the world, but not of the world. And then I find we have a lot of effect on how other people relate to us and treat us, right? So if you treat other people with respect and with dignity, they, generally speaking, respond in kind, but when they don't, we can distance ourselves. Disrespectful, we can usually distance ourselves and spend more time with the people who are respectful. I think some people are cut out to be fighters much more than other people. Some people cut out to be great social campaigners. So Theodor Herzl established Zionism, modern Zionism, but at a tremendous personal cost. Like, his family life is absolutely horrible. So a lot of rabbis in their mission to teach Judaism, to often run, you know, rush out over their families. So I remember Avi Wise, a modern Orthodox rabbi and a big social justice warrior driving down the road and his young daughter said to him, rabbi rabbi. And he said to her, you know, you don't need to call me rabbi, you're my daughter. And she said to him, well, when I called you Abba, when I called you father, you didn't respond. So she tried calling him father, he didn't respond. She only got his attention when she called him rabbi. I think that's an amazing story. Kind of shows where our attention's at. We tend to be most excited and attuned to those parts of our life where we feel most powerful. So in the family, I mean, I feel very powerful. In your family. So your attention is largely devoted to say your work. That's where you feel powerful. I think many men leave their wives and they're not getting a sense of appreciation with their wives who've been, you know, washing their dirty underwear for 20 years and then have the same sense of awe and respect and admiration that the guy's secretary has for him. So we orient ourselves towards those communities and those endeavors and those people make us feel important. We have to also use good judgment because if we're desperate for that feeling of importance, it makes us really easy to manipulate. So I was reading that biography of Jacob Talbus. He had an incredible ability to manipulate people. Maybe even played a role in several suicides. But Talbus didn't directly cause the suicides. But we're so desperate for that acknowledgement. That feeling of importance, we can go off course.