 Welcome to coronavirus and mental health. Today is March 16th, 2022, and I'm Ken coming to you from Haleva on the North Shore. It's official. We are now in the third year of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, this period has been characterized by fear, anxiety, and anger. Just when the coronavirus seems to be receding, just when our case counts are going down, war comes up on the horizon. We have uncertainty piled upon uncertainty, stress upon stress. Here today to talk about this is a very special co-host, a man who has given think-check away 20 years of successful programming. I'm proud to introduce Mr. Jay Fidel. Hi, Ken. Nice to be on the show. Thank you very much for inviting me. My pleasure. Thank you for coming. Now, the war, I know you've been thinking about the war as it has everybody, and I'm sure your other hosts on your think-check away have also thought about it. I'm just here to do one of the things I wanted to ask you was what's your takeaway from all this so far as the war is unfolding in front of us? Well, it's interesting. It's a combination because we started out with two years plus of COVID, of staying largely at home, of deconstructing our lives into staying at home, and not having the same kind of relationships and engagements that we had before. Sometimes that's been great. Really. There are people I didn't want to talk to. But sometimes there are people I did want to talk to, and when I think in the reverie of the late afternoon, how life is different because of COVID, I think of all the friends that I've grown distant from, honestly, people I used to take a walk with and have a meal with. I don't have them as close to me anymore. Sometimes it's an effort to pick up the phone and call them. It's more of an effort to do Zoom with them. Unbalanced, I feel a little bit isolated. Thank goodness I have a nice home life, and that keeps me going. I should have to think how I would feel if I didn't have a nice home life. Then, as you said in your opening, on top of that, we get Ukraine. Ukraine actually exacerbates the whole thing to the nth degree. It's hard actually to put any metric on it because it is so much worse than just isolation. When you add to that, let's not forget climate change. So you get COVID, you get climate change, and you get Ukraine. I don't know how you feel about this. People feel differently at different levels of perception, but I feel that Ukraine is really a third world war right now. I think it could easily be the end of the world as we know it. It's the return of the Cold War in spades. It's madness, as 1938 was madness, and the likelihood in my view, and I think I'm right, is that it will affect every man, woman, and child on the planet. It's not just Ukraine. It's everywhere. And so you have got to be thinking about that. So you add those three things together. The thoughtful person is going to still continue to worry about COVID because it's raging in some places. It's surging in some places. And climate change is inexorable. It's going to have us for lunch. It is having us for lunch. Wait till the summer. And finally, Ukraine. Ukraine is an example of something that is man-made, completely man-made and totally mad. And yet it will affect all of us. So take those three things together. And where can you run? The Pacific Northwest is not acceptable. Possibly Saturn would be good. But there's just no way to run. You're kind of locked in to those three things. I'm a little more optimistic than you, Jay. I think that, yes, this is a potential for a third world war. But I also think it's a potential for finishing war off as we know it. Because in addition to all the isolation that we have, we are now in global communication with everybody. So it's sort of like you have both sides together. Both ends of the continuum. And once people understand that and hopefully once Putin understands this, and I think he's beginning to get the idea that this war is right in everybody's living room across the globe, like no other war before it has been. And people are looking at this, and they're seeing these actions for what they are. And it is not going well for Putin's image. And it's not going as well as he expected. And it's going to get worse because what happens is while we're isolated from people physically with the coronavirus and everything else, we are also very much in touch with him, just like I'm in touch with you on Zoom and in touch with all my friends on the mainland and elsewhere. People of the world are in touch with this, and they're beginning to respond. And once they respond, the message is going to be clear. Now Putin is using an old technique, an old psychological technique of censorship. And you get agreement with your people by making sure that no dissenting words are heard. Well, that's only working a little effectively, not very much in today's thing because we're breaching that gap. And a lot of the Russian people are seeing world's opinion coming in through their computers and their iPhones and everything. And it is becoming clear to everybody, including those inside of Russia, of what is going on. We are on stage. And that's not a good place to be if you're doing things that don't look very good for you. And certainly things are not looking that great on television for Putin. And the more the Russian people get these messages, the better it is. Once we understand that, once we understand that, we cannot manipulate other people's opinions because so many conflicting opinions are going to be coming from all over the globe on this. Then it puts us in a different position. And after this, if we hopefully, and hopefully we can get out of this without too much more damage, if we get out of this, I think it's going to send a message to the world that this is not things as usual. This is not warfare as usual. And we better get used to it because we're going to be looking real bad and it's going to go against our own vested interests. And no leader of a country wants to go against their own vested interests. Awkward. Well, you know, Ken, I got some thoughts on that. Okay. Let me say that when I say I'm pessimistic and fearful, that's just me. That's sort of the clinical version of how I feel. That's you and me together. I'm on your couch, so to speak, okay? But I always think, and you do this, you did it just now. You have to see the whole world. You have to see sort of the macro. It's not just one room and one couch and one client, so to speak, one clinical experience. It's hundreds of millions, it's billions. And so if I feel, you know, in my view, and everybody feels the same way, but if I feel, in my view, pessimistic and fearful, how about multiplying that by hundreds of millions in this country, for example? And how does that affect people? Is it, let's say, what do I call it? Social psychological issue, if you sort of leverage it, if you look at it in large numbers, it affects a society, not just you and me. It affects the whole country. And for that matter, it affects continents, like Europe, all affected, because they're looking at the same footage we're looking at. And they're worried about the same things, perhaps more, perhaps more realistic, because it's their neighbor right down the block. If you're a Russian, you're probably confused or misinformed, but I agree with you that ultimately it will seep out into the Russian society and they will know something is wrong. In China, I don't know where China is, China is also gonna a propaganda machine and the censorship machine and people may not know exactly what's going on or what China is doing or why. But ultimately, the word will get out. We are in an inflection point. I mean, not just you and me, not just my feelings in my life, but in everyone's life on the planet. We're talking about the battle of the great powers, some much greater than others. And I feel that the madness here is that Putin who has established his MO, first he kills people and then he uses that as a false provocation to kill more people. And so on step one, he kills people. On step two, he kills people. He's a murderer. He's a murderer in large numbers. And I think, of course, when the world finds out, when the world finally realizes what he is, they won't support him, they'll oust him hopefully. But the problem is between then and now. And when is then, how long does it take? How many people is he going to be able to kill before we get to that place? And while we're engaged with him, while he's sucking out the oxygen and deciding the agenda for seven billion people, climate change is inexorable. And so is COVID. And so, boy, we're in a messed up time. I wish I could go to the Northwest Territories or perhaps Walden Pond. If I could just get to Walden Pond and secrete myself in the cold of winter, all myself, I'd be better off. But that's the way you have to look at it. It's not just a clinical experience, it's the global experience. And just because somebody is in Tibet, they don't speak English, doesn't mean, I'm sure you'll agree, but doesn't mean they don't have real strong feelings about this and real strong fears. Yeah, I totally agree. But let me give you some examples of why I'm optimistic, Jay. You talked about neighbors, okay? The global communication system has made us all neighbors. Now, you take before the war that broke out, how many people knew very much about the Ukraine? I'm guessing not a whole lot of people unless your ancestors came from that part of the world. I'm guessing the Ukraine was just a name and all of a sudden it becomes a focal point for us. And we start learning about Ukraine and we start learning about the people. And those people become our neighbors. They become part of our social system. And believe me, I'm big on social because my degree is in social psychology. So this whole thing is a great example. And the things that are coming out of that, the things that we're hearing, well, of course we're hearing from the political leaders and everything. And some of that is really contributing. For instance, Zelensky, I can talk about that later on, but let me get to some of the things that have really made my heart warm. And that is that people are reaching out across the world. Not only are they learning more about Ukraine, but they're reaching out to them. The other day, one of the things I do when I get depressed or I get down as I turn on YouTube and listen to music, the YouTube music videos. And I went on to see one of my favorite YouTube musical videos and I saw a whole list on the other side of music videos from the Ukraine. And talk about heart moving. All these music videos with choirs and orchestras and singers teaching us about Ukraine, about its history, about its caring, about its sociology, about its history, about its mythology. And I'm sitting there listening to this and you don't need a translator. Although, when they were singing in Ukrainian, there was a thing at the bottom translating into English. I didn't even need that because I could feel their hearts. And these people reached out to me and moved me from that. People are finding ways. That's one of the things about the internet is we're becoming very creative with it. One of the things that people as individuals are doing, not even talking about countries, just individuals, is they're buying stuff from Ukraine and sending the money. For instance, if they had planned a vacation in an Airbnb or something like that in the Ukraine, they're paying for it, but they're not going. So that these people have that money and they're buying products from the Ukraine and sending the money but not taking the products. So that this is the way that we can pipe money into their businesses, their individuals. In addition to piping in their music, their art, their words, and Vietnamese and short stories and that they are becoming our neighbors, they are becoming our friends. And once that happens, that they become part of our social thing, then people like Putin have no place to really say, well, oh, it's not happening. Oh, people in Ukraine, no, they're yada, yada, yada. He can't do that anymore because we're seeing it because we're a community and because we're connected. Yeah, we live in a different world, don't we? Yeah. I mean, my family came from some small towns near Kiev in 1905. And they came because there were programs and they came because, you know, you could get killed. A lot of that was the Russian influence, by the way, that the Russian culture sort of allowed for that and created that. Anyway, and then 20 years later in the Second World War, the run up to the Second World War, you know, the Ukrainians were collaborating with the Nazis and between the two of them, they killed a lot of Jews in Ukraine. And, you know, we have to build that into the history books, but here's the point. When you're thinking about communication, you think about the internet, you think about sharing values, information, history. It has changed us. And right now, if you look at the people in Ukraine, and for the past few years, if you look at the people in Ukraine, they're not the same people as 1905. They're not the same generation as in the 1930s. They're luckily, happily, a beautiful people in terms of their art, their culture and their ability to work together and help each other. That's a really remarkable society. Before we started this show, I was looking at something called a Winter on Fire. It's a PBS documentary of the Maidan Revolution in 2013 and 2014. And that was against Putin, who organized Yanukovych, who was his puppet in Ukraine, to kill a lot of Ukrainians and repress them. And the Maidan Revolution was where the people of Ukraine came together and protested that for something over 90 days. And happily, they had little cameras just like Think Tech has little cameras. And they went around and took pictures of what happened. And in 2015, they made a movie in full color of what happened in 2013 and 2014. And it is a remarkable movie, remarkable. And ultimately they forced Yanukovych out. He left in the middle of the night and joined his buddy, Vladimir Putin in Moscow. And that was the end of him. And the Ukrainians came together. The movie is very, very touching, just as you suggest Kent. It is a moving experience to watch this documentary. It's the people, it's the new democracy. It's the new kinder, gentler society that has been achieved there and can be achieved elsewhere. And so when you see this psychopaths coming in, it's a psychological term. You don't mind if I use a psychological term. Not at all. He was a psychopath doing his murder routine and killing people now as he was killing them in 2013 and 2014 with snipers off the rooftop, killing unarmed people in the square. You say to yourself, gee, we can't tolerate what he does. We have to venerate, extoll and celebrate of the Ukrainian people for their courage, for their kindness, for their culture. And so we have learned, you're right. We have learned about them. We all have learned about them in the past months. We didn't know very much, but now we know we've seen it live on prime time. And maybe because of those images, the world will never be the same because those images have gone everywhere, including to Tibet, where they don't speak English. Truly. Absolutely. You know, one of the things, my ancestors didn't come from Kiev, but they came from Norway. And one of the things about America is we are a family of immigrants. We are all immigrants. We all come from various backgrounds. Most of us, I would guess, come from backgrounds that were not rich, were not well-to-do, were not influential. Certainly my family that coming from Norway were poor peasant stock. And of course, Norway was overrun by the Nazis in World War II, suffering like other countries did. So I think that all of us as immigrants in America have suffered at the hands of, well, I won't use the word psychopath, but... No, just leave it to me. I'll use the word. But the leaders who are interested only in their own interests, not in the interests of their people, and will do anything to further those interests, even at the expense of their own people, and certainly at the expense of other people. So we have that shared experience. And so my heart goes out to the people of Ukraine too, although I've never visited Ukraine. Like I said, I now feel that we are together. This is the coming of a world community. This is coming together as a society of the world, not just individual countries. And people like Putin, who are interested in their own interests and just have a view of their own country, are gonna find it very difficult to do the things that they've done in the past in a country and a world community like we have today. And so that's where my optimism lies. And speaking of Jewishness, we now have a Jewish leader in the Ukraine who is teaching us in the world about how to be a hero, how to stand up to all this stuff. And I for one am just totally impressed and grateful for such a person on the world stage now as we have there and to lead people rather than fleeing for safety to another country when things get hot. This man is standing up. This man to me is a hero. And people who have their own vested interests, dictators don't stand up well in the world opinion to a hero. And I think that's gonna play heavily on Putin. I wanna talk about fear with you Ken. Okay. When I look at the little box on my television stand and I see these images of people who have either been killed. And by the way, in that movie, Winter on Fire, there is plenty of people getting killed and plenty of footage of those people getting killed and plenty of footage of people next to them who are standing right there next to the dead bodies of their friends. It is really hard. And yet they have courage. It's the kind of courage that we really haven't seen in our popular life in this country since the war. It's the kind of courage that lasts forever. It's the kind of courage you have to, we all have to admire. It takes us to another place, a higher place, a place of global values. And so when I look at the little box, I say, gee, I could be there. I could be there in the middle of that rubble. I could be there next to the buildings that are being destroyed by these artillery shells and missiles and what have you. I am there. I mean, I watched enough of it to know how much it scares me. And these people don't seem to be scared. They are perfectly happy to be there in this place of great mortal danger and still fight and still have spirit and still care about the country, the culture, their friends and neighbors and families and right down to their pets. And I say to myself, that's fantastic courage. And you talk about Zelensky, also fantastic courage. I don't think we here in this country would easily go there and fight, although there are some. There are some people, a handful of people that actually are doing that. And they're doing that from the UK also and from various places in Western Europe. They're going to fight and they're going to put their lives on the line. And that's courage for a principle, for the liberal world order, for high values and caring about humanity. This is a wonderful thing. But I'm waiting to see what happens as and when the US has tested. Anyway, I wanted to ask you about that. What makes someone put himself at such great risk knowing the chances are pretty good he could get killed, wounded or maimed. And yet he stays there, he fights and he encourages other people to stay there and fight. What is the psychology there, Ken? Well, let me refer back to another movie because you've talked about the movie of the Ukraine. And I think it goes to the principle of you can only push people so far. And once you have crossed a line with what you are doing to those people, there are many people who will step up and cross over that line and say, no, that's enough. Now, there's still a lot of people who say, okay, well, I'll just keep going. And unfortunately in the world today, we have a lot of people who are still afraid but also unwilling to risk their wellbeing. Not just in physical terms, but in financial terms, in social terms, in a whole bunch of terms. But once that line is crossed, and the movie I'm referring to is Strike. Strike is a 1925 Russian movie where I just saw it the other night because I'm really focusing on movies from the 20s and the 30s right now, trying to understand the people and the cinema of those times. And what you see in that movie is people who have been pushed too far by the government and by the people who own the factories and made to work as basically as slaves, worked too long and too hard for too little money and have a terrible life compared to those people who own all that. So they go on strike and it's an incredibly moving movie. And what you see is terrible, terrible images of these people who step up and are being killed and tortured. And yet they continue to stand up and yet they continue to say, no, this has gone too far. And what happens when you see that movie is it instills you with courage. And I think we as a global community are getting instilled with courage from these people from Ukraine who do stand up, who do not flee, who say, okay, and by the way, some of the families that have gone over some of them are coming back, some of the women, for instance, are coming back to help in the fighting. Incredible courage. And it makes us feel better as a people, but it also makes us feel that I could stand up and I need to find out how I can stand up. So people are doing that in their own ways. If the government won't do it, the individual is rising in many cases to the occasion. And that's what gives me a great feeling and a great optimism that if we come out of this, which I certainly hope we will, it will come out to a different world and a different feeling among the global community. And by the way, Jay, we're running close to the end of the show, which I'm afraid for because I've really enjoyed our talk together. Last minute thoughts and words from you before we have to close. Yeah, gas prices. To me, the gas price doesn't mean that much because I don't drive that much in COVID. If I go out once every few days, that's it. And we live in Hawaii where things are not that far away. But other places, people are more sensitive to gas prices. And to me, it's kind of a metric of what you're talking about. If they're going to complain about gas prices and in essence, detract from the effort to impose sanctions on Russian gas, then they're not really rising up to where they should be. I see a time, I hope for a time as you do of great courage, not only in Europe, but here where we see the issues, we see the values, we see the human experience in a global way and we take courage and we're willing to make sacrifices. And I think it's a tipping point and an inflection for this country to see that and to act on that. So every time I hear somebody say, I'm not willing to pay higher gas prices, it's their problem in Ukraine, not my problem here. I say, oh, that really hurts me because I want this country to see it and be involved in it and care about it and be courageous. It's exactly the way I feel. And my feeling in that line goes to our political system which we need to make some serious changes in. By the way, I also have a degree in political science. So, which I had early on, I got my bachelor's in that and decided to get out of it soon but it's a minefield and we are not doing very well in that minefield. What we have is it's not so much that there's so many people that are saying, I will not pay that price for increased gas prices. They're saying, I'm not gonna do this if I have no choice in this. And we have not had a choice for quite some time in our political system. What happens is the people we elect disregard are what we want and they pay attention to the people who are funding them and who are supporting their reelection campaign and they forget about the people that they're supposedly representing. So my position on this from a social psychological and a political position is what the political system needs to do is give us a voice. If we have a voice and we can have a hand saying, okay, if raising gas prices means that we will be able to help Ukraine, then I will do it, but you need to ask me, okay? So we need to, our political leaders need to come to us and say, are you willing to spend three more dollars or five more dollars or 10 more dollars on your income tax? If you will, pay higher prices at the gas thing because we're in this conflict and we need to raise the prices if we're gonna make a difference. Then the people will have a voice in it and then many of those people who are not happy now will be happy to go to the pump because they are being listened to and too many people in this country are not listened to by our political powers to be. So that's my script and we're sort of out of time but one more point Ken. Okay, sure, go ahead. What you're really talking about is leadership. Yes, absolutely. But the human condition requires leadership and leadership requires followers. And Zelensky is an example, a proof of that. And what this country needs to straighten up on that issue and so many other political issues is leadership, kindly, fair-minded, ethical, moral leadership. And we're missing that, we have missed that during the Trump time. We're not missing it now, but we need to focus on it and we need to achieve it as never before. Absolutely, and we need to be able to reinforce the people we elect and they need to be able to listen to us to do that and to make that change. I hope we have another chance to talk about more of this because there's a lot of things that we have left to talk about. But for now, I'd like to thank Jay Fidel and I'd like to thank all the people who were with us today in this conversation. And I hope that there were some things that caused you to think a little bit. And if you have any questions or comments, please email us here at Think Tech Hawaii. And thank you for being with us, Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.