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it's not easy to find your own words
but if you find your own words and
they're truthful words there isn't
anything that can stop them
you think well do you believe that well
let's go back to the sovereign idea are
you sovereign citizens or not
well if you are well why is that well
it's because you have a certain
faculty a certain power
well what do you have you have the power
of your convictions and your truth and
your ability to communicate and that's
what's supposed to set the state
straight okay so you have that it's like
well then maybe it's truth that you're
pursuing and seeking if you have any
sense and what's truth well truth is the
best reflection you can manage of
reality
imperfect because you're imperfect but
it's the best you've got it's like what
what's going to be better for you than
to have reality on your side
and what's going to stand in your way if
you have reality on your side live
i don't think so
that isn't how it works and i don't
think anyone believes that because the
other thing i've noted and discussed
with people frequently is if you have
someone that you love a child let's say
and you're trying to raise a child in a
decent manner
you don't tell them look kid this is how
the world runs everything's corrupt
beyond belief including you and your
parents and and society and nature for
that matter it's just complete bloody
hell everywhere and the only possible
way that you can make it through life
effectively is to learn to lie as
brilliantly and
undisguiseably as possible
no one does that well
why not
if you believed in falsehood if you
believe that that was the way forward
then that would be
the right thing to teach but you don't
you teach your children to tell the
truth even if it's painful and the
reason for that is that you actually
believe in the power of the truth
i'll finish that with one thing there's
there's a very interesting scene in
revelations there's a very strange
document appended to the end of the
primary book in the western canon right
and it's a hallucinogenic nightmare um
revelation and in it christ comes back
to earth and he's not the merciful
savior of the gospels he's the judge and
there's a reason for that a
psychological reason and the reason is
is that if you have an ideal
and whatever christ is metaphysically or
psychologically he's an ideal
if you have an ideal an ideal is a judge
because the ideal judges you right okay
so he comes back as a judge he has a
sword in his mouth and he judges that's
saved in the and the damned and it's not
pretty
but here's something interesting it's so
fascinating
he saves his worst contempt
and uses contemptuous language says i
will spit you out of my mouth it really
means i will vomit you out of my mouth
not if you were a bad person
not if you were a good person not if you
were a bad person but if you sat on the
bloody fence
right if you were neither warm nor cold
you wanted to play it both ways well
i'll lie when it's in my favor and i'll
tell the truth when it's expedient for
me it's like you're you're in the
category of the damned and i think
that's absolutely right because that's
real cowardice if you believed in
falsehood it's like good get on with it
man you can be a criminal and lay your
life out and see how that works and if
you believe in truth well then perhaps
you put yourself on the line for the
truth but you don't play the
the two sides against the middle because
there's there's nothing in that that
isn't
self-serving at the cost of your own
well-being and at the cost of everyone
else's
so you have to think about you have to
think about your relationship with the
truth you know there isn't anything more
important that you can do than that and
because you're you're on you're
i've seen
people in major corporations that were
corrupt
and failing
spend three years doing nothing but
telling the truth
often at their own peril
fix the companies
and it's such a relief to the people
that they were talking to because they'd
go talk to them that companies run by
people who are
not doing what they should be doing and
they're questioning it's like okay well
what's really going on here
well
no one wants to talk because they're
afraid but the person who's doing the
questioning actually wants to know and
people start opening up and he gathers
information it's like oh i see here's
the real problems here it's like we've
got all sorts of problems here this is
why the company is in trouble but it's
okay
if we know the problems
well then we can fix them and we'll go
ahead and fix them and then the company
will work and everybody who's terrified
and won't say anything and isn't really
working hard anymore because they're so
dispirited and believing that the
projects are corrupt and that the
leadership isn't doing what it's
supposed to they start having a bit of
hope it's like really you mean
you're actually willing to admit that
that is the problem and you're going to
give me a problem that is a real problem
that i could actually work on and
actually solve and benefit from that and
the whole company switches around and
and it that works
it's not naive to believe that and i'll
say one more thing about trust that's
very much worth knowing so this is what
you learn if you're a clinician
most people who trust are naive
and naive is not a virtue
it's a fault it's partly a fault because
if you're naive and you run into someone
who's malevolent including you
they might do you incalculable damage so
that you will never recover so that's
not a good thing you don't want to be
naive
if you're not naive that means you've
been burned once or twice or three or
four times and you know once you've been
burned in that manner well then it's
hard to trust because you think well why
would i trust you or me for that matter
knowing full well that i can be betrayed
and so then you're cynical and you think
that's an improvement over being naive
you know it's you're more mature
cynical than you are naive even if it's
premature and it's often premature in
young people it's like okay so how do
you get out of that conundrum well this
is a crucial thing to know
you trust people because you're
courageous
that's why it's the same reason that
you're grateful
it's a mark of courage it's a mark of
commitment it's like you and i we're
gonna make an agreement and you're full
of snakes and so am i and there's lots
of ways this can go sideways but we're
going to put together an agreement we're
going to articulate it out we're going
to try to find something that is of
mutual benefit to both of us we're going
to put our hands out and shake and we're
going to try to stick to that and we're
going to risk trusting each other right
it's a risk
and that's the risk upon which the state
is based really like i believe and i
think the evidence for this is very
strong by the way i don't think that
there is any other natural resource than
trust and for trust you need courage
not naivety and you go to overcome your
cynicism so that you trust and then you
ask yourself too if you don't trust your
institutions it's like
hey
they're your institutions
why don't you go out and do something
about them you think well i can't it's
like that's not true
that is that is absolutely not true that
that's there's there's nothing
vaguely accurate about that in a society
like this almost all of our democratic
institutions are crying out for people
to participate they can't find enough
people to do it and if you participate
and you and and you do it diligently and
you have your say and you're careful and
trustworthy and you and you and you and
you and you speak your mind you can have
way more effect than you think
so if you're cynical about the
institutions it's like look in the
mirror
because those institutions the
corruption of those institutions is a
direct reflection of your inability to
get your act together and that's what it
means to be a sovereign part of the
western community so it's not someone
else
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