Episode 23: Wherever You Go, There You Are

[00:00:00] Seth: So there's this line from a really stupid movie that I watched once upon a time called Buckaroo Banzai. It's this movie, I think it's from the 80s and I remember it because My dad thought it was just super funny. I don't know if I, if I feel the same. It was, it was a pretty weird movie. But you know, there's an appeal to that.

So it's this movie about a rock star slash brain surgeon slash test pilot and I'd say the whole point of it is mostly just to be ridiculous. But early in the movie, Buckaroo Banzai's concerts, He looks over the crowd and he says, Remember, wherever you go, there you are. That line's incredible. It truly captures the essence of saying nothing at all.

All of the appearance of wisdom. It's almost like saying, when you fall, it's always going to be down. Or, when it rains, everything gets wet. I mean, it really accomplishes absolutely nothing. It's incredible. As a side note, I think there's a lot of A lot of fake wisdom like that out there, but in this case, even though I think the primary intent of that line was to be funny, there does seem to be just a hint of a worthwhile metaphor in it.

And maybe the writers recognized that too. No matter where you go, there you are. Life takes us a lot of places, and we're not always happy to be there, but it is where we are. And sometimes I think we try to resist the notion that we are where we actually are. Sometimes we like to believe that we're richer than we are, so we spend and we spend until life forces us to acknowledge it and sets us further back than when we started, as a punishment for not accepting the truth.

Other times, we insist everything in our life is perfect, when really, it is not. And then there's times when we insist that everything is terrible, when really, that's just a myth that we've created, and not even true. So, keep in mind that wherever you go, there you are. The better that we can come to recognize the truth, the better that we can deal with it.

To our emotional hearts, the truth is a place we don't always want to go. Maybe recognizing that our situation isn't actually that bad disturbs the worldview that we've held for so long, and losing that understanding of the world might send us into some kind of chaos that we're too afraid to experience.

Maybe acknowledging that everything is not fine will actually force us to look at a problem that we know might actually break our hearts. But a problem can't be solved without knowing that it's there. The place we occupy in life, it's not always comfortable. And I know from painful experience that it can even feel unbearable at times.

And that's not a place anybody wants to stay for long, but if we can have clear eyes, there's more we can do about it than we may believe in the moment. Because a person cannot reasonably head off in the right direction until they actually know where they are and what direction they're facing. So one of the greatest challenges that I think we'll ever face in life is to truly know ourselves and our situation as they really are.

So I don't actually think there are very many people that see themselves and their circumstances very clearly. We all view things through our own personalized lens, and we may understand most things correctly, but there's always some part of the way that we see ourselves, and others for that matter, that's going to be a little bit skewed.

So I don't know if anybody still watches the TV series American Idol, or any other country's version of that show, but I remember watching it with my family, I think it was in high school it came out for me, and I remember watching it with my family, and it was really popular at the time. And at the beginning stages, they'd show the judges weeding out these terrible singers, who all invariably thought that they were excellent.

Now, clearly the show didn't show us much footage of the people that were I mean, the focus was on the people that were really good or really bad. That being said, it was shocking that they could find so many people that had lived their entire lives thinking that they were good singers when they were absolutely terrible.

So most of us are probably not as bad as the dramatized examples in a reality TV show, but we all fall somewhere on this spectrum of delusion. And the more deluded we are, the worse life is going to be. It's going to want to punish us. So not knowing where we stand will ultimately lead us to being torn down again and again until you finally know.

There will come a time when every knee shall bow to the truth. So when I started doing this podcast, I hadn't really experienced listening to my own voice very much. And I know this is a pretty common occurrence, but most people hate the sound of their own voice when they actually hear it on a recording.

Because somehow, some way, the way we hear it in our head is different than the way we actually hear it than the way it sounds when it's actually coming out of our mouth. So you get to see in real life what your voice sounds like when you are listening to a recording of yourself and it hits different and it's not what you expected.

And I was no exception. I felt a little bit. Disappointed in the sound of my own voice, but you know, I've done this enough times now that I don't really care anymore, but it's just kind of proof that we don't really see things as they really are. And so the value of learning the truth to the best of our ability is priceless.

And the same goes for knowing our own emotional landscape. Sometimes we get so upset at people because somehow, some way they threatened us. Whether it was intentional or not and we can't even see the situation clearly half the time we had something to do with it But the very idea that we're not as on top of things as we thought or that maybe we did something wrong Is so threatening that we have to argue with people to try and force them to acknowledge that We're as great as we think we are the worst is when you both are convinced that you're incapable of doing something wrong And the fight goes absolutely nowhere Except maybe to blows.

But for better or for worse, we are where we are. But it's better to know that you're at the bottom of the pile than to think that you're at the top. Because one gives you options while the other does not. Have you ever thought everyone was laughing with you only to find out that they were laughing at you?

It's a terrible experience. And the only way we can really avoid it is to do our best to know the truth. And sometimes that means actually putting ourselves out there to experience the criticisms of others. You I think we like to live in our lives because we think it will be less painful. But if you were going to have your arm cut off, would you prefer it was done slowly over the course of a day?

Or have it happen in an instant. I mean, I know we'd rather not have our arm cut off, but, if it's gonna happen, I think we'd rather just have it done and over with. So, heaven knows I don't like to look at my problems. I get overwhelmed, I feel too tired to deal with them, but that doesn't make them go away.

I'll sit there with these burdens piling up around me until one of them gets so high that it comes toppling down on me, and that serves nobody. So sometimes we just have too much to deal with all at once, but that doesn't mean that we have to ignore everything. It also doesn't mean that we can't be aware that a problem exists.

Pick the problem that you're most easily able to fix now and start with that. And I hope that you're able to grasp some power in your life, because you'll never be more powerful than when you know the way things truly are. So remember, wherever you go, there you are.