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Conversation Lesson

A.C., you feeling rebellious today?

Not particularly. I’m just sort of hanging in there.

Just hanging in there. Going with the flow?

Yeah, going with the flow. Doing my thing.

Keeping your head down.

Yeah, pretty much. Keeping …

Living the life.

… my nose to the grindstone is basically what these days are.

Would you consider yourself a sheep?

A sheep? No.

No?

Definitely not. No. Not a wolf either. Just more of a dog.

Well, today we’re talking about people who swim against the current, swim against the tide.

That’s right. Are you one of those people that swim against the tide?

No, not really.

No?

Not really. I take the path of the least resistance.

I see. I’m not much of a tide against swimmer.

We go a little bit against the tide with learning English.

A little bit. A little bit. I don’t think it’s something drastic.

I don’t think we’re turning the whole world upside down.

No. We’re certainly not starting any conspiracies.

But we’re doing … we’re doing things a little different.

A little bit. A little bit. I think that’s good.

They’re out to get us.

They’re out to get us.

The establishment.

The establishment.

They want to take us down.

I don’t think so, but it’s fun. I’m having a good time.

I learned some new things in this story.

Definitely.

I didn’t know that Galileo spent his life under house arrest.

I had no idea, not until I heard this story.

I was thinking … house arrest today, in the modern world, that’d be pretty easy. You got your internet …

Absolutely.

… you got your Netflix. You got …

You got everything. You don’t really need to go outside except to get some fresh air.

You got Skype.

You got Skype, man.

Meet people … with people.

House arrest would not be any form of punishment as long as you’re allowed to have visitors. Are you allowed to have visitors under house arrest?

Yeah, I think so.

I assume you are.

I think so.

You can invite … you can have parties. You can invite people over to your house … have dinner, have barbecues.

I don’t know if you’re allowed to get sun.

You can have movie nights.

I don’t know if you’re allowed to go outside. It’s house arrest.

You might be able to go outside in your yard. You just may … maybe there’s a certain perimeter you can’t cross, because nowadays with house arrest, you have to wear those leg bands.

Ankle bracelets.

Ankle bracelets. That’s what they are. Have you ever worn an ankle bracelet?

An ankle bracelet. You mean like a decorative ankle bracelet?

I’ll leave that up to you to interpret.

Not as of yet. Not as of yet.

Me, neither.

Yeah, but I imagine in his day, being under house arrest was …

Oh, that was a pretty severe punishment. I mean, because you couldn’t really do much except maybe read, write, hang out, cook, you know. I guess it’s not that bad. It’d be better than being in prison, that’s for sure.

You know, I also found it interesting that he wanted to be a priest, and then he ended up running afoul of the church.

Yeah.

What did you want to be when you were younger?

I guess a number of different things. When I was really young, I wanted to be an astronaut. I thought the idea of traveling to the moon or traveling to other planets and to space was pretty exciting.

When I got a little bit older, I wanted to be a veterinarian. But I did a summer as an intern in a vet’s office, and I had to oversee the euthanasia of many different cats and dogs and …

Oh, man.

… I had to put them in freezers, and then put them in the furnace, and I just didn’t enjoy that.

Oh, man.

And I saw that’s a big part of what vets do. They have to put down a lot of animals.

So these were sick animals that were …

Some of them were sick, some of them were just old. Some of them looked perfectly fine. I didn’t know why they were being put down, but …

Wow, you’ve had a lot of experience with animals.

I suppose, I mean I …

I remember you worked at a lab with mice.

I did work in a lab with mice when I was older. I wanted to be a doctor when I was a teenager. I never actually wanted to be a teacher. That just kind of grew on me as I followed my life path. It just became … I had a calling for that eventually.

So you dropped the astronaut.

I did drop the astronaut.

Is that when you figured out it was all fake, all that moon landing?

No.

There’s a lot of people who think the moon landing was faked.

That’s true. Well, I don’t know what you mean by “a lot.” I think there are some people that believe …

Oh, there’s lots.

Well, lots. I mean, in terms of percentages of people? It can’t be that large. Yeah, some people believe it’s fake. I don’t. Do you believe that that was …

Well, there’s some compelling evidence. There’s actually a picture of some guy training in the astronaut suit, and then NASA has used it as a picture of this guy in space, and it’s a mirror image …

Oh.

… of that image.

Okay.

It’s clear; you can see the original. It’s the exact same image flipped over, and NASA’s saying that this is guy in space, and it’s not.

Okay, so do you believe that …?

Well, let’s just get back to the evidence I’m pointing out …

I want to know what you think, man. Okay.

… that they did fake that photo.

Okay, well, I mean …

That’s like in …

Well, “they.” You’re talking about the entire organization or one individual within the organization?

Well, that’s probably it … it’s probably one lazy guy.

Yeah, it’s probably ..

It was like was, “We don’t know enough photos; let’s just take this one … “

That sounds more plausible, yeah.

“… black out the background and put him in space.”

Yeah.

But yeah, there’s a lot of stuff like that.

Yeah.

Which now, I don’t think the moon landing was faked, but it’s stuff like that that people can pin their conspiracies on.

Sure. What about you? When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

What did I want to be? I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be an artist. Yeah, that’s all I remember.

Really? Writer and an artist.

But back to the fake moon land, there’s also people who believe that the earth is flat.

Okay. You mean even today, they believe it’s flat.

Yeah. There’s couple of professional NBA players who recently made some statements about how the earth is flat and everybody knows that … How they explain time zones, how they explain when they travel somewhere that it’s a different time of day, I don’t know.

Hey, you know, you can believe whatever you want; you really can. It doesn’t matter so much. Yeah.

Those are all alternative facts. You have your opinion, I have mine.

That’s right. If you want to believe the earth is flat, well, then to you it’s flat.

So, I mean, this was in the 1500s, Galileo. But, you know, I think that there … for hundreds of years, I think way back into the Middle Ages, there were cultures that knew that the earth was round and that it traveled around the sun. So I think Europe was pretty backwards at that time …

It took them awhile …

… compared to the Middle East. But how about BZ, that asteroid?

Yeah, I don’t know about that asteroid. I just sort of see that as a natural manifestation of what takes place in human populations.

Right, there’s always going to be an outlier.

Yeah, there’s always going to be something that goes against the grain, that doesn’t follow the normal protocol of what we would expect. And it happens in every facet of life, whether it’s human beings, whether it’s plants, whether it’s animals, and in this case, asteroids.

But the main takeaway is an asteroid is going the wrong way.

Or the other ones were going the wrong way and it was going the right way.

No, no. The group is always right. That lone asteroid is wrong.

It’s a matter of perspective.

Yeah, now that’s a silly way to put it … it’s going the wrong way. What’s the right way?

Yeah, as if there were a right way.

BZ … I didn’t find it that amazing, but a lot of these scientists seemed to find it amazing that it never hits these other six thousand asteroids that are orbiting Jupiter.

Well, maybe it hasn’t yet.

Yeah. Well, it hasn’t for a million plus years.

Yeah, but maybe in space time that’s just a short amount of time. So I mean yeah, it’s got to hit something eventually I suppose.

BZ.

BZ.

Yeah, I wasn’t too impressed with that, to tell you the truth.

No, but I think it’s important in the sense that it just shows that this is not something that’s abnormal. This happens everywhere in every part of life, so it’s good in that sense.

Socrates … I also learned some stuff about Socrates.

I didn’t know he was such an ugly dude.

Yeah, well … I mean, who’s to say he was so ugly? Who was calling him ugly?

I thought that was in the story; he was kind of a … not a very attractive looking guy.

Apparently, Socrates never wrote anything down, and that everything we know about him is from, I guess, his students and his detractors.

Oh, so he was a totally verbal communicator. Okay.

Not that he would have been writing about how ugly he was …

No, no, of course not. That would have been other people.

But yeah, he was in this really materialistic society … of all the Greek societies, I think. Clearly, that’s still a part of modern society today materialism and the quest for physical beauty and he thought that the mind was more important.

So what do you put more effort into? Exercising your mind or your body?

That’s a good question. These days, I think I’m … I’m a middle aged guy; I’m 44 going on 45, and my body is not the same as it used to be. So I think, these days I’m putting more effort into my physical body in terms of trying to keep it in shape and paying more attention to what I put into my body. That kind of thing.

How’s that working out for you?

Not so good.

You keeping it together?

I did 7K jog today; a couple of days ago I did a 10K. I watch what I eat sometimes; other times I let it go. But yeah, I think I’m really aware of the physical changes.

However, in my 20s, I was really focused on my mind in terms of learning how to … how it works and how not to get caught up in it. And I did a lot of meditation and things like yoga to help me deal with my mind and get to know it better.

So yeah, I think it’s … things go in cycles and phases, and these days I’m focused more on my body, but not for physical appearance; more for just physical well-being. How about yourself?

I am falling apart.

At the seams?

Yeah, I’m in one of those stages where I’ve just given up.

You’re talking about physically or mentally or everything?

Just everything.

Everything. Okay.

I just barely try to scoop everything back together …

You’re just scraping by, right?

… as much as possible. Yeah, I’m hanging in there. I’ve joined a gym, but I’m on one of those plans where you pay every month and then don’t go.

Right, okay. But mentally … are you working more on your mental …?

Well, I’ll tell you what I’m trying to do mentally. I’m trying to train myself to focus better by cutting out distractions, mainly on the internet. I’m one of those guys that if I’ve got two minutes waiting for somebody in line, I’ve got to fill up that time …

I see. With your smartphone or something.

… by surfing the internet, looking at the news, doing whatever. And I’m trying to really not do that, and so that when I do want to focus, my mind isn’t wandering as much trying to find some new novelty.

Well, that’s something good. I could use some help in that area, too.

So yeah, focus … that’s what I need more of.

So Socrates … what else? What else stood out to you in that story?

Socrates … let’s see here. What stood out for me was the fact that he claimed to know nothing which is interesting for a guy that was so influential in Western civilization and he believed he was wise because he recognized his own ignorance. Which, to me, sounds like a very Eastern thing to say. That’s kind of what Hinduism and Buddhism sort of teaches …

I can resonate with that.

Yeah, me too; totally.

I recognize your ignorance really clearly.

Well thank you, Dan. I’m proud that you can see how ignorant I am. And likewise … I think you’re one of the most ignorant people I’ve met, in fact.

It’s what makes us so wise … such a wise team.

Be more dumber.

It’s one thing to recognize your own ignorance, but if you can see it in others, you’ve got it together.

No, but I guess that’s … I mean, the more you live and the more aware you become, the more you realize how much you just don’t know, and how uncertain everything is, and how life is so full of change you can’t possibly predict what’s going to happen. And meanwhile, your body’s getting older, and things are happening around you that are beyond your control. What do you do? You realize just how little power you actually have.

Well, that’s one way you can go. And other people become more … they grasp onto certainty, or the illusion of certainty, and they get really attached to whatever they think their perception of the world is. I think there’s really two ways you can go as you get older … until you get more stubborn, more fixed, and more grasping to want to have some certitude in your life.

Or do you bend with it all and be flexible and let it go? A lot of the spiritual teachers say that the latter is the way to go … not to grasp and not to try and control it all, but just to go with that flow and ride it out to the happy end, not the bitter end.

So, would you have taken the hemlock?

Oh, if I were Socrates?

Yeah, why did he do that?

I don’t know. Maybe he just …

He wanted to make a statement.

… felt that … I have no idea. It’s hard for me to imagine that. I would, personally, want to live.

Really?

I just … I enjoy life.

Call me crazy.

I wouldn’t want to just do myself in. I would want to fight that somehow.

Yeah, I mean he had friends offering to bribe the guards … I don’t get it.

Yeah, I don’t know why he would so such a thing, but to each his own, I suppose.

Surya Bonaly … that was an interesting story.

Oh, the ice skater … yeah. The ice skater. I’m not really into ice skating, so I don’t know who all the famous ice skaters are. So for me, this was a new story. I had never heard of her before. But I felt intrigued.

So, she was French, but she was adopted …

She was adopted. Originally, was she born in France, or were her parents from France, or …?

I’m not sure. Actually, an interesting side note was her coach made up all these stories about her being adopted straight off the beach of some island near Madagascar, and how she never cut her hair, and ate bird seed … and all these weird stories her coach made up to try to get her more press.

Oh, really?

And how ,like, she was some exotic African princess, or … I don’t know if he went that far, but …

But I mean, it is rare in the skating world, as far as I know, to see people who are either non-white or non-Asian. It just seems like most of the skaters are either white or Asian … Caucasian or Asian. And to have a black skater is a … that’s something special; that’s something unique.

And apparently, she got a lot of veiled criticism saying she’s too athletic, or she’s too powerful, or … with a subtext being that she wasn’t graceful or she wasn’t artistic.

See, I find that really interesting because the … skating is one of those sports that you don’t score points by putting a ball in a net. You score points by judges judging how graceful and how beautiful and … I mean, like that … that’s based on your culture. Your idea, your values, your beliefs towards what is grace and what is beauty, and what is skill, is very much centered in the culture you come from.

And so, if you approach skating from a different angle that’s more, let’s say, physical, or that has moves that are … lie outside of this preconceived notion of what grace is … is that racist? Is that a racist …? Maybe it’s not intentionally racist, but like … I just find that really interesting. Like how this person may need to totally … is at a disadvantage because maybe the moves and the spirit behind what she’s doing is equally as wonderful; it’s just a little different. And so, how do you judge that? Especially if you’re a white judge?

Apparently, it’s really subjective what they find beautiful, but there are some criteria …

I’m sure there must be.

… like the sound that the blade makes against the ice is apparently … The sounds of a very high scoring ice skater is very gentle, the blade. And somebody who, like Surya, who is going much faster and landing much harder, makes much more scratching noises against the ice …

Right, or banging noises or whatever.

… that the judges find as not beautiful, even though the crowd isn’t paying attention to that. The crowd is paying attention to these amazing flips and jumps. So they’re cheering and she’s getting 10th place.

Yeah, that’s interesting.

So yeah, it doesn’t even really seem like a sport if it’s judged that subjectively.

Right. Yeah, it seems like some …

And it’s a little bit strange that it is an Olympic sport.

But it’s not the only sport, I think, that is judged that way. I think there are other competitions, like in gymnastics, for example. I guess there … there probably are criteria … in every act of judging you have criteria to work with. But there is an element of subjectivity which plays a huge role. So it’s like, who are the judges? Very interesting.

Well, on that note, until next month.

Alrighty. We’ll see you then.