Telos Initiative
Telos is a term used by the philosopher Aristotle to refer to the final cause or purpose of something. Our telos is to seek truth and cultivate wisdom using dialogue and rational discussion. The podcast will cover a wide range of topics in various genres and we hope to grow with our audience toward our ultimate purpose in this mystifying existence.
Telos Initiative
Episode 12 - The Vertical
Could the way we perceive "up" and "down" be subtly shaping our realities? Join hosts Angelo Cole, Chris Vigil, and Matt Maes as they promise to unravel the profound influence of verticality on our language, culture, and subconscious. From the symbolic heights of the axis mundi to the depths of spiritual narratives, this episode explores how these directional concepts have historically signified clarity, power, and divinity. Discover how ascension and descent are more than mere movements; they are metaphors embedded deep within our cultural psyche.
In a world where space becomes place through orientation, vertical landmarks like lighthouses and church steeples transform mere geography into symbols of spiritual connection. Delve into Jonathan Pageau's insights on biblical symbolism and understand how human instincts, like raising hands or building Gothic windows, reflect our intrinsic orientation toward the vertical. As we reflect on these themes, we examine the complementary dynamics in human relationships, where balance and leadership are intertwined with selflessness and competence.
Moreover, the journey of learning and competence is portrayed through the lens of progression from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence, urging us to embrace humility and continuous learning. This episode emphasizes the importance of shared knowledge, the balance between technological advancement and wisdom, and the aspiration of humanity towards a higher good. As we ponder these themes, remember the metaphor of a tree's roots in the ground, reaching for the sky—an aspirational yet grounded approach to personal and collective growth. Tune in for a thought-provoking exploration that promises to challenge conventional wisdom and inspire introspection.
Hello everyone, welcome to the Telos Initiative podcast. I'm Angelo Cole.
Chris:I'm Chris Vigil and I'm Matt Maes.
Angelo:Today we are going to be talking about an abstract topic called the vertical. So what we mean by the vertical is this notion of up and down, higher and lower, of up and down higher and lower, something to do with maybe raising up we use it a lot in our language higher consciousness, or diving deep into the realm of knowledge, or something diving deep into a topic.
Angelo:uh, a lot of times we use it unconsciously, so why, do we do that, and what is this notion of of higher and lower, and how deep does it go into our subconscious?
Matt:I love when you say, like, how we can use it subconsciously too, because it seems to slip naturally into our language in so many different ways. And you know, one thing that I found really interesting is, as I was thinking about this topic and how up shows up and how down shows up in our language, it seems like like up or higher is easier to point to, and down seems like very mysterious and there are a lot of different, different ways that we use down, that some are connected, a lot are a lot are connected, but it's very mysterious, you know definitely, there's a notion called the axis mundi.
Angelo:It's this idea of um alignment vertically with something spiritual, but it goes through your very being, even to the point of being physical. So I think a lot of new age philosophy associates it with the chakras and kundalini, but it might also have some origins and some other eastern philosophies. Uh, the axis mundi is this higher and lower orientation within the self, from the physical to the mental, to the spiritual okay, that's great.
Chris:So, right away, I'm really liking the um, the fact that we use depth as the I guess the antipode of of the vertical, or, you know, ascension, um, and matt, you're right, like, whenever I point at things, I'm always pointing up, I'm never pointing like down at anything, unless I really need to emphasize something which I never do. But if I think about, like, the depth of my heart, I'm pointing inwardly, like towards myself, my solar plexus and I like that.
Angelo:Also Notices notion of the mountain. The mountain is used as a symbol Pretty universally in all sorts of religions or stories or myths, even for secular symbols. Even for secular symbols, we would think of the mountain as a climbing towards something, a journey. There's a triangular figure that you can envision in your head. At the very peak is a central point and it splits apart as you descend. So maybe that notion of a mystery and disintegration and separation kind of is coming from your subconscious notion of the mountain or associating the center and the periphery with, yeah, up and down yeah, naturally you know archetypally too.
Matt:When we're talking about the mountain, I like to think about, you know, moses going up to the mountain and getting the, the tablets. You know commandments on the on the tablets and also how archetypally that can be true as well, like, how often you know commandments on the on the tablets and also how archetypally that can be true as well. Like, how often, you know, have we had this experience where we, where we're going to this place in isolation, we're going to this, you know, this place of ascension, this place where we're, you know, where it's just us, and we are trying to get into consciousness with that, that higher spirit, with that higher present, and then we take what we gain from that and those insights and we bring that down into the world with us, like we went. We went up, we had this journey, we had this experience, and then we then we, you know take what we gained from that journey, from that ascension, back down.
Angelo:And definitely notice how you're using metaphorical language throughout that whole thing.
Matt:This higher consciousness that we're bringing down how tightly knit it is in our language.
Angelo:Absolutely. Even the idea of something like subconscious or substance is beneath there's something there.
Chris:I want to return to that idea of there's like a pinnacle at the top of the mountain, right and everything else is you use the word disintegrating as it removes itself from the pinnacle. Now, all three of us were, you know, either in our mid-30s or approaching our mid-30s and I can like, as my body or as myself disintegrates, I should be spiritually moving towards the pinnacle of the of the holy mount, like the mountain of holiness. So as we ascend spiritually up to the pinnacle of the holy mountain, even as my body disintegrates, that spiritual reality that I am experiencing will naturally flow out from that and enter physically into our reality here.
Chris:Right, it's a flow thing. I'm just putting that out there here's another notion of out and in.
Angelo:Associated with this up and down. I was thinking historically about how in ancient cultures, they used the notion of height almost literally, like the fact that you were taller or higher up than someone gave you more of a position of importance. Like the king sits on a throne, yes, and he wears a physical crown and and the little the crown is? Literally little arrows pointing upward if you think about it. It's this notion of the Kings position is supposed to be anointed towards something higher, physically, and spiritually.
Chris:Yeah, the king is mentally connected to the heavens and he brings that blessing from heaven to his realm.
Angelo:At least the Christian notion of the king. Okay, right, the the christian notion of the king okay, right, because there's other well, I mean, there's other uh leaders and kings that in other cultures weren't necessarily oriented towards something higher they could. It could be a self-worshipping tyranny sort of thing yeah. Why.
Chris:Those aren't kings, I would say, those are tyrants.
Angelo:Well, I mean, they would call themselves kings, you know.
Chris:I mean, I think they're unholy inverses of the true idea of a king.
Angelo:Okay, right, sure.
Matt:Like there's the idea or the ideal and then there's the actual, like we could even say, with nobles or nobility. A lot of those nobles were. Many of them, as we know, were very kind of pompous and stuck up and not embodying the you know, the nobility of spirit that denotes that word. That denotes that word. I also think of a lot of the religious art at the time, especially in the medieval periods, where you might see figures that are floating up off of the ground like they're elevated above the ground as if it was kind of a simplistic idea of down being lower or bad and up always necessarily being good and holy and right, depicted in the art.
Angelo:Yeah, there's something universal about that in almost every culture, that it's just built into us to think of higher as better, and I'm wondering where exactly that comes from, if it's just archetypally built into our brains for some reason, like maybe this idea that you, if you go higher, you're able to see more just for the fact that you're physically above, it gives you greater wisdom and insight. It could be, and it also makes you a central point, right, like so if someone stands up on a hill, they're doing that in order to get a crowd of people, to look towards them and to listen to them right and to teach them.
Chris:Yeah, can we dive into a little bit of denver history?
Matt:sure, hold up, hold up. Okay, go ahead Before that, real quick. There's another question On top of that.
Matt:I was wondering how much of our understanding of higher and lower is intrinsic, just naturally built in and just naturally you know like we just kind of have this natural understanding of what higher and lower is and how much has been influenced over time, like how much, how much might we be, you know, be taught to think what higher and lower is, and so often we can discard the lower you know. So often we end up like discarding things as as taboo or or you know, evil and and dark that not necessarily are are bad right, sure, yeah then we don't integrate those things and then we they go into shadow and you know, what goes in the shadow ends up coming up unhealthily because sure we didn't properly, you know, bring that into our, into a whole person integration I think it calls into question what there.
Angelo:There are proper things that should be considered lower. Right, and it depends. It's an orientation problem, right? Yeah, so if you put something lower when it shouldn't be, you're humiliating it. It's funny the word humility comes from the same root word as hummus, which means earth or the ground. So to humble yourself is to be lower.
Angelo:Ah, okay humble yourself is to be lower, and in Christianity and also in Islam and all sorts of religious practices, you bow and you prostrate yourself, and that's a good thing to do in its proper place. You would want to do that in the presence of something that's meant to be higher than yourself. It's a sign of respect and dignity, and even in certain countries you would bow just to show respect, when it's a form of greeting. You bow in the presence of even just a stranger.
Matt:I promise I want to get to your point real quick. But on humility that is. People so understand this idea of humility, I think. But it's just necessarily to.
Matt:It's almost tied to just low self-esteem with a lot of people. You know like, oh, how could I, you know, do this and be that and all all this kind of stuff, right. But I think in practical terms, it's much more like a proper consideration of what's around you. Yes, Giving due regard to things and and you know, in your attitude, you're not above regard to things. And and you know, in your attitude, you're not above doing certain things. Right, like, say you know. Like, say, fitness, for example, I love fitness. Like, say, you're going to the gym, but then you know you're. If you have this attitude like, oh, I could, you know, oh, I could, I could do all this stuff and I don't have to watch my fitness, I could just eat. Or I don't have to watch my nutrition, I could just eat. You know, all these different things I want to eat. Not paying attention, not being humble to what's required of you if you really want to aspire to that higher goal that you have.
Angelo:Yes, right, that's humility.
Matt:That's the opposite of arrogance, which is just ignoring and thinking that you're too good to do certain things too good to listen to people too good to pay attention.
Angelo:Those who exalt themselves shall be humbled, and those who humble themselves shall be exalted shall be exalted.
Chris:So there's a a scene in that disney movie hercules right where um hades minions. They're, uh, they're humbling themselves in front of hades and they're like, oh, we are worms. And then they transform into worms literally. Um, I don't think that's humility. Um, maybe in the right place, right, like I might say something like that if I'm praying to jesus and I'm like compared to you, my lord, I am as nothing right, I am dust, and unto dust I shall return in its proper place, right in its proper place.
Chris:uh, there was a time in my life when I had to really meditate, like what is Like, how do I know if I have humility? Is this a real thing? Because, especially if you grow up Christian, like humility is like the thing that they put on you because pride was the first sin, yep.
Chris:And so you have to be humble, to not be like the first, ultimate evil sinner Um, who is Satan, by the way, in case you didn't know well it was the first sinner was adam right well, pride was the cause of the fall of the fallen angels, and also humans. Yes, so I defined humility not as like humbling myself in the sense of claiming that I was a worm, but rather humility is simply admitting that which is true.
Angelo:Okay, yeah, maybe there's a difference between being humble and debasing yourself.
Chris:Yes, exactly, most definitely, and I think if you debase yourself you used a great word that's a form of arrogance, like that's taking yourself out of a place that you don't belong to and entering into something darker or worse you mean a place you do belong to and going to a place you don't right in this sense I'm saying that I don't know.
Matt:Now all that word stuff is getting all jumbled up so I don't know like when talking about oh my god, I'm so glad we're talking about the polls here, because this is so necessary like when you have somebody who's just been been put down, you know it feels like low and then you get into that, that, that victim state, then you live, but you have all this pent-up angst. You have all this, all this pent up. You know, you know self-loathing that so many other people like they're doing these things and you're just taking it or whatever, and that's again that's in shadow, that's going to come out in a bad way.
Matt:That's going to come out in like a really bad way.
Angelo:So yeah, even the notion to bury something you're, you're putting it underground, right, bring your emotions. How?
Matt:many of your emotions, your desires, your true values, all those things you feel are being sacrificed, and you're, you know, you feel like you're being put under right, and so then that ends up having to come out inevitably, you know, whether it's destructively to other people or destructive towards yourself too, sometimes both.
Angelo:Yes, so what was this Denver history you were talking about?
Chris:yeah, so please, uh, no, we were just speaking, um, you know. So, once upon a time in denver, uh, the ku klux klan was like just everywhere. They were really involved with the city and everything. They were, right, extremely opposed to the Catholic Church here in Denver. So what did the Catholics do? They went to the top of a hill and they erected their seminary right there. That's why, if you ever go to the Denver Seminary here, it's a tower on top of a hill and back when it was first built, everyone in Denver could see it hill, and back when it was first built, everyone in denver could see it like that was our um, putting ourselves up above everyone else and looking down on the ku klux klan, who deserved it.
Angelo:Yeah so that calls into notion this, uh, this idea of the difference between space and place.
Angelo:So a space is just is just an area, but you don't necessarily know where you are. You have nothing to orient yourself. So when you're lost in the forest and you're wandering in, the forest looks the same and you don't know if you're going in circles or going in a certain direction, you have no orientation. But as soon as you have something vertical and you can see it, like, let's say, the north star or a steeple of a church or a pillar, somewhere is erected to give you orientation that then becomes a place that you can. Therefore you can mark it, you can understand it and you can move around or towards or away from something, but you can orient yourself because of this vertical.
Chris:I love that idea and the first things that are coming to mind are just videos of people who are out in the ocean, like maybe they're on a, on a luxury cruise or something, and then they turn the camera out and it's just pitch black because it's the middle of the night and you can't see. There are no lights out in the middle of the ocean and yeah, I do have to credit jonathan pageau for that one. Oh okay, I wish I could say it was mine. I'm a genius.
Angelo:Jonathan Pajot was talking about this idea of space versus place and he talked about in the Bible. There's a lot of symbols orienting things upward right, and so the lower you go, the dirtier something is, and so you get like iron. And then you get like something less than iron, like a shinier metal or something like that, and the higher you go you get to something like gold, and gold is like a shining thing which you associate with like the sky or light or whatever and so when case of the sea, a lighthouse right.
Angelo:Right, right, A lighthouse is an orienting thing and it gives A place that shines light.
Angelo:Yes, it turns it into a place. But in the Bible, isaac anoints this stone with oil, and it's really weird. To somebody who doesn't really understand the symbolism, it's like why are you pouring oil on this stone? But what he's doing is oil is a symbolic substance that makes things shiny, it makes things higher, closer to light, and by anointing this stone, he's raising it up and he's marking this lost desert area as a place, and so that area is now recognized as significant. It's the place where his stone was anointed.
Matt:You know what's funny, this thing with hiking trails too. Like you'll see people stacking stones called cairns is what that's called Like where you see people balancing rocks, balancing rocks and like stacking oh yeah, and trails, there's a name for that. So it's interesting, like you know. Again, the verticality and the, the making it a place you know, making it significant yes, there's a book called an altar in the world.
Chris:I forgot the author's name, but she travels to hawaii and she's just kind of exploring this volcanic area. There's some water there and she notices someone had built a rock kind of thing like that and it looked it resembled a table or an altar and that was the inspiration for the title of her book just the idea that someone was here and they brought sacredness to where they were.
Chris:They didn't need like icons of church not that there's anything wrong with those things, necessarily but bringing sacredness to where you are, in space in place making a place for it, right, making your own.
Angelo:And though the word alter alt is, is um altitude related to altitude, right, it's a raising up.
Chris:So if you think about, uh, with all these connections, but I mean, that's what I'm saying. Is the vertical, is this notion? It?
Angelo:is it's ingrained into us this notion of up and down and uh the church itself.
Angelo:You a lot of times in uh towns the church will be the tallest building and the steeple of the cross will be the thing. That's what makes it a place, is a thing to everybody can orient around, and and everyone in that community is not only physically oriented by the church, but spiritually and culturally they all are supposed to be oriented towards this spiritual practice. And so the church physically is, is representing something to give you. It's an analogy for something spiritual.
Matt:Yeah.
Angelo:And the same thing goes for within the church. There's so many raising ups just within the structure itself, the altar. Also, anybody who practices a more traditional form of christianity will recognize the raising of the host right um down to like windows.
Angelo:If you look at gothic windows, they're all arrows pointing up so the idea is, the earth is usually represented by a square. Squares are stable. Squares have four corners. That's where you get the four corners of the earth notion, and squares are things you can build on top of. Circles are associated with the heavens, the spheres, so it's a square that turns into a circle. And then the christians, or used the trinity, so they threw a square, circle, triangle, and so your gothic window is a raising from the earth towards the heaven, with the arrow pointing up yeah orienting you wow I got one more for you too.
Matt:Think about why we raise our hands up in the air like this and wave them like you, just don't care right yeah, absolutely absolutely.
Angelo:there's so many examples that that we just take for and it's just built into us from probably several different things that we empirically observe. I mean, for one thing, the sun is in the sky.
Chris:Yeah.
Angelo:And that's our source of light and heat and warmth, and we associate it with life. So this very important thing that we use to orient ourselves is up, and also our heads, the, the, the thing that we associate with intellect and that drives our body and that we also associate with the most intimate part of ourselves. If you think about it, when you think about another person, you think about their head and their face. You don't necessarily think about their whole body first, you think about their face. Okay, so the head is on the highest part of the body. It's elevated, at least for humans, that's true. So it's almost natural that there's this, this vertical.
Chris:Yeah, um notion, I think from an evolutionary perspective I mean, we were probably in the beginning. So, um, we mentioned earlier that we don't want to just discount the earth right just because we're talking about the vertical and altitudes and higher ups and whatnot. I think what we probably did right is we probably climbed some trees, we probably climbed some mountains and we probably climbed some mountains and we had this idea like that took a little bit of time, that took a little bit of effort and work, but now I'm on top and now I have supervision over this area that I have. It looks beautiful and that idea of beauty probably played on our minds a little bit when we did that, and so we put a value on altitude and height.
Chris:Yeah, but, without the ground right, without our roots, without a place to dwell, without shelter, you know we need to be on the ground too. We cannot.
Matt:We need to have both it's like and there's a balance there. It's like a forward orientation thing too, going, you know, now we're kind of going to the, the horizontal bits, but not really, um, in terms of like it's. It's kind of it's really sexy. Think about expansion and like building and doing all this, like no, I want to go forward and do all these, all these cool things. And it takes, it takes effort for us to. You know, we have to regard slowing down like think about why the rudder of a ship is at the back of the ship, right, that allows you to course correct, that allows you to.
Matt:You know, you can't just be okay all forward, all the time you have to be able to do the maintenance things you have to be able to do. You maintenance things you have to be able to do. You know, making tough decisions away from what you might like to think is, oh, this would be really fun and this would be really really awesome and uplifting, but I can't do that because I have an assessment to do this. I have to you know I have to, I have to to go, I have to go deep and listen to my instincts.
Matt:I have to listen to my you know, uh, my intuition and what, what my gut is, what my gut is telling me that my emotions might well really want me to go this way, but my right, but my my instant, my intuition is telling me no, that's not a good idea.
Chris:You have to well, you kind of need like a um a system, right, a virtual system that supervises your um, your behavior to some, to some degree, and even even the word super, I think, means above exactly, it's latin for above, so I cannot get that idea of a supervisor out of my head.
Chris:And right, for some reason, he's on the lifeguard chair and he's saying we're headed for a cliff this way, we need to head this way. And he's like a tribal leader, right, so he, he puts in the work, he gets the ability to supervise and now he leads because he has that supervisory ability. And it's not just true for right, like we just said, um, it's not just true for our physical leaders or wherever we're going. We need a virtual system for ourselves that points us in the right direction and helps us to grow up.
Angelo:Grow up, grow up, that's another one.
Matt:That is, grow up, leveling up.
Chris:Live up to your potential.
Angelo:Yeah, it also brings me back to the mountain, because the mountain is not only an upward journey, it's a forward journey, and when you're looking down from above, it's an inward journey.
Chris:So that's why the wow so prevalent. Was that also jonathan pegeau or no? That's all that was really good, I love that because you gotta be you gotta be glad we recorded that your feet, you can.
Matt:you can be looking at yeah, you can be looking at the mountain, looking at the peak of that mountain, but you've got to keep your feet moving and your feet are what's closest to the earth, right? I'd love to talk about this the connection between higher and lower and necessarily feeling struggle or pain for, let's say, for a better cause or for for a better yeah, sacrifice sacrifice, like even even go back to you know. Lifting up your arms. Your shoulders get tired after a while.
Matt:Lifting your arms up for a while right if you're moving on that mountain, say you're moving on a couple, a few good miles on that mountain, you're using your feet, your legs can get tired, you're using. You know this notion of work yeah, you need to.
Angelo:You need to bring order, um in order to get to your goal, and when you relax, the chaos takes over and you do roads, all the the structure that you built. I also want to talk about hierarchy and authority because no, I'm just kidding.
Angelo:Yes, because it's a hard, it's well, it's often associated with the pyramid, right, and recently it's course, associated with negative things, because the idea is that all hierarchies are indicators of power and the will to power and can be tyrannies, right. So when you hear about something like a pyramid scheme, you're like, oh dude, that's a horrible pyramid scheme because there's like one guy at the top reaping all the benefits and all the guys at the bottom aren't. But I do think there is a sense in which there's a rightful hierarchy and we've talked about this a little bit, I think, in uh, when we were talking about good and evil where there there's a if everything's in its right place and and this notion of uh, there there is some sense of a value structure that you do want to have to orient yourself or else it's all just, or else there it's just space and exactly.
Angelo:Yeah, you're without a compass, right and so, uh, even the word authority has the word author in it, and an author is a person writing a story. They get to decide what the story means. They get to decide who is more important and who is less important. The author is in charge of the story. So, yes, to have authority is to be the person who should be, uh, the one writing the story, right?
Matt:yeah, he's in its rightful place, you know I've got to give some insight on this, like as a step-parent, from a stepfather experience, right. So my wife, pretty much, you know, raised our son till he was you know, it was just them until he was like seven years old, right, and he basically doesn't know, you know, no contact with his dad, all that, all that kind of stuff you know. And so I've been in his life a little over a third of his life, which is crazy to me, right? So that means that I consciously this is the way I love to think about stepfatherdom is I consciously stepped into that family, I consciously chose that family, right? So he's used to, he's been like used to things, you know, between him and his mom and in a lot of different ways, right, and I come in and I'm like what's my role, you know? I'm like what's, you know what is? What is this thing about being a stepfather specifically, right?
Matt:so I'm like you talk about, like on the job, training, you know that is that is something I'm learning, learning as I go right, and I definitely fell into that, where it's like you know, and this is such a sovereign thing. Going back to the archetypes, right, I mean, that was a whole, a whole learning journey for me. Right is is that mindset of the sovereign is the one who calls the shots.
Matt:That is such, that can be such a deeply ingrained idea, and that ended up causing struggles too, between us, you know, because it's not necessarily just the fact of you being the one who calls the shots that makes you a leader, is the qualities of being a leader that makes you a good leader, right, yes, so I had to adopt this new, this new frame. Right is what is like? What does that mean? Like, what does it mean to be the stepfather? What does it mean to be a leader? I'm facilitating the best interests of my child. That, to me, makes it very simple, right wow so know for.
Matt:so, whether it's nutrition, whether it's you know this or that, and what this extends to also is I want him also to be someone who a lot of parents can't admit this Like. I want him to actually be someone who exceeds me as he gets older too, because that's evolution exceeds me as he gets older too, because that's evolution. That means that I've done my job to help him to be the best version of himself, to be the best you know, to put him in the best position for success right well, absolutely, and that's love right sometimes challenge, sometimes challenge too.
Matt:Oh, absolutely genuine love is, is willing the best for for another and your kid.
Angelo:You want them to not make the same mistakes you made absolutely you want to elevate them to the best possible position. That they could be in, even if it's higher than yourself, and really you're, you're not gonna be here forever. No, what's the point of trying to hold your position above them forever? No you want, you want them to grow and their kids to grow and for it to keep, yes, going.
Chris:Oh, absolutely I think most of most parents. Now, I'm not a parent, right, you guys are, but I'd like to believe that most parents want that for their kids, to exceed them, I think the problem is yes the problem is not every mother and father has a good quality of being, of those two things, and they don't have a good quality of value like.
Chris:They don't know how to like they don't have the values themselves, so they don't know how to pass those good values on to their children, right, well, it's tricky, um, parenting is really hard raising another human being because you you're still learning about yourself oftentimes while you're raising a whole other person.
Angelo:Um, I think, archetypally, the mother and the father.
Angelo:There's this idea we kind of talked about this before too where the father is often associated with the above um, which is why I think the it makes sense for a lot of abrahamic religions to associate god with a father and we associate the earth with the mother, right. And so at the bottom, you have this generative principle. It's the thing that gives potential and and provides the soil for everything to grow. And from the above, you have a constraining principle. It's, it's the calling, it's the thing that trims down and limits and gives the orders and supervises right. And so the archetypal father is the one imposing a structure, imposing order through rules and limitations, and that's why the father gives ten commandments, right. That's why they come as rules of what not to do. Thou shalt not, that shall not. It's a limiting principle versus the mother is this generative principle, and those two, in their proper place, in their proper order, will make the best thing ever, because the bits that aren't needed are trimmed off and the bits that are needed to grow.
Matt:Have enough nutrients from you from below and you know a really beautiful way that that works out too. Say, you have like a man and woman in relationship, and how that works is if you have a man who is responsible and knows how like it isn't just about the impulse of taking charge, but you actually know how to get things done effectively and she doesn't have to worry about those things, actually know how to get things done effectively and she doesn't have to worry about those things. He's like oh, we had this. You know, we had this problem with the with one of our vehicles recently. Like somebody did this hit and run, like the bumper was like hanging off and this whole, this whole thing.
Matt:Right, yeah, I know bastards you know, but it's like the less that she has to worry about that. And like we collaborate we, you know, we, you know, we, like you know we exchange resources and thoughts and all that kind of stuff. But basically I'm figuring out where you know, where we can get this fixed, for how much, all those things, right.
Matt:So she doesn't have to have that weighing on her mind. Just knows, oh, is going and getting it done Right, right. So she can't have to have that weighing on her mind, just knows, oh, he's going and getting it done Right, right. So she can then relax. She can then focus her nurturing energy on areas where she's going to do her best. You know her best work and be most you know, taking care of the home.
Matt:She loves bringing flourish and beauty to the home. That's one of the most awesome things about her is that she loves the beauty of the home space, so it's like being able to focus on that and not have to worry about the car frees up a lot of mental energy?
Chris:Absolutely you were taking care of some practicalities of the situation and she was the family nurturer.
Angelo:Yeah, yeah. So, going back to the question of authority and what ought to be at the top, I like the idea of the meritocracy right the top and they, if they are generously, you know, oriented towards the, towards a higher good, they will bring everyone up with them, right?
Angelo:if you're a person, they are, yes, well, yeah, obviously, obviously roll those dice obviously the entire thing needs to be oriented towards, towards a higher good, or else, if it's a self-serving person at the top, it won't work. But a person who, let's say, it's a company right, a person who isn't just trying to be the guy who makes the most money and gets to boss people around, but he cares about the company succeeding and making this thing a successful thing for the sake of making everyone in the company flourish and whatever the company does, let's say it's something that they create, a product that that serves people well, if his heart is oriented towards I want to make the best product that I can. Um, and not I'm just gonna cash out on this company and leave everybody to fend for themselves when I'm finished with it.
Matt:Uh, that's the proper orientation is yeah, no, absolutely yeah, like something higher than himself, right leadership development, too, and that's so good. We're talking about higher and no, absolutely, yeah, something higher than himself, right? Leadership development, too, and that's so good. We're talking about higher and lower too, because if you have people who are coming up, who are on your team, but you're that person who's very, very competent, knowledgeable, and you know how to teach, you know how to explain things.
Matt:Well too, Right, you know how to teach. You know how to explain things well too right, like there's this order of things like unconscious incompetence, like being so bad at something you don't even know how stupid you are at it. Right, a level up from that is conscious incompetence. That's where you're aware of your deficiencies, aware of your weaknesses right, then you can actually look at them, something about them. Then there's conscious competence. That's where you know that you're good at whatever areas you're good at. Right, you're good at it. You know you're good at it. You know how to well, hopefully, how to explain it to. And then there's unconscious incompetence, where you're so good at something you struggle to explain how you do it. It's so automatic for you, right.
Matt:And this is where a lot, of, a lot of teachers get stuck, a lot of leaders get stuck is because they're just so in their zone that it's hard for them to step. You know, not dumb it down, but but explain things in simple terms to people to understand. And you have to have the will for people to actually understand. That's the mark of a great teacher. Right, there is when you can explain it simply and you actually want people to learn and what that does. Information sharing is one of the most powerful forms of leadership. Seriously, absolutely.
Matt:Because, then you're leveling people up, you're sharing information, you're compounding the competence of all the people around you. They can take that knowledge, hopefully even apply it. Then you've got to hold them to, you know.
Chris:I think that that's exactly raises people up. Another thing that brought us together is exactly that thing Our ability to communicate our experiences in a way that we want to share what we've learned with others and draw them in to our ideas of higher principles and inner depths.
Angelo:There's something to this notion at the top level, the unconscious, competent, where they're not just aware of what they're good at in the known but they're able to adapt to the unknown right, and we all value that as virtuous unknown right and we, we've all value that as a as virtuous. Yeah, because if you have a scientist and they're on the cusp of the unknown and they're discovering something, you want someone who knows how to discover, someone who's able to say, no, I don't know everything, but I'm good at finding it, I'm good finding the answer and that's humility again, right there.
Chris:I don't know everything, but let me try to figure this out. Help me, let's figure this out together. Maybe we both don't know everything in the world.
Angelo:You're humbling yourself in the face of a higher truth. A good teacher knows that they don't know everything about the subject, but they know how to learn. They know and that's really what a teacher ought to be teaching their students is how to learn, not just yes. Here, stuff all the knowledge that I have into your brain and regurgitate it onto this paper. It's no, and if you don't know where the answer comes from, how?
Chris:do you find it? Do you know who famously said I know that I know nothing. Socrates, oh yeah.
Angelo:That's right.
Chris:That's right, he's the original. Like oh yeah, I'm super humble, I don't know anything, and now let me slap your intellect around a little bit.
Angelo:Let me show you how much you don't know yeah.
Chris:And now that I know that I know nothing, I want to go back to a specific sentence. You had said before, um, when you were talking about the metaphor of like, the, the business, the right, the authority corporation yeah corporation. You said the whole thing needs to be oriented towards a higher good and and that works for the corporation metaphor, but I think more broadly that applies to humanity, all of us. We need to be oriented towards a higher good, something higher.
Chris:Something greater than yourself, and it starts with being humble and saying you know what? I don't know anything. I don't know everything that happened on the planet Earth yesterday. I don't know what will happen. Let me orient myself to the higher good, the higher truth the higher beauty.
Matt:You know that's looking at things in depth too. I think there's a stillness there. And, going back to the thing of you know you can't always just be forward oriented and moving forward, but like when you're still, like think about how water in a lake necessarily is just still and water just goes to the lowest point, right, and it's in that stillness, right. So when you can look at things at depth, when you can look, when you can be still, when your mind can be still and you can look at things like why are skyscrapers all pointed upwards? You know, like they're all. They're all.
Matt:It's, all it's about. It should be about ascending towards something or or pointing towards something. You start to make these connections. You know, when you don't have all the clutter and the noise shaking your mind, you know and you can observe things and you can be curious and you can have, you know, think about the up. I think that also is like a sense of awe too. Yes, you know, when you have an, an awe experience and you can experience things at depth and insights come to you and and you're, you know your mind, it's like you're, you're well, I like to say you're it's like your being is dilated yes, and you know what I don't?
Chris:I don't think humanity has had enough of that. I don't think it's enough for our culture, our societies, our technology to just progress. We have to ascend versus nuclear energy our technology has far surpassed our wisdom ability to use it correctly. Um. So, again, it's just not enough to progress our technology and and our societies or whatever. We have to ascend towards a higher point but remain grounded right, like you can't have the top of the tree without having the roots in the ground.
Angelo:So, again, there's a balance there we're not just and it's funny even that metaphor that from young, the tree with with its roots reaching down and the leaves reaching up, yes, is another height metaphor yeah, dante's inferno was a whole vertical ascension hell yeah, oh yeah and then purgatory right.
Chris:Purgatory is a mountain that you have to ascend and at the top is eden, like the original eden, um, like a spiritual eden. That's just perfect. It's not heaven, but it's a perfect dwelling place before you get to heaven and the heavens are spheres that that go inward yes, yes, they're, they're well. Originally they're the planets right you ascend through the heavens right and then, when he reaches god, god is like this encased. How is it? Oh, it's like a perfect sphere of angels and he's right at the center, like a rose. It's.
Matt:It's really cool, wow wow, that's if you look at some of um. Was it albrecht durer? You ever seen it? He was a german artist. He did a lot of these engravings, but like hyper detailed engravings I think that sounds. Did a lot of these engravings, but like hyper-detailed engravings. I think that sounds like a lot of one that he would do. He did a lot that were very religious and very, very spiritual. It's honestly mind-blowing, mind-blowing detail. Fantastic artist yeah.
Chris:Let's Google it.
Matt:Go Google Albrecht Durer. Yeah, yeah, artist, yeah, let's google it yeah, yeah that guy was insane in the best way I wanted to talk briefly to, about going in depth in in your being too yes we're say, you know, when we're ascending towards something, we're it's, it's a higher point, what we have, all of this depth within ourselves, we have all of this.
Matt:That is that's inside of ourselves and we say we're doing, we're doing shadow work, we're doing, you know, meditation and we're looking, we're looking inward. It's like there's an inward and a downness. I think that's that's connected looking at yourself in depth and getting to know yourself deeply right, getting to know your. You know, getting to know like I'm not just going to move forward in the mundanity of my day and move forward in my life in this automatic way, like, let me look. They look deeply inwardly and become, embrace it, like talking about the roots, like embracing the depth rather than it being this struggle or this begrudging thing. You know this thing that you're looking forward to going deeply inward and getting to know yourself and being intimate with the being that is you.
Chris:That shadow work that you do with yourself, that is work and that can get really dark. But I think there's this idea that the ascension right, the spiritual ascension and the pinnacle god, I guess right, the pinnacle also involves the deepest depths of our personal being. You can't have one without the other. You got to have both it's interesting.
Matt:I was, I've been doing a lot of meditating on gratitude recently, and not just, you know. We think of gratitude, as you know, appreciating the things around us, appreciating our friends, appreciating our family and our blessings and all those things. But I think it's an awareness too, or it's an aspect of awareness. Awareness, too, or it's an aspect of awareness you can appreciate. You can be grateful for the challenges that you're going through, for what they're going to bring out of you.
Matt:You can be grateful for things that may not even seem like blessings, things that are in your route. You can be grateful for, you know, again, going at depth, um, the things, the things that we take for granted, like not just automatically going through our lives, but perceiving it deeply, perceiving these things deeply, being aware of them and having a felt presence, experience of shining a light on them. And it's so funny when you say, like talking about, talking about the higher and you know, and being inward, and it's like that's actually one thing. I thought about it, about the gratitude in that way, and the awareness is like it's the light that that shines through, matter, the light that shines, the light that shines through matter it's the light that shines to those deep places.
Matt:You can look in those deep places and be grateful and have that depth of awareness and gratitude.
Chris:A great Spanish saint, st Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Jesuits, which is the largest priesthood around the world. He developed the spiritual exercises, and one of the first ones you have to do is you have to dwell on the sins which you've committed throughout the day so that you can ask forgiveness from. But before you do that, think about all the good things that happened today and thank God for those good things. That's beautiful, because without the gratitude you're right you don't have the light to bring into your life. And another exercise that I've heard of I don't think it's St Ignatius, but if you woke up tomorrow without the things that you thanked God for the night before, what would you have? I mean, did you thank God that you have a functioning vehicle, have a loving wife and children shelter?
Angelo:I know I often think about how I'm not sick Like you ever been sick and your nose is stuffed and you're like it sucks, man oh dude, I used to love when I could just breathe through my face and then so breathing I don't know I had like a really stuffy nose not too long ago and it sucked and you're talking about.
Matt:It's the worst, yeah, and, and so now that I can like, now that I can breathe, through my nose. It's like I can like now that I can breathe through my nose it's like oh, my God.
Angelo:I love that I can breathe through my nose. Oh my God, it's so amazing. I wonder if, uh, when you're young, you you just take for granted your body and you, you just don't have any like aches and pains or anything, and you feel like the world's at your disposal. And as you get older, maybe like every day, there's just another problem. You're like ah, my teeth feel, weird, my back?
Chris:hurts. Oh yeah, weird. Yeah, I'm walking weird like every day wrong.
Angelo:Oh yeah, like maybe every day there's just a problem and you're like, oh man, can't there just be a day where I just have this body like everything?
Matt:works. Young people just looking like. What the hell's wrong with you?
Angelo:yeah, they don't get it, you'll learn you'll learn young blood you know, the first time, right now, everything's. That's great.
Chris:The first time that that happened to me, I think I was 30 years old, I'm 33, about to be 34. And you know, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a Power Ranger, right. So I'd like jump from all these stones to stone to stone. So I tried to do that again when I was 30. And I was like, oh, I can't do this as fast or as long distance. I can't do this as fast or as long distance. I can't really do this at all. Actually, it's kind of like I'm really tight and I can't jump to that stone over there. Oh no, I'm getting old. Oh man, this is bad.
Matt:I had a bucket list thing of being on American Ninja Warrior at one point.
Chris:And then I went to.
Matt:I went to what was it? Urban air, one of those with, uh, my son and it's all trampolines, yeah, and they've got the, they get the course in the middle and I'm like I am too damn heavy for no, that's for really limber skinny people. Yeah, that's that man that's okay, I'll trade big problems for hey again as we disintegrate.
Chris:Maybe our minds and our souls can make that ascension right, even if our bodies can't yeah, my soul is doing backflips that's right honestly, I think that's a good place to wrap this up.
Angelo:All right, cool, all right, I think uh this is fun.
Chris:Yeah, this was actually really great topic oddly enough, because what do you?
Angelo:you wouldn't think of what to say about the vertical, but here we are. So, um, thank you all for bearing with us and uh, so now let's talk about this unique concept of the vertical and height and altitude, and up and down. Uh, if you've stuck around this long, uh, thanks for being here. Um, please like and share and subscribe and do what you can to support the podcast and we hope to see you next time that's right, all right thank you very much it's been fun.
