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Today, Strangers You Know goes International with my conversation with Santiago García. I spoke with him from the small city of Pergamino, Argentina, where he was raised (about two hours from Buenos Aires). Santiago attended a progressive Catholic school that, although not in favor of abortion rights, the main bishop still believed that “Abortion is a way of controlling the birth rate from poorer countries”.
Join us as we discuss philosophy, politics, existential crisis, religion, expressions of God, worldviews, power, friends, family, and machismo.
Strangers You Know: Episode 107: Santiago Garcia (Chino)
Santiago [00:00:37] There you go. Ask me whatever you want. Shoot.
Brian [00:00:45] Well, you tell me what… what do you want to talk about today?
Santiago [00:00:51] You know, I… I listened to… I was… I was reading this… this page, the document that you sent me. And I know that's… that's where I started. And… and you say something about, like, “Okay. Talk about yourself.” No? I talk about like… maybe I understand that, like the main questions of your life or something like that. And also, the... those aha moments in your life. And since this is a podcast that talks about religion and all that, like I don't know, I think that was… that was a big moment in my life about when I… when I realized that all the things that they told me at school, they weren't true.
Brian [00:01:46] How old were you? How old were you at this time? What was your school situation? Give us some… fill us in a little bit of background.
Santiago [00:01:53] Well, I was going… I was going to a Catholic school. And they were teaching me this Catholic principles and God and Christ, Jesus Christ and everything. And they were teaching us… well, they use this… the parables of the Bible and all the little stories of the Bible to teach you to be a good man, good woman, whatever. But the last …the last year of college, I was 17, I think around 17, the teacher he was a philosopher and professor too. So he started the year by saying, “This year we're going to tear down some of the principles of the… of the church.” He said that. And I was like, okay, I don't know what this guy's going to say. He was very deep. You know, he was very deep in his… in his search for God and everything. He used to be a bishop but he quit. He married to a woman and they have two sons and a daughter. But he was very interesting in the… in the philosophy and things. And then later I realized that this school wasn't as old fashioned as I thought it was. You know, they were kind of progressive, even though they were in the Catholic… Catholic mindset and all the principals and everything of the church. But they were very… later I discovered that they were kind of left wing inside the church. Yeah. And that was weird to me to recognize that. And there was a moment that he said something like, okay, the apostles. Apostles? They didn't write the Bible. And we were like, wait, then who wrote it? And he was like, “No one knows.” And I was like, so they lied to us. They didn't tell us the truth. That was my feeling. And I felt like… kind of lonely. But I felt cheated. But he explained that it's… it's a story. It's a process. It's a process. And there was a group of bishops that said, “Okay, of all these books that are around, we're going to select the ones that there are lines of what we think at that moment, and that's how the Bible was created.” So it was more about like a political movement than another thing. So and… that thing about God, like that… that naive thing, like it went down and crashed. And then I started realizing about politics.
Brian [00:05:06] Okay. So, let's… let's talk about… before we move on to the politics for a minute. So, it came crashing down all at once for you. I mean, pretty much with one statement from your teacher that said, “Hey, this… you need to know these apostles and where these books come from.” Why do you think he told you that?
Santiago [00:05:29] Because he was like, “Now you're old enough to know.”
Brian [00:05:36] Okay.
Santiago [00:05:37] So, he'll always did that when you are in the last year of college. So he was like, he quoted Nietzsche that said, “We're going to use philosophy as a… as a hammer. We're going to destroy everything you think so you can start again.”
Brian [00:06:01] So he was definitely all into the subject of the philosophy and wanted you to experience that maybe under a controlled condition where he could kind of help guide you through some of that pain, because he knows out… out in the world, you're going to find this out. You're going to hear about this. Let's deal with it here. So that's something that would never happen in the LDS Church. If you're teaching a class, you teach according to the lesson plan that was prepared and approved and blessed and all of that. And if you get too far off of that, it's not that you get in trouble because you're all volunteers, but it doesn't happen very often. So he said… was he talking about the Nicene Creed? Is that kind of what he was talking about, or was that a different time period or…? Do you remember?
Santiago [00:06:52] He was talking about…
Brian [00:06:53] Nicene?
Santiago [00:06:54] Yeah. He was talking about that. Yeah, he was talking about that.
Brian [00:07:00] Okay. So why… so maybe the more interesting question is why did he… isn't… isn't why did he talk about it? Maybe the more interesting question is why do you suppose that before then it had always been presented, “Hey, this book of Matthew was written by a guy named Matthew, and he was an apostle”? And why do you think that was the case? Why would we pretend something we know that it isn't, right?
Santiago [00:07:29] Si. Yeah, that was my question. Like, why? And I think first, maybe the teachers, they don't know the whole story and they just teach whatever they… they told them to teach and that's it. And they repeat whatever little book they receive. No? And but if you want to go like deep into it, you need another… it's about like… it's like growing. We say it's like going out of the pot that you are growing now, which is the point that you need to break that pot and go to another pot, like a bigger pot to keep growing. And the problem is that in that process, the plant can die. And so some of us, like we… we didn't, like, believe in the church anymore. And… and but we had like a better understanding of it. Like now… now we understanding from a different perspective. He was saying, for example, that all the… all the critics from Nietzsche against the church, instead of destroying the church, what they've done, it's like they made it stronger because Nietzsche was going against the hypocrites that would go… that were into the church just to look for protection. Nietzsche was going, “No, don't look for protection of the church. Like, look for something else.” They got…. That God’s dead and it's not his temple.
Brian [00:09:05] Interesting.
Santiago [00:09:05] Yeah. You did better see him. I like him a lot. Yeah.
Brian [00:09:12] So it just didn't happen over the course of months or weeks. It did... I mean, you're… it sounds like that your view came within a matter of days of hearing, “Hey, here's the truth.” And then taking a couple of days for that to kind of sink in and say, “Well, so what does that mean?” And not feeling comfortable with the results and say, “Well, it doesn't mean anything that we've been told that it means. Anything that I believed up until now. It means something else.”
Santiago [00:09:42] So then in that… so then I started looking for other religions. Like, okay. So they were lying to me, and I have to look for something deeper or for another perspective of the same God. Maybe there's a same God or different interpretations of God. So then, I started reading about Hinduism and all the… like, this what do you call it? New age books and that they… that they impart the Eastern thought but in little… like with little phrases, then don't go in deep. But that… that's the way that you get in touch with the… with the Eastern philosophy is new books. And Osho and… and self-healing and all that.
Brian [00:10:44] So anything that didn't have the Bible at its root, you were interested in where that came from?
Santiago [00:10:50] Yeah.
Brian [00:10:51] And I'm assuming you're studying those with a little bit more of a… of a critical mind and you're thinking, okay, where did this start? Is there any truth in it? Is there any truth in the beginning? Or is this just a good teaching that I can pull in regardless of where it came from?
Santiago [00:11:09] It took me a while to see that. In the beginning, it's, “I don't want… I don't want to have to do anything with this.” Took me a while to then understand and say, “Wait, they church, like they play a role in society.” Especially here in in Argentina. In Argentina you have a… the church is huge. And they help the poor people. That's it. That's how you deal with crisis. Like you help people through them. That's it. And so, there's real helping of people. There's something real about it. And people really think that that's their God and that's fine and I'm okay with it. In the beginning, it was fighting against them, but now I'm okay. And I really appreciate the… the work that they… that they do. But then you have a problem that it's… some people think about abortion. So then you see you have some… some problems that are... that you can understand the work of the church. But then in other things, like you're not completely allowing on all these things.
Brian [00:12:32] So would it be safe to say that you kind of viewed the church as this all-encompassing, eternal truth initially and you kind of changed over time to say, “No, this is a good social construct that does good in the community, but not necessarily as a higher power or this all-encompassing truth”? Would that be a fair statement?
Santiago [00:12:59] Yeah.
Brian [00:13:00] So this… this all-encompassing social power now has a… if it's a political or a spiritual agenda, I don't know how you’d separate those, but they have certain issues that they will not support. And that's kind of where you're like, okay, well then who supports that, right? Who supports people that don't have your same beliefs but still need some type of social or community support? What about them?
Santiago [00:13:33] Yeah.
Brian [00:13:34] And you mentioned abortion as one of those. What are some of those other ones that you kind of feel like, well, there's just no help for those… those groups?
Santiago [00:13:43] There was a… there was a huge argument here in Argentina about abortion, you know? And some feminists were against the church, and you have to burn the church and everything. But some of them were like… like some people really believe that… like, there's a life there. And… and in that life that there's God. So, you're killing God. No? And some people really believe that. And that's in the… in the discussion, in the argument. Like you have to take that into consideration too. That person. It's not against the freedom of women necessarily. I mean, in fact, they are because they… they don't allow the women to have abortions, but they think they're not. And there's this phrase... the phrase here that says, ‘El camino al infierno esta lleno de buenas intenciones.’
Like the path to hell, it's full with good intentions. Like you can do… you can do something really bad with good intentions. And I'd advocate for like the separation between the church and state. I think that's a… that's a good thing. But I understand the complexity of the social situations in countries like Latin America.
Brian [00:15:11] Yeah. Well, you can say, separation of church and state. But when the large percentage of your population, of your voting population is of the same religion and the same beliefs, that really also has control over the state as well as the church, because it's the same people. It's the same predominant beliefs. And… and yeah, it's definitely a tricky issue.
Santiago [00:15:39] Yeah. Yeah. Indeed.
Brian [00:15:42] Okay. So you're 17, you're reading Nietzsche. You're studying Eastern philosophy, you're picking up new versions of truth, and you're seeing the church as a really good social organization that helps out the needy in a lot of… in a lot of important ways. Your brain then turns to, well, politics. At least we can… at least we can trust the politicians and know that they're always telling us the truth. What happens if they just started making up things that were in their… their best interests and lied to us about it? What would happen then?
Santiago [00:16:30] But the thing is that what I… what I learned in the university is like, be careful because with politics, you know that they have some interests in something and that's kind of transparent. Like you see the interest or the strength. And so with politics, you know what you're dealing. But the problem is with some socialist, of course, is that as they present themselves as transparent and they're true and objective. And when they start talking about that, then you're in trouble because they're hiding. They're hiding the power that's underneath them. And that's happened. That happens with a lot of the Christian kind of like philosophy. and also, with… for example, medical. The doctors and everything. They're the truth. There's nothing more than that. That's the truth. And that's how the body works. And that's it. And there's nothing you can say against it. Because that's how the cell works. And the cell works like this and this. And this is why you feel sick, for example. And that's it. That's the truth. So, what if we look more into it? What if we know how that discourse was done, how the discourse works in the society, and also which… which ones benefit from them? That's the main thing. Who benefits from this social discourse? Yeah.
Brian [00:18:17] So you mentioned that the politics. they kind of talk about… they… they lie or they hide what their true motivations are. But in the end, a part built into politics is I need to get support from as many people as possible. And while I do have an agenda and idea of what needs to be done, we need to build this dam and flood this entire valley and move all of these people, displace them all. But it's better overall. The people outside of the valley, I'm going to talk to them about the importance of conservation and water and everything else. The people that live in that valley, I'm going to talk to them about the importance of something else. Because that's what they're going to hear. That's what they need to hear in order to believe this. I'm not hiding my beliefs. I've just got a couple of them and I'm going to talk to you about one and talk to you about another. Do you really think that's hiding it? Or do you think that they're hiding the fact that, well, really, we want to build this dam because we've already sold the electricity to our neighbors and we don't care about the water or any of it?
Santiago [00:19:31] No, I don't think that the politics hide. I think… I think that you know they can lie to you. So, you approach a politician in a different way that you approach a doctor.
Brian [00:19:42] Okay.
Santiago [00:19:43] So when a politician comes or… or a lawyer, they come, you know, they're looking for something, you know, and there's an interest behind whatever they think. But you know and you're thinking and the second intentions that they have. But when a doctor comes, you don't know if they have another second intention or not. They say they want to heal you. So that's… I'm putting the doctor as an example of the things that are very consolidated, like something that it's like. But I don't I like the medicine. I'm… I'm in favor of medicine and doctors. I like them. But… and that's what… that's what I was saying.
Brian [00:20:29] So yeah. So, you know, going into it that they're not claiming to be this higher power, this all knowing. This is what God told us. You know you're a politician, elected to office, you would like to stay in office. And so with that in mind, tell me what you're here to tell me.
Santiago [00:20:49] Yeah. That's it.
Brian [00:20:51] So then from there, there's a larger idea of, you know, your local politician. There's the idea of different types of government, right? That's… that's another part of it. And I know you kind of looked into that a little bit and you kind of have obviously you have opinions on, you know, in this situation, these are better or this one approaches this way and this one approaches this way. So we know that not only is this politician a politician, they're working in this type of system, which also tells me this and this.
Santiago [00:21:31] The thing with politics and I think what you're aiming for, it's like… more like the personal thing that what happens to me related with politics because it's not we can’t talk about politics and we can’t argue about everything. But you know what the podcast is about. But the thing is that what I found, it's like… it's like a place where even though some people don't like it, that's how you make transformations in society. It isn't about… you’re willing. Maybe your politics are not perfect and everything, but you need to be there in order to take decisions. And that's… that's what I find interesting. To know that… that although that's something… that it’s not clean, that it's… and that a lot of shit, it’s… it's politics. A lot of interest and a lot of bad things. And you need to be there in order for the to make the real transformations and not pray alone in your church or just say something. Or go to the temple and say, okay, I feel good because today I pray. And then you go to your house, then like all the society is covered with shit and they have to deal with that shit. Like it's… it's also a way of getting connected with others. And being less selfish. Because people… you think, okay, they go to the church and they're not that selfish because they care about others. No, that's not true. They're very selfish. They care about their own salvation. And that's it. Okay. In politics, you need to deal with a lot of shit. And the only… the only way of doing that is because you really believe in… in a deep transformation of society. That's… that's what happened to me.
Brian [00:23:30] Okay. So you went from being a pretty trusting individual and a child that believed what you were being taught, right? I mean, because that's where you were and that's what you were doing. I'm not faulting that. We all were… we all have been there. But in like… in one comment, you were like, “Oh, no. You need to be very critical about not only what people are saying now, but why they are saying it and their motivation and who that person is.” Did that spill over to personal relationships?
Santiago [00:24:07] Yeah.
Brian [00:24:08] So, tell me a little bit. Did you look at your… your grandparents or your parents and say, “Oh, now I'm watching. You're my… you're my parents. So, that's why you're saying.” Tell me about that. Do you have any of those?
Santiago [00:24:22] Well, I lost a lot of friends because of politics. But now I'm getting back in touch with them because in the end, I think that it's everything… it's all about people. And you have good people that are like from another political perspective, but they're good people and you can trust them. And there are some people that are from the same thinking, but they're not good people. You don't want them to have them close to you. And that's… that's a lesson that I'm learning now. I think it's not about good and bad because the good and bad comes also from the church. So, it's okay. There are good people and bad people. So that's… that's how your world… it's as simple as that, as good and bad. And there are more tones there. It's more there. There's more complexity there.
Brian [00:25:22] Yeah. And the church… the good people are in the church and they're here every Sunday and they're praying and they're making donations and they're helping out. And people that aren't doing that are bad people, and they're pretty easy to identify. People that vote for this political party or for this candidate, they're good people. People to vote for the other ones, they're bad people. So give me a specific example of someone that has different… wildly different political views that that you're like, I don't understand that. I appreciate that it's there and that you think that way, but they're a good person. Tell me how you came to find somebody like that. And if you can get specifics about who they were or how you came to that understanding that, yeah, you can vote against me completely and still you're a good person.
Santiago [00:26:19] I remember one thing that I went to Bonasai to study and communication or whatever. And I was advocating in this group of like kind of left-wing group. I was seated there. We were talking and then this guy came. No, we were there sitting. This guy went out to buy a piece of bread, something like a pastry. He came back. And he ate it alone, like on himself. Like he didn't invite others to eat. It was like, that's not the person that I want to be with. I want to be with people who care about others. And that's not a thing that I… that I like. And that's not something that I advocate for. And then, for example, my grandpa, the father of my father, he was against Perón. Perónwas a famous president here in Argentina. And he worked in a bank here in Argentina. And he was…. I think he was kicked off… kicked out of there… was fired from the bank because he didn't advocate for Perón. So he had like a huge thing, like a huge personal thing against Perón. But I advocate for Perón. He was a good guy. And every… every person that talked to him and every person that talked to me about him, they said that he was a great guy. We had some political discussion but thehe key... he had different values. He had different ideas. Also, because politics is about values. And my friends, like my core friends, they think much alike and they… they vote for the same candidates. And that's something that was like natural. That was something like natural. We didn't have to argue about anything. Like all of a sudden, we were voting for the same candidates because it's a way of watching the world. It's no more than that. And all the… all the people that stayed with…we call that the vision there, that it's the people that troubles that went around like… they went... I’m in a little town, amino close to venocile. And a lot of people that live here, they kind of have a more conservative mindset. And the people that traveled that went to Venocile or around the world, they have a more open mindset. And that’s how it was. There was…. there's only one… one friend that I am now becoming friends again with him. And he's very selfish and he's very funny. And the other day we went we went to a bar and we had and we talked and I'm friends again with him.
Brian [00:29:35] How much do you think… so, your current worldview. Let's… let's expand a little bit beyond just politics and religion and current view of the world. How much of that do you think came from your family versus your education versus your where you grew up, your environment? So if you grew up in the same family in a different part of the planet, do you think you'd have those same worldviews or…?
Santiago [00:30:12] Umm.
Brian [00:30:14] It's very difficult to answer this question. There's a lot of play and it's hard to say.
Santiago [00:30:20] No, no. That's key. And. It's… it's a combination. You have… when you see little kids running around and playing and how they relate with each other and which ones fight with others, you know that they're looking for something. And you see… so there's kind of a personal thing because of the race and the social context. For example, I was like middle class in a school that was like for a very high class. I was at… like when the school pays you.
Brian [00:31:13] Oh yeah, you have a scholarship.
Santiago [00:31:15] Like a scholarship. I had a scholarship. So, I was looking at their way of living. It just… I've never belonged. And I felt that. And I always felt that. And it was something harsh to not belong to a group of people. They don't… they don't call you to the activities. You go to their houses and you ring the bell. And they're not there. But they're there. But they say they're… they're not. So you have the mothers say, “No, Peter's not here.” But you know that they're there. That’s kind of harsh. And then I started hanging out with my friends and they didn't go to that school. They were friends from the class and they were like same… more or less the same social class that I'm… that I was and I am. So when things were more fluent and we were laughing at the same things and our parents raised us in the same way. And then… and then the politics comes. When you were 19-20, you know that you need to read and we started reading together. And so, I think the main thing, it's a combination of both. Like the upbringing and the family. That's where you get the values from. For example, if you don't agree with your family values, then you're fighting against them and you're fighting against everything that your family is going to vote. And if your family went into the service and you hate them, you're going to… you're going to do everything that they hate. So, you're going to vote for other candidates. More or less, it's about that. And also, it's creative. The decisions that you make even in the votes, it's about… like static… if you like… like the feelings that the candidate gives you. Like if you are… there's an analyst. There’s an American analyst that says… he says that the Republicans, it's the father and the Democrats, it's like the mother. So the Republicans, they have like a strict father. And everyone who have like a strict father, they vote for Republicans. And the ones that need more protection and the most caring and everything, they vote for Democrats. That's very simple. But I think that's true in that sense.
Brian [00:34:02] So let me put this a different way. That's… that's a great answer. And you gravitated towards a group of friends that you felt more comfortable with. Well, not only more comfortable, but actually a part of. The other group, you went to school with them, but you didn't feel like you belonged there. I mean, you would even show up to say, “Hi” and they'd say, “No.” So you're on your own, right? Do you think that you have your worldview because of your friends group? Or do you think… your long-term worldview, do you think you have that because of the friends and the… and the environment that you are in? Or do you think you have those friends and that environment you were in because you had that worldview?
Santiago [00:34:57] Yeah. Well, I've never thought about that. Now I'm realizing that maybe I'm like this because of my friends. I always thought that it was about me. It was about me. I realized that. But maybe… maybe it was because of our friends. Because they’re there all the time and I didn't realize. And so, that's something that… that it's there before you… well, you realize that it's there. So maybe the process of learning itself is just about realizing what's already there.
Brian [00:35:39] Yeah. Because you… you feel uncomfortable.
Santiago [00:35:41] Yeah. I think it's something like I guess I felt comfortable and I feel comfortable with… with certain type of people. And certain… that certain type of people like, they also feel comfortable with some political ideas. So, it's as simple as that. You are describing. And then when it comes the rational thing and everything, but it comes from that. Like just… you feel comfortable with the people that… that you don't know why you feel comfortable with.
Brian [00:36:14] And that can be taken to an extreme of… of racism or any -ism that would, would say, hey, I feel more comfortable around people that I grew up with, that they're in the same class, they have the same beliefs, the same worldviews, same religion, the same politics, the same…. And we can be open minded and look a look at other areas and be aware of them, which is pretty open minded, just to be aware that there is a different perspective and those people aren't all idiots or aren't all bad, right? That that's a pretty open-minded perspective. But can we ever get to the point where we're just as comfortable or what would it take to get to the point where we're just as comfortable with people that we don't necessarily…. get comfortable with people that we're not comfortable with, I guess is the point.
Santiago [00:37:08] You would never get comfortable with the people that you know in order to build a government or a higher like a society that lives without killing each other, you need to deal with them. That's the thing. You will never have them close to you. But you will have to deal with them. And that's it. Not killing each other, just listening to each other and trying to make it work. Whatever issue or matter that you're working on. But you can talk about society, you can talk about government, whatever that I think that people that you feel more comfortable with, they're very little. It's… it's like five or ten. That's it. The rest, it's people that you need to deal with. Because they'll be tolerant and patient and. And yeah. For example, while you were talking, I was… I was remembering. And for me, the most important thing, it's not to get people excluded. Because I felt excluded. So I remember my friends, they were like, okay, I'm coming with a friend to another people, to another friend's house. It's fine. You opened the house and whoever was there was around to play, you come and you play with them. And that's… that's the people that I like. And the other people that are like, “No. Who are you? You're the daughter of whom? Okay, so then you cannot enter to my house.” So that's… it's about… I think that's what defined my… my political views. It's coming together. Who was around? Okay, let's go and play. We're going to… we're going to make it work. So that's why you're less and less racist, for example, because you don't care the color or whatever, the upbringing or whatever. You just come and play and that's that. It's as simple as that.
Brian [00:39:11] Yeah. There's… there's something at work there and I don't know what it is. I remember when I was looking at different fraternities to join a university, there were some that you felt when you walked in and you felt comfortable with. And there were others, you walked in and it's like, this is… it was it was really interesting for me at that age to go see different groups of people right across the street, you know, on the same street, that's just the next house down. And I had somebody ask me what my dad did for a living. I thought, okay, I'm in the wrong house here, right? I mean, that's what you decide, whether we're going to be friends? That's the determining factor.
Santiago [00:39:53] Yeah.
Brian [00:39:54] But so… so, what's at play there? Are they… they're not worried… they're not concerned about working together and improving things. They're concerned about finding people with power and building up as much of that power as possible. And so what's a concern? Do they do they feel like that's the best way to handle it is to, you don't work with everybody. You work with three or four people that can really make a difference or I'm insignificant, so I need to align myself with people that are in power or else I'm on my own, I'm just one of the many and I'm insignificant. I'm… it's kind of interesting. I don't know where I'm going with that, but it's just that you brought up that similar version of the same thing.
Santiago [00:40:39] Well, would you felt the same thing that I felt. And maybe you probably like talking to people and feeling them and listen to them because… not because of what happened in that house. But you were young enough that you realize that because you're sensible to some things. And some people didn't care. Like some of my friends, they’re like, I don’t know, I want to go to one of those houses out there. The bigger… the biggest houses and the richest families. But that wasn't appealing for me. I was… I was more into just playing with my friends and… and see what we could do and discover. And I was more about that than the appearance, for example. And some of my friends, they were like that. But there's some mechanisms and the power on how to… well, that's the… that's the reason why there are very, very expensive excuse. And you have all the elites together that they study together and they become friends. And then in 30 years, they're going to rule the country and they know each other since they were 15. So whenever they form a government, they're going to call their friends. That's how it is. That's how it works. And they have the same mindset and they develop the same mindset during like 15 years or more. And it's… it's better… that's how the elites are made. That's not something that I say that it's bad. It's not necessarily bad to have an elite in the government. But that's how… that's how it works.
Brian [00:42:26] So, when you're talking politics, you're talking, you with a group of your friends at a bar talking philosophies and trying to figure out how to make the world a better place. And there's another fraternity that only lets in people whose dads have good positions, and they go from that fraternity to an elite university, and they get an elite posting as a job in politics. And they're the ones making the laws. And you're sitting with your friends at the bar. Who wins that fight? Who wins that battle, right?
Santiago [00:43:03] Yeah.
Brian [00:43:03] There are more people sitting in bars talking with friends, and we have to vote for those people that have the elite and all the connections. But they're really the only people we get to vote for. It's very difficult to have someone step out of a bar and say, “Hey, you know, my friends kind of think I've got the right idea. You should vote for me. We don't know your name. “
Santiago [00:43:30] Yeah. Well, that's something, that's something that I find interesting about. In the US that you have more, you have these elites, you don't have someone that come from a poor upbringing, maybe Ocasio-Cortez, AOC from New York. Ocasio-Cortez? And that's the only one you have. Everyone they come from… they have money. Here it's not like that. You have people that are… that were poor. But you can you can get together. It's a smaller country. So if you… a lot of people and if you get enough people to get in bars to vote for you, maybe you can get a senator or you can be a senator or something or you can work as a politician or you can be mayor in a city. It's more… it's not that complicated. That's… that's the main difference between the US and Argentina and some Latin American countries.
Brian [00:44:45] I think… I'd like to think that that is the case in the U.S. And being from a small state of Utah that people just ignore most of the time, nobody cares and you're so homogeneous that they know how you're going to vote. It doesn't matter whether we spend money or we send the right people there. They're going to… Utah is going to elect the same type of person for the most part. But they get to the Senate. Around 99 other senators. And in the Senate, people are going around saying, “Hey, let's get four drinks after.” But most of them are saying, “What does your dad do?” And based off of the answer to that question, you're going to be on this subcommittee or you'll have the power to affect this, or you're just going to go out to the bars with your friends. I think the same thing happens at that level too. So yeah, you might get Alexandria. I can't pronounce it. Cortez? Yeah, she's there. You think she's going to get on a subcommittee that has some clout that's really going to make a big difference or…? I just don't see her being able to be accepted by that elite group that says, “No, we all went to this university and we are all members of this fraternity or sorority or whatever.”
Santiago [00:46:02] No. No. She's never going to be.
Brian [00:46:04] She's there. But so what? I mean, your vote is going to be a rounding error.
Santiago [00:46:10] The thing that her strength, she found her strength that is to be an outsider. So if she… if she ever gets inside the elite, then she's going to lose the voters. So her business, it's do not lose that and to be always an outsider within the Democratic Party to talk about and to talk with the elites and everything. But you need that person to keep being an outsider. She's not from the Democratic Party, I think. I think she has her own. I don't know. I don't know about… a lot about politics in the US.
Brian [00:46:45] Yeah. But you have studied politics. You probably know more about politics in the U.S. and I do love politics in Argentina. But you've traveled quite a bit and you've studied politics for quite a while. Who does this well? Who gets people together and actually listens and tries to be inclusive and tries to solve the problems of their constituents as opposed to protect their… their seat of this… on the throne of this big empire? What have you seen that works? And who does that well?
Santiago [00:47:24] I traveled a lot and I realized that there's not a unique way of two in politics and there's no good and bad. And each society has its own leaders. And maybe you don't like it. Maybe you understand them. Maybe there are too… you find them too cheesy or weird or fake. But that's what it works to that society. And I learned to be… to be respectful of the… of the politicians that society has. And there's a reason why people vote for them. It's not… it's not that they are stupid. People are never stupid and people are looking. That's what happened when they voted for Trump. And it was like, no, okay. Everyone's stupid. No, no. They were looking for a change. They were looking for some other things. And you cannot say that because they vote for some kind of stupid. But now it's… it's more deep and there's more complexity in that. And also, if you think that they're stupid, why are they going to work for you? Because you hate them. You don't respect the people that is going to vote for you. So, they're stupid when they vote for the other one, but they become intelligent or smarter when they vote for you. How does that work? So I learned to listen to the politicians, and I like the humble ones. Like the ones that they vote, and they fight for each vote. And they go and they work and they talk and they convince others that their ideas are better than the ones… the other ones. Then I have my thoughts. But that's, I guess, a professional work. I admire the one that get up very early every day and they go and talk and try to convince people. And the model that I like the most is maybe the Northern European countries. That's a cliché. They can do that because they are in Europe, they're next to Germany that is like the big industry of Europe. I don't know how they're going to deal with that… with the problems that they're dealing with. So, they sell services to Germany and that's why they get developed. Well, they've… they reached this well-being in the whole society, where you… where you see that everyone has at least health and they have education and they have a house to live. That's as basic as that. For me, it’s that the person… I can guarantee that in my country I'm going to vote.
Brian [00:50:32] Yeah. So how do we help the countries? And you've seen many of these and I spoke with Amanda about this a little bit. How do we help the countries where the powers that be, take the money and build their personal empires and are fighting against educating the masses because they know doing so is going to cause a tremendous problem for them down the road? How do you get past organizations that have that type of leadership that are just not willing to let you help the people that need it most because that means they're going to have a little less power?
Santiago [00:51:13] Yeah. Well, you need to fight. That's right. That's it. We need to fight hard. Because they're not going to give it away. They're the ones that they have the power. They're not going to get it. We'll give it away. That's why you need to be very smart in their organization. And it's a fight. That's politics. It’s a fight.
Brian [00:51:33] So when you… when you say fight, I mean, if an entire country is run that way, who's fighting? Not the uneducated masses that don't have any resources.
Santiago [00:51:44] No, no. But they can get together. And you don't have to be smart. You have to align interests. So, you have to be smart in that way. It's not about… it's not that people that read more. Everyone has their own interests. But you need to… in the democracy, it's about finding majorities. So, align all the necessities as big as possible so you can tear down the power that are controlling the people and give them more freedom and give them more rights and more and more. This is theoretical. And then it's about… it's like kneading. Like kneading all the demands of the society and to bring them together so you can push. So, it's like a kneading work. Get it together, talk and talk and talk, and then you go to the… you go and you vote and you see if that if that thing that you kneaded was strong enough to win to the other… to this power. But that power is going to play. And it’s going to play hard. It's going to play harsh. Maybe you did everything good and you lost, and then you lose. That's…. that's how it works. But I think that it's a small work. It's about talking and talking and convincing. And that's it.
Brian [00:53:23] And in time. A lot of time, it's very slow. It's a slow process. Doesn't mean you give up and you're not making progress, but it… but it's slow.
Santiago [00:53:32] Yes.
Brian [00:53:35] Yeah. So, I want to ask you a question, though. There are individuals out there. much like your 17-year-old self that has grown up, that politics is… politics is good politics. Politicians are there to help. The government is there to protect me. And I want you to be your… your philosophy teacher that that opens their eyes with the question and says, okay, this is what you need to know about politics. What question would you ask them that would just get them to say, “Wait a minute, what's going on here?” What information would you give them to say, I'll give you one example while you're thinking about it. And I think this is huge to realize people aren't stupid. And it's so easy for politicians to say, “That party is dumb”, “That politician is stupid.” “That's a terrible argument.” It's easy to say that. But really, the only stupid thing in that is the fact that you thought saying that meant something, right? People are voting the way they vote, believing the way they believe, doing the things that they're doing for us for a reason. And if you're smart, you'll understand what that is. And then you'll know how to work together or work around it if necessary. What would you say to kind of open someone's eyes and say, look, let me tell you what you've been taking for granted for years, that you've thought you've known to be true. And I'm going to ask you a question or tell you something that's going to make you walk out of here thinking, wait a minute, what just happened? Not to put you on the spot or anything.
Santiago [00:55:15] No, no, no. What you can ask is, who's paying for the campaign? You can start by asking that. Who's paying that candidate's campaign? Because they're not giving away the money, they're investing in it. So they're going to… whenever he wins, they're going to get their money back. So that could be… that could be one question. And also, I think that’s the main one. And also, which thing tanks are advocating for him? Because when you start knowing how those work, then you're going to know the ministers that that president's going to have. So you need to start seeing that the alliances that the president, that candidate is having in order to have the power because. With those alliances, ones they get into the government, they will want their investment back. I think that's the main thing or the question that will let you like thinking.
Brian [00:57:00] Yeah. No, that… that's a great point. What's the… what's the old Italian… I think it's Italian cui bono. Who benefits?
Santiago [00:57:10] Sorry. I don't know.
Brian [00:57:11] Yeah. There's an… I think it's an Italian saying called c-u-i-b-o-n-o.
Santiago [00:57:17] Ah, cui bono. Okay.
Brian [00:57:22] Right? And I think a lot of times while we're arguing about the politicians themselves, it's like, yeah, don't look at the politician. Look at the person behind the politician pulling the strings, telling them what to say, giving them the money, because they're the ones that are really controlling the politicians in a lot of cases, especially the higher levels, it's just a figurehead. They're not elected to office and putting in their ideas. They've got their ideas all come from somewhere back here.
Santiago [00:57:51] Yes. Then you have some others that you always respect because they reached the government with that funding. But then they said, okay, fuck it. I'm going to do whatever I want and for the good of all and all that. That they’re very strong enough to say no to you. Okay, we're going to pay you back somehow. But then now I'm going to build my… whatever I want to do. That's a negotiation too.
Brian [00:58:21] Yeah. You've got four years to do it because you know once you've cut off those strings, you're done. You've got four years. You better be finished because you're not coming back. And what can you get done in four years, especially when everybody's fighting you? You're not going to make any sustainable change. Right?
Santiago [00:58:37] No, no. That's… that’s the thing. And when you have two years, because after two years, you have… you need to choose for the chamber… for the chamber. The Senate… Senator. So you have an election every two years. There were some authorities from China that came and talked to some businessmen here and they said it's impossible to think in the long term with elections every two years. Yeah, of course. It comes from a China that they… they don’t have election. But it's hard like Democracy has its problems. How do you think in long term with how to develop a country if… if you have to have an election every two years? It's very hard. It's a very hard system.
Brian [00:59:29] Well, and you said China, they don't have… they don't have an election. But it makes very easy to know where they're going. You can plan on what they're thinking and where they're going long term. We get it. We know where you're going. We may not like it. We may disagree with it, but we know what to expect.
Santiago [00:59:46] Glad. I'm glad.
Brian [00:59:49] Yeah. Interesting.
Santiago [00:59:53] We are… we’re talking about politics a lot, if you want to… if you want to switch.
Brian [00:59:58] Just a couple of things before we… yeah, if… if we want to move on. What would you recommend as a news source or a book or something to read that has been most influential on you that you've learned so much from, that have helped you shaped your perspective?
Santiago [01:00:19] Well, you can… you can start. Like the main… the main philosophers… and we're all this… these modern ways of organizing the government commons are Rousseau, Locke, and Hobbes. I think they are like the main ways of how to organize the government. Why do we have government? Why do we organize ourselves in society? And why do we choose to delegate our power to a higher power? Is it because we don't want to kill each other? So, we gave all the strength and the guns to one…. to a higher power so they can take care of us? Or is it that we were happy and everything was perfect before the government came and stole everything from us? So, I think that maybe all the thoughts that are going around now in the society are about that. Okay, the government… we want a government with strong government or you want a loose government? And you want it… you think you have a government in order to take care of you? Or you think that the government is exploiting you? And I think in this context, I think those are the main the main writers to understand these ideas that are going around now.
Brian [01:02:35] And so, there are a lot of discussions and debates about what we do to fix the current situation, which… there will always be there, right? But you're saying most of the answers for what we're looking for were written a couple hundred years ago. And we're just not… we're just not understanding what they already knew and they warned us about and they said, “Don't”. And we did it anyway. And here we are.
Santiago [01:02:58] Yeah. I don't think there is a solution. It's just that the society needs to deal with the same problems over and over again, that they find new ways and you have the eruption of technology, but you're dealing with the same problems. And sometimes the… the society moves. They say, okay, let's fix the problems. And they go in more to the right and then they move more to the left. But the problem is, I think, they are the same since we organize ourselves in societies.
Brian [01:03:33] Yeah. And it's….
Santiago [01:03:34] That's why… that's why, for example, when you were talking about… I don't know if you were talking about that but, it's very hard for someone to go against their family, their own family, because we still have in our consciousness the thinking of like… clan. When you… when you were living in it, when we were living in clans, in caves, that if you… if you if you left the clan, you were going to die for sure.
Brian [01:04:04] It's a safety and survival.
Santiago [01:04:07] Clan. So, it's very hard to change or to mandate social mandates. And that's very hard because it's really a matter of the preservation to not change everything.
Brian [01:04:24] One of the things that I've been thinking of in doing some of these interviews is when people make those dramatic changes in their lives and realize they've been mistaken or maybe have been mistaking or looking at something the wrong way to something so fundamental, it's a painful process. But also, there are two parts of it. One, I think something needs to trigger them into thinking… asking questions that they didn't ask before. Your professor, for example, needs to say something or trigger something and say, wow, have I really not been seeing this? Or Amanda yesterday was talking about the man she met in New York, the street preacher who asked her one question that her mind just said, what? I think that's one thing that gets people to start thinking about it. The other one is being able to put a face to an issue. Whenever you hear people talking about those people, the bad people, the whatever, however they're separating it, when you meet someone that's in that camp and you get to know them personally and think, yeah, but they're not those people. They're just a person. Yeah. How about everybody else that's over there? What do you think about them? That is kind of one of those things to say we can no longer talk about racism, LGBTQ issues, patriarchy. We can't talk about those people on another side of the fence because once you've met one of them and that's what I want to do with these conversations, is if you meet someone and you have a conversation, you need to think twice about what those people are, the elites or whatever title you're giving them. And a lot of times we think, well, they're just bad, they're stupid. Yeah, that's very safe for you to say that. But if you meet one, you can't think that anymore, right? So now what else? Something has to change. There's another very interesting part that you just brought up. If you're on a small island of your thoughts, of your worldview and it's on fire, for whatever reason, it's not working. There's something wrong with it. It has to get so incredibly painful for you to make it change, or there has to be some safety for leaving it. There has to be a bridge to be able… that you feel safe enough to cross and say, I'm leaving. On occasion, I think someone will say, “There's no bridge here. It's a giant cliff and it's a raging river and I'll probably drown. I'm leaving anyway. I've got to get out of here. It's so painful. I have to take my chances.” But more often than not, I don't think it gets that painful that they need to find a bridge or another group of people or some type of community that have had a similar experience or they're like, it's safe for me to join that group, leave my family, leave my political party, leave my whatever. If I don't have that safety or the pain isn't so great, I just stay here and just deal with it. Now we can medicate it. We can make it so you don't feel it as much. We can. And those are good solutions in a lot of cases. But I think a lot of times for people to make that big mental shift, they neither need to… the pain needs to get so bad that they just leave or they find safety someplace else. Hopefully that they can say, “Yeah, this family or situation or whatever isn't for me anymore. I need to go find a new group of friends or a new support system.” And that's kind of where, regardless of the topic, we end up in here, whether it's religion or politics or whatever, I think those same rules I'm kind of seeing apply across the board and I'm just trying to see is that just an observation? Is that accurate? What are your thoughts on this?
Santiago [01:08:16] I completely agree with you. And not only that, but if you somehow want to carry the pain of other people, of another person, you're not helping that person to grow. And that's something that maybe the church teaches, teaches, you know, you have to be good and you have to help others, as simple as that. No. Sometimes by… by caring that weight that other people have on their shoulders, what you're doing is first, it's an ego thing. Okay, I can do it. I can carry other people's weight. But and also, you're not letting other people develop themselves. So, you don't… you're not letting or allowing other people to grow. That's very… that's very bad.
Brian [01:09:14] You're enabling their bad behavior. You’re enabling it. Yeah.
Santiago [01:09:19] That's very disrespectful for… for that's for that person, for that family, for that person of your family, even. Because the thing is that in the family and everything, it's mixed all together. It's very hard. And the relationship within and with your mother and with your father is very like tainted with other stuff. It's not about. “Hi, Dad. How are you?” It's about what you represent and what happened to me relating to you. It's a very complex relationship. And sometimes, the kids, they want to fix their parents because they feel that the parents are doing things wrong and or they're suffering. They are truly suffering, but they're not supposed to do that. They're not supposed to do that. Because they're their parents. And you can you cannot be disrespectful to them. And that's another thing that I learned. That is…. that is on the contrary of what the church told me to do. No, you always need to help everyone. That's not true.
Brian [01:10:26] Yeah. Yeah. I think part of religion, some of the damage that's caused by every religion is that there is one true source and it's not here. It's not this person. It's not internal. Don't listen to what you're thinking. We have the answer. God has told us what the answer is, and therefore you must pray or be better or… not that there isn't any value in what the church is necessarily teaching. But I question how much value there is in teaching everyone that someone else has better understanding of who you are and maybe personal revelation is supposed to help you around. That is, if you pray, you get the answer what's best for you. But a lot of times what you hear from religious leaders is, “This is the way.” And there are a lot of people out there that say, “I don't think that's the way for me. That doesn't fit. I feel like an outcast. I feel less than. I feel like a bad person because what you're describing doesn't resonate with me.” And that can be very painful for someone who's grown up in that environment, surrounded by people and all say, “No, this is the right way.” Sometimes that leads to an almost comical response. I had a friend of mine that was struggling with gender identity for 12 years, seeing a therapist, and they were medicating, getting medications for depression because there were lots of things that were involved in this. And the therapist said once, “You know, maybe it would help if you played more tennis.”
Santiago [01:12:09] Yeah.
Brian [01:12:09] And this person's like, “That's going to be the answer to my prayers?” And it started to click. It's like, maybe that's the same answer as pray. Maybe that's what… I'm looking. I'm talking to the wrong people. I'm getting advice from someone who doesn't understand this. And maybe I need to find something because I don't think tennis is the answer to my gender concerns. Anyway, that was a little bit of a rant, but...
Santiago [01:12:39] So, tennis can… can heal everything.
Brian [01:12:41] It can heal. Yeah, that's… or prayer or… you know? Yeah. I've tried that and it's not working. What can I do now? Well, a lot of times in society… and this helps in some cases, is medication. Well, that makes you feel less. But does it solve the problem? And sometimes you just need to kind of get through the issue too to say, I just need to get passed through today. Because right now I'm not worried about next week's problems I need to get through right now.
Santiago [01:13:10] Sometimes… I'm talking about what you said. It's like… for example, related with what you would you said, there was one time we had this… it was like an informal meeting with the Catholic leaders. They were…they were as young as… maybe five years more than we were. And they took us to… to a big house, and we shared different activities. And they talked about God or whatever. And sometimes, you feel that something is not right with little things. No? It's not about something that it necessarily you on a personal… very personal level. It's about… there was there was this guy that he was telling that he had his first sexual experience with a sexual worker. And he was referring… he was like kind of crying and everything. But what I noticed is that he was being very disrespectful to the sexual worker. You know, if she was like, the least of the list and he lost his virginity, holy virginity with this and with this woman. And what caught my attention, I would say something's wrong here. It's like, how can you talk like that about another human being or something about someone that you despise? You say, okay, she's the worst thing in the world and I ruined my life because of her. And she was just doing her job. And you chose her. Like, why do you blame her for what happened to you? And that's when I realized, like… there's a lot of machismo around this talks, about the man and around. And that's when I was also starting to see all the things that you see that they're not right, they start to pile up now. They said to pile up. And then you start analyzing all the things that didn't seem right for you and you put them all together and they say, okay, that's this is why I don't belong to this place anymore. And it's not only a… it's not …sometimes it's not because you don't find the answers that you're looking, for example, with your friend. They said, okay, go to tennis. And it's not because they don't… and it's not useful, but it's also because it's not right. It doesn't feel right.
Brian [01:16:17] Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. In the LDS religion… I think in a lot of religions they have this, but there's a specific term for this, when you can't answer the questions like why do bad things happen to good people? Or what was God before he was God? Or We're not… we can't understand these things. They're good questions. Fine. But put them up on a shelf. Don't get hung up on it. Just kind of… just set it aside for a second and move on to it. And so the LDS religion has this thing called shelf breakers. It's like I've been putting things on that shelf that don't add up. And one of these times that shelf is going to break that. It's just going to be too much. I can't put everything on the shelf… I need…. something doesn't make sense. Okay, I will doubt it. I still believe in God and I know all of these things. But this part doesn't make sense. And eventually when you put 100 things up there or the shelf breaks or in some cases someone looks at something off of the shelf and they take it off and they think, I want to understand why this is. And that's the thing that gets them to think of… go down the rabbit hole of saying, wait, that doesn't make sense, right? And so there's something that just that's the one question of like, well, what if this isn't true? That's a very scary question if you're not ready for it. And it can trigger a lot of different things. What happens if you find out that the entire Bible was written by a committee for political means? What? Yeah, that's a… that's a scary place.
Santiago [01:17:58] And that's another thing that you have to be ready for it. Sometimes, you're not ready for that.
Brian [01:18:06] Are you ever ready for that though? Were you ready for it at 17?
Santiago [01:18:14] Yes, I think so. There’s a… I don't know. I think… I think sometimes you need to have them…. you're not ready for everything. You need to… sometimes you need to… have to start a process in order to get ready to shift something in your life. And that takes patience, too. So sometimes it's… and there's people in that process that takes a lot of years. And then they do the final kick. They were… they were getting ready for that final kick, you know, like they were working for a lot of years in order to do that last kick. And it's not good to push people to do the change or know the truth that you see in other people. That's not good.
Brian [01:19:15] No, it's not good. And I imagine there are people in your class when you were 17 that heard that lesson and walked out of there unchanged. Because they weren't ready to start to ask that question in their head. And so, it didn't bother them. They put it on a shelf and they moved on. But you were ready. And I see that, too, with people that leave religion looking at people inside the religion. They don't want to take the new, true, shiny truth that they found and show it off and put it in everybody's face and say, look, look, look, look, look what I found. This is… it was written by committee. It was if somebody is not ready, that does not help at all. And if what they're believing is still working for them, then trying to disrupt it unnaturally can be very harmful and largely ineffectual. You're just going to burn that relationship. But until you've had that question and that experience yourself, you understand it's like, oh, they don't understand me because I kind of see where they are. And until they're ready, it doesn't do any good to rub their nose in it and say, you know, this isn't right. It doesn't accomplish that.
Santiago [01:20:31] No. And you can tell. You're a teacher of lacrosse. And so… and you know what things that your students are dealing with just by looking at them, just by seeing how they played, just by looking at the performance. And it's not very ethical of you to push them to do that. And I think that it's something that teachers… they need to be responsible on that. I did theater here in Argentina.
Brian [01:20:58] I didn't know that.
Santiago [01:21:00] Yeah. I did theater. And I saw like… there have been bad teachers around and they can break people. They think they can destroy people. So sometimes… because you don't know what the students have gone through. They went through with trauma or whatever, and they push so hard on the students that they… sometimes they go on psychosis or whatever because they were hiding something in order to protect themselves. And what's the point of pushing that person to show the world what the problem is? Sometimes it's a… it's like that person can get involved. But sometimes you can break the person and you have to be more… I think, more caring about others.
Brian [01:22:00] Yeah.
Santiago [01:22:00] And be more responsible.
Brian [01:22:02] I can understand what you're saying. I'm concerned with that in these interviews because I like to discuss topics that are uncomfortable. But I'm not a therapist and I don't want to ask a question that brings up an issue that someone's not ready to talk about. But on the other hand, I kind of want to prod them a little bit into an area that's uncomfortable because I think it makes for fascinating conversation. And I think people that are listening can relate to that discomfort and that honesty and say, “That's how I was feeling about this.” And I… and I think that is very much appreciated in today's environment is people love it when people are deeply personal and vulnerable and honest because we can relate to each other. We're not talking about theoretical concepts. We're talking about the human soul. But when you're poking around that, there are some pain bodies and some areas that people have repressed and don't want to go to. And I'm… I get concerned that… part of… one of the reasons I sent out questionnaires, like if there's something you don't want to talk about, let me know. And I will avoid it. So with that in mind, is there anything else that you want to talk about before we before we end the session?
Santiago [01:23:36] I think that there's something… it's interesting. There's something… They're all humans. I think we go through… the stories are pretty much the same. Like, we all go… we all go through the same things. And I think that you have the right approach to the thing. It's, what does all these stories like… what do they have in common? It's like… it's… there's… I'm not going to call it an essence, but there's something in common that all humans have. That's why in that sector, like in that place, it's where we can all get together. Then from there, we can all get together and agree. Then it's hard to push a project from there, from this human understanding because then all the conflict starts as we have to do something. But at least in an understanding perspective, or at least in talking about our stories, there's something good. I think it can contribute to, I was going to say like peace, but at least understanding with each other. And I think you're very sensible. Sensible or sensitive? Sensitive about it. And that's very… that's very…. I think that's very… it's very good.
Brian [01:25:24] Thank you. Thank you. I mean, I feel the same. I feel you're a very genuine person. And you speak a lot from your heart. You're very smart as well. And so you can have… you know, we can talk about great topics, but I think a lot of it you've personalized and a lot of your relationships you value and you realize that people are the most important part of the… of any equation. And that I think is… yeah, I think that's… I'm trying to bring more of those that out in these conversations. We can talk about all kinds of issues, but really I want people to get to know strangers that they may have never met, they may never meet, but every one of them is just fascinating and amazing people and have the same story, but a beautiful version of it that we've never heard.
Santiago [01:26:20] Yeah. I had a friend. He’s a poet and he was writing his poetry. And he was going to start the book with the category, like the first… the first pages.
Brian [01:26:39] The preface.
Santiago [01:26:40] Yes. And he was going to put to everyone. Goma and the ones that are in pain. Like… like everyone is in pain and everyone struggles and maybe… maybe that's what… maybe that's what we have in common, that we all struggle.
Brian [01:27:02] Yeah. And you know, if you look at social media, if you look at Facebook and Instagram, you don't see that nobody struggles. Look at me on the beach, I've got a Mai Tai and things are great. I've got another party, you know?
Santiago [01:27:14] Because in social media, what you show is what you want to achieve. It's not what you're going through. What you show is, okay. I want to be an explorer. So I show you pictures of my travel and the jungle. Maybe you were dealing with mosquitoes, and you would say… you got Ebola or whatever. But you want to show what you want to… what you want people to look at you and think, okay, he's an explorer, okay. And I'm an explorer.
Brian [01:27:45] Yeah. I don't know. I think… I think social media has gone so far showing the perfect life that none of us have, that I think these conversations can say, hey, we're all in this together. I'm not on a yacht every weekend. I mean, I…
Santiago [01:28:00] That's… and that's… that's another thing that I've been… not that I haven't been into cults. But I have been in different groups of religion that were like kind of cults. And they had the truth. If you see someone that knows everything, they go away. Because what about… I mean, I'm young, you know, I'm only 30 years old. But what I realize is, like, we all struggle. We all struggle. Like no one has everything and all the solutions to everything. Even if you find one, he’s lying.
Brian [01:28:43] Well, and it's okay to struggle. And it's okay to let people know you're struggling. And it's okay to reach out and say, “I am struggling.” And I think… but it's also very comfortable and very safe knowing you're part of a group that has the answers. They know what's right and what's wrong. They know what happens when you die. They know what happened before you got here. You have all the answers. That is... oh, finally, finally I can relax knowing that I have everything that I need to know. This life is a struggle. You come to know yourself.
Santiago [01:29:25] There's something… I think you'd think it's a protection, a biological protection. Whatever your… when you're a kid, whatever your parents tell you to do, you go and you do it when you're very little. Even though your parents… maybe they were scared about the situation and everything, they would say… but you look at them, they would say, “Okay. You're strong.” And they know where to go. Maybe they didn't have a clue, but you felt as if they know that because that's a protection. And maybe we're looking for the same protection in different things. It can be philosophy. You can be a bishop of the church. It can be another group that… we don't know. No one knows.
Brian [01:30:06] Yeah. And maybe as parents, we protect too much. Maybe you don't want to see your kids struggle and you don't want to see them in pain. But life is a struggle and there are a lot of painful moments. We certainly shouldn't inflict those on others, but maybe preventing those from happening at an early age and forever, maybe we're doing a disservice to them to coming to that realization and saying, I've got support that's here when I need it. But this is a struggle and this is painful. Yeah, it is. But you do have that support where you need it. Don't remove it. Just be there as a safety net. I don't know. I've raised four kids that are all adults. They're all much smarter and wiser and more intellectual and emotionally stable than… than I am. So my wife… my wife did something right. Chino, this has been fantastic talking with you. I really enjoyed this time.
Santiago [01:31:20] I loved it. Yeah, me too.
Brian [01:31:22] We might have to have a follow up conversation, whether we record it or not.
Santiago [01:31:26] Si. We need to talk again.
Brian [01:31:29] Yeah, and certainly you've got your visa now, so we're going to…yeah, I would love that.
Santiago [01:31:37] Si. In September, we're going to be around Utah. So, we're going to… we're going to go on this trip.
Brian [01:31:42] And I think I need to make a trip to Argentina.
Santiago [01:31:47] It's cool. We can… we can do, like, a road trip. Let's… let's do a road trip around Argentina.
Brian [01:31:53] I would love that. I would love that. Thank you so much. We'll talk to you soon.
Brian [01:32:00] Okay.
Santiago [01:32:00] Thank you very much. Bye.
