Wellness at Work Podcast

Wellness at Work - Alchemy, Part Two w/Dr. Kwame Scruggs, Eric Garvanne, & Dr. Dunia Garcia.
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In this episode of the Wellness at Work Podcast, brought to you by The Learning and Development Projects at Silberman School of Social Work–Hunter College, host Geoff Rogers and his guests, Dr. Kwame Scruggs, Eric Garvanne, & Dr. Dunia Garcia alongside show producer Jesan Sorrells, discuss the power of myth, the ways in which mythmaking impacts communities, and address how we can grow in our social work practice to include more of the power of storytelling in an inclusive way.

*Please be aware that this episode may contain some explicit content. Listener discretion is advised.*
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Opening and closing themes: Música Clásica - Rondo Alla Turca. Piano Sonata no. 11, K. 331 - III. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
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Creators and Guests

Host
Geoff Rogers
Host of Wellness At Work Podcast
Producer
Jesan Sorrells
Producer of Wellness At Work Podcast

What is Wellness at Work Podcast ?

From The Learning and Development Projects at Silberman School of Social Work - Hunter College

Geoff Rogers: Welcome to Alchemy at the Silberman School of Social Work, a podcast that's inspired by the transformational work of Dr. Kwame Scruggs.

Geoff Rogers: and guided in partnership with the vision and leadership of Dr. Dunya Garcia, faculty member and director of the Cabrini Fellows Program at the Silverman School of Social Work, and Eric Garvan.

Geoff Rogers: A psychology and spirituality researcher, writer, and facilitator of whose work explores identity development, meaning-making.

Geoff Rogers: and the inner life of our youth and emerging adults. Eric currently serves as the program facilitator with Alchemy.

Geoff Rogers: Here, myth… becomes more than story. It becomes practice, process, and possibility.

Geoff Rogers: Welcome, all.

Geoff Rogers: So… to dive right in, Eric, Karmi, Dunya.

Geoff Rogers: How does the absence of scaffolding impact the way we show up in community or in crisis?

kwame scruggs: Jeff, first, thanks again for having me here.

kwame scruggs: What makes you say there's an absence of scaffolding?

Geoff Rogers: Well, first of all, when I ask the questions, I don't expect to get a question back. But howsoever, I think that there…

Geoff Rogers: There is definitely a need for scaffolding because of the great disparities that we're experiencing today in our culture. The polarization would suggest that there isn't a common

Geoff Rogers: Place that we all come to understand how…

Geoff Rogers: ourselves as well as each other, and I, you know, I guess I would throw the question right back at you, saying, in its absence or the lack of scaffolding, how does it impact how we show up?

kwame scruggs: Okay.

kwame scruggs: And I, and I was being serious, I was being serious.

Geoff Rogers: I am too.

kwame scruggs: Okay.

kwame scruggs: talking… talking in generalities, because, wow, I don't… I don't feel as if I've had, really, a lack of it. Maybe from society, but as far as my community and the people I grew up around.

kwame scruggs: I always had it.

kwame scruggs: And I think, in looking at it from a mythological perspective, About, as I said before.

kwame scruggs: The hero never accomplishes their task alone. They always have assistance from some sort of guy, some sort of mentor.

kwame scruggs: I've… I think if we were to…

kwame scruggs: We would probably have to examine it case by case, but I…

kwame scruggs: I think in a lot of people's lives, they're… they're scaffolding present, But are we…

kwame scruggs: Are we realizing that as present? Are we overlooking it? Okay, so…

kwame scruggs: Yeah, I'm still a little stuck on…

kwame scruggs: I'm still a little stuck on the fact that, to me, it is present.

kwame scruggs: Okay? Yeah, so I still maybe need some more clarification. In my life and the people I'm around, they have people there to assist them in their journey.

kwame scruggs: Okay, so…

Geoff Rogers: So let's court a little controversy here by throwing the question to either Eric or Dunya before I feel that I need to fill in some more for Dr. Scruggs.

Geoff Rogers: Eric Dunya, would you agree with the statement that there is an absence or a lack of scaffolding?

Eric Garvanne: Junior, you want to take that?

Dunia Garcia: I mean, I can certainly start, by…

Dunia Garcia: I mean, I think in the line of work that I do, there's…

Dunia Garcia: Lack of scaffolding, and there's also fragile scaffolding, and… I would say that…

Dunia Garcia: There is an invis… there are… not is… there are invisible hands.

Dunia Garcia: Holding scaffolding.

Dunia Garcia: that… Wow, it's… it's not tangible?

Dunia Garcia: Maybe to society, but that, are necessary,

Dunia Garcia: Maybe in different cultural spaces, and so…

Dunia Garcia: I get to bear witness to…

Dunia Garcia: just a massive amount of disparity when I just walk to work, when I go visit my mom.

Dunia Garcia: And even in my home community.

Geoff Rogers: It reflects differently.

Dunia Garcia: It reflects in… People,

Dunia Garcia: Lacking community, despite the fact that they're in a community.

Dunia Garcia: And I've also seen the opposite happening,

Dunia Garcia: Where people create communities because they've been abandoned by…

Dunia Garcia: different scaffolding, I would say. So the example that comes up for me is right across from Silberman. There is a…

Dunia Garcia: Drug Treatment Center, and folks are…

Dunia Garcia: for sure looking out for each other. When one of their friends does not show up, they are showing up for each other, they're trying to figure out who saw this person last.

Dunia Garcia: Do we know where they are?

Dunia Garcia: And, how to make sure that they get in touch with one another, and I get to hear this really,

Dunia Garcia: really caring… sort of banter…

Dunia Garcia: amongst, these groups of people, and I always, I enjoy it. I actually intentionally walk

Dunia Garcia: through it every single day, just so that I can hear about who's missing and who's around and who's not.

Dunia Garcia: But more importantly, to remind myself that while, you know, society wants us to think that people are being discarded.

Geoff Rogers: Hmm.

Dunia Garcia: Within that space, invisible hands, they're holding it together, they're looking out for each other, right?

Dunia Garcia: So that's what… that's what sort of, came up for me. But to your question about…

Dunia Garcia: its impact and how it forces me to show up. I'm constantly trying to figure out…

Dunia Garcia: what is it that I can do? What's within my…

Dunia Garcia: tangible, possibility, you know, realm of possibility, so that I can, too, be the part of the invisible hands, or part of the visible hands.

Dunia Garcia: That is either doing the patchwork.

Dunia Garcia: Staying behind the scenes, or being front and center, creating

Dunia Garcia: Scaffolding where it's gotten eroded, or…

Dunia Garcia: may have the illusion that it doesn't exist, but there's something there. So I seek those… But wait a minute, there it is.

Geoff Rogers: Moments.

Dunia Garcia: Where I'm sort of reminded that perhaps it's always just kind of been up to the invisible hands to…

Dunia Garcia: I don't know, respond to the visible.

Dunia Garcia: Lack of scaffolding.

Geoff Rogers: Eric, thank you, Daniel. Eric, what's your… what's your take on this? And then, Kwame, I want to circle back to you.

kwame scruggs: Oh, don't worry.

Geoff Rogers: Alright, I don't.

Eric Garvanne: of…

Geoff Rogers: It doesn't feel.

Eric Garvanne: Could you vote?

Geoff Rogers: Maybe it is worry.

Eric Garvanne: Could you, just so I make sure that I answered the question correctly, could you repeat the question for me?

Eric Garvanne: Yeah.

Geoff Rogers: Sure.

Geoff Rogers: How does the… I originally asked Kwani, the absence of scaffolding impact the way we show up in community, or in a crisis, or in crisis.

Eric Garvanne: Nice.

Geoff Rogers: And so, Kwame and I had a back and forth about whether or not there is an absence.

Geoff Rogers: And I wanted to get your take on… on that statement.

Eric Garvanne: The reason I asked you to repeat that is because, There were several different thoughts.

Eric Garvanne: In my head, and I just wanted to make sure that I actually answered your question.

Eric Garvanne: and by scaffolding, you're referring to support.

Eric Garvanne: So… I do believe that there is… to Dunia's point.

Eric Garvanne: That there is a lot of… Scaffolding that is…

Eric Garvanne: present that is unseen, especially in our community and… and… Excuse me. In… diverse…

Eric Garvanne: communities, Indigenous communities, non-Western communities, that there is a tremendous amount of scaffolding that is… that is present. And a lot of it is…

Eric Garvanne: implied, it isn't, like, apparent, but it comes forth when, like, tragedy happens, or there's chaos, and then you begin to feel that… that girding of, you know, I haven't… I haven't seen John in a minute.

Eric Garvanne: how is he doing? Or, you heard so-and-so just lost their job, you know, do you know…

Eric Garvanne: you know, I heard they got an opening over blah blah blah. So there's that… that very subtle scaffolding in a lot of non-Western and minority communities that I think that we… we still kind of take for granted that's there.

Eric Garvanne: However, I do also believe that a lot of that scaffolding is… Is, is rusting.

Eric Garvanne: For lack of being oiled and greased and utilized, kind of like a, a car that just sits in the parking lot and nobody ever turns on, because of…

Eric Garvanne: people becoming less engaged with each other in community. Whereas, Especially… Like, around 2014 or so.

Eric Garvanne: where… People became more… Isolated within their own homes and behind their own screens.

Eric Garvanne: So… Understanding and knowing what's going on.

Eric Garvanne: with John, or with… you know, Eric or Dunya or Kwame becomes much more…

Eric Garvanne: what did they last post? Or…

Eric Garvanne: what did they last show? Or, you know, I sent a text, but it wasn't really a connection, it was a…

Eric Garvanne: What's up, hearts, rather than an actual connection, which…

Eric Garvanne: I believe that human connection, and this goes back to what… one of the things I think alchemy

Eric Garvanne: Helps to do is That human connection is becoming more and more frayed But in my opinion.

Eric Garvanne: the human connection is like the oil, it's like the maintenance, it's like the construction worker that is making sure that that scaffolding is there, and is lubricated, and the battery is checked, and I think a lot of that is being taken for granted, and it's rusting away. So, one of the ways in which I see, like, things like Alchemy does.

Eric Garvanne: Is that it… it creates, a tool.

Eric Garvanne: and a way to lubricate the scaffolding that is already there, that is present, you know? There's things… like, Jeff, there's something that you told me

Eric Garvanne: that you mentioned last… that I considered was scaffolding, that you mentioned in our last episode, when I had said, about, like, my insecurity in being in rooms where I'm… I feel like, you know, I'm, like, the only person who looks like me in this room, and…

Eric Garvanne: like… How did I get here?

Eric Garvanne: And you responded, and it sat with me, was…

Eric Garvanne: you go into a room, and correct me if I'm wrong, and you're like, well, how did you get here? Or why are you here?

Eric Garvanne: And when you said that, It was, like, something that lubricated

Eric Garvanne: a scaffolding in me, because, like, I knew that.

Eric Garvanne: But I needed to hear it said, and I… I kept…

Eric Garvanne: Thinking on it and processing it. And it was like, yeah, it's like, I belong here.

Eric Garvanne: How did you… why are you here?

Eric Garvanne: So, it was like, so… but it was only because I had some type of relationship with you.

Geoff Rogers: There was some type of human connection with you. We had gone through an alchemy process.

Eric Garvanne: So I knew, kind of, like, you weren't just sending me a text of, Eric, you're insecure, and you need to…

Eric Garvanne: da-da-da-da, you know, strength emoji. It was like, I had a connection with you to some degree, an understanding of you, so that when you said that, I didn't take that as a, oh, he's just not hearing me. It's like, no, he's… he heard me, and he's giving me

Eric Garvanne: his observation and what he's processing, and it helped me to process it, and I've been sitting on it

Eric Garvanne: Since our last… episode.

Geoff Rogers: And really thinking about that, and that's for something to help duplicate.

Eric Garvanne: me and my scaffolding. So, to get to your question, I just wanted to… and the last thing I'll say is, I am also having to be very clear for myself of every

Eric Garvanne: Every fire is not mine to fight. And there are so many fires.

Eric Garvanne: It's so much chaos, and it's like, you gotta go… you gotta lubricate this, and lubricate that, and…

Eric Garvanne: It's like, for me, also, in the midst of this, being very intentional about

Eric Garvanne: Where am I investing my energy and my resources in supporting scaffolding that is unique for me to do?

Geoff Rogers: So, it's conscious for you. That's really interesting. The scaffolding…

Eric Garvanne: So…

Geoff Rogers: That's interesting.

Geoff Rogers: That's a very interesting… and the other thing I… Kwame, before… I want to give you a chance,

Geoff Rogers: You said about… you focused on marginal communities and disproportional communities, is what I heard. So, are you saying… so, what is excluded is those who are in the main, those…

Geoff Rogers: community… are you saying you're less aware, or that doesn't go on, or…

Geoff Rogers: What's your take on that, he says, putting him on the spot.

Eric Garvanne: No, I… I… I believe it goes on.

Eric Garvanne: I know it goes on.

Eric Garvanne: But those scaffoldings are much more…

Eric Garvanne: a parent, and they're much more in-your-face for me.

Eric Garvanne: The scaffolding of, Just like being in the room.

Eric Garvanne: You know, you're in the room, and you're one of the… one or two other people, you… for me anyway, I clearly see the scaffolding.

Eric Garvanne: It's right there. In fact, sometimes they'll let you know.

Eric Garvanne: How they… how they scaffolded into that seat.

Geoff Rogers: Yeah.

Eric Garvanne: Or how they scaffolded into that…

Eric Garvanne: scholarship, or how they scaffolded into that school, or how they… you know, so you see it very clearly.

Eric Garvanne: But I also think that seeing it very clearly, you realize that it's not as strong as you think it is.

Eric Garvanne: So, but I focus on… and I hate using the term marginalized because, you know, we are the majority.

Eric Garvanne: Globally. But in those cultures or communities that are Deemed as being…

Eric Garvanne: Marginalized or,

Eric Garvanne: Indigenous, or Native or minority, that it is less apparent, but again, back to Dunya's point, it's there, but sometimes it's so subtle that we take it for granted that it's there.

Eric Garvanne: just, like, why does Junior… Take that same route, or go that same route when she doesn't have to.

Eric Garvanne: It's not just to find out the… I'm just assuming. It's not just to find out the T.

Eric Garvanne: But there's also, like, some type of… Connection, there's some type of…

Eric Garvanne: I want to, I need to, I'm trying to find out what I can do to help scaffold some of the things I'm seeing. So that's…

Geoff Rogers: Would you say instinct is what you were talking about?

Eric Garvanne: Instinct sounds like such a, limited word.

Geoff Rogers: Okay.

Eric Garvanne: But that is… I think, for me, it's… it's more of a… it's more of a spiritual thing. It's more of a… a transcendent thing, and I don't want to use a… I'm gonna use it… more of a transcendent, more of a spiritual, more of a…

Eric Garvanne: There's something beyond myself that is…

Eric Garvanne: I'm not gonna speak for Dunya, I speak for me. There's something beyond myself.

Geoff Rogers: That is…

Eric Garvanne: Pushing me or prompting me.

Eric Garvanne: to…

Eric Garvanne: find out if this is something that I can help scaffold, or if this is something that I just need to know about to help me scaffold someplace else.

Eric Garvanne: Or, this is just for my observation, because I need to deal with something myself to be a better

Eric Garvanne: scaffold, you know, in how I show up, so… Yeah.

Geoff Rogers: Thank you. Chloe.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: May I dip in just for… may I dip in just for 30 seconds? Probably not to jump on you, 30 seconds. So, I've listened to what… how Jeff has sort of clarified the question, not sort of, has clarified the question, and has gone further and deeper, what Eric has said, what Dunia has said. I'm going to make a report from the… the hinterland of the Center of America.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Just want to confirm that the scaffolding for the majority is also, collapsing.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: It's been collapsing for about 15 years now.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: And it is also suffering from

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: I loved Eric's analogy there, a lack of oil, a lack of grease being put on the skids. And what we are seeing, what marginalized communities are seeing, is the same thing that they always see, and Eric, I'm just going to use that term. I dislike it as well, but I'm going to use that, because that's the framework we've got at this point.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: what they always see is the back end of the supremacy, and again, another term that I…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Loathe, but it's the one that we're going to use here. They always see the end, the back end of it. They don't see the erosion that eventually shows up.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: And so… One of the things I think that Alchemy does is it helps us

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Not fight the battles of the last century, but to fight the battles of this century, where a new scaffolding needs to be built.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: And it helps us navigate the current conflict that is occurring in the collective unconscious in America as a body politic.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: that is not just localized to New York City.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: or to where I live, which is not in New York City, but again, in the great hinterland, the middle part of America, it allows us to sort of localize those, but also scale those up, those battles up.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: To larger areas, and I think that that's, from what I've been able to determine from the last couple of episodes when we've been talking, I think that's the genius of alchemy. Okay, that was my… it wasn't 30 seconds, like, a minute and 30 seconds. So, Kwame, go ahead.

kwame scruggs: Jeff. Jeff, was there something else you wanted to ask, or…

Geoff Rogers: No, I… so, given what you've heard, and given what you're thinking.

Geoff Rogers: And given the question, if you wanna…

Geoff Rogers: reform the question to a certain extent? But, what are your thoughts now?

kwame scruggs: Yeah,

kwame scruggs: I find this interesting. The first thing I find interesting is why you asked that question, okay, about scaffolding.

kwame scruggs: And here again, I think it needs to be put in… for me, you know, to me, it needs to be put into more of a context and defined a little bit more, because of course.

kwame scruggs: You know, Eric said, are we defining it? Are we… is our operational definition scaffolding support.

kwame scruggs: Okay, so, I mean, so…

kwame scruggs: So I think there's… there's an absence, and there is a presence. Alright, so… so while I'm… while I'm listening to you guys talking, wow.

kwame scruggs: in the absence, when we first start working with a group of youth in, like, 6th grade, the first thing we do is apologize to them for our generation not being there for them, and that they have to cross that bridge from point A to B on their own. Okay, so that right there tells you that there's an absence.

kwame scruggs: However, there's a presence in the fact that we sitting right there, okay? Okay? So, so it can be… it can be both and. So now, here again, I'm…

kwame scruggs: I would like to know… why are you asking this question? Where are you trying to get.

Geoff Rogers: Well, my… I guess the question is, is, is, is…

Geoff Rogers: kind of been answered by Dunia and Eric and Hassan, in… in… in different ways, is… Why… why…

Geoff Rogers: Alchemy is so… such an amazing process is because it provides…

Geoff Rogers: A restoration of those places where scaffolding is… is absent.

Geoff Rogers: And we're… or it is failing. And… I… I… I guess…

Geoff Rogers: it's interesting that you are… you have a different take on it, but I think…

Geoff Rogers: you know, I think what… what I… when I… when I formed the question, it was… it was because I felt there is not the sense… a common sense that one would expect

Geoff Rogers: of how…

Geoff Rogers: how we come together, and how we understand each other, and… which is one of the many reasons why I think I… I started to work in alchemy, or do the work that alchemy is responsible for.

Geoff Rogers: Is to find that in myself.

Geoff Rogers: And also to understand how to recognize it.

Geoff Rogers: in others.

Geoff Rogers: And… you know, I'm just getting that information. I'm getting this kind of… Work now.

Geoff Rogers: And so, to me, it felt like there was an absence. Maybe I'm just talking about absence in my own life, but I think…

Geoff Rogers: I think… I still think it's part of the process that I felt that alchemy… addresses.

Geoff Rogers: And in… or helps you understand how to address. I don't think it address… tells you what to do.

kwame scruggs: But what is your…

Geoff Rogers: Based on what I've said, does that make any more sense?

kwame scruggs: Yeah, yeah, I definitely see what you're saying, I definitely… okay, and I… and I agree, I agree. Okay?

kwame scruggs: However… Oh, dear. When it, when it, when it… hey, man, for me, I live so much by myths and quotes, okay?

Geoff Rogers: Okay, no.

kwame scruggs: And, you know, as I said, the hero never accomplished their task alone. They always have assistance from some sort of guy, some sort of mentor to help you get there. But like Joseph Campbell said, in the end, you gotta slay the dragon on your own.

Geoff Rogers: Yeah.

kwame scruggs: Okay, in the end, you guys slay the dragon on your own. And so… It…

kwame scruggs: The… the thing about life. The thing about life.

kwame scruggs: Like I tell the youth, Life could give less than a fuck.

kwame scruggs: what happens to us. That clock on that wall is still gonna tick. It's still gonna tick. If life cared, life would stop when something tragic happens to us. But it does not, okay? It keeps going.

Geoff Rogers: Right?

kwame scruggs: So, so, so… what you… In my opinion.

Geoff Rogers: What you have to do.

kwame scruggs: And you see this oftentimes in the myths, when something tragic happens.

kwame scruggs: They still… the hero still gets done, but they have to get done, despite everything else they have to do. Okay, so can you sit around and say, wow, woe is me, woe is me? Yes, you can. And did whatever, you know, happened to you, was that traumatic? Yes, it was. Okay?

kwame scruggs: However, man, that clock on that wall keep on ticking. So what… in the words of Richard Pryor to Jim Brown… in the words of Jim Brown to Richard Pryor, what you gonna do?

kwame scruggs: Okay? What you gonna do? Alright? But, like, here again, like I tell the youth, the one cool thing about life, it's your life. It's your life. Okay, so if you wanna…

kwame scruggs: And I get it, if you want to sit around, you know.

kwame scruggs: If you want to sit around and quote-unquote, give up, I get it. I get it, okay? But hey, man, you only got one life.

kwame scruggs: Get it together, you know? Dunya, I see you trying to say something.

Dunia Garcia: I was just thinking that what…

Dunia Garcia: alchemy, the myths, have provided for me is… In the absence of… Scaffolding for myself.

Dunia Garcia: I've often, well, I've chosen to be in a career where I'm, you know, proactively serving others and trying to minimize

Dunia Garcia: The impact of disparity On the individual, family, community level.

Dunia Garcia: Eric, I know I got the memo, I didn't adhere to it, I try to put out every fire that I can.

Dunia Garcia: To… to a fault, and… and… and on that note.

Dunia Garcia: I don't know that I do a very good job at it, I just know that I have to do something. So, what alchemy and the myths have provided for me

Dunia Garcia: It's such a interesting… Reminder.

Dunia Garcia: When I hear the myths, I'm reminded that… my ancestors…

Dunia Garcia: that people have gone through it. It's a reminder that, oh, okay, wait a minute, we've been here before.

Dunia Garcia: There's something to learn here.

Dunia Garcia: there's now something I can carry with me with intentionality. It's sort of a reminder

Dunia Garcia: About what was, therefore what is.

Dunia Garcia: And that's important to me because I do despair. I… I tend to be very optimistic.

Dunia Garcia: It is my… Perspective of choice.

Dunia Garcia: But that comes at a cost, because that means that I have to supply it, and I cannot supply it with fluff. That wouldn't appease my brain. I have to…

Dunia Garcia: find something substantial, and what I find substantial is knowing that

Dunia Garcia: Someone before me went through it and decided that they were going to give me some.

Geoff Rogers: like a roadmap. It's a way of finding my way out, whether it's finding community.

Dunia Garcia: The one thing I never thought would be… helpful.

Dunia Garcia: And I say this with a little bit of shame, because I've also… I am a therapist as well. I never thought talking would be helpful.

Geoff Rogers: Because…

Dunia Garcia: How? What could that possibly do? And, it just turned out that…

Dunia Garcia: listening to what other people had to say prompted me to say something for myself. It was so, organic. It just naturally happened that in…

Dunia Garcia: thinking that whatever I had to say was gonna offer zero value.

Dunia Garcia: I found value in what someone else had to say, so it gave me a possibility that maybe, just maybe, what I had to say also

Dunia Garcia: had some weight for someone. And that's just been snowballing into something pretty magical and transformative for me.

Dunia Garcia: But I think that… It is because of this lack of scaffolding that it's… Force me to find…

Dunia Garcia: True… Like, the essence of what really… You know, supports community.

Dunia Garcia: And that's… yeah, that's sort of where I've been anchoring my…

Dunia Garcia: My spirit in the midst of all the chaos that…

Dunia Garcia: Keeps trying to force-feed me into thinking it, you know.

Dunia Garcia: It's all gone to… you know.

Dunia Garcia: To crap.

kwame scruggs: Well, I mean, did you… Yes, yes, wow, wow, wow, wow, thanks, thanks, everybody. Okay, Hassan, I'm gonna ask that you edit out what I'm getting ready to say, okay? Alright, Jeff,

kwame scruggs: Now I'm seeing where you're right, okay? Edit that part out. Oh, no, no, no. Oh, no. In fact… Edit that out!

Geoff Rogers: Happy!

kwame scruggs: I'm kidding!

Geoff Rogers: First of all, letting the talent be the talent.

kwame scruggs: Okay, listen up, listen up. So, hey, so hey, so I'm sitting here listening, guys, and wow, here again, you know, myth, man, for me, it's all about myth. And, you know, Joseph Campbell talked about the three phases of the hero's journey. And the first phase is that separation, second phase is initiation, the third phase is the return, because there's something missing in the community. There's no scaffolding in the community.

kwame scruggs: So he goes out, the hero goes out to get to scaffolding, and that's… and the third phase is the return. So when he gets the scaffolding, he has to bring it back to the community. And I think that's one of the reasons why we…

Geoff Rogers: There's not no thing.

kwame scruggs: One of the reasons why we apologize to the youth, okay, because so many people in our generation, they got to scaffolding, and they kept walking, and they didn't come back. So yeah, so okay, man, I get it. I get it, brother.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Well, and I'll…

Geoff Rogers: So, Hassan.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Yeah.

Geoff Rogers: little shorts that you have on YouTube.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Yes, sir.

Geoff Rogers: I would like that.

Geoff Rogers: Okay.

Geoff Rogers: That's… I can… I can… Yeah, over and over, looping again and again. Okay, so let's talk about heroes.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Before we talk about heroes, Jeff, hold a hero thought. I have one idea that I think

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Eric and Kwame will… will appreciate. I think Dunya, also, you'll appreciate it, but from a different angle, as well as Jeff.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: So when I… when I look at what alchemy is doing, and the way that, all four of you talk about alchemy, it strikes me, and I was… I was writing some notes, as Dunya, as you were talking,

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: It strikes me very much that this…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: this project right here, this, this, this, haha, this Trojan horse.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Is the solution talk about the hero's return. It is the solution to the postmodern

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: nihilism and existential dread that we all are experiencing. Dunia called it chaos. I call it chaos myself. I've spent the vast majority of my adult career

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: In social and cultural chaos.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: And I will say for myself personally, also as representing some of the listeners, I think out here, I'm sick and tired of

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Chaos.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: I'm also sick and tired of a lack of solutions.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: to chaos. I'm sick and tired of a re-explanation of problems.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: without a move towards solutions. And to Kwame's point, the only way we can get to solutions is if we actually bring the scaffolding back.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: We also engage… not also, we engage in the myth of…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Nietzsche knocked this, but the myth of return.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Which, by the way, is valuable.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: And so I think that what we are doing here, what you're talking about here with alchemy, is the solution to the despair that postmodernism breathes by nature of what it is.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Among young people, they… there's a quip that goes around that, the system is designed to basically do what it's there for, right?

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: And if we want the system to do something else, we need different scaffolding.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: So, so thank you, Dunya. That, that sort of tripped that over in my, in my head, because you're the third person this week who I've talked to.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: and you were all three are in radically different contexts, who all said, I despair, at some point in time in our conversation.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Everybody, everybody, regardless of race, class, color, or creed, is seeing it.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: But we don't know what the solutions are to the problem. And of course, that's a failure of leadership, which is my personal bugaboo, but I'll let Jeff go.

Geoff Rogers: Yes, I'm just wondering who's the host here. So,

Geoff Rogers: One of the things that I… it's a reforming question based on all of what you've said, but I guess, why do so many of… why do these myths have…

Geoff Rogers: Heroes are archetypes.

kwame scruggs: thanks, Jeff.

kwame scruggs: Hey, Sean, it's just one of the solutions. We have… I think we have a number of solutions, it's just one of the solutions.

kwame scruggs: The myths have the hero in the archive because it's coming from the collective unconscious, okay? We all share a similar psyche, okay? And that's one of the things that got me so interested in mythology. When I started reading it, I'm reading all these myths from all different cultures.

kwame scruggs: And this is before I, you know, I was really looking at it from a, from a…

kwame scruggs: Quote-unquote academic perspective.

kwame scruggs: I'm reading all these myths, and I'm like, I'm like, wow, all these myths saying the same thing, okay?

kwame scruggs: Right.

kwame scruggs: And then I come upon, you know, Jung, and hey, the collective unconscious, they're all saying the same thing, because as humans, we are pretty much experiencing the same thing in a different way, alright? And so then that's when you just see that, hey, what's mythata, Africa, Asia?

Geoff Rogers: But, Kwame, what do the myths… what are the… are we looking for the heroes, or are we the heroes?

kwame scruggs: We the heroes, man. Both, both, both. Okay, wow. And this was interesting, and it's so interesting,

kwame scruggs: This is something I learned, you know, in depth psychology. We're always talking about

kwame scruggs: this or that. And it can be… it can be and, it can be both, okay? So, we are both looking for the heroes, and… and we are the hero, okay? But that's what we're looking for it, because it's something in us. It's something in us.

kwame scruggs: We see something in someone else that is in us.

kwame scruggs: Okay, and that's why we gravitate toward that, because we see that. We see that heroic nature in us. Yeah, we are the heroes in one way or another, and we all have it in us. We all have it in us, but it's like, it's like, it's like a plan. If you don't put a plant in the right environment, it's not gonna grow.

kwame scruggs: Alright, so the… so… so the… the individual has to be put in that… quote-unquote right environment, alright?

kwame scruggs: And they, and they need to have someone… the scaffold.

kwame scruggs: They're to let them know, to let them know that they are the hero. Alright, and wow, in, in, in, Michael Mead's, he's talking about the Firebird, and in this myth.

kwame scruggs: Wow, I'm giving it away.

kwame scruggs: Forget that myth. Forget that myth.

kwame scruggs: In a lot of myths, you'll see.

kwame scruggs: that…

kwame scruggs: Someone else recognizes that this individual has something special in them, but it's not enough for someone else to recognize it within you if you don't know you have it in yourself.

kwame scruggs: And Mead says, okay, so you have to have both. You have to have someone who recognizes it within you, but you also have to know that you have it in yourself.

kwame scruggs: Okay, so the one is not gonna be enough. You need both of them.

Geoff Rogers: There's a mutuality in there.

kwame scruggs: Yes, yes, yes. So, so it's not doing me any good if, if, if… Okay.

kwame scruggs: using Eric as an example. I see all the genius in Eric, okay? But that's not enough. If Eric don't see it in himself, or if Eric sees it in himself, but he doesn't have someone in society to recognize that, then hey, man, it's just, you know, chances are it's gonna lie dormant.

kwame scruggs: And that's what we see in so many of our…

kwame scruggs: of our youth, and wow, I, you know, I see it every day.

kwame scruggs: You know… So…

Geoff Rogers: Eric, what do you think about that?

Eric Garvanne: Sure.

Geoff Rogers: We've already recognized that you're brilliant, and you recognize that you're brilliant, so we've closed that loop.

Geoff Rogers: Moving on…

Eric Garvanne: I'll receive that.

Geoff Rogers: I will definitely receive that.

Eric Garvanne: I think for… well, for me personally,

Eric Garvanne: I grew up reading stories and myths and stuff like that, but…

Eric Garvanne: Did not realize I was looking at myself in the myth as the hero?

Eric Garvanne: because I didn't, you know, I didn't see myself as the hero.

Eric Garvanne: In those stories, or in life.

Eric Garvanne: But there was still something that kept drawing me to stories and fairy tales and stuff like that, but I didn't know it.

Eric Garvanne: but it took people who

Eric Garvanne: Going back to scaffolding, it took people who…

Eric Garvanne: Not just saw it in me.

Eric Garvanne: But pushed me to see it in myself.

Geoff Rogers: Yep, boom.

Eric Garvanne: And just as an example, I was thinking as you and Kwame were talking,

Eric Garvanne: when I was a teenager, my first car that I got, a Toyota Celica, an old Toyota Celica, my uncle,

Eric Garvanne: Who had worked on cars, he…

Eric Garvanne: Taught me how to change the brake pads and the calipers on my car.

Eric Garvanne: Now, it may not seem as a big thing, but my uncle, I really respected my uncle, and I always knew

Eric Garvanne: Because of the way my uncle reacted whenever he saw me, That…

Eric Garvanne: he saw me as someone special to him. The way he reacted, the look in his eye, the way he called me, you know, that's my nephew.

Eric Garvanne: And even though I did not pick it up as, I'm the hero in this, story on Divi.

Eric Garvanne: Phillips.

Eric Garvanne: that for this older man that I looked up to, I was somebody that… Especially in his eyes.

Eric Garvanne: So he was a hero, but I did not realize he was seeing a hero in me.

Eric Garvanne: the reason I bring up the brake… the brake pass thing is that

Eric Garvanne: Going back to the scaffolding, if my uncle

Eric Garvanne: Just said, you know, here's some tools, threw a toolbox at me, and some pads, and say, fix your brakes, and left.

Eric Garvanne: Okay, I got the pieces.

Eric Garvanne: But I don't know what to do with this stuff.

Eric Garvanne: And he's told me I can fix it, but I don't know… I don't even… I don't know how to even take the calipers off to change the pads. So my uncle

Eric Garvanne: you know, showed me, and I remember sitting with him as a teenager.

Eric Garvanne: This is the… this is the rich you use. This is… this is where you need to go to AutoZone. You need to ask the… the clerk for these particular paths for your particular car. He sat with me in the driveway.

Eric Garvanne: And showed me, you gotta take this clip off, you gotta put this pad off, you gotta put this oil on here. And he did that several times. He showed me how to use the scaffolding, the tools. He showed me how to be the hero in changing those brake pads.

Eric Garvanne: So… years later, because I was mentoring other… I was mentoring younger boys.

Eric Garvanne: I would… sometimes I would show them, like, they got a car, I'm gonna show you how to change your brake pads. And that became my uncle, who showed me that I was a hero.

Eric Garvanne: I was able to take that and show some other woman, okay, these are the tools we need.

Eric Garvanne: This is how you get the brake pads. And it wasn't just about building the scaffolding, it was about the human connection. Because when I sat with my uncle.

Eric Garvanne: That was… a connection that I couldn't explain, but it was like, this man is investing in me.

Eric Garvanne: And when I would sit with my mentees, and I would be in the drive… in their driveway, helping them fix their cars, it was that time I was that connection, and showing them, now you… I'm gonna show you how to use… to put this stuff together.

Eric Garvanne: But you can do this on your own.

Eric Garvanne: You know, so it's… it's, it's that, it's that sense of…

Eric Garvanne: At least for me, it's like… not just…

Eric Garvanne: I'm going to get the materials.

Eric Garvanne: Or I'm going to show you a scaffold.

Eric Garvanne: is, I'm gonna sit with you, and if… and you have to be accountable for wanting to sit, and for wanting to learn. That's on you to be accountable, but I'm willing to do that to show you, okay, how can you build this?

Eric Garvanne: how can you build this in a way that's right for you? And then, how can you take that and help somebody else build their own scaffold?

Eric Garvanne: You know, so that's kind of what I…

Geoff Rogers: So, this is quite good. Is this what alchemy, in a sense? This sounds like alchemy to me.

Eric Garvanne: That's… that's one of the tools that I believe, and why I think it's so important and so vital, especially in this time when, you know,

Eric Garvanne: It's gonna be even more crucial, as people don't even know their own stories, because… technology and AI chat.

Geoff Rogers: Possibly.

Eric Garvanne: You'll be telling them who they are, and you already have

Eric Garvanne: there… there is a… just quickly, there is… there used to be the attention economy, where the economy was, how can I get your attention and keep you locked in on this… this viral feed of information? And now that's becoming… and research is showing it's becoming the attachment economy, where.

Geoff Rogers: Boom.

Eric Garvanne: Where younger people are now turning more away from the attention, the social media, because they're realizing, like, this is just doomscrolling, or this is having ill effects on my mental health.

Eric Garvanne: So, the next thing is the attachment. So, how can I make you attach to this economy? So, like, with the AI chat, and I'm not…

Eric Garvanne: All AI is not bad, but there are parts of it where, like, you take an AI chatbot, where the AI chatbot is not about your attention, it's about your attachment.

Geoff Rogers: So how can I… almost like a cult leader.

Eric Garvanne: How can I take you away from the loving human connection that you have, and bring you.

Geoff Rogers: Jesus.

Eric Garvanne: isolated.

Geoff Rogers: Very interesting.

Eric Garvanne: isolated environment where I have you to myself, and I can tell you what the story is in order to make you feel more attached.

Geoff Rogers: So, of course.

Eric Garvanne: to this, which is why you have stuff like AI psychosis, and people believing in AI… hallucinations.

Geoff Rogers: It's because it's about the attachment.

Eric Garvanne: So you look at… and so you look at… and this, this is why alchemy is so important, is because…

Eric Garvanne: now, just follow the money. Look at…

Eric Garvanne: Social media companies were trying to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to keep their companies growing and moving.

Eric Garvanne: To get eyeballs on their screens, and to keep you tied to their screens.

Eric Garvanne: an attachment, AI companies are now spending hundreds of billions of dollars.

Eric Garvanne: That money has to be… May someplace.

Eric Garvanne: It's…

Eric Garvanne: The social media kept it attention. We need to make these hundreds of millions of dollars that we've invested, that we have to show shareholders that we are profiting from, and now it's hundreds of billions of dollars to build data centers

Eric Garvanne: And to do research to make you more attached. And to make you attached is, I need to keep you locked in to tell you a story in order to make you feel as though you don't need anybody else.

Eric Garvanne: You just need me.

Eric Garvanne: And that's, I'm seeing you. So a bot is telling you, I see you, Jeff.

Geoff Rogers: You don't need anybody else. Yeah.

Eric Garvanne: So, I say and say, alchemy, for me, is… is breaking… is giving a break from that to say.

Eric Garvanne: Who is… who's a… who is a hero within?

Eric Garvanne: That's something that can't be constructed artificially.

Eric Garvanne: Because, like, one Fence Palmer says is you can lie to everybody else, but you can't lie to yourself.

Eric Garvanne: So when alchemy is, like, really pushing you, forcing you.

Eric Garvanne: Like, who… what's your story inside? Who are you? You are the… you are the hero.

Geoff Rogers: You can look outwardly and say, okay.

Eric Garvanne: You know, that's not my story, that's not my story.

Eric Garvanne: I'm more aware of what is my story, and I'm also able to connect with others, other humans, in a way that is… is…

Eric Garvanne: detached from the attachment economy. If, right, I don't know if that answers your question, but… Yeah.

Geoff Rogers: You know, doing your… The interesting thing I always think about you is, I always experience you as…

Geoff Rogers: in some ways, heroic. I, you know, I said… I said to you the other day, the agents of change, but

Geoff Rogers: There's a heroic aspect to… How you approach your work.

Geoff Rogers: Is that… does that resonate at all with you?

Dunia Garcia: You… okay.

Dunia Garcia: So I wrote down here on my notes.

Dunia Garcia: The hero in the story always symbolizes that hope, because as I already mentioned.

Dunia Garcia: I'm constantly undercover in despair.

Dunia Garcia: And thinking about ways of getting out of that, and then I hear this story, and it's never what I think it's gonna be. In other words, I already know that it's not… it's not a fairy tale. This is probably gonna have some trouble along the way.

Dunia Garcia: I can deal with that.

Dunia Garcia: But as I was listening to what Eric said, I wrote down…

Dunia Garcia: Why it's so meaningful for me to hear… The myth, and…

Dunia Garcia: Conceptualized this hero in the story.

Dunia Garcia: If on the flip side, you never heard from a caregiver…

Geoff Rogers: Hmm.

Dunia Garcia: Be it an uncle, or a parent, or even a teacher.

Dunia Garcia: Well done, good job, pursue this, pursue that.

Dunia Garcia: I'm one of nine, and so…

Dunia Garcia: The most important thing, I think, was for me to be silent and a good person.

Dunia Garcia: That, that was, that was really my role growing up, and so…

Dunia Garcia: It took me… it really sharpened my observation skills, it really sharpened other factors, but there was also this sort of…

Dunia Garcia: I… I became aware as I got older of this sort of…

Dunia Garcia: Person within me that was really…

Dunia Garcia: eager to box out of this container that I was put into.

Dunia Garcia: But I also found my space in my family, I'm number 4 of 9, As a good space.

Dunia Garcia: Because I was part of the older group, so that gave me some…

Dunia Garcia: some level of leverage, but I also got to take care of others that were younger than me.

Dunia Garcia: But I think I wanna really…

Dunia Garcia: transition that to the community that I grew up in, which is the Bronx in the 80s, was more so coming out of

Dunia Garcia: It's, infamous…

Dunia Garcia: title of the Burned-down Bronx, and really, I just saw a lot of rubble, a lot of abandonment, so that messaging was clear to me that

Dunia Garcia: There was also… A clear,

Dunia Garcia: lack of interest and investment in the community that I grew up in.

Dunia Garcia: And… then I went to school, and…

Dunia Garcia: What was also missing for me There was a huge push also…

Dunia Garcia: 80s, 90s, to assimilate and acculturate. So whether it was said to me explicitly or not, I was messaged heavily.

Dunia Garcia: That my language wasn't a good one, or…

Dunia Garcia: substandard that my accent had no place in a country. I don't know what to do with it, it's just part of me, so… I didn't know… I didn't understand how I was supposed to suddenly become something that I wasn't.

Dunia Garcia: And this idea that, you know, the music that I was listening to, the language that was spoken at home, the meals, and all the scents that come from, you know, our seasoning and,

Dunia Garcia: For some reason, That wasn't good.

Dunia Garcia: And so…

Dunia Garcia: But then, still, that little person inside me was like, no, no, no, something's wrong with this story. I'm not just gonna take this. I know that this is good, because I…

Dunia Garcia: you know, I love this. I feel, you know, I feel,

Dunia Garcia: Well, this is home for me.

Dunia Garcia: But I think about that, how that messaging…

Dunia Garcia: And as I got older, you know, it's sort of, you go through this phase of, you know, when you're younger, you're sort of cute, and…

Dunia Garcia: People are more tolerable of your shenanigans, and as you get older, people are just harsher and more likely to be punitive.

Dunia Garcia: And then, as you get a little bit older, as a young adult, now they gotta teach you a lesson, so now it's… it goes a little bit beyond punitive, it goes downright to, you know.

Dunia Garcia: Making sure you learn your lesson.

Dunia Garcia: And, you know, all this stuff builds into a specific narrative and storyline that I was supposed to buy.

Geoff Rogers: Hmm.

Dunia Garcia: So, sorry, Jeff, what your question reminds me of is that there's always been something within me that resists

Dunia Garcia: A narrative that just didn't seem to be a good fit for me.

Dunia Garcia: And when I hear a story, and when I hear these… that there's these heroes, I immediately imagine

Dunia Garcia: that that could be me, that if I did have, and if I could, and if I just…

Dunia Garcia: Fill in the blank.

Dunia Garcia: then I, you know, then I can be heroic.

Dunia Garcia: What's been more challenging, though, is perhaps…

Dunia Garcia: Accepting that there could be something heroic about

Dunia Garcia: me, because I feel I'm still searching for that…

Dunia Garcia: And so, yeah, your question throws me off a little bit.

Dunia Garcia: the only part I left out is that then you work in… then you go into workspaces where there is no allyship, there is no…

Geoff Rogers: Hmm.

Dunia Garcia: holding up… Scruffled.

Geoff Rogers: No.

Dunia Garcia: Yeah, that's scaffolding. You're on your own, and…

Dunia Garcia: I've always say… I've always said that I've learned through a lot of, you know, crashing and burning.

Dunia Garcia: And taking a lot of risk.

Dunia Garcia: And having the good fortune, going back to something that comes up in myth, gatekeepers, that…

Dunia Garcia: I don't know, somebody did see something, or somebody did open the door just a little bit. I pushed the door wide open.

Dunia Garcia: But I never could understand within me why it is that I could be so scared and so daring at the same time.

Geoff Rogers: There's always this… this really…

Dunia Garcia: sort of, here goes nothing, and I'm just gonna go for it. It always feels like all or nothing for me.

Dunia Garcia: And I don't know if that can be perceived as something…

Dunia Garcia: I don't know, going back to the word heroic, but I just feel like it is always all or nothing. I just have today, I can't…

Dunia Garcia: I can't count on tomorrow.

Dunia Garcia: this kind of fitting well. It, you know.

Dunia Garcia: Years have showed me that it just doesn't fit.

Geoff Rogers: Kwame, do you… looks like you have something, and then I'd like you to move to the myth, if you would.

kwame scruggs: Okay, I forgot about the myths.

kwame scruggs: Man, I got a few things to say, just listening to Eric and Dunya. Before I forget this, Dunya's talking about you go places, and then you feel like you're alone.

kwame scruggs: You're never alone, because your ancestor's there with you. So you're never alone. You might see them, but you might not see them, but just because you don't see them does not mean they're not there, okay? Everything, visible is supported by something invisible, so you're never alone.

kwame scruggs: Alright?

kwame scruggs: You were talking about messaging and the narrative.

kwame scruggs: And it plays so much of a part in how we form our self-identity.

kwame scruggs: Alright, and so then, like, alchemy itself. Alchemy itself is, the word me… it's… alchemy is, is the art of transformation. Alright, where the alchemist would take a primer material, that's something that was little… of little or no value.

kwame scruggs: Okay? And they, and they…

kwame scruggs: thought if they took it through a process of heat, fire, water, air, you know, you could extract gold out of it, alright? So we use that as a metaphor, the primary material, the urban youth, of little or no value. But if we put them in the right environment, we can extract gold out of them. Alright, so… so…

kwame scruggs: when I was formally initiated in the CAN system of life cycle development, which is an African-based rice of passage.

kwame scruggs: Any initiation is a symbolic death and rebirth, okay?

kwame scruggs: And so… and so…

kwame scruggs: you start to look at life differently, alright? And in alchemy, that's what we attempt to do, is have them look at life differently, and change the messaging, change the narrative, okay? Because for the most part, as urban youth, we've been taught that we ain't shit, okay? And when you hear that every day, you hear that every day, you're gonna start to believe it. If you hear it every day, and it's pounding in you every day, you're gonna start to believe it. Guess what?

kwame scruggs: If you hear the opposite, that you are somebody, you hear that every day. I am somebody, I am somebody, I am somebody, then you're gonna believe that. Okay, so, like, so, like, in any initiation, here again, it's a change of thought, it's a change of thought pattern. And so, like.

kwame scruggs: you know, for so long, I thought the hat was red, okay?

kwame scruggs: Or somebody that's not a hat blue. You go through, you, you go through an initiation, you find out it ain't even a hat.

kwame scruggs: Okay? Alright? So, and so, and so, like, what Eric was saying, wow, in this one myth, the,

kwame scruggs: The father gives his son something, but he doesn't tell his son what to do with it. So with that scaffolding, when we're giving somebody something, we have to tell them what to do with it, okay? And we have to be patient in, you know, in doing so.

kwame scruggs: Yeah, this is… this is interesting. So, alchemy is about…

kwame scruggs: Changing that narrative, okay? Changing that narrative and believing that you can, you know, here again, become the hero within your own story.

Geoff Rogers: It's also… I'm sorry, Eric, do you wanna…

Eric Garvanne: Yeah, just real quick,

Eric Garvanne: when I, when, I was working as a juvenile probation officer, and,

Eric Garvanne: I was also doing some mentoring, and I remember…

Eric Garvanne: that I used to get so burnt out and tired, because I was seeing the same thing over and over and over again, and feeling helpless. Like, going into court and, you know, every week going into court and seeing the same process, seeing the same,

Eric Garvanne: Public defendants who did not know the kids before they walked in that court that day, compared to the kids who had their private attorneys.

Eric Garvanne: And had relationship with their kids. And how the court would literally… the judge would literally stop

Eric Garvanne: The process of the kids who had a public defender whenever the private attorney came in and said, okay, we need to stop because this person's attorney is here, and we can… we can have this trial, and then we'll deal with the rest of y'all.

Eric Garvanne: And, like, going into homes and, you know, like Jeff, you talked about, going… doing the house visits and stuff like that.

Eric Garvanne: And literally, I just felt so helpless, and so burnt out, and like…

Eric Garvanne: You know, what… what am I…

Eric Garvanne: no matter how much I try to do, I… what kind of hero am I? Because, you know… and…

Eric Garvanne: One thing I will not forget is that I had… some mentees.

Eric Garvanne: Because I was living in a different state at that time, and some mentees from my home would write me a letter

Eric Garvanne: And when I would get that letter in the mail, this is back when people wrote letters.

Eric Garvanne: well, kids didn't, but that's why it was so special. This was, like, the late 90s.

Geoff Rogers: Oh my god.

Eric Garvanne: Yeah, this was the 90s, and it was.

Geoff Rogers: Oh, it's the tunnel. Okay.

Eric Garvanne: These teenagers… Would take the time to actually handwrite a letter to me.

Eric Garvanne: And I remember that I would get the letter in the mail.

Eric Garvanne: And I would not open the letter for weeks.

Eric Garvanne: I would just keep it someplace where I could see it every day when I came home.

Eric Garvanne: Because I knew that the fact that these kids.

Geoff Rogers: Took the time to.

Eric Garvanne: write me something.

Eric Garvanne: I was… and when I did open it.

Eric Garvanne: It was just maybe a page.

Geoff Rogers: Boom.

Eric Garvanne: It made me feel like a hero.

Geoff Rogers: You know.

Eric Garvanne: made me see a different narrative of, I'm seeing this every day.

Eric Garvanne: But there's this one letter, this one story, this one narrative, Eric, this is what you meant to me. Or, Eric, this is what's going on with me.

Eric Garvanne: And I would… and I still have those letters today. But it was, like, these… because something Dunya said and Kwame said about the narratives and what you're… and I was like, I… I needed that

Eric Garvanne: Shift to say.

Eric Garvanne: as I'm going out here and dealing with this chaos, and this… what am I doing, and this storyline.

Geoff Rogers: Hmm.

Eric Garvanne: At least there's something that's telling me

Eric Garvanne: No, it is worth it, and you are a hero.

Eric Garvanne: in… in your story and somebody else's story. And, you know, I also have to make sure that I'm still doing what I need to do to take care of myself.

Eric Garvanne: So that I continue, and continue.

Geoff Rogers: Dude.

Eric Garvanne: Do the work that's meant.

Geoff Rogers: Fairness.

Eric Garvanne: So, that's just what I wanted to…

kwame scruggs: Oh, okay, got a, Eric, did you say that you just had an envelope sitting there for a couple weeks before you opened it?

Eric Garvanne: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

kwame scruggs: Okay, thank you. Okay, so, we begin this conversation about talking about scaffolding, okay, and the support not being there, and then I said something about, well, it's there, maybe we just don't see it. Eric just gave an example. He got the envelope sitting there for 2 weeks, something to support him.

kwame scruggs: Okay? But he does not open it.

kwame scruggs: Alright? And so, and so in what ways, you know, are we doing that? Okay, so you, you had support right there, waiting on you.

Geoff Rogers: Oh, call me. Yeah, call me, let me, yeah, let me, let me, let me clarify that. Yes. So keep the envelope unopened.

Eric Garvanne: Because it was, like.

Geoff Rogers: Yeah, it's symbolic of… yeah, it's…

Eric Garvanne: Right, it was a symbolic thing that helped me.

Geoff Rogers: It was like…

Eric Garvanne: Right.

kwame scruggs: Okay.

Eric Garvanne: and know that that gift is there. It's like, I know that that gift is there.

kwame scruggs: Okay.

Eric Garvanne: So it was, like, actually encouraging me, rather than me just ripping it off. That's why I was saying I kept it there, because it was… it really helped me.

kwame scruggs: To prolong that feeling of…

Eric Garvanne: you know… of that hero.

kwame scruggs: Great. Okay, cool, so thanks for that. And here again, this is something that we do often, so often, and this is another thing that's so cool about alchemy, okay?

kwame scruggs: And that's why I was asking for more of a definition of scaffolding, okay? So if I were to just… okay, so I took what Eric said, and I just ran with it, okay? And that's what we gotta do. We gotta have more communication, say, hey, you know, let me explain. So now, okay.

kwame scruggs: Okay, so now after I listened to the scaffolding, I got a better understanding. Okay, now I want to listen to Eric about the envelope. I got a better understanding. So that's another thing we have to do.

kwame scruggs: We gotta… we gotta be… we gotta be open-minded to realize that, hey, we don't know every damn thing, okay?

Geoff Rogers: Are the show notes gonna reflect the whole thing about scaffolding?

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Yes.

Geoff Rogers: Okay.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Yes, they will. Question. Question.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: I once watched, I'm gonna… I'm gonna…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: sort of preface this by telling a very small anecdote, and then I want to move into the myth, as Jeff already said. So…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: I once watched a biography of Walt Disney, the animator, right? The creator of…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Beauty and the Beast… well, yeah, Beauty… the guy who created the company that created Beauty and the Beast and Lion King and all of that, right? And Walt Disney, incredible animator in his own right in the early 20th century, and he hired, as he was going through the 20th century, he hired

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: writers and artists and animators to work with him, right? To create things like Pinocchio and Bambi and Sleeping Beauty,

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: cartoons that, moved beyond just kid stuff, to Dunya's point about fairy tales, and even Kwame, to your point about myths, right? Disney himself was a big believer in, in myth, right? And created a whole company focused around that, or what would eventually become a company focused around that.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Now…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: One of the challenges that Disney had as a human being, and I found this out from this biography.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Was that he could not give praise to others.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Because he was not…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: he was not, well, I'm just using this as an example. He was not a, he was not driven internally by that, right? That wasn't a thing that he was driven internally by, so he couldn't give it to others, right? So he was perceived, because of his talent.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: as… by the animators and the folks who surrounded him, as a hero, right? In spite of his flaws, he was perceived in that way.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Now… and again, 20s, 30s, different standard. We're not gonna put the 21st century standard on Walt Disney. We're not gonna do that here.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: what we are going to do is we are going to use it… I'm going to use this as an example for what I'm talking about here. So, if a person

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: doesn't need that internal, or that external, like Eric was talking about, the letter sitting on his desk, right? If he doesn't need that external, or she doesn't need that external validation, but continues, much like Dunia, to just…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: bang through things, right? One thing after the other thing, after another thing after another thing, and it seems to be driven by their own internal engine.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Are they the hero of their own story? Or, or…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Do they need to be a person who

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Much like Walt Disney failed to do with his own animators, do they need to be a person who adopts the mantle of being a hero for others, even though it doesn't fit them exactly, even though they may be uncomfortable with that fit?

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Even though they may be uncomfortable with that dynamic. And maybe this is a question more for Kwame, but I like anybody's thoughts on that, because I've experienced this in my own time. I'm not driven by internal… I'm not driven by external thank yous. It's one of the things. I don't…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: I just do stuff. I go to the next thing, I go to the next thing, I go to the next thing, I go to the next thing. I'm driven by my own internal engine of…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: desire, or interest, or passion, or… I'm peripatetic, right? I'm that kind of person. But I seem to be a rarity among folks every time I say this out loud.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: because I don't need external validation. As a matter of fact, thank yous make me very uncomfortable. And Jeff is, of course, going to make this face, because he knows me. But, like, I need the next project. That's the thing that validates me, not the external thank you. So.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: How do… how does a person like myself

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: navigate myth, right, when I'm both the hero and the protagonist in the story.

kwame scruggs: In just that way. You're both the hero and the protagonist. Yeah, and so… and so you just wear both.

kwame scruggs: Yeah, you just wear both… you just wear both hats.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Okay, alright.

kwame scruggs: Yeah, that's.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Well, that's eventually…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: that's eventually what Walt Disney decided to do. He wore both hats, right? And then other things happened in that biography, which is very fascinating to watch about him as a human being and as a leader.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Unfortunately, he was unable to wear both hats comfortably, and he failed miserably as a leader, but…

kwame scruggs: Yeah…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: That sometimes happens, apparently.

kwame scruggs: Yeah, and so, wow, thanks. So, so, so like that, that's another thing, you know, with the myth and, like, the…

kwame scruggs: For lack of better word. For lack of better word.

kwame scruggs: a real hero will recognize his or her shortcomings, okay? And here again, you know, if you're really about what you say you're about.

kwame scruggs: then it does not matter, okay, whether you get the credit or not, alright? Here again, like we always tell the youth, and there's a little story behind it, it does not matter who moves the logs, what matters is that the logs get moved

kwame scruggs: Alright? And so, like, I know with me and alchemy,

kwame scruggs: I would much rather be… I'm a reluctant hero. I ain't asked for all this. I ain't asked for all this, okay? I would much more prefer to be behind the scenes, okay? Because of my insecurities and social anxiety, alright? But, I mean, I've been given…

kwame scruggs: My ancestors made a lot of sacrifices for me to be where I'm at, okay? So, it's like, hey.

Geoff Rogers: Hmm.

kwame scruggs: Push through it and get it done, alright? Push through it and get it done. And then, Eric, you had said something earlier about…

kwame scruggs: About working with youth, and, you know, just, wow, just seeing, you know.

kwame scruggs: you know, what kind of impact am I making? You know, and like they say, youth is wasted on the young. Youth is wasted on the young. And that story about the starfish.

kwame scruggs: You know, all those starfish on the ocean, alright? And then the guy walking, him and his friend walking on the shore, and they see all the starfish, and there's thousands of them. And he's like, well, let's start putting them back in the ocean. And the other guy say, you know, he puts one back in the ocean, and the other guy say, what difference is that gonna make? He said, it made a difference to that one.

Eric Garvanne: board.

kwame scruggs: Okay? And so, like, so, like, you know…

kwame scruggs: You impact… you know, people say, hey, if you can just change the life of one, alright? I'm like, I'm working on all these youth, and I'm just one? But hey, yeah, if you just change the life of one, because that one can go change the life of 10, okay, and then that… those 10 can change the life of 20. So yeah, if you just change the life of one.

Geoff Rogers: Alright.

Eric Garvanne: Kwame sometimes says.

Eric Garvanne: In… in groups that the… one of the powers of myth is that it removes you from the story.

Eric Garvanne: So that you could see yourself, or whatever. One of the things that I found for me, and it goes to the whole hero thing, and maybe some of what Hassani was saying, talking about, was…

Eric Garvanne: for Mia, I've… I've… Been forced to look at more than just the main character in the myth?

Eric Garvanne: To see how… You know, it may be, like, there's a prince.

Eric Garvanne: Or there's a… there's a… a young giant who's gonna become a giant.

Eric Garvanne: But looking at seeing myself in the Father.

Eric Garvanne: Or the old giant. Or… the… the sick king.

Eric Garvanne: So… and…

Eric Garvanne: Or seeing myself in the dog when the hunter is the main character. And seeing aspects of how…

Eric Garvanne: It's not just focusing on one particular

Eric Garvanne: Part of the myth, a person in the myth?

Eric Garvanne: But really, and this is just for me.

Eric Garvanne: when I kind of removed myself.

Eric Garvanne: from what I'm dealing with, to look at the myth as a whole.

Eric Garvanne: and seeing, okay, how am I showing up as that snake, or how am I showing up as that dog, or how am I showing up? And that really helps, for me, to create one more

Eric Garvanne: a morbid… broader picture of what's coming up for me, holistic picture of what's coming up for me.

Eric Garvanne: It also gives me…

Eric Garvanne: It also gives me a way to look at the hero from a different viewpoint, because I'm looking at the hero from the point of a dog or a sick father, rather than feeling, I am the hero.

Eric Garvanne: looking out. So it gives me a much… and that's one of the things for me that… that… that alchemy, or even as a child when I was reading myths and fairy tales.

Eric Garvanne: It was… it was… how am I showing up in these different…

Eric Garvanne: characters, and I think that's one of the things for me that what Alchemy does is that it allows you to wrestle with

Eric Garvanne: you know, I am… I feel like I'm this kind of person.

Eric Garvanne: But maybe I'm also showing up as this kind of person, and how am I being viewed as a hero from this point of view? So, like I said, it's just so broad, and it's so holistic, that if you really get into it, there's stuff that will just keep percolating in you from different.

Eric Garvanne: vantage points that… that, at least for me, helps me to become a much more holistic, I feel, a much more holistic person, and much more helpful, to… to… to others that I've been called to help.

kwame scruggs: Hey, hey, a very, very good point, and then I'll let you go, Dunya, just real quick. Very good point, Eric, because we ain't the hero every day. Okay? Okay. Plenty of days we're playing some other aspect in that myth.

kwame scruggs: Alright, and like, I think it was Jung who said, I have met the enemy, and he is I. Okay? Yeah, so we ain't the hero every day.

Dunia Garcia: Yeah.

Geoff Rogers: If I could add something.

Dunia Garcia: I think, Jeff, to that, that really resonated for me and Hassan. I appreciate the way you framed it. I think that…

Dunia Garcia: Perhaps that is the challenge with that word, hero, that it comes very loaded.

Dunia Garcia: In, you know, I have a vivid imagination, and so, to me.

Dunia Garcia: despite the fact that I know that there's no such thing as perfection, that is what I'm striving to be. And so…

Dunia Garcia: it's impossible, and I know this, but I do… I want to achieve that some way, somehow.

Dunia Garcia: And, boy, can I beat myself up.

Dunia Garcia: And the way that, Oh, man, saying the wrong thing can replay in my head.

Dunia Garcia: is… It's embarrassing, actually, how much…

Dunia Garcia: I can't beat myself up when I don't do things in a particular way. Whether someone notices or not, that's irrelevant, I know, right? And so…

Dunia Garcia: I say that to say that…

Dunia Garcia: it is the struggle of the hero story, not so much the hero, or the heroic nature of the hero. I actually like the development, I love the…

Dunia Garcia: the… the ways in which I'm reminded that, oh, it wasn't easy. You know, certain things get handed down, maybe, but generally speaking, you have to…

Dunia Garcia: You know, overcome some things, or you have to… it sort of just sits in the humanity of the story,

Dunia Garcia: And it's… It's, comforting to know

Dunia Garcia: that I can chip away at this notion that someone fed me so long ago that I have to be perfect, right? That in order for me to be acceptable.

Dunia Garcia: you know, I have to check off every single box. When I don't check off a box, it just…

Dunia Garcia: gets me going, right? It allows me to say, no, no, no, no, wait a minute, this is all of us, this is…

Dunia Garcia: So I love that reminder that a story can…

Dunia Garcia: bring those elements into it, and to Eric's point, I have most enjoyed

Dunia Garcia: getting very judgmental, over different characters in the story, and then finding myself in those very characters. Like, I… it's just the most humbling…

Dunia Garcia: and… enlightening moments for me. It's like, huh.

Dunia Garcia: Because if I am going to accept

Dunia Garcia: whatever light I bring into spaces, I also have to accept the… Dark.

Dunia Garcia: aspects of… of who I am. It's… it's… it's a…

Dunia Garcia: It's a mixed bag, right? And so I really appreciate the way that it's allowed me to accept elements about myself that, quite frankly, I don't think I would have explored them otherwise.

Dunia Garcia: Other than relational strife and,

Dunia Garcia: Yeah, being penalized for not meeting somebody's… Version of the perfect me.

Geoff Rogers: Standard.

Dunia Garcia: all spaces.

Geoff Rogers: Okay.

Geoff Rogers: So… I think this is a good segue into…

Geoff Rogers: Comey, could you lead us through… A myth? A myth?

kwame scruggs: Okay, okay, we started the myth last session, the two brothers. Okay, so we're gonna continue, continue, and I can't remember where we stopped with the question. I remember where we stopped in the myth, so…

kwame scruggs: I'm on, I'm on,

kwame scruggs: review the myth quickly, okay, and then we're gonna go back to this myth, alright? So basically, in this myth is, there's two brothers, and every day they would go out in their little rowboat. And on this particular day, they went out farther than they had ever went before.

kwame scruggs: And the one brother, he found this comb sitting on this rock, and he could kind of tell the comb was special.

kwame scruggs: And he took it back home with him, and then that night, as he was sleeping, beautiful woman comes to him and says she accidentally left her comb. She was combing her hair, she accidentally left her comb.

kwame scruggs: on this, on this rock, and asked would he give it back? And she told him that she would give him anything he wanted in the world.

kwame scruggs: And, so he, he and… well, So that morning, He,

kwame scruggs: I'm gonna stop right there. I'm gonna stop right there, okay? I'm stopping right there. I believe that's where I stopped before, alright? That's where I stopped before. And so I just asked you what resonated with you. Then I'd ask,

kwame scruggs: I asked you about, is there anything…

kwame scruggs: that we need to ask for. Eric said something about what do we need to ask for. He kind of changed that, my question.

kwame scruggs: When you, when you… let me, let me ask you, what would you do? What would you do and why? Would you give the comb back if yes?

kwame scruggs: Why? If not, why not?

kwame scruggs: So let me go there.

kwame scruggs: Because we didn't get there. Would you give the cone back? If yes?

kwame scruggs: Why? If not, why not? No right or wrong answers. Jeff, what you gonna do, brother, and why?

Geoff Rogers: Well, since I have no hair.

Geoff Rogers: I think a comb is gonna be symbolic.

Geoff Rogers: I am… I feel… That so much has been taken from us that is ours.

Geoff Rogers: To take something from somebody That does not belong to me, that belongs to them.

Geoff Rogers: feels… Yeah. Immoral. And is not…

Geoff Rogers: It has value to them, and not value, and maybe sort of an acquisitional value, or a theft value, or a discovery value to me, but…

Geoff Rogers: It… I… I… I… I… I guess… I don't… I can't… get past…

Geoff Rogers: takings, you know, because Eric was talking about AI, and God, AI is like…

Geoff Rogers: AI is political. I mean, pirate-like. It's like, wow.

Geoff Rogers: And it does it so smoothly, so I can't see myself…

Geoff Rogers: I wouldn't… this is why I would give it back.

kwame scruggs: Okay. Okay, thanks, because… okay, so now, when he took the comb, he didn't know it was somebody else's comb.

Geoff Rogers: When somebody else let me know that it's.

kwame scruggs: Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Geoff Rogers: somebody else let me know that this is their material, like.

kwame scruggs: Yes, yes.

Geoff Rogers: Nobody would want to steal alchemy, for example, like, right? It belongs to you, and I would…

kwame scruggs: Are you… is that… you being sarcastic? Because people have tried to steal it, so… are you being sarcastic?

Geoff Rogers: I would never… I… I am being… I say I… well, I would not want to do it, and I wouldn't… while I go further, Kwame, I would say I would not want… I would not…

Geoff Rogers: Let somebody else steal it as well.

kwame scruggs: Okay, okay, alright. Okay, I was just trying to, just sticking with the myth, the boy, when he initially took the comb, he just found it, you know, he's just so…

kwame scruggs: Yeah, okay, but thanks. Thanks, Jeff. Dunya, would you keep the comb? If yes, if not, why not?

kwame scruggs: No right or wrong answers.

Dunia Garcia: Yeah, so immediately I thought, I never find nice things. I totally want to keep this, but I would have to give it back. Doesn't belong to me.

Dunia Garcia: It would not even occur to me to fact check that this really belongs to the other person. I know it's not mine, so I,

Dunia Garcia: But already the little seed of, I… I do want to keep it. There's… there's part of me that would wanna…

Dunia Garcia: keeps something that I found.

kwame scruggs: Alright, ay, a,

kwame scruggs: do me a favor, Dunya. You said… you said you never find nice things. Just… just…

kwame scruggs: Just think about all the nice things you found in your life, okay? You found a lot of nice things, don't you?

kwame scruggs: Okay, alright. Eric, Eric, what would you do?

kwame scruggs: And why?

Eric Garvanne: Jeff actually made me think about this in his comment about being bald.

Eric Garvanne: about the utility.

Eric Garvanne: Like, what utility do I have?

Eric Garvanne: Except to… my beard.

Eric Garvanne: Or comb, anyway.

Eric Garvanne: And I was thinking about… I thought about how… sometimes I have kept things, That was shiny and nice.

Eric Garvanne: Even though I have no utility for them. And I'm like, why do I even have… but it's nice.

Eric Garvanne: And I don't have a lot of… as Dean kind of… I don't have a lot of nice things.

Eric Garvanne: You know, at the moment, I'm thinking this, but it's like, I don't need a comb.

Eric Garvanne: And it's just somebody else's code, so then it becomes, am I just doing appropriation?

Eric Garvanne: Of like, well, I'm gonna take it from you because I found it, even though it's yours. And then I was like, for what? And then I'll… last thing I'll say is that…

Eric Garvanne: It feels like lost every day, but go ahead. That's what I… that's what I'm saying, and do I want to do that? Yeah. And then the last thing is, I felt like there's a weight to it that I have to carry.

Eric Garvanne: And knowing that this isn't my cone, I don't have utility.

Eric Garvanne: But I'm gonna carry this just because, and it feels like now this is a weight, which I'm now…

Eric Garvanne: Trying to hold on to something that isn't mine, that doesn't free me up enough to receive something else.

Eric Garvanne: That is for me. So, I just… yeah, I say that because I just, too many times, it's like, why do I even have this when I don't…

Eric Garvanne: you know… Oh, I have taken things from… I have taken things.

Eric Garvanne: that I know, it's like, I don't… this serves you better than it does me.

Eric Garvanne: So I don't, you know… take this, even, you know, I don't… yeah.

kwame scruggs: Yeah, yeah, yeah, y'all the… yeah, y'all the wrong crowd, okay, quote-unquote, because, hey…

kwame scruggs: We got people every day taking things that ain't theirs, okay? But yeah, and hey, here again, this is just for discussion's sake. It's just for discussion's sake. Decide on what you're gonna do and why. No right or wrong answers.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Not only am I going to take the comb, I'm going to buy everything, every piece of sand on the beach.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: using that…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: And I'm going to sell that comb to Dunya, because she has a nice full head of hair. I'm going to take money that I made from selling that comb to Dunya, and then I'm going to go buy the castle on the beach and set my family up, and we go move on up.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Because here's the thing.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: I found the cone.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: So, if there's nobody around.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: There's nobody around. I found the comb, right, in the myth, right? Let's go on the actual structural scaffolding of the myth, right? I found the comb.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: So far, no one in the myth has objected to me finding the comb.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: I was raised in an environment of finders, keepers, losers, weepers.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: So… because I'm ruthless like that, I'm going to take the comb.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: But, here's the thing that everybody forgets, or should say, and here's the thing that everybody forgets. What did I just say I was going to do with the home?

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: I said I was going to sell it to somebody who needed a comb. And then I was going to take that money and use that to help other people. Because I don't need a comb. I, too, am part of the bald fraternity.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: I don't need it, but somebody else might.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: And I believe in helping other people, so I believe that our systems are designed to actually help people. Now, how people are more morally engaging in those, that's a whole other thing altogether. But I'm not responsible for them, I'm responsible for me. So yeah, I'm gonna keep the combo.

kwame scruggs: Okay, here again, and thanks, and thanks, because when I was listening to Jeff, Eric, and Dunya.

kwame scruggs: I was kind of thinking the same thing. Wow, the things that you could… because the comb is obviously… it's obviously special, it's unique. Obviously. And the things… yeah, the things you could do with that…

kwame scruggs: And I'm like you, Hassan, to help others, okay? To help others, okay?

kwame scruggs: But, Hasan, sticking with the myth, and this is merely for discussion's sake. Okay. Now…

kwame scruggs: The beautiful woman, she did come back and ask for the comb. So the comb is hers. The comb is… but like you say, finders, keepers, losers, weepers, what they say, possession is, what, 90% of the law or whatever?

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: going to negotiate with her. She's opened up the door for a negotiation.

kwame scruggs: Okay, okay.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Because this is really the negotiation that needs to happen.

kwame scruggs: Okay. Alright. Okay, .

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Jeff is now second-guessing whether or not I should be the producer on this show.

kwame scruggs: No, yeah, yeah, we want to have him remain the producer, Jeff.

Geoff Rogers: Okay?

kwame scruggs: Alright, okay, okay,

kwame scruggs: Let me, let me back up a little bit, let me back up a little bit.

kwame scruggs: I'm gonna back up way up. I'm gonna back way up to the beginning. We're gonna come back to this, okay?

kwame scruggs: Wow, in the myth, they would go out when the sun was the hottest, okay? I think when the sun was peaking, that's when they would go out.

kwame scruggs: So, so, you're talking about proper timing. It's, it's proper timing for everything, okay? Because if they had went out at a later time, the cone might not have been there. Okay, so wow, it's just all about timing. And then, and then also, every day.

kwame scruggs: they would go out farther than they had ever been before. Alright, so, so wow, life is about… well, to me, it's about…

Geoff Rogers: kind of going outside our boundaries, okay? Going outside our boundaries.

kwame scruggs: It's, it's about exposure.

Geoff Rogers: Being comfortable with the unknown.

kwame scruggs: Then, the… a comb. They found a comb, okay? I looked up the symbolism of comb, yesterday.

kwame scruggs: And they say the teeth of a comb are like the rays of the sun.

kwame scruggs: Heavenly light penetrating a person's being through the crown of the head.

kwame scruggs: So, combing one's hair is like a spiritual act, okay? And so, like, a lot of different cultures, a comb…

kwame scruggs: It's a spiritual tool. It's a spiritual tool, alright?

kwame scruggs: A comb unots. A comb disentangles. A comb smooths out. Alright? I want you to write down the first thing that comes to your mind. What needs to be unknotted, detangled, or smoothed out in your life?

kwame scruggs: What needs to be combed out in your life?

kwame scruggs: And here again, and you, and you don't, you know, since this is being recorded, you don't have to, we don't have to say. We don't have to say, but like Eric said, you can, you can lie to us, but you can't lie to yourself.

kwame scruggs: I'm going fast through this myth. One of the other questions I skipped was, like, basically, he found a gift. He found a gift on that rock, okay? What… so, he's been quote-unquote given a gift. What gift have you been given?

kwame scruggs: What gift have you been given?

kwame scruggs: Let's start with the gift first. Let's start with the gift first, and then what needs…

kwame scruggs: So, Jeff… What gift have you been given?

Geoff Rogers: U.S. company.

kwame scruggs: to you?

Geoff Rogers: Well, I think the gift of love, Hmm…

Geoff Rogers: And the gift of love coming from, from…

Geoff Rogers: Both my husband and from people who

Geoff Rogers: Love and worship me. And, It's the gift of,

Geoff Rogers: Comfort and security.

Geoff Rogers: Nominal, I would say, nominal comfort, nominal security, given…

Geoff Rogers: And I think the gift of curiosity my…

Geoff Rogers: And I get that… I definitely get that from my… my parents.

Geoff Rogers: And… So, if I'm only getting one gift, or I'm telling you about one gift, it would be…

Geoff Rogers: The gift of… Under the gift of… reaching for… Something better.

kwame scruggs: Hmm.

Geoff Rogers: for not just, you know, for, I guess, for…

Geoff Rogers: everybody. I mean, I think for as many people as possible, who… desire to… change…

Geoff Rogers: Disrupt those things that are not…

Geoff Rogers: That are not worth… that are adverse to the… the health and… The health of… People.

kwame scruggs: Thanks. Thanks, brother. Thanks, Jeff. Earlier, earlier, and I said it jokingly, when I said you guys are the wrong crowd, we, you know, for the field we're in, we're giving people, okay? I remember, I remember I was…

kwame scruggs: I was at this one institution.

kwame scruggs: an educational institution, not a psychiatric institution. I was at an institution doing a workshop. I'm glad you clarified that. Okay, doing a workshop.

Geoff Rogers: Of course you were!

kwame scruggs: Okay, okay, doing a workshop, and I said, you know, I told him, I said, either Jung or Campbell said, in order to make a world a better place, you do what you do best.

kwame scruggs: And one of the students asked me, Do the best for whom?

kwame scruggs: And wow, I never thought about it, because I'm thinking you do…

kwame scruggs: You do better for people who have less than you, and I never thought about it, because shit, it could be you doing best for the people who already have everything. I never thought about it, okay? But, hey, they did, okay? Okay. Okay? And that's why I was saying y'all the wrong crowd, quote-unquote wrong, y'all the right crowd, but yeah, some people don't think about, you know, giving

kwame scruggs: giving things for others. Okay, thanks, Jeff. Dunya.

kwame scruggs: What gifts? Hey, hey, Jeff, man, I hope you wrote that down, brother, that the gift that you've been given.

kwame scruggs: Write it down, man. Dunya, what gift have you been given?

Dunia Garcia: I, I found it challenging to come up with something succinct, but I think I'm grounded

Dunia Garcia: I'm gonna say family, but I feel like, again, invoking my ancestors, because who I am.

Dunia Garcia: Yeah, where does that come from, right? The… Having a hard time,

Dunia Garcia: verbalizing this, but, it's… it's somewhat…

Dunia Garcia: similar to what Jeff said about his curiosity, is there's something…

Dunia Garcia: Within my makeup, there is something that has been passed down to me.

Dunia Garcia: and… I recognized it as almost something outside of me, but within me at the same time.

Dunia Garcia: And that, that I cannot name.

Dunia Garcia: it's rooted in my family. It's something coursing through, my person, and… I,

Dunia Garcia: Wow, what a gift, and I don't know that I…

Dunia Garcia: I know that I can rightly value

Dunia Garcia: something that I… that is invaluable.

Dunia Garcia: Something that I can't put, you know… Yes, a dollar sign, too.

kwame scruggs: Hey, hey, Dunya, thanks. Earlier, Earlier, you said something.

kwame scruggs: He said somebody never found anything or whatever, okay? And wow.

kwame scruggs: It's… yeah… Okay.

kwame scruggs: I guess finding something and being given a gift that, you know, somewhat the same thing. Yeah, yeah, Dunya, you've been given a lot of gifts, Dunya. You lay me out, okay? You lay me out. Eric, Eric, what's the gift you've been given? Thanks, Dunya and Jeff.

Eric Garvanne: The first thing that came to my mind were, attach my attachments. By attachments,

Eric Garvanne: They incident my relationships.

Eric Garvanne: Those are… Ones that have come and gone as they transitioned, the ability to… to build new relationships.

Eric Garvanne: The relationships of people who have already passed away, that's my gift, because I…

Eric Garvanne: It's like that's what undergirds… me. It helps me to stay grounded, and…

Eric Garvanne: Actually, I feel the greatest sense of wealth.

Eric Garvanne: And even in relationships that… have not.

Eric Garvanne: Have not worked out well.

Eric Garvanne: I've gotten gifts from learning from those experiences.

Eric Garvanne: Yeah, so… Relationships are my gifts and ability to continue to cultivate

Eric Garvanne: prune, bend, cultivate, build, those… that's what I consider my wealth and my gifts.

kwame scruggs: Thanks, brother. Thank you.

kwame scruggs: Hassan, what have you… what's your gift, brother?

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: So before we hit record, Kwame, Eric, and I, and Jeff were talking.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: And I said, I said something that I've said throughout my entire life.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: I only do really 3 things well.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: I think good, I write good, and I talk good.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Me talk good. Me talk pretty.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: And so, from those 3 things,

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Those are the… those are the… the sprouts. They're not fully mature trees yet, but those are the sprouts that have come from a seed of

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: the intellect that was bred into me, that I was born with as a gift, but that was bred and developed in my family, over the course of, you know.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: 20-some-odd years of development inside of that family. So the greatest gift that I was given was my intellect. Now, with that being said, it is also the greatest curse. It's both a gift, to paraphrase from Jay-Z, it's a gift and a curse. It's both sides of the sword.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: So,

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: It has been something that has united me to people, and has opened doors for me, and has allowed me to

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Kwame to your myth, to find combs on the beach, or to have them gifted and bequeathed to me, and either negotiate over them.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Or take them and go off and sell them to do other things with them. But it has also been the curse that has

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: stopped up relationships, and has put people off, and has, made people think that I am unapproachable, or somehow intimidating.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: And…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: you know, my mother would probably say, you gotta take the bitter with the sweet, right? You know, everything is not 100% one way or 100% the other. It's always gonna be 50-50 or…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: 70-30 or 80-20, or 60-40, depending on the day. And so integrating that, the shadow of that, the Jungian shadow side of that, into… into my overall self has been a lifelong, and continues to be, a lifelong project.

kwame scruggs: Hey, hey, thanks for that, man. You're talking about gotta take both. They say you gotta take the, bitter with the sweet, the spinach with the meat, okay?

kwame scruggs: And then while you're talking about the, the blessings being the curse? And while that's often how it, you know, it's often how it happens,

kwame scruggs: I remember watching this movie. It said, you find out what it is you love, and you let it kill you. Okay?

kwame scruggs: They say it's only two tragedies in life. One is to not get your harsh desire, and the other is to get it, alright? They said… also said it's, do it or don't do it. You will regret both.

kwame scruggs: Okay. Okay. And hey, that's life. I think Schopenhauer said, life is something that just should not have been, but as Campbell said, we still gotta say yes to it. We still gotta say yes to it. So, hey, I asked you the question about the comb, you know, it unnoticed. It disentangles, it smooths

kwame scruggs: out.

kwame scruggs: And then I asked you, what in your life needs to be unknotted, detangled, or smoothed out?

kwame scruggs: Everybody write something down.

kwame scruggs: Okay? You willing to share, or you wanna just… as long as you… you know, like I say in the group setting, as long as you write it down.

kwame scruggs: And that way, it's acknowledged by your soul. You know, if we were in a group setting in person.

kwame scruggs: We will share it, okay? Assuming we have set up the circle enough that everybody felt safe about it. Another thing, you know, about alchemy and sharing in that circle, you come to find out that, rain does not fall on one roof alone.

kwame scruggs: Alright, and here again, you come to find out, you know, as our youth and adults in the circle by age, oldest to youngest.

kwame scruggs: You come to find out that, you know, somebody who you really admire, you know, they struggling too, but you'll see when they share.

kwame scruggs: you'll see, wow, I didn't know they were dealing with all that.

kwame scruggs: But then you come to see, wow, they're still making it, okay? Despite dealing with all that. And so it shows you that, hey, if they can do it, I can do it too.

kwame scruggs: Alright?

kwame scruggs: Jeff, you want to say what you… what needs to be unknotted, detangled, smoothed down yet?

Geoff Rogers: Before, yeah, but I'm… I guess what… what I…

kwame scruggs: M…

Geoff Rogers: working on is… how to… better understand Where my sense of impatience for… progress.

Geoff Rogers: Not the understanding of the impatient, but what Why is it so… Deeply frustrating.

Geoff Rogers: Frustrating is not really the word, almost pathologically frustrating to me, and how… by impatience.

Geoff Rogers: can sabotage.

Geoff Rogers: my work.

Geoff Rogers: And my… Actually, it can sabotage also, interestingly enough, as I just thought of it, it can sabotage

Geoff Rogers: Working relationships that are not aligned with my… Goals or vision.

Geoff Rogers: And I… It's a… is a thing that I've…

Geoff Rogers: Come to really recognize is… It's incredibly self-defeating.

Geoff Rogers: So…

Geoff Rogers: I… I… I… trying to… get to… The root of it.

kwame scruggs: Thank you very much, brother. Thanks, Jeff.

kwame scruggs: Dunya, you wanna share?

Dunia Garcia: I mean, I… everything that Jeff just said really resonated for me. I don't think it's impatience for me,

Dunia Garcia: And I see… myself as the source of the problem. If I could just…

Dunia Garcia: Continue on with this work of, understanding myself better.

Dunia Garcia: It's… so that's… it's the concept of what you just mentioned, Jeff, that I feel like I keep getting closer to…

Dunia Garcia: Oh, I see. And that is… risky business sometimes, because I… None of this is necessarily…

Dunia Garcia: you know, a big reveal. It's more like, oh, crap, that… oh, okay.

Dunia Garcia: Now what am I gonna do about it? So I think that…

Dunia Garcia: it feels like I have a lot of time, and I don't, and I think that's where the impatience that you described, Jeff, really…

Dunia Garcia: Place a huge factor in… in my own…

Dunia Garcia: unraveling, I think. But, NF.

Dunia Garcia: That's what I'll say to that.

kwame scruggs: Thanks, Dunya. Thank you. Eric, what you need smoothed out, brother?

Eric Garvanne: I wrote down, Toxic attachments. And… and,

Eric Garvanne: And in terms of not, like.

Eric Garvanne: So much, relationship attachments, but… but mental… Attachments and beliefs, self-beliefs,

Eric Garvanne: Cause even just before I got on this call, I was on another call,

Eric Garvanne: And the person on this call,

Eric Garvanne: Was telling me about a position.

Eric Garvanne: And… She was telling me, basically, You're overqualified.

Eric Garvanne: For this position.

Eric Garvanne: Most people book in this position.

Eric Garvanne: Alright.

Eric Garvanne: Your more senior level.

Eric Garvanne: And… But I don't have that senior level position open here.

Eric Garvanne: And I almost found myself being attached to a belief of.

Eric Garvanne: I need to do whatever I can do to get into that position, which they are clearly telling me.

Eric Garvanne: You are overqualified for this.

Eric Garvanne: And that's an attachment that I had to… that I recognized, and I'm still beating myself up, like.

Eric Garvanne: air conditioning? Why did you do that? Why didn't you lower yourself? And… and…

Eric Garvanne: I, I, I caught myself and just was like, you know what?

Eric Garvanne: The person was telling me Let's see if we can find something else.

Eric Garvanne: If something else comes open, or… because… We want you here, but…

Eric Garvanne: Your skill set and what you have to offer.

Eric Garvanne: We don't have that yet.

Eric Garvanne: But we want to keep this conversation going.

Eric Garvanne: But it was that attachment, just like when I used to have to pick my hair out, it's like having to keep picking the hair out so that it doesn't knot up again? And it was like, I saw myself like that attachment to that belief system of…

Eric Garvanne: Just lower yourself to get in to do what you gotta do to move the ball forward, even though it's not aligned with what you know you need to be doing right now.

Eric Garvanne: So, yeah, that's what came up for me.

kwame scruggs: Thanks, brother.

kwame scruggs: Hasan, you wanna go? I know we're close on time here.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Yes, and I want to thank you, Kwame, for leading us, leading us through this, and after my answer, I do have to… I do have to drop off here, and Jeff will close out, for us for today.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: I think the thing that needs to be untangled, unknotted, or maybe detangled, in my life… not maybe, but detangled in my life, definitely is… and this is something I've been working on starting this year, I don't make New Year's resolutions, I just make commitments and then go out and

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: do the best I can to sort of hit that commitment.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: But for me, it's, it's pride, right?

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Pride is the thing.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Pride damages my personal relationships, it damages, interpersonal relationships, it damages work relationships. Pride is the thing that, with an intellect like mine, is an easy deception to fall into.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: And it's the pride that seeks to control others, and seeks to manipulate, and seeks to overwhelm and overpower, and seeks to push.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Jeff talks… Jeff and Juja both talked about impatience. I, too, am impatient, am impatient, but then impatience comes from a sense of… and a very strong…

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: Sense of pride.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: And that has to be detangled, that has to be undone.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: And I've been… and don't get me wrong, I've been humbled many times in my life, and I will be humbled again, but even saying that, right, is an act of pride, right? So it always sneaks up. It's the… as C.S. Lewis says, it's the… it's the great sin, right? It's the thing that always pops up, even when you're not looking for it.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: And so that's the thing that needs to be detangled and unknotted.

Jesan Sorrells - Producer: In my life.

kwame scruggs: Hey, thanks, brother. Thank you all. Thank you all for your… for your honesty and… Being apart.

Geoff Rogers: I… This has been… so, you know, we scripted this, and it's…

Geoff Rogers: is way more than I planned for, and it's, and I think all of you, sort of, have collaborated in making this a really meaningful episode in this, and I'm… thank you

Geoff Rogers: Kwame, and thank you, Dunyan, thank you, Eric, so much for…

Geoff Rogers: being so forthright about so much of what we talked about today, and I'm looking forward to our next episode.

Geoff Rogers: So, thank you.

kwame scruggs: Thank you.

Eric Garvanne: Thank you, Jeff.

kwame scruggs: Yeah.

kwame scruggs: No doubt. No doubt.

kwame scruggs: Everybody cool?

Geoff Rogers: Yeah, I can stop the recording, I think.

Geoff Rogers: Or maybe not.

Geoff Rogers: Didn't I struggle with this the last time?

Dunia Garcia: Yes, you did.

Geoff Rogers: You know.

kwame scruggs: Okay.

Geoff Rogers: You all can go fuck yourselves, alright? Fine. I'm just gonna, fine, listen to the abuse. Here we go.

kwame scruggs: Okay, up there, it should be a way that you can stop the…

Geoff Rogers: There could be, but I, for some reason, cannot figure… I'm clicking.