#81: The Price of Free Will

Does our proclivity to manipulation disprove free will?

If human beings have free will, do animals?

Is surrendering to a Higher Power an act of free will, or the abdication of free will?

These are some of the questions we address in this episode of The Rabbi and the Shrink.

Bullet points:

Can the paradox of free will and predestination be resolved?

Some biologists assert that we are merely products of our genetics and environments, which program us how to respond.

We have to live an examined life in order to make ourselves aware of the forces at play on us.

If our minds are lazy, why do some of  us like to think, study, and debate?

If the body is lazy, why are so many people at the gym?

The wisdom of Flip Wilson:  "The devil made me do it."

No, he didn't.

The word Satan means "adversary." We have a moral sparring partner that trains us to be stronger.

Free will takes place on the battlefront.  Struggle is the evidence that free will exists.

Mindfulness model: the daily struggle with temptation.

Awareness and discernment
The struggle to choose good
The struggle to resist evil

We need trusted advisors to give us a reality check when we ask or impose and intervention when we don't.

We have to be grateful for challenges and criticism to protect us from ethical fading.

Three steps to right action according to The Path of the Just:

In times of calm, evaluate objectively what is right and what is wrong.
In times of decision, apply our conclusions to our decision-making process.
After the fact, intuit whether our choice felt right.

Meeting emotion with logic inevitably fails.

What made the Framers different from politicians today?

Our temperament, our family, and our friends largely influence our political outlooks.  How do we avoid being slaves to circumstance?

You learn the most from those with whom you disagree.

Constructive disagreement: conservatives and liberals need each other.

The best professor I ever had.

The wisdom of Sister Rita.

Don't react, but respond -- which is the root of responsibility.

What kind of person do you want to become?

The word of the day: azimuth
A bearing from where I am to where I want to get

We need to know and see our destination, or else we'll travel in circles.

Transcript

Margarita Gurri: 0:04

Welcome to The Rabbi and the Shrink. This is Dr. Margarita Gurri, the shrink. And my favorite Rabbi,

Yonason Goldson: 0:10

Yonason Goldson.

Margarita Gurri: 0:11

Today we're doing something different. We're talking about freewill and accountability. The good rabbi, and I've had the privilege of talking with some amazing minds and hearts. And we keep coming back to the some of the excuses people give themselves. And maybe even we give ourselves from time to time about what is really up to us and what isn't. And are we held accountable. So Rabbi, let's start with you. I always love your stories and your point of view on things.

Yonason Goldson: 0:41

What do you think about freewill? Well, it's topic came up very often when I taught high school. I'm sure it did, particularly since I taught Jewish Studies and theology, and it is a cornerstone of Jewish belief. And I would I would try to get my students riled up by telling them that their their pet dog has no free will. And they would often get miffed. Yes, he does. Yes, she does. Because if I give them this kind of a biscuit, and that kind of a biscuit, they'll always take this kind of this, they're choosing which biscuit they want. And I would explain that's not a choice. That's an internal programming, one of them's more attractive. And so they, they go for the one that's more attractive, because they are programmed to do that there's no inner, they're not looking at the box asking themselves, Well, which one has more calories? And is it worth the meat to pass up the one that tastes better for the marten, nutritious one that doesn't go through a dog's mind. It's simply what is programmed to respond to. And human beings are different. We can make evaluations, we can make our pro and con list, we can evaluate the choices that are available to us. And we can make self indulgent choices, or we can make informed choices that are interested in our long term best interest. And ultimately, and we'll get into this more, it's the struggle between those options. That is really the indication of genuine freedom. Does that I'm sure that has a psychological component that you'd you'd hone in on as well.

Margarita Gurri: 2:33

Yeah, it does. And I liked that. I also, you did share, the part of the story that I loved the most was the part of that story where you tell them their dog doesn't love them.

Yonason Goldson: 2:43

You know, I don't want to be too controversial.

Margarita Gurri: 2:47

I love that you rile your students up to incite them to thinking

Yonason Goldson: 2:53

I'm talking about than any of the hot topics today, talking about people's pets. I mean, people are so emotional.

Margarita Gurri: 2:59

I know. I know. And honestly, I had to laugh, because that's something my big brother might have told me is your dog doesn't love you. I mean, just just to rile me. So I think we're not trying to say anything just to rile people up. I just love that. He said that and gave, and everyone respected him up to listen to what is this man saying? Now, psychologically speaking, the idea of free will, gets in, into my mind, because a lot of people want to surrender. They want to do a trust fall. I have free will. But my free will is to surrender to God's will. And so it's all up to God, it's in God's hands, or the universe, or whoever is there. So I'm going to do a trust falling foul. And it's not up to me, because I've already made a high order decision. That is not mine, not me, you know, and I give up. I think that that is a dangerous word. I don't think I know that that's a dangerous choice to make. And as a dangerous point of view.

Yonason Goldson: 4:03

It actually comes from a very deep and challenging the illogical dilemma. The conflict or paradox between freewill and predestination? If God has a plan for the world, and how can I possibly change it? How can I possibly be in control if God knows the future, and that's what I'm going to do? How can I have any control over my actions? Now, this isn't really the forum to get into that. But but there are answers to those questions. And as you say, the abdication of freewill. It's kind of interesting because you're saying the person who says Well, I'm giving up my freewill. On the other side of the spectrum. You have the biologists who will say there is no free will or just a packet of neurons and genetics and and maybe experience So those that have shaped us, and we merely react to our environment and the stimuli, according to our prior programming, we're really no different from the dog was choosing the biscuit that's attractive to it. Either way, this is an abdication of responsibility. If I'm not really choosing, I'm not really responsible for my actions. And that creates a whole different problem. How can we? How can we have laws? How can we appeal system?

Margarita Gurri: 5:27

And how can you make any plans? I mean, one of my favorite conversations about freewill and its limits came from a discussion I had with a high school student that was a magician. And we got to talking about freewill in a class I was doing a drug and alcohol class. And we got to talk about are you pre programmed in your brain to be an alcoholic to be a drug addict. So if I take some of alcohol and someone else takes alcohol, that person may become an alcoholic or not because of their brain. So we got into esoteric discussions and brain topics. And we were exploring all the possibilities. And then the student comes up and says, I believe that since I'm a magician, I know about the brain, the brain wants to be lazy, it wants to do what's easy. And if I know what the brain wants, I can get people to see things the way I want them to see it. So if I have cards in front of me, and I say hand me one, I know right handed people will hand me probably the third card, facing them, and left handed the second one because it's the easiest. I mean, I'd never thought of that my mind was blown with that. And then he went on and on to talk about all sorts of things of freewill, including them where we ended up as a group deciding that one of the issues that limits freewill, for those of us who believe in free will, and I do, we're limited by our awareness of how we are influenced, and how influenceable we are, by things such as our programming, our dog brain, our human brain, bias, visual cues, our mood, our fears, our pre programming culturally, or whatever. Do we ever really see everything that's there. So our idea of freewill then requires those of us who hold on to the fact we do indeed have freewill. And we're going to use it to make the world a better place for ourselves and our loved ones in the, in the greater world is that we have to live an examined life, which is what you and I are talking about all the time with ethics, you have to ask yourself, How, if at all, I am being influenced? What are those influences? What is the impact of that influence? And if we don't ask those questions, we're not actually operating

Yonason Goldson: 7:51

from true free will. And I think that's where that's where freewill really comes into play. And And up next buzzword of the day is mindfulness. Exactly what it means to ask ourselves those questions. You know, yes, we all have unconscious biases, we all have them. How do we deal with them? It's by making them conscious. By asking ourselves, what's actually motivating me here? What are what's lying beneath the surface is influencing my actions because the more conscious of them I become, the less influence they have over me. And the willingness to take a look at ourselves, you know, you use this example of the mind is lazy. That's true. The body is lazy, too. So why are there so many people at the gym? I mean, who wants to be sweating and huffing and puffing and being sore and picking up big pieces of iron and putting them down again, running in place and going nowhere? Why would any rational person do this, because we understand that we are making our bodies healthier. Yes, by engaging in this type of behavior. And the more we do it, the easier it gets after a while you move up to strong to heavier weights, and you turn the resistance up on the elliptical or the treadmill because you've gotten stronger and the brain does exactly the same way. When we use it, it gets stronger. When we don't use it. It gets weaker and flabbier and so we can abdicate freewill simply by being lazy. And eventually we will become slaves to our own habits. You know that there's theologically people question. How could God harden Pharaoh's heart? If you read Scripture carefully, the first five plagues, Pharaoh hardens his own heart. Added at some point CAD system you've chosen the path you want to go. I'm now going to make sure you take it all the way to the end. Fairhead choice in the beginning, you didn't have to do the things he did. He made those choices. And eventually he had to live with them. And it's the same way for us.

Margarita Gurri: 10:11

And unfortunately, taking that into a more modern world, a lot of times we say what you gave me no choice. You know, you may be my favorite is when my two daughters were young. One of them said, It's not my fault, she made me hit her. And I always laugh about that. But it's really not funny when it's grownups doing it. And so the whole issue is to be gracious enough to know that we are influenced, of course, we're influenced, I have an identical twin sister, you have brought up a topic of identical twins. I have an identical twin. We were different from birth. So the people that say your genetics determine your choices? Well, obviously, some of our genetics determined some of our choices, we're gonna like these foods more than others because of our taste buds and whatever you know, and how our tummy feels when we eat them. Is it for allergic or not? There's so many influences that we may consider to be free will if we just float with it. So free wills, not a preference. freewill goes beyond preference, to really examining things to make choices that are hard to make. I don't think Free Will lives in an easy place. It's not a flamingo float on a beautiful pool on a nice sunny day.

Yonason Goldson: 11:33

No, in fact, it's a battle. And I'm gonna get to that in a moment. But you did me. You reminded me of when I was growing up. One of my favorite comments was Wilson. Yes, I remember. And you remember one of his famous lines is the devil made

Margarita Gurri: 11:46

me do it. Right. Right.

Yonason Goldson: 11:49

I think a former president said something very similar in one of his memoirs.

Margarita Gurri: 11:55

You know, it's the devil doesn't

Yonason Goldson: 11:57

make us do anything. The devil tempts us. In fact, in Hebrew, the word satan, pronounced soften in Hebrew, it means an adversary an opponent. And what's the point of having an opponent if you're training to be a boxer, you spar with an opponent. If you're learning, martial arts, you spar with anybody it makes you that's how you learn to become a master. Right? And temptation is an opportunity for us to summon our better angels. So yeah, and if we do, we're choosing to resist temptation. If we don't, we are choosing to give into temptation. When I say it's a battle, one of the classic discussions of this in Jewish thought is by Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler. And he says that life is like a battlefield. There's conquered territory. And this territory we're trying to conquer. And the conquered territory are the habits that we've developed. And the unconquered territory are the skills, the aspirations that we're trying to achieve, and to and to and to acquire, and that some things are going to be out of reach right now. Because I'm simply not there yet. And other things are going to be relegated to the past. I don't have to struggle, getting out of bed on time in the morning, I did at one point in my life. It's not a struggle anymore, because I have conditioned myself, I set the alarm, it rings, I get up, there's no struggle involved there. But there was at one time, so what's changed, I've changed. Because the struggle happens on the Battlefront, wherever I am right now. Wherever my, my, I'm poised evenly between what my impulses compel me to do, and what my convictions tell me I should do. As soon as you have an even match there, that's where free will takes place in the sign that is free will is that it's a struggle. When we feel ourselves struggling, that's the proof of our freewill. And if we push ourselves that point is going to change. It's going to move forward. We don't push ourselves, it's going to slip backwards.

Margarita Gurri: 14:20

And I have developed a model for looking at mindfulness, which for me represents the daily struggle with with that temptation or with the conflict. It's about reexamining and I believe there's three times in our struggle where we're really more susceptible to making gains or to losing ground. So if you're talking about a battlefield, and it's when we're totally aware, and in this headspace where we're living an examined life, and it's and we're with other people who do it and we've created this environment, you We're trying to be aware of ourselves and others and the environments in which we find ourselves that kind of discerning, sentient look. And then the other two times is when we're struggling, either we're struggling to do good, or we're struggling because we want to do bad, either of those two struggles. And I'm putting in a simple way just to make it easier. So whether you believe in the God or not, or you believe in the devil or not, obviously, you're, you're an orthodox man, I am a Catholic woman. So obviously, we are two people of faith. But many of the people we know do not believe in God or the devil or angels. That's a separate issue. Because the mindfulness is something that if we decide we have the courage to take a look at that and have partners in our lives, like I know, I can call you anytime and say, Hey, I'm struggling with this dilemma. Could you help me think it through, and I'm going to tell me what to do. But you help me think it through and I have, I have my twin sister, I can talk to it anytime. And her husband and my friends, the wetters, my children, my children always have an opinion about what I'm doing. So I can always ask them, and even my grandchildren, now they're teaching me with their eye rolls. Alright, so there's always someone to help you leave on a more examined life.

Yonason Goldson: 16:14

That's a great point. Because what that that very successful game show was where you have a lifeline. Yes, that's the lifeline. And that's, that's very real device. Because if I feel that I'm struggling, maybe I'm right, in the moment, you know, it's so easy now that we have cell phones. I could call it I could call you up. I call it one of my trusted advisors and say, you know, I'm really struggling like this, I'm in the heat of the moment, you know, help me get a reality check.

Margarita Gurri: 16:44

And maybe you and I are struggling, but don't know it, maybe we've had some ethical fading. And we've gotten used to something that's, you know, grappling with the gray list successfully. That's when our friends or the people that our advisors that we've chosen will call us and say, I'm worried about how you're thinking about this, or I'm worried that you're thinking about doing X, Y, or Z. Let's talk about ya

Yonason Goldson: 17:11

know, I posted a video this week, one of my ethics videos. And in the comments, somebody challenged me that my content was not ethical.

Margarita Gurri: 17:20

Really, what was the point?

Yonason Goldson: 17:23

That I was presenting one side of the argument and not the other?

Margarita Gurri: 17:27

Okay, which I was. And how is that?

Yonason Goldson: 17:31

Well, because as we've been through many times, you know, till you see both sides of the issue, you don't have a clear picture. I was doing it as satire. But I'm willing to entertain the possibility that maybe I've crossed a line, maybe I, I need to reconsider whether this is an appropriate format. And I've actually scheduled a panel discussion.

Margarita Gurri: 17:57

Great to see, I think that when, especially when we're in the world of ethics, I think sometimes we know where our hearts and souls are, and then our minds and so we assume other people know it. And we may not represent ourselves in a way that looks more balanced. And I like when I get criticism for my point of view, because I'm thinking, this is how someone's looking at it, what have I missed? How can I continue to present this in a way that is more compelling, that reaches more more people in a way that they'll ask themselves rather than just refute what I'm saying, right? But I think it's important for us, all of us to say, you know, what have I missed?

Yonason Goldson: 18:40

Because we all make mistakes, we all miss calculate. You mentioned that. You have this. You want to call it describe it your three different criteria. It's

Margarita Gurri: 18:52

called Big Red Couch, right? It's my mindfulness model.

Yonason Goldson: 18:56

Yeah. So I spend every morning after my morning prayers, I spent a few minutes reading, studying on self development and self improvement. And literally just this morning, not in preparation for this class, but it just happened. That's where I wasn't the text. Classic work called the path of the just where the author talks about three steps to take in making the right choices. Oh, I'd love a link of that. And well, it's very simple. The first is to objectively evaluate what's what's good, what's evil, what's right, what's wrong, what's ethical, what's not ethical, in a in a sort of universalistic sense? Not when we're in the heat of the moment, but just to calibrate our moral compass, then when we find ourselves at the time of decision making, to take those insights and those understandings that we've acquired and apply them to the specific situation. And then afterwards, How to feel to sense was how did that feel I made a logical choice that it was the right thing to do. Sometimes it still feels wrong after the fact. And by having this sort of process of developing ethical principles, reasoning out ethical choices, and then intuiting, the choices afterwards, we go through life like that, we're going to be raising the bar consistently, throughout the course of our lives.

Margarita Gurri: 20:38

I agree, and you've addressed and one of my other pet peeves is that people think well, that feels right. So it feels right. And it goes with my instinct, it must be right, as well. No, not necessarily. It might not. It might be it might just be this is what I'm wishing is right. So I think that examining things, even if we know in our hearts, they're true and real and right, and just and unkind. I think we have to re examine. Now, people look, hear this all the time of being biased, because we both come from a religious point of view. And you're going to be biased about some things because you're an orthodox man who has certain faith. And you believe certain things, whether it's about men and women, or garden, and behavior, whatever, and I have certain faith. So we're going to be accused of prejudice. And maybe it is prejudice. Maybe it is bias. But it is a point of view. So my point is, we're never going to get everyone to say you're not being biased. The point is living an examined life, and being able to have conversations with people who are annoyed with us, for our point of view, and learn from them. And examine, have I missed this? What can I include? Some people are just not logical. And so helping them think things through may not be a successful endeavor. Some people's readiness is delayed or absent, and maybe later, they'll get it. Maybe they won't, I don't know.

Yonason Goldson: 22:17

And it's one of my great frustrations in life. That when you engage somebody who's thinking, I shouldn't say that way. Who is speaking emotionally? Yes. The worst thing you can do is speak to them logically.

Margarita Gurri: 22:37

Yeah, or point out that they're being illogical, which feels patronizing and yucky. I mean,

Yonason Goldson: 22:43

they just doubled down.

Margarita Gurri: 22:44

Yeah, learning the skills needed to invite logic into a conversation is a challenge. And I think all of us must do that. What am I

Yonason Goldson: 22:55

to say? That is a I should make it politically right. Human beings are psychological, not logical creatures.

Margarita Gurri: 23:07

Yeah, that's true, actually. But I think that we can aim to master logical arguments. Maybe we never make an illogical decision, because maybe it's complicated, but mastering the arguments and having cogent points and, and updating our opinions. And we can just say that, one of the things that you and I've talked about that I'll speak for myself, but I believe you agree with and I was very disappointed with some of the debates that we've had in the political arena. Because I think that if we have bright minds, who love our country, can't we listen to each other and speak in such a way that civil and shares information rather than tearing other people down? Or slams them in the cancel culture? I'm taking my bass home and you can't play with me anymore. I think that I think that you and I are trying to call people to action to do a better job of really listening and understanding ourselves and others.

Yonason Goldson: 24:11

Yeah. And then, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting when you when you study the beginnings of this country. And I mean, it's extraordinary that the brilliance of the minds of the men who started the United States, I mean, it's it's almost like being I would say, God put all these people together at one time when plans to create something that had never been conceived or, or enacted before, but they were still human beings. And they were passionate. And they were not always civil, the way we might hope they would be. They were not always ethical or moral. Know, the way we might hope they would be. But they were. They were operating from points of view that were so soundly reasoned and That's something that we're not seeing a lot of today. No, not consistently of people holding positions because they feel right. Yes. And you know, there's another point that's worth making here. And this is an idea that I've just entered interdistrict recently. There, there are apparently five categories of personalities, you probably know this better than I do, like openness and agreeableness and orderliness. And a person who is strong in orderliness is more likely to be politically conservative. And a person who is more prone more naturally open, is going to be more inclined to be more liberal politically. So then if I have that predisposition, and then I live in a home where my parents happen to be of that same mind and reinforce it, and then I go, and I find peers that I'm attractive, attracted to who have the same predisposition, then you go to a university, where I encountered more of the same? Well, I haven't really chosen my political instincts. Nope. I've simply been led in a direction by a combination of nature and environment. But then it goes back to your point. How mindful Are ya, because as soon as I make myself aware that I have these predispositions, and I make a conscious decision to try to understand the other side. At least now I can restore some kind of balance of freewill. But if I don't do that, then I really am a slave to my impulses in my environment,

Margarita Gurri: 26:43

you are, and it is not the kind of listening where I'm listening to you. So I can then refute the point, right? It's brutal listening, which takes a lot of patience and courage, because some people just have ideas that we think are so wrong and crazy, and I'm not listening to that. But trying to understand that has made my life richer. It doesn't mean that we're going to befriend those people, maybe we will, maybe we'll come to a meeting of the minds. But they do have something to teach us. My, my brother used to say, listen to the people who you disagree with my brother, my big brother, Joe, and you will learn more about yourself than my father used to say, go to meetings. And hopefully, you'll find someone that you disagree with what they say totally, and you don't like how they're presenting it. And you're going to have the best education possible. Because you'll know that's not how you want to come across, or how you want to teach. So that take it as a blessing really, the people who are out there, and I'm sure when I'm wrong, I'm teaching people things to

Yonason Goldson: 27:58

do. And you know, the Yale professor Stephen L. Carter has written some wonderful books, integrity and civility. And he introduced me to the concept of constructive disagreement. And, you know, when you put it in the political context, conservatives and liberals need each other. Because if you go back to the political philosophies, who say Edmund Burke, who was claimed by both the liberals and the conservatives, as one of the fathers of their movement, you know, conservative ism is is basically a respect for tradition. And, and convention, and liberalism is basically a desire to progress and improve. And possibly,

Margarita Gurri: 28:45

sometimes liberalism is just tearing down to this sometimes,

Yonason Goldson: 28:50

but you are right. And sometimes conservative ism is just reactionary ism and calcifications, right, and that's why they need each other. Yes, I agree. If we don't engage each other, then we will retreat into those stereotypical extremes that make us dangerous, that make compromise and finding common ground the impossible. But if we engage, and we keep each other honest, we can chart a course that's going to be everybody's benefit. Yeah,

Margarita Gurri: 29:24

you and I just did a podcast with David Hanson us who, whose mission is to teach critical thinking he's got Critical Thinking project. And I found that fascinating because you and I can talk about all this forever. But the whole point is, how do we get this idea into the education system? one conversation at a time one classroom at a time when district at a time when stated at a time, so that we're all elevating which is one of our goals to elevate critical thinking? We We elevate the expectations and the ability to, and the desire to really think things through. And I find that exciting that we know people who are doing concrete things that will make the world a better place.

Yonason Goldson: 30:14

I mean, I think about the best professors I had in college and there weren't a lot of, I'm sorry to say, but there were a few. And and probably the most influential was a professor hadn't Shakespeare. And Shakespeare is a wonderful topic of study, because there's so much couched in his narrative in his drama. And his use of language is unlike any other writer. And you can just go deeper and deeper and deeper, and this professor did not stand in front of the class and pontificate. He challenged us to explain what was going on. And he encouraged us to argue with him good if he did if we didn't see his way of, of interpreting it. And I never had such a stimulating class in my college career.

Margarita Gurri: 31:17

Well, I'm, I'm glad that you had that. I mean, I think so many people. And it was smart that he did it on something that wasn't modern day. Because then you're not cancelling each other out. You're not something that was written in the past, and you're learning how to think and express and, and ask questions. I think I

Yonason Goldson: 31:36

became a teacher. That was the style that I tried to use in the classroom. And for the most part, my students really found my classes valuable.

Margarita Gurri: 31:45

Did you tell him that you learn from him? Does he know?

Yonason Goldson: 31:49

I've tried to reach him. I was never able to get ahold of him after I had

Margarita Gurri: 31:53

two people that were very influential. Dr. Burgess, who is my psychology professor, and I did not want to be a psychologist. I was dead set against it. Many people in my family are psychiatrists, psychologists, and no, I didn't want to do one. And I got stuck with a psych one on one class. She was brilliant. She asked questions. She had us observe people, she had us come up with their own answers, and then taught us about the classics. It was exciting. I was on the edge of my seat. It was like that kind of book that you read. And you can't wait to get to the end. I mean, she was and I don't even remember her first name. But I tried to reach her to thank her. And the other one was a nun sister, Paul Joseph. Now she system, read a bomb. Back then the nuns took men's name. And she when people were being mean to me, because I was a Cuban refugee, and they were being harsh. And I started being harsh, she would ask me, Is that who you want to become? Why are they? I have a question for you. Why are they doing this to you? What are they thinking and feeling? What do they need? What is your job? And I had to laugh that she didn't scold me for wanting to hit him. I mean, they were hitting me and yelling and stuff. She didn't scold me for that she just challenged me to be better than them and not let them set the tone. So part of freewill is having the skills and the power to not just react to people, but to really think through how we're going to think, feel and act in response to any situation.

Yonason Goldson: 33:30

It's pointed out to me not long ago, that response is the is the root of responsibility, which is Yeah, but you know, you just said something that I think is really critical, this conversation that she asked you, whom do you want to become? Yes. And, you know, I think it all starts and maybe ends right there. I think so today, if if I have a vision of myself and I'm willing to put the effort into becoming that I mean, we do it with careers. We do it in the gym. Certainly we should do it in terms of the quality of who we are. And and the vision that we have for the type of person I want to be I want to be the kind of person that other people are inspired by that other people want to learn from the UK, I want to be around I want to attract people of quality and that means I have to become a person of quality. And so with this story, you have really set up the word of the day which is Azmuth

Margarita Gurri: 34:49

Okay, say that again, please?

Yonason Goldson: 34:50

Azmuth Okay. All right. Azmuth is an arc of the horizon measured clockwise from Southpointe In astronomy are from North Point navigation. But essentially what it is, it is a bearing from where I am, to where I want to get. So if I'm if I'm in gunnery, if I'm a man and the big, the big, the howitzers, right, so I need an Asmus, to be able to plot where the shells going to land. If I'm navigating my way through unknown territory, I have to know where my destination is, you know, maybe you've heard me say, this is one of my favorite studies I've ever heard. They blindfolded people. And they asked them to walk a straight line 100% of the time, they ended up going in circles. And they didn't just limit it to walking. They asked people to swim the straight line, they put the link, go karts, nessuno drive a straight line, we always end up circling back to where we started. And they tried all sorts of and they could never figure out a pattern. It's not like if you're right handed people go right, left handed, and now there are no patterns. So how do you stay on track? Very simple. You keep your eye focused on a destination point. And if we know where we want to end up, then we can we can plot that Asmath we can plot that course, we may have to take detours along the way. But we we need the resolution to want to get there. And that is our free will conserve us.

Margarita Gurri: 36:40

What a great word. What a lot a great word. And I think then we're circling back to the issue that many people believe that free will should be so natural and it should flow. But you and I are asserting that it is the struggle. That is not only proof of freewill, but the essential requirement to allow freewill to have its most positive impact.

Yonason Goldson: 37:12

Yeah, my what my rabbi said, if we're there's no friction, there's no movement. We need something to push off against.

Margarita Gurri: 37:20

Yeah, and that doesn't mean we have to pick fights on purpose, the fights in there, that conflicts are there internally and externally. I mean, I think we, we have to really give ourselves a time. So you and I both do something in the morning that I don't know where you got the habit of examining things and doing some professional development. I got it from Sister Rita Bom. Every morning, she says, as you're brushing your teeth, think about your day, think about who you want to be. Think about yesterday and what did you learn from the mistakes you made from the conflicts you had? Look at the things that were great and the things that weren't great and examine them because that's what where you're being guided and then I have cleaner teeth so there you go and that's professional development without a computer but then you know as grown ups now we you know you and I both sit to the computer and do some professional development just about every day not only out of curiosity but I do believe that if if I don't keep asking questions I'm going to begin to drink my own Kool Aid and think that I'm beyond that and i None of us are ever beyond missing the boat.

Yonason Goldson: 38:36

Yeah, that's a really good expression to use here the drinking the Kool Aid I repeat if anybody remembers you know, Jim Jones, the cult leader and Deanna gave his followers kool aid that laced with I'm not sure what kind of poison and I think 900 or so have them essentially committed suicide whether knowingly or unknowingly. So the the expression drinking the Kool Aid means that you simply do what those around you are doing. And we call it groupthink.

Margarita Gurri: 39:09

Or even your own kool aid that right and create your own dogma, your own whatever. And

Yonason Goldson: 39:16

then once we do that, we've abdicated our

Margarita Gurri: 39:18

freewill. We have we have, but freewill it comes at the price of some pain and the price of of some creative and courageous thinking.

Yonason Goldson: 39:31

Like anything valuable in life.

Margarita Gurri: 39:34

Not the truth as my brother used to say it is if it's easy, why would we want it? You know, that was good. Rabbi, this has been fun. We need to do this more often.

Yonason Goldson: 39:46

I think we will. Yeah,

Margarita Gurri: 39:47

we'll pick different topics and we will talk about him. So this is has been an episode on freewill, the rabbi in the shrink, and check out some of our other episodes, and we'll see you done. Thank you.

Unknown: 40:01

Thank you for listening to the rabbi and the shrink everyday ethics unscripted to book Dr. Red Shoe, Dr. Margarita Guri or Rabbi Jonas and Goldson as speakers or advisors for your organization, contact them at the rabbi and the shrink.com. This has been a doctor Red Shoe production