Delphi, Hips & Stoicism
Good morning Methods, live from Greece as per usual since I've come here. Does that make sense? I don't know, who knows? Let me update you a bit what's happened. So since the last voice note I was loving life, you know, in the theatre where Socrates got ridiculed and I was walking around the Acropolis in the sun, no problem, just basking it, like what a day, one of the best days.
Speaker 1:Then as the day went on my hip flexor, which I felt tight on Sunday's event, so last week, Sunday, the Octagon event, started tightening up really fast. Thought, right, hip flexor's tightening up, I need to sign up for the gym because I'm going to be here for another week. So I went to this gym, signed up and I thought, you know what, I'll do some stretching, I'll stretch my hip flexor, you know, the classic hip flexor stretches and it was so painful, like I've never had my hip flexor that painful but I thought I'll stretch it out to lose some light legs just to get blood flowing. Anyway, on the bike, the time I tried to walk home, I was walking on so slow, like a slug. I was like dragging my right leg.
Speaker 1:Was like, this is not good, like this can't be right. I've never felt it in this much pain. So I thought, you know what, I'm not going to panic about this and be like, why is my life so shit? I've only just arrived. I just like woke up the next, like I couldn't sleep that night, it was the most painful night sleep I've had in ages, just couldn't sleep, any position was painful and I didn't have any Nurofen on me until the next day where I had to wake up and go to the pharmacy to get it.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I phoned up this like, you know, who's the person you see for this? So, orthopaedic, I believe it is. I phoned up orthopaedic. Was like 'Hello, can you see me? Emergency.' He was like 'Yeah, yeah, come half ten.' Turned up half ten, did some tests.
Speaker 1:He was like 'Yeah, you need an x-ray.' Went next door, got an x-ray within half an hour and then went back to him with the x rays and then he was like 'Yeah, need an MRI.' And then went back next door for a I'd have a COVID test and then had to get an MRI. Cost me like €250. So it's not too like, obviously, you claim it back on health insurance, but for the speed, it's unbelievable. Got an MRI. This is the first time I had an MRI ever.
Speaker 1:So I say I'm not full on claustrophobic, but small spaces really freak me out. Like when I think of crawling through a tunnel and stuff like that, it just gives me the shivers. Right? So the MRI machine, if anyone's had one, is you are in this tiny little tunnel for thirty minutes. So I never thought that I'd experience my first MRI in a hospital where English isn't their first language and I was like, look, think I'm claustrophobic, so But I saw it as a test.
Speaker 1:Like, was like, I wonder how my mind is gonna react. Right? And as soon as I laid back on it and as soon as my head went in, they said, you okay? And I just felt this, like, wave across my body of, like, in a sense, slight panic. And I was like, yeah, I going in deeper?
Speaker 1:She's like, yeah, you're going into the back. So your entire body will be there. And when my body went to the back of it, I just started observing. So what I'm telling you guys about food is I started observing where I was from the change stuff, my thoughts and I was looking, I wasn't closing my eyes, was looking and I was like 'look', I was just looking and I was seeing this kind of crazy thoughts like wanting to panic, wanting to press that button to get out, you know tensing up and stuff but after about like one minute or something like that of just observing and just kind of relaxing into it I didn't find I had any of the claustrophobia that I thought I'd have in the MRI machine at all I just felt fine and you know, at some moments I'd be like, wow, I am really tied to this tunnel. Like, am really and then this machine going all crazy and all that, know, making all these weird noises.
Speaker 1:Thirty minutes as well, you can't exactly sleep as well because of the noise. So yeah, that was my first encounter in ancient Greece using stoicism. The first part of using stoicism was of course taking the view from above on this hip injury, this hip flexor tear that I've got. Being like, will it matter in a few months? No.
Speaker 1:So am I gonna let this hip flexor tear ruin? What is gonna be a journey of life time for me? No, of course not. I'm just trying to walk slow. I'm walking with a limp, like I love it.
Speaker 1:I should have a crutch really. I walked from the crutch and go, oh, please guys help me. But it's all good. And then having the MRI is fine, I gotta wait now to get the results on Tuesday, which is today. His voicemail will go out.
Speaker 1:So I'll see if it's a full on tear or a small tear, depending. It's either a one or two week take it slow or it's gonna be a six week thing. So there we go, guys. Things never go as planned today, but let's get back to some wisdom from Greece. So I was in Delphi.
Speaker 1:The Oracle of Delphi did a post on Instagram a bit about it. You've all heard about it. No doubt. The Oracle of Delphi is famous, and these people used to go there and get predictions. They used to pay a lot of money, sacrifice a goat, all this other stuff.
Speaker 1:You could go if you were from Delphi, you could go as a Greek, you could go as a non Greek, you could pay as a as a city state, as a country, or you could pay as an individual. And it was essentially a business for Delphi, like, were making a lot of money from us. And, you know, they you could go nine times a year on the seventh of every month, and then they were like, okay. Well, people wanna come more more frequent, so we'll do, like, a smaller version where they'll pick out, like, a black bead or a white bead, and the black bead means yes, and the white bead means no. So they proper turned it into a little business.
Speaker 1:Right? And this business was making money and down feeling people were people would make huge decisions on it. One one kingdom, I can't remember the name, next to Greece, went to Delphine and was like, look, will I win the battle if I attack Persia, the Persian Empire? And then the Delphiorico said back, if you attack, one great nation will crumble or something along those lines. And he's like, okay.
Speaker 1:They're gonna crumble. But the great nation to crumble was his. So he attacked and then he lost. And, you know, the the thing with the oracle and the Delphi is that no matter what the outcome is, it could be right or wrong, kinda like politicians, you know. So it was basically just a way for people to want they just wanted one piece of reassurance that they were gonna do something, even though in the back of their minds, might have thought this is a bit of a bullshit.
Speaker 1:They just need that little nudge to do it, and I think a lot of us need that. A lot of us, we we oh, I wanna wear this shirt. Does it look good? Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1:I'll wear I don't know if we should do this. Yeah, you should do it. Okay, I'll do it. You know, we just need a little nudge. We just need people to tell us it's gonna be alright.
Speaker 1:We need to we and it's it's an even a grand more it's a grand experience when it's an Oracle thing in Delphi and it's an amazing place. They still haven't, you know, digged out all of it yet and it's unbelievable. There's a stadium there, there's a temple, there's a theatre there. So it was a huge thing back in the day and we still we think we're different to the people back then, we're Right? We are we do we we believe in horoscopes.
Speaker 1:We believe in star signs. We believe in the moon stuff, all in the moon bullshit. We believe in crystals. We believe in stock market insiders. We believe some people know stuff, some people don't.
Speaker 1:We're psychics, all this stuff. We still believe in these things just in different ways. You know, those tar what they call tarot cards and all this nonsense. And in a sense, we get we we feel there's a bit of peace by, you know, external power telling us what our future's gonna be. We're always looking for security.
Speaker 1:We're always looking for that because we're insecure. Our ego is so insecure. It needs to know outcomes. It has to know. And if it has if there's an inkling of something that can give us an outcome or a prediction, we will want it.
Speaker 1:We'll pay for it. But the the the the lesson really is there is no security in anything we do. There everything's risky. You know, Jim Rohn classic. If you think trying is risky, wait till you get the bill for not trying.
Speaker 1:So it's risky if you try. It's risky if you don't try. It's maybe more risky if you don't try. Everything is risky, like, you know, and there's that classic quote, know, you're not getting out of life alive and all that stuff. And it's true in the end.
Speaker 1:Like, we think we do this and on, this and this and on security, this. In the end, we never survive life for bed, basically. You can look at it that way if you want. There's a kind of extreme way. But when I was in Delphi, I was walking around, right?
Speaker 1:Oh my god, the Americans. Oh, sorry. Sorry for Americans listening, but guys, you're so annoying. You are so loud and obnoxious. It can be labeled in everyone as this, they met oh my god, should have seen a lot of it.
Speaker 1:So sure of themselves saying stuff that was completely wrong, but saying with such conviction. I was listening to some stuff while I I can't say anything. I can't. He was saying stuff like, there's Mount Olympus up there. I was like, oh, it's not fucking Mount Olympus.
Speaker 1:Like, if it's, you know, Mount Olympus is miles away from here. But I did meet a really a nice guy, actually, Graham from San Diego. So I was walking up the mountain, I noticed him with our walking tour. So the tour we had, like, bless her, she was talking so much and I was like, Listen, I am come for you to talk. I've come just to take me there.
Speaker 1:I will explore it. You can say the bare minimum, but I don't want all these nonsense jokes. And just walking to it was so slow. I walked to the top and back down to the top and back down, right, with a bad hip by the time they even got to the middle part where the temple was. And this guy had the same idea as me, we just walked off.
Speaker 1:So I was walking up, was walking back down, bumped into him. I was like, God. He's like, should we go to top? I was like, well, we're not going to the top of me. She's like, no, they're only going halfway.
Speaker 1:I was like, that's terrible. Went to the top where the stadium is. I was like, this stadium is mad. Like, 5,000 people stadium for the Pythian Games, which are second to the Olympic Games in size. They would do it was better in a sense, better than the Olympic Games because they had art and singing and dancing as competitions and not just the athletics part.
Speaker 1:But we we sat down and spoke and actually, he is a twin twin brother, not identical. I was like, I'm a twin as well, mate. Not identical either, shockingly. It's my sister. And his brother had studied philosophy and got him into philosophy and now he's well into this, we spoke about stoicism and our perception, what truth is, all this deep stuff sitting on a rock overlooking the theatre and the old temple and it's just, you know, what more can you ask for?
Speaker 1:You know, when you go in there and you just have these proper chats and he was a really nice guy and had some really good points and it came down to like, I shared on my story about Plato's theory of forms, which is not like we're all in a cave looking at the wall, there's a there's a fire behind us and there's people walking between the fire and us, our backs, and we see in the wall the shapes these people walking past. So the truth is that those people are all kind of different and all that, but we just see these we just see these kind of shapes in the wall. And then one day, one of us that gets unlocked essentially, we go outside to see the truth. We see things real. We see things clearly for the first time, not just the image of things.
Speaker 1:We go back into the cave to tell our mate who was stuck still on the chains about what we've seen. They can't see us. They can only see our image in the wall and our voice is distorted and they think we're crazy, right? And Plato was saying that a lot of what we see is simply the wrong rehash of what people are saying, Right? And I've said this before, like, customer already talks about it.
Speaker 1:The description is in the described. What people you know, someone first saw a tree for the first time. I say it as a a lot as an example. Someone saw a tree for the first time, never labeled a tree, there was no such word for tree. They look at this thing, they looked at the tree, looked at what it was, really looked at it, saw it for what it was and then the label came, that's a tree.
Speaker 1:And now we never look at trees differently, we say that's a tree, that's it, there's no more. But every single tree is different, got different shapes and sizes and all this stuff and we're just happy with labels. So we never really see the truth of things anymore. We just see the labels. And if someone comes and tries to tell us the truth of things, we think they're crazy.
Speaker 1:Like, you might think I'm crazy now saying, look at a tree without the word tree, a scotch trap is crazy. Well actually, can we see things for the first time every single time so we can see the actuality of it? That's what Plato was getting at, like are we just content with forms and images and the wrong perception? And that's what being this American guy we're talking about. Was like, look, you're American and you think this way.
Speaker 1:I'm from Wales, I think that way. But when we were talking, was like how most people talk is you're talking to me right now, my brain is then basically deciphering what you're saying or like as is is is listening to what you're saying and but then listening in in its own certain way. So I'm not actually listening to what you're saying. I am basically trying to translate what you're saying. I'm trying to reply back in my head.
Speaker 1:And I'm not actually listening to what you're actually saying. Myself is already trying to is basically trying to what's the word like I'm trying to look for? You know, you're not truly listening because you're already thinking what to say back. And then he's doing the same thing. And I was like, I'm talking to you and your mind is already just like interpreting what I'm saying and then it's already trying to get a reply back.
Speaker 1:And then you're not really listening, you're just waiting for your turn and then you say your bit and it's two monologues back at each other, we're not really listening, right? And he was he'd agreed with it and I was like, can we speak without all our nonsense? Can we speak without me, myself trying to always intercept what you're saying or trying to make trying to describe what you're saying to myself? Can I just listen without the self being involved? Can I just listen intently?
Speaker 1:Can we do it? And that's really what we should be looking at doing when we're communicating with people, not so much just like trying to get your word in because that's when most people talk, trying to get their words into each other, shouting over each other. That's not communication at all and that's how we communicate. That's the problem. So yeah, spoke to him and then we had food and then we were sitting on with this two older American couple and they were talking about like, you know, Trump and all this stuff and what we can do about it and we're like, well, do we really live in a democracy?
Speaker 1:And I was like, do we really live in a democracy? Socrates and Plato didn't agree with democracy. Thought it was stupid because if you have a ship and it's going down, who would you want running that ship? 60 experts at being able to run a ship or 60 random people picked through voting for a democracy who might not have the actual skills. Of course, you want the experts.
Speaker 1:So Plato and Socrates wanted their society with the experts in the right areas running the place as opposed to just elected people who are sophists, who can say a lot, who can persuade people. A lot of people can persuade people but there's nothing of substance behind the persuasion, that is the world we live in. They predicted this two thousand five hundred years ago. They were like, these sophists, they sound great, they will tell you what you want to hear, you'll vote for them and there's no substance behind anything they're saying and then you have an absolute shit show to deal with. As opposed to we need to build a society where our leaders have got no personal gain, but they're actually trained in the right expertise in different areas.
Speaker 1:And Plato was like the best societies when philosophers become kings and kings are philosophers. And the only philosopher king we know of is Marcus Aurelius and yeah, he had all the philosopher qualities, he ran the Roman Empire, had many issues to deal with, but the problem Plato looked at the problem as there's too much individualism going on. I can't believe how accurate it is. All we think about today is personal gain. What do I get out of this?
Speaker 1:And he was like, as long as we think about what I get out of every scenario, there's no thinking of the greater good. And when there's no thinking of the greater good, it's always the greedy, corrupt people who keep taking. And that's what politics is today. MPs used to earn more money, some of them. Roshi Sinak used to earn millions as a banker.
Speaker 1:Now he's earning about a 150 k or 80 k as a as a chancellor. Right? You have to wonder why he's taking a lower paid job because in actual fact, it is more pay for him somehow because he's cropped. He's doing deals in the sly his mate. He can probably cut back from it.
Speaker 1:Cayman Islands, all the Tories, doing all the COVID packages that are illegal, all that stuff. And, you know, it's all cropped, so people are doing stuff for self interest. As as as long as that's happening, the way the government run isn't run for the people, it's run for individuals trying to gain. And again, that's something we spoke about. All of this has been written two thousand five hundred years ago in Plato's Republic.
Speaker 1:They speak about this and you think about Socrates speaking about which is interesting. That's it for today really. I've rambled on enough. I'm trying to walk around with my limp beard trying to stretch it out, but, you know, it's not going to plan. But I hope you all have a good day.
Speaker 1:Remember, bring it back to the today one day at a time. All our stuff is classic stuff we need to deal with now. It's been around for thousands of years. So get your one big thing done, put your morning entry in the app, track your macros, use the plan or whatever you needed to get done, and bring some awareness to your days, you know. Thoughts are random.
Speaker 1:Don't take them all seriously. Alright? And just observe them because otherwise you accept them and they run off all the time. It's gonna cause you conflict and turmoil, and that's not what what we want. So observe them.
Speaker 1:Get your one big thing done, and you're making the most of today. Happy days. I'll be back tomorrow with another voice note from another piece of history from where I am. But other than that, have a good day. Speak to you all soon.
