S1E003- Allen

Welcome to the local voices collective. Each week I sit across from someone for a conversation of a coffee. No script, no rush. Just two people sharing a table, an exciting thought, and seeing where the conversation takes us. I try to listen more than I talk, giving space for their voice while still sharing my own. It's not about big moments, it's about the everyday experiences, the perspectives, and the stories that come out naturally when two people sit down and just talk. I'm roughfile your host. My goal in this is to share these conversations exactly as they happened. Unedited and unfiltered. I find that it is in these honest everyday exchanges that we find connection and more importantly, understanding. So settle in and let's step right into today's conversation. And how they came to decide to convert African, they're African slaves to Christianity. And which there was a lot of opposition in South Carolina in that area. And so. Opposition to converting the slaves at the time to Christianity. Yeah, so it's a really important moment in time for African-American people and sort of like the beginning of them becoming Christian because the masters didn't want them to become Christian. And so these evangelical leaders pushed for it and they got a lot of push back. And so it's a story of why the planters changed their mind basically and begin to think it's okay to convert African slaves. And I argue it's part of their desire to create new image of themselves, whereas they were living in this really violent society due to other. Lots of things including slavery that they wanted to be now seen as leaders of society and father figures to everybody. They're the poor neighbors, people they own. So to me it's still my first thing but it's a powerful story about slavery. It's not something you really hear very often, like that slave owners trying to convert their slaves even though that was the thing that happened. Yeah and there's a lot of opposition, you know, but they were. And that continues, you know, there's this for a long time for decades, masters worry if we convert our slaves to be Christians, can we keep them as slaves? That was always the large problem in the South and South. So there's a sense of equality from the slaves, the slave masters, if they converted to the faith. Like it made the meek will at that point. Yeah and people were concerned, the whole question, well, are they equal before God? So there's a lot of these issues that they're wrestling with. That are really interesting but it is a critical moment for the African-American community because so many do become Christians in their own way. They don't buy into what the masters idea of Christianity was. So that's another story but my story is just the beginning part with how did this happen? You know, the stories we kind of choose to tell show a lot about who we are. The stories we choose to tell are a flexion of who we are. Why did you choose that as your first big project? Well, it was accidental, you know, I just found. I was looking for something else and I found this piece in the newspaper about some. White evangelicals, four of them who were being accused of rousing the slave to an insurrection. And I just kind of put it away and every once in a while, like, you know, see if I could find out who are these four people. And because I was working on other stuff involving slave and setting slaves running away. But sometimes you just find something else and I stuck with it and thought, oh, I'm going to do a PhD dissertation on this. You know, follow these people and figure out what's going on. So sometimes it's just serendipity, you know, you just. It just comes just goes in that direction. Yeah, you just got it. I teach, teaching writing right now for graduate students and slight, you know, tell them this. When you see something like that, right down where you got it, so you can go back to it, you know, because something like. You find something that just sparks your interest. Don't let it go because you're looking at something else. The mind kind of works that way. Like, you have to hold on to whatever little spark you have at that moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you can't find it, you can, you know, it's like. So. Yeah, that just happens for me a lot with my writings. I look to the spark. And sometimes I even look at things that are really dull, but don't make sense. It's like, why is this here? Why are people interested in something repetitive? Sometimes it's with words and language. And sometimes you don't need a smoking gun. They go, "Oh, wow, I found something so different. Sometimes it's just something bland." So I just try to keep my eyes open for any inspiration, including the dull things, you know. Does that mean that you allow yourself to have like moments of boredom or just moments of leisure where you allow for those things to happen? Yeah. Exactly. We're always interested in the excited moment, you know, whether it's violent, pleasure, you know, whatever. But sometimes there is, you know, in the air or something that. And repetition usually of something that's just. What? Is that there? You know, why did they alternate those slats? You know, two-one, you know, two dark one light, two dark one light. I mean, it's just something like that where you go, "Why does somebody do something like that?" Now I'm not interested in following that up. But sometimes I do, I go, "Wait a second. Somebody did this on purpose for reasons in an unusual place." And that's what gets me thinking, "Why. why did they choose to do that? What does it say about them?" No, you know, that. I narrowed down what you're saying to this innate curiosity. Oh! Like, in order for you to find the spark, in order for you to try to figure out these patterns, is you have to be curious in a sense. Yeah, so I'm very curious about the universe we live in. You know, it's just even what you can't see. It's sort of like, you know, Aristotle figuring out that there's things moving in here, the unseen universe. And in my last book, I did a bunch with that was. Because I was working on the Renaissance. And one of the things, all these great scientists of the time had in common was they were all trying to figure out what they couldn't see. You know, so like Galileo would be optics so we could see the distance. Yeah. And so we get the invention of so much new stuff about how poisons work in the body. You know, how the body itself works. They couldn't see the blood flow. I think they knew they were blood. But they couldn't see inside. And so we just spurred all this imagination about how the body works. And I realized if you go from one science to the next, oh, that's what they had in common in the late 16th century. Was they wondered about the things they couldn't see. So gravity, you know, Galileo, we all talk about Newton. Galileo is actually the one who goes up and he has two different weighted things and he drops them to try to figure out, you know, why are they falling at different, you know, different speeds and stuff like that. And you can't see gravity, but it's there, right? So I just fascinated with things you can't see that are there. I can only word it as this pursuit in explaining faith. Most of these guys believe that God created everything, including, you know, everything. So what they believe was if you found, if you use science and math to find out this unseen universe, it's going to create a more moral person because you understand God's inventions. Because there are a lot of people saying, no, no, you shouldn't be looking at for these things. God created. them, we shouldn't question God's creations, but they're like, we come closer to God if we understand the creations. So it's really interesting, the arguments that are developing about this. And that in the modern world, we think science, that science was at war with religion, when it wasn't that way. That's just our modern looking back. That's an enlightenment idea of the 18th century, but all those great scientists were, and I'm not exaggerating where I say, "All I'm the great scientist, we all have this similar idea. God made creation." Wow, can we figure out how it works, you know? You think that it was in a way them trying to explain the beauty of creation? Yes, exactly. And they really want to know, "Oh, we can cure people, you know, if we find out how medicine's worked." You know, they start something really simple like going, "Oh, things that can kill you can heal you." So then they start thinking about the mathematics of that, and how proportion is so important in the universe. So it just made things more complex in their examinations of everything. It's sort of a snowball effect in a sense. Yeah. I can parallel that back to kind of your story in a sense, with your first book. You had this curiosity for this one story. You think that it's snowballed, like this curiosity snowballed as you found more, and then you were like, "You know, there's so much that I could probably, "Oh, they get to." So if you get to the point and you go, "Wow, there's an infinite world to explore." You know? So explore what you want, just follow your muse or, you know, wherever your inspiration is. So sort of how I live my life is just this exploration. Sharing it with students, I teach at TCU. But I'm all about researching and writing and thinking about how it all works. Those are the people that excite me the most, is people who are very curious. I consider myself a very curious person. Oh, you're asking people questions, right? Yeah, I have all these big questions that I have no answers to, and the more questions I ask, the better I get it asked in questions, but the more aware I've become that there's no right or wrong answer to this, to this human experience, to all these human problems, you know? But it's the curious people that are kind of the spice in all of this. Oh yeah, when you meet someone else, you've got that curiosity. I'm like, "Why? Why?" I'm like, "Why? Like my curiousity is in this direction. Why is your curiosity in this direction? What made you appeal to that?" So I ponder that a lot. So what have you family in yourself then for why the curiosity? Multicultural person in a country that's very multicultural, and I find that I've always had a lot of different interests for a lot of different things, and I've always, you know, you want to assume that you feel things deeply, or at least I assume that about myself that I feel things very deeply. And in the beginning, you think of something like that, and the idea is the self, that I think about things deeply, meeting others don't think about things as deeply as I do. But as you become kind of exploring this idea and this concept, you realize it's nonsense. There are many people out there, most people think about things deeply, and if they do, it made me curious if my experiences like those what are other people's experiences that they are in sharing. I'm willing to share my experience. And I realize that in the world we live in, there aren't many initiators, right? Like we want to talk, but we don't. We're usually not trying to be listeners. Usually not going to be. Trying to be listeners. We're trying to put things out there, and when I really try to listen, and I was curious, I want to find people who have a human experience similar to mine, and the only way for me to do that is to search for it. So the curiosity was in that direction, is in just. Can you do the souls? In a sense? Trying to understand and try to see what's out there. So, but is that the issue? Would you like a community of people who are like that? I think everybody wants a community of some kind. Some kind, yeah. I can't say that that's necessarily the direction. I want to know the differences in people. Is there people that think deep or that don't? Or the spectrum in between? It's the human experience for me feels like the new Amazon or the new Congo, this new exploration of, you know, like we explore the rest of the world. It feels that we rarely speak to each other now, in our current culture and our current society. That seems like the new expands in a sense. In my lifetime, there's certainly because there's so much more ways to communicate. In that way, there's less opportunity for certain kinds of community things. You know, we have, for instance, the visual colors. You can see anything you want to see now, right? You can get on the internet and see something in Botswana. If you're watching a video, you know, there's all over the world. You can take in the world, so to speak. There's just so much out there that we have access to. Whereas when I was growing up, you've only got six channels of television, let's say. You know, there's only so many movies that are you're going to be able to see. Books are different. And maybe there was more focus on books, because there was less visualizations that you could, you know, tap into. There are limitations. Yeah, just natural limitations. So people would talk about books more. Just as a matter of course. I think because, you know, much less of that now. So in that sense, there's more of a shared community in the nation. You know, people are generally talking and watching, you know, about the same things. You know, it's even the sports. We have so much sports that access too. Yeah. You know, you can watch every football game if you want. You couldn't use to do that. You know, you're only getting the three that are off. You know, and that's it. And one of them is your home team. So it is, so you can make the argument that there's more community now than there what has ever been ever. I mean, there's more of everything now than there's been of anything. There's more of everything. Oh, yeah. It's just, it's just the era of surplus. There's a surplus in everything. But I still feel that there's something in the surplus that is just not, not there. More people get to express themselves and get it out into the universe, but it doesn't mean people hearing it or seeing it. But it is interesting to me how many people are trying to get their ideas out there, whatever they are. Or sometimes they just want to show you what they made. You know, it's like, so it's interesting that there's so much more self-expression, but I'm not sure people are satisfied unless they're reaching in their own mind, they're a star and they can reach so many. What is it about us, do you think, that we have this in the sense that it's kind of neat to want to just put so much stuff out there, but not satisfied with like we can we can talk for hours about things that don't really matter, but most of us, at least culturally speaking, are horrible listeners. Because we want affirmation. We won't want? Affirmation. Okay, that's great thing you did or wearing, you know. And if you don't get it, I think there's a loneliness or feelings of inadequacy. I think lots of people really don't feel connected. You know, that is. Even with the surplus of community that there is out there? Yeah, because I think they don't feel special within the community. You know, I'm not sure, I'm just, you know, but it seems to me that people. I mean, I look at people and I see a lot of people unhappy, you know. That's a tough thing to do to make every single person in a community feel special. Oh, yeah. And even in the school system, let's say they're teaching everybody is special. Well, if everybody is special, I'm not special. You know, it's a contradiction. Well, we teach children from an early age that every girl is the Disney princess and every boy is the little hero, you know. And in the real world, that's not. you can't all be the princess, me, can't all be the hero. I was talking to a friend recently and she was in a mission trip to Africa. And she was in this community with these children that have gone through this horrible thing. And she didn't explain to me thoroughly her observation, but she told me that the kids had a place in society where they felt that they were of value by the people that were around them. They didn't. they weren't made to be feel special, but they were made to feel that they were of value and they had a place in society, right? Which is very different than. Hey, you're the princess or you're the hero. It's very different I'll take. That is a usually different cake. You're valued for being you, not for being a princess, you know. Yeah. It's a completely different avenue of culture. Yeah. I'm writing now about the Pacific Northwest Indigenous peoples. It's like a holistic ethnography of their stories, their art, and how everything connects. And that's exactly what you said about valuing everybody. So they have a place in society you are a valued member of our family. The family is writ large as a clan, let's say. And you are connected to the past through that history. So you come from and they have all these stories about ancestors who go on and on 500 plus more years. So they feel like I am part of this land, this community, have connection. They're grounded. Yeah, they're grounded. It's exactly it. And I think you're right, like with this other situation she was talking about is that they're valued. And they know that this is my community. And as part of this community, I have privileges as being part of the community. I participate in our ceremonies, our dances. I can learn and tell the stories. You know, everybody has a place and. It's not even like a democratic kind of thing, it's just belonging. It's not we're all equal in this community. You know, your mother, father, you know. It's very different roles. Right, right. We got different roles, right? But I do have a role here. There's something to be said about our culture. I've read a lot about the Command Cheese. I love Command Cheese history, the little that I've read about it. And I was reading about it some time ago and it made me realize that. Aside from prom in America or homecoming. There isn't really this, not coming of age, there isn't really this moment in our culture where that sense of responsibility and belonging happens where you go from being a boy to being a man or from being a girl to being a woman. And there's great meaning in all these cultures to have these right of passages, that's what they're called. These right of passages that tell you that you have value in this. I wonder sometimes if we have all these communities, but because we don't have some of these rituals that allow us to feel that we have some sort of place and responsibility that we lack. That we lack in some aspect because we don't have those things. These people's up there, they very much about teaching responsibility. And it's to the communities what it's actually writing about this part this morning to animals. We have this responsibility to living things basically. So a mosquito is not your community, but you still have responsibility to things that you're not interested in. And it comes back to your whole community. If you do something wrong, it can affect the entire community's view. And in a spiritual way, one of my favorite examples of this with kids is just, and I get this from the story that I've been collecting and studying is, if some kids pick up frogs and throw them out of fire, it's like the worst possible thing you could do. You took this animal that can't defend itself. And was it say then about how that community raised you? So the adult are upset that you would abuse this creature. Was it say about your responsibility? So they're teaching them you are responsible not just for being part of the community, but how you interact with living things. The surface of that, I mean, it just, when you see, for instance, like if you're eating some fish, you have to thank the fish. For the fish donated its life to you. The fish isn't upset to treat eating it, only if you disrespected it. And I thought, wow, you know, if you're teaching kids this from birth, about your responsibilities, it's second nature then. So a lot of the rituals, things we don't get into anymore, you know, rituals, dances, all these community things are actually, they are about celebrations, but they're really about reminding people the responsibilities. That's really cool. You know, these guidelines, like, Yeah, you know what the guidelines are. There are no guidelines anymore, it feels. Yeah, there's, there's ultimate freedom. Yeah. I historically, I don't know if any society or group of community that has had ultimate freedom. And then, I wouldn't say survived, it's probably the wrong word, but progress and move forward. Yeah, well then they're not a society maybe, you know, they're not moving forward and they're not, you know, you can't have complete freedom. It's just, it's anarchy. So we, in the West, kind of emphasize all this laws. You break the laws, you go to jail. I mean, other societies have laws too. But enforcement is, you just don't do these things. And the worst punishment is, let's say you kill somebody. Now, someone may take vengeance on you and kill you and return it and then that's considered, okay, but often it's, you're exiled, you're not part of the community anymore. You've lost your most value thing is being part of the community. And they do that for a thief, for instance. You can, you can't steal from within the community. It's just, you know, you can't do something like that, you have to be in a sense exiled. Now, you can steal from another community. It's not just not from ours. It's not from ours. Not from the home team. And that's very, by the way, Indigenous Americans like that, you know, in general, there's those ideas of community that some things like stealing, but that's okay because you're showing your bravery, you know, your skills to do it from somebody else. Don't do it here in the sylloghide line. It's sylloghide line. Oh, there's a guideline Another guy another reason for this is in a lot of the indigenous communities Your father is also always of the different clan than you are So is that done is that what is that done with a specific sequence or is that just how it happens? You know how it started It's hard to say which factor let's say you get it, but it is Throughout indigenous Marica as far as I know, you know, it's the way it works now It might in some societies The kid well the kids are always members of the mother in some society sometimes their members are father You know, so there is variance, but usually it's your father's a different clan So if you steal from me Um And we're in different clans Then somebody in my clan has to punish you and it could be your father So it helps keep all kinds of crime away because you can't father and children on the other opposite sides in These kinds of disputes you know between clans. Yeah, so it's brilliant whoever came up with it however they did it This is a natural way of It's a natural way of eliminating crime to the most part and if it does happen That's why you really have to get rid of the thief within the community because You'd have civil war, you know within families So it's like you just got to go we can't have a thief, you know Go steal from me. Yeah, not from us. Just not from your own village. Yeah Studying history and having kind of these ideas What do you think will evolve? You know it's always good being grounded in knowing where we've come from and A little bit of what our roots are Especially with how communities are within the indigenous peoples and The enslaved people and the people who founded this country But it's such an an amalgamation now. It's such a mixture of things And technology the technology age being something that's Changed everything. Mm-hmm. You have a specific view. And what do you think? community and communities are moving? Not really, you know, it's oh I can't envision where they're moving. I'm still trying to figure out just now That's why maybe I tend to look back at the past and see how things went how they operated What Eventually leads to the diminishment of these communities in the past But in the present I don't get the same sense of communities You know what There's so much in our society so much individualism Yeah Just don't get the same sense of how things are going or will go this But what you were saying about you know people make communities anyway, you know, they're gonna do it They don't want to be alone without connection Although I mean you think about it you look at the statistic more and more people live alone every year I mean there seems like that. That's the big epidemic now Hey, all right people live below. Mm-hmm. I live alone with my dog. I live alone with my fish, you know, it's like So for as much as we say that we you know, we have whatever hobby you can think of there's community There's Facebook groups. There's something for it, but it's it goes back to this this thing we're saying I started this project with the idea of I Want to have a conversation over coffee with somebody once a week And my goal is in really to be an example for anybody else But my goal is if I can sit down with somebody that has a completely different viewpoint of me If I can sit down with somebody who perhaps I don't know If I do that enough maybe if I do it with a friend if I do with a friend of a friend You know after If I do that weekly after two or three months The amount of ideas that you're surrounded with the amount of difference in people You'll find something You'll find some sort of meaning some sort of connection with somebody else And we might not know what the solution is to community right now, but If we throw numbers at the problem if we if we have enough people connecting Things will figure themselves out. I think people are leaning in wanting interaction. It's just hard to take that stuff because we're so Reploded it's so divided we're showing us not viewing the same things culturally in this day and age and it's Like me viewed as a bad thing if we're not listening to each other, but if we listen to each other Usually what you want to have a conversation with somebody who views the world completely different than you Some hoping that I can nudge my friends a little bit to Grab coffee with somebody they don't know yeah, or for my friends introduced me to people that they know that I don't know and for their friends introduced and to hopefully hopefully have that wave on other people Maybe that brings benefit and some sort of what See I for me community are You know students coming through you know that I deal with on different levels Today I zoomed with a class in Georgia, you know, and you see I don't know the students But they read one of my books so my work becomes a way to for me to connect that with strangers, you know I think that's what I do for community basically is I have the university I have People who are interested in my work so Even if they're just coming and going It allows me to feel connected To people who are just strangers. I'll never see those kids again likely I'll see their professor again, you know, but I hardly know him too, you know, but Third time I've done it over like the last five or six years with this guy's class, you know, they're just passurbizing the stream Yeah, right I kind of look at you know, I have friends all over the place. I say connected with them But I kind of look at for myself that my community is Going out meeting people connected to let's say study of indigenous people You know, that's sort of a community. I may meet up with once a year at a conference or something and we really ready reading each other's work Commenting on it and stuff like that. I'm gonna do that tomorrow with a guy, you know Does American Indian studies too? We meet up and gonna talk history, you know on the phone Um So yeah for me, I guess the communities people interested in history and Indigeneity and you know stuff like that so that's kind of built in in the sense You know people share a shared interest like a hobby except it's it's an expansive kind of thing. It's like It's too much for one person Yeah, yeah, and people are doing stuff. It's like wow that's so different. That's you know, you And it's cool having the students, you know who are interested because then you're enlarging the community that way if you teaching you get more people into The community like you're not just passing through this class. Oh, you're actually interested in this so Come to the conferences, you know things like that we do that with Graduates do especially you take them to conferences so they can enlarge their community of people who are interested Whatever kinds of issues they're interested in So Yeah, I guess that's become my community is this roaming you know Mass of people are interested in the digit studies or early American history or slavery, you know that there are these communities out there That when you hook up with these people You know like if we're all sitting at tables having coffee or beer or whatever It's like you have a media community because of these interests and what we feel are really big issues that you know that are Things we're curious about so I think that's what it is it's good Committees communities of curiosity communities of curiosity That's that's a great line. That's almost a title of a book. There you go - That's your, that's your, I can't believe. - Community is of curiosity. - Man. That's all we're pursuing to find. - Oh my God. Yeah, just like the guy at Amari, you know. So he's done like, he's done like these published a bunch of books. - He sends me his chapter. I get, he didn't talk to me. He sent me the email. I could tell this guy's depressed. - He told me. - He told me. - He just from the end. - Yeah. - He's like, you could, could you look at this chapter and know you're busy. It's just, it's not working. (babbling) So I have so many chapters of people to read right now. - It's like, yeah, don't worry. I'll get to it. I had a couple of emails with me. I could still tell he's depressed. - So it's like, this has to be different from the work. So it's one of the things I want to find out tomorrow. - Am I misreading this? Are you really just depressed about so? But secondly, I figured out what was wrong with the chapter. - So you know, we'll have to talk about that. - We'll give it away in his writing that made you feel that he was depressed. - Sentences were short. He was like, I'm just trying to hang in there. It's like, you know, what's going on here? - Was he less curious as he was developing a stop process? - He was disappointed in his thought process in the chapter. That I could tell, it's like, so what? Well, this is just something that's normal. We'll talk about this. That's how I, looking at it. And I've known him for years. I've never had emails from him like this where they're just, the sentences were just too short. - There's something to quit. - You're like, there's something going on here. - Yeah, there's something going on here. And so I wrote him a brief thing, just kind of lighten everything to see what a response. I got back and I got another one, just kind of short. Okay, something's going on here. - There's something there. - So that's beyond just asking me for help for this chapter. So people in our communities reach out in very distinct ways when they want something, when they need something. I mean, when they're excited about something, everybody, - Oh, oh yeah, yeah. - When we love something, we express ourselves in a very specific way. When you're hurting, that's all. A special way right there. Oh, so one more thing he did was, on the last one I said, so let's talk, he said, let's talk Friday, so I emailed him back. Let's do it Friday afternoon. He sent me a time in the morning and I thought he didn't really see even those words what I was saying. Let's do it in the afternoon. (laughs) I was like, I know something's wrong here. He's not like that. - Yeah. - He just, he barely read that. (laughs) - He probably needs that conversation. - He needs that conversation. - Oh yeah, yeah. I'll be interested to see what it's really about 'cause I don't think it's that chapter. - It's good that you're paying attention. - Yeah, I could not, you know, if you know somebody, it's like, that's not your voice here. You know, it's just, it was too clipped. - Yeah. - Oh. - They're holding back guarding themselves in some sort of way. - Yeah, and they just want to get through the email. But you're right, he's guarding himself in some way. And I think he wants, to him, I'm also an older colleague, you know, he's really accomplished, but he looks at me as, you know, a little bit like a father figure almost. So, he airs something up and I know his wife and family too, you know, he's like, there's something up here. - Something's going on. - But you're right, people give out these clues sometimes. - Yeah, it's hard to kind of like, let these things out sometimes. - Yeah. - And you think it would be easier like, people who are writers because most of what you do is, you know, whatever your topic is, it's expressing that it's some sort of way that's understood. - You're articulate. You work on being articulate, or if you're right, you work on it all the time. You have to say some of this chapter was not articulate. I knew something was up here too. - So that was, that was a snapshot of the, - Yeah. - It's the opposite of what he usually is. - Yeah. - So something's up. - You're a pillar in your community. - For some people, I know I am, you know, like the graduate students, I look after the graduate students, a lot of the graduate students. So, and I know for them, they feel that way, you know? - Do you feel that way? - For them? - Yeah. - What about just for yourself? - I mean, is a pillar for myself? - For your community. - Oh, yeah, I think I do. Yeah, I feel that way about myself. I feel pretty self-contained. Oh. It's beautiful. - So, and if I, you know, needed advice, I'll ask somebody too, you know, it's not like, I think I can take care of everything, you know? So it's not, I'm not afraid of doing that. Everybody always, we always need somebody both in some sort of sense. - Yeah, in some ways, or to the side just, you know? It's like, I need your opinion on this. What do you think about this? - Signology, there's some people that know things more than we do, even if we know of a good amount, even if we know a lot, you know? - And even if we know a lot, we need outsiders sometimes to look back at us, 'cause we can't see ourselves everywhere. It's, that's for sure. - It's good to have self knowledge, but sometimes somebody else, including family members who know you from where, you know, go, you know. - That's how you survive the wilderness in a sense. You can't survive the wilderness just by yourself. - For too long. - Oh, yeah. - You need those people that are gonna be there with you. - Um, hey man, that's a mirage you're looking at. - Yeah, yeah, right. - It's probably go that direction, the water is over there. - And don't eat that plant. I know it looks like this, but yeah. - Yeah. - Man, I really appreciate bumping into you and you're chatting with me. - Thank you for joining me for this cup of coffee on the local voices collective. If today's conversation spoke to you, follow the podcast and share it with someone who might connect with it too. I'm Ralph Files and until next time, keep listening, keep connecting, maybe share a cup of coffee and a real conversation of your own. Tell about finding meaningful connections. Tell about listening. I'll tell about being better for our community. Have a good day.