Disgruntled Life Coach Podcast

Episode Five – You Don’t Know Jack

April 09, 2021 Coach Raoul Season 1 Episode 5
Disgruntled Life Coach Podcast
Episode Five – You Don’t Know Jack
Show Notes Transcript

In this fifth episode, we’ll talk about being uninformed. We’ll start with some quotes, then the main segment will talk about why you need to know at least the basic shit to live a good life. We’ll finish off with a Disgruntled Nugget – a little piece of wisdom you can take with you, or not, I don’t care. Also thx to Audionautix and Partners In Rhyme for the music and sound effects.

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The Disgruntled Life Coach Podcast, Episode Five.

Before we start, I want to revisit something I said a few pods ago about supporting your local artist. Whether it's music, other performance art, visual art including digital, and poetry and writing, find an artist you like and buy some art. Like TODAY, right after you listen to this FREE podcast, go and buy some art and support your local artist in this time of ridiculous shitiness. They need your help now more than ever, so really, I'm not kidding – do this one goddamn thing today. And thanks.

Now, today, we'll talk about pillar # four of my foundation to a better disgruntled life - Don't Be Uninformed. So, we'll be doing what we usually do, go through a few quotes to put this topic in context, highlight what being uninformed really means and ways you can change what you're doing that is making it 100 times worse, and I'll end up with a disgruntled nugget of wisdom. Also, of course, we'll end with a disgruntled nugget of wisdom. So let’s get started.

So what does being uninformed look like, and how do we change. Just a heads up here, we’re going to focus a lot on the difference between having knowledge and being informed. Is there a difference you ask? The answer, as always, is you’re goddamn right there’s a difference.

Our first quotation is from Daniel Boorstin, Scholar of American Civilization – if there is such a thing – and (shhhhh) the twelfth Librarian of the United States Congress for more than a decade. He said: “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” This same sentiment has been echoed by scholars and philosophers since we had language, but it is key to why you don’t know shit, you only think you do.

Next, we’ll go back a few centuries to John Locke, philosopher, physician and an influential Enlightenment thinker referred to as the "Father of Liberalism", though Maury Povich hasn’t got the tests back yet. Still, we can infer. Anyway, he said: “Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.” I’m not sure I really like the ownership angle, but the movement of information to knowledge is the key to this one.

And, lastly, let’s jump back to more modern times and the incomparable Isaac Asimov. Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books - both fact and fiction, and was also a professor of Biochemistry at Boston University – go Terriers! Asimov said: “Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.” This is key to making sure you update your knowledge and don’t rely on your old drunk uncle’s mid-century information to decide if you should buy that Edsel – spoiler alert – don’t buy the fucking Edsel.

So, what does it mean to be uninformed? This is a tougher question than "Do you want fries with that". It really depends on who you are and what you're doing. It's extremely situational, just like loud-burping is fine in a sports bar but maybe not so much when you're in that job interview for Manager at fucking Pottery Barn. So, if you're, say, a mechanic, you should definitely know what model of Lada working on, but maybe understanding chicken sexing is lower on your list of things to know. But it's more than just knowledge, because you can't know everything. But if you live in this world, perhaps you should have some specific skill-related knowledge, as well as some general social knowledge, and also the knowledge that there are things you don't know. So what does being uninformed look like?

Firstly, you absolutely have to know that if you read something somewhere, anywhere, but especially on social media, it may not, in fact, be true. Yes, you read that correctly. Not True. And here's the real kicker - it's easy to find out it if it's a pile ox feces stinking up your rant. It’s called internet research – you know, the same place you found the lies in the first place. But here’s the thing, the source is everything.

For example if you’re looking for work, and you have two job opportunities. One is the assistant manager at Pottery Barn, and the other is a weird guy down the street who wants you to come by once a week and mop up the human blood on his garage floor. They pay the same, have the same benefits, and neither is a union job. Which one do you take? So now, apply this same process to other information you incoherently ingested, like whether or not public health requirements during a pandemic are a violation of your constitutional rights – hint, they are not, in any goddamn way, and the guy who says they are wants you to mop up fucking human blood. This is how you weed out shitty sources, and find better ones. Do this.

Also, on the other side of this coin, don’t make assumptions about information, and then spread those around. Either you know something or you don’t. By spreading ideas that are beyond your scope of knowledge – and let’s be honest here, that’s a pretty fucking big suitcase we’re talking about here – you are misinforming to others who, like you, are too lazy to find out if what they’re saying is even true.

Why is this bad? Because once the misinformation is out there, it’s like the worms and the can thing, or the cat and the bag thing, or the horse and the barn thing – just pick an animal and a container and work with it. Research by Stephan Lewandowsky, professor of psychology at the University of Bristol states that: “The fundamental problem with misinformation is that once people have heard it, they tend to believe and act on it, even after it’s been corrected.” But it’s both the believing and the repeating that’s really a problem. A 2019 study done at MIT by researchers Aral, Roy and Vosoughi found that Falsehoods are 70% more likely to be retweeted than the truth. So, to recap, you read the lie and tell it, and other people are more likely to repeat it, and then it’s difficult to correct. You can see the tsunami of the problem here, all because you’re a lazy thinker. Not stupid, necessarily, just lazy. Or both, I can’t judge.

To this point, I’ve kind of talked about passive misinformation, the stuff you can casually say that you didn’t know about. But there are those out there who, because of bad parenting, or plain malicious intent, or possibly lack of leafy greens in their diet, purposely spread misinformation for fun or profit – sometimes both. We have a tag for people like this: we call them dicks. Also, please, don’t be a dick. Misinformation in this form can lead to all kinds of negative consequences, like violence against minorities, vaccination hesitancy and shaming your stupid drunk uncle at the barbecue because he’s absolutely convinced that Q anon told him the person who asks for ketchup AND mustard on their veggie burger must run a human trafficking operation on Mars. Although, good for a laugh, not so good for, you know, civil society and shit. Do not be your stupid drunk uncle.

So, let’s talk about how you can make a change in your life and use information that makes you look smarter, allow you to function as a human much more smoothly, and can give you a clean, blemish-free complexion. Okay, I’m totally lying about the complexion thing, and it doesn’t matter anyway, your face looks fine.

So, firstly, I want you to realize that none of us knows everything. Once you understand that, everything else is easy. Well, except moping blood off concrete – that’s never easy, but practice helps. Should have taken the Pottery Barn job, just saying. But really, if someone says something that sounds really ridiculous, something you’ve never heard before, it’s completely okay to NOT believe and repeat it. If someone asks you a question about a topic that you know nothing about, answering with: “I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about that” is a perfectly reasonable and acceptable response. If the information or question brings up a topic, or topics, that may interest you, go and find a reliable source and learn about them. That’s the coolest part about being informed, you get to learn things, like actual knowledge. This is the stuff that makes you a better person. Yeah, I said that, and I’m surprised that something so positive came out of my lasagne hole too, believe me.

Secondly, and this is more work-related than anything, always be prepared. Now, I know some youth organization probably has a copyright on that phrase, but it’s absolutely correct. If you’re going into a meeting, review what the meeting is about, know what was discussed previously, have an idea about where it’s going. Don’t be that fucking Jimbo guy at the end of his table with his I Heart Schnauzers coffee mug who can never answer a question and always gets you do his fucking spreadsheet updates. Participate, have questions, have answers, and don’t eat the last TimBit if you already had 7 Jimbo! This makes everyone’s life easier, even yours.

And finally, just be curious. Don’t take everything at face value, get out in front of it and get the real information. Make sure the people your go to for answers actually know shit. Realize that not all information needs to be an Area 51 level conspiracy story and understand that just knowing actual day-to-day truth is far more interesting than International intrigue and espionage. You are not James Bond, so stop trying – just be a better, more informed version of yourself. I know, baby steps, but you have to start somewhere. Just be curious and dig around. Also, learn a language or an instrument, it’ll keep you busy and help you to not be so inclined to, you know, pretend you know shit. Just throwing that out there. But really, learn something.

Okay, so that's it for this episode. As always, I'll leave you with a Disgruntled nugget in a second, but first I want to thank you for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast, I’m on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio and other platforms, and please visit www.disgruntledlifecoach.ca for all my podcasts – you know my disdain for the required www by now, jesus christ. Please also follow me on twitter @lifedisgruntled, there's a link on my website. And you can still ignore my link to buy me a coffee, but I have to say someone bought me a coffee, so there’s that. I’m not saying keep up, I’m just saying, it can be done. Also, if you like what you've heard today, tell your friends. If you think this is ridiculous, still, tell your friends, I mean how hard is that.

Disgruntled Nugget.

It's been said that if you can dream it, you can be it. But of course that's a lie, because I dreamed I was King George once. But dreams can be inspiration to achieve great things, unless, you know, you dream that the world ends in a nuclear Armageddon. But, I guess what I'm saying is you can change the world if you dream about achieving great things and then, you know, you become King George, or radioactive, or something, whatever...

Again, thanks for listening, and thanks also to Audionautix and Partners in Rhyme for music and sound FX, thanks again to Neatnik for visuals, and thanks for your patience - see you in two weeks, or not, whatever...