DailyJim: Protecting our innocence

Hello everyone, welcome to another Daily Gym. This is going to be a quiet type episode. I am outside recording in a foreign land, not sure who's around at night, so don't want to disturb people sleeping.

This is the episode for Wednesday, June 19th, 2024.

I want to to talk about protecting our innocence.

I went to a jazz club tonight with some of the people from the project I was on and some other people that I know from actually my time in East Africa and here in Berlin. I had a really good time and we were talking about one of the participants and just how much energy she had for life and just the the innocence that she seemed to display. And I told the other trainer, I said, I remember hearing that maybe one of the challenges for men is to learn how to protect our innocence. And I was thinking about that on the walk home and just how I think it's so natural for us to be excited about the world and to really love the world. And I think maybe sometimes it's just learning about how to protect ourselves. And if we feel more confident in protecting ourselves, then the joy comes, the innocence comes, the excitement, the hope, all these things come if we feel somewhat safe in our surroundings. And I was thinking about a conversation I had the other day, actually with one of the participants, and it was about.

Empowering women and on the walk i was thinking back about how in kenya there was a movement to end femicide and i was thinking okay let's say maybe five men committed the femicide and maybe out of you know a population of let's say 10 million so maybe i could convince all those men to maybe if i could convince every single man to not kill a woman then maybe that That would be better. And then I thought, okay, well, there's men that, part of the anger was that there were men defending the behaviors or something similar to those behaviors. So it wasn't just the five that killed or so. It was maybe the 20% or 30% of loud men who were agreeing with, not the killing, but saying, you know, like blaming the women.

And I was thinking about it. And I said, what if somehow I was magically able to help all men no longer kill women, no longer sexually harass women, no longer rape women, no longer do this stuff. What if that behavior never happens? But if women still fear it's going to happen, it may not even matter whether it happens or not. Because if they still fear it and believe that it might happen, it doesn't matter if it happens. And that's the weird thing I think about fear is it doesn't matter if something happens or how likely it is that something will happen. If we fear it, we may behave in ways where we think it will 100% for sure happen.

So it's how some things are very rare um dying on a plane crash is very very very very very rare we're much more likely to die in a car crash or die in our own shower or bathtub but we still shower every day and we we don't have the fear of dying in the shower so much but we have the fear of dying in an airplane despite the airplane accident not happening so much um and so i think.

Even trying to get rid of all the things that might hurt us even if i if we were successful getting a hundred percent rid of all these things if we believe that there's still a chance we might be afraid and it may not matter much and so for me it's more about how do we learn to.

Have the courage to step into the fear how do we learn to take steps to make sure we can stay more safe you know there's it's kind of self-defense principles walking down the street i was walking home and i was looking at my phone walking home and looking at my phone in a foreign foreign place at night is not safe you know the i am not aware of my surroundings and though therefore i can feel more afraid if something were to happen or thinking something might happen But if I'm walking and I'm looking around and I'm breathing, get my head up, and maybe I look a little kind of fierce, then I feel more confident that somebody's probably not going to try to mess with me. Or I'll see them coming and I can run if I can see them from a farther distance. And so these little tips and tricks can help me feel more safe and keep me more safe. Safe and I think not just safe but also keep me feeling more hopeful more alive more inspired more, etc etc just feeling more and and not closing off and shrinking and having this innocence and believing that people are good and people are trying their best and so I think sometimes you look at people who look innocent and we go oh you're so innocent you're so naive you're so ignorant. Maybe these people are actually just really good at protecting themselves and rebuilding themselves and knowing how to fight without hurting the other person too much and not hurting themselves too much. And if we get hurt, knowing how to repair. Maybe there's actually a lot happening with the people who seem really alive and who seem really excited for life. Maybe they're not just happy all the time. Maybe they know how to cry. Maybe they know how to get angry. Maybe they know how to feel confused. Maybe they know how to feel afraid. Maybe they know how to feel all these different things and dance with the emotions and protect our own self-worth and our own belief in ourselves and other people yeah so maybe it's not just being innocent but learning how to protect the innocence and cherishing that that belief in humanity okay that's maybe enough late night jazz scatting rambling after this open jam session so i will talk to y'all tomorrow.