Andrew Hiller (00:00):
Spotify
Sevan Matossian (00:00):
Account. I wonder if you’re gonna get warm over there. Bam. We’re live
Andrew Hiller (00:03):
At some point. I’m sure I will. Usually when cameras go on, warms up,
Sevan Matossian (00:08):
You start warming up.
Andrew Hiller (00:09):
And I, yeah, I get a little red too. It’s weird. A
Sevan Matossian (00:12):
Little warm. You didn’t get red yesterday? No. God. Um, I slept like shit last night cause I was so high from the show. Oh,
Andrew Hiller (00:19):
No way.
Sevan Matossian (00:19):
I think
Andrew Hiller (00:20):
When did you fall asleep?
Sevan Matossian (00:21):
I I, I don’t, I don’t feel like I never did.
Andrew Hiller (00:24):
Did you see the video I made?
Sevan Matossian (00:26):
No. Paul. Good morning. Jay Harle. Oh no. Is it the workout
Andrew Hiller (00:29):
Video? It’s the workout video.
Sevan Matossian (00:31):
Oh, is it on your account?
Andrew Hiller (00:32):
See, Jessica just said she just watched it. Oh yeah. It’s, it’s funny. Why is
Sevan Matossian (00:36):
She laughing? Oh, Mr. Weed.
Andrew Hiller (00:38):
Hi. You wanna know it’s nuts. Is I, I tried to do something to see if I could use more popular music and avoid a copyright strike. Uhhuh <affirmative>. And thus far it appears as if it’s working.
Sevan Matossian (00:49):
Why? Because were we playing music when I was in there?
Andrew Hiller (00:52):
Well, yeah, but I also just mixed a couple of songs up. Yeah. And now it doesn’t know which one is which. So <laugh> so it’s allowed to play in the background. And I haven’t forgot. Say. Oh,
Sevan Matossian (01:02):
That’s interesting. Uhhuh <affirmative> play multiple, play multiple songs. And then, um, and Hope, hope, uh, is, is fine. Mr. Again. Hey. Oh man, gin or again,
Aaron Ginn (01:15):
Like drink, drink
Sevan Matossian (01:16):
Gin. Why? Why can’t I remember that?
Aaron Ginn (01:19):
It’s okay. The, the immigration agents in early 19 hundreds couldn’t understand it either when my grandfather came from China. So,
Sevan Matossian (01:27):
Hey, is it, is it obvious if you know how to read, like, if you feel like you’re smarter than me, like, like can someone just see that and be like, yeah, I understand the English language and obviously with the G I N N It’s gin. It’s not gin. What are you fucking idiot.
Aaron Ginn (01:41):
No, no, no. I, I I mean other people who have, uh, my similar spelling, they pronounce it like the, I guess not hard n Gin.
Sevan Matossian (01:50):
Okay, good. All alright.
Aaron Ginn (01:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, so, so yeah, it’s, it’s a bit of a, because my last name’s, my last name is supposed to be yin. It’s not supposed to be, uh,
Andrew Hiller (01:59):
What do you mean supposed to be? Oh,
Sevan Matossian (02:00):
By the way, have you guys, you guys, uh, Andrew Hiller. This is Aaron, uh, gin, uh, um, Aaron, you know how like, um, uh, discovery Channel has Shark Week? <laugh>? Yeah. Well, Andrew Hiller’s also, uh, a YouTuber like myself. Oh, I said it, I don’t think I’ve ever admitted that on the Air <laugh>. And, uh, and he’s visiting me. He’s here for a week for Greg’s Broken Science initiative. So I, I asked him if he would come in studio every morning. Oh, okay, cool. So it would be, it would be Andrew Hiller week. Okay. Go ahead. Uh, what do you mean? He’s, I think Andrew said, what do you mean it’s supposed to be in?
Aaron Ginn (02:29):
Yes. Yeah, so my, my grandfather couldn’t, uh, speak English whenever he immigrated. And so they just wrote down whatever it sounded like whenever he came over.
Andrew Hiller (02:39):
Oh, that’s about
Aaron Ginn (02:40):
<laugh>. Yeah. So actually all of his brothers, uh, I believe he has seven brothers. They all have, uh, different spelling of our last name whenever they immigrated from
Sevan Matossian (02:47):
Onto Ellis Island that way.
Aaron Ginn (02:49):
No, that went through San Francisco.
Andrew Hiller (02:52):
My fiance just said something similar about why her name is spelled with a Y and not with an I. And that had to do with the same sort of process when she was coming over. They didn’t want people to know she was Polish or, or ancestors <laugh>. Your,
Sevan Matossian (03:07):
Your, your girlfriend looks like a crazy foreigner. She looks crazy
Andrew Hiller (03:10):
Foreigner. We were hanging out, we weren’t hanging out. We were in a gas station and someone goes, oh, you’re European looking right at us too. We’re like, uh, no, we’re from the United States as far as we know.
Sevan Matossian (03:21):
Yeah, she looks like she fell out of like, just like right outta Helsinki, like you take Helsinki and dump it upside down. And she fell
Andrew Hiller (03:27):
Out. I’m not sure where that’s at, but
Sevan Matossian (03:28):
The capital of, uh, <laugh>,
Andrew Hiller (03:33):
She kind of, yeah, she does.
Sevan Matossian (03:35):
Erin, um, <affirmative>, Aaron, um, tech, tech geeks. Like, you hang out in Helsinki. You’ve been to Helsinki, right?
Aaron Ginn (03:40):
Uh, I have not.
Sevan Matossian (03:42):
No, no. Really, I’ve
Aaron Ginn (03:43):
Only, I’ve only done eastern Europe, all of Central Europe. Uh, but
Sevan Matossian (03:47):
You’ve never had a meeting in Helsinki? Come on.
Aaron Ginn (03:49):
No, no. Uh, I do get invited to go to the, uh, that, uh, what is called the Human Rights event that’s in Norway rear. So I do get invited to go to that, but I usually don’t go. So cuz it’s in the winter and it’s like super cold there. So Summer somewhere in the Nordics are great. Um, so like one, like, yeah, one year I’m gonna do Denmark to to, to Sweden, uh, and drive that route. So, but, uh, no, but I’ll, I’ll do just through all Europe, Africa, south America, Asia, so, but no, not yet. Not yet. The Nordic countries. No,
Sevan Matossian (04:22):
I’m, I’m looking for a picture of, um, oh, there she is of Andrew’s girlfriend. So you could, sorry, fiance,
Andrew Hiller (04:28):
Bro. It’s okay.
Sevan Matossian (04:29):
Um, uh, so that you can see what I’m talking about, about
Andrew Hiller (04:32):
Panicking that I didn’t have this with me. Oh, here,
Sevan Matossian (04:34):
Here’s a, here’s a picture of her.
Aaron Ginn (04:36):
Everyone needs their shaker bottle for
Andrew Hiller (04:37):
A right. <laugh>, what are you keeping yours? Cause mine’s got a bunch of pre-workout, like 700 milligrams of caffeine.
Aaron Ginn (04:46):
I just, I have a high ball right now, that’s mine.
Andrew Hiller (04:48):
Oh, I know, I know people who really enjoy that stuff. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (04:51):
Doesn’t she look like she just fell out of, uh, uh, like some Nordic
Aaron Ginn (04:55):
Viking? Yeah. She looks like she’s from that, that show. Those, those Viking shows.
Sevan Matossian (04:59):
Totally.
Andrew Hiller (05:00):
The Viking shows. Totally.
Sevan Matossian (05:01):
Totally.
Andrew Hiller (05:02):
I’ve always thought she kind of looks like lic with this blonde hair. If it were longer though. And I said the Viking,
Aaron Ginn (05:08):
Does she diet or is she dead?
Andrew Hiller (05:10):
She’s, oh, so when I met her, she was blonde and then she dyed it red and then she went brown and now she’s back to blonde. So there’s a whole bunch of different colors going on there.
Aaron Ginn (05:21):
Oh, okay. Okay.
Sevan Matossian (05:23):
Um, Mr. Gin, I, I, I, I don’t, um, I don’t know how to really describe you. I didn’t like It’s ok. Most
(05:32):
Didn’t, didn’t like the way I described you last time. You are truly a Renaissance man. Uh, art religion. Oh, appreciate that. Tech, fitness, um, uh, the, the, the subjects that you write about. I, I, I don’t, it, it feels unfair to pigeonhole you, but I do view, put you in this rare air that I would also put my friend Greg Glassman in that it’s worth asking you questions about anything, um, whether it be like the style of high-rise pants or to what you, you think the future of AI is. I just feel like you have a good brain that could just process lots of different things from the mundane to the future to the past.
Aaron Ginn (06:10):
Yeah. And you enjoy it. I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s a, it, it comes from, uh, having like a heterodox background in terms of
Sevan Matossian (06:19):
Like what’s, sorry, what’s that mean?
Aaron Ginn (06:21):
Uh, it just means like orthodox heterodox. So like Orthodox would be like, you know, woke to, uh, like I live in Boulder, so like you’ll be a Democrat, whatever is like widely accepted. Heterodox means like the opposite of that. So whatever’s different. And, uh, like I, uh, I wrote, uh, yesterday about, uh, about courage and I used the, the reference to, uh, to Tyler Durden. And so I’m wearing a Tyler Durden shirt right now that, uh, my buddy gave me for my birthday. And, uh, that story of fight club, which most people who are like, you know, Christian, they see this and I’m, I’m a evangelical Christian, see fight club is bad, right? They’re like, oh, look at this guy who’s like a NIS and absurdist and, and is like selfish and a narcissist, but actually, actually like, read what he’s writing or sorry, what he’s saying, or it’s a comic book, but like what he’s talking about is essentially how systems in culture and society tell us to do things that we have no idea why.
(07:20):
And other people will pressure you to do those things and they don’t even know why. And this whole system is developed and just kind of mindlessly pushes you through life, right? And so his whole point of fight club, like, like what is the actual point? The point is individuality. The, the point is like to discover who you actually are and you have to break the entire system down to then you find who you actually are and what you actually wanna be. Right? So all of these, all of these things, like this scene here right, is all about, uh, how, uh, Edward Norton, who’s the actual only character, right? Although Fight Club two, Durden’s not dead, by the way, Durden’s Alive. Uh, there’s
Sevan Matossian (07:54):
Two fight clubs. There’s a fight club too. Yeah,
Aaron Ginn (07:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So was
Sevan Matossian (07:58):
It made into a movie or it’s just a comic club?
Aaron Ginn (07:59):
No, no, no. Just the first one. Um, but, but, but the point of like, these scenes is basically that that Durden is destroying all of the idols that existed as life, uh, that prevent him from becoming the man he’s supposed to be. Uh, and that’s everything that happens in the, in, in the movie, right? So, so he’s actually like, like, uh, Durden is actually really consistent with actually his own philosophy that leads him to do really insane things, right? Because he himself is insane, right? Uh, that’s like the whole kind of arc of, of the show. But the, but for me, it was like kind of breaking free of these systems that like I was told to believe and, and when I be, uh, when I became, uh, a Christian really late in, in high school and sort of pursuing it, were seriously in college, um, I basically saw how I was taught all these things in public school. I was taught all these things by my singular family. Uh, there were things that were just not true, right? And, and I had to, uh, from
Sevan Matossian (08:54):
That’s probably too broad. Keep going. Sorry. No. We’ll, but we’ll get to that though. He wrote an article right before this one where he talks about that. That’s brilliant. Hold on, hold that thought. Andrew. Go on Aaron. That’s a great question.
Aaron Ginn (09:04):
Yeah. So, um, so, so basically, uh, I decided to brace this path of like, you know, I have people who I love who differ with me massively on metaphysics, right? They differ with me, significant, significant on philosophy now on like, on morality and faith. And so I had to basically determine, uh, how to actually like live my life now, right? That, that, that I could actually break free of what was actually established for me, take things that were actually good to, uh, remove things I did not agree with, I thought were bad, and build the life that I wanted to build. Uh, and that’s like what Durden does. Um, and oh yeah, so, so no nice guy Treaty is about this too. That, that I had to like break away. Uh, so much of like what was defining about how like men today form their identity, right?
(09:48):
Uh, their conflict avoidant, they piece people, they use hidden contracts. They have massive toxic shame. They, uh, they have a distorted view of themselves. They, they use, uh, appeasement approval to get what they want. They’re never direct, they’re indirect. Like, these are all things that, uh, I had to break free of from high school to college. And, and that’s part of, that’s Durden and V for Vendetta, Benford Brothers, like all the stuff I was like on the sort of mainstream media side, but also like reading books, uh, uh, from like early philosophers, uh, to like, you know, Reau and Augustine to, to, uh, you know, mainstream ones. And, uh, and this kind of all led to this, this arc of self-discovery, right? And, and so yeah, this series, numerous Mask guy has actually been, uh, it’s been really moving, um, because I’m,
Sevan Matossian (10:35):
Dude, this is amazing. Oh, thank you’re, thank you, man. You’re describing exactly what, like, basically what I’ve been going through the last 10 years. This is exactly how I was raised. Yeah. Kindness over kindness, over integrity. It is, it is horrible.
Aaron Ginn (10:49):
Yeah. So
Sevan Matossian (10:50):
It rocks the soul and, and it emasculates, uh, men, I don’t It’s crazy. Yeah. Kindness over integrity.
Aaron Ginn (10:56):
Yeah. Yeah. So, so
Sevan Matossian (10:57):
Kindness over honesty.
Aaron Ginn (10:59):
So, so the, the, the, the point of like a lot of what men like struggle with today, which goes to like my friendship piece, which goes to like durden and like the nice guy stuff. Like, it’s essentially that they’ve been like really starved in mainstream society. And, uh, and a lot of that is an expression of like long-term trends that we were just, the end results of, it wasn’t like, this was like, oh my God, Obama happened and like, everything bad happened, right? Like, like, this is not this case, right? These are like cultural trends that were being established in the twenties and thirties, forties, fifties, that basically are reaching their sort of culmination. Uh, and, and one of them is a, a significant lack of friendship, right? And this is something that glass
Sevan Matossian (11:35):
Significant what? Lack
Aaron Ginn (11:37):
Of friendship. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (11:38):
Lack in friendship.
Aaron Ginn (11:39):
Yeah. Yeah. Like, so like, you know, you, and you and I know both, both, both know Glassman really well, right? And, and he’s like a friend of mine and his life in his home is like open, right? And it’s one of the most amazing things about him and him and Maggie is that it’s just like this. Like, I never know when I go to Glassman’s house who’s gonna be there, right? Right. And, and that’s, and that’s the fun part of Glassman, right? Is like, it’s a, like, you know, I, I’ve, I’ve met you and I’ve met, uh, all the doctors in his life and you know, scientists and like yeah. It’s like,
Sevan Matossian (12:06):
And he’ll have, he’ll have the guy out who, who paints his fence, uh, over for dinner. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Hanging out. Yeah, totally.
Aaron Ginn (12:12):
Yeah. The, um,
Sevan Matossian (12:12):
Eclectic crowd.
Aaron Ginn (12:13):
Yeah, exactly. And, and, and I wanna, and I wanna basically like live a life like that. And, and the only way to actually rediscover that is to actually have self-respect, right? And ultimately, the point of all the Nice Guy series, which I’m gonna end here in like two weeks, uh, and I’m gonna end with Jesus wasn’t nice, uh, and kind of destroy the whole, like, uh, as you know, I’m a Christian and the whole like Christian nice guy thing is like totally not Jesus at all. Like, so, but, but, but the point is like self-respect, right? And, and self-respect is not self-esteem, right? Self-esteem is like a faux sort of like nice guy thing where it’s like, oh, just like believe in yourself. And like, and it’s just a losery picture of like you having this, this, uh, projection externally that I am these great things. Self-respect is like, I’m good at this stuff and I’m bad at this stuff, and I know who I am. Like, that’s it. It’s like, it’s very simple, but it’s really, really hard, right? Uh, because you have to know who you are. You have to know what you wanna do, you have to know what you not want to do, right? And that’s like all these, that’s
Sevan Matossian (13:07):
The vulnerable piece you talk about too, right? Know what you’re good at, don’t know what you’re not.
Aaron Ginn (13:11):
Yeah. And, and, and that then goes to like, when you don’t have self-respect and you seek approval and appeasement and self coagulation, self-effacing behavior towards other people, which is what most men are taught to today. That the way they form friendships, the way they find a wife, the way that they, um, you know, get a job, get a promotion, is to self face. Is to say that like, my expression of like getting approval from other people through being nice and kind and serving and all these things, like, will get me what I want and I have to like, therefore, like, like these people that are being self efface too, right? Have to sort of like imagine, you know, sort of, uh, that like, this is gonna sound somewhat convince me, right? That like, through manipulation of, uh, getting approval that the, that so nice guys will get these, uh, uh, things that they want, right?
(13:57):
And so the actual way to get what you want is to have self-respect, be like, this is what I need, this is what I want, uh, like, I’m willing to negotiate here, willing not to negotiate here. Right? And you’re shocked what happens when like, you’re actually just direct and you’re just honest with, with other people, right? And you just say what you want, right? And of course, it doesn’t mean like, like being the opposite of a nice guy is being a good guy. It’s not being an not being an ass, it’s not being rude, it’s not being obnoxious and an arrogant, you know, prick, right? It’s the, that’s the opposite direction, a domineering personality, right? Um, the, the actual is to be a good guy, right? A good guy is direct and is honest, and is frank has integrity as, as, as, as principal cares about people that he chooses to care about, right?
(14:37):
Um, and the, this all boils into like the, like the one meaningful way that you can get encouragement to like become a good man is to have friends. Uh, and friends are, uh, the one of my mentors used to say that like, friends are for edification and for enjoyment, right? And, uh, friends push you to be better, right? In ways that is, is very, uh, underappreciated in our current society. Uh, and, and some of that is, uh, the way our like urban, everything from like urban policy has designed that prevents friendship to, like our media culture too. Like, you know, like there’s lots of reasons why we have less friends than ever before. Uh, but if you go back like a hundred years ago, right? Our culture was was heavily, heavily dominated by these civil, civil institutions, right? Uh, we’re talking about like, you know, rotary club and like bowling and like poker club and like gentleman’s club, right?
(15:30):
Not the strip club, but like smoking cigars and like reading books together, right? And women had the same thing, right? They had, they had all these other clubs they would go do, and they would, they had this, like, we had this really, really tightknit ditz culture, right? And what’s the word do you use tight-knit DITs? Uh, ditz ditz, like dents, dents, dt, like, yeah, yeah. Like, so like the social fabric between individuals who are non-familiar non-genetic, uh, attached like, uh, attach to like family was, was significantly greater, right? Uh, today than, than than, uh, or sorry, specifically great hundred years ago than it’s today. And if you look at the trends in terms of loneliness and depression and, uh, addiction to substances, uh, divorce, like all of them are are also directly, uh, uh, correlated to actually the decline of non-familiar ties. And, and I think that that is one reason we see so much from so many problems here of like death of despair, uh, lack of achievement to, uh, you know, men being listless and families being broken apart.
(16:25):
Uh, is that these actually non-familiar non ties are all breaking down, uh, like really, really severely. And, and you see this in the reflection of like CrossFit culture, right? At that CrossFit is essentially like a secular church, right? It provided this meaning and connection between non-familiar people around one single subject area that they had, you know, rituals, you had common language, you had common clothing, right? Uh, and provided this structure for people to actually meet non-familiar connections and four bombs all over each other, right? And, and that’s one of the most amazing things about CrossFit is that that’s like a good thing cuz people like need that like belonging to something. They can’t just exist in this like, empty void of like commercialism and making money and like, just like, just like vote for people who like, oh, we’ll always leave you alone and like, go make some money here at this like, you know, corporate job and shop at Costco and like, you know, have some resemblance of authenticity by going whole foods.
(17:15):
You think Costco is to a corporate, right? Like the, all this like devoid of morality and, and meaning in our society, which is what I was raised with in, in high school, college was like, just transact and everyone will be tolerant of each other, right? Totally exploded, right? Right. Everything is exploded. Like all that whole philosophy of neoliberalism, uh, and, uh, has like totally eroded and like almost nobody believes it, but, but like, it created all these like factional things of, of morality in our society that we’re dealing with today. Um, and, and so the aspect of like friendship, uh, is, is one of these like, uh, meat and potatoes of good free society that is gone, right? And, and if you look at, it’s depressing, if you look at those numbers of like, people who don’t have anyone close to them, right? It, it, it is like, it’s, it’s devastating, right? It is, it is utterly devastating. Uh, and, and the solution to I think a lot of, of cultural ills is actually like good quality, high quality friendships. Um, yeah. Like, look at that. Like, it’s just like, oh my God. Like this is, this is devastation, right? Uh, and by the way, if you go to other countries, right? Let’s say go to, I’ve been to Africa a number of times, go to Africa, these numbers look the exact opposite, right? Oh, oh,
(18:26):
Yeah. Like the exact opposite. Like, like happiness is directly correlated to also the number of friends you just, you say you have, if you look at like, country scores, right? Uh, and, and, and so we, we as a society have forgotten this art, um, of like forming friends. Uh, we have a lot of buddies, right? Buddies are like, what I say, friends of convenience. These are people who are not like, really you’re that intentional with, these are just people who kinda just showed up in your life and you, and they kinda will disappear at the same time. Like, like friends are like, uh, like I would say Greg, like, I literally go see Greg. Greg, I’m intentional with Greg. Great. And Greg and I will text things like the, the, the, the sort of tele thing, right? We’re like, we’ll, text things we know we like about each other, right? We’re honest with each other. We struggle with each other, right? We, we fight on the same mission together. Uh, we, we we push each other, right? And, uh, it’s like a side by side thing, right? Like couples like, um, uh, are you familiar with like the, there’s like seven Greek words for love. Are you familiar with this at all? No,
Sevan Matossian (19:21):
Go ahead. Yeah, maybe I am. Go ahead.
Aaron Ginn (19:23):
Yeah, so, so the, the, the main four you think about are, uh, aeros, um, FIA agape and store, okay? Stewart’s family love. Um, uh, let’s say Agape is God love. Uh, Aeros is romantic love, and FIA fle is, uh, friend love, right?
Sevan Matossian (19:41):
So gimme one second. Uh, some of you are asking how can I, uh, follow Aaron? He’s private on Instagram, where he’s really active, where you wanna find Aaron is over on Twitter. Yeah. And, uh, this is his, uh, Twitter account. A a r o n g i n n, Aaron Gin two A is one r Aaron gin. Crazy active there. Remember Jim, son of a <laugh>, Aaron gin. And, and, um, and crazy active, uh, very thoughtful, uh, fun stuff. It’s a fun account. Um, everything from stuff like this to predicting the future, like I said, ai, uh, his favorite recipe, I mean, it’s fucking everything. It’s so cool. And it’s, um, it’s, it’s, it’s, he does everything with intention. It’s well vetted within his, uh, giant brain. Okay? Go, go on the seven, the seven, uh, the seven Loves.
Aaron Ginn (20:27):
Yeah. And the, and so tho the, so there’s seven, but those kind of the main four. There’s like love, there’s like playful love and things like that, but those are the main four. Uh, so, and, uh, so as you know, I’m Christian. So in actually the, the Bible, there’s only two loves that appear, agape and Vallejo. So as in unconditional love, which is God, agape, and then phileo, which is friend love, right? And so Aeros love represents the, uh, romantic love, right? Uh, and, and that’s the love of like, basically what I describe love is like face-to-face, right? This is like face-to-face love that you experience about like, you know, um, getting engaged, having children, right? And the design of that love is to create really, uh, strong attachment to a single person to like build the family. Cuz like, build your family is freaking hard. It’s like one, it’s like the hardest thing in life to do, right? And it’s also cuz that that thing to do about raising children is the ultimate expression of two people to ever have the closest feeling of agape love, which is sacrificial love to your children, right? So you need that aeros connection with another person. The point
Sevan Matossian (21:24):
Of having sex is to make a love child. My mom taught me that.
Aaron Ginn (21:27):
Yeah, they have child, like, like, I mean, let’s be real like both from a religion perspective Yeah. And from an evolutionary perspective, right? Yeah. So like, but works both ways regardless of whatever your ultimate metaphysic is, right? So, so that, so that’s like this purpose, right? And so, and our and our culture, we’ve forgotten the side by side love. And, and that, and that’s f uh, fle, right? That the, the, the attachment to another individual to pursue a mission together, right? Uh, and, and this is the, um, where you are working together on a common cause, right? And, uh, and the way that, um, you see this flow out in culture is these, these really incredible moments that define history that are actually completely independent of aeros. They’re almost entirely dependent on their friends. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and I’ve mentioned that, I mentioned these in the piece.
(22:10):
So my, my, my favorite one, which I I start with is Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed, right? If Joshua speed was not alive, like, or say didn’t meet Lincoln, Lincoln would be dead. Like he would’ve not, he would’ve not survived his, his early twenties ish in early in his career, he suffered from significant depression. Uh, he thought like he was an utter failure disaster in life. He could not basically function at all. And he was in Lincoln credits speed for saving his life. Uhlin Lincoln also credit speed for introducing him to his wife. Oh. Uh, and actually it works both ways too. So, uh, so they, they both saved each other’s marriages, right? Right. Uh, and a lot of his hourly intellectualism about like, about slavery and freedom came from these conversations with speed. Uh, whenever they would, they, there’s these famous, um, uh, stories around him walking with Lincoln, uh, and they would walk for like all day talking about, uh, different things, right?
(23:06):
And, and so there’s these like pivot moments in history that are really, really defined by certain people, uh, that we like, sort of forgotten this again, forgotten this art of friendship, uh, that can utterly transform your entire life. Uh, and I bec you know, cuz because it’s not like, um, I guess like my point of telling a lot of these stories is that we have plenty of stories of like great marriages, right? Great marriages that define history. We have like movies and constant, like this idea, this elevation of marriage, right? And, and so what I’m trying to do in like some of this writing is like elevate this other thing that you’ve forgotten that actually is, is almost like, uh, accessible to everybody right now, and is also accessible in terms of like, the love that you can have between a friend is also s shareable.
(23:47):
That’s like one of the most amazing things about friendship, right? It’s like I met you through Greg, right? But it feels additive, right? When I talk about you with Greg, he feels like, oh, great, like I have two friends that know each other. Right? Right, right, right. So it’s like this expansive thing, right? So it, so it’s like freely available to everybody. Everyone can have access to it, and when everyone interconnects, it actually expands itself, right? Right. Uh, is one of versus aeros love is like designed for like one, one person. Um, so, and that’s what that, cuz again, famous formation, long term, uh, attachment, right? Um, uh, like, like another story is, um, like, so my favorite founding father, I’d like to tell his last time was Thomas Jefferson. Um, and he was wrong about several things, about how much he loved France and things like that.
(24:27):
But, but one of the things he was, he was amazing about, like, he was totally a hundred percent spot on, is this idea of, uh, of sovereignty of the individual and how that relates to property rights and, and, and faith and things like that. So his friendship with Madison, uh, which originally started with like, um, Madison basically worked with, uh, like Jefferson lived for a really long time. Like people kind of forget, he like lived to his like, uh, I think like high seventies, right? Which is incredible for that, for that time period. Um, so when he was Governor Madison worked for him as sort of like on a, uh, on like a different part of the body, uh, in Virginia. And that the, the most important, uh, uh, as you say, like amendment right, was invented by Madison, uh, which is the statue of religious liberty in, uh, the early part of Virginia.
(25:14):
So in the Virginia Constitution. And that was basically his great achievement. And he did that when he was like, I think 21. And then since then, like Madison kind of plateaued, right? <laugh>. And so he then goes like, works with, with Jefferson and, and, and, and starts working on this idea of federalism, this constitution and that friendship between Jeff Madison and Jefferson basically is, I believe the most important friendship between all the founding fathers that forms the idea of the constitution forms the idea of separation of powers, uh, the Bill of Rights, right? Because without Madison and Jefferson, we would not have a Bill of Rights, right? And that was because Madison pressured Jefferson basically when he was a, an ambassador in France. And you read these letters that Madison would write, they would write each other and basically Madison like, bro, you gotta get on, you get on with this program, right?
(25:57):
We have to do this. Jeffrey goes, I don’t know that Hamilton guy sucks. He’s always talking too much. He, he wants them to be king, right? And this like this battle back and forth, right? And, and the, uh, the, the, the, the, the final Constitution convention, cause we had several of them before, right? Um, and uh, and people kind of like a third of the people at our constitutional convention, actually former constitution, a third of the delegates, Stephen, and come, because this was like, oh, this, oh, here’s another one. We’ll just have another one in a few years. Right? And, and like Rhode Island didn’t even show up, right? Like, and, and so it was a third, huh? Yeah. A third of ’em didn’t even come. Wow. It was, it was mostly like New York and Virginians. Um, and, uh, and so Jefferson though represented this block of people that like, basically weren’t that interested.
(26:38):
Uh, but through the friendship of Madison basically convinced Jefferson to go along with it. And in fact, whenever it finally passed and everything, uh, uh, Jefferson wrote, wrote Madison being like, oh, that’s fine. Let’s just do another one in 10 years. It’s like, it’s okay, right? And Madison goes like, no, no, this is the actual one. This is gonna work, right? Uh, and and so like the, that that friendship, right, that bond is basically pulled in the Virginians, uh, and basically created the establishment of, of the Constitution and like, and, and the support of it, right? Uh, and, and, and then, uh, so Jefferson also has another famous friendship with Adams, uh, John Adams, uh, that four much later. So, so Jefferson, and, and this goes to the power of friendship. So Jefferson hated Adams. Like, they just like utterly, cuz Adams loved England. I’ve
Sevan Matossian (27:21):
Been there, I’ve had friends that I hate.
Aaron Ginn (27:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sevan Matossian (27:24):
End up becoming good friends. Some people think that about Hiller and I, although it’s not true, but, uh, some people think that,
Aaron Ginn (27:29):
So, so they ended up, they hated each other for a long time because, because, uh, Jefferson wanted us to be close to France, Adams wanted us to be close to England, right? And then once they both become presidents, right? Adams, Adams didn’t have a great presidency. Jefferson a great one. Uh, they basically start this really deep friendship after that. Uh, and, and the later letters of Jefferson and Adams, when they’re reflecting on forming the country is, is, is I think one of the, some of those inspiring things about how great these men were and how much they thought about like, what they’re trying to do. Um, and in fact, they die, um, only a few days, a few days apart from each other. Oh, that’s right. And, and they, and they wished each other things in their, in their final days, they actually share things in their estate with each other.
(28:10):
Um, and, and they basically regret their behavior that they had before this, that they could have this friendship earlier. Right. Um, and, uh, yeah, and, and so, so like this, this, this beauty that we have that like I would say previous generations we’re really great at. Um, and I think our modern culture today is, is uh, this, this may, this may be, uh, offensive, but I truly believe it that I think we, I think our, our obsession around the nuclear family and uh, is, is very constructive around American ideas that is not particularly healthy for children. Um, because if you look at let’s say 7,000 years of human history, most of the time children were basically like free range children. And the attachment to the fam Yeah. Yeah. Their attachment to the family is basically you, you sleep here, you eat here, and like I will protect you. Right? But outside of that, you gotta go develop your own identity because dad’s off working and I got like, stuff to do at the farm as the, as the wife, right? And so today we have this like, kind of opposite trend, and I just don’t know how you can say that children today are better. Like, they’re obviously worse
Sevan Matossian (29:14):
Opposite trend. What’s the, Aaron? I wanna share a, a, a story with you. Um, uh, in the second grade, I met a guy, um, named Jeff Holman, and he became my best friend. And I, I kept him as a friend for life. And I realized from the second grade four that the only reason why I ever went to school or did anything, went to work at CrossFit. Every, anything was always for friendship. So like, I do this thing where I cover the games, the semi-finals. Yeah. Yeah. And my favorite thing is coming online live and seeing my friends, it’s so much cooler. It’s like the coolest thing. Those are my friends and we’re gonna hang out. Um, and in 2008 or whatever, I can’t remember nine, um, uh, when Greg was going through his, uh, divorce with Lauren, I remember saying to Lauren, Hey, does, uh, and I didn’t know Greg at the time. I, although I worked for CrossFit, I mean, I knew him, but I didn’t.
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