We’re all feeling it — the tension, the fear, the sense that something in America is deeply off. Homelessness everywhere. Families working full-time but still hungry. Addiction in towns that once felt safe. Neighbors treating each other like enemies. These are symptoms. And symptoms always point to something deeper.
hey guys
welcome to episode i think
fifteen of my 'UNDERSTANDING' podcast
recently i've been thinking about how societal problems
have ballooned so much since i was a kid
you know whether it's
you know
politics and our political divisions or poverty
homelessness
uh drug addiction
all these problems have just
feels like
they've exponentially increased in that time
and you know
i've been kind of like
looking at it like how did this happen
why did this happen and as i was doing that
i remembered something my
my father taught told me growing up
he was like if you ever find out i'm dying
i have some horrible disease
don't tell me i don't wanna know
and i was like
like practically
how does that happen
i think the doctor's gonna tell you right
not gonna tell us but in any case just
just to showcase that mindset right
just wanted to share that
because initially
i thought that was kind of an immigrant thing
and then my uncle is the complete opposite
he's like
goes in for all his preventative
you know health
you know visits every year
he sees the doctor he goes for his colonoscopy
he does everything and i was like okay
this isn't an immigrant thing
this is just a mindset thing
um you know
my father is definitely this guy is like
if i have problems i don't wanna know about them
i feel safer not knowing and my uncle's like
i wanna know what the hell's wrong with me
so i can fix it before it becomes a problem
and i i just have to share
i think we all fall as a society
we fall into um
more of my father's mindset
we've been really good at ignoring our problems
we've always had political divisions
but when i was growing up
during the general presidential elections
you know the
the primaries
they may talk about the differences within the parties
but during the general election
all the candidates came together
and almost said the same thing
because they knew the american population
had a pretty centrist view on the world
and they were trying to get everybody's votes
but what's happened in recent elections
you can see how divided we are
it's definitely gotten worse
and it's even spilled over and become
neighbors not trusting each other
neighbors hating each other
friends losing friendships
losing family relationships because of these divisions
um even spilling over and
and becoming political violence
so just that you know
those kinds of divisions that kind of uh
social upheaval has definitely
it expanded and exacerbated in the last few decades
if we look at poverty poverty
you know it we've always had poverty
every society has poverty
but it's definitely getting worse
i was listening to an npr interview at a a um
what was it it was a food pantry
and they were talking to people
and these people many of them had jobs
many of them also had snap benefits
they basically had food stamps
and they still had to come to this
this food pantry in order to meet their
their needs and these are people that are sacrificing
they're scrimping they're saving
they're buying like
you know processed meats and
and even though they know
it's not good for them and their families
but they're doing what they need to do to survive
and they still can't make ends meet with a job
with government assistance
and then we look at the drug epidemic
you know this used to be a problem
that was relegated to the inner cities
you know it's their problem
it's you know
they that
that that culture in those cities
they have problems those
those poor people
um and
and especially when the
the crack epidemic broke in the eighties
but now small town america
suburbia everywhere
you see the opioid crisis has
has hit us all
so you can see none of these things started big
they didn't just jump out of nowhere
they started small they started with
you know a family that needed a little extra help
maybe a town that lost
they lost their manufacturing plant
it could be you know
community that was ignored
it's it's
you know divisions that weren't healed
but instead poked and prodded and and
and and made bigger than it needed to be
meanwhile we all looked away
we all said this isn't our problem
this isn't my responsibility
this isn't my job and
this destructive cycle started
apathy
blame
and exacerbation so we ignored the problem
we blamed the person who
who was the victim of this problem
and then it just spread it grew and
you know we
we we
that increased our apathy
that increased our
our blame of those people suffering from this problem
whether it was poverty or drug abuse
and then it spread and it got worse
until
we are where we are today
you know i'm
i'm fortunate to belong to multiple cultures and
you know have roots around the world
and i can tell you that sick societies
they're not born they're made
what we're seeing today
isn't just chaos coming out of nowhere
it's a predictable result of years of apathy
of ignoring problems
of not addressing things that needed to be addressed
fortunately
a society when it's sick
just like the human body it gives us signs
it lets us know there's something wrong
it screams for attention
a society literally screams for attention
like i was saying earlier
you know i listened to the npr story
and here are people you know
some of them working on snap benefits
and they still need to go to a pantry
a food pantry to
to meet their
their needs for themselves and their families
that's a scream for help that's telling us that okay
what we're doing isn't enough
there's something wrong how can we address this
and i'm not pointing to a specific solution
it's just saying like okay
we need to pay attention there's something going on
and maybe blaming poor people isn't working anymore
and the same thing with with addiction
you know when it was in the inner city
you know yeah you could say
maybe this is a problem of this city
maybe the city needs to deal with this
maybe not rural America maybe not suburbia
but how can we say that
when the opioid crisis struck everywhere
when it did hit rural America
how can we still claim ignorance
how can we still say it's not our problem
when it's literally next door
when it's literally in our own home
and even the political situation
people may not know but imperial powers
you know for
for centuries
have used divide and conquer to control their colonies
the British used it the French used it
even we used it when we went into Iraq
dividing the Sunnies the Shia
and the the Kurds
and pitting them against each other
in order to maintain control
but how can we still ignore it
when it's brought into our own country
when we're told that Democrats are our enemies
when we're told that Republicans are our enemies
that these people are gonna destroy this country
that the poor are gonna destroy the country
that the rich are gonna destroy the country
I hope it's obvious that our leaders
who once use these tactics
overseas have brought it home
they've divided us
we can't afford to ignore this problem anymore
every time we look away that wound deepens
every time we say that's not my problem
that's their fault the infection spreads
America didn't suddenly get sick
we ignored all those parts that were hurting
that were slowly getting worse and worse
you know this is
this is something my grandparents understood
coming out of WWII
that the humanity society
the world it's like a body
and it needs to be treated like a body
you know we're all connected
we all depend on each other
if you end up being hurt you know
across town
it's not long before i suffer the consequences of that
you know even something as simple as homelessness
it's easy to blame them it's easy to say
you know it's not my problem
it's easy to say
it's not fair they're given free housing
when i had to work so hard
but you know what we all suffer the consequences
not too long ago i had a friend
college friend he's living in Dubai now
and he had some friends who were living there
and came to America and saw the homelessness came
came to here to LA
saw the homelessness
saw the poverty and were scared for their safety
for the safety of their children
and i can't blame them you know i
i don't feel safe when i go to LA sometimes
i don't feel safe for my kids
i don't wanna go there so
what do you think this person is doing
he's told my friend oh
don't go to LA
how many other people did he tell that to
how many people have come to New York
to LA to some part of this country
seen the homelessness seeing the the
the drug abuse
seeing the consequences of all these societal ills
that we haven't dealt with
went back home and said do not go there
you know we're already out of the way
when people you know
and we're expensive
and we're difficult to place to come to
this hurts all of us because
think about all the money that they spend
when they come here at hotels
at restaurants and then
the people who work at those hotels and restaurants
you know they spend their money in the community
so it it hurts all of us in the long run
so i
i hope it makes sense that this idea that a society
a community
um even humanity
is interconnected we're like a body
because if we understand that
we can start treating our society
our community as a body as interconnected
because let's look at medicine
how do we deal with sick people
you know if you look at cancer
for instance
by the time cancer spreads throughout the body
it's very difficult to treat
and so what we do is
we often set up screening tests to detect it
at an early stage
think about something like colon cancer
we do colonoscopies we do
you know little test to test for blood in the
in the in the feces
and all this is to detect um
early polyps and early cancers
that can be easily removed when they're local
um saves lives
it it
it saves families and similarly
if you look at infections
you get a little cut in your hand
you know do we ignore it
do we let it get dirty do we let it get infected
or do we put a band aid on it
we clean it out keep it clean
keep it dry why do we do that
because it can get infected
if we ignore the infection
it can end up in our bloodstream
if it ends up in our bloodstream
it can kill us so whenever we see a small harm
the earlier we detect it the earlier we treat it
the the
the more likely we save our life
we prevent complications we prevent problems
that become more and more difficult to
to treat and maybe even impossible to treat
it's the same reason we vaccinate children
you know polio crippled children and adults
measles killed children
all these preventable diseases
that are preventable today because of vaccines
we don't treat the illness
we don't wait till things are out of control
so in the same way when we're talking about societies
waiting until drug abuse is rampant
in a society waiting
waiting until poverty and homelessness is everywhere
it does make it a much bigger problem
it does make it much more expensive
it does make it much more difficult and so
we have to understand this
we have to whenever we see problems in society
apathy is the worst response
because it ignores the very nature of society
that we are all connected
that we're all if
if if i ignore your problem
then your problem becomes my problem
later on down the road in some way or form
maybe i directly have that problem
maybe i lose my home and i
i resort to drugs and i
i i resort to crime
and that harms you or maybe that all those harms
make it less likely that businesses will
will come to that area and that harms my opportunities
we are all interconnected
like i'm saying it it it
it's it's not always a direct line
but it happens and we're seeing it
we're seeing it today and
it's one of the reasons
we have more extreme politicians in place
right each one recommending a more extreme solution why
because we ignore the problem
we need to solve those problems
those little problems that have become big problems now
we need to solve them before they become even bigger
um there's no magic bullet
there's no magic ideology that's going to solve this
and if we look at the irony of the situation
you know
like how we treat societal problems
like what if we did that when
when we are harmed like we
we get a cut in our hand do we blame our hand
it's like you know
what if you didn't get cut
you know we wouldn't have this problem
you need to solve it right
you need to feel you need to fix it
well a hand can't clean the back of the hand right
if you got a cut in the back of your hand
it can't clean itself right
it can't
it doesn't have the intelligence to understand the
the the
the consequences of of not keeping it clean of
of of removing the dirt
of all those things you know
applying a band aid so
any harmed part of our body requires the mind
requires the other hand requires our legs
to get us to all the places we need to go
in order to find the medicine and the band aid
and all that stuff to
to keep it from getting infected
to keep it from becoming a septic infection
to keep us alive you know
um and in a similar way society
you know when one part is harmed
one part has fallen for drug addiction
it requires the rest of the society
that's functioning well to lift it up to
to to help it understand the problem it's in
to help it solve the problem it's in
so that it can also become productive again
just like our hand once we heal it
it's productive again it can help the rest of the body
but if we ignore it and we blame it
and we you know
we we allow the
the illness the infection to spread
we're all gonna suffer the entire body suffers
the entirety of society suffers
so what am i trying to say
we we
we sometimes look at compassion as a bad thing
as a charity as a sacrifice we're making
but in reality
being
compassionate
giving our time and energy and resources
to lift somebody else up
it's a practical thing it's
it's an issue of self preservation honestly
cause if we don't help people
if we don't help groups
parts of this nation that are suffering
in the end we all suffer
this this healing
it's it's not political
it's not ideologic it's not ideological
heck it's not even moral
ethical or religious
it's just practical it's just common sense
it's preventative medicine
it's the vaccine we need it's the the
the screening test it's the
the early detection and treatment
before problems become out of control
before the that
that that little cut on the hand turns into sepsis
um before that
that inner city drug problem
becomes a national drug problem
you know um
if we just developed the resources
to treat those people in the inner city
if we if we identified the problems
if we identified the causes
if we identified ways to treat them
then it wouldn't it wouldn't be able to spread
to the rest of the country
and and that's what i mean by it's practical
it's it's self preservation
it's preventative medicine
we don't just benefit others by acting compassionately
we benefit ourselves
so the law is simple what goes around
comes around if we wanna ignore homelessness
just be be prepared for it to affect us
to affect our business to
to affect our opportunities
um maybe
you know if
if some sort of financial crisis hits us
and we end up homeless then
you know
there's not gonna be anybody there to help lift us up
because of some unfortunate circumstances
we had no control over
the good thing is
compassion also goes around and comes around
all compassion also creates this virtuous cycle
so instead of a destructive cycle of what goes around
comes around
we can be part of creating a virtuous cycle
of compassion where okay
you've fallen down you're hurt
let me lift you up okay
now i've fallen down can somebody help me right
that is also a possibility that can also be our future
i hope we can all see now that America
the US our country
isn't sick because it's divided
we're divided because we're sick
and the moment we stop treating other people's pain
as separate from our own
and the moment we start treating wounds
as belonging to us
that's the moment our healing begins
and we may feel like this problem is too large
that this cultural shift is too big
but every cultural shift begins with an
a mindset shift in an individual
and this mindset shift like i'm saying
it's not ideological it's not ethical
it's not even religious it's practical
it's it's common sense at this point
we can see cause and effect
um we can see from history
like i said
my grandparents who came out of WWII
that if we view the our society as as
as a single body that we're all interconnected
we know what to do
we know when we see a part of us hurting
we address it we heal it
and the good thing is
i inherently believe that this compassion
this pragmatic compassion
if you if you will
it is
it is a part of us just as much as apathy
i think even more so
if you look at religious traditions from wherever
um you're from
they all talk about the the
our common origin
they talk about us being a single body
and whether it's Christianity
whether it's Islam even Buddhism right
there is something in us
whether you talk about evolutionary biology
um there is this common
origin this interconnectedness
whatever your ideology whatever your belief
what however you see the world
the oneness of humanity
and having compassion and connection
and love for one another to me
is even more natural than having apathy
and i think i believe
i know that
when we have these conversations with one another
they resonate they resonate on a very deep level
um and it's possible for
for
i think in america
it's more possible than in anywhere else
that we can shift we can
we can turn on a dime
when we realize that this is the truth
that this is the way out
that this is how we come together
and we solve this problem
if anyone can do it we can do it
and i i
i do fear the alternative
because most societies to make this kind of turn
it takes generations
and it takes wars and it takes poverty and famine and
and ignorance and dark ages and
i don't wanna i don't wanna go down that path
i because what happens after all these atrocities
people realize like yeah
we didn't have to do that
we didn't have to go through a civil war
you didn't have to fight and kill and die
to come to this realization
and like i said if anybody can do it
Americans can do it and i have hope in us
and you know
i hope you'll help spread this message
i hope you help spread this mindset
i won't even say it's a change this
this reconnection to our humanity
to what it means to be American
e pluribus unum from many one
and that's what we are
there's a strength in our diversity
there's a strength in our differences ideological
religious ethnic
racial all of these things actually make us stronger
it's only the apathy
it's only the hatred that actually makes us weaker
and once we wake up from that
i think there's nothing that can stop us
so spread the gospel thanks for listening
wishing you the best bye