2: I Am My Own Harmony - Lee Stephen | Ignoring driving and traffic rules | Captain Influence discusses Arrival | Yoda joins TRBS

Welcome back to The Real Brian Show! We've got a great lineup for you today, including special appearances from author Lee Stephen and Jedi Master Yoda.

In This Episode

• Thanksgiving is over. Now... Christmas!
• Coffee & tea recommendations.
• An amazing "unleash your superhero" moment!
• TV News: DC Shows crossing over this week, Arrow's 100th Episode
• Tony drops in to talk video games and review the new sci-fi movie Arrival
• A general observation of people ignoring driving and traffic laws!!
• Lee Stephen joins! Want to know the inspiration for his books?

My Own Harmony

"...The code is more what you'd call 'guidelines' than actual rules." -- Captain Barbossa Pirates of the Caribbean

In this week's episode of The Real Brian Show, there are a couple conversations about rules. It's interesting the way all these conversations came together, because it really draws out the dilemma we see on a broad scale in modern culture. On the one hand, we have rules that are meant to protect us. Laws that are put in place to try and get everyone on the same page, such as traffic laws. Stop lights, stop signs, speed limits, they're put in place to try and make people cautious and aware of the fact that they're driving a several hundred pound metal contraption that could instantly cause their death if mishandled.

On the other side, there are rules put into place that sort of establish a "status quo". They define how things can be done, but do not produce the same outcomes for everyone. When you disobey a traffic law, it puts your own life and other lives at risk and effectively breaks an operational paradigm. But when you disobey a law like, oh, how to record an audiobook, it can lead to ground-breaking success.

Lee Stephen joins Brian in this episode for a conversation that will really have you thinking about the value in leaving rules behind in favor of paving your own way. When it comes to finding a niche, finding success, Brian has done nothing but fight against the status quo! And we desperately need people like Brian and Lee to defy those odds in order to continue to produce good, new, unique content.

Part of the problem between the two sides of rule-breaking I've outlined, I think, is semantics. The English language has been rendered inert in so many critical aspects of conversation that we don't, and thus can't, reserve words for their pure intent. We use "monsters" to describe spiders and politicians; we use the phrase "who's your daddy?" to assert dominance or to literally ask who our father is; and we use "rules" to refer to instructions, guidelines, figures of speech, technique, or laws. In order to really understand what people mean, we have to have conversations. Which is not a bad thing, but it's hard to get those conversations going and, then, hard to get deeply ingrained idealisms to separate after years and years of coagulation.

Can you see where some people get the wrong idea about rule breaking? We teach kids, at very young ages, to sit still, listen to the teacher, don't talk when you're not supposed to, don't argue when you're supposed to be listening, and to regurgitate information on tests. Then, 15 years later when they throw their hats in the air, move on from college into the real world, they're suddenly supposed to have a mind of their own, come up with their own ideas and challenge the status quo.

We want people to obey the laws that keep them safe, but the code of conduct... it's just guidelines. Personally, I believe that because we don't use a lot of words the way they're meant to be used, and abuse educational institutions for behavioral correction, we lose a lot of structure in being able to communicate to kids, when they're most impressionable, the difference between the laws of physics and the laws of the road or the laws of the classroom. p = mv... do you disagree? Preventing children from behaving like children, preventing riled up little boys from behaving like the bundles of energy they are, we're raising a generation of kids who want to break rules. And that mindset permeates the barriers of physics, of the classroom, and of the road.

Links

• Lee Stephen @epicuniverse
• Epic Universe