Can two people both be right when they completely disagree? Yes, and a mountain explains why. What you can see depends entirely on how far up it you are stood.
Can two people both be right when they completely disagree? Yes, and a mountain explains why. What you can see depends entirely on how far up it you are stood.
Shout down the mountain and ask what they can see. Trees. That is not a lie, it is the view from where they are. You can see the shed in the distance because of where you happen to be standing. Both sides of the aisle care, and care deeply. We just stop asking what they can see and start telling them they are wrong.
One thing to try: In your next disagreement, ask what they can see before you tell them what you can.
In this episode
(0:01) The first episode of the year, and 1999 for some reason
(2:02) I can have a different truth to you, and both hold
(3:17) The mountain, and shouting down to ask what they can see
(5:26) Talking across the aisle, and not only about politics
(6:39) The echo chamber, adding to a truth you already had
(8:23) We do not like being wrong, and it shows
(9:38) Our truths are not as far apart as we think
(13:14) It is genuinely alright to disagree
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk
Thank you for listening.
Steven
The question this answers
Can two people both be right when they completely disagree?
Yes, and a mountain explains why. What you can see depends entirely on how far up it you are standing, and from which side.
To be clear, I mean multiple truths. Not alternative facts. Those are different things and this episode is not a defence of the second one.
The heart of it
Shout down the mountain and ask what they can see. Trees. That is not a lie, it is the view from where they are.
Both sides of the aisle care, and care deeply. We just stop asking what they can see and start telling them they are wrong.
I think mint chocolate chip is the best ice cream in the world. That is true for me and it is not a fact, and somebody preferring caramel takes nothing from it.
Where it goes wrong is when opinions get spoken as facts. I know they did it. I do not need evidence, I just know. That is not evidence and it is not truth, and there is a great deal of it about at the moment.
I wrote about this in a book years ago. Your mind starts as an open field. Every conversation puts up a tent, and the tents become buildings, and by your teens you have a fairly concrete town of beliefs. Somebody arrives with their town and neither of you is inclined to knock anything down.
And we add to it as we go. Imagine a flying gorilla with pink wings. Now give it a duffel coat and a hat. You have just built all of that. We do the same thing to conversations we replay, and to the ones we have inside an echo chamber.
I sit with twenty three other councillors and I quite like a cup of tea with the ones on the other side, because it gets heated and I usually leave having learned something. Sitting only with people who agree with me is like reading the same book again.
Nobody is a hundred percent wrong. Which is not at all the same as saying everybody is right.
Guilty by association is the version of this that worries me most right now. Plenty of photographs of me with people does not make me whatever they turn out to be.
One small thing to try
In your next disagreement, ask what they can see before you tell them what you can.
And listen to the language people use, including your own. Is it, that might be the case. Or is it stated as fact, immovably, by somebody who was not there.
Questions people ask
Is this a political episode?
It uses politics as the example because that is where it is loudest, and the same thing happens with your sister over what somebody said last Tuesday.
Does this mean nothing is a fact?
No, and I say so plainly. Facts exist and evidence matters. Multiple truths is about perspective, not about pretending everything is up for grabs.
Why does being challenged feel so bad?
Because we do not like being wrong. Tell me mint chocolate chip is not the best and my whole body says it is, and I will prove it. Noticing that reflex is most of the work.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
politics · values · ego
Read the transcript
So, welcome to Stillness in the Storms, the first podcast of 2024.
Wow. I can remember when I was looking forward to the party in 1999 thinking, wow, I cannot wait until
about 10 years. 1999 is going to be a New Year's Eve party like we've never seen before. It's like
24 years later.
Where does time go? I'm like 51.
Yeah, just wanted to share that. Anyway, this podcast is going to be slightly different. Most of you know that
I do dabble in politics. I am a city councillor and I was mayor for a couple of years and
I do believe that
politics and spiritualism have, they both have a role to play in each other. I think that if
people in the spiritual scene, meditators and people that have moved from their head to their hearts
don't engage in politics, I think politics will never change. And with the release of this list
today and all different things that are happening, we have two elections this year and I was thinking, what can
I share on my podcast that helps you to have some stillness in the storms that isn't overly political but
is really an important message on what have I learned? And I think it's this one.
There are multiple truths. And I don't mean alternative facts. I mean there's different truths. There's my truth,
there's opinions and there's truths. And when we start talking about our opinions as facts, and
I think I'm seeing that everywhere right now. People will talk about this list, they'll talk about politics, they'll talk
about the opposition as if it's fact like they know they're doing this, they know they're guilty. And when
someone challenges them and says, well, have you got the evidence of that? Well, I don't need evidence because I
know
now then that isn't evidence. That isn't fact that isn't truth. But I can
have a different truth to you and I'll prove it because I think literally the best ice cream in the
world is mint chocolate chip. My regular listeners will know that I love it. That is my go-to
one. And I think that's the best ice cream in the world. But that's my truth. It doesn't mean it's
true, it's true for me.
But I'm okay with someone else saying No, I think caramel or I think vanilla is the best ice cream
in the world. And that's okay because that's their truth. And I think one thing that about 10 years ago
when I started studying Ken Wilber levels of consciousness in a superhuman os Such a strange
name to call it that. But I, there was the selling, the marketing was become the best version of yourself.
And it really did help me to do that because it told me that everybody is where they are can't
do anything about it and every perspective is from where they are. So if you take a mountain and you're
climbing up the side of a mountain and
you ask you shout down to someone lower on the mountain, what can you see? Well,
they're going to tell you what they can see.
I cannot then go, no you're wrong because I can see this. We're
both right but we both have a different answer. And especially if one person's the other side of the mountain
and now add the complexity of growing up and different perspectives, different ways of seeing
things, different groups in society, different sides of politics, different teachers,
different ways that we feel things and different things that energise us emotionally. All those
kind of things all drive us to different conclusions and different opinions. And you know, I wrote in my book
The Moving Road that I wrote, God, I wrote that seven, eight years ago. Now you can find it on
Amazon, just type in the moving road on Amazon. And it's only on Kindle I think. But I, I explained
in there that when you're born you have, your mind is like a big fertile field. And every, every time
you have a conversation, every person that talks in front of you, you build a little, I don't know a
little tent and then the tent becomes bigger. And then you have the discussions. And as you get to a
teenage years, you've built these houses and all that and your opinions and beliefs and what you believe to be
true has now got quite a rigid concrete town. Someone else comes along and says, well from my
perspective you've got it wrong. And you're like, no I haven't. Here's my town. And they go, no, here's my
town. So instead of trying to listen to the other person and go, oh, maybe I'm a bit wrong and
maybe they're a bit right or maybe there's some truth in between, which we fundamentally deep down know that
nobody I talk to says no, my truth is the only truth. But it's whether or not we're really engaging
that in conversation and especially when we're talking to people across the aisle. And I don't just mean politics. I'm
here. I mean anybody, maybe my sister comes in and we disagree on something or we argue and they would
say, I didn't say that. And I go, you did say that vice versa. And it would become quite ingrained.
Whereas now I'll go, well I think that's what you said, but I might have misheard. It's
a possibility.
And the problem is when we play back information, we add information to it.
So if I told you that one of your really close friends said this sentence to you
and you kept repeating it in your mind, you could actually hear them say it in your mind.
If I turn around and said to you, imagine a flying gorilla with pink wings.
Well clearly that doesn't exist well they haven't found it yet anywhere on earth, but you're imagining it. If I
said to you it was wearing a duffel coat and it had a hat on, you've now added that to
the image as well.
And that's what we do in conversation. So we're in conversation with a group of friends in the echo chamber.
We're adding to our truth, adding to our belief and opinion. And just because you believe it to be true
doesn't make it true. And the reason why I share this on this podcast, the first one of the year
it seems a bit um I don't know it's not very heavy, it's not very deep. It's a bit spam,
bit span not spam is because I think in this year I think
it's going to get really messy. And I think that the wiser amongst us,
not putting me there, trust me, but I think there's the, there's a wiser group amongst us that have to
sift through this mess that is going to become And when someone says, I was looking at
podcasts today on Youtube and people were saying yes, he would definitely do that. I know for a fact
it's like, well you don't know them, you've never met them you're going by someone else's hearsay. But you
say it in such a way that it becomes fact. And I guess if this podcast leaves you of anything,
it's
take notice to the language. Are they talking Well that might happen or it's possible. Or are they talking
factually like as if they absolutely know and they won't move from it? The problem is when we challenge people,
and I know I do it, if someone challenges me, someone comes up to me and goes,
mint chocolate chip ice cream isn't the best in the world. My immediate body reaction is like it is. And
I'll prove it. You know that that's our immediate, we don't like to be wrong, we don't like to be
questioned. It annoys the heck out of that So I understand it. But the problem is when we
are found to be wrong, we learn something. You
know, I've got 23 other council members and I'd like sitting down with the ones on the opposite side to
me. And simply because we're getting a conversation and it'll get a little bit heated debate because we'll disagree
and I can leave there with either them learning something or me learning something
normally both. If
I'm just sat down with people all the time that I agree with, well that's just like sitting down with
me like reading the same book. It's a bit boring.
It's lovely to sit down with people that I find comfortable and I find really um I don't know an
echo chamber of me, but sometimes I want to be challenged and I want to have the conversation that we
can go a little bit deeper and go, you know, okay, let's break this apart. And
I think we're not doing this enough. And I think if we did do this enough, we'd realise that our
truths are not that far apart.
You know, both sides of the aisle care. They care deeply what they care about. It might not be what
you care about, but it's what they care about. And when we realise that you know, some people just care
about their parking spot, some people don't, some people care about their clothes, some people
don't. It doesn't make it wrong, it
just means they care about something. And
you know, I got, I got a friend that keeps snakes. I've
got nothing against snakes, but I don't think about snakes most of the day. It's not something I'd ever go,
yeah, let's get a snake.
But hey he's their own. It's allowing that and I think when we approach life that we're
all different and we know this fundamentally, I, you know, it's like I'm not teaching you anything new of course
you know all this. But
when we really
grasp that and we have the conversation with that light that you know, just because it's my belief and their
belief and they're two different beliefs, it doesn't mean either one's wrong and it doesn't mean either one's right, one
doesn't cancel out the other. You
know, there's two people up the mountain, one at the top can see the shed in the distance. One halfway
up can only see the trees. What can you see? I can only see trees. That's what I can see.
The other one I said, well you're lying because you're wrong because there's a shed in the distance.
It's a simple example. But with all the complexities of society and communities
and our upbringing and the way we see things, just
because we have an opinion on somebody and we think they are guilty of something doesn't mean they are.
And I think guilty by association is a real worrying thing.
I have 23 other councillors that I have cups of tea with quite regularly, most of them. And if one
of them turned out to be
um I don't know some criminal, mass criminal or something, I doesn't mean I am as well just because
there's loads of photographs. And I, and I know I'm hitting on a particular poignant topic, but it's really hit
the Uk at the moment and over in America and and I think it's just tearing us all apart. There's
one camp that yes, I know what goes on, yet they've never been there, they've never had anything to do
with And you've got the other camp trying to go oh wait a minute, let's step back and look at
this.
And it seems to be one half can see the world view, the bigger picture and one half wants
to see a certain image just because you want to see it doesn't mean it's true or right. So
yeah, I, I've kind of got sucked into this today and I I, I'm not going to apologize for this
podcast not being too spiritual or anything like that because I think the spiritual journey is about embracing multiple
truths and I think it's really important. And when you do that, you'll have a lot more peace,
you'll have a lot more, ah, it's okay, it's okay to disagree. It's okay to have their truth
and my truth and you know, they're not mutually exclusive. You cannot change facts, you cannot
change those things, you
know, although I think many people would like to do that even now. Sometimes I would, but you can't do
that.
Let's just face it. Look at religious beliefs. You've got all different kinds of religious beliefs and that's okay. I
like why Ken Wilber says nobody is 100 wrong. Even if it's just their belief.
Doesn't mean it's 100 right though. That's a different story. That's a whole, that's a whole seismic shift between
nobody is 100 wrong to Well that means everyone's right because they're not, you know
but we have to have some kind of fact checking and evidence, but we have to be practical about it
as well. And we have to learn to step back. And I think this is part of the spiritual journey.
And I often talk about not dropping negative people and not running away from life and spending your time on
retreat or out in nature. You know, if we could spend the rest of our life sat next to a
river, just going home with some music and some cool stuff in the background with a nice fire and marshmallows,
hey, no one would ever need a spiritual practice. No one would ever need, would they? That's a reality
But the truth is, we've got to engage in life. The truth is, we've got lives and we've got jobs
and we have to speak to these people, speak to these people like as if there's something different to us
we have to engage with our friends and family and our work colleagues and people we know. And in doing
that it's understanding that they may not be wrong and
it's okay for them not to be 100 right as well. And and for us, I
don't know if I've got what I'm trying to say over in this podcast at all,
let me know in the reflections. Let me know. Drop me an email on StevenWebb.uk over there it's just a
little button that says Message me, drop me that message. Sometimes I take two or three days to get back
to you, but I will get back to you. I promise
you guys are awesome. Thank you for bearing with me um every day. I'm getting stronger every day. I'm doing
better. I'm going now, whole days without taking painkillers, which is just like, I haven't been doing
that in two years. I've been living off codigemol which is, I don't know if you know what that is,
but it's like paracetamol with codeine in it or something. I literally six eight of them a day for that's
two years and now I'm not having to take them. So it's like brilliant. You know, I've got energy. I'm
not falling asleep saying that I did fall asleep earlier. But that's, that's a different story. Some days you can,
can you um I'm going off topic now. Look, thank you guys. Thank you for your coffees, thank you for
your donations. Thank you to everybody that shares this and thank you for bearing my bearing with me on this
podcast because I know it's a little bit different, but it's important really important that we understand different
people have different perspectives. There is multiple truths, even if it's just relative to us. That's the point. It's relative.
Two people can be in the same room, one can be hot and one can be cold. Doesn't mean the
room is a particular temperature. Well that doesn't make no sense at all. Maybe it does, I don't know Anyway
leave a review, give a, give a bookmark to this podcast or anything like that. That all helps. If you're
unable to donate a coffee, just, you know, leave a review or do anything or just listen. Be there,
