Episode notes
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
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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 the transcript
The transcript follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
0:01Steven Webb: So, welcome to Stillness in the Storms, the first podcast of 2024.
0:07Steven Webb: Wow. I can remember when I was looking forward to the party in 1999 thinking, wow, I cannot wait until
0:13Steven Webb: about 10 years. 1999 is going to be a New Year's Eve party like we've never seen before. It's like
0:20Steven Webb: 24 years later.
0:22Steven Webb: Where does time go? I'm like 51.
0:26Steven Webb: Yeah, just wanted to share that. Anyway, this podcast is going to be slightly different. Most of you know that
0:34Steven Webb: I do dabble in politics. I am a city councillor and I was mayor for a couple of years and
0:41Steven Webb: I do believe that
0:44Steven Webb: politics and spiritualism have, they both have a role to play in each other. I think that if
0:52Steven Webb: people in the spiritual scene, meditators and people that have moved from their head to their hearts
0:59Steven Webb: don't engage in politics, I think politics will never change. And with the release of this list
1:07Steven Webb: today and all different things that are happening, we have two elections this year and I was thinking, what can
1:14Steven Webb: I share on my podcast that helps you to have some stillness in the storms that isn't overly political but
1:21Steven Webb: is really an important message on what have I learned? And I think it's this one.
1:28Steven Webb: There are multiple truths. And I don't mean alternative facts. I mean there's different truths. There's my truth,
1:36Steven Webb: there's opinions and there's truths. And when we start talking about our opinions as facts, and
1:44Steven Webb: I think I'm seeing that everywhere right now. People will talk about this list, they'll talk about politics, they'll talk
1:51Steven Webb: about the opposition as if it's fact like they know they're doing this, they know they're guilty. And when
1:59Steven Webb: someone challenges them and says, well, have you got the evidence of that? Well, I don't need evidence because I
2:04Steven Webb: know
2:05Steven Webb: now then that isn't evidence. That isn't fact that isn't truth. But I can
2:13Steven Webb: have a different truth to you and I'll prove it because I think literally the best ice cream in the
2:19Steven Webb: world is mint chocolate chip. My regular listeners will know that I love it. That is my go-to
2:27Steven Webb: one. And I think that's the best ice cream in the world. But that's my truth. It doesn't mean it's
2:33Steven Webb: true, it's true for me.
2:38Steven Webb: But I'm okay with someone else saying No, I think caramel or I think vanilla is the best ice cream
2:44Steven Webb: in the world. And that's okay because that's their truth. And I think one thing that about 10 years ago
2:52Steven Webb: when I started studying Ken Wilber levels of consciousness in a superhuman os Such a strange
2:59Steven Webb: name to call it that. But I, there was the selling, the marketing was become the best version of yourself.
3:06Steven Webb: And it really did help me to do that because it told me that everybody is where they are can't
3:13Steven Webb: do anything about it and every perspective is from where they are. So if you take a mountain and you're
3:20Steven Webb: climbing up the side of a mountain and
3:23Steven Webb: you ask you shout down to someone lower on the mountain, what can you see? Well,
3:28Steven Webb: they're going to tell you what they can see.
3:32Steven Webb: I cannot then go, no you're wrong because I can see this. We're
3:38Steven Webb: both right but we both have a different answer. And especially if one person's the other side of the mountain
3:45Steven Webb: and now add the complexity of growing up and different perspectives, different ways of seeing
3:52Steven Webb: things, different groups in society, different sides of politics, different teachers,
4:00Steven Webb: different ways that we feel things and different things that energise us emotionally. All those
4:08Steven Webb: kind of things all drive us to different conclusions and different opinions. And you know, I wrote in my book
4:15Steven Webb: The Moving Road that I wrote, God, I wrote that seven, eight years ago. Now you can find it on
4:21Steven Webb: Amazon, just type in the moving road on Amazon. And it's only on Kindle I think. But I, I explained
4:28Steven Webb: in there that when you're born you have, your mind is like a big fertile field. And every, every time
4:36Steven Webb: you have a conversation, every person that talks in front of you, you build a little, I don't know a
4:41Steven Webb: little tent and then the tent becomes bigger. And then you have the discussions. And as you get to a
4:47Steven Webb: teenage years, you've built these houses and all that and your opinions and beliefs and what you believe to be
4:55Steven Webb: true has now got quite a rigid concrete town. Someone else comes along and says, well from my
5:03Steven Webb: 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
5:09Steven Webb: town. So instead of trying to listen to the other person and go, oh, maybe I'm a bit wrong and
5:14Steven Webb: maybe they're a bit right or maybe there's some truth in between, which we fundamentally deep down know that
5:22Steven Webb: nobody I talk to says no, my truth is the only truth. But it's whether or not we're really engaging
5:29Steven Webb: that in conversation and especially when we're talking to people across the aisle. And I don't just mean politics. I'm
5:36Steven Webb: here. I mean anybody, maybe my sister comes in and we disagree on something or we argue and they would
5:44Steven Webb: say, I didn't say that. And I go, you did say that vice versa. And it would become quite ingrained.
5:49Steven Webb: Whereas now I'll go, well I think that's what you said, but I might have misheard. It's
5:55Steven Webb: a possibility.
5:57Steven Webb: And the problem is when we play back information, we add information to it.
6:04Steven Webb: So if I told you that one of your really close friends said this sentence to you
6:11Steven Webb: and you kept repeating it in your mind, you could actually hear them say it in your mind.
6:16Steven Webb: If I turn around and said to you, imagine a flying gorilla with pink wings.
6:24Steven Webb: Well clearly that doesn't exist well they haven't found it yet anywhere on earth, but you're imagining it. If I
6:32Steven Webb: said to you it was wearing a duffel coat and it had a hat on, you've now added that to
6:38Steven Webb: the image as well.
6:39Steven Webb: And that's what we do in conversation. So we're in conversation with a group of friends in the echo chamber.
6:45Steven Webb: We're adding to our truth, adding to our belief and opinion. And just because you believe it to be true
6:52Steven Webb: doesn't make it true. And the reason why I share this on this podcast, the first one of the year
6:58Steven Webb: it seems a bit um I don't know it's not very heavy, it's not very deep. It's a bit spam,
7:03Steven Webb: bit span not spam is because I think in this year I think
7:10Steven Webb: it's going to get really messy. And I think that the wiser amongst us,
7:18Steven Webb: not putting me there, trust me, but I think there's the, there's a wiser group amongst us that have to
7:25Steven Webb: sift through this mess that is going to become And when someone says, I was looking at
7:33Steven Webb: podcasts today on Youtube and people were saying yes, he would definitely do that. I know for a fact
7:40Steven Webb: it's like, well you don't know them, you've never met them you're going by someone else's hearsay. But you
7:48Steven Webb: say it in such a way that it becomes fact. And I guess if this podcast leaves you of anything,
7:54Steven Webb: it's
7:56Steven Webb: take notice to the language. Are they talking Well that might happen or it's possible. Or are they talking
8:03Steven Webb: factually like as if they absolutely know and they won't move from it? The problem is when we challenge people,
8:10Steven Webb: and I know I do it, if someone challenges me, someone comes up to me and goes,
8:17Steven Webb: mint chocolate chip ice cream isn't the best in the world. My immediate body reaction is like it is. And
8:24Steven Webb: I'll prove it. You know that that's our immediate, we don't like to be wrong, we don't like to be
8:30Steven Webb: questioned. It annoys the heck out of that So I understand it. But the problem is when we
8:38Steven Webb: are found to be wrong, we learn something. You
8:42Steven Webb: know, I've got 23 other council members and I'd like sitting down with the ones on the opposite side to
8:50Steven Webb: me. And simply because we're getting a conversation and it'll get a little bit heated debate because we'll disagree
8:58Steven Webb: and I can leave there with either them learning something or me learning something
9:05Steven Webb: normally both. If
9:09Steven Webb: I'm just sat down with people all the time that I agree with, well that's just like sitting down with
9:13Steven Webb: me like reading the same book. It's a bit boring.
9:19Steven Webb: It's lovely to sit down with people that I find comfortable and I find really um I don't know an
9:27Steven Webb: echo chamber of me, but sometimes I want to be challenged and I want to have the conversation that we
9:35Steven Webb: can go a little bit deeper and go, you know, okay, let's break this apart. And
9:41Steven Webb: I think we're not doing this enough. And I think if we did do this enough, we'd realise that our
9:48Steven Webb: truths are not that far apart.
9:52Steven Webb: You know, both sides of the aisle care. They care deeply what they care about. It might not be what
9:58Steven Webb: you care about, but it's what they care about. And when we realise that you know, some people just care
10:04Steven Webb: about their parking spot, some people don't, some people care about their clothes, some people
10:12Steven Webb: don't. It doesn't make it wrong, it
10:17Steven Webb: just means they care about something. And
10:21Steven Webb: you know, I got, I got a friend that keeps snakes. I've
10:26Steven Webb: got nothing against snakes, but I don't think about snakes most of the day. It's not something I'd ever go,
10:33Steven Webb: yeah, let's get a snake.
10:35Steven Webb: But hey he's their own. It's allowing that and I think when we approach life that we're
10:43Steven Webb: all different and we know this fundamentally, I, you know, it's like I'm not teaching you anything new of course
10:50Steven Webb: you know all this. But
10:53Steven Webb: when we really
10:55Steven Webb: grasp that and we have the conversation with that light that you know, just because it's my belief and their
11:02Steven Webb: 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
11:09Steven Webb: doesn't cancel out the other. You
11:12Steven Webb: know, there's two people up the mountain, one at the top can see the shed in the distance. One halfway
11:17Steven Webb: up can only see the trees. What can you see? I can only see trees. That's what I can see.
11:23Steven Webb: The other one I said, well you're lying because you're wrong because there's a shed in the distance.
11:28Steven Webb: It's a simple example. But with all the complexities of society and communities
11:36Steven Webb: and our upbringing and the way we see things, just
11:40Steven Webb: because we have an opinion on somebody and we think they are guilty of something doesn't mean they are.
11:49Steven Webb: And I think guilty by association is a real worrying thing.
11:56Steven Webb: I have 23 other councillors that I have cups of tea with quite regularly, most of them. And if one
12:03Steven Webb: of them turned out to be
12:05Steven Webb: um I don't know some criminal, mass criminal or something, I doesn't mean I am as well just because
12:13Steven Webb: there's loads of photographs. And I, and I know I'm hitting on a particular poignant topic, but it's really hit
12:21Steven Webb: the Uk at the moment and over in America and and I think it's just tearing us all apart. There's
12:28Steven Webb: one camp that yes, I know what goes on, yet they've never been there, they've never had anything to do
12:35Steven Webb: with And you've got the other camp trying to go oh wait a minute, let's step back and look at
12:40Steven Webb: this.
12:42Steven Webb: And it seems to be one half can see the world view, the bigger picture and one half wants
12:50Steven Webb: to see a certain image just because you want to see it doesn't mean it's true or right. So
12:58Steven Webb: yeah, I, I've kind of got sucked into this today and I I, I'm not going to apologize for this
13:04Steven Webb: podcast not being too spiritual or anything like that because I think the spiritual journey is about embracing multiple
13:12Steven Webb: truths and I think it's really important. And when you do that, you'll have a lot more peace,
13:19Steven Webb: you'll have a lot more, ah, it's okay, it's okay to disagree. It's okay to have their truth
13:27Steven Webb: and my truth and you know, they're not mutually exclusive. You cannot change facts, you cannot
13:35Steven Webb: change those things, you
13:38Steven Webb: know, although I think many people would like to do that even now. Sometimes I would, but you can't do
13:44Steven Webb: that.
13:45Steven Webb: Let's just face it. Look at religious beliefs. You've got all different kinds of religious beliefs and that's okay. I
13:51Steven Webb: like why Ken Wilber says nobody is 100 wrong. Even if it's just their belief.
13:58Steven Webb: Doesn't mean it's 100 right though. That's a different story. That's a whole, that's a whole seismic shift between
14:05Steven Webb: nobody is 100 wrong to Well that means everyone's right because they're not, you know
14:13Steven Webb: but we have to have some kind of fact checking and evidence, but we have to be practical about it
14:19Steven Webb: as well. And we have to learn to step back. And I think this is part of the spiritual journey.
14:25Steven Webb: And I often talk about not dropping negative people and not running away from life and spending your time on
14:33Steven Webb: retreat or out in nature. You know, if we could spend the rest of our life sat next to a
14:37Steven Webb: river, just going home with some music and some cool stuff in the background with a nice fire and marshmallows,
14:44Steven Webb: hey, no one would ever need a spiritual practice. No one would ever need, would they? That's a reality
14:52Steven Webb: But the truth is, we've got to engage in life. The truth is, we've got lives and we've got jobs
14:57Steven Webb: and we have to speak to these people, speak to these people like as if there's something different to us
15:03Steven Webb: we have to engage with our friends and family and our work colleagues and people we know. And in doing
15:10Steven Webb: that it's understanding that they may not be wrong and
15:16Steven Webb: it's okay for them not to be 100 right as well. And and for us, I
15:22Steven Webb: don't know if I've got what I'm trying to say over in this podcast at all,
15:28Steven Webb: let me know in the reflections. Let me know. Drop me an email on StevenWebb.uk over there it's just a
15:35Steven Webb: little button that says Message me, drop me that message. Sometimes I take two or three days to get back
15:40Steven Webb: to you, but I will get back to you. I promise
15:43Steven Webb: you guys are awesome. Thank you for bearing with me um every day. I'm getting stronger every day. I'm doing
15:50Steven Webb: better. I'm going now, whole days without taking painkillers, which is just like, I haven't been doing
15:58Steven Webb: that in two years. I've been living off codigemol which is, I don't know if you know what that is,
16:04Steven Webb: but it's like paracetamol with codeine in it or something. I literally six eight of them a day for that's
16:11Steven Webb: two years and now I'm not having to take them. So it's like brilliant. You know, I've got energy. I'm
16:17Steven Webb: not falling asleep saying that I did fall asleep earlier. But that's, that's a different story. Some days you can,
16:23Steven Webb: can you um I'm going off topic now. Look, thank you guys. Thank you for your coffees, thank you for
16:28Steven Webb: your donations. Thank you to everybody that shares this and thank you for bearing my bearing with me on this
16:34Steven Webb: podcast because I know it's a little bit different, but it's important really important that we understand different
16:42Steven Webb: people have different perspectives. There is multiple truths, even if it's just relative to us. That's the point. It's relative.
16:50Steven Webb: Two people can be in the same room, one can be hot and one can be cold. Doesn't mean the
16:55Steven Webb: room is a particular temperature. Well that doesn't make no sense at all. Maybe it does, I don't know Anyway
17:02Steven Webb: leave a review, give a, give a bookmark to this podcast or anything like that. That all helps. If you're
17:09Steven Webb: unable to donate a coffee, just, you know, leave a review or do anything or just listen. Be there,
17:16Steven Webb: stay. Awesome. Thanks guys. I love you.
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