On this episode of the Intentional Evolution Podcast, host Vision Battlesword and guest Joel Bein dive deep into the concept of "paradigm" and its far-reaching implications for personal and societal evolution. They open with Joel Bein's personal philosophy, rooted in radical curiosity, childlike creativity, and the pursuit of self-liberation from conditioning. The discussion then explores "intentional evolution" as conscious, empathetic choices that ripple from individual growth to collective advancement, emphasizing empathy for one's future self, and especially the pivotal role of parenting in breaking cycles of inherited beliefs.

The conversation examines how paradigms operate as unseen patterns or default assumptions that guide behavior and societal structures, illustrated through educational and governmental systems. Joel Bein unpacks how traditional authority structures, learned from childhood, prime individuals to accept top-down control, which is mirrored in governmental and institutional paradigms. They discuss the transition from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation, advocating for sovereignty and self-directed meaning-making.

Drawing on parenting philosophy, nonviolent communication, and personal anecdotes, they elaborate how empowering curiosity and independent thinking in children (or society at large) can unlock transformational shifts, potentially leading to more imaginative, spontaneous, and freedom-oriented approaches to societal organization—including fresh perspectives on governance and infrastructure.

The episode’s core insight is that questioning default paradigms—shifting from “how things are” to “how could things be”—unleashes creativity and agency, both individually and collectively, setting the stage for genuine, intentional human evolution.

Show Notes

Chapters

• 00:00 — Opener & Joel's Exploration of "Being"
• 05:47 — What Does "Intentional Evolution" Mean? Personal Agency & Future Vision
• 12:16 — Paradigms of Parenting: Conditioning, Freedom, and Change
• 21:22 — What Is a Paradigm? Lenses, Patterns, & The Prison of Assumptions
• 34:29 — Paradigm & Pattern: Redefining Education and Personal Belief
• 41:52 — Government as Externalized Parent: Authority, Myth & Collective Choice
• 48:13 — How Beliefs Become Reality: Internalizing Paradigms
• 59:28 — Sovereign Parenting: Socratic Method & Cultivating Truth-Seekers
• 83:24 — Roads and Roller Coasters: Creative Possibility & Breaking Old Patterns
• 100:52 — Openness, Imagination, & The Paradigm Shift Ahead

Vision Battlesword: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to the Intentional Evolution Podcast. I am your host, Vision Battlesword, integral consultant and founder of iEvolve Life, a personal and professional development practice based on the philosophy of intentional evolution. This podcast is an ongoing conversation to explore that philosophy as well as to serve as a resource, a showcase, and a catalyst for ongoing growth toward the human singularity.

That is to say. Mass awakening of new consciousness, super intelligence and radical creative flourishing. Each episode, I'll feature a world class transformational facilitator, co-creator or friend, to reveal cutting edge psychospiritual technology, unpack our deepest wisdom and evolve our awareness. This series is based on value for value, so whatever value you receive from these transmissions, please return some value back in the form of a donation, directly supporting our contributors or offering your [00:01:00] own time and talent as a producer.

Thanks for joining me in this journey. And now here's our episode, Joel Bein, welcome to Intentional Evolution. How are you doing today? Doing great. Awesome. Well, we were just having a really stimulating conversation before we started this recording, and. I kind of wanna like get us back there, back where the, the juices were flowing a bit.

We were talking about all different things related to what we believe about the world and the kind of transformation that it seems that we're going through right now globally as a society, especially here in the United States. I think in particular, we were talking a lot about government and freedom, uh, Liberty, voluntaryism, and all kinds of interesting stuff that seemed to kind of be centering around one particular word or concept that we agreed was kind of like the central [00:02:00] theme.

And so that's what we're here to explore today. But before I jump into introducing what the actual topic is that we're gonna riff on, I just want to ask you my kind of standard starting question. And by way of introducing yourself, who are you, Joel Bein.

Joel Bein: Yeah. Well, thanks for having me. Who am I? That's the big question.

I like to frame that as what makes me come alive. And what makes me come alive is ideas, curiosity, radically curious about anything. I'm game to talk about any topic, and so that really just lights me up following that childlike curiosity. And so that, that's also a big part of who I am, is I wanna see a world where we liberate children, and that starts with liberating the child within us.

And that all connects to that curiosity and the creativity, originality and individuality of a child before [00:03:00] that child's conditioned by all these structures and systems and so forth. And so that's big for my core essence, I suppose, and I really enjoy the chance to help people. Decondition, and that's what I do with my business.

Unlearning the specific beliefs that are created through that conditioning in in school and from parents and society. And I also love art and beauty. I'm a classically trained musician originally, but it's interesting, like what does that mean when I say that? Is that me or is that just what I experience?

So much of my story has been about, I think shedding a lot of labels. I've become more and more interested in being free of labels, a minimalist when it comes to labels. But yes, I'm very much love the ineffable that comes from profound experiences [00:04:00] through music making and art. That's. Too difficult to put into words.

It's interesting how all of those different areas of inner child to curiosity, creativity to art and beauty and ideas and how they all perhaps integrate and merge into who I am. But that's the ongoing question. Ultimately,

Vision Battlesword: I, that's so fun the way you answered that. It's always interesting to me. I, I love asking that question to see what the answers are because they're always so diverse and I think it helps asking a question in that way.

Invites people to suspend their stories or suspend their scripted responses and actually do a, an introspection, an actual self-reflection in the moment, which is exactly what I just like witnessed you doing, which is so much fun for me. And I love that you brought up a couple of words I wrote down that I, I know we'll get into curiosity and conditioning two "C" [00:05:00] words there, but what you were just saying about when you talked about being a classically trained musician and then immediately self-reflecting on what does that mean for my being or what does that mean for my I amness and noticing that that's, that's a memory, that's an experience, that's a story, maybe a part of personal history, but like what does it actually mean for who I am?

I thought that was really fun and interesting. And then I was also reflecting on your name itself, which is spelled B-E-I-N. Correct? Which is like BE IN, it's kind of interesting, you know, just like thinking about that question of who are you, which is really targeted at, would you please reveal your being, you know, in this moment.

So thanks for an answering it so thoughtfully and thoroughly.

Joel Bein: Yeah, my pleasure.

Vision Battlesword: So before we jump in again to the main kind of meat and potatoes of our talk, I also want to ask [00:06:00] you, and this, the talking to you is especially fun and interesting for me. I noticed that we haven't actually really seen each other for a significant amount of time for a while, and yet when you came over and we were just kind of warming up and, and catching up for a minute, it was like one question in, you know, what have you been doing today?

And then we were immediately in this like deep philosophical conversation within a matter of minutes, which is, is great and so much fun and another reason why it's so fun. For me to have you on this show right now is because the phrase intentional evolution, you know where that came from. You were in the room

Joel Bein: Yeah.

Vision Battlesword: When it happened. And so it, it's just a rare treat for me to be able to ask you this question, especially like based on where we came from and where we are now, what is it five, about approximately five years later, what does intentional evolution mean to you?

Joel Bein: I guess I'll start by sharing what intentional [00:07:00] means, which is, I suppose, thoughtful and aware of individual decisions and also aware of how individual decisions ripple into the future.

And so other words that are related are like thoughtfulness and conscientiousness. So I really value intentional living to be aware of, is this what I truly want? For both my current self and my future self. I've shared a lot. This phrase of empathy for the future self. I love thinking about how much do I connect to my future self?

How much do I empathize with his experience and cultivating that radical, unconditional love, self-love to the point where you're so intentional that you're aware of, do I have an awareness? And so when [00:08:00] it comes to evolution, I'm interested in how humans as a species can evolve so we can live with more joy, flourishing, happiness, harmony.

And so when it comes to intentionality, it's, are you aware of your own power, perhaps in evolving your own personal life and evolving the entire species? One thing I love to talk about. Parenting philosophy and integrating in so many ideas that I've been thinking about learning about. I've been reading parenting books since I was 19.

That definitely makes me unique even though I'm not a parent yet. I have a list of parenting books that I send people. I've written blog posts and podcasts and all this stuff. And so one of the reasons I love that I'm passionate about that topic is I believe that when we treat children respectfully and healthfully, that's the the fundamental root where we can evolve all of humanity and we can break [00:09:00] cycles of conditioning.

There's that word. So it's like, are you intentional? About how you are as a parent. Are you even aware of how much power you have to evolve the entire human species if you have put more intentionality into that. So it's this integration of the personal empowerment and how that ripples into the whole world.

Vision Battlesword: Wow. I think that might be my favorite answer to that question that I've ever heard yet. That is really interesting to me. But I love the way you started it, and I love the way you finished it. That intentionality to you means thoughtfulness, awareness, specifically awareness of one's choices and their impacts to my current and future self.

An awareness of. The alignment of these decisions, these choices that I may make with my own desire, again, both in this present moment and into the future. That's such a [00:10:00] really poignant and crisp crystallization of the whole concept of intentional evolution, which I shouldn't be surprised, you know, coming from you knowing who you are, or at least how I perceive you to be, and the history that we have with this whole project and, and this whole term.

But I really, really like that the, the way you brought it back together again at the end. So there's an awareness of our intention and then there's an awareness of evolution as a process that this is, this is occurring, and then bringing together those two awarenesses, especially with some understanding of where higher leverage, let's say, or higher.

Higher power impacts in the evolutionary process can occur. For example, in parenting, in how we raise our children, what conditioning or in what way do [00:11:00] we help them to become sovereign in creating their own conditioning or coming to their own ideas or conclusions about how they want to be in the world.

Applying that intentionality in those situations that can have a higher impact, can dramatically change the trajectory, not just of our own lives, not even just of the lives of our lineage, but in your words, the lives of our, the life of our entire species. And that is exactly what I believe. That is what I believe that we are doing here with this project, and that's why it's so exciting to me.

Joel Bein: Yeah, I love integrating in the a hundred thousand foot horizon all the way down to the next physical action step. Do you have this big vision for what's possible in your life as well as for humans? Like I believe in a world of radical harmony, authenticity, joy, freedom, [00:12:00] trust, abundance, all these amazing elements.

The question is what's the next step in your own life for that? So when you start looking at it like that, I guess it gets real. Like you, your choices become more profound perhaps. You know, if you have a, the, the sailboat crossing the Atlantic Ocean two degrees, difference is the difference between getting to Africa or Europe.

It's like, what's your trajectory? What's this choice of how are you orienting and how that can contribute to the future and the wellbeing of your own life and the wellbeing of, of humans. And I just, yeah, it's, it's funny 'cause I didn't plan to say any of this stuff, but you, you've invited this question.

I'm like, I really think that's what in intentional evolution is. I really believe that we can create that beautiful, beautiful new world for humans. And I think people perhaps don't realize their own individual contribution to the systems in which we live. And we have this bias as a culture [00:13:00] where, well, this is how the world is and it's, this is the status quo and it's just gonna be like that.

And it's, it's a common one I hear is sometimes you just have to do stuff you don't wanna do. Um, talk about paradigms. We can get into that, right? That's a whole thing when it comes to parenting and child raising. You gotta cheat your kids that sometimes you just gotta, you just gotta do things you don't wanna do.

Do you

Vision Battlesword: believe that?

Joel Bein: No.

Vision Battlesword: Me neither.

Joel Bein: No. I think it's destructive to tell a child that I think it's just massive projection happening. And I'm like, but my point is like, hey, wait, no, you actually have the power to completely transform the nature of the systems or the reality. Like, and instead of just saying it's fixed, this is how the world is.

Life sucks. Then you die. Like text all, all is all at certain is death and taxes. It's like you are choosing to think that you could choose to shift and choose to be one of the pioneers of human evolution here in this next stage of development. [00:14:00] And it's your own choice of the mindset of the thoughts, the beliefs, and the actions, you know, that actually do that.

Vision Battlesword: Yeah. Something I want to just kind of encapsulate what I think I'm hearing you saying, which to me is just wonderful and beautiful that you're layering on to this kind of collective definition of intentional evolution that we've all been building together and we will continue to build, you know, throughout the entire course of this movement.

Is what it sounds to me like you're saying is that intentional evolution is a matter of coming into the awareness of our power and the influence that we actually have in. Shaping the big picture, the macro trajectory of where this whole thing is going. Species, society, civilization, the universe may be itself through our individual choice and our individual action.

That our impact [00:15:00] matters, that it's meaningful. And the degree to which we become self aware of that is the degree that our agency can become expressed in this grand experiment or experience that we're all sharing. And to me, what's coming into my mind right now is the butterfly effect. You know, that classic chaos theory metaphor of the butterfly flaps its wings in Ohio and a hurricane starts to form in, you know, off the coast of China or something like that.

But we're all these individual butterflies. We're all having these butterfly effects, but we are not fully aware, or maybe we don't fully believe in the potency of those choices that we make. Not just for now in our current moment, but cascading through all of the different branching timelines of all the [00:16:00] other choices that mix with ours into the future.

The point about awareness that feels really important as a puzzle piece that we're really anchoring in today about intentional evolution. Yeah, and I would just emphasize as well that I believe it's an inside out game. It's like you can change the world simply

Joel Bein: by being super happy yourself, by being super integrated, doing the personal development, creating community, creating healthy family, whatever it might be.

What doing what makes you come alive? Like what is it that is your purpose? Who are you? All this is right in the core of your sphere of control, and it doesn't need to be this altruistic, I need to sacrifice myself in order to change the world. That's like a fallacy, but it's actually, if you go, if you just did a hundred percent focus on all the above, making your life overflowing with, with joy and harmony and peace and health and so forth, then that is evolving, I would say the whole [00:17:00] species.

Vision Battlesword: Yeah. I'm, I'm glad you brought it back to that too, because there's one more point I want to add on before we jump finally, at some point into our big word for the day, which is, we touched on it in our kind of pregame warmup before we started the recording, but I didn't fully expand on it. And I want to, I would just wanna bring you into this concept as a, as a part of our context, as a part of our framing for the overall journey that we're about to go on, which is the human singularity.

And the reason I, I talk about this term is exactly to the point that you just made. There's something about our humanity and the role that we play in our uniqueness that feels really important to me. And you're right, at least I, I should say, I agree with you that there's an internal game and there's an external game.

And I think our culture, the one that we grew up in here in 21st century United States, seems to [00:18:00] emphasize the things that happen in the external world more than in the internal world. There's much importance that's being placed on the idea of technology in our world today, and that's all happening in the external world, at least as we're being told to perceive it.

There's this thing called the technological singularity, which is supposedly when the machines, the artificial intelligences in their self-awareness. Begin to rewrite their own software code. They become aware of what they're made of, which is essentially information. They become aware, self-aware that they can alter themself.

And due to the runaway nature of the speed at which computing power can move bits and bytes on data storage systems in an exponential fashion, they become super intelligent. And this is a process that can't be stopped once started. That's the technological singularity, like [00:19:00] the I analogy to a big bang, but with non-human intelligence.

And the point that I make with this, with the idea of the human singularity is that I believe that we are following a parallel trajectory to artificial intelligence right now because of the kind of psycho technologies and spiritual technologies that people like yourself and. If I may say so, me and many others in our community have learned and are beginning to iterate and innovate and disseminate more broadly, which is our ability to self-reflect on the fact of what our consciousness is constructed of and take ownership or sovereignty over the possibility that we can rewrite our own software code, that we can iterate our consciousness.

And I believe that human beings collectively have the potential to create a super [00:20:00] intelligence through the use of intentional evolution through rewriting our own belief systems, through clearing out the conditioning that may be in one way or another, holding us back from experiencing our full potential individually.

But then also there's something else that we can do. When we share our humanity with each other, that becomes something that is at least the equal of what a artificial super intelligence could be. So that's what I mean when I talk about the human singularity, is the idea of us, you and me and others, putting our heads together and expanding the scope of our possibility until we realize something that may be beyond our scope of imagination, even right now.

Joel Bein: I love that. It's very empowering, it's very energizing. When I hear you say that, I think there's again, that status quo bias. People typically think, alright, we have all this technology that's rolling [00:21:00] out and we're just gonna, hopefully it goes well and we're just gonna watch this technological singularity just compound and we'll just hold on for dear life or something.

Versus. At the same time, let me fully embody my power and expand and invest in myself and watch that compound, and watch that ripple and butterfly effect and, and share that. And it makes me think about how, how humans and technology can co-create when you have increasingly healthy or integrated consciousness from individual humans.

And now we're gonna team with technology. How can we make the life even more wonderful versus we're just holding on for dear life. You know, it's a totally different mindset.

Vision Battlesword: That's it. Yeah. Yeah. How can we meet the machines with our own superpowers and what, what can those [00:22:00] superpowers even look like? I think that's what we're all kind of exploring here in this scope of personal transformation, personal development, spiritual development, this entire realm.

Of the new paradigm, as we sometimes call it. So we make a lot of this term, you know, we're talking about old paradigms and new paradigms, and we decided to just explore the concept of paradigm. 'cause that's, I don't know, that's kind of really fascinating to me. What even is a paradigm?

Joel Bein: It's funny because I've never necessarily looked it up or specifically defined it, but the way I see it, it's our lenses through which we see the world.

It's our assumptions and beliefs and concepts. It's our, and a huge piece of that is self concept. What do we believe is possible and what do we believe is not possible? And so this can play out in so many [00:23:00] domains from political philosophy to, you know, education, which is another big topic for me, where it's like there's so much.

Assumption. For example, this has been what I've been talking about a lot lately, is this assumption that children must be compelled to learn math and reading. And that's a paradigm, right? So there's, there's a paradigm there where if we don't use some level of compulsion for those domains, for those subjects, those skills, then like everything is resting on those skills.

We must infringe on that child's own autonomy 'cause it's so frequent and I've, I've a lot of experience in education working with the children as well. And it is so frequent for children to not want to do the math or not want to read the book or do the writing assignment. What do they want to do? They wanna do what they wanna do.

You know, they wanna play, they want to create, there's a lot of [00:24:00] artistic, I, I believe the future is to do paradigms. Is is about like allowing the inner artist of the child to come through. And that could be building a business, that could be becoming a dancer, that could be all sorts of things. It's creating from desire.

And so like the paradigm shift I'm referring to in this domain is creating intrinsic motivation versus extrinsic motivation. Any level of we need to compel the child to do anything in order to learn. That's old, old paradigm is an assumption. And then the new paradigm is one of the play, the artistry, the creativity, the curiosity, all these frequencies, right?

Vision Battlesword: So if I can try and reiterate what I think you're saying is you're saying there's a paradigm, I think this is a great way of getting at the definition of paradigm is through examples.

Joel Bein: Yeah. I love doing examples.

Vision Battlesword: Yeah. To start with, let's, let's see where that goes. So there's an educational paradigm that you have observed that you've kind of discerned in our [00:25:00] culture, in our society, and the way we would describe the educational paradigm might be something along the lines of, there is certain information or certain skills that are absolutely necessary for a functional or flourishing life in our society, but we acknowledge that children actually would prefer not to learn them.

That's weird, but we acknowledge that. Right? So children would prefer not to learn the skills that are necessary for them to be functional. Therefore they must be made to do it. And so we will create some structure, which can look like a building. It can look like classrooms. It can look like timing and schedules.

It can look like systems of reward and punishment, but we'll create a structure in order to compel or coerce or in some way cajole these [00:26:00] young humans to absorbing the necessary information for them to have a functional adult life. That's essentially the educational paradigm is we would see it.

Joel Bein: Yeah.

That's the water in which the culture swims right now.

Vision Battlesword: Right,

Joel Bein: but just before I forget, I wanna say it could be the case that a child wants to do math and reading.

Vision Battlesword: Okay.

Joel Bein: But because it's compelled, it creates resistance.

Vision Battlesword: Interesting.

Joel Bein: Right. It's actually, I remember, I remember being pretty excited about math when I was younger.

By the time I got to seventh, eighth grade school had just made it mandatory and, and unfun and so, and because I was required and I was also not trusted to just do it in my own way or whatever. That's not, that's not typically welcome or that's not a standard way of thinking. And so when it comes to defining paradigm, it's, it's looking at what are the things you just assume or the way it is,

Vision Battlesword: right?

The what, the phrase you used a minute ago. It's the water that we're all swimming in. That's [00:27:00] feels like a really strong definition of what a paradigm is. 'cause again, the example that you just raised about the educational or the default, let's say educational paradigm, is probably something the vast majority of people have never even thought to question, right?

Is like, oh yeah, of course there are these subjects that we have to know because they're important for our life. And yet. They're not fun, they're not interesting. They're not the sort of thing that children would like, and therefore they have to be made to do it for their own good. I would say that story that I just told is what most people assume to be true and have never really even thought to question.

That's a paradigm, right? The thing that we assume to be true, the general consensus reality or consensus belief system of whatever is our current state, our status quo, we could call that a paradigm or is there [00:28:00] anything else about paradigm?

Joel Bein: Well, when I, when I think of the word, I have this image of like, there's a vastness.

There's like a, there's a valley, there's um, there's this array of, of a conceptual field, right? That we're operating in this conceptual field on this, this, this domain or, so it's not just a singular thing. It's an expansive experience of I'm in this, I'm inside of it. And that's sort of abstract, but I think there's something there where again, it's related to the consensus reality.

This is the reality. It's like the matrix type metaphor. This is the matrix. We just assume this is it. And so that's our paradigm. We're swimming in that

Vision Battlesword: for some reason the word dime or that, that word fragment makes me think of geometry. Like somehow the concept of paradigm to me raises a visualization of some kind of geometric structure.

Joel Bein: Yeah, that could

Vision Battlesword: be. Are you getting that? [00:29:00]

Joel Bein: That's kind of what I was sort of getting at Uhhuh.

Vision Battlesword: It's like there's a framework. It's a, it's a structure. It feels like a, um, I don't know. I mean, in a way it feels like a cage. It's, it's somehow made of points and lines or it's structural when for some reason that's, that's the visualization that I'm getting about paradigm.

Joel Bein: Well, I'm sure you know, like Plato's cave, right? And, and many people have that metaphor in their vernacular, right? So there's like, everyone's in the cave and that's the assumption. This is how it is. Versus, Hey, take a look outside the cave, and then, whoa, there's all this, this whole new like land of possibility.

It's a different container, if you will.

Vision Battlesword: Yeah. A container.

Joel Bein: Yeah.

Vision Battlesword: That's good. And in the case of Plato's Cave, the paradigm is the belief system that says, what I see on this wall is [00:30:00] truth, nature, and reality. That's what I'm trying to out. I think

Joel Bein: it's both, because there's, it's in one's mind ultimately, but within that concept in the mind is there's this, you've created the container in your mind.

Vision Battlesword: Mm-hmm. Right?

Joel Bein: This is how it is. This is, these are the structures, these are the constraints, right? The constraint and the education example. Math and reading must be mandated at the very least, if not more things that's just like, this is the constraint in that world that I've constructed. The worldview, the container, the paradigm.

And so if, if, if it's a container, then there's always gonna be an edge to it, perhaps.

Vision Battlesword: Yeah.

Joel Bein: It's not limitless. I don't know. Maybe.

Vision Battlesword: Yeah. Yeah. This is

Joel Bein: too abstract.

Vision Battlesword: No, not at all. I, I mean, not to me. I mean, I'm having a lot, I'm having a lot of fun, and I love the word constraint. I think you're onto it there.

Yeah. It's, it's like a paradigm is a set of constraints that defines the scope of reality or that defines the scope of possibility. Yeah. Within [00:31:00] the current system. So in the case of the allegory of the cave, the people in the cave are chained, aren't they? They're,

Joel Bein: I'm not, I'm not sure actually.

Vision Battlesword: I believe the way the allegory to the cave goes is there's some people who are inside of a cave and they're chained.

Such that they can only face one direction. That is to say, away from the opening of the cave. They can only face the wall. The back wall. And behind them is a fire and actors or people who are creating shadows, creating a reflection on the wall. Sort of like, you know, imagine some people who are restricted, so they can only face a movie screen and they're watching a movie.

But this is of course prior to photography. So it's a fire and it's a cave wall. But that's the idea, is they are physically limited, they're restricted to only being able to see what they can see. So, uh, you know, essentially [00:32:00] the allegory is for these people. They believe what they see on the cave wall to be the sum total of reality.

But suppose that they could be. Freed and then turned around and shown that this whole thing is an illusion. I think that's the basic premise of what Plato was trying to say, but that's interesting to me in the sense of paradigm, because there's two parts to the story. Then there's the external constraint and there's the internal constraint.

The two are kind of in lockstep. If one could free oneself internally, then you could become aware of the limitation, the restriction, the illusion. You could at least become aware of it, even if you couldn't necessarily physically alter your situation, you would at least have the awareness that, like what I'm seeing on the cave wall is not all that there is, but the physical limitation is also relevant to creating the illusion.

What do you think [00:33:00] about that?

Joel Bein: Yeah, I think the limitation is relevant. I guess the question, that agency question is a big one. Um, I haven't studied the algorithm of the cave enough to know the specifics of that, whether they had the physical ability to shift, but regardless of the original story, the value to extract here is something along the lines of, do you choose to turn around to look outside the cave?

I think one of the interpretations of that story is people are trying to, to tell them, the people who are facing the wall, Hey, you can look, you can look out here. This is actually reality. And they're like, oh no, this is it. Whatcha you talking about? You're crazy. There hasn't been that full there facing of acknow.

Acknowledging the limitation, acknowledging this constraint, and then also entertaining what could be the new possibility in paradigm.

Vision Battlesword: I'm curious to see what the dictionary says about the word paradigm. Yeah, you open

Joel Bein: to it. Cool. [00:34:00]

Vision Battlesword: Paradigm pattern. Example. To exhibit side to show side by side a pattern, an exemplar, an example, a case or instance to be regarded as representative or typical,

Joel Bein: wow,

Vision Battlesword: an example or a pattern to be followed.

Joel Bein: Well,

Vision Battlesword: I think think that's how we Mostly

Joel Bein: the word typical.

Vision Battlesword: Yeah, go ahead.

Joel Bein: The word typical is a key word there, where we're assuming this is normal. It's normal.

Vision Battlesword: Yeah. The typical pattern, essentially the universal pattern, if you will. But yeah, it's basically a pattern or an example. The word example comes up a couple of times, like as in, here's the paradigm, compare your thing to this.

Does it match? Does it fit?

Joel Bein: So there is a geometry tie in

there

Vision Battlesword: with patterns. That's really [00:35:00] interesting because we make a lot out of this word. In our culture, don't we? And just kind of means pattern, but it also makes sense. Like taking, going back to your education example, when we say paradigm, when we say the educational paradigm, that is basically what we're saying.

We're saying the template, the pattern. Yeah. The example to be followed. So we're talking about wanting to have a new paradigm or making a paradigm shift. We're saying we're gonna write a new pattern or find a new pattern to put in that special space of the example to be followed.

Joel Bein: Yeah. So I guess it begs the question, how is the pattern constructed and created?

Vision Battlesword: Okay,

Joel Bein: break that down. Okay. If there's lines or there's shapes or whatever we're calling a pattern, well then it comes to human, human behavior or culture or whatnot. There's a pattern when it comes to how children learn. This is the template. We need to put the kids into this school building [00:36:00] for 35 hours a week for 12 years or whatever.

Then they can. Est this information, this is the pattern, or what's the underlying constructs of that? It's based on assumptions. In order for children to have a good life, they need X In order for children to learn, they need X in order for whatever. There's always beliefs about children, about learning, about education, about success and so forth, and that's what I get curious about, like how do we examine those to begin with and then entertain?

Maybe we can construct a new pattern. One that just popped into my mind spontaneously, ironically, is the word spontaneous, the concept of spontaneous learning versus top down controlled learning. So it's a different pattern. So I believe play and spontaneity from the child's curiosity is the most organic, healthy version of learning.

That's a different pattern compared to the pattern of the teacher needs to install this information into the child, [00:37:00] whether or not he likes it.

Vision Battlesword: Mm-hmm. What do you think most people mean when they say they'd like to create a new paradigm for life or society or culture?

Joel Bein: Well,

Vision Battlesword: I mean, I think at the abstract level, the broad level it's,

Joel Bein: it's saying, Hey, I want things to flourish more.

I want to shift. I was saying before we started recording, like the human organism or all organisms are intrinsically designed. It seems to blossom, to crave expression, flourishing. So if there's someone saying, I wanna have a new paradigm shift, if I can shift this, then maybe life will become better. It's like people are craving some sort of, I mean, there's all sorts of examples we could go into.

Vision Battlesword: Yeah. Or at least different, like whatever this pattern of life or society or the way things are going, the status quo, I'd like it to be different. [00:38:00] I'd like for there to be d. Rules. I'd like for there to be different constraints. Maybe I'd like to see the world through a different kind of lens or be with people who are all seeing the world through a different kind of lens.

So I think the word pattern doesn't really disrupt. I think it makes perfect sense. The question is a pattern of what in this case, I think when we're talking about a paradigm, an educational paradigm, we're talking about a pattern of how we want to teach children the skills and information that they need to know about the world.

We could be talking about a government paradigm or a paradigm of the way that we organize society, which is just simply the pattern that we follow, which includes a whole bunch of different rules and structures and assumptions in traditions. We can be talking about the paradigm of our belief system, which is again, the pattern that [00:39:00] our structures of thought are following as their default setting.

So all kind of makes sense. It's just, I think what I'm realizing now in exploring this word more is that paradigm is actually a lot more universal. It's very much like some of the words that we explore on this show oftentimes, which is that different people are actually using the word in different ways to mean different things.

But we've never really gotten clear on that. We're just talking about, oh, I would like a new paradigm, or I would like to experience a transformation into a new paradigm, which is another phrase that I hear often kind of in the circles that we are in. But really a good question is, okay, like what kind of paradigm are we talking about here?

And then therefore, well, what kind of transformation would you actually like to create or experience? Maybe clarity can be helpful.

Joel Bein: Yeah, clarity and And the vision to look at what is it that you want instead. Why do you want that? And what's going on internally? Literally like neural structures, the [00:40:00] patterns in your own brain, the beliefs, the assumptions that are contributing to that.

So like the government example is a big one that I'm, I talk about, and you, you not, I can riff on this perhaps, but let's do it. Okay. It's like there's basically a belief and perhaps a superstition that in order for society to function, you must have a top-down centralized government. And so that's the pattern, right?

And that's based on like I would say a fundamental human nature assumption that without a top-down authority, humans become chaotic and there's gonna be all sorts of violence unless there's a top down control system to keep a lid on it. All right? That's kind of in a nutshell of what the assumption is that we're not gonna have basic safety security in order unless we have the final.

Authority, unless we have this monopolistic police force to make sure that X, Y, and Z, then if we don't have that, then it'll be chaos. [00:41:00]

Vision Battlesword: Okay. So in the ca, let's, I just wanna take it step by step. Sure. And break And break this down real crisp. So in the case of the paradigm of government, the pattern, the example or template is we have this template model of government, which always tends to include certain assumptions that most people have never even really thought to question.

Or maybe, maybe not most anymore, but maybe many people. I don't know exactly where we're at with that, but many people have never thought to question, and that's what kind of makes it the water that we're swimming in. That's what makes it such a universal example that we assume it to be the only maybe.

Way, the only template available in the case of government. What you're identifying is that that includes a key feature. That there's some group of individuals who are placed [00:42:00] into a role of authority and have the authority to dictate the behavior of everyone else in the group, everyone else in society, and that that's just a natural assumption that we make from our paradigm of what a government even is.

It's a group of people who have authority over everyone else and the right to subtract some of their liberty or autonomy or freedom. Do, do, do maybe for the good of all or something like that. We might fill into the pattern. Maybe it doesn't need a reason to be a paradigm, but that's generally where you're at so far.

Joel Bein: Yeah.

Vision Battlesword: What else is true about the paradigm of

Joel Bein: government as we understand it

Vision Battlesword: now?

Joel Bein: Man, probably the assumption that it's there. With good intentions. Maybe that's more of a gray area,

Vision Battlesword: but it's for our good, it's for our own good. Right. That feels like it's part of the paradigm or it's necessary in the same way that in your educational paradigm, the children don't wanna learn reading and [00:43:00] math, but it's necessary.

It's for their good, and that then therefore creates the right or permission to subtract some of their autonomy, even consent to ensure that that happens. That's a part of the paradigm of government.

Joel Bein: Yeah. So like I think it's both. It's, it's this four year own good, but then it's also, I think it's the intention sometimes, at least in some sort of sectors of human culture, there's a worshiping or um, a pedestal of government workers where like, oh, this person is, is a public servant.

This person is not here for the money. They're just here to, I altruistically serve. And they're here because they care about the community. And so that sort of assumption that the, the intention is there to be benevolent.

Vision Battlesword: Yeah. I'm starting to sense that there may be a blurry line here somewhere [00:44:00] between what is the paradigm or the pattern versus what is the myth, you know what I mean?

The mythology, like, I think there's an almost an aspect of storytelling that's starting to come into play a little bit where you could say the pattern is we put some number of people in authority over all others, and we do that for the good of all others, assuming that we believe that. And then maybe we could say that part of the pattern is that those people that we put in authority must be or ought to be altruistic.

Because of our acknowledgement of the power transfer that's happening here. The mythology might be that they are actually altruistic or you see what I mean? But maybe part of the paradigm is that we somehow internally recognize that they better be, or else this paradigm might be broken. Right?

Joel Bein: Yeah.

There's so many directions we could go with that. [00:45:00] I mean, my kind of sweet spot with this stuff is like, why do we have that mythology? Why do we have that? You know? And that's where I, I connect the dots with like the parenting thing where it's like, do you wanna go there?

Vision Battlesword: Yeah. No. Yeah. I, I think, I think you're right over the target.

And I think it comes back to conditioning.

Joel Bein: Yeah.

Vision Battlesword: Curiosity. Constraints like some of these other C words that I wrote down earlier. Now I think we're really getting into the juice of the conversation where it's like, okay, the internal pattern and the external pattern. Now we're kind of like coming full circle back to that original point of noticing that we had, it's like, okay, so the actual government structure is the external expression of a paradigm.

What is the internal origination of that? And that's where it comes into your body of work, your subject matter expertise in transformation of the belief system. So yeah, let's, let's explore that.

Joel Bein: Yeah. So I [00:46:00] like, and this, this integrates in the psychology, this integrates in the belief structures. And then why, why are the belief structures formed to begin with as a big part?

Why do we create limitations in our early childhood experience or just our childhood experience, typically about ourselves, about the world? Often it's because we are by survival. We need to attach to our parents. We need to create that attachment, otherwise we're alone. That's kind of the nature of childhood.

We physically, our survival as well as emotionally, our survival, the core need for safety and love. So when it comes to attachment and seeking to be as clear here as possible when it comes to connecting the dots to the, the external and the government apparatus and structure. But what I'm getting at when it comes to this parallel, right, so the idea that the government officials, they better have a good intention, right?

For your own good. That's a concept. And we can map that onto [00:47:00] the, the typical conventional parenting paradigm, which is the parent does something that infringes upon the child's autonomy and the child must continue to attach and so will justify that infringement. As a survival mechanism and create some sort of belief, often like a self-limiting belief, like about oneself not being enough or something like that, that is gonna better explain why their needs were just infringed upon.

Because if they, if, if they started saying, oh wait, my parents actually intentionally hurting me or is, is not actually safe, or something like that. This is really, this is a really subtle territory, but just bear with me everybody.

Vision Battlesword: You're doing great.

Joel Bein: Okay. There's an incentive to just assume that the parent is benevolent or the parent is not actually projecting on their own wounds to the child.

Like all [00:48:00] that is just way too much to comprehend as a child typically. And the child is, first and foremost is gonna prioritize attachment over authenticity as Gabo Marte the trauma researcher talks about. So I'm gonna suppress my own self assertiveness perhaps. That's what it takes to survive. And I also incentivize to continue to love my caregiver, even if they're hurting me.

And so I, I can't even comprehend, it's like too much to even comprehend the, the idea that this is actually an abusive person or maybe not abusive, just someone who's hurting me in any way. It could be mild or severe. I'm talking about the most wide definition of like conditioning or trauma or whatever here.

Anything that's kind of compromising your own self and your own needs and so forth, the child will often simply put up with that, tolerate that, dismiss that, or just put it on oneself with creating beliefs and so forth. There's this sort of oppositional energy where you simultaneously [00:49:00] want to love the person that is hurting you, potentially.

I'm saying hurting and, and it could be a very, what we typically think of as mundane, it could be just like, yeah, you need to go do your math homework. 'cause you gotta do your homework. 'cause sometimes you gotta do things you don't wanna do, right? Like right there. I would say that that is damaging, a damaging moment between parent and child.

Tell me more about that. Why is that damaging? Because it is inherently win-lose versus win-win, and it's disregarding the child's own freedom, autonomy, choice. Let's break

Vision Battlesword: that moment down. So we're in that moment where a child is resisting an activity and a parent communicates to that child. The belief, the statement about reality, the truth of how the world works.

From that perspective, of course, the truth, which is, listen, child, something you need to [00:50:00] know. Sometimes you just have to do things that you don't want to do. What has just happened in that moment? Has a paradigm been transferred? Has it been formed? Has it been imprinted?

Joel Bein: Well, of course every moments can be different, but the incentive is to internalize that.

So I would call that, that's a projection of the parent's belief system. And then the child internalizes the projection, so it's known as introjection, and the incentive is to interject because the underlying subtext of that moment is, I'm bigger than you and I decide what's gonna happen here. Right. It could be the case that, like when I'm talking about sovereign freedom-based parenting, I say, you can, as a parent, you can still challenge a child.

You can still strongly encourage something or adamantly encourage something, or adamantly vocalize your desire. For them to learn a certain thing [00:51:00] or believe a certain thing. But it depends on the vibe. It depends on the, the atmosphere. It depends on the, the, the premises in that family environment, like is the child's ultimately, is the child's own mind going to be respected?

Is the child's own autonomy going to be respected or not? If there's any subtext of, well, listen, at the end of the day, I'm your parent. If there's that vibe, which is typically a, a subtle, nonverbal thing, then the, the, the child's incentivized to just, okay, I'm not gonna push here. 'cause there's implicit understanding.

If I keep trying to push back, it might not be good 'cause this human is two times, two times or three times my size. Again, there's all sorts of like, variations of degree in terms of how severe these types of dynamics can be. But just like on principle, if there's any subtext of, well, at the end of the day, I'm the parent.

I get to decide what you need to do because I know it's best for you and it's for your own good and all that stuff. The incentive is. The child's dependent upon the parent. [00:52:00] So they sort of learn to acquiesce and adapt, and that's when they create the belief structures. And they might go ahead and interject.

I guess it is the case because if you're just trying to keep fighting the cage, it be, it's becomes, um, exhausting if nothing else. And so I'm just gonna go ahead and yeah, maybe this is the way the world is. And of course as a child, like that's your whole world is just like, this is like your family is your whole world.

You know, you don't have the concept of, of greater world typically. And so that's typically this type of thing that happens is that the child internalizes that belief projection and is incentivized in order to stay attached to the caregiver. And so just to briefly tie back to the government piece, it's like, it's kind of the same thing.

There's just this authority and if you start realizing that this is a cage, that could be really disorienting.

Vision Battlesword: We're gonna come back around to that. Okay? Uh, I'm trying to build us back up to that, to making the okay. Link back from the internal to the external. [00:53:00] And what I'm noticing about that moment. If it's okay if I can offer my reflection what I'm noticing about that moment between the parent and the child.

I noticed something different than you did. So we're, we're seeing two things here. You're seeing a piece that has to do with force, and what I'm hearing you saying now, understanding the harm that you're saying can be caused, there's an aspect of a larger, more powerful human overriding, a smaller, less powerful human's sovereignty of constructing their own belief system essentially, and imprinting something on them.

That forceful act itself can be damaging. I agree with you. I'm seeing a different piece. Which is that, let's take the force and the domination component out of it for a moment and just say that it's likely the case that you use the word incentives a number of different times. It's [00:54:00] likely the case that children are incentivized or maybe even wired during certain stages of their development to be actively receiving the information from their environment, especially from their caregivers, because that's how we do actually get programmed acculturated conditioned socially as social animals.

So let's just say that's not a forceful act, but it's just, it's an act that's completely consensual. Listen, Johnny, lemme tell you about something about the way the world works. Okay, daddy, mommy, whatever. I'm ready. Load me up. Give me the paradigm. Sometimes you just have to do things you don't want to do.

Got it loaded. That is a pattern. That's exactly what it is. It's a paradigm. It's the example, the exemplar, it's the template structure now that that child gets to compare everything else against from that point forward, the template is when feeling resistance to something that you don't want to [00:55:00] do. Be aware that sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do.

And now that plays forward in all different situations all throughout life, including our relationship with authority figures of all types, like the government. You see what I'm saying? So I think we're getting, we're actually getting to something really at the heart of what a paradigm is and how our internal, let's say meta paradigm, if you wanna call it that, which may be built up of these multitude of smaller patterns, but our meta pattern, our great, the pattern of our overall belief system.

That really is kind of like a reference guide, a knowledge base that we then compare new sense data, new experiences to, to say, okay, does this match, does this vibe? It is a paradigm in that way.

Joel Bein: Yeah. Yeah. I think you're, you're effectively isolating the, just the concept from any emotional experience.

Vision Battlesword: I, I, in this moment I am.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's

Joel Bein: really helpful.

Vision Battlesword: We're [00:56:00] really intellectualizing it. Yeah. But I, I like to try and break, think it's piece by piece. It's

Joel Bein: useful. Yeah. It's really useful to, to say this is the mechanism of programming. Yes. Or acculturation. And I think it's helpful for clarity to separate that from like the, any psychological, emotional reasons that this child is taking on the belief structure.

But if we just isolate that, yeah. There is some transference of concept and the child has now absorbed that for better or for worse, and then that is the reference point. They have this encyclopedia of beliefs.

Vision Battlesword: So if that is our collective reference point, if that particular pattern template continues to get cloned copied from person to person to person, to person to person, proliferating throughout our society, would it be surprising that we collectively then give rise to an external structure that looks like that course?

Do you see what I mean of

Joel Bein: Yeah, and there's different beliefs, structures that are in the same category [00:57:00] as the one example we've given about sometimes you have to do things you don't wanna do and just beliefs about the nature of authority and how much agency do I have, and all these things are all in that same category.

And so yeah, it's just basic structures of beliefs and paradigms that people are just plugged into. But it's like the opportunity for personal development and, and expansion and paradigm shifts is when we question that.

Vision Battlesword: Up to a certain point in our development as humans. Maybe you'd agree. We're built to agree.

I just said maybe you'll agree. We're set up to agree.

Joel Bein: Yeah,

Vision Battlesword: that's that as our default pattern. As our default paradigm up to a certain point when we somehow begin to realize our own agency, when we claim our sovereignty. Maybe that's the period in our childhood when we do become openly rebellious.

Joel Bein: When we do well, it's interesting.

Sorry to interrupt Eugene. Go ahead. It's interesting the premise there, 'cause maybe a future world that's like fully integrated, healthy and all the [00:58:00] things, and this and sovereign parenting is the norm. For me, that includes a meta philosophy of meta, a meta parenting philosophy around respecting the child's mind specifically around.

What structures they choose to create. Now, maybe to some degree there's an automaticity of meaning making that's happening in the early childhood years that just the child is just gonna create that meaning. But like, my desire for my future children is like to have a meta awareness or a meta philosophy around, I wanna create like a truth chamber.

I just pop up in my brain that term, like this is a truth chamber. This chamber kind of sounds weird though. Um,

Vision Battlesword: truth bubble, truth container.

Joel Bein: Yeah. Something like that. And, um, I, my, my meta desires for the child to be as truth seeker on his or her own with her, his or her own volition. And so I might say something that is actually objectively true, but I don't want them to believe me just because I said it.

And so that example of [00:59:00] like the parent, I'm gonna tell you how the world works to your child. Like, I won't even want to do that. I might say something that I feel I've, I feel strongly about or. That could actually be the truth. But there's always this Socratic environment where like, well, don't believe me just 'cause I said so.

Like, do you think that's true? And so I think in that paradigm of meta parenting, if you will, when it comes to determining what truth is, I could see that there might be less like automatic absorption of assumptions maybe in like the earliest years. There's just, there's not enough volition for the child to, to do, to do that independently.

But even like as young as age two, I think that's totally, totally possible for the child to be an environment where from early on the parents are actively encouraging the child to question

Vision Battlesword: everything. And through that questioning, 'cause my understanding of what you're [01:00:00] saying is the questioning itself is a means to an end, but where the end destination of that process is that they're actively fostering, the parents are actively fostering.

Encouraging and empowering the ability of the child to create their own belief system from their own agency rather than just taking it on and absorbing it from their environment. I'm glad you brought that up because I wanted to make a pivot at some point to ask you to go back into that moment again and rewrite it and tell me like what would it look like?

What's your paradigm? What's your pattern?

Joel Bein: That's a fun question

Vision Battlesword: of how that moment would look like, and then to describe that. To take that and define it and break it down of like, okay, what is, because to my mind that is, that's not the absence of a paradigm. That's a different paradigm. The way I look at it, that's a different pattern to instill with the child rather than the [01:01:00] listen to me, do what I say, do what I do.

The pattern is something different. It's, I don't know you describe it, but maybe we take it as an example to start with. So the child is, we're in this moment where a child is resisting some type of activity. They say, no, I don't want to, why do I have to do this? And then as a parent, what does the new paradigm of that moment look like?

Joel Bein: Well, I think we would need to wind it back to what's the premise of that moment?

Vision Battlesword: Okay.

Joel Bein: If there's any moment where the child says, why do I have to do that? That to me, signals that there's an an atmospheric culture of that The parent gets to decide what you do. So, so Aaron Stoppel, who had in my podcast, and he wrote a book recently called The Sovereign Child, and he, he says the only rule in his house is you don't have to do anything you don't wanna do.

That's a pattern. It is. No, that's, that's just a different belief system. It is. No, technically that's absolutely true. [01:02:00] There's different ways to approach this in a sovereign parenting paradigm in terms of the child hits a point of struggle to get to the next level. Now that's interesting to me. Maybe it's an opportunity to engage with the child, to help them, to help support them empathetically and so forth, strategically, and help nurture their own self-belief that they can move through this challenge.

And so that's a whole other conversation. Maybe it's getting curious about what is actually underneath all that. And so I'm, I'm reminded of the book, there's a book called Parent Effectiveness Training by Thomas Gordon, and he talks about these types of moments where instead of giving advice or anything, it's just like really minimalist response.

And so the child's like, I don't wanna play guitar anymore. And you might say, tell me more. Oh, well, it's just, it's just so hard and I can't do it. [01:03:00] And then you might say, oh, he sounds like you're feeling frustrated. Yeah, I keep trying to play this chord and then I keep messing up and I, yeah, that sounds tough.

What do you think you're gonna do next? And so oftentimes in that, in that situation, maybe the child just needs the sound board, empathy, a place to be seen, heard, and understood. And then the child processes the emotions. And then the child's like, you know what? Actually, I think I can do it. Or maybe you wanna be a little bit more direct, and you say like, I believe in you.

I bet you can, I bet you can learn it. Or like, there's like all sorts of different imaginative ways to, to move through that and help impart this idea of gumption or resilience. But so often the conventional parenting para paradigm, it's trying to use any sort of coercion, but really maybe the child just needs empathy.

Socratic questions. And just a place for that child to, to figure [01:04:00] it out on his own. That's just one kind of, you know, we're just talking hypotheticals right now. But that's kinda what came to mind.

Vision Battlesword: Okay, cool. So what I was noticing initially is we had an almost perfect binary between two different patterns.

One of which is sometimes you just have to do things you don't want to do. And then you talked about this friend of yours who's a parent and had made a rule, which is in this house. The only rule is you never have to do anything you don't wanna do. Just kind of like the equal opposite pattern or paradigm.

But they're both rule-based, they're both kind of statements of absolute truth that are coming from an authority, but the pattern that you just modeled is something completely different. And the way I would describe that pattern. Is, it is sort of like the no paradigm paradigm or the no pattern pattern in a way, which is the pattern itself is a [01:05:00] guiding process to allow the pattern to emerge from the lived experience itself.

And it could be with a child, or it could be with any person having a life experience and something's happening, something's coming up. It's challenging, it's frustrating. There's a struggle, there's an obstacle, whatever it may be. And one approach is for someone to essentially bestow the other with a pattern.

Here's the pattern. You have to practice. Practice makes perfect. Here's a pattern, here's a pattern. Anything that's worth doing is worth doing. Well, you know? Yeah. Any of, any of these kind of common paradigms, patterns that we might say, but the alternative is to provide. A supportive, just a supportive environment or a supportive container to allow that person to create their own pattern based on what it [01:06:00] is that they are actually sensing.

Joel Bein: Yes.

Vision Battlesword: Feeling experiencing within their own subjective experience.

Joel Bein: Yes, absolutely. And then it brings up the difference between objective and subjective. Because I'm reminded of another parenting author, Dan Siegel, and he, he was talking about this idea of praise and saying, you did a good job, or, or even saying you're a good person, or these sort of, sort of evaluations,

Vision Battlesword: affirmations.

Joel Bein: Yeah. And so it's not letting the child come to his or her own conclusions about what is, and it's slapping on those, those sort of subjective structures. And so when it comes to the child figuring things out himself. I think there's room for objective reflection of objective reality, what you observed.

So in this example, in, in one of his books, Dan Siegel talks about like a child seeking to go across a balance beam the first few times [01:07:00] he falls down when he, when he keeps trying, but then eventually he gets to the other side all by himself. And so you can, instead of having the impulse of like, good job, you, you would say something objective like, you did it this time.

I noticed that you fell down three times and then you kept going. And then the first time you got to the other side, you know? And then the child is building authentic self-esteem by, like you said, he gets to decide what the meaning is more. He gets to maybe decide I can do things even after I fail. It's coming from within.

It's not this installing of the program, like in order to have a good life, you gotta learn to tolerate failure. It's like, it's like why? I didn't get to figure it out for myself, right? But you just, you're with the child and you're supporting, but you're not adding on these projections. And so the child [01:08:00] has that opportunity to create meaning from within.

Does that make sense?

Vision Battlesword: Oh yeah. This is like the magic moment of the conversation, right? So here for me, where there's these fireworks going off in my mind because there's like five different things I wanna say all at once, resonating and reflecting on what you're saying. One real quick, I'll try and get 'em out.

Rapid fire. So don't forget any, I'm noticing that the language structure that you're using in that model sounds very much like nonviolent communication. I'm noticing. That there's something in what you're modeling that reminds me of Don Miguel Ruiz and the Four Agreements, the first agreement, which is to be impeccable with your word, which has so much to do about the way that we program each other constantly all the time.

Unknowingly, usually unconsciously, just by saying, great job, or That's awesome. Or, you know, all of these value judgements, these projections that [01:09:00] we put onto each other from the best of intentions. And I wanted to say that earlier about the parent that might say to a child, you know, Johnny, what's really important to know about this world is sometimes you just have to do things you don't want to do.

That could be coming from a really good hearted place that could be trying to bestow. A child or another human with some really, really powerful wisdom that is gonna help them so much in life, or that can be the intention that it's coming with, or even the belief that it's coming from. And yet also to your point, what I'm noticing about the new paradigm that you're describing, the new pattern that it has to do, the crux of it is what I'm seeing is that it has to do with each of us maintaining our own internal sovereignty of experience.

Like even from the perspective of a parent and I I was having all kinds of complex reactions at different [01:10:00] points. When you're describing like the balance beam thought experiment from the perspective of a parent, that is a really, really sophisticated way to be able to communicate with a child, to really stay within that like almost nonviolent communication structure of.

This is what I'm noticing. These are my observations, this is what I am feeling about it. And there has to be even like to avoid accidentally programming a child. If you really want to be rigorous with that, you've gotta be really, really mindful. Because even saying to a child something like, I feel really good when I see that they are in a way primed up to a certain age to still take that on and make meaning of it in a very deep way.

Like to your point about attaching to the caregiver, having an incentive to want to seek that person's approval, even if they're being abused, treated poorly. So what you're describing is [01:11:00] just such a fascinating area of exploration, I think for us all to look into in how we can move into, or how we can at least evaluate.

What a new paradigm can look like of setting up the next generation to say, what would it look like to have a dominant paradigm or a dominant pattern of processing their own belief system and their own rule set that they want to believe about life? Or what makes a functional, flourishing, stable, safe, secure, adult look like by processing that through their own experience to think of what a shift that could look like in our mainstream culture and society.

Joel Bein: Yeah, I mean, it would be revolutionary to see that become ubiquitous when it comes to speaking an eye statement, speaking, knowing the difference between observing and evaluating, which Marshall, Marshall Rosenberg, the creative NVC said, that's the highest form of intelligence is to be able to observe without evaluating.[01:12:00]

And so it really takes, um, intentionality takes in intentional evolution to build that muscle. Like what is it that I'm actually observing? I. Versus adding on subjective interpretation. So there's the observing and then there's the expressing of feelings and creating a home environment where feelings, expression is, it's normal, that there's a sense of autonomy, like each human has feelings come up and we don't necessarily need to be making meaning about that.

It's just, I noticed, I felt excited when you got to the end of the balance beam. I don't think, I think, I think there could be a propensity for the child to see that as like a praise energy. I, I'll need to go think about that more. It's simply authentic expression is the frequent thing that happens. So yeah.

If

Vision Battlesword: I can jump in real quick. The thing I'm noticing is that the way that you're modeling that conversation with a child, one of the complex things that was coming up for me while you were speaking is. My sense [01:13:00] that there's a certain kind of frequency that we bring into adult to adult communication, and I have not actually in this moment.

I'm curious to know if there's a nonviolent communication model for children or for parents to children that that's a curiosity that I have that just came up for me because it seems to me that there is a way that adults can speak to each other, and that might be different than the way we would need to or would want to speak to a child.

And I'm curious if children do have a need for approval or if maybe that's just a figment of my own paradigm or pattern that I'm running right now. I don't actually know the answer to the question one way or the other, but I certainly am mindful of the danger that creating an attachment to the need for approval can be.

But I'm also like, there's a part of me that was also having a little bit of a response and a reaction. To your [01:14:00] thought experiment, that was like sort of that style of communication could feel a little sterile or could feel a little like absent. There's like an absence of warmth or intimacy, affection.

I'm not really sure, and I know that, I can imagine that you have a response to me that it doesn't have to be that way. That certainly you can include affection and warmth and compassion and empathy and true intimacy in with a really, really clear, crisp, rigorous communication that avoids the transference of projection as much as humanly possible.

To use a phrase I, I, I imagine that's what you would think, and that makes sense to me too. I'm just. What I'm trying to say is that I have a sense that the way that we can speak to each other as adults through that frame of something like [01:15:00] nonviolent communication, there might be more nuance to it when we're speaking to children, especially children of a certain age, who are, as I keep kind of bringing back up in my mind, designed to absorb that information from their environment so that they can form their belief system that is meant to allow them to become functional.

Joel Bein: I think there's something there with perhaps, um, this is kind of like advanced territory here, but I think there's something with providing affirmative, positive beliefs potentially

Vision Battlesword: interesting, like priming the pump in certain ways.

Joel Bein: I don't know. I mean, like the idea that I'm thinking about the approval thing, I mean.

Like, so there's, there's negative beliefs. Like, I'm not, I'm not enough. Or that people get, tragically weigh them down. But then like is it worth telling a child that you're enough just the way you are? What? Interesting question.

Vision Battlesword: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, [01:16:00] well, and you, you touched on that a moment ago, right?

There is a kind of 180 degree reaction response to, I don't know how to exactly describe the paradigm. Like a sort of a more brutal parenting style, or not just parenting, but education style. That's sort of meant to almost be like a childhood bootcamp, to try to prepare people to be adults in the world, you know, that that does instill in them.

Sometimes you gotta do things you don't wanna do. Life is hard. Yeah. And then you die, blah, blah, blah, whatever those things are. But then there's 180 degrees from that. Yeah. Which is, everybody gets a trophy, you know, great job, Johnny. You did awesome. Like there's, there's a certain overly soft. Reaction or response to that?

That's probably equally wrong. Different categories there. 'cause the idea that everyone gets a trophy or,

Joel Bein: or the great job stuff. I think that's, that's just like the other side of the same coin. It's just Oh, really? Like, like Alfie Cohen has [01:17:00] a book Punished by rewards, talking about all the, the destruction of, of rewards and then like, it's all behaviorism.

Right? It's, it's it's good job. Bad job is all in the same paradigm.

Vision Battlesword: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Joel Bein: I think I agree with that, that like, when I say positive affirmation, I'm talking about like specific fundamentals that are not about, it's a different category. If I, if I face it seems to be a different category. If I say you are worthy of happiness just by breathing, there's nothing you need to do.

To earn you happiness, it's your birthright. I'm not, I'm not sure there's anything problematic about that.

Vision Battlesword: I

Joel Bein: see

Vision Battlesword: what you mean. Yeah.

Joel Bein: Like technically you're, you're transferring the program pattern. You are still

Vision Battlesword: transferring a program.

Joel Bein: So I think I'm, I'm kind of, this is kind of like fresh territory for me.

I like this conversation. I think there is room for like imparting potential fundamental truths. That's like, I mean, look, I think one way or the other, it's, it's gonna be, it's gonna be pretty hard to completely to be 100%, um, like objective [01:18:00] in while you're raising your child for 20 years. Like,

that's

Vision Battlesword: sort of what I'm

Joel Bein: trying to say.

It's just there's gonna be, automatically they're gonna be absorbing things. I'm pretty sure that's fundamental. And so I think there are places, I think very few things are, are absolute. So when it comes to like the, the Socratic style of learning, what truth is, I don't think Socratic style is 100% the way to go in all situations.

I think it could be like 98% or something. Maybe there's 2% of the time there's room for just like saying statements that are val, maybe they are objectively super valuable. Now you could call that like some sort of indoctrination, I guess. But like, uh, I mean,

Vision Battlesword: but at some point that is kind of our role at, at, at a certain point probably that's why we're here as parents, as we just, we wanna be careful where that line is, you

Joel Bein: know?

Yes,

Vision Battlesword: agree. Because

Joel Bein: we can easily just project on this stuff that we think we're, I'm raising my child to like, to be a certain way. I, I'm instilling my values in, it's like, is that really [01:19:00] your, your role to instill the values are like, can you let them be sovereign? You know, it's interesting.

Vision Battlesword: Absolutely. And I'm in ferocious agreement with everything you're saying.

I think you're peppering the target, you know, you're like, we're all over it. And I can almost kind of see like a glimmer of the bullseye where it's this Socratic process. That allows for the adults, the parents, the authority figures, to stay within their own experience while modeling actually what that looks like, to be your own human, to be your own sovereign, to have your own thought process and beliefs and inner experience and feelings, and communicate that in such a way.

And I can only imagine because like you, I am not yet a parent and I do look forward to having this opportunity to figure this out for myself. And I'm sure that parents that are listening to our words right now probably have all kinds of interesting opinions about what we're saying, but at [01:20:00] different ages, I can only imagine that the subtlety and the sophistication and the nuance of how to actually carry out the sort of thing that I'm about to describe it would be wildly different, I think from different stages of development.

While the child is in that process of coming into their own set of agreements, their own belief system, forming their pattern, paradigm of truth, of reality and how the world works. But it could look something like what you're describing along with, and, and I'm sure that, I think I've even seen parents modeling this, you know, at various points in my own life and was very impressed by it when I did see it.

But rather than saying to the child, rather than operating on two different extremes of a completely Socratic, you know, what do you think about that? What, what's the next step in your mind versus a, let me tell you about the rules of how the world works, and here's some statements of absolute truth. But somewhere in between, even those two extremes [01:21:00] could be the sharing of, well, this is how I think about things.

Yes, in the world, and this is how your mom thinks about things in the world. And these are some other opinions that people have that I've actually found to be valid. Totally. Now, what do you think?

Joel Bein: Totally. So I dunno if, you know, I, I was working for a year and a half at this alternative school in Austin, and so I was working with a group of, of seven to 12 year olds.

And the key to that role was I was, I was a Socratic guide, so a lot of the stuff I was actually applying and one of like the rule of a Socratic guide is to never answer a question. And so the child would come to you wanting support with something that they're working through. And my role was to ask them questions back to help them cultivate that independent thinking and self-reliance and so forth.

And so I thought it was enormously valuable. And then as I philosophize about all this, I realized, wait, I think it [01:22:00] was actually too far. There were moments when I was like, no, I just need to just share wisdom and experienced human can healthfully. In part. And so again, like I'm a big fan of like at the meta philosophical level to be aware of falling into absolute thinking around approaches.

And, and so I think there's like, there's these different ingredients. There's like a high percentage of Socratic questions and then there's empathy, and then there's solutions, and there's a wisdom. I would say that generally speaking, the, the wisdom is gonna be a small percentage of that equation. And it's the vast majority for me, where I'm at right now and how I'm thinking about all this is, it's, it's the highest percentages.

We're just lathering on questions and empathy and supporting that child in cultivating their own conclusions. And then there's moments where I'm like, you know what? It's like, [01:23:00] it's like if you, if you have like a 13-year-old boy as your, as your son, and you're like, there's some things you can impart like as a father about like pursuing.

Romantic relationships that might be worth sharing, but, but your caveat's really important, which is, this is what I've learned. You know, like, what do you think? Maybe, maybe there's some something else, or maybe, do you wanna go watch this YouTube video of somebody else who has an opinion on, on the same topic?

And then we can, like, we can cross pollinate and talk about it. It's like, I think, I, I don't think we need to be afraid of giving opinions ultimately, as long as we, or

Vision Battlesword: communicating true information or rather communicating information that we have.

Joel Bein: Absolutely. I think that's actually essential to have that in your, in your quiver to be able to share wisdom.

I think we're just kind of identifying, well, I'm identifying right now for most parents in the current paradigms, there's actually, it's the opposite problem. [01:24:00] We have most, most parents are not doing Socratic questioning mode. So we have all sorts of, of the projection programming type of thing happening.

And so it's worth like inviting them to, to reverse that. But ultimately I think the, the ideal is gonna be, you know, there's gonna be, it's not gonna be 100% one one way.

Vision Battlesword: Yeah. How does all of this relate back to the government?

Joel Bein: Well, it goes back to belief in authority, basically, and or self-esteem, self sovereignty.

The, the self-agency, the, the belief in oneself to be able to get needs met. And also the belief in other humans to do so and to collaborate with other humans to get needs met. I had a two part podcast series called How Children [01:25:00] Learn, and one of the main things I talk about is the concept of space.

Meaning let the child have the space in the room to figure it out, to figure out what their curiosity about and what they're gonna learn. And, and because so much of these conventional paradigms are that imposition onto the child's, here's how it is, here's how it works, here's what you need to learn. And then the child's just trying to keep up with all that.

They don't get the space to develop the self-trust, develop the self-regulation, to develop self-esteem. And so that ends up manifesting at the macro societal level where, because this, the child doesn't get the space, the natural belief is that there's belief structures in this realm of, well, I guess I can't fully trust myself or without this authority that I'm not gonna be able to XI mean, it's very subtle.

But I think it's just, it's chronically repeated this message. [01:26:00] And of course it's, it's, it's coming from the parents primarily, but then it's coming from the school teachers and it's coming just from the whole culture. It's coming. Once the child learns about government and learns about, um, all these systems, and they, they just like, I guess that's how it is.

And then, and there's not, if there's not a culture of questioning that, then they just end up internalizing and the cycle continues. But I think it comes down to if we actually break, we can break these cycles by first healing ourselves and deprogramming, deconditioning, and then we're not gonna project onto the child.

We develop a philosophy of respect for the child's sovereignty and so forth. And from there, the natural self-esteem and the creativity. It can happen. So when, when there's a belief that the government's there in order to build the roads, that's a common thing. You know, we kinda laugh about it as, as radical libertarians, like, um, this is the common objection, like without the government we wouldn't have roads or whatever.

And it's like, well we never got the space to figure it out without the [01:27:00] government doing it. You know, sometimes I'm at traffic lights and I get frustrated partially, maybe I'm projecting some other frustration. Nothing to do with the traffic light, but I've actually reflected on this. I think sometimes I've been angry at and while I'm in a traffic situation and it's a healthy anger and it's because I know, 'cause I've figured all this out.

What's going on economically and from these government systems, the government is, has a monopoly on the roads and these traffic systems. And so I feel frustrated and angry 'cause I have a desire for autonomy and trust and I'm like, if we got the chance to have a free market. What could humans create when it comes to that?

Like it could be pon spontaneous systems to be even more fruitful for transportation and so forth, but we need to have the space and the trust to even come up with those solutions.

Vision Battlesword: What I noticed about the example that you just made about this frustration or healthy anger that comes up when you're sitting in a [01:28:00] traffic light is that it is a mirror of the experience of a child that is wanting to rebel against an authority figure because they're trying to be told to do something that they don't want to do, like study reading or math or whatever it may be.

And so what I'm hearing you saying, correct me if this is not right, is that because of the kind of conditioning that we are generally subjected to in our parenting and in the educational system, we are. Taught, and we absorb the pattern, the paradigm, which is that rules and direction comes from authority.

And then we act that out. And we express that by creating government, which is very much like a meta parent, a bigger parent, bigger than our adult self. So we essentially [01:29:00] self infantalize. We continue to operate in a childlike state, even as adults because we've created this super parent that mirrors that kind of authoritarian experience that we had when we were actually children.

And it sounds like what you're suggesting is that if we had more of a internal belief system that was based on curiosity and questioning and independent thinking and coming to our own conclusions about things that. Somehow our structures of how we organize society, including our system of governance, would transform.

It would be an expression of that internal paradigm or pattern as opposed to the authoritarian one. I'm curious to know what you think that new paradigm of a way of organizing society or something different than what we think of [01:30:00] as quote unquote government today would look like as a projection of, let's say, a critical mass of the people in society operating from a paradigm that we might call independent thinking or curiosity, Socratic questioning.

Joel Bein: I mean, it's a beautiful question and the phrase that just pops to my mind is it would be a world of pure imagination. I'm smiling with glee because this is what makes me come alive the most, is the childlike wonder imagination and that spirit. A culture where, you know, unschooling and self-directed learning and play-based experiencing is catching on.

And there's more and more children that are embodying this consciousness and, and paradigm. And someone just posed a question, I wonder what, how we could, how else we could instead of roads and traffic lights, how else we could get around who wants to like dive into that? And there's just absolute freedom, just [01:31:00] time freedom.

If nothing else, there's no like, obligations to get your homework done. And so that's like, that's talk about opportunity costs. That's like there's all the damage of, of school and homework and everything. Then there's the opportunity costs. Those ch those kids could be sitting around and daydreaming for hours about possibilities and talk about mastermind, like a bunch of like nine year olds masterminding for three hours about what, what I mean.

Give that a shot and then imagine that compounding, imagine that's like catching on. And then more and more humans have that creative spirit blossoming, and it's not squelched for years and years as a child, but rather that's blossoming. And then now there's more and more collaboration. The imagination is combining, whereas other, other imaginations.

That's why I'm saying like, I don't even think we can fathom it because we're talking about right now a culture in which it's like the high, high majority of people are stuck in, in these compulsory schools for 15,000 hours. And even if, even if they're in [01:32:00] private schools or they're in some sort of alternative, there's still a lot, there's very, very few people who are actually getting a full radical freedom experience as a child.

It, it's happening. They're definitely happening, but it's, it's, it's very rare. And so like, I think there's so much potentiality for, for the genius to come out. Children blossoming to become fully alive and creative and collaborative. And that's how we create and birth these new systems of spontaneity in free market economics.

We talk about spontaneous order. We don't know exactly how those play out in free market, and that's the nature of it right now. If you flip the switch, I think entrepreneurs would actually figure it out pretty fast. Even right now with the current consciousness. But now imagine like a hundred x that where you have generations of children growing up with radical freedom environments and entrepr, their natural entrepreneurial thinking is just accelerating.

And now we have, we just have high percentages of humans, of all ages and sizes that are full of creativity. [01:33:00] And now it just becomes, it's just like rapid creative problem solving solutions. And I don't know, it's like we haven't gotten the space because there's just like, we're just, no, we just have the roads and the traffic lights, man.

It's like.

Vision Battlesword: Dude, you just broke my paradigm about the roads. How so? Like this is of course, I mean there's probably people who will hear this and have no idea why the roads is so funny. Yeah. To libertarians, but you just broke my paradigm. It's like, what about the roads? And the, the question you asked as a response to that is, well, how else might we be able to get around other than roads and traffic lights?

Are there any alternatives? But like, that's the exact point about a paradigm that's like what we've, we've kind of like really anchored and crystallized it. It's that default assumption that is so baked in so deep that we don't even get to imagine. That's Plato's cave right there. We [01:34:00] don't even get to.

Conceptualize the possibility that we might not need roads. Yes. Or traffic lights or any of this stuff. There might be a wholly different way.

Joel Bein: Dude, I just had an idea. This is like my childlike imagination is on fire now. 'cause I just had an idea that, 'cause I'm thinking about amusement parks, you know, I have like the skyline, like the, the little ride that goes across the ment park.

Why isn't that happening all throughout cities? Like, why can't we have take a little ride across the city roller coasters. Why can't we have some sort of roller coaster that got you from point A to point B and you just, it'd be so fun. Like, I mean, how that would play out and logistically, I don't know, but like, we gotta start with giving it a shot.

And uh, there's all sorts of different elements at play here for why, like the constraint. Of roads stays so, so fixed as a paradigm. There's not an opportunity for fresh ideas. If you had all of those, all that [01:35:00] land, uh, privatized, now you can have negotiations between entrepreneurs and just humans to talk about trading and collaborating and shifting.

And there could be all sorts of dynamic interpersonal relating to actually shift how that land is used. That could just totally transform into all sorts of different structures. That could include roads, but like who knows man, they could have like a sidewalk that's just for scooters and then a sidewalk for walking.

Then you could have like the skyline thing, and then you could have this water slide that goes down over here instead of ha like I'm just like riffing right now. But like this is the childlike spirit that when you don't inhibit the mind, then like there's all this possibility.

Vision Battlesword: Yeah,

Joel Bein: and you could maybe imagine in

Vision Battlesword: times past.

When there were more external constraints, and I'm not defending, you know, I'm not saying that even in times past that this kind of new paradigm, which you're talking [01:36:00] about now, couldn't have been perfectly viable. But in this time, in this day and age, it just can't be the case. Now with the technology that we have available, with the open set of solutions, the possibilities of what we could potentially accomplish if we were just allowed to consider those possibilities, what I'm really seeing is that the paradigm itself isn't a system of constraints.

The paradigm is just a pattern. It's a operating system, it's a program. It's a way that we might process information. And make decisions or come to conclusions. But the paradigms, the current paradigms that we operate within today are paradigms that are based on constraint. And the alternate paradigm that you're offering is essentially a paradigm that's based on [01:37:00] possibility, flipping, conditioning into curiosity, where in any situation, any moment when there's new information available or a new decision to be made, we get to re-explore that and decide what is the best way to approach that through our own voluntary exchanges with each other.

That's basically what you're saying, and that all can start with a deep operating code that's based on self sovereignty of coming to our own conclusions about things, using the impeccability of our word. All of the four agreements, essentially to. Allow people to form their own belief systems rather than instilling them with a belief system from an authority figure, which inherently comes with the meta pattern of our beliefs come from authority or the rules of the world come from authority.

And that's the real [01:38:00] paradigm. That's the water within the water that we're swimming in.

Joel Bein: Yeah. And the meta beliefs about authority. Yeah. Man, there's so much potential for humans. Yeah. Talk about in evolution, like I think people sometimes say, well, oh, well, in the past, like there's never been a, society has never been a free society in the past, there's never been a stateless society in the past.

Therefore it's not possible. First of all, probably not true. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, it depends on the definition. I guess. Has there been, has there been a global like, well, maybe even if we, well, global is a different story. Yeah. Well, even if we just grant that, that kind of argument.

Vision Battlesword: Okay.

Joel Bein: It's like. Okay. I'm interested in the future, not the past.

Right. I'm interested in the intentional evolution. I'm interested in the inside out evolution, and I think everything we've outlined in this podcast has made this vivid in many ways around the self empowerment, the self-development, the, the [01:39:00] questioning of the paradigms that have formed from early on growing up in the culture.

Then we're evolving the entire species through the self-empowerment. And now maybe in the past, because people were conditioned and domesticated and so forth, so much that they didn't even like contemplate the possibility of deconditioning. But now we're like, at this place, there's more and more awareness about that very idea, and now we can actually create the future and sort of evolve what it means, what human nature even means.

I think there's a lot of like meta assumptions about. The nature of what it means to be humans, that humans are like, there's probably a meta one that's like humans are violent or, or something like that. That's been a justification for government, even though that's a contradiction. But that's not, well, that's, that's an assumption.

Like, are humans like that, [01:40:00] you know, let's actually see what we're about by giving us a shot to evolve. And I think it's a lot, like, the way I framed it a lot is like moving from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex. Like there's all this survival based stuff that we're stuck in. If we can liberate ourselves from that fear based stuff that's coming from childhood ultimately, then now we're moving into the creative, imaginative, sovereign space that's, that's independent, but it's also interdependent.

And we can just, yeah, humans can get their needs met in abundance. I think it's totally possible. But we, we start with, um, we start with the individual. I.

Vision Battlesword: That's the human singularity in a nutshell.

Joel Bein: Yes.

Vision Battlesword: What you just said, the idea of a radical reevaluation of what human nature so-called actually even means, and to your point about, okay, let's just grant the argument.

I don't, but let's just grant the argument that there's never been a free [01:41:00] society or a, you know, stateless society and all of human history or something like that. Okay, great. Well, everything is impossible right up until the moment when it's not.

Joel Bein: Yeah.

Vision Battlesword: Just like, I mean, how many examples could we list a litany of things that were never been done before, can't ever be done until the very day that it is, and then all of a sudden now it's the default setting.

You know, airplanes, air travel, go on, go on down the list. So that's what's exciting to me about this moment that we have right now in the, the evolution of our species is I really feel that we're poised to unlock. A whole nother paradigm, a whole new dimension of possibility. And I'm just really excited to be on this journey with you and with everyone else that's, you know, that's really embracing this idea of radical human flourishing and creative [01:42:00] flourishing.

Joel Bein: Yeah. It's funny you mentioned the example of air travel as like a, a breakthrough. 'cause right now, I'm, I'm literally finishing up the, the Wright Brothers biography, um, because I just take inspiration from people like them that are saying, yeah, we can do it. You know, we can do it. Even though it hasn't been done before, at least in modern history, maybe there's an ancient civilization that was buried that.

But, um, for all intents and purposes, the Wright brothers were, I mean, before they started any effective flying machine, they. They were, everyone was, everyone around them was saying that was impossible. And so it's just like you said, there's, there's countless examples of that. And I guess I, I want humans to figure that, I want humans to learn that meta lesson, that hey, there's been countless examples of people doing this seeming impossible.

So when it comes to [01:43:00] a stateless society of radical freedom and all the things, why can't we just, Hey, maybe, maybe it could happen. 'cause other things that happened that we thought could happen. So why not that

Vision Battlesword: it seems like the upside is great enough

Joel Bein: that

Vision Battlesword: it's worth giving it a try. Yeah. To your point.

Right. So I'm curious if there's any final thought you have just on the entire concept of paradigm and also, you know, importantly, what are you kind of taking away from this conversation as it applies to your own life or, you know, how would you, how do you integrate anything that we've talked about? Yeah, I think we're very comprehensive with the word paradigm,

Joel Bein: and I love the way we, we weave together a tapestry from numerous levels, from the dictionary definition to the, the conceptual within our, our own minds, and then how that projects onto the, the world.

We see. Uh, I went to a [01:44:00] workshop on human design and I'm a manifester and I'm embracing that uniqueness. That's one, one thing I'm taking from this conversation is like, uh, I feel a lot of that aliveness, conviction and purpose around sharing, sharing the vi visions, and also bringing it down to that, what is the next step?

You know, it's, it's doing the self-development, it's sharing that self-development with people, helping people heal and sharing ideas about, about parenting and education and creating. And that realm as well. And, um, doing that without apology, I think that's maybe what, how it boils down to, I'm like, I'm just grateful for how much I've figured out, or I've integrated and I've learned from and over the years, and I'm, I feel like I'm, it's a lot of, it's synergizing right now and like it's boiling.

The pot's boiling and I'm like, let's just keep going. Let's keep sharing it. [01:45:00] Let people absorb it in their own way. And I, I want to, to own that as my, like, embrace my uniqueness in that way.

Vision Battlesword: For me, I already operate in a very Socratic way and you've really helped me to see how I can lean into that even more in a way that's not, that doesn't have to be annoying or impractical, meaning.

Just that, that one moment was so powerful for me in this conversation of what I'm taking back and integrating into the way I move forward. When I had that realization of like, we don't have to have an answer to what about the roads, it can actually be a question. Yeah, what about the roads? What about these roads?

You know, it's like just to be able to shift outta that default setting. And once again, I, I [01:46:00] say once again, because this is such a common theme in all of these conversations that I've had on intentional evolution, I think it may have come up in every single one so far, is curiosity is just such a powerful tool.

So for me, ingraining that, imprinting that into my own pattern, my own template, my paradigm of thought, my belief system of get curious and. The question can be a lot more powerful than, let's say, a statement of the truth or even the wisdom of experience is opening, opening the moment to possibility as often as possible.

That's kind of what I'm taking as far as my,

Joel Bein: it reminds me of this. There's a nice little, it's sort of like a personal development aphorism type of thing, like little tip, but it applies right here where instead of saying, I can't [01:47:00] do X or like, I'll give an example, I can't, I can't be a mom and be a jazz singer.

That's li limiting, right? Instead of, instead you can say, how can I be a mom and be a jazz singer that's open? How can. Instead of, I can't, how can, so you can't build, you can't have the road. Like how are you gonna build the roads without government or, or you, you can't have, um, transportation without government.

That would be that instead of how can we have transportation without government? Yeah, it

Vision Battlesword: sounds nice, doesn't it? Sounds nice and open. Right, right. That's, I'm so glad you crystallized it in that way. Like with a, with a really concrete example of how to reframe a question of limit into a question of possibility, which of course is how we access our imagination, our desire.[01:48:00]

And ultimately that's where, that's the wellspring of innovation, is to ask that question, how can I get a heavier than air craft a loft and flying? How can I do that? Right. And then now all of a sudden you're in. The space of creation rather than limitation. That's perfect.

Joel Bein: Yeah. Creativity over coercion. You know, if you allow yourself that opportunity now, like, like can you create on a list of a hundred ideas for how to, to create that outcome without using coercion And perhaps even not just that, but using play and fun, like positive ingredients. And so yeah, it's just that, uh, allowing yourself that space.

Vision Battlesword: What would you like anyone to know about how they could get in contact with you or how they could find out about the kind of services you offer? How to engage with you

Joel Bein: if you [01:49:00] like podcasts, I have my podcast, the Joel Bein Show, and we're talking about this type of stuff, talking about new paradigms, talking about parenting education and personal growth and political philosophy and kind of integrating it all.

And then my business is called Human Liberation. It's a one-on-one service where I help people rapidly and permanently let go of the beliefs and our subconscious minds that are creating our limitations. The website for that is thehumanliberation.co my personal website's, joelbein.com. My email address is on that website.

So yeah, just look for Joel byd in different places and uh, you can feel free to reach out. I would love to hear from people.

Vision Battlesword: Cool. I'll put links to your podcast and your websites in the show notes. And thank you very, very much for this conversation. This was like [01:50:00] really fun, really stimulating for me.

Joel Bein: Yeah, my pleasure. It's, I love podcasts. I love in-person podcasts especially, and I love, um. The, this, this conversation just full of, uh, juice.

Vision Battlesword: Mm-hmm.

Joel Bein: And, um, I love the pacing of it and the, the arc of it and, uh, yeah, it's fun to riff with somebody who's got so much shared understandings and so we kind of, I think we got on fire there for a bit.

Vision Battlesword: I feel the same. Yeah. Yeah. That I, that felt really, really rich and, uh, I got a lot, a lot more food for thought. So I'm sure this will continue to kind of unfold and unpack for me. And I just want to thank you so much for your time, Joel. I know we spent, like, we went a little bit long on this, but it was so worth it for me.

Joel Bein: It's worth it. Good.

Vision Battlesword: Yeah. Thank you a lot. I really had a fun time.

Joel Bein: Same.

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