Magical Thinking: How It Warps Reality and Wrecks Lives

Hello, Earnest Mann here! In this episode, I expose the real danger of magical thinking—a mindset that may seem harmless on the surface, but in reality, it drives conflict, economic despair, and mass manipulation. From childhood myths like Santa Claus to modern delusions about politicians fixing everything overnight, I’m breaking down why magical thinking is so destructive and what you can actually do to unplug from it.

From Santa to Society: How Illusions Persist Into Adulthood

Magical thinking doesn’t end when we stop believing in fairy tales. It mutates into more complex forms—like blind faith in religion, politicians, or media. I discuss how this persistent illusion affects real-world issues like war, government dysfunction, and financial manipulation. It’s not just about belief—it's about how those beliefs shape our world and who gets crushed beneath them.

Consumerism, Holidays, and the Myth of Meaning

I call out consumer culture, especially the Christmas frenzy, as a prime example of magical thinking. The idea that spending money equals love or happiness is not only false—it's financially and emotionally toxic. I share my own 30-year boycott of Christmas to illustrate what happens when you finally unplug from the madness.

What You Can Actually Do to Escape Magical Thinking

I offer practical ways to break free from the system—starting with your own choices. You don’t need a revolution. You need refusal. Refuse to pay $20 for fast food. Refuse to feed the machine of blind tradition. If you want to truly change your life, stop participating in the illusions. This is how real change begins.

I would like to meet - both online and in person - individuals interested in discussing ideas on what really needs to be changed, to improve the quality of our lives.

So if you have a suggestion for an episode topic, or simply want to reach out to me for help, you can reach me via my website's contact page - https://theearnestmannshow.com/aboutcontact - and I will get back to you ASAP.

I'm not promising miracles, but my advice is often a hell of a lot better - and certainly cheaper - than a therapist!.

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You can also listen to any of my many previous episodes on my website at - https://theearnestmannshow.com/episodes

© 2020 - 26 The Earnest Mann Show

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Are you familiar with the term magical thinking? If not, then stick around

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because I'm not only going to explain what it is, but how it destroys lives

0:11

and what you can do about it. Hello, my name's Ernest. Welcome.

0:17

If you're an adult listening to this, and I assume you are, I want to ask a

0:24

question that on the surface may seem well silly, but I mean it seriously.

0:32

Do you believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy?

0:39

Serious, I'm I'm not kidding. Do you actually believe in them?

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And if you don't, why why is it really that hopefully past a

0:53

certain age we no longer believe that?

0:58

Well, one of several reasons, of course, is that as we hopefully mentally grow

1:05

and mature, we can intellectually figure out that the proposition of an actual

1:13

Santa Claus or the tooth fairy is well impossible.

1:20

And we understand that based on all the information in the world that we gather

1:27

around us as we grow up. And so you don't necessarily past a

1:35

certain age and stage have to be concerned about being good because

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you're worried about what Santa Claus will or will not bring you for Christmas because the proposition is well again

1:50

silly. And that's the same point that I wanted to make, and I'm going to make a huge

1:57

jump here, but that's the same point concerning

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magical thinking because basically what you're engaging in, even though you

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don't know it at that time in your life, is you're engaging in magical thinking.

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Then as you grow older, those particular aspects of magical thinking, they fall

2:24

to the wayside. Well, as I said before, because we we grow up, we're not

2:30

children, at least not in that respect. Now what I propose to you is that what

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happens is as we transition into you know uh adolescence and then early

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adulthood and for the rest of our lives, we end up replacing those two items on

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the magical thinking list with other items um such as the belief in God or in

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the belief in extraterrestrial beings or that the world is flat or any other

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number of other things which broadly still fall under the category of magical

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thinking. Now, when you're a little child and you

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believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy or Easter Bunny or any of those

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things, you know, the implications in life in general and for those around

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you that you as a child believe those things, um, well, they're pretty

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inconsequential. you know, they're they're not going to, you know, heavily impact other people's

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lives that much. But as far as the other things that I

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mentioned, well, they most certainly do.

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And that is the problem of magical thinking.

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Because if you're any adult out there who hasn't spent the large majority of

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your life living under a rock, you for instance know the neverending turmoil in

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the Middle East between, say, for instance um Israel and Palestine, the

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Palestinians. This is driven primarily.

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There are also many other outside factors but primarily its foundation is

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magical thinking. And this ends up with thousands and tens

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of thousands for 20 30 40 50 years or more. I'm

4:51

4:59

that it it goes on it has been going on and despite just recently a so-called

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ceasefire. Yeah, right. Let's see how long that lasts.

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It's not going to last because those two groups of people both engage

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very actively in magical thinking. They are at an impass and that impass is

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not going to change because of magical thinking.

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That alone, just that example, that one example alone

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should clearly explain the dangers of magical thinking.

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That's what it is. And anytime you happen to be someone, even if you're

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one of the relative few who refuse to engage in magical thinking,

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you can get caught up in it. Nonetheless, because one group of people under their

6:06

government decides to bomb the [ __ ] out of the other group of people that they

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don't agree with and you just happen to be living there,

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you know, let's say if you're a either an Israeli or Palestinian who is not in

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any way, shape, or form religious, and they do exist,

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But still you get caught up in the quagmire of this this whole nonsense

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because of other people who are in control and are not operating under their full

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faculties. Yet you can get, you know, harmed or

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maybe even killed. And this has been repeated countless

6:56

times throughout history. You know, all of the uh people in the Second World

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War, whether you know it was um the Nazis or what have you, you know, you

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you got to remember although a very mass number of Germans identified with the

7:15

Nazis, not all of them did. There is a a very famous photo of a man

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whose name won't come to me at the moment, but it was I believe it was

7:28

taken at some um it may have been Nuremberg, not certain, but he circled because he was the one person and all of

7:37

the group of hundreds that were around him while everybody else was doing the Nazi salute, he stood there, his arms

7:45

folded. So that's what I mean by that. It is

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always very difficult to swim against the crowd.

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And often times when the crowd is into

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magical thinking or you could call it delusional thinking. Regardless, they're in a temporary state

8:10

of insanity. And it can be very hard to stand against

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that. So this is what I mean by magical

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thinking. And in order to understand that even more fully,

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you would have to be a person who is um say as myself is happily agnostic.

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And you're caught up in a society that is in the throws of that kind of

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thinking. And um you feel you feel incredibly isolated

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and um you feel the pressure and you're you're the fish

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that's swimming against all the other fish headed in that direction, the wrong

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direction. So hopefully

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um if I made that you know clear enough that's what I mean by magical thinking.

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So yeah a lot many places even in the US

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are under the under the throws throngs if you will of this kind of thinking.

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Now it's not all out war. They're not all out killing each other.

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Not yet. But it's entirely possible that that

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could happen. And all it takes is a spark.

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And when you keep building a powder cake

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of resentment and then on top of that you mix in a whole lot of economic

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troubles, people living, you know, with job uncertainty in general in no

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certainty. you know, you uh you you're mixing up a brew of uh desperation, despair,

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a whole mix of bad things. Then if those same people, if you add to

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that ingredient list, you have them in a state of magical thinking,

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um, such as believing that you're going to hire a president, some kind of

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doofus, and that he's going to change everything relatively overnight and

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going to make everything better. That's delusional thinking. It's not

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going to happen. As a matter of fact, and I want to make this very clear,

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I am not necessarily wanting to say that a dictatorship is a

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good idea. But what I am saying on the other hand

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is that when you're having multiple societal crisis

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um you know at the same time that I believe is what it would take to

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change things for the better. And I think in many people's heart of

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hearts, even if they don't want to admit it,

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that's what they want. That's what they want. They want a dictator.

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They want a dictator. There, I said it. Because with all of this kind of

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turmoil, everything that I just mentioned, it was the exact same uh situation in

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that sense. Uh tremendous uh economic uh

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problems, uncertainty, people, you know, people in dire economic times and then

12:06

you can't can't even afford food because inflation's going through the roof. All

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the conditions are there to just make things in this pressure cooker of crazy

12:17

worse and worse by the day. And it gets so bad that people just throw in, you

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know, they give up reason and they kept trying reason repeatedly with quote unquote getting presidents

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and presidents in the US are such under the under the current life that we live

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and the times. This isn't we're not talking 250 years ago when a constitution was written and we didn't

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even have [ __ ] electricity or running water or a whole host of other things.

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It's a very different time of course. Well, obviously that time is long past.

12:58

But regardless, this entire rule book, this entire framework, and I'm not necessarily talking about

13:05

the framework work of democracy, but I'm talking about the entire structure as it

13:11

is, obviously is not working.

13:17

When I say working, well, actually, let me let me clarify that for a certain

13:23

segment of the population, it's absolutely working. meaning the rich of course um you know you know the

13:31

story these guys they steld them if ever they don't pay any taxes they break the

13:36

law they get slapped on the hand you know I'm to the the guys I'm talking about or at least you should

13:44

but the rest of us nah not so much so yeah um it's not the system is not

13:55

work for us and they keep people keep saying, "Well,

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the system's broken and it No, no, no. It's not broken.

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It's not broken at all. It's working exactly the way it should

14:13

again for them, but for the common average person, nah,

14:20

not so much." And just like at the times of the French Revolution or any other huge social

14:28

uprisings that occur, yeah, that's um you know that's pretty much you know the

14:34

situation that it is. And that's why you have revolutions and

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all this nastiness which also I'll say it doesn't it

14:46

doesn't end up or it hasn't let's just say for the most part it hasn't really changed anything because what happens is

14:54

is whether it's through the guillotine or whatever the case may be even if even

15:00

if we you know got rid of all the bad guys however that's done and you put

15:06

things more to you a much leveler playing field. You tried to write all the wrongs. You redistributed wealth. If

15:14

the fundamental system is in place that enabled that in the first place,

15:19

in a relative short amount of time, it's going to creep back in and you're going

15:25

to have the same damn thing all over again. So the way you have to get rid of that

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is you have to get rid of those ideas which are backward and stupid and well

15:41

based in magical thinking. But in the meantime,

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the question you might be thinking is, okay, let's storm the gates. Let's hang

15:54

the bastards. Let's, you know, let's let's have a whole bastile day with and

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have a, you know, have a field day and then be a big gigantic huge blood bath

16:05

and all that. Let's we we know that. But as I said, if you don't thoroughly

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accept and understand what got us there in the first place, it will all

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eventually come back again. So that first of all you need to

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understand you need to recognize that you need to get rid of the magical

16:31

thinking. Now maybe you

16:36

maybe you can do that yourself and that's that's

16:41

great. That's wonderful because it has to start somewhere and there's no place better in the world where it should

16:48

start particularly for your own life is it needs to start with you that that's

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great. But if you can't count on this, if it

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doesn't take off into an absolute very broad um say national movement um where

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just you know suddenly suddenly like what I'm visualizing is just you know

17:13

like um masses masses of people that you know just become aware you know it's

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kind of like for you people that remember the old the movie um V for Vendetta

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uh when on the 5th of November all these people showed up dressed as V and they

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all had the masks on and and all that that kind of thing. Uh as far as the

17:41

possibility of that happening, I I don't know. I mean, maybe maybe it could,

17:49

but I'm not necessarily counting on that. I think it's going to be a much

17:55

more, you know, gradual uh but yet forceful uh shift. Let's say one of the

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I believe as I don't know as incredible or silly as this may sound again since

18:11

primarily it's a propaganda machine not a truth machine and can't believe a damn

18:17

thing in our own uh mass media today. But when they're constantly talking

18:23

about u let's say if we just limit it to across America the huge price spikes in

18:29

fast food but consequently all the places selling fast food that no one's

18:34

no one's going to and say well they they bring it back into the economy and how

18:40

broke everyone is. And I'm like, look, you know, if you can't afford

18:46

McDonald's, yeah, there's something really wrong. But you see, even that is

18:53

disingenuous in itself because it's not it's not addressing

18:58

what the real issue is. The real issue I believe what the truth is is that what

19:06

many Americans at least have done is they're doing their own form of becoming

19:12

V and they're simply they're they're be honest just [ __ ] you I'm not paying 135

19:19

$20 for a Big Mac Coke and fries ain't happening screw yourself

19:25

and so it's an unwillingness to pay that's that I is driving this and I

19:31

think that I think that's great. I think that's wonderful and I hope it continues

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and I hope it spreads to so many other areas where people have been they've

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been gouged for 30 plus years. Everything from cars, housing, houses, clothing, you name it.

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I mean, we've been gouged, really gouged, really bad, and people are sick of it, and I understand that.

20:01

But what drives the machine, the old the old guard, the old thing gets it, you know, gets it really going. What they

20:09

count on is the whole magical call. They ring the bell. It's sort of like, you

20:16

know, everyone turns and drops what they're doing mentally. and they can always count on Christmas,

20:23

the whole Christmas thing. And so they could eek out just long enough to make

20:30

it to, let's say, you know, the beginning of December and then they get

20:35

that whole PR thing going because that's the shopping. It's it's the shopping

20:42

season and you know a million sales and this and that and they that's what they do

20:50

and that's what I've done my whole life and I haven't I haven't participated in

20:55

Christmas let's see it's been

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over 30 years over 30 years. Think about that. No

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Christmas, nothing. No gifts, no dinners, nothing. Nothing at all.

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Now, just to say on a side note about that, I will readily admit because I I'm

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not a space alien and I don't have six heads and grew up just like most Americans and

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I engaged and did all that [ __ ] for, you know, roughly half of my life.

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And then when I started figuring all this stuff out and I decided no and I

21:43

let people know and of course at first they thought I was kind of well losing my mind. Um, again, this is where the

21:51

fish starts to swim upstream. And I admit there's a a very strange

21:58

feeling when the masses, friends, family, all that. All of them um are

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doing this and you're not. It's, you know, I remember for probably

22:10

[ __ ] three, four seasons, um, feeling that way and, um, it was

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weird and it was tough and at least and but then finally by

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like the I guess it was around the fourth or fifth year, I felt it, but I

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felt it less. And then as the story goes, as time went on, I felt it less

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and less. And fast forward to today, I see I feel I see clearly

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because I try to the best of my ability not to engage in magical thinking and so

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I don't and it's just I I recognize it exactly for what it is and I refuse to

22:58

participate. Um, I'm not there's nothing wrong if you

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if you like someone or you love someone and you want to give them a gift. Um,

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anytime you want to give them a gift, fine. I'm not against gift giving. I'm

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talking about the cult of consumerism around Christmas

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and everything that that economically demands of you and the whole drive about

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that. And it's it's it's obscene. And it's stupid and it's magical

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thinking which like I said I try not to

23:39

engage in. So now I think I would mention the part

23:45

to you about what you can do. Now, I

23:50

don't have the time in this episode to go into all the things you can do, but

23:57

just a few things and hopefully we'll get you on track so you can, as they

24:03

say, unplug from this. Um, what do I say? Simply don't engage.

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Just like all the people that are foregoing fast food and they're foregoing, you know,

24:19

movie theaters that are charging, I don't know, they want to charge 20 and $25 for a ticket to see a [ __ ] movie.

24:28

And that's before any of the, you know, concession stand items. Just stop engaging.

24:36

And you're not you. You don't have to worry about this as a

24:42

movement. Just worry about you. You and maybe your immediate family. If

24:48

you're married, for instance, um you know, or if you have kids, this

24:54

makes it can make it so much tougher. But if you both do this, uh and you

25:03

know, it would kind of work much better if you both did. And you know, and don't go into the Saab

25:10

thing. And then don't go into the psychological manipulation of so-called caring friends and family and grandma

25:18

and grandpa. What do you mean? The kids aren't going to get any toys for Christmas. What kind of what have you

25:24

lost your mind? Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. You have to decide in unplugging

25:31

from magical thinking. Are they living your life or do you want to live your

25:36

life? And in addition to that, as far as passing on traditions and values, I

25:44

can't think of any better traditions and

25:49

values to pass on than non-engagement. And then eventually

25:56

when they're old enough, they'll understand. they'll figure it out and they'll say, "Well, it felt really weird

26:03

at the time, but um you know, do the right thing, they'll

26:09

thank you later." kind of thing. So, I can't, you know, I can't speak um for

26:17

obviously for everyone out there and I would certainly be interested in hearing your thoughts or what you have to say.

26:24

But the point is is to unplug and you know if you have to like cigarettes or

26:30

whatever if you have to withdraw gradually that works for you. Um

26:38

that's what will not only not only clear your conscience and clear your mind

26:46

but it will also save you a hell of a lot of money. Uh yeah that so you'll

26:52

have that Hollywood's uh that uh holiday spirit. Ho ho ho.

26:58

So I just um yeah I just think the whole the whole thing is well it is what it

27:05

is. It's a part of magical thinking and that's simply one of the things that you need to do to move forward is to unplug.

27:15

And there's there's not just Christmas. There's just so many fields, so many

27:20

things that you need to unplug from.

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And what does all this mean? Well, it means basically in time, you know, you

27:33

give it some time and especially from all the money you'll save. And there's a lot of headaches

27:40

associated this with this. you you begin to think well clearly and

27:47

you begin to feel better but it's not going to happen overnight you know this

27:53

isn't something that you just do once and say well I tried that but you know

27:59

parents didn't like it and my sister and brother brother or brother-in-law or whatever thought I was crazy and I I

28:05

made up for it the next year because because I have beliefs

28:12

these things and this living it's all part this is all an an integral part of

28:18

what is not sustainable for all those groups out there for instance and they talk about sustainability

28:25

well yet they engage in Christmas and the if you look at it just from an

28:31

environmental point of view it would be absolutely staggering

28:37

almost you know inconceivable just the amount of waste

28:43

from all of the paper and and nonsense that goes with the presence. Hundreds

28:49

and hundreds of tons, hundreds of millions of tons perhaps

28:54

that won't go into the landfill. You see, it affects everything. And that,

29:02

think about it, that's just one. Although probably the biggest, at least

29:07

in North America, but that's just one holiday.

29:13

That's just one. So, um, anyway, I'd like to I'd like to

29:21

hear what your thoughts are about this. And of course, yes, I I hate I always

29:28

feel guilty to ask this, but I'd appreciate it. I would if you would hit that button and subscribe and all that

29:34

jazz and it would really help the channel grow, of course. But, you know,

29:40

um yeah. Anyway, so I hope that what I told you here is far

29:48

as this is concerned is has been helpful. Anyway,

29:54

until next time, this is Ernest and that's all I've got

30:00

for today.