Speaker 1: M as a human. I'm gonna share knowledge that's important
Speaker 1: to me with another individual in order to bring them in.
Speaker 1: I affirm you, I'm willing to kind of share my
Speaker 1: lot with you. On this episode of the Burgrease Podcast,
Speaker 1: we're exploring the secret world of white tail hunters. I
Speaker 1: want to know why these rascals keep secrets, who they
Speaker 1: share them with, but also who they're holding out on.
Speaker 1: The answers might surprise you, and if you listen, you
Speaker 1: just might learn something about the people you think are
Speaker 1: your friends, but also yourself. You may be more slippery
Speaker 1: than you think and not as pure in motivation as
Speaker 1: you think. We're going to interrogate two hardened white tail
Speaker 1: hunters and wring the truth out of them. We'll talk
Speaker 1: with an anthropologist about deep human psychology and learn how
Speaker 1: social media has changed how we distribute information. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna want to miss this one without your son knowing.
Speaker 1: Have you ever showed those pictures to someone that you
Speaker 1: told him you weren't going to believe it or not? Yeah,
Speaker 1: my name is Clay Nukelem and this is the bear
Speaker 1: Grease Podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
Speaker 1: for insight and unlikely places and where we'll tell the
Speaker 1: story of Americans who lived their lives close to the
Speaker 1: land presented by f HF gear, American made, purpose built
Speaker 1: hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged
Speaker 1: as the places we explore. I have a secret. This
Speaker 1: secret has plagued me, causing me to consistently lose sleep
Speaker 1: over the last two years. It's caused irrational excitement but
Speaker 1: also grievous pain. I have exercised extreme caution in the
Speaker 1: dissemination of information regarding this secret, and it might surprise
Speaker 1: you who I've shared the information with and who it's
Speaker 1: been withheld from. It's clear why people keep secrets, but
Speaker 1: it's not so clear why people tell them, and oh
Speaker 1: they do, and I'm in search of why. The choices
Speaker 1: I've made about my secret have been more instinctual than conscious.
Speaker 1: I've released information with strict stipulations, and every time I've
Speaker 1: done it, I've wondered if my trust would be betrayed,
Speaker 1: and I'm certain that at times it has. Interestingly, my
Speaker 1: secret didn't have to be shared for me to read
Speaker 1: the potential reward of it. I didn't have to share
Speaker 1: it with anyone, but some madness beyond conscious choice. Drove
Speaker 1: my wandering lips to mumble. It drove my fingers to
Speaker 1: type messages that had information that I wanted no one
Speaker 1: to know about, or maybe I did want them to know.
Speaker 1: While sitting thirty feet up in a walnut tree on
Speaker 1: November one one, I had a peculiar revelation. This thing
Speaker 1: that I was hiding was the thing I most wanted
Speaker 1: to share with the world. It was an odd paradox,
Speaker 1: a moment of internal confliction wrought with irony. I recognized
Speaker 1: that I was being driven by leverages. I wasn't pushing,
Speaker 1: perhaps a mechanism as old as mankind. If there's one
Speaker 1: thing I've learned growing up in rural America, it's that
Speaker 1: hunters have secrets. I've spent a lifetime trying to unravel
Speaker 1: why some are so reckless and others are like a
Speaker 1: sealed bank vault. I've also evaluated my own prepensive to
Speaker 1: mumble things best left unspoken. But one thing is consistent.
Speaker 1: Hunters love to talk, and if you listen, you'll learn
Speaker 1: a lot. We're about to hear two exclusive expose interviews
Speaker 1: with some men who have been hardened by decades of
Speaker 1: immersion into the white tailed world. I want to know
Speaker 1: why and how these accomplished white tail hunters keep and
Speaker 1: distribute their secrets, and Ludi laude do they have them?
Speaker 1: These men know every trick in the book and have
Speaker 1: used them all. And because of the gravity of his conscience,
Speaker 1: Mo Shepherd has put his reputation on the line. Here's Mo,
Speaker 1: you better buckle up on your cellular phone. How many
Speaker 1: pictures of white tailed deer do you have that our
Speaker 1: secret that you would not show just a stranger? Several several?
Speaker 1: How many you can you give me a number? I
Speaker 1: probably dozen pictures probably that wouldn't show anybody unless they
Speaker 1: was really close friends or something that I was, that
Speaker 1: we were hunting together, and then I might still not
Speaker 1: show them. So why wouldn't you show somebody? Like if
Speaker 1: if you were just at Walmart down here and you
Speaker 1: met a guy and he was a hunter, and you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: look at this, look at this picture, why wouldn't you
Speaker 1: do that? But for starters, even if I didn't know
Speaker 1: the guy very well, he might know somebody that knows
Speaker 1: me very well, and he said the deer I wanted
Speaker 1: to hunt or was trying to hunt, or had been hunting,
Speaker 1: and he says, Hey, I've seen a loo up there
Speaker 1: to day, and he showed me a picture of his
Speaker 1: marsh buckle. You know, I've been seeing his truck park
Speaker 1: over there in such and suchs on this road out there,
Speaker 1: on public land, on this national forest. That must be
Speaker 1: where he's hunting at. You know. But phrases and stuff together,
Speaker 1: they could crack you down. Okay, So from what you've said,
Speaker 1: it's clear to me that you've thought this through multiple stages.
Speaker 1: So how many times have you done that to someone else? Sah?
Speaker 1: Because I know that if you know that people do this,
Speaker 1: it's because you've done it. Yeah, that's why I said several, many,
Speaker 1: if not most, of the things we do as humans
Speaker 1: happen beyond the purview of our conscious choice. Part of
Speaker 1: the reason we're still here on planet Earth is that
Speaker 1: we've developed strategies for survival, and the foundation of all
Speaker 1: of it is the acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge is the
Speaker 1: vehicle by which we acquire the essential material things for survival,
Speaker 1: like food, mates, skills, et cetera. We constantly use the
Speaker 1: clues around us to gain knowledge, whether looking at how
Speaker 1: crowded a restaurant parking lot is to determine how good
Speaker 1: the food is, or noting that the same truck has
Speaker 1: been parkinger a big, old wide oak ridge for three
Speaker 1: days straight during deer season. We're hungry for knowledge. Much
Speaker 1: of it is unconsciously filed away. Thomas Jefferson once wrote
Speaker 1: knowledge is power, knowledge is safety, and knowledge is happiness.
Speaker 1: Jefferson didn't create this idea, but he put words around
Speaker 1: something very old. Humans want knowledge, and it's the key
Speaker 1: to success. The way in which we distribute the knowledge
Speaker 1: we have is as important as the gaining of knowledge
Speaker 1: or information we don't have. We gain information and give
Speaker 1: information at its foundational level. This is the architecture of
Speaker 1: daily human life. The second white tail secret holder whose
Speaker 1: conscience has become too heavy a burden to carry without
Speaker 1: confession is Rusty Johnson. Here he is. How many bucks
Speaker 1: on your cellular phone? Do you have pictures of on
Speaker 1: your phone that you could not show me without breaking
Speaker 1: your word to someone? Just an estimate, I'd say at
Speaker 1: least a dozen, at least it doesn't okay? Now, are
Speaker 1: these pictures that you have gotten that you have made
Speaker 1: a vow that you're gonna show no one? Or are
Speaker 1: these pictures that people have shared with you that you
Speaker 1: have swore that you would not share. I would say
Speaker 1: a combination of my own pictures and my son's pictures
Speaker 1: without your son knowing. Have you ever shown those pictures
Speaker 1: to someone that you told him you weren't going to
Speaker 1: believe it or not? Yeah? Okay? But but I mean
Speaker 1: it's like one or two people? Who do you share
Speaker 1: white tails secrets with? Uh? Only two people? Really? I
Speaker 1: mean who are so described the relationship you have with
Speaker 1: These two people have to say their names. One is
Speaker 1: my son, okay, and the other is a really good friend. Okay.
Speaker 1: Now I know some intell about you. You have a
Speaker 1: wider knit group of people that you hunt with. Are
Speaker 1: you telling me that there are things between you and
Speaker 1: your son that are not shared inside of that wider communities? Okay?
Speaker 1: And my dad, But my dad's kind of he's out
Speaker 1: of this is important. See, if we were in a
Speaker 1: criminal trial here, you would be held in contempt of
Speaker 1: court if you had said you're working a lot. So
Speaker 1: your dad is a part of this, he is, Okay,
Speaker 1: So close knit family, m M. Very interesting. Dad's can
Speaker 1: often be the vow busters of white tail secrets. But
Speaker 1: I bet there's more to this. Here's Mosley. Okay, has
Speaker 1: someone shared a deer picture with you that you swore
Speaker 1: to secrecy that you'd never share, that you shared you
Speaker 1: did share with someone? Tell the truth. I'm thinking it's
Speaker 1: a long awkward pause, staring off into the distance. I
Speaker 1: don't think I have because I, okay, now this this,
Speaker 1: I know how this goes down. I say i'd send
Speaker 1: you a text, and I go, hey, I'm gonna send
Speaker 1: you a picture and I don't want you to send
Speaker 1: it to anyone ever. And then when you get home
Speaker 1: you show it to your wife. I mean, you've already
Speaker 1: done what you said you weren't gonna do. Or this
Speaker 1: is the other way it happens. You end up showing
Speaker 1: it to a guy in Illinois and you justify it
Speaker 1: because you're like, this is totally irrelevant information to this guy.
Speaker 1: He's not. So I'm gonna read I'm gonna ask you
Speaker 1: the question again and give you a chance to be
Speaker 1: honest with me. Okay, have you ever shared a photo
Speaker 1: with someone that you said you never would? Yes? Or
Speaker 1: And I told the person that showed me the photo
Speaker 1: that would maybe one time, and he said the answer
Speaker 1: had to be yes, yes one time? And it was
Speaker 1: to my wife. Very interesting. Again, wives seem to have
Speaker 1: some val busting capabilities too. Let's get deeper. Here's curly.
Speaker 1: How how would you feel if you shared a picture
Speaker 1: of a deer with someone and then you found out
Speaker 1: that they had shared that picture with someone else if
Speaker 1: I had asked them not to share it, I would
Speaker 1: be disappointed. What level of disappointment would you go fist
Speaker 1: fight them? Would you? The level of disappointment would be
Speaker 1: that I would not send them anything else or sharing
Speaker 1: you would? You would? They would lose that trust, They
Speaker 1: would lose my trust. Yeah, wouldn't cost a friendship or nothing.
Speaker 1: I would just definitely lose a great fist fought anybody
Speaker 1: over a deer? Uh? No, way back. I did almost
Speaker 1: get into a fist fight over a fishing spot. Oh
Speaker 1: for yeah, way back though. So it bowled down to
Speaker 1: I had some fish found, and I had a small
Speaker 1: boat with a small motor, and they saw me fishing
Speaker 1: in that spot, and we fished the bass fishing. We
Speaker 1: fished bass tournaments, and so they knew where I had
Speaker 1: I had those fish located. They had a bigger boat
Speaker 1: with a bigger motor, and when we took off in
Speaker 1: this particular tournament. They beat me to that spot. It's
Speaker 1: anybody's lake, you know, it's a public lake. But still
Speaker 1: I thought that was a very unsportsman like and when,
Speaker 1: of course I was young back then. When I got
Speaker 1: back to the way in, I let him know about it,
Speaker 1: confronted him about it. I said, why did you go
Speaker 1: to my, uh, fishing spot? I said, well, this is
Speaker 1: anybody can go anywhere on this lake. It's a public lake.
Speaker 1: I said, yes, but I found those fish. You saw
Speaker 1: me fishing there, and you deliberately went to my spot,
Speaker 1: and boy, they started bowing up, you know, and that
Speaker 1: we didn't fight. We didn't fight, but we did have
Speaker 1: some words, and uh, we didn't speak for a while.
Speaker 1: When information is distributed like these guys saw Curly catching fish,
Speaker 1: even if it's not a purpose, it's clear that Curly
Speaker 1: had an expectation of how that knowledge would be handled,
Speaker 1: and when it wasn't, he got upset. We're getting deeper,
Speaker 1: here's Moseley. Have you ever had legitimate concern that showing
Speaker 1: a picture to someone family members, friends, would have resulted
Speaker 1: in them actually going to your hunting spot and hunting
Speaker 1: I have made the mistake a few times of a
Speaker 1: few people that I saw something big or sound, saw
Speaker 1: some big sign, And a couple of instances I had
Speaker 1: people to come back to a spot or I'd run
Speaker 1: into them there and they never hunted there before. They
Speaker 1: claimed it was just out of the blue that they
Speaker 1: were there, but I feared it was because we discussed
Speaker 1: it and they knew I was hunting in that area
Speaker 1: or something. So okay, well let's turn the tables here.
Speaker 1: How often has someone given you information that you capitalized
Speaker 1: on later? Very little? Because I'll tell the truth. I'm
Speaker 1: telling the truth very little that I've capitalized on most
Speaker 1: of the time. That's just the way I am. If
Speaker 1: if if they're a friend espasically of me or somebody
Speaker 1: that I've hunted with before, whatever, then if they tell
Speaker 1: me something, then I'll be straight up with him. I'll say,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm hunt that area once in a while,
Speaker 1: but you know, if you're gonna keep hunting in there,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go in there, you know. But
Speaker 1: a total stranger that I've run across somewhere and heard
Speaker 1: him talking about something, that's a different story, and I
Speaker 1: have used that to my advantage especially. I've used it
Speaker 1: three or four times I've heard people talking about turkeys,
Speaker 1: hearing lots of turkeys, but they were so smart I
Speaker 1: couldn't do nothing with them. Okay, So you've said to
Speaker 1: me that if it's a friend that gives you information,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be real clearing up front with them. If
Speaker 1: it's a stranger that gives you information, it's fair game,
Speaker 1: fair game. Okay. Mo, that's a problem because there's there's
Speaker 1: multiple layers of friendship. Okay, So there's there's there's people
Speaker 1: that are in between stranger and friend, and so where
Speaker 1: is that line for instance? Well, first off, let me
Speaker 1: butt in on you here. First off, you have to
Speaker 1: be your own judge on what much information you let
Speaker 1: loose when it's somebody that's okay, we're putting personal responsibility
Speaker 1: on the person information out. Okay, give me a categorization
Speaker 1: of friends. Where does a fan like a direct family
Speaker 1: member fit on this? Family members are different from friends?
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so there's many stratifications. Now, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I thought family was inbounds for sharing secrets and responsibly
Speaker 1: handling their seek grits. Not So it seems this is
Speaker 1: a bit more nuanced than I originally thought. Here's curly
Speaker 1: on why he keeps secrets. And I still haven't told
Speaker 1: you my secret. So why do you think you are
Speaker 1: so secretive about white? How's what caused my dad? Why?
Speaker 1: Because I learned growing up hunting with him. He got
Speaker 1: burnt a few times by some friends. He always taught
Speaker 1: me to be he's secretive about everything. But he was
Speaker 1: always really secretive about hunting and fishing. Really, so as
Speaker 1: a boy, your dad told you he was like, man,
Speaker 1: if you know where a deer is, you better keep
Speaker 1: it tight lipped, absolutely from a young boy. Yes, I
Speaker 1: mean we're we're talking like back in the eighties. Can
Speaker 1: you go into any kind of detail without names of
Speaker 1: what happened in those scenarios that branded your dad like this? Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: he had a friend that he had hunted with a
Speaker 1: little bit, and uh, that friend went into a certain spot.
Speaker 1: My dad had found a really good but we didn't
Speaker 1: have game cameras back then. But I mean he had
Speaker 1: found a good buck, seen this good buck, told this
Speaker 1: friend about this spot, and the friend didn't say a
Speaker 1: word to him and went in right behind his back
Speaker 1: and went there and killed that buck. How did your
Speaker 1: dad found out about it? Well, he saw the buck.
Speaker 1: I mean, the guy killed it and he brought it
Speaker 1: back into town and everything and was bragging about it.
Speaker 1: And of course, you know word of mouth. My dad
Speaker 1: does not. He doesn't get mad about things like that.
Speaker 1: But he just learned from He learned from it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it did not ruin the friendship or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Uh really, Yeah, he's not one to get mad about stuff,
Speaker 1: he said. He just like, he just said, He's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: these interrogations should have us all thinking about ourselves. Do
Speaker 1: you keep secrets? Do you share the secrets of others?
Speaker 1: Be honest? How do you justify it when you do.
Speaker 1: There's an ancient statue in the country of Turkey, which
Speaker 1: is ironic because we know Turkey hunters are such liars,
Speaker 1: called the Statue of Dodginess. It's believed to been created
Speaker 1: in a year four twelve. It's a man standing beside
Speaker 1: his dog and he's holding up a lamp and he
Speaker 1: appears to be searching in the light cast by the lamp.
Speaker 1: It said that he's looking for an honest man. This
Speaker 1: is old stuff. It's clear that there are spectrums of
Speaker 1: secret keepers. Some people are loose lipped and others have
Speaker 1: tight lips. But one thanks for sure. We all have
Speaker 1: a strategy for how we disseminate and use information. This
Speaker 1: is deep human psychology and I continue to be fascinated
Speaker 1: by the things that governed our lives beyond our conscious control.
Speaker 1: Being aware of our actions and the way we make
Speaker 1: decisions is important stuff. You all know. Dr Dan Route
Speaker 1: from the Bear Grease Render. He's a professor of anthropology
Speaker 1: at John Brown University. Strangely, he seems to know a
Speaker 1: lot about secrets, and I want to get the details.
Speaker 1: We've been talking about hunting secrets, but we'll need to
Speaker 1: broaden our search criteria. Here's Dr Dan. Dr Dan, talk
Speaker 1: to me about the general ideas of the dissemination of
Speaker 1: knowledge amongst humans, which is like the most common We
Speaker 1: do this every single day of our life, from the
Speaker 1: time we wake up to the time we go to bed.
Speaker 1: We are distributing information. Just make me informed about human
Speaker 1: psychology and how we do that. Okay, So the gentleman
Speaker 1: who really wrote the book on exchange, and so that's
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. When we're talking about dissemination of knowledge.
Speaker 1: People are sharing knowledge that they have, but they're not
Speaker 1: broadcasting it near and far. Their selectively sharing information with others,
Speaker 1: and then that is an exchange. They're hearing things back
Speaker 1: and they're trading information in a sense that's called reciprocity.
Speaker 1: So the woman who really wrote the book on literal
Speaker 1: book and the name of the book, it's a French sociologist.
Speaker 1: The name of the book is the gift. The whole
Speaker 1: point of the entire book, Marcel Moss wrote it about
Speaker 1: a hundred years ago, is that every gift has strings attached.
Speaker 1: We every exchange has strings attached. I don't just give
Speaker 1: you something for free. I want something back, even my
Speaker 1: most well meaning thing, and certainly the thing that's been
Speaker 1: shared the most among humans for millennia. Long before we
Speaker 1: had money, long before we had products, long before we
Speaker 1: had an economy, long before we had brands of clothing
Speaker 1: or different things like that, was information. How do you
Speaker 1: make this stone tool, how do you hunt this animal?
Speaker 1: How do you engage in this agricultural activity of humanity?
Speaker 1: Was knowledge? Knowledge is power. I mean, that's where we
Speaker 1: get this this saying. And so when it comes to
Speaker 1: the sharing of knowledge, it's always it's always a loaded exchange.
Speaker 1: The currency of humans is knowledge. And we'll need to
Speaker 1: remember that the term Reciprocity describes the exchange of knowledge,
Speaker 1: and it's extremely important to know that knowledge is never free.
Speaker 1: It always has strings attached. If you're like me, I
Speaker 1: think you'll begin to see that this is true. Everything
Speaker 1: has a string. As a human, I'm going to share
Speaker 1: knowledge that's important to me and who I am or
Speaker 1: who we are as a group with another individual or
Speaker 1: another group in order to bring them in, in order
Speaker 1: to say yes to them, I affirm you, I'm willing
Speaker 1: to kind of share my lot with you. Whatever happens
Speaker 1: to me happens to you. Whatever happens to you happens
Speaker 1: to me. So we need to know the same stuff.
Speaker 1: So so sharing information would be a very primitive act
Speaker 1: of trying to old human relationship because because you wouldn't
Speaker 1: share information with your enemy, No, you would not. So
Speaker 1: if I'm a hunter gatherer tribe and we have a
Speaker 1: knowledge of how to make a certain type of arrowhead.
Speaker 1: You've talked a lot about the Fulsome points or the
Speaker 1: Clovis points. That information was over a thousand years disseminated
Speaker 1: near and far. You can guarantee that as it was disseminated,
Speaker 1: there are hunter gatherer bands that were in competition with
Speaker 1: other bands, they would not be that quick to share
Speaker 1: with them, or if they did share, they did it
Speaker 1: for advantage, for security, for peace, for safety, because they
Speaker 1: thought it would be better for them. You know, when
Speaker 1: you think about humanity and kind of this idea of
Speaker 1: a primitive human, it would make sense that there would
Speaker 1: be kind of a deep psychology around how we distribute knowledge.
Speaker 1: It's so close to us, though most of us, including myself,
Speaker 1: have rarely really thought about it. To help understand it's
Speaker 1: fundamental currency, it will help to get some deep history
Speaker 1: on secret knowledge and how we've used it. Humans have
Speaker 1: been keeping secrets and sharing secrets since the beginning. That's
Speaker 1: certainly the case. No one would debate that. But really
Speaker 1: in a kind of a historical written down literature, since
Speaker 1: what when it really first hits the fan when it
Speaker 1: comes to secret knowledge is in uh, something called gnosticism
Speaker 1: in the Greco Roman world, and the word noses where
Speaker 1: where we get gnosticism means secret knowledge, And so the
Speaker 1: Greco Roman world for the first time humanity, at least
Speaker 1: in the Roman you know, empire, a lot of them
Speaker 1: have money and a lot of them have means, and
Speaker 1: so they're not living day to day, and they're not
Speaker 1: depending on practical, tangible activities to define themselves. So now
Speaker 1: they're looking for a new way to have kind of
Speaker 1: this home that's can system now theoretical knowledge home that
Speaker 1: they share with other people who also know these secret facts.
Speaker 1: And so all throughout the Roman Empire have these things
Speaker 1: called mystery cults that creep up. Some of them were
Speaker 1: religious and would offer what you know, we might call
Speaker 1: a way of salvation. A lot of them were just
Speaker 1: social clubs, like fraternal orders that have these secret rights
Speaker 1: and passages, and not a lot of the fraternal orders
Speaker 1: that exist today are kind of rooted from the world, Yeah,
Speaker 1: came from this kind of Roman philosophy of a way
Speaker 1: to have a sanctuary, a place of peace and security
Speaker 1: and validation is to know something secret and share that
Speaker 1: secret knowledge with others, select others, and so really it
Speaker 1: goes far back and then today you can see them.
Speaker 1: Humans haven't changed. We're still doing the same thing. People
Speaker 1: love secret knowledge because me and the folks who know
Speaker 1: what I know, we're in the end group and everybody
Speaker 1: else is in the out group. And all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: because I have a stable study in group, I can
Speaker 1: take a deep breath and all the time we are
Speaker 1: doing identity in this way. Someone who hunts like me,
Speaker 1: you know, someone who maybe as a bow hunter, somebody
Speaker 1: who watches their sense the way that I watch myself.
Speaker 1: I hate to bring this up, you know, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: this is an in group. Someone who who doesn't do that, well,
Speaker 1: they're on the outgroup. And you stay and you know,
Speaker 1: you stay loyal to the what, the things that we
Speaker 1: know and the things that we do, because that's who
Speaker 1: we are. It's a powerful mechanism. And what you don't
Speaker 1: do is share your knowledge, your secret knowledge, with anybody
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want in your group. Now we're starting to
Speaker 1: see the complexity of how we manage knowledge. Think about
Speaker 1: that fuzzy feeling, the bond between you and someone else
Speaker 1: when you share a juicy piece of information. It's very real.
Speaker 1: But at a deeper level, we use secret knowledg edge
Speaker 1: to build our personal identity. Our personal identity is who
Speaker 1: we believe ourselves to be. So dr D are you
Speaker 1: saying that me sharing a secret is more about me
Speaker 1: than the person I'm sharing it with. It can be
Speaker 1: so when you think about validation. If I'm in an
Speaker 1: in group as a hunter, who is an established hunter,
Speaker 1: and I know my trade and I know my skills.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look around me and I want to add
Speaker 1: members to my group, and there's gonna be people who
Speaker 1: just have no question mark by their name. It's my children.
Speaker 1: I without doubt I will share anything with them so
Speaker 1: they could be in my group and be like me
Speaker 1: and do what I do if they want to. But
Speaker 1: then there are other folks who maybe there's no way
Speaker 1: I would want them competing for the same resources in
Speaker 1: the same way that I do, so, so in not
Speaker 1: sharing my knowledge with them, I am invalid aiding their identity.
Speaker 1: But it's a powerful, powerful statement. This is why knowledge
Speaker 1: is power. For me to give that knowledge to someone,
Speaker 1: because I'm saying I want you to be like me,
Speaker 1: and I want to share even more than that, I
Speaker 1: want to share identity with you. There it is. We
Speaker 1: often share knowledge to validate others, but ultimately so that
Speaker 1: they'll validate us. Whether it's family, a close friend, or
Speaker 1: someone you want to be friends with. That reciprocity the
Speaker 1: exchange of information signals and validates relationship. Why do you
Speaker 1: want to share a trail camera picture of a buck
Speaker 1: to someone that it's completely irrelevant to you want them
Speaker 1: to thank your cool legit and then to know. Probably
Speaker 1: this is as consistent as a gravity. Think about this.
Speaker 1: What do you do when you see the best deer
Speaker 1: hunter you know? You go and tell them about your
Speaker 1: dear honey. You're signaling that you're the same. Remember when
Speaker 1: I said dads can be val busters. It's because most
Speaker 1: to us have a desire to show our dads that
Speaker 1: were legit, and we want to share our lives with them.
Speaker 1: We do this stuff all the time. This might explain
Speaker 1: why on that cold November morning, I wanted so bad
Speaker 1: to share my secret with the hunting world. The release
Speaker 1: of that knowledge would have validated my personal identity. If
Speaker 1: I would have told them my secret, they would have said,
Speaker 1: oh man, that Clay is a real dear hunter. But
Speaker 1: I still haven't told you what my secret is. I
Speaker 1: may not talk to me about how dissemination of knowledge
Speaker 1: is a request for relationship. In that relationship as a
Speaker 1: string attached, which is this personal identity that I'm after. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: identity construction is something that every human engages in almost
Speaker 1: every conscious minute of their day, and even their subconscious
Speaker 1: We know it or not, Whether we know it or not,
Speaker 1: we are constantly constructing identity, and we're constantly asking for
Speaker 1: a secure, socially accepted identity. Even the people that say
Speaker 1: they're loners and they don't need anybody there, that's their identity.
Speaker 1: That is there, people that are extroverted and involved in
Speaker 1: social groups, and that's their identity. There's no there's not
Speaker 1: a human on the planet that is exempt from this.
Speaker 1: Even even a hermit living on a desert island. He
Speaker 1: is in pursuit of identity. He is in pursuit of
Speaker 1: an identity, and he's forming it socially. Even if he's
Speaker 1: forming it by being antisocial, it's still social. Is still
Speaker 1: in antisocial, it's still a social identity. And so when
Speaker 1: you look at identity formation. J Walter is a British
Speaker 1: sociologist and one of the main points that he's long
Speaker 1: since dead, but one of his main points is that
Speaker 1: as he was watching individualism really kind of gain its
Speaker 1: stride and and just hit its pace. One of his
Speaker 1: main point is that we are incapable of assigning our
Speaker 1: own identities. We try all day long, but it just
Speaker 1: leaves us insufficient. And what we need, every single one
Speaker 1: of us, to some extent, needs external validation. And so
Speaker 1: we talk about the dissemination of information, hunting secrets in
Speaker 1: this case, and we're relating that to identity. I am
Speaker 1: sharing information with you in no small part because I
Speaker 1: want you to validate me. I either want you to
Speaker 1: look at that photo and say, boy, Daniel, you are
Speaker 1: awesome or you did it, or I want you to
Speaker 1: turn around and share your photo of your big buck
Speaker 1: with me. And it says to me, we value each other.
Speaker 1: We look at each other, if not as equals, as
Speaker 1: worthy of being in the same in group. There's no
Speaker 1: rejection between you and I if we're sharing that knowledge,
Speaker 1: but if we're kind of playing our cards close, then
Speaker 1: either you or I one of us does not validate
Speaker 1: the other, and that's an assault on my socially accepted identity.
Speaker 1: So people are always ferreting out and hunting as it were,
Speaker 1: for these in groups that they can fit in. There's
Speaker 1: not a person on the planet that I think could
Speaker 1: wouldn't see that in themselves if they really looked at it,
Speaker 1: because it's so true when you really think about why
Speaker 1: you do what you do. So I asked some of
Speaker 1: these guys that I interviewed, I said, why do you
Speaker 1: share a picture with these people that you're close to.
Speaker 1: And I was kind of surprised because some of them
Speaker 1: weren't really able to articulate why. But when we builed
Speaker 1: it down, it was clear they're not sharing information with
Speaker 1: someone that they don't want to be friends with. They're
Speaker 1: not sharing information with their enemy, They're not sharing information
Speaker 1: with someone that they don't perceive as kind of equal
Speaker 1: to themselves. And they, oh, man, we're all we're all
Speaker 1: looking for validation from people in some ways, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to receive validation from someone else. You can quickly
Speaker 1: go down that road and see that that is not healthy,
Speaker 1: but they're parts of that that are very healthy. Sure,
Speaker 1: we are designed to live inside of community. We are,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're designed for relationship. And and Dan, I
Speaker 1: say this all the time, and I go back to
Speaker 1: it all the time. I think much of hunting, as
Speaker 1: would be much of any other kind of activity we
Speaker 1: engage with that involves other people, is really fueled by relationship.
Speaker 1: So and I think one of the things that makes
Speaker 1: hunting in particular so powerful relationally is it's practical, it's tangible,
Speaker 1: it's out in the world. You can't learn it off
Speaker 1: a video. You really need to be with someone who
Speaker 1: is an expert who has done it. You need to
Speaker 1: watch what they do. And this is what humans have
Speaker 1: been doing forever. It's a powerful interaction that as humans
Speaker 1: we just don't normally get because well, think about the
Speaker 1: way that a lot of humans right now, a lot
Speaker 1: of us do. Identity is digitally. So if if the
Speaker 1: need for validation is so huge and we all need
Speaker 1: it so deeply, and you would think all of these
Speaker 1: folks who have huge social media presence and they have
Speaker 1: all these followers, and they have all these likes, you
Speaker 1: would think, man, good night, they've got validation off the charts.
Speaker 1: Yet study after study after study. You know, doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if it's a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a counselor whoever did
Speaker 1: the study. Social scientists, psychologist, doesn't matter. Mental health decreases,
Speaker 1: while there's a correlation between mental health and yeah, you're
Speaker 1: in trouble. But that's true because so the longer you
Speaker 1: get pseudo validation from an impersonal source, the lower your
Speaker 1: mental health goes. The more validation you get from a
Speaker 1: real life, real human being who cares about you by
Speaker 1: sharing information with you, they're validating you. They're caring for you.
Speaker 1: The more stable and robust your identity is because it's
Speaker 1: not exclusively yours is shared, and that's the myth of
Speaker 1: the rugged individual. We were not always bringing it back
Speaker 1: to the We were not made to have identity in
Speaker 1: and of ourselves. We need it validated externally. This is
Speaker 1: fascinating stuff. And when we swoop back down to our
Speaker 1: specific topic, which is how we share hunting secrets, it
Speaker 1: even gets more interesting. When you are engaging in trading
Speaker 1: hunting information, you just stepped into the shoes or sandals
Speaker 1: or moccasin's crocs, crocs, brint reefs of humans for millennia.
Speaker 1: Whereas when we swipe our credit card, when I get
Speaker 1: out on my phone, I'm doing something that humanity has
Speaker 1: done for all of five minutes. But as a hunter,
Speaker 1: when I'm engaging and sharing hunting secrets or even just
Speaker 1: hunting knowledge, how do you shoot a bow? When I
Speaker 1: teach my son how to shoot a bow? I mean,
Speaker 1: that's an ancient transaction. It almost doesn't get more ancient
Speaker 1: than that. It just really doesn't. And because as a people,
Speaker 1: we are provided thanks to you know, major supermarkets and
Speaker 1: the supply chain, where most of us are not connected
Speaker 1: to farming. Most of us are not connected to agriculture.
Speaker 1: As hunters, we are connected to an activity that human
Speaker 1: kind has been engaged with from the beginning, all the
Speaker 1: way back. That's a fascinating thought because there's got to
Speaker 1: be in as much DNA and data that our minds, spirits,
Speaker 1: bodies operate off of that is not controlled by us.
Speaker 1: It's got I've got to believe that something triggers inside
Speaker 1: of the human when something really primitive is done, it's
Speaker 1: got to trigger something. I think kind of like a
Speaker 1: I don't know if you want to call it on
Speaker 1: a soul level or a deep cognitive level, when you
Speaker 1: share something that's tangible, practical, that came to you at
Speaker 1: a cost, and you share it in a way where
Speaker 1: you have to live it out in front of me.
Speaker 1: You know. I remember the first time I was in
Speaker 1: a tree stand. I was with you and you had
Speaker 1: me shoot at a stump. Yeah yeah, And I shot
Speaker 1: at a stump and you shared with me a way
Speaker 1: of being that I could emulate and do. That hits
Speaker 1: a person on a profound level. Most of our our
Speaker 1: interactions that exchanges on a day to day basis do
Speaker 1: not do that because they're so impersonal and they're so abstract,
Speaker 1: and I think because deep down, you're showing me a
Speaker 1: way to be, Whereas in every other transaction, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to essentially purchase an identity, I'm trying to gain an identity,
Speaker 1: or trying to learn about something else, just merely like
Speaker 1: up here my mind theoretically, But when I now, when
Speaker 1: I go out into the wood, I'm looking at a
Speaker 1: new plot of land, and I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what's the best white oakre red oak to be around.
Speaker 1: And I find myself thinking, if Clay were here, what
Speaker 1: would he think and what would he do? I'm emulating you.
Speaker 1: I'd be looking for those acres, but looking for acres
Speaker 1: um you know, And that's a powerful way. I think.
Speaker 1: One of the myths of the rugged individualist is I
Speaker 1: can create and select an identity for myself. So much
Speaker 1: of the modern exchange of knowledge is impersonal and abstract.
Speaker 1: Think of the simple example of buying a banana. We've
Speaker 1: basically assigned abstract value to a note of tender, a
Speaker 1: dollar bill, and we trade that material object for the
Speaker 1: knowledge that it takes to farm, the work and the
Speaker 1: delivery of that banana to a grocery store. Money depersonalizes
Speaker 1: the exchange of knowledge and takes the relationship right out
Speaker 1: of it. We don't have to go to the farm
Speaker 1: and meet the farmer to get bananas. This idea leads
Speaker 1: us to and it's connected to why we can't get
Speaker 1: healthy personal identity from things that can be bought with money.
Speaker 1: True and healthy identity comes from relationships. That's a mic
Speaker 1: drop moment. I want to step back into my conversation
Speaker 1: with Rusty Johnson. He'll lead us into a discussion about
Speaker 1: social media, how we use it, how it's changed the
Speaker 1: way we share information and knowledge and receive validation. Here's
Speaker 1: Rusty and I think we got him trapped. And I
Speaker 1: still haven't told you my secret. So you are very
Speaker 1: tight with the information that you would portray. But sir,
Speaker 1: you have an Instagram page where you guys post pictures
Speaker 1: of alive dear all the time. Justify this for uh,
Speaker 1: That's that's a tough one out there. I'll just put
Speaker 1: it this way. We we don't post everything, but we
Speaker 1: we do post a lot. Have you ever thought about
Speaker 1: putting like a disclaimer on the tagline of your Instagram
Speaker 1: page that we post a lot of deer, but not
Speaker 1: all of them. But you this Instagram page, though, clearly
Speaker 1: shows that you have a deep desire to share these
Speaker 1: deer with people. Though, I mean, would you agree further
Speaker 1: viewing the pleasure? But what I found is that usually
Speaker 1: the thing that we're trying to guard the most is
Speaker 1: actually the thing we want to talk about the post.
Speaker 1: Would you agree with that? The secret pictures that you
Speaker 1: have on your phone, the dozen secret pictures, are those
Speaker 1: not the photos that you want to show me right now?
Speaker 1: I would like to Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I like to see people have enjoyment through what
Speaker 1: we post on our Instagram and Facebook page. So it's
Speaker 1: about them. Are you sure about that? No? Social media
Speaker 1: has und audibly affected the way we share knowledge and
Speaker 1: build identity. It's unprecedented in human history. Here's Dr Dan
Speaker 1: and I exploring this topic. If we're talking about secrets,
Speaker 1: we're talking about the dissemination of knowledge, some of it
Speaker 1: intimate knowledge. Man, Only in the last fifteen years have
Speaker 1: we had at our fingertips the ability to communicate with people.
Speaker 1: How do you think social media is scrambling the human brain? Oh?
Speaker 1: My goodness, So I think what social media one of
Speaker 1: the positive things about social media is you don't have
Speaker 1: to say goodbye to as many people, so we can
Speaker 1: clean we can keep acquaintances and people in our lives
Speaker 1: that normally, apart from the Internet and connectivity, we would
Speaker 1: lose touch with humans. Not only were we not made
Speaker 1: to be alone, you know, like we said, even the
Speaker 1: kind of the monk who's on an island by himself
Speaker 1: is still creating a socially constructed identity. We also weren't
Speaker 1: made to stay in touch with everybody we've ever known.
Speaker 1: Every This is new man. Okay, if you think about
Speaker 1: it like this. Humans used to be full time hunters,
Speaker 1: so we file the way hunting info. Now we have
Speaker 1: less hunting info, but more like a rolodex of people
Speaker 1: because we keep up with these people. So maybe there's
Speaker 1: a correlation between having smaller Instagram followings and being better hunters.
Speaker 1: Do you see what I'm saying? I do have because
Speaker 1: there's space in a man's brain especially. This is nonsense.
Speaker 1: This is nonsense. But so the more people you are
Speaker 1: connected to doesn't necessarily result in the more actual validation
Speaker 1: you can get. You don't necessarily need more pseudo relationships.
Speaker 1: You need a healthy number of real solid relationships. And
Speaker 1: so if one of the kind of the crazy things
Speaker 1: that social media does to us is it's just this compounding,
Speaker 1: ever growing as you go to college and then you
Speaker 1: moved to another city, and you moved to another city,
Speaker 1: you can keep up with everybody another thing sing that's
Speaker 1: like me and the kids are TikTok oh, TikTok in it,
Speaker 1: you know. So another thing that social media does is
Speaker 1: it gives you the illusion of validation or invalidation. If
Speaker 1: I post something, I'm either getting a false positive feedback
Speaker 1: loop if a ton of people like it but maybe
Speaker 1: there's no value in it. But there's no value in it,
Speaker 1: or I get a negative feedback loop because nobody likes it,
Speaker 1: and either way I lose if I'm going to social
Speaker 1: media for validation. But the problem is is my brain
Speaker 1: when I pull up Facebook or Instagram, I'm not thinking
Speaker 1: I'm going to social media. I think I'm interacting with
Speaker 1: people because I'm looking at people, I'm seeing people's names,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing their faces, I'm remembering times that we were
Speaker 1: connected together. And because I'm wired as a human to
Speaker 1: construct identity and share it with others, I think I'm
Speaker 1: interacting with people but I'm not, and so I'm bound
Speaker 1: to fail unless I'm approaching social media from a secure places.
Speaker 1: It cause us to fail in it's it's where do
Speaker 1: we see the breakdown of a human inside of a
Speaker 1: false leaning up on this for their validation. So you're
Speaker 1: gonna have people who or they begin to orient larger
Speaker 1: and larger chunks of their days around their online presence
Speaker 1: or chunks of their finances, chunks of their resources, chunks
Speaker 1: of their time. Means fewer personal resources to give to
Speaker 1: actual people who can return actual validation, and then depression anxiety.
Speaker 1: So basically, a human has this allotted amount of energy
Speaker 1: to spend on relationship finite. And if we start leaning
Speaker 1: so heavy into social media that we're expending this into
Speaker 1: this like false thing, then we neglect. And this is
Speaker 1: maybe where the functional aspect is we neglect? Could we
Speaker 1: neglect the real relationships that we have? Absolutely? I mean
Speaker 1: this is you go, my family went out to eat
Speaker 1: last night at a restaurant. You look around the restaurant.
Speaker 1: Everybody's on their phones. Because what happens is is relating
Speaker 1: with real people. They're looking at you. So think about it.
Speaker 1: If what happens if I share a hunting secret with
Speaker 1: you and you don't reciprocate. That's scary. That affects who
Speaker 1: I am and my value and worth as an individual.
Speaker 1: But the cost, the short term cost of going online
Speaker 1: and looking at Facebook, is nothing but setting across from
Speaker 1: a real individual and not just opening up my hunting
Speaker 1: knowledge secrets, but opening up who I am as a person.
Speaker 1: Now you're talking things of real value and worth, and
Speaker 1: so now you're talking about real risk. And so it's
Speaker 1: supposedly kind of I'll do quotations around this finger. Supposedly
Speaker 1: safer for me to go to social media to be
Speaker 1: validated than it is for me to turn actually go
Speaker 1: and be a real thing in front of a real person.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that hunting forces you to
Speaker 1: do is just that you have to go out in
Speaker 1: the woods together do it, and do it together. I
Speaker 1: listened just yesterday to a podcast about the metaverse, which
Speaker 1: essentially is this idea that started a long time ago
Speaker 1: about how humans could one day live in a digital world.
Speaker 1: It was like a sci fi section of a book
Speaker 1: from some you know in the eighties or nineties. There's
Speaker 1: now with these video games and a bunch of different stuff.
Speaker 1: They're big groups really trying to build out commerce inside
Speaker 1: of the metaverse where I mean it's happening. It's like
Speaker 1: I think Microsoft just bought an online game for like
Speaker 1: seventy billion dollars, and it's because they see the market
Speaker 1: going to this digital market, which man just like every
Speaker 1: single thing that we see happen in life, it's like
Speaker 1: everything is going to a facade of what it appear
Speaker 1: years to be. Everything is propped up by a veneer
Speaker 1: of what it seems like it is, but when you
Speaker 1: tap into it, it's not that. And that is also
Speaker 1: the nature of humanity in a lot of ways. Facades
Speaker 1: make us. A really good facade makes you feel supposedly safe,
Speaker 1: secure and validated, but on the inside you're still not.
Speaker 1: So most of the things that we modern contemporary humans
Speaker 1: with a certain amount of wealth that we can expend,
Speaker 1: most of the things that we are purchasing our a facade.
Speaker 1: Think about even in the hunting community, all the gear,
Speaker 1: all the stuff. I can have, all this amazing gear,
Speaker 1: but if I don't relate with another hunter who's willing
Speaker 1: to validate me, is share with me his wisdom and
Speaker 1: me the same, I'll never be a good hunter. I've
Speaker 1: just purchased another facade, and so you know, meta, they're
Speaker 1: betting on humanity's propensity to go after facades. And I'm
Speaker 1: not like, I'm not at all. I mean want Instagram.
Speaker 1: I don't want social media, of course, but as humans,
Speaker 1: we have to understand our tendency to do identity and
Speaker 1: counter productive ways. Yeah, the idea with social media is
Speaker 1: that you almost have to be on it in some
Speaker 1: ways to be relevant, of course, And that's dumb to say,
Speaker 1: because you don't have to have social media to survive
Speaker 1: in today's world. Most people do, and it's just got
Speaker 1: to be handled in a balanced way, you know. And
Speaker 1: I think when we understand how the mind works, how
Speaker 1: we are on a constant search for identity, that it
Speaker 1: that that knowledge can give us tools to know how
Speaker 1: to manage stuff. And I know for sure, inside of
Speaker 1: my life, because I mean I do a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff on social media part of my job, I work
Speaker 1: extra hard to make sure that the real human relationships
Speaker 1: in my life are dialed up and dialed in, because yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just like, you know, you just don't want to
Speaker 1: be the guy that is a facade. Fascinating stuff, and
Speaker 1: we've just scratched the surface of it. As we come
Speaker 1: to a close, I want to summarize what we've learned
Speaker 1: and get back to our original question. Why do whitetail
Speaker 1: hunters keep secrets? Why do you think we're so finicky
Speaker 1: about the way that we distribute white tail hunting secrets?
Speaker 1: Several things, I don't want you in my spot. I
Speaker 1: don't want you. It's a it's a competition for a
Speaker 1: limited resource, so you're not going to share it with everybody.
Speaker 1: I think. Another thing is a fundamental insecurity. I'm not
Speaker 1: just gonna I'm not gonna just share my important knowledge
Speaker 1: with anybody, because again, what if they don't reciprocate well
Speaker 1: in a fundamental insecurity on the like, I'm hiding because
Speaker 1: I'm I'm afraid it's gonna be taken from me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people are just insecure. We are insecure. Just like someone
Speaker 1: is gonna go on Pinterest. You know, my my wife
Speaker 1: might get on Pinterest and select certain things to be
Speaker 1: on her Pinterest page. She's gonna select the things that
Speaker 1: she feels like reflects who she is. If I go
Speaker 1: to Lows or home Depot and pick out new light
Speaker 1: fixtures for a home and do that, I'm not just
Speaker 1: gonna pick out random ones. I'm gonna pick out the
Speaker 1: ones that I feel like reflect who I am. Same
Speaker 1: way when it comes to choosing who I share information with,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna share information with people who I feel like
Speaker 1: are sufficiently like me or people that I want to
Speaker 1: be like. And so that's a very finicky kind of
Speaker 1: particular process. I don't just share with anybody. You've made
Speaker 1: a lot of jokes about how someone says acorn or acorn.
Speaker 1: You know, we have all these kind of ear markers
Speaker 1: a joke, You're an idiot. We have all these these
Speaker 1: earmarks of who is in and who is out, and
Speaker 1: so much of human thinking is in group out group thinking.
Speaker 1: You know, you think you look at our nation and
Speaker 1: how polarized it is, and fairly quickly I can tell
Speaker 1: who is in whatever my supposed in that sphere of
Speaker 1: influence in group is and who is out, and that's
Speaker 1: where information goes or with the out group, that is
Speaker 1: not where information goes. In closing, I want to tell
Speaker 1: you just a little bit about my secret in I
Speaker 1: had a big deer on camera. For me, it was
Speaker 1: like a once in a decade type deer hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty engineer after a bullet malfunction on my muzzle loader
Speaker 1: and amidst the deer lived in one he grew a
Speaker 1: lot and turned into a once in a lifetime deer.
Speaker 1: The prior season, my strategy had been locked box lips,
Speaker 1: especially with neighboring landowners that had access to this deer.
Speaker 1: But later in the season I adopted a different strategy
Speaker 1: of openness. I made an unusual move. I decided to
Speaker 1: coop information with the other people that I knew were
Speaker 1: after him. I agreed to share all the info. I
Speaker 1: had no secrets. It was risky and went against everything
Speaker 1: I'd ever done. I chose to share all my trail
Speaker 1: campics within a few hours of getting them with the
Speaker 1: other guys that were hunting this deer. Why and I
Speaker 1: didn't ask for anything in return, But if I'm being honest,
Speaker 1: I imagined that I would get stuff in return. I
Speaker 1: was willing to be the first to release information. I
Speaker 1: was desperate, but my motives were probably far from altruistic.
Speaker 1: I knew that they would give me information that I
Speaker 1: needed as well, but it seemed kind of fair. The
Speaker 1: results of the experiment were entirely positive, though none of
Speaker 1: us killed the buck, I shared valuable information that helped
Speaker 1: the other landowners, and in turn, they shared info with me.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, the release of that
Speaker 1: secret information did exactly what Dr Dan said it would do.
Speaker 1: It built trust and relationship between myself and these guys
Speaker 1: that I don't think will go away anytime soon. Sadly,
Speaker 1: we believe the Buck to be dead. Who else did
Speaker 1: I share these secret pictures with? You might ask, I
Speaker 1: can't tell you. That's a secret. I've learned a lot
Speaker 1: about myself by talking with Mosley, Curly and Dr Dan.
Speaker 1: I continue to be amazed at the undeniable magnetic attraction
Speaker 1: for humans to build personal identity. You do it even
Speaker 1: if you don't think you are like an emerald headed
Speaker 1: Ballard duck going to the acorns and rice. We just
Speaker 1: can't help it. These secrets we keep and release are
Speaker 1: important components of relationship and identity building. Keeping secrets also
Speaker 1: has some really functional aspects to them, like we don't
Speaker 1: want a bunch of hillbillies piling into our spots, But
Speaker 1: it's deeper. The quickest way to offend someone is to
Speaker 1: invalidate their perceived personal identity. Fist fights, murders, wars, and
Speaker 1: unbridled wrath have been released by people because of infractions
Speaker 1: on their identity. We spend our whole lives building it,
Speaker 1: and appealing to someone's personal identity is also the quickest
Speaker 1: way to someone's heart and to engender their trust. Obviously,
Speaker 1: this can be done in healthy and unhealthy ways, genuine
Speaker 1: and non genuine ways, But in the end, we want
Speaker 1: to be surrounded by people who view us as we
Speaker 1: believe ourselves to be and hopefully who we actually are.
Speaker 1: Humans are designed to live in close orbit with people,
Speaker 1: and these people around this build our identity. It's grounding
Speaker 1: to me to realize that people's perception of us is
Speaker 1: far less important than the meat of the matter, which
Speaker 1: is who we actually are. Better to be thought and idiot,
Speaker 1: but be intelligent than to be thought intelligent and be
Speaker 1: an idiot. In the world that's increasingly digital and impersonal,
Speaker 1: it's easier than ever to live behind the facade, knowing
Speaker 1: that external possessions give the illusion of identity, and that
Speaker 1: that's a really old trick. I'm hoping that all this
Speaker 1: talk will help me focus on actual character and actual
Speaker 1: substance who I am when nobody's watching. I'm a big
Speaker 1: fan of that kind of talk, but talk is cheap anyway.
Speaker 1: Next season, when you get a picture of a big
Speaker 1: buck or a big bear, keep track of who you
Speaker 1: share it with and how you manage your own secrets,
Speaker 1: and you just might learn something about yourself. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening to bear Grease. Hey, check out Meat
Speaker 1: Eats Season ten, Part two on Netflix if you haven't,
Speaker 1: and check out the Bargrease merch on the meat eater
Speaker 1: dot com. And thanks to Toime for all your support
Speaker 1: on this podcast. Please share this podcast with friend and folk,
Speaker 1: even share it with your grandma who knows she might
Speaker 1: like it. And hey, before we close, here's a bonus
Speaker 1: section of Dan Rupe ringing the Truth out of Me
Speaker 1: Clay nucom How many photos do you have on your
Speaker 1: phone that no one else has seen? Secret photos? Secret photos?
Speaker 1: These photos would be a combination that are mine that
Speaker 1: I don't share, but also photos that people have sent
Speaker 1: me that I've vowed to not show. And I would
Speaker 1: say that at any given time, if you were to
Speaker 1: scroll through my saved pictures on my phone, there would
Speaker 1: be three to six pictures of white tailed deer that
Speaker 1: have some semblance of a vow made to someone else
Speaker 1: or to myself that I wasn't that I wouldn't share
Speaker 1: freely with anybody. There's there's different variations of this, because
Speaker 1: there's some pictures that I would share with Joe on
Speaker 1: the street if I was walking down the street and
Speaker 1: he had a camo hat and we stopped together, and
Speaker 1: I'll be like, man, you a deer hunter, and I'll
Speaker 1: be like, look at the stair I got a picture of.
Speaker 1: But they're also there's three to six that that would
Speaker 1: never happen to know, here's a question for you. Let's
Speaker 1: say somebody shares with you they're inside info. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: a picture from the trail camp. Oh yeah, your mr
Speaker 1: go to. My question is can you be trusted? Hey?
Speaker 1: That is a very real question that every one of
Speaker 1: us wager on our friend all the time. And so
Speaker 1: you're asking me, I'm not if I'm trustworthy? Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a it's a yes or no. You've not answered,
Speaker 1: but the answer the answer is yes. I if you
Speaker 1: sent me a picture that you specifically asked me not
Speaker 1: to share with anyone, I would I would honor that. Okay,
Speaker 1: it sounds to me like one you're trying to convince
Speaker 1: yourself that you're trustworthy to what if I sent you
Speaker 1: a photo and I didn't explicitly say, hey, Clay, keep
Speaker 1: this one to yourself, but you knew you knew I
Speaker 1: didn't want this going every Okay, then it's it's sort
Speaker 1: of off the table if you don't if you give
Speaker 1: me information that does not come with specific instructions, then
Speaker 1: it's off the table. Now. Granted, I I'm not stupid,
Speaker 1: and if somebody's sharing information with me, like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: typically act inside of like a code of honor, which
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go like put that on Instagram and say,
Speaker 1: Jim said, this picture of this buck you got on
Speaker 1: his lease. But if you sent me a picture and
Speaker 1: you don't say don't share this with someone, and I'm
Speaker 1: compelled by that picture, I'm compelled by something about it,
Speaker 1: the size of the buck, where it was, at the
Speaker 1: time it was, at what it was doing. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll show that to Bill on the street. So that's okay.
Speaker 1: What I think what's disturbing to me is even when
Speaker 1: you said I would say don't share this one with anybody,
Speaker 1: you said typically you would act within a code of
Speaker 1: well listen, so there is there are therefore instances where
Speaker 1: you would betray my trust? Okay, regardless of the situation.
Speaker 1: I guess what we're talking about is how to the
Speaker 1: letter of the law that someone is gonna be I
Speaker 1: don't think we're talking about someone. I think we're talking
Speaker 1: about you and what you're made. Listen, you send me
Speaker 1: a picture of your big buck that and you say, Clay,
Speaker 1: don't share this with anybody? Can I show it to
Speaker 1: my wife? Is your wife? Anybody she is? So I've
Speaker 1: broken your trust? Can I show it to my dad?
Speaker 1: Who will not know where that information came from? Will
Speaker 1: not I mean, has no connection. Don't you don't you
Speaker 1: understand that this is how the floodgates get open. It's
Speaker 1: exactly how they get open, Dan, And that is exactly
Speaker 1: why that I've been burned. I have been burned by people.
Speaker 1: And what I because this is what I've learned, okay,
Speaker 1: is it's not me that you have to worry about.
Speaker 1: It's the person I share it with. So I get
Speaker 1: your picture and I'm just sharing this with you because
Speaker 1: I have grown. Okay, I have grown. I get a
Speaker 1: picture from you this jot buck, and I go, man, oh,
Speaker 1: Gary Nuclem, He's not gonna go in there and kill
Speaker 1: that dear. He's not gonna it doesn't matter. And so
Speaker 1: I go, look at this picture that Bill sent me.
Speaker 1: I've swore to Bill that I wasn't gonna show anybody.
Speaker 1: This is a made up scenario. This is never hap
Speaker 1: purely hypothetical. I showed it to Gary and again, I'm
Speaker 1: not the one you have to worry about, because I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna go on your spot. I'm not gonna tell
Speaker 1: the information to someone that would use that information to
Speaker 1: capitalize on your spot. But you know who doesn't have
Speaker 1: loyalty to Billy, Gary Nuco Now it doesn't have any
Speaker 1: loyalty to Bill, doesn't know Bill, you know Gary. The
Speaker 1: next day goes man, I saw a picture of a
Speaker 1: big buck that came out of bleepity bleep management area
Speaker 1: just yesterday. And he tells that to pick someone and bam,
Speaker 1: the thing just you've lost it all. So that's where
Speaker 1: people aren't trustworthy is the trusted person that they tell
Speaker 1: Because my trusted person isn't your trusted person. You can
Speaker 1: see what I'm saying. Yeah, And so I have started
Speaker 1: to when I share deep secrets for other people, like say,
Speaker 1: don't share this with anybody, not even your dad, not
Speaker 1: even your brother. You know, can you keep this secret?
Speaker 1: So one of the things about being in a relationship
Speaker 1: with you that's challenging is you are actually dividing families.
Speaker 1: I mean, you are keeping people from communicating with their
Speaker 1: own family members. I mean, didn't tell there