Calvin Higgins: And welcome back to Choice Man, everybody. You are correct. That is very good. Morning Sam, how are you? I'm doing good. How you? Doing fantastic. Another day, another podcast. And you know, I'd like to issue a few formal apologies. Well, not really real apologies. One of them is, the first apology is you're gonna be like, Well, what is this shot that we are looking at on camera right now? If you're watching us on video. We got kicked out. Yeah, basically. No, just kidding. We the place that we've been filming in, that spot in the building is my my dad's office and he's meeting with another elder right now, so you know, that's all right. We we can rotate. So thank you, Mrs. Pikinis, for without real authorization letting us be in here. Didn't ask you, but you know, we're not messing up too many things, hopefully. so yeah, the shot's not great, lighting's not great, but when When has that ever been good? I don't know. You know? That one time where I fell by myself outside, that actually did look pretty good. but you know it's it's a lot easier to figure it out over. Yeah. You guys have seen us in a lot of different spots and you know, maybe someday we'll have a real studio. But the only way we're gonna do that is if you like and subscribe. Come on, people. What a segue. That's right. Interact with our videos if you can. that actually would help us down the road be able to get monetized. So we'd love to keep bringing you great content. So thanks for listening. another form of apology in terms of the actually like thanks for listening stuff, hasn't been a whole lot to listen to recently. And as like right before we started shooting this one, I pressed publish on episode 67. That was an interview with Halle Higgins, who's my sister. You can go check that out. It's on YouTube right now, should be On Spotify within the next couple minutes. Obviously, by the time you're watching it, it's definitely out. Probably you've also seen it get posted on Facebook by the time you're watching this. and there's, you know, a few more episodes that will have come out as well by the time this one comes out. So we've got one about orientation night. We've got one with our other sisters, so one of his sisters, one of my sisters, and then we've got another one where we're just talking and Maybe one more? Not sure. Stay tuned. Maybe. You'll see what's coming. bunch of professional yappers yapping it up. We are professional. Well, Sam is an amateur yapper. I think he he's a professional on some other things. Movie quoter. He's a professional movie quoter. You know? Actually, I might give you professional yap status. It's just not what most people would think. Especially if they haven't got to talk to you for very long. anyways today's episode not sure what episode number it is yet. I'll have to check that when I post it. But should be episode seventy maybe. Seventy one, something like that. So we we kinda talked about it. We'll see if we can reach episode a hundred by the end of the year. Not not totally sure if that's gonna happen. But we'll see what we can do. and you know, yesterday, another segue, we were trying to think about what we're gonna talk about. And we've kind of been talking about the same stuff recently. It's a lot of student-oriented things because the school year kind of just started and you know, we got sports going, different things like that. And I think those are good things to talk about, but I feel like I haven't done a whole lot of work on being creative with coming up with things to talk about. So while I was driving home last night, I was like, wait a second. I think I have an idea. So I texted Sam in a very excited manner and said, Sam, you know, we run a discipleship group, and we have discussion questions from those discipleship groups. And so from our we're doing a thing right now where we're reading Proverbs and we're also reading It's Good to Be a Man, and we're talking about them at separate meetings. So we're kind of reading in async sort of way. So from our first discussion, it was about it's good to be a man, chapters one through two. it was led by Xander. If you guys know Xander, he was on one of our last podcasts, we interviewed him, you can go check that out. but I I'm writing discussion questions for every meeting. And then if the the young men are leading the It's Good to be a man discussions, we're leading the Proverbs discussions, they are able to take my discussion questions and edit them. They're able to delete them. They're able to use all of them if they wanted to. So but we're just gonna kind of quickly work through those. We actually do have somewhere to be pretty soon. So just stay with us for a quick little quick little episode this morning. Sam, what was your favorite question from from this one? Because there were some good ones. There's some that are close to each other, but you know that's all right. You know? It might have been the you know, I don't 'cause I don't think we actually went through all of them. Yeah. But number seven, I think, personally was great. what does taking dominion look like for you in your current season of life? Or does your dominion need to be redirected? 'cause for young men and and especially young men in that group, Like it it's it's not really something you think about. And so being able to think about the question and then be like, okay, if that's the category, how am I living my life correctly or incorrectly based on what I should be doing, right? W i it's it's another it's another key question of Well, it's it's another it's another thing of here's how to make sure you're also living correctly. versus just a couple of the things that you're you're picking up, because you know, not a lot of young men keep that in the forefront of their minds of I'm taking dominion right now or or whatever. Like with whatever task they're given or whatever job they're given, they'll they'll probably think like, well, I need to I need be a good worker, I need to work under the Lord, be a good blessing to my employee or my my coworkers and my boss and and have a good attitude when I come home from work, blah, blah, blah, a couple other things. And not in terms of am I taking dominion in my job? Like am I stewarding it well? Am I you know? Yeah. So for young men, that is Like it's a good question. Yeah. What does taking dominion look like for you in your current season of life? Yeah or does your dominion need to be redirected? It's question seven. Yeah, it's almost easy it's almost easier to overglorify what dominion taking looks like because, you know, the word dominion, particularly in the way that it was used in the Bible, is very grand in in some of the examples. So like Take dominion of the earth and subdue it. Like that feels very grand, but actually what that and I think Foster, Michael Foster and non-tenant do a good job taking that and kind of applying it down into some of the lower like like lower categories, not lower in terms of importance, but lower categories in the big list. So like if you start really grand all the world domination. Okay, well you break that down into a lot of things. Farming is one of those or cleaning your room. Well, 'cause an an another thing is like, a lot of you know, a lot of men can fall into the pit of it's dominating, we need to take dominion into the earth. That means every guy needs to be like the king of the world. Yeah. Every guy needs to the you know and and and while all men are called to be leaders in some capacity, I don't think it means every single guy needs to aspire to king of the world status. Yeah. For for that. Absolutely not. well, and 'cause again, if you're if you're overglorifying it, then whatever you're doing in the moment, if you're at school, you're not gonna be thankful for that work. Cause at that point, that feels meaningless compared to conquering nations. But like w there's not actu excuse me, there's not actually a lot of nation conquering right now. That's not we don't live in that world currently of bickering. Yeah, there's there's political conquest, but it's not the same. Like Alexander the Great and Donald Trump are not the same people. So starting a real empire or managing a nation that's already been there are very different things, but that's still dominion taking. But also you cleaning your room. Is dominion taking. You doing the dishes is dominion taking, but it doesn't seem cool. And I think that when guys talk about dominion taking, it all of it's supposed to just sound cool. But like, that's not cool. What's cool is if you do all of your work and you take dominion of whatever it is. If if you do the dishes in an awesome way, bam. You took dominion. You did that. That's cool. But especially young men don't talk about their work like that. And I actually think. That's because their dads probably don't talk about their work like that. And so we need more dads who, whatever their work is, are excited about it, who are taking dominion in that work and then showing it to their sons as like, no, this is cool. This is exciting. This is me doing my job. And then the son should be excited about then doing his homework that he felt like maybe was meaningless, but now understands, no, this is my job at hand, is what I'm supposed to be doing. Cause I think this is part of why sports get so blown out of proportion in terms of importance during a school year is because that's way more exciting and that's way cooler. Right. On face value. You can see the results. You can see the triumph. You can see the competition easier too. And for guys, the competitive side, the I want to win and take dominion in that way. I want to be dominant. Way easier to do that in sports than it is in school because it it's natural It's a natural way of talking about sport is to win. It is not natural to talk about school like that, but I think that we could. Or chores. Or chores. Right? But winning the day. Dominate dominate by winning the day. So I thought this one was was interesting. I mean obviously well I say that. This is my question. Sorry. I'm not trying to talk about like this. I'm just coming back looking at it. and if you've never read It's Good to Be a Man by Michael Tennant and or Michael Foster and Michael Tennant and non Foster. No, no, yeah. Michael Foster. You should definitely check it out. Yeah. maybe I'll leave a link to it in the description. Yeah. Yeah, it's a great book. We read it together in twelfth grade and then for life to life not life to life. Wow, men to men. Yeah. And then also for Nervous. Well and well Did we read it again for another Yeah, we did senior. That's where I got my book from was for the senior our senior class. if I could edit this where it's just me in a different room now talking to you, I'd be like, guys, what Sam didn't realize is that I said seniors beforehand. Really? Yeah. But you know, it's just been that kind of morning. Yeah, that's all right. It is. strange. But so one of the questions on here is who do you turn to for advice on how to be a man? Instagram influencers, authors, your dad or grandpa, maybe an elder or teacher. And I think that this one is particularly in I mean, we could talk this is a podcast series by itself. And actually, now that I think about it. Maybe, maybe we could take that question and kind of dissect it more, but just in general, you know, who are you turning for? And I think this applies for ladies as well. But in the how to be how to be a woman, who are you looking to for advice on that? Obviously, you're probably gonna get a little bit of advice at least from your parents. Fine, that's good. Hopefully you're getting more than just a little bit, but like bare minimum, your parents are probably telling you some things that they think you should be doing in order to be a good woman or a good man. excuse me, you're blessed, obviously, if your parents are doing more than just that. But again, probably bare minimum. So where else are you turning to? Well, the Bible has got to be the first, first spot you're looking for on how to be a man or how to be a woman. Instagram is Not very high on the list, hopefully. in terms of how to be a good a good person. Now is I saw I saw the Instagram reel where the guy wrapped bacon around his gun suppressor and cooked it. Like that is I was thinking more along the lines of like Jordan Peterson or Alex Ramosy. Yeah. And like those guys. I think the Joe Rogan podcast, aside from all the language that's used, for the most part, it's pretty interesting. using the language is manly. Yeah, makes you a man if you say it like that. but one of the things that is a thing to be wary of is like You know, he he's interested in basically everything. This is why the podcast works. It's three hours unedited of him and somebody. Could be Elon Musk, could be Mike Tyson, could be Donald Trump. I mean, that's a crazy list. Just just for starters. And they're gonna talk about whatever because he's interested and he wants to ask questions and he wants to know more. But like Joe Rogan has parts of him that are completely things you would want to replicate. So, like his discipline and his work ethic are things that you would want to replicate. His faith is not something you'd want to replicate because he doesn't have any. Jordan Peterson, academically and in terms of being able to discuss with people, that would be a thing you'd want to imitate. His understanding of without without saying that he's a Christian, his understanding of humanity. Is very interesting. There are totally things that you can get from him. However, he still does not profess to be a Christian. Therefore, all of all of what he is saying about, you know, even human nature, well, he's pulling that all straight from Christianity. And he knows that he is. That's the thing. He is a dangerous it's like the the ignorant are less dangerous than those who know and continue to choose not to obey. So like this is this is why if a Christian if a if somebody claims to be a Christian but never has a life with any kind of fruit in it, that's really dangerous because they know everything they know all the stuff, they got the material. Yeah. And are choosing to say, Nope. No, don't think so. this is why, you know. Professing Christians are punishment for sinning when we like we know what we're supposed to do. That's worse than if somebody didn't know. But like Jordan Peterson knows. He knows and he's not willing to accept it yet. But again, he's got good stuff to say. Alex Hermosy, hardworking dude for sure. Got good advice in terms of business things. Have you ever watched him talk about Christianity? Bro also knows and won't commit. So like there's there's all of these, there's all these guys with some parts that are really good in terms of like maybe it's business, maybe it's education, maybe it's you know tactical, like physical training, things like that. Totally great to get some parts of that. But when you turn that person into a real mentor for your whole life via the internet, probably not gonna go very well. This is why elders are important, this is why shepherds are important, because They are supposed to be paying attention to you. They're supposed to be helping you. Alex Hermozzi, if you watch his reel, doesn't actually care about you. He doesn't know who you are. He's not looking to be a father figure to you. You do not want to pull your father figures off of the internet. Like, you really don't want to do that. You want to pull them in person, or, in my opinion, authors. And I think this is a great thing if you're somebody who so like reading to I am not a big reader. I don't love reading as much as I should. But one of the things to me that is very attractive about reading is regardless of how many friends you have, regardless of how many people don't want to be your friend. Potentially. I'm not saying that in a victim way. I'm just saying like maybe you're not actually going the same direction. Regardless of that, there are You can make authors your friend in the right kind of way. So reading Lewis, reading Tolkien, reading Packer, reading Douglas Wilson. Douglas Wilson, all of those guys, you can read, you can read books and you can read particularly nonfiction books. So I mean, I I know I said Tolkien, but like in terms of classic books, you can read those books and you can get a lot of information out that. You can get a lot of help from that. But Bible's still number one, parents are next. Crazy guys. We I know we've only been here for 20 minutes. We kind of gotta wrap it up. So maybe we'll do one more question. Sam, what do you what do you see in there? I do think let us know in the comments. We don't really get any comments, but let us know in the comments. Should we dive into that question again? The who you're turning to for advice. Maybe talk about that and break it down a little bit more. We could do that or something else. But Sam, next question. Yeah. Last question, actually. And then data advice. You know, number one is looking pretty good. I was actually just looking at that. I was like, that might not be a bad question. I think yeah, I'll probably go with that one. So yeah, patriarchy. The authors of this book say it is inevitable. Why? Yeah. That's a good question. Yeah. I now again I just toot my own horde. That was my question. But that that question In terms of like having a really long discussion about it, I think that was really good because that one I think had the biggest chunk of time in our group. Well, maybe not. I think it was it was one of the top ones, but I thought it was the can't remember which one it was, but it was like whose fault is it that yeah. Whose fault is it that the patriarchy stinks and that that had some interesting discussion. We can talk about that one later too. But so Patriarchy again, it is I agree that it's inevitable because never goes away and it's built into how the world was created. So our father who art in heaven, our father, okay, well, bam, patriarchy. The whole thing's built off of patriarchy. The whole thing is built off of a father who his children are the ones that we like we are the children. We are his children, and he is a father to us. He is our father. He's our heavenly father. Christ is going to take the church as his bridegroom. I mean. Kind of can't wait, did I say bridegroom? you did. Bride. Guys, once again, maybe I had more than people. I need some more of this. Watermelon, someone. Just kidding. I don't actually think that's gonna help me. For all the haters out there, it's not gonna help me. but the church is gonna take Christ is gonna take the church as his bride. Once again, another patriarchy figure right there. Also I think that this is the biggest thing. When you start to look into any feminist movement, do you know where they're backed by? Like, do you know who they're backed by? Dudes. They're backed by super wealthy dudes who are, and you can call it whatever group you want to call. Maybe it's elitists, maybe it's political, like could be the government, could be whatever. It's guys with money. Who are figuring out this is how we're gonna keep the rest of the guys subdued. Because this is a tactic. This is a tactic that is used to subdue a large group of people, is to eliminate the front-facing patriarchy that you can see, which is like the nuclear family, the you know, the general headship of a man to a woman, from a man to his kids. When you try to remove all of that on the front-facing public level. That makes it look like there's no patriarchy. Do you know who's orchestrating that whole thing? A patriarchy. It's a it's the bad version of the patriarchy, but it's dudes who are controlling that whole system. That's not, and this is and because then guys were like, well, wait, that's right, because like ladies don't have then a lot of power. No, no, no. They're doing it through the ladies because ladies do have lots of power. But who did so? What was the very first inversion of the patriarchy? When Satan told Eve, You can be like God, you can be like the Father. But what happened there? That was sin, right? So that means that's not true. God said that's not true. But it's again, all of the non-patriarchal things are just inversions of the patriarchy. It is not. The patriarchy will never leave. It is always inevitable. It's just who is, you know, in terms of politics and the patriarchy, do we have good people in there or do we have bad people in there? That will influence how it looks then to the public facing, public facing area. When we had real dudes who run the I mean, you know, Trump is not supporting the feminist movement. He's not funding the feminist movement because Trump is again more of the he's not fully in the middle, but again, a lot. He used to be not a Republican. Most of the Republican, most of the The common sense party used to be left wing. The problem is we're talking about a very conservative left wing. Like this is before things got crazy. I would say right now, I don't want to talk about right wing, left wing. I think both left wing and right wing are crazy. Somewhere in the middle is where you want to be. And this is like and this is why all the all the wealthy guys are like, Well, I think I want to make my money and keep it. I'd like to keep as much money as I can make. So I want middle of the road policies. Leave me alone. Let me do my stuff. Yeah, that's way better. Do you know who the ATF, you know who the new director of the ATF is? Yeah. An awesome dude who's like, yeah, people should have guns. Do you know the ruling that happened yesterday? really? No more paperwork for suppressors. Nice. No more paperwork for short barrels. No more paperwork for there's there's another two things in there. Weird stocks or something, magazines. No, it's all it's all related to suppressors and different kinds of rifles. But you don't have to do paperwork for them anymore. Like you don't have to register like so they got rid of the tax stamp last year. Now you don't have the of course, we were we were running out of so much time here. It's crazy. There's there is so much stuff that we could we could kind of keep talking about, but again, the patriarchy can't go away. Because It's inevitable. It always has to happen because that's how the world was created. So, and this is where if somebody said, Well, but you know, you could disagree with how the world was created, and you're wrong. But like, that's the only way you can say, Well, there could basically never need to be a patriarchy. It could go away. No, it can't. That is only if God didn't create the world. The way he did. So If you can't read Genesis, then you can say that the like, that's the only way you can say that the patriarchy is not inevitable is if you don't read Genesis. Ali. The first temptation is to say, No, you can be like the father. What does that imply? That implies that there is a father. That implies that there is a patriarchy. And it was sin. It was an inversion of of what was good. There's no reason men go to war and women should stay out of it. And, you know, that's not to say nurses can't you know, like In the town because again, obviously this is you know, because I think people go, you make women sound so ing insignificant. How dare you? I'm sorry. There wouldn't be more men also if there were no women. Like, Eve was very important because it's not good for man to be alone. It literally says that. Dude, it's all in Genesis. All right, Sam, give us the dead advice. show your sons the manliness and meaning in menial missions, mean menial tasks. Because like we've been saying, even in the small things, manliness can be shown. Like it. All right, everybody. That's gonna do it for episode whatever this is. Somewhere in the seventies, I think. Maybe seventy, seventy one. Yeah, somewhere in there. thanks for listening. Again, if you could like and subscribe, that'd be fantastic for us. Leave a comment. Please. We really would like to hear your thoughts on it. and episode ideas, how much you hate the podcast, anything really. Yeah. Check out the last couple episodes that just dropped. Hopefully before you've seen this. And yeah, catch you guys next time. Choice men signing off. Peace.