Leaving the Mormon Church and becoming an “asker”

Erick Cloward was raised in the Mormon Church in Utah, in a not-always-happy home. He talks about it a lot on his podcast, The Stoic Coffee Break (which is an absolute must-subscribe, by the way) and the parts of that culture that eventually led him to leave the church, and Utah altogether. In episode 181 of his show, he digs into "asking" vs. "guessing" culture, and the contrast between what was the norm in his lived experience in the Church of Latter-day Saints, and cultures—dare I say, like Judaism??—that normalize directness. I immediately saw myself, and reflections of a million little skirmishes I've had over the years in that episode, and naturally had a million things to ask, got cheeky, and emailed him. Our conversation reflects on what "asking" vs "guessing" culture means, how it manifests, different approaches and why such things might exist. And of course, I peppered him with a bunch of questions he should not have been tasked with answering, but graciously did anyway. Thank you so much, Erick, for giving this wee podcast a bit of your Big Deal Podcaster time!

Make sure you also check out his episode on being a people pleaser, which we also talk about in this episode! 

GLOSSARY:

Glasnost Perestroika: meaning “openness” and “restructuring,” this was a period of reforms at the end of the Soviet era initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev after becoming head of the Communist Party in 1985.

Midrash: both a noun and a verb, midrash means commentary (or commenting) on aspects of Jewish law or scripture. Interpretations from rabbis over the centuries have been gathered into a collection of writings often referenced to help understand or give depth of meaning to readings in the Torah or Jewish law.

Pesach: the Hebrew name for Passover, the ritual meal which commemorates the Exodus from Egypt, when Jews followed Moses out of slavery after the Ten Plagues.

Transcript

Erick: 0:00

Asking doesn't need to be a bludgeon. It doesn't need to be a cultural that you use against people. And that's what a lot of people have a hard time with directness. They think that it's using it as a weapon because you can be direct and you can still be kind.

Hannah Gaber: 0:14

Yeah.

Erick: 0:14

But some people are just gonna be offended no matter what, because it is a direct question. But if you can ask any question with a button with a bit of compassion and a bit of kindness wrapped around it, and let them know, just saying, hey, you know, the reason why I'm asking this is because this is something I really need to understand about us. Otherwise, it's gonna cause a lot of problems going forward.

Hannah Gaber: 0:34

Meet Erick Cloward. He's the host of one of my absolute favorite podcasts and very important part of my morning ritual, the Stoic Coffee Break. I discovered the show during the depths of COVID, when all of us were searching for something to look towards. I didn't realize it at the time, but he'd been recording for a while. And I wasn't that far through his back catalogue before I came across his sign off episode. So I finished all the episodes that were available to me, and then I unsubscribed. But there really wasn't anything out there like it. So after gosh, probably over a year, I decided, forget it. I'll just start from the beginning. And listen to all of the episodes again, I went back to the show, and there were all these new episodes. I began gobbling up the back catalogue. And I eventually came across an episode about asking versus guessing cultures. Erick has talked a lot on the show about being raised in Utah and growing up in the Mormon church and his less than always happy family history. But in his short form show, we don't really get to hear a ton about his actual journey out of those places, and into the places of exploration and philosophy that he tries to inhabit now. When I heard the asking versus guessing cultures episode, just light bulbs going off in all directions. I saw reflections of myself in it, I saw reflections of people I've known over the years of interactions that I maybe didn't really understand. In any case, I got cheeky, and stalked him on the internet till I found his email and I reached out and said, Hey, I'm nobody but do you want to come on my show? And in characteristic, stoic generosity, he was like,"Sure." So I present to you, Erick Cloward of the Stoic Coffee Break, which I will link in the show notes. Did you find that a lot of people came across the Stoic Coffee break during pandemic?

Erick: 2:30

Yeah, um...

Hannah Gaber: 2:32

Because you started it before that?

Erick: 2:33

Yeah, I started it back in 2018. Actually, January 4, 2018. I remember because I had made a New Year's resolution, I was going to start a podcast and I had tried starting one before. And it was about music soundtracks, because I just loved music soundtracks, you know. And I made an episode or two, but it just it didn't like it. It was didn't sound good. I was just I sounded terrible in my voice, all the things I was super hypercritical about it. Plus, then I realized that he was going to probably cost quite a bit to actually license the music be able to play it or because I didn't know anything about you know, his commentary covered under fair use or any of those kinds of things. So I was just like, I don't want to deal with all that. But yeah, my ex partner made me promise that I would do at least 100 episodes before I quit my podcast.

Hannah Gaber: 3:21

Oh, I love that.

Erick: 3:23

And cuz he's just like, you know, I know you when things get tough you

Hannah Gaber: 3:27

The tough get going?

Erick: 3:29

Yeah. So like, Okay, I'll make you that promise. The whole thing was, for me, it was like, I don't care if it's good. I just care if I actually do it. And so I just kept putting it out. And then I think after I had like about six or seven episodes, you know, and they're only like three or four minutes long, the first, the first chunk of them. I had like, 42 listens, and I was like, Holy crap.

Hannah Gaber: 3:51

That's kind of a lot. Yeah!

Erick: 3:53

Like, 42 people to listen to me. Who are these 42 strangers out there that care what I have to say? Exactly. And then I hit, then I hit like, 100 then I hit 1000. Then I hit 5000. And then it was 10,000. I'm just like, holy crap. That just is like, this is just so weird. And I actually have a screenshot of like when it hit 10,000 I actually got it right on 10,000. Yeah, this is like no way holy crap.

Hannah Gaber: 4:19

That's such a crazy feeling. And I'm not gonna lie when I got my little email saying, you know, congratulations, you've hit 1000 listens. I was like, that's kind of a milestone. You know, it feels kind of exciting. And then I actually just surpassed 2000 listens. So up we go I guess. I found your podcast, mid pandemic. So it was already 2020. And so I'm going through your back catalogue. Of course, you were doing it every single day. And I cannot imagine what a workload that was. Once a week is a lot.

Erick: 4:48

Um, I mean, I was really burned out. I was really working a lot on it. I also had a full time job. I had a partner I had teenagers. So basically once I hit 137 I changed it to have a full time or to a weekly podcast so that I can do more with it. So 137, like I said, they were generally about five minutes. And then from that point on, they've been about 10 to 15 minutes, on average, even then I took another break, I took some time off. And then me and my partner had a big blowout at a music festival that May, which, I mean, it was really good it it taught me a really important lesson. And I recognized some things and I was like, ah, you know, this is super important. I need to take this lesson that I've learned and share with other people. So then I was like, okay, you know what? I need to get back into making episodes, and I joke around, I call them my public therapy, because usually, what you hear on there is something I'm struggling with and going, how do I get past this thing? Because, you know, this is this is really challenging for me.

Hannah Gaber: 5:57

You've talked a lot on the pot about how you were raised Mormon. And did you find at first, when you started looking into stoicism, was there a clash? Was it like, there were tenants that I know that you had already left, and maybe you can take us through that journey? When did you start questioning your guessing culture? Because I know that that's a big theme you talked about in the episode that triggered me to reach out to you. Growing up in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, you talked in that episode about how like, one doesn't ask one guesses, and one leaves it alone. But you had to ask at some point, some pretty fundamental questions to get yourself up and out of that life. And how did that happen for you?

Erick: 6:46

At one point, so when I was 17, I almost left the church. Around that time, I remember. I had gotten to a once in a lifetime thing that had happened to me. I did a lot of theater work with the University of Utah theater school for youth, which is one of the premier youth theater programs, the United States. And we got invited to Soviet Russia for an International Youth Theatre Festival.

Hannah Gaber: 7:10

What year was this?

Erick: 7:12

This was 1990. So I was like,

Hannah Gaber: 7:14

Dang!

Erick: 7:15

Yeah, so it was still communist and everything at the time, they still had guards on the streets and all that stuff. Yeah, it was pretty wild. But it was, but it was also kind of the Glasnost Perestroika thing. So things were opening up just a little bit. And I remember going over there and at that time, I kind of like, well, I'm not going to be part of the church, whatever. And, and I just remember on that trip, feeling a bit, feeling a bit in a strange place, because I was tired of how I've been living in Utah. But here I was in this completely foreign culture. And so I felt like I was much more myself at that point. And I didn't fit in with the other kids who two of them actually went to high school with, and they came along with where they were part of the troop. And we're in choir and show choir together. So we spent a lot of time together. But they had their little clique with some of the other with these two other girls and I was just like, so it was just kind of me. And I was like, well I'm gonna go hang out with these Russian people, because they seem really fun. And they were just like, Who's this cool American? Yeah, who's talking to us what, and they just thought I was the coolest thing

Hannah Gaber: 8:19

Back in the '90s when you were just cool if you were American man, those were the days.

Erick: 8:24

And so and so I, you know, I, it was really fun. And I hung out with them, I hung out with some of the Germans, because I had taken some German in high school. So I could talk with them a little bit, even though they spoke really good. They spoke much better English than I did German at the time. But then I came back, got sucked back into the church, because

Hannah Gaber: 8:37

Especially in the 90s. you know, when you live in Salt Lake, it's your culture, there's not really a lot you can do about that. I ended up going on

Erick: 8:44

Yeah. And I'm just like, Well, wait a second, these a mission a year later, and which actually was probably one of the best things for me, I went to Austria, and so speak fluent German, I lived in a culture that was very, very different than what I've been brought up with it was socialist democracy. And we've been told that, you know, grow conservative, you know, capitalist democracy is the only way. And I was just like, people are happier than most of the Mormons that I know back home, why? I, yeah not I'm not buying this. And so for me, that was kind of the beginning of the end. But the funny thing,

Hannah Gaber: 9:21

Boy, that mission really backfired on them.

Erick: 9:22

It did in a way, but there were a couple of other things that set it up. Number one was, believe it or not, two things happened. There was a first Iraq war in 1990. And our TV broke, so,

Hannah Gaber: 9:36

Interesting.

Erick: 9:37

And my dad so my dad was like, you know, for whatever reason, didn't buy us a new TV. You know, even though we, you know, there was no reason not to, but for whatever reason just didn't. So we're like, well, crap America's at war. Oh my gosh, we're in a war. Oh, my God is. So we had to listen to the radio. And the best news on the radio was?

Hannah Gaber: 9:57

NPR.

Erick: 9:58

NPR. So I'm listening to NPR and I'm going, okay, these people are telling me the truth of this, what's going on? And so I just kind of got used to going there for the news. And when I got back from my mission, again that can that have it kind of came because I'm like, you know, here, I was a little more internationally schooled at this point, because I've been in two years in Australia. So I was much more aware of the wider world and I had been. And so I wanted to keep up with what was going on in the world. And so that was my news source. And then I would find, okay, this is what I heard on NPR. But then I read in the local papers, this, you know, this other take on something be like, that doesn't, that doesn't quite jive there. I don't, their opinion is incredibly biased. And they're, they're discounting a lot of these other facts of things and kind of twisting things around. And I noticed that over time, and then I would go check out his, you know, the Internet was starting to come up right at this time, because it was early 90s. So I go check other news sources and find out NPR was pretty much as neutral as they come. I mean, they were really on, they were very much very high integrity about late, let's just lay out the facts. And if we're going to say our opinion, say, this is our opinion on this thing, just stating their opinion, this fact. And so over time, especially climate change was a big thing for me. So I was a big Al Gore supporter, even though I was Mormon, which, you know, you're basically default Republican at that point.

Hannah Gaber: 11:17

Were you allowed to tell anyone or was it like, don't bring it up?

Erick: 11:20

I didn't really talk too much about politics with with that. I ended up going to a fairly liberal school for my last two years of college. And it had been a Presbyterian school for the, and then it reorganized and what's a nondenominational school is called Westminster College. And I found that even though I was still on the conservative side, because I was Mormon, I was much more, I found that my viewpoints much more aligned with most of the liberal people that I found there, which was quite a bit it was kind of like a liberal haven, because it was a liberal arts small liberal And so I, it was a really good thing for me. And then did the arts college. whole Mormon thing I got married, you know, way too fast to somebody I didn't know very well. We ended up getting, we were married for seven and a half years had two kids, and she was a good person. Luckily, I didn't marry somebody who was an awful person. And so our divorce was pretty amicable. And we're, and you know, my kids grew up to be good kids. So I always joke around, I'm like, my job was to get to you to 18. I did it.

Hannah Gaber: 12:22

You're on your own now, buddy.

Erick: 12:26

Gotcha to 18 alive. So. But my kids are my kids are good people. And I'm very, I had, I'm just super happy with who they are. And you know, I'm just just one of those things if they were pretty good kids all the way growing up. And just good people. And I worked really hard to be a pretty good parent, because my dad wasn't and so I knew what not to do. And so the bar was kind of low of being a good parent. Basically just don't do what my dad did, and I'd probably be all right.

Hannah Gaber: 12:55

You talk about that a lot in the podcast, too. Yeah. Was was questioning your dad, one of those things that would like set them off? What was that like?

Erick: 13:02

Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was kind of like living with an alcoholic, but there wasn't a bottle. You know, if I'd had a bottle, it would have been easier to come home and know Dad's in a shitty mood stay, you know, keep cool.

Hannah Gaber: 13:14

You could have explained it away, or avoided it somehow?

Erick: 13:18

Avoided it. Yeah.

Hannah Gaber: 13:19

You at least could have had a flag I see. Yeah. Yeah,

Erick: 13:22

Exactly. Some kind of signal of like, stay away from dad tonight. But, and it was hard because, there when he wasn't in one of his moods, he was funny, kind, generous, smart. Very intelligent, very curious about a lot of things. But, you know, living a double life, you know, because I've mentioned it before. So he was bisexual, and was having sex with men on the side. And so that's why my

Hannah Gaber: 13:50

Poor guy. I mean, poor you guys, but poor him as well, like, like what a tortured way to live, especially a dogmatic community.

Erick: 13:58

Yeah. And he, he believed in the church, but then he also had this other life and the two conflicted pretty strongly. So yeah, so I recognize that.

Hannah Gaber: 14:10

Well, and it sounds like that was one of your big motivations to get away from that was that sense of inner conflict too?

Erick: 14:18

Well, it was inner conflict, because I had, I had never felt like I was ever good enough. So there was always this feeling that no matter how I lived, no matter how I tried, I was just never good enough. And so the whole time I was married, I was on and off with the church. So there were a couple of times where I didn't go for the whole year. Then I finally go back and I give it a try, but then realized that I never felt like I really fit in or belonged or, and it's the whole thing of, of what a lot of religions do, which is if you can't live like this, it's because your faith isn't strong enough.

Hannah Gaber: 14:52

Becuse you're doing it wrong.

Erick: 14:54

Exactly. And it's kind of like, you know, it's the whole thing like with The Secrets, you know, you didn't manifest it?

Hannah Gaber: 14:59

Don't even get me started!

Erick: 15:00

It's because your faith wasn't strong enough!

Hannah Gaber: 15:01

"You must not have done it right!" It's like the system is rigged, right? The whole thing is rigged. Because if you do it, you can't really ever do it right. But then when you do it wrong, it's because of you. It's not because it's an undoable thing.

Erick: 15:15

Yeah. Yeah. And so for me, I never felt like I was good enough for the church. And so we reached a point, kind of last year of our marriage, where she said, you know, hey, I'm not going to be going to church anymore. It just doesn't work for me. I'm out. And you can go if you want. And so I think I went for another couple of weeks and was just like, you know what, I'd rather be out cycling. So I'd rather be out on my bike. And it was just like, I made that decision. And I felt physically lighter, like I was, I actually seriously looked around from I'm just like, am I floating off the ground here. This is a weird feeling. And I always tell people, I'm like, you know, those big statues out on Easter Island? They're like, yeah, I'm like, imagine feeling like you had one of those on your shoulders, and you just brushed it off? How light you would feel? And they're just like, whoa, and I'm like, yeah, it's a heavy load just to get off your shoulders. Because you realize that this whole belief system that made you feel like you were a terrible person, your whole life, that you were unworthy, and you could never live up to these standards, you realized was just all bullshit. And so you didn't have to live the standards anymore.

Hannah Gaber: 16:23

Tell me where you came up with the concept of the asking versus the guessing culture? And like, how would you define each of those?

Erick: 16:29

It wasn't me who came up with it? It was the Yeah, it was on MetaFilter. So I stumbled on this. I can't even remember how I found this. But I think I saw link towards it and then I did you know somebody mentioned it. And so I searched for it found it on this thing called MetaFilter , which some kind of q&a thing I guess, like Quora, you know, type of thing. And so they kind of came up with a definition of it. And I was just like, as soon as I saw it, I recognize I'm like, Oh, my gosh, yes, absolutely. 100% understand this. This makes perfect sense to me. And so I just took it and expanded upon it from my own experience. And it's definitely one that I've gotten a lot of people who are like, "Oh, my gosh, you know, I'm a guesser. And my, my wife is I guesser!" My friend Ben from high school, actually sent me a note and he's like, okay, so I'm a guesser. And my wife has a guesser. And we both figured that out. And so we've we've been able to work together to to be a little bit more askers in our relationship, which is great. But how do we help our kids be not guessers? And so we're talking a bit about that and chatting about it. And luckily, first and foremost, is he doesn't live in Utah anymore. So that helps, right there. Yeah, he's in California. And so that made a big difference. And I just said, really, it's just about, the more honest you can be with your wife about everything and anything, it's an example thing for them that it allows them to be open and honest about those kinds of things. And one of the things that I appreciate about my ex partner, was that she helped me be a much better parent, because she was not a guesser. She was an asker. She helped me be such a better parent for that, because she, when the kids were, you know, early teens, she would bring up things about sex, it tried to embarrass the crap out of them by asking them questions about things, to the point where it was no longer taboo. And so they could then ask us anything they wanted to about sex, and it was just fine. And they reached a point where they would try and embarrass us with saying things about sex. And we just like, Oh, you guys are so cute. If we told you..

Hannah Gaber: 18:40

You can't embarrass me, trust me.

Erick: 18:41

You can't embarrass me, right, Yeah, good one good one, guys, but not gonna happen. But because of that, it's really comes down to just being an example of that. And the thing is, is that asking doesn't need to be a bludgeon. It doesn't need to be a cultural that you use against people. And that's what a lot of people have a hard time with directness. They think that it's using it as a weapon, because you can be direct, and you can still be kind. And presentation has a bit to do with it. But some people are just gonna be offended no matter what, because it is a direct question. But if you can ask any question with a bit of compassion, and a bit of kindness wrapped around it, and let them know, just saying, hey, you know, the reason why I'm asking this is because this is something I really need to understand about us. Otherwise, it's going to cause a lot of problems going forward, rather than going what, you know, why don't you just tell me, you know, there's a very big difference between those two.

Hannah Gaber: 19:36

I mean, I have found that to be effective in ending interactions.

Erick: 19:42

Yes, ending but not continuing.

Hannah Gaber: 19:44

Yeah, that's definitely a skill I had to learn. I think it's really interesting because if I were to guess, I would say that when you read that you immediately connected with the guests or profile, but when I heard your episode, I immediately connected with the asker profile. And like I said, it just immediately puts so many past experiences into into perspective for me and explained immediately for me, so much of the discomfort that I must have been causing people without realizing it. And then in turn, of course, that explains some of the reactions that have mystified me like my whole life.

Erick: 20:18

Yeah. And what it does is for me, I look at this as a, and Stoicism in general, as a kind of a meta lens you can view the world through. So it's kind of like, honestly, to me, Stoicism is kind of like Neo in the Matrix, where he's going along, he's fighting Agent Smith, he's doing all this stuff. And suddenly, like he has that moment where BING, he sees the code behind everything. And he goes, Oh, yeah, this is how it all operates. This makes sense. That person is feeling uncomfortable, because they're a guesser, and I'm an asker, and I just asked him this thing, which makes them, okay, now I get that. And then you can start to piece all of these things together, because you have that ability to not just see the situation for what it appears to be, but for what it really is. And that's what for me, Stoicism and philosophy is all about, it's that ability to not just to see what's behind this, what's on the surface, but what's behind the facade.

Hannah Gaber: 21:16

So, you know, being raised in the Mormon church, you say it, you told me it is based on the Bible, right? The Old Testament and New Testament as we know it, theoretically. So I'm very curious, because in Judaism, it's just so funny because it has become, I'm not sure how to say this. It's almost like an apocryphal truth that sometimes people just don't even question or say anything about I guess, in some ways you could even think about it like as a positive stereotype that Judaism is seen as just like about asking questions, right? So, often, you don't even look into like, why do people say that? Is it just a cultural thing? Is it like, oh, Jews are so nosy. And it's like, well, yes, but which came first the chicken or the egg? So I, of course, looked into it. But a lot of the what we would call like the Midrash, which is the commentary on the Scripture, or just general commentary, rabbinical commentary, is about how in the very first, the very first person who became a Jew, which is of course Abraham, his very first thing that he did was to question God. The very first thing that he did was, you know, try to argue for the saving of of Sodom and Gomorrah, the very first thing that he did was to push back and say, Why have you? No, let me find this quote right here. "Shall the judge of earth not do justice?" says Abraham. And then of course, Moses says,"Why have you brought trouble on these people?" to God like these are, the prophets are saying it directly to God being like, just please don't you know, why are you doing this? So it's taken as a Jewish value that you always have the right to question and perhaps even more deeply than that, you always have the right to question why. And, you know, we see this again, carried out in our one of our most important traditions, which is the Pesach Seder, the meal. The Four Questions is a really important part of the Seder. Because that's where, from the perspective of someone who knows nothing at all, and is perfectly innocent. That's the simple child, right? Is what they called it when I was growing up. And then you have the wise child who asks the complicated question where it's like, we know the basics, but what about this part? And then you have the wicked child who, which I don't think they call it that anymore. I think it's gotten a little gentler in the language. But when I was growing up, it was still a wicked child. And that child was definitely like, why should I care? You know, which, by the way, a lot of people have that attitude. So let's address that too. And then there's the child who doesn't know how to ask, for whatever reason, and we must also formulate an answer for that person. And so that's generally taken as a metaphor for like, how we should interact with one another when sharing, when sharing anything, we should be cognizant of all of these different ways of approaching the world or the topic at hand, and be able to explain whatever it is that we're talking about, or the thing that we're doing, or the food that we're eating, you know, whatever it is we're trying to share, we should be able to look at it from all of these perspectives and address them. And I'm really curious then, as a biblical religion, how did Mormonism, at least growing up in your specific experience of that culture as being anti questioning, how did it address this type of you know, existing narrative in the book or was it just glossed over? Was it rewritten? How was it How was it addressed?

Erick: 24:56

Basically, they have their own kind of interpretations of most of the things. And so most times in Sunday school when questions were asked it was, it was really less about a rigorous interrogation of the idea, and much more about trying to twist things around to fit the narrative that they've already put out. And so as long as they kind of fell within, what they taught, by the leaders of the church, and what was in the Sunday School manuals, and so on, then it was acceptable. But if you stepped out of those and said, well, and tried to be contrarian and say, no, actually, I think it's complete opposite of that, or I think it's something completely different over here, it was just kind of like, people would be like, "anyway, back on topic over here," you know, there was just very much this whole, there was very little honest, intellectual inquiry on things. And it was much more about finding ways to use what was taught to, basically almost cherry picking what you see to fit the church line. And we see that in a lot of modern Christianity, they'll pull the things they want out of the Bible, to fit their worldview to fit their political, you know, viewpoint of things, they don't actually look at it and go, "Well, what did God really want from this? What did God really mean from this, you know, what" and try and tease out the meaning of things. It was almost the exact opposite. He was saying, See, here's a place where God tells us this thing. And you know, again, cherry picking all of the evidence. What I think we miss out on that is, there's a great quote from this guy named Ward Farnsworth, and he's a Dean at a law school down in Texas. And he's written a number of books on Stoicism, he has one called "The Socratic Method, A Handbook." And in that book, it's fantastic, because he talks about the importance of questions. And he said, asking questions is about applying pressure. applying pressure is good, because it makes you think it it puts pressure on you to grow, it puts pressure on you to come up with something deeper than what is really there. But giving your opinion is the exact opposite. It's release of pressure. Most people talk and opinions, because talking in opinions is much easier. They just tell you what they think about it, rather than actually questioning what they think about it. And in Judaism, at least from what I've seen, and my friends who are Jewish, that I've talked to about that, and even a good friend of mine who wasn't Jewish, but spent a lot of time you know, talking to Jews, and he he had a PhD in Slavic languages and literature. And so he was just the like, he's like, he's like, in Judaism, like, the first thing is you question God, you know, you watch Fiddler on the Roof. Yeah, he was like, you watch Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye is going, you know, "Why? Why?" all the time? He's like, looking up to God going, I don't get this, why are you doing this to me?

Hannah Gaber: 27:49

Yeah.

Erick: 27:50

You know, I don't understand. And so it's never. And whereas, and so I think that I think the Christian culture is very much a guest culture, it's very much about this is what God wants you to do. And they lay it out. And you you, you fill yourself with that culture and anything that that that pushes against that is something to be avoided. Not something to go wait a second, this is a question. So my ex partner, her dad was a pastor in just a fairly mainstream Christian church. But she even talked about that, how she went on some of the youth retreats, where they go and do missionary work. And you know, they go and try and talk to people about this stuff. And she was like, it's, it's almost like you are kind of brainwashed into this, this, this culture, this hypnotic way of thinking about things. And then, well, you're not really supposed to question you're just supposed to do and it's, it's, you know, you, you put on this facade of how you're supposed to fit in with all of these things, even if you disagree with it, because you're not really supposed to question those things. And asking those hard questions.

Hannah Gaber: 28:55

Also, you need your social circle, right? Like you can't, we're, we're social animals, we need each other. And if that's the air you breathe, I don't know that you would even know that there was any other way to go about it. That was one of the questions that I had for you is if you're growing up in a culture, or a version of a religion, or a version of a culture that really impresses upon you that not just to like do the quote unquote, right thing and like be good at the religion for example, but even for you to retain your social connections, how do you even get to where you understand to where you imagine a different way? You know, I really liked especially in this episode, I felt like you really treated the "guessing culture" as you call it, with a lot of compassion. I'm sure obviously you haven't grown up that way as you describe it, you kind of know what that like psychology is about what that lived experience is about what that pressure must feel like.

Erick: 29:55

Well, there was always a joke within the the church I don't know if they have a like to assert goes, but there was always, you know, the people who, who try to live it as best they could almost to have to a fault, you know, they'd call them Peter Priesthoods. And then we have Molly Mormons.

Hannah Gaber: 30:12

We don't do not have that. I think maybe Jews are just like, so, we're so, like, but I mean, now that I was gonna say we're so argumentative, and then I was gonna say contrary, and then I was like, actually, all of those are assignations of a qualitative assessment, to the questioning, I think. I think you could really, really take that perspective. And one of the things that really struck me was how you remarked upon how people who are in a guessing culture feel that being asked directly is basically conflict. And they're super conflict averse. And that really resonated with me, because I'm obviously like a very direct person, I always have been, I would not say that I have not always been a little bit, you know, drawn to conflict or whatever. But especially now, like in life, I certainly feel that just asking directly and getting to the point is how to avoid conflict, because it means I know what we're dealing with. I don't need and I've said this, to people that I've dated, I've said it to friends during arguments or whatever, I don't need you to feel any certain kind of way, or think any specific thing, I just need to know how you feel.

Erick: 31:24

Yeah.

Hannah Gaber: 31:24

Then we can operate. Now we know what the data is, and we can make some informed decisions. But my experience, so I lived in the South for 10 years, I would say that a lot of cultures in that part of the country. I would say a lot of perhaps more conservative cultures are guessing cultures rather than asking cultures. And so like, living in the South for 10 years, I would call that a guessing culture.

Erick: 31:50

Oh, yeah.

Hannah Gaber: 31:50

And it always, it seemed like anytime that I spoke in my characteristically direct way, being raised in a culture that just does that, it was taken as a conflict. And it caused conflict, and I honestly never understood the directness and the openness and the honesty, as a source of someone feeling attacked, and you, you really helped me understand that quite a bit. But yeah, I never understood why people would feel attacked by the directness. What do you think it feels like such a fear-based way of being. I mean, what do you think that fear is about?

Erick: 32:30

The fear is about being different. Being a homogeneous meaning fitting in with the culture was far more important than having truth, having understanding, being authentic. It was about fitting in it was about you know, I mean, think of middle school. I mean, really, it's it's a very middle school mentality.

Hannah Gaber: 32:50

I just got, oh God, my stomach. Okay.

Erick: 32:52

Yeah, it's a very middle school mentality, where fitting in is more important than being who you truly are. Standing out is, is one of the worst things that can happen to you when you're in middle school. I mean, unless unless it's like being a star athlete or something like that.

Hannah Gaber: 33:08

Unless you're the cool kid who stands out in the way everyone wants to be cool. Yeah, sure.

Erick: 33:12

Exactly. Yeah. But standing out in your weird sort of way, and not being like everybody else...oo, hm, "Wow, those shoes. Wow. Wow. Those are a statement"...you know, those types of things, you know, where you don't want to be noticed for being different. You want to be noticed, because you're cool. You want to be noticed, because you fit in. Those are the things that, that in a guest culture, it's much more about fitting in than it is about just being yourself and being honest. And so if you call somebody out by being direct, you're basically you're ruffling their feathers, you're going, well, but I don't understand. You're saying this, but I, that doesn't make sense to me. And they just kind of look at you like, well, it's just the way it's, it's done, and they can't necessarily explain it because they don't want to have to explain it because you know, it like you said it is very fear based.

Hannah Gaber: 34:05

Is it a, like what if I'm wrong? Is it a like, I don't want to be the one to explain it. Because then what if I'm wrong? What if I give my explanation? And that's not really why everybody else is doing this at all? Do you think it's something like that?

Erick: 34:15

I think a lot of them don't know, a lot of them just don't know why it's done that way. It's just done that way. That's the way it's always been done. So we just continue to do it that way. And so when somebody comes up and says, you know, that's a really stupid way to do that, everybody freaks out. Everybody's like, oh my gosh, why are you doing this?

Hannah Gaber: 34:31

Yeah, it's an interesting thing. Because when you when you reenact it, it just then it like, gave me all these flashbacks to people. And it made me and I always felt really guilty, because it sort of made me like, I could feel their panic. You know what I mean? It's like a little bit of a like a panic of like, what why am I why am I the one don't ask me, I don't know. And I wonder, like, one of the other things that you hit on that really resonated is that, that point of being honest, and I think like it's it gets a little complex. but it really does come down to, if you're not saying what you really feel, want or need, not only are you not being honest about your feelings, you're also denying the other person the opportunity to not just share that with you, but provide you joy. So it's like, if I say to you, hey, do you want to go out to eat here tonight? And it's like, Sure, that sounds good. But you really hate that place, you're denying me the opportunity of going somewhere you really would like with you, or even coming up with something and being like, I present you with an option that you would like, hurray, I love you. This is a gesture of happiness. And that is so sad. It just makes me so sad.

Erick: 35:37

Well, I mean, and to kind of take a slightly less PG turn, I mean, think about it with when it comes to sex, for example, if you don't tell your partner what you like, how are they going to give you what you like? But yet, how I mean, when I was married, I didn't know how to talk to my ex wife about those things. Because sex had been so shamed based and so filled with shame, about having sex, and all of this stuff, because you're not supposed to have sex before you're married. And it was just this whole raft of guilt and shame that was piled on top of that, that being able to talk with her about those things was not really even possible. So after I got divorced, and then I wasn't, you know, married, and it wasn't in the church anymore. It was like, okay, I'm going to change how I do those things. And so, you know, with my partners, I was very open, like, I like this, what do you like, and, you know, even then some of them they were like, I had issues talking about it. And because because

Hannah Gaber: 36:34

It's weird culture we're in, man.

Erick: 36:36

And the funny thing was, is that the guessing culture actually was helpful, in some ways. Because I was much more attuned to body language, I was much more tuned to reading things and reading their emotions about things. And so I could actually please them fairly well, because I was much more tuned that way. So it did end up helping me in a bit of a way. But there's nothing but my, the ones that usually work the best were like, you know, after we enjoyed each other be like,"Okay, what worked?"

Hannah Gaber: 37:01

Which is so fun, by the way, sorry. The postgame is like super fun. I'm very curious how you was it it? Was it a long road to getting comfortable with that kind of thing? Or was it more like, that was always what you wanted, and you couldn't do it? And that was the uncomfortable part until you changed your basically cultural surroundings, your internal culture, like, do you still struggle with being comfortable with some of that stuff?

Erick: 37:33

As far as like sex goes, that was it was a bit of both it was a little bit of like, it took me some to change things. And one of those things is because, you'll laugh at this, but there was always this implicit thing that women don't like sex that was that was in a lot of churches

Hannah Gaber: 37:49

I'm sorry, that is so fucking rude. Okay, go ahead.

Erick: 37:51

Oh, yeah. Okay, but then it occurred to me, and this is gonna probably, you know, if you have any Mormon listeners, probably gonna offend them. But they may find this hilarious, too.

Hannah Gaber: 37:58

They're probably offended by now, they're already offended.

Erick: 38:02

But what I figured out when time is I was sitting there thinking about this. And I'm just like, Wait a second. These are basically the most leaders of the church are the stuffy old windbag white guys. And the reason why they don't think that women like sex is because their wives probably don't like sick with sex with them because they suck at it because they're so self absorbed.

Hannah Gaber: 38:23

That's very perceptive. Yeah. Once again, we returned to the like, maybe you should be asking yourself some questions.

Erick: 38:30

Exactly.

Hannah Gaber: 38:31

Okay, so in the episode in your sign off in your fake sign off episode that scared me that from 2019, that episode was about self-advocacy. And the, there's such a tie in there to me between these two things, because for not saying what you need, or not advocating for yourself is similar, I think in the way of like not, not questioning, not asking or just not communicating directly, because it's inherently dishonest, like you said, it's fundamentally dishonest not to say what you want, and then behave as though you're happy when you're not, or not speak up when you're unhappy. And like I said, give the other person who cares about you and opportunity to bring you joy. But it's also giving, not only is it giving away your ability to be happy or be made happy by the other person, it also makes that person responsible for your feelings without them knowing it, and that's not fair. And so it's like, "oh, I couldn't have known that I was stamping all over something that really mattered to you, because as a people-pleaser, you didn't say anything, but you've been resenting me this whole time," and it's been my experience, that that usually leads to a blow up and those can be incredibly unfixable. They can really damage relationships. You said that you were recovering people pleaser, I'm sure this is all tied together to growing up in that culture. Is that an experience that you've had? And how did you get to the other side of it?

Erick: 40:08

Oh, I wouldn't say that I'm on the other side of it. And I still struggle with that a lot because my natural default is to, in, in any conversation where they where it feels like the other person is angry, annoyed, frustrated, whatever, my brain immediately goes to,"oh, shit, what's the right answer?" Like not, what is the what is the actual answer, what is the honest answer? It's like, what is the answer that is going to defuse this situation. And that comes from one with my dad, I always had to figure out what it was he wanted to hear so I didn't get beat up. And two, with the church, is what kind of excuse can I come up with so that I don't get in trouble with the bishop. And so those two things compounding make it very, very challenging to just be honest about something when somebody is frustrated, annoyed and disappointed with me. And it doesn't even they don't have to be angry, just the frustrated and annoyed with me. So my ex partner, that was one of our biggest challenges. And, and one of the things that kind of doomed us was that she would feel frustrated or annoyed about something, which she has the right to feel, and I would immediately try and change how she felt about it because my default reaction was terror. Oh, my God, she's mad, and she's frustrated with me. And because in my past, that meant that I was either going to be a) in trouble with the church or b) be in trouble with my dad and possibly get beat up.

Hannah Gaber: 41:37

So that was an existential threat. Like that was a legitimate danger. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Erick: 41:41

And so those are my default reactions. And it's been a lot of work to try and change those things and incredibly, incredibly challenging to do, because it's so hardwired in from when I was a little kid. And so it's, it takes so much work just to go "I don't need to control their mood, and it's not my job, they can be mad as hell as they want at me. That's their problem to deal with. And it's going to be okay." And it's so hard to and you know, it's gonna be okay, if I say what I honestly think about things. And that's incredibly hard. And I feel for people who are in situations like that, because that's the that's the environment I grew up in. And so that's how I was trained, if you will.

Hannah Gaber: 42:27

Yeah.

Erick: 42:27

And it's almost like a hardwired system. And so, becoming aware of that, and learning how to take that beat and just be like, the right answer here is the honest answer. Even if the other person doesn't like it. It's okay. Because it's the truth.

Hannah Gaber: 42:43

There can be no other answer. This is what it is. Yeah, that's really freeing. And it's really, but it's, it is also really scary, even for, for, for me, right? Because like at the end of the day, like even people who are raised in a culture that values that type of, I mean, Jews are often characterized as being brash or rude, which is like, I don't know if you've been to Israel, but like, not incorrect. But anyway, but that's not Jews. That's Israelis, I would like to say, by the way, there is a difference. In any case, the being characterized that way, again, it comes from this really directness, but even for someone like me who's raised in that, like, I still don't want to hurt people that I care about, like, I would love it if the answer that I think you want was the answer. I've just learned personally over my life that like, I can't be anything else. I can't do anything else. I can, you know, the, the one word that used to haunt me so much, especially as a young woman, a young single woman was like, why can't I just be demure? It's never gonna happen. I'm never gonna be quiet, like, leaning against the wall being mysterious, like, there's no, they're mysterious is the last thing I'm ever gonna be. You're always gonna know exactly what I'm thinking about. And, and I wanted that for myself so badly. And I do understand that impulse, I think it's really, really human, in the same way that it's like you would stay inside these guessing cultures, even if like, maybe not necessarily, even if you did know that there was another way. Because again, the thing that keeps you there is those social is that social netting. And you lose everything if you lose that and and nobody really wants to just be alone out in the world. And if you don't know that, there's another way to be, and by the way, a whole group of people doing it and enjoying it, how can you know that it's safe? And that also goes back to another point that you raised? I think you were very honest about it now too, and you brought it up in the episode too of like, it's also inherently manipulative. To not just say it, to not just ask it, to not just say you know what, "when you did x, it made me feel y" or if I asked you "when I did x, did it make you feel y?" to skirt the answer or not give the answer, if you want to look at it from the perspective of for example, someone who may have experienced some like narcissistic emotional abuse, where it's all about trying to control the situation, it could even be seen as that. At the very, very least, even if what you're trying to do is make somebody feel better, quote, unquote, it's still trying to manipulate someone else's feelings and that inherently digs away at their human dignity, at their right to have their own lived experience their right to feel however they want to feel.

Erick: 45:28

Yeah, it's ultimately about trying to manipulate the other person.

Hannah Gaber: 45:31

For your own comfort in a lot of ways, too.

Erick: 45:34

Yeah. And it's that whole social cohesion of trying to fit in and trying not to, not to, to rock the boat. I mean, my brother went to his mission on Japan, to Japan, and they have a saying there, it's like the tallest nail gets the hammer. Yeah, that I went, Oh,

Hannah Gaber: 45:54

Dang, so, it's just humans, we're the worst.

Erick: 45:58

Well, it's just people, is people and especially people with a, who have subjected a population or a group to a type of culture, because it affords them power, they don't, they want to keep that in play. And that's so you said, you know, it comes from a place of fear. And it's because the people in charge, have enforced these norms, to keep people in fear in order to keep control over. And that's really what it comes down to.

Hannah Gaber: 46:27

Whether that's a state or a church, or Yeah, I see what I see what you're saying, yeah,

Erick: 46:32

If one person down there gets this idea, they can spread to a couple of other people. And pretty soon, you have hundreds or 1000s of people with this idea. And so they want to crack down on that. And the way to do that is through that kind of social pressure, and so, you know, it's really very much about control. And it's really hard to get people to see that because it's it's kind of like telling a fish about water.

Hannah Gaber: 46:58

Yeah, it is. It is.

Erick: 47:00

You know, that David Foster Wallace has a whole essay on that we talks about, it starts off with a joke is like, you know, older goldfish is swimming along down the stream, and he sees two other goldfish and he goes, "Hey, boys, how's the water?" And then one of the goldfish turns the other one says, "what's what's water?" Yeah.

Hannah Gaber: 47:16

Oh, I love that. That's, that's, that's huge perspective.

Erick: 47:21

And it's really hard for us to see the everyday assumptions that we make in our lives because we are so close to them, because we just assume this is the way it is.

Hannah Gaber: 47:29

Yeah.

Erick: 47:30

And that's why traveling. I think living in other cultures, especially cultures that are vastly different than your own is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

Hannah Gaber: 47:38

Amen. So how's it going? Now? I mean, would you say that you as you say, you wouldn't say you're on the other side of it. Okay. How do you deal with setting and communicating your boundaries these days? And would you say, what has been the outcome? Or improvement? If, if that is the right word in your life of learning to be more of an asker than a guesser and less of a people pleaser? How's that going?

Erick: 48:09

Overall, I think overall, pretty good. It still I don't have any close romantic relationships right now. And I think that's where it brings up the most. Especially because the women I'm attracted to, are generally much more, much more intelligent. So they are stronger willed. So my last partner was very strong willed. Had a good understanding of people, asked lots of questions. My ex-wife always asked lots of questions, which was challenging, because my dad would use questions as a cudgel. He would ask questions to try and get you in line and you had to figure out what was the right answer to that question.

Hannah Gaber: 48:46

It was a trap.

Erick: 48:47

It was a trap. Yeah. So which made it really hard for both my ex wife and my partner, and that they would do the same thing, but not meaning to try and trap me,

Hannah Gaber: 48:56

They just needed to know.

Erick: 48:58

And I would be like, oh, and I'd be squirming in my seat and lash out because of that. So it's one of the things that I, I have, I know that I have to work on and continue to work on because the type of women I'm attracted to, are the intelligent askers, they are the ones. And it's funny, they're mostly introverts, not that they have to be, but generally fairly strong willed, and intelligent, and they're askers. And maybe it's because that's what I need. And so even though it's hard, I still go, Okay, I'm gonna do this, even though this is going to be challenging, we are going to have conflict, you know, I put myself in that situation, because I think there's a part of me, which knows that I will grow from that. And I will learn from that.

Hannah Gaber: 49:41

Yeah.

Erick: 49:41

And I mean, I cycle now and it's kind of the same thing, like, you know, I'll go out for a 20-, 30-mile ride and people are just like, wow, how do you do that? And I'm like, I get on my bike and I pedal,

Hannah Gaber: 49:50

I just keep going.

Erick: 49:51

Just keep going.

Hannah Gaber: 49:53

Just keep swimming. What is water?

Erick: 49:55

Yep. It's like, and it's hard, but it's, I know that I'm not going to grow in a way that I want to if I don't push myself like that, and so I think in, you know, my romantic relationships kind of the same way like, I don't want somebody who just is a pushover who doesn't challenge me who doesn't think, who doesn't have those kinds of things, because I'm not interested in that I want somebody who's going to be, you know, gonna make me grow.

Hannah Gaber: 50:21

Would you say that your ability to be in meaningful relationships, whether it's friendships or otherwise has been improved by becoming more of a asker, and less of a people pleaser?

Erick: 50:31

Oh, absolutely. I'm much more clear about what I want. And aside from my ex partner, just because we've, we built up so many of those patterns, that when we get around each other, sometimes we push each other's buttons way too easy. I mean, we all know that, you know, it's like, good intentions of like, no, no, I'm better than that, I can be better than that. But then we get around each other. And

Hannah Gaber: 50:54

You're doing it before you even notice you're just back in it.

Erick: 50:57

Yeah, it's like your siblings, yes. Push those buttons really easy. But because I'm much more aware of that, now, going into any kind of relationships, I can, you know, I can step up and be like, okay, you know, I'll ask for what I want, I'll be very clear about this. And just be like, you know, this doesn't work for me, whatever it is you're doing here, and just being okay with that, but also just being incredibly honest up to the point that they're comfortable.

Hannah Gaber: 51:24

And also accepting that whatever their response is, is going to be their response. I mean, one of the most important things that I ever learned, was like, we're not choosing between consequence-no consequence, we're choosing always between consequences.

Erick: 51:38

Yeah, it's like, which one are we choosing not that there's going to be or not be.

Hannah Gaber: 51:42

That's it. Am I choosing to say this thing that might hurt you, but at least then we know what we're dealing with? And we might be able to talk and get past it? Or am I choosing to never say this thing and end up in a place where it's unresolvable, because I'm so far down this, this tunnel of resentment, you don't even know how to unpack all this. You didn't even know this was happening.

Erick: 52:02

Yeah, yeah. And the whole thing is, as well as that, that's also a filter. You know, you throw it out there, and if somebody can't handle that, that's a pretty clear sign that they aren't your person, or they aren't somebody that you want to be with.

Hannah Gaber: 52:15

Worked for me.

Erick: 52:18

I mean, I've had, I've had that where there's some people where it's just like, you know, this is who I am. And if you can't handle this, and this isn't what you want, and it's fine. That's great. Yeah, I'm not for everybody, but I'm especially for me, somebody once sad.

Hannah Gaber: 52:31

Ooh nice. I like it. Well, on that note, this was amazing. Thank you so much for this.

Erick: 52:37

Welcome.

Hannah Gaber: 52:39

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