Description:

Grayce pens a diary letter to The Founding Fathers...the book club discusses misogyny and the struggle to find their place in a world tailor-made for men.

Transcript:

[00:00] So also, because I don't know if we have room in for it later, but like perception, one of our people of the college has this really good story about perception. And I'd be willing, he tells it all the time. Every time I say that, I've heard it from this man three times. I don't know if that'd be nice to say. Okay. Well, we just left off with talking about the whole, a huge theme is perception. Go for it. I'll tell the story. Okay, so I'm just going to say a professor. Every time I've talked to this man,

[00:30] he brings up the same story every single time and it's called his airport theory okay so he says that if you see somebody running through the airport with their luggage in their suitcase what are you thinking they're just like sprinting what are you thinking they're late right the gate is closed and you're like you're like you should have gotten here earlier you know what i mean like we're making assumptions as people like that's all we think oh i judge yeah i'm like look at them running through the airport could never be me you know exactly you're like well i got here earlier like they

[01:00] Should have been here earlier, you know, they're rushing, pushing through everyone, and it's like, yo, slow down, you know? Stuff's falling out of their bag, just like all over the place, so you're really thinking, like this person's a mess. It's giving Kevin McCallister for a little bit. You know? And then he was like, but what you don't know is that that person's flight was delayed. That what you don't know is that they had to book a last minute flight because their, whoever is important to them just went into the hospital. So now they're flying across the thing. You don't know that they haven't seen their spouse or their children or their friend in like 10 years. Like you don't know what the actual thing is.

[01:29] so it’s kind of like going back to perception of like, maybe instead of judging them, we should be offering the support. Like when maybe we're gathering the papers, like, hey, you're dropping this and running after them because we got here 50 minutes early, you know? So I just, I don't know. He tells a story all the time and every single time he says it, it just gets on like more and more. Now I'm like thinking about it more and more. And every time I go to the airport, I'm like looking around, you know? So I've heard, he's told me this like four or five times. Every single time I like meet this guy, he says it. But yeah, so I don't know.

[01:59] I just think that’s like a really interesting take on perception and kind of like, oh, like maybe we're also like guilty of doing the perceiving. So I think it's a really good way to kind of like self-reflect because we all do it, you know what I mean? We're all doing it, we're all making judgments, all perceptions, and you don't really know what's going through somebody's head maybe until like the fourth, fifth, sixth time you meet them. I am so guilty of like judging upon first look in those situations where like something isn't going right for someone and my

[02:29] Immediate thought is like it’s their fault. Where, like, that might not be the case. Life throws all kinds of things at you. I would want someone to give me that sort of grace. She's trying her best. There are circumstances beyond your control sometimes, and you just have to do your best. I don't know, do you think people, like, as they get older, they take on that sort of wisdom of everyone – there's those circumstances in people's life? Or do you think some people just never learn? I think some people go in the opposite direction.

[02:59] I fear you're right. Yeah. I mean I think personally for me is like we're little pieces of everyone around us you know what I mean? So like I'm sure I'll take something from you guys like today even like with my friend Lesmi I'll catch myself like something's going on and I'll say like her phrase I'll say like you know whatever or even with Dean Clark I mean him telling that story the first time I was like oh I do do that I do perceive people and then every single

[03:29] time he brought it up again and it just got more embedded in my brain. So now I think I'm kind of more hyper aware of like, oh, I think this person is actually, something might have happened. And kind of giving them that wisdom and grace. I think we're kind of like little pieces of everyone. And I think that's how, it's because they've witnessed it, they've lived it, they've heard it. So it's like, okay, now I can resort back to like, all of this knowledge I have to help you out. Which really goes back to community as well, because we really can't help ourselves sometimes.

[03:59] Very true. Mmm. She's dropping bars today. I love it. This is, I was going to ask this at the end, but I'm going to ask it now because I, we've seen just like one chapter of GraYce, like just a little bit of who she is from her own perspective. But I'm curious to think like, how do you think she's going to, you know, change and

[04:29] transform as the story goes on, because that's always the expectation. Like we have a little character development and growth and yeah without spoiling anything I'm not I'm not gonna say anything but yeah she I mean I'm yeah I'm curious what you what how you perceive her now and what do you think she's capable of like in a bigger picture? I think I would hope

[04:53] that she's able to see herself from this outside perspective and kind of take a step back and be like, you know what, I'm okay. You know, not necessarily like putting anything that she's feeling down or push it away, but just kind of taking a breath and being like, you know what, where I'm at right now, everything that I'm feeling, like that's okay for right now. You know, not everything has to be handled at once. Take problems as they come, work on just one piece, and eventually everything will fall in line. And I hope that that's something we can see kind of happen. Like, I hope that for her, you know?

[05:23] Nobody, I know that going through that type of stuff and having those kind of thoughts isn't easy. And I mean, even from that small conversation with Olli at the end, because we didn't really see much of how their dynamic was working, but I hope that maybe she'd be able to open up to Olli in a way that Olli can either relate, resonate, or rebuttal with here's how we can handle that, here's things that I did that have made me this confident or whatever, how, you know.

[05:53] Grayce perceives her. I hope that's something we can see. Yeah, I like that. I'd like to know more about like kind of what has been burdening Grayce, obviously. From what we know so far, there's like a serious identity issue that she's facing. And so kind of just diving more into like why she feels that way. And then hopefully seeing her learn ways to process her thoughts that isn't just like running them through her head over and over again. We saw how that goes.

[06:23] Not great for her. Yeah. Yeah, so hopefully seeing her find ways out of her head into nature like we saw her kind of at the beginning. And...

[06:36] Maybe even learning a bit more about Olli too, to understand that it's not all that she's perceived to be. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I agree. I definitely, definitely do wanna know more about Olli, but also for Grayce, like you were saying, I hope that she's able to find a way to process everything and of course learn more about her and also just live too. I hope that she gets a moment where she gets to just enjoy being alive.

[07:06] and just live and exist. Because I feel like when you are very in your head, we have our moments and we are very in our head, we stop. We don't get the chance to just stop and just exist and take in everything that's around us. And I hope that she reaches a place where that she can stop and be like, hey, I'm at peace for a little minute and I want to enjoy this. And then continue on with whatever else she has to do. No, that's such a good point.

[07:36] I feel like I do that a lot where I'll get caught up in the little details of my life, so to speak, and I forget to just enjoy it. And you've heard her inner monologues, you know what she's thinking most of the time, and yeah, I do want her to enjoy the journey. Yeah, kind of revel in it a little bit. Don't think too far ahead. Which is obviously easier said than done. Yeah, so much easier said than done. She should just enjoy herself. Just have fun. Just turn that front upside down.

[08:06] Oh gosh, I know. Smile more. I wanna see more about like her goals too. Cause we don't know exactly kind of, we don't know enough about Grayce yet to know like what she does and what she wants to do. Right, her motivation. Yeah, it's a curious thing. Oh. I hear like the clicking. I didn't hear it until you were like. My bad guys. I love it. So one of the other big themes of this chapter,

[08:36] I did want to bring up is misogyny. And you'll see that in the different quotes. I can't think of them off the top of my head. But the walking sign man and just the founding father, like that, there's so many different moments where she's thinking about that a lot. And it's like, what has led you here to, I'm like, do I think about it enough? Or is she thinking about it too much? It's one of those weird questions.

[09:06] I asked myself when I was reading. Like is this something I should pay more attention to in my own life? Like is it really affecting me in that way? It's weird seeing it from someone else's eyes like that. Because she does live in a, you know, it's a fictional world but it is very similar to ours in that aspect. So I was curious what y'all thought or like did y'all pick up on those little things throughout the chapter? Yeah I was actually surprised that she didn't kind of like elaborate on it more because that's what I was like wait, is she like talking to somebody else about this? But no it's literally just like in her head.

[09:36] It’s in her mind and it kind of reminds me of like current themes today because I don't know how like active you I'm a very active social listener I'm on all the medias and on Twitter they kind of started this like discussion of like why it matters considering women didn't get to own a bank until like kind of recently like in the last like hundred years like like a bank account yeah like less than a hundred years and it's like divorce rates were lower and it's like because

[10:05] they couldn’t leave, and like all of these things and I'm actually in Latinas and pop performance and one of the things we talked about is is this is doing something for a person but is it doing anything for like societal pressures or societal norms and I wonder if like taking that narrative and applying it to like a walking man sign the founding fathers to like George Washington and like all of like these men if that's trickling down into society of like we should be looking for

[10:35] the men to lead us like that's like the normal. But in reality, it's probably because like a woman did it but she wasn't allowed to say anything. You know? So I wonder if maybe that could have an impact on things later, even having an impact on things like today. So I think to revert back to your question, maybe I'm like not thinking about it enough or not, or it needs to be like a collective thing of like, oh shoot, that is going on. But yeah, interesting. It is very interesting.

[11:05] Something you said about how other people have, I've heard something recently that was, I think y'all probably heard this too, historically women didn't do X, Y, Z, and it's like, well, okay, that was probably illegal for women to do. Like a death sentence. So maybe historically you didn't see them do that for a reason. That's always like, grinding my gears. Like literally what we're doing right now. Oh yeah. We couldn't even read.

[11:35] Witch! Burn her. Witch! Oh, so much fun. But now we get to do these things, so I don't know. I'm curious to hear what y'all think about them. We've like... What would the founding fathers think of these?

[11:53] I don't even want to touch that. They would not like this. Oh, what would they think about a lot of things? Who cares? Honestly, that's a whole different discussion. Actually, I think we need another like five hours to bring it out. That's the next episode. I think.

[12:18] Yeah, I think I should think about it a little more, maybe. Maybe just personally. I don't know, it depends on how you, I think how we grow up impacts a lot of how we see the world. So, I don't know. I was raised in a very, I would say Christian household, but also just like my community around me was very traditional. And men lead, men do X, Y, Z, and everyone has their roles. But stepping out of that,

[12:48] Like you kind of see how we could choose our like a lot of people get to choose their role in society Which is great that we get to do that now As sad as it is to say No