Hello and welcome to Sci-Fi Therapy, the podcast where we put our favorite sci-fi shows on the couch. In this first season, we're going to take a deep dive into Battlestar Galactica, the version from 2006. And in today's installment, we'll be talking about the episodes Water and Bastille Day. I am Mark, a theologian from Germany. And I'm Nalima, a psychotherapist based in London. And as always, the way our episodes will work is that Nalima and I have watched the episodes separately, and then we pick a few things that have struck us about those episodes, and then we talk about them. Basically, you'll get to hear what Nalima and I talk about anyway. Before we dive in, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you can follow us on this journey. And if you like what you hear, leave us a review to let us know what you think. Yes, please do, because we sort of need those clicks. So, let's take a look at what happens in Water and Bastille Day. So, water starts with a very intense scene, because we see Sharon Valeri being really, really, really wet. Meaning that she seems to have taken a dive into a pool of some sort, I don't know. So, we're being kept guessing what happened here, and she seems to be rather confused. And soaked as she is, she tries to understand what happened and where she is and what actually the situation is. And she discovers that she has a bag and in this bag is a detonator and some explosives. And as the story and the episodes progress, we find out that there are several detonators and what we would probably call hard explosives You know, those packages that you can pack up like bricks, that those explosives are missing, And sure enough, some time later, the water tanks of the Battlestar Galactica explode and more than 60% of all the water that Battlestar Galactica has evaporates into space. Basically what we learn is that Battlestar Galactica's water recycling works close to 100% So they can actually go many, many, many months Possibly years without having to replenish their water supplies The problem arises when they realize that all the other ships in the fleet don't have that capability So they rely on Battlestar Galactica to replenish them with water. So this is a rather big problem for Battlestar Galactica at this point. And we got the immediate impression that Sharon Valeri is actually responsible for these explosions. And she seems to understand this as well. And she's very, very afraid. She turns to Chief Tyrell, talks to him about this. He tries to protect her and not to come to any conclusions, even though he has to admit in the end, in a hearing in front of Sol Tai, the Admiral and the President, that there has been some sort of act of sabotage on Battlestar Galactica, and they try to find the culprit, even though in these two episodes they will be unsuccessful eventually. So, what they now have to do is they have to find water, and quick, because, as you can imagine, there's like, I think, 30,000 people around, something like that so several uh tens of thousands of people relying on those those water supplies and you can't shower you can't eat um you if you think about it you need fresh water for a lot of things um and you can't do all those things so water gets rationed and they are uh very deeply concerned that um that people will revolt and uh that there will be outbreaks of violence because of the water shortage. So, ironically enough, Sharon Valeri gets sent out together with. With Crashdown to find water. Actually, they sent out several vehicles and several, birds to find water, but the episode sticks with those two. And then there is a very, very interesting scene in which we see Sharon Valeri looking at her screen and her ship is scanning for water. And we can actually see that the screen is showing a lot of water um and and that she's actually found water on some sort of planet asteroid it's it's not really clear um well she's found water and she's having trouble seeing it like she's, it's it's it's like you can actually see like like a fight going on in her mind uh she wants to tell crashdown that she's actually um successfully found water but she can't do it And she even says, I can't, I can't say it. So there's probably the Cylon and, I don't know, the human in her fighting against each other and with each other. And eventually, she, the officer, the human in her sort of wins the fight. And then she tells Crashdown that she's actually found water. Having landed on Battlestar Galactica again she realizes that she had another detonator and another brick of explosives with her on the ship ready to explode, probably in case. She would talk about the water, So, this might have been some sort of backup for concealing any water that they could find. So, well, to me at least, it seemed like that. So, this is what happens in that episode, basically. We see two other short scenes that at least I found rather interesting. One is that we see Saul Tai and his alcohol addiction, and he tries to get control over it. We'll probably not talk about it in this episode, but we'll get back to it later, I imagine. He marks a bottle of liquor with a marker pen and sort of tries to measure how much of alcohol is still in the bottle. And it seems like he would try to restrain his drinking problem a bit, you know? Like, if I drink just one mark to the other a day, then it's okay, you know? So, I don't have to stop completely, but I'm in control of my addiction. It's sort of that. And we see Apollo talking to his father and talking to the president. And he talks about his trauma that he has from destroying the Olympic carrier. As you, dear listeners, might remember, in the last episode, he was forced to destroy the Olympic carrier in order to save the fleet. If you don't know what I'm talking about, listen to episode 33. And, um, this sort of follows him around and he still thinks about it. And his father says something very peculiar. He says being a human being or being a grown-up actually means living with the consequences of your actions like the rest of your life. So this is what you do. You accept the consequences of your actions. Okay, and jumping to the next episode, which is very strongly connected to this one. And now having found water, they realize that the water is actually located on some sort of barren rock and you can't drink the water that is in liquid state on the surface of this planetoid because it's very salty water. But you can drink the ice. So, they need hard labor to actually break the water out of the ice, basically to mine the ice. And the idea that comes up is, why not use all the prisoners that we have on a prisoner ship, very conveniently located in our own fleet. So, apparently, there have been, prisoners aboard a prisoner transport ship that have been caught in the crossfire of the Cylon attack, and they managed to get shelter or to find shelter in the human fleet under the protection of Battlestar Galactica. It's roughly a thousand prisoners which were on their way to a parole hearing, and this is why they even start discussing it, because, well, what do you do with prisoners. And Apollo and his father have like a short argument about the fate of the prisoners because Commander Adama just wants to let them work because, you know, they're criminals, so we can just use them because otherwise they'll just use up resources like food and water and electricity, and do nothing for the good of the rest of the fleet. And his son arguments in the completely different direction and says, okay, so why don't we let them earn points by working for us? And when they have reached enough points, they will get their freedom. So the argument goes back and forth because, of course, Commander Adama is completely against it. The president isn't completely sure about this. And eventually, this whole discussion comes to and because... And they, in the form of Captain Apollo, they offer the prisoners their freedom and they give these prisoners the opportunity to earn their freedom. So um they open the cells which is a very dramatic scene they open the cells and tell every prisoner to step out uh every prisoner who's willing to work uh on this on this mining operation and nobody does none of the prisoners step out of the cells it's just one who we learn is Tom Zarek. Tom Zarek seems to be a rather colorful figure of the past of the Twelve Colonies. Some seem to think he is a freedom fighter, others think he is a terrorist, which is a theme that we very much know from today's geopolitical scene. And he tells them that they would be probably willing to do their work. However, he has demands. And it turns out those demands are for a change of the current political system in the fleet, because he argues that the president of the fleet, basically, not the president of the colonies, which he technically is, but there's no colonies left. So she's the president of the rest of humanity she hasn't been elected there hasn't been an election of course there hasn't been because you know um wiping out of all of civilization and everything um so she was only sworn in because she was what like 12th in line after the president and um so yeah this is what he argues he argue he wants every prisoner released and um, And yeah, and he wants Rosalind to step down, basically, because she's not a real president. And Lee Adama is actually willing to talk to Tom about this. He reveals that at university he has read one of Tom Zarek's books, which was actually banned, and he somehow got hold of it. And all seems to be fine until. Tom Zarek decides to start a revolt and the small group that Liadama entered the prison ship with gets held hostage and Tom Zarek argues now he has finally some sort of leverage. And so yeah so we have now a sort of hostage situation on the ship, where all the guards and the four people of the Galactica's crew are being held hostage. Yeah, and they start sending their demands throughout the fleet and telling them, we won't release your prisoners until, or the hostages, until our demands have been met. It turns out that Tom Zarek actually counts on Galactica to storm the prisoner ship, because he wants a bloodbath, because he wants to go down like a fighting hero, it seems, and thus sparking a change in society and government because, you know, heroes that have died are sort of invincible figures, and he wants to do that. The episode ends with actually the storming of the ship, the successful storming of the ship, because Liyadama manages to get hold of a gun, which he then holds to Tom Zarek's temple, which is really interesting because he tells him, one, you release the hostages, and two, I'll meet your demands. Because you, Tom Zarek, are right. So he actually makes a deal without checking in with the president or his father first. And just, you know, agrees to, one, every prisoner has the ability or gets the chance to earn points by doing water mining. And then we'll have elections and then we'll have like a legitimate government. And in the end, everyone's angry at Apollo, basically. Understandably. Understandably, yeah. Except for the president, really, because she tells him that she actually admires his courage to do the right thing. And I guess the very last scene is that she reveals to him that she has cancer. So, yeah. That's the end of it. Right. So, Nelima, what do you say? Do we want to put those two episodes on the couch? Yes. All right so the first thing that um actually i have on my list uh and you might too is uh the um the topic of trauma or the um yeah well traumas basically um and um i have come across this in in my line of work um in one way or the other and i i'd be very interested in in what your experience is with this because um, Lee Adama pulled the trigger on the Olympic carrier. That's potentially killing thousands of people. We don't know for sure. They might have been dead already, but still he blew up a ship. So, this should give him some nightmares, shouldn't it? I mean, I don't know too much about traumas and how they affect you in the end in your later life. So, if you have any insights on this then then i'd be grateful for that. Well you say that but then it's i guess like for me the way that we like as person-centered therapists the way that we would see traumas it's like whatever happens to you will have some sort of effect on you your personality who you are, um you know things like uh i guess if we take leo dama as an example it'd be interesting to see how he develops to see how much of what he has experienced with with that uncertainty like that um the uncertainty of has he killed hundreds of people or has he not how does he sleep with that not knowing whether he has or he hasn't and knowing that he had to pull that trigger as well, um i don't know much about military trauma that hasn't been part of my experience but i'm just sort of thinking about even my own personal experience of you know stuff I've experienced in my childhood or um. I saw a post recently on social media, of all places, about how divorced people are really good in relationships. And I thought that was a really interesting blanket statement about all divorced people. And at the same time, I was thinking about me and my ex-husband. And we had couples counseling to end our relationship. He went for therapy. I was already in therapy. and we've talked about our marriage since which has helped to almost resolve the trauma of our marriage so anything like you know hurtful that we probably said to each other that's like you know I don't have any resentment or hatred towards him because we've been able to process that in our therapy and then in our relationship as it is now in our friendship as it is now so that's how I kind of see trauma is like it has an effect on you and then what was the thing you said um that uh general adama said something about like we stay we we have this um live with. The consequences of our actions. Yeah and i think that's kind of what it is is like either you process it and you're able to accept what has happened to you and then move on with that um, So if we take another example, like with my parents dying when I was young, for a long time, I was angry with my mom for dying, which, you know, obviously sounds irrational, but that was my feeling of like, she abandoned us, she left us. And then as I've got older, I've come to an understanding of like, actually, hang on, she was only like in her 40s when she died. Like now that I'm in my 40s, you know, I'm like, I can appreciate how young that is. Um and so this is my processing of like yes i went through a period of anger now i'm in a period of like quite um i don't know it's gonna sound really fucked up but i quite enjoy my sadness now when i think of my mom because it's more of like a i miss like what conversations would we have now you know what would i talk to her about now like there's no anger anymore it's just like a it's more of like a fantasy and it's quite I find it quite um what's the word quite calming like I still I feel like I love her and I miss her it feels like a very um, I can't even think how to describe it. It's a nice experience. It doesn't trouble me. I'm not sort of haunted by it anymore. Does that make sense? well absolutely um but but that's more like the um how to deal with with sadness and loss um because what i experience now that that i'm in my 40s as well and the first friends that i that i had have died um you know um people that were not really really really close to me like not like a wife or something but um or a spouse but um more like friends or colleagues you know and you start to realize that um well people can actually die very young yeah you know and that it could hit you as well which is something that you start thinking about at least i did and um Having that experience, I start to realize that when you experience loss and somebody that you knew or that you held dear dies, you don't... It doesn't go away it becomes part of your of your character it becomes part of your thoughts yeah and it will pop up like randomly you know you you um i just recently had this experience with a colleague of mine that you actually know florian who died of a heart attack very very suddenly and um i i don't know something triggered it and i was thinking about him and it's it's a bit like what you described about your mother it's it's not really it doesn't it doesn't really get you down it sort of dampens your mood a bit and you think about all the times that you that you enjoyed with him or in my case all the times that he actually drove me crazy and um and then you smile which is sort of a sad smile if you will and you start to realize that you will always be thinking about the person that you've lost. So, this probably won't go away. You will carry it with you until you die yourself. So, this is one thing. But, you know, going back to real trauma, I mean, I guess the loss of a person can be sort of a trauma, especially when you're young. But so, when you say you have to deal with trauma and you have to process it, like, a what does process mean and b what's the aim of a process like how do. I do that how. Do i process something. Yeah i mean that's such an interesting it's a great question because lots of people will talk about processing and i will always ask them like ask clients like what do you what do you actually mean by that just to check their understanding um for me processing is um it's being able to sit with it rather than running away from that pain or you know drinking through it or you know finding a way to distract ourselves from that pain but it's that sitting with it. But sitting with it in an accepting way not in a not in a wallowing way not in a way of self-pity so it's a really fine balance for me like when I'm processing things because Because I will sort of go from a place of, okay, this is fine. I can sit with this pain to a place of, oh my God, this isn't fine. I feel horrific. And then almost like allowing myself to sit in that horrificness of it and coming back and forth and then eventually getting to a place of balance of being able to have that sad smile, being able to accept, oh, this is what's happened. This is how I feel about it. and also accepting that your feelings will change about it. Because I think that's the other difficulty is sometimes people get to a place of like, oh, but I thought I'd processed this already. I thought this was done. But actually as we change, as we grow, as we don't grow, just as we get older or other things happen to us, our perspectives will change on the thing that happened. And so we'll feel differently or... Maybe you'll think differently. You'll start to remember different memories of Florian, maybe. That kind of thing. So I think the thing with processing is it's a process for a reason. It's ongoing. I'm not sure when it stops. That's the only thing. And it's probably very individual, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Because even that will be down to, you know, like the way you grew up, who you are as a person, what country you live in, you know, what kind of things inform you and affect you as a person. You know, who are your support people? Like, you know, the people Lee is talking to about what he's going through. He's got dad who sounds very sort of, what's the word? It wasn't quite like a get over it statement. It was more of an understanding, compassionate thing. But very much a thing of, you know, this is just what it is. You know, it's not deep. It's just this is what it is. It's interesting that you should say this because we will encounter several people with a lot of traumata, really, in this series. And they will find very, very different ways of dealing with those traumas. Yeah. And yeah. Could you define in general what good ways to deal with a trauma is or are and what bad ways to deal with trauma are? For example, imagine a very narcissistic, self-centered person and try not to think of the current U.S. President. And, but if we take him for an example from, you know, right now, if you take a person that is like him, that is like Donald Trump and is very self-centered, if he experienced sort of a trauma, like a real trauma, like if something really bad happened. And he would get over it by convincing himself what he always believed, namely that he is like the best and biggest and greatest person ever to be alive. Then he would probably... Sort of shrug off that trauma. Yeah. So, would you say this is a healthy way of dealing with trauma? And could you say what the difference is between a healthy way of dealing with the trauma and an unhealthy way of dealing with the trauma? I think you know the answer to that question, Mark. Do I? Well, as in like, you know, is the way that Mr. Trump dealing with his traumas, is that a good way or a bad way um so. Well but but the question is why why i mean yeah i guess most of us of our listeners would would agree with the fact that uh just shrugging off or ignoring a trauma is not a good not not a good uh way to deal with it but in the end what we're trying to achieve is to make people um live a good life and to hit that balance that you just described so is it really important in what way we uh reach that point of balance do you know what i mean yeah. Yeah yeah i mean in terms of, like the good ways of dealing with it it is what we were sort of saying of being able to sit with it being able to accept it because what we don't want is to ignore it um in person-centered terms we call it denial and distortion of reality so the more we push away what the actual what the our reality is and by reality i mean our own personal subjective perception of reality if push that reality away um and shrug it off like say for example if if lee adama's dad had said you know stop being a worse man up um you know get over yourself and then lee was like okay well i just need to forget that this thing happened i just need to ignore it then he would probably end up down you know solter's um way of dealing with things of drinking through it trying to forget it happened in whatever way he could find whatever was his coping mechanism so it could be alcohol it could be um you know in today's day and age like shopping um like spending lots of money that you don't have getting into debt um just finding just. To be clear. Um when. You use or decide uh that some sort of addiction, like shopping addiction or substance-based addiction, is your coping mechanism. Yeah. Then what you basically do is you try to drown the bad feeling, like the feeling of sorrow or self-doubt or something like that. And you try to not feel these bad feelings. Yeah. So, this is important, I think. By doing so You tell yourself I don't have those feelings Or I don't feel those feelings It's the equivalent Of deciding that You cut your hand, But instead to bandage your hand You cut your hand off Yeah, Because this is like ignoring the pain, which, of course, gives you other problems. Exactly. By not having a hand anymore. Yeah. So, this is just, you know, just to make it clear, to understand why it's a bad idea. Because, you know, I had, when I was training for my current job, one of my, I guess, teachers is the, prophecies is, I guess, the best word for it. One of my prophecies told me that alcohol is actually a coping mechanism. It just doesn't last very long. You know, so it can help short term. Yeah. But it's not like a very good idea to do that over a prolonged time because it will give you an addiction and then you have some other problem that you can't deal with. Yeah. Well, this is your thing about what we were saying about balance. It's like, maybe like the first shock of it, like when you find out some terrible news, maybe then it's okay to go ahead and reach for a glass of something or to, you know, reach for something that will dampen the shock so that you can then sit with it in a more manageable way. Like I don't think there's anything wrong with that I don't think there's anything wrong with taking your time to process something Or to be like actually you know what I don't have capacity right now To deal with this thing but I will get to it at some point So even that it's not denying that this has happened to you Or you've experienced that it's just saying, I just don't have space for this right now. So, basically, processing a trauma means to one, accept the new reality. Because a trauma is basically like a very sudden and brutal change of what you deemed reality for yourself. And second, answer all the questions that have arisen from that trauma. Um because i'm i'm talking to a young woman at the moment um that that is one of my clients and she might have a trauma from some sort of sexual assault in her very young years like when she was 12 or something and this might or might not be a trauma yeah um so So there's the question of, does something that happened like way back still affect you or doesn't it? And if it doesn't, is it still a trauma? Does it classify as a trauma? And so…. What happens if you if you or when you experience such a terrible thing is um in order to deal with it you have to accept the fact that this happened to you and then you have like all sorts of questions like the questions of was it my own fault which which does actually um appear as a question to victims victims tend to ask themselves whether or not they were responsible for the situation and and um because they ask themselves how could i have prevented this um then there's the question of um of anxiety like can i trust anybody again uh can i trust men in this case um how do i build relationships with people um so this this ruptures uh a lot of things that you took for granted before this trauma like for example the the uh the general basic trust in humanity could be shaken so these are very individual questions like i would imagine i don't have a lot a lot of experience with with um victims of violence and sexual assault but i would imagine that every person that is actually a victim of such an assault has on one hand very similar questions that are like i don't know very similar um with with 10 people or so, or 10 victims, and very individual questions, probably. Yeah. Would you agree? Yeah, absolutely. There you go. So, this would mean that you had to address, or you have to address, all those issues, individual questions for each person and this means process in the end so accepting the new reality and dealing with all the um all the consequences and all the the self-doubt and all the problems that yeah sort of derive from this one incident yeah. Which when you put it like that it sounds humongous like the amount of work it takes to get. To that side yeah well and it is which explains why you have to deal with this probably for the rest of your life. And also why people would want to avoid doing that work. It is hard. I don't think people are cowards for drowning themselves in alcohol or trying to avoid looking at it. I think it makes so much sense because it is huge. It is hard work. Sometimes it's really, really frightening. And it's first and foremost unfair yeah somebody else did something to you and now you have like decades of work yeah because of that ahead of you and and this is the thing that really gets you angry because this it you know this wasn't necessary you know um there was no need to do this yeah and it makes you think well it makes me think really about the generation of our grandparents, because in the war, things like this happen. A lot and they. Just muddle through but it sort of explains why our grandparents were damaged the way they were. Sometimes you know yeah because again that passes down so like a lot of the clients i work with nowadays they're the majority of them are in their 20s early 30s and they're working with working against sometimes parents who don't have time to sort of, you know, to understand if their child is depressed or feeling anxious. Yeah. You know, they just want their kids to just get on with it and don't understand, like, why can't you get on with it? And these are, you know, those parents are the children of the grandparents who were in the war, the great grandparents that were in the war. And it all just gets passed down, what's it called? Intergenerational trauma. Exactly i remember my grandfather having trouble accepting the fact that i wanted to hug him, and um come to think of it this might have been i mean yeah of course because he was risen that way you know men don't cry that that sort of bullshit but um it might have also been because Because accepting emotions and dealing with feelings means that you have to deal with all sorts of, well, trauma that you have carried with you from the years of war. You know. And, I mean... This is very interesting. Come to think of it. I was very young when my grandfather died, so I don't know all the things that he did or said. But I do remember people telling me that they rolled their eyes because he was talking about, like, German aircraft, like, for the umpth time, you know. And he was talking about all the technical details of the war. Right. Like how superior German artillery was and how the war worked in technical terms, but never about feelings or something. Yeah. And this is probably a way to deal with the trauma of war without having to deal with the feelings that the trauma consists of. So, yeah, this is, wow. Yeah. It's the distraction, isn't it? It's like if I focus on the technical details, it means I don't have space to worry about the feelings. Exactly. And it's a way of sharing so that he can share something with you guys, but not too much. Like, I guess it's safe. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And so when we go back to the advice that Commander Adama gives his son, you have to accept the consequences of your actions and then live with them for the rest of your life. Then this is like half the thing you have to do to process a trauma. Like acceptance of the new reality. I have done this in Leo Dahmer's case. So I am somebody who killed innocent people. And so this is just like, you know, the first part of it. And then he has to deal with all the things that arise from this fact. Like, the question of, was this correct? And actually, I didn't mention this in the summary. There is a very, very interesting short little scene between him and the president, Laura Roslin. And she tells him that the former president, who has been killed by the silent attack, kept a list of people, I think. Yeah, a list of people in his drawer, in his office, of all the people that have died under his presidency. There seems to have been some sort of marine intervention and in some, I don't know, some situation and they had to go in and 12 people died. And... In the aftermath, the former president realized that the order of sending the Marines in was actually wrong. Yeah. You know, he realized he shouldn't have done this. He should have found a different way to resolve the situation. And so, in order to remember all those people and keep them close to him and as a reminder of, you know, how to do and how to make good decisions, he kept their names in his drawer, but never publicly admitted that he made a mistake. And she keeps the name Olympic Carrier in her pocket. Yeah. Basically because she doesn't have a drawer yet, but the thing is she keeps the list, which is only one item on it at the moment, but maybe this list will get longer. We don't know yet. So... There is this element of realizing that you made a mistake and this element of questioning yourself. And this is something that you see in politics a lot because you may question yourself by yourself, but you are not allowed to do this in public. You can't publicly admit that you made a mistake because then people will lose trust in you and all the good things that maybe came of what you did and of your actions will be destroyed. But this also prohibits politicians from being honest in public. And this is this is like this is like a really bad dilemma um because nowadays we see all the well a lot of politicians i don't know any right now that admit to their own mistakes, all of them say no i don't see any any anything wrong with what i did uh the most recent example for everybody who listens to this podcast in 20 years time. Just, I think, last week the Minister of Defense of the United States of America was found out. And he apparently used an open and unencrypted signal chat. And for some reason, the editor of the Atlantic magazine was part of the chat group. Something like that, yeah. Yeah, and he shared attack plans of the US military with them, like openly, which is probably illegal. You'd think. Yeah, you'd think. You'd think it would be, yeah. Yeah. And all the government, all the Trump administration does until today is telling everybody that there was nothing wrong with it. Yeah. So, they stick with the story, everything's okay. Maybe politicians have been doing this for decades, and they probably have, you know? And they just took the consequences of their actions when they were standing with their backs to the wall and couldn't move anymore and just had no other choice. But in politics, I guess you have to act like this because if you don't, then everything you've built, you know, just chatters. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it's that, what do they call it? Cancel culture. Like if you do make a mistake, then you're gone. So that means then that you never admit to making a mistake because it doesn't stop you making mistakes because we are human and we make mistakes. That's just how we're, how we're programmed, but they just stick it out, stick it out until someone else finds out they've made a mistake and enough people shout about it to get them out. But it just feels like a really, because the only example i have of someone who does admit to making mistakes i think i've mentioned this before about kia starmer the uk president uh prime minister even um and, it's like yeah give it time um but he admitted to it and lots of people were like look at him he's done a u-turn he's changed his mind and as if it's a bad thing and it's like and he now he come he's always come across as quite a weak leader and this reinforces like his weak leadership, rather than it actually strengthening his position and people being able to say well look at him he does his research and then if he finds out actually it isn't quite what he thought he is willing to make changes in order to accept that you know somebody else might have a better idea like he's humble is what i think it should demonstrate but instead it doesn't it's you know people see it as weakness that's why they see trump is so strong why he's so popular. And this is troubling, I think. This really is troubling. If you look at the designated Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, he ran a campaign on not taking up any more debts for the German government. Right, wow. And now that, yeah, he really didn't want that. And, you know, like most of the people in Germany were like, no, we need debts now. We need more money because we have to build up our defense department because hell knows what Putin will do next. And we need to invest in infrastructure and we need to invest in education and we need to invest in companies and in science and future technologies and all that stuff because it's really, really bad right now. Like, we're the largest economy of the European Union, and it's a miracle that I even have internet where I'm living at right now. You know, on the countryside, you don't have that, usually. Or really, really bad internet. Slow it. So, this is the thing. And now that he's designated chancellor, like, there's really no big chance that he won't become the chancellor of Germany. I mean, he isn't right now. He hasn't been elected. But, you know, they are working out the last, well, roadblocks of the new coalition between the Socialist Party and his party, the Christian Democrats, and... He will become the new chancellor. And already with the still working government, you know, the government that works, there's really no period with no government in Germany. Like the old one serves its term until the new one has convened. And with the old majorities from the former parliament, he decided and brought through a debt plan for 300 billion, I think, euros that we now have in this country. So he made a very sharp U-turn and everybody is calling him, um i i don't really know the english word for it but um it's it's like a screw neck in in germany you know like like an owl that can actually turn his head okay yeah, oh i know the word. For owl in german. Oh do you oiler oh very nice that's. What i mean duolingo is mental, why do i need to know oiler. By the way dear listeners um this is the part where we acknowledge the fact that nelima is trying to learn german so prepare yourselves to listen to a german podcast in 20 episodes time um so um i like like he's he's like a leaf in the wind as we say you know like like he turns the way he sees the way the wind was blowing and then just turns us uh turns that way so yeah um and everybody's angry for a day um but because he says well um it's it's it's a necessity we had to do this you know in order to um to finance our governmental program yeah and after a week everybody goes like yeah okay, people have very short memories and people forget about this and as long as he seems to be convinced of his own position everybody seems to be okay with it and run with it yeah and and this is what we see as long as you uh seem to be very confident of what you say and what you do living with your consequences is really easy in the public eye for yourself your conscience might really bother you But the rest or everybody else is really fine with it. Yeah, almost like he exudes this confidence, which then makes everyone else feel confident in his decision. Stating the fact that something is right and okay makes it right and okay in the public eye. Yeah. This is a scary concept. Yeah. The same, it's as scary as the fact that the more you repeat something, the more correct it gets. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is how people are able to deny and distort their reality. Yes. You know, if I keep telling myself, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'll start to believe that I'm fine. Yeah. It doesn't make me fine, because the shit that happened to you will always come back to bite you in the ass at some point. It's just what happens but if you know i think there is that belief that if i keep repeating this people will start it's like the immigration story you know in most of the countries at the moment you know everyone believes that immigrants are bad and right are draining the economy and all of that kind of stuff because we've been told this consistently to the point where even like at least like family members that i know they will vote right wing because even they despite being immigrants themselves or second third generation immigrants themselves yeah they even believe that immigrants are bad yeah. And of course they somehow managed to um to separate that sort of talk from themselves being. Yeah third. Or second uh generation immigrants. Yeah which is which is weird which is really. Really really weird. Yeah but i guess it's also that sort of for me that's also a distortion and denial of reality because in order to accept that, you know for example like let's put it from my perspective if i'm to accept that i am a second generation immigrant it means i have to look at myself as an outsider to this country still, and that is quite painful and so i sort of imagine with these people it's so painful to the fact that But they don't want to sit with that pain. It's easier to pretend that, well, I don't count as an immigrant because I was born here. And that's an easier thing to accept than is to sit with the pain of, actually, sometimes I don't know where I belong. Which is, I think, a common theme for all the not first generation immigrants. Yeah, because I don't belong, like whenever I've visited Bangladesh, I don't belong there. No, you don't. I can speak the language, but everyone laughs at me when I speak the language because I speak it with an English accent. Which is probably something they don't hear very often. No and so they think it's really cute but it just means everywhere I go you know I'm a grown-up talking politics or something or talking something deep and meaningful and they're just like oh you're so cute which isn't really the reaction you want to have so it's like I don't belong there and then here in the UK it's like yes I'm like we have a much like at least in London it feels very multicultural so it's very rare that I get asked where are you from, Unless people are genuinely curious because they know that I'm not from London, which I'm not, then that's a different question. That's an actual genuine. Actually, they would ask that question to anybody. It's not a racist question. But there's still a level of like otherness of like, I do look different to Nigel Farage, for example. You know, I do look different. Yes, you do. Thankfully. Yeah. So but for me it's like i can sit with that pain because you know i've spent a lot of time process processing this um and it's hard it's difficult it will be a lifelong process but, also i'd rather sit with what i feel is reality than pretend that i'm different to people who are suffering people who do get you know there's even like um there's a lot of british people at the moment that i know who are scared to go to america because they're scared of getting arrested you know white british people who are scared of getting arrested in america if they overstay their visa or um you know accidentally make mistakes like that yeah and it's like wow well if they're scared i'm a little bit more scared well. Certainly yeah i mean you would probably not be able to enter the country in the first place. No exactly you. Have like an outlandish sounding name no. Of course not anyway we digress we're going off on tangents. Okay um let's let's tie this bullet point off and um let's go to our second like big uh topic that we have on our list and that is prisoner rights and tom zarek and doing the right thing, and you know all that that sort of stuff which is actually which actually sort of ties into what you just mentioned and you know we started to talk politics and we can actually, stay there a bit um, I wanted to talk about Tom Zarek because I find him a very, very interesting character. By the way, for all the nerds out there, Tom Zarek is played by the actor who played Apollo in the original series from the 70s. So in a way there's apollo talking to apollo uh in this one prisoner scene where um lia dama holds a gun to um to tom's eric's head so this is this is uh quite interesting and quite nice um you. Sound so excited about that. I can really mean something to you i i love this because um it's sort of i mean we don't do this on this podcast uh really but um And it's sort of like giving the torch or passing the torch to the next generation, you know. It's like giving your blessing to the new children, like the new generation of your kind, if you will. So, I always like that. Oh, yeah. But also, he's very convincing as this character. And Tom Zarek, I have listened to a very, very interesting German podcast. I don't know if you or actually anybody outside Germany has ever heard of the Red Army Fraction. Or an army faction, really. Okay. No. So, this was a terrorist group, a left terrorist group in Germany. And I do believe they had like three generations. And I think they started in the late 60s or early 70s. And they were very, very left, like really, really communist, if you will. And they sided with the Palestinians in Israel. And they started killing people. They started taking hostages. I do believe... They kidnapped a plane at some point. Gosh, okay. So, yeah, they really, they were something. They did some bank robberies in order to find themselves, stuff like that. Wow. Never much more than like 20 people, I guess, if you call their network or if you look at the network in total. I mean, yeah, the neighbor of the guy that rented out a flat to an activist is sort of their network as well because he didn't call the police. But I'm not counting them at the moment. Like the very close circle were never more like a few dozen people. So, it's not a really, really big group. But at the time, they struck fear into the hearts of the German people. And the podcast I was listening to was from a journalist, a very young journalist, whose father was actually a police officer at that time and had to deal with the Red Army Faction. And she was interviewing people that belonged to this very close circle of people around the Red Army Faction. And there was this one guy She talked to And he's still very left But he's not Well he Nowadays says that Resorting to violence was a mistake, And she asked him So, why did she do it? Like, how did she go from everybody is equal, and we need to fight capitalism, and we need to fight inequality in a society, to, okay, let's bomb that building. And he answered by telling her, in order to do that, you need to be convinced that you are 100% unquestionably right. So there is this deep conviction that what you do is the right and correct thing. And this is something that I see in Tom Zarek as well. So he's absolutely right about what he's doing and he's convinced about that the thing that he's doing is right and correct. And taking what you just said, People that sort of radiate some sort of conviction, you know, I'm right, I'm correct, and I know what I'm doing, they have the ability to manipulate everybody else. When he steps out of that prison cell, I was amazed about the fact that he managed, he obviously managed to pull a thousand prisoners onto his side. And nobody questioned him, right? So, everybody was aware of the plan. And I didn't mention that in the summary. He manages to get out of the prison cells and stage this hostage taking only by the fact that he managed to convince one of the guards and to pull him over to his side. So, this is the amount of his influence. You know, he's very charismatic. And he manages to convince people by A, having good arguments because in the end he even manages to convince Liadama and B, being just very, very sure of himself. You know? And this I find fascinating, like really, really fascinating, dangerous and really, really fascinating. Yeah. It also made me think of Jesus. Okay let's go there i'm thinking you know because you know you work in you work in religion, um but as like the opposite end so jesus was also able to convince you know lots of people about his truth he was convinced of his truth and he managed to convince lots of people of his truth but did it in a very different way Okay. Or even, you know, I was thinking of Gandhi as well, you know, that sort of silent protest. Right. The no resistance sort of protest as well. Yeah. So it's like there are different ways to do this convincing. And Tom Zarek does it in a very, what for me was like very violent, very aggressive, the more sort of stereotypical coup d'etat kind of thing. And there is this one discussion between him and Liadama about the fact whether or not Tom Zarek has a death wish. Do you remember? Yeah. So, they just sit there and wait after the announcement that they have hostages. And Tom Zarek tells Liadama that he's looking forward to meet the Marines that are on their way to the prisonership as they speak. So, he knows they will be stormed. And Liadama realizes that Tom Zarek is actually counting on this. Do you think that Tom Zarek wants to go down in a blaze of glory? Well, I almost wonder, like, with all of these people, um, maybe not, um... Nelson Mandela I was also thinking as someone also who has protested and fought for his rights and was a prisoner as well actually um but say people people like Tom Zarek Jesus Gandhi all for me feel like they had a death wish or didn't really necessarily care about living a long life and doing you know the stereotypical things of like you know let's get married and have babies and stuff as well and literally their sole purpose is to convince everybody they are right, and I don't mean that as like a I don't it's not about whether they are right or not in my opinion it's just this is what they believe and almost like I wonder if that's, that's the sort of personality you have to be like you'd have to have a death wish or be or not care about living your life. I would disagree i think okay because because actually mandela gandhi and jesus um i mean i don't know uh gandhi and mandela that much. But i don't think they they didn't care for their own lives in jesus's case we know he did, right yeah um because there is this uh this scene where he um goes on top of a uh of a mountain and prays to god and tells him please dear god let this chalice uh pass me which basically means don't let them kill me right you know don't yeah please don't just just let me live and he he apparently realized that uh he was going to die because he questioned the um uh the order of society at the at the time and uh the romans weren't going to let that happen because uh they could accept and live with a lot of things but they couldn't let anybody question the the order of things at the time you know this is like a very very uh grave uh crime that you could commit at that time yeah and and uh for the people that um were considered revolutionary um they would they would have to endure like the um, the gravest punishments, which is actually the problem that the Romans have with Jesus and early Christianity. The problem is not that this is a religion. The Roman Empire always was like a multicultural, multi-religious conglomerate of people. That is not the issue. The issue is that one of the consequences of Christianity is social equality. And slaves when turning to christianity learned that they were as valuable as everybody else so they would have this very interesting and very new idea that slaves and masters shouldn't really exist gosh and this is a problem yeah this is really a problem and um so they did the same thing with soldiers and giving soldiers a conscience is also a problem because they tend to not want to kill people anymore when they have a conscience and when there's a god who will actually uh sit in judgment over you after you die yeah and um which is a thought that i had like um when we were talking about um the fact that when you are confident enough you can actually sell everything to the public. So, in order to rein that in, you would have you would need a higher power, That sort of gives you orientational rail guards. When there's nobody to judge you, when you're so powerful that everybody says, yeah, okay, you're right. There's nobody to stop Germany's chancellor, your prime minister or the president of the United States. When they decide something is correct and right, and the courts can't do anything about it because they didn't do anything legally wrong, then there's the question of morality. And this is a thing that is, well, I guess reserved for religion, you know, because you have to answer to a higher power. And you need that because there's nothing above uh the level of politics and the level of government you know like there's this this uh theory of realism i don't know if you've heard of it and uh realism states that there's like an order for every level of society beneath the government you and i have to answer to the police you and i have to answer to our friends and colleagues and our bosses and you and I have to answer to the courts if we've committed a crime right but at the level of, government chancellors prime ministers presidents and so on kings, They don't have to answer to anybody. They can only be persuaded to act a certain way when a more powerful country comes along and forces you to do so. So, basically, at the very highest level of governance that we have, it's just a game of who's stronger, whose army is bigger, bigger army diplomacy. So, this is what realism says. And this is something that you could be okay with, but basically what religion says is, yeah, but there's a higher power. So this is an attempt to limit the power of governments, like the earthly power, to limit the things that government can do to you. And before everybody listening to us now cries out yes i know this has failed in the past a lot i know this and religion has been uh has been part in a lot of crimes against humanity i do know this and i do realize this but it has the potential to do this and it started to do this in the beginning mm-hmm, Then several very awful things happened. I don't deny them at all. I do realize, I'd acknowledge they happened. But Christianity and also other religions actually, in their core, have the ability to tell everybody else, look, you could do this. But then you would have to answer to God, Allah, or some other higher power. So, be sure you know what you're doing. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So, there you go. how did we get there? Well, this is what we were saying at the beginning. Here's an insight into our phone conversations. Yeah, well, true. That is true. So, I guess when we try to circle back very brutally to Tom Zarek, so what I found so fascinating about this character is that he's very sure of himself, but he also has a good point. This seems to be Like a very devilish combination Because Like you said With the conversation about Immigrants Mm-hmm, In the very first moment, it actually makes sense to think that all the immigrants steal away your jobs, you know, or at the same time are a liability to your social systems, you know, because they come here and they take our money and they just live off of social benefits that my country is providing, which is wrong. But at first glance, you think this is correct. Yeah. Wow. And Tom Zarek is even more than that because he is actually correct. So, Laura Roslin is only serving out the term of the former president. So, she would have to have an election anyway in, what, eight months' time? Yeah. But probably everybody looking at at her and and watching the show would probably go so yeah but she's holding everything together and and is this really a time for elections and and what the heck i mean isn't this too complicated and why would you want a change in government when you are literally um trying to save everybody's everybody's lives you know Yeah. Yeah. But then like you say, he is like on closer inspection. If you actually sit with that and you think about it, it's like, well, just because it's hard, why should we not do it? What if there is someone out there that is much better than the current president and has better ideas and all of that stuff? I know there's not many people in the fleet but there's still a lot of people to choose from if that's how the elections will work and, That's kind of what you're saying, right? Of like, actually, if we take our time to rather than going with our first reaction to what someone says, like, you know, immigrants are bad. Actually, if we think about it, and we sit with it and really are curious about, hang on, let me just, you know, play devil's advocate with myself and think this through, you might actually be convinced. And with Tom Zarek, I think we were both convinced as well as Lea Dahmer. And i just remembered um what we were talking about regarding tom zarek the question uh of does he have a death wish or not. Oh that was it yeah yeah. Yeah and i was actually trying to argue that um at least for jesus i can say that he didn't want to die but he accepted it as a consequence of what he did yeah maybe that's. That's the difference because Like with. Gandhi. He went on like food strikes, hunger strikes. Right, right. So it was like, if I die, it's a consequence of me fighting for our rights. Whereas with Tom Zarek, it felt more like a... Not a consequence, but it felt different. It felt like a death wish. Is that what you're saying? Deliberate, yes. Yes, because he calculates with it. Right? So, Gandhi probably thought, okay, they might kill me, and this will hopefully bring something good in the end. I don't know about Mandela. I really have no idea. But I don't think he wanted to be in prison for several decades. And I just imagine that he didn't want to die either. Because that would mean that their message could get lost, you know. But Zarek seems to calculate this. Like he wants to die. In order to become a martyr. Yeah. Yeah. There's some other show, I don't know if it's like Game of Thrones or something, where it's like people are sort of saying, you know, don't kill them because they will become a martyr, and then we won't, like their message will never die. So it does, like it makes sense where he's coming from, but it's also a bit... It makes me then question how much he really believes in what he wants um like whether not how much he believes in what he wants more of like a how much how much is he convinced that what he is wanting is actually the right way to do it yeah and this is basically this. Is basically the question of is he a good guy or not like. Yeah does he want does. He want to die for the. Cause or does he want to die for. His own legacy. Yes exactly exactly what. Would you say. Well for me it feels like for his own legacy because he wants to be remembered as someone whereas i think if you're someone that really believes in the change that you want to bring it's not about whether you'd want to die or not but more like a you kind of need to be around to keep this going so that you can you know pass on the torch to the next generation so that they continue this and the world gets better and better over time but if you're gonna if you're willing to just die then, what sort of, I don't know like what like how can you guarantee although then it's just popped into my head about Emily Pankhurst and the suffragette movement in the UK for women's suffrage and you know she threw herself under a horse because but what didn't feel like that was I mean she is remembered I mean hers is the only name I can think of to be honest like and this is you know I learned about her when I was a child and she still is in my head so almost like these people do live on and maybe that's not necessarily what they want, but somehow we end up here. And it's like the whole idea of women's rights isn't necessarily there, because now we talk about feminism and it's been a bit distorted in a way, it feels to me. In the end, it comes down to what your motivation is. Really. Yeah. Maybe that's the difference. Yeah. And, Even if you had the wrong motive, it could still end up in a good thing, which makes all the things even more complicated, really. So, yeah, there you have it. And I guess, I don't quite exactly remember, but I do believe that Apollo asks Tom Zarek something like, you were willing to die for your cause, are you willing to live for it? Which is harder, which is harder. If you've been imprisoned for several decades and you now have the chance to, on the one hand, further your cause, you know, in a blaze of glory, and on the other hand, end your suffering by simply dying, then this could be an easy way out. Yeah. Wow so um and and staying alive is more difficult because then he'd he'd have to make compromises he'd have to speak for the prisoners he'd have to represent people probably because he is like their their leader at the moment so people will usually go through him and they've started in this episode um as well so um in the end he'll he'll have to deal with all the things that we would call politics and they are exhausting yeah and uh yeah and and you know all the great revolutionaries uh that we've had throughout the ages um they uh they probably had like a good idea and they burned for this idea like they really really um were convinced that they were right. And death is always a possibility and they probably knew it. Um, so, yeah, and then you have to ask the question, what's the motive of this person? Does he really want to simply accept the fact that he might die because of what he's fighting for? Yeah. Or is it somebody who really wants to end his own life and covers it with the excuse of having, like, a good cause? Yeah. So, there you go, yeah. Well, it's made me think back to the beginning of what we were saying about trauma, and this is also one way to deal with trauma, of like, you know, actually this pain is too much for me to sit with. True. Like you're saying, you know, being a prisoner is a traumatic experience. Yes. And, yeah, it would make sense that maybe he wants to end his suffering. Mm-hmm. That's a bit depressing. It is it also seems to be um uh like a very very good point uh to end this section of the podcast and move on to conclusion sounds good, Okay, so we've talked about trauma, we've talked about taking responsibility for what you do, we've talked about Jesus for some reason, and we've talked about having a good cause and being a terrorist. And so what do we take away from all of this? Um for me what i take away with um and maybe it's just been a theme of my week this week of like because i i said it to my supervisor as well on wednesday when i spoke to him about like why does this take so long why does it take so long to process your shit, like why can't it be like an overnight thing maybe not even an overnight thing you know like a 10 minute thing if like okay i'm gonna sit and think about it for 10 minutes and then be done with it and it's like no it's sort of um. Like you process it, then maybe you meet someone and then they do something that reminds you of the thing that happened to you. And then you're having to process something else slightly adjusted, but still kind of the same theme. And just like I have running themes in my therapy of like things I'm still, still fucking working through. And I'm just like, come on, when is this going to be done? Done um I had someone say to me recently of like you know when do you like how do you know when you're fixed and I thought it was such a fabulous question because it's it's not as person-centered therapists you know we don't fix anyone I would never claim to fix anybody but I would fucking love to fix myself like sod anybody else I'd love to be able to say walk out of therapy and be like i'm done stick a fork in me i'm sorted i'm fixed i'm not broken anymore um and i think it's why like words like broken and fixed annoy me because it is a process it is slow it is hard it is arduous sometimes it's great sometimes it's amazing to have new insights and new understandings but a lot a lot of the time it is it's hard work and it's you know like general adama says you've You've got to accept the consequences and live with them for the rest of your fucking life. Which is, I think, a good addition to what you just said. You're never fixed. No. I don't think. No. The thing that you could aim for is a state of acceptance and of inner peace. But, you know, fixed is a term that you use in... Um in connection with with words like uh damaged or non-functional you know something like i don't know um my my my vacuum cleaner is broken and then i replace a few parts and then it works again so this is where you use the word fixed but humans can't be fixed because that would mean that we restore function and sometimes that can be actually the aim and goal of therapy to make you functional again like meaning okay i've i've given you or you've reached the ability to go and and uh care for yourself again so you can go to the supermarket you can buy stuff uh you know how to dress yourself and you have a job of some sort um so you have a normal life yeah um you're basically you're functional again yeah yeah but this is not what we're talking about is it i mean i would i would refuse outright refuse to see a human being as sort of a robot uh as a as a very tiny wheel in society um or a cog in society um that has to turn in a certain way and and then your purpose is fulfilled no no no no we're humans we're more than that and um yeah. And being fixed would, probably a better term for being fixed is the term being okay or at peace with yourself. Like being able to live with the stuff that has happened to you. Accept the consequences of your doings, the things that you did. And when you're okay with them, accepting the fact that, yeah, they happened and you did them and okay, that's fine. Or when it was a mistake that you made live with the fact that yes you made a mistake and yes people suffered and uh you've learned from that you've learned not to do this again you've learned to to watch stuff you know to look out for stuff because usually people have reasons for the things that they do yeah you know um i i believe that that characters like the joker from batman are really the exception at least i hope so they just want to see the world burn and and i would argue that most people actually have good reasons for what they do and um and then they realize, oh shit that was wrong yeah yeah you know i. Mean i would also say like the joker has his reasons but i. Don't think. He thinks that he's wrong i think. He's another. One of those that believes he's right. Well i don't know if he actually has a sense of right and wrong that's true so he probably wouldn't be able to be uh um uh processed in court you know yeah so because he's insane obviously yeah okay but yeah i would i would um, I would underline what you just said, yes. So, it is a process that is maybe never finished, which is not a good outlook, but it gives you the ability to grow as a person, I would argue. Because the moment you realize that this is part of you, you remember that. Like the thing you were saying about your own marriage. Yeah. You know, and that sometimes divorced people are better partners. Yes, when they have learned from what went wrong. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that's why I found it funny as a blanket statement. I was like, no, there's plenty of divorced people I know that probably won't make good partners. Who are very damaged. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because they haven't processed their trauma. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. How about you? Well, I'm still amazed at the fact, and I've been for months now, that there is a level of society in which the question of right and wrong simply disappears. And it's being replaced by people that are very confident of what they do. This is something that I've been, if I think about it, that I've been pondering for years and years and years and years now. Right. Because because um in the early 2000s and even back in the 90s you could already see that um, when companies that made a mistake you know like coca-cola putting dead mice in their drinks or something and then having to recall like a whole batch of drinks of because of it um i've recently watched a very funny video about the um the past uh the history of of the coca-cola company and they did some very horrible things and they made a rebrand and everything was fine you know and because this has always been the case I was wondering back in back when I was in my teens and in my early 20s I was always wondering why politicians even had to take the consequences of directions you know, we had a minister in Germany having to step down because she used a government vehicle, a government car for personal shopping tours. And yeah and i was wondering why if they just leave it at that you know and don't talk about it and maybe do some other distracting uh topic i don't know um then everybody will have forgotten about this like in in two weeks time at the most so um i was i was always amazed and wondering why anybody at a certain level of government had to take consequences for directions because if they just wait long enough yeah then nobody will remember yeah you know that's an interesting. Thing though like why do some people choose to not distract the public and then let things be forgotten and whereas and then they resign instead and then other people are like no don't look here look over there. And. They just stay in government for ages and ages. I mean um boris johnson didn't really stumble uh about what was it called office gate or something like when when um the people working for him were ignoring all the uh corona restrictions oh. Yeah yeah yeah. That's not the thing that made him tumble no not right yeah and this is this is i i really find this amazing i don't have any conclusion to this or solution to this it's just that i find this amazing and i've learned this about humans basically because this seems to be something that works in in in all the countries, you know, and it's weird. It's weird. And I'm still a bit. How should i put it um unsure about characters like tom zarek like people who are very sure about themselves do they have a conscience or not you know and motives of people yeah other than that i i completely agree with you um and i think we've we've um um learned something about how to live with the consequences of your actions like how to be a human being a grown-up which basically means uh get to terms with with um the things that you did and the consequences that derive from it and how that actually works because this is something that really annoys me personally when people say something like deal with it and don't tell you how so uh it's a very individual thing it's um the questions that you have the problems that you have the doubts that you have are very much your own and you have to address them separately and individually and uh individually sorry and you have to probably you have to talk to somebody yeah who helps you, actually come to terms with it and be okay with them and learn from them and. Accept the fact that. They exist and will probably never get it never really go away. Yeah but i guess those are the people who you know they won't be so self-confident they won't be so sure of themselves, whereas i guess in order to have that you know to have like such a hundred percent confident self-belief, it must mean that you haven't processed stuff. Because I can't ever imagine never feeling insecure because that balance is so hard to achieve. Like as much as that is the goal, I think the likelihood of most people achieving that goal is very rare. And so that means we'll always be a bit unsure of ourselves. Yeah and it's a process and there are healthy ways and unhealthy ways to deal with this with your trauma with the things that, that hinder you from becoming the person that you want to be so yeah, and on this note we'd like to end we hope we hope you've enjoyed listening to us take care of yourselves and each other and always remember the Cylons look like us now. Until next time on Sci-Fi Therapy, so say we all. So say we all.