“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.” Teach Different with Henry David Thoreau – Self-Discovery

Transcript

Dan Fouts (00:09)

Hey everybody, welcome to the Teach Different podcast. We have Henry David Thoreau with us today. American transcendentalist, poet and author in the 1800s in American history. And back for the third time now is Jarvis Funches. Who’s here going to talk about this amazing quote with Henry David Thoreau with us. And then of course we have Steve, and Dan, me, Fouts, who will be working with Jarvis on this particular quote. This is a deep one. I think people can look at this one and apply it to themselves in some way and it’ll really, really resonate. I’ll get to it in a moment, but first the Teach Different method. If you listen to any of our podcasts, you know, the drill. We start with that philosophy quote, something to make you think, and then we give a claim, we give a counterclaim, we ask questions, critical thinking, inquiry, curiosity, deep thinking. We do it all with the Teach Different method, all starting from a provocative quote. So Henry David Thoreau has joined us with this quote that I will read now, twice. And then we’ll give Jarvis the first crack at it, so to speak. And then we open it up to Steve and me, and we’re off. Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves. Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves. Jarvis, welcome back. 

 

Jarvis Funches (01:55)

Thank you for having me back on the podcast. This quote means to me, uh, it could be a very scary sight, you know, just to be in the unknown, not knowing what’s on the other side, where you’re going, you know, just even, man, just sitting being alone, it’s a scary sight to even deal with your own personal thoughts, things that you go through, you know, but I had wrote this down though. So this is what I feel about it. I said, being lost could be a very scary moment. The thought of the unknown, not knowing what’s on the other side, could be very scary for most people, but knowing that you have no one else to go to but yourself, allows you to sit and cope and think. One, it allows you to pray. Number two, it allows you to find yourself in some way. Number three, you start to begin to learn yourself in many ways. You understand your fears, your worries, your doubts. And four, you learn how to accept your worries, your fears, and your doubts. And you learn how to use them to your best advantage. I say that this is a very good quote for many people and for me in life because it shows me a lot of ways. It’s either you’re going to be hesitant or you’re going to do it. So being hesitant could cause you to either to, one, fail at life and never be successful or two, just take a leap of faith. If it didn’t work, you didn’t have it in the beginning, but what if it did, then you will be very cherished and very successful in many ways. Just keep going. The unknown can be very scary, but just stay true. So that’s what I wrote about this quote, and I just feel like it corresponds with a lot, but in the same way it’s like, to me, just being stuck in a situation and not having nobody to go to or even being jammed up. Like, you know, it’s a scary feeling just even sitting with yourself and coming to the thoughts of a lot of things that you know that were childish or that you had the knowledge of and that you just did not do. So who wants to sit around and just, you know, soak and, you know, basically in so many words, who wants to just sit there by themself? And so can they own pity. Cause you know, you’re your own greatest criticizer. So I don’t know, like, it rubs me in both good ways though, what do you guys think?

 

Steve Fouts (04:25)

I thought a lot about this thing. I started thinking about this one since this morning. You know, to me, the quote, not until we’re lost, do we begin to understand ourselves, it’s almost saying to me that calamities and like challenges that you go through and maybe even depressions where you feel abandoned. You know, this scary kind of thought you have that no one has got your back and it’s just like you in the wilderness. When that stuff happens in life and you’re at like your lowest point, that’s when you strip away everything about you, you know, but who you truly are somehow. It’s like, you erase all the parts of life that you don’t ever have to like… 

 

Jarvis Funches (05:27) 

So basically from that, I’m not trying to cut you off, excuse me, but from so many words, my understanding is basically that from you, from hearing what you’re saying is that basically when you sit alone and you’re by yourself and you strip yourself from all the standards that society have on you and even the standards that you have on yourself, and you sit and cope and you deal with the person that you truly are in the inside. Then at that point, do you know that it’s true or like basically that you find yourself because that could be, that’s why I correspond with that too. You strip yourself from all the shackles and all the bags of like people thinking that you should be at this point or the standard that you have for your own self and now you sitting there, you just coping. Now it’s just you one on one. You know what I’m saying? It’s you against yourself in so many words and nowadays terms and now I feel like, like you said, you do begin to find yourself, but it begins a problem for so many people because so many people has lived under so many standards of people or even their own standards that nobody really truly knows who they are inside and it could be a scary journey, you know, just going inside and traveling trying to see who you really are because now like you say you stripping yourself from so much baggage and standards to like, man, who am I really? 

 

Steve Fouts (06:46)

I’ll even say Jarvis, based on what you just said, I’ll say that most people, when they feel like they’re getting into the wilderness and they’re lost, they go running back to the first thing that makes them feel safe and comfortable. And that can be like a person in your life. That can be like a home, a physical place where you don’t want to go anywhere. You just want to be with people you know and things you already are used to. But I think most people, you know, they’re afraid of this stuff. But again, Thoreau is saying man, if you get lost, that’s actually where you find yourself. That’s the only place you can understand who you are. Once you put yourself out there, Dan, what were you going to say? 

 

Dan Fouts (07:39)

Yeah. failure, you have to fail, go to ground zero, to understand yourself. I got to bring up a experience I had today with a student in my advisory. About a year ago, he was directionless. He’s a senior, he’s graduating this year, didn’t have a lot of direction a year ago, took a lot of things for granted. He ended up going through a very, very vicious knee surgery, months ago, that literally put him on crutches for four months, and he was depressed. He was spending his senior year trying to even just get around the school. And he came to this, he was telling me about this today, it’s amazing that this quote came today. He said, I was at my low point, and now that I’ve recovered from that. I see life very differently. I understand what I need now. I understand what I took for granted. I appreciate my parents more. He was offering all this. I didn’t even ask him any of this. He began to understand himself and his goals in life because he hit rock bottom with this injury. And so I immediately told him, I said, can you talk to the advisory? We’re going to have you give your story to the rest of the students and see if they can ante up and provide their own story. It was inspirational. 

 

Jarvis Funches (09:17) 

It’s very inspirational and that let alone like we were saying last week, like about finally putting your piece into other things besides people materialistic things, and all those things and such. You’re just trying to put your peace in yourself, and I’m rooting for that guy because sometimes when you’re at your lowest point, yes do you find yourself, but you learn to appreciate things more because you understand the value of certain things. Like you don’t understand the value of being able to walk freely. You don’t understand the value to be able to walk around and use your limbs until you’re actually disabled. Then yet, you know, like, oh man, this is how it really is. Yeah, so sometimes, and a lot of us need that breaking point, and I feel like that’s where success and greatness kick in at, because when you go through that breaking point, a lot of people look at it as a bad thing, it’s really not. You’re shedding, and you’re going to the next level, but it feels bad because you’re not used to this. This is a whole different type of atmosphere. So of course it’s going to feel uncomfortable. Of course it’s going to feel frightening because you’re going to a different level in life. Every time you elevate, it’s going to get uncomfortable because you’re going to a new stage. You don’t need those old materials anymore. You’re going up, you’re going to need new game. You’re going to play at a better level. And that’s the thing. And that’s why I wrote those notes down in my book, because like I said, this quote really corresponds to just being, being open to the unknown. Don’t fear it, just be open to it. Yes, it will be frustrating, you don’t know. Yes, it will be traumatizing because you don’t know the outcome. But the thing is that you have to still have trust. You have to have faith. I live off one thing. You got one shot in life. I mean, we can’t live that based off what other people think. Because now I’m gone and I live my whole life off what somebody else think. No, you have to take the opportunity. Yes, it’s going to be scary. Yes, it’s going to be out of the ordinary. Yes, it’s going to be new things. Yes, it’s going to be things you don’t like. And you can’t run back to that comfort zone. Because now every time you do go out and you experience the weirdness, and you run back to comfort, you done put yourself 15 steps back when you was already 20 steps ahead. You gotta keep going. And that’s where my counterclaim came in at, but that’s for later though. Well, you do got a great example and I hope you give him condolence cause that sometimes you really do need to be at your lowest to understand a lot and to even understand life period. Because a lot of like, we do walk around and take everything for granted. Yeah, that is serious. 

 

Dan Fouts (11:43) 

The one specific thing he said, Jarvis, is when he said, I’m 17 years old and I’m asking people to help me go to the bathroom. 

 

Jarvis Funches (11:53) 

Man, do you know how uncomfortable that is for him? Do you know how weird that is for him? Like, come on man, like, I was just doing this myself and now I have to have you carry me to the bathroom? Then let alone with it being weird to him. You got certain people that, naive, that don’t even want to do it for him. Just off the simple fact he can’t do it for himself. And you do have naive people in the world like that. Like, they just don’t even want to do it because they have the control over that situation. And I’m glad that he went through that. And it’s sad that he did have to go do that, but at the same time, I’m glad that young fella did and he’s recovered now, so he can see and like he said, cherish everything around him. Because man, that’s humiliating at first, and come on, it’s uncomfortable, I don’t want you taking me to the washroom, come on, I’m 17 man, come on, like, you know? And that’s just a blessing, and it’s more of a grateful gift that he got it so young. He understand now, than he got it later, you know what I’m saying? That’s a real blessing. 

 

Steve Fouts (12:48) 

I like how we’re, we’re kind of understanding his word, understand ourselves as kind of not taking things for granted, appreciating things. I mean, that’s what we’re conflating together. We’re saying, what is understanding yourself mean? And we’re just listing them out. You know, it’s not taking things for granted. It’s, you know, looking at life and realizing that you have blessings. You don’t even realize it, and they can be taken away. And that’s an understanding of yourself that you’re not gonna get unless you are lost. You gotta get lost first to see that, that’s what Thoreau is saying. You’ve gotta lose yourself to find yourself. Like, and we have a quote that’s similar to this. Dan, is it Gandhi or something? Uh, something. Maybe if I think about it, I’ll bring it up, but it’s this idea in order to find yourself, you got to lose yourself. 

 

Dan Fouts (13:54) 

Lose yourself in the service of others. 

 

Steve Fouts (13:56)

That’s it. Lose yourself in the service of others. 

 

Jarvis Funches (13:59)

So basically let people take advantage of you. Let them misuse you, but not only let them do that, but feel the pain, feel the ache from it. So now you know what it feels like to be used or to be mistreated. And now you can take that and use it in your own best knowledge. I love that quote. I love that quote because you can save yourself because a lot of people do live out here as people pleasers. You can save yourself. 

Dan Fouts (14:23)

The Gandhi quote was also more, it was more, you lose yourself in the service of others. You begin helping others. And by helping others, you find yourself exactly. 

 

Steve Fouts (14:35)

Yeah. But I’d like Jarvis’s read on that as well. That’s an interesting, maybe we’ll have to do that quote with you after this one, but counterclaim, what are we going to do with this counterclaim Jarvis, you got something you were, you had it primed up. 

 

Jarvis Funches (14:52)

My counterclaim was this. We do have people in life that’s so comfortable and content with the place that they’re in life to that their fear is greater than their faith and now that becomes the major sacrifice because your fear is greater than your faith. So now you’re not willing to faithfully walk through the unknown. You’re not willingly, you’re not willing to learn about the unknown. You’re a content with the things that you know. And that means you just self sabotage yourself. You killed your own future. You killed your own success. Because you’re so comfortable with the things that you know. And there’s people out there like that in the world that will not jump because they know that the land is safe. But sometimes you do have to go out on the land of faith. But that’s my counterclaim. That we do have a lot of people that will not jump. And they will not jump off the simple strength of that. They are comfortable. They’re content. They know how it feels. They know where they’re at. You know?

 

Steve Fouts (15:56) 

To add to that, Jarvis, I’m with you there and I think most people probably are not going to jump, right? And I’ll just, let me build on this and I’m going to try to prop up the person that doesn’t want to jump for a second. If you get a comfort zone in your life and you found something that you’re really good at, that you feel like you’re home. Like you’re at the place that you want to be. You’re with the people that you want to be with, you’re doing the job and the career that you love, and someone comes in and says, you know, hey, let’s go move to Europe for six months and try to open up, you know, a hot dog stand, you know? Part of you might say I don’t want to do all that, I’ll be lost like I’m going to have to figure out so much stuff. I don’t even know the language. What am I going to do there? And I don’t want to look at that person and say, oh, that’s just because you’re afraid here. You don’t want to step out here. ‘m going to go with the counterclaim and say this. I think to understand ourselves. It’s really knowing what you’re good at and what makes you happy. That’s part of self knowledge too. And if you find that stuff, maybe you’re okay there and don’t get lost. You know, like, don’t push it, man. You work so hard to get to this point and it’s like, don’t be straying out here or there. I don’t know if I’m making sense.

 

Jarvis Funches (17:42)

Oh, no, you got a point. You do have an excellent point. But like I said, though, like it’s always a counterclaim. There are steps to a flower growing. Even though the flower is comfortable being a seed, and it’s content with being a seed, it’s okay with being in the soil, it’s in love with the soil, still have a job to do and it’s still other levels that this flower has to get to, or else, the flower would die. That’s why you shouldn’t be content, and you shouldn’t be comfortable. And you have stubborn people, it ain’t just people that’s afraid, you got people that’s stubborn, like you said, they are contempt, they are fine with where they are, but you could have been somewhere better, but by you being stubborn, and you really, stubborn only really comes after being really afraid. You was really afraid to really even move anyway, so you use your stubbornness to really stagnate you to stay where you were. But he was really just a scared. You was really afraid just to grow, you know what I’m saying? Like, yeah, you have to grow. So like, in a way you can be comfortable, but you have to grow. We all have to grow at no, we all have to grow. No matter how comfortable we are.

 

Dan Fouts (19:03) 

I would jump in and just twist the words for my counterclaim. I’d say not only until we succeed, do we begin to understand ourselves. And I would focus on, you know that I always use sports teams as a good example here. That team that doubted themselves, that team that didn’t think that they were capable of winning, but their coach motivated them, they won the championship. They’re standing on the trophy platform. Because they succeeded, they finally understood what they were capable of. So they didn’t know it before they succeeded. So there’s an exhilaration and a self knowledge that comes from success that I think. Is really powerful. I don’t think it’s as powerful as when you’re lost. I would agree with the claim on that one, but man, it’s powerful when you succeed and you didn’t think you could do it. 

 

Jarvis Funches (20:10) 

And that’s, and see Mr. Fouts, you just really hit it on the head because look, that’s why you have to keep growing, because you have potentials in you that you did not know. And see, you stagnate your own potential by being comfortable with the little potential that you found out that you had. You have to keep growing. You have to. Just like Dan said, the success. The motivation. He was already giving up in his own head. The success, the motivation, and his story was already written. But he had to have somebody that come along, cheer for him, let him know, like, hey, look, you might not know it, but I see something greater in you. And see, that’s what keeps pushing people. You know what I’m saying? That’s what keeps you going. Mr. Fouts, you can get up here and say, man, look, I’ve been teaching for 15 years. I’m tired of it, you know? And I just come along and say, Hey, Mr. Fouts, you helping me get through it. Every day I come to school, man, I’m looking forward to meeting you. I know you gonna make my day. hey, you probably get a thought in your head like, man, maybe, maybe the 15 years ain’t so bad after all. Then let alone let you help, let your teacher help me graduate. That’s going to make you man like, wow, and maybe the 15 years did pay off. You know what I’m saying? That you have to keep going. You have to like, and it’s sad to say that we most likely do have people that’s not going to grow. That’s not going to reach their full potential, but that’s the cost. That cost is greater than the cost that we’re going to pay to even be at our fullest potential. So, yeah, it’s tough. 

 

Steve Fouts (21:51)

I like how you came back, I mean, coaches and teachers, people that hopefully are pushing other people to get out of comfort zones and like motivating them to succeed at things that they didn’t think were possible, and again, back to the quote, not until we’re lost do we begin to understand ourselves. I want to go with that thought real quick of Dan that you brought up about seeing success. Having someone point out what success is and like living in that and getting used to it and then wanting more and more of is really powerful. And I’m thinking about, I think it was 1983. N. C. State, the March Madness College Championship. This is way back before Jarvis. You were born, but 

 

Jarvis Funches (22:55) 

I know for sure that.

 

Steve Fouts (22:57) 

There’s like a ESPN 30 for 30 on this. The coach, his name was Jim Valvano. He took a ninth seed team and brought him all the way to the finals and along the way, when he was practicing with his team at the end of practice, he would get a ladder out and put it underneath the basket, get scissors, hang them, hand them out to people, and they would cut down the nets after every practice, because that’s what you do when you win the national championship. You cut the net down, you cut, and he’s like, we’re gonna practice this too. And it just got them, they won it. They won it all. I think it was the lowest seed to ever win it, if I’m not mistaken. But he trained them almost to not be lost. Not be nervous.

 

Jarvis Funches (24:03)

He trained them to be comfortable, even being uncomfortable. They was uncomfortable being a ninth seed. They don’t have no real strong faith that they’re going to make it to the championship but let alone the coach making us work hard, but then letting us cut the net down. So now this is not only becoming familiar to me, this is becoming comfortable to me. So now when I get to the championship, this is not an ordinary feeling to me because I am prepared. And that’s what I mean by keep growing. Keep growing. You’re the ninth seed, but you came out on top. You gotta keep growing. You got to, gotta keep growing because you’re so much better when you keep growing. You’re so much better. It’s just, it’s immense. It’s immaculate.

 

Steve Fouts (24:44)

I love it. I love it. Any questions that are coming up for anyone that we’re crafting? Dan, do you have one that you’re thinking about? 

 

Dan Fouts (24:55) 

I’m looking and thinking about this. Am I able to understand myself better through success or failure? 

 

Jarvis Funches (25:05) 

I mean, you’ll be able to understand yourself through failure more because with success, it’s like a drug. You’re used to it. It’s a habit. You used to winning. When you’re failing, it’s a sad, it’s a sad, sad place. You are at your lowest. When you’re losing, you’re breaking. You feel like nothing’s around you. You feel like you’re at rock bottom. That’s when the true lion kicks in and inside, because now you’re learning to be a monster at your lowest point and not at your highest point. You know what I’m saying? And that’s what’s gonna make you shoot up because you know what the bottom feel like and once you get to the top and you know what the bottom feel like, you’re gonna stay on top. You’re going to stay on top because it’s the grit, it’s the tenacity, you’re always going to have it. You know what I’m saying? So you’re always going to have it. That’s how I feel. My question would be to those people that’s listening, how could the people that did make it over to the other side come back and help people that’s stubborn? Or that’s even content with being comfortable. How can we reach these people? How can we help them grow, if we even can?

 

Dan Fouts (26:09)

Yeah, once we’ve understood ourselves in the right way, how do we go back and give back and be a service to others to find their own path? 

 

Jarvis Funches (26:22) 

That’d be my question because that is tough. I mean, it’s tough. 

 

Dan Fouts (26:26) 

Yeah, because when you experience it yourself, it’s hard to say, oh, yeah, you’re going to go through the same experience. They’re not. That they’re in a different situation, but  you’ve experienced something, some enlightenment, something that is so precious that you want to communicate. So what’s the most beautiful way to do that to another human being? I love that Jarvis.

 

Steve Fouts (26:49) 

I don’t have anything to add on the essential question. I mean, those are really good. I’d add into Jarvis what you just pointed out, you know, people who’ve been lost and have found themselves and understand themselves so much better and they’re at this peace. It like, it becomes like an aura, a glow from, from the person and here’s what gets really kind of frustrating. When other people who don’t have that glow and have never gone through the lost phase and are still trying to be something for someone else and they’re really just kind of conforming out of being comfortable, they look at the person that has the glow and they think it’s easy. They don’t have an appreciation for the wilderness that they came from because they’ve never seen it. They’re thinking it’s as easy as what they’re doing, miss it. Right? Like it’s, how do you, how do you convey to people that, hey, this is a lot of work. To get to something that you can appreciate, you know, but you’ve got to realize that it’s not going to be easy. So don’t give up on it the minute it gets hard. Push yourself out there.

 

Jarvis Funches (28:17) 

True. And so I feel like with that one to me, I would really only take, in my words, I would take real occupants. And what I mean by that, I will only take people that’s really ready to listen. Because like you said, when you have that different natural glow, and you found yourself, to other people, you could be quite frightening because, or they might look at you like, or try to make you feel different, you know what I’m saying, for being unique. And I would say like, man, just showing them people, you can’t tell them you could tell them all day that this is a hard road. You’re going to go through a hard situation. Nobody’s really going to honestly find out until they’re at their rock bottom moment. And it’s sad to say that because you got teachers out here that can tell you that you’re going to hit rock bottom, but it’s like nowadays the experience is the best teacher. Like you can walk me to the water and say, hey, this is the best water on land, Jarvis. Okay. But yet, when I find out that I’m thirsty and I’m going to the same waterholes and it’s dried out and I come taste your water, then yet will I know that this is the best water in the land. Why? Because I tasted it myself. I experienced it myself. And it’s sad to say that that’s just how the world go. Experience is everybody’s best teacher.  

 

Steve Fouts (29:46)

You know, I really think that’s a good kind of side quote to this. Not until we’re lost do we begin to understand ourselves another way to say that quickly is experience is the best teacher of who we are. It’s going out there and, you know, screwing up, being a little forlorn and lost and then, you know, getting out of that and, and winning, you know, like that’s, yeah. 

 

Jarvis Funches (30:10)

That’s it. You hit it right on the head. 

 

Dan Fouts (30:15)

Good. Yeah. I mean, those are good questions and good concluding thoughts. Well, great quote, Henry David Thoreau coming back 2025, January. Jarvis, Stephen, Dan Fouts, here we are and we’re talking about his wisdom and that’s why Teach Different is so important because we’re talking about ideas that may be from people 200 years ago, but they’re just as relevant today when you bring them and match them up with your own personal experiences. So these conversations help us grow and understand ourselves a little bit better to tie it back in. So Jarvis, again, round three went awesome. Really appreciate it. 

 

Jarvis Funches (31:02)

Thank you much for having me back. 

 

Dan Fouts (31:03)

I’m so happy that my brother, Steve, had you as a student because you wouldn’t be here if, if he didn’t. 

 

Steve Fouts (31:10)

have a good one. 

 

Dan Fouts (31:11) 

All right. Take care.