Episode 6: Gone Like Smoke — Impermanence, Loss, and the Peace That Follows

“Everything that has the nature to arise… has the nature to pass away.” — The Buddha

In this deeply honest episode, Jacob shares the emotional aftermath of car trouble, financial pressure, and fatherhood as his son steps into adulthood. With humor, heartbreak, and wisdom drawn from Buddhism, the Bible, and beyond, he explores the theme of impermanence—how everything we cling to, from stability to identity to love itself, will one day dissolve like breath on a mirror.

You’ll hear reflections from Ecclesiastes, the teachings of Jesus, Vipassana meditation, and a hilarious metaphorical lesson from a clumsy bricklayer who just wouldn’t let go of the rope. Jacob also performs a powerful excerpt from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (“It’s Only a Paper Moon”) that touches on trauma, avoidance, and learning to re-engage with life.
 🎥 Watch the original DS9 scene

This episode isn’t about despair. It’s about learning to live more vividly because things change. To let go—not in defeat, but in freedom.

Content warning: Includes vulnerable reflections on financial stress and emotional overwhelm. If you're struggling, please reach out or join the Discord. You're not alone. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening & Setup (Car Repairs, Impermanence)
• 4:22 Impermanence Hits Home (Nothing Lasts)
• 8:17 Hevel & Seasons (Ecclesiastes as Vapor)
• 10:53 Meditation Reveals the Heart (Missing My Son)
• 11:31 Look at the Pain (Bronze Serpent → Cross)
• 17:49 Let Go or Get Rope Burn (Clinging Hurts)
• 26:17 Practice: Virya & Vipassana (Choiceless Awareness)
• 38:32 Closing Invitation & Blessing (Lao Tzu → Rumi)

Transcript

Jacob: 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome back to Standing Nowhere. This is episode 6. I'm your host Jacob Buehler. It's a pleasure to be back with you. It's been a crazy couple of weeks here. As you know from the last episode, I had some car trouble and my brother was very nice and helped me repair it. I was unfortunately out of work for about three or four days. Let's see, half a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Yeah, about four or five days actually. After the repair, another problem arose with the car with the control arms. So my brother once again came to my rescue and helped me repair those, but I was out of work for another day or two from that. But now the car's in good working order. I am behind on my rent and my bills, so I was a little bit stressed out about that. And about two days ago when we were fixing the car, it took most of the day, and it was really hot and hard on both of us, and we had some issues at the end after we repaired the car, and I lost my cool. Took the car for a drive with my brother, and there was a big squealing sound. It wasn't a really big deal, but my brain just started to panic, and I hadn't been sleeping too well, and I just lost it. And this last week is also the week I chose to quit one of my habits, which I mentioned, having a puff at the end of the day to take the edge off. And I lost my center. I came back home. to examine the car with my brother and I just threw my glasses on the ground. My shades, they were a pretty cheap pair, but I liked them because I'd had them for so long. I've done thousands of deliveries with them. Not that I'm attached to them or anything, but they were a good pair of glasses and I just said, darn it. I didn't say darn it, but I threw them on the ground and they broke and I was sad. I hadn't lost my cool like that in a while. And all the thoughts start going through my head like, oh, such a centered guy, huh? I'm doing a podcast about cultivating peace. Waking up. Here I am throwing my glasses on the ground. Part of the pressure was trying to figure out what to do for a weekly podcast too. And I was like, man, this is great material. Just being honest and raw with you guys about it. But the car is working now. I'm super far behind on my rent and my bills, but a lot of my family came to my rescue. My cousin, she pitched in and got us some groceries. That was nice of her. It's hard to get help from people, you know, to receive help. I mean, getting help is not hard, but receiving it, at least for me, is tough. I love to help people, but it's not easy for me to receive help. And sometimes we need help, you know. And Today I'm going to talk about some of that, also what it's like to go through life when it comes to things being impermanent. Like my car, as you guys know with your vehicles, nothing lasts in this world. And it's not a depressing thing to remember. It's actually a good thing to remember because it makes you appreciate what you have while you have it. And I lost my center. I'm going to be looking for a job soon too. It's high time for me to get out of gig work. Gig work I've been doing for about eight years now. A couple of years doing Uber and Lyft, driving people around. And then the last three years, three and a half years or so, I've been doing deliveries. A little over three years. But it's time for me to get back in the working world. And I got my resume touched up. I got a Google phone number. So I can start shooting out Indeed applications. We're going to see how that goes. But yeah, that's what I want to talk about today is how nothing is permanent. My financial stability that I had enjoyed through most of my life, I've been pretty responsible with my bills, handling my money and my spending. That rug got pulled out from under me. Starting about with COVID, really when inflation went up, cost of living went up, I had a car that was paid off, and I totaled it, driving through a rain puddle, blew the motor. I paid $372 a month on that car, and I thought it was going to last me a long time. I actually had the motor replaced, and then I drove through the rain puddle and totaled the brand new motor that was put in it, and that was rough. My insurance used to be $80. Now it went up to $350 for a while while I was living here. My rent was like $1,100 four or five years ago, and... Went up to about $2,400 for the last few years. Just got it down a little bit, but man, you think life is going to be smooth sailing and you get comfortable in it, and then it just pulls the rug out from under you sometimes. Same thing with relationships. That was the first core spiritual truth that the Buddha realized when he became enlightened is that nothing is permanent. has a quote where he says all that has the nature to arise also has the nature to cease that was his first great insight after his enlightenment so we can take from that and remember that we shouldn't wait until something's gone to realize its beauty now in the moment and it's good to remember as often as possible that everything will be gone someday And again, it's not something you need to be depressed about, but it is something you need to remember. You've probably noticed, a lot of you listening, that even your own body as you age changes. Everything you love is changing. I used to love playing PlayStation 2, but it's out of date now. No, I'm joking. Everything changes. Your job, your role, your body, everything. Relationships, they come to an end for a lot of people, or they change in dynamic as you age. Your children, they change as you grow up. Your spiritual highs. My son, he was born in 06. He turned 18. He's going to turn 19 here in a couple of days. And he moved out last year in November. And I'm... I miss him. I miss him a lot. And I didn't really, all through his life, I didn't remember that one day he is going to grow up and become a man and move out, you know? And, you know, he may come back for a bit if he decides to go to college or he may just stay on his own for the rest of his life. Whatever he decides, you know, we're close and we love each other, but I miss the crap out of him. You know, I walk by his empty room every day. Sorry, I'm emotional about it still. I love him so much. And I remember the first week he moved out, you know, walking by his empty room every day. Everything changes. Everything that has the nature to arise also has the nature to cease. That's Buddhist wisdom, but it's also Hebrew wisdom. If you read the book of Ecclesiastes in the first chapter, there's that saying, vanity of vanities, says the teacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. That word vanity, it's actually a Hebrew word, hevel. They say, And hevel means vapor, mist, breath. You can translate it as vanity, but I think vapor or mist or even breath is a better translation and what they were really pointing to. It symbolizes transience or insubstantiality, ephemerality. It's here one minute, it's gone the next. There's that famous... Ecclesiastes line, it says, for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven, a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to pluck up what is planted, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to break down, a time to build up, a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn. a time to dance, a time to throw away stones, a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace, a time to refrain from embracing, a time to seek, a time to lose, a time to keep, a time to throw away, a time to tear, a time to sew, a time to keep silent, a time to speak, a time to love, and a time to hate, a time for war, and a time for peace. This points to the wisdom that everything in life is... ephemeral. It's here and then it's gone. So you got to really appreciate it while it's here. And remembering that everything will be gone someday helps you live more vividly with it right now. And these cycles in life, they're not problems. They're sacred rhythms. It's like your breath. There's the inhale and there's the exhale. The hardest change that I've been dealing with as I mentioned, is my son, uh, moving out and, um, you know, financial instability ties into that. I haven't been able to provide for him, you know, and, um, you know, every morning I sit and meditate. Uh, I do Vipassana, which is insight meditation where you're basically just kind of watching yourself and seeing what comes up. You know, you start with, uh, well, I'll go into that in a little bit, but, um, Two days ago when I was meditating, I had the insight that I really miss my son. I always knew that I did the moment he moved out, but I didn't realize how much I missed him until two days ago in the morning when I was sitting there. I quit smoking at the end of the day, which I think was numbing the pain a little bit, sweeping it under the rug. I had quit for a while, but when he moved out, I picked up the habit again. But like I mentioned on the last episode, I just desire to be present now and not sweep things away, but be with them and embrace them. I was reading the Bible this morning in Numbers chapter 21. There's the part where God gets mad at all the Israelites for complaining, so he sends out all these fiery snakes to bite everybody. And then they say, okay, we screwed up, we're sorry. And God says, okay, Moses, hold up a snake, a bronze snake, and have everyone look at it. And everyone who looks at it will be okay. And that symbolizes that when you focus on the pain that you're going through instead of running from it, it'll be all right. And Jesus referenced himself later, just like Moses with the snake, I have to be lifted up on the cross. And what is the cross? It's a symbol of death. And it's not a morbid thing that we need to look away from, but we need to look directly at it because it's a reminder that you're not going to be here someday. Everyone in your life is going to be gone someday. I had that realization that I really, really missed my son. It's a new chapter in life. I had to learn how to let him go. Financial security. I'm learning how to essentially crawl and walk again in this new economy we live in. It's not easy. It's not easy at all. I've lost friends. I remember when my son, who I've been talking about, he's my oldest of my three kids, I was a single dad when he was three months old. And I won't go into the details on that, but I was a single dad for the first three and a half, almost four years of his life. And during that time, when he was about... I want to say a year old, maybe a year and a half. I met some friends at the job I was working at, and they invited me to their weekly poker game. And it was great, you know. I was suddenly welcomed into this new weekly social gathering, this new social circle. And I met a lot of good friends there, you know. And one of them, he passed away just very suddenly. He was a motorcycle driver. driver and he was driving along one day and somebody pulled out of a apartment complex without looking and he crashed right into him and died it was the other guy's fault you know but it didn't matter he was gone just like that boom he had a couple of kids too and his ex-wife uh was at you know she was at our poker games too they they remained good friends and and she couldn't believe it he was just gone and um the guy who kind of hosted the poker nights and He was a great friend of mine too. His name was Pat. He was the one that really welcomed me in, made me feel a part of the crew or part of the poker gang, you know, and he was a big dude. And one day he just stopped breathing. And I remember it was back in, I want to say 2018 or 19, just before COVID and that I got the news. One of my buddies from Poker Night, he texted me and he's like, Pat died just straight up like that. He was pretty on the nose about it and I couldn't believe it. You start to get older and when you're young, everyone's alive and healthy and vibrant, but as you start to age, your friends start dropping off and then it starts to hit you. We're not going to be here forever. And I was devastated. First, my buddy Chris on the motorcycle, now Pat. My son moving out. But the thing is, we need to remember that things are not permanent. But at the same time, we can't hold on. Because holding on hurts. I remember there was a quote from Alan Watts. He was talking... He was talking about two philosophers, and one philosopher was trying to figure out how he could control nature for his own, you know, the Tao, as they call it, which the word Tao means kind of the way of things, like the water course way, just the way of life in general. And the philosopher says, how can one get the Tao so as to have it for one's own? And the other philosopher answers, Your life is not your own. It is the delegated adaptability of Tao. Your offspring are not your own. They are the outputs of Tao. You move, you know not how. You are at rest, you know not why. These are the operations of Tao. So how could you have it for your own? There's a funny thing that we can experience ourselves through and through as something that just happens. Now you see me, now you don't. And I remembered that quote when my son moved out, that he doesn't belong to me. I got to stop bringing him up because it's making me emotional. He doesn't belong to me. I had the extreme privilege of And I have the privilege of being in the role of his father, but he's not my possession. And I can't force him to go one way or the other. You know, there's wisdom from your parents that you can give to your kids, but there's also wisdom in your children because they're new. They learn from the old things, their parents, but they also have to go their own way. They have to learn themselves. As parents, we have to trust the wisdom of our children because they have a wisdom we don't understand either in youth. So we have to learn how to let go of our identity, our image of success, our friends, our relationships, our kids. Your role in your story of life, you have to let go of it because you appreciate it while it's here, but you can't hold on. You can't cling to it. If you cling, like I said, you're going to be in pain. There's a metaphor, let go or you'll get rope burn. You can't hold on to the rope. You got to let it go when it wants to go. And that's the rhythm of life. Again, there's the inhale, there's the exhale. What happens if you inhale and try to hold on to your breath? You start turning blue in the face. That's just the way of life. There's the paradox from Jesus in the 16th chapter of Matthew. He says, for those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. And the Aramaic word for save, like for those who want to save their life, is It also means like to clutch, to preserve. And when he says, those who lose their life for my sake, that word in Aramaic also means let go of, give up, surrender. It's not saying you throw your arms up and become a limp noodle and say, I can't save anything. But you enjoy things while they're here, but you don't cling to them. And you remember that. while you're enjoying them, that they are going to be gone someday. There's a funny story on this, the rope burn metaphor. I don't know if it's true or not, but it's called the bricklayer's accident. And it's kind of a metaphor or a parable for when we cling or hold on to life too hard. And this guy, he basically got injured on the job doing some bricklaying. And I'll read it to you. It's hilarious. So this is the bricklayer's accident report. It says, Dear sir, I am writing in response to your request for additional information in block number three of the accident reporting form. I put poor planning as the cause of my accident and you asked for a fuller explanation and I trust the following details will be sufficient. I am a bricklayer by trade. Okay. Securing the rope at ground level, I went up to the roof, swung the barrel out, and loaded the bricks into it. And then I went down and untied the rope, holding it tightly to ensure a slow descent of the 240 pounds of bricks. And you'll note on the accident reporting form that my weight is 135 pounds. Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and I forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel, which was now proceeding downward at an equally impressive speed. This explains my fractured skull, minor abrasions, and the broken collarbone, as listed in Section 3, Accident Reporting Form. Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley, which I mentioned in Paragraph 2 of this correspondence. Fortunately, by this time, I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold the rope. In spite of the excruciating pain I was now beginning to experience. At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the ground and the bottom fell out from the barrel. Now devoid of the weight of the bricks, the barrel weighed only 50 pounds approximately. And I refer you again to my weight. As you might imagine... Pardon me, I refer you again to my weight. As you might imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel coming back up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles, broken tooth, and severe lacerations of my legs and lower body. Here, my luck began to change slightly. The encounter with the barrel seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell into the pile of bricks, and fortunately, only three vertebrae were cracked. I am sorry to report, however, as I lay there on the pile of bricks in pain, unable to move, and watching the empty barrel six stories above me, I again lost my composure and presence of mind, and I let go of the rope. A little funny story, but I think it's kind of true in life. The more we cling to it, the more we're going to experience a lot of pain. One of the things I was clinging to... was the pleasant experiences that I would distract myself with, like a puff at the end of the day or maybe a little video game time on the little time that I did or do get off. And clinging to that, it feels good in the moment, but then I'm not dealing with the things I need to deal. I'm not looking at the bronze snake. I'm not looking at the cross, whatever symbol you want or the pain that's in my life. I'm not embracing it. I remember on Reddit, there's a forum for people that are looking how to quit smoking weed. I think it's called Leaves, L-E-A-V-E-S. And you see a lot of stories on there. I recommend anyone that's looking to quit, whether it's weed or another habit, just read the stories that people have on there. And I remember commenting on one guy who was... having trouble with quitting because of the side effects like insomnia, racing thoughts, et cetera, et cetera. And I told him a little bit of that Buddhist wisdom, remember how it affects you negatively, remember how it affects others negatively. But the thing that seemed to really help this guy was when I told him in my comment, I said, you have to embrace your side effects and withdrawals instead of confronting them as an enemy that you have to defeat. Open your arms to them and hold them in complete awareness. Whatever you're feeling, just embrace it. Don't grunt and grind your teeth. Just be completely open. Oh, this is what insomnia feels like. Oh, this is what cold sweats feels like or whatever it is. Embrace it. And remember, it'll pass. Everything that has the nature to arise will pass, and that includes the downsides of life. There's a guy named Jack Kornfield. He's a Buddhist teacher in the West, pretty popular dude. He has a little excerpt about his teacher and the way his teacher told him to look at everything in life. He says, quote, One day, my teacher, Ajahn Chah, held up a beautiful teacup. And he says, quote, again, it lets you love things more fully now. It brings peace because it frees us from the illusion of control. And one of the ways that we can practice, because it takes practice to do this. Like if I say all this stuff to you guys and it sounds true and rings a bell of truth in you or you're nodding your head right now, that's good. That's one thing. But if you don't practice like anything, like a muscle, it begins to atrophy. So How do we stay present amid these changes? Well, first thing you need is what they call virya in English. Buddhist speak. I forget the Sanskrit word, but it basically means having an energy or an effort, a courage. There's a little excerpt I copied here for this. It says, in Buddhism, virya is considered a key spiritual quality, often translated as exertion, diligence, or right effort, representing the energy and enthusiasm needed to cultivate virtue and overcome obstacles on the path to enlightenment. And When you have that enthusiasm, you can put it into a practice. The one I like, and there's many options, but the one I like is called Vipassana or Vipassana. It's basically insight meditation. It's very simple. You just watch things rise and fall without clinging to them. So you sit on a cushion. You start out by watching your breath until your mind calms down. And as you're watching your breath, you'll notice that your mind is kind of like a little puppy dog. It wants to get up and start walking away. And every time you notice that it does, you just gently bring it back. Just like a little puppy dog, you don't want to smack it and say, where are you going? Get back here. You know, when your thoughts drift, you just notice when you notice and you come back to your breath. Your breath kind of gives you that little comparison to see when it's running off. And then eventually you'll notice that that your mind will start to calm down. The little puppy will sit down a little bit more and be calm. And when that happens, you open it up. You don't have to focus on the breath exclusively. You just let your awareness, they call it a choiceless awareness. So you just kind of, you go from one pointedness on your breath and you transition into a choiceless awareness. You keep that mindfulness, that curiosity with that viria energy, that enthusiasm, and you kind of say to yourself, oh, let's see where my awareness goes next. Oh, there's a sensation in my foot. It's going to sleep a little bit. Oh, there's a dog barking. I can hear my neighbor's dog barking. And you don't talk to yourself while you're doing this. You just notice it. And you know that you're noticing it. Mindfulness can be described as being aware of being aware, essentially. And your awareness might come back to your breath a little bit. And then a thought might pop up and you notice that. You notice your emotions change. That's why I was saying two days ago when I was doing this practice, the big thing that popped up in my head was my son and how much I missed him. And that's why they call it insight meditation because it gives you insights of things that were already there and you didn't notice. They're just going on in your head. The first big insight that most people get when doing insight meditation is just how noisy your mind is. It's like, wow. People who think they can't meditate, they're wrong. Meditation is just watching what is. And if you sit down and your mind is noisy, then you watch it. You just become aware of it. You bring it into the light. And this will help you reduce your clinging because the big insight you get from Vipassana is that All kinds of things will pop up even in your momentary experience. Like to everyone listening right now, just watch how many things are arising and falling. You know the sound of my voice coming to you? It comes and it goes. You might be feeling little sensations throughout your body. Just everything in life. Just start paying attention and notice. It just pops up and then it disappears. And that's true about everything. Our whole galaxy will be gone someday. The earth, the sun, everything. And I think in our society, we cling too much to life, to youth, staying young. And look at all the people in the West. We worship youth. We worship youthful beauty. We don't see the beauty in aging. We cling to it. And we're all afraid of dying. And it's good to have a reasonable fear of death, like not walking in front of traffic. or sticking your hand in a fire, as they say. But there's a quote from Alan Watts where he talks about this, how people cling and overvalue survival. There's a little lecture he did called The Unpreachable Religion, and I'll read it to you. He says, and so in the same way, the thought that the supreme value is survival value, the thought that In other words, that it is absolutely necessary for us to go on living is a basis for life which takes the joy out of life and is really contrary to life. I feel that the biological processes that we call life, with its marvelous proliferation of innumerable patterns and forms, is essentially playful. By that, I mean it doesn't have a serious purpose beyond itself. But now if you say to a form of play, you must happen, you've got to go on, you immediately turn it into work. And you immediately turn it also into what we call colloquially as a drag. Are we surviving as a duty to survive in order that our children may go on surviving? Well, if we think that our children catch the same point of view from us and they go on struggling along for the then the whole thing becomes a fatuous process to an ever eluding future. And it is because I think fundamentally that we have this compulsive view of the necessity of existence that our culture is distinctly lacking in gaiety. And I tend to agree with him on that. That doesn't mean that we, again, we don't worry about dying. Well, we don't worry about it, but we don't obsess about it. We're going to die someday, and that's okay. It reminded me when I was searching for content for this episode to talk about impermanence. I was watching Star Trek with my wife. I turned her into a Trekkie. Yes. And we're watching Star Trek, and there's this character. He's like in his early 20s. He was really eager to sign up for Starfleet. And in this particular season of Star Trek, they've been at war with this other alien species, like an empire trying to take over, you know, they're part of the galaxy. And long story short, this kid, you know, he signs up, he loves what he does with his new career, but then he sees combat for the first time and he sees some of his friends die. and his leg actually gets blown off, or he gets shot in the leg, and then they have to amputate his leg. And he's like this young guy, you know? And his name is Nog. He's the cutest little character, and it's so cool to watch. In the beginning of the show, he was so little, and then you watch him grow up with the show and get out there, and then he sees just something that traumatizes him. And his way of dealing with it was to go into like this virtual reality room. They call it a hollow suite. The whole thing is like a hologram, but it looks and feels like real life. And he goes in there and it's like the 1950s. There's a character named Vic Fontaine. And Vic is a hologram, but he's like a super advanced AI. And he's kind of like the mentor to a lot of people on the ship. so uh nog after going through that trauma he just wants to stay in there and he doesn't ever want to come out and at first everyone thought it was good for him to help him heal but then they start getting concerned because he doesn't come out for like a week or two and everyone starts getting really worried and everyone that tries to get him out he starts to get really aggressive towards them and says you know leave me alone i want to stay in here And Vic, the hologram guy, he's kind of like a Rat Pack singer. He's actually a real singer. I forget the guy's real name, but you can look him up on Spotify. I'll try to put a link in the description. And he kind of sounds like Frank Sinatra. He looks like somebody who would be in the Rat Pack. Anyways, so Vic, he starts getting concerned because Nog won't leave the Holosuite. He won't deal with his trauma. He won't face it. And, um, Vic, he's actually sentient enough, even though he's artificial to shut the whole program down and he forces him out. So nog is trying to like, you know, mess with the wiring and stuff to get the hologram back up. But Vic, you know, he's, uh, he's so advanced that he can't be outsmarted and he won't let the hologram come back. He's like, no, you know, you got to stay out there. So I just wanted to read to you guys a little, um, a little scene that they did together when Nog is trying to get the holosuite back up, Vic appears, just him without the whole hologram, just himself. And he says, so now the chief's told you I'm smarter than the average hologram. Will you stop messing around with my holosuite? And Nog, he says, if you'll turn the program back on. And Vic says, what is it? I'm not making clear to you, Charlie. You got to go. And Nog says, don't you get it? I can't go out there. And Vic says, why not? And Nog says, I'm scared, okay? I'm scared. When the war began, I wasn't happy or anything, but I was eager. I wanted to test myself. I wanted to prove I had what it took to be a soldier. And I saw a lot of combat. I saw a lot of people get hurt. I saw a lot of people die. But I didn't think anything was going to happen to me. And then suddenly Dr. Bashir is telling me he has to cut my leg off. I couldn't believe it. I still can't believe it. If I can get shot, if I can lose my leg, anything could happen to me, Vic. I could die tomorrow. I don't know that I'm ready to face that. If I stay here, at least I know what the future is going to be like. And Vic says, if you stay here, you're going to die. Not all at once, but little by little. Eventually you'll become as hollow as I am. And Nog says, you don't seem hollow to me. And Vic says, compared to you, I'm as hollow as a snare drum. Look, kid, I don't know what's going to happen to you out there. All I can tell you is that you've got to play the cards that life deals you. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but at least you're in the game. And with that, It's such a powerful scene. And the kid, you know, he just grabs his walking stick and he just walks out of the hollow suite. And I was like, dude, that's perfect. I'm going to put that in the episode. It's so good. So the point is, everything is impermanent in life, guys. It's going to be here and then it's going to go away. And we have to accept that. We can't cling to things. We can't mourn. As the Hebrews say, we can't mourn the vapor. We can't mourn... the transient stuff. We have to celebrate it while it's here. It's not about despair. Yes, all things will pass, but realize that it's just like a breath or a wave. Whatever leaves always makes room for what's coming next. The prophet Isaiah in the Bible says, "'Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing.'" Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it? Or again in Revelation, John says, behold, I'm making all things new. So yes, everything will pass, but there's always going to be new things as well. And we got to make room for the new by not clinging to the old. We can't stop the waves, but we can learn how to surf. And when we let go, it's not in defeat. It's in freedom. We have to trust this ride, this roller coaster, guys, of life. It will go up and it will go down. We can't have all ups. We're going to close out here, but I want to read to you something from Lao Tzu. And before I do, I just want to take a quick second to say if you guys appreciate this show, please follow and leave me a review and a comment. I would really love that. And you can... Check the links below in the description if you want to connect to our Discord and share your story or reach out to me, and I can share your story, whatever you want to do. But from Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching, listen to this. He says, "'Men are born soft and supple, but dead they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant. Dead they are brittle and dry.' Thus, whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life. And remember, guys, like Rumi says, do thou smile like the rose at loss and gain. For the rose, though its petals be torn asunder, still smiles on, and it is never cast down. Thank you for listening. I love you guys, and blessings to all. No heroes, no headlines promises made just a whisper that won't be afraid standing nowhere and it feels like home no flags to wave no need to roam the silence Speaks louder than war ever could And I've never felt so understood The static is kind It leaves me alone No orders to follow No keys The sky's turning amber The clock's all reset And I haven't stopped walking just yet Standing nowhere Air wide and free No chains, no names The sky turns white, I'm still here, nothing to hide