In this episode, Dara shares final thoughts on the US presidential election and speculates that the Democrats still haven’t shaken the patronising habit of belittling those who disagree with them. He argues that if you take this attitude in the world of martial arts, you are setting yourself up to fail – the assumption of superiority is a dangerous flex of ego that can result in complacency and abdicated diligence.
Dara thinks the skill of reading the room is a primal instinct connected to threat identification and normalcy barometers. He explores what that might look like at a macro and interpersonal level, before turning the reading toolkit on oneself. Doesn’t it all come back to senses and feelings? And what role does the passage of time have to play in reading the interior landscape?
In considering shared spaces, Dara wonders what kind of jigsaw piece a person might be. He identifies his own leanings very quickly and not for the first time reiterates the raison d’etre of the podcast in relation to that. It is definitely connected to the tension between ego and humility…