but i find that the actual root of what the podcast becomes about is is really about human nature and what people what human beings are like was there i’ll give you both sides of this question did you learn anything about people about human nature there that was surprisingly positive and before you answer that one did you learn anything about human nature while you were there that was surprisingly negative so so i’ll give you one thing that i learned that i don’t know that i would call positive or negative but it was an observation that in retrospect seems obvious but it never would have i never would have thought of it before and to this day it still serves me well to understand it so the object is the first observation is that when you look at a significant illness like a a a completely disruptive insult you know cancer you you know you have pancreatic cancer which means you’re going to die and you’re going to die soon there are two types of families that come into that situation so families that show up already fractured get blown apart fractures that families that show up already tight become the tightest of any family the same would be true when you see you know a kid that comes in you know a burn victim right this kid that gets burned badly on the 4th of july and this kid’s going to spend the next two months in the hospital you know a couple that comes in with tension already in their marriage they get splintered wide open if they came in and everything was fine they’re going to be there for each other they’re going to be tighter so so that was an observation that i just saw over and over and over again and i saw it in probably even more vivid color when i was at the nih because the two years i was there you know i was mostly doing research but you still had clinical responsibilities and so you’re you’re basically seeing patients who are coming to receive experimental therapy for cancer so these are patients who are all you know otherwise going to die within six months and most of them will still go on to dial obviously though a subset of them we can help but you’re seeing that over and over again so that was the first observation and then the second was that there were just a couple of residents who um i couldn’t believe how amazing they could be how they could never sort of do the wrong thing so there were two residents in particular one really he was he his name is chris sonende he is now a uh he’s a transplant surgeon at the university of michigan amazing guy and so chris was two years ahead of me and i mean he was like that guy that i would have done anything for and i remember when i was leaving thinking to myself you know i’m really glad i’m leaving because if i stayed i’d know i could never be as good as chris like that like how can someone be this good and i don’t mean like he can sow this good and cut i don’t mean even medically good human being just as exactly as a human being he is on a level i can’t get to and you know i don’t know anybody else who can get there either but the fact that i can’t get there is a little upsetting to me um and i’m glad i don’t have to spend the rest of my life chasing him which of course chris would never think of it that way because that’s the nature of being that guy as you he’s just completely humble modest unassuming guy who just happens to be a god you know it’s it’s uh going back to the first point that you mentioned and it’s something that i’ve heard people talk about as well my buddies talk about is you know the whole idea of post-traumatic stress and all that and and what war does to people and one thing that i happen to agree with is pretty similar to what you’re saying and that is going into the war right if the person is got a good stable mindset and a good attitude and is a positive person and they’re going to come out of it with all those good positive things amplified they’re going to be more positive they’re going to be stronger they’re going to be mentally tougher it’s the people that go into it that are already somehow fractured those fractures are going to get worse through the trauma of combat again um this is a broad generalization and there’s definitely great guys that see things or do things that they that it hurts them and it takes them a while to get through it but there’s also some guys you go you know that guy was messed up when we showed up and now he’s worse and it’s that pressure that opens up those fractures even even wider and it’s interesting that you got this you saw that with family structures as well and i could completely see how that happens and that happens right that happens in it you don’t even need trauma to make that happen i mean you get the financial trauma on a family if they’re not tight that’ll that’ll make them blow up yeah whereas if they’re tight you know going through some financial problems they’ll get tighter they’ll buckle down they’ll save money together they’ll skip the movies they’ll start you know they’ll enjoy cooking ramen noodles together so that trauma can can expose those fractures that’s why it’s important to try and create the most solid foundation you can with your family and with your own mind so that when these traumas hit you don’t get fractured do the seals screen for that they try to but um you’ll like this story so we had to take a psychological screening this isn’t the 90s so it wasn’t like we were super advanced on any of this stuff and i’m going and when i was going through boot camp they gave us a psychological screening for for our attempt to go to seal training and so they asked a bunch of questions and it was complete the sentence questions and so it would it was really obvious what would what would flag you for and and so i made every answer uh because i was in boot camp and the food sucked and so every answer that i gave was just all about food so for instance they’d they’d say complete this sentence i hate when my mother right so it’s it’s pretty easy to to say you know i hate when my mother shuns me in front of my sisters and i want to kill her no no no all my answers were like you know i hate when my mother overcooks the steak and doesn’t put enough pepper on it you know just like every answer i gave was about food but it was really easy my point is that was really good if you were not a complete even if you were if you in fact if you were a psychopath you would very easily say answer all the questions correctly and get through and there’s been plenty of guys that made it through seal training that you know there’s some bad criminals there’s uh there’s been a couple really heinous crimes committed by guys that were seals and just just they made it through they got screened so yeah they had a screening but i wouldn’t say it’s the most effective they’ve gotten better now you know and some of those guys that committed horrible crimes it you know kind of inspired the seal teams to step up that screening process as much as possible to make sure that we’re not letting guys through that are that are deranged some way that are gonna do something horrible like that
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