The Best of Coast to Coast AM

Episode 277: A Voice from the Grave 2000 Years Ago! PLUS The Hand of Glory!

51 min
Feb 7, 20264 months ago
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Summary

Host Joshua P. Warren explores Marcus Aurelius's 2,000-year-old personal journal 'Meditations,' revealing timeless Stoic philosophy on virtue, emotional resilience, and rational thinking. The episode also examines the historical 'Hand of Glory,' a macabre artifact allegedly used by European thieves for supernatural burglary powers.

Insights
  • Ancient philosophical wisdom from Marcus Aurelius demonstrates remarkable relevance to modern life, suggesting that fundamental human concerns and ethical frameworks transcend technological eras
  • Stoic philosophy emphasizes the dichotomy of control—focusing on internal reactions rather than external events—which aligns with contemporary cognitive behavioral therapy and mental resilience practices
  • Personal journals and private writings can achieve unintended immortality and cultural impact centuries after creation, demonstrating the lasting power of authentic human expression
  • Folklore artifacts like the Hand of Glory reveal how pre-modern societies attempted to externalize power and control through ritualistic objects, reflecting universal human desires for agency
  • The preservation of historical texts by monks and manuscript collectors created an information bridge across millennia, enabling direct access to ancient thought without intermediaries
Trends
Growing mainstream interest in ancient philosophy (Stoicism, Epicureanism) as practical frameworks for modern mental health and resiliencePodcast platforms enabling democratized access to scholarly content and historical analysis previously gatekept by academic institutionsResurgence of interest in historical artifacts and occult practices as cultural curiosities rather than literal supernatural toolsPersonal journaling and introspective writing gaining recognition as tools for self-improvement and legacy-buildingCross-cultural philosophical parallels (Marcus Aurelius and Jesus teachings) suggesting universal ethical principles across civilizations
Topics
Marcus Aurelius and Stoic PhilosophyAncient Roman History and the Pax RomanaMeditations: Personal Journals and LegacyVirtue Ethics and Moral PhilosophyDichotomy of Control in StoicismHand of Glory: European Folklore and ArtifactsMedieval and Early Modern Occult PracticesHanged Man Rituals in European WitchcraftComparative Religion: Marcus Aurelius vs. JesusHistorical Empires: Size and Influence RankingsMemory Formation in Infants and Early ChildhoodPodcast Transcription and AccessibilityPersonal Collections of Oddities and AntiquitiesDARE Program and Drug Education HistoryMental Resilience and Emotional Regulation
Companies
iHeart Media
Distributes the Strange Things podcast through iHeart Radio and iHeart app platforms
Premier Networks
Parent company associated with Coast to Coast AM paranormal podcast network
Coast to Coast AM
Paranormal podcast network that hosts and distributes Strange Things episodes
People
Marcus Aurelius
Roman Emperor (121-180 AD) whose private journal 'Meditations' is the primary subject of episode discussion
Joshua P. Warren
Host of Strange Things podcast; paranormal researcher and collector of historical artifacts and oddities
Jesus
Referenced for philosophical parallels with Marcus Aurelius teachings on virtue, forgiveness, and enemy treatment
Quotes
"You have power over your mind, not outside events, realize this and you will find strength."
Marcus Aurelius~15:30
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth."
Marcus Aurelius~16:45
"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."
Marcus Aurelius~15:15
"If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change for I seek the truth by which no one was ever truly harmed."
Marcus Aurelius~18:00
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
Marcus Aurelius~20:15
Full Transcript
This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. Welcome to the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Now get ready for strange things with Joshua P. Warren. Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions only. And do not reflect those of I Heart Media, I Heart Radio, Coast to Coast AM, employees of Premier Networks, or their sponsors and associates. We would like to encourage you to do your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself. Get ready to be amazed by the wizard of weird. This is strange things with Joshua P. Warren. I am Joshua P. Warren. And each week on this show, I'll be bringing a brand new. I'm blowing content news, exercises, and weird experiments you can do at home. And a lot more. On this edition of the show, a voice from the grave, 2000 years ago. Plus, the hand of glory. Do you know what the hand of glory is? We're going to get into that. But first, let me ask you a question. Have you ever really tried to imagine what it may have been like to live on this planet 2000 years ago? I mean, even if you've read a ton of history books and you have the best imagination in the world, I don't think that any of us can really imagine what life would have been like 2000 years ago. I mean, just look at technology alone. The bicycle would not be invented for like another 2000 years, not to mention the advancements with electricity and communications and... OK, look at it this way. Instead of you trying to imagine what it would be like to live 2000 years ago, think about how a person who lived 2000 years ago could comprehend what life is like for us today. As we sit here and I talk to you all over the world and we're shooting rockets to the moon. I mean, it's just like, you can't relate. So you might think though, if somehow, amazingly, amazingly, if you were able to, let's say, hear an audio recording from someone who lived 2000 years ago, a normal person, you might think there's no way that we could relate to each other, really. Especially if that person we're just talking about, basically, the way the world works, what's good, what's bad, the philosophical aspects of life. And yet we have the next best thing. It's truly amazing. You know, a lot of times when you say, well, somebody lived 2000 years ago, we use Jesus as a reference. Well, about 100 to 150 years after Jesus was born, there was a Roman born named Marcus Aurelius. And Marcus Aurelius was a, he was the son of a Roman commander and eventually through various family connections and whatnot, Aurelius became the emperor of Rome. Now, let me just say, I consider him to be a normal man only because that he never claimed that he was a god or some divine being or some prophet or some mystic or anything like that. He was certainly an extraordinary human being, however, because he had the power of life and death in his hands. And he was a guy who had a hell of a lot of responsibility on his hands. And so he was what is often considered one of the last of the five good emperors of Rome who oversaw this period of time called the Pax Romana. And the Pax Romana, it was, which means Roman peace was this sort of 200 year period of relative stability, economic prosperity, all that kind of stuff within the Roman Empire. So everybody was kind of happy. It was like the good old days, of course that ended at some point. But during that period of time, he was, he was the son of a military commander and so he grew up fighting all the time. And even when he was the emperor, he was out there conducting military campaigns on a regular basis. And when he was 58 years old, he was out on a military campaign and they believe that he died because he, there was a plague of some kind that swept through his army. And so after he died, many years went by, until it was discovered that he had been keeping a private journal throughout a good period of his life describing his thoughts. And let's see, I think the first time that this came to our awareness, there was a bishop, a few hundred years later, he was a collector of manuscripts. And he sent a letter, this bishop to an art bishop and he said, hey, I have this copy of Emperor Marcus's most profitable book. It's, but it's old. It's sort of falling into pieces. So I have been able to sit down and copy all of this and save it and put it in a new dress. That's how he, he put it. And it turns out that this collection of thoughts, this diary kept by this man 2000 years ago, it was never intended to be published. And obviously now you can read it. I have a copy of it in my hands. It's called Meditations. And one of the things that's remarkable about this is that it turns out Marilly, Marcus Arilius was quite a, he was quite a philosopher and he was one of the proponents of what is now called stoicism. Now this is an ancient Greek and Roman philosophy that supposedly teaches virtue, reason, and emotional resilience. So here are some of the tenets managing emotions. Stoics do not seek to eliminate emotions entirely, but to transform destructive emotions. That means irrational things, interrational and healthy ones. Another tenant is living in accordance with nature and this involves living rationally as a social, logical being and accepting the natural order of the universe. Stoics believe virtue is the only good that the highest good in stoicism is moral virtue, not wealth or pleasure. And they believe in the four main pillars, wisdom, justice, courage and temperance, which is moderation. They also believe in what's called the dichotomy of control. Stoics emphasize focusing entirely on one's own reactions and thoughts and actions, while also accepting external events like misfortune or other people's behavior with some kind of composure. You might even be able to argue that stoicism is one of the building blocks of what eventually became the scientific method, a more rational way of thinking. One could argue that. And so it's really fascinating when you sit down and you read what a Roman emperor was writing in his own diary, not for the people, not to promote himself, not to publish, as he was out there, you know, essentially doing what he had to do to maintain order, including killing people. You might ask yourself, well, how did he feel about Christians? And it turns out that it seems like he didn't particularly care for Christians. He only mentions them once. And he says, he basically criticizes what he perceives as their theatrical approach to martyrdom. And he wrote the readiness for death, quote, must spring from a man's inner judgment and not be the result of mere opposition. It must be associated with deliberation and dignity. And if others are to be convinced with nothing like stage heroics, you can take from that what you want. He never came right out and said anything terrible about Christians, but, you know, he's criticizing the Christian approach. And again, you know, he calls it theatrical. I have a copy again of of meditations right here in my hands. It's almost 300 pages long. And it's divided into 12 books that are all collected together on the back of the collection. Here's a quote by him. If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake and any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone. The harm is to persist in one's own self deception and ignorance. Okay, fine. So what did this man write down that was so significant 2000 years ago that was discovered after he died that was preserved by monks basically. When we come back from this break, well, I'm going to give you some of the very specific pointed things that he wrote about. And let's see what this voice from the grave has to tell us from 2000 years ago, fascinating, huh? Well, you know, there are a lot of podcasts out there, but I think you'll agree there is no other podcast quite like this one. So if you like it, you find it interesting. And you like these topics and you want me to keep doing the show? Well, listen, you got to support me. It's easy. Go to Joshua P. Warren dot com. Do two things. Number one on the homepage, please sign up from my free and spam free e newsletter. Takes you two seconds. When you do that, you'll get an automated email from me with links to some free online goodies. And also while you're there, check out the curiosity shop. Doesn't cost anything just to look at it. You don't have to find anything. Just look at it at Joshua P. Warren dot com. That's me. I am Joshua P. Warren and you are listening to strange things all the I heart radio and coast to coast. They am paranormal podcast network. And I will be right back. So. Welcome back to strange things. All the I heart radio and coast to coast. They am paranormal podcast network. I am your host, the wizard of weird. Joshua P. Warren, me meeting in your wormhole brain from my studio and send city lost biggest Nevada where every day is golden and every night is silver. I get dot to zoom in. And this book, which you can read. Written approximately 2000 years ago is now known as Meditations, a collection of 12 books containing personal private and untitled journals written by the Roman Emperor Marcus Arellius. And it outlines his, his personal insights into stoic philosophy, his outlook on life, focusing on self improvement, duty and virtue, and written for his own guidance, rather than for publication. Isn't that interesting? Okay. So I am just not going to read you some passages because he doesn't write big long stories or anything. He writes very short little thoughts and passages. And I'm just going to take my time and read some of these to you. Maybe I'll comment. Let's see what you think. Do you agree with these tenants of stoic philosophy and the outlook of this man who lived that long ago? Here we go. You have power over your mind, not outside events, realize this and you will find strength. Next he says, dwell on the beauty of life, watch the stars and see yourself running with them. The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts. Well, that's an interesting one. Don't you think because that's basically sort of like it borders on law of attraction type thinking. Let me repeat that when he says the happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts. Next, everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. Wow, that's pretty profound. Don't you think? Let me repeat that one. Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. And everything we see is perspective, not the truth. Boy, I think he's onto something there. Let's see here. He says, waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one. And he likes that. If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it. And this you have the power to revoke at any moment. When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love. Well, I'm like, this, I gotta tell you, you know, I never thought I'd be like, hmm, I'm into this Roman Emperor. All right, he, next he says, the best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury. Man, you know, if this actually sounds a lot like stuff that Jesus was saying, you know, Jesus is to say, said like, you know, be kind to your enemies or love your enemies. And it's like pouring hot coals on their head. Let me repeat that one. This Roman Emperor said, the best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury. I wish more people these days could just remember that if nothing helps, that if you don't like somebody the way they're behaving, then if you turn right around and act the same way they do, well, you're no different. You, you, you two wrongs don't make it right, I guess. All right, let's keep going. The soul becomes died with the color of its thoughts. Okay, so again, he's talking about your, your, your, your thinking shapes and colors the way your soul is expressed. It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. Now, mind you, this is coming from an emperor who was responsible for until death. And he says, not death a man should fear, but fear never beginning to live. Okay, next he says, except the things to which fate binds you and love the people with whom fate brings you together. But do so with all your heart. Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it if you have to with the same weapons of reason, which today, arm you against the present. Next he says, and this is a re iteration, our life is what our thoughts make it. So boy, he's really big into you getting your thoughts together. He writes next, whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question, what fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize. If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change for I seek the truth by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self deception and ignorance who is harmed. I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others. Next he writes, when you wake up in the morning, tell yourself, the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they cannot tell good from evil, but I have seen the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil, and I have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own, not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness, nor can I feel angry at my relative or hate him. We were born to work together, like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, up and lower, to obstruct each other is unnatural, to feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him. These are unnatural. He then says, if it is not right, do not do it. If it is not true, do not say it. The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself and your way of thinking. This also is a reiteration of something he said earlier. The best revenge is not to be like your enemy. I'm going to repeat that one. The best revenge is not to be like your enemy. He says, live a good life. If there are gods, and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone. But you will have lived a noble life, that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. He says, reject your sense of injury, and the injury itself disappears. He writes, how much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it? When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside, and see what sort of people they are. You will realize there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you. The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are. Do not act as if you were going to live 10,000 years. Death hangs over you, while you live, while it is in your power, be good. Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. What does not transmit light creates its own darkness. Here is a rule to remember in the future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter. Not this is misfortune, but to bear this worthily is good fortune. Lastly, you always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or trouble your soul about things you cannot control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone. Okay, we have to take a break. We come back. I'm going to ask you about the largest empires you think have ever existed. And then we're going to get into another really cool subject. I'm Joshua P. Warren. You're listening to Strings, Things on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast AM, Paranormal Podcast Network. I'll be back after these important messages. Strings, Things on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. I'm your host Joshua P. Warren and this is the show where the on that usual becomes usual. Now think about this. That man who lived around 2,000 years ago. A Roman Emperor, he may now be in heaven. He may now be in hell. Or as he suggested, maybe there is no such thing as an afterlife and he died and he is just gone and there is nothingness. Regardless of what happened. His voice. Just traveled 2,000 years into the future to speak to you. He didn't even intend for it to happen. I don't think. That's some kind of an immortality, isn't it? So think about that no matter what your beliefs are. No matter if you're an atheist or you believe in an afterlife or you don't or whatever you just remember, your actions can carry forward through at least thousands of years and affect people. And by the way, if you don't already know this, every time I do one of these podcasts, you can get a free transcript. So you can go back and actually read the words if you want to go back and sort of examine or reexamine some of those quotes and passages. But you have to listen to the show through the iHeart app or the iHeart website. There are many different ways to listen to the show. But if you go to StrangeThingsShow.com, there are links to different, some of the different platforms. And right there at the top is his iHeart. If you click that one, you'll see this show StrangeThings pop up at iHeart. And right there where each episode is listed, it gives you some options. And one of them says transcript. And when you push transcript, boom, it shows you every word, I mean, according to AI, so it might not be entirely accurate. But every word that was said in this podcast, and then you know, you can copy it, you can paste it into a document, you can email it to yourself. I mean, so I think that it might just be handy if you want to go back and take time to dwell on some of the things that you hear about this podcast. Every time I speak in front of this microphone, I kind of feel like I'm writing a book in real time. Because nowadays that's what happens. Your words get interpreted that way. I mean, on the list, you know, I think again, it's fascinating to think that those are words coming from a man. So yes, he was a powerful man, but he didn't claim to be a god or a prophet or a divine being or a mystic or any of that. And that's one thing that makes it so interesting because many of the things that he said align perfectly with what those people who claim to be prophets and what not have said. And you know, people talk about the great power of the Roman Empire. I got curious recently. I don't think I've ever brought this up on the show before. Maybe I have, but I wanted to go back and see like what are what were or what have been the largest empires in the history of the world to our knowledge. And I found a list according to historians. And they say that, you know, there are obviously there are different definitions that they try to use for this. They include size area population, economy, power. I mean, there are a lot of different variables. But basically, they've sort of agreed on the idea that you can define an empire in this context as quote, any relatively large sovereign political entity whose components are not sovereign. End quote. All right. So an empire. So let me ask you this. What do you think are the top 10? Let me just start with what do you think is the number one largest empire? According to historians that has ever existed on earth. Take a moment, think about it. Good to review a question. What's the largest empire that's ever existed in the history of this earth? They say number one is the British Empire, which peaked in 1920. Number two, what do you think number two is? Number two, the Mongol Empire. And you know, you're talking about originating in present day Mongolia. It went all over the place. Number three, the Russian Empire. That peaked in 1895. Let's see. The number four, the Qing dynasty, which peaked in 1790. Next, we have the Spanish Empire, 1810. Next, we have the second French colonial empire, 1920. Next, we have the Obeside Caliphate, which was an Islamic caliphate. Next, we have the Umayyad caliphate. And then we have the Yun dynasty. And then last on this list of number 10, the number 10 largest empire, the United States, which they say peaked out in 1900. Interesting, isn't it? Do you ever think of the United States as an empire? And if you keep going down this list, the Roman Empire is number 26 on this list. And again, this is not according to me. This is according to historians who study this stuff and define it. But I think that's just interesting trivia, interesting for you to think about. You know, a lot of the, you always hear about certain empires being so like gigantic and powerful. But you start looking at, you know, like the Byzantine Empire. It's way down on the list. So anyway, it's funny how that, you know, people have always sought power for one reason or another. And they'll do anything to get it, anything to get it. And I've always been fascinated by some of these artifacts that you can find that people have used over time in order to try to gain power. And I mentioned recently that I wanted to tell you a little bit more sometimes about some of the things and my personal collection of oddities and novelties and just weird stuff. I actually have people who contact me all the time wanting to come over and do a documentary and that kind of stuff. And I so far, I haven't agreed to that. But at some point, you know, maybe I will. We'll see. But one of the things that I would like to talk about on my list is something that people in old Europe, very, very spooky people would use to gain personal power. It's called a hand of glory. Hand of glory. I actually have one of these in my collection. I at least let me put it this way. I have something called the hand of glory in my collection. The hand of glory is this macabre artifact from old Europe. And it is the dried and pickled hand of the hanged criminal. And it's used by thieves as a magical tool. They say that preferable hand is the left hand, which has always been considered the sinister hand. So you cut the left hand off of a hanged criminal. And then when a candle is made from the hanged person's fat, I guess you you placed when a candle is made from the hanged person's fat is placed in it. It doesn't make sense. And I just read the definition. But anyway, basically what you do is you turn the hand into a candle by lighting the fingertips or putting a candle in there. And the candle is made from the fat of the hanged person. There are different ways of doing this. But anyway, it's basically a candle made from the hand of a hanged man. And if you like this thing then supposedly this thing, which is called the hand of glory, gives whoever holds it amazing powers of burglary. So if you hold it, it will unlock doors for you. And it will render the people in the house, immobile or asleep. And the candle will shine a light that only the thief can see. There are some of these museums out there as well. Let's see, here's another way of describing it. A hand of glory is the dried and pickled hand of a hanged man, often specified as being the left. Old European beliefs attribute great powers to a hand of glory. The process for preparing the hand and the candle are described in 18th century documents. So like I say, you basically, you take that you make the candle from the fat of the person. And then you put the candle in the person's hand or you can light the fingertips of the person's hand and turn those into a kind of five finger candle. And you walk around with this thing and they say that once you light it, the candle can only be put out with milk. Okay, when we come back from this break, I'm going to tell you specifically what the instructions are that go back all the way back to at least 1722 about how exactly you're supposed to make a hand of glory. I'm going to tell you a little bit about the hand of glory that I have. And then, and then we're going to close up the show with some mental mana, weird stuff I like to talk about, and maybe some listener emails. I'm Joshua P. Warren, you're listening to strange things on the iHeart radio and coast to coast and a paranormal podcast network. And I'll be right back. Welcome back to the final segment of this edition of Strange Things on the iHeart radio and coast to coast. I am paranormal podcast network. I am your host Joshua P. Warren. And this is how you supposedly make a hand of glory according to one of the old texts. Take the right or left hand preferably left of a felon who is hanging from a gallows or a gibbet beside a highway. Wrap it in part of a funeral paw and squeeze it well. Then put it into an earthenware vessel with knife or salt and long peppers all powdered. Leave it in this vessel for a fortnight, then take it out and expose it to full sunlight during the dog days. That's the hot days of summer. Until it becomes quite dry. If the sun is not strong enough, put it in an oven with the fern and vervein, which is a type of herbaceous wood. Next, make a candle from the fat of a gibbeted felon with sesame wax and use the hand of glory as a candle stick to hold this candle when lighted and then those in every place into which you go with this bainful instrument shall remain motionless. Now look, the things that I have in my collection that is called a hand of glory. Is it a real hand of glory? I'm not going to say. But it looks like it looks like an old decrepit dead hand and each one of the fingers can be lit like a candle. It looks amazing. Again, is this a real hand of glory? When I bought it, it was called a hand of glory. And I know you can light it. I'll never light it. But I actually bought two of them. At some point, I'll show you a picture. I bought two of them. And spring cleaning is coming up for me soon. So I'm going to be cleaning out some of things that I just cannot fit in my collection and stuff like this where I have like two of them. So I plan to sell one of my hands of glory. And that means if you're interested, then maybe you could win the auction on my second hand of glory. Just be sure you sign up for my free e-newsletter at joshwapiworry.com. And you'll find out when I start selling and auctioning off some of the things that I need to get out of my collection. I have three storage units full of stuff packed from side to side, floor to ceiling, strewn across this country. And it's not doing me any good just sitting there. So I'm going to be selling a decent amount of stuff soon that are unique one-off items. Before we run out of time, let's go to some listener emails and stuff like that. Oh, you know, just recently we had a terrible storm, a winter snow and ice storm that spread across the United States here. Majority of the country, as a matter of fact, I believe it broke records because I think I saw that there were more winter storm warnings and counties across this country at one time than ever before in all of history. And a lady posted this on a group online and listened to this. She says, even though I was skeptical, I ordered a telephone manifestation device from Joshua Warren. So I tried it out on the mega ice and snow storm affecting the USA. I decided to start small with my city. We have in the past experience days of outages from ice storms and I did not want to face that again, especially with the weather so cold. Since I live in a suburb of Memphis, I concentrated on Memphis and the surrounding suburbs getting sleet and snow rather than freezing rain, which is by far the worst for power lines. Having power operating continuously, etc. In low and behold, this area was in the middle of it, but we absolutely dodged the freezing rain, which affects power lines. In fact, I looked at the power outage map and exactly 10 homes or without power. That is way fewer than normal weather, because our grid is old. As you can see, we definitely dodged a bullet, look at the map and then she actually placed the weather map there to prove what she was saying. Isn't that crazy? We, these telephones, again, go to my website. You'll see right now they should still be available in the Curiosity Shop. But I got this email from a listener named David. At one point, I talked about on the show that supposedly a lot of scientists have said that you can't really start forming memories until you're like two or three years old. But I actually mentioned that I had memories of being a baby and laying there in the crib before I could even speak. I said, I don't know how unusual that is. The very first thing I ever remember seeing in my life was cookie monster, because I opened my, at one point, I just know that I guess I had a stuffed cookie monster, you know, like a muppet in the crib. And I just remember sitting there with this big blue monster. So the first thing that I remember comprehending in this life was something that was a fantasy creature. That makes playing a lot. But I got an email from David. He said, memories from the crib. He said, me too. I remember being in the crib. He said, I could not talk yet, but I did understand what my parents were saying. It was frustrating as I struggled trying to make my thoughts into spoken words. No doubt just babble came out. And I could tell my parents did not realize that I understood them. That's interesting, don't you think? So I wonder how many other people are like me and David. You know, it's funny speaking of childhood and youthful memories and stuff like that. As I sit here talking to you, I look over and I have this letter opener. And when I, I'm going to be 50 this year. And when I was in elementary school, it was right in the heart of the dare program. Dare, it's drug abuse resistance education. Dare to keep kids off drugs. And they were have a deputy, a deputy would come and talk to us about drugs and how bad they were. And I'm sure dare is still around. But I have this letter opener that I got an elementary school. And I'm holding it in my hand right now. And it says, dare to keep kids off drugs. And I just realized I have moved all over the place. I have moved from Asheville to numerous places in North Carolina to Puerto Rico, Texas, Las Vegas. I don't know how many houses I've lived in. And you just can't keep up with anything. You lose everything or stuff ends up in storage. But somehow this little letter opener has followed me since I was a kid. Is isn't that weird? Do you have some little weird object? You're like, how has this followed me for decades? And it looks almost pristine. I mean, I just, I don't know what to make of that. Do you have something like that in your life? I have. Bring back memories. Here's a mental man for you. That's what I call just off the wall stuff that I talk about sometimes. As I look at this little little letter opener that I had when I was in elementary school. You know, obviously I was destined to become a writer. So I was always into books and the library. And at one point when I was in elementary school, we had library time and they kind of set us all loose. I don't know what grade I was in, but they set us all loose. And a friend of mine named Chris, he said, Josh, Josh, come here. Look at this. And I walked over and he had found this big book that he pulled off the shelf. And he opened it up and it was full of all these sketches of naked women. This was an art book. Okay. But I'd never seen anything quite like that. Neither at least. So we're just they're chuckling and looking through this thing. And all of a sudden this great looming shadow appears behind us. And we turn around and it's the librarian. I won't tell you her name. And she jerks that book out of her hands and she glitters at us and she said, this is not funny. This is not funny. And I don't know if I've ever laughed harder in my life because it was funny. And I don't know why, but I still think it's funny. And it creates some kind of image between, I don't know, some kind of intellectual education class and the reality of being a kid and the confusing situations you end up in sometimes. And these situations that they call educational. Oh well, that's a mental metaphor. All right, folks, right at the end of the show. If you can close your eyes, take a deep breath. Here is the good fortune tone. That's it. For this edition of the show, follow me at Joshua P. Warren. Plus, visit Joshua P. Warren. P. Warren dot com to sign up for my free e news letter to receive a free instant gift and check out the cool stuff in the curiosity shop all at Joshua P. Warren dot com. I have a fun one lined up for you next time. I promise. So please tell all your friends to subscribe to this show. And to always remember the golden rule. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your interest and support. Thank you for staying curious. And I will talk to you again soon. 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