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The stages of grief is a psychological framework. Uh That is, is, is very well known. You can Google it and those stages are denial, anger bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Um There's something to this idea. Mhm And I think that instead of just thinking about it as reactions to grief or, or reactions to events that typically cause grief, I think it actually is uh an accurate depiction of how people respond to new information. And uh information could come in many ways. So information can come by someone telling you something or through something happening. Uh It can also come as a realization. Now , this is actually from God because he operates uh in many ways that in one of them being your understanding, information can come through your realization that something is different than you thought. So let's say that you are Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill and it just keeps rolling down. And the first time you just say, OK, whatever and you just keep doing it and eventually when it rolls down, you're gonna realize that what you're doing isn't working. And so your perception shifts from I'm doing a thing to get to an outcome to I'm doing this thing and it is not, there is no path to this outcome or maybe the, the path is going to result in something that's far less, that's actually not worth it to me. Or what I want is going to require something much greater. So information can come from many different sources, but it certainly includes what other people say and do and what just sort of transpires in the world. And so a wonderful example of new information is COVID. Now, some people knew that some sort of thing was going to happen. Uh Interestingly, I do, I want to go into this. No, I'll just leave it at. Some people expected something like this to happen. Very few, but some people did. Most people did not. And in fact, most living people couldn't imagine such a thing happening. And so when they were told what would happen or uh descriptions were made of what was about to happen as it was happening. Anyway, new information one way or another, um they reacted with the stages of grief. And so denial definitely occurred and then anger and then bargaining and then uh depression and then acceptance and different people worked through this in different amounts of time. Different people had different requirements on exactly how much information needed to be put how close to their face before they would recognize it. And that obviously impacted how quickly they could move through this and also what the end result was when they finally got there because for the people that waited till the very end and, and got 10 boosters and everything else, um They had a, a very different outcome than those who saw it coming and those who uh got it somewhere in the middle had a very different outcome from either of the others. And it's just sort of a continuum. So people were all over that. Now, I want to dive into a few of these words because I think that there are better descriptions of it . Um So denial, I agree with, I think that one's sufficient anger, I definitely agree with. I think that one is sufficient, um, bargaining, bargaining, let's jump into. So, bargaining is, uh really, it's limited acceptance and that's triggered by a bulk of information that's subs substantial enough that the existence of truth can no longer be denied. Uh The existence of un um of un integrated truth can no longer be denied. And so basically, it's like if you put masking tape on the carpet in the shape of a V and you start where the lines come together and you walk outward, no matter how flexible you are or how tall you are. There comes a point where you can't keep feet on both lines at the same time, you have to choose one. And, um, that's, that's sort of when the bargaining kicks off, but when it kicks off people don't put both feet in the truth line. They move the, the, the foot that's on the airline, they move it just a little bit that's bargaining. It's a limited acknowledgment of the truth that they've been denying so far. So the reason people go through this stages of grief or stages of acceptance of new information at all is because the primary human motivation is to avoid pain right now. Avoid suffering right now. And um the best way that can be done in the face of undeniable mountains of evidence is to just agree with a tiny little bit, just acknowledge a tiny, little bit of it, the smallest possible chunk and how much? Well, just enough so you can keep walking. So with that V analogy, it's really good. I could have drawn a picture of this. So once you get to the point where you can't straddle the V anymore, what you'll do is you'll go like this fully, fully splayed out still, right as far as you can go, but you'll go up that way. You don't go like this. That's a different choice. That's alignment with the truth. This is just sort of a minimal acceptance of the truth as you go through time. So dishonest people, they never come to acknowledge the truth. They will only go as far as they're made to go by reality. So don't ever look for people to come back and say, you know , in reflection, all the people that were dead wrong about COVID. We probably shouldn't listen to them the next time they have something to say. Or we, we should listen to them a little less. And let's go down the list and find all the people who saw this coming and let's listen to them a little more next time. You will never hear that from these people. So it's the same thing if you look at the 2008 financial crisis, a couple of people caught that and they said it's coming. Some people made a lot of money off of that. But um what did all the experts say once it happened? They didn't say, you know , this person that we didn't take seriously, they were spot on. So actually let's listen to them next time. Let's see what they have to say next time. No, what they said was no one could have seen this coming. So officially those people received the new name of no one because they sure saw it coming , right. So, um I wanted to also hit on uh depression and acceptance. So it's kind of, it's the the latter three stages that I think we need to tune a little bit. Um Depression is sometimes how people react to this, but it should probably it's not as catchy, but it's more accurate to say something like negative emotional accommodation. So just as bargaining is some sort of uh limited, limited. Um oh, what's a good word for this, I guess, reconciliation with truth that's in like in ideas kind of sense, your perspective, your facts, you're willing to start acknowledging some facts to some degree that differ with what you wish was true. Depression is the emotional alignment and it's just as partial as the idea alignment is. So there's an informational accordance and there's an emotional accordance. So the depression stage, it's negative emotional accommodation, you open the floodgates to the negative emotions that have to come in, that come with those ideas that you're you've let in and why is it opening and letting in because you've shut them out, you refused to deal with them, you denied the facts, you were angry about the facts, but what it means to have the entire economy shut down for two years and you know, to not be able to go see your grandmother as she's dying. You haven't dealt with that yet, right? Or the fact that no one knows how lethal this is yet and maybe everyone's gonna die. And so usually it's not really depression that sets in, it's panic, right? It's some kind of panic which is like catch up anxiety or something. Um So you're catching up for the fact that you haven't amortized these feelings over the whole time. You're just dealing with it now and then the last one, acceptance that that one I think is really bad because acceptance is way too positive. Um really in how people end up dealing with this. There's almost never any growth, almost never. And when there is, it's usually way too little. And the reason is because the more intensely this whole thing manifests the greater it, uh, demonstrates that your foundational views were dead wrong. Not just your ideas about whatever specific thing, you know, if you think it's gonna snow tomorrow and it's sunny, you're not like, oh, my goodness. What does this mean about the meaning of life? How have I lived my life and how could I have? Right? But when something happens that affects a lot of stuff that's very important to you in life that shakes you. It's called ego death. It's a really big deal. It, it causes you. It's, it, it touches on such transcendental aspects of, of who you are and how you see the world and yourself that it goes up the chain and back down to stuff that didn't seem related to the original stimulus. That's ego death. And you don't, you don't deal with massive chunks of new information by coming to the end of all of that and restructuring your whole life. That's how you should do it. You see, the more it shakes you, the more you should restructure your foundations. But people don't react that way. It's not human nature. Again, it's the minimal change they have to make to avoid feeling bad right now. So uh acceptance is more like like blind apathy it's, it's, you've gone through this spike of emotion, negative emotion and now you're just kind of played out and you're like, well, I'm just numb to all this. I just don't care anymore. So that isn't the same as acceptance really. You surely you haven't integrated what all this new information into your world, map, your, your map of self in the world and other people and meaning and value and what's right and what's wrong and how you should live your life. You know, that's the result that should happen, but it's not what does happen. So, um this is very important to understand because COVID was not the end, there will be many more things that happen that are drastic, enormous changes and some of them will seem all of a sudden, some will seem drag dragged out over time. Some will change back and forth between those two. There is an outpouring a flood, a scourge. There's many words you can use. There are many words that process has kicked off and it will not stop, it's going to get worse. And so it's important to understand how humans reacted to these sorts of things because it's how you will react to these things unless you actively fight those biases, those tendencies and rise up to something better. And it's how the people around you will absolutely react. And that one, you're not gonna be able to change, some people will result, uh will react to all of this in a way that they improve. But that will always be the minority. Most people will not act that way, will not react that way. And so how does all this information come out in the end times? There's two ways, there are two ways. One of them is by precept. What I mean is people saying , them, people saying the information, that's one way that it comes out the other way is experience. So as things happen, that's new information too. And the more visceral information is the, the more viscerally it's manifested, the stronger the triggering of these stages of grief. So be prepared because it's going to happen and it's gonna happen so many times that you will know this pattern front to back, you'll see it all the time, hopefully not in yourself. So what's a better way? OK, let's just walk down the, the stage is here. The first one is denial. This is great because guess what? If you do this one correctly, the rest don't happen. So denial is when you're given sufficient evidence for something and then you don't react in a rational way to it. There are other words for this like delusion and it depends on what facet you wanna focus on like the belief facet, how you see the idea um the action facet cause you can have in action. So this ties into the, the scriptural idea of unbelief. But um psychologists call this denial So it's the same thing. If you wanna fight that, then go read through faith, the book I wrote and uh learn how to reconcile yourself to reality. Uh If you get through that one and you've managed to apply what, what you get out of it, then maybe you should go read The Glory of God as intelligence. And that's sort of like level two through faith is zoomed into some specific things to help, really get a clear picture of that. And if you wanna get the truth bomb, the greater bomb of light, you can go read um The Glory of God is intelligence for that one. So if you avoid denying the truth, when it manifests, you just sort of evaluate it rationally and say, well, OK, uh I've got some, some books coming out that will help with that. I have no idea when those will be done. But uh the resources are there in some form already. Um While you're waiting for something better, what about if you've already denied it? And now you're at the point where it's so evident that you have to be engaged somehow. And so you choose to react with anger. Well, this choice is really important because why would you ever be angry at the truth or those telling you the truth? And yet this is human nature. Why? Because no matter how much people think they're oriented in terms of benefit, human nature is oriented towards feeling good right now. And more importantly, feeling, avoiding feeling bad right now, that one's hard to say. So it's easier to just say that they want to feel good right now, but they want to avoid feeling bad. And when you've denied the truth, the thing that will make you feel the worst is being reminded that you're denying the truth or having stronger cases made to you about what the truth is. That's just gonna make you angry. So don't get angry, it's either true or it's not. If you don't think the reasons are sufficient, you don't need to get angry. You just should not believe what's being said. You have every reason to not believe what's being said literally, right? But don't make it an emotional thing. OK? What if, what if you've denied and you're angry and now you're in the bargaining stage which the, the, the better, more, more um descriptive way of thinking about this is you're selectively admitting ideas now. So you're select selectively admitting truths that you've actively denied so far. Well, why be selective about it at this point? It's really clear that you've messed up, right? So be objective and doubt yourself a little more reduce your self-confidence because that's what you deserve. You have obviously demonstrated to yourself that at least in this specific thing, you don't have the capacity to understand it properly, not naturally. So go find people who got it right and see what else they have to say about it and start reformatting your process for evaluating truth because it's been shown to you that it's not what it needs to be, go find resources on how to think critically and how to evaluate information and how to be less emotional about stuff and be more open to things that you take offense to. What if you've gone through all of this and now you're at the depression stage or the the negative emotional accommodation stage. Well, um wherever you are and whatever it's cost you don't. So avoid the tendency to flood yourself with the backlog of things that you should have been feeling the whole time. Just put a cap on that. Let a little in and say, OK, fine, focus on what you can do now, don't focus on how to feel now, just focus on OK, fine. Whatever , where do we go from here? All right. Now, if you've gotten through all of this without opening your eyes, there's still benefit that can come from this and that is don't make acceptance into apathy, make an acceptance into improvement. So do a postmortem of this whole situation and say how can I change so that if something like this happens again, which should be when something like this happens again, I figure it out and get more out of it earlier on and that's how you can make the most out of all of this. It's something that I promise you you will get plenty of experience in tuning over time. So the sooner you get around to it, the better.