Pod Insights Jocko Podcast Jocko Underground: Losing My Faith in Humanity and The World. About this episode >Join Jocko Underground Full Episodes< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe
Losing My Faith in Humanity and The World. Could you take a dangerous submission to the limit if you had to? Taking a promotion and more money but stress on the family. Should you move out of your town because of social political reasons? Can't seem to get into the shape I want to be in. Feeling a bit useless after service.
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Jocko Willink? This is the Jocko Underground Podcast, number 216, sitting here with Echo Charles. We have some questions from the front lines, from where the rubber meets the road. And we are going to offer some suggestions, possibly some answers, and at a minimum, some courses of action you can follow to navigate the maze of life, as Echo Charles puts it.
0:20 Speaker 01 It's true, that is correct, and very helpful too, by the way, so thank you. All right, first question, "I believe in science, I work in the medical field, yet all my life I felt that science alone will not suffice. There's a spirit within us, there's some divine beyond. Call it what you may, God or otherwise. I live in a war-torn part of the world. Events of the last few years made me resent, even hate, whatever God there may be. Not because what happens to me, but because what happens to others and to others' children on both sides of the conflict. My faith in the basic good nature of this life and world is completely shattered. What God can allow such things? If this is the price of paradise, then paradise is lost to begin with.
1:05 Speaker 01 Never saw myself as a man of faith until I had it all shattered. My spirit is now broken. I'm open to ideas. Thank you for your service."
1:20 Jocko Willink? Yeah, there is evil in the world, there's no doubt about it. And depending on where you are in the world and what is happening where you are in the world, sometimes evil gets the upper hand. That absolutely happens. Evil gets the upper hand. And there's countless examples of that throughout history. Whether you're talking about the Holocaust, or the Holocaust of the Moors, or the Rape of Nanking, or the genocide by the Khmer Rouge, or even stuff like the Jim Jones mass suicide.
2:00 Jocko Willink? Like, no doubt, there are heinous things that occur, and evil does sometimes get the upper hand. And I think the reason that these things occur is because...
2:18 Jocko Willink? It's the path of least resistance. It's the easiest path, right? It's it's simple. It doesn't take work. All you have to do is be able to just set aside your your humanity. And these things can just evil can flourish. That's that's all it takes. And and oftentimes, once somebody crosses that line, they don't come back from it.
2:43 Jocko Willink? So when we are surrounded by that type of environment,
2:50 Jocko Willink? it's very easy to lose sight of the good and it's very easy to become surrounded by darkness.
3:03 Jocko Willink? And think that there isn't going to be no light and perhaps even think that there is no light. And yeah, I've I think I and I think everyone at some juncture in our lives asks the question, why?
3:22 Jocko Willink? Why is this happening?
3:25 Jocko Willink? Or why is God allowing this to happen? And there's, I mean, there's theological explanations for this. Right? There's theological explanations where people have answered this question, people that study theology.
3:43 Jocko Willink? Things like free will, right? That's a whole argument. Or the idea that spiritual growth can only occur when people are facing suffering and injustice in the world. Or the idea that, yeah, the world is fallen, which is a result of the original sin and spiritual rebellion. And the horrific symptoms that we see are not active, you know, choices by God, but there but the horrific things that we see are the results of our misdeeds.
4:25 Jocko Willink? We own those misdeeds. And those misdeeds will flourish until we get to the afterlife. So there are theological explanations, which I'm not equipped. And I don't study that kind of thing. It's a lot to digest, especially when you're, when you're facing, which you are in a war torn area. You are literally facing the horrific dark side of human nature.
5:06 Jocko Willink? And it can be hard to intellectualize all that with theological answers. When you're in that horrific space. So there's, I want to offer a little bit of a, little bit of a simpler idea. That I have fallen back on. When I start to get this type of feeling. And it's a quote, I'm gonna give you a quote, echo Charles. So shines a good deed in a weary world. Do you recognize that quote?
5:48 Jocko Willink? Well, speaking of theology, it's a quote from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. So what happens is the boy is, the boy is, uh, he's broken the rules and he's got that speech from Willy Wonka. You'll get nothing, you'll get nothing. And so he knows he lost, he knows he messed up, but he decides in that moment to take the everlasting gobstopper that he had stolen and give it back to Willy Wonka. And that was actually the final test. So he puts the little everlasting gobstopper on Willy Wonka's desk or half desk. Cause everything in the room is cut in half.
6:28 Jocko Willink? And he starts to walk out and Willy Wonka says, so shines a good deed in a weary world. And then he says, you know, boy, you, you won. You did it. That was the last test.
6:45 Jocko Willink? It's a powerful statement in a, in a, in a movie that's surprisingly very deep. But just to give credit where credit is due, that line is actually a version of a line from Shakespeare.
7:00 Jocko Willink? Play called The Merchant of Venice and Portia who's returning home and she sees this little candle burning in her window as she's returning home and she reflects on how a very small, seemingly insignificant thing can actually have a massive impact and spread light. And so she says, "How far that little candle throws his beams, so shines a good deed in a wicked world."
7:34 Jocko Willink? And actually, I, I modified that myself because the, the, the original Shakespeare version doesn't use the term wicked, it uses the term naughty. But at that time in 1600, whatever, naughty didn't mean what it means now, like, oh, you little kid is being naughty like Mr. Vest, it didn't mean that. It actually came, came from the word naught, which is zero. So it means like morally bankrupt and worthless and corrupt. That's what it, that's what it meant. So I substituted it for wicked.
8:05 Jocko Willink? But the reason I'm saying all this is that I think and I believe that in the darkest of times, we have to remember that the smallest deed, the smallest good deed brings light into the world and that light is going to impact someone, somewhere, somehow. That little, that little bit of humanity that we can hold on to and that we can share.
8:45 Jocko Willink? That that emanates and it propagates.
8:50 Jocko Willink? And to me, that's the that's the human spirit. That's the humane spirit.
8:57 Jocko Willink? And we have to make sure that we do not allow that
9:02 Jocko Willink? to be extinguished.
9:05 Jocko Willink? And it's up against them. Again, the easiest thing is to let that flame go out and go to the dark side. Right? Star Wars. Yeah. You like Star Wars, don't you? Yeah, I like Star Wars. Are you a Star Wars maniac? No, I would not say maniac, no. Your brother is. Oh, probably same, whatever. I'm down for some Star Wars, for sure. Well, look at the whole story, you know, it's the dark, it's the dark side. Turning to the dark side, Anakin, he starts off as all good to go, then he goes to the dark side. He doesn't listen to what I'm saying. I mean, I didn't didn't have my podcast in that level of the empire or whatever. But he didn't have a mentor, he didn't have someone tell him, he didn't keep that humanity. He went to the dark side.
9:51 Jocko Willink? So we it's on us. Right? It's not God's responsibility, it's our responsibility.
10:00 Jocko Willink? That we make sure that that that little bit of light that we can bring to the world does not get extinguished. And and I'll tell you, it hasn't been extinguished.
10:15 Jocko Willink? Despite the despite the absolute horrors that humanity inflicts on itself, there's not been a surrender, right? Evil has not triumphed, it hasn't. It'd be the world would be a completely different place if it wasn't for this, this
10:31 Jocko Willink? this core goodness that we have. And and by by the way, by every metric, it should, right? It should. Because it's way easier to take the dark demonic path. It's real, it's it's just the easier way to go.
10:49 Jocko Willink? That's why people talk about doing the right thing is usually the hard thing. It's a lot easier just to do the the easy thing.
10:58 Jocko Willink? That's the wrong thing.
11:02 Jocko Willink? And some people do, clearly. And sometimes whole cultures get wrapped up in that.
11:11 Jocko Willink? But we don't have to.
11:14 Jocko Willink? So my recommendation is that you be one of the people that hangs on to that little bit of good.
11:25 Jocko Willink? And you do everything that you can to be the light where there is darkness. And as much as you possibly can, do good deeds in a weary world.
11:45 Jocko Willink? And that's what I got.
11:50 Speaker 01 Next question.
11:51 Jocko Willink? Willy Wonka.
11:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, Willy Wonka.
11:53 Jocko Willink? The OG one.
11:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:54 Jocko Willink? I haven't even watched the new one. My kids say it's good.
11:57 Speaker 01 The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Johnny Depp one?
12:00 Jocko Willink? Yeah, I haven't watched the Johnny Depp one. Brother, the old one is so good.
12:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:04 Jocko Willink? And Gene Wilder is so classic.
12:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
12:08 Jocko Willink? It's an amazing movie. It's an amazing movie with an amazing message, but that message right there, man, is for real.
12:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, you talked about the easy, easy path or easy decisions versus hard decisions, whatever, which kind of like it dawned upon me and as I indicated to you off and online. That a lot of these things, and this is one of them, come down to short term, long term. So even when it's like, oh yeah, what's, what's the right decision? It's gonna have to do with the best thing for the most people for the most amount of time. That's really what the right decision is, you know? So at first, the right decision is hard because the short term benefits for the one person usually, or one or two, or whatever people is gonna be not a benefit.
12:58 Speaker 01 But the benefit is gonna go to more people for a longer amount of time. Somewhere in the future, it's like a big, you know, big picture, small picture, long term, short term. It's usually been like, you can usually narrow it down to that. See what I'm saying? Even like evil, and this is why I think when you say evil doesn't triumph, this is why I think at the end of the day, because it doesn't have the, it doesn't have sustainability, you know?
13:20 Jocko Willink? Yeah, you're right. It, evil eventually turns on itself.
13:24 Speaker 01 On itself, exactly right.
13:25 Jocko Willink? That's the problem with it.
13:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly right. And, and that's not to mention there's good people doesn't, so even if there's little pockets of good people, it, I mean. Even if the good, like the evil overwhelms the good, the evil, like how you said, kills itself. So it's like, that's not like a good sustainable model. You see what I'm saying?
13:42 Jocko Willink? Yep. It's, have you ever seen the movie The Exorcist?
13:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
13:45 Jocko Willink? Like the opening, I remember, I saw that movie when I was a little kid, freaked me the hell out, bro.
13:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's real.
13:51 Jocko Willink? But I was young, but I remember there's like a So, that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground Podcast. So if you want to continue to listen, go to jockounderground.com and subscribe and we're doing this, we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subject to their control and we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko Podcast, which will remain as is, free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we, but we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you
14:35 Jocko Willink? more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us. And to do that, we are, we're building a website right now. Where we'll be able to utilize to strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So thank you. It's jockounderground.com. It costs eight dollars and eighteen cents a month. And if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email [email protected] and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.
Previous 542: Stronghold: War, Rescue, and Resistance. With Ephraim Mattos Next 543: Don't Wait to Get Punched in the Face. The Best Way to Adapt And Learn. Page updated October 26, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
