Hi everybody. Welcome to today's lesson here at Active Self-Protection. Today on John's briefs, we are going to continue our series on good, sane, sober moral prudence that we are talking about on the big channel all the time with topic number two. What does it mean to be sane? To win the fight after the fight? You need help after a use of force. I trust firearms legal protection to help me win the fight for the rest of my life. From their 24 7 attorney answered hotline to coverage for the use of all legal tools, firearms, legal protection has you covered, get a discount by signing up at the link below.
Before the rest of this, I'd really encourage you just press the stop button for a minute and think about what would be your definition right now before talking about it, of what it means to be sane. What is the difference between sanity and insanity? So in doing that, eliminate the insanity. What is your definition of sane? And push, pause. Think about it a minute. Leave me a comment with what your definition is now, and then at the end of the video, you can come back and edit that and add maybe how your definition changed over the course of the lesson. I also want to take a personal moment and thank firearms legal protection for sponsoring these John's briefs. These are not legal discussions. We're going way above the standard of legal here to somebody who is exemplary, somebody who is the kind of person that we want to be, and letting me step outside of the legal realm and still giving me the green light to do that.
I really appreciate. So thanks to them. Let's also be sure that we don't stigmatize with this definition because the phrase saying or insane gets batted about in popular culture and as a pejorative so often, and it gets used to stigmatize people, and especially in older practice, there was this real kind of dichotomy with somebody saying or insane, and that was seen as a mental health thing. But I want us to recognize that the term is not in use in mental health care at all. You will not find anybody using the phrase sane or insane in the field of mental health. In fact, if you look in the DSM five, which is the modern diagnostic tool that psychologists and psychiatrists and mental health practitioners use, the term is not found anywhere in the DSM five because it brings kind of this dichotomy or this idea of, well, somebody is not sane, and so we put 'em away in an insane asylum rather than looking at people as complex organisms and who can have treatable conditions to help them to function successfully rather than just, oh, they're insane.
So we are not talking about a mental healthcare term at all. So let's talk about where we actually do find this term used. It is still used in our legal system. So I know we said we're going way above the standard of legal, but what we see in our legal experience is whether someone is compass Metis. There's the old Latin phrase, right? Because lawyers like to say everything in Latin or Greek because you sound smarter when you do that. But being compass menis means that you are accountable for your actions If someone is non-comp menis. In other words, if they are not guilty of a crime by reason of insanity, that means that their mindset was such that they cannot be held liable for their actions because their actions did not come from a sound mind. And since it didn't come from a sound mind, then they cannot be legally held accountable for that, hence their non-comp menace.
So we do have a legal definition, actually, like the definition that we see from Miriam Webster of all places, and Miriam Webster, nationally, internationally recognized dictionary. Their number one definition of sane is proceeding from a sound mind. Okay, fine. Number two says mentally sound sounds like the same thing to me, but below that, within that definition it says, especially able to anticipate and appraise the effects of one's actions. So they're, I think we're getting to a good starting definition of sane here, is able to anticipate and appraise the effects of one's actions. Now, I think the first thing that you'll probably notice there is that we are appreciating and appraising what might happen in the future. So if I do, a B happens, cause and effect are connected as a condition of sanity. And so the second that we recognize that, and maybe we apply it to children for instance, or even the elderly, we start to see, wait a minute, there's maybe more of a spectrum here than there is an on off, a binary or a duality.
Because for instance, when a child is three years old, they don't connect cause and effect very well. You might tell your three-year-old, Hey, don't eat that sweet cell. You'll have a toothache later. You have a belly ache later and the kid goes, I don't care because I don't connect this, this is delicious. And then later they have a belly ache and you go, yeah, that belly ache because you ate that candy. Nah, I can't, don't connect those things. Now does that mean a three-year-old is not sane? Well, they can connect their actions to their outcomes, some but not a lot. And then as they get to be teenagers, they do a little bit more. And then again, our frontal cortex completely develops around 25 or so. So then you really are able to do that. Does that mean that all teenagers are insane? Yes, haha, by the popular definition, but really what it means is this is kind of more on a spectrum.
When we are able to connect the actions that we take with the consequences of those actions or how they will affect others, then really what we do is that our thinking corresponds to reality. Our thinking is that which is connected to reality in a significant way, in that we can put together what is going on in reality in the world to our behaviors, to our actions, to our self. And so really in some significant sense, being sane means that you are connected to reality. In other words, you're rational. Now, Alfred Korzybski, okay, that's a guy that you probably don't know a whole lot about unless you're studying psychology in a meaningful sense and really not even psychology, you're studying general semantics. Oh boy. Now we're getting really far afield. But what Korzybski said was that someone's idea of the world inside is like a map, and a map is not that which it represents.
So a map is not, say you've got a map of your town, the map is not the town, but the usefulness of the map depends upon how much the map corresponds to the features of the town. So how much of the image that you have here corresponds to the reality of what the town is depends on its usefulness. And that actually I think is a very good definition of being sane, is that you are able to anticipate and appraise the effects of your actions. You are connected to reality, i, e, rational. You use reason, logic, evidence and experience to think and act in reasonable and useful ways. So your mental map of how the world works corresponds to how the world actually does work or how you want it to work. So now you say, wait a minute, how do I want it to work?
Some people want it to work in a way that it doesn't really work. Yes, I am leaving room here. As we get further on into moral decision making that sometimes we say, wait a minute, somebody's going to take advantage of me when I do this. Nevertheless, based on a higher principle, this is the way I want the world to work. I still correspond to reality. So this is why we start with sane and get to moral later. Okay, we'll get there. When we get to moral recognize again, let's think about a good definition of sane, a good definition of sanity, able to appreciate and anticipate the effects of one's actions on their environment. Their thoughts correspond to reality like a quality map corresponds to that which it is mapping. They are rational and use reason, logic, evidence and experience to think and act in reasonable and useful ways.
Now of course, I'm going to guess that a lot of people are going to use that and then kind of immediately vilify their political opponents. We see that all the time, any same person would believe, and then of course it's their political position. That's the only one that actually corresponds to reality as opposed to the other side. The fact of the matter is both sides do that. I'm not here to make a political discussion with you, but recognize that political ideology on how we want things to be is not a meaningful definition of sanity. Now, you might've heard on the opposite side, right? You might've heard, and a lot of people have heard this attributed to Albert Einstein that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So that idea says you got to change something in order to make a change, which does of course have a connection between actions and behaviors.
Now, of course, Albert Einstein never said that there's nothing connecting him to that probably began in one of the 12 step programs, either AA and a Al-Anon, one of those two, one of those three math hard. But my point is that the idea of wait a minute, if I do the same thing, I will probably get the same result. That is a marker of sanity. In other words, it says that I connect cause to effect using logic and reason. So if I've done something a hundred times and gotten the same outcome every time, then I can start to expect if A, then B, if I do, then I get, and that connection that my view of how reality is and how reality actually is are connected, then I think we're in a good spot and we have gotten ourself to sanity. I do want to also look and remind ourselves of actually the American Psychological Association has a definition here, and it says specifically in law.
So this is interesting because like I told you, this word really isn't used in mental health care anymore, but the a a has a definition that says in law the state of not suffering from a mental disorder or neurological defect that impairs one's ability to understand or appreciate one's acts or to conform to the requirements of the law. So not suffering from some kind of disconnect between their mental processes and the requirements of the law and what their actions are. So understanding what they do and how that comports to their external standard. That is the definition of sanity. Now, the things that I want us to think about from this thing is that sanity number one is a scale. How much of my world actually corresponds to reality? And you might say, well, what do you mean by that, John? Because of course we could take this out of politics and we could take it into a whole host of other things.
Gosh, I don't want to cause flame wars or those things, but I'm sure that you will see this in almost any area you talk about. You talk about with firearms, you talk about it with healthcare, you talk about it in your workplace and how to run a business or relationships and those kinds of things. And you hear people go, oh, okay, wait a minute. Now here's an interesting one. I dealt with this one as a pastor an awful lot where what we would hear from people, maybe they're having an interpersonal conflict and hear you always, well, you always put me down and talk bad about me. And of course we go, wait a minute. My mind says they do that all the time, but is that really how that goes? And of course, a good counselor will help me go, okay, let's think about that.
Can you think about a time that didn't happen? Well, yeah, of course we thought about this, that and the other thing. So really it's not an always, but I think the better correspondence to reality is when you do that thing makes me feel that way. And it seems that I'm feeling that way a lot. And so that more closely corresponds to reality. Let's think about this in our defensive training. We want to really bring this down to a point. As a good, sane person, I also want to recognize somebody can be good. Their heart can be set on benefiting others. Their heart can be set on being altruistic and doing good in the world and all that one that we talked about and not have any necessary connection to reality. I mean, they're not one in the same and they're not co-terminus. So we want to add sanity to goodness.
So then that way, wait a minute, my heart is set on helping other people and being for myself and for others in a community where I am good, where I am helpful, where I seek the best. Then we connect that with actual reality in our self-defense training. So what are some of the things that we might think about doing here? Well, we asked the question. What I really want you to do is start to think about, wait a minute, how well does my map of the world correspond to what the world actually is? And the more my map of the world corresponds to the world that actually is out there in the world, then the more saying I am. And in defensive gun fighting, I mean, we've fought tons of mythology about how people's map of how gunfights go to what the realities of those are.
It's one of the reasons, probably one of the biggest reasons that the big channel exists is to show people reality. This is the reality of how actual gunfights go, because what they have from Hollywood doesn't correspond to reality very well. And so that puts them in a mindset. This is how a gunfight goes, so that when they get into one, then their map of how it should go does not correspond to reality, which means that their chances of survival are lower. And therefore, watching the main channel is actually a path towards sanity in self-defense because it lets you see what reality is and map your map, draw your map as it corresponds to reality. The other part of that is sometimes people go, well, I hear people say this all the time. Well, John, I'll give you a for instance. I had this today here on extra.
In fact, somebody said, well, on my video of a faster way to clear a double feed. And they said, well, I just want a means that works for any gun at any time because I might need a battlefield pickup. My mental map of how my gunfight goes includes a chance of having to pick up somebody else's gun and clear a type three or a double feed malfunction. And I said, I just never see that those have never happened. I've only ever seen two battlefield pickups ever in a defensive gunfight. Only one of those was not the gun that was dropped by the person. And in that instance, that gun wasn't fired. And so the idea of I'm going to get in a gunfight that lasts long enough that my gun is not functional in some capacity and I'm going to pick up someone else's gun, it is going to have a type three malfunction and the faster procedure is not going to work for that.
And so I just want to make sure that I have one that works when all of this breaks down. I suppose that is possible, but does it correspond to what we really see? It doesn't, doesn't correspond to what we actually see happen. So we are chasing a problem that doesn't really exist. And that brings us to this idea of donte. So that chaotic attempt of tilting after windmills of this is the dragon, but it's not really the dragon. It's map of how the world worked, wasn't how the world really worked. So taking evidence into your world on your defensive training, what is that which you really do need? So how about my empty handed skills? I know a lot of people, well, I don't need any of that stuff. That's why I carry a gun. Does that correspond to reality? And what we really see in the world really think through some of those things.
One of the reasons we tell folks to have a less lethal tool because the chances of getting into a non-lethal defensive encounter are about four to one chances of getting into a lethal defensive encounter. And so again, starting to map our world to correspond as best we can to reality helps us with that. So my encouragement to you is to really continuously ask, does my map actually match reality? Do I need to reassess my map? And because I found something here in reality that doesn't match the map that I have? And so there's two ways to do that because we all have cognitive biases, we all have shortcomings here, and so we all are going to see things in a particular way. But when we find evidence that doesn't match our map, we find a place in the real world that doesn't match what our map says.
We can do one of two things. We can say, Nope, this doesn't really exist. In which case now it does exist whether we think it doesn't or not, and our map now corresponds to reality less, or we see this thing that doesn't match our map and we adjust our map. And the better we can adjust our map to actually match what really is in reality the closer that we are to saying, now, of course, you can take this far beyond defensive training, right? You hopefully can do this. And in your many worlds, in your relationships and your business life and your finances, all these kinds of things, right? And your politics and all that stuff. And constantly thinking, wait a minute, does my map of this correspond to reality? Or has somebody warped my picture of reality of I warped my picture of reality? Am I looking at this through a lens that skews the perspective so that the way I'm seeing this isn't the way that reality actually is?
I think we all do that in some places and in some kinds, and maybe we think if we've had a loved one who through getting older has started having dementia, and that problem shows up, that their understanding of what's going on in their world. So what you can hear of what's going on inside starts having more and more challenges corresponding to what's going on outside. And of course that makes our heartbreak, it hurts. We got to help that person as best we can because we know they still have value and worth and dignity. They're still a good person. They still have all that stuff. So we want to not be that person in our actual world. We want to be the same person. So again, my big encouragement to you think through those issues in your defensive training, and is what I'm doing actually matching reality?
Am I actually training for that which I want, which might be different Again, if I want to make grandma in U-S-P-S-A, okay, cool. Well, what really needs to be done to do that? That's not the same thing as becoming a high level defensive firearms practitioner. They're highly related, but they're not identical. So wait a minute, what does it really take to do that? And is what I am doing, will my current actions get me to that? Well, the better you understand what the realities are of gaining grand in U-S-P-S-A, then you can arrange your actions towards that. And if you're already shooting U-S-P-S-A, and let's just say you've been shooting it for 10 years and you're a B class shooter, okay, whatever, I don't even, I'm unclassified. But your point is, wait a minute, maybe I need to adjust my behaviors because my actions are not getting me to the reality that I want to be, which is a grandma level shooter.
Or you say, Hey, wait a minute. I need to understand that my understanding of the law is, but is that really my understanding? Is my understanding match reality? And then finding out what reality is can help you better comport yourself, because I see this all the time. I had a friend not too long ago who had a guy, he was a private investigator, had a guy that chased him out of a yard because he was doing a private investigation. And he said to me, okay, so the guy grabbed my arm and gosh, man, I pushed him off me and got to my car, whatever. But I bet you think that I should have got my knife out and cut him and cut him off me, right? That would've been justified. And I was like, bro, that would not have been justified. You probably would've been charged with aggravated assault for that.
And he was like, whoa, what? Even though he put his hands on me first, his understanding of the legal world did not match the reality of the legal world. We fixed that. He understands it better now. So that's your task Now, if you wrote a comment on what you thought of sanity and being sane before this, now I want to hear if I changed your definition, Annie, and from all of us, I want to hear from you in the comments what it is that you think you can do to better comport your understanding of defensive firearms, of defensive legalities with the realities of it. I hope this discussion helps you. Good, sane next week sober.
YouTube Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrKQhOvMm1g&list=PLkjkKbdZgxVDVyMvzKn27k3rT7dL25j5D&index=4
Credit: John Corriea, Active Self Protection Extra