Episode 1 | "The Firestones"

Hey, welcome everyone to this new adventure in podcasting. I'm calling it the Firestone Files. Hey, welcome everyone to this new adventure in podcasting. I'm calling it the Firestone Files letter to my letters to my grandkids. Um, I'm Dr. Chris Firestone. I am a professor of philosophy and Christian worldview and director of the great writings honors program currently here at Champion Christian College. It's my first year down here and uh this podcast is a new adventure for me. I've been thinking about doing a podcast for years, but uh didn't really know what to do that would be new and interesting.

And I was talking with my first son, my oldest son about that, Matthew Firestone, and really he came up with the idea, refining some of my other ideas to this letters to my grandkids. Now, what makes this so interesting and I think a little bit unique from what I can tell, I'm not a huge listener to podcast, although I listen to a few of them, um, is that the, uh, the podcast is written to people who not do not yet exist. Uh I have five kids. They range from 27 years old down to 18 years old.

And none of them well one of them is married. The other four are not yet married. And uh we don't have any grandkids as yet. But the reason why we thought or at least my son thought and I agreed with him that this might be the best way forward for us is that um I wanted to do something on philosophy that utilized all of my you know past experience in this area. I wanted to do something that I could capitalize on my many experiences living overseas and in the uh work environment and in the university environment and so forth. And uh and I also wanted to do something that was potentially timeless.

You know, one of the things I see with podcasts is they often times will range from the immediate, you know, the news podcasts or the uh, you know, topic of the day either with culture or politics or even philosophy. And uh, some of those humanities podcast, philosophy podcasts are in a sense timeless. that is they're dealing with big questions and so forth, but they don't necessarily give you any perspective on day-to-day life. And so, one of the things that I hope to do here is to give you a perspective of a seasoned philosopher on topics that might matter now and to future generations. In a sense, they transcend the moment.

Each week, I'm going to explore a theme, a topic, a question, an issue. That'll be the title of the podcast and I'll do so um because I think it matters. It's of interest to people. Hopefully I'll catalog a number of these questions along the way so that they will be like files. You can file through them and see the particular topic that you might be most interested in. Um and so let's say you pick up this podcast and we're in podcast 100 and you're like, "Oh man, you know, what did I miss?" Well, you'll be able to go back, look at the titles, and identify an issue that might be of real interest to you and go ahead and listen to it or watch it.

So, I'd like to do that. I'd like to raise the issue, approach it from a philosophical vantage point. That is, I'll talk a little bit about philosophy and the philosophy that I think is most appropriate or interesting to look at that topic from. and uh I'll offer some perspective, philosophical perspective on it. I'll then turn to some life story or two or try to draw out or illustrate the points that I'm trying to make. Um and then uh we'll try to wrap it up each week with some kind of moral to the story, some answer to the question, something like that.

Um I can't help but you know, approach the questions not only as a philosopher but also as a Christian philosopher. And for some people that might sound like an oxymoron. Uh I think that that was the 20th century. In the 21st century, it's not so much an oxymoron anymore. All right. I think what we've seen in culture in the 21st century, at least this first quarter of it, cuz it's 2025 right now as I start this podcast, is that um we have a lot of people who are, you know, agendadriven in culture, trying to overrun culture with their own myopic viewpoints. And so, everyone stands somewhere.

I stand on the Christian faith. Um, but I do so hopefully in a seasoned, philosophical, rational way. And so I'm looking forward to offering you that kind of perspective with a mole or takeaway on the issue at hand. A little bit about me. Um, I am a philosopher. I mentioned that already. One thing I learned in my philosophical studies is that we typically es especially if you go on for the PhD, I had a professor say this to me once when I lived in Hong Kong and I've taken it to heart ever since. When people are so driven to tackle a problem at the terminal study point that is the PhD, they're typically studying something that they're not very good at. that is there's some lacuna in their person or their soul or their disposition or or just in their knowledge base and they're pursuing an answer to a question that drives them that they're passionate about for those reasons. So in other words, you study what you're least adept at. And I don't take that for granted.

I'm a philosopher. I raise big questions and anybody's worth as salt in philosophy knows like Socrates says that I don't know that really the questions are beyond my finite human perspective and yet onward the great conversation must go and um you know all we can do is the best that we can do in a given point in time with what we've learned from the past trying to be students in that and conversation partners with great minds of the past but react and and and act in the present. And so, um, we're going to do philosophy sort of that way, recognizing that, you know, we're not perfect.

I'm not perfect, but we're still going to try to make some kind of perspective or headway on whatever issue it is we're studying. Uh, I am also not just a philosopher, but I've done my research primarily on one philosopher. Now, I've taught I think I added it up once. I think I've taught 35 different course preps over the course of my young career. I guess I'm I've been teaching 25 years. That's because I taught at a small Christian liberal arts college and I taught the entirety of the philosophy program over that period of time. Also taught some theology and worldview stuff as well.

And uh so I am a generalist in terms of my teaching which could be quite useful for a podcast like this. But I'm also a deep diver into the philosophy of Emanuel Kant. So if you look me up on academia. edu or if you just look at my publication record, you'll find that I've done quite a bit of publishing over the years on the philosophy of Emanuel Khan. Why would a guy do that? Do a deep dive on another philosopher like that? Well, if you think of the history of philosophy as a group of mountains, I just got back. My wife and I went to Ireland for a week.

So, I just got back a little bit of a days because those trips take a lot out of you. But one of the things you'll noticed if you go into into the rural part of Ireland is that just the rolling hills and mountains that you'll see. And philosophy is a little bit like that. There's great philosophers and there's less great philosophers and there's all sorts of conversation partners, but there are some mountains that are higher than the rest. And that I took to be the philosophy of Emanuel Kant. Now, I'm going to have plenty of time during this podcast in the weeks, months, and years ahead to dive into that philosophy with you.

You can find a lot of my work online and I'd love to talk about it and I could probably talk for the next five, six hours and not skip a beat, but we're not going to do that. And I just want to mention that I studied within him. Why would I do that? I do it because I don't want to waste my time, you know? I wanted to study not some obscure person, but somebody whose feet I could sit at and learn something significant about myself, the big questions of life, and how I can critically approach those as a thoughtful 21st century person. And uh Emanuel Kand was all of that for me and more. So you'll be hearing more about that uh as we go along in the podcasting.

Philosophy pure and simple is what I'm going to argue and I'll and I'll do it again on a different on a different podcast in more detail, but I'm going to argue that philosophy is the perspective of the self. It's humble, the humble realization that I'm situated in time and space. And I'm doing the best I can, as it were, to gather information about the questions that life confronts us with. It's humbling. It builds, you know, a hunger for knowledge and understanding, but it doesn't ever stop with itself. I mean, one of the mistakes young philosophers will often make and young thinkers will often make is that they're the measuring stick of truth.

That was really the sophists undoing in the uh sort of prescratic period is the belief that man is the measure of things as permitted once said that is not true. Any philosopher worth his salt comes to the realization that we are not the measures of truth. We are in a sense hunting for perspectives of authority, the right kinds of authority for the particular questions that we raise. So I'm going to talk about that more as we go along. But philosophy, if it's anything at all, is the progressive giving up of your standpoint or your perspective for some other vantage point that is better than your own.

And this in a sense is what I did when I studied with the philosophy of Emanuel Kant. I put myself at his feet. I learned to see the world the way he saw it and I tried to make some headway uh in both understanding him and in a sense transcending him uh since we're now 200 years hence uh from when he died in in uh 1804.

Um, okay. Well, those are a few things. Uh, one other thing I want to mention that will be characteristic of my approach to this podcast and these questions of life is something that a theologian once taught me. One a fellow I studied with, his name is Kevin Vanhuser. Dr. Van Hooser uh once said in one of his writings, I don't remember which one, but he but it stuck with me and that is staking a claim is an act of humility. And that's what I'm going to try to do in these in these uh future podcasts is I'm going to raise questions, but I'm going to try to stand somewhere and stake a claim and give my rationale for that position.

It won't be complete. It won't be uh you know it won't I won't button down all the hatches as it were but I'm going to give uh you know the relevant philosophy talk about some stories and try to land the ship by staking a claim and giving some reasons for that claim. Um, and when you do something like that, I think contemporary culture of the 21st century has tried to marginalize people who do that, that is so antitheestern intellectual tradition. I can't even I can't hardly even express it in words just how bad that is. Allow people to speak. Freedom of speech is important.

stake claims and open rational discourse and they will set you free in a sense because in that great conversation the good ideas will make it through and the bad ones will fall away. But if you don't stake a claim, you're not transparent. A, you're not offering anything to your fellow man. And B, you're not open to reproof and correction. And so I want to be a lifelong learner. I want to be somebody who um is open to reproof and correction. So stake a claim. It's an act of humility. Give your reasons. Be as transparent as possible and go from there. To that very end, I will say I'm not just a philosopher.

I mentioned this already, but I'm also a saint. Well, not in the sort of classical sense. Um, you know, I haven't been sainted by the church or anything like that, but I'm a Christian philosopher. It shapes the way I see the world. Emanuel Khan taught me that true or pure philosophy is is is a philosophy prior to um as it were human experience. For Kant the philosophical task was wrapped up in understanding the nature of reason and the apparatus by which we interact with the world. Why that's significant is that once you start interacting with the world, reality speaks back to us. You know, we can learn a lot about our capabilities, our potentialities by doing what Khan calls a transcendental analysis of reason.

But once that reason is employed, you've got decisions you have to make. They have to do with your health. This would be a doctor. Your legal well-being and your finances, that would be a lawyer. Your soul, that might be your pastor or a theologian. you need to have, as it were, um, perspective on these things that is developed in the real world. And so, the reason why I mention the fact that I'm a Christian is because I've looked for many, many years at the big questions at the at the evidence of the various religions and so forth, and I've landed at a belief that Christianity is in fact true.

Now, what version of Christianity and how that plays itself out? We may have some chance to talk about this in the podcast in the weeks and months ahead. Love to do that, but that would be putting the cart before the horse at this point. I'm just trying to say a little bit more about who I am and where I'm coming from in this podcast.

Uh, okay. I'm also a husband. So, philosopher, Christian, husband. I'm married to my wife Beth for now 32 years. Going to be 33 here shortly. She's a better Christian than I. Barely a better person than I in so many ways. But you know, my first piece of advice is to marry well. Um, by God's grace, I was able to do that. She's been so good to me and for me uh as the scriptures say, she's a sanctifying agent in our home. She's been awesome with the kids and uh just uh just an amazing person. We met when I when she was in college and I was doing a master's degree at the same school.

It's called Trinity International University. Actually, the college side of that school no longer exists as of a a few weeks or months ago now. Um, that was in we got married about a year or a year and a half later in 1992. We traveled overseas together. We lived in Hong Kong for about four years and I'd love to tell some of those stories and the insights how to learn from those travels. Um, we uh we then moved to Scotland so I could finish my PhD at the University of Edinburgh. And uh we had our first two children out in Scotland uh Hannah and Matthew. And then I got a job in 1999 back at Trinity International University, believe it or not. Uh there's a lesson to be learned in there about how to find a job. Uh anyway, and then uh and then uh we came back, you know, to take that job and I had three more kids.

Um at that time, you know, my father and mother were both alive. My mom has since passed, but my father's name is Harold Firestone. One of the reasons I moved from Chicago, um from the job I had for 25 years, down here to Arkansas, is that my dad lives here. He's 87 years old. And I really really am just stoked, elated to have the opportunity to spend some of his uh you know twilight years. Uh spend time with him during that time. And so super excited about that. Uh my mom passed about 8 years ago. She's buried uh just about a mile from me uh right here from where I'm shooting.

Um and so I've got deep roots here and that's one of the reasons why I have the opportunity here to do a podcast. So, I'm super excited about that. Um, I'm also the uh I also have a brother. His name is Harold Firestone Jr. Uh, we call him Lee. He lives out in California. Great guy. I don't see him as much as I would like, but uh uh probably lucky for him, you know. Um anyway, leave it at that. As I mentioned, I'm a father of five and I um you know, Andrew and Rebecca and Emma are the three youngest. They they were born here in the States and then Matthew and Hannah are the older ones.

Uh that's a little bit about me. Um I'm I'm just a guy here who worked his way through the academic arena. I've been working my way through life trying to do it the right way, trying to to live the virtuous life and uh you know that is not easy. I don't claim to be anything special but I do hope to be able to share with you some perspectives on life's way here. So what I'd like to do just as an opening gambit if you will here is to talk about one big philosophical question. I don't know if you can see it on the board. I'm still working on the visuals here and the sound and everything else that goes into doing one of these podcasts. Well, but philosophers ask questions and they ask not just the small questions, although they do ask those questions, but they ask the big questions. That's one of the things that makes them so troubling to people sometimes that they ask these big questions that nobody has an answer to.

William James once even defined philosophy as that asking questions that we don't have answers to our sort of corporate satisfaction. That means they're unanswered questions. And that's what the kinds of questions that philosophers typically work on. When they become when we get answers to those questions, they usually become other disciplines. Remember, psychology wasn't even a field uh 300 years ago. But because philosophers asked questions and we got answers to those questions and sufficient sort of mass of answers to those questions, it broke off into its own branch of study called psychology.

So any of you guys who are, you know, ever watch Dr. Phil or um Jordan Peterson or some of those types of figures will see psychologists who wouldn't have even been alive or around or uh wouldn't even have had a field of study if you will uh 300 years ago. But that's because philosophy asks the big questions. When it gets answers, it breaks them into separate studies. That's why the PhD, the doctor of philosophy is the terminal degree in multiple fields because they all stemmed from the tree of philosophy. I mention all this because some of those big questions are out there. You know, the big questions, you know, what is the meaning of life?

Who am I? Uh Jean Paulatra's question, why is there something and not nothing? I mean, that one boggles my mind. I mean almost puts me in a coma when I start thinking about that question like whoa. Uh but the question I think that the Greeks raised and the one I want to at least begin with here is what is the nature of ultimate reality? Sometimes when I raise this question in class, you know, people scratch their heads, but the question could be put something like this. Every there's lots of contingent things.

you know, I can burn up this table and things degrade and and everything is is is mutating and changing and nothing that is here today will be here there here tomorrow at least not in the same way. Um so if all else fades away, what remains? That would be another way of asking the same question. What's the nature of ultimate reality? And um the uh the prescratic philosophers were I don't know how do I put this? They were just um focused in on this question. You know what what what is the true nature of reality? We see various manifestations of it but those things are all contingent and what's here today is gone tomorrow. What is enduring about reality? What makes reality different than non-reality?

Well, as is often told in introduction to philosophy class, and I think rightfully so, the prescratics zeroed in on some of what they would call the primary elements. I'm thinking particularly here of um you know, air, earth, water, and fire. those those uh those four uh in particular uh if you think of let's start with uh air for example um that was axiominis he argued that air is the most plentiful substance if you thin it out he says it becomes fire and if you thicken it becomes water and then solid it has this pervasive quality seems to be everywhere where and it is probably the ultimate reality is probably something like air.

Um if you look at water, the first philosopher actually of ancient Greece often times is attributed to be Thales. Thales thought that water had properties that made it a candidate for being ultimately real. Water for example can take the form of anything that it comes in contact with. Like this this um uh uh mug here. You put water in, it takes the shape of that. Water is also the basis of life. It's on the sort of cutting edge between the organic and the inorganic. Um Thales thought that all life begins in the moist as it were. Um and so um water is a great possibility for the nature of ultimate reality. Um Democratus thought it was earth. Earth he was like thought of as the first atomist that there must be some fundamental thing that can't be further broken down.

Excuse me, the atom. And if you put atoms together in certain sorts of ways, you're going to get the the sort of vast pantheon of objects in the world. And so that is a possibility as well. And then the last one there was um was fire. Uh this is Heracletus. Heracletus famous philos. I would love to have named one of my kids Heracletus. I don't think my wife would have gone for you. Imagine that. Heracletus Firestone. I mean it's got some got some real potency to it. Anyway, Eric Cletus noticed something about the nature of reality and that he's famous for that quotation, you can't step into the same river twice.

Similarly, you can't look at the same fire twice. You know, you get a bunch of guys together and um they they typically will gather around a fire. There's something mesmerizing about a fire. I know we had block parties when I used to live in Deerfield, Illinois. and uh block parties, the ladies be putting out all the food and the guys will be mowing the lawn and kind of doing their thing. But you put a fire out there, suddenly the, you know, the guys are like moths attracted to the fire. Something about a fire that is symbolic of the nature of reality that what is here today is gone tomorrow.

Everything is in constant mutation and change and everything is corrupting as it were. everything is uh um um um not enduring you might say and fire is a great symbol of that. It can burn up virtually anything if it gets hot enough. It is uh ultimate reality shows the kind of flux change mutation that fire represents. And so Heracles thought that was a fine candidate for the nature of ultimate reality. Now one thing to keep in mind when I talk about that is these aren't dummies. These guys are brilliant philosophical minds. I don't think that they thought that there was a literal ultimate reality like fire is ultimate reality or air is ultimate reality where is is a literal one to one correspondence. What they're basically saying is there are qualities about those primary substances or those primary elements would be a a more appropriate way of putting that that symbolize something essential to the nature of reality.

And that is very insightful. There's something about that metaphor or that symbol that teaches us something about the nature of things. Reality is in flux and change. Heracletus there are fundamental components of the nature of things. Democrus um the it does seem to be all pervasive and everywhere reality as it were it seems to go as far as the eye can see. Uh this would be axi minis and air. And then there is something about the inorganic and the organic that both separates them and unites them with one another. And this is where water comes in. So there's something deeply insightful and meaningful by just contemplating reality from the perspective of these elements.

If you press on beyond the prescratics and you go to a philosopher like Aristotle, he thought that the reality had two different major components. One was the mundane or the earthly. The other was the heavenly realm. in his cosmology was really interesting in that regard. It wasn't until we got to Sir Isaac Newton that that model of reality was finally put to rest that it that there isn't that kind of bifurcation between the stars and and the earth for example. But he did reason that whatever is behind all of this must have a quality that is trans is divine.

That is something even sort of a beyond those four elements and their ability to give us insight into the nature of reality. He called that element ether. And so let's call that the fifth element. There was a great movie called the fifth element at one point that we have these four what I would call mundane elements and then we have this fifth element that is an attempt to sort of capture encapsulate um the uh the sort of um holy or divine component of reality. Now those are all fascinating uh examples of how the ancient mind tried to grapple with the question what is it what is the nature of ultimate reality?

Well, it has a little bit of all of those things present in it in some way. Um, and that's an interesting insight and something uh worth u considering when we when when the great philosophers of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle really sort of landed the ship on this question. They were I call them the uh the uh Michael Jordan and LeBron James of the intellectual uh Greek world because they were the the two goats, right? That this ongoing question, who's the greatest, Michael Jordan or LeBron James? Maybe by the time you're watching this podcast 10 years from now, there's going to be some other name in that mix.

There'll be three of them. Um but uh we're going to talk about them and probably pretty soon actually. Plato's idea that forms or ideas are ultimately real and Aristotle's um final insight you might say that form and matter in a kind of synthesis are what is ultimately real. Um but we're going to bracket that for a moment. That's kind of getting ahead of ourselves. We have these five principal elements and uh they all say something about the nature of ultimate reality.

Now why those five elements uh you know why I wanted to start with that question is not only is it chronologically in the western intellectual tradition important to start there but as I'm introducing the Firestone Files and some of the major characters that I'm going to be talking about the core of those major characters are my kids and maybe my wife and one or two other friends that you'll hear about along the way but my kids and I have five kids and I did a thought experiment experiment about those five primary elements and how they each relate to one of my kids.

And so that's how I'd like to introduce at least those five persons to you because you'll be hearing more about them as the weeks go on. Um so let's start with my youngest. He's most on my mind right now because he's uh back from college and he's at home for the summer and his name is Andrew. He's 18 years old. He's smart, super smart.

He's an engineering student uh going into his sophomore year now. He's tall. He's just about as tall as me. He may well pass me as the tallest in the Firestone family soon. He's good-looking. He's athletic. He's lively, energetic, flexible. I like to think of him as water. Now, why is that? The symbolism to me is pretty clear. He's an adaptable guy. He's he's very intuitive. He's always refreshing and renewing himself. He's working out a lot. He's always um trying out new ideas. He's been learning the piano by himself lately, which has been kind of interesting in our home. Now, we don't have that big a home.

And boy, it rings out when he's home. And funny thing is, he's never had any lessons as far as I know. He's just taught himself a whole bunch of songs just by playing the piano. Um he's got a kind of emotional depth to him that wells up every once in a while. And water symbolizes to me that kind of vitality. Um a few stories about him stick out. You'll hear more on this along the way, I'm sure. Um used to take him mountain biking all the time. In fact, he's kind of grown up mountain biking. I used to come down to Arkansas to mountain bike to visit my parents and now I live here permanently.

But uh it's funny his transition because we started out with him in a trailer uh one of these little trailers looking backward from my bike a yellow trailer hooked up to the back of my seat and I would take him sometime take him and his sister in that trailer and go through the mountains here in Arkansas. There's a particular uh worldass set of trails here near Hot Springs called the Northwoods and I'd be flying along with them. And what made that so cool was they get to like go on one of dad's adventures, but um and they would do so happily honestly.

But uh I could take on some pretty tough uh mountain hills and stuff because one of the major dangers in mountain biking is flipping, right? You take over something that's, you know, maybe too steep for you, you can throw the bike, but you can't do that with a trailer. You see, it's it's it's beautiful for that. So they would ride with me in that trailer.

We upgraded that and Andrew upgraded with me to a what do they call those? Tandem bikes where I put one of those tandem seats on the back and he would ride with this is like 10 years old. He'd ride with me through the mountains again. I couldn't throw the mountain bike because I had little Andrew on the back pedaling away going over some pretty significant mountain uh uh uh passes together. And then um I think it was somewhere in the 10 to 12 range where like his consciousness kind of woke up. He says, "Dad, what are we doing out in these mountains? This is dangerous."

Well, I knew then that he was ready for the regular bike. And so, uh he transitioned at that point to a a a uh a Trek mountain bike that I've been using for years. And um it doesn't have any shocks or anything. He he in fact he rode that bike I don't know for like five six years through the mountains without any real suspension or it wasn't really that great a bike but he didn't know any better. He was just glad to be out of the trailer I think. And so um that's just a little bit about him. I the irony of him being in that trailer though isn't lost on me because one thing about Andrew he of all my kids is the most like me. Everybody knows this.

were not only at the same height, got the same good looks. Uh, no, no, that's not right. Uh, anyway, but he in the anagram, he's a seven. I'm a seven. Um, you know, it there's some interesting personality traits that people have noticed that were similar to each other. And so, just like he was trailing me on the mountain bikes, he's kind of trailing me in the family tree as well. All right. Well, the second child is Rebecca Firestone. She's 21 years old and she's going to be a senior in college here soon. I think she's studying data science or data analysis. And uh what a what a great person.

I hers is pretty obvious as well, maybe even more obvious than Andrews. And that is she's like the primary element fire. We had a funny experience um where I introduced her to one of my bosses and in my previous job and he was a V pre VP and he said woo that after after he met her and she'd left he goes woo that Rebecca she's fiery. I told Rebecca that she didn't know if sorry she didn't know if she should be um you know uh uh you know happy with that comment or should you be upset with that comment but it's true about her.

She's a She's a um a a brutal a beautiful brunette. Doesn't have the red hair, so that doesn't exactly fit, but she's thoughtful, athletic, energetic, and very intense. She knows where she wants to go in life, and she knows how to get there. And hell or high water won't get in her way, she's going to get there. And um the symbolism of fire in her case is pretty obvious to me as well. the passion, the transformation of fire, the way it can you purify things, the energy, the destructive component, but also the rebirth component of fire.

Um, she is a a cross-country runner, and nobody actually saw that coming as she was going into high school, but she took on this running thing, and she never stopped for like eight years. She's runs collegiately uh with a very good team and so forth. I mean, the the the element of fire both in her personality and in her conviction is obvious to me. Early on, she insisted uh one one of the things that I'll never forget was she used to come into the house. This is back in 2019, and she she keeps track on world events and she goes, "Have you guys heard of this virus out in China?

I mean, I think we should keep our eye on this thing. I I you know, I've been looking at it. I think it's going to be trouble." And we all like, "Oh yeah, Becca, you you see a lot of stuff in the world and what what could this possibly be?" Well, it soon became within 6 months what's called the Corona virus or the uh the uh the COVID 19 or more contentiously the China virus. Um, and it became not only a serious problem with an earthshaking event and um, can read about in the history books at this point, but very early on, very perceptive, very fiery, very clear-minded on what she thought was likely to transpire.

So, I'll never forget that about Rebecca. The next daughter is she's our middle daughter because we have a boy girl combination as number one and two, and we have a boy girl combination as four and five. And right in the middle is Emma. Emma's the third child. She's 24 years old uh at the time of taping here. She's a beautiful blonde. I think she's the only blonde in the group. She's athletic, personable, optimistic, very introverted, but she bubbles up with great personality when you approach her.

And I think you can probably guess which element uh I would attribute to her. I can Why don't we hit this stop right now and you can think about it. Okay, we're back. Yes. Um, she's like air and that does not a put down just because she's a blonde. She's a freeloving sort of carefree spirit. She's intellect shockingly actually intellectual. Um, you know, when you when you first get to know her, you think, oh, bubbly blonde, probably doesn't know all that much. But no, she's deeply smart and intellectual. She loves communication. In particular, though, she doesn't necessarily like oral communication. and she loves to write.

Uh very adaptable, always writing, always jotting down in her journals, always trying to uh uh see the world from a unique vantage point. And so that's pretty cool. Um lots of stories about Emma, I could tell. Uh but one that uh will live in Firestone family folklore for years to come was the day she and I were driving down the highway and just talking. A great fatheraughter uh front seat conversation. She was driving. I was in the passenger seat and um lo and behold, uh we get into this uh construction zone. I'm like, "Uh, Emma, slow this thing down. Police cars." And she starts tapping the cruise control.

But you can't just tap a cruise control, at least not on the car we have. You have to kind of hold it down and or use your brake. Just tapping it doesn't really it drops it like a mile an hour with each tap if you're lucky. Um I saw at least six squad cars fly past us and I put my hand down. I go, "Oh no." Yep. She got pulled over, was doing some uh astronomical speed through through the construction zone. And um yeah, the the police officer was great. He he said, "Look, I can't not give you a ticket." I mean, we had like a thousand witnesses here.

You blowing through this thing. But that was just Emma. She was just telling a story, just loving, you know, the conversation and kind of lost track of what was going on. So, um, we ended up making that ride. I had to drive back down with her to go to her court, a mandatory court case because it was a construction zone violation. And, uh, we made it through that. I'll probably tell that story again sometime because I learned a lot of lessons. I think she did, um, through that event. But, that was Emma. She's living in Chicago uh right now. She's an aspiring writer and doing a lot of odd jobs trying to make that work. And so uh that's Emma uh Firestone. Then there's Matthew Firestone. He's the fourth. I guess he's the second oldest. Uh he's he's 26 years old.

He strikes me as an obvious Earth candidate. Why is that? Earth symbolizes stability, a groundedness, something that endures, something that's reliable, something you can stand on. And that's Matthew. He's a super deep thinker. He doesn't like to answer questions immediately without giving it some thought. And then when he does finally answer, it's worth listening to. Very resilient. I mean, shockingly resilient. I've never seen of all my kids who get, you know, in life, you get knocked down now and then and then will you get back up? That kid got back up over and over again. I was like, dang, how many times a guy going to go down and still get back up?

I'm going um give you one example before I go on with that s symbolism. Uh one of the sports that he got involved with in high school um was wrestling. Now, he's not a great wrestler. I mean, I don't know. He didn't spend that much time. He spent a year or two years doing wrestling and really just loved it. I could count on all of his matches on one hand how many times he won. I think that I was there. But man, he would never give up. He'd always come back. You know, if you if I were five and 25, you know, in wrestling, I would have gave up like, you know, after the first five matches, I don't know, but not Matthew.

The guy just keeps coming at I just loved watching his tenacity and his fearlessness and going out there. So, you really going to take that guy on and yeah, I'm going out there to take him on. Oh, hey son, you got pinned. How'd that happen? No. Anyway, um but that just shows you something about his character. Um he knows that in order to grow you've got to take risks and you got to take on challenges and that was him. Um he was uh you know he went into gymnastics as well. He was much better by the way in gymnastics. Uh one thing he used to do a lot of was parkour type activities and climbing.

I took him climbing many many places. He would climb mountain sides. He'd climb you know the backs of bleachers. He'd climb uh walls. He'd climb cliffs. I mean, he'd climb uh anything. I think that was probably his best sport. Although to his parents, the most dangerous and the most like probably the one that we were least happy about. Um we tried to do some uh internet stuff with that. At one point, I called him Batman and uh took videos of him planking in some pretty remarkable places. One of them he planks on top of a basketball rim. And it's it's pretty impressive stuff. But uh he also played other sports and he had that same kind of resiliency. He wasn't always gifted in those sports. He always had the best form but didn't necessarily have the best follow through. I think of baseball for one for years. He played you know uh minor league base not minor league what would you call it?

the uh the the baseball basically from ages let's say 8 to 13 in that range and I was trying to be the beautiful dad. I was the assistant baseball coach on four different teams with him. What was interesting about that is he's a great teammate. The kind of guy you want on your team even though his skill set was less than you know what we would have wanted uh in in some of the positions he played. Uh he was he he he he always tried hard. He was always a great teammate. And um believe it or not, in those four years they went to this is a 16 team league in a pretty competitive baseball area in the north side of Chicago.

He won the championship three out of the four times and the fourth time they lost in the championship game. All on different teams. And honestly, I think that something to do with him. He was the kind of guy you wanted there, even though he wasn't going to be the guy who hit the game-winning home run. I remember one year he scored the game-winning run in the in the championship game cuz he walked. He worked up a walk, got on base, and made his way around and came in for the game-winning run. I mean, that's the kind of guy he is. Um, currently he's a special forces operator in the military, and uh really can't say any more about that or he'd probably uh find a way to take me out. Anyway, the last one, the last but not least is Hannah Firestone.

She's 27 at the time of uh taping here. She's the firstborn. I always have a special place in my heart for Hannah because her first born, you always seem to remember most the firstborn because they're the ones who you first noticed when they talked or you first noticed when they did this, that or the other thing. After you've had a second, third, fourth, and fifth, parenting changes. what you notice changes. You know, you move from being a helicopter parent to a freerange parent. At least that was, you know, something like our experience. Hannah's a beautiful woman now. Uh she's the only one that's married. She's auburn hair, super smart.

Oh my goodness. Um, yeah. I if you could, you know, if I was God and I was trying to orchestrate the perfect family, I would have my firstborn be a kind of Hannah every time. Very gifted, very concerned for her siblings, very perceptive and very accomplished like a firstborn oftentimes is. Um, this is why Ether I think kind of suits her. She has a kind of set aartness about her, a kind of glow to her or her personality. It's almost like softspoken. But if you put something a task or something in front of her, one thing you can be sure of is it's going to get done.

It's going to get done well. Uh what what an amazing person. And what a gift to me personally to have these kinds of kids. And Hannah's the first and then others trail right behind her because that becomes super useful to uh to parents over time. They can watch their siblings. They can contribute to them. They can even contribute to the well-being of the parents and of the whole household and of the extended family. And Hannah was all of those things and more over the years. I could tell so many stories and I will tell so many stories as these podcasts go along.

Um I'm just thinking what what would I say for now? Let me just say one thing because it'll tie into my dad. My dad owns a tax business here in Hot Springs. And Hannah worked super hard in high school so she could graduate technically, I guess, after her fall year, a fall of her se uh fall semester of her senior year. And that enabled her to come down and work taxes with my dad for one semester in her final semester in in high school. And then she went back and graduated. That just tells you all you need to know about her. Really wanted that legacy experience with her grandfather.

I super appreciated it because I love to see those generational connections and she learned the tax business and that kind of fed into her growth. She's uh she went on to study uh uh finance and economics in graduate school and college and in graduate school. And I don't take that to be an accident. That's sort of the trajec trajectory that she went on. But that's just one story about her that is very impressive that she came down spent the entire semester doing taxes with him. And uh that kind of um legacy experience is just invaluable to everyone and was I believe to Hannah as well.

Okay. Well, those are some of the characters that uh are going to be featured here along the way. Um, feel free to ask me any more questions or fill in some gaps. I'm sure there's tons of gaps to fill in, but this is the Firestone Files letters to my future grandchildren. It's going to have lessons. It's going to have stories.

It's going to have insights. I hope philosophy is the thread that pulls it all together. But not just philosophy. It'll be peppered with Christian insight. But it'll be animated by relationships, family, love. Because these things are the real meaning and currency of life. The way I understand it, you see, everyone starts as a philosopher, I believe, because my definition of philosophy is the perspective of the spell self based on reason and freedom. But we don't often stay there. Some of us atrophy, some of us grow, some of us become what God intended us to be. others of us struggle to ever get there or even have a hope of getting there.

And uh but hopefully this podcast will help us to think those things through a little more carefully and do so in a sort of precise way as we dig into particular issues that um that uh um that we encounter on Life's Way. Um, I guess if I'm going to be completely transparent, these are this is my attempt to archive some of my best ideas for future generations. I've been I started to interview my father, you know, I think several months ago, and what dawned on me in that experience was how difficult it is to remember and to in a timely way and in an applicable way. So, while I still have my faculties and while I've still got energy and really want to uh uh uh uh address some of these issues, I'd like to do this in this archival way.

Um, all right. Well, that's it for now. I uh so greatly appreciate you taking the time to watch this podcast. I'm sure it'll be hit and miss along the way, but know that every time I'm going to try my best to raise an important question and give some seasoned perspective on it and to try to help us just a little bit uh get further on on life's way together. All right. Well, that's it for now. Blessings to you. Hope to see you soon. Thanks for stopping by to spend some time with me here on the Firestone Files. I hope today's reflections offered you some new insights and perspective on life.

If you enjoyed the episode or found it valuable, I'd appreciate it if you'd take a moment to like, subscribe, and share it with someone you care about. I'd also love to hear your thoughts. What resonated with you? What challenged you? Or what would you like to hear more about in future episodes? Drop a comment below or send in your suggestions to the email in the description. Your input helps shape where we go next. This has been Dr. Chris Firestone. Until next time, keep asking the big questions and remember, the kingdom journey is always best with your friends. Further up and further in. Bye for now.

It's turn around.