I think we tend to think of ritual.

Even just the word ritual.

We think of it as this like lifeless,

performative, like dull, rigid thing.

It's like a pejorative, like a ritualistic invocation.

The ritualistic, right.

It's like it's this wrote thing that we kind of inherit

and like do without thinking.

And you know, we didn't think of it ourselves.

We didn't come up with it ourselves.

So therefore it's like an authentic or meaningless

or just this like dusty inheritance from the past.

It's like museum piece.

But I mean, frankly, I would argue

and I would argue on the basis of the lived experience

of this community that I talk about in the book.

Really, it's just the opposite.

Ritual is like an excuse to perform

the deepest things that we believe, right?

To kind of practice being the kind of community

that we wish we could be all of the time.

It gives us this sort of script,

...