Vika Krieger

But I think there's like something about like growing up in a cultural milieu where like people have intellectual conversations.

Like I thought the word panacea and panache were the same word.

Yeah.

And so but but, you know, it was definitely like my intellectual horizons were like totally broadened.

But like I still prayed three times a day.

I still studied Talmud with a friend like two hours a day.

I still kept Shabbat and kosher.

So like I had this sort of cultural mind blowing moment.

But then I also like kind of kept doing my thing.

Yeah.

And like maybe partially attributed to my upbringing in L.A.

where there wasn't this like strict binary of like either you're this way or you're this way.

But it was the sense of like if these practices are meaningful, you can keep doing them and do other things that don't conflict with those practices.

Right.

But have you ever heard of the concept called the second naivete?

No.

It's this like French philosopher, Paul Ricoeur.

He kind of like traces a version of that arc that you just traced, but it's got a slightly different twist to it, which is like the first naivete is like you grow up and you learn about the God in the sky and you pray to this God to do good things for you, da-da-da-da-da.

And then there's like a second phase, which is like, it all comes crashing down and you have this realization or you learn like, holy shit, like, all this is bullshit.

Religion is constructed by all these people with nefarious agendas, like, screw this.