Transcript:
Journey Beyond Doubt
Hello everyone, welcome back to Journey Beyond Doubt. Our guest today is Justin Cale II, a leather worker, entrepreneur, activist and the founder of the House of Cale, where he creates hand-crafted leather armor and accessories while helping aspiring creative through his online archive and the House of Cale chronicles.
Beyond his work as an artist, Justin has first-hand experience in politics. Having served as a logistics manager for the Jenn Mack campaign in Texas, his unique background gives him insights in political communication, the challenges facing independent candidates and the rapidly changing relationship between technology, creativity and society at large.
As someone who has grown up during the rise of social media and now witnessed the emergence of artificial intelligence, Justin has become increasingly passionate about the future of human creativity.
He raises important questions about AI impacts on artists, authentic human connection and what it means to future generations when technology begins replacing meaningful relationships.
Today we will discuss creativity, craftsmanship, politics, artificial intelligence, social media and why preserving our humanity may become one of the greatest challenge of our time.
You’re welcome to the show, Justin. It’s a privilege to have you with us today.
Justin Cale II
Thank you very much. It’s an honor to be here.
Journey Beyond Doubt
All right, let’s dive in, Justin. You’ve built a business creating handcrafted leather armor and accessories through House of Cale.
What inspired you to pursue such a unique craft and what does creating something by hand mean to you?
Justin Cale II
Thank you for the question. Yes. When I first started, I wanted looking for some, I was looking for something to do in the art sector.
I was trying to be a hand artist where I would use, you know, standard pen and paper.
And then I realized that it was an oversaturated market. There was already tons of people doing that.
There would be no room for me. And the same thing was true for digital art.
So I instead went a different route. And the route that I took instead was leather work.
And what got me into that was I’d my father, he creates leather work as well.
And he’s created armor sets. And so he showed me the basics and I decided that I really enjoyed this.
And this would give me the opportunity to do something that I haven’t done before.
And I have I can make money with so that I can support myself through my ventures.
So on the, to answer your question on how handcrafted work and what it means to me, how I do that and what it means to me.
I will say that there’s a difference between working, doing something with your hands and say simply working on digital art or working on pen and paper.
Um, when you’re working with something on your hands, you can feel the texture, you can feel the variation in and you can feel exactly how your tooling is impacting the final product.
You can see the changes as they’re being made.
And when you have a finished product, it’s not a flat 2D piece of, um, art.
It is something 3D. It’s something real that is in the world.
It has dimension. It has character. It has shape.
And that’s something I realized was much more valuable to me personally than a lot of the stuff that I might see instead on social media where it consists of simple.
There’s no feeling to it. There’s nothing tactile about it.
It’s simply me watching through a screen, almost living vicariously through whatever creator is on the other side of it.
Journey Beyond Doubt
Wow. This is beautiful. Thank you for sharing this. I’m really enjoying this already.
All right. You also worked as logistic manager for an independent political campaign.
What did that experience teach you about leadership, communication, and the realities of modern politics?
Justin Cale II
Well, the biggest thing to consider, um, there’s two things I will say with that.
The first I will say on leadership the things that I picked up on that.
And the second thing will be on independent politics particularly in the United States.
So, to your question on what I learned in the experience, I’m young.
A lot of people my age have this kind of notion where we’ll be able to get in and immediately fix all the problems.
You know, it’s this rush to do things fast, fast, fast.
Where, in reality, you have to take time to understand the environment, to understand relationships, and understand people.
And once you’re able to do that, you’re you get an ability to observe and to strategize effectively.
And, you know, something’s being done a certain way.
You take a step back and you analyze, okay, why is it being done like this in the first place?
Versus just jumping to, oh, I can fix this.
And this is something that I learned through trial and error on the campaign.
Um, and, and leadership, that’s something that I’ll be able to take with me in any future position where I have the opportunity to lead people.
And so, being, you know younger than a lot of the people I was working with also gave me a, a pressure to overperform, I think, in my own head.
But that, you know, fuels the need to do things quickly, quickly, versus taking the time to think deeply about a problem.
So, that’s something to me that has really shaped my, is shaping my formative years.
And, um, the second thing I’ll say is what you asked about independent politics.
Um, and with this it’s important to understand that an independent campaign is something that is particularly difficult.
Because there’s tons of red tape put in by the two-party system.
There’s Democrats, Republicans who, um, make it to where ballot access is something that you have to get through an arduous process of petition signatures.
And you are only able to do that between a certain window.
And then, if you have a smudge on the paper and the signatures, all of a sudden that overrides the entire sheet.
And so, there’s tons of red tape that prevents independent candidates from getting on the ballot in the first place.
And that’s something that in logistics becomes particularly important, especially when you have to have verbal disclaimers as to, you know the, you have to have verbal disclaimers when telling people exactly, you know, what the law is relating to hey, you know, you’re signing a petition for independent candidate.
And, um, this is what it means.
You have to give a verbal disclaimer before every signature.
And that’s something that makes it particularly difficult.
Whereas, if you have party infrastructure, that’s something that you can bypass that entire process.
And it becomes much more likely you’ll be funded by large political action committees or PACs.
So, there’s just much more roadblocks when it comes to independent candidate ballot access, um, which is why it’s not seen as much.
I, I like to say that if there’s one thing the two parties agree upon, it’s preventing any other party from getting on the ballot.
Journey Beyond Doubt
Wow.
This is beautiful.
Thank you for sharing that.
All right.
Moving on.
I would like to ask you, one concern you’ve expressed is the possibility of children forming stronger relationship with AI.
Uh, AI just bought than with real people.
Why do you believe that issue deserves more attention?
Justin Cale II
I think that it ties back to fundamental issues that we still haven’t resolved relating to social media where people start to develop almost parasocial relationships, um, with their favorite creators where they feel almost like they know them.
When that’s something that is in practice, it’s something that is very harmful because what ends up happening is people will look to not the people in their real lives, but to these creators.
And that’s a very detrimental, particularly to the kids who need to learn, not just what’s on a screen, but body language cues.
They need to learn verbal cues and how to interact with people versus just being told something from one end of a screen to another that makes put somebody in the position of passive observer versus active participant in their own lives.
And I think that AI is an extension of this to some degree where artificial intelligence chatbots give you by design, very agreeable.
And so what this means is that they’ll agree with everything you say.
You’re more likely to talk to them than somebody who is in your real life.
Well, they have bad days.
They disagree with you on things.
They might not like everything you have to say.
And so that becomes much more difficult to when somebody can just go, okay, I’ll just vent my problems to this chatbot versus venting to another person.
So these are unresolved accountability issues, particularly with social media.
I think AI chatbots are an extension of this problem and it’s a symptom of much wider detachment for a lot of young people, um, from the physical real world and brings it back to just dependent on a machine for social interaction.
And that’s one of the reasons why I have gone the route where I want to make something physical, something real that I can take to events where there are other people like Renaissance fairs or comic cons, because there’s the opportunity to meet people and interact in person that you don’t necessarily get in most modern contexts where we can whether it be deliver our food and get our food through Uber eats.
We can get our groceries the same way we can, um, so we don’t have to go out to even just vaguely interact with people.
And the more that that becomes available, the more people are becoming more and more reclusive.
And in the long term, I think that’ll be ultimately detrimental to not only just this generation, but to Western civilization is people lose the ability to interact with each other.
Journey Beyond Doubt
Wow.
This is beautiful.
This is great.
Thank you for sharing.
Justin Cale II
All right.
Um, just then lastly, I would want to ask you if every listener walked away from today’s conversation, remembering just one lesson about creativity, technology, and preserving our humanity.
What would you want the message to be?
Make something and make something with other people.
And that I think is the ultimate crux of my belief system.
That is the fundamental, um, belief that I have, that that’s something that’s important and something that’s being threatened by the lack of accountability from whether it be social media companies, AI companies, which have completely disregarded this responsibility.
That they’ve that they’ve gotten for themselves by creating the infrastructure through which we communicate.
And so I think that the one lesson is make something if, you know, it’s expensive to start, say, a leather as a hobby or sewing as a hobby.
So maybe draw something and, and show it to somebody.
Maybe even if it’s not, um, something that is the best.
Well, you know what?
It’s something that you made and it’s something that can help connect you to other people.
And so I think that that’s the number one thing that I’ll say is I’ve been noticing a lot of people becoming more and more occlusive as a result of technology.
And I think that that’s a major issue, especially as, you know, time marches on and people lose connection with one another.
Community is key for any successful group, whether that be a school project,
whether that be a work project, whether that be the functioning of a city council or a state or a nation.
It starts with community.
Community is key.
Make something.
Journey Beyond Doubt
Wow.
This is beautiful.
Now, before we conclude, do you have a website so you people can explore more of your works?
Justin Cale II
Yes, you can look up my work and what I do at houseofcale.com and that’s Cale with a C, um, like the vegetable.
So houseofcale.com.
You can find everything that I’m doing on there.
And I have a newsletter, um, that you can sign up for, which keeps you up to date on the social media and, um, the things that I’m posting, what I’m making in real time.
My armor tutorials to get you started as well.
Practical advice.
If you’re going to Renaissance Faires, comic cons or something you know, starting a new hobby.
These are things that I’m actively building out, um, at the house of kale and in our newsletter, you’ll get updates on those.
Journey Beyond Doubt
Wow.
This is beautiful.
Thank you so much.
Yes.
Thank you for joining us today on journey beyond doubt and for sharing your unique perspective on creativity, technology, politics, and importance of human connection.
Today’s conversation reminds us that while technology will continue to evolve, our greatest strength will always be our ability to create, connect, and think for ourselves.
Now, for everyone listening, if you would like to, um, explore Justin’s work, learn about his creative projects and stay updated on everything he’s building, be sure to visit the link that I will attach on the show notes.
Thank you once again for joining us, Justin.
It’s a pleasure having you with us today.
Justin Cale II
Thank you very much.
I really appreciate it.
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