Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 312: Greg Fitzsimmons

Episode Date: November 10, 2018

Greg Fitzsimmons, comedian, comedy writer, and host of [Fitzdog Radio](https://gregfitzsimmons.com/podcast/) returns to the DTFH and we go deep!!! TRAUMA! PTSD! KETAMINE! MIRACLES! It's all here… This episode is brought to you by [Charlotte's Web CBD Oil](https://www.cwhemp.com/) (use offer code DUNCAN for 10% off your order). This episode is also brought to you by Simple Contacts. Visit [simplecontacts.com/duncan20](http://www.simplecontacts.com/duncan20) and use code duncan20 at checkout for $20 off your first order!

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And listen to this. I was taught by Benji from Chantala at a meditation retreat this past weekend. How to sort of do, like, tube on throat singing. A friend taught me once before, but I didn't quite understand it. But I'm going to teach you how to do it. It's kind of cool. It's a fantastic way to freak your dogs out, maybe

annoy the people around you a little bit. Here's how you do it. You make the E. OK, that's the first part. And then you add an R to it, right? So you're making the E sound, but you're making the R shape with your mouth. And the way Benji explained this to me is, and this is someone who studied under Ali Akbar Khan.

This is like an incredible musician. And he explained this to me in line to a buffet. So forgive me if I'm, I don't know. I don't know how to do it, obviously. I'm not up in the homolias. I'm not in Tibet. I'm not sitting in some snow cave. I'm not drinking mountain rain out of a skull bowl.

But here's what here's how it sounds. This is from practicing three times. E. Now, as any great student, one of the things I like to do is to improvise. And so here's what I figured out. Not only if when you make the E sound and add an R to it, you get that very interesting, warbly,

wind chime inside your mouth sound. But if you put your finger in your butt while you're doing it, it makes this sound. E. OK, I'm going to put my finger in my butt. E. Now, this is where it gets fascinating. Watch what happens when we put in three.

E. Isn't that wild? It's like with each finger, there appears to be almost another voice added to the mix. And even though I didn't want to, I had to find out. What happens if we go full fist? And this was maybe one of the most amazing musical discoveries of my life.

Take a listen. E. All right, here we go. Good people don't smoke marijuana. E. I don't know if it's just my imagination, but when I put my entire fist in my ass and do Tuvan throat singing, it sounds like former attorney

general Jeff Sessions talking about marijuana. Maybe it's just in my head. I could be having some kind of confirmation bias or something like that. But just to be sure, I'm going to do it again. OK. E. I'm not sure we're going to be a better, healthier nation

than if we have marijuana being sold at every corner grocery store. I just don't think that's going to be a good for us. Yeah, that's definitely former attorney general Jeff Sessions talking about weed. I guess you learn some every day. We've got a fantastic podcast for you today. The great Greg Fitzsimmons is here with us.

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But she continues to use simple contacts to this very day. My darlings, I know what you're thinking. I want to hear you talk for an hour straight. Your voice is like honey. It resonates like the booming wolf of mythology that we read about that blew the world into existence. Also, maybe you don't want to hear me do these rambling things up front.

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I saw George Carlin once at the comedy store, and it was the weirdest thing to watch the room get filled with this incredible, beautiful energy. That's what you get when you go and see a really good comedian, which is why if you ask me, it's always better to go see live comedy than to listen to it. In fact, it's almost two completely different things. Today's guest is the type of comic

that creates some specific infernal slash holy mystical energy in the room when he performs. I love watching him at the comedy store. He's also got a fantastic podcast slash radio show called fitsdog.com. But mainly, here's the thing. If you happen to be in San Francisco tonight, even though I don't know when I'm going to release this or

tomorrow, which is November 10th, definitely going to release it by then, go see him. He's performing there. He's also going to be a few other places, November 15th to 17th at the Comedy Works in Denver, November 23rd to the 25th at the Improv and Brea, December 28th to the 30th at Levity Live, and December 31st at the Helium Comedy Club in Portland, which is a,

to me, that's, if you're going to go out on New Year's Eve, Jesus Christ, that's the only thing you should do. Fly to Portland, wherever you may be. Okay, friends, without further ado, please welcome to the Dunkin' Trestle family, our podcast, Greg Fitzsimmons. Sorry, you can't watch. It's the Dunkin' Trestle family.

It's the Dunkin' Trestle family. Greg, welcome back to the GTAivens. We're coming over here, man. We were just talking about ketamine therapy, the depression. Yeah. Yeah. Did we talk about it in the last podcast?

I didn't know that was something you wrestle with. Oh yeah, I've wrestled with depression my whole life. My dad had it. He died at 52. My mom's got it. And I take meds. I meditate every day. I try to work out.

What meds do you take? Lemectal. I don't actually like to talk about it because if people are wondering what'll work for them, I don't want them saying, oh, I should use it. I don't want to be a commercial for any drug. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, that's a bad mistake for people to make.

Anytime, man, like anytime I start using the internet or the advice of someone I hear in a podcast to like help me figure out my medications, but it's bad. That's dangerous. I go to a doctor, you're gonna fuck yourself up. Oh yeah, and if I say it, I should have to say, you may experience dripping from your anus.

People bleeding. Yeah, when he passed, was it related to depression? Well, sort of. He was an alcoholic and he smoked three packs a day and he died of a heart attack. So I think it was very related to his overall unhappiness, I think the way he medicated himself. And yeah, I mean, I think it was the cigarettes

that probably made his heart give out. Was he a vet? Did he go to war? No, he had trauma though. Okay. Yeah, he had childhood trauma. Yeah, fuck, man, depression is such the, it's just like the worst thing.

I was, I don't mean to like, you're right here, but we were talking about ketamine therapy and for depression, which I have used to treat my depression, which I have, like I've had a recurring depression that comes on throughout my life. And yeah, it's the damnedest thing that it compared to all the other attempts

I've made at treating it, it just seems to work. Wow. Yeah, it's so odd. How do you ingest it? Well, if you, it depends on if you do it as you should through a clinic, like you shouldn't do it yourself. Yeah.

God, I'm such an old man now. Like in the old days, I'm like, you fucking snored it, man. Dude, you chopping up with some weed. Get some friends together. I just can't help but I'm becoming such a dad. It's like, well, you need to go to a doctor, which you should, but usually the way it's administered is intermuscularly.

They inject it into your, into your shoulder or into your bicep and you, you go bye-bye. And some people have different ways of doing it. Some people actually administer it and then give you some kind of sedative so you don't fully experience the psychedelic quality of it. And then some people it's just like they don't do that. So you like go fully in for the ride,

which is what's weird about ketamine is the guy who invented float tanks was really into it, John Lilly, and he mapped out based on dosages, the universes that you go into because it's not, there seems to be various types of psychedelics like that produce subjective states. If I take mushrooms, for example, it's gonna be like, it appears like I'm looking

at some kind of melting, bending, wavering thing. And if I take a full dose, there is ego, what you would call, I guess, a disassociative state or emerging state, but the landscape seems to vary from trip to trip. Whereas with ketamine and DMT, the landscape doesn't really change that much, which is particularly interesting to me.

You mean from experience to experience, you go back to the same place? Yeah, and not just that, but if you're with people doing ketamine, people will experience the same place together. No. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So that's pretty weird and interesting and mysterious.

And also the fact that this somehow is not just like a recreationally or spiritually cool thing, but it's also curing depression is really weird when you think about that as though, there's like an idea that Carl Jung, I'm reading this wonderful book, The Undiscovered Self, he's saying like the problem is right now, religion has become quaint

and people don't really believe it in the way they used to. There's no connection to a transcendent reality. We're totally glued to this reality. And when we think about religion, even if we go to church every Sunday, it's still a mythology, it's not a spirituality. Yeah, that's it. So we're looking at a world where there's this weird famine,

but the famine is not related to food, it's related to a lack of connection to some kind of transcendent state of consciousness. And so everyone's getting fucking depressed because that used to be the normal way to be. That was your fuel line, that's what fed you. And then you took the transcendency, you took that energy and you basically manifested it.

Everybody manifested it in different ways, but we were all connected to some kind of a lifeline of energy. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, and it was real. It wasn't some kind of like cutesy thing you do or some kind of like retro thing and it wasn't like a self-help thing.

It was self-help, but it wasn't a thing where like maybe this will help with my career. Maybe it was like you were communing with something that was real and now. Well, I think that's why meditation has become so important is because you don't really need the religion part of it. You don't need the mythology. All you need is like that nowness to if you can be present

in a meditation on a regular basis, you can definitely feel some transcendence. What kind of meditation are you doing? TM. Oh, cool. So you have the mantra. Yeah. What is that, 20 minutes twice a day?

20 minutes twice a day. Yeah, and I don't do it twice a day every day, but a lot of days I do, but I do it at least once every day. How long you been doing that? Like four years. Wow. Four or five years.

I have friends who swear by that. Well, me and I was talking to Dave Kekner. Have you ever had Kekner on your show? I haven't had him on the show, but I love him. Oh, he'd be great. He's a real Catholic. And we were talking on my podcast about how many people we know that do TM

that are people that we look up to and who say that it's changed their life. We go, why have we not done it? And so we signed up and we went together. We went to the place in Beverly Hills, the TM Center in Beverly Hills, which you show up and it's like, you know, beautiful people in yoga pants, barefoot,

and they take you in this room and this woman was amazing. She was very like, she was very worldly. And, or should I say, otherworldly. I don't know. Otherworldly. Otherworldly, okay. And then we had this guy in our class named Jimmy

and he was young and good looking and a hungover every time. And then he asked her at one point, he goes, will the TM work if you're doing cocaine? What'd she say? That's an important fucking question, dude. And she's kind of said no. She goes, well, you know,

it's every practice is different, but in general, that kind of thing is gonna jack you up and bring you out of like more of a quiet space. Right. Yeah. God, I've desperately asked my teachers that question, hoping beyond hope that they'd be like,

oh yeah, not cocaine, but like I can remember Sharon Salzburg is this great meditation teacher. And I can remember asking her like, you know, cause I'd been watching Westworld and like at the time I was drinking, so I had convinced, I thought it was cool to like sit and drink whiskey

and watch Westworld cause they all drink whiskey in there, right? But you know, when you're like habituated to booze, you're just coming up with reasons to fucking drink, right? Like it's just your stupid brain tricking you and like, oh yeah, that makes sense. What do you do? Like when I'm watching other shows,

I'm not like, ah, fuck man, let me like, let me get some like, like if I'm watching a post-apocalyptic show, I'm like, let me get a bucket of garbage and smell it during the shows. I smell this world. But yeah, but so, and I was asking her like, well, isn't that kind of like,

can I practice mindfulness? Can I, isn't that a practice, you know, drinking and being in the moment of drinking and watching? And she's like, well, it's a practice, but you're practicing the wrong thing. But then there's other schools of thought which are, run counter to that, which is that no, actually, there is no break in it at all.

There is no moment where you're being profaned, moment where you're being holy. The whole thing is- Jesus served wine. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he did, yeah, that's right. And so I don't know, I am always going back and forth on that, but it does seem to be a pretty recurring,

a recurring message, which is that at some point, entering into this with a sober mind is going to be more efficacious than not, you know? What about marijuana? Yeah, it's, you know, I keep, you listen, my, the people who I'm, who I work with, they're from this, they're like Ram Dass, who was like a friend-

Yeah, Ram Dass, yeah. You know, he was, it was mushrooms that brought him to his guru, essentially, or that started his like, actually synthetic psilocybin that started his like awakening, for lack of a better word. And, you know, they don't tiptoe around that fact. They're like, if not for that,

it wouldn't have, I wouldn't be, he wouldn't have written be here now. Right. Because there's a, you can sort of track his course through India, which it was based on wanting to give LSD to people who meditated to see what they thought it was. And the, so what they say is like, it's like, you can do it, go ahead.

That's what he says, do it, do it. If you're drawn to it, if you want to take psychedelics, just don't trick yourself into imagining that what you're doing is, if you're not really using it for to awaken, if you're using it as a form of escape, escape, you know that, like you can't trick yourself, you know what you're doing.

That's really what it's about, isn't it? It's about going inside or it's about hiding, you know, using, whether it's drinking or smoking pot or any addiction, you know, any workaholic, you know, alcohol, and it's all, you know, and then you discover, and I didn't think about drugs as being able to enlighten you until I was much older. To me, it was just about being a teenager

and, you know, doing whatever thing you could do to get, think about the term to get fucked up. Yeah. Like that's the opposite of enlightenment, to get wrecked. I think you're fucked up tonight, man. I am so fucked up right now. Are you fucked up right now? I'm not right, I'm fucked.

Yeah. I'm wrong. Yeah, yeah. You're smashing apart your whole reality. I can remember being completely blast on acid when I was in high school and saying that to someone, like, man, I'm so fucked up right now. And he was like, you really shouldn't say that, you know,

like fucked up, like, are you fucked up? Like, is that, and I remember thinking, what a fucking idiot, shut up. Yes, I'm fucked up. The walls are melting, man. I'm seeing skulls in the fucking stucco right now. This is what I wanted. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But now, again, in my old age, I understand, you know, that language can give you a horrific trip. If you're using that language, it's, you know, you can definitely go down a dark. Well, this guy who leads you through the ketamine, does he sort of like coach you through it, prepare you for it and kind of walk you through it? No.

He just administers it. Most people that, well, I mean, he prepared, yeah, I would say that there's like a, he's a doctor. So there's like a preparatory, there's like most, a lot of people who are working with psychedelics right now, they have a really great attitude about it, which is that we facilitate,

but the healing is happening from your relationship with the medicine that's going into you. It's not, it's depending. Like there's so many different types of psychedelic therapy. The stuff they're doing with MDMA to treat PTSD is like a long-term, I think it's a year-long, intensive program where I believe there's two MDMA, you do it twice in the year and there's like a lead-up

and then there's an integration and then you do it one more time. I think in that second time is that you can choose to do it or not. And, you know, it's like very like, it's been worked out and it's not just the MDMA itself. It's like, you know, if you have trauma, there's not, the MDMA is not gonna be the only thing

that fixes the trauma. If you have trauma, you gotta deal with some shit, man. Yeah, yeah. Have you heard about that theory of what trauma is? Have you ever heard that it's a memory problem? Have you heard that? Yeah, I mean, the problem is that our brain has two halves and one side processes trauma and emotions

and the other side is linear and it's chronological. And so with PTSD, whether it's a soldier or some type of abuse that you went through, your mind does the two sides don't connect. So the trauma lives on one side and until you connect them, that's why I like when you do EMDR, which is, you know, basically when they used to do it with a watch, follow the watch back and forth,

now they do it with your whole two different sticks and they vibrate alternately back and forth as you talk through what the trauma was and it connects the linear side. Because otherwise that trauma relives itself over and over again as if it just happened. And when you connect both sides of your brain, it says, oh no, no, that's behind you.

That already happened, you can let go of that. Right, yeah, you've done this? Yeah, I did a little bit of it. Yeah, man, it's like a- I mean, is that your understanding of it? Well, yeah, it's, yes, that's how it was explained to me and if I try to like regurgitate, it was explained to me by Rick Doblin,

who is running the MDMA clinical trials or is part of MAPS, I mean, a lot of people are running it. And I feel like if I try to describe it, well, I guess the, I'll just say, like guys, obviously, I'm a bro scientist, I have no, like he told me- He told me and I listened and I tried to understand, but it is related to what you're saying. It's that, it's something to do with like when you create him,

so when you remember something, your brain is, I think, creating it. You know, like it's like the memory itself is being recreated every time you have it. It's just what you're saying. You have this trauma, some shit happened to you over time that was completely horrific. And because of that,

you are now always living in that zone of anxiety or whatever it may be. You have maybe even repressed the memory. You just have an anxiety disorder. You don't understand, I just always feel nervous. What's going on or maybe you've got an anger problem. So you've noticed that sometimes you get fucking mad and you don't even, you just think that's who I am.

I'm a guy who gets mad sometimes. You don't realize, well, the reason you get mad is because you were getting the shit kicked out of you when you were a fucking kid. And the only way to make that shit kick and stop was to get fucking like nuclearly angry, scream, bite, thrash, you know what I mean? So you don't remember that

because you can't tolerate the fact that somebody in your life who you respected and loved and maybe to this very day have been trying to like win their admiration or something was kicking the fucking shit out of you when you were a 10 year old. But you don't remember. You were dependent on them.

Your life was literally dependent on their care of you. And instead they were hurting you. That's crazy for young child to try to understand. I mean, and it's just like, you know, that sometimes when you read about abuse, you'll see that there's physical abuse and then there's psychological abuse, sexual abuse. But it's like, if you're getting physical abuse,

you're getting psychological abuse too. It's not like they're just punching you. And then they're like, you're awesome, kid, let's go. But it's like, they're also trying to rationalize in their own mind the fact that they're like beating up someone younger than them. And then on top of that, they're trying to make the younger person understand

that this somehow makes sense. Makes sense, you fucking pussy. This is how it works. So you get trauma and now you can't remember that shit, but you're always kind of nervous. You're a little afraid all the time. You're always kind of afraid all the time. That's because this, you're living in it still.

And this is a memory disorder. So something about the combination of therapy to get in there, cause you gotta get in there. And then the MDMA, so as this like, you finally like get into the thing. You know, like some people have these blisters for lack of a better word in their brain around a cluster of experiences.

And you can't go, that is a no goes, you can't go there, you can't. And so you go into that place with a therapist on MDMA, you're something about the combination of that medicine and revisiting the memory is cause- It drains it, it drains the blister. Drain the blister, yeah. And then there's follow up after that.

And then another one. So yeah, it's apparently like the, they're getting very good results from it. But I know, I know. But it's, you know, traditional talk therapy has always been very hard for people, like especially when you talk about the military, which is, you know, a big section of people

that have trauma are coming back with, you know, being fucking blown up in a tank or, you know, watching death on a constant basis. And they come back and you've been trained as a soldier. First thing they train you in in basic training is don't talk about it, don't think about it, don't feel it, do it, just be tough, basically. And then when you experience that stuff and you come home

and they, for years they tried to do talk therapy, these guys can't talk. They've met end women, they can't talk about it. No. And so they had to find a way to get inside of there, whether it's through MDMA or whether it's through EMDR, you know, where you- What does EMDR stand for?

Eye movement. Oh, what is it? It's something eye movement, because traditionally it was originally, it was about your eyes moving back and forth. I just remembered I have access to every- Oh yeah, you have the internet right there. EMDR, what does it mean?

And it connects things. And it lets your, lets the both sides of your brain can act with each other. And it's almost like resetting a clock. Eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing. Wow, that is so nuts, man. Yeah. Did it work for you? I didn't go far enough into it.

I did a little bit of it, I needed to do more. I mean, it's like the work of like addressing stuff like that is just, I don't know, man. I mean, in a weird, it's almost like it's so rotten to have to like go back into there that you almost feel like, you know, I'd rather just be anxious for the rest of my life than like go back to that-

I'm bottoming out though. Like I'm trying this thing now. You talked about Neil Brennan did it. Yeah. Which is the magnetic cranial therapy, what is it called? The cranial magnetic therapy, CMT. Yeah. Yeah, where you go in and it's a commitment.

You go in every day for like eight weeks. Wow. And they hook you up for like a half an hour. I'm starting it in a couple of weeks. They hook up the front of your brain and they run some waves through there. And they basically, I think they stimulate parts of your brain that are responsible for good feelings.

And it gets it flowing again. But it's got like a 75%. It's for people that are treatment resistant. And you have to prove to your insurance because it's expensive as hell. So your doctor has to go to your insurance company and say this person's tried three or four types of antidepressants and none of them worked.

Right. And then they'll allow it. Right. Wow, man. Yes. Treatment resistant depression. Treatment resistant depression. Yeah. Yeah.

I think, I don't know, man. I'm sorry to say this because like, this is like, well, maybe I won't actually. It's something I related to Neil about ketamine therapy. I don't want to say anything about it because I don't know for sure. But, you know, I had great. Is it that he's gay?

He's a gay murderer. He's a gay murdering alcoholic. He's a serial killer. Yeah, I didn't want to say it, but yeah, you know, it's probably not a big deal. No, I mean, he's a comedian. He talks about it. This episode of the DTFH has been supported

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than going to the grocery store and asking for cuts of meat, butcherbox.com, Ford slash Duncan and inner code Duncan at checkout. Now back to the podcast. Man, it's just like that thing, like, you know, as you get older, crazy shit happens to you and you remember crazy shit, crazy shit happens to you.

And if you notice this, like, how do I put it? Like when I was younger, I could look at the world and I could pick out people and be like, that person's a fucking asshole, right? That's a asshole. You know, you're just out, you know, when someone does some dumb ass thing, you're like that fucking motherfucker, what a dick.

And then the older you get, and you realize that everybody's experiencing these landmines in their life. And whoever you may be running into that's acting like an asshole, guaranteed some rotten thing happened to that. And then you lose the luxury of hating people. Have you experienced that?

Yeah. And I think when I'm in a better place, I have more empathy and when I'm not in a good place, it's almost like because I quit drinking, I quit drinking like 27 years ago. And one of the things that's allowed me to not drink is, you know, you do some program stuff and you realize why do I feel like drinking right now?

You know, why am I craving a drink and looking at it and thinking about it? And it's just a big red flag and you just gotta stop and go, all right, what's going on? Right. What's really bothering me? What issue is coming up? You know, am I like right now, I'm having a hard time

because I'm about to go on the road for three weeks straight. Oh yeah. You know, gone for three days, home for two days, gone for three days. And when it's coming up, I always get in a bad place. Had an argument with my wife today, we don't argue. And, you know, got mad at somebody driving. I don't, and I have a horrible temper.

I had it my whole life. Used to get into a lot of fights, constantly yelling, blown up relationships, really bad temper. And it's gotten a lot better. Great. But when it pops up, I get to stop and go, what's going on? And so I did that today and I went, oh yeah, you're going away on Wednesday for three weeks.

Right. And so that's what kept me from drinking. And it's the same thing with, you know, just your mental health in general and seeing that person as, oh, they're not an asshole. They're pushing the button that my father used to push when he tried to tell me how to behave or whatever it is, you have to connect the dots

and say, why is this really bothering me? Right. But when you're in a negative place and you're under duress and something's really riding you, it's harder to give that person a break. Yeah. Well, I mean, this is, you know, man, I was, I do this like, my meditation teacher,

this guy, David Nicktern, and like, he comes out every once in a while, teaches classes, and like, we'll do like a little podcast talking about Buddhism. And then like, people ask questions to him. And one of the people in the class asked this like, brilliant question that's just stuck with me, which is like, since I've, you know,

everyone says when they're talking about meditation, mindfulness, there's a sense of like, it's going to make you feel great. You're going to be a polished river stone of a human. Really what happens is you start knowing yourself more. And in Tibetan Buddhism, that's the name of meditation is gom, which means self-understanding, yourself knowing.

And so you start knowing yourself more and then the knowing of yourself more, you begin to realize that, oh no. You know, like, I can remember like, I would watch somebody talk about trauma on TV, and I would be like, man, that must suck for you. Yeah. And then suddenly you start going down the rabbit hole

of your past, and there it fucking is. And you're like, oh, shit. Oh, shit. No. Oh, really? Oh no, I don't want that. Hold that, hold that order. Yeah, yeah.

And so then now, so it's sort of like this like, things starts happening where you have to, you're not numb now. Like you got to deal with it, like now you start understanding a little bit more. If you get angry, if you have weird moments or whatever, it's kind of not, it's strangely luxurious to imagine. They're like, oh, I'm just, you know,

sometimes I just, you know, blow steam. Yeah. And then when you start seeing like, oh fuck, the whole, what it's all built on and all the connection. And then when you start seeing that, and then you realize this like, almost every single person's life appears to be built on blocking out data streams,

because if you allow yourself to see what's really going down, it can be pretty like heart wrenching, you know? So, I don't know, man. I like, to me, it's scary because we're all alone. You know, you try to find someone to love and you know, you're married now, congratulations and about to be, you know, family man.

Yeah. You know, and all that stuff is great, but you know, we're all, we're still all alone. And whatever you experienced as a kid, when you were that alone, and you thought you were part of something, you thought that there was a construct and that it was seamless.

And then when you're taken out of that for whatever reason, whether it's through trauma or just a natural life cycle of moving on, I mean, just growing up and leaving your home is a trauma in a way. Fuck, yeah. Because you're alone, now you're alone again and now you can't be taken care of and you have to take care of yourself.

And that's frightening to have to take care of yourself, especially when things go bad. Right. You know, and that's why you were talking before about how when we lost religion, part of religion, because it is the spirituality of it, it is the transcendence, but it's also the community of it that we've lost.

And that with that, you know, not only you're losing your connection to what's above you, but also to what's around you. Right. And it's that aloneness that you have to deal with when all this data comes at you, when you feel alone dealing with it, it's insurmountable. Oh God, you're right, man.

That's, there's so many people who like have no community, no one to talk to, you can't afford a therapist. Yeah. And then for whatever reason, the brain decides like, hey, remember when this happened? Hey guys, so, hey, I want to show you something. I got this photo album of shit that'll fuck you up. So crazy.

Remember when you thought this was a cute memory? Like I had this memory, I was a smoking pot like 25 years ago with a friend of mine, and we're sitting there and we're like, hi, and we're talking about old shit. And the YMCA came up, we're talking about, yeah, I used to go to play basketball at the YMCA, and I was like, yeah, I used to go to this swim class

when I was like six, and five even. And I remember like this guy, Mr. D, would come into the shower room, and we would all be naked. I remember he picked up this one kid, Elliot, and he grabbed him and he picked him up, and Elliot was naked, and he was like, I'm gonna take you out to the pool

because the girls are swimming out there right now, and he was jumping with him, and I just, and Mr. D was like in a bathing suit, Jesus. That didn't occur to me at that time that that was wrong in any way. I thought it was, he was teasing him, there was girls out there that that was the whole dynamic.

And then I'm sitting there, big thinking, that was wrong. Yeah. That was a bad thing. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Not for me, but for Elliot. For you, well, you observed it, and that was, you know, just being in the presence of it. It's like everyone's getting blasted by that shit, man.

It's like everyone, because what happens is these fucking predators, man, they either subconsciously or consciously recognize that there is an innate defense mechanism that pops up in people who don't wanna deal with confrontation. They know that. They're like, they know how to be invisible.

Oh, it's so fucked, dude. And like, you know, yeah, so you're, and a lot of times this will come to people when they're stoned or when they're on some psychedelic. You know, your brain just suddenly is like, you know, okay, here we go. Because you're, I think what it is, is it's like, from what I've heard, you know,

once people get into a place actually where they feel stable, is when the stuff starts coming. Because you're, something in you doesn't wanna reveal some of this shit when you're, when you are alone, when you are in a crazy place. That's, those are the periods where you're just getting hammered all the time and acting like that's normal because you're having fun, you know, just a party.

You don't even think, oh, you know, I can't remember. Like, I think about like nine years of my life just seem to not be there at all for some reason. Ha, ha, that's normal. Yeah, right. That's a drink, ha, ha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you realize you weren't alone

for more than five minutes in those 10 years. You just always made plans. You always hung out. You're always active, taking trips, sitting at the store until two in the morning, talking other comics, going to a diner after that. Like, just never alone. On the run, man.

Always on the run. Gotta keep moving. And this is a, you know, like, maybe you notice in yourself this sense of impatience, you know, like impatient people who are like, or I've noticed in my own life, like I will suddenly find myself like, for example, I'm going to take a walk, let's say.

And suddenly I'm impatiently trying to find the shit I need to go outside and take a walk. I'm in a hurry to get out there to take the walk. And then even when I'm on the walk, I'm kind of, it's still in a hurry. And you're like, well, I'm always in a fucking hurry. What's going on here? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,

I'm in a hurry to go relax and take a walk. Yeah. So true. Yeah, so you see these people with trauma, PTSD and like, they'll, you know, they're always in a hurry. Yeah. Always gotta keep going, gotta move, move, move, move. Gotta keep going, gotta keep going.

Cause you're trying to like, you're still running away from this fucking thing that isn't even happening anymore. That's why sometimes super successful people are such assholes. Because the reason they're successful is that they've been just driving themselves and not dealing. And it's almost like, it's like a caffeine rush all the time

to just be running from yourself. Yeah. And you have these goals cause then those goals are gonna redefine how you feel about yourself. And they never do. So you keep trying. Anytime I see somebody who's got like,

you know, $10 million and they're still working their asses off. Especially if, it's one thing if like you're an artist and you're doing it cause you love the art. But when you're a businessman and you're still working like, you know, 12, 14 hour days when you have all that money, it's like, you're a miserable motherfucker.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, I, you know, it's very, it's like very similar to the any kind of horror movie where the protagonist is like evading some chainsaw-wielding lunatic. It's like, except here in this reality, the chainsaw-wielding lunatic is something in the past.

And the people aren't allowed to scream here. So like, they kind of... Oh my God, Jason is a, is a fucking beating you got from your dad when you were four. That's right. Yeah. That's it. Jason is like the continued psychological abuse

that you receive from somebody when you were growing up. Yeah. And the fucking, it all makes sense that you realize why people love those fucking serial killer movies. And like, it's because it's like so many of, man, I'll tell you, when you realize like, you know, one thing I've thought is the United States,

the way the United States wages war is crazy. We've been in war at war. What is it? 92% of our history. And we very rarely have anyone blow us up back. We blow people out. Like in the old days war was like my army hits your army. And then there's missiles come into my home kingdom.

There's, you know, the people war was really bad because there was this like, you would get attacked. There was this, you were at war because your kingdom was going to get overrun. Right. Now it's like the way we do war is we just bomb the fuck out of people. And over here, nothing really happens.

It's a weird dynamic. It's a weird dynamic. We get a terrorist attack that's rotten here and there, but relatively speaking, based on the number of structures we've blown up to the number of structures that get blown up here, there doesn't seem to be any kind of real. Harity.

Right. And so I would always think about that. And by the way, you know, this is a horrible thing to say, but now I got a kid on the road. Oh, here we go. I don't want there to be a parody. I don't want to get blown up. I'm sorry.

I didn't tell them to send the missiles over there. I would, you know, it's not like I'm complaining here. You know what I mean? But that being said, there is some slight parody, which is that what's happening is people are coming back from over there. And all that fucking violence is in them because they have PTSD.

And then they're like beating the shit out of their kids or they're maybe not beating their kids, but they can't handle what happens. So they're getting drunk all day long. Right. And so it's like, even though we're not seeing buildings being exploded, what we are-

Well, they're shooting people. There are definitely a lot of incidents of vets coming back and shooting people. That, yeah. So we're seeing this like, what's, it's not as though we're our hands are this place. Yeah. We're, what we're witnessing is kind of,

it's like at least over there when buildings have been blown up and you know the buildings been blown up, here you can pass a perfectly nice house on any given street. And inside that fucking house is a, is somebody who is doing every single thing they can to not blow their brains out.

And simultaneously to raise their family. And the family feels that. And so the family's going out into the world and the kids are going out into the world and they're taking that inside of them. And then they're doing weird shit. At school or to, they're bullies or they're hitting people

or they're cutting themselves. So it still is bleeding out into our society but no one really talks about it. No one even understands, like we've been awarded 93% of our fucking history, man. How many people have PTSD in this country? Right. Untreated.

It's nuts, man. Like my dad, he, he was telling me like, oh yeah, they just told me like take Xanax when it happens. You dad? Yeah, my dad was in Vietnam. Oh, no shit. Yeah. Wow.

Has he talked about having PTSD? Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. What happened with my dad was like, I, you know, I had heard my dad, I knew my dad had PTSD. My mom had told me, oh, your dad has PTSD. And I remember my friend is a doctor. I was like, oh yeah, my dad has PTSD.

I was just in the middle of a car. He's like, wait, what? I'm like, oh yeah, he has PTSD. And he's like, Duncan, do you know what that is? What it means? Like what that, what happens? And then he starts explaining my childhood to me. Yeah.

It was crazy. Yeah. That was a big moment for me. So did he ever get treated for it? Well, no, what happened was, well, he got treated by the VA. So the VA, I don't know what programs they're using now, but what they would do is that what they, they treat the symptoms, not the, I don't, you know,

I guess you can get counseling or whatever, but the whatever they're doing doesn't really matter. Whatever they're doing doesn't really work that well. They don't go to the root of it. Right. There's apparently like a whole underground group of veterans that give MDMA to other veterans. Oh wow.

Yeah. But man, I don't know. It's like, to me, like these days I have been thinking a lot about the effects of trauma on humans and the like looking out at the world and just thinking, oh, I get, I see what's happening here. Everyone's fucking traumatized. Right.

And we don't know how to deal with that. Yeah. And it is, it's like you said before, it's so easy to see if you're looking for it and you're open to seeing the signs of it, that that guy's an asshole. No, that guy's in pain. That guy doesn't trust that the universe

is going to take care of him. That guy thinks that when you're trying to pull into his lane, you're actually going after him on a personal level and trying to hurt him. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Cause that anger that comes up when you do that to him and he gets that angry, that's not rational

and you can't react to that. You could, you have to have empathy for it on some level. And it's like our whole fucking paradigm here is based on this idea of exacting revenge. Right. So it's like though, we're all trying to get revenge. And I, you know, man, I went to see the Dalai Lama speak in Anaheim at some, he was his birthday party.

Right. And it was like one of the most embarrassing things I ever saw because it was like all these celebrities wishing the Dalai Lama a happy birthday. Like whoever organized it was like, it was just, no one like, it was really weird, but like, in sad. Where was it? It was like in some theater in Anaheim.

Like here's the Dalai Lama. And he's on stage and celebrities are going up and saying happy birthday. MC Hammer reads him a poem. I didn't know that's what it was. I didn't know that's what it was. It's Lava time. It was like, it's, you know, I don't know,

I was expecting it to be like the Dalai Lama speaking. And he did a little bit. Yeah. And you do get to enjoy like the energy of that being flooding out into the room. And also I think what was awkward about it is the Dalai, like I guess that it was the sad pompous expectation that the Dalai Lama was going to give a shit about celebrities.

Yeah. It's a fucking Dalai Lama. Like it's not that he doesn't like MC Hammer. It's just that he doesn't think MC Hammer is any more special than anybody else, you know? It's a cult of personality meeting like, you know, just someone who's like a very advanced being. But he did say something that stuck with me,

which is that if someone's doing something shitty to you, it's an echo. Like that's not a person doing something shitty to you. That's an echo of someone doing something shitty to them. So it's like that realization really fucks with the entire concept of how we're supposed to run shit out here, which is now what are we gonna do? It's like, well, someone's an asshole.

Don't they deserve punishment? You know, don't they deserve to get smacked? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. And then you look, you know, I saw a thing on 60 Minutes about incarcerating people in Denmark. Did you hear about this? No.

They don't, I mean, if you want to sort of extrapolate that idea to the prison system, like whether or not you can reform, or whether or not it's there for punishment. I mean, why do we have prisons? And in this country, it's a very different idea than it is in other countries. And in Denmark, the prisoners go in,

and I'm talking murderers, go into prison, and it's like having your own apartment. You have like a one bedroom with a bathroom, and it's like you can leave on the weekends, and you only spend like maybe a year or two doing time, and then you're released again. And while you're in there, there's all kinds of programs, there's all kinds of freedoms, and there's,

and people heal. And the recidivism rate is extremely low. People change, and you stop and you go, all right, well then what are we doing in this country? We're taking people that are echoing negative experiences in their own lives, and they're putting them out into our society, and then we're taking them, and giving them more trauma by putting them

in solitary confinement, and in places where they're getting beaten up, and then they're putting them back onto the street. Now they're echoing more stuff. Right. It's like a battery charger for trauma. Prison's like charging the battery. Put it in there, juice it up, and get it right back out.

And then the trauma spreads, and then that person like continues to infect people. It's an infectious psychic malady is what it is. And it's like our view of it is so fucking stupid, and backwards, and crazy. I don't know, man, it's a... What's gonna turn it around? Meditation?

David Lynch wants to teach in the public schools. Yeah, you know, I don't know. This is like a thing that was coming up in this talk, I was having with David Nickton is one of the other things someone was saying is like, well, you know, they're teaching mindfulness to drone pilots. You know, they're you, oh yeah. Yeah, so they're like,

because mindfulness is a neutral state. It's like a way to observe your thoughts and not get attached to your thoughts. So in a weird way, for the military, it's kind of a wonderful calming mechanism as you're preparing to launch your missiles into some village. Calm the mind, a thought emerges.

What is the thought? I don't know if I should launch a missile into this village. Think, this is called noting and Buddhism. Thinking, oh, you just think thinking and then fire the missile. It's just a thought, just another thought. Fire the missile. So you become a drone too.

Yeah, yeah. You're a drone launching a drone. Yeah, it's just a new, it's a neutral technology. It's a mindfulness is a neutral technology to not get entangled in your thoughts. Some people believe that the practice of mindfulness will somehow also bring compassion out of the human heart. By understanding yourself, you will begin to understand

that there's really, unfortunately, no bad guy as we understand it out there. We're just dealing with people who've got a lot of weird code in their operating system. And the way to fix the code is not necessarily to blow up the computer. It's to figure out a way to get in there and shift the code. To answer your question, man, I have no fucking idea.

If you watch that documentary on the white helmets in Syria, have you seen that shit? No. Have you done any like any? I noticed the people that show up after an explosion and try to save the people. And very often they're killed because then they re-bomb the same spot.

Yeah. Yeah, I heard about that. Yeah, you just, I was watching this documentary because I was thinking like, well, I should at least know what's happening over there. I don't really understand it at all. And so I watched this documentary. And it's just the worst thing you can imagine.

And it's just buildings on top of babies. And babies being pulled out of crevices and buildings. And then getting bombed while you're pulling the babies out. Yeah, or one of the things that shows as a person waiting, knowing that, oh, a building got bombed and there's three bodies. And waiting to hear if one of the bodies was his brother. And getting to enjoy a nice couple of hour period of not

knowing if his brother was alive or dead. Just that alone. Your brother's alive. That's the rest of your life. You'll never forget that. And that's happening every day there. So I was watching that. And my sweet, spiritual, Ram Dass, I love it so much.

And then you watch a thing like that. And you're challenged deeply by that. I was just thinking like, I don't know what could ever be done to make that work in the future. Because even if I press a button and some piece descends on Syria, what about all the people who, for the rest of their lives, I think it's like 300,000, 400,000 dead Syrians now?

What about all the survivors for the rest of their lives? Yeah, for every one of those people that died, there's five, six close family members that are completely destroyed for the rest of their lives. And many of them want to perpetrate the violence back to the Syrian government or whoever is responsible for the bombing. Yeah.

And then you look at that and you're like, well, that's just that. I don't know. And I talked to my teachers about this. And they're like, their response is, well, right now, what can you do? What's the real thing you can do right now? Like what right now?

Because that stuff is just like dramatic. Oh my god, the horror. Now I'm all dramatic and shit. So they always just go back to like, OK, OK. But is that kind of like drama that you've like the show I just put on as I'm like amplifying myself to talk about my horrified sensibilities? They might say like, is that it?

What does that feel like to be like that? What is that feeling of being horrified? Let's sit with the feeling for a second. What's going on with that? And then the process of like getting back into the now, at the very least, it's going to like calm you. So the idea is like basically they put is like, well, the reason we're doing this at all

or practicing at all is so that when we come to a point where we need to deal with that, where we come to a point where we can make a real decision that might help something like that around us right now. Yeah, it's almost like when you see triage nurses working unwounded in a like the white helmets. Yeah. How is it that they're able to?

OK, let me go get some bandages. Let me get a splint. Let me take care of business. Let me put one foot in front of the other and take care of it. And there's a part of them that's doing that. They've they've somehow neutralized all that horror and they're able to continue on in the face of it. Yeah.

Now, are they experiencing trauma as a part of that? Absolutely. Yeah. But in that moment, they're present. They're in the moment. Yeah. Of care. That's it.

Yeah. Yeah. And there's a idea that which is like, well, you know, and I've thought about, I used to think, why do they even call it a fucking practice? You know, why is it called a practice? What does that even mean? What it's like, you're not playing piano.

And now I think I have a better understanding. Is what it is, is you're practicing for the moment that will happen to everybody. Yeah. Whatever it may be, there's a moment that will happen where you freaking out and losing your shit or going nuts or getting hyper angry is not only going to like hurt people, but like potentially like cause like a lot of rotten karma

to happen to you. So the practice is like, we do really, it's like, well, at least the way I've been taught is like, everyone's kind of a white helmet. It's just like for us right now in the West, that shit isn't happening here yet, you know? But we don't know, you know? No.

Could be a rocky, our kids are going to have a rocky time. You know, the winter's coming. Winter is coming, right? Yeah, people, people, Terrence McKenna said something that was really quite dismal. And, but isn't necessarily dismal in the sense that like potentially like people learning that there are real world effects for our decisions

as a country, as an individual, there's real world effects. But he would say like, everyone's saying, oh, at the end of the world is coming. It's like, you know, at the time, I don't think Syria was imploding, but he was like, you know, I think he was talking about the Congo where the genocides were happening. He's like, go there, it's happening now.

If you're out there and you've suddenly witnessed what's going on out there, which is like, I think it's the Congo. Unfortunately, the problem is it's happening in so many places, it's hard to pick one. But you know, there's like organized rape that happens. Yeah, yeah, the John Jui and the South Sudan. Yeah, they're just going in and they're burning,

they're killing all the livestock, burning the villages, raping the women, and then moving on to the next town. That's right. How do you, how do you possibly, you know, they're doing the most twisted, I don't even wanna talk about some of the stuff they do. Yeah.

And you just think like, well, yeah, that is, that's the end of the world. Yeah, that's what it looks like. And because you know, people think the end of the world is gonna, people's idea of the way the end of the world happens is really like, they based on movies. Because you watch a movie, man,

if you're going to watch a movie about the end of the world, if that shit hasn't happened within the first like 15 minutes of the movie, it's a boring ass movie. If I go see an end of the fucking world movie, I want the end of the world to happen within the first five minutes. Or hopefully it already happened

and they're surviving in some wasteland. I don't remember what, I saw some shitty apocalypse movie where the fucking apocalypse, it didn't really even happen to like act, like the middle of act two or something. I was like, come on, give me the fucking apocalypse. Ha ha ha ha. Apocalypse now.

I wanna. Ha ha ha ha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, you know, in the same way people think like the way people think, people who haven't been around dying people, they think that the way people die is the way happens in a video game

where someone just like, and it does when they're like, someone gets like a super traumatic injury. But mostly the way death happens is a process. So, you know, if you're with hospice, they'll tell you, oh, the process is starting now, which is the body gradually just starts shutting down. And I think similarly,

if there were to be an apocalypse, it's not gonna just happen. It's gonna be, we're gonna like see it. Fuck, look over there. Wow, it looks pretty bad over there. Ah, I'm gonna go lay in my hammock now. Ha ha ha ha. There's no apocalypse around this hammock.

No, I mean, look, it's beautiful here. It's like, it's wonderful, it's wonderful. And so, and so then it gets, so for me it does go back to the question of like, I don't want to imagine that the reason that I'm doing some spiritual practice is just some hedonic pursuit of like feeling good. That's a really fucked up thing.

Like, I'm gonna meditate to feel better and great and wonderful. And I just want to draw people to me and become magnetic and become charismatic and maybe become a little telepathic and then start controlling people and then make some fucking money or whatever it is. The idea is like, here's maybe what's happening.

We're about to go into like a really, really turbulent period in human history and we need people who are calm and peaceful and have learned how to not be reactive so that people can help. We need white helmets everywhere. I think that's the, at least that's what they keep telling me. They're talking about Michelle Obama right now, aren't you?

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. But that's what's weird about Trump, not to make it political, but Trump is the opposite of that. He's the guy that has to push back, has to push harder, has to intimidate, has to react. He's the opposite of what you're describing.

And that's why our country is so at dis-ease right now. That's what disease is, dis-ease. We are in a state of feeling like daddy's drunk and he's gonna hit us. And it's triggering all of the people whose daddy's had fucking PTSD. And it's like, that's what's happening. People are just getting fucking triggered, man,

because it's like, it totally reminds you of a, maybe it reminds you of a little thing that you learn to live with. And then what happens is it's like people who have an abuser, you've, I'm sure you've heard this, right? Like you either like, resist the abuser or you become the abuser, you know? Like there you become a friend.

So you start enabling the abuse, like the idea is like, because it's like for sure, if you're a kid and you're around alcoholism, for example, in a family, then you're taught to not see shit. You're embedded with blind spots, you know? Like your dad, he just sleepy right now.

Or your dad's in a mood right now. He's in a little bit of a mood right now. Stay away from dad. He's like not feeling well right now. But you know what it is. He's hammered. There's fucking booze in his breath. He came in at fucking 2.30 AM

after fucking somebody or whatever, you know? Like, you know, your mom's freaked out or she's got big fucking circles under her eye, you know? But that is like, you know, because it's easier for you to believe something that's obviously not real, than to realize your mom is lying to you, your dad's lying to you,

than what you do. And you're not safe. And you're not safe. You really aren't safe. I remember my dad when I was about, probably about the same age that Mr. D picked up that kid at the YMCA. My dad drove home drunk as he did almost every night and he hit a tree, full speed.

Died, you know, his jugular vein got severed. And my mom was driving behind him. It's like three o'clock in the morning. She's driving behind him from a restaurant. Jesus. In New York. And she drives, no cell phones back then. She drives, calls an ambulance.

By the time they get there, he's got no vital signs. They bring him back to life. Spends like four days in the hospital. And the whole time my mother's just saying, oh yeah, dad's in the hospital. He had a little accident and everything's gonna be fine. And he comes back with black guys and stitches. And I just remember at the time,

like not registering much, except like, we were watching a lot more TV. But then realizing like underneath, we were extremely stressed out. Yeah. That's right. That's it. Yeah, underneath.

And it's like, you just subscribed to the lie. Yeah. And I'll tell you, man, if you really wanna put yourself into a lot of fucking danger in that kind of situation, tell the truth. Yeah. And get ready for some real fucking just horror to happen. You'll destroy your family.

If you were to like say they're actually what's happening, you can't even say it because you're a kid. You got taught this was normal. It's normal. You're just being sensitive. Being sensitive. And that was the thing. And I don't know if that's as much a thing today

as it was when I was a kid. But being sensitive, being a pussy was like the worst thing you could be. So I grew up trying to be so much tougher than I really am. I still am. I've still fallen to that trap. Yeah. I'm afraid of seeming like a pussy in any way.

And you see it with a lot of guys. You know, there's a lot of guys, our peers that are tough guys. And you just think like, all right, what are you afraid of? What's going on? Yeah. Yeah, man.

Well, you didn't, what happened was, so you're having an authentic reaction to being around a bunch of fucking drunk shitheads. Which is like, this sucks. You're probably crying. You're terrified. You don't know if you're gonna get fucking killed. You might get killed.

People get killed all the time. Kids get killed by their drunk parents all the fucking time. So you're freaking the fuck out. And then you say it and you're like, come on, this is life. Get used to it. This is what life is like. Cause I'm telling you, man, if you wanna hear,

like if you listen to a drunk's narrative of what life is like, it's not great. A drunk's not gonna tell a kid like, hey, you got a lot to look forward to out there. He's like, they're gonna try to fuck you over. They're gonna try to steal from you. Keep an eye on this and that because you're fucking gonna get fucked

if you're not tough out there. Cause it's a fucking hard world. It's like, well, it's a hard world if you're a lying, alcoholic. Low self-esteem, paranoid. Yeah, you're drawing all those problems to yourself. Yeah. And then because you, you know, most alcoholics,

when they've been, you know, saddled by that demon, they can't bear the fact that they're, they've become like mounted by evil. And so rather than believe that they're being ridden around the house by a fucking imp, they try to pretend that this is like who they are. And they try and say, they like can't deal

with the fact that they don't have any real autonomy anymore. And so they try to rationalize it by painting a picture of a world where they're a victim and the world's out to get them. Right. You know, that's the craziest shit. Yeah, so. And that's contagious.

Then the, yeah, the kid can't not pick up on that. You know, and I think about that stuff with my kid because I really do feel like I did everything I could to, like you talked about whether or not you become the, would you say the abuser? Yeah. You become the abuser. And for me, it was like not drinking was not so much

that I was such a fucking disaster. I drank a lot. I got arrested a few times. I used to get into fights. I drove drunk. I got caught doing that. There was enough signs for me to go, you know, this is not a good thing in my life.

Right. But I was not a guy who like lost a job and beat up a girlfriend or whatever. So the reason I stopped is because I want to stop the cycle. I didn't want to be like my dad and seem like a very lonely, isolated, scared person. And I didn't want that. And I didn't want my kids to get that.

And so like as much as I could, I tried to stop the cycle. I don't hit them. My dad used to beat the shit out of me. I never hit my kids. And I really thought like I gotta stop this cycle. And I don't know though that one day my daughter is not gonna be on a shrink's couch going, you know, my father made me, you know, afraid of things.

I don't know. I don't know what I'm still passing on. Well, that, well, Ramda says you're gonna pass on something. Yeah. Like the fantasy that you're gonna be able to like suddenly become like this perfect angelic parent and like not pass on the poison or the darkness. Yeah.

That's like setting yourself to a ridiculous standard. Yeah. But just a simple act of being like, you know what? I'm not gonna be a drunk dad. Yeah. I'm not doing that. I'm not gonna be a drunk dad. That's what I've decided.

I'm not doing it, man. Yeah. I don't want booze in the house. I don't want a drink. I don't want my kid to smell booze on my breath and have like a weird slur to the way I said. I don't want that, man. Like I don't want to pass that on.

Just to me, I think that, you know, and like being honest, you know, but not like doing the like hyper intimate thing that some parents will do with their kids. What's that? So what'll happen is like a parent will make friends with their kid, which is, so like, which is okay. But I mean, a parent will like start opening up to their child about the intricacies of their divorce

and the kids like eight years old. Right, right. So that'll start happen. That's a thing. That's another form of psychological abuse is the parent starts saddling the child with the adult responsibility of like their neurosis. So suddenly that's when the parent is like

just vomiting darkness and like a nine year old kid is not the one to ask to help you with your marriage. And not you can, you know, or a 10 year old or 11 year old or 12 year old kids need to feel like they're in a stable environment where they can grow. And I think it's just as simple as that. Not like they don't need to, you don't,

you shouldn't ask your kid. I don't think it's cool to ask your kid whether or not I think, you know, it's life is worth living. Yeah. You know, don't ask your kid that cause you're chronically fucking like, you know, depressed. It's like, ask your therapist that or your friend's that or read some Camus, but don't like blow that shit

out on your kids if you can help it. And if you do, okay, you did it. But now stop doing it. Yeah, give them some order. Give them structure that they can live inside of. That's your job. Your job is to create a world that they can live in and that they have a right sized proportionate place

in that world, not an outsized. Like that's another problem is it's in, they're making the child, they're giving them more credit. You're a fucking kid and you need your hand held. You need to be told not to do things. And I see that now, live it on the west side of LA. You really do see parents that just never tell their kids there's no boundaries.

And they feel like they're so afraid, maybe because they got traumatized as kids and their reaction to that is to not give the kid any guidance whatsoever. And that's an even scarier place for a kid. A kid wants to be told what not to do. They want to be punished when something goes wrong. And when I say punished, consequences for actions.

Validating that you have choices to make in life. That there's going to be rewards or there's going to be withholding of things you want from bad choices. Yeah. And without that, you're doing them a huge disservice in the world. The problem is, so like we get as human beings,

unless you're super lucky statistically, there's odds are pretty good, you can get traumatized. Like you're going to get, especially like, I think now where people are getting more refined in their parenting skills and learning more and more, but the point is like, so you've been traumatized, right? And so you're like, okay, now I'm going to never, ever do anything bad again.

Whether it's through parenting or whatever. And then you're still reacting to the trauma because now you're like trying to do the hyper opposite of the fucking thing. And you're losing all your natural instincts. Yes. Yeah. You've suffocated your whole emotional life

and it's all in your head. You're all thinking what to do and what not to do. And then you're not connecting to people anymore because you're not really you and you're living outside of yourself. And yeah, that's where I've been at lately. I've been trying to break out of that place. You're up in your head.

I'm in my head lately. Yeah, that's how we get depressed. It's like, if the longer up in your head is just like, yeah, there's your, why did I just read this, man? I was reading, God, someone like posted an article about a tribe, I think it's Christopher, I can't remember who it was. Someone posted an article about a tribe

where they think there's three brains. And the brain in the head is considered to be like the tool that you only use once in a while. But the brain in your stomach is where you should refer to for every single thing you do. And they were saying, this is why everyone in the West is so fucking crazy, is they're using the wrong brain,

which is the up in our heads. What's the third brain? Your heart, head, heart, stomach. Yeah, so you're like that. This is the whole Ram Dass thing is like from the head to the heart, like getting down in there and just like being in your heart and feeling and being in the moment.

And when you go up in your head, learning about that, which is like, if you're up in your head, that means you're thinking, you're absorbed in your thoughts. And the idea is, oh yeah, well your brain produces thoughts in the way your tongue salivates. It's of no import. It's just those thoughts are just thoughts.

It's just a kind of like psychic gas. It's just a gaseous quality where your brain is like emitting all these thoughts. Like you're about to go on the road, right? So you're doing that thing, which is this, for me, whenever that's happening, there is a feeling of like tension. I can feel this anxiety creeping in.

I know what I've got to fucking do. And it's like, I want to put on a great show, I'm stuck in the future now. And my head is completely in the future, which is essentially like you're simulating a future. So when your mind is creating an idea of what's gonna happen, that's what's happening up in my head

when I'm prognosticating some future thing, whether it's a show that night, work tomorrow, some confrontation that I know I've got to do pretty soon, whatever it may be, that's not real. It's a simulation. You've simulated a future that is not what, you don't know what's gonna happen. You have no idea.

No matter how many times you've been through a similar experience, you're looking at statistics, you're not looking at the possibilities. Yeah, it's just, you just can't, yeah, you don't know. If you knew, you'd be fucking Nostradamus. You have no idea.

So your brain, using an amalgamation of past experiences, has thrown together some simulated reality that you're now running over and over in your head, and through that constant repetitive, never ending running it over and over and getting caught in it. And then like, I don't know if you've ever done this, like you're about to meet somebody for drinks

and on the way there, you're already having the conversation you think you're gonna have with them. You're like prepping for the conversation, you know? You're like imagining the first sentences you're gonna say and how the conversation like, go. You have an outline. It's not a script, but it's an outline.

Yeah, yeah, you're working it out. And you can get in full in fights with people. You can get in full on like debates with people before you even get to wherever you're meeting them. And all that's just the mind. It's not real. It's a simulated reality that isn't based on anything other than some kind of chains of like neuro-transmitters

in your brain that are doing their best to create an idea of what might happen to keep you safe. But all it's really doing is making this present moment right now suck. Yeah, it's like the same thing we're talking about trauma. Like trauma is this rotten event happened in the past and now we're still experiencing the... I was just gonna say,

is this the same as thinking about the past? Thinking about the future and thinking about the past. It's the same thing. I mean, Eckhart Toll talks about that too. It's the same, it's anything that pulls you out of the moment because your recollections of the past. Well, even if it is trauma, your recollections of that trauma

are not gonna be genuine, like you said. Mommy said, no, that's not that, it's this. But whatever she said it was still feels bad. The recollection is gonna make you feel guilty. It's gonna make you feel angry, whatever it is, as opposed to the moment where you can only feel... Like right now, I'm sitting in a room with you. A smart guy who I'm learning from.

Every time I sit with you, I learn things, you expand my mind. We're in this cool house with these little fucking dogs. And it's like this replaces getting on a plane next week and sitting alone in a hotel room. I can choose one of those two things. Right, and one's real and one's not. Cause you're not on the plane.

And then it's like, that thing is like, that's so this is like, be here now, let's get back in the moment. And it's like, you're always gonna drift from the moment into the future, into the past. Did I tell you that thing the last, like I heard this cool thing about the reason or one of the interpretations of the thieves

being on either side of Jesus in the Bible? No. So like, yeah, cause like it's this idea and it's, you know, it's an interpretation. I don't think this is like a doctrine or something, but the crucifix represents a timeline. So you have the, you know, past, present, future. That's what his arms are nailed to.

And then you have the infinite, which is the intersection that makes a human being, a human being, which is where this crazy combination of this infinite transcendent energy that's been nailed to time. And so on either side, you have these two thieves and the thieves represent the past and the future. Cause anytime you're like thinking about either of them,

you're robbing yourself of the delicious joy of being fucking crucified. What are you more present that when you're nailed to a fucking cross? Yeah. Thieves on either side of you. I thought you meant, cause there was Barabbas and there was the other thief who were,

who were strung up as well. Yeah. I don't think they were nailed to the cross. I think they were tied with ropes to the cross. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. They got, they got off easy, I guess, but like...

Barabbas did. They got to pass. Yeah. Yeah. Barabbas. Yeah. Spare Barabbas. Yeah.

Who do you want? Yeah. Yeah. We used to have to act that shit out cause growing up Catholic on a good Friday, you would go into the church and they would give you that whole script and we would have to act out the final scene

where we would scream, give us Barabbas, give us Barabbas. Dude. And it was always my birthday cause my birthday is April 5th. I swear to God, it felt like every three or four years it landed on my, and I'm standing there on my birthday. I'm like nine years old going, crucify him!

Crucify him! I just want to go home and get some cake, see if I got a bike. Dude, you know, not to like, you know, throw in something really weird. Like if you ever heard the idea, this is a really crazy idea. And it is a crazy idea.

I don't subscribe to it, but I love crazy ideas to think about it. But so there's the thing Jesus said, which is that many of you will not die before like I come back in all my glory or whatever. Like he was saying that I'm going to return before some of you die, which was very confusing for a lot of the early disciples

because they really did think like the end of the world was then and he was going to return in that moment. But so I think it was like Philip K. Dick or someone speculated that no, what's actually happening is that the crucifixion is so potent and so powerful, a moment that it's radiating eternally through time

and that you are there right now. You were screaming out Barabbas. Like that was real, but you're sort of in this moment as a comedian, but it's really just the shockwaves of what happens when a God gets murdered. Wow. Yeah.

Isn't that trippy? Wow. That's trauma. That's universal trauma. That's right. Timeless. Yeah, that's right. That's universal trauma.

That's what that represents. And that we're all this final moment as the divine comes to like terms with this event that's happening, which is, the idea is we're all being crucified. We are sharing and I think in Christianity, the idea is that the church is non-different from the Christ, right?

The church is the body of Christ. So a Christian is the body of Jesus and Jesus is being crucified and heartbroken and being ripped apart by this collision with matter. What is the idea like that a Christian should love, should become like Christ? Is that the idea? It should.

Well, yeah, I was talking to my daughter about it the other night. She's 15, but ever since she was like seven or eight, she's been very, very entranced by the Catholic faith. We go to church, I take her to church sometimes. And I think part of it is she grew up with a lot of Mexican girls and they were, she would go to first communions

and they had their crosses and she would talk to them about Jesus. I was talking to her about that moment when Jesus died and his final words were forgive them father for they know not what they do. So that's what you're supposed to do at that moment. You're supposed to understand that this is, almost goes back to what we were talking about before.

Forgive them father, this is their echoes. These are their echoes they're playing out right now. This is their trauma. Yeah. Wow. Holy shit. And that's the apocalypse. Like that's what's actually happening

is we're coming to a point where we have to figure out a way to forgive everybody. Yeah. We're fucked. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Yeah, but at least we can meditate and feel good about ourselves. Right?

Dude, I can definitely recommend forgiveness to anybody. I will say, man, definitely, if you want to feel better, just forgive. But when it comes to like when, you know what I mean? It's like, you can spout off of the mouth all you want about your little forgiveness is the guy pulled in front of me or the, you know, the girlfriend that cheated on you

or the this or that, you know, those little things. But when the moment of truth comes, which it will come, where a thing happens to you that is unforgivable, the pull-up bar is right there in front of you, man. And it's like, okay, now do it. Yeah. Right. And that's why I think Jesus is such a perfect example.

Because it's like, what the fuck did he do, man? He was going around healing lepers, walking on water, turning water into wine, doing these beautiful acts, telling people to love each other, saying you don't really need a priest class. You can connect with the divine right now. Yeah. What was he doing?

Right. Nothing. Bad. You know? Well, he was trying to upset the status quo. Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's, yeah, did you read that book, Zealot?

Yeah, I did. Yeah. And it was kind of about that. He was like, yeah, he was just this, and he wasn't the only guy doing it. That's what I liked about that book, is you saw that at that time, there was a bunch of guys like Jesus

that were traveling around, they had a posse, you know, they had a Facebook page, and people were showing up to their gigs, and they were talking about groovy stuff. And Jesus was just the one that was like, I don't want to just minimize it by saying he was the best at it, but he was the one that was divine.

He was the one that like, you know, took it to another level. Yeah, yeah. Well, the Reza Aslan, the book. Well, the thing I found really remarkable in that book, a few different things. It was a good book. I particularly enjoyed the description of the temple,

what that was like. Yeah. You know, that was really cool. People lined up with their offerings. Yeah, that was really a beautiful description. And then I also found it interesting that he was saying in all, and like, there are historic accounts of Jesus, of Galilee.

There are historic accounts, and they always refer to him as a magician. That's one of the, he was doing some kind of like, magical act in front of people. Yeah. He was doing, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, who opened for him?

I don't know, you know. John the Baptist. John the Baptist. Hey man, thank you so much for coming on the show. Oh, my pleasure, dude. My pleasure. Really, really appreciate it. So great, so great hanging out.

So you got a big tour coming up. We're gonna be able to see it. It's not a huge tour, but I got some dates coming up this fall. Well, first of all, I wanna also announce, I'm launching a new podcast with, you know, Alison Rosen. Yeah.

So she and I are doing a podcast called Childish that'll come out in a week or two. So go to iTunes and look for Childish. It's basically, she has an 18 month old, she's got another one under belly. Whoa. So it's me trying to teach her how to parent. But it's not really all good parenting advice.

That's so cool, man. I love her, man. She's awesome. Is she great? Yeah, she's great. Hey, look, I mean, I don't mean to throw something out there. If you guys, I don't know, she probably wouldn't do it. But if you wanna put my wife on there,

she's been doing nannying for eight years. Oh, really? And she's like a, she knows like, it's crazy. Like she has a just huge reservoir of data about how to do, I don't even know any of this stuff. Like there's special past fires we got up there now. And like she has opinions on, you know, she has like nanny opinions on strollers, you know?

She's got like a whole, it's very interesting. But anyway, I don't know. It is, yeah. And then I got some tour dates coming up. I'll be Mohegan's son in Connecticut, October 4th through the 6th. And then in Niagara Falls at the Comedy Corner, October 11th through the 13th.

Then I will be in Providence, Rhode Island, October 19th and 20th at the Comedy Connection. And then other dates coming up in San Francisco and Portland go to fitsdog.com for tickets. And then fitsdog radio is the podcast. All the links will be at dunkitrustle.com to these shows. Thank you so much. Thanks brother.

What a joy. Thank you. Great time. That was the great Greg Fitzsimmons everyone. Much thanks to ButcherBox, Simple, Contacts, and of course, Charlotte's Web for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH. If you like this podcast,

give us a nice rating on iTunes, won't you? Subscribe, prescribe it. May God bless your sweet bones. I'm off to play Red Dead Redemption. God forgive me. I want to be perfect, which is why I'm not. And I'll see you guys next time. We got some great episodes coming up.

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