Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 349: Emil Amos

Episode Date: August 17, 2019

Emil Amos, from Grails, Holy Sons, and Duncan's gateway to an entire mode of being rejoins the DTFH! This episode is brought to you by Raycon (visit buyraycon.com/duncan and use offer code: DUNCAN15 at checkout for 15% off). This episode is also brought to you by Audible (visit audible.com/DTFH or text DTFH to 500-500 to get a 30 day trial/free audiobook & two FREE Audible Originals).

You've been making better decisions for your busy family for years, and now little by little, you're making decisions for yourself, like snacking a little better, going a little further, sleeping a little deeper, and we're here to make that journey easier and even more rewarding with Acme's new Sincerely Health Platform, featuring nutrition plans, prescription reminders, and more. So sign up in the Acme mobile app to earn up to $25 in grocery rewards. Visit acmemarkets.com slash health for more details. That would show us your asshole by Larry King. That's on Rainbow Bridge Records, and the album title is Modulation Envelope. We've got a wonderful podcast for you today.

Emil Amos is here with us. We're going to jump right into that, but first, a word from our friends. A horrible thing happened to me the other day. I was at the gym pumping iron, 300 pounds on the bench press, also doing calf exercises simultaneously. When I looked over and I saw a man whose headphones had gotten stuck in his treadmill, it was one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen. It looked like somebody had taken a chainsaw to a pile of old pork bits of plop and flesh splashing about. They got him out of there and they say he's recovering now, but to me, it was a reminder of why it's very important to get wireless earbuds. This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by Raycon. Raycon is amazing and they started about half the price of any other

premium wireless earbuds on the market and they sound just as amazing. The company was actually co-founded by Ray J and celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Cardi B, two of my favorite students. Unlike some of your other freakish, horrifying wireless options, Raycon earbuds are both stylish and discreet with no dangling wires or stems. And of course, they don't just look great, they sound great too. Raycon offers their wireless earbuds for everyone in a range of fun colors and at an unbeatable price. Right now, if you go to buyraycon.com slash Duncan, you'll get 15% off your order. That's buyraycon.com slash Duncan for 15% off Raycon's wireless earbuds. If you've been eyeing a pair, now is the time to get this amazing deal while supporting your

favorite podcast. One more time, buyraycon.com slash Duncan. Do you want your face dragged into the grinding gears of some antiquated treadmill? Do you want to look like some weirdo with white death stalks popping out of the mouths of your ears, suckling on those white things like disgusting alien pacifiers? Hell no. Treat your ears to a wonderful bath of pure, aesthetically pleasing, beautiful wireless sound. Go to Raycon today. Okay, I'm going to play a song that I recorded with today's guest, Emil Amos, when we were in college together. At the time, I didn't know what I was doing. I was trying to learn to be a psychologist, I guess, but mostly I was just taking a lot of acid.

And I got lucky enough to run into Emil and we hit it off. And he had a four track. He could play guitar. He had this beautiful voice. He was always reading like Heidegger. So it was like getting to be friends with somebody from a Hermann Hesse novel. And during our friendship, he introduced me to some of some things that changed my life permanently, including Daniel Johnston, Sebado, and just a general sort of ethic that I guess you could describe as lo-fi. But anyway, here is Alter in the Woods, recorded in, I guess, the Sunderland dorm room at Warren Wilson College. Sorry if I got the dorm room wrong. Oh

All the candles are black The smell of incense burns my nose Oh I can't tell if your thoughts are real On your neck, the sign of the seventh seal On your breath, the taste of nutritious sweets From your loins, an incredible heat That's all my soul, never stopped for years I gotta tell you now, sweet mountain water She talked back so I shuddered And I grew up now She won't wear what I bought her Then now I'm running scared

On your couch Oh Alter in the woods Is the light of the dark Oh, it is on your shelves from the west Last night This is the last night And I, to the light of the woods

Is deep in the dark And I The last night Of the road ahead Oh This is the last time that I will ride that fisting machine The words were as true then as they are to this day And we're lucky enough to have the brilliant Emil Amos with us

He's actually going to be in LA so if you're listening to The DTFH on the weekend of august 16th head over to Zebulon on tuesday the Grails are going to be there That's one of Emil's many incredible brilliant bands We're going to jump right into this interview with Emil right after this A tremendous thank you to audible for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH Audible delivers bestsellers business self-improvement memoirs and more all professionally narrated by actors authors and motivational superstars Like Rachel Hollis David Goggins my lord and savior and mel robbins

Audible members can also get free access to the new york times wall street journal and washington post Delivered daily to the audible app. I love audible I listen to audible every single day if you like podcasts You got to give them a shot and i'm going to recommend a couple of audible books that are my favorite Number one the dark tower series by steven king, especially the first three It's incredible and more I just started listening to this one. I really like it zen guitar If you're interested in learning how to play guitar by not learning how to play guitar then zen guitar is the perfect

audio book for you and then also Meditation in action by chogium trump a rempache. I just finished that one. It's awesome If you're out there on the road if you're listening to podcasts and you want a little change Why not go to audible and start a 30 day audible trial? You'll get your first audio book plus two audible originals free Just go to audible.com slash d tfh or text D tfh to 500 500. That's audible.com

Slash d tfh or text D tfh to 500 500 I love audible I love taking walks and I like reading and the fact that the two can be combined into one thing is Awesome, give them a shot support this podcast by trying out audible again, that's audible.com Ford slash D tfh or text

D tfh to 500 500. You will get a free audio book You could get it the brothers karamazov and you will be listening to that for the rest of your life It's like 60 hours another fantastic audio book. Thank you audible for sponsoring the d tfh Punch your way out of that sick pulsing gelatinous cocoon You've been wrapped up in and dive into the d tfh over at patreon.com Ford slash d tfh head over there You'll get commercial free episodes of the d tfh along with one

Extra hour long rambling thing every single month Also, check us out. We've got a shop at dunketrussle.com with beautiful items for your sweet enjoyment And now without further ado Here he is Basically one of the few messiahs i've encountered in my lifetime a true outsider and a Incredibly talented brilliant human being who is in the grails the holy suns and ohm also

lilac's and champagne He is Amazing. I hope that you will come see the grails at zebulon this tuesday And maybe i'll see you there here he is everybody emol amos You Don't The man himself returning from a global international tour Hi, hello

Man, it's been too long since I've seen you and since we recorded. What do you think three years three years? Has it been that long? It's just a guess. I heard this like like scary ass shit about And I don't mean to start all heavy But this scary thing about like, you know, how trauma Fucks up your perception of time. Have you ever heard that before? Not this specifically It was pretty scary, but it like somebody was telling me that people who have like really severe trauma From their childhoods or whenever their time and memory get all distorted because like when you're going through some rotten thing

You buckle down and you try to like just get through it But you think that when the trauma is done you can unbuckle and suddenly your mind is gonna record Memories and time the same way, but it never does again So you always deal with those kind of dreamy Sense of time and stuff that's happening to you You know and then like you get into like this concept of universal Trauma like I just interviewed this guy Charles Eisenstein and he's like, oh, it's you know, it's like the just existing in

society as we know it is a Traumatizing experience and that just freaked me out man. And so yeah, when you say three years, I think God I don't know was it three years. I don't know. It's I can't really I can't figure out when the last time We chatted was that being said I do eat a lot of weed Occam's razor might say it's more likely the fact that I consume marijuana Frequently or something Yeah, well, that's I mean clearly a Freudian idea that from The beginning isn't he the guy that birth is the ultimate original scar or something that from birth that you're already

Freud said that I think is that was it was that around and the no Vedic time sounds like some kind of I mean, it does sound a little like original sin or something original trauma or whatever like that The word gets overused quite a bit But it's like, you know, some people when they contact reality They just don't want to they don't want to like eat the eat what's in front of them and so they have to come up with some method some way to like

skate through the time space continuum maintaining their sanity But also Trump pretending that they can like kind of not put their entire soul in the light socket of Suffering based on whatever their particular circumstance happens to be you enter into a daydream state You know what I mean? You start living up in your head. Do you're you're lost in your thoughts? they come back down four years has passed and You know what I mean? I'm not saying that happened to me necessarily, but it's just weird, you know When it's you you're one of my you're my oldest friend, you know

And so it's just funny that leaps forward in time as we get sucked into oblivion Yeah, it's funny. I feel today. I feel like a hundred percent clear, you know, like Scientology cleared cool but fate and free they have that I mean a lot of the podcasts we've done Since I moved to New York at least I remember we had we did a few that were like Super dark one that was one that you didn't put out because you were kind of embarrassed at how depressed we were Yeah, and which is I totally get and And it's cool to be sitting here right now and know that you know, I'm not in that zone right now But but as we were saying earlier in the car

We're driving here I'm always kind of aware that it could you could be coming back at any point, which I think is just a kind of basic Ancient philosophy, you know that like The storm has never gone forever. Yeah, and I and I I do Have a feeling that like the end of my life is gonna be really hard and I don't I don't know exactly what shape it'll take because I Bet I'll be surprised at how good it is too, but I do have this weird sense that like the challenges I Will face

Will go to the very end. I don't know. I don't know in what form Well, is that a weird thing to say? Everybody say that I don't I mean well I I don't think people like to think about that sure if they do think about it Usually they summon up a pretty like romantic fantasy Hallmark channel style about it But no, they don't they don't like contemplate the possibility of some kind of rough exit from this dimension but also it's like that

You have to fantasize about it because there's no fucking way to tell what it's gonna be like, you know Yeah, I was even in college. I feel like we both would debate each other sometimes in class about the device of using death as a measuring stick or some sort of tool to Analyze the value of life, you know, and I and I feel like in the most non grim way day to day I do think about the death bed realization as a device or like a

It's a reflexive tool. I use I think to myself If I'm on it on my death bed and I look back at my life, you know, what am I gonna be happy? I did what am I gonna be proud of what am I gonna be super embarrassed by? I mean, it's it's a I think it's a kind of clarifying tool. I like the death bed fantasy But I do think it's just like a form of like Future nostalgia for a thing that like wrecking balls you you know because it's like you get the death bed Number one, you're assuming you're in a bed You know what I mean? And number two you're assuming you're even gonna be able to think yeah

And and like in this fantasy I think produces for me in the past is like created a real ability to procrastinate Because you do get this idea of some future Vacation prior to absorption into infinity and then and then in that during that vacation you contemplate life review Make amends, but really you're just probably gonna have a fever. You're gonna be shitting yourself You're gonna ask where you are a couple of times. You're gonna fall asleep. You're gonna wake up and like what's happening? Someone like you're dying. You're gonna fall back asleep Maybe your eye you'll just get your eye open enough to look at somebody piercing pain in your head followed by

Nothingness, you know what I mean? And like this this I think is probably more realistic than It which I to me I Have kind of like given up the death bed for a lot of people. What's the typical death bed fantasy? Like what's the just stereotypical death bed fantasy? How does it look? Well, I think I Totally agree with you. I think that the the hovering Illusion that you're that you're sort of coddling is that the truth will eventually arrive and even if it's that the last second Yeah, it'll at least be the total truth Yeah, which there probably is some element of accuracy to that in the sense that you have the total amount of your life has been lived

So but but it's not to say that you can grasp everything fully or anything But but the idea is the seduction that the truth is coming though And so that implies that right now isn't really good enough and right now Isn't really the full picture which is kind of one of the classic lies, right? Yeah, what if everything just stays like this till the moment you die meaning you're never fully sure of anything and and you're kind of Pathetic and sort of just this just this this is all there is and that's a Really tough one for me to grapple with when I'm like super honest with myself because I don't feel a hundred percent here ever

I'm just you know, I'm just not totally present most of the time. I'm always distracting myself with something and If that's the way I'm gonna be to the very end Then I see no light of Improvement or truth coming and and so I have to be honest with myself about that because if I was ever to take the bait and believe That some great arrival point was coming. I would be a A halted idiot, right? Yeah, right cuz why yeah, you just like or just I guess like get as close to death as you like do the people who are into like the eschatological messianic fantasy, which is the equivalent of the subjective deathbed fantasy

Within it you naturally do accidentally long for your own extinction because you imagine there to be an epiphanous moment some kind of really Horrific like last buzz like a last high where a light bulb appears above your head and it's like the It's you know, it's like you end up milking your future death and drink like that. It's like a vacation and Yeah, but you you you do end up with what you just said. It's like That thing of like oh, oh, no, this is just it and then and then this little Selfness thing that I got going on It's not really gonna get better

Any more than it is and it's not really gonna necessarily get worse Any more than it is and I've noticed in my very worst moments. There seems to be relatively similar Sense of what's happening that doesn't quite change that much and then and you know what I mean outside of like, oh, I've got a piercing headache Fuck this sucks. Oh, I got a headache. Ah, this sucks The pain overwhelms you maybe to the point where it's intoxicating and you and you desperately want to get away from it but usually it's just a sort of flickering in and out experience of a kind of non-existent dream state thing

With people within the dream telling you with some great certainty that if you go and do this or that read this book Practice this meditation say this mantra There will be a moment Where the scales fall from your eyes and a great light Who rises inside of you and then in that moment? Thou shall awaken from the dream and that's death anyway So it's like, you know what I mean?

Like the whole thing is just like it doesn't really matter if that happens whoever you are right now The dreaming state is gone. So you're dead And if you die the dreaming state is gone. So I guess that's enlightenment or something To me I get all fucking Stoic Marcus Aurelius Who like broke it down saying it's a moment in time Death is a moment in time. That's it. It's one single moment a quantum of experience That's it. You aren't gonna die

This you that you are right now it stays alive, but one frame of you is Gonna be the last frame and that frame can deal with its own fucking shit, you know right now we got podcasts to do and music to play and Then let the for that frame can die Let that frame conk out. However, the fuck it's gonna conk out. I My feeling these days when it comes to this sort of thing as someone who's been deeply horrified by death For a very long time. Neurodically obsessed with death And is that um

It's just means that if you love life so much that your mind gets that my my mind being magnetized to death is The other side of the I love life penny I think it's it's about time For me to like pull up my pants and and acknowledge If I could get a little objectivity that if this is my major life curse Like if this isn't my big challenge my mountain to climb then that's a pretty great

Problem to have out of all the various life problems you could have of mountains to climb of psychological Damage that you're trying to repair or something like of all of them You know if I could just take a deep breath and say that this particular grappling this particular intellectual feat that I seem to focus on every day, which is what how well would be the fact that I'm Not necessarily present which is sort of you know This is the ancient definition of consciousness sort of is this divorce inside yourself

Between as you know sartre said the in itself and the for itself. So you're hovering above yourself You know, you're not really totally feeling like you are you in consciousness Yes, so if that's my big problem, and if I don't really feel like I'm here and It drives me to levels of frustration of feeling upset or scared or sad or whatever it does Then of all problems at least I got a really classic ancient one You know, I mean it could be struggling with you know some kind of Daddy issues, maybe I have those too, but I don't know that because I feel like this is really my my issue and

Maybe I need to step back and say like goddamn. I'm lucky that this is my problem. Well that now this is where this thing man, I'm sorry all for this is something I mentioned before but Trump a Rinpoche wrote about the situation of suffering and specifically the situation of Coming up inventing a way to Trick yourself into thinking that Your son you can hold this at arms length. So this rift the great divorce that you're talking about if you can imagine

Number one other problems that you could have Fuck, you know, you could be one of these beekeepers who's like your bees are like coming back and like shitting plastic out you could be somebody who like a butt plug Disaster those people who like actually have to go to the emergency room and by the time they're like it's too late Saddest incarnations you waited a week Now we got to remove your whole colon because the butt plug is jammed in there. It's not coming out And there's nails in there. You could be one of those people you whatever you invent some absurd Potential other you and you're like well at least I'm not that fantasy

Meanwhile in that what you do in that moment At least as I understand this thing Trump or Rinpoche was talking about is you now hold your suffering at arms length So now it's like, okay. Well, at least I'm not this other thing This is a problem. I have sure whatever but it's like but still you are in the situation And the situation is not going to change and so this is like the for me has been one of the big moments for me It's just like oh my god. I Don't have to fix it It's not fixable and then in that realization of that just that cuz like fuck it doesn't make it

Change the initial problem changeless But all that extra energy Pretending around some corner is a is a fucking blue. Wow. This is oh, I used to be so but now I'm It's like just once you give that shit up sure. Oh my god, and then once you give up on the people around you Similarly, you know what I mean where you're like, they're not gonna get better Right, stop trying to be part of the secret fucking team of people making the people in your life better They're gonna be that way too and then the world is not getting better

So forget that too and then like all of a sudden you get to hang up your fucking world betterment Gear and and and in there somewhere you're actually I don't know. It's the same. It's like this thing you're talking about Which is like the problem of I guess you could say I don't know maybe this is too woo-wooly a way to say it Spirit contacting matter. Yeah formlessness contacting form non differentiatedness Contacting differentiatedness literally a crucifixion and then

you know, this is a this is the reality and You still end up Having the awareness that you are confused The awareness that you're fading out the awareness that you're not here all the time the awareness that something seems amiss What is that? Yeah, who is that? Who's doing that part of the thing and then this is where Trump or rubbish says confusion is a Condition of enlightenment

Because the Confusions loud The Enlightenment is quiet the Confusions held within the Enlightenment the Confusion is literally embraced in the space of awareness It's crying like a fucking baby and it won't stop. It's confusion What's the this is that Ramadan story? Lady calls him on orange sunshine. I'm gone completely insane and he's like who okay? But let me talk to the person who dialed the phone and knew to call me Because that person that person hasn't gone crazy. You're out of your fucking mind

You know I'm saying yeah, yeah, yeah, I think the Great logicians or whatever Funny it sounds like a magician, but it's like the like Vittgenstein and High digger. I think although I'm not an expert. I think their idea was that if they arranged words in the correct manner if they actually Positioned the question in the right way then it would answer itself

It's a cool idea. So if you're asking the wrong questions over and over again Nothing, you'll always be confused But but if you finally refine the mind and the language to the point where it's perfect Then there almost won't be a question, right? Yeah, so it's like a mathematical thing. So if If if I'm trying to do this and I'm trying to get to the central heart of the matter, you know, I'm in a twilight zone And I'm theorizing the whole episode my life episode 33 It's like I'm theorizing through the whole episode trying to Get the right words on the right order so I can crack the riddle

And then at the end of the episode Let's say I get the central problem. I finally decode what it is But the issue or the box I'm stuck in I figure it out And you're saying That at the very last stage when you're right there and you've got your hands on the real thing The next step is to acknowledge that that thing is totally un unsolvable That that at that moment when you get there and you finally recognize you've got your hands on the thing

Indiana Jones is about to switch the thing. Yeah, and he's got the holy grail And then the final stage of saged him is that you release it and you realize You got to give up right there, you know, so that's that's where I've got to go to a place where I let myself Be super flawed and let myself be a mess and let myself my brain not be present But obviously as all great thinkers just keep keep trying never never giving up But like accepting that like I don't have to look further for a better equation But that that equation it can't be relinquished and untied that not will just kind of it's just part of Being alive, you know, yeah, I think so

I mean, it's definitely a fun thing to just give up the project for a second It's like I think it takes a lot of guts and you know, this is where Lately I keep thinking about the parable of Jesus and the wealthy man and it's like I Want to follow you and he's like, okay But you got to give up everything You have to give all your all your money to the poor and then you can follow me and this I think comes into

It's easier for a rich man to get through the eye of a needle and on the surface level. It sounds like it's talking about money with you know, the exteriorized version of fixation on some kind of squirreling away in the Imaginary delusion that it's gonna do anything for you, you know, so money is the easiest thing to give away Really, it's like easy clearly

All right, you fucking look at that mug I've got it's easy to give it away. You get a thing in exchange But to even give it it's even easier somehow to give it away You end up giving it away and yet you still have that need any what I'm saying is To me that thing is saying actually Give you have to give up the project like you your project your little project that you you were doing whatever it is You're gonna be this or that What happens if you give up the project and then who are you then I was the other day

I threw a piece of trash in the garbage can walking down the street and I thought What happens if I just give up all the spirituality bullshit You know what I mean like how attached to my to this nonsense What if what if you threw that in the trash fuck it all just it was a view was a little thing I don't know what I was doing. I was fucking. Yeah, it's just a fleeting thought did was doing ketamine for a long time I guess it made sense. Maybe I don't know. I don't want to blame it on psychedelics, but nah, you know, probably not maybe not Maybe not and this is why science is so beautiful because in science a scientist will spend their entire life Exploring some hypothesis

The hypothesis is not it's proof. Oh, no, you were wrong and they have to abandon it and move on It's a victory Because of their work trying to establish if I asking the question They got to a place where they found out. No, no, no, that's not true and they're that much closer to the truth Because they gave it up. That attitude has always impressed me I think the what people struggle with and it's what we're probably Both and all struggling with all the time is just there's there's a contradiction in there People always want to understand it. The literal mind is is always, you know

Dow is a one-on-one when we would take classes on that stuff. It was sort of like What the freshman kids always like, you know asking the teacher is like But how can I you're asking me to give up? And keep trying at the same time and you know and it's like the teacher has to be really subtle to be able to explain it's kind of like probably 90% of what You know teachers are trying to explain most of the time in a in a class on dow ism or something like how can I get this contradiction across, right? Yeah

So, I mean, what would you tell? Somewhat a young person that was like saying you're telling me to give up the project Yeah, so what is that? I I'm just supposed to to die and just do nothing now. Just like lie on the couch every day A shot Right because it won't happen. You won't you won't give up Just try I mean if that the thing is like whatever your mind like if you if the response to your mind is like Wait You want me to do the blast for me and then it fills in the blasphemy blank

With like I this blasphemy is like whatever the fucking thing is. Yeah, I'm gonna go suck a million dicks then It's like well, if that's but you know, whatever the fucking thing is go do it Should you know what I mean? Whatever now that that's a blasphemy. I mean that could be a very beautiful experience. I'm saying the Ghost story your mind is telling you Should you temporarily take a vacation? From its never-ending Confabulations

Is like well go do that and see what happens. Yeah, go see go see go see it really go check it out because ultimately You're going to end up Here right I don't know. It's A joy. I just know from me. There is a That that I remember throwing the trash in the can It was a really joyful moment because I realized how fucking attached I had become

To these conceptualizations of the universe Not only that in a weird way how Kind of like stifling It is in the sense. It's like well, blah, blah, blah and sand dance and blah, blah, blah and sand that and blah, blah, blah and sand that I do that all the time, but it's like, what do you have to say? What is your idea? Okay, because blah, blah, blah when they said that They were they were standing on the shoulders of blah, blah, blah

I said blah, blah, blah and then it's probably just a bunch of fucking blah, blah And then suddenly I'm just talking about that thing where you cut through the crusty old fucking Gravy in the gravy tray of your philosophical conceptualizations and suddenly when you just break through that little surface level and usually it does involve some blasphemy You hit I think the place the clear

The fountain of youth the spring water the good water the non-brackish Stuff and that stuff doesn't really Now you're off the map. Yeah, there you go. I I feel like I I totally agree is like your true character Can't really be forgotten or avoided like the ramda story like when when his boat and his jet start disappearing The thing that most people are really afraid of is that they're gonna totally Mutate and transform and to like lose themselves, you know, especially they're too high or something, but The thing is you're gonna land on your feet. Your character is going to persevere now that starts a whole another

conversation, but as though we'll get to I think in a second, but like I think that the idea that your character Being so strong that almost precedes your ego has Lately made me think that maybe like Traditional schooling the kinds me and you went to like public school Is actually like a total fucking farce. I never thought that when I was young

I thought all the hippie schooling that kids went to where it was like really fruity when I was a kid Now i'm thinking man I don't have a kid You know you do so you're gonna have to face this decision but now i'm starting to think like some alternate form of schooling would be really cool because its life is more about character strengthening and growing and evolving Like character nourishing more than like

You know studying all that shit we did. Yeah, you know. Oh my god. Yeah for sure Well, you know, it's like the problem is we're just in a real like kind of self replicating demonic situation over here right now because we need To produce need to produce money I need you to need my services So I need to fill you with need if I want to you've got to always want some shit And I've got to get figure out a way to make you want my shit

And that is uh, that's the game I guess over here and then and so when you're going to school That's being that where the curriculum is being determined by People who are within that system of trying to produce States of healthy need to sell product or teaching you how to Make someone need you What are you gonna learn in that situation except how to be a fucking drug dealer? You know and and what it's not drugs. You're dealing It's some service some thing I'm a jig at this or that and and then I don't know you end up

Having a general sense of like I'm being fucking hoodwinked here any healthy kid Upon encountering public school Will have a reaction Of like wait Something is amiss. This is not my family. What about the wait? Where are the hikes? Wait, I have to run to the bathroom. I gotta take a shit. Wait. I have to ask permission to take a shit What is this? Why am I asking you permission to take a shit? Meanwhile these teachers are working three jobs

They're driving ubers and shit So they're they're emanating a sense of like I'm getting I came here to fucking help babies and children Make contact with reality and now I'm fucking Basically fucked and I'm supposed to teach these kids shit like this system even works When you know what I mean the best teachers the one who are like you need to get out of school Yeah, totally. I I have this buried memory that came back to me really recently of like this summer day I guess school was out and I like looked out my mom's

Window and next door there were all these lawnmowers going off. It's really loud and I Looked over and it was like my fifth grade teacher was mowing someone's lawn. Oh my god And for some reason at whatever maybe I was 16 or something it really was like Hard for me to get my head around that my teacher Had for whatever reason in my mind fallen to

this low-level yard worker Like in my mind and so I mean it exposes to what degree I really I really looked up to older people on a level where that was like wildly unrealistic. I thought that teachers were like these really Inevitably wise people, you know, and now I'm finally old enough to look back and think of how much they didn't care and they were so insanely flawed and just you know, they're just like Barely a step away from that like

Guy that was screaming nonsense at us on the sidewalk today. You know, it's like It's so it feels so healthy to put them in their their right place in society that like, you know, these people Just were working a fucking job and they didn't give a shit about me a lot of them, you know and I just I it's weird to me that I really looked up to because that's a big theme of my life I really looked up to people So profoundly like and I'm glad I'm like letting them down off their pedestals now. Good god. I was I've been such a fucking idolater Me too. It's disgusting. Yeah, I mean what it's a We were talking about this earlier

we were saying like the the condition of When you read in the bible or whatever a movie Are you hear the term idolater? I have summoned up indiana jones style pyramids with fucking dudes in robes offering hearts to golden bulls And it's cool in its own way because there's ceremony and incense. It's fucking not awful but at least on some level the The thing is like ornate

But then in the same way that like when you picture the apocalypse you fantasize about volcanoes or meteors or whatever When you think of idolaters, you never we think about the apocalypse. It doesn't occur to you Though actually the world isn't going to really end according to your stupid poem or an iron maiden song You know what I mean? It's going to end in a way that is the ending of endings You know what I mean? So you don't get to your idea of the apocalypse is actually going to that that's going to go through the apocalypse too

similarly When you realize the idolatry that we're seeing in the world right now is just what you're saying A fixation on the notion that someone other than you is going to save your ass Oh And then you start realizing like i'm afraid not my friend Nobody's going to save your ass You have to get on the fucking boat You know what I mean? Like you just got to get on the boat

And you have to figure out and if you don't have a boat you're gonna have to build a boat And if you you know what I mean and you have to build it Yeah, you have to do it here because honest to god, we don't know what you are You might be an anomaly Literally all the scriptures that were written about oh abandon all variety of religions and surrender unto me Find some grass and sit in the woods or here's the breath work or the thing or whatever That might have been written For everyone except you

If you follow that prescription you're taking someone else's medicine This leaves you in a wonderfully lonely position Where you now or have to deal with the fact that you're alone In a world of people who are maybe all actually it's working for them, but it didn't work for you It's not working for you And that loneliness Is such a joy because it means you're free. It's the beginning of liberation if you ask me you've walked out of the prison And you're still in the shadow of the prison and you're thinking about how nice it was because you knew you're gonna get scrambled eggs

Even though they sucked and you got a nice job as the dude who got the extra permission to fucking sweep the hallway at night And you're gonna miss it a little bit But still in all it's better That lonely feeling Then the fucking obsessive fixated feeling on fantasizing that if you keep saying this thing over and over If you keep doing this dance this certain way That you're gonna be all right to me That's a real it's a really exciting thing

For me to just realize like, oh, yeah, that was a different time. Yeah, this is possible to you that that shit that all the shit Heidegger sart buddhism hinduism Christianity alastor coley That was written at a different point in the dream the universe was having And so that worked for that particular dream state But we're in a new dream now

And the old stuff don't work anymore We've gone around the bend. We're in a new part of the river Well, I like to think that those, you know, each person's final take on life As they wrote them uh Well at least like some kind of signpost

That reflects a personal Genuine journey towards, you know Ultimate knowledge or something, you know that these people gave their lives and Yeah, there's some some takes that would be um relatively useless like in the early part of the greeks where there's there's always like Philosophers that say no, I'm pretty sure everything's made of Air, yeah, you know, and then the next guy says no, I'm pretty sure everything's made of water and the next guy says no

It's actually fire. You know, I mean that that stuff is pretty useless but Go into the people you you're talking about like The buddha story or whatever they they're Depending on how you use them. They have some signpost worth, you know, yeah, but uh I don't know that that story is supposed to supply you with everything you need But the buddha story does

A great job, you know, I feel like yeah, I feel like Me and you are sort of In some way, I feel like I've said this before but in some way We're sort of like at the top of the roller coaster or something like we've lived half our lives. Yeah, and we spent Hundreds and hundreds of hours Obsessing over things that were not real. Yes, like we definitely obsessed over and Got very angry about a lot of bullshit. Yeah, and

We're kind of at this halfway point where Instead of obsessing over what we don't have We're now we've been given a special opportunity. We're here now and we Can't really complain No, I don't think we can Where we are right now and so now Our job is sort of transforming, you know, we we don't we're not trying to solve the issue From the first half of our life where we felt

Pushed away and unloved, you know, yeah, we're not there right now So our job is transforming into something new You know Well, number one that the first thing that you say is a thing that I've My My brother is talking to me about. Oh, you know, we're around, you know, we're in the second part of our life the second half of our life And I always think like wow, that's an optimistic fucking prognosis

Implying you've got another 40. You think you have 40 years. Jesus christ Congratulations. I don't know if that's the case So and to me It pads things a little bit to imagine. I have a second half now. I don't want to like I'm not saying Like, oh, no, I've had some sense of this or that. I'm just saying like fuck. I don't know So that's where I'm going to hang out in number one. I don't know about that

My I don't know how to check that atm So to speak and there is no way to check that fucking atm to see how much time you have in your account So number two The job I don't think there's a fucking job And then and I don't mean to I'm trying to get to the the like heart of the matter Which is like you how you invent a job You're born into a place

of no walls No boundaries no real boundaries, right and you invent A wall you invent a boundary you start inventing these mountains to climb and then you you you're you're now you you start climbing the mountain and now You're on this long trek and now suddenly at some point the daydream ends. You're like, wait, I just invented all the mountains I did get to the top of some mountains But that actually wasn't even a mountain and I actually didn't climb it There was no really what you know what I mean, and now you're like, oh fuck. So then

You realize like, all right. Well, I guess I'm gonna like keep playing this video game because there's a subtle transformation at that point Recognizing that Well, yeah, that's despair That's the abyss as they call it. I've heard I've heard it's called crossing the abyss And it's a moment. I I think I've made tiny and maybe if the fact that I say I've made it contact with it means I haven't I don't know Yeah, but I'm not trying to like take credit And like establish some put a flag on something and say like I am now like I'm not letting my ego inflate

It's like the opposite. It's what you're saying. It's like I my ego was inflated before And like now I'm just so thankful that I don't have to wake up and go through my own lies You know what I mean? It's like I'm kind of releasing myself from that. But as you also said You know, I'm still gonna keep playing this fucking game Yeah Yeah, you you you Um Both of us, I think are now experiencing something that when we were younger might have seemed

Worse than death A fate worse than death, which is just we're starting to really enjoy Or just accept the mundane qualities of life And I hope we are and it's okay There's not that like and I think that is part of getting older man It's like there's not that like I when the old days When I heard shit like just so you know, the whole enlightenment thing isn't real or just don't think about it doesn't matter Or things along the lines of just any of this stuff is really normal

Super normal in fact is what terms and or trump o'rampage. They would say things like If you've been standing on your head your whole life and suddenly you're standing your feet There's gonna be a really mo crazy moment where you feel so good But eventually you're just gonna realize. Oh, yeah, I'm just like this is the way I was supposed to be walking around You've oriented yourself to what you were made for And I and I'm not claiming either of us as necessarily done that but at some point It just the

You do get to a place where you're like, this is fine Yeah, I'm not I mean it just jeez I don't know how I wandered into some sort of like feeling guilty. We're being pretentious, but like I know But like but I mean when when we know I feel it too It's like the fact that we're even talking about ourselves is embarrassing to me But like but like when we used to go to um, the zen Sort of mountain study retreat with uh tejo. Tejo. Yeah

She had these young boys around that would wear the robes and shave their head and wear the belts, right? Yeah, and I mean just like Your first immediate impression because we were sort of just outsiders just wandering through we weren't yeah We weren't that wasn't like our life's calling or anything um, but your first impression is like You're really gonna wear Fucking belt and shit like isn't that like the most the biggest red flag, you know that you are like

Quantifying your knowledge, you know, and you're like putting like drawing your height on the on on the edge of the door You know like your mom used to do like I'm Johnny's this tall now Yeah, you know, so you're really gonna announce this as though that's real What I'm saying is like I feel like a awesome Calm that I'm like not drawing my height on the wall anymore. You know what I mean? I'm just not I'm not calculating it anymore You know and I and I'm letting myself just I'm letting myself be alone a little bit What a relief

Because we the problem is is just like the goddamn encouragement and maybe this is the school problem It's like we're encouraged to come up with all these fucking markers Exactly points of growth Places of this and things of that and this and that and this and that and then it within the Flurry of activity that that produces. There's this wonderful opportunity to distract yourself from I think a really essential problem for a lot of people which is You're flickering out of existence all day long

There are massive holes in the experience of you as a self That you're not paying any attention to because you're not there and yet somehow you are trying to create an outpost of a little encampment within an imaginary Framework and it's driving you up the fucking wall because no matter what you know What what about you lost your fucking keys, man? Where were you? You were asleep

All night and you woke up Where were you? You drove four hours and you don't remember driving This is a situation of like complete It's antithetical to a society

That is desperately trying to push itself into the world and these these attempts I have become the market pressure for technology. It's like, you know what I mean? It's like finally we can exteriorize ourselves I might have not been here for the last four hours because I went into my head and I was thinking about

fucking like, you know Did that when I was like Did something awful happen to me when I was in the third grade? You know what I mean? Like you're you're you know what I mean? You're but at least I know my fucking facebook profile was They're the whole time I might have blinked out my instagram account. It's always there some sense of like that's me. You see that's me Look at that. There I am. I'm doing great This is like the problematic

Thing I guess is that we are that thing you were talking about initially We you must eventually come to terms with the fact that if you are something you're not something in a any kind of like steady way You're strobing if anything or at least the you that you think you are that's fucking cool And and exciting to me because it's like oh god. You're afraid of death You're afraid of that last moment You're afraid to die when it's like literally and this is straight stolen from marcus aurelius

You died That's the fucking thing your past is gone It's gone This is for some people you say that to them and they get really upset No, it isn't I've got my pictures And I remember my memaw and we had a christmas together and the christmas was it's like yeah, I know but guess what it's gone And now you're not supposed to say that, you know, I've I've been in some way or another somewhat It's like there's a gentle approach to expressing this I guess

So now you have to deal with like oh, well, that's gone your past is gone What the fuck even was that it was like a dream You're the dream you had a few nights ago Where you were like getting your dick sucked by a hippo or like whatever it was is more real than your past, you know outside of debt And so then You know some paper trail that there must have been a me You know, I'm talking about yeah, yeah, and then not only do you not have a fucking past

But you don't have a present in the sense that like the thing that you think you are keeps flickering in and out And then that's what trumpa talks about is like well what what what it is is we check in with some moment Throughout the day. So now I'm checking in right now. I'm checking in. I'm here with you. I'm I feel here with you I'm checking in And but I'm gonna blink out again. And then but but there's there's a purpose for all of these states, right? It's like It's like kind of a radical realization to realize like each one of these mind states is Totally natural and fine, you know that you like the whole idea is you're trying to like through most of life

You're trying to herd yourself into the correct, you know Field to grazen or something. Yeah, and the past couple years maybe three years I saw Two therapists is not to do with this stuff, but um There was a couple points where of course they always say to you when you're like leaving you say like Well, actually I'm going traveling for a bit. So I won't be back. Maybe I'll just get back to you when When it's time to come back in and they always say like, oh, no, you're dealing with a lot of stuff

You got to come back in immediately and you're like, oh really? I am. I mean Okay, you know, and you don't know how much to trust them, but Trust them, but there there was a couple points where I was like Wow, I've got a little more going on inside That I didn't know about like some stuff from When I was a kid that I just didn't know about and so I was like, well, that's a big Step just to see that, you know, like not that I had any great urgent dilemma or anything

This wasn't life or death or anything, but I thought that was a pretty wild feeling to to have my hands on that and be like holy shit like There's some stuff I didn't know about myself, right? And then now fast forward to this state where I'm bragging today about feeling clear or whatever Even though I'm being sarcastic, but I am I feel good. You know what I mean? And so Which one of those states was more productive? The one where I feel great or the one where I was like, holy shit. I got a lot of shit to work on

Well, the most productive or the most, you know Sort of empathetic Would be to stand back and say they're all they're all just good states and and they'll just cycle through them and it's all The where I need to be and it's gonna be fucking fine. That's good, you know, and I know that sounds relatively posy, but like I just it's always kind of fascinated me that It was it was really early on when I got into

the Centro loo Barlow home recordings Yeah, I would listen to all the songs and you know, there'd be like 40 tracks on a record and as they went by I think Geez, there's so many points of the day and each one of those moments is Like a world Yeah, and each one of those worlds has realizations that are separate from the other worlds

and I remember looking out the Window and I saw my cat sort of like in the sunshine on a rock And just kind of being tired and I thought about like earlier when she was just like running around going crazy And how how that was a totally different universe inside her brain, you know I was like and all of these moments of the day Can be honored, you know That was one thing Lou Barlow showed me is he was like through this kind of radical honesty

you can just embrace every little thing about life and and honor them and just Let it flow through you and that that kind of Sort of embrace of this Huge variety of experience was to me extremely radical because everybody else who is trying to Essentially sell you something most of the time, you know, it could be in conversation or it could be an actual product Is trying to again herd themselves or some sort of words into a shape that is you know legitimate or fucking

sexually attractive or something like that and then someone comes along and shows you that life Has merit just on its Sort of pure ability to be researched and experienced, you know almost scientifically like you can give yourself to study Yeah, and and that's what's real That's what's redeeming. That was like so huge for me. Wow, man Yeah, that is one of the gifts that Lou Barlow gave us and that style gave gave us it's just that Look, this is this

beautiful and this Is the rugged terrain you go into the wilderness and see rocks

and doom And mud and like it's still god. It's beautiful And then somehow people are trying to evade the rugged terrain of this That is and even worse they're trying like instead of describing it as it is their interior landscape or whatever Like ah, it's you there's fucking tumbleweeds I think there's like just mostly tumbleweeds

and it's a big Desert And there's some fucking garbage old abandoned cars or something Maybe some shitty kids drawings flutter by every once in a while. I don't know Instead of saying that you're like, well, it's fast and It's you know learning from

the past That has been a great teacher to me. Whatever it is you revise I don't want to fucking hear you. I don't want to when I'm reading crack hour Talk about ascending some disaster, you know an Everest or whatever I don't want to fuck. I don't want him to fucking sweeten it up That's no adventure story. Can you imagine if he wrote Everest like it was great We were learning how to make the best of the worst situation And then it was you know, I mean, it's not that's not an adventure story

Why do we keep trying to do this to ourselves? It's sad and it's a fucking waste of time And it's also bad for everyone around you That's the moment Lou Barlow is fucking singing about jerking off Right three times. What is it three times a day? Yeah, that's how many you do And then here's the other thing man the you there's another thing in the culture right now which is like The moment sometimes I'll say to people. Oh, I'm lazy. You see Well, no, the reason I didn't walk the dog

is because I'm lazy And they'll say you're not lazy It's like no, I'm lazy I could have walked the dog. Yeah, I know why I didn't walk the dog It's because I was being lazy. I wanted to fucking do something else. I should have walked the dog There's a pathetic thing I did that I didn't walk the dog. You're being hard on yourself. No, I'm not I don't feel bad that I'm lazy or that I'm pathetic. It just happens to be what I'm working with right now That's that'd be like if a if a preacher was like and then

Christ bled out from his wounds and and said Why has thou forsaken me and somebody just yelled out from the crowd like no, he didn't You're not forsaken. Yeah, he's fine. Yeah Yeah, can you imagine Jesus utter is one of the most beautiful existential statements maybe ever said in a scripture The messiah Being itself is basically saying I didn't it didn't work gang and then like yeah

His bleeding hand is outstretched like some kid in a leather jacket moon walks up and puts a pepsi in his hand and like The song the commercial ends and he's like stoked. He looks at the camera. He's like He looks at the camera and he goes I am not forsaken anymore pepsi It saved me It saved me the pepsi saved me. Oh, you know, Jesus, I know you think you're forsaken right now I know you're hanging on the cross. I know you're a young dude who like thought you were the fucking thing and all that But it didn't work. But actually you're gonna be fine. We're gonna, you know, we're gonna get you off the thing It's gonna work out

To me, it's like, yeah, then you destroy Jesus like that's what exactly what satan would do. I'm sure if there was a satanic impulse Like the executioner's mask falls off and and like jesus rolls his eyes and then mentos Fucking kicks then This cross was sponsored by city bank It's like the the the The repugnant practice Of trying to make things less repugnant is like really

Oh, it's a it's a it's a fucking waste of it's a sad waste of energy No one gets cheered up by the way. There's never been a time in my life Where when I'm feeling like abject shit And someone comes up to me. He's like, don't be you're just being hard on yourself. But you're actually okay It never has really quite worked. Well, that but okay You and I might Consume things that make us feel Like we've got our hands on the truth or some some sort of

You know this what we're talking about this kind of lube arlo music that's like radical honesty. It makes us feel better But that has not Helped to slow the entire industry That sells what you're talking about this comfort to people Um, and you talk to people all the time, you know, I was just on the plane from Geneva and Everyone around me. I kind of like to look around and see what other movies people have chosen just to see if I like made the best choice

and It was just adult men All around me watching like Avengers and superhero movies and they were all fucking on the edge of their seat just like Yeah, you know explosions and and like no matter how much we You're saying it doesn't help people or whatever, you know this industry It's that That industry rages on and will rage on till the end of earth and

You know I have a hard time believing it. It's even happening because I live like you, you know, I don't really Go out much. I don't have a huge friend group and I'm On my own most of the time. So when someone says something Crazy idiotic like some crazy western Idolatry shit, you know I'm like shocked like I'm super fucking shocked when like

Here's like a little example. It's like My grandma died recently and my mom Was going on about how Insane it is to cremate people How disgusting it is or something and how like the only like sensible option is to put them in the ground Yeah And I'm just I'm just saying like there people say stuff to you And you realize oh my god, like

The world is obsessed with arbitrary bullshit. You know, that's like a shocking moment. I'm like What makes putting them in the ground better? I just don't get it. I can't Find a thread a tether Inside my brain that can even see where you're coming from, you know, I just don't know what the fuck you're talking about Is that does that make me an asshole? No But even listen to some people maybe but who cares it's like even you're not an act like the this is the concept of Making friends with yourself

And you know, I know when I'm like when I'm like Being a bad friend usually One of the signs is I'm trying to fix my friend And I've fallen into that trap so many times Where I realized I'm like, oh my god, I'm gonna I'm you know, I'm gonna be the one that heals you my friend You say, oh, okay. I hear I hear I hear what's up. I once was like you now. Let me tell you what I did I've done that so many times. It's so fucked up

Even and I know that and I've seen the look on my friend's face. Maybe you're for sure I'm sure I've tried to fix you a few times and the look I've seen is one of like Usually like boredom makes Dan with like And then so similarly like the moment I take on that relationship with my own life my own identity or whatever man It's like that's not really friendship to me this new fucking like thing is like, oh my god Right in front of the rugged

country Outback whatever you want to call it of my own Interior universe Is it fucking Coachella? filled with booths and tents within which are all of the prescribed methods for Dealing with my Turbulent self And I got stuck in so many of them

It in and some and they're awesome of them are awesome But at some point you're like wait, what's on the other side of this fucking stupid ass self-improvement festival? And you look and it's just a bunch of fucking rocks Yeah, and you go into the rocks And you're like see guys. I don't know man. Maybe I'll come back at some point to your festival Now I'm gonna go down in these fucking rocks. There's coyotes We don't know what's out there You're gonna yeah, are you all right? It's like the Logan's run thing

Yeah, where they where they break out and they go into the actual biosphere of the earth and it's so Like it's way too much for them. It's actually hot. It's actually rough There's actual sand in your shoes and they're just like not prepared for it anymore. Yeah What a great feeling To finally touch the ground and like to finally be like, oh my god I don't have to put a fucking mask on my suffering And also my suffering doesn't mean I'm malfunctioning and also I don't have to like do an explanation to you about how no I'm not actually going to commit suicide

You know, I'm not I was telling this from friends the other day talking about suicidal ideations because my theory is if you exist on the planet and at some point or another You haven't contemplated suicide. I would say you're probably anomalous now. I could be wrong about that I just might be a depressed motherfucker But right away. It was a triggering thing and people were like, are you all right? and I'm like I'm fine because I'm not hiding the fact that sometimes I have suicidal ideations And and and and and that like those thought patterns when they emerge in me

They don't fucking terrify me anymore. I I don't feel and a lot of people I think are having to step that shit down And I don't think it's good. It's like it's okay, man The bats are gonna fly up out of you now Anyway, I don't mean to be irresponsible by the way It's like you must certainly you're in charge of your own life and you have to get help if that shit's happening curse, you know if you but what I'm saying is We the more you broaden the scope

to allow The secret spaces of yourself to take up your attention, you know what I mean What a joy What a joy to not compartmentalize yourself down into this fucking coca-cola land I don't even know what I'm talking about. It seems like you you're just saying to them That fire over there is hot and they're like Oh, no, don't say that. You're like, I'm no I'm just saying the fire's gonna burn you dude. Yeah, you know Yeah, you weren't you weren't even complaining. You're just being descriptive, you know in a way

Yeah, these thoughts flow through my brain. Whatever. Yeah Any thought flows through and also the thoughts that flow through your fucking brain. You're not the You're not the architect of the thoughts, right? It's not like that time the thought, you know, I don't know if you ever had any like crazy OCD thoughts like I remember like I'm gonna throw this fucking water in that baby's face You know what I mean? Like you're out to eat. You're like Amazing moment. You see your ice water right there in front of you. You see the baby Or you think am I gonna throw this water? Yeah. Am I going to? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah

Who's what is what are what are the boundaries in between? My hand right exactly green for but see that's kind of sane That's kind of sane to ask that, you know It sounds insane, but it's kind of sane to just wonder, you know Am I in control? What will happen next? I don't know what will happen next. Yeah You know what a joy. Yeah that and that to me is like So the that's where you land sometimes and I don't land there all the fucking time But that place where you don't know what's happening next

I've had it a few times man. It's like once I was sitting out meditating And it that happened Where somehow just for a brief second My simulator mind wasn't prognosticating what was going to happen in the next moment So that for one weird moment Everything was completely New It was wow

It was like holy shit. This is new now This is like it wasn't even that because it was just like there wasn't this extra Well, then that's gonna happen and that's gonna happen and then that's gonna happen In this space or whatever you want to call it that place that you can land in where you're not planning anymore You're not planning. You're not You're not nostradomacing. Sure. You're not prognosticating. You're not like You're not you're not writing the script and trying to make it real or whatever, you know, yeah trying to push the world into some Shape

Deserting Squeezing manifesting destiny or something. Yeah, that whole fucking thing. Yeah, the release from that Give up No, I love it. You know, whenever I when I finally sort of came upon the hopelessness principle Which has caused a lot of controversy In my own life when I mention it and I I don't want to like I feel bad talking about it because I could see why it seems Really depressed What does it come from? Trumpa that phrase

Just like it's hopeless There's other versions of it. It's already broken One of the best think pieces I just read Was somebody wrote I care. I wish I knew their name apologize If any if you the author of this fucking think piece list is this podcast, which I doubt but Some something on the lines of like, oh, actually, there's some possibility. We're just information stuck in a black hole That's eternally echoing that we really aren't real

We haven't been real for billions of trillions and trillions of years in that sense of like unreality is an actual like Cognitive we're rocking Are that we're just essentially shadows And that we're just on loop Uh All these things When you hear them if you really are attached to your project

They sound So depressing Sure So fucked up Bhagavad Gita, were you in that spirituality class when we were doing the Bhagavad Gita? Someone who in it got so mad. It was Jeannie Matthews. I remember she's like I want to be attached That's amazing. I don't want to be withdrawn. I don't want I want to be

I want to I want to like what's happening. That's fucking amazing Because I think it was the line a wise person is not distressed by the impermanent appearance of happiness and distress for these things come and go Like the seasons or something like that And someone was like, no, I'm gonna be disturbed Well, yeah, whether you want to or not you're probably gonna be so good luck with that one No, shit Don't worry You're gonna be disturbed

You don't have anything to worry about Yeah, it's like when you go to the gym and you're like, oh boy, I hope I don't get too muscular You know what I mean like I used to do that go to the gym be like fuck man. I mean, I hope I don't get too ripped Don't worry. You're in no danger But you know to me, there's also the thing Ram Dass says which I do like which is like we do have to honor our incarnation We are here as the you with the social security number And the family and the job and the talents and the connections and the community and the whole shebang And you need to honor that

Even if you are some fucking shadow a flickering shadowy Fucking static bit of data getting spaghettified in a goddamn black hole. You know what you could do You could honor The thing that you're the shadow of You know, you could honor whatever this little little sweet You could actually do the same thing not to condescend all of reality But you know a kid gives you a fucking beautiful drawing And you go this is nice. Thank you

You know, even though it's like I wouldn't you ain't no fucking van go but In the same way like god comes and presents you with an entire universe Within what you have an identity Even though you get to the point you're like on you know I'm pretty sure this is just a drawing You could still be like good job It's nice. Thank you I was

I was just telling you this in the car But so I was just in portugal and I went up into the mountains of centra And it's like where they've shot certain kinds of movies. Like it's one of the most Crazy-looking places in the world with as you spiral up the mountain. It's more and more fortresses. Wow. It's it's really Really unique and really amazing. I I I really want to recommend That some some at some point you go to centra of portugal and you go you go up there and and on the way I guess it's where you know just for some sort of point of reference even though this is stupid It's like where johnny dup shut that ninth gate movie or something

Fuck, okay, cool. So it's a way up there and it just has this intrinsic kind of occult power radiating as you spiral up just because the the fortresses and the Sort of royal castles are all built with just kind of bizarre beautiful architecture that seems to communicate some sort of Sort of lost mystical knowledge or something. It's just the way it looks, you know, I'm not advertising for it It just feels pretty amazing and so I'm in this rickshaw that we had hired and we're like

Pause for commercial pause on rickshaw. Hold on Ouch. Um, sorry man. You deserved it. So wait, you're going up this hp. Lovecraft style You're into the mountains. Totally seeing these incredible structures. You're an actual rickshaw. Yeah, this the point is is I'm not Exaggerating and trying to sell you on some fantastic story. It's really This fucking cool and this is a huge part of my point, right? So I'm in this place that you'd normally just read about in a book, right? In your suburb of cleveland or something and you dream about it, right? But I'm really there so

You know, I have to interpret How magical is this, you know? And so I go in to This masonic castle. She the the girl in the rickshaw driver the girl in the rickshaw Is like spinning us around a corner and she's like She's like this castle here is one of the coolest places you can go see it's built by mason's and She clearly didn't know that much about it, but she sold us on the esoteric A call aspect. So do you remember the name of the castle? I've seen it. I've looked at pictures of it

I saw your instagram of it. Yeah. Yeah It's called kinted day regalia. Okay. Okay. So that was we should probably just delete all that Because because of my pronunciation Um, maybe but so So, okay. So then we we decide, okay. Yeah, this is we should give our day to seeing this place because this is clearly like one of the best things up on the spout and we could see and we go in and and pay the

Pay the fee and and basically start walking through all the underground tunnel ways that all connect throughout the entire property And each one connects to different initiation wells and each Um, what's an initiation? Well, well, that's a great question What the fuck is an initiation? Well, and there's a certain amount of steps that lead down with a certain amount of floors That all have to do with Rosicrucian

mathematics and it all relates to you know High-level masonry and I'm not saying to you listen how fantastic this is. I'm just merely describing. Yeah, this place is Probably the best picture of what a super super wealthy Genius would build as a place to live and he chose the perfect spot, right? And he he builds it out with total care and synthesizes all of the greatest points of every religion and philosophy into statues and gardens and waterfalls and builds Truly a planet for himself to exist in

And as I'm walking around at first I'm thinking wow, what kind of stuff went on here because The the movie aspect of of your mind wants to picture Something secretive, you know, you've been told there's this is this occult getaway. Yeah, so I was trying to place the history and the timeline drawn the turn of the century It's right right around Alistair Carly's visit to Portugal. It's it's which was I think 1930 and so it's right in this particular time where the People like you and I would would have really like flourished as a community Like people would have really been coming together all over the world and celebrating occult knowledge. Yeah, that's what they were doing and so

Um, this would have been a gathering point, you know, this this house this manner with I don't know how many acres it is but let's say it's like 30 and It's built into this ultimate Uh garden a celebration of occult knowledge so at first I'm walking through it and just sort of reveling in the ideas of semi insidious things, you know what I mean like

Why do you have initiation wells? Why do you have underground tunnels? You know And then by the end of the trip, you know after reading enough About who the guy was this millionaire that was like one of this world class entomologists and botanists all these things watchmaker and inventor by the end of the trip I really Grasp that this was just a guy you know

and he didn't have anything better to do and It that was an important realization for me but one I grapple with and is it symbolizes a lot for me because Throughout our lives we're always looking for The next ornamentation, you know the next level of sense gratification Yeah, or the next better lover or anything better car bigger house whatever Super cliche ideas, but we are always

Searching to trade out what we had before because the pendulum just swings. That's just what happens. Yeah, we want to try the other thing and It was so cool to walk on that property and say No, this is a final resting place someone designed Out of a positive place in themselves There's no nefarious things really going on here. There's nothing particularly central or Insidious about like this as a as a as a meeting point for like international

Diamond thieves or any any story that your mind wants to cook a mollock worshipers. Yeah, child sacrifice Yeah, see that stuff that whole child sacrifice island idea is Is symptomatic of A modern community that has gone so far into thinking they live inside a batman movie or something and Clearly they need that kind of entertainment But i'm talking about getting to a place where you don't need That excitement, but you see things plainly, you know and and this guy

Built this synthesis of these religions and philosophies just merely because it was his His common interest. It was just a very Basic interest. There was no great ambition He just had a lot of fucking money But i love the idea that it's just what he did with it You could stare at it and just say This is what he did with his life when he could have done anything And that's a really cool idea and it's part of the buddha story

is that You begin in the castle You see what i'm saying? Oh, yeah, you don't work your way up to the castle But i like this story because you begin in the castle. So you have everything first Right and so then you can do Anything you want and that's a totally different kind of challenge than the basic challenge We talk about trying to climb them out You know and

part of the way the brain works is that There's always going to be an inherent massive challenge No matter who you are no matter what you are you'll never avoid pain You know all this idea in capitalism is if you could you could avoid pain And it's worth being jealous of the people who can avoid it and it's better, you know to be a wealthy White man or whatever. Well, it doesn't look that great to me, but so It's fascinating to look at someone who just

Put everything In the universe that they could This this guy is supposed to be a genius So I guess there's part of this idea that you're you're walking into a dimension That was truly created With everything at someone's fingertips and so you say What is this thing that he has? well

What he has It's really no different than anything else It's just a fucking garden. Yeah, you know and that is so beautiful. It's like this philosophy that I Have kind of stumbled onto that I call four walls It just means no matter where you go in your life in this universe. You will always just be Sitting in four walls. You'll never transcend it You'll never fuck more than one person at a time really you'll never drive one car more than one car at a time

You'll never really achieve Anything beyond what you have right now. You know what I mean? So it was so cool to see someone who sort of I feel like he knew that and he built this place To basically Celebrate that there's nothing of course. It's over the top of course. There's like weird paintings of like a howling boar like symbolically like you know

like clenching onto a heart on the floor and then like hunting dogs Built into gargoyles. You know, it probably all means something but it's nothing that is That obscure Or unattainable. It's just you know, you're gonna have to have A gargoyle maybe like that's what people did at the time So you so you design it in this respect or that you know, whatever and you're supposed to look up at these things generally and you're supposed to

uh Hold them in some sort of unattainable regard the pyramids, right? Yeah, you're supposed to think cathedrals I'll never I'll never make anything like that. I remember when I was a kid Actually, maybe like 20 years ago when I started playing live saying something about Hendrix or something and and one of my bandmates saying like, you know Don't compare anything to that Don't don't try to understand the greatest thing of all time And I just it's just like well

Why I mean, he's just like us, you know, it's totally accessible. It's there all the time. Yeah, you can become it It's not a pyramid in the distance, you know I just there was something Multi-tiered about walking around that property and just saying this is it. This is as good as you can have and it's still the same thing I love the idea that buddhism starts off in a castle And another important point

is that you Actually, don't just walk out of the castle buddha escaped from the castle He had to like sneak out. He had to get out And I love in this case. I think if I'm understanding what you're saying The castle is built of all the things you think are

better than you unattainable All the constructions of the dream It's made of illusion the castle is made of all the ideas you had of some perfected fucking state And you got to figure out a way to sneak out of there How to like get out And then and then and then weirdly the moment you do that and you hit your first bush You hit your first wild spot. It's a million times better than that fucking Throne you were sitting in or whatever it was or is that what you're saying? Am I understanding you right?

Yeah, I mean I think I walked into it thinking This is the opulent um Sculpture built to represent this and that but by the end of the sort of tour of walking around it Which took, you know a couple hours But like it was so complex so complex And you know

I love prospect park and and all these kind of huge things where you can Wander around and sort of contemplate like this and they're larger than life and you you can easily recommend you know you need to go there, you know, but Something about the at the end of that tour at the end of seeing all of it. I just felt like This guy did actually kind of get it right like like as much as material You could see the cycle of like like material wealth and everything being something that you spent so much time to acquire I didn't feel that I felt like he was just needed the place to exist

You know and why not have underground tunnels? Why not? They're just inherently beautiful I mean look at what people do in fucking Minecraft. It's like the ornate quality and i'm not trying to reduce I'm just saying if you have infinite resources and the ability to burrow You make crazy shit. You take that into a digital world. You could see what people do. They do the most insane things It's like it sounds like this person used the opportunity to take the what would you call it? They'll like This the part of the dream he was living in And carved within that part of the dream his journey of awakening or whatever exactly? Yeah, it sits there So other people during their dreams come into it and maybe there is some benefit to it

I mean it sounds like the distillation of his lifetime of studying these Secrets has appeared in your head like it that place acted like a seed that grew In in a grew inside of you to produce this four walls the concept this idea of like um This is it right right. It's like he accepted the four walls. I felt that See what I'm saying? Yeah, it's like he wasn't trying to transcend the four walls

and yeah, I see what you're saying. I was just in Zurich and I was subtly A little bummed that I couldn't go see carly young's house because it's privately owned and they don't let you go see anymore If they ever did I can't remember but he has the famous tower that he built and then expanded on and it's right by the lake Where he would kind of play in the sand and and he has the tower where the inside is painted With all the levels of the unconscious that he you know determined. Yeah, and It was the most a massive amount

I was looking at pictures of it the the most massive amount of like firewood. I've ever seen And there's all these great pictures of him just contemplating life like looking out into the water if you look it up online and sitting in these stone towers with you know, kind of tending the fireplace and It's a very simple reality, right and I was I was talking to some swiss people while I was up there and Asking them about their culture and they were saying it's it's kind of a basic tenant. It's a basic hallmark that Simplicity Can't really be escaped right that once you get out up into those alps And you get inside a little shack things are really simply laid out, you know, you just get some firewood. Yeah, and

your sauna and your bed and You know not much else. Maybe they you know make some Mountain homemade cheese up there and beer. Yeah, but you know, whatever, you know You're just it's just you and the motherfucking mountains And god, you know, that's it. Yeah, and there's something about That I just feel this connection with the alps or I feel a connection with with

Probably young is like what informs it but like just the idea of this Returning to the simplicity But having like beautiful things around you that the dichotomy of that. That's what I saw in in this guy's mansion, and and I thought that he honored You know all the money that he had he just spin it just you know kind of recreational way But it made a beautiful reality. I'm I mean, I'm not trying to

like say some like Whatever Gwyneth Paltrow magazine reality really is the answer But I'm just saying that I think that in the end That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a way to make those four walls Have a bit of like Make them make myself feel like They're beautiful enough that I can just actually let myself relax. I don't need to keep looking You know what I mean? Yeah, man. I just want to kick back in my fucking rocking chair

Which I've never let myself do you know Yeah That this is the end of the day Relaxation thing that people will try to it's like This is my the podcast I do with my mom. She's passing. She was talking about how it's all contraction and release building up energy releasing the energy right and like The release of the energy people have begun to imagine is the relaxation

So it's like to produce the state of you have to keep get all this tension going Definitely, that's the mountain you get to the top of the mountain finally you give yourself permission to go but the That's you that actually is your soul. That's called fundamental goodness That's the reality of everything you've produced a when you basically the four you build around that place a structure That produces a window that looks out at it that every day once a day you let yourself go look out there and go Instead of walking the fuck out

Into it itself, but people don't want to deal with that man because oh my god What are we gonna fucking do if we suddenly have everything if this is it if this is all we got if this is the whole This is it The whole game's fucked now. It's the cheat code of cheat codes You've ruined the video game What am I gonna do man Now that there's no more levels And people that's very unappealing to some people that simplicity

People don't want a little sauna up in the mountains or a fucking massive masonic lodge Right, they want trouble They want struggle without the struggle. They can't have their release Well, maybe you know like ken wilber says like Maybe that that's just what they're embroiled with at this time. And that's just what seems true right now You know if someone's listening to this podcast the whole time we've been doing it. I just keep thinking You know, maybe there's somebody just covered in Friar grease that's like having the worst day of their life, you know

In the back of a wendy's and they've got headphones on they're listening to this and they're like these two privileged idiots Yeah, like talking about like finally making it to the top of the mountain or some shit Which is not what we're saying, but um I just think maybe maybe it's just that that's that's the moment of the day Like we said before that they are in that moment of the day and that's okay And then it'll it'll pass but maybe it maybe I'm not sure if what we're talking about is something that we are hyper Obsessed with or if this is like is this a common theme that other people care about, you know

Because I don't see this reflected like you like you're saying like like the world spins around on films based on Struggle a different kind of eight mile a different kind of hollywood story, you know Yeah, it's you're saying there wouldn't be a movie made about just Not having to do anything and just staying in the four walls. Well, you never hear this commercial Hey, what's up? Ford That you know here's don't try if you look at this truck You might notice that this truck is basically the same as all the other trucks you've seen

We added some pain or something. What do we do? It's got better bluetooth kind of right, but it's pretty much It also just so you know, you're gonna get in this truck And you're gonna have about a week of excitement and then it's just gonna be another truck That's like if a guy hit on you at a bar and said like Really, I've got nothing special here. You're just seeing like the eternal Version of a common human being and like I've got nothing that you should really bookmark Any more than anyone else. Yeah, and then and then also the other thing is like

You you're never gonna hear like Uh, yeah owning property or whatever when you own your own home or whatever like that You're it's nothing changes. You're just gonna have this sense of like responsibility That's gonna be I guess it's a good investment or something but also just so you know, here's something really fucked up Here's something really fucked up Drink tea like if you pour water in a cup and it's hot And you like add a good tea bag in there. Sometimes that will be the best moment of your day And it costs two cents. Right. Right. Also another problem is that like I have been covered in fucking grease

Washing dishes at a chili's and have had transcendent moments there And then also now with my baby. I've I'm thwarted every single day With facing the fact that sitting in the fucking bathtub with him watching him stick his hand in water is more transcendentally Holy

Than any place I've ever been in my fucking life And then I'm thwarted with that because it's like, oh my god. I've just got to admit it all that other shit wasn't much All the mushrooms all the acid all the fucking psychedelic missionary work They were great But how the fuck are we gonna do better than what this is? And it's like to me that is a very very revolutionary and counter

Culture idea in the sense that the whole goddamn machine that we're in right now depends on the illusion of an end of the day A spot of rest a place where you go shush the grand accumulation of all the thing and the finally you get the fucking final Voltron thing or whatever it is and and and then When you get to that when if everyone suddenly there was a grand realization Where people are like, I don't really want it

Really minute though. I don't want the truck I don't really want to be in a mansion. I don't want the thing. I'm a jig. I don't really want it Really a grand but not bullshit fake thing because right now I do fucking want it I want to expand my urac. I want to get in shape I will grow my if there was if I could grow my if I could I would take pills to make my dick bigger And I would take pills to grow my hair back on the top of my head And I you know what I mean like I want it But if suddenly there was a thing where we're all just like no

No And people people just started walking out of their estates You can have it It would fuck it all up There would be like a few assholes like bankers. There'd be some bankers like wait No You need wait No, don't give this away. But they but what if they were enlightened too though?

Well, you didn't how are we gonna enjoy it? I need a couple of bankers standing on top of Bank of America screaming at all of us as we walk into our mystical nonsense mountain I get struck to being like no, you need good credit It's true That is a kind of nightmare like waking up and if the world was totally wildly intelligent You didn't feel like you had any Sort of ego edge on it. Yeah, that's like a kind of nightmare nightmare. Yeah, that's what I'm talking But that's what we are clinging to that's what we're clinging to the hedge

We all want to have our special flair. Yeah, nobody wants to you watch A bird do a mating dance and it's the funniest shit you've ever seen Raises the feather it puts the stone It does three spins if you look at the thing you're like you fucking ass. It's hilarious. It's cute. You're like, oh my god The bowerbird. It's adorable Meanwhile, you're me. You're fucking mating dance It's some serious shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you not understand my legacy? You're just flopping around with your feathers and your beak. Yeah, it is a nightmare. I want my ass

And that's the last thing you have to give up if you want to hang out with Jesus You have to give up your edge You have to give it up You're not special and that's great Anyway, I think we're late for our fucking orgy like we're about to go to some Anyway, man, let's get out of here. We've got it. We've got dinner reservations. Um We're gonna be late for I'm trying to think of something fancy They're going to bad bad ending to the podcast

I guess that's you think that's where they got coming to America is like they stole Eddie Murphy stole the Buddha story Remember it begins and he tells his dad stop carrying rose petals in front of me Yes, people are like so shocked and then he like wants to go to queens and he wants to slum it and he finds like an enlightenment there Yeah, well, I mean there there's a I'm gonna end on this story and I don't mean to end on my own goddamn story. I'm sorry I like it. This is a story Bob Thurman told at one of these Ram Dass retreats. It's really stuck with me about the Buddha And and I think it applies to what we're talking about So apparently in the mythology of the Buddha

pre-realization The Buddha manages to actually project To Indra's castle I believe it's Indra And Indra's hanging out with all the gods And they're in a meeting or some shit, but basically the way Thurman tells the story is Buddha shows up Because he wants to talk to Indra about easing the suffering of the world And Indra's like basically he's like, hey, you don't have an appointment. You know, what are you doing here?

You're in the middle of something we'll talk And so then Buddha's back under the bodhi tree meditating and all of a sudden Indra appears And he's like god, sorry about that. Here's the thing You want to know how to end the suffering of the world, but I need to tell you something about me first Because people think I'm the king of the gods or that I created the gods or whatever Maybe it's Brahman. I don't know which god it is Progen- the original god. He's like

Just so you know, I was just here first I don't know what any of this shit is And these other gods they came later. So they think I'm their daddy and I'm letting them believe that But I was hoping you could figure out How to ease the suffering of the world because I don't know This is the ultimate disillusionment You run into god and god's like, I didn't make it. Yeah, I don't know I don't know. Can you figure it out because I don't know

That's the great moment. I think is finally Coming to that place personally There's no help for you No one's coming to your rescue But really seeing that like really being out on the castaway island and really knowing no helicopter is coming like really understanding that Instead of like kind of holding your breath You're not gonna you know the fantasy you're when you die. You're gonna see your mom again No

Yeah, that's shit. You know what? I mean, you're you're not going to get better than this That place that is a place where you can build A new castle That's a foundation. I think that you can actually start building a thing upon instead of trying to make Build one of these fucking masonic god damn castles on your fucking bathtub fart bubble It just isn't gonna work and that's the most profound thing. I can think right now. Yeah, you can decorate your four walls

You know with fake imagery of this ever extending like wheat field, you know It doesn't change the fact that they're just still sitting there right there in front of you the containing you, you know So I was kind of picturing a way you could Decorate the four walls that admits Them but but celebrates them, you know like that somehow turns the four walls into a state of freedom, you know That's going to be the next podcast. We do determining how to like Find freedom within the four walls of whatever the particular

Imaginary limitations are I mean, maybe there's something more horrifying than the four walls, which is they're not even there But I don't know it's a longer conversation And if any of you heard my baby screaming I got to go relieve my wife of baby duty because she just drove from Santa Monica with a screaming child And that's the what's on my wall right now I love you, man. These conversations we have I hope we do make it another 40 or 50 years so we can keep having them, you know And and uh, and I don't know what's gonna happen

during that time wait you're You're banned. You're great. The grails are oh, yeah. Yeah, we play was it What'd I say monday night in LA? Yeah. Yeah, you can look on zebulon. Yeah, you can look on grails facebook to get the dates You're gonna be at zebulon. Mm-hmm, and I'm gonna be there. Okay. Let's party if I can make it I might be late to the show, but I'm coming. What time do you guys play 10? I can't remember. I'm gonna guess between nine and 10 all the links will be at dugatrustle.com Email, I love you. All right. Thank you so much. Howdy Krishna. You got me beat me to heart much. Thanks to Dear email for returning the dtfh and thank you audible and ray con for sponsoring this episode

User offer codes get you some of your buds get you some audio books the two Go hand in hand We'll be back real soon my friends if you like us Subscribe over at itunes and give us a nice rating. I love y'all so much and I'll see you real soon. Hare Krishna When life gets crazy and when doesn't it shop right helps you keep it all together now with a little extra help from instacart If you need your groceries now ish But your options for going to shop right are later ish or never ish You can get everything you need delivered through instacart right to your door in as fast as an hour

Skip the shop and savor more of your crazy busy life with shop right in instacart visit instacart.com to get free delivery on your first order Offer valid for a limited time minimum order $10 additional terms apply A good time starts with a great wardrobe next stop jc penny family get-togethers to fancy occasions wedding season two We do it all in style dresses, suiting and plenty of color to play with get fixed up with brands like lis clayborn Worthington stafford and jay furar. Oh and thereabouts for kids super cute and extra affordable Check out the latest in-store and we're never short on options at jcp.com all dressed up everywhere to go jc penny