Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 462: Ian Fidance

Episode Date: September 11, 2021

Ian Fidance, CRUSHER comedian and brilliant, sweet, mystical dude, re-joins the DTFH! Check out Ian's website and follow him on Twitter & Instagram. You can also listen to Ian's podcast, Bi Guys, available everywhere you can listen to podcasts! Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: BetterHelp - Visit betterhealth.com/duncan to find a great counselor and get 10% off of your first month of counseling! Upstart - Visit upstart.com/duncan and see how Upstart can help you with your debt. StatHero - Visit StatHero.com/Duncan to get a 300% Match on your first play!

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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. JCPenney. Greetings, friends. Here we are, podcast number two for the week.

I'm about to head to the beach with my family. So I don't have time to do a long, beautiful intro with incredibly complex music that sometimes takes me months to compose, and my special studio here in the mountains. Rather, we're just going to jump right in to this episode. Ian Fidance is a brilliant comedian who I've been lucky enough to be friends with ever since my stint in New York City.

He was one of the first comics that I made friends with, and it has been incredible to watch this brilliant comedian's incredible journey through the world of stand-up comedy. He is so funny. If you ever are lucky enough to have him perform in your area, you got to go see him. He goes on the road with me sometimes,

and he is a true crusher when it comes to comedy. But not only that, he is a really deep, sweet, brilliant, mystical dude who I am really, really fortunate to be friends with. So why don't you please shout out with all kinds of love? He's IanAnimal69 on Instagram, Twitch, and Twitter. He's got a really funny podcast called Bye Guys. That's B-I, guys, on gas, digital,

and he's gonna be at the Moontower Comedy Festival September 23rd to the 25th. Go to his website, IanFidance.com. He's got dates coming up on his own and with the great Dave Attel. And now, welcome back to the DTFH Ian Fidance. -♪ Welcome, welcome upon you, that you are with us. Shake hands, let me give you blue.

Welcome to you. Say, wow, wow, wow! It's been done. Control, control. Control, control, control, control. Control, control, control. Yeah, man. You found an incredible hat. You know, that's just a, like, that will make my year.

Bro, I am so excited about this hat. I set out two weeks ago to get a bucket hat, and I went to a store called World of Hats on the Lower East Side, and I face-timed my girlfriend to pick one out, and I'm, like, in the store, and the guy's, like, I would face-time her and go, what do you think? And then I faced, I looked at him, I go, do I have your approval?

And he was, like, yes. And once they agreed, I was, like, that's it. That's the one, and I've been getting compliments. It feels so nice. You affirmed it. Thank you. It's a, no, it's a hat of glory. You find them maybe once a year. You know, it's a wild thing, the different paths people's lives take,

but it's just interesting to think at some point, somebody was, like, you know what? I'm going to create World of Hats, and it's just going to be a fuck ton of hats. Well, how does, you know what I'm saying? It's like, we have weird jobs, but isn't it weirder to run a hat store than be a comedian? Well, I will say yes, and I will add to that.

It's very weird to run a hat store called World of Hats that only sells hats that makes it through a global pandemic in New York City. That this place is getting so many customers. It's not only state and business, but it's thriving to the point where I tried to talk him down off me paying the full price for the hat, and he goes, I can't do it.

We have, I taught him down 15 bucks. I tried to go 25, and I said to him, I go, you sure you don't want to go hit my price? It looks like I'm the only one in the store, trying to be like, this is the best you could get. And he goes, yesterday someone bought $3,000 worth of hats. And I was like, well, fair enough. You tried to hat-haggle someone who started a place

called World of Hats, and you were fucking thwarted. Cause, well, what are you thinking, a New York hat store? You think that guy can't read your bluff? He knew you wanted that hat, and he knew it was a hat of glory. Well, I mean, I tried to haggle a hat, the World of Hats, and I was in for a world of hurt, because it didn't get down to the price I wanted. Yeah, you're right.

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That sounds so severe. Is it normal to kind of like dig through pictures of my dad's hunting trips and like kind of start tearing up? You can start communicating with your therapist in under 48 hours. It's not a crisis line. It's not self-help. It's professional therapy done securely online.

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at betterhelp.com forward slash Duncan. Yeah, man, you can't haggle a hat man, not in New York. I mean, maybe some subsidiary county of hats or something. You're not going to have a house of hats. Hat apartment. I got them down. I got them down 15, but I was trying to go 25.

Like if you're not that confident, you start hat apartment. If you've got a lot of confidence, it's world of hat. What a pain in the ass, though, man, like just to run a hat store. And what is he always looking at hats? Like does he spend his time while he's when he's at work, ordering,

finding like lines on cheap hats. And I mean, I wish you could have seen the store and the and and across the street was a store called Italian clothing. I'm like, if there was ever a nexus of the universe where I belong, it's a world of hats and Italian clothing. Yeah, that's like kind of like when you were I was like, oh, I died. I died. This is just the heaven. I'm oh, I'm in between.

Well, congrats on the great hat. Congrats on the new love. I see you found a new a new love. Yeah, pretty awesome. I've noticed your Instagram is filling up with images of this beautiful woman. Can you tell us a little bit about how that transpired? Well, goodness gracious, great balls of fight ants. I am in love.

It's very nice. She's so smart and fun and funny and obviously gorgeous. But every dude, I swear to God, we are 100 percent balls to the wall sober, falling down, tears in our eyes, laughing just at random parts of the day. And I really feel like I've, you know, we really compliment each other. Well, I ended up, she used to be a waitress at a comedy club years ago. And we kind of vaguely remember, like, you know, passing chips, you know,

but she was at a show. What do you mean? Wait, what do you mean? Passing chips, like just to like we may have run. Oh, passing chips. I thought you said passing chips, like potato chips. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Passing chips. I met her years ago.

I was giving her salt and vinegar chips, you know, like a drug meal. You know, club is this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, passing chips in the night. Yeah, she used to she used to wait tables at stress factory in Jersey. And then I ended up she was at a show at the stand. And when I saw her, I was like, this is the most beautiful creature I've ever seen. Yeah. From the stage, I like hit on her.

I like commented how like I was going to marry her or something like that. You know, like I and I had a spot after that. So I gave the manager my Instagram on a sheet of paper and I go give it to that girl. I got a run and he did. And she followed me and DM me. And we've been like we were like talking for a while. And then we started hanging out.

Ever since we started hanging out, we've seen each other almost every single day. She I did I did a week in Vegas. She came down for half the week. I was in Philly with a tell. She came down for a night. She's just the everyone that meets her is just like, dude, she's the truth, man. She's the coolest. I'm so lucky and fortunate, you know, especially because you and I spoke about,

you know, where I was like a year ago with, yeah, you know, living in hell with a terrible relationship. So you are. No, you are in just you are in the kind of relationship where where like sometimes you don't it sounded like you might not get out of it. Like you were in one of those like pre dateline relationships. You know, I was I was, you know, one step away from being an episode of forensic files. Yeah, that that it's I mean, it's my wife and I, man. We fucking watch some dark shit and we love watching dateline.

We love watching like we just love it. I don't know why it's so fucked up. I think we both acknowledge that it's fucked up. Yeah. But there's just something just so astounding about seeing like a relationship that has turned into the like like these people, they ostensibly, they met. They're in love. They think about each other.

They were thinking about each other when they're apart and missing and longing after each other. And then one of them is like, you want to go on a hike and just shoving them down off a cliff into the sea to get insurance. She always was trying to get me to hike. And I'm so glad the weather got in the way. Don't fucking hike. If you're in a shitty relationship, do not go on a hike.

That's what I've learned from Dateline, because they will. It's just, you know what I mean? That's to me kind of the astounding astounding quality of human intimate relationships is like how, you know, if friendships, they can go sour or you're just suddenly you're just annoyed with with one of your friends or whatever. But usually you just don't talk to them for a while and then you like make up and then your friends again, but it's crazy how with like intimate relationships. Yeah.

Well, I mean, you know, it's it's so funny. I was just speaking to a dear friend today about how like, you know, my life today is just filled with so much gratitude. And I really this. I mean, we all went through different levels of hell this past year. But for me personally, going through this relationship, which I knew at the time and I even said to you, like, it's not love. I mistook I mistaked mistook mistake mistake either one mistake.

I had mistaken. Staking. Yes, we did it. We did it. World of hats. We I had mistaken chemistry for love. Yes. And there was very much the cycle of abuse that she was putting me through ticked off this relation to childhood trauma that I went through with the abuse and kind of things that I face as a child that almost

made me feel comfortable in a way. And I really empathize with people that are in relationships and they can't get out. And everyone goes, why don't you just leave? It's so much deeper when you're trauma bonded and when this abuse cycle feels this childhood familiarity. And it's so funny because, you know, I really understand how people can give false confessions because she would talk in circular ways and gas light. And really, you know, and I have to say, she's an incredibly sick person

with with borderline personality disorder. And I feel so hard for her. And yeah, I pray every dude, this this got me closer to God. I was doing so many different things to get better. And I pray for her and her wellness, you know, because she she is, you know, and incredibly sick and I wish nothing but her health for her. But I with when a lot of people with borderline personality disorder, they don't see it because it's always everyone else's fault.

And, you know, getting into therapy is such a hard thing for them. And I really applaud and respect to anyone that has this personality that's ordered and does get therapy. But, you know, just the way I would get talked to and circular talked and gas lit. And I would just agree to things to stop the conversation, you know, to stop getting yelled at. And I would put my head down. And it reminded me of being that little kid that, you know,

my mom was traumatized from my dad's death and she didn't know how to deal with it. So her brain was broken and she would just blow up at me for no reason. I just remember as a kid, putting my head down and going, yes, yes, OK. And it would be the same thing. And I felt this weird. It was like it was like a bridge to my childhood in a negative way. So I had a hard time getting out of that. And every time I did try to get out of the relationship, I was met with,

you know, threats of suicide, self harm. And so then I stayed in it because I was so afraid of what would happen to her. And I'll say, you know, in relation to that abusive pattern that became so familiar to me because it was like a bridge to my childhood in a negative way with this relationship. Yes, you know, in my current relationship, there's a bridge to my childhood of absolute joy that she says to me, I love your smile and I love when you laugh because I can see little Ian.

I can see the kid you were that had so much happiness inside of you. And that means so much to me because, you know, and and again, gratitude. This relationship that I went through that was complete hell and turmoil. I it got me into therapy twice a week. I started, you know, CBT therapy, which really helped, you know, I was reading all these books. I was doing these worksheets. I was like journaling.

I was praying. I was, you know, I gave up dating women, porn, masturbation. I gave up everything and just sat in the uncomfortability and sludge of what it was. And I was just sobbing and crying for days. And because of that, I was really trying to access and talk to that inner child of mine. And it's so wildly serendipitous, I guess, that without even knowing that the person I'm with now, with whom I feel such a kinship and love at the top of nothing goes, I love your laugh and your smile.

I see that child that you were. And I'm like, that's what I've been trying to access. That's what I've been working towards, you know, which was such a winking and nod from the universe. And it's like, you're you're good, buddy. Things are good, you know. Did you know 85% of people who play daily fantasy sports lose, they don't just lose their money, they lose their integrity, they lose their spirit, they lose their soul.

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They shouldn't do that. You wouldn't want to do that because if you do that and you're trying to run some kind of fantasy sports service, then you're going to end up losing money. So this is probably somebody who's having some kind of midlife crisis. And you might as well take advantage of that. You're in total control. Stat hero is DFS the way it was meant to be one on one. Play stat hero now and change the odds.

Go to stathero.com slash Duncan sign up for free. And right now you can get three times back on your first play. They're giving you a 300% match that's unheard of. Go to stathero.com slash Duncan stathero.com slash Duncan. Well, yeah, yeah, the greats that aspect of 12 step programs is the part that really mirrors like all the magical systems I've heard about or the manifestation systems people talk about. They have is this like fundamental like element gratitude.

It's always like if you want to start manifesting, if you want to get your ship back on track, the first step is always gratitude. And you know, if you're in a shitty time in your life and you hear that, you're like, all right, well, and then you start faking gratitude. Maybe you're, you know what I mean? Like saying like, I'm so happy that I can do it really. You're just like, fuck this. I could not find anything I was grateful for.

I was, I just felt so bitter and hurt and upset, no gratitude. So I had to start writing things down and it, dude, it got to the simplest thing of like, I'm glad I have, I'm grateful I have limbs that work. I'm grateful that my legs can take me somewhere, you know, and I had to start and like relay down a foundation of gratitude and like build from there. And, and dude, I got to say like, I'm just finding so much gratitude and everything. And also, you know, this past year has been a medication journey for me where

before the pandemic, I was like, let me try before the pandemic. I was like, I'm having a hard time coming. So let me change my depression meds. And that started a chain of events of like, while I'm going through this and a global pandemic, I'm often on different meds trying to figure out. And, you know, I do have a biological, chemical thing inside of my brain that needs to be addressed. And I finally found the proper medication that works.

It's really helped out. And it's, what is it? I'm on Zoloft, La Motrogen and Afexer. And it's like the depression is, is a fog that I can't get out of. And this just kind of squeegees it. And I can see and I'm like living the life that I wasn't motivated to live enough while I was in it, you know? And like this time last year, I mean, I told you, I ended up in the

hospital going fucking nuts. And here I am catching up with you and living my best life. Yeah, you know, man, medication and finding that I was taking Adderall and then I tried taking another ADD medication because of fucking ADD, I like lose everything constantly. And I have to have a fucking fanny pack. I wear a fanny pack. It's the answer.

If you have ADHD, it will fix. You will have, you will get an extra 30 minutes at least per day because you're not looking for your shit. You just have to find the big, stupid fanny pack. But yeah, man, I just, I can't, it's like, I just had to go off them completely because it was like making me into an asshole, man. I was like crashing, getting shitty and like just, I feel much better now, but it's such an interesting, like part of modern life is like, you know,

number one, acknowledging that you need, that you like having the humility to admit that you need help, you know, because a lot of people just don't want to admit that they're like going to commit. To being out of, like out of balance neurologically. I've been on medication my entire life since I was like eight. And it's so funny because God bless my mom. But, you know, medication only works if you're on it for a period of time. It gets into your blood.

And then after six weeks, you go, oh, this is making me a monster. Well, time to change it up. You know, so it takes a while to like be in your system. But God bless my mom. I mean, it really set me off on a bad track, but she would give me my meds. And then I'd be like, I don't feel good or I don't like it. She goes, ah, you don't have to take it today. And then like, so I was just like a rubber band being stretched back and forth.

And then I have this thing inside me that the second, you know, if I'm working out and you're like, Hey, your bod looks hot, I go, I got what I wanted. Don't need to work out anymore. So the second I feel good, I go, I gotta take my meds anymore. I'm good, you know, yeah. Right. That's the problem, isn't it? That's the fucking problem.

It's not just the feeling bad thing. It's that you once you get, because once you get balanced, you aren't going to. You're not, it's like, that is the problem with gratitude. It's like the stuff that's working. You're probably not thinking about it because it's working. It's like when your car is running smoothly, you're not thinking about your brakes, your brake pads or, you know, and so it's so it becomes so perfect. It's invisible.

And so people, when they're at least me, when I'm like. Going down the path of gratitude or trying to find, like trying to do the gratitude exercise that everyone I know who is like spectacularly successful recommends. Um, I, that's what I have to pull those threads of like, OK, I can shit. I can piss my knees are working like right now I'm trying to lose weight. So it's like, instead of beating myself up because of the weight that I'm at, I think, you know what, just pretend you were 190 pounds yesterday

and you just lost 10 pounds, you would be fucking over the moon. You know what I mean? Like so far, like I use tricks to induce the gratitude. But have you noticed that when, when you do start. Eliciting, like, like when you do start kind of unnaturally or doing like the forced gratitude exercises that all of a sudden your heart just starts opening naturally. It's like it reactivates something.

And then, and then you do start getting those natural gratitude bursts that weren't there and it's it's also. A thing of like, you know, acting your way into better thinking, you know, and at the same time, it's it's really, really hard to admit this. And I see this in other people and I hate it in them because I see it in myself. But there's there's a very real part of me. And I think this occurs in a lot of people where I get a sick pleasure out of wallowing in the messy bog when everything is is bad.

It's like this sick like, oh, poor me. And that's hard to get out of. So you have to kind of and and the answer is gratitude. You know, the answer is, you know, I was writing out affirmations and I still am, you know, where I like just stuff like I deserve love. I deserve happiness. I am worthy of loving myself. I am, you know, like again, like I'm grateful that I can, you know,

that I have a bicycle that I get to ride. I'm grateful that my legs work, that I feeling in my hands, you know. And once you start to get that, I mean, it truly feels like your you know, when people get a head injury and they take them to the fake grocery store and they go, OK, so you need to get three apples. And if the apples cost two dollars, how much do you pay? Check out, you know, and you're like, for others. Like I feel that way when I'm retraining my brain to like

yeah, act and think better. But you're right. When you open up that little bit of gratitude, you just have your foot in the door a little bit and then it just gets blown off the hinges. And you enter this room of just beauty and thankfulness that I can't help but just spread to other people. And that's what I've always, that's who I was when I was younger. I was I was, you know, such an energetic, happy, loving person.

And I lost that for a while and I really feel like I have it back. And it's just emanating from me wherever I go. And I'm I'm grateful for that. And I know it won't always be there, but I'm grateful it's there right now. Yeah. Oh, you're right. Because that's the other that's the I think the other trick is then once you do start getting in that like flow where you are like spontaneously experiencing bouts of gratitude versus spontaneously experiencing

bouts of like self pity or wallowing in the muck or just being some, you know, Jacob's ladder style fucking like demon rolling around in your own mental health and pretending there's something like courageous or even or interesting, you know, because that is that that's like when it really becomes the when you if you really want to break through the floor and really go down into the hell basement, what you do is you stop resisting the collapsed in state and then you start diluting yourself into thinking there's something like special or something, you know what I mean?

Like so now it's not just that you're it's like, you know what I mean? It's like one thing to have a horrible bout of diarrhea and to be like, oh, my God, this horrible. I've diarrhea. This sucks. It's another thing to be like, yeah, but like I've got the most incredible fucking diarrhea, yeah, like my diarrhea. I'm not the kind of guy who changes his pants after he shits.

I leave it on because I'm real. That's how you really like head down the tube into the base. Some basements about William S. Burroughs. Hero worship of heroin, you know, yeah, like thinking like I'm not. I'm not like other addicts. I'm artistic about. It's like, no, dude, you're a fucking heroin addict. You're shooting to open your veins.

Like, let's not church it up. You know, yeah, yeah. And yeah, and that, well, that's the I mean, this is the disaster of disasters is what happens is you get these like profoundly brilliant poets and artists who then get on heroin and then they just do the they, they administer a kind of massive cruelty to the world, which is they, oh, they, they write and their genius comes through their addiction. But then in their description of their addiction, people who aren't poets

and artists start getting this feeling of like, wow. Maybe if I start fucking mainlining like burrows, that'll push my career to the next level and then they're fucking just nodding out and fucking an alley in Philadelphia. Yeah, the delusion, the delusion of grandeur with addiction and everything. Like when I was drinking, I thought I was rust coal from True Detective. You know, I thought I was like this deep like, you know, every time I talked, I thought, you know, my soundtrack was a Marshall Tucker band song.

Just, you know, like, but in reality, I'm waking up in piles of garbage on the street, like literally waking up in a gutter, like surrounded by glass because I couldn't open the beer bottle. I had to smash it. And it's like, buddy, what are you doing? You know, oh, God, dammit. And that's fucked up, man. That mean, but it, you know, that I do like that grant that thing you're

talking about when I was addicted to ketamine. That was I was like making music. And I'm like, this has got to be the best fucking music. Anyone? Oh, yeah. And then you go back and you play it back and it sounds like a robot short circuiting, you're like, what am I doing? Yeah, you know, it's it's like, yeah, chemical narcissism is just embarrassing. And then, you know, when as comics and artists, we understand the rough draft,

you know what I mean? We understand that the final thing that people are saying or seeing, it's a magic trick if you're good, if you're, if you're good enough to get up on stage and make it seem like, you know, it's just what coming flowing out of me. Naturally, I didn't spend a year, two years developing this fucking joke, eating fucking shit, trying to get this joke to work. No, I just off the cuff. It's, you know, it's here, this, these fucking addict poets, they do the same

goddamn thing, which is it's like probably the initial scrawl that they write, you know, it's covered in their puke or like the blood dripping out their nose from doing blow is garbage. And then somehow they have the fucking discipline in the midst of their addiction to refine and refine and refine till you get this beautiful final product. And that is any idiot reads that and is like, wow, I could do that. I mean, we have something in common. We both love booze.

So I mean, I'm halfway to being Charles Bacowski, right? I'm almost there. But it's just not the case. You don't need to get fucked up to make good art. I mean, it's, it's funny, man. I like I was home visiting my mom and I felt like an old journal I wrote in when I was living in a farmhouse in Delaware drinking my face off. You know, I was a carpenter and everything.

And I found in this journal that I'd write in when I was drunk. I want to be a comedian in New York City. I want to be paid for writing. I want to be living off. I wish I could do stand up. You can if you just get sober. I can't drink, stop drinking, blah, blah. And I'm reading this and I'm like, oh my God, buddy, you're doing it.

Like this was your dream actualized and, you know, what, what a way to be, you know, it's like my past self is meeting with my present self. And in a way, it's like I'm giving myself like a cosmic high five of like, dude, you're fucking doing it. You got sober, you know, your, your dream is actualized. And I have so many more things to do, but it's just a reminder. None of those things will be done if I'm not sober. It's like you found a message in a bottle to yourself that you threw out

into the time ocean and just washed up onto your short. Totally. Wow. And I mean, we've talked about this before, but, you know, my dad wrote me letters before he left for work every morning and I found those and seeing them in hindsight and I never realized this. So sweet. Yeah, I mean, I'm so fortunate for that.

You know, I never realized this until I reread them about maybe a year ago, but so many of his letters were like, just be yourself. You're such a wonderful person. We love when you're just Ian. Don't try to be anyone else but yourself. We love you no matter what. And it's like, I never knew that, never actualized it until I, I saw these like a year ago.

I was like, wow, what, what a gift. What again, like a message in a bottle that I have received that's been floating in the ocean of my past for so many years, you know, how many letters? Oh my God. Duncan, I have stacks. I mean, I want to compile a book where I, you know, just transcribe them and because they're so beautiful and they're just, you know, they're like a recap from the day before just a reminder that I'm loved and, you know, things to look

forward and he was such a like goofball, you know, there's like silly jokes on there and it's, it's just really beautiful that, that I have this, you know. Oh my God, you're so lucky. I like, you know, we're part of the generation that doesn't have our entire childhoods like digitized for us by our parents. Like my kids are going to like, there's not going to be a single day where there's some picture of like one of them covered in food and whatever. You know, it's like, like I, my, I was going through pictures the other day,

like I have very few and except what's in my mind. And that's like supremely foggy, you know, I'm like, right now I'm working on a little writing project. And so it's part of that. I took a trip because I'm up here where I grew up. So I took a trip to, to like the city. I grew up and was like, you ever, do you ever do? Yeah.

I mean, when I go back to Delaware, I always drive around my old haunts. I, dude, I, I drive back, I always drive back to the house I was born in, which was a couple blocks away from that farmhouse I was drinking myself to death in. Who's in that house now? I don't know. I stopped by years ago and, and you know, met the people that live there, but it's been turned over so many times. But yeah, I totally relate to that.

So you went back to the city you grew up in? Well, yeah. And just tried to like make a little like, you know, there's just a, I just, having a kid now and like, you know, seeing the world through his eyes and, and then it's like teaching me a lot about, you know, like time and, and the way things change. And I don't know. It's just like, I went by this old house that like, it's old now, but when I was there,

it was now it's all dilapidated and shit. It's like, you know, the, you know, when you're a kid, your driveway or what that little space that you were playing or whatever the thing was, it's, it's big. It's like, it's huge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And it seems so like, I don't know, mystical or like, you know, but now I drove up there, this fucking house, man, it's spooky now. Like that it's completely dilapidated. The driveway is like overgrown. Like, like grass is just growing out of it. It's the whole place is fucking crumbling. And I was like, oh, cool. It's abandoned now.

Like maybe I could like sneak in through a window or something like that and really go nuts and just, but so I pull my car up and some fucking big dogs in the window like, you can never go back. You can't return. But like, you know, to me, that's kind of the, when you're talking about your relationship and this, this desire to connect with yourself as a child. And you know what I mean? There, there's something so poignant in the impossibility of that endeavor in certain ways. In other ways, you definitely can, you still are that kid.

It doesn't go anywhere. But I mean, the physical, the set, the stage that you grew up on and all the, all the, all the people who are on that stage, for me, they're all dead. Most of them are dead. They're all gone. So it's like, there's just something very incredibly poignant and intense about that quality, the continuum of self. I mean, and also not just the people that you knew were gone.

You're gone. The you, you knew were gone. The drunk Ian in the fucking farmhouse. Who's that? What happened to that person? Like gone. Like that person is, is for all intents and purposes, right? Gone, gone, right?

That, that might as well have been as a past incarnation. Totally. I mean, I could access him again. I could go back to that. But why would I ever want to go back to that? You know, I look at pictures of who I was and I'm like, who is that guy? Like, I can't believe that that guy like existed and, and I'm grateful he existed. I learned a lot from him, you know, years ago, me, I used to work at a sober living

house and me and two of my buddies, the therapist there, we would, she was like our therapist and everything. And we did a group session where we were supposed to talk to our chat, our inner child. And, uh, dude, I froze up and stormed out of the session. For years, I, I could not access that kid that was so hurt and, you know, just completely shattered and traumatized from everything. I couldn't talk to him. I couldn't look at him and, uh, to be able to access him and go back and like comfort him

and have him realized and, and let him be a part of me now is like such a gift, you know, um, because I did have so much joy as a kid and then it, you know, all went away. So anytime I experienced like just pure unfiltered joy, a part of me is like, hell, yeah, a little dude, that's for you, you know? Yeah. I want to thank Upstart for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH. Here's a sad story. Once when I was in college, uh, I applied for a credit card, uh, and I actually somehow

got the credit card, which I thought was super funny. And then I started using the credit card for just dumb shit. Like calling my girlfriend from Washington, DC on a pay phone using the credit card. The whole thing seemed like a novel experience to me and because at the time I was fairly certain that I wouldn't live through college, I had no intention of paying it back. Sorry for the really long rambling story over. The point is I ended up with this like hellish toxic credit card debt. And it got to the point when I was in Los Angeles where this credit card company would

call me like every four minutes asking for the, uh, money that I owed them. Also my credit score and my IQ ended up being the same number. The point is I wish that I'd had Upstart to deal with that rotten debt. It's the fast and easy way to pay off your debt with a personal loan all online, whether it's paying off credit cards, consolidating high interest debt or funding personal expenses. Over half a million people have used Upstart to get one fixed monthly payment. Upstart knows you're more than your credit score and it's expanding access to affordable credit.

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Don't forget to use our URL to let them know we sent you. Loan amounts will be determined based on your credit income and certain other information provided in your loan application. Go to Upstart.com slash Duncan. Yeah, man. If you ever, do you ever think you'll have kids? You know, it's funny. For me, I really didn't want kids for a long time and this past year put a lot in perspective

and in August of last year, it was a very real possibility and that ended up not happening. Yeah, I read your post about that, man. That took a lot of guts to post about going through that. I'm sorry. I don't know if it's okay to mention that on the podcast. I also think with everything that's happening in Texas, it is 100% a woman's issue, but I think it's important for men to also speak up because it does affect them in a way. I very much had this weird come to Jesus moment where it was kind of up in the air whether or

not we were going to have an abortion and I came to a level of acceptance where I was like, okay, I'll be a dad. I felt this calm and then she said, we're not going to have it. I said, okay. Something shifted in me and I do think, I see you as a father and I'm like, that is the coolest thing in the world and especially looking at your age and everything you've accomplished and gone through, you didn't have kids young. Had children older and you have so much more to give them in your years that you've been on

earth rather than you would have if you were younger. I would like to have kids in a family when I'm fully prepared and I would like to do that within the decade. No timeline. Maybe it won't happen. We've already talked about it and she definitely doesn't want to have kids until she's kind of into her 30s a bit and that for me is a sigh of relief because again in my past relationship it was, I want this by this time this, the clock is ticking and I'm like, oh,

God, too much. Fuck that. That sucks, the ticking clock people. That sucks. That kind of pressure is so fucked up. You should never have a kid unless you really want to have a kid. That's when you have a kid. This thing of bringing a kid into the world when that's not what you want to do.

And when you put a timeline on it, you are starting to paint yourself into a corner where if I don't have everything done by then, the last thing I want to do is to not be able to dedicate myself entirely to my family and I know right now I can't do that and I know that I have a lot more things I want to accomplish and at the same time I want to be able to take care of my family monetarily and right now I'm fortunate I'm in a position where I can very well take care of myself but I don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars that I'll have to put towards my child and their education and everything like that. Yeah, no, you need, it's fucking expensive, man.

Having kids is fucking expensive and I don't care. Like you have to cross this abyss. It's truly like sometimes in magical circles they talk about this thing crossing the abyss and there's a lot of different definitions but one of the abysses you have to cross is the abyss of selfishness and you might not want to admit, people might not want to admit they're fucking selfish but when you have a kid, it's like you see it. The selfishness becomes as clear as mud on a spotlight and you just see it, it's like vivid and I don't know if I'll ever get rid of my fucking selfishness but the crossing the abyss

part is you have to start letting go of all the self-centeredness that you can. You have to just really figure out a way to jettison that shit or you're going to be waking up at night, gritting your teeth, feeling regret and thinking like God, if I didn't have fucking kids I could be sitting on the couch blowing rails academy and playing God of War. It's this weird collision of worlds of letting go and acceptance at the same time and the balance between the two and I, last night we ordered soup dumplings and watched capturing the freedments and it's like I don't know if I could do that if I had a kid you know. No, no you can't. That's the thing like you can't like you are you're like we we've gone out to eat

this week we went out to eat twice. The first time we went out to eat ended up in the emergency room because forest has allergies and my and like I ended up like making I got an ice cream maker made a big vat of ice cream but didn't cook the eggs enough he's allergic to egg whites and so like right before we leave to eat I'm like have some ice cream he eats the ice cream he's fine it's no but when you have a kid with allergies it's like it's not the emergency room becomes a little less intense they're used to it but you basically like you have to we've only had to do it twice in two years but you have to epi-pin the kid and then no matter what if you do that you have to take him to the hospital for observation just to be super oh yeah he's fine he's totally fine thank

you for asking but I'm just saying that's that's that night and then the second night uh the baby sitter was just texting because the youngest one just we didn't like she came after he'd fallen asleep and so he's crying for milk and she goes in and picks him up and he's like who the fuck are you and it's just like screaming so then we thought oh god we're gonna have to go home twice in a row here which is no big deal but I'm just saying like the type of flex that you learn a kind of flexibility where it's like you have to just be in the moment moving with things as they're happening I think it's a great thing to learn and I'm really glad that I have learned it but yeah the whole dumpling fantasy and all that stuff it's gonna go on hiatus

I mean bro I was just in Vegas for a week and when I came back my cat was like wildly vocal when he saw me and after a certain point I'm like okay is he excited to see me or does he have a UTI that I don't know about what's going on I could not imagine that happening with a child like I could not imagine you know my cat's like whining and I'm like oh god did he hurt his paw I couldn't imagine a baby crying and trying to decipher what is going on right yeah yeah right and like it's it's a it's a it's truly you know someone like me who has like some of the most profoundly selfish tendencies on earth it's a wonderful it's a wonderful gift because it like it's it's it's truly like rehabilitation for selfishness but but yeah don't don't I guess that one the essence

of the thing is yeah you're totally right don't you when you have a kid when you're like ready to like step into a forge of the universe and get your fucking hair blazed off by like the primordial thrust of uh sentience into this dimension otherwise just fucking guilt-free dumplings movies of fucking non-stop we're going to the beach this weekend you know it's like I'm going to the beach this weekend I'm actually we're pulling this off because the mother or my mother-in-law's in town she's gonna be with the kids but let me tell you we might be oh no that's you know what I mean you're gonna go to the beach and you don't know nothing you're not gonna get a call it's like your fucking cat UTI has come back again yeah

you know what I mean but yes that's the difference in our beach trips I'm at some point I'm gonna be consoling Erin who will probably be crying because she's missing being with the the kids because she's I mean that's what Olivia's gonna do to me about my cat you know because he is my son so you know I was well I years ago I was supposed to get a vasectomy I was like so dead sad no kids and I have chronic epididymitis and so my epidid it's the epididymis swells and becomes inflamed that's like the tube that connects your testicle to your urethra for the sperm to travel through okay so mine gets inflamed and actually recently I was like a last-ditch effort with my urologist

he was like look I'm gonna give you these the you have to take these pain shots in your spine and if that doesn't eliminate the pain you have to get your epididymis removed which means you can't have kids pop up pop so I get these shots in my spine every six months to a year and it it fixed the pain which is great but I was I had my two consultations for the vasectomy and we had scheduled when it was going to be and then my epididymis my epididymitis cropped up and they were like oh we have to push it back and I was like maybe that's a sign from God I'm not gonna do it you know and thank God yeah yeah yeah don't I was I think after our second kid we were kind of talking about you know maybe maybe we'll just like maybe maybe but I didn't know so I think we're talking

about if we have another one we'll do that but I don't want to do that ever like I don't I don't want to do that I think there is something really I mean it is insane that humans are able to even reproduce that it's the most to me it's the most ridiculous thing fucking to make a baby well the process is ridiculous you know you're just keeping yourself on someone just yeah but it sounds like you know when you think about God or if you want to believe in God or want to play around with like well we can kind of understand God from the way the universe works God is like a baby like it's like baby logic you know what I mean you push you push into you mash and then she will grow in her stomach another one will come she make your baby

oh do you open the bell no you push out your pee pee oh okay yeah okay God I guess we'll do it whatever you say but you know I mean there's nothing it's the it's it's the most bizarre thing when when I'm like in forest we feel like he kind of understands it not the the fucking part but like he knows he was in my wife's stomach somehow and every once in a while he'll be like the other day he goes gonna go back in your vagina that'd be he goes gonna go back in your vagina that'd be cute oh my god he's putting on goggles what are you doing get ready to go back in the vagina you ain't going back yeah there's no there's there's no way I mean that that's the that's the other crazy thing about this flow of time that we're in right man there's it's just like

we're you you you you don't there's no way other than like great therapy hypnosis to really go back man we're like atrophying you know what I mean if you let me ask you this if you started to contend maybe this is just me but if you started to contend with how quickly time is going by and if you if you started doing that math of like fuck man like based on how quickly I'm experiencing the flow of time like I'm gonna be 70 before I can blink twice you know if you started working with that or just time flow by to normal I feel like it it's this weird thing like when I look back on my life I it seems so long and all the lives I've lived are just so I can't believe I've gotten to experience so many different things in one lifetime and I have so much more of a lifetime to go and at

the same time it seems as if it's been going by it's coming at me quickly but it's passing behind me so slowly if that makes sense and then I think in comparison to like I've been alive for 36 years and it it's felt yeah like a slog and just with so many different things that have happened and then I compare that to someone who's been imprisoned for that period of time where they have almost the same experience day in and day out yeah how long that must feel to them yeah like time is just so relative depending on your situation and whenever I think of someone that's been imprisoned for like 25 years I'm just like that I cannot imagine their concept of time as compared to ours oh oh it's a brutality I mean it's so weird that like there's a you know no cruel and unusual

punishment but you're allowed to take a sentient creature put it in a lock them up for a lot and just say you'll never come out and somehow that's not cruel and unusual if you heard there's you know it's people like theorize about the future of psychoactive chemicals and the more we understand the human brain the more we can manipulate it have you heard the theory that they're going to be able to inject you with a prison sentence where instead of having to put you in prison for 50 years they can inject you with a drug that gives you the experience of 50 years but it only takes like an hour if you heard that yeah pharmaceutical like prison sentences saves a lot of money not such a but at the end of your like or like you know there's other ways is there is there a right to inject

them with rehabilitative care you know to like to fix the synapses in the brain that makes them want to commit crime well isn't the idea though like part of the punishment is like you know whenever you're watching the court shows and shit it's like in the asshole finally gets the prison sentence it's the families are like finally justice has been served like it's a it's something that's supposed to bring balance to the families or right or wrong or something like that so no one really wants rehabilitation you know someone kills your fucking mom you you're like oh great did you get rehabilitated right i mean would justice not be uh you know reversing who this person is and and making them contribute a good to society wouldn't that be the true justice if they were

rehabilitated to then do good within the world i think it depends on the culture it's like some people want them to hurt i mean you know this is like one of the weirdest theories of what we are or where we're at is like you know this is prison we're in a we're in and we committed some crime in in whatever we were before we were born we did some insanely horrific fucking thing and as punishment we've been sentenced to a human incarnation where there is the quality of rehabilitation that's happening i mean you look at your yourself in the in the in the barn getting fucking hammered are you on the street the old ian versus you now you can see there's a trend that's happening where you're you know evolving into a better and better person not just that part of you but career-wise

and everything you're becoming sweeter your other people are like inspired by you any addict listening to this who's still in the fucking barn you know they take they're they're probably going to be a little inspired the point is yeah the idea is like yeah no we you did get injected we were in some futuristic society you probably who knows what the fuck you did man you like who knows maybe you like threw someone off a building or i don't know like jerked off onto a sleeping space emperor i don't know i don't know if that's a crime i don't even know if that's a crime in the future but the point better not be because if that's the case they're gonna lock me up i just love jerking off on sleeping emperors come on don't make me sorry your honor i never

gotten to sports i mean i yeah it's i i have i am fortunate in that i have actively taken the reins of giving myself rehabilitative care and yeah i you know um i just like in in terms of of prisoners like nobody wants i mean look there there's this push to release nonviolent drug offenders nonviolent crimes and just release them which is like okay but at the same time these people have had to adjust and adapt themselves to a universe we couldn't even fathom as a means of survival right so yeah you may have gone to jail at 19 for a nonviolent drug crime but after 15 years you're coming out with a cosmic psychic change in your brain of how you deal with the world around you and to just release you into society without rehabilitative

care without some sort of step down into the world in which is not the same that you've been living in is only going to create chaos in the world that we exist in with rules and laws and certain acceptable behaviors so it's like yes release these people but at the same time give them the care that they need so that they don't just act like the animals that they've had to adapt into being for survival in this prison world you know and and people i don't understand how that's not a full conversation that's at the forefront of this releasing prisoners into society you can't just release people and and say well they'll be fine it's like that's a that's a very traumatic change in their life you know yeah yeah yeah man i mean you you're running into the lobbyist you're

running into the for-profit prison lobbyists who number one are like are you fucking kidding we can't release them that's like you know what i mean every prisoner that we have we're gonna make so much money every year you know you're making you're cutting you're making a great profit off of every non especially the nonviolent offenders because you know you get like a sociopath and there's some kind of violent brutal person then you're gonna have to pay for the medical care for everybody they fuck up and whatever good you get a nice nonviolent weed dealer oh my god that's a payday plop them down in the cell and just juice them for as long as you can those lobbyists man they don't want to release them and then the other part of it is like the the expense it would

cost to rehabilitate them i mean this whole prison is a rehabilitation thing is insane in america like it's a total lie and what's happening now with the bail reform in new york city and other other cities is it's just a revolving door i mean you get arrested you get a death ticket you're out that night and they're finding that the more catcher and release they're doing each time the more and more violent the crime is that they're committing you know i mean this guy was uh in the subways punching women and they couldn't lock him up because it was a misdemeanor assault rather than because he didn't steal from them they couldn't arrest him on a felony so because it was misdemeanors they kept letting him out he just kept punching random women and you know it i don't

understand how that is supposed to help society you know and would it not give more jobs for people to work in you know rehabilitation centers and and to give continuing care to these people that are hurting and sick mentally and emotionally that need help stepping back into society you know and and also at the same time you know like i don't know if i believe in the concept of of a physical heaven or hell i i think for me i believe in the concept of heaven and hell is how we spend our time on earth and if if you are locked in a cage for you know 35 years that is hell you're in hell you can make it heavenly in a way but you have to have a strong constitution you know and oh yeah i've been in hell i've lived in hell and now i am finding my own heaven that exists wherever i go you know and

i i you know i i just feel for these people so much hell is density right like it's like the you know i do believe in hell and i do believe in heaven and and i the where i get that from is not some like faith-based thing but it's like rooted in this concept of as above so below or like like so so when you're like the idea is like you know you see the way of apple falls from the tree and from that you can understand the way planets move through the solar system similarly you look at these like qualities of like existence that happen to people and and you imagine like like i guess it's like what predicates the line of thought is like you have to imagine that we're not annihilated when we die but if we're not annihilated when we die we're living in an infinite

universe then it's like oh i what would be worse than prison what's the next step down from prison and so in like buddhism you what you get is like really weirdly similar to the christian hell which you're essentially being like boiled in cauldrons for like hundreds of human lifespans but you're not it's not permanent like there you can all it's nothing's permanent so you you do you can eventually like yeah actually yeah yeah but the though if you look at it purely as just like a metaphor or whatever it to me it just represents increasing levels of density it's like you know you start off and you're scared as shit you're in your in or whatever the things going on with you that you're so scared that you numb down so once you're numb down

you feel like it's okay to go around punching women or robbing people or doing whatever the fuck it is and so then that state gets mirrored by you in a dense ass fucking prison cell surrounded by other numb down people who are all feeding off of each other creating this kind of fucked up resonance which is then densifying things even more so just what you're saying you get the fuck out and it's not like you're rehabilitated you just become better at being dense and then that's why there's this incredible recidivism rate you know which is like of course they're gonna go back and that's what they want recidivism rate is a direct result of you the card stacked up against you where you can't work you can't exist without you know almost like leading yourself back into

a life of crime so that you can't exist right yeah use harder to get a job you can't fucking vote you're like you know good luck getting a fucking job man like you know what i mean like people are hiring it's like oh really you were what you're in prison for fucking you're the dude who is punching women on the fucking subway fuck you no i've gotten better i don't do you have fuck you i don't care if you have gotten better so hard to get a job with a college degree right now let alone leaving prison yeah with like your go-to behavioral trait is punching women like good fucking luck yeah that's now you don't put that in your resume but like you but you know i'm great at punching women at mid-nurse subway if you need that but to me when you look at that quality of our society

with all the advanced shit we've got and we're still doing medieval yeah we just throw you in a room with bars in front of it for a certain amount of time that's that's that's just what we do we do the same shit king george was fucking doing with maybe like maybe better accommodations you know you're not having to like compete with rats when you're eating or whatever but even essentially yes for long-term throwing people in a cage but also you know if you get arrested and you're locked up for 24 hours you're not making your job the next day you're not calling out you're just fucking no showing and then you lose your job you don't got money so it's like yeah let me come into crime real quick to fucking you know pay my

rent get back on my feet and then boom you're back in jail it's a feedback loop i mean so what do you i mean what like i've looked at i've seen documentaries on some of like the like i think Norwegian prisons you know what i mean and they look more like dorm rooms they are it is based on rehabilitation i mean if you if you treat people like humans they're more prone to act in a human way like when i was teaching and i treated my kids like adults they acted in a mature adult way when you treat people yeah as if they are the bane of society well what do you expect they're gonna act like fucking jerk offs dude this is we have this right now we're working with like a pretty awesome nanny and she's like uh you know she's of the school of working with kids

where you don't baby talk it doesn't matter if they eight months old you talk to them like a person because you know a lot of times when you're seeing like these kids who are um you know toddlers but they're still like kind of babbling sometimes sometimes that's happening because their parents have just been baby talking them and that's what they've been hearing so it's like it's a feedback loop of baby talk by the way i don't know how you don't fucking baby talk these things they're so god damn cute all you want to do is balance you know yeah there's a balance yeah but it's like the same situation if we're prison talking our inmates and via like all the other inmates who are like you know terrifying them or shaking them down or forcing them to like choose gangs or whatever

the fuck happens based on my viewing of locked up you know i don't know anything about prison either i know i know right we're just talking about our ass dude one time i used to love locked up wrong one time i i had to check over and i put it on and we're like making out and while we're making out i hear like any keister stashed a nine inch blade and i'm like you know trying to undo her pants i'm like maybe i should turn this off yeah yeah you should i mean yeah my wife and i fucked a shan hanity and it's like i don't know it's fucked up you know like what are you gonna do stop and like turn the tv off no if you're in the passion of the moment you just you just deal with it but look i what would you do i mean if you let's say you and i get to design our own fucking prison

the goal rehabilitation what what do we do when we get someone in there who just like was robbing a convenience store and just blew someone's face off to get $100 what do you what would you do what would you do i mean first of all like you just said the new regent system of like dorms when you set someone up in like an esteemable environment they start to act in esteemable in esteemable ways you know so set them up in a you know not like you know giving them a recliner in a fucking flat screen but just like you know not putting them on a steel bench you know and making them cook food over a toilet you know what i mean like giving them an environment that makes them feel human in a way i mean look there's a difference between like you can't excuse blowing

someone's head off for a hundred bucks and being like let's rehabilitate you know that's going to take a lot but i think having like a strong uh what about a million bucks well then who wouldn't do that you know but but like uh you know having a therapeutic environment having good psychological care having you know um and you also at the same time have to incentivize people going to that field these people should be getting paid a lot more money you know like doctors and and psychiatrists and therapists and social workers should be getting paid a lot more to work in these environments to try to help rehabilitate these people through therapeutic care through workshops through exercising through different means of light and also

not only should this be happening in prison this should be happening outside of prison you know okay all right listen your prison i don't like it my prison here's what we do you're fucking commish okay you you're okay look i'm i'm not putting my fucking you have your little like whatever it is dorm rooms and you can have your fucking saturday movie nights with your to your team of murders here's what i do my murderer what i do is i use my neuro downlink to scan the brain residue of the person they shot reassemble all of their memories and then i place my karma helmet on this person and i force them to live the person they murdered's life over and over and over again uh experiencing the person's terror and fear when they're dying

for like a hundred straight incarnations and then i take the helmet off and i and i and and i don't know then then i send them to your prison you know what i mean but make them experience like you know that's the if we just don't have the fucking technology if we had the technology where you could induce in a person the experience not just the experience of getting murdered by themselves but all of the love and joy the person felt and at the same time experience the loss of their family and loved ones feel yes exactly they have to experience it and and and then like they have to experience it many many many times like a like an empathy neuralizer yeah man an empathy fucking neuralizer i send it to you to a hundred lifetimes of the person you murdered you're going

to do everything they did think everything they thought and it's always going to end with you fucking murdering yourself but you won't know it's you because you're going to be in another person now it's i i now now court adjourn my name is professor mong now come lay down in ian's lazy boy prison recliner there's massage buttons and your feet get a pedicure or yeah you're fucking sharper image prison over there with your fucking prisoners getting like god damn heating blankets and fucking nice sips of chrysanthemum tea i'm sorry you yeah yeah yeah oh did you get beat as a little boy and because of your trauma you re-enacted that

as an adult have some prosciutto wrapped melons but you look man i'm telling you i love playing around with like when when i am experiencing suffering especially suffering that is based on my past decisions which is most suffering i like to imagine that i'm like that in that suffering there's some redemptive quality happening there's like a purification happening you know what i mean instead of like going victim i whenever i look at i'm like i actively decided i made the choice i did the activity that brought me to this place and so any kind of horror or suffering i'm experiencing is really just the universe functioning perfectly it is a kind of prison sentence you know it is a kind of uh it is there is a true justice accepting the actions

the consequences of your actions yeah yeah that's it i mean there's something so liberating about that the moment you do that instead of like you know imagining that like someone else is to blame right well it goes back to that thing we said about the balance between letting go and acceptance and also having the mental fortitude to look in the mirror and realize your role in the experience that occurred rather than just pushing blame like going oh that's me oh i did that oh i can now make a change based off what i did that was negative you know instead of just going oh it was them i always this always happens to me blah blah blah yeah man because yeah because like if we are in some kind of celestial cosmic hyperdimensional futuristic prison and i know i were here you know i were here

jerked off on the space emperor's face and i'll do it again keep doing that you kind of don't say that sorry you're gonna give me the help at the helmet i'm just but you know if you were if like if you do play around with that idea that that is what human incarnation is a prison for the soul then and but if we were running a prison then and you and you and prisoners did start taking responsibility for their actions prison prisoners did start exhibiting traits of people who were no longer blaming the world for their behavior but taking responsibility becoming autonomous then you would you know you would feel like your prison was working and they would be one step closer to maybe being let out right you know so i'm just saying if that's what this is then working

with no longer blaming other things for your shit and working with gratitude if there is some cosmic celestial jailkeeper out there watching everything you do then that's probably what they're looking for right i mean is the celestial jailkeeper watching what you do just our consciousness well yeah i mean i'd say use whatever model works i mean like if the you know in the the end of the oh god i hate it i'm gonna say that at the end of the fucking day and the older you goddamn get the more like when you the math simplifies the point where it's like well it seems like the more you can help people like it seems like basically just try to be try not to hurt it's like what the dialogue has said if you can help help if you can't

help don't hurt you know what i mean it starts so so i love that you know whatever model gets you to that point whether you want to do like it's just my consciousness and that's all i need or whether you want to invent some kind of like weirdo hyperdimensional prison fucking guard or whatever you you i just say use your own model it whatever whatever works to like inspire you to become like a better part of whatever your community you know i don't know it could be your consciousness you could you could imagine it's a little slug that lives at the end of a rainbow i don't know what i mean like you you pick the fucking symbol but but the mail but what's what matters is not so much the symbol as much as like oh yeah this gets me this pushes me out of my

patterns that inevitably result me hurting myself or other people right and recognizing those patterns and trying to you know when you put your head down on the pillow at night trying to have done everything you could today to make the mistakes of yesterday make you have a better tomorrow yeah yeah that's it that's it you know there's a buddhist teacher who says something like that uh something along the lines of like oh are you feeling guilty of some shit you did to someone or whatever whatever whatever whatever something in the past then that that guilt is pretty useless it's definitely not helping them uh if they're still alive uh they don't know that you're guilty and it's it's definitely not fucking helping you

but if you really want to um if you if you really want to make something of the bad shit you did then going forward do the opposite of that like bring them into your you know bring them into your consciousness in your life not through like some residual guilt but through like no longer letting your anger right like self-readjust anger gets you nowhere you know like that's why the internet's so toxic which is just this fucking loop of anger and outrage that you know influence us and our behavior and when you unplug from that you realize things aren't as bad as they seem like the world is a pretty cool fucking place yeah no yeah man like god i think there is a i mean i i'm fantasizing there's a collective realization of like wait i don't have to look

at twitter anymore like i don't have to like look at that i don't have to engage with that at all i don't need to get an into it with people out there who are you know who the fuck knows who they are anyway like 18 like 20 of them are thoughts total you know 40 of them are like 12 year olds you know 30 of them are like completely and 99 of them would be more forgiving to you know a violent offender than someone that said the wrong thing that they want to keep bringing up to bring them down over and over yeah yeah and and the and the energy behind it is weirdly similar to like the same energy of the people doing fucked up shit you know what i mean like like we make prisoners do community service but if you're actively outraged online all the time

you should then have to do community you should only be allowed to be outraged if you have actively tried to physically help your community in some way you get an outrage yeah you can do one you just did 15 hours of service in your community going around giving masks to people who need them educating people about vaccines whatever the fucking thing is you just did 15 hours of service now you're allowed you know what you know who's allowed to fucking do it who's allowed to put people on blast goddamn doctors you know what i mean those if you want to fucking if you're a doctor out there you can put people on blast my well i my family's friends with a doctor and it's just like it's fucked it's they're just like well you know like we have and i you know i actually when i got

covid recently i had been getting fed up with a goddamn perturbed nurse meme you know what i mean the stories from nurses being like you don't understand and i'm like this can't be real and and then the nurse who is coming in to give me my fucking IV drips of zinc and nad and all the all this like all this great shit that i think really helped me get over covid she worked in a maternity ward uh a covid maternity ward that's fun for pregnant women who are coming in with covid and you know these people as she's talking to me i'm looking at her listening to her recognizing like you are i didn't say it why would you but no one needs to say you are severely traumatized you are going to be traumatized probably for the

rest of your life but like you're a war it's a war veteran but what she's saying casually is she's like stringing up my freaking illuminani fucking IV drip and vitamins and shit and she's like yeah we keep a kit in front of the rooms of the pregnant mothers who have covid because we have to go in there when they die and cut their stomach open to get the baby out you know like what you know like to me i think those people they are justified in putting people on blast because they're just like yeah they get an outrage token but unless you're doing that unless you're like in the covid wards cutting babies out of but even then maybe that's not the point though because it goes back to the rehabilitation idea it's like how much is the fucking outrage creating

the change you want to see in the world right like is it effective that's the big question like does it work i know it doesn't work for me when i'm getting put on blast by somebody i just dig my heels hate and anger is never effective that's why like this whole narrative for the past four fucking years of like turn your back on your family tell your friends that they're racist do this and that it's like you get more flies with honey like why are we throwing vinegar on everything when we should be having loving conversations where we're understanding the other side because then you can inject some form of knowledge or understanding to make someone tweak their their view of how they weren't seeing it before dude this is what i love about my

recovered attic friends is they are the least judgmental when they recognize that you're like drinking too much or when you tell them like man i'm fucking hooked on this thing you don't get the judgment you don't get the thing because they've all been there and they understand the dynamic of it and there's this like real deep compassion and empathy and love that isn't because like most recovered addicts every recovered addict i've met they've just you know they understand well i'm not i can't save you like there's nothing i can do you're gonna keep doing your thing until you what do they say until you die or go to jail right that's what they say and it is right you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it stop doing heroin but it's a great poet my god that fucking horse

it's like you should read that horse's poetry beautiful beautiful heroin horse poetry i mean that's why they call it being on the horse yeah yeah man i but it's like i think like you know there there's something to be said for this like being pragmatic when it comes to you know your goals like it's like and i think a lot of folks out there are really afraid and i get you know fear turns into anger and that's the toxic shit that we're seeing online is just terrified very scared people who are like really going through it and so that you know the fear translates into like the shit that we're railing against right now but like it yeah i think like you know the there's something jack cornfield this buddhist teacher says that i really love

which is which is if you're gonna save the planet save it because we love it save you know what i mean like if you're gonna save something do it because you love it if you want to save a person if you want like to love them first and then save lead with love you know but don't hate them yeah yeah or try even try to lead with love because like how do we try to and and that love starts with gratitude really yeah how can yeah it starts with love without gratitude you know and i know for me like in my experience anytime anyone was like stop drinking look what you're doing you got to stop it made me want to show up at their doorstep with a bottle of vodka and be like oh you want me to stop

how's this i'll stop when i'm done this fucking bottle you know and and yes you know a saying in the recovery community is attraction not promotion you know like what does that mean attraction not promotion like make your life attractive rather than promoting what you've done like you know when when a a was founded by by bill wilson and dr bob dr bob was a hopeless drunk and everyone was telling him you know you need to stop you need to do this you need to do that and when bill wilson visited him in the hospital room he said i'm not here for you i'm here for me and he shared his experience and it was the first person that never he didn't tell him what to do he told him what he did and what worked for him and how he was and he made that attractive

to dr bob and that they you know formed a way of recovery that was different than what was existing at the time that's brilliant man attraction instead of promotion yeah that's that you know a lot of people who get into spirituality they get they become these like it's very sweet and i get it they become these promoters of the thing so like they're always giving ear beatings i was one of them where they're blah blah anyone unsolicited fucking ear beatings left and right but but when you meet people who are you've really been like working on themselves for a long time that is gone in fact they barely ever talk they don't talk about like you there there isn't much of a conversation about it they're not promoting it

but you look at them and you're like how are you like this how are you so full of love and how is it that whenever i'm around you like i feel like inspired and reminded of my own potential and like you know what what is that and then you ask them and then maybe they'll talk to you a little bit about it but they're no no one's ever been convinced by hearing you should you know you're more likely to convince someone by saying i did you know yeah man i may and maybe there's like you know yeah yeah maybe maybe there's something like someone in my family is is like struggling with a late turn like somebody's like deep in heroin and it's like there's no like i don't see how there's any hope at all and for her for her and like you like all that it's like it wrecks

a fucking family and the spat of it is when you're going through it you think you're the only one that you're hurting you can't that the effects of it yeah man you don't realize you're like rippling out to people you don't even fucking know kids you don't even fucking know but that's still not gonna make you change that's the problem i you know even that it's like but i don't know maybe something about when you're around addicts is like some of them it's not like they pity you or it's not like but they do look at you like i don't know if you'll stay alive a lot of us don't like a lot of addicts they don't stay they don't you know that man a lot of people just don't make it out out of it but it's like you know going to someone who's that imploded or cratered and then

grabbing them and shaking them sure as fuck isn't gonna do anything i guess that's the bottom line you gotta lead with love you know and and a lot of people are addicts and alcoholics because they feel no love you know and they feel no love with him himself yeah and and so they keep repeating the behavior because it's the escape from the fact that they have no love but how do you exhibit love towards someone who is like stolen from you hurt you fucked up your family multiple times lied to you how do you show love to that at a certain point you can love as best you can and then you need to learn to love from a distance and sometimes it gets to the point where the most loving thing you can do is to shut them shut them out you know like the most loving thing you

can do is you know like with with my ex the most loving thing i can do because she refuses help and will never recognize that she has this issue the most loving thing i can do is to never contact her again you know and learning to love from a distance and and you know what sometimes people don't get it but love is a fluid the definition of love is fluid it takes on many different forms and you know you can love someone through a hug you can love someone through action or you can love someone from a distance and sometimes when people just don't get it you backing off is a form of love because it shows them just how you know dark and bleak things can get without having a support system yeah fuck well ian i'm gonna go jerk off on a space emperor's face

i am so grateful i'm grateful to you i love these conversations i'm so happy for you we didn't get to talk about your stand up but god damn you are kicking ass right now man and it's like when we were going on the road together man you were fucking brutally tough to follow you're so god damn funny and it's so cool to watch you doing this man and like anyway i just want to say i'm really happier in my life ian and i'm really i'm so grateful to you duncan you're like a brother to me and i love you so much and uh i i just you know have so much gratitude for you and your existence even when we're not speaking i you'd you'd affect my life in just watching you from afar and when we get to connect like this it's fucking awesome man the best you got to come

up to ashville man come up here spend some time up in the mountains you got me my kids i would love that i'm so fucking loosely dude great yeah let's do it man maybe we could put together yeah or something oh man cool hell yeah yeah okay i love you thank you so much that was ian fine dance everybody a tremendous thank you to our sponsors upstart stat hero and better help and god bless you for listening i love y'all so much and i'll see you next week until then 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 clayborne worthington stafford and jay furar oh and thereabouts for

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