Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 567: Russell Brand

Episode Date: May 27, 2023

Russell Brand, luminous, charismatic, mystical, coolest man on earth, re-joins the DTFH! Check out Russell's new festival this July, Community, all about personal awakening and social change. Click here fore more info, and to buy your tickets! You can also watch Russell's new comedy special, Brandemic, now available for purchase! Click here for more info. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/duncan and get on your way to being your best self. Squarespace - Use offer code: DUNCAN to save 10% on your first site.

Before you die you'll think of FedEx, all those trips you took to FedEx Have a man with face tattoos, or a gummy swans to you It will not make much sense at all, no visions of a puzzle ball To just photographic memories of notebooks on the FedEx wall You are in a zoo, a human zoo, and look at you now Dying like an animal you are in a zoo A human too and look at you now Just a dumb animal. No single come to save you. There will be no bright white light Just memories of being mad because they could get an address right You will not remember the many nights of sex

that sunrise is in rainbows. Your only thoughts will be of FedEx. You are in a zoo in a human zoo. Look at you now. Dying like an animal. You are in a zoo in a human zoo. And look at you now. Just a dumb animal

Hey, bad guy, I called you to the link What the fuck are you? I'm sorry, things happened every time I get that, but I do wanna read it It's only a few hours late G7 or another But you're always in the same day You're in for me 60 seconds late

I'm so mad at you right? You were in a zoo and a human zoo. They turned all of the monkeys and the fucking junkies. You were in a zoo, a human zoo. So live as if you were living already for the second time. And as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now. What's up with that? What is up with that?

What did it mean? I got Thomas Merton stuck in my head, okay? I started reading the seven story mountain. Is that it? Seven stories? I don't know how many stories are in the mountain. I'm still in the first few chapters, but he has this incredible writing style. You feel like you're there with him when he's in college. This is before he became the famous mystic,

trappist author. This is when he was still in college and he's fucking pissed and lost and his dad dragged him all over the planet because his dad was an artist and his mom died of stomach cancer. And there's just this poignant, brutally descriptive moment when his father's dying in the hospital and he says, without some spiritual component in your life, when a parent dies, you just have to take it like a dumb animal. And just, it's just so hardcore. It's just so brutal.

Is it true? Is it true? Is the only path to true tranquility, inner harmony, and peace leaning into a deity? I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think a deity would want that for the deity's creation. That would be really weird. Narcissistic, a huge part of parenting is learning not just how to be there for your kids, but how to not be there. You don't want to be a narcissistic parent.

You don't want to make yourself the pillar, the the the the sun, the nucleus of your kids existence. There's something that I heard at a Rom Doss retreat about how to be with dying people. You should become a loving rock, something they can hold on to if they need to, but definitely something that they can let go of. You don't want to torture a dying person with guilt. You don't want them to feel like they can't die because of you. And that's a very easy trap to fall into.

Similarly, when you're parenting, you've got to be a loving rock. You've got to let them not just clean to you, but push off of you. Otherwise, you end up becoming like a narcissistic parent. You have to help them differentiate. So if the alchemical maxim as above so below is true. Then my assumption would be that what we're experiencing right now in this current state of human evolution is differentiation from the deity, a chance for us to sort of wander.

There really isn't much of a difference between what humanity is doing to the planet and what I did to the apartments I lived at when I moved away from home, that's the phase the humanity isn't right now. We're partying. We're not washing our dishes. We're leaving scattered bong remnants on our brooch infested carpet and we're acting like we're cool with that. So yeah, I get why Martin is so into the idea of making some connection with the divine because he was a trappist mystic and he did make the connection and it filled him with an eternal, never-ending well of absolute joy, gratitude, and compassion for those people who are still wandering in the darkness.

But wandering in the darkness isn't the worst thing. My God, if you ever really wandered in the darkness, if you ever wandered around a forest with no flashlight at night, high as a kite, not sure where you're going, just wandering, climbing trees, finding bear cubs up there, throwing the bear cubs down. If you've ever experienced that, if you ever walked in a forest at night and thrown a bear cub at its mom, made that mother bear roll over in a form of submission to you, laid your head on that bear's stomach, soothing the upset cub and looking up at the moonlight, then you know there's a joy

in wandering far from home. And I think that if God is the creator of all things and encoded within the creation is the possibility of finding joy, bliss, happiness, and the darkness too. It must be possible. You just have to try it sometime. The next time you're out in the forest, up in Alaska, I used to go up there a lot on my fishing trips. Just take a nice little night hike, find a grizzly.

The moment you throw their cub at them, they immediately will roll over onto their stomach. A lot of people on their back, people don't know that. They think you're supposed to like get away from the cub. No, that's how you die. You want to survive seeing a grizzly bear with their cubs, throw the cub. I mean, don't hurt the cub. Fucking monster. Just like a sort of like an underhand throw. And they will just roll over on their stomach and you on their back and you lay your ad on their stomach They will let you nurse You suckle grizzly bear milk which tastes incredible

tastes like Mars bars. In fact Mars bars the candy is 20% grizzly milk. I love the outdoors, but more than the outdoors, I really love the new legend of Zelda tiers of the kingdom. My God, what a game. I'm so happily addicted to that game right now. I mean, it's a narcotic. I've done narcotics. I've taken percassette. I've been injected with synthetic heroin by doctors.

I know what it feels like. It's a wonderful feeling. To me, that's tears of the kingdom. It feels a little bit like some kind of technological opiate. You should try it. Even if you don't like video games, just try it. You won't believe it. How manipulative it is. Speaking of suckling at it, grizzly bears, teats. This game milks your dopamine, your serotonin, your happy goo. It is like a milk made with beautiful hands. Just milking your brain, edging your brain, getting your brain as close as it can get to

the wonderful rush of succeeding in the game and then slowing in a little bit, making you shiver and shake and then at last a brain orgasm. And then just as soon as you've recovered from that moment of delight, something else will pop up out of the massive world that will grab your attention and the milking starts again. Zelda, it milks the dick of your brain like a professional edger. I don't know if there is professional edgers out there, but one can dream.

Okay, fine, enough about whatever I'm talking about. What a show we have for you today. Russell Brandt is either coolest person on earth, like close, like top 10 definitely. He's so charismatic, so brilliant, so funny, so mystical that anytime I do a podcast with him, I'm happy for weeks inspired. I love him. It's a man crush. I'll admit it. And he's here with us today. Some quick announcements. I'm gonna be at Copper, Blues, Live, and Phoenix, next weekend, that's June 2nd,

and then I'm gonna be in Florida, Dania Beach, Improv, not long after that, and then I'm not gonna be going on the road for a while because a child is coming. You can find ticket links to those shows at DuncanTrustle.com. As always, when you subscribe to our Patreon, it's patreon.com for its last DTFH. You will get commercial free episodes of this podcast. Friends, if I didn't have an incoming baby, I would definitely be heading to Russell Brand's awesome festival that

is coming up in July. This festival is called Community and Wem Hof is going to be there. One of the graces is going to be there. My apologies. I don't have to pronounce your first name, Mr. Grace. Riren, Riren and Dr. Vandana Shiva is going to be there along with a lot of other luminaries. You can find tickets to this at Russellbrand.com.

You should definitely check out his newest special, which you can also order through his website Russellbrand.com. And now everybody, please welcome back to the DTFH the luminous Russell brand. I'll be with you, take care of me, you will, I'll come with you. It's the Duncan Trussle, the American Trussle, the American Trussle. Russell, welcome back to the DTFH. We have a limited amount of time here, so there's no... We can't, we can't do any small talk. We got to dive right in.

Are you familiar with the tarot? Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, no, I don't know. I won't be able to name individual cards and what they mean. Or if tarot has an existence beyond tarot cards, I don't know about that either. Does any card in the major arcana pop into your head right now?

Yeah, there's one that'sight skeleton and death and everything. And then when you gaze, oh, that's good. That one, that means you could have a lovely weekend. It's the worst when they do that because you're looking at their eyes the same way you look at a doctor who's about to tell you what scans are saying about you. Like, do you really mean I'm okay? So that's what pops into your head. Death.

I mean, is that because of the current state of things on the planet, or is that some, is there some other reason that that pops into your head? My sense is that that is the sort of alpha card in the pack. And like as someone that's sort of a dilaton who knows very little about the cards, is like if I asked you about football,

you might say Maridona or Pele or someone like that. I wouldn't even say that. I would be blank. It would just be a blank drone that would come out of me. Yeah, well, that's interesting. So that was the dumb first question for the podcast. So I'll jump to my second one. We've talked a lot, and I'm lucky that we have.

Generally like about spirituality and things like that, but I must tell you, there's lots of things I love about your hustle, but one of the things, I guess you would call it the shadow side. I've never seen anybody crucify interviewers who are being assholes like you can. And sometimes I've watched, it's like there's many YouTube clips of you like really like destroying interviewers who are being like sarcastic with you or shitty, shitty interviewers like people who have some agenda

to humiliate you or to get one over on you. And the way you do it is so brutal. I'm just curious, what do you feel like when you're doing that? Are you angry? What's the emotional state when you find that part of yourself showing up during an interview? Well, Duncan, we even know he's spoken a lot of times online and even though we don't spend a lot of time talking,

even in the in the tarot of my personal mythos, your name and your face, evokes and your voice, especially your voice. Evoking me, immediate love. If someone says don't contrast all. Thank you. Love. Like if so, like it, like it, like it, I think you're warmth to you. And thank you. I, so, but I know a bit about you, but I don't know how much humiliation there might

have been in your childhood or how much humiliation has played a part in who you are and how much of a persona or fortress of identity you may have had to have constructed to protect yourself. But for me, humiliation has played a sort of a pretty big role in my life. And I think it's formative. And actually in many ways, I see it as a gift because vulnerability is at the forefront of who I am. But I feel I suppose that if someone speaks to me in a way that I don't feel is in good faith that breaks the contract of we're in a conversation with one another. Like even though I know I'm pretty flawed in lots of ways and that can be a bit of a heel. I feel like generally in a

discourse with a stranger, that's where I can come at it pretty pure. Like I'm not coming to it necessarily really wanting anything. Like I don't want to hurt anyone. I'm probably coming to it necessarily really wanting anything, like I don't wanna hurt anyone, I'm probably there for the obligation of promo or something like that. And also, I like talking to people actually. So if someone, if I feel like I'm attacked while in that environment, I feel that it's probably charged by a fear that I might face humiliation. As I've grown up and grown more spiritual, but I've become perhaps more aware broadly, become more aware of my own failings, the limitations of

myself, the insignificance of any individual, but the infinite value of any individual. Someone's like, root to me, I feel like, man, feel like this is something that I'm gonna personally tolerate. I saw a comment once after, like, you know, so they show you the ego, it's certainly present then and by God it's present now. After one such appearance on a TV show where I think I'd been insulted.

And someone went, I love the way that when he realizes they're being rude to him, you see him completely relax. And I really liked the idea of that compliment that when I feel like I'm being assaulted, that path of me thinks, oh here it is, this is that thing where I'm being attacked, that I always knew is going to happen to me, because it's happened to me in the past,

I'm being attacked now. And like any sensible self interrogating person, questions their own value, questions their own choices, questions how they can improve, questions the errors made in the past. And I feel that because I'm engaged in that, I don't feel like anybody has the right to like attack me unless it's in pursuit of something higher and it never is Never is there always attacking you for some other reason

It's very low to do that at all. I mean that like it's it's rude as rude can be someone's giving you their time They're coming on your show and then you decide to try to bully them in front of theoretically the planet. But I wanted to talk to you a little bit about this because I've been thinking a lot lately about the spiritual world or people who call themselves spiritual seekers or the modern version of that. And it seems like that aspect of humanity is off limits. You're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to decimate someone who's attacking you,

but you're supposed to put on some kind of weird bullshit, spiritual smile, or ignore it, or something like that. And I just wonder, what are your thoughts on that? It seems like there's just this severe imbalance in so many spiritual communities where that side of humanity, which is just as valid as the turn the other cheek side, is wiped off the table.

Well, all our values now, well What are our values now? What are our values now? Like it feels like people have the agenda and the objective first and then the conduct follows rather than these are my values and my principles and then what unfolds from these principles and values I will have to accept.

Like you just alluded to if someone's about to lay out cards or spilty leaves or read runes or cast the straws for their e-ching, I feel like, ah, now the negotiation with the real power happens. The spirituality and superstition often rides side by side. The an awareness that we live in shallow waters here on the material plane can easily lead a kind of dumb, horoscopic interpretation of the limitless. For me sometimes when I see a lady who does the eaching

sometimes I think, oh, God, what dreadful thing will be undone. What terrible stories are about to be foretold. What awful foreboding am I to live through once again? And that's because I'm sort of aware of how little I know. Like, I don't sort of, I suppose, relish, like say, you know, me and you or me and anyone, I'd much rather have a loving conversation with anybody. I'd much rather have a loving conversation with people. If I go on to, like what for the sake of brevity and mainstream media show, like I go on, you know, and we deal with, you know, people that are combative and well equipped.

I know you're a very intelligent person. If you set your mind to hurt in my feelings, you'd be able to do it. I know that Joe Rogan or Tucker Carlson, like these are people that are capable of a little bit of a surby tea when required and critical thinking and critical words. So when I go, like, talk to people that, sort of, like, I don't see as a personal thing either to tell you the truth. I just feel like it would be this ingenuous, not to respond and to be the viewer. And like, I am trying my, but I'm coming to a place

where I recognize how little I know, I recognize how, how impossible it is to know anything other than a little. But what I do feel is we have to find a way to marry individual independence and the rights of the individual to be who they are, whether that's traditional and progressive, and the need for some kind of consensus around what our values are. It means that there's going to be some It means that there's going to be some generalities and sometimes appeals to the universal. If we're going to have a culture where it's like, well, look, we know that kindness is a value we're into or service or community or respect from people's freedom.

It seems like those kind of values have metastasized in a weapons that are only void in pursuit of, I already know I'm right, and this is what I believe in, and you're this, and it seems like religion has become something for other people. Religions become something that shout across a wall, rather than practice in silence and solitude. Now, I'm not, I'm not, what I want to say, co-signing the secular idea that your religion is solely private.

You must have a relationship with God, but that relationship with God is what allows you to be in the world and be of service and know that you're going to die and everyone you love is going to die and the cruel, barbaric, awful things happen and yet we must be of the world and love anyway. The relationship with God is not meant to be something that I used to underwrite some legalistic argument to bring other people down. It's meant to include redemption. It's meant to include humility for forgiveness, the potential for salvation, an ability to listen to other people and disagree with them. It seems, mate, that what we are living in now is

And it seems me that what we are living in now is a game in all but the fact that it lacks a sense of play. Wow. That's right. You're right. It's some terrible Lord of the Flies kids game where they forgot they were playing game and it's transformed into this The worst sort of brutality. You know I've what do you ever watch that show naked and afraid? No, but I feel like you've mentioned it before so I can see Why would I'm talking to you? I never talk about this show. That's fucked up. Oh, no, I guess I don't know all of this is one of your main cultural references. Ram bass and naked in afraid. Well, I know where we're through Jeff. Do you ever got to say something about Ram bass? Something about Payouty or naked in afraid or American gladiators? You're alive, Vastinite, for three in these cultural extremes.

This will be my last podcast, everybody. I'm done. I'm headed into the desert. 46 days of fasting to purify myself. Well, maybe I mentioned this to you. I don't know why you bring it out, but to me it's, there's dark things sometimes happen.

These people, they're out in the woods naked They have to find food. They get lucky throw a rocket a squirrel and They talk to the squirrel's corpse and they will say I am so sorry But I need your energy and I find that to be so appalling because it's like it's lovecraftian. The squirrel in its last moment, some monkey descended as like apologizing for eating it. So to get back to this notion of weaponized spirituality, that is to me why it what's so horrifying about the way things have gone is instead of just like pure aggression Honest aggression. It's this aggression that has been Vailed with some kind of

Suit open evidence and I don't know of anything more sinister than that. That is so sinister. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. You know one of the bizarre things about living in modern society is that you can absolutely forget to take care of yourself, of your own body, and most importantly of your own mind. We're all caught up in all kinds of karma activities. Paying off that karma, paying off the karma debt, burning off the karma for past incarnations where we thought it would be funny to throw a Molotov cocktail into an orphanage and now we have things to do. We have to pay back and in all that payback you can forget that you, you also have to take care of yourself. Therapy can give you the tools you need to find more balance in your life so

you can keep supporting others without leaving yourself behind. It does nobody any good if you work yourself into a Jack Torrance, Jack Nicholson shining froth. No one is going to remember all the wonderful things you did for them. If you come smashing into the bathroom with an axe to murder them because you're having a nervous breakdown. This is why we need therapy. I've certainly enjoyed therapy. It's helped me a lot and I will never stop going to therapy. It's the best. I need it. Maybe you don't need it. Maybe you're actualized. Maybe you're one of the 75% of my listeners who have been certified as completely actualized and eternally happy. But if you lay into that other 25% which is where I land, then I would highly recommend exploring therapy. Better Elbs entirely online.

It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. You just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. You can switch therapists any time for no additional charge. Find more balance with Better Help. Visit betterhelp.com slash Duncan today to get 10% off your first month. That's better H-E-L-P dot com slash Duncan. Thank you better help. I don't know if you've heard of the comedian, I think his name was Vince Champ, you ever heard him? No.

Serial rapist, you know how they caught him? They realized that the string of rapes followed his tour through college campuses. And supposedly when he was like committing these awful acts, he would weep and apologize while he was doing it. And it's just so horrific. So the world somehow, to me, it seems like this is what we're seeing is like people are so afraid. Like when you're excursiating someone who is attacking you publicly, you're not, there's no like valing that is like I'm being sweet, no passive aggressive, it's brutal and justified, and there's something about that that seems to me like a great teaching for any of us who've been humiliated and

don't want wanna be anymore. That's good, people need to see that. But yeah, these days, it just seems like we've become afraid of purely being that aspect of humanity. Is though that wasn't the aspect of humanity that got us where we're at today. Well, an inability to own the shadow as you, the term that you used when you introduced the subject is likely to mean that you cast the shadow elsewhere.

If you're talking anecdotally at the level of the individual, it's likely that the shadow will be cast on a child or an animal in your family or a lover. If you took it out of culture, I often think of Baldwin's analysis, James Baldwin's analysis of your country, America, in which he said, what kind of culture needs to create the category of Negro? Why does this category need to be created? And what are the attributes that are given to that category in that racialized, a pejorative and using a Jungian analysis, shadow, determined other? Well, the Negro then was erasously incorrectly, reductively regarded as

violent, animalistic, highly sexualized, rhythmic, spiritual, curiously aspects that you might find in the archetype of the shadow. In the homogenized, the dominator culture, the sexuality, the power, the violence, could not be owned and was carved out onto another. Why do you need to other, another group? Why do you need to demonize another group? What is it that you are incapable of owning. We regard to the sort of, what did you call it, pseudo benevolence. I feel that lacking real ceremony, we imitate ceremonies forms having lost touch with ceremonies function a manese function to create a space where we as partly material and a validly animal beings can access the divine sublime aspects of our nature that are perhaps beyond material,

certainly they're difficult to measure. This sort of a sat and fatic weeping over the corpse of a recently slain Squirrel shows you how far we've come like the reference that people have is the movie avatar It self derived from Western accounts of what Native American culture was supposed to be like was supposed to be like, forgetting that in the evolutionary arc we are yet native, we are yet indigenous, in the 10,000 years since agriculture, in however many years it is, since we have evolved language, we are neighbors, we're tribal neighbors. That's where we still are. That time is nothing. That's no time at all has passed.

Civilization is a firm of impersonation. It is a dance. We are lost in the uncanny. We have engaged in a zoological experiment that ended with us as animals in a zoo. Where can we find ways of re-engaging the way that we evolved so that we might have a meaningful experience here? Let us look at the ways where it's evident and obvious that we have become detached from our roots and that it is to our detachment and not engage in silly straw man arguments

about how technology and medicine have advanced us and are you suggesting we should disregard all of those things, of course I'm not. But in the world of diet, you can see the excess of sugar and excess of fat is detrimental that we evolved to have scarce access to sugar and fat. Where in the settler realms will the conditions of a contemporary life be creating obesity of the spirit, diabetes of the soul, hardens these of the deep psyche, carcassias, across the roots that connect us to the ancestors Duncan? Yes, yes, that's right. And what will be the insulin? That will save our souls. You know, okay, this is when I went into my

holy christian of phase, and I still chant holy christia, but I remember so much about it, so so powerful, but his divine grace, A.C. Baktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, the founder of the Christianist, he talked about technology, not as some sign that humanity is evolving in the right direction, but rather as a kind of extraordinary crutch that, you know, the, you know, the, the, the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the crutches that are there, not because we're doing great, but because we're not connected to that source. It's, you know, we, it started with shit, we need calculators, we need the printing press, we need, because our memories were fucked up. People used to sing the Upanishads, like they used to have the whole thing memorized

and sing them. Now, we can't remember that shit. I can't remember my wife's phone number half the time. So, in now, we have AI, which to me is really unnerving from that perspective, because the indication is, yeah, and our intelligence is going away too. So, we need to have a externalized intelligence that we can refer to because we've got, we're that far gone. And then of course, the crutch doesn't just help the lack, but amplifies the lack because you become dependent on the crutch and the skillsets to manage. So yeah, yeah,

we, you're right. Like this technology is some kind of false idol that's giving us an impression that we have we're succeeding rather than we're collapsing. It's a really terrifying, almost diabolical manifestation of human productivity, if you look at it. I liked it in those, that early impriture of the podcast world, Dan Carling's hardcore history, he did an amazing series on the Khan dynasty. One bit he described that the Mongol tribes of Genghis Khan would be able to ride on horseback while firing arrows

and hitting targets. It's like nowadays that would be like an ride on horseback while firing arrows and hitting targets. It's like nowadays that would be like an elite circus performer, but that was just I'm staggered. Fair. Normal. Yeah, I'm like normal. Jesuit speaking 10 languages, like mastering all of these disciplines. And of course, like people have perhaps been moaned progress for as long

as there's been progress, but it's about utility isn't it? These things are tools. They're not the ends and objects in themselves. And is there anybody now that has like an optimistic view about AI? Like, you know, even like the sort of 1950s tellingly named white goods revolution. And like these things are going to be labor saving, this is going to be great and you're going to have more leisure time and you didn't work out that way. And I think we all know, no, the technological and even medicinal progress are tethered to economic models that are by their nature hierarchical and to a point unfair and maybe you could go as far as to say derasinated they are not rooted in the ordinary culture but in fact we live in numerous cultures.

One of the things I would say that's beneficial about the last 10 years is that if you used to critique the military industrial complex as would have been from the left when I was doing it, you know, 10 years ago, it would have been assumed to have been a left-wing rhetoric to attack the military industrial complex and big corporations. People saw, on my sense was that American people saw it as an attack on America itself. Now I think it's understood that there is a military industrial complex that are economic elites.

There is almost hovering like a UFO above the body of America. There is this entity, this phantom almost hovering like a UFO above the body of America. There is this entity, this phantom that controls America really. So when, like me, an English person, criticising about, oh, American people don't, they understand that I'm not talking about the people of Delaware or the people

of Colorado, they understand, oh, he is attacking this machine. And that machine doesn't care about American people. Perhaps all empires first annihilate and subjugate their domestic population before moving elsewhere to colonize the world. Certainly the British did that and the colonialists of the lasting connection

of sort of European colonization. First, the working class is subjugated, feudalized and crushed, then off we go or a merry dance to India to control yet more people. And these tools like AI, this great incubator of new intelligence, this as-yet-unhatched egg, these thighs slouching towards Bethlehem to reference our last conversation. Yeah! We don't we know it's gonna be diabolical. We know that the upshorts gonna be ordinary people gonna suffer.

These tools are gonna end up in the ads as the government. They're gonna use this to control us and manipulate us. It's not gonna be, hey, look how lovely is in your home. Your home's like a palace now. It has got to mess us up. Well you mess, have you messed around with the idea that, you know, let's talk about that UFO and there's lots of names for that UFO, deep state being one of them. And you know, I, one, one, I think mistake a lot of Americans and maybe people over the

world make as they differentiate the government from the corporation. They don't understand there's this very foggy permeable membrane between the corporation and the government, private contractors, lobbyists. They used to be in the government and they flip back and forth. So people have some sense when they're watching the news. They're like, well, it's Fox or it's CNN or it's blah, blah, blah. It's not the government, but there is, and it isn't. I mean, literally the government,

but there is a strange interchange between the two, which makes them weird, I guess you could say, in a symbiotic relationship, they have yet to become multicellular. So Jung said that, just like what you said earlier regarding the shadow, the Gestalt, the sum total of the shadow appears as that UFO. That UFO floating over America is the combined shadow of every American, making us all in some infinitesimally copable, right? Like, it's not as though it's a separate invader.

I think we're witnessing ourselves, that part of ourselves, we want to ignore the part of ourselves, we don't want to deal with the fact, no, you're eating a fucking squirrel, it's dead, your apology does nothing for it. And all the war, and all the bombs, and everything happening, that's on everybody who pays taxes. Whether you like it or not, if you're contributing to a missile that drops on a wedding party that kills a bunch of innocent kids, you're still culpable in the smallest infinitesimally small

way. It's still us. This episode of the DTFH has been supported by Squarespace. Squarespace is the home of DuncanTrustle.com and has been for countless joyful years. You can check it out. Go to DuncanTrustle.com, lay your eyes on that Squarespace website. You can have a website like that. You can enjoy all the benefits Squarespace has to offer. For example, they allow you to use their mix and match templates to make a website.

It's quickly as you need to. Or if you want to go deep, complex, subtle, nuanced, beautiful, powerful, yet not overstated, like dunkatrustles.com. Those aren't my words. Those are the words of Theodore Nevix, the top website, critic in New York City. I had a glass of wine with her just a few weeks ago. New York City, out of the glass of wine with a few weeks ago, it's got beautiful hands. You can have that too. It goes deep as you want into the square space system. Not only did they help you design beautiful websites, they also can help you create wonderful

email campaigns. And if you want to create members only content, they allow you to set up a paywall or your fans. It is the perfect web design service if you want to home for your podcast on the internet. Nothing better out there. And they have all the other stuff too, which is also important. Shopping cart functionality, all the metrics you can ever hope for to find out who is coming to your website and you can connect all of your socials in one place, the Squarespace. They just keep evolving.

But don't take my word for it. Try it out yourself. Head over to squarespace.com. Try them out for free. When you're ready to launch these offer code Duncan, you're going to get 10% off your first order of a website or a domain. Again, it's squarespace.com, forward slash Duncan. When you're ready to launch these offer code Duncan,

you'll get 10% off your first order of a website or a domain. Squarespace, extend your soul into the internet. That is my slogan, that is not their slogan. Squarespace, extend your soul online with Squarespace. Thank you, Squarespace. You're still culpable in the smallest infinitesimally small way, it's still us, right? Like that's the reality of it. It's not a UFO. It's a shadow of some unacknowledged, aggressive aspect of us. Some abstraction that is certainly difficult to chart using ordinary logic and ordinary logic was hardly the territory that intrigued

Jung so. One of the things that troubles me continually as an occasionally self-involved man who is trying to escape the parameters of my alter-enchanting self is that I know that I am infinitimally small and on the cosmic scale irrelevant, but also, all reality takes place within my consciousness. There is no reality that I know of, that does not take place within my consciousness. The dinosaurs, they are in my consciousness, your UFO anecdote and Jungian in my consciousness, my memories, my fears, my projections. So in some regard, I am already the deity of all reality. I am the centrapegal point around which all sensory and non-sensory data correlesses. day are coalesces. In some small way my individual awakening must be the priority before all else. And I wonder Duncan, I wanted to ask you as a person who spent time around like awakened people,

have you been surprised that they, they often, to me at least, seem like their priority is not a kind of fervid activism about the administration of world affairs. They seem almost beyond it. Like it isn't actually that important, even if you talk about global revolution or new systems of decentralization and how do we unite people from across the globe so that they can stand up against establishment corruption. They don't seem to see it as all that important. Have you noticed that? And if so, what do you think about it? Well, I don't, you know, many of them are political. They are in various forms of activism.

So I have noticed that. But I think that the idea is, we're trying to go upstream here. The idea is like that, and maybe it is just a naive or ridiculous idea. The idea is if what we're seeing in the world is a projection, if everyone is experiencing their own consciousness, their own mind, not in a mystical way, but at the neurological level, there's no way out of the fact that your brain or the, is

a v, neocortex, v.r. goggles, creating time space that you're experiencing. So the notion is, uh, we don't do top down here. With idea would be more if we can help people discover within themselves the stuff they're seeking in the outside world than the power of the shadow or that UFO would instantly be removed. The whole thing depends on us thinking we need it, thinking we need something outside of ourselves, right? So they're trying to lead people into themselves to see that fundamental connection with the universe that many people have forgotten or don't even believe is there. They think they get that from the

outside world. That's why I think you would see a lack of political, deep political activism, deep tribalization. I'm this or that. And anytime I've seen that in spiritual people, it's kind of disappointing. You know, what is it, Mark Twain set? Who needs our prayers the most? Satan. Of all the sinners. Satan deserves our prayers the most. And so to tribalize, to say, you know, we only work with people on the left. We only work with people who are this or that, progressives or whatever. What the fuck? Doesn't the most hardcore conservative, white supremacist gun, tooting insurrectionist, deserve a chance at understanding the possibility of inner peace that are the boot of mind.

So maybe that's another reason they try to maintain an apolitical stance is because they want all the feel welcome. And I wonder, sometimes, even though some of the greatest activists or most effective activists, I suppose that amounts to the same thing the world's ever known, have taken this sort of solace and drawn their power from spirituality, Gagandhi Mandela, mind of the King Malcolm X. Like, there are also, like, people that primarily appear to be mystics, I suppose.

And if you are a mystic, maybe your primary function is to say that this plane of reality that you are living within is obviously an observably but a fragment of all potential realities. And if you confine yourself to just the organization of the resources on this tiny finite bandwidth, your sort of wasting your time by doing that. Yes, listen, at some point, when will you stop differentiating yourself from the mystics? It's just uncomfortable, right? You can't say it out loud.

It's funny, you know, it's funny. Like at some point, you're going to have to be like, whatever the way, you know, actually, I don't know how many mystics would even say they were mystics. And in fact, most of them don't. So I'm sorry, that's kind of rude to even try to pull you out of the mystics. Do you like you though? And me?

Me? You're put, I think that the moment we get caught up in that, you know, then the next thing you know, you wanna wear a mystic, I wanna be a mystic, I wanna be a mystic, I wanna walk through walls, I wanna teleport, I wanna read minds, I wanna heal, all that stuff, but all my teachers generally, they try to veer me away from that condition.

It's a condition. So, and I just did that to you. I am sorry, please do not excursiate me. I'm in it with pure love for you. And you have a heart out. So that's why I'm stammering. Don't worry about that. Someone will come and get me, I'm sure.

Duncan, I could offer the same thing to you. I feel that you are so erudite and so bright and so worldly and so able to bring together complicated ideas and convey them amusingly and use personal experience to illustrate points that you've obviously been on a journey and have used personal tragedy to escalate your own personal tragedy to escalate your own, excuse me, spiritual advancement. And like with me, the reason that I, like, you know, I err on the side of modesty, it was because like, I know what he's liking here, I know he's liking here, Duncan, you know, sometimes I'm like a child, not in a good way, not in the way that Christ suggests that we be like children, not just I am innocent and nothing but play. I am grabbed in angst and sinew and not

it in body and wanting and just so lost in it, so lost in it, so lacrimos and hopeless and like they set a man I did a talk at the very famous British public school called Eaton because a dear friend of mine as child is at this public school Eaton and I love him and so I did it for him and also as you know I don't there's all one another we're all been born we've been born we're all at the school that we're at but there are many narratives as you know, I don't, well, there's all one another. We're all been born, we've been born, we're all at the school that we're at. But there are many narratives about, you know, eaten as produced from the, you know, the Duke of Wellington, the George Orwell, to, I think, perhaps, the majority of British Prime Ministers. So when I was there at this school with the, you know, peculiarly dressed, but somewhat delightfully dressed young men,

is it boy school that were there and I was doing a talk. Like, there was a bit where I said Duncan, like, even though this is a world I don't entirely recognize, it's not my background. I do recognize his young men at a lessons. This is when I received the wound I said in a long, corrumming talk, Duncan,

where I also dropped names like Michelle Foucault, terms like anarchist calisthenics, the necessity for regular wall breaking, every single day, constantly, of the establishment and a willingness to engage in revolution. In the midst of it, I talked about like, you know, like what I'm recognizing you, you are young men, so you must know the wound,

you must know the wound that I know, and I remember it, I remember it like I was just then, like, you know, what it's like as a comedian or a public speaker, you sort of like, if you're actually not, be, if you're not leading with humor and you're not using material, and that's, you know, I was being occasionally funny, I hope, but I like it also, I was sort of giving a public talk, you know. It's harder to read the room.

God, one of the things that they reassuring about comedy is they laugh, they laugh, you know, that they're there, and you know that they're listening. And on some level, you hope that they love you. It's very difficult to laugh at someone that you hate, at least collectively, and joyously. And then anyway, sort, somewhere in the midst of this great torrent of words that I issued,

I'd said this thing that one of my teachers said to me from the wound comes the salve. And this is a common trope in recovery that your injury and your past will become a gift to you in so much as pragmatically you'll help other people in a very obvious way, but also you'll recognize who you are and who you're not and the necessity of your journey and perhaps how you'll begin to see that there is no separateness and there is no otherness and all relationships or a reflection and refraction of deeper or different aspects of who you are and that there's a

sort of a beautiful game taking place that occasionally it brushes past you and you feel it on the deeper senses and you know it when you feel it. And I like, in the midst of it, I go, you know, I said this wound is the self thing and these kids, the questions they asked were so erudite and brilliant, it was strange to hear it coming from their young and piping voices, but indeed, as they say, from the mouths of babes, one of these kids towards the back, about 14, 16, I don't know, they're all kids to me, said some, and they said, um, you mentioned that, uh, we're all separated from the totality, and that there's inevitability to our wounding, and that the wounding will be addressed through some homeopathic

remedy. I said, I didn't say homeopathic remedy. You said that the salvation would come from the wound. I was like, oh my God, that's literally a homeopathic remedy. Oh my God, look at the level this kid is tracking it on. I said, I said, you're so clever. It comes across as patronizing, but it is, it's for your clever. And it was remarkable even to know that they were listening

to such a degree. It was encouraging that they were interested in the way that they appeared to be. And like that, also, God, man, Duncan, and I think you'll maybe you'll identify with this is like I wasn't there with like Someone that I know well enough to sort of go that was amazing I love you well done you're fantastic like afterwards. So I had no I had no debrief So I just sort of left there like oh my god was that good I was like I sort of like you're right like I I drove into a concrete ballad a little later, which I informed the council of and had repaired.

Of course, it's a responsible citizen. But I was sort of like, I didn't get to land. I didn't get to ground the game, Duncan. Oh, that's a full friendships for reassurance. It's like getting bad ecstasy. You're expecting some wonderful come up and then nothing, you don't get that feeling that you get from being a performer, you don't get to drive away feeling this temporary sense of like maybe, maybe I am God, you

know, so it's hard to do those kinds of things. It's really difficult. I understand, yeah, I don't like it. That is a terrible feeling. Very addicted to the feeling of someone being like, that was great. Without that, it's like, what am I? I need you to tell me what's great. Oh, I love that tattoo.

Look at that. Hey, bo, howdy, Krishna Russell. I could talk to you forever. Thank you so much for giving me your time. I know you're tremendously busy. And as always, this was great. And you are amazing. And thank you so much for coming on the show.

I have always learned so much from hanging out with you. Learn a lot from you. And like I've learned a lot about naked and afraid today, for example. God, I'm in a bad about naked and afraid today for example I'm gonna watch it. I will watch it. I will watch it I can I read you like last time we spoke a lot it was on my podcast you read a poem Can I read a poem to you that I just read the other day the seems appropriate because it's like you know like they they, the seems appropriate because it's like, you know, like they discovered or they did, they were able to digitally image the Titanic recently, you know, and we were able to see

it. And Thomas Hardy, the, is he English? Is he Welsh? She's certainly English speaking, but I don't want to offend Welsh people if indeed he's Welsh. Poet wrote this beautiful verse lines on the loss of Titanic. I guess he's contemporaneous. I guess he's written this when it happened, Duncan, and it's called the convergence of the Twain. And after that, can I do some promo for my stand-up thing unless you can fold it into your,

unless you can fold it into your stuff? I do both. All right, man. So this is called the convergence of the Twain by Thomas Hardy lines on the loss of the Titanic. In a solitude of the sea, deep from human vanity, and the pride of life that planned her, stillly, couch-ish-sheet, steel chambers, late the pires of her salamandering fires, cold currents thrid and turn to rhythmic tidal liars.

Over the mirrors meant to glass the opulent, the sea-worm crawls, grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent. Jules enjoy designed to ravish the sensuous mind, lie, lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind. Dim, moon-eyed, fishes near gaze at the gilded gear and query, what does this vangloriousness down here? Well, while was fashioning this creature of cleaving wing, the imminent will that stirs and urges everything, prepared a sinister mate for her, so galley great, a shape of ice for the time far and disassociate, and as the smart ship grew in stature, grace and hue, in shadowy silent distance grew the iceberg too. Alien, they seemed to be,

won't Nautilier could see the intimate welding of their later history, or sign that they were bent by paths coincident on being an on twin halves of one or gust event, till the spinner of the year said, now, and each one hears, and consummation comes, and jars to hemisphere's. Wow! It's just the death tarot card. No, it's good. The death tarot card. Wow! It's just the death tarot card. No, it's good. The death tarot card. It means change. It just means change.

It's just an eyes by tearing through the hole. It's just all human endeavor laying up a bottom of the sea, swam and tell, swam over in tall darkness by creatures millions of years behind you on the Ebullent Shurysca hill. Oh man. Amazing. Yes. About my stuff, Duncan please. Please, please. My comedy, my god, see, like when I put down down Tomas Hardy I can't even read my comedy special brand them it will be premiering on July the 11th on moment this is more than a comedy show Duncan it's a call for freedom a call for unity is it my comedy show I don't need to read that bit do I can ignore that that's my artistic freedom if I say that go to moment.co. forward slash Russell brand from the first of June to pre-order your

tickets is good it's funny and also I do that festival and by God why aren't you coming there will you come there between July the 14th and July the 17th there's a free day festival hay on why vandana shiva with mhoff Bruce parry be it simkin satish kumar kyrongreisi yoga breath work radical theories and ideas and Duncan Russell if you or if you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're with, pay your flight if you want to come. You, you're family. Oh my God, I would accept it. Thank you, but my wife, she's about to give birth.

We're right, that's right in the zone right there. So we can't travel. But God, how kind of you, if you all keep doing that, I would love to come to the next one. If you do another one, I would love to come to that. That's incredible. What a lineup, man. But good, I think. Yeah, that's everybody. That's insane. Wow. You know, everybody, you heard it. All the links you need to find the festival and to watch Russell's No Doubt Awesome special will

be at donketrustles.com if you no me lo recomiendo, y Russell, bless, ¡háre Cristina! ¡Tienes mucho! ¡Tienes mucho, Tanke! ¡Tienes mucho! Fisioterapia, Cafid, convícete con nosotros en un profesional 360 y Will you come see me in Phoenix? Come see me in Florida. I love you. Have a wonderful week, weekend, and lifetime. I'll see you next week. Hare Krishna.