HealthyGamerGG - Destiny (twitch.tv/destiny)

Episode Date: December 27, 2019

Dr.K talks with Destiny about feelings and emotions. Watch the interview on our YouTube page (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmG-clfkE7Y) and catch Dr.K live on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/healthygamer_gg) - Wednesdays & Fridays at 3PM EST and Sundays at 6PM EST. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You learn the very important lesson that emotions are a fucking waste of time and that they just need to be removed in whatever way they can. Hey, man. How are you? Pretty good. How are you done? Good. So I'm not quite sure what we're talking about today, but I understand that both of our communities wanted us to speak. Yeah, I think so. I do a lot of philosophy and politics, and then I talk a lot about life and life-related things. So I think they just thought there'd be some kind of crossover. Yeah. So I think I talk about a lot of things that maybe, I don't talk about philosophy or politics,

but I do talk about life. So I try to help people understand themselves and their minds and sort of help people. That's why I started streaming on Twitch, because I think that there's a, the mental health challenges and people's understanding of themselves is like becoming a real problem. Like in the United States, there's some very disturbing epidemiologic data about mental health. So mental health now causes more, I think, greater morbidity and mortality than cardiovascular disease and cancer. Suicide rate has gone up by 50% I think in teenagers over the last decade. More than cardiovascular related diseases? Not death, morbidity and mortality. So that

includes like loss of productivity and things like that. So disease is burden, not straight mortality. Sure. That's unbelievable. I think the last I read, I think it was like something like 18% of women in the United States have taken, like either have had an SSRI within like the past six months or something, like an insane stat. And then it happens many of that for men.

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Yeah. So, but my, so a lot of times people come on stream. So the main reason that people come on my stream is to actually, was that Soilent Coco? Yeah, am I in trouble? No, no, no.

My mental health? Okay. I like, I, soilant, I had, I tried Soilent for a while. It sort of did good things and bad things for me, but, um, okay. So most people tend to come on because they're interested in, in some kind of like, understanding about themselves or help in some way, but my understanding is that that's not some, that you're pretty content and you're pretty happy and you're not interested in that. Um, yeah, I think, or unless, um, I really don't have like a specific thing to talk.

talk about, like to be 100% blunt. I think my audience wants me to talk to somebody and then to see me get like very emotional and cry. That seems to be like what they're all like kind of gunning for right now. So, um, but I mean, otherwise, yeah, what, yeah, whatever you're my, my, my, my audience is calling you a raid boss. Oh, I'm not. So I, I think that they're looking for the same thing. I think that they're going to be disappointed. Yeah, probably. Um, I consider myself to be like a pretty, um, I'll say grounded person. which sounds really dismissive of, I've heard that you're more into, like, Eastern or spiritual-related stuff.

Personally, I don't care for that kind of stuff, but I think that if it offers, like, a great value and it can be descriptive of some underlying truths that I think it's totally fine. So I think a lot of people are expecting me to, like, go really hard into saying, like, all forms of whatever are stupid, which I don't really agree with. So, yeah, I don't think I would ever say that. So, yeah, I'm not really sure what, what the conversation. Can you tell me what you mean by grounded? I'm I guess um there's two different ways to go with this um I'm a very empirical kind of person I guess

when I look at stuff that I choose to believe in when it comes to like making statements of fact about the world I'm very big on like what can we observe what can we test I guess it's kind of a boring answer but I tend to shy away from a lot of like yeah a lot of like I'm very atheistic in terms of like my looking at like gods and whatnot. I don't really believe in the supernatural and anything like that. And you say you're empirical about sort of looking at the external world. I would guess that you're actually empirical about looking at yourself as well. I mean as much as you can be, yeah?

What do you mean by that? I mean, like I would consider myself to be like a materialist or like a physicalist. I don't believe in an immaterial world, but I mean, obviously conscious this is a very complicated process. And the question of how something like that can emerge from like underlying properties is very complicated. and it's hard for me to say with any absolute certainty, you know, what I can know of my own conscious state in an empirical sense. But I mean, I like to think that everything is empirical, and that's the type of analysis that I tend to occasion.

Yeah, yeah. So you're talking about sort of consciousness of being an emergent property, which is not anything that has to do with you. That's sort of like a scientific view, right? It's something that comes from the external world. It's about the science of the origin of consciousness. Sure, yeah. But I would actually guess that you are empirical within,

yourself so that you study. Yeah, I try to be, yeah. Yeah. And when you say, like, so I think you know what I mean. Can you just explain for everyone what we're talking about? Because I agree with you, by the way, that I think we're a lot more similar than people realize. Yeah, possibly, yeah. I guess when I say that I'm empirical in my own analysis, I mean, what I try to say is that like something I learned very early on in life is that your memory and your interpretation of events is highly unreliable, that getting external, like, points of view of yourself is incredibly important because we are very selective in terms of what we remember about ourselves and how we view ourselves. So I try very hard to have these like external cameras, these communities that I consult. I try to be very

honest when I look at myself to make sure that I'm not, you know, like telling lies to myself or not confronting, you know, a problem I might have or something. That's what I mean when I say I try to be a little bit more empirical about how I view myself. Yeah. Yeah. So but so it sounds like your empiricism, the way with that the way that you look at yourself is by using external lenses to make sure that your interpretation of things is aligned with what the external world says. Yeah, I guess basically, yeah. I'm looking for congruency there that doesn't result from me just selecting groups of people that tell me what I want to hear. But yeah, I try to get like a more true view of myself, sure. And you're happy? I think, yeah, I would say so, yeah, for sure.

What does that feel like? Um, like, if I wake up, if I'm supposed to like sleep for eight hours, I think I do really well on about seven and a half hours of sleep, seven and a half to eight hours of sleep. If I wake up like two hours early, I'm usually like so looking forward to stream that I can't go back to bed. I usually like we'll just go downstairs and start working. I really enjoy like my day-to-day life. Like my experience is pretty high. I look forward to talking people. I look forward to playing games even if they make me hate myself because League of Legends is a horrible game.

But like my general like baseline like mental status is like very excited about like everything I can do. Okay. And so I'm just going to just. tunnel down for a second. So it sounds like the experience of the happiness of your life has nothing to do with external congruency. Oh, absolutely. Of course. Okay. Um, so, okay. And how long would you say you've been happy? I think my whole life. I think I've always had like a pretty high mental state. Okay. I mean, obviously within like there have been periods of my life where I have like been sad or like something has happened. Sure. But like those are like,

traceable to like this is happening now. So now I'm upset. But like my baseline, as long as nothing is going on that's bad, is very high, I would say. And so you've kind of always been this way? I think so, yeah. So let me just try to ask you kind of like a couple of clarifying questions.

Yeah, go for it. One is, so I'm almost getting a sense from you that the experience of emotion is actually different from the happiness that you're talking about. That you have some sense of underlying content. which is almost independent doesn't necessarily change if you get let's say angry or sad yeah yeah i would say so yeah i would separate those two things out quite a bit being what do you think that is um yeah so i guess my personal i don't know for sure but like i i guess

like my personal answer i would say that like my greatest asset is i feel like i'm very confident of myself um i very much love the person that i am i like who i am and i enjoy that regardless of kind of what people around me say and i can always be like comfortable with myself and i feel okay with that And do you think that's what leads to your sense of like happiness or contentment? That would be my guess. When I see a lot of people that are unhappy, it feels like a lot of that comes from their view of how other people view them or kind of like their place or their discontentment with where they fit in in society. They don't like the feedback that they're getting feels that way. Yeah.

Yeah. So I'm trying to get a sense of which one is the chicken and which one is the egg because, you know, you're kind of saying that you're confident in who you are. to me it actually makes sense that that confidence actually comes from being sort of generally content with who you are as a person. Yeah, I don't know. I used to say, I used to kind of advocate for people to grow like a sense of confidence and everything because, you know, from that you develop habits and everything that allow you to love yourself and et cetera. But, you know, if I'm really honest with myself, I'm not sure if I could foster that in my 20s or if that's just something I've kind of always had from a really early age. through a combination of lucky biological and environmental factors. It just kind of led me into being the person I am.

So, yeah, I don't know. I can't draw like a causal link, unfortunately. Yeah, I think that makes sense because what you're saying is that you've sort of always had it. So it's unclear what the origin of that was because it's always been around. Yeah, it seems to be the case, yeah. Yeah. Hmm. I'm just going to think for a second.

Sure. Have you ever read anything by Krishna-Morthy? I'm horrible when it comes to reading. The time commitment is, I can read pretty well, but the time commitment is really hard. I mean watching TV shows, watching movies and reading, like, very hard for me to, like, sit down and do it for long periods at times. Okay. I think you may find it interesting, just in terms of, you know, I know that you don't hold

a lot of, like, spirituality or things like that. Mm-hmm. And you've described yourself as pretty atheistic. So I just think that if you are interested in sort of exploring spirituality from a perspective that I think is a lot more aligned with your point of view, Krishna-Morty is someone that I highly recommend. And that's also for the people who are respectively watching as well. That I think, so a lot of people, how can I say this? Like, Destiny, why do you, actually, let me take it back. Wait, can I, real quick, what is the name? Just so I can write it down to my chat.

N-A. K-R-I-S-H-N-A. And then either M-U-R-T-H-Y or M-O-O-O-R-T-H-Y. I think it's usually M-U, but. Okay, gotcha. All right. So, go quick. So I think you pointed out something very important, which is that a lot of people have their sense of contentment be related to other people's opinions of them. Yeah, which is very negative. Negative, what do you mean by negative? I think that when you become reliant on how other people view you, I think that your mental state is like perpetually held hostage by the people around you, which I consider it to be very negative. I don't know if that's like a normal human opinion or not, but like, yeah, I wouldn't want like if somebody around me says that, like, like, oh, hey, like, I don't like what you're doing right now.

A lot of people, like, view that as, like, personal attacks and, like, can start to lose confidence in themselves just because they're getting negative feedback from people, which I think is, like, very bad. Yeah. So I think in the, in the system of yoga, that aspect is called a hum god or ego. Okay. That a sense of self can be based on two things. One is sort of an internal, like, experience of self.

And the second kind of self that we have is based on a more common external identity. So anything that goes on a resume is a part of that thing. And the opinions of others, how other people receive you, like that can form a sense of self. And that sense of self is called the ego. And generally speaking, in yogic philosophy, having an ego that's, the larger your ego is, the more discontent you will be. So what I'm hearing from you is that your sense of self is actually not based on external things. It's based on this internal sense that you've always had, of kind of being confident in yourself and some degree of internal tranquility.

Yeah, definitely. Why don't you think other people have that? What separates, like, what is the causative factor that has you being one way and then being another way? This is, it's, I can give, like, conjecture about this,

but I always caution people when I say this, like, it's hard to draw causal links to anything. I grew up, like, relatively independent. Like my parents are busy with stuff growing up, so I kind of fostered like a sense of independence. And it seemed to me that growing up, typically like if you had problems, the way that people are kind of told to resolve problems is to just get affirmation from friends or family without ever actually addressing the problems. So people kind of grow up thinking that like the way that I know that I'm mentally healthy or mentally sound, if other people around me are telling me that I'm mentally healthy or mentally sound. But then obviously as soon as you start to run into confrontation, that your worldview kind of falls apart because now when people are telling you you're not doing well, you feel like you're actually unwell, which I think is really bad, yeah.

Okay. And is there any part of you that is concerned that... So when a large part, like I understand that a lot of people are kind of contrary towards you or take issue with some of your perspectives or beliefs, what's your understanding of what they take issue with? It depends. This is probably the biggest thing that I try to keep in check is it's very easy to get lost. especially being a streamer, but even for normal people, I kind of get lost in an echo chamber where you're disregarding external opinions of yourself.

I very much keep in mind what people think of me. I know whatever community thinks to me, and I know the reasons why they don't like me. And then my goal is to understand why people disagree with me and then to integrate those understandings into my life to see if there are things I want to change or I don't want to change. So I guess like two examples I'd give is like, maybe I get the feedback a lot that like, oh, destiny is very rude all the time to everybody.

And maybe when I get that feedback a lot, maybe I watch some videos and I find out, hey, I actually talk over people a lot. Like, I can change that. Or maybe instead I watch a video and I find out like, I don't really think I spoke over this person a lot. I think I just, you know, responded well to his arguments. So, you know, in one case, I would say, okay, well, you know, I took their feedback. I, you know, did a little bit of introspection. I found out, well, I need to change this. In another case, I took their feedback. I looked at the situation and I kind of determined, well, I think they just feel that way, but I think the perception is incorrect. So then I have to feel, you know, do I want to deal with that incorrect perception or do I

just ignore it and then kind of move forward, I guess, is how I try to integrate other people's feedback into my own self-concept or whatever. And are there particular, I think that makes a lot of sense. So it sounds like when people criticize you in some way, you kind of really do your best job to take a look and see if their criticisms have merit. And then you kind of conclude they do have merit or they don't have merit. And so that sounds like it makes sense to me. Let me just think for a second. Are there particular things? So, like, I was kind of confused about what this was, as I mentioned earlier.

So I did, like, just a Google search for you, and I looked at your subreddit, and then I looked at some of the top posts of all time on your subredddit. Why is that funny? Yeah. Because depending on what you look at me, you can find anything from guy that did, you know, $40,000 in charity in a single day to guy that is a pedophile rapist that has a secret daughter, to guys like there's like a million different things you can read about me depending on which communities you jump into so yeah why do you think that is why do you think there's such a wide

disparity between how you're viewed um i think that's the intersection of like several different underlying topics um any of which i mean like one is it like people have very um like people have very holistic views of somebody um or i should say people have very binary views of people It's impossible for a good person to have negative characteristics. They're either wholly good or wholly negative. So for some communities, as soon as they find out one negative thing, everything about me becomes negative. So for instance, over the past year, I'm a very left-leaning political person. I'm incredibly left-leaning in my economic positions and in my social positions.

But I'm not a communist or I'm not a socialist. So I've had this issue with a lot of left-leaning people that see that I'm a capitalist. And now all of a sudden, I'm not just a capitalist. I'm also an alt-writer. I'm a right-wing. I support, you know, imperialism and all these crazy things. just because we don't align on that one view. So, like, in that case, I would say,

well, these people don't like me because we disagree on this one position. And then they start to, like, attribute, like, everything that doesn't have that particular position to me, right? So, like, that would be, like, one reason. And, yeah, there's, like, another, I have to look, like, would look at, like, every single individual, like,

sure. Sure. thing that people have with me to figure out why they, sure. Sure. So, so, like, it's almost, like, so, you know, a human being has many, many, many facets and many, many nuances.

And beliefs are not, like, like, a human beings, beliefs don't, generally subscribe to like a whole manifesto of like being liberal or communist or capitalist. Like we all have different kinds of beliefs and different shades of beliefs. And what happens is you encounter different groups of people who will kind of put you in one bucket or the other, right? Yeah. I think it's a very normal human thing to do. Yeah. So I mean, I agree. I think it's a completely normal human thing to do. And I think that most people are just as multifaceted as you are. And yet you seem to have a lot more discrepancy in terms of how people view you compared to everyone else.

Sure. How do you understand that? I very much have my personal identity and the things that I believe in. And when it comes time for me to decide, like, if I like a particular thing or if I don't like a particular thing, I have like an internal kind of rubric by which I score things. It feels to me like what people tend to do is they tend to try to group themselves into certain communities, and then how they feel about a particular thing is usually more reflection of what that person thinks everybody in that group wants them to say. So like, for instance, let's say, I'll use an extreme example. Let's say somebody presented me with like a very sparkly pink dress, and they were like, hey, would you like to wear this? I would evaluate that in terms of like, well, what colors do I like?

I don't really like pink. I don't particularly like the way that my legs, I think, would look at a dress. I don't think I would enjoy wearing a dress. And that would be my answer. But I feel like if I would ask a lot of people that question, like, would you ever wear a dress? The answer would be more, they would think, okay, what part of, what group am I in? And then what is our answer supposed to be in regards to, like, wearing a dress? Okay, I'm a man.

Men don't fucking wear dresses. And the answer would like, of course not, dude. That's so stupid. Like, it feels like the answer from, I get from people when it comes to evaluating things they like or don't like. for instance, is usually a reflection of what they feel like the group they belong to would like or not like. Yeah, but what is what I mean, so people are multifaceted. People like judgments and put people into groups. So like, I mean, it sounds to me like the answer that you provided, which is that no, I don't want to wear that pink dress because I'm not, you know, I'm not so happy about the way that maybe my legs would look or I'm not a huge fan of the color pink.

I mean, that to me sounds like a, how can I put this? A less chaotic, chaos-inducing answer than, fuck that. I'm not going to wear a dress. Like, I would think that that kind of response actually leads to a general sense of, like, understanding on the part of other people. As opposed to the one that- Like, a real detailed answer? Yeah. I mean, because your answer is thought, like you come across as, like, thoughtful, right?

and not reactionary. And so I would think that if you were thoughtful and not reactionary, like you're saying, most people are, that people would like that you wouldn't be such a divisive figure on the internet. Maybe. So I'm going to come off. Okay, so here is where I have to fully admit

that because of the work that I do, there might be a horrendous selection bias applied to the types of people that I talk to. I might talk to the worst of the worst thing on it, right? But it seems to me that most people don't actually appreciate a nuanced answer. If the question that's asked demands an answer from an entire group that would be one way, even considering an answer to that would be absolutely unfathomable. So like a real life example I can do this.

I mean, so like I completely agree with you. But what I'm trying to understand is like I don't understand anything that you're saying seems to apply to everyone else. Right. So people are multifaceted. People make judgments. Therefore, any random person that you take on the street is going to fall. into like one of two camps and that people will react to them. They'll like if you're in the middle of the political spectrum,

people who are on the conservative side will call you a fucking liberal. And if you're on the liberal end of the spectrum, they're going to call you a fucking alt-rider. And so what I'm trying to understand is like why, and that's true. I completely accept your premise. So what I'm curious about is what is your understanding of if that's the case, why are you perceived as you put it so,

like you said like when I said I googled you and you're like that's like what I guess we okay so actually maybe I misinterpreted the statement and maybe this is a point of disagreement we have actually I don't know if I would agree necessarily that people are multifaceted in the way that you're thinking multifaceted I was thinking of in terms of like is somebody like a republican or a democrat probably not people have views from both but that's not necessarily because they're a multifaceted person that's considered every position it's more that they belong to a more fundamental group that defers on those two lines. So they might identify more strongly as like evangelical Christian. And that's more important than being a Republican or Democrat. And as a result of being an evangelical

Christian, they have some beliefs that may or may not fit kind of like both sides, I guess, is what I'm saying. Yeah. So but then depending on which party they're talking to, aren't they going to get bucketed by that respective group? Well, it depends on the, it depends on the, on the lens to which that conversation is happening. Like if this was a conversation by something to church, then they'll get bucketed. If it's a conversation that's happening like politically, then they might not, they might just end up getting attacked by everybody, depending on what their beliefs are, I guess, depending on what type of person they are. So I'm still confused about, like, fine, I'll, you know, I think you explained about what multifaceting could look like, and I don't

think that we were that far apart. I'm still a little bit confused about, so you're, you're kind of saying that the reason that you're such a divisive figure on the internet, which I still don't really understand how divisive or not divisive you are, you seem pretty reasonable to me, is that people talk to you and then they end up putting you in a bucket and because people tend to think in a binary way, right? Yeah. So I guess like the short answer would be I have a core set of principles that I believe in that I use to generate like all of my moral statements, all of my policy positions. And that's what I confer, like that's what I consult when I am given a thing to think about.

It feels like for other people, it's more just kind of like they want to belong to certain groups on the internet. and then anybody that has a belief that is separate from any one of those things is instantly rejected as an outsider. And because of the internal positions I have, I don't line up exactly well with any of these groups. So it causes people to like try to castigate me, I guess, from these groups or whatever. That's the feeling that I get. Okay.

So you think that the reason that your view differently is because your process, you don't just subscribe to a particular unthought-out system. Yeah. You think through things clearly. you develop your own internal manifesto, and it's because of the uniqueness of your position that these people who tend to make snap judgments about people and group people, that your internal process and the way that you view the world upsets or makes people fall in love with you. Yeah, obviously, this is like a very high view of myself. This is what I would like to think.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what do you think about that as you say it? Like, I understand that that that's a high view of yourself and that you would like to believe that. But what do you think about, what do you think about that? When you reflect on that, how does that sound to you? I mean, I consider it to be very good. But I mean, do you think that that's really that different from other people? Like, you don't think that other people. So let me actually rephrase that. So it's my experience that most people believe that their beliefs have been carefully considered and examined and that they come up with a relatively unique perspective on the world. They may ascribe themselves to certain group identities, absolutely. But that generally speaking, people think that their beliefs have been

well thought out. Like, if you go to someone, you say, hey, you believe this because you haven't considered it properly. You haven't considered it fully. And you've just ascribed to a particular set of like inherited beliefs. They would disagree with you. And they would say that on the contrary, I've thought this through. And the reason that I ascribe to the Republican Party is because I think the Republicans are right based on my own internal study. Yeah, most of them would say that. The vast majority of them, 95% plus, would be absolutely wrong. That's just been my personal experience with almost every single person I've talked to that. As soon as you start to question, like, okay, well, you think that you thought this through. As soon as I get about two questions in,

it completely and totally crumbled. They haven't thought through a single thing that they said they have. Yeah, and that seems to be the case with a lot of people. Yeah. And so help me understand how you're different. Um, I guess, uh, maybe as a result of growing up, like, pretty independent. I've had like, so let me be very clear, for instance, real quick, when I say like I'm independent or I have my own thoughts, clearly it's influenced by the society around me. I'm sure had I played different games, had I seen different movies, had I grown up into a different country, it's entirely possible. I'd be a completely and totally different person.

So I would acknowledge that, right? I don't believe in any divine free will that's given me master control over the perfect life, whatever. I guess I feel like as a result of growing up, relatively independent, I didn't draw my opinions or what I should or shouldn't like necessarily from other people. And as a result of that, I have an internal rubric by which I evaluate things. And that that's kind of led me to a unique position where I'm able to take a topic, consider the topic using what I personally believe without trying to think of what a group would,

you know, approve or disapprove of and then give an answer that's like, I feel uniquely mine. Even if other people might agree with that answer or give the same answer, my thought process, I would like to say is unique to myself. And it doesn't rely on another group to tell me how I should answer a question. Okay. So, and so you think that your thought process has been very independently developed. Sure, you've been influenced like things just like everyone else has.

And that by virtue of you sort of not catering to other people's opinions, that the divisiveness that you create on the internet is by virtue of like this internal thought process that is very like unique and well thought out. Yeah. I would hope so, yeah. And, okay. let me just think about this. So I'm going to ask a question that I asked once before. I'm just going to ask it again. Yeah, no problem. Which is that like, so let's say that I take just any person and I ask them, you know, how did you come up with the beliefs that you came up with? I imagine that most of them would give me, and based on me having asked a lot of people that question, I'm sure you have to, maybe in slightly different contexts. They pretty much everyone says your answer, right? That they grew up and they sort of thought independently. And so what I'm trying to understand is,

is if everyone has an internal process and 95% of them are right, I mean, 95% of them are wrong. And it seems like the reason that you're saying that yours is right and theirs is wrong is because you can ask them two questions. And they can't answer question number three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Whereas you feel like you can answer questions three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. and that's why your thought process stands up better than theirs. In a backwards way, yes. So, like, I'm not so interested in them understanding, like, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,

but more so that, like, if they don't, it's usually indicative of them inheriting those top-level positions rather than arriving at them, if that makes sense. So, like, for instance, if you want to ask me a question about, like, should health care be free in the United States? Like, I started a very fundamental position to figure that out, right? Like, what do I think goodness is? And then what's the best way to apply goodness?

And then, you know, what's the most applied position with it? And then I kind of worked through there. So then if you back up and ask me a question, I can kind of figure that out, right? For some people, you know, it might just be that they read off of their favorite political candidate that, like, oh, you know, socialized health care is horrible or socialized health care is great. And then if I ask them a question about it, oh, you think it's good or bad. Well, why? If they can't answer it. It's not that I'm like, I think that it's so bad that you don't know the two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's more so that it's like, it's clear that you haven't really thought about this. It's just somebody that you look up to told you this answer. And now you're just kind of parroting it to me. And you haven't really like arrived at that conclusion so much as somebody else has kind of stuck you there is kind of what I think of. Yeah. I understand that that's how you perceive them. Yeah. What I'm confused about is like when I talk to them, they don't perceive themselves that way.

And so what I'm trying to understand is like, how are you different from them? because you don't perceive yourself that way. They don't perceive themselves that way. And yet you're clearly different because, like, I accept that you're different. So that's, I mean, that's what I'm operating under the assumption of because most people, when I, like, look at their subreddit, you know, don't have someone as a pedo rapist and raised $40,000. Yeah, very sure. Right. So most people aren't like that.

So I'm trying to get a sense. And this is, I'm trying to be just as transparent. Like, I'm trying to get a sense of, like, how you understand. understand how people react to you. Are you asking me how I get a sense of understanding of how other people react to me? Yes. And that's what we, I mean, that's what I've been asking you about. I'm just trying to make that as transparent.

Yeah, I mean, well, in terms of, so the question is specifically, how do I understand, like, how do I get an understanding of how other people view me? Yeah, like, how do you, like, so you, you, you are a divisive figure. So let me just, let me just make sure I'm on the same page with you. Yeah, go for it. Yeah, yeah. So the first is that you are a divisive figure. When I ask you, why are you a divisive figure?

You say that I have a very independent way of looking at the world and that most people don't really appreciate nuance. And if you take a multifaceted viewpoint, that they're going to slot you into one bucket or another. And the reason that you're so divisive is, and this sort of makes perfect sense, right? Like, if you're in the middle, half the people are going to call you a Democrat and half the people are going to call you a Republican, which is sort of what we see. Charity, pedo rapist, right? Sure. So you're kind of saying that like because people slot me into these two slots, that's like, that's why I'm perceived the way that I am. And then I ask you, okay, so then my, but in my experience, people, you know, that can apply to a lot of people, right?

So like not everyone, it doesn't matter where you are along the political spectrum. Like, I tend to be, I think, somewhere in the middle of the political spectrum and that some people think I'm a Republican and some people think I'm a Democrat, that that sort of applies to a lot of people that if we're accepting that people, slot get bucketed in two different ways, that most people are going to get bucketed to the ends of the spectrum because most people are in the middle somewhere, right? That's what you're saying. I guess, yeah, kind of, yeah.

I don't know if we're missing on this point, but politically they might be bucketed in the middle, which is deceptively nuanced, but I feel like the underlying reality is that usually they're just completely ascribed to some more fundamental group that gives them the illusion of being in the middle. Yeah, I don't know if this relevance is right.

Yeah, I think, I mean, that's about politics and specific, but I think your general point still stands that that human beings tend to be binary in the way that they look at other human beings. And that most human beings are not at either end of any kind of spectrum. So as a result, if you take 100 human beings who are in the middle and you show them to another 100 human beings, that all 100 of those human beings will be slotted towards both ends of the spectrum by the 100 people that they meet. Okay. Okay, maybe this is getting more fundamental, okay? Maybe my cynicism will start showing. do think that most people try to find a group and identify wholly with that group. I don't think

that most people try to be nuanced or have multiple opinions of things. I think they try to find like a certain group and stick to it and then inherit all the... Yeah, but that doesn't, that shouldn't apply at all because then what we're talking about is how people are perceived by others, right? So irrespective of whether I identify as a Republican or a Tea Party person or a fundamental evangelist Christian or a gamer or a game or whatever, that I'm still going to be shunted into one of two buckets by everyone that I meet because that's how human beings operate. And since I'm somewhere in the middle, I should be shunted onto both ends of the spectrum by a hundred random people. And I should have like a wild, like people should be calling me Democrats and Republicans and like that should happen.

It doesn't matter whether I identify with a particular group or I came up with my own philosophy. Other people are going to still shunt me, right? That's what you're saying. Yeah. So then if that's the case, then like, why do people treat you differently from other people? people. Because everyone's shunting. Everyone's shunting. Maybe because I'm more like visible in the space and maybe more like I guess like unapologetic about what I believe. Like maybe it's possible that any Twitch streamer that did politics full time would also be hardcore divided, you know, between different people. But I mean, because this is kind of like, I don't know how much you know about my content.

I'm sorry. My main draw is probably political conversations. That's what I'm most well known for. So that's probably why I'm more divisive in that sense than other Twitch streamers, because not many others do that full time. Maybe. Yeah. So, sure. So I think that sort of makes sense, right? Like you're saying that by virtue of the kinds of conversations that I engage in, so like, let's think about it scientifically. Sure. So 100 people may shunt you right or left, but the problem, the reason that you're more divisive is because the 100 people that you're talking to is a more diverse set than the 100 people that other people expose themselves to. Yeah, that's entirely possible. Sure, that's a good way to saying it.

But I mean, is that what you think? Yeah. So I might talk to people that are literally like literal neo-Nazis. And I might also talk to people that are literal like communist like Stalin defenders. So as a result of conversations with both of these people, you get to see way more divisiveness in my opinions that gives everybody a good reason to absolutely hate me. More so than maybe what the average streamer even would do. Yeah. So do you think that most people's, and this could be by virtue of, you know, my methodologies I shared, which was going on your subreddit. and then sorting by top from all time, and then looking at a few links.

And my sense is that no one's talking about your political beliefs. It really just depends on what we're doing at any particular point in time. So over the past month and a half or two months, I've been playing a lot of League of Legends. So there's not much like politics going on. But I would say like the stuff that I'm most well known for on the internet, and then my biggest viewership draw is usually when we're doing like political content. So it's usually debates I'm having with either people that defend Stalin Russia or people that are, you know, neo-Nazis or whatever, like my conversation with John Tron or Martin Schrelli or Lauren Southern, like these big, like these kind of like big headliner debates or whatever are probably my most viewed content that the people are most interested in.

It's when I get the most viewers for. It's what I get the most engagement on. Okay. So I'm going to sort of switch gears. Thank you for explaining that. I'm kind of curious. So one of the things that popped up is this thing that Destiny is a sociopath. Yeah.

What does that mean? I'm a relatively cold or detached person for most people, and it's, people just describe me that way. Sometimes, and then sometimes I ironically refer to it that way myself, but I don't, I don't like to keep that as much. Um, I'm just not a very like emotional person, I guess. Like, I don't get like, I don't like cry a lot or I don't, you know, like, I'm kind of. I don't want to say I'm a loner. Like, I have friends online, a couple friends that I talk to, and then I have, like, a girlfriend. But for the most part, I think I do, like, really well on my own. I function really well without, like, a large group of people around me.

Okay. So they call you a sociopath because what? I don't know. I think because I evaluate things, like, very coldly. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, like, for instance, like, when I look at, like, relationships, for instance, whether

they're business, whether they're romantic, whether they're friendship, whether they're, Like, I view everything, like, highly transactional. That's usually how I try to, like, analyze those relationships to make the most sense of them. Yeah. So what do you think that means for someone's life who views, this is going to be maybe too abstract of a question? So let me think about how to phrase it better or just state what my... Because I just realized there's an implication to my question. Sure.

So, just think about this. So when you view relationships more transactionally, what effect does that have on you? I don't think it has any effect. I think it's incredibly positive. I think it gives me a really good view of relationships. But if I'm transparent about that thought process, then it seems highly manipulative, highly unemotional, very cold, very detached, and people get very upset if I usually open up about that. Yeah. So let's start with the first half of what you said. I agree with you that I think it feels really good. So you said something along those lines. You said it's highly positive, right? And you said that... Oh, yeah, I think it's really good. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So what's really good about it? It gives me, well, so generally, I favor having a greater understanding of things that are true, because I think the more information I have about a given situation, the better act I can take to maximize my own enjoyment of said situation. So the more information I have, the more power I have to make decisions that benefit me. So when it comes to understanding relationships,

or I understand them on a transactional basis, it feels like it gives me the power to understand what do I need to do to make this relationship beneficial for me. So when I engage with another person, my thought process is usually something along the lines of like, I want to get X, Y, or Z out of this person. So whether it's friendship, whether it's some playing games or something, whether it's, you know, some kind of business relationship. In order to get that, I need to make sure that I am providing some level of value or worth to that person that makes them want to, you know, treat me in kind as basically how I view it. Like a very, some people say this is like highly transactional. Now, personally, I view every single relationship in my life this way. You know, I show a certain level of kindness because I like a person and I want to receive some reciprocated kindness.

I provide some level of consultation or financial support or business advice or whatever to somebody in exchange for some sponsorship or whatever. Yeah, this is just basically how I view like all of these types of relationships. Yeah. And I think, I mean, it sounds like it's very comforting for you to view relationships in that way in terms of like it's simple. It's clean and you know what you're getting and it's like. And highly descriptive and predictive. Yeah, I would say.

It's descriptive and predictive. Sure. Can you tell me a little bit? You said all of your relationships are like this? Yeah, I believe so, yeah. And you said that you grew up pretty independently? Can you tell me a little bit about what that means? Sure.

So let's see how we can do this. My parents were very busy growing up, and I was pretty kind of left in my own growing up. So I kind of developed, for whatever reason, I don't know why. But I was very, very independent growing up. Like, I did things because I wanted to do them. What were your parents busy with? My mom did a daycare at 24-7, and then. And my dad did whatever random multi-level market.

What do you mean by 24-7? You mean like she had the daycare kept to people at night? Yeah. So it was like a family home daycare, I guess. Okay. So we had kids over it, like anywhere from, I think, 10 to 14 kids over the house, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Okay. And what about your dad?

He did multi-level marketing stuff. Okay. Yeah. So what does that have to do with, what is his multi-level marketing? Like, help me understand. So I don't know what that means in terms of like assumptions. about what that meant about his time. No, I know it means a pyramid scheme, but like,

or like, so for example, if someone says, yeah, my dad was an attorney versus like my dad drove a school bus, that gives me a sense of like that parents availability and like, you know, it's an assumption could be wrong. But about like what influenced that person, like how much that person would have been around. Oh yeah, the availability of both parents was like pretty close to zero, say for like a family vacation or something. It was pretty low, yeah. And what did you, do you remember?

how you felt about that growing up? Yeah, I think early on in my life. I don't think I was very happy with that. I think it probably made quite a bit, but for whatever reason, after time, the feelings just went away, and I became, like, more, okay, like, just doing things on my own.

Yeah. Can you tell me, like, around what age that happened? I wish I could. It was before high school, but... Okay. Yeah, I don't know exactly what... The change happened before high school.

Yeah, must have, yeah. Like, do you remember? for being like in elementary school and thinking like you were a little bit unhappy that your parents weren't around as much? Yeah, like I remember like in third grade or fourth grade or something. Like I would like walk around like outside and I'd wonder like, oh, like if I ran away with my parents like even notice that I'm gone, like those kinds of thoughts. I imagine are pretty normal for kids that don't see much of their parents. But by the time like I got to high school, so like an important thing I remember in high school is like I wanted to do music. And I noticed I to pick up the saxophone knowing that like none of my parents are ever coming to any of my concerts.

or anything like that, but I'm okay with that. I picked up music because I really love music, and that's what I want to do. So I know for sure by the time I hit high school, none of it bothered anymore, but I'm sure that, like, for varying levels from, like, first to, like, sixth grade or something, it must have bothered me a little bit

because I have memories like that, but for whatever reason, the feelings just kind of, like, went away. Okay. What do you think happens when feelings go away? I mean, a lot of things could happen. I mean, like, the two most common paths I see is either, one, you confront them, you get an understanding of them, and then you integrate those feelings so that you're capable of dealing with it going forward.

Another way is you repress the fuck out of them. I mean, I would like to think so, right? Yeah, I would like to think that. But the alternative is that you repress them. You pretend that they're not bothering you, but then they end up manifesting in different ways in your life later on. I try to give like very, I'm trying to give you like very honest answers. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, I mean, I would like to think that like none of it bothers them or like I integrated it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm just a little bit surprised because I, you know, like, I, I, I, I, I, I, I mean, I think your answers are 100%. I mean, I agree with you 100%.

And I think like, so I think like I said at the beginning, I think my chat and your chat are both going to be disappointed. But so I think the thing that the reason I think you saw me like raising my eyebrows, the reason you saw surprised in my face is not because I disagree with your answers. It's just I'm very surprised to hear you, like as you describe confronting your feelings, processing your feelings, like internalizing them, moving past them, metabolizing them. Like that makes perfect sense to me. and I don't know many seven-year-olds who do that.

Yeah, I mean, like, I don't think it happened when I was seven. I think it was more just like an automated thing that happened, you know, before I got to high school. Yes. When I say, that's kind of weird because go ahead. So, like, when you kind of say that, like, you confront them and kind of like process them and stuff like that, that sounds like a very, like, active process. Right? It's like an active mental process. And it's almost like the process that you describe when,

someone criticizes you. Like it takes thought and you analyze it and you kind of see where it's coming from. Is it valid? Is it invalid? And yet when you talk about what happened to you, it sounds anything but intentional. It sounds because you kind of use this language like, oh, it just kind of like happened on its own. It sort of like happened like automatically. Like I don't know. Like I was this way when I was growing up and then older like I was just, I was different. It was like no longer a big deal. Yeah. Like the reason why I try to be careful with my answers is like if you'd ever ask me five years ago, I would have said all of it was very intentional. but if I'm totally honest looking back,

I don't know how much was intentional versus how much was just kind of lucky. So like, for instance, like in growing up, a lot of the video games I played were Japanese RPGs. The main characters tended to be, like, very intelligent, which is something you don't find in a lot of American media. And then they also had, like, traditional masculine archetypes as well. They tended to be very independent.

They tended to help other people. Like Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy 78, 9, Final Fantasy games, the Metal Gear Salad games, like I love, like, yeah, growing up. And I think I kind of sort of modeled myself off of those people, I guess right because they're heavy early influences. So like the idea of like, oh, like being independent is like really cool. Like I want to have that. I think being able to be independent is really cool.

And then for whatever reason, I wasn't bothered by not getting constant approval from like friends or family. And then that just kind of worked out. So that's what I mean when I say that like I think that I kind of automatically developed it in a healthy way. And that I don't think that I was like miserable and I repressed it. And I used games as a retreat that depressed me. But I don't think it's fully honest to say that my 10 year old self was like, you know, I have a problem. Yeah. Yeah.

So, like, so you, like, you grew up, like, Cloud, Strife? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so how do you think Cloud Strife would respond to parents being, like, super unavailable to him growing up? Oh, God.

My Final Fantasy 7 knowledge is being tested. Well, technically, Cloud grew up an orphan, although it seemed to me that Cloud dealt with that in a very unhealthy way, because he was a very, very, very, very, very, very, rude towards other people and seemed to always have a chip on a shoulder about it. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I would say Cloud probably would hate that, but he dealt with it in a very unhealthy way. Wait, what? It seemed like he dealt with a very, he, like, always had, like, problems with other people.

It wasn't until, like, Tifa put his mind back together in the life stream, like, later on in the game that he actually developed, like, a sense of self and then wanted to do things for other people and help the party and, like, get everything done or whatever for the game. Yeah, so, so I'm sorry, you said that Cloud dealt with it in a poor way? It seemed like it growing up as an orphan He was always like kind of an asshole And a jerk to people Yeah so like was kind of a divisive figure Had a lot of people like upset with him No I would say that he was objectively like an asshole

Like and the goals that he had at his life Were kind of shitty or whatever Like he just wanted to be strong To be a soldier because that's what all the cool people Whatever and then yeah Yeah and you kind of modeled yourself after him Um aspects of my character Aspects of my personality

After those types of people I would imagine yeah Yeah so like I don't I can't envision cloud ever being upset with his parents for dropping him off at an orphanage? Yeah, I guess later in life, probably not sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it almost sounds like you kind of grew up almost like an orphan in some ways. That's a really dramatic way of putting it, I guess, in some ways. Yeah, it absolutely is. It's hyperbole. Sure. Yeah. What do you think about that? I don't have strong feelings about it one way or another

I mean how did you grow up independent right? I played a lot of video games yeah yeah so it sounds like your parents weren't around I mean they were they were around I'm not to be really responsible because there's like some guy who's a literal fucking orphan who's like hating me for saying this

because I did it like my mom and dad like absolutely love me like no questions asked like I'm pretty sure they would like if I came out as like gay or trained like because my mom always tells me she loves me she's like always excited for you know she doesn't have anything mean to say about me she's always excited for what i do with my streaming stuff if i call and talk to my parents they're always excited to talk to me um they've never like we had a lot of problems and i became an atheist in high school but like i've never gotten the feeling that my parents hate me ever and my mom expresses like

great yeah my mom says a lot of regret over not taking a more active role in my life growing up it's something that like makes her really sad how do you feel about that um my parents are are insanely fucking conservative. So I'm kind of grateful for it. Yeah. Like I kind of worry if I would have grown up to be more like my parents if I would have ran into a lot of problems. Like it sounds kind of shady to say to my mom and I love her to death, but like the independence that I got from them has equipped me for, I mean for this job, if nothing else, holy shit, more than anything else that I could have learned from them individually. Yeah. So I mean, it all, I mean, thank God that you, they didn't have time for you. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. Man, if my mom is listening to this, I love you, mom so much. I think you do love your mom. I think she loves you. And I think it's a very strange thing for a person to say, I'm really grateful that my parents didn't have time for me. Yeah, 100%.

Holy fuck. I think that the sense of independence that I got growing up is my most valuable asset. And it's something that I think, yeah, is so important to me. And I think that that makes perfect logical sense. I'm just trying to think about like the alternative, right? So if you aren't grateful to your parents for not having time to you, how would you feel? Um, that's a hard one.

I mean, these manifest are so many different ways. Um, I mean, some people spend their lives, like, kind of like seeking the, like a replacement for a parent. Like maybe you go and look for a girl that resembles somebody that would take care of you, and that's the kind of thing you're after. Or maybe you look for somebody to, like, give you constant affirmation. No, no, I'm not talking about like some weird psychological thing down the road. I'm just saying, like, if you're eight years old and your, your mom is busy taking care of,

like, eight other kids, like, how do you think that kid feels? like a normal kid or like me or a normal kid? It seems like a lot of people get really resentful of their parents if they don't pay enough attention to them so I imagine they probably feel resentful or you were a normal kid back then right you started to become a non-normal kid later when you had your transformation which happens sometime I mean that's what you're telling me it's hard to say

you used to you used to have some of those feelings of feeling like neglected or lonely or whatever from your parents. And then like something happened sometime around the middle school years, you started to really like focus on being more like cloud and these other like male role models who were like emotionally suppressing were like focused on self growth and independent and self-reliant. And then you kind of became the self-reliant human being who's all of their relationships are transactional and has like kind of a lack of emotional connection with others. Right? Until you enter the live stream, which we'll see if and when that happens, but...

Sure. Right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it... So real quick, just to be very clear, because I try to be brutally honest with how I view myself, I can tell you very clearly, like, why I thought the things that I did from, like,

probably 16, 17 years onward, it's a lot harder for me to give you resolute answers about, like, my particular state of mind or how I felt about something when I was like 708. That's why it feels like I'm giving you a wishy-washy answers. to avoid answering something. I'm just trying to be honest and like, I don't know like 100%. Maybe I was a little bit more about. I'm not getting the perspective

that you're wishy-washy at all. In fact, I think your answers are very, very clear. Okay. I just trying to be clear on it, yeah. Yeah. Why do you think your answers are wishy-washy? Well, because sometimes when people, it feels like sometimes people want more exact answers sometimes.

And if I give an answer with, it's like a habit that I've gotten into from debating so many people. Like, for instance, like my girlfriend might ask something like, this sounds really bad, but she might ask, like, do you think we'll still be together in a year? And my answer to that is,

always seem to be like, I mean, I hope so. We should be. But like, I can't tell like with 100% certainty because you might go fucking crazy. I don't know. But like, so like I tend to answer like every question. There's nothing to read into there. Sorry. I try to answer. What I'm trying to read into is like like you, like you, when I'm asking, when we're talking about your and my interaction, you have this tendency to talk about what feels to me to be like completely irrelevant examples. Sure. Like you could just, you offer a lot of examples. Like I'm just curious like why you think. that I think that your answers are unclear, because you know you're a clear-spoken guy. I know you're a clear-spoken guy. I've asked you several times over the course of like the last half hour or 45 minutes if this is what you believe. It seems like we're on the same page.

I think you're incredibly clear. I'm probably, honestly, because I'm so used to speaking to chat that this is more like a public experience. So I guess I'm trying to clarify partially for that as well, but I'll try to focus more on just that and ignore like outside clarifications. Because I think you're understanding

most of what I'm saying. I'm just, I'm still in the habit of like over clarifying everything. I say it like with the orphan thing earlier, for instance, to make sure that people don't think that I have the understanding that I'm like an actual orphan because I know that would like offend a lot of people, whatever, but like, okay, I'll try to be more like just one. Yeah, so, so let's just, no, I mean, that's, I think it's, you know, it's interesting that the wishy-washy, the reason for the wishy-washiness,

the perception of wishy-washiness seems to be also changing. Like at first it was about because sometimes you're ambiguous and you want to clarify things and you use the example of your girlfriend. And when I say, I don't think that's the case, then you say it's like it's because of chat. And I'm trying to make sure that chat understands and I'm half talking to them. So it seems like there are a lot of reasons why you want to clarify. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. So can you tell me a little bit about, I mean, do you have memories of like when you were young and like times that you got upset? Times that I got upset when I was young. Yeah, anything stick out. Yeah, of course. Some stuff does. I had a very strange relationship with my, with my grandma. I spent a lot of time, oh God, I swear to God, my, growing up there was like just really weird shit. But so my grandma, okay, my grandma, but for the most part, my life is pretty good, okay?

My grandma is very fucking crazy. Okay, she had weird problems. She, like, she would buy a dog and she would, like, kill it in like a year. And she did this like fucking 20 times. I don't know why. Where she would basically, she'd go to the pound, she'd get a dog, and she would carry it for about six to 12 months. And then she would say like, oh, it's sick. I need to go put it down. And I don't want to give it to somebody else

because I think it might be hurt or whatever. And I remember that when I was pretty young, maybe around like fifth grade, I think she did this to two dogs that me and my little sister were like very attached to. I remember obviously being incredibly upset when that happened because they were like the two dogs that I liked the most. But then after that I kind of stopped caring so much about each individual.

dog because I knew that it was it had like a 12 month timer on it basically. Yeah, that's interesting. So, so you used to care about things. And then what did you, what did you learn? Sounds like you learned something. Um, I guess we're trying to say that I, I learned not to get attached to anything or, I mean, in this particular case, isn't that what you're saying? Yeah, I guess, like, like you used to form emotional attachments with like living organisms and then you sort of realize that forming attachments with living organisms leads to, of pain, and so you better learn how to, like, not care about the dog anymore. Yeah, I guess we could say that, sure.

Yeah. And what about with your parents? Do you remember? They never did anything on the level of, like, doing anything about or not. Of course. Of course. Yeah. I mean, do you remember sort of times?

Actually, let me ask you kind of a different question. So do you remember times that, like, does anything stick out, let's say, like, before seventh grade about when your parents were super proud of it? you when you sort of really did feel like they made time or when did they make time for you let's put it that way i don't think so i remember there was one time i was in a hotel and i made a reference to something that i'd read online that um where i said like oh look like they have mirrors in the hotel and that makes the room look bigger and my dad i actually remember this comment for my entire life my dad said wow you're a real smart kid and i think that's the only time he's ever said something to

be like that and i think i actually felt like really good when i heard that but otherwise i don't think they typically. My mom like always gives compliments so they don't really mean anything to me. My mom like showers me with that side of whatever. Yeah. Can you remember a time where they made time for you? Um, yeah, we went back. So before I was like, I think before I was, fuck, my timelines are so bad. Before I was like 14 or 15, we had like a very upper middle class lifestyle when my mom was doing the daycare and we would go like on like every year, every other year we would take like a family vacation to like Disney World or whatever. We would do stuff like that. So, I mean, I would say that was like making time for me.

Yeah. Hmm. Do you ever remember them doing things outside of the norm, like periods where you were either really good or really bad and they sort of like treated you differently because of it? I don't think so. The worst things that I probably did growing up were I was very antagonistic towards my sister, which bothered the fuck out of my mom and dad quite a bit. I think that's pretty normal for siblings.

Very good. But like, yeah, but other than that, no, I think. Can you tell me about your sister? She's just like my little sister. Okay. What's your relationship with her like? I don't really talk to any of my family much. I just don't.

I'm just not that kind of person, I guess. We should hang out. It sounds like they didn't talk to you much. No, that's not true. My mom and dad make an effort to reach out. I try to talk to my mom at least like once. What about growing up? It sounds like your mom loves you a lot.

It sounds like she's very excited and happy for your success. It sounds like, you know, on the occasions that y'all do interact, she's very supportive and loves you a lot and you love her. And at the same time, it also sounds like they kind of haven't been a part of your life in a very like day-to-day kind of chit-chat, share experiences with for basically your entire life. Yeah. My mom regrets it. But, I mean, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but for you, it's all. always been normal. Yeah, for sure. So it's been normal to have. So earlier you used a word transactional.

Would you say that your relationships with your parents were transactional when you were growing up? I don't think I would have viewed relationships like that back then. I don't think you would have either. Yeah. But what do you think now?

Like I'm just trying to put myself, so I have two kids. And I'm just trying to put myself of like what the fuck would my relationship with my children be like if there were eight other kids in home. And I would think that it would be like quite businesslike because I don't have time to like read them a store.

So like meals would be sort of like an assembly line. Like your house has a very has a very assembly line feel to me. Yeah, there was an app time. There was a feeding time. There was a time when a teacher came over. Yeah. And like what you felt like or what your needs were moment to moment were sort of like completely swept under the butt like just just swept.

under the the just the simple need of like making the reins the trains run on time i cannot and and so you know and i i think it sounds like that used to upset you but at some point you sort of figured out that like me being upset doesn't actually do me any good yeah i guess so yeah and so you started to like treat yourself very independently you started to treat people pretty transactionally because having kind of like an emotional relationship or an emotional investment in a situation that is not going to change is like completely idiotic. And that essentially like emotions are just going to lead to suffering when they lead to relationships, which is because the only thing that you can really count on, the only thing that you can rely on and the only thing that has predictive value for making a change is sort of a transactional, selfish sort of perspective to relationships. because you can count on other people's self-interest, but if you love them and they love you,

that doesn't count for shit. Yeah, 100%. Makes sense, man. Yeah. Makes perfect sense. Sure. Any thoughts about what I just said? No, I'm not.

That gets descriptive of how I view the world like pretty well. It's one of the reasons why I went into music. I always considered it really important to have a hobby that I can enjoy on my own without having to rely on any other person to be there. And then, yeah, I'm very aware that like any relationship I'm in, I try to make sure that it's as beneficial for the other person as it needs to be for them to maintain the relationship. Yeah, that's pretty much my outlook on relationships in general, yeah. Yeah.

And you think you... Okay, so let me just stop for a second. You think? Yeah, sure. Destiny, do you have any thoughts about the way in which I'm phrasing things? Are you detecting any implications in my words? Do you have any thoughts about what I'm saying? I think people could read it to it that way, but it doesn't sound like you have the same type of judgmental implications that I would expect a person to, so, yeah.

And what kind of judgmental implications are that? that for those. Generally, that this way of thinking is either autistic or sociopathic, that it misses a lot of the underlying important aspects of human interactions. No, no, no, no, no, no. I think that this way of interacting, I think is learned, adaptive, and vital for survival. Sure. I'm sorry, to be clear, I don't think you're thinking about it. I'm saying that's what a lot of people are. Yeah, and I'm telling you what I think, which is that this way of approaching the world is adaptive, learned, and vital for survival. survival. Yeah, I mean, obviously I would agree. Yeah. Why do you agree with that? Well, I mean,

I would have to agree that it's adaptive because it seems like it adapted to the environment I had growing up. It seems key for survival because I think it's gotten me like to great accomplishments in terms of my career and everything. And then it's learned, obviously, because I think most behaviors are learned. Yeah. Yeah. So Destiny, I'm going to kind of give you, maybe you've sort of figured out my punchline, but I think, you know, I think what the way you feel makes perfect sense. So I think this is what I understand. This is my running hypothesis for how life shaped you to be the way that you are. So I think that early on, you experienced a lot of emotions like a kid normally would,

and that your life was just structured in such a way where your emotions were, your emotional needs were probably not met because they couldn't be met because your parents were too busy. And I think that hurt you for a while. and I think that you did what most children or young adults do, which is adapt to the situation. But I think unfortunately, most of those adaptations are not like the challenging, processing, metabolizing. Most of them are suppression. Yeah, for sure. And that since you basically had parents who are not, and it's not that they didn't love you,

it's just like the circumstances made it so that they could not meet your emotional needs. and so I think early on somewhere along the way you probably had and you remember some things you don't remember others but I think the grandmother example is a prime example you learn the very important lesson that emotions are a fucking waste of time and that they just need to be removed in whatever way they can right so like my personal point of view yeah I'm from your personal yeah yeah I'm talking I'm talking about I'm talking about this like how you're the the the mind of your child self evolved. And they were like, let's just remove emotions from the equation because as long as emotions are there, we get hurt. And then over time, you started to discover that like when you remove emotions from the equation, that relationships become transactional, right? Because that's what happens. I think the real challenge is that now at this point, the reason that you don't feel emotions is because you essentially are suppressing them. Because that's something, that's like that concrete was pretty, was laid down when you a kid and you have everything in your life sort of points to that. And now the real challenge is that

your current worldview is so adaptive that the possibility of like reengaging with your emotions sort of like changes everything that you believe and everything that you built your life around. So it's almost even further adaptive to not explore that part or not even question that because that shit has been buried. It's like nuclear waste that got buried. Like you buried that shit the second time that dog died. And you were like, okay, these are emotions. And I think that your brain is human so that you have the amygdala and the limbic system

and that you're capable of feeling emotions, that you feel sadness and you feel joy. But at the end of the day, like those are sort of relatively temporary fluctuations that you experience. Like those parts of your brain are active. But emotionally, you sort of don't have, that shit's like buried.

Because you learned how to bury it because that's what you needed to do. And I think had you done this, later than it would make more sense for this to be sort of like a metabolism or digestion, but that essentially since it happened so young, it was sort of like a, it was like a reflexive protective response because that's what kids do. Sure. What do you think about that? I don't just think with that at all. I spent a great deal of time, I think about a year or two ago, kind of reflecting on kind of like the cold way that I approach people. And it's something

that I revisit like quite a bit. You know, I think about it every now and then where I kind of wonder like typically totally axing certain things from your life is not good because usually it's possible to engage with them in a healthy manner such that you limit the downsides and capitalize on the upside. So we're talking about like emotional relationships here or being more emotional with people. I wonder sometimes if there were like potential upsides that I might be missing because they don't engage with people in that way. I just have a hard time coming up with that. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. So I don't think it's about upside. So I think your strategy has, if we're talking about making a probabilistic bet. I think your strategy has more upsides. I just think it's incomplete.

Right? So like I think that I could I could integrate some type of emotional experience into my current existence in a healthy and responsible way using all of my prior adaptations or whatever to evaluate if those emotional relationships are healthy or not. I wonder if that's something that I should do. I guess just so far I just haven't felt the need for it. Because I don't think there is a need. So I think the question is, so this is not really a great analogy, but I think essentially like you're going through life colorblind. And we sort of think about color as being better than, so there's like a value judgment there that I don't necessarily agree with. But that there's, there's like, if you look at like all

these other people out there, they're operating with a particular like sense that you just sort of don't have. And it's not that you're like, you lack emotions entirely. It's just that like your perception of color, it's like dark outside. So, you know, your rods and cones, like you can still see some variance of color, but the amount of color saturation that you get has a lot to do with the overall ambient level of light. And I think my sense of you is that you're someone who's like in a low ambient level of light. So you do experience emotions, but you just don't experience the full range. And then the question from your perspective is like, is it worth it for me to turn the lights on? Because if I turn the lights on, I'm going to experience a whole range of things.

and those may not necessarily be good, which is absolutely correct. I think the question is whether you want to experience a wider range of things than what you're experiencing now. Yeah, and that's always been the central question. It's like, if I am missing out on something, you know, is it worth it to open myself up to those experiences, knowing that some might be better than I've ever felt before and some might be worse than I've ever felt before. Is that something that's worth exploring? And I guess, like, so far, I mean, like, I feel like I'm pretty uniquely situated in terms of my mental state and my job. and I feel like I have like such a high, when I say uniquely situated, I mean that like I'm, I feel like I'm uniquely equipped with my level of independence to deal with the amount of negative feedback I get, for instance.

And I'm kind of worried if I start trying to change up like too many things, like is that experience going to change such that either it makes me unsuited for this job or I lose like my current level of what I would consider to be like very high, very content like mental state. Is that something that I'm willing to risk to try to experience a wider array of emotions, I guess? And how do you feel about that? Well, no. That's, I guess, like, currently how I feel. I feel like I get all of the love and attention I need from people that I have relationships with, however transactional they may be. And then I also feel like, I mean, you've been talking to streamers. Holy shit, every streamer is insanely depressed and has, I don't know how many streams you've gone through so far, but like every streamer that I know has personally had at least one major breakdown related to, you know, like dealing with feedback and stuff. And I've never dealt with these problems. And I don't know if, like, becoming a more emotional or open a suburb of that would make me more vulnerable to those types of things? It would absolutely would. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I think, you know, using some video game terminology, I think the main question

is whether you want to explore. So you have, you have carved out a pretty nice niche in your own world in terms of, I don't mean like success externally, just in terms of like the way that you interact with the world. And there is, there is a world beyond that. And so far, I think it makes complete logical sense that going outside of the known is not really a good bet. It's just about your degree of adventurousness. It's about your degree of tolerating risk. It's about whether you're willing to explore an aspect of life that I think will make your life not necessarily better, but yeah, like richer, right? Because we're talking about other shades of, we're talking about experiences that other humans don't have. Like another good example,

is like the decision to have kids or not have kids, which I think is a life transformative, I mean, it was for me. Not to say that it's better or worse, it just completely changes the fucking ball game. Okay, I have an eight-year-old son of that.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, so, so, I mean, I mean, I think it changes something in my mind. I don't know that it's actually relevant. I have more of an emotional reaction to that, and it incorporates more assumptions. But I don't, I mean, I think that most of,

of your emotions or were actively suppressed in a very, what's called in kind of like an insecure attachment growing up, which is something you can Google. But there's something called attachment theory, which sort of talks a little bit about like how children experience emotions and how they like understand the world and that you've essentially created like this adaptive mechanism, which by the way, like now getting to kind of like the endpoint. So I don't think that your logical argument for why you're such a divisive figure sort of makes sense, which is sort of what I was implying, because I don't think it's because they see multiple facets of you. I think it's because they're picking up on something on this realm, which like makes people

deeply unsettled and makes them dislike you. You're just disliked and arguably, and also on the flip side liked by more, like more people than the average person. I don't think that's just because of the political stuff you engage in, although that's a very good variable in the equation. I think it makes a lot of sense. I don't think many people expose themselves to the variety of opinion that you do, primarily because you do have this insulating armor, right? Like, you can see, you can expose yourself to, like, more things because you're kind of emotionally protected, which other people don't do. So I think that has a lot to do with it. But I think there's something, there's something visceral about people's, and I think if you stop and think about that,

I'd really be surprised if you disagree with this. There's something visceral. So all this stuff about, like, you know, people are like binary and they judge you this way and this one. Like, I think that's fine, but I don't think it's about the political spectrum. I think it's visceral. There's something about you that like sets people off in like a weird way. And it almost reminds me of something called the Uncanny Valley, which is this, you're familiar with the Uncanny Valley? Yeah. It's almost like Uncanny Valley level, which is sort of this idea that like if we, human beings for people who aren't familiar with this concept, do you want to explain it? Yeah, basically something is not quite human, but it's very, very close, but that very small amount

of not quite human is so much more crazy and weird. and discomforting than if it was just completely fake altogether. Yeah. And so, I mean, I'm not saying that that's what, it's kind of like an unfair characterization or analogy. I'm not saying that you're not human. But there is something incredibly visceral and emotional to people's, from what I could see, initially, there's something incredibly visceral and emotional to people's responses to you.

And I think they're picking up on something. And like, I briefly watched this YouTube video about someone who's like trying to convince you of the value of emotions. And it was like, the guy didn't know what the fuck. he was talking about. And I'm sorry for being judgmental. I didn't, let me rephrase. I didn't understand what he was trying to say.

Or in my mind, he didn't make a convincing argument. I actually, I almost positive I know exactly what you're talking about. But I think he was trying in a less formal way to get at what you were saying. Is it like maybe it's worth exploring like some level of emotional attachment because there might be some good there that you're missing out completely by shunting yourself from it or whatever. Yeah, I don't know. Being charitable, yeah. But I mean, I think the destiny here, like so here's what I'll kind of leave you with.

Do you have questions, by the way? I'm saying leave you with it. Yeah, sure. It's kind of a weird. Yeah, I mean, I don't think so. What questions am I supposed to have? So here's what I'll offer you. I don't know.

Because I wasn't sure if you were going to be asking me questions or I was going to be asking you questions. It seemed like I was enjoying this. It seemed like you were enjoying it. Yeah. I think that, you know, if at some point you decide that you do want to explore your emotional side, then I'm happy to have another. conversation about that. I actually don't know how that's going to go. Like, I really don't, because this shit seems pretty buried to me. At the same time, I do think that,

here's what I do believe if you decide to explore it, because this has been my experience with other people, is that the armor that you've essentially put on yourself is something that is so ingrained that you'll be able to, like, put that back on. You can unequip it and you can re-equip it. So my experience for people who learn habitually how to do something is even if they learn how to like stop doing it, it's not like the armor gets destroyed. It just gets unequipped. And then you can re-equip it. And so I don't think, I think in my, my instinct tells me that if you were to get connected to your emotions, that the net would be positive. Because generally speaking, in the work that I do, I find that exploring just about anything, and

understanding yourself deeper and better and having a greater experience of yourself is almost always an overwhelmingly positive experience. Sure. Okay. You're basically saying it's not going to like irrevocably change me in a way that you I don't think so because you know that I'm not going to be like rough patches here or there, but I would, I'll put it like scientifically that your neurons have been like hard coded in a non-emotional, transactional, non-emopathic kind of state.

and that you know like this is something that's learned so it's not like in the same way that like if you start swimming you don't forget

how to learn how to ride a bike it's just like if you're in the water you're going to swim and if you're on a bike you're on a bike that's been my experience sure

okay um yeah I'm only bringing this up back because people are swimming about it do you have any opinions about psychedelic drugs

why the fuck this is the only question that people ever ask me I've asked this question like a thousand times. Uh-huh. Okay.

So, um, so this is what I'll say. So as a psychiatrist, there are some preliminary studies which show that are very promising that these psychedelic, some psychedelic compounds can have positive effects on your mental health. Yeah.

I don't necessarily mean in terms of like a clinical setting. I mean more of like, I don't want to say just recreational, but not like in a like treating like depressive disorders or whatever, but like in like utilizing them to gain some insight into your life with like a monster, like LSD or Shroom trip or something. Do you have any thoughts or opinions on any of them? So I don't advocate for that. And the reason is very simple. So one of my teachers, so the first thing to

understand is that psychedelics can only do what your brain is capable of doing. Right? So like, I want everyone to understand this because this is an important point. Chemical compounds go and activate existing brain machinery in new ways. Or not even new ways, but they just activate the machinery that's already there. Right. So like, for example, marijuana. is a cannabinoid and gives us a sense of like relaxation or whatever. So there are different compounds in marijuana. But we also have endocannabinoids, which when it comes to like video games and habit circuitry, we release a lot of, like, so when you get addicted to video games and you're playing

a video game like every day all day, at that point, you're not even getting like rewards. It's not even dopaminergic. It's cannabinoid at that point, which is why like gamers have so many. So you're, when you develop a habit, it's no longer. or dopamine that governs it, it's actually an endocannabinoid that governs like the performance of habits. And endocannabinoids, the reason that habits are so easy to do is because they don't require motivation.

And in turn, like, gamers have a problem with motivation because they have endocannabinoids that are like floating around in their brain like all the time. So it's kind of like they're sort of like kind of chilled out or they're a motivated. My point here is that you can smoke marijuana, but like marijuana is activating all of these endogenous like circuitries. and LSD and things like that are exactly the same. So they activate your brain in ways that we don't normally activate it, but that essentially if you talk to people who do psychedelics

and you talk to people who meditate a lot, and you also talk about people who dissociate during trauma, there's a remarkable amount of similarity between these three experiences. So you talk about like, you know, dissolution of the self, people feel connected. It's the same way people feel when they meditate sometimes. and you can have very powerful spiritual experiences through meditation. And so my teacher once told me that, you know, if you really want to like understand like kind of the nature of self

and the boundaries of reality and all this shit, meditation, those kinds of things should be avoided for a couple of reasons. One is that when you do that and then you try to meditate, it creates an expectation of an experience that is very difficult for meditation to live up to and makes it harder to continue to meditate. The other way to think about it is that I, kind of think about like climbing to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Like you can take LSD, which is like getting in a helicopter and flying to the top of the

mountain. The view that you get is the same as if you hike. One is way easier. One is way harder. View is equally grand. The problem is that if you've trained yourself to climb to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, you're in a better state to climb higher. And with LSD or other compounds, you have no control over the direction or where you land.

You're just like, it's just, you know, like, you're getting in the chopper, and the pilot decides, I'm going to take you here, I'm going to take you here, I'm going to take you here. So I don't advocate for the use of psychedelics if you really want to understand, like yourself in the nature of reality, because I think it's sort of a crutch that gets you, it's like a cheat code that kind of gets you to like a pretty important milestone, which people love and find invigorating. But if you really want to go all the way, you should use meditation instead. Okay. Okay. I got a really big fight over this yesterday. I agree 100%. I'm always really skeptical of people that's that psychedelics are a good tool to self problems. It always seemed like a substitution for your inability to kind of deal with problems without having to be high as fuck to do it. So I think that, yeah.

So, I mean, it is a substitution, which is what most medications are, right? So, like, if we think about, so I think that they can have a role in treatment because those people, so someone who's super depressed who has been through a lot of trauma, they may not have the time, circumstance, or wherewithal to, like, spend a year in India, like, meditating. So, like, psychedelics can potentially be helpful. Yeah, Band-Aids aren't bad. They're just not.

optimal when it comes to treating something. Yeah, sure. Okay. Other questions? Do you have questions? Why did you ask me to explain, why did you ask me to explain the Uncanny Valley? Is there a reason for that? No, just because I, yeah, two reasons. One is when people ask questions, or just in general, if there's something that the person that I'm talking to can explain, I default to having them explain it.

Okay. For a couple of reasons. One is I like to hear other people's explanations of it. And the second is I don't want to talk all the time. Okay. Gotcha. Cool. I was just curious.

Yeah. Okay. There's like a million random things from chat, but if you don't have any other major things that you want to talk about. You don't need me to say this, obviously, especially. I don't know if you are you practicing in terms of like you have like a license? I've tried, like, therapy before. I'm going to be totally honest.

It's only with one person. And oh, my God, was it a horrible waste of time? Although, understanding that, yeah, you're supposed to shop around for therapy. I don't think you said anything here that I disagreed with it that I thought was stupid or, like, totally, like, dumb, like, meandering conjecture, which I hear from a lot of people that aren't necessarily, like, psychiatrists, but, like, therapy-esque people sometimes. It feels like they're just looking for opportunities to insert their own narratives into whatever story you tell them.

They're trying to make the pieces fit. You do a really good job at, I think, of understanding what I'm saying and then rephrasing that and then presenting it to me in a way that is like makes sense and it's like complete story, I think. So, Destiny, the one thing that I think may, that I would like you to take away from this, because I believe this is where we disagreed is that I don't think that you're emotional, I think you're emotionally suppressing. And I don't think, I didn't get the sense at the beginning of our talk together that you thought that. But I do believe that. Um, I would probably agree. Yeah. I think maybe there might be like a, I don't think I would have disagreed out of the start.

It might be more of a semantic thing than anything. I mean, clearly, unless I am literally inhuman, I must be suppressing my emotions to some extent. Like you said, I have an amygnalia. I have a limbic system. Like, I can't just not have these things. Yeah. So at some level of learned suppression. I guess when I think of suppression, I'm sorry when I speak as there.

There's so many implications by every word. Usually when somebody uses the word suppression, there's a whole lot of negative baggage and other ways of that manifests in your life. really detrimental ways that I don't think I exhibit those behaviors. But I would have to agree. Of course, it's probably some level of suppression. I'm not so sure about that, right? Because we have some evidence that you have a track record for disrupting a lot of other people's lives, like in terms of the way that they respond to you. I don't know if I would necessarily agree that's a bad thing, though. To some of this, I think it's, sure. I mean, I think the other thing that's kind of like tricky here is that I think you're placing. Yeah. Okay. But I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I, I think,

think that that could be causing problems in your, and I think actually there's a decent chance that it will cause problems in your relationships. Because your relationships are very transactional. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's something that's come up a lot, yeah. Yeah. And so I think the problem here is that when you're in a transactional relationship with someone who doesn't view relationships the same way, that person is going to have a tough time. Of course. Yeah. And generally speaking, I do, as a personal value judgment, I mean, hopefully these words don't bite me in the ass, but I have some relationships that are not transactional. In fact, I would say that most of the relationships that I have are not transactional, and that serves me very well. Okay. Okay, but in mind when I revisit

this thought to myself, maybe I'll push harder in that direction, sure? Yeah. Cool. Okay, cool. Well, hey, listen, I really appreciate the conversation. Yeah, likewise. Any other final things that... Nope. Nope. Okay. Well, hey, listen, I really appreciate the conversation. if there's anything ever in particular that comes up that I don't know if people like always bother me to talk to you not that it's a bother to talk to you but the way that a lot of online I don't know if you've gotten this yet from Twitch

but the way that a lot of these conversations happen is usually both fan bases start firing shots in the direction of the other fan base in order to get the two people to come together so if people I guess keep poking me to pick your brain about a particular topic or likewise whatever we can chat again if you're interested. Sure.

And I know that sometimes I mean I didn't give you an opportunity to that like ask me questions and stuff like that. So I'm not saying you should or that you want to. But, you know, I'm open to that too. I'm kind of curious about like the, I've heard a lot of like origin stories in terms of starting off as like a spiritual Hindu person. I don't know how much of this is true versus not true for your development. I mean, I can do that in five minutes. Yeah, go for it.

Hit me up. I'm curious. Yeah. So I grew up playing a lot of fucking video games. And then did okay in high school, started college, was failing out of college. My parents kind of took me aside. after trying everything else from yelling and punishing and all that kind of stuff. And my dad was like, look, this is not working out.

Like, we got to do something. And so then I was like, yeah, I agree. So it felt like super antagonistic early on, but then it sort of felt like we were problem solving together. And so he's like, you've got to go to India. And I said, fuck it, okay. So I went to India. I stated an ashram, which is sort of like a monastery.

I studied yoga and meditation, a little bit of Ayurveda for a period of about three monks, and then decided I wanted to become a monk. So went to my teachers and I said, hey, I want to be. become a monk. I'm not interested in the material life. They said, fantastic. Real quick. So we understand. So I understand. When you say monk, what does that actually mean? So that means take sun yes. So in the Hindu tradition, but Buddhist tradition as well, there are four stages of life. So the first stage is a student. The second stages is a householder. The third stage is transitionary. In the fourth stage is to like let go of your material

attachments slash meditate slash devote yourself to God if you believe in that kind of thing. And so what I said is that I want to forego a material life and focus on spiritual development and like realizing my true self, which is the goal of a lot of meditative practices. It's something called moksha or enlightenment or liberation. So I wanted to devote myself to that. That was going to be my full-time job. They said that's a fantastic idea. You'd be great at it.

But finish your school, get a doctoral degree and come back when you're 30. And if you still want to do it, we'll take you. So the place that I studied was run by, so the head of the ashram was actually a quantum. quantum physicist, like other teachers of mine were like neuroscientists and things like that. And they'd all taken Sanya, so they'd become monks. But they believed in sort of getting like a worldly education first and understanding science and then kind of following a spiritual path. And so it turned out that their decision was a great one because I went back to the U.S. and then traveled back and forth from the U.S. to India for about seven years with the goal of

becoming a monk. But in that time met my wife, fell in love, got confused, and then decided ultimately that becoming a monk was about ego, that I couldn't cut it in the real world, and that like it was a very, if I said like, oh, I'm like the real world isn't for me because I'm bad at it. And I thought of all of the reasons why becoming a monk was like a fantastic idea,

right? Because like there are so many positives about it. There's so many logical reasons that it's good. But at the root of it, the problem was ego, which by the way, I think could apply to you and your view of emotions as well. A form of post hoc rationalism.

you have like an end goal and you're just going to do whatever you can to get to it basically. Yeah, without really, yeah, sure. Yeah. So I think you have a potentially a subtle ego, but I don't think your ego is generally very large. Sure, I agree. But ultimately that it was really about ego and that living a spiritual life has nothing to do with wearing robes or like, you know, being in a particular location. That spirituality is all internal. It's like internal struggles.

It has nothing to do with what you wear or what you eat or, you know, whether you want. walk around with prayer beads or whatever. So decided to ultimately live life and ended up doing neuroscience research for a couple of years, went to med school, became a psychiatrist, and now I incorporate a lot of meditation, yoga, Eastern principles into like clinical practice. I do a lot of stuff for professional athletes, performance enhancement kind of stuff, some e-sports orgs, and that's kind of where I am. Is that answer? Yeah, I think so, yeah. Can I, If you have to go at any time, you can always tell me. Go for it.

If I were to ask you the question, do you feel like we've made a lot of progress as a civilization over the past, like, 50 to 100 years, specifically, like, in the Western world, or I'll even say more specifically in the United States? Would you agree or disagree with that? How would you measure that? Generally, I would agree. But it depends on how you're defining progress. Yeah, that's the question, I guess. I'm curious how you would define that. It's something I've thought about a lot recently.

I mean, so I think progress has different facets. So if you look at something like, so, you know, I sometimes get into discussions with, like, my mom. for example. And not just my mom, but there's a general idea that boomers like myself, things that think that things used to be better in the past, and that the world has become more materialistic. It's become like more vapid. I do think, for example, that mental health is on the rise. And I think that has a lot to do with social media, but also like infant mortality is like way fucking down. You know, like the norm for people growing up like 100 or 150 years ago is that multiple of their children would die. Yeah. And there's, I mean, I just think,

think that that's progress. Like, I think that, yeah. So I think in general, we made progress. And I think that the challenges of any given point in time continue to evolve and change. And that the primary challenges right now tend to be around ego, materialism, and like a disconnection from self. Okay. Yeah, I think I agree with that. I think that, um, go ahead.

The other way I'd put it is that the challenges, let's say, 150 years ago were lower on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And now we're getting closer to the challenges being like at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of meets. Oh, I'm not sure if I agree with that. My general thought on this and then you can say it feels like when we measure progress, it feels like we really like quantifiable stuff. So when we talk about like medical advancements, like vaccine rates, infant mortality, graduation, graduation rates, median income that we look at that. But it almost feels like we have, I'm only 30 years old.

But even in my lifetime, it feels like we never measure progress in terms of, like, how we view ourselves, how we maintain our personal relationships, how many friendships we have. And it feels like a lot of people miss that. And that around like, it feels strange that like in all of this technological, I'm sorry, I'm 31 years old. I remember it was three days ago. It feels like in the in the wake of like all of this like technological and biological medical advancement and everything, somehow like it feels like as a society, people have totally missed the self-development thing. And that in some ways, that's even regressing. I don't mean self-development terms of like lifting weight. No, no, no, but I agree with you, but I don't think it's regressing because when you're dying of cholera, like, feeling fulfilled is irrelevant.

Do you think that people, and this isn't strong disagreements, I'm just curious. Do you think that people that lived, have you ever heard the theory that like the hunter-gather lifestyle, that those people were probably like incredibly fulfilled and very happy? Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that it's possible that people like 100 years ago that had no internet, well, I won't go to 100 years ago. getting to like World War I stuff, but like outside of like wars and stuff. Do you think that people generally were more fulfilled in life and less depressed and felt better about themselves?

No. So this is going to be a little bit strange, but I think that this is exactly like what I, in my own life, I sort of came to this realization that happiness is actually independent of like, so the content. So early on I asked you like, would you say that the contentment that you feel is independent of emotion? Yeah. Right?

So I think that like this is something that the yogi is under. understood really well is they recognize that there's like, there are different layers of like pain and suffering. So would they use a word called duk? And duk means suffering. And the really interesting thing about duk is that it's actually independent to pain and pleasure. That you can have duk and be pleasure and being a life full of pleasure. Or you can have duk and you can have a life full of pain. Or you can have souk, which is like contentment or bliss or happiness and being a life full of pain.

So I think that these are independent. And the progress has been like more on the physical level. But I think what we're seeing in terms of the spike of my... The decline of mental. Yeah. So the... Oh, you're saying sick. There's a meme for like suck.

Like SUCC is like, I think that's why they're saying that. If that's what you're looking at your show. Oh, yeah. No, this is Sukha. It's the opposite of the... Yeah. Okay, good. But that those are relatively independent.

And this is like a big thing that I think a lot of the people that I work with struggle with because a lot of them are successful. and they think that just because you're successful, you should be happy. But in my experience, success and happiness, like in terms of worldly success or independent. And that, you know, I was stunned when I was working in a jail and was talking to one of the inmates and then, like, was talking to one of my patients who's an investment banker. And that the amount of suffering they experienced and the cause of their suffering was essentially the same. And it really caused me to scratch my head.

And I was like, how on earth is it that this investment banker is feeling the same thing that this guy in prison is feeling? Their lives are completely different. And it's this recognition that, you know, sure, life was simpler. It's hard for me to say, like, I do think that social media, for example, exacerbates ego and makes us more prone to Duke. So I would say that, like, social media has that kind of effect. But generally speaking, I think the whole point that Buddha made was that contentment and suffering is on a separate axis from success, joy, pleasure, sadness, failure. and that I don't know if that really has changed, which I think is part of the reason why, like,

those teachings have, like, been so prevalent, right? There's a Darwinian, like, effect on human knowledge. And, like, this stuff has been around for thousands of years, and now is kind of having a revitalization, because this is what we need. So I am an incredibly atheist, very atheist, very anti-theological, everything. When I was growing up, I went to a Catholic school from Greek, one to 12. I went to a Jesuit high school, I went to a Catholic grade school. Despite being

very anti-religious, I feel like throughout the course of my entire life, the only type of institution that was giving me any type of actual, like long-term fulfillment actually came from the Catholic Church. That like everything else in life is kind of like geared towards like true happiness is like going to school so you can get a good job and you need a good job so that you can get, you know, a big house and to have some whatever. Like a lot of things that don't, I don't think necessarily go towards a more like fulfilling life in terms of like feeling like your, your self-actualized, I guess, if we borrow the Maslow thing. Do you ever think that like, these are very broad questions, sorry, do you ever think

that like the secularization of society and kind of like the loss of religion and the lack of replacement for that, like leads people to get, I don't know, kind of lost in terms of like the things are like, how do you direct somebody to find purpose in life who is like an atheist and a religious person? It seems like a really hard thing to do for a lot of people. Well, that's three questions. So your first question is, do you think that the secularization of society comes at a cost? And I say, yeah.

And I think that's why mindfulness and yoga studios are popping up all over the place. Because there is something that religion used to fill, which we've kind of now fewer people are turning to. And there's been a resurgence of like appreciation of Buddhism, for example, which is, sort of a religion, but not really like a Judeo-Christian religion. And Hinduism is kind of the same way. And so I think, yeah, that's, so like you can, you can look as a scientist or an epidemiologist, as I think is a better way to think about it. You can look at trends in society and say, like, what is causing people suffering now?

What is causing them hurt? And what are people gravitating towards? And I think that there's a very natural correlation there. The second thing that you asked is if someone's an atheist, how can you help them find purpose and fulfillment? So I think that Buddhism and Hinduism are good religions because Hinduism, very few people understand this, but Hinduism is theistic and atheistic at the same time. It is monotheistic, polytheistic, and atheistic. All three of these doctrines exist equally and happily within Buddhism. I mean, within Hinduism. So I think that, like, in terms of giving someone a sense of purpose, like, they don't have to be religious, but I think it can be very helpful to turn to religious texts because those are. sources of very good knowledge, in my opinion. So I used to be and or slash am an atheist still, and I derive a lot of value out of a lot of Hindu and Buddhist texts. Because I think it's not like belief. So this is the big thing is that Judeo-Christian religions are about believing

in a particular thing, whereas the Eastern religions are not. They sort of start with the idea that like pull what you want to out of this religion because there are many different paths to enlightenment. And so on my stream the other day, like, I don't know what percentage of people that I listened to, I mean, that watch my stream are atheists or religious, but I did a story that's from, in theory, an Indian epic slash Hindu religious text. And I think that went really well. And the story is not like, you should believe this. And it's like the Ten Commandments and this, this, this. The story is about exploring what your purpose is in life. And it's kind of like a convoluted thing that turns morality and purpose, like, on their heads.

So there's like a good guy in the story and there's a bad guy in the story, but the good guy is the one who's not fulfilling his purpose and the bad guy is the one who is. So it sort of causes you to grapple with questions of duty and morality and that those may not always line up and like, how do you navigate life? How do you find purpose? I get a lot of stuff out of some of these, quote, quote, religious texts, even though you have to, you don't have to believe in the fucking religion. You just, you know, read it and think and learn and explore for yourself and come to your own conclusions. Sure.

And to answer your question in a very concrete way, I think if you're looking for purpose in life, a great text to start with is something called the Mahabharath. Because it's a story about duty and responsibility. Okay. It's just a fun read, too. Okay. Mahavah. Is that a good translation?

Is it entertaining? I mean, I think there are cool stories. So I liked video games, and I loved reading the Mahabharath, because there are like different kinds of weapons and there's like this half demon guy that is unkillable and then someone has to use like he can throw lightning from the sky and he's like a child of he's a grandson of the wind god and shit like that which i just like because it's cool yeah yeah yeah it's cool mythology and theology especially is usually entertaining i've tried to get more of the philosophy oh my fucking god reading anything by even hume or kant or anything is very fucking dry

holy shit yeah i think so that's what i like about the marvart they're like there are cool stories about betrayal and and like tricking and like there's this guy who is saving this one arrow so he's got like this one shot kill it's like he's got this one very special arrow that will destroy anything that he shoots it against and like if you're playing against that how do you create a situation where they have to use their one shot kill and protect your ace in the hole and so it's sort of like stories like that that I think are cool okay um all right is that it guys anything else over you can I think we're good, man. Thanks a lot, Destiny. Okay, cool. Thanks a lot. Do you want to plug your stuff?

What do you? Oh, yeah. People are crucifying me because I forget to do that. Yeah, go for it. So, you know, a couple of things. So we stream, I stream on Twitch, and I do like sort of mental health support content, teach meditation, help people understand, you know, how they work as human beings. Because it's my belief that a lot of the reasons that we get stuck in life is we don't understand, like, where we come from, like, how our mind. works how our mind got to be that way. And if you want to make a change in your life, you have to understand like where the origins of your patterns come from. So I essentially try to help people do that. We also have a website called www.halthygamer.g. Where originally it was about treating people with video game addiction, but now we're just sort of expanding on all this stuff. We have a beta program that we're training coaches in. So we've got about a dozen coaches that I'm personally training

because I get about 20 to 200 requests for people to, for me to work with them per day. There's no way I can help everyone. I want to. But I'm training a group of coaches. The beta is now closed because we kind of filled up. And so we're basically trying to create a community for gamers to support themselves, support each other, and sort of mental health for gamers by gamers. It is not a medical thing.

So I'm a clinician, but it's not medical. So it's not intended to diagnose or treat anything. So people should understand that. We've got a Discord and all that kind of good stuff too. And if you all want to come on stream and have me talk to you, then I'm open to doing that. we have people, all kinds of people come on stream. Awesome. Do you have a link to your Discord and your chat or whatever? If you bring it up, I can link it to my community or whatever.

I don't know how to do that. Exclamation mark Discord. Yeah, I think that link should be fine. Okay, cool. Awesome. Well, yeah, thanks a lot. If you want to chat again, or if I want to chat again, I'll hit you up. Yeah. Yeah, let me know.

Cool. Thanks a lot of if you decide to explore your emotions. Sure, thank. I'll let you know. Bye.