HealthyGamerGG - Detecting Your Psychological Blindspots with CLG's HotshotGG

Episode Date: September 28, 2020

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Hello, hello. Hey, man. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. How are you? It's an early morning, but I'm doing well. So, perfect. That's great. I just, I think our sound levels and stuff are good. Yeah, so, and what do you go by? You can call me George.

George, okay. So welcome, George. I'm Ollup. It's nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. That's a cool wall you have there. Yeah, that's my whiteboard wall. This is like my office, so. Yeah, that's, is your entire wall and your ceiling are whiteboards? So we didn't go as far as the ceiling, but I thought that would be like a funny way of having the interior. But I didn't go that crazy.

It's interesting. I got to upgrade my game. Can I show you what I have? Yeah, yeah. Please do. Oh, you're lugging that thing around. unfortunate. I just have the old-fashioned one.

Oh, nice. You have such better handwriting. This is what I'm working on. It's our understanding of depression. Oh, interesting. Nice. I like how you break that down. I run into a problem with my whiteboard because if I want to work on more than one thing at a time, I have to erase the old thing.

But I think maybe I should take a page from your book and just coat the walls with whiteboard because then I can cover it with all my things. I really love that idea. It's not that expensive, so it's convenient. It's convenient. Yeah, cool, man. And so, George, is there something in particular you want to talk about today? Honestly, not really. I think dissecting me a little bit and maybe like talking about my life would be interesting.

There's a lot that's happened over like the course of my exploration. I started in Canada, London, Ontario when I was like 19, and then I'm 30 now and I'm in California. And it's been a pretty long journey. A lot of stuff has happened. And I think that journey is interesting for a lot of people. And so I don't really tell it much. Yeah. So that sounds fantastic.

Is there something that you're, so tell me about your journey? Yeah, sure. So I was like 19 years old. Twitch didn't exist. It was the start of streaming in general. There were platforms like live stream and X stream. And so I was just like a kid that wanted to show how good he was at playing a certain champion in League of Legends. So I started that.

And I started streaming to like five viewers. And that somehow. evolved from like living in my mom's basement and uh to to going to school and doing it um and then i dropped out of school to like pursue uh gaming full time actually it was streaming and then i built a community for people to connect people use websites a lot more back then um and uh we had like the clg website and It was actually a community, and I love bringing people together. And how did you come up with CLG?

So when I played this game called Warcraft 3, I understand it now as a game theory, but it's making assumptions on what your enemy is going to do over and over and over and over, in which if you didn't make an assumption, you would win some of the time, right? you just kind of like throw out the same or like a simple move, the opponent like overthinks themselves. That's how I like, I thought of it when I was like 13 or something. And what does CLG stand for? Counterlogic gaming.

So the counter logic there is sort of not falling into the normal assumptions of game theory? Yes. Well, it is game theory, but you know, like, at the time when I was 13, like, that's what I was, that's what I was thinking in my head. Okay. Yeah, that's awesome, man. And what did you play in War III? I played human. Human was my race, yeah. Water elements are so, so Ope. Did you go Archie first? Yeah, I did all the time. Actually, I also did Blood Mage too. Oh, that's styling, man. Yeah, I was the, I was like the styler. I looked up to all the players that did Waxies.

key things and thought outside the box. So that was my... Do you remember this guy, AKM? Yes. I actually talk to AKM. He comes on... I've come on his stream every now and then. He still like hangs around the Twitch community. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

So you know the workout three days. Yeah, man. This is Boomer talk about the old days. Back when it was real gaming. Yeah. My hero's Grubby. Grubby's like my gaming idol. Interesting. Okay. He's an amazing human being. And so it sounds like you started playing games when you were pretty young.

Yeah, I mean, I started playing games when I was like two years old. I remember like playing Berenstine Bears on like the computer. And then my dad got me Diablo before it was released somehow. And I played that. And yeah, I've just been in love with games forever. He had the hookups. Yeah. And what?

What was growing up like for you in Ontario? Ontario is a fairly large, well, sorry, Ontario's, I don't think of it too much different than L.A. I think the culture of people in Canada are arguably a lot more accepting. But it was pretty normal. Like for here in L.A., I don't really notice too much of a difference. Sure. There's some cultural differences, but. And can you tell me a little bit about what home life was like for you?

So home life, and thank you for leading this. It's hard to talk about yourself and talk about your journey. So I appreciate you doing it. I noticed you started at 19 and I tend to get, I just wanted a little bit more backstory. No, that's great. That's great. So what was the last question? Yeah, just tell me what growing up was like for you. Oh, yeah.

So growing up, I lived with my grandparents and my parents. And my mom was hurt in an accident. So her back was out. And so, you know, that's why we kind of like live together. And I had a lot of values from my grandparents. Kind of like, you know, when you have like one set of parents, I like my grandparents, and then I also had my parents too. Yep. Thank you. So you were saying that it sounds like your grandmother had an injury or your mom, I'm sorry?

My mom had an injury, yeah. So she had a back injury. She had a back injury. So, yeah. I live with my grandparents, and they were like my full-time parents, and, you know, my mom wasn't able to be my full-time parent. And my dad was doing whatever he was doing. What was he doing? My dad was always like tinkering with things and like finding things to do. I don't think he really had like a job that he was consistent with.

He just always in Canada there was this huge thing when people were stealing a satellite from the U.S. I'm not sure with like when satellite TV was a big thing. And so he was like on the forefront of like tinkering with that and like, He was kind of like an engineer type person, you know? Okay. He's like, it wasn't like about the business part of it. It was about like, oh, this thing is cool. This concept is cool how like radios connect, how like satellites connect.

And so. Yeah, that's interesting. And so do you mind if I ask Georgia? I mean, how did your, how did your family support itself? My mom's a teacher. So she would work. Yeah. She would work.

Yeah. Okay. My grandparents were fairly well off. they came as immigrants and they had nothing. My grandfather was actually like a war general in Greece. He fought against Turkey at some point. I can't remember the whole history, but he didn't like talking about it. He just liked being the nice, jolly grandfather,

which my parents didn't really get. I got. So I love that. Can you tell me a little bit? bit more about him? Yeah, I mean, he was, he was a guy that everybody, when they talked about him in the past, he was like this big, scary controlling dude that was really, really hard on his kids. And now I think, like, he, when I knew him and when I was like always growing up with him,

he was kind of like this jolly guy that like put you in the right place if you were going too far off but it wasn't like in the same lens of like how they he did it to my parents like he would be like George I'm going to drive you down like if I was missing school or skipping school he'd he'd basically drive me down to places where in the city where it was drug ridden full and full with crime filled with crime like just like this is what real life is. is if you don't succeed in life. This is where you can fall, like the depths of it. And so, like, it's important to know these things. And he wasn't trying to, like, shock me or scare me. It was more like, this is reality. And don't fall in a trap, like, thinking this is all a game. Interesting.

So what I'm hearing, it's quite a powerful image, actually. Yeah. Yeah. And what I'm hearing is that, you know, it sounds like he used to be controlling. But instead, what he did with you was sort of. of tried to inform you and then also sort of respect your ability to like make a decision. So he kind of says like here are your options. But it's ultimately your choice.

And maybe with your parents, he sort of didn't do that as much. He was like this is what you're going to do. Exactly. Yeah. It sounds like you respect him a lot because of it. Oh yeah. My grandfather was very, very like he was a good human being and he was very, I would say he like very punctual with his behavior. I don't know how to describe it. He was very consistent.

Same with my grandma. My grandma is just like an incredible human being like strongest woman I've ever met my life. But you know, that's probably because their lives were very, very hard. So they had to be. What made her so strong? What do you mean by that? She's still like garden for like three hours on end. She's like in her 80s. Her sisters like tend mountains. goats by themselves in the middle of nowhere on like up large steep mountains in Greece in Greece yeah she would beat me up and like wrestle me like for a significant period of my life and she was jacked she was legitimately strong and like her punctuality was crazy she never missed ever since she came to Canada, she never missed one day working for 40 years.

Wow. But it was it was like the spirit of it that she had, which was really interesting. What's that spirit? It wasn't like punctuality for punctuality's sake. It was the spirit of being strong for others. That's what it was about. Sounds like you love and respect your grandparents a lot. Oh yeah.

They're they're like my eyes. titles. Yeah. You know, this may sound kind of... I was lucky to have them. This may sound kind of weird, George, but I'm, I'm almost hearing like, this is maybe unfair, but I'm almost hearing like a little bit of a, I don't know, you just speak so highly of your grandparents, and I don't quite hear that when you talk about your parents. Well, yeah. My father, my father divorced my mom when I was like 13, and so my mom was a single mother. And she was very, very busy with, like, work and school. And she's kind of like a kind woman.

So she didn't ask my father for child support. She was basically like, hey, let's try to keep this civil. Like, you go do your own thing. I'm going to live my own life. And I'm going to try my best to, like, raise the kids. And so I think mom and dad. dad weren't there as much as grandfather and grandmother. And especially in a value sense, in a thought sense, I think when you're not in the motion of things and you're not doing things

so much, you have time to reflect on what values you want to carry across, who you want to be. And so I think my grandparents were like very cognizant of like who they wanted to be and who they wanted me to be and what values they wanted to instill in me. And what I'm hearing from you is maybe your parents weren't like that? No. Well, I think my mom was just like trying to get me to get past like not failing. Right. She was she was keeping me above water and she fought to keep me above water. Why were you below water in the first place? I think this is this is a good question.

Um, so I was always addicted to games. Uh, I love the challenge and the nature of games. Like, school wasn't challenging for me. Um, schools, I would, yeah, schools for actual noobs. Um, I would go into like, you know, Warcraft 3. I was like top of the top of the US East ladder. And, you know, I had like a lot of people I respected there. And I had a huge level of respect for my opponents. That's why my name is Hotchot G. It's not because of my initials. It's because I had like a huge respect for my opponents. And so deconstructing why I lost was like really important to me.

And deconstructing how I could improve is really important to me. So you call that an addiction? I called it an addiction because I didn't want to do anything else. All I wanted to do is get lost in those worlds. and I couldn't force myself to do anything else. It just wasn't of my interest. And maybe it is an addiction. Maybe it's just a passion.

I think when we go into that period of time, a lot of people would have called it an addiction, and they would have claimed it was an addiction. As I talk of it now, I don't know. think of it in addiction in any way, shape, or form, even if I play a jillion hours a day. Interesting. But that's like, that's the sentiment towards gaming, right? It's, it's changed over the past, a couple of years, or not a couple of years, past 10 years.

So much. So, George, help me understand what was it about the game that was so attractive to you? And what was it about real life that was so unattractive? Yeah. So I wouldn't say real life was unattractive. I would say school was unattractive. A lecturer talking to you and just telling you to write notes. And like in my opinion, the problems weren't that difficult. They weren't. I wasn't constantly evolving and engaging. It was more like I was following a process that someone was like, hey, A, B, C. And then I go to, I come into school and be like, A, B, C. It was a very boring, uninteractive and it was more like

follow the steps. Rather than here's a sophisticated challenge that we let you explore yourself in and we let you challenge at your pace at your level. You know, there's some people

that are stuck in gold their whole life, right? And some people that finally climb to platinum and there's people that reach the top echelon and inspire like millions across the world. Right. And so the freedom of gaming is that you really, you're just put in that leaderboard system. You put into that matchmaking system and where you can get like instant feedback, instant results, which is a problem in self.

Yeah. Yeah. And so you say that your mom struggled to keep you above water. What do you mean by that? Just like getting through school. My teachers really, really loved me in one sense, which was like as a nice kid, I was very intelligent, but I didn't go to school. I missed like 381 days of school in my high school years. And I stayed home a lot.

And I barely passed. I passed with like 70s, like high 70s. How did you stay home so much from school? I actually faked sick, which if there's karma in the world, it turned into like real sick somehow. But what I would do is like I would say my stomach hurts. I can't go to school and like my mom bought it a lot. Um, and, um, George, I don't know if we're ever going to get to 19. Yeah, no, I know. I mean, we can speed it up.

No, no, no. I think my point is that I, I didn't mean to say that we should speed it up. What I, what I meant to say is that I think there's a lot of important stuff here. And that if you're, if you're okay with it, maybe we'll kind of focus on what you're sharing. Yeah. So I, I think like, to be. Be candid with you, right? I'm very, like, I have thick skin. I've had thick skin because of my time in CLG and doing what I did. And I also have the, I think, a strong ability to not be defensive and really to just look to help others. And so talking about my life and being very open with things is about helping others, right? And so that's why I'm like,

dissect me because I think there's a lot of things that I can talk about to help be relatable to a lot of young people and also maybe like give them some life lessons about what I've learned and and hopefully give them some guidance in that in that regard. Okay, I say something provocative. No. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Sorry.

Go ahead. Yeah. I just got to think about whether I want to say this or not. Say it. I promise. I promise you can say it. Unless, unless you think it's. going to affect others negatively. So why does someone fake sick? I have no idea other than to just

escape responsibility. Sure. So I think escaping responsibility is true. I would say overall avoidance. I think it's an avoidance strategy. What if I told you that your altruism could also be an avoidance strategy? That your thick skin is just a It's a healthier manifestation of whatever caused you to fake sick. It's still a form of avoidance. That by devoting yourself to others, you can avoid looking at yourself. I would say that's only half true. I think the process of me looking at myself has been happening.

And I've had a lot of great human beings in my life that have helped me get there. And I went through a lot of bad stuff to get out of that. And I think my altruism is twofold. It's like I'm in the process of evolving. So I would agree and disagree. I think maybe my ideals are too idealistic. And it's not like in this realm of I'm being like fully real with myself. But I think it's in the right place.

I might get a little too excited and jump the gun a little bit, but I know where I'm going. And I'm very like, I feel it as well as thinking it. I can get behind that. Okay, cool. Yeah. So is it okay if we talk a little bit more about feeling sick? Sure.

And then you said something about karma. What do you mean by that? You said that. So, yeah. So I, yeah, it was like a stomach thing. And like I was like, yeah, I have the stomach. thing and I went to the doctors and they actually like were like, hey, your kid might have IBS, I think it was, you know, bowel syndrome.

Yeah. And then like potentially acid reflux and that's what's causing these issues. And now I have acid reflux and it's actually caused some issues, which is, you know, it's almost like Pinocchio, you know? Yeah. So how does that work? I don't know. I think that it could just be coincidence,

but I think it's a funny, it's a funny thing to think about it. I don't think we'll ever know or figure out what and why or how that happens. But coincidence, let's chalk it up as that. I don't think so, man. Really? Yeah. What's your understanding of what IBS is?

IBS So I haven't thought about this since I was a kid, right? But I thought it was something related to like a physical part of your stomach not responding correctly. That's somewhat incorrect. So sort of. Yeah. So the first thing is IBS is irritable bowel syndrome. and IBS is one of this new wave of physical diseases that are probably psychosomatic.

Oh, interesting. Right? So that's part of the reason when they can't find something in particular wrong with you. Like there isn't a cause for your distress, but there is a problem with your function. So they're also called functional diseases. So like, let me just put it this way. Like, so if you think about a functional disease, so a functional disease is like, it's a disease of function, but like not a disease of cause. So if I have a gunshot wound, there is a

clear cause as to why my function is impaired. There are some diseases where you have the functional impairment, like something isn't working right, but it doesn't necessarily have a causative agent. Got it. Okay. It makes sense. And so I know you kind of laugh about karma and coincidence, But I don't think it's really coincidence at all that you were probably going through, and we can sort of see touches of this, right? Sure. So you were probably going through a fair amount of psychological distress around the age of 13. Yeah, I think maybe I developed like some coping mechanisms of rationalism. and just being like, hey, it's not logical to feel pain.

Hey, like, my dad's an idiot. Like, don't feel sad about that. You know, like all that stuff. Yeah. So this is like this is a neat thing, right? So cool principle of the body. When you bury emotion, do you know how it comes out? It forces itself out.

I'm not sure now. Yeah, it forces itself out through the body. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Right? So it's got to come out. I'm pretty healthy otherwise. But I mean, I'm sure that there could have been a lot of commonality in terms of like different things that could have been wrong for me.

Right. And I just find it curious that it was my stomach, right? Like you could apply this to so many different parts of my body. But the thing I was like trying to use to fake became the specific point, you know? Yeah. So there are physiologic reasons for that. Really? Yeah.

So that's crazy. First question is, do you know what the most common treatment for medication treatment for depression is? Do you happen to know that? What do we use to treat depression? Do you know? I don't know, actually. So like antidepressants, the most common one is something called a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor or an SSRI. Okay. Which essentially increases the level of serotonin activity in the brain.

So an interesting side note, which is, do you know where serotonin is the most plentiful in your body? No idea. It's in the brain. Can you guess where the second most plentiful place for serotonin in the body is? I'm going to guess it's the stomach. Absolutely. And you would be correct. Okay.

So there is actually a lot of growing evidence that mental health and your GI system are intrinsically connected. In fact, there is an entire burgeoning field of science called gut brain health. And this is the wildest experiment that I tell people about because it's my favorite example. They took a group of

depressed mice. And you can tell a mouse is depressed in one of two ways. One is you put it into like a novel environment and mice tend to be like curious creatures. And so if it's a healthy mouse, it'll like get curious and explore things. If it's a depressed,

mouse, it'll just sit there and not do much. That's the more humane version. The second way you assess depression in the mouse is by putting it in a chamber with water where there's nothing to, there's nothing for it to stand on. And then a healthy mouse will struggle to swim until it gets tired and kind of starts to drown, which is sort of inhumane. Whereas a depressed mouse will give up very easily. Got it.

They don't actually let them drown. They, you know, pull them out. But they see how long they try. That's interesting. So they took a depressed mouse and then they took its poop. And then they transplanted its poop to a healthy mouse. And what they found is that the transplanted poop led to depression. Interesting.

I would buy that. It's weird. Yeah. And so we also know that like physiologically, like when you're feeling stress or depression. So one of the nine diagnostic criteria for depression is changes in appetite or weight gain. Got it. So there are nine things that sort of we look for in depression. So the stomach and the brain are actually very closely linked.

Yeah. And I don't think it's much of it. I don't think it's karma per se. But we know that, for example, like children who are distressed will experience stomach aches. And that oftentimes stomach aches are sort of. When we say psychological in origin, it doesn't mean that there isn't something going on in the stomach. There is something going on in the stomach. It's just that our brain, I know it's wild, but our brain and our bodies are actually connected.

And our psychology and physiology are actually connected. And IBS is a very good example of one of these conditions where a lot of people will have treatment and then it won't really work because it's unclear exactly what's wrong. and then they'll come to me and then I'll treat them for a little while. Their IBS will go away. I think it's interesting because the part I think is fascinating

is when I saw it before, the brain and the body being linked and being able to cause harm to each other made sense, right? But it's the specific quality of it being linked to the stomach or the mouth, Like I've read some stuff about like potentially like healthy, you know, gums and gum function and just like, you know, mouth bacteria lead to like something related to the brain, right? Yep.

And so I thought it was like more uniform. Like if you start having like a lot of stress and anxiety and all these things that you start to take a full toll on your body. But it must be more specific than that, right? Yeah, so you're saying that your global body function is affected equally? Yes. Yeah, so it turns out that that's not necessarily the case and that there is specificity. Cool. You said something else there that I wanted to mention for a second, but I lost track of it.

Anyway. It's fine. Oh, yeah, you said that one is able to hurt the other. Yes. So that's not how I think about it. I think about, I don't think they hurt each other. I think they're on the same team and what they're doing is transferring

some amount of damage from one to the other. Okay, fair enough. I agree with that. So let's kind of go back to this. So can you tell me a little bit about how you felt about your dad divorcing your mom? Yeah, so I rationalized it when I was 13 that my dad's just not a great person. he's not a great father and he did something bad to my mother and like I need to like and he wasn't really like

he he wasn't like that emotionally connected to me I guess maybe when I was a kid I have like that image of Diab like him giving me Diablo and like playing some games with me when I was very young but at a certain point he just stopped being there and I think if he was there more or I didn't have my grandfather. I would have been, I would have been, like, I think more stricken by that. But I just rationalize as like, hey, not a good dude. My mom's a good person.

My grandparents are good people. I have my family, so he can go do his own thing. He used the word rationalize. Because it helped me make sense of everything. Like, think about it, I play Warcraft 3. how I win is not through emotion. It's through pure logic, right? It's like, and so I bring the game components into my real life.

That's what got me to where I am now. It's figuring out how to pull that, those learnings in the way my brain works, pattern recognition, blah, blah, into, but I brought it into the real world maybe too much. Why do you say you brought it into the real world too much? This is later stuff. This is like when you realize how things are linked in your childhood and how you grew up to like form who you are and stuff.

Isn't that what we're talking about? I mean, if you kind of. I guess I thought we were going through like a more progressive, chronologically. Yeah. Yeah. Let me just, George, let me ask you a question. But if you want to connect, you can. Are you in a relationship right now? Yeah. How's that going? Very well. Okay. Yeah, sorry, I tend to jump out around a little bit. So I'm going to go back to this idea of rationalization for a second. Sure. So if you're rationalizing, that implies to me, like just the way that you talk about it, it implies to me that there are other things within you.

Okay. Right. So if you say, like if you say, I rationalized it to myself dot, dot, dot, which implies that you're taking, and you used a really good analogy with the gaming, right? So like you have emotions and you have rational thought. And what we're going to do is push our emotions to the side and we're going to focus on the rational. And then you even did a great job.

Then you said, I took the strategy and then I applied it to my real life, which implies that there were other things that you thought or felt, which had been pushed to the side. favor of rationality. Yeah. So I can actually really remember that time period because like I love it for a lot of reasons. But and also like it was hard for a lot of reasons. I wasn't that strongly connected with my dad. Like I it didn't it didn't hurt. I think other things in my life like seeing my parents cry or seeing my mom cry seeing my grandmother cry like going through hardships with my family that stuff hurt right and i like i sucked it up to be strong because that's like kind of like the status quo for the men in the family but as far as my connection to my dad it's never really

hurt it never really hurt um maybe that's weird but i can like firmly remember that Yeah, okay. I think I can get behind that because you seem very confident that your dad has sort of sounded like just another dude. He's just another dude. He's just another dude. I mean, he wasn't around much, right? As I explained earlier, he brought me Diablo, which is my favorite memory, right? But other than that, it's kind of like blank. Yeah. Right. Do you remember feeling a particular way? Not so much about him just being another. dude, but the fact that you grew up with just another dude for a dad instead of a real dad? My grandfather was like my real dad for me. And so like if I didn't have my grandfather, I'd probably be more of a mess. But he was, he was there for me all the time.

Okay. I lived with him a lot. Yeah. I mean, I think you, yeah, you talk about him with a lot of respect and love. and it sounds like he really was there for you and did all the things that a dad should do like you know teach you take the time to like teach you things and show you things and also like respect you enough to kind of make your own decisions have the faith in you that you're going to make the right ones it sounds like he was an awesome person also

he was an awesome person yep and you're talking you use the past tense when you talk about your grandfather and the present tense when you talk about your grandmother Yeah, my grandfather passed away while I was in the U.S. He, this is where we're jumping a little bit, but I'm fine because I think you want to do that. I was illegally in the U.S. Because the visa situations were hard at the start of the e-sports. Like my visa was one of the first e-sports visas ever. And I was operating CLG.

And what happened was if I went back to the U.S., I couldn't continue CLG and I couldn't continue just gaming in general. And he passed away while I was in U.S. and he was in Canada. And he told me to, like, I was like, hey, I want to come back. He said, don't come back. Like, stay in the U.S. Like, I love you. You don't have to do this.

this, like, grandma knows, like, just stay there. I'm going to be fine. And obviously he wasn't fine, but that was super hard for me. Yeah. Was that like not going back? I knew what he was trying to say. I knew he was, like, be strong, George. like I know what mission I put you on right I know who I wanted you to be like keep doing it like

I'm proud of you that's what he that's what he was saying and like I think he was also trying to save me some like emotional damage too of well maybe like emotional relief with everybody I like I get really sad when my grandma gets sad. And so, like, being there with everybody probably would have, uh, probably would have been a huge burden while trying to like manage CLG, run CLG and play on the team. Like, I was just so overwhelmed with so many things at that time. Sounds like he was looking out for you.

Yeah, he was. Always did. Even towards the end. Mm-hmm. Put you first. Mm-hmm. Sounds like it has... Yeah.

Yeah. I can also see how altruism isn't just a defense mechanism for you because I think you learned that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm very sure I learned it. Yeah. Sounds like you miss him a lot. Of course. We all do, yeah. What are you feeling right now? I'm sad. Very sad. Like, I kind of feel like I want to cry. but I'm stopping myself because one, I don't want to cry on stream.

And two, that's actually probably the right thing to do based on what I want to do. I have a really, and I have a really, this is, sorry, my thoughts are getting confused my feelings right now. I think a lot of the problems that people have, are they're not able to connect with emotions. Like people aren't resonating with their true self and their true feelings. And so part of me accepting to come here is to really, really show that I'm like a human being and that we're all human beings, right? And I think we forget that very often. And I'm sure that you're aware of that paradigm just being very true in this space.

It seems to me like the emotions are even more powerful as you say that. Yes, of course. Why? I mean, you have to really hone in on some of the stuff that's happened. and some of the people that have come on here, right? I have a lot of respect for you because you're able to get people to a place where they're honest to help others. That's what I see you as. So, you know, for recful, for a lot of different people,

and influencers, streamers, whatever you want to call them. It's really hard. Even people that play sports, that commit to like a journey to be in front of media and others, it's very hard. There's a huge cost associated to it that we all just shove under. What's that cost? It's hard like humanity.

It really is. You feel like you sacrificed that? Oh, for sure. I sacrificed that a lot. And I see it doesn't matter what part of success that you go to, it's prevalent everywhere. It's like a disease, like everywhere. It doesn't matter if it's,

if you're, you know, at the bottom of a company, if you're at the top of a company, it doesn't matter if you're just like someone that, you know, it's just playing games and are part of these communities, like it's everywhere. So, yeah. We're losing our humanity. We're losing our humanity. Can I think for a second? Sure.

I'm going to lighten the mood a touch because you've told me that you don't want to cry. I think that that was a defense mechanism, not wanting to cry. If I were, if I were to say that, I came here on a mission in which is to talk about things to help the people. And if you think, honestly think that I can help other people by talking about those things, then I'm okay talking about them. Why do you need to help other people? Because it's important to me that people don't suffer the same way I did.

It's important to me. Fuck. Where did I begin, dude? I didn't know I had feelings. I rationalized that I had feelings up until like a year and a half ago. And then the start of even recognizing that I had feelings,

was like I didn't know what the fuck was going on that's basically what it was what happened a year and a half ago God damn okay I would say that the biggest thing and I hate to talk about this this is where we get a little

I went to my first rave and I don't like talking about this because I think you know where it goes. And I think it's a very, uh, maybe, maybe, no, okay, okay, fine. I'll just talk about it. I took a drug and I used to, okay, no, I should talk about this. Fuck. Um, I took a drug and then in the moment, I started feeling. And then I recognized how other people would feel.

And I recognized what that felt like. And then I've tried to like understand how I felt and what the differences of like how I was feeling at the time versus how I normally am. Try to understand how I can get there like mentally, spiritually, like physically without the need of that. But that was like the catalyst to like really push me in that way. And what did you realize about how other people felt?

That they were suffering. A lot of people were suffering. And a lot of people were able to have fun and enjoy the company of each other. Just like everything that has to do with emotions. Like to be able to like really feel what it's like to be. that other person. I'm not like, you know, I don't fully understand it to this day, right? Like I'm still learning.

But yeah, I get it. Did you feel somehow responsible for their suffering? No. I don't, I think I don't feel responsible for, for like the suffering of those around me. I think there is a level of responsibility I have to like the gaming community because I was like a leader in it. I was a part of it. And but like if you ask me, like, am I responsible for everybody that suffers around me? I'd say no.

Do you feel responsible for anyone who suffers around you? No. I think I'm there to help people that are trying to listen. I like you can't help someone that doesn't want to help themselves right so I think bearing that responsibility is a little too much um do you help yourself yeah I do I do help myself a lot okay um but yeah this is this is like very complex and it's just like you know it's a lot um but what's complex feel free to ask questions um so the way my brain works is like I think of 50 things at once and how they're all interconnected.

And so there's like, it's really hard for me to speak out loud. I usually think first and then speak. But when thoughts get very complicated in my head, it really screws up my communication. So that's what's good. Do you feel like you're not communicating well right now? I have no idea. I would say my communication is like generally not. that great. But, yeah, I don't know. Can I think for a second? Sure. Go ahead. So I'm a little confused. Sure. And I don't think it's because you're communicating poorly. I think it's just I understood where we were. And I sort of understand where we are now. I don't really understand how we got from A to B because something changed very rapidly. We were talking about your grand.

grandfather, understandable that you have emotions there. And then we started talking about like the hurt of the world. And that seemed to evoke even more emotion. Yes. And I got the sense that I almost feel like I imagine, you know, they're, I'm from Texas. And in Texas, you know, they're like oil fields. And so you'd have a farmer that would be digging a ditch and they'd hit something and then oil would start spurting out of the ground. And it's sort of like, wait, where did that come from?

Clearly something there. Clearly something important. Not what I expected. I was looking for a potato. And I found what. Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm kind of trying to understand a little bit.

I'm just kind of, I'm sharing with you what I'm processing right now, which is sort of like where to go from here and what's useful. And because I understood where we were. I was sort of like, I mean, I wouldn't quite say leading, but like I kind of had a couple of hypotheses. Yeah, I'll maybe help you and just speak out loud. Okay. Fundamentally, like, I feel obligated to try to make the world a better place. And because I see the human cost of everything that we're doing within our country, within my friend groups, just around the world,

I consume just like a huge amount of information, right, of so many different fields, right? And I hit the surface level of all them, but I see them connect, right? And I also ask so many different people, like the question, why? And I asked it so many different ways to try to understand and understand

what's going on in the world. And I'm stopping asking why and I finally am like building a conclusion. And from that conclusion, I've found some sort of motivation to reach deeper into myself to be a different kind of person. and try to help other people.

And I'm going through great lengths of like really challenging myself. Like I have all the money I could possibly want. Like I have a house. I have good friends. I have very limited. I have very low responsibility right now. Like, but I think I found a purpose in life that I really care about.

And I'm just chasing that purpose right now. What do you feel when you say that? Feels good. You know, it seems like you're on the verge of tears, but I get the sense of a powerful sort of like resolve. You know, I'm getting the valence of emotion as being positive. And sometimes what I'm sort of getting is that you're not, it just has a physiologic effect, right?

This is what we were talking about for a while, is that it just has an effect on your body when you think, certain thoughts and you feel that purpose and your body just has to like you see how some of the weight of what's on in your mental space has to be carried by your body yes and your body's just carrying it as best as it can which is sort of like physical emotional expression yeah what was the conclusion you came to um the conclusion is that everybody is suffering more and more We're on a train of, like, critical malfunction and is getting worse. No one's recognizing the problem.

The problem there being, like, we are disconnected from our emotions. We are losing our humanity. And we're losing the ability to help each other for this needless pursuit of wanting more and more and more. And also, I think they're underlying to all that is we use a lot of rationale and ideas to stop ourselves from admitting the truth or even searching for the truth. What I'd see is it doesn't matter how high you climb, billionaires, millionaires, I've talked to them. everybody is building this layer of rationale on why they do things and no one's searching to see if that's like the truth right if if their version of reality is even like congruent with what's happening in the world with other people's experiences with other people's

emotions um i think there's some people that are doing it but yeah you know george i I think the challenge when I listen to you is that, you know, earlier I kind of mentioned, I don't know if your altruism is like a manifestation of avoidance as well. And you kind of said, I agree and disagree. So once again, I don't think this is mutually exclusive, but I don't know if what you just said is, you know, quite like a tarma for life or if it's the mother load of all projective identification. Yeah. I don't, I would have to be, I can't, I can't know.

Like, right, right? Like, I, just the way that you're describing things, you sound like you're talking about yourself. Yes, I know, I know, I know. But that's how I help. Linking it to myself is just a way of helping me. articulate it. If I, like, think in my head, I think about all the recent conversations of other people where we just dig under the surface a little bit and just, like, really connect with each other.

And I just see all of them having a lot of similarity in pain and experiences. What about your own pain? What do you do with that? What do you do with your pain? I share it with other people. I asked them to walk me through how I'm feeling. I try to talk with them to... Are you in pain, George?

No. I mean, like generally speaking, I would say like my general state is little bit stressed. You seem to be an intense pain to me. Really? Yeah, when you talk about these things. Okay, sorry. This is like, I think our communication is falling apart a little bit.

This is where I think I become a bad communicator. And, oh God, Brian would be so, I have a roommate named Brian. And he's probably like one of the greatest people I've ever met in my life. and he's helped me become a better person. And through a lot of communication that we have with each other, I will say things that don't line up with who I am very frequently and what I think. And I communicate like the wrong sentiment. And very frequently he would say like George,

I've known you for like a year. I know that's not what you're saying. And then he would like correct my, I'm just, I'm having a really hard time communicating right now. I don't know how to describe it. I think you're doing a great job communicating. Oh, thank you. So I make me feel better.

I have a couple of counterpoints. So when I say I think I see a lot of pain right now, that's not me misinterpreting. It's my attempt at clarifying to make. sure that we're on the same page. Because communication problems are inevitable. Right. So when you talk about the suffering of the world and how we're losing humanity, I almost

see in you a manifestation of that pain. When you talk about it, you talk so deeply and with such conviction that it hurts you to see this happening all around you. Correct. Okay. I'm on the same page there. I was misinterpreting the pain as being like always pain. Like George, you're like always in the state of pain.

Okay, yeah, I don't know why I thought there or like where I got there. But I could make the connection. I mean, you hurt, man. Like when you talk about it, like I see hurt in you. Of course. Yeah, of course. I see others suffering. and I think about how much I was suffering

and I just want I want to help people. Tell me about your suffering. Oh, this is maybe why chronological order would have helped. Of course. Okay. I went through a period

where I went down what I would call a dark path. And I was acting with the sense of just like, this is how everybody does it. This is how people should do it. And this is just the way things are. and when operating in e-sports, a lot of the early days were very rough, like cheating, lying, manipulating. Those qualities are still ever present and maybe even worse in e-sports now.

And those values conflicted with the ideals of the people that I love and have cared for me my entire life. And when I got into e-sports and I got into business, I suffered so much pain by following those ideals that I shoved them. all away, and I just started operating like everybody else. So here's what I'm hearing. The way you behaved in these sports would be something that your grandfather was ashamed of. No. I don't think he would be ashamed of it. He would be sad, right?

Because I think he's someone that fought for a better world for us to live in, right? but you know someone that has lived in war knows the importance of not going back there right and for me what's happening all around and this is what I feel is we're almost like at war with each other and the humanity in being nice to each other and being a thoughtful person and trying to help each other is isn't what's happening. It's like we're always at war. And so I don't think he would be ashamed of me. I think he would just be sad that like the world is in my view like not changing.

We're not trying to build a better future. I think that's the part of him that would be sad. How do you feel about being a participant of that war? because it sounds like that's what you did. Yeah. I feel responsible, but I don't put the weight of it all on me.

I recognize that I'm inherently a good person or I try to be a good person, but man, it's fucking hard. It's really fucking hard. I can't tell you, like, if you're trying to be a good person and everybody else is really trying to look after themselves and be selfish, and they start hurting you, they start backstabbing you, they start breaking your trust, you have two choices. You either get the fuck out or you survive. That's it.

And to survive, you start to survive, you start to survive. fall into the system. That's just how it is. So, you know, George, I'm hearing something kind of interesting, which is that like, sure underneath all of your statements, I think guilt would fit well. But I've asked you, I've asked you several times kind of nudging around guilt. Yeah. But you seem to block it. You don't seem to agree when I sort of toss out guilt. Like, so, for example, I think, yeah, yeah. So, I feel like I'm guilty for jumping on the train, right? But I'm not going to beat myself up over it entirely because I don't know how else to say it. There were so many fucking people that were trying to push me on that fucking train.

and I feel like an amount of guilt, right? But this is where I think it's a huge problem. So you know what I mean? George. So I can't tell if you're really far forward or really stuck. Can I share with you my dilemma? Yes, please. I can't tell if you're halfway to enlightenment or,

on stage zero. So let me explain to you. So when we talk about guilt, what do you respond with? You say, yeah, I feel some guilt, but a lot of people were trying to push me. It was the environment

I was in. It wasn't my fault. That's what you say. Does that make sense? Yes. So what do we call that? When someone says, I did something bad, but it wasn't my fault,

What do we say that that person is doing? Absolving responsibility. Through what? Through deflection? Through rationalization. Through justification, right? Got it. It was the world.

It was the world we lived in. It's what everyone did. Either I could fail or I could play the game. It's rationalizing. Okay. It's what you do. Yeah. Right?

That's your archmage with your water elemental. Every game, go over your Archmage, get your water elemental. It's the strategy that you use. And you have this. I think, and maybe this is like helpful as a connector, I thought about this a lot, right? And so. I can tell you thought about it a lot.

Yeah. Okay. So I didn't do like, okay. So if you're talking about esports as an industry, okay. I think at CLG, I tried my best to be a good person in that, and I don't think I did a whole lot of wrong. Okay. So, like, I think I did, I think, I think I tried to do the best I could. And I think I always challenged myself.

to try to be a good person and all this. And then something bad happened. And then I jumped out of the way. I jumped, like I got away from e-sports entirely. And I think when I talk about my inter, if you were to talk to me about my interpersonal relationships and how business manifested in them in the pain that cause, I would feel infinite guilt.

I would feel so much guilt, and I do feel so much guilt, but when it comes to e-sports, I don't feel as guilty. I don't know how else to describe it. So, George, we've got a couple of options, okay? Sure. So first of all, I just want to commend you for bringing 100. percent today. Thanks.

I can see that you're bringing everything you've got and we're getting the synthesis essence and results of all of your reflection, all of your exploration, all of your investigation. And I think I'm grateful that you're sharing all of this with us. Thank you. A couple of thoughts that I have is like we have to pick a direction. Okay. So one is, you know, I find myself being curious about you're kind of talking in vague terms. Like you said, something happened and then I jumped out of the way.

So that seems emotionally charged to me. I don't know if we're steering clear of that because of drama and things like that. You don't want to disclose that. Or if you're just trying to sketch in broad strokes and I should ask more. Yeah, this is hard. I'll just like be outright. around 2015

something I'm okay George I was giving you two options and we don't have to talk about that if you don't want to I was expressing to you that I want to talk about it because I haven't really

got another real serious opinion on this it's just kind of like it just goes under the bridge and I think that this is like something that has I carry with me today something I'm really passionate about and it kind of hurts me to see which is when narratives can get out of control truth doesn't matter anymore it's about the messaging. It's about what you can convince people and the winner writes history in a sense. And for me, there was a time in e-sports. And the part of this is like I've forgiven these people for doing this to me and causing me like a lot of pain. I spent like a year and a half in

isolation like pretty much just by myself in an apartment. in the dark because of how much pain I went through. And I've like forgiven these people. Have they asked for your forgiveness? No. Long story short, maybe long story short is not, I'm really sensitive about this. Okay.

There was a point in history, CLG history, where someone on CLG had a lot of credibility. in a false narrative about their character. And what ended up happening is that person did, they betrayed many people within CLG. They utterly betrayed me. They used their social leverage to change the conversation and narrative. when I was trying to do the right thing.

And what happened was millions of people started to say things about me, believe things about me, believe things about everything that was happening, everything that was completely untrue. and I tried to stop it. I tried to tell the reality of the situation. I had people that were like, George, I've got your back. Like, let's tell the truth together. Just jump out of the way.

And it affected my relationships. It affected CLG. And it ultimately affected me. so bad that I can't begin to describe how much I hurt. And, you know, they just got away with it. And there's nothing I could do about it. Just really nothing you could do. It's so hard.

So hard when you try to be a good person. There's so many people doing bad things. and you just have to let it go the reasons people give you is so fucked up that person had more social capital than you that person's more well-liked than you that person's

more tactical than you no cares about being a good person no one cares about helping each other they're all out there just to fucking make money and get things for themselves. It is so obviously apparent. And we just walk through accepting it.

It's so fucked you. It's really really fucked up. And it's not just in e-sports. It's like everywhere. George, I'm... Yeah. Go ahead. The part of me that was like struggling is...

I feel this with myself, right? And I extrapolate that, right? And I see it happening in like different aspects of life, right? It's not just e-sports. The function of trying to subvert people's feelings, their emotions, how we treat them for money. It's fucked up, dude. I don't know how to say it.

I'm going to just collect my thoughts because I think, George, you just shared so much. Yeah, I know. I want to, I appreciate it. It was powerful, man. I'm just trying to think about how to meet you where you're at. Sure. I can pull myself back. You don't need to do that.

I'd prefer that I rise to your level as opposed to you pull back. Fair enough. All right, so I'm going to just start You need a minute No, I'm good Okay I'm going to start talking Sure

Chances are I'm going to be wrong Okay I hope this will help you But I don't know if you're going to like to hear it Okay So George Sometimes when people try to go out and fix the world

It doesn't come from the world It comes from them And in fact, I would argue that most people who try to go out and fix the world, it's rooted in them. Can you repeat that again? Yeah. So most people who go out and try to fix the world. Yeah. It doesn't actually come from the world.

It comes from them. So like this is just, you know, really simple. Like if you think about, you know, why do people adopt particular causes? It's because the cause is near and. dear to their heart. Right? I don't hear you trying to save the rainforests. Maybe you are.

But like there's something about the suffering of the world and the loss of our humanity that hits home with you. So overall, like some time ago I said, I can't tell if this is the mother load of projection. And I'm going to go ahead and lean into that a little bit. Because I think that the first thing that you've got to do, George, is not fix the world. it's to heal yourself. Because you are really, really hurt, man.

And I've tried to like ask you in a couple of ways. And I think that you have been on a journey of a lot of genuine growth. But I think that you're getting tripped up with this beautiful thing that you just said. You feel pain. And then you extrapolate it out to other people's pain. And so I think the reason that you half agree and half disagree. And we're like, we're a hundred percent. together, 50% of the time in this conversation. That's just been the way that I felt. It's like we're

100% aligned, except like suddenly like something we're like, you're like, no, sort of, I sort of agree with you, but like here's this other piece. And I think what you're doing, just this whole thing is like you start with a feeling, you start with a personal experience, and then you extrapolate it. And by that extrapolation, you move away from yourself and towards the outside world, towards rationality, towards all these other things, making the world a better place, which has this emotional root. But fundamentally, at the end of the day,

you're moving away from yourself. In order to fix the world's problems, which I think is a noble thing, and bro, I'm behind you, I appreciate it. I think we're actually fighting the same battle. We're on the same team. I'm grateful you came here.

All of that stuff is true. And I think it's like not, you're leaving something about yourself. incomplete. And you've made a lot of progress because you can sort of own some of that you've like discovered your feelings. You've discovered connection. You know, it sounds like you really worked on yourself. You went through a dark, you know, trial of your life. And I don't think any of that is false or anything. I don't think this is really the mother load of projection. I don't think this is all like baked in bullshit. What it feels to me is more than anything else incomplete. And I think that

could be that. Yeah. And so I think like let's just start with this idea of guilt. So like, Why are you so respond? Why are you so? So, you know, the biggest advocates against, you know, drunk driving can sometimes be the people themselves who drove drunk, right? And they say that, like, yeah, of course. And so there's a part of me that still thinks that, like, you know, I ask you like a couple times, do you feel responsible for other people suffering? Like, I asked you, like, early on. Because I was sniffing, what I'm sniffing from you.

more than anything else is a profound sense of guilt. And it's some of these things like when I ask you, would your grandfather be ashamed of you? I think that you try to be a good person, which in turn makes it so much more devastating when you find yourself giving into temptation. For sure. I would expect self-loathing from you.

Self-loathing? Like hate the person I am? Yeah, absolutely. because you try to be a good person and you weren't for a time. Yes. And I experienced amount of self-loathing already. Yeah. And so I'm less about experiencing more self-loathing and more about growing, understanding,

myself, understanding people. Yep. I'm with you. So I just think that based on your statements, and I don't think that, like I said, I don't think this is all like, you know, you're not like, you don't have super narcissistic defense mechanisms or anything like that. Okay. Okay. But I'm troubling. But so, so, but at the same time, I do feel like something about this feels incomplete to me. So it's clear to me that you've really explored yourself. I think the way that, you know, answer these questions about your grandfather is you're like he wouldn't be ashamed he would be sad and if you were more in the self-loathing camp then you would you would see shame for him as opposed to

sadness does that make sense as you come to process and accept some of your mistakes and recognize that it's not entirely your fault you've forgiven yourself some i think you sort of like move into sadness and away from shame and self-blame fine but something about all of this stuff and you even said it a little bit in the middle is that you've looked around at the outside world and you've investigated and then you realize you need to grow as a person and then like kind of make the world sort of a better place. But what I see from you overwhelmingly is still a lot of stuff coming from you. I don't think you're done with yourself yet. And I don't think you're ready to fix the outside world. I think what you've got to do is focus on fixing yourself more.

You're just getting started or you're halfway there. Yeah, I think that that, you know, that I can agree with. I guess I'm having a hard time understanding, like, what the pathway is to that or even like acknowledging, I need like a step to acknowledge. Because this is your interpretation of talking to me for X amount of time, right? There's so much history and experience and stuff that if you knew me, you'd be able to make like, oh, okay, I get it, right? And so we're jumping a huge amount of,

we're building a huge amount of assumptions here, right? And so I'm trying to follow your path, but I don't know, I don't know this next leap you're trying to make me get to. I can't see it. Fine. Totally fair. So I'm not done.

So maybe I can elucid it. First question is, have you seen a therapist? Yes. Do you see one now? Yes. Is that helpful? Yes. Great.

So I think that's fantastic. And I think you should continue doing that. Okay. My point, so that's one thing. The second thing is that I think that if you're looking for a next step to focus more on yourself, I think it's beautifully, you've illustrated it beautifully. I feel this guilt because you're not blind to yourself or anything like that. You actually understand your inner parts.

somewhat. I think you just do this thing where you like, you quickly extrapolate and you move outside of yourself and into the rest of the world, into conversations with other people, into gaining information. And instead, I think what you need to do is kind of like what you did just now is sort of like sit with some of these like thoughts and feelings and really like think about that for a second. Because what I found from you is, is what I saw what you showed us is a wound that is still open and raw. Yes, that wound, right, is probably the only wound that I have, and I recognize that wound. I know it's there.

I feel it every day, right? I, you're like, whoa, what's going on? Yeah, yeah, you're damn right. You feel it every day. Yeah. And I, and the problem with the wound. right is that I part of that like closing that wound for me right is not going out and going back into time to like try to you know val like try to like try to like seek justice for it right the

George, George, George, buddy, here's what I think, okay? Filled with assumptions, house of cards, feel free to knock what I'm about to say. Just knock it over with a hammer. You're trying to fix that wound by fixing the entire fucking world. Because it's a wound that you live with every single day. And it hurts, buddy. And you see something of the suffering out there. But I don't understand why you would go about fixing the world.

if you live with a gaping open wound on a daily basis that hurts you on a daily basis. Oh, I mean, okay, so there is, and maybe this is just like a learned behavior, but I can still function while hurting. Of course you can. Right? And I can still function effectively. So George, yes. Why is it important? Why is it important to fix this wound?

This is exactly why you haven't fixed it because you can function in spite of it. But just because you can function in spite of it, just because you can keep going doesn't mean that you don't owe it to yourself and don't deserve a life where this gaping wound is like bleeding all the time. Okay. It's not about function. It's about. It's getting better, though, right? Good. It's either, okay, do you want me to like just fully on focus, like resolve myself, talk to therapist only about this wound and not do anything else in my life? No, where are you getting that black and whiteness?

Have I said to you that you should stop everything that you're doing in your life and focus only on this wound? Well, well, I do focus on the wound. That's what I don't understand. Like, if I'm focusing on the wound and I'm passionate about. helping others. And also, I haven't even mentioned it. I want to build a game at some point. Right. Cool. Awesome. But that, like, I guess I don't understand what you're, what the action point of this is. I'm with you. And I'll get to it in a second. So the first thing is, is that just the acknowledgement that, like, you have this wound, right? That you carry with you on a day-to-day basis. And I acknowledge that. Yep. And what I'm saying, I'm not saying that you can't

to help other people, but what I'm saying is that you shared with us your noble quest, which is like a noble one, which is like to, you know, help people who suffer in the world. But I think that that comes ultimately from you, right? Like it's like, and I think that you should focus on helping yourself, which I know you do because we've asked you, right? So this, once again, I'm not saying you're not doing it. I think you're doing it like halfway you're seeing a therapist. And that's like the bread and butter right answer. I think practically what that means is I have a direction for exploration for you.

Okay, I've gotten answered. Yeah. So you say closing that wound means seeking justice. That's what did you say? I thought you said something like that. Okay. I think like justice is a part of it. I also think like just learning to like love other people.

and forgive other people, like that's part of it too, right? Do you hate? No. Did you used to hate? No. There's your fucking problem. Why would I want to hate someone? Because they hurt you, bro, because they stabbed you in the back.

And if you're telling me that you've never experienced hate after all of these things, that's the emotion you're missing. I missing hate. The way I think about that is why would I want to breed more hate? You're not breeding more. Yeah, okay. So you respond to it logically, right? So that's the first thing.

I'm not telling you to breed hate, but the problem is you can't let go of something unless you realize you're holding on to it. I'm not telling you to. go out and be mean to people. What I'm telling you is nothing about the outside world. I don't think it's good to apt to update, but I think it's good to recognize that it's there and to learn to let go.

But what I'm hearing is that you've forgiven people because you're trying to be a good person. And in doing so, you take a small corner of yourself and you shove it to the side. This is what I'm telling you, man. You're like a 50% there. But there's this whole other 50%. And it boggles my mind.

I don't know what the fuck happened with CLG, but it sounds traumatic and terrible. And generally speaking, when things like that happen to people, we experience a whole range of emotions. Pain, suffering, guilt, hatred and anger are in there, bro. Yeah.

I definitely think I was angry. But I don't, I try not to hate people. Yeah. I would say, like, if I were to really speak, like, how I'm feeling right now, I feel very misunderstood. Yep. And I don't know why that is.

Yeah. So there are a couple. Great. I'm so happy you shared that. So here are the reasons that I think you feel misunderstood. I think I'm tossing something out to you which does not fit. That's why you feel misunderstood. Right?

What I'm saying and your understanding of things are clashing. Of course you feel misunderstood. I think it's a completely normal way to feel. So here's the next step. I'm glad, I mean, I think it's normal and I don't mean to invalidate you, but what I'm saying is that that I, think that there's a blind spot in your vision. I would not be, I would not like say that there isn't.

Right. So then let me ask you something. When you point out a blind spot, sure, when you point out a blind spot in someone's vision, how would they feel? First, they would get defensive usually. Okay. And then they would have a hard time comprehending. it. Misunderstood. Misunderstood. And then they would try to get to the point that they understand it by asking more questions.

Or they would try to explain themselves further so that they remove the blind spot. Or sorry, it reinforced the blind spot, right? Either you're going to try to understand my perspective or you're going to convince me of your perspective. Either one. Fair. Okay. You're going to try to get to, it's just an issue.

of whether I'm getting on your page or you're getting on my page. Got it. But I think my goal in this conversation is to not, is to a certain degree walk with where you've gone, but I would like to help you too. We have the same quest. We're on the same quest. Okay. And so what I'm trying to do for you, George, in this hour and a half, which as you mentioned

is full of assumptions, how much can I really know, how many details can I get? You're working with a therapist and all that kind of good stuff. is to point out to you the possibility that like maybe there's hatred buried somewhere deeply, deeply in your heart. And to consider for a moment that you're someone who from a very young age learned how to bury things underneath rationalization and have things sort of manifest in like related but not directly related ways. Because like what did they do to you, man?

And how is that fair? It blows my mind that you're not. angry and hateful towards everything in the universe. And I get that you've done some amount of work on that. It's not like those people are bad people either, right? It's not like that. It's not like that. You know, it's not as black and white as they're terrible people. Oh, I completely believe that that is true. And usually when our feelings are very active, they don't think that. Could you repeat that one more time? Yeah, so like I agree that like no one is all bad and no one is all good, but that's a rational thought.

That's not how feelings operate. Like when feelings are active, everything is like, man, that guy is just, there's no redeeming quality for this Karen. Okay, I see what I'm doing now. I see, I see what I'm doing. I, I'm basically justifying their behavior because I don't want to. to confront the issue. That's a good way to put it. That's what I mean.

Right? Because because if you confront it, then what happens? Unless, if you make them, if you have an understanding Buddha-like perspective towards all people in the human being in the world and they hurt you, what does that allow you to do? Sorry, sorry, I was just thinking about that. It allows me to heal. I assume. No, no, no. It allows you to not get, yeah, sorry, sorry. So like, if I'm like, if I'm like, So, so if I sort of am like a tranquil, peaceful buntah, and I can see the duality of all people and I can be ever forgiving. And someone hurts me. What does that let me do?

Someone hurts me? What is that? It's like kind of a weird question. But basically what it lets me do is not get hurt. Ah, I see. Right? Because like, oh, like they stabbed me in the back. But like, that's just the nature.

It's just the nature of the beast. it's not me. It's just the nature of the beast. Therefore, like, there's nothing, like, fundamentally, like, wrong with me. It can't be that there's any fundamentally wrong with me, because it's just the nature of all things. I am just, like, a leaf in the river of time. Yeah, yeah.

I get the analogy you're trying to make. Right? And, like, this is the really wild thing, which is that, like, I wonder if that's the same exact thing that you did with your dad, which is that he's your dad. Which is that he's just a guy who's like that. Therefore, I don't have to be hurt that he doesn't give a shit about me. Because that's just what he is.

Yeah, and it could be. Like, honestly, it could be. The thing is, I've been operating this way my whole life in that context, that how the hell would I ever be able to, like, see that blind spot? And how would people be able to, like, really see it? Even if they were to really get to know me, right? they wouldn't be able to. So I see that blind spot a little bit now.

Okay. I don't. Okay. I think you see the logical. You're like detecting a black hole. I'm feeling it too. I'm feeling it too. A little bit.

Just a little, a little bit, a little bit. Okay. But my thinking is obviously stronger than my feeling, right? Like it's... Agree. next level thinker yeah okay that's impressive if you're feeling it because you did it 180 pretty quick yeah it's hard what are you feeling uh well i'm feeling confused good overwhelmingly um that's a good that's actually the best thing to feel i'm feeling a little

bit of anxiety. Okay. It's a little bit of sense of relief. Okay. That I'm kind of like understanding it. That's where it stops right now. I need to think about this more. I have to feel a more yet. Fantastic. So I think maybe this is a good place to sort of wrap up, George, because my goal is to make people feel overwhelmingly confused a little bit anxious and a little bit relieved at the same time. When we know we've at that point, that's when we know we're kind of at a good stop. So let me explain to you why confusion I think is very good. So we live our life based on static assumptions about the way that we operate.

And those assumptions tend to be sometimes incorrect and tend to shoot us in the foot and hold us back. Oh, yeah. The process of unchanging that stativeness isn't to move. Because prior to like, you had knowledge, right? you had a conception of how the world works. And then we want to bring you to like in theory a better knowledge. But you don't move straight from knowledge to knowledge. You move from knowledge through confusion to new knowledge.

Yes. There's confusion in the middle there. There's like a, hey, wait a second. I thought that this build order was excellent. Why did I lose? So I think it's great that you feel confused. And that's a sign when people are no longer rigid with their thought structures is when they grow. Yes, of course.

I think a big problem with the world is that we try to avoid confusion. When in fact, confusion is... For sure. I'm totally on that page. So very practically, I think there are a couple things that you could try to float by your therapist. And I think in general, you just need to do one thing to start out. I'm going to give you a very, very simple exercise to do. I'm going to try to teach it to you now in some way. I have to figure that out.

It's going to be something like meditation. But literally, George, your first step is just to... acknowledge the full range of emotions that you experience on a day-to-day basis. Yeah. And because my guess, so it's like very normal for human beings to experience a range of emotions, including hatred. I'm not saying you should cultivate hatred. I'm not saying you should feed hatred.

I'm not saying you should act on nature. So don't take it that way. But what I'm just saying is that unless you're like really, really different, like chances are your brain has evolved the way that everyone else's brain has. has, and generally speaking, you should have the capacity to feel hate. And unless you are an enlightened Buddha, you should probably be feeling some amount of hatred somewhere. And if you go throughout your day and you don't feel hatred, then that's kind of weird.

So then you have to figure out, okay, like, why am I, like, it's like colorblindness for a particular wavelength, right? Why is hatred absent in my mind? And then see if you can find it or just start there, but just start with. the observation of what's the full range of emotions that you're feeling. And I'm not saying that you should feel them all equally. So be careful about like, you know, it's not equal. But can you find like hatred within yourself?

Because like any normal human being should have hatred somewhere in there, given everything that you've described. Do you feel like hatred is something that a lot of people hide? Yes. Or is that a very common emotion that people hide? Yes. So I think the people who show hatred don't recognize that what they're feeling is hatred. And I think the people that feel hatred don't show it. Okay. My feelings line up with you're getting somewhere with me now, but I'm still feel misunderstood. Probably because you are. I know where you're coming from. No, I think the reason you feel misunderstood is because you are misunderstood.

because I'm making assumptions and you haven't given me the whole story and I'm jumping to conclusions. Yeah. Okay. Cool. So I actually think it's very helpful. And I think that perspective is putting me in a place where I'm feeling more and thinking less, which is good. I sure. So I think, I think unfortunately, George, that's just the nature of the beast. Yeah. Unless the more. the more wrong I'm willing to be and the more I'm willing to jump to conclusions, the more we can get done in an hour and a half, even though it's wrong.

I'd rather, I'd rather risk being wrong to try to find something right rather than move as methodically as really we should. But that's what therapy is. That's what your therapist is for. So you shouldn't be misunderstood by your therapist. You should take this hypothesis because I'm not giving you a conclusion. Let's be clear. Yeah, yeah. What I'm giving. Something to explore. Exactly. The most. The most. I can offer you as a hypothesis, and I'm okay to jump to formulate a hypothesis because then the real answer is not in constructing the perfect hypothesis. It's far more efficient to construct a random-ass hypothesis once you get an inkling or something and then test it. Got it. Okay. This all makes sense. I guess in all of this, one of the things that I find interesting, and I don't know why, but you don't seem to resonate with the idea, or at least you don't feel, I guess,

guess as much passion towards the idea that almost not relatable in the sense of like I'm trying to relate with you sometimes and you're almost being too much of a doctor and not enough as a person yeah can you say more about that yeah So I tried, I think, to open up to relate to you in a way that like we could find some common ground and relate to experiences. And I think we had like a step at the start. But somewhere along the lines, I was trying to relate to you as a person. And you were speaking to me too much as a patient.

And that just feels weird. It just, yeah, I don't know how else to say it. Well, thanks for sharing that with me. I'm not surprised you feel that way. Can I think about that for a second? Yeah. I'm noticing a potential irony, which is that I found myself saying, things to, I found myself thinking things to my, thinking things that I would say to my actual

patients that I withheld from our conversation. Because I understood the scope of our conversation to be somewhat different from what I do with my patients. So that could explain it. Okay. But at the end of the day, I wonder, do you feel judged by me? Maybe a little bit. I think what I love about you is when you get into these moments where you're not just Dr. K. Right. You're a guy that gets this space in the industry and like you're very relatable. And through that relatability, I think you're.

really like connect with people on a deeper level. But I missed that a little bit. Missed it a little bit or missed it a lot? A little bit. I appreciate like the, I appreciate like that you're trying to help me. I really do. Like I'm just like, I'm speaking out loud right now.

I appreciate that. Which is something I don't normally don't do. I think it's great, man. I'm really glad you're sharing this. Okay, I'm going to ask you a question. Sure. I want you to really, really think about it before you answer. Okay.

Watch your first answer and then really think about it. Should I apologize? No. Did you really think about it? Oh, sorry, you said watch my first answer. Okay. Should you apologize? Should you apologize?

No. No. Because I set you up for this. Like, I literally said dissect me. So. Okay, watch what happens next. Okay. You ready?

Yeah. I'm sorry. Why? For judging you. Oh. For not listening. For not related. for treating you like a patient.

Thanks. I'm sorry for not meeting you, for being superior, for being analytical, for not walking the journey with you. I think that's what is special about what you do. When you can do that, I think that's powerful. But yeah, thank you for that apology. I think either way I wouldn't have hard feelings but that means a lot to me okay

all right George I'm sorry okay so first of all I just couldn't hold myself because you said I wouldn't have hard feelings and it's like buddy when I know I know you see you see sorry I'm sorry no no it's what

You see it, though? Let's look at it and laugh at the absurdity of it. Yeah, yeah, I know. I didn't need to apologize. How did you feel when I did? It was nice. Why? It was like we connected as human beings.

But like, I needed to, right? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. But you. When you said no, you don't need to, you became a Buddha, an artificial Buddha, and you protected yourself from the pain.

Yeah. Because I did you were wrong, man. And then you wouldn't have hated me either way. Which is what I'm saying the fucking problem is. And if the apology creates, if an unnecessary apology creates that kind of emotional response, maybe the apology is necessary. maybe those people should have asked for your forgiveness maybe when other people wrong you you should hold them responsible for it

okay you're fucking right oh my god I see it now that's so painful and I do it and I've seen it every now and then right I do it I rationalize it I accept it I just you know like

roll with the punches bro like, but I don't take care of myself. Yep. And then that is going to cause a massive problem later because I'm going to just have that blind spot. And I haven't even begin to feel or think about what that evolves into, but I'm sure it's not good. Yeah.

So I'll say one last thing, George. And I think you're pretty, your practiced hand at this. sure have faith in yourself i think you can do it man thanks i i think you've been working really really hard to grow as a person and that work is not in vain and and it may feel like this is an unclimbable mountain because you haven't chosen to climb it yet but don't confuse yourself you're good at climbing mountains this one is actually no different yeah i'm confident i'm confident I can climb mountains. But it does help, and it does mean a lot that you, or anyone for that matter, you know,

pushes you up that mountain, right? With support, you know? Yeah, sure. Choose you on. That's what we're here for, man. And that's what you're doing for other people, too. Yeah. Maybe not perfectly, but I'm trying to best.

Yeah, which is all that you can do. And no one else can do it perfect either. Right. So, George, what I really respect about you is that you give what you can. And it's not your fault that you didn't see the blind spot. That's the whole fucking, that's what's a blind spot. And now maybe it's there. Maybe it isn't. Let's be clear. Right. So maybe the hypothesis seems more likely now. But it doesn't necessarily. So test it. I trust you. I trust your intellect. I trust your reason. Okay, sweet. I work through it with your therapist. So generally speaking, I teach meditation, but I think, I hope this makes sense. I think the I'm sorry exercise counts in my mind. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay.

I mean, I've watched a lot of different, like, segments of years, so you don't need to go through that process. Yeah. So I think we actually did it then. That, I think, is literally equivalent to meditation. because you saw what happened in yourself. You were looking inside yourself. You were paying attention. It wasn't an intellectual exercise.

You noticed it and then you understood afterward. Mm-hmm. But overall, George, I mean, I think you're just, this has been amazing, man. I think you're an amazing guy. And I really... Cool. I think you can do this.

You can do this, man. And you deserve to do it for yourself. Rest of the world, you'll fix them later. that'll happen you're right cool good luck man i appreciate this conversation thank you dude yeah take care um take care bye bye bye