HealthyGamerGG - Dr. K Chats With @Ludwig

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

Join me for an incredible conversation with Ludwig in today's video. Our discussion spans a diverse range of topics, touching upon everything from Stoicism and Anime to the world of TikTok. Check out more mental health resources here! https://bit.ly/3xsk6fE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How are you, man? How you doing? It's been a minute. Yeah, dude. You look great. Do I? Yeah. You look great, too. You look, you're glowing right now. Well, you know. You're wearing button downs?

Yeah, I have like 10 pieces of clothing. Total? That I wear. I want to be like you. I had a face where I wanted to be like Steve Jobs, have one thing that I wear every day. Like SpongeBob. Yeah, it's like, you know, in the whole professionalism thing,

like I had to find things that were comfortable. like I hate getting dressed up. And I just, so I got like a certain set of shirts and then like a couple of suits. And since the pandemic, I usually wear just like t-shirts and jeans or shorts every day. T-shirts are great. I see that you have a Twilight T-shirt there.

Dude, I get so many compliments on this shirt. I bought it at Target when I was, I had no clothes in Texas. I got complimented on it three times today. 13 bucks. Did you, did you interpret what I said as a compliment?

No. I'm just telling you if you're in a market. If you're in the market for a shirt and you want compliments, I would get this shirt. You know, actually speaking of things that generally speaking are men feel embarrassed about, I watched the 50 Shades of Grey movie recently. And I didn't watch all of it, but I thought the part that I watched, I thought was phenomenal.

Okay, wait, what part did you watch here? I watched like the beginning. Like the first like 30 minutes, 40 minutes. Sure. And I was just amazed at how beautifully bad it was. It was like, wow, if you wanted to make the most extreme way, but it really captures the essence of like ridiculousness. Yeah.

Look, I liked watching it. I remember when I watched it, I watched it with an ex-girlfriend. And I thought at the time, because they were making a trilogy, I was like, you know, it's the mark of a great couple. if you make it and watch every single one of these in theater. Because you'd have to stay together for like six years, and you'd have to stay aligned on liking the same shit the whole time. Well, I mean, you don't have to like it, I guess, huh?

True, I guess if you drag yourself along, that still counts. Yeah. Cool. So how you been, man? I've been good. I've been, you know, living life. I've been enjoying life more. think recently.

Streaming still. Hanging out with friends and my girlfriend still. I don't know. Regular stuff. So I mean, like I didn't have anything in particular I wanted to talk about today. I think we are streaming. We're doing a lot of stuff around mental health awareness month. So if there's anything like something that we've been asking people is like what's

your perspective on like, you know, why is mental health so screwed up? if I'm talking to men, we'll sometimes talk about male mental health too, but we don't necessarily have to do that. That's basically all I had on my plate in terms of what I wanted to pick your brain for. I think you're just a really great thinker. I really like watching like Mogul mail and just like the way that you analyze things. So I'd love to kind of get your perspective on that. But we can also just like chill and vibe and, you know, talk about other random things. Dude, I'm here to chill vibe and talk about whatever.

I got a couple things. Sure. Well, let's start here maybe. Let's do an update. Sure. Because last time we talked was two years ago. I think so. And we talked a lot about death.

And you gave me a great meditative exercise. And I did it every day for a week and then stopped. Okay. But update, I feel pretty good about death now. Did you have a problem with death earlier? Yeah, yeah. I had a fear of it. Okay.

And now I don't. And what do you think changed? I kind of faked that I didn't have a problem with it for a while and then I didn't have a problem with it. You faked that you didn't have a problem with it for a little while and then you didn't have a problem. So you were faking that you didn't have a problem with it before we talked or after we talked? After we talked. And what does faking it look like? I don't know.

Just like accepting the thoughts of it. Like I think maybe like before I was scared of thinking about the idea of it. it and then I was like oh let me just think about it a little bit and then you know like explore what that feels like and then that felt a little better and then I think it made me also um focus on like little things that I like like I like focusing on like uh like since then I've become an old man in some ways like the things that make me the most happy in my day to day outside of like personal relationships is like getting a coffee walking and going to watch the sunset.

And I think that I find peace in those things. That doesn't sound to me like you were faking it. Well, I was, I think I was faking it at the start, I guess I mean. Like I was still scared, but I was like, I'm not scared. I don't want to give a shit. I got died of bar. I don't give a shit. And I would say that, but I don't know how true that was.

But I think it became true. Yeah. I mean, I think what you're describing of sort of awareness of the fear of death. Awareness of a fear. So this is what's really wild is if you. look at like the yogic perspective and like meditation and stuff, what they actually say is that you don't need to fix any problems. All you need is awareness of a problem. So like if you're aware that you're you're feeling a certain way, that in and of itself is sufficient to conquer the thing.

And there's really some interesting scientific evidence of this that if you look at like the science of psychotherapy, there's some. some evidence that language can actually be a substitute for action. So even, like, if you took, if you're in a situation where you are like struggling because, like, let's say you've like lost your job or something and you look at the negative impacts within a human being. So what's happening in your mind, what's happening in your brain, what's happening in your stress system.

Fixing the problem can make those things go away. But articulating the problem can also make those things go away. dude i learned that is like half of being in a relationship to i figured out i don't know if you have this in your relationship in your you're you know but i so cutie would oftentimes give me problems she was having in life and then i would always find solutions to her problems and then she'd be like i don't want a solution to my problem i just want you to listen to my problem and that was her solution was just listening to the problem and then i realized that oh i just have to stop thinking of solutions and trying to give it to her because I think that's more overwhelming and just

listen to the problem and that is a solution in it of itself. Is that the same thing? Yeah. Sure. I mean, I think that because this is this is sort of what we found as well is that most human beings, if they can get in the right headspace, can actually like handle their problems. The biggest thing that keeps us from handling our problems is like ourselves in the headspace that we're in. And oftentimes just if you kind of look at, so when I'm feeling negative, emotions and I talk it out with you, let's say, and then, like, I feel better from talking it out. Like, QD is, like, amazingly capable, dude. And so if she can just get, if she can just get her controller plugged in, like, she can crush whatever game she's playing. And so a lot of

that just has to do with decompressing our own emotions. And, like, once we do that, then our brain will start functioning properly, and then we're great. So I think that makes a lot of sense. Can I ask you a question? Sure. I forget his first name, but there's some, I read a philosophy book over the past few months. And it was Adlerian philosophy. I don't know the guy's name. Joseph Adler or something. Oh, okay, yeah.

Is that his name? Is it Joseph? I just threw a shot. There is a Joseph. There's some stuff in psychiatry with Adler, too. But I don't know that's the same person. I think that guy. And he said something that I thought was a little bold, a little out there.

And I'm curious to your take. he said like one all problems in life are interpersonal problems like blanket across the board all problems are interpersonal relationship problems and I was like that seems kind of crazy Alfred Adler thank you chat and I was like that seems kind of crazy that seems kind of bold because what if you're like starving because you don't have food that doesn't seem like an interpersonal relationship problem and then the other one was like I'm paraphrasing this, so I could be wrong. And if you don't know about it, we don't have to talk about it.

But it was like, all trauma is like, um, like, I don't want to use the word fake, but it's something like that. Um, it was like all trauma, um, yeah, past traumas don't define our future. And so he was like, all trauma is like, it should not affect you at all. That was it. And I was like, that's also really bold. Um, And I was curious your thoughts on it.

You don't know my thoughts in it? Mm-hmm. Well, I think there's a general trend in men's health that kind of aligns with this and stoicism too. But yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so here's my tape. I think that if you want any proof that those statements are false, you just need to look at Adler himself.

Because just think about this for a second. For someone to say all problems are interpersonal problems and all trauma is false. What that tells me is this is someone who was, who hates themselves for being treated poorly interpersonally and can't get past it. That's my take. Okay. Right. So if you look at like a lot of psychotherapists and philosophers, their opinions have a lot more to do with their own experience of life than they do with other people.

Yeah. So when Freud is like, oh my God, it's all about the penis and the edible complex and we all want to have like, that says more about. him than it does about anybody else. It's just projecting 101. Okay. I think there's a lot of scientific evidence, but there's a couple of caveats, okay? So first is that when someone says all problems, they may be talking about a particular frame of mind.

So, for example, like, if I'm a psychiatrist and I'm working with a lot of people and I say all of the problems that I see are based on this, then, you know, whatever. Like, it could be because of the people that I'm working with. The second thing is that I think we have a pretty good evidence that trauma affecting you is, like, functional. Like, that's a feature. It's not a bug. So, like, trauma. So here's what I've gotten really interested in trauma recently.

And one of the big revelations that I had is that trauma is not actually a pathology. Like, when we think about pathology, it's something that is functioning in your brain or body the way that it's not supposed to. What's pathology? Pathology is that it's it's when something is ill it's like illness okay pathos like bad right so trauma is actually like a survival or adaptive mechanism that is functioning the way that it's supposed to okay but over time what used to be adaptive becomes maladaptive right so it worked back then yeah doesn't work anymore but it's not actually like something is broken like we think about things that are broken but the more that I've studied trauma, like even these things like dissociation and stuff like that, those are actually like protective mechanisms of the brain.

It's like keeping a prayer defense spell on in RuneScape, but then you're no longer in battle and you're just wasting your prayer points. Never played RuneScape, but yeah, absolutely. Or I would say, I would say that, you know, the analogy I would use is like if, you know, if you're just like sniping people in like an FPS and at low, like MMRs or low ratings, like that strategy works. Like it doesn't work as you get better and better and better. And that's basically what trauma is.

It's like you learn some shit strategy when you were playing it like with nobs. Yeah. And it was the only thing that worked. And then like as you grow older, like yelling at other people when you feel bad and blaming them like no longer works. Like that works if you're in an environment where like people let you get away with it. Throwing a temper tantrum is a good example. Okay.

On this vein, because this could be very helpful. and practical to my life. You've given advice in the past for when people are in like a public valiant lobby and maybe they're like harassing like a woman in your group and, you know, it's like, hey, just back off, something like that. And enough of that repetition, maybe changes their behavior. How do I get my teammates to cooperate with me and work with me in game to successfully win the game so I can get points and be happier?

That's such a great question. So I am low-key making a video about this, but it's taking a long time. Okay. So here's, so I'll, so glad this is, this is my passion project. And if ever this mental health crisis gets resolved, then I can make the videos that I find truly fulfilling Ludwig. Right. Let's get through this mental health bullshit so we can get to the real things that matter, our MMR.

Really? So like, we're like developing all these like communication programs for like parents and children. It's like, I want to teach you how to get your teammates to win. So I ran an experiment. I have two accounts in Dota two. Are you familiar with this ancient game called Dota 2? Yes, slime loves it. Okay.

He's good friend slime. Old is, you know, older than you. So in Dota 2, I have two accounts. And I did this experiment where in one of them, I calibrated to my rank and I muted everyone else and I didn't communicate. In the other one, I communicated with my team. Because everyone says if you want to raise rank, like just mute everyone. It's a multiplayer game, but why the first? fuck would we want to communicate? Like what? Like, you know, let's just mute everyone. And then,

and then I'm thinking to myself like, no, dude, like communication is what helps you win the game. It's just we don't know how to communicate. There's no like FPS trainer for communication. So the, what I sort of found is that there's an 800 MMR difference, which is probably like 20th percent, 20th, 20th percentile points of like rank. That like if you communicate, it's gigantic. And so basically, like, I want to make a video about how to successfully communicate. So there are a couple things that I do. The first mistake that people make is that they tell their teammates what to do. Don't ever tell your teammates what to do.

Ask them questions. So I don't know if you've ever played Dota, but maybe this works with Loll or whatever. But like, so one thing that I'll do at the very beginning of the game is I'll ask people which hero they want me to pick. I'm like, hey, I can play these three things. Which one should I pick? What do you think people say? What do you think the response is when I ask that question? Like, lock whoever you're most comfortable with.

90% of people don't say a fucking word. Oh. Just completely ignore it. But, and so people assume that now I've made a mistake, but no, I haven't made a mistake. Because I've already signaled to them because they're just fucking confused. Who the hell does that? Right? Yeah.

That would be a bit weird. It would. And so people are like, this person is asking for my opinion to try to make my game better? Like, what on earth? All right? So, but it lays a foundation for communication. And then what I'll do is like, if someone is like, you know, if I think someone is making a mistake, I'll ask him a question about it.

So if one of my teammates is like doing something, I'm like, hey, I noticed you're doing this. You keep on going back to the lane and you keep dying. So instead of telling them, hey, stop fucking going back to the same place and feeding. You can say, hey, I noticed that you've been ganked twice. Sorry for not having wards in the right spot. Do you want me to like place wards or can you wait 60 seconds that I can place wards? Or do you want to move to a different part of the map? Hey, I noticed your bottom on the fucking leaderboard.

How about you leave me alone? I feel it would be the reply. Nope. That's if you tell them to do something. Okay. But if you ask them, hey, I notice that you're getting ganked. My bad. I'm not doing my job because you don't see the gank coming.

do you want me to ward so you can keep on doing your stupid fucking thing or do you want to go to a different part of the map and then you know what they do 90% of the time they go to the different part of the map

yeah it's crazy are you swallowing like like certain things like are you just eating it like for example if somebody instillocks

are you just like hey man like are you sure you should have insalocked or are you just eating that because like that might because that's what pisses me off yeah so So let's talk about this, Ludwig.

What's the purpose of communication? It's to tell them when they're being fucking idiots, for one. And for two, to collaboratively work towards our collective goal, which is gaining MMR. Okay. So let's think about that, okay? So if the purpose of communication. Yeah. So let's see.

I understand you're in a relationship with someone, right? That's, okay. Well, to be clear, I was not thinking about relationship. communication. The first part. I just asked about communication. I thought we were in the context of That's the problem, dude, is that there isn't a different context, whether you're playing a video game or in a relationship. Every time you play in a video game, you are in a polyamorous relationship with all of your teammates. Yeah, but they're fucking me over and they got they got no game. They got no dick. And I boot, because I play in the slums of Valoran. I play on West Coast

servers, which are the most vicious. I play at 11 to 1.8. am, which is where everybody is high as shit or not talking because it's like late and their parents are in the same room with them. And I usually get two, sometimes three, instilloc duelists, a role there should be one, maybe two of. And I've developed a very toxic strategy. I'll come fully clean here. I also don't talk because if I talk, they usually don't reply.

I also install lock a dualist. And I, and I say, you know what? If we're, if you, if you want to fuck us, I will fuck us all too. I will, I will drown this ship. My MMR doesn't matter. I don't care. I'll do this for fun. And I'll throw a video on the side.

And this is a vicious mindset I have. It's a vicious mindset. What do you, am I maybe being too negative in my polyamorous relationships? What do you think? The ship should drown. We should all die together. Okay. So, you know, this is a trauma response.

What's my trauma? Playing with these dumbasses. So you want to know why people are, seriously, you want to know why people who have been traumatized, kill themselves? This is why. Because Valerite lobbies? No, because this person triggers your trauma and you're like, fuck it. Let the ship burn. Yeah, let it burn.

Right? Like, I'm not kidding here. Like, there are people who have been hurt so much in life. And when someone triggers that hurt again, they're like, I'm just going to, like, if they want to fuck it, let me fuck it. Sure. I've seen this a lot in addictions too where it's like someone's trying to be sober right and they're like family members or friends are like hey are you sure you're not drinking are you sure you're not drinking like and they like punish him for it right because like I've

had an addiction in the past and they're like and they're like well if these people are going to treat me like an addict I might as well fucking use because I'm getting punished for it anyway you know why did I leave my last job oh I like I had a substance use problem and then like they're if they're going to treat me like it like so the human being human beings, we have a desire where when someone else kind of like triggers us or take something that we want, right? Like, and takes it away from us, then we just want to say, screw it. And that's adaptive too. Because think about what hurts more.

When someone takes something away from you that you want or when you gain some control of it. It's a trauma response. I'm going to control this thing a tiny amount. And I'm not going to be the victim here. I'm going to be the fucking predator. I don't want to get owned so hard that I'm instead

tanking everything. The only person doing the owning here, bitch, is me. That's what you're doing. And I'll own myself, but I'm going to be in control. You guys are not going to own me by triple locking duelists.

I'm going to own myself, idiots, by locking Yoru and I've never played Yor before. Yeah, you think you can own me. I will show you. And I will tank all of our MMR. I do that. I do do that. I, okay, well, I have an issue where I think I have a difference in how I view online game people versus what I'm going to say real people.

And they're real people that I'm playing with, obviously. But it is a lot harder to like connect with them as humans to start communicating as opposed to like a barista, my local coffee shop, who I'm down to commiserate with or chat with or, you know, like connect with as humans. like these people I don't view as real. How do I view them as real? Is there a sentence I can say to disarm them and disarm myself maybe? You know, it's interesting. I've never thought about that quite in this way, but is there one sentence? So if you're looking for one sentence, I would say, hi, my name is, what are y'all's names?

Okay. So if you want to humanize people, introduce yourself. So if we think about it, what triggers this humanization of, you know, other people. It's like social norms. Like, you can't shake their hand, but you introduce yourself. Right. Hi. My name is like, whatever. What do you all, what do you all go by? Okay. And I wonder, I mean, if, if you want one sentence, I'm not saying it's going to fix the problem, but it's probably one sentence. And if someone says, if someone says like, hey, Ludwig, my name is Jake. and then, you know, instead of like, you know, sniper tits or whatever their, their handle is, like, you can, you know, you're like, Jake, bro, you need me to ward on bottom or you want to move?

Like, tell me, tell me what, what do you need? So it's like, hey, sniper tips, my name's Ludwig, I can play like a phenomenal raise or a very, you know, lockdown killjoy. Like, do you have a preference? Yeah. And so it shows like consideration, right? And like, if you want to engage the right behavior and other people, so let me put it this way. When one person locks dualist, what do they make you do? They make me lock another role.

So people are going to, if I walk up to you and I slap you across the face, what are you going to do? I'm going to, I'm going to say, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, fuck me. You're in some trouble now. Right. And you're going to beat the shit out of me. If I walk up to you and I, hi, Ludwig.

my name is Alok, and I hold out my hand and we shake it. So you can set the tone of communication. And all it takes is when they do one toxic thing and you can respond to that toxic thing with compassion, you'll flip it around. And I've seen, it's hard. So I've seen this like especially with like kids who grew up in abusive

households, like in school. So if you're like a kid who's like acting out, what you usually do is you get punished. But all those kids need is like one person to like tolerate their negative behavior and like care about them and they'll they'll like transform. That is like a trope, right? Like anytime there's like an asshole like bully in a show or movie, they always have an abusive household. Yeah. So I mean that that's statistically accurate.

That's just consistent across the board. Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying that it happens every single time. Right, right, right. One of the highest, so there's a really interesting, you know, if you look at like kids who are bullies, like kids who are bullies are oftentimes abused in some way. So like there's just the most, the most common cause, if you look at variables associated with being abusive as a child, abusive as a child is being abused. And it's monkey see monkey do, right? It's all about reciprocity.

So whatever other people do, if they lock dualist, I'm going to lock dualist. If I get beat up at home. Reciprocation. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I was working through that word. Okay. These are great questions.

I'm never, I've never quite connected the neurons in this way in terms of how similar psychiatric principles are in gaming. These are you, are you on TikTok? Like, do we have a TikTok account or do I use TikTok? Do you use TikTok? No. Do you watch anime? Yes, used to. Okay, so you haven't seen like Vinland Saga season two.

No. There's a big trend on TikTok in pop culture and pop culture and amongst, I would say, like, general like male youth of stoicism that I think is specifically stemmed from one Vinland Saga 2 and then also TikTok as a whole. and it's just generally like a mindset of like, you know, nothing can disturb me. It makes me stronger, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I'm curious just your general thoughts on like that stoicism, its effect on youth. Because I think it could, the big phrase is like,

I have no enemies. I think these are all like valid things. But I feel like I don't know how applicable it is and how useful it is to, you know, 16, 17 year olds. So just generally curious your thoughts. Can I ask a couple questions about that before? Yeah, please. So can you tell me about Vinland Saga season two?

Spoilers. Without spoiling too much, it's just generally a much more mental season of anime where the first season was like very war heavy. It's like this is historical wars and you're viewing it through the lens of a few characters. And then one of the characters in the second season, like deals with the trauma of that basically of of having been in war in in in how to deal with that that is that is like the broad talking points without really spoiling much and in dealing with that kind of turns to like a general stoicism mindset where it's like the big catchphrase is like i have no enemies you know nobody deserves death like any pain i've inflicted was not deserved by anyone regardless of you know whether they are rivaling tribe clan whatever. I think is like

kind of the gist of it. Okay, thank you very much for explaining that. Can you tell me, you mentioned like 16 and 17 year olds in TikTok. So can you tell me a little bit about what that has to do with stoicism? Yeah, so there will be super popular like multi-million view TikToks and it'll be like

a Nujibis orian dance song and then it'll be like a slideshow or like a voiceover. And it'll just be like profound stoicism quoth. You know, of like, like, I have no enemies. And it's like built upon like, you know, dealing in taking in anything that could impact you. And like using it as a learning lesson for the future and not letting it affect you as a person kind of.

And it's usually like hashtag hope core hashtag zoicism hashtag, uh, uh, you know, Vin' Saga. And that's generally like what I, what I'm seeing a lot of. And it's like, I think the most I've ever seen for a movement of like men's mental health. Like it's not like outside of maybe like the more corny ways it's been done,

which I think is like fair to say like sometimes a bit corny. It's a bit like on the nose. Like this is a very like built in movement of like, you know, mental health and like dealing with things. But you're curious if you, what you think about it. Can I ask a couple more questions? Sure.

And let me know. I mean, if you want me to, how would you, what do you mean by Stoicism? I think it's built upon like not having any emotion in a lot of these TikToks and it's like nothing affects you. But I don't know how deep it actually dives into it. Look, I'm a few chapters into Marcus Aurelius's meditations, but I'm not, I'm no expert on it. This is just like what it is hashtag with. I would not call this necessarily a new chapter and beacon of stoicism. It's just referenced a lot.

And it's the main takeaway is that there's no emotion at all. Okay. Nothing can emotionally affect you. What do you think about it? You're asking you, what do I think about it? It sounds like you have an opinion. I think I worry that it is too, that it perpetuates it,

Like a lot of like old fashioned stuff of like, you know, manly man tough guy, take everything on the chin. Like nothing affects you. Which is like roundabout like I think goes back to like, you know, before there was a lot of conversations about men's mental health where it's like, you know, bottle it up, bottle it up deal with it. And it can it can be a bit cold. Although I think also like valuable in a lot of ways too. And like I think they're interesting. Like I think stoicism is really interesting. Yeah, I worry about that aspect of it, the cold aspect.

Would you describe yourself as stoic? I don't know. Okay. What that means. So here's my take. So I think stoicism is something that is very easy to misinterpret. So what I'm hearing on TikTok is a longing for numbness. So do not let things affect you.

I'm going to be impervious to be affected by things. That's not what stoicism is. It's not numbness. And this is the biggest problem. What stoicism is is not being affected by things that affect you. It's kind of weird. Things still affect you, but you don't let the things that affect you control your life. It's not that you're numb.

Does that kind of make sense? So, like, there's a principle in Buddhism called the two. arrows. And this principle is that anytime life shoots an arrow at us and we get hit by an arrow, that hurts. And then what we do is shoot a second arrow at ourselves for being hit by the first one. They locked dualist, so I am going to lock dualist too. Stoicism is preventing that second arrow. It's not that things don't hurt. Marcus Aurelius felt a full range of emotions. He was just tranquil in the face of those emotions.

So tranquility is not about being numb. It's about staying grounded when there are emotions in front of you. And feeling those things honestly come to the fullest. And when you feel them to the fullest, they lose their power over you. And stoicism is about not being react. to the things that happen around you. It's not being, and this is the tricky thing, this is why people screw it up,

because they think that, okay, how can I avoid reaction to it? I can be numb to it. I can avoid it. But then you start creating a life of avoidance and numbness, which is the very opposite of stoicism. And people who start creating those lives

are not tranquil in the face of life. They're actually, they don't gain control, which is what stoicism has you do. They actually do the exact opposite. Now that I'm numbness is my tool and avoidance is my tactic, I can't go out into the world because I have to avoid things. So now I can't go out the way that I'm supposed to if I'm a true stoic.

A stoic can walk through lava. A stoic can, you know, face, give a big speech in front of 600 people. And the reason they're able to do that is because they're not controlled by those things. But instead we see the reverse, which is like, now I feel socially anxious and I need to be Stoic, I'm doing this wrong and I'm going to retreat from it. That's my take. How do you walk the line? Because it feels like a thin line, kind of, like, from being like very avoidionary and being

tranquil and stoic. Like, how do you... It's not a thin line. It's opposite ends of the spectrum, actually. You don't find that they're similar at all? They seem similar. And this is why people get it wrong. But actually, it's opposite ends of the spectrum.

So tranquility with emotion. doesn't come through avoiding it. It comes from feeling it fully. So don't push the tears away. Let them come. It's the exact opposite direction. And just like you were talking about with your relationship, right? Like when you let those emotions out, you're fine. You're chill. You've become tranquil. I'm not hearing that so your enjoyment of the sunset or your enjoyment of the coffee does not come from the avoidance of other things in life. It comes from the exact opposite. Yeah. An awareness of death, an acceptance of death is what leads to tranquility, not the avoidance of it. That's stoic, my dude.

Okay. Yeah, I can see that. I can see also how you'd get it confused. Yep. It's very easy to confuse, like not nine, but a ton of, because they think that, okay, like, how do I, how, in my life, when have I achieved tranquility? I have achieved tranquility when the circumstance is allowed for it, so I'm going to chase that thing. Right. So if we're being stoic in the Valeran situation, what does that look like versus being a voidenary generi? So what being a stoic means is not reacting, not letting your emotions control you. So re-instilloch duelists. How am I being stoic?

How do you, how does that make you feel? Each hit and die. I would say to all three of them in my head internally. But if I were to react maybe stoically, maybe that is. in line with also acting compassionately. Hey guys, my name's Ludwig. We have three insolac duelists. How can I help turn this ship right?

Okay, so let's tease things. You're in the right direction, but you're actually adding additional things. You're jumping ahead. So compassion is a little bit different. So what is stoicism? Stoicism is not being controlled by your internal emotions or reactions. So when you say eat shit and die, what do you want to do? you wanted to lock dualist, right?

Yes. Okay. Yeah. So whatever your reaction is telling you to do, not doing that is stoicism. Taking a step back from that, acknowledging, hey, I want to lock dualist. Compassion is completely separate. So just not, you can still lock dualists. I'll give you like you want to know how to win that game with three instant lock duels.

You can even win that game by locking dualists. The way you do it is, bros, what is going on here? Three Installock dualists? Do you all want me to try to salvage this? or should I instilloc dualist? And are we going to have the most epic victory of a team of full dualists? I've done that a few times. It's worked once.

It was amazing when it worked. The other times, horrible. Horrible. And you can even say that. 99% chance we lose. But if we win, it's going to be epic. What should we do? Do we go for glory?

Or do we try to salvage what is a colossally bad start to a draft? Yeah. And even that attitude, that's stoicism. Life can send you whatever the fuck it wants, but like, I ain't going to let it control me. You can even lock dualist. But whether you lock dualist or not lock dualist, one of those can be stoic and one can not be stoic.

Are you behaving reactionally or are you acknowledging your emotions, setting an intention and then moving towards it? Okay. That's a cool phrase. Setting an intention and moving towards it. Because when we react, we're not setting an intention. We're not doing anything intentionally. It's reaction there.

Okay. I feel better about this. For what it's worth, I'm sorry that you have so many people who are Insta locking dualists, dude. That sounds like. It's 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. It's just the hell time. It's the hell time. It's how it works.

I play at 3 p.m. Or I play on Midwest servers, there's sweet peas over there. They're sweeties. But West Coast servers, different breed. Why do you queue on West Coast servers from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. Lower ping, and I'm electric with my rays. So I might as well use the lower ping to just carry with my indomitable gameplay. What does electric with your rays mean?

It means that I don't miss. It means that I tap heads. I have magnets in my bullets, and they have, like, giant, giant metal in their heads. And that time frame is because that's the only time I have free to play. Okay. And what's the ping differential between West Coast and, Midwest. It's like 30 versus like maybe 50, 5560, you know?

And your level of skill, that 20 ping difference is. Oh, I mean, we're talking about dropping like 40 kills versus like 15. Like with that ping, I mean, Dr. Kay, I'm like, I'm very good. I'm very good. Yeah. I'm, I'm on a protein. Really? I'm the owner of one.

Great. So, you know, on the team still. still on the team. So, you know, like five of them get injured. I'd probably have to play. What's it like owning a Valoran team? Stressful, but fun. I think we're in a, it's, it is the easiest it's ever been.

It's easy when you're winning. Hmm. And we're winning. It'd be harder if we were losing. Congratulations. I appreciate it. I can't take too much credit, but the guys are doing great and that feels good. And what, uh, what, uh, what,

do you think is responsible for them winning? I think on the team, obviously. Yeah, one is definitely my direction in terms of just them watching my gameplay and learning from it. But the other is they have been one unit for the entirety of the stretch. So there's been no changes, which is pretty rare. Like most teams have had at least one shifts or at least a lot of teams have. So they've been able to grow together. And then I think there's a general cohesiveness in goal.

Like everyone is aligned on what the goal. is, you know, there's been some players who have had opportunities to go elsewhere, but like, they've felt really solid about this team. And I think the biggest thing is trust. There's a lot of trust, which I think is super necessary, because it's like trust in your ability to play at the highest level, trust in your teammates to do what they need to do and trust in the game plan that you have going in and trust in your ability to win as a whole. So I think it's all trust. Wow. How is that trust built? I think it's through, like, trust that everyone around you is working as hard as you are working, probably.

Like, I think if you felt like people around you weren't working as hard as you, you would maybe lose trust in them. Or you might lose trust in yourself. And that could be built on a number of reasons. That could be as simple as, like, results oriented. Built trust, which can be pretty toxic, you know. Like if you play poorly, maybe you lose trust in yourself for your ability to aim. And that might need to be built up. But I think because at like there's been like a snowball effect of winds, the trust is only built because everything has worked so far.

Awesome, dude. That sounds great. How do you foster that climate of trust or not being results oriented? I don't, I don't necessarily take too much credit. But I have a philosophy that I try to infect everybody I know with that everything will all work out. and you can have confidence. It'll all work out no matter what the result is, and it'll all be good.

And that this experience, whether it is a defiant win and we become the best Valorant team in the world or whether we don't perform up to our expectations, it'll all have been good and worthwhile and a great part of your life. And I think that's like the message I try to get to them. How long have you had that philosophy about life?

I think since I was like a kid. I think I got that from like my mom and dad. They had that. My dad had like it'll all work out mentality. So I just kind of rocked with that for a while. That's great, man. I think it's true. Because it kind of has to.

There's no other alternative. You can't not work out. What do you mean by that? Well, it has to work out. The earth keeps spinning. You don't get to reverse any decisions. So everything has to work out. And maybe it won't work out.

in the way that you expected it, but it will work in some fashion, and then you will have to work with what, like, spot you are in. And so, like, you will make it work.

Like, it will work. And so, like, eventually, like, you'll get through any tumultuous time, any period,

or you don't get through it, you die. And then that's also okay. Yeah, I'm kind of curious about when you say it'll work. How do you, how are you able to say that? Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Tell me. I think, like, Like, when I say workout, I guess it doesn't necessarily mean like, hey, we will achieve all our goals and we will be, you know, we will, we will be kings. It's like, like a good example is like I like, I like writing goals every year. I like writing them down specifically. And I'm not like really big into that hippie shit and like, you know, speaking into the universe. But I do like writing shit down.

And I think that's real. And so every year I write a goal down. and one of my first years doing this was when I wanted to become a full-time streamer. And so I wrote my goals down. I gave myself a timeline to achieve those goals. And if it didn't work out, if I didn't hit those goals,

I would quit forever. That was like a definite rule that I gave myself. But either path I was happy with. Like either, one, I succeeded being a streamer, cool, pog. Or two, I failed at it. But that also worked out because now I know that, hey, it didn't work out. I couldn't be a streamer.

But I can close that chapter of the book. Like I don't feel any regret. I tried it. I set goals. I worked really hard towards it. I did the best I could. And it worked out in that I know that's not what I'm going to do now. I can do something else. So I can like figure something else out. How is it that you don't feel regret when your goals don't work out? Because I cried. I think trying and failing is really cool. What do you mean by that? There's this anime called Silver Spoon. And in it, there's this guy. He's a baseball player. He's phenomenal. And he plays in high school baseball and he wants to go, he wants to go to college, he wants to go pro.

The rest of his teammates are dog shit, but he does not care. He is defiant in that fact, and he uplifts everybody around him. And there's this episode where there's like this major game, championship game. And he's like, this is it. This is to make it out. This is like to become a collegiate player. And in the last second, one of his teammate just drops the ball. They just, you know, it was a bad pitch.

The other team gets a home run. He loses. And if he loses, there's two options. One, he lives the life of a farm if he loses, joins his family business. If he wins, he goes on to be a pro baseball player. And it's like these two paths. And the moment he loses, everybody is like shell-shocked around him. They're like, oh my God, no, I cannot believe this happened to you.

And then he's just like smile on his face and he's like, it's okay. Like we tried and we failed and that's beautiful and I will be happy as a farmer. I thought that was dope. Yeah, I mean, I think it's dope too. I agree with everything that you've said. I think it's really interesting how... I'm so curious how you learned these things because I had to be taught very explicitly.

But... Anime? Yeah? For that one, for that one, it was anime. Yeah, I don't know. I think it also stems... I don't know. I don't know.

I think it's... I think like, growing up also, there's like... I think when you're younger... And I think it's faded off maybe a bit, or maybe I'm just old and so I don't see it as much. but it was kind of cool to not try. And then also simultaneously maybe be good at things. But like if you weren't good at things, don't try those things.

And I think that's lame. And I always thought it was cool to try really hard, you know? And it always bug me when people would say like, you're trying too hard. And I was like, what's wrong with that? You should try hard. And so I've always like been stubborn about that. But I don't know where that's from. Yeah.

I mean, I think I was in the opposite camp. So I was a kid who was told that I was. was smart. And so anytime I did something, I could not try my hardest. Because if I tried my hardest and I wasn't the best, that means I'm no longer smart. So I would actually self-sabotage all the time for the preservation of my ego. I think I did that too, actually, in school, because I was always told I was smart and overachiever. And then, but I didn't do any of my homework. And then I would like still pull out like a B, B plus A minus on tests. And then the teachers would always give the review to my mom.

They'd be like, he doesn't do any of his homework. And if you were just able to, you know, push himself to his full potential, then he would definitely be one of our best students. But I think that made me feel good enough. I was like, I'm not even trying and I'm already this good. Like, and so I would just never do my homework for all high school. Yeah. I mean, in my case, it was if I do my homework and I'm, if I live up to my,

full potential and it's a a minus, that would be devastating. Yeah. And that becomes a vicious cycle because the more, so the less you try, the more one dimensional my personality became. So I could only do the things that I could achieve with effortless success. And then I had to start retreating from anything that required effort, which means that my future was like shrinking. I didn't play any sports.

I couldn't learn any skills. I couldn't learn anything because that meant I wasn't smart. And then the problem is the more one-dimensional my personality becomes, the more I have to preserve it. So the fewer things I can try. Because now all I am is a smart kid. Because I'm not a good chess player. I'm not a good athlete.

I'm not a good anything. And so now I can't even study. I always tell people in my chat that, because a lot of people are in this bill. A lot of people are told like, hey, you excel really well at math. If you just push yourself or, you know, try it a little harder, you would be our best student or reading or writing or soccer or whatever it is. And I, I may be a little too aggressively, but I always say like, hey, you're not good. You're actually dog shit. And the person who's good is a person who's like trying their best to like get a good grade and studying super hard and who has to work incredibly hard for an A where you don't even have to try and you get a B plus.

Like they are better than you because they are trying really hard. And like I think that's a lesson I didn't learn until college. And it's because the stakes were higher. Because like if I didn't perform at a high level, then I just lost my scholarship. And then that would feel bad because then that was more of a burden for like, you know, debt,

college debt, all that. So that was what finally pushed me over the edge, was college and that. But I think it's, yeah, I think it's a mistake that a lot of people are told. Like a lot of people can relate to being told like,

hey, you're so close. Like it's so much potential. If you just push yourself, you'd be amazing. and they never do. And I think they need to be told, like, hey, you're actually dumb as bricks because you're unable to execute your potential.

Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting because that is very effective. Like, so just from a psychological perspective, what I'm understanding is if we say that ego, right, the preservation of an identity, that you are smart is what short circuits someone's ability to actually try. If you call them dog shit, what you're doing is removing ego from the equation. and now they have free range to try. So it's actually really elegant.

My take is a little bit different because generally speaking, I don't, you know, I think it's professionally, it's unprofessional for me to call people dog shit. I think it would hit really hard in the button down. You call someone dog shit in a button down? They're like, oh my God. I think it would hit hard. Yeah, maybe too hard. So what I tend to find is also works really well,

maybe not quite as quite quick and effective as what you say is I'll ask people because I think a lot of times when everyone's like oh like you could like you should live up to your potential you should try really hard no one ever asks them what do you want? Like what do you want to be good at math? Do you want to go to a good college? Do you want to do? Like what do you want from your life? It's not about what you should or shouldn't do. It's like what do you actually care about and then work towards that. And I see this a lot with like, you know, when I I review like personal statements for kids applying to med school, they'll be like, I want to be a doctor because I want to, you know, help people. And it's like, why the fuck are you going to med school?

You can go work in a soup kitchen tomorrow. You can help people. Right. Why do you really want to go? And if it's ego, then like we got to know, right, if you want to like be someone and you want to be like when you book a flight. And it's like, are you Mr. Miss, Mrs. or doctor? And that's why you're doing it. Be honest with yourself.

And I think a lot of times just understanding what we. want instead of trying to live up to expectations can really bring out the best in our efforts because it's something that I want. I'm not doing it to make someone else happy or impress people. It's for me. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I think being honest with your desires is cool. I've gotten into learning now at this stage of my life, which is funny because I was not into it in high school, cheated for a degree in college a little bit. I had two degrees. one of them was legal. And now, only now I'm like actually into learning.

I think it's like it's fun. It's like enjoyable. What are you learning about? I like language, geography, history. And those are those are the big ones I like. And baking. I want to become a big. baking is hard, bro.

I know. And this has created a bit of tension in my relationship. I'll be honest. Because I've told QD, I have a dream of, becoming a baker when I retire, which is also her dream. But it's different because she's an amazing baker already. Best baker I know. But she does like confection, confectionaries.

She does like little sweet treats. I just want to make bread. Bread is my favorite food. In all bread I've had in America's pretty dog shit. And I would just love to just whip out, you know, 100 baguettes a day. And that be my life. Where is the best bread that you've had? France

There's a really good spot in LA that does French bread That's pretty good too though I'd say Best baked goods I've had is actually Japan For me They love white bread Like white soft fluffy bread

And I like the hard crust That kind of crunch in And it's like steamy on the inside Of the bunch of pockets Which is much less popular there Like I think it's much more like very soft Like gooey bread Which can also like have its

Mark, but I like the bread that makes your mouth bleed a bit. I know what you mean, like cuts it up on the inside. Yeah. It's good stuff. I love me some good bread too. One of my kids is just loves bread as well. Bread's great. It's my favorite food.

If I could eat one food the rest of my life, you'd be bread. You know, it's interesting. A lot of people have like gluten sensitivity nowadays. Yeah. And there's actually a guy in Austin who uses an old strain of wheat. So uses a strain of wheat that's like 800 years old. And people who eat his bread don't have like gluten-related problems. Because the chemical composition of the gluten protein is like less inflammatory.

It's really fascinating. Like that start it's that old starter is just. Yeah, just whatever the, yeah, there's like some old. I don't know if it's the starter or it's the actual, I think it's the wheat. Oh, it's actual. It's farming. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, the gluten is.

But I actually do wonder. Now, I've never thought about, I'd assumed it was the wheat itself. But I wonder if he actually has an old starter in the way that the yeast metabolizes the gluten also changes inflammatory properties. That's fascinating. Yeah, like some 800-year-old starter. Yeah. Starter's crazy. Like, just to keep that alive for so long, seems stressful.

It's like a plant. Yeah, I mean, it's, do you, yeah, we do that with yogurt, where we'll have, like, you know, like once you get a good batch of yogurt, like you want to preserve it because then all of the yogurt that you make from it stays good. I was talking about this literally yesterday because my mom kept a yogurt alive for a decade. Hated eating it, right? Like towards the end, she was like, she, like, there was too much yogurt to eat. So she would like have to force eat yogurt because there's more than she would actually want

to consume. But she kept that like yogurt base alive for a decade. And she would hate like if she. ever got rid of it because if you ever lose your yogurt like it's gone forever yeah and she got it from this like dude who came by one time and he's like you want some of my yogurt base or what i don't know what you call it uh the starter is it just is probiotics it's just anyway he's like you want some my yogurt culture i think yeah yeah you want some of my yogurt culture and she's like sure and she kept it alive forever so my family i think we have a really good one that kind of gets passed through and like

circles back around. So like someone will screw it up, but then we'll like, you know, when you, when you get a good batch, you'll like give it to other people. It's like horro crux is. Yeah. As long as someone's horror crux is still around, the yogurt keeps running. Yeah, it was great. It was delicious yogurt.

Yeah, it's good stuff. Yeah, I struggle to keep even plants alive now. But you have your, your starter that you keep? No, I haven't, I haven't got into the baking yet. Okay. I'm merely a student now. I've not gotten there yet. QD is going to teach me to bake my first few loaves in the coming weeks.

And what are you going to bake? I want to make bread. But like what kind of like baguettes? I am a student. Whatever she teaches me. Bighette is my ideal goal, but I think it requires like, I don't know if my oven is really good for it. So, you know, I am the apprentice. I am just here to learn.

And learning's hard when you're old. Yeah. Do you disagree? I think it's a sort of. of a mixed, it's sort of a mixed bag. So I think the absorption ability of your brain, you don't pick things up as fast as when you're a kid. But I think that your ability to stay on task and discipline, your frontal lobes are more developed. So I think it's kind of a, it's like some things are better and some things are worse. I think it's just more embarrassing. That's my issue.

Like learning is embarrassing when you're an adult and it's not embarrassing when you're a kid because you're supposed to be a dumb ass kid who doesn't know anything. So learning is fine. But like, for example, I've been trying to get really good at shooting three point shots in basketball. And I am mid. I go two for 10, you know, on a good day. I mean, it's good if you're like on the bench on a JV team.

And so I want to get better. And it, like, part of it requires like, like, I think, vulnerability, you know? And if I was a kid and I was at a basketball court and I was shooting threes, like I would just be shooting them like nobody's business. But like the other day I was shooting threes. Instantly the park gets packed. Like out of nowhere, just like two five on fives form. And they're all like shooting around. And I can see them looking at me as I'm shooting. And I, bro, I'm, it's only airballs. It is only, nothing's even hitting the backboard for me. I'm just heaving them up there. And I can, I see people look at me. And it's a bit of a spotlight

effect because they probably don't actually give a shit. But it's very hard to just like eat, you know, 15 people who play basketball regularly watching me just with fucking air balls and then get back to the line and shoot it again. But I forced myself to stay there. But it was much more embarrassing. And I think if I was a kid, I wouldn't give a shit. Yeah. You know, it's actually interesting because that's like, it's fascinating how cognitive development

works because we develop ego when we're basically done learning. So if you think about a child, right? So a child, like the way that a child learns languages, one of the reasons they learn languages really quickly is because they're not capable of embarrassment. So they just babble. And they learn really fast. And so I do think that there's, it's really,

I mean, there's a lot of interesting stuff around embarrassment and learning and how the two, the development of the ego makes us feel embarrassed and makes us stop learning. Because actually what happens is when we become teenagers, we start to develop an ego and we start to develop the understanding that other people have opinions of us. So like a nine-year-old sort of knows that, okay, this person likes me or doesn't like me, but they don't quite understand that my actions today will form an opinion of this person. This person will form an opinion of me that'll last.

And so I have to be careful with what I do. That happens when you're a teenager and has to do a sexual selection. Explain that part. So if we think about why is, from an evolutionary perspective, why do we develop an understanding that people have a lasting impression of me? Like someone has this idea of who I am. That's from a mate selection standpoint. Because how do people select mates? It's based on their impression of you.

And so as we become sexually mature, like we go through puberty and a part of puberty is brain development. And a key part of brain development is, oh, okay, like these people will have a lasting opinion of me. So I need to behave in a way that makes me likable or attractive, which in turn means that I can't airball on the court for half an hour because then people will think I'm incompetent. None of the other dudes on the court are going to think I'm hot. And then they won't want to mate with you. Yeah. So old bitch. How do you get rid of that?

How do I go back to being a nine-year-old? I would like to learn better. So I think removal of the ego is the most important thing. So if you don't have an ego, you can't be embarrassed. Do I do ayahuasca for that? Some people will use psychedelics to have those kinds of experiences. Okay. And, you know, psilocybin and ayahuasca, peyote,

those all will usually have some amount of ego death. But I think a simple kind of, like, I think you're. close, actually, because some of the stuff that you're kind of saying about, you know, it'll all work out. Like, if you're bad, what difference does that make? Yeah, I think it's good. I'm aware of it.

I'm usually aware of it in the moment. It just still feels bad. So I'm, like, I'm aware that I'm bricking threes and that makes me feel like shit. But it still makes me feel like shit that I'm bricking threes. Yeah. So I think that's where, so what you're trying to do is take away the feeling of feeling bad, right? Yeah. So if you want to be stoic, it's okay to feel bad, which I know you understand. Right? So like, hey, and I'm not saying that I just realized that could have been like a burn.

Like, oh, like, you know what it's like to feel bad. No, I get it. But because I see the, I see the consequences of that with your philosophy of life where you're not, you don't retreat from failure, as you discussed earlier. And so like, it's okay to like feel bad for some reason. And this is where we could talk about this concept of some scars or even trauma. Like, there are certain situations in which you're less, you're more sensitive to feeling bad than others. So my guess is that baking for a tea party of women, if you did a terrible job, you wouldn't feel embarrassed.

No. But playing basketball with a court full of dudes trigger something. Why? Because guys are meaner. Though women would be so sweet. I mean, I don't, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I can hypothesize, but I'm calling me gay? No, it's not gay.

It's not, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it just means that there's more insecurity around the respect of your peers than it is around like mating stuff. Sure. Right. So I don't think you're worried about for whatever reason. I mean, there's probably some, there's a reason for, this, right? You had some kind of experience early on where, like, you doubted your ability to be a peer with dudes. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably true. I think there's a lot of machismoness.

Right? So you weren't manly enough. And so now you've got like some kind of like psychic, like wound of like, okay, like I got to be manly. Yeah. Can I ask you a personal question? Yeah, you can. So I noticed you've got calluses on your hands. I do. Is that from lifting? When did you see that?

Is that from lifting? Yeah, it's from lifting. I work out. Is there a reason you don't use gloves? Gloves while lifting? I think it's worse. I think you'd have more. I don't think it would help.

It prevents calluses. Does it? Yeah. I feel like I don't want soft hands. Exactly. I don't want to be no No soy soft hand having ass I need hard hands

Hell no dude right Hell no I need grit on these hands Yeah every dude who shakes your hand needs to feel I will I get called in my chat Soft hands on a daily basis Wait seriously

Yep this is real I don't know how you struck this They actually insult me by saying Soft hands And they go you got soft hands You never worked a day on the farm in your life. And so, you know.

But I'm glad you notice they're not soft, Chad. I don't know if you guys saw that. Yeah. I think it's also interesting because like the Twilight T-shirt also goes into this, right? Because who can afford to wear a Twilight T-shirt,

someone who's secure in their masculinity? Yeah. My goal has always been to become super fucking ripped in strong and then do all the soy shit that I like doing. Yeah. You know? Because if I'm wearing a Twilight shirt, but I bench 225, like, you can't really step to me. Mm-hmm.

It feels good. Is that toxic? No. Okay. I don't think it's toxic. I think it's... You want to prove to... Like, like, I mean, what I hear is that you have certain things that you want to do, which,

when you do them, it sounds like you maybe feel a little bit embarrassed. And you need something else to keep the embarrassment at bay. Right? So if you're super ripped and if you've got calluses on your hands, if you've got facial hair, if you've got all this kind of stuff, then like you have that shield of machismo to where people can't criticize you. But that also signals that on some level you're still concerned about being criticized. I think so. I think I am. Yeah. I think it's like it's human. There's also just a circle on the internet that I would hate to be criticized by because I think they're all dumb. And so I want to. it's like I'm sticking it to them in a way. But I'm like I've also enjoyed working out outside of this context. Like I've been doing it for like about it 10 years. But like like like okay like alpha male internet.

I think alpha male internet dumb is bricks. Right. But it's a lot easier to argue that if I'm also fucking ripped. And then I'm like, hey, you guys are cringe. I like my twilight shirt. But maybe that's just toxic. I don't think it's toxic. And I don't think alpha male internet.

So, so what, how are you doing with this conversation? Is this okay? I'm doing great. How are you doing? Okay. I'm doing good. But at the beginning we were talking about like gaming and stuff and like now I'm like pointing out things about your physical appearance. And I realize that like that may be a little bit. It doesn't feel quite as collegial to me. And I just want to like like we're not on the same level right. Like I'm like putting things out and you're not like you can point out things about my physical appearance. You know you're putting out your button down. I think we're fair. Okay. I think we're good. Plus, you pointed out that I don't have soft hands, which is great ammunition for my chat for months. Yeah, dude, I mean, you were very manly. Chat, I mean, you heard them. Anyway, yeah, you were saying. So, so I think, so it sounds like, like, if you do, if you don't look a certain way and you advocate for particular things, the alpha males of the internet will say, You are not manly because you, you know, you can say this kind of stuff, but you're kind of effeminate or whatever, right? Yeah. And so in order to like disarm their criticism, you have to be particular things because then they can't criticize it.

Because that's all they know how to criticize you with. Yes. Right. I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, because I do think that they have very black and white. I mean, there's a diverse population. Let's start with that. right? They don't all believe the same thing. But I do think that they have certain correlations that they

consider to be like law. Like if you're an alpha, you have to be this. You have to be this. You have to check all these boxes and then you're an alpha. For the record, I don't think that they're dumb as bricks. I think they're wrong about a lot of things. But I don't think that they're dumb. Dumb as Bricks is definitely a phrase I use regularly that doesn't necessarily mean what it says. I think it just means that I think they're wrong too. I mean, I think they're wrong about a lot of things, but I think part of the problem is that they're right about a lot of things. But the way that they behave makes it very hard to acknowledge that there's a portion of stuff that's right. Yeah.

I mean, that's the Andrew Tate. I've been talking about that because he'll drop a tree. truth problem every now and again and people freak out about it and then I'll just say a bunch of dumb shit. Yeah, I mean, I think it's like this TikTok stoicism stuff where there's there's something that you want to aspire to. But I think the fact that this sort of alpha mentality is growing within men speaks to a serious problem that men have and the alphas are the only ones that are actually acknowledging it. So this is kind of weird. But like if you're a man today, most people tell you that your life should be easy because you've got privilege, right? And that like, you're a dude. And

there's truth to that. Like, men do have privilege. There's a lot of good data around that kind of stuff. And also that if you are an alpha man, you have more privilege. So we know, for example, that men who are over six feet tall are much more likely to be in leadership positions within organizations, that men can get away with particular things that women can't get away with. What's kind of interesting is that women can get away with particular things that men can't get away with. Like slapping people of the other gender. But what's really interesting if you look at kind of alphas is that the one thing I've noticed about that whole crowd is they're the only ones that acknowledge that men have a life that's difficult. So they say like, yeah, you know, like if you're a beta, your life is hard.

Here's how to fix it. But they're the only ones out there that are saying, actually, it's like your life. is hard. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to make something of yourself? Because it's tough now in your POS, I can show you the way. But it's really interesting because they're the only crowd that I've heard that really validates men's experiences. Right. Yeah. Everyone else is getting handouts like it's trick or treat but men because you get all your privilege and don't gives you shit and your life sucks. So who's helping you? I'm helping you. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I think I... Which may be a, you know,

take that'll get me canceled. But honestly, it's an observation that I've seen that not many people are validing of men's experiences. No, I think that's valid. And I think occasionally I try to throw in things to hopefully make people, like maybe specifically like young men in my chat, like, feel some sort of, or like try to uplift them in some way or like validate that same thing. But I want to, what aspects should I, take more of to acknowledge that while not becoming an alpha male. Well, I mean, what do you think? Trans people.

And then you start there, and then that brings in a huge crowd, because that's most problems on earth, right? So we can start there. No, for being real, for being real, it's, by the way, thriving trans community in my, in my chat, very, very, very much love them. I think it's, I don't know, I don't, I just like trying to tell people to do something that's good for them that makes them happy once a day. That's pretty much it. I think that's a great start.

What do you think the alphas would say about that? I don't know. I think they'd be on board. Yeah, I guess. Right. I think a big part of that movement is, so I think the healthy parts of that are like in acknowledging that you're basically like responsible for your own. happiness and to try to cultivate that very intentionally and that some of the living up to societal norms will not necessarily make you happy. That especially as a man, like if you are sort of like a

robotic provider that you can get taken advantage of. So I think that there's a lot of like, you know, experience that people have with a lot of that stuff where they sort of advocate for people to take care of themselves and things like that. I think the real real. challenging thing is that there's a lot of toxicity associated with it, which I don't think needs to be there, which I think is what your question is. It's like, what's the good stuff? I think some amount of individual responsibility, some amount of acknowledging. And this is, I think, what's kind of tragic is I hope we didn't even really learn our lesson

with the Me Too movement, but the good thing about the Me Too movement is we started believing people who said that, hey, this thing, like, happened to me, right? And like, instead of just sweeping it under the rug or saying you deserved it, I'm not saying, that everything is better and we still frequently do not take the complaints of people seriously. And despite the progress with the Me Too movement, we see this a lot in medicine where like female patients have a higher mortality rate

when they're taken care of by male surgeons. So there's just something about like so male doctors and male surgeons will oftentimes across the whole. It doesn't mean that a particular surgeon is bad. Right, right, right. But they'll devalue, like, the pain that women experience. And I don't mean, like, the pain. I mean, like, literally, like, pain scores.

Like, if a woman says to a female doctor, like, hey, I think something is wrong. And all the labs and everything are reassuring and everything seems fine. A female doctor is more likely to say, okay, like, I'm going to ignore all of the data, and I'm going to trust this person who is speaking. And I think on the whole, what we see with male surgeons is they're less likely to take that seriously. And they're more likely to focus on the data, which literally leads to worse outcomes. Right. And I think what we really need to do for men, I don't know that was kind of a tangent, but I think what was interesting.

What we need to do for men and stuff is just acknowledge like, hey, if you're suffering, like you're allowed to suffer. And that's okay. Yeah. And the real tragedy is that I think if you're kind of anti-alpha, the solution is not to tear down the It's to offer young men an alternative that validates their experience and supports them, as opposed to tearing down the one place where they're getting that kind of support. Right. Yeah.

Like if there are, if you just got rid of all alpha males, then there might not be a place for people to go. What's that guy's name? Baumgardner? That guy's great. I mean, I think the reason that you see alpha males crop up over and over and over again, despite the fact that a lot of them will get canceled is because no one is addressing the need. So you can, you know, chop down one. You can cancel one, but someone else is going to crop up.

Right. Because there's still a need for that sort of. I got almost into that shit, alpha male stuff. Me too. Because I, you know, I liked looking at every guy as like a father figure or something, like looking up to people. I thought that was, that's what I did for a long time. but I never got that. Inuit, I don't know why.

College, too liberal. I think in my case it was just timing. So I don't think it was as available. I think if I, if 18 year old me or 19 year old me was on the internet today, I think I would be a part of that crowd. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I see what you mean. Yeah, I think if I was, if I, honestly, if I played a different game,

I might be in that crowd. like if growing up I had played a game that was more on the computer and I'd been on the computer more than like call duty so I'm on the console all the time that I might have just gotten into that crowd just because I might have been more exposed to it. Because I've like at the very least I try to give everything like a listen and an understanding you know because I think there's like conventions that are popular. at least among like left-leaning groups, which is like oftentimes a lot of like online communities like Twitch and YouTube. It's like, all right. You know, Jordan Peterson, cringe, make your bed guy,

Ben Shapiro, you know, All right guy. So I was like, and then it's like Andrew Tate, this guy. It's like, so everyone's like has these kind of like brandings around them. So I was like for a period when I was in college, I was like, all right, let me listen to all these people and see what they say. And then I came to my own conclusion. I was like, oh, I think they're dumb. But I think I was old enough to have had values that made me come to that conclusion,

as opposed to just believing other people's conclusions. What did they say or represent that made you kind of reject what they were saying or conclude that they weren't good? I think I saw it as like a general lack of maybe empathy. And I think I valued that really highly. Um, and then I think an inability to give things that would help my life, at least for me personally. So it might have been more personal. Like I didn't find a lot of things that like from listening that I was like, oh, this, this is, this helps improve my, my state of being. Um, it would more so like, I think just maybe, maybe make me find someone new to.

I don't know. It didn't help my life, I think. Because I got into a big self-improvement phase, and this was like right around then, and it was like, none of this is making me like a better person. Hmm. Yeah,

because I think a lot of people, I don't know about like Ben Shapiro. I think he's a little bit more political, but like a lot of people find Jordan Peterson's advice and methodologies and stuff to be like absolutely transformative in terms of improving their life. And I don't know. I mean,

I've sort of, I'm not too familiar like as he's moved away from psychology. I've like seen or consume less of his stuff. But I remember being in residency and I watched his lectures on personality, which I thought were brilliant. So I was struggling to understand like personality development because we don't really get a whole lot of it in psychiatry. Like we're focused on illness and diagnoses, but like how does a human being develop? And his, I mean, I watched the whole thing because he kind of takes like, you know, what has one lecture on, okay, this perspective says this. This perspective says this. This perspective says

this, this perspective says this. I thought it was really great. What is that? What is the what? Personality development. So do you know what person? It sounds like a silly question, but what's your, do you know what personality is? Because I think understanding personality development means understanding personality.

Like what do you think? It's like a quiz. I think I'm EMGP or something. Okay. So let's understand, you ready for a mini lecture? Sure. Okay. So who are you?

Ludwig, I stream sometimes. Okay, cool. So, Ludwig, right? You've been you your whole life? A version of it, yeah. A version of it, right? Sure. So were you always a streamer?

No. Were you always Ludwig? No. In college I was Anders. Okay. And so, are you the person that you were in college? No. No.

Similar. But have you always been you? Yes. Yes. Weird. Yeah. Right? Did you always have manly calluses on your hands?

Out the womb. They gave me iron out the womb and I just lifted it. So I think, so let's start by understanding like what a human being is, right? So there's, in the east we have this idea that there's a self. So who you are, there are attributes of you that change over the course of your life. But there's a eunis that is constant. So you used to be like maybe two feet tall. And now you're however tall you are.

You look the way that you look. You're a student. You're a streamer. You're Ludwig. You're Anders. You're maybe one day, I don't know if you have kids or not. Maybe one day you're a father. Maybe you're not.

You're married. You're retired. You're a baker. You're a streamer. You know, like there's all these things about us. There are things that we identify with that all change. So then how can you be you? Because in one version, you're a streamer who's this,

and in one version of that, your body changes, your circumstances change. So there's a true self. Above the true self, and that's the continuity of you amongst all of those things. Above the true self is something that I would say is called a personality. Now, some people may say that the true self and the personality are the same, but I'd say the personality is what's on top.

So how do we understand what personality is? If you and I go into the same exact situation, we will not do and say the exact same things. All of the circumstances can be 100% the same, but two human beings will react slightly differently. You know, you'll say what's up. I'll say hello. So personality is essentially the construction that we have that shapes the way that we perceive the world, shapes the way that we analyze the world and shapes the way that we react to the world. So in one situation, like, for example, baking bread for a group of women, I would be really

comfortable with. You would be really comfortable with. I'm sure you're very charming with grannies. And I would be very embarrassed. Like, I still don't know how to dribble. I would feel a lot of embarrassment on the basketball court. Right. So there's some aspects of our.

personality. There's some circumstances where people would be terrified to bake in front of women or would be terrified to look like an idiot. Like I'm totally fine. Like Chad mode. Like you surround me with women. Like I can't play that game all day. Mm-hmm. Surround me with dudes. Harder. Yeah. So that's what personality is. It's it. So if we think about personality, it shapes the way we see the world, shapes our perceptions, shapes our reactions, shapes our behaviors. And that constellation. And if we kind of think about, okay, how to as a personality form, it's a series of experiences. So when you were seven years old and when I was seven years old on the basketball court,

we dribbled and we got made fun of. And so that was painful. But when we saw our mom's friends, they would pinch our cheek and say, oh, we're so cute. And we became comfortable with that sort of thing. So as we have these experiences, we lay down like algorithms to deal with the world. and that collection of algorithms forms our personality. Is there a layer above? Sure.

I would say that personality is sort of like deep set, right? So it's kind of like programming at the algorithmic level. And above that is sort of the individual experience at a given time. So if you look at the mind, there's the true self. Then there's sort of like the deep mind which has personality. And then you have a surface mind which will have things like thoughts, emotions, things like that. Because an individual thought is not personality.

It is built up from personality. It arises from personality. So that's what I would say is on the surface. Do you have a guy in your head that you talk to? Not anymore. Really? Yeah. What do you got up there?

What's rattling around? First of all, I wouldn't say it's up there. I'd say it's down there. So I used to talk to myself, right? I used to like, and now what I've found is like I would say there's a signal that I can tune into is the way I would describe it. That has everything. So it doesn't say specific things. It always has what I need to know.

I just have to tune into it. Where is it? All the way at the bottom. It's what I would call the self. Down there. So I talk to myself. I like talking to myself. I like being in my own head a lot.

I think it's fun. I think I got some good thoughts and honestly I stump myself a lot and I like thinking should I have a guide down there too? You do. How do I talk to that guy? You don't talk to that guy, you listen.

That person doesn't talk to you. It's kind of weird. But let me put it this way. So when you're talking to yourself are the both sides, like you know there's one side that's like putting stuff out and I don't know,

this is going to make no sense. So now we're back to our conversation two years ago. So when you're talking to yourself, they're not at the same level. Does that make sense? It's like one person is pitching and one person is responding. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's back and forth. Yeah, but, but if you kind of think about it, one of y'all is doing the pitching and one of y'all is always doing the responding. That's true. Right? So it's not actually like a dialogue between equals. It's like, I'm going to toss something your way to accept or reject. It's almost like a conversation between

a parent and a child. One of y'all is more mature and knowledgeable. Does that make sense? Yeah, okay. I can buy. So the pitcher is at a higher level of mind. And the reason that you have a response down below, right? Like, you can test your, like, you can pitch yourself an idea and you can conclude whether it is right or wrong. But that conclusion has to come from a place of greater knowledge because you're passing judgment. So there's a part of you that, right? Yeah, I think so. And through dialogue, what you're really trying to do is,

so the person up here who needs to understand. Let me forget about that for a second. Let's let me make one point. So the person who makes the judgment is actually deeper than the person who does the pitching. And you're one step closer to the self who has all the answers. That's how that dude knows so much. Right.

There's a dude below that dude that knows even more. Yep. So you just, you cut the middleman. Not always, but I think what I found is that they kind of get sandwiched, I would sort of say. Because I like asking tough questions to myself about like my intentions, why I did certain things, what my goals were from those things, were that, am I honest, even in my own head about my goals of those things? And so on, so forth. So that's usually like some of the conversations I have in my mind. Ludwig, when you ask yourself a tough question, where does the answer come from?

My little guy. Which little guy? I don't know. He's in my head, I think. Is it the top or the middle or the bottom or what? I don't know. I've always thought of him as just like he's stationed in my head. Like he's at the top, I think.

Okay, so he's stationed in your head. Yeah, he's stationed there. Right? But it's not you. It's like this other person. Well, I guess it's also me. Sure. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Is it not? Okay. No, hold on. So this is where you got to be careful. Okay. So you have to don't, when you say something, that is like the words that your brain is using to accurately represent your experience. Just because it doesn't make any fucking sense, don't go back on it. Okay.

Right? Because that's how you actually won't learn. If you stay attached to your old perception or your conception of how things should be, you won't actually learn. But you said, He is in my head. So who is the eye? The eye is the ego. The eye is the personality.

That other dude isn't part of your ego or personality. You talk to him. Right. Does he know more than you or less than you? I think he knows more. Absolutely. He's pretty good. He's very good.

Like a thing I'll do a lot is I do conversation shadow boxing. And he always knows what the other person is going to say. Mm-hmm. And he's pretty good at it. He's very good. Yeah. Why is he so good? Because he's omniscient.

Oh, fucker. Okay. Right? Otherwise, like, how would he have these answers? Like, you ask him tough questions. Yeah. And it's not, and this is also, now we get into real subtle stuff. If you ask a tough question and he doesn't have the right answer, you may think he's not knowledgeable enough, but you just can't hear him.

That's been my experience of it. You can't really tune into what he has to say. This happened to me this past week. Because I had a question, tough question, and I doubted his answer. And then I called my mom and then she made me reassured in his answer. See, he fucking knows. He was right. He was right.

But it felt bad. I'll give you the example. So I have my Valorant team. And they are in playoffs to make it to basically the pros. It's like the most important match of their life. I watch every single game they've done so far. one of the playoff matches could potentially collide with the date of a wedding of one of my best friends in high school.

Now we've not talked as much recently. We've talked like I can count on my hand how many times we've talked in the past like eight years. But I had a decision, which is either sign up to go to this wedding and if you sign up an RSVP for a wedding, that's like a few hundred dollars for the person. It's not something you can flake on very easily

and potentially like miss, the game, which would be devastating, because I really care about this team, or say no to going to the wedding, risking perhaps not even having a conflict of interest because my team either already made it through or got eliminated. So I was like, this was the decision I was away. It was very difficult decision. And then the guy was like, well, you got to rep the team. But then to me, I was like, well, I feel really bad. Like, I feel like I am bailing on a friend.

I feel like interpersonal relationships is the real value in life. and I'm ditching this opportunity for online video games and stream and work and I should prioritize people around me. So I was like that those were, that's the battle that I was having. And so I was debating, debating, debating, debating. Eventually I called my mom.

And she was like, she was like, well, what do you think? And I was like, well, I told it what the little guy said. And she's like, decisions have been made. There's no need to stress about it. Why are you stressing about a decision that's been made? It's only going to make you more anxious and eat you inside, just be happy with that decision that you made. And I was like, you're actually spitting bars. Okay. So when you didn't listen to the guy, you were asking me what's above that,

right? When you didn't listen to the guy, what did you experience? Oh, doubt, insecurity. So what are those? Fear? Yeah, fears. Those are all emotions, right? Yeah, emotions. So this is where you ask me, what's above the personality. That's where your emotions and thoughts are. below that is this dude. Yeah. So what's kind of interesting is the dude doesn't really experience emotion. No. Isn't that weird?

Yeah, he can be a dick. Okay. Because I feel like he's less compassionate because he doesn't experience emotion. Does he tell you to be compassionate at times? Perhaps. I don't know if I'd necessarily go to him for that. I think I maybe default on it. I don't know.

I haven't thought that deep. Okay. Yeah. So something to think about. So I think we've left some people. in the dust, so let me just, let's take a step back and understand a couple things. So I think it's a great question. I think the question to start with is when you talk to yourself, who are you talking to? And are those just two parts of yourself? So we can say that, yeah, they're two parts of me.

But this kind of goes back to this like, okay, what is you? There's a part of you that does not change, right? That's how you know you're always you. And if you want to know what the fundamental quality of that is, It is your capacity to experience stuff. That's what never changes over the course of your life. You can always taste food. You can always feel pain. You can always feel pleasure. All of those, all of the inputs may change.

But there is a certain receiver that is always capable of receiving stuff. And this was kind of what Descartes kind of figured out, right? So he was like, Cogito ergo sum. So how do I know I exist? there's something here that exists. And in his philosophical proof, he was like, well, sometimes there are things like, you know, trickery and hallucinations and the devil may put thoughts into my head. But at the end of the day, there is something here that is experiencing life. So it is that experiencer, which is the real self.

And when we get grounded in that, then we become true Stoics. Because now we can just experience things without attachment. And this may sound kind of weird. Like how could it be possible to enjoy feeling sad, for example? But we enjoy feeling sad all the time. Like you watch a sad movie and listen to sad music. And like it's like, oh my God. So it's kind of weird because in our society, we think that negative emotions are the same as suffering or pain.

They're not. And it's our ability to even, and I've seen this with like cancer patients and stuff where they're like, yeah, you know, like life is such a gift. And like cancer has made me like see the world. And you kind of alluded to this when you're like, it'll all work out. Maybe not in the way that you think. So that truest self, once we get to that truest self, we're kind of at peace, we're tranquil, we're stoic. Really interesting thing is that psychedelics, things like ketamine, move us in that direction. That's why some of these novel things that are being investigated in psychiatry are so effective

because they don't work at the same level that like an antidepressant medication works. that works at the level of like thoughts and emotions. We're literally going to give you a mood stabilizer that will shut down or numb or decrease the activity of the part of your brain that experiences emotion. It's a completely different layer of treatment. So between the self and our thoughts and our emotions, which are up here, is this weird thing in the middle, which we could call personality or ego or things like that. We have this sense of identity. I think they're even sub-layers there.

And so when you're talking to yourself, it's kind of weird because you have this experience where they're not on the same level. Like, one of y'all is giving the answers and one of y'all is like asking the questions. And it's not that the person can always give the answers, but that realization, like we also see this is kind of the light bulb in our head. Where does that realization come from? You had all the information before. Yeah.

And so that's kind of like what we're talking about here is that self dialogue is like getting deeper and deeper into the self. And the more you connect to the self, the more it stops becoming a conversation. And there's only... Right. That's what you're referencing is that you're just listening to the self as opposed to having a back and forth. Do you miss having a back and forth? Sometimes it's fun. I think probably on some level will have a back and forth, but it's very mild or I don't think that I miss it.

I just kind of work my way through it kind of on my own. It's kind of weird. I don't, I just experience it differently. Yeah. Chad, you still with us? How you doing? Don't do ketamine. Yeah, so, you know, all these psychedelics and stuff, people really do need to be careful

because everyone hears about these great stories and stuff. But people need to really understand that a lot of this stuff, even if you don't use it as medicine, in spiritual traditions, you have people who are like trained guides. and and I saw a at a I was at the American Psychiatric Association conference this past weekend and um there were actually a lot of like studies and case reports of like really bad things happening from like psychedelics studies on like micro dosing and and all this kind of crap which microdosing I think is probably a bad idea yeah that's what all the Silicon Valley people do or at least I hear them doing like all the big CEOs yeah I think it's bad that's fair

What about that one drug? They talk about that one? What's it called? The one that makes you not eat, the wonder drug? Yeah, there's recently... Omexa. Yeah, it reduces appetite. So here's the big takeaway with wonder drugs.

When we have a wonder drug, it's called a wonder drug because it seems to work really, really, really, really great. So one of the first wonder drugs we had was like, fluoxetine or prozac. And it was like, wow, this has really amazing things. But generally speaking, what happens over time is as we collect data, what we discover is

that the wonder drug is not quite as wondrous as we originally thought. And part of the reason for that is that the original, so there's this interesting clause where when you're trying to get a drug through the FDA, and I could be wrong here because I'm not an expert in this stuff, you have to register every

trial that you do on your drug. But you don't have to report the results of every trial to the FDA. So what I can do is do 16 drug trials and only report three of them to the FDA. And then the approval process is based on that. And then what we're sort of see, usually what we see with wonder drugs is that early on, the data is not that comprehensive. And the other problem that we see with wonder drugs is that they're originally used, not with everyone, there's like a selection bias with who uses wonder drugs. So for example, who in the United States anyway, who can get prescribed wonder drugs, people who have good insurance.

And so people who have good insurance are more likely to have better outcomes because they're more likely to have jobs. They're more likely to have money. They're more likely to have other kinds of medical care. So there's all kinds of other advantages that they have that correlate with the wonder drug. They're also more likely if someone is prescribed. describing the wonder drug, what does that say about their doctor? It says that their doctor is staying up to date with the latest advancements and isn't practicing on outdated models, which means that that in and of itself is probably like a doctor who's going to be more effective.

And so over time, the efficacy of most wonder drugs tends to drop. But I think it suppresses hunger, right? It increases satiety signals. Yes. And I think it also, or at least like there's a study that it suppresses addiction. And so I think that's why people have been more calling it the wonder drug. Penicillin's a wonder drug. Penicillin is a wonder drug.

That one did not fail us. No, that's a true wonder drug. Yeah. And peyote. So I suspect that the psychedelics are going to be in the real revolutionary category, which I think SSRIs sort of are. I think, anyway, yeah. I was mostly making a meme.

But I do want to do acid because Steve Jobs did it. But I've never done it. I think acid is probably one of the, the most dangerous psychedelics you can do. I've seen the worst outcomes, huh? It's hard. What do you mean hard? Like, that's hard.

Like, it's some tough shit you're doing. That's badass. It's like a harder drug. Yeah, but that's not good. It's more damaging. Riskier. High risk, high reward. No.

Oh. This is the thing. High risk. High reward. Low reward. But of reward. Yeah, but you may get reward with other things. Okay.

Right? Like, this is the other thing we've got to be careful about, right? Sure, sure. It's like, not everything is balanced in real life. Yeah, I see what you mean. Not everything that is high risk is necessarily equally high reward. Yes. In fact, most things that are high risk are just stupid.

That sucks. It does. But that's not the way that we think about it. So this also, there's a really interesting cognitive bias that the, the cost of something, so human beings determine the value of something based on the cost of something.

We determine the value. It's not intrinsic. I mean, it's not independent. So two really interesting studies. You can take a group of somaliers and wine experts. And if you ask them to rate a group of wines,

they will agree on which wines are better and which wines are worse. If you blind them to the price, they still agree. They say that some wines are good and some wines are bad. But the quality does not correlate to the price. If the people, so high quality can be cheap and expensive can be crappy. So the somaliers will still all agree with each other, but it doesn't necessarily correlate with the price.

There was a consensus on which wines are good, but the good wines don't correlate with price. If you take somaliers and wine experts and you don't blind them, to price. They all also uniformly agree, but they agree that the most expensive or most famous wines are the best. They're biased by the price. Price is a great metric for quality if you're lazy or ignorant. Yes. Not lazy. I mean, that's the way your brain works. It's efficient. Right. Lasiness and efficiency is the same thing. Yeah, maybe not lazy. Right. So as human beings, we value things that other human beings value. Alpha's talk about this a lot, right?

Yeah. Sexual marketplace value. There's truth to that. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So, and that's the thing is we think, okay, like, if something is high risk, that means that it must, like, be better.

No. Yeah, that, it'd be cool, though. It'd be cool to coin flip for, for, like, having one of those gigabrains, like, in, limitless or if you fail the coin flip, you're brain dead. Yeah. So I think that as a culture, and especially as men, we have been, we have normalized risk taking is something that's valuable, right? Because like, it's dope.

Yeah. Like, so if you survived hard shit, that makes you more of a man. So I'm going to, but I think. I don't know if it necessarily makes you more of a man. I do think surviving hard shit can give you experiences you couldn't. otherwise get though, which has value to your life as a whole, but I would necessarily wish it on anyone. Right.

So like speaking of which, there's like transformative experiences through trauma. But if you want to like, you know, make something of your life, I would not recommend traumatizing yourself as a way to do it. I think some amount of, some amount of. difficult experiences and putting yourself through that is good. But that's my whole point is like, there's like difficult experiences that you choose, like going on a hike or like hiking the Appalachian Trail.

For me, it was hiking. So I like went to the Himalayas and things like that. Do you like, is Everest in the Himalayas? Yes, but I didn't hike it to Everest. I just went to the foothill area. Still tight. And yeah, that was part of the spiritual journey. because it's not legit unless you go to the Himalayas, right?

You got to have the social cred. Yeah, that is social cred for sure. Do you think of yourself as smart? Do I think of myself as smart? I acknowledge, I don't think of myself as smart, but I'm pretty, I mean, I am smart. I know that. But I don't think of myself as a smart person. Chad, do you think you're smart?

I like to think I'm dumb. I think it makes me feel better. I don't like to think of myself as smart. Yeah, so one of the big things that I kind of discovered was I had a weird ego around humility, where I would not acknowledge the things that I was actually good at because I thought it made me egotistical. And so what I realize is I actually have an ego of like, I'm going to be the humblest person in the room, bitches. Like, look at me. Like, I trained at Harvard Medical School.

and I'm not even going to call myself smart. I'm going to call myself average. And that makes me more humble. And then I was like, that's egotistical. Like, that's silly. I'm trying to, no, if I'm, I mean, I'm not dumb. I can be dumb. I went to Harvard.

That's hard to get into. It is. I thought you were saying that you didn't apply yourself in high school. I didn't. Did you go to Harvard? So I finished college. I went to UT, and I finished college with a 2.5, GPA. And then I spent three years applying to med school, got rejected 120 times,

finally got into Tufts University School of Medicine, and then did my psychiatry training at Harvard. Yeah, that's tight. So I think it's like, yeah, like I'm smart. Not ego. It's I don't think of myself. Like, oh my God, I'm smarter this person, therefore I should listen to them. But like, I, you know, I think it's stupid and falsely egotistical to not acknowledge what my strengths and weaknesses are some things I'm good at. I've given some I spawned right it's RNG where you spawn yeah I was given some buffs and I was given some buffs debuffs do you feel like I feel like I know so little that's why maybe I feel like I'm dumb yeah I mean I think I I know but knowledge and intelligence are two different things yeah people always say that I know it's like a classic saying

I don't really know the difference between the two that's what makes you dumb Sorry, that's bad. Got me there, got me there. Thank you, Doc. Thank you, Doc. Sorry. I couldn't. Is that, is that okay?

That's great. When you see the opportunity, you got a strike. You get one chance. No, but I mean, I think that, uh, what were we talking about again? So there's a difference between intelligence and being smart and I, or knowledge and being smart. People always like, knowledge is like what you know. And I guess smart is like maybe how you like, you navigate. certain situations or whatever and like your ability to critically think but isn't your ability to

critically think also just built off of what you know anyway like doesn't it circle back anyway like isn't it just the collection of all the things that you've learned which is knowledge they aren't they one of the same in a way yeah so that that's a really good point that the more you learn the more your critical thinking is improved is what you're saying right yeah so so i think what we kind of know is that, so let's look at physicians, for example. If you measure the IQ of a group of doctors, you'll have a span, right? Like, some are going to be super high IQ. Some are going to be, like, actually average IQ.

But if you look at the competency of performance of doctors, we have a training that we go through. So mine was, you know, four years in about 10 to 15,000 hours of, like, psychiatric. training and I had really good teachers. And so I learned, I accumulated a lot of knowledge. My intelligence did not change from the start of residency to the end of residency. What changed is my acquisition of a particular skill set. Like, I may have trained at Harvard Medical School, but I still fucking suck at Dota. Like, I'm, I'm terrible. Right. So competence in a particular field or expertise in a particular field, one is, I would say it this way. One is stats and one is like skill levels. I don't know if you've played D&D.

Sure. Yeah, I play D&D once in my day. Right? So, like, you've got a stat and then you've got, like, your proficiencies or your skills. And, like, what's your skill bonus? That's what I would say is the difference between knowledge and stats. And the big problem with society is that we overvalue stats and undervalue skills. Oh, really?

Yes. But it's easier, I think, to improve on your skills than it is your stats. Absolutely, which is why it's a real... Let me... Interesting statistics. So, you know what MENSA is? Yes. That's the gene.

No. Genius. The genius. Yeah, the genius test. So in order to join MENSA, you have to actually have an IQ in the top 2% of the population. Okay. So let me ask you a question. How much money do you think the top 1% of MENSA?

You take the best earners, not the smartest. The best earners in Mensa, how much money do you think they make a year? Top 1% of earners in Mensa. An organization of geniuses. Okay. Well, you're asking because it's a trick. Absolutely. I would have normally answered 600K average.

Okay. It's 250K. Okay. You take the top 1% of earners in the United States. Average just the whole population, right? We're not pre-selecting for geniuses. What is the top 1% of earners in the U.S.? Annually?

Yeah. Okay. I think like 9% are millionaires. I would go with 1.2. It's over a million. Okay. Right? For sure.

I mean, there's weird statistics. Some studies look at household incomes, so it could be a double income. And there's also half percent versus 1%. But the ballpark is over a million. So you take normal people, right? So some of them may be smart. But you can take the most lucrative people out of a group of geniuses and it's 250K. You just take 1% of the general population. There's all kinds of problems with this analysis. You could say, well, maybe Mensa selects for people. People who join Mensa are the ones who aren't successful outside of life. That's kind of a burn at Mensa. But there are other problems with the statistic. But I think one of the big things that we've learned is that IQ doesn't count for nearly as much. much as we think it does. Or they're so smart, they've gone above the need for capital. And they realize that is a waste of their pursuits. That is, that is definitely a possibility.

I don't think that's the case. Okay, fair. That's fair. I think that what we've, and this is the real tragedy is that we've grown up telling kids that giftedness means you should succeed. Yes. Without really, and then what happens is since they're gifted, we don't even teach these kids the skills that they need. Right. So I was asking my mom the other day, like, I read with my kids. And I was asking my mom, like, hey, did y'all ever do homework with us? And I don't remember that you guys ever, like, read to us or did homework or anything

like that. And she's like, no. I was like, why not? I wasn't being accusatory or anything. She's a great mom. And she's like, well, you guys, like, never had problems. So we never thought we needed to do anything. And so what I realized is I was never taught how to study.

And so what happened is, like, once I got to college, like, Like, I could brute force my way through, like, maybe algebra. But you can't brute force your way through precalculus. You need to understand, like, work ethic. You're telling me, D-minus in that class. I really thought I could brute force it. Nope. You can't.

And we were never taught study skills. So now we have this crop of kids who we've told, because you're smart, you should be successful. And we don't actually equip them to succeed. That's the big tragedy. Yeah. And then they end up feeling ashamed of themselves because they're like, should be succeeding, whereas they don't understand actually like the deck was stacked against you. So if we glorified gills as much as we did stats, then perhaps people would pursue it more

or know how to pursue it more and that would make them more proficient in things in their life. That's one part of it. I think the other part is we'd have a host of people who have high IQ who are not filled with shame because we as a society have not taught them that this is sufficient, for your success. If you are smart, you should be successful. That societal thing will be lifted from all of these kids, which I think would be huge for them. I do think they should teach work ethic, but I don't teach that. Me too.

I wouldn't quite call it. Yeah, go ahead. What do you call it? Well, I think work ethic is an amalgamation of different things. Habits. Sure, you can teach people. habit formation, but I think teaching people concentration is a key part of work ethic. All right.

So what is work ethic? Maybe work ethic is discipline. But work ethic isn't just discipline. Discipline implies that you are almost overcoming a natural impulse. But people who have good work ethic have a combination of discipline being able to overcome their natural impulses, have a combination of habits, have a combination of like supportive environment and have some skill at focusing. And then there's also two other parts of that. One is emotional awareness and the ability to manage your emotions because procrastination is tied to your

emotions. Work ethic and procrastination are kind of at odds. And the last thing is some amount of introspection because the best work ethic comes out of like not fulfilling societal expectations, but having your goals, like you said, I'm going to pick one goal a year and that helps me. It's about what do I want. And then you can align your work ethic behind your intention. So I think work ethic is like a combination of stuff. But yeah. Do you write down your goals?

Huh? Do you write down your goals? Do you have any major goals? Nope. No. No goals. Yeah. Wow.

Is there a reason or just, you don't go? Yeah, I find that. So I think a goal is a little bit more as an outcome expectation. Yeah. Right? It's either meet it or don't meet it. So what I tend to have is like a direction and it. intention.

So I can't achieve a goal. This is something I learned like doing addiction and psychiatry. People are like, yeah, I want to be sober for a year. You can't be sober for a year. You can be sober for a day. You can be sober for a moment. That's all you can do. You can never be sober for a year.

And so in that same way, it's like, okay, what do I want to work on? I have things that I work on. But I can't get to that step unless I have a goal. It's hard for me to write the intention to get to the goal without knowing the goal that I'm trying to get to. Yeah, so I think it's useful to have some kind of target to move towards, but it's kind of weird, but I don't. So I have it like a, I guess that's a goal. So, you know, I'll intentionally try to do something.

Like I'll put together a lecture on trauma. But I don't, for me, I guess maybe I just have a, the word goal can be unhealthy for me. That's fair. I think it can, yeah. The big paradoxes, like when I went to med school, so both of my. parents or sorry when I went to college I was pre-med and both of my parents were doctors and so I was like a good little Indian kid I was going to become a doctor and where did I want to go I wanted to go to Harvard because that's where all the smart Indian kids go and I was a smart Indian kid and then

chasing that goal like made me fail out of college because it was all about ego right and then paradoxically I didn't care about going there I was just like okay like I'm going to try to become a doctor for you know for me and like it's a good thing to do and I want to learn about the body And then went to med school and just did a really great job when I wasn't focused on being number one. I didn't care about being number one. I was just, I want to like learn how a human being works and put all of my energy into that. Now is that a goal? It doesn't have a target.

It's like I want to learn as much as I can about people. And it turns out that that's what led to my best performance. It's like when guys, there's a lot of guys. are I was like, well, not, this is a little like a blunt way to say it, but guys I think are interested in getting a mate and getting and finding a girl or a guy or whatever they want. And, uh, and I think the less you focus on that and the more you focus on like, you know, just not pursuing that. I think the more attractive you become for a partner. So just like a paradoxal thing. That is like the story of my life. So I went to indie at the age of 21 and then, um, had had a string of just terrible relationships or even if you, You can call them relationships, like for my first two years of college. And then decided to become a monk. And so I came back from India and I was like, I'm going to be celibate. And then completely like, I don't care about women anymore.

Like, I'm a be celibate. And then like I met this girl. And I asked her, I guess I didn't actually ask her out on a date. She thinks I asked her out. I didn't ask her out. I was just like, hey, you want to hang out sometime? Okay. Yeah.

So she insists we were dating. I don't, I don't know. I mean, I didn't. You refute this. Yeah. In retrospect, I think she's probably objectively correct. Like the signals all correlate with dating. Like, but in my mind, we weren't dating.

I was just and, you know, ended up being my girlfriend and ended up being my wife. And it was like really bizarre. So started getting a lot more female attention. And then I got like married. And then I was like, okay, so like now there's no, you know, it's fixed. I'm done. And so then when I interacted with women, it was like there's no possibility of anything. I'm never going to have an affair or anything like that.

I'm not interested in that crap. So then. And then suddenly, like, women were, like, interested in me. And I was like, what the fuck? Yeah. And so now I actually actively avoid women who express anything like romantic interest. The key to finding someone is to start celibate. The incels would disagree.

Yeah. Well, that's involuntary. Voluntary celibate. I don't know. All sell. That's a thing, right? Yeah, I don't know. That's just a celibate, right?

Yeah. I think there's a term called Volsale, though. I think that's real. Or that's a character in Hitchhiker's Guide of the Galaxy. Either way. I think it's the real thing, but I don't know. I mean, there's a lot there. Yeah.

But, yeah, I mean, I do think that getting out of your own head, so when you prioritize a goal, like here's kind of what I found, is that you put so much pressure on yourself, you're trying to live up to it. You kind of mentioned, I think, with your Valorant team, that y'all are, like, growth-oriented instead of the outcome-oriented. So I think goals make it easy to slip into that outcome mindset. And then if you're like talking to a girl, you're like in your head,

does she like me? Does she not like me? Instead, you're not having a good time. And you're not pleasant. And then that becomes less fun because half of your cognition is like watching the replay of this game while it's happening instead of playing the game. And then you suck at the game because you're analyzing it constantly instead of just playing. Yeah, you're two.

worried about if you're choking the bag to focus on getting the bag. Yeah, I think it's, I'd be dumb to say that we're not all aware of our goal for the Valoran team. Like there is a clear goal. There is a, like everyone has it. Everyone in the league. It's the same thing. Everyone wants to go up to the next step.

But to say that it is a failure if you don't achieve that goal, be dumb. And I think there's like a lot of successes to like celebrate. And I'm very aware that this team won't last for, you know, probably five years, probably 10 years. You know, like people will move on. They'll find different teams. They may quit Valorin altogether. And so I'd be, it'd be more successful if this was a great part of their life that they remembered, I think, than if we hit our goal. And then the team disbanded instantly and they all hate it. You know what I mean? Like, I think that's, that'd be more valuable, I think for me and them. Yeah. So I think that's the kind of thing that that that attitude, right, the paradoxical attitude. And it sounds like all are doing well. And I think those two things are related. That's the biggest, the biggest scam of life is that, the more we want something, the more our mind gets in the way of us getting it. That's so hard about being human. Yeah.

Yeah, also I do this thing sometimes, or if I want something, I just think of having the thing, and then I feel good, and then I don't try to pursue the thing. I want it to be the best smash player in the world. And then while practicing to be the best smash player in the world, I would think about being the best smash player in the world,

and, like, what it would be like to win, and, like, everyone would be like, you're the fucking best. and like holding the trophy and then that felt good and then I would stop pursuing the very long boring tiresome road of actually doing that thing because it felt good enough to get a little crumb of what that thing was like and then you're done wanting to be the best smash player that was sufficient it was more like that crumb felt good and it didn't feel good to like okay well now you know grind tech skill for an hour and do vaude highlights it was like oh no I'll do that

and then I'll just play for funsies. And so it was less focused in intentional practice because I think I diluted myself or just felt good about thinking about it. And so that was the substitute for actually working towards it. So that's interesting. I mean, that almost,

I've never heard, this is fascinating, by the way. A few people give me truths when I say this. I've said this before. So it's interesting because I hear a lot of the, converse, which is that I fantasize about something, and it destroys my motivation. Yeah. And so what I'm wondering is actually if you've discovered a secret jutsu, if you will, which is, I wonder if you want to let go of a desire, if you can use fantasy to kill your

motivation towards that desire and then move on to something else. I know that was a lot of words. Give an example. So a lot of people like want something, right? like, oh, I want a girlfriend, I want a girlfriend. Let me think about this. So I hear from a lot of people in my community that I can fantasize about something all day long, but I never do anything about it. I'm not actually motivated. I don't actually pursue it. I just fantasize about it. And if you look at the psychology of like why we fantasize, it does help us feel good. It's a coping mechanism for

negative emotion and can give us some amount of positive feeling. What you described, right? I can fantasize about it, feel good, and then no longer grind towards it. But for these people, they actually still want to grind towards it. So it's a problem for them that I live a life of fantasy instead of actually doing something in my life. There's another group of people that thinks to themselves, I'm too caught up in this and I need to let myself go. Like, I need to let this thing go. I need to give up on this thing. I need to move on.

I broke up with my girlfriend 10 years ago and I can't stop thinking about her or boyfriend. I can't get over this relationship. I want them back. I want them back. I want them back.

And I don't know how to move on. What I'm noticing is that fantasy for you allows you to move on. So it's a problem over here, right? Because you're no longer grinding towards smash. You're like often doing

better things with your time. Yeah. And this is the first time. that I'm wondering whether fantasy can be used to we can harness fantasy to move on from things. Yeah. I think it's possible as long as the thing is something you're truly okay with moving on from, you know? And also, like I think it would be sad if you never truly tried as well.

Because then I think that's how you form regret. So like if you just fantasize and then moved on, but like then 10 years later, you're like, man, I could have been the best smasher. I could have done whatever and you didn't actually attempt it. I think that would still feel bad. I think it would be harder. I think you need to try and fail. So I'm with you about trying and failing in terms of lack of regret.

So I think the number one thing that leads to regret is not giving it your all. I very rarely hear people regret things if they've really given it a fair shot. The thing that I'm kind of wondering about is when you said if you're ready to move on, How do you do that? Find something new. It's the easiest way, right? Like, I think I want it to be the best smash player in the world, and then I want it to be the biggest streamer in the world.

And so it's like, well, I'm not going to do fucking both. So I just moved on from one to the next one. Hmm. I feel like there's something, I think there's something here that is very helpful if it can be understood. I'm not quite sure what it is. Like, I think there's something about your methodology, which could really help.

people. I think if everybody writes down their goal of what they want to do, not like make up a goal, but if you have a goal already and you write it down and then you write down intentional steps that you will make towards that goal and then you give yourself a finite time to achieve some sort of progress or at least do those steps and see what progress you make, that gives you a point where you can quit. Like I think having a day where you can quit and not feel bad about it is good or have a day where you have enough success that you want to keep it going. But I don't think people give themselves the chance to quit or keep going. It's always what ifs.

So it's like you've got to give yourself a chance to quit. So I just want to call out something I saw in your chat, which is that's Ludwig. He's different. So here's the crazy thing. I think thinking that Ludwig is capable of this because he's Ludwig could be one of the most devastating mistakes that we make. So when we say that this person is capable of this because they are them instead of there is a technique or methodology, right? If we think about the best people in e-sports, why do they win? Because of them? Sure. But there's also something that we can learn.

We may not be able to get to them, but there may be something in their methodology. And one thing that I think, Bloodwig, you may be really good at, which could be, you sound like you're okay with quitting. Yeah, I think quitting's fine. if you if I tried if I failed I I think I think that's that's big I think part of the problem that I think a lot of people get stuck in is that we don't we think of quitting is a bad thing but if you don't quit you stay stuck yeah and yeah I think you're a quitter that's what makes you because you can't do multiple things so you have to quit one thing to do another thing But I also think something that I have, and I think if I have one superpower, it is blind confidence.

And I've had that for a long time. I think a lot of people, when they say that's Ludwig, it's maybe just a lack of confidence. I think you need confidence. So you said you've had it for a long time? You've always had it? I've had it for a while, yeah. Where do you think that confidence comes from?

Ten years. I think in the philosophy that it'll all work out. Because if it works out, can be confident that the path you're taking is the right path. You cannot be, because I think there's a lot of like, oh, I should have done this like wrong choice or whatever and getting hung up on it. But like if life is just a series of choices and you are always sure that it will work out, then you can be confident that you're walking the right path.

I think if you're ever thinking that you're in the wrong path, it's because you either think it won't work out or you're not confident, you know, which. So if it all works out, you can be, you can easily be confident. Can I ask you a question? Yeah, sure. How important do you think your decisions are in shaping your future? I think it's like, what do you mean? In shaping what the future is or how good the future is?

In how much control do you think your decisions exert over your future? I think every decision you make is what determines your future, but like how much you like the future you live in, I don't think it matters. Does that make sense? Like if I, if I, like, boil it down, like a decision I made, one of the bigger decisions in my life was whether I stay on Twitch

or go to YouTube. And that would have changed my life dramatically either way because I would have a very big switch and that would change my company and all my personal relationships. But in either path, I don't think the decision would have changed. Like, I don't think there was a right one.

Like, to this day, day, I think I would have been totally fine and happy if I was still on Twitch. So I don't think it determines like how I feel about my life and what's going on. Okay. So I think this is also something that's very big. So what I'm hearing, so when you make a decision in your mind, are you looking for the right decision? I think I'm, I like decisions that I have that no, no, I just, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know, I just pick the decision. I just, I'm usually pretty quick. I just pick whatever I think is, yeah, what I think is best. So I think a lot of the, so if we're talking about confidence at the personality level, what does confidence look like at the thought level and at the emotional level? Confidence, like I'm confident in myself, but I think that what that looks like in the actual thoughts that you have is that you're not concerned about making the right or the wrong decision. There isn't, because some people go through life and in their mind there is a right decision or a wrong

decision and their happiness or security is determined by the decision. And since there's so much weight in the decision, you're paralyzed. Because if you choose wrong, the rest of your life is screwed. It's so deterministic. There's no adaptation. There's no modification. There's no, this decision is everything. And what I find with people, and then what happens is those people are on,

don't have confidence. Always hand in hand. Like the people who think that there's a critical decision, for some reason, I think those are two sides of the same coin. And I have to think a little bit about how that precisely works out. But, and so I think it's really interesting because I'm sort of the same way. And I think a lot of my confidence comes from, I would use the word faith, that things will be okay. And the cultivation of faith that like actually I'm sort of powerless. Like, I can decide what I want to, but the number of variables that control what happens in my life is so high. And the number of things that I have control over is so small, like, you know, what's the use in stressing? So I'm going to just move forward in the direction

that I think I need to go. And then ultimately, remember that I don't determine whether I'm successful or not. All I determine is what my actions are, and that's what I'm going to focus on. Yeah, I think there's no wrong decisions. I think that's where a lot of your confidence comes from or vice versa. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's dope. Yeah, I think it's dope too. Chat, nothing you pick in life will be wrong.

And if it is wrong, then you'll just pick another one. And then that'll probably be right. And if that's wrong, you just keep going. And eventually it'll work out. Yeah, I think what makes things eventually work out is that you are okay making wrong decisions and you pick something else and you keep going. Yeah. I think the challenge is that sometimes people get stuck and they stop moving forward.

But yeah. Smoke meth. You just deal with having smoked meth. And maybe you're like, oh, I shouldn't smoke meth again, you know. But you'll figure it out. Yeah, I mean. I should gamble. Only if you bet on black, then you should.

No, I mean. Or the Celtics game five. I would still make smart or as best as you can make wise decisions. But don't get too caught up in them. Right. Be flexible. Well, Dr. Kay, I've had a blast. Likewise.

This has been great, dude. My balls are full of piss. Great. I've been holding it in for a minute. So I'm going to go piss. Great. And then I was going to watch the PlayStation Conference. Cool.

What do you got going on for the rest of the day? I got to check my calendar. I actually don't know. You have a lot of convos coming up. You're talking to Squeaks, I think? I hope so. Yeah. He said that.

Maybe Friday? I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. He's great. Yeah. I think it's going to be great. And then I'm not sure exactly who else. I think we've got like just a couple, you know, one week left in May.

So we try to have a lot of convoes. But I'm really looking forward to it. And yeah, thank you so much for coming on. Did it go well? Did you like talking? I loved it. Okay. I did too.

Yeah. Oh, that's cool? Yeah. So what did you think? I thought it was good. I like talking. I like learning about the little guy inside of me. I think that part was the coolest for me, but I think it might have lost some people. And I also like listening to what you say and then making a silly analogy out of it. I think that's always fun. My favorite part of the conversation was the eye-opening revelation that everything that I've learned about trauma applies to gaming. Yeah. Like I didn't realize that. that like all the stuff is like oh my god these are all trauma responses it's like man i'll send you a screenshot when i hit diamond and it'll all be because i start every lobby by going hi on ludwig dude this also might fail as a tactic for me you got to say anders

or yeah dude i get recognized because like a as like a valerrant pro on like a big team I got to recognize a good chunk by just talking because my mic is a little high you know what I should get a shit mic that's what I should do I should get a shit mic and I should go by Anders Well I actually

But when when people find out your Ludwig How do they respond? I know you've got balls full of piss They're always very nice they just play worse I think they get nervous Some people play a little worse Because they it's like Is he live so they go to check my stream

During the game which makes them play worse And then when they I'm usually not like but they still have this sort of set of expectations of how should I play with Ludwig now in the lobby. And so it throws them off their game a bit. Which is so good anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So I love to hear, you know, if you start practicing communication, maybe we'll actually make this video because I think there's like a couple of key principles. And it's all been illustrated like because I record every game that I play. And so you can you can see the when it works or doesn't work. And but anyway, yeah, thanks so much for coming on, dude. And, you know, if there's anything that we can do for you, please let us know. We'll do. Thank you so much for talking and sharing your perspective.

And I've learned a lot about a lot of problems that we hear about. I think I'm going to stew on this for a bit. So thank you. And take care, Ben. All right. Hey, have a go, man.