HealthyGamerGG - Solving Laziness with Asmongold

Episode Date: June 13, 2020

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It takes me about twice as long. They get everything set up whenever I do a Discord call. It's completely fine. Okay. And so what's your name, friend? Zach or Asmingold, whichever. What do you prefer? Let's go with Zach.

How about that? Okay, cool. Nice to meet you, Zach. I'm Oloaf or some people call me Dr. K. I guess most people call me Dr. K. But you can call me Ollock or whatever you prefer. Is that correct? It's not all maple, it's all oak.

All oak, okay. Perfect, just like the original Sanskrit. Okay. Awesome, man. So, Zach, I don't, everyone is super excited that we're talking. And I'm not sure exactly why, but they seem to be super excited. Do you have any idea? Well, I mean, I've had a very interesting history.

I mean, I think that I don't know if you've looked at any of my previous stuff at all, but I think that one of the most, I guess, famous or I guess, infamous, things about me as my room has always been very dirty. And so a lot of people correlate that with something being wrong with you or something like that. And so they probably think that something like that has to do with it. I do have to disappoint people, though. My room actually is pretty clean right now, though. I apologize. Okay. So, I mean, but what do you think at, what conclusions do people draw about the dirtiness of your room and you? Basically, that I don't have my life together. It's a complete mess. I'm depressed. I think so. Don't not having my life together.

My life being a complete mess for most of my life. That's probably true. But the part where, yeah, yeah, I mean, let's be real. But depressed? Hmm, hard to say. I don't really think depressed is the right word. What would you use to describe it? There's, I mean, like there, I think that it's just lazy. honestly like yeah yeah lazy i think that's really the main thing like there have been times that i have been depressed about certain things sure like i've had medical problems with my parents i've had you know ups and downs in my stream many things have made me depressed like uh situationally but not gone i believe like a mental level sure so help me understand what what what do you mean by lazy um so there is time that my alarm went off in my in my room i was like i had to wake up and i instead of turning off

the alarm i let the alarm go for two hours maybe three hours until the alarm died okay can you hold on just one second yeah my boomer ass needs to make a phone call because i i may be doing something wrong you're good thanks for bearing with me man i appreciate it uh it's no problem then usually train next intro takes 25 minutes okay cool we fixed it all right so you were saying sorry I think we're good now um so you you said that you were you're lazy because there was a uh um well i think that was just it's more or less a metaphor of how lazy I am why am I lazy because it's easier to not do anything than do something that that's fundamentally what it is and I'm I'm very good at adapting to things whenever they go wrong. I grew up very poor. So if a light

goes out, I just stop using that room. Yep. That's how that's pretty much it. And sorry, this is the last interruption. I promise. I just got a tea delivery. Oh. How convenient. That's great. Yeah, it's actually really awesome. So tell me, you said that you learned how to adapt by like, you know, if something breaks, like, you just learn how to live without it. Yeah. Like I've had a box fan duct tape to the side of my PC whenever my fan on my graphics card broke because I couldn't afford a new one. I literally had a bike with one pedal whenever I was a kid. I mean, there's plenty of other examples. But yeah, I mean, I grew up pretty poor. So I'm just used to, you know, if things don't go the way that I want them to,

that's okay. And I just do whatever I can. And where did you grow up? if you don't mind me asking. Austin, Texas. Okay. We're in Austin. Whereabouts? I don't like to say. Oh, okay. Because like, yeah, yeah, I don't, but I grew up in a poor part of Austin. Not, not very poor. I don't want to make sound like this is a rags to riches story. It's just a thrift store clothes to riches story. Or maybe not quite riches, but slightly more successful than I was. Sure. And are you still, yeah, I know I'm not supposed to ask people kind of where they live, but I get excited about people who are in Texas because I grew up in Texas, East Texas,

went to school in Austin. I'm back in Texas now, really happy to be back here. Awesome. Before I stopped, before I started streaming, I actually was planning on going to UT Law, or maybe Baylor, depending on which one I would get accepted to. Cool. But then I decided to play World Warcraft instead.

Can you tell me a little bit more about what growing up was like? sure I actually um to be to be honest with you I actually really enjoyed my uh my experience growing up sure and I had a lot of like really great memories and uh in a way I'm almost sad that I can't just relive it now uh honestly like I had I was surrounded by all my friends my family my parents were were well uh in general I was very happy. Oh yeah yeah I mean like there were there were negative Of course, there were negatives. But if I look back on it, I can't say that I regret a thing. Sure.

Yeah, I think one of the most confusing things for people is that they assume that being poor means that you grew up unhappy. And also that being rich means that you grew up happy or that you are happy. And one of the weirdest things that I remember there was, I used to work in a jail. And I was just really surprised because I had one patient. So I would work into jail like basically one day a week. And, you know, I had like a clinic outside of the jail. So I had like regular, quote unquote regular patients.

And then I would see people in jail. And one of the things that really struck me is that I had a guy who was an investment banker. And like he was suffering just about the same as the dude who was in jail. And it was like a really weird thing to like realize. But if you really just asked me like, how much is this person, suffering on a scale of one to ten. Both of them were suffering the same amount. And also that they... Success is a prison. Huh? Success as a prison? You know, it's funny you say that, but I think that I've been working a lot with people with

imposter syndrome recently, and I think in a sense it really can be, which I know is bizarre. I think there's a lot of gatekeeping around suffering and who's allowed to suffer. And also gatekeeping around happiness, because like, who are you? Like, if you grew up and you were poor, like how can you possibly be happy? Like how does that work? I completely agree with you. I know that um so this happened. I've taken a number of breaks from streaming about like three technically but two like more popular ones and or more known ones. And before that I was streaming a game. It was a classic wow and I my stream was seeing success that it had never seen before. Like I was getting up to like 100,000 viewers and I had like 30,000

subscribers. It was very, very, very successful. But I was actually enjoying myself a lot less than I was whenever I had, you know, comparatively only like 25 or 30,000 viewers playing before Classic Wow had came out. And I realized at that point that there were a number of times that I had wanted to go after and like meet a certain goal. So I think my main goal that I'd always wanted to hit was 10,000 like average viewers or hitting 10,000 viewers period. And then once, I hit that goal, I didn't really feel anything. It didn't feel good. And it's always been a pursuit of doing more and more and more. And I think that after I did classic wow, and I had that experience with, which is what you're saying with the investment banker, and I was doing so well.

And I was so unhappy and I was stressed out and not enjoying myself. I realized that, you know, there might be a little bit more to this. And what do you think is, what is that more? more? I would say like a sense of purpose, internal fulfillment, maybe something like that. You know, for me personally, I always felt like in a way that I kind of embody something that's in a way like kind of meaningful to a lot of people and they want to watch a stream and see that kind of exist. And for many people I might represent, you know, remind them of an old friend or, you know, maybe an opportunity that they didn't have of being who I am. You know, I'm a guy. I'm, you know, almost 30 now, and I play video games all day.

I live with my mom. And I would say that in many regards, I'm quite content, not all, but many regards, I'm quite content. And I think that a number of people, like, kind of resonate with that because for many of them, it's a road not taken. And I feel like I kind of had this responsibility as being a creator of being that person for other people out there who didn't really have the opportunity to do that and more so also for younger people because video games are very transformative and whenever I grew up and I think that the experience that I had playing World Warcraft whenever I was 1617, you know, around that age, you don't really have the same experiences and abilities to, you know, prove yourself as an individual. You know, you're a 16 year old loser, 17 year old loser,

who cares what you think. But the moment that I got put on even playing field with everybody else, you know, like kids that were 12 and guys that were as old as my teachers, and I was able to succeed in that. I think that built up a lot of self-esteem and confidence with me. And because of that, I feel like I've always tried to promote that type of environment for other people because it was so impactful and meaningful for me. And so go ahead. No, go for it.

Oh, well, so whenever I was doing what I was doing in Classic Wow and playing at the way that I was and having the type of stream atmosphere, I felt like fundamentally I had moved away from that. and I think that was a big problem. Yeah. Do you think about this stuff a lot? Oh, yeah. I make videos about it constantly. I think about it a lot. I lay in bed. I think all the time. Oftentimes I'll lay in bed and instead of like watching a movie, I'll just sit there and think. Yeah, I really appreciate. I appreciate you as a thinker. I try to be. I mean, I feel like it's something that's not as common nowadays. And I feel like people feel like they need to. have like an external type of validation or external type of like reinforcement. Like a viewer account?

Well, a viewer account is like a very, yes, yes, like a viewer account, basically. But it goes with everything. It's like people that feel like, oh, they're not doing enough in their real life or they're not meeting these standards according to what celebrities are doing on Instagram. they're not making enough money compared to their friends. I think this is, you know, it's prevalent throughout everyone. Yeah. So it sounds like a very comparative world you're describing.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I think everybody's being compared, especially with social media. You know, you have so many quantitative measurements of a person's perceived value. That it's very unhealthy. So I would love to hear you talk more. And at the same time, I'm kind of trying to remember or hold on to the idea that sometimes people here, you know, a lot of our audience, I think, benefits from people sort of sharing their personal stories as opposed to intellectualizing or philosophizing, which I think is certainly valuable. And I'm curious, is there something in particular that you'd want to talk about today that you maybe want to work on or want help with or want to better understand? Sure. I think that if I was going to go with anything, I would say the failure to commit to things and the failure to actually execute on plans that I have. I've had a number of plans and I think I'm probably a victim of my own laziness more so than a lot of other things. And like there are a number of like ideas I've had for streams that I just haven't really done. For example, I've had like technical difficulties with my stream that have just existed for months now.

and I just ignore them. And they diminished the quality of the stream. And the weird thing about it is that whenever I actually go through and I clear out all my messages or I do something like that, I don't really like, you know, I'm not really agoraphobic or anything like that, but I also like to be alone. And so, you know, in some ways I don't really like going and talking to people and I just want to be left alone, basically. And I do that for a while.

And then I think a lot of people can probably relate to this, is that I won't respond to somebody for a while. And then I won't respond to them after that because I feel like it's outside of the normal societal expectation of, you know, like when you should respond. Yeah, it's too late now. Oh, man, too bad. You know, I guess I'm just going to ignore it again. And so I've done that a lot. And it's been a problem, I think, with a lot of like kind of friendships I've had and everything like that. And also like kind of focusing on my stream a little bit too much, I think really burned me out before.

And I use like kind of the metaphor of, and this is in my 2017 or 18, of I metaphorically killed myself, Zach, and I became Asmingold, right? And I focused entirely on my stream and I stopped dealing with, you know, the people and everything like that. And coming back, I've wanted to be more of who I am, really. And I think that's been something I've been working on. But it's hard to do that whenever screaming can be very stressful. It's a very emotionally draining job sometimes. And sometimes I do feel like kind of after I finish my stream, I just want to sit there by myself, even though that's not necessarily what I should do.

I think that ties into the late- Why shouldn't you do that? Well, because I feel like it's kind of like what I was saying a minute ago. whenever I was talking about how whenever I would see someone or talk to someone and do the thing that I was like kind of putting off doing. And I would actually do it. I would feel better at the end. But the anticipation and like kind of the wanting to do it or not wanting to do it overwhelmed that. And so I was basically prolonging a negative feeling and preventing a positive feeling. Sure. And that's always been like a big problem that I've had like with schoolwork with everything.

Yeah. So I think, yeah. Let me just see if I kind of, because I think there's, you know, Zach, there's a lot. Every time you speak, there's actually a lot there. And so let me try to unpack a little bit about what I heard and maybe how we can focus things. Are you feeling okay? I'm feeling great. Okay. So the first is that you said something around a failure to commit.

And what I'm going to kind of zero that in on is like, how can we understand what is laziness? like what is laziness where does it come from um another thing is sort of this idea of like failure to respond so that you have certain duties or things that you should do right so let's talk talk about it as the problem of should right yeah and it's kind of like i should do this and like you know that something is good for you but you can't seem to do it and so how the fuck does that like you know it's going to be good for you you know you're going to feel better and then you have like you have two options in your mind right you can prolong negative or we can let go of negativity and become positive.

And it's like, why on earth would you ever pick prolonging negativity? Well, the problem with me is I go for a third option where I ignore the negativity. I pretend a problem isn't real. And I just go along along my day. And I'm like, hey, this is great. I'm happy. And I'll might do it tomorrow or the next day or, you know, I'll do it at some point in the future. And then it just never really happens.

And, you know, I put things. off for like a year. Yeah. So like it's almost like a willful distraction. Only I'm very good at distracting myself. Yeah. So how does that work? And then the third sort of theme that I'm hearing is something around burnout in the war between Zach and Asman Gold, which like that topic I'm happy to talk about, but we like literally talked about that on Wednesday with this guy named Jakein Bake. And we talked about the war between

Jake and Jake and Jake and Bake. Oh, I think that you'll have that conversation with every streamer. I have had that conversation with every streamer. So I feel like that one is sort of, I'm happy to have it again because I think it's fascinating and we can sort of, you know, zero in on different nuances and try to understand what's unique to someone and what's common. But I think that maybe there's a little bit more mileage to be gained over this idea of laziness and this like failure to respond willful distraction. Like those are the two buckets that I think could be, you know, I could try to tackle with you.

Let's do something different. Okay. So what do you want to talk about laziness or you want to talk about the willful distraction? I think that they're kind of the both thing. Yeah, I get that they're connected. So like let's pick a direction. I think probably just laziness because fundamentally, like as I said, I'm, I'm generally a content person that's very easy for me to be content with things, whether they're

great or bad. And I'm, you know, I am what I am. And so I don't, I don't really worry about doing a lot of things. I guess it's kind of weird. I can, I'm very good at just forgetting problems and just not thinking about them. Sure. So you, you sound, you seem to be to be happy, Zach. Are you happy? Yeah. Sometimes. I'm not always happy. There are a lot of things that make me very sad. And But there are, yeah, I'd say overall I wake up in the morning and, yeah, I'm all right. So let me rephrase. So I think happiness and sadness are emotions. Yeah. I guess what I'm talking about is like, so happiness can sometimes be referred to as like an

existential thing or an emotional thing. I get the sense just listening to you that you're existentially healthy, even though you may not be emotionally happy at times. I am until I think about dying, then yes, I would be. That's the only thing. Oh, yeah, I think about it a lot. What do you think about dying? Well, that's, that's, it's a bad time.

What's bad about that? Well, there are two things that can either happen. You can either exist forever in eternity, or you cannot exist forever. And I think both of them are, equally terrifying. What's terrifying about them? The human mind cannot process infinity. You can't understand what infinity is, or at least I can't. And the uncertainty of it, because I've thought about this a lot, and I've thought to myself, I used to be very, very afraid of this. And it's,

it doesn't matter what happens. It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter what you can do. You can be Mother Teresa or Adolf Hitler, you still end up in the ground. And the, There's no running from it or hiding from it or anything. And I don't know exactly how, I never really knew exactly how to understand that. And I thought to myself, I was like, well, if God would come down and tell me, you know, hey, I'm real. All the shit that you read in that book, that's 100% true.

And you're going to be, you're going to be just fine. Would that make me feel good? Well, I thought about that for a long time. And I thought, yeah, it would. And then after a few years about thinking about that, maybe five or ten years thinking about that, I thought, well, wouldn't that also be kind of scary? Because that means that your entire existence is premeditated. Do you really exist if you're a construct of somebody else's goals? You see what I'm saying?

Yeah, I see what you're saying. Just give me a second, okay? So what's scary about not existing for eternity? I don't know. It's a weird thing because every once in a while I'll get to the point of, you know, I don't know, like enlightenment where I'm not bothered by that. But also there are times where I'll lay in bed and be terrified. And the only thing that I can ever do to really reassure myself is to remind myself that I am a hyper-intelligent monkey that doesn't really know what's going on with the world. That's the only way I can ever make myself feel good about it.

Okay. To remind myself, I don't really know. I'm going to toss out a third bucket. And I think this bucket is probably the lowest yield bucket, but maybe somewhat interesting. And that's like, what's the deal with death? So, you know, I think this is tricky because, like, generally speaking, I have a particular, so I think about it as a Dharma, a duty. So I think about having, like, a duty to the person that I speak to.

And I just try to think about, you know, every time I stream. there's also All Oak and Dr. K, right? So I have that struggle, too. And I, the simple way that I get rid of that struggle is I think a little bit about, like, I just think about, okay, what does Alloak do and what does Dr. K do? Dr. K streams to like, you know, thousands of people and tries to do AEO healing and all that kind of good stuff, which is fine and great and noble and fantastic and all that kind of stuff. But Allope just tries to help, like, just random people that he talks to. And anytime I talk to someone, I just think about what can I do for this person. Now, I'm running into a little bit of a problem, because Aaloke and Dr. K are fighting right now.

And what Alok says is that I would love to talk to you about death and the nature of existence and what happens after we die and to give you a sense of, give you a road or a roadmap to finding peace around this issue. And then Dr. K says that I don't know how applicable this is going to be. A lot of the people watching are probably struggling with laziness and having a multidisciplinary understanding of laziness in terms of spirituality, the function of the mind, yoga, meditation, psychology, neuroscience, and like sort of be like the science of behavior is probably

going to help more people because like that's people are lazy. I, uh, here's how I look at it. Go for it. I'm a very pragmatic person. Uh-huh. And there have been many philosophers over the thousands of years, uh, Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, uh, Nietzsche, and, you know, all of these people who have tried to explain and, uh, you know, philosophize about death, I don't think we're going to get any farther in this call. Well, yeah. I mean, I completely agree with you, but I think the reason that we're not going to, you haven't, you don't think we're going to get anywhere in this call is because you think,

Wood this is a philosopher. I think the reason that you don't have answers is because you're looking for them in the wrong places. Really? Where do you think I should look? So let's think about this for a second. Where does knowledge come from? Experience.

Okay. So how many conversations? Can you have how many people do I have to talk to about having sex before I understand what it's like to have sex? It depends on what they tell you So like let's okay, so like you know what could they tell me that wouldn't help me under how could I understand What having sex is like? Like how many people could I talk to? Well, I mean I think that I I don't know I mean I I I think that you're implying that you have to see it yourself.

Is that right? No, I mean, so you're the one who said that I asked you, where does knowledge come from? And you said experience. And so then my response was, like, okay, how many people do I have to talk to to understand what sex is? Well, I mean, I think it depends, right? I mean, you're going to have firsthand experience of actually doing it yourself.

And that's going to be direct knowledge. And then you'll have secondhand experience. What does secondhand experience mean? somebody telling you like, hey, man, I hooked up with this girl and it was great, you know, and this is what happened. Is that experience? Uh, yeah, I mean, I guess, yeah. Is it not? Do you think that it's not? No, I wouldn't call it experience. I'd call it words, right? So, Sanskrit has two words for knowledge. One is vidya.

Vidya is objective, transmissible, and also, like, information. Another word for knowledge is nyan, which is subjective, experiential, and non-transmissible. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So first-hand experience is nian. Second-hand experiences, you call it, is vidya. It's something that can be exchanged between two human beings. Do you feel like the two of those, one of them is more visceral than the other?

Absolutely, because one of them is subjective and one of them is objective. one of them is completely visceral and the other one is not visceral at all. Yeah. Right? I understand that. So you've been grappling with the problem of death for a long time and have you been approaching it from Vidya or from Nya?

I've tried to do both. Okay. So tell us about that. Well, I've considered like reading different like, you know, what do you call it? Like different like holy books. Right. I've thought about, I've always been very, yeah. Do you need a refresh around the definitions? Well, I mean, I guess you can't. I mean, I've never died. I think sleeping is the closest thing that you have to death.

Sure. And I've always kind of used that as a little bit of a, you know, a smaller metaphor of that. And in a way, I guess you could say that I have had experience because before 1990, I did not exist. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So. Yeah. So, okay. So let's think about this for a second. Do you fear what you were before 1990? I've done this one myself. No, not really, no. I don't.

Then why do you fear what happens after you die? Because what happened after 1990 didn't happen before 1990. I never had the experience that I had. I never had the friends I had. I never had the emotions I had. I never had the, yeah, experiences. Okay. Yeah, everything.

So then we can see. So that's a subtle but important point, right? Because then what we're talking about is that your attachment or your avoidance of death is out of an attachment of life. That you're really your only complaint with before 1990 is that you didn't have the shit that you have now. ergo what you what you want to avoid is you don't want to lose

what you have now no I don't so that's so if we think about so then it's sort of like it's sort of immaterial and now it sort of makes sense right because you kind of said

if if there's life after death and there's eternity of consciousness then that's scary and if there isn't consciousness that's equally scary therefore we can conclude that like what you're afraid of has nothing to do

with whether you exist or not after you don't. What you're afraid of... Go ahead. Right? Because both of those options create the same reaction to you. It's all the same.

Whether you... Life ever after... I haven't decided which one is more terrifying yet. Yeah, but they're both terrifying. So, like, therefore, we can conclude logically that, like, the terror doesn't come from either of those things because that doesn't make any sense.

So then... And we hear... And what you said is just consistent with your earlier feelings. right, which is that what you're afraid of is the loss of what you have. It's an attachment to it. It's not about like what happens to you after you die. It's not like about your consciousness. It's the lack of the experiences that you have today that you're afraid of. Yeah. And I did a thought experiment with this. And I thought about this a lot. What would happen? You know, how would I feel

if basically whenever you died your soul was effectively recycled and all of your experiences were wiped and you just did it all over again? And I still don't really know how I feel about it. that. Yeah, that's because you're, so what is a thought experiment? Is it Vidya or Nyan? Uh, I think it's Nyan attempting to be Vidja. It's Vidya attempting to be Nyan. Oh, I must have gotten them, yes, I must have gotten them confused. Right. So, so it's, it's like, it's thinking your way. It's like, it's like a thought experiment about sex is not an orgasm. No, not quite. Right. So like, Like you can think your way. And this is why I think you don't think that the conversation is going to be productive

because you're thinking that the answers are going to come from the conversation. Answers aren't going to come from the conversation. All the conversation is going to do, hopefully, is give you a roadmap to experience. Because I don't think you know how to do that. No, maybe not. Yeah. So, and I guess this is what we're talking about. You want to go back to laziness or you want to do this?

I think that we can do this, maybe a couple more minutes, and then we can go back to laziness. Okay. So let me a couple more minutes. Oh, it's not enough time. But okay. Yeah. Let's see what we can do.

So let's start by sort of saying that like, do you follow me that I think that your fear of death is not a fear of what's beyond? It's a fear of loss of what you have now. It's a fear of the loss of life. So much so that I actually, whenever I was very young, I began recording a lot of the things that I did whenever I was a kid. And I want a video camera whenever I was 11 years old because I had the foresight then. I realized that, you know, I thought to myself, I can't really remember what happened whenever I was six. But I always wanted to be able to preserve and keep the memories that I had. And I've always done that.

So I would never forget. Yeah. So you're holding on to life. Absolutely. Right. And so then if you want to conquer your fear of death, I know this sounds fucking like a meditation calendar. But what you really have to do is let go of your attachment of life. That's what I was saying about the moments of enlightenment.

Yeah. So now let's talk about that. Like what does that even mean, a moment of enlightenment? What does that mean? When you confront things that you're completely afraid of, but for whatever reason you're not afraid of them. You look at the you look at death in the face. You look at for me, dentists or wasps. These are two things I'm very afraid of.

And, you know, you look at that and you just do it. And you approach it and you, I don't know like really what the best word is for it. But yeah, I don't think internalize is it. But you let it become part of you and you accept it as a reality. that's maybe the best way I could verbalize it. Yeah, so then let me ask you. Let's ask some questions about the quality of moments of enlightenment. So you say there are moments, ergo it's not permanent, right?

Yeah. So what fluctuates between a moment of enlightenment and a moment of not enlightened? I don't really know because the weird thing about the moments of enlightenment is that sometimes I'll feel that way whenever things are going very well. I'm happy. And other times I'll feel that way where I don't care about dying or anything like that whenever things are going very not well. And I think that's really kind of interesting because both ends, you know, both ends of the horseshoe meet at the same place nearly. And I think that's what happens. Okay. Excellent. So that's a very important observation that the current state of emotions does not affect the moment of enlightenment. And in fact, the beauty of the moment of

enlightenment is that allows you to experience both of those extremes with a certain tranquility. Yes. Right? So, like, that's pretty cool. So now we can think about a couple of things. So the first thing that we figured out about moments of enlightenment is that they fluctuate. It's not a permanent state. It's not like, you know, when you're leveling up and wow, like once you hit level 14,

you're no longer level 13, right? You're never going to be level 13 again. we think about life is sort of a linear progression. Is it not? Well, there are moments of enlightenment linear progression? I think that it's more or less an acceptance and a, just a complete acceptance of the linear progression, I think more so. Okay, so I'll unpack what that means in a second.

Like, let me just point out to you that, like, even in your words, right, you call it a moment of enlightenment. It doesn't imply a linear progression. It implies temporary because it's a moment. Oh, yeah. Right? So the first thing that we can understand about moments of enlightenment is that they fluctuate. So it's not like you level up and then you're more enlightened than you were the day before. It's not a permanent gain.

It's a fluctuance of consciousness. I do feel like learning more things and having more experiences and thinking more does help me have them more often, though. There we go. Okay, hold on. Hold on, hold on. But there's a very important subtlety there, right? Okay.

You can level up your capacity to have them more often, but they in themselves are not permanent. That's a big difference. You can level up your ability, you can level up your odds to have a moment of enlightenment, but the moment of enlightenment is not something that you can level up. No, it's, uh, it's, it's perfect. Yeah. And then it goes, right? So like, like, what we're talking about is increasing the odds,

but we're not talking like, there's a big difference between, you know, it's like, how can I say this? Okay. So like in wow, we've got different colors of loot, right? Yeah. And so, like, at the end of the day, like, a treasure chest has a certain, like, loot table. And so we can level up the quality of our treasure chest. Just because we are getting a high quality loot doesn't mean that we're going to get a high quality loot next time.

It's like each treasure chest is its own role of the dice. Each moment of enlightenment is a temporary thing that has a one-time result. You have that moment of enlightenment or you don't have that moment of enlightenment. So I'm just pointing out that there's a moment of enlightenment. So I'm just pointing out that there's a fluctuance there that's not linear. A fluctuance that's not linear. Right? So it's not like a moment of enlightenment.

It's not like you level up and then you're enlightened more. You can level up to increase the quality of chests that you get. But at the end of the day, whether you get the moment of enlightenment or not is still like a variable. Like it's not. Yeah, you don't. Well, you don't have it all the time. And I think this is something that I remember. I think that it was like, I think somebody asked like Mother Teresa or somebody like that, what they pray for and they said prayed for faith.

And it was kind of a weird answer to me because you'd assume that somebody who was such a devoted, you know, servant of God would not need to worry about that. But even the most devoted servants still also pray for faith. Yeah. Is that kind of what you're saying? Absolutely, right? So because I think faith, what they talk about, so here's what I think a moment of enlightenment is I'll sort of give you, now I'm going to give you a paradigm instead of asking you questions. You're welcome to attack or poke holes in it, okay? So moments of enlightenment are fluctuations of consciousness and consciousness fluctuates, right?

Like we know that consciousness you have sleeping and you have waking. And then even within waking consciousness, you have different modes. You have lazy consciousness and you have non-lazy consciousness. and the frustrating for a lot of lazy people is that they're able to do the right thing sometimes but then we have the perception of linearly leveling up and then they wake up the next day and they're not able to clean their room the way they were the day before

and they're like how the fuck does that work? Because I could do it yesterday, I should be able to do it today. But no, that's not how it works because it's not linear. It's just the state of your consciousness at a particular time allows you to do things or not do things. like sometimes you run away from the dentist and sometimes you face the dentist. And the interesting thing is that you would assume logically that like in the moments that you face your dentist, your fear is lower.

And because your fear is lower, that's why you're able to face them. If we actually look at the data, that's not true. Your fear is always the same. Sometimes you're able to conquer your fear and other times you're not. Right? Okay. And so what's happening is that the state, of the, it's like

how, like, it's not that we level up our character, it's that like the controller that we're using sometimes works really well and has really tight controls and does what you want it to, and sometimes the controller you're using is unplugged. And when the controller's unplugged,

it's a really dysfunctional controller. Your character is the same, but like sometimes you can activate your character and sometimes you can't activate your character. Yeah, sometimes you can't activate your character. Yeah. Sometimes you can. can be, you can overcome things and sometimes you can't. I think that dichotomy of instead of trying

to lower your fear, you're effectively making your controller better. Is that kind of what you're saying? Yes. Right. So what I'm saying, so like I'm just, I'm trying to point out to you that you say that you have these moments of enlightenment. And like it's weird, right? Because you're saying they can happen when I'm sad and when I'm happy. And that's like an odd thing, odd observation. But let's not let our preconceptions shape the data. Let's accept our data for what it is and change our notion of how the world works. So moments of enlightenment are independent of happiness and sadness. Moments of enlightenment are temporary.

There are things that you can do to cultivate the occurrence of moments of enlightenment. But you can't ever make them. You can't ever guarantee them. I am all too familiar with that, getting loot in World of War to Warcraft. Yep, absolutely, right? Fundamental understanding of mine, yes. Yes. So you can set yourself up to get whatever, you know, Ilidens, war glaves or whatever that first orange loot was.

54 weeks. But there's nothing you can do to like, like you can set yourself up to get that drop. But like at the end of the day, there's a certain amount of R&GIS involved. And that's how moments of enlightenment work, right? At the end of the day, you can't ever create one. So now the question becomes, okay, hold on. Let me think about this. So now where do we go from here?

Okay, we were talking about death. You with me so far? Oh, absolutely. Okay. So now I'm going to, hold on, let me just think. Hello? Okay, don't yell. Okay.

All right. All right, bye. All right. Apparently I'm destroying people's eardrums when I get excited. Yeah. Apologize, guys, guys, for, you know, destroying your eardrums. Okay, let me think about this. Okay. So now we figured out a couple of moments, actually, it's some moments of enlightenment, right? Okay. So then we were also talking about

laziness. We were talking about the fear of death. Do you want to know what's weird is that I think the moments of enlightenment and enable the laziness? Tell me about that. Well, I mean, I think that fundamentally, the understanding of, you know, kind of eternity and infinity makes the current problems that you have seem less important. I think that... It doesn't really matter anyway. You know what I mean? Yes.

I think that the moments of enlightenment, this is subtle. I don't think the moments of enlightenment actually encourage laziness. I think the moments of enlightenment are hijacked by the part of you that is lazy to justify its own ends. Because during the moment of enlightenment, your laziness actually decreases drastically. What happens is when the, the, the laziness returns to your mind, it takes the experience of the moment of enlightenment and it uses it for its own ends. I can't disagree with that.

Right. So it's a subtle difference, but it's very important. So when you actually are in a moment of enlightenment, you're the very opposite of lazy. Yeah. You're not controlled by your emotions. You don't seek distraction. And then what happens is the lazy fucker slides back in. And he's like, hey, you remember how you were enlightened earlier?

if you were enlightened earlier, like, we don't need to worry about anything, bro. Yeah, yeah, everything's going to be fine, dude. Just don't worry about it. It is what it is. Exactly. So, but now let's think about it. Don't worry about it, bro. Is that a thought that comes from the moment of enlightenment or something that it isn't

the moment of enlightenment? I don't know. That's a really interesting question. Do you think that it doesn't? Yeah, so I think that the moment of enlightenment has a very, similar thought, but in a completely opposite direction. So there's a huge difference between

apathy and detachment. So in the moment of enlightenment, you can acknowledge that things are as they are and you cannot control them and that's okay. And yet let us lift and let us not be concerned about the future. Let us do the thing that we

need to do now. And there's a very, very smaller, there's just a razor's edge between detachment. which is letting go of the consequences of your actions, not concerning yourself or being controlled by the future and accepting fully what is in the present. There's just a razor-jedge between them and empathy,

which is the future doesn't matter. Yeah, the nihilism of it. Yep, right? So it's a very subtle difference, but it's gigantic. It's the difference between what I would call detachment, which is Vyragia. in Sanskrit and apathy?

I actually, I really like, I like that a lot. I agree. I think that growing up, I was just very used to just detaching myself from things and, you know, accepting things for how they are. And because of that, I don't really, it's hard for me really to motivate myself to do something because I can just very easily not care about it. So there's a difference. So I think you're doing both. I think growing up, you did both.

So there's a difference between not caring, right? So like, just think about this. So there's a difference between not caring and and appreciating what you have. So I think when you were growing up, I do think you had moments of enlightenment. That's why I think you grew, you were happy despite being poor. Because at the end of the day, the, you know, the end of the day, what I did for both the guy in jail and the investment banker is teach them detachment. And both of them got happier. It has nothing to do with your external circumstance.

So I think what you were able to do growing up is like appreciate your life for what it was, even though it may not have been good. But there's a difference between appreciating it for what it is and not caring about it. Okay. I think not caring is laziness. Appreciation and acknowledging it for what it is is is the moment of unleasement. Yeah. I think that is definitely a razor's edge.

And it's like enlightenment versus nihilism. And oftentimes it's, you know, it's really just making those moments of enlightenment and everything, making them fundamentally more healthy. The moment of enlightenment is perfectly healthy. You can't make it more healthy. What you can make more healthy is the laziness that uses the moment of enlightenment as ammo for its own ends. All right. Right. So that's the complex that you need to work on, which is like, what is that type of mind that takes your moments of enlightenment and uses them in the opposite direction from what your moment of enlightenment actually does? Yeah. I don't really know what that is. Yeah. I don't really know. I'm not sure.

Okay. So let's talk about it. So now we get to laziness. Okay. So we've sort of navigated moments of enlightenment. I feel tempted to ask people a point. because I have no idea people are following what we're saying. But anyway, we can just keep going. Okay. Okay. I think most people will be able to relate to laziness. Yeah. So let's talk about laziness.

So now I want, okay. So, okay, people are saying yes. Okay. Fix Mike. Okay. All right. So now let's talk about laziness. Okay.

So, Zach, what I'd like to do is help you understand that your mind is not a monolith. That your mind is actually like. a 40-man raid. And each part of your raid does like different things. And sometimes you're going to get a Leroy Jenkins in there. The laziness is like the Leroy Jenkins

where it takes all the other 39 parts of your mind that are functioning well. And it says, fuck you guys, we're going to go. And then it puts your mind in a situation where like, you're fucked.

And that's when you, that's like, Leroy Jenkins is the reason that you can't get out of bed and listen to your alarm clock for three hours. Because there are all these other parts of your mind.

Leroy Jenkins is also the reason why you know that there's something that you should do, which is going to make you feel better, but then you choose not to do it and continue existing in the negativity. There's a thousand voices in your mind that are saying, Zagic, get the fuck out of bed. And there's Leroy Jenkins going, Leroy Jenkins, and then he just charges right in, and it's like, fuck the rest of you guys, right? That's what your mind is. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Okay. No, that's true. I mean, I think that, yeah, there's always an internal struggle. And the worst part about it is that you know you're doing it when you're doing it. Like you know that you're fucking yourself up. You're sitting there on your computer, not doing the shit that you need to do, not doing the work that you need to do. And you know you're doing it and you keep doing it.

So how the fuck does that work? Honestly, the best way that I've ever found to understand it is because it's just simply easier, not to do it. I can sit there and I am in a, you know, the Isaac Newton, you know, yeah. So, so that's true and also a really insufficient understanding, right? So like, let me put it, I'm going to rephrase it. When you say it's easier to not do it, I'm going to recalibrate that as your mind has like a behavior equation and it has reasons to engage in the behavior and reasons to not engage in the behavior. And there are a bunch of variables for that equation. And when you say it's just easier not to do it, what I'm translating as is at the end

of the day, the behavior equation is tipping into the negative and not doing. There's like a really complex calculation. And we can think about like using the bathroom, right? So we have like, when do we engage in the behavior of using the bathroom? Like, when do you go to the bathroom? I mean, like when I need to. Right, but are there times that you need to go that you don't go? Yeah, I mean, like if I'm in the middle of something, I'll put it off until then. Exactly, right? So we can see that using the bathroom has two variables.

How available is the bathroom and how much do I need to go? And there may be times where you go because even though you don't need to go, it's highly available. And there are other times where you really need to go and it has. low availability so you don't go to the bathroom. And over time, if you think about like even using the bathroom, there's like a little counter in your mind that is slowly ticking up. And as this as your bladder fills up with urine, like it's kind of interesting, right? Like you don't, how much do you need to go to the bathroom? It's not like zero to 100% and it's linear. Your bladder fills up to the to a certain point. And the second it starts to stretch, that's like I need to pee.

I do the same thing with filling up my car with gas. Like I'll literally wait for for the light to come on. And then it's like that'll be the one time that I have to be somewhere in eight minutes. And I'll have to get gas. I'll be like, man, I'm going to be late. And it's like, I think to myself, I'm like, bro, like, you could have done this like while you were driving to Wendy's yesterday afternoon when you had nothing better to do. But the one time I need to do that.

And I, it's, and I keep doing it too. I keep doing it. It's crazy. And it's just like, why don't you pee every hour? It's because your body is not signaling. It's like, once we cross the bladder stretch threshold, then it's time to be. And what you perceive as laziness is that your mental blur is not being stretched until it's ready to stretch. And this is sort of like where we kind of operate between and let me know if I lose you, okay?

So like generally speaking, gamers operate on an axis of desperation and complacency. And there's like you're complacent and then you get desperate and then you're prompted to action. And then once your desperation goes away, like you look back at yourself and you're like, wow, I studied like 18 hours in 16 hours. And that was amazing. And like, I can't believe I did that. And then you go back to being lazy. You're like back into the complacency. And then God, I did that. Now I don't have to do it anymore. Exactly. So then you're back to complacent. So then complacent, complacent, complacent, complacent, complacent, complacent, complacent, complacent, complacent bladder is filling up, filling up, filling up, filling up, filling up,

strange. And then it's like, oh, shit, I got to do all this shit now. I could have done it all that during that time, but that's not how we work. So we have this really complicated behavioral mechanism in our mind that prompts us to do things and not do things. And it is my belief that it is the lack of understanding of that behavioral mechanism, which we interpret as late in us. I, I like that a lot. I think that that's a very good metaphor. Yeah, I think that's very good. Now let's think a little bit. Let's dig in, right?

So tell me about laziness. What do you mean by that? Give me some data. Well, I mean, having a thing that I'm supposed to do and then... Okay, let's stop. Okay. What do you mean by supposed to do? Something that needs to happen.

So like, for example... Does it need to happen? Well, that's the conversation I have in my head. And it's like, actually, ah, you know, we'll see what happens, right? Because I've had the worst part about it is I've had times where I just put something off for so long. It actually went away. Like, this has happened before. And it's, it's bad to have that happen because it reinforces the behavior.

It is bad to have that. So now, now let's just stop, right? Because, like, I think the first thing you've got to do is recognize that your perception of the problem is not actually, what your brain sees is the problem. And we didn't even get to the problem. He said, there's things that I'm supposed to do. Hold on, stop for a second. What do you mean by supposed?

Because your brain is like, bro, why the fuck do you need to clean your room? It doesn't make a difference. Like, your brain is not going to let you walk five miles for a glass of water when you can get it from your sink. Right? Like, your brain is fundamentally like this. The other thing is we're not lazy.

We're efficient. We're designed to be efficient. Like kids, do you know why kids skip? Why kids skip school? No, why they skip. Like, you know what skipping is, like physically? Oh, oh. It's kind of weird, right?

Like, kids skip. They start skipping at some point in their life, and then they stop skipping. Like, what the fuck is up with that? And it happens, like, what age of kids skip? Seven. Yeah, and it's fucking weird. Like, let's skip with that. The reason that they skip is because due to their height, their muscle, and their body means,

skipping is the most efficient way to move. there's a certain, like, magical ratio when they're a certain age, where skipping is actually, like, more efficient than, like, walking or running. And it's a very brief window. And once they, like, cross that certain threshold, they don't do it anymore. And here's the other thing that I have, weird question, you ever seen a fat kid skip? No.

Because they don't hit that body mass ratio. That's why fat kids don't skip. It's, like, bizarre. Like, our brain is constantly iterating. to make things as efficiently as possible. I, okay, so do you feel like, because obviously there are certain people, you know, with the wide spectrum of people's, like,

sizes and muscle masses and everything in adulthood, do you feel like the reason why people don't do it as much in adulthood is because of the social norm? No. So skipping naturally disappears, like by the time you're, like, 12, right? Like, you don't see teenagers skipping. Okay. And that's just because it,

becomes inefficient. It's just an efficient way of movement. So it's completely inefficient for an adult no matter what kind of adult they are. Yep. Absolutely. It's like it and that's why they start at seven. It's inefficient for a five year old. Efficient for a seven year old. And like by the time you hit 12 or 13, it becomes inefficient. Well, whenever you see people skipping usually after like a really happy event happens in their life, you know, like you see us in movies all the time, how does that fit into it? Is that just kind of a... At that point, it's an emotional expression. It's not a mode of movement.

But like, kids will skip when they're not happy. They'll just skip. Like, they'll just transit from one place to another through skipping. And it's just like a weird phenomenon, right? Because they just start doing it around the age of seven, and then they sort of like stop. And some fat kids do skip, by the way. Yeah, I'm sorry for asking so many questions about this. This is actually fascinating to me out.

Yeah, no, no, it's good. I had no idea. Yeah. Okay, I think that you're right about being efficient. I've always been, I mean, I'm so efficient now that, you know, I found a way to have people pay me to sit at home and play video games. Yeah. You know, like I consider that. This is the pinnacle of my efficiency now.

Absolutely, right? And so it's also the pinnacle of your laziness. Yes. Yes, it is. Right. So, like, let's start by sort of, so you say it's things that I'm supposed to. And then you say I need to, right? And then you use this word need and where do you get the idea that you need to?

Because your brain is like, hey, bro, like in the past, you've thought that we've needed to do things and you turned out to be fucking wrong. So why am I going to invest all of this time and energy to do something that is unnecessary? I'll give you a pretty strong need. Okay. And my teeth. See that? I'm missing teeth. I'm also missing other teeth that are easier to see or sorry, harder to see.

they're not going to grow back. And it gets worse every day. Why do I not fix it? Well, I'm lazy and I'm afraid of doing it. That's fundamentally what it is. Okay. And this is how lazy I really am. These teeth are fake.

But I only fix this side because I always look at this monitor to stream with. And I never really look this direction on stream. So nobody really ever sees that one. Okay, so let's unpack a beautiful example. Okay, so let's think about this. Like, so what is your brain? I'm going to re, I'm going to re-brain that out of laziness, okay? You ready for it?

So the first thing is like, why do you fix one side? Because your brain is like, hey, bro, we only really need one side. Because this is the way that we stream. So like, why would we fix both sides if we only need one side? It's pretty fucking ridiculous when you verbalize it, isn't it? No, it's not ridiculous at all. What I'm telling you is it's the exact opposite of ridiculous. It makes perfect sense.

You even know why you fix the one side because you only needed to fix one side. Well, here's the problem, though, is like, I believe this is true too, but then I tell other people that and they think that I'm crazy. Yeah, so I want you and everyone else at home to start with the default of you're not crazy. Because very few people in the world are crazy. Just because you don't understand how you work does not mean that your mouth. malfunctioning. This is the biggest problem with our entire generation. Well, I agree with you entirely. I 100% agree. They assume that ignorance becomes malfunction when it has been my overwhelming experience that like the world makes sense and that human beings operate like not randomly. Like we're not random, right? We have all these organ systems. We have a brain. Our brain is a super complicated organ. It's not a super complicated organ. It's not a super complicated organ.

It hasn't grown itself evolved to be this malfunctioning organ. It's in fact the exact opposite. Our brain is as a hyperfunctional organ, which has allowed us to dominate the earth and like travel into space. And we think that the thing is fundamentally busted because it doesn't want to fix one side of your mouth. Like no, man. Like your brain has a damn good reason and you even know what that is. So now let's go ahead. I'm very good at intellectualizing things for me not to do.

because, well, it is a good reason in that context. But if you only eat with one side of your mouth, let me tell you there are problems that that causes. Sure. And yeah, and ultimately, I just don't think about those problems. And that's it. And so even though I know it will become more and more of a problem as time goes on, I just kind of let it happen.

Yep. And I think that's really, that's the- Can you just stop talking for a second? Sorry. Just once. I don't want to lose because you're saying so much good shit. I literally have to write it down because I need to respond to it. So once I don't worry.

No problem. I know sometimes this comes across as being an asshole. I really don't mean that. But like you were just talking about pure gold and the answer is right there. So I really want to capture this. Okay. I'm used to dealing with assholes all day. This is not actually being an asshole.

Trust me. Okay. Yeah. You need to turn the gang down on your guinea. Okay. I'm closer to you because when you yell. Okay. I'm pulling it closer to me and the gain is down.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Oh, fuck. I lost. Damn it. Do you want me say what I said before? Nope.

Hold on. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Keep going now. Okay. So, yeah.

I think that's kind of what happens is I will do something. And even though I know that it will have a bad long-term. effect, I will just do it because the short-term effect is worth it to me. And, you know, for some degree, I don't really like, I don't like going to the dentist. It'll make me take time off of streaming. So it would just be easier for me to just simply put it off. And intellectualizing these problems and thinking them through and rationalizing, well, I can, I'm really good at this. I'm really good at that. It's the same as I can video games. You know, you have like one person that's really good at doing, you know, casting magic spells, another person who's really good at,

you know, shooting a bow and arrow. And I always intellectualize this as I'm very good at doing certain things and very bad at doing other things. Okay. I completely agree. Yeah. So this is what we're going to do. Okay. Hold on a second. Okay. I'm going to do a little bit of a screen share, okay? I'm going to actually try to draw out an equation for you. I'm going to do this. I'm going to switch and then I also have to screenshot with you turn on screen share

and not do that shit you can't see this can you? Not right now, no fuck. I'm not going to figure this out. If you right click the turn on screenshirt? Yeah, I try what I do. There we go. Now, okay, can you see me? Yes.

And you guys can say, okay. So now we're going to we're going to unpack the behavior. We're going to call this laziness, right? So this problem is going to be, why doesn't Zach get his teeth fixed? Right? So your answer is because I'm lazy. And scared of the best.

No, no, no, no, no, no. We'll get there because you're lazy, right? This is the conception that you have. Okay, so let's think about, let's think about, I'm going to put an equal sign here. I don't know exactly how this is going to work because I'm working this out. Okay, so like, let's say that, oh, actually, let's do it this way. Let's do a plus column and a minus column. Okay, so reasons to see the dentist and reasons to not see the dentists.

Okay. So like, so what we want to do is like either this is going to be this way or it's going to be this way, right? It's going to be either or. So and then basically as long as you're winning this, it's going to be a complete mess. Okay. So as long as it's this way, this means you don't see the dentist, right? Yeah. And as long as this is what you're doing, we call this lazy.

Do you see that? That's what you conclude. Like, if you're not seeing the dentist, you call it lazy. Right? Yeah. Okay. So let's think about reasons to not see the dentist. You're afraid.

Okay. Reasons to see the dentist. Your teeth is broke. Yes. Okay. So then let's think about this for a second. So you have the capacity to not think about things and distract yourself, right? Yep.

So what do you think if I were to, I'm just kind of run with me for a second, right? So like what distraction does is essentially decreases the value of this variable. Yeah, pretty much. Do you see that? Okay. So the better you are at distracting yourself, what happens to your laziness? Oh, it goes up. Absolutely, right?

So like, for us gamers, like, here's the problem. There's like boomer distractions, which is like one downward arrow. And then there's video games, which are designed to make you forget. So what video games actually do is they shut off the parts of your brain that experience negative emotion. So this is why there's... If you ever had a day where, like, your internet didn't work and it was like the most productive day of your whole month? I think that's... I don't know if that's actually happened to me, but I can totally get behind what you're saying.

Yeah. Because I remember days where my internet didn't work and I just painfully tried to distract myself in tons of unsatisfying ways but still ended up procrastinating. That's honestly my recollection of days when my internet didn't work or I didn't have a computer. I didn't become productive. I just distracted myself and enjoyed myself less. Yeah.

Sometimes I'll actually have a very productive day. If my computer stops working or my internet stops working because there'll be nothing. else for me to do. Yeah. That's really awesome. I'm glad you can have that experience. I think unfortunately many people don't have even that experience. So let's let me ask you this. Okay. So now let's think about it's more and more of a problem. So does more and more of the problem go on the plus side or the minus side? Well, I mean like it'd go on the plus side. Absolutely. Yeah. What is it doing this thing? There we go. Okay.

So now we're going to learn something really important about the brain, okay? When it comes to the brain's behavior thing, how does it rank future rewards versus present? Well, I mean, to ask mobile game developers. You know, instant gratification is king. Yep. So I want you to understand that, like, there's something. something funny going on, right? Like you say it's more and more of a problem in that it's going to be a

catastrophic, it's going to be catastrophic in the future. So you would think that a catastrophic result in the future is going to bias you towards action today. Yeah. But here's the funny thing is like the further off in the future it is, the less important it becomes because that's just how our brain works. Right. Like the animals that survive are the ones that that like sort of biased themselves towards the president. Like when there were primitive human beings who were being faced by tigers, and if they thought a little bit,

like if they thought in that moment about, okay, like, if the tiger attacks me and I lose a limb, I won't be able to harvest or sow my fields. So like that's going to be a real problem. Like no, like that's dumb. Like the human beings who survived

were the ones who faced the immediate problems. Right. And so like the issue here is that sure, it's going to be more of a more of a problem in the future, but like, today, what do you do instead? Play video games? Absolutely, right. So just because it's going to get worse and worse every day, that's not actually a reason

for you to, like, do something about it today. It just means that you don't have to do something about it today. Because you can do something about it tomorrow. And then tomorrow rolls around and you can do something about it tomorrow. So in a weird way, yeah, it's about right. Right? Yeah. So let's think about a couple of other things.

Oh, yeah. So let's think about this, right? So let's think about one side of the mouth. Okay? So if we change this to one side of the mouth, like if we're thinking about one side of the mouth, how does that change your equation? Because then is there an immediate benefit

of getting your teeth on one side of your face fixed? Yes, there is. Absolutely, right? Yeah, it would help the stream. I don't, I'm fine portraying myself as a degenerate, but I do draw the line at missing teeth. Right. So like what the interesting thing is that then what happens is like today moves over here. Yeah.

And then once today moves over here, what do you do? Just forget about it. No, no, you get it fixed, right? Because you got that side. Oh. Because we're talking. Yeah. Right?

Yes. Okay. So that's why, because like there's an immediate benefit to it, which is that when you stream, you're not going to look like a complete degenerate. And like this, this isn't going to make you look like a complete degenerate for a long time. But like you don't want to look like it. You're okay with looking like a complete degenerate a year from now. Your brain is, even though it terrifies you. Right.

And this is the other interesting thing is that the more emotions that you pack in based on your future failures, How does that affect our diagram? As you think about being a degenerate in the future, what do you think that does to your laziness? Well, it depends. I mean, like, it could make you want to be less lazy because you wouldn't want to be a degenerate in the future. Or you could just put more of it off into the future and think, I, you know what? You know, that's not happening to me right now. I'll deal with that then.

Okay, so let me ask you a question. Great answer. where does which column does shame go in does shame make you less lazy or more lazy both okay excellent so let's think about how can it be both well i mean you go to the dentist and they're like you know they tell me about other stories about other people who have had the same problem and it's like yeah this person was addicted to crack this person was homeless or whatever and then it's me, yeah, this person was just lazy. I mean, you kind of feel like a jackass.

Okay, so how does that prompt you? Does that tip the balance towards doing something or away from doing something? Away from, because I feel self-conscious even confronting it. Yep. So shame goes over here, right? So the funny thing is that like the more and more of a problem is, it is, that increases your sense of shame. And as your shame increases,

you become more lazy. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. I think there's another like weird kind of circumstantial variable with this, which is they told me that they were going to have to pull out all of my teeth. And then now they're telling me that they're not because I'm seeing a new dentist. So before, the reason I didn't get it fixed is I just said, fuck it. They're going to pull them all out. Anyway, I'll deal with it later. And now, yeah, I have more of like a immediacy of fixing it. Okay, good.

Yes. So now we can see like, so you see how today puts it in this column and future puts it in this column. So you're even saying I have more urgency because like you can't, it's become less future oriented. It's become more present oriented. Yes. Okay. Well, because I thought before the damage was already done. And so it was like, ah, you know what?

Who cares? Right. Exactly. Right. So the damage is done. There's no alteration. There's no alteration of your trajectory if the damage is done. So why would you end?

Yeah. That's not lazy. But yeah. Okay. Sure. It's annoying to eat. So now I'm going to ask you. So like now the question, Zach is like, okay, so all this stuff is great,

all over Dr. K. What the fuck do I do about it? Right. So let's think about this for a second. Okay. You know, how can I adjust these variables to tip the balance in the other way? If I want to do this, if I want this to happen, what do I, what can I do to this equation to like make the arrow tip this way? Lose the shame. Absolutely, right?

So now- That's why I showed people on my stream. So that's who I am. shame. Okay. What else can you do? Okay, sure. Except whatever. I think be less afraid. Okay. You know, in like kind of the, in the same as like there's a moment of enlightenment,

there's also moments of courage. Okay. Okay. Taking advantage of those. So we're actually going to put moment of enlightenment over here. Right. So let me ask you, when you have a moment of enlightenment, what does it do to your laziness? Well, we were talking before about how it kind of hijacks it. Laisiness hijacks it afterward, not during the moment. Oh, during it?

Right. Yeah. I think I usually just, I do what I need to do. Right, exactly. I think that's a good way to say it. Yep. So moment of enlightenment goes over here. So the laziness paradigm we'll talk about in a second.

But then what else can you do to anything else that you can see in this equation, that we could adjust to decrease your laziness? Well, there's a lot of ways that you could say it, but make that the future is more finite. And so because it's more finite, then you have to... This is the way I'm going to represent it. Perfect.

Right? Yes. And now, you said there's a lot of ways that you can say this. So the first thing that I want to point out to you is doing this logically doesn't help, right? Telling yourself that you shouldn't be ashamed or that you shouldn't have fear and logically trying to overcome your fear or play around with this, philosophizing, laying in your bed, how does that affect your laziness? It really doesn't. Very good.

So thinking about your emotions does not actually change them. No. Okay. So thinking and telling yourself, I need to be focused in. the present does not change it. Right? Like, now we get to Vidya and Yan. Vidya doesn't change behavior, or very rarely, but it's not a good predictor of behavioral change. Nyan is, it changes through experience. Right. So like, like, this is where there's a shift in mindset to be present focused versus future focused. And this is like what all the Buddhists are talking about.

Like, Buddha wasn't a philosopher. It's become a philosophy. It's become something. that's posted on Instagram. It's become something that's tweeted. But Buddha wasn't teaching philosophy. He's not a philosopher. Buddha was like a personal trainer for the mind. He was saying there is a systematic process to take your mind from here and move it here. There's a systematic process of changing your mindset to be present focused as opposed to future focused. You can literally train your mind. Huh? Okay. You're looking at it. more functionally. Absolutely. It's all functional. And then we have, so on the opposite side of functional is something that the psychotherapist stumbled upon. And they said that if we actually sit

with a therapist and talk about your fear and shame, something magical happens. People start putting their lives together. It's fucking weird. Like I can talk to someone, like, it's weird. I can talk to someone about, you know, how they were bullied in high school. And then they start eating out, I mean, eating healthy and working out. And the reason it's like not connected at all, it's not like they're coming in and talking to me about like, because sometimes they do that. People will come in and they'll say like, how do I start working out? And then I give them a plane, right? I say like, okay, you need to wake up every day. Here's your personal trainer. You got to go to the gym, eat these kinds of calories. And then what happens, Zach, when I give them a plan for being healthy?

they stop on January 2nd absolutely right because that's not a workout plan is like maybe a little bit over here but it's very small it's tiny well it's an emotional you have to overcome it emotionally i i agree with that i i know that like so one way that i overcame this with like keeping my house clean is that i live with my mom and i remember i was showing uh it was like something that i had done for for her recently. And someone said that, you know, well, you should be doing this all the time because you're letting your mom live in a shithole, which is like, for me, this is the norm. But I thought to myself, it's like, I am doing that and I should be doing that. And that emotional revelation, it wasn't like logical, the emotional revelation of knowing that I was

allowing this to happen to her has caused me to be much more proactive and keeping the house clean and making things. Like, you know, there were like holes in the wall were rats, were coming through and I covered all those up. And I kept it clean because I realized that what I was doing and the laziness that I was exhibiting were it was something that was hurting somebody else. Okay. It was beautiful. So now we're going to understand three things.

Me is over here. Yeah. Other people is over here. What do you think about that? Yeah. I'd say that's pretty accurate. Absolutely. Right.

So the first thing is you said that you had to overcome emotions. So now when you're kind of saying like, you know, at the beginning of this conversation, you were like talking about death, I don't think is going to be productive. And I completely agree with you because overcoming emotions is not thinking about emotions. You use the word in it. So, Zach, I think you understand this stuff really well because of your language. Use the word emotional revelation. A revelation is not a logical conclusion.

Do you see that? It's like, like revelation doesn't imply a logical thought problem. It implies a light hole in that. Literally, the root of revelation is revealed and revealed is something that you are the recipient of, not something that you take action in. You are fundamentally not control when it comes to emotional revelation. It is the loot box all over again. It is the chest. It is the moment of enlightenment.

I think I've had that happen a few times. Sorry, guys. Getting. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. Okay. working on it. Yeah, I've had that happen a few times with like different situations.

And the point where, you know, things that used to bother me just for whatever reason stopped bothering me. Yeah, like that's weird, right? Like how do we even deal with that? Like, what's up with that? Oh, uh, I think it depends on the thing. I used to be very self-conscious about the way that I looked. And then I think that as time went on, I just accepted it. And it was who I, you know, I am who I am. Okay. So, so now like, like, okay, so now like you're really starting to sound like a meditation catalog.

Is that bad or good? No, I mean, it's great. Like, this is why, this is what was saying, but it's not philosophy and it's not stuff that you retweet. Retweeting it doesn't matter. But acceptance goes over here, right? Well, it, it's fundamental acceptance, right? Like, I'm very, very skinny.

And I used to, like, not want to take my shirt off in the pool or whatever. whatever. And I think that this might sound bad, but like, people making fun of me about it all the time on, on Twitch and like just constantly, like, giving it to me and just fucking with me about it. Like, I just eventually got, I was like, whatever, you know, like, I'm not going to apologize to these people for who I am. Yeah. So, so that, that is, do you see how you used to have shame and then you move towards acceptance somehow? But it wasn't logical. It wasn't like you woke up one day and you said, hey, this is going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, They're going to keep on making fun of me until I get used to it. And then my skin will get thick. And then I will accept that I'm skinny. That's not how it works. It's revelation.

It's something that happens to you. It's not something that you do. Okay. Right. And now we get to the root of lazy. Because what we're talking about here is that you cannot actually do anything. It's about stuff that happens to you. It's not about logically working through your fear and your shame.

It's not about revelation. Right? It's about mindset. These are things that happen to you. They're not things that you do. And now we get to this idea of like the reason that you believe you're lazy is because you believe you're in control. But you're not in control. You can't actually get your teeth fixed. What you can do is potentially see a therapist and roll the dice to see if you can cleanse the fear debuff and the shame debuff. You can roll the dice or you can train yourself to be present focused instead of future focus. And each of these things that you do, like look at this equation. What do you think is going to happen with lazy? Well, I think it'll go down if I lose those two things. Absolutely. And then you'll start acting. So it's not that you're lazy.

It's that your behavioral equation calculates you to inaction. And the problem is that we don't understand any of this stuff. Because like here's the biggest problem is that like this is all a black box. Right. this is what we see. Yeah. And so then we just call it lazy. And so it's no surprise that our entire like, you know, Twitch is like super lazy.

Why are they super lazy? It's because they have a ton of fear and shame. They don't understand. They think in the future. Like, just think about this for a second. They're always thinking about the future. One day, right? They're thinking about the future and this is the other thing.

So past is back here too. They think about the future and they think about the past. They have a case of the shoulda, what a coach. putas and the if only's, if only this or if only this, I should do this, I'm supposed to do this, I need to do this, all of those should is not in the present. It's in the future. If only is in the past, it's not in the present. The other problem that they have, and I know you want to jump in, but I'm feeling that right now, so I'm going to keep talking. Do it. Keep the other thing is that they're always focused on me. And that doesn't mean that they're selfish.

it means that if I were to literally catalog the number of thoughts in their mind, the number of thoughts about themselves far outweighs the number of thoughts about other people. Doesn't mean that they're good thoughts. They're just egocentric. It's I'm a piece

of shit. I'm lazy. I should do this. I should do that. That person is so awesome. And even when you say that person is so awesome, if it's an appreciation of that person, it's not about you. Even when they think about another person, It's in reference to themselves.

It's actually a thought about themselves. It's a thought about themselves, even whenever they're thinking about somebody else? Because it's a comparison. There are two ways to think about other people. One way is a comparison, like, oh, that person is so awesome. The other one is appreciation. And appreciation makes them feel good and comparison makes them feel bad. So even when they think they're thinking about other people, they're always making comparisons to themselves.

And so literally the percentage of time, that they spend over here is 90%. And they only spend 10% of time thinking about other people. And that's what I was saying about the selfishness. Exactly. And now we think about Bharmah, which is duty or responsibility. Because you aren't worth it, right? Especially like if you have fear and shame, your value as a human being is pretty low.

Therefore, you're not even worth investing in. The thing that gets you to clean up your place is a sense of duty for your mom. And you're like, it's okay if I live in a shithole because I'm me. But it's not okay for my mom to live in a shithole. Yeah. And that thought is not like a logical thought. It's also like a revelation. Well, I thought about this. I actually, you know, I have no regrets. I don't even regret letting my teeth rot out. Because the reason why I started streaming and what motivated me to try so hard with streaming is that I knew that if I didn't do that and I wasn't successful, I wouldn't have any teeth. I don't regret a single thing. And I don't really regret any of

these things happening. And I do think that it should be more about like other people too, though. And I feel like that's kind of what's ended up happening is that I've tried to focus more on being like being not really a servant to other people but being a shit what's the word for this to fulfill a purpose

that one is Dharma you have a Dharma to your streamers yeah what you're describing is Dharma right like you stream because like you are the thing you stream for them because you're trying to send them a signal that you can be a fuck up in life and still have a life worth living. That's the tournament. That's why you stream.

And you can still be proud of it and happy. Absolutely. So like you need to show them that. Yeah. And that's what I was so upset about whenever I had taken two breaks in my stream. I had felt like I had lost that. Yes. I no longer had that thing that just motivated me. You know, whether you have a good day or a bad day, you all go on the next day because there is a purpose and the goal that's greater than yourself. It's not just about you. It's about what you represent, who you are and the idea. So if we look at the equation of that, there's something very important there, which is that generally speaking, we operate when it comes to ourselves, we move away from pain and we move towards pleasure. We try to avoid pain and we try to seek pleasure.

but the cool thing about Dharma is like Dharma is what allows you to say whether I have a good day or I have a bad day I have to keep streaming. It's not about whether it hurts or not I need to do it for them. Yes. Right? And so like that's the beautiful thing. It's like Dharma is in my sense a pretty good answer to embracing the negative

or embracing the things that are hard on life. And the biggest problem that people have nowadays is that like they tend to retreat from things that are hard or painful. Yeah. And so in your case, like your fear of the dentist, like the reason that you're not going to the dentist, we can look at anything in that equation, right? So one is you can talk about your fear of the dentist. And if you talk about your fear of the dentist and you process it, it'll start to wither away

and then you'll be able to go. If you think about, okay, for who am I getting my teeth replaced? Because if I'm getting them replaced for me, it's not worth it. like what I would encourage you to really think about Zach is like right now there are what sounds like tens of thousands if not like over 100,000 people that watch you and there is something in their life which is their equivalent of not getting their teeth replaced and what you owe them is for you to get your teeth replaced and then share with them something about your perspective of like even if it's like like you desert like I don't know exactly what that is but

I think this is what you must contemplate. This isn't logic. This is contemplation. Joseph Campbell's heroic journey. Huh? Joseph Campbell's heroic journey. What does that mean? The hero that leaves the village and brings the boon back from the adventure,

and then he brings it back to the village and empowers the entire village. Yeah. And makes them all stronger together. So you need to get your fucking teeth fixed. Yeah. Because you were giving them an excuse to not fix their lives. That's not something you can continue to do. doing anymore. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that does make a lot of sense. Yeah. Yes, I do.

I think that's really what it comes down to is making sure that I can be that, that representative, and I can be that person. It's a mantle that they have given you with their viewership and their time, and it's not something that you can afford to disappoint them in. And it's not just that. It's, you know, like little bits and pieces of bullshit in my stream that I don't have happened in the right way and events that I have just like fallen through and I haven't planned out properly and many things like that. Sure. But for each of those things, be careful because you call it bullshit. I don't think it's bullshit. There's another equation there with things that keep you from acting. When you say, I have trouble fully committing, I make plans. Yeah, that's because it's not because you're lazier that you're a

fuck up. It's because there's some complicated process going on there and the general variables are going to be you versus someone else, future and past versus present, and negative emotion. There are also all kinds of other things. But those are the three things that I think like are like I would really encourage you to think about. And as you unburden yourself, those are the debuffs. It's like your, you know, your res debuff. Like having shame about your life is like having a resurrection debuff and you're just not going to be functioning. Yeah. Right. And then there are some things that you can do like eat healthy, which is like just like,

wow, like there's like food and potions and stuff that you need to use to prepare for a raid. And if you meditate every day, occasionally you'll get moments of enlightenment, which will give you like an understanding, which will just wipe away something that holds you back. Occasionally. Yeah. But from a neuroscience perspective, we can't count on that happening because we haven't figured out how to make that happen yet. What we do understand is that even from a neuroscience perspective, it's like getting a stone skin protein. Like it's going to protect you a little bit.

Eating healthy, a good circadian rhythm, exercise, meditation, hanging out with other human beings, sunlight, an absence of substances, all of these things are going to be buffs. Can you explain why whenever I was not streaming, I would wake up at 10 p.m. And I would play video games all night long into the morning, eating fast food. And I was completely euphoric. Yeah. So I, what do you mean by euphoric? I was incredibly happy. There's nothing wrong. I knew exactly what was going to happen. The day was going to be great. And the only thing that really pulled me out of that was the like external variables. Like, you know, knowing that I like it can't last forever I guess in a way.

So was euphoria existential or emotional? Both, I think. I was doing what I wanted to do. So that sounds hedonistic as opposed to existential to me. So that sounds like a pleasurable life. But yeah. Over time would have led to an empty one. And that's what I always,

You know, like I had, and I completely agree with you because, you know, like I've told people a lot of times I never really want to grow up, et cetera. And people told to me, they're like, well, you don't have to. You know, you can just do what you always have done. And it's like, that's true. But I know exactly what you're saying is it will lead to emptiness in a long run. So here's what I think. I think for most people, they think about how long was that time period? Like three months.

And then before that, I mean, like there were time periods like that for years. But were you happy every day for years? Well, every day. No, not every day, but most days. No, I'm not talking about emotionally. I mean like existentially. In what way? Like, can you?

Were you fulfilled during the years that you were doing that? Fulfilled. Um, yes and no. In some ways, yes, and somebody's no. I feel like I wasn't making enough like videos or content. I wasn't creating enough. Yeah. So that's where fulfillment comes from. So like, I want you to understand this. There's a different axis. And this is what I call spiritual. So there's a spiritual happiness with the which the Buddha calls duk, which means suffering. So he uses the word suffering because suffering is not an emotion. Right. So there's like contentment and suffering, which is on one axis. And those are above the axis of individual emotions. Like you can be sad and content. and you can be suffering and joyous.

Yeah. Right. Like being poor and happy. Right. So those are different axes. So here's what I think about your three-month stint. I think that most people think about vacations is something that you do for a couple of weeks. I think some people take vacations for months.

And what I'm hearing from your three-month stint is you are basically on vacation. I think my longest vacation has been four years. Yeah. you may be someone who has a four-year vacation, right? Like, that's okay. Like, I think it's fine to be hedonistic for a time and enjoy yourself. And also to feel fulfilled. Huh? Not according to my dad. Yeah. So I don't think that you are quite as fulfilled as you think you are. But I think that it's fine to be hedonistic and fulfilled at the same. Like, I mean, that's okay for periods of time. Like, I love it. Like, sometimes I will just let myself go, man. Yeah.

Like, you know, sometimes I like, it's an amazing feeling. Like, I'll be like, yeah, I'm going to get like, I'm going to eat fucking Taco Bell and I'm going to play games until like one in the morning. And it's awesome because my, I mean, you know, I'd love to do that for weeks at a time, but I tend to get a day every now and then. But I think it's fine to be hedonistic. Heedonistic isn't bad. Like hedonistic and fulfillment is possible, but I think it tends to be temporary because I think over time, like there's going to be, that's going to decay. And then you'll start to feel. Well, it's like if you have a day off, that's really exciting, but if you're unemployed, it's not.

Exactly. Beautiful way. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So I think, and so I think, I think if we really dig into your four year period, I would be very surprised. Because I think you also were good at distraction, right? So you're probably like pretty good at suppressing things. So there may have been discomfort or existential dread or look, basically, suffering. Yeah. That you were distracting yourself from. and and you know you kind of it's easy to get confused with like you know eating fast food and playing video games and the dopamine like dopamine is like separate from fulfillment. So that's my take on it. Yeah, I think that's probably true. I feel good about it sometimes. I think that there's also like a degree where it's like you do that for years and I felt really good doing it like 19 and 20.

And then it was kind of weird whenever I was like, 23 or something and still doing it. And I had had like jobs like off and on. But for the most part, I pretty much did nothing. And I went to college and I have a college degree. But I mean, I didn't really ever give a shit about that. I mainly did that just to get my dad not to get mad at me. And I guess, yeah, I feel yeah, it would be something that I kind of just would do in order to like forget about things.

and then every once in a while I would take a peek in like the real world where like I was in like my time capsule of existence. And it's like, yeah, my friends are now like they have a house or that, you know, back then they had like, you know, now you're graduating college. And for me, I'm not really or at that time. And, you know, I'm just kind of clowning around. And I'd feel like other people were moving forward with their lives and doing things that, you know, were meaningful. And meanwhile, I was just stuck there playing video games. And even though I had chosen that, there's. there's like a certain, I don't know, like sadness. Yeah. So I think that it's right at the edges, right?

It's there, but right at the edges. So I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't at the edges when you do your three-month vacation. I think it, like, you can still feel fulfilled. But I know I was the same way. Like, I wouldn't trade it for anything. Like, I remember my third or fourth year of college, I was there for five years because I failed a bunch of classes. But my third or fourth year, I remember my friends had a had a house.

house and I stayed at a frat. I mean, I lived in a frat house, but like they used to game together. And I would basically like go there every day. Like I would get up in the morning like I was going to go to class. But I only had classes like three days a week. But I would get up at the same time and I was somewhat functional then. And I would go to their house at eight in the morning. I brought my PC over there. And I still remember I had never had coffee from a coffee pot like a like a drip coffee machine. Yeah. For whatever reason. Like I, you know, I just, you know, I, I didn't grow up drinking it or anything. And so then, like, I still remember how delicious their coffee was.

I would, like, go to their house at 8 in the morning. I would make myself a cup of coffee and it was awesome. And then I would start playing video games at, like, 8 a.m. instead of going class. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I would go there and I'd play video games. And then on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I would, like, wake up and I would go to class. And as soon as I was done, I would, like, finish it, like, noon or something. I'd pick up some kind of food. And then I'd go to their house and I'd play video games.

And I just, like, live this amazingly hedonistic lifestyle that was just so. so much fun. We would hang out and, huh? Why'd you stop? Um, and that sounds great. Yeah, I mean, I think I stopped because I couldn't keep doing it. Because you just knew like internally. Yeah, so like fifth year old around. I think I was in fourth year and fifth year old around. And then I realized that I basically had, when I started my fifth year of college, I had two years left. I started I finished my... Sorry, I started my fifth year as a junior. And then I was like, I just cannot stand.

Like, I've been ignoring this for a long time. But I can't be a sixth year senior. I just can't, like, five years of college is okay. Yeah. But six years is just fucking pathetic. It is pathetic. I remember I had a friend of mine, and he logged on one day in the World of Warcraft.

And he said to us, he was like, guys, I'm quitting. And I've been in college for five years. I need to get my life together. This is ridiculous. And I can't keep doing this. Goodbye. And he would before this brag about how he would take English one or it was psychology one. I forgot which one. The freshman class so he could hook up with freshman girls every single semester. And like apparently his friend watches my stream and the guy's getting married now. Yeah, so in my case, there was a girl involved too. So I was dating a girl who I was really, really into. And also, like, she didn't know that, like, she thought I was going to be graduating at the end of year five. And so, like, I just couldn't face the shame of, like, telling her that I'm still not done. So I just, I mean, when it came to my fifth year, I just completely busted my ass and basically did one year of college. college each semester. So I took like twice a normal course load and just silk game actually

fair. Yeah. But you know just I was like that's enough. Like I can't. I mean even in the depths of my shame, it's just like I can't I can't do that to myself. Enough is enough. Yeah. Yeah. I've had kind of the same thing happen before. Whenever I was in high school, I think I graduated with the 2.5 GPA. And I would actually I would not do certain assignments. Like I would get my like the progress report and it would tell me like how much each different assignment would be and like what the grading would be for it. And I would math out how to get like an 81 or something like that. And I would just plan out which assignments would take the most time and I could put the least amount of effort into. And I would like figure out an equilibrium for that and just not do I put in as little work as possible.

There's your laziness. Yeah. It's not laziness. It's efficiency. That was very efficient. Right? Didn't do a fucking thing. Yep.

Yeah. And so, I don't know. Like, I think that's the problem is like I do get rewarded for the laziness. Sure. Pretty regularly. Why is that a problem? Well, I mean, Bill Gates did say if he wanted a problem done, he'd hire a lazy person to do it because they'd come up with an easy solution. So here's what I think, Zach.

I don't think laziness is a problem. I think laziness of the kind that we described in terms of unpacking it and if there are emotional things that are holding you back, those are problems. But I think gamers are fucking brilliant. So when I work with video game addicts, what I do is hook them up with internships at MIT. I take this guy who hasn't graduated college and I dump him in an AI startup at MIT. And then I say, go for it, bro. And then like the turnaround is amazing. and it's like

we're not like laziness is not a thing and like I don't think it's a problem that you're lazy and in the truest form of laziness because I think laziness is an umbrella term that covers a lot of these emotional things and future thinking and like fantasy

and all this other kind of crap but there is part of it that is just the laziness of efficiency yeah and I think even in terms of healthy game or like the people like basically everyone who works for us are people that are from our community.

And what happens is like you take these guys who are like rejects and then you give them like something to do that challenges them and makes the world a better place. And it's amazing what they've accomplished. And so I don't I don't accept you know, I think laziness is fantastic. Like laziness we are such a lean and

mean startup because we're all lazy and we have no resources. And it really is amazing. Like we would have lost so much money if we went the VC route because we would have done stupid things. Well, I'm glad that somebody can see the light. You know, most of the time, like, I tell people that and they think that I'm crazy. And yeah, I'm very good at being lazy. I've gotten, I've had 29 years of experience. Yeah.

Yeah. There's a dark side, I think, to it, which is what I'm really trying to temper. Absolutely. So I agree that you don't want to. You want to be efficient lazy, but you don't want to be umbrella lazy. Right. So, like, it's not an excuse for not getting your teeth taken care of. No.

And it's not an excuse for some things. But I think at the end of the day, if you want to, like, eat fast food for a couple months and game for a couple months and, like, that works out. And you're not really letting anyone down, then by all means, do that. Take a break. Yeah. I think that helps me a lot, too, just to, like, kind of mentally reset. I'm not really, I'm probably more introverted. that I am extroverted, and I think my stream kind of fulfills that extroverted need.

Sure. And then after that, I want to be the introverted, you know, troll that just lives in this cave. And that's about it. Cool. Yeah. Anyway, so I'm going to have to wrap up in a little bit. Like, any other questions? Like, I mean, I'd love to shoot the shit with you.

It's fun. But I just want to make sure that we kind of got to the things that you wanted to. I think that we've pretty much covered everything. The laziness is like it's it's like the roots of a problem that's like a massive tree and there's all the branches. One branch is teeth, the other branches. You know, my camera not working on stream, et cetera. Yeah. You know, that kind of stuff.

And so I think that's actually a great way to conceptualize it because I don't want anyone to think. So this is the big problem that people have is they watch stream and then, you know, they see like Asmond Gold, who has had all of its questions answered and they think that you're fixed. they think that what we do on stream is we fix people we're not fix it like we haven't fixed you we're just all we've given you is a roadmap and you've taken one step and each of those branches needs to be dealt with like that's when you're fixed yeah i i think that's true i mean there's no it's more or less giving somebody a tool but they have to do the job absolutely so speaking of tools sometimes i teach people how to meditate on stream are you interested in that sure let's doing. Let me just think about if there's a death-oriented meditation we can do. I really love,

I've gained some of the most understanding that I have from techniques around death. And you know, earlier when I was saying, like, when we were talking about death and like where knowledge comes from, I've had some really amazing experiences around life and death when it comes to meditating. I'm just trying to think about, you know, what can I teach you that will prepare you for learning a death-oriented technique. Okay, so I'm going to teach you some... Do you meditate? Not consciously, no.

Okay. What do you mean by not consciously, then? What do you do? Sometimes I just sit there and I think about things, and I kind of let my mind wander. And, you know, you just, you think about so many it's kind of like cascading

I guess like series of importantances in your life and you're like thinking about less and less and less important things until you're just not thinking about anything okay that sounds pretty good okay so I'm going to teach you something

that we've taught oh hold on let me think about this so we're going to do just a quick diagnostic test where are you laughing This said AFK of your brain go AFK. So I'm going to do a quick diagnostic test. And then based on that, I'm going to teach you one of two techniques.

Okay. All right. So close your eyes. And I want you to notice the breath in your nostrils. And can you tell if one nostril is more open than the other? miraculously they seem to be the same but if i had to guess i'd say the left one is more open yeah okay so pay attention to it for a second and check yeah yeah it's more open left one is more open okay now what i want you to do is imagine your left nostril like a circle okay and okay and what i want

you to do is see if the breath has a certain direction within your left nostril. Like it's all going to be pointing out, but is it stronger at the tip versus kind of where your nostril meets your face towards the middle of your nose or the outside of your nose?

It's like the, yeah, towards the face and middle. Face and middle. Okay. So like if we were to think about your nostril as a clock face with 12 o'clock being the tip, does that make sense to you? Does that analogy make sense or not?

7 p.m. Okay, perfect. So this is a good technique. Okay, so sit up straight. So, oh man, okay. So just notice that for a second. Okay, just keep noticing while I try to figure out what to teach you next. So this is a good diagnosis. Okay. So this does work. All right. So my instincts were spot on, but now what do I do? Okay. So now what I want you to do, just keep your eyes closed. I'm going to describe a couple of of things. I don't know if you're going to be able to do it today. Okay. I'm going to give you sort of a lot to work on. Okay. So the first thing that I want you to think about for a moment is that there's a difference between lazy Zach and moment of enlightenment, Zach. That the lazier you are, the more Zach you are,

the more Asman Gold you are. And in moment of enlightenment, you're not really that same person. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. So now what I want you to do is pay attention to the person that you are when your breath is at a particular clock position. Okay. And what I want you to do is throughout the day, notice which of your nostrils is open.

And then notice which clock position you're at and see if you can discover any differences in the person that you are depending or correlating with which clock position and which nostril is open. Okay. Okay. So it's not something we can do today because you're going to have to collect a lot of data.

It's a longitude and no study. Yes. It's very longitude. And then I want you to, the first axis that I'll give you, but by all means explore other things, like you can explore your emotional state and things like that.

But the main axis that I think I want you to really pay attention to, is the axis of like moment of enlightenment versus like apathy. It's like detachment versus apathy. It's like laziness versus being able to do or whatever you want to. Future versus present, like any kind of axes that you want to. Just try to pick an axis. I think the most important one is the one that's like moment of enlightenment versus like lazy Zach.

And then the last thing that I want you to do, which will give you, it can kind of anchor your practice is do you live, can you see the sun? Can you see the sunset or sunrise where you live? Almost, yeah. Okay. So if you can try to figure out when sunrise and sunset are. And like for 10 minutes before sunrise and 10 minutes before sunset, now let's say five minutes before. I want you to try to go outside and do. this practice and just notice what happens. And then the last piece of the practice that I'll give you, I'm giving you, normally these things are done sequentially. Last piece of the practice that I'll give you is try to figure out. So I'll just leave you with this is as you start to understand what is constant and what is changing about you, I think you'll start to understand more about death.

But that, yeah. Okay. Okay? All right. Could take a while. Okay. So the key things are to notice, you know, which nostril is open and which part of the clock your breath is going in.

You can do that several times a day. I would even encourage you to like use a journal or something to take notes and try to feel who you are in those moments. And then five minutes before sunrise and five minutes before sunset, whenever you can manage it, go outside and then just pay attention to who you are. And what I'll kind of leave you with is. is that there will be some parts of you that will fluctuate and some parts of you that may stay the same and try to just try to understand that. What about you fluctuates and what about you stays the same?

Okay. That makes sense. So now let's check in for a second and notice the breath again. Are we still working with left? Are we still left gang? Yes, we're still left gang. Are we still seven o'clock? Yeah. Okay. So just see when that changes. Try to check in. in an hour. Okay.

All right. Sounds good. I can do that. Yeah. All right. That's an interesting way to look at it, you know. It's a level of awareness that I'm not used to having. Yep.

I'll say that for sure. Yeah. Good. Yeah. I probably am going to use that almost to try to sleep maybe. I think that's a good idea. You know, focusing on very small things that, you know, are kind of irrelevant, I feel like, helps me, you know, sleep.

Sure. Yeah. Okay. Well, is that how, is that the meditation? Is that what I should do? Yep. Okay, good. Yeah, I will try and do that. All right. Yeah, cool, man. Any, um, go ahead. Sorry. No, you can. I was just going to say, like, any last thoughts or questions or any, I'm curious, I mean, what did you think about our time together? I thought it was really helpful. I think the, uh, breaking down like all of the different components to how, uh, you know, laziness manifests itself and, uh, and, uh, what the different tricks your mind plays on you. And, you know, the, you know, the kind of like laziness and efficiency being two sides of the same coin. Absolutely. And that metaphor, I think, was really helpful. And I do really think that you do good work here on Twitch.

And that's why I was, I was very eager to come on and, and help be a part of it. I think this is something that's really important. And I think everybody here is very thankful for that. putting myself. Thank you. Yeah, well, I appreciate, I really appreciate you coming on. And it's, man, you're just a really, like, thoughtful guy. And, and it's, it's a pleasure to speak with you and kind of, you know, work with you. I think I've given you maybe, you know, if you need some help around the meditation technique, let me know, because I kind of dumped a lot of your plate. Usually I teach something a little bit more discreet and just tell them, you know, focus on this thing.

But I think you'll be able, I think you'll like this technique a lot. Yeah, thank you very much. And, yeah, good luck to you. And I really do hope. Are you okay with, can I put a burden or expectation on you? And can we recognize that that could add to the plus or it could add to the minus side of the column? Sure. Go ahead. And that's that I think you need to get your teeth fixed. Yes. I have a temporary tooth. And honestly, like, I need to get that fixed. And I've been kind of hoping that after the quarantine is over, I would do that.

I think that now it's getting pretty close to that time. And I need to fix some of them because I'm worried that they'll fall into the category of needing to be pulled or whatever very soon. Yeah. So this is something that weighs heavily on my mind. And one last thought that I have is that if you're, you know, if time passes and over, there's an acceptable amount of time that can pass. And if if there's an unacceptable time that passes before you get it fixed, then, maybe we should have another conversation. Yeah, I can see that.

Okay, so like today we talked about the route. Maybe one day we'll talk about one of the branches. Yeah, all right, that makes sense. Okay. Yeah, thank you very much. I really appreciate that. Yeah, I look forward to that if it happens, but I hopefully not. Yeah, hopefully I'll be able to fix it.

Thank you very much. I really do. Take care, man. Bye. Yeah, talk to you. Peace. All righty. Okay.

So, that was fun. Yeah, I don't understand. Like, you know, so people used to call Asmond Gold the raid boss. Like, I don't see it. What do you all think? He's a good guy, man. All these guys are good guys. Everyone's saying Mitch Jones.

Mitch Jones is great, dude. That guy's solid. Ellis is fantastic, too. I know that these people have trouble, but, like, I mean, we all have struggles. but like there's such solid people, dude. I don't know. I don't know what, you know, I don't know. I just don't see it.

Okay, so, listen, guys, thank you guys very much for coming on. Thank you guys. Hopefully that was helpful. It's interesting. We've been doing a lot of, you know, I feel like I've been doing a lot of like teaching mode recently in terms of pulling out the iPad and drawing out diagrams and stuff. I apologize for my handwriting, but hopefully it's helpful. And I think sometimes it's useful to, you know, see things on paper.

And yeah, and I would, you know, really ask you guys to think a little bit about what we unpacked with laziness. And like, don't just judge yourself for being lazy. Like, because that's going to contribute to the shame, which in turn is going to increase your perception of laziness. It's going to move you towards inaction. Right. That's what laziness. That when we say, oh, I'm lazy. What that means is that you don't act.

And inaction is not like, it's not a personality trait. It's like a behavioral equation. and understand what the components of your behavioral equation are and work on them. Because something magical will happen. Like, that's how people like, you know, it's weird to say like someone turned their life around? Like, how the fuck does that work? Like, what's, how does that work? Like, there's some system behind turning your life around.

Like, it's not randomness, right? There's science and laws of at least neuroscience and physics and whatever. Like, maybe psychology, maybe sociology. But there's an order, like, where human beings and there's like, a way that we work. We have a controller and if we learn how to use the buttons, then we can do what we want with our character. And I think what laziness is is an inability to understand what your buttons do. Like you don't know how you work. And so like no wonder you can't do the things that you want to be able to do. Like I need to do it. Yeah, but what are the reasons

that you're not doing it, right? Because there are good reasons. And the problem is that people ask the question, oh, what are the reasons that I'm not doing it? And then they say, I don't have any good reasons, but that's incorrect. If you're not doing it, that's a data point that signifies that you have a good reason to not do it. You just have to find what that reason is, and then you can dismantle it. It's the invalidation of your reasons to not do something that prevents you from actually doing it because you say, oh, I'm dumb. Like, I'm just lazy. Like, I don't have a good reason. Like, if someone asks you, like, why don't you get your teeth fixed? Like, Zach's answer is going to be because I'm lazy. That's not a good answer. There's like, I'm just.

like a really good reason why he doesn't get his teeth fixed. And you have to really respect what holds you back. And just really think about that. Like you have to respect that which holds you in place because otherwise you're never going to be able to overcome it. It's such a powerful opponent, right? And you guys start by like disrespecting your opponent and then you doom yourself to failure. Respect what holds you back. Respect that if you're going nowhere in life, there's a damn good reason for it. and then once you like treat it with the respect that it deserves, then you're going to be way better at dealing with it. Respect your problems and respect yourselves.

And thank you guys very much. We're going to take next week off from streaming. And then we're going to do a bunch of DLCs on Monday the 22nd. We have Yvonne from offline TV on Wednesday.