Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast - Ep 620 - In Defense of Sunlight (feat. Rowan Jacobsen)

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Support the D.A.W.G.Z. @ patreon.com/MSsecretpod Support Rowan @ https://www.rowanjacobsen.com/ Go See Matt Live @ mattmccusker.com/dates Go See Shane Live @ shanemgillis.com Go See Lemaire Lee Live @ https://lemairelee.fun/ Go See Shawn Gardini Live if you want  @  https://www.shawngardini.com/live Good morning :) Hope you're all getting your sun today. Big Kahuna's away so Matt got Author, Journalist, and Sun supporter Rowan Jacobsen at the podiumzz. Check out Rowan's book In Defense of Sunlight, it's really interesting stuff. Check out his other books as well - all available on his site (its all fixed up). Please enjoy. God Bless. Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/DRENCHED and use code DRENCHED and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! This video is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/MSSP Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wow, Wow, Wes. Hey, welcome to Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast. I'm here today with Rowan Jacobson. What's up, man? How you doing? I'm doing great. I mean, to be here. I've been awaiting this.

I, if you guys don't know, I have a little booking service that, you know, throw me guest ideas. I saw the sunlight book and I was like, I got to talk to you. I happen to be deep in, what is it called? Heliotherapy, you call it? Just get in the sunlight. Yeah, I'm a big sunlight guy right now. As you can see, my nose. I'm like, I have, I'm bad.

with it though i have this is like three days of sunburn on sunburn so i just keep going deeper and deeper into it and uh i'll be fine but yeah i'm a huge proponent of the sunlight man it's the best because i was telling you i i grew up on the east coast northeast and uh just those winters would crush me man when i when i read the beginning of your book when you're saying how you're just like you know you're in vermont and you're just like no matter what you do in the winter up there you literally don't feel the sun touch your skin and it after i like i like i really do get like oh look like i like i really do get like thinking about it. And yeah, ever since I've been down here, these hot summers, I'm like, still having

complained. Like, people are like, oh, it's too hot. I'm like, you have no idea what the lack of light feels like, man. It's horrible. I think about it because, yeah, like you say, those winters, they're crushing, especially after a while. And yeah, down here, you're like, wow, you could just be cruising around in shirts and and a t-shirt like most of the year, essentially, right?

Yeah. So that makes a huge difference. All year-round, if you're a fat white guy apparently, fat white guys. Or a teenager. Yeah. I mean, even in Vermont, you see the teenagers waiting the bus stop. It's like 10 degrees below zero and they're in their shorts. Really?

That is, yeah, that is kind of weird. Or they're, I noticed with teenagers, they're either it's that shorts when it's freezing or it's like a hoodie when it's hot. And you're like, what do you guys tell you guys doing? But, you know, I guess that's what they do. So yeah, how long. So, okay, just give me the whole thing. Like you, what is your background?

Because I've watched interviews with you. I would say you're Dr. Smart. You sound Dr. Smart. But I don't see the MD or P. So what is your background? I'm, yeah, no,

I'm like a word guy. I've been like made my living as a writer for, yeah, like 25, 30 years. Like starting book publishing and then I did a little bit of ghost writing. And then at some point I was like,

I'm sick of this. I don't want to fix other people's words. I may as well just get, do my own words. Yeah. How did you? I feel like ghost writing's dastardly. It's like I,

I'm a big co-author guy. If someone's going to help you with your book, hit him with the co-author. There's no shame. I, so weird, which is funny because I would like in school cheat on all my tests, but like writing a book, the ghostwriting thing freaks me out. I don't like it, man. It's like just give that person credit if they ghost write or hire them as an editor, something. But the ghostwriter thing is I get the

hebi-jeebies around that. Yeah, totally. And sometimes I did get credited as a co-author. That's nice. Sometimes, sometimes they didn't want my name anywhere on there. Right. We won't name names. Yeah, I can't name those names. No. J.K. wrote the Harry Potter. I wrote them all actually. Now the world knows. But no, yeah. So that seems like that would be frustrating where you're like, damn, and I did the thing. It was actually, you know, like as a like beginning writer,

it was actually the perfect first step because your ego was not in it. Like you were not going to get recognized as a thing. So in terms of just like practicing your writing, it was like playing. That's nice. Yeah. So in retrospect, I realized that was a good way to start because I was like,

oh, this is fun. No one's going to know whether I screw it up or get it right. True. But then at some point, after a while, you're like, I think I know how to do this. I just want to do it for myself. Yeah. That's cool. So, and that started, what was your like, so it was more so just the writing.

What did you naturally gravitate towards initially in terms of like, you know. Subject matter. Yeah. Yeah. So it was almost random. I was living in Vermont. And I happened to get a gig as an editor for this like cult foodie magazine called the Art of Eating. This was like early 2000s.

And it was like this one man show by this one guy who was this like super persnickety gourmet. And he was doing this really in-depth food writing. So I worked for the magazine, started writing for the magazine. Then I got an idea out of that to do a book about oysters. I saw that you wrote a book on oysters. Dude, can you please just break it down? What do you know about it? I was a really stoked.

I was one of the experts on oysters for sure. So I wrote the first book that kind of like helped trigger that oyster. Revolition in the early teethas is um Texas is coming on really strong with oysters dude yeah there's I just had oysters the other night I love yeah me too I mean yeah so how did you that's such a sick thing to write a book about because I don't even know what they are like I know they're like a fucking little weird little plant thing still not sure what they are but 20 years later so what's like the just can you just blow my mind with a couple oyster facts not not to put you on the spot but I I would just love stuff to bust out next time I crack you some oysters well I mean

they're live when you eat them now dude fuck What are you talking about? Are they really? Yeah. So if an oyster is holding its shell shut, if an oyster shell is shut, the oyster is the one holding it shut. And it's like holding on,

shell clamped down, it's like, you know, like, I hope this goes better than I think it's going to go. It's just like waiting to get back in the water or whatever.

So then you shuck it, right? When you are overcoming the oyster's resistance, like its muscles are pulling that thing closed and you're cutting through its muscle to take off that shell. And so you just hurt it. And it's, It can, it's going through the tunnel.

It can see the light, right? But it's not, it hasn't gotten to the light yet. The tunnel is just your mouth. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, it turns out it's the wrong tunnel. But if you, if you, like guys who are really good shuckers, you'll see like, you know, they're like surgeons almost. And they don't hurt the oyster too much as they take off that shell. You can see the oyster's heart beating and as you, as it goes down.

What? Yeah. Hold on. So oysters, okay. So even when they're out of water, so they're not like a fish. where they can only breathe underwater. They are, but they can hang on for a really long time, like a super long time.

What? And they have to be pretty fresh to eat. They have to be. Yeah, you don't want to eat a dead oyster, for sure. I mean, this is cooked, if you just cooked it, fine. No, no, I want that thing. I want to see the heartbeat. I'm going to try to feel it on my tongue next time.

Well, I do think that's part of the pleasure in it. Like, you see people, you know, like a pile of oysters appears on the table, and people go nuts. Oh, yeah. And I think it's partly because they didn't realize it, but it's because they're eating, they're getting this, like, live chi, you know, and it's like, it's getting them a little excited.

It's like the poor man's adrenicrome. I would say upper middle class working. It used to be the poor man. Yeah, I know. So was lobsters. Yeah, lobsters were just like, there's prison, literally, they served them in prison. Right, and the prisoners complained.

I know. Well, they were picking a lot of dead ones, too, and tossing them in that. I'm sure it wasn't very good lobster. That's, okay, so, okay, sorry. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's my best, I didn't know they were alive. I thought they were long dead.

No, they're still kicking. And if they die, if their shells open, you don't want to serve with people. Yeah, you trash them. Wow. Well, yeah, that's, wow. So I'll save the rest for the oyster book. That's amazing. They're fucking alive.

I didn't know that. Yeah. And they are delicious. And they taste different from every body of water because they're basically concentrating that body of water. Oh, wow. Okay. And then there's the aphrodisiac component. I've heard that as well.

That's just because you're eating a living thing and nothing's hotter than that. You're also pounding the booze with that, which doesn't hurt, right? I've always thought that was probably part of it. Yeah, true. God, I can't wait to tell my mom. I'm going to let her eat it next time and say, you know, things are live. This episode is brought to you by prize picks. I think I'm going to get into soccer this summer with prize picks.

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Okay, so that makes sense. You're more so following curiosities around the natural world. Is that a fair? So after that, I got reputation as a food writer. So then all the magazines were coming to me. It always happens that way. I've talked to a decent amount of people who were like, I don't know, I was just kind of like doing my thing.

And, you know, a lot of writers especially. Like, you'll do a history book now. Like people are like, oh, you're a historian. You're like, yeah, sure, whatever. So you became a pigeonholed. And like, if you're going to give me a pigeonhole, that was a pretty good one. It's not bad, actually. Yeah, like better than being like the proctology writer.

Yeah, yeah. But so I did it for a long time. But I was always folding a lot of science into my food writing because I was interested and you know what is this thing that you're eating and where was it where does it come from and what makes it taste good um so then at some point um i started doing more straight up science writing okay and that's how you and then i remember the beginning of the book you talking you just started noticing and this is how i guess you got interested in the whole sunlight as like a medicine thing you were you're just feeling a little just like slacking down in those east coast for sure like middle

age. You start like, you know, when you're younger, you can sort of like, you don't notice anything. Yeah, I'm 40. I'm 40. My my oyster shell is being ripped open by time right now as we speak. But yeah, I know what you mean. So yeah, I started definitely noticing summer's good, winter's bad. And I live in Vermont, so long, long, hard winters. And then, yeah, I was actually doing a science fellowship at MIT. This was like 2017, 2018. And this like study came out. I came across the study. they had realized that when sun hits skin, it actually triggers a release of endorphins in the brain, like natural opiates in the brain.

And that's why people kind of get addicted to sunlight. That's why it feels good. And like the dermatologist who did the study were like, this is why people are addicted, this is the problem that people love it so much, that's why we can't break them or their sun habits. And they're like, we should treat this as like a drug addiction, sunlight.

And I was like, or, it means that if our bodies are rewarding us for sunlight, there's a reason in evolutionary terms that that came to be, right? Yeah. Like we were, people who are seeking out sunlight did well in some way. Yeah, and that's the funniest thing about the whole sunlight as like, you know,

a thing to be avoided. It really does get back to the dermatologist. It's very funny to see, like dermatologists, they do kind of get crushed in the sun debate because they have been making a whole living out of being like, like don't let that stuff touch your skin. They do.

And to their credit, like their job does prevent skin cancer? Yeah. So if that's your only thing you're trying to do, tell people to stay out of the sun. And also it covers your ass. And I have nothing against a dermatologist. You know, when I have a weird rash or, you know, a wart, I'm glad they're there to freeze it off me or whatever. Yeah, totally.

I will say as a, you're, what there's, I would say kind of sneaky about is you don't think when you go to a dermatologist that there's any chance they're going to see you naked and there's basically a hundred percent chance they're going to see like, when you go to dermatologist, they'll be like, you get a ward and like you when a full body scan, I'm like, it sounds good. Then I'm like, oh, yeah, my skin's all over my full body. And I'm like, all right. It's just weird. I didn't know, you know, whatever. Anyway, but the, yeah, I mean, it is, luckily for me, I've, I've, I don't know if this is good or bad, but a lot of stuff, I remember hearing like, oh, you got to stay out of the sun. I remember just

my whole life being, that sounds dumb. Like, I'm not, why would I, that's crazy. Because I, I know, too, if I'm in the sun, I'm getting sunlight, I have, like, weird food allergies, that stuff kind of lessons like my whole body functions thousand percent better that's interesting so that is so one of the big thing sunlight does is it just tells your immune system to relax a little bit to chill out so all those things that are like the immune system overreacting like which is what allergies are um they get chilled out by sunlight yeah because that i noticed that you know where i was like even like if i catch a hangover in the middle of winter it's it's like so brutal whereas if i'm like kind of in a sun drenched in environment, it's like, if I, and I don't really drink that much, but if I do, I've noticed like

the hangover's like shortened, I just, I feel I need less sleep, I eat less. It's like, yeah, that's why I was like, dude, I'm not whatever, you know, especially with, I didn't really skin cancer, like it's 98% of them or 98% of the times, it's pretty harmless. Yeah, so there's different kinds. There's melanoma and then there's what they call the BCCs and the SCCs, which is squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma. And yeah, like 98, are those, the BCC's and the SCCs. That's what everyone you know tends to get and they just get cut off. Yeah. They don't tend to have long-term health benefits, I mean health effects if you cut them off relatively soon. Melanoma's the bad one, but it's really uncommon. Yeah, it's only 2%. Yeah. What does

melanoma do? Melanoma can get invasive and then that's when you get a cancer that spreads to one of your internal organs. That's bad. That's the bad one. But that one's not associated with regular doses of light actually. It's associated with burns and especially burns in childhood, which means we're all screwed. Yeah, fine. That's the bad news. Wait, how do they associate that? Who hasn't been burnt by the sun in childhood? I know, right? Well, people with darker skin for one. True. And they have almost no risk for melanoma. See, I've heard that, I've heard that people with darker skin do have a risk, not melanoma, maybe it's a lesser skin cancer. They very low rates of all the skin cancer. They can still get them. So I think what

dermatologists are trying to do is, like some people who have dark skin think they can't get skin cancer. And so then something pops up and they don't get it checked. So when they do get it checked, it tends to be at a later stage because of the sense that I don't have to worry about it. True, true. So they've tried really hard to make sure that even people with dark skin do worry about it, which is good, but they truly don't have a lot to worry about it. The race are like a hundred times lower. Okay. So it's truly lower. about, I mean, is there a world in which dermatologists can start isolating melanin and just give everyone melanin?

Just a little bit. No, I wouldn't pig out, but just like, yeah. Melonin is good. Melon's awesome. I know. I was reading the book. It's an amazing molecule. I know.

I was reading the book and I was like, God damn it, man. I'm trying to activate mine right now. This is the tannest I've ever been. So that's what I was going to say. Like, you know, 10 minutes a day, 50 minutes a day, you will start to make a little more melanin. And also, it will, it'll move. like from the bottom your skin it'll move up to the top to be you know they're supposed to be like little like sun oh it's it's there to kind of like all right if it gets to here i'll step in it's the

parasol at the beach kind of oh that was the one thing from the book that kind of blew my mind when you're talking about um the little there's like little microbes all of your skin that kind of just like eat sunlight and just kind of get powered off it that that like and then if you get a lot of sunlight you make more of these microbes because i guess it's like better conditions for them no i had no idea about that yeah the skin microbiome It's really important. And, you know, like, we've heard about the gut microbes that are, can be good for us or bad, depending on which ones we have. But the skin ones and the gut ones are, like, talking to each other every day.

Really? Yeah. And they're, like, you know, they're running more of the agenda than you would think. I know, apparently. I mean, that's definitely, you know, if you're paranoid about that kind of stuff, it's not good news, you're covered in tiny little bugs. Although the fact that they're... No, they're good. They're good.

They're eating sunlight and fucking protecting me. That's pretty cool. There's a... Yeah. There's tanning injections. injections that you can get. Yeah, but is it going to give me the, I want the real stuff. It'll make you darker, but it increases your chances of getting skin cancer.

Yeah, yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah, so I, yeah. That makes sense, actually. That's what you get, honestly. That's crazy. Right, the same people who are staying out of the sun for their health are then like

plugging themselves with a peptide. Oh, why? Yeah, yeah. Rees knows a thing or two about great combinations. Chocolate and peanut butter, obviously. but there's more than one way to Reese's. From indulgent Reese's big cups with caramel to crunchy Reese's pieces and Reese's miniatures,

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I'm pretty fair-skinned. So I can't have that much something. And I kind of a little overindulge a little bit, but the whole thing of like stay out of it all together gives me the creeps, man. I've seen. And I actually like, I'm sure you know Brian Johnson, right? Health guy. I like his stuff.

I like that he shares all the things. I can't get with him on sunlight, man. That whole like carrying umbrella like genuinely vamp life, stay out of the sun as much as you can. It's like I just, it's like sickly. I don't know. It's really weird. Yeah. It's funny.

He had a post last week where, you know, where he listed like here's, you know, for life. here's my 50 things or whatever. And one of them was that, exactly. Yeah. And all the experts I know in the Sun field were like, can you work on Brian Johnson? He's like, he's not up to speed on this one.

Yeah, I mean, it does seem like he's open to following research, which is cool, but he's like really, really anti-sun. He is. And he's because he's getting the wrong information.

Like he's relying on like the dermatologists of the world to supply him. If he, you know, if he put Chad GPT on the job, you could, solve that. True. I mean, seriously, those, right now we're in this like weird little stage, I think, where those AIs, they haven't been bought yet, I feel like, by any of the companies.

They'll give you the straight dope and they've read friggin everything. Yeah. So just put, you can put them on the job on this stuff and they'll like call up like the key papers for it. Yeah. No, I, that is kind of cool. They, I use them for stuff when I'm like, I'll just get an idea where I'm like, I'm pretty sure this is how it goes. And I'll be like, let me double check. Because I'm like sensitive to caffeine. So I try to, for some reason, I don't know, this is out of spite. I try to prove that like coffee is actually bad for you.

So I'm like really feeding these things. Like, come on, man. Give you my argument. And it was just like, no, it's actually good for you. See, right now they're, like, they're pretty solid. Yeah. You got to feel like money will eventually be able to buy their answers. I thought about that before.

I'm like, this is not going to last very long. It's just like the early days of the Internet was, it truly was like. This like wild west where you could just, you know, there weren't companies that were sort of managing it all for you. Yeah. No. Yeah. Because I was even like, well, you know, I was trying to point to the whole thing where alcohol was like, remember when it was like drink, have a drink a day and it's good for you. And it's like complete, not true. Not true whatsoever. I was like, well, a lot of the studies on coffee are probably done by coffee company kind of like research bodies. And it was just like, yeah, not really, man. Some are for sure. But there's a lot of independent science on coffee. I was like, damn, it's actually as good for you. So I try to ruin it for billions of people who enjoy coffee. But it turns out it's actually great. So, yeah, so I'm me.

So yeah, where do we stand now in terms of like just a quick run through of like some of the science of sunlight being good for you, how to get it and X, Y, all that stuff? So basically what happened is like 10, 15 years ago, researchers started noticing that people who were naturally exposed more sunlight had. better lifespans and lower rates of like all the classic chronic diseases So cancers other than skin cancer Heart attack strokes all the big stuff was lower in people who were getting more sunlight and they didn't know why But now they've looked into that and they're starting to get a sense of why that is And I kind of put it into like three buckets so one is stuff we make with the energy from sunlight like vitamin D and nitric oxide which is

another chemical made in the skin with sunlight that lowers blood pressure. And blood pressure, huge killer, high blood pressure. So if you're lowering blood pressure, a few points, like globally, that's going to be a huge impact. Yeah, that's huge. I mean, nitric oxide, they used to sell it at GNC because you would take it and it would like make your, like makes your veins. It dilates blood vessels. Viagra is based on nitric oxide. So the sun, you know, it might be nature's Viagra too a little bit. But there's definitely is. I can attest to that. Well, there was a crazy study. they shown light on mice and then tracked their sexual behavior. The mice who got the sunlight had bigger balls and got a,

were considered sexier by the other mice. Really? Which they measure in like terms of like squeaking and sniffing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, so yeah, there is actually some like a little like hint that sunlight might actually make you a little. sexier. Well, there's this stuff about, and again, I just get all my stuff off like the internet, like Instagram and stuff. But I have heard that if you're like, the sun hits your chest for whatever,

you know, however many minutes a day, you produce, produce more testosterone, all this stuff. Yeah, that's interesting. I haven't, I haven't seen, but it could be. It's probably true, man. Well, vitamin D apparently is a big precursor for production of testosterone. Oh, then for sure. Yeah. That makes sense. That's pretty crazy. But that's, so that's, it just started with people noticing little things and then anti-inflammation is the other huge one I think like um basically the sun when it hits your skin it it triggers a little bit of inflammation like redness right like because it is it's like a challenge to the body it's like the body has to deal with it so the body produces all these different repair compounds anti-inflammatory compounds fixes all the damage

and then basically it sends signals to the immune system saying don't Don't freak out, we got this. This is just normal daily life on the Savannah plains of Africa or whatever. And so it basically that, the response to the slight challenge of sunlight triggers a strong, like healing response by the body, which goes beyond the skin and actually keeps everything else kind of calm and running smoothly. That makes sense. I go check on the other things while they're out. They're like, all right, let's go. Yeah, it's like you call the fire department.

Yeah, they're like, let's go look around. Yeah, right. They're like, what else can we fix while we're here? Nice. And then the funny thing, too, that I, or something I noticed from the book was this was like kind of accepted as, like, this is kind of what you did back during, what is it, cholera? Or not cholera, tuberculosis. Totally. And what was the other one?

It was tuberculosis and there's another. Ricketts. So those two diseases got super bad in the industrial revolution. evolution. Tuperculosis because everyone was living in packed dirty cities, right? So they were all, the germs were just spreading much easier. Ricketts is caused by lack of sunlight because lack of sunlight means lack of vitamin D and vitamin D is what gets calcium into your bones to make them strong.

So kids in the Industrial Revolution, like when kids were on farms, they got tons of sunlight. Ricketts wasn't a thing. Suddenly Ricketts pops up late 1800s because the kids are either working in factories or living in like tenement, like blocks. Yeah. In like places like London. They're never seeing the sun. The cities are also choked with coal, coal smoke.

So suddenly all the kids are getting rickets. And they figured out that sunlight could cure the rickets and could also cure like the skin form of tuberculosis. So then it was kind of this like beautiful era in like the 20s and 30s when like everyone was sending their kids up to the Alps to like ski in their underwear in the snow. Yeah. To prevent tuberculosis.

I heard you talking about that. And even the teacher would sit out there. That's like, there's awesome photo. It's like a Wes Anderson film. That's really funny. It's like, Severn in their undies,

chill and getting light. Yeah. Yeah, that's a, that's pretty cool. And the other thing too that I saw that I was a kind of shocked by was like, it's not even like you don't even have to be in that much direct sunlight.

It's like if you had, you can be fully covered with clothes. All the light's still going to penetrate through your clothes. If you, you know, that you're going to get a bunch of like stuff from basically just being outside. Like the one that really. blew my mind was like sitting under a tree. If you're in the shade, the light hits the leaves and

you're getting now like green light or something. Yeah. Yeah. So there's so there's two, yeah. So infrared, which is part of the spectrum that we can't see, it's like beyond red. So our eyes can't detect it, but it's, you know, it's photons of energy just like all the other visible light. It goes through clothing really easily, you know, like visible light goes through glass. And it goes through tissue pretty easily too. So about 50% of the sunlight is infrared and it'll go through your clothing and then into your body and kind of like those photons will bounce around like billiard balls in your body and then eventually get absorbed. And they kind of like they make, they help you produce energy more efficiently. They go into your mitochondria. So yeah. So when you're

getting on that infrared, it's just kind of like making your metabolism work a little better. It's, It's giving you free energy. Yeah. So you get a little bit less wear and tear trying to make energy from your food. And plants don't like infrared. Like for photosynthesis, they just want blue and red light. So they bounce green, which is why they're green to us, and they bounce infrared. So anytime you're surrounded by plants, by green leaves or grass, that's a bunch of green

photons and infrared photons. Bouncing off of it. Yeah, bouncing off the plants and into you. So you're getting like a double dose. You're getting it from the sun and then you're getting it from the plants. So if you're in the shade, you're not getting too much UV because you're out of the sun, but you're getting tons of green and infrared. And green is good too. They're like doing some research at two places, Harvard and University of Arizona right now because they found out accidentally that green light relieves migraines and other like pain.

What? And anxiety. So yeah, you can now like you can buy green lights to treat your mic. grains down. That's crazy. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's going to be one of the next. Like red light therapy is really big. I've seen that stuff now. So green's going to be next. A little green. And really you're saying also just go outside. Just go outside. Yeah, you can just go outside. Having my red light, my green light here. And actually, fuck yeah, I'm getting some green right now. You do. You got a little green light there. Green L. I'm getting some green L.D.

What do you, have you ever looked into the whole sun eater guys who claim to like not need food, but you just kind of stare at the sun early morning? Yeah. So there's a bunch of those dudes. in Mexico at the nude beach down there. Zippolita, I think it's called. Yeah. So I have a friend who's like a mescal importer. He's like, dude, you got to go hang out with the- Sounds awesome, actually.

With the sun eater. Because, yeah, there's these guys who are just like, like in the sun all day. And they're like, I haven't eaten in years. Like, I don't know if I believe them. Yeah, that's what I'm always kind of like, I can't really prove it. So I'm not going to hang out here for another year. But I totally want to find out.

So I want to find out what their deal is. I do have sort of like, when time frees up, I want to go hang with the sun eaters. And there's just dudes that are just standing naked on the beach who claim not to have eaten. Fuck, that's kind of cool. I mean, I'd be impressive if you can do it for three days. That's pretty impressive. But yeah, I've heard that too a long time ago, that if you look at the sun, when it's, when it, before it hurts your eyes, you kind of catch it in the morning, catch it as it goes down. They claim they get all the energy they need.

I don't know. Who knows? Plants do it. What the hell? Why can't wait? It might be sun and cannabis. That's giving them all the energy. True.

Yeah, true. So the one thing I liked as well, because I'm a big fan of like, this is the part where you have a little light primer in the book. Yeah, yeah. Whenever I get into like just the physics on photons and lights and all that stuff, it's honestly like the coolest, not even just cool. It's like, it's like beautiful when you read about that, almost on like a spiritual level when you're like, damn, this is, this has been thought out or so I don't know how.

Personally, it's like it's hard to. kind of argue against, you know, kind of intelligent design when you read about just the way light works. Like, it's insane. Like, I know, well, I, I'll be curious to get the, you know, again, just razzle dazzle me with some light facts. But the one that I have that I had recently was that I didn't realize sun. So there's like the, whatever, hydrogen fusion or whatever in the sun, particle fusion in the sun. Yeah. The light that's on earth is trapped in the sun's core for like 100,000, roughly 100,000 years. Yeah. And it just just like steps down because otherwise, the Gamma would just destroy us.

Exactly. But it stepped down for anywhere from like 15,000 to 100,000 years. And then once it's ready, you know, it just beams in eight seconds. Yeah. It's crazy. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

I didn't realize any of that until I got into the book either. So light is just pure energy, right? Energy without matter, without mass. I mean, for that alone is fucked up. It's like, if you really get into like, you know, what is a spirit? It's like, it's literally that. I do think. I think like, and you know, you've seen like so many religions basically I've used light as a metaphor for spirit.

And you do start to think it's not, maybe it's not actually a metaphor at all, right? Like maybe light is kind of like that divine force. Yeah. Because light, time does not exist for light, which is, it gets really cosmic. Really? Yeah. So this is like Einstein. Like, you know, like if as we, if as you speed up closer and closer to the speed of light, time slows down, right?

they've established that. Like the faster you move, the slower time moves for you, if you could actually make it to the speed of light, which you're never good. But time would stop. And for light, time doesn't exist. It's everywhere at once that it has ever been. And it's only when it like hits matter and gets absorbed into matter

that it kind of like falls into time. Right? So fucking sick. So cool. Yeah. So that's crazy. Like, so if light is, Like light can't do anything on its own, right?

Like it's pure energy. It doesn't really interact with anything. It just, it's like the silver surfer. Yeah. It just curious the universe. Then when it like hits like matter, then suddenly it's in time and it can have like cause and effect and that energy can start to do stuff. So then you start to think of Earth as like this like sort of like experiment where like light

from the sun is like being captured and is doing stuff. Yeah. that's that's pretty wild i was doing the uh you know i have a little kid so i'm constantly doing like dad what color does this make if you mix this and uh it was it seemed so dumb but i was like genuinely mind-blown when i was like like what color is green make and i was like i don't know red and yellow or no um blue and yellow and i was just like damn sunlight and water makes green for plants and i was like hold on guys give me a second this is actually kind of cool but yeah that the light stuff is really amazing when you get into the physics of the the the

The photons just like packets of energy just moving faster than we can even conceive. It's literally moving faster than time, which is like... Faster than time. That's a good way of putting it. It's crazy. And then you get, you know, it just like goes into your skin. Your body's like nice and, you know, use it. For me, that kind of stuff really, I think buttresses a, you know, spiritual worldview as opposed to one where it's like just all meaningless photons bouncing or whatever particles.

And I just, I'm allergic to that worldview. So. Yeah, no, the material view It was kind of like right in front of them And they missed it Yeah But because yeah, the light All the energy that makes us alive

Like everything that makes us not a pile of mud Yeah It was light, was sunlight That came to earth, got captured by a plant And then either We got it directly from the plant Or we got it from the thing that got it from the plant Yeah

But it's all sunlight like passing through You know It's fucking awesome and so in this book you know you're basically I guess trying to balance out the pervasive fear of sunlight I see it a lot too and again it's I

what I like about this isn't like because there's the opposite thing where it's like just go outside and just bake in the sun 24 which I've tried and it's just that's not the move I again my face hurts if I put anything on it it's still burning but it's like the message really is like sun's light it's not bad for you don't

pig out on it, but also like if you're just outside, even, you know, protected or never, you're, you're still absorbing its benefits, you know, you don't have to have it like kind of radiating kind of right into your skin all the time. Totally. Yeah. And I actually think that whole like lying out on the beach for hours thing isn't good for anyone, even if you are wearing sunblock. Like you're just getting, you're going to get too many, too much energy. Yeah. Too many photons of energy that your molecules can't handle. Yeah. It makes a lot of free radicals in the body. But yeah, the daily doses.

really good and basically hiding indoors all the time clearly really bad the science is like very clear so that's that was kind of where it started for me is because we had sort of gotten to this extreme place where the recommendations are never let unprotected sun touch your body use sunblock 365 days a year even if you're indoors even if you're you know it's midwinter like that's crazy. That's insane. It's genuinely insane. I feel like if you're not getting burnt, you're good. That's like in the winter, I'm not getting sunburn. I don't need sunscreens. Yeah. And that's what a bunch of the experts have said to me. And I kind of, you know, tend to say like, and make sure you don't get anywhere near burnt because it's easy to think,

you know, oh, I'm good. And then the end of the day, you're like, ooh, I'm a little pink. Yeah, that's, trust me. It's every single day. But it's nice to know now that if I wear, you know, one of those long sleeve lightweight shirts. I'm still out getting my daily dose. That was my big thing. I was like, man, there's something about me.

I always feel defeated. If I, I see people at the pool with like the long sleeve pool shirt, big brim hat, and I'm just kind of like, pussy. But now I know, you're still getting all the benefits.

Or some of the benefit. Not the UV, but the rest, yeah. But how much, so you're saying, if I got like 10 minutes of UV a day, I'm good?

In Texas? Yeah, I'd say, I mean, y'all are blessed with some good photons. Yeah. So that's all I need is 10.

Dude, I've been overdoing it like crazy. I've been doing like an hour. In winter? An hour's probably good. No, summer. It's like yesterday. Summer hours.

A lot of down here. Okay. Your UV index is probably like 10. Yeah. So you only really need. And that's the timing seems to be a thing. I mean, people have heard this before,

but it's like you have to go out morning is like the best time while as it's like the sun's kind of coming up. Yeah. Especially for somewhere like like here that you've got a lot of light. to work with, yeah, like an hour midday would probably be too much this time of year. But an hour in the morning is just right. Yeah. Okay.

Nice. Because I have a garden in my backyard. And a lot of times it'll be like these plants are full sun and I put them out my backyard. And it's like I've learned that full sun doesn't always mean Texas full sun. I'm like it'll wilt. Some of like plants that say to be sun lovers. And you know, so. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's pretty. So what do you do personally? How is like writing and researching all this stuff kind of affected you? Or were you kind of on the sun path before that? I was, you know, instinctively, I was like, I definitely feel better like on a cellular level when I'm getting a fair amount of light in my day.

But then what's that? Like, unfortunately, I was writing a lot of this book in winter in Vermont. And I was kind of like, oh my God. So you were longing for it. I'm destroying myself. Stuck in my office. So I'm trying to. to figure that part of it out right now. Like summer, perfect where I live. Winner, I'm not going to be

able to get the UV that I need for sure. So I do, I head south. Yeah. There's also these, I think there's a new sort of like a generation of light devices coming out that are designed to give you those of UV safely. And I think that's going to be part of the solution for a lot of people. people who can't just like, you know, go to the Caribbean all winter. Yeah, just sit basically just stand out of that thing for like 10 minutes or whatever. Yeah, and 10 minutes is it's even less than that. But yeah, their FDA cleared. First ones are just coming out now.

So yeah, I think honestly, like people are going to think about their light diet, the way they think about their food diet now in some ways. They're going to be a little more intentional about what they surround themselves with. Well, that's what I'm always, again, for me, it's always about, like, what's the quickest and easiest and, like, freest thing you can do? Because there's so many gadgets and gizmos and, you know, people are always looking for something. You know, people feel, like, I don't feel good. What do I? You just pull up your phone. You're like, you know, whatever, this powder and whatever. But the, yeah, that's why I like the, I like the sun stuff so much because it, like, it really, really works. Like, I, I can personally attest to it. Yeah. And it's free. It's free. Yeah. It's free. Yeah. It's free. It's widely, widely abundant. Yeah. And free. I, um, yesterday.

talked to is actually the opposite. This is kind of a fire and ice week. I talked to an ice swimmer. Oh yeah. Yeah, a guy, Chris Ballard wrote the book, wrote a book on ice swimming and all that stuff. And yeah, it's like one of the, it's just again, cold water pretty easy to come across. You can just ice get a couple bags of ice start on the bathtub and sun. And it's like those two things alone. It's like, yeah, they really set you up like, you know, they and then just walk or run. You're kind of good. But it's actually the same thing. Like all that stuff, you know, Hormier. is the term they use, like the exercise bros use. Yeah.

But any of those things that are, you know, a test for the body, but a doable test, yeah, where the body's like, who, I got to raise my game a little bit. Yeah. That's a really good long term. Like I kind of think probably what makes for really good long term aging has more to do with how good your body is at dealing with like little bits of damage and fixing it than like any particular like nutrient or supplement you put.

Yeah, I think so too, man. I, you know, just, again, for me, the big thing is just getting outside being active. Yeah. Just at least for 30, 40 minutes a day. Like, I don't know. I've, because I've done both. I've done it where I've been an indoor creature for like 90% of the day. And I feel wretched, like mentally, I feel horrible.

And then, you know, so that's been my big thing of like trying to avoid becoming like human veal. That's like, that's what it's like. Oh, I might steal that phrase. Yeah. Hey, man. Take it. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Summer is a lot of fun, but it can be a lot.

Summer's fun, but it can be a lot. Matt, or... It can be a lot. La Matt. Tell me, what's one thing this summer that you have a lot going on? What did you do? Did you enjoy being that busy, or did you prefer more relaxed itinerary? I enjoy the business a little bit, but I would like some more relaxed.

You need to relax more. That's what I always say about you. Yeah. People ask me, they say, what's it like living with them there? I said, I wish the guy would fucking relax. Too much of a busybody. Yeah. I got so much going up here.

You do. It's true. The police radio never turns off. True. We do have to get you a scanner. Yeah. Oh, man. Actually, you would have fun with the scanner.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. You'd go to crimes in progress. I love. You'd be feared in the city. The criminals, the bad guys would go,

oh shit, it's Lamar. This is the leverage. He's coming. He's going to get it. The leverage. You get low on them, fire out. So, if you're feeling overwhelmed, try better help.

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That's BetterHELP.com slash MSSP. Now let's get back to the show. Guys, real quick, oh my God, 626, 627. I'll be the Stardome Comedy Club, Birmingham, Alabama. That's huge. That's major. Please come. That is June 26, 27th. The weekend after this weekend.

After Father's Day, I'll be in Birmingham, Alabama. and then August 7th, I'll be in August 7th, August 7th, August 8th, San Jose, California, the San Jose Improv, August 7th, August 8th, and then 813, 814, that's August, 13th, and 14th. I'll be the Spokane Comedy Club, Spokane, Washington. I'll be back for, I believe, the second or third time. Yeah.

Sheesh. Yes, come, please, come see me. I'm going to be in Virginia next week. Alexandria, Virginia, 24th, Charlottesville, Virginia, to 25th, Causey's Comedy Club and Newport News on 28th. And on the 27th, I'll be in Columbia, South Carolina. So please come out to no shows. And you know where I'll be on

June 23rd? Optum not this. Yes, here in Austin, Texas at the Creek in the Cave. Yes. Panties in the mail. Joe. But yeah, I've gotten to that point many times in my life. And it's just, God, I feel terrible.

And there's just something about, you know, especially when you're structuring your time and day, And like, what am I doing? Why am I doing it? It's like there is, especially the older I get. It's like just getting outside every day is it's like important. Like you really, really need to do it. Otherwise you get kind of cut off from like what the world actually is. Yeah. You get stuck into like the internet and your house and, you know, all your bullshit. And it's like it kind of, I get freaked out about how real I should say or how did I say this. The internet is like a substitute for actual physical reality. I feel like it's getting more and more kind of pervasive or we're putting. more importance on the internet and it's like just the world basically outside yeah this is the thing I think about all the time yeah it kind of freaks me out yeah we're transforming into something different than we used to be dude I I've you know I get I get a hard wake up I get hard wake-up calls with it all the time because like you know I'm online I do a lot of stuff online I'm always

promoting stuff and then there's like there's like you have part of your identity on the internet and you're going like what do people think about me and you go okay mostly negative fuck and then like so you're like really pulling in you're like I find myself trying to like mitigate this playing this like game layered on top of my actual life and it just gets like so stressful. The whole point is every now and again I'll be like, oh yeah, it doesn't matter. Like that stuff genuinely doesn't matter in terms of like, you know, I have a family and I, you know, there's like real physical beings around me. But you're like clouded by this kind of just, you know, digital kind of thing. And it's just man, the more,

the less I kind of engage with it, the genuine like the better I feel. And it. helps to be like, I'm just going to go outside. I want to do this. I'm going to do that. And it's like, it's like a spider web. I mean, I mean, it'll trap you. Yeah. It's very bad, man. I don't know. It's very bad. And the worst part is I feel like the internet gives you almost like it almost puts everybody, how do I say this? Like before like, you know, if you were in the 80s and 70s and you were, you know, construction worker, there was no part of you that even considered that you could one day be famous for It was just wasn't, you're like, no, I'll never, that's not a thing. You have to be an entertainer. The internet, I feel like is thrown every single person into the game where it's like,

hey, man, yeah, you knows, man, you could. And I just, I do feel like it has. Totally. Not good effects. So I had funny, just in the past 12 hours, funny experience with all that. So my book came out yesterday, right? Huge wave of media attention. Like suddenly, like, interview requests are pouring down on me. So I had said to my, a friend of mine, who was like pretty, website savvy. I was like, can you tweak my one website looks a little crappy right now? Could you just tweak it for me and make it look a little better? She's like, sure. At 1 a.m. last night, I got a text from her. She's like, I broke your website. She's like, I can't fix it. I'm so sorry. It's down. Apparently, like some recovery link went to some

administrator email. I don't know. We don't know who. So I was like, okay. Like, The day that my website is going to get the most hits ever, it's down. Fuck. So I was yesterday? This was the day at 1 a.m. like a few hours ago. Oh, man. Okay. Like this is a good test of your zen ability.

It is, man. You should say zenability? Yeah. Zendability is a highly overrated skill, man. You really need it to be like, well, fuck. Yeah. All right. What are we going to do now?

I'm not. There is this part of your mind that's like, it's almost like delicious when you're like, yeah, I get to fucking freak out right now. And you're like, you have to be like, Not even going down that path. Yeah. But so as you were saying, it's like, okay, maybe it wasn't that important after all, you know? Yeah.

So did you get a fixed? No, it's down. I'm just ignoring. I can't do anything about it. That's the thing, man. Yeah, you really can't. It's like, shit. I mean, uh, shit.

Yeah, that must have been really stressful. Also at 1 a.m. I'm like, okay, there goes to sleep for the night. Well, fuck. I'm sorry to hear that. But again, it's one of those things where, I don't know. It'll get. fixed and then it is what it is. When I did my last comedy special, I, uh, I had two shows on

Friday, two shows Saturday. And I was going to just, you know, see which was the best show at all four. You have a lot of chances to get it right, basically. So I had four chances to do it. First night, shows were good, but I was like, I didn't feel like that was the one. Saturday. I'm like, I got two more chances, feeling good about it. Uh, that morning. Yeah, it was that morning of the show Saturday. I had to film something for the intro. So I had to wear this kind of like camera rig, thing on me. It was like a POV. And I leaned forward too fast. And the camera thing put it like literally cut my head. It was bleeding for hours. But then the problem was now I couldn't splice. If I had like a great, if I had like a good take from one. So those two others were rendered mute where I was like I can't

use these. So now and I remember there was just like a bunch of people there just put it on makeup on my head, camera, different light. And they went back and forth maybe 15 times. It was like a collective freak out for an hour and a half right before I was about to go on. And I just remember being like, guys just stop it's okay i appreciate you working hard but like it is what it is it's it's like we're just going to deal with it and figure it out there's let's all just stop freaking out and just move on because you can really get caught in that like anxiety freak out loop we we could have stayed in it up until the minute i walked down on stage i remember just being like fuck it guys let's just do it who cares who cares yeah and it went great it was fine

i remember it almost for me it was kind of freeing to be like i it's just like i Like that's what I whenever I try to take anything remotely serious, I tend to get reminders just from like circumstance where it's just kind of like, dude, shut up. Just go do your thing. So that was a, I remember just kind of laughing being like, of course I fucking smacked my head on a camera today. This is this is kind of more. This is just what I do. Yeah. A friend of mine who's a photographer for the New York Times. So he's had a pretty good career. But at some point he's kind of like, this is kind of like, who cares, right? Yeah. So he just has this thing. He says whenever anything comes up, he's like, just remember. we are animals and we made this all up. That's a great lot. It comes in handy. It really does. Damn, that's amazing,

actually. That's really good. I'm going to use that on my wife. Right. So it can backfire on you. You know, but she freaks out. Like,

we are just animals. We're making it all up. Let's do what animals do, babe. How about you forget about that? So what, so what's next for you, So you're on the big, you're on the book tour, moving around.

What do you got on the horizon? What are you thinking about doing? So I am a couple of things. I'm trying to decide which way to go. I'm waiting for a sign, right? So one of them is kind of what we were talking about. Like the more you think about light, then you start to think about energy and you start thinking about us as, you know, rather than just like piles of molecules, we're basically

like this flow of energy, like a standing wave of energy in the sense and does have like the spiritual aspect to it. And there's some really interesting new science. coming out around that. It's like hard science, but I think there could be a really fun, just like easy mainstream book about that concept. So you're going quantum you're thinking. Exactly. Yeah. Now's the time. I was thinking the title could be quantum me, right? And I could just experiment, self-experiment. I mean, I'm no stranger to like the, just a lot of different spirituality books and stuff. And a lot of them tend to just dabble.

A lot of them, they borrow from quantum elements to be like, hey, you know, we could be two places at once, you know, and you're like, what the fuck? You're serious. Totally. The entanglement stuff? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can apply that to so many different things in life. So you've been sneakily researching quantum, basically just quantum property.

Yeah, I love that stuff. Is it quantum or is it more just like your body as a non-physical or energy, whatever? It is. It's all quantum mechanics because like down to that basic subatomic level, it's all about electrons and photons interacting. And, you know, for the physicists, they, figured this out a hundred years ago that like energy and matter are like two sides of the same coin biologists like learned this yesterday it seems like they missed it for a hundred years but now they're

like oh we need to think about magnetism and energy and how all these things like change the stuff that we are so yeah it's hard stuff but it's um but that's why i think there's like the light version of it would be could make a really good book that is cool yeah but then the other thing when you're you know a bit of a contrarian. You write a contrarian book and everyone's like, you're an idiot. You're so wrong. And you're like, it might be wrong, but it might not be wrong. Yeah. And then you have to try how to figure out, how do I know if I'm wrong or not? So anyway, I think it would be really fun to write a book. And this would be a book, I think 99% audience would be dudes. It would be the title. You're in the right place right now. This is a very dude heavy environment.

When you are, when you are right and everyone else is wrong, right? That'd be the title. That's great. Like a field guide to. unrecognized genius. It would be tongue and cheek. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's how to know if you are genius or if you're just entirely wrong. How would you summarize that thing?

Because there's a lot of people who have been right that a lot of other people, you know what I'm like? A lot of the advanced, like germ theory is the biggest one. Or one of the biggest ones. That's one of the best examples. The guy died in insane asylum.

So many of them, they got it right. No one ever recognized them. So yeah. And they often kill themselves. Shit on them. Like actively shit on them. them to the point where they end up killing themselves. God, who's the guy,

the girdle, the mathematician, starved himself to death. He apparently, and I still, I've tried to read about it a million times, but he proved that math, the axioms,

mathematics were founded upon, contradicted the mathematics himself, which just like, they wanted math to be this like concrete physical reality that, like, they wanted to take it almost away from like, they didn't want anything kind of like, airy about it like no this is a hard physical science and he kind of out of nowhere it was like

yeah no it's not improved it using their own axioms and then they were like fuck you dude and he just starved himself to death yeah but apparently everyone's like yeah fuck he was right it sucks to be the guy who's right but totally ostracized for it like yeah couldn't be worse but anyway so yeah so part of it would be looking at all those examples through history and like can we recognize a pattern so we can start getting better at recognizing these people yeah um and then the flip side would be like Like, how do we, how do we tell when you're full of shit? Like, how do you tell when you're full of shit? Well, the fun flip side is just going through the, there's, I mean, there's got to be no

shortage of people who are like, I got this. And then it just turned out there, one million percent. All of us. Yeah. And we're almost always wrong. So that's the thing. How do you, so is there a better or faster way of figuring out? Figuring out you're wrong.

Yeah. And except for that one time when you actually did get it right. Yeah. And the problem too is that because I've seen, I forget what I was watching, but I was watching, not even a debate. People were just like talking one of those YouTube videos where they they kind of reference that whole thing about how like everything we know now will be wrong for the most part and you know and how do we kind of accelerate that or factor that in it's like you really can't. You just have to like wait till you definitely know you're wrong. I'm like all right. So that's what I'm wondering. Is there a better, you know, a better algorithm? Yeah. Also it would just be, you know, fun like all, you know, your uncle who is certain that he's always, always right. Yeah. It's a good gift for the uncle.

Yeah, that would be a, that actually, just the title alone. They'll probably be like, yep, put it down. It's basically a beach read for dudes. Yeah, I remember, I mean, it's slightly related, but I grew up doing construction, like a lot of family, family construction businesses. And I remember my job this one time was like I had to run a tamper and compact dirt and gravel. I think it was like a 97% compaction rate. That's what I needed. So I'm going over like 93, 92, 95.

and my a lot of my uncles are just you know done construction for a long time so like there's a thing with construction workers and engineers where construction workers will be like you don't know shit man like they do it every time like you fucking you don't know you you couldn't possibly use your book smart so like you know your blueprints are wrong there's like there's always they're always going back and forth so this this this young kid he was a he was the engineer probably intern and he's just he had every time i would compact it he had to stick this probe down into it and measure the compaction rate. I remember my uncle just stood over him the whole time and be like, so dumb. What are you doing? And it was kind of just like going back and forth. And eventually,

I remember him, be like, you're never going to get 97. Just like, I know for a fact, you're never going to get 97. And then I remember I ran the tamper like backwards across the thing. And then we ended up getting 97. He was just like, that thing's dumb. But there's, the point is that, yeah, as you get older, there's a, I would say almost a sexual pleasure in being right. I'm telling you, dude, all of my, my dads, if you talk to my dads or any of my uncles, huge chance they're going to hit you with the story about a time they were right and the other guy was wrong. And it's just, it's just a five minute story where in the end, like, yeah, so yeah, I was fucking right. Absolutely. It's a guy thing. It is. It's awesome. Telling a story about a time

you were right is, but it's a funny, it's such an insane premise. Right, right. But yeah, so yeah, you just, you want to be the one who bucked all the idiots and got proven, like, you instinctually right somehow. But those people are rare than... You gotta be a lie for it. That's the thing that kills me. I always read about these guys that like, I always think of Emerson.

He was out in the woods, just writing about stuff. I was like, what a fucking dumbass. Like, this is the worst guy ever. And then it just, just 200 years later or whatever, they're like, this guy's a genius.

And almost all the geniuses are told they're wrong. So it's like, how can we spot those guys faster? I don't think you can because I feel like once you even start looking for it and you're like, yeah, it'll just be more just my it'll just be more group think and then it'll be a fake genius and

so group think yeah basically it's like i hate group think yeah i absolutely fucking hate it um and you see it everywhere you see scientific institutions are some of like the worst examples of group think yeah you know no it's it's it's really bad i mean i i i luckily it was like a cool experience i don't know if i really did anything with it but i got to go back to school in my 30s i went back i got a master's in social work which was like you know i i don't would say savior 50 grand whatever but the uh it's just just dude anyone anyone you can get one anyone can get one you can go get a message of social work if you basically it's whatever but i remember just as an adult going back to school and really seeing those dynamics at play in terms

of group think where it's like it'd be a question that you could literally say anything and they'd be like huh i've never considered like they would never it wasn't like biology they're like wrong and i just nobody would raise their hands ever like ever and then to be like just to there were certain you know things that if you said the place would spas and like I just I just watched in real time people just be like I'm just gonna just agree and just get along and yeah it's kind of terrifying when you think about it I would say 85% of people it might be even 90 we're just be like I don't even don't even bother me with thinking I just I just want everyone to be cool and I'm just kind of just sit back and chill and that people dictate what's going on for me.

And the internet and AI, like, it becomes harder to be an outlier. Like, it'll find, the group will find you now. Yeah. It's harder to escape the group than it used to be. Yeah, I can see that. So did those social work skills? So do you use those for stand-up, for interviews? Do you use those in your daily life?

Was it useful that way? You know what it was useful for? I was, like, about to have a kid right when I went to social work school. And I got, like, there, while there, I got definitive proof that you're not supposed to leave your kid in the crib to cry it out. That's like that common folk wisdom. Like, let them cry it out. They'll be fine.

They're like, that's bad. It doesn't work. And just like, definitely don't hit your kids if you can help it. And I remember just being like, all right, those are two actually decent facts that I have, you know, on the record. Because you hear it all the time. They're like, they'll be fine. Let them cry out. And, you know, if I had to like tap into my collective wisdom of like family and friends,

they'd be like, yeah, it's totally fine. Then I remember at school there like, no, that's just the baby giving up. And I'm like, fuck, that's so sad. God damn, that's so sad. I remember that. I remember those sleepless nights being like, we can't let them cry it out. Same here. Like, it is hard to hear that.

Like, every instinct of your body is like, go rescue that kid. And you can do like two minutes or here and there. But when they're just like, let them do it, it's just like, yeah, it's not good. Not a good thing. So I got that from it. Glad to hear that. But hey, yeah, thank you. And then I also, for me, it was just cool where I was like,

it's just like a personal thing where I remember being like oh these is like this is a master's I thought I was going to be around like literal geniuses because I was like master this is like a step away from doctors and like doctors or you know and I it was for me it was kind of like a peep behind the curtain where I was like okay academia is not the uh you know it's there's a lot of smart people obviously in different fields doing a lot of stuff and even in that field I'm sure but I remember thinking like oh it's like a it was like a self-limiting belief kind of thing where I was like I couldn't possibly hang around you know I was thinking it was like, I don't know.

I just thought people would be like brilliant beyond belief. And it's like, no, a lot of these people at the top of certain things are, there's some very, very smart people. A lot of them are just pretty normal too. And it's, you know, so for me, it was kind of like, oh, you can kind of, you can do anything. Yeah, I've had that experience a few times, too. I kind of feel like, like the process of maturity and adulthood is just getting to each stage and going like, oh, everyone here is just as dumb as I am, right?

So I may as well do this stuff because, like, That was the, that you just summed up my answer. It was ever, I was like, okay, everyone was pretty fucking dumb too. That's good. I thought I was,

right. I thought I was going to be around like perfect people. And it was just like, yeah, no, this is a mess. Yeah, every level,

you're like, oh, nope, not here either. It's every, every rock I lift. I go, yeah,

a bunch of idiots. More idiots. Great. Yeah. So, but no, man, I'm excited for you.

I can't wait. I'm going to finish this. I cracked into it last night. And I highly recommend, in defense of sunlight it's uh again i like the cold water stuff too i'm big on the cold and it's you know almost like people can watch it online and like oh more stuff about it's like just try it that's the big thing it's like actually try it it's super simple i think to put into place and i don't know there's

no downside it's like go outside now now for me it's like i can be outside in the shade and i'm thinking about little green photons hitting my skin amazing i'm going yeah i am fucking peaceful now this stuff works and so i think this is a great book I appreciate you writing it. Is there anything else you have to say? Any more razzle-dazzle facts or insights? I mean, the oyster shit kill me. I can't wait.

I can't wait to talk about that. All right. This is a terrible thing to leave everyone with. But it's just looking at a bunch of studies showing that citrus consumption raises your risk of skin cancer. Okay, hold on. I saw that. So there was in the attached emails.

I thought they were like talking points. I read it. I'm like, I can't understand the goddamn stuff. So they were saying citrus. Yeah. What? Yeah. I skimmed it being like, he's probably just saying citrus is good for yourself.

Citrus is linked to skin cancer. It's linked to skin cancer by multiple studies. So what do you take from that? I eat fewer grapefruits these days. Really? This is what I take from it. What? It's the combination, yeah.

If I'm going to, no, I'm going to get a bunch of sun, I won't eat like a grapefruit. Dude, I just planted a lime and lemon tree and cum quots. There's this thing called Margarita Byrne that, like, is well known. Like people go, you know. Really? They go to the tropics and pound the margaritas and then they get extra fried the next day. What? From all the citrus.

From all the citrus. Yeah, but then if you don't have this vitamin C, you get scurvy. Well, right. Right, it'll keep you from scurvy. Okay, but you're saying... You definitely won't get scurvy. That's good. But they're saying vitamin C can, with sun, can...

It's not the vitamin C. It's this thing called sorrelins that are in the citrus. Oh. Fuck. Yeah. That sucks. I think a little is fine, but don't pound that whole bag of oranges maybe. I'm, dude, look, I'll be honest, I'm not worried about skin cancer.

I'm really not. I just doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Not many people die of skin cancer. That's what I'm saying. Like you get all the other cancers are you die so much more frequently. Yeah, colon cancer, breast cancer. Bad. Those are bad.

Lung cancer, the biggie. Eesh, that'd be terrible. Yeah, my dad had skin cancer. They just like blasted his face with lasers. Yeah. We were calling to Michael Jackson for a while. Yeah, I mean, it's no fun.

We shouldn't downplay it too much, but... I mean, I'm going to downplay it. I'll be honest. I'm going to fucking dumb play it. He's downplaying it. I go to the term of it. Yeah, you're not allowed. I'm going to fucking downplay.

I get white spots on me every now and again. I go, yeah, photons, who gives a shit? Let them fucking in there. I'll heal it up. I always tell myself by the time I need to love a cure for that. I'll be fine. Well, dude, I hope your website gets back in order.

Yeah, me too. I appreciate the inside. That thing of just as we're animals. We made all the stuff up is that's my new mantra. Honestly, that's amazing. Well, thanks for having me. This was, thank you for coming around.

Appreciate you. All right. Watch new episodes of Matt and Shane's secret podcast on Spotify. Do it.