The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Anti-Victim Tom Nash

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

Noam Dworman and Dan Naturman are joined by Tom Nash, a self described storyteller and vagabond. Noam gets nostalgic, Dan gets philosophical and Tom explains anti-fragility. Nash is a Global Keynote Speaker and has graced the stages of some of the world's largest conferences and festivals including TED and SXSW. He is also a club DJ, author. He lost all four of his limbs after a devastating brush with a deadly disease.

This is Live From the Table, the official podcast of the world famous comedy seller available wherever you get your podcasts and available on YouTube, which is the preferred way to watch it because you get to see as well as here. This is Dan Natterman. I'm here with Noam Dorman, the owner of the comedy seller. Hello, Daniel. And we have with us Tom Nash, a very special guest. He's a speaker, author and DJ. Tom lost all four

of his limbs after a devastating illness and escaping death. Just barely was on life support, learned to walk again. And now is a sought after musical artist, DJ and speaker. Is that a reasonable summation of? Yeah, I mean, it's a bit grandiose, but I'll take it. Well, but that's that's sort of what I do. And his podcast, you didn't tell him about his podcast. Is that on the thunder? I don't see it on here, but it's not on there.

Yeah, but I also host a show called Last Meal, which is also on YouTube. If you're watching this on YouTube. OK, last minute, that sounds interesting, which you ask me. You shouldn't be because you get to see my face and it's not as pretty. I think it's the typical thoroughness of peri-el. So no, no, this is just a yes, but the podcast is the most anyway. So you're able to throw her under the bus because she's not here. It's just more.

Well, I'm sure if she were here, he would say too. But and last meal, you ask people what their last meal would be. Is it? Yeah, I ask if the world was ending tomorrow and they could have one last meal. What would it be? Well, I wouldn't be hungry. I'd be so upset. I wouldn't be hungry. I'd be so upset, but I get your point.

Listen, you pick a meal and I cook it for you and then we sit down and we talk about it. Doesn't that sound like a nice idea? It does sound like a nice idea. I'm just saying strictly speaking, I think I'd be too upset to eat under those circumstances. Well, Dan's a medic. Anyway, so... I am, but that has nothing to do with.

There's so much to talk about, Tom. Talk about with Tom. So, Tom was introduced to me by Peter Bergogian, who's been on our show. And, you know, so I'll just go through the whole thing. So of course, I guess that's the it's the the politique thing to do. Peter never mentioned to me that you had no limbs. Oh, really? He didn't he didn't give you a heads up.

No, he didn't give you a heads up. Oh, man, that's bang out of order. I don't know. It just turns up with two hooks. You're like you couldn't mention that. Well, that's a big, you know, that's a big thing. No, no, actually, it was a matter. I wasn't like, why the fuck didn't he mention it? I just I'm just recount mentioned that. Well, like that's a big, you know, that's a big thing. No, no, actually it was, I wasn't like, why the fuck didn't he mention it? I just, I'm just recounting that.

What sounds like a Seinfeld episode. Yeah. To figure out whether, whether he should mention it. Except there would be a date. I would, I would mention it if I had a friend with two hooks. I definitely mentioned it by the way, just so you're ready. Yeah. Well, what if you meet somebody with the, and you know you know, in a way that they don't see you first,

do you mention it on behalf of yourself? Do you mean if I have a phone call with someone I've never met? Yeah, and then you have a meeting set up, and do you say? Oh, that's a good question. I see where you're going with that now. Usually what I'll do is if we're meeting up,

I'll say something like, I'll be the guy with two hooks. All right, so I'll be the guy with a hot date on my hook. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And I turn to the places another dude with hooks. I'm like, fuck, we've got to change venue. So I met you at the bar. Of course, I didn't hit my schedule. I didn't even remember the meeting,

but I met you at the bar. And then you just get the fist bump with the hook. And so I wasn't expecting that. And then I got to know you. And this is an amazing person I've met here. That's the kind of you to say, thank you. And so to one thing, so he told me about his podcast where he asks people what they would have in their last meal.

And he said, well, what would it be? It doesn't mean to be something that you savor. It means something that moves you sentimentally or something like that. So he asked. It can be. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what you asked me, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe because I said, I don't. I don't know. So anyway, so he, I told him my, my grandmother used to make these spicy hamburgers, this cutlet and it's like a Russian or Eastern European hamburger. And this motherfucker shows up the next day in the olive tree with these perfectly made like 10 of them, these little hamburger patties cutletty cutletty. Yeah. of them, these little hamburger patties. Cutleti. Cutleti. Yeah. And I went home and ate them. They were delicious. But what you don't know is that since this has happened, you've triggered this whole nostalgia impulse in me. That's amazing. Yeah. So I was downstairs, this is just your

interview, but so I was downstairs, you know, going through all my old recordings, my father's old cassette tapes, things like this, just desperately trying to hear my grandmother's voice, you know, and just on the way in now, I was listening to this old recording that I found. I might cut it into the video here of my grandmother singing in Russian on stage with my father and my father had a nightclub. And it's kind of like a, it's kind of like almost a Lucy and Ricky thing, except it's my father is Ricky and my grandmother is a wacky Lucy.

And, but yeah, this is, this is the results of your, of your doing. So- Is that a videotape or an audio recording? Audio, audio, it's from the 60s. So. Is that a videotape or an audio recording? Audio, audio from the 60s. Incredible. I don't think most people of our generation have audio of their grandparents. No. I don't have.

Yeah. Actually, my grandfather had a Super 8 camera that he used to film on, and this was in 1953. And he moved, him and his wife had moved to Bahrain in the Middle East. They lived there for like 30 years. That's where my father was him and his wife had moved to Bahrain in the Middle East they live there for like 30 years That's where my father was born and and his sister and I have this footage from early 50s until the early 60s on Super 8 film of my dad when he was a kid and my auntie and stuff like that. It's fascinating It's really good quality as well. Super 8. Yes, it holds up. Well, that's even

as well Super 8. Yeah, Super 8. It holds up. Well that's even rarer. Tiana, turn off the AC. Yeah, the AC is outrageous. So yeah, so this is the power of nostalgia, sentiment. It's okay, you can be overpowering. And I would imagine, though you play it off very well, it's kind of like, yeah, I got no arms, I got no legs. What else is new? Like, you know, like, you must grapple with all sorts of emotional things on a regular basis, although you, uh, uh, don't talk about it. And, um, I don't know what's, what, um, how deep you, you go in interviews

about this stuff. This is stuff that I go as deep as you would like me to, but you might find that pool a little shallow for your liking. I don't, these days I don't typically, I mean, I'm not, uh, I'm not affected by my disability in an emotional way. I mean, I was when it was happening when I was. So when you see a super eight video of yourself younger with, with, Oh, no, it wasn't myself. It was, it was my father. Oh, if I saw, no, that wouldn't affect me at all. It would not affect. No, no, no. I'm completely at peace with having a disability.

So tell us about that. How did you, because I'm not built like you. I, no, no. I'm completely at peace with having a disability. So tell us about that. How did you, cause I'm not built like you. I think it would not- You don't like me? I think it would knock me out of the running. I do not think I have your strength of character. Okay.

Well, would you have predicted prior to the illness that you would have had the strength? No, and that's a very good observation because we don't really know what we're truly capable of until we're put in that position. And I probably would have thought, as Dan suggested, I wouldn't be able to go through that and be, you know, emotionally resilient on the other end, or whatever you want to call it. But it's only when we're put in those positions that we find out our true character or the nature of you know, what we're comprised of, I guess. And so I don't want that to be what people get from my story that like I'm somehow able to get through things like this, but other people aren't.

I think you just rarely put in that position and everybody at this table, everybody in this room, everybody at the comedy cellar has their own this that they've been through. And visually, it might not look like mine, but everyone has their own challenges and struggles. And the fact that they've been through. And visually it might not look like mine, but everyone has their own challenges and struggles and the fact that they're actually here means that in some way they overcome them. You buy that then? Well, I buy that everybody has struggles.

I don't buy that everybody has struggles of the same magnitude. Sure, yeah, but magnitude is also subjective, I guess. Now you take no anti-anxiety. No, nothing like that. Because I know people Now you take no anti-anxiety. No, nothing like that. Because I know people, you know, the smallest little thing gets, puts them on medications. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

You know, it's the nature versus nurture thing. I'm sure there is like a component to my physiology and my biology that I probably had the propensity to be able to weather those storms maybe a little bit better than someone else. But I think that the nature part of it, the environment and having gone through that adversity actually builds in a sense of what I refer to as anti-fragility effectively. Well, there's one good thing I've observed, which is that you don't have any trouble getting hot women. And that's, and that. And that's both funny, but it's also quite significant

because that might actually have put like, this is very, very important part of life. Maybe in certain ways more important than the parts of the things in life that are no longer easy for you. Right? Yeah, that's true. And I did have a period when I got, we'll sort of cover for those who don't know what happened to me, which is fucking everybody. When I got out of hospital, I did think

that my value on the sexual marketplace would be, you know, selling it somewhat of a discount. Let's put it that way. Sellers market. Yeah. Pump and dump as it were. But actually, it's a buyer's market. I got what you meant. Yeah. Yeah. But I was able to, to attract somebody to whom I was attracted pretty soon after coming out of hospital. And which I never thought I would be able to and that that instantly just gave me the confidence to say like, Oh, and I was also a bit lucky because I think women are less superficial than men, generally speaking.

So if you, if you can make a woman laugh and you can just have some sense of interest about your charisma, they're quite forgiving. Well, would you, if you encountered a woman with your disability, would you be like, no, get the fuck out of here? Depends. Oh, that's a good question. I mean, like what? Does she look like me?

Yeah, yeah, she, she, she has your disability. She has the same situation you're in. Yeah, but are you talking about like, she would otherwise be a 10, but she's got hooks? So you're talking about like, cause that's what I'm saying. All right, a 10 with hooks. Yeah, 10 with hooks. I wouldn't, I wouldn't not talk to her. Yeah. But would you, would you, would you feel some like, would you feel a sense like, well, I'm really not that anywhere, but who the hell am I to tell her to get

lost in my position as I am now in your position? Um, I, I've never really thought of who I have gone after in context of myself. Like, is this somebody who I deserve to be with? Like, I don't think, does that make sense? But it doesn't give you any perspective on maybe I shouldn't be so looks oriented. It's not, you know, well, I'm kidding. I mean, I don't think I have a particular, I think threshold, but I have to be attracted to somebody that I have to be a tent, but I'm saying I have to be attracted to them in some capacity. And then over and above that, like beyond that, they need to fit another level of criteria that would suit me as a person, like whether it be temperament, intelligence level, stuff like that. thing about matching with people I think is really interesting is that I think it really like people on paper is a bad proxy for what will work out between

couples. And that's why I think a lot of the apps are really, you know, was it hinge? I haven't been on that when I've been in relationships. He's on all of them. You're on all of them. No, actually, no, I was on Tinder for a bit. I haven't right. Okay. So I maybe 10 or 12 years ago, I'd been on them. And I thought they weren't as sophisticated back then as they are now. And apparently now you can match people based on interest and education level and also, you know, are you a smoker and all this sort of stuff.

And I sort of have this unpopular opinion that that's that's actually a really bad way to choose somebody that you would date. Because I think chemistry is something that you can't quantify or write on, on a piece of paper. It's not something that can be expressed in a spreadsheet. And sometimes you meet people that on paper, they're not a great fit for you, but you just have this chemistry and it just works perfectly. And then you work symbiotically together as a couple.

Yeah, that's, I Yeah, I agree with that. Well, Noam and his wife on paper, you would say, this is ridiculous. Right, I've never met his wife. I know, why don't you? I wonder. Yes, they're very different. I mean, I totally would have chosen her on Tinder because-

On her physique, but not- No, just because she might not have chosen me. Um, I don't just mean by physiognomy, what's that word? I don't mean by looks, but uh, just, uh, um, I don't know why, but I, I think that I wouldn't care, especially when I was younger, I wouldn't have cared. I wasn't looking for someone who was into books or the things that I'd be interested in. Like Shuta said, I love music, but I play music. That would have been a match.

I like to go out and have, like, what do you care about? I like to go to the movies. I like to go to the movies. It wouldn't be like, you know, like what are you getting into? I like to read philosophy. It gets a bit much, right? And a lot of that is linked with like how you spend your time, which is a rational thing to want to know about someone else.

Like, do you enjoy going to the movies? If somebody hates it, you're going to have a bit of a rough time. But what kind of movies? Are you the person that talks through the movie? Are you the person that keeps asking the question? Like, who was that guy that did that thing? Like that would be irritating. What kind of movies are like, I like the girls says I like romance. Well, of course you do. You're a girl. Like I can sit through a chick flick for to get laid.

So there's a sensibility, right? You're watching a movie with someone. Are they talking all the way through it? Well, they don't admit to that. By the way, how would you swipe? How would I swipe? I mean, how do you swipe? You swipe those? The metal won't work. Yeah, actually, the metal does work, but it requires a larger

surface area than the tip of that hook is. So I have to kind of move it like and that's a nightmare. So I usually just carry around like a stylus pen that has a rubber tip, which when you depress it, it just sort of the larger surface area means it can work like a pen. I will I will ask this. How do you open it? Oh, how do I open it? So there are two hooks and there I'm not sure whether the camera can see this, but there are two hooks that are held together by a series of rubber bands. And the tighter you want the grip to be, you can put more rubber bands on it. And then this hook here is connected to this cable and that goes all the way around my back.

So it works off resistance. If I were to push my arm, it pulls that cable and separates the hook. So its default position is closed, which is useful because if you want to hold onto something like this, I don't have to put any effort while I'm holding it. It's just clipped like a closed peg, I guess.

And then I only put in the effort when I release. I bet you there are magic tricks that use the same. Probably, yeah. That's one we could talk to Scott Barry Kaufman about. Why is he into magic? Yeah, he's into magic. I was at his house a couple of weeks back for his book launch, the Rise Above book,

which he did a launch here. Yeah. And it was sort of like a soft launch just for friends and he did a magic show at the end of it. And it was really good. He did the whole like, uh, you know, you've got a deck of cards thing. I'll find your card. It's in that woman's purse. There's one where you go through Wikipedia and final David Blaine style magic. I find when magicians tell me how they do the trick I'm actually more impressed. Oh really? Because I realize that it's not easy because I'm

just assuming well it's a trick it's probably when you know how to do it is probably not that hard and then you they tell you how to do it and it's like well no I couldn't even do it even after having been told how to do it. That's right. So you realize that it really is a skill it's not just learning how to do it. Yeah. So you know but they, but they don't typically tell you. I guess you can go online and find out. I think there are some people, this guy in Austin, Brian Brushwood, who does,

I think he reveals magic tricks. I'm pretty sure you can look him up. You'd get a kick out of that. Brian Brushkin? Now you have something coming out that we're gonna release this after it's out? No, I don't have anything coming out. Well, I've got Last Meal, which is coming out kind of every week.

You've had some very quite interesting people on your show. Did you have Steven Pinker on this show? Who did you have? Not yet, but we're planning to. We've had Richard Dawkins. Oh, Richard Dawkins. Yep. What was some of the more interesting things that these great minds have wanted to eat and what were their reasons for,

what have you learned from all this? Yeah. So Richard Dawkins actually wanted, he didn't give me a dish, but he told me that he tries to eat vegetarian and he wants to me to make him a dish that would make him regret not having been a vegetarian his whole life, because he finds vegetarian food quite boring. And he finds that quite difficult to adhere to that diet as a result. And the funny thing was when I did a pre meeting with him on zoom, I was in Paris at the time. And the night before,

I'd just been to this restaurant that in our district that we usually stay in that had been recommended to us. And we'd had this dish that was like a potato and leak mill for you. Right. And it was one of the best if it was the best vegetarian dish I'd ever had in my life. What's the milk for? Can you tell me this milk? Milk? For is kind of like it's well, it's usually dessert. Yeah, it's usually dessert, but it kind of means a thousand layers

of size. So it's something layered. But if you do potato and lake so it's all mill and my thousand. Yeah, that's right. So it's basically mandolin leeks and potatoes that are just made into this cake almost effectively, like a potato cake. And it was topped with like Gruyere cheese and, uh, cheese though. It's not vegan. It's not vegan. Yeah. It's vegetarian. Yeah. And so I'd said to Richard, I was like, Oh man, I just went to this restaurant last night. You know, do you mind if I cook you that? And he said, that sounds great.

I went back the next night to the restaurant and it was closed. And I was like, shit. And then I went back the next night and it was closed. And then the next day we were leaving Paris. So I had to say, okay, I did call one of my friends in Paris and I'm like, I need you to do something for me is like, what is it this time? I'm like, I need you to go to a restaurant and harass the chef and ask her for this recipe. And he said to me, he's like, no French chef is going to give you a recipe. And I said, this one will. Because last the other night when we were there, all the food was so good that I

got her out of the kitchen. I was like, bring her out here. We're doing shots, like we're drinking together. And she didn't really speak English that well. So it was my broken French and her, you know, perfect French. And, but we hung out for a while. And so he went in there and just showed her a photo of me. And she's like, remember this guy? She's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she just gave me the whole recipe.

She made a video about how to do it and everything like that. It was incredible. Now this requires, I mean, I'm imagining this requires, um, a lot of dishes, but this, especially if it's layered requires a fine dexterity. Mandolin. What's a mandolin is a, is an object where you it's like kind of flat and it's got a blade on it. Think of it like a deli slicer and so you can hold a potato and just,

so does nothing stops you. No, no, things stop me. But I mean, like, like, you just not mandolins. But there's not but there's no like dish you say, well, that's, you know, that requires. Oh, yeah, there's some things that I can't do. And I'll get some to help me out with. And that would be things like if I was rolling pastry or something like that's, you know, is this show? You said it's it's your last way before you were here. so how did Dawkins like the?

Yeah, he loved it. He loved it. Yeah, yeah. He never had it before? No, I'd never had it before. He'd never even heard of it before. I didn't even think anyone's had it outside of that restaurant.

It was just done perfectly by her. And do these dishes then evoke, like it did with me, memories or thoughts that then become the subject of the, So not with Richie. Does anybody cry, you know, yeah, actually, we get onions in the day. That's when I get them to help out with the prep. Do you know who Massey Elinor Jad is? No, do you know that who Massey Elinor Jad? She's she's an Iranian journalist, a dissident, who has

basically been living in the United States in exile because the Iranian government want to kill her. And she helps out with a lot of young women on the ground in Iran who don't want to wear headscarves and being oppressed by the government and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. She's huge following this woman. She's remarkable. If you haven't seen her, I recommend checking out her stuff. I'm not going to remember that name. No, I'll text it to you. I just remember it ends with inner jarred because Massey Elina Jad. Yes.

Like Mahmood. Right. Yes. And well, she had three, I think three assassination attempts on her life in this city in Brooklyn. She was living. She recently went to court just a few months back. I think it went to like the high court or something like that. These guys were prosecuted for extensively hired by the Ayatollah to to knock her off. Anyway, so she hasn't been in Iran for, I think, maybe 15 years or something like that. And she's not a big cook herself. And there was this dish from her childhood that was called Khormasabzi. And it's basically like a slow cooked beef with herbs. And I didn't think she hadn't had it

since she was back in, in Iran as a kid, or maybe no, she wasn't a kid, but 15 years, a long time ago, her mother used to make it for her. And I had the pleasure of making that for her. And there was some tears with that one, for sure. My question was, is the premise of the show, it's the the world is ending tomorrow or you're ending tomorrow? I try and take it from the perspective of the world is ending. That would make a difference. Because like if I was a vegetarian and it was just me that was dying, I might say, well, I don't want to kill the animals.

But if we're all dying and you know, that's less disinclined to I'm not a vegetarian anyway. Maybe you wanted some eat a person then. Well, I guess if I were inclined to eat a person, that would be the time to do it. Before we started recording you were talking about how you were doing fasting. Intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting, yes. And you, I told you you needed to be fasting for more than 16 hours a day because of your age. Right. If you were gonna do it properly. And then you were talking about how. I do 16. 16.8. Well I'm, well I do,, I do, but I couldn't do more than 16. I'm doing 16-8 and that's difficult enough. Could you be vegetarian?

I could be if the upside were potentially high enough. If you told me you'd be in perfect health for until the age of 120, that might be sufficient. That might be enough to sell it to you. What about- Although, you know, then you gotta watch everybody else die around you. What does 16 and eight mean? You start fasting eight hours before you go to sleep, sleep eight hours when you wake up?

You eat for an eight hour window per day, and then the rest of the day you're not eating So my sleep sleep count as you're sleeping, you know for eight of the sixteen or more So, you know, but that's what it is. So if I stop eating tonight at 8 p.m. I can't eat again until tomorrow at noon So it's not so easy Because especially you know if you're out and you want to have a drink or whatever and that and that You know, yeah is technically counts What are the benefits? Well, they say I'll see what the benefits are after a month, but they say it's anti-inflammatory Your blood pressure will go down your high blood pressure

It's in the 120s, which is elevated, but not high. So it's not optimal. You live in Manhattan? Yeah. Right. So if it was, they'd like it to be below 120 on this, the top number. I'd have to move to Brooklyn. You know, why would I have to move to Brooklyn? Oh, just the blood pressure thing.

It's fine. Yes. So if it knocked it down a few points, that would be better than what it is. And glucose, I guess, blood sugar, I don't know. Like I mean, I'm not diabetic, but are you having any health problems that you think you need to like? No, but I'm trying to head them off of the pass because I'm 55 and you take any medication then not for physical health.

No. But, you know, at this age, shit can happen. So like, you know, I don't want, I don't want to have to take anything. I want to head it off at the pass so that. Yeah, absolutely. I'm with you. I'm thinking about going into like a very,

very expensive medical consortium that's going to, just check on me all year round. What, live there? No, just like, it's a place. And they just like, they keep constant tabs on your vital signs. They even give you a thing to wear if you want. And just like any, because I mean, look at Joe Biden.

Freaking guy. I mean, I don't believe this person. This might be an extreme example. But I imagine he actually didn't know. Like it's unbelievable to me that he didn't know he had cancer and that's in his bones now, but why wouldn't you have treated it? Like, like it's, you don't get it overnight. Like, but anyway, I know, I know so many people, you must know this too, who found that they

had horrible things. Cancer usually by accident. Like they weren't on, like no regular checkup would have found it. Like I have one friend who went in for a calcium test, which is like a routine heart thing. Oh, by the way, you have lung cancer. We saved it in time.

John Stossel, the famous guy, libertarian, who railed against all the unnecessary medical tests, had a medical test exactly the kind that he thinks isn't necessary. Found they had lung cancer, never smoke or we had them on the show. It's like some. Wow. So I, I was, was he fixed? Yeah, yeah.

So effective or was the treatment effective that he had? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if he got some, I don't know if he had some surgery, whatever it is. And I just think the dumbest thing, dumbest way to go will be because you didn't monitor your health in some way. And they like, I don't even know why you need to come every year. I kind of asked my doctor, what's so magic about a year? Why not every six months? Like what, why? Like maybe it's you, you'd be okay once every two years, but they just do that to,

because it's a system of remembering, right? If they say you've got to come and get checked up once a year, there's a way for you to automatically remember every January. I'm going to go and do that. Whatever it was. Yeah. But that could put it in my calendar now and they can send you a reminder. They have this technology. I was, I have the technology of a calendar. I have the thing in the future. No. What did he say? He said you should come. You could come more than once a year. He didn't give me a satisfying answer. It was also, I was asking about this,

there's this test called the Grail test. You know, the Grail test is they test you for like 50 different warning signs of cancer in your blood. It's a new test. I came out with no warning signs and it has so many false positives Oh, that sounds stressful. Such that if you get a positive, you're more like,

you're still more likely to be negative. Like there's more force because, because people say yet, okay, but you can still, you can still, um, but it has a bias for hypervigilance. Yeah, because, because it's like a base rate thing. Because so few people actually have cancer who take the test that the number of people, there's a lot of false positives because there's actually very few, but it has very few, if any false negatives. So this is, so it's like, yeah, you should take it.

And I'm like, how often do you take it? And I think it's like once every year, I said, why don't you take it every week? Like he says, well that, and he is blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, I would take it. You're a doctor. Just, it's, and it's, you take it every week? Like he says, well, that, and he was blah, blah, blah, blah. I said, well, I would take it. You're a doctor. Just take it every week. Yeah. And it seems to me it's expensive.

It's like, well, you're, you're, you're, you're, you know, you're multimillionaire. So it costs you a thousand dollars a week. So it's $50,000 a year. This is nothing for you. Like $50,000 a week to make sure that you're not buying. Maybe it stresses them out or something like the... No, some people would rather not know. I believe there is something

in the medical world which is, it's unspoken, but they understand that if the tools available to the well-to-do are too much greater than what the masses have available to them, it's unbecoming. I actually believe this has some weight. Right. Yeah, the delta of opportunity between different socioeconomic strata is effectively what access to healthcare they have been tested. And that's where we're going there. You're going to have tests like, well,

it's expensive tests, well it's expensive. Let's say it's $2,000. Yeah. $100,000 a year. There's many people who couldn't care less about $100,000 a year. And I don't even mean that wealthy. I mean, people make just a few million dollars a year,

like $100,000 a year is like insurance to not have cancer. Yeah, I'll take it. So then the news report comes, people, some people get this test every week and they're living longer. And of course they're having, it's having a significant effect on their lifespan. And the average schlub can't even get it once maybe, or can get it maybe once every $2,000. So the irony there as well is the more people that would get that more frequently, you'd think it would put downward pressure on the actual supply and the cost of, well, upwards on the supply, but it would cost less and be more accessible to people. Eventually it does cost the price to fall.

Absolutely. But I can account for... I do think with some cancers, it's for some reason, that doesn't seem to make that bigger difference if they test more frequently. Okay. Right. For him. Yeah. I don't know what I'm talking about. Let's assume that there was an economic function there that would help. There's a thing which fascinates me. It's related to this.

It's like they say smoking causes cancer, right? But I think, I think there is one cigarette or one puff which puts you over the top. Yeah. Like I, I mean, you want to know which one it is. Or it puts you over the top for when you got it. Like maybe, maybe we have another year if it took. And similarly like catching cancer. It's like we caught it took four. And similarly, like catching cancer. Yeah. It's like, we caught it too late. There's, there's literally a,

there's a fraction of a time where, where if you caught it then, like, you could survive, you would have survived and you caught it the next morning. And, and whatever it is that puts you on the Wednesday at 4 PM, you would have been fine. And now, now I could be, I analytically, I believe this is true, at least true in, in, in many cases. And I don't ever want to be on the other side of that razor's edge. The one, one cigarette too many, one day too late getting my, my cancer test. I love living. I don't want to die. I mean, I know I'm going to die, but I don't want to die through neglect

of some kind. Do you want me to tell you an interesting story with that 10 minutes either side or whatever it is? I was told by a doctor when I presented to hospital with what I had, which was meningococcal, that it's a viral, it's a, yeah, it's a meningococcal disease, but it causes septicemia. Is that a sexually transmitted disease? No, it's a, it's like COVID. So literally anybody could get it. No, you have to be, I think, genetically predisposed and then it's very processes. Yeah. But it goes through the saliva.

So someone coughs or you share a drink with someone, something like that, right? incubation period, like seven to 10 days, but you start to notice really bad symptoms that are flu like, right at the tail end. And then you have about 24 hours, basically to get to a hospital and get meningococcus like meningitis. Is that so it's kind of like a meningitis. Yeah, but it causes septicemia, which is like blood poisoning. And that's why you have to chop off limbs and all that sort of stuff. But it moves so quickly. And so virulent that I was told by a doctor that if I had presented

10 minutes earlier to the hospital, I might have kept my arms. If it was 10 minutes later before that, I might have kept my legs. But if it was 10 minutes later, I probably would have been dead. And is that amazing? That's the knife edge that you're talking about. That was the cigarette. That was the cigarette. It's just amazing that I've been thinking about this for 20 years already. And I've never, I've never spoken it out loud. And actually you have a real life experience. Definitely. But doesn't that, that must get in your head.

But that's, see, that's the difference. That's why you're mentally healthy because a lot of people would be just constantly, oh my God, why didn't I go to the hospital 10 minutes earlier? You know, spinning that in your head. healthy because a lot of people would be just constantly, oh my God, why didn't I go to the hospital 10 minutes earlier? Spinning that in your head. Yeah, but I mean, like if you're gonna play that game, you could also say, why didn't I go two days earlier and just been completely fine. Why didn't you go to the hospital?

I wasn't sick, I didn't feel sick. Well, but that you could say to yourself, well, I didn't feel sick. I did start to feel sick the day before and I didn't take myself to a doctor. I later found out that a lot of people die from meningococcal by going to the doctor too early. Sounds weird. I'll explain why. The symptoms from meningococcal actually present exactly like the flu.

And the only thing that really differs is a purple rash that develops on your skin everywhere. The point at which you've developed the purple rash, it's almost too late. I was at that point. If you present a little bit earlier, often they'll be like, oh, you have the flu, go home. And then you go home, you get worse and worse and worse. Be like, I've seen the doctor. He said, just sleep it off.

And then you wake up or you don't wake up. Well, funny, because I have this fight. This is, I have this fight with my wife. I had two times I can just remember one time is my, we got back from Aruba and my, I think it was my daughter had some like slight rash. I said, let's take her to the doctor. I said, why are you taking the doctor? And I said to her, because I'm not saying it's something serious.

I said, but whatever if it is something serious or highly inconvenient, obviously you want to catch it right at the very beginning. So we have the doctor right here, like, what's the matter? I take my daughter, sure enough, she had a staph infection when she got out of the swimming pool in Aruba. That's serious. It could be, it could be, you know, and they caught it right away and they cleared it up

in no time and she never had to face the eventual thing. But then I had a thing. Knowing you, you went right on Chat GPT. This is before Chat GPT. I had a thing where I was driving home from work on the West Side Highway. No, I had to be driving, well, it doesn't matter.

I was driving to work on the West Side Highway. And I looked up at the sun for a second and I noticed a little, just a little tinge of pain in my eye from sunlight. I said, well, that's weird. You know, like it never, but I didn't know I had never had that before. And I drive some more and again, I said, that's weird. And, uh, but it just doesn't, it wasn't even on my radar for something that exists. Like I figured just a little sunset to light for some reason.

So then I wake up the next morning and my eyes all bloodshot. So I saw my wife on my eyes, all bloodshot. I said, I'm going to go to the emergency room. I've never really experienced anything like this before. She says, it's pink eye. I said, yeah, it could be pink eye, but I never had anything like this before. And I, it's pink guy. I said, yeah, yeah, it could be pink guy, but it's, you know, I, I never had anything like this before. And I have another story after this you want here, but anyway, I never had anything like this before, which, which, which informs this story. And I just want to get something to check it out. So I go to the emergency

room and my wife is just ridiculing me. I mean, she's just, she just verbally castrating me just like, you know, I'll tell you who wouldn't be castrating you as a Jewish wife. She would have sent you. So I went to the emergency room and the, and the, the doctor that looks at it, she goes, you have pink guy. And I said, are you sure I have pink guy? I mean, cause I'd never had this sensitivity to like, you have pink guy, Mr. Dwarman. I go home and my wife's like, I told you you have pink guys. I'm home like 20 minutes. I said, sweetheart, I really don't think I have pink eye. I want to get an emergency appointment with the op, the mall. You want a second opinion. So now my wife is ready to fucking kill me. And she's really

ridiculing me. And then she has to drive me. For the drops, you can't drive home. So you get in the car. Sure enough, I get to the doctor and the doctor just looks at me and goes, oh Mr. Dwarman, it's a very good thing you came when you did. You have streptococcal maculacolus and this is quite serious. I've never caught this early in anybody like this before. And he gave me some drops

and it cleared up almost immediately. I thought you were gonna say, I slipped him at 15. I was like, yeah, thanks. What could have happened had you listened to your wife? I could have gone blind or, you know, but so, so with some, it was some bizarre infection, viral infection. I have another story. Well, let me ask you, would Chad GPT have given you the right advice if it had been around at the time?

I bet you absolutely would have done. Chad GPT over cautious. I don't know. No bet you absolutely would have done. Is chat GPT over cautious? I don't know. No, but it would have told you this is a possible thing. It would have told you it's possible. My wife would have said, you don't have that. You're making your own GPT that's like custom that's like Jewish wife GPT?

That'd be good. That's what you need, the over cautious one. So you could tell chat GPT, just give me, just be extra cautious, and it will. You don't tell it just be a Jewish wife, but it's a Jewish mother or Jewish mother. You'd say so. The third. Give me advice like a Jewish mother would give.

And this should be, you know, informative to everybody. I had an earache. You know, the doctors suck. I had an earache. And it was my wife. My wife and I were broken up at the time, but she was at that was Thanksgiving. She was at the house with my stepson and I had this earache and it was the worst pain I had ever had in an ear ever. And I said to my wife, and by the way, I'm not a hypochondriac at all. I'm not like a complainer. I said to my wife, she was going out to Thanksgiving. Then I said, listen, sweetheart, this is, this is weird to me.

What, what I have here. Um, can you, um, Oh no, first, first, I rewind. I had an earache. I went to the doctor. The doctor says, Dr. Kaufman says, uh, first in his class at Harvard, he says, you have, you have an ear infection. I said, are you sure Dr. Kaufman? I said, this class at Harvard, he says, you have an ear infection. I said, are you sure, Dr. Kaufman?

I said, this is really kind of, I've had an ear infection. He looks at it, yeah, you have an ear infection. That'll be $50. All right, so, fast forward. Now I'm at that scene with my wife. I said, sweetheart, after Thanksgiving, just check on me. I don't know what this is, but I'm nervous about this. She's again, in her head, she's like,

he's an idiot, this is years ago. Thanksgiving comes and goes, this bitch doesn't even check on me. She actually is so sure, she does not even check on me. I wake up the next morning Half my face has gone paralyzed Like a Bell's palsy type thing, but it wasn't Bell's palsy half my face is gone paralyzed Walk to the emergency room. I cause it half my face is paralyzed

I you know, I mean I can meet I'm going to the emergency room. I call her and say, half my face is paralyzed. I, you know, I'm going to the emergency room. Maybe you want to meet me there. And she's, oh, I can't believe it. Then I call the doctor. While I'm walking from here to the same place, I call the doctor. I said, Dr. Kaufman, half my face is paralyzed. I'm walking in the emergency room.

And he says to me, and I forget he goes, that's fascinating. No, no apology. That's fascinating. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I. That's that's fast. I'm glad you're fucking fascinating. And that's really what he was thinking.

Like he just ordered it out because he, you know, from the doctors, especially his first is his classes at Harvard. He's like, oh, this is quite interesting. You know, it's like get to the emergency room. And I have what was called, this is what Justin Bieber had Ramsey hunt. And it was, which is like, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's

a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's I have what was called, this is what, um, Justin Bieber had Ramsey hunt. And it was, which is like, it's a, uh, activation of like a chicken pox. Uh, it's like a shingles type thing, but it activates in, in your face. And, um, it's also very important to catch it early cause they give you prednisone or because it could be, it could have lasting consequences. Mine didn't. Good God. It was one of the most unpleasant things I could ever have dealt with unlike you, or maybe you had this at time,

when I was contemplating the rest of my life, like Two-Face from Batman, half my face is animated, half is this. Yeah. I didn't want anybody to see me. I was, and I was very nervous about it. I couldn't, would my, my wife still love me? You were playing music in public at the time a lot, I guess, was it?

Yeah, but you know what? It wasn't that. No, I didn't even want my close friends to see me. I remember I wouldn't let anybody visit. I can understand that. I had to take my eye, I had't even want my close friends to see me. I remember I wouldn't let anybody visit. I can understand that. I had to take my eye shut. When you're paralyzed in your face, your eye opens and you have to tape it shut at night to sleep.

Yeah. That's inconvenient. Yeah. That was the least of it. But yeah, the pain was something else. Anyway, so that's those are my stories about doctors, all which is to say, go early. You have health insurance. If you have it, use it. Go early. It's weird, isn't it? Living at a time where, you know, we have so much medicine that can fit.

I was talking to Nick Gillespie about this actually on our last meal episode when I was asking if there was a time, could you would you go back in time and live in a different time period? You know how some people would romanticize like Paris in the 20s or you know, New York in the 60s, you know, whatever it is, hate Ashbury blah, blah, blah. You're a Paris in the 20s guy. I was okay, up until very recent to visit or to live for the well, I guess, you know, it's a hypothetical. He loves midnight in Paris.

That's true. Yeah. You told me that. Yeah. Good memory. Yeah. But I think more recently I've changed my mind about that. Not that I don't like all of those artists in that period in the city and blah, blah, blah. But it's just that I don't think I could take myself back to another period where you don't have like the dental work you have available to you now or just I would be dead for starters. They wouldn't have the technology to keep me alive. Even prosthetics wouldn't be as good. Five years back, 10 years back, not even good enough.

I'd want to go into the future, not into the past. Where are we with prosthetics? I mean, you've chosen to use the metal hooks, but surely they have things that resemble hands that they do. Oh hands that they do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but they have Recently they've gotten better with the electronic versions of hands I When I started getting prosthetics that the hands were effectively like vanity prosthetics. They're just not they weren't functional At least the body-powered ones were pretty bad and they're just not they weren't functional. At least the body powered ones were pretty bad. And they're just very cumbersome. I think in my life, I like things to be lightweight,

like these are really light, so I can swing them around. And they don't weigh much. But I think I have that philosophy with with everything. I like to travel light, I don't like to hold on to a lot of things. I'm not like a collector of objects. I like to be lightweight in life and not have to rely on too many things. And these are just like an extension of that philosophy, I guess. So the electronic hands that you see on like a Facebook video or something like that,

they're the best part of $120,000. They require huge batteries that need charging and they weigh like five kilos. And they don't do a whole lot other than look. What they, what they do varies from prosthetic to prosthetic. Some of them are more functional than others. Uh, typically I can do more with these hooks than anyone can with those hands. Is it, is it progress being made or you know, is that,

is that technology advancing? Pretty slowly. I mean, there's not a huge market for upper limb amputees as you can imagine. If there was, you know, it's interesting, like, um, in the deaf community, you know, there was, they resent, uh, some, some resent cochlear implants. Yeah. Because it's like a sellout to the deaf, which is strange to me. You know what else is strange? Apparently somebody told me that cochlear, which by the way, is an Australian company, originally allowed people to hear above and below the range of human

hearing. So human hearings, it usually tops out about 20 K 20,000 Hertz. Although in reality for many of us, it's much lower than that because we lose that as we get older. And the cochlear implants actually allowed people to hear above that frequency So in reality, for many of us, it's much lower than that because we lose that as we get older. And the cochlear implants actually allowed people to hear above that frequency range, but they limited it to the range of normal human hearing. What do you think about that? No, I think they want you want it to resemble human hearing, right?

Maybe. I don't know. I'll tell you why. Because I'll go back. Because for instance, in music that we hear music that's produced, or they don't, well, okay, let's answer this and go back. Because for instance, in music that we hear, music that's produced, from what I understand, they hear music so-so anyway, but let's presume, there may be extraneous noise above 20,000 hertz.

It typically is as well, which is why we use those like low pass filters on mastering. Which they would be subjected to, which could ruin the experience of, of the music, right? Because, because obviously nobody would mix it out because nobody hears it. So always mix it out. Anything below 20, anything above 20, uh, K, uh, well, or maybe even the technology doesn't, but if I'm just saying this, this various things in life, yeah, in life, which are where the high end is, it could be annoying. Yeah. mean, or maybe even the technology doesn't, but I'm just saying there's various things in life. Yeah. In life. Yeah.

Which are where the high end is. It could be annoying. Yeah. Um, could give people the hearing of a bat. Yeah. Well, good. Does that do you? Don't know.

Yeah. Let's find out. So my question was going to be to you that, that if, and I'm pretty sure it will happen at some point, they will, they will have the functionality of the hook, but in such a way that it will not be apparent to people who meet you, it can look like a hand. It can be an opposable thumb, it'll be the hook, whatever. They have those already.

They have those already, but you choose not to wear them. Is this in some way similar? You feel like, no, fuck that. I'm going to be what I am and I'm not going to... Well, as you said, they don't work that well. Well, yes. A part of it, no, but there is an element to what I'm saying, which is true, which is these are now part of my identity.

Like I was a DJ for 15 years. My DJ name was Hookie. Like that's how a lot of people know me. Right. And so, yeah, that is kind of tied in with my identity. There's something there. But they I've spent years cultivating everything that I do using these two things. So getting to prosthetic hands, that would be another huge learning experience. Trying to do everything again with these new, you know, prehensile hands,

whatever they were. I don't need that startup costs right now. And then I might have 50k a hand. Yeah, they vary. So you can get ones that are more expensive than that. You can get ones, I think you can get ones that are less as well, but they're probably kind of shit. I mean, I don't want to have to plug in my hands every night. Sounds stupid. That's just me see it's no problem. Now what, where do you think your life

would be different today? If not for the illness, which affected you so great. Yeah. I've thought about that so much. Impossible to know. I don't think I would have been as... Maybe it's like final destination. You mean like the log falling off the...

The movie, like no matter what you do, you still wind up... Oh, I see. I thought you meant me being killed brutally somehow. No. No, it's impossible to say the kind of life I would have led or the person I would have become. But I definitely think that there's some truth that the like brutal challenges actually create and mold character in a particular way. So I think

I'm, I'm much better off through having, having gone through what I did, I think I'm much better off. So every time you hear somebody use a cliche, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. You immediately say the bubble of your head is a hush. We tell you no shit. I mean, I'm a big fan of nature, I guess. And his philosophies. But yeah, it's true. I mean, that's what the core of what anti fragility is, right, which is just that it's

systems or complex systems whereby if it is that all right? Yeah. Is that telep and anti fragile? Yeah, that's right. And the same to lab. Yeah, he came up with it. And yeah, it's a complex system that it actually gets better over time experiencing small stresses. So your muscular system is anti-fragile, because if you lift a weight, your muscles actually get stronger. A wine glass is fragile because if we push it off the table, it's going to break. A rock is resilient. It doesn't really change that much.

And so your psychology is anti-fragile. Pardon me? So the human psychology is supposed to be anti-fragile. That's my contention. Yeah. So Nassim Taleb talks about anti-fragility in complex systems. So it could be something like the airline industry is actually anti-fragile because every flight that you get gets safer after a crash because all sorts of regulatory things have to be imposed to make sure that whatever happened doesn't happen again, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Your immune system is antifragile. There's all sorts of complex systems that are antifragile. And I think our human psychology can be antifragile as well because it is a complex system effectively. So it's working out ways that we can we can treat our own cognitive restructuring that we can make positives out of negatives, turn challenges into like the raw materials to forge strength and then become stronger individuals moving forward whenever we, um, encounter challenges of adversity. Dan on a scale from one to a hundred, how scared of you, how scared are you to die?

Pretty, pretty, pretty a hundred, how scared are you to die? Pretty scared. Can you imagine yourself choosing death to save somebody's life, to do something heroic? Could you, or would you always sell out? Well, I don't know, you know, I'd like to think that, you know, that I would give my life for somebody else, but who knows? I hope not to be in that situation. I just, I just have the gut instinct that Tom is going to say that he's less afraid to die. Are you? No, no, actually, no, no. I always, so it's interesting that that's the way you framed it because it's not as much a fear But I definitely don't want to die it's not that I fear would kind of be like

This is what I've been struggling with recently. I don't believe in an afterlife at all in any capacity I think we all agree on that. Okay, do we? Yes. Yeah, we're all three in a court I Tiana probably does though, right maybe. I think I think Tiana? No. No, you don't. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, what I've been thinking of recently, I think what I was fearing about death is, is kind of like a fear of missing out. Like, you know, that after you die, like some records going to be produced that you never get to hear some movie that comes out, you never get to see.

There's just so much of life that you're going to miss out on once you're dead. So I think my fear of death is like a fear of missing out. But it doesn't make sense to say that either, because where I'm going after I die, I lack the ability to possess the feeling of fear or missing out. I was having this discussion with Chet Chie Bt the other day in the context of the Titanic when Benjamin Guggenheim famously got into his tuxedo and said, and you know, said, oh, we're ready to go.

And they offered him a seat in the lifeboat, but he, you know, cause he was an important guy. And he goes, no, you know, the women and children and whatever. So I was asking Chachi Bt, if people, when they're faced with certain death, if there's a psychological mechanism that kicks in to allow them to exhibit this sort of heroism and it said that it, that there is, I don't know if it exists for everybody.

That's an amazing story. Yeah. Well, it was in, I mean, it's in, it's in all the movies about Titanic. Um, they offer them a scene in light boat and all the movies about, isn't there just one? Titanic? No, there's been one or two others. Really? There's at least two, though it's not that many. There's a black and white one.

Yeah, I think they offered him a seat. They offered Strauss a seat and he said, no, I'm not gonna let a younger guy go in. So I don't know if they offered Guggenheim a seat. I think they might have, but... You think he had, you think there's a moment? He said, what the fuck was I thinking? Well, but then he would be, the problem is,

is then you get back home. Always got to be the hero. Yeah. Well, but then you have to live with shame for the rest of your life. Oh yeah. I think there's, yeah, maybe it's like an argument for like, like, you know, what kin selection is,

like in evolution. So if you were was your children or something like that, you would allow them on the boat before you. Yeah, of course. Of course you would if it was just somebody else, even the sensation of like, you know, I don't know, do you guys believe in altruism at all in any capacity? Yeah, it's a tough one philosophically. No, I told you. I'm not sure I believe in,

maybe what you're saying is, is kin selection would explain altruism, you know, if you think that your genetics are gonna continue. That's not necessarily altruism though. Yeah, yeah, you're doing it for your own genes. Yeah, at the end of the day, you know, even if you're, I'm not sure I do. Yeah. So if you gave it, if you gave your spot on the lifeboat away to a complete stranger,

that feels like altruism, at least on a base level, right? But you also know that you can't go away with a warm fuzzy feeling that you did something nice for someone else. Well, you know, you'll be glorified after death. Do you? Do you know that? Yeah, do you? I mean, you don't know. Everybody could die. Like you don't know what the outcome is going to be necessarily. Oh, I see. I see. Yeah. Well, you know that it's a possibility that you'll attain glory. Yes. Yeah. Some sort of a legacy thing that maybe I don't know.

I think there's degrees of altruism. I don't think it's ever in the purest sense, but yeah. There are definitely degrees of bravery. There are people who fall on grenades. I mean, just the idea of, you know, signing up to go to war when nobody forces you. This is pretty remarkable to me. And we had four of our presidents, Clinton, Bush, Trump and Biden all finagled their way out of going to war, you know? But I was saying this to somebody, but in Israel, the children of the war cabinet, you know, they go to war and they die sometimes.

They have conscription in Israel. They have conscription, yeah, but the notion, when we, the times that we've had, we had conscription during Vietnam. The times that we've had conscription, we know that the rich people and the elite people quite often found a way to avoid it. Even in the Civil War, right?

Couldn't you pay somebody to go fight? Yeah, I think it was like 300 bucks. Yeah, you pay somebody to go fight, you know? But then there are other people who go and fight and put their life on the line. Well, you know, Henry V, I mean, you know that play. So he's talking about how greedy he is for glory. And that's his motive. And he said, if anybody doesn't want to be here, go.

That's just more glory for the rest of us. That famous speech. Anyway, so that was his motivation. And then I guess belief in the afterlife. If you really believe it, like in your bones, like the way these jihadists seem to believe it, or that the parents of children who die and they're, they, you see them express happiness that their children are martyred. Um, they don't seem to be faking that.

I guess that does change it, right? Definitely. Yeah. I mean, even I think it changes. It changes my life as somebody who doesn't believe in any afterlife in the sense that it actually makes me pay attention to the moments that we live day to day now.

Like as in I believe it's all going to end. And so I need to treat people well and have all my fun now. It's not something that I'm delaying off into the future of some heaven or whatever it is. This is the moment. Yeah, I can't we have to wrap it up. I came to a similar conclusion as you because I was trying to think about the meaning of life and I concluded that there is no meaning of life. And my

my little like thought experiment was if we assume that there is no meaning of life. And my little like thought experiment was if we assume that there are other life forms in the universe, other smart beings in the universe, and they die, do I think their life means it? No, there's no meaning of life. But you can make your life have meaning, which is what you're saying. Well, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying.

I mean, that's what's a people to your children, to your loved ones, whatever it is. And they carry that with them into the future. I carry my family with me now that has died. And so they'll they their lives had meaning because of how they affect people. They left behind. It's why I'm always pissed off by people saying everything happens for a reason. Because I think apart from being extremely narcissistic thing to think about reality, but it robs you of your ability to imbue meaning upon a situation for yourself.

So things happen for the reason that you give them your life, you're the one that gives it meaning and you're the one that is actually the author of that story. You make your own luck to a large extent. You make your own luck. Yeah, of course. There's also luck.

All right. Well, Tom, thanks for a philosophical conversation, guys. I don't know. It was fun. What do I talk about Israel? Israel? Yeah, that's right. You've never done that on this show, right?

We should talk about Israel. And that's a philosophical conversation in its own way. Are you health oriented, you know, in terms of your diet and exercise and so on? No, I tried to work out. It didn't work out. Yeah. Yeah. But no, I don't. I mean, food, I eat well. And I but that's about it.

I eat well. I drink alcohol I, but that's about it. Right. I, I well, I drink alcohol probably more than I should. Um, I don't do drugs or anything like that. So there's no, there's no, this disease has, there's no effect on longevity. Yeah, that's right. I'm sorry. Perfectly healthy. Just down four limbs for now. Yeah. Until the robotics come. Yeah, that's right. Well, just we're ending. But just I said to Tom, you know, if Tom's like, yeah, this is I'm never going to get better. I'm not growing it back. I'm not waiting for medical science.

I have no I have no illusions about that. But I remembered that Christopher Reed always insisted he was going to walk again. You remember that? Yeah. And then, you know, I mean, he needed to believe that. And, you know, I mean, he needed to, to believe that I, and you know, I get it. Well, maybe not. Maybe if he, maybe if he had stopped with that denial, maybe he could have set his mind to other things,

which would have been more productive in his, in his day. I can. Superman sequel. Can I share one really quick story? Please. That you might find entertaining when I first lost my arms and legs, I had to go and get a script from a doctor for limbs, which is a completely separate prescription. Like a prescription. Yeah, that's right. To get a new pair of arms.

And so I had to go to this hospital and it was in Western Sydney. So I'm sitting out in the hospital, I'm in the waiting room waiting for the doctor to see me and this nurse comes over and she said, Oh, she said, Would you mind chatting to one of our first year psychology students like they're doing some interviews with some people and it would really help out. And I was like, Yeah, that sounds that sounds fine. I was studying psychology at university. I'm more than happy to I know exactly what they're going to ask. So that's okay. So I go into this small room, there's this, you know, 18 year old dude. And he's like writing everything down is taking everything very seriously. And he said, how are you getting on with, you know, mentally with processing, you know, the loss of limbs and everything. And I said, Yeah, I mean, it's it's gonna be, it's gonna be pretty rough for the first few years. And he said, Okay, why do you say that? And I said, Well, you know, until my arms grow back. And he said, he said, right, he said, because I mean, he can't laugh at what I'm saying if I keep a straight face, right? So he's like, Oh, really, he's really

is like, what makes you think they're going to grow back? And I said, well, you know, lizard loses its tail. Seven days later, it's got a new tail. I figure I'm 365 times the size of a lizard. Sometimes seven years, my hands are going to grow back and he's like, fascinating, fascinating. And I didn't let him off the hook. And all I can hope is that some day after that, he presented that to his whole lecture that he met a guy who lost all four limbs, who definitely believed that they would grow back in seven years.

On that note, note, Tom Nash, what's the exact title of the podcast? Last Meal with Tom Nash. Last Meal with Tom Nash. Check it out on YouTube. Thank you very much, Tom. Thanks for having me guys. Thank you. Appreciate it. What was your question?