The Rich Roll Podcast - The Divine Comedy of Pete Holmes: Spirituality, Creativity, & Growing Through Adversity

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

It’s time to grapple with the absurdity of life, the nature of reality, truth, consciousness, and the hard problems that perplex humanity. Here to add a healthy dose of humor, wit, and wisdom to this week’s inquiry is one of my favorite humans, Pete Holmes. A stand-up king with a cornucopia of comedy specials, including HBO’s Faces and Sounds, Dirty Clean, and the CBS sitcom How We Roll, Pete is best known as the creator and star of the semi-autobiographical critically acclaimed HBO show Crashing which he created alongside friend of the pod Judd Apatow. In addition, he hosts the You Made It Weird podcast and is the author of the bestselling memoir, Comedy Sex God. Pete is also working on a new comedy special worthy of your attention entitled, 'I’m Not For Everyone', which drops on Netflix October 24th. Today we talk about everything from spirituality to comedy, creativity, consciousness, fatherhood, and the many disorientations of mid-life. More specifically, we talk about how parenthood changes your perspective on life, why pain is the precursor to transformation, the nature of reality and the illusion of self, and why mercy is more powerful than forgiveness. Much has changed since Pete was first on the podcast back in 2019. This one is equal parts silly and spiritual, philosophical and funny. Prepare to have your noodle bent—and have some laughs along the way. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: LMNT: drinkLMNT.com/RICHROLL Faherty: FahertyBrand.com/RICHROLL AG1: drinkAG1.com/RICHROLL Whoop: Whoop.com/RICHROLL Inside Tracker: InsideTracker.com/RICHROLL Plant Power Meal Planner: https://meals.richroll.com Peace + Plants, Rich

I remember I was in Italy, I saw a ladybug, and I was like, this ladybug has no idea it's Italian. Has no idea it's Italian. How many fucking things are we carrying around? And who are you when you drop them? And which of those things are undroppable? You wouldn't believe what you believe. You wouldn't believe what you believe.

And what you believe, you'll take it, because the zero of nobodiness is so uncomfortable that you'd rather be angry than happy. Pete Holmes is one of my very favorite humans. truly unique gift, which is this great ability that he has to weave the hilarious and confusing experiences of just being alive with the big mystical and philosophical questions about what it all means. He is a veteran stand-up comedian. You might know him from his HBO show Crashing, which he created with friend of the pod Judd Apatow. You might know him from his recent CBS sitcom How We Roll or his great podcast You Made It Weird. Maybe you read his memoir Comedy Sex God or seen him in one of his many late night appearances or comedy specials,

the latest of which is called I'm Not For Everyone and it drops on Netflix October 24th. Today, we go kind of all over the place. We talk about consciousness, optimism, parenting, spirituality, of course. We discuss diet. We talk about the nature of reality, fatherhood, the many disorientations of midlife. It kind of sounds like a big, hot mess, but actually it all ties together beautifully. And I think you're going to really love it. As Pete likes to say, get into it.

I think the last time we did this was, that was before, how old is your daughter? Five now? Yeah, five. She'll be five in September, but yeah. How has that changed things for you? In all the good ways, in all the best ways. Comedians run a real risk at being very

self-centered. I think we all do, but comedians maybe especially. So having a daughter has made me take myself a lot, a lot less seriously and having something outside of me and also a unit, like a family unit that I care about more than my career. I found this balance. How has that influenced or affected your relationship with spirituality? Because I'm thinking, on the one hand, you have this tiny, helpless being. And with that, you just become infused with awe and wonder and all the joy and and you know experience of of love that comes with that but at the same time it's fucking hard right and it it doesn't i wouldn't say it's a recipe for bringing out your best self like you're tired you're stressed you're

like you know what i mean like yeah yeah i mean okay so leonard cohen said the cracks are how the light gets through and i think about that all the time with Lila. And obviously my ego, what Pete wants is to always be perfect. But sometimes when my daughter is complaining and throwing a fit, honestly, that a song that doesn't exist doesn't exist. She'll say, tell Spotify to play the unicorn hot air balloon song. I'm like, sweetheart, that song doesn't exist. Because she doesn't know what songs are.

She's just like, do it. And I'm like, well, a person writes it. You tell this disembodied thing to do something. Why isn't it doing it? Yeah. So she's screaming. She's having some other, she's stapling another amendment to this issue. And she's working something out emotionally. And in those moments, you know, I'm very proud to be doing better than the generations before us. There's no harsh language or anything, you know, punitive.

And she's so sensitive that she, like a roly-poly, she'll just curl up. And you just feel terrible. Just for saying, sometimes calmly, Lila, my daughter got mad at me yesterday because she was on my back and she was choking me. And I went, sweetheart, you're choking me. She was mad that I told her to stop choking me. Like hurt. Because she just wants me to be a playground.

So there's no avoiding it. That's what I've learned. In fact, that's what they're doing is they're kind of, they want to figure out limits and figure out the relationship and all that stuff. So it's normal. I have to disappoint her. I have to. So that's humbling.

And that's good. But then what my wife Val has helped me understand and give language to is it's all in the repair, right? So I go, Lila, that's enough. And she kind of curls up and I feel bad, but then like, and I'm driving, I do what I always fantasized would be done to me. This is what we do in reparenting ourselves. I just put my hand on her and I just go, sweetheart, are you upset? Because data, um, what, what, what is the language I use? I don't say lost my temper, but something like that.

Is it because I got aggravated? And she goes, yeah. And I go, even if I'm upset, I always say the same thing. I go, you're always safe. You're loved. And you're good. That's beautiful. Those are the three things that we all kind of want to hear.

It's beautiful. You're safe, you're loved, you're good. And that moment, so I didn't want the failure, but because it's not even a failure, but I didn't want that. And I used to be able to avoid those more easily because I didn't have children, but it's on the other side of that foible or vulnerability on both of our parts that there's this beautiful, she put her hand on my hand and just started like singing and cooing. It was, it's how the world works. I'm working on a new bit about the reason why the fish

walked out of the ocean, they grew legs, is because the asteroid that hit the planet and killed all the dinosaurs, this is a theory obviously, made the water so radioactive that they had to. It wasn't just curiosity. They had to. I relate to that. Leaving home when things get too toxic.

You know what I mean? It gets fried and they walk out. So we're born on the backs of catastrophe. You and me are the effects of catastrophe. And we walk around going like, why can't things be perfect? Yeah. Which is crazy.

There's a line at Coffee Bean, what is this bullshit? I'm like, you're here because something from space wiped out the entire planet. And we forget that. That's how it works. I lose my temper, and then there's a greater love in the re-welding.

It's better. The scar is better than having no wounds at all. It's a constant action or practice of recovering from catastrophe to this idea of reparenting, right? Like you were parented in a certain way. You walk around with your wounds promising to yourself that when you have a child, you're not gonna make these mistakes. And you do your best, you screw up in moments of stress, you probably behave exactly the way your parents did, but you recover more quickly

and you have healthier language to mend that and hopefully not leave your child scarred. But I'm curious around the weaker moments where you see glimpses of your parents and how that affects how you relate to them. Like, are you able to be, I just know as a parent, like, oh, like I tried so hard to not do that thing. And I'm repeating that exact thing

because it's so deeply embedded. You can catch yourself, but... You know what it's done for me is it made me appreciate sort of a hierarchy of needs thing, right? Where I really feel like my parents were growing up in a time, very firmly I feel like they were growing up in it. I picture it like sepia-toned. Everyone's wearing newsies caps. And there was just like more fighting for your supper in their lives.

Not everybody's life necessarily, but with my father and my mother, they just didn't have the, maybe what they would call the navel-gazy time to go like, who am I? What kind of a, they also thought their kids kind of belonged to them. If you want a really far out thing, I don't think my daughter belongs to me. I also don't think I brought her into this world, if you really want to get super woo. But like, if my daughter wasn't here in this daughter, it should be somewhere else. My parents, my dad is like, you know,

I made you. It's like, no, you didn't climb up into my mom's womb with spackle. You know what I mean? You gave the isness a vessel to continue this play with itself. But like when you don't have that ownership over your daughter, that took some of that navel-gazy time to have that sort of respect for her autonomy. And maybe my parents, you know, didn't have as much of that, but it's because they were fighting for a tuna melt. Right. The top of that... I keep saying tuna. It's on my mind.

The Maslow's hierarchy of needs, like they're not pondering, you know, their broader, you know, spiritual relationship with the universe because life is fucking hard. CVS to develop our film. We take film and drive it, wait in line, drop it off, drive back, weekly, drive back, wait in line, pick it up, drive home, look at your pictures. So let's say that's two hours. Now I have a phone. I just take it on my phone and the pictures are done. So what am I doing with those two hours? Well, I'm taking mushrooms and, you know, meditate or whatever it might be. So of course, but I see everything kind of co-conspiring to move human consciousness forward. That might be my optimism. I'm like, this thing, in my view, is arcing to use everything, the scars, the good, the bad, the suffering, the darkness, the light. It's all, even something as superficial as a phone is kind of saving us time wherein you might ask yourself an important

question like, who am I? Yeah, but the problem with that is we can't stop scrolling in order to take advantage of that added time. We fill it, you know? I feel that, and I also see that as the bowstring being pulled back, meaning we're in this kind of awful time where, like, we're all fighting the urge to be entertained. And, like, my wife goes up to... The baby cried last night.

The baby, she's five, but you know, she was crying in bed and mama ran up to get her. And we were watching The Big Lebowski. And as she ran upstairs, I immediately swapped over to YouTube and just watched like some clip. Like I just looked for something

that was like short and just watched it. Yeah, so I get it. We're fucking ourselves and it's a problem. But I also see that in that tension and in this not workingness, you know what I mean? The things that don't work, constantly entertaining ourselves, constantly overstimulating ourselves,

over learning, over everything. When it doesn't work, that's another crack that the light gets through. In fact, I think that's a deeply important spiritual lesson is it doesn't work, that's another crack that the light gets through. In fact, I think that's a deeply important spiritual lesson is shit doesn't work. Fame doesn't work. Money doesn't work. Sex doesn't work.

Drugs don't work. Whatever you, take your pick. And at the end of that harrowing journey that Western culture told you would work, when it doesn't work, that brokenness is a launch pad to look for what is consistent, what is sustaining me, who am I really? Because it's not just this gobble monster, because that doesn't work.

So the doesn't work is how work works. This is another asteroid crashing into the planet. Content addiction doesn't work. Asteroid planet, dinosaurs, fish with foot, fish with feet is you walking out and going, this sucks. I'm not happy. Yeah. I mean, this is the story of my life. I relate to that deeply. Every growth spurt that I've ever had has been catalyzed by being in tremendous pain or banging my head against the wall in a way that, you know, eventually I realized it's not going to work. But I also see people out in the world who are maybe not alcoholics,

but drink a lot and will until they hit the grave because it never becomes a big enough problem. Or they can scroll on their phones and it's not disrupting their life adequately enough for them to ever take inventory of it. And I think those are the people ultimately that are robbed of the miracle and are stuck in the kind of, you know, miasma

because they never reach that, you know, they don't hit bottom or they don't, they're never faced with an adequate amount of pain to change their life, right? So that's why like in recovery, it's like, I'm grateful. You know, it's like the grateful alcoholic, the pretty, it's like all these things that happened to me created a situation in which I then became open

to a new way of being and doing where I could set aside my ego. I could ask for help, receive help, entertain a new possibility, you know, how to organize my life and like brought in my perspective to, you know, how to organize my life and, like, broaden my perspective to, you know, ponder spiritual principles to drive my decisions. Yeah. It's asteroid hitting the planet, and it's also the story of Christ. It's death, death, going too far. We shouldn't have gone to Jerusalem. But for you, I mean, in your case, I mean, you had this divorce, which was really painful.

But it's not like, I'm sure it was awful, but it's also a very common experience. It's not like your entire life fell apart. No, if I was at the buffet of trauma, I would pick a 28-year-old divorce with no kids. But in your specific set of life circumstances, that was enough. And talk, okay, grateful alcoholic, grateful divorcee. Like, I thank whatever you got to thank. I'll thank it for that happening at that time. And this is what we're saying with the asteroid propelling the fish out of the lake. I mean, we need that. And what you're really teaching me is the danger of the middle. You know what I mean?

I'm not saying you should like go hard with alcohol just so you can become an alcoholic and hit the bottom. But like we need to get in the mix, you know? Like even after my marriage, I had a lot of or several relationships, friendships, and romantic relationships that were just like, oh, I'm unconsciously reenacting trauma that I haven't processed. So I'm looking for the same toxicity pattern in these people. And through that process, and those were worse than my divorce.

Some of these relationships were worse than my divorce. They're not as splashy because there's no legal, there's no paperwork. But you're getting like pushed to the point. If you watch my first Conan, I'm like 285 or something. Look, not that weight is the thing. I'm just saying for me, it was the thing. I was drinking constantly, eating constantly because I was trying to put insulation around wounds, unprocessed trauma from my childhood, from all sorts of places.

And it wasn't working. And if you watch my first Conan, I'm like 285. My second time I'm on Conan, I'm 235. And that was like a juice fast and all this stuff. It came from pain. It came from, okay, you didn't figure it out in your family. Well, here's the same dynamic written all caps in a relationship. Now, you know, now you're in the mud looking for a knife to stand up for yourself.

I don't mean violence. I mean, like, now you're forced. You either let this thing break you or you say, like, you know what? Actually, I'm lovable. I'm good. I'm safe. I'm loved. And then safe. I'm loved. And then you meet somebody like Valerie.

That's my wife. Those relationships that broke me and hurt me, if I hadn't had those, I wouldn't have found Valerie because I never would have been putting out that vibration. Right. Some people are just capable of reading something or hearing something or seeing something and going, that's a good idea.

I think I'm gonna do that. Yeah. No pain. I don't know who those people are. I don't know how that works. Yeah. Those people do walk the earth. I know.

They are among us. Yeah. And I don't understand them either. Dude, I wanted to tell you this because I've been doing something called the 5-2 diet. Have you heard of that? It's two days a week you fast. It's a fast-moving diet. Oh, yeah, I wanted to tell you this because I've been doing something called the 5-2 diet. Have you heard of that? It's two days a week you fast. It's a fast-moving diet.

Oh, yeah, I do know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Jimmy Kimmel did it. And it just never made sense to me. In fact, Kimmel did my podcast. He's explaining it to me. His friend Daniel Kellison also did it and was explaining it to me.

And I was just like, what? You know what I mean? Two days of not eating? It's two days of... Or intermittent fasting on two of those days. No, it's not intermittent. It's on two days, you eat one fourth of your calories. So it's for me, because I'm 3,200 is my whatever BMI.

I can do 800. I try to do 500 or between five and 600 calories on two days a week. And most of the time you're just not eating. And I was like, that's insane. Then I go home. This is weird. I wasn't, I wanted to tell you about the fasting thing. Cause that's kind of in your wheelhouse. And I I'm a huge fan if you want to talk about it, but what propelled it, the why of it was because I went home. This is fucked up. I was swimming with my dad. I my shirt off and he he made a joke about my body and he was joking i since we've had a talk about it since i sincerely don't think he

meant to hurt me but some of us win lose or draw the way i'm wired is pain it's like shit like fertilizer is actually way better for me. It like a little bit of shame, a little bit of fuck you. I'm not, I'm not proud of this. I'm not even selling it. I'm just telling you what happened the day he said that to me and hurt my feelings. I think the next day I started and I fasted and there is is spite. And there is resentment. And there's all this nasty fucking shit. But I think there's something to going like, look, I can't change. I wish I could.

I can't change some of my fundamental programming. But I can lean into it. And as long as it's healthy, meaning I'm not abusing myself, if I can get motivation out of it, I will. Because I'm not in the motivation store picking and choosing.

Yeah, well, you gotta take and grab willingness wherever you can find it, right? Because willingness is hard to come by and it's something you can't instill in other people and it's hard to talk yourself into it on your own. So if it comes in the form of some kind of negative, you know, trauma-induced experience, there's still a diamond in there. And of negative, you know, trauma-induced experience. What else?

There's still a diamond in there. And I think, you know, for someone like yourself, who's undergone many changes over the course of his life, I would suspect that you're able to recognize like, oh, here's a moment. Yeah. I feel that willingness. Yeah, I'm pissed at my dad,

but like I can do something with this because last time I felt like this, I did this and I remember I changed my life by doing this and I'm going to leverage that in the same way. And I think it's doing it consciously. Meaning if you can stand calmly beside the berserk guy in your psyche who is so mad and has the knife from the mud,

it's like, ah! And you go, he's not steering the car, but I can use some of his heat to do something positive the worst thing you can do for me is tell me like sometimes people have said like oh p you lost some weight i'm like please don't say that because then i'll think i'm done yeah right and we're like you do look good though i appreciate i watched your your new special you've definitely lost a lot of weight yeah from that i don't know when you taped that. A while ago. Okay, yeah, I taped that a couple months ago.

But this, first of all, I don't know. The trick of the fasting diet, so it's a fasting mimicking diet. Because if you're eating 500 calories, you'd be surprised. You can get a lot of protein and stuff that fills you up with that little calories. But the trick is you do it because you want to lose weight, or I did, and be healthy and give your body time to repair. But the sleeper cell in there is that it's slowly reprogramming. I struggle with food addiction. It's reprogramming how you think about food.

So if two days a week you're basically not eating, you see how good it feels to be clean because you're really only eating like very basic stuff. And are you like on a program for what those foods are? Is it pre-prepared or you're just on your own on that? It's pretty, it's pretty simple. It's, you know, it's like, maybe I'll do smoothies or just trying to get as many nutrients and as much protein as I can, keeping the calories low. But then the next day, so yesterday was a fast day for me. Today is a feed day.

You'd think I'd get up and eat a cake, right? But this fucking thing tricks you. And you go, God damn it. Well, you have momentum and you feel good and you don't want to, you know, once you have. Well, you have momentum and you feel good and you don't want to, you know, once you have a little bit of traction, you know, it's easier to keep it going. And you start retraining your brain what actually feels good

and being lean and clean, like simple, feels really, really good. And the way that it works is when you're fasting, you go, I can eat it tomorrow. And that's, that's all I need. If you say like, for 30 days, we're not eating. I'm like, fuck off. Like, you're not the boss of me. That's actually the voice of my food addict. It's like, you're not the boss of me. And I'll eat a bowl of pasta just to spite it. But if this thing tricks you and goes, you can eat a whole bowl of pasta tomorrow.

And then the next day you wake up and you don't feel like it, you're like, fuck you dad. Like, it's a trick. Right. Well, that's, that's the whole premise of 12 step too. It's just like, it's just for today, right? You want to drink, just drink tomorrow. It's cool. Just hit the, hit the pillow tonight. Sober. The problem with this, like me, the addict in me is like, oh, I feel so good, like fasting. Yeah. Yeah, I can eat whatever I want tomorrow, but I'll just, well, I'll go, I'll fast three days. Yeah.

You know, instead of two. And then three becomes four. And then suddenly I have like a weird disordered eating kind of situation. And I have to look out for that. I ran into that a little when I was doing, what is it? Like I was eating in an eight-hour window. Intermittent fasting? Yeah.

It's so complicated these days. Yeah, it is. It's just fucking food. There's a lot. We need to eat it. We need to eat it. That's why I like just knowing like Monday, Thursday, take it off. And you do lose a lot of weight.

Are you still, you were vegan for a while. Are you still vegan? Or have you modified you were vegan for a while are you still vegan or are you have you i've started getting some fish yeah you hurt me a little bit of fish rich i'm sorry little fish little fish yeah it's mostly it had something to do with having a baby it doesn't you know what sucks about being a former vegan is you know why you should be a vegan. It sucks. Right. Every time you eat that fish. Yeah. No, it sucks.

My face is haunting you. Yeah. No, your face. My own face. You know, the sweet spot is to never do the research. You know what I mean? The ethical research. All of it. Right.

The way that it's farmed. If you don't know and you just stay in that sort of blissful ignorance, that's nice. But if you, one time I had a baby and she was doing formula, which, you know, had dairy because whatever, other things. And then next thing you know, she's eating pizza. I'm just kind of stealing a bite of her pizza. Like I just wasn't taking myself as seriously, like me as seriously. It's not even a good excuse, but it just kind of started to unravel a little bit. Yeah. We're going to have

to talk about that a little bit more. I'd love to know. I mean, I also started lifting weights and a lot of people were like, this is, I'm talking to the perfect person. They were, they were like, you know, the best protein. They were like, whey protein is better. And I was like, I put all this dairy in there. They're like, there's no dairy. The lactose is taken out. Tell me, tell me. It's fine. The protein thing is very overblown.

It's not that hard to build lean muscle mass on a plant-based diet. I mean, that's sort of the old trope that is easy to throw around, but it's never been my experience. And I know like vegan bodybuilders and I know people that have never eaten meat their entire lives who look like machines in the gym.

So it's not, and then, oh, it's so complicated. Then you have to, you know, be planning all your meals. It's really never been that way for me. I mean, I've been doing this for 16 years. And I'm conscious to eat more protein. I'm like turning 57 next month. Like the older you get, like you have to be, you know, intaking more because you start to lose your muscle mass. So I'm a little more conscious of that. And I'm in the gym more than I used to be when I was just out running all the time. But it's not like an insurmountable problem or hurdle.

I'd love to hear your response on this. I remember, because Rick Rubin was a vegan and then he stopped. Yeah. And that had something to do with it. Yeah, but- But what- Okay, go ahead. This is what he said.

I want to hear all of it. I'm going to stop talking. But he was like, it's the all-carb diet. That was what he said. What do we got? Tell me. I love Rick Rubin. But if you listen to him talk about

what he was actually eating on a vegan diet, it's easy to understand why he gained weight. Like I think it's very- He was a bread vegan? If you eat just tons of refined carbs and it's never been easier to be a junk food vegan. You can eat a horrible diet on a vegan diet and delude yourself into believing

that you're doing something healthy for yourself because it doesn't have animal products in it. But that doesn't mean that it's healthy or moving you in the right direction. Yeah, sugar is the oil. Yeah, and so if you start eating animal products, which are more calorically dense and like sort of quotient to it, you'll feel full. And you probably won't be eating as much junk. Whereas if you're eating a plant-based diet, you have to find like, you know, whole foods that are close to their natural state and avoid all of the processed foods that are out there. And all the products that they finally figured out how to make taste adequately okay. You know, coconut ice cream and all these, you know, products that are good if you're getting into it for sustainability reasons or for, you know, compassionate reasons.

Exactly. But it doesn't necessarily mean that it's healthy. So, you know. Well, I love this because I do deal with cognitive dissonance. And listen, when you have a small child, like, it's harder, you know. Like, your life is more complicated and you're tired. And when you're tired, you're going to reach for the thing that's less healthy.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm in a weird place because of that. Meaning it just sort of started happening and then it just was easier. And now I'm here. Like anything, right? Exactly.

But actually, it wasn't just sloth. It was like simple. I was like, I'll just grill a piece of fish and have some broccoli and I'm done is easier than like yeah I understand

piecing it together no I'm not I have no judgment I'm not no I know you don't believe in the suffering

of animals including me yeah I know you don't either so so I guess I would just say knowing what you know,

because you've lived this lifestyle before, there's a dissonance, like a very low grade hum, right? Where you know, like, this isn't necessarily in the highest alignment with the person that I'd like to be. No. And there's a lightness or a sense of freedom

that comes when you can correct that alignment. That's true. And I might be deluding myself, but I do catch myself not judging other people, which was a thing for me. I'm not saying for you. But when you're a vegan and you feel like you're opting out of the suffering, it's not really true. No, of course not. And I think it's not in service to the vegan movement for vegans to be on their high horse judging other people. Like we all, just by dint of living on planet earth,

we are tapping its resources and leaving- This table was the house for an hour. There is nothing. And the food that you're eating, there's a cost to all of it. Like nobody is living on the planet without creating suffering. Right, right.

So at least acknowledge that and, you know, maybe step back from all the judgmentalism that only alienates other people anyway. Right, right. Yeah, I'm not even proud of this, but I have caught myself being like, I'm just being honest. Like this whole thing is brutal.

And I'm just like, and I'm just in it. There's sort of like a, thing is brutal and i'm just like yeah and i'm just i'm just in it they're sort of like uh this is what i mean it's not as airtight as being like how could a sentient thing and the suffering and factory farming and all this stuff the best i can come up with and i'm not saying i like it is just going like it's what it's what's happening i know and i that's i do suffer because of this i'm telling telling you, knowing- What had to happen for this phone to be in my hand? Like how many people had to suffer for this to exist

or the battery that's in my car or the dye that was the runoff from the t-shirt that I'm wearing. How many fish died because of that? Like when you really telescope up and try to look at our consumer choices holistically, we're all wreaking havoc. And we can try it a little bit more lightly

and we can all do better. But I think when you refrain from judging other people on their decisions, you create an opening or a sense of welcomeness in which we can have a productive dialogue about how we can all do better, not by pointing fingers at other people and judging them, but by acknowledging our own fallibility

and, you know, imperfections. I think that's well said. I do hate it. People used to come, when I was a vegan, they'd be like, well, you know, when they're farming the almonds, they suck up rodents or whatever it is. I mean, it's just, there's always a whataboutism. like well you know when they're farming the almonds they suck up rodents or whatever it is well there's i mean it's just there's always a what aboutism well

you know what it is there just is a heartbreak to this reality that you were just touching on and i think what's annoying for lack of a better word is there's no way to opt out of it entirely and i think that leads to a certain defeatism that people go like, well, you can't win, so you might as well eat some chicken. True, but like every change in the world starts with people changing their minds about things, right? Every big change, every social change, every revolution started with one person doing something different. Like I think we actually do have a lot more agency. And for someone like yourself who is in front of audiences and talking behind a

microphone for many, many years, like you have the power to influence a lot of people. And I think when you're walking a certain walk and living your life in a certain way, there's a real potency to that that can change people. I think you're right. I'm telling you, I'm over here, but I'm not like, you should come to my house. Do you want to feel conflicted most meals? Get over here.

It's great. It's great. And people say, why? And you just go, just kind of lazy. It feels awesome. Come over here. You devil. You watched the special.

Did you watch it? I did. You're one of the few people that have seen it. I know. Thank you for sharing it with me. When is it coming out? End of October. Okay, cool.

Congrats. It's super funny. Thanks, man. Yeah. You've come a long way, man. You've been doing this for a while. Yeah. God, it's been like 22 years or something.

And now I'm working on my new hour. I mean, I feel like... So this hour isn't even out yet, this special, and you're already cracking the next one. I have the next one. I was just talking to Neil Brennan. I was like, I have the time. You wouldn't call it an hour until it's really polished

and sort of interwoven and tight and sort of thematically clumped and stuff. I have the time, and it's starting to get woven together. You know, the callbacks and the interrelatedness of the bits, it's starting to present itself. But this is the... I just did Denver Comedy Works like two weeks ago, and I did this new hour, not the one Denver Comedy Works like two weeks ago.

And I did this new hour, not the one that's going to air at the end of October, but there is a new hour. And I'm like, what I was going to say is I think you can relate to this as one of the great secrets to joy on the human plane. Not in like any spiritual or super meaning of life way, but just like the bread and butter day-to-day, how to be a happy human, having some infinitely playable game. For you, I think it's ultra marathon, you know, like the athletic. There is something, if you'll allow, athletic about doing a new hour. You're trying it, you're testing it, You're risking, you might be risking injury. I'm risking like psychological injury, humiliation. And that really motivates you. Like you, if you have, sorry to force this, but like, if you have a race coming up, you train because you know, you have this race. When I have a weekend coming up, I write because I know I have, and I, and I,

I have a show tonight because I have a show this weekend and you gotta work it out. So when people like struggle with writing their novel or whatever, I'm like, yeah, no shit. There's no pit of spikes and flames beneath you. Like I'll suffer pain tonight if I don't do my homework. Right. If you had to get up and read a chapter from your novel once a week or whatever. Yeah, yeah. That would help. That would help.

Like, put it, and David Sedaris and other people like that do that. But, like, if you're just wondering why you're sitting around tinkering on a screenplay, I'm like, because there's no risk. Yeah. Like, stand-up is like a treadmill. If you stop, you fall off. You know what I mean? It's not running in the woods where you can just start walking and no one knows you didn't hit your goal. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not

hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders,

including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Thank you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Walk me through your creative process from how you're finding ideas, how you're remembering these ideas, working on them. How does that work for you? it's it's very different 23 years in at the beginning you're like trying to write jokes like what will make people laugh and now that i'm in my 40s and

i've been doing it a long time a bit presents itself when you when something comes up and you have a very strong feeling like there should be some word in greek for it or something like there's this feeling that you know i really have strong thoughts and perspectives about this and i feel sure-footed in my thoughts even if it's something as stupid as q-tips i i have a very strong feeling about q-tips not i know i can make that funny necessarily but you look look for the passion feeling first. And then you go on stage and you kind of play with it. I don't write it out. So when that occurs to you, though,

do you open up your phone and write it in a note? Or do you do a voice memo? What is the practical process? I text myself a lot, because there's something about being in the car that takes over your body, so your brain is kind of free to wander. So I'm sending myself a lot of crazy texts,

saying, text Pete Holmes. What do you want to say to Pete Holmes? Q-tips is acting like they don't know we're putting these things in our ears. And it goes, your text to Pete Holmes says, Q-tips act like they don't, and you're just like a crazy person. And then you have sort of the outline so nowhere is it written down necessarily like what you're

actually going to say but like then i go on stage with an idea like that and i tried the q-tip joke it's very funny to talk about a silly joke seriously but i was on stage a couple nights ago and it just came out i was like something like when are the people at q-tips going to stop gaslighting us like they don't know we're putting these shits in our ears right because it says like don't put it in your ear right it does but also on the back it has the balls to say it's for first aid i'm like who and this is just coming out because i care i go who is the lunatic putting neosporin on a q-tip and then putting it on their... No one. No one is doing that.

And then the second one is makeup. And then I'm like, surely the third one will be cram it in your ear. The third one is clean your keyboard. And I was like, what fucking nonsense is this? They know we're rotating, touching the brain, getting that ear G-spot, and it's just coming out because

i care and it's like then then you know the comic and you looks for that's like you want like that's like coca-cola being like this is a product to dissolve teeth in you guys are drinking it like but but even the word gas lighting now we're laughing about family dynamics like the way that this is just a human thing we're going to ignore reality there's a corporation just ignoring reality yeah they have meetings i was like did they draw the blinds and put the q-tips in there like oh like secretly like that's an area where i feel like there's a joke whereas when i was starting i was like what's the employee discount at the dollar store? That's a good joke.

But like now I'm looking for those things that I'm like, I can't stop talking about how Q-tips is fucking lying. Right, but then you have the theme emerging from that, which is like the mass delusion of humanity, right? So you can use that to tie different bits together and create something coherent out of the whole thing. Well, here's the other thing that I thought you might think is interesting.

When you've been doing it 23 years, you start stealing from yourself. So I'm putting together a new hour and you're like, let's say I have a joke about Q-tips. And then you're like, I wish I had a joke here. And then you remember you do. You've never done it. You never recorded it. And maybe you wrote it in. You've never done it. You never recorded it.

And maybe you wrote it in your first three years of stand-up when you were bad. But the thought had a kernel in there that was good. Now you're doing what I call old new. It's new to them. And you might rework it. But you're stealing. It's a great feeling.

Do you have stacks of journals, though, that you've been keeping for years that you go back and find those things or you just remember, oh, I thought about that many years ago? A lot of it just kicks around in the brain. Yeah, I'm not, I do have journals from my early years, but like most of it just kind of goes like,

oh yeah, or somebody says something and I go, who has a joke about that? And I'm like, I do. It's a wonderful feeling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You start to become like a, I don't like, I do. It's a wonderful feeling. You start to become like a, I don't know, like there's someone else working in there. How often are you going up? Okay. Well, I'm glad you asked because at this point in my life, and this is something

I'm very passionate about. When you're starting comedy, you go up like every night, right? Or you want to, and then you do. And sometimes you go up multiple times a night and then you go out every weekend and you're just constantly working. And that's like 20 years or 10 years, maybe like the first six, maybe you're not working because nobody wants you to work. Then there's the middle portion, this 10 years of hitting it really hard. And now I'm in the second part or third part. And not a lot of comics are talking about this. And I'd really like to go on the record that there's a third phase, which is like a balance phase where you're trying to get the levels just right. And instead of

mimicking other people's processes, you start honoring and valuing your own. So I do a monthly show at Largo where I do an hour. That's the bulk of my stand-up in a month. To get ready for that, maybe I'll go and perform at the comedy store once a month, maybe twice a month. And, like, tonight I'm doing Dynasty Typewriter because I'm working this weekend, so I just want to reheat the hour.

But, like, most of the time there's like writing down notes and jotting stuff up. It's taking advantage of all of this work that I've put in to be, have a comic mind and trust that when I'm on stage, it will come out appropriately. And then most of my life, the greatest compliment my wife gave me, people say, what's it like being married to a comedian? And she's like, I barely notice that I'm married to a comedian. Don't get me wrong. We laugh and we're silly, but like, it's not this, what everyone assumes it is, is that like, oh, you must be traveling all the time. People are like, how's life on the road? People say to me, I'm like, I go out one weekend a month. That's it. That's three weekends not out. And you know what? Most people

work all day, every day. So one weekend a month condensing all of my work into three days, pretty fucking good. And nobody's really, comedians are in this great position. A lot of creative people are in this great position. A lot of business people are in this position, like entrepreneurs and stuff to get those levels just right. But I don't see a lot of people trying to kind of Tim Ferriss it, trying to, my friend James Bashar is one of these guys. It's like, yeah, I just, I only answer emails on Tuesdays between 10 and noon or whatever. And I'm like, comedians should be doing this. Let's get those levels right. Let's not just be pirates, you know, going out and drinking rum and swinging from ropes

all the fucking time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that is the stereotype. Tortured person who's spending all their time in the comedy clubs and also in their

kind of pedestrian life, everything's a bit, they're never just relaxed and living their life. Well, we moved up kind of, it's funny,

driving here, I was like, I'm driving home because we live in Ojai. Oh, that's right. I forgot you live in Ojai. Yeah. I felt like I was on my way home. Everyone's moving to Ojai. Are they?

Are you like Rob Bell's next door neighbor now? Well, Rob does live right up the street from me. And it's fucking incredible. And I really credit Valerie for that choice. Like she's this great counterbalance. I'm very fiery and she's very, I don't know if she's watery, but she balances it out, you know? And she was like, we love it when we go there. I think we should move there. And we did. And it was hard for me to do. Because you can't just pop down and do a set.

Well, I was scared. I was scared I'd vanish. Yeah. I thought it would be too far to do shows and then I'd stop doing shows and then I'd lose my identity. And now what am I just in a rocking chair? Like, what do I do? It's not been that way at all. And for the first time in my life, like, I'm not putting down my comedian friends, but Neil Brennan, who is one of my comedian friends, he's like, there are no friends in show business. He's like, we're all just in a bar fight. And sometimes you're punching in the same direction as the random guy next to you. And it gives the illusion that you're on the same team, but it's really just a bar fight that may or may not be true. But I will say now I just have like, for the first time in my life, I feel like Bigfoot, like friend, like I'm learning what it's like to have a coffee shop that I go to. And if I'm not there, and sometimes I'm not, the next time I'm there, people are like, hey, where were you? And I was like, well, I was here. And they want to know. They're not, you know, not that all my friends are doing this, but they're not gaming me. They're not, we're not talking about projects and

casting or any of that shit. We're just human beings hanging out. And I've never been happier. This time in my life is the happiest time in my life. That's great. Because I'm starting to enjoy it. Enjoy your life. Yeah. Well, it's funny that you say that. That was our slogan, my own personal slogan.

I was like, good life when? Good life when? And you don't have to be a fancy show business jerk like me to do this. There's a lot of our friends, regular work, you know what I mean? But they figured out we can do this. We can make it work here. We can do this. And it's not just Ojai.

When people say like, should I move to Ojai? I'm like, well, first you got to get your life fucking right. You know what I mean? I'm fulfilled. I know what I need to hum. And that's a certain amount of sets in a month. And that's a certain amount of writing. And that's a certain amount of performing and creating. And I go, okay, how much of my life is that? Okay, maybe that's 18%. And then like having a good marriage. Our marriage is fucking great. Having a daughter,

our family is fucking great. Okay, now we can rally this up and move it somewhere. But you can't just move somewhere and hope it fixes you. You go there, there might be a lot of quiet up there for you to figure out you're doing some things not right. Right, right. I mean, it's a big lifestyle change. For people that don't know, for you, you were like living in the heart of Hollywood, right?

Yeah, yeah. To go to Ojai, super sleepy, beautiful place. Yeah. Everything closes at like 9. Yeah But the cadence of life up there, I mean, you might as well be living in, you know, Decatur, Illinois or something. I'll tell you just because you kind of live out here too, or far from the city-ish. It's so not a problem. I credit it to having a daughter. First of all, I credit it to our life just being right and everybody being communicative and honest about their needs. You know what I mean?

That's huge. I didn't know how to do that in my 20s. And now I say, I need to do a set. Like, I'm going to do a set. Like, you know, it doesn't even get to that place. They're just in the calendar. But the drive has become sacred time for me. It's not wasted time at all. It's where I get all of my reading done. It's audio books. It's where I get all of my learning done. It's where I get all of my phone calls done. I'm not talking about business calls.

I told you I talked to Neil Brand today. That was on the ride down. We just talked for 30 minutes. I'm being like a better friend, a more available friend. And not only is it not a problem, I'll drive in. I've done this before. I'll drive in from Ojai, have a meeting at like 11, drive back. I'm home at one 30, drive back for a show, drive back. I'm home at 11. And I'm just like, when I lived in Los Feliz, it wasn't Hollywood,

it was Los Feliz. And Judd's office when when we were doing Crashing, was in Santa Monica. It was two hours. Yeah. No one thought that was crazy. So you see these delusions that we're all under, that we sort of reflect back to each other. If it's in L.A., what are you talking about? But that's its own delusion,

because anyone who doesn't live in L.A. would consider that to be lunacy, which it is. It is. No, all of this is insane. And all you're doing is cutting across town. Buddy, that drive was worse than the drive up to Ojai all the time. And then I look at it as like math. It's like when I'm in Ojai, to go to the grocery store, five minutes. Five American minutes.

To drop my daughter at school, 10 minutes. Actually, she just moved school. So it's like closer. We could walk. If I'm going anywhere, pick anywhere, the beach, 15 minutes, right? In LA, each one of those would be 45. So 90. But no, I'm not really trying to sell living in the country as much as I'm saying, like, get creative about your blocks. You go like, well, that's 90 minutes in the car. That's ludicrous.

It's like, yeah, but when you go to Whole Foods here on Santa Monica, it's 45 minutes shopping, 45 minutes back. But the real block

is in your mind. The, you know, the fear of irrelevance by opting out of being part of that like hamster wheel living there. I actually appreciate that. That is the fear. And there are some people I know that live up

in Ojai that you can feel them drying out. And they're like, I just got to be in the mix. I've been done trying to be in the mix for a while, but I've also been doing it 20 years. So there's a lot of privileges to check here. And one of them is a career privilege where I'm like, I can stack my Monday. I did my pod or it's Tuesday, but I did my podcast this morning. I'll do this with you. I have dinner with my friend. I'll do a show tonight. Not a lot of people can go, Hey, Rich, when can we do it? Let's do it on this day. Hey, Hey, dynasty typewriter. I want to do a show on this night. Can we do it? There's, there's a lot of things in line, but I also just talk to the other side.

I know a lot of people that have way more access, way more money, way more power, whatever you want to call it, that aren't doing this. So, you know. No, you've consciously carved out this really unique career. I mean, congratulations for moving out and enjoying it. I think it's great. Like if we're not gonna enjoy our lives now, when are we gonna do it, right? And to have that awareness is a credit to you and to the work that you've done on yourself and in just reflecting upon your career,

it's super unique. Cause on the one hand, you're a standup like Neil Brennan and John Mulaney and all those guys that I know you're friends with. You also have this television career. Like now you're like turning into a sitcom guy. Like you went from crashing and you did that bowling show. And like night court, like what is going on?

You're doing all these shows. That's a whole conversation. I know, but hold on, put a pin in that for now. So you have that side of your career. Then you have the podcast, which you've been doing. When did you, I mean, you started before me. It's been over 10 years. I mean, everybody's got a podcast now,

but it's rare that I meet someone who's been doing it longer than I have. And I think you, 2011 or something like that? When did you start? That sounds right. It's been 12, 13 years, something like that. It's crazy. When you invited me to do yours,

it was like upstairs. It was at that comic book store. Yeah. Is that there? That's not there anymore, is it? No. I think it's gone, right? No, it is.

Yeah. That was at, we didn't know, but there was a golden time. Yeah. I was being, you know, I wouldn't say I was being taken advantage of, but like I was with a network that was taking, nobody had figured out how to turn it into a job right i certainly hadn't it was just i did it forever before yeah we did it for years and years and years and making

no money not if i got a little check i'd be like oh my god and now i look back and i'm like what what the fuck was that like that's ridiculous but, now we're sort of in this opposite time. You know, everyone knows this, but like, we're now competing with Conan and I think all five talk show hosts. They're doing a mega podcast thing right now. I'm just like, when does it end, guys? Like, how do you have to...

There's this great New Yorker cartoon that I love by Leo Cullum, the late Leo Cullum, and it's dogs in a boardroom and they're wearing suits and there's a chart of growth and the dog is saying, it's not enough that dogs win, cats must also lose. And I just think about this, like, insatiability where it's like, if there's money to be made,

fucking go, everybody go and i know i'm over here piddling out my thing and i've enjoyed my coziness and now i'm like you type in comedy podcast it's it's hard like one of the reasons i keep doing it one i love it i absolutely love it but i'm also like i can't throw away a following because now if you start a podcast, it's really hard to get a following. Oh, it would be so difficult to start now. Impossible. And you can't underestimate the impact of podcasting on comedy in general.

Like every comedian now has domain and control over their work and connecting with an audience in a way that they never did previously. And it's launched careers. It's been very good to you and to a lot of people. And comedians were the first movers in the early, early days, even before you started. Yeah, Marin. It was, yeah, it was Marin. It was Kevin Smith is actually the OG, right? Like,

Corolla, those guys. Yeah, like all the, Doug, Doug Loves Movies. Remember that show? Is he still doing that? I mean, it's the comedians who were first. Yeah. And you're absolutely right that the tastes change. It's like changing the diet of an ecosystem, right? Like once the comedians started getting more comfortable sharing all of their feelings and thoughts

and kind of getting more personal, which was a big part of the phenomenon, then the audience that came to see me, for example, would know all this stuff. Yeah, they know you, and they know what they're getting involved in. They're there because they want to see you, not, oh, it's a comedian, let's see what he's got.

And they want to know the real you. So sort of off the table, I remember, I don't know what he ended up doing, but there was a comedian who came out. We don't need to say who it was, but he was like a little bit older than me. And he was like, but when I'm on stage,

I'm still going to talk about having a girlfriend and kind of be like, you know what I mean? I was like, oh, I don't think that flies anymore. Like, and that's wonderful for someone like me.

Like I want to share and be known. And now when I go out to audiences the whole thing is like if you knew me we could get deeper faster funnier and if you already listen to the podcast it's like you already know my perspective let's just let's dive in and get into it fast yeah but that that idea was born out of the alternative comedy movement, wasn't it? The storytelling, um, vulnerability led kind of thing. I mean, Marin, that's what Marin does also in a different way. Marin doesn't on stage and on his podcast, but I learned how to be vulnerable, um, sort of by doing a podcast. The first time I was like, you know, giving grief to my family or talking about my divorce.

Like I had no bits about being divorced. So like doing the podcast, the first time I talked about it, you really, this is going to sound, it's like Chicken Little, you think the sky's going to fall. You're like, and my wife left me. She actually had an affair.

Like you just put a little toe in the water. And when that episode would drop i'd have anxiety i'm like well i don't even know what the fantasy was but let's say she's gonna hear it or somebody in my family is gonna hear someone in her family is gonna hear none of these things happen and then the next week you go like it was a small italian man named brocco or whatever it is he used to make that joke all the time. And next thing you know, you're just in the water over your head of like sharing and sharing. And that informs your art.

And then look what happened. I did a TV show that hinges on me being honest about my divorce, but it was podcasting that taught me how to be soft enough and open enough to get to that place artistically. If I had just been doing stand-up, it would still be what's the employee discount at the dollar store. Podcasting was like yeast in the dough. Yeah, you can't extract the two from each other and how they've informed each

other. And that's why I won't walk away. But what do you think about the whole world of podcasting now? Because it is so different than when you started. Well, I don't want to be a grump, but I do think celebrity doesn't necessarily mean better. Well, we learned that with all the Spotify missteps. That's right. Overspending. Just because you're a name doesn't mean that you're going to want to host a podcast that's going to work.

That's right. And also, I think a lot of people realize how much work it is and get knee deep into it and realize. And if they're not getting huge audience share right out of the gate, they'll just pull the plug because they have many other things that they could do. But that's, I feel that way. It probably sounded like I meant me, but I also just mean the guests as well. Like so many of my favorite episodes are people that you haven't heard of. And the true weirdos, it's called You Made It Weird,

so we call the fans weirdos. The true weirdos listen to all of them, and they report the same. It's like, I always talk about, like, Pete Davidson did the podcast when he was just a club comic that I thought was incredible. So, like, don't skip. Like,

Malik Elisal just did it today, and I'm like, I know there's a lot of people that won't listen to the Malik Elisal episode. I'm like, you fucking idiots. See you in five years when he's huge. But, like, he's funny and interesting today. You know what I mean? So, like, let's be more

interesting than Instagram. Let's be more interesting than Instagram. Let's be more interesting than the tabloid. It's also more gratifying as the host when you can find some like gem in the rough and like host them, have an incredible experience and then go like this to the world. Well, that is what I miss from those days in the comic book shop before you get ads involved. And I'm grateful for that through the pandemic, through both the strikes that are happening right now. Podcasting is our livelihood. It's like most of it and touring.

But it's like, so I'm grateful for the ads. So I'm not saying this with any malice, but once you're promising a number to an advertiser, it gets less cute if I just want to have the author of some book I really enjoyed on. You know what I mean? So that does compromise it a little bit. And going back to the meat thing, you're just sort of like, it's just what it is. It's not great, but I can't really have everybody on necessarily that I want. That's a shame. You should be able to do that. You need like an iron, you need an iron curtain

between the advertising and the editorial. Like you can't let advertising inform which guests you're going to have on the show. Remember Malik did the show today. So we're still having the people on, but I can't like,

I couldn't have him on again next week. Like there's a limit. But people who are listening to you are listening, they're listening for the guests, but they're listening because they love you and they trust you

and you're a curator of taste. So if you say, this is a person worthy of your attention, your audience is going to follow you. Whether it's... I know that's true. You know, maybe you have,

you know, John Mulaney on, you know it's going to get, more people are probably going to listen to that. But the drop isn't as precipitous as you might think, I would suspect, like when you have an unknown on because they know that you've thought through this. I like you.

Yeah. I like you. Chris Evans did it, Captain America, which was dope. Oh, that's cool. He hasn't done a lot of pods. I wonder if he'd do yours. I mean, he's like a fit fella. Not that you only talk to fit fellas.

I'd love to have him on. Yeah. It's fun to have fancy people on, but sometimes they're a lot harder to interview because they're so media savvy. They do so many interviews and you have to find a different way in. In my experience, that's the old Marin trick. I learned it from Marin. You have to tell them a story of shitting your pants. You have to lead with vulnerability. Yeah. 100%. You have to be like. 100%. I remember I just shit blood 20 minutes ago. And then they're like, oh, and then... Wait, what? Who are you? You have to. It's

the oldest podcast. I don't want to say it's a trick. It's a trick in the sense that it's a trick towards deep, rich, in this moment, fuck the show, just two human beings connecting. I mean, you can't expect somebody to be honest and open if you're not willing to do that yourself. So it's not a trick.

It's just, we're setting the stage. This is where I'm coming from. When people do it to me, I love it. Yeah. I've said this before, but like podcasts are just an excuse like this for you and me to sit on a porch and have a sarsaparilla. You know what i mean yeah

and like so the more things change the more they say the same it seems like oh this is so fancy and we're in a black void uh but timeless black void timeless black void but we're really just doing what people have always done we're on a wagon ride across the dakotas and we finally get to talk yeah and there used to be more time for that, but it's a human need. If I were to drive up to Ojai, this is the conversation that I would have with you. But because our lives are the way that they are, that's an unlikely occurrence. So I have to create all this artifice in order to have this conversation. But honestly, if you came to Ojai, I wouldn't be talking in this pitch. No, of course not.

Honestly, dude, if you came to Ojai, I wouldn't be talking in this pitch. No, of course not. And if you did, even though this is natural podcast pitch. You know what we should do? We should actually do that and just imagine that there's microphones on and have a very animated, heightened version of the conversation that we would have. So my wife and I are very, very happy. It's just a wonderful gift of a relationship. And every Friday, we do a bonus episode called We Made It Weird.

It's on the same feed. But the We Made It Weird episodes are Val and I. And if that's not a relationship hack, meaning... Yeah. That's the joke that I have with my wife all the time. What's that? Because she comes on not with that level of regularity, but pretty frequently.

And it's like, oh, okay, we're going to talk now. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. My, even when Lila was a newborn, we always took at least an hour, sometimes two hours to have like the, talk about the treadmill and the fiery pit of standup, like the stakes.

Let's put some stakes in it. Let's get best Pete, not bad date fucking dumbass Pete. Let's get like people are going to hear this. And it's sort of like my father making fun of my body, even though that's not what he meant, motivating me to start fasting or whatever it is. Let's put a little pressure on this, saying people are going to hear it,

not just for the show, but for the conversation itself for what it gives us and this is true every single we made it weird well without exception starts in a certain way and i'm usually having some sort of problem that we're unpacking by the end i always feel better we'll always feel better and it's like we could do this but we don't so let's hack the system let's turn it into part of our job and force ourselves to talk and it's always the episodes that we didn't want to do

I was like maybe we can skip this week whatever we forced ourselves to do it those are always these incredible we didn't even know what we were going to talk about. And we find something like real because we got out of our own way. Yeah, yeah. I'm sitting here wondering whether this is something

that anybody could do, right? Whether or not they publish it, but to create that kind of formality with your partner to sit down and structure a conversation where this is going to be, we may not share it publicly, but it will be recorded

and we will have this for posterity. Well, this might be dark, but I think about like me in a nursing home. It's like fire up the We Made It Weirds. I want to listen to me and Val. I'd like to listen to me and Val three years ago during the pandemic. You know what I mean?

When Lila was a newborn, like these are treasures. So yeah, you know when you have a sleepover, there's just a tape recorder, you hit record, and you just kind of fuck around. Those are treasures. Like it's a wonderful thing to be able to do. It's cool. So I think if I were a relationship therapist, I would say

once a week, do a pretend podcast. Don't even release it. Just record it. In this age of ultimate distraction, endless scrolling, you have this stand-up life. You're a writer. You wrote on Crashing, co-created that show with Judd.

You're in these sitcoms now. You're doing all kinds of stuff. You wrote your book. It came out, and now you've got another special coming out. But all of that aside, and this is back to my original question around the kind of uniqueness of your career path, you're also in this nebulous kind of new, interesting world of comedian, writer, slash, like, thought leader sort of in this spiritual space. Like, I think of Rainn Wilson like this with his new book, Soul Boom.

I love Rainn. He just came back on the show. He's great. Or, and our mutual friend, Rob Bell, or, you know, Elizabeth Gilbert. You do these shows at Largo. I think the last time I saw you actually was at Largo. Yeah.

That was like that Annika Harris consciousness night. Yeah, that's right. So you do like all these things that don't really fit into the typical kind of stand-up persona. Yeah. That are truly unique to you. Yeah. And that's the most rewarding, interesting, fertile part of my life. Yeah, you've done like these videos that you,

I don't know how long, the Big Think videos. And I was like, you're like a Ted fellow, you know? Like you get on camera and you're just like imparting wisdom. Yeah. Well, a lot of that, thank you for, first of all, I'm just so touched, honestly, that you just know everything. It's so cool. Well-researched in everything you are and that you care.

It's cool. I do care. It's really cool. But yeah, it took like some getting, I was just thinking about this. I had a joke where I just wanted to say, I love Jesus. It's just his fans that I'm not crazy about or whatever.

And I remember I'm in Union Hall in Brooklyn, probably like 26, probably still married first time. And you know, it's a hip show, Eugene Merman, probably Hannibal Buress. And I, I tried to say, I like, couldn't even look at the crowd. I was like, I love Jesus. I couldn't say I love Jesus to these hipsters, even though looking back, who fucking cares? You know what I mean? Like, but I'm thinking, again, that the sky is going to fall if I start telling these people that I'm spiritually curious. When now my perspective as a 44-year-old is I'm like, Pete, 99% of that room was raised in some tradition and would love to not only hear you talk about it, but would also probably privately love to hear you save some part of it for them.

Right. Because they're all walking around Brooklyn, sphincters, you know, tight. That's right. Feeling like they can't be honest about what they're conflicted about or the way they were brought up. Saving baby Jesus from the bathroom. And you can bring voice to that. Yeah, exactly.

But so again, just like with the podcasting it it started slowly it's just like can i talk about this is this okay and finding people that were more far out like ramdas who comes from more of a hindu tradition that was sort of my way back in the mix okay we have a different avatar it's hanuman you know and and very similar to Jesus. And then slowly finding Richard Rohr, the Franciscan, who's like my spiritual father, started kind of making me comfortable. And Rob, of course, Rob Bell, making me more comfortable using Christian language again, just purely for a psychological benefit.

It's so nice to go back into the marred woods that you escaped and go like, was there anything, was there anything in here? I want to look at it fresh now for me. No one's telling me. Is there anything here? And finding and carving that way out had a lot to do with being friends with Rob, seeing somebody who could, We did a tour together where we spoke together on stage. Yeah, his new book just came out. Where'd You Park Your Spaceship? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's great.

You guys did like a Largo thing recently? Yeah. We did, yeah. So, you know, Rob is one of those people that modeling is just so important. He modeled to me. Moving to Ojai had something to do with him too. We moved and then he moved, but like he used to live in Laguna, Laguna beach. And I went down there and I was like, what? Yeah. That doesn't make sense. Yeah. But I was also just kind of

like, there's that, but it's also like beautiful. And I was like, I didn't know you could even try to live in a beautiful place, you know? And he did. And I didn't know you could talk about God in an honest way where you're kind of like, yeah, I don't, I don't know what's going on, but like, what about this? What does this resonate? Does this resonate? Or I don't have a masters of divinity, but I'm welcome to the conversation because I'm stuck in the same predicament you are, you know, those green lights, you start having the modeled to you. And then the more you learn... Like, it comes out in my stand-up as well,

bits about the meaning of life. And I don't know why more comedians are stepping away from the exclusively jaded, like, get real, like, stance and getting a little bit more thoughtful, a little bit more curious about it, because it's the most interesting topic. Because cynicism and irony works and it has worked for a long time. So it's reliable. Yeah. It's riskier. Yeah. To step outside. Well, you know the God bit in the special, did you get that for? Yeah. Yeah. I'm just to write a joke about god in the special uh that that people enjoy that i felt comfortable doing

at the irvine improv or the fucking wherever those those are always the moments for me where my my hair kind of stands up on the back of my neck and i'm dropped into the present and we're actually connecting about like what's going on here instead of just kind of being like taking life as a foregone conclusion. Yeah. Yeah. Back to that idea of the absurdity of it all. The afterlife versus the miracle of life now and realizing that, you know, it's all fucking insane. Right?

Yeah. you know, it's all fucking insane, right? Yeah. I think it's really this, like at the very heart of like, what's best about what you have to offer, like reminding us of the lunacy that we're spinning on this rock, you know, out in vast darkness.

The core of it is most of the time when I'm talking about this stuff is I'm trying to get us all in the same boat. You know, I don't care if you call it God or nothing. We're talking about a mystery. Something erupted into the universe. And, you know, I want you to stress less. Yeah.

And just notice what's going on and sort of surrender to the unknowing. Like the big think thing that I did, I think it's Pema Chodron said, you're the sky, the rest is just weather. And that's not just like a cute little magnet for your fridge. That's when you're overwhelmed and like shaking with anger or crippled in grief. Like that's the type of thought that you can step back, allow what's happening to happen. But it's not just a thought experiment. It's like trying to get in touch with the part of you that's witnessing it, you know? And that to me is what spirituality is. Everything that I am keeps changing, but spirituality is interested in what

doesn't change, what is constant. Yeah. I mean, it's also this permission that you give or this encouragement for us to nurture that part of us that needs to and wants to engage with awe and wonder, right? You also said in one of the big think pieces, with awe and wonder, right? You also said in one of the big think pieces, you were talking about Joseph Campbell and you were talking about religious literalism. And you said that like something like literal truth is the lowest form of truth, right?

And I think that's, yeah, it's such a beautiful statement. But talk a little bit more about what you meant by that. Well, it's funny. I tell my daughter stories. I haven't said this before, but I've been telling her stories. And my daughter always wants to know if they're real. I told her a story about going in the ocean and an iridescent fish gave me a necklace with a shell on it so I could breathe underwater, so I could find the treasure. And I was with my brother. And then I hurt myself, So we had to drop the treasure so he could take me to

the shore. And then the fish came back and gave my brother the treasure, even though we had lost it. So it's a pretty basic morality tale. Or, you know, you could look at it a lot of different ways. But at the end, the next day, she's like, Disney, hire this man. She goes, I want one of those necklaces. And boy, if she's not disappointed when I'm like, that's made, that was a story. She's mad. So we've started already trying to prime her to this idea that there are some truths so big they can only be told with lies. That's a cute way of saying metaphor is the only language we have to speak of God. And I say this in the special, it's Richard Rohr as well. Metaphor means always true,

sometimes really happened. Because what's interesting about the Bible, one of the weird things about that text is that it's metaphor overlaid with history. You know what I mean? It's like metaphorized history and we don't know where the line is. You know, opinions vary. But when you're trying to, and if you've taken psychedelics, and that was a huge part of my appreciation of metaphor, but when you're trying to talk about the ineffable, metaphor isn't just as close as you can get. It's the only way to do it. It stirs you and moves you in a way that it's... The truth of it is it's true in the way that energy moves in the world. It's true in the way the patterns of the universe are reflected in the story.

Because you can tell a story and it's bullshit like you know, but the metaphors and the myths that stick with us, they'll rock you. I just listened to one called The Toebone and the Tooth. It's about this guy. They're all about a guy, sort of underprivileged guy in a village, goes into the woods, falls in love with a goddess.

His father doesn't want them to get married. He has to go through these. It's very Genesis. He has to go through these trials. Then he has to bring her back to the village. He forgets that she's in the woods. She, she dies. She decomposes. Then he has to go back and all he can find of her is a toe bone and a tooth. That is not, if you're interested in that story, you should look it up. But like, we know that we go like, oh my God, we know

the beloved is, is the eternal. And we, and we tried our best to remember, but we left her in the woods and all we have are these remnants. And you hear it and your skin's lit on fire and we're fucking stuck with numbers and measurements and recipes. Like, get the fuck out of here. None of that shit helps you when your heart is broken. None of that helps when your grandfather is dying or when a baby is born. Like, poetry is similar. Get that shit out of here. Until your wife leaves you. Then William Blake gets a lot more important.

But we've become interested in or fascinated or obsessed with the quantifiable and the reproducible and the material. And it's like, okay, but, you know, we're leaving a lot in our rear view that's essential. Yeah, you know, it's so emasculated in our culture. Well, because you can't have sex with it and you can't sell it, really.

You know what I mean? So, like, what are you doing? I'll tell you what you're doing is you're feeling more at home in the universe. This is my whole thing. The fact that it's like cowardly to go to therapy, like, like the people where I'm from. If you say you're in therapy, they're like, it's like, huh? I'm like, is there anything more cowardly than not facing your demons? Like, who's the coward?

I might just be sitting on a couch, but I'm going into the cave where the Vader mask cuts open and it's my face. Like, that's the hero. And it's easy to do the same with spirituality. Be like, it's a bunch of lies. Yeah, Santa Claus isn't real. Great. But what is the story of Santa Claus?

What is the point? What is done in secret is rewarded, or whatever it might be. I don't know, man. Literalism is a fucking terrible body to snuggle up to in your bed at night. And the warm bosom of myth has kept human beings alive.

And by the way, don't get me started. Every video game, every movie, it's all right there. Sure. Every Avenger. Get the fuck out of here. And Joseph Campbell is like the gateway drug for a lot of people, especially in this town. That's right.

Well, he changed my life. He said God is a metaphor for a mystery that absolutely transcends all categories of human thought, including being and non-being. So that I could get on board with. That's a God. I feel like that's a God anyone could agree on. It's a metaphor, meaning God is not an old man in the sky. An old man in the sky is a metaphor for a metaphor. God itself is a metaphor. And a metaphor for that metaphor is an old man in the sky. Old, he's older than you. He's been around. In the sky, he has a higher perspective than you. On a throne, he's powerful. These are just ways of understanding a force, right? But that's a

metaphor for God, which is itself a metaphor for a mystery. Something unknown is doing something we know not what, right? So this is also in my special, Barry Taylor, the road manager for ACDC says, God is the name of the blanket. We put over the mystery to give it a shape. God is the name of the blanket. We put over the mystery to give it a shape. And I say, shouldn't we have learned this in church?

Why am I learning this from the road manager for ACDC? And it's not about solving the mystery. It's about appreciating the fact that it is a mystery. And we want to talk about it. And more than that, we want to commune with it. And to know that, we have to give it some sort of symbol. Carl Jung says we're not transformed by ideas. We're transformed by symbols. This is why the crucified Christ is still a hot thing. And stories. Yes. We know this. This is why I'm telling my daughter about the treasure in the iridescent fish. So when somebody says to you, as I'm sure they probably do often, like,

Pete, explain to me your notion of spirituality, or how do you define your relationship with the divine? Like, how do you answer that question? Well, in this context, I would say mystical whatever. Mystical Christianity, mystical spirituality. Mystical is just a fancy way of saying experiential. So a lot of these things had to do with psychedelics. That really opened the box for me.

But I'm happy to say that there's spirituality beyond psychedelics. That's still part of my life. spirituality beyond psychedelics. That's still part of my life. But there are a lot of non-chemically induced moments of transcendence that come from quiet, that come from solitude, that come from contemplation, whatever it might be. And for me, as a heady person, comes from reading or listening to talks or whatever. It can drop anchor into the moment. Listening to Eckhart Tolle. If anyone listening, if you don't want any religious language, but you want to know what I'm talking about, The Power of Now, read by Eckhart Tolle, the book.

Just listen to that. I listen to it two, three times a year. It's incredible. And when you're listening to it, you'll feel your skin. You'll feel the air resting on your skin. You'll feel reality. Rupert Spira is another one. Go on YouTube and type in Rupert Spira.

It's all free. That dude will make you feel like you're on mushrooms and you don't have to go to the park and meet a guy named Skis. Except you did, right? Which is curious because you're already so spiritually inclined, so spiritually curious. So what was it about doing psychedelics that unlocked something or opened up a new portal for you? Well, I wasn't. The time that I took mushrooms at Bonnaroo, somebody told me, it's in my book, but Reggie Watts and Amy Schumer and these comics were like, we had a day off. And they were like, you should, Kurt Braunohler, they were like, let's, we should buy some mushrooms and do them because we're at Bonnaroo.

And I think it was Amy said like, it's like weed. It's like a strong weed. And I was like, I took it. I was like, this is not, this is not a strong weed. But I'm so glad that she said that. Didn't over-explain it, didn't over-sell it. But at that time in my life, I think I was pretty much just not thinking about it,

about spirituality too much. All my friends were atheists. I saw how beautiful that could be. They had morality. They felt at home in the world. They weren't like debaucherous, evil people. They were beautiful people. So I was like, okay, maybe I'm an atheist. I took mushrooms, a pretty mild dose. I split a dose with my girlfriend at the time. But what it was was the ineffability. I couldn't talk about it. So I remember very profoundly. I didn't have like a Jesus experience or a God experience.

I felt very happy, very alive, and things were very visual. And, you know, you have that like at-oneness feeling with the universe, which is so silly to say that, like it's no big deal. That's like the biggest deal in the world. You feel like at one with everything and everything's breathing and you're that thing. And it's incredible. But the point is, when I was sort of peaking,

what was left of Pete went, I'm going to have to talk about this and ruin it. Like, I'm going to come back and my girlfriend's going to say, how was that? And I'm going to say what I just said, breathing at one, all this fucking noise. Like, what is that? It's not the experience. And then I was like, oh my God, that's the whole thing. The experience of God, however you come about it,

or the story of Christ or the story of Buddha or the story of Muhammad, whatever it is, the words aren't it, but there is a thing. And everyone said this a million times. They're the finger pointing to the moon. That's as good as you can do. And those were my words trying to talk about. So I came back like a chimp being like,

and that wasn't it. And it's, those were my words trying to talk about. So I came back like a chimp being like, and that wasn't it. And it's laughable. But that made me go, that made me get curious about what metaphor is. If we can't talk about it literally, how can we talk about it? And then you get things like Joseph Campbell. I watched the Power of Myth on PBS,

like everybody about the DVDs tore through it. And I was like, oh, you know, remember an analogy is the man ran like a deer. A metaphor is the man was a deer. So it's not just, a metaphor isn't just like a comparison. It's big. Harrison, it's, it's, it's, it's big, it's written in big graffiti markers and it, and, and has the power to kind of transport you, not kind of, to transport you to that place. And that one experience was enough. Uh, well, that was a pretty mild experience since then. I've, I, I wouldn't say I'm a huge psychedelic person. Uh, for my taste, I've seen some people overdo it.

That's just my personal judgment. Just flat out, that's just a judgment. I'm over here going like, take it easy. Because they are fun. But they're not escapist experiences. They're the opposite of escapism. They're confrontist experiences. But I've done a lot of different things.

And I'm very glad that I've done a lot of different, I've done, I did 5MEO, DMT, which is. Oh, whoa. Yeah, which is the big one. Yeah. But. And short, short acting too, right? It's about 15 minutes, but I mean,

what is 15 minutes when your time vanishes you know the first thing i said when i came back i think was how long how long was i gone because you don't go pete doesn't go i i'm the i'm sort of unqualified to talk about it but i had this very profound death and it's what i I wanted. Everybody in my group got what their intention was. It was very freaky. You did it in a structured group setting? In a very intentional and spiritual

with a guide who I absolutely love and stayed in touch with. But like mine was, I want to hang out with myself, capital S self. Like I want to just be my pure being, not Pete, not my story. I don't want to talk about my family. I don't want to talk about anything. I just want to be reduced into being, into is-ness. And that's exactly what happened.

And it was absolutely incredible. The best I can do to describe it, it's not visual, but it also sort of is. It doesn't make any sense. It felt like, and this is good news that I can share with you, even if you never do it, you don't go anywhere. I'll even be so bold as to say, when you die, you don't go anywhere.

In fact, you can't go anywhere. The whole thing is here. So instead of shooting off into space, it's actually more like everything that isn't just you goes away and you're left at home, would be how I put it. In the most familiar and safe place and everything else falls away. And you go, heaven is a decent metaphor.

What is heaven? The clouds and all your family is there. I'm sure everything is there and nothing is there. But explain that to a child. You die, you go to a place where, you know, there's grandma and grandpa. Sure. Also, everything alive is there. Everything that died is there. Everything that will be alive is there. And you just go, I'm home. I felt like a lobster and the meat was taken out in one piece and it left behind the shell. And since that day, like lobsters,

I've never gotten a tattoo, but if I did, I'd get a lobster right here because it was this profound, like this is not, I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me sort of thing. Wow. And it was fucking dope,

but it was experiential because if you said this to me, I'd be like, cute. Yeah, I mean, you're pointing at the moon right now. Exactly. Because I've never had any of these experiences. And by the way, I don't recommend them. I'm not saying this for legal reasons. And I'm not saying I'm going to either.

Like, I have lots of reasons why, you know, I probably shouldn't. Or maybe I should. I don't know. Like, I reserve judgment on that. But I'm certainly not recommending it. Please understand, I'm not advising anybody to do this, but the point I'm trying to make

is the point that you're making earlier, which is the only way, like, as somebody who hasn't had these experiences, hearing you try to describe it and me trying to understand what you're saying is barely, I assume, scratching

the surface of what you're actually trying to communicate with me because words are not an adequate vehicle for doing that. And you could say like a very... And that's where metaphor and myth and all of that become better ways of trying to get somebody to understand what you're trying to say, right? The lobster thing came like four days after the experience. So are you the shell or you're the lobster taken out of the shell? I'm the meat. You're leaving the shell behind. So the tattoo should actually be the meat.

I don't know what the lobster looks like when you take the shell away. That would be a unique tattoo to get. If you ever want to get me a gift, get me a little lobster because I love remembering it. Interesting. Again, look, this stuff seems to be part, and I'm an addict too. I don't drink anymore. And so I can't say no two addicts are the same. This fits in with me. The one that I did most recently that was the most lucid, because as I'm explaining this to you, that was the most lucid.

Because as I'm explaining this to you, from a very rational place, if I can't remember it or describe it really, what's the point, right? So you're sort of left with this like, you know, and I'm trying to hold on to it. So from a very rational point of view, then why do it? Then I did ketamine, again,

in a spiritual setting with a guide, and it was incredibly lucid. I found that to be much more hold on to a bull. So you don't leave the planet, you're in your body, but you have this very visceral... Whenever I do a psychedelic or anything spiritual happens to me, I always think of my mother and I love my mom very much. And I go, I want to give this to my, I got to show my mom this. But the beautiful thing was the ketamine was like, or the experience was there's so much less to do than you think. And that was the good news that I had, meaning I don't even have to tell you to do it or even infect you with the idea, meaning, like, it's all, not only will it be okay,

it's already okay, because the it that is okay is outside of this timeline. And that's actually, if this makes any sense, where we are right now. And in a quantum sense, there is no past or future. That's kind of what I'm saying. Like it's our relationship with time that causes our suffering. Yeah. And when you're done with it, you can drop it. And that thing, I just, I remember tears were

streaming down my face and this is very non-dual but you know hopefully people enjoyed i was like i gotta tell my mom about this and it was like you're doing this like it's all one thing and you're doing it for everyone like there is no pete that did it and my mom who didn't it's one thing arcing towards knowing itself. And when it knows itself, the whole thing wakes up. It's a booby trap, a loving booby trap. Conversations like this between us, synchronicity is going all the way. And when you're ready, it wakes up. The whole thing wakes up. Not the Buddha wakes up, the Christ wakes up. This whole thing wakes up. Just like you woke up from your dream and everybody was gone. And it's okay. None of them mind. It's okay. That's the end of the world. I'm operating at like 10% of understanding what you just said.

It's okay. Just listen to it again on half speed and maybe do some ketamine. I'm just kidding. Don't do ketamine. Yeah. Your podcast is called You Made It Weird. I think you're making it weird. I am making it weird. In a good way. No, I know. This is it. Dude, I'm hearing myself too, and I'm like, it is laughable.

But if I told you a story like my brother dropping the treasure and the fish bringing the treasure, what is the point of that story? It's like, in the end, it's okay. You know, it's like, it's the prodigal son. All you need, in my opinion, is the Garden of Eden for our beginning and then the prodigal son.

And the story of the prodigal son, everyone knows, but it's worth repeating. You're the son. You got your inheritance, life. This is our inheritance. We did the beautiful thing. It's very similar to the Garden of Eden. We left. We ate the apple. We left. And that's okay. Remember, the father's not mad that the son left. All that guilt and fear and shame and God, oh, get off my lawn, fucking bullshit, ego bullshit. You left. You were free to leave.

You went into the world. It does say, I believe, you squandered your inheritance, which is what we're doing. We're just squandering. We're eating nachos and whatever the fuck we're doing. It's okay. We ran out of money. We ended up working with the pigs as good Jewish boys in the story.

Terrible. It's like the lowest of the low. And then we remembered. That's key. We remembered, wait, my father is a king. I can go home. It wasn't bad boy runs away. It was boy runs away to play, to dance, to spend his inheritance.

It's his inheritance. Go do it. Then when things got rough, I remember maybe my father will make me a servant in his, in his kingdom, goes home. God's not mad. Dad's not mad. Slaughters the fattened calf, gives him new sandals, anoints him in oil, gives him new robes, celebrates that he came home. That's the whole fucking thing. Right. And that was Jesus's closer. You know what I mean? That was his big finish to the sermon on the mat. It's the big one. That's all you need. I'm very firm on that.

Fuck my ketamine story and my 5-MeO story. Who cares? The whole thing is, your father loves you, you can go home. And that remembrance is often triggered by those painful episodes in our life, right? That's it. That is the conduit to find your way back home. Full circle.

You don't go home until you're with the pigs. Eckhart Tolle woke up when he said, I can't live with myself any longer. He was going to kill himself. And he went, there's an I and a self? What is this? I can't live with myself any longer? Who's who?

And he dropped the ego and he got into his self, capital S, self. That's all you really need. The other one that I love, Alma, the hugging saint, told this story when I saw her in New York. She's incredible. There was a doctor.

I've been hugged by her. Isn't that great? We named our dog Alma. Beautiful. I really had like a- She's so huggable. I had a real moment when I hugged her. It was great.

Maybe she told the story when you saw her. No, I don't think so. There was a doctor and he was dealing with terminally ill people. And he brought his dog to work. And of course, he couldn't bring the dog into the exam room. So he closed the door and he was administering help to this dying person. And the dying person was like worried about dying. And And all the while the dog is scratching on the door. And she said, can you comfort me? Because I'm dying. He said, well, I think it's a little bit like my dog.

I've never brought my dog to work. My dog doesn't know what's in this room. It's all unknown. It's all frightening and strange. But she still wants to come in because she knows her master's in this room. It's all unknown. It's all frightening and strange, but she still wants to come in because she knows her master's in here. And I was like, that's it. We don't know what the fuck is going on here, but whether or not you trust it is key. Whether or not you see it as your father going home, whether or not you see yourself as God's child, these are the comforts of story. That in the midst of this madness and this unknowingness, if you can have a core of like, Richard Rohr said, the point of life is to accept that you are accepted.

It's written on my mirror in chalk marker, accept that you are accepted. And there's another line from A Course in Miracles on my mirror that says, who could be disappointed who asks for what he has already? It's fucking great. Yeah. It's fucking great.

Beautiful. But how do you, like I'm thinking of the person who's listening to this for what he has already. It's fucking great. Yeah. It's fucking great. It's beautiful. But how do you, like, I'm thinking of the person who's listening to this who hasn't had their reckoning yet. They haven't hit their pain moment, and they're trying to wrap their heads around what you mean by this notion of remembering or returning home. Like, how do you communicate to that person?

Or how do you get somebody to, you know, connect with that possibility in their own life? That's why I'm not putting that question off to Eckhart Tolle, but when people email me, you know, on social or something, and they're like, I can't, it's nails on a chalkboard. You say, I'm God's child, it's nails on a chalkboard, or Jesus, or Buddha, or anything. Because of the baggage that people are carrying around from whatever experiences they had.

Yeah. I relate to that. I had that. And people like, first of all, Joseph Campbell, who's just going to say, it's a story and that's great. But then Eckhart Tolle,

who's all just the sacrament of the present moment. And when you start getting naked, I was just talking about this today on my own podcast. I was like, why are Adam and Eve naked? It's because they're not clothed in the ego and the story, just pure. And when you drop through practices, through reading that book, whatever it might be, and you start getting familiar with who are you,

like you're wearing a space suit. You know what I mean? Right. And we start thinking we're the suit. This is Ram Dass. Ram Dass would say, I go, hello, Rich. And you go, hello, Pete. You're a comedian.

I go, yes, and we are Americans. I remember I was in Italy. I saw a ladybug and I was like, this ladybug has no idea it's Italian. Has no idea it's Italian. Has no idea it's Italian. How many fucking things are we carrying around? And who are you when you drop them? And which of those things are undroppable? I don't think there are any that are undroppable.

And Ramana Maharshi has this great thing where he goes, when you're stoking the fire of your own awareness, the last thing you get the fire going, the last thing you throw in is the stick you were stoking the fire of your own awareness, the last thing you get the fire going, the last thing you throw in is the stick you were stoking the fire with. You can even drop your practice. All of it can go. Because you're zero, you're smallest, most irreducible, undividable you. That's the part that knows this.

Whether or not you vibe with this language, but there's a part of you. And I would also recommend Rupert Spira. If you read Being Aware of Being Aware, which is a very short book, and every chapter says the same thing. You can just read the first chapter. I know Richard Rohr, but I haven't read that book. Rupert is a beautiful non-dual teacher,

but he will just go like, what is it that's aware of your experience? And he's like, that's, nobody's asking that. He says, we're like the screen of a movie and everybody gets so caught up in the content of the movie, just like we do when we watch a movie, that you forget you're looking at a screen, but you're the screen. It's not colored or changed in any meaningful way by the light that's on it. Right now, I'm so, oh, I'm on a podcast. I'm a screen. What is the screen?

What distance is an illusion? Like, this sound is farther than this. It's all happening on the screen of my awareness. And the additional delusion to that is that it's all happening in our head. Right. But that is also just an appearance in consciousness. That's what I, so science, I'm a pro-science person,

I hope I don't have to say that, but science will say, I saw a TED talk where they're like, reality is a greed upon group hallucination, and that's really right on with a lot of mystical traditions. This is Maya, or this is play, is a agreed upon group hallucination. And that's really right on with a lot of mystical traditions. This is Maya or this is play

or whatever you want to say. But they'll say it originates in the brain. So that's like you and I are having a dream and I hold up a ring box and I go, this dream is coming from this box. Like why would a part of the dream be a reliable source of the dream? What the fuck do we know about the mind?

You know what I'm saying? So we're going, it originates in the amygdala of the blah, blah, blah. That's also, you can't remove the observer. It's influencing and part of and drenched in the observed. You are the observed. Right, the idea that there is a self that is observing is a further illusion.

Right. And that that self resides somewhere inside your head. Right. And that's hard. Like, it takes practice to disabuse yourself because it's so entrenched in our deep-rooted attachment to what is real. And just in the way that you learned it, I watched my daughter learn it. Pinching, I feel that, I don't feel that. You know what I mean? Watched her learn it. Right. And this idea that you're sitting over there and I'm over here,

these things are just appearances in consciousness that's right so I don't mean to put the question off but when people say I don't know where to start the power of now by Eckhart Tolle especially him reading it is a really great place to start because everybody

without any practice can listen to someone talking about the quality of the present moment and you start to what happens you start to, what happens? You start to disappear. So the things that are in the way, I am a person, I am an American, I am a man, I am a comedian, all this stuff.

When that goes away and you get really quiet, and yet you're still there, that beingness is a pointer to God. I always say that when Moses met God in the Old Testament, he said, I am that I am. I am, I am. And I always thought God was being kind of cheeky. He's like, I am, forget about it.

You don't need to know I am. He's saying, I am. When you consider this 5,000 years ago, I am amness. I am beingness. And that's not something you need to take from me. You can drop, spelunk into yourself, close your eyes, follow your breath, and try to experience what it feels like to just be a, like a little, be the screen. Yeah. And then when you see that,

okay, so here's another one. Mooji, M-O-O-J-I. He has a meditation called The Invitation to Freedom. It's on iTunes. I believe there's two versions. Just get the cheaper one because they're the same. This dumb dumb bought both. But he goes, he leads you through this meditation

where he goes, come in this room. He's like, but before you come in, leave your shoes outside. I'm not going to do it justice. And he goes, also leave your mind outside, leave your past, leave any fears of your future, leave your identity, just come in as zero. And then when you do that and you know, there's music and there's breathing, it takes you through it. He goes like, let's, let's look at this. Let's look at what you as zero is. And he goes, is there a boundary that you can find? Is there a point where you hit where on the other side of it, it is not? And you just do it.

Like, don't take my word for it. Just go like, okay, where does this end? This infinite spaciousness that I experience so much. It's a what the hell is water moment. I experience the eternal and the infinite so much that I don't even recognize it anymore. So get curious, look for it. What does that practice look like for you on a daily basis? Like how do you stay so connected to that?

Honestly, I love talking about it with you. I told you when I came in, I was having all these emails and losing my mind, getting stressed. So there's always a fresh humbling. It's like veganism. It's like you know this stuff and then you lose it. That's extra annoying.

You're like, it was easier when I didn't even know it. So there's always going to be moments where you forget. But I take comfort in the fact that there are people like Eckhart, like Mooji, like Rupert, like Christ, like whoever, take your pick, that in the same way that my daughter learned I am separate, these people by rote, verily, verily, the word of God, finally reversed the flow of the river. And now they're like, I don't think that way anymore. And then when they are stressed or they're angry, it might happen, but they don't identify with it.

Whereas I do. Right. this into your, you're trying to like bring it into your everyday experience and reminding yourself throughout the day when you lose yourself in emails or whatever, because life is the way that it is. Right. It's like this, this reflex to. It's the pain becomes the reminder, like, like sobriety. It's like, I lose myself. I'm shaking with anger or whatever it might be. That just happened. My dad upset me. It was over that thing that I told you about.

He made me feel bad about my body. So we were talking about that. I got mad. But, you know, a very practical one is reign, recognize, allow, investigate, and nurture. Have you heard that? Probably at some point. It's the way this goes.

Yeah. But when I'm really stuck in myself, you don't judge it. There's nothing gained in going like, I thought I was a spiritual person, and I just called that guy a piece of shit or whatever. I'm meditating. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Recognize, oh, I'm very angry. Except if I feel this way the rest of my life, it's okay. Your brain has no idea what to do with that. Your pain has no idea. A big practice, a mantra of mine is yes, thank you. Something goes terrible, the flight is canceled, whatever. Yes. Yes, thank you. It has no idea what to do with that. It just... When you remove the resistance. Short circuits it.

Yeah, because it's the resistance and the attachment that creates the suffering. That's right. And then, you know, I'm going off what I was about to say, but this is more important. Byron Katie is a huge teacher of mine and the work. And if you read Loving What Is, that's a life-changing book. And you can do something called the work. So you're suffering Loving What Is, that's a life-changing book. And you can do something called the work. So you're suffering because your flight is delayed. Let's look at the beliefs. This airline doesn't care about me. Or I'm not safe unless this airline loves me.

You know, you can unpack it. Flight should never be delayed. Is that true? No. But people don't stop. Is that true? My dad should not say things that unintentionally hurt my feelings. He does. He did. So why am I pushing up against reality?

Well, it's also the idea that we know what's in our best interest, or we know the difference between what is good and bad for us. Let's do it. So my dad doesn't understand me. Is that true? Do you know another person's interior reality? Do you know what their intention are or what they feel? Do you even know what you feel?

Like, it's so much more amorphous, but we walk around going like, I have been slighted, I've been attacked. So the work is huge. I've been doing it every morning since I had that little test. And what is, so it's, you just walk through that process? Like, what does that look like? My father doesn't understand me. Let's take that one. Um, is it true is the first one. And let's say you're really angry. You go, yeah, it's true. He doesn't understand me. The one is, can you be absolutely certain that that's true?

I love it. It just makes me smile. Can you be absolutely certain that your dad doesn't understand you? And you're like, no, no. You have to find a real no. And maybe even say yes. You get to keep going either way. But usually, I've been doing it long enough that when I get the thought out,

and the way you get to those thoughts, journal like you're five years old. Dad's going to kill me. Dad's going to eat me. I'm not safe if my parents aren't happy, was one that I just did. The next one is, how do you feel when you believe it? My dad doesn't understand why.

I feel alone. I feel isolated. I feel dad doesn't understand why. I feel alone. I feel isolated. I feel sad. I feel depressed. I feel angry. I feel cold. I feel ashamed. All of those are true.

But you feel justified in that emotion. Yeah, and I feel self-righteous. Yeah, exactly. Self-righteous. That's good. I don't normally do the positive ones, but yeah, I feel self-righteous. Like it is doing something for you. Oh, yeah, exactly. Self-righteous, that's good. I don't normally do the positive ones, but yeah, feel self-righteous. Like it is doing something for you. Oh yeah, yeah.

It's scapegoating as well. And then the next one is, how would you feel if you didn't believe the thought? And you go, if I didn't believe that my dad doesn't understand me, I'd go, I'd feel spacious. I'd feel free. I'd feel happy.

I'd be light. I'd feel free. I'd feel happy. I'd be light. I'd be clear. I'd be whatever. All those words pretty much mean the same. And also maybe uncomfortable because you no longer have a handy antagonist. Yeah, humble. To channel your weird emotions. That's right. Yes. Then the next step is you do the turnaround. My dad does understand me. And you come up with three examples of how that's true. And you go, this guy raised me. He's been watching me closely. You know, you go, he knows this, this and this and this and this. You start getting, you list those things. And then you go, I don't understand my father. How is that true? Oh, you know, I'm not really making that much effort to understand him. I'm really just kind of painting him how I see fit, how I get angry or whatever. And then so you do the turnaround.

And I think that's the last step. It's really, really powerful. When you start writing down your suffering thoughts, the first step is actually the most powerful. When I told you I did the work on, I am not safe unless my parents are happy. Or my father cannot connect and engage. You start getting real and going like, my father cannot connect and engage in a way that I understand connecting and engaging. He's never going to talk like you and I are talking. Or in the way that you would prefer.

Okay, so then my father needs to connect and engage with me in a way that I prefer for me to be safe. Get the fuck out of here. There's a holy laughter in going like, where did I get that? Well, when you were a child, these people literally kept you alive and you're still holding on to that.

And you go, how is it not true? Well, I've been safe all this time. That's a pretty big evidence. You're still alive. I'm still alive. I'm fine. There's two people in Boston in their 80s farting into a sofa, and I think they're as if I could know their emotional state,

and I think that emotional state hinges on my physical safety. You wouldn't believe what you believe. You wouldn't believe what you believe. And what you believe, you'll take it because the zero of nobodiness is so uncomfortable that you'd rather be angry than happy. The zero of nobodiness. Wait, explain that.

I just mean if I drop my anger and I'm just saying and loving what is, loving and accepting what is, I start to get a little shaky. I don't think I exist. So you ever catch yourself loving that you're late to the airport? Because you're fucking real.

God damn it. I have a show tonight in St. Louis. What the fuck? You're so alive. You're the center of the universe. And if you're like a little hermit and you go, flights are delayed, you know, you start to vanish and the ego gets shaky

and it would rather you pick a fight. Yeah, or it's going to grab onto something that asserts that it exists in the world. And those tend to be those trusty opinions that we assemble to construct what we believe is our identity. Because you don't remember that your father is the king. And I know that sounded so Christian. It made my deck go inside my body.

But it's like you don't remember that being is safe. It's trustworthy. You don't remember that being is safe, it's trustworthy. That this idea that something made you to judge you, to then torture you, that's the ego's thought system. That's this weird, separate, scared, kill-or-be-killed thing that we've found ourself in. That's not ultimate reality. And the more you taste that, the more you trust it,

the more you go, okay, the flight's delayed. What trips you up the most these days? My parents. It's still... Yeah. Isn't that fucked up? When does it end? I know, like, you moved out.

How old were you? I was 22, 21. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't living at home, but I mean, I left moved out, how old were you? I was 22, 21. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't living at home, but I mean, I left Boston when I was 22. So that was another parents and then they're sort of made gelatinous by Boston. Right.

Like there's more power there. Yeah, yeah. So I get that. Yeah, it's crazy. Fucking 57. Yeah. I'm a little sad to hear that you're still... I've come a long way, Pete.

Yeah. There's still work there that needs to get done. You know what I mean? And, buddy, in this conversation, in this womb-like abyss, I feel safe being like, and that's okay. But when I'm mad at my folks, it's, it's, it takes over completely. You know, I'm doing a joke about it. That's how I process it.

I go, every time I've wanted my father to apologize to me for hurting my feelings, I end up apologizing to him for having hurt feelings. That's how it's, I've never gotten like a, oh, really? Oh, I'm sorry. Jeez. Yeah, and you never will, right? And you're the one who suffers. And I suffer.

And the path to freedom is forgiveness. And forgiveness comes in the form of that type of contrary action. But, okay, so I have a lot to say about forgiveness, but like, so A Course in Miracles, it's a little advanced. I wouldn't ask anybody to start on A Course in Miracles, but if you've been on the spiritual path a long time, you might want to check it out. But there's a great line. It's like a jailer is not free. He's bound with his prisoner. That image is just so powerful to me. I'm keeping my parents in jail, like being righteously mad at

them, but I'm the fucking idiot jailkeeper that has to live in the prison with them like I'm suffering so forgiveness, intellectual forgiveness sort of isn't really great mercy, divine mercy comes from not an intellectual oh they did the best they could and consider

where they were coming from and I can let that go it all worked out. All that shit is nothing. Father Greg Boyle, who's another huge teacher of mine, he's a beautiful man. He said, forgiveness is overrated. Mercy is where it's at. And mercy comes from me recognizing that you and I are actually the same thing. And when you can experience that really deep down, then you can actually forgive because you recognize it's really just our dream and you're just kind of here so I can learn who I am. And if I want to know that God loves me, I have to practice by loving you. It's not just to be a good person.

I give you the forgiveness that I want. I want salvation, so I give it to you. It's not just to be a good person. I give you the forgiveness that I want. I want salvation, so I give it to you. That's kind of the whole thing. And draw that distinction between that action and this notion of mercy, like mercy being a disabusing oneself of the duality, right? Yeah. Mercy is always there. That's the differentiation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the practice of that when you feel impulsed by your father to carry on the example. Well, I can't do it in real time.

I have to do it slowly. But that stickiness, that static of trying to unpack it and work with it is the difficult wrestle to get me to a place where I'm like, oh, I forgot again, I forgot again. And the forgiveness comes, is more of the intellectual exercise.

And that can be useful too. In fact, with my parents, I don't know if mercy can be hard to come by. It can take three, four, five, six, seven, eight weeks to get to mercy. Forgiveness, here's a great tip. This is what I do when I'm trying to forgive somebody, even if it's- Your mercy hack?

This is my forgiveness hack. I don't know if it's quite mercy. But I go, if I were them, I'd be them. And that sounds like the most basic thing in the world. So my dad, or let's pick somebody on the highway. Somebody cuts me off and their bumper sticker is covered in all sorts of politics I don't agree with. And I'm mad at them. And that works in real time. You go, if I were them, I'd be them. Meaning if you had grown up the way they grew up, had all of the life experiences that they had, were raised by the parents that that person had, et cetera, and had the warning they were having, you would make every decision exactly the way that they have we are so much less fixed than we think we are meaning if i moved to i i never want to say a specific say because i don't want to say it's backwoods or something

but if i moved to like a rural southern place would i shift like would i start to kind of maybe i'd buy a shotgun because there's bears or something? Yeah, probably something like that. Maybe. I don't know. Just in the same way that a lot of people that are from certain rural areas moved to Manhattan, they get a little, they get a lot more gay friendly. They tend to be when there's 150,000 gay people and some of them are your friends, your politics start to change. So who are we? What's going on? Let's go easy on yourself. Like you're changing all the time.

Right. The ego hates that though. The ego wants to believe everything is static and is very attached to this identity. Yeah. That it has crafted. Right. And doesn't want you understanding

the illusory nature of that. That's right. It's very threatened by that. And even things like, I'm not a murderer. And then you put me in a post-apocalyptic situation you understanding the illusory nature of that that's right it's very threatened by that and even things like i'm not a murderer and then you put me in a post-apocalyptic situation where a guy's coming at me with a baseball bat with knives in it suddenly i'm a murderer you know what i mean like what is it what's going on like you can take yourself less seriously but going back to the if i were them i'd be them that does help real time. I wish my mom would understand this issue of this.

Well, if I was born in that family in Lithuania and left when I was seven fleeing World War II and went to school in South Boston, all that stuff, if I were them, I'd be them. And you don't even have to know them. Fucking Trump, oh God, what an idiot. If I was him, I'd be him. You know how I know?

Because he's him. He's him. And if I were in that, I'd be doing the exact same thing. Hmm. Because I'd be him. Yeah. All the good ones are so obvious

that it's like carrying a wet stone from the ocean. It dries up by the time you get to the beach. But it's frustrating. It's annoying that that's the way that it is. I know. You want to go behind the velvet rope. Yeah, and just go, I get it now. That's the answer?

Again, it's the same answer? Yeah. Well, believe me, man, you go on these psychedelic things, meditation things, and you always end up at the same thing. The prodigal son, the punchline Like the prodigal son, the punchline of the prodigal son, the father says, you're always with me and everything I have is yours. That's the punchline. And that's always the punchline. And yet our shame gets kicked in.

The fact that we poop three times a day or whatever it is, the fact that we were horny and we're mad and we go, there's no way dad's going to accept me back over and over and over and over. And that's just how it goes. It's a wave. It's up and down and up and down. Yeah. Well, I think that's a good place to land the plane. It's up and down and it's up and down.

It's up and down, baby. Beautiful, man. Wow. That was amazing. I really appreciate it. Yeah, it was really cool. Isn't it funny? You came in at the beginning and you're all like email and you were you know i was like is this gonna be okay and then you you warmed up to it i shouldn't have yeah i hate emails no it's funny conversations

like this or it's all an excuse to hang out is another sort of mantra of mine yeah i'm like i'm so glad that we could do it isn't't it funny that I'm just like, check out my special on Netflix. I know. God is everything. And if you're like freaking out because Pete was coming in hot with the heaviness, don't worry.

There's like handjob jokes and all kinds of insanity. So it's a good time, man. Yeah. It's on, that's on Netflix. Oh, on the Netflix. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, the special isn't really like this. It's, it's. Pete Holmes is not for everyone. It's on, that's on Netflix. Oh, on the Netflix. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, the special isn't really like this. It's, it's Pete Holmes is not for everyone. It's called,

I am not for everyone. Yeah. Yeah. Cool, man. Uh, well I'd like to continue the conversation, not necessarily in a podcast, man. That was super fun. I appreciate it, man. Yeah. Thank you. Uh, we'll link everything up in the show notes. Check out the special, check out, you made it weird. You've been at it for a long time. I love your show, man. Thanks. Good. Keep doing it. Peace.

Right on. Plants. That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change in the Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. plantpowermealplanner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and or comment. Supporting the sponsors who support

the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg, graphic and

social media assets courtesy of Daniel Solis. Thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love. Love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste. Thank you.