Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal - Egyptologist Interviews Curt on Love, Truth, God, Childhood

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

Egyptologist Interviews Curt on Love, Truth, God, Childhood

This is a special episode where someone else interviewed me, and I'm mirroring it here. As many people seem to enjoy the interviews of me for whatever reason. Unfortunately here, with the audio version, you don't get to see my lustrous and dashing good looks. However, you can click the URL in the description for the video version. Lucas Voss, a university scholar of ancient Egypt, interviewed me for his channel called Lucas Voss. He asked me about love, truth, God, my childhood, faith, and Carl Jung. I hope you enjoy it and ensure that you check out his channel

which is again linked in the description. Hello there friends, my name is Lucas and today I had the absolute pleasure of hosting Kurt Jaimungal on this channel. Kurt is a filmmaker and host of the Theories of Everything channel. This channel will be familiar to a lot of you, if it isn't please check it down below. I will say beforehand my internet connection was a little bit unstable near the end so I

had to edit out just a little bit of footage but overall I think it gels pretty well. I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation. For me it was one of my all-time favorites. I can already say that with certainty Kurt is one of the most authentic people I've ever met so please enjoy recording in progress it's said so okay there we go I'm gonna keep that in that's okay welcome back to the channel guys and joined here by Kurt Jai Mongo it's an absolute honor to have you thank you for coming on Kurt. Thank you so much Lucas I appreciate that. I've been following your channel for a couple of years and I don't think I have the exact capacity to keep up with all your episodes but sometimes

there's a more philosophical one that's a bit less hard physics or hard mathematics and then I just I can listen to them on repeat and keep finding new insights. So I think you're doing a wonderful job with that. I think that you sound almost exactly like Ryan Gosling. Oh, has anyone ever told you that? No, but I like his voice. OK, yeah, if anyone's listening, just close your eyes and picture Ryan Gosling. And it's almost like how you look anyhow.

Thank you. Thank you. I'll take that. I wanted to start with the question I ask a lot of my guests, and that is about your childhood, and I'd like to know what that was like if you want to share some of that. Yeah, I was a regular. Well, I wasn't a popular kid nor an unpopular kid. I was, I didn't have plenty of pressure from my parents to do any, to go into any field. Though when I was young, my dad did teach me chess, like hardcore.

I was like, since I was three years older, so, and took me to chess tournaments, taught me math, high level math when I was smaller. And so that framed me in an analytical way, a logical way. Never liked to do projects with my hands. I don't care about woodworking. I don't care about fixing around the house, like plumbing. I don't care about woodworking. I don't care about fixing around the house like plumbing. I don't care about any of that. I like puzzles. I like to think. And that's always been with me. Yeah, I would. I. Yeah, anything else? What in particular do you want to know about my childhood? Because I can go on for hours. Yeah, no, I understand. I understand. I'll think about what is relevant. Already, this is very telling for me.

It's the way it shapes your mind because I contacted you initially saying that I like the way your mind works because it's quite different for me. I'm not able to go into that conceptual space as deeply as you are, I think. And I like to be also a bit more embodied. But yeah, sometimes I've heard glimpses of you in your childhood thinking about God, for example, or that you maybe decided at some point that you think God doesn't exist because you had a certain thing that maybe your brother said to you. As a child, were you thinking about these deeper questions

you're tackling right now already? Or were you just more of a kid that thought about school and just normal things? Well, when I was eight, I started to think about that. So when I was eight, I remember asking my brother about. How could the universe have come into existence? Why something rather than nothing? And for some reason, that was the last linchpin of God in my life. And my brother had said, because he was studying physics at the time, he said, he told me about quantum fluctuations. And I'm old enough now to know that that's not actually an explanation. But at the

time I thought it was. And so I thought I had the last piece of the puzzle. I remember lying in my bed and staring at the ceiling and thinking, okay, then not only does there not need to be God, but if there's no need to be a God, then somehow there isn't a God. And ever since then I became this, this whippersnapping, pretentious, orgy-less young man with a superiority complex over anyone who was cretent enough to believe in, in so-called religion or follow so-called, especially institutional religion because isn't it obvious? Like all institutions are corrupt. Yes. Yeah, as if you're not corrupt. As if I'm not corrupt. As if, as if, yeah. As if I'm

not more corrupt, like, way more, well. And as if there's not far more good in other organizations and other places than I think. In the same way that I underestimate my own maliciousness I underestimate the goodness in others or the goodness in other places. Yeah, that brings true to me as well. I had a similar journey of getting to that realization. Actually, today is funny story. I live in in The Hague, which is like the political capital of the of the Netherlands, let's say. And in my teenage years, I got more and more suspicious of politicians and that

in general. And today I saw the prime minister, who used to be prime minister, at least, and he was just in a bookshop, you know, just picking out some books, just lounging around. And I looked at that guy and I wanted to speak to him just to say hi, whatever. And what he left quite shortly after. And I was like, this is a normal, a normal dude. And that was the prime minister, he said? Yeah. And I think he's got, he's got goodness in him regardless. I'm sure of that actually. And it made it harder for me to be that suspicious self or that self that seeks corruption in others. And that's something I'm generally trying to do less of because I'm seeing how it is unproductive for me to view people as corrupt or institutions for that matter.

And I like that you're critical of yourself as well. And the other way, I think it's extremely helpful and I think it shows in your case that you work on that. So yeah. Well, I have a policy in myself to assume maliciousness, selfishness or indolence. So like laziness rather than any goodness in myself. And there are many, many examples in my life of that. One that comes to mind, I think I've said this before, is one time I was washing the dishes at my sister's house and she came home and then she was like, oh, why are you washing the dishes? And I said, well, I wanted you to.

I didn't want you to come home to a dirty place, something like that. But then I was analyzing myself like that. That doesn't feel right. It just didn't. It didn't jive exactly. And and I realized the reason I was washing the dishes was because I had known she was coming home around then. So I want her to see me washing the dishes. She thinks I'm someone who helps clean up. Not only that, so that she can have evidence, okay, Kurt cleans, but furthermore, so that

she can clean something else that I don't have to clean. So I can say, look, I'm cleaning up. I want you to do so and so, but all of that's under the surface. And it took some examination for me to to see that that tiny, tiny situation had revealed such like a Pandora's box of a foolishness on my part and folly. Does that then not translate to other people in your case? Because you say you do the opposite with what I think you said, institutions. Do you know I can distrust myself and trust others?

So I think that's a great policy because distrust breeds mistrust. And I and there are some game theoretic arguments about tit for tat. And like, yes, so yes, I'm sure you're aware okay that you should start off with a policy of trust and then you amend it when there's evidence but you start off by opening your hand and allowing others to snap it and then even afterward even after you've been burned that the correct path is to still put your hand forward and say I know that you've hurt me I know that I can get

hurt again but I'm I'm willing to pay that price. Well, did it take long for you to be able to trust people or were you already trusting as a child or was it something that came and went? I don't know. I don't know. I'm not. I would have said something that personally, I don't say that I trust people. I work on trusting. I don't think I trust enough. I also I don't like this phrase trust but verify.

That's something that came to mind. Yes, that's the big tree I'm sure you've heard that. Yes. Oh, OK. Because trust, but verify is a contradiction. Like unless I don't unless they have some other definition of trust. How do you mean something that sounds because if you trust, why would you verify? So let's say you say four times four to the power of six is 4000. Then I can trust you or I can verify that and say

it's four thousand ninety six. So. I can trust what you're saying or I can verify what you're saying, but they're not entirely the. If I trusted what if I trust my computer, I don't verify it. I don't understand what the difference is. OK, no, I see what the big corner say is they say don't trust. But yes, OK, yes, OK see what the big corner say is they say don't trust. But yes. OK, yes.

OK, don't trust, but verify. That's what they do because of the third party element. OK, that makes sense. And you're told that were your parents religious at all? So my dad was. Indu, I believe, before he got married, and my mom was Muslim before she got married.

And then somehow around the time of them getting united, they became Christian. So my dad and my mom are to this day Christian, and I was raised Christian. Just a non-denominational Christian. Yes. Okay. Did you part from that at all?

Yeah, when I was eight. Okay. That was like definite. Yeah. That's beautiful. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

And I, I've departed quite heavily from that since I was eight to the point of attacking it and feeling like I was. I was in it, and this sounds like a. So it's funny choice of word, but holier than it. Hmm. Yeah, I've been through that. I remember thinking because there's Pascal's wager. I remember thinking from a young age that the foolish wager, because if I was thinking, because there's Pascal's wager, I remember thinking from a young age, that's a foolish wager, because if I was God, I would punish people who believed because

they're just believing out of nonsense and I would be the rational God who would reward those who didn't believe in me. Yeah, I remember saying that to my dad. He almost cried. I feel so sorry for you, son. Something like that. I think I'd like to speak a bit about your relationship to your wife. I think it's always very wonderful to hear you speak about her.

Can you tell me how you met her? Yeah, she was my stylist, my hair stylist. Seriously. Yeah. That's why many people... That's why your hair is so good. Yeah, they'll say you have great hair in almost every... Hopefully they don't say almost every episode. And yeah, it's because my wife...

You style it yourself now before you go out there? I style it myself but she cuts it. She makes sure that it's fresh. Do you do it often? Do I get my hair cut often or style it often? Yeah, I get my hair cut fairly often. Too much for her actually. It's really her position.

Okay, that's good. See, there's this phrase that if you want to be liberal or creative, then you need to be conservative in every aspect of your life other than where you want to be creative. And the reason is that Carl Jung was asked about Nietzsche. Why is it that Nietzsche fell prey to suicide and psychosis? And Karl said that Nietzsche had no ground and so it was just all air and you need both otherwise you're like the guy from up just with balloons floating about with no home even. So, so for me, I have my conservative aspects are that I work at the same time, like I have a regimented schedule, I eat fairly much, pretty much the same, I try to go to

sleep at the same time, although I have extreme problems, man, like we can talk about that. For those who don't know, me and Lucas had this podcast scheduled yesterday and I have problems sleeping like, like you wouldn't believe it wastes hours and hours and hours. Like, like, I think that if I could get my sleep sorted out, I could be twice as productive. And, and I'm already like, I already work hard,, I could be twice as productive and I'm already like I already work hard. Like I can work twice as hard or do twice as much. I laid in bed when I sent you that message, Lucas. People don't know I sent Lucas a message at 3 a.m. I don't know if it was I was irascible and it could have been angry.

I apologize if I said no, no, no, I don't know what I'm saying and when I'm in that state, I was just I sent a message also to my guy who helps with the marketing of this, of this podcast as well. I think I was criticizing him. I was almost so I don't swear even Lucas like I don't swear. I think I almost warred him. I was so upset him laying in bed for eight hours. Yes, eight hours laying in bed is such a waste of time. My doctor said don't lay in bed for more than a half hour to one hour. If you're not sleeping get up and go and do something. Yeah. Because otherwise you associate your bed with not sleep. I've heard that, yeah. And so I've associated my bed with not sleep for way too long. Like staying awake for four hours is

common to me. Like that's every night. Well, anyhow, and I got this eight sleep recently. So we'll see how that goes. And that night when I texted you, my eight sleep broke in the middle of the night and I was so upset because I couldn't get the water to refill it. There's something that didn't break,

but it needed refilling of water. Anyhow, I apologize for whatever I said to you. Oh, I think it was a beautiful message actually, because I was just reading it and I was like, this is how Kurt thinks. I just heard the inner monologue. It was very... But I felt bad mostly for you. For me, it's not a problem. I'm a student. I don't have a busy schedule like you do, so I'm all good. What are you studying? Egyptology. and I don't have a busy schedule like you do, so I'm all good. But study. Egyptology.

Oh, wonderful. I was extremely fascinated. I memorized all the like almost all the Egyptian gods at one point. Oh, I barely know that. Yeah, it was just for fun. Yeah, there's a God for so much. There was there's a crocodile God. Oh, I wish I had. I wish I had this in my memory.

There's a God. There was a God for bartering. I'm sure there is. If they have a God for everything, they've got for when someone cuts you off in traffic and doesn't give you. Yeah, I think that. What do you actually make of that? What are gods to you?

Actually, I asked this to John for Fakie and he gave really for Fakie an answer. He said that they are transjective. You know, that's the type of stuff he would say. Yeah, gods are. I don't know, firstly, I don't know I It could be said that what gods are are gods are Are yeah, this is correct

Checking the grammar there, but they are grammar there. But they are like, if you have a value, what you should have is one overarching value so that all of your goals, your sub goals are united, akin to an organization that is working toward one, one aspect or one land. And, and gods are when it's no, it's not one, you're working on two or three or four different lanes. And it's my understanding of religion that across time, you see a collapsing of multi gods to more and more single gods, except in the case of Christianity, that was the first time that it had broken that and said what is one is actually three, but then it didn't go from three to

ten to twenty. Yes. Go like that. I understand. Although in some ways you can think of Catholicism as adopting that a bit with the people, the statues that they pray to, but it's not exactly the same. So anyhow, the gods can be akin to fractionated values or contradictory values, indicative of someone who's not united or individuated.

But that just means it's all of us that we all worship gods because none of us are these perfect individuated beings, not even Jung, not even Carl Jung. Okay. I actually did research about this, my thesis is about a specific text, theological text from Egypt, where seemingly they speak of one God as the ultimate God and all gods are manifestations of this God. And so. It's not exactly monotheism what they have there. Maybe they call it henotheism. I don't know if you're familiar with this. Henotheism is belief in one God without denying the others. Yes. So that they still exist.

It's interesting because it happens multiple times in Egyptian history and Egyptian texts, and they all seem completely contradictory. It's like this God is the one and then that God is the upper God. I'm just reading this through my Christian lens, I guess, or Western lens. You know, how can you reconcile these realities? And apparently it didn't matter because they didn't think about false or correct like we do. We have a false or correct religion. If you're a religious person, your religion is correct.

If it's one of the three Western ones, but for them it wasn't like that. It was it was more about sacred or profane, I guess. But I don't want to drift off and talk about that. That's terribly interesting, terribly interesting. I know I. Can you tell me more? Can I tell you more? Well, what's really cool about this specific God that in this specific document is being

called the one is that His name means hiddenness or something like that. Hiddenness. Yeah. So, His name is Amun. Maybe you've heard it and it comes from the verb Iman which means to hide or to conceal. And one of the reasons why they put him on top is because he doesn't have a name because when you have a name, you hold power over someone. And so I read this text, I read it for the first time. I basically went to my supervisor being like, I'm not sure what I want to do, but I have

these interests. And I spoke about Rene Girard and I spoke about sacrifice and I spoke about religion and he gave me this text and I started reading and I was like, this is, I kind of agree with it. I started reading it. I was like, this very much aligns with the way I think about it. Because I call myself a Christian and perhaps because I don't feel my faith is exclusive, maybe I'm not allowed to wear that title. But to me, I understand the idea of other gods existing.

To me, I see people in my daily life worshipping other gods. That's normal every day happening for me. So I don't reject their existence. And I know Jonathan. I reject their sacredness. I reject putting them on top. I reject. Oh, do you?

Yeah, go ahead. Then would they be more profane, those gods or those people who worship the gods? I guess if your highest God is not God in his totality, then you are going to be, I don't really like the word profane, but you're going to be less aligned, I guess. As you see that in people a lot when their highest God is money or lust, I guess that results in a misalignment. That's I guess how I would view it. I don't think those, but with lust, it's hard to argue for lust in many cases as a good

thing. But, for example, in Egypt, there's a very interesting example. You know Seth as a god. Yeah. He is, as Peterson describes, he's chaos. And a lot of people instantly, Peterson even links him to the devil, which I think is pretty funny because he's like set and then he looks at the root and he thinks it's Satan as possible. But the Egyptians didn't see him as bad necessarily. You could also channel him, channel chaos. When you go to war, maybe you channel

Seth. Maybe Seth is necessary to banish out other gods. When the Egyptians have snakes on their heads, the snakes are kind of dangerous and bad, but also they protect. So it's something like that. But yeah. Trying to remember this interview is about you. So I'm going to try to zoom out a bit unless you have anything to add to that. But otherwise, I know. But I have many questions which I'll ask you about later, either off air or toward the end.

Okay, you can do that. You can do that. This is a question I've been meaning to ask you because you already pulled up Carl Jung and Nietzsche. And I was wondering what it is that grounds you because you are someone that thinks a lot and deeply. And I've been in those spaces a little bit in my life and I realized that for me, I need really something embodied. And I know that you don't, as a kid,

you told me you don't like those embodied type of things. You didn't like woodworking, you don't like working on things. For me, those are the exact things that get me out. So is there something that grounds you? Well, math grounds me. I know that's odd, but math has saved me, like psychologically saved me quite a few times, because some of the topics that are on the Toe Channel are quite heavy, quite quite heavy, and can send you or send me especially to a place where it's not a pleasant place at all.

And math is so abstract that it's a reprieve from the tyranny of the concrete. Now, also what grounds me is my wife, of course, my wife, like most of all my wife, spending time with her is something that's important to me. We have what are called us days, which are just like date days where we just go, we walk and walk and bike and, and we rarely eat at a restaurant, we'll take bites and walk because we love to just walk and talk. We don't want to just sit around and wait for food. So that grounds me and that's important to me.

I ensure that there's a part of my week, we both ensure there's a part of our week that we can do that with one another at least one day a week. So that grounds me I go to the gym and I don't listen to anything when I'm at the gym no music no podcasts and I just but I think and So I use it to think but it grounds me as well. Mm-hmm So I was thinking as you said you like to be embodied. And I've recently started taking up swimming lessons. Because I don't, I know how to swim, but barely.

But it doesn't ground me. I was thinking, does it ground me? No, no, it flounders me. Oh my gosh, it's a frightening experience. Yeah. But I'm surprised I'm way better at it than I thought. Like I made tremendous progress on my first, my first lesson and my second lesson. Like I can float on my back. I never thought I could. And, and I thought I would just sink and she was showing me, okay, even if you do sink, here's what you do is it's actually, now that I think about it, metaphorically, it may save me later. Because I know there are certain tools that you can gain from the physical world that can be applied to the spiritual one and vice versa.

And so I think this is going to be one of the first instances where I take something that's physical and I find the connection to the numinous. Okay, that's a good answer. I find the connection to the numinous. Hmm. Okay. That's a good answer. I'm happy you have some practices like that. You enjoyed the gym? I hate it and I love it at the same time. Like I almost always dread that I have to go, but I go. And toward the end of the workout, I'm just like, I just, for instance, before we

started speaking, I came back from the gym recently and it makes me out of breath, makes me feel sometimes I feel like I want to throw up. It depends on how hard I work out, but I feel great, like fantastic afterward. And especially Lucas, like I love to eat. I love to eat. I love to pig out. Like I'm a, I'm someone who there's a feast and famine. There's a phrase called feast and famine. So you fast and then you just overeat. I'm somewhat like that, somewhat like that, like surf it. So I gorge myself way past the point of comfort. But I just love it. And I have to work out in order to make sure that that's somewhat healthy and not

overly unhealthy. Yeah, I recognize that. And I would so much now. Yeah, I used to do fasting and I ate once a day Yeah night and really helped me with my focus during the day. But at night I would go crazy at a while I just make pancakes every day That was on It was also because you eat once a day. You have to eat that much actually to maintain your weight

But yeah Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, especially if you're building muscle, it's not great to do intermittent fasting. It's difficult. Yes, I experience that yeah, I Think I only recently found that out. So I've been intermittent fasting for maybe three years or so and I was wondering I'm like man. I'm going in the gym all the time like I'm I'm fit but why aren't I gaining more muscle like I'm like, man, I'm going to the gym all the time. Like I'm I'm fit. But why aren't I gaining more muscle like I'm gaining it so extremely slowly? Yeah. And then I believe I watched some Peter Attia video.

I had the exact same. Right. You know what's pernicious about this, Kurt? This is what's pernicious about this. Peter Attia, my friend, he told me he's like, you got to do fasting once a day. Right. So I listened to Peter. I was into Huberman before he had his podcast. I just always followed what they were doing.

Peter Attia was eating once a day for years. And then all of a sudden, Peter Attia changes his mind and he starts building muscle like a maniac. He's like, you don't it's not good to eat once a day or to do that for muscles. So I had the exact same journey. And then I just stopped. Well, there's, yeah, I heard that there's, well, I saw that there's an article that came out either today or within the week that said that intermittent fasting is associated with

a 91% increased risk of cardiovascular damage or heart attacks or whatever. Maybe I don't think that's the case. I find when you look into studies like that, they, it doesn't, it doesn't work out, but, and it was, it was a correlation. So the cause could be that when you intermittent, when you fast intermittently, you have less lean mass, lean, you have less muscle and the less muscle is worse for you Systemically. Yes, I understand that can lead to the higher heart. It's I mean it could be such a loose connection like that. Yeah but but intermittent fasting is great for For that

quote-unquote autophagy, yes and that well quote-unquote autophagy yes and lowering risks of cancer and so on so there are benefits mm-hmm I never found it increased focus though I never found anything like Lucas man I have tried nootropics of all sorts I never found that anything increases my focus or my my quickness my quickness. I found that plenty can dull it. Like ADHD medication would dull me. Yes. I know many people are like, oh I can't wait to try to do whatever it is. I'm stimulant. I've never found anything to provide a benefit to my intelligence or articulation or creativity, especially.

So not even fasting, not even intermittent fasting, it's just all the same. So, yes, no, I get that. I think it's more like what you say. You found things that make it worse. And fasting for me is one of the ways of doing something that doesn't make it worse because then I don't eat. I think about food. Well, I used to think about food all the time, which is why I started the fasting. That's what removed my focus.

The fasting increased my focus by me not having to think about food, but it's not, I don't know if it's a cognitive enhancer. It's just a fault. When I did my first four day fast, I, I realized how much time I spent not only thinking about food, but preparing food or going out to eat or cooking or whatever it may be. And then you have so much more time. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it. I was also single at the time. so life was just a read for the whole day. That's a...

I don't want those times anymore, but there was something beautiful about them. Uh-huh. Are you living with your partner now? Yes, yes, we're engaged, so... Oh, wonderful. Congratulations. Thank you, man. Thank you. It's kind of a weird thing to do these days. Are you frightened? Are you afraid? Are you exhilarated?

I feel that it's a natural progression. And I decided to want to get married when I was. Nineteen. And so. Being 22 now, it doesn't feel weird. I'm happy and I'm excited to do it. And I'm excited to see everyone happy and my family happy and her happy and to to take that commitment to another level. But it feels for the both of us more like showing it to the other world than the commitment was already there.

It's now just. Yeah, I guess sharing it. So that's what I feel about it. Yeah, no. But you got married. That's also. Yeah. It's quite a I don't know. It feels it feels kind of. Weird to do these days, but I'm I'm happy to do it.

I think it's it's important. So, speaking of individuation and speaking about what you had mentioned as currently we think about truth as, I'm sorry, we think about religions as true or not true. We've gotten into this frame since the enlightenment and we think of truth as facts, facts that are disclosed to me, to me as the person, as the individual. I was speaking to my friend, Matthew, not sure if you know him and I'll tell you his last name affair because I'm unsure if he's comfortable with me sharing his information. But Matthew but Matthew was saying that in Christianity, the well ever since ever since the ever since Kant formally separated the transcendental so truth, beauty, and which used to be tied together.

Yes. Yeah. Yes, I know, yeah. That Marx and Nietzsche came in and said, okay, what truth is, is this disclosure of facts, and that you'll always be suspicious and feel like they're hidden agendas. It's something else I dislike about the UFO scene, is that it seems like they have the framing completely incorrect, where it's, there's a concept called hermeneutics of suspicion, where you'll always be suspicious of the next facts, whatever is disclosed to you, you can always feel like that's not enough and there's never a resolution. And truth has become about an uncovering of facts to me, rather than a participation in something beautiful, which is tied to love. Yes.

Yes. So I feel like the entire framing is incorrect. And it's so difficult to articulate because our entire culture is based off of truth equals facts equals rationality. You're so deep into the trenches of that. Yes. Yeah. trenches of that. Yes. Yeah, I recognize that. But that's why.

Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. No, continue. That's why what? For me, the answer is applying the human ethics of beauty instead, which is something that for Vicky speaks about. And so that's actually it goes back to what I spoke about before about me being suspicious about politicians and all these things, politicians and corrupt institutions. Yes.

It's a lens at the end of the day. And the hermeneutics or the interpretation of reality I have now is one of beauty, I guess, love. and it helps me and I've actually argued before that I think that's more real but I'm not going to put that in a math equation that will probably fail but it feels more real to me. Yeah it also leads to a sense of hopelessness and cynicism and then because people can't deal with their people don't want to be this. People don't want hope because they can't deal with their disappointment. And because they can't deal with their disappointment, they then

project this miasma of mistrust and repugnance. So it's not good for them. It's not good for for society. And truth used to be seen as somehow a relationship, not just it's not good for society. And truth used to be seen as somehow a relationship, not just, it's not just a cold hard isolated node to be grasped. But somehow there's a relationship between you and the community. And you participate in your community and you can uncover, it's not even about uncovering truth, it's so difficult for me to say. But anyway, going back to the individual and you talking about being married, Matthew was saying that in Christianity, some interpretations of Christianity is that the individual isn't yourself, it's the family. And so you yourself are not even full, you're not even a whole until you're a part of a

family, until you're married and you have kids. So it's a tripartite individual. That's terribly interesting. And it also, it also makes sense then at another level, I've always wondered why is it that grand parents love their grandkids so much, like so much more than their grand, more than their kids. So the easiest answer is well, more than their grandkids, so the easiest answer is well, they don't have to clean up after them. Okay, that's like such a surface level answer. But I think a cosmic answer that's built into us from our culture could

be at the religious level is that if it's the case that you're not whole until you have your own family, then in some sense, even if I have my family, my family is still not whole until my son or daughter has a family. Because they're still not an individual. And also in some sense, this means while you're a baby, you're more of an individual than you are as an adult. Because when you're an adult, you then have the responsibility of having responsibility. Yes. Being a family. But when you're a kid, you're not. So you're a wholer as a family when you

have a child than when you do when you have an aimless entity just living in your house. And it also reminded me of the Jewish symbol of the star of David, which are interlocked triangles. Because if that's the case in the individual web, the cosmos is net with these triangles. So the tripartite mother, father, children, but then the child is also part of its own triangle and so on. And so you get this, the mathematician would say a simplicial decomposition, which is like a triangulation, but it's more than that because it's an interlocking triangulation. I've heard theories about Christianity or Christ creating the individual as we speak.

And that before that we didn't even have a conception of an individual, let's say. So in ancient Rome, like you say, you wouldn't have the individual, you'd have actually the family. And in Egypt, I did one of my papers about this. Well, you have a lot of words for soul. So that's a bit of a tricky one. But normal people wouldn't have that.

Only the king would have a soul. Only the king would be an individual. And then as the time progresses in the middle kingdom, some rich people get to be an individual as well. And then it democratizes. That's the term they use. But this seems to contradict it, what you say. It's interesting. Some people argue that Christ actually brings the idea of an individual, especially as pertaining to property rights.

But in a way, it's actually not that at all. I think people experience that in their lives when they make it all about them, especially if they're an adult, like you say, not as a baby, because they are just a blog. But yeah, that's that's just something to add. Yeah, I don't know what to think about that, because then it's odd to think that people before Jesus had no soul, but then Jesus brought to them souls so that they can be, I don't know how to make sense of that. But by the way, Hello, dear friends, my name is Lucas and today I had the absolute pleasure of hosting Kurt Jaimungal on this channel. Kurt is a filmmaker and host of the theories of everything channel. This channel will be familiar to a lot of you, but if it isn't, please check it down

below. I will say beforehand, my internet connection was a little bit unstable near the end, so I had to edit out just a little bit of footage, but overall, I think it gels pretty well. I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation. For me, it was one of my all-time favorites. I can already say that with certainty. Kurt is one of the most authentic people I've ever met. So please enjoy. Recording in progress it's said. So, there we go.

I'm going to keep that in. That's beautiful. Welcome back to the channel guys. I'm joined here by Kurt Jaimongo. It's an absolute honor to have you. Thank you for coming on Kurt. Thank you so much Lucas. I appreciate that. I've been following your channel for a couple of years and I don't think I have the exact capacity to keep up with all your episodes, but sometimes there's a more philosophical one that's a bit less hard physics or hard mathematics. And then I just, I can listen to them on repeat and keep finding new insights. So I think you're doing a wonderful job at that.

I appreciate that. Man, you sound almost exactly like Ryan Gosling. Oh, has anyone ever told you that? No, but I like his voice. OK, yeah, if anyone's listening, just close your eyes and picture Ryan Gosling. And that's almost like how you look anyhow. Thank you. Thank you. I'll take that.

I wanted to start with the question I ask a lot of my guests, and that is about your childhood, and I'd like to know what that was like if you want to share some of that. Yeah, I was a regular. Well, I wasn't a popular kid nor an unpopular kid. I was. I didn't have plenty of pressure from my parents to do any to go into any field, though, when I was young, my dad did teach me chess like hardcore. I was like since I was three years older, so

and took me to chess tournaments. Taught me math, highlevel math when I was smaller, and so that framed me in an analytical way, a logical way. Never liked to do projects with my hands. I don't care about woodworking. I don't care about fixing around the house, like plumbing. I don't care about fixing around the house like plumbing. I don't care about any of that. I like puzzles. I like to think and that's always been with me. Yeah, I would uh I yeah anything else? What in particular do you want to know about my childhood? Because I can go on for hours. Yeah, no, I understand. I understand. I'll think about what is relevant. Already this is very telling for me.

It's the way it shapes your mind because I contacted you initially saying that I like the way your mind works because it's quite different for me. I'm not able to go into that conceptual space as deeply as you are, I think. And I like to be also a bit more embodied. But yeah, sometimes I've heard glimpses of you in your childhood thinking about God, for example, or that you maybe decided at some point that you think God doesn't exist because you had a certain thing that maybe your brother said to you. As a child, were you thinking about these deeper questions you're tackling right now already? Or were you just more of a kid that thought about school and just normal things?

Well, when I was eight, I started to think about that. So when I was eight, I remember asking my brother about. How could the universe have come into existence? Why something rather than nothing? And for some reason, that was the last linchpin of God in my life. And my brother had said, because he was studying physics at the time, he said, he told me about quantum fluctuations and I'm old enough now to know that that's

not actually an explanation, but at the time I thought it was. And so I thought I had the last piece of the puzzle. I remember lying in my bed and staring at the ceiling and thinking, okay then, not only does there not need to be God, but if there's no need to be a God, then somehow there isn't a God. And ever since then I became this, this whippersnapping, pretentious, this whippersnapping, pretentious, orgyless young man with a superiority complex over anyone who was cretinous enough to believe in so-called religion, especially institutional religion because isn't it obvious? All institutions are corrupt. Yes. Yeah, as if you're not corrupt. As if

I'm not corrupt as if that's if yeah. As if I'm not more corrupt like way more well. And as if there's others or the goodness in other places. Yeah, that brings true to me as well. I had a similar journey of getting to that realization. Actually, today a funny story. I live in The Hague, which is like the political capital of the Netherlands, let's say. And in my teenage years, I got more and more suspicious

of politicians and that in general. And today I saw the prime minister, we used to be prime minister at least, and he was just in a bookshop, you know, just picking out some books and just lounging around. And I looked at that guy and I wanted to speak to him just to say hi, whatever. And what he left quite shortly after.

And I was like, this is a normal dude. And that was the prime minister, he said? Yeah. And I think he's got goodness in him regardless. I'm sure of that actually. And it made it harder for me to be that suspicious self or that self that seeks corruption in others. And that's something I'm generally trying to do less of because I'm seeing how it is unproductive for me to

view people as corrupt or institutions for that matter. And I like that you're critical of yourself as well. And the other way, I think it's, it's extremely helpful. And I think it shows in your case that you work on that. So yeah. Well, I have a policy in myself to assume maliciousness, selfishness, or indolence, so like laziness, rather than any goodness in myself. And there are many, many examples in my life of that. One that comes to mind, I think I've said this before, is one time I was washing the dishes at my sister's house,

and she came home, and then she was like, oh, why are you washing the dishes? And I said, well, I wanted you to. I didn't want you to come home to a dirty place, something like that. But then I was analyzing myself like that stuff doesn't feel right. Just it didn't jive exactly. And and I realized the reason I was washing the dishes was because I had known she was coming home around then.

So I want her to see me washing the dishes. She thinks I'm someone who helps clean up. Not only that, so that she can have evidence, okay, Kurt cleans, but furthermore, so that she can clean something else that I don't, so that I don't have to clean. So I can say, look, I'm cleaning up. I want you to do so and so, but all of that's under the surface. And it took some examination for me to see that that tiny, tiny situation had revealed such like a Pandora's box of foolishness on my part and folly. Does that then not translate to other people in your case? Because you say you do the opposite with what I think you said, institutions. I can distrust myself and trust others. So I think that's a great policy.

Because distrust breeds mistrust. And there are some game theoretic arguments about tit for tat. So yes, I'm sure you're aware. Okay, that you should start off with a policy of trust and then you amend it when there's evidence. But you start off by opening your hand and allowing others to snap it. And then even afterward, even after you've been burned, that the correct path is to still put your hand forward and say, I know that you've hurt me.

I know that I can get hurt again, but I'm willing to pay that price. Did it take long for you to be able to trust people or were you already trusting as a child or was it something that came and went? I don't know. I don't know. I'm not. I would have said something that personally, I don't say. I don't know. I'm not. I wouldn't say it's something that personally, I don't say that I trust people. I work on trusting. I don't think I trust enough.

I also I don't like this phrase trust, but verify that's something that came to mind. Yes. That's the big. I'm sure you've heard that. Yes. Okay. Because trust, but verify is a contradiction. Like unless I don't, unless they have some other definition of trust. How do you mean something that sounds because if you trust, why would you verify? So let's say you say four times four to the power of six is four thousand that I can

trust you or I can verify that and say it's four thousand ninety six. So I can trust what you're saying or I can verify that and say it's 4096. So. I can trust what you're saying or I can verify what you're saying, but they're not entirely the. If I trusted what if I trust my computer, I don't verify it. I don't understand what the difference is. OK, no, I see what the big corner says, they say, don't trust. But yes, OK, yes, OK, don't trust. Yes, okay. Yes, okay. Don't trust but verify.

Yeah, that's what they do because of the third party element. Okay, that makes sense. And you're told that were your parents religious at all? So my dad was Hindu, I believe, before he got married and my mom was Muslim before she got married and my mom was Muslim before she got married and then somehow around the time of them Getting united they became Christian. So my dad and my mom are to this day Christian and I was raised Christian Just a non-denominational Christian, yes Okay, did you part from that at all?

Yeah when I was eight. Okay. That was like definite. Yeah. That's beautiful. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And I, I've departed quite heavily from that since I was eight to the point of attacking it and feeling like I was... attacking it and feeling like I was, I was in it. I think this sounds like a, so it's funny choice of word, but holier than it. Yeah, I've been through that.

I remember thinking, cause there's Pascal's wager. I remember thinking from a young age, that's a foolish wager because if I was God, I would punish people who believed because they're just believing out of nonsense and I would be the rational God who would reward those who didn't believe in me. Yeah I remember saying that to my dad he just he almost cried I feel so sorry for you son something like that. I think I'd like to speak a bit about your relationship to your wife. I think it's always very wonderful to hear you speak about her.

Can you tell me how you met her? Yeah, she was my stylist, my hair stylist. Seriously. Yeah. That's why many people. Why your hair is so good. They'll say, yeah, yeah, they'll say you have great hair and almost every like, hopefully they don't say almost every, but every, every episode.

And yeah, it's because my wife. You started yourself now before, before you go. I style it myself, but she cuts it. She makes sure that it's fresh. Do you style it yourself now before before you go? I? Style it myself, but she cuts it she makes sure that it's fresh Do you do often? Do I get my hair cut often I style it often yeah, I get my haircut fairly often too much for her actually is position Okay, that's good See there's this phrase that if you want to be

See, there's this phrase that if you want to be a liberal or creative, then you need to be conservative in every aspect of your life other than where you want to be creative. And the reason is that Carl Jung was asked about Nietzsche. Why is it that Nietzsche felt prey to suicide and psychosis? And Carl said that Nietzsche had no ground and so it was just all air and you need both otherwise you're like the guy from up just with balloons floating about with no home even. So. So for me, I have my conservative aspects or that I work at the same time, like I have a regiment to schedule, I eat fairly much, pretty much the same. I try to go to sleep at the same time, although I have extreme problems, man, like we can talk about that. For those who don't know, me and Lucas had this podcast

scheduled yesterday and I have problems sleeping like, like you wouldn't believe it wastes hours and hours and hours. Like, like, I think that if I could get my sleep sorted out, I could be twice as productive and, and I'm already like, I already work hard, like I can work twice as hard or do twice as much. I laid in bed when I sent you that message, Lucas. I sent people don't know I sent Lucas a message at 3am. I don't know if it was I was irascible and it could have been angry. I apologize if I said no, no, no, I don't know what I'm saying and when I'm in that

state, I was just I sent a message also to my guy who helps with the marketing of this, of this podcast as well. I think I was criticizing him last time. I was almost, I don't swear, even Lucas, like I don't swear. I think I almost warned him. It's because I was so upset him laying in bed for eight hours. Eight hours laying in bed is such a waste of time. My doctor said, don't lay in bed for more than a half hour to one hour if you're not sleeping get up and go And do something yeah, because otherwise you associate your bed with not sleep. I've heard that yeah And so I've associated my bed with not sleep for Way too long like staying and staying awake for four hours is is common to me like that's every night. Well

Anyhow, and I got this eight sleep recently. So we'll see how that goes. And that night when I texted you my eight sleep broke in the middle of the night and I was so upset because I couldn't get the water to refill it. There's something that didn't break, but it needed filling of water. Anyhow, I apologize for whatever I said. I think it was a beautiful message actually, because I was just reading it and I was like,

this is how Kurt thinks. This is your, I just heard the inner model. It was various, but I felt bad mostly for you. For me, it's not a problem. I'm a student. I don't have a busy schedule like you do, so I'm all good. What are you studying? Egyptology. Oh, wonderful. I was extremely

fascinated. I memorized all the like, almost all the Egyptian gods at one point. Oh, I barely know that. Yeah. It was just for fun. Yeah, there's a God for so much. There was there's a crocodile God. Oh, I wish I had. I wish I had this in my memory. There's a God. There was a God for bartering. I'm sure there is. If they have a God for everything,

you know, they've got for when someone cuts you off in traffic and doesn't give them. Yeah, I think that. What do you actually make of that? What are gods to you? Actually, I asked this to John for Fakie and he gave really for Fakie an answer. He said that they are transjective. You know, that's the type of stuff he would say.

Yeah. Gods are. I don't know. Firstly, I don't know, firstly, I don't know. I... It could be said that what gods are are gods are are... yeah, this was correct. Checking the grammar there. That they are... Like if you have a value, what you should have is one overarching value so that all

of your goals, your sub-goals are united, akin to an organization that is working toward one aspect or one land. And gods are when it's not one, you're working on two or three or four different lanes. And it's my understanding of religion that across time, you see a collapsing of multi gods to more and more single gods, except in the case of Christianity, those those the first time that it had broken that and said what is one is actually three, but then it didn't go from three to 10 to 20. Yes, go like that. I understand. three, but then it didn't go from three to 10 to 20. It didn't go like that. Although

in some ways you can think of Catholicism as adopting that a bit with the people, the statues that they pray to, but it's not exactly the same. So anyhow, the gods can be akin to fractionated values or contradictory values, indicative of someone who's not united or individuated. But that just means it's all of us that we all worship gods, because none of us are these perfect individuated beings, not even Jung, not even Carl Jung. My thesis is about a specific text, theological text from Egypt where seemingly they speak of one God as the ultimate God and all gods are manifestations of this God. And so it's not exactly monotheism what they have there. Maybe they call it henotheism. I don't know if you're familiar with this. Henotheism is belief in one God without denying the others.

Yes. Yes. So that they still exist. And it's interesting because it happens multiple times in Egyptian history and Egyptian texts, and they all seem completely contradictory. It's like this God is the one and then that God is the upper God. And I'm just reading this through my Christian lens, I guess, or Western lens. How can you reconcile these realities? And apparently it didn't matter because they didn't think about false or correct like we do. We have a false or correct religion.

If you're a religious person, your religion is correct if it's one of the three Western ones. But for them, it wasn't like that. It was more about sacred or profane, I guess. But I don't want to drift off. That's terribly interesting. Terribly interesting. I know.

Can you tell me more? Can I tell you more? Well, what's really cool about this specific God that in this specific document is being called the one is that his name means hiddenness or something like that. And it's yeah. So his name is Amun. Maybe you've heard it. And it comes from the verb Imanan which means to hide or to conceal and

one of the reasons why they put him on top is because he doesn't have a name because when you have a name you hold power over someone and so I read this text I read it for the first time I basically went to my supervisor being like I'm not sure what I want to do, but I have these interests and I spoke about Rene Girard and I spoke about sacrifice and I spoke about religion. And he gave me this text and I started reading and I was like, this is, I kind of agree with it. I started reading it. I was like, this very much aligns with the way I think about it because I call myself a Christian and perhaps because I don't feel

my faith is exclusive, maybe I'm not allowed to wear that title, but to me I understand the idea of other gods existing. To me I see people in my daily life worshipping other gods. That's normal everyday happening for. So I don't reject their existence. And I know Jonathan. I reject their sacredness. I reject putting them on top. I reject. Yeah, go ahead. Then would they be more profane those gods or those people who worship the gods? I guess if your highest God is not God in his totality, then you are going to be, I don't really like the word profane, but you're going to be less aligned, I guess.

Hmm. You see that in people a lot when their highest God is money or lust. I guess that results in a misalignment. That's, I guess, I would view it. I don't think those. But with lust, it's hard to argue for lust in many cases as a good thing. But for example, in Egypt, there's a very interesting, interesting example. You know, Seth as a God. Yeah.

He is as Peterson describes his chaos. And a lot of people instantly, Peterson even links him to the devil, which I think is pretty funny because he's like set. And then he looks at the root and he thinks that Satan was possible. But the Egyptians didn't see him as bad necessarily. You could also channel him channel chaos when you go to war. Maybe you channel Seth. Maybe Seth is necessary to banish out other gods.

When the Egyptians have like snakes on their heads. The snakes are kind of dangerous and bad, but also they protect. So it's something like that. But yeah, trying to remember this interview is about you. So I tried to zoom out a bit unless you have anything to add to that. But otherwise, I have many questions which I'll ask you about later, either off or toward the end. Okay, you can do that.

You can do that. This is a question I've been meaning to ask you because you already pulled up Carl Jung and Nietzsche. And I was wondering what it is that grounds you because you are someone that thinks a lot and deeply. And I've been in those spaces a little bit in my life. And I realized that for me spaces a little bit in my life and I realized that for me I need really something embodied. And I know that you don't, as a kid you told me

you don't like those embodied type of things. You didn't like woodworking, you don't like working on things. For me those are the exact things that get me out. So is there something that grounds you? Well, math grounds me. I know that's odd, but math has saved me, like psychologically saved me quite a few times, because some of the topics that are on the Toe Channel are quite heavy, quite quite heavy, and can send you or send me especially to a place where it's not a pleasant place at all. And math is so abstract that it's, it's a reprieve from the tyranny of the concrete. Now, also what grounds me is my wife, of course, my wife, like most of all my wife, spending

time with her is something that's important to me. We have what are called us days, which are just like date days where we just go, we walk and walk and bike and, and we rarely eat at a restaurant. We'll take bites and walk because we love to just walk and talk. We don't want to just sit around and wait for food. So that grounds me and that's important to me. I ensure that there's a part of my week, we both ensure there's a part of our week that we can do that with one another, at least one day a week. So that grounds me. So that grounds me. I go to the gym and I don't listen to anything when I'm at the gym.

No music, no podcasts. And I just, but I think and so I use it to think, but it grounds me as well. So I was thinking, as you said, you like to be embodied. And I've recently started taking up swimming lessons. Because I don't, I know how to swim, but barely. But it doesn't ground me. I was thinking, does it ground me? No, no, it flounders me.

Oh my gosh, it's a frightening experience. Yeah. But I'm surprised. I'm way better at it than I thought. Like I made tremendous progress on my first, my first lesson. And my second lesson, like I can surprised I'm way better at it than I thought. Like I made tremendous progress on my first lesson and my second lesson. Like I could float on my back. I never thought I could. And I thought I would just sink and she was showing me, okay, even if you do sink, here's

what you do. It's actually, now that I think about it, metaphorically, it may save me later. Because I know there are certain tools that you can gain from the physical world that can be applied to the spiritual one and vice versa. And so I think this is going to be one of the first instances where I take something that's physical and I find the connection to the numinous. Okay, that's a good answer. I'm happy you have some practices like that.

You enjoyed the gym. I hate it and I love it at the same time. Like I almost always dread that I have to go, but I go and toward the end of the workout I'm just like, I just I just for instance before we started speaking I came back from the gym recently and Makes me out of breath makes me feel sometimes. I feel like I want to throw up. It depends on how hard I work out but I feel great like fantastic afterward and especially Lucas like I

Love to eat. I love to eat. I love to pig out. Like I'm a, I'm someone who, there's a feast and famine. There's a phrase called feast and famine. So you fast and then you just overeat. I'm somewhat like that, somewhat like that, like surf it. So I gorge myself way past the point of comfort. But I just love it. And I have to work out in order to make sure that that's somewhat healthy and not overly unhealthy. Yeah, I recognize that.

And I haven't so much now. Yeah, I used to do fasting and I ate once a day at night. It really helped me with my focus during the day. But at night I would go crazy. At a while I just make pancakes every day. That was also because you eat once a day, you have to eat that much actually to maintain your weight. So.

But yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Especially if you're building muscle, it's not great to do intermittent fasting. It's difficult. Yes, I experienced that. Yeah. I think I only recently found that out. So I've been intermittent fasting for maybe three years or so. And I was wondering, I'm like, man, I'm going to the gym all the time. Like, I'm, I'm fit. But why aren't I gaining more muscle like I'm gaining it so extremely slowly? Yeah.

And then I believe I watched some Peter Attia video. I had the exact same. Right. You know what's pernicious about this? This is what's pernicious about this. Peter Attia, my friend, he told me he's like, you got to do fast thing you do once a day. Right. So I listened to periods.

I was into Huberman before he had his podcast. I just always followed what they were doing. Peter T. I was eating once a day for years. And then all of a sudden, Peter T. I changed his mind and he starts building muscle like a maniac. He's like, you don't it's not good to eat once a day or to do that for muscle. So I had the exact same journey.

And then I just stopped. I know. Well, there's I heard that there's I eat. Well, there's, yeah. I heard that there's, well, I saw that there's an article that came out either today or within the week that said that intermittent fasting is associated with a 91% increased risk of cardiovascular damage or heart attacks or whatever it may be. I don't think that's the case.

I find when you look into studies like that, they, it doesn't,'t work out. But it was it was a correlation. So the cause could be that when you intermittent, when you fast intermittently, you have less lean mass, lean, you have less muscle, and the less muscle is worse for you systemically. Yes, I understand. That can lead to the higher heart rate. I mean, it could be such a loose connection like that. Yeah. But intermittent fasting is great for that, well, quote unquote, autophagy. Yes.

And lowering risks of cancer and so on. there are benefits mm-hmm mm-hmm I never found it increased focus though. I never found anything like Lucas, man I could tried nootropics of all sorts. I never found that anything increases my focus or my my quickness I Found that plenty can dull it like ADHD medication would dull me. Yes. I know many people are like, Oh, I can't wait to try to do whatever it is. I'm stimulant.

I've never found anything to to provide a benefit to my intelligence or articulation or creativity creativity especially. So not even fasting, not even intermittent fasting. It's just all the same. So yes, no, I get that. I think it's more like when would you say you found things that make it worse and fasting for me is one of the ways of doing something that doesn't make it worse because then I don't eat.

I think about food. Well, I used to think about food all the time, which is why I started the fasting. That that's what removed my focus. Fasting increased my focus by me not having to think about food. But it's not I don't know if it's if it's a cognitive enhancer, it's just a fault. When I did my first four day fast, I saw, I realized how much time I spent not only thinking about food, but preparing food or going to out to eat or cooking or whatever it may be.

And then you have so much more time. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it. I was also single at the time, so life was just a read for the whole day. That's, I don't want those times anymore, but there was something beautiful about them. Uh-huh. Are you living with your partner now? Yes, yes, we're engaged, so. Oh, wonderful.

Beautiful, wow. Congratulations. Thank you, man, thank you. It's kind of a weird thing to do these days. Are you frightened? Are you afraid? Are you exhilarated? I feel that it's a natural progression. And I decided to want to get married when I was 19. And so being 22 now, it doesn't feel weird. I'm happy and I'm excited to do it and I'm excited to see everyone happy and my family happy and her happy and to take that commitment to another level.

But it feels for the both of us more like showing it to the outer world and the commitment was already there. It's now just, yeah, I guess sharing it. So that's what I feel about it. Yeah, I guess sharing it. So that's what I feel about it. Yeah. Yeah. But you got married. That's also. Yeah. It's quite a I don't know. It feels it feels kind of weird to do these days, but I'm I'm happy to do it. I think it's it's important. it's important. So speaking of individuation and speaking about what you had mentioned as currently we think about truth as, I'm sorry, we think about religions as true or not true. We've

gotten into this frame since the enlightenment and we think of truth as facts, facts that are disclosed to me, to me as the person, as the individual. I was speaking to my friend, Matthew, I'm not sure if you know him and I'll tell you his last name, Afair, because I'm unsure if he's comfortable with me sharing his information. But Matthew was saying that in Christianity, the, well, the well ever since ever since the ever since Kant formally separated the transcendental so truth beauty and yes which used to be tied together yes and yeah that Marx and Nietzsche came in and said okay what truth is is this disclosure of facts and that you'll always be suspicious and feel like they're hidden.