TrueLife - “Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking”

Episode Date: August 23, 2022

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Tonight we speak with teacher , explorer, & author of the amazing book “Young, Successful, & Miserable.” He has also received acclaim for his ideas about and  course on breath-work, all of which can be found on his website. (Link below)https://www.kevinholt.me/Kevin Holt telegram https://t.me/kevinholtbreath One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scar's my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark. fumbling, furious through ruins

maze, lights my war cry born from the blaze. The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. I think that the problem is there's no social mobility. So we have a tiered system. And when there's no social mobility,

you have chaos because there's nowhere to go. You have this fictitious idea of social mobility. the metaverse where you can kill dragons and get golden coins, but you're still living, your real living standards are declining. But yeah, I think there's different ways to structure society and it's never been easier. Like, I'm living proof that it's never been easier to reinvent yourself than it is right now. Like, just I'm talking to you in Bali right now. And, you know, I've learned so much talking to you when like you've written an awesome book.

You have an amazing story. You've toured all over the world. And you are living a life that most people would dream of, man. You live in paradise and crushing it. And that it's possible for people to do, right? Like other people could do what you do, right? Oh, yeah. There's no rocket science behind it.

It's a decision away, really. Right. It takes courage, though. You've got to decide. Yeah, everything is a decision away. and maybe for some people it's going to take more pushing to get there but you know sometimes you get to this this point where you're like I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired bucket or I'm sick and tired of doubting myself I'm just going to go for it and then once you go for it it works out and I think

terence mckenna's got a great quote where I'm going to butcher it because he's got so many great quotes and I'm not going to do it any justice but he says you know people are people are living in fear to take the leap and falling into the abyss. But when they take the leap, they find out there's no abyss, but it's a featherbed because life supports courage. Yeah. And there's some other saying by like some Buddhist monk, I think he was. And it's a similar thing. It's you're afraid to take the leap to fall to the ground, but then only to discover that there is no ground.

That you just keep falling and falling and fall. And then you surrender and you're free like that. You're flying. So, yeah, it's, you know, it really is that. It's that simple. I mean, it's not easy, but it's that simple. Like, just decide where you're going to do it and you do it and see what happens. Roll the dice.

And if it doesn't work out, you learn something and maybe it'll take you somewhere else. And I've just done this so many times that I don't think about anymore how for many people, that's very hard to do it the first time. Because the first time I did it was so long ago. And then every time you do it after that, you make a move, you change countries. It just gets easier. but I don't belittle anybody who's thinking about doing that and thinking it's hard. It's hard.

Yeah, I get it. To totally start over and leave behind everything you know and go into a strange place with no job, new job. That's, it's hard the first time. But you can do it. Like, anyone can do it. You know, it's so amazing to me because I, almost everybody I've been talking to, Kevin, has, I never really put it together. But everybody, almost everybody I've talked to has the story where they just, picked up, they left everything they've known

and started over. And they've become better when they did it. You know, I almost think that that's the recipe. I almost think the recipe that like re, I guess it kind of maybe there's a third death. Maybe there's another death and you're reborn

when you decide to pick up and leave your old self and become your new self. Yeah, that's the case of those 10 lives then. I've already done it. I've done it like seven times now, I think, where it's just, just pick a new country and go there. So, yeah, for me, it's just not, I don't even think about it too hard anymore. What is that, so can you run me through like a, like that process?

Like, you get, you're in this country and then you're like, you know what? I think I'm going to go check out Ball or I think I'm going to go check out this other country. Like, what, what leads up to you deciding to do that? Well, we touched on it in one of the podcast before where I talked about the heart attack story and how that propelled me to go through the study abroad. So I kind of all started with that. I didn't have any desire to travel particularly until I got to Spain.

And I really integrated with the people there. I had a host family. I live with. I'm still in touch with them 20 years later. In fact, I just visited them back in May. They really are kind of like my adopted family. I pretty much became bilingual because I fully immersed myself in Spanish. I was living with Spanish people.

I did courses in Spanish. And I got a job and all my coworkers are Spanish. And that's sort of, you sort of take on, you almost take on a new identity when you do that. Because when you speak in a different language, you actually think differently too. Right. And it changes your thought patterns because your thoughts are limited by your vocabulary. And now you've got this whole other set of vocabulary and culture and idioms and expressions that you have at your disposal. And it's weird to say, but I have different personalities in different languages.

Some languages like my personality better. Sometimes I don't like it as much. like my German personality. I don't like. I don't think I'm cool in German at all. But I feel good in Spanish, you know. I don't like myself in French, for example. So that was what really started everything.

And then the Japan thing, so I went back to school after Spain. I finished my coursework. And then I worked this terrible job for about nine months in Newburgh, New York, which I was so miserable. It was like the most, it was the worst job I ever had. I hated it. It was doing people's tax returns in a mall for like an H&R block type thing. And I was dealing with like, it sounds insulting, but sort of like the bottom rungs of society were pretty much 90% of people I dealt with.

And there are all kinds of things that I learned about our systems through that job. I bet. One of them being that it's, if you're on welfare, at least in the state of New York, it's almost impossible to get off of it. And there are a lot of people, the sort of freedom, no government side that belittle people that accept welfare's like, I would never do that. I wouldn't take handouts. Believe me, there are some people, there are some people that want that and they'll live off the system. But the majority of them, they fell into it. You know, tragedy struck. They had to. And they can't get off of it. They cannot pay their bills without it because you go you went from like I know people that were making

15, 20,000 dollars a year with two kids and getting all these benefits and for them to have the equivalent salary and have the same lifestyle, they have to make 60, 70,000 dollars once you take off all the taxes and things that they have to pay and somebody who's making 15, 20,000 dollars working probably minimum wage isn't overnight going to get. a 70,000, you know, a year corporate gig because you've got to go back to school, you've got to retrain and how are you going to do that if you got kids and all these responsibilities. It's very, very difficult. So I saw it open my eyes to a lot of that stuff and I kind of saw what was wrong with at least the U.S. system, a lot of the things. And I just want to get the hell

away from that. Like I went to school there. I was just sick of it and I found this opportunity to go to Japan that was run by the Japanese government for a job that will place you in a school as an assistant English teacher. And it was, they usually send you very, very remote locations, like out in the countryside where there's no other foreigners and there's only a few other people at all. And so it sounds on paper, you're like, why would you do that? You're going to go to some very foreign, Japan is one of the most foreign countries ever have been to. They are very, very different, very different. And yeah, so they send me out into the sticks there pretty much with, I had some support

because it was through this government organized program, but basically not, not really. I had a guy who was a supervisor, but he didn't want to do his job, so he just kind of set me on my way. And there was a lot of hilarious miscommunications stories that happened because his boss thought he was telling me things that he wasn't and so on. And then I had no choice in my mind. I had to learn Japanese because I had no idea what was going on in the world. No one spoke English other than a handful of English teachers there.

And it took a year, I think, until I could kind of get the gist of the morning staff meetings. But for that entire year, I had no idea what was going on. and I just wanted like and I like being independent so I'm like I don't want to be able to have to rely on a girlfriend or a friend every time I need to order a pizza I wanted to be able to order my own damn pizzas to my house so I just put my head down and I just I just it really is just doing the work every day and I did that every I said little goals every day I did a little bit little bit and then suddenly like a year in I was like wow wow I'm actually pretty pretty comfortable speaking and reading this so that I really enjoyed that experience because it was so foreign. And the idea of reading symbols was also very interesting to me. So it is. Learning the symbol and trying to figure out. A lot of them actually represent motions of things.

Like the thing for water looks like water flowing. And some of the verbs for speaking have like a little square that mean mouth. Very primitively oriented. If you can imagine a cave painting that evolved over millennia. to a written form. That's kind of what learning Japanese is like and what learning Chinese is like. So I was very fascinated by the whole process of there and the culture is very interesting. And then I was there for two years. And then this is another little funny life that gives you a show you the way story where it was at the end of the two years. And I didn't know what to do next.

I didn't want to, I didn't want to stay where I was. I was so bored. It was nothing to do there. was a countryside and the only place that you really had work was in someplace like Tokyo and i was 10 hours drive from Tokyo i'd never even been to Tokyo in the whole two years i was there and to move there is also very expensive because you got to put up a lot of money for those apartment i didn't have that much money saved up so i was in my mind i was just thinking where do i go and i happened to meet someone who was living in taiwan teaching english there while i was was on maybe a few months before. I was on a trip to Thailand and I talked to this person for a long time.

So that was sort of my mind as an option. And then about a month or two before I was supposed to leave Japan, I went to Okinawa on a trip. And when Okinawa is kind of like Hawaii. It's a Japanese Hawaii. So it's a chain of a bunch of small island. They have one big island and then a couple smaller ones. And so you fly, I flew down. to the southern part of Okinau,

and there's all these little islands you can take ferries to. And some of them are longer trips. I think we took one ferry that was maybe nine hours overnight from the main. Naha. When you say Okinaw, people think Naha.

That's like the main city. And then there's a, you can fly, but there's a ferry. Yeah, I think it was a nine-hour ferry ride to another group of islands called Ishigaki Jima and then a few other nearby islands. And while I was on that ferry,

I noticed that there was, a route from Okinawa that went right to the town of Taiwan I was thinking about moving to. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. I can just, I could take a boat there. And then that was sort of how I decided to do that. And I was like, okay, maybe I'll, maybe I'll go to Taiwan. And then I packed up everything that I could take with me. I think I had like two suitcases in my guitar. I had like pretty much all my possessions. And I'm like, man, this is, I thought it would be more romantic. to take a boat trip. So it took me two weeks to get there from where I was in Japan.

I took these ferry trips. And it was about, I want to say the first one was 24 hours. And then on the way, I kept getting held up by typhoons. So I took the first trip. Went by train to southern Japan. And then it took 24 hours. Even before I left the main Japan, Japanese island, a typhoon came. Typhoon Rabbit.

I remember it was a typhoon rabbit. And so I was holed up for three days in this place called Fukuoka. And I was staying with a friend in this tiny, tiny one-room place. And she was a sex worker. So she worked like these strange hours. She worked at like some kind of a blowjob bar, as she says as a receptionist, but I don't really know for sure. So she worked like weird as hours, like 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. So I never even bar.

I would be like getting up. and then she would come back and work and would sleep all. So I was like sharing this little tiny room with her. And she was nice enough to put me up. And then I finally was able to go. And I got to Main Island, Okinawa. And I was supposed to take another one to the southern island Okinawa called Ishigaki, like I mentioned. Another typhoon hits, right?

So then I was going to stay at this guest house for two days, ended up being a week. And I met this dude as Australian guy who was a translator. And he was saying at the guest house. And he was also going to Taiwan, but he was going to another city from me. So I'm like, okay, well, I'm going here. You're going there. And then, anyways, delayed a week, took the other ferry, which was, I think 15 hours to the southern. No, it was like nine, nine, ten hours I mentioned.

It's an Ishigaki Island. And I probably landed there on like a Wednesday or a Tuesday. And my ferry to my city was leaving on Saturday. So I was like, this is perfect. I got three, four days to chill here. and then I'm going to move on. And Friday comes another typhoon. I think this typhoon number three or four at this point.

No boats leaving, right? So they stop all the boats. And then I wait another week because they only did it once a week on Saturdays to this city. So I stayed another whole week. And then I go to leave. And then it's funny because when you're getting on this boat, it's like immigration. Because once you exit the boat, you're in another country. So on this boat, they had their own little makeshift immigration office, this little desk.

And I was leaving for good. And I gave him my passport. And they're like, you're leaving for good? I say, yeah. And he's like, I already gave my phone back, by the way, because I had a cell phone contract. So I don't have a phone anymore. And he stamped my passport. He like canceled my visa.

And then he's like, all right, now find your cabin. And I go to the cabin, settle in. And I think not even a half an hour goes by. And they're like, another typhoon. Sorry, we can't depart. You've got to get back to the land. And I was like, okay, great. So then I go back, reverse through immigration.

And he, like, cancels out the cancellation of my business. So then I have a beautiful. And then I'm just, like, dropped off at the port, but I don't have a phone. Like, I can't call anybody. Right. And then so I end up meeting somebody, some random dude who, a lot of times these guys, the hostels, they'll go to the port. And they'll try to pick up passengers or take him to the hostel.

And there was a guy there. And I was like, okay, let's go. So I went with him. Turns out it's the same hostel this Australian translator dude was staying at. And so I bump into him again. And so we spent another couple days together. And then I think Tuesday, I was just tired of waiting for, because it was only every Saturday. And the one that my Australian friend was going to was every Tuesday.

So I was like, all right, there's only two or three days. I'll go with him. So we ended up going the same ferry together And which is perfect for me because he knew Taiwan And he could get me around and figure out And finally I was able to make it On the Tuesday It was another 15 hour trip

And then we get to Taiwan And I stay with him where he's standing a night or two And I end up working with him later Because he's a translator And I ended up getting into translation And we collaborated a bit on projects And that was a really eye-opening thing for me at the time Because I was like, oh wow, you can

You can have this job with languages where you don't have to work anywhere and he was just working from wherever and working as much as he wanted to and surfing and stuff. I thought it was a coolest lifestyle. Yeah. So that didn't want me to kind of go there eventually.

But yeah, then it ended up in Taiwan and that was it. I didn't know anybody. I stayed at some hostel. The only one I knew about. Literally, I had copied the characters, the Chinese characters, of the address onto a piece of paper.

And I just got into a cab and I handed it to the driver because he didn't speak in English and I didn't speak Chinese. And he's like, okay. So he took me there. And I think within 10 days, I had already had a job. I found an apartment and I found my, my scooter. So it was like real quick. Like once you get into it and you put your mind to it and you start looking for the things

that appear. And it was very quick. And I was, you know, I ended meeting my. my ex-wife there and stayed for five years. So that was like one of the best experiences. Sorry, that was a long story. No, dude, that was an awesome story, man. There's so much in there.

Like, so much inspiration to be able to have the, just track it down. You go there, things start happening. On one level, it made me think of the beginning of our conversation where you had asked, at what point in time is the world telling you to stop? It sounds like all those typhoons. Like, you kind of make a choice, but you were already committed. Yeah, I had nowhere else to go at that point. I'm like, I don't have a plan B at this stage.

I don't know. I only had a few thousand dollars, you know. Yeah. There's either that or go back to Newburgh, New York, and there's no way in hell I was going back home. I could avoid it. Yeah. That was cool. And then, so after that, it was easy.

Like, you know, if I did that once in a totally foreign country, right? don't speak a word of it and it worked. That's sort of confidence building. You're like, oh, okay, I can probably do this again if I had to. Yeah. Yeah. I think it really helps. It gives you the confidence to know that you are quite capable of more than you even thought of.

Like, I can understand how for some people, for me, even, it's like, it's scary to go to a place where you don't know anybody, you don't know the language and just decide I'm going to, I'm going to make it here. but I think a lot of people, if they believed in themselves, they could find out that they can make it. Like you're capable of so much more if you're willing to take that chance.

You know, when I moved to Hawaii, I did something similar, right? I sold everything I ever had and I condensed. I thought I had a lot. Like, I got a nice car. Where did you move from? I moved from California, which is not across the world,

but, you know, I was, I think I was 29. and I was working at UPS and I had put my name on a transfer list. And the only reason I even did it is because all the older guys did it. I just thought it was a cool thing to do. Well, one day I was out working and my boss called me. He said, hey, when you come back, I got to see you in the office. I'm like, oh, shit, what did I do something crazy? What does this guy know about?

I did something bad? So I come back to the office. My boss is like, hey, man, your transfer is up. And I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, if you put your name on a transfer list to go to Hawaii. He goes, don't worry. ever goes and I'm like, oh no, I'm going to go. And he's like, wait a minute. He's like, do you know what he goes? No one goes. I would think. I know, right? Yeah, he goes, no one ever goes.

And I'm like, I'm going to go. And he's like, what are you talking about? He's like, do you know anybody there? I'm like, no. He's like, you ever been? I'm like, no. He's like, dude, listen, you sign this thing, George? You got to be there in two weeks, man. Did you have a, did you have a house and a car stuff? Well, yeah. So what's the, what do you can do with that? I'm like, I'm going to sell it. He's like, dude, okay, look, you're growing man, but if you sign this piece of paper, you're out of here in two weeks. I'm like, hey, give me that paper. I signed it.

And then like, I remember it was on a Tuesday. It was taco Tuesday because I went to go eat tacos with my parents. And I sat down. I'm like, yeah, mom, dad, I got some crazy news. We're like, what? I'm moving to Hawaii. Like, shut up. No, you're not.

I'm like, yeah, I'm going to be out of here in a couple weeks. Like, what do you do with all your stuff? Like, I'm going to sell it. Like, you better get to work selling it. I'm like, yeah, whatever. So I remember I, I, the next day, you know, I started getting everything in order. And then on that Friday, I took all my clothes and all my shoes and I drove down to the place where like a lot of the migrant workers work. And I just opened up the back of my car.

I'm like, hey, do you guys want some stuff? They're like, yeah, they're all stoked. They gave away all my clothes. Give away all my shoes. I sold my car. You know, I didn't own it. I was just making payments on it. I had like a nice car.

Got rid of those payments. I was rent in a place. My sister took over the rent. And literally in two weeks, I went from having like. a nice house, nice car, nice things to having two black bags

and $2,000. And kiss my family. I love you guys. It's going to be awesome, man. I get on the plane and I'm doing shots at tequila. I'm like,

yeah, going to Hawaii, man. And I never forget. Dude, I felt alive, man. I was like, dude,

I'm doing this thing, man. I've never been theirs. I'm going to crush it out there. And then when I landed, you know, I sat in the airplane terminal. And I wasn't like crying, but it just hit me.

And I'm like, man, I didn't really think about this. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't have a place to stay. I don't know where my work is. I don't have a car. I don't know anybody here. I didn't, I didn't do any planning. I don't, I don't even know where I'm going, dude. What kind of a dummy am I?

I made a huge mistake. This is the worst mistake I've ever made in my life. You know, I just sold everything. You know, I mean, I sat in the airport for like a couple hours and just sat there like, what the fuck am I doing? Why did I do this? You know, and then after after you, after I felt sorry for myself for a while, I'm like,

there's no turning back, man. I got to do something. So I remember I walked outside and I found a shuttle. And I was like, hey, man, I need to find a cheap place to stay like in Waikiki or something. He's like, oh yeah, dude, I know, I know a spot. Jump on, dude, I'll take you there. So he takes me to a spot and it was like 40 bucks a night,

like this roach motel, man. A bunch of hooker. and stuff, you know, but I didn't know any better. I was still in Hawaii. It was pretty awesome. And I remember, even though there was this feeling of dread, I remember, like, looking around and being like, dude, this place is so beautiful, it's so tropical. This gorgeous woman over here.

Like, these people all smiling. And so the first day, I came down, and it was a, I looked around, and I'm like, this is amazing. I got on the bus, and I found out where my work was. Like in grand scheme of things, I already had a job lined up. So it wasn't that bad. So I get on the bus and you're kind of a humorous story. Like I get on the bus and I'm trying to find out where my work is.

And I tell the bus driver, oh, yeah, I'm going to this spot. And Hawaii is, the infrastructure is different. So I'm on this like four lane road that looks like a highway. I mean, it looks like a freeway in California. And the guy pulls over, he's like, okay, here's your stop right here. And I'm like, this fucking guy's dropping me up on the freeway, man. I bet you he hates white people. This guy probably hates white people.

He dropped me up on the freeway, man. You believe this? That's my dumb mind thinking that. But he wasn't dropping me up on the freeway. He's dropped me off on a transfer spot. And so I sat there and then another bus came, picked me up and I found out where my work was. I went there, shook hands with everybody. And I'm like, all right, man, we need you here.

You know, we need you here. Not this week, but in three days we're going to need you here. So I went back. I found out where it was. I went back to the hotel. And then I went on Craigslist, found a room to rent from, It was like a pretty nice room. A bunch of Korean kids.

It turned out to be like a poker house, which is a whole other story. You guys playing poker all night, making money. And I bought a moped, you know, and it's so amazing and so liberating to let go of all your attachments

and realize, like, you know, I used to have a navigator. Now I'm driving a moped. And I'm living, I'm renting a room when I had my own spot. And, you know, I'll never forget. Like, I had been here about a year,

And I was living with some younger kids, driving this moped around. And I meet this girl that really attractive, who's my wife now? And she was working at a, she was working in town. And I pulled up and I'm like, this girl's beautiful. And we start talking a little bit. And I ask her out. I get her phone number. And I'm like, okay, I got to ask her out.

And maybe we'll go do something. But, you know, I'm like, it dawns. I'm getting ready to call her and ask her out. And it dawns on me. Like, do I got a moped. You know, I come from California where I got a, nice car and you know I just felt like less than I did over there and I'm like this girl's I'm gonna tell her I have a moped she's gonna think I'm a loser so I call her up because I got nothing to

lose she's attractive girl I'm a pretty attractive guy you know I figured I just I'll work something out so I go hey what's it's nice to talk to you you know I was kind of hoping I could take you out maybe grab some dinner and go to a show or something she goes that would be great what time you're going to pick me up and I'm like well it's a funny thing you say that because I was kind of hoping you could pick me up she's like what you're talking about I'm like, well, I just got a moped. And she just, she just ices me. You have a moped?

You know? And I'm like, oh, I'm such a fucking loser. And I started to think in my mind. She goes, yeah, of course I'll pick you up, you know? But it was just this, it was just this trick I played on myself. And it really helped me understand the hangups that I had with myself in life and thinking I needed all these things in order to be somebody. But it turns out I had to get rid of all those things to become. who I am. And like, I think that that story of having the courage to leave this life you think

makes you something will, will in fact reveal to you that you're already something better. And I wish people could take that away. I think that there's so much there, that you're so much capable of so much more if you're willing to let go of these things that you think make you. Some of those things really might be making you worse, you know? But I love to hear stories like that. And I love to hear the story about going to different places out in the sticks and teaching people and learning from people. And it's such an amazing story, Kevin. I'm having a phenomenal time talking to you. And I feel like I get to learn a lot when I talk to you.

And it's fun, man. Thank you for doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you have to remind, like, my problem is sometimes is I've forgotten a lot of stuff. So that's why I like these sort of formats. like we'll talk about something. Yeah.

I've got the memory of this story from before. I totally forgot about it, you know. And she's telling me that my girlfriend's some of the whole time, hey, you should put some of the stuff down. And I said, the problem is I forgot so much of it. Yeah. It's not in my, I'm not thinking about it anymore. But yeah.

Like you, you probably have all kinds of stories from that time, the stuff that happened in the transition on the way that will always be there. And you can anytime reflect on those and say to yourself, wow, I've done some, I've done some interesting things. I've had some adventures. Yeah, and you don't realize it's like you said, it's like a muscle. Like you said earlier, hey, look, the first time I did it, it was hard, but I do it so much now. It's like second nature.

You know, and it's not until you reflect back on those stories like you did where you learn how you built that muscle. But another thing, you know what I really, really hope, Kevin, I really hope that there's people that listen to this and can go, yeah, you know what? I've done something similar to that. I bet you I could do that. To me, there's nothing better than being able to share something with someone and then having people go, hey, man, thanks for sharing that with me. It helped me learn that thing, you know? Because I know I've had older guys and younger guys.

I've had mentors in my life that shared stories with me that gave me the courage to like try something new. And to me, like, that's what I want to be. I want to be someone that did something cool and inspired someone to do something. an even cooler. You know what I mean? Like that to me is the way you make a better world is, hey, you can do this. You're capable of this or having a cool story in getting to help other people have even better stories, which I think is what your book does, man. I see, I mean, I hope people take away the idea that you can just do it. And I see so many times I'm talking to people and they'll say, hey, I really want to do X. And what they're talking about doing is, in a

anything they're not trying to build a rocket but i'll i'll share a story with them and i'm like oh that sounds really great i always thought about doing that and i'm like well why don't you do it like just do it and i remember back back in um when i was back in new york i was i was speaking to a friend of my mom's and she was probably 70-ish and i had just come back from spain and she said oh wow you were in Spain like I've always wanted to go to Spain and then I'm thinking myself you're 70 years old you don't have that much time anyway but I didn't say that but I was like so like so go go go go get ticket like where do you want to go when you know I'm always like someone tells me to do something like I'm on I'm right at my life okay good what are we doing you're going to do it when you want to do it

and literally she had no reason not to she was seven years old retired clocks running out always want to go to Spain like just go to Spain and then she starts then she tells me that she hasn't taken a plane since 9-11 and she's afraid to fly and I'm like man that's a shame that's just a shame the terrorist win when that happens because all they do is they create fear and now you're afraid of flying and you're not going to go to spring and that's too bad you know so I see a lot of time people want to do something they've got some fear or another that just stop stops them and that's too bad. And I hope you can fight through it and just do it because really that's all there is to

it. Hey, that rhymes. Yeah, there's a good quote that says whether you believe you can or whether you believe you can't, either way you're right. Yeah, exactly.

You know, I think that, I think we've all been that person that let the terrorists win. Maybe not the actual terrorist, but the terrorist in your mind that says you can't do it, that little fucker in there that's like, dude you can't do it this will have bad thing will happen you know but it i want everybody to know that like don't let the terrorists win man like you can overpower him that should be a t-shirt

dude don't be afraid of the terrorist man yeah yeah it's the tyranny of of negativity that will overcome you if you let it but it's a it's a coward it's not strong and if you face it he'll back down and you'll feel better for it and the more you do it, the more you beat up the bully, the more often the bully just becomes an ally. And it's like, yeah, I was going to say no, but just do it. Yeah, and people, that's why I'm really big on death awareness, because we do it all the time. We make these decisions like, we're just, we'll do it tomorrow. We'll do it next week.

And then you end up pushing it down the road forever, and you never do it. And it's a shame. You know, so since bringing up death awareness is, I think I read somewhere like the, the, the way of the samurai or something like that is to wake up knowing that you're already dead. When you said you went to Japan and the culture was different, was there a different awareness of death over there?

Like, how does their idea of death differ from our idea of death, or is there? I don't know that I paid too much attention in their concept of it. They obviously have a very different religion. They are, they've developed Zen Buddhism, so they're not. all practitioners of Zen, but to some extent that Zen vibe permeates the culture where they're

much more accepting of the good and the bad, and they're much more accepting of death in general. And they've got this very detached attitude to a lot of things. And they're very, they're emotional, but they don't display emotion. So you get this, you get this impression that everyone's really detached and just emotionless. and you don't ever see anybody cry or anything like that. So they, I'm not, I wish I had had the chance to go to a Japanese funeral, but, but I never have. They just, what I mean by them being different is their idea of relationships are very different from, from the West. In that there's, everyone has a space that they are comfortable with between themselves and others.

And their space is just a lot bigger than, than, than, Westerns. They don't really touch each other. They, even in a professional setting, colleagues may work together for 10 years and not know each other's first names. And what they would consider, there are so many times I learned that I was somebody's friend that I didn't know about because they considered me their friend or even a good friend. And from my perspective, if I'm thinking, wow, I haven't really exchanged more than superficial pleasantries with this person and niceties. I wouldn't consider that really a solid friendship, but for them it was because they don't seem to have really deep conversations like we're having right now. It's very much a lot of things on the surface.

And there's sort of a Zen-like quality to that, even if they're not doing it deliberately. because, well, what's the point of asking questions? It's just the way things are. And we may we don't need to talk about it. Like, let's just accept things the way that they are. And nothing is really more important than these tasks and getting this task done right now. I'm not saying we haven't had deeper conversations like that,

but I think in a normal basis, they don't have these sort of deep, what we call deep relational, emotional connections that we do. And it surprised me even once. I had this co-teacher and she was going to go visit her parents over the new year. And it was a good, I think she lived four or five hours drive away. And I asked her when the last time she saw them was. She said, oh, it's been about two years since I've seen them.

And I asked her just out of curiosity, how are you going to greet them when you see them? And she said, oh, I'll probably just like wave at them to her parents. and I remember thinking that that was, I remember being quite shocked by that. And I thought, you mean you're not going to give him a hug or like a kiss or something? She's like, no, no, I would never do that. Because they have this respectful distance with their parents.

And it's just very different from what we're used to. And it can feel very alienating for a Western person to live in that kind of a culture. And actually, before there was the internet, they had actually problems with people like me on these assignments killing themselves. Because they would be out in the sticks by themselves with no international phone and no internet. And just the sheer loneliness would get to people. It's a very kind of lonely culture. Man. It brings up two points.

One, living in Hawaii, I have learned a lot about. cultures. You know, I'm, I grew up in predominantly a white neighborhood and a Mexican neighborhood. And I learned, I learned a lot. I learned some span. I learned, you know what this means? You ever heard that before? That means run, white boy. You're about to get smashed. That's what that means. Yeah, like, you know, there's this whole whistle language where I grew up on all these little gangster kids with, I was like a little white kid running around. So every time I heard that, I'm like, I better run fast. I'm about to get beat up right here.

But when I came to Hawaii, you know, I did not understand anything about tonal languages. I didn't understand anything about talking to someone with direct eye contact and maybe using my voice a little bit louder to get a point across. That could be really rude, be really disrespectful. And I didn't understand the whole point about hugging and being close and showing emotion like that. And so my daughter goes to a.

school here and there were some functions i'm like i'm a hugger you know so i'm oh hey how's it bring it in here you know and like i offended a lot of people not only hugging people but we would talk about things that you know i don't think twice about thinking about but other people on the topic of relationships and you know between parents and other kids and stuff you know is in some school meetings where i would say things that other people took a lot of offense to about um um obedience, you know, like, yeah, like, there was a topic where we spoke about obedience and one, a young Japanese lady is like, I want my child to be an obedient child. That's what I want. I'm like, that's the last thing I want. I want my kid to be questioning everything.

How can you want you to want your kid to be so obedient? Want him to do what he's told all times? You know, but I didn't understand. You know, and I look back on it and then I laugh, but, you know, there's translation culture, there's all these things get, it's two different cultures. And obedient can be respectful or obedient for me can be someone who's wishy-wash. And so it's interesting to hear me to hear you tell those stories about that because I've seen them in my life. And I have crossed over the taboo of personal space on multiple occasions because I was unaware of it until I took some classes on different cultures and saving face and understanding

the way people act and how people can be the ugly American without knowing you're being the ugly American. Like you don't understand that. The second part is I recently read, I was reading some Alfred North Whitehead, and he was talking about the difference between Eastern thought and Western thought. And he said one of the things he found was the question why. Like in the West, we're taught to ask why does that happen? Why do they do that?

Like, why is this the way it is? And like this concept of why is a Western idea where in the East, you know, you get back to the, you don't question them. You don't ask why. You just do it because this person up here knows they're the leader. They're respectful. They've earned it. You don't ask them why. And if you just take us some time to think, for everybody listening, if you just take some time to think about the question why and how many times you ask it.

and why you ask the question, why, and what you, what can you learn, what have you learn from asking the question why? I think if you take time to think about that, then you will begin to see a lot of the dichotomies between the East and Western thought. It's, it's kind of a fascinating little thing to, to ponder for a while. But yeah, I... Yeah, and there's a question of peace tied into it as well, because if you never question, like the Japanese, they're about, like you said, they're more, about the process rather than the results or they just want to go through the process, go through the motions.

And like you said, pretty much obedience. And to the extent that we would experience sometimes what we would call bad customer service because there were times where I'd go to a restaurant or a pizza, it's using an example, of pizza. Yeah. I wanted to order a pizza. I wanted a cheese pizza. That's it.

They didn't have cheese pizza. on the menu. They had cheese with pepperoni, cheese with peppers, cheese with mushrooms, all these things on top. And I tried to order, I try to explain, like, all I want is treat the pizza before you put the stuff on it. Like, just give it to me prior to that step. And they wouldn't do it. They're like, it was outside the process. It would not do it. And we look at that and we go, man, are they stupid? Like, why don't they just accommodate me or whatever? But from their point of you, they are taking the decision away from the consumer. You don't have to decide anything.

You just have to pick one. And that kind of permeates through society as a whole there, where they don't have to question things. They don't have to think about the why. Of course, that makes me very obedient. And obviously, you can be manipulated. But I'm curious, anyone has ever had the ability to study thought frequency. I'm going to guess that Japanese people think fewer thoughts on average than Western people do.

And isn't there a kind of peace behind that? If you're your thought, you're blank, you're at peace in your head, you're not going all over with different options in the while all the time. You just kind of zend out. Look how much mental illness is in the West. Right? Like the tyranny of decisions. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I have a suicide problem in there. Yeah. You need both, I think. You know, I'm so biased because I'm from the West, but, you know, it's weird how we romanticize it. Like, you see Western kids or white kids running around with like kanji script tattoos on them. When you go to Japan, do they have like English words tattooed on them? They have hamburgers on me. That's so funny. No, but they do the same thing over there. They romanticized a lot of Western values.

Oh, wow, I wish I was independent and, you know, I didn't have your own identity like you do in the West. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting to think about it. I think about it too. Like, just like we have the East and Western different types of thoughts. Like I think about we have the left and the right hemisphere of the brain.

And the left hemisphere is like this analytical scalpel that wants to break everything down and be like, why, why, why, why? And then the right hemisphere is like this understanding of larger concepts and sees the world and symbols. And, you know, there's this corpus callosum that connects them. And it just seems to me like we need some sort of corpus colossum to connect the east and western hemispheres of the world in order for us to function and see the world the same. Interesting to think about. That's a great analogy. As with almost everything, the truth is in the middle, right? Yes.

We in the west go far one way, the east goes too far the other way. And maybe it leads that. It applies to so many things in that middle way. That's what Buddha talked about, the middle way. Yeah. Yeah, if you get too far in one direction, you're out of balance, right? Yeah, because everything is opposites, right? Good and bad, light, and dark.

The way to come close, the way to unify it is to sort of try to blend them together, I suppose. It's the yin and yang sign with the peasant. hazies that have the dot right like that that to me is such a powerful symbol because it's it's everything the the evil exists in the in all that is beautiful and then there's something beautiful than in that which is evil in a little smidgen in there you know and they're going around in a circle and yeah sometimes i think that the world of symbols you know that has to change like you said that changes the way people think when you read the world and symbols and the symbol for man as two people leaned up against each other or something, you know,

to read the world through those symbols is just to see the world different than to see it through script like we see it. That's why I think the Egyptian culture is so fascinating the way they transmit information through symbols. I would love to be able to read hieroglyphics, but that's really trippy. Yeah, I wonder if there's anybody that can actually read them the way they're supposed to be read.

I mean, I'm sure that there's Egyptologists, Yeah, because it seems, you know, symbols can convey something that words can't. You know, and it may be a better form of communication. Because if I say something to you, you have your own, if I say the bird flew over, you might be thinking of a blue jay, but I'm thinking of a hummingbird. And way too often people never define their terms. They just say a bird. So right off the bat, I say, oh, I have this crazy bird flew in my house.

we've already gone, we've already gone two different ways right there. But if you see and I see a symbol and we understand what that symbol stands for, we might have an idea closer to one another. It might be a truer form of communication. In fact, I think it was, what's this guy's name? I think it was philo-Judeus who said that the next logos will be a language to be beheld. And if you think about language that is beheld, I think of hieroglyphics. And let's face it, the pyramids, I don't even know if we could build those today.

There's a real possibility that we are looking at a more advanced society and that we're just coming back from that. The more I read about history and the more I look at some of the star charts that were kept that are on the frescoes of temples all around the world, the more that I read like ancient Greek literature, or be it Plato or Sophocles or any of these things, I'm like, do these people were really freaking smart, man? Sometimes it seems like we're not even close to them. And then, you know, if you read Tameas, like they say in Tamaus that Solon goes and meets the Egyptians,

and he's talking, Solon's asking the Egyptians, how is it that you guys know so much? and the Egyptians are like, you guys don't know anything because you guys are so young. We've been around for, you know, 50,000 years. You guys don't even know who your great grandparents were, but we have all the records of all of that.

Like, if that's written down, if that story is written down in Tameas. That's written down. And like, we don't go by any of that. We're like, yeah, that's just a story. Just some story, some Greek guy told. Like, that's probably, much truer history than, you know, something written by Scallinger, Patavius, and 1500.

Like, it's crazy, right? Definitely by this idea of thought forms. I just had a thought about that. Because remember, we've shared stories of psychedelic trips and reading these entities, whatever you want to call them. And that's how they communicated with me was through thought form. Yeah. And I've read recently a book, it's called the holotropic, holographic universe is called. Okay.

And in that book, he's, the writer is discussing near-death experiences of various degrees. And some of these experiences, they say the same thing, that they go through a tunnel, they go to some higher dimension. And they're communicating with beings in pure thought form. and that it's instantaneous knowledge. Like they send one thought photo into the brain and it's like having an encyclopedia absorbed into your being all at once and that there was so much wisdom information

like infinite amounts of it. And that that's how they communicated. And then you think about the future of humanity and stuff like neuralink where we're going to link our brains up to each other and maybe that's a better way as much as we want to oppose the idea of our brains being linked together wouldn't that enable such communication with time yeah i mean sometimes i think that there's there is yeah yeah i mean when you look at the people that are building the future you know maybe

maybe like you know I had this idea that we're the aliens like I think that and if that's true there's probably a hierarchy of it like you know if you read Zach if you if you read Sitchin stuff like Sitchin talks about us being created by aliens like a lot of people think intelligent design is like God made humans but another way to look at intelligent design

is that we were made by Pete by gods, but not Jesus or Jesus' father, but beings like us that manipulated our DNA. And it's not that far-fetched when you look at stuff like CRISPR right now or even some of these MRI vaccines. Like the same way people have theorized, we back-engineered UFOs to get stealth bombers. Can't we also back-engineer maybe? other types of beings to understand. Sometimes I think we're back engineering.

Like maybe we have aliens. Maybe there are aliens and we're trying to figure out how to, oh, look, you need to have, if you want telepathy, you have to be able to change your DNA. So you've got to use this MRI vaccine. That'll change everybody's DNA. I just read this crazy book by Blake Crouch. It's a total fiction book.

But in this guy's book, he's talking about a plague that breaks out that makes everybody smarter. like okay and and and and sitchin so so if you've if you've read zacharias sitchin stuff there's these two aliens there's anky do and a eile that come down and they they create all these humans and they do it by manipulating the DNA of existing like monkey type people here and they and they make slaves to do all the work so they can harness the gold yada yada yada but Anki-Doo doesn't want the humans or the creatures he creates to become too smart. He wants them to be like just dumb working slaves.

But the other person's like, no, man. Like if I'm going to create something, I'm going to create something for him. Bad ass. I'm going to give. I think we owe it to these people for them to be able to evolve. And so he creates, he injects into the genome, a gene that will make the people eventually evolve. And it seems a lot like the story of the Garden of Eden where it says if you eat from the tree, if they eat from the tree of knowledge, they will become like us. Like that's a, it's a similar story.

And I don't know if people know this, but there's a, there's a guy out of Harvard that was working at Wuhan. I think his name was Larimer. I think it was David Larimer. And he's the chief biotech engineer at Larimer Lab at Harvard. Everybody should Google this guy. He was with Fauci. He was at that lab. lab and he has like 25 patents for MRI vaccines.

I think, and this may be crazy, but I think there may be something to the idea that they are trying to make people smarter. Like they have created a vaccine that will change people's DNA to allow them to evolve to a species that could be much better. So this guy, David Lermer, he was in the papers for a blip. Hey, who's this Harvard scientist at Wuhan? Who, he disappeared.

Next thing you know, the guy wins the, he wins like the Nobel Peace Prize. This all happened right now in the background. He's like one of the most celebrated scientists in the world. People partying, popping champagne in the back for what this guy did. And if you read some of his patents, his patentons are like for making the human being better. So if it was a lab leak theory, like maybe what this guy did was create something that's going to make everybody. smarter. Maybe this guy created. Maybe COVID. Maybe that's what people are freaking out about. It's like, dude, you just released the goddamn virus. It's going to make everybody better. You know,

much money we could have made off that. You know, and like, as crazy as it sounds, it's just as crazy as graphene. It's just as crazy as all these conspiracy stories. Like, why couldn't it be that? Like, maybe it is humanity waking up. I kind of went off the rails right there, but thanks for letting me share that because it's kind of been in my head for a little bit. So I lost you the last 10, 15 seconds. No, I just, I went off the rails, man. I'm talking about aliens and DNA and why not, man. Why not?

But Larimer Lab, that guy from Harvard's a, I should put his stuff in the show notes. I'll try to do that. It's a fascinating story, man. Yeah. But. Yeah, maybe the point is then we just surrender. Yeah. I let the people do it enhance our DNA, link all our brains, whatever.

I don't think we can fight it anymore. I might as well embrace whatever this crazy evolution is that we're done. Yeah. Maybe it's what's, maybe what's happening is supposed to be happening. People that have the most to lose are freaking out about it. That's not happening. That is happening.

So it must be that. Yeah. That's the, that's right. It's whatever happens is right because it's what did happen. Yeah. This is, it's supposed to.

I think that sometimes Like look This is supposed to happen You know what for good or for bad And who's to say what's good or bad I mean I don't know I'm not sure

Judgment We don't know There is no absolute right There's no absolute It looks bad It turned out to be Oh then you You interviewed a guy

With on this topic right Yeah Yeah I remember Yeah David C George wrote a book called No Absolute. We should do a panel sometime.

What do you think about getting on with a couple of people and having a conversation? Yeah, it was actually funny. You mentioned that. I had that same idea. I thought, I don't know how it works. I haven't used Streamyard to try to have multiple guests, though. But if it works, I'm up for it. Okay.

Yeah. I'm going to put something together. I got a, we're talking to so many cool people. Yeah, I connected with one of your other guests. I forget his name. Ranga. Ranga. Ranga.

Yeah. Yeah. Dude, that guy's super cool, man. He's, he's been going, he has, he's having his experience now of picking up and leaving everything he's ever left. Like, he was, he was a mechanical engineer, was living in, in the, in the east, came to Canada up to become a mechanical engineer. He's had some psychedelic experiences and he's like, you know what? I don't want to do this anymore. I want to be like a psychologist.

Yeah. Just done. And had the courage to do it, you know, and, and. Man, everybody should watch that episode. You can see so much life in that guy. That guy is just, I can see it permeating from him. Like, he's so excited about the stuff that he's doing, and it's infectious, man. But yeah, I thought me, you, him, David, and, you know, as dynamic and awesome as all the conversations are, I've learned that the more we add to it, the more dynamic it can be.

So we'll do that. Yeah, whatever works for you, I just unfortunately have got that time restriction due to the, the time zones, but I can do like from 8 a.m. to later, like almost every day. There are some days or I have work, but I mean, otherwise, I'm pretty flexible. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah. Definitely. If you find anything that fits in there, I'd love to do it. Maybe next Sunday. What do you think? Can you do Sunday? Yeah, I should be here. It should be fine. Okay. Nice. Yeah, because I got a Saturday unit, right? So that would be, yeah, that's even.

better actually. Okay, because it would be Monday for you. Your Sunday. My Sunday. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Perfect. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Kevin, what a great conversation, man. Yeah. Yeah.

I enjoyed hearing your story as well of the Hawaii. Thank you, man. Yeah, it's fun. It's, it's very rewarding and it's rich, and I feel like I'm learning,

and I can't think of anything possibly better to do than to talk to cool people and learn and hopefully get other people to get excited and learn and take some chances and live a better life. Fucking egg. Just do it, people. Do it, do it, you guys.

I promise you, if you do it, your life will be better and you'll think yourself forth. Worst thing all happens is that you'll die, but you're going to die anyway. That's right. That's right. Don't let the terrorists win.

Don't have a terrorist win. So I got Kevin's, I got, got your link to your website below. Before we leave, is there anything you want to leave people with? Where can they find you? And you got anything coming up? Yeah, website below.

Maybe some trips coming up, but no major news. I'm just chilling and enjoying life. All right. But yeah, go to my website, Kevin Holt.m. In an hour and a half of anybody's still here, breathwork session on my telegram group. So if you go on to Telegram, Google Kevin Holt Breathwork group, you'll see the group.

Okay. 7 p.m. So 7 a.m. Eastern time. Hey, can you send me that link? Send me the link and I'll put it in the show notes. So I don't have that link. Okay. Send me that link.

Cool. I can have everybody do it. Okay. That's what we got.