TrueLife - Heroes & Assholes

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

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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 scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearist 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. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the True Life podcast. Thank you for waking up, spending a little time with me this morning. I got an interesting set of ideas that I think you'll enjoy. First up, in life, if you do what is easy, your life will be hard. If you do what is easy, your life will be hard.

If you do what is easy, then your life will be hard. But if you do what is difficult, if you do what is hard, if you do what is difficult, then your life will be easy. It seems a bit like a paradox if you take a few moments to actually think about those words and let them roll around in your head. But it's true. Imagine those of us who have found luxury and sleeping in till noon and waking up and eating some pancakes or a gallon of coffee, laying around the house and watching tea. That is easy.

But your life will be hard. like your veins and your heart and your relationships but if you have some discipline and wake up at 5 go for a walk

and clean up the house a little bit make some breakfast put on some music and get your day going you will have accomplished more by 10 a.m. than most people will do all day

and thus we go full circle to if you do what is easy your life will be hard and if you do what is difficult your life will be easy it's sort of like the infinity sign you know what I mean by that it's like an eight but turned sideways it's a great image if if you can do this with me close your eyes and think of that infinity sign think of that number eight turned sideways now take your finger and kind of trace it you go in a loop goes down through the middle to the left, it loops back the other way, up to the middle again, it crosses, to the right, down.

Like that is your life, that is all of our lives. In fact, I would argue that that is the pattern of life. Sometimes you're on the upswing, sometimes you're on the down swing, sometimes you're climbing the mountain, sometimes you're coasting downhill. Sometimes you come to the crossroads. And if you can think of that symbol, You can think of that pattern, then you can understand where you are in life depending on how you feel.

You also have something to look forward to. You also have something to prepare for. You also have something that's a map to help you understand where you're at. And if this metaphor holds true, if this particular symbolic representation of my life and your life is true, then you also know where other people are. It's not that you're ahead, it's not that you're behind, it's just that you're in a different spot. I once heard a great quote that said, don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind.

the race is long, but in the end, it's with yourself. It's a beautiful symbolic relationship. It's more than a word. It is more like a picture, more like a thousand words. Or perhaps it's the topic sentence in a paragraph of a thousand words. But I want you to hold that idea, hold that representation of the infinity sign in your mind today and think about where you are. Do you run that particular track through every day?

Do you start at the crossroads and make your move up left, down to the right, back to the crossroads, up to the left, back down? Do you run that loop every day? Or is your loop a yearly loop or a weekly loop or a monthly loop? For some people, it's both. You know, now if you really want to blow your mind, think of that infinity sign like a Russian nesting doll. And you pull that infinity sign off and there's a smaller one in there. And there's a smaller one in there.

And there's a smaller one in there. And that'll give you an idea of our fractal nature. You see, I believe that we can learn more from nature. than we can from classrooms. In fact, let me twist that around a little bit. I think our environment is a giant classroom. It's a giant experiment. And we're only paying attention to a very small amount of information.

It's like we have these big giant blinders on. And we have been conditioned to only see a very limited view, a very narrow focus. And what happens when you have a limited view? What happens when you have a narrow focus? Well, what happens is that you have fewer and fewer opportunities. You have less and less chances of seeing the beautiful things that actually surround you, that are in your life, that are calling to you, that are looking for you.

In a way, it's almost as if there's been a concerted effort to stop us from enjoying the, true beautiful nature of ourselves and our environment and that which makes the world better around us. I've heard some, you know, disturbing yet interesting ideas of social engineers who actually believe that if the common person, be it a man, be it a woman, be it a child, if the common person is allowed to pursue their own interest without any sort of authoritarian structure that they would relapse into that of a dumb animal. Not that animals are dumb, but I'm just saying the words that were spoken or written in this article about the fall of man and or the term called regression. There's a large chunk of people in positions of authority who actually believe this. Man left to his own nature would regress to that of a barbarian or a caveman or some sort of babbling idiot.

I would argue that the people who believe that, the authoritarian's, those are the actual babbling idiots. You know, there's a lot of fascinating work that has been done in science. Everyone knows about the different rat experiments, particularly the one where they put these mice or they put these rats in a cage and they give them this big giant bar to push for drugs, be it opiates or cocaine. And, you know, you can read the results where there's a certain overwhelming percentage of the rats that will push the bar until they get enough of the drugs until they die. Well, that study has been flawed.

You see, that study measures not only how many times the animal pushes the bar, but it also measures something else. Quite a few things, and those variables until recently have kind of been left out, and that is the environmental variables. Imagine being plucked from your family, from all that you love, from all that you know, put into solitary confinement, or maybe into a small cell with people you don't like and then given the opportunity to have a mental escape. The majority of people or a higher number of people that were in their natural environment, a higher number of people would push that bar and take the drugs until they die because they don't want to be there. It's the amount of stress. It's the feeling of isolated imprisonment in an unnatural world.

I want you to think for a moment why a study like that would be done. What would a team of scientists? What would the people who are sponsoring that particular experiment be trying to figure out? Let's take this group of people from their natural environment and put them into an incredibly stressful environment and see how much weight we can put on them until they murder themselves, until they kill themselves. Because we want to figure out exactly where that precipice is.

We want to be able to see the very breaking point of these animals. Because we think. it's important to understand just exactly how much stress we can put on them. We would also like to figure out how much of this drug they can take that will keep them in this environment. How do we get these animals to stay in this environment? How much drugs do we need? How much stress do we need? When do they break? When are they most productive? See, when you look at the rat experiment,

from the point of view of those who are sponsoring the experiment, you begin to understand the motivations of doing the experiment. Now, the question you need to ask yourself, are you the person who's monitoring the experiment? Are you the person who's paying for the experiment? Or are you the person who's in the experiment? Are you the doctor? Are you the sponsor?

Or are you the rat? And I would argue that many of us, us today by generational standards, by this generational idea of work, have been put in this unnatural environment. How many people are unhealthy? Look at the epidemic of obesity. Look at the epidemic of opiates. Look at the epidemic of abuse. Are we not the rats in the cage? Are we not those same animals who have been plucked from our natural environment

and put into some sort of giant labor camp? I had a conversation with a gentleman yesterday, just almost in passing, and we were talking about work and trying to understand. I asked them, like, I'm the question, like, what are we doing? What are we building? Does anybody know? If your answer is society, we're building society, George. Then my follow-up question to you is, well, where is the vote on the kind of society we want to build?

When we talk about engineers, we think about people that build things. But look at our leaders. Are not our leaders, the societal engineers? Are they not those who build the culture? And it seems to me the culture they're building is built on a foundation of sand. People in positions of authority, at least to me, seems as if they do not thoroughly understand, nor do they care about the very people who are doing the building. And that's a big problem.

It's a big problem. And so what I want to give to people today is a key. I want to give you a sense of freedom. I want to show you the door to the cage and hopefully you can walk through it. Because much like Dorothy's Ruby Red Slippers, we have had the ability to leave the cage. cage all the time. It begins with changing the way you think about who you are, where you're at, and the nature of reality. Let me give you an example. You can change your life as fast as you can change the way you think about yourself. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Think for a minute about your

story. Think for a minute about the snail shell that you live in that we talked about yesterday. what if there's a better story to tell? Let me give you an example. This is going to sound crazy. A few years ago, about probably eight or nine years ago now, I was, I had left for work out on my route, and my phone started blowing up. You know what I mean by that?

Like, usually someone will call you once. Maybe they call you twice back to back if it's an emergency. I was driving, and my phone started just blowing up, blowing up, and, you know, I'm driving, so I can't really stop and look. This is, and for those of you wondering, no, I don't have a car where you plug on your phone and it tells you who it is. I got an old pickup. And so my phone is blowing up, blowing up, blowing up, blowing up, blowing up. Blowing up, blowing up.

Someone must have called me, like, no joke, probably nine or ten times in a row. And so as I pull off to the side and check my phone, I realize it's not only been one call from these guys, but my wife is called. And my wife is called multiple times. So, of course, the first thing I do is I call my wife back. And she says, George, is there something you need to tell me? And so now I'm getting scared a little bit. I go, no, but there is this guy that keeps blowing up my phone.

She goes, yeah, he said he's from the CIA. What's going on, George? And I'm like, I don't know. I've got nothing to hide love. And so now I'm getting a little bit scared. She goes, yeah, these guys came to the house. They tried to come into the house. And, you know, I told him to get the hell out of here.

My wife is a gangster, isn't she? I got, you know, they kept asking for you. They asked if you lived here. They asked who I was. And they were pretty forceful. And so now I'm even a little bit more nervous. So finally, I call the guy back. And he's like, Mr. Monty.

And I said, speaking, who's this? And the gentleman said, my name is agent so-and-so. I'm with the CIA. So I need to see you now. I'm like, what is this regarding? You know, and he had a pretty stern voice, and then I get a little nervous, because I'm like, what?

Did I do something wrong? The hell's going on? What does this guy know about? Then I rack my brain, and I'm like, I didn't do anything wrong. What the hell would this guy, what do these guys want with me? And he's like, I need to see you now.

How about I come to your work? And I'm like, that's a horrible idea. You should never come to my work. Why don't you meet me out where I am? He says, fine. Where are you at? So I tell him where I am. He says, I'll be there in, you know, 20 minutes.

So it's great. So I'm racking my brain and I started thinking like, man, have I ordered anything online that's illegal? And I start racking my brain. I'm like, man, I read maybe 100 books a year. Maybe I have, maybe it is the recent purchase of the Unabomber Manifesto. Maybe because I bought two copies of that. Hey, maybe I have bought these things online that could, maybe my buying habits are, look suspect.

And then I'm like, that's ridiculous. They wouldn't care about that. So I'm racking my brain thinking about stuff. And I'm like, man, is it because I ate some mushrooms? Is it because I smoke some weed? I'm like, that's none of that. That's ridiculous. And I decided to meet them in this park-like area where it's big and open.

So the 20 minutes go by and I walk up to the meet point. I had parked my truck. And they see me and I wave to him and the one guy's carrying a file. And as we're walking toward each other, we're kind of sizing each other up. And I'm like, these guys are younger than me. Hmm, they drive in an unmarked, you know, Rav 4. That looks kind of odd. And so as we approach, they look at me.

And so finally, the two agents show up. And sure enough, the guys pull out their badges. They show me they're from the CIA. And say, are you George Monti? He said, yeah. Shake their hands, and they present me with a file. who these people are. And it was like these random photographs of kind of a big fat white guy with like a mullet. And I'm looking at these photos. I'm a little bit mesmerized. I'm like, I don't know any

of these people. That's what I'm thinking in my head. And as I'm thinking, I'm looking at these photos, I'm like, I wonder if these guys are just watching me look at these photos and these photos are of nobody. And I go, fold up the folder and I hand it back to him. I'm like, I don't know any of these people. I have no idea who any of these people are. And he's like, well, how do you think that this person got your license, your identification? Did you give this person your identification? And now I'm like, what in the world is this guy talking about? And then, boom, it hits me. I go, oh, I got pickpocketed at Christmas time last year. And then I see these two guys, oh, they kind of deflate. You know, it's like,

They had this idea in their mind that whatever this guy was doing, I was a part of. And sudden realization dropped on both of us. And I go, does this guy have my ID? Does this guy have my wallet? Because I would like that stuff back. And he's like, well, can you prove you were pickpocketed? And I'm like, yeah, I can prove it. I filed a police report number one.

Number two, there's video footage of it because the dummy that stole my stuff tried to buy a watch at the Nordstrom's. And at that point in time, all the air goes out of those guys, and they're just like, oh, okay. And I'm like, why? What does this guy do? And they're like, he's actually up with some pretty bad stuff. And, you know, truth be told, he was caught in Kauai. And he said that you gave him this idea, and he pinned a lot of this stuff on you. And I'm like, that's ridiculous.

So we chichatted a little bit. And then the guys went on to tell me that they had come to my house. They were forceful when they spoke to my wife and my mother-in-law, and they apologized to me for it. But that's not the moral of the story. The moral of the story is that when they left, there was a radical shift in my thinking, because for a while I didn't know who I was.

Was I an innocent victim of a pickpocket that was committing crimes? Or was I somebody who was capable of being wanted by the CIA? and I ran with that thought for a minute. I said, you know what? Why not? Why not? Maybe I'm a criminal mastermind. Maybe those guys don't know. Maybe I am involved in that. Maybe I outsmarted these rookies and they had no idea what the hell I was talking about. Maybe that was all lies.

Maybe I just lied right to their face. They would never know. And it threw me for a loop because for a minute I put myself in a position of like this international mastermind, James Bond criminal. And I know that sounds ridiculous. I know it does, but for a minute, in the beginning it was for a minute, I was that person. And I thought, wow, that's exciting. And for a minute, then I started thinking about it.

I'm like, those guys thought that I was that guy. I could be that guy. I'm way smarter than those dummies. I would have never got caught, though. You know what I just, I took it. I took it and I ran with it. And in my mind, I created a life for myself that I had never seen before. And I came up with a list of crimes that maybe I would have done.

They were nowhere near these silly crimes that this dummy did. They were interested and incredibly daring and for the good of humanity in my own way. And then I thought to myself, as I was thinking about that, like I got so. so deep in that mindset that for a minute I became that guy. And then for a day. And then I thought about what my life would be like if I was that person. And that was the first time I murdered somebody. Ha ha.

I'm just kidding. I would never murder anybody. I got you though, huh? You thought I did. Ha ha. And then I started thinking about like, wow. I could have so much more in the ways of material goods. if I was that person.

And then like this whole shift happened. Like, well, I don't have to be that criminal personality to have more. What if I just thought about myself differently? What if I quit thinking about being the person I am and started thinking about the person I'm capable of being? And that is a tremendous exercise and imagination. And it fundamentally changed. who I am today.

Because that day, part of me died. That day, part of me was maybe not dead, but awakened. This spark of creativity, this Promethean flame, was sparked in my soul. And it changed the way I saw myself. It changed the way in which I lived in the environment. It changed those around me. And it made me understand what is possible. Not what is, what is possible.

And it was a fundamental shift, and it was fast, and it's lasting. You were limited only by the way you think of yourself. You're limited by the blinders that come standard with the base model package. But you need not keep those governors on. You need not keep those blinders on. The scales fall from your eyes if you have the fortitude to clean them. If you can clean the windows of perception, you can see things clearly. It can be scary.

It should be scary. But every day you should do something that scares you. That's called living. Living a life worth living, which is one of the main pillars in my book. In my book, The Terror Before the Sacred, I speak about three main pillars. One is a lifetime of learning.

Two is to never value money or a job over lifestyle. And three is to understand that your life is a beautiful masterpiece. It'll bring some people to tears. It'll drive some people to rage. But you are the hero of your own story. Never forget that. Your work is a beautiful, your life is a beautiful work of art that people should want to read. They should want to admire.

They should want to scream at and yell at. And if you can live your life that way with passion and love for yourself as the hero of your novel, whatever your story is, it doesn't have to be some mastermind criminal or some sort of rocket-building CEO. But you are the hero of your own story. and if you act like that, people will treat you like that.

There's people in your life that need you to be the hero, so do it. The world needs heroes. And there's nothing overconfident, there's nothing that is bad, there's nothing that is assholeish about being the hero. Although sometimes you may be an asshole. strive to be the hero strive to tell a story or participate in a work of art

that will serve as a torch to light the way for those who need to see that is being a hero when you get to the top you turn around and you pull the next one up so someone else can tell the story

someone else can explain the view from the top someone else can explain the path they took to get here because the more of us who can't explain the path explain the obstacles talk about where they got caught up the easier it'll be for someone else to climb the mountain and that's our goal each one teach one now that's about enough for today

I love you guys let's get up Handling.