TrueLife - The Theory of Recapitulation

Episode Date: March 2, 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 scar's my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearers 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. Gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. If you're new here, welcome to the True Life family. How you been, huh? How you holding up out there? Things getting crazy.

You know what? I am hopeful that you are having a beautiful day. Hope the coffee's warm. I hope the cocktail's cold. I hope the person with whom you're in love looks gazingly in your eyes and then pauses for a moment of silence. And right when you get uncomfortable, right when your mind is racing, I hope that person says, I love you.

You're beautiful. You're everything I've ever wanted in a partner. because you deserve that. You deserve that. And I deserve it too. That's why we're both awesome. Okay, enough of the weirdness, George. Enough of the craziness.

Let's talk about what's going on today. Let's talk about how to make the world a little bit better. Let's talk about the purpose of a relationship, which is to magnify the human experience. And that is exactly what I did today when I talked to an amazing philosopher, Probably one of the greatest philosophers of our time of Mr. Simon Critchley, whose interview will be out shortly, I mind you. You guys are going to love it.

You know what else I think you're going to love? The concept I'm going to give you about time. I was reminded of this particular idea when I was rereading Simon Critchley's book, Bald. And in this book, this collection of 35 essays, There's a few essays on our good friend, P.K.D. Philip K. Dick, or what some people who love P.K.D. are often referred to as dickheads, very lovingly. And on that topic, it's the idea of the garage philosophers. It's the idea of the men and women who find time out of their 40, 50, 60, 80-hour week to sit back and think for themselves for a moment. It's these people who have rented out their mind space to corporations for so long,

however, they're not a slave to them. Does that make sense? Sometimes I believe that in the world of academics, in the world of the boardroom, you get so caught up in the label you've been given that you begin to be. believing you're that label. And sometimes when you label yourself the executive, the vice president, the manager, the I'm important label, when you have elevated yourself to a level of I am important because this company label tells me so. I think that is when you are beginning to get in water that is not only too hot, but too deep. When you become,

the label you were given, you lose the person that you were. Does that make sense? When you become the label that someone has given you, you give up your own identity. You have given up that which you believe you are for that which someone believes you ought to be. And that's a dangerous territory. It's very dangerous to be there. And you must think about what kind of person is willing to trade in that which they are for that which someone wants them to be. It reminds me of the Pink Floyd song. Did you trade a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in the cage? Is that what you did?

I hope not. I hope that you choose to take that walk-on part in the war. I hope that you choose to be the garage philosopher with the insane. sound from way out there. It is the way out ideas that allow us to escape the prisons that were put in. Does that kind of make sense? Do you know what I mean by that? If we all think the same, then no one's going anywhere. And that's kind of the, sometimes it seems to me that that is the prison that we're in. Like we have been conditioned to think, conditioned to see, and conditioned to feel the same way.

That's why we have national unity. That is why we have no child left behind. That's why we have standards and practices so that you can be standard in your practice. But nobody I know who's interesting is standard. In fact, standard should be the new F word. Does that make sense? I think only the individual should be able to set their own standard.

And while we're on the topic of standards, I think all of us can set our standards a little bit higher. You've got to ask yourself the question, are you doing all you can do? Really? You're doing all you can do? I was recently speaking to a teacher at my child school, and I love the teachers at my child school.

I love most people. And the teacher, we were talking about potentially creating a new paradigm, maybe creating a world in which a student can graduate with a residual income. And this process would be a way of owning your own data. It would be a way of utilizing the non-fungible token to track all your data to make that which is yours, not only yours, but yours to monetize if you choose to. And the response I got back from this brilliant young lady was, wow, that's impressive, but I'm too tired. I don't make enough money.

And I don't have the bandwidth. And I get it. I get it. Like I think like that too sometimes. Sometimes I just want to come home and turn off my brain and not have to worry about anything. And I think we all get there sometimes. But when you do that, you rely on hope. And I had a fascinating conversation with a gentleman today who told me a story about hope

and how hope can often lead to hopelessness. I know what you're thinking. Sometimes, George, all we got is hope, George. What do you want us to do? Do you want us to give up hope? Do you want us to give up all hope, George? Yeah, I do. I would rather you have knowing.

I would rather you have the will to get up. I would rather you have the courage to say, I don't know. Therefore, I am not going to hope, but I am going to do. You may not succeed in doing, but doing is better than hoping. When I think of Hope, I think Hope is a middle-aged stripper that works the day shift, really pretty, has two kids. Dating an attorney in his 50s. It's been divorced twice. It's currently married.

And when Hope and the lawyer get together, he's got all kinds of money and a Porsche, and they go out from time to time, and he gets drunk and beats her. and then he feels bad so he gives her tons of money and says I love you I'm going to leave my wife but he never does but hope hope springs eternal hope drops her kids off at school

maybe her parents' house she goes into the strip club and dances and waits for the ridiculous lawyer to come around on Wednesdays sometimes he does sometimes he doesn't but hope is always there

I feel bad for those people that only have hope. I'm not saying hope is not beautiful. I'm not saying hope can't be sexy. I'm not saying hope is not worthy of thinking about. But what I am saying is that hope is just that. It's hope. And if you're not careful, hope becomes hopeless.

So instead of being hopeless, maybe find the will to do. Maybe tell yourself a story that doesn't need hope. Maybe change your story from hope to courage. Instead of hoping for something to happen, maybe find the courage to make something happen. You know what I mean by that? I think you'll find a radical shift in your life

when you go from hope to courage. It's the same kind of radical shift that one can find when looking at time in a different way. And this reminds me of our good friend Philip K. Dick and how he experienced what he called orthogonal time. Now, for those, that's a pretty big word, I get it. But just think of two right angles facing each other. And that is orthogonal.

What I like most about his idea of orthogonal time is that it's reoccurring. You know, too many of us have the idea of time like we live in the book Flatland. For those of you who have not yet read the book Flatland, what are you doing? Pick up the book. It's from a guy named Abbott in the 1800s. It'll blow your mind. It's a science fiction novel. It is a philosophy novel.

It is part of our history. It's called Flatland. I think it's by Edward Abbott, and it was written in the late 1800s. But it talks about a world of one dimension and then of two dimensions. And the people that are really hip in the second dimension, sometimes they can leave and go to the third dimension.

And I think what Philip K. Dick is saying, as a hip garage philosopher, is like, yeah, man, I live in the third dimension. But guess what? We are getting ready to embark on the fourth dimension. And I think what that fourth dimension is is like a crossing of time or better yet, or redefining of time. It's this ability to understand that we can move freely through time. You see, just look at all the history books and look at the ideas of science fiction writers from as early as I can remember. There's always this idea of the time machine, this ability to go,

into a machine and move forward and backwards through time. It's like this, the time machine is an idea that's been with our species for a long time, as long as the alien. And I think those two things are connected. They may be at the pinnacle of each right angle of the orthogonal time that's pointing at one another. Does that make sense? The alien and time are the 90 degree angles of PKD's orthogonal time. Just think about it for a minute. What would it mean if we were already in the time machine? You know what I mean?

Think about that. Think about our planet as the time machine. Think about our planet as a spaceship and we are in the time machine. If your head is the time machine, let me try to break it in a little further. I want you to think of something that you have done with your father or your mother. If you're lucky,

you have a grandparent that your father, maybe did something with your grandfather, and you did something with your father, and maybe you got to do something with all three of them. And maybe you have a son, and you get to do all those things together. Or if you're a beautiful young woman, maybe your grandmother taught your mom something,

your mom taught you, and you are teaching your daughter. And maybe all four of you have done, this one thing together. Let's just pretend for a moment that you find yourself in one of those camps. And if you have, congratulations. If you haven't, you haven't done it yet, but maybe you will. In that position, you are experiencing orthogonal time. In that particular set, in that particular thought experiment, if you're reenacting something your father did, and he's reenacting something his father did. And maybe he's reacting something that his father did. Are you not experiencing the very

same time? Granted, your great-grandfather may have passed away. But in the act of doing, time flows by the wayside. And we go from time being to time experienced. And time experienced doesn't matter if it was in the past or in the future. And it's through this abstract thought that we can move freely through time. And that is the freedom of the next dimension, I think. You see, one cannot have an original or brand new idea, but one can restructure the ideas that were previously had to create a new idea, a future idea, or an idea in the past.

Let me try to break that down. all the ideas that we have today are shadows of ideas we had five, 10, 100, a thousand years ago. Does that make sense? Just like the ideas in the future will be shadows of the ideas we've had today. If you can know that and understand that, then you can thoroughly understand how it's possible to move freely. through time. And if you can move freely through time, what does that mean? Well, it should mean that you could tell the future by looking at the past. And if you read my book Terror Before the Sacred, you will understand that all one needs to do is look at nature to thoroughly understand what's

happened and where we're going. It's this idea. I think it was P.KD's idea that our divine nature is much like or can be alien to us, but it cannot be denied to us. Alien just means it's different. It's something we don't recognize. And the reason we don't recognize the alien is because we've been separated from it for so long. And that, my friends, that's separation is what is causing all the problems today. Like we have, okay, let me try to put it like this. think of the word specialization.

Remember when you were younger and you played that game of operation and there was the doctor and the specialist, but the specialist always made way more money. Like, why is that? It's like the more abstract and idea is the bigger the payoff for that idea. But why? Why should something so abstract pay off so much when most of the time the level of abstraction is not only difficult to comprehend, but it's like a broken pencil. Pointless. The reason the payout is so high for abstract thought is because it's a new pathway. I'm sorry. It's a potential

new pathway. It's a potential new pathway for not only you to cut, but for people to follow. Does that make sense? All right. Let me try to put it down. this way let me try to paint you a picture so that you can better understand the idea I'm trying to put forth Linguistically imagine going on vacation let's say you go to Hawaii and you're with this group and you're at the head of a trail and you look up to the top of the trail and you can see the majestic destination in which you hope to travel and you look at and you go wow the summit looks so beautiful. I can't wait to get up there And as you bring your head back down, you look in front of you and you see a well-worn pathway with some stairs and some gravel. Good thing you got your water because it looks like a lot of stairs there. And you can kind of, as you look up, you can see some obstacles that you realize maybe a bit of a problem.

But because there's a pathway, you're secure, you know, it can be done. There's people coming down and there's people ahead of you. that is the normal method of thinking. That's the normal route. But then you look over to the right, and there was like this kind of an odd younger couple that, you know, they look like they work out a little bit, and they're heading, they leave your group,

and they're trying to cut into the hill over by these bushes, and it kind of, the pathway kind of disappears, and you're like, I don't know if that's a good idea. Better stay here with the group, you know. I ain't got all the water and stuff. Those guys are crazy trying to go way over there. It might be snakes or something. And you get about halfway up the trail with the group and you sit down for your water and you look up at the spot where you're supposed to summit and there's that crazy young couple.

They're already up at the top. And you're thinking to yourself, man, how the hell they get up there? And then you remember that they took this other way to the top. In fact, it appeared to you that they were entering the trail where there, in fact, was no trail. They were entering the forest. They were going to climb the mountain where there was no trail. It's a pretty abstract thought, right? But they found a new way.

And the new way is not always the best way, but sometimes it's a shortcut. And it's that reason we have specialization. It's that reason we have the ability to think abstract. Because sooner or later in life, your life will become your normal life. and the road you were on will become the normal road. And that road is crowded.

It's bumpy. It gets potholes. There's a bunch of annoying people on it sometimes. So why shouldn't you try to find a shortcut? Why shouldn't you try to think of an abstract way to achieve not only what the normal path will get you, but something greater than what the normal path will give you? and a lot of times those abstract thoughts are there for all of us in fact i bet you the normal

pathway and the normal road in which you are going was at one time an abstract thought we should be encouraging that and i think we've been doing that for the last 200 years like that is what industrialization used to be that is what the united states of america provided for the world was a new level of abstraction this is a new abstract thought And what we're seeing now, at least in my opinion, is the, it's the sort of like the boom and bust cycle, sort of the expansion and the retraction, the ebb and the flow. Now we're seeing the tide begin to flow back on itself. Like the tide is coming back in. We're all regrouping. And we have forgotten how to do that. We have forgotten what it was that brings us all together. We've forgotten that all of our societies, our cultures, our tribes are built on this natural mystic. All of our ideas are built on the shared harmony of sacrifice that came before us. We are part of the same organism.

It's just we don't even recognize each other because we've been away for so long. And it seems to me there's a beautiful, very worthy, even if it's just for the mental clarity or even if it's just for thinking about, there's this idea that says ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. That's just a big word salad. I know. So let me try to break it down for you into bite-sized chunk so you can enjoy the blue cheese with the salad on there.

What I'm saying, what that theory is basically saying is that you really, you really, live every part of your evolution in the womb or maybe when you're swimming around in your dad's balls or in your mom's womb you know like first you're like a sperm and then you become when when your parents make love and they have you the sperm penetrates the egg and then they grow together and then they the two become one and then the one becomes an intelligent being Right? So you go from the little tadpole or the egg and then you become this odd sort of little guppy with a tail. Then you maybe move into like a little bit of a monkey. If you've ever seen the ultrasound of a baby developing, it's fascinating.

In a lot of ways, that theory of ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny is beautiful. And it's why not? Let's just say it's true. I think it's true. maybe not 100% true but it's true enough how about that it's true enough okay so now that you've thought about that for a little while and you've i've given you enough to work with so that you can understand the two becomes one and we are all part of this same tribe let me bring it back what what it is that we're missing is the ability to to see ourselves as one and that's why we

need rituals that's why we need rites of passage that is why we need rights of passage that is why we need what I call the new Illucinian mysteries. We need to have this remembering. We need to have this ability to remember to go back to a time of shared sacrifice. You see, the word tribalism gets a bad rap. It's this idea that, oh, man, you're in your tribe and I'm in my tribe, and our tribe's got to fight. No, they don't.

No, they don't. Hey, we're all in the same tribe. It's just that one of us has spears made of lion's skin and the other one has spears made a zebra skin. And here's how I know. Here's how I know. There's something deep inside every one of us. I don't care what you look like, what your gender is

or what you're, you know, behind the bedroom door festivities. are all about. But what I do know is this. You can go to in soccer season or football season. You can go to a bar. And if you and somebody

whom you may not normally get along with or wearing the same jersey, you forget about everything else. You are participating in a shared experience. You're participating in a ritual that doesn't care about how different you are because it's too focused on how similar you are and that is in a weird way

the whole process of specialization like we've gotten so far away like oh we're so different i'm this you're that i'm this and that but guess what we're still the same we still experience things the same and that hasn't changed since the beginning and it's it's just we've forgotten how to in the joyful sorrow of loss of life. We have forgotten that we all feel that. We've gotten away from the very things that unite us. And instead, we have focused on that which divides us. Of course you're going to feel division.

Of course you're going to feel anger and hatred. When you blame other people for the loss in your life, when you fail to just reach out to that other person and it's probably feeling the same sorrow that you are. Instead of empathy, we've chosen blame. Instead of caring, we've chosen anger. But that's changing. Look at the world today.

Like, if you turn on your television, all there is is a bunch of different people telling you how much you should hate everybody else. Think about the people that would do that. Like, why? Why would you go and use this unbelievable, medium like television to just disseminate hate. What's wrong with the people doing that?

Those people hate themselves. And they want to use you as some sort of third-party force. They don't want there to be unity. They want there to be division because division means that a small group of people can control everybody. It's divide and conquer. Hey, look over here, not there. Hey, worry about that guy. That guy stole your stuff.

So as bleak as things look today, as crazy as COVID has been, as ridiculous and chaotic as Russia and Kiev seem to be, what we're witnessing is a reunification of the soul. So I ask you to join me and just turn it off the TV for a little while. Just forget about all these stockwerexia. market and all this other stupid things that don't matter. I hope it all fails. I hope it all crashes.

You know why? Because at the end of the day, you haven't lost anything. Oh, did you lose your retirement in the stock market? Hey, guess what, you've never had it. Oh, no, your future is doomed. Really? Because it's the same future you have right now. If you believe that this fictional source of income or this

idea of money or wealth that you don't even own is going to take care of you in the future. You're mistaken, my friend. You know what's going to care for you in the future? Your actions towards people today is the only thing that's going to save you tomorrow. And it will save you tomorrow if you change how you act today. And there's a lot of people who have, I would say corporations, governments, people in old money families who have lived their whole life on top of the bubble and been able to extract resources from working people by slapping blinders on them and telling them they're dumb by preaching the gospel of doubt by standing on top of the mountain and shouting shame on you those people are going to find that the words they've used to divide us no longer work there's spells of division, their ten commandments of complete garbage,

they no longer work. And that's why our society, as far as they're a concern, no longer works. Because they're no longer in charge. And nor should they be. A lot of times we're led by the least among us. The only people that can make your life better is you. And you can't rely on other people to do it.

The more you rely on yourself, on your family, and those that you love, the more love you have in your life. Well, that's what I got for today, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you take some of that to heart. I love having a few moments to get to hang out with you and look forward for a bunch of great new interviews coming out. Things are about to get amazing. I feel as if we are going through a metamorphosis. That's all I got for today. Let's get up and get out.

Aloha.