TrueLife - What Is Life? A Fleeting Shadow of a Dream — Consciousness, Illusion & the Human Mystery

Starting point is 00:00:01 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. Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

Starting point is 00:00:49 The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Without a shadow of a doubt, you know I love you. What you guys got going on? You going to work right now? Talking on the phone. Hey, calling your mom.

Starting point is 00:01:24 Hey mom, don't worry. Everything's gonna be okay. be okay. Don't worry about it, mom. We'll get to be just fine. Why'd you turn off, uh, turn off the news, man? All you're doing is making yourself crazy. You're just making yourself crazy listening to the news. Why don't you turn on the true life podcast? It's way more interesting. Got a lot more stuff going on. You know what I was thinking about today? Your shadow. Why is your shadow? following you. How come your shadow has to be black? If you could choose a color for your shadow, what would it be? Would you go with a blue shadow? How about like a red shadow?

Starting point is 00:02:15 I think I'd go with like a chrome shadow so I could see my reflection in my shadow. You can learn a lot from your shadow. In fact, your shadow is the one person that's always going to be by your side. Even when you can't see it, him, he's still there. Do you think that your shadow represents your dark side? You know those thoughts that you have sometimes when you're trying to be nice, but you're like, man, you know what I really think? I really think this.

Starting point is 00:02:57 Is that your shadow talking? A lot of people think that your shadow represents your dark side. And it might be a way to integrate your dark side into your personality. It might be a way to better understand the dual nature of man. Remember when you were little and you would see the cartoon

Starting point is 00:03:22 or you would see the pictures of like a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other shoulder? The duality of man. The shadow realm. What about shadow people? You ever heard of these people that wake up in the middle of the night

Starting point is 00:03:38 and they see like a shadow person, and it runs under the bed, or it sits on the side of the bed and just kind of stares at them, something out of the twilight zone. The shadow can be used for quite a bit. I heard a quote one time that said, that's impossible. That's like trying to move the shadow without moving the statue,

Starting point is 00:04:02 which brings up some pretty interesting points, right? It brings up the point, that if you want to change your dark side, you've got to change the way you move through life. Because your shadow can be gargantuan, right? If you stand the right way, you can cast a really big shadow. If you stand another way, you can cast almost no shadow. Everybody knows what it's like to be in the shadow of somebody greater than them.

Starting point is 00:04:40 Do you ever think about the shadow you cast? What about, do you got kids? Does one of your kids live in the shadow of the other kid? You know what I mean by that? Did you live in the shadow of your sister or your brother or your mother or your father? I think it was Carl Jung who said, the biggest obstacle of child faces is the unrealized dreams of the parent. You could argue that those unrealized dreams are the shadow of the parent.

Starting point is 00:05:10 It's an interesting thing to think about. If you could have a conversation with your shadow, what would you say? What would your shadow tell you? When you look down at your shadow and you're casting a big shadow, does that mean that at that point in time, dark thoughts have crept into your mind? Is that a reminder? When you look down and you see your shadow is extending further than you are,

Starting point is 00:05:41 should that be a reminder that makes, Maybe you're thinking some pretty dark thoughts. It could be. You could use your shadow like that. You could integrate your shadow into your daily life. How many of you do that? How many of you every single day make a conscious note to look at your shadow? Can your shadow be like, hey man, you had putting on some weight?

Starting point is 00:06:07 Could your shadow tell you, man, you better start eating something? Can your shadow make you laugh? Probably, right? You can make all kinds of shadow animals. You ever seen those guys that make like the dog and the rabbit on the on the wall? They're an expert in shadows. How about the allegory of the cave? Remember that? Where your whole life, you think you know what's going on,

Starting point is 00:06:40 but in reality, all you see are shadows on the wall of the cave. Is that what's going on in life? It's interesting to think about that. Usually dark colors absorb the heat. Yet all of us try to stand under the shadow of the shade tree to cool off. What about people who throw shade? They throw in a shadow? That's usually used in a negative connotation, right?

Starting point is 00:07:11 Throwing shade at me. Someone throw shade, you should be cool, right? It should be a cool thing. Oh, that guy's throwing shade. Cool, I'm hot. Why is throwing shade a bad thing? Hey, get in my shadow. All right.

Starting point is 00:07:27 Why don't you protect me from the sun? That's what an umbrella does. Isn't an umbrella throw shade? I happen to like umbrellas. Although I think we could come up with a better umbrella. Right? Every time you close an umbrella, don't you get a little bit wet like you have to shake it out? I don't think the umbrella has changed in a hundred years.

Starting point is 00:07:53 No one's come up with a better umbrella. Someone should probably get on that. How about like a little drone you throw open and just follows you around? You know what? If you got a drone and it was, you could throw it in the air

Starting point is 00:08:05 and it would turn into an umbrella, you would literally be throwing shade and changing the meaning of throwing shade. How about that? How about that for turning a negative into a positive? And by negative, I mean like a, you know what?

Starting point is 00:08:20 I guess a negative's all black, right? Remember taking pictures? You had to put them in a dark room? You turn a negative into a positive by throwing a drone umbrella and throwing shade and cooling you off or protecting you from the sun or the water. How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side. Also, if I am whole. Maybe the only thing each of us can see is our own shadow.

Starting point is 00:08:53 See, that's what Carl Jung called his shadow work. He said, we never see others. Instead, we only see aspects of ourselves that fall over them. Shadows, projections, our associations. I think that's pretty deep. You know, that's why when you see qualities in other people, what you're really seeing are qualities you recognize in yourself. It's a good way to master and understand your emotion.

Starting point is 00:09:29 If you see someone, you get really angry at them, it's probably because it's something about you that you don't like. The shadow self, the dark side. My shadow told me something yesterday. I got a new neighbor that moved in next to us. Clearly he's not from Hawaii. He's making, he's got like four kids and he's got all the stuff all thrown over his yard. I'm looking through my window, like, look at this dummy. What's this guy doing?

Starting point is 00:10:05 getting all judgmental, casting a big shadow. And then I caught myself. I'm like, you know what? Maybe instead of sitting in here, letting my shadow do the talk, or maybe sitting in here after talking to my shadow, instead of judging this guy, maybe I should go out there and help him.

Starting point is 00:10:26 Instead of sitting in here, making fun of them, you'd go out there and help him. The guy doesn't know. It was a good conversation I had with my shadow. but I had to go to the dark side of myself. I had to start making fun of him. I had to be like, this guy's a dummy. I had to go there.

Starting point is 00:10:47 It's almost like I had to go to the dark side. I had to go talk to my shadow so that I could understand. I had to talk to my shadow so I could be shown the light. And the light was, why'd you go help him? How about this one? I am the champion standing over the shadow of my former self. Maybe you can incorporate that one into your life. Whenever you see your shadow, you can recognize that you are the champion standing over the darker parts of your psyche.

Starting point is 00:11:27 Maybe you could use that as, I'm growing. Hey, I used to be this way, but now I'm standing over that dark part of me. I've outgrown it. I am the champion standing over the part of me. that I didn't like because I beat it. I knocked it out. And now it's laying there on the ground. As a reminder that I can overcome adversity.

Starting point is 00:11:52 I think it was Nathaniel Hawthorne who said, Some illusions are the shadows of great truths. When you hear something, is it a shadow of the truth? Are there shadows of truths in every lie? Probably. if you can recognize the shadow of truth in someone's speech, can you better understand their emotions? If you could understand the shadow of truth in an argument, could you better solve that argument? Remember everybody, the purpose of an argument is to solve a problem.

Starting point is 00:12:35 If you could understand the shadow of the concept of which someone is trying to describe to you, will you be able to better form an idea of what that concept is? If you can understand a shadow of what somebody's trying to tell you, that you could help fill in that picture. You could build that relationship better. You could build your understanding better just by understanding a shadow of the truth. What if there was some sort of shadow language? Could you say that that's what, that's what,

Starting point is 00:13:17 facial expressions are or body language, maybe that's a shadow of our language. Maybe that's the language of the shadow. What is life if not the fleeting shadow of a dream? That's a beautiful one. What is life if not the fleeting shadow of a dream? Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it. the tree is the real thing

Starting point is 00:14:02 Every light has its shadow And every shadow Hath a succeeding morning Have you ever been Afraid of your shadow You're probably thinking What am I, Pucks and Tawnee Phil George? What am I a groundhog?

Starting point is 00:14:22 You think I'm going to predict Six more weeks a winner? Is that what it is, pal? I'm not afraid of my shadow. Have you ever been So high that you were afraid of your shadow? That's pretty high. How about this?

Starting point is 00:14:40 Have you ever been so high that you talk to your shadow? What about this one? Have you ever been so stoned that your shadow talks back to you? That would probably be a very interesting conversation. You probably would not want to tell too many people about it. But if your shadow could talk,

Starting point is 00:15:07 I bet you he'd have some interesting things to say. What about shadow boxing? It's a pretty good metaphor, right? You're just fighting with yourself. Maybe that's the job of the shadow is to remind you that in life you are fighting with yourself. Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind.

Starting point is 00:15:45 The race is long. But in the end, it's with yourself. Success is like your own shadow. If you try to catch it, you will never succeed. Ignore it, and it will follow you. How about this one by Robert Louis Stevenson? I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me. And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

Starting point is 00:16:20 He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head, and I see him jump before me when I jump into my bed. The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow, not at all like proper children, which is always very slow. For he sometimes shoots up taller, like an India rubber ball, and he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all. He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play and can only make a fool of me in every sort of way. He stays so close beside me. He's a coward you can see. I'd think shame to stick to nursery as that shadow sticks to me. One morning, very clearly before the sun was up, I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup. But my lazy little shadow, like an errant sleepy head,

Starting point is 00:17:23 he stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed. This learned I from the shadow of a tree, that to and fro did sway upon a wall. Our shadow cells, our influence may fall where we can never be. Well, there you have it, my friends. The shadow. The shadow voice of George. coming at you.

Starting point is 00:17:56 I hope that my words are able to cast a shadow upon your day but not a shadow of darkness. Whatever color you chose your shadow to be, I hope that these words will remind you of me. The shadow, my friend, is there to remind you that you are a being of light.

Starting point is 00:18:23 Beware of the shadow you cast on other people. Try and spread more smiles than tears and utilize lessons learned from your childhood years. I love you. Hope you have a great day. Aloha.

TrueLife - What Is Life? A Fleeting Shadow of a Dream — Consciousness, Illusion & the Human Mystery

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