back to indexJoe Rogan: Comedy, Controversy, Aliens, UFOs, Putin, CIA, and Freedom | Lex Fridman Podcast #300
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The following is a conversation with Joe Rogan, his second time on the
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podcast. He has inspired me for many years with his conversations to be a
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better and kinder person and has now been doing so as a friend. There's no one
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I would rather talk to on this 300th episode of this podcast on the 4th
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of July, both the anniversary of this country's Declaration of Independence
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and the anniversary of my immigrating here to the United States. A silly kid
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who couldn't speak English, who could never imagine that he would be so damn
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lucky as to live the life I've lived, and to feel the love I've felt from the
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amazing people along the way. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I love you
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all. This is the Lex Friedman podcast. To support it, please check out our
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sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Joe Rogan.
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Charles Bukowski said something in a poem called Style About Art. He defined
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art saying, style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach adult
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or dangerous thing. To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a
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dangerous thing without it. To do a dangerous thing with style is what I
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call art. What do you think he meant by that? Do you agree with this? A dangerous
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thing with style is art. He said both fighting can be art, boxing can be art,
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loving can be art. Have you ever made love and it was art? No, okay, I'm not asking.
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Every time, bro. Opening a can of sardines can be art. I think there's something to that.
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Yeah, I think I think I call the way people live life art. Like I wrote a
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forward to my friend Cameron Haynes's book and which is right now the number
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one selling audio book in the world. And one of the things that I said was
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that practice is an art that very few people appreciate and it's the art of
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the maximized life and that the discipline that he displays in his
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life and through his practices and all the things that he does, it's so difficult
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to live the way he lives. That for someone like me who understands it and knows
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what he's doing and appreciates it and appreciates how insanely difficult it
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is to have a full time job and run ultra marathons, get up at four o clock in
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the morning, run a full marathon before work. Like that's the kind of shit that
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he does when he's training for these 240 mile runs all at the same time
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being like a father, a husband, having this full time job, also being the best
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bow hunter on earth, lifting weights. It's like how does a person do this?
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So in a way discipline is art too. Yes, it discipline is art. Yeah, I think it is
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because it's beautiful for me to see when I see someone who's really truly
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disciplined, who like a David Goggins, someone who just like truly maximizes
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the grind. I feel like there's an art to that and there's an art to kindness.
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Like there's people that are really kind and really sweet and when I'm around
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them it's beautiful. It's like there's an art to them. No matter what. Yeah. They
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still, they got, you know, the world can throw a bunch of shit at you but through
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all that. Some people are just great at it. Yeah. And it's a thing that you learn
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how to do and it's pleasing for other people to see and that I think is where
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the art is. Well, I think Bukowski also said, and I'm just a Bukowski quote
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generator today. I love him. I love him very much too. He's a dark and troubled
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and fascinating and a weird person, like Hunter S. Thompson. Yeah. He said what
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matters most is how you walk through the fire, I think. So there's a bit of the
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Cannes Haynes in that too, David Goggins in that too. What do you think he meant by that?
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Well, how you walk through the fire, I mean, you can walk through the fire
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complaining along the way or you can walk through the fire and create an example
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for everyone else so that the trials and tribulations of their own life seem
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trivial because they're comparing themselves to the way you handle things
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or the way you handle things with grace and dignity and discipline can show
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other people that they can handle their own life this way and there's beauty
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in that. There really is and there's so much inspiration to be
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gathered from other people. If you're a charitable person, if you're charitable
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and compassionate and you can look at people, even people I don't like, I
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try to look at the best aspects of how they live their life and
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recognize those aspects, admire them, give them credit for it, there's
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something that we can all get out of watching the way other people live
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their lives. So I got a chance to see you walk through the fire a little bit
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privately and publicly this year in January. I got to ask you about that. So
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there's like generic conversations about sort of cancel culture and all those
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kinds of things but as a human being, this to me is fascinating. So there's
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the end word highlight video, there's the criticism of the different guests,
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whatever the side is on the COVID pandemic and you, I mean there's a mass
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amount of attack on you. Outside of being a public persona, outside of being
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comedian, podcast, you're also a human being. So how did you survive that? How
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did you sort of walk through that fire? Because you seem to do it with grace. I
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use mushrooms. That was one way I did it. Yeah, yeah. Really? What's your, as Andrew
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Huberman would say, what was your protocol? I took, it was probably less than a
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gram every day. Every day. Yeah. And I did a lot of like really hard working out but
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also, I mean, there's a great benefit to going through anything difficult and if
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you're aware, like in advance and why, enduring, like anything that's gonna
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happen that's very difficult and troubling. The great benefit is it gives
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you an opportunity to grow, gives you an opportunity to express yourself under
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pressure, to show your character, to show who you truly are and it gives you an
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opportunity to see how you handle a very difficult situation. It also was
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fascinating as a person that's involved in media, right? Because what we're doing
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right now is media, even though, you know, it seems like podcasts seem like
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we're just having a conversation, right? And they are. In a sense, it's kind of
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the purest form of media because what you're doing is you're doing it
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without any fanfare, you're doing it without any, there's no executives
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looming over your head or network or big meetings about ratings or any of that
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stuff, but it is media. But what I got to see is the wiring under the machine of
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how the rest of media would try to take me out and, you know, like when CNN
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would be just be playing things over and over and back and forth, it was wild to
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watch. What was also wild to watch was people's responses because I gained two
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million subscribers during that time. Like the podcast never got bigger. It just
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kept growing. It had never been bigger than it had been like at the end of all
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of it. It just made it bigger. And, you know, ultimately, when, if you've fucked
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up in the past or made mistakes or done something wrong, that gives you an
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opportunity to discuss those things and to say, to apologize if you feel the need
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to apologize and also to just address it. And so people under that kind of
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pressure, they get, it's an opportunity for them to understand how you think
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about things. Honestly, how you actually honestly think about things. And there's
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no more honesty that you get out of a person than when that person is under
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extreme duress. You know, so I think in that sense, I mean, it's horrible to say
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that it's a benefit, that it's a good thing that it happened. But it was a
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Can you see how it can break a person?
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I've gotten a chance to experience small, small attacks here and there, ones that
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get to the core of things. Like even just talking to, about Russia and Ukraine, to
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Stephen Cawkin or Oliver Stone, looking at different perspectives, you gain a
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relative, for me, feeling like a sizable number of people who really don't like
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you and say things about you that are, that may be cut deep for a reason I
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don't understand why. It's just my own psychology.
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Well, it's also because you can't defend yourself because they're saying it and
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you're not there and you, you don't have any opportunity for a rebuttal. And if
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you do have a rebuttal, you're doing it publicly and you're opening it up to the
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whole world to chime in. And there's a general tendency that people have towards
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negativity when they're interacting with strangers online, especially about
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controversial subjects. And even if it's only 10% of the people, it's one out of
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10. That's a lot. That's a lot of negativity when you're dealing with
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thousands and thousands of tweets. And I think maybe I'm just a very self
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critical person, but I hear their words and I probably somewhere deep inside see
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the truth and the criticism in some aspect of the criticism. And that's why
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it hurts. Well, it's, but it's one aspect of you, you know, but when you're
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reading it, it's so it's boiled down to this one thing as if that one thing
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defines you totally. Like if you've made a mistake, if you've said something that
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you shouldn't have said, or if you said something and, you know, maybe you should
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have considered it more carefully, giving the gravity of the situation, you
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know, that that's just a part of being a person. And it's also part of being a
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person where you're communicating with things publicly in real time, thinking
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out loud, which is what we do. You know, it's complex. And most people don't do
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it. And you're going to have these, you're going to have genuine hot takes
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where people just see what you said and go, why did he say that? Fuck him. You
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know, he doesn't know anything about, he doesn't live in Ukraine. He, you know,
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it's like, there's, there's people that are going to have takes on that, that
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way. And then there's also going to be these disingenuous people who just use
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any kind of controversial topic or subject as an opportunity for them to get
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But that the number of those people can be quite large.
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And so going back to, do you think it can destroy a person? Because I kind of
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worry about this. And you're in many ways, but in this way, an inspiration that
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it didn't seem to have destroyed you.
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I kept doing shows. I kept doing stand up. I'd ignored everything. I didn't read
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So it is possible to just ignore it?
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A hundred percent. Yes. Yeah. I ignored it all.
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But you have like, I knew it was there.
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Like your family didn't bring it up.
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My family was very aware of it. My wife was aware of it.
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It was a conversation like if, if your wife is aware of it, is there like a
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rule, don't pretend it's not happening.
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No. Just like, well, I don't, I tell her, don't ever read.
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Pass the green beans.
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Yeah. I don't ever let her like read negative articles to me.
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You know, I don't want them. I don't care.
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I go, that's a person's opinion. You take a person's opinion, you write it down.
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It doesn't give it any more relevance.
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Like that person, you know, could have had that opinion in silence.
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They could have had it with some friends at dinner.
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They don't like me, whatever. I don't want to read it.
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I don't want to absorb it. I don't even know them, especially if I'm not there.
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And especially if it's some biased and it's, it's not an objective opinion of me.
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It's this, you know, they have a narrative and they want to stick to that
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narrative and they want to write an article and they piece it all together,
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make you a piece of shit.
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And that's their prerogative. They're completely allowed to do that.
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But I know, I shouldn't absorb that. I shouldn't take that in.
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You're not supposed to be taking in the opinion of the world.
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You're supposed to be taking in the opinion of small groups of people
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that you encounter so that you get an understanding of how you make them feel.
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And then maybe you say to yourself, maybe I come across too rude or maybe I come
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across too insensitive or maybe, maybe I could do better in this way or that way.
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That's how we sort of shape our personalities.
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And that's how we, we develop our social skills.
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But when the people don't know you and they have this like distorted narrative
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of you and, you know, there's fucking millions of people.
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There's so many people. You can't be saying, I mean,
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millions of people that are like communicating about something like during
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the height of the, you know, the attempt to cancel me or whatever that is.
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I don't know how many people were involved in that.
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People take this kind of stuff seriously.
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But the problem is the false narratives take hold and then you have meetings,
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you have groups, you have bills on top of each other and there's this outrage.
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And then it reaches you at some point and it can just have these destructive effects.
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It can. But it also sometimes doesn't.
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And in my case, it didn't. It didn't work.
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What lessons did you draw from that?
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Mushrooms, exercise.
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Mushrooms and exercise. Exercise is critical.
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And so I don't think the mushrooms by themselves would have worked.
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But that's the thing that I use for everything is the brutal exercise.
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Like my exercise routines are horrible and because of that,
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everything else is easier.
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I create my own bullshit and my own bullshit is so much harder.
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And it's not just that.
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It's also sauna and cold plunge and these torture sessions.
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They, in enduring those, when you endure those,
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it makes enduring other things much easier.
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And it's also an understanding of what's happening.
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Like you have to know like media.
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You have to understand like what the hot take,
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you know, YouTube, social media, podcast,
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ecosphere is doing.
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Like if they're talking about, you know, Lex Friedman said this
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and we have to comment on that and, you know,
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Lex gets canceled in all capital letters on a YouTube clip.
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And if you, you watch that, you're fucking crazy.
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What are you doing? Absorbing all this negativity?
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It's not good for you.
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You are you. You know you.
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And you know, generally, if you've made a mistake
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and you know, generally, if people are upset with you.
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You posted this awesome video on your Instagram
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of a woman who was being interviewed in 19, late 1920s,
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And she's close to a hundred years old.
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So she's lived through the civil war, through World War I.
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She was at the time living through the early days
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of the Great Depression.
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So I was just looking back, you know,
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what have we as a human civilization
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in recent times survived,
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especially in the United States?
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You're talking about the two world wars in the 20th century,
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the Great Depression, the Spanish food, the pandemic
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at the beginning of the 20th century.
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What do we do in the United States?
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If you think of what are the traumatic events
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that shook our world?
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It's made us rethink our place in the world.
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Pandemic is a huge one.
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One of the bigger ones, because it also accelerated
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and exacerbated our anxiety,
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which people have a certain level of anxiety already,
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especially sedentary people.
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They have a very high level of anxiety already
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because I don't think they're giving their body
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I don't think their, you know,
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your body has certain requirements in terms of movement.
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And when you deny your body those requirements,
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I think there's like a general level of anxiety
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that exists in almost everyone.
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And then you have people obviously
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that have mental health issues.
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And that also exacerbates the anxiety.
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The lockdown exacerbated the anxiety.
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Losing loved ones to the pandemic exacerbated anxiety.
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And then there was the division,
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the different schools of thought.
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The people that were never gonna get vaccinated
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I ain't trusting it.
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People that thought there was microchips in there.
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People that thought that, you know, Fauci's the daemon.
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And there was a lot.
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And there's also like political leanings.
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The right wing people tended to not wanna be vaccinated.
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Whereas the left wing people for whatever reason,
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all of a sudden are trusting pharmaceutical companies
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It was a weird time.
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And I think over time as it gets analyzed
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and we break it down,
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it's gonna be one of the weirder moments
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for shaping human culture.
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And unfortunately for throwing gasoline on this
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already burning fire of conflict
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between the various factions of thought in this country.
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It's already a weird time post Trump.
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Like the Trump era is also going to be
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one of the weirder times.
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When people look back historically
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about the division in this country,
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he's such a polarizing figure
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that so many people felt like
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they could abandon their own ethics and morals
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and principles just to attack him
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and anybody who supports him
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because he is an existential threat to democracy itself.
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But don't you think it's not a cause
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but maybe like a symptom?
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Like it's gonna get, you said it got real weird.
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Maybe it's gonna get weirder.
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Yeah, I think it's gonna get weirder.
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He's gonna run again.
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You think he wins?
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Well, he's running against a dead man.
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You know, I mean, Biden shakes hands
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with people that aren't even there
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when he gets off stage.
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I think he's seeing ghosts.
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You see him on Jimmy Kimmel the other day?
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Well, he was just rambling.
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I mean, if he was anyone else,
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if he was a Republican,
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if that was Donald Trump doing that,
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every fucking talk show would be screaming
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for him to be off the air.
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And by the way, I'm not a Trump supporter
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in any way, shape, or form.
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I've had the opportunity to have him on my show
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I've said no every time.
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I don't wanna help him.
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I'm not interested in helping him.
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The night is still young, we'll see.
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If I have him on, the night is still young?
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You think I'll have him on?
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I think you'll have him on.
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Really? Why do you think that?
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Because you'll have Putin on?
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And you're competitive as fuck.
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I think ultimately, I mean, you've had a lot of people
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that I think you may otherwise be skeptical
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would I have a good conversation?
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Which I think is your metric.
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You don't care about politics.
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So can I have a good conversation?
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And I think you had people like Kanye on, for example,
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and you had a great conversation with them.
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I think you, I think...
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Yeah, but Kanye is an artist.
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But Kanye doing well or not doing well
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doesn't change the course of our country.
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Yeah, but you know, do you really bear the responsibility
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of the course of our country based on a conversation?
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I think you can revitalize and rehabilitate
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someone's image in a way that is pretty shocking.
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Look at the way people look at Alex Jones now.
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Because Alex Jones has been on my podcast a few times.
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Yeah, how do they, which direction?
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The people that have watched those podcasts
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think he's hilarious.
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And they think that he definitely fucked up
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with that whole Sandy Hook thing.
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But he's right more than he's wrong.
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And he's not an evil guy.
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He's just a guy who's had some psychotic breaks in his life.
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He's had some genuine mental health issues
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that he's addressed.
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He's had some serious bouts of alcoholism,
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some serious bouts of, you know, substance abuse.
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And they've contributed to some very poor thinking.
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But if you know the guy, if you get to know him,
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like I have, I've known him for more than 20 years.
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And if you know him on podcasts,
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you realize like he is genuinely trying to unearth
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some things that are genuinely disturbing for most people.
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Like this is a guy that was telling me
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about Epstein's Island fucking decade ago, at least.
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He was telling me about it.
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You're telling me there's a place
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where they bring elites to compromise them
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with underage girls and they film them.
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Cut the fuck out of here.
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Like no, President Clinton's been there.
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Everyone's been there.
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It sounds like nonsense.
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And not only is it true,
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but people keep getting fucking murdered for it.
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Did you see that latest Clinton advisor
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that got murdered about it?
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Yeah, hung with an extension cord,
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shot himself in the chest, 30 miles from his house,
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and they're calling it a suicide.
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And now even Elon Musk is asking,
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where's the clientele list?
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We should probably see who's been to that island.
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Yeah, we should probably see who's been to that island.
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And there's probably more of those kind of things out there
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that haven't been exposed.
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Yeah, but sort of to push back,
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in you had those conversations with Alex Jones,
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wouldn't you be able to have the same kind of conversation
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with Donald Trump?
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Yeah, that's the problem.
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No, it's not the problem.
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You revealed that Alex Jones is a human being.
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He has demons in his head.
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He's obviously chaotic all over the place,
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but there's some wisdom to the perspective
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he takes on the world,
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even though he is often full of shit,
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he is able to predict certain things
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that very few people are willing to bring up.
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So isn't Trump the same way?
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Fucked up person, egomaniac,
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whatever personality things you can talk about,
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isn't it worthwhile to lay it out?
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Like who's going to,
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if you listen to interviews of Trump,
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who has the balls to call him out on his bullshit?
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No, calling out somebody on their bullshit is easy
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when you're just being adversarial.
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But as a person who is genuinely empathetically
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trying to understand,
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I think you're really good at that.
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Like you pulled him in.
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I don't know if he would genuinely be there.
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You know what I'm saying?
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Like I think he would be putting on a performance.
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You don't think he can break through that
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in like 30 minutes?
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I'd need more time than that.
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And he doesn't do any drugs.
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That's the thing about Alex.
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You can get Alex high, get him drunk,
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and he'll start talking about
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interdimensional child molesters.
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And then you get to real Alex.
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Maybe you have somebody else on as well
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to introduce chaos like Alex.
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They have to be one of them.
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I would have to be just me and him.
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I would have to, that would be a focused thing.
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I would have to like really take time with Trump.
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But also I'm not well versed enough politically
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to know all of the corruption that's been alleged
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and to understand what the whole Russia gate stuff,
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what's real, like how much of it,
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it's clear that there is more than one organization
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that's involved in communicating with Russia
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before the 2016 election.
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So it's pretty clear that the Clinton administration
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It's pretty clear that the Trump administration
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had some communication with some people in Russia.
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It's pretty clear that Hunter Biden
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had some very suspicious dealings in Ukraine.
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And there's a lot going on there, man.
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And it's hard for anybody to parse.
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It's really hard for anybody,
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and especially to have an objective assessment
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of exactly what's going on.
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And then to be able to do that and broadcast it publicly.
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That's quite a project.
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And I think if you really want to do that correctly,
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it's something that I would have to research for a long time
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and to really, and I don't have that kind of time.
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Not for, maybe for certain people
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that you're really curious about.
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Like you have that kind of time for Bob Lazar.
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But maybe not for Donald Trump.
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No, that's different.
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Because Bob Lazar, what he's talking about,
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I wanted to know, with the Bob Lazar thing,
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I wanted to know, first of all, I want to be around him
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and see if I could smell bullshit.
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No, I didn't, man.
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That was what's weird about it.
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Not only did I not smell bullshit,
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I went over all of his interviews.
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I went, he hasn't done a lot, but he's done enough.
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And he's done them over the course of 30 plus years.
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And it's alarming how consistent his story is.
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Which is really weird when you think about,
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you're talking about back engineering alien crafts
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and working on a top secret government test site
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that's carved into the side of a mountain
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to camouflage it from satellites.
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It's such a wacky story.
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But the guy really did work at Los Alamos Labs.
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He really is a propulsion expert.
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He really is a scientist.
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Did he really work on back engineering UFOs?
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But the way he described their motion
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is exactly like what's been observed
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by some of these pilots
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that have these videos that they've captured.
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And I just love that, like, NASA,
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I've been hearing from a bunch of folks
link |
who are legitimately like funding research
link |
and there's people really taking the seriously
link |
of UFO sightings, investigating them,
link |
like adding more and more sensors to collect data
link |
from just observing at higher definitions.
link |
It's cool to finally see that.
link |
And he was one of the early people,
link |
whether he's full of shit or not,
link |
that kind of forced people to start taking
link |
these topics seriously.
link |
Or at least forced people to have conversations about them
link |
and maybe attempt to debunk them
link |
because it seems so preposterous,
link |
but then get sucked down the rabbit hole
link |
and start going, hmm, maybe, we'll fucking,
link |
it's the thing is like the Fermi paradox,
link |
like where are they, right?
link |
And when you take into account just the sheer raw numbers,
link |
the vast majority of people objectively assume
link |
that there is life out there, the vast majority.
link |
Well, if you're really taking into account
link |
what we understand about the universe itself,
link |
what we understand about the concept of infinity,
link |
and the way Neil deGrasse Tyson has explained it to me
link |
is that not only are there life forms out there,
link |
but there's you, you are out there.
link |
Infinity is so large that Lex Friedman exists
link |
and doesn't just exist,
link |
but exists an infinite number of times,
link |
like the amount of interactions that cells and molecules,
link |
the same exact interactions that have happened here on earth
link |
have happened in the exact same order,
link |
an infinite number of times in the cosmos.
link |
Well, first of all, it's not certain that that's true.
link |
It's possible. It's possible.
link |
Like Sean Carroll, you know,
link |
especially with quantum mechanics,
link |
based on certain interpretation of quantum mechanics,
link |
that's very possible.
link |
But the question is, can you access those universes?
link |
Right, how far away are they?
link |
The more sort of specific practical question is,
link |
this local pocket of the universe,
link |
our galaxy or our neighboring galaxies,
link |
are there aliens there?
link |
What do they look like?
link |
Are they, so you can have this panspermia idea
link |
where a much larger, like daddy civilization,
link |
like rolled by and just planted a few aliens
link |
at a similar time.
link |
Yes, a different, you know, throughout the galaxy.
link |
And those are the ones we might be interacting with.
link |
They're all kind of dumb as we are, relatively,
link |
you know, maybe a few million years apart.
link |
And then those are the ones we're interacting with.
link |
And then we have a chance to actually connect with them,
link |
communicate with them.
link |
Or it could be like much more wide open
link |
and you have these gigantic alien civilizations
link |
that are expanding very, very quickly.
link |
And the interesting thing is,
link |
when you look up at the sky and you see the stars,
link |
that's light from those stars.
link |
We might not be seeing the alien civilizations
link |
until they're already here.
link |
Meaning, like you start expanding,
link |
once you get really good at expanding,
link |
you're going to be expanding very close to the speed of light.
link |
So right now we don't see much in the sky,
link |
but there could be one day we wake up
link |
and it's just like everywhere and they're here.
link |
Right, but because of the amount of time
link |
the light takes to reach us.
link |
Yeah, and then the thing that I've been really fascinated by
link |
is these alternative forms of transportation
link |
that they're discussing,
link |
like the ability to harness wormholes
link |
and the ability to do things
link |
that a type three civilization is capable of.
link |
I had Michio Kaku on my podcast recently.
link |
Fantastic, love that guy.
link |
He's so good at taking extremely complex concepts
link |
and boiling them down for digestion
link |
and saying them in a way that other people can appreciate.
link |
And not being hesitant about saying wild,
link |
crazy shit that's out there,
link |
but grounded in what's actually possible.
link |
Yeah, he's all in on this UFO phenomenon now.
link |
He's like, now the burden of proof is to people
link |
for people to come up with some sort of
link |
a conventional explanation for these things.
link |
He goes, because these things are defying
link |
all the concepts of physics that we currently know
link |
in terms of what our capabilities are
link |
and propulsion systems and so many other things
link |
that what we know about,
link |
what current science is capable of reproducing
link |
as far as what we know.
link |
The problem is like these military projects
link |
that are top secret.
link |
Like how much money do they have?
link |
They have a lot of money.
link |
Like, but is it possible,
link |
and maybe you could speak to this,
link |
is it possible that there could be some propulsion systems
link |
that have been developed and implemented
link |
that are far beyond just the simple burning of rocket fuel,
link |
pushing the fire out the back,
link |
which forces the rocket at extreme speeds forward.
link |
That's something that does harness gravity,
link |
something that can distort space and time
link |
and can make travel from one point to another
link |
preposterously fast.
link |
Well, not only is it possible,
link |
I think it's likely that that kind of stuff
link |
would be kept a secret.
link |
It's just everything you see about these,
link |
about the way either if it's contractors like Lockheed Martin
link |
or if it's DoD, the actual departments of defense,
link |
they operate in complete secrecy.
link |
Just even looking at the history of the stealth fighter,
link |
just even stealth technology was kept a secret
link |
for a very, very long time.
link |
And not until you're ready to use it
link |
and need to use it, does it become public?
link |
And not officially public,
link |
it just is being detected out in the wild.
link |
So there's going to be a process
link |
where you're secretly testing it,
link |
and that might creep up, which is maybe what we're seeing.
link |
And then it's waiting for the next big war,
link |
the next big reason to use the thing.
link |
And so, yeah, there's definitely technologies now.
link |
There might not be propulsion technologies,
link |
there could be AI surveillance technologies,
link |
there could be different kinds of stealth drones.
link |
There could be, it could be also in cyberspace,
link |
like cyber war weapons, all that kind of stuff.
link |
That they're obviously going to become secret.
link |
I'm very skeptical lately.
link |
And the reason why I'm skeptical
link |
is the government keeps talking about it.
link |
The Pentagon keeps talking about it,
link |
NASA keeps talking about it.
link |
In which direction are you skeptical?
link |
I'm skeptical that it's their aliens.
link |
I think most likely it's a smoke screen.
link |
And most likely these are some sort of
link |
like incredibly advanced drones that they've developed
link |
that they want to pretend don't exist.
link |
That seems the more likely scenario,
link |
because otherwise, my take is like,
link |
what's the benefit of them discussing these things?
link |
Like, what's the benefit of them
link |
discussing these things openly?
link |
These are, you know, the way they described it,
link |
off world crafts, not made from this earth.
link |
Why would they tell us that?
link |
I mean, unless there's an imminent danger
link |
of us being invaded and they want to prepare people
link |
so they don't freak out as much.
link |
You know, like maybe freak them out a little bit,
link |
say that publicly, the New York Times article,
link |
the Pentagon discussing it,
link |
all these different things happening.
link |
Well, let people know that this is a thing.
link |
Or my take is like that, I don't think they do that.
link |
I don't think they tell us.
link |
I think they, I think,
link |
I think the government has a lot of contempt
link |
I think they have contempt for our intelligence.
link |
They have contempt for our need to know things.
link |
And I also think they think that they are running us.
link |
It's not, we're all in this together
link |
and the government works for the people
link |
and the government is of the people.
link |
I don't think they think that way.
link |
The basic idea is you can't trust the populace,
link |
the government itself, because we're a bunch of idiots.
link |
I think that's accurate.
link |
Well, they're not wrong, but they're also idiots,
link |
power hungry idiots.
link |
I don't think they're, I don't think everyone's an idiot,
link |
but I think there are enough idiots
link |
that it becomes a real problem
link |
if you're completely honest about everything you do.
link |
And you don't want to let everybody weigh in
link |
about things that are incredibly complex
link |
and that most people are ignorant of.
link |
And on top of that, there's this machine of intelligence.
link |
I've recently been reading a lot about the KGB, about the FSB.
link |
So several things sparked my curiosity.
link |
So one, I'm traveling to Ukraine and to Moscow.
link |
And because of that, I started to sort of
link |
ask practical questions of myself,
link |
just traveling, all those kinds of things.
link |
So I started reading a lot about the KGB,
link |
Jack Barsky as a book on this, I talked to him.
link |
And you start to realize,
link |
you probably looked into some of this,
link |
but you just start to realize the scale
link |
of surveillance and manipulation.
link |
Now, a lot of them also talk about the incompetence
link |
of those organizations, the usual bureaucracy creeps in.
link |
But the point is, it seems like there's no line
link |
they're not willing to cross
link |
for the purpose of gathering intelligence,
link |
for the purpose of controlling people
link |
in order to gather intelligence.
link |
Now, this is MI6, FSB, there's not much information
link |
about the FSB or the GRU, but the KGB.
link |
So we're always like 20 years behind or more
link |
on the actual information.
link |
And so I started to wonder,
link |
so I have not officially been contacted
link |
by any intelligence agency, but I started to wonder,
link |
well, is there somebody I know that's doing that,
link |
undercover CIA or undercover FSB, undercover anything?
link |
Have you asked yourself this question?
link |
Yeah, people that have been on my podcast.
link |
Do you think there was actually a guess that may have been?
link |
I have suspicions.
link |
I mean, it depends on what they're attempting to do, right?
link |
Like if I felt like there was some deception involved
link |
and they were trying to use the podcast
link |
to manipulate a narrative in a deceptive way
link |
to trick people into things, yeah, I would care.
link |
But this is exactly what,
link |
those are the kind of things they do.
link |
They do plant narratives.
link |
Yeah, I mean, I would imagine
link |
if you have the number one podcast in the world
link |
that people would wanna infiltrate that.
link |
Yeah, there's probably meetings
link |
in all major intelligence agencies about,
link |
okay, what are the large platforms?
link |
How do we spread the message?
link |
Yeah, well, I mean, that's the thing that really emerged
link |
when we're talking about during my cancellation,
link |
that there's a clear,
link |
there's no objective analysis of this in mainstream media.
link |
There's clear narratives that they're trying to push forward
link |
to whether it's to promote certain ideas
link |
or to diminish the power and reach of people who are Mavericks
link |
or people who are, you know,
link |
who aren't connected to a system
link |
that you can't compromise.
link |
That's where it gets dangerous, right?
link |
Where it gets dangerous is when someone has the largest reach
link |
but is also completely detached
link |
and clearly is independent
link |
in the sense of independent thinking
link |
has on whoever he wants.
link |
But your mind can still be manipulated.
link |
I mean, I guess everybody can be manipulated a certain way.
link |
I manipulate my own mind, I'm sure too.
link |
But I also spent a lot of time thinking about what I think.
link |
You know, I don't just accept things.
link |
Like the UFO thing, like I was all in for a while
link |
and now I'm like, man, something smells fishy.
link |
And then I'm thinking like, why,
link |
here's my problem with the UFO thing.
link |
I want it to be real so bad.
link |
That's my problem with it.
link |
I'm such a sucker.
link |
I want it to be real so bad, you know?
link |
And that's a problem for me, because I'm aware of it.
link |
And so then I stop and think about like,
link |
what is my desire for UFO truth to be exposed?
link |
Well, it's cause it's fun.
link |
You know, that's what it is.
link |
So I have a desire for it to be real.
link |
And I mean, I've talked to a bunch of folks about this.
link |
So those with connection with DOD
link |
and they do draw lines between people
link |
that are full of shit and people who are not.
link |
There's a lot of people in the public sphere
link |
that they say are full of shit.
link |
And then you have to kind of tell the difference.
link |
Well, I mean, even that.
link |
You know I mean it.
link |
On the UFO topic, there's certain individuals
link |
that are like, okay, they're just like using this.
link |
In fact, like people who are not full of shit
link |
are often very quiet, which is why, you know,
link |
even Bob Lazar is an interesting story
link |
because he was trying to be quiet for the longest time.
link |
Well, he was worried about his own life according to Bob
link |
and that's why he went public with it.
link |
And initially the first videos he did with George Knapp,
link |
they hit his identity.
link |
And then he felt like that wasn't enough
link |
and he really needed to expose his own identity
link |
just to protect his life, which is a great story.
link |
You know, so you gotta go, well, that seems so juicy.
link |
I wanna buy into it.
link |
And that's where I get nervous.
link |
You don't know who to trust in this world.
link |
How do you figure that out?
link |
How do you figure out who to trust in your life?
link |
A lot of people want to be close to CIA agents,
link |
FSB agents, people that want to...
link |
I'm friends with a former CIA agent,
link |
Mike Baker who's been on my podcast a bunch of times.
link |
He's air quotes, former.
link |
Yeah, I don't believe he's former.
link |
His problem sure has some connection to him.
link |
I also believe he's a good guy,
link |
but I gain a lot of very intelligent
link |
and well informed insights from him
link |
as to how things work.
link |
And I think, I'm sure he doesn't tell me
link |
everything about everything,
link |
but he's told me enough where I think
link |
I can understand things better
link |
from talking to him about the way
link |
the elves work under the machine.
link |
What about friends?
link |
How do you know if you can trust?
link |
Well, most of my friends are old friends.
link |
So time is the thing.
link |
Like just going through shit together.
link |
And also people that, you know,
link |
first of all comics, like...
link |
You can trust comics?
link |
Yeah, comics are pretty trustworthy.
link |
The good ones, the really good ones.
link |
There's not that many of us.
link |
If there's a thousand professional comics on earth,
link |
I don't even think there's a thousand,
link |
like real professionals who you get booked all the time,
link |
headline weekends at clubs and theaters and arenas.
link |
And then there's levels to that, right?
link |
There's like the guys who are middle acts
link |
who kind of like barely scrape by,
link |
and then like how many headliners are there?
link |
How many like really funny headliners that I would say,
link |
you know, if you Lex, you tell me
link |
you're gonna be in Cincinnati.
link |
Hey, this person's playing at this club.
link |
Should I go see them?
link |
I'm like, ah, you know, like,
link |
how many people would I give the recommendation to?
link |
And then how many people sell out theaters?
link |
How many people sell out arenas?
link |
How many people, there's not that many.
link |
So those people like at the levels of comedy
link |
where you've been doing standup for 20 years,
link |
there's a certain amount of honesty
link |
and a certain amount of understanding
link |
of each other that we all have.
link |
Oh, so that process of becoming a great comic
link |
is like humbling in a way like Jiu Jitsu is humbling.
link |
Like you've taken so much shit that somehow,
link |
even if you're insane, even if you're chaotic,
link |
even in the way, even if you're full of shit,
link |
you lie a lot, all those kinds of things,
link |
underneath it, there's a good human.
link |
You could be surface bullshitter,
link |
but on important things, you're trustworthy.
link |
Hopefully, I mean, if you're not,
link |
then people shy away from you.
link |
And there are people like that too
link |
that are really successful, but that are what I call islands.
link |
I've talked to other comics about that.
link |
Like you don't wanna be an island
link |
because there's these people that aren't attached
link |
to the rest of the community
link |
and they're doing well on their own.
link |
And usually they have like one opening act.
link |
They bring with them on the road.
link |
They've worked with forever
link |
and they don't have comedy friends.
link |
And those people are miserable
link |
because they can't relate.
link |
Sometimes fame in itself is isolating.
link |
So you have to actually do a lot of work
link |
and make sure you don't.
link |
It doesn't isolate you.
link |
Because if you become successful,
link |
people start wanting stuff from you.
link |
And then sometimes you wanna push them away
link |
because of that as opposed to connect with them.
link |
Yeah, I don't enjoy it when people want things from me.
link |
Yeah, it's fucking too heavy.
link |
They want too much.
link |
And it's too much of a disproportionate relationship.
link |
You know, it's too unbalanced.
link |
Because there are people where you could tell
link |
that they're working towards something.
link |
They're working towards an angle
link |
and they want to be close to you
link |
because you will benefit them.
link |
And then there's other people that are just,
link |
there's not that many of us.
link |
And so we all wanna hang out together.
link |
Like one of the podcasts I love the most
link |
is this podcast I do called Protect Our Parks.
link |
It's a thing I do with Ari Shafir,
link |
Shane Gillis and Mark Northern.
link |
Because we just get obliterated
link |
and we talk so much shit.
link |
Like there's conversations after that podcast where I go,
link |
hey man, we gotta cut that part out.
link |
Because like Shane will go too far or go too crazy,
link |
but we're just making each other laugh and it's just fun.
link |
And it's like that kind of camaraderie
link |
between real comics is very precious to me.
link |
My favorite part of that is like the non sequitur stuff
link |
You guys get so trashed that you don't even understand
link |
what the hell he's talking about.
link |
But it's funny to the listener.
link |
Because he's still on point.
link |
That guy is sharp.
link |
He's got that Mitch Hedberg quality with us.
link |
Well, he's such a dedicated comic.
link |
You know, he loves comedy so much.
link |
That's one of the things I love about him.
link |
It's as does Shane and as does Ari.
link |
You know, they really love it.
link |
And it's, that's so, so there's that.
link |
Like I have friends in that way
link |
and I have martial arts friends who are some of the,
link |
also the thing about being humbled,
link |
how things like Jiu Jitsu will humble you.
link |
Martial arts friends are, they're also,
link |
they know, they know who's been through it.
link |
You know, they know who's,
link |
who really has gone through the gauntlet
link |
and emerged on the other end a better person.
link |
Well, you said there's very few of us.
link |
Let's have the goat discussion.
link |
You're not gonna pick anybody,
link |
but who are the greats of comedy?
link |
Who's the, who's the,
link |
who's the greatest comic of all time?
link |
Well, I don't think there is a greatest comic of all time.
link |
Is it Norm MacDonald?
link |
Norm MacDonald was one of the greats for sure.
link |
Well, by the way, actually on that topic,
link |
what do you think about his,
link |
I think as a person who is fascinated
link |
by the fear of death and death,
link |
I think it was a truly genius thing
link |
to release a special after you're dead.
link |
I don't know how that worked.
link |
I haven't seen a special of you.
link |
It's not, yeah, it's, it's called,
link |
I think nothing special.
link |
Which sounds like something Norm would say.
link |
And it's basically him in front of,
link |
I mean, I imagine he wouldn't want to edit it that way
link |
because it's made to look nicer
link |
than I think he probably would have preferred it.
link |
But it's him in front of the screen,
link |
like on a zoom call doing jokes without cold.
link |
And somehow given his like dry, dark humor, it works.
link |
Cause it's almost making fun of itself.
link |
Almost making fun of that whole
link |
that we were stuck, stuck alone inside.
link |
And because he's still acting
link |
as if he's in front of the audience.
link |
And it's almost making fun of the fact
link |
that this is what we're forced to do.
link |
I mean, it's quite genius.
link |
It's really well done.
link |
The jokes are really good.
link |
But it also makes you realize how important laughter
link |
is from the audience, the energy from the audience.
link |
Cause, but there's also an intimacy
link |
because it's just you and him.
link |
Because you're listening into it.
link |
You know, there's no audience.
link |
So that's, I don't know.
link |
I think it's quite genius.
link |
And he is of course, there's certain comics they're like,
link |
not only are they funny, but they're truly unique.
link |
And like they're, they're not in terms of friendship
link |
and all that kind of stuff,
link |
but in terms of comedy, they're an island.
link |
It's like they, you know, Mitch Hedberg probably is that,
link |
of course a lot of people then start to imitate them
link |
I mean, there's like people who are like, you know,
link |
Dave Chappelle, who's like probably one of the greats.
link |
But he's just like raw funny.
link |
I don't know if he's an island.
link |
I know what you're saying.
link |
An outlier, a unique individual.
link |
Yeah. He's just great.
link |
Norm was definitely unique in his greatness.
link |
Like, like there's only one norm, you know,
link |
who's got a very specific style.
link |
Is there a reason you guys weren't,
link |
it doesn't seem like he was, you guys were close.
link |
I mean, I loved him.
link |
I always enjoyed talking to him.
link |
We just didn't work together that often.
link |
We weren't around each other that often.
link |
That's all it was.
link |
But it wasn't like, it was, I loved him though.
link |
He was a great guy.
link |
I had a funny story about it, Norm.
link |
Twice, just randomly, I was on airplanes next to him.
link |
Seated right next to him.
link |
Just totally random.
link |
And one time, we're on this airplane
link |
and we're having this talk and I was like, yeah,
link |
I was smoking a lot and I just,
link |
yeah, it's terrible, terrible, smoking's terrible for you.
link |
And we have this great conversation.
link |
We get off the plane
link |
and he sprints towards a store and buys cigarettes,
link |
like in the airport and is lighting it
link |
on the way out the door.
link |
And I go, I thought you quit smoking.
link |
I was like, yeah, I did.
link |
But all that talking about smoking
link |
made me want to smoke again.
link |
So before he's getting through the door of the airport,
link |
he's lighting it up.
link |
He can't wait to get that cigarette in him.
link |
It was, he was just so crazy and impulsive
link |
and loved to gamble, loved gambling.
link |
And in that way, he embodied the joke.
link |
Like you can't even tell that certain people
link |
just like live in a non sequitur,
link |
ridiculous, absurd, funny way.
link |
Yeah, that was him.
link |
There was nothing artificial about Norm.
link |
You know, that was who he was.
link |
His brilliance was his essence.
link |
That was who he was, you know?
link |
But it's in terms of like the greats,
link |
the Godfather of it all is Lenny Bruce.
link |
I mean, I have a bunch of Lenny Bruce concert posters
link |
at my house and photos that I have framed
link |
and Whitney Cummings actually gave me this brilliant
link |
photo of him when he got arrested for one of the times
link |
when he got arrested for saying obscene jokes.
link |
He was the most important figure in the early days
link |
of comedy because he essentially gave birth
link |
through the modern art form of standup comedy.
link |
Before that, it was a bunch of guys
link |
that were like hosting shows and they would tell jokes.
link |
They would just like, you know,
link |
two guys walking to a bar, that kind of stuff.
link |
And he would talk about social issues.
link |
You know, he would talk about life.
link |
He would talk about language.
link |
He would talk about laws.
link |
And it was just, he was the very first guy
link |
who did modern standup.
link |
And what's fascinating is if you go
link |
and you try to watch it,
link |
if you try to watch Lenny Bruce today, it doesn't work
link |
because society has evolved.
link |
Like in many ways, art is a window,
link |
especially like pop culture or modern,
link |
you know, at the time, culture, art that discusses culture
link |
is a window into that time period.
link |
It's a little bit of a time machine.
link |
So you get to like, you have to put yourself,
link |
like what was it like to be in 1963?
link |
Like what was he, in 1963, what was this like
link |
to hear him say this?
link |
And the civilization that existed in 1963,
link |
although it looked pretty similar,
link |
they're all driving cars and they're all wearing suits
link |
and they're all, the old team's normal.
link |
That's a, it's a different world.
link |
And the things that he was saying that are so taboo
link |
are so normal today, that they're not shocking.
link |
And it's not, not that good.
link |
It's not that funny.
link |
Yeah, you have to do the same kind of stuff for,
link |
like there's a, D.H. Lawrence has a book called
link |
Lady, Shadowy's Lover.
link |
And I know it sounds ridiculous,
link |
but it was one of the early books,
link |
I believe it, over a century ago,
link |
that was very controversial for its sexual content.
link |
It's sort of one of the great books
link |
because it dared to actually talk about
link |
a woman cheating on her husband
link |
and like, and do so in the highest form.
link |
And the same thing with Gulag Archipelago,
link |
talking about some of the darkest aspects of human history
link |
right when all of that stuff is forbidden,
link |
Because now it's like, yes, we all know this history,
link |
but when in the middle of it,
link |
when you're risking your own life,
link |
when you're risking your book being banned or burned,
link |
or you being imprisoned, that's what it matters,
link |
like taking that risk.
link |
Yeah, and no one took that risk more than Lenny Bruce.
link |
Lenny Bruce was arrested many, many times.
link |
And ultimately, he wound up costing him his life.
link |
I mean, he died on the bathroom floor shooting heroin
link |
and trying to cope with all the lawsuits
link |
that he was going through.
link |
I mean, this guy was constantly being arrested
link |
and constantly going through lawsuits.
link |
And then his comedy deteriorated horribly.
link |
There's some footage of him towards the end of his career
link |
where he essentially would go on stage with legal papers
link |
and read from the legal papers about his case.
link |
From then, it's Richard Pryor.
link |
From him, then the next great is Richard Pryor.
link |
And he had the most profound impact on me when I was a kid.
link |
When I was 15 years old, my parents took me to sea
link |
live at the Sunset Strip,
link |
which is a Richard Pryor's concert film.
link |
And I remember very distinctly being in that audience
link |
and laughing and looking around at all the people
link |
in the audience who were falling out of their chairs,
link |
just dying, laughing, just swaying back and forth.
link |
And I was laughing hard too.
link |
And I was like, my God, this guy's doing this just by talking.
link |
And I thought of all the great movies that I'd seen
link |
that I loved that were hilarious comedy movies.
link |
And I was like, nothing that I've ever seen
link |
is as funny as this.
link |
And all he's doing is talking.
link |
And that planted a seed in my head
link |
for my love of stand up comedy
link |
and my curiosity about the art form.
link |
And that's what got me interested in watching on television
link |
and then ultimately going to open mic nights
link |
and then eventually doing it.
link |
I've actually been going to open mics a lot recently,
link |
just listening for psychological examinations of people.
link |
No, it's actually really inspiring to me to see people
link |
that some are funny, some are not so funny,
link |
unapologetically trying, putting it all out there night
link |
after night, like eating shit.
link |
My favorite is when you're talking about
link |
like five people in the audience
link |
and the jokes are just not landing.
link |
And they still, I don't know,
link |
it feels like even just empathetically,
link |
there's few things as difficult as that.
link |
I still remember those days.
link |
Many comics will say this,
link |
and I think Dane Cook was the first person
link |
I heard say it publicly,
link |
that if he ever had to go back and do it again,
link |
like from scratch, doesn't think he could do it,
link |
doesn't think he could endure the struggle
link |
of open mic to, you know, ultimately to success.
link |
And the numbers of people that try it
link |
and fail versus try and succeed are off the charts.
link |
I don't know if there's any other art form
link |
that has such a low rate of success.
link |
Because it's psychological, it's torture.
link |
It is torture, and it's also not something you can learn.
link |
Like, here's the thing, like, if you play guitar,
link |
you can learn to play guitar.
link |
Someone can teach you the chords,
link |
and if you do it, you could do all along the watch tower,
link |
you could play it.
link |
You can't teach someone how to do comedy.
link |
You think it's your funny or not,
link |
or can you still figure it out?
link |
Like, can you still learn?
link |
Yeah, you can figure it out, yeah.
link |
Can you start being unfunny and become funny?
link |
Yes, it's possible.
link |
It's not easy, though.
link |
You're gonna have to eat a lot of shit.
link |
You're gonna have to eat a lot of shit,
link |
and you're gonna have to examine why you're not funny.
link |
And you're gonna have to spend a lot of time
link |
with uncomfortable thoughts and try to figure out
link |
what it is, like, what's missing?
link |
Like, you know, could you edit your stuff
link |
and make it better?
link |
Maybe you need to do drugs.
link |
Maybe you need to get involved in psychedelic drugs
link |
and rethink the way you interface with reality itself.
link |
Maybe you need your heart broken.
link |
Maybe you need to be in love.
link |
Maybe, there's a lot of maybes there.
link |
Like, maybe you just need more life experience.
link |
But, you know, when I started comedy, I was 21,
link |
and I was a moron.
link |
I had no information.
link |
You know, I could do impressions of people,
link |
and I could talk about sex.
link |
Those are the things that I was interested in back then.
link |
I mean, if I was talking philosophically,
link |
I didn't have a philosophy.
link |
I didn't have a unique perspective on life.
link |
I hadn't experienced much.
link |
So every time you bomb,
link |
it forces you to introspect, to ask questions to yourself,
link |
and then that's how you actually develop a philosophy.
link |
Or what you actually believe.
link |
You learn through doing.
link |
And I think you could say that about podcasting too.
link |
You know, I'm certainly way better at having conversations
link |
than I ever was when I first started doing comedy.
link |
Or, excuse me, when I first started doing podcasts.
link |
You should learn to stick with a kid,
link |
because one day you'll be able to interview Donald Trump.
link |
You'd be mad enough to handle that conversation.
link |
How hard is it to do?
link |
Because I've been really curious
link |
that it's been on my bucket list because I'm terrified.
link |
I want to do everything I'm terrified of.
link |
Do you want to do stand up?
link |
But I do want to do like one five minute open mic.
link |
Why don't you do kill Tony?
link |
How hard is it to do five minutes, would you say?
link |
Well, it depends on how long you've been thinking
link |
about doing comedy.
link |
It depends on how you look at things.
link |
And also depends on your style of comedy.
link |
Like the most difficult style of comedy is like,
link |
I think like Stephen Wright's style
link |
is probably the most difficult style of comedy,
link |
complete non sequiturs.
link |
One subject doesn't lead into the next.
link |
There's no flow to it.
link |
It's just, I noticed this, I noticed that.
link |
And then there's this, and then there's that.
link |
And that's hard to memorize.
link |
And it's really hard to piece together
link |
an hour of non sequiturs.
link |
But it's easier because you can rely on the joke.
link |
It sits more with the joke.
link |
Like whether you're funny or not
link |
is on the actual material versus like the timing
link |
and the energy to dance with the audience, right?
link |
Cause like, if you don't have the raw jokes
link |
like Stephen Wright does or Mitch Hedberg,
link |
then you have to, it's all about the delivery.
link |
And yeah, they either kill or they bomb.
link |
Whether they kill or bomb?
link |
Well, I mean, you're essentially a different person
link |
every day of your life.
link |
You know, you're similar, but you're more tired.
link |
You're more rested.
link |
You have vitamins and food, nourishment in your system.
link |
You just get your heart broken.
link |
You haven't slept in days.
link |
You're a different person all the time.
link |
And you go onto that stage.
link |
You're in the neighborhood of who Lex Friedman is.
link |
You're in the Lex Friedman neighborhood.
link |
Which Lex Friedman am I gonna get?
link |
But oh, the other thing with Kiltoni is it's videotaped.
link |
So you eating shit is on there forever.
link |
The world can see it.
link |
But it's one of the most important shows in comedy.
link |
It's the most important show in comedy.
link |
Because first of all, it establishes stand up
link |
in a sense that like for the open micers,
link |
for the people that are starting it out,
link |
it establishes that the most important thing is to be funny.
link |
Like this is what the art form is all about.
link |
And there's a lot of insecurity attached to that
link |
and a lot of fears.
link |
And so to alleviate some of those insecurities and fears,
link |
people will decide that the message is more important.
link |
And they'll pretend that, you know, like you have to have,
link |
like you have to be socially aware
link |
that you have to promote things
link |
that are positive in your comedy, which is bullshit.
link |
The people that say that, they're all bad.
link |
They're all bad at comedy.
link |
And that's where the insecurity is.
link |
It's like they can't just kill.
link |
So they have to pretend that they're supposed
link |
to be socially aware.
link |
And they're being socially aware
link |
as an important part into society.
link |
Like let me explain something really clearly.
link |
It's not a fucking person on earth
link |
who's ever changed their life because of a joke.
link |
That's not what they're there for.
link |
They're there for jokes.
link |
The people that say that,
link |
they say that socially important comedy
link |
is the only comedy that's necessary.
link |
The only comedy that you have to do.
link |
That is just because they suck.
link |
It's like the cop out is that
link |
they can't do the real comedy.
link |
It's not like someone goes from being,
link |
you know, take a like Shane Gillis,
link |
one of the best comics up and coming right now.
link |
He's fucking fantastic.
link |
I can't recommend enough seeing that guy live.
link |
I worked with him in Irvine
link |
and I hadn't seen like his whole set.
link |
I mean, he's so good.
link |
I heard he's a racist.
link |
So I haven't listened to any of his material, no.
link |
And his comedy is just all,
link |
just trying to be as funny as possible.
link |
There's not a chance in hell
link |
that guy's just gonna go woke
link |
and he's just gonna start promoting some sort of,
link |
you know, socially conscious agenda
link |
that's, you know, facetious and just a bunch of nonsense
link |
that he's trying to elevate his own personal brand
link |
and virtue signal.
link |
That's not gonna happen.
link |
The thing about Kill Tony is in that,
link |
because you only have one minute and because it's live
link |
and because you don't want Tony shitting on you,
link |
everybody else shitting on,
link |
everybody's just gearing up to try to be as funny as possible.
link |
And no one cares if you are gay or straight
link |
or Asian or black or trans or non binary.
link |
Nobody gives a fuck.
link |
If you're funny, you're in and everybody loves you.
link |
You could be 80, you could be 20.
link |
Nobody gives a shit.
link |
You could be a woman or a man or ambiguous.
link |
Nobody fucking cares.
link |
And that's the most important thing
link |
for a community of comedy to really promote comedy.
link |
And so in that sense,
link |
Kill Tony is a real cornerstone of comedy.
link |
It's a reminder what comedy is supposed to be about.
link |
That said, even the funniest stuff
link |
has underneath it some wisdom that comes out of it,
link |
but that's not the primary goal of it.
link |
Yeah, I mean, it might be inspiring and fun.
link |
Oh, Tim Dillon's a great example of that.
link |
Yeah, he's got some amazing insights in his comedy,
link |
but it's still, it's fucking comedy.
link |
It's all about the funny.
link |
Yeah, it's all of the funny.
link |
He's the best at doing that,
link |
especially in a podcast form,
link |
about weaving like really important points
link |
in with hilarious, obviously just jokes.
link |
Let me ask you, speaking of Tim Dillon.
link |
A chaotic fucked up individual.
link |
Can we go to your childhood real quick?
link |
So your mom and dad split up when you were five
link |
from a from a younging perspective.
link |
If you look at your subconscious,
link |
what impact do you think that had on you
link |
in forming who you are as a man, as a human being?
link |
Well, at the time, I thought that my father was like a hero.
link |
You know, he was my dad.
link |
I think every kid thinks like that about his dad.
link |
His dad is like, your dad's your protector.
link |
Your dad is like the coolest guy in the world.
link |
That's what you like.
link |
Yeah, yeah, everybody wants to be like their dad,
link |
especially if your dad is like an imposing figure.
link |
I remember one time me and my cousin got in a fight
link |
It was like over who's tougher, King Kong or Godzilla.
link |
Yeah, over nothing.
link |
That's an important, but yeah.
link |
And he said actual fight, actual fight.
link |
Oh, I punched him in the face.
link |
And this is when you were like five?
link |
Which side were you on?
link |
Godzilla's like way bigger.
link |
Godzilla's 500 feet tall
link |
and he shoots fire out of his mouth.
link |
Yeah, are you sure?
link |
I mean, there's an argument to be made.
link |
It's not all about size, right?
link |
No, there's no argument to be made.
link |
500 feet tall versus 50 feet tall.
link |
One's a gigantic dinosaur.
link |
One is a stupid monkey who gets shot down by a plane.
link |
You don't think a monkey can't ride?
link |
You can't kill Godzilla.
link |
Godzilla, like take him back?
link |
You can't kill Godzilla with a plane.
link |
Da, da, da, da, da.
link |
Like that shit when working Godzilla,
link |
King Kong and the new movies kept growing.
link |
He's getting bigger and bigger.
link |
Got to the point where he's as big as Godzilla.
link |
It just feels like King Kong is stronger.
link |
Backtake, backtake.
link |
Immediate backtake.
link |
You don't think there's a backtake?
link |
There's a different.
link |
If he's the same size.
link |
Human weapons and two animals going at it
link |
of a different size.
link |
You don't think there's, in the jungle,
link |
a smaller animal can take on a bigger animal.
link |
Like a monkey versus a, let's see, a lion.
link |
Monkey versus a bear.
link |
A monkey versus a bear?
link |
What's the strongest ape?
link |
No, but gorilla, see, okay.
link |
Gorilla can't do backtakes.
link |
I'm thinking of like a smaller, you know what I'm saying?
link |
Cause in Jiu Jitsu, you see this all the time.
link |
Do you remember that scene in Talladega Nights?
link |
Do you know Talladega Nights where the little boys
link |
talking to his grandpa, I'll be all over you
link |
like a spider monkey?
link |
Exactly, spider monkey.
link |
I was thinking, all right.
link |
There's some animals.
link |
Like here's a better example, a Wolverine.
link |
Wolverines chase wolves and bears off of their kills.
link |
And they're not very big at all.
link |
They're just so ferocious and they're so durable.
link |
Like it's very hard to kill a Wolverine.
link |
And there's videos of like cats, like not actual,
link |
like domestic cats or domestic dogs
link |
starting shit with much larger animals.
link |
And if they're ferocious enough.
link |
Well pit bulls are a great example of that.
link |
Pit bulls are small, like real game bread pit bulls
link |
are like 35, 45 pounds.
link |
And they'll kill much larger dogs.
link |
Anyway, you were on King Kong's side.
link |
You can shit out of your cousin.
link |
I remember he said to me,
link |
like I thought it was in like real trouble.
link |
Cause I remember my cousin's mom was yelling at me
link |
and it was like, you monster, all this crazy shit.
link |
So my dad got me alone and he said,
link |
tell me what happened.
link |
And I told him, you know, we got in a fight.
link |
We were arguing or King Kong Godzilla.
link |
And I punched him in the face and he goes, did you cry?
link |
I go, no, he goes, good, don't ever cry.
link |
And I remember that like, whoa, okay.
link |
And I remember thinking, all right,
link |
I'm just going to start punching people because like,
link |
obviously my dad thinks it's a good idea
link |
if I go running around punching people
link |
as long as I don't cry.
link |
Like I remember certain things about, you know,
link |
and also like this is it again,
link |
like we're talking about watching Lenny Bruce
link |
in getting a timeline of what the world was like back then.
link |
This was a different world, you know, in 1970,
link |
this would've been 1972.
link |
It's a different world back then, man,
link |
like a really different world.
link |
It's some of that.
link |
So Carl Jung talked about the shadow.
link |
It's the unconscious where you have dark stuff
link |
and oftentimes you use to project.
link |
There's stuff that you're very self critical about yourself,
link |
but because it's in your unconscious,
link |
you use it to project onto others.
link |
You see it as flaws in others.
link |
And that's a good way to, like whatever,
link |
I guess a quote, like everything that irritates us
link |
about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
link |
So that's a nice way to investigate yourself.
link |
Like something that pisses you off.
link |
You start asking questions of your own mind
link |
and that's how you bring it to the surface.
link |
But anyway, from that, those are formative years.
link |
From that time, is there still stuff in your unconscious
link |
you think you haven't examined, some dark shit?
link |
I don't, I'm not aware if it is, cause I've looked,
link |
you know, like if someone, you know, someone says,
link |
you know, I left something over your house,
link |
like where'd you leave it?
link |
I don't know, like, all right, I'll go look.
link |
I'll get a real thorough looking.
link |
But I'm pretty sure.
link |
Pretty sure it's not there.
link |
I don't know, I think I've looked.
link |
I mean, it certainly hadn't, I think the positive effect
link |
also was compounded by the fact that when my mother
link |
married my stepdad, who's a great guy,
link |
who was a hippie, very different, we moved around a lot.
link |
And so the bad thing about that was I didn't really develop
link |
The good thing about that was that I was forced
link |
to develop my own opinions about things.
link |
Instead of adopting an opinion of the neighborhood
link |
and the group about anything, I was forced to form
link |
my own thoughts and opinions about almost everything.
link |
And so it made me much more of an independent thinker.
link |
So that on top of the fact that, you know, losing,
link |
you know, my quote unquote hero very early on,
link |
and then having to form my own opinions about things,
link |
it left me with a very, very independent streak,
link |
you know, in terms of,
link |
and if I hadn't done the things that I got interested in,
link |
martial arts and then comedy,
link |
if I hadn't gotten interested in those things,
link |
I would have been fucked,
link |
because I was just too independent for normal jobs.
link |
I was too independent for school.
link |
I just didn't want to listen to people.
link |
I just didn't want to sit still.
link |
If I was with the wrong parents, especially today,
link |
I most certainly would have been medicated.
link |
Yeah, there's so many possible trajectories
link |
you can imagine where you would have not been
link |
the person you are today.
link |
This is probably one of the best possible trajectories
link |
This particular storyline you're living through
link |
is one of the better ones.
link |
This timeline is as good as it gets
link |
for someone like me.
link |
Is there advice you can give to people,
link |
to young kids that are living through a shitty situation
link |
of any sort, a tough life?
link |
Find a thing you like.
link |
Try to find a thing that you really enjoy.
link |
Try to find a thing that you're passionate about.
link |
Yes, for me, early on it was drawing.
link |
It was illustrations.
link |
It was comic books.
link |
I wanted to be a comic book illustrator.
link |
And then it went from comic book drawing
link |
and illustrations to martial arts.
link |
So, but it was just another thing
link |
that I was very, very passionate about.
link |
And that was my vehicle out of my dilemma.
link |
That was my vehicle out of my own anxiety and trauma
link |
and my own issues and insecurities and find something.
link |
Find a thing that you genuinely enjoy
link |
because getting good at things you genuinely enjoy
link |
is extremely beneficial for young people.
link |
Because it lets you know that everybody thinks
link |
Every young person thinks they're a loser.
link |
At least a young person in the situation I was at.
link |
I didn't know I wasn't a loser until I started winning.
link |
Until I started doing martial arts.
link |
Martial arts taught me that I could get better at stuff.
link |
That it wasn't, I wasn't really a loser.
link |
I just was someone who was in a fucked up situation.
link |
But you could channel all that energy
link |
that you have as a young person into something
link |
and get better at it.
link |
And then all of a sudden people admired me.
link |
I was like, this is crazy.
link |
So I went from being someone who was incredibly insecure
link |
and basically a failure to someone who was really successful
link |
at this one thing that was very dangerous
link |
that other people were scared of.
link |
And that gave me immense confidence.
link |
And also a real understanding of the direct correlation
link |
between hard work and success.
link |
And a kind of understanding that you're not a loser.
link |
There is some diamond in the rough.
link |
Yeah. And also an understanding
link |
that you can't listen to people.
link |
Cause even my parents didn't want me to do martial arts.
link |
They didn't want me to fight.
link |
They didn't want me to just stand up.
link |
There's like, you have to understand like who you are.
link |
And then in the face of other people's either criticism
link |
or lack of faith in your ability to succeed,
link |
you push through and there's great benefit in that.
link |
And then you realize that you can kind of apply that
link |
to other things in life.
link |
You can apply that to critics.
link |
You can apply that to social media commentators.
link |
You can apply that to a lot of things.
link |
Okay. What about young people in their fifties?
link |
Can you give advice to, like imagine you're sitting back
link |
probably still here in Texas in your nineties looking back.
link |
What advice would that guy give to you today?
link |
Or like people that have done some shit in their fifties,
link |
you've gone through a hell of a life.
link |
There's potentially some incentive to settle down.
link |
You got a great family to relax.
link |
But maybe there's some incentive to still do epic shit.
link |
Still be David Goggins running in the middle
link |
of the desert screaming shit into a camera.
link |
If you're David Goggins, you have to be David Goggins.
link |
I don't think there's a path for that guy
link |
that exists at this stage of his life other than that.
link |
Do you think he'll be 70 and still screaming?
link |
If David and I are alive, we're both 70.
link |
He's going to call me up and say,
link |
stay hard motherfucker, guaranteed, guaranteed.
link |
So lean into whatever the fuck you are at this point.
link |
Well, if you're enjoying it,
link |
but if you're not enjoying it, rethink your life.
link |
Try to figure out why you're not enjoying it.
link |
You still think it's possible to shift things in your fifties?
link |
Yeah. If you're alive, you can get better.
link |
Yeah, no matter what.
link |
If you're alive, you can shift things.
link |
I mean, if you're 90 years old and you have a month to live,
link |
you can apologize for the things you think you did wrong
link |
and maybe sort of reconcile and shape relationships
link |
that you have with the people that are around you better
link |
so that they feel differently about you after you're gone.
link |
Yeah. I always love people in their 70s
link |
who are like getting back into dating or something like that.
link |
I was watching a video about a woman who's in her 60s
link |
who just started powerlifting.
link |
And same with Jiu Jitsu.
link |
You see people get into Jiu Jitsu like a white belt.
link |
A white belt that's like 70.
link |
There's a lot of, if you're alive,
link |
you can get better at stuff.
link |
And I don't think people are happy
link |
if they don't have puzzles and complex tasks
link |
and things that are interesting to them,
link |
whether it's an art project
link |
or whether it's learning something completely new
link |
like standup comedy.
link |
Like doing things that are difficult is,
link |
it's as much of a nourishment of the mind
link |
as food is a nourishment of the body.
link |
I think you need things that are puzzling to you
link |
where you have to find your own human potential
link |
in the difficulty of the task
link |
and work your way through things, at least for me.
link |
For me, I mean, I can only speak for me
link |
because I'm the only life that I've ever lived
link |
that I'm aware of.
link |
And in my life, that has been 100% constant.
link |
I am a very happy person
link |
and I have never had a moment
link |
where I'm not doing difficult shit ever.
link |
What matters most is how well you walk through the fires.
link |
You just keep starting fires for yourself to walk through.
link |
Well, they don't necessarily have to be fires, right?
link |
Because fires are like kind of out of control.
link |
Tasks, give yourself something,
link |
an arduous, difficult task where you're challenged.
link |
Challenged mentally and challenged physically.
link |
One of the great things about being challenged physically
link |
is it's also mental.
link |
The people that don't understand that
link |
have never really been challenged physically.
link |
People that think that physical challenges
link |
are just physical.
link |
It's just brute grunt work.
link |
It's emotional intelligence.
link |
It's understanding your desired quit
link |
and conquering your inner bitch.
link |
All that stuff is mental.
link |
It's playing out inside your head.
link |
And there's a mental strength that you acquire from that
link |
that you can apply to intellectual pursuits.
link |
And the people that don't think that
link |
are the people that haven't attempted them.
link |
And there's an arrogance to people
link |
that only pursue intellectual exercises.
link |
Only pursue intellectual things.
link |
And don't pursue anything physical.
link |
That the physical stuff is base.
link |
It's not necessary.
link |
I don't think that's accurate.
link |
I don't think that they're,
link |
I mean, obviously these people like Stephen Hawking's
link |
who have no opportunity to do anything physical, right?
link |
His physical dilemma is keeping us,
link |
or was keeping his heart beating.
link |
But for most people,
link |
I think you can really benefit from physical struggle.
link |
And you benefit from it in a mental way.
link |
And I think that is overlooked.
link |
That's unfortunately overlooked by academics
link |
and intellectuals who,
link |
they make excuses for why they're fat and lazy or scrawny.
link |
What they don't need to be,
link |
it's not even about the fat or all of that.
link |
It's like literally,
link |
there's something about the physical challenge
link |
that's really good for you,
link |
especially if you're academic,
link |
especially if you do intellectual types though.
link |
There's this great roboticist at MIT, Russ Tedrick.
link |
He runs barefoot to and from MIT every day.
link |
Like seven to 10 miles each way.
link |
He studies legged locomotion, legged robots.
link |
But for him, it's also interesting
link |
how the human body moves.
link |
He sees the beauty in all movement.
link |
What do his feet look like?
link |
You know, calloused.
link |
No, just calloused.
link |
it's not like I gave them a foot massage.
link |
But I mean, they look,
link |
and I don't have a foot fetish,
link |
so I'm not able to correctly evaluate another man's feet.
link |
I apologize for this,
link |
but they don't look fucked up.
link |
Does he run on concrete?
link |
Yeah, he runs all surfaces.
link |
And he does everything completely barefoot?
link |
The running part at work.
link |
So one of the things he has to do is fit into society,
link |
which means he has to change clothes and appear normal.
link |
So does he wear like zero shoes?
link |
You know, those barefoot type shoes?
link |
No, because that's like very happy,
link |
woky type of thing.
link |
No, like he doesn't, he's barefoot when he's running,
link |
and then he wears like normal looking stuff,
link |
How did he work his way up to running barefoot?
link |
So he was significantly overweight.
link |
And his advisor, this other famous person at MIT,
link |
who was a roboticist, took his own life.
link |
And that made him,
link |
that made Russ face his own mortality, I think.
link |
I mean, you start to ask big questions
link |
about your wellbeing, like,
link |
holy shit, that's where I can end at any moment.
link |
And so he started taking his sort of physical wellbeing
link |
seriously, but as a result of that,
link |
not that he become like shredded,
link |
but he's also discovered the intellectual value,
link |
the humbling value of physical exercise.
link |
He's not preachy about it all.
link |
I don't think I actually rarely hear him advise it to anyone.
link |
He just does it as a, almost like meditation
link |
or something like that.
link |
It's definitely a form of meditation,
link |
and you can attest to that, right?
link |
You do quite a bit of running.
link |
There's a thing about a,
link |
it kind of almost like a mantra gets formed
link |
and you get into it.
link |
No, it's great here in the Austin heat, 100 degree weather.
link |
You know what I love to do outside?
link |
I love to pull sleds outside.
link |
Yeah, did it today.
link |
So you're also, your wife is incredible.
link |
You're in a relationship.
link |
What, you're married, you have a great family.
link |
What advice would you give to me
link |
until there's like me who are dumb fucks
link |
and I have not found a relationship?
link |
Well, you're a great guy.
link |
So this definitely doesn't necessarily apply to you,
link |
but be someone who someone would want
link |
to be in a relationship with.
link |
There's a lot of people out there
link |
that want a great partner.
link |
They want someone in a relationship,
link |
but why would someone want to be in a relationship with you?
link |
Maybe you bicker a lot.
link |
Maybe you're jealous.
link |
Maybe you, maybe you're cruel.
link |
Maybe you don't have a sense of humor.
link |
Maybe you're not kind.
link |
Like what is it about you
link |
that people would not enjoy being around
link |
or the people avoid?
link |
Well, this applies to me as well.
link |
Like you said something with Cam Haynes,
link |
one of the things you admire is that the discipline
link |
takes to sort of juggle so many things and do it successfully.
link |
I'm not sure I'm very good at that.
link |
So juggling all this hard work and then also a relationship.
link |
Also relationship, also family,
link |
all these kinds of priorities.
link |
I mean, that requires having your shit together.
link |
It's a different thing,
link |
but it's also you gotta find the right person.
link |
There's a lot of people who settle for sexy.
link |
They settle for hot.
link |
They settle for the wrong person.
link |
Like you can get hot and nice.
link |
They're out there, but don't get hot and mean.
link |
Hot and mean is not fun.
link |
Then you get Amber Heard.
link |
Yeah, and then you get hot and dry.
link |
You can be deceived by perfect symmetry.
link |
So you don't think it's a good idea
link |
to record your partner?
link |
I think you should record all conversations.
link |
The CIA is doing it no matter what.
link |
I assume that every conversation I have is recorded
link |
because I'm pretty sure it is.
link |
Even when we had dinner with Alex Jones,
link |
I still remember that.
link |
I didn't know they know that I was recording.
link |
He might be funny if he is the CIA player.
link |
That'd be the ultimate joke.
link |
My advice about relationships is be somebody
link |
and then also find someone who you can grow with.
link |
You don't want to be with someone
link |
who doesn't share your values.
link |
You don't want to be with someone who makes excuses.
link |
You don't want to be with someone who's lazy or who's spiteful.
link |
You want to be with someone who's genuinely kind.
link |
That's one of the things that I really love about my wife,
link |
and she's very smart, and she works hard.
link |
She's a dedicated, disciplined person,
link |
but she's also really nice.
link |
That's one of the things I like the most about her.
link |
She's always smiling.
link |
And that energy is great.
link |
Yeah, I mean, you've seen us together.
link |
You've hung around with us.
link |
Yeah, she's a lot of fun.
link |
Yeah, she makes you just feel great to be alive.
link |
It's good to have people like that around you.
link |
She's a happy person.
link |
She's happy to be around.
link |
That's the kind of people that you could have in your life
link |
as friends and as coworkers and as lovers and wives
link |
You can find those people.
link |
And when you find those people, your life is better.
link |
To have a good tribe is very important,
link |
to have a good tribe of people.
link |
And I think if there's anything that I'm very, very
link |
fortunate about, it's the people that I'm around.
link |
I have very good friends, and one of which is you.
link |
It's so valuable to have quality people around you,
link |
because it makes you want to do better,
link |
because you admire the hard work that these people put in,
link |
like Cam Haines or Goggins or many of my friends.
link |
And people that are generous and people that are curious
link |
and people that are honest, they inspire you to do the same.
link |
And it's extremely valuable.
link |
It's one of the most valuable things,
link |
is to surround yourself with positive,
link |
healthy, friendly, generous people.
link |
That's why I cut out them dealing for my life.
link |
I broke up with them.
link |
I thought you guys were getting married.
link |
It's none of those things.
link |
The nonstop conspiracy theories,
link |
the nonstop mocking of my Eastern European origins,
link |
is just not healthy for me.
link |
Plus, he's physically abusive and a towering figure,
link |
both in motion and physically.
link |
If he worked out, he would be a house.
link |
He's got such a large frame, you know?
link |
So if I interview Putin, what should I ask him?
link |
How's it doing, buddy?
link |
That's question number one in Russian.
link |
Do you think he has cancer?
link |
The narrative is terrifying, right?
link |
Dictator of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world
link |
who also has cancer and he just invaded a sovereign country.
link |
That's a terrifying narrative.
link |
Because that's what we're all afraid of.
link |
Someone who has nothing to lose,
link |
who just decides to let loose a nuke.
link |
Well, I do think maybe it's projecting,
link |
but if I had cancer or if you think about leaders
link |
that have cancer, you're facing your own mortality,
link |
I would think he would be more focused on his legacy.
link |
And dropping nuclear bomb is not good for legacy.
link |
I do believe he wants to be remembered as a great leader,
link |
as a lot of leaders do, as a lot of even dictators do.
link |
And I think he wants to figure out a way to pull out a win.
link |
So he can say that whatever this thing was,
link |
whatever this invasion was, was good for Russia,
link |
was good for the nation.
link |
He ultimately made it a greater nation than it was before.
link |
And perhaps you could justify an escalation of war to be that.
link |
But I don't, and it's just the cancer thing
link |
that concerns me so much because it's been so often
link |
part of this propaganda that's been told
link |
about Putin that he's sick.
link |
I don't know why, it's always,
link |
people kind of wonder that a lot about, especially dictators,
link |
but you had that even like with Hillary Clinton
link |
and obviously with Biden, that narrative is stickier.
link |
So for some people it's stickier.
link |
Well, that narrative is transparent and obvious.
link |
But the degree of it is a question with Biden
link |
as it does with everyone.
link |
Like how healthy is this leader?
link |
That's a question people often ask.
link |
Sure, always, they were doing that about Trump too.
link |
The thing about Putin though is like his appearance
link |
is altered, where he looks very bloated.
link |
His body doesn't look much bigger,
link |
but his face looks like puffy and swollen.
link |
I had a friend who had a sarcoidosis
link |
and they prescribed prednisone,
link |
which is a type of a steroid.
link |
And one of the things that would happen when he was on it
link |
is his face would get really big.
link |
It was like, he would blow up like a swell up
link |
and maintain a lot of water and inflammation.
link |
And that's what it looks like when I'm looking at Putin.
link |
So actually, like if you're sitting with him,
link |
one question is about health.
link |
That's, has Biden been asked that kind of question?
link |
No, like without mockery, without any of that.
link |
He would have to go on Fox News.
link |
Like the mainstream media treats him with kid gloves
link |
in a way that I've never seen.
link |
It's so obvious there's something horribly wrong
link |
with his cognitive function.
link |
Well, to push back, I don't know if it's horribly wrong.
link |
You don't think it's horribly wrong?
link |
I think it's, no, I think there's uncertainty
link |
to which degree is wrong.
link |
I would love to there to be a serious conversation
link |
about it with him.
link |
In fact, I actually have to now look,
link |
cause of course Fox News will mock his declining mental health.
link |
And then I would love like sort of an objective discussion.
link |
Are you aware of this?
link |
Are you like, what are you putting in place?
link |
Cause if I was a person with the declining mental abilities,
link |
like you have to start thinking about that kind of stuff.
link |
Like who is around you?
link |
Who are the advisors?
link |
What if you start, stop being able to see the world clearly?
link |
I would be transparent about that kind of stuff.
link |
Well, you would be,
link |
but you also would never be a politician.
link |
Cause you're too fucking honest.
link |
Well, yeah, but actually from a conversation perspective,
link |
it would be nice if that kind of discussion was had.
link |
It would be, but all jokes aside with Putin,
link |
I would ask questions about democracy versus what they have.
link |
I mean, without, without any disparaging descriptions
link |
of what is going on over in Russia,
link |
it's clearly not a democracy.
link |
It's, they, I mean, the way he has it set up,
link |
the elections are a joke.
link |
So he would push back.
link |
That's not clearly not a democracy.
link |
He is still very popular.
link |
So majority of people are huge supporters of Putin
link |
The people that push back against that would say that
link |
that's because any serious opposition
link |
is pushed out of the country.
link |
So in case competition murdered.
link |
But yes, that's a really, really good question.
link |
The value of dictatorships.
link |
One of the things about the United States
link |
that's fascinating to me is that every four years,
link |
unless it's a, it's four to eight years, right?
link |
If someone does two terms,
link |
but every four years there's an opportunity
link |
for someone to be new and completely inexperienced
link |
at the most difficult job in the world,
link |
which is ridiculous.
link |
So the interesting thing is it actually makes sense
link |
after eight years, you've gained the wisdom.
link |
You would actually be a pretty good leader to keep going.
link |
But there is some problem where you,
link |
the power gets started getting to your head.
link |
And so like from Putin's perspective,
link |
I think he genuinely wants the best for Russia.
link |
I don't think he's lost his mind
link |
in terms of like it's all about greed and so on.
link |
I think Stalin until the end of his days
link |
wanted the best for the Soviet Union.
link |
So it's not like you become,
link |
Hitler I think lost his mind during the war.
link |
Like where it was like he wasn't seeing clearly at all.
link |
What Putin believes is that he is actually the best person
link |
to bring out the best for his country.
link |
Now the problem is maybe refreshing the leader
link |
is in fact in the longterm the best thing
link |
versus every leader believes they know
link |
what's best for the country.
link |
What point is to keep refreshing it?
link |
And that's the case for democracy.
link |
That's the case for the system we have
link |
that creates natural maybe emergent balance of power.
link |
I think it makes it evident
link |
that there is no clear cut real right way to do it.
link |
And that if you had the perfect person in
link |
having them for 12, 20 years would be amazing.
link |
If you had a perfect benevolent leader
link |
who clearly only cared about the people
link |
was doing their best and striving hard
link |
and got great satisfaction
link |
in knowing that he is a dedicated civil servant
link |
that only wants to lead the country in a way
link |
that's gonna benefit the most people
link |
in the most profound way.
link |
But we have a dirty political system.
link |
It's completely corrupted by money,
link |
completely corrupted by influence.
link |
The fact that the lobbyists,
link |
I mean there's an area outside of Washington DC
link |
it's one of the richest areas in the country
link |
and it's where the lobbyists live.
link |
There's so much money involved in being a lobbyist.
link |
There's so much money involved in special interest groups
link |
and how much of an impact they have on who gets elected
link |
and what decisions get made once that person gets elected.
link |
We know this, right?
link |
We know it's not for the people by the people.
link |
It's just not what it is.
link |
I mean this country is an experiment self government
link |
and if we could do it all over again
link |
I would say the most important thing
link |
is to have laws in place to keep money out of politics
link |
and to make it a heinous crime
link |
for someone to influence laws
link |
and policy based entirely
link |
on the amount of profit it could generate for a party
link |
or for a company that is investing in a candidate.
link |
That's fucking incredibly dangerous and it's corrupt
link |
and that corruption has been accepted.
link |
We've just accepted that this corruption exists, you know?
link |
Last question, if Putin asks to see this watch
link |
what do I tell him?
link |
Would you give it, should I let him see it?
link |
Cause we know what happens with the Super Bowl ring.
link |
I think a Super Bowl ring is unique.
link |
He could buy a watch like that, pretty easy, you know?
link |
But this particular, isn't that a power move?
link |
So this is the watch you gave me.
link |
I'll probably share it with him, the story.
link |
And then maybe you go, look, can I see this watch?
link |
And then he puts it on and says thank you.
link |
Yeah, there it is, bro.
link |
So many words I'm gonna have to find translation.
link |
Buddy, bro, I guess bro is brother.
link |
I mean, if he takes your watch, I'll buy you another one.
link |
If Putin steals it, keep him going.
link |
I'll just give you the same exact watch.
link |
Well, first of all, thank you for this.
link |
And I really wanted to talk to you
link |
cause in a couple of days leaving to Ukraine and Russia
link |
and I hope I'll be back in one piece
link |
and drink whiskey with you once again.
link |
Yeah, I hope so too.
link |
I'm nervous about you going over there.
link |
You know, I know journalists have been killed now.
link |
It's, but they don't know Jiu Jitsu.
link |
No, I think you'll be okay.
link |
And I think there's certain things you do in life
link |
that just kind of your heart pulls towards that so much.
link |
What's your objective over there?
link |
I'm not somebody who thinks about objectives clearly.
link |
It's just something about me says I need to go there.
link |
But to put in loose words
link |
is to try to understand what that world is now.
link |
So I remember what it was years ago when I was there.
link |
I know the generations of family that was there
link |
on that land in Ukraine and in Russia
link |
and the soul of the people,
link |
the love that's there, the beauty of the culture.
link |
And I wanna see what it is today
link |
and what this war has created,
link |
both the anger and the love in the people
link |
and just hear them out and just talk to them.
link |
No recordings, none of that.
link |
Maybe a little here and there,
link |
but mostly just for me and to see.
link |
I don't know, this sometimes is just,
link |
something pulls you to a place.
link |
And I also, because I'm able to speak Russian
link |
and some Ukrainian, I do want to try to have these,
link |
a couple of the political leaders involved talk to them.
link |
And I have all the right connections.
link |
Everybody has said, yes,
link |
of course you don't know the likelihood it finally happens,
link |
but I wanna at least have that possibility there.
link |
You sometimes you have to go to a place
link |
to really understand it.
link |
You can't just read about it.
link |
You can't just talk to the people that are living there.
link |
You have to be there.
link |
And I've never been in a war zone.
link |
I've never been in a land that's been damaged
link |
and wiped by the weapons of war.
link |
And I just want to feel that
link |
because so much of that land is,
link |
I remember when everything was flourishing.
link |
Yes, corruption, all those kinds of things,
link |
but people were there and the culture was flourishing
link |
and people were happy.
link |
There was lots of struggle, but they were happy.
link |
And now people are extremely angry.
link |
There's hate in the air on all sides.
link |
I wanna understand.
link |
Sometimes it just pulls you and you have to go.
link |
So it doesn't make any sense perhaps,
link |
but you just gotta do it.
link |
What's the timeline?
link |
Of when I'm going.
link |
I don't have a plan.
link |
So I'm hoping back in a month.
link |
But also not just to clarify,
link |
I'm not somebody who seeks risk.
link |
And like you're somebody who seems to be terrified
link |
of bears and sharks.
link |
like so why go surfing, why go swimming in the ocean?
link |
So I'm somebody that's the same, probably with sharks too.
link |
I'm not taking unnecessary risk,
link |
but certain things that just mean a lot to you,
link |
you take the risk.
link |
And so a little bit of risk willing to take
link |
to discover something about myself.
link |
Honestly, it's probably what all bull is down to,
link |
try to understand myself.
link |
Because so much of me is from that place.
link |
Well, this is the beautiful thing about America
link |
is it's like stitches together,
link |
all these different cultures.
link |
Everybody came from somewhere else.
link |
And you try to understand,
link |
in order for me to be a good American,
link |
I need to understand who I was,
link |
where I came from.
link |
And that's nothing reveals the spirit of a people
link |
It's like there's something about this conflict
link |
that's really cuts all the bullshit.
link |
This is who we are.
link |
This is who we are as a people.
link |
So I want to see it, I want to understand.
link |
And like I said, when I come back, drink some whiskey with you.
link |
Well, I hope that happens.
link |
And I hope you're safe over there.
link |
And I hope you come back with whatever insight
link |
you're trying to achieve.
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Thank you for doing this conversation.
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My pleasure, brother.
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Thank you for everything you've done for me,
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for the support, for the love,
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and everybody around you.
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Thank you for everything you're doing
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for everybody around you,
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for giving back, but for just giving
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and being kind to everybody.
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I love you, brother.
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Thanks for listening to this conversation with Joe Rogan.
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To support the podcast,
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please check out our sponsors in the description.
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And now let me leave you with one of Joe's
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and one of my favorite quotes from Miyamoto Musashi.
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Once you know the way broadly,
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you will see it in everything.
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Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.