Mark Jones How to Survive the Modern World with Your Soul Intact

Speaker A 00:00:02.720 - 00:00:49.900 Mark Jones is a pioneering evolutionary astrologer, psychotherapist and teacher whose work bridges soul centered astrology and deep therapeutic transformation. With over 20 years in private practice and more than 10,000 hours of client work, Mark has developed a powerful model of transformational astrological consultation that goes far beyond prediction, guiding individuals towards meaningful integration and authentic self realization. He's the author of Healing the Soul and the Soul Speaks. Mark weaves together Pluto, Uranus, lunar nodes, and transpersonal psychology to illuminate the deeper narrative of the psyche. His last episode with us was 217 told the search for the Soul, which is a fan favorite here. And we're just so stoked to have him back in the room with us today. Good to see you, man. How's things? Speaker B 00:00:50.540 - 00:01:20.880 Yeah, good to see you both. What a great introduction. Who is this guy? Sounds really interesting. It's really nice to see you both, isn't it? I mean, I don't know about you guys, but 2026 feels like it's got rocket fuel in the tank. I just feel personally fired up creatively. It seems like all's to play for in the world, I mean, in a quite concerning ways, but still, you know. Not a time to switch off, is it, 2026? Speaker A 00:01:21.600 - 00:01:33.440 No, definitely not, man. I'm feeling. Feeling similar things for sure. And like, I feel like I've seen more content around this than ever before as well. I feel like there's never been so much hype about the fire. I've got a Chinese New Year shift. Speaker B 00:01:33.679 - 00:02:00.210 Yes, the fire horse seems to definitely have a kick, but I felt it from January 1st. I don't know, I was having a kind of rest over Christmas, right? And I thought to myself, I got the first few days of the new Year, I'll just chill, literally. New Year's Day, I'm like, oh my God, there's something in the air. You know, it's not chill time. It's like, be dedicated time. Be on it time. Speaker A 00:02:00.770 - 00:02:10.970 Yeah, yeah, for sure, man. Yeah. How's. How's life been, Mark? Like, it's been a while since we chatted. Like, how's things personally for you, you know, or whatever's present. Speaker B 00:02:13.290 - 00:02:53.760 I was reflecting on the national character today, being British. You know, for a very small island, we've produced an awful lot of the world's music, art, culture. Some would say that's our imperialism or something like that. But I'm telling you guys, it's the weather. This is my new theory. The weather is so bad, it's just so bad for so long that anyone who's got anything about them throws themselves inside into a project. Because it was sunny today. So I was out in the yard just doing some work. It's literally the first sunny days in the last couple of days. It's literally been rain every day since New Year's Day till two days ago. Speaker C 00:02:54.400 - 00:03:03.200 Well, I'm happy that you said that. So, Joel, just in case, you know, I'm busy doing other things, it's because I live in California and there's sunshine and so, like, there's a reason for it. Speaker B 00:03:04.230 - 00:03:36.210 I don't know how I would get anything done other than outside stuff. It would change my character. Loads of my books that you mentioned, and there was a Planetary Node book to a third book follow up on Collective Evolution, all of them written in big blasts in the winter most of the time, you know, when nothing else is going on, when it's just grim. There was some village in Cornwall I was reading about. 50 days straight rain they had. Wow. December 30th, 50 straight days of rain. Not a moment of sunshine for any length of time. Speaker A 00:03:36.450 - 00:03:36.930 That's. Speaker C 00:03:37.090 - 00:04:23.180 It's interesting. It's interesting that you bring this up because I'm curious. Like, I used to read so much more now, granted, there's more distractions and things and in life, and my life is busier and fuller and richer in other ways. But, you know, I've been in LA for 13 years and, like, the weather is pretty amazing. Most of the time we get some rain and I do have a lot more responsibilities outside. I'm cultivating a garden and I'm working in the garden. And so it's interesting because, like, I've had this part of me, like, beating myself up because I'm like, why aren't you reading as much as you used to read now? Sure, maybe some of that could be time management, but also I'm finding myself spending more time outside doing yard work, you know, planting trees, uprooting trees, things of that nature. So it's just interesting that you said that in that regard. Speaker B 00:04:23.820 - 00:05:08.950 I think we spend too time. We. We spend a long time on computers, don't we? So that time in the garden, that time in the yard is precious time. It's physically grounding. I mean, I just did four or five straight hours of pressure washing and spraying. You know, if I'm. If I'm like this, it's because I haven't, you know, I've only just put the thing down. It's a. It's really quite a thrill to be out there. With the sun shining, the trees. I've noticed I read less and I'm a committed reader since a young boy. You know, I had a kind of. That kind of childhood where not enough was going on and I just read extraordinary amounts of books from the age of about 5 to 47, which is incidentally when I became a dad, which is one of the main things that stopped me reading. Speaker A 00:05:09.190 - 00:05:10.630 You became a dad at 47? Speaker B 00:05:11.270 - 00:05:12.710 Yeah. It's pretty old, isn't it? Speaker C 00:05:12.790 - 00:05:13.270 Wow. Speaker B 00:05:13.850 - 00:05:15.770 I know. I turned 55 two days ago. Speaker C 00:05:17.370 - 00:05:18.570 Happy belated birthday. Speaker B 00:05:18.650 - 00:05:28.330 Thank you. Thank you. I'm racing towards 60. Yeah, 55 is the new 54. It's amazing. I'm. I'm just, I'm redefining it. Speaker C 00:05:28.410 - 00:05:36.690 Yeah. My father was born. My father, my. I was. Let me speak clearly today. My father was 50 when I was born. So, you know. Speaker B 00:05:36.690 - 00:06:27.660 Yeah, old. I think there's a lot of advantages. But you do feel. I feel sad in advance sometimes that my daughter won't be that old and I'm not around. But that's why I'm on my midlife crisis exercise kick, guys. Yeah. So I've been working out consistently since we last spoke in my. Kind of optimize my health span. If we can still use the phrases that Peter Atia made famous before his. Oh yeah, recent Epstein related fall from grace. I mean, the health span is a wonderful idea, isn't it? Stay as vibrant as you can till you drop. It's not about the amount of time, it's about the energy level or the occasion. But you see, guys, if people like us aren't reading as much anymore, some people just aren't reading at all ever, are they? Speaker A 00:06:27.820 - 00:06:28.340 That's right. Speaker B 00:06:28.340 - 00:07:09.070 Because I would. I was a ridiculous reader and Now I read eight or 10 or 12 books a year or 15 books a year. I mean I would be reading a couple of books a week for years. Decades of my life, I read consistently. Yeah. So if I'm, if my reduction is that high. And remember, I don't have social media on my phone. I filter everything. I go on in choice moments on my PC. I love YouTube. I love things like this long format conversations with quality people. I do watch a lot of YouTube but I've noticed my own attention span change in the new format. Speaker A 00:07:09.390 - 00:07:10.030 Yeah. Speaker B 00:07:10.350 - 00:07:14.510 I am literally old world guys. I didn't have a computer till I was 28. Speaker A 00:07:15.470 - 00:07:16.990 I became a dad at 28. Speaker B 00:07:17.629 - 00:07:21.230 Yeah. Yeah. Nice move, Satin return. Yeah. Speaker C 00:07:21.790 - 00:07:30.010 It is interest. It is interesting. Well, first of all, Joel, I feel like is reading a lot more now these days and he has three kids. So it's interesting, like the different seasons in life. Speaker B 00:07:30.410 - 00:07:30.890 Yes. Speaker C 00:07:31.210 - 00:08:10.420 But like it is interesting to see what technology has done because I remember back in was it in 2002 where I backpacked Europe post college and I could just read and sit down on a bench and read for six, seven hours straight. Same thing when I took some time to travel in 2008. But I think for me, as smartphones of. Man is different. It's shifted, it's changed. And so the idea of sitting down in like just six hours straight, going straight through a book now it's like I read a page and I'm like, oh, should I write this down and maybe post it? It's like, it's like this idea of like, I don't know, the way I relate to it has shifted. Speaker B 00:08:10.660 - 00:08:50.270 Well, and books might have to change, mightn't they? Because they're going to have to grab people in a different way, otherwise they're going to become a highly specialized thing. But I'm very concerned about the content mentality. I mean, we're all content creators in different ways. You in this open format, me in more closed formats with groups or training people. But we all enjoy it. You know, I find content creation a hugely valuable part of what I do. But I don't want to become that guy where every time I'm out with my wife, nice meal or I meet a friend, it's like, click, click, here we are. Hi followers. It's just Mark saying hi. You know, I don't, I just don't want that life. I don't want it. Speaker A 00:08:50.560 - 00:09:28.130 Yeah, I think the value that's derived from consuming long form content, including and especially books, is going to continue to become that much greater as attention spans become shorter and as our brains become more accustomed to just, you know, consuming the smallest tidbit as possible. Even the movie industry I was reading the other day has completely shifted the way they plant the hooks in the beginning of the movies, making sure people understand storylines, trying to capture attention quicker without building into, you know, so like entire industries are being rebuilt around what's happening within our psychology based on, you know, this new world. Speaker B 00:09:28.930 - 00:10:05.340 Well, that's the dark side of it too, isn't it? Because companies pay psychologists to grab your attention. You know, the clickbait phenomena, social media, gaming. Gaming's now busy. Bigger than Hollywood, Massively bigger than Hollywood. The big games take in billions, way more routinely than big films. Yeah, I just think some of it's tremendously exciting. But we have to be aware there's a massive dark side to constantly trying to grab people's attention and. And people will appeal low. Sex, violence, outrage. Speaker A 00:10:05.580 - 00:10:06.220 Yep. Speaker B 00:10:06.700 - 00:10:39.020 Hate seeing something that really pushes your buttons. Motivates the clickbait more than anything. So you get memes all the time that increasingly divide people because it's, it's designed to get you going. I can't believe they're doing that. I can't believe. And this kind of outrage creates a sort of perpetual cortisol elevation. Noradrenaline elevation. People are literally wired all the time. There does seem to be a lot of collective anxiety around at the moment. Speaker A 00:10:39.260 - 00:10:39.620 Yeah. Speaker B 00:10:39.620 - 00:11:12.950 Obviously not helped by certain things in the world. And you could say on a deeper level, if you're a focused person, you can feel it as this kind of creativity, the fire horse potential. But we've got to concede there's an awful lot of anxiety and there's an awful lot of disingenuous actors competing for your attention or as we've seen recently, behaving in outrageous ways and just getting away with it for decades and downgrading the whole human experience as a result, making regular people just feel more cynical or more, you know, mistrusting of the world. Just. Speaker C 00:11:12.950 - 00:11:37.470 There seems to be this general demoralization that I see too, especially in the public sphere and where things are coming out in the open. And I think also people are like. Because of the, like, instant gratification. There are certain things that are presented in the world and then people are just like, why isn't anything happening? Why aren't people being arrested now? And it's like there are things that take time, in my opinion. Speaker B 00:11:38.030 - 00:12:03.320 Well, yes, and, and I hope. But I hope those appropriate actions are taken to some extent. Because what happens to a society if you catastrophically break the trust contract? When you just see the level of elite corruption, both political sides, tech bros, Spiritual figures. I mean, maybe that's elevated to call Deepak a spiritual figure. I mean, I didn't really. Speaker C 00:12:03.320 - 00:12:04.240 I've never, I've never. Speaker B 00:12:04.240 - 00:12:08.760 I mean, I've never. I never thought that really. But he was at least a popularizer. Speaker A 00:12:08.760 - 00:12:12.360 I mean, the Dalai Lama kind of falls in these categories too, to some extent. Speaker B 00:12:14.840 - 00:13:37.060 I mean, what do you do as a young person or just anyone looking around and you just think no one's immune, no one's free of this, the. The scale of it and some form of appropriate action from society, just keep. Give some faint bit of trust back. Because I just don't know. I've argued for years that we're in a kind of crisis with Saturn, the archetype of Saturn, the Saturn return. Being your becoming a father, usually appropriate maturation, commitment, becoming a father, Saturn, the archetype of the father. But we see that it's divided. The culture wars. One side flees from Saturn, runs from it. You can be anything you want to be. We don't need borders, we don't need this, we don't need that. And the other side double down, become authoritarian, become too rigid about the boundaries. There's no middle at the moment. And when you see this level of crisis around leaders and elites, it just erodes it even further. You're a young person just growing up wherever. Boise, Idaho, the California suburbs, wherever. What are you to make of it? Where do you start thinking this is a world I could trust or I could get on with? I think it's very challenging. I think recent events, the Epstein files alone will have this long term impact on people's degree of trust. Speaker A 00:13:37.220 - 00:14:02.730 But when is the last time we even really had a world that we grew up in that we could trust? I think maybe there was the illusion of trust for a period of time until those constructs become to dismantle themselves. But I can't think of a recent consistent period where people grew up in, you know, coherent, kind of trustworthy, overarching environment, geopolitically at least. Speaker B 00:14:04.410 - 00:14:37.580 And I think for those of us who've been exposed to trauma or deeply disillusioning world insights or personal insights, it's not that shocking. But to younger people who haven't had that experience, it is more shocking. Yeah, I would argue there was a feeling in the late 80s, 90s and into the noughties of the meritocracy in somewhere like the US or in North America generally, where you could go for something and make it happen. You know, there was a feeling that you were just about supported enough in that that that was viable. And I don't think it's good for us if we lose that sense altogether. Speaker C 00:14:39.980 - 00:15:03.910 Hey, Mark, what do you think? Like, we're talking about all that stuff, but what for you, what is the solution? Like, like when you work with people, when you teach, when you share your thoughts on things. Obviously Joel and I, we, we talk about the things that we talk about around, like focusing on what you can control and your inner world and what you're building and what you're creating and the community that you're connected to. So I just love for you to share your thoughts on all that. Speaker B 00:15:04.550 - 00:20:51.300 Yeah, I mean, I'm my deeper Background idea, if you like, is something like how to survive the modern world with your soul intact. And I think there's a number of things you have to do. You have to understand the modern world and the different layers of conditioning that have shaped you. But you also have to recognize your soul. You know, for me, this is a psychic domain. You have a psychic being. Your inner life is real. It's not just real because I like Joel, or your assimilation, you know, and I think your journaling is real. And you tell me about a dream of yours, you share a poem or something you wrote. I don't mean just real like that. I mean energetically real. So when you make a breakthrough in your life, when Joel faces some challenge with one of his children and is loving instead of just shutting them down, it has a subtle impact on that whole field. Not just the family, but the neighborhood, the society, the world. Very subtle. But the world is made up of these infinitesimally small subtle changes all the time. And for me, they come from the psychic being. And what do I mean by the psychic being? I mean the energetic dimension of the soul that reaches down into the world, into your personality. So to me, life is largely, in a sense, purgatorial. You will make choices that uplift your psychic being, that lead it towards love, truth, light. And you'll make choices sometimes where you fall off a cliff. And that is much more purgatorial than, you know, that I think we're comfortable admitting. You know, there's rays of light from heaven coming down at the top, and there's the fiery pit below. And, you know, you can. You can gain the world and lose your soul. You know, maybe that's what the Epstein files make the clearest. You can have billions, access to intelligence services, girls, whatever. Private wealth, islands, private jets, and you can truly lose yourself. You can lose any sense of truth or integrity or light within. And I think the missing component of modern life is the spiritual disillusionment or the step away from that inner truth. And I'm not making it denominational. I'm not saying you have to become a Christian, because I use the word purgatorial. I think the Buddhists would understand the same to me. But how are you supposed to orientate in this world without understanding the fact that from my perspective, love is real, truth is real. And by real, I mean it has ontological status. It actually shines from your being. It has a subtle light. And truth. That subtle just means you can't hit it like I just hit the desk. It doesn't mean it's not real. Essence is real. People really do have a radiance from their inner life. And if you guys have ever sat with anyone when they die, you can literally watch it leave as they pass. And this is the kicker for me. This is what we're all ignoring or we've been talked out of. You know, we've been given the joys of consumerism. You can choose Nike or New Balance to express your individuality instead of that. Or you can have in other parts of the world, totalitarianism of various kinds, or scientific materialism, intellectual vanity. I would argue just because science is very, very good technologically at analyzing reality in a certain micro way, it has no answer for the big questions. So how useful is it to inspire a person's life? So we're lacking the deeper narratives that would explain the why, you know, why do we suffer? Why do we just get into life? This is poignant from a recently 55 year old. You know, you're just getting into your stride and you're starting to see the downward slope slightly. Yeah, what's the deal with that? And how are you supposed to address that without recognizing what I would see as the sacred gift of reality? You know, you were given a soul, you were given a piece of life, part of the everything. And we're so far from that. And I don't mean this in just some whacked out, hippie, dippy way like we should all do psychedelics and go out to the Joshua Tree or relive the 60s or something. I think largely we can say the 60s didn't pan out as well as lots of boomers would have hoped that it would have done. But I do think it's important to realize that truth, love, wisdom are based on real transcendent values. They're not just quirky, made up shit. And what happens when you loosen the bond to those transcendent values? What happens over time when you keep eroding? I was thinking as the monks were walking across America and you know, you can have issues with various figures, but post war, if you think about the world order from the Second World War till now and the changes that are taking place, one of the things I note is the invasion of Tibet in the early 50s. And you have this unbroken lineage from Padvasambhava in the 1300s to modern day Tibet. Unbroken lineage of master and disciple, master and student, unbroken teaching transmissions. We keep knocking these things out in the world. We keep shutting down these attempts to maintain a kind of acknowledgment of a sacred order in a more profound way. What's the cost of that? Eventually we start losing our way. We start losing the moral vision. Speaker C 00:20:52.180 - 00:21:33.630 Yeah. Mark, I just want to say this. First of all, it's just great to be in your presence again. And I. I love the, like one of your gifts that I noticed even just the last time we talked and Al. And that just feel. It really hit me is that like, obviously you are intellectual human, you have a high intellect, but the way you weave intellect with heart and wisdom and presence is really impactful, man. And I just want. You probably know this, you're a self. No, no, but reflective person. But like. Yeah, it's really, it's beautiful. It's really beautiful to. To witness. And so I just. Thank you for who you are. Speaker A 00:21:33.710 - 00:21:34.910 Yeah, I think, you know. Speaker B 00:21:35.230 - 00:21:35.590 Yeah. Speaker A 00:21:35.590 - 00:21:55.630 Your asthma tonight during that monologue, I definitely felt connected to what he was experiencing as well. Because it's just the way that you communicate these reminders which are so desperately needed, is just so poignant, man. And I think the entire audience that listens to this, you know, during that. Those few minutes as well, are going to feel that too, man. I. Everything is. Speaker B 00:21:57.060 - 00:24:26.330 It's so profound, isn't it? It's so important. And some of it is simple. I mean, I've been trained out of my intellectual background by my clients and students over the decades. You know, I've been forced to explain myself multiple times and discover that frankly, some of the ways I think about it could be perceived as slightly pretentious or not that useful to people. And I've had to, you know, the hard edges of my own thought have been smoothed out by the contact with people and learning to just be more direct. Because some of this isn't rocket science, is it? Almost every culture in the world, indigenous cultures, Buddhist cultures, the religions of the book, had this like moral sense that you were in the world and you could discover the psychic domain. You could discover the coat of many colors. You know, my daughter's in Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors at the moment. She was in an all day rehearsal on my birthday. So my wife and I went out for lunch, which was nice and rare, but, you know, the coat of many colors symbolizes the rainbow, subtle body. You know, the fact that the soul has all these different colors based on essences, based on radiatory qualities within the being and the purpose of life, you could argue on some level is to discover that or share that in some way. And if you materialize everything, you literally rob people of the key point that the suffering is a necessary shock or crisis that can engender the self realization. And I'm increasingly concerned too. Culturally, you know, the kind of religion is the opium of the masses, said the Chinese around the time they took Tibet. But actually content and addictive behavior and pornography, you know, drugs, pharmacological drugs, all these things you're offered, you know, you're an American, you can't suffer, you can't have a complex inner life and it leads you to greater depth. Have this pill, have this aid, have this life hack. Geez, you know, I understand those things are useful for some people in crisis for a certain amount of time. I am not an extremist. When I was a therapist back in the day, I helped people get on the right medication. I'm just saying this whole fantasy that you should never feel anything and never suffer has this hidden danger of potentially robbing people of their heritage, robbing people of the meaning of their life. Speaker A 00:24:27.450 - 00:24:58.670 Yeah, the only real alleviation for suffering that works to any kind of extent that I've found in my life is the things that we're talking about, which is, you know, having a deep relationship with the truth of my soul, the essence of my soul, and having a deep relationship with the purpose that that soul came here to fulfill. Like that's the only thing that's ever alleviated suffering for me in any real way and given me the energy to bounce back. Speaker B 00:24:59.470 - 00:27:07.850 Yeah, it's great to hear. It's so appropriate. I genuinely believe purpose is the issue, meaning is the issue. If you feel it's meaningful, you can do. You're capable of tremendous effort staying with things. But you know, this as a parent, I mean, you know, kids have crises. You know, the part of you that's selfish, frankly, can't be bothered with your child's crisis. And the other part of you kicks in and does what you have to do, you know, cleans up the sick or helps them work out their anxiety about something because. Because the meanings that. So the prevailing winds of meaninglessness that we see everywhere is directly linked to the collective anxiety issue. There's just this pervading sense on a more mass level, it seems to me, what is the meaning, what is the point? And then you get the kind of slightly insane people who've swallowed the Kool Aid just saying, oh, it's all just part of a collective awakening. All just going into this meaninglessness crisis because it's all going to lead to, you know, collective nirvana. And I get their thinking because I also believe that there are shocks and crises and failures that lead people to deeper truths. But the idea that's just going to happen on a collective level is a touch naive, perhaps. It's a very challenging time ahead, isn't it? So to go back to the original question, I would say you have to develop your own personal vision of meaning. And that's what I like to help people do. And it has to involve some degree of actual encounter with human culture and society, philosophy, politics, insight, conditioning insight, religious insight, you know, just the things that have shaped you in your life so that you can understand who you really are, not just the conditioned self. And then it has to be about taking seriously people's inner life, because all sorts of people have had genuinely deep moments. Just no one's been there in their life to mirror the depth to them. Speaker C 00:27:10.170 - 00:27:19.210 Yeah. And if they have it, then it's like they quickly go back to getting lost in like, the external, recreational, you know, it's too much. Speaker A 00:27:19.210 - 00:27:19.570 They don't. Speaker C 00:27:19.570 - 00:28:02.830 They can't hold it or, or integrate it in a proper way. So then like, they choose or desire more of that, you know, understanding or self reflection, which I think is very interesting. Like what mark for you? Like, obviously there's mystery in terms of the human and who are we and why are we here? Like, when we talk about words like essence and personality and soul and aspects and archetypes and parts, like, what is your view? I know we're getting to like the intellectual realm here, but, like, what is the architecture of the psyche, of the being, like, to you if you were to do your best to explain it? Speaker B 00:28:04.030 - 00:34:15.920 I mean, I think a neat story that illustrates the difference between essence and personality was given by Gurdjieff. I don't know whether this actually happened or he's just using it as a teaching story, but there are two people, an older businessman who seems very empowered, who's telling people what to do all the time, and a very sort of sensitive aesthetic kind of young man who's barely speaking, just seems a bit willowy, a bit lost. Right. And then they gave them psychedelics and the businessman just lay in the corner and was freaked out and couldn't say anything. And the strange, sensitive young man came alive and started talking magically and connecting. The young man had lots of essence and very little personality. The businessman was all personality, no essence. That was good. Yes. Teaching point on that front. I'll say one more thing about this mirror potential and its importance. Then I'll try and realize my vision of the psyche. It's Part of the power, I remember from our first conversation of your guys friendship, isn't it, the power of that friendship is it's a friendship in soul to help the two of you take your own deeper moments more seriously and feel supported in them so that you can act on them. And even the nature of the podcast and its title is A Commitment Together to acknowledge the emergent depth. This is absolutely key. I mean, in some ways I am that kind of friend for hire for people so that I can help mirror for them the breakthrough moments and be there to take it seriously whilst they're going through the transformation around it. And it gives me a lot of joy and it's very rewarding. So you know, that bridges to my model of the psyche. You know, there is a kind of inner light or presence, let's just say. But our personal awareness of that could fluctuate enormously. This is why it's so important, this concept that Gurdjieff had called self remembering, that you have these mirror environments, people that help you remember, remember who you are, basically in the simplest pop psychology way of putting it, but it's actually a bit deeper than that. Gurdjieff also had this fantastic phrase, take pictures, take mental pictures. When you see yourself conflicted about something and you can see the one part comes up and then the other part. Yeah, screenshot, so that you can contemplate. Because we are initially divided selves, aren't we? And there are multiple parts, let's just be frank. This explains an awful lot of the world. People act as if they are themselves a coherent person and the other people are coherent persons. And then, surprise, surprise, so. And so in public life, who is supposedly a coherent person does this awful thing some of the rest of the time. Well, welcome to the disunity of the self. You know, we are often all these disparate parts, frankly arguing with each other the whole time, like some bar brawl, you know, that's how most people are. So it takes tremendous work to understand that and begin to honor the parts. Astrology can be super useful here because the planets symbolize different parts and you can recognize you have a Mercury, your mental life, you have a Venus, your relationship life, you have a moon, your emotions and security, super helpful to people. But you have to do the work to bring the light of awareness to these different parts and then begin to synthesize a deeper vision within yourself of the potential for coherence. Because it is possible to become a coherent self, if you like, at least in potential. But it takes this tremendous Dedication or work, Gurdjieff called it, or in psychosynthesis, it's called the will. You know, you have to bring about this sort of continuous inner presence that begins to see all the different parts that you are and that you're playing in your life. And you bring the light of awareness to that. And this is the nature of the path in a way. You know, there's a path in the world too. But the path of self knowledge is to recognize actually who you are and how complex. And you know, the room of many mansions, you are a huge mansion with many rooms inside you. Have you explored? So it's absolutely critical, isn't it, if we go back to how to survive the modern world with your soul intact, that you gain some support to explore the room of many mansions. You know, the kind of. The rooms inside the inner palace, if you like. And this is where profound friendship is so powerful. You know, all my life I've been supported by certain critical, profound friendships in the background which enable me to have highly articulate spaces where I can share my deeper self and deeper insights. But put in simple terms, I mean, I'm gonna sound like some kind of weird preacher or something, but there is an inner light. There just really is. There is an inner light and it can be discovered. And even if you discover just the kind of reflected version of it, even if you don't find the direct source of the light, but you just feel it as a kind of reflection inside you, that's incredibly profound, that will, that will elevate you in life, that will bring a certain buoyancy to everything you do. And as for the direct light itself, you know, that is literally life changing. But can we find a way of being real about that without getting caught in the religious trappings, without getting caught in the. Come and join my church, boys. All of this was just a big promo, guys, for the Church of Weird Mark. Yeah, and in the Church of Weird Mark, we like to do this, we, we like to do that. And we don't like to do this. And we don't wear pink on Tuesdays or eat crabs or whatever. It's just. Can we develop a more simple language through psychology, through an open minded understanding of magic, spirituality, astrology, to talk about it more directly or to experience it more directly. Speaker A 00:34:16.400 - 00:34:21.920 Hey man, do you have a discount code for the Weird Church of Mark? I'd love to join. Yeah, share it with our audience. Speaker B 00:34:22.480 - 00:34:34.780 Yeah, I'm going to start writing up it's, it's Bible soon, I think. Yeah, I get I get given some strange glasses by an angel. I start reading reality in a different way. Yeah, it's going to be cool. Speaker C 00:34:36.220 - 00:35:32.600 It's. Yeah, it's really interesting because this has been something that's. That my mind has kind of been grappling with, is trying to understand the human being, understand the self. Like even your. I love your analogy of, you know, room with many mansions, you know, for me, when I. And the orchestra like all these different instruments, you know, at play. And. And so I have two questions. Well, one for you. What is that conductor? You know, like within, like the psychic architecture. But then with the light thing, you said, do you see like this light at the base of the mansion that is like shooting through the different rooms and then each room has a different prism on them because. Because it's like. Do some elements of personality kind of like act as like a stop gap for that light, but then there are other elements that allow it to shine through. Like I'm just. I don't know, I'm just. Speaker B 00:35:32.600 - 00:35:33.120 Yes. Speaker C 00:35:33.360 - 00:35:34.600 Playing with this. Speaker B 00:35:34.600 - 00:38:35.640 I do, I do see it like that. I think there are actual prisms. Yeah. I mean, there are shut off parts of the self caught in shame and guilt and self hatred that block the light. Yes. If the negative emotion is serious enough, it will block the light. There will be a kind of oil and water issue, you know, be incompatible. Incompatible nature. But I think there are prisms and I think there are partial cells. So to go back to the conductor analogy, in psychosynthesis and in Girdief's the work, there is this concept of, as it were, the real I. The true nature of subjectivity, the radical nature of being the conductor is the I to me. Right. And that would make coherent all the different parts. And the different parts would be the violins, the cellos, the brass, the woodwind. And in Girdiev's teaching, there's even this concept of the steward, the deputy steward and the steward that helps you get towards the eye, like a working model. And that would be like the first violin or something, someone who can organize if the conductor had a lapse or something or before you even get to the conductor. Now, in psychosynthesis, the greater life is symbolized by the self. So you know the score, if you like. The music would be the self or music itself would be the divine. And the actual music the orchestra is playing, say the Mozart piece or something, is the self with a capital S. And the I is the conductor. And the different instruments of the part be something like that. To go back to Your delightful image of the prism. I really think there are those things and I think this is why the concept of partially integrated selves is really important. I understand there's a lot of radical teaching out there about enlightenment from a non dual perspective. Some of it's interesting, some of it less so. You know, where they would. Where they would be sniffy if you like, or look down on this idea of a partial integration. But I think it's really important for people to recognize there are working models and that there are prisms that reflect some of the true radiance of essence, even if they're a bit cloudy on some other side. And you could refine that prism over time or occasionally replace it for a more full prism. And of course those are radical moments for people. You don't put down one version of yourself and just be like, oh, I upgraded from Windows 10 to 11 kind of thing. No big deal. No, it's much more concerning to people, isn't it, to put down the operating system. So this is why for me, transformation goes through a variety of cycles. People need help at a variety of integration points. But the sad thing is if your pain from the past reaches this burdensome point point that's too intense, you will cut off from the light. You will shut it away. Speaker A 00:38:37.480 - 00:38:37.920 Yeah. Speaker C 00:38:37.920 - 00:38:38.680 Thank you for that. Speaker A 00:38:40.120 - 00:38:52.600 Yeah. And I found throughout the course of my life that the different rooms in the mansions have become made more aware to me as I've needed access to those. Speaker B 00:38:52.760 - 00:38:54.120 Yes, nice. Speaker A 00:38:55.000 - 00:39:01.950 As I'm traversing new terrain in terms of what's required for my life, I recognize the existence of another room which I'm welcomed into. Speaker C 00:39:02.510 - 00:39:07.310 You walk down the hallway and like all of a sudden you turn on the light. Oh yeah, the room over here. Speaker B 00:39:07.630 - 00:39:11.030 Yeah, yeah. Or like those auto lights that just turn on when you walk past. Speaker C 00:39:11.030 - 00:39:11.670 Yeah, yeah. Speaker B 00:39:11.670 - 00:39:24.590 I think that's brilliant. And I think that engenders trust in life, doesn't it? And trust in the divine, the quality that's sorely missing in the world. And yes, you're not meant to be aware of all the rooms. Speaker C 00:39:25.430 - 00:39:25.750 Yeah. Speaker B 00:39:25.830 - 00:39:28.750 Especially not when you're young. It could be really dangerous. Speaker A 00:39:28.750 - 00:39:29.390 Yeah, yeah. Speaker C 00:39:29.390 - 00:40:12.430 Well, I love these. I love speaking with this analogy because I think of even just like the unconscious or say you go through the development process and certain aspects of you, certain rooms get like put into the shadows. Like there's like cobwebs, the light hasn't been turned on for ages. But then there's also you're going through life and like, oh well, let's let's add an addition to our mansion, and then let's put on a new room. Because it's not repression. Yeah. It's just not developed. And so you develop it, like Joel was saying, you know, where he's like, oh, let's say I'm starting a business, and it's calling upon me to really cultivate something new as opposed to bring something from the darkness of the unconscious to remember that again. So, yeah, I like the Mansions analogy. Speaker A 00:40:12.590 - 00:40:35.759 Yeah. And if I can add another layer to it, you know, that also, like, engenders this relationship with the divine, is that as I've discovered these rooms, I've also synchronistically come into and discovered knowledge which helps the expansion of that room as it's happened and as I've needed it. Whether it's a purchase like those or an author or a video that's like, okay, you know, have a look. Speaker C 00:40:36.240 - 00:40:41.200 You're adding artwork to the room and maybe a nice tapestry on the wall as opposed to a bare room. Speaker B 00:40:42.080 - 00:41:59.190 It's like the tremendous satisfaction my daughter and I get from watching sometimes those people that do up an old building or they buy a ruin, you know, and then they do a YouTube video over the. You know, their two years of work is put into a montage. It's very satisfying, I think. You know, we're planning renovations, aren't we? If you're. If you're living a creative life, you're literally choosing a home extension. And I think, well, the analogy can go in several directions. We're taking it positively. The negative direction is something like people are frequently living in a rundown little caravan or prefab house next to their house that used to be. That's now a bomb site, you know, and people live trying to distract themselves from the bomb site or the. Or the collapse or the subsidence of the existing home. So it's funny, you guys naturally picking up something that I don't even teach, particularly when I do psychosynthesis. But it was a massive, massive living metaphor for Roberto Sagioli, the Italian doctor that founded psychosynthesis. He would do these whole meditations on the self as a house and you finding. And you going up a level and you finding what's waiting for you and stuff. It's really funny that we come up with that. It's such a beautiful, intuitive metaphor. Yeah. Speaker A 00:41:59.670 - 00:42:06.630 Even to bring in, like, you know, esoterically biblical perspective. You know, like, in my father's house, there are many. Speaker B 00:42:06.710 - 00:42:10.710 Yes. Yeah, that's the phrase that I murdered slightly Before. Yeah, thank you. Speaker A 00:42:10.710 - 00:42:12.310 The kingdom of heaven dwells within. Speaker B 00:42:12.550 - 00:42:13.830 Yes, exactly. Speaker A 00:42:13.830 - 00:42:15.350 Pointers to this discussion. Speaker C 00:42:16.180 - 00:42:30.980 And then also I love this is. I'm having fun with this, so I'm just gonna roll with it. And then I think of like the people that are so obsessed with ascension that they're just on the rooftop and they're just like, they're locked from the rest of the house. Yes, they're just there, like looking down. I'm from this elevated place on everyone. Speaker B 00:42:32.340 - 00:43:25.550 Well, and this, this kind of milliner millennia Arianism, this kind of disturbing thing that lots of religions have for like the world can burn and we're all going to heaven in our rocket ship, spaceship Jesus or whatever, it becomes quite disastrous, doesn't it? The denial of the foundations in the earth, the spiritual bypassing the. Everything here can be ruined. I don't know. Or even the gentler version is that he seems like a sweet guy, but that Brian Johnson, the multimillionaire who's trying to prevent himself from dying. And he's a former Mormon, which I think explains everything. Know you had Spaceship Jesus on one level and now he's taken that same quest into the material body quest. I like him, he's a nice person. But I'm going to guess that he still dies despite all his longevity products. Right? Just a wild guess. Speaker C 00:43:25.870 - 00:43:43.580 Yeah, I tend to align with you there. Seems nice. I didn't know that he was a Mormon, but my own views of health and vitality and longevity, I'm like, I don't. I think he's. I think his body, like his soul will leave his body. It's, it's. I don't think he's going to live forever. And I don't think, I don't think he's going to live to be 150 either. But that's another story. Speaker B 00:43:43.580 - 00:45:49.420 Well, that's the thing. I was only talking to someone the other day who had done this health thing with a health guru back in the day who, you know, ate this perfect vegetarian diet, worked out in this perfect regimen, and they died of some kind of brain hemorrhage in their 60s. I mean, I'm not trying to say that as a personal failure of that person, but we don't know what fate has in store, do we? We don't even know when we might be called away on some level. Can we understand the mystery? Don't be fooled into thinking that this idiot here understands the mystery. It's a mystery. Right? So the question is, and this is where your point about Discovery of the rooms when you need it, is so profound. That's when you've entered into the dance with life. It seems to me you realize life wants to dance with you and is actually an active partner and will show you things. Because at the end of day, it's going to come down to trust, isn't it? At the end of the day, you're going to be there. We'll all be on our deathbed far too soon, way sooner than we'd like, and we're going to have to decide, you know, it comes to certain crunch moments, doesn't it? Or certain moments of transformation previously in life. The day you get married, the day you meet the person you love, the day you choose to commit to something, the day you meet a special friend and set up a podcast, the day that you had a breakthrough, the day you first take psychedelics and something really happens to you. Whatever it is, we're all making a journey in each moment that either goes deeper or pushes us away from the depth. And that's the initiatory aspect of life. To me, that never changes. It never stops. An initiation the whole time. Even Jung said something like that. He really got kind of psychedelically mystical about the crucifixion. He was like, in some sort of Easter piece he wrote somewhere. It's like the crucifixion and the resurrection happen in every moment, he wrote. It's like that kind of at the depth of reality, certain archetypes just play out, if you like, or the transcendent process is just happening, like in the engine room of reality. Speaker A 00:45:49.980 - 00:45:50.380 Yeah. Speaker B 00:45:50.380 - 00:45:55.370 We are crucified by things, and we discover our potential greatness. Speaker A 00:45:55.690 - 00:46:48.370 Well, I mean, I, I, I personally experience, you know, the death and rebirth every single day. I'm dying to. Old versions of myself, old ideas, you know, and another great Jungkook speaks to this, like, what was true in the morning, in the afternoon becomes a lie. Like anything that you thought you could hang your hat on at one point in time, you know, you're going to be shown the truth of it or it's going to shift as, as, as life goes on. And I mean, this is the, this is, for me, it's like I feel like, just speaking personally, like, I feel like I'm constantly being thrown into, you know, an evolutionary journey, you know, like, I have a relationship with my own personal evolution, where it's like, all right, this is enough, you know, this, this is a lot to the point where it's like, I don't feel like I'm going To. Or. I don't hold this fear of, like, dying and not having done enough because I just. Speaker B 00:46:48.450 - 00:46:49.090 That's great. Speaker A 00:46:49.410 - 00:46:53.570 I personally feel constantly, like, engaged in it. On that edge. Speaker B 00:46:54.770 - 00:47:16.950 No, it's amazing. You can feel the positivity when you say that. You're clearly in a certain zone, and it's great. I think that's what you commit to, isn't it? When you have a creative life, you don't have to commit to writing a novel or making an album or becoming an artist or something. The creative psychic life is the commitment to live as intensely as possible. Speaker A 00:47:17.510 - 00:47:17.950 Yeah. Speaker B 00:47:17.950 - 00:48:24.880 To actually allow the greater life to come through. And Jung was a towering figure in that regard. I genuinely believe Jung was one of the creative geniuses of the 20th century. I really think he did allow the spirit of the depths to live through him in the spirit of time. The distinction he made in the Red Book and other places I think was a genuine realization. And. Yeah, you. You are like a. A big positive energy in that regard, Joel, aren't you? You're in a dedicated space right now, and I think it's fantastic. I myself am in a similarly dedicated space, but just at a different point in the life cycle. And I personally consider it. You know, every day I'm going for 10 out of 10. I'm not gonna make it. You know, But I'm routinely getting eight or nine out of ten. Yeah. Morning till night. I'm dedicated, and I'm on it. My version of on it. You know, that's why I'm working out a lot. Because I realized I'm not fit enough physically to be on it as much as I'd like to be psychically. Speaker A 00:48:25.280 - 00:48:25.640 Yeah. Speaker B 00:48:25.640 - 00:48:27.320 So I have to improve. Yeah. Speaker A 00:48:27.320 - 00:48:30.080 So you make you. You adjust according to. Speaker B 00:48:30.160 - 00:48:31.280 Yes. Yes. Speaker A 00:48:31.360 - 00:48:45.420 Those values which become more prominent the deeper you connect to your essence, to your purpose, to your meaning. So, you know, your energy naturally redirects and is prioritized according to that relationship that is always evolving with self. Speaker B 00:48:46.700 - 00:49:31.330 Yes. It's so inspirational, isn't it, frankly? I mean, how can you ever be bored? I get tired. Yeah. I can be wiped out tired, but I'm never bored. And when I was a teenager, I was bored in my little family home, staring out the window, thinking, where's the interesting life happening that I want to be having? I was bored then when I was 15. I'm never bored now. Just exhausted or sad or brought down by the world. Sure. Or people suffering. But the idea that it could be anything other than fascinating when you realize just how much life Wants to dance or effectively how much your greater psychic life is playing the tune to go back to our symphony. Speaker C 00:49:31.650 - 00:49:32.050 Yeah. Speaker B 00:49:32.050 - 00:49:38.690 Orchestra idea. You know, there is a fantastic melody being played on some level way beyond my capacity to understand melody. Speaker A 00:49:38.850 - 00:49:49.650 That's, that's, and that's the thing, man. It's like your life has the potential to be a song that has heard before and can never be heard again. And are you going to let that song play or not? Speaker B 00:49:50.850 - 00:50:19.880 It's beautiful. It's literally, I think that's the planetary node of Neptune. To talk esoteric astrology for a minute. You know, all the planets have nodes, not just the moon. And the node of Neptune, the north one, the one that balances the past, is in Leo. You know, finding your creative song, finding your creative voice, finding your moment of actualization I think is actually spiritually important for people to take the risk of sharing their creative voice in the world. Speaker C 00:50:21.160 - 00:50:21.640 Yeah. Speaker B 00:50:22.680 - 00:50:38.240 Much though I'm not a huge fan of your American Idol or such things. Personally, I did recognize in those more beautiful moments when some seeming, nobody just opened their mouth and sang beautifully, just how super powerful that is as a kind of spiritual metaphor. Speaker C 00:50:39.600 - 00:50:45.400 Yeah. I have to admit an occasional guilty pleasure of mine is seeing those moments, those highlight moments. Speaker B 00:50:45.400 - 00:50:47.640 Like I've watched them on YouTube. Yeah. Speaker C 00:50:47.640 - 00:50:49.760 I mean they bring me to. Speaker B 00:50:49.760 - 00:50:51.920 Oh yeah, they are very moving. Yeah. Speaker C 00:50:51.920 - 00:51:18.300 Like the one janitor, what was his name? That staying journey. Like Richard. Yeah, yeah. Like that, that gets me every single time. Because it, that moment. And it's also you think about a person creating themselves. Like they're like, I'm answering the call, I'm going to show up. I've been singing in the shower for 20 years and people keep telling me I have a good voice. And then I'm like, I'm going to fly to wherever this is and I'm going to do it. And it's like those moments that I really, really appreciate. And I know. Speaker B 00:51:18.300 - 00:51:28.270 Check out that Swedish guy doing Bruce Springsteen. Is it Dancing in the Dark? That's pretty powerful. He's just got an acoustic guitar and he re, he reinvents the song. It's like a different type of song. Speaker C 00:51:28.270 - 00:51:50.110 Yeah, yeah. There's, there's so many of them that are just like. Because again, I, I, I admire excellence, you know, I, I admire someone that's like doing something from the deepest places within themselves. From themselves. And you see it in these moments, you know, whether it's a 12 year old child that like you're like, you sound like you're like you've lived many, many, many, many, many lives. Speaker B 00:51:50.750 - 00:51:55.470 You know, some kids just open their mouth and, like, an old soul comes out. It's crazy. Speaker C 00:51:55.630 - 00:53:36.640 I'm like, what? But I know we were knocking Deepak Chopra earlier, and I. Yeah, I was never a big fan of him, but there was a quote of his that I've always loved and I share all the time. The most creative act you will ever undertake is the act of creating yourself. And so I've always appreciated that for that. That nature of, like, every moment. Like, people. People often go, oh, I'm not creative. I'm not artistic. And it's like, we've been given this gift of life, this act of creation, and what do you do with it? Like, you have the opportunity to wake up every day and to do something about it, to know yourself more, to understand what meaning you have in life, what you value. Where do you want to put your energy? So it's been. Yeah, it's been something that's stayed with me in that regards. And the other thing that has landed with me and I think relates to our conversation and Joel and I speak about all the time. Once the concept of memento more like, landed for me, like, really not just this intellectual thing, but just the embodied knowing that life is finite and. And to meditate on it and to have it close to me, like. Like a conversation like, this matters more because I could get hit by a car tomorrow. You know, like we mentioned earlier, we can have a brain hemorrhage. And so it's like, wow. Like, I have this opportunity to. To have this conversation and to get deep and to talk about life, and. I don't know, there's just something that. That not in this dark way, but just holding death close to me has allowed me to live more fully and more present and with more heart than by just being like, oh, whatever, life. Speaker A 00:53:37.600 - 00:53:39.160 Sure, man. I mean, what. What? Speaker B 00:53:39.160 - 00:53:40.240 That's profound. Yeah. Speaker A 00:53:40.240 - 00:53:50.460 Yeah. What that does for me, it, like, reinforces the notion that every experience, every conversation is divinely ordained, and I should treat it as such. Speaker B 00:53:52.540 - 00:54:50.700 That's powerful, but because it does make you show up, you don't want to. Why are you letting the stupid argument stay between you and a loved one? Why would I? How many times will we all three meet? You know, a handful of precious times in this life. Yeah, we take it seriously, don't we? I took it seriously. Despite my transition from yard work, I took half an hour to sit and be ready. It's like, because. Yeah, you're absolutely right. The trust and the Divine coming from you on that point, Joel, and the memento mori point from you, your assimilation, it's just so profound. It's a, it's a game changer. I've been obsessed with death since I was a teenager, and. It just, it's just translated over the years into an impact on me now, which just increases that striving for the eight or nine or ten out of ten. Why, why are you treating any day less when there's so few of them? Speaker A 00:54:51.020 - 00:54:51.580 Yeah. Speaker B 00:54:51.580 - 00:55:28.640 And each day you have a chance to at least acknowledge not just your own potential for greatness, but the potential for greatness of other humans and the actual greatness of the divine. The sacred dimension of life. I, I increasingly think it's all about the divine on some level. Just, it's the divinity of life, basically. Can we learn to bow to the divinity of life, sacred dimension of life itself? Can we acknowledge it? Can we have love and profound, endless gratitude for the gift of life itself and our capacity just to be a part of it? It's just a miracle, frankly, you know? Speaker C 00:55:28.640 - 00:56:33.150 Yeah. And this is why I think psychological health and somatic health is so important. And just being able to be present, I mean, that word gets thrown around all the time. Like, what does it mean to be present? Like, can you even connect to that deeper part? Can you connect to the finiteness of life if you're constantly dysregulated, if you know your parts are warring with each other non stop, without that conductor that has this deeper understanding? Because I'm at this place now again, bringing up memento mori, like, I'm like with my dog. And like even those moments as I pet my dog and smell my dog, there is this knowing that that smell and that feeling will no longer be one day. And I've talked about this before, when I hug my friends, I, like, hold on for a second longer. My mother's living with us now. Like, these things matter to me. And it's because of whatever, whatever work I've done to get to the point to be the person I am now and to live with a little bit more presence than maybe I did, however long ago. Speaker B 00:56:34.360 - 00:56:34.600 It's. Speaker C 00:56:34.600 - 00:57:03.340 It's part of my reality. And it's not like I'm, it's not even like I'm consciously, like, thinking, okay, I'm a mental. More I'm gonna die one day and now I have to hug my mom longer. It's just, it's. It's this extension of the essence that envelops life, that envelops these People that have meaning to me in my life. And it brings me to tears, like it just, it's, it's like the awesomeness of that that brings me to tears of gratitude and, and an understanding of the blessing of life. Speaker B 00:57:04.860 - 00:58:16.560 But you're experientially living the teaching on you and it's that transformative when you do that, it's life changing. And when we think about the mass anxiety or depression or fear in the world, I think this facing death more point becomes absolutely critical. You can't gain any stability in this world if you're trying to outrun death fundamentally because you won't. So meaning, higher order meaning has to come through the existential portal. The existential portal being our inherent fragility in a world where for all the magic of our lives, one car wreck, one falling piece of masonry from an old building in New York and we're sat in Central park, knocks us on the head, whatever, gone. And it's like this is befuddled people. This has just basically destroyed people's inner peace for centuries. I mean there's so much literature on this, you know, Marcus Aurelius, just all these different people from classical times to now trying to address this. That is the spiritual high watermark, isn't it? Speaker A 00:58:16.640 - 00:58:21.560 Yeah, I think of, you know like Carlos, Carlos Castaneda and the Don Juan. Speaker B 00:58:21.560 - 00:58:22.000 Yes. Speaker A 00:58:22.000 - 00:58:28.240 You know, like, yes, death is my. I pet my death. Death is played that close to that. I pet my death is my friend. Speaker B 00:58:29.360 - 00:59:15.350 But you see, it feels cruel sometimes, doesn't it? Many old people still feel like young people inside. It's not like the essence necessarily changes. And of course many people in our culture never fully mature so they remain like small children, even 80 something. But you can't pet death, can you? In that way? Unless you face the spiritual kind of trick here. Is the divine cruel for just bringing you into this world and then taking you out, possibly with lots of suffering or some sort of long standing illness or mental decline or. Or what? Or is the deeper life present despite it all? Yeah, every part of the cycle. That's the great dilemma, isn't it? Speaker A 00:59:15.830 - 00:59:31.030 Well, for me, what supports in that capacity is that I tend to hold the belief that I had a choice in the matter to like end this game and that I have responsibility. So I'm not. It's not like the divine just, you know, spat me out and it's going to chew me back up. Speaker B 00:59:31.270 - 00:59:32.910 It's like that's pretty much it to Speaker A 00:59:32.910 - 00:59:33.590 go through the process. Speaker B 00:59:35.590 - 01:00:30.800 Yeah. So existential. So Heidegger Said we're thrown into this world classically there was a German philosophical term for it, which I don't remember, you know, our throne, ness. But I agree with you. I think on some fundamentally deeper level, and I think when you discover the deeper radiance potential of your own being, you realize the part of you that said yes to all of this, despite the suffering, you realize. So as well as memento, Moray, you could say amor, fatty, or whatever, you know, love your fate. Yeah, love. Love what you're destined, love what you are, not because it's everything you wanted to be, but because it's legitimate even in its imperfection. It's legitimate even in its partialness. I connect to what you're saying, Joel, very profoundly. I genuinely have gone to that place where I realized I said yes to it all, even the bits I really didn't like or the really difficult parts sometimes early on. And it's a game changer. Speaker A 01:00:30.960 - 01:01:01.740 Yeah, man. And it's like education in a broader, more existential sense or even self development. Like it's not a done thing like this. It's, it's, it's, for me, it's eternity. Even, even in the, even in the realm of like, you know, esotericism and like this divine experience. It's not Joel's birth to Joel's death where self development stops. Like me as a soul, as a, you know, as a piece of creation itself is constantly in an educational self development process. Speaker B 01:01:01.740 - 01:01:02.220 Yes. Speaker A 01:01:02.220 - 01:01:03.020 For eternity. Speaker B 01:01:03.020 - 01:03:27.400 Yes, yes, yes. Love it. You know, the Buddhas, the Buddhists would call it the Bardo, wouldn't they? Or, or the goal would be to go to pure lands after your death and learn from the masters. I mean, that's another way of putting it. Or whether it was Valhalla for the Vikings or Nordic people, you know, this idea of the happy hunting grounds, the place you would go to even after death and perfect your skills, whatever you thought were your values. You know, if you're in a warrior culture, you would continue to be a warrior or whatever. I think there's a. It's referring to a profound psychic truth. I mean, we don't understand the mystery of death, do we? We don't understand the mystery of space and time. We don't really know how time works outside of our experience of it. With two, we're goldfish in the bowl. We don't really understand the nature of the water. And I think, because who's to say that we're not drawing on parts of ourselves from in between lives? Even now, even in this conversation. Who's to say there isn't a version of this conversation that was had in some alternate dimension? I mean, I'm not trying to go too whack job here or get my tinfoil hat out, but, you know, we're drawing on deeper soul realms all the time, aren't we, in our insights, I think. And I think, you know, the spiritual dedication you're talking about, Joel, and that's coming off you as a person at this point, is a beautiful thing. And of course it would translate to other dimensions of focus or love. And I think those other dimensions interpenetrate this one. I personally am increasingly uncomfortable with just discussing an angelic or demonic counterpart type quality in human life. I'm not literalizing it too much when I speak about it, but, you know, the poetry of it certainly speaks to me. I think there are different realms and I certainly think that the influence of the dead upon us, especially those of spiritual dedication who live their lives in a certain way, and the way that their blessings and influence come into our lives is massively non trivial. It's a huge hidden driver. I think a lot of good people in this world that may not be well known at all have an enormous impact uplifting the world and. And counteract a lot of mass negativity and destruction. Speaker C 01:03:28.520 - 01:03:28.920 Yeah. Speaker B 01:03:28.920 - 01:03:32.200 And I think we can all play our part in that. Even. Even a kind of baby part. Speaker A 01:03:32.600 - 01:03:40.900 Yeah, I mean, just. Just the. The basic idea of, you know, leaving the earth a better place than you found it, you know, like that. That can bring you so much, you know, meaning. Speaker B 01:03:43.140 - 01:04:33.200 No, there. Too many people aren't there? It's not that they're, you know, obviously there's some very bad people and they're leaving the world a worse place, as we've seen repeat evidence of in the whole last period. But too many people get caught in that middle, just shuffling along. The mechanical ness of every day wears people down. Time wears people down. They start to get dust on them, if you like. They become like antiques and time has built up on them and they feel bowed by it. I think the interesting thing about both you guys, but maybe especially you, Joel, sometimes when you talk about purpose, it's clearly so fresh for you. You're just in a really fresh, dynamic place about it. You're not conditioned about it. You've clearly found a groove about it. But I'm telling you, that's in contrast to many, many people. Speaker A 01:04:33.600 - 01:04:41.680 Oh, abs, absolutely. And you know, when you talk about, you know, like people just like kind of shuffling along like Meaninglessly. Speaker B 01:04:41.680 - 01:04:42.800 Yes, yes. Speaker A 01:04:42.960 - 01:05:24.380 The. The most popular book that Napoleon Hill wrote was Think and Grow Rich. But he wrote a second book called Outwitting the Devil, which wasn't published until, you know, long after his death. The family held it back. And this was a conversation he reckons he had with his devil archetype. And the devil archetyp says, my number one mechanism is causing people to drift aimlessly. My number one way to capture human beings is causing them to drift aimlessly. And I mean, that is the state of the masses. People drifting aimlessly. Henry David Thoreau, you know, the massive men lead lives of quiet desperation. Like this is this just drifting quality that we see. Speaker B 01:05:26.550 - 01:07:26.160 For Gerdf, it's also linked to the fact that the conditioned self kind of accumulates over time. You know, I don't know. I'll give a simple example. You take your first driving lesson, you're like, oh, my God. And it's all so intense. And then like a couple of years later, you drive somewhere, you didn't even notice how you drove there. You could trance out for half an hour and just end up at the mall or something. So we need that function because you don't want to be treating every drive to the post office or to the shops in that intense, super intense, beginner's mind kind of way. So you need that capacity, but that capacity also dulls reality, so you get this accumulation. So Gurdjieff argued that by the time we were 18 or 19, we only had so many actual physical movements that we do, unless you work on yourself and you learn new movements. So you get up and down out of a chair the way that you do, and by 19, it's probably stuck. You've got a variety of ways. You slump in the sofa or get up from the sofa, right? And you don't do anything else. So Gurdjieff was obsessed with this conditioning environment on every level, physical, emotional, mental. And he had all sorts of training instructions to sort of try and break people out of it. And he. Some people projected onto Gurgiev that he was a very cruel teacher because of that. But Gurdjieff was just so aware that this conditioning bondage will just lead you to that life of quiet desperation, the mechanical. The mechanical life. Because basically the robot self takes over and the real essence atrophies. Girdh's great point was you let the personality grow in the first part of life, and then you train the personality to kind of be still and allow the full essence to inhabit the personality. As you get, you know, 30s, 40s, midlife, because you need to have that dynamic growth early on because you need to make something happen for yourself. Speaker A 01:07:26.400 - 01:07:30.240 Well, wasn't that. Wasn't that young as well? That said, Life begins at 40. Before that is. Speaker B 01:07:30.240 - 01:08:58.099 Well, yeah. Well, it's not just that you're. Yeah, you're a career or a family or you're getting things going. The meaning part Jung saw as happening, of course, following his own life in his late 30s, around the time he was Uranus hitting his ascendant and then his Uranus opposition. That's when he broke with Freud. That's when he created the Red Book. That's when he nearly went mad. That's when he started playing with pebbles and toys down on the sand by the bay, trying to reintegrate his psyche. He got fair play to the man. He took some serious personal risks on the stability of his psyche kind of level, I think. Yeah, it's. It's inspirational talking to you guys about this, because I don't know about you guys, but in my upbringing, and you may have been very different and been more grace. And most of the adults in my upbringing were quite a lot of time in the stuck mechanical place. There was an awful lot of struggling, unhappy adults, working too much, drinking too much, you know, not paying attention to things, not really understanding things, feeling overwhelmed by things in their life. And as a sensitive kid, it was very challenging because I felt the burden of my own possibility of that occurring which I was fighting against, and the burden of feeling this psychic sensitivity for their dilemma. If you like, the calamity of their quiet desperation or frankly, sometimes quite loud and annoying desperation. Speaker A 01:08:58.480 - 01:08:58.680 Yeah. Speaker B 01:08:58.680 - 01:09:17.600 With all sorts of punitive consequences for me. So it is deeply challenging, isn't it? I would argue that this is one of the great liberating insights to see just how intense the life of quiet desperation is for so many people and. And still go through it and not be brought down by it. Speaker C 01:09:18.080 - 01:10:30.620 Yeah. You know, this conversation, it just. It brings me back to thinking about my life. Like, you know, you grow up. You grow up in your family system, you grow up in your culture, and, you know, certain elements of your kind of personality crystallize based on a whole different factor. So you could bring in astrology, whatever. But for me, like, especially you talking about, oh, we move a certain way, we sound a certain way, we talk, we talk a certain way. Like when I got. When I got into acting training in my mid-20s, like, what I loved about it, and I had some pretty. Like, I would Say out there teachers, in certain ways that really worked with the actor's instrument. And it was like, okay, well, you come to acting training with certain inhibitions repressed in a certain way, disconnected from different, certain parts of you. But we want to honor that process. But then let's expand so you have more possibility, more potential now from an acting standpoint, so you can inhabit and empathize and connect with different characters. But from a light life standpoint, it brings more fluidity. It blings. It brings flexibility. It's like. So you're not moving the same way. You're not just sounding the same way. You're not just living from a small cluster of parts that have kind of been rigidified. There's you. You realize what else is there. Speaker B 01:10:30.620 - 01:10:30.940 You. Speaker C 01:10:30.940 - 01:10:51.750 Again, back to the earlier analogy. You're like, oh, you turn on the. You turn on the lights in certain rooms or you dust out the cobwebs and you clean things up and vacuum. Vacuum everything. Or. Or clean off the film. The film in. On the windows. And so it's been, it's. And I'm not saying someone has to go through acting training for that. No, no. Speaker B 01:10:51.750 - 01:11:16.150 But quite a few of those acting trainings are quite inspirational and clearly are akin to a kind of psychological training. And in fact, a chunk of people who did those acting trainings were directly inspired by Gurdjieff and the work. There is a whole tradition of that with certain acting trainings. And you see it in movies. I mean, movies like Groundhog Day are interest, you know, influenced by certain philosophical or ideas from this. It was. Speaker A 01:11:16.150 - 01:11:17.950 He was obsessed with Gurdjieff. Bill Murray. Speaker C 01:11:18.750 - 01:11:19.030 Yes. Speaker A 01:11:19.030 - 01:11:19.510 Yeah. Speaker B 01:11:19.510 - 01:14:12.130 Yes. And that. That whole work context had a big influence on all that improv culture that led to the parts of that Saturday Night Live scene he was in or other people in that world. I think the best of acting training really is a kind of psychological laboratory. We come back to that Deepak quote, don't we, about making yourself. That is the original creative act, isn't it? Well, I mean, a paradoxically is not. You were given your true self, you could argue, by the divine. But the key creative act is to realize that in your own terms, to become a co creator, you know, to realize your creative. The vision of just living a creative life authentically, you know, just being empowered to love and be in the world and be true to yourself is the original artist's path, you know, that you're the living work of art, even though really from another perspective, you're just honoring the original maker because that's the human vanity, isn't it? All the time we're telling ourselves we did this all the time. The ego steps in rapidly and takes ownership of the experience. But it's not really true, is it? It's not really true that this is the case. You know, if there's any background noise, my little one has come back from Brownies and is shouting loudly in the garden. She's finding her creative voice. But so. But this. This kind of sense that. How do you discover this? How do you make it? What is the. In practical terms? You know, someone's listening to this conversation. They're enjoying it, but they're thinking, come on, guys, what the hell do I do? It's really an engaged project, isn't it? It's really like. It's not a small task to work out, you know? There are periods in your life when things are going well where it seems like it's effortless. I don't know. You go traveling with a friend and it really works out well. You go scuba diving, like my nephew is in Thailand at the moment, and things really work out right. It's great. It's like a heightened period, isn't it? You feel like you're in a movie. Remember those times, you know, kind of when you're young, you're breaking through from school, you're out of school, you with some hot chick or some great friends. And it just suddenly the light, everything seems ultra HD real. What is. What is the work that allows you to experience that every day, even in the routines, not just on the special moments or the special trips? And this requires a project of engagement with almost every area of your life, it seems to me. Physical, emotional, mental, psychological, moral, spiritual. You have to engage and make small conscious improvements over time to multiple areas of your life. Because if one area is seriously off, it can start to erode the rest. Speaker A 01:14:12.770 - 01:14:43.840 Yeah, this is kind of the paradox of satisfaction as well. Like, if you're just genuinely just like satisfied, content, like you're not really moving, you know, like that. You're. What? You have to, in my opinion, always be kind of teetering on that edge. Like, I think Earl Nightingale called it constructive discontent, you know, where there's this evolution within you constantly taking place as well. Because if you're really just satisfied, you're not really doing much. I don't think. Speaker C 01:14:44.399 - 01:14:48.320 I don't think it's a static satisfaction. I think it's like a satisfaction even Speaker A 01:14:48.640 - 01:14:50.080 like a static faction. Speaker C 01:14:51.040 - 01:14:52.640 Static, static faction. Speaker B 01:14:53.760 - 01:14:54.720 I can't get now. Speaker C 01:14:55.040 - 01:15:13.280 Yeah, it's like, it's like satisfied with everything we're talking about. The act of engagement, the act of grappling with things, the act of, like, oh, there's a challenge I'm facing. Like, I don't think it's like, oh, I'm eating Doritos and I'm satisfied. Or like, I have a wife and I'm satisfied. Like, it's not. Speaker A 01:15:13.280 - 01:15:16.760 It's not the satisfied of I'm done. Like the finality, you know? Speaker C 01:15:16.760 - 01:15:17.680 Yeah. No, no. Speaker B 01:15:18.080 - 01:16:59.220 But that created discontent is a profound point because many people get uncomfortable, don't they? So you're working on a project with someone and there's a moment of silence, and they're either thinking you're done. They don't have any ideas. That's it then. I will meet again tomorrow. What I'm good at is just staying with that for 10 or 15 minutes. Put some music on, maybe tidy a few things up, maybe smoke an organic, you know, roll up, stare at the stars or the sun. Feel the sun on my face. Five minutes, Suddenly I'll see it all again completely differently. I don't run away from the uncomfortable in betweens, you know, I guess doing a lot of therapeutic work with people, there are strange silences or weird times when people talk too much or don't talk enough. And then there are weird times when you can be having a conversation like this and it just seems like the energy's gone or the ideas have gone, but if you stay with that, you stumble across other things. It's weird, isn't it, that creative discontent is real? It is real, really engaging. The creative life, it seems to me, involves these deeply uncomfortable moments regularly because you have to stay alive enough to, you know. We're not free about from conditioning just because we're talking about it. We're not free from the burden of time or the pressure. What I've called dust that accumulates on people. You got to shake it off yourself, haven't you? And so you have to stay fresh in that moment and uncomfortable. Well, just like certain improv type classes. I used to love improv when I was a teenager. I did a lot of acting, and I used to love improv because it's just radically effed up, isn't it? I mean, it really could just go totally wrong. Speaker C 01:16:59.220 - 01:17:02.860 Yeah, I feel like life is one big improv. Speaker B 01:17:02.860 - 01:17:03.460 Yeah, it is. Speaker C 01:17:04.420 - 01:17:05.940 Like, yes and yes. Speaker B 01:17:06.100 - 01:17:07.500 Yes, yes. Speaker C 01:17:07.500 - 01:17:08.820 And like. Speaker B 01:17:10.620 - 01:17:12.540 Yeah, no, I think it is. Speaker C 01:17:12.540 - 01:17:13.140 I think it is. Speaker B 01:17:13.140 - 01:17:29.100 And I think you realize when you grow up that when you were young, you thought the Adults, you know, where are the adults in the room? You thought like political leaders or various people were just people who understood the world and were really together. And you realize loads of them are just making it all up as they go along too. Yeah, it is crazy. Yeah. Speaker C 01:17:29.260 - 01:18:09.410 Well, and also just the different phases of life. Like you made a joke earlier, like, oh, I'm noticing 55. And like, like you, you can only have that exact experience because you're in it right now. You can't have that experience as a 15 year old, as a 25 year old. And so it's like you can do all the work you want to work do. But like I think about my dad, he died at 93, two years ago actually. In three days will be the two year anniversary. And it's like I don't know what it's like to be near death, you know, and so I could be the most wise person that existed, that read thousands of books and has done all this therapeutic work and yet have never faced death. And so that's going to be an entirely new experience. And so it's this like improvisational nature of life. Speaker B 01:18:09.490 - 01:18:10.210 Exactly. Speaker C 01:18:10.290 - 01:18:11.770 Take life and respond. Speaker B 01:18:11.770 - 01:19:55.010 Exactly. Well, that's brilliantly put. Yeah. What you're talking about too is that life is path dependent, I. E. Step 3 On the path is only discovered because you took step one and then step two. It's not actually discoverable at all prior to taking step two. Yep. So the path dependency of life keeps you fresh because. And that's why the willingness you're talking about, Joel, is so important. Because unless you throw yourself in the mix, you're not going to discover those other steps. You're not going to discover the full extent of the improv. You're going to remain with what your idea of the improv was before other people started improvising around you. That's the great joy, isn't it? It's non predictable. We didn't. I had no idea what we were going to talk about today. This is. The form is taken. It's great. I feel that improv state because of hanging out with you guys right now. I feel like I'm in it. Yeah, yeah. And so you feel alive because actually the best acting isn't acting, is it? The best acting is being is just being in a very certain kind of, kind of consciously creative way. And you know, in that sense we're all actors, aren't we? Being invited into the theater. Yep. But that thing about the ages that you made is so important. I'm so glad your dad lived a long life, and it's amazing you got to spend that much time with him when he was that old, when he had you. It's really cool. But this point you're making about the age is so important. Well, and that you got to be that age when he passed, you would only be able to handle it in that way because you were early 40s and not when you were in your 20s or 30s. And the grace of his living that long linked with that. Yep, it's all spontaneous, isn't it? On another level, it's just happening. Speaker C 01:19:58.430 - 01:20:44.690 And I think for my personal experience of that, because I had an older father and because most people, like, die around 70 or 80 years old. Like when he was 70 or 80, I, like, began that process of, like, preparing as. As best one can prepare for something like that, what was required of me, like, imagining life without him, what this would be like. So that when it did happen, sure, I had my. It was hard for me, but also there was. I was filled with such gratitude with the life that he lived and how he died. He died a very good death. And, you know, I had gone through my own process around it that it was like I. I handled what needed to be handled. I mourned in the way that I mourned, and yet I wasn't, like, completely destabilized by it again, personally speaking. Speaker B 01:20:45.250 - 01:22:04.750 Yeah, it's great. It sounds absolutely ideal. And it is strange, isn't it? It's not just that he lived longer. It's the fact that because he lived longer, yet was clearly an old man for the last decades of his life, you were able to accept something about him and his passing in a way that if you'd had a younger father who just died suddenly at 73, you wouldn't have had that time. Yeah, it's incredible, isn't it? The specificity of everything, the uniqueness of everything. That's what I mean by path dependency. You know how when you guys met, you any idea you'd be several hundred episodes into the podcast? I mean, it's just crazy, isn't it? It just happened because of the first steps, because of acknowledging the friendship, because of acknowledging the conversation. This is the great adventure, isn't it? And you realize that more and more of that as you age. And it's part of the paradox of aging that you see it more clearly. But the tragedy, one of the tragedies of our culture, and glad to see here that your dad escaped it largely. But these more meaningless experiences, people getting to, like, 75 and just being in perpetual decline or even mid-60s or younger and barely able to walk or in some sort of care facility or just watching television all day, I don't know. Can't be the way, can it? Just can't be the way. It's too sad. Speaker A 01:22:05.230 - 01:22:49.730 And I mean to continue to play and weave on, you know, this improv. In this acting analogy, I think you're asking us. You'll appreciate this. Like in the ancient Greek kind of school of. School of theater, like the actors who are center stage, the main character of the story, the hero of the story is the protagonist. Right. And we're all being called to be the protagonist of our own lives. Yet the ancient Greeks assigned a different word for those who were off stage and who were like side cast. And the word they assigned was, I don't know the Greek word for it. Erasmus can tell me about it. It's the hypocrites. Right? Hypocrites. So to not claim that hero's role, that that protagonist position of one's own life is to be a hypocrite of one of one's life. Speaker B 01:22:51.090 - 01:23:03.610 I couldn't agree more. And I think. But the shadow is. Because I do think that is the central thing. You have to accept you are the hero, heroine of your own narrative, but you also have to accept that everyone else is too. Speaker A 01:23:04.090 - 01:23:04.490 Yeah. Speaker B 01:23:04.490 - 01:23:49.370 And that's where this whole non player character kind of modern terminology stolen from like Dungeons and Dragons or something. Yep. It's quite disturbing, isn't it? In the gaming type culture, the illusion becomes, if you've spent forever in your room playing these games, that only you are the protagonist and everything else that pops up is just expendable somehow. And clearly that's a deeply alienated state. The key is to understand that you're also part of a collective theater group where everybody is a protagonist. All three of us are protagonists in this conversation, coming from our own different vantage point. And the courtesy and respect you can afford people by recognizing their protagonist status because it's linked to empathy too. We partly empathize with people because we feel an affinity with their journey. Speaker A 01:23:49.690 - 01:23:50.170 Yeah. Speaker B 01:23:50.170 - 01:24:10.990 And if you reduce people and you don't recognize their protagonistness just because they don't look pretty enough or clever enough or inspiring enough, or they don't have enough followers on Instagram, or they don't make enough money or they're not serious enough standing, you just alienate people. Everybody's the protagonist. Even the failed protagonists. Yeah, even the hypocrites are potential protagonists. Speaker A 01:24:11.310 - 01:24:50.780 Yeah, yeah, definitely. But for me, like, and I think, you know, kind of actually all of us, as, you know, when we're in those teaching or coaching positions or roles, I see my job as, like, reminding that individual of the fact that they are the hero, heroine, or their own personal journey. And by doing that, trying to bring in this deeper recognition that your life is its own personal mythology. Like, there's something broader happening here which contextualizes the entire journey you've been through. And, like, there's a meaning that can be reclaimed in, you know, perceiving life from that vantage point. Again, it can. Speaker B 01:24:50.780 - 01:25:56.450 And also the providential aspect. People have perhaps come to the coaching or therapeutic space because of tragedy or because of struggles or challenges or things having gone wrong. And there is the potential sometimes in that to realize that actually when you look at what went wrong, it can have a secret meaning for the protagonist. There is the difference between our fantasy of what our protagonist is and what the actual protagonist we are is, if I can put it like that. So we have our own dream as the protagonist. I'm meant to be this, and people are meant to treat me this way, and I. I meant to be afforded this respect. And then it doesn't happen. It doesn't work out, and we actually realize our protagonist was something else all along, deeper than our own superficial fantasy of what our hero of our story is or was. And I think this is very interesting in the way it contextualizes shock or challenge or suffering, because that's often why people reach out. It's not always. Some people just sense a potential and want to go with it. That's great, too. Speaker A 01:25:56.850 - 01:25:57.330 Yeah. Speaker B 01:25:58.450 - 01:26:20.630 But can we remain creative about the kind of protagonist we are, not just take the first identification? Oh, I thought it was going to work out this way. I thought. I thought I would do this thing and everyone would think I was amazing. No, people didn't think it was amazing. And the actual protagonist you are is the person who faced the fact that not everyone thought it was amazing. Speaker A 01:26:20.790 - 01:26:41.980 Exactly. And, you know, as we were talking about, you know, tolerating discomfort and uncertainty, you know, that's the protagonist's ultimate job is. Is to do that. And I think the analogy can be made that the quality of one's life and the quality of one's being is probably directly correlated to one's capacity and tolerance for discomfort and uncertainty. Speaker B 01:26:43.100 - 01:28:24.270 I agree. There was a brilliant kind of psychiatrist from Central Europe, Dabrowski, a book called Positive Disintegration. And he makes this absolutely critical point. Like, if you're going through fundamental Category changes. So if you're going through a sufficient, deeper change in yourself, that would change the kind of friendship groups you would orientate to or possibly even change your role in society because of what your new values, our work, it's always accompanied by anxiety and depression. Basically, for most people, it's just a fundamental phase. You have to go through the anxiety of the former self falling away from its known world, giving up the lifebuoy or buoy, and risking some open water before fixing onto something else. And Dabrowski's point is, I think, super important because lots of people go through this excessive neurosis when they're going through those bigger changes. They worry when they go into the anxiety and fear and depression about it at times with bigger change, that they are somehow too small to make the bigger change. But it's actually incredibly liberating when you realize some dude seriously analyzed this and reckoned it was a completely normal thing, that you just go into some of that. If the change was big enough, expect some, you know, waves that you have to serve. It's very liberating to understand that. And, yeah, I mean, I train myself, Joel, to be frank, in the creative discomfort zone. I mean, I just spend a certain chunk of every day quite consciously going, okay, I don't know what I'm meant to do next. I'm feeling a little bit about it. What can I do? How can I move? How can I hold myself? How can I breathe? How can I contemplate what might emerge next? Speaker A 01:28:24.590 - 01:28:38.070 Yeah. And. But to do that consciously is such a beautiful thing. To be immersed in the unknown and in the mystery and even to speak out loud, talk to me, guide me. What's happening? What does this story turn next? Speaker B 01:28:38.070 - 01:29:34.890 Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what I think the quality that you have, Joel, in this regard is that you have. You've seen the hidden dancer is the way I would put it. And you've realized that the hidden dancer responds, will take your lead, will respond to your lead. And of course, sometimes you have to take. Allow yourself to respond to the lead. But there is a quality, and you could go back to our orchestra comment and the symphony self. Is this the eye as the conductor? Is it the self coming through the eye in psychosynthesis? This is deeper mystery, really. The energy field is here, the I, the true I. And then above on this line is the cell. There is the I, self axis. There is this kind of vertical column where the self's energy can descend into the personal eye. That's the dance on some level. Yeah. You Know that the higher part of you is connected to the deeper divine music. Speaker A 01:29:36.010 - 01:29:36.410 Yeah. Speaker B 01:29:36.410 - 01:29:51.690 And actually, without us all going completely crazy here, you could up the ante and just go every single day, okay, let's dance on your red shoes and dance the blues. You know, whatever. You could just go for it. Speaker A 01:29:51.850 - 01:29:52.490 Yeah, man. Speaker B 01:29:52.730 - 01:29:58.080 In this regard. And I think it will, it will bring massive rewards. It brings rewards, totally. Speaker A 01:29:58.480 - 01:30:15.200 And to kind of, you know, title back in through how this conversation started in terms of us being just flooded and distracted with short form content controversies, whatever it might be. It's like the biggest threat and the biggest risk is the risk of losing touch with the mystery and with the hidden dance. Speaker B 01:30:16.240 - 01:31:19.770 Yes, exactly. And that's what the cost of all this grab on your attention is. It's not just, you know, was that girl attractive enough for this little short to catch my eye? Was this outrageous piece of political propaganda gonna get me? Oh, my God. I can't believe they're doing that again. Whatever. It's not just in the moment, is it? It's like it disrupts deep work, to use that Cal Newport phrase or idea. But I don't mean this just in terms of productivity, which is what he meant it by. I mean in terms of the dance. It takes longer, period. It takes listening to an entire CD or something with your eyes closed sometimes to reconnect. If you're, if your life's been intense enough, you need a moment. Right. And this will break the moments the whole time. And look, we're all distractible. I, I, Yep. You know, I'm sure, I'm sure we've all known it. I've been distracted, you know, yesterday. I mean, actually today. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure it will. You know, I'm just waiting for it. Speaker C 01:31:20.250 - 01:31:22.930 I haven't, I haven't listened to anything you guys said the last 45. Speaker B 01:31:22.930 - 01:31:23.690 Yeah, exactly. Speaker C 01:31:25.210 - 01:31:26.730 What, what was this podcast about? Speaker B 01:31:26.730 - 01:32:03.620 He, he heard the phrase hot chicks and was just, he just went there. But, you know, all these things that porn us, the deeper danger is that they represent. They're a chimera, aren't they? They are a song of the siren. They take us away from the deep current that the deep dance is much more rewarding than superficial, narcissistically inflamed, clickbait, eye candy bs. But, you know, I'm sure we all know it's not as simple as that sometimes, is it? We're all tired sometimes. We're all easily distracted. Speaker A 01:32:03.620 - 01:32:04.340 Oh, yeah. Speaker B 01:32:04.500 - 01:32:07.600 And, but it pays. It pays to stay with It. Speaker A 01:32:07.600 - 01:32:09.560 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaker C 01:32:09.560 - 01:32:31.480 You have to make it like if you're on social media, like I am on social media or works on social media, I'm not on it as much like doom scrolling but like I have to like intentionally like hide things, say I'm not interested because it's like grabbing my attention. Like, like I don't, I'm a married man. I don't need a hot piece of ass 247 just like showing itself in reels or whatever. I'm like, no, no. Speaker B 01:32:31.480 - 01:33:27.860 Yeah. What happened? How are these things? I've noticed. Why is that on Facebook, for example? That's just bizarre to me. Why are they. It's like the pornographication of everything. And then on a more serious note, email. Right? Email. You answer an email, you get your email inbox down to like four or six or something. You feel like incredibly chuffed. You come back to your email four hours later, a whole bunch of people have replied. It's like it's never ending, is it? It's literally never ending. Right. It will never stop. When's the chance to journal? When's the chance to sit and think through the deeper theme or a conversation like this to reflect on it? I think this is where we have to be disciplined. You can enter into the mix. Obviously. Email is amazing. Social media is amazing sometimes. It really does connect people to things. But it's all a lie some of the rest of the time. It's all like, I don't know, how can we stop the noise of the world so we can listen to the true music? Speaker C 01:33:29.220 - 01:33:29.620 Yeah. Speaker B 01:33:29.620 - 01:35:24.910 Because the world, the deeper dance music go from Mozart to edm, is profound enough to be worth listening and worth dancing. I spend a lot of time in the evenings dancing with my seven and a half year old to early Michael Jackson or K pop Demon Hunters soundtrack. So we know, guys, that I am truly golden. Yeah. And it's. There's something amazingly joyful a because she's the star of the show and she puts her party dress on and gets her little special sandals out, whereas I'm just in my pajamas and all I am doing is literally trying to not like look like a dad dancing at the back. So I'm there giving it my moves and she's doing her roles and then she'll go and I have to like spin her or lift her up for her finale. Right. But there's something about dancing, the unbridled being in that sense. I can totally go for it in that space. There's no I'm bopping like it's a aerobics class or like Jane Fonda's leading me from the 80s or something. I'm doing whatever. I'm sometimes so like breathless from it or it's like a workout because, yeah, the dance is real, isn't it? Dancing is real and the distraction stuff is only partially real and it deserves its place. You know, I love my email. I wouldn't have got the nice email from you guys inviting me back. It was a delight. It's really nice to see you both. You know, if we didn't have all this connectivity, we wouldn't be having this conversation would be. I mean, I couldn't. I don't want that to end. I just want to find the right place where I choose to go to it in the right space and respectfully receive it and not have the rest of my life invaded by it. Speaker C 01:35:25.950 - 01:35:33.830 Yeah, well said. I'm still amazed that you got your email inbox down to four. I'm at 95,907 right now, so. Speaker B 01:35:33.830 - 01:35:36.950 Yeah, yeah, I only count the primary I've just surrendered. Speaker C 01:35:36.950 - 01:35:41.460 I'm like, I can't delete, unsubscribe. Like I see what I see. Speaker B 01:35:42.180 - 01:37:25.810 Well, I just, I just mark them as unread. Yeah. And then I just, I'm caught up in the Google and shittification process where I have to pay them for extra storage for all the emails that just build up because I never archive them. Yeah, no, I have become recently very disciplined. I realized there was a point in my life where some crazy things came my way and then didn't happen because I was just like, you know, hundreds behind on my email. So I got super disciplined about it. I mean, I thought one of the things I was going to bitch to you guys about today was inshittification. You know that term for all the services on the web getting worse if you come across that it's an actual legit term. Google enshitification. Some genius came up with this. Yeah. And it's just like, you know, like Google searches used to go on for like 15 pages and you could find rare academic articles six pages in. Now Google searches, the first seven are sponsored and then there's only five more or something. I mean, it's really gone down and there wasn't going to be advertising. Now it's all advertising. It's all these principles. Once they've got you as the captive audience, they just downgrade the experience. Now Gmail going to remove the capacity to run your webmail through it by taking away the ability to Ally to pop servers your other webmails. So lots of people use Gmail as a hub, but they can have their webmail come through it too. It's just every step of the way it was this kind of don't be evil come together, you know, the kind of hippie ideal of the Internet as the golden community. And then once you're a captive audience start hitting you with all the advertising they said they wouldn't do and the other things. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, and shitification, an actual real term, I love it. That's entered the language. It's cool. Speaker A 01:37:25.810 - 01:37:38.610 I love a man. Mark, such a pleasure to sit down with you again. You know, I love this idea of what is it? How to. How to. In. In the modern world, how to save yours, how to save your soul. What was the idea exactly? Speaker B 01:37:38.690 - 01:37:45.170 Yes. Yeah. How to survive the modern world or how to survive the 21st century with your soul intact. Yeah. Speaker A 01:37:45.490 - 01:37:53.730 That's beautiful, man. How would you like to close this out as a, I guess a parting message for those that are listening this far in. Speaker B 01:37:55.770 - 01:39:17.990 I mean, I mean there's a sense of personal genuine joy here and connecting. It's been really, really nice. But I guess the key message to people I'm hoping is even if you don't know what's meant by it at this point, and you don't have to believe me, but I encourage a process of self discovery about it. The truth of your own being being real is real. You have something. You have a subtle body, you have an essence. You have a subtle radiatory capacity. You know, your soul has a color or a perfume. Remember that old track from like DJ DJ Shadow? Was it what's the color of your soul? You know, it has something. It has a real quality. And therefore it can be discovered that real quality can be experienced. You can experience your own being with the richness that you would experience someone you really loved or a favorite pet or you know, a beautiful sunset or something. Your own being is real and as deserving of love and respect as anything else in this world. And the self discovery of that is an enormous boon and it becomes a foundation for your life. Basically, it becomes a foundation for a path. The path fundamentally changes when you realize your psychic being is real. Your essence is real. Speaker A 01:39:20.070 - 01:39:20.790 Beautiful night. Speaker B 01:39:20.790 - 01:39:34.950 And I don't think that's. I don't, I don't think that's a hard step, you know, even if you don't know what I mean right now by saying that, yeah, it's worth just experimenting with, you know, quietly breathing and being open to that possibility within. Speaker C 01:39:36.630 - 01:39:41.630 Or in other words, in other words, don't initiatify your life or clear. Speaker B 01:39:41.630 - 01:39:42.150 Exactly. Speaker C 01:39:42.790 - 01:39:43.430 Of your life. Speaker B 01:39:43.750 - 01:39:49.890 Exactly. Don't tell everyone you won't be evil and there'll be no advertising. And then sell out to advertising just two years later. Speaker A 01:39:50.050 - 01:39:50.770 Yeah, yeah. Speaker B 01:39:50.770 - 01:39:52.370 Don't do it. Don't do it, folks. Speaker C 01:39:52.450 - 01:39:52.930 Yeah. Speaker A 01:39:53.250 - 01:39:54.130 Thank you so much. Speaker B 01:39:55.170 - 01:39:56.130 Surreal joy. Speaker A 01:39:57.810 - 01:40:02.850 My, my Mount Rushmore of MJ just now. Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, Mark Jones. Speaker B 01:40:03.330 - 01:40:08.450 Thank you. I feel privileged to be in the bronze medal position with such is such a company. Speaker C 01:40:08.770 - 01:40:11.170 He's on the Mount Rushmore of the MJ's for sure. Speaker A 01:40:14.230 - 01:40:20.070 You got the website. Mark Jones, astrology dot com. What can you share about your offers and how people can connect with you and work with you? Speaker B 01:40:20.790 - 01:41:21.750 Yeah, I mean ever changing. But I do readings for people where I help position where they are in their process. I do ongoing mentoring work with people to help them make that transition. I offer a spiritual psychology coaching training that has to be approached more privately. It would just contact me if you're interested and I would interview you or talk to you or talk to you about what it is. But there's going to be more to come. We're working behind the scenes on a number of big projects in terms of a more fundamentals astrology orientation course, some material around spirituality for people who are interested in astrology, spiritual philosophy. But on a deeper level, I'm working on the how to survive the 21st century with your soul intact in a variety of different forms, I hope because there's really a lot to say about that in a way, you know, the conditioning part. How do we understand this world so that we cannot be taken down by it? Speaker A 01:41:21.909 - 01:41:24.590 Yeah, that's going to be the name of this podcast for sure. Speaker B 01:41:24.590 - 01:41:31.750 Yeah, yeah, yeah. See you both. Yeah, yeah. I hope to see you again soon and good luck with everything. Yeah. Blessings, guys. Speaker A 01:41:32.230 - 01:41:38.550 Likewise, everyone. Thank you for listening. We'll have all Mark's details in the show notes just below this video. Take care.