Steven Ravnstag Developing Awareness & Understanding the Cult of Wokeism

[Speaker 3] (0:00 - 1:45) You are now listening to the Here for the Truth podcast, hosted by Joel Rafiti and Erasmus Stylianasis. All right, everybody, welcome to episode 60 of Here for the Truth podcast. My name is Joel Rafiti. As always, I'm with my co-host here, Erasmus. Today we have Steven Ravenstag, and this is a very interesting dialogue on the nature of consciousness, awareness, Marxism, and the true history of consciousness. is now perpetuating all around us. But right before we get into that, our eight-week private group coaching program, Rise Above the Herd, applications are now open, spots are filling up. We're only taking 15 people. Doors close March 28, and we launch on that date as well. So if you're interested in learning more about yourself and being empowered with tools in order to be the best version of yourself and really facilitate the correct thinking and be able to pursue your highest ideals, goals, and rise yourself out of mediocrity, then please consider applying, and you can do that at riseabovetheherd.com.au. Our website, hereforthetruth.com, has all our episodes, now 60 of them. You can go and check out that catalog, a lot of really great and useful information there. Our Telegram is at areyouhereforthetruth. We'll put the link in the show note, but please join that Telegram group, join the conversation. We're active there and always happy to meet new people and new faces. So with that being said, please enjoy this episode. [Speaker 2] (1:47 - 2:13) Steven Robinstock is a teacher who helps people to develop and direct their awareness towards creating the experiences and results they want in life. He offers courses, classes, and coaching that help people take conscious control of their mind and their imagination to master their state in their lives. He also has really entertaining and awesome stories on Instagram that you have to check out. Just letting you know. Steven, welcome to Here for the Truth. [Speaker 1] (2:13 - 2:14) Thank you. Glad to be here. [Speaker 2] (2:15 - 2:34) Yeah. So why don't we just start a little bit on this podcast. We really like to get into people's stories and their hero's journey and what led them to who they are and what they stand for and the work they do. So I'd love to just get to know a little bit of your story. You know, major rites of passage, et cetera. [Speaker 1] (2:35 - 7:39) Okay. I guess one of the first things that I remember about life was like paying close attention to the things that people said, like friends, family, you know what I mean? Like just not taking things for granted. And I started noticing fairly early on that a lot of things didn't necessarily make sense and that, I don't know, that a lot of people were kind of full of it. You know what I mean? Like I remember these very early life experiences where teachers, things like that, you know, they would just say things and I would just watch very carefully what they were doing and listen to the things that they said on one occasion and then what they say the next time and all this. And I started just kind of getting the impression that like a lot of people were kind of full of you know what I mean? Like, and they're not even aware of it. And so put a little pin there. I'm like, I'm going to really kind of pay attention to what's going on. I don't know. I guess I always just kind of was more thoughtful maybe than the people in my immediate environment, at least that was that they told me that anyway. And so I would notice when like there was something about life that I really liked and I would notice when life kind of sucked and I would notice when life was just kind of like, you know, just kind of like regular mundane, whatever. And I would kind of like drop a pin in the stuff that I liked. And I'd be like, okay, let me figure out how to create more of that. It's not like I like free time. I remember when I first made a little bit of money when I was a kid, I was like, I like this. This is good. How can I do more of this? Oh, I feel kind of constrained. I feel like there's too many demands placed upon me. I don't like this. How can I, you know, so I've been really interested in consciously crafting like the moment to moment reality of my experience internally and externally for as long as I can remember. And it's funny because I kind of like for a long time assumed everyone was that way. And, you know, the more I talk to people, the more I realized that that's actually not necessarily the case that a lot of people are kind of operating under the influence of, and I'd say probably suffering the consequences of what you might call unconscious programming that's not really serving them. It's self-imposed in a way, but it almost might as well be externally imposed because they have absolutely no idea that it's happening inside their head or that it's a behavior manifesting through them that's creating the stuff that they don't want. And so I'm doing all that kind of in the background. You know, I went to college not really knowing what I wanted to do. Then I got interested in chiropractic and I had a semester I had to take off because I was transferring schools and I ended up going to a chiropractic office and like volunteering, like just kind of hanging out, learning the ropes and stuff there. I got kind of super into that alternative health. It was vigorous. The guy seemed to have a cool lifestyle. He seemed to be helping people in a way that I found interesting. It just seemed like a fun way to make money and help people. So I ended up going to, I switched to political science so I could graduate as quickly as I possibly could. And then I ended up going to chiropractic school. You know, you're in chiropractic school. It's a real slog. It goes on forever. You got to learn a bunch of crap that's not really useful, but it's to pass the boards and stuff. And by the time I got done with chiropractic school, I had had enough of chiropractic for a lifetime. Like, you know, so it's a wonderful field, but like three and a half, four years of talking about it and all this different stuff, right about the point that I graduated, I said, okay, this is as enough of this. What I'm really interested in is helping people to think in ways that will allow them to create the results that they want. Like I'm interested in ideas as ideas can function in a person's life to improve their experience and the results that they create. Cause I found that like when I was doing my outpatient work, like at the end of chiropractic, you actually finally start seeing patients and stuff that I would get into a little conversation with them. Polite. Hey, how you doing? What's going on? So on and so forth. And then I would have to say, okay, well, your, your back has been adjusted now. I'll see you next week or whatever. And I really wanted to continue the conversation with them because that was what was natural for me was when they said, I'm a little upset about this without the other thing. I was like, oh, well, I wonder if there's something we could do about this, you know? Um, and that kind of, that along with reading the four hour work week caused me to say, oh, you know, there are other things that I can do. I had this like road to Damascus moment, uh, shortly before graduation. When I was, this building agitation was in me because I put all this money and time into going to chiropractic school. And I was gradually on the cusp of realizing I don't want to do this, but it was almost an impermissible realization for me. Cause God, he spent a lot of time and money doing this and all that. I read this book and then I, you know, had amassed kind of this working knowledge of personal growth stuff that I, you know, halfway decent at explaining to people sometimes. And there was this moment where I said, holy shit, I don't actually have to do this anymore. It wasn't that I hated the idea of chiropractic. It was, I get to do whatever I want, you know? And I didn't even realize the moment before I was operating under a belief and assumption, whatever that, because I had done X amount of years in school, I had to do something. And it wasn't until that belief like dissolved or fell away or whatever you want to call it that I realized, God, I was moments ago, I was suffering under a delusion that was completely untrue. And so, you know, then I figured out how to start an online business. And ever since then, I've basically been talking to people about this stuff. [Speaker 3] (7:41 - 8:02) Amazing, man. What is it that is the primary belief that would, you mean, have someone that was in the same position as you say they finished chiropractic school, but decide it's too difficult to now make the decision to actually do what I want to do and to accept the realization that, you mean, I don't enjoy doing this anymore. Yeah. [Speaker 1] (8:03 - 9:51) Yeah. Um, so when I'm explaining these things to people, I'll sometimes use examples that are maybe a little gross, but I think are very relatable because I think sometimes high minded examples sound good, but they don't really get to it. If you've ever had like too much to drink, you know, and you've gone over that threshold, or maybe you ate something, didn't quite agree with you. And you know, like, you're going to be sick. Eventually, you're not feeling like there's a certain point where you're like, I'm like, between me and feeling better. It's a really unpleasant barfing experience. Like, I hate it. And I put it off as long as I can. I try to talk myself out of it. I say to my body, just, just let this alcohol poison work its way through, you know, the normal path. I don't want to, I don't want to throw up. I really don't want to do it. But the moment that it happens, why did I put that off? I feel so much better now. It's like, it's the delaying it. It's the denying it. It's the resisting it. It's the trying to avoid it. There's nine tenths of the suffering. Then you do it and immediately you feel better. These realizations are kind of like that, you know, so if you're in a life circumstance, what I think is a pervasive belief in possibility. I don't know what good things can't happen to me for me at this stage in my life. I really want to become conscious of it. Am I operating under the delusion that I know what good things are not possible for me? Because if I can become conscious of the fact that I am under the mistaken belief that I know that this good thing cannot now happen, I can then start to watch how that belief is creating experiences and behaviors that are tending to kind of perpetuate the evidence, that I can't do it when perhaps actually I can. And the other thing is, I think you can sit on those realizations for years. You can stifle them. You can kind of just let you know. But the thing is, it's probably going to come out eventually. And it's always better just to do it as soon as you possibly can. The right moment is the moment that you let it happen. And if you know you're going to do it eventually, you might as well do it and immediately feel better and start moving in the direction you want to go. [Speaker 2] (9:51 - 10:16) Well, real quickly, the analogy that comes to my mind is just that idea of putting something under the rug, and then the rug just keeps going, but no one notices it. Maybe you do in the periphery. You see this little lump just there. But no, it's not around. I'm going to walk around it. I'm not going to pay attention to it until it gets to a point where you can't. You have to acknowledge it and deal with it. [Speaker 3] (10:16 - 10:46) Yeah. But the thing is, growing up, you do that for me anyway. You do that once, and you have the experience, and you gain wisdom from the experience. You realize that putting it off doesn't serve you. Like, for example, we'll take your alcohol analogy. So I'm just going to vomit as soon as I possibly can, because I know I'll feel better afterwards. So having that initial experience now for me in my life, when I know something doesn't serve me, I know that ultimately I'm better off in the long run just ripping the Band-Aid off. So that's the choice I'm more inclined to make, because my wisdom now says that's the right thing to do for myself. [Speaker 1] (10:47 - 12:34) Yeah. One thing, too, I found in that, for me personally, is that having permission to do what doesn't serve me, that permission often functions as a prerequisite to not do what doesn't serve me, to do what will serve me better. The supposed to or the idea that I should, I really ought to, I know to do better than this. Personally, I found that that... Alan Watts talked about, there's this concept in, I think it's kind of in Judaism, it's called the Yetzirah, and it's this, I don't know if that's the right pronunciation, but it's basically this idea that God put something called the wayward spirit in mankind, so that he gives you these commandments, but he also puts a certain disinclination to adhere to those commandments and to follow them. You know that thing, like even if you define for yourself best practices for the day, as soon as you establish them, there's this little inclination just to kind of go, I don't really want to do that today. As soon as God says should, it's almost as if immediately, like there are things I love to do. And the moment that I enshrine them as shoulds or acknowledge that they're best practices, there's a part in me that immediately begins to lobby for violating those best practices. And one of the ways I found to kind of minimize the impact of that intrusive part is just to go, I'm allowed to do what doesn't serve me. Now that, you know, and I always find that being allowed to do it, it's almost like pulling the plug in the tub, it releases a lot of the inclination to do what doesn't serve me. Because as soon as I really fully feel, I can mess around if I want to, I can do this, I could eat enormous numbers of chocolates and make myself feel sick if I want to, you know, then I go, well, yeah, but it's dumb. You know, if I say to myself, I really shouldn't do this, I know I'm not going to feel good. I go, yeah, but they taste good. And I want to get that but like pointing in the right direction, you know, so that I can ride the wave of inclination to where I want to go instead of to where I don't want to go. [Speaker 3] (12:34 - 12:54) Well, I think if you're in the mind frame that I can't do it, then what you should be doing becomes an obligation, right? Whereas if you permiss yourself to be able to do anything, then you're consciously making the choice of what the best thing is, as opposed to I have to do this because I can't do that. Whereas now I know I can do that. So I'll choose to do this, so to speak. [Speaker 1] (12:54 - 12:56) Yeah, yeah, definitely. [Speaker 3] (12:58 - 13:11) So yeah, it's interesting as well, because like, obviously, what comes to my mind is like goals and values plays a big part in consciously choosing what's right for me as well. What are your thoughts on where they play into this? [Speaker 1] (13:13 - 16:15) I think it really helps to know what you want, long term, medium term, near term, you know, how do I want to feel at the end of the day? Kind of like one of the practical things for that is if I ask myself, what do I feel like doing right now? I'll get an answer. I don't really feel like doing anything, you know, what would you feel good to do right now? I'm sitting on the couch. But if I'll ask myself, what will feel good to have done? What will feel best to have done? The same mind gives me oftentimes a different answer and a different kind of accompanying feeling a different, there's a different inclination. So like, if I ask myself, what will feel best to do right now? I'll say like, you know, just let me just sit on the couch and scroll my phone for a while longer. And then, you know, if I say, what would feel best to have done? You know, you should probably lift some weights. I mean, you should probably go at least sit outside if you're going to scroll on your phone to get some sunshine. And so that's, for me, kind of a practical way of orienting myself towards those goals. And because one of my goals, I want to feel good. I want what it's like to be me to be good and nice and uplifting. And I want to, I love the feeling of feeling like doing what's going to serve me. Like there's nothing better than like when you check inside and you're like, I actually want to do all the things I know are going to make me feel good and create the kind of results that I want in life. And so I like to use questions to kind of trick myself into getting oriented to those things. I think being conscious of your values is super important. Um, because there's a lot of, there's, there's a lot more to it, even than like what you value, you know, there's also your relationship to those values. Like, like, do you, do you, do you say, um, relationships are very important and I really don't want to screw my relationship up. You know, these kind of don't want in a way from orientations to values that can really mess things up. And like, sometimes people will trade out one set of values for another. My problem is I was valuing the wrong things or the, you know, I was valuing things doesn't really serve me to value. And that might be true, but if you've got a problem in your relationship to values, so you know, it's, it's, I say, this is important and I'm going to spend my time on this. And I really don't want any of these things to happen. So I have this away from frame or relationship to them. I can switch to a better set of values and I'm still, I'm just going to be screwing up different areas of my life. And so I think that, you know, more, I mean, I guess probably for each person, there is a best set of values for them to have personally. But one of the things I'm really interested in is helping a person form healthy relationship to whatever their values are. And of course, part of that is knowing what those values are. And then also observing how they interact with the, how do I value this thing that I value money? Do I focus on worrying about losing it? Do I focus on worrying about what people are going to think of me if I go out there and make, you know, put myself out there and effort to earn it and all this different stuff. So values are important. Goals are important because I guess goals in a way are kind of a distillation of a value. So I say the area of relationships is important to me. I have a goal. I want to be in a relationship and I want to have fun with them and all this different stuff. So I think they're really powerful tools for channeling your consciousness in certain directions and creating either good or bad experiences and results there. [Speaker 2] (16:15 - 16:26) Yeah. Real quickly, we're getting like a beep. So I don't know if you can turn off notifications. I don't know if it's coming from your phone or sometimes it happens. Where it goes from the phone to the computer. [Speaker 1] (16:27 - 16:37) Yeah. It's weird because I put my thing and I said that I had gone to sleep and so I don't understand why I'm receiving it. I guess maybe if I let me just turn off the email app. [Speaker 2] (16:41 - 17:00) All right. We're just jumping on real quick, a little technical difficulty. So Steven, I mean, I know you came out of the womb thinking the way you think, but what would you say like some of your like books or teachers or people that have inspired you to think in certain ways like along your journey, like tell us about them. [Speaker 1] (17:01 - 18:49) Big one for me definitely was Bill Harris. I'd say Bill Harris was like my first personal growth person I got really into. He's the guy who developed something called Holosync. It's like this meditation audio technology. So I got like the meditation CDs and started listening to them and he has like these support materials he would send with you explaining meditation and basic mindset principles. And, you know, I was kind of like cynical and negative at the time and not very much not a personal growth person. And he was kind of like this, like grumpy older man. He was not at all like a sort of, you know, like a Tony Robbins type character. You know, he was a sort of a grouchy guy that taught certain principles. And it's like, you know, here's here's a smart way to use your mind. And here's a way that doesn't work as well. So Bill Harris was the start. And then through Bill Harris, I became acquainted with Alan Watts and also Eric Byrne. So Alan Watts, obviously, is one of the guys that kind of brought a lot of Eastern thought probably after D.T. Suzuki. I think he's probably the second most important person for introducing Zen kind of to the West, certainly kind of translating it for people. And then Eric Byrne is a psychiatrist. He's the guy that developed transactional analysis. And like Byrne's books are nuts. Like I remember I was reading a lot of the things he was describing and I really felt like this. He's describing things that like I feel like I have observed. Obviously, he had a much more kind of sussed out, you know, theory behind it and everything. But I like this. He's funny. This is a real person like this is a real person who had almost almost an extra sensory ability to detect and then like articulate and take apart human nonsense and like the bullshit that human beings do to each other and to ourselves and all this different stuff. And so lately, I've been really into Neville Goddard, which is just kind of a different that's kind of like a step in the weirder kind of mystical direction. But yeah, I would say that those are those are probably the big ones. [Speaker 2] (18:49 - 18:56) I recently got one of Eric Byrne's book, but I books, but I haven't read it yet. I think it's the. Did you have a main one? [Speaker 1] (18:56 - 18:57) The main one is probably games people play. [Speaker 2] (18:58 - 19:27) Yeah, I got that one. So I'm curious to look into it. So obviously, figuring out why people are the way they are is something that you're good at. And you comment on current events and you comment on things and your stories that are really interesting. I love the way you talk about things. So if you're willing to get into it, what do you think is that is at the root of a lot of this like leftist ideology that's going on, like your average like leftist and how they think and, you know, and woke ism and woke culture? Like, I'm just curious your your assessment on that. [Speaker 1] (19:28 - 19:34) But that's a that's a big one. Broadly speaking, are you familiar with James Lindsay? [Speaker 2] (19:35 - 19:35) No. [Speaker 1] (19:35 - 20:24) OK, he's an excellent podcast called New Discourses. OK, and it's it's essentially it's a it's a heavy one. It's kind of like, you know, because what he does is he goes into Marxist, neo-Marxist thought. He goes into postmodernist thinking. He goes into the critical theories that are underlying, you know, critical race theory, all these different things. And he actually he reads the original source literature, the people who shaped the minds of the people who are now teaching in the kind of praxis or the practical classroom setting this weird crap. And so if if you want to talk about like the history of that stuff, that's one conversation. If you want to talk about what makes an individual kind of susceptible to that stuff, you know, that's so that's a different one. Is there one direction that you want to start with? [Speaker 3] (20:24 - 20:25) Let's start with the history. [Speaker 1] (20:26 - 29:54) OK, so first you have Karl Marx. Well, first you have Hegel, right? It was this philosopher who one of his big things was this. He had this Hegelian dialectic and this idea that in the world you have. It's weird. It's almost religious mysticism type stuff where there are these ideas that are in opposition, seeming opposition to one another is what called a contradiction. And then eventually this contradiction reaches a point of intensity at which there becomes a synthesis of two previously opposing ideas. And there was this and I was listening to Lindsay podcast recently and he's talking about one in German. This is called Alfhaven and Hegel's German. Karl Marx was German. So the Frankfurt School came out of Germany, which would be important later on. And so this is all kind of Germanic philosophy or coming out of romanticism and all this stuff, understanding the full context in which the roots of what we're currently seeing evolved helps because it fills in a lot of those like WTF, like, you know, like when you hear it and you just know this is weird. There's something, there's something I'm detecting a pattern. I'm detecting something systematically off about the way these people think and act and treat other people. What's the deal there? And really tracing it all the way back here. You begin to understand certain, a lot of times in cults, the most important things are unspoken rules. They're just, there's certain standards that are not articulated, but that are passed down almost in a nonverbal direct one-on-one. Like you learn what to say and what not to say and how to think about it and all this. And so Hegel has this idea called Aufheben. Aufheben, it basically means, so Heben is to lift or to carry and Aufheben is to put something on. And so it's to take an idea, basically lift it up to another level. And he was obsessed with this concept of this dialectic and this tension and this contradiction reaching this kind of boiling point at which an idea or what the Germans call a Weltanschauung, which is like kind of a world outlook, almost maybe secular religion, depending on the context, creating kind of like this utopian ideal. And he had some really weird ideas about how the state was this almost godlike iteration or manifestation of the will of history to turn into something great, which is already creepy. And so anyway, this is a guy that precedes Marx, who precedes a lot of people who have preceded what's going on currently. Karl Marx then obviously is the guy, Marxism. And his whole emphasis was on materialism. He had this weird relationship to history where history was this almost as if history had a personality, like it wasn't a capital H history. It wasn't just like time passing and human beings doing stuff. It was this weird process that was unfolding. And Marx's idea was that work was the way in which mankind pushed history forward. And his whole beef with capitalism was that capitalism alienated the individual man from the work and thus interfered with the kind of forward progression of history. Alienation is a concept, really important. Really, I think it's even something to talk about now. But this notion that this middle management or the third party or the capitalist guy who's not doing work, that he then he's not making a pot and using it. He's running a factory where people come and do work or whatever. That that entity is interfering with coming between an individual and the work that they're doing, and that's supposed to be really bad. Marx obviously was really focused on materialism. So his whole idea was these class divides, the upper class, the bourgeois, and then the lower class, and that the lower class is being exploited and that the lower class needed to be basically rallied into a revolutionary force, fomenting the discontents. This is where that kind of Hegelian dialect comes in. The contradictions, basically, we need to get people really pissed off. Actually, and that's kind of a common theme that we see now. We have to keep people in a state of constant agitation. We have to upset them. We have to disorient them. We have to make sure that they're disaffected. We have to alienate them, alienate them from the country, alienate them from their parents, all this creating because that tension, that agitation, that alienation is the thing that really drives the Marxist revolution forward. And for committed Marxists, the revolution is like the second coming of Christ. It's the thing that precedes and gives rise to the utopia. And so anything that interferes with this agitation, with individuals being discontented and upset and agitated, and therefore volatile revolutionary fuel, if that makes sense. Does that make sense? Is a problem. And so you'll actually have, and James Lindsay discussed this, that there are, particularly queer theory, which is kind of a offshoot of specific, you see a lot of Marxist undertones in what this field called queer theory. They get terribly upset when a group's quality of life improves and when that group gains acceptance in society. So for example, neo-Marxists who moved beyond Marxist materialism, focusing on means of production and all that kind of like old school Soviet stuff. They said this, we have a real problem here. Capitalism has created a life that is so good for the lower class, the middle class, that they're no longer a reliable revolutionary force. And this is kind of a perverse mindset. The system that we hate is functioning so well that it's making the people that we wanted to use to create our revolution, not really good revolutionary fuel because they have two cars, they have a nice house, they have a good life, but it's not a communist life, right? So we have to then create some alternate revolutionary force. And that's kind of the beginning of the critical theory stuff. That's the beginning of, was it the coalition of the dispossessed, I think was a term that arose around, I think it was Obama's second term. This notion that we're going to segue from Marxist materialism to kind of like identity Marxism, cultural Marxism. That's basically what critical race theory is. If you take cultural Marxism and identity Marxism and you kind of smash them together into like a terrible shit sandwich, that's pretty much what critical race theory is. Is it's, okay, the working class has a good life. They're lazy. They're happy. They don't hate capitalism enough anymore. Let's see if we can go in and create a whole bunch of other little groups and let's put them into a state of constant agitation. Let's make it so that the revolutionary fervor never dies down because it keeps happening even with gays, right? With gay people, as they have gained more and more acceptance, there are people in queer studies who think this is a bad thing because the existing system is accepting and subsuming this group that we wanted to use to foment, to push forward our revolution. But now classical liberalism, people are just kind of like, yeah, whatever. My neighbor's gay, who cares? It's not a big deal. There's kind of these jokes that like, you know, the gay culture used to be this kind of avant-garde sort of counter-cultural radical thing. And now the gay couple on the block is like the most boring domestic 1950s couple around, you know? Now you would think that's a good thing. There's acceptance. People are getting along and all this. But if you're a revolutionary Marxist, you're like, shit, it's happening again. These people are not really reliable sources of revolution anymore. And so if you look at, I'd say starting around like when Trump was elected in 2016, right? But even going back to 2010, 2012, this constant effort, and this is one of critical theory, picking the scab, finding something to bitch about, to complain about, to be incensed about, to be upset about. Why is everyone getting so upset about everything? You know, why does everything have to be racist? Well, because everybody needs to be upset all of the time in order to keep doubling down on this thing and pushing it forward. Because when people start getting along, they start accepting the current system. They're no longer this like reliable revolutionary force. And so kind of long way around, what makes a person susceptible to that kind of thing? I think one of them is there's this kind of track that goes destabilization, radicalization. If you can destabilize an individual, they're much easier to radicalize. This is true in terms of a cult. It's true in terms of a society. If I can undermine a person's sense of identity, you know, if I can, so for example, the concept of white privilege, you know, this is a concept that is so obviously designed to put you in the position of someone who has something akin to original sin. You don't actually have to do anything bad. You just are a member of a group, and that group has a thing called privilege, and that's bad. And you, by virtue of your existence, right, need essentially, you need to expiate the sin. You need to do something about it. And then the critical theory piles on this sort of bullshit way that you can atone for this identity sin that you have. Now, that's destabilizing to a person. I'm just a kid sitting in class, and all of a sudden we're talking about something called white privilege. I'm sort of looking around at my classmates here, and I'm hearing there's something wrong with me. What do I have to do? What do I have to do to not be bad, you know? And so I think a desire to be accepted in the context of people who are really kind of malevolent actors, that's a personality that gets stuck. At this point, you don't even have to be susceptible to it. [Speaker 3] (29:54 - 30:23) I just want to throw this in real quick. This is a quote by Nathaniel Brandon. The idea of original sin, of guilt where there is no possibility of innocence, no freedom of choice, no alternatives available, is anti-self-esteem by its very nature. The very notion of guilt without volition or responsibility is an assault on reason as well as on morality. It's the same thing with white privilege, right? You're taking on guilt where there's no other alternative. [Speaker 1] (30:24 - 32:03) That's Robin D'Angelo at the end of her book where she says, you're never done. You're never finished. And that's one of those key things about the critical theory. You have to criticize everything. And you even have to criticize the critical theory. You have to push the criticism further and further and further. It's fundamentally negative. And I can't remember who it was that said it, but one of these people said, you cannot describe the utopia that we want to create in positive terms because you can't describe it from within the context of this awful world in which we currently live. All that you can do is criticize what's wrong with the world in which we currently live. That's something wrong with everything. Everything's bad. Everything's wrong. Everything is an example. Childhood innocence is an example of white privilege. If you like, I mean, it's funny. One of the things, the difference between sort of Marxism and the sort of newer stuff, right? What do you call it? Like the racial Marxism that's around now is that it used to be racism was bad because racism was a thing that upheld capitalism. You know, you would say, you know, that racism was something that made it possible for capitalism to continue to exist. Now they've basically taken it and turned it around. And this is about as original as these people can get. And they say that capitalism is bad because it upholds racism. And it's just, and if you just, you just can associate something with this term that everyone agrees is bad and people are afraid of being accused of being the bad thing. And so, like you said, their self-esteem is compromised in a fundamental way. Nevermind that it's bullshit, but it is. And then they just kind of go along with whatever stupid stuff you tell them will make them more acceptable. [Speaker 3] (32:07 - 32:40) So interesting. Because, I mean, really at the end of the day, like capitalism is a system that is just upholding the rights of the individual to have the free choice to produce how he wants and have the rights of his production at the end of the day, you know? So it's curious to me how that's become so inverted, where it's almost like that is now a negative concept to have a free individual who is, you mean, free to live his life as he chooses. [Speaker 1] (32:42 - 32:51) Well, individualism is a component of white supremacy, don't you know? Like being on time, you know? Did you see that thing or math? [Speaker 2] (32:52 - 32:52) Oh, yeah. [Speaker 3] (32:55 - 33:27) But like this utopia, which is supposedly the end goal of this revolutionary Marxist which has never been smelt on any level whatsoever. They just, it's almost like they keep trying, falling down, trying, falling down, trying, falling down. Like I'm sure that the underlying mindset of most of these people that, you mean, follow these ideologies don't even realize themselves that this is the supposed end goal of what it is that they're, you mean? Yeah. [Speaker 1] (33:27 - 37:20) Yeah. Well, you know, there's the difference between like the theologian, the pastor and the parishioner, you know, and you see, I mean, if you're just on social media, all you see are these these kind of culty buzzwords or you see, you know, these certain terms like white privilege start to arise or I don't know what are the other ones, cultural appropriation, all of these things are language employed by the culture of critique. And the average person, as far as I can tell, is just trying to figure out how to navigate their daily lives. You know, I better post a black square so that people don't call me out for not posting a black square. Okay, I'll do it. Seems reasonable. Seems like I don't want cops going around killing people. That seems fair. And so I kind of, you know what I mean? And you post it because partly you don't know what's going on. And partly you just want to be left alone. And yeah, it is. And this is, there's a weird element in which even the people who are teaching this stuff don't really fully understand it. And a big part of that is that it's not fully understandable because it's mostly bullshit. Like it really is just pseudo-philosophical confabulation. It's just you look at the world and you say, the world is not perfect. And therefore, give me a bunch of power so that I can make it perfect as a critical theorist in a way that I can't quite explain to you. I can't tell you how we're going to do it. But I can point to things and I can say, as Lindsay says, I'm referencing a lot because I've been listening to him a lot recently. It's my guess that critical race theory is basically calling something racist until you control it. And if you look at it, it's like, yes, that's about right is that you talk about something. Now, the great thing is if you're calling the system racist or if you're harping on this concept called systemic racism, well, essentially what you're saying is you need to give me unfettered control over the whole society so that we can do something about how wrong. And I don't have a plan to make it better. I can't really tell you exactly what it is. If you ever did you hear Ibram Kendi's recommendation for what needed to be done to affect anti racism? He's like the big guy, like the racism has basically there needed to be a organization or what's the what's the word like something like comparable with the FDA or whatever, like what's that called agency? Yeah, like an agency of some kind. And it needed to have oversight at the federal and the local level. OK, already nuts, right? Because we're talking now we're talking set the Constitution aside and they hate the Constitution anyway. And basically, every law, every law that is passed, every everything that occurs needs to go through anti racist vetting by somebody who knows who what their qualifications are. And one of the things I think he also proposed a constitutional amendment equating differences in outcome with racism so that if you can look at the financial outcomes, the housing outcomes, the incarceration rates, the traffic tickets being given out, whatever, between two different racial groups and there's any disparity at all, that is on its face evidence of racism, which, again, one, a constitutional amendment. Two, that's such a stupid thing to want to do. And it's it's they're just about accumulating power. And in fact, all of the bitching and all of the complaining and all of the ostensibly good faith efforts to make society better, it they're always saying this and this and this isn't exactly the way that we would like for it to be the way that it should be. Something bad happened to somebody somewhere one time. Therefore, I need totalitarian control over increasing components of everybody's daily lives until we reach this kind of perfect utopia. Yeah, it's an obvious perpetual, ongoing power grab. [Speaker 2] (37:20 - 37:29) Even just so you know, we'll be deleting this podcast episode because you use the term bitching. And so you're canceled and we will not be moving on. You said bitching? [Speaker 1] (37:30 - 37:33) I did. Yeah, I didn't say that. You must have misheard me. But now you've said it. [Speaker 2] (37:36 - 39:01) But, you know, it's so wild, this idea of of controlling other people and canceling other people. The big thing for me is like completely altering the English language, you know, like even in the in the you may think about childbirth, you know, you can't even call someone a mother anymore because it's offensive to someone. So they have to be a birthing person or whatever the case may be. The mother can't breastfeed. They need to chest feed. They just all these like words that are being invented in the name of progress over like what, a few years, five years, as if that represents some natural form of like intellectual evolution. It just it seems so obvious to me that it's manufactured, this invisible hidden hand behind it all. And everything we're talking about right now always makes me think of the OG interview with Yuri Bezmenov and with Griffin, where he talks about like what this whole plan and the movement of the Soviet or this communist international now, which is to demoralize, destabilize and get people against each other to to to infect the minds of those who allow their minds to be affected, infected. And it's happening. You know, we're seeing it happening right now. And yet you have these people, these intelligent humans or people that were involved in it that are warning, warning humanity for like decades. And yet here we are. [Speaker 1] (39:03 - 41:46) So, yeah, it's similar. I mean, and especially to there's a lot of kind of Maoist qualities to what's going on, especially with children and with education. And this is exactly what Mao did. There was, you know, prior to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Mao took power and there was this kind of the Communist Party took over and something I don't really know too much about this, but like he was ousted for a period of time. And then he had kind of like a renaissance where he came back and that's when he instituted the Cultural Revolution. He's trying to get rid of these kind of old components of Chinese culture. Basically, he he radicalized young kids and got them very much kind of against their parents, against their teachers, against priests, against all the things of the establishment. And he created this Red Guard that eventually went around and actually like physically murdered people who were part of the old grouping. You know, and so that's that's kind of one of the things about the stuff that's going on in education in particular, is that they are alienating children intentionally from their parents. They're making their and also I think they're probably intentionally contributing to depression, psychological disorders, questioning their own identity so that, you know, if you if your kid comes home and says, I think I'm a girl now, you're kind of like, what the fuck are you talking about? You know, oh, you don't understand me. My teacher understands me. They get it. They're with. And so there's this alienation that's happening. You have to cleave the later generation away from the previous generation. And one of the things that happens, not only then are they more moldable, but they feel isolated. They feel without any kind of foundation and they become that much more susceptible to the cults. You know, it used to be that I think people, for the most part, who had lost their family or who were estranged from their family became susceptible to the cult. We have a situation now where the cult actually has infiltrated the government. And so the cult can the cult can facilitate the alienation so that the kids are vulnerable to cult membership and to joining it, to going along with all this stuff, controlling of the language and the most stupid and pedantic ways is an important part of that, because it might seem innocuous. This is one of those things is that these people, they share your language, but they don't share your dictionary. So they'll use similar words, but they'll use them in kind of like wacky ways or in ways that are kind of distinct or whatever. And it's a little subtle invitation for you to come on over, for you to join it. Start using the word before you even really know what it means. Right. But just use it in the context that you see us using it. Signal to other people that you get it. Put your pronouns in your bio. Right. Say, what is it? Chest feeding instead of breastfeeding. I mean, that's a that's a verbal insignia. You know what I'm saying? It lets other people know the page that you're on. It's fair. It's all weird. [Speaker 3] (41:46 - 42:06) I know. So from your perspective, you mean, obviously, Marxist, Marxism and Karl Marx, do you think what it was born out of and created out of is still the intent in which it is used and propagated within our society today? [Speaker 1] (42:08 - 44:49) Yeah, not really. I think it started. A lot of people got really into it. And then the 20th century was kind of a depressing time for commies because, you know, like the Soviet Union wasn't doing too well. We found out somewhere in the 50s that Stalin kind of killed a lot of people. I mean, Khrushchev even admitted it. You know, there was the new left in the 1960s, which was this kind of super radicalism, kind of the really violent things, the riots that were going on in the 60s that wasn't very popular. And so it was as if these kind of super left intellectuals felt that they had lost their way. They had been promised this kind of utopian thing and that the working class was going to rise up and, you know, these losers with their hammers and their sickles and all this, you know, it's going to be this great kind of revolutionary thing, you know, like everyone they all like Trotsky with his little glasses and crazy hair. And that never materialized. And I mean, I imagine that it was kind of like a person sitting around thinking Jesus was going to come back 12 years after the fact. And you're kind of like, well, what are we going to do now? You know, and you needed something fresh and something new. And so I think that there were a lot of people who were kind of under the influence of the basic, the Hegelian dialectic, certain components of Marxism. One of the things about a Marxist is that rarely does a Marxist say, boy, I think all this stuff's actually a bunch of bullshit and I should probably just go get a job or start a company or something like that. They always say, why didn't it work in Russia? Why didn't it work in China? Why didn't it work in Cambodia? And they find some, they say, well, you know, this part was missing. It'll work this time. This is one of these, there's this, they must not, Marx must not have been Marxist enough. And they even call it vulgar Marxism, materialist Marxism. It wasn't applied to the full individual. It wasn't sufficiently focused on the internal spiritual development of the person, the liberation of the identity. It was, it's about, it's actually even righter than Marx thought that it was. And it wasn't applied deeply enough. That's probably why it didn't work. So just give us all the power one more time. And, you know, 10 or 15 or 25 million people who might have to die. That's just part of history. It's fine. And eventually we'll get there. I mean, it's a religious fervor. And I think when you understand that a lot of people have a religious like commitment to it, the behavior starts to make a lot more sense. You know, that notion that, I mean, I think it was the Jehovah's witnesses that said that, you know, 150,000 people are going to go to heaven. They're going to get taken up to heaven in the end times, but then they screwed up and they actually got more than 150,000 members instead of like, well, maybe it's like 300,000 members. You know, it's this willingness to revise the details while staying true to the basic religion. [Speaker 3] (44:51 - 45:40) It's a good analogy. I was actually raised as a Jehovah's witness. It's 144,000. And then, you mean, they had their end of the world doom date, which was changed like four or five different times. It was something that just had to keep going on. So for our audience, I know we have a lot of really conscious families and conscious moms who have kids in schools listening to this. What is some advice or what is a way to potentially counter this? For example, these ideologies that are being infiltrated into the kids' minds and in the school systems, what can be taught and what are some ways to, I guess, develop a more healthier mind, a more healthier use of consciousness and reason to, I guess, have some kind of defense against when these things do come up? [Speaker 1] (45:42 - 48:46) Yeah, I don't know if I had to guess. I would say one of the things that's useful, I think, is that they're not indoctrinating kids, right? Because indoctrination is where you teach a whole bunch of list of things and you just repeat it. You don't know whether you even know what it means or not. They're programming them, which is a much more kind of culty thing, so that they are shaping the assumptions from which they think. They are showing them how to look at any situation and critique it, find a fault with it, say, what's wrong with this? This is racist. This is that. This is ableist. This is whatever. And so they're really showing, not showing, kind of forcing on them a particular way of thinking, this critical lens through which you view the world. And I think the only way that you can do anything about that is to don't just give them anti-woke talking points. Don't just give them, you know, you actually have to spend time with the child and show them how to think, right? You have to say, does that make sense to you? Well, what about, it is that kind of where you deal not just with ideas, but you deal with the relationship to the ideas. Because, you know, one of the things I found in like personal coaching, right, if I'm helping somebody who's in a dysfunctional relationship and I get them out of that relationship where I guide them or help them or assist them or encourage them, support them as they get out of it, right? If we don't figure out what about them contributed to their getting into and staying in a dysfunctional relationship, it doesn't matter that that person's gone. They're going to find another one, right? Because they have a dysfunctional relationship to relationships that is probably coming from a dysfunctional relationship that they have to themselves. If you can deal with that dysfunctional relationship they have to themselves, their relationship to relationships will naturally change. As that relationship to relationships changes, the people that they select to be in a relationship with, that'll change too. And when it comes to thinking, I think one, you just, you show somebody how to identify bullshit, right? And then when you realize this is, and I would say that this is what, if I were a parent, I would say to my child, listen, anytime you catch anybody bullshitting you, right? You never, ever want to pretend like you didn't catch them. I don't care if it's me. I don't care if it's somebody, if it's an authority figure, if it's whatever, if there's something inside you that goes, I think that's bullshit. And here's why I think it's bullshit. That's like a sacred, holy, intuitive insight. Now you may have to listen if it's your parent or whatever, but don't just start believing stuff because your teacher or your classmates are saying it to you. There's a really good chance that the majority of the people in your class are idiots or that they're willing, maybe they're smart enough to know it's bullshit, but they're more concerned about being accepted by the teacher or by their classmates, that they're willing to kind of go along with it. In the long run, it pays off just going, refusing to accept bullshit, you know? Because when you accept a little bit of it, you think they're going to leave you alone. They don't. Stalin said, push where there's mush. If you find somebody who's willing to take a little bit, you'll go, eh, the next time we'll push it a little bit further than that. And so spend a lot of time with them. Ask them what they think about it, you know? And I think start early too, because if you let them, if you let this crap get installed deep onto their kind of mental software, you're going to have a hell of a time getting it off. [Speaker 2] (48:47 - 48:59) Yeah, it gets a lot harder when they get it programmed early on, definitely for sure. And I think part of it too, and maybe not everyone's in the same boat, but, you know, keep keeping your children out of these programming camps. [Speaker 1] (48:59 - 50:30) Oh, definitely. If that's at all an option, I would, I would assume drop my, I would assume drop my children off in a vacant parking lot as I would take them to a state run school. And I mean, and I don't say that because I think that leaving your kids in the parking lot is a good idea. These are literal, I mean, these people are fucking sick. Like to say anything other than that is an understatement that they, many of them have been taught to view your children as tools to forward a revolution that they think is cosmically ordained in some bizarre, strange way. They're, I mean, like if you want, like Libs of TikTok, I know you know about this, right? Libs of TikTok, yeah, yeah. And the teachers who were on there, I mean, that like, then the things that they're talking about, and if your parents don't support you, I'll support you. That's like groomership. Like that's like overt, excuse me, I mean, if there were a guy at the playground taking your kids off to the side behind the slide and saying, hey, little boy, if your parents don't support you, I do, you wouldn't be comfortable with that. But there's something about a teacher, well, they're an appendage, they're a part of the state, you know, it makes it worse. It makes it creepier, you know, it's nuts. And so I think that, yeah, if at all possible, if you can rearrange your life in a way that doesn't require you to send them, and it's not even just public schools anymore, because these people have infiltrated private schools, too. It's worth doing, if it's at all possible. And if you can't, you know, you better teach them how to deal with sickos, because they're absolutely going to encounter them. [Speaker 3] (50:31 - 51:06) Yeah, I mean, just from the get go, it seems to me like a very radical idea to even send your kid for 13 years for their mind to be molded by other people, like, what is it, six, seven hours a day. I mean, it's crazy how that's even like so accepted, just on face value for what it is. Yeah, so let's go there while we're here. What, in your opinion, are the fundamentals of education for someone to develop a healthy mind, then, that being said? [Speaker 1] (51:08 - 53:59) I think one of the things is not even, it's not even information based, it's information processing based. What I mean by that is, and talking to people about awareness, because anytime you hear awareness discussed in the public sphere, it's awareness of something specific. And recently, it's awareness of nonsense, right? I want to call your attention to this area that I want you to be upset about so that you'll kind of do what I want you to do. For me, awareness is independent of what I happen to be aware of. It's the ability to see myself doing something as I'm doing it, and to see the consequences of doing what I'm doing as those consequences are occurring. For example, if I think to myself, boy, you know, I'm sure I'm a piece of crap, or you know, so and so doesn't like me. And that means what if I'm having that kind of internal dialogue, like, do I have the ability to watch myself say those things to myself, and then go, boy, I kind of feel bad after I said that maybe there's a relationship there, maybe that, you know, that observing that space between stimulus and response, where I can decide what I'm going to do, like, how does a person not know that space is there? Because they're not aware, they're not watching what's transpiring inside their head. And that was one of the things that I like, when I was growing up, that I happened to get right, for whatever reason was, I would watch a person's words come into my head. And I would play out in my mind and say, if I believe what they just said, if I accept what they just said, where's that going to go? Emotionally, for me in the near term, where's it going to go in terms of how I think moving forward? And I don't, I don't like the prospect of that. But if you don't have the ability to kind of, you know, vet that, if you just have to accept the stuff as it comes in, you just have to feel whatever. If you just have to, you know, talk to yourself, like, abusive way all day long and deal with the feelings of that, that's not going to work. So if you have this ability, and this is like the ability to recognize manipulation too, you see, you don't just hear what the person's saying to you. You step out and you say, here's the teacher saying this to me, the student, well, that seems kind of weird. You know, if you have, if you have that ability to not just be in the context, but to be aware of the context, you'll catch a lot of stuff, right? That if you just get sucked in and drawn into that moment, and they say something, and it's emotionally compelling to you, or you're intimidated or whatever, then you'll go down the wrong path. If you have the perspective necessary to step back and look at what's transpiring, rather than just being a part of it, you'll, there'll be a lot of like, your intuition will be activated, and it'll save you a lot. So giving people the ability to do that, which, you know, one could argue is an action, being in the world, but not of it. I am in this classroom, I am in this situation, but I am not wholly confined to it. I have the ability to step aside from it and to look at it and to say, do I want to go down the path of the situation setting me up to do? That'd be the core thing, teaching somebody that there's a lot going on inside your head, and none of it is unimportant. [Speaker 2] (54:00 - 54:17) And I know it's probably like a complicated question that we can't get into right now, but like, how does, how do you, how does one teach someone that thing? You can talk about it from a conceptual standpoint, but how do you, obviously, there's a, you provide the concepts, but then the person has to experience and experiment with life on their own. [Speaker 1] (54:18 - 54:21) Yeah. I mean, like if I was talking to a child, for example. [Speaker 2] (54:22 - 54:27) Sure. Child or, you know, a recovering wokester, you know, same thing, right? [Speaker 1] (54:31 - 57:04) I mean, I would just say, I mean, this is the thing is I've spent so much time doing this stuff. I don't know if I'm hallucinating or not, but I sometimes feel like I can hear other people's internal dialogue, like, especially if I've been kind of like vibing with them for a while and working with them. And I don't mean that quite literally, but I mean, almost literally. And so you'll be talking to somebody and there's a verbal communication between me and you, and then you suddenly make a facial expression that no way lines up with what I said or with what you said in response to what I said. And in a moment like that, I can say, did you hear what you said to yourself just then inside your head? You know, did you ever notice how you're talking to yourself? So practical examples like that. I mean, when the child's having a good time, I would say, do you notice how good you're feeling right now? People don't talk about noticing their feelings. You know what I mean? When you're feeling upset, do you notice how you're feeling right now? And do you notice that you're kind of resisting that? And do you notice how that resistance is making it feel worse? You can use questions to reveal experiences to people that they're already having, bring the experiences to their awareness. And you can use questions to actually create experiences for people and kind of like, give them a model for navigating things. And so, I mean, it's kind of like, yeah, the biggest thing that you could do, especially if you're doing it around kids, but even if you're a coach or if you're just a human being, practice it yourself all of the time. If a child is growing up in an environment with adults who are noticing their internal dialogue and noticing how they're impacted by negative events, things that happen and how they tend to dwell or beat themselves up or whatever, that's the best way. And you think that they don't know, but they do. They pick up on all of it. Children, I believe, learn to recreate the basic experiences that their parents are having around them. It's kind of like life script kind of thing. And if they don't need to be around a perfect parent, I think they need to be around a parent who is doing the kind of things that it will serve them to do, right, which is responding resourcefully to imperfections. And so observe your thoughts. I mean, and if people say, okay, yeah, I get it. I see that thought. I was like, no, watch it and keep your eye on it. You know, really notice what you're saying to yourself. And then when you notice yourself saying it, notice what you're inclined to do in response to having said that. And when you feel that feeling, notice that feeling and then notice how it's natural for you to allow that feeling to affect you moving forward. Right. And then ask yourself a question. What would my life be like without this feeling? Well, what would it take for me to not feel this way anymore? And then notice what happens next. I mean, you have to experiment with this stuff. You can't fake it because if you just tell your kids to be positive and you're negative all the time, what they're going to do is they're going to say, be positive while being negative all the time. [Speaker 3] (57:07 - 57:12) Yeah. What is the difference between awareness and thought? [Speaker 1] (57:14 - 59:52) So awareness to me, and this is just kind of how I think about it, is just observation. It's just one. The thought is an idea. So I am aware of a thought. Yeah, there's this thing like I'm aware of being a number of different things. Right now, I'm aware of being on this podcast with you. You know, I'm aware of being a human being in some way. I'm aware of being someone pretending to know what he's talking about. I'm aware of being all these different things. But if you watch closely and if you watch the watching, right? So what I mean is if you go inward, so I'm just going to close my eyes here and I'm just listening to my voice, I'm aware of that. But I can also become aware of the awareness itself. I can become aware of the watcher. I can sense that there's something in there watching the stuff that's going on. And I like to kind of pay attention to that entity, that force, that presence, that whatever. Because if I become aware of being something that I don't want to be, I can always sort of retreat to just that pure awareness. And it's from that place that I can go into being aware of something else. If I'm aware of something that disturbs me, for example, if my awareness is fused to what I am aware of, two things happen. One, I'm kind of stuck. And the second thing is I'm not aware of the awareness. I don't know that's there because it's just one thing. There's the thing on which my attention is fixed. And then there's an experience coming forth out of that. But if you just spend time watching the watcher, that watcher kind of becomes more and more of an important presence in your life. It's kind of more primed. And you'll start noticing little things that you wouldn't normally have noticed. And it's very interesting because I'll see myself think something sometimes. And in the past, if you would have asked me, say, you can look inside my head and see it. Did you know you were thinking that? Oh, yeah, I knew I was thinking that. But I'll see it. And I'll not just see the thought, but I'll recognize the thought for what it is. I'll see how it's functioning in my life. I'll say that thought is an outgrowth of this belief. And it's setting me up to feel this way and behave in these ways and create this result, which I then feel sorry for myself or feel guilty about or whatever. You see this kind of gestalt or totality to your internal processes. And in the beginning, it's just seeing, oh, here's me being negative to myself, whatever. But over time, you begin to see it and recognize what you're seeing for what it is. What role is this playing in the overall totality of what it's like to be me? What is this thought setting me up to do? Is this part of a useful line of thinking or a not so useful line of thinking? Is this an example of me doing something smart? Is this an example of me doing something stupid? And having the ability to recognize that is just invaluable. And awareness is the thing that lets me do it. [Speaker 3] (59:54 - 1:00:26) Yeah, for sure. It's interesting. Obviously, you talk about the witness, the observer. But do you think also that this can be taken to extremes, particularly when Zen thought becomes fused with human extreme new age thinking? And then in some circumstances, we just have this push or this denial of thought altogether, almost as like we want to run away from the mind. Or you mean the mind is not serving us on any level whatsoever. And all I have to do is be in this pure state of awareness and no thoughts serve me kind of thing. [Speaker 1] (1:00:27 - 1:02:09) Yeah, I don't think there's any idea that's so good that you can't do something dumb with it. And I think, again, that's that relationship to ideas thing. And people get religious about things and they get kind of fanatic about things. I don't have a negative relationship to thinking. I mean, to me, it's like if I'm going to think, I might as well try to make my thoughts useful. I might as well think things that serve me. I mean, there is something strangely, what would you call it, kind of compulsively authoritarian about trying to prevent the mind from doing what it is that it's naturally going to do. There's a little something like sort of autocratic self-rule in a way. Nobody is trying to prevent. I mean, I guess people do try to control their sexuality in ways that necessarily aren't necessarily healthy. But for the mind to think as like for the stomach to digest food or for the bowel to eliminate waste or whatever, it's not an unnatural or even necessarily an unhelpful process. For me, it's the ability to create more consciously. It's the ability to do it on purpose. Yeah, I think the ability to turn it off and just kind of melt is cool. But I mean, a rock doesn't think either. And I don't necessarily know that I'm aspiring to being a stone. Me personally, it's like, yeah. And I know what you're talking about, that there is this tendency to get extreme and to build your personality around really rigid commitment to certain ideas and stuff. I want to feel better. I want to be nicer to myself and other people. I want to get better at doing cool things. And for me, thinking is an important part of that. [Speaker 2] (1:02:10 - 1:02:30) Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree with you there. I'm curious of your thoughts on this because it's been going on for so long, and especially in different spiritual communities where people always use the term ego. I'm like, oh, that's your ego. I mean, that's your ego talking and you got to get rid of the ego. So I'd love for you to comment on that whole thing if you can. [Speaker 1] (1:02:30 - 1:02:49) It's stupid and I hate it. I mean, yeah, what are you talking about? I have this theory that anybody who ever says anything bad about the ego, that's the ego speaking. Only the ego says bad things about the ego. Whatever that is. [Speaker 2] (1:02:51 - 1:03:07) It's also there's so many different ways people use that word. There's ego from, I guess you could say, a more psychological way of saying the executor of the psyche. Then there's ego that relates to egotistical. And so I feel like people use it in different ways as well. [Speaker 1] (1:03:07 - 1:03:10) It often means you're doing something I don't like. [Speaker 3] (1:03:11 - 1:03:26) And it also often means you're choosing yourself first, and I don't have the courage to put myself first because I've spent my entire life putting someone else above myself and have lived with an absence of who I am. I mean, to me, I'm a proud egotist. [Speaker 1] (1:03:28 - 1:05:04) Yeah, why not? And to be honest about it, right? Suggests to me that you're not more egotistical than the average person, but perhaps you're the average spiritual person, but you're more honest about it. And I think that's one of those things, yeah, that I don't understand why a person has an opinion about what I'm doing when what I'm doing doesn't have any impact on them. And I really am suspicious of people who say that. I mean, that's your ego talking. Well, first of all, who are you in relationship to me? If you're not my life partner, if you're not my business partner, if you're not somebody with whom I have some practical daily engagement, what difference does it make what you think about what I'm doing? I see a lot of this kind of sniping and stuff online. Yeah, I think this is a lot of bullshit, man. There's a lot. And people who get into this stuff, they like to get really weird with it. I mean, one of the things that I have noticed is that a person's, well, I call them unresourceable patterns. A person's kind of unconscious processes have an incredible ability to co-opt whatever self-improvement, personal change stuff they get into, so that that stuff becomes a vehicle for the manifestation of the stuff that they brought in in the first place. One of two things is going to happen. Either the good personal change idea is going to consume and dissolve the pattern, or the pattern is going to consume the idea and incorporate the idea into its body of ways that it sort of manifests itself. And unfortunately, more often than not, I think the pattern consumes the idea, and the idea then becomes just another way that the person exhibits the pattern. [Speaker 3] (1:05:05 - 1:05:31) Yeah. It's also a massive escape mechanism. People spend 30, 35 years sick to the guts of hedonism. Then they come across a teaching which says, oh, that's just your ego. Just dissolve your ego, get rid of your ego. And it was never you in the first place. And then somehow they just bypass all that shadow work that needs to be done to actually bring themselves into equilibrium. And they're done with it, right? Oh, yeah. I don't have a personality at all anymore, basically. [Speaker 1] (1:05:32 - 1:07:16) Yeah. I don't know. I'm not interested in personal growth. It's kind of weird that I do this. Because I'm not in it as a thing that I do. It's just certain tools that I use. That's why I'm not inclined to present myself as a particular style of teacher or whatever. And I also do nothing to try to overcome that disinclination. Because I try really hard to be just a regular person who has some ideas that you might find useful. I love that. In my experience, there's so little of that in this world, and so much of a lot of other things. It's like, listen, here's one way of talking about, thinking about what you're going through here. And here are some different things that you can try on. And let's see what happens when you do. Here's a way of thinking about that. Here's a way of trying that out. Here's a way of whatever. It's funny, because even in Zen, there's all these things where these Zen masters make fun of people who are trying to dissolve the ego. It's like cutting off your head to get rid of a headache. These guys are like, the good ones were pretty irreverent. But I think the ones that build a big following tend to be the ones that are a little kind of culty. And I think that's a theme across the board, is that oftentimes the schools of thought that really reach massive popularity, it's not necessarily because they're great ideas well-articulated. It's because they speak to either the laziness or the complacency or the limited thinking of a lot of people that are kind of unconsciously going through life. And so then it kind of takes off and is regarded as the standard, even if it's maybe not all that great. A personal growth book doesn't have to be good if no one's actually going to read it. They're just going to buy it and then, you know, share it on their social media and stuff like that. [Speaker 3] (1:07:18 - 1:07:54) Yeah, definitely. I think there's very much so also linked to this over-exemplification of, you mean, stillness. You mean, just be still or just be at peace. Like that is some kind of natural state for a human being. You know what I mean? So it returns to some kind of womb-like essence where we do nothing. We don't act in any way. We don't think in any way. Like still and peace is like the highest ideal on some level. You know, but like from that perspective, tied into personal growth, if that is what you're after, like, how do you anticipate yourself actually growing and changing and evolving and becoming better if your intention is just simply, you mean, to be still in order to solve all those problems? [Speaker 1] (1:07:57 - 1:10:16) Yeah, for me, it's one level. I get it. And another level, I say, okay, that I at times experience real sensations of stillness while like having this conversation. There's a part of me inside. This may be obvious to you if I haven't been making sense. There's a part of me inside that's just kind of checked out riding this wave and being like, okay, we're doing it. We're doing a conversation. You know, when I'm talking to people in daily life, there's a part of me that's just very relaxed and the words are just kind of flowing. Sometimes like when I'm working out, I'm doing like pretty high effort physical stuff, but there's a part of me inside that is in a state of, I'd say total non-resistance to the physical sensations associated with strenual physical exertion. And in as much as I am in a state of complete non-resistance to what's happening, this is how it feels. This is what happens next. There is a kind of stillness inside. You know, I think a lot of people are involved in a kind of frantic, it's a frantic inner and outer activity that in my experience is likely designed to propitiate some authority figure, real or imagined, cosmic or physically present. Because if I look like I'm stressed out, I'm harried, I'm concerned, I know I'm not good enough, but I'm aware of the fact that I'm not good enough and I feel really bad about the fact that I'm not trying hard enough. If you see that, maybe you'll have mercy on me and give me less difficulty than you otherwise would. I mean, I know when I was a child, I was invited to adopt that certain, because you know, if you're doing a not good enough job, but you're obviously about to explode, you're trying so hard to get it done, then they might take pity on you and leave you alone. And I think a lot of people pick up that pattern kind of as a protective mechanism and carry it with them throughout their whole life so that they're constantly, I mean, I've been around people before and they're running late or something like that. And I'm like, oh, it's no big deal. And they, but they won't settle down. And it's like, well, you're here now. And then they spend 15 minutes, you know, so they were 15 minutes late. Now they're spending 15 minutes, you know, knocking the glass over and apologizing for being late. And I'm like, it's really fine. It's almost like, it's not about me. And it's not about you feeling bad about me. It's about you offering me some burnt offering of agitation that I don't really want, you know? And so in that respect, if you can slow down and be still in that regard, you know, that's quite useful. But this whole idea that you have to turn into some kind of a vegetable, I don't really buy that. [Speaker 2] (1:10:18 - 1:11:14) Yeah, I think the stillness that I think is beneficial is when you think about having equilibrium in your nervous system, you know, in that regards where there's resilience. And so you can be late and then notice the part of you that's like, man, like, I hate that I'm late and I'm about to go meet up with Steven and I respect him or like him not to think ill of me and whatever's going on in your head. But then to show up and then realize now I'm here and whatever was going on, you know, like there was some excessive sympathetic activity that was raised in that to then sit down and go, okay, I have the ability to then come back to a much more grounded center place and then continue the conversation. So I feel like that sense of stillness and I don't mean like your nervous system is still, but you know what I mean? There's resilience, there's more natural flow as opposed to you just like staying up here, you know, and you don't have the ability to regulate. [Speaker 3] (1:11:14 - 1:11:35) Yeah. To me, that also brings in the idea of, you know, just simply being in a non-contradictory state with yourself as a form of stillness. You know, if you can accept reality and accept whatever's happened, the circumstances, you're late, whatever on face value, then you're not going to be in that agitation, you know, and hence there is that stillness of, you know, okay, reality is. [Speaker 1] (1:11:37 - 1:14:58) Yeah. And that's the idea too, like that emotional resistance is telling yourself that you should be somewhere other than where you are at a given moment in time, something other than what is currently happening should be happening. And, you know, there is a level at which everything is always happening exactly the way that it should. Now, if I have that idea in mind and, you know, my pants catch on fire because I'm lying so much or because I'm standing close to the open flame or something like that, I'm not going to go, well, you know, everything's happening like it's supposed to. Well, you know, part of everything happening like it's supposed to is my natural urge to, you know, stop, drop and roll or do whatever I got to do to get rid of this fire. But I can be an effective, emotional resistance to me is like driving with the parking brake on, like it adds nothing to, you know, my ability to create desirable outcomes. It increases personal suffering and interferes with my ability to create what I want in the world. So it causes me to suffer unnecessarily over what's true while interfering with my ability to interact with what's true in ways that will allow me to create the things that I want. So if I can learn how to kind of eliminate that, I think a lot of it is being late isn't great, but hurrying is a sin. It's this kind of a thing. I discovered this in college, you know, that I would chronically be late to classes and then I would be so nervous and upset because they said, you know, you're not going to get attendance and all this different stuff. And I, this is kind of like what awareness stuff will do. You'll watch little things that you do throughout the day and you'll say, this isn't really important. I'm just thinking this. I'm just thinking that I don't understand what the value of being aware of this stuff is. And you'll watch and watch and watch and see nothing. And then you'll see something, same old thing you've seen a thousand times before. And I will have a memory and I'll go, I watched my mother go through a ritualistic, frantic, I'm going to lose my job. We're going to do this. We're going to do that, get in the car. Oh my God. And then she shows up apologetic, falling all over herself. I have this memory flash and I say, oh, here it is. I've reached the root of this pattern. And for me, I said, you know, maybe I'll be late. Maybe I'll get in trouble. Maybe I'll suffer a consequence. I'm not going to hurry. It's undignified. I'm not going to hurry. It's ridiculous. And the interesting thing was when I forbade myself from hurrying, it was as if the whole pattern of lateness fell away. I stopped being late. I started when I knew that I could. And so there's something about that. This is something I teach in terms of changing behavior. If you're doing something that you wish you didn't do, or if you're not doing something that you wish that you did, the place to start, particularly if this is a very kind of resilient, unresourceful pattern, stop beating yourself up. If I can't engage in an unresourceful behavior without criticizing myself, judging myself, condemning myself, beating myself up, indulging in all the self-castigation, I'm not ready to drop the behavior. I have to learn how to do the thing, say, I don't like that I did that. I don't want to do that anymore. But I'm not going to give myself any extra crap about it because that's the indulgence. That's the payoff. That's the experiential point of me doing all this crap in the first place. People very often, they're surprisingly unwilling to abstain from self-castigation, right? That's the sticking point. They think they're driven to do the behavior. They're not. They do the behavior so that they have a reason to beat themselves up. When you deprive them of that emotional payoff, negative emotional payoff, their inclination to do the thing very often is very powerful. Inclination to do the thing kind of gradually falls away. [Speaker 3] (1:14:59 - 1:15:07) Yeah, it's kind of as we started this conversation, if you allow yourself permission to do the wrong thing or to do the negative thing, then you're inclined to do the right thing. [Speaker 1] (1:15:07 - 1:15:10) Makes the bad thing less spicy. You know what I mean? [Speaker 3] (1:15:11 - 1:15:12) Yeah, absolutely. [Speaker 2] (1:15:17 - 1:15:18) Stillness. Stillness and silence. [Speaker 1] (1:15:19 - 1:15:21) Let's have 45 minutes of stillness and silence. [Speaker 2] (1:15:21 - 1:15:52) We should have 45 minutes of stillness and silence, okay? No, man, I appreciate you, dude. I really like those moments when I get to jump on Instagram and I see your stories and your comments. I really appreciate how your mind works and everything you're even sharing today. It's obvious in the things that you talk about and comment on. How can we be aware of how we're thinking, what we're doing? It's important to changing behavior. And so I get a lot out of the things you share. So I appreciate you. [Speaker 1] (1:15:52 - 1:15:54) Oh, thanks. Appreciate your reading. [Speaker 2] (1:15:54 - 1:16:09) Yeah, yeah, for sure. Sometimes I can't go through all of them because I'm like, I got to go do something. And I see a lot of the little dots. You know, at the top, you see like, oh my God, there's like 50 of these, man. I'm going to read like four and then I'm going to go back. And then you have that, this is so funny. [Speaker 3] (1:16:09 - 1:16:10) Just don't hurry through them. [Speaker 2] (1:16:11 - 1:16:44) Yeah, don't hurry through them. But what's so funny with Instagram, I'm so curious if y'all think this, because then you go like, all right, well, Stephen's my friend. I identify someone who's my friend. And then I can't really look at these all right now, even though I value what you have to say. So then it's like, well, I'm just going to come out of it. But then it's like, if he does choose to look at who's viewing his stories, is he going to see that you're awesome who stopped right here? And then like, what is he going to think? No, but I'm saying, these are what people think about. You know, this is what social media does. You know, when you go and you look and then you're, you know, people do these things. So I don't know. I just wanted to comment on that. [Speaker 1] (1:16:44 - 1:17:30) I think it's designed to do that. Another one too is Facebook Messenger. You cannot turn off the scene component, you know, and there's a reason for that because you feel that pressure, don't you? They know that I have seen it. And in fact, I had that intuition validated when I had someone confront me and said, why haven't you responded to my message yet? And I'm like, how do you not recognize that this feeling that you have, that you resent me for not getting back to you sooner? How do you not recognize that this has been engineered by these people and they want us on this application all day long? Like how do you, even if you have that jealous feeling or that mad feeling or that kind of, you know, whatever, how do you not see that we're being set up to feel this way? I don't want you to feel this way. You do feel this way. And now we're fighting. Where are we fighting? On Messenger, of course, you know, it's just nuts. [Speaker 2] (1:17:30 - 1:18:09) Yeah. But even from an awareness standpoint, I noticed myself having these thoughts, like when I see a person's scene message, you know, and then I go like, well, why didn't they respond? They've seen it. Why didn't they respond? It only required like even an emoji or a quick response, you know, so I noticed, it's like, I noticed it. And then like a part of me wants to come in and like be annoyed. I go like, that's silly. Like, I'm not gonna, I'm noticing that the thoughts coming there, but I'm not gonna then indulge it any further. And I move on with my life and do other things that are more valuable. But it's interesting just to be aware of all these things that are going on, which I appreciate. That's the thing I, what'd you say? [Speaker 1] (1:18:09 - 1:18:16) I do get pretty depressed when you don't reply right away. When I drop off the story, that's, you know, but it's only two or three days. [Speaker 3] (1:18:16 - 1:18:21) It's not a big deal. Yeah, but no, what he's telling you is that he just flicks through them all anyway. So you think that he's seen them. [Speaker 2] (1:18:22 - 1:18:33) No, but this is a strategy. This is a strategy that people, I think, totally do. Because it's like, do people look at all your stuff or are they just tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap and go through to the next one? [Speaker 3] (1:18:33 - 1:18:35) Stop projecting onto everyone, bro. It's your shit. [Speaker 2] (1:18:35 - 1:19:12) No, no, I'm serious. No, because I'm not really a story person. Like I tell my wife all the time, like I can't, I know myself, like knowing yourself, you can get addicted to some of these things. And of course, social media inherently, they've programmed us in this way to get addicted to these things. Especially if we, you know, we allow ourselves, but then they understand the vulnerability of the human psyche and they fucking engineered this shit. Anyways, like I try not to look at stories too often because of that. But I'm always curious, like what do people do? Because I've had conversations with people where they say they do that. Like the things I'm talking about right now, people have told me like, oh yeah, well I just go through them because I don't want people to think that I stopped looking at them. [Speaker 1] (1:19:13 - 1:19:14) That's bad. [Speaker 2] (1:19:14 - 1:19:15) You know? [Speaker 1] (1:19:15 - 1:19:15) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:19:16 - 1:19:43) So, because listen, we're living in a world where people are going along to get along. They don't want people to think ill of them. They're not speaking their truth. You know, they're worried like what their mom, dad, teacher, coworker are gonna say, you know? And so like, they're doing these things online. Like this behavior, these patterns are showing up in the simple act of scrolling through a person's entire story, even though they're not looking at it because they don't want the person to think that they don't like them or whatever the case may be. [Speaker 3] (1:19:43 - 1:19:52) Most people have developed pseudo selves, which they maintain through their social media. And they behave based on what they think is best suited for that pseudo self. [Speaker 1] (1:19:53 - 1:21:01) It's such exhausting and fruitless effort too. You know, there's no vain oblations. In the Bible, someone attributes to God, God's like, stop bringing me this shit. I don't want it. Like these stupid burnt offerings and stuff. It makes me sick. And I hate these solemn gatherings and all this. And I was like, that's pretty cool. I like that. Like no vain oblations. I'm not gonna do dumb things so that other people don't get upset with me. Like if you wanna like really, if you really wanna undertake a truly kind of courageous journey towards personal freedom, refuse to do anything that you think is stupid in order to stave off the possibility that somebody important or not will be upset with you or not like you. I won't do stupid things. And I feel it inside that thing that says, well, you could do this little thing, even though it's meaningless or whatever. And it might prevent somebody from getting upset. I'm not interested in preventing people from getting upset with me over ridiculous things. I, it is too much psychic energy. It's too much time. It's too much effort. And so what, what, when they don't get upset with me about that, I move on to the next person or to the same person next event or whatever. It's like, I'm gonna live my life that way. I'm not gonna do that. It's exhausting. [Speaker 3] (1:21:02 - 1:21:10) And it's damaging to your own integrity as well. You know what I mean? So each time you make those little acts to just kind of diminish what is actually real. [Speaker 1] (1:21:10 - 1:21:12) A little sliver of my soul for you. [Speaker 3] (1:21:12 - 1:21:13) Yeah, exactly. [Speaker 1] (1:21:14 - 1:22:11) Every time, every time I participate in a stupid interpersonal interaction, you know, something that I know inside, this is ridiculous. This isn't, this isn't meaningful. This isn't like a gesture. I'm doing it for them. I'm sacrificing for them in a meaningful way because it's really important or whatever. This is like a little thing that social media has contrived to facilitate between us. It's something that they're, I don't like accommodating other people's patterns. I just won't do it because I feel as if I am enabling in a very meaningful way. I am enabling a pattern that on the whole will result in suffering for them. That's not necessary. And so I wouldn't want somebody to do that to me. And so, you know, I'd rather somebody not comply with my wishes and piss me off now than do something they don't want to do in order to avoid my reaction and keep me in the state of being a jerk, right? Who, you know, people do things they don't want to do so that they don't have to deal with the consequences from me. I don't want that. And I also don't want to participate on the other end of it. [Speaker 3] (1:22:11 - 1:22:14) Yeah, absolutely, man. Just don't ever leave your asthma on scene, okay? [Speaker 1] (1:22:15 - 1:22:18) Yeah, well, of course. Well, he's an exception. [Speaker 2] (1:22:18 - 1:22:38) Moving forward, every time I go look at our message machines, I'm going to screenshot when it says scene and then I'm going to like start my timer to see how long it takes you. And then I'm going to videotape myself doing that. And then I'm going to send you the video of that process just so you can feel bad about yourself. [Speaker 1] (1:22:39 - 1:22:46) Yeah. This is the guy that said he has an important life but that he can't spend all his time on social media, right? This is pretty elaborate. [Speaker 2] (1:22:47 - 1:22:51) Well, I spend plenty of time on social media but not scrolling through stories nonstop. [Speaker 1] (1:22:53 - 1:23:04) I see there are a couple of people who look through mine consistently, even when there's like a whole bunch of them. I kind of worry about them. I think, boy, I don't know why you're reading all these. [Speaker 2] (1:23:05 - 1:23:12) Listen, bro, they're probably just scrolling through so that you think that they're reading all of them. [Speaker 3] (1:23:12 - 1:23:16) Now you're being judged for watching stories which are shared. This is another thing you got to think about, all right? [Speaker 1] (1:23:17 - 1:23:23) It is. So on one hand, you don't want to be a jerk but on the other hand, you want to say, boy, look at this loser. He looked at 500 stories. What's he doing? [Speaker 2] (1:23:24 - 1:23:30) You know what's wild is like 15 years ago, this isn't even a conversation that would even be. [Speaker 1] (1:23:30 - 1:23:31) I know, I know. [Speaker 2] (1:23:32 - 1:23:52) That's what's so trippy about how things are evolving from a technological standpoint. We're using these languages and these words and memes and it's just like wild, man. Like 100 years ago, some of these people, these authors that we read their books, they just didn't even have this experiences. We're saying words like I Googled this thing and I sent them email and I Facebooked and stories. [Speaker 3] (1:23:52 - 1:23:57) It's always been the case. It's always been the case that as technology's moved on, it's not like, you know what I mean? [Speaker 2] (1:23:57 - 1:24:06) Yeah, you're right. But I also feel like it's happening in an exponential level that's impacting human consciousness more than it has in the past. But correct me if I'm wrong. [Speaker 3] (1:24:07 - 1:24:08) Definitely, 100%, I agree with that. [Speaker 1] (1:24:09 - 1:24:55) Yeah, and I mean, like having a printing press so that there are books in a library that you can go to versus having everyone in your pocket at all times, every vice, every, you know, all this different stuff. I sometimes fantasize about not having a phone anymore. And actually there's a memory that's kind of seared in my mind from I think 2007 when I had a flip phone in college and I threw it away. Like I literally threw it in the garbage because it was too oppressive. And I think back to that and I think to my life now and I think, God, like that's, who was that guy? What a brave cowboy back there in 2000. Like he wouldn't be tethered to a razor flip phone where he could get texts from his mom and his girlfriend. That was too much. And I threw it in the garbage. And now I have like a computer that I carry around for no good reason at all. [Speaker 2] (1:24:55 - 1:25:37) I remember having a beeper, bro, in high school, dude. I had a beeper in high school. And like, you know, like the person you're dating would beep you one, four, three, which meant I love you, you know? So I, that's crazy to think about these things. And I'm right there with you. Like, I can't tell you how many times I tell Sophie, like there's a time where I wish I just didn't have this. But then I think, oh man, like Joel and I, you know, we work together. We have a podcast. We got to promote our podcast. Like I use Waze when I drive. Like, I want to throw this away. And then I also go, but I also love certain elements of the technology and the advancement. So again, it's a tool. How do you use the tool? Do you have consciousness over it? Or does it control you? You know, that's what we have to navigate. [Speaker 3] (1:25:37 - 1:25:41) Again, man, it's your relationship with it, right? Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:25:42 - 1:25:53) But it is nice to take those breaks. You know, I feel like I'm due soon for like a few day break and just work and do some yard work and just be under the sun and enjoy the wind. [Speaker 1] (1:25:53 - 1:26:53) Just to see what it's like. It's kind of like one of the things I was telling Melissa. Like we spend tons of time together. I mean, we work from home together and we go everywhere together and all this different stuff. And it's a lot of fun. And like, I never find myself saying, God, I wish I had some alone time. Like I don't crave alone time when we're together. But then every once in a while, she'll go out to do something or have an event that she'll go to or overnight or whatever. And I love that experience. And it's not because of her absence. It's because there is a total interruption to the structure. And I get to see what happens. What do I do? Maybe I'll go down to this room and do this and tidy this up and reorganize that and all this. Like, and that's the thing I crave kind of with the phone sometimes. Let me rediscover what life is like without it. Not to like throw it away forever because I'm gonna abstain, you know, to be like a technological hermit. But like, let me live a day without it because it is subtly different. And, you know, the presence of the phone affords you with the opportunity to enjoy the contrast of not having it. Whereas someone in the seventies, they didn't enjoy not having a phone because they didn't have the reference point. You know what I mean? [Speaker 3] (1:26:55 - 1:27:02) Absolutely, man. Steven, we'll wrap this one up here. Such a pleasure to chat to you, dude. Thank you so much for coming on. [Speaker 1] (1:27:03 - 1:27:04) I had a lot of fun. Thanks for having me. [Speaker 2] (1:27:04 - 1:27:11) Yeah. Are you aware of the fact that you were having a lot of fun with the watcher watching you? As you said that, did you know? I'm just curious. Or do you just say it? [Speaker 1] (1:27:12 - 1:27:24) I'm in a chronic state of horror at the prospect of my saying something utterly inappropriate in the next sentence. That's the whole time. But I didn't resist it. And therefore I was at peace the entire time. [Speaker 2] (1:27:25 - 1:27:37) Dude, man. Thank you so much for coming on. Definitely appreciate you real quickly. I know we'll put your links down below, but how can people find you? Anything exciting happening right now for you that you want people to know about? [Speaker 1] (1:27:37 - 1:28:17) Yeah, I'm on Instagram. Steven Robinson, you can find me. Every bit of life university is the website. Melissa and I post most of our courses and stuff. We do have something pretty cool coming up. At the end of March, we're launching something called awareness school, appropriately enough, which is where we go through a 10 week kind of group coaching thing where we guide people through the ever better life course, which is just if you're interested in the personal growth stuff that I've talked about here, it's basically lots and lots and lots and lots of that. And so we're starting that up. Pretty excited about it. So if that's something that you're interested in, you can still get in. This is our second time doing it. We did it for the first kind of official time last year. We had a lot of fun. So awesome. [Speaker 3] (1:28:17 - 1:28:26) Yeah, I mean, I'm surprised it wasn't in your bio because it's the most important thing about you. But for those that don't know, Stephen is the partner of Dr. Melissa Sell from episode 22 to 23. [Speaker 2] (1:28:28 - 1:28:32) One of our most watched episodes, by the way. And I hope you can keep up. [Speaker 1] (1:28:32 - 1:28:35) If not, I'll just make sure I don't mention it. [Speaker 3] (1:28:35 - 1:28:55) It is one of our most watched episodes. So yeah, that awareness school with Stephen and Melissa would definitely keep your eye on that for sure. Guys, thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next time. Take care. ♪ Somebody set the alarms to save me two busy snooze ♪ ♪ And I'm in a DeLorean ♪