input.md

{ "comments": null, "duration": 84, "transcript": "You can\u0026#39;t necessarily think yourself into\nthe answers. You have to create space for the answers to come to you.\nYou have this amazing introduction. You say the West is dying and we are killing her.\nThe American dream has been replaced by mass packaged mediocrity porn, encouraging us to\nrevel like happy pigs in our own meekness. Yo, that rips. You know, one of the best of\nthe books are like, you\u0026#39;re messed up. And here\u0026#39;s like nonfiction about how you can be\nless messed up. There\u0026#39;s just not that many people who have the courage\nto reach beyond consensus and go explore new ideas.\nI\u0026#39;m like, cool. I\u0026#39;ll start watching Netflix when I\u0026#39;ve read the whole of human history.\nLike, it was... Reva, why does Rilke\u0026#39;s poetry resonate with\nyou so, so deeply? The guy writes about ecstasy, um, and I, that\nwas kind of become corrupted now. Cause like in the past you think about religious ecstasy\nor spiritual ecstasy, right? In yoga you have these phrases now, but Rilke saw beauty in\neverything. Like he describes, he\u0026#39;s like, I\u0026#39;m looking at a door, a chair, a flower.\nI see the ecstasy of everything. He sees. It\u0026#39;s in one little thing, a representation\nof all things that are beautiful. And um, I don\u0026#39;t know many writers that can do, notice\nin such, with such subtlety, detail that is, provokes such beauty. So it\u0026#39;s like, he\u0026#39;s not\nappealing to vast heavens. He\u0026#39;s just noticing things around you and re looking them from\nfirst principles and saying like, how beautiful life is.\nIt\u0026#39;s just very moving. I think it deeply resonates with some people, not with everybody, but\nif you\u0026#39;re an ecstatic person, then yes. Well, it\u0026#39;s funny that you talk about\nthe beauty and subtlety. I\u0026#39;ve been thinking a lot about the word vanilla and people see\nvanilla as a bad thing, but actually vanilla is a very subtle flavor, and I think it speaks\nto sort of the sensory overload of the modern age, where something that does have that subtlety,\nit\u0026#39;s like people don\u0026#39;t even have the receptors to appreciate it.\nHow contoured something can be in these very subtle ways.\nYeah. I went to an underworld concert last night. You remember the underworld? I don\u0026#39;t\nknow. It was, I don\u0026#39;t know what year, what year was underworld? Uh, 2000s. Okay. They\u0026#39;re\nin the Hackers soundtrack. That\u0026#39;s like how they got the most famous. Are they like Nirvana?\nNo, it\u0026#39;s more electronic music. It\u0026#39;s kind of a mix between like Prodigy and Radiohead\nis where I place it. Cool. Love Radiohead. When we saw them perform last night and it\u0026#39;s\nlike two older guys with no stage, right? But the guys performing have such vibe that\nthey hold all your attention just with gentle body movements.\nLike, he was such an incredible dancer. Not like a cheesy way, it\u0026#39;s electronic music.\nBut he held everyone\u0026#39;s attention because it was as if the music flowed through him. And\nyou compare that to something like Katy Perry. She has like 75, I saw this aircraft or something.\nIt\u0026#39;s like 75 actors like waving. It\u0026#39;s like Universal Studios in all of her\nsets, right? Because I think to actually strip that back and have people like Taylor Swift\nand stuff like this like perform songs, we\u0026#39;ve lost the ability, like people have such a\nshort attention span that they need something so theatrical. And last night there was such\nelegance in this guy\u0026#39;s performance, I couldn\u0026#39;t stop thinking about it.\nThere\u0026#39;s like no set, but you just, everybody\u0026#39;s like hypnotic, everyone was so captivated\nby it. But now everything is just shocking because we don\u0026#39;t have, we don\u0026#39;t have good\nattention span anymore. Yeah, I think this comes back to writing in the way that\nwe don\u0026#39;t read things as much repetitively. Right.\nRight. You know, like when most people think about reading, they think about, Oh, how many\nbooks did you read this year? Reading the news. But like, if you think of the Greeks,\nthey memorize poems. It was funny. I was in a Bible study and there\u0026#39;s a guy named Jimmy.\nAnd Jimmy\u0026#39;s understanding of scripture is just like next level from everybody else.\nAnd he\u0026#39;s a smart guy, but I was like, something\u0026#39;s different. I said, Jimmy, like, how do you\nknow the Bible so well? And he goes, you know what I do that no one else does? I would,\nhe goes, I memorize entire chapters of the Bible. And when you memorize chapters, it\ntakes a few months, but you really understand how things are structured and you understand\nthe subtleties that almost get revealed to you through repetition.\nAnd I was like, there, there\u0026#39;s something there. Well, not even just that. I mean, I\ntotally agree. But another thing is that you learn more as you get older, which allows\nyou to unlock things in texts that you might have missed before. I think we\u0026#39;ve had this\nconversation previously, which is that I\u0026#39;ve probably read Atlas Frye, like every two years,\nbut like 15 years. Right. And I look back and I wish that I\u0026#39;d\nunderstood it better as a teenager, but you had to have the. Um, the wisdom and the experiences\nto unlock the context of the things that she was referring to. So as you get older, if\nthere\u0026#39;s books that moved you when you were younger, it\u0026#39;s like worth going back and rereading\nthem to see like what nuggets you couldn\u0026#39;t possibly have had, you know, comprehension\nfor when you were a little bit more naive. So I do read books regularly that I\u0026#39;ve read\nbefore because I, I have placed in them some value that there are lessons already that\nI want to learn from and perhaps more than I just haven\u0026#39;t discovered yet.\nWhy is her writing so captivating to you? Um, I think, well, her and I, I started reading\nRobert Pelesek, who I also like, the same friend of mine, but she takes philosophy and\ninstead of making it like, here\u0026#39;s an argument as to why you shouldn\u0026#39;t subscribe to X, um,\nshe puts the characteristics that she values in characters.\nAnd by doing that, you see the embodiment of those characters and their actions in a\nway that I think is more in, you know, you can invoke the, um, a much deeper and richer\nexperience of what those qualities might look like in real life by witnessing them as characters\nin fiction, as opposed to like a very logical, like, you know, matter of fact, philosophical\ntreaties. So I just think it brings alive the references\nof character that if you just read like, you know, humility or greatness, it\u0026#39;s, you read\nthe world, you know what it means, but if you describe it in a character and see those\nactions, it becomes much richer and much more alive. So she took You know, complicated philosophy\nand embodied it in, in a way that anybody could resonate with and you see, you know,\nyour friends and characters, right? Things I said this before, like sometimes\nwhen people piss me off, I\u0026#39;m like, they remind me of Lillian Ridden, right? So she gave you\nthat framework to understand what she was pointing to in a much deeper way.\nI\u0026#39;m always amazed at the percentage of people who I admire how they think I admire how they\nreason I admire how they move through the world How many of them studied philosophy?\nSo what\u0026#39;s going on with the disconnect of oh philosophy is a useless major And oh my\ngoodness. There\u0026#39;s something so core here. That isn\u0026#39;t just Something that has to do with\nthe actual ideas, but something about how to reason and how to work with ideas and almost\nconfigure them like Rubik\u0026#39;s cubes or something.\nI, I remember when I applied for my philosophy undergrad and I, my, you have to use in America,\nbut in England you have to write a cover letter that\u0026#39;s like to the university saying like\nwhy they should recruit you into that program. And I opened my, um, letter to University\nCollege London saying that using Bertrand Russell\u0026#39;s definition of philosophy, which\nis that. Philosophy is a no man\u0026#39;s land between theology\nand science, which I really liked as like an answer, right? It\u0026#39;s like, it\u0026#39;s asking questions\nthat lots of other groups are trying to answer but it\u0026#39;s the question formation. And the thing\nthat frustrated me about my philosophy degree is that I found just studying the history\nof the questions less interesting than trying to figure them out.\nSo contemporary academic philosophy becomes like, can you recite Descartes questions or,\nyou know, and what I want to do is like, okay, well, how do we go about solving this? And\nI was like, no, no, we leave that to the other realms. So now actually Oxford University\nin England, you do philosophy and they really recommend it.\nI don\u0026#39;t know if it\u0026#39;s compulsory to do it alongside a science. So you did a philosophy and physics.\nI mean, that would have been my dream course, like philosophy and physics, like what you\nask the questions, you go think about them. That sounds great. But I was like learning\nabout Descartes and like Cartesian dualism and I thought to myself, isn\u0026#39;t it a bit redundant\nto study this and not talk to neurologists or psychiatrists like other people from other\nfields? So just the history of philosophy, philosophy\njust being the history of questions isn\u0026#39;t as exciting as people actually trying to answer\nthose questions. And I think that\u0026#39;s very, like, there\u0026#39;s not many examples of people\ndoing that now. People are putting forward new ideas or just, you know, analyzing previous\nones. So whenever I want to take a risk, I get really\nexcited. What\u0026#39;s going on there? We said we\u0026#39;re in a creativity recession, which is a good\nlittle way to phrase that. Yeah, you know, it\u0026#39;s, it\u0026#39;s one\nof those things I think it\u0026#39;s hard to unpack, there\u0026#39;s not like one simple causation. I think\nthe education system has, the Overton window for education has become smaller and smaller\nto the point where like we\u0026#39;re basically taking children and tying them to sort of like adult\nbulls on SSRIs, right?\nI say docile and delirious drones, drugged into oblivion, dishing out ADHD pills like\nHalloween candy. Yes, exactly that. Um, so there\u0026#39;s one aspect which\nI think is, um, you know. People care a lot about freedom and agency in adults without\nrealizing that people lose it as a child. Um, so that\u0026#39;s one direction.\nThe other thing is that I think there\u0026#39;s a lot of cultural nihilism. Because there\u0026#39;s\nlots of negative messaging going on in society. Like, we\u0026#39;re always close to the world endings\nof climate change. And we\u0026#39;re always at the threat of war or something else. Um, in those,\nin that period of keeping people scared, also it\u0026#39;s like hard to take risks or be creative\nbecause you\u0026#39;re trying to be protective, like you\u0026#39;re trying to protect and be defensive.\nYou\u0026#39;re making this point about protectionism and\nhow that hurts creativity. I think that there\u0026#39;s something to a short time horizon and a lack\nof beauty. What is the point of making something beautiful if the world\u0026#39;s going to end in 10\nyears? Like why would you even take on that challenge?\n100%. Right? Like you changed the concept of time and people\u0026#39;s\nlives. And you put in this place, this extreme fear. Now, why did people build such beautiful\nchurches 500 years ago? They had shorter life expectancies than we did. Right. Right. Which\nis crazy. But how people thought of themselves with inside, like, structures of the church\nand what eternal means, like, there was different reasoning of, like, there was lifetime, which\nyou were alive, and then there was your legacy. And your legacy was, if not more valuable\nthan your life, because your life was so fragile and people died from sickness and ill health.\nNow people are really healthy. They\u0026#39;re full of fear, even though they lived three times\nas long as anyone in the 16th century. But in that culture of, of like, fear and thinking\nthat bad things are going to happen, it\u0026#39;s like, okay, we\u0026#39;re going to move towards hedonism\nand short term rewards. Cause what\u0026#39;s the point of spending, it\u0026#39;s crazy\nnow to think of spending 50 years building and building. I mean, it probably takes that\nlong in San Francisco now anyway, which I mean, the government now makes it, but in\nthe past it used to just be so beautiful. That\u0026#39;s why it would take such a long time,\nbut you know, it was beyond themselves. Like, you know, I\u0026#39;m going to the Vatican next,\nnext week. It\u0026#39;s not like everyone who worked on these projects was like, well, I need to\nsee it within an ROI of my lifetime. It was building together towards higher purposes\nand, and legacy and divine and, and something that I talk about in my film, which is like,\nfaith. What is faith? And faith is an integrity,\nI think so value to, to some level of values like it\u0026#39;s. It\u0026#39;s, it\u0026#39;s a personal responsibility\nto something, um, and it\u0026#39;s, and it\u0026#39;s noble. And right now it\u0026#39;s, it\u0026#39;s, it\u0026#39;s also fast and,\num, like you said, like, uh, very short term. Very short term. Well,\nI think the faith thing is deep because at some level trying to achieve anything great\nYou can\u0026#39;t reason your way into some justification for wanting to do that.\nIt\u0026#39;s almost even hard to quantify the outer limits of beauty. Something that is beautiful,\nyou just know it\u0026#39;s beautiful, but you can\u0026#39;t be like, you can\u0026#39;t look at the Duomo in Florence\nand be like, Oh, that\u0026#39;s beautiful. I can like explain like the ROI economic value. Like\nfor me, so much of. What faith has given me in terms of pursuing something beautiful is\njust like my relationship with God and just trying to please him and Having that be my\nonly justification and nothing in the material realm as something that\u0026#39;s pushing me or driving\nme Yeah, well, I unfortunately think you\u0026#39;re a very rare case If there was a lot more of\nthat energy in the world that people would probably make more beautiful things But to\nthe point of the Duomo in Florence So my mom my mother who you know has the crazy researcher\ngene whenever that I have It\u0026#39;s currently studying Vasari\u0026#39;s lives as an artist, like an account\nof like 16th century Italian artists. And one of the ones she\u0026#39;s studying is Masaccio,\nand his entire life pretty much, I\u0026#39;m pretty sure it\u0026#39;s Masaccio, spent 40 years just making\nthe door of the Duomo of Florence. Like, imagine if you said this to someone now, right? Even\ncarpentry and stuff like that isn\u0026#39;t recognized as like a beautiful skill anymore, like now\neverything is machine manufactured and it\u0026#39;s come from somewhere, like, we don\u0026#39;t really\nvalue like beautiful words, beautiful Imagine saying to someone in this present age, the\nguy spent 40 years just making a door, everyone would be like, what a joker.\nRight? Like, it sounds so farfetched. There\u0026#39;s something so beautiful in that that he was\nlike, I want to get this little thing. I have this little opportunity to deliver beauty\non something that\u0026#39;s going to last for hundreds, if not thousands of years. And I\u0026#39;m going to\nput my everything into it. There\u0026#39;s a level of formality of like showing up to the craft\nthat we\u0026#39;re really missing now because we\u0026#39;re surrounded by cheap and short term things\nfrom furniture to like media. Everything is cheap and fast. He spent 40\nyears making a door, and now everyone queues up to go see it because it\u0026#39;s so beautiful.\nDid he not win? I think he won. Yeah. He got what he wanted. I mean, I think you see\nit in writing, in how many things are sort of mass produced and clearly books as business\ncards, and the writing that I think both of us admire.\nI mean, I know that you walked Nietzsche\u0026#39;s trail. He wasn\u0026#39;t trying to make a business\ncard. He wasn\u0026#39;t trying to have an ROI It was like a crazy guy who saw something about the\nnature of reality and needed to express it Yeah, you\u0026#39;d go on these walks and have these\ncrazy ideas and then had this very aphoristic style that was n equals one And I would also\nsay, um, I heard the story about Zadie Smith. She\u0026#39;s just not on the internet because she\ndoesn\u0026#39;t want to even hear what her critics think. And I just think that that\u0026#39;s awesome.\nLike, I\u0026#39;m just increasingly thinking I\u0026#39;m way too connected. Like, the feedback loop is\ntoo fast. Yeah, I, I would almost say that the best\nthing I\u0026#39;ve ever done in my life was like, in the last two years, just completely disengaged\nYeah. I was talking with my boyfriend about this,\nlike, I haven\u0026#39;t, we looked at the top 50 grossest grossing films of the last decade. I hadn\u0026#39;t\nseen, I seen like one of them maybe. In terms of TV shows, like from Mad Men to any cultural\nreferences you\u0026#39;ve heard, all these things I\u0026#39;ve heard about, I\u0026#39;ve never even consumed\na second. I\u0026#39;ve never had, I\u0026#39;ve never watched Netflix.\nUm, I do, I go on Twitter is where I kind of get news, but I even kind of disengaged\nfrom that about a year ago. And it puts me in a state of like some fear because like\nI don\u0026#39;t always know exactly what\u0026#39;s going on in the world, but I, it will get to me eventually.\nBut I also am so, um, perplexed by how open people are to just consuming the media that\nis around them passively. I\u0026#39;m like, I\u0026#39;m very selective what I put inside my mind, right?\nLike, I\u0026#39;m like, cool. I\u0026#39;ll start watching Netflix when I\u0026#39;ve read the whole of human\nhistory. Like, I\u0026#39;m really, I\u0026#39;d rather read the Odyssey a hundred times than watch Netflix.\nLike, I am not looking for passive entertainment. And I think that\u0026#39;s a, um, like a skill or\nlike, uh, not defensive. It\u0026#39;s like some kind of limit that people are not putting on themselves\nenough. Like, I\u0026#39;m so surprised by how many of my, you know, smart intellectual friends\ncome home and they just zone out. It\u0026#39;s like TV shows. I just can\u0026#39;t think of\nanything worse. Um, like for me, like it has to have something that I\u0026#39;m like, I, I want,\nI have so many things I want to learn. Like, I don\u0026#39;t want to just be entertained. Right.\nUm, and I watched the Barbie movie and wrote that review and I, I remember like watching\nthe Barbie movie and thinking to myself, like, this would be such an interesting way for\nme to understand zeitgeist. And halfway through, I was like, I have no\nidea what\u0026#39;s going on. I\u0026#39;m so confused. Like I hear people\u0026#39;s conversations and I think,\nand now that I\u0026#39;m out of zeitgeist, I can\u0026#39;t place all the conversation topics anymore.\nBut it\u0026#39;s been great. I think it\u0026#39;s a very valuable skill. Something that I\u0026#39;ve really\ncome to appreciate is just the value of deep reading, and that sounds so trite, but basically\nI wrote a piece a few years ago called against three X speed, which was basically a condemnation\nof this idea of like. I got in the car with somebody and he, you\nknow, sometimes like the car will turn on and then the thing that they were listening\nto will automatically play. Yeah. And he was listening to an audiobook at like 5x speed.\nAnd I was like, dude, normally listen to books like this? He goes, yeah, yeah, what I do\nis I\u0026#39;ve figured out it\u0026#39;s better to like listen to it two or three times, but then I listened\nto the entire thing. I was like. Dude, that\u0026#39;s crazy. And I just\ngave me so much anxiety. I was like, I\u0026#39;m not gonna do that. And then back to the philosophy\npoint, I had some friends who, when I was living in New York, they were at Columbia,\nand I took, uh, they invited me to a class, and the entire semester was on the, like,\n300 pages of Max Weber, like basically all about The, the Protestant work ethic and I\nwas like, this is interesting. I never realized you could go so deep in something.\nYeah, and now I\u0026#39;ve ended up all the way on the other side of the barbell like the only\nbook that I read is the Bible and I just spend every day trying to like understand one little\nsection of the Old Testament and the New Testament and like I read it and then I read Uh, one\nstudy Bible, the ESB, and then I read this like biblical theology study Bible.\nSo I read two study Bibles, get the etymologies and stuff like that. And then I go based on\nthat, I journal on what do I need to know? Who do I need to be? What do I need to do?\nAnd I do it every day, every day. And then me and my friend Brent, we text each other\nwhat we will do. And I\u0026#39;ve been doing it for like six months and it\u0026#39;s changed my life more\nthan any other learning habit. And it\u0026#39;s not even close. Like it\u0026#39;s changed\nme at the level of my heart, not just my mind, which has\nbeen beautiful. Yeah. I have some friends who\u0026#39;ve done similar kind of in depth biblical\nstudy and I am so envious. Like I want to do that. That is sounds amazing. And, uh,\nwhen I first applied to university, I applied to philosophy and theology because I wanted\nto study kind of New Testament manuscripts was something I\u0026#39;ve been thinking about for\nlike the last year, but I was trying to understand. And you had an amazing tweet. Do you remember\nyou had a tweet like, um, it was like a couple of years ago where you said, it\u0026#39;s crazy, like\nhow people don\u0026#39;t study or read the Bible, considering the fact it\u0026#39;s been around for\na really long time. It\u0026#39;s had such a huge effect, regardless of your faith. Yeah. Like there\u0026#39;s\nthis book that for some reason, even if you don\u0026#39;t think about it, it has shaped human\nhistory, especially in the West. And I was talking to a friend saying, she\nsaid that her friend, her other friend\u0026#39;s eight year old child asked her who Jesus Christ\nwas. And I was like, wow, this is really crazy to me. Cause like as an eight year old, like\nI, I mean, I went to a Christian school. So just to far fetch, it\u0026#39;s been so out of the\nzeitgeist that people don\u0026#39;t know, but uh, you know, studying these texts, like there\u0026#39;s\na reason they stood the test of time. Like people found something. It\u0026#39;s the most\nword read book in the world. Like the Bible is like, maybe people should consider it.\nLike it\u0026#39;s the fact that that\u0026#39;s like a radical position is crazy. Well,\nit\u0026#39;s insane because you know, if you ask some intellectual, right. You\u0026#39;re like, Hey, what\ndo you think of Plato? They\u0026#39;re like. And say they haven\u0026#39;t read it.\nThey\u0026#39;ll be like, Oh, I, you know, I haven\u0026#39;t read Plato and they\u0026#39;ll be really embarrassed.\nHaven\u0026#39;t read Nietzsche. I\u0026#39;ll be really embarrassed. Haven\u0026#39;t read Kant. Be very embarrassed. Haven\u0026#39;t\nread the Bible. And they\u0026#39;ll be like proud to have not read the Bible. I have resisted\nsuch dogma. I am in the age of reason now. And yeah, I\nthink that\u0026#39;s crazy. The biases around personal life\nand thinking are really insane. The fact that you can disregard a text that has been so\nfoundational to all of Western thought, even just from a self explanatory anthropology\nthing, like, why is our culture the way it is?\nLike, maybe you should read, people should read historical texts. Netflix. Like, yes,\nI need to, like, read the Bible intensely. I did actually read the Bible a lot when I\nwas a kid. Like, I didn\u0026#39;t come from a Christian family, but I was interested in religious\ntexts. And I read a bunch of the Bible when I was younger and then again when I was in\nmy university degree. And I was kind of like shaped, shaping myself\nas an atheist, especially during university. And like, as I\u0026#39;ve got older and changed my\nviews on that, I have started to pick up reading religious texts, but that\u0026#39;s what led me into\nstudying the manuscript. So like, I\u0026#39;ve just gone the other way and like now the history\nof the manuscripts in the Bible, which has like become a recent obsession, as opposed\nto like reading the Bible. It\u0026#39;s just like, I\u0026#39;m not probably doing the\nthing that\u0026#39;s going to give me any wisdom. I\u0026#39;m just finding the conspiracies about the\nmanuscripts. But it\u0026#39;s so fascinating, it\u0026#39;s like, I don\u0026#39;t know, more people should be\nreading it. Wait, tell me about those conspiracies.\nWell, I, when I was, uh, like thinking about what I should work on next after the pathogen\nessay, I wanted to do something very different. And I started thinking about history just\nas a field, I was like, well, you know, history is one of those weird fields because it sounds\nso, um, soft and friendly, like, oh, history. But history is kind of like the foundation\nof propaganda. Like, how people define the past is how people place themselves in the\npresent. And, like, we all know, like, the winner\u0026#39;s\noften right, the vic the victories, they, they go back and, like, the ultimate power\nis to be able to, like, change civilization or kill people or, like, whatever, and also\nbe able to, like, hide and get them done. Like, the, the point is everyone wants to\nlook like the good guys, so. You know, if allies and if things, different\nthings have been had different in WWII, like it would have been very different now. Right.\nIn terms of how we think about history. But, um, the question I asked myself was like,\nokay, let me think of like a book that has been so foundational. And it was around the\ntime when you wrote your tweet as well, because I was reading out my old notes earlier.\nAnd I thought to myself, well, if I\u0026#39;m going to study the New Testament, I want to read\nthe oldest New Testament. And that\u0026#39;s how this started. Right? I was like, what\u0026#39;s the oldest\nNew Testament? And the oldest New Testament, there\u0026#39;s lots of fragments of the New Testament,\nbut the oldest claiming New Testament, like entire copy, um, Codex, the Codex Sinaiticus,\nwhich was discovered in the late 19th century by a biblical researcher called Constantine\nTischendorf, which is meant to be from the fourth century.\nIt\u0026#39;s meant to be one of Constantine\u0026#39;s 50 Bibles that he sent around to like, re discover,\nlike redistribute Christianity. It\u0026#39;s like, it\u0026#39;s meant to be one of Constantine\u0026#39;s 50,\n50 New Testaments, and it\u0026#39;s written in a codex. All the other, all the other manuscripts are\nwritten on scrolls. And I started looking into this story, the story just got weirder\nand weirder. And it just fascinated me. Like I\u0026#39;ve, I\u0026#39;ve\nprobably written 80 pages on it so far. Like, I don\u0026#39;t even know what it is. Like, I\u0026#39;m like,\nwho is going to read my like deep dive of like the New Testament manuscript? You will.\nIt\u0026#39;s fine. David will. You\u0026#39;ll read it. So it\u0026#39;s okay. But, um, this story is just crazy\nbecause Konstantin Tischendorf, the researcher, claims he found the manuscript in Mount Sinai\nMonastery in Egypt, which is the oldest continuous Christian monastery in the world.\nHe says that he rescued the oldest Bible, the oldest New Testament copy. From monks\nwho are using it as, to put the fire, like throwing into the fire and using it to like\nbustle a fire. Now that story is a little weird because it\u0026#39;s a beautiful text. It\u0026#39;s\nmade on parchment, not on papyrus. It\u0026#39;s very expensive.\nIt\u0026#39;s got beautiful, like manuscript. No, you know, old school monastery would use this\nas like fire paper, right? So the story goes a little fishy, and then you look into it\nmore and it\u0026#39;s like, well, they didn\u0026#39;t even burn, even if it was like heretical text.\nPeople don\u0026#39;t, like, Christians and Jews, like, they don\u0026#39;t burn the texts, they bury them.\nLike, think about the Dead Sea Scrolls, think about, if it\u0026#39;s heretical, you bury it at a\npoint near to a cemetery. So, I started doing all this investigative research into the testament\nmanuscripts, like, I don\u0026#39;t know, I just don\u0026#39;t think that version is from the 4th century\nas it is claimed. So, my argument in this is that this original New Testament full manuscript\nis not actually from the 4th century, it\u0026#39;s probably been doctored in the 19th.\nThat\u0026#39;s not to refute Christianity. That\u0026#39;s just one version. I think the guy was trying\nto get glory and say like, I found the oldest, right? But there\u0026#39;s a lot of weird things that\nhappen around religion because at the time religion was politics. So, well,\nI think we\u0026#39;re actually getting to the core of a lot of your writing and creative process,\nwhich is you are willing to ask questions that other people are willing to ask.\nAnd I mean, I just think naturally you\u0026#39;re just drawn to these super esoteric places.\nI mean, the way that I think about you and people like you is like, if the world of ideas\nhas these guardrails or like bumpers at a bowling alley, like you just kick them over,\nyou break them in half and you just keep going, you know?\nYeah, I, well, the, this essay is like, it\u0026#39;s like,\nI went in, I just thought, I\u0026#39;m going to read the New Testament. Then I thought, I\u0026#39;m going\nto ask myself, what is the oldest New Testament? And then I thought it was up, how do they\ndiscover this? And then it\u0026#39;s, I don\u0026#39;t even go in with like a set plan of what I\u0026#39;m gonna\nwrite about. I just wanted to study the New Testament.\nI haven\u0026#39;t even got to studying the New Testament because I\u0026#39;ve gone so far into the manuscript\nhistory of the New Testament. But it\u0026#39;s by doing this kind of like free flow research,\nwhich people don\u0026#39;t really value anymore. It\u0026#39;s like, you\u0026#39;re gonna do a PhD program that you\nhave to solve this like little niche question within a scientific paradigm or within a sociological\nparadigm. And like, it\u0026#39;s just so fun to go in and not\nhave a goal, right? I was like, I\u0026#39;m just gonna, I find this area interesting. I\u0026#39;m going to\nsee what gets uncovered. And often, like, no one\u0026#39;s really been doing that. So if you\njust read the story of the Codex Sinai on Wikipedia, like. It sounds a little fishy,\nright? Like, if you actually go look at it, but how\nmany times have people gone like, well, I\u0026#39;m just going to go look at the primary sources\non this, right? And maybe like a couple, I actually found one professor, like his name\nis Daniel Wallace, he\u0026#39;s a theologian professor and he runs the Center of Study of New Testament\nManuscripts. And like, I\u0026#39;m really bonded with him. He\u0026#39;s\nlike, oh, you\u0026#39;re the person who\u0026#39;s found it. I\u0026#39;ve been donating to his manuscript center\nfor a while. They\u0026#39;re the only people doing this research, but how fun it\u0026#39;s like, I feel\nlike a investigative journalist. Right. But like, I don\u0026#39;t know what I\u0026#39;m looking for. I\njust keep going until I find stuff and then I just keep poking and keep poking and it\u0026#39;s\nlike I find things. I\u0026#39;m like, Oh, hurrah. I found something. How\ndo you structure your life to be able to do this?\nWell, not well, I go through phases like I, I don\u0026#39;t know if the same for you. For people\nwho write and I, you know, I haven\u0026#39;t written much for the last year. It\u0026#39;s have been distracted.\nI\u0026#39;m working, but when I go through like research phases, I pick up something that I\u0026#39;m studying\nand I can\u0026#39;t do anything else. I, I like, I know everyone says that you should\ndo everything in moderation. I write a little bit every day, but I just get a fanatical\nand I have to study whatever I\u0026#39;m looking at and I can\u0026#39;t think about other things. Like\nI become obsessive. When I read my pathogen essay, that was kind of six months of me just.\nI was only thinking about pathogens for a really long time. And when I started doing\nthe Christianity, thinking about the manuscripts, I was only thinking about that. And I was\nlike planning my trips to Mount Sinai. Like I only want to go on trips that are related\nto my research. And then something sometimes happens and breaks me out of it, right?\nLike family thing where I have to work and then I have to wait until I have the freedom\nto get back into that space. And to me, it\u0026#39;s my happiest place. Like I go to my house in\nVegas. I sit at my desk, I write, I have all my notes on the wall, I look like a crazy\nperson, and I just go full in, and it\u0026#39;s such an energy rush, it\u0026#39;s like taking amphetamines,\nlike I just, I\u0026#39;m not on anything, but I just get so excited, I can\u0026#39;t sleep, it\u0026#39;s like,\nit\u0026#39;s like I get manic creative energy. And then sometimes it gets tired and it goes\naway, but I try to not, I used to when I was younger, try and force it. I\u0026#39;d be like, why\ncan\u0026#39;t it come now? Like, why can\u0026#39;t I do it here and then? And I\u0026#39;ve just learned as I\u0026#39;ve\ngot older to say like, Hey, come cyclically. And sometimes you can concentrate on it and\nsometimes you can\u0026#39;t, but don\u0026#39;t put pressure on yourself.\nRight? Like, let it just happen when it happens. And, uh, and inside that freedom, I think\nit\u0026#39;s easier to get into flow state. This idea of the muses shows up in Greek poetry,\nshows up in the kind of art you see in Florence. What do you think the muse is pointing at?\nIt\u0026#39;s repetitive enough that it\u0026#39;s pointing at something deep and fundamental about the\nhuman condition. Yeah, I don\u0026#39;t know, it\u0026#39;s like that word, what\nwas the etymology of the word genius again? Was that something to do with like there\u0026#39;s\na genie who like comes and like turns you into a genius? Yes, yes, that\u0026#39;s right, right.\nIt\u0026#39;s the same kind of thing, it\u0026#39;s like some sort of divine inspiration, some sort of esoteric,\nspecial, metaphysical inspiration where you deliver the message and it gets kind of given\nto you, like some of my favorite writers, And I can\u0026#39;t remember which one I was reading\nrecently, he said this was like, I didn\u0026#39;t write this.\nI just like, he was just channeled through me in one go. And when I go back and read\nmy old essays, I\u0026#39;m like, how do I know these things? I\u0026#39;m just like, I don\u0026#39;t even recognize\nwho I was when I write it. And it\u0026#39;s not that we\u0026#39;re like, but I think you change mindset.\nYou go into a different state of mind. I think every writer gets like this.\nI can tell it\u0026#39;s in Rilke. When I read Rilke\u0026#39;s poetry, I see he gets into that ecstatic curiosity\nphase. I know even from the words he\u0026#39;s He\u0026#39;s using what he\u0026#39;s pointing to as a feeling,\nwhich is like the ecstasy of aloneness and discovery, discovery in detail. And uh, I\nthink some people feel it and some people don\u0026#39;t.\nAnd when I, when people do know what I\u0026#39;m talking about, they resonate it where we do it. It\u0026#39;s\nnot necessarily a good thing. It\u0026#39;s probably like some sort of, I\u0026#39;m sure some psychiatrists\nwould say like we have some sort of imbalance. Like we should be doing regimented writing\nfrom six and eight in the morning before we go to the gym.\nAnd then we should be like drinking a shake. Right. But like, truth is like everyone has\ntheir own writing style. You shouldn\u0026#39;t put pressure on yourself to do any different.\nLike, I\u0026#39;m 34 now, like, I\u0026#39;m not going to try and force myself to write every day. It just\ndoesn\u0026#39;t work. Well, this is one of the things that has really\nchanged my creative process since becoming a believer is I now put so much stake in the\nidea of revelation, right? I mean, the, the, the New Testament ends with\na literal book of revelation that is revealed to John. And it\u0026#39;s just like, this is how the\nworld is going to end. And I have very much tweaked my calendar, tweaked my life, given\nmyself free time where I can just sit and just listen to God. And I sometimes feel like\nGod just airdrops me clear ideas. And Rick Rubin says the same thing. I think\nthat one of his big contributions to the culture around creativity is he\u0026#39;s just like, I\u0026#39;m just\ntuned into frequencies that are all there and I\u0026#39;m more sensitive to them. And things\nare just given to me and I just know how to listen to the things that are already there.\nMeanwhile, everybody else is like a bunny on a hamster wheel. Faster, faster, faster,\nconsume more, think more, be more productive. But there\u0026#39;s a stillness and a calmness where\nthings can just be airdropped and become obvious to you.\nYes. And I, I, it perplexes me how much people don\u0026#39;t spend time one alone, right?\nLike they\u0026#39;re always doing something. Like I had this conversation with some friends\nthe other day. I said, how much time a day do you spend thinking? They\u0026#39;re like, thinking,\nwhat do you mean? I was like, I\u0026#39;m just like sitting and thinking like. No, I\u0026#39;m always\ndoing something. And I was like, well, I spend hours every day just thinking, like I\u0026#39;ll lie\nin bed, I think about things. And I try to create space, like a vacuum in\nmy mind, like not in a meditative sense, but like a space where like the, all the busyness\nof all my thoughts can come together and solidify or, you know, be, come together in an interesting\nway. And I walk, right? Like I walk sometimes eight miles in the morning.\nAnd I think in that process of being alone and in nature, I also get into a different\nstate where like there becomes, there\u0026#39;s like the synapses fire and I see new thoughts or\nlike in, when I look at a flower, which is a very real caress, but like. And I look at\na flower, I\u0026#39;ll see some synergy of flowers, of colors, and that will like synergize some\nother thought in my mind. It\u0026#39;s like, I\u0026#39;ll see something that inspires\nme to put two and two together somewhere else. Like, I\u0026#39;m a hundred percent open to that being\nlike a divine, different parts of divine revelation. Um, but it\u0026#39;s like having the humility to almost\nsay, like, I can\u0026#39;t necessarily think myself into the answers.\nActually, there\u0026#39;s a great quote about this, which I now can\u0026#39;t remember. It\u0026#39;s like, you\ncan\u0026#39;t necessarily think yourself into the answers. You have to create space for the\nanswers to come to you. Amen. And it\u0026#39;s like, how many people are alone? Even when they\u0026#39;re\nalone, they\u0026#39;re on the phones, right? Like how many people can actually sit with themselves\nand be alone for a long period of time? I think when you can get to that state, like\nthe thoughts come much more easily and it takes introspection and. Maybe reading these\nold, like, texts that people don\u0026#39;t want to read, um, there\u0026#39;s a humility there, right?\nWhich is like, I have to sit and percolate. I mean,\nthe, the really perverse thing is how much I agree with you, and yet how much I\u0026#39;ve tapped\ninto this. Like, how hard it is, even when I\u0026#39;m writing,\nto just like, You know that moment when you\u0026#39;re sitting down and you\u0026#39;re working on something\nand you get stuck and you get stuck like sometimes I\u0026#39;ll just like open Twitter I\u0026#39;ll like check\nmy text and it\u0026#39;s like why can\u0026#39;t I just sit and just be with the thought and in order\nfor me to Do that. I need to like carve out like I need to be\nsuper intentional. I need to be like in a cabin No internet. Yeah, I because if I have\nany ability to distract myself? I will because it\u0026#39;s so easy and it\u0026#39;s like so alluring to\nmy senses or something. I don\u0026#39;t know what it is. Well,\nit\u0026#39;s just short term dopamine rewards, right? Like you get those little dopamine hits from,\nyou know, even the UXs of things are just so designed to like please people, right?\nYeah. Um, but yeah, I know it\u0026#39;s scary, but it\u0026#39;s, it\u0026#39;s better in Europe. Like, I think\nit\u0026#39;s just a cultural thing about, um, you know, media and entertainment being so much\nbigger here than it is in, like the cult of celebrity is much worse in America than it\nis in European countries. And also in other European countries, there\u0026#39;s\nstill more of an appeal to beauty because it\u0026#39;s already there from history. Like you\nwalk around Vienna or Rome or London, there are buildings that surpass the age of America\nas a country. My school that I went to was built in the 16th century. Like, I mean, it\nwas at its 500th birthday. It\u0026#39;s like the 15th century, I can\u0026#39;t remember,\nbut, um, if you\u0026#39;re surrounded by more beauty, you start to kind of, uh, be grateful for\nit. It\u0026#39;s like when you walk around Italy, you\u0026#39;re not like, man, I wish there were less\nchurches and less beautiful things, but just by an osmosis of being around beauty, I think\nyou respect it more. And that it\u0026#39;s kind of like trashy, like cult\nof celebrity that\u0026#39;s so short and transient in America is, is a very American. It\u0026#39;s definitely\nbad across the West, but I travel a lot. Like my parents, my mom is in Istanbul. My other\nfriends are in London. It\u0026#39;s just so much worse here. One of the things that I feel that we\u0026#39;re\nmissing is because of the way that we think about truth in school and the importance of\nlogic, like prove what you\u0026#39;re saying, we\u0026#39;ve lost deeper sorts of truths that aren\u0026#39;t very\ncareful in. How people try to convey them, and like a\ngood example of this is like Gerard. Rene Gerard is a super uncareful thinker. He\u0026#39;s...\nJust sort of throwing stuff out there. Like it\u0026#39;s not super empirical, but like his stuff\nis deep and he\u0026#39;s hitting on things that are beyond the realm of reason. And I feel like\nby trying to justify everything with scientific studies and by not even listening to what\u0026#39;s\npouring out of your soul and just having the courage to just put that on the page and having\neditors who are saying, Hey, don\u0026#39;t say that. Hey, don\u0026#39;t say this fact checkers and all\nthis sort of stuff, we\u0026#39;re missing these. This deeper essence of what truth could be in this\nrevelation of the deepest parts of the human spirit.\nAnd it\u0026#39;s even worse than that, like beyond just truth, it\u0026#39;s also just like common sense.\nLike I call this, I refer to this as the church of graphs, right?\nIt\u0026#39;s like the church of graphs. Yeah, yeah. Graphs in America, but the church of graphs.\nSo I wrote this long essay, well not that long, but you know, documenting my following\nof the walking tour of Nietzsche, like where Nietzsche went on his walks. And a few weeks\nafter writing this essay, there was some, like, academic study that came out about how,\nlike, walking was good for you. And I\u0026#39;m like, man, like, how much money and\ntime was spent, like, making this essay, being like, we\u0026#39;ve got an abstract. It\u0026#39;s like, this\nis the correlatory thing between, like, walking and being good for people. And I was like,\nit\u0026#39;s just comedy. It\u0026#39;s not that it\u0026#39;s, I agree that we should question things. Like, I\u0026#39;m\nnot saying that we should, you know, take everything for granted.\nBut the level that like, people just know these and we have to do an entire study and\nsubscribe to the church of graphs, like, yeah, just go read Nietzsche. Like there\u0026#39;s a lot\nof people in history will tell you that walking is good for you, right? But like, we need\nto prove it with like a scientific team, like study the data and it\u0026#39;s like, it\u0026#39;s just so\nsilly. It\u0026#39;s like, walking is good for you. I was\nlike, great. Like, thanks for spending taxpayer money on this. Like it\u0026#39;s, there\u0026#39;s a common\nsense also that like has been bounded in history. That\u0026#39;s like tradition and wisdom that now\nwe have to empirically prove. It\u0026#39;s like the, you know, the, uh, uh, traditions and thoughts\nhave been passed on generations that we doubt them all now.\nLike anything medieval has been completely disregarded. Abba Chena, who wrote about medicine\nin the 11th century, actually discovered germ theory, but no one cared about him because\nit was like, it was many people ages. Like no one cares. And we\u0026#39;re just disregarding\nentire things that like don\u0026#39;t fit into the current paradigm.\nIt\u0026#39;s just, it\u0026#39;s just wild. You know, Ockham\u0026#39;s razor was, it\u0026#39;s now used\nas like this logical way to prove things. William of Ockham was like a 14th century\nreligious monk. Did I not tell you this? Maybe you did. I think I told you this. I don\u0026#39;t\nknow. I\u0026#39;m pretty sure I told you this. Maybe. Maybe you tweeted\nit or something. Everyone takes the Occam\u0026#39;s razor and they\ntalk. Describe it as like the law of Par name, which is its simplest explanation, is the\nmost, is the, is the one that we should prefer. Right? If you read William of Ham, he was\na hardcore theologian who was trying to use like logic and other things to justify divine\nmiracles and things like this. Like, his argument wasn\u0026#39;t like, right, the\nway he\u0026#39;s been bastardized now to justify rationality is not what he was saying at all. And I think\nhe must be turning in his grave, like, he was like, no, no, it was the illusion, you\nsuckers, like, I wasn\u0026#39;t telling you, like, he was trying to point out that the most easy\nexplanation is that it\u0026#39;s God, right? That was Occam\u0026#39;s. Positioning. Not that like,\nthe simplest explanation from the data is correct, he\u0026#39;s like, oh, it\u0026#39;s probably divine\nmiracle. When nobody reads William Ockham, he\u0026#39;s like, he wrote a lot of books, I actually\nhave a bunch of them in Vegas, like they\u0026#39;re very dense. But he\u0026#39;s a theologian, not a rationalist.\nHow consciously do you cultivate your taste? Is that something that you\u0026#39;re thinking about\ndoing? I mean, you\u0026#39;re clearly traveling and you\u0026#39;re pretty intentional about where you\u0026#39;re\ntraveling. I would guess. Is that something that you think about?\nOh man. I feel like I was way more cultured when I was like 11 than I am now.\nWhat? Yeah. What do you mean? I was like, I think when you\u0026#39;re a kid, when you have more\nfreedom to think like I, I was obsessed with classical music when I was young and I was\nwanting to study art and I had all these. Well, interest, and I read lots of different\ntexts and I do read them now, but I get refocused. Like now I don\u0026#39;t read broad things. I don\u0026#39;t\nknow the difference about being in school or not, I think as well when you\u0026#39;re in school.\nI wish I could go into school now. Don\u0026#39;t you kind of? Oh, it\u0026#39;d be amazing. Yeah. I\u0026#39;m like,\nI want to study biology. I mean, I don\u0026#39;t want to learn state schooling, but to have that\nstep with teachers\neither. No, no, I don\u0026#39;t know. But I just like the\nability to go and like learn and I think as a kid, I would find lots of things interesting.\nAnd then. You know, I would, I\u0026#39;d go to classical concerts on my own as a teenager. And now\nas an adult, like you just end up having responsibilities. Right. And then like your, your taste, you\nstart to become kind of not hubristic, but you start to define your taste as opposed\nto when you\u0026#39;re younger, like you\u0026#39;re more open to like, you don\u0026#39;t know what your taste is.\nYou start like learning about everything for the first time. We were talking about this.\nUm, last night at dinner, so like, older people will pretend they know anything about wine,\nright? They sit there, they open the menu, they\u0026#39;re like, I want this, and I was like,\nyou don\u0026#39;t fucking know any of this wine, does he?\nCan\u0026#39;t read the names telling me about the wine. So we get stuck in our ways when we\u0026#39;re\nolder. So it\u0026#39;s not like a conscious thing of me trying to specify my taste, but I think\nas I get older, I\u0026#39;m, I have less time and I like narrow it down to things I get interested,\nbut I try and find ways to, you know, usurp that it\u0026#39;s like, I went to an oil painting\ncourse last year and I can\u0026#39;t paint, I\u0026#39;m a writer, not a painter, but I thought if I\nlearned to paint, it might make me think in a different medium that might affect my writing.\nYou know, I, well, the thing is, is I\u0026#39;m a really terrible painter, so you really didn\u0026#39;t\ndo great for my confidence, but it reminded me of something that you and I had spoken\nabout before about, like, writing being like word paintings, right? Like, you\u0026#39;re a painter,\nwe both are pointillism, pointillism is in the art of many dots, and there\u0026#39;s Many different\ncolored dots, when you go up close, look like nonsense, when you come away, it\u0026#39;s like a\nbeautiful scene. And there\u0026#39;s an analogy there in writing, right?\nWhich is that the kind of writing that I, you know, resonate with and other people resonate\nwith, it\u0026#39;s a little less, you know, logical and rational and it\u0026#39;s a bit more poetic. In\nthat writing, you know, you, you, um, you are creating a, putting forward a mood. It\u0026#39;s\nmuch more like a word painting than it is like a argument.\nAnd that doesn\u0026#39;t strike the heart of everybody. But, uh, yeah, no, it\u0026#39;s the, it\u0026#39;s the, the,\nthe, I think doing other mediums of communication expressing yourself. So like, obviously valid.\nYou never just sit there and just look at something for an hour unless you\u0026#39;re painting\nit. You almost need to paint it. Like the motion allows you, it gives you enough movement\nto see things differently, but focusing on one object gives you enough stillness to like\nhave the depth. Yeah. And I think it\u0026#39;s the same thing in writing.\nWhat the brain likes to do is it sort of likes to skip, right? Like when you\u0026#39;re meditating,\ngo from this thing to this thing, to this thing. But when you\u0026#39;re writing, you\u0026#39;re forced\nto stay in one topic and you\u0026#39;re perpetually frustrated in both activities. But then you\nlook back at it after some time, you\u0026#39;re like, I can\u0026#39;t believe how deeply\nI just dissected that. That was so well said. And I think it\u0026#39;s an\nargument for people to read Rilke was what Rilke does is he finds in little pieces that\nlike he will talk about a flower or about something very simple. And he really notices\nfine details. And they are like, he to me is like the perfect art, he captured the art\nof, you know, word paintings. Um, but yeah, that kind of like, can you focus\nand notice, like, increase your sensitivity to something so simple. And then it can be\nquite overwhelming. I don\u0026#39;t know if it was like this for you, but like, one of the reasons\nwhy I can\u0026#39;t watch mainstream media or like even really go to a restaurant anymore, I\nguess that\u0026#39;s like a bad thing to say. But. When you get sensitive to things, like\nwhen you were in the world of Rilke, contemporary society is very overwhelming. Totally. Like\nI, I, I find it very hard to jump through different minds. Like my place in LA is like\na very old school greenhouse. There\u0026#39;s no technology. I just have a bunch of books, loads of candles.\nAnd sometimes I\u0026#39;ll go to like a restaurant in LA and I\u0026#39;m like, I\u0026#39;m like, so lost from\nthis. Everything\u0026#39;s screaming at you. Yeah. And it\u0026#39;s just like, and it\u0026#39;s like, everything\nis loud and yeah, and it\u0026#39;s the people who are sensitive. Right. Like it makes you become\nintroverted and people don\u0026#39;t realize that the introversion is not like people don\u0026#39;t\nthink of me as an introvert, but like I get really overly stimulated from going to different\nthings. But there\u0026#39;s such beauty in, in taking those\nlittle, like having the ability to, to take notice of such fine details. Totally.\nSo what I do whenever I go to the shopping mall in Austin is I, so I walk into the Neiman\nMarcus and I go to the different high end areas. And my favorite high end brand is Brunello\nCucinelli. Like I just love that guy. Like he\u0026#39;s my business\nhero. Yeah. And you know, I\u0026#39;m like dissecting the cashmere and I\u0026#39;m like reading through\nthe book and like the way that his book, the texture of the paper is so beautiful. And\nI probably spent 20, 30 minutes in there just like really noticing the subtlety, like reading\nthe tags and feeling them and all that. And then I instantly went to the Balenciaga\nsection and it was an assault on my senses. Like, I have like a mild grade of trauma from\njust that sharp transition. Yeah, well, it\u0026#39;s like, why is everything so\nloud now? And I was talking about this the other day with friends, but You know, an interesting\nkind of, um, corollary data point for society is what are the popular drugs of the young\npeople in the 90s and the 2000s? Think about a rave culture. Think about Wall\nStreet, right? It was like uppers. People were taking coke. They were taking MDMA. They\nwere doing like ecstasy. They were raving and partying and Wall Street was booming and\nthis dot com bubble and all this stuff. Now it\u0026#39;s like you look at the drugs that people\nare doing and it\u0026#39;s like alcohol was a depressant. Yeah. So like. So, you know, young people\nare smoking weed, which is also, you know, a depressive people. There\u0026#39;s a lot of Ketamine\ngoing on in society right now, but you look at the Google trends for Ketamine, it\u0026#39;s way\nup, you know, in different areas, it\u0026#39;s being legalized, which is anesthetic. So you have\nan anesthetic alcohol. And then if you\u0026#39;re not, if people aren\u0026#39;t doing\nthose, they\u0026#39;re probably not everyone, but a lot of people also on SSRIs or antipsychotics.\nSo you\u0026#39;re in this position where everybody is desensitized. It\u0026#39;s like, does the overwhelming\nthings come first and the desensitization come after? Or are people desensitized and\nthen they need the more loud things? That\u0026#39;s a really interesting question. That\u0026#39;s\na great question. It could be the case that things are loud and people are actually way\nmore overwhelmed than they realize, so they\u0026#39;ve lost their sensitivity. They don\u0026#39;t know what\u0026#39;s\nwrong with them, so they take all these depressants, like depressive drugs.\nThis thing about like what drugs people are taking is just very interesting to me. Like\nan anesthetic? Like you\u0026#39;re literally trying to turn yourself off from life. Culture is\nkind of weird now. Yeah, we agree on that. Amen. Well, here\u0026#39;s a transition.\nYou have this amazing introduction and I just want to break it down.\nYou say the West is dying and we are killing her. We\u0026#39;re proud to destroy our own freedoms\nand repackage failure as democratic progress. We champion our rolling out of red tape, the\nbureaucratic creep that strangles the nation\u0026#39;s liberty. That American Dream has been replaced\nby mass packaged mediocrity porn, encouraging us to revel like happy pigs in our own meekness.\nYo, that rips. Yeah, that was, I like that essay.\nWhat\u0026#39;s behind that? Well, I, you, to your point of, like, revelation, I wasn\u0026#39;t, didn\u0026#39;t\nsit down and plan that essay. It was during lockdowns, it was COVID, I was looking out\nmy window at, like, you know, a world that had gone shut down and people were protesting.\nAnd it just, I wrote that essay in one go. It was, it\u0026#39;s emotional. It\u0026#39;s because I think\nthe reason why I can write like that is that I\u0026#39;m writing about something that I genuinely\ncare about. You can tell how much I care from how, what I\u0026#39;m thinking about. It\u0026#39;s like, I\nhaven\u0026#39;t loosely thought about this. Like I was mad, right? And like in that madness,\nI thought, how can I express it? I was like, I\u0026#39;m not going to protest. And\nI was like, I\u0026#39;m going to write it. And it, and again, everyone has, people have different\nmediums, but in that medium, it just took out, came out of me as like a pouring of my\nart where I was like, what is happening to society? Like, why are we okay with this level\nof mediocrity? And I think if you can get to that point where\nyou care so much, the writing comes very naturally. It\u0026#39;s not like I had to think about the words\nor looked up the cinnamons or like, what on the thesaurus. com. It\u0026#39;s like, I, in, I felt\nit so intensely that it became like poetry to me because it came from my heart.\nLike I was just like, man, like I am so mad and upset about the state of society. Like\nI\u0026#39;m just going to say it. And then when I read it afterwards, I was like, maybe I should\ntone it down a bit. I was like, nah. I should put out exactly how my heart wanted this to\nbe, but yeah, I love that essay. The core thing that you\u0026#39;re saying there\nis just letting yourself feel that rather than rejecting it.\nRight? Like we have something in society right now. Anger is bad. Vengeance is bad. Rage\nis bad. And like taking those emotions and just throwing them on the page, letting them\nloose. It\u0026#39;s like spewing a cannon out of your soul. Like I\u0026#39;m all for that. But I don\u0026#39;t think\nmost people allow themselves to feel that emotion.\nAnd so they read a paragraph like this and they\u0026#39;re like, How did you repackage that and\nall this sort of stuff? No, that\u0026#39;s just like, it was like, uh, like a, like a volcanic eruption.\nYeah, I\u0026#39;m not, I\u0026#39;m just not desensitizing myself. Like the real core is like, I\u0026#39;m not\ndrinking too much. I\u0026#39;m not on a bunch of drugs and I\u0026#39;m not on SSRIs.\nAnd I feel like when you get to a very neutral state of And like, living is hard. It\u0026#39;s like\na, a good, a good phrase I tell myself is that, um, you\u0026#39;ve got to experience, you\u0026#39;ve\ngot to experience the lows to experience the highs, right? Like, I\u0026#39;d rather oscillate than\nplateau. Like, I\u0026#39;d rather feel how in the hardness of life you can also then appreciate\nlater the beauty, right? Like, I was really upset when my father died.\nI didn\u0026#39;t, I thought it was like, meds, like not grieve so much. I was like, no, I should\nfeel this. I was like, this is an important lesson for me to understand and for me to\nfeel. And, uh, by not being desensitized, like these emotions come. But if you desensitize\nyourself, like, you, it might be much nearer to the surface than most people if they like,\nlet it happen. If they realize, like, maybe they\u0026#39;re over\nprofessionalizing. And people love authenticity. This is a, this is a trade off, right? Because\npeople think to themselves, they have to fit into the Overton window, they have to be professional.\nBut what people are really missing in society, which is valued by a lot of, by a lot of others,\nis authenticity. Like, can, you can\u0026#39;t, you can\u0026#39;t read that\nessay and be like, she doesn\u0026#39;t mean it. Like, I\u0026#39;m, I\u0026#39;m clearly authentic, right? Like, I\u0026#39;m,\nI have strong views about politics, I mean them very deeply, and I express them in emotional\nways. Um, and I wish more people would allow themselves to get there and have that freedom\nto take risks, to like, feel that emotion. Like, read Bukowski. I read The Tropic of\nCancer the other day. You read Tropic of Cancer, it\u0026#39;s like, it goes from extreme explicitness,\nit\u0026#39;s like a train of thought of like a man. Like, even if you read F. Scott Fitzgerald,\nlike, Zelda Fitzgerald, like, she was in and out of asylums, writing things, like, revenge\nto her husband, like, it was so much drama, like, there is such, you know, ups and downs\nin these writing, like, read Bukowski, man, like, it\u0026#39;s like, you read contemporary poems\nnow, and it\u0026#39;s like, you must be kind, blah, blah, blah, says tree to house, I\u0026#39;m just like,\nwhat is going on, like, you can\u0026#39;t feel the emotion, like, you can\u0026#39;t read Bukowski and\nthink he\u0026#39;s method acting, he\u0026#39;s not method acting, you know he feels it.\nBut I, like I can\u0026#39;t read contemp I don\u0026#39;t read modern books anymore, so I\u0026#39;m just like, I\ndon\u0026#39;t believe, I don\u0026#39;t, it doesn\u0026#39;t feel authentic to me anymore.\nWhat did you do differently writing for the film when you made Every Angel is Terrifying?\nWhat did you do when you made that? How did film allow you to tap into emotions and how\ndid you think about writing differently? I didn\u0026#39;t start that with the plan of it becoming\na film. What happened was that I got asked to speak at the URBIT conference in Miami,\nright? And I hadn\u0026#39;t made slides even the day before. Like it was just like classic me,\nhadn\u0026#39;t made any slides. But I care about certain things, right? And I don\u0026#39;t need, like this,\nI don\u0026#39;t need to overly prep. So I, myself and my friend, we, we, I, all\nI did was write bullet points of what I wanted to say on each slide. I made the slides, I\ngave the presentation, I\u0026#39;d, I\u0026#39;d seen the slides like an hour before and I delivered this like\nspeech. But Mike Ma designed this? Yeah, Mike did it. Mike is amazing. Mike is, I think,\nthe most talented. Both, one of the great writers and also an\nextremely talented artist. Talk about someone who writes from the heart. Authentic.\nGrasswood Architecture is a crazy book. Yes, it is definitely crazy. But he,\nin my mind, um, combines like the, um, The philosophy and freedom and self sovereignty\nof someone like Ayn Rand, with like, um, Bret Easton Ellis in like the 90s.\nLike Bret Easton Ellis, like when they wrote American Psycho, it was also like an edgy\nbook, right, like it glorifies violence, all this kind of stuff, but it\u0026#39;s fiction. Mark\nMarr is also writing fiction, but he\u0026#39;s such a, it\u0026#39;s so nice to read someone that\u0026#39;s so\nfree, like there\u0026#39;s no over the window respect there.\nAnd in that, like it\u0026#39;s, It\u0026#39;s like a, yeah, and Mike McNamara when I worked on the slides,\nlike he also worked on the content because we have the same often crossover and philosophical\nviews. And then that speech which I delivered just in one go having not practiced. It went\nreally well. Like it had like a standing ovation, people were very happy, like it moved people.\nAnd then we thought to ourselves, like, Oh, maybe this is a message that we should package.\nAnd the video that we made is just the speech cut down. Like there\u0026#39;s, we didn\u0026#39;t rewrite\nit. We took the recording of the speech, we cut out a lot of the stuff that was referencing\nto crypto because it\u0026#39;s very specific to that audience.\nAnd we just left the philosophy and the history, but it wasn\u0026#39;t written as a video. And actually\nI found it really uncomfortable. There\u0026#39;s something much more personal about putting things in\nyour own voice. And then, as you probably know, I\u0026#39;m putting it on the internet and then\nlike hiding behind writing, right? Like, I like to hide behind writing, I see\nwords, I see the distance between myself and the words, right? To do a voiceover, and even\na speech, is not, and even sitting here, is not really how I feel comfortable. So I can\u0026#39;t\nwatch that video. Like, I know that video people really liked, like I\u0026#39;ve had some people\nsay it really moved them and made them rethink their life choices and all this kind of stuff,\nwhich I love. But I can\u0026#39;t, I can\u0026#39;t like, as a writer, I\nreally struggled to hear it. So it wasn\u0026#39;t written as a speech. It wasn\u0026#39;t written as\na video. It was written as a speech. But yes, I\u0026#39;m proud of it. I hope more people watch\nit and it resonates with, with people. But yeah, it was, it was definitely not a normal\nexperience for me. I mean,\nI loved it. Like the, and I\u0026#39;m not just saying that. Like, I liked it so much that I had\nto go make my own short film that was like, okay, inspired by this, what is it that I\nwould add to the conversation? And how would I David ify this? Yeah. And. I felt like that\nvideo that you made tapped into a dark energy that I feel a little bit that I hadn\u0026#39;t really\nseen expressed, but then I wanted to, when I made you were made for more than this, I\nwanted to start with that and then do what I like to do, which is provide like a very\nconcrete cheerier solution for if you\u0026#39;re stuck in this world, you\u0026#39;re trapped on, you\u0026#39;re trapped\nin your job and you want to make something more of yourself.\nThen, you go right on the internet, and through that freedom, meeting, influence, and I wrote,\nI remember writing, carve the path that only you can carve, live the life that only you\ncan live, write the essay that only you can write, and for me, a sentence like that could\nhave only come out in a video script, I would have never written that.\nOh, interesting. Because of the poetry or something. Yeah. Yeah, I, I mean, we wanted\nto do follow up videos, like I wanted to do more ones about crypto, but the, the cool\nthing actually about making video and turning writing into that format is that people don\u0026#39;t\nhave attention span to read. It\u0026#39;s like, like I was saying, Meteor is very cheap and very\nfast right now. To get people to read long essays is not as\ncaptivating as people hearing it and having moving images. And I think it\u0026#39;s actually,\nit\u0026#39;s, I mean, you know, we both have, like, we just use stock, we just use footage that\nwe got from other places on the internet. It\u0026#39;s not like I had to go around with a film,\nlike I didn\u0026#39;t have to do all this, right? Like me and Mike just sat and we just. Looked\nfor not directly the imagery that of what we were saying. It\u0026#39;s not like I needed that.\nIt\u0026#39;s just something that picked up. It\u0026#39;s like the word painting again. It\u0026#39;s like what feeling\ndoes this sentence invoke? And what is the corollary imagery? And to make that word painting\nbe real in a film is a beautiful prop to like experience it.\nIt made me really value like having good video editing skills. I was like, damn, you can\nmake beautiful art this way. And I would love to make more. Like I definitely want to make\nmore things like that because I think it just resonates. It\u0026#39;s much more strongly with a,\nwith a much, with a younger and a much more broader audience in writing because people\naren\u0026#39;t reading like a book consumption is down.\nPeople are reading short form, even a long essay about like what you should do with your\nlife or how you should think about it. It\u0026#39;s just not as captivating I think as a video.\nSo. I\u0026#39;m, I think we both have to just keep doing them, I\u0026#39;m afraid. Yeah.\nWhy are there more people like you in the world? Like you just, just even doing this\npodcast, like it\u0026#39;s so fun to hear how generative and how distinct your ideas are and like,\nyou\u0026#39;re, you\u0026#39;re, there\u0026#39;s just not that many people who have the freedom.\nAnd I think. Like the courage to reach beyond consensus and find, go explore\nnew ideas. Oh, I feel that\u0026#39;s sad and I hope more people will go and do fun research, but,\num, yeah, I don\u0026#39;t know. I guess it\u0026#39;s like, do you want to live a conventional path or\nnot? Like it\u0026#39;s not like, do you have the, like, I, you know, I didn\u0026#39;t grow up with like\nnormal parents and like a normal life. I didn\u0026#39;t really ever understand what normal\nwas. You know, things were, but people are so censored to kind of stay within these guardrails,\nyou refer, like, to what their career path is, what they should think about, what their\nrelationship should be like, and like, everything is up for reconsideration, right?\nLike, I\u0026#39;ve learned about science, I\u0026#39;ve learned about history, I\u0026#39;ve learned about all these\nthings, and I don\u0026#39;t know. I hope more people can be more curious. Like, there\u0026#39;s a whole\nworld to learn out there. Like, I find it so captivating. I wish I could never... If\nmy dream situation, my transhumanist future, my transhumanist dream is I never need to\nsleep. I could just be in front of a compu... I know\nthis sounds ridiculous, but... Be by computer in my books all day and just read. Like it\nis so fun to just go, the whole human knowledge is out there for you to discover and to rethink\nabout a place, everything. It\u0026#39;s like every solution to every problem has been written\nabout in like different industries and different fields.\nIt\u0026#39;s just sort of been blended together. It\u0026#39;s like, it\u0026#39;s so cool. Like, I don\u0026#39;t know, I\nget excited and yeah, I, um, I think as we\u0026#39;ve discussed before, the problem starts much\nmore young. Curiosity is beaten out of you for school, right? Like. Is really, you\u0026#39;re\nnot meant to ask questions. You\u0026#39;re meant to be obedient.\nIf you\u0026#39;re not obedient, then like you\u0026#39;re in trouble. So we have a problem which is that\nwhy aren\u0026#39;t adults like this? It\u0026#39;s like only a few can get through the system. I don\u0026#39;t\nthink it\u0026#39;s their fault. I don\u0026#39;t think it\u0026#39;s people\u0026#39;s individual\u0026#39;s agency fault. It\u0026#39;s like\nthe whole system\u0026#39;s against you to stop you being extremely curious.\nTotally. Um, and that\u0026#39;s really sad and I hope more people just push past that just for themselves\nand for their children. I mean, I love this quote from you.\nI dream of many different careers, many different lives, many different loves, many different\nrenewals of myself. As if I was an immortal being who was able to experiment and explore\nacross an endless timeline, right? It\u0026#39;s like everyone says, you should live as\nif you\u0026#39;ll die tomorrow. That\u0026#39;s like, it\u0026#39;s like James Dean quote, right? Live as if you\u0026#39;ll\nlive as if you\u0026#39;ll die tomorrow. Dream as if you\u0026#39;ll live forever. I don\u0026#39;t remember the\nexact, something like that. Yeah. Is it cooler to live as if you\u0026#39;ll live forever? Because\nif you live as if you\u0026#39;re gonna like you plan your life, like I\u0026#39;m gonna live on average.\n85 years or whatever. It\u0026#39;s probably way less than America now. It\u0026#39;s probably like 30. But,\num, , whatever the current life expectancy is in the us. Um, if you tell yourself you\nhave this pipeline, you\u0026#39;re like, well, I\u0026#39;m gonna have one career. I\u0026#39;m gonna have one\nrelationship that\u0026#39;s medium, four blah, blah. If you were gonna live, if you were a mortal.\nThere\u0026#39;s a great book actually called Alan by Alan Harrington called The Immortalists.\nYou just talks about what society would look like if you\u0026#39;d, if you\u0026#39;d like, got rid of mortality\nand those campaigning for poor against, it\u0026#39;s just an interesting thought experiment, regardless\nof your views on longevity. If you lived forever, you wouldn\u0026#39;t have one\njob, right? You would probably do different things and experience stuff and there\u0026#39;s some\nlevel where it\u0026#39;s like I want to try all the flavors of life. Like my first company was\na toy store It\u0026#39;s so farfetched from what I\u0026#39;ve been doing the last 10 years, but it was probably\nsome of the happiest years of my life. Kids came into this shop every day. We sold\nthem toys, we taught them about entrepreneurship. I ran a philosophy class called Petit Plato\u0026#39;s.\nIt was so cute. Petit Plato\u0026#39;s? Yeah. What was that? It was a philosophy school for kids.\nWe ran it in the back of our toy shop. That is awesome. Some of those kids are like still\nmy friends. Like there was one girl, she\u0026#39;s called Hermione,\nshe\u0026#39;s now studying philosophy and theology at university like I was. She came to stay\nwith me in America. She\u0026#39;s like 21 now. Yeah. And like, you don\u0026#39;t realize until you try\ndifferent, completely different fields and completely different worlds and completely\ndifferent cultures about like the beauty and the things you can learn.\nLike I find it\u0026#39;s crazy that some people just have lived in the same place their entire\nlives. But I went back to my high school reunion and everyone was like still dating each other.\nAnd I was like, wait, what? I go, I was like, there\u0026#39;s a whole world out there. How is it\nthe chance that you all found the best people in this one moment of your life?\nAnd I just want to experience all that. Maybe it is the case that, you know, you found the\nbest thing when you were eighties. Right. But like, I want to experience this. I want\nto live in Tokyo. I want to be a bus driver. There\u0026#39;s so many things I want to do. Like,\nI would love to be like a criminal detective. Like, I\u0026#39;m not going to probably have the time,\nbut I\u0026#39;m going to go study them. Like, why not? Like, imagine just thinking about technology\nmy entire life. Like, I obviously love technology. It\u0026#39;s my most focused on interest because technology\nto me is pragmatic philosophy. Like, it takes philosophical questions and it answers them.\nBut, yeah, I want to do everything, like I, that\u0026#39;s why I care about longevity. It\u0026#39;s like\nI just selfishly want more time to like go do more fun things. Like, people are having\nfun and life is so fun, like I have a great time.\nWhat is it that you see in reading that other people are missing? Because like when most\npeople think of reading, they think, oh, that\u0026#39;s a boring activity.\nMeanwhile, you\u0026#39;re like, my ideal vibe is sitting in a room with unlimited books, and I just\nget to like bathe in the wisdom of great scholars. What is it? I think that people just also\ndon\u0026#39;t disregard books if they don\u0026#39;t like them. It\u0026#39;s like, don\u0026#39;t force yourself to read books\nif you don\u0026#39;t like it. Everyone\u0026#39;s like, well, I don\u0026#39;t really like\nthis book, but I can read it. I\u0026#39;m like, well, stop reading it. I don\u0026#39;t like reading. I\u0026#39;m\nlike, maybe that\u0026#39;s, you\u0026#39;re not buying the right books, right? Like, it\u0026#39;s like, I don\u0026#39;t\nknow what my interests are, like, from the start, but I just start digging around and\nI look over here and I look over here and I\u0026#39;m like, ooh, that sounds interesting over\nthere, but I might end up appreciating it. I told you I went to go read the New Testament\nand I ended up reading about New Testament manuscripts. Right. That wasn\u0026#39;t set out, but\nI just followed my own curiosity. But people should just free flow. It\u0026#39;s like, don\u0026#39;t read\nwhat your friends are telling you to read or what the New York Times bestseller is telling\nyou to read. Definitely not that. Cool. The, you know,\nall the bestseller books are like how to be more productive. It\u0026#39;s all nonfiction about\nhow to like, you\u0026#39;re messed up and here\u0026#39;s like nonfiction about how you can be less messed\nup, which is a weird cultural, again, perverse thing going around that like we all need like\nto be fixed. But it\u0026#39;s like, go find things that resonate\nwith you, right? And like, don\u0026#39;t be embarrassed by it, right? Like who, I don\u0026#39;t know many\npeople who\u0026#39;s like reading Rolke. I gave a copy of it, of his poetry. Like poetry is\nlike a little cringe now in modern society. People aren\u0026#39;t like, going, reading poetry.\nI gave copies of, uh, Domino Elegies to most of my friends.\nAnd a lot of them said, were like, really grateful. They\u0026#39;re like, you know what? I\u0026#39;ve\nnever actually read poetry. Like, not as an adult. Like, I was in school and I really\nresonated with this. It\u0026#39;s like, go try it. Like, go pick up a poetry book. You might\nbe surprised. I feel like there\u0026#39;s a thread that you\u0026#39;ve been\npulling on for a few years now about Scenes that we\u0026#39;re missing about consciousness.\nYou have this crazy story about when your aunt died or something. Yeah\nYeah, I, I, yeah, I, I, I, I, two my family members have died, and like, around the time\nexactly when they died, like, I\u0026#39;ve had panic attacks. Like, I\u0026#39;ve never had, I\u0026#39;ve never\nhad, like, a panic attack. I\u0026#39;m not a super anxious person.\nWhich are you, they died and right before you had a panic attack.\nThey died in Turkey, my cousin and my aunt, different times, and both those times was\nin the night in U. S. time, and I woke up in the night and had a panic attack. Jeez.\nAnd the first time, I didn\u0026#39;t think of anything. The next morning, I woke up, and they were\nlike, Oh, your cousin died from a heart attack. And I was like, Whoa, that\u0026#39;s crazy.\nLike, I woke up in the night, and I had a, I thought I was having a heart attack. The\nsecond time was with my aunt, um, and like, there could be, you know, normal explanations\nfor this, um, but as I\u0026#39;ve become more humble. Right. So like science doesn\u0026#39;t have the answers\nand just to clarify how much science doesn\u0026#39;t have the answer in science, like everyone\u0026#39;s\nlike physics and the standard model, like all this stuff, 95 percent of all observable\nreality is just labeled as dark matter that we don\u0026#39;t understand, like, could you not have\na situation where people should be more humble than that?\nIt\u0026#39;s like, all observable reality is 5 percent of what we can see. The whole rest of it,\nwhat we call dark matter is just an unknown thing that like scientists can\u0026#39;t figure out.\nSo, okay, well, maybe we shouldn\u0026#39;t. Be very humble that we don\u0026#39;t understand how things\nwork and I used to find all this like spirituality energy stuff like kind of weird I was like,\nI don\u0026#39;t want to like turn 30 and do the thing where everyone does is like I\u0026#39;ve gone to ayahuasca\nI\u0026#39;m like now I like talk to a plant But at the same time like as you get older if you\u0026#39;re\nsensitive you start to realize that like there are some things like aren\u0026#39;t explanatory and\nI\u0026#39;m not making the cases necessarily about my panic attacks as you know, they can be\nexplained away, but If you\u0026#39;re sensitive, you start to notice that there\u0026#39;s a little, there\u0026#39;s\nlike magic. There\u0026#39;s like some, you can tap into it. It\u0026#39;s\nnot magic in the way that people think of it, but it\u0026#39;s like serendipity and like synchronicity.\nAnd like, there\u0026#39;s something where it\u0026#39;s like very, it\u0026#39;s, it\u0026#39;s my, my boyfriend, I was like,\nit\u0026#39;s always like you, we call it something, we call it prop guy. It\u0026#39;s like, you know,\nhe\u0026#39;s been touched by God. It\u0026#39;s like, this is a very unlikely chance\nof these exact things can happen. And they worked in certain ways. And in that humility,\nI thought a lot about consciousness and in post enlightenment thinking everyone was like,\nconsciousness is following neurons and the neurons fly and that\u0026#39;s how things work.\nAnd maybe consciousness is non localized, and it\u0026#39;s everywhere, and we tap into it, and\nlike, you know, Persick has this argument that you can, like, even rocks have some sort\nof level of preferences, like, that things are working towards. Um, and I\u0026#39;ve just become\nhumble that I don\u0026#39;t have the answer. It\u0026#39;s not I\u0026#39;m saying I know what consciousness is.\nI\u0026#39;m just saying that I\u0026#39;m not fully bought in to the current paradigm and questioning\nit is like total heresy. I tweeted once about the, you know, I read an article saying like,\nOh, I said something wrong, like I, you know, started to doubt materialism, right? Like\nI was like, yeah, consciousness seems a little weird.\nLike I, I think we should all be a little humble about it. Every AI engineer in like\nthe world went, Oh my gosh, look at this Silicon Valley VC who doesn\u0026#39;t believe in consciousness.\nAnd I was like, no, I\u0026#39;m just. Asking questions, like, you can\u0026#39;t prove, we don\u0026#39;t have a proof\nof what consciousness is. So to be able to be that arrogant about it shows these, like,\ndogmas, right? There\u0026#39;s, like, a certain post enlightenment\ndogmatic view of consciousness that you\u0026#39;re not allowed to question. Which I think is\nalso a problem with people, how people are building AI. They\u0026#39;re like, we\u0026#39;re just going\nto build this language calculator and it\u0026#39;ll become conscious. Like, you don\u0026#39;t even know\nwhat conscious means, right? Um, but this is just a problem with post enlightenment\nthought, which is, you know, something that we\u0026#39;ve talked about for a\nlong time. Yeah. I think it was in 19... I want to say 1945, but that year strikes me\nthat might be off because that was right after the war. But there\u0026#39;s a guy named C. P. Snow\nwho wrote a book called The Two Cultures. And what he was trying to get at, not a book\nessay, what he\u0026#39;s trying to get at in this piece is like, We\u0026#39;re now dividing the humanities\nfrom STEM and he was basically like raising the red flag saying, this is not good. And\nI think that you can see how specialized everything has become and how much we\u0026#39;re missing because\nof that. Like Einstein died with a book from like an\nIndian mystic right next to him on his bed. Marshall McLuhan, who was like a crazy media\ntheorist, everyone\u0026#39;s like, wow, he knew so much about that. He was like obsessed with\nCatholicism. He was like a Christian scholar for years. And you just see this over and\nover and over. I mean, the classic example, Steve Jobs, Steve\nJobs goes out and does, you know, circles around Buddhism and does the typography. Like\nthat\u0026#39;s sort of the cliche example, but there\u0026#39;s something here about we\u0026#39;ve gone so much into\nspecialization that we\u0026#39;ve sort of separated. Either you can be this logic person who works\nfrom the head or this. Humanity is a person who works from the heart,\nbut you have to choose, and there\u0026#39;s so much that we\u0026#39;re missing by creating this wall\nbetween them. And it\u0026#39;s also extremely arrogant, right, because like the scientific charge\nof broths, right, you know, like, think about the current narrative around AI, it\u0026#39;s like,\nwe, people who\u0026#39;ve never thought about thinking, never thought about thinking, we\u0026#39;re engineers,\nwe\u0026#39;ve thought about how to build things from the ground up using code.\nThere\u0026#39;s been a lot of philosophical thought on what is, like, what it talks like, justify\na belief. That\u0026#39;s the field of epistemology. Right through, like, what it means to, like,\ndefine agency. And you have all this AI researchers now who are like, we\u0026#39;ve built this code and\nit\u0026#39;s, we\u0026#39;ve anthropomorphized it in such a way that this language calculator is going\nto become conscious. I\u0026#39;m like, these are very loaded terms. These\nare very loaded terms that you haven\u0026#39;t introspected on a lot. We don\u0026#39;t even know what those definitions\nmean. Like we don\u0026#39;t have a collective definitions of even what the word intelligence means.\nThere\u0026#39;s no single answer of what intelligence means. There\u0026#39;s something that a spider can\ndo when it creates a web that\u0026#39;s intelligent, that\u0026#39;s going towards a preference and a goal.\nBecause bees and ants. Exactly, there\u0026#39;s like murmuration and buzz, there\u0026#39;s many different\ntypes of intelligence. To have the arrogance to say, if we can make it resemble our intelligence\nin this way, like to build these kind of very smart, very human sounding, you know, language\ncalculators, because we can see ourselves in it, that is primary form of intelligence.\nLike, I think something that\u0026#39;s way more scary from an existential risk point of view is\nsynthetic biology. People actually try and build biological intelligence, right? Like,\nhow do we build organisms from non organic matter? Like, that to me is a little bit more\nlike, we should be thinking about that as opposed to like, if we just keep adding thousands\nmore training inputs to this giant language code page, it\u0026#39;s going to walk out the screen\nand kill us. But it comes from this arrogance, right, of\nlike, everything is logical. And we are so, it\u0026#39;s such a great paradigm of science that\nwe figured out what consciousness is thinking. It\u0026#39;s like, no, we have, it\u0026#39;s like, we don\u0026#39;t\nhave a definition of what the goal even is. We don\u0026#39;t even know what intelligence is, that\nwe\u0026#39;re somehow going to get there, even though we don\u0026#39;t really know what the goal is.\nYeah, the Arab, they\u0026#39;re like current hubris in STEM to disregard the humanities. I\u0026#39;ve\nbeen thinking about these questions for a long period of time. Like it\u0026#39;s just, it was\njust saved much more time and people were talking to each other. Like every, I mean,\na lot of the machine learning examples come from behaviorism they used to in the past.\nLike looking at like Pavlov\u0026#39;s models and trying to understand like how you do reward functions.\nThat was some of the beginning basis of machine learning. And then it kind of separated out\nand became much, much more about code and not even looking at mimetic behaviors and\nintelligence, intelligent animals. It\u0026#39;s like, this divorce, like you say, like,\nI mean, how much is that slowing down progress? This extreme arrogance between both camps,\nright? Like, everyone needs to take a massive familiarity pill. Yeah.\nAs you think of the writing that you\u0026#39;ve read, how do you think handwriting to the typewriter\nto the keyboard changes? The shape of thought.\nOh, it\u0026#39;s such a good one. It\u0026#39;s something I\u0026#39;ve been thinking about for a while because I\nwant to get a really good new fountain pen. I was like, I need a fountain, I need a really\ngood fountain pen. Um, but yeah, it\u0026#39;s divorcing you from it. When you write with a pen, this\nis why I\u0026#39;ve been trying to reunite with, because in my school, I don\u0026#39;t know, I just probably\ndon\u0026#39;t have the same in the US, but I went to a very old school.\nBetween four and 18, I had to only use, I was only allowed to use a fountain pen. Is\nthat happening in America? No, no, it\u0026#39;s not. Okay. So everything that I wrote from four\nto 18 had to be, if it was a school, like law, like we had to write a fountain pen.\nAnd then when you\u0026#39;re writing, it becomes like a somatic experience, right?\nLike your handwriting is part of the art, how you do cursive, how you phrase your letters,\nlike. Look at Islamic\ncalligraphy. I know. And like medieval manuscripts. And there was a, there\u0026#39;s a formality, the\nthing I love when I go look at these like old historical texts, including the New Testament\nmanuscripts, is that the, how they display the words was also part of like the total\nwhole of the writing. Yes. Right? Like they wanted it to be beautiful.\nIf you read Abba Chenna\u0026#39;s Calendar of Medicine, which is an 11th century medical textbook.\nRight. It has beautiful calligraphy, trying to imagine like a medical textbook now, like\nhaving this in, but it was a formality of like, I am doing something. It\u0026#39;s a legacy.\nLike I\u0026#39;m showing up. Right. It\u0026#39;s the same thing about like, why does everyone in LA\nwalk around in a sports bra? Right. Cause like nobody feels this respect. It\u0026#39;s me to\nlike dress up and, you know, make an effort for this. We\u0026#39;ve lost the respect for formality.\nLike it\u0026#39;s cringe to try, right? Like it\u0026#39;s cringe to try.\nNow everything\u0026#39;s we\u0026#39;re in reduced to, but I read everything on a Kindle. Like I admit,\nlike I take a Kindle around with me sometimes, but they still drive me mad because like,\nI feel like divorced from the reading experience and maybe because I\u0026#39;m just too old, but like,\nyou know, writing was meant to be, it was an art form and now it\u0026#39;s really not an art\nform. It\u0026#39;s like mass market paperback or hardback.\nAnd it\u0026#39;s like, how do we bring back beautiful books? Like, think about like, um, uh, um,\nWilliam Morris did the Canterbury Tales. Like, have you seen these books? Oh, it\u0026#39;s just so\nbeautiful. It was like 19th century revival of medieval texts with beautiful calligraphy\nand drawing. But like, nobody has, nobody respects it anymore,\nright? They want it as fast and as quick as possible. Um, but it\u0026#39;s a shame. I think we\u0026#39;re\ngoing to get some return of this. Like we\u0026#39;ve gone too far and like now some people are\nmaking beautiful books again. Because it\u0026#39;s like they\u0026#39;ve gone so far that people are like,\nwait, actually like we like some of the pretty stuff.\nBut yeah, I want to, I want to go back to handwriting with a pen for this exact reason,\nwhich is that I want to show up to it. And I think there\u0026#39;s some level where when I type\non a computer, it\u0026#39;s divorcing me from the formality of my own thoughts. Plus you can\u0026#39;t\ndelete it, which is something that you and I spoke about, right?\nA typewriter is also great for this, like when you write and edit, you get rid of things\nand you lose, sometimes things that were very good, um. It\u0026#39;s like jazz. It\u0026#39;s like jazz.\nYeah. Like jazz flows and then you roll with the mistakes.\nYes, exactly. When you\u0026#39;re typing, the mistakes, delete, delete, delete, and so you lose the\nmistakes. Yeah. And sometimes the mistakes, like you\ngo back and realize they weren\u0026#39;t mistakes. Right? The mistake, creativity is sometimes\nrecognizing the best mistakes that you\u0026#39;ve made and actually\nbuilding on them. Totally. So, you know, I, I think we\u0026#39;re going to start seeing, like,\nI hope that there\u0026#39;s, and you start to see like, even the fact that the videos that we\u0026#39;ve\nmade have been, have resonated with people that I think there\u0026#39;s a slight backlash towards\nthe over indexing on technology for everything. I spoke to a 19 year old the other day who\nlike has his own history, like essay competition. He\u0026#39;s writing beautiful books and doing, I\nwas like, okay, like maybe there\u0026#39;s a hope in the younger generation. I mean, like, I\ndon\u0026#39;t want to be like those guys, like they\u0026#39;re all on Tik Tok and like, we don\u0026#39;t want to\nbe like our older brothers and sisters. I\u0026#39;m hopeful. Well,\nit\u0026#39;s funny cause we were talking last night about these super high end cars, like higher\nend than Lamborghini and Ferrari. Yeah. And the designer. Who\u0026#39;s the head designer. He\ndraws by hand before he brings them into AutoCAD. And I was talking to another designer and\nhe was in his mid 70s and I, I really respected the guy.\nI was like, Hey, you know, when you look at stuff on Pinterest, stuff on Instagram, like\nwhat do you think is the fundamental problem? And he sort of stops and he thinks, and he\ngoes that people don\u0026#39;t design by hand anymore. When you design by hand and you have the ink\nthat moves through, you have, you have a texture, you have sort of this lack of perfection.\nNow he\u0026#39;s like, When people design something, they start with templates. They start with\nthings that they can copy and paste. They start within these. Invisible constraints\nthat limit their thinking from the very beginning. And what\u0026#39;s great about handwriting when you\u0026#39;re\nwriting, but in particular with modern design, when you have a pen, there\u0026#39;s a boundlessness.\nYou\u0026#39;re only constrained by the eight and a half by 11 page itself. I think you see it\nin writing too. Like the idea of the spirit has died. Like how often do most people think\nof the spirit? Like, does this piece of writing, is it spirited? Is it alive? And I think you\nsee the same thing in houses. It was funny because my friend sent me a zoom screenshot.\nIt was all these people on this grid and people just working at their houses. Every single\none of the screenshots had bare white walls. Yeah. There were like 12 all white walls.\nI\u0026#39;m like, where is the spirit? Where is the distinctiveness? Where is the personality?\nHow are we? Stripping the world of life time and time again.\nAnd I think you see it writing, but it\u0026#39;s hard to see there, but you can see the residue\nof this dilution of the human spirit in architecture and painting and aesthetics. And I\u0026#39;m just\nlike, what is happening? I know. And I, I so much more even a contrast\nif you spend time in Europe compared to the U S right, which is that the U S has become\nhyper minimal. It\u0026#39;s almost like egalitarian. It\u0026#39;s almost\naesthetic. Right. Which is that. It\u0026#39;s embarrassing or to be ostentatious or to have any kind\nof. You know, um, outbursts of creativity and it\u0026#39;s make an effort. It\u0026#39;s just cringe.\nLike it\u0026#39;s cringe to look like you care and try. You want to look like you don\u0026#39;t care,\nwhich is like the Balenciaga, like Vetterman\u0026#39;s thing you talk about earlier.\nIt\u0026#39;s like, we don\u0026#39;t literally put young people in trash bags and charge 900. And it\u0026#39;s like,\nyou\u0026#39;re just showing how much you don\u0026#39;t care. Right. And you\u0026#39;re paying a lot to pray. So\nit\u0026#39;s like, I\u0026#39;m rich and I don\u0026#39;t care, which is like the main message of fashion right\nnow, which is weird. Like look at the nineties, like.\nWhen we were dressing up, the supermodels they looked up to, it\u0026#39;s like, there was a\ndifferent kind of like prestige, like there was a meritocracy. This is back to the point,\nwhy don\u0026#39;t people like it? Well, beauty, Plato\u0026#39;s quote, beauty is a natural superiority. It\nplays to meritocracy. Like there is some objective standards of beauty.\nPeople want to not say it, but there\u0026#39;s when people go to the dentist, they all want more\nsymmetrical teeth. They\u0026#39;re not like, you know, I want one tooth this way and one tooth this\nway. There are objective values of beauty. There is, you know, symmetry. There is complexity.\nThere\u0026#39;s elegance, mathematical elegance. You can see in a mathematical formula also\nrepresented in a flower. And that flower has a symmetry that is based on math and art and\nso many things. And now like people just kind of like disregard all of these things. It\u0026#39;s\nlike, there\u0026#39;s no such thing. We don\u0026#39;t want to have superiority. Things call me better.\nEverything must be the same. And this is what Nietzsche spoke so heavily about. This is\nhis last man argument, right? Which is a last man wants to be like everybody else. Right.\nAnd the madman who is just trying to like be an individualistic person. And that\u0026#39;s why\nlike everyone hates. Ayn Rand so much. Like, why do people hate Ayn Rand so much?\nIt\u0026#39;s like a nice Russian woman who like, her argument is like, if people should listen\nto her talks on America. She has this talk on American businessmen, which I listened\nto the other day. And she\u0026#39;s just saying like, they should be great. They should, people\nshould look up to them. Like, they should be the models of society that people want\nto embody their characters and values. Everyone\u0026#39;s like, she\u0026#39;s awful. And I\u0026#39;m like,\nwhat? Like, you want to have shitty leaders? Like, I think it\u0026#39;s good that they have virtuous\nqualities. But this perverse and extremely dominant view that, you know, any kind of\nmeritocracy is bad works against our entire, you know, aspirations as humans and progress.\nLike, there are natural hierarchies. Denying them is denying science. Like, there\u0026#39;s natural\nhierarchies. Some things are more beautiful than others. Like, we should celebrate it.\nLike, I don\u0026#39;t care that I\u0026#39;m not the world\u0026#39;s best painter, but I love going and seeing\nMonet\u0026#39;s painting. I\u0026#39;m not like, damn that guy, stop painting, right?\nLike, it\u0026#39;s crazy. It\u0026#39;s like, it\u0026#39;s fine. It\u0026#39;s not my skill, but we now everyone has to be\nequal in this egalitarian world. There\u0026#39;s no space for beauty.\nWhat do you get from spending time in Istanbul besides seeing your mom? What do I get? Well,\nI learned a lot about why I don\u0026#39;t want to live, why, how countries should not be dysfunctional,\nright? It\u0026#39;s like an extremely dysfunctional country.\nBut it\u0026#39;s that Istanbul. Have you been to Istanbul? No. It\u0026#39;s incredible because it\u0026#39;s a place where\nthe East meets the West, right? It\u0026#39;s half European and it\u0026#39;s. Middle Eastern, and there\u0026#39;s\nIslamic, and there\u0026#39;s European, like half is literally Europe. And, you know, I cross my\nhotel in Europe to my mom\u0026#39;s house on the Asian side every day by boat.\nSo I literally cross across continents. Oh, that\u0026#39;s cool. And you just start to realize,\nlike, um, I mean, the Ottoman Empire is also really cool, but like the history of Istanbul\nis Incredible. We just listened to the Fall of Civilizations podcast on the, on the Byzantine\nEmpire. Really good. Highly recommend. Um, but it\u0026#39;s just, there\u0026#39;s a lot of legacy\nand a lot of history there and you can\u0026#39;t help but be humbled. And also to experience different\nfaiths. I\u0026#39;m not Muslim. Some of my family members are Muslim, but to hear the call to\nprayer five times a day, or however many times a day. It really stop me to pause and reflect.\nIt dices up my days. It reminds me of what it must\u0026#39;ve been like in the medieval period\nwhen you had church. Like you had the, you know, um, Matan and like the, and the, that\u0026#39;s\nhow the Cox were. It was, comes from the church, right. They would definitely the time with\nlike bells. Yep. Um, so in, in an Islamic country like Turkey.\nAnd to have a different way of like breaking up the day, hearing things ringing, like this\nkind of stuff. It just reminds you that, like, there isn\u0026#39;t just one way of living. In America,\neveryone\u0026#39;s, like, obsessed with clock time. In Istanbul, you hear the five call, like,\ncalls to prayer, and that separates your day, and it causes you to reflect.\nIt\u0026#39;s just a, it\u0026#39;s a beautiful place. It\u0026#39;s a beautiful place to visit. It\u0026#39;s not a beautiful\nplace to live, because it gets very frustrating, but just the history there, like, the old\nOttoman palaces, they\u0026#39;re just... They\u0026#39;re like the 16th century who spent what would be equivalent\nto a billion dollars. Like they really were obsessed with detail.\nThere\u0026#39;s no, like they, they definitely, they\u0026#39;re definitely maximalists. You know,\nthis is interesting, like the obsession with detail, the maximalists, like that\u0026#39;s one thing\nI love going for in my writing, like my favorite part of the editing process is looking at\nwhat I\u0026#39;ve written and basically trying to like add vibrancy to individual words and\nsentences and try to create, like, I\u0026#39;m such a maximalist.\nI just love to. Like for me the peak of writing and visual aesthetics is like how do I make\nthings maximalist while still retaining their coherence and while still retaining a sense\nof elegance. Like what I\u0026#39;m always teetering on the edge of is maximalism but it sometimes\ngets confusing and now it gets messy and stuff like that and I\u0026#39;m always trying to find that\nbalance. And I just feel like the soul, at least like\nthe expressive part of ourselves, like we want to show maximalism. We want to show like\nthe depths, the contours of our personality and like minimalism is a suppression of all\nthat to come back to the drugs that you were talking about.\nYeah, and I really, if people want empirical evidence of the case, just look at every health,\nexpensive health list for sale in Los Angeles right now.\nThey look exactly the same. And it\u0026#39;s just so crazy, like, look at the wealth of the\npast, like the William Randolph Hearst, look at the Hearst Castle. Hearst Castle, incredible!\nIt\u0026#39;s insane! And, you know, he wasn\u0026#39;t even just like a newspaper magnate, like, he collected\nantiques, like, um, uh, G. P. Morgan. His library.\nHis library is my favorite place, like, it is such a stunning homage to books. He has,\nyou know, leaders in the Pinter Pretty press, like, on the walls.\nEven just, like, the balconies and, like, the decoration on the balcony in that place\nand, like, the color of the mahogany is gorgeous. And, like, he was an industrialist.\nLike, people think of him as a banker, right, like, I\u0026#39;m able to say this is J. P. Morgan.\nBut if you go look at his library and then look at the, he collected medieval manuscripts.\nHe actually, I think, died on, like, an archaeological dig. Like, he went, he himself went to archaeological\nquests. It\u0026#39;s like, these people in the past, when you read people\u0026#39;s diaries, they didn\u0026#39;t\njust do one thing. They had all these varied interests, because\neducation wasn\u0026#39;t so siloed, and like, like, it wasn\u0026#39;t so fixed that you were meant to\ndo one thing at the end of it. It\u0026#39;s like, the great industrious about Asia, the Hearst,\nthe J. P. Morgans, were very interesting characters who had a lot of, like, what you were saying\nabout people being interested in esoteric philosophy, and like, Steve Jobs, for example.\nBut like, no, like everyone just lives with these very narrow views. And I\u0026#39;m so inspired\nby the JP Morgans of this world. They like, they cared about these things. Like they realized\nthat it was important to learn from the past, learn from history. He obviously loved books.\nLike you can\u0026#39;t go into that place. It\u0026#39;s like a book church. And then you go to\nItaly, right? And like, I remember being in, hearing all this stuff around like geopolitical\nrisks, like a, like a year and a half ago. And I was in Rome and everyone in Rome was\nlike drinking red wine and eating pizza. So they weren\u0026#39;t talking about like that.\nOlder countries have seen many phases of revolutions and countries come and go and like blah blah.\nAmerica is still so new and there\u0026#39;s some level like we have to stay how it is and we have\nto keep everyone subdued and like keep them within the system. But yeah, I think if you\ncould change a really weird way to increase cultural self efficacy in America is just\nto make it harder for litigation. And I think you\u0026#39;d stop seeing so many warning\nsigns and people would relax and in that period of breathing and stillness, they would find\nmore creativity. Am I hallucinating or did you do a Federalist\npaper rabbit hole? I did. Yeah. Yeah.\nI did do that. Yeah. And what\u0026#39;d you pick up about the writing style of the four fathers\nof America? Um,\nthat they were very deep, philosophical people, not like any politician now, like you read\nthe federalist papers and the anti federalist papers was also interesting. And if anyone\ninterested in like the early American, like founding history, I did a fellowship at the\nClaremont Institute is. It was unbelievable. It was like 10 days in Orange County where\nall we did was sit with scholars and learn like the Ferris Papers and the Constitution.\nEven more fun for me because I\u0026#39;m not from this country, so I learned it like from scratch,\nright? It\u0026#39;s like, I didn\u0026#39;t learn about this in school, we just learned about like Henry\nVIII. So I learned all this stuff, and I was like,\nwow, like, there was a lot of thought put into this, right? Like, they were, they thought\nabout things, like, all you did was actually printed, the Federalist Papers were printed\nin newspapers as debates, right? Like, it was like, Federalist Paper, and then, you\nknow, the, the response to that. And it was very thoughtful, and it was pro\nliberty, and it was grounded in values. And it was very well considered and you compare\nthat to political discourse now, like I watched the midterms, like I, I was way too involved\nwith thinking about politics in 2020 and last few years I\u0026#39;ve disengaged. I was like, I don\u0026#39;t\nknow what\u0026#39;s happening. But I watched the midterms, like people can\u0026#39;t\neven string a sentence and that\u0026#39;s fine. Like everyone\u0026#39;s like, that\u0026#39;s fine. They don\u0026#39;t make\nany sense. If you read the Federalist Papers, it\u0026#39;s extremely humble that these people cared.\nThey really, really cared. And it made me respect America a lot more of like what its\nfounding history was and why it was so based and rooted in liberty.\nI was like, man, I wish more America\u0026#39;s like, I\u0026#39;m surprised how few actual Americans have\nstudied the Federalist Papers, like, I\u0026#39;m English and I\u0026#39;ve studied the Federalist Papers, but\nthey haven\u0026#39;t. But I think it kind of goes against the grain of contemporary education\nto go back and read that stuff because you can see what the decline is, right?\nLike, really, like, this doesn\u0026#39;t even make sense, like. It doesn\u0026#39;t make sense, just very\nerudite. So it was, it was very humbling to read it and it gave me a lot of respect for\nthe American political founding and the minds that came to it. It was, it was very fun.\nLast question. If you were to design a curriculum about teaching writing, what wedge into writing\neducation would you have? I would guess it wouldn\u0026#39;t be around spelling\nand grammar. Like, I was like, is that a diss on the fact\nthat I\u0026#39;m really bad at spelling and grammar in general? I was like, how do you know?\nI\u0026#39;m just like, you\u0026#39;re gonna have a, I\u0026#39;m terrible at it too. My sentence is always just too\nlong. Like, that was like my thing. Like, I, I, it\u0026#39;s a train of thought for me.\nSo like, I always just write, then I\u0026#39;m like, this sentence is like seven paragraphs. It\u0026#39;s\njust one train of thought. But you have to be free, right? Before I inject things, well,\nI just think people aren\u0026#39;t studying the classical texts enough. I feel very fortunate now, as\na person in my 30s, that I went to a very old school, school in England, where we got\ntaught Latin and Greek by default. We got taught Latin and we studied classical\nRoman texts. Like, we had to. It wasn\u0026#39;t like a choice, right? Like, here in America, like,\nyou can maybe learn that if you pick it up. And if you read Euripides, Or like poetry,\nif you read the Odyssey, right, which I\u0026#39;m sure you have, or the Aeneid. In that, which\nis in my, on my mind, like the next, like the next level of foundational books after\nlike the Bible, right? It\u0026#39;s like, go read other stuff that\u0026#39;s been\naround for a long time and Euripides and these other great Greek writers, including Homer,\ndid something very similar to Ayn Rand. They took characteristics and qualities of what\nthey think humans should be like, or not be like, and put them in characters. You read\nEuripides, it\u0026#39;s similar as Shakespeare does the same thing.\nIt\u0026#39;s makes, it\u0026#39;s irrelevant in any era that you read it. You use the same thing, like,\nshe loves him, he loves that, she\u0026#39;s not being noble, traitor y, like. Humans haven\u0026#39;t, the\ncontext has changed, but human drive hasn\u0026#39;t changed. Like we\u0026#39;re, we still have the same\ndrives, we just find different solutions. You\u0026#39;re saying that right.\nAnd to go read Euripides in probably the same way that you, you are doing with the Bible,\nit\u0026#39;s like you go back and you realize like, ah, like everyone\u0026#39;s had the same questions.\nAnd we\u0026#39;re thinking about the same time from a writing perspective. I think it gives you\nhumility, right? I\u0026#39;m not, I\u0026#39;m not living in the greatest moment of human intellect, right?\nLike there\u0026#39;s things for me to learn from the past. There\u0026#39;s things for me to appreciate\nabout the present. And in that humility, I find my voice, right? Like it\u0026#39;s like a respect\nfor that. And I just don\u0026#39;t think people are reading old enough texts enough. They\u0026#39;re not.\nGoing back, it\u0026#39;s seen as like boring. I\u0026#39;m like, damn, that\u0026#39;s lost for 2000 years for\na reason. Yeah. It was funny. We went out to dinner\nlast night. We\u0026#39;re in downtown LA and it was about a 10 minute walk downtown. And it literally\nfelt like a scene of I am legend. I felt like if I\u0026#39;d been there an hour later, we walked\nat sunset. I felt like we had walked. An hour and a half later, we would have been murdered.\nI mean, there was no one on the streets. It\u0026#39;s totally dead. We\u0026#39;re driving back from dinner\nafter and the driver\u0026#39;s like, I cannot believe what has happened to this place. There\u0026#39;s no\nlife on these streets. Yeah. And he drops us off and there\u0026#39;s this beautiful lobby. It\nmust have been built 1920, but between 1920, 1928, just has that.\nAlmost like deco exterior, but then also like that Art Nouveau life and vibrancy to it.\nLike that detail. And I just look at it like, wow, that is magnificent. And then you just\nsort of look at the streets and like the paint is chipped and there\u0026#39;s no care to the outside.\nAnd just the juxtaposition between what you have inside something that was built 110 years\nago and the outside, like these decrepit, sad, lifeless streets.\nI was just like, what? And I\u0026#39;m like, if that\u0026#39;s not a motif for what\u0026#39;s happening right now\nwith the decline of the creative spirit, I don\u0026#39;t know what is. Yeah.\nDrumroll. End of podcast.\nThat\u0026#39;s why you should end it. That\u0026#39;s totally amazing. Exactly. I totally agree. Yes.\nThat was a blast. That was a blast. Thank you.\nThat was fun. " }