#1545 - W. Keith Campbell

[0] Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

[1] The Joe Rogan Experience.

[2] Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

[3] Hello, Joe.

[4] What's happening, man?

[5] Thanks for coming.

[6] Oh, thanks for having me. This is great.

[7] Good to be in the new studio.

[8] It's polarizing.

[9] Some like it.

[10] Some do not.

[11] It has a weird effect on people.

[12] I never thought it was going to be a big deal.

[13] I just thought people would go, oh, this place looks weird.

[14] And that would be the end of it.

[15] Well, it's kind of an interdimensional hypertube.

[16] The red pill?

[17] What's the name?

[18] Some people call it the red pill.

[19] I don't know.

[20] It's just the studio for now.

[21] It's cool.

[22] Thank you.

[23] It feels good to be here.

[24] It feels good.

[25] Nice studio.

[26] It feels good to have you here.

[27] Thank you.

[28] We tested you up.

[29] What were you saying about testing that it's not, unless you're sick, it's not good to test often?

[30] Well, I mean, as a psychologist, you know, when you're doing psychological testing, if I wanted to see if somebody has a mental disorder, I just don't go screen about.

[31] bunch of people.

[32] I wait for somebody to show up in a hospital that's got troubles.

[33] Right.

[34] Because if I go to give the screen to a bunch of people, I'm going to find a bunch of people who test his mental ill but aren't.

[35] They're not doing anything wrong.

[36] They just have some symptoms, but they might not have all the trouble that brings them to a hospital.

[37] Or maybe they do, but they just never make their way to a hospital?

[38] Well, it's working out for them.

[39] So part of the, I'm just kidding.

[40] Yeah.

[41] I mean, the thing is you can be weird and it works or you can be an angry person or a mean person or a self -absorbed person, whatever.

[42] If it works for you, then it's not a disorder.

[43] You kind of just go through your life.

[44] If it's impairing, it becomes a disorder, and then we treat you.

[45] But how does one define whether or not it's impairing you?

[46] Like, you could argue that the president of the United States has some psychological disorders.

[47] But clearly, it hasn't impaired him from being successful unless you check his taxes.

[48] This is the debate.

[49] I've had a discussion.

[50] I've had a lot.

[51] And the question is, so with somebody like Donald Trump, somebody says he has a disorder and you say, well, is billionaire president of the United States who doesn't pay a lot of taxes, the guy sounds like he's kind of killing it to me. How's that a disorder?

[52] You know, he's, and somebody else says, well, imagine how good he'd be if he was, didn't have any disorders and was totally sane.

[53] Imagine if he was doing that but had Pence's personality.

[54] He'd really be killing it.

[55] and somebody says but Pence doesn't do it because he's not wired that way you got to have Trump's personality to do that kind of craziness so it's a debate well not only not I don't even know what personality Pence has that's the point he has no idea what's in there he comes across is somebody with a very balanced personality not very extroverted but probably very conscientious you know very probably moral and upright so he come across is somebody with rectitude you know So in personality terms, we might say somebody who's conscientious and probably be agreeable, but not really extroverted, calm.

[56] Is there debate on whether someone should be treated or even someone should be discussed as someone who has mental health issues or personality issues if they're doing well?

[57] Because the way you're describing it, you're saying, like, well, someone's successful, they're doing well, why bother looking at these things?

[58] To be treated, you need to have clinically significant impairment to get the diagnosis.

[59] So if there's no impairment, you're not supposed to treat somebody.

[60] At that point, you're just coaching them.

[61] What if someone is like super successful, but they're like, you know what?

[62] I've been talked to lately, and people sat me down and said, hey, man, you're a narcissist.

[63] There's something wrong with you.

[64] And then they come to see you and you start talking to them and say, well, you have all this good stuff going for you.

[65] Right.

[66] You would still treat them, right?

[67] Yeah.

[68] So if somebody comes in, though, this person's coming in is probably somebody who's very successful in a lot of things.

[69] And as problems, probably in their relationships, like, you know, my marriage is screwed up.

[70] My kids hate me. Let's say the president.

[71] Because what if he listens to this podcast?

[72] And he's like, you know, tremendous, tremendous podcast.

[73] Tremendous.

[74] I might have an issue.

[75] I'd like to talk to Keith.

[76] And he decides to talk to you.

[77] Yeah.

[78] But you would say, like.

[79] but you are a billionaire and you're the president and you obviously are doing well would you treat him i would if if i were if trump actually talked to me and i would say where are those choke points or those problem points in your life or your ego is screwing up your desire to be the best person in the world you you want to be the most successful president in the history of the universe where is your ego messing you up is it are you tweeting you know too much is that are you getting too mean at people who like if some rando criticizes you do you get hostile too quickly and look unstable um you know is it is your marriage okay i don't know he seems to be okay in that department right now but i'd sort of look at those points where it's influence him negatively and say what can we do to to fix those it's an interesting descriptive like the best person you can be or the best person in the world if you did that maybe you wouldn't be successful like that's part of the issue too right That's the challenge is that when you look at people, let's say you look at income.

[80] If men who are kind of jerks make more money.

[81] People who are less agreeable make more money.

[82] They're more antagonistic.

[83] They're a little more competitive.

[84] They're willing to break the rules a little bit.

[85] So there's this balance in life, whereas if you're too nice of a person, you're not able to break enough things to get ahead.

[86] But if you're going around breaking things, you become a tyrant and no one likes you and everyone wants to take you down.

[87] Well, there's also, like, by what metric are we measuring success?

[88] Are we measuring success only in financial success?

[89] Are we measuring success in, like, happiness with your friends and your family and, you know, like a balanced life with your loved ones?

[90] Yeah, meaning.

[91] And so when we talk about that, where you're going to see somebody like, you know, Trump or somebody very narcissistic who's very achievement, status -focused, they're going to succeed at those metrics.

[92] Status being number one, wealth is a pretty good proxy for status.

[93] So, well, wealth and status, where you typically fall apart is in those interpersonal realms.

[94] You just don't have the compassion.

[95] You don't have the caring.

[96] You don't give time for people.

[97] You don't have a lot of empathy.

[98] And so those relationships are usually what suffer.

[99] And so with people who are really status focused, the thing that costs is their relationships because they're pursuing fame or status or whatever.

[100] And that's fine.

[101] You know, everybody makes those choices.

[102] The problem is if you're doing it all the time and you're manipulating people and using people, it can be more of a problem.

[103] Is there any evolutionary benefit to narcissism?

[104] Like, where does that come from?

[105] Because does it exist in the animal kingdom?

[106] Yes.

[107] So, if you think about it from an evolutionary perspective, which some people have, narcissism seems to be really good for short -term mating success.

[108] Like if I go to a bar in downtown Austin and I give narcissism questionnaires to all the dudes there, the higher scores are going to get the most numbers over time.

[109] That's usually what happens.

[110] So narcissism is usually good for short -term mating and it's good for status seeking, power seeking.

[111] So it's probably beneficial in those contexts.

[112] And this is where it gets a little weird because in stable environments, like on research in hunter -gatherer societies, in stable environments, if somebody's, you know, cheating on other people's wives or stealing stuff or steals extra food, people don't like that.

[113] They'll just kill them.

[114] I mean, they'll just go have a hunting accident.

[115] If you're kind of the dick and the hunter -gatherer society, it'll take you out, and you'll just won't come back because they just don't want you.

[116] But so narcissism gets weeded out in those places, but when things get unstable and things are uncertain, people who are narcissistic can.

[117] get a lot of resources and do really well.

[118] So sometimes they do well, which keeps it around.

[119] And obviously in big societies, you can become powerful enough to hire henchmen and hire a PR agent, and you can build your own status and do a lot more than you can in the hunter -gatherer group where everyone knows you.

[120] What is narcissism?

[121] You define it.

[122] What is your definition of narcissism?

[123] It gets a little more complicated.

[124] When we're talking like this, I'm talking about grandiose narcissism, and that's a basic trick.

[125] There's more than one kind of narcissism.

[126] Yeah, I'll step back.

[127] So when we talk about narcissism in the psychological literature, we're talking about three different things that are related.

[128] The first of these is narcissistic personality, and this is a trait, meaning that people go from a high level to a low level, it's not a clinical disorder.

[129] And in this trait when it's grandiose, we say grandiose narcissism, it's this combination of sense of entitlement and the sense of superiority, but also you get extroversion and drive and ambition, call it agentic extroversion.

[130] So somebody who's driven and extroverted, but also a little bit self -centered and antagonistic and entitled.

[131] So that combination of traits, kind of a prima donna or, you know, overconfident or cocky or whatever you want to call it, that's what we talk about is grandiose narcissism.

[132] And that's just a, like I said, normal trait.

[133] There's another form of narcissism, which we don't talk about as much in the normal world, but that's vulnerable narcissism.

[134] And these are the folks that kind of think they're really important, think they should be in a lot of attention, think they're the smartest people in the room, but no one really looks at them, no one pays attention to them.

[135] So they get insecure, they get depressed, their self -esteem drops.

[136] They think, you know, why aren't I getting the attention I deserved?

[137] I'm kind of a legend.

[138] You know, it's a legend in their own mind.

[139] You know, as you're talking about, it's like basement narcissists, you know, living in their mom's basement, thinking how great they are and fantasizing about it.

[140] And those more vulnerable folks, you don't see at the bars as much because they're in the basement, but you see them clinically because they're depressed and they go see a clinician and say, help me out, I'm anxious.

[141] So those are the two normal forms of narcissists and their traits.

[142] And then there's this clinical form or psychiatric form called narcissistic personality disorder, NPD.

[143] And that personality disorder form of narcissism is an extreme form of narcissism.

[144] You have a high level of it, you know, like Trump or, you know, a lot of palely celebrities or, you know, academics.

[145] But you also, to make it a clinical disorder, you have to have that impairment we're talking about.

[146] So it has to be clinically significant impairment.

[147] And that's usually the narcissism is so bad.

[148] Your marriage or your relationships are falling apart.

[149] Your work life could be falling apart.

[150] So sometimes you find narcissistic, really successful people in offices who are narcissists, but they kind of destroy the office culture.

[151] They're just bad workers.

[152] And so you can destroy that.

[153] You can make really poor decisions because your ego is so big.

[154] You just, you know, overinvest in something and it just doesn't work out for you.

[155] So you start dysregulating your financial decisions.

[156] So you can make kind of those kind of mistakes.

[157] The big ones are usually interpersonal.

[158] But when you have that kind of impairment, It can be a disorder, and then you get treated for it.

[159] The vulnerable personality disorder is fascinating.

[160] Yeah.

[161] That's a fascinating one.

[162] Because you see a lot of that on social media in particular, right?

[163] You see people that feel like they should be getting more attention than they are and don't understand why and feel upset by that or shortchanged.

[164] Social media is such a strange beast because it gives everybody the chance to have a camera and have the audience of a billion people.

[165] So I could go on there and get a billion audience.

[166] But I have to earn that.

[167] And so you have lots of people that go, look, I can have a billion people in my audience, but I don't have those people.

[168] Why aren't they there?

[169] Who's screwing me over and not give you my followers?

[170] You know, why aren't I getting the followers?

[171] I saw a guy the other day talking about being shadow banned, and he had a thousand friends.

[172] And I'm like, are you sure?

[173] Yeah.

[174] Are you sure your shadow band?

[175] Are you sure people are just not interested in what you're saying.

[176] Maybe you're just not that interesting.

[177] But that's the weirdest thing to ever say.

[178] Like, I'm being shadow banned.

[179] Do you have evidence of this?

[180] Like, what is what is happening here?

[181] Well, you're kind of an outlaw.

[182] This is not saying that shadow banning is not real.

[183] But like, people are using that as an excuse for why they're not getting the attention that they deserve.

[184] Right.

[185] I would be the next Joe Rogan if it weren't for those dastardly shadow banners.

[186] Taking me down.

[187] Holding me back.

[188] They know that they can't silence.

[189] me. They can't, yeah.

[190] That if I got out there, I would change the world, but these guys are holding me back.

[191] And you can see how that turns into like a delusional system if you get, you know, with sort of more schizophrenia where there's a whole world of people out there trying to hold me down.

[192] Yeah, I want to get to that too.

[193] I wanted to ask you of schizophrenia, we might as well get to it right now.

[194] Is there a connection between schizophrenia and narcissism because many people who are schizophrenic have these grandiose ideas of who they are or who they should be or where they they fit in that are these ridiculously distorted perceptions of reality.

[195] Yeah, I, it's a, so grandiosity you can see with narcissism, you know, with the, you know, I have this fantasy about a great am, this illusion, but it's usually within the scope of reality.

[196] So if I'm talking to somebody narcissistic, they're like, I'm a 10, I'm pretty awesome.

[197] And you're like, not really, man, you're just not, you're okay, but like maybe go back to the gym, you know, but it's usually not, it's not a, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not crazy.

[198] Right.

[199] I was working in a hospital with a woman who was a patient who said that she worked, she was the tooth fairy and she worked for Reagan as the tooth fairy.

[200] I thought, well, that's a grandiose delusion, you know.

[201] Reagan wasn't president, but he was still helping her behind the scenes.

[202] That's a grandiose delusion, but you wouldn't call that narcissistic because she wasn't really, her personality was really narcissistic.

[203] She was more schizophrenic in her presentation, kind of flat affect, a little bit strange, odd or unusual, anadonia, sort of lack of feeling and stuff, but those weird delusions.

[204] So you can have those grandiose delusions, but it's not quite the same as narcissism.

[205] It seems to be working a little differently.

[206] And the other place you see him is mania with, like, bipolar disorder.

[207] People get really manic, and they get these manic phases, and they're like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to build this, I'm going to take over this.

[208] my record's going to be the best.

[209] And that mania can look like narcissism, too.

[210] And those are probably more closely linked.

[211] The psychological disorders that we're aware of, the ones like narcissism, the ones like schizophrenia, do we know what's happening in the mind that causes a distortion of reality?

[212] Is it ego protecting you from the truth?

[213] Is it a chemical imbalance?

[214] a series of things that all coincide, like when you have someone who's both a narcissist and possibly schizophrenic.

[215] With narcissism, it's very hard to detect anything that's sort of clearly biological, and this is true for all personality, really.

[216] People have been looking at this last five years pretty hard for sort of biomarkers or neural structures.

[217] You don't really see them very clearly.

[218] You do with schizophrenia, there's some.

[219] What is it with schizophrenia?

[220] I'm going to say, it's not my area, and I don't want it.

[221] I say, Jamie, if I say anything wrong, just check me and call me out because I don't want to screw up anything.

[222] He's the best one -handed guru on earth.

[223] Please do that.

[224] You know, because there's the old stuff about, you know, kind of plaque in the brain and things like with Alzheimer's, you see some missing neural structure, but that's just out of my area.

[225] I understand.

[226] But with personality, you generally don't see it in there.

[227] You just can't find it so far.

[228] And when you look at genetics, you know it's in the genes, but there's no single genes.

[229] It's like a swarms of genes.

[230] So if your father is a narcissist, are you more or less likely to be a narcissist?

[231] More.

[232] But what if you learn from your father?

[233] You're like, my God, my father's ruined.

[234] Like many alcoholics have children that won't touch liquor.

[235] And I've known quite a few of them.

[236] Yeah.

[237] So in the clinical literature, they talk about that as sort of that identify with them.

[238] or you do the opposite of the father.

[239] So if the alcoholic father, like you said, you become a teetotaler or your father's a narcissist.

[240] You become really nice.

[241] We don't really see that.

[242] What you tend to see, I mean, I say it doesn't happen because I know what happens, but what you tend to see in the literature with these big family studies is that traits like narcissism and all personality and really all mental disorders, they tend to follow family lines, so they're heritable.

[243] But it's not really clear how that happens.

[244] Whether it's nurture or nature.

[245] Right.

[246] I mean, it's in there, but we don't know exactly what the genes are.

[247] And when they start to look at the nurture question with a lot of personality, what you find is about, and when they break these down into heredity coefficients, they don't mean exactly what they sound.

[248] But generally you find it's about 50, 60 percent heritable.

[249] You're born with it.

[250] Probably genetic.

[251] And maybe 10 percent is perinine, and maybe the other, you know, 30, 40 percent is something in the environment that's just not really clear what it is.

[252] The environment, really?

[253] Yeah, just random environment.

[254] So that's why, you know, you have kids and you have two, I have two daughters.

[255] They're very different people.

[256] Part of that's genetics, obviously.

[257] They're very different.

[258] But it's also their environment.

[259] I might have been a similar parent to both of them, but they have different friends.

[260] They grew up in a little different time, a little different culture, and all those forces affect you in ways you don't really understand.

[261] So a lot of what happens to us is this non -shared environment.

[262] We just can't really explain.

[263] Parenting is pretty small.

[264] Really?

[265] Yeah, that's weird.

[266] What we say about parenting is that it really doesn't make much of a difference, but it matters.

[267] So I have, I mean, I have two daughters.

[268] And the idea that I could change them into the one into the other through my parenting skills.

[269] You know, I could take my one daughter who loves to dance and I could turn her into the one that loves, you know, math, and I could take the math one and turn her into it.

[270] I couldn't do that in a million years.

[271] They're just different people.

[272] Yeah.

[273] No way.

[274] So I can't really shape my kid's personality very well.

[275] I mean, parents just can't really do that.

[276] But you matter a lot.

[277] You know, you put food on the table.

[278] You're probably, you know, safe environment.

[279] You're not threatening the kids.

[280] You know, there's a lot you do as a parent that matters.

[281] But you can't really fine -tune your kids' personalities very well.

[282] I mean, I don't even try.

[283] But what can you do if you think one of your children has narcissistic personality disorder or is, you know, in a set?

[284] spectrum of narcissism, right?

[285] Somewhere in there, you're like, there's something here I have to address.

[286] Well, I mean, when I, people ask me this a lot because they're like, they don't want their kids to be entitled, little jerks.

[287] I mean, you just don't want that.

[288] And the number one thing is you try not to be that yourself, be a good role model.

[289] And that's, you know, something, you know, we all struggle with.

[290] The advice I give with parenting, I hate to call it advice, but sort of the mimonic I give is CPR, just so people remember it.

[291] But these are things to focus on.

[292] So the thing with narcissism is having an ego, like your kid's like, I'm going to be president.

[293] You're not like, shut up.

[294] You're never going to be president.

[295] You loser, you know.

[296] I mean, you're not going to go beat your kid.

[297] You know, it's not, it's, you don't have to stuff your kids, you know, but kids dream.

[298] That's great.

[299] It's not going at the ego part.

[300] It's more going at the interpersonal part more.

[301] So I say CPR, it's compassion, passion, responsibility.

[302] And so the compassion piece is big.

[303] And so a lot of it with kids is focusing on like, can you be a nice person?

[304] Are you nice to your sister?

[305] You're nice to animals.

[306] You know, if your kids are killing drowning pets, I'd be a little worried, you know?

[307] But if they're loving pets and they're loving things, I'm like, people who are generally compassionate don't become that narcissistic.

[308] They can be a little narcissistic, but compassion's a big buffer.

[309] So I think that's really important.

[310] And people think about that.

[311] The one people think about a little less is passion, like getting really excited about stuff.

[312] so if it's I mean like for you let's see you're into archery and you're just stoked about it and you're telling your kids about archery and you shot an elk and it was the greatest day ever no one's like god there goes Joe he's bragging again just talking about what a great shot he is it doesn't sound like that because you're showing passion you're not like I'm not the best shooter this is just awesome let me tell you about it so if you get your kids into things that they give them that passion sometimes we use the word flow in psychology I don't know if they talk about flow states.

[313] You're getting in those flow states when you're really engaged in what you're doing and getting feedback.

[314] Is that something you know?

[315] Sure.

[316] Yeah.

[317] So you're getting those flow states and you get that sense of passion.

[318] When you do that, you're able to engage in a task, get really good at it, tell people about it, bring them into it, but not be a jerk.

[319] Because it's not about you're being better than anyone.

[320] It's about enjoyment.

[321] And then the third piece, this responsibility piece, is just take responsibility for your damn life.

[322] You know, not just the thing with narcissism, it's really easy to take responsibility for success.

[323] But what do you do when you fail?

[324] And how can you learn to fail and then say, you know, I failed, I screwed up.

[325] It's on me. And keep going.

[326] And so taking responsibility for your failures and learning to be responsible for your own action.

[327] Again, it's a buffer against narcissism.

[328] It's hard to get too big of an ego when you see yourself failing over and over and you have to admit it.

[329] You know, it keeps your ego in check.

[330] Well, we were actually talking about admitting failure before the podcast, and I think it's a giant part of getting people to listen to you.

[331] If you don't admit failure, they're going to go, oh, this guy pretends he's never wrong, or this guy pretends he never fucks up.

[332] I'm not, and then they're looking at you, and they're like, well, this person, I'm not now not going to take what they say very seriously, because I know they're looking at life through a distorted lens.

[333] Right.

[334] Because their lens is not accurate.

[335] It's not objective.

[336] They're not considering all the different.

[337] things that other people see in them yes because their lens is colored by their own ego yeah and they can't see past their own ego so they're just ego and narcissism are inexorably connected yes so it's like you got yeah you got the ego glasses on whenever you get to a certain area it's this kind of blind spot and then I live when you know the world's insane right and we're all trying to figure out what's real and I just listen to people and when I hear people that screw up and they say they're sorry or they make mistakes like I can trust that person right When people never make mistakes, I get nervous.

[338] Yeah, you should.

[339] I mean, I go into class, and I'm like, I'm going to be right 80 % of the time in here.

[340] You guys Google everything I say.

[341] Because, I mean, it's hard to be.

[342] You can't be interesting and right 100 % of time.

[343] It's just not possible.

[344] Right.

[345] Especially if you're thinking out loud, right?

[346] Right.

[347] And when the idea that ego and narcissism are connected, I think there's a benefit to ego in that you, value yourself and you value your own success and that will force you to work hard and that will equal, you know, some success in whatever you're trying to achieve.

[348] But is there a value in narcissism?

[349] Or is it possible to be ambitious and achieve things, but do so in a compassionate and objective way where you're not distorting your own view of yourself.

[350] You're not distort.

[351] You're not alienating other people with some asinine perspective of who you are.

[352] It's a very challenging question, and I think about this one a lot.

[353] And I'm going to give you my short answer and then my longer answer, because it's more complicated.

[354] The short answer is this line I heard from Bob Dylan, but it was attributed to Liam Clancy from the Clancy brothers, which is no fear, no meanness, no envy.

[355] I hope I got that right.

[356] No fear, no envy, no meanness.

[357] But it's the, and this is about how to live a creative life.

[358] And it's the idea was you need to be fearless.

[359] You need to be bold to change things.

[360] That piece of narcissism, which we sometimes call fearless dominance or boldness, this sort of extroversion and drive, that will get you into trouble sometimes because you're taking risks.

[361] But generally, you have to take those risks to get successful.

[362] You have to take risks.

[363] So that boldness seems to be something that's pretty useful for things.

[364] Where you get in trouble is the meanness, it's being mean to people, that antagonism.

[365] Like, I'm going to start a podcast, and I'm going to, first thing I'm going to do is take out the competition.

[366] You know, like a lion, you know, like lions in the in the savannah.

[367] They are in whatever force.

[368] They'll wipe out every predator out there.

[369] They'll see a hunting dog.

[370] They'll just kill them because they're like predators.

[371] So that meanness, that piece of narcissism will get you into trouble all the time and it ruins your relationships.

[372] And the third piece is insecurity.

[373] And sometimes with narcissism that might manifest as envy.

[374] Oh my God, look how successful that, you know, that comedian is.

[375] He's got that HBO special.

[376] That should be mine.

[377] And I, you know, you stew and envy.

[378] It's hard to get ahead when you got envy and then so so of those three pieces the boldness pieces i think the one that matters the other piece with success is whatever we do for most of us our success is interpersonal we're working in fields we might be in medicine or in psychology or in comedy or entertainment or you know whatever the field is farming um you have to work all those people are your competitors or also your cooperators.

[379] And if they all hate you, they're not going to want to work with you anymore.

[380] So there's this old saying, like, I mean, you must know this of entertainment.

[381] I don't know this, but there are things like, you know, be nice to people on the way up because you're going to see them on the way back down and stuff like that.

[382] So there's got to be something where if you're just kind of an arrogant SOB, people don't want you around and it's going to hurt you.

[383] Yeah.

[384] Because they just don't, they just don't want you there.

[385] So the narcissism is really just messing up your ability to succeed because you don't have any friends.

[386] but if you're willing to take risks and be bold people will be friends with you because it's kind of fun to be friends with somebody who takes risks and it's gutsy and some people but some people that have that vulnerable narcissism will be upset at you because yeah yeah and that's a weird one when you see people do well and the other people are actually upset that the person is doing well because they think that somehow another it should be them that gets these things you know and it's a it's not a small thing.

[387] In the relationships world, there's this term called capitalization.

[388] So when something good happens to you, you know, like, hey, I have a book come out to him.

[389] I'm like, hey, I got a book come out.

[390] It's great.

[391] Who do I tell?

[392] Well, if I go tell people who are envious, then they're just going to be mad at me. If I go tell people who are jealous, I'm just going to make them feel bad.

[393] I don't make people feel bad.

[394] But I've got a couple friends who are just, they're not insecure.

[395] Right.

[396] And they're like, dude, I'm really proud.

[397] That's really awesome.

[398] That's a disturbing moment when you tell a friend about some good things that happened like oh great another great thing happened to you oh awesome good for you keith yeah you're out there killing it meanwhile i could barely pay my bills keith just in the basement watching netflix fuck this what does it have to do with what i'm saying shouldn't you be happy yeah please i thought we were friends man some people just don't want other people to do well because it forces them to look at their own achievements or their own life and their own relationships their own you know like some people don't like it when people were involved in relationships that try to sabotage those relationships it's weird well if you if my if my narrative were like marriage doesn't work and then I see my buddy who's married I'm like damn there goes my narrative you know so I could either change the story like Keith doesn't work you know it's not going to work forever bro one of who's going to die yeah and so but that's that vulnerable narcissism piece that insecurity um yeah I always that Joe Pesci in that movie Miller's crossing do you remember I don't remember that movie.

[399] You're looking at me or who are you laughing at?

[400] Was that Miller's Crossing?

[401] No, no, no, no. It's maybe a different movie.

[402] Wasn't that good fellows?

[403] Yeah, that's it.

[404] That's it.

[405] Thank you, Jamie.

[406] He's on it.

[407] I could see him.

[408] Yeah, like that scene, though, was somebody so insecure that a waiter laugh, smiling?

[409] Yeah.

[410] It's like, what kind of loser lets a smiling waiter put him into a tantrum?

[411] But that's that vulnerability.

[412] And what you're seeing is it's very easy to exploit in people.

[413] Because if you see where their vulnerability is, you can just poke them.

[414] But it's just fascinating that there's all these different parts of a human being's personality and how a person manages these or doesn't manage these and how they interface with each other, it all plays this huge part in how the rest of the world feels about you and how you do in life and what kind of relationships you have.

[415] And also whether or not you're able to grow and learn because if you're not looking at yourself accurately, you're never going to grow and learn.

[416] Exactly.

[417] The challenge with ego is the message that makes us feel good.

[418] It's often the message that doesn't give us the information we need.

[419] Yeah.

[420] The message, you know, it's like that Mike Tyson, you know, everyone's got a plan to they get punched in the face.

[421] That face punch is where that's the information you need.

[422] Yeah.

[423] My plan sucked.

[424] I just got punched in the face.

[425] But, but what's weird about life is you can build a life where you get a lot of positive feedback and you're not getting the negative feedback.

[426] You can build that life for yourself.

[427] It's just a very small life because you have to put these walls around you so no one can get in there and say you're an idiot.

[428] I'm a problem is that hard moments are the ones you grow from.

[429] Difficult moments to accept losses, like big losses.

[430] Those are where you grow the most because when you do fail or you do make mistakes, it forces you to take an accurate account of who you are and what happened and why you had this colossal failure and that's how you grow.

[431] Yes, but it's hard for people to...

[432] I mean, lots of people fail and don't make the connection with themselves.

[433] Right.

[434] They blame other people.

[435] They blame everyone else.

[436] Very dangerous.

[437] So sometimes it's harder to do that than it sounds.

[438] And the other thing is, we don't set up the world where people fail all the time.

[439] Right.

[440] Like you go to school, just don't fail all the time anymore.

[441] Well, that's the danger in not failing, right?

[442] Like with kids, when kids get participation trophies for, you know, we're not going to keep score.

[443] I remember my daughter had a soccer game when she was three, and they were like, we're not going to keep score.

[444] I'm like, why wouldn't you keep score?

[445] Because, well, when the other kids score, then these kids feel bad.

[446] It's good that, first of all, they learn you're going to be okay if someone scores on you, and you get past that feeling bad.

[447] You go, you know what, I like it when I kick that ball into the net.

[448] How do I get better at kicking that ball into the net?

[449] because if it doesn't matter, then you never develop this ability to do difficult things and get better at them.

[450] Right.

[451] And competition is fun because it matters.

[452] You know, if it doesn't matter, it's no fun.

[453] It matters.

[454] Someone kicks that ball past you, and it goes in the net, like, shit.

[455] And everybody goes, yes, and you're like, ugh.

[456] But, you know, you want to do sports.

[457] It's like you do baseball, you strike out what, two -thirds of the time you miss or something.

[458] Like, you fail all the time.

[459] in baseball.

[460] Soccery is low scoring.

[461] I mean, you go into athletics, you've got to lose all the time.

[462] That's just part of it.

[463] And if you're not able to lose, you can never get better.

[464] Right.

[465] So if you, anyway.

[466] But we protect children from it.

[467] It's very strange.

[468] And this is not something that it happened when I was a child or when you were a child.

[469] It's fairly recent that they started protecting children from the feeling of losses.

[470] Yeah.

[471] It's that whole, the safetyism, all these different cultural changes and I helicopter parenting I I'm a big believer in natural consequences that's something I think it's good for kids and natural consequences is the term we use like if you grab the stove and you get burned you just go I'm not doing that again like I don't need to tell my kid like you shouldn't have done that you idiot you're like I got the memo right and so things like I mean I grew up you know surfing you go up there and no one ocean didn't care about you you go out there and you know what you're doing it's great you don't it just it just crushes you yeah and your ego you just can't have an ego and and and that's why big wave surfers are always kind of chill yeah i always felt that way about ocean towns as well there's something about being connected to something that's so big any idea that you're really important kind of goes away when you look at the ocean you're like well look at that yeah you're like well if i start drifting next step is you know and it's it's very it's very it's very liberating because it's I mean it's it's kind of like a little awe experience sometimes they you know those big awe experiences can be good for reducing ego yeah and but any of those natural consequences and failing and losing it kind of sharpens up who you are and it's and it's very liberating after all well that's one of the reasons why I've always told men in particular young guys that jiu -jitsu's great it's a great medicine for your ego because you're 100 % going to lose there's no doubt about unless you're some just super enormous person that just has some freak body most people get dominated a lot and when you get beaten a lot you develop this ability to understand you're placing the food chain in terms of that and you also accept losses better you realize like you're going to be okay it's just a game if you lose it a game of checkers it doesn't seem like that big of a deal but you lose at a game of jujitsu it seems very devastating but once you lose a bunch of times your ego gets managed better and it's much healthier for you you get accustomed to losing there many men that don't ever participate in sports or ever participate in anything athletic when they're young, anything competitive, they get to be adults and they're in this weird stage where they never fully matured.

[472] They've never developed this ability to understand the value of healthy competition because there's a real value to it.

[473] It's a game that you learn.

[474] It's not protecting yourself from that feeling of loss is actually dangerous for you.

[475] It's almost like a person who washes their hands too much and never gets exposed to germs like you need to develop an understanding of what it feels like to fail sort of a psychological immune system to failure in that sense i like that i mean i think you're right i i i have one of my graduates does Brazilian jiu jutsu was telling me about it and it's like you get choked out all the time right it's like and that's your consequence like you just get knocked out well you you luckily you don't get knocked out you get choked, and the good thing about that is it doesn't give you brain damage, like getting hit does.

[476] Okay.

[477] And usually you tap out before you get choked out, so you don't get any damage from it, really.

[478] You just get sort of breezed up a little bit.

[479] But the benefit of it is you're doing it constantly, and jiu -jitsu people in general are some of the nicest, friendliest people, the easiest to get along with, because they have control with their ego.

[480] They understand their ego better.

[481] I was going to ask you that.

[482] So how is ego, does it get wiped out in the martial arts over time?

[483] I totally get wiped out, especially with dominators, especially with people that are like conquerors who wind up winning championships and stuff like that a lot of them have very, very, very strong egos, sometimes overwhelmingly so.

[484] And some of those guys that's really interesting is when they lose, especially if they lose badly, boy, it changes their whole life.

[485] Like they never become the same again.

[486] Some men are, yeah, because like physically maybe they're they're the same, but psychologically they're so damaged from having that ego death that they really, never recover from it because a lot of their reason for success is they felt like they're the man I'm the fucking man and when someone comes along and says no I'm the man you're like oh shit he's the man and then you're intimidated and then you don't realize like okay this is like mathematics this is these are equations there's all sorts of things going on you fell short in a number of areas you must look at it like you're looking at a problem you have to look at it like you're looking at some sort of a mathematical equation.

[487] What went wrong?

[488] Well, I was lacking conditioning.

[489] I was lacking the understanding of these certain positions where I got caught in traps.

[490] I didn't know the defense.

[491] I need to add all those things to my repertoire.

[492] And then I also have to work on my psychology.

[493] I have to work on my mind.

[494] Because when I did get into a situation where I was vulnerable, I started to panic.

[495] And then it diminished my ability to think well under stress.

[496] Because being able to think well under stress is also a huge factor.

[497] but instead of thinking of it in terms of like you're a person he's a person that person beat you like think of it in terms of like math like think of all these different factors that are at play and where were you lacking and what was wrong with your approach and then you and then it gives you this terrible loss gives you a terrible feeling but it's also a terrible it's a terrible feeling but it's an amazing opportunity to grow and all my biggest growth moments in my life have come from colossal failures.

[498] So what changes somebody in a fight from looking at it from an ego to I'm going to break this down?

[499] It's really not me and you.

[500] We're not competitors.

[501] It's just these numbers moving around and I got to figure out where my weaknesses are.

[502] And, you know, like Bruce Lee, like my kick and this and break down my, I mean, can some people do that?

[503] Can everyone do that?

[504] Do you need a coach?

[505] Do you get a coach that comes in and kind of works at tapes with you or something?

[506] Sure.

[507] Yeah, a lot of guys do that.

[508] A lot of guys look at tapes.

[509] by themselves.

[510] A lot of guys look at tapes with coaches.

[511] You know, Mike Tyson famously had a, one of his managers was a historian of boxing.

[512] So Mike Tyson would watch old films of like the great Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey and like Harry Greb and all these old school boxers and he'd look at their movements and he would adopt some of their their attacks and defense and, you know, there's definitely benefit to watching yourself and seeing where you screw up.

[513] But there's also a benefit to having a mental coach.

[514] Mike Tyson also had Custamato, who was his longtime boxing coach who adopted him when he was 13, was also a hypnotist and worked with him on the mental aspect of his game and would literally say to him, you do not exist.

[515] Only the task exists, the task of breaking this man down.

[516] and this was imparted in him when he was a small boy, he was 13 years old, and also what was imparted was that when he did do this thing, he experienced love and appreciation and adulation at a level that he never had in his life.

[517] So his life, he was at this great deficit of love.

[518] He didn't have a lot of love in his family, lived in a terrible neighborhood, there was no one there for him.

[519] So then all of a sudden there's this man who just happened, to be one of the greatest boxing coaches of all time who takes him in who's also a hypnotist who's also a master of psychology in regards to combat sports and he trains this young man to be one of the greatest of all time and of course the results are unbelievable but you have a perfect storm of things happening too because he's also incredibly physically gifted so you have he has incredible speed and power which speed and power two things where like you really can't do much about power.

[520] Like, if you're a person who has small bones and you don't hit very hard, it's not in the cards for you.

[521] So he had all these things going for him that he had power at a young age, but it was a lot of it was like having someone who understood how to mold him psychologically.

[522] And a person like that, ego is very important.

[523] Like you have, like he would talk about it.

[524] There's a great documentary that Tyson talks about his walk into the ring and how, in the beginning he's nervous he's unsure of himself but by the time he gets into the ring he's a god and you know so his ego he used that ego strategically yeah yeah that's cool it is interesting because it but it could also create massive problems for you as it did for him outside of the ring well it sounds i mean i don't know that him or any any of these people but it almost sounds like he's been somewhat exploited at that age and having his turning his psyche into structure to make him a bit of a weapon and probably benefiting other people.

[525] I don't know.

[526] A little bit of benefiting other people, but also greatly benefiting himself.

[527] He became one of the greatest heavyweight boxers the world has ever known.

[528] So there's pros and cons there, but my point was that there is something to the ego in that regard where I think you almost have to have it to be Michael Jordan, right, for instance, who had a tremendous ego.

[529] Huge.

[530] Yeah.

[531] But also one of the greatest, if not the greatest basketball player of all time.

[532] But obsessed.

[533] Do you ever see the video?

[534] Jamie actually played it for me once.

[535] There was a video where this guy was talking shit about Michael Jordan after he retired.

[536] And so Michael Jordan came back and played him one on one and just scorched him.

[537] Scorched him.

[538] He was talking shit the whole time.

[539] Who was that, Jamie?

[540] Did you play me that?

[541] No. It's happened multiple times, though.

[542] I mean, in the documentary, they go over five or six different situations where he's going back over someone that slided him in the tiniest way and just wrecked havoc on him, 40 points on them.

[543] Yeah.

[544] Call them like, you would act like they don't exist, all sorts of funny stuff.

[545] Yeah, he was, his ego was substantial and is, I'm sure.

[546] But also, the results are substantial.

[547] Right, and that's the, and so the question, I wonder, and this is really a question, because I don't get to study high performance athletes with narcissism work.

[548] You don't get to do it.

[549] I mean, you can get data from presidents and stuff that you can get from historians, but you just don't really have the data.

[550] And I wonder it, you know, like, obviously.

[551] obviously from Muhammad Ali and stuff in that sort of braggadocia before fights, that if in those combat sports, ego is super important to develop.

[552] I mean, theoretically, it makes sense.

[553] You know, one -on -one competition.

[554] It's not about a team.

[555] It's you just have to win.

[556] Up to a point, I would say.

[557] Well, what I was saying before is that the people that get destroyed, who have these enormous egos, when they get exposed, it takes incredible character to build yourself back up.

[558] And some never do.

[559] some get psychologically defeated and then never the same again because the pain of loss and the pain of being exposed as being inferior to your opponent is just too much but I wonder like that is that such a rare example of when it would be beneficial to be narcissistic or beneficial to have an ego tremendous I mean it's but you know if you look across the literature the place it seems to work is individual competitiveness because if you're in a team team.

[560] So imagine, you know, you see this in teams all the time.

[561] So the old story is the quarterback goes in front of the cameras and goes, yeah, I want it for the team.

[562] And the next time the front line just lets the defense through and the quarterback's dead.

[563] So he goes, next time he wins, he goes, yeah, I just want to thank my team and God.

[564] And then the team supports him.

[565] Because in a team sport, you can't be really successful without a team.

[566] Maybe basketball a little bit, but like football and stuff.

[567] So it keeps that ego and check.

[568] But with boxing or fight, it's just you.

[569] It is.

[570] But it also is a team as well.

[571] because you need a coach.

[572] You need someone to train you correctly.

[573] And in Tyson's case, when his coach died, when Customato died, and then his relationship with his coaches afterwards deteriorated to the point where he really was just having, like, bucket carriers in the ring where his career faded.

[574] So you need a back office, kind of, you need a whole team.

[575] You need someone who's like, hey, man, you keep dropping your fucking left hand, stop doing that.

[576] You're like, okay, okay, thank you.

[577] Like, you need someone who sees your failure.

[578] failures and your mistakes and checks you on them and you need to respect that person.

[579] So does Michael Jordan have that person?

[580] I think Michael Jordan was so hard on himself and so, like, so obsessed with winning.

[581] I mean, I think this is why I wanted to bring him up because I think there's psychological issues that these extreme winners have that you don't get to where they are without them.

[582] it's like where the illness becomes beneficial right if you're not sadistic you don't make a good serial killer right or a good internet troll yeah but if you're not if you're not narcissistic or ego you're an egomaniac I wonder if you ever become a guy like michael jordan who's just so dominant well he's an example of somebody who's very egotistical i mean that's the i don't know him but that's the what people say he's very competitive you know and it's obviously work for him and you see it with all so the other option might be that well if you're kind of a dick and you're really really good people will let you get away with it that that for Kobe Bryant they call it the mama mentality he's known for having this mentality where winning at all costs if you're not with me fuck you right we're going to win yeah and also one of the greatest of all time yeah sure 100 % yeah it's it's it's it's it's weird it's weird and it can wreck havoc on your personal life because other people feel left out or maligned or not appreciated or well i know with kobe he got back with his family and was trying to you know make that work and was a pretty committed dad it you know he made a correction he adjusted yeah which is also when you achieve a failure in your personal life you know a person who is so dedicated to success the only way he got that good is when he encountered mistakes or failures he corrected.

[583] So obviously he made that same adjustment in his personal life as well.

[584] He must have felt, especially the public issues that he had, he must have felt that they were tremendous failures.

[585] And then he had to make corrections.

[586] So what you said there's really interesting, because that's the question.

[587] So do you look at that and go, that's a public failure about my marriage?

[588] Yeah.

[589] And is the solution to that about me winning by having the winning marriage?

[590] Or do you say, God, it's a public fail about my marriage.

[591] I need to be a more loving person and just get connected to my family more as an emotional person.

[592] Yeah, I think that answer is dependent.

[593] I mean, how you answer that question, I should say, is really dependent upon what's your priority?

[594] Right.

[595] Like, is your priority you or is your priority you and the people you love?

[596] Like, can you work that into the equation?

[597] Right.

[598] Or is it just fuck her, I'll get a new wife, you know, who doesn't know me that good.

[599] Yeah, no, I mean, but that's what, some people do that.

[600] No, narcissism, that's what I said.

[601] Like, well, you just got a new wife.

[602] How can someone do that?

[603] I'm like, well, they got a new car.

[604] It's the same thing.

[605] A lot of famous celebrity type people wind up doing that, the exact thing, right?

[606] I said, my doctoral dissertation was on narcissism and romantic attraction, and it was kind of inspired by Trump because he always had these beautiful, oh, yeah, it was great.

[607] He always had these beautiful wives, you know?

[608] And, I mean, that was back in the day, and he seems like he's settled down now.

[609] But, I mean, that was just the thing people did, trophy spouse.

[610] Well, it seems like to be that guy who has your name on the buildings and has your name on the jet.

[611] And you kind of have to have a super hot wife.

[612] It's kind of part of the package, right?

[613] It's kind of brand.

[614] It seems like it has to be.

[615] Yeah, sort of the brand thing.

[616] Well, it's also a narcissism thing because you want everyone to see all this great stuff that you have.

[617] So they want everybody to see this beautiful lady that's beside you and see your name on the building.

[618] Yeah.

[619] And again, it kind of works and why not do it?

[620] But the problem is that the other three wives before that one maybe aren't as happy about it.

[621] Yeah, but they should, it's part of it's like, that's what it is.

[622] That's who he is.

[623] That's what the game is.

[624] And that's the game with many of these like high profile businessmen.

[625] The game is, you know, get a hot wife, buy a jet, maybe an island, you know, keep moving, always show everybody that you have the nicest thing, step out of the Bugatti, you know, you know, all that stuff.

[626] Yeah, but that's kind of the classic grandiose narcissism pattern.

[627] And the reason, and that's life strategy is a successful strategy for a lot of people.

[628] I mean, you get status and fame and some money.

[629] I mean, you lose a lot of money and those alimony payments.

[630] It's not a, you know, it's not a great, it's not clean, But, you know, it works for a lot of people.

[631] But it's a very demanding lifestyle.

[632] But it's also what we talked about earlier.

[633] Like, what is success?

[634] Like, there's many people that live in a log cabin and that have a real simple life, but they're real happy.

[635] And then there's people that have, you know, a penthouse in Manhattan, and they take a helicopter at the airport to fly their private jet to Paris, and they're fucking miserable, and they're on antidepressants, and they're taking pills.

[636] And they, you know, they're constantly in stress.

[637] Yeah, if you try to get that, so the problem with trying to get status, I mean, trying to be happy because you're cooler than other people, like you have higher social status, it's impossible to win because there's always somebody better than you.

[638] And if there isn't now, there will be in five years or in five years, no one's going to give a rat's ass what you did in the first place because they think they're like football is for losers.

[639] We got rid of football.

[640] Only idiots played football.

[641] Yeah.

[642] Well, I wonder like when a guy like Jeff Bezos gets to $200 billion.

[643] Or it's like, does he just enjoy working?

[644] Maybe he does.

[645] Maybe he enjoys the game of working.

[646] It's that point.

[647] It's not for money because you couldn't spend it.

[648] I mean, it would be money as a counter maybe.

[649] It's like a marker.

[650] But it wouldn't be like, oh, I can go buy another baguadi.

[651] I mean, you could buy them all.

[652] You could go buy the baguadi company.

[653] Yeah, you could buy the bigotty company and not even notice it.

[654] Yeah, you wouldn't even notice it.

[655] It would just be eating up in the next stock bump.

[656] Yeah.

[657] I'd be curious to talk to.

[658] But then he went and got the new wife.

[659] He's got a girlfriend.

[660] Got the girlfriend.

[661] Didn't marry her.

[662] But she's done that kind of hopping around thing.

[663] I don't, I've not been kept up with a bunch of high profile fellows.

[664] Good.

[665] Yeah.

[666] So she's got her own little thing going on.

[667] Everyone's happy and, you know.

[668] I don't know.

[669] I hope he's happy.

[670] Yeah.

[671] But it's curious.

[672] It's like, I mean, it's one thing if it's someone who's like maybe a writer.

[673] and they like jk rawlings who's worth like a billion dollars right or more and she's obviously still writing she loves writing yeah it's not like she made that money just doing business doing things she doesn't enjoy doing yeah she made that money as a consequence of her art it makes sense to me that she keeps writing but i wonder i've always wondered with guys like that that are businessmen do you enjoy the business aspect of it do you enjoy is there something about showing up at the office and banging out 12 hours a day that that's exciting to you.

[674] People I know who do it kind of like it.

[675] Yeah.

[676] It seems like I know in business.

[677] They kind of, they think it's cool.

[678] It's a game.

[679] It's a game.

[680] They got an office.

[681] They got a team.

[682] They're crushing it.

[683] I mean, it sounds like fun.

[684] Fucking crush it at.

[685] Yeah.

[686] It's a game.

[687] Yeah.

[688] And then social media.

[689] This is, we kind of touched on it briefly, but it seems to me that if there's anything in this world that feeds narcissism, it would be Instagram.

[690] It is.

[691] I mean, so social media.

[692] media.

[693] So, so I first heard about Facebook, it's probably been 10, 15, 12 years, whenever it came out.

[694] And I went to one of my student, Laura, and I was like, this is crazy.

[695] We've got to study this.

[696] Study narcissism at Facebook.

[697] This is crazy.

[698] So 12 years ago, you thought this.

[699] Yeah.

[700] I mean, at first, you know, I'm like, this is bigger than Wittstock.

[701] 2007, 2008.

[702] I think the paper is like 2007 or eight.

[703] Yeah.

[704] And, and so we looked at narcissism.

[705] We're like, oh, God, the people who are narcissistic have more friends on Facebook.

[706] They, they spend.

[707] more time on their picture, they get more glamour shots, you know, you kind of see these, that, you know, that people are using social media to kind of put out an image of themselves and get followers.

[708] And people have been looking at it since.

[709] And with narcissism, you see people are narcissistic are just more dialed into social media, more followers, more friends, more connections, send more selfies.

[710] The kind of thing is just dialed in for narcissism.

[711] Right.

[712] Narcism is the energy, it's one of the energies, one of the big energies.

[713] One of the big that keeps those systems working.

[714] And Instagram, people haven't really done a lot of comparison social media work, like is narcissism higher on Instagram than Twitter versus TikTok?

[715] Because these things keep to be, they change culturally, and we don't have that much money to do research.

[716] But when I look at them, Instagram seems like the one that's kind of dialed in for narcissism particular because it's photographic, it's, you know, it's very good for status seeking.

[717] It's also the easiest to lie because you have filters.

[718] Oh, yeah.

[719] Yeah, and then people pose in front of cars that maybe they rented or aren't theirs or.

[720] I find the whole thing hilarious.

[721] Yeah, you get a hype house.

[722] I mean, I guess that's more tick.

[723] That's that in YouTube.

[724] That's what they call it.

[725] My students do study YouTube.

[726] They get a hype house down in Malibu.

[727] You know, you rent a house on the beach with 10 people and live the dream, take a bunch of photos.

[728] Well, there's money in it.

[729] That's what's crazy.

[730] It's like if we're going by the metric that we, used earlier to define the success like what is success is it financial success because we were I was reading an article today we were actually talking about this last night with Tim when we went to dinner and we were talking about boa which is this big steakhouse in Hollywood that's filled with TikTok stars now that's believe it or not this is one of the biggest steakhouses in Hollywood and it's like a known place where TikTok stars go and they they people take pictures and of them but these TikTok stars you would go with this is stupid well is it because they're making millions of dollars oh I'm not so if but if they were making million if you are not making millions of dollars you're like look I'm an accountant I'm a serious person and I make $300 ,000 a year and I go well you're doing very well but this TikTok star made $300 ,000 a month and no one understands why or how but they're doing it is that dumb and it is part of what they're doing is hype houses and showing pretty watches and showing gold earrings and diamonds and nice cars and all that shit.

[731] It seems like it's like a financial strategy that's very beneficial but it's also based on bullshit and ego.

[732] What is this?

[733] TikTok and Instagram influences exposed for renting fake private jet set.

[734] Oh, there's a set.

[735] Oh, that's cool.

[736] Oh my God.

[737] A set.

[738] There's a set.

[739] That's nice.

[740] Oh, that is hilarious.

[741] Oh, my God, that is hilarious.

[742] They have a fake private jet set.

[743] Wow.

[744] How weird.

[745] Wow.

[746] Hold on, let me see that post.

[747] What does it say?

[748] It says, nah, I just found out L .A. Girl is used in studio sets with a private jets for Instagram picks.

[749] It's crazy that anything you're looking at could be fake.

[750] The setting, the clones, the body.

[751] I don't know.

[752] It just sort of shakes my reality a bit, L .O .L. Well, I'm not shocked, but I am.

[753] I am, and I'm not.

[754] It's weird, but that thing of bawling, bawling out of control, you know, like showing everybody.

[755] The first time, I figured, the first time this stuff clicked was I was teaching a class, like a seminar, and the students, you know, they never paying attention.

[756] They're looking at their phones.

[757] I'm, what do you watch it during class?

[758] And they're watching Chloe Kardashian or they, Jenner, that Kylie Jenner, that Kylie Jenner.

[759] Jenner, like driving a Ferrari in L .A., like over a curb.

[760] I'm like, oh, it just hurt to watch because I'm like, why is this beautiful car?

[761] And I'm like, but they're just watching her.

[762] And I'm like, oh, my God, this woman is a genius.

[763] She figured this out.

[764] Like she was directly beaming TV right to my students and she disintermediated the studios and the writers and the scripts.

[765] And she's like, I'm just driving my.

[766] Well, it's amazing.

[767] It's incredible.

[768] What catches people's eyes and what makes something viral.

[769] Like, Jamie and I were looking at this video yesterday, this dude who is on a skateboard drinking cranberry juice, singing along to Fleetwood Mac.

[770] I saw that video.

[771] Oh, my God.

[772] I love that guy.

[773] There's something about him.

[774] He's singing along, and it, you know, it's just, it's compelling, for whatever reason, it's compelling.

[775] Maybe when the world is this bad, just a guy just living his best life on a skateboard.

[776] It's just what, this is the hero we need?

[777] Maybe because, like, it's all so, the way he's doing it, like, there's no showing off there.

[778] He's just got cranberry juice drinking right out of the bottle, rolling around a skateboard, he's not wearing anything fancy.

[779] Just kind of stoked.

[780] Yeah, there he is.

[781] Yeah, he's living the dream.

[782] It looks, maybe, maybe he's.

[783] Meet Nathan Apotica, the man behind that Fleetwood Mac skateboarding TikTok video.

[784] Wow.

[785] I love it Yeah he's a dog face He's got a Twitter too Yeah that's him See like when you watch this guy rolling Like look he's just wearing a sweatshirt There's nothing crazy about it So going back to my drinking cranberry juice He's a father from Wyoming Just having a good time That's really fun Because he's stoked Yeah I mean he's passionate And you're like this guy's awesome Well he's really having fun when someone's being genuine when someone's really having fun for whatever reason that resonates with us and it doesn't have to be some chick on a fake jet set pretending here i am with my pouty lips no it's just a regular dude he's a regular dude on a skateboard with a head he's got a head tattoo he's got like leaves tattooed on the side of his head head peach feathers in the back yeah something but he's he's having fun he's like clearly having a good time like that's we recognize authenticity, right?

[786] We see it in that guy.

[787] That's a real smile.

[788] It really is singing along to those songs.

[789] Yeah, but authenticity, well, it's an interesting thing because how do you find it?

[790] Because it's a bit like lightning in a bottle of finding that.

[791] And then if you brought him into set and say, do your thing, it'd be authentic.

[792] It wouldn't be authentic.

[793] It's hard to do.

[794] That's one of the brilliant things about social media is that there's no other people involved.

[795] So you get to you get a chance to see these moments.

[796] Like, I was trying to explain this to a friend of mine who is a producer he produces television shows and a bunch of different things and he was we're talking about doing he's he's getting into the podcast world but he's talking about doing podcasts and he's talking about why is it that podcasts they they have this resonance there's something they resonate with people in a way that like a talk show on television doesn't and one of the things that i was saying is like because there's too many people on these television shows there's too many people staring there's too many unnatural aspects of it like this is really natural right you and me are just sitting at a desk there's a lot of people watching and listening but it just happens to be that way yeah i'm not thinking about that right there's no one here yeah here is just you and me sitting at a desk if there was no one else paying any attention there's no cameras the only thing weird is the headphones right but and honestly this is the best way to have a conversation because i hear you the same level that i hear me so it keeps me from talking over you and we're locked into each other so we don't hear any extraneous noise.

[797] Obviously, this is a soundproof room, so we don't hear anything outside anyway.

[798] But that's why it works.

[799] The reason why it works is because it's just happening, right?

[800] There's no cut.

[801] Keith, I liked what you said there.

[802] Can we try that again?

[803] Do you think you maybe are too happy that Donald Trump's doing well?

[804] I mean, in this day and age, I'm a little uncomfortable.

[805] So let's try it again.

[806] But this time, what I want you to do is just say, you know, it's just like a little disdain.

[807] We have a little disdain.

[808] We have a little disdain.

[809] right we have a little we're we're both good people here just a little sneer and then okay try it again yeah and so there's that's how i've done those shoot so many times i bet you have right if you're doing a documentary in particular oh yeah questioned or interviewed about stuff something they want to use it i think those moments are hard like authentic moments are hard to achieve you know and in authentic moments right especially when you're doing it over a long period of time like a podcast you're gonna have some hiccups and clunky but those hiccups reassure people that oh this is like Like, he's just a person.

[810] This is like just like me, and he is just thinking about this.

[811] And, you know, and if you're in the middle of something, you'll go, well, ah, no, that's, I mean, actually, maybe I might be wrong here.

[812] And then you see people see you rethink things in real time.

[813] It makes sense.

[814] You don't ever see that in one of those highly produced television shows.

[815] They would cut out the rethink thing.

[816] Yeah.

[817] And they'd go, Keith, let's try it again.

[818] Now that you've rethought it, let's just, can you just say it one more time?

[819] Make it all slick.

[820] Yeah, make it all slick.

[821] Yeah.

[822] Yeah.

[823] I, so what that makes me think of is, this is going to sound way off topic, but I went to a build a business where they were building, building virtual reality systems for, to treat PTSD and troops.

[824] So you put on virtual reality glasses and you go back to like virtual Iraq or virtual Afghanistan and it's supposed to bring you back to those feelings.

[825] And I thought, well, I'll try and see what it's like and they've been there.

[826] But the way they did it is they'd show you.

[827] in a room with a bunch of guys throwing cigarettes around, playing cards, talking, but no drama, no narrative.

[828] It's just kind of random stuff.

[829] And they said the reason that worked, it seems so much more real than movies or television, is that movies, everything feeds into the narrative.

[830] So there's no kind of extraneous stuff.

[831] It's all narrative -based.

[832] So we watch a certain way.

[833] But when it doesn't, when there's things that don't feed in the narrative that just kind of random, people get more engaged in it.

[834] It seems more real.

[835] sort of like in Pulp Fiction where they have those random conversations about cheeseburgers that's the best part of the movie has nothing to do with the plot so it's this kind of random stuff but it brings people in because it makes it seem real yeah it gives you this feeling like you don't know what to expect because weird stuff is happening that you didn't expect right in the moment right like when if you watch one of those law and order shows or something like that one of those real predictable television shows no disrespect the law and order but there's some cookie cutter shows where you kind of see it coming along and it's in some ways for some people it's satisfying to see the bad guy get caught at the end or maybe there's a little bit of a plot twist that you didn't see and that's a nice surprise but for the most part you kind of know what's happening but you see a movie like no country for old men where the bad guy gets away at the end and you're like what the fuck and you walk out of there did I even like that like I did I loved it but I was like disturbed who's that act that guy still freaks me out that guy's awesome what is his name again Jamie It was such a great role The guy with a terrible hair Yeah That guy That scared me I don't get He's fucking fantastic Yeah I don't get haunted by a lot That's that one movie I'm like I don't want to watch this one again I believe that actor could do that to people Yeah Like I don't think this is real Like you just stick with the cows You just go away Yeah there's something about him Man He's just he's got that There's people that have that thing Right Where they can embody Whatever it is Whether it's a psychopath or whether it's a, you know...

[836] Bardem.

[837] Yeah, Javier Bardem.

[838] Give me a picture of Javier.

[839] Go look at him.

[840] Yeah, that's...

[841] That motherfucker scares me. Give me that one right there.

[842] Yeah, right there where your cursor's at.

[843] Jesus Christ.

[844] Yeah.

[845] You don't want that guy in your kitchen.

[846] Just scared.

[847] Mad at you.

[848] He was just amazing.

[849] But he doesn't come across as just kind of all that evil.

[850] It just seems much more like normal.

[851] Like, I just normal.

[852] evil explosive that's what he seems to me like anything can happen at any moment and you're you're like nervous that he's gonna just kill you yeah yeah what would you like to eat and you're like what did i take tuna fish that those are the scary people the ones they could just go at any moment yeah that came me the creeps that movie yeah oh that's a great movie yeah and but the difference is right like there's things happening in that film that like keep you on edge you never get comfortable yeah You never feel like, I understand what this movie is.

[853] No. No, you never get comfortable.

[854] And that's the case with Pulp Fiction as well.

[855] And a lot of Tarantino's movies do that.

[856] He's very good at that, keeping you, like, guessing.

[857] Like, where the fuck is he going with this?

[858] And you can't really foreclose on, oh, yeah, another movie, happy ending, boom, I'm to go get a taco, you know, it's, you're still, I'm thinking about that guy.

[859] Well, the way the mind works is so interesting.

[860] And the way the mind interfaces with other people, the way there's certain people that for whatever reason, they just bring out the worst in some folks, right?

[861] Absolutely.

[862] But in different ways.

[863] Yeah.

[864] You know, some people make people angry.

[865] Some people just kind of destabilize things.

[866] Some people cause drama.

[867] Yeah, people do different things.

[868] People, also, some people make you feel, like some people legitimately can make you a better person.

[869] because when you're around them you want to do better you want to be better and you can yes my point was that the opposite is true too and this is where the nature versus nurture when it comes to narcissism or any other ego problems I always wonder like if you're in a bad environment like how much does that shape you as a human being like how much does that change who you are if you're around the wrong kind of people how much how many people are out there that are constantly around bad people and they go you know what that's how you get ahead in this world you got to be an asshole and so i'm going to be an asshole too so i think you're you're totally right i mean there's this sometimes there's this idea we talk about the michaelangelo phenomenon really that you kind of get in relationships with people that are really good for you and they come they bring out the best part of you right you know somebody you're like they see you for the best part they see you know they see keith and they see the best part of keith and they and like they make me a better person And you want to be better.

[870] And I want to be a better person.

[871] And the Keith they see is a lot better than the Keith I see.

[872] And that makes me better.

[873] Other people don't do that.

[874] They're bringing you down.

[875] They're giving you the wrong message.

[876] And you can either imitate them and fail or when you're trying to succeed, they just pull you down and say, do what I'm doing.

[877] And sometimes it's little things.

[878] Like sometimes it's little people just like little criticisms that people will do when you're talking to them.

[879] They're like keeps you from being comfortable.

[880] Yeah.

[881] just little jabs not that big a deal and like god why you're so sensitive like oh okay am i that sensitive because are you just fucking annoying to be around and i got to get away from you and those little tiny things that i remember i had a girlfriend once it was really negative like really nice everything was it could just complained about everything and then uh i moved to california and i met this girl who was really nice and i remember thinking the difference the way i felt around her was like now i'm having fun like oh we could just have laughs together Like, you can have, like, you don't have to be around someone that's always wearing you down.

[882] But if you are, it changes who you are, too.

[883] Because your reality, like, is, you're interfacing with this negativity all the time.

[884] And it can shape your personality.

[885] It can shape how you interface with the world.

[886] Oh, completely.

[887] I mean, that's, that happens all the time you get in this.

[888] I mean, this goes back in the old self -research.

[889] Like, how do you raise your self -esteem?

[890] We'll get around people who like you.

[891] That helps a lot.

[892] Because a lot of times your self -esteem is determined by the people around you and people that are anxious all the time bringing you down because if you get success, like you're saying, that you get successful, they look bad.

[893] So they're always jabbing you or they're insecure or whatever.

[894] Yeah, that's bad.

[895] The other thing is trauma, just those trauma in life screws people up.

[896] It just doesn't seem to be very specific.

[897] So you get a lot of young childhood traumas.

[898] That can lead to narcissism.

[899] it can lead to other things as well.

[900] It doesn't seem to be specific, but it makes your personality a little more rigid and maybe a little more fragile.

[901] So it's not a good thing, but it's not really specific and what kind of bad thing is.

[902] Trauma also creates personality in some people.

[903] Some people, trauma shapes their personality, the recovery from trauma builds character, and some of the most interesting people that I know had traumatic upbring.

[904] Yeah, and there's this really interesting idea they talk about is post -traumatic growth.

[905] So what's weird about life is we can have like when trauma happens, it can lead to really negative things and really positive things both simultaneously.

[906] And some of those negative things would be, you know, PTSD or stressors or, you know, anxiety or whatever, difficult, relaxing, kind of being wound up all the time.

[907] But the positive things are the trauma can give you a motivation to grow and go seek new things.

[908] And kind of the classic book on this was Somerset Moms, The Razors Edge, that Bill Murray made a movie of this.

[909] It was a while ago.

[910] But it's about a guy in World War I who was traumatized in the war and then went out and ended up going to India and sort of seeking, seeking some religion.

[911] But people who are traumatized, you're suffering and you need to seek a way out.

[912] And sometimes that path to growth can lead you to a better place than you would have been if you'd never suffered in the first place.

[913] Right.

[914] And that's what's powerful about trauma.

[915] It's what's powerful about suffering.

[916] When we're talking about narcissism, there's an idea that I have had, and I think a lot of people have, when it comes to narcissists, is that they're not redeemable.

[917] Yeah, and I don't like that idea anymore.

[918] And it's because it was very common.

[919] It was what I thought when I started studying narcissism.

[920] Is it because it's just so difficult to redeem, like alcoholics or cigarette addicts?

[921] One is we thought personality was pretty fixed.

[922] So we thought all personality, you know, Freud thought it was fixed in the first six, seven years, and maybe, you know, James thought maybe the first 15 or 18 years, but maybe 30, but we generally thought people's personality got fixed when they were young, and then when they just sort of stayed the same way.

[923] And that doesn't seem to be the case.

[924] People do seem to be able to change.

[925] And then the other thing with narcissism is that when people want to change, you know, somebody's depressed or anxious, it's hard.

[926] You go to therapy, you do a lot of work, you spend time, it's hard.

[927] to do, but people can do it.

[928] People who are narcissistic often don't have the motivation to change.

[929] They have some motivation to change.

[930] Their marriage sucks or their work has fallen apart.

[931] But they feel pretty good about themselves.

[932] So there's a real high dropout rate in therapy.

[933] So whenever you look at narcissism and therapy, you find a huge problem of people staying in it.

[934] But if you can get people to go in it and stay in it, it looks like people can change.

[935] That it isn't over.

[936] What do they do?

[937] Like, say if a Donald Trump -type person or someone who was pretty obviously narcissistic goes to a therapist, how do they address that?

[938] Well, you know, there's no gold standard for therapy for narcissism because there's never been a randomized clinical trial on, you know, sort of narcissistic therapies.

[939] How would you conduct one of those?

[940] Get 100 people who are narcissistic and put 50 in one condition and 50 in the other.

[941] Well, you need more, but 100, one condition.

[942] It seems like there's so many other aspects of their life that are constantly in flux.

[943] It's hard to find that many people.

[944] And it's just very hard to find.

[945] So we just don't have that kind of data.

[946] We do for other disorders, you know, depression and sometimes make borderline personality disorder.

[947] We get a lot of people hospitalized for it.

[948] We have some.

[949] So there's no, I can't say this is what works.

[950] Science is proven.

[951] You know, it doesn't.

[952] What seems to happen is there are different therapies.

[953] They range from the classic, more psychodynamic therapies.

[954] you know if you were in New York and we're narcissistic you might see somebody and they'd talk about your childhood a little bit so they'd talk about what's going on now they'd probably link it to your childhood and some trauma or issues you had in childhood and try to kind of rebuild that narrative about your life um and it would be a longer process and it would be a little more self -reflective so that's one of the more psychodynamic therapy a cognitive behavioral therapy which is pretty common you could do it around here anywhere they would they'd say let's look at the specific behavioral patterns that are messing you up the certain patterns of thinking and let's figure those out uh this what happens you know every time i go home i want praise it just doesn't happen my wife's like where have you been all day or you know why don't i grab something you know why don't i get a parade when i get home right like jo let's just unpack that thought a little bit do you really think you know what's your wife been doing i don't know i just eating bonbons let's really think about that Do you really think that's what she's been doing?

[955] Who do you think picked up the kids?

[956] Well, I guess my wife did.

[957] Well, that's something.

[958] Maybe she's tired too.

[959] And you're like, yeah, maybe I shouldn't get a parade when I get home.

[960] Maybe, you know, so you kind of restructure a little bit.

[961] Which I think generally we're cynical when we think about people who are narcissistic or have huge egos adjusting and changing.

[962] We're cynical.

[963] We think, oh, they just, they experience some negative feedback so they're pretending to be different because people are mad at them.

[964] Right.

[965] Right, but we've done that, I mean, we've done the research.

[966] We grad students, this is Chelsea Sleep who did this big study, but we studied a huge number of people who are narcissistic and said, do you have problems being antagonistic?

[967] Does your antagonism, your callousness, your lack of empathy, does that cause you problems?

[968] They're like, yeah, it does.

[969] And they see it more than other people, at least sometimes.

[970] So it's not, it's different than what I thought.

[971] What I thought was you had people that don't really see that they're running over everybody.

[972] But when we ask people, it seems like there's some awareness that, yeah, my ego is kind of screwing up some of these things.

[973] You know, I might not want to change.

[974] It might not be worth fixing it because I'm more important than you.

[975] But it might be something, you know, I see there's a problem.

[976] And if I could change it easily, I probably would.

[977] So people aren't like, they're not, people who are narcissistic aren't psych, they're not sadists, you know, they're not going out there.

[978] It's not like, I want to be mean to people.

[979] It's like I want to be loved.

[980] I want to be admired, worshipped, you know.

[981] I don't want to put a lot of energy into anyone else, but I'm not necessarily trying to be mean all the time.

[982] I wonder if many of them have sort of just developed a pattern, and this pattern has served them to a certain extent.

[983] And this pattern involves their perceptions of the outside world, their perceptions of themselves, and then these things that they tell themselves and this way of looking at themselves that you would clearly define as narcissistic, but they almost look at it like a tool.

[984] And this is sort of, even though it's a crude tool, it's allowed them to navigate the waters successfully.

[985] Absolutely.

[986] I mean, I think, you know, we use the term self -regulation for this.

[987] It's sort of how, if you're trying to pilot your life, yourself through the world, and how do you get ahead and what kind of self do you want to be?

[988] Do you want to be sort of a promotional and confident and brash?

[989] Or do you want to be quiet and a good friend?

[990] Do you want to be studious?

[991] How do you want to make yourself work?

[992] and if you find, you know, everybody's like, well, all the jerks get the girls, you know, well, I'm going to be kind of an arrogant jerk and you get a couple early successes and you start coming up with this strategy for life, it might work for you for a while, but then it's going to stop work.

[993] I mean, that's what happens in life.

[994] Well, it'll probably stop when you reach a self -aware woman that you actually really like.

[995] Right.

[996] And you're an asshole.

[997] You're like, shit.

[998] Right.

[999] It's worked on all these dummies.

[1000] Yeah.

[1001] Well, I mean, I'm not, you know, I don't want to get into like a pot call.

[1002] the kettle black situation but I understand that transition you know where people are like you go I kind of maybe it's time for I make a change maybe I want to get married well there's also a thing is that we see it in other people that are doing well and we kind of imitate successful behavior and some of that successful behavior is people being assholes yes and you think like maybe I have to be an asshole to get ahead like there's you've ever seen any of those pickup artist a little bit yeah there's some of these guys have like come up with these courses that they teach men how to and a lot of them involved treating women like shit yeah they they treat them in a way that make the women not feel and control the situation or they make them slightly insecure and there's like strategies on how to do that yeah no I mean this is something you see with narcissism in general in relationships so one of these strategies is um well there's a few different ones uh just game plain.

[1003] So what you can do with people is you can say, I'm really committed.

[1004] Oh, wait, I'm not committed.

[1005] So in a relationship, there's this, what happens in a relationship is the person who's most committed has the least power.

[1006] So if I'm dating someone, and I love them a lot, and she doesn't love me that much, and I say, what do you want to do tonight?

[1007] And she goes, I want to go to the new, you know, I don't even know what they do anymore because you can't leave your house, but the new romantic comedy at the theater, I'm like, sure, I'll go.

[1008] I love you.

[1009] I'll do whatever you want.

[1010] So because I'm more invested in the relationship, I have, I've got the least power.

[1011] So people are narcissistic, then I'm not that invested in a relationship.

[1012] They get all the relationship power.

[1013] Because I'm going to leave you.

[1014] Well, so what?

[1015] I don't care.

[1016] Let's get somebody hotter than you.

[1017] So there's a thing in relationships where by not committing, you keep power over the other person, you can manipulate, I love you, or do I?

[1018] You know, and you're your game playing in that relationship you keep power but what you don't get from that is a committed relationship you get somebody you're controlling and eventually that person's going to say I'm out of this this is bullshit yeah and you get a certain level of resentment too absolutely but some people they've been played with before so they feel like that's the only way to win this game you got to play back mm -hmm that's the pickup artistry and and the one thing with you know if you go back to the narsum relationships narcissistic relationships meaning I if I get involved with somebody who's narcissistic they usually start off kind of exciting and satisfying so you meet somebody they're confident they seem like they got it going on you're like this is cool and so it's really exciting and then there's this normal part in relationships in our culture where it starts exciting but then it gets more emotionally warm or caring you're like okay that was fun but what are we going to do now maybe we should you know go antiquing together or whatever I don't know that's from that's literally for one of these old 70s surveys.

[1019] But, you know, and then, so you'd make this transition from more of a kind of a fun, sexualized, energetic relationship to something more committed.

[1020] And the person who's narcissistic goes, I'm not making that transition.

[1021] I was pretty stoked just doing what we did.

[1022] I'll go find somebody else and do it again.

[1023] So the problem with these relationships with people in narcissistic is they can be really fun, but they're only fun for a few months.

[1024] And then the problem starts.

[1025] So is that a symptom of a narcissistic relationship, if they're short term and you just go one to the next to the next to next?

[1026] Yeah, it's kind of that pattern of, so you get short -term relationships because people just, they get sick of your bullshit.

[1027] They figure you out.

[1028] They figure out and they find someone else.

[1029] The newness is gone.

[1030] The newness is gone.

[1031] You're kind of over it and you find somebody else.

[1032] Or they get you and they go, well, I got a chance to up my game.

[1033] I can find somebody else.

[1034] You know, I can find somebody better.

[1035] So if they find somebody better, they'll just bail on you and find somebody better.

[1036] And then there's this weird thing they do.

[1037] They find someone better, and they post pictures with that person on social media to let the other person know.

[1038] I don't.

[1039] I don't understand that.

[1040] I mean, I understand it.

[1041] It's real clear.

[1042] It's horrible.

[1043] It's horrible.

[1044] It's right there.

[1045] I guess I should say, I understand it.

[1046] I just, that's just me. Dude, I see it all the time and I go, woo.

[1047] I'm so glad I grew up without social media.

[1048] Oh, my God.

[1049] Me too.

[1050] Like breakups were so bad Like before like I remember like some of my first breakups when I was like 18 And thinking like God I'm so sad I'm so depressed imagine if I could look at Instagram and see her On the beach in a bikini kissing some beautiful Brazilian man With a bikini on himself Like standing in front of this perfect water like shit Yeah You're just in your mom's basement, you know, just, oh.

[1051] He's got those little grape smugglers on looking amazing.

[1052] I know.

[1053] I know.

[1054] She's kissing him.

[1055] She's a Brazilian colors, you know, for his thong to.

[1056] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1057] It's just classic.

[1058] Men with thongs.

[1059] I know, they scare me. She found a man with a thong?

[1060] Damn it.

[1061] So confident.

[1062] Yeah, I mean, that's what people are going through today.

[1063] And it makes them also want to play that game back, right?

[1064] And you, like, I've had friends break up, and then you go to their, each individual pages.

[1065] and you watch them like torment each other with other photos of other people and they all seem to want to go on vacation almost immediately they want to seem to like be in Hawaii and they post photos yeah making out with drinks we're having so much fun it got my blue Hawaii making out with this Brazilian dude the little floating hearts like those little filters it's weird that little torture games that people do play with each other I haven't studied that I don't know anyone who has yet.

[1066] I'm sure they have, but I haven't seen it, and I want to now, because it's very interesting.

[1067] It's social media, just the comparison thing alone is so devastating to people.

[1068] You know, Jonathan Haidt's book is fantastic about that.

[1069] The coddling of the American line.

[1070] It just makes you really be concerned.

[1071] You know, me in particular, I have two young daughters, and I think about it quite a bit, about them dealing with this comparison thing.

[1072] and it's that but the thing we're talking about like the breakup thing I would imagine that's another level on top of that because here's someone that you're like massively connected to you were in love with them you thought they rejected you and then they rejected you or something went wrong and then here they are having the time of their life and here you are depressed eating pizza oh I mean that that social comparison that fear of missing out is the other one that gets really bad with like all the friends with the lake at the party this weekend and I was home you know and it's just it's brutal yeah it is I've seen you know that the social media like what we've looked at looks like what we're seeing are big spikes and depression with a lot of these kids yeah and and cutting and self -harm and all the all those things those are so yeah suicide another yeah suicides going up and what I've my sense with social media this is sense it's not like I don't have a paper on this but my sense is when it started it was really easy for people and it was great for narcissism and then the kids started feeling so much pressure like what i say with the you know my daughter on social media is as much exposure as in 1930s movie star like you're just you're you're out there all the time that's a good way to look at it so you get celebrity problems you know narcissism but body dysmorphia you know those you go to you go to the plastic surgeons now and that you know you a nose job so you look better in your selfie because everyone's noses are distorted from where they hold their cameras.

[1073] And so you get those problems.

[1074] And I noticed the kids started going from Instagram to like, then they'd have a fake Instagram account for Instagram or something.

[1075] Then they went to Snapchat because it was less pressure because the things went away and they could be a little sillier.

[1076] Then they moved to TikTok where I don't even know what the heck they do on TikTok.

[1077] They just dance.

[1078] They just dance.

[1079] I kind of feel like TikTok might be the best of all of them in terms of like the health.

[1080] Right.

[1081] They're not.

[1082] Just dancing around, having fun.

[1083] Like, my 12 year old does the TikTok and she's just like bouncing around with her friends.

[1084] Yeah, it doesn't seem that narcissistic to me. It seems silly.

[1085] It seems more silly and more childish.

[1086] And so it almost seems like there's so much pressure for those kids that they've migrated to doing these silly dances on TikTok.

[1087] Now, I don't know if this is true.

[1088] I just it seems to me that like Facebook is the most narcissistic in terms of expressing opinions.

[1089] Instagram is the most narcissistic in terms of expressing your image.

[1090] Yeah.

[1091] And the photos and the manipulation of those photos you know some people are just ridiculous with the shrinking their waist and increasing face shopping is that the no there's a somebody told me face tuning oh face tuning yeah that's where you're telling me this is the new that you face tuned so you look better well there's there's apps that'll turn you into adult totally different person you know like uh there's there's an app that turned me into a girl and uh my 10 year old thought it was hilarious take a picture of me and run it through this app and i was like what is that And she's like, that's you.

[1092] Ha!

[1093] She ran it through this app, and it turned me into a pretty girl.

[1094] She did it again the other day.

[1095] Look, I'll show you this picture.

[1096] There's a side -by -side.

[1097] It's the most ridiculous thing ever because it's actually me, and one of them is me, and one of them is me as a girl.

[1098] And these girls that are growing up that have to deal with this shit, this is, you don't know what anybody looks like, but you know what you look like.

[1099] So you look at yourself in the mirror, and then you look at this fucking version of this shit.

[1100] But where the hell is this goddamn thing?

[1101] I'll find it.

[1102] So what's interesting about this or, I mean, a lot's interesting, but two questions I ask are, what kind of esteem are you getting from putting out fake pictures?

[1103] Yeah.

[1104] Like, are you getting status by, like, I don't think it's working.

[1105] I don't think you really do get anything.

[1106] I think you think you're going to get something, but it never really comes.

[1107] I think you just, you're doing it based on the premise that you're going to develop esteem.

[1108] You know, and, you know, there's a famous.

[1109] Louis -Cardashian picture where she adjusted so many things that it became this thing that people were sharing just because it's so preposterous because it literally looked nothing like her.

[1110] So so many people thought it was hilarious that they were just sending it back and forth like what the fuck is she doing?

[1111] Like this is crazy.

[1112] Okay, I'm not finding this picture.

[1113] It's taken too long.

[1114] Okay, you got an elk in there?

[1115] I got a lot of photos in here.

[1116] I don't know why I don't have it.

[1117] I thought it did.

[1118] It's okay.

[1119] But this photo is like a preposterous photo because everyone knows what she actually looks like and then you look at this picture it's like this perfect woman and I'm like who is that and underneath it she wrote location under bitch's skin like so she's doing it but everyone knows this is where it's crazy like everyone knows you don't look like that like you're a famous person it's not like she's taking a photo and like hey here's what I look like here's my selfie what do you look like and she says you that you're like Whoa, she's really hot.

[1120] If she sent you that picture and then you went to go meet her at the mall, you'd be like, who are you?

[1121] Catfished or whatever.

[1122] Yeah, who are you?

[1123] You're not this person.

[1124] Like, this is a different human.

[1125] But by writing under bitch's skin, like, it exposes the mentality of these things.

[1126] You're doing it to make people feel bad about what they look like.

[1127] And this is so face -tuned in Photoshop that literally she forgot to add one of the sides of the chains of the change.

[1128] she was wearing.

[1129] So she's wearing this chain.

[1130] One of them has disappeared because it's been absorbed in this filter.

[1131] But it's still working to get people upset because of her attractiveness.

[1132] It disturbs me how dumb people are.

[1133] And it's not just that it gets people upset of her attractiveness, but also people that think it looks really good.

[1134] So what if I said people aren't dumb, but people have a problem discounting for other explanations.

[1135] So if I said, hey, I'm doing this and, all right, this is me. And you go, well, this is you, obviously, but I got to remember this is Photoshop.

[1136] But 99 % of time there's no Photoshop.

[1137] So it's hard for me to discount the Photoshop, even though I know you're Photoshopped.

[1138] So I mean, there's old studies like this in the 60s.

[1139] We have people, like with brainwashing in North Korea, where they'd have people, you read a statement like, I think the Americans are awful or whatever and people even though they know they're under duress will still sort of think they believe it right and i wonder if there's something like that here like this is fake but you're still kind of hot or maybe it's just or maybe it's like man you have such status i don't know well people men in general are really dumb right because we look at fake boobs and we go wow she's got nice boobs even though you know they're fake like they can be round like a soccer ball Right, it's cues.

[1140] Something about it is.

[1141] It's like, our brain.

[1142] Yeah.

[1143] And we go, that's hot.

[1144] We don't go, wow, how disturbing is this.

[1145] Not a lot of reflection.

[1146] Right.

[1147] Yeah.

[1148] Very little.

[1149] We just go with the good part of the feeling.

[1150] The sexual ape part of the feeling.

[1151] Right.

[1152] Yeah.

[1153] So I wonder if you do that with the trap.

[1154] I don't know.

[1155] I mean, it's pretty interesting because, and then what happens if you're growing up in a world where like half the images you know are just fake?

[1156] A lot of the images that you see of people on Instagram have been fucked with a lot.

[1157] I don't know what the number is, but it's a lot.

[1158] And when I put this photo up on my Instagram, I got messages from friends of mine that are girls that go, one of the things they would say is like, I use filters, but fuck, that's crazy.

[1159] So I'm like, wow, okay, you use filters, but that's crazy.

[1160] Why are you using filters?

[1161] And some of these girls are like very pretty, which is even more insane.

[1162] It's like, why would you use filters if you're already pretty?

[1163] Like, you already hit the genetic lottery in terms of facial features, but you want everything to be smooth you want there to be no pores and yeah what's the filter is going for i mean is it what do the filter is it a certain look or is it just to get right you know tighten it up it's to make you look younger and smoother and perfect it's to like you know if you do this and scrunch you see those lines in your skin some people don't want to see any of that because they think that a line in the skin or a weirdness to the facial structure is is negative and really it boils down to breeding choices, right?

[1164] I mean, that's what it is.

[1165] Like, the, the geometry of your face.

[1166] Yeah.

[1167] Like, that your jaws wider, your eyes are a good distance apart, your cheeks are solid size, you look like you'd be a good breeding candidate.

[1168] I mean, that's really what we're doing.

[1169] Yeah, it's kind of, yeah, five coefficients and stuff.

[1170] Yeah, it's pretty.

[1171] It's weird.

[1172] It is weird.

[1173] It's super weird when you look at these images, when you know that they're Photoshop.

[1174] Like, you know how the explore, I don't know if you ever go to the Instagram thing, there's a little explore section where you could just look at random people that you've never seen before.

[1175] I found this one lady who all of her pictures made her look like a cartoon.

[1176] Like all of them.

[1177] Like she had like a filter that was like made in Russia but she didn't want to be a cartoon.

[1178] I don't think so.

[1179] Like this was her.

[1180] It's hard to know what she really looked like because all of her filters the the skin on her face was so bizarrely smoothed out that she looked animated.

[1181] Like they it didn't look terrible.

[1182] Uncanny kind of.

[1183] Like she had like a cheap phone and then she ran them through these cheap filters and like this was her face.

[1184] And like sometimes she'd have stars all around her face and sometimes she'd have like, you know, like it was weird.

[1185] I wish, I mean, like I know we've done the work looking at people who are more narcissistic, more grandiose, don't use as many filters because they just like they think they look so good.

[1186] They don't worry about as much.

[1187] And people more vulnerable, we notice using more filters.

[1188] But I don't know if what you're talking about is strategic.

[1189] You know, are you strategically trying to get more attention?

[1190] Or is this like a, is it a fashion?

[1191] I just don't know what the filters are supposed to do.

[1192] Well, I think it's preparing us for artificial reality.

[1193] That's what I think.

[1194] I think it's preparing us for virtual reality.

[1195] Because, you know, there's already virtual reality games where you could go and like, do you know what sandbox is?

[1196] You ever see that?

[1197] It's really cool.

[1198] It's a VR place where you go to.

[1199] They actually have one here in Austin.

[1200] We went the other day.

[1201] And you put on these VR goggles and a half.

[1202] haptic feedback vest and then you're a different thing inside this game you could be like a pirate or in this one game we played we were robots you're going to be able to put that on and be a beautiful person and it's going to be crude at first but eventually it's going to mimic the motion and the look of an actual person and we're going to become accustomed to it so if you don't like what you look like you can go be you know some Raquel welch from the 1960s you can be perfect and you can do that inside this video game and I think that's going to be I I think whether it's through augmented reality, through glasses, virtual reality, one of those things is going to become real.

[1203] I agree, and I just don't know why it's taken so long, because I went into one of our labs, this is years ago, and tried in a cave, you know, where they had the virtual reality, and they have the sensors so they know where you're going, and it was really crude.

[1204] And I was like, oh, my God, this is amazing, how real this is.

[1205] I mean, it was standing over a pit, and I'm like, I'm going to die.

[1206] It was great.

[1207] So we did a study where we made people in a kind of fake Kim Kardashian's.

[1208] We made these avatars, you know, to see, but it's so crude at this point.

[1209] And then I've seen some of the stuff, and I'm like, this is going to take over the world.

[1210] Because once you can just dial in and immerse in this, and then you start adapting these different avatars, and then what do those do to your personality?

[1211] Do you become that person when you do it?

[1212] Do you have what we call assimilation to us?

[1213] You know, if you have an avatar of a fighter to become more aggressive, or do I do the opposite because I'm trying to, you know, not act like Mike Tyson?

[1214] It's going to be so interesting.

[1215] But, yeah, it scares the hell out of me. Yeah, I think we're just a few decades away from not recognizing normal life anymore.

[1216] I think we passed that about five years ago.

[1217] I'm sorry.

[1218] I know.

[1219] I know.

[1220] You might be right.

[1221] You might be right.

[1222] Now, what if someone lives with or works with a narcissist?

[1223] like what if you're a person and you say you're in an office you know you work for a PR firm or something like that your boss is a narcissist and you is there a way you can explain to a narcissist if they're a narcissist is there a way you can help them I I wouldn't do that generally I wouldn't go and sort of if it's my boss I wouldn't confront them about like I just because you get so the problem is somebody's narcissistic and you confront them, you can get reactions.

[1224] They're like aggressive.

[1225] So the classic formula for aggression is you take somebody who's narcissistic and you say you suck or you say you can't do that, you can't have that.

[1226] So what do you do if there's like a CEO of company and you're working way up the ladder and your boss is a narcissist?

[1227] So you have to protect yourself like because what happens is you might get manipulated or lied about it.

[1228] So keep records of everything.

[1229] Make sure everything's above board.

[1230] And then if you do want to manipulate somebody like that, you kind of suck up to him.

[1231] I mean, that's what people do.

[1232] And you see in these corporations, the people who are narcissistic will have these suckups, these kind of yes men or yes women that follow them around.

[1233] Well, that's what they say about Trump, right?

[1234] Well, I mean, I assume.

[1235] Those are the only people that work around him because he fires everybody else.

[1236] I assume that's what those guys do.

[1237] Yeah.

[1238] I mean, I mean, that's so one of the things you can have happen is you can just become kind of a synchophant of a, you know, of a, of a, of a, of a narcissistic boss, but I don't think that's what anyone wants to do.

[1239] No, you have like a lamprey on the bottom of the shark.

[1240] Yeah, exactly.

[1241] You're just kind of following up.

[1242] You're just lampreyed on that bad boy.

[1243] So that's a, that's a strategy to get through life, if you want.

[1244] I don't recommend it.

[1245] But usually, usually, the other thing is if somebody's that narcissistic, there's usually, they've done it to you and they've done it to a bunch of people, whatever they're doing.

[1246] So find allies.

[1247] You know, find strength in numbers.

[1248] figure out what's going on, keep records, make sure the person's not crossing any lines.

[1249] If they cross lines, go to HR.

[1250] Don't put yourself in a position where you can get exploited, you know, be careful about trusting that kind of thing.

[1251] And if you're nice to somebody like that, they might like you.

[1252] And if you criticize them, they'll like you less.

[1253] So that's where that conflict comes in.

[1254] That's terrible strategy, though.

[1255] I'm sorry, man. It's the worst.

[1256] I just can imagine myself being in an honest.

[1257] office working for something like that going fuck yeah just no you just i mean usually just want to get the hell out i mean that's the problem or you try to get the person promoted i mean this is what happens real life you try to get them promoted out so you get a better boss i mean people do a lot of i mean they do a lot of horrible that's hilarious try to get them promoted out get them moving to a better job you just you're so good let's see you know what if you were that you should be the king of you you should be the king of yeah maybe over and you know that you should move to texas have you thought What do you think about psychedelics for people with personality disorders?

[1258] Jesus, that's a wide open question.

[1259] I can give you a very long answer if you don't mind.

[1260] I don't mind at all.

[1261] Okay.

[1262] So there's been this explosion in psychedelic research.

[1263] So the history was psychedelic medicines were really popular in the 40s and 50s, early 60s.

[1264] And, you know, famously Bill W at AA was a proponent of LSD to induce mystical experience because inducing mystical experience seemed to be a way of getting people past alcoholism.

[1265] So there's a lot of interest in when it all got shut down in the 70s, it all kind of went underground.

[1266] People used MDMA for a while, and then they found out about that and said it has no benefit.

[1267] And so they shut it down.

[1268] And so we're in this weird place now where the research is coming back.

[1269] People in these research centers are really interested in MDMA and psilocybin for treatment.

[1270] And they're focusing on PTSD, you know, a lot of trauma therapy, and they're focused on couples therapy.

[1271] Those seem to be a couple big ones.

[1272] And so those treatments are going on.

[1273] The other thing that's going on are people doing shamanic medicines.

[1274] So people are going to, you know, to Costa Rica or Peru primarily to do ayahuasca, Huachuma, you know, San Pedro.

[1275] And they're doing those retreats because they're illegal in the U .S. and they're trying to heal.

[1276] So I have a student, Brandon Weiss, who should get all the credit for this, who was interested in studying psychedelics several years ago.

[1277] It's been probably four years.

[1278] And so we were interested in measuring personality change in psychedelic use.

[1279] And so what we, I'll just, what we did is went down to measure people in some of these centers and measure the personality before going down, you know, before using the psychedelics a week after and then a follow -up, you know, three -month follow -up, looking at personality changes, and also getting peer reports of personality, so not just measuring their personality, but saying, hey, get a friend to see if the friend sees your personality's changed, because it's easy to get people to say their personality changed, but you want to confirm it with a peer to make sure it's legit.

[1280] So we've been working on the plant medicine side of this, which is a whole different bag of tricks than the other psychedelic side.

[1281] And long story short what brandon's dissertation found was that people using the ayahuasca had a big decrease in what we call neuroticism which is this personality trade that has to do with anxiety and depression and hostility so that we found a big drop in that um so then i was talking to brandon like a week or two ago and i'm like i'm going on joe rogan man what are you got for narcissism dude I'll check it out for you so Brandon sent me the data on on narcissism a couple days ago this is just fresh this is not science I mean there's scientific data but it needs to be written up I'm just talking but what it looks like is it looks like that the more extroverted piece of narcissism wasn't changing going down if anything it was going up a little bit the more like drive the the piece that had to do with vulnerability insecurity was improving, so that seemed to be getting better.

[1282] But we had a measure of entitlement in that study, like a sense of entitlement, and that didn't seem to change.

[1283] Really?

[1284] Yeah, which I thought, I thought, well, that would change.

[1285] So where the biggest action seems to be is this broader sense of like depression, anxiety, neuroticism more than sort of entitlement, at least in this, this is just a text message from the weakness seems to have been healed yes but the strength seems to maybe have been enhanced a little bit yeah yeah for some people that's not good yeah but i'm guessing for the people you know that so when i started getting when i first got interested in the in the psychedelics the research had looked at a trait we call openness to experience and openness is as a broad trait that's due with creativity and philosophy and aesthetics and interest.

[1286] And so what they found in this research at Hopkins are people doing psilocybinia mushrooms reported their openness getting up, increasing.

[1287] So I thought, well, gee, we do ayahuasca.

[1288] People are going to get super open after that.

[1289] Turns out the people who go down and drink ayahuasca are already pretty open to start with.

[1290] So it's really almost like a screen.

[1291] Like you're only getting people that are already.

[1292] pretty curious, open, creative people that are going to do it.

[1293] Right, like healthy user bias.

[1294] Yeah, it's a bias.

[1295] So we got a selection bias, I think.

[1296] So we're not really seeing that.

[1297] And so I don't think the risk down there is really, I mean, there could be a risk of ego inflation.

[1298] I wouldn't be, I'm not so concerned about it.

[1299] I think more, though, what's going on is it seems to be trauma that's healed a little bit.

[1300] I mean, this is so, this stuff is so intense.

[1301] And it's so, and then, so I started, you know, when I started trying to figure this out a little bit, I thought, well, you'd just go ask the shaman, you know, because, well, this is a story.

[1302] So the first guy to study narcissism was a guy named Havelock Ellis, who was this British, and maybe Australian back in, really, you know, from Australia, but British sexologist.

[1303] Sexologist.

[1304] So he started to study narcissism because it was like self -pleasureing, like self -love.

[1305] And this same guy, very curious dude, he also went to the southwest United States in the late 1800s and discovered them eating peyote.

[1306] So he brought peyote back to Britain and gave it to a bunch of friends and wrote the first scientific article on peyote use called like something like artificial fantasy or something.

[1307] Really cool.

[1308] And he wrote this paper and he's like, well, we did it and we felt sick and then we turned the lights down.

[1309] and pretty soon we were kind of using it the way the Indians did it.

[1310] And I thought, you know what?

[1311] Maybe you should have just asked them before you stole their sacred plant.

[1312] You know, maybe you have a conversation or two and say, what is this sacred plant?

[1313] And so, you know, Brandon met with people and I've talked to people that do this and say, what do you think's going on?

[1314] You know, how do you see it?

[1315] Because as an outsider, I'm like, I just think of the brain becoming plastic and the new pathways developing.

[1316] I don't know what's that metaphor.

[1317] And when I talk to the people down there, they're saying this is really about healing trauma and they see a lot of these negative energies and they're trying to clean these energies off you and it's really, it's like a very much a healing thing.

[1318] But what they're talking about is spiritual and what I do is psychology and there's a bridge between the two that's hard to cross if that makes sense.

[1319] So I can understand the spiritual practice down there, but it's hard to talk about that in psychology terms, so I can understand the personality process, but it's hard to talk about that in spiritual terms, if that makes sense.

[1320] We're kind of like two different disciplines, and if you're not Carl Jung, it's hard, which is why all the people doing research in psychedelics are using neuroscience.

[1321] So when you're comparing how people come in versus go out, it sounds like there's relatively little data, and it's kind of being accumulated, and a lot of it is guesswork.

[1322] it is very little data um when i do a personality study i want a sample of a couple hundred people like 200 people my study 250 because like if you had 250 people that were diagnosed with some version of narcissistic personality disorder or narcissism you would want to study them for a while before you sent them down there like what would you like if i gave you like if i really wanted to do this study for real?

[1323] I mean, you'd do what you'd have to do, a placebo -controlled.

[1324] So you'd have to have your, you'd have to have your, you know, your Maloka set up and your shaman, and you'd have to have one condition where they're drinking this awful stuff that's bad espresso, but it's not ayahuasca.

[1325] And the other condition, they drink the ayahuasca.

[1326] So you have to have a placebo -controlled trial.

[1327] I wonder how many people would trip balls on the placebo.

[1328] Well, they've done this, and people, they sense it's real, but I don't think they trip balls.

[1329] I don't know.

[1330] I mean, people say that, but I'm like, really?

[1331] Yeah, it's hard when people have expectations of an experience and then they convince themselves they're having that experience.

[1332] Yeah.

[1333] Well, in the psychedelic work, you know, it always comes back to set and setting, like mindset and setting.

[1334] So if you're in the jungle and you're drinking a placebo.

[1335] Right.

[1336] And you've come in there and you've been working on your intention and you've gone to diet the head of time.

[1337] You're dieting.

[1338] You're there.

[1339] Something's going to happen.

[1340] You know, I mean, you could go.

[1341] down there and do a ceremony, but it's very hard for me to imagine somebody having the same experience they would with ayahuasca in their mind.

[1342] People report things like that, but I just, I don't know.

[1343] But that's how you do it right.

[1344] You do a placebo -controlled trial.

[1345] So they do these trials with ayahuasca in Brazil, where they'll have you drink a cup of ayahuasca or a cup of tea that tastes like ayahuasca and they'll put you in the scanner, like an fMRI.

[1346] The problem with those trials, though, is you don't have the whole shamanic effects.

[1347] Set and setting.

[1348] You don't have set and setting.

[1349] And so the work we're doing is really interested in the whole shamanic process, but you can't say, well, it's the molecule of, you know, it's not DMT, it's ayahuasca, it's the process.

[1350] One of the things that comes out of the heavy psychedelics, whether it's psilocybin or DMT or any of the other ones, is ego death.

[1351] Like there's something that happens to you where the ego gets diminished.

[1352] I think for me, maybe the most profound one was 5MEO DMT.

[1353] That was a very heavy ego death experience because it made you feel like you didn't exist for a while.

[1354] It lacks the visuals of NN DMT and you feel like you're literally a molecule in the center of the universe.

[1355] Like you are a part of everything and nothing about you is even remotely significant.

[1356] And then when you come back to it, you feel like your ego is sort of scrambling to put its pants back on.

[1357] and tie its shoes.

[1358] Yeah, like, what does?

[1359] And then you can feel it.

[1360] You can feel your ego trying to regain control the situation and like brushing itself off.

[1361] And I remember making this concerted effort to try to grasp where my mind was when I came out of it.

[1362] And before the ego would come back, like to try to recognize like, oh, I was thinking when I came back, even the way I talk, like when I'm saying things, a lot of times I'm saying things.

[1363] I want them to sound intelligent, not just because I'm trying to convey a thought clearly, but I want people to think I'm smart.

[1364] Like, I want it to come off like, oh, I like the way that sounded.

[1365] That was a smooth sounding sentence, you know?

[1366] Or if not, smart, at least that I'm interesting to listen to.

[1367] You know, so there was like a trick to even formulating sentences that you're not just expressing yourself, but you're expressing yourself with the intention of pleasing or impressing others.

[1368] you know and that that was real I was real aware of that maybe for one of the first times clearly in my life I was like oh that's kind of gross you know it made me think about it the fakeness yeah it's gross being fake fakeness and all not just fakeness but like the the intention behind it that it wasn't entirely pure you know and I was thinking that that death of the ego like if there's anything that is haunting narcissists it's an out -of -control ego It's like this is part of it Maybe that would be an effective therapy But maybe it would have to be done Over a period of multiple sessions So I have some questions Because I haven't tried 5MEO And this is So you have full ego Like you just molecule in the universe I felt like I fucked up Right when I did it I was like oh my God I'm dead Like really More than any other psychedelic Because you don't see anything it's just all white you're gone everything's gone nothing's you you feel like you got shot through a cannon to the middle of everything and you get there's a weird sense that we have I guess because of gravity where you feel the floor underneath you and so you get a sense that that's down and that this is up and that that's left that's right when I did 5MEO I didn't have any feeling like that was that was no longer real and instead it was like down was infinite up was infinite left and right were infinite and you didn't exist anymore it was like it broke down the barriers like all the form of being a human whether it's blood tissue bone personality breath everything just went down to cells and then went down to atoms and then those atoms are part of the soup of atoms that are all around you so i've got a million questions for i'm asked too Did you feel there was a message other than what you told me?

[1369] Did you feel there is a spiritual voice there?

[1370] No. There was something there.

[1371] It's just boom.

[1372] Just boom.

[1373] It was different.

[1374] And N &DMT, the DMT that you experienced in ayahuasca, I've felt entities.

[1375] I've had communication.

[1376] I felt intelligence.

[1377] I've been mocked and jeered at and laughed at and shown love and shown beautiful things.

[1378] I didn't feel any of that in five methoxy.

[1379] Five methoxy DMT.

[1380] was really, it's more, it's a stronger psychedelic experience, apparently, you know, ounce per ounce, gram per gram, than, um, than regular DMT is.

[1381] So, more potent.

[1382] Did you find you benefited from that?

[1383] Maybe.

[1384] I only did it twice.

[1385] Um, I think, I think one thing I did get out of it was that realization that, um, how much the ego really does have a grasp on what you're doing all the time.

[1386] Even if you don't think it does.

[1387] And that sometimes there's probably some benefit in terms of your performance in certain things with that desire to do well and desire to communicate in an impressive way.

[1388] There's some benefit to that clearly.

[1389] And for me, as a person who communicates professionally, is probably some benefit to that.

[1390] But it was also the stark contrast of how preposterous that seemed when you are broken down to Adams and, shot to the center of the universe and you realize that you're just a part of some weird cosmic soup you're literally made out of stardust and there's just all this weirdness to it but there was no me that was what was most disturbing in the other DMT experiences that I've had there's a me there's me going keep it together don't freak out keep it together don't freak out let it happen let it go there's all that like internal dialogue going on like wow there was none of that I didn't exist anymore.

[1391] I was gone.

[1392] See, that doesn't, I mean, it sounds kind of, it doesn't sound fun.

[1393] Like, I kind of want to do it just because it's like, come on, I got to try that.

[1394] McKenna didn't enjoy it.

[1395] Terrence McKenna did not enjoy that version.

[1396] He didn't, didn't like it.

[1397] That's not a good recommendation.

[1398] You don't want that on your, you know, you kind of, you know, you know, psychedelic rental by owner, you know, one star from McKenna brothers.

[1399] It's just not good.

[1400] Yeah.

[1401] I so when people talk about ego death, so this is such a great question because like narcissism is ego, but it's sort of one way to have ego.

[1402] It's sort of an easy to see ego.

[1403] It's partly why I study.

[1404] It's kind of entertaining.

[1405] It's big.

[1406] And you can have an ego that's all about fear, you know, well, you're just scared all the time.

[1407] And, you know, so ego does a lot of things, not just narcissism.

[1408] But what you're talking about is like foundationally, like how do you get to that core of being?

[1409] and they talk about ego death in the psychedelic community.

[1410] And I started, you know, we used their scales to measure this.

[1411] We have instruments to measure ego death.

[1412] And I've looked at them and measured them.

[1413] And it seems like people don't really, they mean that in different ways.

[1414] So what you're talking, when you're telling me, like I was blown into the Akoshic, you know, whatever quantum field into nothingness.

[1415] I'm like, that sounds like ego death.

[1416] It sounded, it felt like actual death.

[1417] Yeah.

[1418] That was what the scariest part about is I, I, I feel like.

[1419] felt like, oh my God, I really fucked up.

[1420] I'm dead.

[1421] Yeah, it's ego death.

[1422] So that to me sounds like ego death.

[1423] There's stuff that happens on ayahuasca where you get eaten alive and you feel like you're dying, your bones are scattered through the wilderness.

[1424] And that seems like ego death.

[1425] You know, people have experiences like that.

[1426] And then there's experiences people talk about like, you know, I was looking at the ocean and I just kind of drifted off into nothingness or it kind of just drifted away.

[1427] And I'm like, that sounds like you just got a little high and relaxed.

[1428] You know, it kind of sounds like napping.

[1429] You know what you're telling, talking about ego death versus like, you know, I just kind of took some mushrooms and looked at the sunset and my, you know, and that, but in the questionnaires, it's hard to distinguish between those things because we just have, there's not a lot of people have experienced ego death.

[1430] I think in some of them, like we were talking about towns being by the ocean, where people are chill because you're just confronted by the majesty of the ocean there's something about these majestic experiences that are so overwhelmingly powerful that they just put you in check like standing next to an elephant you think you're a strong person like I'm a bad motherfucker and you stand next to an elephant you're like yikes it just puts it in perspective when you feel this enormous massive animal that's like it leaves no doubt that this thing is infinitely more powerful than you.

[1431] There's something about the psychedelic experience that does that as well.

[1432] Like, it is so mind -blowing that it forces you to sort of recalibrate your significance.

[1433] So here's the problem with somebody like me doing this kind of work is the big side effect of, I mean, one of the big side effects of ayahuasca.

[1434] So I studied this because I find it fascinating, but I don't recommend it to people because the side effects are religious.

[1435] These drugs are entheogenic.

[1436] They kind of God awakening.

[1437] And I started doing this work, and I'm like, holy shit, this stuff's real.

[1438] And it gets very hard when you see some of the spiritual stuff happen to go back and go, it's just fake.

[1439] What do you mean by the side effects are religious?

[1440] Meaning that if you, you know, they've done these big surveys of people taking DMT and they see aliens, they see entities.

[1441] And when they're doing it, you know, when you're doing it in a shamanic context, that the medicine itself has a spirit, you know, Mama Ayahuasca or San Pedro or, you know, combo, all the visionary medicines have their own entities and they open you up so these entities go in and then the shaman are controlling the space to make sure the bad entities don't get in and the good entities come in and, you know, help clean out the bad entities and stuff.

[1442] And so they're working on this sort of spiritual realm that they see very clearly.

[1443] You know, they see it.

[1444] but it's very hard for you can't really see it from the outside it's very hard to talk about psychologically right I mean I don't really have a good language for it so you do this stuff and you start experiencing entities and you go what how do I make sense of that what do I call those do I say it's the collective unconscious it seems to me that the only way people understand what you're talking about is if they've experienced it themselves yeah because you can talk to this about this to people that don't have any psychedelic experience and they just seem to think you're a loon.

[1445] Right, that's why I'm trying to talk about too much.

[1446] Yeah, but if you talk to it to someone who's been there before, they're like, okay, okay.

[1447] Yeah, yeah.

[1448] And then they're like, and then what?

[1449] So, I mean, so I guess what I'm saying is my concern is as a scientist is I started working.

[1450] Like, I've hung out in a lot of indigenous cultures.

[1451] I've traveled with it.

[1452] I fish a lot.

[1453] I surf.

[1454] I travel.

[1455] I've just been in a lot of places.

[1456] I've seen a lot of cool stuff.

[1457] stuff.

[1458] So I started working in this, in the shamanic context and seeing what's going on.

[1459] And I think for me, I'm like, there's something real here.

[1460] And it's something super powerful.

[1461] And these guys know medicine that we don't know.

[1462] And it's a little frightening that I don't have language for it.

[1463] Well, there's an ego, when you talked about ego, there's a perception that the West has, that we have the best answers.

[1464] Yeah, I don't think we do.

[1465] I think we kind of suck.

[1466] I just, but they're great in comparison to some cultures that exist in the world.

[1467] But then when you deal with these cultures that have this mastery of this mystical medicine, all of a sudden you're like, hmm, maybe we're full of shit.

[1468] Yeah, maybe there's another layer of things that we're just not so good at.

[1469] And maybe we're really good at these certain limited problems that we nailed.

[1470] And then we got our egos like, oh, we can solve all the problems.

[1471] Right.

[1472] It's like someone who's really good at playing chess.

[1473] and they have this understanding of chess and they're really good at chess and so they think, well, you know, obviously I'm superior because I'm great at chess but then they're around someone who's an amazing gymnast and they're like, oh, wait a minute, I can't do that.

[1474] I've spent all my time doing this.

[1475] Yeah.

[1476] But I didn't learn that and I thought that this was superior and then I'm watching you do the uneven bars and fly through the air and land of the balance beam and I can't do that.

[1477] Yeah, it's in a whole different plane of existence.

[1478] So we're experiencing Western life with traffic and internet access and all these different things and we've gotten really good at this so we think that this is the way to live because I can send you an email and you can't send me an email when you're in the jungle and you've got a leaf in your hand that's nonsense.

[1479] These people are fools, eating bananas.

[1480] But when you go there and you see what they can do with their plant medicine and you experience what they're saying when they're playing their songs and you realize the song is actually guiding the psychedelic experience you're like, oh, so they're very, very sophisticated in a world that I don't even have any information about whatsoever.

[1481] Yes, and the training is so different.

[1482] So for me to get a PhD, I find a mentor, I study a topic, I study it for several years, and by five years I'm able to produce knowledge on my own.

[1483] So if I can go write research, that means you're a PhD.

[1484] You're able to produce new knowledge.

[1485] If I'm in the jungle and I want to study ayahuasca, I don't read a bunch of books and do a study.

[1486] I sit and by myself in a hut by the water and I drink it.

[1487] You know, I drink a little bit and I diet.

[1488] You know, I do a diet and I sit with this medicine for a month or whatever the period of time is for months until I understand the medicine.

[1489] You know, you can sit with tobacco and study it for months and you understand how tobacco works and you understand it better than anyone.

[1490] So it's just a different train.

[1491] What do you tobacco?

[1492] Well, like my shaman...

[1493] A lot of shaman's used tobacco.

[1494] Yeah, they use tobacco as like a master plant.

[1495] And so when they diet, they'll drink it, they'll smoke it, they'll do like nu, you know, like...

[1496] What is the, what is the active ingredient in the nicotine or the tobacco itself?

[1497] I think it's the nicotine that they, so that I've heard the term Machupa, like jungle tobacco they use, and I've heard it's a very powerful master medicine.

[1498] Obviously it is in all the, you know, natives They blow tobacco smoke in people's faces.

[1499] Yeah, they blow the tobacco, but they also use it where they make a powder, like a snuff, a snuff, and they blow it through a tube at your nose.

[1500] You kind of put, I don't know why you put your hands up.

[1501] You just inhale and they shoot it up your nose.

[1502] It's a very potent form.

[1503] They have this very powerful chewing tobacco where they take like a huge thing and make it really small and you chew it.

[1504] I think that it works with the ayahuasca too, the MAO, but this is sort of out of my expertise area.

[1505] But I know it's a very important medicine for them.

[1506] so it's something you train with and you use it so if i if i was doing a ceremony i and i had trained with tobacco i would use that tobacco to help me in the ceremony so tobacco would be like an ally for me yeah and do they specifically target certain aspects of people's personalities when they go on these experiences like does anybody do that or do they just give you a trip and what you find you you're you were supposed to find or you just find whatever you find and deal with it.

[1507] So my understanding, and this is just talking to people who do this, I've made a huge, well, I have done research, but not the lifetime of work, is that they're looking for energies.

[1508] So very much it's like you see these negative energies and you're working on them.

[1509] I mean, the idea is you have a soul, you know, a soul body, a causal body, a, what is it in Indian, ananda Maya Kosha?

[1510] I don't know.

[1511] It's kind of a bliss body.

[1512] And that's where these problems, problems happen.

[1513] Sort of you get damage there, this carmic damage, and these psychic remoras are kind of attaching to you.

[1514] This is why it didn't make any sense psychologically, and they're kind of going in there and go, let's get these off of you.

[1515] Let's get your soul clean so you can do it again.

[1516] But that's the kind of stuff they're seeing.

[1517] It's not really working with psychology, but you go in there, you know, with an intention, set in settings.

[1518] So you go, like, I want to be more loving.

[1519] I want to heal this pain.

[1520] I want to be a better dad, you know.

[1521] I mean, the work I do is always trying to be a better parent, just trying to be a better human.

[1522] But people are doing stuff like that, but it isn't like going to a psychologist, like, well, how is your childhood?

[1523] How are your behaviors?

[1524] You're not doing any of that.

[1525] It's just very, it's just kind of very, I guess, uncharted medicine.

[1526] And some of the discussions they're having down there are, do you frame it more in terms of a Western frame?

[1527] Do you interpret it?

[1528] Do you not interpret it for people?

[1529] I mean, there's, they're kind of, it sounds to me like they're developing a hybrid system that's a little bit Western, but sort of foundationally, you know.

[1530] Do you think that's because of demand, like Western people are demanding some structure to it?

[1531] I think so.

[1532] Is that good or bad, though?

[1533] I don't know, you know, everything changes.

[1534] I mean, it's just, that's the way, you know, these systems just kind of cycle around.

[1535] And, you know, they learned it.

[1536] The people of the Shepibo learned it from another group, and they probably earned it from the Incas.

[1537] And it's probably changed.

[1538] and then the Westerners get down there and it changes and probably some Westerners get down there and trying to...

[1539] This is what they did with tobacco.

[1540] You know, they could try to strip it out and sell it and do all sorts of Westerner stuff.

[1541] But...

[1542] What did you mean when you were saying that it's more like religion?

[1543] When you're talking about the experience, that it's...

[1544] Meaning that when you're dealing with...

[1545] If I go to John Hopkins and take synthetic psilocybin, I'll have a psychedelic experience.

[1546] I'm using synthetic psilocybin, so I'm not going to throw up.

[1547] I'm not going to feel sick.

[1548] I'm just going to sit there and put something over my head and relax, and that's going to be my experience.

[1549] I go and to do plant medicine.

[1550] I'm going to take a medicine like ayahuasca.

[1551] It's going to be in its natural form.

[1552] I'm going to feel sick.

[1553] I'm going to hopefully throw up or diarrhea.

[1554] I'm going to purge.

[1555] And that purge is super important.

[1556] That's like part of the healing process is purging, so it's different.

[1557] And then the entity in ayahuasca is going to heal me. The spirit of ayahuasca, it's like a spirit is going to do the work, along with the singing of the shaman.

[1558] So there's a spiritual energy that's supposed to be the active agent in here.

[1559] We don't really have words for this in psych.

[1560] I mean, Carl Jung talked about this stuff, but in 100 years, psychology has been very behaviorist.

[1561] We just don't have good language for this kind of thing.

[1562] So the concern is I mean people that live one like I live in this very western kind of world and then you go and see something else you go holy crap how do you come back you know it's hard for people but if you just go do the normal psychedelics there's no spiritual aspect you go take them you don't throw up and maybe you have the same healing you don't have to have all those questions you know that's the risk when I wish there was a way where we could bring that to America and have people who were, like, licensed professionals, if there was like a shamanic research board.

[1563] Yes.

[1564] And, you know, you passed a bar of how to be a shaman.

[1565] And, you know, I mean, I mean, I think there's probably some beauty in going to these cultures where everything is, as it's been for thousands and thousands of years.

[1566] We don't have any control over it.

[1567] But there's a lot of people that don't want to go to the jungle.

[1568] No. No. No, and I think, yeah, I think what's going to happen is there's going to be, you know, first of all, there's all the normal psychiatric medicines, no one's getting rid of those, but if those aren't working, you'll try maybe MDMA or, and you're not going to get the ego death with MDMA.

[1569] You get a little bit of it, right?

[1570] Tip it, well, what I've seen in the literature, I'm not a psychonaut, man, I'm just a, I'm just a dad.

[1571] I don't have a mini man, I just hang out with some psychonauts, but the literature is usually that the mescaline -based drugs or MDMA don't get the profound ego death like you would with like 5MEO like you were saying so they're a little more gentle so it probably won't be as profound and so it'd be less less risk psilocybin can be a little crazier I think so probably people would do those but if some people that are a little more intrepid might want to go to the jungle it's more intense it's more interesting but it's probably going to be probably the more open people and more curious.

[1572] It's so funny as an adult, as a person, it seems like we're, you go through this structuring process from the time you're a baby to the time you're an adult, and then you kind of deal with what state your mind and personality are at, and then you try to do some repair work, and while you're trying to do this repair work, you're dealing with these underlying structures that have existed in your body and your mind for decade upon decade, and there's, We've carved these very deep paths of just you're used to things.

[1573] You're used to the way you are, and it's very difficult for people to change.

[1574] I think it's one of the reasons why we've had this cynical approach to people who are a narcissist or people with ego problems, that that is just who you are forever.

[1575] And I'm now, you know, who you were 20 years ago is who you are today, and that's who you'll be 20 years from now, period.

[1576] Right.

[1577] You're fucked.

[1578] Set and plaster.

[1579] Yeah.

[1580] Yeah, because these paths are cut so deeply.

[1581] So, you know, it makes me think, you know, Tim Ferriss, right?

[1582] He's down here.

[1583] He's given all this money to maps and done, he's been a huge support to psychedelic research.

[1584] Amazing what he's done.

[1585] And he talks about, he uses the metaphor of clay, you know, that your life is grooved.

[1586] You have these clay, you know, kind of grooved in clay and this is how you act.

[1587] And what the psychedelics do is loosen that up and allow you to.

[1588] to put in new grooves if you want.

[1589] I think that metaphor is good.

[1590] The people at Imperial College and stuff, sometimes use a snow globe metaphor, like the snow globes calm, and then you shake it up, and the psychedelics are shaking it up and allow the snow to fall differently.

[1591] I sometimes think of those glass, my metaphors always suck, but I think of those glass animals in Venice, you know, you have like a glass elephant, you know, with all these spears stuck in you from life, you know, you just, I have anything you've done, just get these spears, jabbed in you.

[1592] And the psychedelics allow you to kind of heat up and pull some of those out and heal a little bit.

[1593] But that metaphor of the psychedelics opening up these channels and allow you to work is, I think, a powerful metaphor because it's what happens.

[1594] It also tells you, if you're doing this stuff, have a freaking professional with you and don't do it at home.

[1595] I mean, I'm not do whatever you wanted to fish show.

[1596] But this is dangerous, powerful medicine.

[1597] And if you're going to be crafting your psyche, you want people with you that know what they're doing.

[1598] that are evil people.

[1599] When you set out to write this book, and we should talk about this book.

[1600] I'm sorry.

[1601] A new science and narcissism.

[1602] We haven't got to UFOs yet.

[1603] I'd love to get to that.

[1604] Ah, God.

[1605] Let's get to that right after we asked this question.

[1606] After we do my book.

[1607] What was your intention?

[1608] Was your intention to sort of illuminate these issues for people to help them guide their own way through it and find out what strategies they have or just to just diagnose it and describe it as a condition?

[1609] I've been studying narcissism for probably.

[1610] be 25, 30 years.

[1611] It's been that long just because I started doing it in grad school and I have a whole bunch of implicit or tacit knowledge.

[1612] I just know it a lot that's not written down and I've got I got to put this all down so anybody who wants to figure out Narsim can grab this, read it and get kind of know what's going on and then they can go figure out what they want from there.

[1613] So I wrote it a bit like a tool for people who really want to understand it and then change.

[1614] I'm not so good.

[1615] I don't like telling people what to do.

[1616] I can tell that.

[1617] You can tell it.

[1618] You're pretty easygoing guy.

[1619] I just hate tell.

[1620] I'm like, man, you've got to find your own journey.

[1621] You know, plot, your own adventure.

[1622] Fuck, I'm doing my best.

[1623] I get it.

[1624] You're doing your best.

[1625] Like, you've got to do your best, too.

[1626] You do your best, man. But, like, here are the tools.

[1627] And then I wrote the book.

[1628] And I try to explain, like, here's how personality works.

[1629] I try to explain a little bit, like, here's how we assess, how we assess personality.

[1630] So you don't be an idiot and take a bunch of tests online.

[1631] Like, I try to explain to people how this thing works in simple terms.

[1632] I don't know if it worked.

[1633] that's my effort UFOs yeah I just I'm like what the hell are interdimensional UFOs what are the dimensions I can't figure this out well I mean even the phrase interdimensional UFOs that's never really been defined I know but don't people talk about this I was like people talk about all kinds of horseshit right I was like but who's going to know I'm like Joe Rogan I got to figure this out I'm like what the hell is it interdimensional what's the dimension you came to the wrong place I have no idea if that's even that might be total nonsense I assume it's total nonsense.

[1634] I just wonder what it is.

[1635] Well, I think when people say that, they're just grasping its straws.

[1636] Like, if you could say for sure, this is an interdimensional alien life form, wow, you would have the most amazing peer -reviewed paper ever, right?

[1637] Pretty good one, yeah.

[1638] In order to say that, you would have to have some real data.

[1639] You'd have to be able to demonstrate, you'd have to be able to show how this is provable.

[1640] either with some sort of mathematics or some kind of evidence.

[1641] Something.

[1642] Right.

[1643] You can't just say it's an interdimensional UFO.

[1644] But people do say things like that.

[1645] So that's what it is.

[1646] Somebody just said that's what it is?

[1647] Well, one of the things, when you talk about narcissism and ego, one of the things that people do, they do like to pretend that they are special.

[1648] And this is one of the reasons why I'm so very, very skeptical about personal psychic experiences, personal UFO experiences, personal experiences with Bigfoot or whatever it is because it instantaneously makes you more significant than you are without those experiences.

[1649] So if you're a person that has been abducted by a UFO and I'm not saying that people have it.

[1650] If people have had that experience, I have no idea what your experience has been.

[1651] But if you are full of shit and you say you have been abducted by a UFO, you are automatically instantly more interesting.

[1652] Yeah.

[1653] Instantly.

[1654] Yeah.

[1655] Instantly.

[1656] You're interesting, more fascinating.

[1657] You're interesting in a way that no one else is because you've experienced this godlike creature from another world.

[1658] Right.

[1659] And they have chosen you for some strange reason.

[1660] Maybe you have a particular genetic sequence that they're interested in, or maybe you have been chosen throughout your entire life, and that's why you're so special.

[1661] Seated.

[1662] Yeah, there's a thing about this, that people wanting, to be special, the chosen one by, you know, I talked to this lady that was telling me that she channels UFO from another planet and she was telling me all this nonsense that all the different things she does.

[1663] And I said, are you on medication?

[1664] And she got like really, really upset at me for asking her if she's on medication.

[1665] I'm like, that's a legitimate question.

[1666] Like, you're telling me that you are in contact and you channel a being from another planet.

[1667] You just expect me, you're not saying at all.

[1668] I know this sounds crazy.

[1669] Yeah.

[1670] You're not saying...

[1671] I know this is nuts.

[1672] No. Instantaneous, grandiose behavior.

[1673] Instantaneous.

[1674] Like, I need to respect this because this is real.

[1675] Like, I am forced in this position where she has this knowledge that's coming from this interstellar time -traveling entity or whatever the fuck it is.

[1676] It communicates there as a medium.

[1677] It's a type of mental disorder.

[1678] And this is not discounting actual real extraterrestrial experiences because they very well may be real.

[1679] I don't, if you're talking about unique experiences, novel, unique experiences that you haven't had, how do you know?

[1680] You don't know.

[1681] It's like if you were trying to describe ayahuasca to someone who would never experience you like, that guy's full of shit.

[1682] But then if you took the ayahuasca, you'd be like, oh, my God, it's real.

[1683] That could be the exact same thing in terms of UFO abduction or UFO experiences and close encounters.

[1684] I don't know, but I do know that there's something about expressing that you have had these experiences that makes you command respect in some weird way that I don't like, because it makes me like, oh, all of a sudden you're special.

[1685] You're the chosen one.

[1686] Are you really?

[1687] You know, you're a channeler.

[1688] You know, you're doing a seance.

[1689] You're talking to people from the Great Beyond.

[1690] You're channeling some entity from 400 million light years away.

[1691] Are you really?

[1692] Yeah.

[1693] Or is this bullshit?

[1694] Because it seems like it's bullshit.

[1695] That's the problem is that there's too many people that take advantage of just this narrative that there are UFOs out there or that Bigfoot is out there.

[1696] I was in the woods.

[1697] I experienced him.

[1698] He talked to me through his mind.

[1699] I understood his languages.

[1700] Bigfoot talks to people telepathically?

[1701] Oh, sure.

[1702] Oh, I mean, you...

[1703] I'm sure.

[1704] Yeah.

[1705] I mean, there's enough stories out there of people that you can get kind of any combination of those variables like Bigfoot's interdimensional.

[1706] Bigfoot's from another planet.

[1707] Bigfoot knows where the cameras are.

[1708] That's why you never take pictures of them.

[1709] But I did a show for a sci -fi channel a few years back called Joe Rogan Questions Everything.

[1710] And I went into it far more enthusiastic about these subjects than I came out.

[1711] When I came out of it, I was thinking there's a lot of people with mental illness.

[1712] And that's what a lot of this is.

[1713] The more I thought about it, more I'm like, this is just a lot of people like searching for meaning.

[1714] One of the things that I was saying is like you find a lot of unfuckable.

[1715] white guys.

[1716] Like that's when you go looking for UFOs or Bigfoot.

[1717] It seems like people that have been left out of the dating game.

[1718] I'm just calling that like one scale I'm not going to develop.

[1719] The unfuckable white guy scale?

[1720] Not happening.

[1721] Not this lifetime.

[1722] That's what it seems like.

[1723] It's like a lot of people that just, they're not getting a lot of attention otherwise.

[1724] But they want it.

[1725] Yes, they want it.

[1726] And they really go out of their way to talk about these experiences and make them seem incredibly significant, whether it's a Bigfoot experience or a UFO experience, abduction experiences, encounters, all these different things, but it's, they're very rarely are they even remotely believable.

[1727] If you're a person who's accustomed to people telling the truth.

[1728] Yeah.

[1729] And this is a thing that I also found out when people lie a lot, they are not good at detecting lies.

[1730] And they're not good at recognizing when other people detect their lies like someone who's like a pathological liar they lie all the time they make things up all the time they must lie to themselves too and it's going for it yeah just lie lie lie lie I think they lie to themselves as well I don't think they're like super brutally honest to themselves and then lie to other people I think it's no one wants to be a liar so when you've decided that you're just going to start lying about things you're probably instead of thinking like hey I better make this lie good you're probably like psychologically twisted and you're fucked up so they would tell these stories that they don't resonate when someone's like we were talking earlier about people being like authentic and authenticity resonates these stories don't resonate at all there's no resonate but occasionally you get one that does I talked to a lady that said she saw Bigfoot and she did not seem full of shit at all but I think she saw a bear so it's a real sighting but just a miss bears walk on two feet all the time and black bears walk on two feet all the time and she saw this thing and she was in the Pacific Northwest which if you've ever been up there in the forest it's insanely wooded it's like yeah it's like cue tips like you buy a box of Q -tips that's how the trees are stacked next to each other and she saw this thing walking through the woods on its high legs and I bet it was a bear I bet it was black bears are frequent up there and I bet it was a bear that had a hurt paw or something and was just walking on two legs They do it all the time.

[1731] There's a lot of video of black bear walking on two legs.

[1732] There's no video of Bigfoot.

[1733] Like the abominable snowman or Yeti, they think is a bear too.

[1734] Could be, for sure.

[1735] Yeah, could be.

[1736] I've never seen a Bigfoot.

[1737] I've seen a Wolverine.

[1738] I've seen Wolverine.

[1739] Oh, have you really?

[1740] You've seen Wolverine?

[1741] I saw a Wolverine.

[1742] That was once in my whole life.

[1743] Because the guide I was with was like, oh, my God, it's a Wolverine.

[1744] That's a crazy animal.

[1745] Because you never see him.

[1746] They're pretty rare.

[1747] But if I saw a Wolverine, I've never come close to a Bigfoot.

[1748] And I hang out with a lot of guides and they haven't either.

[1749] it's it's so attractive though it's one of those things where it's it's if you even if you did see it it would be so hard to know if someone was telling the truth like if someone saw it and they were telling you it'd be so hard to know if they're telling the truth because so many people are full of shit and it's such an attractive thing to see like if you if you tell a person that you saw I was in the forest I saw a Sasquatch like automatically people roll their eyes like what the fuck yeah but if you did you know how would I know No. I would have to, it would have to resonate with me, but I would still wouldn't know.

[1750] I'd be guessing.

[1751] I can't tell if people are lying.

[1752] I'd like to believe I can.

[1753] I mean, it's very hard to tell if people are lying.

[1754] That's why the UFO thing and all this interdimensional thing.

[1755] That's why I think it has something to do with mental illness.

[1756] It has something to do with personality disorders.

[1757] I'm getting it.

[1758] I get that sense too that there's like a weirdness in there too.

[1759] There's some narcissism, but there's also just some like weird.

[1760] You see this with fame.

[1761] There is a, so Roy Baummeister is my, he's a famous.

[1762] my social psychologist, my postdoc advisor, did a paper with Len Newman on alien abduction in the 90s.

[1763] And their theory was that people had, you know what hypnagogic hallucinations are?

[1764] Like you're asleep and you feel like you're frozen and you're awake and you can't move.

[1765] Yeah, sleep paralysis.

[1766] Yeah, exactly.

[1767] So they get that state or their highway hypnosis or something and they go, ah, something weird happened.

[1768] I'll go ask people and no one says anything and they run into somebody and goes, oh, maybe you were abducted by an alien, you know, and they have this.

[1769] And then they go talk to an alien expert and that guy goes what happens and people go well I felt like I was frozen and they hypnotized me like what happened like well there's a tractor beam and it put me up and then I was they inspected me and they put a chip in me and there's like a whole alien narrative and I used to teach this to my class and I'd say like what happens when you get abducted by aliens and the whole class would know they know what happens they know how aliens work they all knew about the anal probe and I'm like you know I'm like so we have we have an entire narrative in this about alien abductions, but we don't have alien abductions.

[1770] It's a weirdest thing, but it makes it easy for people to think they're abductive because they all know the narrative.

[1771] Right.

[1772] So I thought it was interesting, but then when I saw a dude on your show that actually was a pilot.

[1773] Yeah, when I saw him and I'm like, and I'm listening to him flying and I've flown Mexico a lot when I was a kid and I'm like, I'm like, this guy's not lying.

[1774] I know he's not lying.

[1775] See, this is what we're talking about now.

[1776] That's the resonance.

[1777] Right.

[1778] So he, David Fraver is, is a legit Air Force pilot, or Navy?

[1779] I wasn't.

[1780] He's a pilot for the Navy.

[1781] Legit pilot has been an enormous portion of his life and knows a tremendous amount about aircrafts.

[1782] And the way he describes it, he did a great job describing it on my podcast, but I would tell anybody who's interested in this, look for my friend Lex, Lex Friedman's podcast with Commander Fravor because they go deep into the woods about the technical aspects of interacting with it Because it was just him and Lex, whereas on my show was Jeremy Corbell and me and him.

[1783] And it was like, there was three different voices and it was, it's better with two.

[1784] And they really got into it well because Lex had also seen my interview with him and he wanted to talk to him deeper about it.

[1785] And he discussed the way this thing moved, the way, you know, that it was close enough to him that he could see it with his naked eye.

[1786] It wasn't, this wasn't something he was just looking at on a screen.

[1787] He absolutely has a deep understanding of the size of.

[1788] aircrafts he's been traveling flying aircrafts for a long time fighter jets and he he described it as being about 40 feet long and he described why he believed it was about 40 feet long i think that was the number of years yeah but he explained how it moved explained how it it actively blocked radar it actively blocked tracking which is uh technically an act of war he explained how the thing moved from 60 000 feet to one feet above sea level in less than a second they have no idea it did it.

[1789] There's no heat signature.

[1790] They don't know.

[1791] And then it took off in equal speeds.

[1792] And then it was observed by the naval base miles away, like instantaneously.

[1793] They're like, it's over here now.

[1794] And they're like, what in the fuck is this?

[1795] And the naval, the guys that were talking to him over the walkie -talkie, whatever communication they use, was saying we get these every couple weeks, that we've had these here before.

[1796] We don't know what they are.

[1797] And, you know, there you go.

[1798] Now you've seen it.

[1799] But they're power.

[1800] to do anything about it because they move with a speed that defies all of our current understandings of how things are able to move through space and time we don't know what they're doing or how they're doing it or why they're doing it we don't know where they're from but if you went and said that's an interdimensional alien like well you're just using words yeah so we have no idea with no idea what that is so here's my question then so we got a bunch of people that want to be on your show because they saw Bigfoot or they saw an alien.

[1801] Yeah.

[1802] We have a guy on your show that says he sounds legit and then the Navy says he's telling the truth.

[1803] Yes.

[1804] So it's not a conspiracy theory.

[1805] These things are real as far as we know.

[1806] We don't know what they are.

[1807] Why aren't people more curious about the real UFOs?

[1808] I think they are.

[1809] Okay.

[1810] But I think the narrative right now is like, you know, Trump bad.

[1811] COVID kill you, wear a mask.

[1812] When do we open up again?

[1813] There's so many narratives that are real.

[1814] like things that we have to deal with real shit right now this is which is weird that the pentagon during the middle of this came out and said that we have recovered crafts that are not of this world right yeah which really uh validated what bob lazar was saying in the late 80s the late 80s when he was working at area s4 i mean he he talked about how these things worked back then and he talked about their ability to travel the same way that TikTok or Tick -Tac thing traveled and the same way some of the other ones that they've observed have traveled.

[1815] They traveled in the same way.

[1816] And he doesn't seem that narcissistic.

[1817] I mean, he seems like a normal dude, right?

[1818] I mean, I don't know.

[1819] I had never met him.

[1820] He seemed.

[1821] It's hard to talk.

[1822] I shouldn't admit, yeah.

[1823] But his story has been remarkably consistent over more than 30 years.

[1824] Okay.

[1825] And when I was talking to him, he didn't seem full shit to me. He seemed like a guy who had an insane experience.

[1826] many, many years ago, where he was hired by the government to go and try to work out what these things are and how they operate.

[1827] And they didn't really know how they operated.

[1828] And they were trying a bunch of different scientists.

[1829] And part of the problem was that the scientific process requires multiple people collaborating.

[1830] And they wanted to shut down all this collaboration because they wanted to keep things very compartmentalized.

[1831] They didn't want anybody sharing any of this information.

[1832] And he was absolutely baffled.

[1833] by what these things are and what they did.

[1834] But his take on it was he had been told many different things.

[1835] And one of the things he had been told is that these had been here for a long time and that one of them was from some sort of an archaeological dig.

[1836] And they had this idea of what they were and where they were from.

[1837] But, you know, he didn't know how much of what they were telling him was just bullshit so that, you know, he would have the wrong information.

[1838] So if he ever decided to leak it, it would be nonsense.

[1839] Maybe it was some super complex government program that they were trying to disguise as alien crafts.

[1840] Like, we don't know.

[1841] All you know about that, that Tick -Tac thing is that it moves in a way that as far as our current understanding of how things are able to move.

[1842] Doesn't work.

[1843] It moves in a way that's infinitely superior.

[1844] It goes 60 ,000 feet to one feet above sea level like that.

[1845] And that's just because the radar takes a second to track.

[1846] They don't even know how fast it went.

[1847] It might have been instantaneous.

[1848] So they don't know what is doing that and how do you do that?

[1849] Is that Russia?

[1850] Does China know how to do that?

[1851] Who knows how to do that?

[1852] Or is it from another planet?

[1853] So when the Pentagon says we've recovered things that are not from this world, maybe that's bullshit too.

[1854] Maybe this is stuff that we have.

[1855] Maybe this is something that we've developed and maybe there's no person in it at all.

[1856] Maybe it's just some sort of an infinitely fast drone that works on this element that's very rare that they figured out how to make it.

[1857] fucking particle collider or something.

[1858] I don't know, you know.

[1859] But he does not seem full of shit.

[1860] Right.

[1861] Commander Fravor, in no way, shape, or form seems full of shit.

[1862] He is American as apple pie.

[1863] He seems 100 % legit.

[1864] So do you think that when this becomes something people talk about that will change people's opinions about human events or human, the human condition?

[1865] If we encountered something that is absolutely from another planet, I think it would, completely change our perceptions.

[1866] It's kind of the fantasy as you'd start getting along with your neighbor a little better if you knew you could be eaten by an alien.

[1867] That was Ronald Reagan's speech.

[1868] Do you remember that speech?

[1869] I don't.

[1870] Do it?

[1871] It was a great speech.

[1872] Back in the 80s, he gave a speech for the United Nations.

[1873] And he was essentially saying, how quickly would we forget our differences if we were confronted with a threat from an alien world?

[1874] And all the alien dorks, like myself, were like, dude, he's trying to tell us something.

[1875] Dude, the aliens are real.

[1876] He was like Q back in the day.

[1877] Yeah, that's what I thought.

[1878] And who knows?

[1879] I mean, maybe he did know something.

[1880] Maybe they did inform him of something.

[1881] It's a crazy subject.

[1882] You know, and I think one of the reasons why it's so crazy is we have so much light pollution that we never see the stars for what they really are.

[1883] So that's, I mean, part of the issue with the human experience is if you read anything old, it was all based in the world where every night you saw the heavens.

[1884] Yeah, like a show.

[1885] It's like watching a dead show.

[1886] Every night you looked in the sky and now it's just gone.

[1887] Yep.

[1888] And so all those stories are lost from us.

[1889] And it's really, it's kind of light pollution sucks.

[1890] It's weird.

[1891] It's weird.

[1892] It's really weird that we've sort of accepted it as a necessary consequence of the Western world.

[1893] Yeah, but I don't think we know it because most people don't get away and then walk.

[1894] I mean, you know, I mean, I'm out fishing somewhere in the middle, nowhere you walk out to take a leak at two in the morning.

[1895] You look in the sky and you look in the sky.

[1896] You're just, like, stunned.

[1897] Yeah.

[1898] This is amazing.

[1899] You see the Milky Way.

[1900] Milky Way.

[1901] So.

[1902] Yeah, I went to Hawaii once.

[1903] I went to the Keck Observatory.

[1904] It was one of the greatest experiences in my life.

[1905] We caught it perfect where there was no moon.

[1906] It was just, it was like you're in a spaceship with a glass ceiling just flying through the heavens.

[1907] It was a, you saw everything, man. The sky was just littered with stars.

[1908] The naked eye up there.

[1909] It was incredible.

[1910] Oh, my God.

[1911] Just absolutely incredible.

[1912] And I still think about it.

[1913] I wish the sky looked like all the whole.

[1914] If the sky looked like that all the time, I think it would be a lot like how we feel when we're next to the ocean.

[1915] It'd be like an awe experience.

[1916] You seem like you're a big deal, but did you see the Milky Way last night?

[1917] Even bigger than the feeling of being next to the ocean, I think it'd be even more awe -inspiring, more humbling than the mountains, more humbling than anything that we have here.

[1918] Yeah, and it's just not there.

[1919] I talked to a guy who was just down in a Virgin Islands, Captain Marcus, my captain dinner.

[1920] It's great.

[1921] We went to, went by a Petto Island to check out this.

[1922] Oh, you went to Epson Island?

[1923] Yeah.

[1924] You could see it?

[1925] You could drive by it?

[1926] It was crazy.

[1927] Well, I was, you know, the temple he has?

[1928] Like, years ago, I'm looking at this temple.

[1929] Like, I found online, I'm like, what the fuck is this?

[1930] And I have a buddy, and he's kind of into, like, a cult stuff and just knows a lot of the the philosophy.

[1931] And a guy is like, OTO, man. Like, like, some of that, you know, some of the Crowley stuff, you know, that old magic.

[1932] I don't even know this.

[1933] This old The old Theos And I'm like, this is weird.

[1934] I'm like, this thing's crazy.

[1935] So I kind of kept an eye on it.

[1936] And we were over there and I'm like, dude, I just want to snoob it in.

[1937] So it's getting like a sea bob and go underwater and get in.

[1938] And a cabin's like, you cannot do that.

[1939] I'm going to get fired and lose my license.

[1940] And so I...

[1941] Is there like protected waters around it?

[1942] It's not.

[1943] It's really easy to see.

[1944] It's right off the harbor and it's huge.

[1945] So why would you get in trouble for that?

[1946] Because people are going on the island and they're busting on because I wasn't the first idiot.

[1947] It wasn't Tim Dillon thinking about doing that?

[1948] Yeah, lots of people have done it.

[1949] Yeah, I think I've probably...

[1950] But I try to talk Tim out of him.

[1951] I'm like, don't get arrested.

[1952] Yeah, I was...

[1953] I was not the first idiot, but I was like, this set.

[1954] It's just so appealing, you know?

[1955] It's just right there and there's no guard.

[1956] And you're like, I could just sneak in like James Bond.

[1957] But it's huge.

[1958] And I'm like, what's going?

[1959] It's like, this guy's a creep.

[1960] Everyone knew he's a creep.

[1961] But he had a temple.

[1962] He had a temple.

[1963] How weird.

[1964] And the top was blown off now from the hurricane.

[1965] Oh, really?

[1966] It had a big gold dome on, it's off, and it's crazy, just crazy, you know, and I guess that's forgotten now, but that whole thing was just nuts.

[1967] So, anyway.

[1968] Yeah.

[1969] So back to the whole UFO world thing, I think if we saw the stars every night, we'd probably be way more open to the idea of being visited, and we'd probably expect it, you know.

[1970] I think we would probably be waiting for it, and, well, hopefully we'd be.

[1971] Well, back, we killed each other back then, too.

[1972] I guess we killed each other back then.

[1973] We've always killed each other.

[1974] But I'd like to think we'd be a little more mellow.

[1975] That's one of the more disturbing things about us, right?

[1976] Is that if you ask people, can you envision a world where there's never war or violence?

[1977] They'd be like, mm -mm.

[1978] But it works in small groups.

[1979] Like if you, me and Jamie, just live together on an island, I absolutely 100 % believe we would never beat each other up or kill each other.

[1980] No, because you're a team.

[1981] You just got to eat, do cool shit.

[1982] Exactly.

[1983] Make stuff.

[1984] But once you get to these unmanageable numbers, that's when you think violence is inevitable.

[1985] And the lack of communication, you become the other, people become tribal, and then you have violence, and then you have all the things that go along with the bad aspects of humans.

[1986] Identity, and it's always that, I don't know if it's the Dunbar number, I don't know if it's when societies get over 150 or 300, but at some point you get somebody with power and he can get a bunch of, yes, you know, a bunch of guards around him and just control the whole thing.

[1987] and then go to war and it's a nightmare.

[1988] That's why these indigenous groups that are left, and there's so few out there, because they've all been eaten up by cultures.

[1989] They're so nice to go visit.

[1990] Yeah.

[1991] Normal people.

[1992] Yeah.

[1993] It's also, they're so romantic to us, because I think there's part of us that understands that the way they're living, it's less complicated.

[1994] Like, one of the things that we've done by making life so rich and interesting and have so much available to us is we've also complicated things to the point where there's all these problems that just they just don't have there without internet connections and electricity and all they're basically subsistence hunters that are also in tune with Mother Gaia.

[1995] Yes.

[1996] Yeah and it's a hard life but so is this one.

[1997] This one's hard too and you sleep better in that one.

[1998] I mean I think that life is I don't know.

[1999] I was in Mongolia and we rode with these guys and we had a translator.

[2000] This is in the 90s.

[2001] It was for like three weeks.

[2002] It was awesome.

[2003] And afterwards, one of the women in the village gave the translator a wolf pelt.

[2004] And I looked at the guy, I'm like, aren't you going to stay?

[2005] Do you really want to go back to town?

[2006] And he was like, I could just live here, you know?

[2007] And he's like, now I'm going back.

[2008] And that's what happened.

[2009] While your life, yeah, and then you get used to your life.

[2010] And then you're sucked into your life and you're back.

[2011] One of the things I wanted to talk to you about is, do you think that one of the reasons why there's so many psychological disorders is that the world has changed faster than people have.

[2012] Yes.

[2013] I mean, it, how could you make sense of this world?

[2014] I am, I'm smart, and I think about things, and I've studied culture, and about a month and a half or two months ago, I was trying to figure it all out.

[2015] I just sunk into despair.

[2016] I'm like, I cannot, I mean, it broke me. I'm like, I cannot figure it out.

[2017] It's chaos.

[2018] Yeah.

[2019] And maybe it isn't.

[2020] I just gave up, but I was like, I can't do it.

[2021] What seems like there's too many variables?

[2022] There's too many variables.

[2023] It's a multivariable problem, and like it's literally chaos.

[2024] You can't figure it out.

[2025] It's too many variables, and all my tools are useless, and I'm just going to resort to prayer and maybe, you know, burning offerings or, you know, Santa or something.

[2026] I don't know.

[2027] The cynical side of me thinks that we're almost being set up for this inevitable symbiotic relationship with technology, that we're eventually being, that that's the only way we're going to get out of this with technology because our biology is essentially the same as it was, what, 10 ,000 years ago, something like that, like genetically, not very much different.

[2028] Not, no. But the world is infinitely different.

[2029] So, I mean, this is a can of worms, but this is where you get neuralink.

[2030] You know, this is where you get Elon Musk.

[2031] And so there's two theories of the self, and one is that the self is sort of an emergent property from the action of neurons and the brain and that these things interact in a complicated way.

[2032] And when that happens complicatedly enough, a consciousness emerges, self -emerges.

[2033] And that Elon Musk's crew thinks, well, we'll get the, we'll be able to measure that, we'll get the right software, we'll get the right big data, and we're going to be able to predict your behavior.

[2034] The same way I can predict a pig's behavior, I'm going to be able to predict you, and then I'm going to be able to make something like you and put it on the computer.

[2035] Right.

[2036] I mean, that's the project, the singularity.

[2037] that view is a it's a it's it drives a lot of what's going on in the silicon valley um i don't think it's right i mean it's essentially rebuilding frankenstein you know can we take associations and build a human the problem is the other view suggests there's a soul you know that there's something in you that can't be constructed that there's some consciousness in you that we can't make out of neurons and create And that's the view that maybe like William James or Cole Young or that's the Vedic view.

[2038] You know, that's a view you see in India in a lot of places.

[2039] And that view doesn't fit well in psychology because there's not really a good place for the soul since the 50s or 60s.

[2040] So we have these two views and we're going to see what happens.

[2041] That's why I love Elon Musk because he's freaking going for it.

[2042] And so sitting around thinking he's doing it.

[2043] And he said, that's why you need that.

[2044] And I watched this show and there's some guy like, we're going to.

[2045] solve this?

[2046] I'm like, you're never going to solve it.

[2047] But God bless you for trying.

[2048] I hope you do.

[2049] Well, whether he solves it himself or whether we all solve it, and I say we very loosely, because I'm not a part of it at all, solve it collectively over the next 50 or 100 years.

[2050] It seems like we're moving in some weird direction.

[2051] That's where they want to go.

[2052] They want us to link us into a computer and we're going to be aligned with these things.

[2053] That's what's spooky.

[2054] There's something spooky about that because there's something that's exciting about our messy nature.

[2055] And And that's one of the reasons why I think these indigenous cultures are so romantic to us, because they do live in the jungle in this very subsistence -like way that they've, you know, they've been living in the same way.

[2056] They understand the plants and the animals, and they've been living that way for thousands and thousands of years.

[2057] I'm trying to understand who I am as a human.

[2058] I was down and visited the Bushmen down there as a camp in like Safari.

[2059] This was my kids.

[2060] you know, I just wanted him to meet the Bushmen because they're old people and had a guy take us around.

[2061] I was chatting with them and I was talking about like hunting and he and I like, how do you do it?

[2062] And he goes, he goes, we're predators.

[2063] We're just like the lions.

[2064] We just follow the game and eat them.

[2065] I'm like, oh my God, we're predators.

[2066] That's what we are.

[2067] Of course we're predators.

[2068] It's awesome.

[2069] We're just soft predators.

[2070] But that's the, that's the tradeoff for weapons.

[2071] Right.

[2072] We figured out weapons.

[2073] But this guy was very happy being a predator.

[2074] It was great.

[2075] He's like eating oryx.

[2076] He's just stoked.

[2077] I'm like, that's a great energy.

[2078] And I had lost that because you live in these huts and we don't think of ourselves as predators.

[2079] We're built like predators, you know, our eyes don't look to the side.

[2080] We're not scared all the time.

[2081] I mean, we're the hunter, not the hunted most of the time.

[2082] Yeah, and that's what we were genetically.

[2083] That's what we're made to be, I think.

[2084] Which is so strange that 10 ,000 years later we find ourselves in this really weird world where we're in transition.

[2085] But if you think about just the transition from single -celled organism all the way up to human being, it's got to keep getting more complicated.

[2086] That's what everything does.

[2087] And you always got to give something to get something.

[2088] And that's how complexity works.

[2089] You give up, I give up my freedom to do whatever I want, but I get society and society gives me more.

[2090] I give up my peace to be on a team, but the team's better.

[2091] You give up your toughness to develop weapons.

[2092] Yes, yeah.

[2093] And so, you know, there's that trade -off.

[2094] And I, again, part of me loves this.

[2095] I'm so into this tech stuff because it's so interesting.

[2096] On the other hand, I worry about losing our humanness because, like, I try to spend one week a year off the grid, you know, just freeze into test somewhere fishing, you know, no phone, nothing.

[2097] It's nice, right?

[2098] Oh, my God, it's just sanity.

[2099] And I never come out of that going, God, I miss the Internet.

[2100] I'm like, God, I wish they blew the Internet up.

[2101] I did an Elkhunt recently, and I was up in the mountains and there's no cell phone signal there at all.

[2102] And you just, you just, you sink into it.

[2103] And you, like, you achieve this state of, like, normalcy again.

[2104] Like, it seems, the world seems normal.

[2105] I wasn't thinking about nearly as many things as I think about here.

[2106] I'm not inundated, but news and information.

[2107] You're just out there living in the world.

[2108] And you didn't feel like, God, I'm missing that, you know?

[2109] Maybe I would over time.

[2110] Yeah.

[2111] You do miss loved ones and family.

[2112] Well, sure, sure.

[2113] You don't necessarily miss the hum of society.

[2114] I don't find that at all.

[2115] But I always come back.

[2116] You know what I never said?

[2117] Well, you have a job, man. You've got to write books.

[2118] It's life.

[2119] You've got to be a dad.

[2120] I used to go down to Mexico, like surfing down in Cabo, and I'd come back.

[2121] And I remember once I came back in a week later, I started screaming at somebody.

[2122] And my friends pull out this graph, and they'd graph my mood.

[2123] And they just knew it was going to collapse.

[2124] And it was like, boom.

[2125] And they just start laughing.

[2126] You're back.

[2127] You're back.

[2128] you idiot I mean I it's like I can't get enough of this world so it's a it's a tension though well we have so many things that we've invested in in this world and it's great you know I don't want to give it up but it's I for me I have to I have to unplug in order to plug back in and I think if I was plugged in all the time I'd go crazy well I think these kind of conversations in this book that you wrote and just understanding how the mind works it'll it'll help people at the very least manage this weird state that we find ourselves stuck in.

[2129] I want people to be able to have some clarity and make some of their own choices, and they can make whichever choices they want.

[2130] And when you're informed, you make better choices.

[2131] You're informed, you make better choices.

[2132] Yeah.

[2133] All right.

[2134] Keith, thank you very much.

[2135] Oh, thank you.

[2136] My W. What is W.?

[2137] William?

[2138] William.

[2139] Oh, you don't like William?

[2140] No, everybody in my family's William.

[2141] Oh, so my dad's, William, my grandfather's volume.

[2142] We all go by our middle names or, yeah, it's just a family thing.

[2143] Thank you.

[2144] I really appreciate it.

[2145] It was a lot of fun.

[2146] It was a lot of fun.

[2147] I really enjoy our conversation.

[2148] Goodbye, everybody.