#834 - Dan Doty

[0] The Joe Rogan experience.

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

[2] There are two Austins.

[3] One of them is a drug -addled shithole.

[4] The other one's in Texas.

[5] We're about 10 miles outside of Austin, Nevada.

[6] I'm with my good friend Dan Doty.

[7] Hello.

[8] Hello.

[9] Say hello, Dan.

[10] Hello.

[11] And we just got back from, are we allowed to say, successful until it hits the air?

[12] Yeah, I think so.

[13] We can say that.

[14] Well, successful in memories and fun.

[15] We had a wonderful time chasing unsuspecting undulates with sharp pointy sticks.

[16] It did not work out.

[17] That means we were bow hunting for deer.

[18] It did not work out.

[19] Dan Doty is...

[20] You are a fucking renaissance, man. My friend, you're an undercover hippie on a hunting show.

[21] you're a man of a great, vast, wide range of experiences and Dan has worked for a meat eater for 65 episodes?

[22] Yeah, this is my 65th episode, shooting the show.

[23] And Dan's been on the podcast before with Remy Warren back when he and Remy were releasing that Apex Predator show, which is an excellent show.

[24] I guess they're not doing it anymore.

[25] If you hear noise, because we're driving, driving.

[26] We're on the road right now.

[27] And we're passing through some fucking strange shit.

[28] We're about 150 miles or so outside of Reno, I think 170, outside of Reno, Nevada.

[29] And we just saw so much strangeness today.

[30] This is lonely country, man. Lonely country with a lot of, what do you call?

[31] Desert, desert rats.

[32] Desert rats.

[33] All these people, there are, no offense, if you're one of them listening to this podcast.

[34] right now.

[35] I'm sure you're wonderful people.

[36] Lots of four -wheeler's, lots of side -by -sides, lots of long, weird haircuts.

[37] Weird haircuts.

[38] Like, they just, it gets to a certain point, oh, man, I gotta cut the ends.

[39] Reno is fucking metropolis compared to this.

[40] And I've always thought of Reno as being one of those weird places I really don't want to go to.

[41] But, um, no offense if you're from Reno when you're listening to this.

[42] Nevada is, it's a bigger state than I thought.

[43] It's as empty as anything.

[44] You know what gain means.

[45] What does gain mean?

[46] So, yeah, it's like how much it's amplifying the sound that's coming.

[47] Oh, so if I crank it up way high, it's probably too hot.

[48] Yeah, it's making a red.

[49] It's like, bitch, what are you doing?

[50] There's a clipping?

[51] Yeah, is it going red?

[52] That means it's too much.

[53] All right, I'll leave it right there.

[54] So, Jamie can handle this.

[55] Jamie knows what I do it.

[56] This is a new thing I picked up.

[57] It's called an Apogee microphone, because some people were complaining about the sound quality of my iPod or iPhone.

[58] recorded podcast and someone from my message board recommended this.

[59] It's pretty dope.

[60] I like how it hooks up.

[61] It just hooks up right to the base of your iPhone and this might be the future.

[62] This is really your first time?

[63] Yeah, this is our first time.

[64] Dan Doty, you're the one that's breaking it in.

[65] Sounds too bad, yeah.

[66] So we were about, we were, we were, we were, we were, we were, isolate landscape chasing these deer that have these ears that they're as big as Kim Kardashian's ass and they fucking hear everything these animals hear everything and Dan and I Dan was behind me with the camera and I was being the clumsy sneaky fuck trying to sneak up on these things and it just didn't work out but god damn it was fun trying.

[67] Yeah we got close we got some good stuff yeah I got so close that it could have happened once.

[68] One time it legitimately could have happened.

[69] The other time we got kind of close a few times, but one time I got inside of 30 yards, and as I was crawling towards them in the bushes, I made too much noise, and they got up and bolted.

[70] But there's two deer that we're in...

[71] This is too many details.

[72] You catch it on the show.

[73] It's called Meat Eater.

[74] It's on the Sportsman's Channel.

[75] It's an excellent show.

[76] But this fucking trip, It's been really interesting.

[77] First of all, it's nice to be off the grid for seven days.

[78] I haven't done that in a while.

[79] God damn, that feels good.

[80] When was the last time you did that?

[81] Probably the last time I hunted with you guys.

[82] Yeah.

[83] Probably Prince of Wales.

[84] That was not quite a year ago.

[85] Yeah.

[86] It was miserable.

[87] Was this less or more miserable than that one?

[88] Oh, this is way more fun.

[89] Way better.

[90] I mean, this is just hot, but I don't mind heat.

[91] Heat doesn't really bug me. As long as we have water, we had plenty of water.

[92] I mean, you can just keep your skin covered so, you know, burst into flames.

[93] Yeah, I have done a lot of these mediators, but I haven't been doing them lately the last year.

[94] And this is the first time I've been off -grid, and I don't know, a good long time, too.

[95] And it felt amazing.

[96] The first three days just felt like a vacation.

[97] Yeah.

[98] Well, it made me realize, like, we're so addicted to taking in information.

[99] At least I am.

[100] I shouldn't say we.

[101] I'm so addicted to checking the news and finding out what's going on in the world and just it's a lot of times it doesn't give you a chance to use your brain and think about what you actually feel about things.

[102] Like you don't get a chance.

[103] You're just so wrapped up and paying attention to all the news and all the information and all the stuff that's being fed to you constantly through the media, social media networks, through, you know, All the, just everything.

[104] It's just too much.

[105] I try to get my phone off for four hours at a time during the days, even if I'm working.

[106] That's nice.

[107] I just try to shut it on an airplane mode.

[108] Put it away, just step away from it as much as I can.

[109] Well, my friend Ari got it right.

[110] I can't do what he did, but what he did was he switched to a flip phone.

[111] That's smart.

[112] Yeah.

[113] He said it enough.

[114] I can't do it.

[115] I need it.

[116] I like having a phone, first of all, if I had a flip phone, I wouldn't be recording a podcast right now because I need a fucking iPhone for that.

[117] Is it the first thing you do in the morning?

[118] Do you wake up and check your phone?

[119] Sometimes.

[120] Shouldn't.

[121] But sometimes I do.

[122] It is for me usually, man. I can't help it.

[123] I try not to.

[124] What I've been trying to do lately, I check my phone and make sure nothing important is going on.

[125] Like, I'll look at my text messages, make sure that they're okay.

[126] Nothing's crazy.

[127] No 911 calls or something.

[128] And then I just try to start my day.

[129] But I used to.

[130] I used to do it.

[131] I used to hit it hard for like an hour.

[132] Check the news.

[133] Check all the bullshit.

[134] Check my Twitter feed.

[135] Check all the links people post me. Check what I'm supposed to be doing.

[136] Check this.

[137] Check that.

[138] I don't.

[139] I'm trying to do that anymore.

[140] Yeah, I've spent a fair amount of time off the grid and disconnected like that through, you know, the past 10 years.

[141] It's a weird kind of addiction because it's, I think that's what I felt.

[142] So when we got out here here, it had been a long time since I've been off grid, But we got out here and it was like, holy shit.

[143] This is great.

[144] This feels good.

[145] It's quiet.

[146] Yeah.

[147] I think we're doing something weird to ourselves by constantly being connected to everything and everyone.

[148] And everyone's terrified to be disconnected.

[149] Terrified to take a week off of just nothing coming in but your own thoughts.

[150] Just the world, the actual world that you see in front of your face.

[151] Which is not what we get a lot of times.

[152] I've been talking about that a lot of times.

[153] is a real problem with getting all the bummer news from 7 billion people all over the world.

[154] Because you get a distorted perception of what's going on in the world.

[155] Because you're connected to everything that's happening all the time, 24 -7.

[156] Anytime anything fucked up goes down, you hear about it instantly.

[157] And it just gives you this feeling that the world has fallen apart.

[158] But meanwhile, most of the time nothing is.

[159] happening where most people are.

[160] See, pre -i -phones or pre -these -kind of phones, I really did disconnect from news.

[161] I wouldn't watch news.

[162] I didn't have a TV.

[163] I didn't do all that.

[164] But there's no way I can claim that anymore.

[165] And there's no way that I don't know how I would extract myself from that stream of information now because it's just, it is everywhere.

[166] I mean, you can't open one web browser or anything without seeing anything.

[167] So I don't know.

[168] I have a hard time with it.

[169] I really do.

[170] I don't like to know.

[171] And now, actually, lately, I feel responsible.

[172] Lately, I feel more responsible that I do need to know.

[173] I don't know.

[174] I think it's about managing it, man. I think that's the big thing.

[175] It's managing it.

[176] You don't have to completely disconnect yourself in the world, but disconnect sometimes.

[177] And, you know, and know when you're getting too much.

[178] Like, I'll go down those, you ever go down one of those YouTube?

[179] rabbit holes.

[180] Oh yeah.

[181] We watch one video on Bigfoot and next thing you know it's four hours later you're like, what the fuck just happened?

[182] You've watched several people get eaten by crocodiles and I watched this thing, the top crocodile attacks of 2016 and I'm like, what the fuck is wrong with me?

[183] Why am I watching this?

[184] You're good ones?

[185] Oh man, really good ones.

[186] It's awful.

[187] It's just awful.

[188] It's poor assholes.

[189] No, it's a It's a noisy life.

[190] It's a busy life.

[191] And to me, it's almost, it's the busyness that I get sick of more than anything else.

[192] It's a constant pushing into everything.

[193] That's going out to the, whether it's for a hunter, for whatever reason, of getting disconnected, that is the part that I, I don't know, that, that's what light, that lights me up.

[194] It makes me happy just to, just to fucking settle down.

[195] Like, don't have things to do always and always be going somewhere, always doing something.

[196] And I try to live a pretty relaxed life anyway, but that even seems too busy.

[197] Well, you were taking it to a whole other level this weekend.

[198] You were talking about one day wanting to go to the mountain by yourself for 40 days.

[199] I would.

[200] I would love to do that.

[201] Yeah.

[202] That would, and I'm sure I will do it.

[203] I do a lot of meditation.

[204] And in the lineage of meditation that I do, there's a lot of solo practice or basically solo retreat, where you go either in a cabin or out the woods or whatever you want to do.

[205] and you just, you're just there by yourself doing your thing.

[206] And I have not had a chance to do that recently.

[207] I also used to, when I used to be a wilderness guide and would run programs for people, they would always do a solo at the end of their wilderness experiences.

[208] Sit out in the woods all alone by themselves, four days, six days, whatever it was.

[209] Yeah, man, it's a weird thing.

[210] It's not something I think that most people are drawn to.

[211] I don't think it's a type of thing that, you know, I think it is a weird thing for people our culture but i think there's something massively valuable to be gained by that just self -knowledge you know self -experience just reflection oh yeah yeah well reflection but then also exploration i think you know of your own thoughts yeah man and like what's actually there like what's really inside you what what what really you know disconnected from all the input of information and the need to go do stuff and the need to say stuff and but just like fucking be there with what's going on.

[212] Yeah.

[213] Yeah, you know, I'm a big fan of the isolation tank, and you and I have talked about that.

[214] But one of the things that's weird is when I tell people about it, they, I've had many people say this to me, oh, I don't want to be alone with my thoughts.

[215] Yeah.

[216] Like, what?

[217] Oh, no, yeah.

[218] You don't want to be alone with your thoughts.

[219] You want to know how you really feel about things and explore whether or not you're right about things or wrong or whether or not you have a bias or whether you're not.

[220] You have some sort of preconceived notion.

[221] You know, one of the things that I've found that a lot of people do is they have an opinion on something.

[222] And then when confronted with new evidence, they do their damnest to try to defend that original opinion.

[223] To dig in.

[224] Yeah, they dig in.

[225] And they fuck themselves.

[226] Like, you've got to be able to be flexible with your ideas are not you.

[227] Yeah, man. Totally.

[228] And so, yeah, so the idea of like going out to a mountain and being there, to me it's about, I think there's a discreet.

[229] connect in our culture from the actual experience and however you want to say that in your actual physical experience that you're having in the moment the actual emotional experience or the even even mental experience i think that there's so much controlling us you know we control ourselves or other things other other forces control us but the actual sitting in what's actually happening is to me the most compelling uh part of being a lot And I think there's a lot of ways that people go about doing that.

[230] But it is challenging, and it's not something that, yeah, you're right, it scares the shit out.

[231] You know, why?

[232] Because it is scary.

[233] I think it's intense.

[234] Life's intense.

[235] You know, so you actually have to confront what life is.

[236] When nothing else, you know, when you're really just thinking alone by yourself, nothing else is occupying your thoughts, not a television show, not an album.

[237] And those things are great.

[238] too, but to be alone with your thoughts.

[239] Totally.

[240] And I think it extends to being with other people too.

[241] I think there is something to be practicing, being able to be present in the experience that's happening, right?

[242] I think that different spiritual traditions are searching for that thing, different, all kinds of different things that people do to try to feel better and do better at life.

[243] So, yeah, the practice of being doing it yourself, I think is one thing.

[244] And then, I think an even more challenging thing is sort of that sort of rawness or simplicity or even connection with somebody else.

[245] President is even fucking harder.

[246] So I actually think it opens up a way of living life that is I don't know, fascinating and really exciting.

[247] Yeah, that's an important point about being alone too, because when you're around other people, other people influence your thoughts.

[248] They influence what you feel.

[249] you, they influence the way you react to things, and to be alone, and then on top of that, to be alone in nature, that's what's, that's really interesting.

[250] That's, that's really interesting to me, because look at that as a tornado out there.

[251] Yeah, it's like a dust twister.

[252] A dustbin, what would they call it?

[253] What do that call those like?

[254] It's a goddamn tornado.

[255] We better run for the hills.

[256] I think that's what hit us, like, you know, before we came in Austin, we got swipe by Yeah.

[257] I think it was one of those.

[258] We got hit by this huge Austin, Nevada, by the way, not Austin, Texas.

[259] I thought you liked Austin.

[260] I do.

[261] I like Austin, Texas.

[262] I didn't even hate Austin Nevada.

[263] I'm just fucking around, folks.

[264] But the place where we are at is a particularly unusual kind of nature, because it's desert.

[265] But it's got these sage plants everywhere.

[266] We should really smell awesome when you step on them and break them.

[267] They have this cool, you know, sage has got a great smell to it.

[268] So you have these sage plants all over the place in these very small shrubs.

[269] Occasional trees, not that many, but mostly like these, like, six foot high at most shrubs.

[270] And there's a few of those trees, like those little...

[271] Yeah, there's cedars and there's...

[272] Mogonies, right?

[273] Mountain mahogany.

[274] So it's high desert, so high elevation desert.

[275] These big massive basins, flat basins with...

[276] Pretty sharp and tall mountains kind of, I mean, each of these basins is a valley.

[277] And up to, what was it, 12 ,500 or 13 ,000 feet?

[278] Yeah.

[279] Just above where we were hunting.

[280] We were really high up there.

[281] We were above 9 ,000 feet, and there's these rock slides everywhere where, like, the side of the mountains eroding, and we have to climb up that shit.

[282] It's all these, like, chunks of rock, and especially problematically, trying to sneak up on these fucking awesome hearing mule deer because everything's like clank clank it's like you're stepping on broken pottery everywhere it's just weird it almost looks like somebody made it you know when you see all that it's like somebody decided to make like a giant runway filled with broken chips of rock it's just really really cool but just like an alien landscape i've never been to uh the the the high country the desert up there before So for me, it was a first, and it was also, um, it's, it's beautiful, but it's, you don't want to live there, but it's, it's cool to visit, you know, it's like one of those things.

[283] I don't like how dry it is.

[284] That's, that's my only beef with it.

[285] I think it is beautiful, but it's, it's, it just looks like it needs bath, man. But it's interesting, too, because it's so perfect for these deer.

[286] The deer everywhere up there, and they're fucking big and fat and healthy.

[287] And all they're doing is eating these sage bushes and then taking naps and running from mountain lions and shit.

[288] Because we found some big, thick ropes of shit.

[289] They were filled with hair that is either a giant fucking coyote or most likely a mountain lion or maybe bears.

[290] Yeah, that one seemed way too big to be coyotes.

[291] That was a mountain lion shit, right?

[292] Probably.

[293] Yeah, woke up one more by a pack of coyotes around us.

[294] That was pretty cool.

[295] Yeah, they were fucking screaming.

[296] and they sounded so awesome.

[297] They were screaming.

[298] It's interesting, we only saw a deer, and we saw a couple of coyotes when we were scanning the horizon.

[299] But the landscape for people is death.

[300] If you lived out there, you'd be fucked.

[301] First of all, you'd never catch one of these deer.

[302] If you had a rifle, you have a really good chance.

[303] Because for some reason, they know you're bow hunting.

[304] So they stay at, like, 1 ,6.

[305] 60, 170 yards, they just fucking stare at you.

[306] But anything you get inside of that, they're like, fuck this.

[307] How many deer did we get within 100 yards of?

[308] Like maybe two groups?

[309] Two groups.

[310] The first day, we got inside of 30.

[311] And I could have had a shot if it wasn't for it.

[312] We only had a tag for a buck.

[313] I should probably explain what a tag is.

[314] We're hunting on public land.

[315] You may not know this, because most people don't, and I didn't until I started hunting, but we the people of the United States of America own massive chunks of land.

[316] It is your land.

[317] It is my land.

[318] It's like that song, This land is your land.

[319] But it really is that.

[320] It's not just in theory.

[321] It's public land.

[322] And it's rare because most countries don't have what we have.

[323] We have these giant chunks of forest that you can hunt in and you can fish in, You can hike in, you can camp in, you can do all these different things.

[324] But to hunt in them, one thing that people don't know, especially people that are down on hunting, is that hunting is closely regulated by wildlife agencies that's manned by biologists that are working on science and data for that particular area.

[325] So in the area where we were at, it's not that easy to get a tag.

[326] So Steve Ronella had to use his points to get me in there as well.

[327] What points are is you put in for a tag, you have to put in every year, and it takes, like, a few years.

[328] So if you can hunt in this place, you could probably only hunt here, like, every three years.

[329] But there's other places like the Nevada Strip, which is on the Utah -N Nevada border that is so awesome.

[330] Arizona Strip.

[331] Excuse me, I say Nevada?

[332] Yeah.

[333] I'm sorry.

[334] Arizona Strip, which is on the border of Arizona and Utah, which is the most cherished place for mule deer, where you can only hunt there, like, once in your life.

[335] like literally it takes like 20 plus years to get a tag like area i think it's a 13b yeah so it's supposed to be the shit so these places um it's not there's not a lot of people there like we were like we saw a few people while we were there that were also hunting uh shout out to james kawasaki who gave us some uh some great tips we met a really cool dude from hawaii james kawasaki we found him hunting up there and he gave us some good tips about where to go and stuff.

[336] He's such a fucking good dude.

[337] It's cool when you meet someone like that.

[338] He's doing the same thing that you were doing and he was leaving when we were coming.

[339] And he was super generous.

[340] He wasn't a guy who was like not going to give you information, which happens.

[341] Yes.

[342] Yeah, you get people that want to hoard their honeyholes but he gave us all this information so it still didn't help.

[343] That's probably why he gave us the information.

[344] He ain't going to kill anything.

[345] So far on this trip to Nevada folk have been incredibly generous.

[346] He was generous, and we're right behind a truck pulling a trailer that belongs to Raymond Warren and his family, and they just hooked us up with stuff, a trailer, two trucks.

[347] It's really incredibly generous.

[348] Maybe that's the thing about Nevada.

[349] Maybe it's a big, empty place, but maybe everybody's really...

[350] I joke around about, you know, that place being a drug -addled shithole, but I've met a lot of really nice people from Nevada.

[351] I mean, it has a bad reputation because Vegas is linked to organize crime and gambling and all the other sorted shit that comes with that.

[352] People think of it as like, you know, this horrible, sinful place.

[353] But that's just a small area of Nevada.

[354] Most of my friends that I know that live around Vegas that are involved in like the MMA business, they're fucking the nicest people in the world.

[355] And they'll tell you, like Nevada is like what's outside of this trip.

[356] It's a great town.

[357] Like Henderson, Henderson's a great town.

[358] It's a really nice place to live.

[359] It's real safe.

[360] So there's a lot of good spots in Nevada.

[361] But anyway, point being, we're out here in a, you know, it's just a really fascinating, interesting landscape to spend seven days.

[362] But bring a lot of fucking water, that's for sure.

[363] I'm impressed that you haven't been in a landscape like this before.

[364] To me, this is what the majority of the American West looks like.

[365] It's brown.

[366] And it's flat with, you know, bumpy mountains all over the way.

[367] Well, the first place that we hunted in Montana was a little like this.

[368] We were in the Missouri Brakes, which is right on the banks of the Missouri River.

[369] And that's how I got hooked.

[370] It's goddamn Steve Ronella.

[371] He's a little crack dealer with this hunting stuff.

[372] He gave me the first dose for free.

[373] And then he got me. but it's the same sort of feeling in the Missouri Brakes is that feeling of massiveness and also that you are completely insignificant invisible yeah the universe or the world the natural world around you really doesn't give a fuck you could fall and smash your head open on a rock and those mule deer will bounce on by you like nothing happened it's uh it's just it's it's amazing it's amazing like that I think the place that sunk that in the most was probably Prince of Wales.

[374] So uninviting.

[375] Yeah, that's...

[376] One of the harshest places I've been.

[377] I don't know, it's weird, though, because that one's like heaven and hell.

[378] Like, the sun comes out.

[379] You don't want to be anywhere else, but then most of the year, when it is raining, because it does rain most of the year, it's just...

[380] It's fucking miserable.

[381] It rained every fucking day we were there, all day.

[382] And Dan Doty was warning us before we went.

[383] Dan was like, fuck that place.

[384] I don't want to go back to that place.

[385] And Steve Renell's like, why say that?

[386] I love that place.

[387] The place is awesome.

[388] I swore twice in my life I would not go back and I broke that promise.

[389] It is also just amazing.

[390] As far as the animals, both under the water and above the water, it's just a rich, rich environment.

[391] Well, and it's also super unusual, too.

[392] Like, the way it looks, it's a rainforest.

[393] It is a rainforest.

[394] close I don't think it's quite maybe parts of the island are I'd have to look that up but there's a shit time yeah well what it was really cool about it there's a lake at the top that's so high up that beavers don't go there so you can drink right out of the lake so we take our water bottles and we just dip it in the lake and just drink right out of the lake so this place is almost the exact opposite of that whereas that place is all just rain and and blush greenery and the occasional sunshine pops through and you're like, wow, look at this place.

[395] It shines like a green, what, an emerald?

[396] Yeah, there you go.

[397] So would you rather get dropped off naked here or there?

[398] Naked.

[399] There.

[400] There you'd probably make it better.

[401] You wouldn't make it here naked.

[402] Your skin would peel off.

[403] Yeah.

[404] You know, there you would be cold as fuck until you figured out how to start a fire or how to kill something.

[405] to wear its skin.

[406] Yeah, you'd have to be a large thing, right?

[407] Yeah.

[408] You have to kill a bunch of squirrels and sew them together, make a dick holster.

[409] It's not a lot of shit.

[410] And then again, if you're just naked, that means you don't even have a gun or a bow and arrow, and that's not good.

[411] None of those things are good.

[412] But I think that Prince of Wales was, like, the most profound of all that experience.

[413] Like, I felt it in the Missouri breaks, that feeling of, like, just complete, not in detachment but like it doesn't give a fuck the landscape does not give a fuck it is just completely oblivious to your presence and it has existed in this form for thousands and thousands and thousands of years did you get that feeling here too yeah yeah definitely I was curious because both of those hunts both Missouri brakes and the Alaska one we're non -motorized you know so like Missouri brakes we drop the cars off and we voted and we're truly you know you call that a true wilderness experience and same thing with Prince of Wales that we got dropped off by a plane and if we needed to get out there in a pitch you know or get out of there in a pitch it would have been so I was wondering if that was a little bit of the feeling you got because there's a little bit more of an ominous set of situations yeah here we had a truck that we would drive to the top of this hill and then from the top of the hill we walked and fuck did we walk Dan Doty and I walked up hills at 9 ,000 foot elevation.

[414] Some steep fucking hills, too.

[415] Hours and hours every day, dude, I was hurting.

[416] But it was great cardio, though.

[417] Awesome workout.

[418] Yeah, nothing like it, man. So you were telling me about these wilderness trips that you take people on, like wilderness therapy.

[419] Yeah, so my first job out of college, I had been living in Panama with my ex -girlfriend.

[420] We were moving to Utah, and I just needed a job, and I didn't know what I was going to do.

[421] So I went on Craigslist, and we looked in the area around Salt Lake City, and there was a job advertisement for a wilderness guide or wilderness instructor they called it.

[422] I didn't know this shit existed at that point.

[423] So, yeah, there's a huge industry, and most of it's in the western United States, but they're therapeutic wilderness programs, which are tied to a bunch of therapeutic boarding schools.

[424] So in the most basic sense, there's kids from generally pretty wealthy families across the country that are having trouble, their parents don't know what to do, and they'll send them away, you know, as an intervention.

[425] And usually the intention is to have these kids go to a boarding school where there's a therapeutic presence also.

[426] But in order to get into those schools, those schools require a wilderness stay.

[427] So, I worked for a program and went out there and just kind of, it was a, it was a, the type of program where everything was made by hand.

[428] So you got out there, you were given a half of an elk hide, you were given a knife, and then you were taught some of the basic skills.

[429] So we had to make our own backpacks out of sticks and elk hide.

[430] We would sew our own moccasins.

[431] We would do all that kind of stuff.

[432] And then all the fire that we made, we had to make by hand, you know, with a bow drill.

[433] Whoa.

[434] So, yeah, so it was this amazing, it was really life -changing for me because I, you know, I loved the outdoors, I love the wilderness and all that kind of stuff, and I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, but got out to this place where there's, literally walked out into the, actually it looks a lot like this where I work.

[435] So just these massive brown, dry wilderness areas.

[436] And got out there in these groups of kids, some of these kids would stay in these programs for 90 to 120 days.

[437] So literally.

[438] And here's the part that I still very much don't agree with, and I don't like, is that these programs would literally kidnap you out of your bed.

[439] There's companies of...

[440] Really?

[441] Yeah, man. Yeah.

[442] So there's like, you can do that for a job.

[443] You can be kind of a heavy or a tough guy that literally goes for an intervention, flies to a family's home, takes the kid out of their bed, and flies them and drops them in the middle of the wilderness.

[444] And it's, as you can imagine, it's traumatic, man. It's not like...

[445] How old are these kids?

[446] Usually 14 to 19 is...

[447] Whoa, 19.

[448] That's an adult.

[449] Yeah, well, that's where it gets sketchy as far.

[450] That's sketchy as far.

[451] Maybe I should say 14 to 18.

[452] That's an adult too.

[453] Yeah.

[454] So they have ways to sort of override the age system at times.

[455] Yeah, so these programs are meant to sort of give the kid a chance to, look at their lives how they've been behaving and an opportunity just kind of like we were talking about but reflect and sort of explore and learn and there's actually there's a lot of good there's a lot of good that happens like it really does help people and in my opinion there's a lot of bad to you I don't think you can ever imagine that you could literally kid out of your house and not fuck up the trust you have with your parents you know it's messed up yeah but that's so I did that for I started there and then I started working in a more state -run, sort of correctional programs.

[456] So for a long time, I led trips in Minnesota that were, it was a 21 -day sentence.

[457] But it was basically an alternative to a 60 -day juvie sentence.

[458] So basically, you steal a car, you can either go, the judge can either send you to juvie for 60 days or send them to me, and then we'd go on a badass, like, you know, 200 -mile hiking trip.

[459] or something.

[460] Well, definitely take that over Juvie.

[461] Oh, yeah.

[462] Well, yeah, for obvious reason, but then the other reasons, too, is that, you know, these programs are generally run by really, like, grounded good people that treat people, at least the ones I always worked for.

[463] I worked for programs with really, like, exemplary leadership, and, you know, I think what these kids could learn in those programs as opposed to going to Juvie and being in the shitholes that those are.

[464] It was It was a really much better option, you know.

[465] Yeah, I would imagine that's a way, way better option, but just the kidnapping part is crazy.

[466] They've given up on discipline their kids so much that they just say, all right, I've fucked up raising this kid.

[467] It's time to just electroshock therapy, jolt them with wilderness.

[468] Totally, totally, man. And it's a long, slow, uncomfortable shock, man. It's like 120 days in the desert like this is, oh, my God.

[469] So when you get these kids, so, like, if they're kidnapped, how many days into this kidnapping do you meet them?

[470] Well, day one.

[471] I mean, they'll usually.

[472] Yeah, so a lot of programs have kind of like an in -between camp, so you come in and maybe the first two weeks.

[473] Like a halfway house?

[474] Yeah, yeah, like a wilderness halfway house.

[475] Like a base camp, you know, like where you learn how to do some of the skills and maybe you start.

[476] So the other thing is there's relationships with a therapist at these programs, and that's how it works.

[477] So there's the people that work with the kids directly are, like what I did, which as an instructor, so usually there'd be two of us, two adults, with a group of 10 kids.

[478] And it was all, boy, usually segregated into male and female.

[479] So I pretty much just worked with dudes for a long, long, long time.

[480] So the instructors would lead the days and you'd usually hike, or float or whatever you're doing, you know, most of the day.

[481] And then you would run, you call them circles or, like, processing things where everybody would, really, a lot of it came down to learning how to communicate and communicating honestly and openly.

[482] It's really good, actually, I learned a lot by being there and doing it.

[483] But then once a week or twice a week, a therapist would drop in somehow magically and have therapy sessions with everybody.

[484] Huh.

[485] So a therapist, they didn't even know.

[486] Well, they developed a relationship with them, you know, and they'd work with them for, you know, three to four months that they were there.

[487] So they became a pretty close, you know, usually they became pretty close with the therapist, too.

[488] So did that, did it stick with many of these kids?

[489] I have so many questions.

[490] Did it stick with them?

[491] I mean, how many of them, like, that experience actually changed their life?

[492] So, yeah, good question.

[493] And I don't think anybody has the actual heart numbers on that.

[494] Maybe some people are looking to get that.

[495] They call that recidivism, right?

[496] Like if you end up back in where you are.

[497] I know for a fact that I stay in contact with a ton of the kids that I work with.

[498] Just because, you know, we got to know each other really well and respect each other and they became friends.

[499] And I know I've seen the benefit almost across the board.

[500] Like good things learned a lot of growing up.

[501] and, you know, it's kind of like a forced right of passage in a sense, you know, the idea.

[502] A forced right, yeah.

[503] A forced right of passage, which I, you know, don't agree with the forced part.

[504] A lot of, I know a bunch of those kids, I could point to 12 right now that I know just kind of turned around, maybe went to college or didn't go to college, but ended up having a good relationships with their family, are feeling good about life.

[505] But then there's probably far, far, far, I know there's far more where, you know, there's far more that didn't necessarily happen.

[506] I don't necessarily think it was a bad deal for them to go through that experience.

[507] But it's not a cure -all.

[508] But what it does, I think it self -selects for people who really do kind of want to figure shit out because it gives you a break in time to do that.

[509] But, yeah, no, I wish I had more numbers on it.

[510] How much resistance did you experience?

[511] Like, when these kids would get kidnapped and all of a sudden they would come to you, like how many of them are like fuck this get me home where's my mom many i mean yeah i don't know 30 40 50 percent of just like either shutting down completely and not compliant with anything or you know direct direct sort of uh resistance or things like that did most of those come around what's that did they come around oh totally yeah there's not there's only a couple folks a couple dudes i ever knew that kept it up you know that kind of had that had the stamina to keep that up.

[512] At some point, it was, you know, it's just sort of like accepting the fact that you were there, you know?

[513] I mean, because, fuck, man, you get literally dropped in the middle of a desert and you're told you're going to be there for three months or four months.

[514] At some point, you either have to accept it.

[515] Well, not either.

[516] I think you just do, you just kind of got to, you know, face reality.

[517] Well, for someone who's on a fucked up path, it really might be one of the only, ways to correct it, to give yourself that chance.

[518] Like we were talking about being out there in the desert, in the high country, and you get kind of like a little bit of a reset.

[519] Like you get to relax and be alone with your thoughts and just experience a completely different set of input, a set of data than you're used to.

[520] We're used to like certain kinds of data and input.

[521] And for a lot of these kids, they're used to hanging around with fuck -ups and being around their asshole friends and doing stupid shit together.

[522] And they get stuck in these patterns.

[523] These grooves get cut deep.

[524] And the momentum of their life and their past is incredibly difficult to escape.

[525] So that's why I was really excited to hear about this.

[526] When you're telling me about it, I was like, oh, that might work?

[527] Like for some people.

[528] Right.

[529] Well, so, and then you asked, so how many does it work for it?

[530] One of the tougher things is that even if it does work, so say you're yanked out of your home and like you just said, so your home and your friends and your community has so much to do with how you end up interacting and what you do.

[531] So even if you get sent away for four months or even years to these programs, and then you may change.

[532] Well, not even may, you will change or a kid will, someone will change, but then no matter how much you change and you go back to that situation that you came from, the house, your family, just the culture that you're in, God, is it hard to, well, to not slip back into old patterns, but then also even just to fit in.

[533] That's what I've been working with kids lately on is that, you know, they go away and have these big experiences and then they go home and mom and dad are still exactly how they were.

[534] And, you know, as a try to be impartial, I don't think I'm good at being impartial, but I try.

[535] Looking and getting to know these kids and all the things that they went through, it's so fucking hard not to point every finger at the family in the pants.

[536] And you know what's hard is that the parents were raised by equally fucked up people.

[537] So it's almost not even their fault.

[538] No, the line of blame, if you want to do that, can go back in really long.

[539] To the monkeys from the trees.

[540] I believe in that.

[541] Yeah.

[542] So that's the thing about a wilderness, like a long intervention like that, I think that's what I meant about self -selecting, is it's possible for somebody who really wants to change stuff, you know, to change the momentum of your family, to change the momentum of your past.

[543] It takes a lot of energy to do it.

[544] It takes, like, a lot of dedication, a lot of letting go of a bunch of stuff, but it really is a pretty amazing thing to be a part of it.

[545] And that kind of experience does facilitate that sort of thing.

[546] if one wants to.

[547] But then, like I said, once you get home, it's not like it gets easier.

[548] But you certainly can grow a lot, and you can change a lot.

[549] It's almost like we need that for parents, too.

[550] Yeah, man. Yeah.

[551] I agree.

[552] I mean, parenting is a very bizarre.

[553] It's sort of, it's incredibly complicated, very difficult to do, and it's an unbelievable, incredibly huge responsibility to be in charge of the, really the future of a life and all the people that life is going to touch.

[554] So if your son is going to grow up and all the things that you teach him and all the experiences that he has with you will reflect on how he interacts with the people and that ripple effect carries on to thousands and millions of people potentially.

[555] It's incredibly, it's so much responsibility and it's incredibly difficult to do correctly and there's no fucking, there's no requirements.

[556] Anybody could do it.

[557] I mean, it's like one of the most important things in the world is to raise a person that's going to affect other people in a positive way and it's so fucking hard to do.

[558] So hard to do and yet so easy to be in that position.

[559] All you have to do is fuck.

[560] Yeah, man. And everybody fucks.

[561] No, I can't stop.

[562] I'm thinking about it.

[563] You know, my boy was born two months ago, my first kid, and I feel all of a sudden saddled with this responsibility.

[564] It actually just goes, it's going beyond him.

[565] I feel like, yeah, I just like, I feel so much less of a narcissist than I ever have, man, just that it's not about me, and I need to clean my shit up.

[566] I need to, you know, get my act together to give him as good of an example as I possibly can you know yeah i think that and i don't know you know i'm a very new dad i don't know this but i think one of the best things that we could do as a people as a culture is for yeah for for for parents who are put in that position with all that responsibility to somehow look at themselves real hard and take that time to i don't know the best way to put it but just improve themselves Rather than trying to figure out how to parent a certain way or parent better, I really think the best thing we could do is just be better people, be better humans, ourselves.

[567] That's a very good point.

[568] That's a very good point.

[569] Lead by example.

[570] You know, that was when I used to teach Taekwondo, one of the things that they would call you, the term that the Koreans used is Sabam Nym.

[571] And it was one who leads by example.

[572] That was the idea behind them.

[573] behind being an instructor.

[574] And to be a parent that leads by example, I mean, or sometimes some people learn a lot from parents being a fuck -up.

[575] Totally.

[576] I know a lot of people's parents were fucking losers.

[577] And they're just go -get -them.

[578] Totally.

[579] They just get shit done and they hustle because their parents were drug addicts or alcoholics or jailbirds or whatever the fuck it was.

[580] And they just felt the pain of their family being awful.

[581] Totally.

[582] But that's not a good bet.

[583] Well, I mean, that's learning from experience or learning by example too.

[584] You know, I think you can either accept and love with what your parents do or reject it or, you know, something in the middle.

[585] I don't know.

[586] But so that's what I learned.

[587] So I worked with young guys between the ages of 14.

[588] And then toward the end of when I did that work, I would, I do more specially work.

[589] So I do like one -on -ones.

[590] So one time I did a 55 -day.

[591] We'll learn his trip with one kid.

[592] Just him and I. That was the entire thing.

[593] What was that like?

[594] 55 days with one kid?

[595] So he was amazing.

[596] So it was fucking fantastic.

[597] It was amazing.

[598] He loved to work out.

[599] So he was a good kid, man. He was like 19 or 20 and just not sure about college, not sure what to do.

[600] Did they kidnap him?

[601] He knew he was coming because he was an adult.

[602] He was legally an adult.

[603] Right.

[604] and the first day he showed up and I remember he said you know what I'm going to pretend like I'm going to be here until I die he had this really interesting perspective he's like I he's like I know this is going to be long it's going to suck so I'm just going to sort of you know just not count days I'm not going to like count my time or whatever um but he was awesome so he was really into lifting weights and stuff and I was at the time and so we would do push -ups One day we did, I think we hiked like 14 miles and 1 ,400 push -ups or something like that.

[605] Like, we would do sense of 15.

[606] Trying to blow shoulders out?

[607] It was so fun.

[608] Well, what I was going to say is that what I learned from working with kids so much is that example thing is, there's nothing to compare to that.

[609] As far as what people or kids or guys especially will respond to is that example.

[610] Right.

[611] You can tell them, I mean, kids, they catch bullshit.

[612] shit the fucking second it comes out of your mouth.

[613] You know, if you're saying one thing but you're not living it, if you're not being honest if you're not being real about yourself, it doesn't work.

[614] So, I mean, I think that that was a real, you know, and I did this for five or six years and I spent probably six, seven hundred days out doing this and I came back from that experience just seeing this huge gap in our culture about role models.

[615] mentors and just regular relationships that seem pretty natural and pretty normal that just like I would get into a group of these kids and it would just there'd be something there they would recognize something in me and I'd recognize something in them and it's just a really cool thing to be a part of you know what did you guys do for 55 days in the woods other than so we would hike a lot most of the day right we would hike probably 8 to 15 Are you camping?

[616] Yeah, yeah, backpacking.

[617] Wow.

[618] Backpacking, yeah.

[619] Up on the shores of Lake Superior.

[620] So there's a, it's called the Superior Hiking Trail.

[621] It's a 200 -plus mile footpath that goes in the hills and mountains, like over Lake Superior.

[622] So, yeah, man, we would hike.

[623] We'd swim in the lake.

[624] At that point in time, I had this idea that I was going to ask my girlfriend to marry her.

[625] So I was looking for, there's agates, these little jewels, stones in all the rivers.

[626] So we'd spend a lot of time looking for stones.

[627] I don't know, man, just hanging out, you know, really.

[628] And push -ups.

[629] And push -ups.

[630] A lot of push -ups.

[631] Wow.

[632] And so a lot of conversations about the future, about life, about how to change your path.

[633] Yeah, yeah.

[634] Some of that.

[635] And then a lot of times, a lot of silence, too, man. You know, we weren't going to talk 60 hours a day at all.

[636] Right.

[637] You know, it would just be too much.

[638] But, yeah, he ended up doing great, man. I think he's off kind of killing it.

[639] in life right now.

[640] But that's an extreme, you know, that's an extreme example.

[641] So, now how was this organized?

[642] It was his parents were like, hey, fuck up.

[643] Time to put you in the woods.

[644] Yeah.

[645] Wow.

[646] And so they had heard about it and they, they just felt like that would be a chance for him to break his pattern.

[647] Sure, exactly.

[648] Yeah.

[649] Wow.

[650] That's interesting.

[651] Like, there was generally a, like, different categories of kids who would come to these places so you'd have your, drug abuser, sort of out of control kid.

[652] You'd have your internet addicted, slightly softer guy, you know, that's socially awkward.

[653] Sometimes we had emotional outbreaks, they kind of broke, you know, into categories.

[654] But honestly, the thing is, the cool thing about spending that much time with people is that it doesn't take long to see through those behaviors to really see a good kid.

[655] I've worked with hundreds, if not thousands of kids, and maybe one, one, I can only think of one that I don't think was like somebody I wouldn't go have a beer with or hang on with today.

[656] Like, they're good kids.

[657] They're really good, they're great human beings.

[658] They're just, either in shitty circumstances or made a lot of bad decisions or just were confused or, I mean, whatever, you know.

[659] I think I could have ended up there easy if I would have got busted in high school for a bunch of drinking and partying.

[660] Well, especially if you were born into the household that they were born into.

[661] That's one of the big things, obviously, about life, is that you can't pick your parents.

[662] No. And you can't pick your neighborhood that you grow up in.

[663] You don't have a say until you're an adult.

[664] Yeah, we were talking about yesterday the, so after I did the wilderness stuff, I went and I became a high school.

[665] teacher in the Bronx.

[666] It was part of the New York City teaching fellowship program, so basically they give you a free master's if you teach for a couple years in high -need areas.

[667] So I was an English teacher, it's a really cool school in the southeast Bronx for a couple years.

[668] And, you know, just, that was the most challenging and probably rewarding thing that I've ever done and really, so a lot of the, so first I worked with mostly wealthy, kids at some of these private pay wilderness programs and then I did a lot of stuff for correctional stuff so that was rural poor you know that was a lot of um you know kids from reservations and just sort of uh no offense but white trash type kids and then I moved to the inner city and work there and so I got a I got a good spectrum on working with different kids and really just ended up that I kind of liked them all you know they're just fucking people but what you're saying yeah you can't pick where you're where you're from, man, and you can't argue how big of a difference that makes.

[669] It's a giant.

[670] It's almost everything in terms of your future, you know.

[671] And so many people don't realize that.

[672] It's a lot of times the really fortunate ones don't realize it because they just think that everybody's got it like this, or they just think that, well, my life's hard too.

[673] You know, my life was only challenging, and then we moved around a lot.

[674] Like, my mom, my stepdad were really nice people.

[675] got lucky you know they weren't fuck -ups they weren't assholes they didn't you know they didn't beat me and torture me you just hear such horrible horrible stories of what parents do to their children and you know you gotta wonder what their parents did to them that started this whole path this almost like unstoppable force momentum but some of the things you were telling me about the poor kids that you worked with like yeah and so one of the kids that just this amazing light -filled kid um you know comes how did i don't remember how it happened i think i think he came into school one morning and uh you know his dad had had bashed his skull in with a with a baseball bat just just i think he got drunk and got angry and just beat the fuck on him you know and i i remember that morning feeling just so hopeless and just like, you know, nothing I could do to protect this kid.

[676] Like, I could be the best teacher.

[677] I could be the best role model and friend of this guy that I ever could be.

[678] But every night he has to go back into this just unimaginable, horrible place, you know.

[679] And it's insidious.

[680] There's a lot of weird ways it comes out to.

[681] This another student of mine, a girl, her mom would.

[682] basically tell her that she was always sick.

[683] There's a name for this.

[684] There's like a condition I remember.

[685] But where a parent needs their kids to be around so much for their own well -being somehow.

[686] They turn them into a hypercontract?

[687] Yeah, yeah.

[688] Have you heard of this?

[689] No. Yeah, there's a name for it.

[690] I can't remember it right now.

[691] Weird shit, man. Just weird stuff.

[692] And, you know, I think there's so many people that are working so hard to do good things for people in a harder circumstance.

[693] and it's like an overwhelming force it's so hard and but here's the thing I've seen it like I've seen a bunch of those kids that I that I taught and so I taught in a school where I was their only teacher it's kind of like a kindergarten model for high school right and all the learning was based on projects they did and they had internships so they didn't go from math to English to science and all that we just worked one -on -one and they tried you know kind of worked on everything at all times and so they were my students for two entire years and the amount of time we spent together was just really intense and we got very close I'm losing my train of thought but yeah so there's a lot of people trying to do good things but it is that home life or that cultural pull trajectory I don't know how to combat it well one of those one of those programs like the one that you were involved in might be one of the only ways to do it.

[694] Or a program like that.

[695] Something that's going to give them individualized attention and let them know, hey, there might be a light at the end of this tunnel.

[696] There might be a way out of this.

[697] Like there's nice people out there like Dan Doty that are going to help you out and he recognizes that there's people out there that need help.

[698] But they're filled with that shit every day too, man. You know, they're told that by T. And, you know, it's, it is interesting because I was born in North Dakota I'm about as white as you could ever be and my students who act so I mean just for facts so like the school I worked at the Bronx completely segregated and was completely black and Latino with you know Mexican and Dominican and Puerto Rican and black and not a single white kid in the entire school like it's just not that way and so there's immediately this odd dynamic for me to go and teach in a in a location like that, that there is a racial dynamic present, no matter what, like, my kids would tease me about how white I was all the time and, you know, it was great.

[699] And we got past any racial barriers, or at least most racial barriers, you know, we were able just to see each other as human beings and work together that way.

[700] But, so there is a lot of, they get, what you just said, they get a lot of people telling them that all the time, that there's a light at the end of tunnel, there's options, you know, you can take a hold of this life but but that's just words sometimes to kids yeah just lip service you know yeah and they hear that before like you got to get good grades or you got to go to college you get a good job they hear all these things that don't seem to resonate no because it's disconnected from the experience of life right so i can go in there and say that and i went to college and i had a good safe childhood in a safe place and i can see it but it doesn't fucking mean anything because they go home and it's not safe it's just not and i think that's what it comes down to more than anything it's people People are in a state of fight or flight constantly, because it's really is a safety thing.

[701] I mean, it's like, remember when Ronella was talking about those deer today?

[702] He was like the deer, a jackrabbit, runs in front of the deer, and the deer leaps up, like someone hit it with an electric shock.

[703] Yeah.

[704] Like, they're constantly on, they're constantly on guard.

[705] And that happens also with children.

[706] Yeah.

[707] You know, I talked to him this before.

[708] I had a feral cat, and that fucking cat was wild to the day he died.

[709] I had him when he was a baby.

[710] I got him when he was a kitten.

[711] He was only a couple months old.

[712] But it was already too late.

[713] He was fucking wild.

[714] Yeah.

[715] He was just, in his mind, everything was out to get him.

[716] Yeah, I mean, and I can't officially say this because I haven't studied it officially.

[717] but I think that there are, you know, versions, if you call it PTSD, I'm sorry, PTSD, or just stuck in the state of hypervisualance, whatever it is, it's just coming from a place that's not safe, a place that's fucked up, and to be expected to be able to overcome that without any real time or assistance or working is really unreasonable.

[718] I think it's just really not like you can't just decide because it's your body it's semantic you know it's like it's in you it's in you maybe it's your mind maybe it's your body maybe it's both but it's not like you can just say okay I don't want to do this anymore it's far more deep than that it's far more complicated yeah it's a battle ship that's moving 100 miles an hour and you're expected to turn on a dime it's not gonna there's a lot of weight momentum behind that past.

[719] I was talking to Michael Irvin once.

[720] I was on a flight with him, just randomly.

[721] And it was all the way to Australia.

[722] This was a long -ass time.

[723] And he and I were talking about work that he's been doing with some young kids come from troubled houses and troubled backgrounds as well.

[724] And he was telling me that when a child is in the womb and the mother is experiencing intense stress from violence, from crime, bad neighborhoods, that kind of shit, domestic abuse, that kind of thing, that the child grows up with more of a propensity for violence, like that violence becomes like almost in their DNA as a response to any perceived threat, whether it's real or not, and that we have to understand that these children, like, they're being wired for violence.

[725] wired to deal with bad neighborhoods, bad situations, crime, and it's literally a part of their genetics.

[726] It's in them.

[727] It's their DNA almost.

[728] Or it is.

[729] So the Republican white conservative idea that people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, which is the cliche, right?

[730] They need to get their shit together.

[731] My God, is it more complicated than that.

[732] it is man but so here's the here's the interesting thing is i i do think that i actually agree with that in a different way i think that you could never expect anybody else to do any of that like you the way it is you're born and raised in the way you are and then at some point you fully have to take responsibility for that you know no matter how shitty or great your childhood was no matter what you're dealing with i think that that there is no one else that's going to do it for you so you I really do think that there is a piece of truth in what they're saying.

[733] I just don't think that that general mindset is nuanced or understanding enough of what people are working with.

[734] That they're unrealistic about, yeah, they might just be like, well, what's conveniently aloof?

[735] You know, they're conveniently ignorant about the circumstances that are involved in creating a child that grows up and has been in juvenile.

[736] detention since they were a little kid and has been in and out of all sorts of police custody and been in crime situations from the time they were young to say that you need to straighten your act up like they don't have any examples the examples that they see on TV might as well be them watching Iron Man you know it just it doesn't seem real it's not real no and that's an issue I have with that whole debate or political discussion or however you want to put it is that it to me it's only they're talking about a situation and never is the actual conversation being had you know conversation between people who it actually affects is rarely brought out and it's just a bunch of people looking at things from the outside and commenting and talking about it not actually digging into it and it's it just doesn't really it doesn't serve anybody I feel like it serves anybody yeah and it's it's also like very dismissive it's very dismissive of other people's misfortune and not really appreciating or understanding your fortune.

[737] You know, we're all born into totally different circumstances for the most part.

[738] And most of us here in America, we were talking about this yesterday, that people that are in this country are so much more fortunate than someone who's born in some, you know, terrible third world situation.

[739] like we were talking about Liberia the reality of Liberia which is a former prison, not prison colony slave colony.

[740] What they did was they took American slaves that were released and they shipped them back to Africa literally and created this horrible, horrible environment through a bunch of different factors but civil war being a big one of them and Vice has this really insightful and amazing piece on Liberia.

[741] I think it's Vice Guy to travel.

[742] Oh my God, is it awful.

[743] But you can't say that being born to a blue -collar white family in, you know, Cleveland is anything remotely as bad as being a child born in Liberia.

[744] Right.

[745] You can't.

[746] So, and then looking at that person, the child who's born in Cleveland, You know, there's, I'm sure there's a lot of kids that are born there that wish, fuck, you know, why couldn't I have been born in New York City or fuck, why couldn't I have it, you know.

[747] It's just, again, it comes back to what you were saying about being a dad and the responsibility of being a good person and being a better person is that making and developing human beings and creating a community together with these human beings is so incredibly difficult.

[748] and we're handed this responsibility with no instruction manual.

[749] No, that's the thing.

[750] No good leadership, no instructions.

[751] No, you're right, man. Well, I think you can find it.

[752] Well, some good leadership guys like you or some other folks out there that are doing similar things that you can find.

[753] You know, but man, if you don't find them, fuck.

[754] Yeah, one thing I think is really important that you're kind of hidden out there or saying is there's like a big leap to go from the place of, blaming others and just feeling like all my shitty like look at my look what i was in it was really shitty it's a big leap to go beyond that and accept it first of all no matter what it is that you got going on your life and then even a bigger leap i think to um to start taking responsibility for both yourself and other people you know i think yeah i think that's what is not that that's missing because it's out there, but I just think it could be, like, we got time in our lives, you know, like we're doing okay in general in this country.

[755] I think we could take more time for each other in that way, just across the border day, whether that's in our schools or whatever it is.

[756] I don't know.

[757] I don't have the answers, but...

[758] Well, you have some answers, and I think you've got some great ideas, but I think one of the things that we talked about yesterday was the amount of children that you had communicated with that you had taught that found themselves in these horrific situations that you had a kind of experience with them.

[759] And I think that human beings today at some point in time we have to realize that we are some sort of a super organism.

[760] We are all connected.

[761] And if this kid who grows up in this horrible environment and is just abused and subject to all sorts of violence and that kid's going to go perpetuate more of the same if no one steps in if no one offers some solid example that you can do better like some some sort of just some pathway through the bullshit yeah and bullshit's not a strong enough word yeah and for me like so i spent a lot of time thinking about and reading about studying sort of both rights of passage in different parts of the world but then also just this really simple concept of mentoring or mentorship or role models and i think i got real lucky like i had i not only did i have a good family and good parents like amazing parents i had i have this like string of role models that i had from little kids so we've talked about this briefly before but my first one was my tycho no instructor when i was kid master mike you know like he was just i was super shy, super, like, very soft as a kid, and then this dude in a sports car drove into Drake North Dakota, and I started taking Taekwondo with him, and he was just this, you know, badass, brash, strong, confident guy, and man, I looked up to him.

[762] Like, I attribute a lot of my, the quality, the good qualities I value about myself, both to him and to Taekwondo itself, because it teaches, I think it teaches great things to kids.

[763] So he was a mentor, and then in high school I had this farmer.

[764] I worked on a pig farm.

[765] His name was John Weirsma.

[766] And we didn't talk about shit.

[767] We didn't, like, fill me full of wisdom.

[768] What we did was just worked together.

[769] We worked side by side.

[770] And we had, like, shoveled pig shit and, like, dumped it on a field over and over and over.

[771] And I went to college, I had this great mentor who sort of, you know, nonchalantly took me under his wing and kind of on and on throughout my life, man. I don't know I've spent a lot of time thinking about it and I really I just really wish that for people or want that for people you know because you can't rely on your parents to give everything you need in this life it's just too much pressure for well also I think well as we were talking about earlier their parents didn't know what the fuck they were doing and their parents' parents didn't know what the fuck they're doing and for a lot of us that's you know that's the reality that we find ourselves being born more and into.

[772] But I think with doing with some of the things that you've done, and also with the amount of data and information that's available today, I think we have a chance of affecting our society and our culture and the way we communicate with each other and just who we are as a species, this crazy, weird superorganism of human beings.

[773] We're in a better position to change that.

[774] than ever before.

[775] Like, my grandparents came over from Italy and Ireland on a fucking boat.

[776] Nobody knew what the hell was going on.

[777] Their parents didn't know shit when they brought them over here.

[778] They just heard there was a better chance.

[779] There was an opportunity.

[780] I mean, they might have saw a photo of what New York looked like, you know?

[781] They might have.

[782] And they took a chance, and they came over here.

[783] The difference between them and the kind of experience and the kind of access to information that your children are going to have or my children are going to have, it's fucking profound.

[784] Yeah, man. You know, and I think we're a part of something that's really interesting right now and that the human race is becoming hyper aware of all the variables that are fucking it up.

[785] And one of the big ones, of course, is the abuse and mishandling and misraising of children.

[786] Yeah, man. So, yeah, to that point, there's this thing that I've been paying attention to that I think is happening.

[787] So as we have more information, as things happen faster, as all of this compounds and things go faster, faster, faster, I think that the impact of slowing down becomes very, very valuable, very, very quickly.

[788] So, you know, we're talking about all these wilderness experiences.

[789] I also bring up, like, meditation or any of these things.

[790] I think that as other things speed up, I think that these things, like, have the power to just, smack you across your face and like change things fast you know and I don't know this has just been observation for 10 years or so but I think that you know 150 years ago or whatever in the western United States if we had slow lives I don't think we would have had a huge impact by going and camping for a week but today when you're pulled out of your crazy digital electronic life and you go back and you feel that human simplicity for a little bit of time I think the combination of the to offers a really powerful place, a really crazy, because if you can get that awareness and sort of that, the impact of slowing down, compounded with all of the information and the power and everything that we have, I think it's, I think, so I think we're on the verge or a very ripe place.

[791] I think it's a time where, you know, people can really change themselves a lot quicker or maybe even a lot more than they think is.

[792] That's another thing.

[793] I would love for people just to think or believe that things could be different, that they could change, you know?

[794] Because, I mean, that's what I've been involved in for so long.

[795] And it's just, it is possible, you know.

[796] Well, I think also any kind of a trip, whether it's a meditative trip or even just a camping trip or something where you have that opportunity to sort of reset and reassess, it gives you sovereignty, gives you personal sovereignty.

[797] Instead of just being just caught up in the momentum, a buddy of mine, my my friend, friend Ari Shafir again, bringing them up again, was with another buddy in mine, Big Jay O 'Kerson, and they were watching this couple make out through a window.

[798] They were doing a podcast, and they were on the roof, and they were watching this couple through the window.

[799] These couple were making out, and then in the middle of making out, they started checking their phones.

[800] And this is what's going on today.

[801] That's kind of sad.

[802] It's kind of sad, but maybe they're both sucking beds for the better.

[803] You know, it's, you got to not just have all this access to data, but also have the ability to decide what you take in and what you don't take in.

[804] I think that's, that's the, we're passing the wildlife viewing area.

[805] Doesn't look too well.

[806] I think they're talking about the humans that live here in the middle of nowhere.

[807] Yeah, I think it's kind of super, a supercharged time for that, man. And it's cool to see people, like, literally change their lives.

[808] One other thing I'm involved in is I started a man's group in Bozeman, where I live in Montana.

[809] And I've been part of men's groups for a while, probably six or seven years.

[810] I think it's something that's really not understood or really not even known about.

[811] But really all it is, it's a group of guys who get together to really practice being completely real and really clear all the bullshit out of the way.

[812] and it's been incredibly helpful for me for me um where was i going with that oh yeah but just that i've i've been party or privy to so many people just sort of like just changing like you know being a lot more fucking happy and a lot more productive and i think it's easy to get stuck in thinking that things just are how they are and the sovereignty is huge man that's the that's the biggest thing like owning what you feel owning what you want owning who you are all of that Well, it's also a lot of times people, they get out of high school, they're going to college, you get out of college, you get a job, they get a job, they start their career, they push forth in their career, and before they know it, they're fucking 40 years old, and they can't stop the momentum of their life, and they're not enjoying it.

[813] No, they're desperate, dude.

[814] They're quietly desperate.

[815] Yeah, what's the Thoreau, most men lead lives of quiet desperation?

[816] It's such a great fucking quote.

[817] So why aren't we teaching every 17 -year -old kid?

[818] who's coming out of high school, like, hey, that's probably your future, you know, once you get on top of this.

[819] Well, you know how you teach people that?

[820] Like this.

[821] Yeah.

[822] They listen to podcasts.

[823] Yeah.

[824] They hear people talk.

[825] They realize that their parents didn't have any fucking awesome information.

[826] They, you know, and look, a lot of parents, they mean the right thing when they tell them, get a good job.

[827] Don't take any chances.

[828] You know, well, y 'all, you got a dream, huh?

[829] oh yeah well the dreams don't pay the bills they don't they're not doing that because they're assholes for the most part they're doing that because that's been their experience in their life and they don't want their kid to be a fucking idiot and they don't they don't understand they don't they don't know but yeah so listen up fuckers like look around look around and notice how many adults either have shitty lives they don't like or are like going through massive amounts of self -help or therapy or all these things at old ages and not you know what do you think antidepressants come from oh yeah do that many people have broken brains or is there i'm not denying that there's most certainly quite a few people that have natural chemical imbalances and pharmaceutical drugs can benefit them that's that's true absolutely no doubt about it but i know for a fact there's a lot of people who get medicated because they fucking hate their lives instead of picking a life that you enjoy or working towards developing your life into something that you'd enjoy.

[830] You know, and some of the most satisfying email and tweeter, tweets, tweets, tweets messages and Facebook, things that I've ever gotten, is people that have listened to this podcast and said, you know what?

[831] I realize I am 36, and I've always wanted to do this, and I'm going to quit my fucking job, but I'm going to figure out how to do that.

[832] I'm going to work towards that.

[833] I'm going to save up some money.

[834] I'm going to fucking, whatever it is, I'm going to make pottery.

[835] I'm going to start fucking selling my painting so whatever the fuck it is everybody's got a thing and if you don't have a thing find a fucking thing but you can't think that that whole like work get a good job get your benefits and don't don't do anything stupid because you don't want to get fired that life is bullshit that is a bullshit life totally if you got a good job that you enjoy that's a great life and then your job doesn't feel like a job i mean even though it's it can be challenging and difficult if you can find something you actually enjoy doing your life will be immeasurably better than if you're just grinding it out waiting for that five o 'clock fucking buzzer to come right and what i like to talk about it that i think is a really important difference is to be descriptive rather than prescriptive because if you try to force yourself into if you're trying to be joe rogan or if you're trying to be anybody else out there or you want that life, like, good luck with that in the long run.

[836] Like, I feel like you have to sink into yourself and just actually fucking be who you are.

[837] Like that.

[838] It's hard to find, though, right?

[839] It is.

[840] It's hard to find who you are.

[841] It totally is.

[842] But that's the, I think that's your job.

[843] Until you're, until you are who you are, that's your job.

[844] And along the way, don't be embarrassed if you're pretending to be somebody else.

[845] Because I think we all did that.

[846] When you're trying to find yourself, I mean, I most certainly have been massively influenced by a lot of people that I respected and listened to them or watched them or saw their work or whatever it is, that's okay, you know, as long as you eventually figure out who you are.

[847] And it had kind of happened to you before you even know it.

[848] Like, when I was young, man, I always, I never felt very secure.

[849] And I always was like, God, I wish I could fucking be someone like all these people that I admire.

[850] I wish I could figure out how to be me instead of wishing.

[851] I was all these other people.

[852] And somewhere along the line, it's just kind of, if you pursue what you actually enjoy, it kind of happens.

[853] Totally.

[854] But it's not an easy process.

[855] And it's a process of self -reflection and you've got to be honest.

[856] And that's where these moments that you're talking about, like meditative moments or moments where you can go to the mountains and be by yourself, those moments are huge because they give you this opportunity to maybe examine your ideas a little more closely.

[857] instead of just constantly being just inundated with other people's opinions about what you should do.

[858] You've got to have your own experiences, man. You've got to just, you just got to live and you've got to experience as much as you can.

[859] That's what I think.

[860] You've got to experience as much as you can, whether that's a trip around the world or traveling or to a different place or a hallucinogenic experience done in a safe way or whatever it is.

[861] I just feel like you've got to, yeah, to find yourself, you've got to test the waters.

[862] You've got to test the waters all over them.

[863] And if you're born in this fucking town that we're driving through, good luck.

[864] In and out, cash, payday loans.

[865] Man, I grew up in a place way small entertainment than this.

[866] Really?

[867] Look at you, Dan Doty.

[868] He made it through.

[869] Six hundred people, right?

[870] Six hundred.

[871] How many of them you fucked?

[872] We left when I was in sixth grade, so unfortunately zero.

[873] Didn't fuck any of them, huh?

[874] Probably better off that way.

[875] Once you fuck people, they think you owe them some.

[876] Jesus, can't you just leave me alone?

[877] Whoa, dude.

[878] They got shit out of here.

[879] I got super lucky, man. So, yeah, I grew up in a tiny little place 10 miles from the Canadian border in North Dakota.

[880] Just, like, nothing going on, you know?

[881] Look at this place.

[882] Gasoline Alley, Speedway Casino.

[883] There's a casino in there.

[884] That's a casino and a 24 -hour gas station.

[885] Fuck.

[886] You've been hit it big there.

[887] Yeah.

[888] Cash loans on car titles.

[889] That's the fucking title of the goddamn store.

[890] Cash loans on car titles.

[891] How many people have given up their cars here for a loan?

[892] Is this Fallon?

[893] Oh, it's not even say what it is.

[894] Oh, okay.

[895] Poor bastards.

[896] Wherever this is.

[897] Look at this.

[898] Stockman's Casino.

[899] Spin and win Saturdays.

[900] Come play!

[901] Yeah.

[902] A lot of people here.

[903] Cigarette smoking going on there.

[904] A lot of cigarette smoking.

[905] A lot of people here can describe with a gun taste like in your mouth.

[906] I bet it doesn't taste good.

[907] It doesn't taste good.

[908] but it seems like if you know that that's a possibility what a strange place is this there's a lot of these places that we drove through like how about that one wild west town that was established in 1865 I don't remember the name of it but they had the old buildings there that were there from 1865 that were in ruins and various state of disarray and decay surrounded by these more new modern ruins that people were living in.

[909] It's like, oh.

[910] Yeah, the old ones look nicer than the new ones.

[911] Yeah.

[912] Yeah, they did because they got something.

[913] There's some class.

[914] That's weird about like mobile homes and like really shitty aluminum siding and stuff.

[915] You know no one's ever going to be pumped to find that someday.

[916] No. You mean like 100 years from now or a thousand years from that?

[917] Like if you find an old barn like that old barn that we were passing or that little shack or whatever the fuck it was a cool cabin of distressed wood you look at that and you go wow that's kind of badass no one's got to look at some shitty old aluminum -sided fucked -up house so what you're saying is quality spans time that american flag is a little too big for my liking and it's at half -mast did somebody die while we're in the woods some shit go down people die don't know in the woods but when a flag's at half -mast that's what it means right yeah something must have happened we miss something We probably don't know a lot of fucking things that went down for seven days.

[918] That's got to be a good thing.

[919] We know that two Olympic swimmers got robbed at gunpoint in Brazil.

[920] Way to go.

[921] Do you feel better knowing that, though?

[922] No. No. I feel like, I feel better that I was in the woods and I wasn't in a cab in Brazil with a gunpoint in my head.

[923] Bastards.

[924] But, no, I mean, there's a lot of, we have to, look, we should know that that's possible and that people can get robbed.

[925] And like when you hear about terrible things in the world, the good news or the good fact about that is, now you know those things without having – it's not like you live your life in some sort of a Mormon missionary factory, and then they send you out there to the awful parts of the world, and all of a sudden, you know, you're in some third world country, and you don't realize it's being run by a brutal dictator, and what's a dictator?

[926] Like, you know, North Korea, what is it?

[927] Like, it's good to know that North Korea is out there.

[928] There is some Kim Jong -un type dudes in the world.

[929] You ever been robbed?

[930] Yes, when I was little, when I was a kid.

[931] Not a long time.

[932] Definitely not a gunpoint.

[933] I got in the wrong cap once in the border of Ecuador and Peru.

[934] Got stuck up.

[935] They called soft kidnap.

[936] Where this other dude got the back of the taxi.

[937] They started driving out in the jungle.

[938] Oh, shit.

[939] Asking me questions about politics and my family and all this stuff.

[940] Oh, my God.

[941] I didn't really know.

[942] I was down there learning Spanish.

[943] I didn't know it very well yet.

[944] And I basically said, listen, guys, I fucking got nothing.

[945] I had, like, 40 bucks.

[946] Right.

[947] So they drove me to an ATM.

[948] Like, I got, like, 80 bucks more out of them?

[949] Or out, and they gave it to them, and then ran.

[950] Like, fucking just took off.

[951] Wow.

[952] It was pretty sketchy.

[953] That's another thing that happened in Brazil recently.

[954] A Brazilian jiu -jitsu student from Australia, I believe, was out there.

[955] You got kidnapped by these cops.

[956] Cops took them to two ATM machines and made them withdraw money.

[957] Yeah?

[958] Cops.

[959] Fuck, man. You want to trust them.

[960] But you know what, man?

[961] It's like, again, what the fuck happened to them?

[962] What happened to these people that are robbing these people?

[963] Something bad.

[964] It's not necessarily 100 % their fault that that's who they've become.

[965] I'm not taking away ownership, of their own actions, but you've got to think about the development of their ideas, how it happened.

[966] I had this friend of mine on the podcast recently, and he was talking about he grew up in, his name is Byron Bowers, and he grew up in a really poor area of Georgia, and a lot of crime where he was.

[967] It was just a lot of, like, really fucked up family environments, and he was saying that when we thought about robbing something, like, going to a a store and stealing something we didn't think it was a bad thing right just think that's how you get it that's how you get things you got to go get it got to go steal and then it was just that's what you grew now he's a successful comedian he's doing well and it's like he can step back and have the the hindsight vision of his current state and like realize like oh that was why i thought that way yeah yeah and i'm sure these guys have robbed you I mean, they didn't have a fucking pretty upbringing.

[968] There was nothing...

[969] It's not like they went from a gated community to robbing people in Peru.

[970] No, it's not like they were doing it because they were just morally poor people, you know?

[971] Right.

[972] I mean, I don't think so.

[973] Maybe they were, but what made them that way?

[974] Yeah, sure.

[975] You know?

[976] I mean, think about your own little boy.

[977] He's two months old.

[978] I mean, you get to shape what that boy becomes as it becomes a man. And someone did that to the guy who robbed you in Peru.

[979] You know?

[980] I mean, that's how it goes.

[981] I mean, it really sort of highlights the bizarre nature of humans raising humans.

[982] We should really be raised by robots.

[983] We should?

[984] Yeah, someone should come along and just make the perfect human raiser.

[985] Yeah.

[986] No, obviously not.

[987] I'm sure you're going to do a great job.

[988] But for people who whose parents are going to do a shitty job, I wonder if they're going to come up with technology one day, and I think they will, that we'll be able to install better memories and a better pattern of behavior.

[989] into a person's brain.

[990] Like, almost like they're going to be able to defrag your hard drive.

[991] Sure.

[992] You mean just, like, with a click of a switch, basically?

[993] Yeah, like, hook you up to them.

[994] Like, say if somebody gave you a computer, right?

[995] But it has a virus on it.

[996] It's all fucked up.

[997] Every time you check your email, it sends you dick pictures and takes you to Russian escort sites.

[998] You're like, you're, what did you do to my phone?

[999] Your computer, your computer's fucked, right?

[1000] It's doomed.

[1001] But if you bring it down to the computer store, the guy can go, oh, you got a virus.

[1002] Here's what we're going to do.

[1003] we're going to wipe your hard drive clean, reinstall your operating system, and then I'll back up your crucial files and add them later.

[1004] Yeah, sure.

[1005] That's got to be the future of human beings.

[1006] I think you're totally right, but I think that there's some things that are acting in that way already.

[1007] Participate in your child's life, even if it's uncomfortable.

[1008] That's it, man. What the fuck is that?

[1009] They're sharing the message.

[1010] No, they're sharing the message.

[1011] I know, but what is that?

[1012] If it's uncomfortable, even if it's on, That's a billboard here in the middle of nowhere.

[1013] Participate in your child's life, even if it's uncomfortable.

[1014] Who the fuck sees that billboard and goes, you know what?

[1015] I'm going to stop ignoring my kids and doing meth.

[1016] I'm going to participate, even if it's uncomfortable because I need my meth.

[1017] Well, fuck, man. If that sign makes it happen for one fucking kid, thank you for that.

[1018] You're right.

[1019] You're right.

[1020] So I was saying there's a lot of recent research and study.

[1021] that has happened specifically with PTSD and in that realm that shows how memories and our experiences when we're young and older how they truly are stored in our body and that there are techniques available now that truly can unlock and free those.

[1022] And it's not psychology in the sense of just talk therapy or just figuring things out or analyzing anything.

[1023] It's much more body -based.

[1024] So the idea is that if there's an experience that happens, the natural human range is to, if it's overwhelming, right, you fight, you run or flight, or you freeze.

[1025] And it's the freezing that these people will argue that things literally get like locked and etched into your bodies, either your cells or your musculature, I don't know, wherever it is, but that through processes of awareness and relaxation and being able to go into that, you really can open and release a lot of that.

[1026] So it's not an automatic hit a button, defrag the entire thing.

[1027] But there are things that people do that truly work in that way and in that direction.

[1028] And it's not mainstream at all, you know.

[1029] I think it will be one day.

[1030] I actually really think it will be.

[1031] But I think that there's proof now that things are more malleable.

[1032] our memories are more malleable, our sort of set patterns, although they're very firm, can be shifted.

[1033] I think there's a lot of hope in that.

[1034] I think it's really cool.

[1035] I don't feel like that's an accepted viewpoint at this point.

[1036] Well, I think it's being more and more accepted, and I think people are understanding now more and more that there's a method that the human mind has sort of undergone in order to take these memories in in the first place.

[1037] And if there's a way to re -examine those initial ideas and form new ideas based on better data and a better understanding of how your actual mind works.

[1038] Very few people know how their mind works.

[1039] They just know that I get mad when this happens.

[1040] Sure.

[1041] Or this pisses me off.

[1042] And, you know, one thing that's a beautiful idea that has been going around is look at something.

[1043] when it happens and decide how to make that a positive for you and decide how to give that thing meaning because nothing truly has any meaning other than the meaning that you give it and the meaning that I might have to something might be very different than you would have for the exact same experience and we don't even know who's right or wrong until you look at like where that path takes you and I might look at going you know what Dan Dodey was right I should just let that brush off my shoulders.

[1044] Look, he did, and now he's doing great.

[1045] Me, I'm still carrying around that one fucked up experience.

[1046] I mean, there's people that are still repeating arguments that they had in the ninth grade while they're in their car.

[1047] They're sitting there going, this motherfucker thinks you can get away with that, I'll kick his ass.

[1048] I'll go fucking find him right now.

[1049] You see that to my girl?

[1050] Yeah.

[1051] There's a lot of stuff that we carry around in our brains and we don't know why it's even there.

[1052] It's just bouncing around.

[1053] And you've got to do a cleanup.

[1054] Like a defrag.

[1055] Yeah.

[1056] I think one of the best, like, tools to begin that entire process is simple mindfulness practices, which are...

[1057] So what that means is that when something fucked up happens and you're going to immediately have that knee -jerk reaction, all it is that you give it a little fucking space.

[1058] Yeah.

[1059] And you let it be there.

[1060] And then you can decide to freak out or do whatever you want.

[1061] Give it a lot of space.

[1062] Yeah.

[1063] Give it a lot of space and think about it.

[1064] Don't let the momentum of every event run your life.

[1065] Because you'll just be bouncing from one catastrophe to the next.

[1066] And mindfulness is like a term that gets really bandied about a lot lately.

[1067] But I think the way you're describing it is very important.

[1068] Like examine these things.

[1069] Yeah, it is always an overused term and it's an misunderstood term.

[1070] But I think in a very simple practical way, it's just being able, just being aware of what's happening.

[1071] And being in the moment.

[1072] Exactly.

[1073] Being in the moment, don't live in the past thinking about the argument that you got in the ninth grade.

[1074] Don't think about your future only.

[1075] Think about this moment right now, because this is what you have.

[1076] Look, you and I are in this car driving down this godforsaken shithole highway.

[1077] We could get hit in the head with a fucking meteor before this podcast even makes it to the internet.

[1078] We don't know.

[1079] We're assuming right now as we're speaking that eventually this is going to get out, but it might not.

[1080] Might not.

[1081] I like what you said about, you know, taking things as learning opportunities.

[1082] You know, in general, that just anything in life that happens to, whether it's good or bad, is an opportunity you can capitalize on it.

[1083] Just because you can learn from it.

[1084] You can.

[1085] It's just, it's hard to break free of the patterns that you used to have.

[1086] That's where I really advocate self -help books.

[1087] You know, even though, like, a lot of people think self -help books are bullshit.

[1088] You know why they're bullshit?

[1089] Because most people don't really listen.

[1090] Yeah?

[1091] They don't really, they don't do anything to try to change the pattern of behavior that they're stuck in.

[1092] They just read the book and go, oh, they don't do anything.

[1093] You've got to do something about it.

[1094] But being inspired, you know, even sometimes a fucking really good movie can change your life.

[1095] Because it'll make a little incremental change in a certain direction.

[1096] And then over time, that could be a gigantic factor in determining your happiness or your unhappiness, depending on how you choose to behave and think.

[1097] Yeah.

[1098] Yeah, I think there's a big stigma too.

[1099] against self -help and I think for guys especially but probably for everybody that um we just got to get over that shit yeah we got to get over that you know it's got to be okay and and i don't know because all of that self -help what the fuck spiritual type stuff that's you know made fun of and made fun of for good reasons but but there's some there's some things in there that that aren't all that weird and just incredibly helpful.

[1100] Janice Putellis calling us.

[1101] Don't we get...

[1102] No, I was...

[1103] Fuck you.

[1104] I'm hanging up on him.

[1105] I was gonna talk to him and say something silly, but...

[1106] We're in a podcast, Yanni.

[1107] I hope you understand.

[1108] 60 miles outside of Reno, wherever the fuck we are.

[1109] Yeah, we went.

[1110] We're headed to the metropolis of Reno, Nevada.

[1111] Woo!

[1112] Andrew Dice Clay was here the day before we left.

[1113] The day we were leaving, yeah.

[1114] I was going to call him and say hi.

[1115] Stop on it, but we had to drive five hours to the middle of nowhere.

[1116] So let's wrap this thing up.

[1117] Let's bring it on back home.

[1118] But I think your life experiences and what you're trying to do is a very noble dude.

[1119] And I think what you're trying to do and what you have done is very exceptional.

[1120] And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to do this with you.

[1121] Because there's stories that you were telling me over this past week.

[1122] All the other times that we've hung out together over the past a few years.

[1123] Since I met you in 2012, is that a cop?

[1124] You hit the brakes of the cops.

[1125] The Fuzz, baby.

[1126] Is that a cop?

[1127] Is that a cop?

[1128] Nope.

[1129] I just realize it's behind you on it.

[1130] Oh.

[1131] Those stories are, they're powerful, man. I think it's nice for people to know there's people like you out there.

[1132] Thanks, man. I appreciate that.

[1133] So anything else you like to say to the world?

[1134] Because it's not, I used to say America.

[1135] I think people in Europe.

[1136] man of me. I don't think so.

[1137] No. That's it.

[1138] Dan Doty has spoken, you fucks.

[1139] So Dan is most likely going to start his own podcast someday.

[1140] And I know people are like, God damn it, Rogan.

[1141] You always trying to get people to start podcasts.

[1142] It's not even my idea.

[1143] You fucking assholes.

[1144] It's Dan Doty's idea.

[1145] He wants to do a podcast, and I think if you did one, it would be awesome.

[1146] So hopefully you will do that, and I'll have you on again when you're launching that and we'll let everybody know about that.

[1147] Thanks, man. All right, my brother, thank you so much, and thank you everybody for listening, and that's it.

[1148] We're done.

[1149] See ya.

[1150] Bye -bye.