Summit of greatness. Our annual live event is officially back, What of greatness brings together all of the cautious achievers in the greatness community in one place for an incredible transformative weekend in my home town of columbus ohio, it's happening, this it's september, and we already have some incredible speakers ready to take the stage like Gabby Bernstein, erwin mcmanus and Michael Bernard beckwith. Unfortunately, the covert restrictions and wanting to keep our communities safe. Over the past couple years we had to postpone the live portion of the event, which is why I'm so pumped to pick up where we left off. a single year. People message me saying how they made life long bonds and connections at the event which makes me so pretty here so, if you're, ready to learn, heal, grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community then makes

sign up at louis house dot com, slash summit for tickets. I promise you won't want to miss this. That's louis house, dark com, slash summit for tickets and to celebrate the launch of greatness dot com or offering ten percent of general admission use. Great, ten at checkout. That's greatness one zero at checkout for ten percent off. I cannot wait to see you in Columbus, ohio. This september. This is episode number one thousand. Ninety nine, with Jamie, we'll welcome to the school of greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help. You discover how to unlock your inner greatness thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

Marcus aurelius said when you arise in the morning. Think of what a privilege it is to be alive to think to enjoy too Love and Carl Jung said who looks outside dreams who looks inside awakens my is jamie, we'll, who is the author of the global best seller and pure surprise, nominated stealing fire he's the founder of the flow genome project international organization dedicated to the research and training of human performance. Written, a new book called recapture the rapture rethinking god sex and death in a world. That's lost its mind and our conversation was so fascinating that I decided to put it into parts so make sure you check out for part two coming in a few days,

In this first episode we discuss how to find meaning in your life. Today the different arcs we go through in life, how to have faith and deal with uncertainty, the difference between the meaning of life throughout history and where were currently, and so much more if you're, enjoying this fascinating conversation share it with someone that you think would be inspired as well and a quick reminder if this is your first time here. Welcome so glad you're here, click the subscribe button on apple, podcasts or spotify right now to stay up to date on the latest and greatest, and please leave us a rating and review with the most fascinating part of this interview over on apple podcasts, when you're done in just a moment the one and only jamie wheel.

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Free trial, that's expensive. Five dot com, slash greatness, wasn't back in one of the school greatest pike has very sober guest jamie wheels in the house. My man can see rather very sad about this. You go the mace hinder book, half that is gonna, transform, lives and blow people's minds called recapture the rapture rethinking god sex and death in a way. That's lost its mind Why have we lost our minds in the first place? I think there's a lot of reasons and they're all happening at once. So Basically, the world has got the world has gone exponential and it is both getting exponentially better. If you think of steven pinker, if you think of inspirational ted talk, you can be like hey, literacies up poverty down war is down. Health is all these. Things are trending in the right direction and you can honestly and authentically feel like this is the best time

And then you open the paper and you see wildfires and floods and pandemics social unrest in protest. Anything, oh, my god. This is the worst it and toddling back and forth between them is crazy. making and because they, both they're both ensure its day. I able to figure out exactly where we reside right and it's almost as if there should have to opt to let my experiences. I don't know if you do, but but the difference in fact, ibi wait right. The guy who wrote charlotte's web that old kids, but he has this beautiful quote where he says I wake up in the morning torn between savoring the world and saving it and that can make it hard to plan my days whew right and then he says, and then I realized in fact that the savoring has to come. First, the savoring the savoring, because it because if I didn't have a world to savour, then there would be nothing worth saving right.

to the challenges. It seems like a lot of people are in this world ending other. It seems like what the media, the world ending. How do I fix everything save something as opposed to do enjoy what I have. right now that's the whole. You know I could totally in the power of now. but say: oh, my gosh, being in time with causation like what's happened in the past, what's happening now, what's happening next, that super stressful or we get off knocked off our center, so be here now run down to ride like any and then like yeah. I kind of like being present super important, but we we are time traveling space, monkeys, ability to conceptualize past present future and I know at a minimum because we're seventeen degrees off the axis of the sun. You know unless you're at the equator, we have seasons, rights or that forced us to be thinking. There's times of famine and there's times of feast there's times abundant photons from our nearest star and not so abundant, chlorophyll and-

bless him. So we have to plan right if you just go cross eyed and then about it, it's an adequate to deal with leaning times arrow right, but if men, if forget to be present rate than there's nothing, to save it sorta we need both yeah. I mean no snow, surprise right, but but it's not it's not a beige metal right! That's unsatisfying! It's much more! Like you know, hago right, the german philosopher. It's a dialectic it forever back and forth between the god. Real and how do we dynamically steer based on what on earth is in front of us? What are we paying attention to and what needs to get done so, like hypothermic people, don't make very good poets, right. So here like okay, I might want to put on a jacket or I might want to rub. Two sticks together and get a fire going now. I can have access to greater creativity or expense, so you know what it feels like to boil all that down. There's the sort of coming alive, ugh right, which is what we were all raised on. Anyone got any

president, or an astronaut and sort hashtag best life, we all deserve to be healed, whole and healthy. We deserve to travel the world. We deserve to have unique experiences. We just have to have them soul, soulmate twin flame relationships, normal bit right and the entire baby boom, gen xers millennials. We were all raised on that right and it's beautiful uplifting and inspiring it's always been partial and not everybody's even had access to that promise, but it's pretty awesome and that's about expanding infinite time frames and expansion of possibility right. So, if, like you were to pick the- the beach you'd like. Ok, what we pack wasn't me the most amazing lunch ever. What blanket do we? The way we lay it out for the nicest view like it's, that's the coming alive, ok, but then there is also- and you know again, most folks are human history have had to wrestle with. This is just the bubble kid, the bubble generation. You know after to until lately like say two thousand and eight sub so boomers accident. and millennium who we really grew up in this history

go normally in the developed west. Never never been nicer. You know all war, externalize were massive insane upward optics. It consumerism, standards of living eradication right right, cheap debt, you name it all the great stuff and and we're experiencing the intersection of like the staying alive, ok and the staying alive. Ok is exact It starts high and goes down across the charred and and now the diminishing of time frames and resources and options, meaning we don't need to work hard to stay alive. Ones are no new, like like late tree, I'd like ocean staying alive as if the picnic at the beach you're like wait, a second and all the oceans getting sucked out to sea wait. Why are only animals fleeing a hired malik? What's that phone morning going on my phone ocean too soon army? Now we do with our day at the beach. So the alive alchemist staying alive. Ok, like intersecting right about now

and you can lie in bed I mean I've had this is interesting. I've had this excuse like three or four times so the world was ending and the world was the best it could ever have the same. What do I do with my day? How do I write so I'll I'll be lying in bed and I'll? Be like? Oh, my gosh? That's such a phenomenal travel idea. We'd like to go. Do something amazing and adventure to plan an entrepreneurial idea of creative projects. where they can get amazing, so inspired and wherever andrea, to do even get to, or should we be doing canned goods and should I be researching any solar panels on our route would be king off the coast of riga. Consider the wheels are coming all right and we ve been power for two weeks. It's crazy so so that right, it's like at a time like that jack nicholson thing with which she should my mother she's, my sister she's, my mother she's, my sister. It's that schizophrenia tal going between what is the frame or the lens that explains the data on experiencing

And gives me clarified direction to act right, and so that's a meaning We were lacking, meaning. Well, we have lost the the handrails or the the trusted institute right. So we had a collapse in the nine or thirty like secular, so academic institutions, religion, corporate, well, those divine authority authorities. We got benign authority on the side of like everything. From your doctor, your friendly. white coded family doctor is the one who got your cousin hooked on arctic com,

how's your little son, Billy, pinball off the walls high and thus your strength, and that means raise entire labour outer or some here you know and enjoying petersen- and maybe you know, maybe you're nervous spouse who's been pole, acts by venza like conniston, and you like weight that an that's got. I actually generate illness and the loans it just published. A study saxon elect twenty one million people worldwide suffer from yeah transgenic illness which fancy for your doctor, the wild and admit so so. Okay, so we conscious those guys educate me? Academia with, like you know you the that the ivy scandals peer review, crisis, replication crisis, and so Scientists are all that stuff, not sir tristram. What about what about the tide? The captains of industry, mckinsey and goldman, What are you doing? You listen to the big short you like. Oh, what goldman was like selling credit default swaps out there door and hedging in the back door. They they were told implicated in the one mtb singapore

The scandal right mckinsey was was was fined for partnering with Jacob zuma in south africa and siphoning seven in the gupta brothers and siphoning seven billion dollars out of the south african treasure and potentially collapsing mandela's entire post apartheid project. They just got clipped a month ago for for conspiring with the farmer to help sell more oxy content and after it was already determined to be completely addictive and underpinning the opioid crisis. We're like wait. This is where the best and brightest from all the ivies go to get their internships I need go, play the game and that's hollow and you got political side of things. takes. W show cdc all these things, if you so eaten, and there's no more even walter, cronkite or bbc radio and used to be ok, well,

crazy out their vietnam war should have the right of every sort, seven, seven p m. We all sit down and and and and literally a sane, rational voices, researchers and mutual arbiter of all things. Good, true and beautiful, sit down and tell us what what bascombe, even snobs, in fact checking sites and become politicize. You go to the job, iraq record, like the wall street journal in new york times, they become increasingly partisan. Editors, op eds boys and readers and no one recognizes or respects any information coming from out of those. So that's that's always been a a shorthand for what is considered consensus, and so that's just meant boom and at the same time we had right. We've had the collapse in in organized religion, right, yeah, mitoq, research station, I think, was in two thousand and fifteen, but it hasn't. It's only been continuing, which was the eyes of nuns. So, like I know, and none of the above five just growing enough for the first time ever largest religious,

the in north america used to be. You were always anchor off in a loosely or tightly some family effects, some family margin, belief, system and and authority structure. And now it's none is what people are saying into a nice rate, and so now you know and and you've got the sexual abuse scandals, you bet one thousand and one things undermining all of them right so, So what we're seeing is, as we've seen this collapse of the roof of shared meaning we're in a vacuum. and we're getting fundamentalism on site and we're getting nihilism on the other side. Nihilism is like, I believe, in nothing like tyler Durden in fight club, yeah yeah right like we're the middle children of history man. You know that you know our our great war's, a spiritual war. We were told we were told we were going to get to grow up to be presidents and rock stars and we were not and were pissed so screw it all so screw it and make it our own game, yeah, one in three, one in three millennials

surveyed within the last couple of years, believe that Military rule would be preferable to democracy. And it is a cause, they're stinking order or structure or some type of leadership when there is a great piece in the atlantic and em basically saying a single this generation. They commit fewer crimes, they have less premarital sex. They they less populous. They do all the bad things less. They go to scott com in historic rates. They have historic amounts of student debt. They've done everything right and they've been handed this steaming shit. of society and ecology and if no wonder the kids want to say burn it all down, so you like oak So that's that's the lie of the land and and at the same time you know back to the picnic on the beach during the tsunami thing. Our spidey senses are all

go right. Everybody knows that business as usual, and not just the old narratives, but the old structures are cracking and The result on us, a primal, animal level, everybody's hopped up and wound up about what do we do now? And so the question is, as you know, you would think or hope like ok and we were told him. It's earlier right like in times of great crisis we rarely and whether this is fdr and the west. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, or you had Winston churchill and never ever ever, give up and you know, keep calm and carry on like and in the beginning of coded right. People started talking

it was out like. Is this gonna be another one of those and you're like yeah? Maybe no? Oh, no, oh! No! Not at all! So at a time when a you know a meta crisis, meaning it's not just one thing: it's everything right! It's economic! It's political! It's geopolitical! It's ecological, health! Right! It's it's! It's All of the things all at once, intersecting overlapping in cattle man rights Trauma has been built up and every human being on the world. It's an awful lot an end, and I actually funnily enough it was. It was tim fares that inspire this. He had put out in one of his newsletters a ted talk that he said maiden cry right, and I was like oh great. Let me check it out like move the fellow I'm curious too, and it was that said, I think his name is sam bonus he's a he's. A little boy. a kid who had a congenital condition from birth.

and he basically knew he wasn't long for this well and and he then he gave this holy bad and he was all like sixty five pounds, soaking wet when he became a boy scout and he wanted to play in the modern, and he told bad puns and made hip hop jokes, and it was just an awesome just one of those testaments to life through tragedy. Right and- and I watched that, like four days before I had to give a talk at a futures conference in austin- and I just tore up speech, another okay half- and this was right when there had been some of those really the? U n reports for twenty twentieth, saying: hey. We got ten years shocks. Otherwise this is a wheels off situation, right, so I really thought long and hard about it and try to come up with a fifteen minute. Talk that addressed right and enriches the writ with where's the path for courage, where's the path for hope. Honesty gave the time, and it is the owner, was the opening keener and it went over like a lead, balloon

this is bull, crypto, psychedelic block the future future future yeah outer space, yeah yeah like like pitching the conferences like this is ted and bogeyman, had to be sure boy. Okay, if ten million man had a baby you're the people that we need to have this conversation right and and and one of the founders came up to me as soon as I got off stage, and he just hissed at me- he's like you don't get Do I know that now the absolutely did and they ve and they stiffed me like in, which was which was really really funny like I've. Never had that happen in my life and I spent an entire week building a com, pull it off the shelves, Sure sure you could give me in an endless completely from the heart to trying to address all this. So I went home in the philippines and when was this twenty twenty four? Why so? So I was. What did I do wrong? How did this up so badly and and it occurred to me- I was I just cut, wholly misjudged

three things right: why do they get this allergic reaction from an audience that would otherwise should have been primed for this communication, and it was first, was covenant, complexity right pretty much? What we just been talk and exponential everything in a different direction, yeah right, because what we're missing is exponential, meaning that you've got exponential quantum computing you've got exponential. Current crypto currencies exponential learning with khan academy, industry, ma natural transportation, with uber copters, with an exponential biology with crisper and everything is exponential, except how to make sense of it all. So I was like okay, so our capacity to hold multiple competing and conflicting ideas simultaneously without crashing our mental browser or getting the bed right so like that one I read him, and basically you know you can you can address that with a suite of fairly tidy thing, which is like a triangle of like a post, conventional metaphysics so like? How could we all just kind of upload complete,

surely get educated like good old fashioned plato and so creates one at one learn how to learn, learn how to think, but we don't have time for that right. So if you have a little triangle where you're like okay pascal's wager, Occam's razor and basie and probability so you're like pascal's wager is basically you know, he said better to believe. In god and cases rail from a hand right then, to nought than to be an atheist and get doomed due to hell for ever. If I'm wrong so best moral is better at least conceive of the inconceivable just in case right. So better can see. If the inconceivable is there a global cabal of satanists files running the world seems a long shot, but maybe on the list, given I on that, we possibly at the end of the and throw the scene era, and this is the extinction of human rights on this on this

this little earth. One navy might want to keep tabs on that, and is this the unraveling of the nation state? Perhaps it's just a collapse of global economy, perhaps there's all sorts of things that it would be better for me to at least keep your be arrogant to be arrogantly dismissive, so step one Some things are inevitable like allergy season, but while you can't avoided it, you can at least save on your prescription. Allergy medications by checking good are acts with good. Our you can compare prescription prices at over. Seventy thousand pharmacies to help you find the best price and you can find discounts of up to eighty percent good, our exit recommended by doctors, pharmacists and millions of people across the country who have seed on their prescriptions speaking of millions of people over twenty four million usd good are ex just last year to save on their medications, and you can too whether that's on your allergy, meds or other prescriptions actually have a team member who has prescribed a brand name medication, but her insurance would only cover the generic brand and she has

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we're all going to be you ufo contact or you know- and I just did a bunch of psychedelics- I'm not convinced that you know the signal if the federation is going to come and land and fix everything you'd like the the occam's razor explanation, as I was on drugs that night right. So, let's hope that one can I wrote my right laid before we go leaping to conclusion so often razors, always just don't get into excessively baroque for complex or self indulgent explanations which require connecting seventeen dots to sunday, let busted all down and so the wig. What you see is what you get is always very high body, go beyond and two right, that's and then the foundation at basie and probability right and bayesian probability is just to say, hey nothing worse than false certainty in a complex situation, so map your equation of all the bits and pieces that might be contributing

and then basically delay. It's a lot of it like like tighty, martial arts. What you like, you know, you ve put out a foot, but you don't wait Because, if you put all your weight on your front foot, then your opponent can ride and take you to the ground. So the idea is like I'm going to put my foot there, but I can also pick my foot up so bayesian probability of pay attention to all the variables and constantly update them with the latest most trustworthy information delay, making binding decisions for as long as possible right get appear, ass. You know I feel so soon ass. The first one is is can't. Do we have that cognitive complexity, to hold it without overwhelming our emotions, nervous systems and our sense making and fundamental and screen of death rattle rainbow wheeler deathlike just crashing our browser so cause? If we'd, if it crashes, we tend to get bored irritated or we just say that's all too much. Think about things on just go with this one.

and then we ignore a whole lot of reality and potential impacts. The next one is is are we willing to kill our sacred cows, meaning our sacred cows. I knew it goes comes from india, but the idea of like you can't touch those ones because the holy and Oh and we just talked about a few right. If I believe that you know this is like Francis Fukuyama, like back in nineteen, eighty nine, eighty nine, he wrote that book the end of history and the man, because it was basically the fall of the berlin wall, and there was that kind of moment from like follow the berlin wall. I guess that was ninety one. I think he might have written this in eighty nine, but like to ride around era, we won, old war, yeah, right, mcdonald and democracy for everyone and free markets and democracy are the pinnacle of human civilization attainment, and there a steady state like this is it. This is the top of the hill we ve got here. We ve write. History has literally ended now we're just scaling improvising tweaking preventing and that work

right up until you could say lucy, you know even have the invasions of iraq the arab spring. That idea like going a topple all the desperate and the bad guys in the dictators, and then you know you, in shipping, democracy will arise in a place like what would have been quite haven't you know, and now we have always ideas of what we took as sacrosanct. Right is now up for grabs, In this last election cycle, there were a number of conservative politicians. tweet aid by the way reminder. This is not a democracy. This is a republic, often in the ground, for the voting suppression and things like that? You like won't like, like and how did something like a. Will pandemic, which was supposed to you know. We would naturally expect a globally coordinated response for short national effort, not factionalism. dayton, pitting different political office, political governors against each other, and are you guys wrought, but we're going to look after our people like mine, blowing stuff

things that go no, where democracy and we're talking about actively suppressing votes, not gerrymandering and the kind of backroom deals that have always happened but like saying the quiet put out loud and you're like wait, a second. What's that about or the fact that the earth is forever for we might actually run it out where it peaks and rights of pisa pics sand at Henderson go pound sand. Right literally, like china has built more in the last three years than the united states. Concrete points poured more concrete in the last three years than the united states did in the entire twentieth century, shut up, I'm not and am they're having to import sand from saudi arabia, cuz like also mining sand in india- to ship to china. We are out of construction sand in the world. so you like- oh wow, you like suits- It's there's so many things and then even just take. You know not like this was our father's generation but the whole. You know for twenty years and a gold watch

I pick a company right, but my head down. I worked my way up the ladder, and then I got a retirement and pension. Well that got blown up with the privatize everything to your four one k right now Just do your dollar cost averaging and you matter your matching funds and you save and invest in mutual funds, because no one complained the stock market and don't get frequent ups and downs because it always comes back every time right that whole story. and now you got baby boomers that are just simply out of luck and having to work. Convenience store jobs for the extra spending, money and health insurance one in three millennials has a side hustle just to make thing like the american dream of homeownership. that's gone, we're doing airbnb's now no we're doing ubers and scooters. You know there is no we're doing tender. announcer. on the global systemic withers, all sorts of things that we took as sacrosanct, our sacred cows, men on the like what did! I think my life was going to entail right that that

having to take long how it looks at, and it's that whole you know yeah. You, like the hundred you a thousand year, flood tenure, fled kind of thing, floods and fires right for lunch, We were like oh sweet, well, we're at the thousand year floodplain, where we're bullet proof. You know, except that right we've been had in hundred year, weather events several times a decade lately, so you like oce but okay. So you know- and churchill said it nicely said he said: plans are worthless planning is priceless, so that notion of having some master me like our old room, where's or yardsticks are kind of getting blown out of the water were experiencing accelerate change, everything to the word unprecedented gets used. So often these days, seasonable unprecedented. You know all these things yup, that's that now enough, we have to come up with new adjectives or new. But having I'm sensitive. What do we think is coming gives us an end and based on what has happened in the past,

that's what foresters do for fires? That's civil and we don't always coming now. No, but we we can run back to the planning, is priceless. It's a little bit like like choose your own apocalypse like emacs lips in the blanks, as you choose, to give yourself a story to plan and prepare that matches your model of reality interesting. then you're, not in fibrillation. What's your? What are you planning for? Well I mean, what's your pocketbooks apocalypse My personal sense is. if you run like the cold game. Theory analysis. It just kind of like almost like, like not even Well, economic is but like homo Machiavelli is like what the fuck happens. If everybody's acting out of self interest- and we just kind of do the things we seem to continue doing- then there's an awful lot of journalists that don't pencil out happily

now, if we are competing with each other going after our own trying to take what hours, mentality and get an end collapsing into factionalism in tribalism and all of those arms I'm not to just mentioned the pigs in the python, like the things that, even if we all had an ever needs your scrooge night tonight, sleep and we have our ghosts of christmas past present and future, and we wake up. You know like like Paul on the road to damascus. I've seen the light, and we all promised to change and do everything right from here on it's still going to get catastrophically worse before it could get better. Why? Well, just because there's a lot of inertia in our systems right and it's going to take decades plus to flush through all that so, like I said, even if, suddenly became some cross between stephen hawking and mother teresa and elon musk tomorrow and then the dalai lama, while we're right, if we became that collectively- and we did everything right it's weird still going to have a hard landing, really yeah. So the question is: is it an yeah

lose, though the the landing gear right. or do we end up in a belly slide on the grass and how many people get on the right be like okay, so that my senses on hard saying not knowing like it is too complex to know for sure- and I mean my background and like mountain guiding and and witness medicine and stuff. So I was just like super literally like if you're, if you're in the mountains- and you have- and you can sleep warm and dry so like you've got a sleeping bag. That's that's protected from the elements. You can suffer a lot during the day and you can recover if you have adequate food, if you have a fuel source plaguing water, he drinking water, navigation. So you like maps and compass and medical right. If you had those things, then, like the seattle, mountaineers have a have a have a bumper sticker that says your worst nightmare is the vacation, you can go push it and you can enjoy

If you can climb into the pain, if you can have a suffer fest and it can actually be really enjoyable and you can even choose high hard objective, There are totally optional, like let's go claimed climbed that wild crazy thing just to see if because it looks beautiful and treacherous You can actually take on additional challenge, but lose your water filter break your stove What's your sleeping bag, roll down a ravine into a river and disappear, and then Suddenly you're in cascading tree urge to like? Oh, we now have to beat a retreat to the trailhead and get back to civilization right. So we just saw this in Austin right. You know there was this freak snowstorm Well, the entire texas grid overload and was literally four minutes and thirty five seconds from a melt down crash that would have taken like an over a month to rebuild was that close and and at the same time

Nobody has alternate or backup heat sources, all electric cars they barely ever need it and then that and then all the pipes froze and then we also had a collapse in sanitized water. So there was boil water notices. There was putting some people straight up, didn't have any the whole the whole thing and you're like. Oh, you know who was there there's a fellow with the unit un? That said this beautifully, which was where only ever five missed meals from total right, because they have not only for data have here, like you, I think, can clearly or freaking out near stealing you're freaking, and they didn't duly deeply do neighbourly system I'm going to go on break here and take some food yeah. So so my senses is like how did all our texas handle it and from your perspective

Well, I mean people coming together and say some folks do some folks to come stay here. Yeah. I think I think, and I think it's important to celebrate and spotlight those things right because we obviously need more of and and there was toughness right, there's, there's there's the same things that we see in stable systems have been battling. That is always there's this absolutely the notion of environmental racism, which is simply that both for dispossessed disempowered communities are almost always getting the shortest under the stick. When it comes to wear the trashed up his way that where the super funds is who had he known, flint michigan drinking water, you you name it and then throw in crises and the interruption of services, starvation in services and that also get laid over exactly the same pattern and dynamics. So there are folks that pissed off to nice location,

on private planes or you know, or or a cabo or whatever or whatever right, and that happened that people with mobility, people with disposable income and people with advanced in intel or in the news, all those things. So the question is is, is how do we How do we rally our selves together and I think for anybody that considers themselves like some form of a leader, for your family in your household for your community. All these kind of things is kind of a sliding scale right. If I can look after myself and that's you know, biohacking peak performance, if I can sleep rest nutrition mindset, all those things and I've got enough gas, in my tank leftover, then I can be a loving and engaging member of my family. If I don't have one if I don't, if I have a concussion or You know diabetic blood sugar crash, or I have a depressive episode or some mental health challenges. What will or an addiction and boom anti compensated and on back to

when to deal with me first, but let's say I get me sorted, then my severe concern can expand to my family. Let's say my emily, is more or less diving and happy that I've got more left over. I can stop caring for my community caring for my country, caring for the world, and that is a sliding scale based on. basically stability and access to energy and resources so again could be the leader of the world and get hit on the head with a hammer and I'm back to self com, and it also has an expansion of concern and timeframe which is get hit on the head with a hammer at me now nothing if nothing else about feeling the so back in my right, if I'm in a plane crash with my family, it's me in mine now right, if we are slightly better off than that, you would not it's me and mine. Now and next,

right, and maybe we'll have a helper, an extension of how many people I care for over what kind of a timeframe immediate versus longer all the way to plague body suffer everyone everywhere. Every one Right and then and you're not only just caring for humans now, but maybe all sentient beings now you're, maybe not even caring for all sentient beings. Now you're gonna caring for everyone, that's ever been and that's ever gonna, leaving the place better found it. Wait a minute and a lot of ethicists talk about that, like the idea between watson, existential crisis for humanity versus just a really really road ahead, because their point is the difference and even you know it's pretty academic for us cause. My sense is that the only thing that actually matters as far as human choices is my generation and my kids generation after that, it's academic but ethicists, will say: hey

an extinction event. If humanity doesn't just mean everybody on earth, snuffs it. It means that every other human that has yet to be born, but was going to be, has snuffed it interesting. So you get. This aggregate comes in when you terminate a species line through a keyhole event right and that's that you know inconceivably exponentially bigger as far as the loss yeah? So so my sense would be is: can we first, you know first, look after ourselves and our families, so that right, like like put our houses so that we can then come back to the front line, how the we for? How do we do that? If we don't have a meaning? more. If we don't give us authorities trust the organ Religions or politics or corporations- that's all fracture and broken now,

I find meaning of why we're here yeah I mean obviously that that answers that's unique for everybody right. Has it been and any top down answers, no matter how good they sound at the beginning, almost always devolve into some form of fascism, overtime. Alright, so the question is is like hey. If we are, if, if like many one point, oh or that we can call it like traditional religion offered salvation right, here's the story of how you get to Heaven, but at the price. Those who believe were saved those who didn't want. It was kind of a harsh approach, but it was fair, it we cannot lay our cards on the table exactly how we're going play this game

in your said, don't do this and are you are you are you are not in the tree of trust that and then meaning to point out which we could say it's sort of like the french enlightenment, on modern liberalism, civil rights, civil liberties, private property markets that whole thing and said that whole salvation game, that's problematic, that's led to holy wars or inquisitions, all of this and superstition and all this bad stuff. So we're going to we're not going to do that. We're gonna do inclusion. Everybody gets to play this game, at least in theory right at the cost of salvation. Impression of church and state and niches sort of god is dead right and both have like and they haven't, but that hasn't worked out too well either right, because an awful lot of people have correctly said well, because the story was sort of like wait. Your turn play by the rules in your time What can we promise and you're getting a lot of frustration and under

annabelle, even rage at the imbalances that game why we were so to build goods and, in fact Joseph stiglitz Caesar. You know he was the bank, you in economic adviser, all sorts of incredibly high up positions, and he basically just called the entire, shall get these legs like this been forty years, and then The results are in neo, liberalism and democracy are have have broken and the benefits have accrued asymmetrically to those at the top, and you know in the last year we've seen all sorts of things about what kind of recession are we in because of quarantine, is going to be a? U shaped or a vitiate for keisha it's just means the top. One percent are now trillion, and gazillion is riots and everybody elses host, and I mean to get to put this like really to put a point on it. Just blew my mind. I have written the first chapter of this book eighteen months ago, and I had a paragraph and it said when sixty eight sixty eight people on the planet are richer than whoa.

As much wealth is the bottom half the bottom billion it's crazy right. Sixty eight people could all fit on a bus one, nearly one whatever half yet thought, in half and half of the world's population, and unlike interest and note that, like that sort of asymmetrical accumulation of resources, energy credits, natural resources, it it occurs in no living system anywhere. Ever now. That was eighteen months ago, just before we went to press just go back. Factcheck. The is enough. It's twenty said they can fit in stretch limo. Oh my. twenty seven, have twenty seven money and more resources than the bottom four billion four billion people in the world. People know that that that just should break our hearts. does that excite you to share so what possibilities you can create, potential

if yourself or does that, should that break our hearts. I mean well in some respects I mean this is the other thing. I think the era of like I think, a good thing for us to think of is that is that physics metaphysics all day long, so whether you're a dyed in the wool libertarian free market, a guy, whether europe, somebody who is all about. particular NEO marxist theories, or interpretations, whether you're a some new age consciousness in a sort of going be like guys. I think it's tight like it at the poker table. It's it's a call I could start late. Let lay your cards down because we're about to see what happens and it won't be talking heads spin for their take right, there should be a lot of surprised faces going home. Ok, I guess this happened where this is happening, so whether that climate, alarmists or denial is like we're going

whether that social with whether its nationalism is the best thing or globalism. Women see whether these markets are stable or in flight mary or deflationary or efficient or totally inefficient, and has tons of rent seeking and capture and were deemed and late stage. Capitalism is a tool The sham, compared to the ideal of a free market, will see so there's all sorts of things in the coming few decades, we're simply just going to experience physically. You know it's. The whole sort of music's like MIKE tyson right, like a plan to get punched in the face. Yeah we were bound to take. Some shots were been taking shots right. And I would even say that that you know weirdly because of a number of people have sort of approach me over the last six months- and I shall do this- is right, like you called it is happening, is actually, as you said, and we now know. Actually, this was a total surprise. In fact, I haven't just to my own sanity and not to be a total buzz, kill it parties. I too,

I haven't. I wasn't even deeply monitoring global pandemic, risk. You knew kind of there's these. You know like Velez in Sao Paulo and crazy. Ruby slums in africa, logos and and shanghai, and those we're going to be hotbed incubation of the next wild after jojo, didn't think it was going to be globally this soon I just I mean. Can you can only wrap your head around so many things and still be sociable? Like this is going to crumble, and this is going to crumble the next decade, but now this and everything else just to me- was a total flier but and and and the Crazy thing is: is that actually has nothing to do with the underlying structural conditions that are still them glaring red along cash So this was a. This is merely a dress, rehearsal, mid level, totally manageable thing. We're fucking up terribly right back at me, while everything is falling apart, yeah yeah, so so so the questions are is do you think this is a good thing. That's happened this soon and not delayed suffering and pain is a good that we're,

now the pandemic a monopoly, it's not good when people are dying and suffering things are happening, but in the overall game of the world and healing where this, and we asking ourselves. Is this necessary yeah I mean I mean and, and those kind of comforting, just so narratives, don't worry cupcake, it's all going to be okay, because here's the bigger plan, rush story, right everything happens for a reason, those kind of things I have a hard time sinking my teeth into those, and I and I- and I because I just mean how on earth do we know and I think in some respects. I guess if I had to come to define how it might look at things at the little bit work. A transcendental existentialist right through the existential is in part, is

Life is utterly meaningless right that europe can move that the said it famously in his book, the myth of sisyphus. He said the only serious question is whether or not to commit suicide right, so you actually have to step into the screaming and, as you have to be like ok strip, it all out right jack Nicholson in future that you want the truth. You can't handle the truth when you got actually goes stare into the sky in your base and understand that we are just monkeys with clothes on a little rock next to an irrelevant generic star. Circling around florida, your infinite space ashes to ashes dust to dust is horrified right. You ain't.

There are these moments of sublime, grace, beauty and potentiality and were little. We and we are the existential mayflies of this universe with opposable thumbs and prefrontal. Cortex, isn't we're here for, like eight or nine decades, on a good run like to fight into into agreement, to build, create and destroy to be alive and like holy were alive and so, and that part like holding and cherishing that pot at the same time is holding the profound great which by the it felt look at the store. We talked about two, which was complexity, sacred cows and then, as we do this, what this is actually the appropriate point of this conversation, which is how once we've stared into the screaming abyss- and we realize that we're just we've just been whistling past the great right. That is scary, so I'm going to whistle a little song and hopefully that keep whatever is really big and scary or wait like really like. What does that? Do? It's a little bit like all the true blood movies and all the hit vampire movies, where someone invariably like spritzes

with holy water or mexico. Crucifixion there are you. Are you kidding believe that all that failed like no? No, no. We are way hipper than that. Yeah rates are like our monsters, I think, are actually far stronger, Then our superstitious warning to get to the hard to kill us? and so, and so the question is, is it is? How do we learn to weep? Not women. right we're so like whether it's trigger warnings, the difference. The differences like is fibrillation, versatile, like dress, was his distress right. So, like you know, most people think when they see, like you, know, Whatever great anatomy or things like that right or eat or house right, the idea like paddle, listen, we could you clear that this needs to start somebody's hot. It's not like you to stop someone's because what's happening in those situations tricky fibrillation. We means their heart, isn't a spasm which will kill him right what they're doing is they're zapping it to flatline,

than the brain impulses and looked at her and resets right and we are in venture killer, fibrillation, psychologically, socially, politically we're all experiencing micro ptsd. And if you look on twitter, you look on social feeds. You look at the amount of bad faith, inflammation we're just looking for excuses dying for excuses to misread someone's, intend, take wildly out of context and just enraged. Why and it because, because our nervous systems are in fibrillation right, so that's the whimpering that's the whining were collapsing into these. Who can who can play the victim the most and there's been an interesting study, and I haven't gone back to look at the the actual paper. But a friend just told me this yesterday, which was there's a correlation between playing victim. Identity is like seeking that mindset and doktor. I had not assisting machiavelian sociopath personality times tonight. You ve got bad actors going the help, help I'm being oppressed right simply because, as a highly effective power

they re now, and then you have legitimately huge populations that being victimized by conditions in life that absolutely need infinite care, compassion and support that not getting it because we're in this february state, so the the weep don't whimper is open our hearts to the wounds of the world and feel it and write because it connects us to ourselves. It connects us to each other and can access to our courage and our purpose. get the back up right and let's do our part right- we're here for a reason: let's figure it out of spirits, This is what I mean. What should we be? Having faith in? should we have faith. You such a question, and such a good such a good word, because and is it blind faith? Is it just while this is what our grandparents told our parents, and this is what the book says, and this is what our god says or whatever, so we just trust it blindly yeah I mean I I think

those days are gone right. I mean we're just we are there such a spike in cynicism and there's a collapse in benign and divine or thirty two. We can't really gonna go back and dust them off and reboot them in problem back up again. We ve got to see that they're, like nah potemkin villages, is like back in the day, so they would take people driving moss grown and they would literally do like almost like theatre stage. Sets this continent to look They were really robust and thriving, so we kind of seeing that a lot institutions that we took to be solid and timeless. A potemkin villages were seen. Let's see that we're seeing how the sausage is made and everything yeah and it's and it's thoroughly disappointing. In fact, I mean I think there would be an amazing combine situation if you took alt right conspiracy, theorist and far left conspiracy, theorist- and you said, hey guys- let's, let's get together and cook The diagnosis of the problem is ninety percent line, its you can't trust elite institutions we've been been

that a bill of goods, all media and messaging is massaged and positioned and we're supposed to just take it there's a switch. dual layer, system of politics and power, and really you know this is Noam, Chomsky's critique from way back when right but being at cannes. It comes from both sides, all those things and the and the One man is getting a bill of goods, you fill it in, I mean I mean Bernie in two thousand and sixteen and trump in two thousand and sixteen their analysis What was wrong with america was yeah was at least eighty percent identical now their prescription. What we ought to who's to blame and what we should do next about it. Those go very differently. right and so getting getting folks together on the shared playing field, it is, I think it is helpful it also clears away the noise in the clinic it's like that last ten percent is the whole ballgame as to who's to blame, and what should we do now

right and that's why you have to get that's where you really have to slow the tape, and what do we believe yeah yeah yeah? That's where you have to get very, very specific cause. I mean you know an example that I can't get out of my head. It just seems to be such a strong when it's like Charlie Manson, like I watched that there was a documentary in like nineteen. Seventy three. It was all original footage. It wasn't like a cbs like after school, special with actors and you know- and it's idyllic- it's naked blonde. Haired hippies like smoking, weed by the waterfalls and topanga and like hanging out and doing the whole thing right and you're like oh my gosh, and then you hear them interviewed in the end and again ninety percent, what they had to say. They said hey. You come out of the 50s to eisenhower industrial, complex you're, trying to please your parents, I even know who you are getting clear on what your purpose is, what your sexuality is, what your joy is, what you're like? Yes, yes, check, check, check, check, check and then up is down down is up. like kind of interesting there they're tripping. Maybe I will give it that will given that one and then life is death. Death is life. wow, maybe on a kind of like a super zen point of view, perhaps and then and then, like than killer pigs, and await that put right.

And so we saying that with anti backed conspiracies greasy met, if you are not we're seeing that with new age, like we're all going to vibrate up to the next density and leave behind this earth form or all the other, the chubby people who don't eat airlines and whole foods I write that whole thing, you're saying he was like whoa slow, the tape right there because, like you, can have psychedelic fascism, you can have ethno nationalism, you can, it is also too pathological places. These go right if you are not aware of the philosophical and ethical implications baked into what all sounds reasonable at a hundred thousand feet, which rashly start trying to put him on the ground like a man, those don't go to happy places. So, to your point about faith right, how do we? How do we create a meaning? Three point? Yes, right, that that takes the promise of salvation like us, because without salvation right people who grew up as

it's people who grow up as atheists, people who grew up unchurched right and has ano ne? Yes, I know any, not habits. I have had have succumb to diseases of despair, depression, anxiety. addiction and suicide because they don't have because there isn't a greater promise of greatness yeah that that's the staring into the screaming busy. If you've got no rope to pull you back, the disease of despair is as easy to despair and I hope and and debate show has as shared in the last couple of years. More people on this earth kill themselves then die of all wars and natural disasters, combined every year now way so think about a news feeds always is war or natural disasters now just disappeared at all, and you say the silent epidemic as people say, I cannot make sense it being alive on this So why be here? I'm going to die yeah

near one more breaking of our heart. But the thing about heart, break and actually facing our grief. Is it categorically makes us stronger and connects us to our courage, and so like tung? Lin is the tibetan practice of meditation that is specifically about this right and Pema Chodron, who is a tibetan nun and buddhist teacher, lays it out she's like most meditations, like think happy thoughts, say a mantra. Try to get to stillness, try to get the emptiness something along with gratitude, yeah, happy, right, yeah, Tomlin's, the exact opposite, and it's like start with, like actually picturing every picture of the suck. Like literally imagine, the black todd smoke that they're paying your grief, your angst, your jealousy, your your your your resentment and neurosis and then inhale it

literally visualize. It has tar or smoke inhale it and then act hale like love, compassion and then, when you can do that for yourself and you asked Lee and if it is an imaginary exercise, makes it only what it works as you cultivate. That muscle is not some. Mr thing, it's a thought. Experiment that you can. You can build those muscles to do better than you can expand it to every and your family. Everyone, one your community and everyone in the world, so you can actually play with us and then over time. That does something in the back of your like staring into the skid racing cars If you steer away from the skin, you spin out your endless good. You have dynamic balance, so you're like oh now, we take our suffering as raw material for our compassion and like an Alice walker, the the author of the color purple and a bunch of other things which has been a friend and student of Pema Chodron, and she said she said this beautiful line and one of her books. She says my heart's been broken open so many times now

a swings open wide like a suitcase right and that's what I mean about the the learned to weep. Not whimper learn to feel yes learn to feel at all. and my tongue don block it and don't be whimpering yeah, yeah yeah, I mean I mean martine practical he's. A is a powerful man. Shopman poet, teacher from the mayan tradition, says grief is praise right. We only ITALY is loves way to honour what it missis. Brain and bodies acts time. Who is a harvard train psychologist and educational theorist he's amid the number of times I bring. This is obviously has haunted me right, but he said we are perhaps entering an era where billions watch. While millions die this error right now, this time, like this twenty first century here, and so you think about it,

and televised, and we think about George Floyd right right that ricocheted around the world in an asymmetrical way. Right there been all sorts events like that, all over the place, all the time something happened and broke our collective brains and hearts? And if you think about even about the language I can't breathe, it was so profoundly and VON rudely, human and, and that and the rage that it prompted was that it was like it was the anguish cry of humanity, saying like no like enough is enough and there's infinite complexities and realities and an analysis to unpack around that that event. Those protests all those things, but just at that court human right, it's it's profound and, and part of that is it used to just be a summit the haven't you heard about it through scuttlebutt in your neighborhood village, and that was europe. That was our world. That was the only information we have now is just trying to,

At every moment you see another tragedy, yeah what I mean- and I read something probably the most psychoactive thing. I've read in the last six months was something in the mit reader and it's this was this wild the timeline of humanity's awareness of our own mortality, basically- and it was- and it was sort of going all the way back to like the greeks and and and and ancient hebrews, and all this kinda stuff, sure there were like end of times mythologies always baked in, but that was kind of, like literally like lights out like beam up the mother. Some complete transformation of reality, but it wasn't until like literally the seventeen hundreds and eighteen hundreds like the discovery of halley's comment and then the fact like. Oh my gosh, that's a comment and then like wait, a second that could come really close to earth and then, like holy shit, are we going to actually get hit by a comment? And then

intelligent like wait. There's dinosaurs in evolutionary theory like we're, not the first ones to be here, and these guys aren't here anymore, and what's that about and like holy smokes the idea that humans could go away, and that wife in some other form could continue without us. Crazy was, has we've only had this for, like wrapped around it, wrap their heads around it briefly for like the last few hundred years and and in fact, they're speaking of like that that Francis Fukuyama at the end of history and the last man there was the first dystopian science fiction, novel was written and eighteen of four by a French got called the last man. It was a sci fi story about a future with the extinction of humanity and that poor bastard committed suicide. Oh my so you're like you're like holy and now you got greta thunberg, you have you have a generation who are like post, two thousand and eight they they they weren't raised with like rainbows and they're. Like that loans and financial crashes and unemployment and an ecological catastrophe in their like. You were passed Then how do you write? And so

so, this awareness, like there's a sort of sounds the little like neo in You know me like yes, you can learn confluent you can fly, but could you couldn't you're, also in about a girl and the machines are coming right. So, let's give you a hug and a hi fi welcome home right right. weekend to bask in You found identity, impossibility, possibility and then monday morning show up work, we're all needed right, So how do we get back to this place? When we realize all these things are breaking down around us, these beliefs, these ideals, these foundations, what our parents told us was true, whatever might be, how do you You start to honour stan what our own faith what we should believe in what we should hold onto if there's

nothing, solid, yeah yeah I mean I mean the beautiful thing is: is that the answers are all around us. They really truly like. In fact, one of my favorite pieces to write in this book was was talking about cars because, basically saying look: if we're going to rebuild meeting three point o How do we take the best of organised religion, nest of the modern liberal examine? ancient wisdom, inclusion and salvation. and is that you have hospital right and so clearly a single top down version contradicted with we steam stalinism mousing fascism. We seen all the hidden schisms and they don't work very well. They always end up. Basically, whenever the ends of a utopian ideal, our heaven on earth or off it, then the means are always justified. So you always end up with

the things I write are because because you can always justify it against the idea, so let's not do that: let's do decentralized, open source, let a thousand fires burn and nine hundred of them will go out in the storm, but one hundred will catch and then we'll see- and we can past life past the torches right and so one of the simplest things is that hey dust off all the wisdom, traditions, this thousands of years of accumulated brilliant insight and history, but even in like the american tradition, and if you take america because we seem to be kind of, I dunno we're doing but were sort of doing it on behalf of humanity right now, right like like that, though, the grief, the rage, the conflict, the discussions area that is happening here is sort of inside. form rippling out through the world or being echoed by similar movement, so so race, class, gender politics, nationality, ecology, all the things right and

I met the american tradition, has always been this crazy hodgepodge of international experience. You know you ve got chinese laborers, building the railroads and irish vote coming in and west african folks coming in, and western european southern europeans, all these things and an ever it. You know, and an indigenous folks and almost an and spaniards coming up in a light and smashing and crashing into each other and somewhere in that created like gospel, jazz blues folk right into you, know, hip hop and all these things this this living songbook

and in those songs those redemption songs right. It's always the same story right, it's it's! It's I've been down so long right, I'm broke open and it seems like up to me, or that was in nineteen twenties, blues song, drake, coveted Nancy Sinatra and the doors covered it regulate. You like that sense of going down the road feeling bad right right and I'm singing it and in fact that becomes a triumphant celebration, acknowledging it talking about being aware of it beyond, say the like. There's the grace cathedral in san francisco has had the church of be on, say on Wednesday nights and they literally get together and they use beyond say songs as hymns and literary liturgy, and it is strange that praise music while right is like a wreath of franklin like dusted off. Like beyond save mom is like creole chinese african american france, like all she public, like half a dozen lineage.

She grew up in a houston, baptist church and then she's singing this stuff and like dolly parton like singing like at the oscar she was singing. This was for that movie, trans america, which is all about algae beating. You folks- and she was seen this I, like we've, all been crucified and they nail Jesus to a tree, but when I'm born again you're going to see a change in me and you like okay, so, if, like you hear it and like stanley, crouch or the lincoln jazz center, like the idea that, like jazz blues, all of these traditions are actually this heretical hermetic mystic spirituality. That is unique to america, because it was all freaks and misfits who came and you couldn't. the protestant church and the catholic church, they wouldn't have signed off on hawkish than in america as these wild terrible experiments- and we created this this defiant little. liturgy ride this living hidden scripture in our concerts in our songbooks right in our

testing margins of like we're here and life hurts, and we rise up singing. And you know you know that, like you know it's powerful, because those are the songs that people hold up it for those are the sunlight, lady gaga right like born this way, these testify zones the chill songs they give you chills and they give you chills like even jumble like way back when, like I get knocked down, it's going to keep me down. You got these drunken drunken scots right, so so that, You know that, like going down into the mud of our shared suffering, that and that back to the weeping not whimpering right and then and then, and then somewhere in that feeling the pulse. I feel in the b like feel in chorus and then you're like. Oh, we are here and there, and then it becomes that sort of

I am spartacus moment right where you're like we are all dead men walking. No one gets Your lot right right. So how do we do this? That's the is the old captain, my captain and dead poets right we're gonna to get expelled for doing what we're about to do right. Our love outweighs our fear so so that censor. Like we all love those moments we lovely unitas right at the motley. What we'd love we love those those those calls to arms, encourage tank man in ten square some dude wearing like having to stick shopping bags in his hands. He wasn't prep for shit. He just ends up being like Knopf. This stands in front of the phalanx of tanks and says enough is enough crazy, Could you got disappeared? We've never heard from him again. There's never been tracked again, like people in matching clothes that came in. either that was good, guys or high

likely. It wasn't right, but that triggered something and and Nancy Keenan harvard business school. She wrote it. We shared a stage at mit a year ago and she's she's, a firecracker, and she wrote this amazing book called forged in crisis and and it just changed how I think of this stuff. She it was abraham, lincoln dietrich, yvonne bonhoeffer. Who is the the pastor who tried to assassinate hitler, rachel Carson? He wrote silent spring which kicked off the environmental movement, frederick douglass the abolitionist, but it would be, do be, do and and one other and the thing that was crazy about their stories and cleanly the emancipation problem right, every single I went child and the antarctic explore, and the key was that at the moment that are in Wikipedia and the moment that we hear about school, they had no idea

What they were doing, like laying very impatient proclamation was, was dug. Fluting, like Mary, find no hug with at them There he had noticed was desperate, no, no idea that it was going to work or become the title. And so you realize you're in, but she right she like when people act from that spot, where the cartridge, but with with, spray courage to a complete like not no like no certified mail, saying this all works out, Sonny but you gotta do it anyway says it sends shockwaves through the world right, so we ve talked about. We talk about all the exponential curve is doing all the exponential him and how over women that can be, and also fundamentally how scary right, how how how much uncertainty, how much on how much fear how much risk there is

and the world as we face it. The flip side as it like, nobody promised us a rose garden like them. You watch game a throne them. Yes, they made that up. Life has been sheep for an awfully long red in tooth and claw and nasty brutish and short has ever. Has it ever been this rain, so Can we step out of being de conditions you animals? Can we stepped back into the bigger arc of history? Can we sakhalin gub with courage and an access soul force, in that, and that's what martin Luther king. He said that in that that I have a dream speeches when we, when we can rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul, force, right and and most people- that's how they know it. That's that was the moment that that concept came up on the stage, but he actually had borrowed that twice over, so it wasn't even his his words or concepts, and it was this fellow, this african american mystic named howard thurman, and he was

mentor to the civil rights movement, but he was so kind of like in his jaw. Love grew- and he didn't actually ever like march with picot, but he advised all those guys and and all of them carried his books with him like day to day, like literally like in their satchels kind of thing, but he went to visit gandhi in nineteen thirty five, so he was the first interfaith american ambassador to go to india. Wow. Just think about this. in thirty. Five is not that after reconstruction right like him in use nil, god living former slaves use that you know this is crazy fresh times, and so he goes there any meets with gandhi and gandhi shares with him. This notion of non violence which they called such a grandma and and and it was basically means alignment with truth and that that is on breakable, What is the truth? Well, but in truth, integrity, right, action, guy, humanity, dignity, gotcha, all those things, and so it's them in

came home. He was like okay, satyagraha, that's the sanskrit! That's a mouthful! No one in this countries can understand that I'll. Tell you what let's rebrand this call it soul, force and and because up until then, civil disobedience was just a tactic in the civil rights movement they're like let's not get our heads bashed and run let's not needlessly on. Agonized folks, with guns in the towns and dogs we stay alive. What happens? That's what it was right after that civil disobedience became the central

esophageal pillar of nonviolent protest around the world and that's that's soul, force right and and erica chenoweth it at harvard's kennedy school of government right she's done this study. That's been restated one thousand times, which is that when she studied from, I think, like nineteen fifty to maybe twenty ten, I forget quite what what her time brackets were, but basically late twentieth century and early twenty first century civil rights movements that have been successful, that you know eastern europe, asia, the united states everywhere else, and that it required about three and a half percent of the population. That's it three and a half percent of the population.

I should make these phase shifts that that can create this catalytic event, which is beautiful and inspiring right, and that's certainly where extinction rebellion and a lot of other social and environmental protest movements have taken inspiration. Lately, there's also kind of a critique of that. Where you're like hey that you know it's one thing to be like, I insist on riding in the front of the bus and the bus has four inflated tires and gas in the tank to get your destination right. That one move right where we're saying hey there is this civil experiment: we've been locked or blocked out of it, and we are politely asking for opportunity, get on board right, but is another thing to be like hey, we are selling off a cliff and thereby to chance

especially chitty, bang bang style into a helicopter before you crash, like that's kind of that's kind of where we are right. So it's like complex intersection, medic crises and the and the bus itself have like prosperous, stable civil society is not necessarily persisting so that the erica Chenoweth three and a half present is that honking, great asterisk it's like tbd if this holds up, but the other thing is is like we're nowhere near three and a half percent right. So let's get there and we'll take stock right, we'll take stock once we do and and and that that sensor, you asked about faith and we've been playing with grief and we've been talking about courage, right and and our buddy actually Andrew human he's he's a professor love, this guy yeah right, love it rocks out and and and so curious

and also comes up with ingenious experiments to invalidate stuff, which would otherwise be spittle in them, and he told me if there is fascinating, as he told me, the story of this research as it was happening, and then last year he active finally published it in the jungle nature, which was this story and courage in mice and they wanted to see they wanted to see what happens. Basically, when we're terrified and what's going on in our brain right and everybody has heard of fight or flight right, but just because it rhymes doesn't mean it's correct yeah. So it's actually there's this flight or freeze, there's that network and then there's the stand and fight, network which are technically it's a salience, reducing network, meaning, like don't look at me right, I'm going to make myself small or get out of dodge or a salient and haunting network which is like you want a piece of

and, unlike the other, at the bare or something coming accurate, as opposed to like getting the feudal precision yet said so, and it all goes through the thoughtless and in the brain right and what, if what they found was, is they stimulate this very specific region, right that it stimulated a salient and enhancing response associated with courage. So ninety eight incentive mice when faced with the shadow of a hawk, what they do in the latest. Torment is important. gotta sure, come shadow made merry and then a ninety percent of them piss off and hide in the rough and then only two percent actually come their tails, but they do once their under shelter. So it's kind of a little bit more like a chill out one right, not very bossy, then they stimulate the courage centre and then they stash bought their tails

They bring brutally that's right, you, but it gets. It gets even better than that right. So so, andrew being the compassionate duties, I could look man, I just push in their buttons and sending them to their. Do that doesn't do they have choice, do they have to meet, and so given the choice between food sex and having that stimulated, they choose having courage stimulated, referred, and sex and humans do too so like we won't should we would rather be brave. We were rather feel brave and get laid. Why? Because it is essential and an end. The final, the final dislike amazing, but you can't make this up the name of that centre. nucleus reunions, so latin. That means the seed of our union. It's how we come together as our courage, poetry, you caught The plan was Andrew, discovered you, so we we want. I feel courage over the over looming threat right?

the reason that three hundred harry potter dead how it's done. Louise right being like like this Where that send. It knows, I'm ready for her the reason, those movement even robe one you could tell if I hadn't, wash rogue one yet and it got with strong reviews. People like okay, this is kind of money, there's a solid, solid addition to the star wars. Franchise like what's here because a thing here I don't know what it is, but there was some good I tossed to it and you're like oh it's because they die at the end right and in fact, there's a guy matthew, gosh, Matthew, polly or pollard. I think he was basically like TIM ferriss before it was so he was at princeton in the early nineties and he decided to kind of like game his system when he he had grown up watching saturday morning. Conflict kung, fu movies. So he was desperate to go to become a shaolin, so he punched into china long before they were shut up any westerners rights of super super early, interesting finds his way to the shaolin temple classic

in the rain got shut out, has to sit on the porch finally get invited in that they adopt him blah blah. And then he gets a bunch of veal gestate shift over with rambo and and shortening a movie stars like their rickety old tv plug in the bee. Vhs I'm just show you hear him movies and they watch them all. Satellite Saturday night binge watch them, and then he finishes like so what you think and they looked him with funding isn't there like will matthew man what's the deal, because I thought you said these were your hero movies. These are these. Are action, heroes, they're, actually, amazing, it's like no! No, no, they they all they'll live. They all live, no one dies, no indeed for the cause in all, of our hero stories right and in fact it really is right, and so that notion of consumerism and I shall individualism and all that is in the stories and look at the specifics of new twentieth century twenty first century western culture have been, you can have your cake and eat it.

I don't have to make trade fairytale ending. Then you do deserve your best life. There is no ambiguity or complexity of this thing and it's happily ever after always for everyone, or at least for the good guys right versus the the notion and and my friend and business partner, cut cronin. As a former deb group commander said a modern version of this. You said whenever they were going downrange into combat, they plan to come. in a body bag shut up. Of course it's not surprising. It's pretty, but he said I had written my letter. Oh my god establish my will. I had if I had figured out my trust for my children sure that they were good through twenty one or through their marriages. Like I had, I had it all done, prepare for the worst, so that and he never lost him it so that I could go out there fully wow, so it's the samurai notion of of meditate on one thousand ways to die so that you're, not distracted on the battlefield right and so

so that notion we are at. We are terrified of death right. We punish ourselves, full of plastic surgery, dies and fillers right to the point of creating caricatures of youth and beauty in ways that you just you know that at that are hot breaking your neck Just allow yourself to be an elder. You know allow yourself to to have the dignity and appreciation and respect we, we ship, our grandparents, often nursing homes to be cared for by. anonymous hourly wage workers and pumped full of drugs. They don't make a fuss You know what we we we we are obsessed with youth and beauty and all of the things, but but don't acquaint ourselves with our mortality and it's newness that contrast that actually gives us back our dignity. You know it's sort of like our. Our humanity feels like it's at the intersection of our mortality and our divinity to it again. Our humanity

the intersection of our mortality and our divinity, and when we can balance those two dialectics right, then we have a chance to be. You know what you could sort of call hungry. Like I'm no longer trying to get off this ride, I'm no longer trying to transcend it. I'm not looking for my next town took a kyocera. you're in medicine ceremony. I'm not hop bobbin around to catch the next big thing. Nor am I collapsed in despair. I'm I'm is much more like Jimmy stewart in a wonderful life right. It's it's that moment of. Like oh holy. I am blessed with the opportunity to live out the rest of my precious life with full agency completely committed and fit.

Thank you so much for listening to this conversation. If you enjoyed it and you want to dive into another similar school of greatness episode, check out the links in the podcast description, I've done more than nine hundred and fifty episodes over the past seven years, and I want to bring you more inspiration just like this. One more thing we ve been choosing foreign looking winners. Each week like Margaret from Antwerp, belgium, terror from term build connecticut, nottingham from do by, and so many others, that's right. They each one and amazon, gift card, but here's why? I need your help to get to know you, my listeners better, so I've created a short and simple survey, or to do, is fill out a quick questionnaire at lewis, house, dot, com, slash survey and that's it. It'll only take a couple of minutes, but it'll go a long way towards me, figuring out how to and serve you the best in this podcast experience at

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six year off, and I want to leave you with this quote from Deepak chopra, who said when you make a choice, you change in the future, and today you have an opportunity to choose, choosing and sought a new idea, a new action towards a greater life yourself. You get to choose every moment. You have that choice, I'm so grateful that you chose to be here today. I hope you can devalue today. Please come! for far too, because it will blow your minds and if no one has told you lately, I would remind you that you are loved. You are worthy and you matter- and you know Comedy is it's time to go out there and do something great the.