108 On Dominant Realities Featuring Noelfry

In this episode, we talk about different perspectives on realities (subjective vs. objective reality), how we build our own reality, who sets the norms of "normal" vs. "not normal". We talk about the effect of social media, the effect of resentment on one's life, how important forgiveness is, and how forgiving means taking responsibility for your own actions. Living in an abundant reality supposes having responsibility for your own choices.

Transcript

The Ruando podcast is an exploration of the unconscious and the game of life.

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Enjoy the show.

I saw some similarities in the magician archetype episode and breaking social reality constructs.

So I just want to explore that connection and see where it leads.

What is social reality and two terms that you used were individual desire versus arbitrary collective rules.

Yeah,

Well,

Yeah,

The word social reality,

I'm just using it to describe,

I guess a lot of people don't question the fact that our assumptions about what is normal versus not normal.

People don't question the fact that that could be mutable,

That people have different perceptions of what is right to you and your friends.

In New York is different to maybe the same type of people,

But in Arkansas or something,

Or my subculture is subculture.

So essentially social reality is what a group of people,

What a society,

What a culture,

What a group of friends,

What a social group assumes is normal or assumes is the way to do things.

And I was referencing that in relation to a person's individual desire,

It's very rare that you say you have 10 people together.

It's very rare that what each person perceives is not even good and evil,

We get into morality separately,

But what is desirable versus not desirable,

It's not going to be the same thing.

And with most things like food preferences,

It doesn't really matter.

Maybe you and your friends can't decide on where you want to eat,

But it's not that big a deal.

It just comes to how one should live their lives,

How one should communicate,

Whether it's okay to rock the boat,

Whether it's okay to fly to a different country and do other things or speak in a certain way or live with a certain level of sexual polarity.

This is where people start to butt heads.

And we can see this in politics,

We can see this in any argument on social media or anywhere.

People will fight to maintain that their reality is the objective reality.

Even in nutrition,

I like looking at nutrition because people will fight to the death about their diet being the correct diet in the way that people used to fight or some people still fight about religion.

It's like someone's conception of reality matters so much.

So I just call it,

I label it social reality just to help us recognize that it's not an objective reality that most of us interact with instead of norms that is created by a group.

So what would be an individual reality or a subjective reality?

Well,

They're all subjective,

But individual reality is what you perceive as what you perceive.

I mean,

Even down,

I mean,

When it comes to opinions,

It becomes a little more obvious,

But you remember the whole,

What color is the dress thing from a couple of years ago?

Yeah.

It's like even that,

Like even our eyes,

Which we think we assume vision is subjective,

But even our eyes based on the makeup of our eyes,

I think it's like your ratio of rods and phones,

Even your eyes can see the same image in totally different colors,

Like two different realities.

Like I'm experiencing it as blue,

You're experiencing it as gold or whatever,

Like that is possible.

So if that is possible,

Just consider how much is possible when we're trying to perceive something that is not physical,

Like the way a government should be or the way that relationships ought to behave or the way that someone should treat,

People should treat each other.

I mean,

This is where just recognizing that everyone essentially has their own reality and we do our best to merge them for the sake of group recognition.

Okay.

So it's safe to assume that everyone has a fair bit of differences in their reality,

Whether it be physical through how they see color or how they perceive the world through their belief systems.

Yeah,

I mean,

The color thing obviously is not that consequential,

But like,

Yeah,

We all have different beliefs and it's not like,

Not that even we should assume it.

It's like,

It has to be that way.

Like there's no way that two people have exactly the same physical structures or environmental upbringing or wirings or hormonal balances that have them perceive ethics in certain ways,

Like different from person to person.

And I think the most brotherly and compassionate thing is to recognize that we all see the world differently.

We all have our individual reality where we're experiencing stimuli and our brain is like recreating an image in our mind of what we think reality is.

You know,

Like if it takes psychedelics,

You can realize how mutable that is.

It's like,

Just your perceptions can change about like what physical stuff is.

So if,

Yeah,

I mean essentially even physical reality is in a sense subjective,

But we have slightly different perceptions when it comes to the physical reality.

Obviously when it comes to abstractions and ethics and beliefs,

Of course it's going to be very different.

So I'm thinking of the example that you gave in the magician archetype.

When a man has a desire and he lies to himself that he doesn't have that desire,

He has cognitive dissonance because it's his individual impulse that he has a disconnection with and that affects his creative process.

Would you consider that tension or something else?

Well,

I would call it low resolution or low fidelity.

You know,

Like,

I mean the principle you're sharing is like you want something,

You're too afraid to go after it.

You get over that cognitive dissonance,

You have to convince yourself that you don't,

You have to convince yourself of a lie.

Like,

Oh,

I'm not into this,

I'm not into that.

I didn't actually want to go for that.

I'm not actually upset that I didn't get that opportunity or whatever it is that,

You know?

And by lying to yourself,

The only way to make up for that,

The way I like is like you have this lens on reality and the only way to make up for that,

Like you're basically trying to say like,

Oh,

This thing in front of me,

You know,

I don't know,

Like you're trying to convince yourself that this is not a pen,

This is a pickle.

So the only way you can convince yourself of that is if you make your lens super foggy and then you'd be like,

Oh yeah,

This thing that I'm holding is a pickle,

Right?

I mean,

Maybe it's a silly example,

But it's like when you lie to yourself,

That's what you have to do to yourself to get over the fact that you lied to yourself essentially.

And if someone is viewing the world from this foggy lens,

What that really means in action is like,

It becomes hard to hear your thoughts because if you actually listen to your thoughts,

You'd be like,

Oh,

I really wanted that thing.

I really have this desire.

But to nullify that you basically have to like turn the volume down on everything,

Different analogy,

And then you can't hear your thoughts.

And like when a guy lies to himself about stuff enough,

He kind of becomes like mentally foggy.

Like he can't hear his thoughts.

It's hard for him to form creative ideas.

It's often hard to express himself because in order to hear his own expression,

He would have to listen to the stuff he's trying to block out.

So like it turns everything off essentially.

And yeah,

I mean,

I don't know if I would call that tension or what.

I mean,

You have fear of who you are,

Fear of what's true for you,

Fear of the truth.

And that's why like just being brutally honest with yourself is such a huge creativity hack.

Like it's just like if you really admit to yourself all the stuff that you maybe don't want to admit to about yourself,

Your shortcomings,

Your fears,

Your desires,

Your actual truth,

Like when you actually admit that to that stuff,

It's like it opens these floodgates.

It might bring more stuff that's uncomfortable.

It'll also bring all the good stuff.

It'll bring like all your creative ideas.

It'll bring all of your enthusiasm.

That thing that seems so cloudy or like hard to get off your chest is like,

Oh,

Here are the words that I meant to say.

Here's like the idea that I needed.

And it starts with being brutally honest with yourself.

It's interesting that it's also one of the keys to breaking out of your social reality is radical honesty,

Because when you're radically honest with yourself,

It's almost as if you're making your reality the dominant reality.

And I mean,

Everyone's own reality is their dominant reality,

But you're focusing more on it than you are focusing on other people because you're like I like the term increasing the resolution of your reality.

Yeah,

I just I found that connection very interesting how in order to be an effective magician and have self-expression,

You have to.

You have to be clear and radically honest with yourself,

And then it's the same with mom breaking out of social reality constructs.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I mean,

Because you think like everyone's got their own personal painting of the world,

Right?

From the magician side of things,

Like being a creative person,

Like if your painting isn't clear,

Then you don't really have a picture.

Like there's no fuzzy pictures that are beautiful.

But also,

If you want to ever invite someone into your reality,

Do you ever want to be like,

Hey,

Look at this awesome way of doing things.

Like look at this cool way we can be or,

You know,

Hey,

Let's not be ashamed of ourselves or maybe like let's do something more in compassion or love or whatever your messages in the world,

Whatever you think is good to bring other people into.

Let's stop painting each other or whatever.

You have to be clear in your reality.

Like if you're trying to present someone,

Hey,

Look at my painting,

It's yours,

But yours is all fuzzy.

Like no one's going to want to join you in that reality.

And that's why a lot of people actually,

Their people's personal realities very often isn't their own.

I mean,

A lot of people go along with group realities and like they don't even really know what their own reality is in the sense of like what their real desires are,

What their real opinions are about things.

Like they're so afraid or so unclear because they clouded themselves earlier in life.

They just jump on with whatever the dominant reference group is,

Like whatever their social circle or whatever their community is into.

And they just assume that's the truth.

A lot of people just assume that.

A lot of people have been trained from childhood to just go along with whatever.

But inside,

Deep inside,

They have this subjective perception and that's where the creative,

Creativity comes from.

That's why creative people often seem as rebels,

Seem like rebels because it's kind of,

You just think like what are the odds that someone's absolute personal truth happens to match up with their truth of their city,

Of their church community or their family.

The odds are infinitesimally low.

So very often someone who's like really true to themselves ends up rebelling not because you have to be a rebel,

But because they're actually being true to their reality in spite of whatever is trying to be imposed on them.

It's almost like to be creative and to effectively create your reality,

You have to almost step out of reality and find the pieces of reality that are you and the pieces that aren't you and not so much go your own separate way and become a rebel,

But figure yourself out within the scope of reality.

Because there has to be a lot of.

.

.

The scope of social reality.

This is why the term social reality is so important because step outside of the dominant social reality you're around and figure out who you are.

I do think it can be very challenging,

Especially if you're around the same people all the time.

Sometimes I do think it's useful to take a break.

We all know from most of us with our families,

We have certain tendencies that we develop from childhood and even no matter how much we grow or how much we change,

We come home for Thanksgiving,

We act like 13 year old version of ourselves again.

Not that obviously people can break that,

But it's a very challenging tendency to break,

Which is why I do think it can help to take some time away or just take some time in solitude.

If you really want to get to know your personal reality,

You should spend time with yourself.

Another reason why a lot of creative people spend a lot of time by themselves or spend a lot of time being up late at night or early in the morning,

Those are called creative times,

But really they're just alone times where I think it's easy to be true.

That reminds me of a writer going into the woods for a week to get over writer's block.

Artists usually do have those kind of tendencies.

It's very interesting.

Yeah,

Because if you have that kind of artistic archetype within you,

This idea of going out into the woods just seems so enjoyable.

Even if you're not a writer,

I have a buddy who's a computer programmer,

But even for him the idea of going out into the woods and just being off your screen and thinking,

There's some part of us that it really resonates with,

But that's the part of us that knows if you really want to think creatively,

That's what we need.

We need to stop getting all these inputs.

That's one of the reasons why these phones are so bad.

Social media is so terrible for our creative ability because it gives us all these inputs and cogs up the doorway.

It puts all this stuff on the screen,

On the lens,

That we can't see things clearly.

We're seeing what other people throw at us.

That's why we're anti-screens.

Social media is just,

If you ever go on social media,

I feel like it's more relevant for people in my age group.

I noticed that they get their thinking from Twitter posts and they'll use that as a news source.

It's more like you're just taking someone else's belief.

That's what we do.

There's something wrong with taking other people's beliefs and agreeing with it,

But I don't think it's necessarily agreement,

More of echo chambers.

Just like,

Oh,

This sounds like it's something that's rational.

Let me just post it up.

One of the issues with social media or electronic media is that it comes in at such a high volume.

A lot of people before social media would get their information from newspapers and maybe all of their opinions came from newspapers,

The way you said.

But you can only read so many newspaper articles in a day.

At least that person who's stuck on the news,

At least has some time to think of their own opinion.

But with Twitter,

With Infinite Scroll,

You can consume so much information.

You can consume 200 news articles in a few minutes in terms of stimuli.

When do you have time to think for yourself?

When do you have time to come up with your own opinion?

It just doesn't give you time.

It doesn't give you space.

It's great to listen to other.

We're making content right now that I hope people listen to,

But I hope that they pause it or they stop and they actually think about it for themselves instead of like,

You know,

Just letting us think for them.

That's not cool.

Yeah,

It's not good for them.

It's a matter of our ideas are good.

And it's like you're in your own reality or social media bubble because you go on and you look at people's stories,

But you're you're comparing yourself to people and then you're on the couch.

Meanwhile,

While other people are looking at your stories,

They're also in the same position,

But you don't see that.

Instead,

You see the stories that they post,

The good times,

The bad times,

Even with your own profile.

Like you have pictures of you achieving something or going to a cool place or doing something.

It's like there's there's there's almost an image of yourself that you're crafting for the public,

But it's like it only exists in your head because someone scrolls past your picture.

They'll probably spend a couple of seconds on it and then on to the next.

And it's like whatever intention you had in mind,

It's almost like a game because you're you're playing it.

And what it does is it gives you dopamine and it it makes your it makes you feel the same emotions you would feel socially.

I feel like because you you're interacting with other people and it's more of a like the minus.

Yeah,

The dopamine,

Which you don't get the oxytocin,

A real connection.

The end of having like those things are supposed to come together like this chemical cocktail that we're supposed to get together.

The dopamine is great.

It's not supposed to come like it's supposed to come with some other things sometimes.

And like when we get dopamine without the actual connection that are oxytocin receptors end up starving and we feel lonely.

And you know,

Those people on the couch like it is the game.

It's like they're both trying to impress each other with stuff that they only did a minimal amount of time just for the photo.

Meanwhile they're both by themselves alone,

Maybe not as happy on the couch.

It's been challenging for me because like my business used to post a lot and used to be tied,

I used to get a lot of opportunities for Instagram.

But now like I hate thinking of like I need photo ops and like I when I do have a cool moment I really don't want to ruin it by taking out my phone.

Like there's some cool thing.

I mean cool things happen to me every so often.

You know like not I may have the most but it's like sometimes I'm like oh this is this is actually a great moment to share and show people how great my life is.

But like then I ruin the great moment of my life that I'm trying to show.

It's like you can't I mean not to say that you can't have both in some form but it's really hard.

And like the most impressive Instagram profiles are obviously you know on photo shoots and stuff.

It's not exactly what it used to be but you know some people use it well.

But yeah anyway I've been ongoing in this ongoing thing with it personally.

I think everyone has a struggle with it.

It has the lure of like social interaction like social media hence the name.

But it's not not exactly social.

It's more like in your head social.

Yeah actually I think I've been hearing this like people close to your age a lot of more people are recognizing how bad it is for you.

Anyway we don't keep talking about social media but like I do think I'm hoping we see a backlash of like more younger people being like we don't want to be on phones in real life.

It is true.

Most people most people in my age group at least I noticed that they it's almost like an attachment to the persona that you have on social media.

And it's to the extent that if you're going to communicate would appear from my generation.

I think your generation uses Facebook.

We use Instagram.

We look up people on Instagram.

We even message on Instagram.

We don't really use phones.

It's like it's like all encompassing of like your friends.

Your it's like your entire social life is just there on that app.

Yeah.

But anyway.

Yeah it's tough.

Like when I when I was single it was like the greatest tool.

It was like the greatest tool.

I can't I can't deny the fact that it was a great way to display all my positive qualities the way that makes me really seem interesting.

So I'm just getting to know like I can't deny that.

I understand why people are using it.

I'm like very glad to not be single and not be tempted to whatever value value displaying value signaling things about it.

But it was cool.

It's like and it's just like meeting people is fun like you said and meeting attractive people is fun and meeting interesting people that you wouldn't otherwise meet is fun.

So I can't deny that there's something to that.

It just comes with the cost.

And the cost can get high.

Especially with the lockdown.

I feel like a lot of people geared towards just more screen time more being on their phones.

Of course.

At least people around.

So I got the idea of tension as the word to use from the magician archetype episode.

You mentioned the role of morality in making magic and how morality can get you attached to sheds and you start shooting yourself and you start making yourself feel like you should be this idea that you're currently not.

And so you're not being honest with yourself.

I was referring to that clash.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

Part of like creativity,

But also self love if you want to call it that is being real with everything that's within you,

Which is the dark stuff,

Which is what we talked about last time.

Like being real with whatever dark impulses you have being real with the predator that's in you being real with the prey animal and the little bitches.

And you're like just being real with everything that's in you and not trying to slice things up with like you because that's what morality does.

That's what morality does for society.

It's like this is good and this is evil.

And if anything is evil about you is not yet to pretend like it's not you.

And always creates a sort of dissonance in someone.

It creates attention.

It's like,

Yeah,

I mean,

When someone tries to cut out part of themselves,

They feel incomplete.

And so,

Yeah,

Should is always like somehow self limiting.

The word should.

A lot of things are conditional.

Like if you want to be successful,

Then get out of bed.

But it's not.

Anyway,

I mean,

That's the bad experience.

Yeah.

And that's why I think that's the way the body is a way a method of controlling people.

Yeah.

Have you read the book What to Say When You're Talking to Yourself?

No.

It's a it's this book on self-talk and he gives a really good explanation of should and why you shouldn't use should and your self-talk.

Because when you're when you tell yourself that you should do something,

There's no actual intention to do it.

You're just telling yourself the I should be doing this,

But your mind recognizes that you're not doing it better.

A better phrase would be I am or I can or I.

There's a specific phrase that follows up with.

OK,

I don't know that book,

But I like conditional statements because it puts everything into clear,

Clear language.

Like a lot of people when they argue like,

Oh,

You should be this way or men should be this way or this.

People need to do this.

People should do this.

But it's like who says under who's under whose framework?

Like what if what if I don't want to you know,

What if I you know,

You should go to the gym.

Well,

What if I want to be fat?

Like I could you tell me I should go to the gym.

I do you know what I want.

But you could say if you want to lose weight,

You should go to the gym.

Fine.

We can create that like an objective statement perhaps.

At least it's something that can be proven or disproven.

But if you just say you should like or I should like,

It's kind of an empty kind of a meaningless statement.

It doesn't really say anything.

But conditional statements like are very precise.

Like this is these are the causes and effects and you can choose to follow them or not.

And it's clear.

And yeah,

Because like there's this guy who's speaking on a few comments on how to be attractive.

There's this guy who's speaking to who like he was going through this should thing about being manly.

Like he wasn't the most naturally masculine guy.

But then he felt all this pressure to be a certain kind of male like chismo guy and he felt like I thought you know,

He's like,

Oh,

Why should I be this way?

Why should I be grounded?

Why should I buy all these things?

I was like,

I'm not saying that you should.

There are certain traits that if you want to if you if you want to be with feminine women,

Then you then you must be this way to be attractive to be like these are the causes and effects.

I don't care what you do.

I know it's saying that you need to get away from this like shooting yourself or just choosing that if I want X,

Then I maybe I need to do why.

But it's like reclaiming that choice based on the objective causes and effects rather than having some like feeling of like God or your mother or your society telling you that you must be this way or the other why should kick down the group.

That's where that's where that shooting is really limiting.

And where does that come up on in motivation?

And like,

Because people usually you should as a way to motivate themselves like,

Oh,

I should go to the gym more I should eat better I should do this.

But it's not.

I guess my question is,

What would be the better version of self talk to motivate yourself into doing something?

Would it be I am going to go to the gym or I go to the gym and take care of myself or some iteration?

Well,

Actually,

When I journal to myself when I have something like that,

It's like,

If I want this,

Then I better do this.

I mean,

I don't know,

I don't know what the exact words are.

But like,

The thing to really pay attention to is like,

A lot of people when they say I should go to the gym,

They say it in a way like they're whipping themselves like they have this like feeling of like guilt like bad self like you didn't go to the gym,

You should go to the gym.

And like,

It doesn't matter,

You can say like the most positive string of words like,

I'm going to go to the gym,

But people are like,

I'm going to go to the gym,

I'll be a good boy.

Like that's not,

That's not a,

It's like that feeling is limiting.

Like you're like reinforcing this self image that you're weak,

As opposed to like,

I'm choosing to go to the gym now.

And,

You know,

Sometimes if you have a tendency to bitch out on things or go in the opposite direction of your intention,

Which is true for all of us,

Unless we're born perfect.

I mean,

Again,

With that realm of control,

Like you have to be fierce with how you think,

Right?

Like the moment you think I'm gonna,

I'm gonna,

You know,

Skip out on my resolution again,

As they always like,

You have to be fierce with that thought even before the action happens.

Otherwise,

Then of course,

You're going to go in that direction.

Yeah,

You have anything going on like that?

You want to talk about it,

I'm just curious.

Not right now,

But I'm very focused on self-talk and how it impacts my life.

I'm reading this book that I told you about and I just noticed a lot of places where my self-talk wasn't the best.

And now that I'm becoming aware of it,

I'm able to kind of play with it and see how it affects me differently.

And I've been doing that a lot.

Can't is a very negative word.

Oh,

It's negative,

Not negative.

It's a word,

But I try to cut it off my vocabulary.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Yeah,

Yeah,

I used to say stuff like I'm stupid or you're so stupid or whatever.

I used to actually say I hate myself a lot in my head,

Which obviously is the bad thing.

So I would try to reverse that by saying I love myself,

But that starts to feel like a little sappy after a while.

You may have heard me say this before,

But like my one mantra,

If I'm feeling like I need to like tell myself something that's better than whatever I'm saying is I got your back.

Like,

I just say this to myself whenever I feel like feeling grounded or feel like I'm thinking stupid thoughts,

Like I got your back.

We're going to figure this out because it's not yelling at myself.

It's like,

I'm here to support you self.

We're going to get out of this wrong direction together.

Or this challenge that we're afraid of,

Like we're going to figure it out together as opposed to,

As opposed to shaming myself or shaming,

You know,

A lot of people like they met,

They ruined,

They disconnect from their own positive faculties.

They disconnect from their creativity,

From their motivation,

From their passion.

They just make for all the things that would help them overcome challenges by yelling at themselves so that part of themselves obviously doesn't show up.

So the next time they do the thing,

They don't have the confidence.

They don't have the mental clarity or whatever.

Right?

The most important relationship is your relationship with yourself.

Obviously,

Sounds a little cliche,

But like,

True.

And I think,

You know,

That,

That should be the root of all of your self-talk is like having a good relationship with yourself,

Really liking yourself.

And then you don't need to,

And the things on the outside,

If you don't affect you that much,

If you really like yourself,

If you really enjoy your personal reality,

Even if you're by yourself in it,

Then you don't have to worry so much about what's going on outside.

And oddly enough,

Bringing back the original topic,

Like people will want to join you in that reality,

Because it's cooler.

Like build yourself like a good reality.

You'll have more people join your reality once,

Perhaps if you are not alone.

Yeah.

And socially,

With the person who has the most dominant reality is usually the one being most authentic.

They're being the most real with themselves.

So they see reality through a more sober lens than other people.

And it kind of draws other people in.

Yeah.

And that's like the gist of like a Nietzschean master morality versus slave morality.

Like the master archetype is that where there is no separation between intention and will.

Like the master controls the land,

It controls the people.

It's like,

If I want something,

I'll do it.

He doesn't worry.

I mean,

If you're,

If you're the master,

You don't care about what other people are thinking.

Like when someone's in slave morality,

The slave archetype always blames someone else or is in fear of someone else or is worried about what someone else thinks because they feel that that other person is their master and has some control over them.

And like,

Similar to like the predator and prey archetypes and stuff like that,

Like are you letting yourself be the most in charge of your experience?

There's a book,

I mean,

I think last time I spoke,

I recommended a few books.

And this one's a really long one,

So I'm not saying whatever.

But my favorite book,

Shantaram,

There's a scene,

It's a true story,

There's a scene where the guy's getting beaten by,

He's in this Indian prison and he's getting beaten by these guards.

Like he's bloody,

He's chained to the wall,

Like everything's fucked.

But he has this beautiful line of like,

You always have the freedom to choose how you react to a situation.

Like his exact words were like,

You always have the freedom to choose whether to hate or love.

And like,

It was like a feel good moment in a weird way,

But it's like,

You always have a choice of how you think.

And if you,

But if you give that away,

Then you're really,

Honestly.

So how does resentment take away your power?

Because you also said that when you're resentful of something,

You're giving away your power to influence your reality versus not being resentful and pushing the boundaries of what's possible in your reality.

Yeah,

I mean,

It's similar to what we're saying.

It's like,

If you're resenting someone,

There's an assumption that they have control over your experience,

Right?

Like you're blaming someone from something they did to you,

Or you're jealous of someone,

Or like,

I mean,

Resentment means re-feeling,

Re- and then sentiment feeling.

So like you're re-feeling something.

Blame morality.

That's what it is.

Blame morality,

Exactly.

Right?

Like if you actually,

Like the master,

I know,

I mean,

Maybe these are charged terms now,

But like,

You know,

If you really are a master,

There is nothing,

There's no reason to ever resent the slaves.

There's no reason to resent anyone else if you really are the master of a certain domain because they don't have any effect on you,

Right?

Like,

And if you take on this idea,

Like,

You know,

If you really,

And you even spiritualize it,

Like if you really believe you control reality,

Your reality,

If you really believe that you're the number one person affecting your experience of reality,

Then why would you ever resent someone if they can't affect you,

Right?

And obviously this is an ideal and,

You know,

People will do things to you,

But if you actually believe in your faculties,

And I think you have a great relationship with yourself and like,

Okay,

Even though this person screwed me over,

Or this person's out to get me,

Or this person took advantage of me when I was vulnerable,

I can figure this out.

Like they're not gonna,

They're not gonna affect my actual experience from now moving forward.

And then you can't,

I mean,

That's the beauty of forgiveness.

It's not about being kind and like a good person or whatever.

Like the power of forgiveness is like,

You're basically saying,

I'm not going to hold you responsible for my experience anymore.

I'm letting you off the hook because I don't give a shit what you do anymore.

Like that's,

That's forgiveness as well.

You know,

It doesn't have to be the sappy thing,

You know.

Jesus probably has some good lines about it,

But it's not coming to mind.

That's also why you're able to forgive without the other person necessarily having to be present because you're just,

You're freeing the hold that they had on your psyche or emotions.

And then gratitude is the exact opposite because you're thinking of where your power is in the reality.

You're grateful for your abundance,

For the people around you,

As opposed to where you've lost power,

Have been a victim because the master is most likely going to be abundant.

So he's grateful.

He's definitely grateful.

And if something goes bad,

The master also takes responsibility because like who else is there?

Like someone who really in master morality doesn't even,

Doesn't think about anything beyond this,

Right?

Like he is the,

He's the buck stops with him.

It's the last thing,

Right?

So it's like if something bad happens,

It's on him to figure it out.

Like there's no room to complain who's going to complain to or about like he's at the top of the pyramid.

So he just has to deal with it.

And when good things happen,

He could feel pride in that because he probably has something to do with it.

But it's just a more pleasant,

Yeah,

It's the abundant reality.

I want to share a spiritual view.

Sure.

So tension is the cost of living on earth.

Is that because tension never really goes away?

It's always there.

It doesn't matter how much self-development you do.

It's part of polarity.

It's part of just being a human interacting with other humans and having emotions.

So but the more we challenge and step into tension,

The more we expand into ourselves.

Because your tension often reveals false expectations,

Appearing real or fear or limiting beliefs that you've had because some limiting beliefs do cause tension.

So the more we step into tension,

The more we expand spiritually.

So then the more we expand,

Then the more dominant our reality becomes.

And the more we're able to kind of step out of and see social norms or social reality.

And the more we're able to be a magician because we're becoming more aware of all that we are as we expand by stepping into tension.

That's kind of a spiritual take.

Yeah.

And to go through that path backwards,

Kind of like there's a lot of tension and just going against the social reality that you're in.

It's a natural tendency of a group to challenge you,

Which is why it feels,

I mean,

That's how social realities coalesce because it feels kind of weird and not so good to go against what people think or go to do with people you think people are going to judge you for.

That has a lot of tension in it.

That's like one of the ways,

That's the way a lot of people stay small,

Never really live their lives.

It's just that fear of the social reality.

So yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah,

And then when we break free of it.

Yeah.

And for someone who would be in that,

In that trying to work on themselves and self development,

They would be at first,

You would feel way more resistance and tension trying to break out of that,

Break out of staying small.

But then as you start to break out,

It's almost like you gain momentum and it just becomes easier,

At least from my experience in life,

I noticed that when I was first trying to kind of establish boundaries and learn how to tell,

Say no to people and make sure that I knew where my reality was and that was being honest with my compass.

I found so much resistance around me,

But as I progressed,

I just found that it became less about other people and more about me and what I was,

I was viewing the world,

What my beliefs were.

It wasn't about what the other person did.

It was how I perceived it and how I can kind of like use magic to change my beliefs and adjust them accordingly.

Because I became more aware of like,

I don't even know what I became aware of.

I think just myself and.

Yeah,

You probably became aware of like the whole world outside of the fishbowl of what you thought was okay.

It's like once you pierce out of that bubble,

Even if it's just like breaking a social norm or like expectations of your reference group,

Like you're like,

Oh,

There's a whole world out here and that feels magical.

Like if you didn't,

If you thought the world was here and you thought there's nothing outside of the world,

There's like,

Oh,

There's another,

It's like popping,

I mean,

I hate to say,

But the pop out of the matrix,

You're like,

Oh,

Wow,

There's another world outside of that little world.

Well,

That really,

That little world is not something that you can take that seriously,

Right?

If that's a smaller world,

Like if you knew this was a dream,

If you knew this was a simulation for sure,

And you knew this was an outside world,

Right?

And you wrote the word resistance.

Like it's just like resistance training with weights,

Like with weightlifting,

With strength training,

Like you find a resistance that you can actually lift.

It feels like there's a lot of tension,

Literal tension in your muscles.

It's hard for awhile.

It maybe wears you down if you become stronger and that way it eventually becomes really light and not a big deal.

And then you can find a new challenge and a new resistance point.

And it's like,

That's,

That's essentially the path of growth emotionally,

Same principle as muscle growth.

That's a good metaphor.

I didn't think of it that way,

But yeah.

Yeah.

And it's like,

You know,

I just think of myself and like what I thought was a really heavy weight,

Like in terms of like,

Just take shame for instance.

I mean,

All of us can be related to shame,

Like,

Like what I thought was such a big deal now.

Like I'm not that I'm shameless,

But like,

There's stuff that I'm happy to talk about.

I don't even think about it.

Like I feel almost no tension thinking about or talking about it,

But making it make other people feel really embarrassed or really uncomfortable.

And it's like,

Wow,

I kind of forgot.

The other day I was speaking with a guy,

I was speaking with a guy called The Podcast.

I met him up in Thailand and I was like just speaking about my cult experience,

Which I feel zero shame about.

But it's my life.

And he was getting so contracted.

We were like in this juice bar and it's like,

Oh my God,

Like people are going to hear us.

It's like,

Why are you,

Why are you contracting?

Like I'm talking about my life.

You have nothing to be ashamed about.

Like,

But like I can remember there was a time where like,

If I was speaking with someone who was saying something that would,

That I would think other people would judge,

Even if I wasn't saying it,

I would feel embarrassed too.

And like,

That's like,

You know,

Different levels of tension,

Right?

I,

At one point that was a heavy weight for me.

Now it's a really lightweight,

Like I feel shameless when it comes to stuff like that.

There's probably other things I feel like,

I got to be something from this heavy for me,

But like,

That's kind of like the goal of being free socially or becoming a magician where like you're really frigging shameless and you can lift those heavy shame weights.

Like they're nothing like that's not to say that you need to do weird stuff for the sake of doing weird stuff,

But I mean,

A lot of magical people and creative people,

Like they do weird stuff at some point because like,

That's their way of breaking free.

Like even in the four hour,

About four hour work week,

I mean,

Have you read it?

I don't know if you read it,

But like if Eris gives all these exercises at the end and he has one where like he would say,

Like,

You'd go into a crowded area and just lie down and like pretend to be catatonic.

I remember that word.

I looked up that word catatonic when I first read it.

Like you just pretend to be catatonic and like just lie there because of the fact it was uncomfortable and because of the fact it would train him to not give a shit about what people thought.

It's a weird thing to do.

I assume he doesn't do that anymore,

But like doing stuff that's a little strange is very freeing.

It kind of reminds me of the whole Aleister Crawley thing,

How a lot of the rituals kind of shock you into reality and being sober into reality.

So it's like he's doing that and he's shocking his belief or whatever belief he was trying to work through by doing that because it's very ridiculous.

It's very embarrassing.

So it forces you to kind of step into yourself a little bit.

The same thing that you said earlier of traveling,

Just going to a different place.

You kind of get out of that fish bubble fishbowl because I live in Brooklyn and my a lot of my growth didn't really start until I moved to Stony Brook for college and I was in Long Island and I was just experiencing all these different types of people that weren't necessarily Brooklyn nights.

That is just an entirely different culture and it helped me put things into perspective a lot better.

I wasn't stuck in one worldview.

So that was good.

Definitely a lot of shocking your beliefs.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I had a similar thing when I was in college and I went down south with a braids for OCS and I hung out with Republicans for the first time.

So I grew up in Brooklyn also.

So I just assumed that what all the liberal adults said and thought,

I just assumed that that was right and that anything else was wrong.

I didn't even consider that there are smart Republicans and they're smart people that have opposite worldviews.

And like by knowing that there's that side,

That reality also has a lot of merits to it.

It's like,

Oh,

I've been in this,

I've been in this assumption,

This bubble.

It's just another bubble.

Like they're both kind of silly.

And like even like my,

My very liberal friends now have the same feeling.

I mean,

They're not,

You know,

Whatever,

I don't care about the politics so much,

But just like recognizing that all of our perceptions,

Even our political perceptions are just perceptions.

I mean,

Like there's,

There's so much stuff outside of it,

Which is why another reason why I try to avoid,

Try to avoid politics,

Being active in politics,

But I try to avoid social media.

They're kind of the same thing now.

And that results in a lot of echo chambers,

A lot of cancel culture and people just posting and reposting the same.

Like I'm not,

I'm not trying to get political,

But I just,

I see people just repost the same posts,

Like three different people.

And it's not,

You're not really being effective with that because you're,

You're reposting an idea,

But you're not really explaining the idea or what about the idea it is that you're trying to convey to your audience.

But I digress.

That's social media.

Yeah,

And social media is designed to show you a confirmation of what you think.

I mean,

Whether it's through ads or like if you click on a baby photo,

You're going to see all baby photos.

Like if you click on a political thing,

You're going to see all things that match that opinion.

So if people look at their social media feed,

If people are spending hours a day on Facebook or whatever,

Or Instagram,

And all of their feed is exactly their opinion on things,

They're like,

Ah,

Yeah,

You see,

You see like everyone thinks like me.

Everyone else is crazy.

Like everyone thinks like me,

But like that's been curated.

Just like just the stuff that fits your reality because that's just going to keep you on Facebook.

It's designed that way.

So you know,

Like I think social media,

I mean,

Is exposing like how subjective things are.

Anything else going on?

Anything else?

Oh,

Did you read,

Did you read Women?

I think I recommended two books with you,

Right?

Yeah.

I mean,

But you also recommended War of Art a couple of times.

So I figured I'd pick it up.

Okay,

Cool.

Have you dug into either of them?

No,

I'm still finishing the,

What to Say When You're Talking to Yourself.

But I plan on reading one book at a time.

Yeah.

Wait,

You read multiple?

Yeah,

I don't know.

I mean,

I think,

Yeah,

I don't know.

I think I've made a lot of connections between things by reading different books on different subjects,

Like even a fiction book.

And like,

Not always.

When you see a pattern,

Like when you're reading one type of book,

Like a science book,

And then like a philosophy book,

And they mentioned the same thing.

That's when I personally,

I feel like,

Oh,

A light bulb comes off.

It's like,

You know,

A light bulb pops up.

And that doesn't always happen.

But I feel like that cross,

That cross,

Mental cross training has benefits to it.

It's also my personality to want to do a lot of things with me.

But like,

I don't know,

I've gotten a lot out of reading my new books at the same time.

I usually have three.

I usually have one fiction book,

One nonfiction book,

And then something else.

I mean,

It's not a topic.

Either fiction or nonfiction.

It's like reading Olympics right there.

That's pretty great.

Well,

It's just,

You know,

Alternate.

It's like whatever you feel like reading that day,

You know.

True.

Yeah,

True.

Reading,

I'm very,

Sometimes I don't feel motivated enough to read my book.

And so I don't finish it as quickly as I wanted to.

But I did read the pages of women.

And I was like,

Wow,

This is really like raw.

And I wanted to like jump into it.

But I don't know,

I have OCD with like,

I have to finish one thing before I start another.

I would challenge you just to maybe break this part of your reality just to see.

Maybe it's actually fun to switch back and forth.

Because maybe you didn't feel like reading your thinking book for a moment,

But you read the Bukowski book and it feels really good.

And then you get bored with that for a second.

And then you read other pages or whatever,

You know,

More pages,

Whatever.

You get what I'm saying.

And like maybe I'm definitely going to try that.

Yeah.

There's also,

There's a little trick that I use just like whenever I read,

I try to envision scenes in my head and just,

It helps with retaining information.

I don't know if you have any like little idiosyncrasies that you use for reading.

Well,

Someone asked me recently when it comes to like reading really dense stuff,

Like reading Jung or like,

You know,

Like biological stuff.

Like stuff that's not meant for like the modern day public.

Like how do you read that stuff?

And what I do is every paragraph I try to say it in my own words.

Like if I'm reading like a paragraph,

You know,

Because especially in the late 1800s,

Early 1900s,

They all wrote,

It's really long because they have long attention to it back then.

They're throwing these really long sentences with a lot of words and commas and stuff.

And they're also writing for other intellectuals.

And I find like,

If I just read it and try to summarize every paragraph in a sentence,

I kind of get it.

At least I get what I think I get.

And that's kind of how I've translated.

That's kind of how I made the Mastering Archetype Challenge.

Like you can probably get books and stuff like I just translated a bunch of stuff and try to make it practical.

And that's what I do.

That's what I do on my podcast too.

I read stuff and I try to just summarize it into bullet points and then I can talk about it.

But even for retention,

I found that useful.

Yeah.

That's cool.

It's kind of like double thinking because you think while you're reading it and then you think again when you're trying to make it into your own words.

So it helps with staying.

Yeah,

It's one of the great things about books is it gives you a chance to think at your own speed,

Have your own opinion,

Have your own reality.

Fucking a magician.

Yeah.

There's,

I think books are probably the best investment you can make.

Just like,

You know,

$10 and then you gain this lifetime of wisdom from someone else.

Even if it's on the same topic,

You always learn something different or something you add on to the previous topic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love books.

But I think it covered all the questions.

We pretty much covered everything.

All right.

Until next time.

Young of the You want a piece of me?

Take the whole thing golden Not stolen,

I give it away Truth ain't black and white,

Even acting right,

Right?

There's still a little gray I'm coming from pool and straight to your headphones