120 The Fool Archetype: Welcoming Chaos

The Fool Archetype is the aspect of the psyche that takes nothing seriously, welcomes uncertainty, and always finds a way to break into laughter... In mythology, it's seen in the Trickster God. In psychology, it's sometimes labeled as the "Inner Child." But it's much more than that... The Fool sees the "deeper reality" beneath appearances. And that in itself can change your life...

Transcript

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Today we are speaking about the pool archetype on welcoming chaos.

The pool archetype is the part of the psyche that welcomes everything.

I've spent some time searching for various definitions,

Practical definitions,

Metaphoric definitions,

But this is one that I think we should start with.

It's the part of the psyche that welcomes everything.

We'll give a more nuanced definition later,

Which allows for spontaneous joy because this is the part of your consciousness that really doesn't fear consequences.

It seeks entertainment.

It's truly independent of outcome because it doesn't really see the outcomes as real.

This is part of your psyche that sees the world as a simulation.

We often see this in mythology with trickster gods like Loki and Norse mythology.

Leprechauns are basically trickster gods.

If you look at contemporary mythologies,

The Joker is one of our more popular pool archetypes.

Obviously he has a dark application,

Which we'll speak about.

Basically these trickster deities,

Because they don't take the material world that seriously,

They're kind of just in it for their own entertainment.

Everything they do is for their entertainment because they don't actually want anything or fear anything,

Which as you can imagine,

If you could enact that,

There's some very positive applications.

People who are working on not being needy,

Not being attached to outcome,

Basically people who take the world a little too seriously could really benefit from the whole why so serious thing.

We're going to speak about how to enact this trickster archetype.

If you're watching the live stream right now,

It seems like we have a bit of a delay.

If I don't respond to your comments immediately,

I apologize,

But someone just commented looking up Kitsune's,

I don't know if I'm saying this right,

Kitsune in Japanese mythology,

Because I'm half Japanese.

They're both protector gods as well as devious creatures.

Great example of the fool archetype.

As far as practical application,

As I said,

Becoming truly independent to outcome is obviously beneficial.

This is beyond,

It kind of builds off of,

If you caught the existential kink episodes,

It's kind of like this hyper Daoism.

If there's a Daoism expert out there,

Maybe I'm using Daoist philosophy incorrectly,

But at least my interpretation of really being in acceptance,

Really being in surrender of reality the way it is,

But also getting off on it and enjoying it and finding a way to entertain your consciousness rather than taking life too seriously.

Hence the joker's famous phrase,

Keith Ledger's joker's famous phrase,

Why so serious.

Beyond that,

The spiritual application is like,

If you're really in your fool archetype,

You have a total trust in the future.

Kind I'm going to explain my forearm tattoo because it relates to the,

Actually it is representative of the fool archetype.

It's kind of like my personal spiritual ideal.

It's also what I kind of try to not always,

But try to bring into coaching when I'm helping guys with their life stories is like bringing this fool archetype of like really doing life for your own entertainment or for the entertainment of this part of your consciousness.

All right,

So before we jump in,

We just got a couple of announcements.

And again,

If you're watching the live stream,

Feel free to drop questions.

I will,

I'm happy to go off on tangents.

I have a lot of notes here and I probably won't get to them all.

So I'm happy to follow the interest of whoever's watching.

But I have two announcements.

One is my own life.

Not exactly related to this,

But if you caught my last episode on the Orpheus archetype,

Which was on how to integrate your romantic side,

I had recorded that while on a little getaway with Nalaiah on Monday at 7 AM.

About an hour,

I was kind of inspired to do that because an hour and a half later I had an elephant show up with a,

Will you marry me sign.

So I got engaged on Monday and that was great.

And I just want to share that because I share my announcements here.

A little bit of full archetype enactment here.

I don't have to go through the details,

But basically my original plan for proposal kind of got botched by kind of went with the flow and then basically the fate's aligned that an elephant was able to show up to our breakfast.

And I got the elephant to bring a will you marry me sign.

That was fun.

So that's cool.

New life stage for me.

Okay.

So let's jump in.

This full archetype,

As I mentioned,

Is very it's kind of like the part of the basis of my spirituality.

Actually,

All the tattoos on my,

On the right side of my body are related to the full archetype.

So I'm going to open with this story.

It's actually for my book from when I was in the sex cults,

Because this is when I first became aware of this concept,

But also enacted into myself.

So prior to all of this,

But prior to the sex cults,

If you caught those episodes,

I was really in my head.

I was really closed off.

I was really serious,

Right?

Like the joker would have had a field day with me.

I was very yeah,

I was just very in my head.

I was kind of like your,

Your almost typical shut down,

Closed off anxious,

Apathetic guy.

All right.

It's kind of,

This is kind of what brought me into the work I'm doing now as well as not having a good time.

My subjective reality was very unpleasant and that was part of why I did this kind of extreme thing of joining a cult,

Specifically a matriarchal sex cult.

And something they did when I moved into their urban ashram type thing is and I mentioned this in the in those episodes is they would pair you up where you'd be assigned to sleep next to someone.

It wasn't supposed to be sexual,

But it could be,

It was basically,

They paired you up with your,

In their language,

I'm putting this in quotes,

Your opposite energy signature.

So they paired up in their language,

Fire people with water people that not really that important,

But I was paired up with a woman who was absolutely my opposite.

I was super way too much in my head and she was not in her head at all.

Like she was like your typical manic pixie dream girl.

She believed in astrology and crystal healing and reptilian overlords and stuff that like really made me grown,

But it was actually perfect because that was,

I was really lacking in my sense of wonder and I really was lacking my full archetype.

So it's actually an important scene in my book where it was one of the first nights we were assigned to sleep together.

We were in the top bunk of a bunk bed.

She slides down the bed,

Like right at the crack of dawn.

And she whips out this tarot deck,

Which of course made my eyes roll.

You know,

She draws,

She did some chanting,

Whatever mystical stuff.

And she asked me,

Do you want me to draw a card for you?

Or do you want to draw a card?

She would draw a card for the day.

Like,

You know,

And I didn't,

You know,

Of course,

Especially at this point,

I definitely did not believe in the divinatory powers of a set of 50,

Or no,

I don't know how many cards are in a tarot deck,

But these cardboard things,

I didn't believe that was a thing.

But it was also like,

You know,

I'm doing all this weird stuff anyway.

It can't hurt to try,

Right?

I'm giving everything a chance,

Which is the entry point to the full archetype.

So you know,

She yodels or chants or something.

She shuffles the deck,

Says some prayer,

Says some prayer.

I draw a card.

And I see on this card,

And this was a,

It wasn't a typical tarot deck,

But the fool arc,

You know,

Basically on this card,

I saw this naked young person doing a handstand next to an alligator and like some other dangerous stuff.

They basically was showing a young person oblivious to all the danger around them.

And the card had a zero on it.

It was the zero card and the major arcana.

And it said underneath the fool.

And even though I didn't believe in this stuff,

I was like,

Oh man,

I got the fool.

Like I'm gonna have a foolish day or,

You know,

I didn't like that.

Right.

I was intrigued by the symbols at least of the tarot deck,

Because as I mentioned in a few episodes,

You know,

Carl Jung's use of the tarot deck was that the symbols of the major arcana,

Those are like the big number cards represent the evolution of consciousness,

Like from infancy into various stages of adult life.

Timothy Leary,

Who I've mentioned a few episodes on his eight circuit consciousness model,

View the tarot deck as the evolution,

Not only of an individual consciousness,

But of life itself,

Like from the first amoeba all the way up to higher life forms.

Anyway,

I didn't think in these terms yet,

But I was intrigued.

And I was also disappointed.

It's like,

Oh man,

I got the fool card.

Like that sucks,

The fool.

And she said to me,

No,

Ruan,

The fool is the best card.

The fool is still in his inner child is in touch with innocence.

The fool has no fears and therefore nothing can affect it.

And that made me grow.

And of course as well,

Because I'm like,

Well,

Fear is important.

Like,

You know,

This,

This,

This,

Uh,

Person in the picture should realize that there's an alligator nearby,

Or if you've seen,

Um,

The more traditional tarot decks,

The full arc,

The full card is usually shown as,

Um,

A young boy with a bindle on his back.

And he's usually like leaning over a cliff,

Completely oblivious to the fact that there's a cliff there,

Cliff there,

He usually has a little puppy with him and it's basically showing this,

Uh,

This obliviousness to danger.

And I thought,

Oh,

This is not a good thing,

Right?

This is,

Uh,

You know,

Uh,

Why would someone want to do this?

In fact,

Um,

Uh,

Well,

Anyway,

I'll skip to the end of the story,

Whether it's self-fulfilling prophecy or,

Uh,

Or perhaps there is a divinatory power to tarot decks that I'm unaware of the next stage of my life.

This is why I opened this particular chapter three of my book.

I opened it with this scene because the next stage of my life,

The next like two months,

I realized that the way I had been living in my head before and trying to make everything practical and logical and seek the highest expected value from all of my decisions really had not been working for me.

Like I was pretty depressed.

I was pretty shut off.

You know,

I had a sexual dysfunction that was emotionally driven,

Like life was not good.

So for the next like two months,

I tried doing everything opposite.

And actually I have to credit this woman who kind of became my love interest throughout the time I was in,

Uh,

She was basically my girlfriend throughout the time I was in the cults.

She really helped me activate my foolish side.

Like really,

Really got me into my inner child.

I,

Me and her used to go around to New York doing ridiculous things.

Nothing,

Nothing particularly crazy or dangerous,

But like just very silly things that I would never do before,

Which is what a manic pixie dream girl does for you.

And it really freed up a part of my consciousness that had been stuck.

I guess I stopped worrying so much.

I stopped taking things so seriously and it unlocks a part of myself part.

I say with my creativity and I would say confidence,

Not the kind of like warrior confidence of like,

I'm going to destroy everything that comes in.

My gets in my way.

It was more like,

Uh,

It was a trickster confidence of like,

Nothing in this world can actually hurt me,

Which is not of course true.

And maybe that's not a,

That's not a perspective you want to take to an extreme.

We're going to talk about the dark side of the fool,

But it is,

It is a very freeing perspective.

And when I look back at my earlier life,

Um,

I spoke about this in some of the dark consciousness episodes where I would do like crazy things or destructive things like to myself,

Or like,

You know,

I'd have these,

Um,

When I was in high school and I was really depressed and suicidal,

I would randomly have these like mini manic episodes where like,

I would get up at like two in the morning and go to like a really dangerous part of town and like walk around the heroin addicts,

Like just to see like what was going on.

Uh,

And then there's some part of myself that was like seeking danger.

It was like a mini death wish.

And in my eyes,

Looking back now,

Analyzing myself,

I think this was like an attempt of my full archetype to get some expression because the full archetype accepts everything.

The full archetype doesn't fear consequences,

Doesn't feel reality.

So it just tries to seek out things that will entertain,

Entertain itself,

Basically.

And um,

One of the,

One of the,

Uh,

Inspiration is to make this episode now is that I've been reading this book,

Uh,

Called the dice man,

Which I meant to have here,

But whatever you can look it up the dice man by Luke Reinhardt,

Which is basically about this,

Uh,

Psychotherapist who abandons Freud and like trying to like develop a unified personality instead,

Uh,

Comes up with this theory where within each of us are multiple personalities.

So you could say union archetypes or these different impulses that are kind of independent have evolved separately.

And for us to be really healthy and fulfilled,

We ought to give each of these parts of our consciousness,

Um,

At least an opportunity,

A chance to express themselves.

So what this guy does in the book,

And I've been carrying around dice ever since I really got into the book was that he would make all of his decisions by dice rules.

Um,

You know,

He would list out different options,

Ranging from responsible things that he should do to things that he really wants to do,

But he would never give himself the chance to,

Uh,

But he rolls a die,

Rolls a die or,

Or multiple dice,

Depending on how he's running his odds.

And if,

And whatever happens based on his odds,

He does it.

And the idea in the book was that,

Um,

As you,

As you leave it to chance to see what you do,

Leave it up to randomness,

To chaos,

To see what ends up happening.

Everyone who would do this called dicing or dice living would end up making the options a little more and more far out,

A little more aggressive.

And he ends up doing like some really far out things,

Including rape and murder and stuff that certainly not condoning.

Um,

But I actually haven't played with this recently of like,

For,

For decisions that,

You know,

I mean,

All of the options I put down,

I'm willing to do.

For example,

I've been doing this in the mornings,

Uh,

Sometimes where like my current schedule,

My,

The schedule I've been working with hasn't really worked because,

You know,

This construction outside and it doesn't matter.

I basically putting one to six options of like,

Do I write,

Do I work out?

Do I go back to bed?

I make that one out of six.

Like I never,

If I ever went back to bed in the morning after waking up,

I'd always feel super guilty.

But if I give it a one out of six option,

I don't feel so bad.

Anyway,

I'm going to speak more about dicing later,

But I brought all this up because there's a line in that book,

Uh,

By the narrator,

Which is,

Uh,

People with paraphrasing,

But people with consistent personalities are only seen as sane in an insane society.

His viewpoint,

Which I think is resonant with the joker or the fight club is that society is all insane.

So the idea that you need to,

You know,

This,

The idea of most of our,

That most of us have of having a sane,

Orderly,

Um,

Consistent personality is only good in a society that wants to suppress and control you.

I'm not saying this is what I believe,

But this is a perspective.

The fool archetype as the joker or Luke Reinhart would say is,

Uh,

Or would express is that a really healthy person is random allows for the random chance.

That is what life,

Uh,

Is what life is.

The fact that life has evolved in the way it has the fact that we have consciousness,

The way we do the fact that humans are shaped in the form that we are is all,

I mean,

At least as far as science would say is based on random chance.

So your fool archetype is embracing this rather than fighting against this.

So let's get into principles because the first part of the fool,

The trickster as represented by the trickster gods is that in order to embrace this idea,

Uh,

It has the trickster,

The fool has to defy conventions and assumptions of normal.

So just for an extreme example,

If you look at,

Um,

Let's look at comic books and superheroes.

Um,

There's a,

There's a,

A villain in the Superman worlds called Mr.

Mixon split or Mixon,

Filk.

Uh,

There's no vowels in his name.

He's basically this kind of leprechaun character from the fifth dimension that basically fucks with Superman by like changing the laws of physics and like,

Like doing all these absurd things.

And actually those were like kind of my least favorite,

Uh,

Episodes.

Uh,

When I used to watch the Superman adventures,

Uh,

On television,

Um,

Because like there was so random and like,

You know,

Unlike another villain,

Like Lex Luther or,

You know,

Someone who wants to conquer the world,

Like you can say,

Oh,

This guy's evil.

The trickster guy,

The trickster gods are not really evil,

Right?

Like low key is seen as a villain compared to Thor,

Uh,

In Norse mythology,

But like,

He's not really evil.

He just kind of wants to fuck with everything.

He just used the line from the dark night.

He just wants to see the world burn.

He's not actually going for the gold or the jewels.

So it's like particularly hard to fight a trickster God.

Um,

You actually have to use his own,

Any,

Use his own logic,

His own bizarre logic because the trickster God essentially breaks the game.

So the application for an individual who let's say is,

Um,

Trapped by shame conditioning or,

Uh,

Is inhibited in some way or like myself when I was younger is just like really shut down or way too in his head or hyper rational.

Um,

You could benefit a lot from simply defying conventions by saying weird stuff,

Doing weird stuff,

Doing stuff that defies the,

Uh,

The assumed reality in a reference group.

I spoke about this,

Uh,

You know,

Specifically in the breaking social constructions of reality episode from that last November or something.

I mean,

This is the point of doing tabbing stuff.

This is why Western occultism,

Uh,

Focuses on like,

Like,

You know,

Western,

Uh,

Occult rituals,

Like sex magic stuff,

Or like some of the weird stuff that like certain pagan groups do.

And weird,

I mean,

Actually it's by definition weird,

Like they're doing stuff that is,

Uh,

Seen as immoral or unusual or,

Uh,

Just shouldn't be done because that kind of breaks your sense of reality of like,

Oh,

This is how I have to behave as a citizen in this orderly society.

Right.

Um,

All of this stuff is basically activation,

The fool archetype,

And the reason why trickster gods or,

You know,

Fool archetypes are often seen as villains.

Like the joker,

This is our,

Maybe our prime example,

Uh,

From convention,

Uh,

Is that they are because they're trying to accept everything,

But because they're trying to,

Um,

You know,

Take everything out of the darkness and like remove,

You know,

They're trying to break the separation line of like what's accepted and not accepted.

They have to bring in the stuff that's not accepted specifically,

Right?

Like the joker doesn't try to,

Um,

Ensure that everyone thinks it's important to love your neighbor because that's already kind of accepted in society,

Even though it's not necessarily,

Um,

Done,

Uh,

It's not necessarily done in practice,

But everyone kind of agrees on that.

Um,

But is it okay to punch people in the face?

Like that's not so much,

Which is why the joker,

The fool archetype would like bring in those dark impulses.

Um,

Basically the,

The fool is trying to break the game.

And if you look at,

Uh,

Real life stepping out of mythology,

It's like,

Say,

Uh,

Medieval Europe initially,

And like the early,

Early middle ages,

Let's say,

Uh,

Kings would have a jester.

The court would have a jester and the jester was the only person who could speak the truth to power,

Right?

Like the jester would make jokes,

Would be the only person who could make jokes at the King's expense.

And this was an important part of society that probably came from,

Uh,

You know,

Came from,

Uh,

Pre agricultural societies where like they were more tapped in to this stuff.

Um,

Because the,

For the society to really be healthy and for even the King to be healthy,

He has to have someone who cuts them down.

You know,

We spoke about this in the humor episodes,

Like,

You know,

Humor,

Especially between males kind of has to have this transgressive element where you cut,

You're cutting people down like to bring,

You know,

To,

To calm their hubris and bring them back down to earth.

Basically,

Of course,

If you look at history,

Um,

And later and later stages of monarchy,

The fool stopped being allowed to speak the truth to Kings.

And this is kind of where tyranny started.

Like once the fool,

Once there was no,

No one who could question the King or make jokes at the King's expense,

That's where tyrants really,

Uh,

You know,

Went nuts.

Right.

But initially the jester was there to,

Uh,

To basically bring everyone down to earth and make jokes that allowed people to recognize,

Oh,

A lot of what we do in society while it's important and while we love it is kind of a farce.

It's kind of like a,

It's kind of,

Um,

A group accepted reality.

It's a theater of a sense.

And if,

You know,

If you look at other things that in our,

In our modern life of like nation States,

Like what is the United States of America?

Is it a real thing?

Of course it's a real thing,

But it's only real because millions and millions of people accept and have decided that the lines on the dirt,

This like,

This is America and this is Canada or like,

You know,

These,

These identities matter.

Right.

So if we could like take out this men in black,

Um,

You know,

Like a brainwashing device or memory clearing device and get everyone in the world to forget that there's such thing as the United States of America immediately was ceased to exist.

Like there'd be no,

There's no,

Cause there's no physical thing,

Right?

It's an idea.

The fool archetype or the jester is trying to make jokes to bring us back down to that recognition,

At least for us to remember that a lot of what we take so seriously is actually made up.

Which brings us to a,

A type of another type of spirituality,

Pre act pre monarchy or non-monarchy such as the native American traditions,

Where the Lakota Sioux had their spiritual leader was known as the Hayoka,

Which was a sacred clown.

And actually,

Um,

My tattoo is kind of a reference to that.

Uh,

The Lakota Sioux,

Cause they would wear stripes in their body,

But also this Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland,

Which is also another,

Uh,

Fool guide or like,

It's kind of a deity who leads Alice and through,

Through Wonderland,

Which is kind of like a Wonderland,

You know,

It's kind of the whole Alice in Wonderland book and her looking glass,

Uh,

Other book is kind of like a,

Uh,

An adventure in the world of absurdity.

The entire book is basically the fool archetype,

Which is why I love it so much.

And back to the Hayoka,

They were basically the spiritual guide of the tribe.

And they would do this,

Not,

Not in like a Christian way,

If I looking down and like commanding people,

This is what God wants.

But by doing the opposite of social conventions,

Like they would cry at,

Um,

They cry when people were celebrating,

They would laugh at funerals.

They would ride their horses backwards.

They would do ridiculous things to remind people not to take life so seriously and to make people laugh like the Jester,

Um,

And also,

Uh,

Like the trickster gods,

But also our modern day comedians represent the fool archetype because in order to make people laugh,

Essentially what laughter is,

It's a,

It's a,

It's a quick recognition of truth.

A good comedian builds up tension or builds up an expectation,

Uh,

With his setup or her setup.

And then the punchline crashes us back down to reality.

And that,

That release of tension makes us laugh.

Culture feels so good because we are recognizing truth on the deepest level.

So anyway,

Uh,

The reason why I got this tattoo in homage to the Cheshire cat and the Hayoka of the Lakota Sioux is that that's kind of my approach and coaching when I'm helping out a guy with his life,

Especially when he has a perceived problem,

I'm trying to hold on.

I try to hold onto the reality that there is a permutation of reality where everything is not only great,

That he has everything he wants,

Even if in his current reality,

He seems lonely or low confidence or broke or whatever,

I'm holding onto this.

And if I can hold onto this,

I'm not trying to make people laugh.

I don't think I'm particularly funny,

But if I can hold onto this,

Usually at some point in a coaching session,

The guy will have a recognition.

And if the guy laughs,

I know we're on the right path,

Right?

Cause that recognition of the deeper truth,

Which is everything is actually cool is exactly what you need to be able to play life in a relaxed and serene and surrendered manner,

Which brings us to our next principle,

Which is that the fool archetype assumes that there is a realer reality.

I'm going to define what that means,

A realer reality beneath this material simulation.

So we're just asked the question,

Can you speak about the devil in light of the fool clown?

He wrote,

At least in Tarot,

The devil and the fool are separate.

What are some of the parallels and similarities?

I'm actually not super familiar with the devil.

I forget exactly what that represents.

I'd have to refresh myself,

But I'd say the relation in at least what we conventionally call the devil can actually be looked at in,

In Satanism Satanism being a religion that was created specifically to counter Christianity and the orderliness of Christianity.

Satanism actually uses completely Christian symbols or mostly Christian symbols to basically bring all this stuff that basically to validate all the stuff that Christianity condemns.

So the idea of the devil is this creature that is really all for these impulses that Christianity or Christian based society says is bad,

Right?

It's the source of shame.

So Satanism,

Or we can,

Which is represented by Satan and the devil is trying to basically put all this,

Basically all the stuff that Christianity puts down,

It's trying to bring up and switch it.

The fool instead is trying to like basically see both of these things are great and important.

So in a society that say was run by devil worship,

The fool would actually be maybe doing things to upset them by bringing up like these holy or Christian things.

Right?

So if you imagine,

Like,

Let's say,

You know,

In the church of Satan,

Wherever it was doing all these satanic things,

The fool,

Someone really playing the fool would do all these pro Christian things.

Basically anything that's taboo,

The devil basically switches things.

The fool tries to make the opposite true,

Which is a great transition into our next piece is that,

Cause the fool doesn't see good and evil,

Or it doesn't take good and evil that seriously.

The fool sees that good and evil or like normal and abnormal or like desired and undesired.

They're kind of just on the superficial level because on the deeper level of reality there is a reality where nothing really matters.

Like the fool sees the world as a simulation.

Same person commented.

So fool and devil is actually conceptual,

Whereas both Christians and Satanists are taking themselves too seriously.

Yes.

I agree with that.

So what is a real or reality?

So actually funny enough,

I have a story coming from a Christian guy.

When I was in officer Canada school from the Marine Corps it was a very stressful time.

I grew up pretty soft.

So like to go to basic training,

Military basic training was a bit of a shock for me.

But I remember about halfway through when I started to get,

Find my groove and find like a comfort,

There's this thing,

This Christian,

There's a lot of really Christian guys,

Obviously in the military,

You have a lot of Christian people.

And I remember this one kid who was in the Marines to become a chaplain.

So he was going through this like intense training,

Intense stress,

Not to fight,

Which is what most of us were kind of like,

At least envisioning.

He wanted to be a chaplain.

He basically wanted to be a war zone priest.

I remember in,

You know,

We had some moments to speak to each other.

This guy addressed the group.

He asked us all to pray after one of these long humps,

These long hikes.

And he said this whole thing about how this life,

Meaning life,

Is not the real life.

This life is just practice to prove to God that we belong in heaven,

Which is the real life.

And,

You know,

Obviously,

You know,

He believed in that.

I didn't believe in that stuff.

But I thought it was an interesting perspective that like,

This is not real life.

There's another realer life out there.

And at this point,

It actually resonated because,

You know,

If you're going to flashback a couple of weeks,

As I mentioned,

After Canada school was,

You know,

My recruiter made it sound like basically like an intense summer camp where you like work out a lot.

And I was like,

Oh,

Cool,

I could go for that.

And I was specifically interested in the Marines to try to toughen me up because I thought I was soft,

Which I was.

But man,

It was way more tough than I expected.

I,

You know,

They sleep deprived you the first day,

You know,

They marched you all through the night.

Like,

I mean,

I again,

I grew up as a soft kid who just didn't realize that things could be this hard,

Which is just,

You know,

Anyway,

Obviously,

It's not as hard as real combat,

But that's what's preparing you for.

And I was so fucking stressed.

Like the first after the first,

You know,

48 hours,

Finally,

When we were allowed to lie down,

I was so wired,

I couldn't sleep.

So I took out this piece of loose leaf paper,

And I wrote out a calendar,

I was like,

Okay,

Today's this date,

We're not allowed to leave for two weeks.

I just need to make it for another 13 days.

And I wrote on the calendar,

You know,

The date so I could check them off.

Like,

Like I was just really stressed.

You know,

I was,

I didn't take a shit.

A lot of,

A lot of guys wouldn't take a shit the first like week or two,

Because like we were so stressed,

But there's a point like almost two weeks in where,

You know,

I was in like,

Kind of like super cortisol mode.

Like I was just like,

I was just stressed nonstop.

I didn't realize like,

Cause you know,

Just to frame it in 2007,

When I was there you know,

Drill instructors,

Sergeant instructors,

They weren't allowed to do anything that bad to you.

Like,

You know,

Back in the sixties,

I think they were allowed to like punch you and beat you and like hit you with things and spit on you and you make you make you do shit in the mud and whatever.

But 2007,

All of that was illegal.

So,

But they would still make things like,

You know,

They would get in your heads,

Right?

They would make things psychologically stressful.

They couldn't spit on you,

But they could fill their mouth and spit and yell at you.

So you just like slobbered,

Like they couldn't hit you in the face,

But they could adjust your rifle and smack it into your head.

And they would make us do it.

Basically.

It was like a lot of humiliation and like,

You know,

Soft guy that I was,

I was having a really hard time,

But I remember this one day you know,

A little bit before this Christian guy's speech we were doing inspections,

Right?

So we had to have our,

Our bunks in order,

Our racks in order our uniform perfect.

And basically the sergeant instructors would go down the line,

Fucking with us,

Looking for things that could call us out on you know,

Essentially that's what they did.

Part of important part of military training.

And I remember there's a lot of guys,

I mean,

To be there yet to be super fit.

There's a lot of these guys who like super jacked you know,

Various like D1 and CAA athletes.

And there was this one guy who was like,

He was a nationally ranked powerlifter.

Really big guy,

Enormous fucking traps,

Looked like he could rip you apart.

But he had a really hard time with the endurance stuff.

Like he would often pass out cause he was so big.

And he was also really bad dealing with stress,

Like when he would get yelled at,

He would like contort into this really like,

It was really like a prey like,

Or fearful expression.

And remember the instructor was going down the line and they were chewing him out and they're yelling at him.

And there's this big muscly guy,

Like with this like ridiculous face on,

There's like ridiculous contorted face.

And like the Sergeant instructor was yelling at him was this tiny,

Tiny woman.

She was maybe like,

I mean,

She was maybe like 5'1 or something beautiful by the way.

I can remember looking at her.

I got chewed out one time because I was so stressed one day and then she like came in and yelled at me and I could not help it.

I was so out of my body that I just like did this elevator stare.

Like I didn't expect to see a beautiful woman in Officer Candace School and I ended up getting chewed out for that.

But this little woman was yelling at this giant powerlifter and all of a sudden,

Like I had this moment of enlightenment where it's like,

Oh shit,

All of this is just a game.

And I'm talking about like OCS,

Right?

Like all of this is just an agreement.

Like all of us could just walk out of here if we wanted to,

But we're choosing to be here because we want to be Marine officers,

But everyone is like in this agreement,

Right?

Like there's nothing real here other than we're all deciding to play these roles.

Like if we saw these same exact drill instructors in another setting in like Best Buy or something,

We'd have a totally different interaction like this.

These are all roles we're playing.

And in that moment,

I was also kind of just contorted,

Like cortisol,

That fearful state,

Everything relaxed in me and I just burst out laughing,

Right?

As you can imagine the scene,

If you've seen like Full Metal Jacket or things like that,

It's like we're all lined up next to our bunks.

And I was the smallest guy there.

I was all stressed out and all of a sudden I just burst out laughing in the middle of the drill instructors,

Like yelling at everybody.

So obviously they need to maintain the reality,

They need to regain control.

All of them swarmed on me and like yelled at me and like pushed me around and like to punish me,

They threw all my shit on the floor and they knocked over my bunk and like they threw over my locker and like they threw a blanket over me and started spinning me around to humiliate me,

Which was great because I just could not hold it together.

I just burst out laughing.

So I had this blanket over my head so I could keep laughing without them yelling at me more.

And I just realized,

Oh,

All of this is all a game.

For the rest of the time there,

None of the stuff I took seriously,

Everything became useful.

Even when they did like physical things to like make my life miserable,

Like throw all my shit on the ground,

I was like,

Well,

What else would I be doing here?

Like I'm here for this training,

This is just part of the training,

Let me pick up my toothbrush and blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And like everything like became super calm.

I mean,

I shouldn't say super calm,

I'm still physically stressed,

But like mentally I could relax.

This was all a game.

And not to say that I was able to take that perspective into the rest of my life,

But I tried to,

I mean,

In moments of clarity,

I would try to maintain that idea of like,

Oh,

This is all just a set of agreements,

Right?

Like the guy who's being an asshole to me or the person who's rejecting me over something or the time I try for something and then I fail,

Like all of this is just a game.

I don't have to take it that seriously.

And just that idea made me calm.

And it reminds me of an Alan Watts clip,

Which is one of my favorite clips to watch when I'm taking things too seriously.

You can look it up,

Actually I'll add it into the show notes.

It was like a two minute clip that someone made on YouTube of an excerpt of Alan Watts speaking about this thought experiment where we imagine that if every night you went to bed,

You dreamed an entire lifetime.

And you can dream whatever you want.

You can be rich,

You can be famous,

You can have all the bitches,

You can be a super adventure guy or whatever.

And every night you can imagine whatever you wanted for entire lifetime,

You do this every night,

Eventually you would get bored,

Right?

You would get bored having everything go your way,

Right?

It's not that fun to have no stakes.

Eventually you would say,

Okay,

How about tonight?

Let's dream about something where I don't control everything,

Where things are maybe a little bit random,

Where things would always go my way just for fun,

Right?

And then you would dream that every night,

Just a little thing.

And you're like,

Oh,

That was cool.

Like,

Oh,

Okay,

Well that sucked.

I died early there.

I had this painful experience or I had to go through a war.

I went through all these unpleasant things,

But you're dreaming this every night.

So you don't feel any consequences.

You're just enjoying the ride.

If you do this infinitely,

Eventually you would dream the life that you are living right now,

Exactly the way it is.

And I find this perspective very calming,

Right?

And it's like,

Not to say that you shouldn't take your life seriously,

But like,

If you did imagine for a second that you had infinite lifetimes,

If you're playing out these permutations of reality,

And you didn't remember the other ones,

But you're in this one just to see how much you can be entertained with whatever limitations you have based on the laws of physics or the environment you were born in or the decisions you make.

Just play out life.

It really takes the edge off things,

Right?

It's almost fun,

Not to say that it's fun to try and not always win if you think of it that way.

And for another kind of random application,

It's more of an innocent one.

And maybe one of the reasons why these perspectives resonate with me is that when I was.

.

.

So I was shamed up and contracted and in my head,

Even from the youngest ages,

Because I remember when I was.

.

.

My earliest memories are.

.

.

Some of my earliest memories are shame for getting in trouble with teachers.

I remember when I was in first grade,

If the teacher yelled at me,

It wrecked me for days,

Right?

Which is a long time when you're six.

I wouldn't be able to eat dinner.

I'd be upset.

I would be afraid to tell my parents.

My mom would be like,

Are you sick or something?

Simply just because the teacher yelled at me to stop talking or whatever,

Right?

For some reason,

Maybe it's because my Asian parenting,

I grew up thinking if the teacher yells at you,

You are the worst person in the world.

That's the worst thing that can happen to you.

And I'd be sick to my stomach for days.

But something that actually helped me when I was six years old was that I would have to kind of make this a mantra.

I'd be like,

One day when I'm 20 years old,

No one's going to remember that the teacher yelled at me,

Which I realized is a ridiculous thing,

Right?

But this is exactly the perspective that allows one to see the ridiculousness of shame.

There is a one day or there is a way to look outside of the reality that you're in where nobody gives a shit about the thing that you're ashamed of.

I've coached a couple of guys who had shame about having a single gay thought.

I coached a guy last summer around this,

Right?

He grew up in a very religious household.

He had a gay thought,

Right?

And I don't mean to make fun of him,

But I did try to bring up the ridiculousness of it.

He had a gay thought and his family was so anti-gay that for months he was consumed by the kind of this OCD set of compulsive thinking of like,

Oh my God,

Am I gay?

And it's like,

Well,

What if you are gay?

Just step outside of your family's reality for a second and be like,

Most of the world these days doesn't give a shit about you being gay.

In fact,

They would celebrate.

Not that the guy was even gay.

He just like thought about a dick once or something,

Right?

And then I tried to get him like step outside of your family's consciousness for a second.

Outside of their reality is another reality that does not give a shit about that.

And if you can live in that reality,

You no longer have to worry about the shame,

Which exactly so bring us back to this principle of the fool asserts.

There's a realer reality outside of the serious one.

What exactly is a real reality?

A real reality is the one that accepts more of what is true for you.

It's important to understand because like,

You know,

If you look at politics or people,

Things that people argue about,

You know,

Let's say I'll use politics as an example,

There's a liberal reality.

They believe this is right and wrong.

And this is the way things should be.

This is a conservative reality.

They think this is right and wrong the way this should be.

And they both think the other person is crazy,

Right?

If you're in a conservative world,

You come across a liberal person.

You're like,

No,

You guys,

You guys are dumb.

You guys don't realize that over here where we are,

We see all that ridiculousness that you're doing.

And our reality is actually correct,

Right?

You guys are misinformed.

Obviously the liberals look at conservatives that way.

They think that conservatives are these misinformed people inside of their real reality,

Which is the truth,

Which one is real.

Well,

It depends on who you are.

Depends on your,

On,

On the subjective,

On your subjective perception,

Which is to say that perhaps there is no way of determining objective reality because we all filter reality through our subjective consciousness.

But what does it mean for you?

Was the practical application as far as your psychology and you living your life is that the greater reality for you is the one where you get to step on the outside,

Right?

So one of the things that being in a cult really did for me,

One of the benefits that I cherish is that even though it was an artificial reality,

Even though that they believed in some kind of ridiculous stuff or did some stuff that most of the world,

Most of the quote unquote real world would say like,

That's ridiculous what they're doing or believing in for the period of time that I was in it,

Especially the first like six months,

I saw that their reality is the more real reality because I was living in their ashram.

I was interacting only with them and I got to look at all of the people I knew outside of the cult.

I got to look at regular society that I found oppressive to my own personal character,

To my own inner joker that I want to burn shit down.

I got to learn,

I got to look at everyone else kind of from a superior vantage point for a moment of being like,

Oh,

All you guys are tripping.

All you guys out there with your disconnected living in little boxes in New York city,

Paying way too much for rent or working jobs that you hate and thinking that's normal.

Like all you guys,

You guys are tripping.

Like that is a bad trip.

You guys are ridiculous over here in the cults.

We see things correctly,

Which is not,

I mean,

Obviously you don't want to get stuck in that reality because the cult itself was also an artificial reality or artificial set of agreements.

But it was very freeing at least for me to release all of the shame and contraction I had about not fitting in,

In that world,

Obviously to obviously I had the same contraction in the cult because cults more few for their bidding.

But so eventually I had to do the same thing of like leaving the cult and be like,

Oh,

All you call people y'all are tripping,

Which is kind of what I do again,

Like in my,

In my coaching work when I'm trying to help a guy enter a better reality,

Right?

Like I'm not,

I'm not necessarily saying that you're going to magically manifest stuff,

But what I am trying to do underneath the surface or sometimes upfront,

Depending on,

You know,

What,

What his personality is,

Is convinced him on a deeper level that outside of the world where he's perceiving all of the shame or contraction or low confidence or this idea that he can't have what he wants,

There's a greater reality where he does have everything he wants and everything is totally chill and awesome and confident and women love him and money comes easy to him.

I'm trying to convince him that that is a possible reality.

Cause if he could start seeing his old self from that perspective,

When he'll start to laugh usually because it'll realize,

Man,

Actually it's funny.

I lately in the last year,

I've had a bunch of guys reach out to me for help with dating who are,

Are,

I don't want to say unusually,

They're,

They're like really good looking guys.

And like,

They don't realize that like,

As far as like the God-given looks departments,

They've actually been blessed or they,

You know,

They have some other like character trait that is really attract.

I coached this one guy last summer or last spring or something.

He's almost everything that every woman would describe they wanted.

He's almost like everything that every guy wants to be.

Like he runs his own business.

He dresses well.

He's tall,

He's good looking,

He's athletic,

But he,

He's in this bad trip,

Right?

Just like he took mushrooms and went into this weird negative thought spiral.

He was in this,

He's been in this bad trip where like,

He just believes that women don't like him.

So obviously he creates that reality.

Like he constantly gets rejected and he's like,

Oh,

I must be like not good looking or like,

You know,

Whatever.

But on the outside,

All of us can see like,

Oh man,

This guy is in a bad trip.

He's like basically on drugs.

He's in,

He has these bad chemicals in his mind.

He's basically perceiving a wrong reality.

So no matter what the truth is,

Maybe it's just my subjective opinion that he's good looking and charismatic and awesome in every way.

The greater reality for him would be to see things in my,

From my perspective,

Right?

That everything is great.

Cause if you just believe that enough,

He would actually have the results you wanted.

That's basically my,

That's basically my approach with coaching to convince people on a subconscious level of the greater reality.

And again,

The greater reality is totally subjective.

The greater reality is the one where you can be more of yourself,

Of more of what's true for you.

Which brings us to point number three.

Just make sure I didn't miss anything.

Yeah.

The fool is the archetype that accepts two things,

All occurrences in reality and all parts of you,

All of your desires and feelings.

So we'll take these separately.

Kind of mentioned this already,

The fool accepts all occurrences,

Right?

The fool,

Because the fool sees this deeper reality where it doesn't take material consequences that seriously.

The fool is never afraid of the future.

Right.

And I,

You know,

When I did the episode on,

On the abundance mindset,

Abundance is a trust in the future.

Scarcity is a fear in the future,

Regardless of what your material situation is.

Like you could have millions of dollars in the bank,

But if you're afraid of losing it,

If you're afraid of the future,

You're basically living like a poor person.

Right.

You can sit,

You can take this with like attraction or dating or your relationship or even spirituality on some level.

Like if you fear the future,

If you fear condemnation,

You're not having a good time.

The fool hyper accepts everything.

The fool gets off on everything.

It's like,

Oh crazy shit happened.

Interesting.

Cool.

Because the fool doesn't take this reality so seriously.

The fool is just trying to entertain itself.

Right.

So,

You know,

Where is some positive mindset people can kind of go into a denial mode where something bad happens and they're like,

Oh no,

No,

I don't know.

I don't know.

We're just gonna cut that out of reality.

And you meet the,

You meet people like this all the time,

Like super spiritual law of attraction types where they're just basically in denial of their reality.

So they don't actually change anything.

The fool basically practices existential kink in a sense of like,

Oh great.

Bank account went to negative.

Awesome.

This is interesting.

Let's see what happens next.

Get rejected.

Like,

Oh,

Okay.

All right.

Fucking Oh,

It's not that it's denying anything.

It's like,

Oh fuck.

Heartbreak.

Heartbreak's interesting.

Let's see what that's about.

Right.

Like it's like,

Oh,

It scares you to step outside of your more primal emotions.

It'd be like,

Oh,

I'm jealous right now.

Or I'm in a weird head space for now.

That's interesting.

Let's see what that's like.

I spoke about this in the road of trials episode where like,

I mean this baby,

Cause I'm just like a a morose person at heart.

I kind of romanticize the periods of my life where I was broke and drinking too much and things weren't going my way.

Like that was kind of when I think I've kind of became a good writer of like really engaging with the grit and hardship in an interesting way.

Like that's where I really learned to be like,

Fuck,

I'm a fucking fucking mess.

And this is,

You know,

Cause that's a much more interesting thing than like,

Hey,

I'm super awesome.

I'm a boy scout and everything's great.

And I make all the money and I get all the love.

Like that's kind of boring.

Anyway,

That's,

I said that more in that episode because the fool is not in denial.

The fool is perfectly aware of all the danger,

Even in the fool,

In the fool tarot card,

The fool recognizes.

Yeah.

I might fall off the cliff might have,

You know,

Might break some bones,

But the fool isn't afraid of that.

Right.

It's not obliviousness.

The fool is kind of like blissfully accepting of all things.

So it fears nothing.

It's like,

You know,

The fool,

I mean,

You see the full archetype in in in adventure stories a lot like Indiana Jones plays the fool sometimes where he can crack jokes when the boulder is chasing him.

Or there's a lot of I'm trying to think of a one where there's fighting involved.

It's might be,

You know,

In the movie,

I think snatch one of the guy,

Richie movies,

Brad Pitt plays a character where he's like what's it called?

A pick.

I think that is the,

It's like one of those like roaming Gypsy like people.

He's one of those,

Those people and he's traveled around England and he gets into a fight with this much bigger guy.

And he's like,

Oh,

Okay.

Yeah,

We'll,

We'll fight now.

And you know,

He gets knocked over and he's like,

Oh,

Okay.

And he just stretches out and like he gets punched in the gut.

Scott.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

Actually,

Brad Pitt plays this character in Fight Club too,

Where he lets the mob boss beat him up.

He's like,

I don't give a shit.

Hit me again.

Like he's so detached from material consequences that he doesn't even mind getting beaten up.

And because of that,

He wins right in,

In,

In snatch.

He ends up like,

You know,

Going with the punches,

Taking every hit and then beating up the other guy in Fight Club.

You know,

He freaks out the,

The mob boss so much because he's all,

He's basically willing to let the mob boss beat him to death.

And that's how he wins.

Because the full archetype in this kind of looking back to the Alan Watts perspective is that this idea of like,

Okay,

All of this is this simulation is interesting,

But I'm going to wake up from this eventually.

Right?

Like all of this,

This is just a dream.

So if you've ever had like a lucid dream where things are a little scary,

But then you realize,

Oh shit,

I'm dreaming.

Oh,

Suddenly it's not scary.

Suddenly it's like,

Well,

Yeah,

Let's,

Let's see what happens with this monster or let's like see what interesting thing happens with this,

This war,

Right.

Or whatever,

You know,

Whatever you dream about that's scary.

The other side of this is not only the fool accepts all occurrences,

Which makes him not detached from outcome,

But you know,

Treat all outcomes as equal or becomes his emotional experience is independent from outcome.

The fool also accepts all emotions and feelings and wants and impulses,

Which is where like in the joker,

You have these basically dark impulses come out in Satanism.

They kind of celebrate all the things that Christianity puts down Satanism.

They say,

You know,

If you are angry,

It is your right to punch people in the face.

So like you're doing a good thing for yourself for punching in the face.

In the book,

The dice man,

He was pretty extreme.

As I mentioned,

You know,

You know,

In his in the main characters worldview within all of us is someone who wants to rape,

Who wants to murder,

Who wants to do terrible things.

So he basically allows it to fall into chance like some free pretty far out things like even,

You know,

He this is one scene in the book where he's like,

I'm going to kill someone,

You know,

I've wanted to kill someone deep down,

I never let myself kill someone.

So he rolls 30,

He rolls six dice to determine who is he who he's going to kill,

And even puts his family members as options,

He ends up killing,

Ends up killing another rapist,

Which I guess is,

You know,

Makes the book reasonable,

Right?

Like if he killed his child,

The book would be kind of ridiculous,

But it'd be hard to read,

But basically,

You know,

Ends up committing rape,

But then the rape ends up kind of in a comical way.

Anyway,

The point of that book is that within us are different impulses.

Most of those impulses we shove down because they're either not accepted by society,

Or they're not rational,

According to what we say we want,

But they're in us.

And we,

And according to his theory,

We should allow all of those to at least have a chance to show up.

So he rolls the dice.

As I mentioned,

This dice thing,

I've been playing with it with little things like,

You know,

Like,

Especially when I wake up,

And maybe I didn't sleep that well,

I always wake up early.

There's a part of me on some days that wants to get back into bed and cuddle with my woman and make love and like,

Take a chill,

Easy morning.

Now if I did that every day,

Certainly I would not be happy,

Right?

I know that.

But then I thought,

You know,

Maybe one out of six days,

I want to let that happen,

Or one out of six days that I feel shitty when I wake up,

I won't let that happen.

And I roll the dice.

And if it doesn't happen,

It is funny about the dice thing,

Like psychologically is that when you leave it to chance,

If you write down all the options that you are on some level are willing to do,

At least sometimes,

And you leave it to chance,

It kind of frees a lot of the executive decision making stress.

And I'm not saying that you should do this,

But it is an interesting experiment I've been finding that,

You know,

If I put down options that I'm all willing to do,

And all kind of want to do,

But don't always let myself do,

It does allow myself,

You know,

To have a good time,

Right?

Like with even things like drinking coffee,

Which I sometimes I'm like,

Should I drink coffee and make me productive and make me shitty,

Feel shitty later?

If I roll the dice,

And I make the make the probability such that I don't do it very often,

Then maybe I have my second cup of coffee one out of six days a week,

Or I don't drink coffee at all one out of six days.

So I have like maybe a not so good writing day that day.

It really takes the pressure off.

And if I make the odds reasonable,

I mean,

I kind of have fun.

I've been doing some things that I would never do,

But I've wanted to do like,

You know,

Spending the morning walking my dogs rather than working,

Like letting this chance has actually been very freeing because there's a part of me that's always wanted to do that,

But I didn't do it because it's not in line with my goals.

Someone just asked,

Can you comment on the reverse psychology in light of the trickster archetype?

It sounds like you might have an example of me.

I mean,

I'm thinking,

Obviously,

A lot of the stories of leprechauns are reverse psychology.

I don't have an example off the top of my head.

So maybe you do actually.

I mean,

What's coming to mind at least is,

You know,

When you're using reverse psychology on someone,

You are assuming that they're going to resist what you put up,

Right?

At least that's the common example.

If you're like with a kid who like is going to say no to whatever you say,

You tell them to do the opposite of what you actually want them to do,

And then he'll resist and then do it.

This essentially is a trickster.

Actually what's coming to mind now is not exactly what you're referring to,

But in the Tom Sawyer books,

The Tom Sawyer effect is that,

You know,

Tom Sawyer doesn't want to paint the fence that his aunt is making him do,

But instead of like begging someone or trying to convince someone to do it for him,

He makes it seem so fun that everyone else in the neighborhood really actually asks him if they could paint the fence for him and he gets to sit on his ass.

And that's basically fool or trickster archetype playing out.

Comment just interested in the intersection of the two.

Yeah.

I mean,

I guess that's an example right there.

Good question.

So I don't have a more,

A more clear story from mythology.

So I just want to say anything else on the dice man,

If people equal parts of ourselves that want to be expressed.

Oh,

So how valuable is this?

What happens in the book,

But also what I've noticed in a couple of weeks of doing this is that because I've become more trusting in the dice and trusting in chance,

I have made my options a little and little more ballsy,

Like a one in six chance to fuck off for the day,

A one in six chance to to do whatever.

Right.

I'm not breaking any laws.

I'm not doing anything harmful to myself for others,

But it has been interesting.

Like what if I give myself a shot of one out of six times,

I'm not going to do it actually.

So I was supposed to do the live stream of this yesterday morning,

The night before I think I had coffee too late,

Or actually I had taken these aphrodisiac herbs and the lion eye are testing out different aphrodisiac herbs to see if there's a brand that we want to promote on our respective channels.

Took these herbs late at night.

I think it's actually probably more than the coffee I had in the afternoon.

I was just like super wired and horny.

I could not fall asleep that night.

So I actually was like,

Oh shit,

Should I do this podcast in four hours?

Like I haven't slept at all tonight.

I rolled the dice and the dice said no.

So I decided not to do it and I had no guilt about it.

And I do want to say there's a dark side to this.

Obviously decisiveness is a masculine virtue is something that you should cultivate the ability to make decisions and settle on them.

And I actually,

This whole dicing thing resonated with me because when I was a little younger,

When I was in high school,

I was so indecisive that I would actually make decisions by flipping a coin a lot,

Or I would do this on my cell phone.

If someone invited me to do something that made me nervous,

Like it's happened a few times where like a buddy would be like,

Hey,

Let's cut class to smoke weed.

You know,

That's part of me that wanted me to do that,

But I felt guilty about it.

So I'd flip a coin or I would say,

Okay,

I'll look at my cell phone.

If it's an odd number of time,

I'll do it.

If it's an even number of time,

I won't.

And I would do it.

And I'm still kind of feeling guilty sometimes,

But like it kind of deferred the executive stress.

I decided eventually that this was bad for me.

I should get good at making decisions.

But on the flip side of that,

Having a little bit of fool archetype in you allows you to accept whatever decision you make.

A lot of guys who are indecisive,

They're indecisive because they're afraid that if they make the wrong decision,

We'll end up in a situation they can't handle.

So they kind of get paralyzed by that.

Right.

But we have,

If you have a healthy fool archetype in you,

You can make a decision and commit to it and know that even if it was the wrong move,

You'll figure it out.

The consequences aren't that bad.

Even if you say the wrong thing to a woman you're interested in and she rejects you,

Don't worry about it.

There's more fish in the sea.

There's more stuff going on.

Even if you take a risk socially or financially or in your business,

A healthy fool will be like,

You know what?

Everything's going to be cool.

No matter what,

Either you get what you want or we'll have an interesting story.

That's another fool rationality.

And because the fool on this,

I put this all in one principle because the best statement that represents this part of the fool archetype is essentially it is what it is.

Right.

One of my favorite MMA fighters,

Max Holloway,

He had a couple of bad decisions.

I think they're bad decisions.

He had some disappointed outcomes on in his championship fights.

He lost the belt and then he lost his attempt to regain the belt.

Both fights could have went the other way.

Some people argue that they were bad decisions and he got robbed.

And his response was like,

You know what?

It is what it is.

Right.

That's the healthiest way to take a defeat.

It is what it is.

You're disappointed about your lot in life.

The culture you're born into,

Your body.

That's something that a lot of people it's like,

Oh fuck.

I can't grow taller.

I can't change the way I look.

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

It is what it is.

What you're going to do about it.

Right.

Now on the flip side,

Bring us to our last point here.

Coming up on the hour mark as well.

There is a danger.

There is a danger to being all in your fool.

Most of us,

A lot of us,

Especially if you have kind of repressed parts of yourself,

Characters like the Joker are really appealing.

Trickster gods are really interesting because Fight Club is really interesting because Fight Club,

Essentially,

If you remember the scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden goes into the convenience store and drags that Korean kid out by the collar,

Puts a gun to his head and basically says,

Go get your doctor or dentist degree,

Or I'm going to kill you.

Which is actually is kind of a benevolent thing.

Like the trickster is not always bad.

The fool is not always bad.

The fool is sometimes getting people to do good things.

It's trying to just shake things up.

It's completely random.

That part appeals to a lot of us.

And even the dark stuff appeals to a lot of us who are oppressing parts of ourselves.

There's also a danger.

Very few of us actually want to live like the Joker where you have no possessions and you're just trying to fuck things up for other people all the time.

There is a danger.

If you care to listen to my show,

I imagine you are very interested in creating your life in a conscious way,

Getting what you want,

Feeling how you want to feel,

Living the adventure that is your hero's journey through this material simulation,

Perhaps.

But we don't want to like,

There's certain things you do want.

There's certain things you do want to care about.

And the danger of the fool,

The fool by itself,

The unbridled fool is that it is possible to take material reality so not seriously that you actually don't get to experience all the fun that you want.

Because at the end of it all,

You want to experience fulfillment,

I assume.

You could go so deep in this that no matter what happens,

You're super blissful.

Such as like,

Anyway,

You can imagine what that's like.

We got a question.

We got a comment and the comment disappeared.

I don't know if it was deleted or what.

If you want to read comments,

I was just going to respond to that,

But it disappeared.

So actually I have another MMA example of the fool archetype maybe expressed in a way that is not beneficial.

If you do watch MMA,

There's a fighter who became really popular in the UFC last year,

Kevin Holland.

I really enjoy his fighting style,

But it's also his personality.

He's known as the mouth because he basically plays the fool throughout his fights.

For most people,

Getting in a cage with another guy who wants to rip your head off is a really serious experience.

It's very scary.

A lot of fighters hype themselves up by like thinking about murdering or taking the soul of their opponent.

But Kevin Holland is super chill.

He's laughing the entire time.

He's joking the entire time.

He became super popular last year because not only did he win all,

I think he had five fights and he won all of them,

Which I think was a record in the UFC in one year.

But he was laughing and joking the whole time and not taking things seriously to the point where he was allowing himself to be put in unfavorable positions.

And he still won those fights.

And it was so interesting because there's this one fight where he got taken down by a really experienced grappler,

Jack Royce,

Who's a really killer jiu-jitsu fighter.

Kevin Holland got taken down.

He was on his back.

He got thrown into this position that looked like missionary and Kevin Holland in the middle of the fight said,

Hey,

I had a dream about this.

Everyone laughs.

I'm making a sex joke there.

And then he knocked him out.

From his back,

He hopped up on one hand and knocked Jack Royce out.

And it was so fucking impressive from an entertainment standpoint.

It was so interesting because Kevin Holland was playing the fool.

He's basically showing that he was impervious.

He was impenetrable.

He was completely immune to circumstances because even on his back,

He can win a fight.

It was so fun to watch when he wins the fight.

Question actually exactly what we're talking about.

What is the line for the fool that the fool should not cross?

This is my opinion,

Is it?

Because all that stuff,

Speaking on Kevin Holland's,

Is really fun,

Really fun to watch as long as he keeps winning.

Earlier this year,

Actually this year,

2021,

He had two fights where he still was the joker.

Even when he was down on points,

He's making jokes to the audience.

He was yelling out to Khabib.

Khabib is the perhaps greatest fighter of all time,

One of the greatest wrestlers of all time.

He said,

Hey,

Khabib,

Give me some wrestling tips.

It's really funny.

But as the rounds went on,

Watching the fight,

And even as I'm a Kevin Holland fan,

I was kind of like,

Fuck,

All of this joking,

All of this playing the fool,

It's really fun when you're winning.

But if you're making jokes and you end up losing the fight,

No one gives a shit.

He ended up losing two fights while making jokes.

All of us,

Even those of us who are fans of his are like,

Yeah,

Just take the fight more seriously next time.

It's only fun if you win.

I would say this is part of the line,

The fool should not cross,

Or this is going too foolish if you will,

Or you are no longer enjoying a game that is life.

Another example is if you're playing a sport,

If you're playing a game,

Let's say when you were kids and playing make believe,

Cops and robbers,

Let's use sports as an example,

Playing basketball.

It's fun to take things seriously.

If you're playing basketball against someone you hate who's talking a lot of shit,

Shit talking in basketball or sports can be popular sometimes because it raises the stakes.

It feels good to dunk on someone,

Not that I can dunk,

But it feels good to own somebody who's been talking shit to you.

It raises the stakes.

Even though it doesn't really matter,

No one gives a shit about if you're playing basketball with your friends,

The consequences don't really matter.

It's fun to take it seriously.

Obviously,

If you take it so seriously that you're like,

Oh fuck,

I lost that game of basketball or I lost that game of chess.

If you're so bogged down by that,

That's not healthy.

You need a little more fool.

But at the same time,

If you're not taking the game seriously at all,

Where you don't care if the person scores on you,

Then you're not really getting a chance to enjoy the game.

You might as well not play.

What's the point of playing if you're not going to take the game seriously at all?

It's actually an experience I have.

I use basketball as an example.

I haven't actually played basketball in eight years,

So I suck at it.

I used to live in the East Village in New York City where my roommates would go play basketball with the guys who were always on the courts.

I usually sucked.

I can barely dribble and I'm five foot six,

So I don't do very well in basketball even though I'm fast.

But we went there one time tripping on LSD and LSD activates the fool in you.

Especially that consciousness,

We're like,

Oh shit,

All of this is a simulation.

None of this is real.

That's one of the things I love about LSD,

Just reminding us of that.

But on LSD,

I don't know what it was.

Maybe I was so relaxed or I was like tapped into the laws of physics or control of my body.

I was so fucking good at basketball.

I was just throwing the ball up,

Lobbing it up and it would go right in.

But I could not play defense.

So we ended up losing pretty bad.

My buddies,

We were all on LSD because we kept scoring,

But we couldn't play defense because we thought it was just so ridiculous.

I would just start cracking up.

It's not necessarily a way you want to play life,

But maybe it is.

I don't know.

I'm not going to tell you what to do.

There's actually a theme in my book where in chapter two,

Right when I was getting into the cult and I was on this,

What's the word called in The Hero's Journey,

The debate,

That's what it's called.

In filmmaking,

It's called the debate scenes where the hero's not sure if he wants to go in.

This was my experience in the cult.

It's like,

Shit,

I started to recognize,

Okay,

I'm getting a lot of benefit out of being in this cult's world.

I'm growing a lot,

But it is a cult.

They are brainwashing me.

I was like,

Is it okay to be brainwashed or not?

I had this discussion with some of my friends who were also entering the cult and were like,

Oh,

Is it okay?

There's so many benefits,

But we might lose our minds.

The conclusion that I came up with at least is being brainwashed into bliss is not so bad as long as we never wake up.

But if you get brainwashed into thinking you're enlightened and everything's perfect and then 20 years later you wake up from it and you're like,

Oh shit,

I was just tripping.

That fucking sucks.

And that's actually,

I had to cut this out of my book because it's too much of a non-sequitur,

But there's a scene in Batman the Animated Series.

Most of my life lessons come from superheroes,

Right?

Specifically Batman,

But in Batman the Animated Series,

There was an episode where Batman gets sedated by the Mad Hatter,

Which is a character originally from Alice in Wonderland,

Who's also a fool archetype as a villain in the Batman series.

The Mad Hatter sedates Batman and puts him into a dream state where Batman is in a world where everything is perfect,

Right?

There is no crime.

He gets to be Bruce Wayne.

He's engaged to Selina Kyle.

She's not Catwoman.

Like everything is perfect.

His parents are still alive.

Like everything is perfect.

He basically,

In order to,

Because Mad Hatter could not defeat Batman in the real world.

So he put Batman into a perfect simulation where Batman could have,

Bruce Wayne could have everything he wanted so the Mad Hatter could do what he wanted in the real world.

But Bruce Wayne realizes this is going on.

So he fights as he finds a way to break the game,

Get out of that false simulation,

Even though it was perfect.

And eventually he beats up Mad Hatter and Mad Hatter has a line towards the end.

It's like,

Like,

Why are you doing this?

Like I created the perfect world for you.

All you have to do is enjoy it.

And Batman says,

But it's not real.

And his Batman voice.

And,

And,

You know,

Again,

This is another one of my perspectives.

This is kind of like what I was like fighting against was like,

Should I go into this cult?

It's like,

I know that there's a real world outside of this reality or a potential real world where like some of these things that we're believing in that would make me really happy if I just believed in it,

They're not real.

Like there's another reality behind it because of that.

I couldn't really sink in fully.

And I think that's one of the things that saved me from being fully brainwashed.

This idea,

This,

This Batman ethic,

Right?

Like you don't want to go full joker when there are things you do care about outside of that non caring reality,

Which brings us to the final points.

And one of the most important things like from a,

For lack of a better word,

A consciousness level.

And actually it's represented by my other right arm tattoo,

The infinity knot of Tibetan Buddhism and my favorite philosophy book,

All of these things tied in my favorite philosophy book,

Finite infinite games,

Which is this idea that comes from the author of finite infinite games called self veiling self-veiling excuse me,

Is an idea that is the idea that there are different layers of consciousness,

Right?

Like to use the basketball game or the chess game that you can either take too seriously or not seriously enough at all.

Self-veiling is the ability to consciously forget about the real,

Forget about the outside of world for a period of time to take a finite game seriously so that you can enjoy it.

Right?

So to take the basketball example for you to really enjoy the game of basketball,

You need to pretend like it actually matters that you win,

Right?

If you don't care at all,

Then you're not going to why play?

It's not worth it,

Right?

For you to enjoy a movie,

You have to,

For some,

Some level,

Pretend like that is reality.

And then you get to really follow the emotions of the main character and the ups and the downs and feel great when they win and,

You know,

Feel the emotions of loss when they lose.

But if you,

If you're constantly like,

Oh,

This actor is in this movie,

Or,

You know,

If you're looking at the Wikipedia article,

If you're thinking about,

Oh,

This is just special,

These are just special effects.

This is just a set.

You can't really enjoy the movie,

Right?

You have to forget about everything else and pretend that the movie is real for you to enjoy the movie.

Same thing with everything else in life,

Right?

A pursuit of love or happiness or adventure.

You know,

You can,

If you always tell yourself that,

Oh,

This doesn't matter.

This is the life is just a simulation.

Then why do,

Why do life at all?

Like,

Why bother trying to improve yourself or sit your situation?

If you're like,

Oh yeah,

It's just a simulation,

Right?

Like that is,

That is going too far.

We're self failing is the conscious descent,

Not a sense,

But descent of your consciousness of your perspective for a period of time that you can engage in a finite game.

You know,

Whether it's a,

You know,

A playing game or a situation of your life where you take things seriously,

Right?

You're like,

I'm going to act as if this really matters.

And in this,

In this level of consciousness,

It does really matter.

So I try really hard and I get to experience all the experiences that come from pursuing this thing that I decided matters,

Whether it's whatever the things that you want,

Right.

And actually care about consequences,

But self failing is not unconscious,

Failing a lot of people,

Like when they're in a bad trip in life,

Like they,

They perceive the world is in a way that's not beneficial.

They perceive themselves in a way that's not beneficial.

That's unconscious failing.

That's a that's,

I don't know what you would call it.

That's just failing.

Conscious self failing is like,

I'm choosing for this instance to pretend like the movie's real.

I'm choosing to pretend like this game really matters.

I'm going to choose,

Pretend like money really matters.

And like my family's real and all these things matter.

So I can enjoy this experience because if you go back to the Alan Watts perspective that I love that maybe all of life is just a dream and you're going to wake up and you get to play this life over and over again.

The only way,

If that really is true,

Well,

You don't really benefit from constantly pretending like,

Or constantly remembering that you're going to live in other reality.

It's like,

If you really want to enjoy this dream,

Take it kind of seriously,

Like pretend like this really matters.

That's the whole point of self failing and that,

That fluidity of being able to move up and down in your consciousness to descend and ascend willfully,

I think is what is,

We could call what makes someone spiritually healthy or you could say psychologically healthy.

They can move down and they can move up.

They can watch a football game and act like it really matters.

And then they can,

On Monday morning,

They can ascend and be like,

Football doesn't really matter.

Let me deal with something else.

That fluidity allows one to be healthy.

So I,

Yeah,

Well,

Let's talk about all my tattoos because they all relevant on my left arm.

I tattooed the prisoner's dilemma from game theory right before I entered the cult.

Because at that point in my life,

I was so in my head and I actually,

And I do believe on the material side,

This is true.

Society is kind of a prisoner's dilemma.

I want to explain that now.

You can look it up on Wikipedia.

It's a,

It's a game where like,

It's an economic game where like the best outcome for the group is not the best outcome for the individual.

This is where shame comes from.

This is where,

This is where,

Yeah,

This is why people do bad things to each other,

Right?

Because there are certain economic material constraints.

But the infinity knot is the other side of that.

I got the infinity knot a year into the cult where I really tapped into my fool archetype and recognize like,

Oh shit,

Like life is pretty fucking,

I don't have to take that reality seriously all the time.

I can recognize that life is this infinite game.

And there,

I mean,

And the whole idea behind the infinite game,

Right?

Infinite games.

There's only one infinite game.

That's the last chapter of the book,

Finite event games.

A lot of people read the first two chapters and don't even finish it.

Like Simon Sinek did a Ted talk.

I was,

I was annoyed by this cause he did a Ted talk on finite,

Infinite games,

But he either,

He must've missed the last chapter because he kept speaking about infinite games as if they're like this thing you can create in your corporate structure.

I don't know what his point was,

But there's only one infinite game.

The infinite game is all of reality and the multiplicities of reality and this infinite set of permutations of things that can happen.

Everything else is a finite game to some degree.

Everything else is a limited consciousness.

Some are smaller than others,

But we're always seeking the greater game.

And if the infinite game is kind of an ideal that probably a human mind can't fully grasp unless you're really like tripping hard on like ayahuasca or DMT or LSD or something like that.

Commenter said,

I guess the conclusion is to play the game of life seriously and not seriously.

I would add to that,

Right?

Like the whole idea is the hype behind self failing is that you're consciously choosing in a given moment,

How seriously to take something.

Sometimes you got to descend.

Sometimes you ascend and like that fluidity of like how seriously you take life.

It's kind of like,

You know,

It's kind of like you're adjusting the dial of the,

Of what is ideal fulfillment.

And we can,

You know,

This is maybe an oversimplification,

But like in terms of the winter effects,

We'll just speak about often,

Which is the effect where if you perceive something matters and you win,

You get a spike in testosterone and dopamine.

If you perceive something matters and you lose,

You have a depression in testosterone and dopamine.

If you don't care about it,

Then nothing happens,

Right?

It's subjective.

So obviously if you really want to hack this,

You should take seriously the things that you're going to win and you should not take so seriously the things you're going to lose.

That probably is good for you hormonally,

But I'm going to counter what I just said to say that obviously if you're taking,

You know,

There's guys who take a pickup sports too seriously,

Or I play a lot of board games with my nerd friends.

Some guys take the winning and losing way too seriously.

It's just not fun,

Right?

There's an ideal amount of seriousness.

Anyway.

So to recap all of this,

The five principles is that to really connect with your full archetype,

You got to break some rules.

You got to do some taboo things.

You got to break some norms,

Or at least in accordance with the dice man theory,

Allow some inconsistency.

I don't want to say it that way,

Because that's the way he puts it.

You should allow repressed parts of your personality come out and allow yourself to break patterns,

Essentially what all of this is about,

Right?

The full archetype,

Which brings us to the next principle,

The full archetype sees the greater reality where everything is cool and where those finite realities are not taken so seriously,

Including what's in yourself,

Right?

Having a consistent,

Orderly personality makes you great as a functional citizen,

But there's a lot to be gained by breaking your patterns and recognizing that who you think you are,

Who your ego identity thinks it is,

Is not really all that there is.

That's just one role,

One role that you've constructed.

You have many other parts of yourself,

The part of you that wants to be belligerent,

The part of you that wants to sleep in,

The part of you that wants to be super orderly if you're already someone who's normally,

Who more commonly belligerent and sleeps in,

Right?

Breaking the rules,

Seeing that greater reality where all of this stuff,

It doesn't really matter,

Right?

That's the ascent in consciousness.

By doing that,

You can accept all occurrences,

All this stuff,

Whether you believe this is a dream or a simulation,

All of this is cool,

Right?

All of this is interesting and everything that you want and feel that comes out of your biological impulses,

Those are okay too.

None of those are worth shaming and you get to choose how much you let those things get expressed and perhaps Jungian perspective,

The perspective is pretty common in self-development in the 21st century is that you should at least let your instincts have some sort of expression.

Not that you go raping and killing people,

But that you find outlets where you get to express the instincts that maybe you would have one fantasize about something unpleasant like that,

But can still find a way to have that come out in a constructive and healthy way.

Repressing it always leads to bad stuff.

Which brings us to the fourth part,

Which is exploring the parts of your oppressed self,

Sometimes using chance for that.

However,

Which brings us to our last principle,

Not going so deep in the ascent,

Not going so deep into like,

Oh,

Life doesn't matter,

But consciously self-failing and allowing yourself to sink into certain games to enjoy life.

If you want to enjoy this simulation,

You should take something seriously.

Otherwise,

Why exist?

That's another kind of villain that you see.

I haven't actually watched the Avengers,

But I've heard from enough people like Thanatos wants to destroy reality.

Well,

There's a lot of villains who just want to destroy the world,

Which is not exactly a fool thing,

But it's kind of like,

Well,

It's kind of the nihilistic thing of like,

If you go so up in the ascent of like,

Nothing here matters,

Why not delete all of it?

Or why not delete all of existence?

Which is something most heroes will fight against.

We like existence.

So those are the principles on the fool archetype.

I'm going to leave this open for a second in case there's any last questions while anyone thinks of their last questions.

I think that's it.

Thanks for listening.

Keep playing the fool.

Goodbye.

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