134 Advice To My 23 Year Old Self Feat. Noelfry

Noelfry asked me what advice I'd give to myself 10 years ago. Conveniently, he's exactly 10yrs younger than me. I share the things that have and haven't worked for me the last decade. We discuss finding "Purpose", the need for adventure, attracting women, pleasure vs. fulfillment, and man's need to struggle.

Transcript

What's up,

Man?

How are you?

Hey,

I'm pretty good.

Pretty good.

Yeah,

Thank you,

Man.

How's everything with you?

Fun.

I mean,

I'm still a little sniffly and stuff.

I've been basically okay for five days,

But only yesterday my sense of smell and taste went away for some reason.

So you actually did get the vid?

I tested negative,

But I had all the symptoms and the smell thing is weird.

I mean,

They said it was just some other virus.

I just had a cold,

But yeah,

I can't smell.

It's really weird because you don't think about smell that much,

But then when something should smell strong or taste strong.

Anyway,

It's just a weird experience being without that sense,

This animalistic sense.

Yeah.

I mean,

I don't feel like eating.

Everything is kind of boring.

That sucks,

Man.

Yeah.

What's going on with you?

I've been studying.

I'm still doing the data science thing.

I'm hoping to finish that come April and then get a job and then move out since I'll have the income for that.

Will it be a remote job?

I'm not sure yet.

I think it will be since it's mostly online,

But for the most part,

I'd actually like to go in and talk to people,

Network,

Stuff like that if I could.

Okay.

Cool.

Did I tell you about that Tulsa remote thing?

I think I might have messaged you about it a while ago.

Yeah.

You sent me a website of the place to move to and they'll pay you to move.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That just seems cool.

If I was a single person,

I definitely would have jumped on it.

But anyway,

Cool.

That's a big step.

That's my only hesitation.

Just leaving behind everything and starting over.

It sounds exciting,

But I just,

I feel like I still have things to do.

I feel like actually,

I don't really have anything to do.

I think it's more for the people.

I don't want to say.

Okay.

That's a fair reason.

I mean,

You ever see the movie It's a Wonderful Life?

I haven't.

The Christmas movie?

No?

No.

Okay.

Well,

It's about a guy who never leaves his town because there's always something that needed him there.

So he never got to see the world.

He never got to do this stuff.

Anyway,

I mean,

It's one of those things.

That's not really what the movie is about.

It has a nice moral where he realizes he really did have an impact on people.

But anyway,

Yeah,

It's something I think it's something that motivated me to get out when I was younger.

I've actually been going through something similar,

But more of a,

I've been a pretty big homebody these last couple of months.

And until recently I've gone out for like Friendsgivings and things like that.

And I realized like,

I'm not actually a homebody.

I actually like to be around people and socialize.

But I still like to,

You know,

My energy gets drained quickly.

Like I'm usually one of the first people to leave a social event and like recharge.

But I do enjoy that aspect of life as most people do.

Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah.

Socialize.

Yeah.

So you messaged me with a cool podcast idea.

How old are you right now?

I am 23.

So I am in no way an expert on what we're going to talk about.

But I do feel like I mean,

Well,

I mean,

You are in the sense that you are 23.

Like you're exactly 10 years younger than me.

And you messaged me basically what is my advice to my 23 year old self,

Right?

Or myself 10 years ago,

Which is exactly you.

So that actually is perfect.

Our conversation would probably fit perfectly.

And you are an authority on being 23.

That's what you are.

Yes.

Anecdotally.

Um,

Yeah,

I have,

I have a couple I know you said that there's probably some sort of central theme to everything.

But I do have it broken down into a couple of different subjects that I'd like to touch on.

Just see.

First topic that I want to touch on is attention and time viewed as a as a currency.

I feel like a lot of young men don't really,

We don't really tend to understand the value of our attention,

Or what we do with our time and how we can use it to actually be a lot more successful later on in life.

Like,

I feel like usually in our 20s,

Like our early 20s,

We tend to like,

Follow pleasure more than like,

Have something of substance.

Is that what you're experiencing now?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Can you give an example?

Yeah,

So.

So me personally,

Like,

I know I shouldn't do it.

But I tend to smoke a lot of weed more towards nighttime when I'm like,

Done with most of my work.

So it's a nighttime thing for me.

And I noticed that like,

I wake up groggy sometimes like,

You know,

I tend to it just I know I'm not as mentally sharp as I could be.

And the time that I spend smoking weed like I'll go out on a walk and listen to music is time that I could be spending sleeping.

It seems like a small thing.

But incrementally,

I've noticed that it's added up over time to where it's like,

I,

I do it.

And then I see the after effects,

But I still do it because it's so pleasurable.

Yeah,

No,

I get I mean,

Well,

First,

I need to say like a very cliche thing,

As if I'm a really old man,

But like,

You know,

Like,

Something I've been thinking and I've actually been thinking about something similar at my age now,

Because like,

Man,

Like 20s go by really fast.

Right?

I mean,

Everyone says that,

Right?

When when they're,

I guess they're in their 30s.

But like,

Like you,

It really is not a lot of time.

I mean,

And I mean,

That's,

That's one thing,

Like,

I've noticed looking back,

The things that I'm proud of happened when I put in,

Like,

When I felt there was a little more urgency,

You know,

Like,

Like,

Every little thing does make a difference.

And I think,

You know,

Because I of course,

I've had phases where I've spoke too much weed or like,

Didn't sleep enough or like,

Playing chess too much on my phone or something or anything,

You know,

Any any time wasting thing.

And I guess day to day,

Don't think about how much it really does compound,

You know,

It's just like,

It's just like saving money.

Like,

If you put in a little bit every every day,

And you let it compound,

It's like a huge amount of money,

It can be a huge amount of money later.

And,

You know,

And you know,

When you ask me when you first like through this topic at me,

You know,

Obviously,

I'm pretty happy with my life.

And there's certain things that I'm proud of.

And I'd be like,

Okay,

This is what I did that led me to here.

And there's that.

But if I'm honest,

There's also like,

Regrets I have of like,

Man,

Like,

I probably could have achieved more by now.

And a lot of it comes down to these these little moments that you're talking about,

Where it's not about being obsessed.

I mean,

It's not about being obsessed to the point where you're letting everything else in your life.

You know,

You're not enjoying your life because you're trying to accomplish something.

That's another kind of,

You know,

Unfortunate addiction.

But I guess it just comes down to is the is the value of the pleasure of being high for a night worth the compounding effect of not sleeping well enough and all that.

Right?

Like something I've been thinking is actually probably my next solo podcast is our last thought.

It's like,

In physics,

There's a concept called escape velocity is the speed that you need to have to leave the orbit of a planet.

Right?

If you're trying to just,

You know,

Live a normal average life,

And it doesn't matter,

You can smoke all the weed you want.

But if you're really trying to like do something unusual or extraordinary,

You have to gather every bit of resource that you have.

I wanted to say that that analogy actually made me think of something because I I do look at it through.

I think the word you use was pleasure,

A pleasure lens.

Because it's like,

I'm doing this right now.

Because it'll bring me so much happiness.

You could even say like,

Because of the dopamine,

But I'm forsaking the future for the sake of the now.

And I do see that not just myself,

But a lot of a lot of my friends and younger guys.

We kind of tend to fall very easily to pleasure whether it be drugs,

Women,

Clubbing,

Partying,

Stuff like that,

To kind of like,

Forsake the future for the sake of that.

That's what the physics analogy made me think of.

Yeah,

And I think there's something you know,

There's something with when you think,

I'll speak for myself,

The two times that I kind of convinced myself to do these immediate pleasure seeking things that I know,

Maybe take away for fulfillment or not fulfilling.

It's when I think I'm ahead,

Or when I or when I'm like,

Kind of in a self loathing mode of like,

Ah,

Fuck my future,

Or fuck it.

I don't care.

Right.

I just want this hit.

I just want to,

You know,

Watch the next porn clip or eat the next donut.

Right.

Fuck it.

You kind of get the fuck it's,

Which I mean,

Yeah,

For me,

At least,

Yeah,

This happens when things are bad,

And I'm like,

Just giving up in a sense.

But the time is like,

Even more tricky for me is when I've been doing really well,

And I feel like I'm ahead of things.

And it's kind of like a tortoise of the hare thing.

It's like,

I'm so ahead of whatever I said I was going to do.

Let me just,

You know,

Let me just do some shit that's bad for me.

But then,

You know,

The tortoise and the hare like that,

The hare catches up and you lose the race.

And yeah,

And I think,

You know,

It's,

Yeah,

This analogy,

I like it because it's like,

Even if you've done some good things,

And you sped up a little bit,

You're not really free of the planet until you're free of the planet,

Right?

You're just gonna get sucked back into the orbit.

So yeah,

You know,

Honestly,

It's something I've been thinking about a lot too,

You know,

Now,

Right?

Like the things I'm proud of,

Up until this point in my life,

Came from respecting this and the things that I'm not proud of also came from basically denying this principle.

I think bringing attention to that is something that I wanted to do with this advice piece.

Just use advantage,

Take advantage of your attention,

Be aware of where it's going.

And the time that you have.

And speaking of having time,

I think 20s is the perfect time to travel.

And that would be a segue into the next topic,

Just traveling and like,

Having a lack of responsibilities and exploring the world kind of going out there and being a Renaissance man.

Yeah,

I feel like that's something that is very important for people my age to be doing.

Yeah,

I mean,

I think it is the best education,

Right?

To just be exposed to things and to think differently.

And,

You know,

One of the things,

Not that I want to focus on regrets,

But like,

Well,

I'll say what,

You know,

The times that I didn't explore new things for the sake of trying to be,

You know,

Quote unquote,

Responsible,

Or like save some money or whatever,

Like 100% of the time,

I regret it.

Right.

So like,

I kind of poke you about not wanting to go.

I mean,

It doesn't have to be Tulsa,

Maybe there's better places for you to go.

But like,

I,

You know,

This idea of not wanting to leave behind the same old,

You know,

Every time I've made that decision personally,

I've been like,

Fuck,

Like,

Why did I do it,

You know,

Just to save a paycheck or just as,

You know,

Like those life experiences are so valuable,

And you don't get them back.

And at some point in your life,

You can't do that anymore,

Or becomes very expensive too.

Whereas,

You know,

It's kind of a counterpoint to what I just said.

But like,

When you're young,

Especially,

You know,

A typical guy,

Typical intelligence,

You basically have up,

You know,

Let's say until you're 30 to make mistakes without any major consequences.

Right.

Like you can go broke a few times.

And it's not that big a deal.

Like you just get another,

You can just get a job and make your money back.

Right.

It's almost always worth it.

Right.

Like,

Actually,

One of the things I thought of right when you messaged me about this idea was I bought a one way ticket to Mexico City,

When I was like,

I think 25 or something.

And I was like,

I didn't have the money.

I didn't have any money.

Right.

I didn't have I didn't have I was actually like,

Barely employed.

I was working whatever jobs.

And like,

Oh,

Yeah,

What if I have the money,

I'll get on a plane and I didn't have enough money and whatever.

Looking back,

I really didn't go on the plane.

I just wasted the plane ticket.

Looking back,

I'm like,

I probably would have saved so much money living in Mexico rather than New York.

Like it would have been totally moot.

Like the reason for me not going on a plane ticket.

Practically was also silly.

And I and I missed out on this huge adventure.

So anyway,

It is just I think it's always worth risking most things because what you have to risk isn't much.

Yeah,

Yes.

And I feel like I'm gonna speak for me personally,

Like I have,

I have been in that situation where it's like things that,

Wow,

This would be great to do.

I've never done this before.

Or there'd be a trip somewhere like an experience with people.

And a lot of the times it's this fear of failure that I've,

I've kind of become aware of that stops me from doing these things.

And lately,

I've been trying to reframe that and kind of see it as an opportunity to grow.

Because you know,

It's there for a reason,

Whatever the fear is.

I think what do you want to travel to?

I would love to go to Spain.

I would love to go back backpacking along Malaysia,

That entire sphere of Asia,

Europe eventually to learn when you're gonna go.

I want to go this summer.

I'm gonna go this summer.

Okay.

Yes,

This is happening.

And I'm gonna,

I'm gonna view it as a challenge.

And I'm just gonna do it.

Cool.

Yeah.

And now,

You know,

It's,

I mean,

It's not exactly easy to travel,

But it's easy to have a remote job,

Like,

Pretty much any job can become remote now.

So in that way,

It's like,

It's the easiest it's been to have an income and explore new worlds.

And I just want to take the challenge for myself.

So I want to push myself through my boundaries.

I know that that challenges are one of the fastest way to grow.

And now I,

I invite anyone who's listening to this to put out a big challenge ahead of themselves and take on it and see what kind of person you are at the end of it.

Because the challenge for a reason is there to help you grow.

That's something I've been realizing more and more.

Yeah,

It's there to help you grow and in itself is like how one derives,

How one feels fulfilled.

Like,

Because the thing that you're pointing to,

Let's say with the smoking weed or whatever,

Those pleasurable activities are not fulfilling because they're not challenging,

Right?

It's because it's fun getting high.

It's fun,

Whatever,

Going to the club,

It's fun.

All the things that we mentioned that most of us aren't proud of,

They're all fun,

Right?

I'm not,

You know,

They're not not fun.

The reason why they're not fulfilling is there's no struggle.

There's no challenge.

So you spend a whole lifetime smoking weed every day,

Your life is going to pass by and you're like,

I didn't,

I don't really feel fulfilled.

Whereas if you take on challenges on a regular basis,

Even if the challenges aren't as pleasurable,

You will feel proud of yourself,

Right?

But whether or not you grow,

I'm just saying like the growth is like actually like the secondary benefit you get from challenging yourself and doing hard things.

The hard thing itself is what's rewarding.

What about with women?

There's a fine balance between pleasure and almost desire.

What do you mean?

Like it's very easy,

Especially in a world of OnlyFans and internet porn to just become addicted to chasing,

Chasing women,

Chasing after women and kind of forsaking yourself as a man.

Like I,

I just think the whole concept of like of OnlyFans and like internet porn is meant to kind of enslave your mind.

And it's the same thing as weed.

It's just,

It's something that's fun and easy and it's not as challenging as actually going out there and making the connection.

Yeah,

I mean,

It's the same idea.

It's a challenge-less pleasure,

Right?

It's the pleasure for free,

Like as opposed to working for the pleasure or working for the reward,

Right?

And of course it's addicting because you know,

You can just hit that button or scroll,

Hit that swipe and you get the,

You get those pleasure chemicals as opposed to like having to put in real work to meet a woman and connect with someone and discover someone new.

Yeah.

I mean,

So what is the fulfillment?

Is it just the knowledge that you accomplished the challenge?

I don't even think it's not,

It's knowledge is like when you go through the process of meeting a real person,

You get all these connection chemicals that are nice and good.

And I guess technically that could also become addicting.

So I guess it comes down to whether or not you've balanced your life enough,

Right?

I mean,

For someone maybe who's figured out,

You know,

Where like dating is very easy and doesn't really challenge a person himself and like he doesn't discover new things about himself through the process of meeting women and romancing and dating.

That,

I mean,

Any activity I suppose could become kind of like this challenge-less pleasure hit,

Which is not rewarding,

Right?

It's kind of just finding those things that put you at your edge.

Because like the argument,

And this is what I spoke about in the episode that's coming out right before this one,

You know,

We are wired to feel pleasure from certain things that contribute to our survival and all of those things pre-civilization required effort,

Right?

Meeting a mate,

Acquiring food,

Not dying in the winter,

Right?

All of those things are rewarding things to survive in as under jeans.

But for our Paleolithic ancestors,

It was impossible to ever achieve any of those things without serious effort.

All of those things required effort.

So for us,

We're kind of in this place where we can get food without effort.

We can get calories,

You know,

For a caveman to acquire enough sugar in one mouthful.

He had to do a lot of picking of berries.

Here we just eat a candy bar,

Right?

And that's why he makes us fat,

Right?

Whereas like a caveman could never get fat because he could never put in enough energy to get enough blueberries to make himself get diabetes,

Right?

Anyway,

It's the same thing with everything,

With porn,

With women,

You know,

All of those things required expenditure of effort with your body and mind.

And so now for us,

We can get the rewards without effort,

Just kind of like this incomplete chemical cocktail where you're getting all the sugar without the nutrients,

The nutrient being effort.

You know,

That is the thing that makes it worth it.

Things should be hard.

I should say your nervous system expects good things to be hard.

So when you get the good thing without the difficulty,

There's something just feels incomplete.

I like the word effort because it's like you said,

Like not a lot of things require effort and it's very easy to just fall into a mediocre lifestyle without effort.

But then is it just about deciding what you're going to put effort towards?

Because I feel like a lot of people my age don't necessarily have a direction.

There's almost a sense of aimlessness.

And I feel like now that I'm thinking about it,

That could be because of a lack of effort to go in any one direction.

So is it better to just,

If you don't have a direction,

Just take an aim and put effort towards something and let it grow?

I would say so.

Because when you messaged me about aimlessness before,

I was thinking like it is really hard to find your thing.

Right?

I mean,

Honestly,

Only recently have I really found my groove with podcasting,

For instance.

But I've been doing it for like six or something years along with many other things that just didn't take off.

All I can say is in retrospect,

What has happened to work is a lot of trial and error.

But it's hard because,

Again,

Comparing us to our Paleolithic ancestors,

They didn't have to think of their purpose because their purpose was just don't die.

Right?

And that's where they got all their fulfillment from and their pleasure.

It's just like doing the things that allowed them to not die.

Whereas for us,

Survival is taken,

We can take for granted.

And we're kind of raised to not think for ourselves too much.

Right?

Like school,

There's only one way to do school.

School trains you for a typical job and there's only one way to do the job.

Very few people have a lot of autonomy in their work.

Right?

Even in relatively good careers,

You can't just do whatever you want every day.

There's a thing you have to do decided by usually by someone else.

Even if you run your own business,

That's kind of just.

.

.

Anyway,

You basically have to throw a lot of things and try a lot of things to,

In a sense,

Find synchronicities where your internal feelings match the external activity.

And I think the only way to do that is to throw yourself into new situations.

You're not going to think,

You're not going to deduce your purpose by hard thinking.

You're only going to find what intrigues you by exploring.

Yeah.

Life experience.

That's very true.

Yeah.

And novelty.

And that's why people love.

.

.

I mean,

We're driven for novelty.

To explore the world,

To keep swiping,

To keep scrolling.

We have this mechanism that wants to keep finding new shit or keep changing the channel to find that new thing.

I think this is true for men more than women.

There's a real call for adolescent males to explore the world.

That's why so many guys get addicted to video games because you get to explore new worlds.

We're wired to be so driven to see new things continually until we find the things that work.

Right?

Which is why.

.

.

I mean,

That's why I think travel is kind of the cliche desire for everyone with their freedom because that's the thing that subconsciously we know is the best strategy for finding fulfillment.

It's just to walk the earth,

Basically.

And then a lot of people,

Again,

Get that desire,

They get that need met without effort by,

Let's say,

Swiping or scrolling or any of these things that give you that result of novelty without the effort required to travel through reality.

I think the effort is the action.

I think it's interesting.

I'm going to view it in terms of action.

Just what you take action on.

So you can take action on playing video games and it's not necessarily something that brings you.

.

.

It could bring you pleasure but nothing else versus taking action on,

Let's say,

A sport.

And then you join a sports team and then that gives you responsibility.

And then it's ironic because the responsibility ultimately leads to freedom because you're not just at home playing a video game by yourself.

Instead,

You're out with your team playing a sport.

And I like to look at it that way as responsibility versus freedom.

You can't really have freedom until you have responsibility or discipline because otherwise you're just a slave to your desires and what's around you like porn.

The simple things,

The easy things.

Your mind is not really disciplined.

It's not something that is.

.

.

So I would say that disciplining your mind is definitely something that's very important when it comes to finding your thing.

Yeah.

It's like whether or not you can.

.

.

Are you taking responsibility for your experience?

If you're in a digital world like the metaverse or you're playing a video game or you're on social media or watching porn,

The world in which you are existing is controlled completely by someone else.

What you can do in a video game is pre-planned out by the video game designer.

What you can do on a website or an app or whatever.

Sports is moving in the right direction because you're at least using your body and interacting with people where it hasn't been predetermined by someone else.

Which direction are they going to kick the ball?

You don't know.

There's no way for you to know.

So you have to react and come up with your reaction spontaneously.

But to be fair,

Sports also is another kind of game with defined parameters.

If you're playing basketball,

Someone's not going to throw out a hockey puck.

So it's not full surprise.

But real,

Real life,

You're interacting with basically nonstop surprise.

And that's why something like travel or going to a totally new culture,

Totally new environment is so fulfilling because you have no idea what's going to happen moment to moment.

And your ability to react spontaneously is like this incredibly primal.

It is the creative act.

It's what our creativity is for initially,

Which is reacting spontaneously.

Yeah,

I think that's what makes TikTok and Instagram so addicting because you may not know what the next video is,

But it's sure as hell is going to be something that's different from what you just viewed.

And it's always something to do with like a different life experience,

Whether it's someone dancing or something like that.

It's almost like emulating real life if you were out there,

Just seeing people on the street and people watching.

Yeah,

It's curated people watching.

However,

It's designed to hook your attention.

So it's not like an accurate reflection of reality.

It's what would get you swiping to scrolling to the next thing.

And we know TikTok is controlled by basically China's way of farming US attention.

So if anyone who is still using TikTok after seeing the social dilemma or awareness of that,

You're basically choosing to be a slave,

You're willingly being a slave.

Yes.

I wanted to bring up an idea.

I don't know if there's any basis for this idea,

But I want to talk about the masculine shadow and what role it has to play in your 20s.

Because I feel like as a man in and for,

And this is true for pretty much man or woman in your 20s,

When you go to college,

You're kind of figuring yourself out and you're kind of freeing yourself into the world away from your parents,

Away from if you went dorming away from your neighborhood and all that stuff.

It's like,

You got to figure out what kind of direction you're going to go in.

And I feel like men tend to tend to gear more towards freedom.

And there's obviously a lot in the masculine shadow that you cannot do because it deals a lot with violence and you know,

Things like sexual violence,

Like physical violence,

Aggression,

And things that are kind of shun.

And I feel like that plays a large role in why a lot of men have trouble,

Particularly in their 20s.

Before this episode,

I did some research and the number of men and women who,

Who watch porn is about similar weekly.

But when you scale it back to,

To longevity,

So like how frequently they're doing it,

Yeah,

Frequency,

How frequently they're doing it in a week,

Men are pretty much addicted to it.

It's almost daily,

A certain percentage of men not.

That just makes me think like,

Does the shadow have a role to play and why your 20s can be so irate?

Yeah,

Well,

I think it's,

You know,

Men are wired to take huge risks for huge payoffs genetically,

Right?

Like I would argue that women tend to not get addicted to porn because even if they like watching porn,

A woman doesn't have a lot of benefit from,

Genetically doesn't have a benefit from sleeping with a thousand guys.

Whereas a guy who's driven to sleep with a thousand women can have a thousand grandkids,

You know,

Et cetera.

It's Bateman's principle in biology,

Right?

Like just men have,

And a guy who isn't driven to find a mate is going to have zero mates and his genes aren't going to pass on,

Which is why young men especially as their,

You know,

As the switch flips that loads them with testosterone,

They tend to take stupid risks,

Right?

Because it's either they die young or they have a thousand kids like Angus Conn or something.

So,

You know,

This kind of wiring is,

It's obviously you can get someone addicted much more easily because this,

You know,

Men are driven to experience as many women as possible.

And yeah,

I think,

You know,

This is a shadow in a sense,

You know,

When people speak about the crisis of men,

You know,

We look at how boys are getting more depressed or the suicide rates are higher and all that stuff.

And like,

Another one is girls are doing way better in school.

You know,

I think part of that is that our society has moved in a way where you're much better rewarded for your obedience compared to in the past.

So if someone wired with,

You know,

With an androgen system and like is highly driven by testosterone,

It's just becoming harder and harder because part of testosterone wants autonomy.

If you don't have autonomy,

It means that you're lower in the status hierarchy,

Meaning you don't have a lot of freedom,

Meaning you don't have mating opportunities.

Whereas,

You know,

So one of the most important things for a male mammal,

Let's say,

Is to have freedom.

That means you're at the top of the hierarchy,

Meaning that you have mating opportunities your genes pass on.

So I think,

Yeah,

Now more than ever,

If you look at certain societies,

Especially like with vaccine mandates,

It's kind of like this movement towards not getting to move around freely,

Which is like,

It's basically a death sentence for genes that are inside of a male body,

Which is why,

Which is why typically the men having a harder time than women when you have these kinds of societal controls.

And then,

You know,

If you're,

If you're a young man who doesn't get to have freedom or do what you want in reality,

Where can you get stylist?

Well,

You might as well watch porn.

You might as well play video games all day because you can't,

You can't be free,

You know,

Or maybe you watch Fight Club and you're like,

Oh yeah,

It would be great.

But like,

There's something that resonates with that of like,

Just like tearing everything down.

So you have freedom.

I think that's why people really love like The Walking Dead and those kinds of dystopian movies.

It's like,

At least in that world,

Even though things suck,

Everyone has freedom.

Like no one's telling you what to do.

That's,

That's,

I tend to fantasize about what if a zombie apocalypse a lot,

And it always brings me pleasure because I just think of like,

Survival and like all the things that I would do and I don't view it in the lens of like being afraid of it.

I actually get excited to do it.

And I guess craving that freedom.

Yeah,

Freedom and like everything you would do would matter,

Right?

Like,

You know,

If you live in the first world now in a normal society,

And you have a good job,

Like,

A lot of the things you do probably don't matter,

Even if you have like a really good job,

Right?

I mean,

Obviously,

There's different levels of autonomy and some people do really cool things,

But most jobs where you get a paycheck,

A lot of what you're doing really doesn't make a difference to you.

But in a zombie apocalypse,

Everything you possibly ever would do would matter 100% to you,

Like where you got your food,

What you did to not get eaten by a zombie,

And everything else,

Right?

Like everything would matter,

Which is why,

You know,

Yeah,

Why I think is a very common fantasy,

Especially if you're like,

In a situation where you're like,

Fuck,

Like the things I spend most of my time doing really don't matter.

Like it's kind of like,

It's just like,

Yeah,

Anyway,

You get what I'm saying?

And yeah,

And you know,

In a zombie apocalypse world,

That's a pretty,

That's probably the only way we would end up living like our Paleolithic ancestors again,

Is if there was some sort of apocalypse,

Right?

Because like governments and nation states are very against human nature.

Right?

There's no way for a group of people to organize beyond like the family tribal level,

Like beyond 150 people and have everyone's needs met.

I mean,

We've talked about this before in other episodes,

Right?

Like,

So anyway,

Yeah,

You know,

If there's a zombie apocalypse and the world descends into anarchy,

We would band together with our loved ones and then just every day focus on surviving and life would be really hard,

But everything you would do would involve struggle.

Everything that we derive pleasure from,

Which would mean surviving would feel really good and feel important.

And then you'd be able to use your wits to its full capacity.

And you know,

Anyway,

Yeah,

So this is a romanticization.

I'm not saying I want to fight zombies every day,

But this is why it's so appealing.

Yeah,

It makes sense.

And honestly,

A part of me does want to fight zombies every day.

No,

Yeah,

It makes perfect sense.

That's so would it make sense to that in order to find fulfillment,

You kind of have to find meaning in your life where it's like something that doesn't necessarily have to do with your survival,

But you know,

It has meaning to you and as a person in order to feel that sense of freedom,

Because if you're let's use the zombie apocalypse analogy,

Like if you're killing zombies every day,

It's something that directly affects you and impacts your survival.

So in order to find fulfillment in your day to day life,

Would it have to would have to be that you do something that has meaning?

Yeah,

I mean,

I would argue that the idea of meaning is just our abstract way of looking back and defining what is fulfilling or not.

Right?

Like,

I mean,

It really just comes down to attaining something that you had to struggle for that also benefits you and other people.

Zombie apocalypse has everything,

Right?

Anything you do would be to save your family and whoever's in your tribe,

You know,

Nowadays,

But there's no zombies to fight.

I mean,

There's never zombies,

But there's no like things that we have to do as far as fighting.

Food is taken care of our survival needs and our fulfillment needs are now separate.

We kind of have to come up.

I mean,

Ted Kaczynski called this the surrogate activity.

Like we need a surrogate activity to go through our fulfillment process since our survival,

Meeting our survival needs doesn't do that anymore.

So yeah,

I mean,

This is basically what a person's purpose is.

This is kind of a cynical view of purpose,

But that is,

You know,

If you look at biology,

This is why we care about purpose,

Right?

We care about purpose because we want to struggle for something for our survival.

Survival is met,

So we need to find something else,

Right?

Ideally a hobby or a career.

And if you look at the career pursuits or hobbies or whatever,

Like,

You know,

Past times that tend to be the most fulfilling,

There's something difficult that benefits many people or benefits people.

It doesn't have to be many,

Right?

You do something that other people that you care about can derive joy from.

That's basically like hunting an animal so that your kids can eat or your tribe can eat.

It hits the same circuit,

Which is why it feels good.

Whether it's starting a charity or having a business that makes a lot of people smile or something like that.

You're also higher on the hierarchy if you're able to impact that many people.

Yeah,

For sure.

Back to reward chemicals and stuff.

Yeah,

Because I remember the very,

I mean,

The only office job I ever worked was at a marketing firm.

You know,

I remember just like every minute I was in the office,

Like there's something in me that was screaming all the time that this can't be what life is,

Right?

Like I can't,

Like my whole purpose in life,

When I'm spending 50 hours a week doing can't be just like moving words around to make some other guy rich,

Selling products that don't matter to anyone.

Like there's just something like this whole thing is like this circle jerk of meaninglessness and it just drove me crazy.

And for a while I thought,

This is actually something I wish I knew when I was younger.

Because if you are really dissatisfied with a regular job and you tell people about it who work regular jobs,

And I don't mean to shit on everyone's job,

But it's like,

A lot of people might call you entitled or lazy.

And these are things I even thought to myself because like,

I remember,

You know,

After a few months of working,

Telling my dad who worked a similar job his entire life,

Like 50 years,

Like I felt like such a lazy entitled bum,

Telling my father,

Like,

I really hate office work,

Right?

Like,

He's a guy who's like,

Who did it with no complaints for years.

You know,

I respect him for it,

I think is great.

But every time,

You know,

What I was really recognizing,

Even though I don't have the words for it,

Was that I was not in alignment with what we could call it my spirit or my subconscious processes,

Right?

Like my fulfillment circuits were so not being met.

And maybe I was a little bit entitled,

But part of it was like,

Just recognizing that this is not the way to go.

And I wish,

I mean,

I did ultimately make the right move.

But for a while,

Like I kind of felt trapped in my head because everything from society and other people says,

If you think that way,

You're a lazy bum,

Or you're entitled,

Or there's something wrong with you.

Or like,

No,

No,

Actually,

There's something wrong with society that everyone is okay with being a slave.

And I don't mean to sound like Tyler Durden,

But that is it,

You know?

Yeah,

I think a lot of people have the same thought process as you did,

Where it's like,

Is this really what life is like?

Is this really what life is like?

But I think instead of questioning it,

They tend to fall into it and kind of replace the sadness with the surface level pleasures that we were talking about before,

Kind of,

You know,

Get through life that way.

I do think that society has kind of made it so that,

You know,

We no longer have those that purpose being survival to hunt to,

You know,

Feed our family.

So now we have to find a higher purpose.

But the way society is structured right now,

Not everybody can,

You know,

Fully unleash their creativity.

We do need people to play nice and play along with society.

Yeah.

And to your earlier point,

Right?

Like,

These pleasure activities are basically given to people in a sense to sedate them,

Right?

Because if you're getting your dopamine hit from Facebook or TikTok or whatever bullshit,

It sedates you just enough that you don't have to feel the agonizing pain of doing things that don't matter,

Right?

Like it helps you just get through it.

Like you spend eight hours,

You know,

Making someone else rich,

Removing a product that doesn't benefit anybody or something.

I have a frog in my throat.

And then you go home and then fill yourself with meaningless pleasure.

That's like just enough for you to not feel the agonizing pain that you should feel,

Recognizing that you're doing something that does not,

You know,

Hit your fulfillment circuit at all.

Right?

So you kind of,

You know,

Going back to an earlier idea of escape velocity is like,

You kind of have to let yourself have the space to feel the pain that'll make you change and get off of that track.

And then the other thing that you're saying about like the shadow of the masculine,

Like obviously,

You know,

Rape and violence and actually let's take rape off the table,

But like violent,

Violent impulses that men have,

You know,

Of course,

They're not good,

Right?

I'm not saying they're certainly not good expressions,

But anytime a guy gets to the point where he wants to do something violent,

It's really,

You know,

It's kind of like his internal defense mechanism of being like,

Hey buddy.

I mean,

I'm talking about like guys who are not mentally,

Uh,

You know,

They don't have something seriously pathological the wrong with them.

But like when,

When someone has a violent impulse and it's like,

You know,

It's like his subconscious being like,

Hey buddy,

You've been so off your path,

Right?

You've been so like out of alignment with your nature.

You have to do something to correct it.

Right?

Like this,

The violent impulses are kind of just like internal correction mechanisms.

And,

Um,

Certainly I don't want anyone to get to the point where they actually want to do something like that.

But if you're,

If you're thinking those thoughts,

If like,

Even if you're,

I think a common fantasy for men,

I've talked about this in the podcast is like just fantasizing about beating someone up.

Right.

Like we're like saving the day.

Like I remember when I was at my lowest points,

I was constantly having fantasies of like going to a corner store and someone's like,

You know,

It's typical like male ego fantasy,

Like you saved the day from a robber or something,

You're beat up some,

Some old lady who's getting robbed,

You know,

Like that's kind of a normal thing.

Right.

It's like,

It's kind of what guys seek video games for like that kind of like over,

You know,

Fighting the bad guy or something like that.

Yeah.

I mean,

These fantasies are just like some way of like directing you to not live mediocrely anymore.

I guess it comes down to what you choose to do.

You choose to stay in that or continue doing something differently.

I noticed that whenever I do do something that does fulfill me,

Like let's say I got through a very hard presentation or I did very well on a meeting.

It tends to,

It tends to project into other things.

So maybe that day I'll hit the gym and continue to do difficult things.

I think,

I think it's kind of when I slowed down and find myself,

Like I didn't do anything meaningful today where it's like,

I do sit down and I smoke weed.

Cause it's like,

Okay,

Let me just you know,

Stimulate myself at least for the sake of stimulation.

And I do sit there and I ask myself like,

Oh,

Why did I do this again?

And you know,

I always,

I reason it as like,

Oh,

There's nothing else to do,

But it's like,

There's,

There's always a choice.

I always have something that I could do.

It's about making that choice.

And like you said,

Like,

If I don't feel that pain,

Then I'll never like acknowledge it.

I'd rather just,

You know,

Sit with it and be bored and feel the boredom.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cause like,

You know,

Next time,

And this is not to say you should never ever smoke,

But like next time you feel the urge to smoke or look at social media or any of these things.

Yeah.

If you allowed yourself to just sit and be bored,

Like you would feel,

You probably,

You might even think a bunch of negative thoughts or feel a bunch of feelings that you wouldn't want to feel,

Which is why many people seek those activities.

But that pain will be like,

I can't stay this way.

And it'll naturally motivate you to find something new.

Like that that's,

It's,

You know,

When people spend their time on social media or whatever,

It's like,

It's robbing you of the pain that leads to the creativity to a new track in life.

It's like you're,

You're,

You're forcing yourself back into the orbit rather than letting yourself fly out into space and see what's there.

You know,

If you need,

Yeah,

Anyway,

You need that escape velocity.

You need that space.

And I think the pain is great.

The pain is fine.

You know,

Um,

When I,

When guys reach out to me for coaching and they're like really in pain,

I mean,

Most people,

If they've gotten to the point where they are really seeking solutions,

Like they've felt something,

Right?

Like,

I think it's great.

You know,

And I'm like,

When,

When guys have heartbreaks,

I'm like,

This is fucking great.

Like use this,

Right?

Because this heartbreak is just,

You know,

This is years of past issues that you kind of like let yourself,

Um,

You know,

Whether it's nice guy syndrome or whatever,

Like you just let yourself skate by,

But now this pain will force you to change.

You don't ever have this problem again,

As opposed to like sedating yourself and going,

Oh yeah,

It's okay.

And then,

You know,

Another 10 years passes.

Yeah.

Very true.

I have one final question for you.

So if you were in a room with young Luanda,

Uh,

22,

23 year old Luanda,

What would be your top three pieces of advice for him?

One is you are going to suck at time projections.

So just do today's struggle and see what happens.

Right.

I guess another way to put it is like,

You know,

It takes a while to find purpose and find fulfillment and in the process,

But in the process of like picking your daily struggle or your daily work,

You know,

Um,

At 23 and this is again,

Maybe a cliche thing,

But like I sucked at time projection.

Like I always had these yearly goals that I never hit,

You know?

Yeah.

I read when I was 23,

I read Tim Ferriss say this and it didn't really land until 10 years later.

So maybe it won't land for you now,

But I'll share.

It's like something like people always overestimate what they could do in a year and underestimate what they could do in 10 years.

Right?

Like the meaningful things that you want are not going to come soon.

And I mean,

When I was 23,

A year seemed like a long time.

Right.

And like now I'm like,

Fuck it.

It was by so fast.

You know what I mean?

Again,

Very cliche thing for me to say,

But it's like,

It is,

You know,

Meaningful things take a while and if you just keep grinding and keep grinding,

You'll be like,

Oh yeah,

Shit.

It happens.

Right.

You know,

If you just let go of the,

The,

So anyway,

For myself and like finding my creative purpose and whatnot,

It kind of just happened when I stopped caring about when is it going to happen?

You know,

I was just exploring and doing,

And you know,

I didn't think I would be a solo podcaster,

Right?

This kind of just happened from me trying this and trying that.

And,

You know,

I tried to copy a lot of what I saw,

Joe Rogan and this person and that person that never really stuck.

I tried being a YouTuber.

It didn't really fit.

And then I just found that when I personally,

When I read dense material and then make podcasts about it,

I really enjoy it.

People seem to like it.

All those other things I tried just didn't work.

But this thing that I found,

It only works because I tried all of those other things that didn't work.

Right.

So like,

You know,

Another,

Another cliche is like fail faster.

Right.

I mean,

That's the,

That's the beauty of going out and putting yourself into the unknown.

It's like,

It forces you to fail much faster to find the thing that works.

So I guess that was a few things in one.

Yeah.

That's what I would say is the biggest.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the same thing with character development.

I know when I was 23,

The two things that stressed me the most is what should I do with my life?

And then I was very hard on myself for like personality traits that I didn't like,

Right?

Like being shy or like whatever.

Same thing with that.

Right.

Like,

You know,

Being so obsessed about having the perfect reaction when I saw someone I was attracted to or spoken,

Speaking to people like,

You know,

That only made things harder on me.

Whereas if when I just put myself into new situations and,

You know,

Kept challenging myself before I knew it,

The traits that I wanted to change had already changed themselves.

Right.

So I mean,

I guess this general thing is like change how you look at time,

Right?

Just focus on daily struggle and like the things that you want will happen faster than you think if you just keep working on it.

I don't,

It's kind of like,

Um,

Did you catch my episode on Orpheus?

Do you know the myth of Orpheus?

Um,

Anyway,

This is a different application,

But basically is a Greek myth.

His wife gets taken down to the underworld.

Um,

Hades says you can,

Uh,

I'll let,

I'll,

I'll let her go back with you.

You just need to walk out of hell without looking back.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's like,

He turns back too fast and he loses her.

And I feel like this is,

You know,

How a lot of,

Uh,

A lot of our goals are like,

If we keep checking on it,

We lose it.

But if we just keep moving forward,

It'll follow us.

And anyway,

Yeah.

Yeah.

That,

That reminded me of the inner game tennis,

How there's a self too,

And you kind of just trust self too and allow it to do what it needs to do,

Whether it be in a social situation,

You know,

You have your,

Your,

Your intuition is actually much more keen than,

Than you think.

If you just,

If you're,

If you're in your head trying to figure out the situation versus just being in the situation itself,

Your energy is going more towards the situation and it's more beneficial for you and the pong run.

That just reminded me of that.

For sure.

Yeah,

Man.

It was a good book too.

Yeah.

Cool man.

Well,

I hope you go traveling soon.

You can always go back to your,

Your friends giving when you get back to New York.

I mean,

I think it's a,

It's a very exciting time to be your age.

It's all supposed to,

It's supposed to be a magic number in like the Illuminati circles,

The number 23.

Anyway,

This is just a random aside from this book I read.

Yeah.

32.

33 as well.

Or yeah,

33 is Jesus this year.

Right?

Jesus' death year.

Cool,

Man.

Well,

It's always fun to talk to you.

Is there anything else?

No,

Just that.

Those are all the questions I have.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for coming on.

Learned a lot.

Learned to,

To value my age.

Yeah.

From a different perspective,

You know,

I felt like coming into this podcast,

I saw a lot of failure and being hard on myself for not being where I should be.

But I just I think now I'm able to reframe things as opportunities and kind of look forward to the next day.

Yeah.

I mean,

There's just so much possibility.

Like who knows what your life is going to be like at 33.

It's like you have so I mean,

I mean,

Same thing can be said at 33.

Right?

If I look at 43,

Like I still have so much so much like,

But yeah,

Again,

I guess I guess my last thing I want to repeat is like,

You have the luxury of fucking up royally without any consequences for the most part,

Which is just like it's just a fun stage.