Ep. 2 - Dustin Marshall

This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. There's no audio effects on that. I did that with my voice. Welcome to today's show. My guest today is the awesome leader, fearless leader of feral audio. Dustin Marshall. Dustin is a really cool guy. That's the common denominator, I think, in a lot of my guests. They're all cool. I'll try to get some uncool people on, so, you know, we can even it out a little bit. But Dustin Marshall, alas, is a cool guy. And he runs feral audio, which is a podcast network, which is just go there. Feralaudio.com. Check out all of the podcasts that are there. Comedy, entertainment, really cool stuff. Like, really awesome.

Yeah, if you need some recommendations, hit me up and I'll tell you what to go look at over there that I like. Dustin also works for Starburn Industries. He's working on a new show for HBO, doing a, he's the audio engineer called Animals. That's coming up. So this is an awesome guy. That's his professional life. Outside of that, one of the more interesting people I know. And when I say I know, I've met him once, talked a couple of times, but I follow him on Twitter. And I think Twitter is an excellent way to learn about someone's Twitter self, which is not necessarily who they are as a person I found, but gives you some insight into their inner working, so to speak, if they choose to use the platform as such. Big Twitter fan.

But I know that Dustin is a really thoughtful, intelligent guy, and we go into a lot of topics here. Some of which is about podcasting. Some of it is about mental illness and mental health. He gets pretty deep and pretty heavy with a lot of this stuff, but honestly, these are some of my favorite conversations to have in life, let alone on the podcast. So, you know, take a listen, going forward. It's one of the longer ones I've done. It's about an hour, something or another hour and a half. But I think you're really going to like it and get a lot out of it. I definitely recommend sticking through. So, okay, without further ado, here is Dustin Marshall. Thanks a lot.

Yeah. Yo, what's going on? I'm going to opt out of the video. Okay. Because I, hold on. Maybe I should put some clothes on. Hey, very familiar with that. Saturday, dude, I was dancing to at a 90s club. It was, I heard Van Halen. I saw on Twitter. Yeah, yeah, that was fucking hilarious. Hold on a sec. Yeah, no problem. Yeah, my friend was just like, do you want to see Van Halen? Because I know a guy just get us in. I was like, hell yeah. Yeah, sure. He's amazing at guitar too. I mean, it's like not a normal level of guitar playing. I think a lot of people don't understand that. He's like, no, he's there. He's like the last guitar virtuoso.

Yeah. There's, there's not going to be another of that, dude. And like, there was like 15 minutes of the show, maybe even more where he was just like riffing and improvising. And it was just some, it was beautiful. It was, it was like, he doesn't have a delay pedal, but he uses his fingers to make it sound like it has a delay pedal. That is awesome. Yeah. No, I know. I had, I went at school. Someone who I grew up around here, we were roommates. And he was really into like a progressive metal. So like, in a, in a mom steam, like all these really dream theater. And, but they always, all the metal people had like a ton of respect for Van Halen. And I never forgot that. I was just like, yeah, even the shredders and stuff for like, wow.

I mean, David Lee Roth is like fucking strangest human being. Dude, he in the middle of his song, they were just jamming. And he went on the most transphobic racist. And he was just like, ah, I was in Oklahoma. The boys look like girls. This is weird. And it's like a Japanese girl. I thought she was a boy, but she's still good at math. That's, that's great. That's awesome. Holy shit. All right. So, okay. Yeah. I don't really have any specific format or anything for this yet, but I am, like I said in the email, basically just starting out with people who I think are doing really cool stuff. And two, I also think kind of have a unique perspective on life in general, not just life, other things too. So I thought, you know, I follow you on Twitter. I know we've hung out once in the city.

And, you know, we have a lot of mutual friends, but, you know, you definitely fit the bill for that type of person. So I'm, thank you for taking the time to do this on a Saturday. Also, that's really cool. Yeah, thanks, man. You guys are the best. We hung out once, but I feel like I've known you guys forever. Yeah, it's cool. I feel kind of the same way. It's, it's cool. So I wanted to start with you with feral, you know, naturally. And for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is, you know, in some ways, by proxy, you're kind of the impetus by proxy, like I said, for MindPod Network. And a lot of the ways that you've run and kind of set up feral feed into what we're trying to do with MindPod Network, albeit kind of different content on some level, in some ways it's not, but kind of the ethos behind it. So in your own words, describe what feral is and kind of the ethos behind it.

Well, I also got to say feral, where Duncan was like, this guy, Raghu, he's awesome. He, he, he, he, he, him and Rob just wanted to do a podcast. You got to come and like, let's just help him start a network. So much like he did that. He was the guy who was like help. He basically shadow produced feral and like helped me do that too. So I mean, and also Duncan on the lavender hour, Chris Hardwick was a guest and he was like, what's a podcast? So like, Duncan is quietly behind everything in podcasting. So, yeah, that being redundant. I guess that's short because I tell a story all the time, but I got involved in podcasting when I was in college in Madison, Wisconsin.

And like, I was always a huge comedy fan. And as a kid, I grew up in Mr. Show, but then I was about 19 or 20 that Mr. Show DVDs started coming out and I just got really, really into it. And this is like pre YouTube and stuff. And I would just, I heard about comedy death ray, like the live show and UCB Franklin and LA. And then I was just like always into comedy the same way I was into bands and shit. So then like, um, got, wait, no, no. First thing was, um, I use a love line fan and then I didn't, I didn't ever hear Adam Corolla's radio show, but I followed Dino Stematopolis on my space, Dino from like Mr. Show and late night and all that stuff.

And then he was like, Hey, I'm an Adam Corolla's podcast. I was like, the fuck is a podcast. And then I opened it and I listened to it. And it was just like mind bending, like the most, because you have Dino is like the most transparent, honest person ever in Corolla, too. And it was just like the most raw conversation between two adults. They were just saying shit that I had never heard in my life and my brain. Like, my brain is open like a sponge. I got so excited and I downloaded every single one. And then I found out Scott Ockermann had one and stuff. So then I was like the biggest fan of that. You asked me how I got started, right? Yeah, no, no, I did. It, it, it, it, it's completely, you're completely on target. Keep going.

Okay, okay, okay. Um, this is like 2010. And so I was like, truly known as like the biggest fan of comedy death ray radio, which is Ockermann's awesome. And do you want to one show that he started doing as a podcast and like he was like way ahead of the podcast curve and he was just bringing all the fucking comics that were in LA that like I would never be able to see and doing fuck. And it was just awesome. And so I got like addicted. And then, um, so I went to the just for last festival in Chicago and met Scott and James Adomian and this guy who was meeting with Scott was pitching him on doing a podcast network.

And then we all just became friends. And then for the next year or so I was like interning and like doing some audio stuff for them from afar and just like being like a consultant and helping them build the website like before I even had a name. I was just doing data entry and stuff. So I was like really, it was like my favorite thing in the world. I was really stoked and what they were doing. And then when it came out, it was just awesome. It was because they did your wolf and then a year later I got a phone call from the guy who founded your wolf. And he was like my audio engineer just walked out.

I've always wanted to be my audio engineer. Can you come to LA? But I need to know by tomorrow. It was a Saturday is like I'm going to start looking for somebody on Monday. And I just graduated school two weeks before I was breaking up with a girlfriend of five years. I was about I was about to on Monday sign a lease for a new apartment. And then so I called both my parents and then they were just I never agreed on anything and they were just like yeah you have to do that your whole life you're going to regret not doing that. So then put my stuff in storage came to LA with like two carry-on bags. It was my first time ever on a plane. And then just got off the plane and this guy from your wolf picked me up and he was like.

Show handed me an iPhone and it was Scott Ockermann and Zach Galpinakis like welcome me to LA. That's cool. And it was just as really surreal thing. And then I was there for about. Ten months but on day one I pretty much was like oh this isn't what I thought it was and that they were. And then I slowly figured out because I was becoming friends with all these people and meeting key meetings and friends and they were trying to control me like you can't be friends with these people. And I found out very quickly that they were like kind of screwing them over is kind of give them like a raw deal that they were they were making him do ads and donations and they weren't paying them and all the stuff so I decided it was really like.

They didn't give a shit because they're like oh I don't do a podcast for money I just do it because it's fun or whatever but I'm like well still right. I think there's a way to do it where you're your go to response to that shouldn't be like yeah. So then that fizzled out really quick. And about a month as it was falling apart because me and Duncan like had been. You know I was a huge fan of his podcast that ran into Natasha my first week there I was like do you need help she's like yes please and so I met Duncan. Duncan Sunday in LA on his doorstep and then he took me in and then it was him Natasha and the guest was Chelsea Peretti who I work with now and then.

You know and then so Duncan just like he was he was like my guru back home he got me an Alan Watts lavender hour was my favorite podcast like he kind of just changed my whole trajectory my life like all of his appearances on Rogan and shit like. I don't know now I'm like now I'm like working with and like friends with like one of my idols and stuff and then we just became friends and then it was all falling apart and the entire time Duncan was like mentoring me and talking me through like rough stuff so he was just like this is what you do man he goes he goes well so what we'll do you like you just you'll be like it'll be like a seminar like you just I'll connect you to comedians and then you'll be like hey I'll here's what equipment you need here's what I cost per podcast once I get the once you get the ballroom and you won't need me to record but if anything ever goes wrong I'll come and fix it and like and I was and then I was like yeah that's a good idea but I also like what if we did it like an art collective because I used to volunteer at an art collective in Madison Wisconsin and I used to volunteer at a radio community radio station and I was just sort of like what if we do it like an art collective where we just ask people like volunteer and then yeah I don't know his webmaster Steez like yeah I looked at me up to see who agreed to do it for free for like 5% of all feral prophets hooked us up we got hooked up with a guy who's like hosted it for free all these artists did it for free and then in a month we you know everybody I asked said yes and it was crazy what year was this 2012 interesting okay this is we launched May 14th 2012 I created it I started working on it on April 16th and so in less than a month we built a whole website in five shows and all the shit it was real really really fast yeah yeah so yeah the ethos is I didn't know like right now we're you know I've been repaying for this out of pocket and we've exploded and so the costs have gone high so I base I've bankrupted myself doing this truly yeah I don't doubt that I so we're transitioning right now to like we're partnering with we're partnering with I work at Starburn's Industries like Dan Harmon and Dino's company did like Rick and Morty and stuff a bunch of awesome shit they've been letting me use their like state of the art studio to do podcasts for like a year and a half because I started working with Harmon and Harmon really loves podcasting and gets it and wants to proliferate it and is awesome and so we're partnering with them and we're transitioning from an art collective into a profit share like a actual functioning business that is the one thing I failed to do like you know because I do absolutely everything on my own so like I curate it I produce the shows I edit lovela all the artists do their own content well all the like not all the not creative stuff I do right but I can't I literally hit the wall where I can't do that anymore truly so I'm like trying to figure it out but the whole the whole ethos of this whole thing is that putting taking a putting an emphasis on the artist contribution and not treating artists like their employees are working for you treating it like you're working with them and the emphasis is on the person who took 20 plus years to get really really funny and good at their craft versus the technical person the person providing the service so that was the original ethos of it is artist friendly we've we've since rebranded as fiercely independent podcast because our whole our whole vision is like because now the biggest issue networks including your wolf have sold for millions and millions of dollars to major corporations who now own it which is one way of doing it and like they're they were that was their goal from the beginning but I really think that this is like a medium in an art form like especially now like I knew the bubble was gonna pop but it needs to be protected and we need it it's just gonna it's the coolest thing that's ever happened in my lifetime and like everything else it's just gonna become so lame and corporate and it's good you know so it's like I just feel like right now we just gotta like hold hands and stand a line and be like no yeah we own this we're never selling out we don't have any intention of selling out the whole ideas that we own everything and why would you if you hand me a hundred million dollar check like sure I can walk away with it clicking my heels but like why not spend 20 30 years making a hundred million dollars not that that's the goal of it sure no I totally get it yeah why not do that but own everything and not have to adhere to whatever so that's the ethos behind it yeah long long answer good no perfect amazing answer actually because the parallels between podcasting right now and the music industry are clear in the sense that there are a lot of people who are going kind of the corporate route that's the way that this advertising model is gonna work it's gonna be a straight top down you know one of the verticals that a marketing person can understand clearly then the alternative is is what you're doing or trying to do with my iPod network is is exactly work with the artists the teachers the people to create things that ultimately and this is this is just kind of my ethos in my career outside of podcasting any of this stuff is provide value for the end user right the person who's gonna be sitting there listening to one of your podcasts and having that moment where they're like holy shit the same thing that you had like this is amazing and they can resonate with them immediately that's super important which is one of the main reasons I actually wanted to have you on here is I see you fighting for that in a way that is quite honestly extremely refreshing like I went to a music school Berkeley school of music and to see how many talented people basically got chewed up by the system that exists and Berkeley is kind of like a mini music industry so for people who don't know and aren't plugged into any kind of like creative industry it's it's kind of a nightmare situation you have middleman basically leaching off of really talented and typically compassionate and kind of awesome people just taking a cut that's just like destroying not only the creativity in the process but just kind of like diluting and making stuff kind of shitty so that's that's truly like what the way you just broke that down is is is perfect and I also on the same token can relate to kind of the position that you're in running this thing right I mean it is when you keep saying like I bankrupted myself and I kind of hit the wall I know what that's like I personally haven't bankrupted myself but in terms of time and energy putting into running something like you're running it's that it becomes your life right I mean you're you're fighting for something where the system is not set up to accommodate that and when you're doing that you can run into other stuff so yeah I totally think that was awesome yeah thanks dude I well you know a couple to hit a couple of notes on what you just said is like yeah another ethos of our thing is cut up a middleman like that's the whole thing about the music industry and why it's a dinosaur and it's going extinct right much like you know that's like TVs fucking dying and then it had a renaissance where all these big shows happen because like they were like accidentally slipping through the cracks letting good fucking shows come on TV because people weren't doing their job which is make shitty so yeah so yeah this whole like why you know that's the thing is like we've always wanted to advertise we just don't want to do shitty advertising we don't want to do you know the same thing that everybody's doing because if you a lot the whole idea is like everybody's listening to these podcasts it doesn't matter if they're networks like that's that's ridiculous because I guarantee a huge portion of Pete Holmes or Mark Marin fans listen to our podcast like Harman Town so when you do an ad on Pete Holmes for audible and then audible's done ads on podcast for six plus years and then they come over to ours and they're like well you're not making any impressions it's like yeah because everybody and their mom has made audible account already because you're on every podcast so like what our whole thing is like our new model of advertising is sort of this lost model that Duncan Trussell is like masterful at it which is like the live read it's like an old school television you know you'd have like Dean Martin and on a talk show smoking and drinking with a bunch of like fucking being a bunch of guys being racist to say that you'd stand up and you'd be like alright alright alright you'd walk over and there'd be some like blonde fucking objectified woman next to a giant thing a toothpaste and be like oh so what's Colgate toothpaste and you'd be sitting there smoking making jokes and like she'd be doing a thing and he'd be saying you know it's like it was integrated and the whole idea is like this is like when a show is like this is brought to you by something that should be it the idea of like interrupting the content and hammering in these schizophrenic ADHD trying to get your attention bizarre snippets of like that make no sense like all of a sudden it's like you're like watching like a family and then there's a balloon and the kid grabs the balloon and then it takes off and then it rains skittles or something like the fuck am I watching so yeah that's like it's all like people are everything that comes along people to see an opportunity right business people and they want to make money and there's nothing wrong with that this is like I'm this is a zero judgment thing like it's not good or bad it's fine like if you if you you should you know if you're there's a lot of people who are good at their jobs because there's a lot of creatives that can't fucking keep their head straight I mean I'm more of a creative than a business guy I'm fucking crazy not really like when so you knew you need an agent you sort of need when you're a creative somebody to be like no no you got to be here right now I'll take a cut like that works like that's a relationship that's a symbiotic relationship when you have all these fucking people that join the company that are just in between you like like leaching off of stuff and the artists are getting paid the bare minimum and the fucking middlemen and people are getting paid before the artists like in the music industry we're like right they business costs are insane and always overhead and so then they set aside an amount of money that they pay the artists like the artists aren't actually getting paid for album sales really fucked up algorithm and system that no longer like serves anything of course you know so it's it's like me personally yeah this is my entire life since I started this thing it's at minimum with the exception of a few weeks like 80 to 100 plus hours a week it's the first thing I do and I wake up it's the last thing I do I usually record all day I take like four or five six hours out of my night sometimes I go drinking or hang out with people mostly podcasters and meeting people and making podcasts but like I like personally I'm just like complete white trash like I came from I'm coming from like complete white trash like poverty like not I don't so everybody's like standard of living like like the old guy used to work for he goes I can't I don't know if I can do this like I'm making no money and then I went and saw how we lived and I was like me goes well me my wife have we were accustomed to a certain lifestyle I'm like okay why don't you not want to just get a normal apartment and like live modestly so my what I'm saying is that like I don't have any I don't necessarily feel like I deserve anything I don't feel entitled to anything which I mean I'm not 100% I'm certainly like constantly kicking and screaming like why isn't this happened yet like I just this should have happened a year ago or like why is nobody fucking love me natural human problems but like that but you know it's just it is worthy of a life because like without getting you know from a dark place like when I came out here I was in a very dark suicidal place when I started feral I thought my life was over and I was like well this doesn't work I can just fucking kill myself like that was where I was at you know so through this sort of dark what you're doing is you're accidentally letting go and then within the letting go and maybe you know everybody was like thought I was really confident when it was really I was very detached and I was just like and I was like I was being willed to do this thing because I like to do it because I came out here and I really liked I really like podcasts and I was like okay I'm really good with working comedians I just want to keep doing this right like I didn't they you know they wanted me to when they when they when the earwool thing fizzled out they wanted me to just like they did it in a way where they were systematically not paying me so I would be absolutely like broke when they let me go right which I was because they just wanted me to get the fuck out of LA with my tail but to my legs and right then you know they did not think in a month like you know I just wanted to keep doing it right in a way it was an allergic reaction it wasn't necessarily me going like here's my middle finger in the air but it was being like okay well let's be open and transparent about it here's our business model like you you know like this is I want to just keep doing it but this is how I'm deciding to do it or where deciding to do it so what do you think the connection is personally for you between kind of what you described is you're saying you're suicidal and the dark period of your life like what his feral served what role is that played in your life outside of obviously it's something that has kept you afloat or is kind of a beacon for you and your love for doing what you're doing seems to be in large part something that is like driving you so like what what's your relationship to it because I know here's the other thing too I'm I recently in the past year and I'm it sounds like I'm a lot like you in the sense that when I'm doing something and I really give a fuck about it like I really care I'm doing it that's like what I'm doing there's other stuff is going on maybe but that's really what I'm doing so what happens is I have a tendency to get so wrapped up in something that I then become kind of like the thousand hand thing doing everything you know something's coming to me I'm going to be on it I'm going to do this so in the past year I've really had to learn exactly what you described how to let go and also had a delegate which has been really really difficult for me but ultimately I think is helping me at least professionally stay a little bit sane so I'm wondering how kind of feral acts with your consciousness on a on a day to day basis and what role it's kind of played in your life outside of all of the business and career achievements well you know I mean it's I'm still in the thick of it I I had a suicide attempt for Saturdays ago like I was like pretty much at my bottom I've I got diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in the past year so I've been really like addressing my mental health like head on and just trying to be open about that too because I feel like that you know I feel like if I was having all these people tell all their secrets in their microphones and I was trying to like you know not be transparent I'd feel really guilty or exploited or something so I've been very open about that but you know it's a lot of hard work because at my core I'm a workaholic which is a very romanticized addiction in our country but it's actually very not so awesome when you're an actual workaholic I mean yeah I mean I was a workaholic in Wisconsin working at McDonald's in a grocery store like 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. like I just like because the thing is is that there is like a void in me that I don't like looking at myself and like that's what's been hard in therapy because now I like when I I really that's I mean that's why I quit meditating I barely meditate I haven't meditated for almost like well I do a group meditation every week but I haven't been having a strong practice and over a year because like that looking inside myself and seeing that like oh like underneath all these huge emotions and ambitions or whatever there's like nothing like I'm not like it's a big fuck it put on and I don't really feel anything so well what do you think that is I mean that's that's a really interesting I think that's a first of all not to diminish in any way or shape or form here that's a very common problem I think a lot of people as soon as they start touching either on the uncomfortable patterns of thinking that they have when they start meditating and I'm being full disclosure here I am a terrible meditator I probably get if I'm lucky for 5 days a month if I'm like really really trying and like this is someone who I work with this stuff all of my clients teach meditation you know what I mean like so I can relate to the difficulty that's going on but back to kind of what you're describing is like the emptiness what do you think that is do you think it's actually a void or do you like what is that because that's I mean this is a genuine question that I definitely don't have the answer to but I think it's it's worth touching on I mean this is the this is the whole Buddhist philosophy this two sides of the coin that's what Buddhist strive for is the emptiness that like it's a big put on egolessness like in Buddhism that's like a positive thing but you know for me it's like I don't I just I have a deep lack of purpose and a very profound piece of like where I don't really have a lot of self worth so like I have to distract myself so I don't constantly have to like look inside myself the reaction the result of that is a very very dysfunctional personal life in a very functional career and so like I'm just glad that like I take all this energy and I've managed to transmute it and focus it and find something that I love because podcasting is like given me like all of my biggest dreams work with all of my heroes all of my best friends I met through podcasting I've met I've gotten girls through podcasting like both of my cats I got from comedians it's like it's been this I made the community here is so loving and supporting and like I just I'm very very lucky in this cycle in this lifetime that I ended up dropped in this like stream that is podcasting that is this force that's this group of people who are just all of a sudden just moving and like I just got lucky like in the beginning I kind of jumped in the fucking river and like now it's like picking up steam steam and whatever but like I think that thing inside is that like you know at a court at the baseline thing it's just human fear if that's a fear of death or it's a fear of abandonment which is my biggest thing or it's a fear of like that we're all alone and that you really are alone with your thoughts and your pain and there's some pain that you share and then there's some pain that's yours and that's completely private and that's your pain and like you can't there's no way like we can have empathy for each other but there's no way that I can go and feel your pain and you can feel mine and so that my pain feels very very intense in a way that like I can keep my shit together I can run a business like I'm fine but inside the second the door closes and I'm alone it's I'm in I am personally like have you know I'm in hell yeah I know I'm working and I'm around people and I'm with all these people like I'm in heaven so I got you so yeah so that's it sounds like it's also part I mean you can give a better definition in a bit about what BPD borderline personality disorder is and how that kind of factors into your perspective in life and what you're feeling I can only relay that at one point in my life I was diagnosis bipolar and I was on lithium for two three years and a lot of the things that you're describing in terms of the wanting to communicate or at least express or feel the whether it's pain fear happiness joy but to communicate those emotions effectively is something they can really fuck someone up because when you feel like you're you don't have like a vehicle or a way of kind of interfacing with other people or what's going on inside and reconcile that with the outside world it can create a really shit situation so I totally get that what I will say is this is you know and I've been on both sides of this coin and I've realized that you know somewhere in the middle is probably the most beneficial approach but you know when I'm feeling or when I felt in the past that I just you know low self-esteem not feeling great about myself feeling that you know I'm a fraud or I'm not doing this right there's two things that I think have helped me and I'm not saying this would help you or anyone but they have helped me is that try to hold that whatever emotion it is just hold it you know what I mean you don't have to engage with it even if you do in my natural tendency I have an anger problem so if I get pissed off I am witnessing myself going to a rage and still being completely incapable of stopping it so it's not to stop anything from happening but it's just to hold it and be aware of it and then even if it sounds kind of schlocky or silly or new agey that concept of loving kindness and compassion you know wherever you can start that with yourself with someone else with your cats with whatever it is that quality the love and the camaraderie that you have with your friends and you know if you can extend just a teeny bit of that to yourself for five seconds a day it's like a seed that eventually grows and then you look and you're like oh shit it's grown like a little bit bigger and that just that having that little bit can can really help with kind of like the overwhelming experiences sometimes being alive which I think in my life I don't know if this is like for you but that shit comes in phases for me they'll be periods of my life where everything kinda is going pretty smooth and then I'll just start getting on a rollercoaster and it doesn't mean that everything is out of control and I'm keeping my shit together but stuff just seems to happen sometimes and I think it's kind of cyclical so yeah I mean I can definitely relate can you maybe go into because I really another reason I'm thrilled to have you on here is the mental health issues are just something like I said having been diagnosed and had some really intense experiences I think it's something that we would better serve everyone the world if we started talking about this stuff a little bit more and bringing it out to the forefront rather than kind of having people feel like this is something abnormal because a lot of people go through this shit and talking about it is important so yeah yeah I mean that you that was beautifully said I also am bipolar 2 which seems to go hand in hand I was also Nick misdiagnosed as bipolar not BPD but I am bipolar 2 and I have a very very nice my my psych my psychologist is really good and I go to a community place where it's all social work with some people getting paid shit and she I have a very nice medication regimen that I'm on it's just really nice but lithiums fucking hardcore dude that's like zombifies you that's like a really intense fucking drug to be on I think that I'm starting to be more open about it because I my my mom is severely mentally ill major borderline personality disorder I've not talked to her in four years after like a major suicide attempt and just like a very toxicity toxicity but there is in my opinion and event horizon where I feel bad because the baby boomer generation like in every generation before it is supposed to like repress all of those issues and not share them but and then you know they're just like lost from a generation where they just didn't have the internet or access and didn't know what's going on with them not that we not that I feel like we have better tools now to at least assess what might be wrong with us but there's only one way to do that is get diagnosed by a professional and it's also very hard to find a good professional because a lot of doctors and psychologists and psychiatrists are shitty and shitty at their job yeah not all of them but a lot I'd say it's mo I say like 70% it's gonna say a little higher but yeah but yeah so you have to you have to shop around and it's like you have to get second opinions or whatever but anyway I feel like cuz right now like you know I'm very my way my way of coping with my darkness and depression is to constantly make fun of it like I have to like everybody's like your tweets are really fucked up and I'm like but that's it's it's like I don't have modes of expression because my I help people make stuff I still don't have something for myself that I can express like what I'm going up what's so I don't have it's like I used to make music but I don't anymore I don't have a thing that I do like my therapy like my therapist was like do you have a hobby and I'm like oh I guess I don't turn my hobby into my career yeah but like I want to just because even when I talk about it even people I know that are I work for a very good friends of mine by talk about having mental illness like it gets quite in the room and they look at you less you know it's like you know when I when I told when I told my good friends that I was on anti-depressants they were like oh my god well my friend our friend got an anti-depressants and then killed herself what's like well there's a reason she got an anti-depressant like you know so you know that initial reaction to that that like that allergic reaction like people thinking of you less the more I hammer the more I come out as I am mentally ill like I feel like it's the more of us start openly talking about it the less of a stigma is because this country has a severe problem with mental illness and I don't want to be able to do that.

There's no problem with mental illness. There is no fucking support. I live in Los Angeles where they there is a state of emergency right now because the homeless population is so high. I'm stepping over you know we just we just throw fucking that's the whole idea of skid row is that downtown LA is that all these like schizophrenics and mentally ill people would get thrown in jail and they didn't know what to do with them. They would just drive them down to third street and just drop them off and they started that's basically like what skid row is. Yeah so I think that like starting to like talk about this in a dress it is become you know because with you know I have this is where this might be one of the reasons I know making a judgment where I feel like I'm a bad person.

I have since I started Farrell I get I mean almost every day at least every week I get amazing tweets messages emails from people who are like this really really helps me like Farrell audio has done this and also I have people who are like you talking about your mental health thing like help me get diagnosed or something and I had a girl at the bar being like I listened to you on Duncan's podcast talking about it my girlfriend has BPD I didn't know what it was and I love her and I want to like work with her and so or work with her I want to be with her. Yeah so right now in my life as I turn 30 this is sort of like what I'm doing right now is like because mental illness really in my opinion is a thief.

It steals the only thing you have in this life is time in the moment and if the moment is constantly miserable and you're in constant misery there's three options in my opinion. The first option is to just continue living in misery and being miserable and never addressing your issues and just sort of like going about your life with never really like tackling it too is just like even if you're putting your tippy toes in the water just trying to work on yourself whether that's therapy exercise meditation that's option two option three is suicide and I have a complete I don't what's really hard right now is since I started coming out about this is the messages I get on tumblr of kids like saying they're about to kill themselves. I can't like I it's too much because I'm still in treatment right my own shit so it's like I had the publicly like tumble I was like you guys can't write me these messages anymore because I don't have I'm what I have to say about it is not what you're going to want to hear because I don't I'm not all you want is somebody to go no no no no you're special you're special don't do it you deserve to live.

That's not what I'm going to tell you is if you're not that's not your viewpoint it's hard to tell someone that wholeheartedly I think it's a it's I'm just what I'll tell you is it's certainly an option for you. Like definitely that's definitely on the table if what's the point of being in misery like what's the point of walking what's the point of living 70 years or every day as unbearable misery from the second you wake up and go to that sounds like a really terrible life like suicide definitely sounds like we're a quick easy remedy for that but maybe wait put it off and maybe try before you do that option.

Getting professional help talking to somebody talking to your friends your family like telling somebody just coming out and just letting this thing inside you that's eating up that you're ashamed of and instead of being afraid what people are going to think or just sitting online or ruminating and looking up WebMD shit what might be wrong with me and never there's fucking tell somebody and then make a make a huge attempt to try to even if it's for like that you said five seconds a day of just like try to find some shred of happiness or some not even happiness just tolerating sure your condition because it's mental illness like if you don't start working on it which is why I'm starting to hammer it in people's heads you end up like my mom who was always really troubled but was super cool was the whole reason I'm in the comedy she was she lived in downtown Madison when the onion was coming out she'd run home and give me an onion it was still warm for being printed and she said read this it'll make sense someday you know and when my hamster died she took me to Mystery Science Theater 2000 the movie she made me stay up every Saturday and watch Saturday Night Live like it is totally because of her I have my taste in comedy but my mom just started slipping away borderline personality disorder hoarding suicide attempts she's bankruptcy her house got four closed on I was breaking in through a window at night just trying to get my stuff out because the banks changed the locks on the doors like just watched her just deteriorate and her mind just slip and and at the same time she's not like a very nice person either like I don't she's not a person that I would want to hang out with she's kind of mean and and I mean they feel it and so at some point like it was right when I started feral like truly she we went to San Francisco for a wedding and she had a mental breakdown and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and tried to kill herself Jesus and so I was like you know we went back to the hotel we called the cops they detained her and I was like thank God and then we were driving down the fucking coast there's a grapevine and I was like relieved and I was like oh my God this is she's getting she's going to get help she's going to get help she's hyper intelligent she has a huge IQ and she's a social worker she managed to talk herself out of lock-up because and then they were trying to call me to verify it but they couldn't get ahold of me because I had no reception so she like talked herself out and then she went and disappeared for two weeks and either was going to kill herself or was completely wanted me to think that she was so I spent two weeks mourning my mom like I are mourned her I thought she was dead so then all of a sudden she came back out of nowhere and I was like no I've I've this is exhausting I can't I already mourned you this is too much of my mental energy and what I've done since I've removed that toxic person for my life is start a fucking podcast network and do all this shit because my brain is freed up and like you know that might make me a shitty cold person we're like I I'm sure that I still feel like I'll definitely when she does commit suicide which is going to happen someday I'm definitely going to be heartbroken but a part of me is also like I think maybe that might be the best option for her might give her some peace because she's absolutely in hell and tormented and her borderline personality disorder is extreme and she's in such pain and she I once a year I text her on my birthday she'll text me and I'll be like I'm in I'm in this program you have borderline personality disorder 80% of people who have it moms have it I blah blah I'm in this program no response and then when she does respond just completely ignoring everything I said like just completely not looking at myself so it's just I don't know like I'm not going to save my mom but maybe I'm not trying to save anybody but no no no what you're doing is is touching on a really important thing when it comes to mental health and mental illness it requires a personal effort right I mean that is the only thing there is much as we wish that we could do something to someone who's in pain and be like okay you're better now that's just not how it works so unless the impetus is there to actually kind of get better like really it doesn't have to be full-blown like yeah I'm gonna do this gung-ho it just has to be there it has to exist and I think one of the things that helps get that to the surface or at least someone let someone identify it is just talking about it right I mean that's one of the things that I think and I saw you put something up on Twitter I think and it was a way of like how to approach people when they say something who is depressed or has some mental issue and you know when someone says like hey I'm having a really shit I'm having a really shitty day or I don't feel great you don't go oh it's gonna get better don't worry like things are definitely gonna get better like that's not necessarily what the person wants to hear they may just want to be acknowledged or you know just spoken to or just like seriously just there and listen and that to me another reason I think this is important is one of the best things you can do for anyone who's in pain whether it's mental illness whether it's grief whether it's just fear pain it's just pain is just being there with someone and not judging them not trying to do anything but just saying like I'm here you know it's okay it's not there's nothing whatever's happening is happening but I'm also here is a really important thing and I think that gets lost a lot because one of the things that happens in our society especially in this country is everyone who's trying to fix things and do things and achieve things and get things and when you apply that to people sometimes it doesn't work super well you know that's not exactly how people work it's just kind of how we're used to working so I think that's that's really powerful what you're talking about with your mom I mean you know one of the other things and this is this is maybe a little over the top for a lot of people but I've also found and I feel sometimes weird saying it but whether you believe in a higher power or anything or not just saying some type of call it prayer if you want but just wishing well or putting something out there psychically or thinking it can actually have an effect on external reality I think anyone who's taken psychedelics enough times might actually have that experience too but I think that kind of underlies the structure of reality of what's going on which kind of brings me to the next thing I want to touch on with you is I heard you on Duncan's podcast talking about and this is something I'm asking a lot of my guests is what do you think life is like what do you think where we are right now what is this is their point to it if there is what is the point and you don't there's no obviously there's not a right or wrong answer so well it's going to be another long one that's okay I within the past year turning 30 and just sort of like the culmination of my experiences you know early in my you know born Catholic atheist at eight years old to like 20 or you know and for a while I was doing LSD and selling LSD and as a practicing Satanist and was in this punk rock band and we were just like aesthetically doing more fucking basically doing black magic and taking acid and shit so I did I'm very lucky that psychedelics came into my life when they did you know and it really excelled my growth but you know I was I was in I started reading about Buddhism and stuff aesthetically my early 20s and right around like my friend passed away and I was just really devastated and I was sort of like a very angry person which I still am but sort of like this was the most altruistic sweetest person my first friend in the world who I lost touch with for selfish reasons and never knew that I really loved her is gone now and it really like put my life on a different path like immediately everybody was just like holy shit so that's why you know I started working and I wanted to go to school and I wanted to like volunteer at things and help people but like my idea of reality has changed tremendously over the years because you know when I was 25 and 26 I was really I'm really like this like concept of quantum physics like what are they fucking talking about this concept of time is concept of multi-dimensional what the fuck does that mean and so you know and I do believe that you know we are living in a hologram that we we exist in an infinite bed of information that is this has is this potential thing and then it's plucked out of the nothingness and thrown into motion it's this kinetic thing and then it runs out of energy and then we pop back out we pop out of existence and we go back to the infinite bed of the void the nothingness but you know that used to give me solace like that you know this whole idea like meditation and rhombos and cornfield and like meditating and just feeling that connectivity and that God like feeling God and that unified field like for a long time no matter how bad it got I had this fundamental belief and practice that okay there are bigger things going on there's an intelligence here there's all these coincidences all this irony and I do believe you're you're we're just ghosts in a machine manipulating manipulating matter and we're in the shitty clunky body operating fumbling around and acquiring things and and putting things in a shapes and moving things and touching touching other weird creatures and and kissing them and hurting them like whatever you know so we're this thing willing this body around culminating all these thoughts and ideas for in my opinion might be something bigger than us that is just trying to like because I believe that whole like time is a flat circle thing I do believe that this reality is happening in tandem and in every conceivable nanosecond in every you know direction on this two dimensional thing time is moving forward and backward but it's also repeating over and over and over and you and I have had this conversation many times and the thing about that is you know the Buddhists and Hindus call that hell and that's what Nietzsche believed in this too and Nietzsche was this is like this is the most terrifying thought to him that he had to live this life over and over again and that's like achieving nirvana is like I think God I don't have to fucking live the cycle anymore well there is there's a distinction between the cyclical life and the hell realms in Buddhism and in Vedantic and Vedic scriptures there are actually subdivisions of worlds that they describe whether they're metaphorical or not is up for a debate but I mean yeah I think what you're continue though continue I cut you off no no you I love you are you put in I love how educated and I am a fucking simpleton I am I all I do I'm just only an audio visual learner I can't fucking read for the life of me anyway well I my my whole thing that has changed is looking at my life and looking at how I feel in this weird sort of extreme fortune that I've had through hard work and you know I I won't go into detail but I I people have said this to me too they're like you're like really unlucky and that's like my role in life or whatever and I but I have to put so much energy and time and hard work and to just have like it's just to have like an okay existence and my opinion in the past year is that I don't want to live in this world I don't think this is meaningful I I think that this is completely fucking meaningless and we're creatures of order we're insects with emotions we're just fucking insects and we're ruled by these electrochemical things all of the emotions will ever experience are already installed in their brains they're never not involving new ones where condition and they all have evolutionary purposes anxiety is from fucking looking over your shoulder is a fucking tiger coming or no and then and then jealousy is because you want your your don't want the fucking alpha male coming inside the person you want to breed with so it's like all of these ideas this is fucking just pure chaos and all we're doing as human beings is trying to make sense of it and it's bullshit and we take fucking shit and we take just fucking complete sprawling fractalized chaos and we put it a 45 degree angle and we box it up and we package it and we sell a TV and we do all this shit we come modify it and we what we're doing is like we're this these creatures of habit and repetition because if we don't come home every day and see the fucking front door or you we don't fucking see these familiar objects we're just completely skits gets a front it caught in the thing and I think this idea where every time in my life I was like wow isn't that a weird coincidence dude isn't this like trippy isn't this fucking like ironic I don't think that anymore I used to think like I used to have private conversations with God in my head or yeah yeah yeah and I'd be like wow that's really you're you're hilarious that's really funny like you know but I think that this is a cyclical existence and the only this just an infinite repetition and these realities are constantly overlapping and the those moments of coincidence and irony are just us trying to make sense and giving are trying to romanticize or trying to give our lives a purpose and saying there's a higher meaning and it's completely a lot I love it we are we are it's it's I can't tell you how much I love this because I could you obviously you know I couldn't disagree more just based on personal experience which I think is all we ultimately can ever go on so no matter how much I read or do anything I think we all base this off our experience so I love that you have that that that's your perspective because I want to play around with it a little bit and just to be clear I respect that and I'm not trying to change your mind or anyone else's mind but I have questions which are yeah totally yeah and I totally I just nothing nothing I mean these are just thought experience these are just convictions and feelings I have I don't know I I've been alive for 30 years I don't fucking do a thing of course no and I feel the same way about myself well my question is this is because I think you're touching on two concepts or you touched on one concept and then brought up another one later on which I want to go into which is this this idea of chaos and kind of meaninglessness and how we can then take that apply some type of structure to it which makes us feel more comfortable I think what you're describing in a macro a micro cosmic way would be how kind of our society is built you just described society right I mean we have organized it in the structures it provides a sum level of comfortability and that allows us to continue doing what we're doing within a system the other thing you touched on which I love because it's one of the things that has captivated me from a very early age is the idea of synchronicity so that's the idea of these rent these coincidences or irony or things kind of locking up in lockstep for you know a brief moment in time what does that point to so one of my favorite authors psychologist ever is Carl Jung he was kind of the you know alternate Freud right he had a famous split with Freud where Freud was like hey everything is you know developed in childhood the unconscious is just what we experience that's how we get out all our like things we can't actually consciously experience and young is like wait a second I don't know about that I think there's some other shit going on here because I'm studying people's dreams and I'm noticing that all these people are starting to have these very specific type of dreams that are popping up so I think there's this thing called the collective unconscious which is this shared unconscious reality that everyone is kind of plugged into all at once and that's where we generate symbols from that's where we generate culture from archetypes patterns narrative stories you know touching on a lot of stuff that Joseph Campbell touches on right the monometh the hero myth which I know Dan Harmon loves which is awesome because Joseph Campbell one of the coolest people either but anyway this idea of synchronicity I had an experience fuck man 10 years ago where I took LSD and I'd taken LSD many times before but I took it this one time and I didn't come down for three months and I don't mean that I was like kind of tripping I mean I was full bloom tripping for three calendar months and during that time period while I had incredible experiences it I experienced it all is one giant synchronicity and I don't mean that in like an esoteric kind of ethereal sense I mean if I thought of something in my head I would look up on a bus and there it would be like just that shit nonstop so since then and what was going on I'll point out that it was completely overwhelming to the point where you have no ability or I didn't have any ability to consciously interact with what was going on I didn't have any kind of like retrospective awareness in the moment like well this is happening what is this you know two years three years later when I started to kind of unpackage it I tried to put in context what the hell was going on I also started working at the same time with with rhombus's foundation love server member and you know if you look at my career now and who I work with all these people rhombus Jack Marple all these people you'd say oh well this guy was you know really into this stuff and that's why he's working with his people the truth is is I had read the name Richard Alpert but I was far more familiar with like Timothy Leary and psychedelia I didn't really know who rhombus was until about four years ago I just happened to hear Raghu on Duncan's podcast I happened to watch fierce grace the movie about rhombus the next day not because of that and then I went to their website and was like holy shit this website is no bueno I gotta fix this so I got in touch spoke with Raghu and everything I cannot say this enough everything in my life has flowered from that point in a way that I just was like what the fuck okay I'm letting go and I can tell you that in my experience there is something underlying kind of the seemingly chaotic world that we live in I don't enter as far as thought and spirit experiments I mean you mentioned before you were doing kind of ritualistic magic when you're on LSD which I imagine is a very powerful way to do ritualistic magic but simply by changing kind of the inner workings of what's going on internally depending how much you know willpower and intention you're putting in you can change external reality if you're into and you mentioned quantum physics which to me is fascinating one of my favorite things about quantum physics is right so they deal with the planks right one one thousandth of an inch right that's one plank that's the quantum field that you're referring to this is where things do not work like Newtonian physics they don't work like oh this is thing is mass it goes here you know things are changed based on whether you're looking at them you experience it as a particle or a wave right it's very subjective reality that reality also interfaces in with our own physiology which is the synapses between our neurotransmitters and our brain are one one thousandth of an inch and smaller so the things that are actually generating our conscious you know thought and way of interacting with the world are actually in the quantum world so we're living in two different kind of realities which you're saying infinite I also agree that it's infinite but I do believe that there is some place for making time reality and just our general experience I think it's pretty malleable that's been like 100% well you know I just that you know I'm not this is we're in a waking dream the only difference between this and when you go in sleep is there's consequences you have a it's a feedback loop you have a nervous system and you this you will end in this dream and someday you'll end and you won't have those dreams anymore but like just because like you know it's like they with this quantum physics stuffs they're like we're gonna we're gonna split it in half and then that's the God fucking particle every time they keep splitting it smaller and smaller what happens six things pop out the quads and whatever the fuck and then what happens when they break those those down like more shit comes out it's like quick silver going through your hands want to know why because it's fucking the universe protecting itself those things didn't exist until you split that thing they were created in order to protect the universe because the second you break the laws of physics because the laws of physics in this universe have to be uniform with the entire universe or can exist so once you do that this whole thing is gonna pop out of existence in a plank nanosecond yeah and you know it's Alan Watts - one of my favorite Watts things is he's giving a lecture and it's just like we look out in the stars and we see that it's constantly moving away from us and we're like well it's moving away at incredible speeds he's like if you're not trying to chase it it won't do that you know but the thing is like Niels Bohr and Einstein who invented quantum physics basically made the Newtonian like they made that model and it worked and added for all their math and then the second they inked it and they put it down they were like we know that this isn't it right and then Einstein asked Niels Bohr goes do you really think when you're not looking at the moon it's not there because there's like fundamental stuff now that is very spiritual and that is very mysterious but at the same time and I do subscribe to this idea that maybe the universe existed at one point we created or something created some sort of like higher form of life whether that's robots whether they're like finally we built them in these big metal fucking things and they're like we don't need this this is like an archaic and then they turned into light and then they turned into a unified field of consciousness and maybe there's a complete simulation and they're doing it over and over and over again just to have every conceivable outcome because my problem with parallel universe theory and this whole romantic thing is that they're like well in another universe you could be a king or will all have wings like fuck that like why is this realm why is this reality so awkward and weird and dirty and like why is it boring at times why is it's filled with suffering my fundamental belief which I think I've said on Duncan's podcast is that we're constantly every single cycle those little quick quantum bits all of our cells are just in a nanosecond you're dying a nanosecond before or later yeah you mentioned it's just like a terrifying and that's what's creating different outcomes and that's how Hitler doesn't get born because of a fucking car every realm every nanosecond inches towards him when he's eight years old and finally fucking knocks him out like that's I think it's this repetition and that to me is very magical and meaningful but at the same time these beings these fourth dimensional things that you know you take psychedelics and you go outside of it and you realize it's a big meat puppet show and you you leave your body but then you know what's the significance in that we're not going to ever get to experience that just because we're like making out with God when every time we take huge doses of LSD and we're like you know flirting with the void and we're inching towards that and like I don't think that necessarily I think that no matter how much you're trying to strip away your ego when you're taking those psychedelics and you're going to those experiences and it's revealing all this stuff to you that's already apparently in your mind or whether your brains are radio transmitter and receiver for consciousness I totally subscribed all that stuff but that doesn't mean that it's okay it seems kind of violating that I have to exist well I didn't ask to be born like you know like it seems sort of like I was a total peace in not existing and then my for some sort of trajectory plucked me out of non-existence and now like I gotta feel pain and do with all this shit and I have to do all this paperwork it's fucking so pointless like what are we doing I get that I totally get that and my what I think is going on is this I think you know we're sitting there either in the void as consciousness whatever and I do think whether it's conscious like I'm going to do this or some more kind of karmic law I think we incarnate my hunch is we incarnate to experience life exactly like this into a realm that is rife with suffering and trials and tribulations I think it's pointless I think and this is the way I look at it the worst periods of my life like the absolute worst periods of my life I've learned and grown more from those experiences than when I'm you know super fucking content you know watching football like you know eating a hamburger or something right like that's just a plate plate a placated at that point so I think kind of this is a rhombus thing he says you know the suffering of our life is the sandpaper for us to experience our incarnation right it works away all the shit that's not real so you keep whittling down into what is real and the Buddhist concept of emptiness is a fucking dagger it's really really difficult and weird to kind of get into because the Dalai Lama there's a cool book it's really heady I actually couldn't get into it that much it was fucking mind fuck but it's the merging of emptiness and bliss and that's what we're actually striving for so there are these two separate concepts and the unity of those in the Venn diagram is Nirvana is the piece that we're all trying to strive for and whether it's a cyclical existence and it's just a self-generated machine that's happening I don't know but I do think that we go through these things not in kind of like a Nietzschean no reason that this is happening but that we've actually either like I said consciously decided to come here or karmically have decided to come here by previous actions that have reverberated back through countless dimensions and time and space and I think that's what it is that's that's my hunch I don't know I don't remember my past lives if I've had them I don't know what happens exactly after we die and I don't think anyone does until they experience it and remember it if that's a thing that people do so I mean that's that's my viewpoint but I yeah I and I gotta tell you I love rom das and cornfield and you know in loving kindness you know in this program dialectal behavioral therapy is based on a lot of Buddhist principles and they fucking talk about loving kindness all the time like loving kindness it's like a college gift right yeah it's like a huge section of it is loving kindness but like okay so yes suffer their what suffering is is just change it's we're in a constant state of change like Einstein said before the Big Bang there was perfect uniform order and then the Big Bang happened and this whole experience of us experience time literally even though we know that it's not a linear but we're trapped and we're literally it's like it's like when a bully grabs you by the back of the head and fucking puts your head in the toilet we're being forced to experience this literally and it's that like as Einstein says the only reason everything moves forward literally is for complete entropy at some point the everything in the universe will be completely towards complete entropy spread apart and expand to a point when it's ripped apart and back to nothingness where all of a sudden what boom Big Bang happens that's the Vedic that's Vedic that's super Vedic yeah yes but this idea that yeah like the idea of it's sandpapering you and wearing you down is like dude this whole experience everything you go through that's the experience but you know what happens when you change yeah what happens in American werewolf in London when he turns into a fucking werewolf it's it's in complete pain his bones are removing his skin is bursting his fucking teeth are growing screaming and he's changing into this so if you took that and you slowed it down for 80 years it's all that's happening is you're I mean if yeah you want to live for 80 years but like that's all that's happening is you're turning into a fucking you're just constantly changing and it hurts like that's you come out of the womb screaming do you want to know why because this shit fucking hurts like gotta take air now you gotta breathe now gotta be human now it hurts it's pain it's in what okay depending on what you believe in but you don't get to take any of this with you not that that that's sort of like an egotistical human idea of it like the idea of taking something with you but this whole experience it's not like this is where the idea of this feeling that I've had that it's completely meaningless is because it's just a bunch it's just a big show but it hurts and what's so what's the point of that shitty show but if everything was content and chill would be super fucking boring and I get that would be hell right so like and if there is a parallel universe so like I was looking at this diagram of all the conceivable human emotions I saw you verse about yeah yeah and if you look at it there's like the baseline stuff and it spreads out it's basically every word we have four emotions and the slice of the pie because it's in a circle that is happiness and joy is like 20 years I had a big no but here's the fucking scraps like where that's that's what we have to navigate this realm here's the struggling to be happy that's not a gift a gift that's fucking a curse like struggling to just be happy and okay and just to like tolerate the pain that's not a fucking gift man we're we're something some sort of creature some sort of dimension is I don't think it's a friendly fucking thing I think that it's a big meat grinder and it's just like we're being tortured it's paradise and it's hell I that I believe I think it's neutral right I mean I think intent and a lot of other things go into this that color experiences and you're I think what you said about suffering being change is spot fucking on and I think what causes the pain with change is us identifying things that are by nature impermanent in this temporal reality as permanent so we're like this is great this is the thing that makes me happy I want this and then knowing it's gonna go away that that sets up kind of a paradigm that's not a good situation for most people so I definitely I hear you on that I think though here's here's what I asked right so if this is let's let's let's just take the wrong bus concert the sandpaper life being sandpaper to rub away the other stuff right what is the purpose of that right that just that's not good enough answer I'm totally with you that doesn't explain it to me but what I have found paradoxically paradoxically in a lot of ways in my life is the more you kind of look out for other people in certain ways and what I mean by that is don't ever take care of other people at the detriment to yourself that is fundamentally not taking care of other people because you're not taking care of taking care of the person who really is gonna make that stuff go but you learn these lessons right this is the Maharaj thing mean poorly Bob really really simple feed people love everyone tell the truth that's this whole thing and if you just take that at face value and attach all everything that's going on in life it might not work out exactly how you want but the longer you hone in on certain concepts and ideas in this life I have found that it does if not change your external reality at least change your internal reality which is enough for most people because if I said hey listen Dustin I've got this pill you take it you're gonna feel fulfilled happy loved you know every positive emotion and you're still gonna feel the negative ones but you're gonna be able to hold those in perspective to get the full gamut but just feel right you'd be like fuck yeah I'm about that so what I think is there is a place and kind of a road map for everyone to get to those places whether we get there or not I have no fucking idea I don't know but I think that there's little concepts and things that we can key in on and part of the process of being alive is meeting people finding out about ideas concepts feeling relationships positive emotions negative emotions negative emotions and they're kind of tools they're little like things that push us along and kind of reveal what this whole fucking thing is about now get back to me in five years like it'll completely change my mind I'm not saying that this is it and I figured it out in any way but I have noticed these tendencies the time that that seem to be principles of life that seem to open up over time and one of the things I mean to tie it back to Farrell I mean it seems like in a lot of ways this thing you've set up through your experiences in life is kind of like a manifestation machine you know it's manifesting things that you are actively working towards and it's creating those things relationships with people opportunities and I think that's in no small part because of you and it's you you're creating those things and that process I think can be applied to anything in life it doesn't mean it's like a magic spell or a potion and things work it does mean that there's a relationship between what's going on internally what you're doing constantly and what happens in the world it's kind of like ritual is just ritualistic magic in a way but yeah that pill you're talking about happy pill it exists it's called Vicodin I love fucking opiates anyway I yes yes where we have like the best thing in the world is friends and community and that's the idea of building a community because we're all in this shit together and like we can have these shared experiences but that's why we help each other because we're all in the same kind of thing and to different degrees and there's different types of people and so this thing this thing with Farrell this is all accident man this is like I didn't plan any of this like it's bigger than me it has it's really like you know it's not selfless what I'm doing it's completely self-serving because it makes like it grants me opportunities to be around the people that I admire and all this shit and it gives me it's completely about me and it's been completely about because it's all the only thing in my life that gives me any bit of comfort and happiness so I'm addicted to it but it's both it's also selfless listen I mean I am in not a completely different situation you know working with my impod network I do it selfishly because I like being a part of something that is working that I think is helping people but on the same you're doing this ultimately because with the first way you described how you got into podcasting is you heard something and connected with something in a way that you said holy shit I get it this is what I want to fucking do this is something I'm interested in doing I'm going to do this so providing that for other people and just the platform more more than just the content itself but the platform to do it I mean I think it's an incredibly awesome thing man I really do I think you're totally onto something whether you realize it or not you know feelings of self worth aside I think you're pretty fucking awesome dude man so I thank you you too and that's like you know these are all thought I too have this is this whole pessimistic thing is really who I am and like me like sitting here like trying to like be like you guys no don't do this no no I want to be because I feel like you guys are right and you guys are the real deal and like you're putting in the work and dude you're working with the most important people on the fucking plan in my opinion like this that what you guys are doing isn't just entertainment and comedy it's like it you know comedy may help people and I'll let you guys out man just making it a network for free and broadcasting this type of ideas and stuff you're doing it's really important and it's going to save people's lives and help people and it already is but like long term as it continues to grow like you are doing a service to the universe all those people are that it is selflessly whether there's some you know and Watts is like I he goes this you know everybody has to make a living my living this is my job this is what I do I go around and I talk to people but these are like fundamental things that I are experiencing and I'm delivering it to you through my living and by coming here and speaking and like the whole I'm a genuine fake thing you know like me and Duncan had a conversation about Kurt Cobain once and he was like god damn it man like that's the most where he was like he killed himself because he was a fraud he's like that's the most pivotal moment of your life where you realize that that's where like that's where you become a person is when you realize that and you know like Duncan describes it doesn't matter when you check out of the hotel because it's like in the scope of the universe we're all basically living and dying at the exact same time pretty damn close when you expand it if the bigger you take the universe we're all in the same fucking one one thousandth of a second living this experience that somehow stretched out for us and I just don't all that stuff like is that intrigues me in aesthetically and philosophically intrigues me it no longer comforts me I'm like I'm just at this point where I'm just like okay like I don't necessarily want to play ball anymore I want coach I don't want to fucking play life baseball and this is what a stupid analogy yeah I love it I love that you're hitting the baseball the fuck I hate sports what am I talking about anyway yeah so I at this point in my life it's just it's the culmination of my experience it's like you know two years ago it's like fiber my laser arthritis or ever the fuck I have my body just starting to hurt my like I already feel my body changing and I'm slower and I'm a better person now like I am still arrogant but I'm slightly less arrogant and I've done things that I'm proud of and I've lived all these experiences but I've lived a lot of my dreams right now but now what I have to do is if I want to stick around well I don't have a choice someday I want but I want to hang out for a while like I want to have a personal life I want to have I want to feel like you know I just went through the worst break up in my life we both got diagnosed with BPD in our relationship it was a really really bad fucking breakup and I lost my car I went broke it was all hitting at once and then I was just like you know I'm okay I'm really proud of myself for what I've done I'm ready like I'm ready to go and so I was like I went on a huge alcohol and drug bender where I was trying not to wake up and it was five days I think it was over Labor Day weekend where I was like you know five day blackout and I woke up and my dear friends Dave and Courtney I woke up in there on their couch and they're like come here and get a cup of coffee what's going on they like you know scoot me up into care of me and then they're like dude are we we just lost our friend of fucking drugs what are you doing you can't do this right and then you know it's like the second I left I just started up again and I was just going through this thing and then every time I've hit rock bottom without romanticizing it has been a transformative moment whenever you hit the floor and you decide to not just lay there and drool until you starve and die anytime you hit bottom and you're laying on the floor fucking writhing can't go on anymore the second you stand up you're you were making a decision to live essentially in my case I had a very very rough night where I could not let go of this fucking relationship I had nothing to me all I had was this relationship and she had she was over it and had moved on and I wasn't I was clinging to it and I was like turning into like a drug addict it's an addiction I was acting like a crackhead and then I know it and then like I was just like peace out I had I had a fucking noose just tied in my apartment just hanging around forever just like taught myself how to tie it and then I was I was like I don't know if I can make another one because I'm really shitty at this but I had it hanging out that's a good thing to be shitty at by the way that's a really good thing yeah anytime you're anytime you're on wiki how looking how to tie a noose you should call your therapist that's probably a good good tip but you know and I didn't I didn't I didn't I didn't start texting friends I didn't tweet about it I wasn't leaving I didn't want to leave a note I went up to my rooftop because I have this huge rooftop is four in the morning I drank a fucking I downed a bottle of vodka crying and then I put the fucking noose around my neck and I tied it to a post and it wasn't like I'm a survivor I was just testing it out like I'm looking over I'm like oh if it breaks I'm just gonna fall and break my legs or my back like but you know I put her on my neck and then I sort of like went over this ledge and it just it like fastened so quick like it went so fast and I cut my eyes immediately not being able to breathe and I was like fuck fuck fuck and I learned that if you drink a bunch of booze and try to hang yourself all you do is start vomiting it's just starting coming up and I've thrown up from I'll call me less than five times my life so then I took this thing off I'm like on my hands and knees I'm like puking off the side of this building and I'm just like and then I just lay there I have this big nice rooftop or whatever and I'm laying there till the sun comes up I like taped my keys to my front door and left my door unlocked and like so someone could like take care of my cat like that was Jesus yeah this is four weeks ago yeah and then I came out I was like fuck it I don't want to hang myself that's a horrible way to go let's think about another option so I definitely got that out of my system and so I told my therapist this you know and I'm you know there's people with BPD they have the highest suicide rate which is 10% of people with BPD successfully commit suicide my suicide attempts and my suicide ideation which is a which is a very common on paper thing with BPDs is like cutting it's like how I cut you know it's like it's myself abuse but like it can go really far really fast yeah you know the worst part of this whole realization this worst part of getting diagnosed BPD is when they this textbook that they give you when I open it up and I look at every single page and it's my personality word for word it's everything I do in a fight it's everything I do like it's so I'm that under original like I'm just a fucking insect with a broken brain and it's like that's what you know that's like what am I gonna like okay so BPD isn't curable it's an emotional dysregulation disorder where you experience emotions like very intensely you also get to experience joy and happiness within the rare moments and you know sex and food and music like I get to experience that a little more intensely than other people do but more often it's the negative qualities right yeah but like you know so it's a it's like a year-long course it's like a college course you do this whole thing twice and you just learn these skills you learn how to have interpersonal relationships and every time your emotions flare up you learn how to like yeah cool down it's hip and you put ice water in your face or you leave and you breathe and you meditate and you know you do all this stuff that it's all about regulating your emotions but at the same time like I have to like sit here every day and battle my brain for the rest of my life like it's exhausting yeah I mean I can I totally understand I think anyone who's had any type of mental discomfort extending that out theoretically for your entire life could be a daunting prospect I mean while BPD might not be curable I mean I get the sense and I could be completely wrong that you do have some internal flame that's keeping you lit personally right I do believe that and I think you know BPD bipolar schizophrenia these are labels for things that people have observed over a certain period of time and applied to characteristics right symptoms it doesn't mean that it's like you just got diagnosed with terminal stage 4 cancer and there's nothing they're going to do you know doesn't matter how much cannabis oil or anything you're taking that's the diagnosis it means it's something you have and that you work with and you don't know what's going to happen going forward it doesn't mean it one day it's magically going to be gone but I mean I know there's people out there with BPD who are living lives where it's not feeling like this is this is some type of horrible mental death sentence well it's actually the most one it's actually the most treatable this this TBT thing was created by Marshall in a hand who came out later is having BPD it's actually the most successful form like a lot of BPDs live like lives but you know this is if I love podcasting and I love these people and they're good people all these people in this community everybody on feral and beyond they're good good people and they deserve to have a voice and a platform for that and like this whole conversation's been just very personal and very selfish but like if it wasn't for podcasting like I would be a much more miserable person and I'm not going to sit here and say I wouldn't be alive but maybe that's like yeah you know yeah but like this thing just terraform my life and it brings it just brings these fucking it's an excuse to just be around these people and I used to be like oh I have no friends because none of these people would be my friends if I wasn't like offering to them but it's actually like a pure friendship because it's a reason to get together every week yeah otherwise you people I have friends that I've been with for 10 years we see each other like once or twice a year right and these podcasters I see once a week and like we have these relationships whether you know and for a long time I was like I have 100 part-time friends but you know nobody close to me which is why my girl like important for me to have a girlfriend and stuff but I'm terrible at it and I have to accept that I have this thing where I'm really really bad with close relationships and the the most responsible thing I can do for myself and for other people is to keep them at a distance and like really keep relationships casual keep friendships you know like for now for now well a problem with me is I'm constantly over sharing and I'm really like I'm very much asking too much people and I'm constantly like dumping my problems on people and like I realized that and I'm trying to change that but like I exhaust friends too like I am falling out with friends all the time so what I really really really really want to do with my life is just keep I really believe in this thing we're doing and I want to keep making a platform and I want to protect this art this this this um I want to protect whatever this is because we haven't really seen anything like this ever I agree and it's owned by the people and when the shit goes down and they're censoring everything and it's completely state-run media martial law like the only way you're gonna like get fucking real information is gonna be podcasting because they're not gonna be able to stop it right I agree so there's bigger picture stuff I know that's grandiose but like yes where it's entertainment but it's more than that because we're we're developing these like human connections in no other way that I mean music does that but like music is amazing but it doesn't really like accomplish anything because there's like I mean that's why musicians and comedians are like have a weird like relationship with each other because comedians get to express in my opinion more than like musicians do but musicians get to express something that's more personal and meaningful and universal so I don't know there's just all these ways to convey whatever this fucking thing this whatever this experience is whatever we're doing whatever this unified field of consciousness is making us grow out of the earth like flowers and and pollinate pollinate this place with our ideas and our love and our sperm and babies and fucking communities and like we're pollinating this place and we're doing a shitty job because we're destroying it but whatever we're we're uh we're uh there are good people out there yeah they deserve a voice but man I I this is like one of the best conversations I've had my phone is dying but okay um I could talk to you for another hour but yeah man no no and I gotta go to this uh this Tim Heidecker thing later but uh dude this has been fucking awesome I I definitely want to do it again and and just personally listen and I mean this seriously and I say this to a lot of people some people take it me up on it some don't if you ever need to talk about anything I just text me call me whatever dude like seriously I think you're I really I think what you're doing professionally is really awesome but I think you as a person dude like you're you you I can see that you both sell yourself short and don't sell yourself short but I'm happy to encourage the not selling yourself short because man you're you're pretty fucking awesome guy so thank you too thanks man and um I mean having a conversation that's not being a podcast I mean I don't know I don't know about that dude um okay dude congrats because I could never I'm I like guesting on these now but like I could never host one it terrifies me you're you're you're you're you're good at running a running an hour so congrats thanks man yeah let's let's do this often yeah I'd love to cool all right brother thanks man hang in that take care all right busy the the grill is shot the chairs are held together by optimism and what happened to the rug sounds like your outdoor setup is not ready for patio season fix it all with wayfare shop wayfare for grills rugs furniture and more with 20 million five star reviews room of choice delivery and expert setup on qualifying orders it's never been easier to do more 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