Ep. 54 - John F. Simon Jr

Hopefully you choose something, for me it was drawing that you have joy and energy around doing that you want to do and that gives you a positive feedback in terms of the release of that creative energy. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Welcome to episode 54 of Sinkrenicity. My guest this week is John F. Simon Jr. John is an artist, a computer software artist, a visual artist, a drawer, and John is really, can I, listen, I know I say on a lot of episodes that this is one of my favorite episodes, this is one of my favorite guests, I'm not going to say that this week. I'm going out there, I'm saying this is my favorite episode, this has been my favorite guest on Sinkrenicity.

And I think you'll hear and understand why that's the case after you listen to the episode or probably while you're during the episode you're going to figure out why. John is incredible, I got introduced to John via Corey Allen who hit me up, I don't know, a couple weeks ago, two and a half weeks ago saying, "Hey, my friend John has a book coming out, I think you might be interested in it, I think you might be interested in having him on Sinkrenicity." And I was like, "Okay, yeah, let me check it out." Did a little research into who John was, said, "Absolutely, we'd love to have you on." We had a little pre-call where we got to know each other, just had like a 10, 15 minute chat, and I got a really good feeling during that call, like an excellent feeling about who John was, and then we said, "Okay, we'll talk in a week." Then he sent me his new book, and I, you know how like a few, if you're a listener of the podcast, you know, like a month or so ago, I said, "I can't keep doing these book giveaways."

They're costing me a pretty penny, I spent like over a thousand dollars this year sending out books, but for this book, John sent me a copy, and it's incredible. And so I am going to do another book giveaway, and it's going to be John's new book, it just came out November 1st, so the release date of this podcast should be the third or the second. So I just spoke to John, the book just came out, a nice little synchronicity there. No, the name of the book, it is called Drawing Your Own Path. It is the 33 practices at the crossroads of art and mindfulness. It's incredible. I can't tell you how much more is actually contained in the book.

It's a drawing tone, it's a mindfulness tone, it's a meditation tone, it's so much more. We talk about in this episode at some point kind of the essence of what attracts people to various pieces of art, and I think you'll find in this book that John's kind of heart and soul is embedded into this book. And it's a great way, you know, if you're a listener, we have this book coming out from MindPod Network, talking about ways to stay present and aware without strict meditation, sitting on the cushion, some other ways to do that. John, it looks like B to Sue it. He did really an amazing job, and it draws on his own personal experiences as an artist, a very successful artist.

I'm using software, he has permanent exhibits at the MoMA, the Guggenheim and all these amazing places, but truthfully, just like outside of all that, he's someone who is curious about life, his own mind, the minds of others. And kind of the emerge, what are we doing here, right, like all of these questions that we ask ourselves, sometimes regularly, sometimes not very often, he's asking himself. And I'll also say another reason I really love this episode is I've personally been going through kind of what I refer to at the beginning of this episode as kind of a dark night of the professional soul.

I've been trying, well my life is going really great, like truthfully, in so many ways I have an amazing child, I have an amazing wife, family, friends, going to an amazing house. There's really a lot of excellent things going on in my life, but professionally, I've been trying to figure out what I want to do moving forward. I have a variety of skills, but I'm trying to figure out like what am I going to do that's going to have an impact, what is going to reveal kind of the true essence of what I'm trying to do in the world. Then trying to figure out what does that even mean, taking it back far, what is the concept of me even mean.

But truthfully, when it comes to the professional side of things, I'm kind of questioning what I'm doing, what's going on. I've put a lot of time and energy into MindPod Network, into this podcast, and while they're very valuable and helpful things and I get tremendous feedback, they're not exactly making a lot of money. And when you put a lot of energy into something and it's not paying the bills, you begin to question on various aspects of what you're doing, is this is a good time. So this book found me, literally the first day I was kind of going through this like professional existential crisis, this book found me, and immediately was like a tonic for what was ailing me.

And the real message that I got at the time and opening it and going through the first practices that John has in the book was just, it was calming and relaxing and allowed me to shift my perspective and focus in a way that allowed me to attach from kind of the stories that I was telling myself in my head. And one of the things, we talk about a lot of different things, me and my guests about ways to kind of alleviate uncomfortable situations or various things that happened while we're living and living life. This is a real opportunity for me to practice those, and I'm lucky enough and fortunate enough, and I will use the term blessed enough that I actually get this book delivered to my door the time I needed it, the most, at least in the past few years.

So really, like I could tell you so much more about who John is, some of the things we spoke about. Let me say this, if you're interested in creativity, in your own creativity, if you don't consider yourself a creative person, but you have some inkling that there's something there that needs to be expressed, this is an episode for you. I am listening back to this episode, not because I'm egotistical, not even necessary for anything that I have to say, but because John is just exuding wisdom, and you'll see why, based on his particular path and his journey and how he arrived to a lot of these things and they line up coincidentally or not, well tell me what you think with a lot of other traditions and philosophical viewpoints from around the world throughout time.

So that's an interesting thing. We also talk about, you know, how technology is a part of kind of this emerging consciousness and how, you know, John not only use technology in his art and his life and his livelihood, but use it as a way to kind of go back into himself, which is really, that's quite a nice little cosmic wink if you really think about it. So yeah, that's this episode. I'm doing the book giveaway. If you don't know what that is, every so often, really more frequent than I said it would be, I'm giving away a book to the people who joined the synchronicity community. So you'll join the synchronicity community by going to synchpodcast.com. Then there's various places you can sign up. It's an email community. I also this week, for those interested, I just started a Facebook community, a synchronicity Facebook community.

You can find me on Facebook. You can find the community. It's a closed group, not because we're being exclusionary, but because we want people who are really interested to be in there. We don't just want someone to come in there and start yelling and talking about stuff. So if you're interested in joining that, seek that out. I think it'll be cool. I'll probably put a link up on the website, synchpodcast.com for that. Outside of that, guys, if you don't win the book contest, give away, pick up a copy of John's new book, not because I get money from that, because John gets money, although I want him to get as much money in the world as one can get, because I have a feeling he would know how to spend it, just an inkling, but just because I think it's going to help you.

This isn't a promotional thing for anyone. I just think that I can wholeheartedly endorse this book from about 70 pages in. It's incredible. I think it'll help you. It gets in touch. That little Alan Watts clip I played at the beginning here. I do think the best way to live life as much as you can when appropriate is in a playful state of mind. And this will kind of get you back in touch when you were a kid, like painting or drawing. It can do that for you. So just get the book, "Drawing Your Own Path" by John F. Simon Jr. I highly recommend it. The best, truthfully, best book I've cracked open probably in the past five years. I'm not saying that lightly.

So yeah, enjoy this episode. I don't have anything else to say. Thank you to everyone who has rated and reviewed. If you like the show, if you're into it, if it's not terrible or you think it's not terrible, even if you think it's terrible, rate and review. iTunes. I would really appreciate that. I like reading all of the wonderful reviews that people leave. It makes me feel good. If you want to donate, if you want to have me question, go through less existential professional crises. Go to sinkpodcast.com/donate or donation. Go to the website. You'll find how to do it. Make a little donation, PayPal. You can use a credit card, whatever you like to do. I really appreciate that.

So, enough about me. Without further ado, Buckle up, strap in. I think you're going to love this episode. I don't think it. I know it. Here is John F. Simon Jr. How are you doing? Good. How are you? I'm very good. I'm incredibly happy to be having this conversation. Your book is incredible, by the way. I'm sure you have something. Thank you. You must have some inkling of just how profound and awesome it is. It's really, really, really, really great. I get sent a lot of books for this show. I read a lot. I study this stuff in a lot of different ways, both from a creativity standpoint and kind of interior consciousness exploring spiritual pathway.

This book is directly at the crossroads of those things. It's really, truly, a real honor to be speaking to you today. Thank you. Crossroads is even in the title. It's very appropriate. I've thought about it being there. I'm super stoked that Corey introduced us. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Thank you. How are you doing? I'm great. I'm great. That's fabulous. I spent the morning drawing, so it was a good day so far. That's awesome. Let's just get started. I normally write down questions. It's not normally, but it's not uncommon for me to write down questions and have specific things in mind before doing one of these.

But I specifically, every time I found myself wanting to write something down, I didn't because the experiences I was having reading this book and even that I have personally been going through, I don't know, for the past two weeks especially, but for much longer than that, all seemed much more poignant and relevant to this conversation than anything I was going to come up with conceptually and want to discuss. I'm sure those things will naturally evolve from this conversation, but I did want to start with... Here's a very interesting... We spoke about a week ago in preparation for this. We got to know each other a little bit, but what you didn't know was going on, and this really culminated with the end of last week, really the day your book arrived here, is I've been going through a professional dark night of the soul.

I've been trying to figure out how to move my various businesses forward in an authentic way that also allows me to pursue kind of my own passion and creativity. So it is not lost on me that a book as meaningful as yours came in preparation for a show called Synchronicity, just as this was happening, because I'm the type of person who typically likes to know what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, what path I'm on, how I got there, the conditions that happened, whether that actually matches with reality, it's not always said, but I typically like to have a plan. And the day the book came, I was questioning quite a bit about my plan in a lot of different ways, so I wanted to start kind of there with your book and with you.

I definitely want to find out a lot more about you personally, but I wanted to talk about what led you, and I know a lot of this is in the book, about 70 pages in, but what led you to this crossroads right where this crossroads between mindfulness and creativity. Yeah, so it's interesting you talk about that professional night of the soul because there were many of those kind of reevaluating what's going on and what's happening and I went through one in the late 1990s to try and find a way to transition to my professional art practice to be more commercial, and also to find a way, because I was doing a lot of computer programming to make the computer itself be creative.

Yes, yes, and so I say it was like the wrong question, but the right answer because I went on this whole intense analytical adventure of looking at genetic algorithms and artificial life and emergent behavior and self organizing all the, all the approaches that were then current in computer science for how to do creativity or how to get something to be novel, how to discover novelty digitally, and eventually I found all the limits to those. In other words, if I made rules within which something should improvise, it never left that set of rules, how do you get the set of instructions to get outside itself, and yet at the same time as an artist I felt like I was doing that like I was innovating.

So, so I turned also at the same time in a kind of parallel track to looking at my own creativity and the way I did that was that I sat down with a completely blank piece of paper, not knowing what was going to come out and not making any assumption, and just to observe my hand moving and to kind of see if I could discern those little rules, why did I draw that line that way and why did I draw this, and if those rules could be still, you know, then they could be programmed. And what I didn't realize at the time was that sort of introspective work, whether it be drawing or just sitting was kind of meditation, it was meditation.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. So it was in a certain way an accident that I got into it. Well, it's funny that this accident, I mean, these are these happy accidents that it turned into, which is the genesis, I imagine, of the book, and your main practice now, which is this fusion of your primary creative impetus of creating and drawing, and it fused into your mindfulness practice. And I immediately, you know, as an addendum, anyone listening to this, check out the podcast you did with Corey Allen on The Astro Hustle. I mean, truthfully, I tweeted this out, easily my favorite podcast of the year, and we're in the twilight of this year.

It was incredible, and I bring it up because what started firing in my mind as I was listening to this conversation is how this applies to my creativity, which is primarily based in the sound world. I went to a music college. I've been profoundly interested in music. My love, deep-seated love of music was not born, but revealed during an early psychedelic trip, and since then it's been a constant journey into what that can do. And I immediately thought, you know, reading this book, and I started doing a lot of the drawing practices, like the first few that were amazing too, just incredibly liberating.

All the things I imagine you imagined as you were writing the book, people doing, I can tell you it works. I mean, it absolutely works. It has the intended effect, especially for listeners of this show, and for me, people who really have tried to experience kind of what you experienced through your practice. There's no self-experience, this interconnectedness, these deep fundamental truths coming out. This book really, really does evoke all these things through something. Let me tell you this. I think we spoke about it briefly, but, you know, we have a book coming out of my podcast network and this network, this consciousness network, that is called practically mindful.

And it is specifically exercises from 35 contributors, you know, big leaders in their respective fields, many Buddhist teachers, Hindu teachers, consciousness teachers, mindfulness teachers. And it's specifically about what are some ways to stay mindful and aware without "meditating." And that means sitting down on the cushion, and closing your eyes, or opening your eyes, or doing Shammatha, or doing Vipashana, not to say there's anything wrong with this. In fact, we're saying they're specifically not. But what are some other ways that we can tap into the essence of what those practices are at? Insight meditation, meta meditation.

What are the essence of this? How do we get these from some different angles? So lo and behold, I get connected to you. And here comes this magical book in front of my face saying, "Well, look at this, 33 practices that are literally talking about specifically what we're coming out with." I mean, to me, this is one of the most poignant synchronicities of my life in this show, of course. So it's incredibly -- so, okay, let's go back a little bit, because I want to find out more about you as a person. I'm just genuinely excited and interested. How did you get -- the book starts with you kind of really starts to go where you're in Italy, and you're talking about how you're an artist.

But what got you into art in the first place? How did this become a passion of yours? Yeah, it's always been -- you know, that's what's always driven me, is like this kind of deep-seated upwelling of energy that wants to get out, wants to express itself in some way. And it was directed into science early on, because my family grew up in Louisiana and were very practical, and you couldn't make a living as an artist, and you couldn't make a living as a scientist. Of course, in the late 1960s, NASA and the space program and engineering were all hailed, so I -- and I tried to go through that path, but it was even more overwhelming that energy wanted to get out and be creative.

And then when I discovered that I could actually make a career somehow out of doing creative work, I just went fully that way. And I also felt like early in my teen years, there was a lot of frustration, of course, that's probably a lot because I was a teenager, but the thing that relieved that was made little super eight films, and then I discovered drawing eventually. So it was always there, I would say, and I'm not the kind of person there are some people I meet that I envy that can sit down and knock out a rendering, you know, and just draw like beautifully. I'm not that kind of person, and it was so frustrating and so frustrating that I had the admiration for that, and yet it wasn't a natural talent, and I took drawing classes and I tried to learn that.

And also part of what I try to say in the book is that the drawing part, the energetic release that comes from creative expression is outside of any social, personal judgment about the value of what you're making or the reality of what it is. It doesn't look like something, it's okay because it's this process of being able to express yourself that we're trying to get to. Yeah, and you're talking about that practical thing, and the thing is on one side, we have this desire on the other side, we have this deep experience with flow, you know, that we've all been in a situation where we're playing a sport or we're listening music or we're doing something and we connect.

And so on the two sides, one we're trying to get there and one we're trying to just be back in that state, and so at some point they do, they do match up. Yes, and I mean this is, this is called a lot of different things and a lot of different schools of thought, right, Carl Jung would probably refer to this balancing as individuation. Maslow with all this self actualization, Ramana Maharshi would probably call this enlightenment or self effulgence. But this is something Taoism would call it the Dow and being in tune with the Dow, and there are these oscillations, which you're talking about, where we as beings would like to remain in this purely whatever state that is, whether it's brought on by psychedelics, meditation, creativity, whatever.

We would love to just hang out there forever, but we don't, and that is a function of being a human being. It is a natural byproduct of it. It's something that everyone from Buddha to Jesus, everyone has pointed out. This is a condition. So the question then becomes knowing that, having experienced it, assuming that you experienced some taste of what that flow state is and you've been there. And I truly believe that almost every single person has experienced it, whether they recognize that or not, because I do believe that's actually our natural state. That's the funny thing. I think what we're doing through these practices and these meditations is we're slowly uncovering what is actually there.

And the way this is described in a lot of traditions, you even specifically bring up in the early chapters of the book, it's akin to polishing a mirror. And then you are seeing the true reflection of what is actually happening. So could you talk a little bit specifically about that practice, that mirror practice and how you came to kind of this understanding or knowledge of what that is? I talk about a project I did called Every Icon, which is a software artwork. And at that point I was still on the analytical side believing that computers would do everything. And of course in the early 90s, that was the hopes for computers. This is even before .com really got going. It hopes for computers and the economy and everything it was going to solve all problems.

So, and I sort of believe that I could take on the art world and bring a new perspective to art by using a computer to allow me to discover images as opposed to pre visualizing and having to be that person that rendered well. I could use a computer and I could generate the pictures and then choose amongst all the pictures. And so I wrote a program that took the as the start, the Macintosh desktop icon of the original Mac, which was a 32 by 32 grid that was all black and white. And then that was the folder icon and the modem icon and the trash can and all our familiar Apple icons. And it starts with a blank screen. And it just starts filling in the squares at the top, you know, one, one and two, two, one, two, three, and count them all up.

And it shows all the variations. And if you think about it, if you just keep showing all the ways of arranging the squares, all the icons will appear and then it would just be for me to have this huge catalog of computed icons that I could choose all the best ones. And that would be a kind of a whole other way to use technology to do art. So I wrote it and I started it. And then after the next morning, it hadn't gotten very far. And then I did some more math. And I figured out to finish the first line of the 32 squares would take about three months. And to finish the first two lines was going to take about 500 million years.

Yeah, that's right. So, so, so, you know, technology in and of itself and by itself was not going to reveal. I was going to take something more. And that, that's the, that's the glimpse of the mirror there, that more. What's that? What's that choice that who's making that choice? Yes. Who's deciding amongst that vastness? Who's making a decision every day about everything that you do? So that points you inward. So what did you discover after you are forced to look at? And I love that this has come out of you using because this is, this is constantly, I mean, I can tell you now being steeped in the mindfulness community and a lot of these communities that do this.

You know, people are doing digital blackouts. They're doing digital retreats. Technology is viewed in a lot of circle as a hindrance to a lot of people achieving whatever we're talking about right now. My inherent view of technology is not unlike almost everything else is that I do view it ultimately as a neutral medium. It's the intention and what we put onto it that gives its value much in the same way that money, money does like I remember growing up. And for much of my life up until really my mid 20s, I had an operating system running in my brain that said money is the root of all evil. You don't want money, money, look what it does to the world. Look what it does to people. Look what it does to resources.

Look what it does to communities and families. And that was really, truthfully, at this, my understanding of money now is that's a false premise. It's an energy that can be used like anything. Tremendous positive forces can be used with it. So I bring this up because you use technology not only in your creativity to create works of art that were featured prominently in many awesome places, but it ultimately, ironically or not, led you inward. So I love that. I love that more than you could possibly know. So what did you discover as you started to go inward? One thing I discovered in writing a lot of software was that software wasn't a kind of an objective technical solution that, in fact, one could look at the software writing as a kind of creative writing. And one could compare pieces of software the way one compares literature, someone likes object oriented and they, and how you codify things.

And in my case, trying to codify consciousness. The choices you make and how to limit that tell a lot about you. And so what I realized was that you couldn't write a piece of software or really do anything without identifying yourself without exposing something about who you were. So it began to help me see the stories I was telling about myself and the assumptions that I made. So it began to reveal to me by looking at what I was writing and then eventually what I was drawing. So what did it reveal? I want to keep tracing this back. No pun intended. What did it start to reveal to you about yourself? And did that start to inform your view of the world and the external reality?

Sure. Yeah, so there was there was a human being, male living in New York who had had a certain education who had certain ambition, who had a desire to make grandiose and heroic works that that changed the way people thought about certain things. Of course, it changed the way I thought about certain things. So I mean, to take on the idea that you would that you would encode consciousness or that you would encode creativity was a pretty, pretty bold move. And that it wasn't, it was all a negative, negative space of the things that it wasn't. It wasn't necessarily compassionate. It wasn't necessarily self aware of the downside of technology.

So all those things sort of churned up in the meantime, going on, like you're saying, you see the negative and the positive side of technology. It's kind of a neutral thing. Again, it's how you use it. So I was ambitiously trying to make a living and make a reputation in the New York City art world, which I was doing in certain ways. And I was also at that time interacting with the that was probably by 99 or 2000, the dot com boom was going on. And there was a lot of money from technology firms and the internet coming in. So there was a lot of attention for that. And I was very, very egotistical about getting attention and sure and getting things written and getting things out there.

And so, and then at some point, that all came into question, maybe in the mid early 2000s 2003, 2004 that that was revealed to me that that was, that was what I was trying to do. Yes. So yeah, it's a, it's a, but, and I found it also in the, in the line that you draw, it's the same in the line that you draw on a piece of paper, which I discussed in the book, is that it's as much a self portrait. If you sit down and improvise on a piece of paper and just let your hand go. That's the, that's the line that you made. That's, that's the first most basic story. That's the software you made. That's the coffee you made.

That's the clothes chose to put on. Isn't that interesting story? That's exactly right. And this narrative. I mean, there's so many ways to go with this. I mean, what you were doing is what Joseph Campbell refers to as the monomyth, the hero's journey. You're internally going in and enacting this myth. A lot of people look at the hero's journey and we see it externally in movies and literature and all this stuff. And it's, you know, it's, it's not a caricature, but it's explicit. It's gross. It's right there. But what really the hero's journey is about and why it pops up in all mythologies around the world independent of each other is this is an internal voyage that we have to make.

And it is made throughout the course of our life and we can ignore it. And we can ignore it for a lot of reasons. We can ignore it because we are too afraid. We can ignore it because of cultural conditioning. There's a whole lot of reasons. But if you ignore it, that thing you refer to when you were younger, being there and needing to come out, that's in everyone. There's not a person alive who that doesn't exist in. And the privilege of a lifetime. This is a Joseph Campbell quote. No, this is a Carl Jung quote. The privilege of a lifetime is becoming who you are. And this is this constant journey. And I love, love, love that you have integrated it. I literally get chill talking about it, have integrated it into your creativity and holistically into your life.

And I want to point out when we talk about this, because this is an important distinction to make. We look at a book like yours. We look at the teachings of the Buddha. We look at some really great wisdom from any tradition. This isn't, listen, the goal could be enlightenment, but we're still people. This isn't going to solve all of your problems. This isn't going to make you a genius painter. It isn't going to make you a genius musician. But it's a practice that can reveal things about yourself, which can help you accomplish what is eventually needing to come out of you. And I think that's an important thing to point out with all this, because we live in a culture that wants to say, "Well, here are all the answers. You're never going to be anxious again. You're never going to have to experience suffering again." And that's just not how the world works.

We talk about and we discuss and put these things out there to have people engage and look at these things as potential tools for their own transformation or polishing them error, however you want to put it. Yeah, I feel like when you say about solving your problems, that's a common conflation or misconception about what's actually happening. It may be that if you meditate, you'll be calm or to deal with things, but that's not... It's a byproduct, right? Within the plane of existence, within the plane of our everyday dealings, the way to look at mindfulness is an orthogonal axis. It's like the third dimension coming off of that plane. And the practice puts you a little bit further along that axis, allows you to move along that axis and gives you a perspective on what's going on.

So you can see your life, you can see the day-to-day, and I discovered that in seeing, looking at how I was doing my own drawing and seeing my drawing, but then I can see how I'm treating my children and how I'm working with some person. And that's the tool of mindfulness that added so much to the drawing because I was able to see who it was that was drawing. I was able to see who it was driving the car or however you want to... So it's a kind of other dimension. It might help you in the plane, but really what it helps you to do is pull off of the plane and do that new axis, that axis of mindfulness.

And that is why so many different traditions or philosophies or teachers talk about this practice of being an observer to what's going on. And this is something that my first experience with an observer consciousness... Well, first conscious experience of the observer consciousness was on mushrooms. I had taken psilocybin up at college and bossed in, and I remember very clearly hearing two trains of thought going on, one me saying blah, blah, blah, blah. And then another one being like, "What's on this? Who's making this sound? Where's this coming from?" And then the next thing I did is I went and started playing some music.

And what I was playing, when I was thinking about it, was a little distorted and wasn't a clear replication of what was actually going on. But when I tuned out and just allowed it to happen... I had never heard something so amazing before. I was like, "This is incredible. I could hardly say it was me doing it at that point." And this is that flow state. So I would like to touch on also your practice of doing a drawing every day. I think holds some really important lessons in it as well. One of them is that by doing something consistently, you then create a baseline that you can reflect back on to gain insights.

And then you can apply the practice of mindfulness in a way that really draws out things that you may be otherwise. I can remember a lot of things in my head. But I'll tell you what, I forget way more things than I can remember. So having something you can reflect back on imprinted in physical reality actually does a lot too. So if you could talk a little bit about that, that'd be great. Yeah, you create a space in the mind. And when the practice leads you to that flow state, that absorption, you get to be in that awareness. I mean, the goal of lots of meditation, mantra practice, and any type of meditation, listening to your breath, is to quiet the selfing process and let the selfing process sort of settle down, relax.

And as you said, when you're talking about playing the music, you become involved in the senses. You feel the pencil in your hand. You feel the resistance on the paper. You know, you get a rhythm in your shading and you drop into that. So you get experience being an awareness without really having to try because hopefully you choose something for me. It was drawing that you have joy and energy around doing that you want to do. And that gives you a positive feedback in terms of the release of that creative energy, which is how it worked for me. So I wanted to be in this state. I like to be in this state. I make as many drawings. I draw the time if I can.

And just for that alone, you know, people say as meditation really helpful, just sitting for half an hour quietly. Really, it's a pretty good thing. No matter what, whether you have any and the meditation practice or not, just kind of a little bit of time out. So when you're drawing, you get that level, and then you get the feedback of the drawing. So you get practice with that. And you get engaged with your senses in your body in a way that oftentimes when we're working on computer screens and checking our Facebook and email, where we're all up in that frontal part of the brain and all that. And we're all about who am I and what have I done, how many likes and it just gives you a chance to let that go. Yes.

And also to face something that you're not necessarily good at once in a while, because you seem to drop into all like only doing the things that give you the most reward. Go and try to sketch an apple or a cup. And I'm and I struggle, it's a real chore for me to render and I love that. And I really try to make myself do that because I feel the beginner again. I'm back in the state of just wonder and discovery. Yes. And there are the different techniques of rendering that I talk about realistic drawing and systematic drawing in the book. And just simply looking at something really carefully and the objectness of it dropping away like you're looking at a cup or a bottle and all of a sudden it's all the little details and the shading and put you in a non ordinary state.

That's right. And I think what we're discovering, I mean, through science as well is that neurologically, when you get a map of the brain when this is going on, when you see and experience meditators who have been doing it for a very long time, I wouldn't be surprised at the same areas of the brain are lighting up when you're doing that when you can shift your consciousness into, I mean, this is this is again, I mean, I've been greatly helped by psychedelics in my life because they give you direct experiences seemingly out of nowhere that are hard to, you know, dismiss. You can call it whatever you want to hallucination or something else, but there's something going on. Yeah, it's undeniable. And that is something that I think you talk about like flattening your awareness when you're looking at something.

That is a total flattening of a lot of different awareness is if you get into one of those states. And one of the practices you spoke about, which I found, I haven't done it yet, but, you know, I was thinking about it as I was doing, which is not the same as doing it, I know that. But I was looking at two apples and you talk about notice how when you're sketching something, if something is in front of another object, how your brain goes to fill in that object. And that is something that since I even read that as I've been looking around and scanning, this is why your book is, I can tell you this with the utmost confidence.

Your intention for this book at the deepest levels is baked into it and it had absolutely, I mean, I am telling you, it comes out over and over again because since just that little exercise, and I did some of the other ones too, but this one in particular, it snaps me into the mindfulness, it snaps me and there's another, my previous two guests before this have been a lucid dreaming expert and another one who's very much into dreams. And this is another example of something that can snap you into intention and mindfulness, which if you can string those moments together, you really start to see kind of how the world functions and your interpretation of the world.

So, I mean, there's so much in this book, it's unbelievable. That's terrific. You hit on some really, really good points. Just that daily work, just going back to the body, just taking a minute or two of your day to just be mindful and just make a few marks. Like, isn't this just doodling and I say, "Yeah, well, sitting in a chair and sitting in a chair meditating is just where your mind is, where your attention is." And the difference between doodling and mindfully drawing is just where your attention is. And if you're just watching it come out and being aware of your senses, yeah, just for a few minutes.

And people say, "I don't have time here and there." But I draw on the airplane or on the bus or waving in a line, I have a little sketchbook. And what you find is that the line you make when you're irritated or frustrated or nervous are different than the lines that you make when you're sitting quietly in the studio. And you remember those times and you get to reflect on those times because you have these marks. And I love that about the practice is that it's the kind of mindful meditation, insight meditation that goes on on a cushion, plus like a recording of it, a little record of. And so I put them all out, you know, after a week, after a month, I put them all out on the table and I'm looking at this kind of whole array of drawings and I'm seeing this flow.

I'm seeing, and before you were talking about cycles and that was the image that I had for a long time. And I look for images that become persistent over time. And because I'm improvisationally drawing, I don't really know what's going to come up. And people say, "Why did you draw it that way?" I don't know, it just came up. This is like just letting my hand do what it does. But sometimes things come up over and over again. Maybe it's the same just for maybe the subconscious nonverbal mind is trying to get something out. And I see these, yeah, these memes that come out, these themes. And those are the ones that I take and make it a larger world works.

And for a long time, I had this cycle drawing and I had this and I had a complete explanation for how we move from move to move. And this is Carl Jung did a whole book on the mandala symbology. And it even had the sinuous stake-like river-like line in it completely, but I discovered that I was, "Oh, I'm onto these archetypes." And I had a real solid rational explanation for what was going on. And then after that volume for about two years, I noticed that it was really the negative space, the space inside the cycle. And the idea completely reversed itself, the figure and grounds completely reversed themselves.

And so, yeah, going through the daily practice gives you this feedback and it builds and the symbology comes out. And I think the unconscious mind of nonverbal mind is shy, you know? And the ego mind and the verbal mind and the rational mind, like they really like to have the say. And because they have the voice and they have the reason that they want to say. And so it takes some time, maybe not even the first few times that you do the drawing practice for all those to calm down. And it takes a really long time, I think longer than I care to imagine, but it also happens all the time, just to allow whatever, scribble.

You'd be afraid, when I sit down, you're afraid, I'll make a scribble, it'll be a mess. I'll be embarrassed, I'll waste the paper, this is a waste of time, you have to get rid of all that. And then finally, out comes something that you didn't expect, that's novel, that has some wisdom to it. And then you say, "Mmm, wow, where did that come from?" That's, you know, what you're talking about, I know is applicable to any creative, anything, whether it's writing. That is literally against all odds and rationale, the reason I continue to make music to this day. Because when I graduated college, I have a music degree in something called music synthesis.

Your guess is as good as mine of what that actually means. It means I played with synthesizers in college and know how to write music and understand some things related to music theory. Does not necessarily leave you in the best position to start making money directly out of college, and all of your friends are going into law or whatever business. So I quickly had to reconcile and kind of say, "Okay, I need to make some money, I need to actually be doing this, I'm not going to pursue this creative path." That said, I continue to make music to this day, but what is happening in my life, those experiences you're talking about, when something novel comes out and you recognize it as something either as a deeper part of yourself or something connected to the deeper collective unconscious, those are the experiences that really push you in a direction.

And it's this bumping up of that against your consensus ego reality of, "This is who I am, this is what I do, this is how the world works." We all face this in every aspect of your life, it may not be with making music, it may be getting into a relationship, it could be any number of things. But this is the balance and these seemingly opposing forces where this comes, yes, yes. How do you learn to trust your intuition, how do you learn to trust that guidance, whatever you want to call it, and how do you balance that against the need to survive and the rational mind that wants to control? This is living, this is why it works so well, this is that balance.

And that's where if you can pull out and be mindful and look at that, you don't get a fear either way, fear comes up often when you let go, but you can use the muscle of mindfulness. And of course, I had the drawing practice for a long time, but when I finally got in with the incidentally horn, the boost geeks and started to take some lessons and do retreats and get more into the meditation, trying desperately to rationally convince them that drawing was meditation and having them agree and still say, "Yes, but there are the tools out there that you can use, and the tool of noting and anti-meditation can give you a way of handling all that fluctuation and kind of stabilizing it."

And that's where that improved my whole life, but it even improved the way I was doing drawings, and you can see the reflection of that in the drawings because the memes completely shifted after that. Well, it's funny because I've scanning the book and I see this evolution that takes place through the drawings, and what you're talking about here is, I also saw this in a later chapter, I'm not there yet, but this concept of maps, right? This is, it is, there, where are the Ramana Maharshi's, who can pretend they're dead and ask who am I for a day and become and get it, right? People like me, I need to see someone else out there at least having mentioned what the fuck is going on, so I'm not like, like Carl Jung, like it's one of my favorite people who did this because in the red book with Filamon, he is talking to himself in his head for years, questioning personally whether he is going insane while analyzing dreams and becoming one of the most foremost psychologists in the world, that is tough stuff to have to do.

I've been forced into those situations where I've had to internally reconcile for long periods of time what is going on in my own psyche without really getting a break, and I think I wouldn't, as difficult as those experiences had been, I wouldn't give them up for anything, because that is literally where so much of this, my being now has come from. But these maps, right? So you've mentioned some of them, others I've seen you mentioned in the book, but what were some of the maps that you gravitated towards and who are some of the characters or figures that have helped you along the way kind of formulate your ideas and, yeah.

Well, yeah, I looked for so many maps for so long, and when I started to, when the drawing practice in, say, maybe 2006, 2000s, I've tried to open up, and so not knowing that I was meditating, I was still starting to have experiences which now I see our signposts on the meditative path, and not knowing what they were, I began to feel like Carl Jung, because I was going insane. So I was reading a lot of Carl Jung, and I was reading a lot of... He'll make you go insane. He will literally make you go. Yeah. And I was listening to it. This is the beauty of the podcast world. I was listening to every podcast about consciousness and about creativity and about spirituality that was out there, and there was a time when you could almost see all the podcast, but not for long.

And I was listening to tons of podcasts, and online, another amazing thing that goes on now is that you can have access to in a short download the most profound spiritual text ever written in the world and history and commentaries and other people's talking about that. So I was going through a lot of material, you know, searching. I was on the search. Yes. And so when I looked at neuro-linguistic programming, the first step off the path was maybe there's a way to work with words and psychology and programming, because I knew programming and I thought maybe I can work with it that way. Then, of course, Western occult tradition, you know, and words as ritual, and maybe that's what's going on. We can affect change against Western psychology, and then moving on toward Daoism, Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta was a big term.

Oh, God. That was one of mine. Did you ever listen to the Advaita Vedanta podcast that came out of Boston? This is something I used to listen to like 15 years ago. There's a podcast it's still going on now, and I have no idea why I started listening to it, but I listened to it every single night, and every night they're open to snake. They're open to snake. They're open to snake. So I'm dual reality, and it was I would fall asleep listening to it, and it clearly seeped in, and I'm sure you recognize this, the wonderful parallels between Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism are just so wonderful. There's a unity there that brings these two disparate things seemingly together. You continue not to cut you off at all.

Well, because you mentioned the rope and the snake, there's a parallel in the practice that I put forward when I talk about reading the drawings, and I ask people to look at their after they've improvised the drawing, and they have no idea what's coming out, and they really have no responsibility for what came out, and it just came out, you allow it to come out. However, then you make up a story about it. That's part of the practice. So then you see whether you're saying it's a rope or a snake. You see what you think you see. It's almost like a Rorschach test. I love it. So that's all part of that. Yeah, so then, yeah, so Advaita Vedanta, and there's a podcast that comes out of Somerset, New Jersey from the Ashaboda ashram, and the teacher there did a series of lectures about Bhagavad Gita.

And it was over the course of maybe three years, every chapter, the whole thing, and I did it in about six weeks or something. That's like you say, listening to it all the time. And there's a map there. There's a formula there, and I got the idea that, yeah, maybe there is a methodology that we don't have the language for. And I started to see in some of the practices, especially in India, especially involving Shakti practice, et cetera, which I'm not an expert on, and I don't know a lot about them. But what I saw was that there is a deeper, richer vocabulary for creativity, and they were the ones that were for me.

Now it's obvious everywhere, because creation that is in the Bible and everywhere, but I started to see how creativity and things coming into being, thoughts coming into being, the world coming to being, were tied together. And so then the idea of programming consciousness and programming creativity, you know, all of a sudden took some real tread, you know, because here was sort of the start of a map. And then when I got more into the Buddhist ideas and the Buddhist practice, I saw the Mahasis side out tradition, which was called the Progressive Insight path. And that was a good, I had seen earlier in the West writing about the Tarot, do you know the, of course, we think of it like the Gypsy car.

But if you look at the major Arcana, the Tarot, I have read and several books about the reading of that as a creative path. Oh, of course. And in fact, you can find a similar thing in the Progressive Insight path about how creativity and how thoughts arise, and how they pass through, and how they manifest themselves, and how they come to fruition. So there were, I started to see lots of these paths, right, come in. And the one I use in the book, which I really love, and I use it, and especially because it's a visual path is the 10 ox hurting pictures, which you see now out of Zen, but it also goes all the way back to China.

And these were, this was a teaching about the path to enlightenment, and it was illustrated. And I really got it from the pictures, looking at the pictures, made more sense to me. And so in the book, I go through that beloved path, and reinterpret it as a creative path and make my own pictures, which is also kind of a tradition to redo it for yourself and tell the story yourself. That's, it's interesting. I'm sure you found, as I've found in a lot of people who get interested in this stuff and start seeking out and reading and listening and watching how all of this stuff lines up in a very mysterious yet logical way.

And then my first, you know, the first couple of years of noticing that you're kind of in awe, like, oh my God, there's this thing. It's like when I heard of Jung's collective unconscious, wait, you're saying there's some place where we all, all symbols and art types and things come from, and we're just tapping into them with our limited consciousness. And we don't really have an idea. It's like this huge concept that you didn't know was underpinning everything that's going on. Now, it's just, and you see, you're like, oh my God, then I feel like the next natural, natural progression is this. Well, what does this mean? How does this apply to me, the world at large?

And then after that, you start to get to the fundamental truths of what these are talking about. Well, it's great that there's all this stuff there and this magical stuff and there's all these things that can do. But what's the point of it? And then I think what inevitably happens is you get to the point where you go. Okay, what are they all talking about? They're all talking about clarity and wisdom. And they're all talking about compassion and generosity and real unconditional love. So I'll share an experience I've mentioned a few times on this show, and this was kind of a very poignant part of my life.

But I took LSD when I was 20. I had taken it many times before. I took it when in my early 20s, and I had a very, I had a transcendental experience that lasted for about three to four months. And I was basically tripping the truest sense of the word for three to four months. And everything, every single second of every single day of sleep and waking reality was one giant synchronicity. And I don't mean that in an abstract conceptual way. I mean, if I thought of a dog, I would look up and there'd be a dog. If I thought of a brand or a computer, I'd look up and there'd be imprinted on the side of the bus. When I'd hit the street, the thing would turn to walk.

It was like I was in tune with the world. What eventually ended up happening is is after about two months of this, two and a half months of this, my ego started coming in and started saying, "I am this. I am this. I am the God who is creating this entire world. I am these elements." And in some ways, I, of course, I was correct, but I wasn't able to process what was going on. It was until many years later, and I had an inevitable crash from that state too. I went into the first depression of my life and really the only depression, lasting depression of my life. So it was easy to identify as in not a familiar state of mind.

So I was able to get out of it through my family and friends and a lot of things. But one thing that came blasting through in that experience that I could not shut up about is this concept of unconditional love. And it wasn't this wishy-washy, "Yes, love everyone and love yourself. Muh, everything will be great." It was this fundamental truth that was being imprinted, or my brain was picking up and downloading as a signal. And it was so overwhelming, I think it blew out my internal kind of subtle body experience, and I just didn't know how to handle it, which eventually came into crash. So that I bring this up in the context of when you start tapping into these concepts of wisdom and compassion, wisdom and love, heart and mind.

Then the next step is, okay, we see what these concepts are. We see that everything is connected. We see that all these things are pointed to the same thing. Then we get to the two truths, I believe, that underpin every single thing that we do. We want to alleviate our personal suffering, so we're free of the world of cyclical clinging, attachment and aversion. And then as part of that, we want to alleviate the suffering of every sentient being that could ever exist and will ever exist and have has ever existed. Now, how you do that is the beauty of this situation. You can manifest that in any possible way you want. Some people go into politics, some people go into health, some people go into charity work, some people go around the world doing things.

What I am particularly interested in, and it's my particular calling, and it seems like yours too, is this path of creativity as an act of liberating these preconceived notions that either we come with because of karmic stains, or karmic imprints, or culturally conditioned. And I think it is, to me, the most liberating thing we can do, because it's accessible at any single point in time. It doesn't require anything. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that essence of what this is we're talking about. Yeah, yeah. So you describe first the inward journey, and then what I describe is the upside. Like once you sort of see those truths, once you sort of see into what those teachings are all pointing to, then it's back to that who you are, what you're going to do, how you're going to move through this world with a dance you're going to do, and what you're going to create with every decision that you make, you know, and how you're going to make that contribution. So up to about 2007, 2008, yeah, it was all about who am I.

And then I saw in my own moments of crisis that I had made this work, and no one knew the story, and no one knew what it was about. And so then I began in 2008 to put a drawing a day on my website on iCloud.com and offer it to anyone who wanted art. It didn't have to be in a gallery. It didn't have to be thanks to the internet in a geographic location. It could be for anyone, and I take email subscribers, and I have had for many years now. It's been eight over eight years, putting up drawings every day and writing, a little bit of writing when it comes out. And for some people, they write and they say, because they're doing, like you say, lawyers, doctors, accountants, and other ways of being in the world.

They have, and they're not living in New York City, they're out somewhere where there's less of an art community. That's their art moment. And I say that it's almost like a mindful moment in that way. I try to make it that. And having put that out for a while, it's led to all this opening, all this being here, and putting the book out and sharing with more and more people that, so it's grown on its own as I've just tried to allow it. So, yeah, so putting it out there is really part of the deal in finding a way to, you know, and it's free completely, you know, like that. Yes, yes. Well, you're not a sophist of old. You're not charging people for wisdom in that sense. I want to touch on this, too, because I have noticed a very interesting thing in my life over the past year.

So this will be episode 54, 55 of the podcast, and I do one once a week, so it's been a year. And this is the first creative project that I've done that I've put out regularly without fail every single week consistently. And I've noticed something, and I include my music on the intros and the outros, and I've gotten tremendous feedback that has really propelled me forward in a lot of ways creatively. But I noticed this act of putting things out in the world, and you speak about this, too. I think it was on Corey's podcast. You speak about when you put things out into the world, that changes the relationship from it just being an internal thought and an idea.

And I thought this was very interesting. I was in the chapter of, I think it was conceptual art, and I forget the artist, but, you know, he said the idea, the idea was the important thing. And the execution. Yes, yes, exactly, solid. So talk, I mean, this is something I've noticed, too, directly, because I'm the type of person where I, I probably have on my hard drives over the years. A thousand, two thousand songs in various forms of completion that are completely not out in the world in any capacity. But when I do put stuff out there, whether it's writing, whether it's talking, whether it's this podcast, whether it's music, the relationship from internal in my mind, there's something that changes this, this, the barrier between internal and external, psyche and matter starts to dissolve.

And this very interesting thing that happens, that transcends just the act of someone listening to it or reading it. Some other thing is going on there. It's like an album and sort. So, yeah. Yeah, it's beautiful. And I thought, think about that so much. And, and, yeah, so it's on many different levels, too, because it's from, like you're saying, from your mind to the paper. So you get the feedback, and then it's from you to another person, so that they get, and then it's you to the world now, even more, and that change. And I, you know what I like to think about? It's pseudo scientific explanation, but it's kind of a good, useful concept. I think about that Schrodinger's cat.

You know, it's like, it's, it's alive or it's dead, but it's not anything until you open the box. And so in your mind, it's in, it's in this intermediate state. It's in this multi-dimensional, dynamic, multi-variable state that's going on, and it's cooking, and you think you see it, or you see it from different ways, and you have a bodily feeling about it. But anyway, when you finally decide, okay, then you put it on the paper, you see you open the box, and then, and then you really see if it's alive or dead. You really see what it is. And, and, and it's also kind of, you, it persists in time where it's not, it's not the stuff of thought.

You know, the waveform is collapsed. That's finally in this, it's concrete. What do we say? It's, it's a, it's a, it's taking the trouble to actually exist, you know. And, and when you, so when you put a, when you put a pencil mark on a piece of paper, you've changed that paper, and you, not only have you changed it by the mark you put there, but you've eliminated every possible drawing there. It's a very possible drawing that doesn't have that mark, which is many, many more than the one you've just made. So you start like narrowing this thing down, and you collapse all the dimensions like the physical bodily feeling that can't be put onto the piece of paper.

And so you start to do this dance with this thing, and then when you bring it to other people, they're receiving it, and so they're unfolding it in themselves, and they have their whole history, and how their tail's going, and how they think of you. And so all of that, those waveforms start to move, and so there's a lot to, a lot to play with there. It's a very, it's a very complicated thing, but it's also really beautiful. It's very complicated and very beautiful, and it's something that I always try to understand why I, when I look at art, I am not an art critic, I'm not steeped in art, art making visual art.

So I can approach it very open-minded, and it's always fascinating to me how I used to go around the art galleries who were living in the East Village for the past eight years before last year, and there's all these art galleries started popping up down to the Lower East Side, it's nuts. And it was always interesting to me, don't know anything about the artists, there's no thing in my mind leading me to a certain thing, and how I'd pass a certain piece and be like, "Oh my God." Like this is just, and that is what we're talking about, and those are the transmissions, the Shakti pot, if you will, of art and creativity, that the intention and the soul and the transmission of what's going into the piece is that's what we're talking about.

And that ineffable thing that exists, but nevertheless is there is how I can listen to a piece of music that maybe technically isn't as proficient as, you know, some amazing technique, some, a prince who's incredible at a technician, but someone that's really amazing. But someone that's really rough and raw, and I can hear the transmission coming through it, that to me is what's fascinating, and that is truthfully like what I'm interested in pursuing as my life's work, because what? Hey, what is that? And B, I mean-- Yeah, what is that? Yeah, I don't know if there is a B, yeah. I talk about it, I talk about it in terms of resonance, you know, you're at the right wavelength, you're resonating with that piece, and if you're resonating with your own work and you put it out, that's the real reason to put it out.

Because there is someone that's going to resonate with it, and that's the work that they're looking for, that they don't see in all the work that you see that's getting commercial attention or whatever, that there's many to many kind of exchange that can go on. That's right. And it's the person that's doing the work that doesn't fit into that, that people are really, all of a sudden that becomes the edge, it's the thing that works outside. So that should help people put away their fear to get their work out there, because it may be that what you hear that you like, someone else, all of a sudden hears, and they resonate with it, and then you understand it.

Yes, and so you're talking, you remind me of a Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi master quote, which is, "By one bell being wrong, another bell will be wrong, and another bell." And the resonance, the physical sound resonance, is actually how this works. There's another image that comes to mind, which are the iconographic Tibetan Buddha paintings, where there's the Buddha at the top, and then there's this flowing of Buddhas out to that cloud on the side, and another one. And that is kind of how, I think that's the psychedelic 60s leery tuning, you know, you can start tuning people into this consciousness, and then slowly they start turning on.

Yeah, I mean, it's a beautiful thing. I mean, this is where we're at at this point in time, and we can get into where time functions in this map. But at this point in historical time, I think we're at this point where this resonance can be amplified in a lot of different ways, and I mean, you can look at this in a lot of different perspectives. And I'm generally a very optimistic person and have the highest of aspirations and hopes and beliefs that humanity and what we're talking about consciousness in general is a beautiful thing. But you can see the resonance in a negative way, too. I mean, I am still shocked. I am absolutely shocked that we're a few days away from the election here a week away.

And we're realistically looking at, I don't know, whatever 538 or whatever the polls are saying, a 25% chance that Donald Trump could be president. I don't think it's going to happen, but you see how this resonance can be used in a variety of different ways aided by mass media and communication. And the reason I bring this up right now is not to provide a contrast or devil's advocate, but the way you evoke change and promote change is internally starting with yourself. That's why this book, I mean, I can tell you as a direct experience, it's, you know, this really is the biggest ringing endorsement. I can give it to it.

The book in the past three days, as I've been going through this dark professional night of the soul, has been such a beacon and guideposts for my own creativity, which is touching deeper levels of why these things are happening in my life to begin with. Not just the question of, oh, I've got a son now and a family and removing and a mortgage and I got to pay for things, but how do I actually do the things that are deep within myself that will help to evoke a positive change in the world and create something that allows. I mean, let's be honest here. I mean, you know, art is not a career for most people. It is something that is totally devalued in our culture, both financially and just value wise.

We don't talk about, but you and I both know when we're talking about this, what's being transmitted through a piece of art, there's very few things that are as valuable as art in our lives and creativity. These are actually the things that really like look at everything you love and care about in the world. Like, look at your favorite story, your favorite piece of music, your favorite. Like, this is art. This is, this is really what exists. So, truthfully, I'm just thrilled to have met you for Corey to introduce us. And I hope this is the first in many conversations that we can have because it's just been tremendous, you know, tuning in to what you're putting out.

No, you've been amazing. It's amazing talking to you. You're an amazing energetic thinker, which is rare. Your talent is rare. And I just want to try to find any way I can to help you express that and get it out. I think you're doing the podcast with such a good choice because it's such a good use of your talent. And I think that your music is waiting there. It's, it's, and don't think that because you're not making a top 40 record, your music isn't important. You know, like just getting the energy out through the music and just like, that'll be the workout in the gym. And then when you come to the podcast, you'll have that, you know, deep connection to flow and you're going to bring that into everything.

So it has a huge role in your life. You can tell that. I really appreciate it. And I'm so happy to hear you say that. So I want to end with, I do three quick questions and then one general one. And then let's make a pledge to do another one of these and just stay in touch because this has truly been incredible. And we'll be somewhat neighbor soon. We'll be along the Hudson. Okay, so here's the last questions. What is your favorite color? Purple. That's good. That's the third eye, the color of the third eye chakra is purple, indigo, a nice indigo. Okay, what is your favorite number? Three, probably. Cool. It's a great one. Yeah. What is your favorite animal?

I like the coral polyp. Oh, what is that? That's the little, the little energy and then it builds the coral reef. Oh, wow. That's cool. I'm never going to get that ever again. That's awesome. And then so the last thing I ask every guest is what is a practical tip that is that you could share with listeners of this podcast that has helped you in your life. And I know that this comes with the caveat that you've just put together a book of 33 of these. So I'm not going to be a surprise. Well, in general, I would say that thing that you love to do, do that, you know, just get in touch with like what you really just just like to be when you're a kid again.

And you can just do that thing and just forget whatever it's worth or why you're whatever and go into that state because that's really. And so for me, it's being there with the pencil, like I was in kindergarten and just drawing with just loving the expression and seeing what comes out every day, just seeing it, seeing that flow, however you get there, 10 minutes. Like I say, when you're dealing with the infinite, you know, even a little bit is enough. Okay, so I love that. I've been it 30 seconds of just like letting yourself be that way for the day and I think it'll open up. I guarantee it. John, thank you so much for doing this.

This really, really has been a very bright spot in my week and day, especially. So thank you for coming on. Terrific now. Let's do that. Yeah, it's definitely. Thank you so much. Okay. All right. Bye bye. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] That's what I'm talking about. That's a good episode. I know I say it often, probably every week, but John, I've made a pledge to myself and to John. In communication, we're going to be not too distant neighbors up there in New York soon. Just a really special kind of incredible guy. I so much respect and love to Corey Allen for introducing us. Corey's a hell of a guy. He's got a new course.

By the time you hear this, it may be closed, but maybe not. I think you should hit him up. If it is to get in, he's got a course called Release Into Now, which is a meditation course from Corey. I haven't taken it, but I know Corey. He's a really great dude. I think you would enjoy it if that's something that you sound like you would be interested in. As a reminder, definitely go and pick up a copy of Drawing Your Own Path. I highly recommend it for you, not for anyone else. I'm going to put it on my reading list on syncpodcast.com/readinglist. It'll be there forever and live because it is incredible. Truthfully, I think you're going to love it. I know it, truthfully.

So don't forget to vote if you're in the United States. Vote even if you're voting for Trump, even if you're voting for Gary Johnson for some reason, or Joe Stein, or Hillary Clinton, whoever you're voting for. Remember to do that. It's your civic duty, and it's kind of like a cool thing that we do sometimes for whatever reasons. So that's it. Have a great day, a great week, and I will see you next week. All right. Bye-bye. Polymarket is proud to be the world's top choice to trade football. You mean soccer? Right, soccer. Polymarket is proud to be the world's top choice to trade soccer. Know the game better than the market? You can earn cash trading on tournament, and game outcomes, golds, assists, saves, corners, and much, much more.

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