Ep. 57 - Michael Phillip [Third Eye Drops]

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To speak about Joseph Campbell, it's the hero's journey. It's not that heroes sit around, you know, it's not that, it's not that heroes follow the rules and you'll be good, this is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity, this is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

Synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity. (upbeat music)

Welcome to episode 57 of Synchronicity. There was a little mini episode in between the last guest and today's guest who is Michael Phillip from the wonderful podcast, Third Eye Drops. I met Michael, I guess less than a month ago? It seems like we've known each other for a long time. He's that type of person. We hit it off immediately. Michael's podcast, if you haven't checked it out, it's incredible, Third Eye Drops. He does a great job of breaking down lots of things going from current events to Gnostic mysticism to inner exploration. He's just like, he's a very eloquent and interesting individual and to validate what I'm saying to you, he's on MindPod Network now, right?

I added him to MindPod Network because I asked him to join, I didn't add him. I said, "Hey, Michael, you wanna do this?" He said, "Yeah." Because his podcast is that good and he is like everyone else on MindPod Network, I think shares the same quality of just being like a fundamentally good human being. So I'm excited that he is the guest on today's podcast. I went on Third Eye Drops a couple of weeks ago, had a really great time. You can expect lots of future collaborations between Michael, myself, other people. It's kind of shaping up into a cool little thing and I'm grateful and happy to know him.

Before I get some more about Michael on this episode, let's talk about something you heard of beginning of the episode. Boom, I'm not gonna put any music in there. Today, you heard at the beginning of the episode, this week's podcast is sponsored by eatdreamb.com. And I wanted to talk a little bit, I'm not gonna do this every week, but I feel compelled to do so because Hardy and Paul, who reached out on behalf of eatdreamb, are really, really good people too. I'm going on their podcast tomorrow, I'm expecting to have a great time. But when I started this podcast, when I started MindPod Network, I always had the vision of some type of system that would be able to support itself and benefit everyone who got involved.

So I'm excited that they've chosen to sponsor this episode and some future episodes. Do me them and yourself a favor, pick up their dream bars. I literally today ordered a 12 box of the Apple chamomile ones because they really are good, they really did relax me. And they're just a quality product. So I would like to support quality people. Hardy and Paul are certainly them. I'm thrilled to have a sponsor, looking forward to many more. And really to the community that has grown around, synchronicity, like you guys are awesome. Like truthfully, you have allowed this to continue and me to pursue something and these conversations that I for one, I find beneficial and I know the feedback from some of you, a lot of you are getting feedback.

I'm getting a feedback from a lot of you and you're finding it beneficial too. To that effect, there is now a Facebook synchronicity group that you can join. Find it on the website, singpodcast.com, find it on Facebook, we're just doing introductions. It's just getting off, it's 100 some odd people in there. We're just starting to say hello to each other, find out a little bit more and see what we wanna do. It's a place where, I don't know how you run your Facebook. I am pretty vigilant about who gets into the news feed because I don't want to see certain things. In some ways, I'm maybe creating a filter bubble but at least I'm choosing to create it.

It's not like the Facebook algorithms are determining who and what I'm seeing. I'm pretty rigorous about who gets into that effect. I don't know if you know this, I don't know how into social media you are but for my job, I use it quite a bit and I just started using Facebook lists. You can basically create these news feeds of different topics that you can put together and browse them without fear of something poking in, like say something political when you don't really wanna see anything political right now. You can create these basically feeds, they're called lists. And it's a really nice way to kind of categorize and organize how you use social media 'cause if you're anything like me, you can get distracted very quickly.

If you're in a social media platform, Twitter, I'm really notorious for this. But again, I keep it pretty tight. I don't wanna follow stuff if it's gonna distract me from the task at hand, whatever that may be. Even with my rigorous curating, stuff still sneaks in sometimes I don't wanna see. So the synchronicity group is really just an extension of this podcast. It's an extension of you guys more than it is. Me, I'm there, but really get to know each other. There's some really cool people out there. I wouldn't be surprised if you guys can connect on a lot of different levels. So check that out, it's on the website, it's on Facebook.

Yes, thank you. Okay, let's get to Michael. How did I get introduced to Michael? I don't, it's like one of those things where I think all at the same time his name started sprouting up and apparently the same thing was happening for him. And we just kind of connected through some mutual friends. I think Corey Allen was one of them. Bruce Damer was another. And they all kind of just pointed me to him and people were pointing him to me. And it feels like, you know, this was a perfect relationship. His podcast, as I mentioned, "Third Eyedrops" is fantastic. He has some incredibly interesting guests.

He himself is incredibly interesting. One thing you'll hear in this episode is we were kind of just like tapping into each other's thoughts a little bit and anticipating what the next one would say, which is a very interesting experience. And we talk a little bit about how this can happen on psychedelics sometimes and it can be a very interesting experience. But I really did feel, his podcast, he refers to them as mine melts. And I certainly felt like this was a mine melt. So yeah, I mean, I don't really have much to say about this episode that you wouldn't glean from listening to it. I find it to be incredible, incredible, incredible, incredibly entertaining to talk to Michael.

Like I said, he's just a really good dude. We were talking about some election stuff because obviously, you know, I saved it for its own podcast on this show, but, you know, this election has a lot of people riled up. It has a lot of people really on both sides. And I mean, I was listening to a very interesting podcast, Zach Leary's It's All Happening with Jason Louvre on it. And they were talking about the alt-right and some of these magical alt-practices they were doing to kind of summon up Keck this Pepe the Frog like alt-right magic God that's supposed to be like a God of chaos. And apparently it worked.

Anyway, check that podcast out. But a lot of people are freaking out about this whole election result, about the state of the country, about the future of the country. And I've spoken about it before. I think it's an important reminder to take a look how this impacts our daily lives. Also, if we find the election result is tasteful, there's stuff we can do about it. Don't just take it laying down, you know what I mean? You got to actually have to do something, not just complain and point to the problem. It's still relatively fresh as we're recording this, like a week out, literally, from the election.

But, you know, Michael shares some very useful perspectives, I think, on how we can approach kind of our own reality and how we ultimately, in a lot of ways, have the freedom to kind of construct our own, especially in this country. And always comes with the caveat that I recognize my privilege, my inherent privilege of being a white dude in the United States. I do not have to deal with a fraction of the daily, weekly, monthly, lifelong struggles that minorities have, that people of different sexual orientations have, that women have. There's, you run down the list, and I recognize that, and we certainly address that.

That said, I don't think it should get in the way of having a productive conversation about how everyone could potentially deal with kind of the anxieties, stresses, and other things that are going on. The other stuff I'll point out, there's one kind of side note on MindPod Network. I just reminded myself of this, as always speaking. On MindPodNetwork.com, on the front page, you'll find a meditation, and if this is far in the future, search for it on the MindPod site. A meditation from Mindo Rinpoche, for dealing with anxiety, stress, and even panic attacks. And I think he is one of the most practical and clear teachers you will find on anything relating to meditation or anxiety.

He's the go-to guy for me. He has a great book called "The Joy of Living," that you can check out. It's on the Synchronicity Reading List, also on the website, but really that meditation, he kind of gives his little story is fantastic. But I digress, let's get back to Michael. Michael, great guy, you will hear it in this episode. Expect other cool things from us in the future. I will now allude to future potential live events that will be emanating from MindPod Networks, Synchronicity, Third Eyedrops, some other people have been guests of this show. Just planting that seed right now, that will happen.

I'm telling ya, I'm gonna cut it off here. Thank you to everyone who has rated and reviewed Synchronicity, they're really coming in. They really make me feel good every single time they come in, also it helps the podcast grow. People see that people are enjoying it, and they listen, and then it's great. Then we can get sponsors, and then the sponsors are happy, and then mom happy, and you guys are happy, and we can find cool stuff for everyone. So that's my idealistic future. I think we can make it a reality, guys. So thank you, without further ado, here is Michael Philip. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Yeah, yeah, that's a seductive idea. The idea that when you ingest or inhale one of these substances that you are somehow communing with it, right? Or feeling like it's entering your physiology and sort of taking over, and almost like exploring, or seeing through you somehow. I've had that in-stick before, but that like endo-exo thing, like whether it's something that's coming from inside or outside, or it's just something from the outside, unlocking something that's on the inside. I mean, that's a question I've been curious about for a really long time, and I wonder about every time I have any sort of experience with a plant friend, or whatever you want to call it, but I don't know, because I think the devil's advocates of that is because you can achieve such a wide range of states of consciousness just through breathwork, or yoga, or people who say they're experiencing Kundalini awakening, whatever that is.

Sure.

Maybe it is just pushing aside whatever's blocking that faculty to begin with, you know?

It's like a clearing of the winds, like before a lot of Tibetan meditation, you do this like lama somo, she calls it the Tibetan nose blow, but you clear the winds from your channels, right? And I don't know, it's very interesting, and I don't think I actually have it figured out how these things, I lean towards, and I've said this to people while tripping on various substances, mushrooms, and LSD primarily, I think this state is achievable without these things. They may be like a teacher or a guide saying, "Hey, here's something that you can do," but I always looked at the rhombos named Croley Baba story.

He gave him 1200 micrograms, well, two different times, first time he gave him 900 micrograms, second time, 1200 micrograms of auslie acid, best acid ever made, like universally acclaimed, acid, and both times, they seemingly had zero effect on Maharaj's state of consciousness whatsoever. And I've heard that story now, I've engaged with that story as a passive person who read it many, many years ago, and thought it was a fun anecdote that I would always share whenever I was taking psychedelics, or with people, I would always say that, and I never knew why, didn't know why the fuck am I telling this story, but I would always say it, but now I've heard the story from people who were there, like directly there, when this was happening, and everyone attests to the fact of what type of being he was, but that, to me, points to the reality that this stuff is endogenous, and what Maharaj said about that was that he said LSD was something that was used, I believe, in a high-altitude area in cool places.

It was a yogi medicine that had been used in the past, but people forgot about it and didn't really know what it was anymore, and that's what he had said about it specifically, so that's kind of how I look at it, and you look at sadhus in India, the people with the chillums going around, smoking, cannabis, nonstop, like, I think there is, I have to, if you believe in the concept of past lives, I have to believe in some passing carnation at this point, I must have been some sadhus smoking a lot of weed, 'cause there is such, my relationship with it, you could look at it in any number of ways across a spectrum of perspectives, but there is clearly something in me that resonates with it in a productive way for my life, it's not a destructive thing, and I know that it can be for some people, but it's not, it's something that seems, it's like built into the fabric of my being, whatever that is.

Yeah, and it piques my interest, because as we were alluding to before, I haven't had that relationship with it, but it is a fun thing to do, and it can be in the right amounts for me, it can enhance my experience and my ability to focus in on people. You know how like if you're on, you have MDMA or psilocybin in your system, you can really laser focus into the people you are with, on like a level where the division between you and them is--

The boundaries, the liminal boundaries are going.

Barely there, yeah. Like I've had experiences with really good friends where they're kind of, I mean, this is straight up therapy, man, this is straight up the deepest form of therapy, where they're confiding in you about lost loved ones and what it's like to lose a mother at a young age. And you see him reliving this moment almost and reopening this wound, but in a productive way where it's like getting that anxiety out and all of those feelings of unsureness and sadness and confusion that he experienced as a young man and he's like pulling that dark energy out and I was like right there, I was practically as inside of another person as you can be, right, right, right.

And I've had that to a lesser degree, you know, via weed. So I think it can be something that can really focus you in and really inject a little piece of your own consciousness into someone else and really understand their perspective. And I could see how that could benefit work as well because you can really laser focus in on this one concept and see it from all sorts of different novel angles. So it makes sense, but I've never, I mean, it's to me, it's just very tumultuous. It can be-

It's a trick, sir.

It's easy to go off, like just go off the precipice and be like, shit, I'm done.

Yes, and I see it, my wife has that happen to her and she used to smoke a lot in high school. She's not gonna get in trouble for that, Alexis. But truthfully, what you were saying about that kind of empathic ability when people, and that's, you know, we both know that MDMA was used clinically in the 80s before it was banned. That's specifically in psychotherapy. They found it incredibly useful and they're using it now, the people at MAPS, wonderful stuff, Rick Doblin and Ko are using it for veterans with PTSD. So that effect is clearly something that's somewhat universal to that substance. My point to you about, or anyone, would be that, what you're describing in that experience of someone relaying you like a very heavy experience in their life, I would argue that we do that all day long and that's an ability that is endogenous to us, that can be exacerbated maybe with a psychoactive substance, but really like people who are very adept at this and I think you see this and as you kind of get further along whatever this spiral is, this becomes a native ability, like a skill that happens, whether you're on a substance or off, it's kind of like a mind training.

And so I do believe, this is, I think, important, like I do fundamentally believe that no one needs any foreign substance to achieve these states of mind. I do believe that. In the same way, I do believe that maybe in another Yuga or in the past, or maybe in other dimensions, there are beings who can live off just light, you know, like that's a form of energy that they can substance, we know plants do that, right? Plants and water too, but I just think that for most people, you need to, at this point, we're in this very tumultuous time, just people who aren't like, I don't know, I don't know many people, I know some people, Donald Trump claims he's one of them, who does not consume any substance, not necessarily to buffer themselves from reality, but to go into another mind state that allows them to function more productively either in that time or hopefully after it.

So I, whether that's meditating, and I think you have to examine your relationship to all of these practices. And I do think, it's weird, I've never thought about smoking weed or ingesting cannabis as a practice, but it clearly is, it's clearly some type of thing that I'm doing as a practice daily, it's essentially, so I think to your point, like I do think these are endogenous, and you know, to this specific point of what can happen, what you're describing when some people smoke weed or take it edibles, especially, and that can happen to me, and I can get back into those very, very, so, every so often a paranoid state of mind, it's just riding, it's like riding the dragon, it's not heroin, but it's riding these energies.

And when I've taken way too much edibles, when I make that coconut oil and seeped into my skin and I have to test it to see how strong it is, oh my God, like it is overwhelming, you are literally like riding a wave, I very much think it's similar to when you like, take mushrooms, the come up in mushrooms, it's like, ah, it's like this thing, and you have to kind of flow with it, and you can actually investigate and calm down, and I think that's where the benefit is.

For me, those two things feel extremely different, like I've never had that feeling with a ladder, like, oh man, I need to just go way down and disengage, like, I mean, it's, of course, very powerful, and very, very vivid and undeniable, and I've had it completely melt my consciousness and every sense and faculty into some sort of, you know, sludgy, unified, overwhelmed thing, but it's just very, very different for me, I don't know how else to put it, but I want to go back to what you said about how you go through, you know, I think you said whatever this spiral is, and that faculty to connect to other people seems to grow and expand.

Think of, the first example that jumped to my mind is sweet old grandmas, right? All they want to do is spoil, all they want to do is be altruistic and give you stuff and just watch you enjoy what they've given you. And my own, my great-grandmother was exactly like this, like, she was overly altruistic, she worked her whole life as a waitress, so she, it's not like she retired with millions of dollars in the bank, or even, I'm sure she didn't have a whole lot of disposable income, but she would send all of her grandkids, and then all of her great-grandkids, so, you know, not a insignificant amount of people, like at least probably 10, 12 people.

Right.

And this was as a little kid, so, I mean, $100 today doesn't seem like a lot, but when you were a little kid and you got a card in the mail with a $100 bill, it was just like, oh, you know?

No, that's nuts, it's like-

And she would do that for everybody, every Christmas, so she was given away thousands of dollars, you know? And I'm sure, maybe she had to save up for months, little by little, or she had to really take a hit in some other areas, but to her, that was like the most important thing. And she would always say, let me know exactly what you want. If you ever want anything, just call me and let me know.

Yeah.

You know, it's that sort of altruism that grows over time, and I remember there was a time, so she passed away when she was about 92 or 93, and, you know, it was her time, she was old, but I remember, you know, getting the news and being, you know, very devastated, of course, because she was one of the sweetest women ever.

Right.

But we didn't have her memorial service until a couple of months later, because we knew we were gonna be doing a family gathering, and, you know, the pastor asked if anybody wanted to speak, and I wanted to relay this, I wanted to recount just how much her altruism really inspired me to wanna be a better person. And I was not emotional going into it at all, and I started talking, and I just, like, melted down, like, melted down in emotion. And I think it was because there's a larger, universal quality there that I, for a minute, just tapped into, and it overwhelmed me. It was almost like one of those psychedelic life moments where something so much bigger than you just brushes up against you for a second, and you have no way to comprehend or deal with it.

And it was almost like this little cosmic tap on the shoulder going, yep, that's what it is right there. That's what it is. Changing your ego from a magnet of consumption to a ray of sunshine, to anybody that comes into contact with it, where you now become this engine of just giving. And that, I think that is, if I had to classify enlightenment, I think that's what it is. I think it's turning yourself into a being that is just a giving ball of light, you know? Like, where everybody comes into contact with you, and they just are like, what is that coming out of you? It's different than everything.

Right, I know, I know exactly what you're talking about. No, it's a good enemy, and I would add to the giving ball of light, something that I think has taken me some years to figure out, like a wise giving ball of light. 'Cause I think that sometimes is like, it's a trip up, and when we're talking about this larger awareness and how, when you tap into it, you know, those are some of the qualities, that wisdom, which I really think is just another way of saying clarity. It's just like a clear way of seeing, 'cause you can make good decisions when you're seeing clearly. It's like a prerequisite almost.

I mean, you can look into it and you can into it sometimes, but if you're always seeing clearly, clearly you can make wise decisions. Yet, well, okay, listen, I'm gonna hijack this podcast back from you, 'cause we became friends quite recently. I've made a lot of new friends recently, but you, you, one of the best ones, I wanna find more out about you, because we didn't like, you know, I feel like sometimes, this happens to me a lot, and I bet it happens to you a lot too, but when you make friends easily with people, when you can resonate with people, sometimes you jump into like stage five of friendship and you don't learn the origins of like who the person is, how they got there and go doing that.

And I've noticed this all the time, and like sometimes I'll find something out about someone I've been friends with realers. I'm like, holy shit, how did I not know that? And you know, it's interesting. So I wanna find out, 'cause you're a guest on this show this time, what, how, where are you from? How did you get into all of this stuff? Like you have a podcast, Third Eye Drops, it's incredible, you had one before, Midwest Rail, but how, how did this evolve? How did Michael Philip get into being the person he is now?

Oh. (laughing)

It's not a fascinating story, but yeah, man, I grew up in a fairly modest town in Northeast-ish, Wisconsin area, so, you know, near Green Bay, I guess, like a 70,000 person city where, you know, you feel fairly isolated, you don't see a lot of possibilities beyond your immediate circle and your immediate community. But I always, I mean, I think we talked about this when we have spoken previously, but I've always had just that natural curiosity, that natural why, that natural drive to wanna dig past what's on the surface, you know? I remember, okay, let's talk about from a philosophical existential standpoint, I remember being a kid and understanding there are different ways of life.

People around here are predominantly Christian, people over there, predominantly Muslim, people over here are Buddhist, XYZ, and I never had the sureness to ever, even as a little kid wanna blindly embrace, like, yes, I'm Christian, I believe in Jesus Christ only and every other way is wrong. And I was never comfortable thinking that way, but I was also open-minded and I wanted to know why people believe what they believe and if there's a real answer out there and if there's someplace I belong ideologically or philosophically, so, I remember eventually that grew into just sort of an overarching sense of skepticism, where I thought of a lot of these ideas as just, you know, like fairy tales essentially or the typical skeptic viewpoint.

And man, I don't think it was until I was in college and I really actually started taking philosophy classes and religious philosophy classes where I understood that these ideas are much more sophisticated and nuanced and allegorical and, you know, steeped in the right type of myth to really communicate more deep-seated truth, you know? And then once that door was unlocked, that's what really peaked my curiosity and really made me enjoy talking to people about this sort of stuff more because it's an ongoing living exploration. You know, none of this stuff is set in stone. There's no one etched in or written in papyrus truth somewhere.

If it is, it's, you know, deeply buried somewhere within our own subconscious, right? We need to, you know, nostically journey to an endeavor to brush up against. It's, I think like Crowley called it the holy guardian angel, you know, there's all these different ways to describe it. But whatever that place is like deep down inside of your own consciousness that you can make contact with that can transmit that deeper cosmic truth to you in a moment. And even after you have that contact, you're not sure. You know, it's just, you know, you've had the experience now and you know that there's more out there but defining that in a way that will bring any sort of sureness, I think is a lifelong endeavor.

Absolutely. - So I mean, I don't know. I don't know what kind of an origin story that is, but-

I think it's incredibly. - And that's where I went.

Well, no, it's good because what you're talking about is, like you said, from many different perspectives, Jung would call this the self. Hinduism would call this the Atman.

Atman. - Right. There's any pick your, pick your poison there. They all describe the same way.

So I, I'm very much similar to you had these questions. I remember as a kid that there was like, I don't know, I guess you could call it a thought experiment, but I wouldn't know that as a young child. I remember being on the bus and getting dropped off. And I live in a cul-de-sac. I'm actually here now before we moved to New York where I grew up, which is very interesting. But I remember getting off 'cause it jostles up all these old memories. I'll be like, oh shit, I'm seeing my son playing the bathtub. I played in, I remember places, fucking crazy. But remember being in the bus and as I was getting off, I would look at, you know, the bus driver and the kids and I would literally imagine their entire ride, like back to their places and realizing like, everyone had a life of their own.

Like when I got to New York City, whenever I'm there, I'm thinking like, these are all people. I'm seeing them all as like a mass of people, a swarm of humanity. But these are all individual people experiencing the world in their own unique way. I'm like, I must have been like, I don't know, six years old or something. So it's like a weird thought to have. So there's this deeper inner pole, which I think is this embedded wisdom self thing inside of us. And when you do make contact of it with it, well, this is the very interesting thing. You know, we're talking about it like, well, we've pursued this lifelong discovery of trying to, what the hell is this thing?

What is going on here? What is reality? What is the nature of everything? This is what Joseph Campbell would call, this is the real hero's journey, listening to that voice and calling it. But the flip side to this is, if you hear that voice and you turn away from it, you say, no, that's all right. I'm okay, I'm gonna stay here. That I think explains some aspect of where we are culturally right now. Because not that people are like bad or anything, but a lot of cultural influences and McKenna talked about this a lot. Terrence, he would talk about how it's the culture is the cudgel, right? It basically bashes down any desire to get in touch with deeper innate wisdom, not maybe culture not inherently, but the culture that has certainly evolved around us.

So I bring this back to you though, like what, so you're off in college, right? That's where you left it. What though then inspired you after doing these religious and philosophical studies? I'm sure you came in contact with other stuff. Like what were some other motivating factors that kind of propelled you forward on this journey? Well, I do specifically remember several moments in classes to go back to that, that really stuck with me. I remember like learning about Descartes and dualism and him really like thinking about what the mind is and if the mind is the other or if it belongs within the realm of the physical or not and all of the kind of typical philosophical rationalists type of stuff, but then also taking Eastern religion classes where you start learning about that there is a language for this more mystical approach to spiritual exploration that I had always kind of naturally gravitated towards but didn't have the proper language for.

So, you know, self-action, doing real work. That was one of the things that always bothered me about religion is that you're somehow going to passively receive insight or a special relationship with God or something that will bring some sort of existential peace. And that just never made sense to me. I always felt like there's got to be an exercise. There's got to be an a, I mean, it's so relative but the word improvement. There's got to be some agency, you know? It's not like to speak about Joseph Campbell. It's the hero's journey. It's not that heroes sit around, you know? It's not that it's not that heroes follow the rules and you'll be good.

It's even Campbell has a, he's got a great rant and I'm not sure what the source of it is but I want to say that it is an audio rant. So maybe it's from that Bill Moyers and you guys are really famous, it could be but it's him talking about people just passively going through these rituals in a Catholic church and just talking about how that's all wrong. It's an all wrong idea. Yeah, and it's a great little rant but yeah, of course, you know, then there were the inevitable ramp ups, the inevitable moments of all right. I got to do this work myself now and I got to see what all of this shit is about.

And I think honestly in a lot of ways, starting podcasting was my first real earnest step toward that because, you know, because I had this natural inclination to want to have these conversation and conversations and explore these ideas, you, you know, you start doing that, you start having the conversations, you start meeting people who are more experienced than you and they tell you, this is the answer. Like take this substance, this will give you some answers, try this practice, this will give you some answers, go to this place, this will give you some answers. So you can't just keep talking about that for like, you know, indefinitely, you have to eventually decide I'm going to do this thing, I'm going to try this thing.

So I think once you really start doing that, it's the floodgates open, there's no just, you know, for example, having a deeply impactful psychedelic experience, it's not just like you poke one little controlled hole in the dam and the water just kind of trickles out a little bit and you go, oh, so that's what's back there. I mean, it, it fucking opens the floodgates and the amount of questions, I mean, you get sort of some answers, but it's, it's like a co-on or something. It's so open ended where it's something you can meditate on for your entire life, trying to define that thing, trying to bounce the experience you had off of other people who have had similar experiences and how they interpret it.

And it's, it's this ongoing ontological grapple that you have with yourself and with others and with the world trying to, you know, condense it down into something. But man, I think that's harder than ever to do because we just have so much information to try to, you know, coalescing around us at any given time to try to distill down into some sort of like concrete thing.

It's interesting.

Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. I mean, I think in essence, what we're trying to do is talk about something that can't be talked about. You can't speak about the ineffable. The words and the language are ineffective tools for getting at the experience itself and trying to communicate that. That always, you know, during very powerful experiences in my life of bliss or unity or just like supreme, unconditional love, like the second thing, my second experience, as soon as I experienced that, it's like, oh, how do we, how do we get this to other people? What's the effective medium for doing that?

And I really think whether it's a podcast, whether it's making a song, whether it's a drawing, whether it's a photograph, like these are all attempts to kind of transmit feelings and energy to other people. And I think when you get tapped with kind of those deep, deep, fundamental truths, the best thing we can do is try to figure out how do we communicate those? Maybe we don't even have to define specifically what it is. I mean, I think the words compassion and wisdom come up so much in translations from Eastern philosophies and then you look at it, not even Eastern. Look at every Abrahamic religion too.

You'll find the same type of concepts there embedded in it, no matter how scary Yahweh can be in the Old Testament. There are still messages of wisdom and love. So the question then becomes like, how do we communicate this? How do we do this in a way that resonates with enough people? And to your point about podcasting, I agree, this is like one of the best things I've ever done in terms of my own kind of search for meaning or fulfillment in a way that hits the things that are important to me. Not saying like, oh, well, yeah, I wanna make a lot of money. Me, that's my meaning. No, I mean like, what is getting in touch with that thing, that self, that atman?

How do you constantly, not constantly, but how do you get in touch with it and then allow other people to get in touch with it? Because the other function that we're talking about, right, are these oscillations that we go through as humans. We're talking about these very idealistic things, but the fact of the matter is, unless you and I get enlightened in this life, we're gonna oscillate back between suffering and being a human, right? Like, that's just the regular part of existence. That's what we signed up for in this incarnation. So how do we then, what is the relationship between those two things?

Like, how do we integrate what we know is the transcendent into the mundane? Which, you know, I think ultimately are the same thing, right? They're just different expressions of it. But how do we do that? I also, I wanna shift this conversation just so we'd be remiss if we didn't speak about it, 'cause we're talking about all this stuff. Like, Donald Trump just got elected, right? Your state voted for Donald Trump, right? Like, I mean, this is like one of the weirdest things, and I just started listening to the podcast you did with Bruce and Lorenzo, and I also put one out the day after he got elected.

And like, you feel compelled to kind of, you know, talk about maybe some other perspectives rather than fear, panic, sheer, like what the fuck is going on. But I don't know, like, I've been talking about this a lot with a lot of different people, but I'd be really interested in hearing your specific perspective on what you think this means from a practical standpoint culturally, but also from the more esoteric kind of, you know, not physical reality, but what energetically this maybe says about the times we're in.

I think the only thing I can safely say is I don't think Donald Trump has had any meaningful psychedelic experiences or deep inner exploratory experiences, because whatever this thing is, deep down there, I mean, you could liken it to like a fire, and your ego is highly flammable. You know, it's this thing that it's humbling, and it's this exercise in really reminding you yourself that you're a bit of a lie. Like your whole persona, everything you used to define yourself, you know, the fancy shit that you put on your body and surround yourself with is a lie. It is an impermanent expression of your ego and probably some sort of manifestation of a deep held anxiety that you're trying to mask with some corporeal item you can knock on and put a price tag on.

And that's pretty much all of what Donald Trump is. You know, it's, and you see it in the way that he deals with other people. You know, he is a social chameleon where, you know, and I think the thing that speaks to this the most is if you watch that footage of him in the Oval Office with Obama the other day, like the first time they ever met, he was being so respectful and kind and so, like he was saying things like, you know, I have so much respect, I hope to speak to you many, many more times. And Obama started dealing with the press when they started asking all these questions, just shutting them down.

And Trump's over there like, great man, great man. You know, it's this, and total 180 from everything he said, but at the same time, if you attack him, he's extraordinarily defensive and goes into this like ego protection mode and, you know, just lashes out in the most ad hominem destructive way he can think of on Twitter or whatever the case may be. And all that said, I think we need to pump the brakes with our fear. You know, I don't think a lot of this freak out is really as warranted as a lot of people think it is because we exercise more control over our own lives than any fucking guy sitting in any position thousands of miles away ever will in our society, at least.

Because he does not have the ability in and of himself to really impact your life directly in a short order. Like, yeah, shit could spin way out of control, of course. And things could go way, we could take a massive left turn historically, societally, I read an article about how this guy, I don't remember who his name is, but, you know, he's a historian and an archeologist.

I know exactly.

The 50 hundred years were like.

Yeah, right, right. Like this could be like the next iteration of a cyclical thing that human beings do just before a huge catastrophe or war or a plague or whatever the case may be, and who knows? I mean, yeah, it could be, it could be, but no one will ever exercise more control over your own life than yourself and the people around you. And I think it's a really important thing to remember that because if you're gonna externalize all your fears and you're gonna project, and I said this during the introduction to that same podcast with Bruce Damer and Lorenzo Hagerty that you're talking about, but, you know, there's this insidious desire to wanna project the dark corners of our own ego and our own subconscious onto some external demon.

And for a lot of people, that's Donald Trump. He embodies all of these things they're afraid of, and we can't fall victims of that, man, because if you do, you're gonna be in the exact same camp as the people on the far right that were, you know, doing the exact same shits of Hillary or doing the exact same thing to, I don't know, people wanna take away their guns or whoever challenges them. The Illuminati, the lizard people, the fucking gray aliens, whatever, it's all the same shit. It's still a function of, it's still serving the same function in the scheme of our ego. And I think it's really important to recognize that.

It's like people, you know, you have, everybody has their own negative idiosyncrasies or habits, and it's like everybody around you sees it but yourself. And I think this is another very similar exercise and say, what am I projecting onto the situation that may really not be there, or that I could at least give the benefit of the doubt to and say, well, maybe that was just talk, you know, because I think 90% of what he does is just talk. And it really remains to be seen what's gonna, what he will do.

Yeah, man, I couldn't agree more. And what I'm laughing at as you're talking is, I'm realizing I think one of the reasons that I don't project maybe as much fear onto the situation. And when I say that, I absolutely read those same articles that everyone else reads and can have a modicum of fear there. But I think I just have to, I have my own fucking things to deal with. Like, I just got in a fight with my wife, like, you know, like not too long ago, like I have shit that I have to deal with that I know, like you're talking about, like, I don't know all of my idiosyncrasies and faults, but I know what my major ones are, because they're recurring themes in my life.

So if I'm lashing out at someone who gets angry really quick, says fucked up things sometimes, does fucked up things sometimes, and I'm not taking an earnest and honest look at my own shadow, my own dark side, what the fuck are you doing? Like seriously, what are you doing? And that's how we get into these situations. I also think from a cultural perspective, this is a good thing. And this, I don't know how this will be received by a lot of people because I'm not saying Donald Trump is a good thing, but let's be fucking real here. 59 million people in this country were felt disaffected enough. And if you think every single person who voted for Donald Trump is a racist, you're not thinking clearly.

It's just not, yes, there is deep-seated racism and xenophobia in a significant percentage of the population. There's no doubt about that. But there were people whose lives and landscapes have been changed so much in a negative way that people on the coasts and liberal-minded and middle-class upper mobility, people college-educated and go different places were not in tune with. And this is something that even if Hillary would have won, still would have been going on. And if you don't think that's a recipe for division and divisiveness, I don't know what it is. So this gives us an opportunity, at least to look at those things.

And one person I've been blown away with is Van Jones. This guy is fucking incredible. I mean, he is tirelessly working to open up channels of dialogue between people on opposite sides of the fence. And something he said, I think, is incredibly poignant, which is when did we lose the ability to disagree with someone without making them the enemy? It's like, that happened, everything that has happened. This is how Donald Trump was partially elected too. The polarities created, the polarization created the conditions for him to be elected because here comes this charismatic figure who's saying he's gonna fix all these things that many people have not heard anyone saying they're gonna fix, everyone's saying it's great, the recession's done, we're coming out of it, things are not so bad, the Fed's gonna raise interest rates.

That's blowing people's minds who are affected by this shit. So I think this ends, and I apply the same lens to racism, to sexism. This stuff also got kind of pushed up to the forefront, like these pimples and sores are now on the surface. And like, we gotta deal with them. Like truthfully, like this is, I'm hoping this is a turning point in a positive way because I do think the arc, what is the famous quote? Like the arc of justice ultimately bent, the arc of whatever it is ultimately bends towards justice. Like I do think this can be turned into something that is valuable for this country, for individuals, but the reaction to it, it's almost like this big mental, this psychic cloud of sadness passed through the United States and then it's still passing through.

And if you can remember kind of like the Buddhist thing, like it's just a cloud passing, if there's still sky behind it, there's still sunshine there, but to see how many people just got sucked into this, I was surprised, I gotta say, I was pissed, I was upset, I was frightened, the night of, the morning of, I thought it was a bad dream, the morning I woke up, the next day I thought it was a bad dream, maybe it didn't happen, maybe it's wrong, maybe they'll overturn something, the third day I'm like, okay, you know what, shit, this is life, this is reality, this alternate reality, just superimposed itself onto ours, and this is where we're living, what do we do now?

And that's why what you're saying, I think it's so fucking important that, what happens when you wake up the next day? What happens the day we wake up, and Donald Trump is officially in office, how does your day differ? Are you gonna eat dramatically different foods, you're gonna take a completely different road to work, are you going to talk to totally different people? Your life is pretty much gonna be the same, and that is not dismissing, and also let's be very clear about this, and I point this out, every time I talk about this shit, 'cause otherwise it would be careless, we're both white guys, our physical reality, we both live in states where we're probably not gonna have to encounter any hostility.

If you're living in the deep south, and you're a minority, shit can get fucking real, and I do not wanna dismiss that aspect of what's going on in the darkness that exists there, and on that same token, I think it's up to all of us, you and me and everyone listening, if we find this to be a problem, if we find this distasteful, start working on some shit, work on getting your friends together, talking about it, work on meeting up with people, work on reaching out, maybe work on reaching out to rural communities who aren't racist, but maybe need some alternate form of what's going on, like to them some mindful path that fits in with their lifestyle.

There are ways to solve this, so it's not just like, shit's gonna be okay, don't be so upset, you're the creator of your own reality, it's 'cause you saw, I think we were in the same Twitter thing. Someone who's really pissed off that I retweeted, you essentially just said that you're the creator for that. This person, unless I don't block people, but I muted this person, I was like, all right, they're like, you're obviously the type of person who wants the last word, and I am, that's why I mentioned on my podcast that they did that, but like people, like we're not being careless when we're talking about this and saying everything's fine, everything is good, don't worry about it, but it doesn't help anyone to operate from a state of fear and just like panic ever, it never, ever happens.

You're disarming yourself of your greatest cosmic gift as a human being, projecting this shit all out into the world when you yourself have a fucking level of free will that no other being in the known universe has, right? I mean, you're sitting here freaking out about external circumstances, ignoring your own power over reality and your own power to make your life better, and I'm not gonna sit here and say everybody's, just like you said, it's a much more clear and present feeling of danger for people of a certain race for people who have already been seemingly directly attacked by some of his rhetoric and by people who support him.

And I think there's a lot of guilt by association there. The fact that David Duke or something was publicly supporting Trump, you know? Yeah, in some ways that is Trump's own fault for his own xenophobic bullshit and his cliche, now cliche statements about building a wall and all that garbage, but at the same time, man, I think the more afraid you are, the more you probably need to pump the brakes and realize that where these fears are stemming from. You know, and I do think it is important though, at the same time, I love the fact that people are taking action and protesting because to me, that's the opposite of an active fear.

That's an act of courage because you're physically going out and doing something about it, you know? Whether or not you are for or against that, you know? Doing what Trump did is the exact wrong thing to do when he tweeted about that saying that these were fake demonstrations or paid demonstrators because it shows that he's fucking out of touch. Clearly, this is a very divided civilization right now. The best thing for him to do would have been to acknowledge that and say, I fucking hear you guys. I hear you and, you know, this is not what you think it's going to be. But instead he retreat, like in this, what I said before, he goes into defense mode as soon as he feels attacked.

You know, he lies to himself about why this is happening and just makes up some narrative that's gonna, you know, feed his own ego and his own confirmation bias.

Right.

And then this-- - I'm not sure, yeah.

Here's Trump lesson. This is my Trump 101 and I love this. I do that shit too. And I'm willing to bet most people listening do that too. That should be the signifier that we're all not that different. He is maybe an exacerbated, a cartoonish version of what we're talking about, but I can tell you, I have done shit in my own life that's horrible, like not acceptable, not okay, like really not okay. And I think before we rail, like we should still call him out for when he does wrong shit in the same way that when, like I say, I don't do okay shit, like I have to hold myself accountable on some one, but it's not just like, oh, well I do bad shit, whatever.

But we're all guilty of a lot of the same things that Trump does and before we go out and like you said, project it on to the external, it's so easy to do that. It's the easiest fucking thing in the world. That's literally what creates the problems though in the first place because we're not dealing with our own shit, we're not cleaning up our own kitchen, our own house. How are we gonna go tell other people how to do it? And like it's just, I don't want that to be missed because I see, I mean, like I consider myself, I guess, liberal progressive person, but I gotta tell you man, the vitriol I've seen from some people I know against third party voters, like I get the argument that third party voters, if they vote for Hillary Clinton, she wins that election in states that matter, but like hello, 59 million people still, like that's not the problem.

Like in your gonna go attack these people 'cause you're upset with the result, that is a fundamental turning away from some of these issues that have been presented. It's tough, man. I really, it's my sincere hope that more people start and like, oh, here's something interesting. So I have on a couple of podcasts ago, I said, if you're a Trump supporter or you didn't vote, I wanna talk to you. And someone on Twitter hit me up a few days ago and it's like, I'm a Trump supporter. And I wanna talk. So I'm gonna have 'em on the podcast this coming week because I think it's really important that we figure out what the fuck is going on.

And if we don't do that, like this literally will be just like a civil war, if not fought through guns and blood, through just like psychic and emotional attacks, and that's- - Right, right. And ideological, yeah.

Right, right. And so I'm hoping people understand what you're communicating there about that. Like we still can shape our reality. We're regardless of who's sitting at the White House. Like that, that's just a fact. So I hope people, I think, I mean, I don't know, my personal prognosis, what I think, my prognostication on this is that I think, you know, a few months into Trump's presidency, there are always gonna be people upset about this, but it'll die down. I hope this state of anxiety and fear that I feel coming from a lot of different people subsides and I expect it to just because that's just how we kind of work.

We can't focus our attention on this stuff all the time, so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no, I completely agree, I completely agree. And even on the note of, okay, so check this out. So you're talking about somebody, a Trump supporter, hitting you up and you wanna talk to him and figure out where he's coming from. I just got back from a trip I had to do for my day job where I was with a bunch of other people. And these are predominantly people my age and younger and at least half of them voted Trump.

Right.

And you know, in my immediate circle, there are not a lot of people who did. And really getting to the bottom of what the cause of that was is it really reminded me that it's not a simple answer. I mean, the psychology of this is on a very huge continuum of nuance and details and personal experience. And like, yeah, some of them are from the Deep South and are just gonna vote Republican no matter what. Some of them are feeling like Hillary was super corrupt. Some of them are feeling like Trump is a great businessman. Some of them are just really uninformed. But it's a huge spectrum, like some are very informed.

Some are, and that's what's shocking about it is you and I feel like how could you take this cartoonish oversimplified bullshit seriously? But at the same time, there are really thoughtful people out there that voted for them. So it's not that simple. It's not as simple as being able to broad brush, like you said, 60 million people as racist or as uninformed or whatever you wanna call them. It is complicated. And you asked me, what do I think psychically is going on here? I think it's a slowing down of the direction that we were going in collectively. I think it's a slowing down of becoming this.

And in a lot of ways relate this back to the fight against your own ego or to become closer to whatever the word enlightened means. Because when you're doing that, you are in a battle against your identity and your ego and your persona. And the further you get from that thing, the less definite you become as a Noah or as I come as Michael or as we become as America, you know? And America itself, I mean, Jesus Christ, we are the fucking ego, the primary ego of the world, right? We've you know, inseminated every other culture with our culture, and it's taken over, you know, like a virus. It's we, the primary source of hegemony in the world is for sure America and the American, you know, economy, the American philosophy, way of life, whatever.

It's about ideal, yeah, absolutely, yeah.

And you know, I do think that it has, but it's been a reciprocal process, right? As we infect other civilizations, they in turn affect us. And you know, the more people that come here, the more different cultures seep into America. And what, I mean, and again, of course, America quote unquote is not a thing. It's not a definite, it's not like America has these 10 qualities and that's it.

Right.

We need to make it great again.

Right, sure act.

Getting back to only those 10 things, it's not that. But I think it's clear that we are changing and we are becoming more diverse and we are becoming, you know, all of these things that make it not look like how it used to look like. And I think it's a, it is a collective desire to hang on. You know, it's a collective desire. It's the last dying breaths of the, but I don't wanna change people.

So this--

You can only resist the hurricane for so long. Like, yeah, you can dig your, you can put up the sandbags, you can dig your fingers into the railing, you can do all these things. But inevitably that changes the way that things are going. And, you know, you look at the electoral map of all the people from like 18 to 29 or whatever it was. Every state was blue except for, you know, the deepest, deepest red parts of the South and like Montana.

It was like 432 electoral votes or something.

Right, it was, yeah. So, I mean, that is the way things are going. And you're not gonna be able to change that no matter what you do, borders are dissolving not only internationally, but from person to person.

Right.

I mean, technologically, ideologically, all of these things, there is a huge, huge, huge change coming. And I think, you know, the fact that the pendulum swung back the other way this time is only going to serve for a more drastic swingback. And the thing is, is, you know, if you give people something, that precedent is now always there. You know, like, for example, healthcare. You can't take it away now. If you take it away-- - Of course, even a hedge on it immediately. - Right, of course.

Right, yeah. And so, you know, and that's what, and that's the world we live in. And I think we're on a definite path. I think this is just a, it's the equivalent to the anxiety you have before starting a podcast. Am I sure? Man, I'm nervous, you know, that little anxiety you have before you get on a plane, before you go to a new place or meet a new person or whatever, it's that feeling of, oh, do I wanna put myself out there? Do I wanna take this risk? What if it's embarrassing? What if this person notices my zit? What if this person doesn't think what I'm wearing is cool? You know, whatever these little neuroses are, this is a physical manifestation of a collective neuroses of mankind, I think.

I wonder, yeah.

I wonder if that, I mean, so I like that. I think, and I wanna agree with that, actually, but I will play devil's advocate here in the fact that maybe what we're getting with Donald Trump is the logical conclusion of an entertainment-fueled narcissism that is really reflective of where our culture is on both sides of the fence. I don't wanna make this seem like, whoa, just the people who voted for Donald Trump. I think he's a product of something that we all individually consumerism advertising, you know, how this capitalistic society has kind of thrived on the middle class and people with money.

Like this is, that's what we're not talking about. And now the other aspect of this is how those same corporations, and it could be argued for the good of humanity or not, are starting to replace a dramatic part of the workforce with robots, right? I mean, that's, I'm sure everyone, a lot of people saw that graph or the map of all the top jobs in across the country in like every single state that voted for Donald Trump was truck driver, and they already have mechanized kind of self-driving trucks ready to roll out in the next five to 10 years. So how is that gonna, you know, Jesus, that's not gonna create more jobs.

So I wonder, I agree, I do agree with you, and there's no doubt about it in my mind, this is true. I do think this is more of kind of a shift that we deal with on the road to a more enlightened society. I don't think we're gonna get there in our lifetimes even close, but I think that is ultimately where this stuff bends. And I would, I mean, I look at this the same way I try to look at all problems in my personal life or just in life. There's always some inherent opportunity for growth transformation and wisdom. If you look back at the shitty experiences of your life, the death of loved ones, relationships breaking up, loss of a job, you can go back to a lot of those experiences and be like, you know what, it sucked so much.

You can probably still tap into it, but I grew in some way. It changed me in some way that did have a positive impact in my life, and I think if we could just zoom out, don't look at it like we gotta get through another fucking 1200 some odd days of this guy or 1400 days, however many it is, and just say like, okay, well, you know what, this is gonna be maybe four, maybe even eight years of our collective society, but like if, let's say, a lot of us live to 60, 70, 80 years old, it could only be 10% of our lives. And that's a small fraction of your cumulative life. And what can be achieved individually?

Like you're saying, you can still choose to do whatever you wanna do. We still live in a predominantly free society. And the counter-argument to that, I see from a lot of people on Twitter and online, is they think we're moving into a fascist state. We, they think that it is all, no holds barred, we're moving into Putin, Russia, we're moving into an authoritarian, one short of a dictator, and that's what's gonna happen. I personally have enough faith that the 60 million people who didn't vote for Donald Trump, aren't going to allow that to happen, just because the Republicans and Donald Trump is president.

Like, I just, like, I have a little more faith in humanity and collectively that like, if that starts to happen, like maybe, you know, you can pull the wool over people's eyes for a certain period of time, but like, I mean, come on. But that's just my perspective. So I do agree with you that this is not a reason to be, this isn't the apocalypse, like a lot of people are saying. And I think if you can tap into that, like, maybe if you don't even believe it, you might just be able to get a little more perspective in space on how to process what's actually happening.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, he, just because he is the, the fruiting body of the mycelium of society right now, doesn't mean that he is society or he exercises the control of everything that's going on under there. He has his little season and his time right now, and that's, that's it, you know? Even regardless of how far things spin out of control in the scheme of history and the scheme of probably your life, this is going to be a blip. And I hope I'm right, I could be wrong. I mean, yeah, things could spin wildly out of control. I mean, that's, that is a possibility, but it's like worrying about, I can't drive today 'cause what if I get in an accident?

I can't, you know, it's the same sort of logic I was pointing to before, but yeah, dude, I agree. I think this is still, I didn't wake up today and feel like, oh shit, today is a fucking terrible day right now. I mean, I, I mean, I woke up today. I was excited, I was excited about this podcast. Excited to see my friends later. I have a good friend getting married today. You know, Donald Trump does not have anything to do with any of this shit. It's just, it's just crazy to allow that to pollute your thoughts, you know, on a daily basis. I mean, or whatever.

No, I hear you, I totally, I totally hear you. Manly, I, and I think the natural reaction to someone who's angry and hearing that and doesn't agree is, whoa, we're just all gonna be fucked up. What are you gonna do? You're gonna do nothing? It's like, no, that's not what anyone is advocating. If you really feel compelled that this is a huge problem in this country, take action. Do it in a clear, like, no one is saying like, everything's great, everything's wonderful. Like, clearly, we're all visibly upset about this on some level. If you thought, if you voted for Hillary Clinton, if you voted against Donald Trump, you're not happy with the result.

You devoted a certain reason. So that's not what we're advocating. All right, Michael, we're gonna wrap this up 'cause I have a feeling in the future that there will be so many more of these with other people, with ourselves. Like, so, okay, I'm gonna end with my questions 'cause I'm interested to find these out. What's your favorite color?

I guess I've always fancied myself a blue man. A blue man.

I feel you, I feel you. I'm more in the dark, I guess, the dark realm of grays and blues is my default.

Yeah, I love it.

Grays of blues blacks.

Oh, love it. I mean, it just went progressively darker.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know where that's coming from, but.

What's your favorite number?

I don't know. I don't know if I have a favorite. I think when I was a kid, I was like five, but I mean, I take every opportunity I can to giggle at it 69 or a double consecutive number. And there's obviously a lot of esoteric overtones, certain numbers, like 33, and I like to go down those sorts of rabbit holes 'cause it was fun.

I totally, I'm with it, I get it. What is your favorite animal?

I guess I'd have to go, I mean, man, these questions are like, it's funny because in a way, they're like the most cliche questions, but in another way, they do kind of reveal a lot about it.

That's why I asked them.

Yeah, like they're like Rorshark Blots.

Yeah.

I love dogs, man. I have cats myself, but I grew up with dogs and just that sort of companionship and how locked into you they are is an amazing thing. Like I'm a total cheese ball for like, the other day I saw an article about, do you know the story of Hachiko?

Oh my God, don't make me cry. A Futurama episode that they do that, I don't even cry about Hachiko.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, for people who don't know, he was this, or she, I think, was a dog that was being cared for by this Japanese professor and it would need him every morning at this train station. And then he died and the dog just kept going there every day until it died. And there's like a statue for it.

Yeah.

And like, you know, I actually saw the statue in Japan.

That's pretty cool. - That's awesome.

Yeah, yeah.

But I mean, one other, that is like the encapsulation of loyalty and friendship and love and appreciation. And it's just, it's just very cool. And in some ways it's, they're doing more for us than we're doing for them. I mean, they're the best stress reducers and psychologists that you can imagine. They don't care what you look like. They don't care how much you weigh. They don't care what shitty thing you did or said that day. Like they're just going to just want to come up and snuggle, man.

I know. They're really great.

They're really great.

She's amazing. I'm going to go hug my dog after this. All right, last question. Practical tip that you could share with people listening that has helped you in your life.

Practical tip.

I think fucking just go out there and do it. I mean, to an extent, yes, you know, if you have an idea, you need to plan it. You need to be intelligent about your approach. But you can sit there and think and plan. And I don't know what the statistics on this are, but there has to be a statistical bend toward the longer time you spend procrastinating, the higher the likelihood that you're not going to do it. Because you can easily just justify, you know, putting it off or, you know, indefinitely coming up with ideas about, well, if I do that, then this will happen and we'll have to deal with that.

And then the mind just starts to view these things as an insurmountable task. But I'm kind of, I'm one of those people who, this is one way where astrology kind of blows my mind because I'm a Pisces and I am a very stereotypical one in the way that I have so many ideas. Like on a daily basis, I'll come up with shit that I want to do. I mean, seriously, it runs the gamut, whatever. So that's amazing in some ways and dangerous in other ways because it really can be a force to keep you stagnant as much as it can be a force to change your reality for the better. So I mean, as difficult as it can be sometimes to choose a path, just get out there and do it.

Like whatever that anxiety is, whatever that thing that's preventing you from taking action or convincing yourself that you are not quote unquote good enough, overcome that, do everything in your power. You can overcome that and don't let it run your life because all the best things like we're talking about, you know, they all stem from stuff I did. It's never, I never am happier for having sat there or not having done something or for like Bruce said, before projecting these things onto something outside of myself that makes it seem like it's out of my control. Like, yeah, I would do that, but blah, blah, blah is happening over there and they're already so good at it.

So I would I bother.

Sinking yourself out, yeah, totally.

Exactly, so don't fall prey to that would be, I think my primary piece of advice and believe that you're fucking capable of a million times more than you think you are because as doesn't matter, like, I mean, it's not like you and I have, you know, wildly successful podcasts, but at the same time, I don't have a PhD, you're not like a, you know, I don't know, I'm not a supermodel, I'm not, I'm not anything, you know, I'm just a fucking dude. And if I can do something semi successful, you can do, you can probably do that and a lot more and a lot more, so.

Yeah, man, you fucking, I love it.

That's a glass full, people.

It is, and don't sell yourself short. I think that we will be looking back at some of these conversations and be like that. This was the genesis and seeds of something really, really cool. So I do encourage people listening to take what you said to heart, just do what you feel like you need to do, even if it scares you and you don't want to. And then really know like whatever you think you're capable of, it's really a lot more. You will constantly shock yourself when you actually try to do it. So Michael, this has been awesome. We're gonna have to do a lot more of these. I love the conversations, I think they're helpful.

This is great, man.

And the last thing I want to say on this whole reality is taking wild movie like terms. His Terrence McKenna has to just be like, just doing backhand springs right now in the afterlife because this is the craziest spike in novelty yet. Like this is just when you think, okay, all the craziest shit has happened. We've dropped nuclear bombs. We've fucking invented spaceships. We've gotten millions of people together and done insurmountable tasks and just done unimaginable things. Then we elect a cartoon character and put him in charge of missiles that can destroy the planet. So I think Trump is the greatest boon for the novelty wave theory as far as so.

And also use that as a means to doubly convince yourself that you're capable of doing anything.

Yeah, that really should be a lesson in determination and belief because holy fucking shit. All right, we'll leave it there, man. Thank you so much. Thank you, man.

You got it, brother.

All right, peace. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (speaking in foreign language) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Hey guys, thank you everyone who listened to that episode. Big thanks to Michael Phillip. Go check out his podcast, "Third Eye Drops." One of my favorite podcasts. It's on MindPod Network. You can find it there. You can find it at thirdidrops.com. Stay tuned for some really cool stuff that we're gonna be doing together. I don't even know what some of that stuff is, but I know it's gonna be cool. Things seem to be coalescing. Many thanks to everyone who continues to donate, rate and review, synchronicity on iTunes means so much. Join the Facebook community, the group. We got synchronicity. Really good.

I think you're gonna enjoy it. Lots of people are doing introductions happening right now. You can check that out on syncpodcast.com, check the menu item, Facebook community, or just find it on Facebook. I guess that's it for this week. I will see you next week. 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 Wayfair. Shop Wayfair 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 for less.

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