Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 573: Whitney Cummings

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

Whitney Cummings, hilarious, brilliant comedian, joins the DTFH! Check out all of Whitney's stand-up specials at WhitneyCummings.com. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brou...ght to you by: birddogs - Visit BirdDogs.com/Duncan and get a FREE Yeti-style tumbler with your first order. Squarespace - Use offer code: DUNCAN to save 10% on your first site. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/duncan and get on your way to being your best self.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Greetings to you, my sweet friends. It is I, Deetrucelle, and I'm on Cloud9 right now. I just recorded my first comedy special this last weekend at the comedy mothership, and it was just the most wonderful weekend. And to all of you who came out to the shows, thank you so much. That was just, I don't have words for it. I can't explain it. The mothership is the coolest place ever. The comedians there, the staff there, or just so sweet and supportive, and I don't know, y'all, I am just buzzing with joy right now. I have been putting off doing a special forever and you know, how is it gonna turn out? I don't know, this shows were great,
Starting point is 00:00:56 but still, you know, we gotta edit it. I don't know what it's gonna look like, but I have a feeling it's gonna be really good. Lance Bings directed it. He set everything up perfectly. The mothership is beautiful. I've been working on these jokes forever. So hopefully within the next few months,
Starting point is 00:01:17 you all will be able to see my first comedy special. And again, let me just put in italics. Thank you everyone you came out. Some of you flew to Austin to watch the special which means the world to me and I will never be able to thank you enough for giving me the ability to even be a comic to have this awesome job as a podcaster and to be able to, you know, have the luck to have one of the weirdest jobs on earth feed my kids. So thank you all so much. I am overjoyed and also I am a little, as you can hear, from my voice ragged. So I'm not going to go on and on rambling about happy I am about my comedy special. And I don't need to go on and on because today we have a star guest. Whitney We have a star guest. Whitney Cummings is here with us today. Now, before we jump into that, I would like to invite you to join my Patreon. It's at patreon.com for its last DTFH. We have weekly gatherings and meditations,
Starting point is 00:02:40 and you will get access to commercial free episodes of this podcast. Friends, I am taking a little break from the road because I have a new being coming into my life. And I wanna be here for that, obviously, but starting the eighth of September, you can catch me at Zaini's in Rosemond. And I'm also gonna be at the Tacoma Comedy Club, the 21st of September.
Starting point is 00:03:08 And then the 6th of October, I'm headed back to San Francisco to do shows at Cops. I am getting those ticket links up on the website, but in the meantime, you can go to Zaini's Tacoma or Cops and find ticket links there. Alright everybody let's dive in to this wonderful conversation with Whitney Cummings who I was lucky enough to get to hang out with at the mother ship because she did a couple of nights there before I take my special and what a hilarious brilliant person she is.
Starting point is 00:03:48 Everybody, if you're interested, if you have somehow missed Whitney, she's got like a billion comedy specials. You can find links to all of them at Whitney Cummings.com. I hope that you will check them out. And now everybody, please welcome to the DTFH Whitney Cummings You are with us, take hands, go me to you. Welcome to you. I love you. It's the Duncan Trash, I love you. I love you.
Starting point is 00:04:32 I love you. I love you. Whitney, welcome to the DTFH. It's great to see you. I love your background. Oh gosh. I love you. I love this show.
Starting point is 00:04:42 Thank you. Thanks for asking me. So, uh, I, you know, I don't know if people, at least I didn't know that you were a horse person. I'm a horse person. And you know what? That I'm trying to figure out what you mean by that because for, there's good horse people and then there's really obnoxious horse people. There's like two, there's like two kinds of horse people. There's the horse people that like growing up, they were rich and had horses and like roared English and jumped, which is usually abuse. But for a lot of girls, it's the way they basically
Starting point is 00:05:17 masturbate for the first time. No way. It's where it got. I guess it makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah, of course. It totally makes sense. That's sort of wrapped up in learning to write a horse. I was never having sex with my horse growing up just to be very clear.
Starting point is 00:05:35 Got it. But I never wanted to settle. We've all seen a sippian by now. We know what that is. It's like a living organic Sibian that you are probably getting really confused. Right. It's the more expensive model. And so I grew up in a home that very alcohol calm, you
Starting point is 00:05:57 know, who didn't. And I luckily got sent away when I was like 10. We were running away from home, doing drugs really early to go live with my aunts on this farm with horses. And I was, again, more alcoholism in those homes. So I spent most of my time out in the fields with the horses kind of just pretending I was one. I mean, because their behavior is so fair, the way the pecking order of the herd,
Starting point is 00:06:25 you know, the way that they move, the way that they treat each other, I just really appreciated that honest direct communication. They're prey animals, so they don't really have any bandwidth or energy. I'm sorry, they're, because they're not predators and because they only raise, yeah, you know, well, actually horses are incredibly violent in the wild.
Starting point is 00:06:42 I don't know if you've ever seen a horse's fight. Oh yeah, it's brutal. It's bonkers, dude. They can really bite the shit out of each other and they pull each other with their hooves and in the wild, you know what, shave their hooves down. Like those stable island horses, so they have these kind of hook hooves.
Starting point is 00:06:58 Ooh. And they can just take chunks out of each other. It's wild. But that horse is probably gonna die soon if it's hoof is like that. So they really have to be violent to protect themselves. But so I kind of would sleep with them, hang out with them. I appreciated so much like the way that they conserved energy,
Starting point is 00:07:16 the way that they communicated with each other. And that kind of helped me understand how to be direct in communication because I grew up with so much bullshit. You know, it's like, you go to church and they'd be good to your neighbor and then you'd see your parents at home do the exact opposite.
Starting point is 00:07:30 You know, and horses like they don't lie and any other emotion, you know, besides just like serenity and being present, repels them, it all boils down to fear for them. You know, so they just want to be away from you. So it's a great way to like, so I now do more like, I can't therapy a gole of stuff. All right. First of all, this is my not that I have a problem with any life form, but as a neurotic person, any like I could be fine
Starting point is 00:07:57 around an animal. But the moment someone tells me it is hyper attuned to any fear or a rear feeling you might have. That at that moment, I'm going to fail the equine equine. I detect a test. Because it's like, Jesus, fucking Christ, what do you mean? How much does it know about me? Like it senses everything? Oh, fuck, it's going to know. It's going to see me. And then I'm going to freak out. And then the worst is going to be like, get this fucking asshole away from me. What is wrong with him? So the energy you're admitting right now, they would love because it's honest.
Starting point is 00:08:30 So if you're scared and you go and you go, I'm not scared, I'm not scared of horses. They don't understand that. Like it's almost like the uncanny valley to them because they feel your energy is fear but then they see you trying to cover. So they just think you're like sick. Right. And they repel, they're repelled from you. If you're pretending and lying, they don't
Starting point is 00:08:48 even, they don't understand that. So if you're going, I'm scared shitless. I'm scared you're going to find me out. They'll move towards you. They fuck with you. Wow. Okay. I got it. Well, that makes more sense. I wish that I'd had you as a horse instructor back in that by summer camp days, because they, we would, we had a horse riding and I rode a horse is and, uh, at first it was really quite scary and, but then you know, you realize it's like it was especially these horses, these were camp horses.
Starting point is 00:09:15 They weren't exactly like pure breads or whatever you call them. Well, they probably were like shut down. Most of the horses we see their spirit is broken. So sad. And they're not like awake. So the horse, what I do with horses, I take abuse horses and we make them wild again. We give them sort of permission to express themselves and be individual and make their own choices. All the riding is consensual. And I know that's, you know, horses, yes,
Starting point is 00:09:38 they do like to work. They do like to ride depending on the circumstances. But you really learn a lot about your own motives when you approach them this way and we realize how results oriented we are and how gross our motives are. I'm like, I'll be in the arena just doing in a gola session and my horse will move away from me. And I'm like, what, what, what, is there food over there? And I'm like, no, I was thinking about getting a video.
Starting point is 00:10:03 I was like reaching for my phone. I wanted to get a video of us, and that just boils down to them to fear. I'm afraid I'm not gonna get this photo. I'm afraid I'm not gonna have something to post today. Like they just feel it and it repels them. That is so cool. I don't think people realize how smart they are either.
Starting point is 00:10:19 I think that, you know, just because they, unless you really like see them, then they can seem just kind of like, I don't know, not there, dumb, like dumb, but then when you tune into their intelligence, they write, at least a few times, I've, there used to be a horse, I would go jogging in LA and there was a horse there and then I somehow just call it like shit,
Starting point is 00:10:42 that thing is smart, like it's like cinch, it's, it's, it's aware in the moment, just like what you're saying, I recognize that. For the first time, it walked right to me and it was, I was like, whoa, I summoned it, it came to me. It's cool. It's cool. It's cool and a horse chooses, you know, to spend time with you.
Starting point is 00:11:02 Also I'm fascinated by, you fascinated by the sort of history. I mean, horses fought wars for us. Horses took us to hospitals. Like horses, cars is based on horsepower. We look at the history of every country and horses are integral to basically every civilization. And we're kind of one of the first, I guess, in the last couple hundred years
Starting point is 00:11:21 that disrespects them this much. You know, it's like an Egypt when cats were gods and they were, you know, it's like, of course, is the way that we treat them based on what they've done for us. I don't know, I have some kind of weird epigenetic. I also did, I don't know if you're in the family constellation.
Starting point is 00:11:39 I have heard about this so many times and I feel a lot about it, like I feel about Iowa-Ska. I'm afraid of it. Like, but just because everyone who like is told me stories about it, it sounds that shit, like in a good way. Like impossible. Some of the stuff that like, but maybe you could explain it to people who haven't heard of it. It's interesting to me. I'm so back and forth on it because I also think that we don't realize how much information we give away to a new person. And if someone is just being observant
Starting point is 00:12:08 and not thinking about what they're gonna say next or trying to perform, you can actually get a lot of information. Like I used to go to this psychic and I'd be like, she's so psychic. But like I realized I was giving everything away. Not that she wasn't, but you know, she'd be like, so tell me what's going on in your dating life. And I'd be like, well, you know,
Starting point is 00:12:24 I really like this guy, Tom, you know, she'd be like, so tell me what's going on in your dating life. And I'd be like, well, you know, I really like this guy, Tom. You know, and I think it could work. But like, John is like, you know, John, and she'd be like, well, it's John. But I just gave that information away with the bio-reflections and my body language. And I'm like, how did you know? You know, it's like the same thing with horses
Starting point is 00:12:44 when people like, they're so perceptive. Like, it's like the same thing with horses when, you know, people like, they're so perceptive, like, I think humans, I think we are too, but we're just so in our own ass and on our phones and focused on ourselves and our narcissistic need to be liked and make a conversation funny and think about what we're going to say next that like, we're actually really not listening to people. And when you really just sit and listen, you're like, oh, I can like feel your energy. You're scared, you're nervous. Like, I just feel your energy, you're scared, you're nervous. I think we've just shut off that antenna of ourselves.
Starting point is 00:13:08 We've numbed it a little bit. And who knows what else? Maybe it's the roundup in our bloodstream, who the fuck knows. But family consolation, the idea is like, epigenetic imprinting, there's a ton of evidence that that is super legitimate. Like rats that were electrocuted while smelling cherry blossoms,
Starting point is 00:13:27 they're offspring when they smell cherry blossoms, recoiled to the other side of the cage. Right. So imprinted on your DNA a fear that was just one generation. Right. The question is, can we imprint guilt and shame and carry it epigenetically without it being nurture from your parents putting it on you.
Starting point is 00:13:49 So I do this family constellation. I've got a lot of alcoholism in my family. Look, my family are white people from Appalachia who knows what horrific shit they were up to, right? I have a lot of come from West Virginia, like John Brown, Hatfield McCoy, coal mining. I had trouble with kind of agoraphobia, small spaces, loud noises, misophonia. Is this, you know, something I made up myself,
Starting point is 00:14:17 is this wired noises so loud to me. A lot of coal mining ancestry tends to have that. Again, maybe it's nature, maybe it's nurture. Maybe I saw my grandfather be weird about it, and I just modeled him, monkey-seem monkey-do, or maybe it was imprinted on my genes, who knows. Or maybe I'm exaggerating whatever. Autism, assburgers, I was diagnosed with all of it.
Starting point is 00:14:37 And so the biggest kind of problem I had, it was debilitating fear besides jellyfish. that's the only other thing I'm afraid of. And I walk those things. Dude, I, I have a, I think that's probably normal. You know what I'm afraid of heights. I'm like, I think you should be. I think, I think that means we evolved properly, but jellyfish are just thinking about them, piss me off.
Starting point is 00:15:03 And they're like poisonous ocean chandeliers. They're they're terrible. They're terrifying. Some of the stings they say are the words, the worst pain you'll ever experience. You'll want to kill yourself. And they're kind of beautiful. They just float out there. Just so sweet and beautiful and you get close. You're doomed. Poor degrees, man, a war. That's what's so upsetting about it is they are so graceful and gorgeous and enticing like the sirens, you know, you kind of like and they're clear. So you're like, how bad could this be? I could be your diaphonus. You're like, gorgeous crystal. And I love octopus is I think
Starting point is 00:15:46 it's not octopi anymore. I think it's octopi. I just looked it up with my kid. It's octopi. But you I think you could also say octopus. I think you say either or octopuses goes way worse in a conversation. So I'm glad that it does. It does go away worse unfortunately. But yeah, an octopi, whatever the fuck, those things, they're terrifying looking, but they're, I don't think they're even remotely as deadly as the jellyfish unless it's a giant. I think octopi are actually kind of, if there's aliens, I mean, that's my vote is octopi.
Starting point is 00:16:21 I mean, they've got hearts in every leg, they're incredibly smart. Like, the fact that we eat them, I'm sure we're gonna look back and be horrified when I- I stopped. I haven't in years. I stopped when I heard about it. And I know, I think doing your like,
Starting point is 00:16:35 your like the way you eat based on intelligence, I think this is a pretty fucked up thing anyway. Like, so where is it okay to eat something? Like what if, let's say you have, I don't know, a human that has been in a horrific accident and has a lower intelligence than the octopus that you are not going to eat. Can you eat that human? I mean, look, I bet humans are pretty bad for you, given everything that's in our bloodstream at this point.
Starting point is 00:17:08 Do we know what humans taste like yet? Yeah, what do they call it? Long pig? They call it long pig. What do you mean long pig? It's a name for human meat, long pig. Long pig. Yeah, long pig.
Starting point is 00:17:21 I think we taste like pork. Really? Yeah. Yeah long pig like it tastes like I think we taste like pork Really yeah plenty of cases of people eating people people and now that they can grow lab grow meat It'll probably become like a grown human meat do you think we plunge into our dystopian Transhumanist future why not it's like what what kind of meat do you want? It's It was grown in a lab. It's not from a human. I want to thank Bird Dogs for supporting the DTFH and for supporting my butt with the best khaki shorts out there. I'm broiling out here friends. I'm broiling. And yeah, you know who I am?
Starting point is 00:18:19 I'm a jeans guy. I like to wear jeans. I like the way it feels around my legs. I'm sure there is just something in my past that is the reason that I have an unhealthy attachment to wearing jeans. My wife has pointed it out. It's not normal to wear jeans in bed. She put on sweat pants.
Starting point is 00:18:42 It's not normal as soon as you wake up to pull jeans on. It doesn't make sense. It's going on with you. So I have had issues in the past with shorts until I met bird dogs. Bird dogs stretch khaki shorts for design to fit slimmer through the thigh and leg giving you a truly sculpted look. And let me tell you if it works for me a man who's asked seems to have been devoured by some nano-botsworm, it's definitely going to work for you. Bur Bird dog shorts do the exact same thing as Lulu Lemon, but fit way better. They fit way better than regular shorts. They're made of stiff, restricting, fascist cotton.
Starting point is 00:19:36 Bird dogs fixed this issue by inventing cloud and fabric that looks just like khaki but stretches so you get a waste lemma fit while having to sacrifice movement. Bird Dog uses anti-stink sweat wicking fabric that keeps you cool and dry all day long and let me tell you I will take anti-stink where I can get anti-stink. If you are ready to transform your summer into something less stinky, less sweaty, and more beautiful, then go to birddogs.com-fortslash-duncan for a free Yeti-style tumbler with your order. That's birddogs.com, Ford Slash Duncan for a free Yeti-style tumbler. You won't want to be a human being.
Starting point is 00:20:47 You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being.
Starting point is 00:20:58 You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being. You're not going to be a human being. You're It's not from a human. Like if you had to eat someone, like you had to, who would you eat?
Starting point is 00:21:10 Like would you go, I'm gonna eat, if they wouldn't know or whatever, would you go for like, Joe, someone super healthy who's probably been eating super healthy, or would you want to eat? My friend, no way. Yeah, I just mean, he wouldn't know you were eating him. I just mean, what type of human would you want to go for?
Starting point is 00:21:27 A mussely human, or are you going to want to go for more of a... Grass fed. Would you want to eat a vegan? Or something like that? I want a free-range grass fed. Kind of like the Wagyu style, like, you know, Grasfed, kind of like the Wagyu style, like, you know, like nice, marbled fat. And it's like, and also, if I, I don't know how, like, extensive my ability to choose this unfortunate person, but cannibal fetish. You know what I mean? One of those people who
Starting point is 00:22:00 want to get eaten. So that's a thing, isn't it? Yeah, there's people who like, somehow, that's their dream is to get eaten. I mean, of all the fetishes. Are they masturbating during the feast? I do. You know, for some reason, like, I can get into some pretty dark stuff, but for some reason, the people who want to get eaten fetish thing, I kind of avoid it. So I'm assuming that the charge comes from the lead up, you know, you're meeting the person who's gonna eat,
Starting point is 00:22:34 you're going out, you're going out to drinks with them, theoretically, you're eating together and you're watching them eat and thinking, that's gonna be me. The adrenaline, I know there's a big, I had Angela White, the adult lesbian on my podcast. And she talked about her main bread and butter of only fans that is requested of her
Starting point is 00:22:57 is men being shrunk. And she'll shrink them in some final cut, you know, program and then eat them. Yeah, that's a big one. The little tiny man being consumed by a giant woman, which would have been her pocket, carry them around type of thing. Remember, honey, I shrunk the kids?
Starting point is 00:23:17 Yeah, that's a dream for many. There was a lot of movies there for a while where horrific things were happening and they were just, like Iwatched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory recently and I was like this is horrifying. Yeah, horrifying. The movie is fucking horrifying. It's obnoxious parables.
Starting point is 00:23:35 I mean, all the and it's born. I mean, it gets so boring. The movie is the the opening. If you're talking about the original Charlie and the chocolate factory. So everyone just wants to get in the fucking factory. They spend the first half of the movie on that stupid ticket and it's so boring. I know it's a, as a kid I thought it was about greed
Starting point is 00:23:55 and chocolate or whatever, as you get older, you're like, oh, this is about bad parenting. Yeah. It's like the woman that let her kid watch too much TV, the kid that's Boyle Turf's son, the kid kid the gluttonous kid that got sucked up into the chocolate thing But then I got really into the background. There was a midget. Sorry. What do we say? What do we call them now? Oh? Oh, I honestly I'm not sure. I don't know what the appropriate terminology is for it right now. I think it's is it little people or is it I
Starting point is 00:24:27 think it might be little people old toddler old toddlers pretty good. Well that's interesting because apparently one of the names for an enlightened being in Tibetan Buddhism translates into old dog so old toddlers. What about what about known? I mean, I think that it isn't it more the energy behind the designation than the thing itself. Like if you're saying any of those with a like something special about you because your body grew to a certain fucking height. And you're just an idiot anyway. But if you're just authentically like trying to come up with a way to say it that doesn't make them feel like shit, then I think I imagine they would be okay. They would like a human being.
Starting point is 00:25:16 Yeah, well, I don't even have to fucking label everything. What the fuck? Human being. And the height in this story doesn't really matter, honestly. I don't even need to specify the height. It is weird. And also, you know, you've gotten some weird text from me recently. I've been studying the giants that used to roam the earth.
Starting point is 00:25:33 We are technically, right? We're technically midgets to them. So maybe we're the midgets. Yeah, everything got smaller, apparently. Is the ecosystem of the earth began to change. Like everything shrunk down, trees, everything. So I love the dream of the Nephilim. At one point there are these giants wandering around.
Starting point is 00:25:55 Why not? Why not? And apparently that have very intense sex drive. Why wouldn't they? Yeah, for sure. That's a worse some some kind of hybrid of, this all goes back to all the different forms of humans that apparently once lived in the Andertal,
Starting point is 00:26:17 all of them. I don't know all their names, but they were fucking for sure. And it was that form of breeding that created us. I wish I could remember the name of the book. I was just listening to it. The premise essentially being we're just in a malgum of stuff. The thing we call a human is not just inner breeding between the antithels and humans and all the other things that are dead now.
Starting point is 00:26:43 But also the genetic changes that came from different diseases that have altered our DNA and all that, that we're just a crazy, crazy mishmash of genetic stuff that's made us. That we're just getting spoiled together. Yeah. Like when the, tell me if this is untrue, the idea that the penis evolved to be curved
Starting point is 00:27:08 with that ridge on the end in order to scoop out semen of the competitor. Well, you know, we'll never know for sure. I've certainly heard that theory. That's from this book Sex It Donner. At least that's where I read it. You have to wonder, you know, like why? And, you know, yeah. And that's where I read it. You have to wonder, you know, like why? And, you know, yeah.
Starting point is 00:27:26 And that's just good by your own thing. Yeah, like fuck, we gotta fix this. No thanks, no! No! I didn't know. No! A fall of my dick! Where did it stop this?
Starting point is 00:27:43 We'll never know. I mean, that's, I love all the mean, I love the mystery behind being human, and I love the certainty that many people seem to have regarding their origin, which is, I guess, comforting or something like that. But the general, I think the scientific material is viewpoint by itself is, I think, shocking enough, which is that you are more bacteria, right,
Starting point is 00:28:06 than human. Like you're much more like what you think of as you is like looking at a tree. I heard this description somewhere. It's looking at a tree with vines wrapping around it and birds nest in it and bees flying around and honeycombs and like animals living inside a hollow in the tree. That's a human. It's not anyone, you can't really find any one thing that we are. We're this harmonization of all these different things, some of them that have completely different genetic signatures than what we have. So we're just a temporary collaborative mist, I guess, that looks like a human. That's such a trip.
Starting point is 00:28:46 And like to get into the wormhole of back to the growing up brown horses, I'm so fascinated by prey animal behavior because they don't really have time to luxuriate an ego or indulgence. It's really just like, you know, they have to be very economical with their energy and they're incredibly psychic, sure as the word. You know, there's all these amazing, amazing stories about horses
Starting point is 00:29:08 that wouldn't go under a bridge and they're beating them and they can't come to go under the bridge and then 25 hours later it collapses. You know, they can feel the weather, they can, you know, they can tell, you know, 500 yards away if a mountain lion's hungry or not, you know, they can sort of feel the energy. And I used to watch horses eating grass. And there's something very gratifying about your animal, eating lush grass. And you want to bring them over to the grass
Starting point is 00:29:34 that you think looks the most delicious. And they're eating the grass. And then all of a sudden, the lead mare would move to a different patch of grass. That was maybe not as lush or something or green. And you're like, why did you guys move over there? Like, why? Why? And I never understood and it would like frustrate me because I would like sit on a rock to sit with them and they would move, you know,
Starting point is 00:29:53 down the hill to this different patch of grass. And I was reading recently about, I think it was in David Aegis' new book, which I don't think is out yet, but it's sort of about the wisdom of all the animals that came before us that have been alive for, you know, millions of years, and we've been alive for 10 seconds. And that plants actually kind of communicate with each other. So when one patch of grass is being eaten, the way the wind is blowing is going to send whether it's an odor, whether it's a smell down to grass near it, and the grass down the line from it is going to become more sour and less appetizing so the horses have to move to a new path
Starting point is 00:30:28 as a way to stay alive, which is wow. Kind of mind blowing. Yeah, I wish I could remember it exactly. That Mitch Hedberg joke, something of our Aries glad, like how scary the ocean would be if fish could scream. Oh, God. Oh, God. Like, we don't want to think about it. All the forms of screaming that are happening around us at any given moment.
Starting point is 00:30:58 Like, it would be overwhelming for a human to be tuned into that level of suffering around them at all times. We have to go numb, you know, but isn't David Foster Wallace's consider the lobster? Doesn't he say that lobster scream? Yeah, no, I mean, I think that what we're talking about in Buddhism, it's one of the root causes of suffering is ignorance. And so ignorance doesn't mean dumb. Ignorance means the practice of ignoring. And so the more talented you are at ignoring things,
Starting point is 00:31:33 the more you're going to suffer. Even though it seemed to be the opposite. Like the idea is, if I don't ignore this, I'm going to be like, and I'm going to be heartbroken or you name it. But the reality is something about the energy it takes to sort of ignore the reality of the world you're in is draining and sort of takes all the color out of life. And does exactly, I think, what you're getting at with the, it does the opposite of what's
Starting point is 00:31:59 happening with horses, which is if you're a prey animal, you have to really be in tune with truth as things are, just the way they are in coming in, and no latency in your reactivity to that truth. With humans, we have managed the opposite, I guess, which is we think if we detune ourselves from reality, somehow we will be more efficient in our day-to-day existence. And you are in a way. I mean, how are you going to run capitalism if everyone is here in grass-screen? And like, it's also like, there's two things you have to face if you're not... Well, the first question is, is denial-slash ignorance?
Starting point is 00:32:41 How much of it's a choice? Like, I've been in denial before and have looked back in life and been like whether it was something around me had a really intense drug problem whether I was smoking too much weed and you know Whatever denial or in a relationship where it's obviously incredibly toxic and you know You're chemically addicted to the adrenaline or it recreates your childhood circumstances Whatever, but I'm like that cloak of denial that I had, like that wasn't a choice. How many pe... I don't think it was, at least.
Starting point is 00:33:09 Maybe I was too high on adrenaline and whatever, or busy to even have the other choice. But the other question is, when you choose ignorance, the opposite is sometimes having to face how powerless you are. And that can be crushing. The idea of like, yes, fish are screaming, and this horrible stuff is, and it's comically destroying us and filling us with shame, but like, what am I going to do about it? So I might as well ignore it, because otherwise I have to face how tiny and miniscule and useless I am. I want to thank Squarespace for supporting this episode of the DTFH. My loves!
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Starting point is 00:37:02 of a website or a domain. Yes, fish are screaming and this horrible stuff is, and it's comically destroying us and filling us with shame, but what am I gonna do about it? So I might as well ignore it, because otherwise I have to face how tiny and miniscule and useless I am. It's pulling the covers over your head. It's like that is not gonna protect you,
Starting point is 00:37:38 but if you're a kid, you might imagine pulling the covers over your head is somehow keeping you safe when you're just probably even more vulnerable, because now you can't see what's outside the covers. It's the same idea and as far as it being a choice or not, I mean, you know, that's the saddest we just want to find where we went wrong and yeah, like if you think of all this whole time, I had a choice to not ignore my life. It just gives you more reasons to beat yourself up. Probably, it doesn't even matter. It's like, the essence of the thing is,
Starting point is 00:38:10 what do you have the courage right now to just feel the way you're feeling? And that is a choice. Not. And you definitely don't have a choice regarding anything in the past. And I think I just hit on something that, firstly, I think that having to not ignore something,
Starting point is 00:38:29 you know, there's the parallelism that you would feel that I can't solve this problem, or maybe that's just my personality type, that I'm like, if I see a problem and I can't solve it, I like hate myself, and like, maybe that's me playing God, being like, well, I just failed, because I didn't fix that, like, that's arrogant, but also ignoring things, the death by a thousand cuts of shame
Starting point is 00:38:49 that I think we accumulate over time. And it's like, I get older, I realize that like little just like those little shame hits you get every day by kind of making the immature choice or choosing to avoid discomfort, which seems like such an epidemic. And I'm so curious how you're parenting in terms of like making sure your children have some adversity, but you obviously just want to protect them. But I see this, this like, atrophying of people being able to tolerate even the smallest levels of discomfort. Idiot compassion is the name for it. You, you, and I get it. As a parent, you see your kids and
Starting point is 00:39:25 you love them so much that it would be easy to get confused and think that the correct choice every time is to save them from whatever particular encounter with suffering they're having. And a lot of times it is definitely the right choice. But yeah, sometimes you got to let them struggle a little bit and let them like experience the Reality of the learning curve, you know, that's the main that to me is the For me that anytime my kid was so funny the other day You know my kid might keep both of them are like learning how to scooter now and so I I keep trying to like explain to them like look, you know The only way you're gonna get it. This is falling down the only way you're going to get good at this is falling down.
Starting point is 00:40:08 There's no way to get good at this in any other way. You've just got to fall down, it'll hurt, you'll get back up, you keep trying. And I got this skateboard out, and I'm like, I just been giving this lecture about how you just get right back up. I keep this fucking skateboard out. I'm like, you know, when I was a kid, I always wanted to Ollie and I never could. But you know what? I'm going to try. So I tell you know how it goes.
Starting point is 00:40:35 I tried to Ollie. I wiped out my 48 year old body smashes into this sidewalk. I got a broken a hip. I had just given a lecture. You keep trying. You get back up and like, I'm like, this isn't a young body phone. They're laughing, their asses off me.
Starting point is 00:40:58 Laughing and slapping. Are you a man, sorry, I should have asked that. No, I was, thank God, I was fine. I mean, but, and I had to like demonstrate to them, at least a man? Sorry. I should have asked. No, I was, thank God I was fine. I mean, but, but, and I had to like, demonstrate to them at least a couple more times. Like, God, get a get right back up. Try this again. Try to do a few more times. Like, there you go.
Starting point is 00:41:17 I didn't ever will get on this skateboard again, probably. But yeah, it's interesting though, because I look at like in the 1905, parents would drop their children off at factories to go to work. They would drop their kid off at the triangle shirt waist factory and then they would go to their work. And now we like won't even let our kids eat peanut butter. Like it's like fascinating to me. Well, you know, I do think like a lot of people
Starting point is 00:41:50 right now are confronting a really important question which is how much suffering do you need to become a better person or evolve? And any, is it a myth? Is it a myth that stems from industrialization? Like you look back to pre-industrial society. Clearly, there was suffering, but it was a different kind of suffering.
Starting point is 00:42:13 How much is it military industrial complex programming? Like if you, we've been at war, what, 93% of our history? Meaning most parents, most dads, a lot of their methods of parenting come directly from what they learned in the military, which is designed to condition people in a way that they don't hesitate when they're gonna kill someone. Is that a good parenting strategy?
Starting point is 00:42:38 So who knows, I don't know the answer, but I do know that it's a lot easier to give your kid candy when they want it, because it will make them stop whining or yelling or tantruming. So it's an easier choice than to let them tantrum and say, I can't give you candy, you've had too much. It'll, your teeth will fall out. It's bad for you. So, so I think somewhere in there you, is the answer to why, like, where maybe some parents
Starting point is 00:43:11 are going wrong, is they've gotten confused and they keep giving the kid candy. Yeah. And thinking this is the right choice and I'm a good parent. And it's like, no, you're not. You're just trying to turn the volume down. That's it.
Starting point is 00:43:22 There's also the selfishness of like, I don't wanna tolerate that discomfort of my kid being mad at me. And I see all these people, I see all these people that, look, I don't know, I'm having a kid in December, I'm sure that everything I think now go out the window once you have a crying, pissing, shitting baby in your face, but I see all my friends
Starting point is 00:43:41 trying to be friends with their kids. And I'm like, they don't respect you. For me, I'd rather be respected by my kid than besties with my kid. I can't do you. I don't come from Southern parenting. You get pinched in the grocery store. My dad did something once to me that now that I'm thinking
Starting point is 00:44:03 about parenting and what kind of parent am I going to be? And there's a great book called Hunt Gather Parent, which has been, and then the match of the child. Right, that's awesome. It's sort of just about like, with kids, never bribe them, allow them to help you before they're capable of helping you. So even if they make a bigger mess,
Starting point is 00:44:22 like if they want to come in and help do the dishes with you, they're not going gonna be helpful. It's probably gonna slow everything down, but parents normally, for a short-term fix, they'll just go like, oh no, no, no, no, no, I'm gonna do this, you go play. Yeah. And you're basically teaching the kid
Starting point is 00:44:37 when mom and dad are working, I play. So then when they're 12 and capable, you're like, do the dishes and they're like, oh, you know, so train them that it's part of life and it's actually fun and it doesn't have to be a chore. It's expected of you kind of thing. But it's great and it's also you let your kid explore and you don't micromanage them.
Starting point is 00:44:55 Like, you know, I see the Whitney, you don't have to actually let them wash the dishes. Like they do want to help. So what you do is you give them like, I don't know, you give them some, a non breakableable dish a paper towel and you say okay Make sure this is clean and then they they don't know that that isn't an unnecessary job And it won't they won't get in the way and they were not gonna cut themselves on a knife or something
Starting point is 00:45:21 So it's it but I love that idea so much. As far as the bargaining thing goes, I wonder about that a little bit. I know you shouldn't bribe your kids, but then also such a huge part of what humans in her relate is transaction. I was a very enforcement, yeah. And deal making and bargaining and man, I'm telling you,
Starting point is 00:45:42 they feels like it's a kind of hardwired into us to bargain to like, you like you know workout like little mini deals. I get the theory behind it. Or it's like maybe I'm conflating it and maybe it's you're supposed to do less praise. You know which I guess because then they start craving praise and being addicted to it. I wouldn't know that's like it all. But my dad did something when I was a teenager. I wouldn't, I wouldn't know what that's like at all. But my dad did something when I was a teenager that I look back and I really appreciated it. You know, he was very absent, you know,
Starting point is 00:46:13 neglectful, not available or capable. His dad was in the war. There was no, I love you. There's one photo of us touching. And it's at my graduation and he's like, it's like a side hug and it's just, it's so awkward. It's like a producer opposing with an actress on a red carpet during me too. They're just like, like no, it's like we, we never really said I love you.
Starting point is 00:46:34 We never hug just awkward. And we just play basketball together. That was the only way he could just treat me like a son was this thing. And so he said to me when, you know, we were, he didn't try to stop us from doing drugs. He would buy a cigarette. He would buy, I think his logic was, you're gonna do it anyway.
Starting point is 00:46:52 So if I just buy you cigarettes, you'll stay in and not ask some weirdo to get them for you, you know? So I'm not defending his decision in the slightest. And he did, when I was like 14, he was like, look, he's like, I know you're gonna smoke weed, I know you're gonna drink, and you're gonna do whatever the stuff. He's like, if I find out that you were in a car with someone that was drunk or you drove a car drunk,
Starting point is 00:47:16 you'll never leave the house again. But if you call me to come get you, you're completely off the hook. That's smart. And it's kind of a big swing of a deal. And I remember one time, I was like, it's 7-11, everyone was smoking weed, and some guy was about to get in the car and drive.
Starting point is 00:47:34 And I called my dad from a pay phone, and I was like, I smoked weed, this guy's about to, and he's like, I'm on my way. He came and picked me up, and I wasn't punished at all. That's cool. I don't know if that He came and picked me up and I wasn't punished at all. That's cool. I don't know if that's good parenting or not, but it made me tell him the truth and not be scared of him, but I still respected him.
Starting point is 00:47:54 Well, see, yeah, this is like, some people accidentally, it's very sad. They don't even realize they're doing it, but by reacting to the truth in like hyper-negative, super-d offensive ways, they're inviting people to just lie to them. They're sort of like weaving around them a world where people are just, all right,
Starting point is 00:48:17 I've tried to tell you the truth a billion times every time it goes south. So to preserve my own sort of day to day existence, I guess I have to lie to you from now on because that's what you're asking for, it just lies, which is very sad. But at some point, I don't, I think that as a parent, you want that,
Starting point is 00:48:38 you don't want your kids to feel afraid to tell you the truth. You don't want them to feel terrified of being who they are around you because what you're gonna get is a warp distorted version of who they are, which you won't even know them. You won't even know them. It'll just be some distortion modeled around
Starting point is 00:48:56 what they think you want. That's fucked up. They don't want that. This episode of the DTFH has been supported by better help. We exist in a dimension where we are born with full amnesia and tiny little bodies to random parents. And that's a recipe for getting confused. Not only that, but we have a meat computer,
Starting point is 00:49:43 which is transforming external phenomena into what we call reality and we evolved from monkeys meaning that we have really primordial clumsy ways of dealing with trauma. You can just get wrapped up and you don't even know it's there. You ever have like a dog do a sneak poop somewhere in your house Just a slight wafte of poop coming from somewhere and you can't find it You go on the worst kind of treasure hunt imaginable I'm sorry, but this can happen to a person.
Starting point is 00:50:27 You can get stuff stuck in your craw and not even know it's there. Happen to me. Happen to me. And I went to therapy. I was scared to do it. I didn't want to do it. During the weeks that I was going to therapy, I would basically have to whip the donkey of my mind into the car to go to therapy
Starting point is 00:50:52 because it was so intense. But of all the things, therapy is definitely one of them. Right up there with psychedelics and meditation that has completely improved my life. I had to go there, I had to go there, I had to go on the poo punt with my great therapist. I had to dive into the depths and the submersible of therapy. Luckily for me, the thing didn't crumple like a 10 can. But that's why you want to do therapy. Because sometimes you might get to the point where you crumple like a 10 can. I'm sorry, better help. I'm going to have to do this kind of ad. I sincerely, passionately believe in therapy. I
Starting point is 00:51:46 not to brag, I have a bachelor's degree in psychology and all the things out there. If you're feeling like maybe there's something you should be looking into therapy is the way to go. And that of course is where better help comes in. Better help lets you do therapy on line. Thinking of starting therapy you should definitely give them a try. Just fill out a brief questionnaire. You can imagine the license therapist, switch therapist any time for no additional charge. Let therapy be your map with better help. Visit betterhelp.com slash Duncan today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help. H-E-L-P dot com slash Duncan. Don't let your submarine implode underneath the brutal and intense, highly pressured waters of defile reality.
Starting point is 00:52:54 That last part was mine, me, not them. It's a defile reality thing. They're great. You won't even know them. You won't even know them. It'll just be some distortion modeled around what they think you want. That's fucked up. They don't want that. That brings me to something that the way that we model to kids. And I have a question for you, because we lie to our kids so much. Do you do Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus?
Starting point is 00:53:39 Yes. And, you know, I've had this discussion with Joe a little bit. The problem is, if you decide to bring them out of that particular reality tunnel and be like, it's nonsense, then you're gonna have a kid going to a school where all the other parents have maybe they're more attached to the lie and then the kid is going to Disrupt the reality. My kids are definitely the ones that are gonna be like, that can't. They're definitely the ones that are going to be like, that's bullshit.
Starting point is 00:54:06 There's no Santa Claus. There's Island of pedophiles. The North Pole is full of pedophiles. Jeffrey, I'm Steve. Didn't kill himself. And there's no Santa Claus. Well, you know, I think the, um, I don't, I don't know the right answer to that one. Yeah, I struggle with it.
Starting point is 00:54:22 But I will. One of my favorite bits of parenting if I got was from this, oh yeah, he's back there. Chugum Trump or Rinpoche, he's a Buddhist teacher, but he said like the greatest gift you can give your kids is to be in the present moment with him. So like, that sounds easy, but it isn't. It's, the more you could sort of drop into the moment with your kids, very similar to, I think the
Starting point is 00:54:48 way you are with horses, then they are going to be getting interactions with a person who is also in the, because they're in the moment. So dropping into the moment with them will create a connection that is not going to happen if while you're hanging out with them, you're rolling through all the shit you have to do, how busy you are, who you need to email or text back. And it can be really similar to meditation, I've noticed, you want to not do that. So, I think that's a nice gift you can give your kids. And then also, not getting too caught up in any particular method, like being very fluid in your connection with them,
Starting point is 00:55:30 so that you're not caught up in rules sets. Like, oh, I'm being too much their friend right now, or, oh, I'm not being enough their friend. I mean, two authorities, just sort of, it seems like it's- No, I would think it, just be in the flow state. My meditation teacher says to me, we do this in real time, which I really like.
Starting point is 00:55:45 Meaning, you know, whatever's happening now is what's happening. And that's it. And I like that. And back to the epigenetic imprinting and family constellation, which I can close that hatch in a second by segwaying with, we also can control what our kids are inheriting that we're our ancestors stuff too, right? So if it's like, you know, genetics loads the gun environment pulls the trigger. Yeah. I'm so curious, you know, I friends that are like, yeah, dude, my son is my dad.
Starting point is 00:56:15 Right. Like there's stuff that he does that is just my dad. And it's spooky and it's creepy. Like have you seen anything in your kids that you're like, where did that come from? That's not me. That's not Aaron. Yeah and it's creepy. Like have you seen anything in your kids that you're like, where did that come from? That's not me, that's not Aaron. Yeah, that's wild. Well, yeah, I mean, there's a great book.
Starting point is 00:56:30 I think it's called Many Lives, Many Masters about reincarnation. And so many studies have been done on this strange thing that happens with children up to a certain point. They really seem to remember their past lives. Now, the new biological way of talking about reincarnation is epigenetics, and maybe that's more accurate because we really don't know yet everything that gets encoded in there.
Starting point is 00:57:00 And what we call past life memories could just as easily be some like coded memory from a distant, distant ancestor and ultimately all of the same ancestor creating like the, what they call the Akash records, which is the sum total of all life experiences existing in some unknown medium, which is maybe DNA, who the fuck knows? But yes, yes, I've had, you know, one of them, you know, I, both my, you know, my wife is Christian, I'm Buddhist, we both sort of don't wanna like, hammer our particular faiths into our children
Starting point is 00:57:43 and or encourage you know confused the kids there's there's enough going on without confusing them but anyway long story short the oldest like looked at a picture of Neem Crowley Baba Ramdas's guru and said oh he goes uh I knew him a long, long, long, long, long time ago. He helped me. He gave the best hugs. And it was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Starting point is 00:58:18 no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, making real efforts to not, we have pictures of them all over the house,
Starting point is 00:58:27 but not to create a situation where he might be encouraged to just make stuff up because his parents get a charge out of it or whatever. But that is not an anomalous event according to this book. Lots and lots and lots and lots of kids will just, you'll see it with yours. Just out of the blue, they will be, they'll use some language to describe some life or some memory that has nothing to do with you.
Starting point is 00:58:56 And whatever that is, I don't know, but it's pretty cool. So yeah, so letting that be and have its own understanding, you were on us would say, soul not role, meaning, don't get too caught up in role of parent. That's a very important role. And you must be, but don't get so caught up in the role of you're the parent and they're the kid that you miss out on.
Starting point is 00:59:21 You're both way more than that. And so that you don't sort of box them in to one singular identity. I think that's a really important thing to remember. And like this, if it's hysterical, it's historical, like I see my friends that have over-scheduled their kid or themselves to where their kid doesn't even have a chance to be a child or express themselves or just allow for
Starting point is 00:59:49 what comes up, like, you know, go to a friend's house and I'll be, you know, playing with their kids and the kid'll have a historic reaction to something and the parent will go like, oh, he's just dramatic about this at dinner time. It did it out. It's like, how do you know this isn't something like from It's like, how do you know this isn't something from many generations ago? How do you know this isn't something else? EMDR, I movement reprogramming and dissensitization.
Starting point is 01:00:15 It's like, if that works, which is being able to take the trauma response stimuli. So it's like, if someone comes in right now, puts a gun to your head, and you go into the freeze response, everything that you feel, touch, taste, looking at, you're then going to associate with trauma. So the microphone, Whitney's brown hair, these headphones, your headphones, the way however it smells in there. So if in 10 years, you're looking at a girl that has a similar hairstyle as me right now, all of a sudden you're anxious,
Starting point is 01:00:46 you're not sure why, you're irritable, you're like, Aaron, don't talk like that, you're just being, it's your trauma, your brain, your hippocampus is connecting with your amygdala saying, last time this happened, should hit the fan. Yeah, so EMDR sort of neutralizes those stimuli that we don't even realize. Like I had a really bad reaction, comically bad reaction to Christmas.
Starting point is 01:01:08 I'd go to malls in October, see the Christmas tree. You know, just my one fucking capitalism bar and I did EMDR and we were able to rewind and go, oh, a lot of the biggest traumas for kids and alcohol, homes are holidays. That's everyone's drunk, the families together. And I was able to go, oh, and I was able to rewire it now, even though Christmas isn't necessarily my holiday, I do love decorating in December for whatever thing. So who knows what's going on with kids that have nothing to do with us, and the fact that we just diagnose of, oh, he's always dramatic at
Starting point is 01:01:40 dinner time or whatever. I'm like, that's not what I'm feeling at all. I feel like this kid is working through some other shit and I feel I know it because The you know, I was dating someone who was in New York. I love New York I don't think it's the place for me to live for a litany of reasons But when I wanted to live there my late 20s early 30s. I couldn't you know because there's so many at the time It was a great place to do stand-up. There's 10 clubs, you can do 10 spots, and I, you know, was dying to live there, but I could not handle the horse carriages. It devastated me.
Starting point is 01:02:13 Like, in a way that was in a rational fear, I guess. Like, if I heard them clomping, I would collapse, sob, one time I was going to do Letterman in Midtown, and one of the horses went by, and I was going to do Letterman in Midtown and one of the horses went by and I had to go into some museum in Midtown and just sobbed. I was late for the show. These are nice.
Starting point is 01:02:32 I mean, it sounds nuts. I know it just makes me down in the summer. Oh, it's always nice to see. It's nuts. You know, because I've been to Vietnam and I've seen dogs in crates outside restaurants, you know, and I was able to go like, okay, it has its own higher power, okay, it's our,
Starting point is 01:02:43 you know, whatever. But with the horse carriages, it just kills me in a way that I can't control. Because I'm pretty good about, you know, we've been in this business for a long time, you get rejected a lot, you get hurt a lot, you swallow it, you ignore it, you push it down, like, that's kind of where I shine. My mom died, I didn't cry, you know, but this just wrecked me in a way that I couldn't control, understand, explain that just made me think, oh, I'm a dramatic, over-emotional, whatever, empath, whatever bullshit. And then I did this family constellation work where you're working with somebody. She's putting note cards on the ground with all of your ancestors, right? You're
Starting point is 01:03:19 great, Uncle, you're great, great, Uncle, you're great cousin, did it, and every card you stand on, you know, she asks you a question about those relatives, even just doing research within your family about your relatives is already gonna get you some good information. So even if there's not the mystical element of it, it's worth doing, because I ended up calling my uncle
Starting point is 01:03:37 and being like, what was up with our great, great grandfather? You know, what did he do? Oh, he worked on this railroad and lost a finger doing this. And you're like, oh, interesting. So there was one, my great three grandfathers ago, whatever. She said, you carry guilt and shame from this person. What did he do?
Starting point is 01:03:58 Because he did something unforgivable. And I'm like, well, yeah, probably slavery, probably a lot of things. So he died of cirrhosis I found out. Okay, great. So he was in alcohol. I'd probably beat his wife yeah, probably slavery, probably a lot of things. So, you know, he died of cirrhosis, I found out. Okay, great. So he was an alcoholic, probably beat his wife, that he had tracks, right? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:04:10 And then I call my uncle and I'm like, you know what, I only talked to really one family member and I was like, what's up with great, great, great, Graham Poly, what did he do? What was he up to? And he goes, well, you know, everyone, our family was a bad businessman, so he actually never patented it.
Starting point is 01:04:24 But he invented an axle that kept horse carriages from tearing apart. So he was actually very integral in making sure horse carriages could actually function in the south. Like he invented this thing, but he never patented it in whatever. So it's weird, it's spooky.
Starting point is 01:04:42 I'm sure a lot of people worked on horse carriages back then. You know, but the way that he said it was just this guy having a very integral part. And then I'm just like, maybe I carry that shame. Maybe I carry that guilt, you know, or maybe it's just something about the noise that I hear the noise and I associate it with horror. And maybe it's, you know, who knows, you know.
Starting point is 01:05:05 But I love it. I see I love all the forms of thinking about reincarnation, whether it's epigenetics, trauma in your own life or whatever you wanna call it because I think it helps you be a little more compassionate with yourself. Because you know, understanding like, I like the reincarnation model better, because I like
Starting point is 01:05:27 woo-woo stuff and you know, recognizing you've been doing this human thing for so impossibly indescribably long. Sort of reduces the getting into a hurry regarding your own personal spiritual evolution because it's it's you didn't get the kind of karma you have in one incarnation. You got it from infinite infinite incarnations. So you're not going to reduce your habitual patterns in one incarnation probably meaning you can like yeah. Now, but that being said, and, you know, with spirituality in particular, you have to watch out because some people who need fucking therapy don't get therapy. They're like, I'm going to meditate the trauma
Starting point is 01:06:15 away. I'm going to, I wasca the trauma way. And it's like, no, you need Western. That is actually, I was always wanting Rambdas to give me the fix and though, advice he gave me was you need therapy. And I ignored it. I was like, he might be. I just like talk therapy? Like, yeah, cause he was a great therapist and he saw in me. I needed fucking therapy.
Starting point is 01:06:39 He saw it right away. This kid has gotta go to a shrink and I just didn't do it and then finally when I did EDMR just like you such a change in my life. I just so wish I had taken him seriously but all that being said there is another so like in one name for that what we're calling epigenetics now is the clashes, which is these sort of spiritual knots that form after, for many incarnations. These are the clashes. And so this is all part of having a body and being associated with a body and thinking you're the body. But all of this stuff is
Starting point is 01:07:20 happening within emptiness or within, you know, it can exist without space around it, which is when you're really tangled up in your own identity, you completely miss that all of this is taking place within a non-judgmental field of awareness, which is also you. And so you can actually hold all of that stuff without trying to get rid of it, brutalize it, surgically remove it. You could just, you could just get a little bit of space between you and that stuff. I've noticed like it's a very powerful thing. It's so you're not trying to annihilate your personality,
Starting point is 01:08:02 or do the thing on the second odds, seem to like be in, do not all of them, like I destroyed my fucking ego. I'm the glittering in myself. Well, this is very violent. Like, don't do that. You don't need to. You can let yourself be. It's also tricky with the therapy stuff, because I'm like, the things I'm working on are ego, self obsession, self absorption, you know because I'm like, the things I'm working on are ego, self-obsession, self-absorption. I'm so excited to have a kid just to,
Starting point is 01:08:30 like just thinking, releasing from the bondage of self, like just me, me, me, it's so exhausting, and I found myself in my life trying to focus on other people, fix and rescue other people, just anything but me. And as an adult, that's not cute. So I'm glad to actually be able to give caretaking to someone who needs the caretaking instead of just, because as an adult, it's just meddling, you know,
Starting point is 01:08:55 or playing God, but just this sort of, it's so anathemed of the way I was thinking when it's like, oh, I wanna not think about myself so much, go to therapy and go think about yourself more and talk about yourself. I'm like, I'm so sick of myself. How do I? But that's not how you get out of your own head.
Starting point is 01:09:13 You know, so let's give up. You know, there's these wonderful, it's called Lojong Mind Training. There's these Sangs. And my favorite is Abandon All Hopes of fruition. When I first started working with my meditation teacher, he said to me, look, I'm gonna tell you what my teacher told me in he minute, this is hopeless.
Starting point is 01:09:38 I'm just gonna say this is bad. Finally, someone says it out loud. And that's a good name for a special. Finally, someone says it out loud. And so that's a good name for a special. This is hopeless. You know, hopeless. Hopeless. And you know, that sounds really dark to some people,
Starting point is 01:09:55 but really what it is is if you allow yourself the blasphemous thought experiment that actually you don't need to change anything, actually where you are is exactly right. Actually, you don't have to be at war with yourself that whatever you're doing right now or going through right now, regardless of how other people might be telling you, how fucked up it might be, it's just the way you are. It's just, this is it.
Starting point is 01:10:25 And you really might die in like in 10 minutes, 20 minutes. And what a shame to die being at odds with your identity. And like maybe you're nailing it. You are nailing it. You're nailing it. That's an incredible. It's an art addiction is to improve ourselves constantly, because of whatever root of self-loathing
Starting point is 01:10:46 or whatever, it also helped me to learn about the Night Watcher theory. I have trouble sleeping for a long time. Insomniandada, maybe that's why I got into a job where we work late at night or chicken or egg, who knows. But the Night Watchers, thousands of years ago in tribes, there were certain people that stayed up all night, obviously to protect the tribes. And the people that stayed up all night obviously to protect the tribes
Starting point is 01:11:05 and the people that stayed up, breed it with the bread, the night-turnal people, bread with the night-turnal people, and then they bred to have the superpower of being super hyper-vigilant, come eight, nine o'clock when the sun goes down, that's when we wake up. Maybe it's going up in a hot-gull-accom and that's also when you have to be alert.
Starting point is 01:11:19 There's many things that could be causing it, but that theory helped me go like, maybe I'm just hard-wired to have some superpowers that are kind of obsolete, and I just have to find the places that they're not a liability. You know what, yeah. You hold, you know, it's just, it's like,
Starting point is 01:11:40 you just, if you're able, and sometimes I'm not, but you know, you just, if you're able, and sometimes I'm not, but, you know, you just hold yourself like a baby. So it's like, whatever it is you're going through or doing or all this stuff, and just man, you just like for a second take a vacation from hate from doubting yourself or realize that it's a process, like you're going to somewhere and just the moment you allow that process to do its own thing without meddling with it, this, and I don't mean, you just drop all the stories.
Starting point is 01:12:14 And so there's this, I'm telling you, your horse thing, you just let yourself be just that way and pretend the universe is the goddamn wars. And then see what happens so that you're just, yeah, I'm right now, this is how I am. I'm up all night freaking out, but that's it. No story about it, no, oh, that's there for, I'm fucked up. Or whatever, how sophisticated your story may be. Oh, the times I've pulled that off, it's so cool.
Starting point is 01:12:43 It's the best, just yourself for a second. Like, this is off. It's so cool. It's the best, you know, just yourself for a second. Like this is it. It's like flying. Yes, it's like flying. And it's the, if you spent your whole life beating yourself up, whoa, those little micro breaks from pummeling yourself. Whew. It's also like, I'd rather be us than like the tools
Starting point is 01:13:03 that Lake Havasu that are just like Mike's hard eliminating it through life. I kind of am like, and maybe those aren't the only two options, but I think it's, it's right. Honestly, I'm gonna try Mike's hard
Starting point is 01:13:18 eliminating through life. Does that work? Is that a thing? If you weren't a vet, is that real? We gotta try it, don't knock it till you try. We might have to go to like have a suit. You guys, the fact that we're all over here like Iawaska DMT, ketamine therapy. I'm like, if you guys tried Mike's hard lemonade, that is the answer. Everyone thinks the aluminum and awning or in some fucking towers. They're just pounding my sword lemonade. They go to church every Sunday.
Starting point is 01:13:49 They found God. We're still looking. Whitney, I am, I, everyone, this is the kind of podcast where I would want it to go on for hours, but unfortunately, I fucked up my schedule and I got a bail on my favorite podcast of maybe the year. So I'm sorry, Winnie. I wish we could keep going. No, I'll see you in Austin soon.
Starting point is 01:14:11 I'll see you in Austin on your podcast. Maybe we can pick it up from where we left off here. Oh, sick. Your show is obviously you're completely sold out instantly when they went online, but I tell people to come to the shows, but you got anything. Yeah, you're going to be on them. I can't wait. Nice. Nice. Okay, Winnie. I love you shows, but you got anything you need. Hey, you're gonna be on them. I can't wait. Nice. Nice. Okay, Whitney. I love you, dude.
Starting point is 01:14:29 I'll see you soon. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being on. You're the best. That was Whitney Cummings. Everybody, again, you can find her at Whitney Cummings.com. A tremendous thank you to our sponsors. And thank you for listening.
Starting point is 01:14:43 I will see you next week. We've got two podcasts coming out next week. Rabbi, Ben Epstein is back with us. It's gonna be a wonderful week of podcasting. I will see you then. Howdy, Krishna.

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