Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 601: Jesse Moynihan

Episode Date: February 10, 2024

Jesse Moynihan, amazing artist and animator, joins the DTFH! Check out Jesse's incredible webcomic, Forming, on JesseMoynihan.com! And click here to see the trailer for Jesus 2, Jesse's new short film coming later this year. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Factor - Visit FactorMeals.com/Duncan50 for 50% Off your first order! Fitbod - Click here to try out Fitbod with 3 FREE Personalized Workouts, and 25% Off if you decide to subscribe! Squarespace - Use offer code: DUNCAN to save 10% on your first site.

Greetings to you my children of the seven winds it is I D trucelle This is the ducatrussell family our podcast You are listening to my deep baritone beautiful voice that was described by yule egret as the most beautiful voice He had ever heard of course you'll egret is the National songwriter of America and one of my best friends name drop We have had many phases of our friendship. Sometimes we're lovers, enemies, but right now we're best friends.

Twin flames, I guess you could say. I shaved my head, just letting you know that in case you start seeing pictures of me with a shaved head. I didn't want to necessarily. And it's vain, it's vanity, it's all ego. But I want flowing locks. Long hair, beautiful long hair. I have friends much older than me with beautiful long hair.

Their scalps did not betray them. Their scalps were on their side. My scalp decided, you know, I don't think we need hair right at your crown chakra. Why don't we clear that out? Let's just clear cut that area and have a nice disk of flesh. Sadly, whatever genetic administrator runs my scalp,

decided not to make it even a symmetrical circle. Cause like at least you get one of those like sort of symmetrical bald spots, you know, a nice circle, not quite a crop circle, but you know, it's like your scalp was like, I'll just make it round. My scalp, it's like a mud slide of bald that kind of slides down the back of my head.

So it looks a little bit like a melting bald spot, I guess you could say. It didn't look good. And when you have a bald spot, you know it. Even though you don't see it, you can only see the front of your face. And you learn techniques to not catch that back mirror effect. I don't know if you, those of you who have no ass as I do, probably have become skilled in avoiding the back mirror effect.

It's very similar to the first time you hear yourself when you record your voice. I don't know if you remember that, but I remember when I was a kid before these crazy computers, I had a tape recorder and the first time I heard my voice, it was shocking. I couldn't believe it. There's a cognitive dissonance because you think you sound differently than you do. Similarly, you never see your ass, probably, unless you're in the movies. And so, you know, when you see the back of you, you kind of have to take that all in. You have to take it in.

You don't have practice looking at your back. You have practice looking at your front. So I would dodge the back mirror because when I would look in the back mirror, I would see that bald spot, that dripping mark of age and somehow weirdly, culturally, I guess, a failure. Like, it's almost like your scalp is letting everybody know. It's not all great in there. And maybe he's putting on some kind of show but just

look at this does this look like he's okay so it eats you alive you collide that your spiritual side collides with your ego because you're you know your spiritual aspirations you're, you know, your spiritual aspirations, you're super ego, the thing that makes you want to be a sterling God of light with perfect integrity, genius level IQ, a deep ocean of compassion and patience, and most importantly, amazing in bed. But you're not that. Probably if you are, fuck you. So these things fight, and when you're balding, you know, you non-balds out there, God bless you.

I mean it, God bless you. But when your hair is falling out, it, it's hard to explain because you, you can somehow, like any other thing that falls off of your body, like your nose, your nose falls off. One day you're just sitting in your backyard and it just you look down and your nose is in the grass. Maybe a squirrel carries it off. You're going to deal with that right away because this is their front. And I mean, obviously something's gone wrong. It's a bad example, but when you have a thing behind you that you can't see, it's weirdly possible to trick yourself into thinking other people don't see it.

That's the weird thing. You can maintain this. contain this we it's it's it's so much energy goes into things that you were trying to put in a closet like in inconceivable amounts of brain juice go into trying to trick yourself. This is ignorance is what they call it, actively ignoring. When you are actively ignoring something, you might pull it off and this is that you are not thinking about it all the time. But somewhere in you is this fuzzy, static, never ending repeating. You're going bald, you're going bald, never ending, repeating. You're going bald, you're going bald, you're going bald.

It's down there. You might not hear it. You've tuned it out. So you start, you become a hat man. Hats are the modern wig. We all know that. We all know hat men, no offense. I'm not trying to blow your cover, hat men.

Maybe you have a beautiful full out of hair, but I'll tell you what I've noticed. My friends who have beautiful flow and locks, they don't wear hats. Why? Because they got their locks and they're showing them off. So you become a hat man and you're wearing your hat everywhere and you, at some level, are thinking people probably just underneath that they know I they might think I have flowing locks and then you've got to deal with the fact like so who am I am I a head grifter am I a scalp charlatan this is my life now going around with my modern wig,

tricking people, and who am I trying to trick, and who the fuck do I care about enough? Like, truly, do you really care that people see your melting bald spot and are like, he's bald? No, they don't care. They see bald spots all day long. They're not getting angry. It's not like you've got a fucking pentagram on your head

or a swastika or some dark mark that signals you're some kind of monstrosity in the world. It's just a bald spot. And yet, it eats you, it corrode you, it crumples you. You don't wanna be vain, but you don't want to be bald. And these two, there's a story. They say that inside of every person is a wolf and a wolf with a bald spot. with a bald spot and whichever one you don't shave,

well, I don't remember how the rest goes. The point is I shave my head and I feel so much better. It's amazing, it's amazing. I, here's what I expected. I expected to go out into the world with my bald head and I don't know, people have fruit thrown at me, little kids laugh, I did have little kids laugh at me, my children have, you know, I don't know, like babies cry,

looks of like sad disgust when people saw me, a general kind of, maybe at the best, a passive aggressive, wow, guess you got a haircut. But mostly outside of a few comedians who do have permission to roast me eternally because that's what we do to each other. People have been really nice about it. And I'm so, my regret is I didn't do it sooner.

But my regret is I didn't do it sooner. I wished that it just jumped off the diving board. Gone to my barber, Kirby the barber by the way, Great Barber and Austin, Kirby Sr. He works with his son who is also very good. And just said do it man, shave it off, get rid of this shit. All the monks do it, the Hare Krishna's do it. It's a spirit, it definitely, you know, I never quite got it until I shaved my head because what's really interesting about it

is you look in the mirror and you're kind of a different person. It must be similar to when you're given a new name or you take on a new name. It's like, it's a chapter in your life is closed. The chapter of bald denialism, you stop being a bald denier. You're going out in the world and you're like, yes, I'm 49.

My dad, his hair fell out out my grandfather's hair fell out It's genetic. Do I want do I want it? No, I Want flowing locks? I do you know as much as people make fun of the man bun? Let me tell you friends I'd do a man bun and a beard. I do that look I would I'd braid the shit. I I'd do a man bun and a beard. I'd do that look. I would. I'd braid the shit. It's so bad.

I don't know. It's so bad. I don't know why that's in me. But I would. I would. I try to do like Viking style. I would have Aaron braid my beautiful hair in our giant oak.

Somehow it's oak, hot tub, with urns of incense burning and some, an opium, and beautiful lanterns hanging from our exotic trees, but that's not the dimension I'm in. I am not living in Valhalla. I am living in Texas and my hair was falling out. So for my bald friends out there, I know what you're going through.

I know the pain and I bet I know one of your fears. You're afraid that they're gonna shave your head and you don't have the right head shape for being bald. That was one of my big fears. And I thought that I would have more of a jutting brow than I have. I thought that I would have kind of like a Frankenstein head bulb. It didn't happen.

I'm not look, I'm not saying that it looks great in the sense like I look at myself now and I'm bald. Headphones look different on me. Hats look different on me. But I feel more honest somehow. I know that honest somehow. I know that sounds crazy, but it just feels more honest. I'm kind of a never-nude and I'm starting to question that now. I've always said, you know, I haven't always said this, like I always say that.

Who do I say it to? But I've always thought, I guess I should say, you know, I don't think I would do an orgy. I say it to but I've always thought I guess I should say you know I don't think I'm I would do an orgy I Don't think I would do like group nudity, but I'm wondering about that now. Maybe I'll go nude. Maybe I'll join a nudist colony Maybe I'll join one of those nudist colonies and just be another wrinkled bald dude wandered around with my dick out Free as the wind. Maybe I'll join a nudist colony and become a swinger.

I guess that's kind of the trajectory when you shave your head. We have a great podcast for you today. I say it at the end of the podcast, but I think it's good to say it at the beginning. Jesse Moynihan is here with us. He is an amazing artist, and his work is all over the Midnight Gospel. And at some point it occurred to me, Jesse really, like everyone who worked on the Midnight Gospel deserves credit.

And the show truly was like the result of a group brain that Pendleton Ward engineered. And you know, throwing credit here and there when you're dealing with a kind of communal effort where everyone poured their souls in it, oftentimes can seem like you're leaving out other people who poured their souls into it. But I'm not interviewing them today. I'm interviewing Jesse. And wow, I just, I feel like he,

sometimes like when I'm talking about it, I wish I'd mentioned him more because holy shit man, Chipman, his art is just woven in to the show. And I really hope that this conversation or maybe even me just talking about him strikes your interest enough to check out his webpage, which you can find at jessymoynehand.com. And if you want the link it's going to be at dugitrussell.com. He has this amazing comic book series called Forming and if you like the Mennonite Gospel you are gonna love forming. You'll just it's the

best way for you to understand his contribution to the show. So I definitely would love it if you would check out his stuff. Also definitely check out the trailer for Jesus 2, which is at dunkartrustle.com. You can find the link there or you can find it on YouTube. Yes, Jesse has a wonderful animated short film coming out and it is genius and wild.

I have a ton of dates coming up. Many of them have yet to be added to the website. We're gonna get them up soon. I'm coming back to San Francisco to make up for the shows. I had to cancel because I got Norovirus, disgusting, and so many other shows that you can find at dugitrustle.com. But the one's coming up right now, St. Louis,

22nd of February February 23rd of February 24th of February. I'm going to be a helium and then the March 8th and March 9th. You can find me in Cincinnati at the Liberty Township Funny Bone and then March 24th, Springfield, Missouri, at the Blue Room Comedy Club, then Texas, then Cobbs Comedy Club, then Milwaukee, then back at Helium and Portland and the Orange Peel in Asheville. Some of these tickets aren't on sale. And then I'll be at the Good Nights Comedy Club in Raleigh in June. And many more dates after that.

I would love to see you out there in person. Also I've got a patreon, patreon.com, slash DTFH. You can get commercial free episodes of the podcast by subscribing over there. And now everybody please welcome back to the DTFH the brilliant artist Jesse Moynihan. It's been Duncan Trestle. Jesse, welcome back to the DTFH. How are you? I'm good, man. Just getting off a busy day, but I'm here and yeah.

What'd you do today? I'm working on a secret thing I can't talk about so that's fun. It's always like that. That's good. I mean I enjoy that. But you know, I see a beautiful studio in the background. Oh yeah, my rat's nest. It's not a rat's nest.

You know, here's something you probably never would have thought. Do you know I think about your studio sometimes? Oh, you do. Yeah, and I don't remember how I saw it. I think we were zooming or something, and I saw your beautiful artist studio. I saw the organization. I saw the discipline that going behind your process. And you know, I look around my studio, it is mystically messy. And the sense that it doesn't get clean. It's like someone cursed it or something. And it just produces stuff that I'm pretty sure

wasn't even there, like boxes, bits of paper. Well, when I look at your studio, I get a similar, maybe the way you just expressed how you feel about mine. I feel the same sort of fascination with yours. It should be a book or a show or something where just like people who create stuff show their like studios and it probably make us feel a lot better. I better make us feel a lot better. Yeah, I mean, I think as a create, well, we both create stuff in our houses, like we're sort of shut-ins in a way, right? I mean, you're not in that,

I know you go out and do comedy and stuff out. So you have an exterior life as well. But the life that you're having with me right now, this is the part of you that's like more private, right? So then sharing that, probably like, it's like when people come over to my house, I get really, I get pretty nervous and I make them stand outside while I like check my house

to make sure it's like not embarrassing. Ah, yes! They wanna look in my studio and I'm like, maybe don't go come in my studio. I don't, you know, that's my goblin cave. It probably smells bad and like. Yeah, mine does. Yeah. Yeah, mine does. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, a friend, a new friend came over the other day. And we went into my studio and it was like, I barely even tried to make him feel like I'm okay. Like, I was just like, yeah, I don't know what you thought it would look like, but I bet you didn't think it looked like this. There's some shame attached to it. And do you do you feel, um, do you feel like you're held accountable by your wife, like, uh, as far as the way of the presentableness of your home, like that kind of thing, because I feel like

I've been living in my house alone for the past like seven months or so. And I feel like I went full on into this like dark zone where I don't want anyone to come over and look what's happening in my house. It's like completely embarrassing. And the only thing I and I leaned into it for a while. I was like, this is how I want to be, you know. And I was like, just for now, just for a couple months, I just want to be completely degenerate. And then and then I've been slowly digging my way out and I bought a houseplant because I had killed all my house, all my houseplants had died.

I didn't know how to take care of them. And I was talking to my therapist and he was like, he said to me, you should invest in a houseplant and really think about keeping it healthy and fostering a relationship with it. So that you have at least one thing, like your baby steps back into a presentable, I don't know what it is, what side of that, that's like a feminine aspect or something that was like missing from me or I was reacting against or something. So I bought this easy to take care of rubber plant. Yeah, great.

And yeah, and now I spray her and feed her. She's doing good. Yeah. So this is like, I've, I've, I've placed an intention on this plant, like, we're buddies, we're friends, I consider you an equal, you know, and I'm going to keep you alive and talk to you and stuff. Yeah, this is my, that's my like recovery is like, taking care of this plant. I feel like I would get house plants the same way Jeffrey Dahmer probably looked at boyfriends. You know what I mean? Yeah. I want to keep you alive.

Yeah. But I mean, it hasn't worked out thus far. Yeah. But that's good good though, man. I think there's something important about allowing yourself to go into the depths, manifest around you what's working in your mind, see it so that, you know, as above so below, my mind is spinning or I'm off balance right now and everything around me is off balanced and get a real feel for the hell around that appears around you when you go into the darkness and then hopefully, and I know you will, the house, the rubber plant is the first step, right? Therapist, you get to climb out of the pit

and you get to watch it change around you as it reflects whatever's going on in you. I think that's fine as long as it doesn't go on too long because then the external starts shaping the internal instead of the other way around. That's where feedback loops happen. I think about the the devil card or whatever or like I've been experiencing the devil tarot card and it's a thing that you're my view of it is like that you it's okay to spend time there and you can really get a lot out of it but if you if you spend too much time there, then you become a slave.

Let me pull it up. Yeah. And then maybe the plant is like my Jacob's ladder out of there. It's like, it's hard to put that much responsibility on a house plant. OK, so I'm looking at the Devil card. This is a classic Rider weight devil card. We've got the

sort of half human bat headed winged Beast he's got ram horns and he's perched atop a I don't know some kind of light. I don't know Like a pedestal. It's a pedestal. Yeah in front of him. You have a man and a woman Naked they are chained to the pedestal now. What's interesting about it to me what I love about this card is that you know the Chains around their neck

Are bigger than their heads. Yeah Any moment they wanted to they could unchain themselves from the chains around their neck are bigger than their heads. Yeah, they'll lose. If at any moment they wanted to, they could unchain themselves from the satanic bird that seems to have entrapped them. So I love that. Yeah, it's voluntary. It's like you can hang out there as long as you want. It's kind of up to you to leave.

You're not actually enslaved, but it's sort of like your choice. Always, always. And truly, if you like, I mean, at every level, slavery is a humiliation. But at least if you know there's no way out, you know, you can like, you can like, you don't have to feel like you're there because you want to be. You know, the worst form of slavery is when the the slaver removes the bars and the chains. And you can go whenever you want, but you fucking stay. Now you're your own fucking devil. You are the devil. You're the slave or locking yourself in.

Oh, that's the worst. Yeah, I think that that's sort of where I'm at right now. But like I'm making a little tiny baby steps to leave that or like to have a more holistic sort of whatever next chapter 2025 or 2024. What are your steps? What are your steps? You got the rubber plant?

What else are you doing? Yeah, I got the rubber plant. That's a big step. Yeah, you know, actually, so I've been seeing this, I've been seeing two therapists. I've been seeing this other therapist, one that's like a Jungian therapist. Yes. And we kind of just like shoot the shit and have conversations and talk about synchronicity and stuff.

And it's like a really fun, almost like a friendship, I would say. And then I'm seeing this other lady, her name's Vivica. And she puts me into like altered consciousness and then we start to talk to my past and stuff like that. And we actually like talked the other day I had this really synchronous like I guess that's what you would call it sort of discovery where I had been I had discovered this aspect of myself a couple years ago with another therapist where I went deep into aspect of myself a couple of years ago with another therapist, where I went deep into my inner forest or whatever. And I discovered this entity there. That was this black, it was like a black cloud. And that I think represented anger and sadness and depression and stuff. And this black entity had popped up for the

past like 20 years or something, something back when I did ayahuasca, the one time I did ayahuasca, there was a black, like black hole in my vision that I saw at that time. And I identified that as like really important thematic thing in my life. But I didn't engage with it, but it stayed with me this whole time. It comes up in my art all the time. I'm always drawing black orbs, black comets and stuff like that and black jizz and stuff.

that and black jizz and stuff. And so this recent therapy session I had, I engaged with that entity again. I was like, she was telling, giving me prompts, like ask it like what it is, why it's, is it serving me? Is it, is it trying to help me or protect me or something like that? Even though I viewed it as negative, I was like afraid of it. And like it turned out this thing was almost like a, basically like a tumor. It was like trying to protect me in its own way, like all this like hostile stuff that was like inside of me. And, uh, and then it changed shape. Once I identified it and start to have a conversation with it and actually like befriended it in a way, it changed shape in my, the way I was picturing it from a blob, a morphous black blob into a character I've been drawing for a couple years now.

And this character in my comic forming, I called it Nobody. And it's a like a Onyx black faceless character in underpants. And this character, consciously, I had based on the conversation I had with some kid on 4chan, like I don't't know like 10 years ago or something like that I had this real this is like sorry to go on a big rant. No it's fascinating. Okay I had this big

argument with this kid on 4chan where he knew who I was and I he was he had that love-hate relationship with the Adventure Time, which I had been writing on at the time, I think around this time. And he basically, they used to call me Moinacuck on there, on the cartoon part of a 4chan. And a lot of them felt like I had self-ins of them felt like I had self inserted too much into the Into that show and like put too many of my own anxieties into some of the characters and stuff And they said that I had I was like too artsy fartsy and I had like ruined the show basically there was a like contingent on fortune that's I had ruined the show and you are you are interacting Yeah with the contingent on fortune. That's what I really miss. And you are interacting with the contingent. That is so very brave.

Well, I think I just wasn't used to that attention. I wasn't used to anyone even criticizing me online at that point. I just wanted to... You're poking the demon. You're like, what is this thing? Why is it talking about me? Why is it calling me Moinukak? And I was like, can I like befriended and can I like change its mind about me, you know, or even, you know, come to some sort of like mutual agreement or something about art and like entertainment and cartoons and stuff. And so I had this conversation with this kid. I remember screen grabbing the conversation because I thought it was so dark. It was the darkest, one of the most cynical conversations

I or arguments I'd ever been in with is someone who really just hated art, you know, and just wanted like believed in intellectual property so much to the point that they hated Creativity, you know, and I was like this guy Even if he's making this up just to fuck with me, you know, even if he's just because that is 4chan a lot of times Even if he's just saying this just to fuck with my head and make me a spiral out about like humanity or whatever. This character, this stood out to me as like a demonic entity. This is like a manifestation of a true demon, you know, demonic energy consciousness. And so I took that conversation and I was like, I'm making this into a character.

I'm going to try to, I can't befriend to, I can't befriend this person on like in real life, but maybe I can turn him into a story, into a narrative, put it in a narrative where we come to a, we come to peace with each other. Or whatever. Yes. So that was my goal. You stole his soul is what you did.

Yeah, yeah, I guess so. I captured him, I captured him in my jar, in my fucking. Yeah, you gotta see it was see that's the thing is like, yeah, sure, you you anytime you and I get it man in the in the beginning, when people become aware of you. There's something thrilling about that and shocking and exciting and awful. And especially in the early days, I don't think any of us knew what most of us know now,

which is like, don't put your stick in the fucking hornet's nest. Just don't do it. It's not worth it. Even if you win, you lose. Even if you out-argue someone on any form. Well, yeah, of course you did. The power dynamic is skewed.

You're the successful one there. Like who knows who they are. There's some anonymous angry person in a pathetic situation in the sense that anytime you find yourself engaged in an argument with an artist and you're trying to hurt their feelings online, you're, that's not a good sign. That's not a good sign when you're thinking about hurt their feelings online. That's not a good sign. That's not a good sign when you're thinking

about what you did yesterday. You're like, yeah, I attacked an artist. I think I really fucked with his head. Bad sign. Those people, they don't realize, I think, that they also are risking something, in the sense that he meddled with some warlock and you fucking grabbed his psyche

and now you've enslaved him into your art. You know what I mean? It's like he, and then you alchemized the situation into something great. I'm in a hurry and I'm hungry and there's nothing to eat so I take a spoon, almond butter, and I eat that, then some beef jerky. That's pretty dumb. I have diabetes. That's why I love Factor. Factor, factor, factor. Thank you, Factor, for supporting this episode of the DTFH.

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DTFH seal of approval on factor meals. I think that they also are risking something, you know, in the sense that like he meddled with some warlock and you fucking grabbed his psyche and now you've enslaved him in your into your art. You know what I mean? It's like he and then you alchemized the situation into something great. So, so yeah, that's good. But wow, man, do you still do that? Do you still have interactions with people online like that?

I have a discord and stuff. And I usually respond to people on Instagram if they DM me. And yeah, I've gotten into weird situations with people like strange, you know, where people tell me, I'm sure this happens to you a lot. You probably have better barriers than me at this point. But I engage with people a little bit too much. I have sort of like an OCD, I need to respond

and I have an impulse to help. So if anyone comes to me with a problem and they seem like they're mentally on the edge or something, I'll try to like, oh man, what can I do to help? But I'm not qualified. Honestly, like some people who are going through some pretty bad, maybe like mental illness stuff and might be like projecting some idea about me. And they'll reach out and think I can like solve something for them. And then I can't. So, you know, I don't, I'm not, I haven't had the training to really know what to do, except try to have a real conversation with them back.

And then sometimes that has led me into, you know, difficult, some difficult reactions. And tangled. You know, I think you have, I'm probably a little too rigid in my rules right now regarding that stuff. Like, if I do, though, if I do get this, like, you can, I can, I feel, and I don't see why I think this like critically, I, it's probably, I'm probably wrong, but I feel, and I don't see why I think this, like critically, I'm probably wrong, but I feel like I can somewhat differentiate people who are actually at the end of their rope to the point where they're reaching out to me from the other version of it, which

is like the need vampire, you know what I mean? They don't really want help. They want to connect with you and then invoke some kind of relationship that is founded on a projection. You know, they think that you're something that's in them. You know, they think you're something you're not. And You know, they think that you're something you're not. And then the moment you cross that line, and that's where you get in trouble. It's so tempting.

Who wouldn't want to be Jesus, Ramdas, Neem Krali Baba, Gandhi or something like that. And here's someone who's made the terrible error of imagining you have some, I don't know, some something that is out there in the world, but you know, I don't have that. But it would be easy to like cosplay as that. And then if you do that, oh, God help you. God fucking help you because all you could do is disappoint them eventually. Eventually you will let them down in the most severe way.

You know, it can, it's bad. People project, I mean, there's already like hardcore projection happening everywhere. On even people who aren't even making anything. Like if you even, I think, even have a profile on Instagram, people immediately projecting on everything that you do. So, so take that and then try to be a creative person online who's like required to have a certain amount of, you know, social media presence and putting yourself

out there explaining the stories behind your art and stuff like that or like the the the ideas behind your art and then all that's just like a kindling first crazy projection that people can have and then they assume everything all this extra stuff about you about like your level of morality or your level of like how perfect you are and all this kind of stuff. And yeah, I've run into things like that as well. And that can really like be, I don't know, like trying to create a distance. I think I've hardened myself a little bit where I'm like, Hey, I can, I think over the past year, a couple of years, I've been like, Hey, I can be like fucked up. It's okay. Like I don't have to be I can have like problems and it's fine

And I can be actually like make mistakes and like be like have been an asshole to somebody like Yeah, I mean all I have to do is say sorry to that person that won't at some point Yeah, but that's like between me and them, you know, you know, I've definitely been like dickhead to people like You know I'll think in the past and I'll just cringe about something I said to somebody. I'll be like, fuck man, why did I say that? Yeah.

Oh my God. But. Yeah, oh my God. Like, oh God, I've got like a lifetime of cringes. You know that life review they say that was when you die? Oh my, I'm not looking for it. No, sir. Do they have a fucking fast forward on the life review? Because I would be like,

now let's skip over that entire decade. All right, you know, I think, you know, it makes me think of something I read. So, karmically, yes, at some point in your life, you know, get some aspiration or some intention going, which is where you don't want to be a selfish piece of shit anymore. It's like a Christmas Carol, you know, you like whatever, you're buying turkeys for orphans, but in your own life, whatever that looks like for you.

That somehow all your negative karma in that moment that you legitimately want to become a better person goes from being bad karma to good karma because it was the bad karma. It's always the, for most people, it's the bad shit that you've done. And then the consequence of the bad shit you've done, it shows you how there's a certain way of living that always leads to negative experiences. And there's a certain way of living that leads to less negative experiences. And, and that, so it's the teacher is the bad decisions you made that the guru is all of them fuck ups. And the moment you

legitimately strive to change, instantaneously, all that negative stuff gets converted into something positive. It's only when you continue the cycle of the you know, it's when you continue to be an asshole and you know the result. Can I ask you a question about that? Because, okay, so for the past seven, for the past, like I would say seven years, I've put like tons of work into this idea of holding space

for other people. I think holding space is like a catchphrase that a lot of people use. But previously to seven years ago, I would say my ability to hold space for other people is really made up, like tiny, tiny. And it sort of was like my previous, to the past seven years,

it was just like confusion about other people's problems. If someone came to me with a, they were acting irrational or were maybe being self-destructive or something in a way I perceived, I just would have zero tolerance for, I'd be like, you're being an idiot. You need to fix this. I don't have any patience for this. I'm, you know, I'm on my journey. That's like whatever. And I just didn't have space to, and I think it came from whatever,

my childhood or whatever. I just didn't, I didn't have a lot of space for irrational journeys. So it affected my personal relationships and stuff like over and over again, breakups. I don't know what else to explain. Or someone coming. And so if it affected my personal relationships and stuff like over and over again, breakups, I think because I didn't have a lot of patience for other people's pain. And so for the past seven years, I was like, I saw the pattern, right? And I was like, okay, I'm going to like put a lot of work into being more having more space within me and not reacting so much, like being able to listen to someone, what they're going through, and comfort them, and not feel like it's sucking my battery dry,

you know, that kind of thing. And I spent seven years really working on that. But in the course, and I think I did get better at it. I think I'm actually like way, my mom told me she was like you're different now or whatever. She knows. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also I'm better at communicating emotion now

and stuff like that. So this is all through like work I've done for about seven years. Yeah, it's great. But during that time, they call it the work, right? Or a lot of people call it the work. During that time, because I was working so hard on being better or quote unquote better, I actually developed this like deep self loathing.

Yeah. You know, man. Where I was like, I'm a piece of shit. I can't handle other people's emotions. I fucking, I'm an asshole. And I've been an asshole my whole life. Right. You know?

And what, so it's this weird thing like biting my own tail, like me trying so hard to be good and better and more accommodating of other people and being able to like be more part of the village. Maybe that's how I view it. At the same time, like just whittling away at myself, just, you know, so now I'm at the point. So I don't even know what the real answer to this is. But like, it fucked me up so bad that by the time I Got to this point. I was like, oh like I've been hating myself for like seven years So now what do I do? Yeah? I mean that's like the result of me doing the work is me almost like self-destructing Yeah, that's it. That's a sand trap for sure

Yeah, I don't know what the answer is that. So right now I'm just like just trying to be like I like myself. I don't know what else to do. Like, well, you gotta take all the whatever you learned from holding space for all the other fucking assholes or hold space for you. Because I just don't think you can like, you know, I really really I went through this bizarre period of really kind of rolling my eyes at a huge part of Buddhism which is the aspiration to save all sentient beings from suffering. Yeah. And to me, I would hear that in the early days of like, that's incredible. And then I started thinking about it.

I was like, that is so impossible and dumb and highfalutin and easily could be turned into some kind of messianic neurosis. And I realized recently like, oh, I know why that seems so stupid to me is because I was leaving myself out of all sentient beings. Like I wasn't including myself. It was literally everybody else in the universe except me. You, may you be happy, may you have shelter, may you find peace, whatever your particular, the way you dedicate the merit or whatever you're gonna call it. And then I realized, oh, of course,

none of this shit can possibly work if you can't do it for yourself. There's no fucking way you can authentically hold space for anybody if you hate yourself because you're a sentient being and you're the closest sentient being to your awareness field. So it's like, you know what I mean? There's no way. How the fuck can fuck, can you possibly show true compassion to another person who you barely know if you can't show compassion to yourself? Impossible. The math just doesn't work out, man. So that to me, you have to start with yourself. And then that's the work is like right now and what that looks like is really crazy to me,

which is, and it seems to encounter, maybe what I used to think about it is, the way you are right now, all of it, the dead fucking plants, the messy fucking thing, and all the shadowy stuff, and the fucking underpants shadow demon living inside of you. That's how you are. I know that sounds obvious. That's how you are right now. And yeah, and so whenever anybody sets off on some spiritual journey, you look at yourself and you think, eventually this will get better. Eventually this will change.

Eventually this will not be here anymore. And what you're actually doing is a more sophisticated version of hating yourself. Right. And so what happens if instead of doing that, you stop the attempt at transforming any of it? This is me. This is how, I don't mean in a stubborn way either.

I mean, for a second you make peace with it. You make peace with yourself. It's a handshake is what it's called. It's like when someone comes over to your house, you shake their hand, hi, welcome, that's it. You don't like get into it with them. Hi, handshake, that's it. Some people say, you know,

invite it in for a cup of tea or whatever. No, not that. You just acknowledge this too, this isn't me too, this is me, this is me, This is me. This is me. And it's transient because every other way I've been is transient. It won't last forever. It won't be here forever. And then something for me, whenever I do that, it's crazy, man. It's like a resonance. It's like when finally you get one of those singing bowls to work. It's like you feel like solid instead of at war with yourself. And you have a buddy who he's the guy who taught me, first taught me jujitsu.

And he's got a lot of like, I hope he doesn't mind me. I won't say his name, but he has a lot of self inner conflict, I would say. And he's sort of like a violent, in some ways like violent person. And it's funny that he taught me, he's the first person that taught me jujitsu. But he, this was a couple of years ago, he told me he was like, I saw a guy like harassing someone in a convenience store. Like it was it was getting scary. And I subdued him. I like took him to the ground and like held him on the

ground or whatever. And so he didn't hurt the guy, but he like dominated the person. Yeah, I mean, and he was kind of like fucked up inside about it. He was like, what is it about me that would like jump to that conclusion? Like, I need to wrestle this guy to the ground. I need to put him in a submission hold. And he was like, there's something like fucked up about me. There's something wrong and violent about, like inherently violent about me. And I remember sitting there, I was like with my brother, Justin, and we were talking to him about it. And we were like, that's, I don't know, I'm not a guru, obviously, you know what I mean? But my impression is like, that's just you, that whatever it is, like you're that person, you're the person of physical action. And maybe it

gets you in trouble or something like that at some point. You know what I mean? But you can't hate yourself for being that person, I think. There's something inherently like, I wouldn't, I probably if I had seen that, if me, I had been in that situation, I probably would like creep to my way out of that fucking door. I mean, I'd be like, I'm not engaging with this at all. And I don't take Jujitsu. I'm a fucking coward. I'd be out. Yeah.

I mean, I'm a purple belt in Jujitsu, but I would still walk out. Yeah, I mean, like, yeah, you know, so I don't have that in me. I hate conflict so much. And some people, some people run towards conflict and some people really, really like avoid it. And I'm definitely an avoidant person. I don't want anything to do with arguing with anybody. I don't want a physical fight. Like I've almost, I've gotten into physical altercations like only because I've been like cornered, you know, that kind of thing. But to me, that's a, there's this fundamental difference between me and him.

I'm a man of almost like a man of inaction. I'm like inert in a way. I don't want anything to do with other people really. I don't want to engage. I don't want to fight anybody. And he's like a really engaged, hypersensitive, easily triggered by other people kind of person who runs towards it. And I've known lots of people like that before and I think this is something I think also about you're fulfilling

some part of you that was missing by either running towards something or you're like avoiding something, you know, and I think that people who are part of like political action, this is some thought I've had because I have lots of friends who are like really politically active going to demonstrations and stuff like that. My theory and I don't want to speak for them, but this is just the way I think about it is that a lot of times when they talk to you about that like you silenced his violence and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. It's silenced his violence for them. It's, they're fulfilling some part of them. Like for them, it's like, not a debate because it's fulfilling some deep missing aspect of themselves.

They can make the world better through this means. And I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm saying that that is their means. And to them, it's an absolute. It totally like fits in their worldview and how they grew, the context in which they grew up. So that need is like, it's like food. They can't not have it.

Whereas to me, that shit is poison. I don't want fucking anything to do with it. And that puts a lot of guilt inside of me because I feel that sort of them feeling like I have a moral obligation to speak or express direct political thoughts into the world, either amongst friends. Anytime anyone brings up politics, I'm like extremely quiet about it. I don't say anything online. And I grappled with this idea for a long time because I even had a buddy who during the pandemic and stuff, he was a jujitsu guy, he would come over to my house and we had a little like pod, and we would just roll and stuff. And he's like a radical activist, you know? So he was going out every day, handing out water bottles

to the homeless, and participating in these riots against police and stuff like that. And he would come over to my house and talk about beheading the bourgeoisie, like that whole French Revolution Endgame kind of thing. And I would just sit there and nod my head. I'd be like, yeah, yeah, like, interesting, interesting. Yeah, you responded. And, and to me, I was like, this is his journey. I like him. Like, he's a good person. And, and,

but this is his answer, you know, and this is a thing that's beyond just like, an answer you can communicate to other people, like in a debate about how to solve the world's problems. This is like a cosmic level, like before you were born, your mother's mother's mother's mother's, like back until the dawn of time, like this is like something that was destined to happen.

It's your fate to be compelled to be in a riot to fight the cops. Like that. I just don't think that it's actually like a choice. Okay, let me tell you, okay, I'm gonna tell you a this is I'm sorry, you guys, you can probably hear me ramble about this. I'll try to make it quick. Yeah, this I've heard this story told a couple of different ways. It's this story that floats around spiritual communities. I really like it. And I can't remember which books I read it in, but as the story goes, there's an American, he has gone to live in Japan.

He's teaching martial arts in Japan, dangerous black belt guy. And he's sitting on a subway and there's a drunk dude, a really big drunk dude, and this guy is fucking hammered and he is being loud and aggressive and like not like just drunk aggressive like he's inches away from I think he's harassing people. He's about to hurt somebody, seems like it. So the black belt seeing this thinks to himself, this is it. Like this is why I studied this stuff. I can now use what I have learned over all these years to protect people, be a warrior hero thing. So he is about to stand up and do to this guy what your friend did to the guy in the

convenience store. Yeah. Which maybe isn't the worst thing. And right as he's about to do that, this old man, old Japanese man sitting there, pats the seat next to him and says, sit down, sit down. The drunk sits down next to him. The guy like smiling says to him, have you been drinking tonight?

And he's like, yeah, he's like, well, what have you been drinking? Sake. He's like, oh, I love sake. My wife and I, we like to drink it when the sun is going down in our backyard. The guy starts crying. He says, my wife just died yesterday.

You know, and so this martial artist is watching it. He says the drunk by the end of this interaction, his, he's the old man is holding his head in his lap, cradling him and he's sobbing. head and his lap, cradling him and he's sobbing. And so this, the commentary in the story that martial artists said, that's when I saw what actual martial arts looks like. Like that was, he subdued that man in a nonviolent way, protecting everybody and somehow helping the drunk. the drunk. Now this is a rare talent. It's a rare talent because I mean my god like go on Reddit fight porn. You know what I mean? Read the comments. The joy when some piece of shit who's aggressive gets his head smashed in the end of the ground. Some bully gets crushed or something. It's people revel in the perceived justice, the universal justice, the bad has been crushed

by the good and there's blood, brain damage fucked around and found out. That's it, right? And for that, you know to really enjoy Another person's suffering and To feel justified in your aggression you have to reduce that person to a singular Event which is a bad person that there's

There's very little programming in that person and it's all bad. It's a fucking bad robot that deserves what it got. And this is the, I think the view that many people have on all sides of the political spectrum. That's where there's some commonality, is that on one side, they think these people are bad and deserve everything awful that happens to them.

On the other side, those people are bad and they deserve, they've got it coming to them, baby. And this is a recipe, if you ask me, for the fucking apocalypse. That's how you get an apocalypse. That's an apocalypse there. What you want in common is an aspiration to not be violent. What you don't want in common is an aspiration to not be violent. What you don't want in common is the idea that sometimes people need to fucking die.

Because you know that's how wars happen. That's how wars and murder and violence and subjugation and all the shit. So to me that's the roots of of the nonviolent political movements. At their root is some sense that if we... But do you think being a nonviolent political activist is even a choice or it's a compulsion? We're all the result of compulsion, like from childhood. I work out alone. This episode of the DTFH is sponsored by Fitbot. I work out alone.

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If you don't wanna go to the gym, you can use Fitbot from your own home. Try it out, you're gonna love it. Thank you Fitbot. You're gonna love it. Thank you Fitbot! Do you think being a nonviolent political activist is even a choice or it's a compulsion? You know, like, we're all the result of compulsion, like, from childhood. Basically, some imprint of our ancestors all the way to this moment. Like, we're not actually like, the choice for me to become a better person

Almost doesn't feel like a choice. It's just something that looks instilled in me to like try Yeah, and I always was gonna try to spend seven years being a better person I never was not gonna do that right you know and so the same way that I view someone as like a radical activist Doing stuff. I wouldn't do yeah, you know, I'm like, you were always going to be that. So therefore I just accept you for who you are. Like I accept you for doing stuff. I think it's a little bit like, I don't know, like I'm not into it, you know, or, or being like, uh, you know, whatever, a January 6th person or something like that. They're always we're going to be at that thing, you know.

And so I, for me, I don't have like a hatred towards those people because I'm like, that was to me, I don't, this is where my head's at right now. It's cool. To me, it just always was going to happen. And then, yeah. And then, and then to me, like because so many of the relationships I've been in our friendships or whatever, where you see your friends behaving in a way that almost feels like out of their hands

or something, you can talk to them forever and be like, hey, don't do this. Please, I can see it coming. You're heading straight towards a train that's going to smash you on the tracks. Just don't fucking go to this thing, like, you know. Yeah, oh, it only worked. Yeah, yeah, and they just do, they're gonna be on the journey that they are going. And if they do listen to you even a little bit,

maybe they always were gonna listen to you. I mean, I don't know, it starts to, so when we talk about the apocalypse coming and stuff like that, like the end of days for humanity, it almost feels like an inevitability. And I there, there are people I've had conversations just a few days ago, someone's like really, really hell bent on like changing, turning things around, like, you know, eliminating fascism or whatever you want to call it. And I'm like, and I was playing devil's advocate to her, I was just like, so to me, I was like, so doomed out.

Like I was just like, no, we're just like, there's no stopping it. We're fucking toast. And then I realized when I was talking to her, it's like, I can't try to talk this girl about out of having hope. Like, I'm like, okay, no, I'm gonna stop talking right now because I want you to believe,

I want you to believe that whatever you think is going wrong in the world can change, can get better, you know? You can turn it around. And it's bad to tell people that you can't. So I think, right? You can. I mean, I think it's like, we both, you and I fell into an interesting consciousness because I went through a period of nihilism like

that or a general sense of like it's a hopeless situation and there's something naive in like trying to change the world for the better. There's something naive about that that really about that, that really your powerless, you have no power to stop this anymore than like, you know, if you know a tsunami is coming, what are you gonna fucking do? What are you gonna do? You're gonna build a tsunami dam? What are you gonna do? Like you run away and you get somewhere high and like anybody who tries to stop the tsunami is out of their fucking mind. high and like anybody who tries to stop the tsunami is out of their fucking mind. So I think that if there were, and again I think you can find a nexus, there's a place where all political sides converge right now. And that place seems to be one where they want some group of people to feel powerless.

They want some group of people to feel like whatever they're trying to do is not working, a waste of time, naive, whatever. This is exactly what you would want your enemy to think, right? So I'm so fucking paranoid these days regarding the internet and everything I've sucked into my eyeballs and ears online That I started critically looking at this idea. Oh, we can't change the world Hmm and asking who does that idea serve like who benefits from that idea? because Yeah, certainly the not like me. That's a very hopeless and dejected point of view and it produces a kind of

implicit nihilism in everything that you do. But, you know, if you know, if you have a realistic view, truth, if truth is that you if you've come to a real truth, and that real truth has built into it, a kind of hopelessness, it's still the fucking truth. Like if you're getting lined up for the firing squad, you're gonna get shot, right? Like, you can't put lipstick on that fish, so to speak. Like you're gonna get shot. Like so, pretending you're not is deluding yourself. I'm saying if it's truth, then yeah, that's the way you should look at it.

Well, I think here's the thing is like, yeah, because my friend was saying I was nihilistic the other day, she was like, calling me out for being not nihilistic. But actually, I don't think I am. I think I'm maybe when it comes to like material action and the material world and political action I am somewhat pretty nihilistic I guess you could say. But I've in my own way I've been trying to hold on to hope in my own I don't know what you call it like deluded way that that my path the way that I was like destined to act or whatever my journey which is through art that I was like destined to act or whatever, my journey, which is through art, that I can change the world through art, at least on a small scale.

Sure. You know, and that's the only thing I've ever been able to hold on to as being like, maybe I'm here for a reason, maybe I'm doing something good for the world, like, through my, through stories and drawings and stuff like that, even though it's not a thing you can put on any sort of scale of value or anything like that. But everything else to me, from a macro perspective, you take the past 15 years of political strife and people fighting for rights and laws to change and all this kind of stuff back and forth. To me, my experience of the world in that material existence has only gotten worse. Compare the quality of life, psychic quality of life now to 15 years ago, and I just think it's like worse like by substantial amount. Yeah, Kali Yuga.

It's the Kali Yuga. This is the age of disintegration. Everything's falling apart. The center does not hold. The Falcon. You're not here. The Falcon here. Something slouching towards wherever the fuck.

You know, this is it, baby. We are in it, man. This is it. Yes. This is to be expected. This is. So the only answer to me is like, you can't just keep doing the same thing over and expect better results. We keep doing the same thing and getting worse and worse results.

It seems like, you know, who knows 20 years from now, I could be saying something different. But that's what it seems like right now. This is what you think. This is where you're at. And that's where there seems right now. This is what you think. This is where you're at. And that's fine. I see that's the thing is like, so many people might hear something like that and then either guilt trip you or whatever the fuck.

It's like, I don't think the world needs any more bullshit for sure. Like if you wanna talk about, you know, as above so below, not only do we have a, I guess, too many fucking carbon emissions, we got way too many bullshit emissions right now. We got people bullshiting all day long

and filling the fucking world with bullshit. Just bleh, bleh, like people are mad at Taylor Swift for flying her fucking jet 25 miles. Motherfuckers, you need to stop flying, flapping those lips, Like people are mad at Taylor Swift for flying her fucking jet 25 miles mother fuckers You need to stop flying flapping those lips Flying everybody right in the fucking hell. It's like, you know what I mean? It's like everyone's just just outputting this This this garbage that is not based on any form of truth other than some shitty statistics they did by flipping through TikTok and Instagram

and deciding the world must be like this or like that because my feed is showing me fucking hippies rapping about manifestation and eating period blood. You know what I mean? Like guess what? That's not everybody. Not everybody's out in the fucking woods blasting their fucking menstrual blood

in their fucking animal, they wrap about getting rich. This is just a subsection of society. Do you know what I mean? So I think what any opinion, especially an illistic opinion, but definitely any kind of overly positive bullshit opinion, it requires real world investigation

and that takes fucking work. Like that means you got to get out there And see what really is going on that's that's that to me That's it and even before you get out there you got to get in yourself and look Because to me it's like look if you can't have peace in your own mind and consciousness Then how the fuck can there be peace in the world? You can't do it. Why the fuck should I do it? Why should anybody do it?

It's such an abstract thing to propose to anyone, like, hey, actually, we need to really emphasize beauty and art. And that's actually what is going to help the world, rather than And that's actually gonna what is gonna like help the world or rather than you know some Who's who's who's elected governor and whatever you know that kind of thing? Well, I mean God help you if you are basing your ability to be to have a generally like balanced sense of your place in the universe if you're basing that on any state entity, like you're waiting for the, you're waiting

for the United States federal fucking government to work itself out before you can breathe a fucking relief, you're in trouble. And like ever represent your interest The people who did Vietnam the people who did fucking Iraq the fucking people who did MK ultra the view you're so when that went finally some wonderful President Comes out and and and and you look at that person right now, that's the

body I could trust. It happened. Peace reigns in the world when the land is sick, the king is sick, the land is sick, all that Arthurian bullshit. It's like, no. I actually wish that was real. I wish the land is sick, the king is sick, the land is sick, like that's something I really fantasize about.

It's almost like I have, sometimes I pray to God or whatever and I'm like, please just like bring an angel down to take the throne and fucking, or like make two people fight a battle to the death on a mountain top and like take the sword and then they and then they can be king like ordained by God. And everybody sees God. So everyone fucking knows, you know, and they're like, yeah, this person, like, we all take a knee.

We all still like little cloaks. You know, Jesse, you know, um, let me. Let me double Nile nihilist you. Yeah, sure. I think that when the angel king finally descends from the golden chariot of light that we all see and realize, oh, I remember that because that's where I was born. Mommy or daddy is coming home, both maybe a mix.

And the waters are clean. The ice caps reconstitute. All the fossil fuel gets somehow like blown out of the atmosphere. Suddenly the air is as few. Humans haven't smelled air like that for 20,000 years. Oh my God, you could smell and the birds are singing and the bugs are back.

And there's no more murder. Somehow all the murderers of the world, they come out of their houses and they stretch their hands out with their assault rifles and their fucking grenades and they stretch their hands out with their assault rifles and their fucking grenades and they all get sucked up into the mothership and then ejected out as confetti. And there's trumpets and horns and children's laughter

filling the fucking streets. I think we're gonna get a year, a year, maybe a year, of like, wow, the great angel king. Do you even, can you believe the times before the angel king came? No, I can't. Hey, have you talked to Jason lately? What do you mean?

He's just being a real fucking dick. Like the angel king came and like Jason, he's like, how are you sad when the angel king came? Look at the golden fucking ship. Like Jason is kind of a dick. I'm gonna set a boundary with Jason. I don't think I'm gonna fucking talk to him anymore until he fucking submits himself to the angel king. You know what I mean? The whole thing starts over. So, yeah, so to me, I think looking

to external phenomena, dreaming that when all external phenomena lines up according to your idea of a perfect world that you're going to be better, I think you're going to be very disappointed when all that external phenomena, if it ever does line up and you realize six months in, you're still a piece of shit. You're still angry. You're still jealous. You're still unhappy. You still fucking hate this person. What's the world without conflict? You know? How is it like, yeah, like, or what's the world without change?

Like, this is the situation is like, and this is not a political statement. I think we all need to be looking towards what, I heard someone say everything's a political statement. No, it's fucking not. Don't put me in your political fucking cubby, although I think it's an interesting idea. It's an interesting idea, but I get really triggered

when people say that shit to me. I mean, it's like, okay, so like, okay, well, for you, everything's a political statement. For me, it's not, but to me, a non-political statement, something that non- non political in the sense that I, I don't see how we're, I don't, like you could be a Marxist, Antifa, eco terrorist or a white supremacist, Timothy McVeigh level fertilizer bomb maker. And both of you must agree that everything is in a constant state of change.

And probably you would agree that some of that change you don't like. And when things change the way you don't like you get unhappy. This to me seems to be the bottom line cause of problems. It's not the changes that we don't know how to enjoy change. We only like shit when it changes the way we wanted it to. When stuff changes the way we don't want it to,

we got sand in our fucking diapers. And then we try to change it back. And then because we are acting out of a state back. And so, and then, and then because we are acting out of a, of a, out of a state of deluded disappointment in the sense that, yeah, shit does change the way you don't want it to. All the fuck, look at my fucking head. You think I want to shape my fucking head? Jesse, look at my head! Look at my head! Shit changes the way we don't want it to. My point is, if we can make friends with change. I think change is cool. I think change is, maybe it is that change is cool.

Change is good and necessary and that conflict is actually necessary, but that the modern deconstruction of conflict where everyone can chime in and analyze and deconstruct it online and criticize it or diminish the power of it. Everyone has the power to diminish other people's power is actually what is sucking the life out of humanity. And you know, the people rioting and fighting and overthrowing governments and all this kind of stuff is actually like part of humanity. And that's actually healthy. But actually people sitting there and like telling people that they're fucking beta because

they showed up at this thing, you know, or whatever. That's the part that's actually like satanic. The human struggle, the conflict and people disagreeing with each other and actually physically even fighting each other, I think that is humanity. I think that that is actually natural and it's horrible, but also beautiful. Whatever, that's the thing that gives us a sense of stakes and life, vital life force. Yes. But this commenting on it is vampiric.

It's like, actually, takes away the power of anyone's, what they've decided to do and risk in their lives. And yeah, that's the problem, maybe. That's the problem, but there's no way to stop it either. So like You know, you can't turn the clock back on that shit. It's just I mean, I don't know if people there Yeah, so that's all like it has to be an act of godly universe has to decide to annihilate technology for any of this stuff to get fixed well, you know, I take comfort and Whenever I find some historic precedent for what I assumed was just some kind of technological modern day pre-singularity aberration.

And it actually is an early American tradition. People are making their own pamphlets where they would talk shit. And they would talk shit. They also used handles like they do on the internet. Like the early Americans, they would use Greek. They would call themselves Aristotle or some shit and they'd write some scathing thing about, I don't know, Abe Lincoln or something signed by Aristotle. And so that was a precursor to what's happening now.

It is something of an American tradition to voice your dissent in some way where you aren't directly involved other than voicing dissent. So that makes me feel a little better. That being said, I know what you mean. What ends up happening, and I don't think this is the intent

of anyone posting online necessarily, but what ends up, the gestalt don't think this is the intent of anyone posting online necessarily, but what ends up the Gestalt, some total of all the posts, accidentally become sideline commentary where it's not football, it's not tennis, it's people killing each other. So when you are celebrating the transformation of a Russian conscript's head into fucking foam or whatever, red putty, you at that moment have become a sports commentator, so to speak, and reduced the value of human life. Yes.

To you've reduced the value of human life. Yes. Two, you've reduced the value of human life so much that you feel like it's okay. Well, that person fucking deserves it. Oh, you mean the political prisoner? Oh, the political prisoner. You mean the political prisoner that was protesting because he wanted a new government in Russia that wasn't homophobic and he went to jail

and then they put him in the front lines of a war against Ukraine and told him, if you run away, we'll shoot you in the fucking face. That guy deserved it, huh? Totally fucking deserved it. That fucking guy deserved it. Oh, the alcoholic, the 49 year old fucking alcoholic with three fucking teeth,

who is definitely brain damage from all the fucking shitty, cheap Russian vodka. That fucking guy who hasn't eaten in a couple of days. Oh, he deserved it. Cause that was the first thing he wanted to do when he woke up in the morning. He's like, let me go fucking fight Ukraine. I want to do that. He wasn't dragged out of his house, thrown in a bus and dropped off in a fucking trench. So it's like, that's the fucking problem, man.

There's no nuance in these situations. Well, there's also a diminishment of the vitality and sacredness of life. If you knew that guy personally, and you had never seen anyone commenting on who they were online, you would just have a really vital, like tangible experience with that person and they're the trials of their life, you know? You'd be there with them.

And- His mom looked for him one day. When he was four, he wandered off at a fucking park and his mom was like, where's Alexi? Oh my God, where's Alexi? I can, Alexixie never run away from your mother again never run away from her. I love you It's like what the fuck are you talking? Oh he died of COVID and he wasn't fucking vaccinated. He deserved it. That dumb fuck, that dumb fuck should have gotten vaccinated. I'm glad he fucking choked to death out of middle later. I would say it's even different from, from let's say 25 years ago, watching a faces of death video or something. You see what you see footage on the VHS tape of

someone being executed by a drug lord or something and you're 15 years old and you're like, if I can fuck you up for the next year, just thinking about that shit. You know, man. And but there's no one. It was just you and like two other of your friends being like putting a tape in and watching this like footage footage that's extremely like whatever. Someone had to go find it and give it to you

You know that kind of thing and there's no comment section underneath to like D Like I don't know take the fangs out of what you just saw essentially and make it into a meme It's just like seeing something really fucked up and you yell at your friend. You're like, why did you show me that? What the fuck, you know, you just fucked my life up showing you those faces of death. And think of the age we watched it at. We were young, we hadn't seen this.

But again, who, who benefits from a desensitized population celebrating the violent death of perceived monsters? Yeah. Well, it's easy. It's one of the most powerful businesses on the planet. If not the most, it's a fucking military industrial complex. My God, every military of every fucking state loves it when you fucking post about how cool it is

to watch a fucking truckload of 23 year olds get blown up by a fucking drone. Every fuck, everyone loves that. That's good, cause now we're fucking okay, okay. We're heating you up, we're getting you ready. We're fucking, we're getting you ready. We're getting you ready for the big one. Cause now you know, good, bad, right, wrong, evil.

You know, evil, this is, this person is the devil. This person is not the devil. And what does it all have in common, Jesse? What it all has in common is the celebration of violence and the acceptance of violence as a methodology to bring peace. And that is the, That is the hypnotic pan flute of every military that needed people. Do you think it's a celebration or is it like the over exposure and the over analysis and the over, like the deconstruction of violence like through comments and stuff like that that that every because everyone can

Examine something all together and we all see everyone's opinion that therefore that like no opinions exist anymore It's sort of like no it neutralizes Seeing a disturbing image. So you just become accustomed to You know, whatever is happening, the stuff happening, people being bombed in Gaza or whatever. You see that and you see all the different, everybody's point of view on it back and forth to the point where you no longer even want to have an opinion about it. You just sort of complacently accept that maybe you'll sign a petition on Instagram

or something that goes nowhere and no one's even listening to you. Well, I look for where there's commonality between the two factions and the commonality seems to be both sides think the other deserves it. So that's something they both have in common. And thus by saying the other side deserves it, they have definitely shielded themselves from what they would be feeling if they were there. And you know, which is why there's a difference

between the people who are there and the people online. The people who are there are usually like, this is horrible. Yeah, you're going to have a real strong, you're going to have a real strong feelings. Yeah. Yeah. You're informed by like some actual experience. And it's like, you know, I'm not saying if you haven't been there, you have no right to dissent at all. I'm I just think, you know, what I try to do is look at all that shit and then think,

okay, where is that in me? What parts of me are getting off on watching, you know, technological, technological snuff film, watching a drone annihilate a person? Cause it's like, there is a part of me that obviously likes it because I watch it. So it's like, so what is that? What is that in me?

What, why is that in me? What is that in me? And then instead of then feeling rotten, like, my God, there's a part of me that like seems to enjoy war footage and reading the comments, just going, okay, I guess that's in that fucking potpourri of whatever the fuck I am too. That's there.

But it helps me understand why it's happening. I mean, dude, I don't mean to like- There's a benefit to it in that, right? I mean, I've been speaking really negatively about it, but obviously there's like benefits to knowing and having footage of everything that's going on in the world and being able to actually, on some level, actually being able to witness or be, I don't know, there's bias as far as who's showing what footage and not showing what footage obviously and whatever message force is. It's bias, it's propaganda, it buys all the way around. Everything is propaganda.

At least there is the benefit of the internet is that you have access to see it If you want to like you can witness Atrocities or witness beauty, you know all over all over the world because everyone's documenting everything So there's there's a benefit to that in that Yeah, so It's not all bad, obviously. You know, there's a reason why it exists, but. Did you see that documentary on the weather on underground?

It's one of my favorite docs. It's so good. No, I know, I never saw it. It's like hippies blowing up fucking federal buildings, fucking in the van on the way there. Their slogan was bring the war back home. The idea being, look, you don't know what it's like in, if you're living in America, you don't know what that's like. You don't know what it's like in fuck, if you're a living American,

you don't know what that's like, you don't know what that's like to just be walking down the street and suddenly bombs are going off. So we're gonna start blowing shit up so that you understand this is what war is like when you're there. And bring war, but I, and this is so trite. So I apologize, everyone feel, get your vomit bags ready for fucking my idiot ass to say something really atrocious

Bring the peace back home. It's like it's you want to fucking make change in the world like real fucking change in the world Like something I mean, I'm saying like Terrence McKenna is like novelty changes and like what the fuck is that? Can you can someone out there figure out a mechanism, whether it's linguistic, I don't care if it's if it's whatever it is, art, activism that inspires the people around you to become a little more peaceful. Because if you could figure that shit out, wow. You're on to something. Now we can look forward to maybe some, some, you know, cause that's the cool thing about this planet

is shit pops out of nowhere. Dinosaurs, monkeys, humans, massive ocean changes that wipe out entire previous civilizations. So we know it's possible that just out of the blue, no one expected it. It happens, meteor impacts. And sometimes a Gandhi,

like somehow manages to overthrow an empire, you know what I mean? Like through peace. It is, Jesse, it is possible. I used to not think it, but I do think well, the thing about Gandhi is like the and and like Martin Luther King and stuff like like the peaceful protest movements and stuff like that. I think that those were possible at a certain time before we had developed basically you blame blame Jackson Pollock maybe. I'm being slightly facetious, but Jackson Pollock was a Psyop to promote American individualism. And so we went so

far down the rabbit hole of American individualism. I don't think that I don't think that this idea of people banding together as a bundle of sticks being unbreakable is actually possible anymore. No, that maybe isn't that might not be that I'm saying one thing we know for sure. There was a time where nobody knew what a light bulb was. There was a time where no one had ever heard a fucking piano, seen a train, looked at an airplane, or read the Communist Manifesto, or the Dom O'Potter, or the Baga Baguito, or the Bible,

or there was a time where that shit didn't exist. And then it came into being. And when it came into being, it resulted in a complete transformation of the planet. So we know for sure that there is the imminent, ever-present possibility of novelty, good and bad. Meaning that whatever the methodologies of the past have been good and bad. A new methodology will emerge that no one expected

and that doesn't have to be a bad thing. It could be something just, I don't know what it is. It's right now, it's a big floating fucking question mark. So to me, you have to balance the nihilism with the reality that sometimes things actually get better. Sometimes something happens where things just get better, where it gets worked out, it gets figured out, that there is, and for me, I have to believe that I'm not the only one

thinking this and that there's lots of people out there who are tuning in to, okay, okay. What is it we're looking for here? What is it we really want? Yeah, that's the question. That is the question. I don't think anyone agrees on what we're looking for I think we don't want kids to get blown up anymore. I think I think like I think if you

Like like most of us not everybody. I'm sure there's a lot of fucking people out there It's not enough kids are getting blown up. I got to work on this fucking bomb Don't does it? It only blows up children. I'm just probably someone working on it right now like it fucking racy I'm like, you know what? Why don't we just get the kids out of the picture? But wherever there's a thing, it's opposite must exist. I mean, I'm not saying there's someone trying to come up with a bomb that reassembles children,

which would be actually pretty nice these days. That would be incredible. But, but, but. Extra life, extra life, technology or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Some reanimation reconfigure reassembly bomb, something that like puts buildings back. But, but the, the, the, but I think that the moment you allow yourself.

And I don't want you to do it, Jesse, unless you really believe it, because you can't fake it. But the moment you just allow yourself for like a fleeting moment to be part of whatever this, no one even has a name for it, whatever this team is, shit does change right away for you. Because whatever this fucking thing is out there, and I know, I'm so sorry you guys.

Yeah. Well, you and I had a conversation like when we were working on Midnight Gospel together. I remember us being out on the street and you, me, and Penn, I think we talked about the word hope. And I loved that argument. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we were talking about like how hope was a, maybe I forget who was saying what, but we were talking about like how hope was a top maybe I

forget who was saying what but we were talking about this idea that hope of hope being a toxic concept. And that by giving up hope, by giving up hope, you actually make it possible to change the world in a positive way. You know, absolutely. But also, so I thought about that conversation ever since we had it. You know? And, but at the same time, I think I went deep into hopelessness and like advocating for eliminating that word for my life or whatever in order to be more powerful myself. But then I started thinking about things like the hero's journey and stuff like that, even like Star Wars

being called a new hope, that kind of thing. And this idea of hope actually, even though you could think of it some way like being toxic or being like disempowering, because if you don't achieve this thing that you've been dreaming for, your is a waste and all this and it's more about the journey than about the goal and goal and stuff like that. But the idea of hope also inspires incredible acts, incredible acts of courage, you know? And so, and that's the stuff of legends, like people write about these people who had enormous amounts of hope and that accomplished great, great things because of it, you know, even though it's like a delusional, maybe there's one way to think of it being like,

hope actually disempowers you. Right. So that's something I don't know. Because I think in that argument, to me and still, hope represents a disconnect from reality as is. I hope this and that. I'm not saying sometimes I don't hope for this and that. Usually I think people, a lot of people confuse want with hope, they want something and they think

that that's actually hope is more a form of desire than anything else, the desire for reality to change from the way it is. So like, I don't hope that there can be world peace. I think that it one to say that. off your face, your children won't cry. I wish you got to use Squarespace, Squarespace, Squarespace, Squarespace, Squarespace, Squarespace, Squarespace, Squarespace, Squarespace. This episode of the DTFH has been supported by my friends at Squarespace,

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use offer code Duncan to get 10% off your first order of a website or a domain. I'm sorry if this was a long commercial, but I do love Squarespace. And Squarespace, I hope this is okay. I love you. I don't hope that there can be world peace. I think that it is a true possibility.

I think that there is that humans are so fucking incredible that there is some series of things that could happen and will happen potentially that shift things radically for the better. And that is not hope for me. That's just like math. It's like anytime there's a thing, it's opposite must at least be a possibility. So if there is war, which is, if you look at it,

incredible organization, you're looking at like incredible organization and you're looking at incredible passion and incredible, incredible selflessness and incredible like all of these things that minus the machines of death and blowing people up in an organized way has within it everything great about humanity. It's like, you know what I mean? But because we are easily manipulated and hypnotized, you can take these human aspects which are like we like to work together, we want to help, we want to be heroes, we

want to give our lives or something good. We want to, we like fire. We love to watch things blow up. It's cool. If not, we wouldn't have the fourth of the fucking July. It's a, it's awesome. So you take all of these like human monkey things and then you Weave them all together and now you've manipulated mass amounts of people to murder other people for billionaires, right? So so but if billionaires can manipulate people To kill other people

theoretically theoretically manipulate people to kill other people, theoretically, theoretically, they could also manipulate them to build shit and fix things and work on themselves, and meaning the opposite of war is possible. And just the very existence of war proves And just the very existence of war proves that the opposite is possible. And I don't know how that would ever happen or what that even fucking looks like, but it's a possibility. That's not a hope.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it fits into those timelines of Rajas, Satva, Tamas, like the sort of ebb and flow, upswings and downswings, with deep, deep degradation to the highest mountaintop where you fall, eventually fall from. Samsara! Yeah, here I am. eventually fall from, you know. Some sorrow. Some sorrow. Yeah, hopefully we'll hit rock bottom at some point, maybe in the next election cycle and then like, you know.

Well, I mean, look, you got to like, to me, like the basic intent is stupid as you're going to feel. And it's just like, man, please don't start doing manifestation raps. But like, you know, for me, just like a basic low level intent when I wake up is like, I hope I can help more than I take today. You know, that's it.

And it sounds so weak and lazy and all the people out in the streets, I'm not, I don't know where you fucking started, but I doubt you started out in the streets. You started probably first realizing, oh shit, I might be able to help. I mean, that's okay to think that. There was a demand, there was a demand to help, especially during lockdown and all that kind of stuff,

like everyone's demanding each other. You have to participate, you have to help. But what that, maybe I'm repeating myself, but like what that looked like, I really struggled with and I had like a pretty, yeah, a pretty hardcore like self examination and feeling pressure from outside forces to be perceived as someone contributing, you know? And, and still to this day, I haven't really answered that question. And I I'm like embarrassed to give them my answer sometimes, even though I just said it

on your fucking podcast. But I think your audience is more receptive to that than maybe some other audiences, like this idea of like leaning heavy into being a creative person and hoping that that helps in some way. I mean, give me a fucking break, man. Yeah, yeah. I think at one point, I'm not saying I would have killed myself, but I think at one point,

Aqua Team Hunger Force may have somewhat saved my fucking life. Now you go and watch that. So many things like that. Yeah. Yeah. So many. Yeah. So many really tried things like have saved my life or inspired

me. It's always been art. It really hasn't been, it's always been art or stories, some mythological figure that's like or some bigger than life personality that's like given me this idea that, oh, life is really has quality to it. Life is inspiring and like can bring me to tears. And it's always almost like 90% of the time it's music stories like something some sort of some movie I saw or some yeah even something as dumb as like you know watching stepbrothers or something. I don't know what yeah I mean whatever some like dumb comedy that like gave me, like fueled me for like months, you know, whatever it is, like, and then, and then being inspired by someone's comedic mind or, you know, someone who's able to bring joy to people like easily

or whatever through their, you know, whatever it is that kept, you know, so many people have said to cartoonists like, you saved my life, like some fucking dumb unicorn show that they made or whatever just being like, I was going to kill myself. But like, your unicorn, my little pony, like kept me alive or whatever. There you go. So you can help. Yeah. And you do. And see, that's the thing. These motherfuckers, man, by them I mean the hyperdimensional darklings, the fucking things in shorts, Jesse. Yeah.

Just what I do, man, is I think, who does this serve? Who does this, who does this reactionary thought, or who does this compulsive thought, or who does this habitual thought serve? Who does this reactionary thought, or who does this compulsive thought, or who does this habitual thought serve? Who does it serve? Is this a thought that if magnified throughout the planet leads to harmony or disharmony? And you know what I mean? And then I think, how did that get my head? Like, why is that even there? Why do I believe that? And if I'm having this thought, like the other day, man, I was falling asleep and I was thinking really bad things. Yeah. The world is shit.

Yeah, yeah. People are shit. Yeah. People hurt. And I don't know, it's just habitual like, like fucking like bad negative stuff. I was pregnant as I was browsing for chair and then hell yeah, and then I so I caught myself doing that and I It felt

Idiotic and embarrassing, but I started thinking the opposite of those thoughts. Yeah, the world is good People are good. Life is wonderful. And I didn't need, and I want to help. I realized like, if I get out, I think I'd like to help. And then I fell asleep. I swear to God, craziest dream. A fucking owl, some kind of like beautiful weird owl in space was like talking to me going like,

do you want to help? And I'm like, yeah, I think I do. And it was like, well, I think you could. And then I get woken up by my three-year-old screaming, like he's on fire. And like, which was funny to me because it's like, oh, I guess the owl meant that I could go figure out what's wrong with the kid. And I went up there and you know, as you just couldn't find his water. But my point is, man,

like, play around with my fantasy. I'm sorry if I'm being a little preachy. Yeah, I love you the way you are. I don't honestly, I don't know if I want you to change. Jesse, you make incredible art. And if like suddenly you fucking like become some, you make incredible art. And if suddenly you fucking become some optimist and think the world is great, are you? I will say, I did something similar. So this is kind of weird story. But I used to, you know, when you pee and you can't, you can't start peeing.

Like it takes a while to get started. You have to like settle. Are you fucking kidding? I'm almost 50. Yeah, I know what that's fucking like. But are you fucking kidding? I'm almost 50. Yeah, I know what that's fucking like. But are you like, you might be nervous. I don't know what it is, but you can't pee immediately. Yeah, you know,

so I used to have a little trick I used to do to get myself to pee. And I would be like, if I wasn't peeing right away, I'd be like, fuck you piece of shit. And then I just immediately start peeing. And then I did that for a therapist. And then I did that for years. And then it's just my little silent joke to myself or whatever that I could get myself to pee that way. And then I was like after a couple of years I was like what am I doing? Why am I saying fucking piece of shit to my dick every time I can't pee right away?

So I started saying I love you instead. And it also worked. That also worked. There you go, dude. You know what? Here's a weird secrecy. I swear to God, I think today or yesterday, I looked at my dick and said, what the fuck's wrong with you?

We both yelling our dicks. Man, listen. Man, listen, the, if you just, as a fantasy, imagine you have, you have, like, I don't know what the opposite of an army is, but that you have applied to be part of that, I'm telling you, man, and maybe it doesn't exist yet, maybe it exists in the future, maybe whatever the fuck this thing is, figures out a way to like travel through time. Maybe it sends signals backward through time to recruit people.

Or maybe it's just the fantasy in the burnout brain of a podcaster. I don't give a fuck. But if you just sort of connected that possibility, even if it doesn't exist, maybe it existed a long time ago and it sends messages into the future. Maybe it exists in the psyche or the subatomic level.

Maybe it's just a potentiality. I'm telling you, man, like cool shit starts happening. Like stuff that like seems to confirm that indeed there is a thing like that there. And instead of worrying about how to be a good person, how to be a better person, and how you should act when you're in the presence of a yammer and bearded bald fuck like me,

trust that whatever it is you're supposed to do will come out of you in that moment. that you don't have to plan it out. You don't. Yeah. You don't you how if you knew whatever the fuck it was you'd already be doing it. Like you don't if you if I join the army. I don't know how to I don't know how to drive a tank. Right. They teach me how to drive a fucking tank. And maybe this thing the way it works is it just starts teaching you stuff in the moment. And the training is your interactions with assholes. And you know what I mean? Something about it, I don't know, it's worth trying out. I probably won't even, I'll probably be embarrassed. I said this in about 10 seconds, but it's worth a shot. Yeah, it's like, how do you transfer? I mean,

like, I've gotten so used to, I like really like put all my eggs in one basket like everything is just at my drawing table you know it's everything is coming out all my optimism all my hopes and dreams like come out through my comics or my cartoons or whatever and and it hasn't manifested truly manifested like in the external world, except for friendships, you know, I've really value my friendships. But but the all the like aspirational like optimism and stuff and like how I feel about darkness and light, all that stuff just comes out in my in in my fiction and my drawings and stuff like that. That's where all that stuff manifests. And maybe in my own, my silent prayers to myself, like where I'm sitting and I'm having a conversation

with whatever entity is like, you know, I think might be protecting me or something that I have that sort of relationship every once in a while. But that, it's like, you know, I think, I just question myself sometimes, I wonder if I'm supposed to be doing more than that or not. And I think I was so heavily inspired by Sun Ra. And have you seen Joyful Noise at all, that documentary about Sun Ra? Or his movie Spaces the Place?

Which one should I start with? Watch Joyful Noise. Like that that movie, like I saw that in my early 20s and it completely affirmed everything I was thinking at that time. Yeah, everything I was like, maybe I just it's just all about the world I create. And that's like the only thing that matters. And that sort of world I create and that's like the only thing that matters. And that sort of do it. You're doing you doing the Lord's work. And no one doing the Lord's work. Everything's doing the fucking Lord's work. Look at Moses with his with his lisp or whatever.

But Bush talks to him tells him to like go free as people from the manacles of the Moses have a, did Moses have a lisp? Yeah, that's when I heard he had a speech impediment. Oh, weird, I didn't know that. I mean, you know, the symbol of the, it's like, it's always like that. It's like always like the unlikely hero that gets chosen by the universe to be part of something.

And the unlikely hero inevitably tries to get the fuck out of the job. Like that's the other component. Jesus, Garden of Gassethomy. I'm not an, I don't want to do this. Why do I have to die? Like this is the sort of like- Or like Noah, Noah being a drunk, right?

Noah was a fucking drunk. Noah was a drunk and many- Why was, why do you think Noah was so depressed? Like- I'd be depressed if I was stuck on a fucking boat with my family and a fuck ton of animals for 40 days. 40 nights I want to put a gun on him. I'm out of on a fucking boat with my family and a fuck ton of animals for 40 days. 40 nights I wanna put a gun on my mouth, no fits. So I love my family.

But where do you go on a boat? Where do you go? Where are you gonna go, man? There's no gym at the boat. You're just smelling animals shit all day. I mean, it doesn't matter. You know, it's just fun to imagine that everything good and bad inside of you is either fuel, they can be alchemized into something that will help, or is already ready to help.

And that you're, you're just giving yourself that level of a break, man, as a fantasy. It like shifts my consciousness, man. It just shifts my consciousness man it just shifts my consciousness and that's all I care about like you know there were yeah maybe I'm a deal you know I remember when I was a Rom das this house and it's tables Romdas and this Zen Roshi Roshi Jonah Halifax is brilliant and they're always their best friends but they're always arguing because she's a fucking Buddhist, Zen Buddhist,

you know how that goes. And you know, here we have this like hippie with a guru and Hanuman and all that. And they've found the most wonderful arguments. And at one point, Rahm does at the dinner table, looking at her, big smile goes, this is my fantasy. And she's like, she goes, finally finally after all these years, you admit it. It was beautiful. And you know, because it's like, let it, it's

okay. It's okay to have that fantasy. And it's okay to have fucking hope. If hope gets your ass out of bed, and gets you another rubber plant. Great. Right. Yeah, I think that's the conclusion I've sort of been leaning towards is that hope is okay. That's such a weird thing to say. Because I was so skeptical of hope for so many years, but I think hope is actually alright. you in a position where you can like help yourself, give yourself a break, find that spaciousness that is in everything, whether you like it or not, at the subatomic level, we all know it, and everyone's heard it a million times,

but literally all around you, look up, look, look, it's like we're in a abyss right now. It's all space. So it's like finding that however you find it, it doesn't even matter. Just find it. And then when you find it, then let it talk instead of your neurosis, you know? And to me, I don't know, man. At the very least, at the very fucking least least you maybe you won't fall asleep thinking that though You're living on a hell planet and you're trapped by the Demi-Hurage in some dark infinitely absurd sure yeah life yeah, I was like deep in on the the earth is hell Demi-Hurage kind of stuff and

And I remember talking I said something about that online and my dad like follows me online, you know, and my dad called me like worried, you know, and, and, and my dad was like, you know, despite all the, all the things that happened on the earth that are like difficult and might resemble like a, like a picture of purgatory or hell or whatever, that we wouldn't be here like if there wasn't some value to it. And there are two things my dad said to me that like really resonated. One was like that was that we wouldn't be here if there wasn't some value or reason meaning to it.

And you have to like find what the value is. And then the other thing he said to me is back when I was like 13 years old and I was like just fucking going on a tear, like the fucking shit sucks or whatever. And I remember being in the truck with him, I was like pure 13A hate machine, you know? And my dad was like, it's not about what you hate, it's about what you like.

And yeah, yeah, that like, I was like, that like shocked me. I was like, ever since that, because I'm so like, I'm still to this day, the person that really focuses on stuff I don't like. And, and, or, or things that like taste and stuff like that, critical minded kind of like thought patterns. And every time I get too deep down the rabbit hole, I remember my dad being like, it's not about what you don't like, it's about what you like.

Or whatever. You know? Jesse, that is beautiful. We have to stop the podcast online. Okay, yeah, yeah. You did a mic drop. You did a mic drop. You did a mic drop. You gotta stop.

That's it. That's the, you just summarized all my rambling in a beautiful succinct, like sentence or two. I wanna say this, and I think this will make you uncomfortable. I don't think you get enough credit for all the hard work you did on the Midnight Gospel. I think that, you know, people

need to know that that show would not be what it is without your genius and your selflessness and that fucking hours and fucking hours and hours and hours and days and nights you sweated over that show. And I just want to thank you so much for working with me and for you know helping actualize that show which it seems like a lot of people really love. And so just thanks man. And thanks for saying that man. That's a really I going to be gracious and accept the compliment. Okay, wonderful. Yeah. Wonderful. And thanks for giving me the opportunity also.

It was an amazing opportunity to be able to express myself through that medium that way. So that was awesome. I don't think we could have done it without you, man. Yeah. Obviously, all the tons of people who helped. Obviously. Yes. And I'm not trying to like denigrate or diminish their thing.

I just like, man, wow, you are so fucking talented and we are so lucky you're making art for us. And um... Thanks man. Yeah. So Jesse, tell people where they can connect with you and find... Is forming still out of print? You know, I've got like...

Yeah. Forming is still out of print. I'm like 14 pages away from finishing the whole story. So I'll probably be done the whole. It's been like a whatever 15 year project or something like that. I got caught up in making, you know, animation salary work for years. So my productivity slowed down, but I'm still posting pages on Jesse Moynihan.com. I've got about 14 pages to go till the story is done. And then and then I got to talk to my publisher and be like, Hey, remember me? Yeah, let's

put the whole book out the whole thing out. Friends, if you like the Midnight Gospel, you've got to check out for me, because you're going to be like, Oh, if you like the Midnight Gospel, you've got to check out Forming because you're going to be like, oh, holy shit, holy shit. It's like, because a lot of people want another season, but it's, and obviously Forming is a completely different thing, but you're, you're, because you've, you're woven into the Midnight Gospel, that thread, man.

It's like, it's so cool. After like, you know, I. Every once in a while, I open up the copy I have and flip through it. I'm just blown away by how good it is. So I hope people will check out my website. Thanks, man. I think the third one is my, I really tried to keep improving as an artist, so I think the third book is going to be the best. To me, the best one. I don't know. You hope that every new thing you make is better than the last.

So hopefully that just keeps going in your life as a creative person. You're always improving. Maybe getting more esoteric as you go, that seems to happen to people as they get older, but I like that process, seeing people get older and get more like in their own head or whatever. Same. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and also,

check out my Jesus too stuff that's a cartoon I'm making. I've been working on an independent thing for a while. It's so, what I got to see was just mind blowing. Yeah. Yeah, and you do a little cameo in it. So, yes I do. I think that'll be done in like a month. So I'm gonna try to send it to festivals and stuff. We'll see what happens. Okay, Jesse, I love you man. Thank you so much for giving me almost two hours of your time. Thank you. Yeah, sorry, hopefully, yeah, I, yeah, that was okay. I don't know. Are you kidding? Yeah. Are you fucking kidding? I'm gonna be happy for a month after this, man. That's really good.

Thank you. Okay, yeah, thanks for... It was good catching up with you yesterday, man. It was good talking, so... Yeah, well, I hope we don't stop. We gotta keep talking, man. I miss you. Yeah, I miss you too, man.

I never make it down to Austin but maybe someday. Hey, if you want to be in a house with three children galloping about. Yeah, that sounds cool. I like kids. You're always welcome. Oh dude. Yeah, you will love it. You should come visit us. Yeah. Okay. Bye. Bye. We are actuaries.

In a world filled with unpredictability, we use our math skills to navigate uncertainty. Actuaries make a difference in people's lives across industries and the world. Actuaries have the freedom to work anywhere. And according to US News and World Report, we are the 25th top paying career. Make an impact as a fact seeker and a truth teller. Use your math skills for good as an actuary. The world needs you. That was Jesse Moynihan, everybody.

All the links you need to find his website will be at dunkartrussell.com. Thank you to our sponsors and you can find tickets to my shows at dunkitrustle.com and I've got something wonderful that soon you will be able to have. It's coming in a month. I'm not going to say anything else about it. It's going to be awesome though. Thank you so much for listening. I love you guys and I will see you soon. Goodbye.