Duncan Trussell Family Hour - FEARLESS with Daniele Bolelli
Episode Date: January 8, 2016Philosopher, author and podcaster, Daniele Bolelli, returns to the DTFH to talk about his new book "Not Afraid, on fear, heartbreak, raising a little girl, and cage fighting."  Also Duncan announ...ces his upcoming tour in a truly beautiful SONG.
Transcript
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Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now.
I'm dirty little angel.
You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music.
Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now.
New album and tour date coming this summer.
This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by casper.com.
Go to casper.com forward slash family hour
and use offer code family hour to get $50 off
a brand new mattress.
Hello, sweet friends.
It is I, Duncan Trussell.
And you are listening to the Duncan Trussell Family Hour
podcast.
And I have an announcement so incredibly important
that it can only be articulated in a song.
Hitter Gary.
Happy New Year to you, human.
You are still alive.
You were not shot by ISIS.
Ebola spared your life.
Cancer did not kill you while your family watched and cried.
Your heart did not stop working while you
shoveled off your drive.
In man's search for meaning, Victor Frankel
said we should live every moment as though on our deathbed
we'd been given the chance to live our lives again.
But this time, not fuck it up by acting like shit heads.
You got to live life with the passion of a mother dog
licking her puppies.
But that means picking advantage of all the wonderful
opportunities out there for you.
Which is why I'd like you to come to see one of my live shows
on my upcoming air.
No drugs on this.
Best store.
I will be in Asheville, Charleston, Durham, Richmond, Baltimore,
Washington, Philadelphia, and Hampton, Boston, New York,
and Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, too, Columbus, and Cleveland,
Frundale, and Toronto, Chicago, and Madison, Minneapolis,
and Kansas City, St. Louis, and Nashville, Vancouver,
and Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Go to my website, and you can buy tickets.
Squarespace sponsored this tour.
Squarespace sponsored this tour.
There are no drugs on this bus tour.
It's true, sweeties.
I'm going to be able to spend most of April
tooling around the country in a bus,
thanks to those darlings over at Squarespace.
You can find all the information about this tour
located at DuncanTrussell.com, and I
hope you'll grab some tickets.
Holy shit, man, it's 2016.
Can you believe it?
I can't.
You know what else I can't believe?
I can't believe how fat I got.
I went to the gym today.
I've resumed going to the gym, and I did body fat measurement.
And wow, did I plump up over the holidays.
Wow, I plumped up.
And I know how I plumped up.
I know why I plumped up.
I plumped up because I was eating entire pecan pies
and pouring booze down my throat, as though there
were some kind of fire burning in my stomach that
could only be extinguished by pecan pies and booze.
And I ballooned up like a bouncy house
inflated with an industrial pump.
You just watch your hands shoving pies into your face,
and you love it.
It feels good, by the way.
It does feel good to eat a whole pie.
I'm not going to lie about it, guys.
It feels good to eat an entire pie.
It feels good in a dark, awful way
to keep coming back to the pie and watch it get smaller
and smaller and feel your heart sink,
because you know the pie will be gone soon,
and even to contemplate getting another pie.
And it's a form of terrible nihilism, really.
I was reading in Be Here Now, which
is one of Ram Dass' most famous books,
this passage in there.
You know what?
I'll just read it, because I think it totally applies.
And if you've missed Be Here Now somehow,
or you haven't read it in a long time, pick it up again.
It's just as incredible as it's always been.
But if you haven't read it, you should definitely check it out.
It's amazing.
So here it is.
You and I can always starve together
if we're backstage in the here and now.
If we're not in the here and now,
no matter how much food we put in our bellies,
it's never gonna be enough.
And that's the feeling of Western man.
It's not enough.
He's got it all going in as fast as he can shovel it.
He's got every sensual gratification
he can possibly desire, and it's not enough,
because there's no here and now-ness about it.
Here and now is the doorway to all that energy,
because if you're truthfully here and now,
there's no more you.
There's actually a disorder called pica,
where if you've ever watched world's deadliest addictions,
which is a great show on lifetime, then you've seen pica.
My name's Adele.
I'm 30 years old.
I'm from Bradenton, Florida.
And my addiction is eating couch cushions.
Oh, I love couch cushion the way it sits my mouth.
It's soft and it's a good taste.
The darker cushion, the yellow cushion
that tastes better.
It just has a stronger flavor.
Well, at least couch cushions don't have any calories,
but this phenomena of eating when you're not hungry
or secretly knowing that whatever the thing you desire is,
isn't actually going to fulfill you,
is mentioned in tons of world religions.
And I've heard lots of different examples of it.
A few of my favorites are,
two of them come from the Hare Krishna's.
One of them is, imagine if you were addicted to heroin
and you got amnesia,
so that you didn't know that you were addicted to heroin.
You had no idea, but you had the exact same desire
for something, your body was physically addicted
to something, but you didn't know it was heroin.
So you would probably try to eat tons of stuff
or just do anything to make the withdrawals go away.
And so they would compare that to Krishna.
They would say that we're all born into this dimension
being fully and completely in love with Krishna.
But because of our karma, we've taken human birth
and we don't remember that we're in love with Krishna.
And so that love gets transferred
to the things of the world.
So whatever it is that you love,
game of thrones, eating couch cushions,
heroin is actually a kind of diffused love of God
being turned in the direction of the material universe.
And I think that's super cool
because it addresses something that I've always thought,
which is that addicts have a wholly mystical quality to them.
They remind me of saints in a certain way
because they have this complete devotion
to whatever the chemical or food or activity is
that they happen to be addicted to.
It's very similar.
It's just that the thing that they're addicted to
is killing them, whereas if you could transfer the addiction
to whatever you wanna call it,
God, Krishna, love, the present moment,
then instead of having shits that look like a couch
or track marks, you get that beautiful glow
that you see from time to time
in people who have a spiritual practice.
Then another example I've heard,
this too from the Hare Krishna's,
is imagine a dog with no teeth in some village far away
and the dog is starving and it finds a dry bone
and begins chewing on this dry bone
and it's cutting its gums
and so its gums start bleeding
and the dog is drinking its own blood,
thinking that there's meat on the bone.
That's a pretty intense example of this very same thing
which is that anything in the material universe
that you think is satisfying you is actually an illusion.
It's not really satisfying you.
It's not permanently satisfying you.
It's always a very fleeting form of satisfaction
that's usually followed by more pain.
One of the great examples of this is just smoking.
Like if you're addicted to smoking,
it's very similar to having poison ivy.
When you get poison ivy,
you get all these disgusting blisters
all over wherever you touch the poison ivy
and it feels so good to itch them.
It feels so good, but the more you itch,
the more it spreads, or at least it seems to spread,
and the more you prolong the suffering.
And then the final example that I know of
for this kind of stuff,
I'm sure there's many more, is in Tibetan Buddhism.
And in Tibetan Buddhism,
I'm just gonna read this from Wikipedia.
It's called, they're called Preitas,
or it's called The World of Hungry Ghost,
and it's one of the six domains
of the desire realm of Buddhism.
So when you die, this is a place that you can go to,
depending on your karma,
and it says, in Tibetan Buddhism,
hungry ghosts, Preitas,
have their own realm depicted on the Bhava Chakra.
This is this mandala that you could check out,
just Google search it,
and are represented as tear drop or paisley shaped
with bloated stomachs and necks too thin to pass food,
such that attempting to eat is also incredibly painful.
Some are described as having mouths
the size of a needle's eye,
and a stomach the size of a mountain.
This is a metaphor for people futilely attempting
to fulfill their illusory physical desires.
So that's another example of the identical phenomena,
which is that whatever you think
in the material universe is gonna take away
that aching, itching desire,
you secretly know it's not gonna do the trick.
It won't work.
It doesn't mean you shouldn't try.
I actually heard there's something that Ram Dass says,
and I don't know if this is,
I haven't read this quote anymore,
but I heard he said,
sometimes you gotta drive the red sports car,
which means sometimes you gotta give it a shot,
you gotta try it, whatever the thing is,
getting the big job, making a million dollars,
becoming the king of the world,
becoming the greatest emperor of the universe,
whatever it is,
but still ultimately you will be doomed to failure
in these pursuits and endeavors,
and the tragedy of it really in a certain way,
and they talk about a kind of mournfulness,
or a nostalgic feeling that can come over you
when you start meditating regularly,
and that feeling is you realize that all this time
that you were running around on the hamster wheel
of human life, trying to achieve so much
in such a short amount of time,
all the time that you thought getting to point,
from point A to point B,
was gonna take away that endless aching, secret sadness,
really all you had to do was sit somewhere, anywhere,
just find a place to sit down and follow your breath,
and for once look straight into the eyes
of the suffering that exists inside of you,
and somehow through that process,
you begin to experience all of the gratification
that you thought would come
from becoming some version of Donald Trump,
or the most famous, wealthiest,
beautiful, perfect person on earth.
And so for a little while, I get it sometimes
when I finally return to meditation,
after all the terrible, long, tumultuous, dramatic,
ridiculous periods in between
when I have a meditation practice,
there's always this sentimental feeling
of why did I ever stop doing this?
Because the truth of the matter is,
how can you really enjoy eating an entire pecan pie
if the whole time you're eating the pie,
all you're thinking about is that the pie is going away,
or you're thinking about how fat
the pie is gonna make you?
The cool thing about a meditation practice
is that you train to get into the present moment.
So if you decide to continue eating couch cushions
or pecan pie, or pie made of couch cushions,
then at least you're gonna be able to really enjoy it.
At least you're gonna be able to really taste it
and feel the way it goes into your mouth
and the sweetness of the thing.
That's the real tragedy here,
is that while you're running on that hamster wheel,
all you're thinking about is where you hope to go.
When you finally get the big prize,
when you finally get the great achievement,
the medal, the trophy, the accolades,
if you haven't taught yourself how to be in the moment,
then more than likely all you're thinking about
is either where you have to go after that
or how the thing that you have is gonna go away.
And so you never really get to enjoy it
because the swimming pool of your mind
is filled with all these turds
that are the thoughts of the past or the present,
or how nothing really lasts,
or how now that you're where you're at,
you're gonna get revenge on all the people
who thought you couldn't get there,
or some other madness that the mind has created
to keep you from experiencing the sweetness
of the present moment.
And the other amazing aspect of all these teachings
is that it points in the direction
of a very attainable place,
which isn't based on convincing a certain number
of monkey descendants that you are worthy
of some great thing or another.
All right, pals, that's it for me.
We got a great podcast for you today
with the intrepid Danielli Belelli.
We're gonna get right into it,
but first some quick business.
This episode of the DTFH is brought to you
by the Sleep Lords over at Casper.com.
Go to Casper.com, forward slash family hour,
and use offer code, family hour,
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Here's the main thing, man.
I sleep on a Casper mattress.
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And I make love on that Casper.
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If it doesn't fit in your pleasure room or king of sleep,
you can always return it, my liege.
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You know what I just bought from Amazon.com?
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I was laying in bed with that itch,
the hungry ghost itch, and I just felt like
I wanted to buy something from Amazon.
So I ended up going down this rabbit hole on the internet
and found these like, they were like,
I think they're called self-defense key chain knives.
And so I don't even, I don't need one of these.
And I mean, I live in Pasadena,
unless a coyote breaks through the window
and I happen to have my keys on me,
I think I'm gonna be all right.
But they're pretty cool, pretty sinister looking,
shankin' knives.
If you just want a cool knife on your key chain,
just to show your friends that you've truly jumped the shark
and are feeling supremely paranoid,
probably a good sign you're eatin' too much marijuana
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I'm lookin' at it right now.
Just go to the Amazon portal book market the next time
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All right, that's it.
Let's dive into this podcast.
Danielli Bilelli has a brand new book out
that you should immediately order.
It's called Not Afraid on Fear, Heartbreak,
Raising a Baby Girl, and Cage Fighting.
Go to daniellibilelli.com, that's D-A-N-I-E-L-E-B-O-L-E-L-L-I.com
to order.
He also has a fantastic podcast called The Drunken Taoist.
You can find everything out that you need to find out
about Sweet Danielli Bilelli, just by going to his website.
But before you do that, listen to this episode
so you can truly understand what an amazing human being he is.
Now everybody please, welcome to the Dunkin' Trussell
family hour podcast, my dear friend, Danielli Bilelli.
coffin.
It's me, Dunkin' Trussell.
Don't even go to teaspoon.
Don't go, don't go don't go!
It's me, Dunkin' Trussell.
Don't even go to.
Don't even go to.
Don't even go to.
It's me, Dunkin' Trussell, Deli Haola Nearly Done.
Don't even go to.
Don't even know if you can think that I'm the best.
You don't have?
How come Chun thank you so much
if you enjoy the Project Wee TV.
You won't be coming again?
Come on now.
That's 만 forgive me how it was com'on.
Look at that.
Sweet presence on this very rainy day in Los Angeles.
My only complaint is that I don't get to gaze
upon your beautiful face since we're on Skype.
I mean, that's where we're at now, right?
That's where we're at.
We've gotten to the point in the history of Los Angeles
where it's impossible to get from point A to point B,
especially when it's raining.
Like all the interstates.
Somebody tweeted a picture of what the interstates look like.
Everything is just red.
People can't drive in the rain here.
They don't know how they freak out.
Yeah, it's painful, man.
It's absolutely ridiculous.
We need to invent a tele-transport
where we can just press a button and I'm at your house
without any traveling between.
That would be the future of humanity.
I think that's what virtual reality is gonna do probably.
That's gonna be our version of teleportation
and the concept of getting together in person
with someone is gonna seem like this kind of retro,
quaint, super intimate thing.
Kind of like listening to records, right?
Where you put on a record and it's like, what's that thing?
Whoa, look at that.
Yeah, exactly.
Where you just sit and listen to music and read
and all that insane stuff that the elders used to do
prior to Instagram.
Yeah, so 20th century.
So you just finished your...
So how many books have you written so far?
Four.
So this is your fourth book that you finished?
Yep.
Congratulations, man.
What a huge accomplishment.
Thank you, my man.
And what's the title of this book?
Not Afraid.
And it's the subtitle is on...
Let me see if I remember it actually.
It's in Aldi Githard for you.
So I have all the good info up.
Of course, I Google Not Afraid
and I'm getting the Eminem song Needless to Say
because that seems slightly more popular
than my book, surprisingly enough.
I could not believe that.
But yeah, it's Not Afraid
and the subtitle is On Fear, Heartbreak,
Raising a Baby Girl and Cage Fighting.
Wow, so this is like an autobiography.
Yeah, I mean, it kind of makes me sick to think it that way
because, I mean, you're right, it is.
It's just that when people say,
I wrote a memoir, it sounds so pretentious
and assolish that it makes me throw up.
But at the same time, it is what it is, you know, it's...
And sometimes the one thing I notice
is that people tend to dig it a lot more
when you say something personal
that you have actually lived through
as opposed when you are just purely waxing philosophically.
So I felt like, okay, man, you know,
just get over your stupid,
ooh, it's a memoir, why this crap, you know,
and just do it if it seemed like something
people respond to better.
I don't...
It's so funny how the mind works
because that person that you just fabricated
probably doesn't exist.
Like, I've never heard anyone say,
ah, who does he think he is to write a memoir?
But, you know, it's so weird
because if you really consider it,
you're the person in the universe
looking at things like that.
It's probably nobody else's, isn't that wild?
I'm glad you wrote a memoir, it's cool.
I wanna hear, you have such a fascinating life.
You've had so many twists and turns that have happened to you.
I'm sure I don't know all of them,
but I don't think people are aware
of just how colorful your life has been up until this point.
I think what it is is the ego is always there
ready to jump on things.
So it's very easy to start looking at your own life
and thinking you're hot shit.
And so that's why, to me, the idea of a memoir was scary.
It's probably because I know my ego too well
and if I start paying over too much importance to it,
it can grow to proportions that are not desirable.
So that's what it was.
But I think you're right, ultimately.
You know, other people don't give a fuck.
They want, if it's good, it's good
and that's what they care about.
I think that was my own hang up.
But yeah, man.
And I think in all the kind of way
this book was born through your podcast
because it's some of our early discussions.
I noticed that whenever I brought up things
that were more personal,
when the discussion went in a more personal direction,
people respond at 10 times as much.
And when we're talking in more abstract philosophical terms,
people dig it, but it's not quite the same.
It's when you bring it to really just your heart and guts
that people really get something out of it
on a deeper level.
One of the opening quotes is this Friedrich Nietzsche quote
about, I only love what a man has written with his blood.
Which I love that quote.
It's brilliant because ultimately is,
I don't want to hear some useless chatter.
I want to hear something that comes straight from your guts.
That's who you are.
That's something you have lived on your skin,
in your muscle and in everything else.
And so that's in many, many ways.
I got convinced to do this by doing the podcast with you.
Man, that is so cool.
And you're right.
It's the stories.
It's like the conjecture and the hypotheticals
and the distant appraisal of the universe
through some kind of logical lens.
It can get so dry so quickly.
I'm actually reading, or actually I stopped reading it,
but I was checking out this book,
The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley.
And it's a, he's trying to assemble a version of religion,
like the homogenized religion,
or what do they all have in common?
And it's a very intellectual book.
And the thing that he's talking about is amazing.
This idea that all over the world,
various cultures have gathered together specific symbols
that point in the direction of a transcendent phenomena
that seems to be universally experienced
by the mystics of the world,
and then articulated and written down by their devotees.
And some of their devotees achieve this heightened state
of consciousness and others don't.
It's amazing to think that,
what the signposts are pointing to is mind-blowing,
but Huxley, because he takes a very academic,
safe approach to it,
and I understand why he did it that way,
he ends up unintentionally sucking out
all the juiciness of the subject matter,
and it just seems like a bag of dried leaves.
So I do know what you mean
about the necessity of personal stories,
and also the fear that goes along with it,
the kind of true sinking feeling in your stomach
as you reveal some moment in your life
that you've kept secret,
or that makes you seem like a human.
Which is what makes it exciting,
what makes it powerful, and makes it relatable.
I mean, I think about some of the episodes you have done
that people have gotten most inspired from,
they are all the ones where you just put yourself in the game,
where it's not just over pleasantly chatting about something,
but, and I think it makes sense.
We want, it's one thing to hear somebody talking,
it's one thing to hear somebody's
put in their experience under the microscope
with just pure radical honesty,
words and all, not trying to hide anything,
not trying to Disney fight,
and making it sound cooler than it was,
just being very, very real,
which ultimately is what we do with podcasting
to begin with, that's the strength of podcasting
compared to other mediums,
is the radical honesty that the medium requires.
There was, there's a kind of unintentional violence
that happens when a person portrays reality differently
in the way reality is, and do you know,
like so when a person has a public image as it's called,
and that public image is this buttoned up,
polished, kimped, sophisticated being,
yet underneath that mask is a person who's tortured,
maybe addicted to this thing or that thing,
maybe beating their husband or wife,
or maybe, you know, whatever, whatever it happens to be.
And the moment you step across that boundary,
and say, yeah, you know,
I think I got a mild drinking problem,
what ends up happening is all the people out there
who've been hiding from that fact out of shame
suddenly feel this sense of relief,
because a person just come out and said it.
So you do people such a great service by telling the truth,
and coversely, by disguising yourself,
I just think of like TV hosts or polished people
that we see in the media or the old version of movie stars,
and just think about how awful that being is
in the sense that it creates an illusionary version
of mental health.
It's the equivalent of photoshopping women's photos
and fashion magazines to give this unrealistic idea
of what women look like.
In the same way,
these people give this unrealistic idea of like here
is what a well put together adult looks like.
And when you see me on camera,
and when you see me in public,
you're seeing the same person who's offstage.
The classic example of this right now in the news,
Bill fucking Cosby.
Oh yeah, that's exactly the guy I was thinking of
when you started this, yep,
that's we're on the same wavelength.
I mean, think about that.
That guy was this put forth this image.
Of the most family friendly,
fatherly, conservative, grandfatherly patriarch
who served as a kind of moral compass
for all of the people lost
in the insane immorality of popular culture.
And all the time he was throwing that shit out there,
he was putting fucking sleeping powder,
theoretically putting sleeping powder
into the model's drinks
and fucking them while they slept.
Yep.
And I think there's something there about the people who,
I mean, it's the classic stereotype, right?
It's sort of the super hardcore Christian conservative
bashes gay who's then doing methamphetamine
with gay hookers kind of thing.
You know, it's like the more you repress it who you are,
the more you try to put up a front
that's different from what you feel inside,
the worse it gets.
You're not just gonna stray a little
from this ideal image of portrayed,
you're just gonna go batshit crazy 150% the other side.
And it's a dangerous game to play,
this game of not being honest with who you are,
not letting other people know who you are.
And there's something, when you do it, it's so freeing
because there's something when you are,
hey, this is me, you like it, you like it,
you don't like it, you don't like it,
but you're not trying to sell yourself constantly.
There's something really powerful about that
and that's exactly the, you know, the other route
is instead presenting an image
and putting the sleeping pills into ladies drinks.
That sort of the other is the most extreme example
of this mentality.
I'm sure most people who engage in these kinds of things
don't go that far, but ultimately, that's the logic
is I am something, but I'm gonna show something
completely different and by doing that,
well, I might as well go all out at that point.
I might as well, my Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde game
grows so wild that it's downright scary
when you actually get to see what it is.
This is really cool talking about this
because the retreat that I just went to,
this, the theme of the thing was love everyone
and tell the truth and which is the two,
I guess, I don't wanna call it commandments
because that sounds so Old Testament and austere,
but Neem Kohli Baba, he gave Ram Dass's guru
gave very little instruction about how to live
and intentionally was like that and didn't,
like people who wrote down what he was saying,
like there's a story of someone had been writing down
everything that he said and sort of creating
this kind of gospel of what he was like
and he had the person destroy it.
He didn't want that shit, he didn't want people
to be in the moment with him, not spending time with him,
archiving or being a scribe, he wanted people
to be there with him and so the instruction was,
it's something I love thinking about is love everyone
and tell the truth and it's the two together
that's really important because I think a lot of times
people will use telling the truth or this is who I am
as a form of aggression, you know,
you're not gonna fucking change me, this is who I am,
like it or not, this is what I'm like.
That is it, don't fucking, don't rock my boat bitch
because this is me and if you can't deal with it,
get the fuck out and that's a pretty rotten way to be
even though that may be the way that you are,
you're using it as a kind of aggression
but when you have the core of telling the truth,
the intention of love where you figure out a way
to lovingly tell the truth so that when you're telling
someone how you feel or what has happened
or where you've been or what you've done
or what you wanna do or whatever the confession
or non confession is, inside of it is this core of love
that you've cultivated through some kind of practice
and when you do that, then when the truth comes to people
it's not so radioactive, you know,
people say that truth hurts but usually it's not
that the truth hurts so much as the person telling
the truth wanted to hurt you which I've experienced
that before.
Hmm.
Yeah, I think it's, these are people who use the,
this is how I am as an excuse to, it's still a shield,
it's still, these are people who are not comfortable
with who they are and so use it in this aggressive fashion
as a weapon against somebody else,
like you can't handle the truth kind of thing.
Yes.
Because the reality to me is that when you actually
are comfortable with who you are,
when you do accept yourself, words and all,
then you don't have that edge,
you're not so pissed off or angry,
you're actually, if anything, a sweeter element comes up
because it's like, hey man, I really just wish
I could do it for you and if it's in within me,
I'm more than happy to and if it's not, it's not, you know,
but it's, let's not play a game with each other
or I'm trying to deceive you by showing you
what I know you like when the reality is something else.
You know, that's something very different right there
where there's a degree of honesty and that's beautiful.
That's sweet even.
How do you...
Whereas kind of in your face, fuck you honesty
is obviously aggressive and it comes from people
who ultimately don't accept themselves for real.
So, yeah, the in your face, fuck you kind of honesty
is often based on an emotional state
more than some truth inside that person.
But how do you differentiate?
Like think of times when the people
that you love the most in your life,
your daughter, your mom, whoever it may be,
you go through periods with them
where you don't feel particularly joyous around them.
You're gonna feel annoyed or irritated or tired
or whatever the thing is.
And in that moment that your truth might be,
I don't wanna be around you right now, you fucking asshole.
You know what I mean?
Right.
So, is what you're advocating here
or what you're talking about,
is it to always give a voice
to that kind of temporary state?
And I think-
No, I mean, one level is to oneself as well,
is it does not mean that every single thing
that goes through your mind,
you have to throw it out there with no discrimination.
Cause obviously, there is a place for aid,
there's always a place for softening the message.
You don't need to punch somebody in the face verbally
to get your point across.
You may say something about what your needs are
at the moment that don't come from just a place
of screw you, I want things my way.
You can be diplomatic about it.
You can still be true to what you're feeling,
but without being an asshole.
And I think that's important right there.
And also, take a look,
is it me saying exactly what I'm feeling right now?
What's possibly hurting these other person's feelings?
Or is it really that important to be 100%
completely honest every second of the day?
Well, many times, yes, many times, no.
There are moments where it's just a passing feeling
and it passes in like three minutes later,
you feel differently.
So, it does not mean that every single thing
that pops up, you have to voice it, you know?
If it's meaningful enough, if it stays there long enough,
if it seems like you weigh long enough
and you feel like, okay, this is real,
there's something solid here,
well, then we can talk about it.
Then we can figure out how to approach it.
But it does not mean just lack of,
complete lack of self-control where you just decide,
I'm just this human toilet where everything goes through
and everything comes out of my mouth
with no filter there, you know?
Right, yeah.
And it's an easy thing that when you start hearing
this sort of thing to get confused
and think that that's what this is about.
But aside from the difficulty of telling the truth
to other people, what about telling the truth to yourself?
What about that terrible moment when you have to look,
it's some way that you've been deluding yourself
about this thing or that thing
and cross over that chasm from the false to the real.
Well, that's a pretty intense and terrifying moment.
Yeah, that's one of the themes
that actually does pop up in the book.
Well, it actually shows up in many moments,
but there's the one that I care the most about
is where I've noticed with my daughter,
like when you can safely say that I've had,
because of everything that happened in my life,
I do have a couple of anger issues, you may say.
So there's always that,
doesn't take much to set me off.
I mean, I'm not gonna go crazy, I'm not gonna,
but I raise my voice, I show some anger.
And with a little kid,
you cannot do that shit around them all the time.
You can't be like, I would see like she's not as much now
because she's older, but when she was two or three
or she would throw a little tantrum
or she would cry for no reason
and suddenly I'm all pissed off and angry
and then I see just fear in these little kids' eyes
because she had just seen a monster and the monster is me.
And I'm like, what the fuck?
That's not who I wanna be.
That's, I mean, I understand that's what I'm feeling right now
because I'm frustrated, I haven't slept, I'm tired,
I'm whatever the hell, but that does not justify me
just unleashing all my frustration
and all my bullshit on some poor child that just racked up.
It doesn't mean if it's honest or not, it's still fucked up.
Like at this point is, yeah, this is where I'm at
and I should recognize it,
but I should also take some steps to change it
because that's just not a cool way to live.
I don't wanna live that way.
I don't wanna be that person, you know?
And that person, I've noticed that my,
when I get really fucking angry,
90% of the time, the anger is not justified anger,
but it's based on the idea that some state
that is happening temporarily will continue forever.
And so the anger comes because I think
if I don't do something about this now
for the rest of my life, I'll be experiencing this bullshit.
So I gotta fight.
But the truth of the matter is most of the time,
whatever the situation that you're in happens to be,
it's temporary, it's not gonna last.
You're not, generally, you're not in prison.
You're not stuck.
Generally, whoever you're around who's being an asshole,
they won't be an asshole in two days.
They'll be back to normal.
And when you start realizing that,
then it becomes a game of holding your tongue
and just waiting, and things do tend to get better.
I'm not talking about like ignoring or denial or,
but it is, when you really look at most anger issues,
at least for me, I don't know if it's the same for you.
Usually it's you think this situation is permanent,
and it's not, and that feeling of permanence
is what makes so much suffering happen.
Yeah, absolutely, because you think that,
and that's one of the weird ways in which our minds work.
Sometime we get stuck in this mindset
where we think the bad stuff has always been this way
and will last forever, and the good stuff,
when it's there, we just take it for granted,
say, oh, yeah, of course, it's great, but, you know,
and, but the next time the bad stuff comes up,
you feel like it's like all the time
in between the last bad moment you have,
and this one has just been erased, has disappeared,
and like you don't even feel that that's what,
like you don't even remember that there was
all this enormous stretch of good time.
You think like there was a continuous line
from the last bad moment when you were in this emotion
to this one with nothing in between, and it's bullshit.
It's an illusion.
That's fascinating.
Well, I mean, is it an illusion?
I mean, in some way, if you wanna get creepy about it,
if you look at this, just to bring Nietzsche back up,
his idea that everything in life repeats,
what is that called?
The eternal return.
Yes, eternal return.
So it's the idea that every single moment that happens
will eternally happen.
And deja vu's are actually a kind of mouth.
I don't think Nietzsche talked about deja vu's,
but you could apply it to this concept.
So whenever you have this feeling like,
shit, I've been here before,
it's because you have a billion trillions, quadzillion times,
because your life is one track on your iTunes,
and it just keeps repeating forever.
And so, from that POV,
or I guess you'd call it a thought experiment,
or maybe not.
I mean, if you think of time as a,
if you think that events happening in the universe,
kind of like tunnels running through the sands
of eternity, like an ant tunnel,
then that tunnel of phenomena and action and experience
really will stay there forever.
It's encoded into the matrix of time eternally.
And so, does it repeat?
Who the fuck knows?
But anyway, the idea that when you are in a shitty state,
and you get to another shitty state,
and all the places in between suddenly evaporate,
and there's just these shitty states,
you could say in those moments
you have entered into the hell realm.
You could say that in those moments
you have moved into the place that is talked about
by all the mystics and all the fundamentalists.
You're literally in hell, you know?
And it would make sense that that vibratory frequency
connects to all the other frequencies in time.
And so, I guess it would also make sense
that once you're in hell, Christ,
how do you keep your head when you're in hell?
How do you maintain logic?
How do you, when you are in those states,
Bolely, tell us the next time we find ourselves
gnashing our teeth and hissing at some temporary event
in our lives or clutching our fingernails
into our palms and rage,
what do you do to get back to the main line?
What do you do to escape from the hell of anger?
I love the way you frame it.
I think it's really important for anybody
to make friends with hell,
to figure out how to make yourself comfortable
in the most uncomfortable places in the world.
It's something that, you had Tate Fletcher on your show,
didn't you at some point?
Yeah, Tate is great, he talks about it a lot.
He's about this idea of just seeking discomfort,
seeking those experiences that are less than pleasant,
because ultimately those experiences,
at some point will happen, whether you like it or not,
and by instead going consciously into them,
seeking them, trying to learn from them,
you can figure out ways to, the next time they catch you,
not to be caught unprepared.
So for me, for example,
like one of the things that I chat about in the book is,
one of my yearly experiences of fear has been,
like I've always been terrified of fighting.
To me, I don't like conflict,
I don't like the idea of some dude taking me down,
sitting on my chest and just punching the hell out of me.
Weird, because everyone loves that, that's so odd.
It's physically uncomfortable, but also psychologically,
it's like, it's the ultimate ego nightmare, right?
It's the, you're back in fourth grade
with the bully in the play art kind of thing, you know?
And it's the most, nobody would like that, it sucks,
it's horrible, and in combat sports,
you're not just losing a ball game,
you are, you have somebody physically dominate you,
it's not a particularly pleasant experience.
So the normal reaction is, I wanna flee from here,
this sucks, get me home already,
I don't want to fight this opponent,
give me somebody easier, give me, that kind of thing.
And instead, because to me,
that's where martial arts really become important,
this become like almost a spiritual practice,
is not when everything is going well,
now when you learn the cool technique,
I mean, that's fun and all,
but when things are not going your way,
when you are getting your ass kicked,
when there's no way in hell that you're gonna beat this guy,
because it's stronger, better, faster, has better technique,
you know, they're just, you are in the middle of it,
and it's not over yet.
So when your mind is begging you,
let's get the hell out of here,
when you embrace your defeat, so to speak,
when you embrace where you're at,
when you find whatever the weird thing is in you
that makes you keep fighting in the face
of a completely hopeless situation,
where there's really no chance
you're gonna turn it around and win,
and yet you keep fighting,
something really weird happens,
because you become comfortable,
well, I don't know about comfortable,
you become okay, you feel at home
in the shittiest situation possible in a combat sport,
and I think that then transcend to daily life.
You know, the perfect arm bar
is not gonna help you much in daily life
unless you get into lots of fight.
The perfect left hook is not gonna help you.
This ability to stay with it
when all hell is breaking loose around you,
that is the most important thing
that you can take away from martial arts
in today's life, at least in my experience.
And it's interesting you use the term at home,
that, and I think that's a really great way to put it,
because it implies that home is not some geographic,
doesn't have a geographic identity,
but what you're talking about is what I've heard
a million times in a lot of different beautiful ways,
which is that home is a frequency that you can tune into,
and then this frequency, or this specific locale
does not exist in time and space.
It is unperturbed by anything that happens in the world.
It is completely unaffected,
it has, it doesn't degrade,
it doesn't rot, it's always there for you.
And martial arts being a spiritual practice
teaches you how to access that place through conflict,
because what better way to realize that,
you know, than through some massive,
I mean, what a paradoxical thing to feel
as though you're at home
while someone is beating the shit out of you, you know?
And not like home as though you have an abusive father,
but the home is like safety,
home of not safety like airport safety,
but home in the sense of being completely embraced
in a situation where exactly who you are is perfect.
I think that's exactly what my all-time idol,
Zen monk from the 1400s, E.Q. Sojun,
I believe that's what he meant when he said,
throw me into hell and I'll find a way to enjoy it.
I mean, it's obviously paradoxical
because yeah, good luck enjoying hell.
That's, you know, you're picturing the worst things
in the world, are you gonna enjoy it
unless you are a weird masochist?
But I think that's what he means.
Not literally like, yes, I'm really looking forward to hell.
This is gonna be so much fun,
but more as in, hey, throw me in the worst possible situation.
I'm not gonna be able to change the outcome,
but I'm gonna find some way to stay with it
and not being just, ah, I need to get out of here.
Oh, this is horrible.
Oh, this, no, this is a lot easier said than done,
which is why for me, martial arts
has been an interesting practice
because it's kind of like going back
to that same battle over and over again,
but it's also an extremely useful practice for me.
It has helped me tremendously.
And I think this is the, I saw, you know,
this sounds so cheesy,
but I was watching Oprah Winfrey interview,
Tick-Not Han, and she was in the very beginning
of the interview, she's sitting across from this guy.
Tick-Not Han is, you probably know what he is,
is a Zen Buddhist, I believe he's a Zen,
and written a lot of great books, pieces every step,
lots of great books.
I only remember the name of that one,
but I've read a few,
but people talk about Tick-Not Han when they describe him.
One of the descriptions they use is when he,
his presence is like being around a mountain
because he's so focused and grounded and at peace.
So Oprah's commenting on, you know,
just like the vibe he's putting out,
and she asked him,
do you, you must find yourself in situations
where you get perturbed and how do you deal with that?
Like what do you do?
Do you, or do you like this all the time?
I think it's something ridiculous like that.
And he said, in those moments I go to my breath,
you know, he goes, this is why I have a practice,
because in those moments I go into my breath
and try to become more fully into the present moment.
What's happening?
And that's why a practice is so important.
And I think that's why universally from every single camp,
whether it's martial arts or Buddhism or Judaism
or Christianity, you name it,
every single one of them advises some kind of daily discipline
so that you can learn how to access that place called home,
no matter what's happening.
Absolutely.
And that's where, you know, whatever exercise,
whatever practice, whatever,
whatever helps you to remember that state of being you,
being at home inside who you are,
even when outside nasty things are happening.
You know, whatever gets you there, use it.
You know, I have zero,
I don't care what method the people use,
as long as it works for you,
that's really the only thing that matters.
If it works, it's the right thing, you know?
And to me, the way I see it is a constant battle,
because in my mind and in my experience,
you never get to a place where you have it
and you never run the risk of losing it again.
It's just that you become good at riding in the bull,
so to speak, you know.
There was a martial artist by the name of Morihei Ueshiba
who people commented at,
oh man, you have this amazing balance.
It's like you never lose balance.
And he said, quite the opposite.
I'm actually, I'm losing balance all the time.
It's just that I regain it so quick
that you never see me having lost it in the first place.
But I constantly get in thrown off balance.
It's just that I roll with it and I regain it,
which is, to me, that's what living is in some ways.
You're never gonna come to a place
where things don't affect you anymore.
I mean, by that point, you're dead.
You know, we are affected by things around us.
The trick is how do we surf with it?
How do we regain that balance
as that giant push is sending us flying one way?
How do we manage to counterbalance it,
going a little the other way and being able to stay with it?
Well, this is, to me, one of the qualities
of people who have had a lifetime practice
is that they effortlessly convert
whatever the energy is coming into them
into something that not only helps them
be in the moment and expand,
but seems to help the people around them expand.
And I've done weird experiments with folks like Jack Hornfield
or people like Sharon Salzburg
or folks I've gotten to interview
where I'll try to pitch them some snowball
made of darkness, you know?
Just something coming from my own neurosis
or fear, anger, whatever.
And I'll toss it at them.
And every single time, effortlessly, no hesitation,
no gears turning, they just transform that
into something beautiful and sweet
and something that may not bullshit sweet either,
but something that makes you grow a little bit.
And that's the practice.
And that's the discipline, that's the,
I think that's one of the results of this
is that you're not just helping yourself through this,
but when all it takes is one calm person
to prevent a disaster from happening.
One person who isn't losing their shit
can keep an entire room of people calm.
And when you realize that,
there's more to this idea of a daily practice
than just you, but then from doing this kind of thing,
whatever it may be, you're really helping your community too.
You're helping your family, you're helping your life.
It's, and you're making things more fucking interesting too.
PS, I mean, what's more interesting
when then that moment emerges
that in the past you would have completely
blown a fucking fuse, lost your shit,
done something crazy, and you don't do anything.
And the moment goes away and there's no drama
where there used to be drama.
Jesus, that's one of my favorite things.
I agree completely.
There was, I don't know if you ever met him.
There's a guy who was a friend of Aubrey Marcos,
Poranghi, he's a Brazilian musician.
Yes.
Really talented musician and sweet human beings.
And that guy is such a good energy.
I think it's kind of like the same thing
that you're describing regarding Jack
and some of the people you had on the podcast
that Poranghi has this sweetness
that's not bullshit sweetness, it's not weakness,
it's real sweetness, but he's just,
and he was at my house for a few days
when he was visiting LA.
And so I got to be around him for maybe three,
four, five days in a row.
And by the time he left,
I remember when I would feel myself
getting all worked up and pissed off
and I would think of just this energy
of how he would handle things.
And he became inspiring for me.
I was like, hey, why don't I go,
if I admire that so much, why don't I just try
to use that approach a little bit more?
Why don't I, and it work.
Somebody's example can really help you
because it gives you a model for how to act in the world.
And if somebody has it, if somebody's doing it,
and as it is always a relative term,
because I'm sure that on the right situation,
they'll get pissed off and throw things at the wall,
but if they have a higher percentage than you do
of getting it the way you would like to,
then they can serve you as a good model
and they become kind of a mental teacher that way,
a mental image of somebody who behaves
the way you wish you could.
And then if you put your attention there,
it becomes easier to materialize it in reality.
And so in that sense, you're right,
every person who does that,
whether it's once in their life or on a daily basis,
can also serve as a teacher for somebody else.
That's right, yeah, that's right.
It's, and this is the, in Vaishnava Bhakti Yoga,
one of the concepts that is stressed
is one of the most important aspects
of spiritual practice is association.
Who are you hanging out with?
And if you're hanging, try to make it a point
to hang out with people who are attempting
some form of practice, whatever it may be.
The more you hang out with those people,
because I know just hanging out with comedians,
if I hang out with comedians enough, I'll get funnier.
Like just being around super funny people
will make me funny.
It just happens.
And I also know that being around negative,
depressed, cynical, skeptical, angry, unhappy,
miserable people, I will start becoming like that.
I mean, I know that just if you get around certain people,
you'll take on their, you can take on their vote,
their vocal patterns a little bit.
You can work everything's contagious.
So it's so important to have at least one person
in your life who has got a practice,
somebody you can talk to or hang out with
or just associate with just a little bit.
Cause that's all you really need is just one person.
You don't have to surround yourself with Benedictine monks
or monastic Zen Buddhists.
It doesn't mean you have to, you know,
abandon all of your friends just because they're caught up
in some temporary cycle of depression.
That would be awful.
But if you can add to your friends, just find some person.
And it doesn't have to be some, oh, this is my teacher.
It doesn't have to be like that.
It doesn't have to be some formalized relationship,
but just all you need is one.
And cause you tune into that person,
I do the same thing, man.
Like if I, if I start getting really fucking pissed lately,
I'll just think about like the satsang
that I hang out with on these retreats,
just this really sweet mishmash of people
from all these varying traditions.
And it calms me down instantly.
Instantly.
Now, big time.
And I think there's, there's something to repetition.
You know, if throughout the day you pick what it is
that the mental image or that person
or whatever that does it for you,
that helps you get in touch with that state of consciousness
that you cherish, that you want to be able to embody.
And you try to not just say, oh, yeah, yeah, sure.
I know that.
Yeah, it's important.
It's great.
No, no, it's not a thought.
It's a practice.
So you have to go back to it multiple times a day.
Doesn't have to be, again, as you say, a formal thing.
It doesn't mean you need to get cross-legged under.
It can just be take 10 seconds
to put the mental image back in there.
And it becomes so much easier if you do that regularly.
Like I noticed lately when I started every morning,
I'll chat with my daughter for like 30 seconds
about how I want to be that day with her
and how I would like her to be with.
And we kind of make a deal
because basically, you know, you don't want me to get mad.
I would like you to listen to me.
Let's figure out.
And we picture kind of the way all the good days we've had.
And now we want to manifest that again
on this particular day.
And so now we have a mental image to start the day
of how it can be.
And it sounds so childish and simple.
And yet it makes such a huge difference.
And it helps me so much to actually go that route.
It's unbelievable.
I mean, when I do it and I don't do it regularly,
God damn it.
But anytime I do do it, and it really is,
I think when people think about this shit,
they think, yeah, I just don't have time
to spend an hour, 30 minutes every day doing this bullshit.
Man, I'm trying to maximize my sleeping time
before I have to go to fucking work
or go to school or whatever.
And I'm not going to do this shit.
But it really is, it's a pause.
It can be just a fucking pause.
Even before you eat, just a little pause of like,
I got food, this is good.
You know, just something like that.
As simple as that, it can start a pattern
that grows inside of you, and it's real.
You know, I think another important thing to note
in discussions of this matter
are that results are not instantaneous.
That I've noticed that when I get sick
or I hurt myself physically,
I never get better as fast as I would like to get better.
Like when I get a cold, I want to get over that cold
way before the cold is done.
And then if the cold doesn't go away,
as quickly as I'd like, I start getting nervous.
Like shit, man, I hope I'm okay, I hope this isn't a flu,
or fuck, what could this be?
Then my mind starts going crazy,
but if you just let it go, it'll go away on its own.
I think the true progress is never as fast
as you'd like it to be.
So the kind of, the growth that happens
with these kinds of practices is at first
just as slow as getting in shape physically.
If not slower, but then over time,
even an intermittent practice,
even the intention of wanting to have a practice,
over time, you'll start noticing changes, right?
You start seeing these profoundly simple shifts
in your normal operating pattern.
And I think that's one of the greatest things
that can happen to a person.
Absolutely, and it's not only, I mean, as you say,
definitely it's a long road, actually it's a life long road.
It's a road that you never get fully through
or you master 100%.
But at the same time, just like working out,
when you start working out,
it doesn't need to be that six years later
when you have the body of a Greek god,
suddenly you feel good.
There are moments when in your first week of working out
after you get over the soreness, then it feels good.
And your body, you haven't changed dramatically who you are.
You haven't changed how you look,
or how strong or healthy your body is.
But you can get an instant benefit,
a taste of what it's like to live in a body
that's moving in the direction of health.
And so I think it's important to remember that
the reward is not just after, okay,
10 years down the road,
after lots and lots and lots of practice,
you'll see the results.
That's when it gets deeper and deeper and deeper,
but some superficial taste of it all.
You can get pretty much right away.
In this moving in the direction of health
that you're talking about,
whether it's spiritual health, physical health,
this, I like to oversimplify this and think
that at any given moment, all over the planet,
there are people who are moving in the direction of health,
moving in the direction of open-heartedness,
moving in the direction of being more compassionate,
moving in the direction of balance,
and then there's people who are actively moving
in the other direction.
There's people who are, and also,
attempting to disrupt other people's progression
in the direction of love and happiness.
Actively, it's true.
So when you look at it that way,
then just as a form of thought experiment,
you've created two sides in an eternal battle
that has been raging as long as there have been human beings,
which is the amount of people who at any given moment
are abusing themselves, abusing other people,
disrupting their families, disrupting their lives,
physically trying to kill themselves,
and all the people who are sitting down with their kids
and being like, all right, all right,
let's see if we can tune into this frequency of love today.
Let's see if we can do it.
Can we do it?
Let's try.
We'll just try.
We'll try.
And so this is where I think the term jihad
becomes incredibly useful.
Because when you consider the fact
that just that first step you take
in the direction of balance, love, health,
whatever you wanna call it,
God, if you wanna get spiritual or mystical or theistic,
the moment you take that step,
you have joined forces with an ocean of humans
who are all on your side,
who all want, who are all involved
in the same project in different ways.
And it's an invisible army, but they're out there.
And I think you could take some comfort in that.
Any given time that you're like, to fucking tomorrow, man,
I finally signed up with my goddamn trainer again.
I totally fell off the working out wagon.
I hurt myself, used that as an excuse to not exercise,
gained a bunch of goddamn weight,
and now I gotta go through the whole fucking thing again.
Right?
The whole fucking thing.
I gotta go meet with him.
He's gonna look at me like, what the fuck happened?
And I've gotta go through the whole goddamn thing again.
But I take comfort in knowing
that when I drive down there to do this shit,
and when I go and meet with him,
I am one of millions of other fatties
who are all making that decision that,
God damn it, today I'm gonna overcome
this fucking entropy.
And you know what I mean?
I think there's something that,
I take a lot of comfort in that,
knowing that I've become part of this invisible army
of people who, even though we may fail,
even though tomorrow night,
there's a high probability that I'm gonna have
a fucking thick crust of gluten laden cheese pizza
being shoved into my mouth by my traitorous hand.
At least I'm trying, man.
You know?
I think that's all that matters.
I love it.
I love it.
No, you're right.
You're absolutely right.
Cause that's all you can ask for yourself.
You know, you can't expect perfection.
You can't expect to be always delivering
the results you wish.
But the one thing you can is just try again.
Just get back on your feet and you got knocked down
and you get back down your feet.
I think sometimes, for me in martial arts,
I notice like whenever I obsess about outcome,
that's when fear and worries and bad feelings increase.
It's like, what if I don't deliver the way I was,
what did I don't perform the way I wanted to?
What if I don't win?
What if I don't, you know, that kind of thing?
Whenever instead I forget about outcome
and I focus on effort, on just going in
and you know, collapse before you give up.
Just give everything you got.
I don't give a fuck how it's gonna turn out.
That's out of your hands to some degree.
You know, there's no full way to ensure.
But what you can ensure is effort.
It's just put your heart and guts into it.
Then it becomes so much, it takes away a lot of stress.
It takes away a lot of that fear of not living up
to expectations of what you wish you were.
Because those expectations are based
on usually measurable results,
whereas effort is something else entirely.
And the more I do that,
then the easier it is to get the results I want.
And then when I don't, it's not as crushing
because my whole sense of self wasn't wrapped up
in the outcome.
Right, yeah.
And you know, results are fantastic.
Sure.
And a great reward.
But you know, this is one of my favorite Sharon Salzburg
quotes, the healing is in the return.
It's the practice is great.
The regular daily meditation practice.
My God, if the universe has graced you with this,
you're so lucky.
The Greek God five years into working out,
fuck, what a hero.
It's amazing you've done it.
But what's equally amazing is the moment
that you push yourself out of your entropy
and try one more time to pick up your bow
and dive back into this incredible jihad
that is at this very moment raging all over this planet.
And man, it's glorious.
It's glorious to do it.
Just that by itself is incredible.
And if you die on the field of battle,
if you fail in this endeavor,
you're still a million times better
than someone who never tried it at all.
It's cliche, but it's true.
Absolutely.
When I think about in the context of like
mixed martial arts, the hero moments,
the ones that truly inspire me,
they are rarely the guys who's winning
in dominating fashion.
They are usually somebody who's losing the fight.
Who's gonna lose the fight at the end.
It's not that he's losing the fight
and he comes back to rally up and win.
He's losing the fight and yet just show this
crazy insane bravery and keep going forward
in the face of defeat.
That to me is just, that's what a hero is.
Cause you know, everybody can go forward
if they think that they can win.
But what about the guy who keeps going forward
in the face of near certain defeat?
That to me is where it's some real magic
is taking place there.
I agree a hundred percent, man.
That's it.
That is where the rubber hits the road.
It's like fucking winning, okay, whatever.
It's garish.
I want you to win, great.
Like it's cool, but it's also a kind of embarrassing display.
Like when someone's on someone's shoulders,
their arms in the air, the metal or the belt
or whatever the fucking primitive symbol of victory
is draped upon their heroic arms
and the crowd is screaming
and it's a moment of true and pure absolute glory.
That is fantastic.
But what you'll never see is that first moment.
The 60 year old or the 70 year old lady
with osteoporosis puts on her running shoes
and her sweatpants and walks outside
for the first time in a week and walks around the block.
And what a victory that is.
What an incredible victory that is.
You'll never see that.
You'll never see and all those moments of victory
are happening at every second all around the planet.
At every second, just that moment.
Because man, what joy is that?
When you've pushed back the tentacles of laziness
and the tentacles of fogginess
and the tentacles of fear,
just push them down and you go back out there again.
Ugh, it's beautiful.
And it's a battle that every single one of us
is waging every day,
whether we're conscious of it or not,
whether we're entering it,
aware that that's what's going on or not.
It is what's happening every single day
to every single person who's alive.
Well, that being said,
I'm gonna go play Fallout 4 and drink champagne.
Damn.
It's happened awesome.
I wish I could join you right now.
Mr. Bilelli, this has been incredibly inspirational.
My heart is pounding.
I feel excited and terrified.
I can think of five things that I've been putting off
that I am now going to do.
I owe it to you, my friend.
You are a true teacher.
Thank you for being on the show.
Tell me how people can find your book,
how people can find you, et cetera.
If I, I'm gonna go into it right away,
but if I may, I was just thinking the same thing,
like halfway through this discussion,
I was like, man, I feel better than I did before.
Not that I was having a bad day.
I was having a good day,
but I'm like just chatting with you
and tossing these ideas and putting the focus on them
and really letting that stuff sink in
is making me feel better about life.
He's making me feel like, oh, shit,
I'm gonna have a good day today.
This is not gonna be just an okay day.
I'm gonna make it, so it's, I love it though.
It's a mutual thing.
I walk out of this conversation feeling
more empowered than I was an hour ago.
That's great, man.
That's cool.
Thank you, thank you, my man.
But yeah, about all the good stuff.
My name, DanielaBolelli.com.
That's the gateway to everything else,
to all the tweeters and the podcasts
and the history on fire podcast,
Drunk and Taoist, new books,
the not afraid book that came out,
all of the good stuff.
Not afraid, by the way.
Next time we see, I need to get you a copy.
It's sitting there waiting for you.
Great.
But yeah, that would be the easiest way
to then direct all the other stuff.
Beautiful, man.
Okay, cool, fantastic.
All the links will be at dunkintrustle.com
in the comments section of this podcast.
Dude, this has been awesome.
Thank you so much.
Hare Krishna.
Thank you.
Thanks for listening, everybody.
And thanks to Casper.com for sponsoring this episode.
You can go to casper.com,
forward slash family hour and use offer code
family hour to get $50 off your beautiful,
brand new, stain-free mattress.
Also, don't forget to use our Amazon portal.
But most importantly,
don't forget to find a few flickering moments
in your incredibly busy day to not do anything at all.
See what happens.
It's pretty cool.
No need to drink the blood from your gums
to be a hungry ghost to eat couch cushions
or shovel pecan pie in your mouth
when the present moment is the sweetest couch cushion pie
of all.
I'll see you guys next time.
Hare Krishna.
I got what?
The X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
X-Mux.
Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now.
I'm dirty little angel.
You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music.
Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now.
New album and tour date coming this summer.