Duncan Trussell Family Hour - Pendleton Ward
Episode Date: November 4, 2016The magical creator of Adventure Time joins the DTFH! Plus a big announcement about an upcoming move to a very special city...... ...
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Wendy's $3 breakfast deal is a bacon or sausage egg croissant plus small seasoned potatoes for three bucks
It's the breakfast that don't miss so if you did miss Wendy's breakfast
Don't imagine fresh cracked eggs sizzling sausage crispy bacon and block out those hot buttery flaky croissants
Croissants don't really make a sound but if they did for breakfast that don't miss Wendy's is that breakfast?
Choose wisely choose Wendy's $3 breakfast deal limited time only a participating US Wendy's
I'd like to request $3 breakfast deal to obtain discount not valid for all the card of combo orders
This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by the gentlemen over at Fulton and Rourke comm over the last few weeks
I have been perfuming myself and conditioning my skin with products that are so fine
They make me feel as though I were a character in Westworld
Preparing myself for some kind of robotic
Dual the stuff is amazing and you can get it for 15% off by going to Fulton and Rourke comm
That's Fulton and RO
ARK comm and using offer code family hour more about Fulton and Rourke after this
Hello pals boy
Do I have a gigantic announcement before we dive into this podcast with Pendleton Ward and I would just say it
But this is the kind of announcement that can only be spoken
in a song
It's a big deal friends
I've got my wandering shoes on and I feel that I'm getting called to a very special city
Start spreading the news
I'm leaving today
I
Want to be a part of it New York
New York
These vagabond shoes
They're longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it
New York
New York
To quote Albert Camus. What gives value to travel is fear
It's the fact that at a certain moment when we are so far from our own home
We're seized by vague fear and an instinctive desire to go back to the protection of old habits
This is why we should not say that we travel for pleasure
There is no pleasure in traveling
And I look upon it as more an occasion for spiritual testing
Or to quote
Seneca
Travel and change of place and fart new vigor to the mind
Or to quote Andre guide
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore
Or to quote
Ray Bradbury
Stuff your eyes with wonder
Liz is live as if you drop dead in 10 seconds. See the world
It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories
Or to quote out as Huxley to travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries
Or to quote John Steinbeck people don't take trips
Trips take people
Or to quote Helen Keller
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing
Or to quote bad Hoffman
Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and enjoy the journey or to quote
Irving Wallace every man can transform the world from one of monotony and drabness to one of excitement and adventure
Or to quote all of her window homes a mind that is stretched by a new experience
Can never go back to its old dimensions or to quote Henry Miller
One's destination is never a place but a new way of seeing things or to quote dr. Seuss
Oh the places you'll go or to quote
Adolf Hitler
It's beautiful in new york even in the winter
I
I'm moving to new york
You any kind of honest anybody know who you are maybe anybody else wants to enjoy the peace and quiet
This is one of the most important places in all of north america. Who are you? Who are you?
So there it is folks. That's the big announcement a great adventure has started beginning in january
I will venture into what is considered to be one of the most
Precarious and deadly endeavors far more dangerous than scaling mount everus far more dangerous than gazing into the necronomicon
I'm going to try to find an apartment in brooklyn in the dead of winter
And if anyone out there can help your help will be much appreciated
I'm very excited about this guys any new york tips that you have for me. Please send them my way
All right, that's it moving to new york. We're going to jump right into this podcast with pendleton ward
but first
Some very quick business
This episode of the dtfh is brought to you by the fine gentleman over at fulton and roark dot com
If you ever wondered what it might be like to be a moroccan prince or a high paid assassin
Going through your morning ritual. If you ever wondered what it might be like to be a member of royalty
Or maybe one of the guests at westworld getting ready for the day
Then fulton and roark has the grooming products just for you if you go to fulton and roark dot com. That's r
o a r k
Dot com and use offer code family hour. You will get 15 off your total purchase. I love this stuff
I don't advertise anything on this podcast that I don't actually use and ever since I got their box of
Fulton and roark products. I have been smearing them on me non-stop
My favorite thing is their solid cologne which comes in these bad ass silver cases the kind of cases that you would slide
Into your fatigues as you are going to battle a rampaging army of super intelligent robot warlords
Sure, you would probably get evaporated by their death beam
But in your ashes there would still remain one of these beautiful
Fulton and roark
Cases they not only have and by the way, this is good cologne
This isn't the kind of cologne where that you hate the kind of cologne where you get in an elevator
With someone who smells like they just enclosed themselves inside the scent gland of an elephant
This is nice cologne subtle beautiful cologne right now. I am wearing a
Wonderful cologne called shackleford
Uh from Fulton and roark. It smells great. It's subtle. It's nice. It really is but they don't just have colognes
They've got a lot of other cool stuff like some aftershave cloths
Whoo, do you really want to be fancy?
Do you really want to know what it might be like to be waking up in the morning during a safari in the 1800s?
This is the kind of aftershave cloth you might use. I'm gonna open one right now. They smell so good
That is good stuff. I don't know what it is
You know, I've never really been that into grooming to be quite honest with you uh an old
Translucent bar of dial soap and some mouthwash and toothpaste has pretty much been the extent of my adventures
In grooming mostly but now thanks to Fulton and roark after I shave using their
Amazing shaving cream. I like to dab
One of these sweet smelling cloths on my cracked skin
And imagine that i'm some genius portuguese artist about to paint a master work
These things would also make great gifts for your
Husband or boyfriend or dad if you want them to truly experience what it is
To pamper themselves as though they were inter dimensional gods living in a land of sweetness
Fulton and roark, they took the leap of supporting the dtfh
And I hope you'll take the leap of supporting them too. All you got to do is go to
Fulton and roark.com
That's r o a r k and use offer code family hour to get 15 off your entire order
Do it, won't you?
We have an amazon associates link located in the lower left hand corner
Of our website and if you want some distraction for thanksgiving
I have two things I could recommend that they sell on amazon if you're
Wanting to get paranoid weirded out freaked out or if you just want some inappropriate table
Conversation fodder then I would recommend the book the rise of the fourth rike which is a
Wonderful conspiracy that I just discovered thanks to some of my friends from the enchanted booty forest
The essence being that the nazis didn't go anywhere
They just went into hiding and they are the ones behind the terrible collusion that we see happening between massive corporations
And the government it's a beautifully spooky rabbit hole
And I'm really enjoying reading it if you want to go even deeper down a rabbit hole and you've got some extra dough
Why not buy an htc vibe from our amazon link?
This is a thing that you could bring home for the holidays and
Blow your parents and grandparents minds
Prove to them that we are actually being drawn into the singularity
Oh, if only I had a grandfather to show an htc vibe to I would love to see their reactions
And you can get one on amazon, but just go through our link, won't you?
We also have a shop with some t-shirts
pins posters and we're gonna have some
Really interesting stuff coming in soon. I can't talk about it right now because it's still in production
But it involves led lights and the powers of the occult
All right, that's it for me friends. We are going to jump right into this episode today's guest has been on the
podcast once before
You probably know him because he is the creator of the greatest cartoon of all time
Adventure time and here he is with us today
Everybody, please spread as much love energy as you can out into the aether sphere
Through the invisible hummingbirds of the astral plane and down into the sweet
glorious genius heart of today's guest
Pendleton ward
You
Pendleton hold on let me change headphones. He's
Suck man. They're so tight on my ears. Hold on a second
The buzz man, I like the buzz now. I'm sorry about the buzz. I but no the buzz is uh relevant
You know, how is it relevant? Uh, because we were talking about
um
Existence preceding essence right and the essence is the buzz
Okay, if we could just uh
If we could just get rid of the buzz
Right, we'd be in a bliss blissful state
is um
this buzz
in buddhism
The term I've heard for it is
fundamental
dissatisfaction that
at the base of
most human activity
You will find yourself
inevitably
thwarted with a kind of
Depending on what's going down
Uh a sense of dismay
That no matter how good the thing is this is when you're like your friends throw like the really nice party
And the great food is there
And the whatever the thing that it's supposed to be amazing is happening is happening or or maybe you go on the perfect vacation
The whatever it is whatever you are you're conditioned to think okay, this is it
we are in
Tahiti or wherever sitting on a
Beautiful beach the the water is the same temperature as a hot tub man
Fruity drinks coming in
Some beautiful
Romance happening maybe and yet if you do a scan of yourself
You will still find the buzz the buzz
No way to get rid of the buzz is there
Well, you tell me right? I mean I don't I'm so like I
I kind of look to you for answers like that
Like how do you how do you stop?
um
How do you stop you feeling your sense of self like you're
How do you how do you how do you become like nothingness? Is that is that even the
Is that even a goal to people have that goal?
Well to be nothing. Yeah
Well, you can't be nothing because you're something you're something. Yeah
So that's the problem like you're you're if we can be nothing
Or set I guess uh, yeah, I guess we're gonna I mean everyone's gonna be nothing. It's um, sorry everybody
Everyone's gonna be nothing sooner or later. That's the dream
That's the great dream being nothing is better than having everything in the world because you're you're
To become a nothing what you're completely freed
From all responsibility
All karmic debt all guilt all memory no matter what you've done if this is true
Then executing a mass murderer is actually the very worst thing you could do
Because you have redeemed them are the best thing you could do
Well, the problem is if you if the your the point of the execution is the ultimate punishment, right?
I mean in a nice way like there's a best thing. Well, it would be it would be an act of true love
Which would be like let me free you. Yeah from there from the awful
Prison of ego that you're in that's gotten you to the point where you have to kill people
Wow, can you imagine like if people said those kinds of words before executions?
They would be a lot different
And they'd be a lot they would probably be a little more sad
And the person being executed would probably feel a little more terrible
Because they're in such a compassionate universe that people are like look this burden that you've accrued
We can think of no other way to free you from it
Then then by stopping your biological processes
So it went that it went that wrong and we're freeing you but it's usually like kill that mother fucker
He shot my sister in the face. Yeah, you know, but I think that uh
one of the things the um
the Hare Krishna is the founder of the Hare Krishna's Prabhupāda said
Is that
Death
Is god for the atheist so
for an atheist
the annihilation of the self is your contact with the transcendent and
um
the illusion or the the dream of
The atheist or the I guess the the
Nihilist
Is that upon expiration?
There is a nothingness
Which in nothingness is a
Dream because we've only experienced something this
You can't measure nothingness
The measuring of nothingness turns it into a somethingness
So to fantasize about there being a nothingness after death
Is the is a very sophisticated version of heaven if you ask me
Hmm
um
You're talking about atheists
believing in
Or that was it's their first would uh, how'd you put it?
It was their first it's their first contact with the divine the divine. Um the transcendent made me think about
uh, Neil deGrasse Tyson
because on his
His showed on star talk the one where he filmed it live
Not the radio one. He talked to uh
Priest
And
Priest was a really cool guy. He was talking he you know at some point. He made a lot of sense because neil
um
Neil was kind of laughing a little bit and
skeptical of right
Rules like rules that's that keep people from
Because he keeps talking about how science is this thing that that's always expanding and rewriting itself
It's all theory
That hardens into fact, which is facts are these amorphous things right and that's and that's why he felt so confident about
science
Um as a philosophy. I don't those aren't his words. I don't think he would call it that but anyway, uh, so at some point
Neil deGrasse Tyson was talking about
his love of the cosmos
and
He talks about it with such passion and
It like fills fills him up and it like makes his heart swell
um
And he was describing that to the priest and the priest said that's that's just how I feel about
God and that in God is this thing that
we don't entirely understand and
uh
I don't know how to explain it. That's beautiful. That's it. I think it and I understood it in that moment like
It's something I hadn't understood. I don't think
Yeah, well, this is the uh, the the problem is you you end up with a one camp
Demanding the other camp
Use the same symbol system that is inducing awe in your life
To induce awe in their life. That's where the problems happen
A theist might say listen. Yeah, this mathematical
Equation that is producing this never-ending fountain of non-repeating numbers
is coming from the mind
of
the creative
Force in the universe the god at that is instantly
negating itself
annihilating itself and renewing itself
In nanoseconds again and again and again dying and being reborn as a completely new
And more incredible thing in every second just as a product of what it is
That's pi for the theist
But for the atheist pi is like this is an incredible thing
Do you not see this infinite string of non-repeating numbers?
How beautiful that is that we have that in this universe two different ways of talking about
Different ways may be talking about sorry to interrupt the finding solace in like
mystery or finding solace in like
The question of of purpose or something. That's that's how I usually chill out is when I think about how
I don't know we don't know
And that's as good as we know
And then I'm like, oh, I've reached the the pinnacle of what we know, which is that we don't know
And now I'm safe. I feel safe because I can live in this area where
I'm at the edge of
My I lost my train of thought
Well, you're you're I don't even know if edge is the right word
I mean it's the edge is great
But it's when you sort of go through the edge and end up in this completely other zone of
Of novelty that's where the magic happens, you know for whatever way you get there
It's all forgivable. I mean if you think that
Your way of science or your way of religion or there's some superior way
then I don't know that seems
That seems like you're missing the point which is when when we we gather together
In this very specific place
That is mysterious and most importantly new
Right. This is the quality
Like, you know
The morning
Depending on where you live smells a certain way when you go outside and you breathe in morning air
It's somehow to me. It's different than the nighttime air somehow. It's a it's a different thing
A baby when you're checking out a baby
It's glowing in a way that things that aren't a baby don't necessarily glow
And uh, that's novelty brand new newness newness new. This is a new thing that moment
You meet somebody
And you realize oh shit. We're gonna be more than friends
Uh that first moment that the moment it kind of comes into your mind. You're like, whoa, wait, wait
You're the next
Lover I'm gonna have in my life
Maybe the last
It's matt. It's the most incredible moment. That's that is the fragrance of god
I think that's what I uh
That's what I I feel like i'm living for right now is whenever I make a connection with someone
Whenever I can like look into someone's eyes. I kind of I understand them and they understand me and there's a connection that's made
um, feel it fills me up makes me feel like
um
Uh
This just sounds cheesy, but life is worth living. I feel like that connection is what hope
Hope is hope the right word. Maybe not. I don't know if that's hope. That's what I get. I get hope when I
well coming from the perspective of
if
You have been away from that experience
Looking in another person's eyes
making the connection
Okay, like china have you seen that new
amazing radio satellite that they have not
Radio telescope that they've built it's the most it's the largest
uh
God, you know, I should read deeper into these web articles so I could explain them without sounding like a total dumb ass
But it's the biggest scanning mechanism to look for extraterrestrial life on the planet right now. Wow and um
um
You know for for a planet
That's tender. I guess right like that's us swiping
Through a never in an unintelligible
That's you're talking about a like a fireplace. I'm so out of the loop. I guess
We're swiping we're swiping through
unintelligible blasts of uh of radio frequencies that
Don't seem to come from any intelligent life
because on a planetary level
if we can contact anything that is
Equally more or even less intelligent than us
Then it transforms history forever on the geologic scale on the
Special scale everything changes the moment we get a hey, what's up wait fuck wait what?
You do we did it too wait what what that changes everything
Everything so on an interpersonal level
We end up around a bunch of people
But we when you're scanning them sometimes you're like, I don't know if you're the
We're not this thing that you're doing is way different than the thing i'm doing
So when you do make contact like what you're saying
It's one of the most glorious sacred holy moments that can happen in a person's life
Right because where I mean this is something I think about and maybe I tried to express it the last time
I was I was talking on your podcast, but and I still don't really know how to say it, but the
We're in I keep thinking that we're insular
beings by nature like we don't know
We only know as far as I said these exact same words last time when I stumbled
Yeah
Really know as far as the boundaries of our mind and body like we're
We're not the Borg we don't have this like well, maybe some people it's like a connection, but I don't and so I feel like I'm
I can only
Perceive what other people are thinking based on what I've thought in my life like I've stacked up
my identity
From my experiences in life and I can only relate to people through those experiences
Um, and that's like the root of like why no one can uh why people don't
Understand each other or agree with each other because we're all
Stuck in our own bodies. I can't remember why I brought this up. You said talking something about oh the connection
Which is this beautiful thing that happens when you look in someone else's eyes and you know
That they're listening to you and you're listening to them and you and uh, I mean some of my favorite talks are with people
Who and you can relate to this lack that don't have judgment?
Like they're listening to you and they're speaking with you and they're not
Judging you which is totally bizarre. Yeah, you know, it's not normal. What what?
So it's not normal. So what would you compare it to?
Uh, I can't I don't know. What do you uh, um
I don't know. I don't know what you mean. I don't know how to compare it to anything because there's nothing to compare it to
It's incomparable
This trick trick question
It's like a
one of the coolest things
That ragu marcus who runs the rom dasis foundation told me is
He was in india and he met I can't remember her name the saint
and uh
he said like
they were walking across a courtyard or something and
she uh
walked up to him
and looked at him
and smiled
And then walked away and he said it's not like a human
Came up to me. It's more like you're in the forest and a deer
Comes up to you. Yeah, like this isn't a person
It's in a person's body
But it's not a person anymore. Whatever it is
is just loving
everything it's seeing and I think what you're
talking about
Is uh to me if a person is looking upon me
And not judging me
Usually what they're doing is loving me
Is it loving or like is it when a deer's looking at you?
Is it just sort of accepting that you're there?
It's just sort of like knowing that you are in front of it and that's and that's maybe less
Judgment even than loving you. Is that crazy to say? I think it's deer plus. Okay
It's like
So it's like I mean, we know
From the materialistic standpoint that what when we look at a human being
You're looking at just a swirl of matter like this matter is very temporarily
Coalescing in this very complex
harmonized thing called a human being
We know that how can that be wrong like when I look at a
And maybe we've talked about it in the podcast before but like when a tornado hits
and kills
A lot of people you never hear on the news evil tornado
That tornado was a real bad thing. It should be ashamed of itself that it would destroy a community
It's just a tornado heads
It's just a a a natural phenomena yet a human
A human is a thing that feels shame
even though
It's mostly
Just a swirl of phenomena that's come together and that has an identity. So maybe the deer part
Is a surrender or recognition of the fact that well, I'm surrounded by these little meat cyclones
That are temporarily calling themselves a name and seem to be
intent on some
Goal that there is their life dream or whatever. It's okay. That's the sort of nullification of
Any real importance to whatever that may be in other words, it's no more important than watching the way of fire flickers
And on top of that
You're like and I'm going to love it. Yeah
I'm going to fall in love with every single flicker of fire
Every sunset sunrise
every moon
Full moon half moon
Every gust of wind that blows
I'm going to love it
Like it's my child
I don't know theory. That's theory. Um, deer plus and that's a choice. I think um, well, I don't what do you think about this like
the the the love
part of that equation is is a choice that we make to
To love something because we are capable of that
potent level of loving
Everything, I don't know. Um, um, I think about that a lot like I can choose who I want to be
And I've chosen who I've wanted to be my entire life. Like I've stacked up my identity
To become the me that I am right now
and
It was I feel like it was more conscious than I know or more conscious than most people know about
Um people, uh, I'm losing my train of thought again. Um, does that make any sense? Yeah, well, I mean, I think that like you're sort of
uh
Maybe what you're saying is like you're kind of like the the the aware part of yourself is maybe the tip of an iceberg on a more
Maybe there's some other like right right now
I'm choosing to sort of speak quietly
And maybe it's because there's a microphone right in front of my lips
But it's also because it's how I want to present myself right and that's something that I've
Come to understand about myself over time
Um, they're you know, uh, I've I've spoken loudly before
And I didn't like that me when I was speaking really loudly and I like
And that's because I I equate that with being obnoxious
And I don't want to be obnoxious
So I've made some sort of conscious choice to turn the new to turn me into this person that's going to
Speak at this like volume level
And that's just one part of who I've chosen to be and your your physical body
Is speaking at a low volume level
and yet
and yet
The impact that you've had
On a great many lives
Exceeds
The loudest of people
So the maybe your physical self is like quiet yet you you
Pendleton have produced a thing
That is called adventure time right that for a lot of kids and adults
is
Going to be one of the one one one of the defining
Elements of their life like it like for me, you know what it was?
Peanuts George Schultz
You know what I mean? Like we we've we've Schultz not the not the legume when I was a kid
We'd gather around a bowl of peanuts
I was waiting for that that was god
For me it was peanuts
I was like awesome. Tell me tell me more
It's just the way they look the shell
Dimpled yeah, you break it open. You know, man. It's like yeah, yeah, Charles Schultz
You can't
I mean you I think of anyone. Maybe you do understand, but like I can remember
You know how I figured out what year my parents got divorced
I thought about the movies that we watched during that year
And how much those movies meant to me in the midst of this terrible turbulent time
How it was Annie
And poltergeist those came out and man that was like to have that
Port
and a storm of
insanity
to connect to
Was so important
So this thing that you brought into the world
Inadvertently or intentionally or whatever
Regardless how quiet your physical form is
It's for so many it was yeah, it was loud
It's loud. Yeah, I was I was trying to be loud. I wanted to pitch a tv show. I wanted to
broadcast my ideas to
A nation of people I wanted an audience
I don't think I knew exactly why
I don't think most people know why they want they like
Crave more twitter followers. So they crave more
Facebook friends, right people like those those tweets that are just like follow me
They're just like yeah tacking on to other people and saying like follow me. Yeah on vine and everything. Yeah
Yeah, what uh, you think that's what it was you really think it was
The the the the the the the
Butterfly, you know, they say a hurricane starts with a butterfly wing
A butterfly flaps in some place it off the hurricane. So the thing behind adventure time was a kind of
Un ego something. Yeah, right my cat. How could it be anything else?
Well, this is one of my favorite verses in the Bhagavad Gita is when Krishna is talking about the
People who come to him
It isn't very romantic. It's not like those who come to me
are the wise the loving the open it's uh
One of them is like people seeking fame
people seeking glory people seeking this or that but the
movement in the direction
of
Krishna, which is a word that represents the
ultimate of ultimates the
the
the
The thing that sophistication
originates from
Or that when they say high tech
The thing that high tech
Is birthed from that that place the movement in the direction of that thing
Causes a disintegration of the initial motivation to get to that thing
So as you get closer to the thing itself, whatever reason you had for
Venturing towards it begins to be
eroded or melted away because you realize that whatever you thought you wanted
Pails in comparison to this beautiful thing that you're in the direct that you're
Getting close to yeah, reaching is the wrong approach that's uh
Yeah, yeah, there's no the destination itself begins to transform the pilgrim
So as the pilgrim moves towards the thing
Whatever the pilgrims every think of a pilgrim
You know the i'm going to go to the stones of zafgar to free myself of the guilt of what i did to my mother
Well, if the stones of zafgar are truly powerful and have some
Magnificent force around them zafgar. Yeah, you know those stones. Yeah as you get closer to them
then
Your original reason for wanting to get there will begin to transform
Maybe not even by the power of the stones themselves
But by the company of the pilgrims that you begin to meet as you get closer and closer to the thing
So then the initial greedy motivation becomes transformed in the process
You know and wouldn't you say that like
In the process of creating adventure time you you must have experienced some form of transformation
Sure. Well, I mean it's been a long time. It's been uh
like seven years or longer eight years or something so
Yeah, um
Oh shoot. I lost my train of thought. Well the question is
The i'm saying regardless of your intention for creating this epic thing
Yeah, wouldn't you say that once you began to create the thing itself you must have
I'm guessing there must have been a lot of like
Life changes that
uh
Yeah
um
Now i'm like
Think over thinking like what i'm trying to say. Um
Shoot uh
I'm like self editing like while i'm thinking what two years three years in
You look at the thing that you're making
Even with this this podcast
And i'm not in any way trying to compare it to this thing that you create which is insanely beautiful
But even with this thing I think
What the fuck is this? What am I doing? What am I saying? Why what's it coming from and what is my motivation behind it?
Yeah, I can speak to that because I mean
so, yeah
television at least right now we have about a week to come up with a story and
Really, it's more like maybe three days on top of all the other things that we're doing at the same time
so
Yeah, you really
It's pretty tricky to like mine
your soul and you know, I've I've borrowed those words from jesse moinehan who talks about and and
Mining his soul to
Find something worth saying
Right, you know once a week right which is you know, that's you can't do it every week. That's huge
especially
Not stopping for
Eight years seven years however long we've been doing this
It's hard. That's uh, it's hard to do it. And I think we fail sometimes of course you have to
But sometimes we don't and that stuff gets on tv, which is really cool. And that's the
That's that's what makes me excited about adventure time as a project that we get to
Find something really personal and put it
on television, which is a place that's like full of
trash
like television is is a
Uh
It sounds snobby to call it a wasteland like television. You know, I mean who I think most people agree
That's uh, there's a bunch of garbage on tv
Man when I that's one of my favorite things about going to hotels because I don't have cable
So when I go to hotels, that's usually like at least a month between hotel visits and every time I turn on the tv
and every time I'm
astounded by how wretched
It is I not not, you know, not the great shows. There are some great shows, but the stuff in between
it's it's
Appalling but not not a not even appalling at the level that it would make an appalling thing good
It's like this. It's like someone if you could push a stethoscope
Into some hell realm
And convert like the random fluttering
Of the wings of some lower demon
Into a visual field
That's what tv is like the rustling of demon wings turned into some kind of like
Thing it's that bad or the the sting of a hornet turned into like something that's supposed to be entertaining
So yes, I think called tv a wasteland and that's not even a stretch like I've went home for thanksgiving and watched tv and it was like
These dudes like shooting pigs with automatic machine guns from a helicopter and just being like fuck. Yeah
And then the pigs would like die and fall on their face and then like flop forward and do a bunch of flips and they be like
Oh, yeah
Yeah
Yeah, man. This is the I I've got a bow right back there. You can look at it right there hoit. Yep, and uh hoit
Uh, I used to like them. I followed them on twitter. I like to shoot a bow. I like my bow. It's a hoit bow
But they've got the most
noxious
Fucking youtube channel you've ever seen
Which is like this is what we call a slip and get where like they
Shoot something
with a
With an arrow
The arrow hits it causing it to slide in the mud as it dies
And then some red net gallops up and like picks it up by the neck. We got a slip and get or like look at it
Here comes a double tumble blood tumble
You know where it's like they're reducing the murder of these creatures to a kind of like uh like comedic
Uh
A comedic like what was the name of that terrible show not it wasn't always bad
But the one where they people would send in videos of like
Dads getting kicked in the nuts by goats America's funniest home videos. It's like that but with death. Yeah
Yeah, so yes, I think it's safe to call
TV a wasteland
I feel I feel uh, it's such a dumb
Thing that I feel bad about expressing uh opinions like that like even a broad opinion like calling tv a wasteland
I'm like, oh, some people like tv and they're not gonna like they're gonna be mad mad at me
No, it's gonna get mad. I think anyone will hear them. Like yeah, mostly it's a wasteland outside of like a few shows
That transcend the medium just like any other great art form where suddenly it's like, oh, yeah tv isn't a wasteland like when I watch
Look, I love game of thrones when I watch game of thrones. It's a great show
I look forward to it gives me something to be excited about on sundays
Also, the night of was a really good show. I don't know if you saw that
It's really good, but there are some good great shows that emerge
That transcend the medium. So yeah, it's a wasteland. You don't have to feel snobby or weird about that at all. That's an
accurate if well, I want to stop being
I want to stop feeling bad about saying
like opinions especially
brought up like vague opinions like that that aren't even that offensive like
I wish I could sort of say them
openly like and that's I mean, I told you earlier. That's one reason why I wanted to come but like podcast again and like as a
as a
exercise of
Like saying things to an audience and not feeling crummy about it the next day
Right. Well, I think it's it can be cathartic
I think to realize that
I on one of these podcasts
I admitted
to getting a hand job
from a masseuse
and uh
I felt really like gross about it guilty
and uh
And like worried about talking about it because it really is like uh and now I I know even more about like
How fucked up the sex
Businesses and how like shit man like people get sucked into that business that
Don't want to be there at all. So so I do feel like even more
Weirded out by the fact that I did it, but I did do it like I paid a masseuse
to jerk me off
in a room
With a with a
Like I'll never I actually took a picture with my phone, but I don't have that phone anymore
But there's a picture of a dog. Yeah, kind of watching you judgmentally
As this is happening like it's it's it's a we it's like really dark, but uh
I remember like being very nervous about talking about it on the podcast because it's so depraved
And then saying it and then getting all these tweets from people saying you really feel
Yeah
Guilty
I love it. It's one of the great things about america right you could did with it
Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, please. Well, and you know, I listen to that and whenever I'm listening to you admit something
Like I feel great inside like I feel sort of the same probably relief that maybe your experience. I feel like
Um, I don't know I empathize with it and it just feels awesome
When I'm listening to you talk and especially when you're like getting something off your chest
Like I just feel great inside and then also it must feel
wonderful to hear people
Just like be like that's what whatever, you know, whatever you feel bad about that's bullshit bullshit. Don't even
Like like you were just saying like
This is this is
This is why
We need a community. Yeah, and this is why
We're as a planet. We're building these massive pie dishes in the middle of mountains to try to find aliens
So maybe we can say to them or you guys this fucked up
And if you're not can you help us be less fucked up? But in the same way, it's I think I think there is a
A a really if you want to talk about true blasphemy, it's giving the impression that a human life is not
Something that is constantly riddled with failure and embarrassment
secrets
False starts and mostly confusion
It's giving the impression that a human being is this kind of
Laser focused animal
Filled with some singular intention
completely
moving in the direction of some
Invented goal that is an imaginary but makes sense and will have some impact
On the world to put forth that concept of a human life is to torment
All of us who are mostly
hobbling through the world
going through varying states of confusion
And uh disequilibrium with maybe a few spectacular moments of clarity
That can be measured in milliseconds
You know a couple of moments are like, oh wait
Yeah, those moments are just
This is so proud. I recognize them when they happen those moments of clarity
And I'd revel in them like I'm like I'm happy. Yeah, I'm happy right now. I'm just like
Oh, it's like when you're flying in a dream. You're like, I'm flying a dream. Oh
And uh, I'll just revel in it for as long as it as it lasts as like this really pure
feeling of
Just
Uh, I don't know. Maybe happy is the right word. That's the best word. Happy is the right word
I mean, that's the word we have for it right now
And it's you know, it's an adequate word though
I don't think it like
Encaps like there's certain words that like really encapsulate what they're pointing in the direction of like take the word noxious
this word
It sounds noxious like the word itself. It's got an x in it
When I talk about a noxious fume
I'm talking about a fume that like
It's not just a stink
You know what I mean? It's like when there's a fart
There's like a yeah, that stinks. It goes away. You're fine noxious
This will make you keel over like this is like you open up a dumpster filled with like
Rotting chicken or something and the word itself
Noxious
It sounds like the thing it's pointing to happy
No way man
In no way does that word encapsulate the experience
Of that of what it points in the direction of yeah, it should be like a musical note or like a song or something like
Right that should be the word for uh that great little that great little time
That is it
That really is it like that note
That is it because what what's inside that note is not just relief
But satisfaction like when you hit that level of happiness, there's like this sense of like I did it
There's a feeling of satisfaction behind it
um music can really
I look uh just thinking about music. I love how it can really take you out of
Wherever your mind's that I've been around people when they're really troubled and one time it occurred to me to like sing
Sing a song, you know, it just breaks everything breaks it down and then you're just wrapped up in
This rhythm that we're like innately drawn to
You cannot underestimate the power if you're in a this is actually something I learned from Terrence McKenna
He was he says when you're having a really bad mushroom trip
Sing just start singing and
From that I'm like wait if that works for a mushroom trip
Can it just work for a bad day right? Yeah, and it does yeah
If you're having a shitty day and you just start singing to yourself. Yeah
Oh, sorry, I'm gonna take I was I was gonna take it to like a sadder idea
Uh because lately I've been just smiling um
In an effort to like
Cheer cheer my day up if I'm feeling real low
I'll just like smile and I've because I feel like I heard that somewhere where you just smile and then you'll feel
And it works sometimes, but I've also noticed that smiling going straight from frown to smiling is something that
Uh trump does all the time. Oh no
Have you seen him because when he's talking he'll go
I just like lift his lift his lips up, you know
Um, so that's also something I think about well, I mean we're gonna like, you know
I think that the the sun shines on the good and the bad alike and the good and the bad alike and smile
Uh and and try to like cause the dopamine uh the rush of serotonin or dopamine or whatever it may be
And there have been times when I do that smile
In the midst of like an absolute like I'll be really fucking pissed and like I'll try to do a fake smile
It just doesn't work like it's like a the intention behind it is really important
It's like when trump is smiling it appears it it's like
Not all the time I've seen him smile
I feel like in a genuine way sometimes I'm I always catch it. I'm like, oh that looks like a genuine one
But a lot of the time it's this like thing that goes from zero to a hundred and this weird this weird way
Or he's like just like rips it up
Yeah, you the difference between a real smile and a fake smile is the difference between
Someone picking up a feather and someone picking up a
Barbell that weighs 80 pounds
It's like one of them just is a natural sort of like oh look it's simple
The other one like when trump is shit smiling
It looks like somebody like binge pressing 300 pounds like his cheeks are attached to a barbell and each cheek weighs
Thousands of pounds and he's exerting all of his soul's energy to push those things up from the
Frigid dark stasis of whatever
Greedy hell is swirling and it's fucking
maniacal skull
So it's a different thing
But sometimes when I'm like lifting those weights it does feel really heavy, which is why I think
Singing's more effective. Yeah, singing
Just making up a song about your day
And even if the song itself
Is a song of sadness
About your day it can still turn it into an ecstatic sadness, which is something I learned from
Terrence McKenna as well, which is he says the
Ecstasy is not limited to joy
They're ecstatic states of sadness ecstatic states of guilt ecstatic states of horror ecstatic states of fear
It it it runs the gamut of all potential
Cognitive experiences
But the difference between an ecstatic state of joy or horror
An ecstatic state of bliss or disequilibrium is that it's so incredible
That the thing is pointing you in the direction of the transcendent whereas
rudimentary day-to-day depressive
boredom or sadness or hopelessness
despair or even fake happiness
biting into some kind of like
I don't know thing that's supposed to taste good. Yeah
These things are pointing in the direction of
matter
Oh matter will make you happy or wool is making you sad, you know two very very different states. I think yeah, yeah
Penn, but here's the um
Here we bet we haven't even gotten into what we were going to talk about right which is uh speaking of ecstatic states
Um, and it's something actually
I know you're working on this
Yeah, but I never know what you're what the specifics are that you're working on
Can you talk about what you're working on in the world of virtual reality right now? Yeah, I can try um, I keep well
I keep I mean, I don't I don't even know what I'm working on a lot of time too because I'm I'm constantly changing my mind because it's such a
Uh
Fertile like medium it's so it's so new
And there's so much potential
That it's hard to land on an idea to execute this
Like when you start thinking about it your mind goes a mile a minute because I know you want to do
um
Vr christ a vr christ
Simulation which I you know, I keep thinking like I could put that together for you on an afternoon
Which I I'd like to do that
So that you could just even something like really basic that you could it mean a lot put up
Yeah, it would take like two seconds. I feel uh, I'll so I want to do that and it'd be fun to put it up
Please pen. Yeah. Um, this is the thing people need to experience. Yeah
um
I keep thinking of uh, I want to tangent now into like
tangent
Bible stuff because is there's a I think like there's a part in the bible where the
The angels necks go up reach up to
um our shoulders maybe reach up to
The heavens or heads, you know, I don't know why I'm asking you this specific detail
I'm hoping that you know it, but I feel like I've read it once
Um, and that's something I also wanted to put in there too. Anyway
Did the angels with like extending necks or I feel like it was either the heads necks or shoulders that reached up to the heavens
And that was in one instance of
uh
The bible the closest things I got to it is not angels
In the hell of hungry ghosts, which is a bardo in the Tibetan book of the dead
these beings
have
massive appetites
But these tiny little necks that attach to like big old mouths. Yeah, so if they want to eat
It it doesn't matter how hungry they are because they can only swallow like little particulates like crumbs because that's how big their necks are
A mess
Um, cool the uh, you say yeah, so vr
So, uh, I love vr. I don't know you've maybe you've only you've just begun like sort of talking about vr
On on your podcast and it's so much fun listening to you talk about it with the people that come on
um
It's something that I want everyone to experience
Because and it's something that you can talk about
Uh forever, but until
Someone tries it. They can't understand
How like radical it is. It's like talking about a dream or something. Does someone who has an experience right?
That's like boring is boring as fuck. Yeah, it's like you're telling someone a dream and you're like really enthusiastic about it
And they're just like shut please shut the fuck up. Yeah, um, and I've experienced that a lot
Uh, because I love vr and I keep trying to make people try it. Um, but once they try it doesn't matter how uh,
How old they are or how averse to technology they are
Um, they just so we've talked about this giggle that pours out of people when they're trying it
It's like this all their defenses drop
And they and they can't help themselves
From going
It's this cute little like innocent laughter that just comes out of people when they're trying virtual reality for the first time
And it happens all the time and I keep I wait for it when I'm putting someone through it for the first time and um
anyway, so it's it's
It's it's pat powerful. It's and it's um
Transportive and it's uh, and I feel like those are the
The strongest words that I can use to describe it
You you really do your eyeballs really are telling your brain where you are in space right and people call it existing
In dual realities because you know that you're in someone's living room
Like you have a set up here. I know that I would be here, but my brain would also simultaneously know that I was
inside
Uh
An infinite fractal space like the thing you just showed me right which is like you know, you know, or you're inside of whatever
Jurassic park or whatever anyone's making in the virtual world. You're also there your brain thinks that you're there
Uh, and it's shocking, right?
shocking
and you've
uh
Yeah, I don't know. Do you have any thoughts I I'm gonna stop well. Yeah. Well because yes, it's it's a um
it it's
Well, it's it's shocking because it's it's teleportation for one
It's it's something most people
No one is experienced outside of dreaming
Which is like to suddenly be in a completely new place. Yeah with zero
Uh, but completely conscious
Of this experience. Yeah, so it's almost a form of time travel in the sense that if you want to get from point A to point B
There's always going to be some temporal element to that journey from point A to point B
No matter what it is get from your chair to the bathroom or from your chair to southeast asia
There's a certain number of beats that are going to happen between you and there, right?
VR
So suddenly there is no
Time at all and so and you're instantaneously in a completely new zone. Yeah, and you can and within that zone you can manipulate
Uh, not just the space that you believe that you're in but but time time itself sometimes because I've heard about experiments where
Um and VR you can control how fast the sun moves
And a lot of people who are using VR are experiencing
Lost time which I've experienced too
When I was playing sound self which
Something I'd also like to talk about because that's my favorite experience. Um
Right now. Can you describe sound self? Yeah, it's hard. I think so. I think I can it's hard to describe maybe
Yeah
So uh
So it's a it's a game that's driven by your voice and that coaches you to make these long drawn out
sounds that influence the visuals inside the game
this this kaleidoscopic visuals that um
mover uh
I don't know but I so but it's so much more than that because
Of the nature of VR and because of the the the transport of qualities that it has like you're not just looking into a kaleidoscope
You're like traveling through
Uh
An alternate reality really. I mean it's through something through abstract
Space through abstract ideas
That has as its seed your voice. Yeah, this yeah and your voice
Is influencing these visuals you're you're saying oh
It coaches you to make these long drawn out sounds
and to breathe
and just breathing
In a game in a game that tells you to take a deep breath
um
Is already like fucking up your reality as you know it I think because it's it's uh
to tell
Just like if you did it right now if you're driving the car and you're listening to this podcast if you breathe in
You
Automatically are already feeling better and it happens every time right and this game is telling you to do that
So you so you're already feeling
Different at the very least and I don't know is there is a better way to talk about it? Well, I mean you're you're the the the thing itself
is
to see an instantaneous
result from whatever
Thing you're intoning is a pretty spectacular thing because usually the way
You know if you want to here's how you try sound self without virtual reality
Go out to eat with your friends
And start talking shit about somebody and watch the way that your friends react
You'll see the reflection of the sound you made and the kind of
diminishing
Quality of your friends interaction you'll see that they're going to either chime in when the sound you made
By making equal sounds talking shit about this person
Maybe they'll try to like avoid the subject change it
But whatever you'll in the same way that like if when you watch the time lapse footage of bread moldering
You know like or fruit rotting you can watch when you get around your friends and start talking about how shitty the world is
You can watch in a very small way
Them wither with the sound that you're making because you're affirming a shit universe. So to have like this like
visual representation of that so that what the noises you make get
replicated in some
Mysterious way, which I have no idea. They're doing it. I don't know either
It's what it's teaching you is that your sounds have power. Yeah, and that's a very valuable lesson
Um, the coolest thing that happened to me was at some point
Uh, I felt like I saw a creature. I felt like I saw like it might have been
like
200 meters away
And it was this floating entity
And I stopped making sounds. I was really
Engaged and I was really
felt you know, I was uh
I've been making sounds for about 15 minutes. Yeah, so
Um
And when I saw the thing far away, I shut up and I just watched it for a while
And then uh, can you describe what it looked like? It was it was it was constantly changing
and it was it was
White or gray ish. It was an orb shape. It was like a
And uh, but I just I just thought that it it was alive
Versus a lot of the other visuals that I had seen in the experience. What made you think that? The way it was moving?
I don't know. Is it just uh, well one, uh
I think just because maybe it uh, it looked
More concrete than the other things that were that were swirling around
And also that it was singular and it was
Centered within my view and it was far away and floating
And I just thought that and uh, either way I I watched it for a while
Uh, and then I reengaged it by speaking the other thing that um sound self is doing is it
It's giving you feedback
Through headphones like when you're making sounds the game's giving you your voice back to you, right?
And it's like pitching it maybe lower and higher at the same time
But it's it's doing it's and it's doing more than that. I feel like I think binaural beats are involved
and
uh, so
I felt like I was
Mmm communicating with something the whole time
Because at the end of the experience
The sounds pulled away
From me and I could just hear my voice again and I felt
Lonely and I felt like scared
Because I had been in contact with something
And uh, and now I was being ripped out of that and
You know, I was I was really I was really into it. I love I love it
I love it because it can it took me out of my
Reality and that's what I love about
VR is that it has the power
to do that
instantaneously and the the the
to contact a
an entity through sound
Of course is like the one of the uh fundamental
occult principles, which is that we can
use a series of
intentional sounds
To draw into our subjective experience an entity
So it doesn't really
fall that far out of what any
ancient
Yeah
Wizard would be doing in some alchemical laboratory
Which is like what happens if I make these sounds and then boom, right? There it is. Yeah, and when we put our fucking
I don't mean to keep going back to this
But we when we put these massive
radio telescopes
in the middle of a
mountain in China and point it in the direction of the void
It's an it's a similar thing, which is we're all crying out
Hello
Yeah, and when it answers
That's where things
Get pretty weird
You know because it's not supposed to answer. Yeah, but it does
It does you're I mean, I'm you're talking about maybe
some answers like as I know you've
even countered
I'm saying prayer. Okay pray because the experiment is prayer adverse people are fascinating me because they uh
they uh people who
are
Against prayer
It's if you've attempted prayer
And you're against it. I get it
But a lot of people
Look up look upon prayer as a kind of like primitive confused
What would you why would you do that? There's nothing out there, man except you that's it. You're a fucking
Swirl a cyclone of matter
Go ahead and yell out to the void all you fucking want, but there's nothing there
And I'm certainly not gonna partake in that ridiculousness
You know like what Dawkins
Maybe I I wonder how many times Dawkins is prayed if I got to be around Richard Dawkins
Who has one of my favorite quotes by the way right now top most favorite quotes, which is
Death is the anesthesia that saves us from the pain of infinity
And you have to process it. It's pretty cool. It's good man. It's good
But I would love to ask Dawkins
If he's ever like tried for like a month
to pray and if if he has using his
Razor sharp intellect and his ability to discern
The real from the false
Has he experienced even a subjective shift in his consciousness?
I'd love to know I'd love some because someone like Dawkins is the perfect person to do the experiment
but I know personally
If I pray if I sit down in the morning
and just say a prayer like
And I use simple words
Because I don't see the point of it's just easier for me. I use it as a form of like
Convenience a term of so I use god as a term of convenience. So if I sit down in the morning and I go, oh, please god
help me
To not be such a selfish asshole. I'm and to to try to give more than I usually give
today and if
And if I can serve you a little if I can really be your servant or do something that
That you would want me to do please help me do that if there's anything you can do some
Something like that not as clumsy as that usually I'm more confident because I I get embarrassed to say it on the podcast
but uh
Some version of that
That's a better day
Than when I don't do it. Yeah
I don't know why but it's better. Usually do you put it? Is there a difference for you between prayer and
Like mantra?
Yeah, okay mantra is cool for like
um
Focusing I love mantra
Uh chanting harry krishna. Um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, it just sounds cool. Um, um, um, um, um
But if you like do an actual like
Um
You know calling out or whatever
It's it's way different. It's very personal
So yeah, when you had this sounds self-experience. Yeah
It's like, whoa, I guess that like one thing that I've thought about technology is it's the you know, like you want to see the invisible man
You throw paint on him
Ah, there he is right the invisible man the way you like catch an invisible being as you throw paint on it
And now you can see it because the paint's covering it up and now it's not invisible anymore
The same way I think technology
Is like the paint that we're throwing on this esoteric thing that is up until this point been non-quantifiable
Yeah, but now we're like yeah starting to see it a little bit. Yeah, um
Presence like there's a lot of spiritual words. I mentioned this to you on the phone one time that that are being used now to describe
Uh virtual reality
And what are the use of technology? Well presence is one of them. Uh, I wish I could I wish I had a list
But I just keep noticing it. Um
Uh
I can't elaborate but I don't I don't know if you consider that uh a spiritual word but for me it feels like
Something I wouldn't normally hear well in the
Conversation about technology. I'll tell you this when the washing machine came out
I'm pretty sure they want people who are like you got to see this washing machine
Like this means everything. Maybe there are people like it's great. You know, you don't have to like
Throw your shit in a bathtub and like hit it with a broom
and soap
but this technology
creates a missionary
spirit and people who've encountered it and
The missionary instinct which I certainly have anyone who comes over to my house including my cable guy
Like a guy came over to
I was having problems with my internet connection. So this guy came over
Fixed my internet connection
And then I'm like, hey man. Have you ever seen
Virtual reality and he's like no I've heard about it though. I'm like, do you want to see it? He's like, yeah
So like I I put the he put the vibe on
Put the headset on I showed him the blue the whale encounter
And watching this guy stand in my living room. I've never met this guy before but just what you were talking about
That laugh comes out of him. And then he's like
Oh my god
Oh my god
Oh my god. He takes it off. He looks at me. He's like, this is like when we had acid
I'm like, yeah, it's amazing. And as he's leaving. I'm like, well, I have a great day and he's like, well, I am now
And it's like, yeah, why are you having a great day?
Well, he's having a great day because in that moment for the first time in his life outside of using psychedelics
he experienced a respite from the burden of
A physical form right from the burden of
The the repetitive phenomena of the
universe that we call
default reality
and the implication
of a kind of
technological victory
over this kind of
Rather oppressive blindfold
Which is the ceaseless
Input of the phenomena surrounding most human beings as they move throughout their day
Yeah, well, maybe
It's a liberating technology is what I mean
And I think that feeling is what I'm trying to describe trying what I'm talking about when I
I say that there's spiritual language is being used. Maybe it's not maybe it's not spiritual, but it's um
Representative of
Getting outside of your body. I don't know the right term term is
Um
Dang it. I lost my thought. Well, you you you're
One one thing that I read on reddit on the hdc vive form on reddit. Do you ever go to that?
Reddit hd the reddit vive subreddit is great
And there's a lot of smart people on there posting about the vive and vr and somebody
I wish I remember their name
Said what what what this technology has done
Is it's given us a reference point that we didn't formerly have so
When I take off my virtual reality goggles and go into the natural world
I can look at it and kind of get an idea of what kind of processor it might take to run this experience
The level of detail is shocking in this
Default reality when you like really look at a thing, of course, we're limited by the goggles that we're wearing which is our
physical form
I'm a 42 year old dude to like when I zoom in on stuff
But there's a little I got some smudges on my lens man
I can't get off at this point, but I can compensate for it
But it gives you a reference that we haven't had before that's that's one one aspect of it
I think transcendent transcendence is the word i'm looking for like uh, it
At this out of body experience that you can have
Um identity but like this relief of of your sense of self
Is something that I can give you
In in an instant
Because you was the hands that you're looking at inside virtual reality become your new hands
whatever they are if they're crab claws or
logs or
fish
You know intestines like these are my hands and after a couple minutes looking at your
New crab hands. You're like I've always had crab hands. Yes. I am crab hands man. Yes, and um
And right now the vibe
Uh can only is tracking your head and hands. That's what you get
Um, and so you're you're this floating like rayman character. You just have these floating bits
Yes, and uh, but it all just sort of in the world is can be cartoony and after a few minutes
You're just like the world has always been cartoony. Yeah, um, and then when you pull it off
And you come back to you know real reality you're like reality
Yeah, and you're and uh, you're like this
This is uh, yeah, it takes a couple minutes to readjust. I think yeah to believe that the this new reality is what
It has always been. We're right and and so now you have a technology that is functioning
Is a spiritual teacher because the one one of the fundamental teachings
uh in hinduism is the
This world we're in is called maya
maya means illusion
And so this is the fundamental teaching like this thing that you think is real is not real
It's not real
And this is this this teaching, you know, it come it goes into science which is like, look you can't
You can't trust your senses to determine what the truth is
It's as real as we can trust our eyeballs to tell something is real
Yeah
And the same thing happens when you put the the vibe on like that reality is as real
As as we can sense it and our eyeballs are telling your brain that it's real
But you know
At least until you get into the trance of the game. Yeah, this is not real. Yeah another thing, you know outside of the vr
The giggle that you pointed out
Which now I notice when people use the the vr in my house
The other thing that's cool to watch is a person hold their hand in front of their face. Yeah
Nothing's there. Yeah, so it's like to to feel the impulse of movement
And to not have any visual
Corollary like your hand as up until this point
When you hold your hand in front of your face, there's a hand that feeling of moving your hand in front of your face
Hand appears to just have the feeling of intention, but no
visual
Confirmation of the movement is incredibly psychedelic. Yeah, that is is a fundamentally psychedelic moment because another
Uh pillar of these teachings is you are not your body
So not only is this reality that you think is reality and illusion
But this body that you think is you
In no way shape or form is what you really are. Yeah, so these two things are being awesome. Yeah
Yeah, that's cool, man. Uh
I love that so much
I love
Feeling that because I don't have maybe the words all the time
to
Express or even understand that idea, but it's something that
Comes to you and whether you want to or not when you're trying out vr for the first time
You can't help it because you're not in your own body anymore
and you're
Experiencing some lesson
It's just it's just happening. Yeah. Um, and anyway, so I guess maybe to answer your question. That's
All of that everything we were just talking about is the stuff that I care about the stuff that I'm trying to
Um put into a a game a game that you can download for your you're working on a game. Yeah, um,
Are you is this a solo project? Do you have a are you collaborating with anybody? Yeah, um, I met uh
Dude named ryan nelson at an oculus rift convention
And we were just standing in line and he started talking to me about
Um combining an eeg reader with
vr and
Uh
The next morning I was like I called him up because he gave me his card and I was like, let's start making that
Um, and he did it. He made this awesome prototype where we bought this inexpensive
eeg reader
and
We had it on I had it on my brain and uh
I chilled out enough. I felt I tried to sort of zone out
and the more I zoned out
Um, I was able to levitate up off the ground inside virtual reality. I'm not explaining this well enough
but I had a vr headset on and and uh an eeg reader that was touching my the front of my forehead and
when I was uh
We were trying to be happy and chilled out
If you did that you would levitate inside of vr. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, and uh, it was great
And like I I I chilled out I lifted up off the ground and then once I lifted up
I looked down and I was like, oh, shit. I'm up off the ground and that made me concentrate and lose my
Bliss as state and then I fell felt you plummet down to the ground. No, I have talked about this
I never give your name because I I didn't know I I didn't know if I was allowed to say it was
I have mentioned this before to people because to me it is the ultimate
spiritual metaphor which is the moment you even in dreams when you're flying
Like you were saying earlier when you realize you're flying
You're fucked you immediately start falling. Yeah, the way you fly in a dream is to be
Of person that flies not a person who's aware that they fly. Yeah, so to
Create a technology that mimics this metaphysical state
Yeah, and it's I mean and it's something that you can do when you're awake and train yourself
To stay in that state of mind, which is totally like EG readers have been around since the
Like four forties or something. I don't know. I feel like that's correct
Because they only they discovered brainwaves
Back then I think and anyway, it's something that
I feel like should be in our our daily lives like we should be training these muscles because it's something we have
energy coming out of our heads that we can
Use as a resource, but there's no clear clear way to use to use that
But once I was trying it I was like what I have this
Super power and I haven't been tapping into it my for my entire life
I wish I had been training my brain to know how to calm itself or to concentrate hard. I did a test using a
this other
EG reader
Where I went the opposite direction
I just imagined like killing somebody with a knife and like taking his guts and
Grabbing him out of his stomach and stuffing him down his mouth a classic and then uh, and it was like
Like the reader the little meter on this app that I was using to see how my brain was reacting was just
Sky-high and just peeking out so the opposite so you so not only have you learned how to do this thing
But you can also do it's opposite from knowing how to do the thing
Yeah, and and it's all like I mean
I don't know all the names of the the brainwaves, but
We were just averaging out all of them to some
Degree so we had two outputs
Like you know that we called calm and we called
Concentration which is all just made up. I don't really know what those mean
There's also brainwaves that you only admit when you're sleeping and we were
Joking around about having the last the final boss level be this thing where you just lay down and fall asleep
And that's how you beat him because you can get these
brainwaves
Uh, and then when you wake up you've you've sort of exited this listen man. That's the smartest game
I've ever heard of a game where you're engaging if you could figure out a way to translate that you're translating that into battles
Well, sort of we had a bunch of uh, jesse moinehan was helping us
Uh
Come up with like levels like conceptually you were moving through
Layers of of of afterlife or of heaven or of
Astral planes like we're just like sort of traveling
Beyond our own reality in this game and there were doors gates and you had to get through them by using your
brainwaves
And the whole time you have to be calm
You have to be you have to be be completely like it not just calm, but like absent of of of concentration absent of of
Thought it was really really hard to do which made it really really fun as a game
It was like really challenging to clear my mind enough to like move move up to levitate. Um, I'm rambling now
Where's the game?
We gave up on it because
No one's gonna buy
an eg reader
A computer that can run vr a vr headset and our software. It's like there's just too many things that people you know
We were trying, you know
We're also trying to like i'm trying to start a business
So I can't just make um art. What's the business?
Games just something I can download
Something you can download on on steam that was you know, that's my goal right now is to make a game that you can play
With the the vibe on your computer that you own got you and it was just the eg reader
I think was just one step too far
From it. Well, it's a big ass because you're already dealing with the technology
Yeah, that people that no one's even gonna buy right now skeptical about buying to add to that
You would have to have to but I'll tell you man. I'm sure future
Vr goggles are going to have some form of eg reader built into them
I would imagine that would just be well that's already in the works and you can find that online
Someone's already doing that. Um, I can't remember the name of the device, but
Uh, that's that's already made
You know what I would bet I bet it's got a pretty cool fucking name
Yeah, thwark. Yeah the thwark a denovian thwark or some kind of
man
I um
I gotta tell you man. I'm a little sad to hear
Because I've been fantasizing pen
That you've been working on this crazy levitation game
Yeah, and it's something I've been looking forward to having
And uh, I'm sad to hear that it's no longer in process because yeah
As a as a meditation trainer
It's like
You can really trick yourself
Into thinking that you're doing something when you're not doing it
Especially with meditation. Yeah, you know, you could really imagine. Oh, yeah, I must be hitting the place just because I'm
Confused or something but to have a to again, we're talking about
Technology as a tool of quantifying the formerly unquantifiable
You know, and it's not as though
These brain states that come from meditating
Are unquantifiable. It's just that people don't have access to an EEG machine. Yeah, it's only like a hundred bucks. You can get them online
But to note to to have a visual
Indicator of
Yeah, what what energetic states your brain is throwing out
Yeah, well, I mean any enter any EEG reader that you bond line will come with an app
It'll come with some software and and sometimes it'll be like a cool visualizer
But maybe there aren't any VR apps yet
There might be you couldn't pair the game down a little bit just so that people who already have an EEG reader could
Experience it. Uh, we could do it. We could do it. Um, and maybe we will come back to it, but
Every second that I'm not trying to
Sort of make something that I think people
might buy
I'm I feel like I'm
I'm trying I'm trying to like
Be self-sufficient and I'm trying to make I'm trying to make money, right?
But I'm also trying to make something far out. So I'm trying to find the middle ground right now
Um, and that's just what I what you have to do. I think so. Yeah, I think so
I mean right now my friend and I we're just making like magic spells that you can cast in VR and it's
Uh, like I'm modeling a small man
Inside of an acorn that you can pluck from a tree and open the nut and take the man out and squish him up and shove him in a pipe
And like smoke his guts and then like some psychedelic effect will like appear over your eyes
And so everything I approach I'm trying to approach it with uh, this perspective like trying to put mystery into
Um, trying to create a world that feels fully realized
um
I'm really inspired by uh, scion worlds
games
Cosmic Osmo
Is something that I played when I was a little kid
And you might not remember it, but if you look it up, it's just
um, you know, there's
You there's a spaceship and you click on it and you go inside the spaceship
And then you can travel to a planet and there's a moon
And there's a there's a there's like a plant on the on the moon if you click on the plant
Um, it'll drop a piece of fruit and then you click on the fruit
And you zoom in on the fruit and you and and the door opens up inside the fruit
And you click on the door and you go inside the door
And it just goes it just keeps going and it's just uh, it's just fun
And it's a world that's full of interesting. You know what it reminds me of. Yeah, what did you ever uh read ender's game?
Yeah, I I'd listen to it on remember that
They the weird like fantasy game that they had that was kind of like a psychological evaluation tool or something
and it's like
Very organic and fluid. You could do all this stuff and infinite stuff inside of it very psychedelic
But I mean, I don't know what honestly what you just described to me just sounds like
Please god
Finish it. Yeah. Well, I think that's something that I think people would dig and it's uh,
It's something that I would love to make and it would make you feel fulfilled
That's the other thing I'm trying to do right now is make something that I think is
worth making
To me and for me
um
Giving people and myself the opportunity to feel transported to a place that's full of
Mysterious things like that is what I want
Um, so that's what I'm trying to do and I feel like that's what most people are trying to do in vr right now
Because that's what it does. That's the nature of it. You can go somewhere else
and
And live inside that that other place. Well, I mean, this is the this is the
Uh, the call of the thing what what's what's really cool about it is when you come to the
to vr
You don't just experience it
It it it's like it's imbuing every single person who comes inside
It's it it's inspiring them
Make more of this
You know everyone at least most people that I show it to when they take off the goggles
They're like, I wish I had this
Yeah, I wish I could be this or go to this place or I wish it had more of this
So everyone wants it to be more real too. Everyone wishes they you know
They had feet everyone wants to see their entire body. Yep. Um, everyone wants to be able to walk
Uh
Without limitations because right now there's a there's a cord and we teleport, you know, like that's the that's the
That's one of the fundamental
What apparently is one of the big obstructions right now is that the uh
To move in virtual reality fucks with your
vestibular
System. Oh man. So we can't like we don't we don't know how to overcome that yet
so
But i'm fine with teleporting around look i don't like
Once i'm inside minecraft and vr and i'm teleporting and i'm standing on some ledge
That that that's what's really curious to me is like I think when I think of like memories
video game memories in other words like think of like a great video game that you love binding of isaac
uh, I don't know um
A game you've really played for a long time. Um mist mist
Maybe mist is different. But when I think of like because mist I you know what mist i've got mist is
It appears that the storage mechanism
For certain types of video games is different than the storage mechanism for other types of video games. So
Dark souls the majority of dark souls that I play
It all is kind of mushed together into a kind of dark swirly
desperate
never ending
cascade of failure whereas like
Whereas um, uh in virtual reality
Uh when I consider like god, I'm sorry. This is so vulgar but
porn versus vr porn
Yep
Porn, yeah, I don't remember any when I think back to porn. I've looked at
It's the same thing just a swirl of failure
But when I think when I when I think of virtual reality porn
It's crystal clear in there man. Like my brain is recorded sure you're writing those memories in a clearer way
Then you would if you were just watching. Yeah a flat image exactly
So so whatever it's the way that it's like storing information for these games when I think of like
Longbow in the lab
When I remember it, I remember it in a very clear way. I remember it as the time I was standing at the edge of this
Tower blasting right the the the
the memory
Castle what do you call it the the when you're when the technique that people use when they're the memory
Where you're like it's a room a furniture or whatever. Yeah, I imagine like imagine like flashcards like training for a test and just like filling a
I don't let you call it the castle. There's a there's a proper term for it the memory something and then
When you add to it the combination of new tropics
So it's like not now. This is something there's a what's that?
It's the substances you take that are IQ enhancers like there's a few right now that are
I mean when I went to the shit doctor
Along I'm sorry to call him a shit doctor, but he was a pill mill doctor like you go and be like, hey, can you give me a prescription for
Vicodin and he'd be like, yeah, sure. How many milligrams do you need? Like
You would look on his phone when when you were again, of course when I say these things I make them up
It didn't really happen to me. It's part of the character
I like a gonzo kind of drug dude sometimes that I put out
But yeah, I remember going to him this imaginary fictitious doctor
He went an imaginary way got busted recently and can in an imaginary way no longer prescribe medicine
Which in an imaginary way is a very good thing for probably most of the world
But one of the things he said to me was
The problem because I was getting I thought if I got on at all then I could finally write
Totally wrong. Like I just when I take Adderall. I'm just more aware of how non productive I am
It does nothing for my creative output
But he was saying the problem with this drug is that
in schools
Kids who aren't on it
Are are getting lower test scores than kids who are on it. So now we have a problem that
Oh, right. Yeah in the same way with athletics, there's doping and if one person dopes everybody's got a dope or there's no
Competition anymore. It was no new tropics. You're hitting this exact same place where
Kids who are on these substances are going to do better than kids who aren't on the substances and as far as
Test scores go, which is of course no indication of a being's
Intelligence or value as a human on this planet, but as far as memorizing bullshit getting on trucker speed derivatives
Apparently does help you in that direction. So
That's what a new tropic is so
In the same way the combination of technology
with
new tropics
Maybe micro doses of lsd
Micro doses of psilocybin
Micro doses of mdma mixed in with some kind of flash card
language memory palace. Yes memory palace could
potentially create
A revolution in education. I think that's the entry point
For vr. I think it could be for a lot of people is buying this
Expensive thing, but it will empower you to become a surgeon in your living room. Like you'll you can you can you can
operate on a virtual body
Just by yourself in your living room and and and train yourself to do complex
Medical procedures you could do it. You could fix a car, you know, you could open up a virtual hood on a on a truck
Yeah, and changing it and changing and changing engine out
Um, I don't know sky's the limit, right? And if you had all of that, uh inside
Your home
Well, it's crazy. It's crazy and you'd be learning everything
In in a first person in the most real way possible
But here's where it gets really crazy pen the uh, there's a
So there's a book that you should start reading if you haven't read it already called super intelligence by nick bostrom
And what he says is okay, how do I so it's like these are the pathways there?
You know about this book. You told me about a little bit. Yeah, I've about it for a second
These are the path. How do we get to a super intelligence on this planet? So the question is will
There be a super intelligence on this planet in other words
Will there be something that has a
Uh thinking capacity
That exceeds the human mind will that exist on the planet? The answer is clearly. Yes, that's going to exist
We think there is a high probability that that will happen
When we don't know but we do have the feeling. Yeah, this is definitely going to happen
So the book is a brilliant
Uh and and somewhat confusing because I I'm not a nick bostrom genius
So a lot of what he's saying gets really muddied up in my mind, but here are the pathways to achieve super intelligence
Genetic, you know like eugenics like we can do breeding programs to create really really smart people
That's one way to do it. But
That's a very inefficient way. It's going to take a long time
Like if we started doing it now
Like even now if we somehow overcame all the ethical and legal legal hurdles to creating some
terrible
Brave new world level breeding program where we incubate the
smartest beings and then
Somehow recombine them to create smarter beings. You're still looking at 15 to 20 years
Two decades from now that we're going to have the first product of that
Which probably won't be the ultimate result of that. It'll be several generations
And that's with that gene manipulation gene manipulation because we still have to deal with like human children being educated
And giving them the information they need to be the little fucking world conquering super geniuses. So
Chances are that's not the way we're going to get a super intelligence on this planet
It's going to be a machine intelligence more likely. And so then he goes into like, well, how do we get to a machine intelligence?
And one of the things he says is it may be
That it's some combination of a genetic
Program that creates humans smart enough to then make the machines that wake up to become
Super intelligent, but so then when you realize that virtual reality
Could very well be
The training program that the universe has in I don't know
Brought to us. Yeah to begin to teach us at an accelerated rate
So that humans can then have the potential to bring
This intelligence called a super intelligence
Into this dimension. That's where it gets interesting, which I think is what it is
I think virtual reality is one of the bridges
Leading us in the direction of the creation of a super intelligence, which
Coincidentally is no different than us contacting an alien intelligence. It's all leading to the same place
It's all leading to the contact with the things smarter than us
That we don't know what it's going to tell us and if we did then it wouldn't matter
And that's what I think vr is it's moving us in that direction and the missionary compulsion that we all feel
is the sort of the
Magnetic draw of this being that is inviting all of us to be
It's midwives
Cool man
What's fun, um, I can't wait and then super intelligent beings will make
Ultra intelligent beings and then ultra intelligent beings will make
Hyper hybrids. Well, no one of my friends actually told me something that was really quite sad
I really sad interpretation of it, which is uh
Well, there's this book I have now called sapiens my friend gave it to me. I just started reading it
basically like we're home with sapiens, but
But there were a bunch of different sapiens living on the planet at the same time
We killed them all
We're vicious wiped them all out. We fucked them
Killed them and eventually now we're all that's left
So someone I was talking to a really smart fella was like, well, yeah, maybe what's gonna happen is
We're gonna make machines really smart
And they're gonna be filled with love
And they're gonna be like, okay. Okay. Let us teach you now how to be as smart as we are
And then the moment we get as smart as they are we're like, fuck you
We don't plug them because we're sapiens which means wise by the way
It's almost like a sarcastic term for what humans are home with sapiens wise men
But it's like, of course, that's what we call ourselves
You know, it's a really dire thing. We think the ai's gonna destroy us
But maybe the ai's going to like give us the gift of a higher intelligence and we destroy it
Who knows all I know is I can't wait to say hello
Yeah, you know, um, so yeah, I keep wanting to follow you down the the alien
Tangent because you brought it up like four or five times just sort of reaching out and finding
life out there and I've
I've really gotten into it lately. Um the past few years just going down
the youtube
Hole of alien experiences because right experiences are people who've
Uh met aliens
extraterrestrials who've
Um, who've had it who've had a nice time, right? And they want a different each themselves
Uh, maybe I that'd be cool if I was I want to be I want to believe you came into contact with a thing
That you grogged as being an intelligence outside of yourself
I did
I did I I did I bought I I definitely was there and bought into that when I was checking it out
Um, but I'm I remain skeptical all the time of everything. It's fine. So I you know, I hope I am. I hope I am
But also like so they want to differentiate themselves from abductees who've had a shitty time hanging out with aliens, right?
and my one of my favorite experiences is
student named david huggins
and he talks about
Uh, because he was
Visited by aliens and taken up to somewhere and he's had lots of kids like human alien hybrid children
and
they just like
They just got right to it most of the time. They just started like having sex with them all the time
and at some point he was like
Slow down and he taught
The aliens
Foreplay and like how to like hug and kiss a little. Yeah, so he's cool
And he did some really rad paintings of like mantis men
And his kids and what it looks like. Yeah, there's some people who um
Their art
Is is as close as we've got right now to like, you know, the Hubble telescope takes these incredible pictures of these vast nebula star
They call them star nurseries nurseries for stars dust nebula that are just the most
Fantastic beautiful easily anthropomorphized things that you've ever seen and in the same way that the artist functions as like valuable telescope
for for for these other realms
And brings it back and there's a few artists like that who really
very successfully
Seemed to be tuning in on whatever this thing is, but uh, yeah, I think that the um
humans are on a
You know, I don't know about the fucking aliens, right? I don't doubt they exist. Yeah, I I understand why they might want to do it
It's a great way to communicate with something
To have sex with it is a very intimate and immediate way to say hi
Yeah
In a very advanced being maybe that's their handshake is like to immediately just start fucking you because it's like
What are we wasting all this of this like weird?
Weird sounds out of your mouth. Look, let me show you my soul and what it's like to feel ecstasy. You know who knows
I don't know so I an advanced being maybe that is the way they talk is through sex or through like what we call sex
But I I would say that we are
Going to intersect our species is is is through technology about to intersect
with an alien
if it's a machine intelligence that we
Create so to speak
Like google makes it or something
then the machine intelligence
Is going to
More than likely solve a lot of the problems that come in scanning the
Universe to see if there's other intelligent life forms out there
So that's going to lead to it even though the initial thing itself will be it
You know the moment that that we get
An actual AI which some people say is an impossibility can't do it
But the moment we get an actual a this is contact with the alien
This is no different than sedi tuning in on the wow signal times a billion because it's it'll it's an advanced intelligence
That's brand new to the planet
That theoretically is going to be able to help solve a lot of us our problems or will fucking destroy us
either way
Our species right now
In mass is calling out to the void
through prayer through
occult rituals
through
Scanning the skies through the large hadron collider
Through all the genetic experiments that seek to extend the human lifespan
We as a whole
Are saying a variety of prayers
And all of them have at their root
Show yourself to me
Oh great great beauty show yourself to me whether that's through math through jesus or through
fucking
And that's cool that you're one of those uh pioneers
Yeah, thanks man
Thank you. Thank you, pen. Thank you so much for coming on the show, man
It's so fun to get to hang out with you. My pleasure. So it's fun to
It's fun to listen to it and it's fun to experience it like in person and uh, yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you
Big thanks to pendleton ward and a big thanks to fulton and roark for sponsoring this episode
Don't forget to go to fulton and roark.com. That's
roark.com use offer code family hour and you'll get 15% off these beautiful
men's grooming products
Also, remember to go through our amazon link if you like the podcast give us a nice rating on the itunes and subscribe to us
And now here is a beautiful track from the holy sun's
Brand new album in the garden, which is available on itunes
Here it is. It's my feeling
Oh
Point your finger at the sky
You'll see just how hot for you my love is
Oh
No, no, no, no, no, I must be strong
No, no, no, no, no, I can't be wrong
I can't be wrong
It's my feeling
It's my feeling
And it means too much for me to have it's my feeling
It's my feeling
And it means too much to us
Oh
And pleasure
Close your eyes and come to town hold your breath and feel what I am feeling
Oh
No, no, no, no, no, I must be strong
No
I can't be wrong
I can't be wrong
It's my feeling
It's my feeling
And it means too much for me to have it's my feeling
It's my feeling
And it means too much to us
You