Transcription
I heard at one point you were spending like $90,000 a month fighting everything that's coming at you. Um, that's crazy. So, how do people who just absolutely cannot do that, how do they push back? Substitute adventure for security.
Okay. Security. It's like you're going to pursue security, are you? How's that going to work? You're you're going to die. You're going to encounter malevolence. Like you can you can defer the the encounter to some degree, although not very successfully. There's no security. And and then the thing is that's the thing that's so interesting to understand is you don't want security. You're not an infant. It's not what you're after. You're actually after adventure. So where do you find your adventure? Aim up, tell the truth, and adventure will come your way, and then that's so much better than security that there's no looking back. It's so incredibly exciting. It's it's uncharted territory.
The thing about the truth is that you don't know what's going to happen when you utter it. You have to let go, you know. So, if I could come in here, you know, calculating what I want from this interview, figuring out how it's going to increase my social status or make me more money, and I mean, if it does those things, okay, but that's not the aim. The aim is to come in here and have a wrestling match. And why? Because I have faith in the outcome. So, what's the faith? The faith is whatever happens to you when you tell the truth is the best thing that could happen no matter how it looks to you. That's a statement of faith.
Now there's an alternative statement which is oh no no no I'll say something and there'll be a consequence and I'll have faith that that consequence is the defining what would you say defining feature of that utterance. I said something I got in trouble therefore I shouldn't have said it. It's like, well, what if you get in trouble, but like 3 weeks later, everything's way better for you. Christlike. It's not like there's any shortage of things like that in life. That's what work is. Work is I'm going to do this thing now that's difficult so that something better will happen in the future. Well, truth is truth is the ultimate investment in that matter. Definitely. That's why truth is what stores up treasure in heaven. That's what that means.
And so, so how can people how can people learn this? Try telling the truth. I mean, I wrote a chapter about this in one of my books that was quite accessible. It's like, start by not saying things you know to be a lie. Just start with that. Play with it. See what happens. See what happens. Walk me through the morning when that person does that. I'll talk to young men right now. Uh, they say what they think is true. They get fired from their job. They go they then they probably bit off more than they could chew, right? The eternal sin of Adam to bite off more than he could chew. It's like, you know, if you don't know what you're doing and you're in a dangerous place, maybe, you know, start on your knees, humbly, carefully, you know, don't go out there and brandish your new truth and make yourself into an idiot martyr so you can tell yourself that you're the Messiah, you know, with one utterance. That's not wise. You have to be as wise as serpents, right? That's the idea. This isn't a game. You have to you have to do it with your eyes open, you know, and if you pay attention, you'll see your opportunity. You'll see. You'll see. It'll make itself manifest to you. You'll see where there's a choice point where you'll be conversing with someone and you could take the easy route out that you usually take or you could dare right then and there and there's an excitement about that and then you'll try it and you know other person you know maybe you're kind of a cringing milk sort of person and and so you're you're being intimidated by one of your friends who's actually a bully that you hate and you decide at that moment that you're finally going to say at least a fraction of what you've been thinking and you know it takes him a back and then actually likes you better and is 10% less likely to bully you. Now you might get punched too you know that's well hey. It's real. Like it's that's right this this is this is real it's it's it's the ultimate game I suppose the ultimate game is what's real but but it's not like there's not consequences.
One of the the other thing you have to understand, and this is a good thing for young men to understand, is you're going to pay one way or another. There's no way out of that. So, choose your method of payment. That's what you can do. And and weirdly enough, if you choose the proper God, if you choose the proper method of payment, the price you pay is is one you would pay happily. That's what that's why see Abraham is called upon to sacrifice his son for example and in the service of God and he says yes and then he doesn't have to and that's right and it's the same we know this even in our families a mother who will sacrifice her child to the world let let the child go foster that child's independence offer the child to be broken by the world fullheartedly will get that child back right the child won't leave. It's so interesting because the child leaves but not really, right? Because that's the child who wants to maintain a relationship with the mother for the rest of the child's life, who wants that mother as a grandmother and who wants her around and who will return as much as is appropriate, but no more. And so everything you give away, you'll get back if you give it away in the right spirit. And we know that even on the reciprocal front, you know, I I worked with many many professors and and so scientists, but let's say as a graduate student, I had a great graduate adviser, Robert Peele, who's still alive and who I still work with. That case in point, I loved working in Bob's lab partly because he was insanely generous with his ideas. He'd just give them away. Like there were professors who like they'd have an idea and they'd shelter the damn thing. It's like this is my idea and someone's going to steal it. It's like first of all probably it's not your idea. Second of all, it's not that great anyway. So don't be so concerned. There's not a lot of people lining up to steal your ideas. And third, it's not that easy to steal ideas anyways. So there's a fair bit of arrogance and and lack of faith in that. But imagine, we could even imagine psychophysiologically what happens to you if you give away your ideas. So let's say, you know, you're blessed with a creative spirit and and you're just giving your ideas away like mad, like you're a tree that's full of fruit and you're just distributing it. Well, everybody that you give an idea to is thrilled about it and they reflect that in their enthusiasm and that enthusiasm is rewarding and that reward creates a dopamineergic kick and that dopamineergic kick reinforces the dominance of the creative spirit and so then you have more ideas, right? And so that's a great example of how you get back what you give away in spades. It's by far the best strategy. That's why Christ says that you know if someone asks you for I don't remember the this phrase exactly but you know you give the person who asks your coat you walk the mile with them. You give more than you're called upon to give even to your enemies. Why? Because there is no better strategy than that by any stretch of the imagination. This is why there's such an emphasis in the Old Testament on hospitality. Be welcome and in productive generosity. Productive generosity. Well, what does that ensure? It ensures your own security. Weirdly enough, because if you give to a thousand people and then you're in trouble, you have a thousand people who are ready to help. You know, maybe you could give to a 100,000 people or a million people. I mean, how could you possibly put anything in a more solid bank than in the goodwill you generated in the embodied imaginations of other people? That's the kingdom. That's the That's the treasure. That's treasures in heaven. And they are an eternal form of treasure in some sense. Not least because that reputation can last in some cases throughout the ages. And then it's it's part of the manifestation of that underlying spirit of creative generosity that gives rise to the cosmos itself.
Thing I don't want to get lost in all of that is that that is somebody who has a hierarchy of values. Whether they got it religiously or they just decided it. But the hierarchy of values is what I would tell people to lean on in times of trouble.
Yeah. They can't have just decided it. If they decided it, it's because something moved within them, right? Because we just aren't self-created. You know, you know what I mean? I mean, we we have that self-creative capacity to some degree, but we're the inheritors of one tradition or another or mish mash of traditions or we're socialized creatures, intensely socialized creatures. So there's all sorts of things that give rise to impulses within us. And so I would say if someone technically atheistic is generous and productive in spirit, then they're infused with the word regardless of what the semantic system sitting on top has to say about it's like I don't believe that. It's like well it kind of looks like you do, you know, if we're going to judge the tree by its fruits. And so Dawkins, you know, Dawkins doesn't know how much of a Christian he is.
God, I want to sit you two down. At the same time, I want to hear him respond to that statement.
He's a he's a terrifying guy. You know, I' I unfortunately the few times I have talked to him, I'm still quite ill and um you don't want to talk to Richard Dawkins when you're not at your best. And so, but I do believe that we are scheduled to have a public discussion at some point in the relatively near future.
That would be amazing. Um, going back to young men, there's an idea that you put out there that I have talked about just ad nauseam. I'm so grateful to you for this concept. I hope you're right. That in the Bible, the idea that the meek shall inherit the earth makes no sense when you think of meek as weak. But when you think of meek as somebody who is a total badass, but they keep their sword sheathed.
Rogan's a good example. Why? What's meek about Rogan? Well, it's not that he's weak. It's that he every guest he has he he tries to learn from. You know, it's it it's a kind of there isn't anything more compelling and powerful than a well-armed humility. And I've seen this in great people. I've met I have been privileged to meet many great people. And I've met the shells of great people, too. But the great people I've met are they're striking in their humility. Striking. It's a core part of their character and they're not they're wrestling all the time. When they talk to someone, doesn't matter who it is, they're they're there with them communicating.
You know, one of the things we learned as we moved along on this tour was I have security people who also help me with logistics and uh we've had to be very careful about who we gather around us because all the people on the tour have to treat everyone they come into contact well with well all everyone especially the people who come to my shows but in restaurants in hotels like I don't want to leave This is especially true if you're in the public eye because if if you're unknown and you offend someone, they'll forget it. But if you're well known and you offend someone, they will never forget it. It will burn itself into their imagination and they will tell absolutely everyone. They they'll feel deeply betrayed and and they have been. So, so we ensure that everyone around us treats everyone. Not well in the manner that keeps reputation intact, but well, not so that reputation stays intact, but because it's the right thing to do. And that's a form of that meekness, you know? It's it that's that's what it's referring to.
Do you think men are being taught to be weak right now?
Yes, definitely.
What?
Oh, no. What's worse than being taught? They're being enticed toward that in every way.
Tell me more.
And punished for not doing it. Well, they're enticed towards it by well, well, the insistence, for example, that there are modes of less worthy being than the masculine, let's say, because masculinity itself is toxic to its core, a manifestation of patriarchal oppression. That male ambition is nothing but a manifestation of the force of tyrannical power that not only oppresses the oppressed but rapes the world. Jesus brutal. So there's that. So that and then any deviation from any deviation in that direction. The desire of a four-year-old boy to play with guns, for example. Well, we have to rub rub that out. It's like, oh, do you you're going to rub out your son's ability to point and shoot, are you? That's that's what it'll do as a whole life. Going to go to war with that in your feminine virtue. Toxic masculinity. It's like great harpy warfare. It's awful. It's awful.