Transcription
What god is it that you believe in? I've heard you talk about this sort of substrate idea and such, but in a simple way that I can understand. Do you believe in a man in the sky god? Do you believe in it?
Well, that's not as primitive a conceptualization as the atheists would have you believe. What is it you believe? Well, there isn't anything more complex in the known universe than a human brain. Mhm. So if you want a model for reality as such, like proclaiming that it has something akin to the structure of the human psyche is not an absurd claim given that that is the most complex thing by far that we know of. By far.
So what is it you believe? Well, I've been explaining it. you. But I mean, you I I did say I mentioned something which we skipped over very quickly because I introduced it too rapidly. The postmodernists figured out that we live in a story, but then they leapt to a faulty conclusion of two forms. Well, three. There's no uniting story. That was one of their conclusions. In fact, the definition of postmodernism is skepticism of meta narratives. There's no uniting story. It's like, well, that's a stupid theory because it there's no union. So what? There's just diversity. Well, we worship diversity now in this utterly foolish manner. There's no difference between diversity and war. Without a uniting narrative, there's nothing but war. So, no, that's not going to work. Wrong. Hedonistic self-gratification. There's Michelle Foucault for you to a tea. It's like, why is that wrong? Why can't people just do what they want with whoever they want all the time? Because it defeats itself and quickly. It's not a sustainable game. If it's all about you and your whims, I don't want to be anywhere near you and that won't be so good for you. That's not going to work. Power. That's really where the postmodernists landed with their what would you say? temptation to turn towards Marx. It's all about power. It's like, first of all, that's probably a confession if that's what you believe. And second, no, it's not. Try tyrannizing your wife and see how well that works for you. Try tyrannizing yourself and see how successful you are. Power is not the game.
Okay. What's the game? What's the story? I mentioned earlier it's voluntary self-sacrifice, right? You offer yourself up in the service of something higher. That's the basis of society. That's the basis of psychological stability. The Christian insistence is that that's the basis of the world.
I'm going to ask you again because I I want to be I want to be clear. Is what what is what is it you what is the God you believe in? I think that the claim that Christ is the embodiment of the prophet and the laws, I think that's true. Okay. Yeah. But that that's complicated. It's very very complicated, but I think it's true. So you believe that Jesus was God? God. Yeah. I I think I think if you understand what that means that it's indisputable. I'll I'll give you I'll give you a brief explanation of why Christ takes the sins of the world onto himself. So that means all the problems that there are are his problems. Right? Okay. So the the idea there is that there's no difference between making that assumption and then actually beginning to address those problems. And there's no difference between that which best addresses the problems of mankind that and the divine, those are the same thing. And I can't see how that can be otherwise because the contrary hypothesis would be that you would adapt best to your life by avoiding things that are difficult and terrifying. And no one believes that. And so the pattern of the passion, this is the voluntary self-sacrifice issue taken to its extreme. The pattern of the passion is the decision to voluntarily confront and welcome anything that happens to you, no matter what it is. And that's a terrible thing to ask or endeavor to undertake. But well, the alternative is to shrink away. Well, the spirit of shrinking away is the divine. It's like I don't think so. Like that that's preposterous. The spirit of unlimited courage. Well, that's not a bad start for a definition of what constitutes the divine, the highest possible value.
Has your belief in God, religion been shaken at all? Oh, yes, definitely. Cuz you've been constantly over the last year and a half, two years, you've been through a particularly difficult time with losing people in your life that are um were foundational to you. Tammy as well. Oh yeah. Well, and I was in extreme pain for three years, right? I went through three years where every minute of my life was worse than any minute I had ever had previous to that. It was terrible. And did I lose faith? Was it questioned, challenged? Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, it it just became absurd. It was absurd. So many things had gone off the rails in my wife was dying. My daughter was ill. I was things had blown up around me in 50 different ways. And I was like seriously in pain. It was terrible. I was walking like 12 miles a day because I couldn't sit. I did that for months. Winter, rain, whenever. I had a friend who walked with me. It was terrible. And yeah, I mean, I thought, what was the desperation? It wasn't even the pain. It was the fact that I was in such terrible shape that I felt that I was a felt I believed that I was a burden to everyone around me and that that was only likely to get worse. And I thought, what's the sense in this? What's the possible significance of this? So yes, everyone's faith is challenged. I mean, Christ himself cries in despair out to God on the cross. And the story wouldn't be believable without that. Like, if you're going to live, you're going to be pushed past your limit, right? If you're going to live. So, but who knows what you discover when you push past your limit. In that moment, you know, I've been in my relationship for some time now, and I genuinely think I'd rather I'd rather die myself than my partner die. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And you were there as Tammy was struggling with her health. Yeah. Which is not something I've heard you actually talk about before in what I've observed. She was she was dying. Is that harder to take for you than your own pain and struggle? I think generally if you love someone, it's worse to see them suffer than to suffer yourself. You certainly figure that out when you have kids. And this all happens at the same moment, the same couple of years of your life. Mhm.
Is there anything to, you know, people always search for silver linings and things? Is there anything? We're both alive. My family's thriving. Uh, my adventure is expanding. Life isn't fair, is it? Doesn't appear to be very fair because I mean, this is how your story ended in that regard, but it is. I don't know if an adventure is fair. I don't even know if that's what we want. Like this is something I really came to understand more deeply when writing this book. What are we built for? We're built for maximal challenge. And that isn't the way we view ourselves in the modern world. We we view ourselves as built for pleasure. You know, pornography. We we view ourselves as built for consumption or for safety or for or for for maybe for egotistical self-aggrandizement and fame. Those are look many all of those things are better than their absence. Let's say, you know, I think part of the reason that Andrew Tate is so popular among young men because it it's better to be a successful reprobate than a useless scanger. Seriously. I mean, seriously. Well, that's why the villain in stories is often admirable compared to the coward, right? At least the villain is out there like doing villain things, you know? But at least he has meaning. Well, and he's he's not he's not the villain at least the villain has meaning. The the villain's on a quest of sorts. You know, a committed and a committed villain can learn. That's another thing, too. What are we built for? I think we're built for maximal challenge. And that's that's way more interesting. I mean, one of the things that see I figured out that lies that totalitarian states were a consequence of lies in about 1985. I I really figured it out. I'd been reading Solzhenitsyn and Carl Jung. I'd been reading I was reading a lot. I was really obsessed by it. I thought, "Oh, I see. So, hell is the dominion of the lie." Okay. So, what do you do about that? Well, you stop lying. That's how you fight it. And that means you do that in your own life. You just stop. Just you practice stopping. You practice not doing the things you know you shouldn't do. You practice paying attention to your words to see if they're landing solidly and they make you confident instead of weak. Right? You abandon your short-term desire for control and power. Understanding that there isn't anything better that can happen to you than what happens if you tell the truth, right? No matter what it looks like to you in the moment. It's a strange thing, but I can't see how it could be otherwise because you'd have to hypothesize that you're going to align yourself with life, with nature, with society, with God, with yourself by lying. No one believes that. You might think you can get away with it. That's way different, right? But no one believes that. So, well, so then what happens in consequence of that? Well, I think what happens in consequence of that is what happened to Abraham. Your life just goes like this. Just opens and opens and opens and opens. And I don't think there's any limp to that. And that's ridiculously entertaining. Like unbearably entertaining. There's what you want in your life. You want it to be unbearably entertaining. And it's funny, you know, when you watch people go to movies, I mean, James Bond, right? That's an unbearably entertaining life. And that's what people want to see when they go to a theater because that's what they want. That's what they want. And maybe all the sorrow and catastrophe that's part of that has to be part of it because otherwise there's there's nothing about it that's glorious. Why does that move you so much? Because life is very wide. You know, there's the the peaks and valleys are very distant from one another. And I I don't know, maybe as you ascend uphill, your understanding of the chasm between the peaks and valleys also increases, you know, because you think maybe as you're successful, you're happier. Well, first of all, I'm not sure that success and happiness are the same thing. I'm not sure that we want them to be the same thing. I don't even know what people mean when they say they want to be happy. If you investigate it, technically, you'll find out that really what people mean when they say they want to be happy is that they don't want to suffer. That's different than the enthusiastic joy that you might think about, you know, that's part and parcel of a child's laughter. You want to be happy. What do you want to be laughing all the time? Is that what you're saying? Well, no. That's not what I mean. Well, what do you mean? Do you mean the gratification that comes along with the cookie at 1 in the morning? No, that's not what I mean. Well, okay. What do you mean? Well, I don't know. It's like, yeah, you don't know. Partly what you mean is you don't want pointless suffering. Fair enough. You know, fair fair enough. But that doesn't mean it's happiness that's your goal. There's no I don't think that's your goal. I don't think your podcast would be successful if that was your goal. I think you would have washed up on the shores of triviality long ago. I do. Yeah.
Well, there's something you're doing that's working. There's something about the way you're approaching the situation that's of broad appeal. There's some archetypal pattern that's you're acting out in your conduct in your podcast because otherwise it wouldn't have the effect it has. It's true. I I I agree. I don't know what it is but because well, you know, some of it we talked about some of it. You know, you said that you you can you can you can apprehend the outline of some of the principles. Some of that you probably discovered as you went along rather than, you know, putting them in place to begin with. This seems to work. Yeah. You know, so that's a discovery of of a pathway. Well, as a podcaster as well, I don't think you really truly understand your principles until they're tested. So, and especially when they're tested from both sides. So that you know this side's telling you to be more like this and this side's screaming at you to be more like this and you you're faced with a decision when you're you know when I started out as a podcaster there was no one screaming. There was no one there. Right. Right. But at some point in the journey you get immense pressure. Yeah. Yeah. Well then you're also forces a decision out of you. Yeah. Well you're also in a situation then when you have to start worrying about your reputation which is something you don't have to worry about when no one knows who you are. And it's very dangerous to worry about your reputation. As soon as you start worrying about your reputation as a podcaster, you're going to fail. Yeah. Because you're not interesting, then you'll stop taking risks. Yeah. So then, you know, another question emerges. You got people yelling at you from this side and this side. Well, how do you know what's right? Well, it isn't partly it's by listening because you want to pay attention to your audience, but there's something guiding you if you do what you're doing properly that has nothing to do with the clamor. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because actually it links back to some of the principles we've talked about today. It's one of one of the things I've learned is having a good relationship like good friendships and a good relationship with my wife is actually the foundation for me to be able to navigate the scream people screaming at me from both sides. Yeah. Why? Because it just anchors me in it's like an anchor of like knowing who I actually am irrespective of the the liked crowd the crowd telling you who you are. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a good that's a very good illustration of distributed identity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like you are your wife and your friends and your family. Yeah. Right. That there's no fundamentally there's there cannot be any separation there. That's Yeah. And and when you you said you experienced that it's like that's what gives you that's part of what gives you a foundation. It's like yeah that's not a losery. And it's nice because as you said like when I go out into the world everyone is very nice to me. It's just if you spend too long on the internet people scream at you from both sides. They say do it more like this. Do it like this. Where are the CEOs? This is called dire. We want more of these kind of guests. We should talk about this politics Trump Kamala Trump and in the middle of that you're going hell. And that's where you have to take some time to really like tune into yourself and go who am I and why am I doing this and what are my principles and irrespective of the principles I choose or I believe in that there's going to be suffering and there's going to be sacrifice and there's going to be great adventure as well. M and the good one thing I really like that helps me for some bizarre reason is the knowledge that I will die someday. Why does that help? It just it's a good question. Why does it help? It helps because if I think it's focusing in me on what actually matters. Yeah. In a way that I wouldn't be a it wouldn't be as easy to otherwise. What it's saying is it's just a reminder of okay, if I'm going to die someday, then actually this person is screaming at me to be more like this. It's obviously doesn't matter. Like it obviously doesn't matter in the in the context of my other priorities. Well, it might be that death is what makes things matter. Scarcity always makes the value well right. But but then we're talking about a kind of ultimate scarcity then like you can ask yourself one of the fundamental questions you can ask yourself is what is the nature of the real right and I think death makes things real. I agree. Yeah. That's why it's an important I don't know seems like a weird thing to say but it reminds me that what's trivial and what's not um in the context of a finite amount of resources time attention that I can commit. It's it's foolish to commit some of them to some of the things that I find myself committing them to sometimes when I remind myself of that death.
How do you pick your guests? Curiosity. Yeah. That's I pick people I want to talk to. Yeah. It's like I'd like to hear what that person has to say. Yeah. And it's something that I'm trying to learn. So it's typically when I when I've seen you wrote a book called Who We Who Wrestle With God. That's the Israel. Hey, that's what Israel means. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the chosen people of God. Israel. I didn't know that. Yeah. But I thought this is a subject that I'm curious about. So, I would like to talk to Jordan to see if he can help me, you know, fill in this sort of jigsaw puzzle in my brain of subject matters that relate to this. And I evolve. I'm probably going to have kids soon. And when I have my kids, I'm going to be curious about parenthood. And I'm going to speak to, you know, guests that can help me with that. That's been my framework. And it's worked in terms of I still like doing this. Well, there's no reason. So when I'm on stage lecturing, I'm on a journey. It's a real journey. Yeah. It's not an act like I pose a question to myself before I go on stage. It's a question I want the answer to and I don't have and I go on stage and I try to move towards the answer and people come along and I want to go there and they want to come along. It's a good deal. And the podcasts are like that if you're doing them honestly. It's like I want to talk to this person. That's a really nice way of thinking about it. Moving towards an answer. Yeah. Not even sure what the answer is, but well, and it'll change as you approach it. Move towards the answer, right? The questions and the answers change as you move towards it. That's okay. That's fine.
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