Joe: There's reality, which is loving awareness,
Sam: unconcerned by the arising and passing away of phenomena.
Ali: And then there are the 10, 000
things.
Sam: Hello and welcome to the 10, 000 things.
My name is Sam Ellis.
Joe: My name's Joe Loh.
Ali: And I'm Ali Catramados.
Joe: Today on the show,
Sam: three neurodivergent people deal with one of the 10, 000 things.
Joe: Yeah, is that our, is that our thing?
Sam: Something like that, isn't it?
Yeah.
Ali: Sounds good to me.
Hmm.
We workshopped it, we improved it a bit a couple of episodes ago and
I think we'll just keep improving it until we find one we like.
Joe: Do we need the neurodivergent angle for people to listen to us or not?
Sam: I think for some people...
It's an, it's added value, but then at a certain point you forget that you're
listening to three neurodivergent people, they're just three people and
that's kind of the whole point I guess.
Joe: Yeah.
What percentage of the population is neurodivergent?
Sam: Great.
I don't know.
Ali, you might have a better idea than me.
No idea.
I mean, you hear things like one in five.
Ali: That probably sounds about right.
Sam: Yeah, or am I getting that mixed up with, that's the rate
for chronic anxiety for under 20s.
But I mean look, it's often one in five.
Joe: I think in a capitalist society you need to have an angle
and we, that's our angle, right?
Yeah.
The neurodivergent.
Sam: Everyone has to market themselves, that's right.
Joe: Yeah.
And there's a neurodivergent flag that we could hang up here in the
garage if we really wanted to.
Sam: Oh, for sure.
Well, I've already got the rainbow flag up.
Joe: But we could slice it and dice it more so that me and Ali were
the bipolars, which is much more serious than what you're doing.
No, that's
Sam: true.
Yeah, fair.
Yeah.
Ali: I don't know if you need to say that.
Joe: Which is the problem with, which is kind of the problem, which is kind
of the problem with identity politics because eventually we slice and dice.
So finally, does Ali win, you know, with her not being a man and me being
a straight man but having, you know...
Sam: The family...
Eventual illness.
Yeah, that's right.
No, look, it's a real horse race.
It's a real horse race with you two, neck and neck.
Joe: All identity politics is a complete dead end.
Well, no, I...
I
Sam: think it actually
Joe: leads into today's topic, so maybe we should read out
our quote from Eckhart Tolle.
Yeah,
Sam: let's do it.
go on then, today on the show.
Today
Joe: on the show we have a quote from Eckhart Tolle from a book that
I just re read called A New Earth.
Eckhart wrote The Power of Now quite famously in the late 90s, which
Oprah picked up and it became a spiritual, uh, super mega seller.
Absolutely.
Which I've read and re read quite a few times.
This one's also very re readable.
Eckhart himself is a weird, not very cool seeming guy.
Not in a bad way, just a slightly creepy vibe about him.
But his books are amazing.
distilling of spiritual concepts that, are easy to come at.
Sam: I agree.
The opening of The Power of Now is incredible.
It's really strong.
It's a very arresting, it's well written chapter.
It's just, it's, it belongs in the genre of like the addict's
personal testimony, doesn't it?
And it's got, it's got the rock bottom.
It's got the, the witnessing, witnessing the miracle.
Joe: He had a spiritual experience, like a white light moment where All
his fear and anxiety just drained away and he was, yeah, standing
in the sunlight of the spirit.
It's
Sam: a salvation, you know, and recovery from addiction narrative
with a lot of the classic hallmarks.
Well
Joe: he wasn't an addict, but he was suicidal.
He went from suicidal to spiritually enlightened.
And he would say...
Has stabilised his spiritual enlightenment, which is often the
trick with a spiritual awakening is just can you stay in that state?
And he would say stabilize it and now is worth a hundred
million dollars or something.
Sam: Well, that's right.
And I was about to say I think it's one thing to recover from like a
really difficult moment or It's a period in your life like that.
And then it's quite another thing to achieve radical success
in a short time and then start hanging out with the Illuminati.
I mean, yeah, it's going to do things to you.
All right.
Joe: Should we do the quote?
So the quote just needs to stand on its own, I think.
It does.
It Eckhart
Sam: Tolle.
Well, there you go.
We got him out the way up front.
So here's the quote.
"A very common role is the one of victim and the form of attention
it seeks is sympathy or pity or other's interest in my problems.
Me and my story.
Seeing oneself as a victim is an element in many egoic patterns
such as complaining, being offended, outraged, and so on.
Of course, once I am identified with a story in which I assigned myself the role
of victim, I don't want it to end, and so, as every therapist knows, the ego
does not want an end to its problems, because they are part of its identity."
Ali: think that comes back.
You know, just so much of not seeing, being, not feeling seen
in childhood, not feeling heard.
And perhaps the only times you were seen and heard were in fact, when
you were being cared for or tended to perhaps when you were sick or something.
And so, yeah, this, this pattern then, you know, of like reward for being,
you know, the victim, like, you know, you were bullied at school and, "Oh,
I'm so sorry that happened to you."
And that was like a, It, it filled a void of something that should
have actually already been filled.
And so it then becomes this pattern of a pattern of behavior, like moving forward
in your life where to, yeah, you, you, it's the, whether it's good attention
or bad attention, it's still attention.
And it's attention that you just wasn't given to you at a really important
developmental time in your life.
Sam: That's it.
That's exactly right.
I agree entirely.
Yeah.
Joe: Uh, identifying as a victim is a particularly toxic thing
that swept through the culture in like the 2010s, I think, and has
been very bad for people, I think.
Sure.
Because what he's talking about is broader, like Yes.
Sam: Leaving aside identity, for example, I'm a victim because
of this one thing that happened or this identity I belong to.
Joe: No, but it's the way the ego reifies itself.
So yes, that's what I'm saying.
So what Eckhart agrees with me on is that I'm loving awareness.
Yes.
And the illusion is Joe, the separate individual.
And the more that I.
build up that illusion, the more I suffer.
Now, I can, to, to define myself, if I'm not successful in my career,
say, or, or in my family or whatever, then maybe all I have left to
define myself is I'm a victim.
That's right.
Yeah.
And so, he's talking about, yeah, how the ego, like, takes over us like a parasite.
It does.
And, but the victim, uh, identity is a particularly toxic one, and I think
it's one that became very popular in the West in the last 10 or 15 years, and I
think it's been, you know, deleterious to our culture, our politics, you know,
yeah, but then I could be accused of, what do they call it, victim blaming?
Yeah,
Ali: of course.
Victim blaming or just not acknowledging your own privilege
of not actually experiencing those things that people do feel
Sam: victims of.
Yeah.
Now of course, to be fair, Joe's got plenty of claims to that status himself
and so that you're not in the, you're not coming at this quite from the
point of view of the crusty boomer who's like everyone wants a medal now.
Yeah.
Like your perspective on it is no, no, no, I've been through the shit and you know,
how many times you've been hospitalized?
A couple.
Yep.
And You know, you've had, you had a pretty sticky wicket earlier.
Like, there's a lot of things you could point to, but my, but
you're like, yeah, that's all true.
And a lot of just, well, everyone else has at least one thing they can point to.
But what you're advocating is not living your life with that frame of reference.
Joe: I'm advocating waking up from the illusion of being a separate self.
Sure.
Trapped in an ego.
And, and being able to use your ego as a tool to navigate the world,
to make a living and all that, but basically to rest in a loving awareness.
That's right.
So, a spiritual awakening is what I'm advocating.
Sam: Yeah, the ego has instrumental purposes and needs to remain an instrument
and not the driver of what's happening.
Joe: And I think that's why I read and reread those books because
it layers it into my system.
The only path that I've found to liberation.
Because as long as we're trapped in a purely egotistical material
world, we will suffer because we miss, we, we misapprehend reality and
we misapprehend who we are, who we are and what we're doing on earth.
Ali: It's so, it's limiting, like it doesn't, it's limiting in that there's
so many things we could be, but we're just limiting ourselves to these, to
this really narrow frame of reference of, you know, of victim rather than,
you know, yeah, you could just say you have, Whether it's trauma, diagnoses,
you know, bad things that have happened, whatever they are and like multiple
things that have affected you negatively.
Sam: You've had a car accident.
Ali: Like those things are horrible and have absolutely impacted you, you know, in
the way that you move through the world.
It is limiting to then just be, just defined purely by that rather than, yeah,
like you're just a car accident victim rather than, you know, you're also a
partner or, you know, you're a parent or, you know, this is what you do for work.
Like there's so many other labels and things that make a whole person.
And I think when you fall into the mentality of only focusing on the negative
ones, yeah, you, yeah, it's, it's.
It's, it is.
It's limiting.
Yeah.
Sam: Or the ones that are like, perhaps we could even reframe them as like, you
could be proud of what you've gotten past or what you've endured, let's say, maybe
you haven't gotten past it entirely.
Ali: Right.
Which is, you know, yeah.
Like
everyone has certain barriers.
Yeah.
If you're able to either work with or around your barrier, you know,
those things that everybody has.
But yeah, like to just be defined by simply all the things
that you've struggled with.
I don't want to be defined by my struggle.
Yeah, that's
right.
Sam: Oh, that's right.
Oh, you don't want to be, yeah, that's right.
You don't want to only be, oh, you know, I recovered from
this enormous setback in life.
It's like, well, okay, what else?
Yeah.
Joe: I think, yeah, I think the trauma is the big one that people
that turned into their identity in the last little while and trauma has
been expanded to be this hugely much broader term for something that was
like shell shock a hundred years ago.
But now it's live.
Yeah.
Could be all kinds of things that I wouldn't consider trauma.
Sam: Agreed.
Joe: And then, then the trauma becomes I'm the victim of this trauma and that's
who I am and now I'm going to focus On this thing in the past, so not in
the present where I'm living my life.
This thing in the past will now define me and I like, so I would say that process
trauma, if you're able to, as best as you possibly can, and then get on with life
as best as you possibly can, you know, and don't make that your, your whole identity.
Sam: Also, I wanna broaden this out a little bit into like getting
away from, say you've been.
You know, the classical victim in the sense that like an event occurred, you
know, act of God or vehicle accident or, you know, uh, intimate abuse of some
kind or, you know, any neglect or any parental, you know, you saw something
nasty in the woodshed, you know, cold comfort farm, Yeah, outside the classic
victim stuff to like, let's say there's two, let's say there's two people, you
know, workplace relationship or a intimate relationship or they're siblings or
whatever, and so leaving aside identity or something particular happened to one
party, there's just two people that are in an interaction over time and they
often So it's a share house situation and everyone living under that roof believes
that they've given more and gotten less than everybody else under that roof.
So that's a classic manifestation or in a, you know, or in a intimate
relationship with, you know, two people.
One believes that they've...
They've been the worse off out of the two.
Yeah, like, it's what it is.
Well, they both believe that.
Ali: Yeah, they both believe that the things that they have contributed
have not been appreciated, and then they're resentful of their partner for,
Sam: yeah.
And their suffering has been overlooked, or that their suffering
is greater than the exactly, yeah.
Joe: Or if you don't have anything dramatic, you could just say you're a
victim of capitalism or a victim of the government, or pretty much anyone on earth
could say they're a victim of something.
Sam: Well, this is where I'll push back, though, because I think...
The only place where we really disagree, or maybe it's not even a disagreement,
is I do think that if someone is willing to say publicly that they're
a victim, then something is wrong.
So even if they're making it up in the classical sense of like, you know, they're
pretending to have a disability or they're pretending to, uh, you know, uh, a sexual
identity or something that, you know, they're a fraud on some level, right?
But the fact that they're...
They're seeking attention in this way and, they're shopping a story around on
the talk shows and it never happened.
This has happened over and over and over again.
And you look at those people, and of course, people feel outraged when
they realise they've been taken in.
And they bought that person's book or they donated money or whatever
it was, and then they feel...
People get...
Like really furious when that sort of thing is revealed.
Yeah.
The bell hooks thing.
Yes.
People absolutely would just...
Clarice, uh, what's her name?
Um, Patrice Couleurs.
Yeah.
She was like a BLM campaigner.
Ended up trousering a whole lot of money.
Yeah.
Bad.
Ali: It's awful, but yeah, like it absolutely, it takes so much away
from any, yeah, any sort of, like they're absolutely torn apart for it
because it's like, it feels like a real betrayal to somebody who actually has.
Experienced, you know, any sort of real, you know, um, experience of it.
And it's just, it's horrible.
It's horrifying seeing other people use things that yeah, have been
deeply traumatizing just for financial gain or for notoriety or for any
Sam: of those reasons.
For the attention, for the pity, the compassion, the sympathy, the fame.
And of course, uh, the money, uh, what was her name?
Cancer, cookbook, and she didn't have cancer.
Bell Hooks.
Oh yeah, sorry.
Bell Gibson.
Ali: Bell Gibson.
That's it.
Sorry, that's my um, that's my bad.
I'm thinking of someone.
Yeah.
Sam: Bell Gibson.
That's right.
Not Mel.
Bell Gibson.
One of the most bizarre stories.
Yeah.
She
Ali: had brain cancer.
Like that meme.
Well, that reel constantly pops up on my Tik Tok of like where she's being
interviewed and she's like, so you died twice on the operating table.
You've had, you know, you've had brain cancer, you've, you've cured it with,
you don't, you all like the, the list of things that she had was extraordinary.
Like absolutely.
Who would make this up?
Yeah.
Like it was, it was absolutely extraordinary.
And like.
Cause I remember seeing her cookbook at the time and like, and just looking at
it and thinking, Oh, these look actually like half decent recipes and stuff, like,
Sam: you know, but a bunch of raw food.
Yeah.
But like,
Joe: imagine like, they're making a Netflix series about her at the moment.
Awesome.
Sam: You know, you've made it.
Yeah.
Anyway, go on.
Sorry.
I
Ali: was going to say, but it's like a lot of those ones, like, um, inventing
Anna and like, we love a fraud.
Oh, we do.
Well, Netflix loves a fraud.
Yes.
Sorry.
And what's the other Tinder
Sam: Swindler?
Yeah.
The dating app.
Joe: So, the instinct is, look at me, and in her case, give me lots of money.
Now, the give me lots of money probably everyone can relate to,
but the look at me is something
Sam: that can be...
The stolen valour really, really grinds people's gears the wrong way,
but here's what I wanted to point to.
It reminds me of when something is wrong with that person, let's all
agree, and are they having a good time?
So this is the thing, I think people walked away from the Belle Gibson thing,
"that bitch, she took everyone's money, she gave people false hope, she might
have even contributed to someone's death", you know, I mean, that's all
true, and sure, begrudging the money and the stolen valour, definitely,
but what's it like being that person?
That's where I often end up, and it's an unpopular thing to ask about,
like, and I'm not defending her for one second, but I'm just like...
Do you think she's having a fun time?
Like, I don't know
Ali: at what po like to look at it from like Yeah.
Objectively and think what has gone wrong or what has led her to think Yeah.
That this is the answer to her problems.
Yes.
Sam: That's the question I always ask.
Ali: What is, yeah, what has, what has led to that?
It's that series of events.
'cause it's such an ex, I mean her is such an extreme case of
it really is of that, but, um,
Joe: but, but that's the point, isn't it?
Eckhart's making, which is to have any egoic identity in charge.
Sam: That's what I'm saying.
That's what I'm getting at.
I think we're all, we all suffer is what I'm saying.
But to have
Joe: any in charge is, is a form of sickness.
But what he's talking about is what most people operate on,
which is, this is my identity.
I'm over here, we said at the start about identity politics, I'm
over here and this is my identity.
I'm Joe the straight white guy who wears tracksuits and has a mental
illness and a recovering addict and I work in the film industry.
Now all of those things...
Are completely irrelevant to who I actually am as consciousness or
what I would call loving awareness.
They're completely irrelevant.
They are, they are on top of something that, that doesn't
need anything on top of it.
And all I need to do is rest in that awareness and look, I have to
go out and function in the world and provide food and whatever.
But basically whenever I, I reify that, those identities.
I'm falling into a trap and that trap is what leads to a lot of unhappiness in the
Ali: world.
I think like falling back into, like, people falling into that trap
of like what you say, it's so easy to gravitate towards falling into
that trap of becoming the victim.
There is a sense of...
Familiarity in the known outcome, as in, I know when I say and, or do this
or identify in this way, there is going to be some sort of perceived like
attention or sympathy or whatever it is.
yeah, feeling that need that, so it's a known entity rather than perhaps branch
to proven strategy as a proven strategy is to, to courageously go out then.
Free of labels and actually present your, you know, a big complex
nuanced version of yourself.
That's very real.
The level of vulnerability that, that is required to do that would be,
yeah, it would be, yeah, especially if there's any sort of trauma
around that, you would be fearful.
So I think that's why people are so quick to, you know, cause
that's the way the brain works.
It's once the easiest, most comfortable pathway.
And so that's, like I said, it's a known pathway to go, the
Sam: well worn path.
It really
Ali: is.
So I think that's why people are so quick to.
Sam: And let things die of neglect, you know, don't water the plant like
that as we were talking about recently.
What I would
Joe: say is take response, radically take responsibility for everything you
possibly can take responsibility for.
And the only thing in my life that I'm not sure how much responsibility I have for.
Is my bipolar because only because I don't know how much of that is genetic
and I don't think science knows how much of that's genetic or biological.
That's
Sam: true.
The gene, the gene of science has been very disappointing on mental illness.
It's really come up with nothing this whole time.
Yeah.
It's a
Joe: total myth.
It's a bit of a black box, but everything else, like I need to look
for what my part in the problem was.
So every relationship.
Every, the state of my career, uh, how much money I do or don't
get from the government, how much money I do or don't owe the taxman.
All of that is my responsibility.
So that's the opposite of being a victim.
But then there's also, I think something I've noticed with Ali and other people
is you can have Over responsibility.
And that's another way the ego builds itself up.
It's like, I'll be responsible for all
these
Sam: people.
Everything rests on my shoulders.
I'm taking care of it.
Ali: Yeah.
That martyr sort of complex.
I mean, I've watched, I think, like, I don't want to make generalizations
here, but I've watched a lot of women, particularly older women and
who the expectation really was that you had to do all these things.
But then it also became like, well, it's the only thing I can
complain about, so I'm going to
Sam: weaponize
Ali: it.
Yeah, because it's all I have.
That's all I have.
And so I can see how they've fallen into that.
But I've certainly witnessed, particularly a lot of older women,
who've fallen into that martyr of...
Yeah, I've done everything for you.
I've had to do everything for you.
And
Sam: the impulse behind it isn't wrong at all.
And this is what happens when you deny people a meaningful role outside of that.
It's just what happens.
Maybe Joe was almost willing to acknowledge this in a way by...
sort of satirizing the, oh, we're all victims under capitalism, but like, okay.
You know, I think there's some trust, some truth in that.
Joe: This is very crude terms, but I think the left has a lot of
people who have a victim mentality.
And I think the right has people who have an over, like overly active
sense of responsibility and want to be responsible for things which
are none of their fucking business.
Sam: Are we talking the traditional right here?
Or are we talking the neo right?
Look, we've got to sort this out because the defining character of Marga and
Christian nationalism and Christian identity is also being a victim.
It's the defining feature, man.
Yeah.
White people.
You can see what I'm talking about.
They're a
Ali: victim of big government and a victim of the woke left.
White people are
Sam: being robbed.
Like they downsized the food packaging.
It's the woke.
So
Joe: no one's being over responsible then?
Sam: Everyone wants to take their hands off the wheel.
Everyone.
Look, look, like the billionaires are all like, oh no.
It wasn't me, I can't, what, uh, I'm just in my bunker if anyone needs me.
I can't sort this out.
I didn't make this.
Everyone's wildly disavowing.
Everywhere you look.
Joe: Do you know what I mean though about the right wanting to be
controlling of other people's, say, reproductive rights or whatever?
It's an over responsibility for like, oh, I'll take care of that and control
Sam: that.
If you want, yeah, no, I agree.
It's a
Ali: fucked up...
But then like the traditional right or the libertarian right would very much be...
No.
Like, would not want to bar of
Sam: that.
Absolutely not.
Big government out.
Ali: Yeah.
No big government.
No one telling you what to do with your body or anything,
Sam: or, yeah.
That's right.
And no one telling you what to do with your workers.
Yeah.
Ali: Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
That's right.
Your roads or healthcare or anything.
You're on your own.
That's right.
Good luck.
Yeah.
Joe: I think the world would be a much healthier place if everyone had
a healthy sense of responsibility.
Agreed.
For the planet and for everything else.
Sam: There is a version of small C conservatism which goes...
You know, somewhat along the lines of what you're thinking.
I don't know, I don't think there's many of these people left where they're
like, uh, I have my obligations as a...
You know, a business person, and a pillar of the community, and
da da da, and as a church member, I have these responsibilities.
That's not what we're hearing now.
I mean, those people are still around, but they tend to be
a little bit quieter, maybe.
Um, those proper conservatives, God bless them, if there's any out there, like, tip
Joe: of the hat.
Well, your man, Jordan Peterson, who I always have to make the disclaimer,
I'm not a Jordan Peterson pro.
Sam: He's a reactionary now, no.
But,
Joe: he was the first person I ever heard say, What you need to do is take
on as much responsibility as you can.
He's the biggest
Ali: victim now.
He's a victim of feminism.
Sure, but
Sam: what he's saying...
Someone told me I have to find this larger woman attractive.
Joe: But what he's saying to younger men...
Oh my god, dude, he's a tissue.
What he's saying to younger men that's really healthy is take on
as much responsibility as you can.
No, but he
Sam: stopped saying that a long time ago and now it's everyone else's fault.
No, no, but
Joe: you guys are getting distracted by the celebrity of Jordan Peterson.
I'm talking about...
The really wise message that he, that I heard and I was like, I hadn't heard that.
I
Sam: agree.
There were some people that liked him early on and it was the
Joe: individual responsibility message.
With my progressive left wing upbringing, I wasn't told, take on as
much responsibility as you can handle and see what happens to your life.
And then I look around and I see the people that have done that that
aren't me, because I didn't do that.
Okay, sure.
And they're really successful.
Okay, alright.
And they're my peers, but they've taken on more responsibility and been willing to...
Take on more stress and pressure at work, for example, than I
have been and, you know, that they've had more successful life.
I think it's good advice,
Ali: but similarly growing up in an environment where very, where people
were very much pushed academically or business wise and take on all that.
I've seen a lot of people get very burnt out living that kind
of, that, that responsibility of what they're expected to do.
Maximizing constantly.
Yeah.
It's like to better yourself, like not just to keep up
with the Joneses, but like.
You could be doing better in your career.
You could be doing better in, you know, with your family and bigger house, bigger
everything, and it was never enough.
And so it's a constant, it's a goal.
The goalposts keep shifting.
So it's, uh,
Joe: so yeah, so what I, so what I
Sam: saw was perhaps the same with victim.
The victim frontier is ever receding and I guess so is the illusion of like
taking charge and being in control.
I think both of those things are ultimately illusions and fantasies
to return to the terminology.
Joe: Yeah, but I'm not talking about being in control.
I'm talking about being healthily responsible, which was
something that I, I, you know, didn't learn until I got sober.
And I had to make that responsible decision day after day to not pick up
a drink and then other responsibilities suddenly seemed appealing when I'd been
brought up with a laissez faire, do what you feel, just be, kind of attitude.
Unlike your upbringing, Ali, I wasn't, I wasn't, you gotta understand, you gotta
understand, I was never, it was never taught to me that there was anything
Uh, valorous in making money at all.
In fact, it was a little bit shameful money.
It was a bit gross.
Oh, but wait a minute.
No, no,
Sam: no, but your parents were acting in solidarity with people
that were asking for more money.
What do you mean?
From their employment.
Joe: Trade unions?
Yeah, yeah, sure.
But, like, the idea that being successful in business, like, that
was just, like, the lamest thing ever.
Yeah.
Let alone trying to keep up with the Joneses, like, who cares?
Sam: Australia wasn't all that entrepreneurial back then, though.
Let's keep that in mind.
No,
Ali: yeah, I was going to say, and my dad was probably the exception to the rule in
very much being, like, an entrepreneur.
But, I think, like, coming back to the quote and having Like where I agree
with you, Joe, that, yeah, we should have a healthy sense of responsibility.
The message needs to be in healthy and at being a balance.
Because I think if you completely ignore, you know, any sort of trauma
victim, you know, any sort of mindset like that, you completely don't
acknowledge any sort of impact on it.
One, you're either just not processing it and not working through it and it's
just becoming a problem in and of itself.
That's a problem.
That's right.
But I think.
You know, you could, if you could use it in a way that like, yeah, as a
measure of your success, like, okay, this has happened, but I have been able
to, yeah, overcome this barrier, I've been able to work through this, or I
can work with this, or whatever it is.
I think that is a healthy way of actually viewing any sort of perceived
victimhood where and similarly with your sense of responsibility, it should
be within a healthy and measured way.
I think there really needs to be a balance.
I think if it's all one or all the other, like I think if you're
completely letting go of it.
Yeah.
I think that also does you a
Sam: disservice.
often the thing that we're, that people will struggle to admit
is wrongdoing done to them.
Strange as that may sound, well, there are, there are, there are
safe ones for them to talk about.
And then the real one they don't talk about.
We've shared about this a little bit, us three.
And then the other thing we often struggle to admit.
We'll admit to the small sins, but we'll really struggle to own up to the, the, the
things we're really the most ashamed of.
And so in the therapeutic process, like you're getting as close
to the bone as possible, right?
And then you have to kind of integrate the things that have happened to you.
You have to integrate them and the things you've done, you have
to integrate them and by dwell.
And then, you know, you, so you have this new picture of the self
that's emerging every, every moment.
Right.
And.
Well, hopefully it's moving.
Hopefully that picture is changing in a good way.
And so you might have to kind of take on the victim label temporarily.
And that's a stopping
Joe: place.
Did you read out the rest of the quote about how therapists know that
people don't actually want their
Sam: problem solved?
Well, yeah, no, that's what I was getting to, right?
I think you stopped before that bit.
No, no, I got to it because, uh...
So, as every therapist knows, the ego does not want an end to its problems
because they are part of its identity.
Okay, so some therapists would actually take issue with that, but I think
a lot would agree in broad terms.
So, I...
So, this
Joe: is the problem with therapy, isn't it?
Which is, there has no end point.
Because...
But partly because of this victim mentality.
Ordinary human
Sam: unhappiness and coming to a balanced view of the self as being...
Responsible to the self and to others, and also that, you know, things were
done and you have sinned against.
I think it's accepting all of that and yeah.
Ali: I think, and we've talked about this before on the show, like
a good therapist will be working to make themselves redundant.
Yes.
So the whole point is at this point in your life, I'm teaching you.
Giving you the tools to work through whatever it is you need to work through
But hopefully you will get to a point where You will be able to on the whole
manage this by yourself and yeah sure things might come up and you might want
to come Back, but for the most part, it's actually setting you up to be
able to live your life Like they don't
Joe: Sam said in the last episode about yeah, the patient must
devise their own medicine and re administer it Yes, that's right.
But I think what he's saying is if What Eckhart's saying is if you have
a victim mentality, there will never be an end to your therapy, because
Sam: you'll just...
It won't progress at all.
Yeah.
No, no.
A hundred percent.
You probably won't even get to first base in therapy if you can't
contextualize it in some way.
Some, what some people struggle to do, even though, is admit to being a victim.
It's strange enough to say, but
Ali: particularly with some things, there's so much shame and guilt that
surrounds the event, whether it's of your own, you know, whether it's something
you did or not, or something happened to you, there can be so much guilt and
shame associated with those feelings that is really hard to speak about.
And that's just why a lot of those things, you know, people.
I mean, historically would never have even shared diagnoses or things that were,
you know, or because you don't want to be seen as less than or even if, yeah, like
weakness and moral, moral failure, moral failure, or even if, yeah, if you were
a victim of, yeah, a crime or something like that, it's like some, I should have
done this differently, I should have done this, you know, so yeah, like I
shouldn't have been walking out at night, I shouldn't have been left alone with
this person, whatever it is, like you, you, you overanalyze every sort of choice,
Potential choice you think you had in that situation, regardless of whether there
was actually any choice in it at all.
And most of the time, you know, if you are a victim that there was no
choice, like that was what happened.
But yeah, the way we still see it and have to move through and
process it, you, you do go over, what could I have done differently
to have had a different outcome?
I think that's a natural part of analyzing and pulling
Sam: apart.
You have to move through that part and it is painful, but yeah, I agree
with you that that resonates a lot.
It, the clue I was going to try and, you know, offer just a little one piece of
insight that I've got maybe about where to look if this is ringing a bell with
anyone is like, look for those things where you are trying to explain it to
yourself or like trying to figure out what you should have done differently.
That's a clue to an area
Joe: of thinking what I should have done differently about my most recent trauma.
But, I would say that I've never let it become my full identity.
Yeah, alright.
Sam: Sure.
Well, I think you've had a lot of other stuff to chew on along
the way that you've held on
Joe: to.
But I was plagued with obsessive thoughts about some incidents and then a lot of
like thinking back over, if I had done that differently then I never would
have been in that room or whatever.
Yeah, that's right.
That's probably true.
But, yeah, it's undoubtedly true that...
Things could have been different, but that's the point about the past.
It's never going to change.
So it's about coming into the present and maybe leaning slightly into the future.
And Eckhart would say, and I agree with him, radically coming
into the present, like really...
Just like Ram Dass said, just be here now, or as Eckhart said, the power of now.
But I was fortunate that I was able to talk about what had happened to
me with friends and a therapist.
So I'm not saying don't process trauma.
I'm saying don't let a trauma define you or become integral to your identity.
Yeah, I would say that.
Now the irony is after those traumatic events I did feel some
need to build a new egoic identity.
So suddenly I went out and like bought bright tracksuits and
started like posting photos on social media and wanting attention.
And it was a, it was like a trauma response.
It was like, I'm still here.
In fact, I'm like louder and brighter and bigger than ever.
So it was like a way of puffing myself up, which is all fine, but if I never stop and
then rest in that awareness, then I'm, I'm cheating myself of my brief experience of
consciousness, like I'm cheating myself of what I've found to be the most profound.
Experience of reality that I've found, you know, if all I am is a
guy in a bright track suit with a podcast, that's all ego stuff, right?
Yeah, that's true.
Ali: Like, but I think it's, it's, it's not a part to be completely
ignored or minimized as part of the process of getting through that trauma.
I think, and when you then come to the other side of it, that will be a hot.
One piece of the puzzle and it'll feel yeah that I needed to go through that
as a response to what happened Yeah, in order to actually let go of it.
It's you know, it's not
Sam: linear So don't make the mistake of going, you know, Joe's right.
Oh god.
What a pathetic Self, pitying victim I've been this whole time.
Yeah, Joe's right.
I really, God, the amount of time I've wasted on this.
Don't make the mistake of like now feeling guilty about that.
It's just go, okay, that's what it had to be.
Yeah.
And now, cause I mean, I've wasted time on it too, but I
should have said this upfront.
Like this, the reason this quote resonates for me is God, I mean, yes, I've done
an awful lot of that and it, yeah, it gets in the way of good stuff, gets
in the way of owning up to what you.
Have done to other people in, in fact, I think a lot of the time,
the purpose of clinging to it is to ignore or rationalize what
Ali: you've done to other people.
Yeah, to rationalize the shitty behavior.
Well, I, I responded this way because I was traumatized myself.
That's it.
And it completely absolving itself of...
It's okay for me to keep acting this way because of...
Yeah, which is, yeah, horrible.
No, stop doing that.
That's how it uses me.
Perpetrate.
Well, yeah, well, people who have been abused have perpetrated abuse.
Sam: Exactly.
And I firmly believe that all bullies begin as victims and vice versa.
And like, like there's, that's why Joe is, there's an inescapable kind of
truth to what you're saying, which is at some point the buck stops with me.
Like you do, you have to get there at some point, but like
you do, but Ali's also right.
You have to move through all these phases to get there and
like, have that awareness.
You know, maybe I could have done this faster.
Maybe I couldn't have.
I've talked before about like the grief I felt at every stage of advancement
in therapy, simply because, oh, well, finally, I've made this thing better.
Oh, no, I could have and should have done this sooner.
Look at what has been lost in me not doing this sooner.
There's a, there's a
Ali: grief for, yeah, lost time or, you know, what could have been.
And I've, I've really experienced a lot of that, like going through therapy in
that it's like, ah, if I hadn't, God, I would have, it's, yeah, it's like
the loss of an imagined future you had for yourself that 20 years ago, things
would have been so different for me.
It's not how it works.
And, and
Sam: the loss of a better past, like in a parallel universe, you
know, this would have happened
Ali: instead.
And that's the thing.
There's absolutely, my psych would say, well, there's absolutely no guarantee
that that's how it would have worked out for you, but it's not, but it's, you're,
there's safety in the fantasy because you're, and that, and that's what it is.
Cause it's still a fantasy.
Whereas yeah, it's actually stepping into like, yeah, into a known thing is.
Well, into something that you can know is brave, whereas
staying in this fantasy is safe.
Sam: Yes, that's right.
Exactly.
100 percent safe, but deadly and dangerous.
And we have to, to the greatest extent possible.
So to rephrase what you said, we all have to take as much responsibility as we can.
I'm going to just retwist that a little bit.
We all, we all have interdependence with one another and we all have
to honour the, those that are depending on us and vice versa.
Right.
And so.
And we all have to let go of as much fantasy as we can, as fast
as we can, is how I would put it.
So, I finally found the Lacan quote.
This was making me, think about...
Actually, no, this is Véronique Voreuze and Bogdan Wolf, um,
from their book, The Later Lacan.
The real invention of the subject that anchors him or her in language, right?
So all those victim statements, it's all in language, right?
So pay attention to the language.
Psychoanalysis may not seek to remove the symptom, and so not be a
therapy in the usual sense, yet it has profoundly therapeutic effects.
So in what one, so in what way does psychoanalysis improve
the life of a given subject?
Just goes to your sort of, are we being sceptical about therapy here?
Following the later Lacan, the analyst takes his or her bearings from the
fantasy, rather than the meaning.
of the symptoms complained about and the therapeutic benefits proceed
from a radical decrease in suffering obtained not through an eradication
of the symptom, and then it uses some jargon here, but through a reduction
of the symptom to the synthome.
So, I don't know what that means, but I think I get where this is going.
The reduction entails an isolation of and separation from the fantasy.
This analytic strategy, driven by what Lacan was first to recognize as
the desire of the analyst, denotes an uncompromising belief in the possibility
that the dignity of the subject can return in the separation from the fantasy.
Joe: I don't, yeah, I don't know what the...
Lakan is always, incomprehensible.
I think he's, in the fantasy means in the context of that quote.
Sam: Lakan is in some ways a fraud, and in some ways a raving mystic.
Hesitant
Joe: as I am to even try and get into a Lakan conversation.
Hang on, I've nearly...
It's not clear in that quote what the fantasy
Sam: means.
No, I've nearly finished it.
It's, well, it's how I was discussing
Joe: it the other week.
What's the fantasy for a victim?
So,
Sam: the, the fantasy of, sort of, this pure platonic victimhood.
It's a fantasy.
I have wro no,
Joe: I have wronged it as well.
Yeah, and how I overcame, say, my trauma from my last relationship
was to really radically own...
My part in things, which was always very prominent, and there was nothing
that happened to me that I didn't put myself in a position to happen.
Sam: Well, let's not go too far the other way.
Let's not go too far the other way.
That's how I overcame it.
Well, okay,
Joe: that's fair then.
So the fantasy was what you said, the fantasy was that I was a victim,
an innocent somehow victim, and I
Sam: felt that...
Purely, purely and entirely
Joe: a victim.
But in every case I made choices which put myself in a position to be harmed.
Ali: You see, I think that's victim blaming though.
Of myself?
Of yourself, it is.
But I don't identify.
But I, but,
Joe: because I think, yeah, they're, they're, I identify
as something that, someone who had some bad shit happen to me.
Because there was
Ali: absolutely going to be people and circumstances
where that is not applicable.
Correct.
Where they, there's absolutely nothing they could've or
would've done where it would've,
Joe: yeah.
Exactly, but if it's a relationship that you kept, Day by day choosing to stay
in or go into, or go further into, and you look back and you can remember all
those red flags that you've braved past.
Ali: It's easy in hindsight, isn't it?
Yeah, but it's a time.
But what
Joe: I'm saying is, I actually think this is a key to getting over things.
There's some things which you can't take any responsibility for, like
child sex abuse, but there's a lot of adult things that people don't real...
Don't stop and think, what was my part?
Okay, you're right.
What did I do even a year before this happened that put me in
Sam: this position?
Can we agree though, responsibility in the past...
Be it hard to pin down.
Responsibility in the present, also difficult, but it's the one That's
Joe: why I say radical responsibility.
So I say look really hard.
Okay.
And find
Sam: where you were responsible.
Let's, okay, so it's an ambit claim.
Let's go for 100 percent and then we'll fall back to wherever reality lies.
Okay.
Joe: Sure.
Sure.
No, I'm not really saying there's an ambit thing.
I'm saying...
Well, in this particular case, I can take full responsibility and
then, and then I can overcome it because it's like, Oh man, well,
Sam: I guess Jesus is getting nailed to the cross and he's like,
yeah, yeah, this, I did this,
Joe: I chose this.
But are you still going to try and explain this Lakhan quote, which is
basically like a whole nother episode?
Well, no,
Sam: no, it's, I think this will be in another episode, but I
think this is not as difficult.
Um, now that I've read it five or
Joe: six times, I like that last bit you said about the, the quote about the,
Sam: subject.
Okay.
So, and so the therapist has to have, so basically the
desire of the analyst, right?
An uncompromising belief in the possibility that the dignity of
the subject can return in the separation from the fantasy.
That's the bit
Joe: I like, except I don't know what the fantasy is.
It's just any,
Sam: any thought that you actively maintain.
You know, like a positive or negative self image or a positive
or negative idea of others, there's just anything that's not real.
Anything that's not
Joe: real is the fantasy.
I'm talking about the dignity of the subject.
When I say take responsibility and look for your part in things, what you'll
get back eventually is the dignity
Sam: of the subject.
That's what, and that's what we should always be striving for.
Joe: Yeah.
Which is the opposite of being a victim, the opposite of, sorry, the opposite of
having a victim identity is to have a.
Fully responsible identity.
Sam: Well, and ultimately what a lot of victim, uh, victims
are seeking is, is that dignity.
And often in clinging to the label, they are seeking that dignity.
They're asking to be given it.
But perhaps what you're saying is stop waiting for others to
give it to you or whatever.
And you know, like the child that...
The cries and then nothing happens and you cry a bit more and nothing
happens, and then you really cry and then someone comes and soothes you,
you know, like what Allie was saying.
And at some point the self-soothing has to come in or none of your
relationships are gonna succeed.
But like, so to continue the quote, it is the fantasy that gives consistency to the
other with the big O, the big other, and a consistent other commands, alienation.
So the victim has.
So the capital V victim has the capital O other, right?
You know, John Howard, or the person who assaulted me, or for MAGA people,
it's woke, and communists, and whoever that are ruining everything.
Consistent other commands alienation.
Dignity, then, for the neurotic subject is asserted in a process of
separation from one's own investment in one's position of alienation.
So...
We first discover that we're alienated.
Under capitalism, everyone is alienated.
That's like a fundamental, it's like an axiom of Marxism, right?
All workers are alienated from their labor.
They're alienated from their humanity, ultimately.
So you have to discover your alienation, and then you have
to accept it and embrace it.
To an extent and understand what it means and then you have to try to
begin moving beyond your alienation through Connection to others basically
equality with deliberate choosing to have equality with other human beings.
That's where it's at This is yeah,
Joe: this is pretty hot.
This is you like nerding out Like, you're just going, this one is for the
Sam stans out there, they're just gonna like, whoa, they've just let Sam off the
leash, or no, like, because you've gone beyond what I can, like, what, what else?
You can edit
Sam: it if you want, but like, I think it's very clear.
To, to, to, to,
Joe: to, to quote my favorite catchphrase.
Sam: Stop investing in your own sense of alienation and try
to make connection and, yeah.
Joe: I think we should finish up.
But, tell me this Sam, I didn't really understand that Lacan quote,
I won't be the only one out there.
Sam: When I read it a fifth time, you'll get it.
Joe: But what about the, so the dignity of the subject, I got that bit.
Sam: That makes sense.
Doesn't it?
Joe: And, uh, and
Sam: the separation from the fantasy.
Joe: You were talking earlier about having a healthy self as a result
of 10 years, say, of therapy.
Sure.
But what about the fact that the separate self is an illusion?
I don't know.
I tend to go.
So there's a, there's not a contradiction.
There's a paradox here that I have to grapple with, which is.
My experience, my phenomenological experience from, anyone can do this
in meditation, just by closing their eyes, is that the separate self is a
complete illusion, and it's a cause of much suffering, that illusion.
But I need a healthy social self to function in the world, and I think what
therapy does If successful is allows me to have a healthy social self, but
I always need to remember that's just a construction and that basically Joe In
the track suit, he's just like an action figure placed in the world by this loving
awareness, which I would call God, and I'm moving around and I'm acting in the world,
but it's, it's not, it's not reality.
No, no, no.
I
get it.
I get it.
Do you
get that?
Absolutely.
So, in a way, going to a therapist is a bit like taking your action
figure to a, to a, to a toy store.
Yeah, toy repair place.
Yeah, and you just get it worked out a bit and now it's it's it's
doing more stuff and it's better But I don't deeper than that.
It's it doesn't matter that much.
No, I get ya I get how healthy your illusory self is.
Yeah.
Yeah, because you're only working on an imaginary thing
There's always a further frontier That's what I'm saying.
Like, yeah, but can
you, but can you integrate Lacanian psychoanalysis
with an understanding of non
duality?
Sam: Of course.
No, I think that's what it's why I keep coming back to
Zizek Sorry everyone like that.
We've got the
Joe: Yeah, maybe one day we'll just do a Zizek episode.
You can try and Sam's
Sam: playing Zizek.
No, no, I don't understand What I do what I do sort of grasp is that
he's managed to kind of Bring ideas from like Pauline Christianity,
and Marx, and Hegel, and Freud, and basically, so the way he's integrated
the Western canon with the, with the
you know, with the New Testament, but he's also integrated that with Marxism
and like a account of human dignity, which is relevant to what we're talking about.
It's all about human dignity.
That's the whole project
Joe: I was just talking about the illusion of
Sam: the separate self.
Well, right.
Okay.
So to get back to the paradox you're talking about We can't work.
We can't operate without Individuality and we can't operate as individuals
Like, both things are true.
Like the idea that you can live your life as an individual is complete nonsense.
Like from the moment you're born and people wipe your
ass and feed you baby food.
And like the idea that like I stand alone and this, this, it's a fantasy, right?
So it's, I mean, in the psychoanalytical sense, it's a, it's a disabling fantasy.
I stand alone and you can experience aloneness as a, As
a, as a form of victimhood.
You can experience it as a form of empowerment and strength, but like
fundamentally, we have to be alone, but we also have to be with others.
There's no escaping our duty to others.
There's no escaping our duty to the self.
We're we're stuck on the horns of these paradoxes constantly.
And ultimately they're not paradoxes.
And in therapy, you're not just working on yourself, you're actually working
on who you are as a social being.
Yes.
Yeah.
And that is like in the, in a sense, what matters more than
who you are when you're alone.
Yeah.
Ali: Because that's what's up.
Yeah.
Because that's, that's actually gonna impact everybody else.
Yes.
Rather than like, yeah.
If you alone in your room doing nothing like isn't gonna
Sam: impact, well, that's knock yourself out doing it.
That's the other side
Joe: of, of, of a non-dual understanding of reality is complete interdependence.
Correct.
Yes.
There's not three people in this room.
There's just one awareness.
With three separate layers of conditioning.
Sam: That's right.
And what we talk about a lot is our conditioning.
Yes.
So you are conditioning in a.
Center right, business focused upbringing, you're conditioning
in a Hare Krishna upbringing and my conditioning in a left wing,
communist, anarchist upbringing, right?
So that's what makes...
It just gives us different flavors.
It does.
But our awareness, our consciousness, while we're here
in this garage, is not separate.
No.
It's just having a slightly altered experience of itself in
three different spatial places.
But it's not separate.
I think we've arrived at a, I think all three of us have arrived at a complex and
sophisticated synthesis in our own ways.
Other
Joe: than that, we've just been talking.
Absolute rubbish
Sam: for 20 minutes.
That's absolutely correct as well.
Uh,
Joe: yeah, yeah.
It's always bad when Ali goes quiet for 20 minutes.
Ali: No, no, it's like, I, it's like, I really get to like, I'm like, I'm
listening with intent and I just, it's, yeah, I get stuck in that sort
of, I, I'm, yeah, I don't want to say anything because I'm actually
listening and just taking it all in and.
Appreciating it for what it is.
And I, I, as someone who's actually obviously a part of this show, it
should be something I need to be mindful of, but I should interject with
a thought, but, but for the most, but sometimes, yeah, I'm just sitting there
just like, oh, this is fascinating.
And then, yeah, and thinking about like the brains going, you
know, at a hundred miles an hour.
So there's just no.
Joe: But I'm relying on you as the token Atheist Rational Materialist
to step in and be like, no, of course the self and self's not an illusion.
I've got mine over here.
Thanks.
Sam: Because you really are alone in the Atheism because
I really am a non committal.
Yeah, and
Joe: you were drenched in spirituality growing up.
Sam: Oh, deeply.
And I've said this before, I almost had that medieval experience of religion,
when it was real shit, like it was thick, like, you know, like thick.
Joe: But that's the point, Ali, take us to task, take me to task
on any of the spiritual shit
Ali: I say.
But am I not allowed to appreciate, like, the discussion around it without
Joe: Well, you're not open minded.
Sam: Without activating her.
Activate atheist mode.
Must counteract.
Joe: She must, because it's not like she walks away thinking, Oh
yeah, maybe I will start to have a curiosity about a higher power.
Sam: Joe wants you to be your paper cutout and he'll be his
and we'll all act our roles.
Joe: But you don't have curiosity about spirituality really.
Sam: I
Ali: think you've got curiosity.
I do around the cultural community sort of sense.
And the phenomenology of it.
Yeah, like, yeah, there's a, there's a fascination with it, but there's not a.
Desire to be.
Which you
Joe: either have to have an experience with it, like a felt experience with
it, or it doesn't make any sense.
Sam: Yeah, I'd agree.
But you've
Joe: never tried to do that either.
Ali: No, it's just never, it's never occurred to me that it's
something I want or need in my life.
Joe: But then when you, when this show came out, you started listening to us and.
Ali: I find it fascinating.
It's fascinating.
I find it fascinating as a thing to.
Joe: From the outside, like an anthropologist or something.
Sam: How wonderfully non egoic of you.
Not enacting the role of the victim or the perpetrator.
You're just like, I'm just listening.
Ali: I'm just listening.
It's something I'm interested
Sam: in.
No, it's true.
I think when I'm doing my best pod listening, it is very, the
self almost vanishes sometimes.
You're just grokking the consciousness.
Yes.
Like it's cool.
Ali: That's what it is.
It is.
You just, yeah, you're just sitting back and letting somebody else speak and.
Put something together in a way that I would never have thought to put.
Myself, because I don't have those thoughts, feelings or desires, but
it's definitely a, yeah, it's still a fascination and an appreciation for
what it is.
Sam: That's right.
And also I'll give you credit.
My Lakan digression in this episode, it was Ali, you said something and then I
immediately started looking through the.
Not immediately.
I, a couple of minutes later I went, yes, there's something in the WhatsApp.
I screenshotted this Lacan thing and I managed to find it in the
hundreds of images in there.
like you were the inspiration for that with the 'cause you took it
back to therapy and that Yeah.
Joe: Well, no, it's a form of atheism.
That's not the Richard Dawkins Yes.
Atheism.
Correct.
So you don't have the instinct to come in and try and destroy
Sam: No, no.
Ali: Mike, no.
Absolutely not.
Nothing to prove.
Nothing to prove Nothing.
Yeah.
No, I absolutely, I, I don't.
I don't see any point in pulling apart anyone else's belief system.
It doesn't, you know, I think the only time I would ever comment or feel
like I would, the need to interject as if I felt there was harm or some
sort of harm being perpetrated.
And I don't see talking about it as anything harmful, the same as I don't
see it harmful, someone going to church or a mosque or participating
in any sort of spiritual practice that brings them joy and, you know, comfort.
Because I think that was the biggest thing I took from.
My grandmother, who was deeply Catholic, was that it brought
her so much comfort in her life.
And I appreciated it for what that was rather than necessary a belief in it.
It's not like, Oh, I want to get a bit of that, but I just, yeah.
Sam: Yeah.
That's right.
It's working for you, man.
Whatever gets you through the day.
Yeah.
Joe: I find that incredibly condescending.
Because what you're discounting is that she might have been
having a spiritual experience.
No, but
Ali: I'm not even saying that she wasn't, but I'm saying I've never had one so
it's not something I can speak to.
Could happen to you though.
It could, I'm not saying it couldn't, but I find it unlikely just because it's
nothing I've had an experience of before.
Joe: But also the non duality thing, the thing about exploring whether there's
a separate self, it doesn't have to be spiritual, it's just an investigation.
It's just asking a few questions with your eyes closed a few times in a row
and suddenly something will become very obvious, which was not obvious before
because it's right on the surface.
Anyway, I think we should wrap it up.
Well, that's right, man.
Sam: Ultimately, you have to get
Joe: past all the labels, man.
Another few of the 10, 000 things.
We're getting through a few now.
We are.
Thanks, Sam.
Oh,
Sam: thanks, Joe.
I just want to say, before you, well, thanks, Ali.
Sorry, going over your thanks there.
Joe: No, no.
We'll let Sam do another thing.
Today, this
Sam: ep marks the official, Ali's done as many eps with
us as we did before, I think.
My count is correct.
Just had a look at the stats before.
Yeah, I updated some tags.
Joe: When does her probation period end?
Sam: Uh, I think it's officially over.
There you go.
Joe: A while ago.
A while ago.
Good to have a diversity hiring,
Sam: officially.
Look, I think this DEI policy's worked out really well.
Yeah, um, yeah, that's right.
Well, I mean, that's the...
Geeks have thoughts too, who knew?
Joe: That's right.
I know.
Sam: People with, that's right.
People with CPTSD have voices also.
That's right.
Um, and we, and the PMDD, I'm looking forward to that one.
Oh, and earlier you two were talking about...
Food.
And I was like, Oh man, we're all going to have something to
talk about on the food episode.
Anyway, that's a preview for next time.
Well, as Joe said, this has
Joe: been.
The 10, 000 things.
Yeah.
Two or three of.
That's right.
See you all next week.
Yeah.
Sam: We're just improv ing this outro till we find one we like.
Bye.