Hello and welcome to the 10,000 things.
My name is Sam, and I'm Joe Lowe.
Sam, you stopped saying your surname at the start.
Are you going anonymous?
Yeah, I'm going dark.
Oh, right.
No, no, no.
My name is Sam Ellis.
Oh, okay.
That's what you used to say.
That's what I used to say.
The old school 2022 mm.
10,000 things heads.
They want the full.
They want the full name.
I think you're right.
Can you say it again now please?
Hello.
Welcome to the 10,000 things.
My name is Sam Ellis.
I'm Joe Low.
And let's bring those 20, 22 vibes back.
I'm sure I'm, I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Yeah.
So we're onto part two of our 25 part series and we're recording
for the first time at my house, which is a great experience.
Yes.
We've got couches.
That's right.
It's not, we're not on a camp chair or a, it's more comfortable.
Mm.
And Joe was mind blown when I plugged the audio interface into
his computer and he is like, what?
I can just.
We can just plug these mics in.
Yeah.
You made it seem very microsofty around at your place, you know?
Oh yeah, for sure.
And also there was a mixer involved and it just looks hard.
It looked complicated.
I didn't know you could come around and plug it into my little Mac.
Well, if there's just laptop.
Yeah, that's right.
Well, if there's just two mics, I've got us covered.
So anyway, enough inside baseball.
Let's get on to verse two of the Tao de Ching.
Why are we talking about the Tao de Ching?
What's your understanding of why we're talking about this ancient wisdom?
Right.
Oh, for sure.
Ancient wisdom, which can be applied to our very lives today.
And here's another word, which is almost meaningless, timeless, timeless wisdom.
I think it is, because we're gonna refer to three different translations
of verse two, because they're all a little, quite a bit different.
But Sam, I said you had to limit it to two different translations.
Okay, well, I'm gonna pitch, we refer to Steven Mitchell because he's just
a go-to, and we should refer to Ursula la Kayla Gwynn, because it just.
I just can't pin you down.
I did sit.
I've gotta let go.
It's true.
I am a slippery fish.
Yeah, yeah, it's true.
I'm, I said you could have max two translations and we have zero
feedback on the last episode.
'cause it got published five minutes ago, so they might all be going, whoa.
What was all the translations?
Man, I think you're right.
The feedback is gonna be Sam.
It's okay to nerd out, but that was too far and, and I think the feedback on this
one will be, that was more manageable.
Thank you for cutting back to three.
Okay.
So we're anticipating our audience's feedback and And adjusting in advance.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay.
I like it.
Yeah.
I'm very dynamic.
It's the best we can do, but also I think we're all right at it.
But I also will pitch that the.
Other two translations I want to use, I've picked for very particular reasons.
One is Ursula La Kayla g Guin, which many of you will love.
She's a renowned environmentalist and author and just all round legend who
I think did probably more to introduce Eastery stuff to the West than.
She's given credit for.
We normally hear names like Alan Watts, Thomas Merton, people like that.
Um, it would be good to have someone who's not Alan Watts because every time
I share an Alan Watts thing, I'm always like, oh no, that wife beating alcoholic.
Yeah.
It's a, it's a real bummer.
It's like he was not just a little bit No bad.
He was pretty bad.
He was real bad.
Yeah.
And I really love his shit.
So it's like, like his books are good.
It's, it's more his talks for me.
You know, it's more his spiritual entertainer kind of stuff.
Same as with Ramdas, and I went back to Ramdas the other day,
Sam, and I've heard all his gags.
And you realize that these recordings from the, you know,
mid sixties till the nineties.
Mm-hmm.
He's using some of the same gags.
He's like a standup.
He's a standup comedian man.
Yeah.
He's got, he's got his bits and he's recycling bits.
He is recycling bits.
But when I first got onto Ramdas, I was like, holy shit, this guy's so fresh.
This is amazing.
This has given me the spiritual education I need.
And then I struggled at the start to understand Alan Watts.
Mm-hmm.
And then I've worked my way up to understanding Alan Watts.
Then I looked into it and found out he was this shocking, alcoholic, violent man.
Yes.
And that kind of you I'm a bit of, I'm very much a separate the
art from the artist kind of guy.
I'm less that, but yeah.
I'm halfway.
Yeah, I am.
Yeah.
But.
I mean, I haven't gone back and watched Louis the show.
No, but I, I struggle with it.
Yeah.
Be able to, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maybe in that case it, it ruined the actual jokes or something.
It did a bit.
And look Louis's way less of a monster than Alan Watts possibly.
Mm.
Which is weird because Alan Watts comes to us as this like, embodiment
of like, could being cool and zen and like he could do calligraphy.
He could read.
You know, the Chinese characters, he was like a really reasonable
scholar and a bit of a showman.
And he founded some communities and he did a lot.
But unfortunately he had these terrible afflictions in his life and he was
not able to, I think, fully practice the zen that he really wanted to.
Thomas Merton, also famous translation of some verses from Chang Zu, uh, Chang Zu.
He also had some personal demons.
Um, I found out.
And more directed towards himself than towards others?
I think so.
That's maybe a little better.
Ursula Le Guin, as far as I know, no flies on her.
Yeah.
So it might be time for me to go through an Ursula phase.
Well, she's a fantastic novelist.
Some people have called her sci-fi.
Some people have called her fantasy.
You know, some people have called her a feminist novelist, an environmentalist
novelist, a Daoist novelist.
I think maybe she's all all of those things to a degree.
But in the Wizard of Earth Sea, in way back in the sixties, a.
A, a story about a boy who has power, but he has to learn to use it responsibly.
And he, he unleashes a curse upon himself.
He basically creates a shadow version of himself, and then he runs away from it,
and he has to reconcile with the shadow.
It's very doubt, it illustrates a lot of what we're talking about today, and
so that there's a reason why Ursula Le Guin did her own translation.
And you can hear her read it yourself on, uh, online as well if you want.
But the third translation I wanted to mention was by Alistair Crowley.
Oh, the Satanist.
The Satanist.
And talk about bad guys.
I mean, this guy, I mean, he's cancel proof in a sense.
People have tried to cancel him for years 'cause he is a bad guy.
But he's worth mentioning because he's such a giant figure
in occult circles and just.
You know, Western spirituality, like it or not, corral is part of the
landscape and he sees value in this text.
So it's, it's showing you.
Can I, can I ask you a question, Sam?
Mm-hmm.
Do you think I've been drawn towards the occult in my last
10 years of spiritual searching?
Because before that I was just an atheist.
Yeah, you were a pretty hardcore materialist 'cause you did have a, yeah.
You did have a Marxist up.
Bringing and the, yeah, only money.
I was a rational rationalist.
Materialist, atheist.
Yes.
And, and then for the last, roughly 10 years, since I got out
of the psych ward last mm-hmm.
I've been on a spiritual journey.
Yeah.
And I feel like at times I've been drawn towards the occult.
Oh, same.
Like, 'cause that's where all the cool shit happens.
Well, I was obsessed with Houdini when I was a kid and Oh, that, that's,
that's a cult adjacent as well.
But years later, after reading a lot about Houdini, like two years into
my obsession, I kind of realized actually he was not a mystic at all.
He was constantly going around trying to debunk the mystics.
Mm.
And so he, he was a bit of a, um, Adam ruins everything kind of guy.
Not an obs, not a mystification guy, but it has to be acknowledged.
That the mystical stuff can help people, but it's also full of grifters.
Yes.
And dangerous people.
I don't think I've spent any money on spiritual.
Oh no.
I went to a kinesiologist once.
Oh, that's okay.
I had met her on a dating app and we, the dating didn't really go anywhere.
Then we became friends and then I was having a hard time.
She said, oh, you can come in for a treatment.
What is kinesiology?
Uh, it was very strange.
He went through pages in a book and stopped at random places and read
things out and said at all times, in all places, please protect this soul.
And then she told me to go and like, go somewhere unusual that I wouldn't normally
go and stand there and wait for a change.
And, whoa, $230.
Now my highly trained clinical psychologist only charges me 180.
That's a bargain.
Yeah, it's a bargain.
I think she must find me interesting or something, or she, she hears
every time about how broke I am.
Is that a.
Yeah, well, she might have a sliding scale, which a lot of people do.
A friend of mine said she thought she might have a day job and she just does
a few clients on the side to keep her le and psychoanalysis brain working.
I wish there were more therapists that weren't full-time.
Yeah, I think part-time is better.
I think she might be part-time because how is she getting away
with any charge Me 180 anyway.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Kinesiology two 30.
I really, it was really weird and it's a strange experience.
It kind of made me realize, well, I met you on a dating app.
I kind of would rather be sleeping with you than giving you $230
for you to read out of a book.
Look, I think it's just good to be straight up with people, but
having said that, it's possible that kinesiology might've helped, and I
think having an experimental mindset in life, being willing to risk 230
bucks is maybe not such a bad thing.
I mean, I'm in an okay place right now.
Maybe it was the kinesiology, you never know.
Anything could make a difference.
I, I had like a shaman healer type person whose primary modality was
like, I don't know what you'd call it.
Like she was a chiropractor I guess, but she had Oh yeah.
The chiropractors get weird, don't they?
It's a gateway.
Yeah.
She, she had, uh, you know, nutrition stuff going on and
we know that's a gateway.
But no, she just wanted me to eat more protein in the morning,
which is like, good advice.
But she also hypnotized me and did these body movement things and like.
I gotta say, I think she might've helped, you know, the number
one charlatan on the internet.
Joe Dispenza, yeah.
Was a chiropractor.
Oh yeah.
Big time.
A lot of those guys are, and I've also met chiropractors who I think
are pretty solid and trustworthy.
And so it's just, it's like anything, it's, they're open to more ideas.
And occasionally, well, you know, like Isaac Newton for example.
Massive brain box.
Did a lot for maths and physics, et cetera.
So I did a lot for the rationalist worldview, but was also a total
intellectual freak who was into some very weird stuff as well, and had crazy
theories about all kinds of stuff.
But you know, we still.
We still make use of the part of his work that just stands up.
So in fairness to the kinesiologist, there might be some part of
it that is just right on.
I must say I had very strong mystical experiences in acupuncture where
this guy was doing, like setting things on fire on me, whoa cupping.
But I was, that was just before I went to the psych ward.
So I think I was already in the, you were primed.
I was sort of slipping into psychosis.
Does Accu acu, the acupuncturists get pretty weird too.
They can cupping.
Is, is that cupping that they doing?
No, there was no cupping.
That's a different thing.
He would put moha on certain points and then set it on fire and then I
just went into other realms and stuff.
Wow.
Moha means liberation in, you know, you're going well spiritually
when you go into the other realms.
Yeah, you know, or going really badly and about to get locked up in the psych ward.
Do you know I glimpse the other realms, Joe.
I set a toe in them sometimes.
Occasionally I stick my head through the door and have a look around it.
Feel like you were raised with access to the other realms and you've
worked your way back into being a fairly boring middle class person.
Do you know what this whole thing exactly, just, I've been running a
scam since I was 12, which is persuade all the normies on one of them.
It's true.
How's it going?
Well, let's read out the da Ching and do you think I've, you know, do you
think I've succeeded or, you know, in being, becoming a normie or, uh,
I think you're just on the surface, a strange person with a strange energy,
so you'll never fully blend in.
You know, you're just a natural freak.
Yeah, I just don't think.
Yeah, it's a lost cause, but I can just try and sand down some of the
rough edges and just be less annoying.
Maybe that could, you know, I'm always up for you being this annoying Sam.
Alright, well let's, yeah.
Thank you.
Well, let's start with, you know, the fairly uncontroversial, uh,
Stephen Mitchell translation from 1995 ding verse two.
When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good.
Other things become bad being and non-being create each
other difficult and easy.
Support each other long and short.
Define each other high and low, depend on each other before
and after, follow each other.
Therefore, the master acts without doing anything and teachers,
without saying anything, things arise and she lets them come.
Things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't possess acts, but doesn't expect when
her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.
I think we're gonna have to line by line that Sam, so I don't know.
There's too much in it.
Yeah.
So that like, you can't sort of bite that whole thing off in one go.
Can you, so I'm happy to line by line or do you wanna read other translations?
Sure.
Well, yeah, let's, um, let's hear from Ula Laquinn because I think it would
be helpful to just read the whole thing one more time so that people
get it in their heads and then we start line by line everybody on earth.
Knowing that beauty is beautiful makes ugliness,
everybody knowing that goodness is good makes wickedness for being
and non being a rise together.
Hard and easy.
Complete each other, long and short.
Shape each other.
Note and voice.
Make the music together before and after.
Follow each other.
That's why the wise soul does without doing teachers, without talking, the
things of this world exist They are.
You can't refuse them to bear and not to own.
To act and not lay claim to do the work and let it go for just
letting it go is what makes it stay.
Mm, I really like that.
It's good, isn't it?
Did you wanna read a third translation?
Yeah, why not?
So let's get that out.
I didn't want you to, I didn't wanted you to choose two, but you defied me.
Well, let, I did Well, let's, let's get the beast.
Well, I think for me and the audience, we all need to let these wash over
us and we'll come back and pick one and line by line at, you know.
Yeah.
I think that's the way to go.
So here's Alistair Crowley.
All men know that beauty and ugliness are correlatives, as are skill and clumsiness.
One implies and suggests the other.
So also existence and non-existence pose the one the other.
So also is it with ease and difficulty, length and shortness, height and lowness.
Also, music exists through harmony of opposites, time and space depend upon
contra position by the use of this method.
The sage can fulfill his will without action and utter his word without speech.
All things arise without dissidence.
They grow and none interferes.
They change according to their natural order.
Without lust of result.
The work is accomplished.
Yet continue with in its orbit without goal.
This work is done unconsciously.
This is why its energy is indefatigable.
Mm.
So I think I wanna line by line the earth of the Guin one.
I think it's the clearest.
I think that's the one that sings the most.
It does.
So let's just do that.
Great.
Everybody on earth knowing that beauty is beautiful.
Makes ugliness okay now.
Huge problem in my life, Sam.
Yeah, is judgment.
Yes.
I judge everything correct.
I get up in the morning, I look at my kettle as I'm boiling the kettle,
and I got opinions about the kettle.
I'm like, that's not a good kettle.
You know?
I agree.
And then I go to the bathroom and I think, I don't like this bathroom.
And then I'll make a coffee and I'll be like, I really like this coffee.
And then my whole day.
Every single thing that I encounter, I judge as good or bad.
Now, I don't know if I'm the only one who does that.
No, surely not.
But what I've noticed is when it creeps into relationships, it's a problem.
It's the beginning of the end of a friendship or a relationship.
Mm-hmm.
Is the judgment, but I don't know how to switch it off.
So the first line of this, it's not even saying it's a problem, isn't it?
It's just saying, when you decide something's good, you immediately
make someone something else bad.
Yes.
That's why I, I agree entirely.
So what I, one thing I like a lot about the da de Ching is that.
I feel like it's not preachy.
I feel like it's just telling you how it is now.
Others will disagree.
Others will say, no, this text has a point of view.
It's unfair to just claim that this text is sort of just more
objectively true than anything else.
But when I first read this stuff, it just seemed like cool mumbo jumbo.
If I'm honest right now, when I read it.
It seems like genuine, simple truth.
To me, it doesn't seem overly, doesn't seem highfalutin.
It doesn't seem highfalutin because I sure as hell can vibe with
this idea that I'm going around.
Just my mind is discriminating.
It's going, I like that.
I don't like that, and I'm looking at this building and going, mm, it's ugly.
I'm looking at this other building and going, that's more like it.
Why can't more stuff look like that?
Where the modern world is ugly?
Look at this bus shelter.
What an absolute travesty.
What, what an offense to both practicality and aesthetic, but what is the Tao
Dao de Ching saying is the price to be paid for this constant judging?
Great question.
I think it's inviting us to draw our own conclusions.
And I mean, of course, look, once you've gotten through the
whole 72 verses or whatever, I mean, I think it is pointing you.
It's definitely pointing you towards something.
But I think with this, it's like, it's, it's laying a statement before us and
it's inviting us to really try and understand what that means and just try
and observe as we go through life and observe our own reactions to things.
But to answer your question, the problem is with being, with our obsession with
beauty, we're actually making the u we are making the things we find U uglier.
But is it, is it suddenly implying that we might not know what we're talking about?
Yeah.
It's also saying that like we don't know what's good and bad.
We don't know what's beautiful and ugly.
It's saying, fine, have a judgment.
You're a human being.
You're just walking around full of opinions.
That's just the nature of humans.
It's kind of being quite forgiving and understanding and matter
of fact about it, but it's, but it's pointing to something else.
Yes.
Beyond that, we could be, yes, we could be, yes.
Not doing that.
Right.
It's really, it's, I, to me it's trying to say, bro, you
don't have to live like this.
If you Yes.
If you don't want to.
Recognize that living like this, thinking like this is causing you suffering.
I like it.
All right.
Next line.
Yeah, that's really good.
Yeah.
Thank you everybody.
Knowing that goodness is good.
Makes wickedness.
It's pretty much the same point, isn't it?
You?
Yeah, I think it's fine.
Structurally, it's fine to say yes structurally.
These are logical correlates.
They are formulated in the same way, but I think it's necessary to make
the two statements and I'll say why.
Yeah.
I think that talking about beauty and ugliness is a
very deliberate opening move.
It's in theory not important, is it?
Right?
We're all told that beauty is superficial.
It's, you know, skin deep, skin deep.
It's not what really matters.
It's the content of the person that matters, you know, and sure, all of
that's true, maybe, but I think it wants to invite us into the world of surfaces
to begin with and to really talk about something that we all know matters.
And as much as we'd like beauty not to matter, we know it does.
Beauty is sexy, right?
So it's, it's opening up with some sexy stuff.
So beauty and ugliness and then goodness and wickedness, was it?
Exactly.
So then the second verse, it's, look, goodness is a lot
less sexy than beauty, right?
Mm-hmm.
So.
It's gonna hit us with the sexy example first 'cause it's more potent.
And then invite us to the deeper meditation, which is, well,
what is we mistake the beautiful for the good all the time.
We mistake the ugly for the bad all the time.
So that's why it then talks about goodness and wickedness.
And do you, can I ask you, do you believe there's such a thing as evil?
Not, uh, like a sort of true metaphysical evil.
Uh, I go back and forth on this one.
I'm definitely not a sort of, Satan is real, you know, type.
I don't think even Alistair Crowley felt that Satan was real at all times.
But, uh, I think that he, you know, just for the record, I think Alistair
Crowley was a bad guy, but I think he was trying to, he was trying
to live a life without hypocrisy.
That's what these satanists are on about.
Mm.
They're like.
Call me good, call me bad.
It means nothing to me.
I accept who and what I am, but do you personally believe that there's
such a, a force in the world as evil?
I think what I think Crowley set out to try and find that out and to
try to engage actively with evil.
And from what I understand of his biography, he as a result caused a lot
of suffering to others and he experienced a lot of suffering himself and I.
I think that he did believe there was a malevolence in the universe that you could
access and use, or that it was just there.
In any case, I do come away with the idea that for all of his bad and wickedness,
that Crowley was a humanist, and that he believed that humans had the task
and the burden and the right to define that reality for themselves, and that.
There was no getting around it, that we were the ones who were
gonna say what things mean.
And I, I think that we're the ones doing the discriminating, right?
And so I think ultimately Crowley does not believe in evil.
It does not believe in Satan, but he.
But we can make, we can manifest these things if we want.
It's interesting that you deferred to Crowley.
Well, because I think he's, and I was asking what you think.
Well, because he's the embodiment of evil to a lot of people, so, so I kind of see
him as a little bit of an authority on it.
And I guess that tells you something about me.
I do want to defer to, but if someone does something bad in your neighborhood,
do you think, oh, that's evil?
Or do you think it was the circumstances of their life?
Yeah.
So to get what that led up to the, that led up to the bad thing happening.
'cause I, 'cause my personal view is that it's, everything's just kind of
this runoff from the Big Bang and the Yes, I'm a bit determinist in that sense.
There's probably nothing much we could have done to change any of it.
I'm, I'm the latest bad thing that happens in your neighborhood was.
Inevitable from something, from someone being born Sure.
50 years before.
Sure.
I'm, I'm less deterministic than that, but to answer your
question more bluntly, no, I.
I don't believe in a metaphysical evil.
No, I don't think I do either.
No.
But I believe but con in contradiction to that, I believe in a loving awareness.
Yes.
That is kind of what the universe is made out of.
Yes.
That I can drop into in meditation because I've had strong experiences with that.
Mm-hmm.
So that's, there's a contradiction.
I, I, I can't.
Scientifically prove that, of course.
But it feels real.
But it's, it's been noted by meditators for about 3000 years at least.
Yes, exactly.
And I think that there were times in my life where I felt, yeah, I had
a little crack, just a little peek through the crack in the door into
like that cosmic world of, you know.
Wow.
And just by the very same token, when I was at my, some of my most
vulnerable moments and maybe doing.
Doing a lot of things that weren't good for my health and, uh, my sanity
that I think that there were times I felt the presence of evil, like
when I was in that sort of estate.
Yeah.
I mean, certainly a bad acid trip to me felt like I was Yeah, trapped in.
Encased in evil.
Yes.
And there was no escaping it.
That's right.
So I had that kind of experience of evil as this thing outside the self
that I was now brushing up against.
But then over time, the most recent experience I had like that is actually
only probably in the last six months.
And it was the closest to like a delusional episode that
I've had in quite some time.
Although Adam said, no, no, no, that was not.
Delusion or perps psychosis, you know, edge of psychosis.
It felt like that to you.
But what was actually happening is you were actually having a profound
confrontation with your own reality and, and reality itself, and you just
found it incredibly uncomfortable.
Adam?
Adam being a therapist.
Yeah, my therapist.
Yeah.
And I think he's right.
It felt like a spooky, in a bad way experience, but.
What was really happening was I had just sort of a couple of hours of profound,
like of profoundly recognizing my own ugliness and not in the superficial sense,
in the inside sense of really confronting the idea that I was a bad person.
But yeah, for the decade that I've been mostly single, some of my behavior has
suffered, has strayed into the evil.
Mm-hmm.
You know, or what I would describe as well, what's the, what's the verse say?
Yeah, good.
And wickedness.
Well, yeah.
Everybody knowing that goodness is good makes wickedness.
Yeah, I think I've been in the wickedness big time.
Me too.
And what came to mind earlier when you were talking about, yeah, this
experience of coming up against it and you know, of evil in the
world, evil in the self, you know?
'cause whether we think these things are real or not, I guess
we sometimes experience them that.
Uh, I started to think about, you know, 'cause we often think about wickedness as
sin and evil as related to sin and so on.
Well, those of us who've had any adjacency to Christianity at all, and I'm one of
those people that believes that, uh, many of us in, you know, in English
speaking countries, uh, are unconsciously Christian whether we realize it or not.
And that this word wickedness brings to mind the Bible and sin
and clarifying my understanding of.
What's, what these people thought sin was has been very interesting to me.
It was something metaphysical and magical.
And growing up at Harry Krishna, there was a lot of talk of sin, and it was this,
it's this magical substance that's bad.
And if you Yeah.
Touch it, it's gonna get into you.
Yeah.
But what I now know, what I think to be true now I'm a hundred percent
sure about this, that what sin really is, what this idea is pointing us to.
Is a failure to love others as oneself.
That's basically what it, because I heard it described as the translation
is really to miss the mark.
Miss the mark, yes.
Like an archer might miss the target.
That's the sin is to miss the mark.
Yes.
And not in the sense that, oh, you weren't skillful enough to pull
this thing off, but that you didn't.
Recognize the moment.
Mm.
And you failed, or, or you did recognize the moment but didn't have the
courage to, to react in the right way.
Something like that.
That, you know, someone asks for your help and you are able to help
and you don't, or someone says, that thing you are doing is hurting me.
Please don't do that.
But you fail to heed that or, yeah.
A friend calls up and they, they need.
To someone to talk to and you know, you, you, you don't
manage to be there for them.
That's one, that's something I've regretted many times or being
preoccupied with my own concerns and not, not allowing that other
people have concerns that are equal.
Mm-hmm.
To my own.
But this is saying that that dichotomy between wickedness and good is
maybe a bit of an illusion anyway.
Yeah.
So it is saying that now it's not hand waving it all away,
so let's be careful here.
Right.
What's the next, let's move on to the next line.
Well, okay.
We can, but I do.
I will wanna circle back for a second for being and non being
arise together hard and easy.
Complete each other long and short.
Shape each other.
Note and voice.
Make the music together before and after.
Follow each other.
Whoa.
So that last line, I think really clarifies.
All the stuff before it.
It's not a, it sounds groovy like Ooh, before and after.
Well, yeah, but think just logically before comes before after,
but after that, after, there's the before of something else.
So it's all just, you know, you've said, oh, this thing is before that thing.
Therefore that's the cause.
But there were things before that, and things before
that, and things before that.
Which brings us back to goodness and wickedness.
But was there anything before the big bang though that I can't tell you?
I wish.
I wish I could.
So that's as far back as we can go.
Really?
Yeah.
To does Was there a before there or There is no, before.
Before that.
So well, some say that you look, even if you just, you're a total thorough going
rationalist, materialist, and you accept sort of the latest thinking in all of
that area, that there's nothing to say.
This is my current layman's understanding.
There's nothing to say that before that big bang, there was a prior.
You know, com, compaction of the universe, and then po.
So it, it might've gone crunch, poof, crunch, poof.
Countless times already.
Yeah, it's possible.
Which would align with kind of what the Buddhists say.
It would.
Very much.
Yeah.
You know, or the, like, this has been going on forever, a
lot longer than you realize.
And, and the Hindu creation, which is, uh, there's too much in it.
I'll try and summarize.
That, you know, Vishnu is lying on a bit of snakes.
The, the snakes is his brother and has a hundred heads and is
reciting the vaders constantly.
And, uh, those two, uh, joined by Lakshmi, the goddess of Fortune, which is just.
Uh, basically the female half of the, the di you know, the divinity that the
divinity contains, these opposites, right?
Or these apparent opposites.
They're not actually opposite very dow thing.
And that's on a bed of that.
So that bed of snakes is floating on an ocean of milk.
And that ocean of milk is, is, you know, the causal ocean
from which all things arise.
And Vishnu is breathing the universes out of the pauses.
Of his skin and then the universes are getting breathed back in, in
the counter breath, and that's just happening over and over.
Never really vibed with the Hindu stuff, I'll be honest.
It's a little too far out.
There's a lot.
Yeah.
I mean, even when I was in India, I'd walk into the temples, it'd be like, whoa.
There's a lot going on.
Well, and I was gonna say, if you've been raised in sort of Western culture,
it will, like I had a, I had a friend who was not particularly religious, but.
There's being was raised Catholic, but India, India struck her as
like overwhelming and pagan and like idol worship and stuff.
It kind of hit them.
Yeah.
Stupid question maybe, but does being a Harry Krishna make you a Hindu?
Well, some Hindus would say no.
Oh.
So it's not a stupid question.
It's a complicated question.
It is.
So there's.
Depending on which, you know, say, so there's Narva, there's Worship Vishnu, and
there's Shiites who Wish Worship Shiva.
And, uh, there's a, a handful of Brahma worshipers.
So those, those three, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva are the, like, the sort of the
trinity, the creator, maintainer, and destroyer of the universe.
Hang on, I thought you guys worshiped Krishna.
Yeah, well, Krishna's, uh, like considered.
By Krishna followers to be the main version of Vishnu.
Like, oh, so there's all this dispute.
Fuck.
It's a complicated religion.
So yeah, who's the real, who's the real one?
God?
Right?
And part of this mess has been created by, well, you've got this polytheistic.
Thing.
It's got a whole bunch of gods.
But then remember, this thing's been around for thousands of years.
It's not one thing.
It's changed an awful lot.
It's been influenced by Buddhism, it's been influenced by Christianity, and
they've tried to sort of adapt it to a more monotheistic situation, just
so to put it on a foothold, like an equal footing with Islam, for example,
which really had a big impact in India.
Yeah.
Um, people may not realize.
And that a lot of Hindus are, uh, very nationalistic and they see Hinduism as
kind of synonymous with being Indian.
And India is one at one with the concept of being Hindu and that it's, this is an
ethnic designation and not a thing you do.
Right?
So you are born Hindu.
You are Hindu by.
Having certain Yeah.
Genes and looking a certain way.
But something happened with the Hari Krishna that made them dance
around the streets of western cities.
Well, exactly.
So it just being white people.
Exactly right.
So, well, it's a sort of rainbow.
This is this global rainbow movement.
Right?
But how did all these non-Jews end up becoming Christians?
It was the same sort of thing.
So if Jesus, if we take the literal sort of story, it's like Jesus is saying.
Uh, look, there's a bunch of stuff there in that Old Testament, which is
not right or doesn't apply right now, and there's a bunch of stuff in there,
which is, you know, still applicable.
But we need to reform this a bit, and it's not about the point of being a proper, I.
Jew is not following the dietary laws to the letter and circumcision and all that.
That's not what makes you a good follower of God.
What makes you a good follower of God is to love one another and to give charity
to the poor and you know, feed the hungry.
That's what makes you a good Christian, right?
That's what makes you a good, a proper Jew, right?
That was what he was trying to, he was reforming the religion.
And then that meant that membership was now open to
Gentiles and to all other, and St.
Paul comes along and says, right, we're abolishing these categories, uh,
of Jew and Gentile we're abolishing.
These categories of slave and free person of man and woman even
are abolished within this church.
The Ians are a bit the same.
Jayan comes along about five, 600 years ago, and he says the caste system is.
Not good.
We are making false distinctions between people, so he questions the car system.
He says, really, we should all be equal.
In the eyes of God, we, we, we are, we can't be any other way.
And he was basically kind of this bit gender-bending and was sort of trying
to abolish caste and nation and even religious identity and abolish the gender
hierarchy and stuff at the same time.
And was saying.
Yeah, let's build a house that everyone can live in.
Hmm.
And so it becomes, so Hinduism goes on, it hits the road, it becomes this evangelical
religion after thousands of years.
But then, does that mean all the other Hindus have to recognize any of that?
No.
They don't, and some of them just won't recognize it.
Mm.
And that's fine.
That's up to them.
Interesting.
And look, if, if I decide to go and become a Catholic tomorrow or whatever,
just for fun, they'll, they'll be like, Hey, sure, come to church.
You're a Catholic now.
But my prediction for you that, you know, my prediction for you, Sam, is as
you get older, you'll go back to your Krishna possibly and be, get more into it.
That's my, I could be wrong, but you haven't fully renounced it, so it's still.
There if you want it.
Well, I feel about it the way, and you, you're an agnostic essentially.
I feel like I can't renounce or embrace it.
I'm sort of in that spot.
But as you get older, you might a few more gray hairs.
You might start embracing it.
I that it's entirely possible because you were raised with it.
When you're raised with something, it's hard to gets in there.
Well, you know, but it's like, can you renounce being an Australian or can you
renounce, you know, in theory you can, you can take up another, you can get
another passport and you can give up this one and go live somewhere else and, you
know, become a total expat and or can you.
You know, like you be grow growing up an atheist, and can you
fundamentally change your view on that?
Yeah.
Yep.
You've proven that people can change their view on that.
Personally, I find, I do.
I, I struggle to engage with religion unless I feel the presence of God.
So for me, that's a bit of a stumbling block, whereas a lot of people
are happy to be social, socially religious, you know, it's like.
You know, the old Jewish guy on his deathbed and, you know, his, his
uh, non-Jewish friend comes to visit him and says, oh, well, you know,
at least you have your religion.
That must be a great comfort to you at this difficult time.
And he said, what are you talking about?
You know, you went to Temple every week.
Yeah.
That's where my friends are.
Yeah.
And you know, go where your mates are.
Absolutely.
It's actually a good segue 'cause I wanted to bring you back to being and non being.
Yeah.
Well, and because it makes me think of a Joseph camp, the, my favorite quote
about God by anyone is Joseph Campbell.
Okay.
About how God transcends all categories, including the
categories of being a non being.
What's the line in the ding?
Yeah, that's very, uh, that's very Joseph Campbell.
Yeah.
For being a non, being a rise together.
Being a non, being a rise together.
I don't fully understand that, Sam.
I won't lie.
I've only got my creative arts degree from Melbourne University.
I'm not an expert.
Okay.
Well, we didn't Being and non being arise together, what is non being Well.
All the people that don't exist anymore, but did once.
That's one example.
Okay, so to use a perhaps a bit of a cliched Zen example, but I think it works.
What makes this a fist versus an open hand, right?
So where does the fist go?
When I open my hand, did it ever exist?
Is it just, you know, or Gregory Bateson said You don't
have four fingers and a thumb.
You've got five relationships.
You know, you don't have grass and a horse.
These two things are together.
Yeah.
You know, and everything's relationships.
So.
You know, or to get, you know, so this, this, I'm noticing this text brings
you to like a 3:00 AM conversation.
Well, yeah.
Constantly.
It's like the 3:00 AM coming down off a drug conversation.
Well, totally.
Like, what does it all mean, man?
Well, it get, well, it get, it gets you to an existential place.
Yeah.
And I, I think it does that on purpose.
Yeah.
Just does it over and over and like each line, it's, it's not
abolishing, it's not saying that.
There's no objective reality to anything.
It's all just definitions, man.
It's, it's not quite as loose as that.
So this thing about everybody knowing that goodness is good makes
wickedness, I feel like we need to go back to that in order to go forward.
'cause what that's saying to me, what that's saying is everybody thinks they
know what doing the right thing is, but do they, it might be a much more
difficult question than we would care to admit, or we might walk around going.
I'm a good person.
I just did that thing.
That was a good thing.
I'm sure of it.
I'm a good person.
Easy.
Yeah.
I think, yeah.
It's not easy though, is it?
What I'm finding with this text is if I could fully rock it and I can't,
I would be an incredibly wise human.
Yeah, I'll admit to feeling the same frustration at times, and I,
I don't think I can claim to be understanding it any better than you.
I do think that the text presents frustrations, and I think that
that is part of its method.
Yeah, it's, it's sort of like, hurts my brain, but in a good way.
Like I'm scratching an each Well, what's the next, well, okay, so, so look.
In order for what it's saying is that people having to me like we're so know,
we're so certain that we exist and we do.
And one of the, I'm not one of these people that says this is all just
an illusion, but also we're all really, really, really aware that
we're not gonna exist at some point.
Yeah.
Other than a memory.
Right.
That is the great burden of human life is the recognition
that it ends at some point.
So the fact of being here is defined.
By the non-being that lies before and after.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now I know what non-being is and the non-being gives meaning to the life,
and life gives meaning to the non-being.
Unfortunately, it, the, the, the love for you, you have
for your children illuminates.
They're non-existence, you know?
Yeah.
And parents will often wonder what their life would be like without those children.
Yeah.
You know, if it wasn't for you to be easier, if it wasn't for
you, my life would mean nothing.
Yeah.
All those statements might be true at different times.
And, and the same goes for, you know, like, oh, my glass of water is empty.
Uh, it was full before, and I'm, I'm not trying to be far out with this, but like,
the fact of the, the glass having water in it to a certain kind of person, I look
at that and go, well, it'll be empty.
Once it's fulfilled its purpose and then, then its purpose is to be empty
and to be filled and, you know, so.
I think, I think you should read some more because I think really Sam, to
ever get through an episode on, on the doubted Jing, we have to keep rolling.
Yeah.
We have to keep rolling and let things wash over people.
Okay.
'cause we read three translations at the start.
They could be still washing over people half an hour later and
we're, we're trying to line by line.
Alright, so I just don't think we can, I think every line is an hour.
So to reorient ourselves, so far we've had those two chunk chunks up the top.
The one about beauty and ugliness.
Then the next chunk is about goodness and wickedness.
And then we've got this chunk being and non being, and the
other heap of other stuff.
Basically, it just gives you a list.
Being a non, being a rise together, hard and easy, complete each other,
long and short, shape each other.
Note and voice.
Make the music together before and after.
Follow each other.
So just grab any one of those, I guess.
Yeah, but keep going.
Okay, well that's a chunk.
Yeah.
So if we're gonna line by line, okay, well, okay.
We can finish it out.
That's why the wise soul does, without doing teachers, without talking,
the things of this world exist.
I.
They are.
You can't refuse them to bear and not to own, to act and not lay
claim to do the work and let it go.
For just letting it go is what makes it stay.
So it's in, wow.
Is that the end of it?
Yes, that's the end.
Okay.
So the two things I loved in there were teach without talking and
doing the work and letting it go.
Yeah.
Like.
Yeah.
People rephrase that shit all the time doing the work and letting
it go and, and make money by selling that as a like an idea.
Yeah, yeah.
Like trust the process.
Yes.
And like fame, like football teams that win, premierships focus on the process.
The cats and the cats did a lot of meditation.
In the lead up to their comeback from the wilderness.
Yeah.
I think a lot of American football too has been focused on trust the process
and let go of the outcome because it's coming straight out of what, 400 bc.
Okay.
Well, and let's use this example from school and then teach without talking.
Yeah.
I mean, you're a teacher.
I want to hear your opinion on that.
I think let's do those two and then finish up, because otherwise we're gonna have a
too long an episode, but well, luckily.
Yeah.
Any concept in this verse illuminates all the other concepts.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So fortunately you can talk about any one of them because they're
all part of the same truth.
Well, let's talk about, you were starting to talk about what's the
line about trusting the process.
Well do the work and let it go.
Basically, do the work and let it go.
Well, she says, well, it goes hand in hand with this other bit.
To bear and not to own.
So that which you carry, just because it's in your hands doesn't mean Yeah.
Doesn't mean you truly own it.
Right.
And to do the, uh, to act and not lay claim.
So, oh, I did this thing, therefore I own the results of this action, which
we all want to do when it goes well.
Yeah, but what, but what about, what happens, Joe, when we do something
and the result is not so good?
Yeah.
We're not in a hurry to lay claim to the results of that action then, are we?
Yeah.
So to act.
And not lay claim.
And then it's exactly the same statement in my mind to do the work and let it go.
Yeah.
It's just a recognition of reality.
You don't own it.
Yeah.
Don't own anything like, yeah.
Sorry, everyone I.
You just don't, and that's, I've learned a lot about that doing this podcast.
Mm.
Because I'll let the listeners in on a secret.
Mm.
Secret.
We don't have millions of listeners secret, and we don't ha get any money.
And we don't own those listeners either.
But the process, recording it, talking to you Yeah.
And then editing it, the process.
Is very gratifying and meaningful in itself.
And then if someone writes to us and said, I listened to it, it's
like, wow, that's like amazing.
But I've already let go.
I've already let go.
Like I've already let go.
Yeah.
And it's a bonus.
Yes.
But that's very different.
When I was young and trying to make films, there's a lot of ego in it.
Yeah.
What really mattered was that one time I had a pack, cinema Incredible and
everyone singing my praises, which was the dream that I had imagined for myself.
And eventually it happened.
Yeah, but it was all about the ego.
But it didn't fill the unfillable hole, did it?
No.
I had to go away and work on other things.
You know what I mean?
Like mm-hmm.
I was still drinking and taking drugs and doing all that at that stage of my life.
Your life's work.
So your true life's work you hadn't recognized yet.
Thats right.
Yeah, maybe.
But I got the glory.
And the glory didn't, yeah, the glory didn't fill the void.
You're right.
Lawrence Mooney has all the great line about pe uh, and I'm there at the
bar sinking another one, and people are queueing up to tell me how good
it is and I can't get enough of it.
I mean, I literally can't get enough of it.
People can tell me all day and I'll still want to hear it more.
'cause it never fills the whole, the unfillable void.
And he's like his whole life.
He has been confronting the void with comedic results and failing
to confront the void at times.
Yeah.
With tragic results in his own life and that he's lived in terror
and in comfort of this truth.
And what the Dao is trying to just do is just tell us it's not that it's
gonna be okay in some false sense.
But just sooner or later we'll accept that this is the, this is the fact,
you know, that you can't hold onto it.
And what about teaching without talking?
Well, I think that's very true because well, okay.
And it relates to the, the football is not thinking about the outcome.
Right.
Or the tennis player not thinking about the outcome of the shot, the golfer.
Because what happens if you think about the outcome, Joe, right?
You're a sport ho.
You can illuminate this for us.
I think sport's a really important and powerful example of a lot of this stuff.
If you're thinking about the result, what happens?
Well, you would take your mind off your technique and then what?
And you're imagining where the ball's going to be instead of
where the ball actually is.
Yes.
So you can tank it just by being in your head.
Yeah.
And when you really get in your head, it's called choking, right?
Yeah.
Choking is a profound psychological phenomena, which has been studied
a lot because it, you know, we think it's very, very, very real.
And the brain, yeah, the brain locks up.
It ha, so you call it panic, call it freezing, call it a, you
know, anxiety, overthinking it.
Whatever the case, but people will find themselves, musicians, sports
people, comedians, you know, lots of these performance contexts.
Teachers will choke.
Like, yeah, it's happened and, but surely when you are teaching,
you're using a lot of talking.
I do use words, right, because you've got a lot of words.
Yeah.
And well, and you've gotta direct people verbally, but the best teaching,
so to illuminate this concept, right?
The reason I keep mentioning choking and the performance anxiety and
this stuff, because it, it, it.
Has a, a very important place in teaching.
You don't want your students to be in this place of being very self-conscious
about their performance, right?
So just like the athlete, you need to be in the moment, mind fully
on what you're doing right then.
Not on the outcome.
Yeah.
The mark you're gonna get.
That's the wrong way.
And unfortunately, education too often encourages or forces us into
being overly mindful of the result.
And I think that that is the enemy of learning.
I.
And in the same way, words are an important instructional medium.
It's true, very hard to get on in the classroom without them.
However, when the student is fully engaged in the task and the, the, the
learning is happening in their brain, they don't need you to be saying anything.
Mm-hmm.
So you're trying, and in fact, it's gonna be counterproductive.
And if you speak at that moment, there's a, there's a.
Danger, you're gonna knock them out of the flow.
That's bad.
If you do any talking in the classroom, the only purpose should be.
To get to the doing.
So sometimes you have to set up the doing.
Why are we doing this?
What's the method?
Right?
So the why and the way, you gotta try and set that up, but then you cut.
But not, that's just words, isn't it?
You, you discover the why and the way through doing.
Yeah, yeah.
Teaching you make the case in words, and then you make it with deeds.
Teaching without talking reminds me of border's.
Famous lesson.
Do you know about that one?
Go on.
He just, he had all the disciples there.
Yeah.
And he just held up a flower.
Yeah.
And apparently one person.
Yeah.
Got it.
Yeah.
Everyone else was like, achieved enlightenment.
What the fuck?
Buddha's lost the plot.
Yeah.
I want be that level.
I want to be that one guy in the crowd going, yeah, man, ah, fucking flower.
Yeah, man.
Finally stop talking.
Just showing us the flower, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or, or you know, the sermon on the mount.
You know, consider the lilies of the field.
You know, it's like one of the most sort of weird lines
and it, it doesn't make sense.
You know?
It's like they work not, you know.
Yeah.
Like is he saying like, oh, it's all just happening.
It's just happening man.
It's all just happening from the Big Bang to now.
Jesus is saying what I was just saying before.
Yeah, that's true.
And there's something very doost about parts of the Sermon on the Mount.
Yeah.
But it's also this thing of like, the talking is not the
doing we, but we mistake.
The names for the things themselves and Dow's very on about that kind of stuff.
It's not saying you can succeed as a teacher without words, but
how do you get to the result with the least amount of words?
That's something you should always be trying to think of as a teacher,
because there's so many kids that just for starters, they're
gonna run out of attention very quickly if, if you talk others.
If you're doing a good job with the chat, others might be entranced.
And they're, it's really going in and they're getting something from the words.
They're enjoying it.
They're in the flow of that, and you're holding some space and
they're able to sit in that space.
Others, meanwhile aren't sitting in that space, so you're leaving them out.
But more importantly, when the, when the student is held in the Master's words,
they're not holding their own mastery.
Mm.
They're not holding it in their own hands.
And that's what Buddha was trying to get the students to like.
The flower is just an interesting object in itself, and it has, you
know, in theory has no purpose right.
Other than to pull, you know?
Yes.
But if I realize that I'm not separate from the flower, yeah.
I'm not over here and the flower's not over there, and Buddha's not over there
and behind the flower, it's all just one.
Yeah.
Thing in the present moment.
Yes.
Then I reach enlightenment.
Yes.
That's how I would have enlightenment if the border showed me a flower.
Yes.
And the, and this of course, and of course the simple beauty of it.
Yes.
And you are not sitting there going, okay.
When's Buddha going to drop the bars?
When's Buddha gonna spit the fire?
When's Buddha gonna make it happen for me?
Yeah.
And that's, and that's the thing, like any therapist will tell you, you know,
oh, the patient is waiting for me to make it happen for them, but it, it's
not going to like they, that's the great disillusionment you have to have.
And the DAOs not trying to disillusion us.
It's trying to get us to like the good thing, you know?
Yeah.
I think it's upbeat, I think it's a positive thing in to put into
your life, but, but it is inviting us to drop certain illusions.
Yes.
I, I find I'm enjoying these.
This is the second one of these we've done, Sam, and I am enjoying them.
'cause it does hurt my brain and in a good way.
Yeah.
But I think I need to, uh, I think we need to wrap it up.
Mm-hmm.
I need a coffee.
I need Me too.
Yeah.
And you know, we're at my place and I've got the really good coffee machine.
It's true.
We don't need to go and get one.
Yeah, yeah.
So why don't we leave it there for today.
We got through the whole verse.
Yeah.
We, we love let you have the three translations.
I do think for me, maybe not for you, maybe for the audience, it is a bit more
about wash, letting things wash over.
Yes.
Because yeah.
I do think line by line, I could do an hour on each line, but I
don't know then that might not be very doo No, it, it isn't.
But on the other hand, you do have to spend time with the ideas
and you do have to try them out.
You have to, you have to feel the ideas, like try and, yeah, I'm feeling it, man.
I, I'd have to listen back to think to hear if I made any sense, but,
but you got, you gotta, you'll like try examples out in your head.
Yeah, yeah.
Like sort of, you gotta turn it around and like.
You're not looking for the example that just nails it.
What you're doing is observing what happens as you observe the ideas
and find the examples and, but the best illustration I found for
these concepts actually was visual.
And as a filmmaker, former filmmaker, you'd dep appreciate this.
I'll, I'll dig up the video for the show notes.
This is Guy on YouTube that just.
Took a verse and then just shot some.
Just shot some nice motion in a forest.
At either sun up or Sundown.
Yeah.
And there's all these light and shadows.
Yeah.
And it just looks cool as hell.
But it's so simple.
Yeah.
And it just illustrates the idea so beautifully.
That makes sense.
In a wordless way.
Yes.
Words are just there.
Well, we're the word guys.
Yeah.
'cause we've got a podcast.
Yeah.
So we have to use our words.
Exactly.
And we only started the podcast because we had too many words.
Overflowing with them.
Oh, just an update on the law of the podcast too, Sam.
Ooh.
Remember when we first met?
Yes.
Three years ago.
Not first met, but first reconnected.
Yes.
And I was really struggling to get over a breakup.
Very struggling to this day when I wouldn't stop talking about it.
To this day, when I drive down my street.
I'm worried I'm gonna see her car at my neighbor's house.
Why?
Because in a, in a theoretical universe, it's possible that even
though that neighbor is like 60 years old, he somehow would've
hooked up with that ex-girlfriend.
Wow.
Dunno how through a dating app or something.
Not sure my, my brain's not telling me that I'm twist of fate.
Sure.
It's just showing me the intrusive thought of her car parked out
the front of my friend's house.
Yeah.
Who's done Nothing wrong?
No, that was the link.
That was the link.
Sam.
I love this.
We went there and inspected it when he wasn't there as maybe
somewhere for her to live.
I see.
And then coincidentally, I ended up living on the same street.
So, but because there's a potential link.
As in, she asked him, can I live at your house?
And he said, no.
It's there forever.
Potentially.
Yeah.
Years later they track each other back down and start having graphic sex.
That i'll That's right.
Be forced to witness somehow.
Yeah.
Somehow, yeah.
In the house.
Just down the street from my house in, in a, in a very DAOs combination
of, oh no, don't make me watch.
Ah, just hold me back.
Oh wait, I do wanna watch ah, my eyes.
Ah, yeah.
But both.
It's exquisite torture.
That's what I wanted to say was apart from that one intrusive thought, I get a day.
I think I'm getting over it, bro.
Yeah, you've And I've spent three years wearing bright tracksuits.
Yeah.
And I'm not feeling so drawn to them anymore.
Yes.
And I've spent three years doing this show with you.
Yeah.
And it's been very cathartic, you know?
And you haven't mentioned her very often at all.
It's, it's, it's finally shifting.
Yeah.
And I just wanted to thank you for your part in that and that maybe the
show can move on to an, a new phase.
Yeah.
'cause I think I, I've needed to do this as like a healing thing because
I don't think that X was just about that one six month relationship.
Mm-hmm.
I think it might have been.
Mm-hmm.
A whole bunch of shit going back definitely into ancient history.
For some reason that one crystallized a bunch of stuff.
It just like, it was like, yeah, like it triggered an avalanche of emotions
that I couldn't deal with, and all I could think to do was put on a bright
red tracksuit and walk down Brunswick Street or whatever, yeah's, right.
You had to make.
You know, you had to make some new moves.
Remember that?
Yeah.
I had to make myself loud.
Yes.
Remember that?
Get a voice.
Remember that great episode of Black Books where Manny's trying to calm
down and he's trying to read from the little book of calm and it's like, yeah.
When, when you are stressed, uh, do something different.
Roll up your sleeves or eat an orange.
Yeah.
You know, it was that.
It was like that.
Yeah.
It's just like that.
It's like I need to make some new moves, which is not to say I'll
never wear a tracksuit again.
But do it if you feel the need or the desire.
But what, what happened is the season changed and it came into tracksuit
season where it's not too hot to wear a tracksuit, and it's like the perfect
temperature to wear one, but you haven't.
And I was like, I think I'm ready to just leave him in the closet for a while.
You know, just for the record, Joe's just in the blacks today.
He's got his regulation issue.
Puffer jacket.
Yeah.
I look like an an anonymous.
So my new look.
Yeah.
You ready for this?
Yeah.
It's like a Zoolander thing.
Are you ready?
It is.
It is anonymous.
Anonymous.
I'm going full anonymous.
It's the opposite of blue steel.
Yeah.
Everything that.
It's gonna make me blend in.
That's what I'm gonna wear.
Utterly unremarkable.
Yeah.
Gonna, it's kind of zen when you think about it.
Oh yeah.
You just fade into the background.
Uh, be what is like a samurai being No one Rams.
Yeah.
Being, no.
Yeah.
Being no.
Becoming nobody.
That's the, yeah.
That was his doco.
Doco about it.
Yeah.
And you would, yeah.
And that the doco about his life, which is well worth watching, but
you, at that point, I guess you had felt completely destroyed.
And you needed to try and be someone.
And my last attempt at having an Instagram account was terrible.
And it was just photos of me in the tracksuit and I was looking
at it and it just felt so hollow.
You know?
I'm glad.
Think you've still got those creative instincts to just go, no, this sucks.
Yeah, and then I deleted it.
And then you got an email for some reason you were linked to my Instagram.
Yeah.
And you are like, are you okay bro?
I get this email at work.
Are you okay?
You're deleting your Instagram and it's like, I've got bipolar disorder.
We all delete our social media all the time.
It's true.
It's the main symptom.
It is such a symptom and so I guess it becomes a tell and then you're
like, well man, I can at least start with cutting this tell off
'cause it's not doing any good.
No, I'm, I'm, I have no social media and it feels good, but you never know,
man, when I'm gonna crank up my fifth Instagram account, you never know.
Look.
He could hit.
He could be back any day and the tracksuit could be there, but this
time he's framed it the right way.
He's like, no, I'm going full anonymous.
Bro.
If you can gimme any tips of how to blend in to being straight,
white guy more than ever.
Yeah.
Just dislike the standard issue.
Suburban dad.
That's what I'm going for.
Well, you already know how to talk about sport.
That's good.
Yeah.
Oh, love it.
Yeah.
Dating stories that's real camouflage, you know?
Yeah.
Well there there's not many of them at the moment.
There's not many of them at the moment.
Yeah.
Uh, yeah, look, just, you know, the less you've got to prove.
I mean, that's, that's a very dow note to end on.
'cause I just Well, but you're a good person to talk to about becoming nobody
'cause you are trying to blend in.
But I was saying to you before the show, you're just a naturally, a bit of a freak.
You've got these bugged out kind of eyes.
You've got a Yeah.
Lot of energy.
You, you're moving at a lot of angles.
You're unusually tall and lanky.
Mm-hmm.
But you wear fairly boring clothes and stuff.
But I do tend to, but just below the surface is someone who's wearing a
dress on Brunswick Street, like Correct.
I feel like we both promenaded at different times of our life.
But you, you went further than me because you crossed.
That's a major lot.
Major Peacocking.
Peacocking.
I was peacocking for three years.
Yeah.
And it's coming up in two days time.
It'll be three years since I got my first tracksuit.
And I feel like, 'cause I went back through my photos.
I love that.
I was feeling reflective.
Yeah.
And it literally says delivery coming from Aidas and it was
the first black tracksuit.
So it's three years of.
Just trying to get over this one relationship, you know?
Meanwhile, I was contemplating buying a tracksuit, but then I didn't.
I can tell you some.
I've got four.
Yeah, it's true.
Good price.
They might fit good price for you.
They might fit me.
Okay.
Uh, they would fit.
They'd be a bit baggy.
Yeah.
I'm carrying a bit of extra, you know?
Yeah.
That, that's true.
Might might be a little too loose in the mid Yeah.
But the right height perhaps.
But I will say also the letting it go.
Right?
So this last line for just letting it go is what makes it stay right?
So you just, you didn't need the bit anymore, you didn't
need to lean on the bit.
You're like, I, I can, I can let it go and it will still be an eternal bit.
Like it's there.
People will remember, well, one day I'll drive down my street and I won't expect
to see a car at my neighbor's house.
You'll forget to, I'll forget to have the intrusive thought.
Yeah.
Graduated exposure therapy.
Look, the thing, it, there was a purpose in it.
There was nothing wrong in making those, there was nothing wrong in
making those moves when you made them.
And now the purpose has passed and so, you know.
Interesting.
All right, well welcome to my new anonymous phase.
Yeah.
And good to have you in my house recording for the first time.
And I better go and fire up the old, uh, Italian Expo bar espresso machine.
Oh, yes, please.
Oh, I just did it.
Our first product placement, it is actually expo bar.
Keeping Sam and Joe caffeinated.
I really like how you have to pull the thing down.
Oh, it's proper.
And you don't push a button.
It's proper, man.
Yeah, I've got, it's made in Italy.
I've got the button push.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, welcome to a whole new era.
Yeah.
All right.
See you, mate.
See you.