Hello and welcome to the 10,000 things.
My name is Sam Ellis.
I'm Joe Loh.
A very special episode today.
None of us had checked the reviews on Apple Podcasts for quite a while.
I, I don't even know how I found this, where I found it or if I
could find it again, but I was stuffing around on my phone.
Yeah, thank you.
And I came across this.
Yeah.
We've had many wonderful correspondences from listeners, some of whom were already
friends or acquaintances, but we've heard nice things from relative strangers and
we've heard wonderful things from friends and that's really kept us going, I think.
But this one is something else.
Mm.
Okay.
28th of September, 2025.
From Tim, Tammy, apple Podcasts Review.
You are a great company.
I can't see the rest of the title of the review, but look,
here's the meat and potatoes.
Thank you.
I love having you two to fall back on when I can't sleep.
When I'm in too much pain to stand due to cancer pain when I'm playing in my art
studio, you're very funny but not stupid.
Thank you for that.
Your voices are gentle and remain at a constant level, which
makes for such easy listening.
You are both very intelligent, introspective, philosophical, all of
these, and you make me want to think more, make you make me want to think more.
I am dying of terminal cancer very slowly.
I love having important things to think of
as my light is going out.
Thanks so much from Coberg.
I wish I knew what you both look like so I can see you in my mind's eye.
Is that it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pretty powerful.
This is why we do it.
It made me think, this is why we do it.
We haven't really known why we were doing it other than we like talking a lot.
Um, yes, sir.
And.
I feel like we haven't, I'm trying to think of when we've
heard from someone, we'd never, we'd had no idea who they were.
So, because you said the whole time that this will get out there and mm-hmm.
Find an audience.
Yeah.
You know, and if the audience is just this one person who we don't know, uh, I think
the whole thing's totally worthwhile.
Uh, I couldn't agree more.
I was thinking just today about some excellent advice for anyone who's
trying to write something or paint or you know, just deliver anything and
you're not, you know, you've got your ideas, you know what you want to say.
If there's some one person that you can direct it to and really go for
that, this person will really get this.
And you're not trying to address the world, you're trying to meet somebody
specific in their experience with yours.
And that is some of the best stuff.
And I can't tell you the exact quote and who it's from, but I
think it's advice that gets around and I think it's really true.
Well, yeah, I, I mean, I'm deeply moved that.
We've gotten through to Tim, Tammy, whoever Tim, Tammy is.
We don't even know if it's a man or a woman or non-binary or whatever.
Yeah.
Um, we have no idea.
And feel free to write to us again if you wanna see what we look like.
You can have a look on the 10,000 things podcast, uh, Instagram account.
Yeah.
Um, and there's, that's true.
There's a few photos of us up there.
You'll be.
Hardly disappointed.
Well, maybe we need to put some fresh material on there.
Maybe.
Look, there's definitely a photo of each of us on there.
Yeah, I think we should get one right now.
And, uh, put that on there.
I'll see if I can take a selfie to save myself.
Just let this, just, let this elder, millennial.
Sort through some boomer shit here for a sec.
And uh, your phone's upside down now.
Yeah, no, no.
Now it's the right way off.
Alright.
Okay.
And, oh, you can press the side button, can't you?
I never do that.
I can press the side button and maybe, maybe I can just about make this work.
Oh, oh, maybe if I lean back.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Now we'll get the mics out of our faces for a sec.
Oh, okay.
All right.
That's the, that's the two of us.
Okay.
You're gonna post that on the off chance that Tim Tammy goes on the.
Instagram.
Yep.
Okay.
I'm gonna send it.
I'm gonna send it to you, Joe, and you can, you can be the curator.
Okay.
All right.
So, you know, 'cause you want to know, well, as they say,
we've got faces for radio.
Yeah.
I mean, I think we do.
Okay.
We talked about this years ago.
You know, we're all sixes, right?
Yeah.
I mean, we've both got body image issues in Yes, it's true.
In different directions.
Yeah, very true.
I was looking at my body just this morning.
Uh, before I went to work going, geez, that is average, but it's No, no, no.
Like worse than that.
Like, geez, that's a bit disgusting.
Oh, I'm actually revolting myself.
Yeah.
Like what a, just a, yeah, amorphous.
Just unimpressive, unattractive glob.
That is god damn.
Look at this sack of shit.
Will you?
Yeah.
It's a good way to start the day.
A bit of mirror time in the bathroom.
But I don't wanna do anything about it.
Sam, you know, I don't want to go to the gym four times a week and
no, uh, eat nothing but protein.
And you like a walk?
Yeah, I go for the odd walk, Sam.
And that's all I, I don't wanna be forced to do any more than that.
But You're a tired ass working dad these days, aren't you?
Well, we were talking before about how you don't feel like a tired old
man, and it didn't hit me too hard because right now sitting here mm-hmm.
I don't feel too tired either, and I've No, you know, worked nearly a full week.
I'm still pretty fresh.
Yeah.
Um.
I've taken a, wearing a baseball cap to work Yeah.
Is a striking 'cause I feel like it takes a few years off me and I'm
down with the kids when I'm hanging out with the mental health patients.
Yeah.
You know, and I've, but I've managed to hang so much shit on myself about it.
And I've got one older guy in the office who's just giving
it to me about the hat as well.
You're enjoying that?
Yeah, I'm loving that.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
He's, he's the best.
Um, you gotta give people some.
Material.
Yeah.
You gotta give him something to just, just hammer you with.
Yeah.
Every time he sees me with a hat, you know.
Oh, that is taking years off you because I, I turned 46 on Saturday.
Ah, congratulations.
Well, I actually heard from a friend of the show, Catherine, oh.
For my birthday, which was unexpected.
Well, thank you for reaching out to this old man.
Cheering him up a little.
Yeah, definitely put a, a pep in my step.
Uh, there you go.
Yeah.
So that was good and, and, um, healthy and positive.
Mm.
Um, but yeah, I've, you know, you go from 45 to 46 and you are still mid forties,
so it doesn't really change that much.
Yeah, I know what you mean.
Like, it's not a very.
You know, it's not significant.
No, it's not.
I mean, what was way more, yeah, what was way more significant for me, honestly,
30 caused me much more anxiety than 40.
Than 40.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, you could ask anyone who like knew me at all at the time.
Uh, I mean, I don't know either.
Either I'm an incorrigible drama queen, which is probably true.
Uh, or I don't know.
But I was just like telling anyone who'd listen.
Uh, this party.
This party.
Yeah.
I'm, it's gonna be a great party.
But, ugh, what have I done with my life?
Was that you're still working in hospitality at 30?
Yeah.
Yep.
I was still a zy rat, and I was kind of like, I hadn't even really, I was
like, oh, am I moving back to Melbourne?
Am I staying here?
What am I doing?
Like 28, 29, major crossroads time in my life.
Mm Uh and yeah, a real sense of crisis.
A feeling of like in Joseph Campbell's, you know, the hero with a thousand faces.
The approach to the innermost cave, a feeling of impending doo.
Oh, that was turning 30 life and death.
Yeah.
You make your peace with death by 46 to some extent.
I think that might be true.
I think once, uh, I mean, until about 150 years ago, that's all
you really got was about 40 years.
Yeah.
You know, until the life expectancy skyrocketed.
Yeah.
And, and yeah, I guess it's like, I guess we can't quibble too much, I
suppose, and if we get another, if we get another 20 years, it's like, okay.
Well, yeah.
And, and as, uh, I don't know, bill Burs talked a lot about this.
Uh, you know, um, grappling with many fears and stuff, which you
constantly, in his case, manifested in anger or alcohol or, you know,
rage at inanimate objects and stuff.
But yeah, big thing for him, he took some mushrooms and like, he already knew it on
some level, but he's like, oh yeah, no, there's a deep void and loneliness at the
center of me, and I'm afraid of death.
Yeah.
And, and he's like, but it gets easier on the back nine, you know?
Yeah.
You're like, I'm on the back nine.
Yeah.
What psychedelics will show you that stuff.
Last time I took psychedelics, it showed me that death was not something to fear.
So when was that?
Uh, I had a large dose of ketamine.
Ooh.
And, um, yeah, I was made very clear to me not to worry about death.
Plus I hung out with a dead guy.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
Who I hadn't seen since he died.
Um, a guy called Mark, my old drug dealer.
Oh, and he, he came to you and Yeah.
Just hung out and there was no time in there, so it went on for like eternity.
Oh.
You just got to hang out in the forever four dimensional inters, spatial void.
Yeah.
Yep.
Whoa.
The last time I took any drug I'd met God and God said to me, and
it was only nitrous oxide, but I managed to get a huge tank of it.
Yeah.
And um, alright.
God said to me, I was like, I went into God's office and God said to me.
What do you want?
There's nothing to worry about, Joe.
No, no.
Everything's great.
Everything's okay.
Better than okay.
It's amazing.
Look how amazing all this is.
But then God said to me, do you think you're ever gonna understand all this?
And then God laughed at me and kicked me out of his, her it.
I can't, I couldn't tell you that part.
Office flunked and then flunked.
I was back in.
My bedroom in Footscray and I terrified myself and I've never taken a drug since.
And I don't know if, I think I probably had overdosed.
Oh.
And I think I might have died like that.
'cause I've on nitrous, nitrous ox, I've since heard of someone, um, who died from
from it, otherwise known as Whippers.
Nang.
Nang, yeah.
The Grateful Dead used to.
Um, get on a canister every now and then.
They weren't whippets.
They had a fucking cylinder of this.
Well, I had, I managed to get a cylinder off eBay.
Yeah.
Which is easy to procure 'cause it's not illegal.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
Well, it's not a controlled substance, I guess so, I mean,
like the ketamine was after I.
Stopped drinking for, I hadn't drunk for years.
Oh yeah.
How did that sit with like the must maintain 100% absolute sobriety?
What was the exception there?
Well, I wasn't doing, you know, what everyone else in
the Secret Society was doing.
I was doing my own thing.
Yeah.
And in the end, it wasn't working for me, Sam, because in the
end I ended up full of fear.
You had to get with the program?
Yeah, eventually, but it took about six or seven years.
Um, do you really, really?
But the ketamine really thought you'd wrestle it.
Yeah, well, the ketamine thing was a curiosity because I'd taken all
the other drugs that I'd wanted to take that I'd never gotten around
to ketamine before I'd become sober.
Yeah.
So then I was with a younger woman.
I was dating a woman who was about 32 at the time, and of course on
the weekend she would have friends over and they would take drugs.
So this was a sacrament perhaps we could dignify Well.
I just wanted to know why the kids were taking ketamine.
Put it that way.
Okay.
Hang on.
So, so they're not going wild.
They're like having like nice experiences.
No, but then I grabbed it and did like half a gram or whatever.
Oh, you absolute pig.
Yeah.
And then I'm.
Hung out with my dead friend.
Time stopped.
Wow.
Well, time is always an illusion, right?
Yes.
We're gonna get into some of this stuff with the quote.
We've, we've gone on a sidetrack, but have we addressed Tim, Tammy enough?
Is there anything else we wanna say to Tim?
Tammy, we hope you're still listening.
Well, and like, reach out to us again please.
Okay.
So I'm gonna say yeah.
Yeah.
If you don't do Instagram fair enough.
Um, at the 10,000 things podcast on there.
Uh, but yeah, if you hate meta products and Fair enough, then why don't you just
send an old fashioned email to 2 2 2 2 2?
I'm pretty sure it's at Outlook, Sam.
Yeah.
The 10,000 things@outlook.com.
Is it, is that right?
The, I'm gonna Oh, the 10,000 things podcast.
No, I think it's just the 10,000 things we would love to hear from you again, Tim.
Tammy, it was, I will check that.
I feel bad.
It took us months to even find that comment, but that's just our systems
here at the 10,000 things office.
Comprehensive systems.
That's right.
We such as.
Trusting in fate and random chance, et cetera.
And, uh, yeah, letting things unfold as they will, the level of loneliness
that I have to get to before I'm scrolling through my own podcasts.
Oh, you know, apple.
Are there any other reviews on there?
I couldn't, I don't even know how I found it.
I could never find my way back there.
Oh God.
Um, should we do the quote?
Uh, well, yeah, before we do, I was gonna say, I thought it was about to basically.
That we were gonna carry on in this vein for the rest of the time because
of boundless thoughts about what Tim Tammy has said and what, oh, you
don't wanna do the quote this week?
No, I do wanna do the quote 'cause I think it does have a bearing on
this, but also I just really like the quote, but I did wanna say it like
what you were saying before about God telling you, you know, chill.
Yes.
Don't hold on so tightly, man.
You're just white knuckling it.
Yes.
Like, yeah.
And then I go back in my normal state is like three coffees
a day and a lot of anxiety.
A lot of white knuckling.
Yeah.
About things that I can't control and have no influence over, so I
don't get to stay in that enlightened state that nitrous oxide took before
to perhaps just before I died.
And I don't say that in a joking way.
I actually mean that No, you, that you might have, you might've like
shut your brain off for a second.
Yeah.
Like proper.
Yeah.
In a dangerous way.
Yeah.
Well, hang on.
How long do you think you were like that?
There was no, there wasn't much time in there either, so
well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Was anyone on?
I know I can tell you though, because it only ever lasts about 45 seconds.
No, it's not a long time.
And there was no one else there.
I, the door was barred.
I had the door bared.
Whew.
Yeah.
Great.
You were strapping in.
They might not have found me for days.
Oof.
Anyway, I don't think I'm gonna take drugs again.
Sam.
I kind of, I kind of like that you did that.
'cause I think maybe sometimes you like to just.
Not nudge it, but just you just like, I need to fucking find the limit here.
I'm just gonna go up as hard against it as I can, and then I'll know.
The least interesting thing I ever explored was alcohol.
I mean, you went deep with it, but I, but, but it's not that interesting.
It really isn't because.
It doesn't really alter your consciousness in any kind of useful or interest.
I can't even remember.
It's been over 10 years.
I can't even remember.
Is it like a sleepy feeling?
I remember it could be a bit of a fuel like feeling for me at times.
Sure.
Absolutely.
No, no, no.
It has a certain predictable effect on my body chemistry.
And you might have found that too, but like the, you know, were you
having a couple of cans tonight, Sam?
I am.
Absolutely.
You just loosened right up.
Uh, un fun.
Around the podcast.
I have, I've let, I've let down the guardrails and it's
a bit like Joe Rogan, is it?
You're gonna start just blazing the joints and you know, like doing five
hour episodes, light one up with Bernie.
Yeah.
That's the best thing he ever did.
That EP with Bernie.
Everything else was, uh, I mean look, in the way back in the
early days, he would actually.
Kind of, he would talk to just like old comedians and stuff, and there was often
a lot of humanity in those episodes.
Like he, he had some genuine compassion and regard for those people.
And it wasn't like, it wasn't about big talking points and it was more just a bit.
Bro hang, but like not terribly bad in that way.
Yeah.
And I just thought, yeah, this guy's fine.
But then, you know, just little by little audience captured Joe.
But what I wanted to say was what you were saying about God, you know, kicking
you out of their office after Yes.
You asking a redundant question, which was, will I ever understand everything?
No, there was no, I didn't ask a question.
God knew that I wanted to know.
Oh yeah.
No, no, no.
They took the question outta your brain.
Yeah.
And went You didn't listen to the first thing I told you.
Yeah.
Which is, see, I don't get vision.
But see, I took all the, I took, I mean, I just, I had an interesting
experience recently, actually, Sam.
I went back and listened to Ramdas's, full story.
Which he must have told thousands of times because he, for a terminal
illness, didn't he rammed us?
Yeah.
Oh, he died as an old man.
Oh no.
Right.
Yeah, he did.
But this his sixties story where he spends seven years taking acid Oh yeah.
Right.
And all kinds of other drugs.
And then goes to India and finds a gu.
Um, he's like, I don't need any of that anymore.
I've got them.
And then he gives the guru a really high dose of LSD and
nothing happens to the guru.
Oh, okay.
But the, the, the strange thing I realize is I've got my spirituality,
which I'm happy to talk about.
Yeah.
But I just can't anymore with Ramdas's story because by the time he gets so.
I like, what I'm trying to say is I took a large doses of LSD and had
incredible experiences, but in the end I met God with the canister off of,
uh, nitrous oxide I bought on eBay.
Yeah.
So maybe I never even needed the LSD, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
But, but Ramdat claimed that his, uh, guru could read his mind and tell the
future, and this time around listening to Ramdas, and he is Mystic, mystic Cities.
Yeah.
He is.
An amazing storyteller.
Like he's brilliant.
Like he's doing podcasts before podcasts were even invented.
Yeah, he kinda was.
Yeah.
He is incredible storyteller.
But this time around, even with my spiritual experiences,
I just can't come at that.
I don't actually believe that his guru could read his mind.
I don't actually believe his guru could tell the future.
Yeah.
I just have to say ramdas for whatever.
I don't know why you are telling me this.
But I don't believe you.
So I had this moment of excuse and he's been a big bit of a guide for me
in the last five or six years Sure.
As I've been discovering spirituality.
And I had to be like, I just can't come at this anymore.
You know?
That's, that's interesting.
And I can't, I don't even believe you gave him a really high dose of
LSD and nothing happened to him.
I don't believe that either.
Yeah.
Look, I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna help, I, I might be able to help a
tiny bit with all of this because I happen to know that, like.
Look, I'm a bit of a, what you would call, I don't know, guru connoisseur
or whatever, like Oh, yeah, yeah.
Having grown up in, see, a lot of people are fully aware of the Hari
Krishnas, you know, with the colorful robes and saris and the, the didis
in the, the room and like it's all very kind of ly pagan and stuff.
But, um.
What's not maybe as obvious straight away is that actually Hari Krishnas and well,
NARS and uh, Sikhs also, well, which is kind of where the Hari stole this from.
The Sikhs, they worship the guru primarily.
That's actually the big thing.
Yeah.
So you might say there's a bit of a reflection of this in Jesus.
Like God's, God's God, God's the Father, Jesus is the son.
But, uh, kind of another way to think about it is Jesus was the guru.
Mm.
And he was the way to, you know, God, right?
And that's how it's talked about amongst Sikhs guru, the founder.
And in the religion I grew up in Nia, Maha Pbu, the funder, the founder.
And so he was both an incarnation of God, but in the form of his own devotee.
So he was giving an example of how to show devotion towards God,
how to show surrender, how to.
See the way to God through the Guru.
So basically, I grew up in a guru worshiping cult, and this
led to predictable consequences, financial, sexual abuse, and,
you know, terrible things.
Uh, on the other hand, it did help a lot of people also now.
Ramdas has been a guru for you.
And what I've learned about Gurus is they tend to talk about lineage and they tend
to base some of their own credibility on the credibility of their guru.
And there is an incentive maybe to inflate some of that a little bit.
And Pro Party used to say like, oh yes, yes, you will meet gurus in India.
There are plenty of gurus, and they will tell you that they have powers.
Yeah, they can take an object from far away.
They can read minds.
They can, you know, they, maybe they'll pull a coin out of your ear.
Cheap conjuring tricks.
Spirituality's not about conjuring tricks.
It's about the method, the truth, and doing it right now.
I'm sure you would agree with that.
Now, I will give Ramdas a little bit of credit here.
This was kind of a.
Typical sort of claim that might be made at the time?
Well, what he about gurus having these powers of insight into you.
Why?
What I don't doubt is, I think he did felt, did feel
seen by that guru profoundly.
Yeah.
I'm sure that's true.
Yes.
I'm, I don't think he's a total con artist.
No.
But what Ramdas did, which is what I wanted to do, was, uh, took a lot
of acid, but then eventually mm-hmm.
Decided, as he said.
Eventually you always come down.
Yes.
And that's not good enough for me.
No.
So he went and tried to find what acid was and what it meant.
Yeah.
And he came to the conclusion that Hinduism.
Yeah.
Can fully explain LSD.
Yes.
And it's, and within Hinduism, LSD is like no big deal.
The, those experiences, they, they're cities, their powers.
Yeah.
Mystic Cities.
Yeah.
Like, and it's known and it's understood.
And then he became, uh, religious.
Person, essentially.
Yes.
From being a Harvard professor to becoming That's right.
A spiritual teacher for the rest of his life, life, Gita, et cetera, et cetera.
Yeah.
And for the rest of his life, he was a spiritual entertainer.
A bit like Alan Watts, you know?
Yeah.
He was a holy man and a showman.
Yeah.
Yes.
Um, yes.
And, but like I, I, I realized I think I have to let go of
Ramdas, and I think you're right.
I think he became a guru for me.
And in a way it distracted me from the path I was already on.
Yeah.
Because my current S spiritual advisor also took hundreds of acid trips.
Mm-hmm.
and he said.
Yeah, but I never took him that seriously.
Ah.
And anyone who tried to find the meaning of LSD went insane.
So he just thought he'd treat it as a laugh.
Yeah.
That's probably the right attitude.
Wisdom, right?
Yeah.
And that's my actual spiritual teacher who I know and I'm working with.
Yeah, he's the flesh and blood.
Yeah.
So it's true.
I, that's my natural meaning seeking mind, probably coming out of us.
Slightly traumatic childhood with alcoholic parents.
Mm-hmm.
My meeting seeking mind latched onto LSD at 19 and said,
this is the meaning of life.
Yeah.
And in the end it ended up in my bedroom with a door bar.
Mm.
And huffing a huge canister of nitrous oxide.
And then the decision came, my drug taking days are over, and that's
been about three and a bit years now.
Well, it's nice to get a decisive verdict back from the universe.
Experience through your own body.
Yeah.
That's not had those.
I could imagine dying and meeting God and God saying, isn't it glorious?
And there was never anything to worry about.
Yeah.
And now, who knows?
I don't know the next part.
I'm not saying I, I can't make any claims about life after death.
Mm.
But it's good news, right?
Yeah.
I'm, I'm a big, I'm gonna like, yeah.
I'm gonna join you in the good news.
I think I'm a good news guy.
Yeah.
And, uh, we'll see how long I can keep it up, but I certainly have had a lot of
conversations in the last week or two.
Uh, and going back a little further, no, I, in fact, I even remember this
time years ago, and with some colleagues in a small meeting, like we'd been,
you know, assigned to this, um, you know, new policy, the government,
you know, get together in your professional learning communities and,
uh, three or four people and, you know.
Work on your work as teachers together right now.
This is actually a very good suggestion.
Now, a lot of people, and there's a lot of evidence to suggest that teachers
that intentionally, you know, maintain communities of professional practice
will do better in their job, but also they'll have more resilience in their job.
They'll won't burn out as much.
they'll be able to weather the storms, you know, in the, the long
periods of wondering whether you're being effective or not, that every
teacher has to grapple with, but.
Everyone was kinda sitting there just feeling a bit put upon like, oh, we have
to spend an hour every week doing this.
You know, like just another three letter acronym.
And I had kind of had this moment of like three weeks in.
I was insanely tired all the time.
My second child wasn't sleeping.
and so I, you could imagine I'd be pretty prone to like joining them in a good
old grumble about, you know, just being made to do another meaningless thing.
And then I was kind of like, well, who says it's meaningless?
We've got this time together in this room.
We can do what we want with it.
We can sit and have a big whinge if we want.
We can hold hands, we can read a position paper from the, the Department
of Education and try to figure good, uh, well, eventually they actually, I
started reading bits and I was like, Hey, some of these memos they're
putting out, they're actually good.
You know, uh, I was, blew me away.
I was, I, you know, at the outset of my career, I was like, the
department is there to be tolerated.
It's a poll bureau at best.
Uh, and if it circulates a, you know, a paper saying, wouldn't
it be good if we all do this?
It'll probably tell me something I already know and, uh, irrelevant.
But I found myself going, no, no.
Let's show a little faith.
I think there might be someone there that.
Has some good intentions or good idea, and what do you know?
This is actually well written.
It might even be practical and more importantly, I can use it to push my
reform agenda here at this place as a loyal servant of the department.
But then I went, no, no, no.
The real lesson here is what if I just treat this as a good opportunity and I
just go, Hey, what do you guys wanna do?
Do you want, you know, do you want to commune?
That's what this is about.
Let's get around the cancer.
How does that relate to the good news about dying, though?
Well.
It's just like you can sit there and feel resigned or cynical or apathetic or
put upon, or any number of which I felt all of those things, many times in our
work and my relationships and parenting and all that, just constantly confronted
by these feelings of being put upon.
And I'm like, or oh, and the system's effed and it's just getting worse by
the day and there's nothing anyone can do and look what's happening in
there and look what's happening there.
And I'm like, uh, yeah.
Or we could have revolutionary optimism.
And join in fellowship with all the others that are in the same struggle.
Oh, I like Fellowship.
Yeah.
I'm in a fellowship because there's often a missing piece in Yes, you're in
a fellowship and there, there's a missing piece often with left-wing politics,
uh, which on some level embraces the idea of like, doing it for the others.
Right.
Doing it for yourself.
With the others.
For the others, right?
So all that kind of, you know, mutual liberation, you know,
lefties, were good on that stuff.
But, you know, David grab appointed this out.
It's like,
you know, proper revolutionary PO politics needs more joy in it.
You need to be talking more about pleasure and, and fun and, well, I'm
not a revolutionary, as you know, fan life affirming activities and you know,
I'm a centrist, which is really fun actually 'cause we win so many elections.
Ah, it's such a, it's must be nice.
Just watch out for all those splinters up your ass, you know?
And I've only been at Cirus for a couple years, but it's very comfortable.
But can I just say.
I don't think that centrists get to experience revolutionary optimism.
No, no.
We, we've experienced just a mild unease y Yeah, that's right.
And and just a feeling that if we just made some slight adjustments,
everything would be fine.
That's exactly.
And what, what exactly in all of your spiritual experiences, you know,
supports any of these conclusions.
I wonder.
But anyway.
Alright.
Should we read the quote?
My point there was simply that.
I don't know, seize the goddamn moment.
Something like that.
Make, make something of it if we're here.
Your point was you're a good news guy about more than just death.
Yes.
You're just a good news guy in general.
There's so much good news, not just the literal good news that does happen
every day, et cetera, but like we can.
Trust in some good things being in every moment and in the future.
And I, and I think we should be reminding each other all the time.
I'm loving the time, I'm loving this, I'm loving this mood from,
you've been in a good mood since I got here a couple of hours ago.
It's like, yeah, you've gotta pep in your step.
I do.
And uh, you know.
It's not for nothing, but I've been going in this direction anyway.
Yeah.
Now let's hear from David Hume, and this actually is David Hume, 18th
century, uh, enlighten, enlightenment, Scottish Enlightenment philosopher.
Yes.
Writer.
Yeah.
Did he?
Oof.
I don't dunno much about David Hume and I have no idea.
Literally, Sam, how this quote ended up in my phone, Uhhuh, but I was digging
through it probably in another moment of loneliness, like when I found Tim Tammy.
Yeah.
And, uh, I found this quote, and it's a bit mysterious to me.
I think it comes out of a book about spirituality.
Alright.
But it's just a David Hume quote from the 18th century.
Okay.
Alright, so it starts here.
It's quite short.
Um.
I might in a moment get a get a second to like look up the actual
provenance of this for my part.
When I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on
some particular perception or other of heat or cold, light or shade,
love or hatred, pain or pleasure.
I never catch myself at any time without perception.
Yeah.
And never can observe anything but the perception.
So I mean it's what's missing from Pretty, pretty true and straight up.
Yeah.
And what's missing, Sam?
I think that, maybe write it down in my phone.
Yeah.
The point that David Hume perhaps was trying to make all those years ago.
What, what's missing is David Hume and where is the separate self in all
that you go look, just perceptions.
You go looking for the self and all you get is perceptions just
a never ending stream of mm-hmm.
Outward and in inner perceptions.
Mm-hmm.
And that, that with no fixed abode.
And no fixed place to land and No, that's right.
There's no Joe over here.
There's no Sam over there, no permanently constituted residence for these things.
And yeah.
Oh, we all know the body's temporary.
Right?
But maybe the consciousness is just as temporary and, and there's a lot
of people that believe in an eternal consciousness, you know, as some form of
lack, immortality of the soul or whatever.
this doesn't sort of strike against that for or against that in any particular way.
in a sense it's, it's a bit agnostic, you know?
It's like maybe there's a self, maybe there isn't, but there seems to be a
problem with pinning it down and then, but see, you could solve a lot of problems by
just going, maybe there isn't what I love.
Yeah.
That's what part of what he's getting at.
What I love about this quote is it's someone who's very smart, much
smarter than me, just observing their own experience, honestly.
And whenever people.
Like, you know, I probably got introduced to the realization that
the separate self is an illusion by Sam Harris, who's very firm on that.
He's, hang on, sorry.
He's firm on the separate self being an illusion.
Yeah, yeah.
And then obviously it has a lineage in Buddhism that goes
back way beyond David Hume.
It's a 3000 year old cornerstone of Buddhism that there is no separate self.
yes, but there is some experience of a consciousness perceiving that, which is
what Descartes was on about that, that, you know, what seems undoubtable, you
know, to Renee around about the same time as Hume here a little early, I guess.
Um, I think the 4:00 AM.
Yeah, that he's like, well, something is perceiving this thing.
And I guess it's a thinking thing.
So I am something that thinks, yeah, I think you got it wrong.
Yeah.
Well, dualism has now been conclusively struck down by neuroscience.
So I mean, they always knew that it was nonsense.
But the other part is if we're just a flow of perceptions with no
separate self, why does that matter?
But I think it's.
I'm not very good at talking about it, and it was always gonna be challenging,
so I'm glad we talked a lot of shit before we got to it, but I can't explain it very
well, but I think it's the most important thing I ever realized about reality.
Mm-hmm.
Is that this whole Joe thing that's such a fucking.
Problem.
It's such a burden, isn't it?
It's such a burden and it's such a disaster in so many ways.
Like you were looking at that thing in the mirror this
morning going, what a disaster.
Yeah.
This slob that's, yeah.
Like that's apart from drug experiences is just full of anxiety and, like
gripping on white, knuckling through each day, worrying about all these
things that he can't control.
That whole complex of stuff.
It doesn't actually exist.
Mm-hmm.
Like all there is is the flow of the present moment.
Mm-hmm.
And actually, me, here with you, Sam, the separation that seems to be between
us on this couch is a bit of an optical.
Mm-hmm.
Well, it's what, Einstein called it optical delusion.
Mm-hmm.
That we are somehow separate from the universe.
I'm actually not separate from you.
No.
You know, like, no.
And, and that's where sex becomes such a.
Uh, peak experience.
Yeah.
'cause it's the, it's the big thing.
It's the, yeah.
It's the physical experience of union.
Yeah.
And seeing through that illusion.
Yeah.
Now I'm not coming onto you by saying that.
Oh, well, we could try and make out, see how it goes.
I don't think it'll do it for you.
We've had 25 years We would've done it by now.
Yeah.
Will they, won't they?
No, they, they won't.
We not exactly.
M molder and Scully.
No.
Smolder.
yeah, but help me out here, Sam.
You're a smart guy.
What am I on about?
Oh, no, no.
What's David Hu on about?
I just thought I'd let you kind of.
Go at it your own way.
And while I gathered the threads that, you know, I had picked up a
little while ago when I first thought about this quote, and then we had
a bit of a delay getting to it.
Okay?
So I was dimly aware, but I now can confirm I think this quote or very similar
sort of reflections from him come from.
A treatise on human nature.
Book one part four, section six of personal identity.
So he's obviously got at least a whole chapter on.
Personal identity.
And, uh, he does appear to be a little skeptical about it.
And one of the other things, I had a quote that I'd forgotten of his, that
the, the mind is a theater of sorts where perceptions come one after the other.
So I think he's, you know, elaborated on this point quite a lot and.
You know, there's another lengthy quote here, but the words are a little
too small for me to read properly.
I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind that they're nothing but a bundle.
Or collection of different perceptions.
Mm.
Which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, yes.
And are in a perpetual flux and movement.
Our eyes cannot turn in their sockets without varying our perceptions.
Our thought is still more variable than our sight.
How true that is, and all our other senses and faculties contribute to this change,
nor is there any single power of the soul.
Which remains unalterably the same.
Mm, okay.
Interesting.
Perhaps for one moment.
So there, there is no, I love that.
There's no single power of the salt, because, but hang on.
But Sam, what's he unpicking here?
Is it a western?
Like idea of the individual.
Does it come from like Plato or something?
Like what don't understand here?
Like what, what am I trying to pull apart?
Was that I thought I was a Western style individual separate from all the
other individuals and separate from the universe is how I always thought.
Until one day Sam Harris tells me, oh, there's no separate self.
Well, is that what I used to think?
I can't remember.
I think you probably did.
Right?
And I, but also I may, I just, and there was a rock solid Joe Loh Yeah.
That existed.
Yeah.
Outside of sort of everything.
Yeah.
And you were probably dreadfully skeptical about it, a lot of things
that you were right to be skeptical about, but that was like a, a last
line of defense that you hadn't.
You know, seen crumble yet.
Yes.
And then, and of course you've experienced psychosis, which,
you know, I, I mean actually, you know, quite a number of people do
experience, you know, at least a mild psychosis at some point in their life.
But you had a pretty profound one where, yeah.
I mean, I can't even imagine.
And like I, I can sort of get the glimpse, a glimpse of what it might
feel like, the texture of the sort of thoughts you might've been having.
And they're gonna be like hard to kind of recollect now, like
acid trips and things like that.
Yeah.
Um, it's kind of gonna be a bit of a fog, but there would be something,
I imagine it like experiencing the dis disintegration of the self.
Yes.
Yeah.
But there was also in psychosis, a hatred of the self where I was like spitting on
myself and I was locked up in jail in.
In Bangkok, I was like spitting on myself to show them that
I didn't care about myself.
That I, yeah, yeah.
This is how you should treat me.
Degrading myself.
Yeah.
I don't exist.
That was my psychosis for whatever reason.
Yeah.
No, I can really relate to the idea of self annihilation
and Yeah, self annihilation.
Yeah.
That's what I was just naturally going for at 19.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, oh yeah.
Well I grew up with the Harrys telling me that it's, you know,
sooner or later it's, my spiritual destiny to merge with the one.
You know, whether you called Bhagavan or Pima or you know, the creator or
the oneness or whatever, the Hari were super mad at the impersonal as they
called them, the May, who believed that there was no personality to God
and they felt, or, you know, to the.
The spirit of all things that it had no personality, it was just a oneness.
they called the, those people mon also, those that claimed there
was only one nature to all things.
Yeah, the Godhead.
Yes, the Godhead and that the higher Christians were quite
convinced that No, no, no.
It's a dualist universe.
You know, there's, there's universes, there's Matter Property and spirit.
Um.
Mm.
Tma and that these two things are separate.
And so really it's kind of some Aristotelian sort of stuff, really.
And I think that some of that philosophy was worked out a similar time as, you
know, the position the Greeks were taking on the existence of a soul.
And I think Hume is kind of going at that a bit here.
Mm-hmm.
now I believe he was also sort of remained a Christian.
I could be wrong about that.
I think so.
But so he says.
Our thought is still more variable than our site and all our other senses and
faculties contribute to this change, nor is there any single power of
the soul, which remains unalterably the same perhaps for one moment.
So he's like, yeah, what is this thing you are claiming is a con constant existence?
It doesn't seem to be the mind is a kind of theater where several perceptions
successively make their appearance pass repa gl away and mingle in an infinite
variety of postures and situations.
I mean, this is.
Sky's saying clearly he's dropping bars.
Yeah, like, whew.
And he didn't drop any acid?
No, probably not.
There is.
It wasn't invented yet.
No.
He might have had some bad bread, but No.
You know, there is.
I don't think so.
No.
He's just thinking carefully about stuff.
That's it.
He's just tuning into his own experience of the eternal flow of the present moment.
Yeah.
I like it.
Now I'm into things you can do on a cup of coffee.
Yeah.
You know, like what David Hume's doing, he can do on a cup of tea.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Uh, you know, um, there's puns in Zen about.
Tea and meditation having a similar, you know, uh, sound.
Yeah.
And so it's like, you know, just a little bit of caffeine there, you know.
Yeah.
So you don't fall asleep during the meditation.
Yeah.
And, but you know, so then he, I'll finish the passage.
There is properly no simplicity in it at one time.
I mean, there's no simplicity in you, Sam, I dunno about everyone else.
Uh, I do not experience conscious Joe.
Do not experience consciousness as a simple or comfortable thing whatsoever.
And we could probably solve this by going, if you're trying to resolve all of this
bundle of shit in and uh, into some kind of unified grand narrative of a person
with this awesome destiny or whatever, then yeah, maybe you're referral.
Oh my God.
So I started, I, a friend of mine suggested I start doing morning pages.
Yeah, you probably should.
And I did it.
And this shit that comes out is just nonsense.
Terrible nonsense.
Oh yeah.
Like my head is like, I do 700 words of morning pages and I
just think you shouldn't, you're not even fit to go outside.
Yeah.
Like you, like you can't string two Yeah.
Logical thoughts together.
Licensed to hang out with other humans.
Just rescinded.
Yeah.
Well actually, but the truth is that's where we feel the sanity.
Uh, and Simone to be Yeah.
When I'm with you, I, I, I, I, I like, I feel like I'm making sense
when I'm alone with my thoughts.
Yeah.
Riding in the first thing in the morning.
Yeah.
It's just fear, fear, fear.
Looping.
Just trying, just trying to be a glorious self-dependent island of Yeah.
It's not selfness surrounded by nothing.
It's like, you know, fuck that.
And I'd rather just, I've gotta take myself to work just to find some
sanity to be around some sane people.
I know what you mean.
Yeah.
And, and every time, yeah.
I'm losing my moorings.
It's like, just do something for another human being right now.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, it, it satra would recognize the sort
of things we're talking about.
Right.
And I'm gonna get into what the bug of a GI says about all these two in a minute.
But I do want to hear the Scottish man out there is properly, no simplicity in
it at one time, nor identity indifferent.
Whatever natural prop prevention we may have.
To imagine that simplicity and identity.
So we have a natural propent to imagine a simplicity and identity.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
So he is clearly calling it out.
The comparison of the theater must not mislead us.
They are the successive perceptions only that constitute the mind.
'cause if you say theater, it makes it sound like a fixed
place where things happen.
Right.
So he is like, useful analogy.
Now let's drop it.
They are the success.
Successive perceptions only that constitute the mind.
Nor have we the most distant notion of the place where these
scenes are represented, or of the materials of which it is composed.
I mean, I nor have we the most distant notion of the place where
these scenes are represented.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, where is this happening?
Yeah.
Who is this happening to?
Yes.
It's all nonsense.
Right.
And then nonetheless.
I seem to be in possession of an identity in terms of a sort of socially
and politically constituted identity, uh, which my children recognize.
And, uh, you know, my, if I just decide to just be a non-differentiated being merging
with the one and, uh, fail to turn up for duty, uh, the department will not want
to, you know, give me my survival tokens.
So all of that remains true.
Yeah.
But all but all the best moments in my life have come from just letting go.
Of all of that.
Yeah.
So I can definitely tell you that he's onto something, at least in the
sense that this is really living, you know, when you get out of that, and
there are a few ways to get there.
Drugs, sex, especially if it's, you know, with someone you actually
really respect and feel like, uh, you know, a deep connection too.
But then eventually that, you know, 'cause that deep connection
is defined in egotistical terms.
Right.
You're like.
You know, I like this person because of I am the one judging.
I'm the one rendering a verdict about this person.
I find I find them pleasing, therefore they are a good person.
Right?
Yeah.
And then there's like true love and actual merging.
And then you can have these moments where you're like, but if I start
to get mey with someone these days, it's clearly unhealthy and it causes.
Uncomfortable feelings and I'm, I'm, you know, I'm just gonna like,
throw out a speculation here that I think a lot of attachment, anxiety
and, uh, you know, avoidant an, uh, avoidant attachment arises from.
Trying to create a stable sense of the self and the other, and trying to
constitute the self through the other.
And this is, of course, a fool's errand and extremely painful mentally
and physically and emotionally.
And I don't recommend it.
However, I've extensive experience with trying to do this.
so I can report but see without, without a fixed separate Joe.
Yeah, I'm perfectly free to.
Move around the world.
Do with what I need to do.
Mm-hmm.
Respond to what I need to respond to.
Yeah.
Show up at work, raise my kids.
Yeah.
I don't need a separate entity called Joe over here.
Separate from the universe.
Mm-hmm.
In some way.
And in some way it's, I don't need to be solid, I just actually need to flow.
There's a good friend of mine, Louis.
Yeah, that's true.
Who just says Just flow deep.
Mm, just flow.
Mm.
Like it sounds a bit hippie, right?
It sounds a bit like you're gonna get the Diablo out and
Edburg Gardens or something.
But Yeah.
Yeah.
But it's actually a profound truth.
Head of the garden.
Yeah.
Sorry.
It's a profound truth.
Yeah.
Um, that we've just gotta, that we, it's not that we've got a
flow, it's just that we are a flow.
That's what David Hume's saying.
We're just a flow of perceptions.
Yeah, that's right.
And the second you, so all you really have to do is just try to
hold it the right way kind of thing.
It's like don't grip it too tight, not too loose.
You know, don't white knuckle, but also value things that are valuable.
But yeah, hold things, hold them lightly loosely.
Hold them loosely in your hand.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And, and then if you are fortunate enough to really like somebody and
you're in the same room and it's, you know, it's getting real that you.
May still have a script running in your head.
And perceptions, perceptions.
Perceptions and like, oh, ideas about what this is and who I am and why I,
you know, this, that, and the other.
Right.
And it's like if you can get past all that to like, you, you know, getting
past the gender scripts as well.
It's like, I am a man.
This is a woman, you know, it's like, no, no, no.
Where you want to get at.
There's a level below that, which is, ah, there's a couple of animals here.
Right.
That undifferentiated sort of animals.
And then there's like, oh, no know.
It's even more basic than that.
It's like two, two.
Have you ever tried Tantra consciousness?
Yeah.
Uh, no, but I think I kind of get what it's, I've done it.
I get what it's at.
I saw someone turn into like an old woman before my eyes.
Whoa.
Without any drugs.
I wasn't expecting that.
Yeah.
Wait a minute.
That was a trip, man.
Is that something that, is that a known.
Ding.
Yeah.
I think it's when you're getting back to your cities, isn't it?
Hmm.
It was a full blown hallucination with no drugs, and the sex that happened was sort
of secondary to this meditation process of tantrum of eye, tantric eye gazing.
Oh no.
That, that, that, and people just know, oh, the sex lasts a long time.
But it's sort of like the sex becomes, it's what you were just talking about.
It's this oneness and then the sex becomes this secondary thing.
That Correct.
That happens, but yeah.
Yeah.
You realize it doesn't mean that much, or it doesn't matter that much
compared to what you just experienced by gazing into someone's eyes.
Correct.
It's not the thing to hold onto.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
I started with a new therapist last night, Sam, big News, and a couple
of times she did this eye staring uncomfortable eye lock thing.
It was deeply disturbing.
You really don't need drugs, do you?
And that's where the self seems to be the most solid.
When like a psychol clinical psychologist is staring into
your eyes and they lock onto you.
Ooh.
And you try and hold it instead of looking the natural.
Yeah.
The self then seems very solid.
It's like, oh no, it's this solid object as being perceived by an expert, you know?
But it's, it's still an illusion, I must say.
I, no, no, I don't find that crazy.
The idea that it starts feeling more solid, I just tend to
experience the opposite.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
And that like, I mean, it ma I think both makes sense.
Here's the thing, like the, the thing this, the thing that's been
lurking in the background of this whole conversation is the Dao.
Ooh.
Because I think that's really what M's.
Talking about here.
If you want my opinion, like he talks about you would perceive these opposites
and the, you know, we're kind of like.
I'm trying to sort of hold onto notions of like the separateness
and discreetness of, you know, two properties, hot and cold, et cetera.
But at what exact point does hot begin and what exact point does cold begin?
You know?
Exactly.
Everyone can say, well, I feel cold right now.
Well, yeah, okay, so there's an organism reacting to particular conditions,
but some other, an other animal might like it that temperature, you know?
Yeah.
So, but.
So I'm not trying to relativize everything out of complete existence.
That's not what we're doing here.
Like, no, there is some sort of reality to things I'm not claiming otherwise.
but it seems to entail a lot of illusions in the experiencing of it.
Mm.
And, and those illusions will get in the way of actually just having a good time.
And we've, we, we can all relate to getting in our heads.
When everything was fun and suddenly we're in our heads.
Right, and it's, you lost the game and you know, 'cause you forgot for a minute.
Well, that can happen during sex.
It, uh mm-hmm.
A hundred percent.
That's like, even though there's literally no other audience, but this person who
you are already in a state of trust with, nonetheless, it can be devastating.
Yeah.
Let alone you're in a social situation.
Everyone's riffing.
Oh, we're all having fun.
We we're rinsing each other.
This is great.
Oops.
I went too far.
Yeah.
Uh, you know, or.
Oh God, I'm playing the absolute gig of my life.
These songs are all landing dong cl.
Yeah.
You got in your head.
And then, you know, like, it's like, it's like your friends in
LA used to say, you lost the game.
Lost the game, and it was just a thing.
Okay, so shout out to, uh, Shiner, Sam Bird.
Uh, just you've explained this once before in the show.
I have, yeah.
Oh, thank you for reminding me.
How do you think I know about it?
Well.
You can explain it again, and then I think we need to wrap it up, Sam.
Uh, well, yeah, I mean, look, just very briefly, it's just a little mental
challenge you can do, and this really lines up with a whole lot of advice you'll
get about learning, learning, emotional regulation, resilience and stuff.
It's, it's just like, basically, like if you're plagued by, oh,
I'll explain what it is first.
So the challenge is.
Try not to think about the game, which is just sort of a
notion that it's not important.
You could call it anything, right?
but, oh, I thought about the game.
I Loh, I lost the game.
And then when you lose the game, it's an, you are bound by the rules of honor to.
Let everyone else know that you fucked up and you lost the game.
But the great thing about it is losing the game is not a big deal because
momentarily you'll be back in it.
Uh, and it's all just happening again.
And it's a, it's a, it's, it was a fun riff and it went on.
It was a good thing.
But I did think about it over the years and go, no, there's something here.
And it's the same trick as when you capture, When you first gain a
self-awareness, like in a process of recovering from like a acute mental
illness or a chronic mental illness, and you start one day, you just gain
this level of distance from a thought.
Mm-hmm.
And you're like, oh yeah, what is that?
Anyway.
Mm.
Yeah.
I'm able to do that pretty consistently now.
Well, I mean that's what meditation's kind of Yeah.
All about really.
But like you and therapy will help you do this too.
Sort of gain a kind of level of objectivity about your
thoughts and just go, yeah, that might be some insane nonsense.
And the next time that arises, I might just, uh, I might just
observe it and let it pass.
And it's like, do a little mental, yeah, little mental push up.
I'm gonna have to do more of that Sam too.
'cause the other thing I found out last night is that I've got OCDI
was gonna say congrats on the new therapist and the new diagnosis.
Wow.
Well, she said, look, we, I'm a clinical psychologist.
We could do a formal, it's like you've had a baby or something.
We could do a formal like diagnosis of OCD, but Yeah, no, that makes,
let's just get on with fixing you up.
It makes sense.
Um, yeah.
So I've, yeah.
I'm not just bipolar type one, which is a fucking serious mental illness.
It sure is.
I've also got OCD and I think it's been ruining my entire life.
Well, I'm just gonna say I've never felt prouder.
You finally have two acronyms.
I said to her, there's a lot of ego in a diagnosis.
And she looked at me like, what are you talking about?
You, you're right about that.
You're like, well, if you go on a podcast and talk about it, there's ego in it.
Yeah, we, we lost the game.
All right.
I lost the game.
We broke the first rule of fight club.
Um, yeah.
Anyway, uh, I think O CD's been kicking my ass, particularly
in the area of relationships.
I think she's, I think this, uh, this lady's onto something.
because you do cast hat, you blah, blah, blah.
You do catastrophize a lot.
And I will just humble brag.
I did two days of youth mental health first day training at the end of last
year when I was in a state of advanced exhaustion, and I just sat in a room
with people and just cried openly.
I highly recommend it.
I wasn't blubbering the whole time.
I also did a lot of coloring in.
Well, you cried at the start of this episode.
I did.
Which I appreciated.
Tell me, did it make you think about your mother?
Oh yeah, of course.
Is that why you were crying, Sam?
Yeah, of course.
And well, great that you can access it, Sam.
Oh, you don't have to teach me that.
It's closer than it's ever been.
Like, uh, when I, for a long time I've been holding on tightly and keeping it
all going and dutiful and unfun, Sammy, and I'm like, I'm into being dutiful.
Like duties are duties, man.
Live up to them, right?
Yeah.
But I carried them so heavily and.
Yeah, you're a bit of a square peg in a round hole.
I sure was.
And just taking
parenting so seriously, honestly felt quite awkward.
I didn't wanna say anything.
But you were taking it pretty seriously and just, I don't know,
it was just white knuckling a lot.
I mean, my level of catastrophizing was severe enough to cause me
issues, but like not on your level.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like so I really, you still think there will be a world.
Yes.
At the end of it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
Oh, my child may suddenly die.
Yeah.
But the world will continue.
Yes.
Whereas you find much more comfort in the opposite thought.
I don't find any comfort in that thought.
But you, where you go is, my child may die anyway.
What's happening in Russia?
Putin might drop the bomb.
Yeah.
We're all gonna die.
Yeah.
So don't even worry about it.
Right.
You know?
Yeah.
But it doesn't sit like that with you, does it?
I, I said to my spiritual advisor something about, what
if we all die in a nuclear war?
And he said, we're all gonna Great question.
We're all gonna die anyway.
Correct.
And then I said, the tragedy with fear has already occurred, but I was hoping that
my kids would live long and happy lives.
Well, yeah.
And he didn't have much to say to that.
It's a hard one to come back on.
Yeah.
So I think I've managed to find a way to keep worrying, even if I can accept my own
mortality, I can't accept my children's.
Oh, well, well, I mean, come on, come on, come on.
Wait a minute.
The, the, the, um, the end of all therapy is.
The acceptance of ordinary human unhappiness.
Well, I did five years with the previous person and I think
I'm a lot better than I was.
Yeah.
Believe it or not.
I think so.
And whether Peter gets the credit or not, I mean, it's impossible to say.
Yeah, I don't wanna disturb Peter 'cause she still hasn't sent me the last invoice.
So if I just, if I just ghost her, I could save 180 bucks.
Well, does she ever listen to this?
Surely not.
She would rather stick pins in her eyes and listen to me talk on a podcast.
I reckon.
Sounds like a smart woman, I reckon, who, how do I know?
I have no idea what she thinks of me.
Do you know what your therapist thinks of you?
Your therapist might despise you.
I, I do sometimes think.
Adam is just like this guy, how did I get saddled with this guy?
Like he saw me when he was still at the Melbourne Uni counseling service, which is
like probably not a bad gig for like Yeah.
A newish psychologist.
And he was like, better than the average Yeah.
Person there.
And he got, he got, he got through to me, You know, and then he made the mistake
of reaching out by email and saying, I think you need an ongoing therapist.
I'm in private practice.
Come over to Williamstown.
So I did that and uh, he did eventually move closer.
He.
Now he was helping himself out.
He was helping me out.
I've got no argument with that move.
I think it was the right move.
But fast forward 13 years and he's like, oh my God, are we
ever gonna land this plane?
You know?
So I sometimes regard myself with a level of 13 years.
Pride and amusement as like the single greatest failure and
success of his entire career.
Yeah.
And I take, I do take pride in that.
Well, I struggled to move on from Peter and I Yes.
Five years sat in that session talking a lot about Peter and she said, well, it
sounds like you're a bit undecided if you wanna move on from psychoanalysis to CBT.
And then she sold herself to me, which, um, Peter would never do
'cause she couldn't give a fuck.
and it was off, it was a bit offputting, but I, I want the help.
Right.
I, the help I, well, I think it was, she was making all the right moves.
Yes.
I think she kind of knew what the situation required, wasn't as
charismatic and intense as Peter.
Well, you know what, you're, she's a bit dagger.
You're not gonna try and impress her.
No.
There's nothing to impress her.
Yeah.
I think this could be good for you.
I think she's like a nerd about psychology techniques.
I, yeah.
She's gonna, she's gonna go by the book.
By the book.
Yeah.
She's not gonna be this impenetrable.
Yung Ingen.
Yeah.
Uh, le, sorry.
Le Ingen.
Yeah.
Uh, and look ho Shade on Lekan.
They are often very, very sharp people.
But this might be more, the ticket.
Could be, I'm gonna try it, Sam.
I'm gonna try three sessions and see how I go and look more importantly.
You don't have some sort of mystical quest to like, you know, you know, look.
You've had those moments where you're like, maybe I can do some gear here.
Maybe I can get a laugh from Peter.
Yeah, yeah.
Just even to impress her.
'cause she's so smart.
Yeah.
You just, you just want that approval so bad.
Yeah.
Get a little laugh.
Yeah.
And so when you, when you said, this person stares in, you get a little
laugh, you know, so she stares in the new one, stares into my eyes
and I become deeply unsettled.
Yeah.
And have a strong feeling of a rock solid self that's completely
pinned down now by this woman.
Yep.
And you have the experience of disintegrating under the gaze of
your therapist when Adam stares back implacably without malice or you
know, anything kind of negative.
It's just a neutral regard, but it's unwavering.
It's quite zen.
He's good at it.
And.
I don't find myself strongly holding the self together.
I feel it falling apart and I feel all my nonsense and
bullshit has just been laid bare.
It's very powerful technique, but I put it to you.
This is a Dao thing.
The same, uncomfortable, powerful forces at work, and you deal with it by holding,
and then somehow I just fold more easily.
And I don't know if that's.
A good or a bad thing, honestly.
But I do speculate that maybe you are deeper into this realization about the
illusion of the separate self and yet.
Also holding on tightly more.
I'm holding on tightly too, but I think you might be
gripping it just that bit more.
Yeah.
I do wonder if it's just a head game for me at this stage, and
it's never gone fully experiential.
How deep does it go?
I mean, I wonder how many people listening are just like, what
the fuck are you talking about?
Okay, what we talking about?
Is experiencing being who we are as not fun and fucked and trying to constantly
fix it and trying to like come up with the remedy for like, okay, I'll be all
cool if this, I'll be all cool if that.
And maybe the solution's much simpler than that.
You just, you know, stop trying to run the show.
You just let go and let go.
You know?
Just be a theater goer.
You know?
Yeah.
Just let the show happen.
Get in the backseat of the car and yeah.
Wind the window down and Yeah.
Doesn't mean we just be a passenger.
That's right.
It doesn't mean we renounce all agency, but I think it's about identifying Well,
we don't renounce social responsibility.
No.
So we, neither of us could ever conceive of, no.
Not being responsible for our children or just telling our kids, Hey man,
I'm just a bundle of molecules.
So are you.
It's all good.
Hope it all works out.
Yeah.
We are never gonna do that.
No, and it's not, this is not about denying responsibility or
like trying to escape the problems through a clever philosophical trick.
I think we both have had the same realization.
I just want to know what's true before I die, Sam.
Yeah.
And what's true is that I don't exist.
Man, God already told you in the way that I thought, God already told you.
It doesn't matter.
It's all okay.
Yeah, yeah.
You just, you just wanna know that it all makes sense and it wasn't
all a big joke and, and, you know, and Marxism couldn't persuade you.
It's, you know, you, you looked for other things.
Acid was the answer for a bit.
But, you know, what I wanted to say is, you know, thank you to those
people that have like, you know, held the unwavering gaze and just.
Hm.
You know?
Well, that was the thing is that I thought she was a daggy therapist.
Apart from those couple of moments, she locked my locked eyes with me.
Then I thought, oh, there's deep power here.
So maybe she's just got a daggy exterior and a bit of a daggy office and all that.
Well, I mean, come on.
Think about the sort of, think about the sort of like.
Slightly unassuming looking, but ultimately powerful
mentor figures in films.
I was gonna say in the spiritual journeys too, they're often s deeply spiritual
people come in un unexpected packages.
Correct.
They're often, you know, sort of shambling and sort of lacking respectability in
some way, but they're exactly the thing.
That needs to happen.
Yeah.
You know, I felt elated last night driving home from, I can tell.
I can tell you.
Would you?
Yeah.
I had some hope that I might get some more sanity.
Well, I think this diagnosis makes a lot of sense and as she said, we
can get official about all that.
But the point is, she can already begin with, you know what, what a doctor
might call an empirical diagnosis is, and we will try these things
and that will help us to understand whether that's what's going on.
And I think you'll find, well the last bit.
My last contact with the notion of OCD was in this Youth Mental Health
First Aid training, and it was one of the last things we looked at
and uh, my attention was starting to flag, but I reevaluated my.
Earlier feeling that OCD was an incredibly difficult treatment resistant condition.
And it's like, well, apparently the newer evidence is that it's not so, well, my
friend with OCD says it's incredibly incur, incurable, and untreatable.
So that's what he says he is lived with it his whole adult life.
Yeah.
So I dunno, I, having said that, you know, don't you feel after.
X amount of therapy and like spiritual questing and stuff,
that there might genuinely be something incurable about all of us.
And, and, you know, and that it's, you know, incurable, romantic.
That's, that's actually all I know is my experience of reality at the
moment is I go to bed in a good place and I wake up in a bad place.
Mm-hmm.
And then I work my way from the bad place to the good place, and
then I repeat it and it's phe.
Yeah.
Do you, I mean.
When you repeat something.
So I don't look forward to going to bed because I know I'm
gonna wake up and feel terrible.
Hmm.
And be full of fear.
Well, that's a reasonable excuse for not wanting to go to bed.
I'm not quite sure what mine is.
You just get distracted.
Well, yeah, but I think I also experience the feeling of mortality and fear
more on the approach to bed, whereas in the morning, tired as I may be.
It's kinda like, oh, cool, we'll start again.
Yeah, I get some of that in there too, but I don't know, man, that's weird, isn't it?
Anyway, I think we should wrap it up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, but thank you again to Tim.
Tammy.
Oh, yes.
Oh God, please reach out again.
I remember it now.
Just one more thing.
Yeah.
In the Bugger Gita, it says, contemplation of the sense objects.
You know, you and I, we've contemplated the sense objects.
A great deal leads to attachment.
Attachment leads to clinging, or fear or whatever.
Fear leads to anger, et cetera, et cetera.
Something sim And this, uh, this leads to, you know, bad actions.
This leads to the downfall.
Uh, and something similar in, you know, the Star Wars.
When Anakin is told, you know, he's on the wrong path.
Uh.
So the bugger, the Gita seems to be talking about a similar thing to Hume,
but then they're like, well, you know, he place you the salvation in God.
Um, it's gonna help you out with all of that.
But I just, I just feel like that was important to mention that
the contemplation of the sense objects, the attachment, et cetera,
that there's something in that.
Um, and so I, I think at the end of the day, they don't really have a big argument
with the Buddhists or with David Hume or with any of that, but some of the stage
dressings are sort of a bit different.
Mm.
But they're sort of saying the same thing, that if you take this fixed
perspective and then contemplate the things you want and don't want, and
you sort of build your life around that, that yeah, it's gonna lead to
suffering and that we need to be maybe.
Not undiscriminating and foolish, but maybe a little less pick and choosy
about what the good experiences are.
Do you know what I mean?
You've just gotta flow, Sam.
It's a hard thing to put it like this.
Just gotta flow deep.
As the Polish guy said to me at the end of a really interesting and
weird and painful night, sometimes you just gotta eat shit, man.
And it's like, I've thought about that so many times over the
years and I was like, and then.
If you can just, ugh.
I have experienced this recently of just going like, oh man, it's
not coming up my number right now.
But I just, I don't know.
I just, I've been able to just go, it's all right.
Swings and roundabouts.
I'll be winning again one day.
You know?
It's like, yeah, maybe you'll have a good morning.
One of these days.
Yeah, maybe I'll wake up and, and all the suffering will be over.
Oh, well, I mean that's, you know, but I've taken away the chemical.
Apart from coffee, which is the only reason I can.
Like start the day at all.
Mm, same.
Yeah.
I've taken away the, the luxury of chemical dependency for at least
the last three and a bit years.
Well, that's a form of liberation in itself.
You know, MOIA.
Yeah.
And then I go through more suffering.
'cause there's no relief from the suffering.
Mm.
There's no 45 seconds on nitrous oxide where everything's amazing.
Hmm.
You know what?
There's a mixture of a spiritual problem, which you have been
working very, very hard on.
There's a sort of.
A phenomenological thing about hear about just how you experience consciousness,
which you've been working hard on.
But then I think there might also be where the uh, where the uh, where the
Eastern BS can meet Western science.
And between the two of those things, you know, there might be a rational.
Basis for proceeding with this diagnosis and, you know, a
new chapter, a new therapist.
I'm optimistic.
Thanks, Sam.
Revolutionary optimism.
And I, like I said, since I got here, you've had a really good energy about you.
Thank you.
And you've got springing your step and it's just nice to see.
So whatever you've been doing, just keep doing that.
Yeah.
Yep.
I've just been fussing a lot less, and that's about it.
You know, fuss a lot less.
Let's not flail about here quite so much, you know?
Yeah.
Simple as Sounds good.
Good place to end it.
Yeah.
All right.
We'll see you later, Sam.
Oh yeah.
See you soon.
All right.
Bye.