Latest / The Christian Reeve Podcast / Aditya Pravin | The Christian Reeve Podcast #318

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Aditya Pravin | The Christian Reeve Podcast #318 · The Christian Reeve Podcast

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  Hello and welcome to another episode of Christian Reef
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  Podcast. Today's guest is an author, a
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  mentalist, A philosopher and an entrepreneur.
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  His name is Aditya Pravin. Welcome to the show.
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  How you doing? I'm doing good and thank you for
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  having me on the show. It's a pleasure, man.
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  You might be the first Indian I've ever had on the show.
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  Wait, wait. Actually, no, no, no, no.
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  Hold on. No, there was no 2nd.
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  Yeah, even the second is good, so.
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  So. Yeah, I don't know.
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  No. No, I thought you could ask me a
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  question. Then it's like, yeah, you take
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  over, man. You take over.
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  I'll take a side seat now. Yeah, there's a lot of things to
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  ask you about. I think the best place to sort
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  of start would be how you became an author because that's the
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  kind of the main thing you're pushing right now.
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  I did try and find online, I couldn't actually find where
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  your books are, what they're about.
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  So let's just kind of delve into you becoming an author first,
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  then we'll explore like what you're writing about.
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  So how did you become a writer? So it's kind of a weird story in
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  my opinion. So my mum, she works in training
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  and development for companies and she does trainings and
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  stuff. So she has a lot of insight on
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  how you know, a lot of things and she want to write a book
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  about, you know, being a leader and she had asked about to a
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  publishing company. She knew that I want to publish
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  this so and so book. And you know, how do I go
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  forward with this? Because at least this was five
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  years ago. So we did not know what it is to
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  be, you know, publishing a book, even it's through if it's
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  through self-publishing and stuff.
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  So she found out about what is self-publishing and stuff.
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  And I was 14 at the time. And then she didn't know how to
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  do it. So I said, I'll research this
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  project and I'll find out how to do this.
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  So I went online and went through how to, you know, self
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  publish Amazon KDP and stuff. And I found out and I was like,
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  what if I were to write a book? What would what would it be
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  about? So I was thinking, what do I
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  know? Well, right now, and I was 14, I
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  did not know much. So I was really into Rubik's
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  cubes that time. And I was teaching people in my
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  class and how to solve the Rubik's Cube.
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  And they said I was a good teacher.
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  So I said, what if I write about this?
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  So I figured out, you know, how to format the book, how to even
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  make the figures for a Rubik's Cube book.
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  How would I approach this? And then I made the book and
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  then and I got my mom to edit it because, you know, I, I made few
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  errors there, here and there. And then I went through the
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  process to figure out how, you know, actually to publish myself
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  so I can get her book published. And I kind of surprised my
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  family. Like, see, I've published a
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  book. I don't know how, but it's out
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  there. It's on Amazon now.
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  That's brilliant. I did it by accident, guys.
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  But look, I'm published often now like that.
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  It's do you know, it's an well, first of all, congratulations.
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  Secondly, it's, it's an interesting one.
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  Like I've, I've published stuff before self-publishing and it's,
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  I think it's a tremendous achievement anytime anyone
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  publishes anything because a lot of hard work goes into it and
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  it's, it's difficult, I think to get to a point where you agree,
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  like I'm happy with this, I'm going to release this.
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  Here we go. You know, that's, that's a hard
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  point to just to just to get to that like level of that mindset,
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  I suppose. But there's also there's a lot
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  of stigma about self-publishing, which I think is unfounded.
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  I mean, yeah, the ultimate is to to see your book in a bookstore
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  or, you know, you can physically own it.
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  Like, of course, I, I understand the appeal of that, but does it,
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  does it mean that if there's a non physical version that it's
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  any less valuable? I, I, I would disagree with
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  that. I mean, like for instance, I
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  released an album in, in March and there's no physical copies
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  of it. I would like to do that at some
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  point when I got the money to kind of put that together.
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  Absolutely. But you just, you can get it
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  online. You just download it, you stream
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  it. Does that make it any less of an
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  album? I don't think so.
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  You know, the same amount of time and effort and work and
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  commitment went into it. The ideas that which is the
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  important thing, the the content is there.
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  Yeah. Where do you stand on that kind
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  of debate? I mean, obviously you're in
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  favour of it, but like when people say that, like, I'm sure
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  there might have been some people that might criticize it.
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  Like how do you react to that? So nowadays you can at least you
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  can publish paperbacks also now on Amazon self-publishing, if
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  you know that. Yeah.
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  And hardcover. So that's nice.
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  And even then the bookstores are going extinct.
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  The the whole book, you know, the phenomena that is book talk
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  and booktube and stuff. It's all online.
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  People purchase their books online now.
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  So it's not that, it's just that I guess self-publishing makes
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  the world a bit more special in a way.
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  Why I say that is because we have this debate and I really
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  into, you know, I want to be a filmmaker sometime maybe.
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  So there's this debate that how many film makers are there that
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  don't have the budgets to get their stuff, their ideas, their
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  movies out there. And before, the publishing world
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  was like that, but now with the, you know, help of
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  self-publishing, more people have access to get their stories
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  out there. And, you know, you can
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  eventually go to the mainstream publishing route if you have a
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  book you know that they are accepting, but you know, your
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  initial works are not that polished.
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  I'll say most for most authors. And even to get that out there
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  and get feedback on it from actual audiences is quite nice.
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  This is key, yeah, especially from a commercial perspective,
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  because part of obviously the the benefit of having a
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  publisher is that they will go through your work and kind of
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  break it down and, and give you like pointers.
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  Like for me, it's it's not dissimilar to being in the
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  studio and working on an album and the producer makes
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  suggestions that will help your songs kind of appeal more, you
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  know, or at least work better in the flow of and delivery of the
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  album. I think with with obviously with
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  with books, with publishers, you've got someone who's going
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  to proofread it. Obviously we had the benefit of
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  having technology now that that can help you with that.
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  I still think someone should go for it, though.
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  I don't want to just handle that over to AII think that's the the
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  death of creativity and of all things.
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  Just because it's there doesn't mean we have to fully rely on
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  it. But yes, absolutely use the
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  tool. There's a lot of benefits to
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  that Is, is I guess is what I'm trying to say.
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  But yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's, it's just a, it's
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  a different route, isn't it's a different way of doing
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  something. But I think, I think it really
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  does open up the possibilities because obviously the big
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  problem with publishers is that it's all down to who they want
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  to publish. You know, some of the world's
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  most successful, most famous books were rejected like a
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  million times. I think it was Stephen King who
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  has, he has like a letter framed in his, in his, in his study.
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  And it's like the one letter that was the acceptance letter
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  amongst the like 59 other rejection letters he got for a
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  carry or something like that. And it's just like, that's cool,
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  man. You know, lots of people don't
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  see the vision. There's that one person that
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  sees the vision and it becomes a success.
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  I think there's an unpredictability level.
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  You never know how people are going to react to things.
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  And timing is key as well. Like if you take my album as an
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  example, I published my album, I promoted it and released it in
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  March. I released a bunch of singles in
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  in the the run up to it, right? I did all the promotion online
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  and I did like a sort of a mini re release recently, but it's
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  getting more views now than it was when it was first published.
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  And I think that a lot of that comes down to, as you said, like
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  reviews, people talking about things, especially with books,
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  that's really important, like how things are reviewed, how
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  things are interpreted. Sometimes it can take a bit of
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  time, a little bit. You need a bit of buzz to kind
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  of get attention. You know what?
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  What routes have you taken to kind of promote your books?
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  I just promote it mostly. It's I have a lot of organic
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  traffic on my books, like people, my original book was How
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  to Solve a Rubik's Cube. And people searched that on
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  Amazon. So I got a lot of organic
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  traffic on my initial books, which were all about Rubik's
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  Cube and stuff. And I promote them heavily
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  locally, you know, to my friends and family.
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  And I have ways to, you know, spread the word around and
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  through groups and stuff that of circles, that of people that I
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  know. That's how I do it.
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  But now I'm trying to do bit more of this online promotion
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  thing, like do going on podcast, like, you know, something like
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  that and experiment with this, that how is this affecting the
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  book sales? If I were to say how that
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  affects. And funny that you mentioned
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  Stephen King. I think I know the story of his
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  rejection letters. So when he was starting writing,
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  he had this pin on his wall, you know, and he used to just put
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  all the rejection letters on them, into the big pile on that
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  pin and you just look at them and then write his next story,
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  like with the motivation that that would not end up on the
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  wall. And if it did, then it's the
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  step towards success. I get this one.
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  I get like hate messages occasionally.
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  The ones that really stand out and make a point of like saving
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  for later and like I, I think it is important to pay attention
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  to, to good and bad criticism. Whatever you get, negative
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  criticism can be useful. Rejections can be useful.
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  I think it's part of the, as you said, that driving force.
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  You just keep going, you keep going, you keep going.
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  Don't let things stop you because a lot of criticism will
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  come from jealousy or come from just people trying to tear you
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  down. People don't want to see you be
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  a success. There's all that, but then
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  there's also people just genuinely criticizing you.
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  And sometimes you just have to take that on board.
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  You know, when I started doing podcasting, I had some some
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  initial criticisms which got me thinking like they were
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  delivered in a horrible way. But they got me thinking.
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  I think about it all these years later.
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  And whenever I feel like, for instance, maybe I'm talking a
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  bit too much and maybe my guest is not getting enough in, I'd
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  think back to that comment. And I'm like, right, let's get
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  it. Let's let's steer it back to our
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  guest. Let's, you know, let's get back
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  there. And yeah, it's interesting
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  because I remember at the time people said, like, why?
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  It's your show, you know, your your name is on there.
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  It's it's you can talk about whatever you want.
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  But I looked at it like, yeah, but the person's criticism is
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  that my guest is not getting enough attention.
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  And you've invited a guest on your show.
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  And I've also since been in that situation where I one of the
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  reasons I don't really, I mean, I don't get invited on people's
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  shows anymore. But when I did go on people's
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  shows to promote myself, it was interesting because sometimes
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  you get full on, on interview like this conversation.
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  Other times you'd feel like a background character.
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  I remember 1 show I went on, it was a group of guys and they
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  were lovely and they were having, you know, quite clearly
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  they've been doing this a while. They're just having a laugh.
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  But I was like a background character and I kind of remember
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  thinking like, why did you invite me on this show?
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  If you like, why am I even here? Like that's, that's the worst
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  thing. If you get to a point where your
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  guest feels like, why am I here, then you need to rethink it.
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  But the point is you take on board these things, you work to
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  become better. That's the main thing.
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  And you know, congratulations, man.
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  It's, it's a huge achievement. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask
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  you how many solutions are there in your book for solving A
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  Rubik's Cube. How many?
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  So I did the beginner's method. There are multiple methods to
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  it. Yeah.
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  So I did the beginner's method originally, and then in updated
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  version, I added a more advanced method for those who wanted to
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  try that method after that. And then I also added some
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  reference material that they can go through for other methods.
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  That is, yeah. It's it's interesting as well,
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  isn't it? Like this puzzle game that has
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  been around forever is still captivating new audiences.
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  I think it's, I mean, obviously I, I put it online with it in in
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  line with things like chess where it's like there's always
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  going to be, I mean, I don't know, there's probably like an
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  infinite a number of variations, isn't there Possibly.
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  Was there a set 1? It's 43 quintillion and it's a
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  big number. It's like 12 zeros or more.
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  I don't know, I think. That's insane.
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  Let's think about how. All right, Well, infinite
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  possibilities. Then basically there is what
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  we're saying. Yeah, that's incredible.
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  And it gives you more content that you can write with.
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  So it's content for days. Is there any other like fields
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  that you're writing about or are you just kind of focused on this
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  particular field for now? So originally that's what I was
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  the only thing I was educated enough to write on.
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  I could not add thing value to many other fields.
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  But as I grew up, I have written more about other stuff.
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  Initially as a kid also I wrote a book about Minecraft and stuff
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  that's been delisted. That was weird.
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  But since then I've written about cinematography.
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  That was one book of mine. Then I've written on philosophy.
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  It was one of my latest books. I've this year gotten into more
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  into poetry so I've released a full trilogy of poetry books and
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  stuff like that. Hold the phone, man.
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  This is like a lot of you're like, yeah, you know, I've, I've
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  only just done all of these 15 things like, OK, all right, so,
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  well, let's we're going to get into philosophy later, but let's
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  talk about cinematography for a second.
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  Like do you have a background in film work?
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  The Have you worked in film before or or studied it or what
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  did that? Come I have not studied it, but
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  there was this person I knew who wanted to write about
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  cinematography, but they did not really want to write it.
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  And I'm, I love cinematography, but I don't have the insider
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  knowledge to do it. So we just kind of worked on
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  that project together and we wrote that book.
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  It's called Miss in Sans. So when you're working with
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  someone and trying to kind of put their vision into into
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  writing, what were the challenges that that sort of
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  arose? Because I imagine that it's
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  quite difficult in places to kind of put that to paper
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  because obviously you're the one doing the hard work, right?
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  He's throwing his ideas at you, going like, well, I've got this
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  idea, I've got this idea, I've got this idea, and you're the
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  one who has to make it happen. What kind of challenges did you
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  face bringing that alive? So we just did an interview
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  method. First, I interviewed him on
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  certain things, what I knew, what I wanted to include in the
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  book, and he gave me the answers, which I went through
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  the video again. Again, to kind of note down the
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  most important things. I wrote an initial draft, then I
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  got him to review it. Tell me half of it is wrong.
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  I took the wrong interpretation of some of the stuff.
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  And then revision, revision, revision until the final draft
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  is, you know, he said. It's quite a good, concise
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  version of what he wanted to get out there.
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  Solid stuff, man. You got to tell me about this
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  Minecraft book, mate. Come on, tell me, Tell us about
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  the Minecraft book. I, I just had an idea one day I
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  published it. It was about, you know,
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  different Minecraft seeds and what kind of different
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  experiences you can have through different Minecraft seeds you
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  can put and what is there to explore this a set because
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  Minecraft is such an explorable world.
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  It was a way for somebody who wanted a more of a crafted
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  experience that they knew this was there, this was there and
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  that is there and follow a path to, you know, their journey
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  through Minecraft. It was quickly delisted after
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  that. I delisted myself as like, it's
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  not does not fit with the rest of my books.
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  So I just, yeah. So you just didn't think that
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  there was much. I mean, that's kind of a shame
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  though, isn't it? Like it's, you know, you wrap up
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  whatever you want, You know, why do you list?
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  It but it's also like self-publishing sites are quite
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  like have become quite more stringent on how much value
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  you're adding to what you're talking about Yeah, I.
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  That. Something at least from my
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  experience, my friend had some issue with it so I like I don't
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  even want it on my profile anymore and I was like I'll get
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  it off hold. On hold on.
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  So like who's The Who judges this?
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  Like so someone's judging the quality of the books you're
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  putting out. Like I mean, that should not be
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  down to the right readers and the sales and stuff like that.
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  Like I don't know, this is a bit off to me.
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  Yeah, people just get their account, man, and all their
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  books, you know, gone into the oblivion, vanished and like the
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  whole accounts. And sure, sure, if, if, if all
• 18:29
  of your books are like, I don't know, here's how to run your own
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  crypto scam, pump and dump. And it's just like a million
• 18:35
  books like that, like, right, fair enough.
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  But like, if it's just genuinely a person trying to put their
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  stuff out there and I, I, I don't know, I mean, it's, it's
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  personal preference, isn't it, you know?
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  Yeah. I might look at your books and
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  think that's trash and then the next guy that comes in is like,
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  this is brilliant. You know, it's how do you how do
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  you judge that? I don't know.
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  I think that that's, I get having like a quality assurance
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  thing, but I don't know, like with something like that, like
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  you'd need someone like, do they actually sit there and read the
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  books and then make a judgement based on that, Like because if
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  so, fair enough, I guess, but I don't know.
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  I just wondered if you knew if there's like any assessment
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  criteria for this, how they judge whether or not content is
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  good enough? There is a criteria, but it's
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  very vague. You know, they go through a
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  review process before publishing it, OK.
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  But after, if somebody gives you a bad review, suppose, and a
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  really bad one suppose, they'll review it again.
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  And that review can. Yeah.
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  That makes sense. Yeah.
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  If a few people go this is trash and This is why it's trash, and
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  then they review it and they're like, yeah, it is trash, then
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  fair enough. But all right, cool.
• 19:51
  All right, We'll put it at Bay. We'll put it at Bay.
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  That's fair enough. There is a similar there is a
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  similar issue that I face with my books nowadays which was not
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  there before. It is now.
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  Suppose in self ablishing side you're supposed to say if the
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  book is AI written or not. Now there's no point to writing
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  a book with AI. But it's kind of weird because
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  these AI plated, these AI detectors are not concrete
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  enough. So what if somebody puts it
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  through an AI detector and I've put in that my book is not AI
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  generated, but they get a 40% certainty that it is.
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  What then is the publishing thing going to do?
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  That is the kind of grey line, the grey area.
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  I think it's insane that we're even having this conversation.
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  I mean, obviously no one wants to see these AI generated books.
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  Maybe there's a few people more big curiosity.
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  I get it, right. Like like I would, I would OK, I
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  would, what would I want to see? If there was kind of like a
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  series of books created where you used AI and it was like, OK,
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  this written in the style of this and you know that it's AI,
• 21:09
  then all right, fair enough. That would be interesting.
• 21:11
  I, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think anyone should pay
• 21:14
  for it. I think it should all be free.
• 21:15
  I don't think people should earn any money from AI generated
• 21:20
  content because zero work has gone into it.
• 21:23
  You've just put prompts in. Anyone can do that.
• 21:27
  Whereas writing a book, as we both know it takes a lot of time
• 21:31
  and dedication and hard work and planning the planning, the
• 21:35
  writing, like the planning itself is probably takes more
• 21:40
  time than the actual writing in some cases.
• 21:42
  But so it depends on the book. Some books write themselves.
• 21:45
  Other books are, you know, whatever.
• 21:47
  But with AII mean, I think in the, in the context of of
• 21:52
  writing, especially when it comes to music and films, even
• 21:57
  I've heard people murmuring about like 01.
• 21:59
  What if one day there's a film that wins the Oscar and it's
• 22:05
  your best picture and it's an AI script.
• 22:07
  I'll be like, fuck off part of my language.
• 22:08
  But come on, that's that's not that's the death of creativity
• 22:11
  right there. It's what is that?
• 22:16
  I've seen the same thing on YouTube.
• 22:19
  I think. I think it's disappeared now.
• 22:20
  But there used to be a thing that you had to toggle that
• 22:22
  said, Oh, is this AI generated or not?
• 22:24
  And I'm like, but The thing is you see so many creators
• 22:28
  actually uploading this now like you, and you can tell there are,
• 22:33
  for those who don't know, there are AI channels now where it
• 22:37
  will be like a fake voice that you can care pretty easily.
• 22:41
  It's like a voice clone or they've just picked some voice
• 22:44
  and paid for it on some website from like 50 different voices
• 22:48
  that are AI generated and it's basically narration stuff.
• 22:52
  You can quickly tell because they don't have proper
• 22:55
  intonation and stuff. They are things they don't have
• 22:59
  natural flow and delivery like a human would.
• 23:01
  It was weird even saying that like a human would.
• 23:03
  But anyway. And also like the, the content
• 23:08
  itself is trash. It's just all thrown together
• 23:10
  and it's, it's just very lazy. It's like YouTube content from
• 23:16
  say, 10 years ago where people were just starting out before
• 23:20
  they actually made good content, except this AI.
• 23:24
  That's what it reminds me of personally, but in the context
• 23:28
  of books, AI books. That's crazy, man.
• 23:32
  And because, but this is the dark side of self-publishing is
• 23:36
  because of self-publishing, the amount of AI generated content,
• 23:40
  the books that you'll find have increased substantially on
• 23:44
  Amazon, you'll find so many AI books and it's just
• 23:48
  disappointing. And as you said, they should
• 23:50
  take out the monetary aspect and then no one will do AI books
• 23:54
  because there's, why would you even want to write a book just
• 23:57
  using AI? Just write it yourself.
• 23:59
  These people just do it for money purposes.
• 24:01
  They'll put so much content out, then they'll expect it.
• 24:04
  Something will happen. I'll get at least this much.
• 24:08
  Somebody will be tricked by this and they'll think it's a real
• 24:10
  book and they'll get it and that.
• 24:13
  There's there's theories about AI the at some point the
• 24:18
  Internet will just be like completely, although it's
• 24:21
  already happened, the dead Internet theory, this idea that
• 24:23
  like most of what you see is either AI generated or just kind
• 24:27
  of yeah, AI generated drivel basically.
• 24:33
  And the idea is it will get to a point and it's already happening
• 24:38
  where they'll be kind of like a cannibalization aspect to it.
• 24:44
  So AI will put out content based on previous content that it's
• 24:54
  drawing from that the AI released.
• 24:57
  So it's like a, it's like the snake, the, you know, the
• 25:00
  classic snake eating itself thing.
• 25:02
  It's, it's basically that it's, it's just drivel.
• 25:07
  You know, I find it interesting that like when they initially
• 25:12
  let ChatGPT loose on the Internet and got it to like
• 25:16
  formulate opinions and stuff like that, it ended up being
• 25:19
  like crazily racist and transphobic and stuff.
• 25:22
  But it's drawing from like chat threads and stuff and, and just
• 25:26
  kind of like going in every which way.
• 25:27
  It's not really got any. If you give it no direction,
• 25:29
  that's what it will, what will happen If you give it specific
• 25:33
  direction, then you'll probably get what you want.
• 25:35
  But again, it's just directional, isn't it?
• 25:38
  It's not really like, then there's this misconception that
• 25:42
  AI creates anything original. It never does everything it's
• 25:45
  creating or essay repurposing, I think is a better word.
• 25:49
  It's repurposing content created by humans.
• 25:52
  You know, at first it just took public domain stuff and then
• 25:55
  after a while it started taking like content stuff.
• 26:00
  I think it was, I don't know if it was Mark Zuckerberg or
• 26:04
  someone like that. They were testing a bunch of
• 26:05
  things out using content copy, like copyrighted materials.
• 26:12
  And there was a whole argument, like, should they have to pay
• 26:14
  for that earning? Yeah, but it's a tricky one
• 26:18
  because if they're just like testing out stuff and they're
• 26:20
  not earning money from it, they're just kind of training AI
• 26:24
  models, then it's a bit of a weird grey area because they're
• 26:27
  not earning money money for it. But then they are looking to
• 26:32
  sell this AI thing that's trained on this content.
• 26:35
  It's a bit of a weird one, but yeah, I completely agree with
• 26:40
  your assessment. That's yeah, it's people just
• 26:42
  trying their luck really, isn't it?
• 26:43
  Like, you know, oh, hey, I can just try and make a quick buck.
• 26:47
  Let's see what happens For your average creator.
• 26:51
  It's, it sucks because, you know, we're trying really hard
• 26:56
  to, to make content that people will enjoy.
• 26:58
  And, and that comes from the heart, You know, that comes from
• 27:02
  passion, interests. I mean, if you look at the books
• 27:05
  that you've created, it's, it's, it's based on things that you're
• 27:08
  interested in, things that you either have done yourself or
• 27:12
  that you've, you know, worked with people that have, and
• 27:15
  there's a level of interest and passion there that you just
• 27:17
  can't get from AI generated content.
• 27:20
  Same is true of AI music. There's, there's artists out
• 27:23
  there that are, say artists, There are people putting out AI
• 27:28
  albums, right? And they're getting harder and
• 27:33
  harder to spot, but eventually that that's, you know, people
• 27:37
  will just be listening to that stuff and, and consuming that
• 27:40
  content. Yeah, I don't know.
• 27:44
  I don't know what I have to say. It's scary times on on that
• 27:46
  front. When do you see the future head
• 27:49
  of with with AI books? I just don't know what to expect
• 27:54
  with AI because I talked about two years ago when the AI was
• 27:58
  less popular on a previous podcast about AI when it had
• 28:00
  just come out two months ago, the original ChatGPT.
• 28:04
  But you know, it has changed so much in just 2-3 years that we
• 28:08
  can't expect how it is going to be in 2-3 years.
• 28:11
  And what's sad is as a real artist, you are now competing
• 28:17
  with so much of this AI stuff that it's difficult for you to
• 28:20
  get discovered, for you to get recognition for the genuine work
• 28:24
  you've put in there. And you just in that you're one
• 28:28
  single real work in an ocean of hundreds of these AI, you know,
• 28:32
  pieces. I will say one thing that is
• 28:35
  handy about being a human being and being able to prove that you
• 28:39
  actually do stuff stuff yourself.
• 28:41
  I was in a live stream recently with other musicians and it was
• 28:47
  the typical like, you know, put your song forward, get people to
• 28:50
  check, check it out, review it and stuff like that.
• 28:53
  There was a guy in there who was a producer and there was another
• 28:57
  guy who's a musician, and this musician had posted like or put
• 29:02
  forward like four or five of his songs to be checked out.
• 29:05
  And because this this streamer was kind of listening to
• 29:11
  everything in order, we had to listen to like 5 or 6 of this
• 29:13
  guy's songs. And it's like, OK, fine.
• 29:16
  And the music sounded good, but it was very polished, very
• 29:20
  clean, which isn't an issue, but he said he did it all from home.
• 29:25
  And it was really, really well polished.
• 29:32
  Interestingly, someone in the chat who was friends with the
• 29:37
  live streamer was kind of saying he just straight out called it.
• 29:42
  And he was like, this is AI. And the guy who somewhere was
• 29:47
  like, no, it's not. I can prove it, you know?
• 29:50
  And it became a big thing in the chat.
• 29:52
  And the live streamer was like, what?
• 29:55
  I don't think it is, but you know, I do trust this guy's
• 29:58
  judgement. We'll see, we'll see what
• 30:00
  happens. And we're all theorizing in the
• 30:03
  chat like, and I said like, well, I could prove that it's
• 30:06
  me. I mean, there's a million live
• 30:08
  videos of me performing my music.
• 30:10
  You know of me. There's a documentary of me
• 30:12
  writing the songs, you know what I mean?
• 30:14
  Like, and you can do the same. You could show that transcript.
• 30:17
  Here's here's the first draft, fifth draft, 10th draft, blah,
• 30:21
  blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, that's that's ways you
• 30:23
  can prove it with AIA generated content.
• 30:26
  It's like prompt, maybe second draft based on that done, That's
• 30:32
  it. Just soulless moving it forward.
• 30:42
  What's funny is that some of these people that use AI to what
• 30:45
  they call assist them actually think they're doing a lot of the
• 30:50
  work. I just think AI is helping them.
• 30:53
  Like when I was doing poetry earlier this year and then I
• 30:56
  thought somebody said they're the better poet than me.
• 30:59
  And we just for fun, we said, let's compete, Hannah, we'll
• 31:04
  write a poetry piece in one hour about death.
• 31:07
  Let's who is better? And then I started seeing this
• 31:11
  person revisit the phone again and again.
• 31:14
  And then I asked you, what are you doing?
• 31:17
  And then this person said that I'm just using AI, AI to ID it.
• 31:22
  I said, OK, we'll move forward, let's just focus on our piece.
• 31:26
  Later when you revisit the final piece, what they've done is just
• 31:30
  remove few lines, move towards, switch them around.
• 31:34
  You're not really did the work, you're just stolen AI's work,
• 31:40
  which is kind of funny. That reminds me of like when I
• 31:43
  was at uni. And if you got lazy, we've all
• 31:48
  done it. I didn't do it often.
• 31:49
  I did it like once or twice. You know, it's like it's 2:00
• 31:52
  AM, the paper is due the next day.
• 31:54
  You've left it to the last minute.
• 31:55
  And you just, you're drowning in a sea of journal articles.
• 31:58
  And you're like, so maybe you start looking at stuff, looking
• 32:02
  at papers and repurposing content, right?
• 32:05
  And you're not really stretching much further past what the
• 32:10
  original authors said. But you can't pagerize for
• 32:14
  obvious reasons. So you have to reword things and
• 32:16
  you do start doing that. You start like rewording
• 32:19
  something that's already been said in a, a specific way.
• 32:23
  So you have to try and reword the same thing.
• 32:25
  But the difference is there's a level of creativity in doing
• 32:28
  that at least. Whereas, and also you had to
• 32:32
  actually like put together like a theory based on this
• 32:37
  information. You couldn't just copy another
• 32:39
  person's theory. You had to put forward your own
• 32:42
  and use these sources and, and do it that way, right.
• 32:45
  With what that guy was doing. It's just cheating.
• 32:49
  He's there's no thought that's gone into that really, other
• 32:55
  than I'll, I'm just going to ask a question and get it to write
• 32:59
  me a poem and that's it. And it, don't get me wrong, it
• 33:03
  will do a good job, but it'll base it on real people who have
• 33:07
  created poetry. And I don't know about it's just
• 33:11
  depressing. It's, I don't know, I think AI
• 33:15
  is, is fun when it, when it's used in a ridiculous sense, it's
• 33:19
  a lot of fun. I really, I think it should be
• 33:25
  focused more on how it can help us with robotics and help us
• 33:30
  with, with physical labour jobs, stuff like that, easing the
• 33:34
  burden on, on human existence. You know, why is it that it's
• 33:39
  trying to replace creativity and we're still doing, you know,
• 33:44
  these, these physical labour jobs?
• 33:45
  Why is it not the other way around that we have more time to
• 33:48
  spend exploring the human psyche and, and doing fun creative
• 33:53
  things and letting the AI and the robotics kind of pick up the
• 33:56
  slack a bit? I mean, if you look at machines,
• 34:00
  you know, we've always used machines to aid us.
• 34:02
  Like, you know, we used to wash clad some in some places still
• 34:06
  wash clothes on like wash boards and and like rinse them out and
• 34:08
  stuff, right? And you know, certain parts of
• 34:11
  the world started creating washing machines and then we
• 34:14
  just started using those instead.
• 34:18
  There's different ways to do different things, but the point
• 34:20
  is those machines existed to assist us, whereas I feel like
• 34:24
  AI exists to replace us. And that's kind of the scary
• 34:28
  thing because what's the end goal?
• 34:29
  There's always an end goal with everything you do in life,
• 34:32
  right? And I feel like AI, the end goal
• 34:35
  is to replace human beings. I'm like, why would you create
• 34:38
  something to replace you? What's the point?
• 34:43
  I don't get it. There you go.
• 34:44
  That's your next book right there.
• 34:50
  Let's move it forward. You say you are a mentalist.
• 34:56
  I should preface by saying here in the UKA mentalist is a
• 35:03
  legitimate thing. It's also quite an offensive
• 35:06
  term that we don't use anymore. So when I say this term, I am
• 35:10
  referring to the profession. OK?
• 35:14
  And we're going to explore what that is now, but I'd like you to
• 35:16
  tell it in your own words. What is a mentalist?
• 35:21
  Mentalist is a kind of type of magician that does tricks,
• 35:27
  mostly propolis or more focused on the mind aspect of it rather
• 35:32
  than the cards aspect of it, which is the what most magicians
• 35:36
  do, card magicians. But we focus on that different
• 35:40
  aspect, a different take on magic, that is.
• 35:42
  Yeah, I, I looked this up because I was trying to kind of
• 35:44
  get my head around it and I looked up like famous
• 35:48
  mentalists. And one example certainly the UK
• 35:51
  viewers will know of, maybe America too, is Derren Brown,
• 35:55
  quite famous one. And yeah, it's when you look at
• 35:58
  his work, a lot of it's to do with more the psychological ex
• 36:03
  exploration of things like how things affect the mind, which I
• 36:08
  find I find fascinating. Personally, I think the one that
• 36:10
  sticks out to me with Derren Brown was there was one where he
• 36:15
  like simulated a zombie apocalypse style thing in a
• 36:18
  computer game environment. He basically convinced this guy
• 36:21
  that he was in a computer game, even though it's real life.
• 36:25
  And then he did his whole, it was all based on using hypnosis
• 36:31
  and stuff like that. And yeah, he, he always was,
• 36:34
  took a lot of care to, to not traumatise his, his participants
• 36:38
  and stuff. But I was like that.
• 36:40
  And I also felt that there was an element of macabre about it,
• 36:43
  quite a dark element to it. I've noticed this with a lot of
• 36:46
  mentalists. It's speaks more to that.
• 36:52
  But let's bring it back to you. Like what, What have you kind of
• 36:56
  discovered through through being a mentalist and and performing
• 37:00
  these kind of tricks? I feel like so many people, at
• 37:06
  first there was this wave of card magic and then, you know,
• 37:09
  people popularize it so much that even kids started doing
• 37:13
  card magic, which is fine, but then it takes away from the
• 37:16
  magic that this kid is able to do something.
• 37:18
  Then it's kind of takes away from what you're doing.
• 37:22
  So I said that this is the new thing.
• 37:24
  This is the new wave of magic. I started like years ago, and
• 37:28
  that was a big, new, big thing. So I said let me do this because
• 37:31
  it's more fascinating. Some of the things that
• 37:34
  mentalism can, you know, make experience as the participant of
• 37:38
  this trick that is quite fascinating.
• 37:45
  Yeah, I mean, I remember I did. I did a film last year.
• 37:52
  It was it's not officially been released yet.
• 37:55
  It's on the festival run. It's about a musician, so not a
• 38:00
  musician, A magician and him recounting his younger days and
• 38:05
  kind of like the art of magic. And I mean, there's other bigger
• 38:10
  things that the movie is about, but a lot of it's about the the
• 38:13
  magic of magic, right? And I think it's interesting
• 38:18
  magic in the in the 21st century because most people know that
• 38:24
  the a lot of it is trickery and slight pan and stuff like that.
• 38:29
  But I feel like with mentalism, there's a bit more to it and
• 38:36
  maybe there's stuff that you can't really explain away quite
• 38:38
  easily. Can you speak to that a little
• 38:43
  bit? Yeah, I feel to be fair, I am
• 38:49
  not, you know, happy with what some of the mentalists do to get
• 38:54
  their tricks done because, you know, people wouldn't believe
• 38:58
  what some of these mentalists do.
• 38:59
  It's I'll pull back the curtain if to say that some of these
• 39:03
  these mentalists use a method that is called, I think as is it
• 39:08
  called hard reading, hot reading either there are two versions of
• 39:12
  this phrase. And what they do is they stalk
• 39:15
  people to get information later to reveal on stage.
• 39:19
  And you wouldn't believe it if you heard about this, but people
• 39:22
  don't know about this. Pretty sure that's illegal.
• 39:28
  Yeah, yeah, they have different ways of doing it, like depending
• 39:32
  on what kind of performer you are.
• 39:34
  Suppose you're a stage performer and you have gotten 3, say 304
• 39:40
  hundred people in the audience. You go through the registration
• 39:43
  list and you find somebody who you have a lot of information on
• 39:47
  by their name. You can find them.
• 39:48
  It's a unique name. Suppose then you can do that.
• 39:51
  Now I'm not a big performer. I'm not one of the big guys.
• 39:56
  And like Oz, Perlman is one of the biggest mentalist.
• 39:59
  Now I've heard that he has a full gang of people that follow
• 40:04
  big celebrities when he does tricks for them.
• 40:07
  Now, I don't know how much truth there is to that, but.
• 40:10
  Some of the stuff he does is quite unexplainable, except if
• 40:14
  you put that logic behind it, knowing that he has some
• 40:18
  information that he shouldn't. It was pretty common the whole
• 40:22
  questionnaire thing before a show that certainly was a big
• 40:26
  part of the whole Charlotte and Sting in America with psychics
• 40:30
  and psychics. But that that's a new level man.
• 40:34
  Let's stalk in your victims. So I say victims like stalking
• 40:38
  your future audience. I don't know.
• 40:42
  That's crossing the line a little bit, but I don't know.
• 40:45
  I guess that's a debate for another time.
• 40:49
  Yeah, the psychics also use the same technique for some of their
• 40:53
  tricks and some of these if I don't know if you know about
• 40:56
  some of the YouTube drama regarding these two people, Sam
• 41:01
  and Kobe is their name. I think they are these
• 41:04
  paranormal investigators that go to different places and stuff.
• 41:08
  And they went to The Conjuring house.
• 41:10
  Now there was this big controversy that took place
• 41:13
  where the performers there, they are performers.
• 41:16
  They are not real psychics, are they?
• 41:18
  So the performers had information about their family
• 41:22
  that they shouldn't have. Turns out if you search their
• 41:26
  name, the, you know, the legal name, which they had to sign up
• 41:30
  on The Conjuring website to visit the place.
• 41:33
  If you just search up their name, you can get this
• 41:35
  information and it's like it's on an obituary of a dead person.
• 41:40
  And why are you just? That's just unethical.
• 41:43
  Immoral to an extent. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's one of
• 41:49
  those though, isn't it? Like it's like journalists
• 41:51
  getting their information back in the day.
• 41:53
  And then how the laws became strict to say here in the UK and
• 41:56
  other places, like here in the UK, we did a lot of phone
• 42:00
  tapping. And like famously people like
• 42:02
  Diana, Princess Diana's phone was tapped without her
• 42:07
  knowledge. This happened to millions of
• 42:09
  people. And there was a whole argument
• 42:11
  about it. There's there was the Leveson
• 42:12
  inquiry into it and press standards and what's acceptable
• 42:16
  and what's not. And fact of the matter is there
• 42:18
  just wasn't really any laws in like made.
• 42:21
  And then now there are. But it's like, I would argue
• 42:25
  it's the same with that. Like, yeah, you're right, it
• 42:26
  isn't unethical, but I think a lot of people look at it like,
• 42:30
  well, we've got a show to make. We've got to justify this
• 42:33
  budget, so we're going to do whatever we can to make this
• 42:36
  work. And yeah, maybe we do things
• 42:37
  that aren't right. Some people I know it's crazy,
• 42:41
  like just because I'm the same as you, I care about ethics and
• 42:44
  and doing things properly, right?
• 42:46
  Like, for instance, I've had people criticize me about this
• 42:49
  show. Like, why don't you just make it
• 42:51
  controversial? Why don't you just deliberately
• 42:53
  be controversial? I'm like, well, that's not what
• 42:55
  this show is. It's like, yeah, that might get
• 42:57
  more views, but that's not me. I, I my whole thing is to get
• 43:03
  the most out of my guests, make my guests look as good as
• 43:06
  possible. And that's more to do with,
• 43:09
  like, asking the right questions, not about, like,
• 43:11
  singing their praises particularly.
• 43:13
  It's more about just, you know, like, you're an author, right?
• 43:16
  Best way to get the most out of you is to get you talking, get
• 43:20
  you talking about things, because then people are like,
• 43:22
  oh, this guy's interesting. Oh, this is interesting to hear.
• 43:24
  I want to read his books. Like that's, it's a no brainer,
• 43:27
  right? But doing stuff like that, like
• 43:31
  using unethical ways of, of, of achieving things, I just, it's
• 43:36
  not for me. I, I, yeah, it's not for me.
• 43:39
  I just don't like it. I don't think it's particularly
• 43:41
  professional. But then again, that's just the
• 43:44
  TV industry, isn't it? Like that's it's one of the main
• 43:47
  reasons I don't watch television anymore because they're just
• 43:51
  it's all lies. I mean, the best example I could
• 43:54
  give, it's pretty common. It's not anything new, but I
• 43:59
  went to see was it would I lie to you?
• 44:03
  It's ATV show here in the UK. It's a great show.
• 44:07
  Basically, they for an half an hour show, they film like an
• 44:12
  hour and a half's worth of content and they'll do pick ups.
• 44:18
  So they'll get you the laugh, cheer at things, whatever.
• 44:23
  Anyway, I remember in the show there was one joke that wasn't
• 44:27
  included in the final broadcast, but it was hilarious.
• 44:30
  Everyone laughed like crazy. It was, you know, like they knew
• 44:34
  it wouldn't get probably cut in, but whatever, right?
• 44:39
  And then there was another joke that no one laughed at.
• 44:41
  It just wasn't funny. Not that was just a bad joke,
• 44:45
  but in the final broadcast, guess which joke made it in?
• 44:49
  The second joke and everybody was laughing.
• 44:51
  Exactly. And I was like, well, that
• 44:53
  didn't happen. I was there.
• 44:55
  That's lies. But that's TV, folks.
• 44:59
  And you see it so much in like reality television, you know,
• 45:02
  which is the biggest joke of all time.
• 45:04
  Like I think it should be illegal to call it reality TV.
• 45:07
  There's nothing real about it. It's more fake than scripted
• 45:11
  shows. And I know that reality TV is
• 45:13
  scripted but you know what I'm saying?
• 45:14
  Like drama shows feel more real than reality TV.
• 45:18
  Like reality TV is this weird pointless concept.
• 45:22
  I've never I've never understood she would take on reality TV.
• 45:25
  Sorry I didn't think this would come up, but your thoughts?
• 45:31
  You know, they're just trying to one up themselves is what is,
• 45:35
  You know, there was this controversy with the magician
• 45:37
  that happened on ADT just a few weeks ago that they made-up a
• 45:41
  narrative that did not suit the performance.
• 45:45
  You know, they've got one of the best magic performers.
• 45:48
  I know him, but supposedly he is.
• 45:50
  And I watched the trick and it's absolutely unbelievable what he
• 45:53
  does on stage. But they want something new.
• 45:57
  They've already seen magicians, so they make up this narrative
• 46:00
  that they're criticizing his pacing.
• 46:02
  And there was this whole take that they're just doing it
• 46:05
  because it's not been done before.
• 46:07
  A good performance getting red buzzers.
• 46:10
  This is trying to create fake narratives because that's
• 46:15
  something the audience hadn't seen before and that would got
• 46:17
  controversy as you said, gets in views and that's just wrong.
• 46:23
  Right. You've mentioned something that
• 46:24
  I'm quite happy to delve into and destroy AGT.
• 46:28
  America's Got Talent, right? Yeah.
• 46:31
  So over the last 10 years, these shows, Britain's Got Talent,
• 46:36
  America's Got Talent X Factor, which isn't around anymore now,
• 46:40
  but I think it exists in other countries.
• 46:43
  You're right. They ABS, I mean, people forget
• 46:45
  this, but it's a television show first and foremost.
• 46:48
  It's not a talent show. These are not talent shows.
• 46:50
  They do give people opportunities, that's true.
• 46:54
  However, most of what you see is manufactured, but it's
• 46:58
  manufactured way more than it was back in the day.
• 47:02
  Like they create nothing like something out of nothing.
• 47:05
  Now they create moments. They're looking for the, the
• 47:07
  viral moments because let's be honest, how many people are
• 47:12
  going to sit and, and watch a full episode now?
• 47:14
  Probably not that many. You're going to see clips and
• 47:18
  the clips will be repurposed online on like TikTok or
• 47:20
  Instagram or YouTube or whatever.
• 47:22
  And that's where it'll mostly get seen.
• 47:24
  So they're trying to create, as you say, controversial moments,
• 47:28
  Oh my God, moments. And it's all fake.
• 47:30
  It's all acting, you know, even the people that are brought in
• 47:34
  to perform probably sign up to, to be a part of it, right, to be
• 47:38
  part of that creating moment stuff.
• 47:41
  But there's nothing real about it anymore.
• 47:43
  It's so manufactured that it's gone too far the other way now.
• 47:47
  So something like that, a magician trying to do a trick
• 47:51
  and then getting all red buzzers, even though it's a
• 47:53
  legit trick and he's probably done it a million times and had
• 47:56
  success everywhere else. Yeah, 100%.
• 47:58
  It's just controversy, drama, is it?
• 48:04
  Right. Well, it's a television show.
• 48:08
  They can do whatever they want with it.
• 48:10
  But I think most people are smart to this now.
• 48:13
  I mean, I think the the decline in viewership for shows like
• 48:16
  this says a lot, you know? Yeah.
• 48:18
  Also, to be fair, people just don't watch TV as much anymore.
• 48:21
  They watch streaming services on demand when they want.
• 48:23
  But you think like you can watch anything whenever you want.
• 48:27
  And people were choosing really, for the most part, to not watch
• 48:30
  shows like that. It's because they're not what
• 48:31
  they used to be when they first started.
• 48:33
  It was, yeah, all right, this is ATV show, but we are trying to
• 48:37
  find talent as well. And it was kind of a unique
• 48:40
  concept and and kind of exciting in some ways.
• 48:43
  Whereas now it's like it's just ATV show, man.
• 48:48
  And a bad one of that. I don't know man.
• 48:54
  So many of those old shows have lost their magic as the seasons
• 48:57
  went on, as they you know, they've used whatever magic they
• 49:02
  had and they still continue now with scripted stuff and you
• 49:05
  know, just to as a cash grab method.
• 49:08
  Nothing of the original method exists anymore, but they still
• 49:12
  continue. And even some of the other
• 49:14
  shows, the drama, the drama centered ones, you know, the
• 49:18
  love islands and the love is blind and stuff like that.
• 49:21
  They use suppose these what is the the glasses you can't see
• 49:27
  through and the food. They never show the food because
• 49:29
  they can edit things however they want in the post to create
• 49:34
  drama where it doesn't exist. And the people will say that
• 49:37
  this never happened, that never happened, but you'll never know
• 49:41
  as an audience. I won't say what show it is
• 49:46
  because I don't want to get sued, but there was a show.
• 49:51
  It was big in the UK. They did an Australian version
• 49:56
  and I was at uni at the time and we were filming an advert and we
• 50:02
  found out just by chatting to the the film crew what the film,
• 50:05
  the TV show they'd worked on. And we were like, oh, wow, we
• 50:08
  love that show in the UK. And they're like, yeah.
• 50:11
  So we asked them a bunch of questions and they revealed that
• 50:15
  what would happen is they would deliberately create drama
• 50:18
  between people on the show. And it's not going to be that
• 50:23
  difficult to figure out what I'm talking about, but I'm
• 50:27
  deliberately going to omit details here.
• 50:30
  So they would have these events together every night of the
• 50:37
  week, Monday to Friday. That's all you're getting.
• 50:41
  And like the, the, the, the, if there were any obvious clashes
• 50:50
  between people, they would deliberately pick at that.
• 50:53
  Or sometimes they'd create something out of nothing.
• 50:55
  They'd be like, oh, off camera, they would be like, so and so
• 50:59
  said this about you. Then they'd start filming and be
• 51:03
  like, what do you think about them?
• 51:04
  And then they would just launch into an attack on this person.
• 51:07
  And they've just lied to them. They've just told them that they
• 51:10
  said something that they didn't say, but they're deliberately
• 51:13
  trying to create this. And then obviously when they
• 51:16
  have their events together and they talk and they're going to
• 51:19
  have a go at each other because there's this animosity, but it's
• 51:21
  when you're watching the show, it just seems like, oh, well,
• 51:25
  this guy's a Dick or she's horrible.
• 51:27
  And it's like, no, but there's nothing.
• 51:29
  Things don't just start out of nowhere.
• 51:31
  Something has to be the instigator.
• 51:33
  And of course, a lot of the time it was the people running the
• 51:35
  show that were the instigators behind the scenes, the puppet
• 51:38
  masters. And like so many shows have used
• 51:41
  that formula. It just sucks that it's like
• 51:44
  that, you know? Anyways, moving it forwards,
• 51:51
  what did your role? What has your role as a
• 51:54
  mentalist taught you about life? It has it, it made a lot meet a
• 52:03
  lot of people that I wouldn't have met.
• 52:05
  And it's it's not done really a lot.
• 52:08
  I'm not the biggest mentalist that there is.
• 52:11
  But one thing it did teach me is getting over a failure is what
• 52:17
  it is. I went on a show to perform a
• 52:20
  mentalism trick, kind of, I shouldn't have gone there
• 52:23
  because I wasn't prepared enough.
• 52:25
  But I, they have invited me and I was like, OK, I'll come.
• 52:30
  And I performed the trick and it didn't work.
• 52:34
  I had two parts of it, one worked and it was absolutely a
• 52:38
  childish one. Like, it was not that great of a
• 52:41
  trick, but the second part was supposed to be, you know, the
• 52:44
  better part of the trick, the big finale, and it just didn't
• 52:48
  work. I messed it up because I didn't
• 52:52
  practice enough. And it was just, you know, I
• 52:55
  still revisited that moment in my mind.
• 52:59
  But yeah, it was a learning curve that, you know, to better
• 53:03
  prepare myself and how to get over the feeling that I felt.
• 53:07
  Then it was a little live stream and everybody saw it and it was
• 53:10
  like, it was weird. Would you would you say that was
• 53:13
  your worst performance ever? Yeah.
• 53:20
  Yeah, All right. What?
• 53:21
  What? What was your best performance
• 53:23
  ever? My best performance mentalism
• 53:31
  wise non it's my books are my best.
• 53:34
  The best things I've done in my life.
• 53:36
  Honestly mentalism is not really thing that I'm that good at.
• 53:40
  Now I've become better I'm trying still trying to learn.
• 53:43
  To be fair some of the more difficult aspects like I tried
• 53:47
  to learn hypnotism just didn't work.
• 53:50
  I'm working on improving in that aspect, but it's it's quite
• 53:54
  difficult to do mentalism well. I'm sure it's a bit of a no
• 53:57
  brainer question here, but like, are you planning on writing a
• 54:00
  book about mentalism? I feel like that would be a
• 54:02
  perfect fit and you'd have a lot to say on the matter.
• 54:06
  Yeah, I could, but I'd have to feel that I can add enough value
• 54:10
  to the viewer. The I have to have some of these
• 54:14
  original tricks, if I can make them, craft them, and enough of
• 54:17
  them that I feel it's a publishable book.
• 54:20
  What about if it was more about the philosophy behind it and
• 54:22
  the, and the, the mentality behind it?
• 54:26
  You know, I feel like that might be interesting.
• 54:29
  Well, just anything. I mean, look, you're into
• 54:31
  philosophy. You've you've actually been a
• 54:33
  mentalist. So you know what you're talking
• 54:35
  about. So be your personal experiences
• 54:38
  and then just kind of like, yeah, your thoughts for good,
• 54:41
  for better or worse. I I could consider that, but
• 54:47
  yeah, next year probably, but I have so many projects going on
• 54:50
  right now that it's quite difficult.
• 54:52
  But next year I'd consider. Where can we find your books, by
• 54:56
  the way? Whereabouts.
• 54:58
  So most of them are available on Amazon.
• 55:01
  OK, you search under my name. Some of the paper popular ones
• 55:05
  are missing sans as I mentioned the cinematography one or you
• 55:08
  could search what is it I have forgotten.
• 55:14
  I have blanked out. It is Love, Loss and Living is
• 55:18
  one of my series which is a trilogy of three poetry books
• 55:22
  that I started writing this year and just finished.
• 55:26
  Today is the release of my latest book in the trilogy.
• 55:29
  Congratulations. There we go.
• 55:34
  Yeah. Do you make sure to send us a
• 55:36
  link to that so we can make sure, like when this show gets
• 55:39
  released that we we have a link to that?
• 55:40
  Because as I said, like I was having some difficulty finding
• 55:43
  the new online and it happens sometimes, you know, sometimes
• 55:47
  there's things that I've released that for some reason
• 55:50
  are harder to find. Like, I remember when I first
• 55:52
  released my album, you'd try and search it on certain platforms
• 55:56
  and it just wouldn't come up. And I was like, what the hell,
• 55:58
  Like I'm there and I could find myself, but I had to really go
• 56:01
  through like 15 steps to get there.
• 56:02
  And I was like, well, it should just be there.
• 56:04
  I don't know, I think that's just search engines and programs
• 56:08
  sometimes are a bit like that. But we'll make sure there's a
• 56:10
  link to that. What has been an author taught
• 56:16
  you about life? Being an author because I am an,
• 56:25
  you know, nihilist and whatever, and I have a pessimistic view of
• 56:28
  life and I find no purpose in it to be fair, mostly almost in a
• 56:33
  way. But writing is one thing that,
• 56:36
  you know, that keeps me going in a way that it, it is a way to
• 56:41
  deal with things that you know, in real life and help things in
• 56:45
  real life. And it's, you know, it, it's
• 56:51
  self therapy. I call it sometimes poetry
• 56:54
  especially. It's kind of like self therapy,
• 56:56
  kind of explaining to yourself what you're thinking.
• 57:02
  Agree more. And I I do understand the the
• 57:05
  difficulty of seeing the point in life sometimes, but I think
• 57:11
  that we give ourselves purpose every day through what we do and
• 57:15
  some days it's better and some days it's worse.
• 57:16
  But you know, as long as you're getting something out of it, I
• 57:20
  think that's the main thing really, isn't it?
• 57:22
  Connecting with other human beings.
• 57:23
  You know, we're in this together, whether we want to
• 57:25
  admit it or not. We're all, we're going to fight
• 57:28
  another day trying to make the most of it, trying to look out
• 57:31
  for each other, you know, moving it forwards.
• 57:36
  So I thought this would be a funny question.
• 57:39
  So sometimes my guests reach out to me via a via direct e-mail.
• 57:46
  Other times it'll be via my form and they'll give a breakdown of
• 57:51
  why they want to be on the show, what they're promoting, what
• 57:54
  they want to talk about. In In your little blab that you
• 57:58
  sent to me, you said you regard yourself as an interesting
• 58:01
  person. What makes you interesting?
• 58:08
  I completely forgot what I failed in this and I was
• 58:11
  wondering what I had filmed in that.
• 58:15
  But it was a self critical way that at least people other
• 58:17
  people tell me I'm interesting. So I'm like, I'll mention it,
• 58:20
  you know, people are if it gets me a better chance of, you know,
• 58:26
  getting on the podcast, that is. I thought it.
• 58:29
  Yeah. It's just there's no reason
• 58:31
  behind it. I function in a different way to
• 58:34
  most people. I feel.
• 58:35
  I feel that's my understanding of myself and that's why I say
• 58:39
  interesting because some of the stories and I have, which I've
• 58:42
  not even gotten into, like the story behind why I got into
• 58:45
  poetry is 1, which is quite weird and those kind of things
• 58:50
  are what make me weird, but weird things are interesting I
• 58:54
  guess. Yeah, And I'm just having fun.
• 58:57
  You know, it's a deliberately provocative question just for a
• 59:00
  laugh. But I do think it picks up on a
• 59:01
  wider point that I find interesting because I've had
• 59:04
  some people reach out to me before and be like, I just don't
• 59:07
  know if I'm interesting enough to be on your show.
• 59:09
  And I'm like, that's ridiculous. Every human being has something
• 59:13
  to offer, something to give, the most important thing, podcasts
• 59:19
  that your guest is willing to speak.
• 59:23
  Sounds obvious, but honestly, that's that's the difficulty.
• 59:26
  If if you are going to come on a show, there's a talking show and
• 59:29
  you're not willing to talk, that's when the show will suck.
• 59:32
  And you might see me sometimes in certain episodes where I've
• 59:35
  struggled because I'm really trying to get something out of
• 59:37
  someone and they're just not giving me anything.
• 59:40
  Really rarely ever happens, but it will happen sometimes.
• 59:44
  And I think that's the bigger thing, you know?
• 59:48
  But yeah, people shouldn't be self critical.
• 59:50
  You know, you've everyone's got something to offer, something to
• 59:53
  bring to the table. Keep that in mind, guys.
• 59:57
  You mentioned that. Yeah.
• 59:58
  Tell me the poetry story. How did you get into poetry?
• 1:00:01
  So it's the weird story that there is.
• 1:00:05
  Everybody laughs at it. That's why I should keep sharing
• 1:00:07
  it. It is that somebody else that I
• 1:00:11
  liked is quite into poetry. And she said or or random, I was
• 1:00:17
  thinking what I can do to, you know, impress her maybe.
• 1:00:21
  And she said that, you know, I'll truly know if somebody
• 1:00:25
  likes me and stuff that if they write a book about me in
• 1:00:28
  general, just a book. And I said, I'm an author in my
• 1:00:32
  mind. This is in my mind.
• 1:00:34
  I said I'm an author, I can do that.
• 1:00:36
  And I said out as a joke. What if I write a poetry book
• 1:00:40
  for that person, mentioning it in third person?
• 1:00:43
  And she said, yeah, that would be a great idea.
• 1:00:45
  And I was like, this was January.
• 1:00:49
  This is actually in November. But I had this idea to truly go
• 1:00:52
  for it in January. And I was like, February 14th is
• 1:00:56
  next month and I can do something with that.
• 1:01:00
  And I delved into the world of poetry, wrote an entire book
• 1:01:05
  kind of in a way which references her, but in general
• 1:01:09
  also a good poetry book which talks about some darker thoughts
• 1:01:13
  also. And that I published it and she
• 1:01:16
  doesn't know it's about her. It's a those kind of stories.
• 1:01:20
  Yeah. I never went for it.
• 1:01:22
  Yeah. Are.
• 1:01:23
  You ever going to reveal that you're never going to tell the?
• 1:01:27
  Book she read the partially some of the books and she didn't
• 1:01:30
  understand that aspect of it. Yeah, that is it was about her.
• 1:01:36
  She got some references that, you know, she was inspired me to
• 1:01:40
  write some things which she don't fully get it.
• 1:01:42
  But what happened also is 2000 and February 11th I found out
• 1:01:46
  that she has got in a relationship.
• 1:01:50
  Like it was like then my ethics come into play and I was like,
• 1:01:55
  there's no point in it. But that's what happened.
• 1:01:58
  That's how got into poetry. What has poetry taught you about
• 1:02:03
  life? Poetry, as I said, poetry is
• 1:02:08
  self therapy for me and I even I don't understand, I just write,
• 1:02:13
  start writing. Just as I think Hemingway said
• 1:02:16
  it, I guess he said write the one true line and then you'll
• 1:02:20
  get the entire story. So I just start with a general
• 1:02:24
  feeling and then I start writing and then I discovered something
• 1:02:29
  about that feeling that I did not know before.
• 1:02:32
  And these entire books are just me dealing with some stuff or
• 1:02:36
  the other. Like this first book was this,
• 1:02:40
  where the 2nd and 3rd is more about different stuff, about the
• 1:02:43
  aspect of love. Like the second book is called
• 1:02:47
  Lost Legome Love, which is, you know, dealing with lost love in
• 1:02:55
  a way. Now, this is not about the same
• 1:02:57
  person, but this is about a different person, but feeling
• 1:03:01
  with those dealing with those feelings, you know, I don't
• 1:03:05
  truly understand them, but I'm dealing with them in that way.
• 1:03:10
  And it's quite interesting, you know, And then the Journey of
• 1:03:13
  Self Healing is the third book, which is coming out today, as I
• 1:03:18
  said. And I reference it with
• 1:03:22
  interesting things that makes me think about nature and the
• 1:03:24
  parallels of life. Like the title of the book is
• 1:03:28
  assiduous, which is the process of the snake, snake shedding its
• 1:03:32
  skin. And you know, it goes through a
• 1:03:36
  when it decides it wants to change.
• 1:03:39
  Then it, you know, does a whole process of separating its skin
• 1:03:43
  and then goes on rubs itself on hard rocks.
• 1:03:46
  Its vision gets blurry and then eventually that skin sheds and
• 1:03:50
  it's a fresh new skin. Those kind of things.
• 1:03:53
  You know, talking about self improvement, I heard this
• 1:03:57
  philosophy quote for some from somebody.
• 1:03:59
  I'm forgetting who. Maybe it was, I think montane.
• 1:04:02
  I don't know. And he said whenever you
• 1:04:04
  philosophize, you die. And that is kind of my
• 1:04:09
  philosophies of self improvement in a way.
• 1:04:14
  I've. Yeah.
• 1:04:19
  What has philosophy taught you about life?
• 1:04:23
  That there is no purpose to it and only dark thoughts to be
• 1:04:29
  fair. Jesus, man.
• 1:04:31
  Yeah. So we'll give you a hug.
• 1:04:32
  Come on, man. It's OK.
• 1:04:36
  I get you, man. I think everyone, every deep
• 1:04:38
  thinker at some point has, has gone down this, down this road.
• 1:04:44
  You know, I've never quite gone full nihilist, but I certainly
• 1:04:47
  have had moments. I had a bit of a, a moment when
• 1:04:50
  I was at uni in second year and I was just like, what am I doing
• 1:04:54
  with my life? What is, what is the point of
• 1:04:55
  any of this? But I think the whole point is
• 1:04:59
  to give yourself purpose, you know, even if it doesn't
• 1:05:02
  ultimately mean anything, if it means something to you, that's
• 1:05:05
  all that matters, you know, because doing things makes you
• 1:05:09
  feel a certain way. If you're passionate about
• 1:05:10
  things, you know, and like, yeah, we might all just die and
• 1:05:14
  it's for nothing. But like, we're here now.
• 1:05:17
  Do you know what I mean? We're here now and everything we
• 1:05:21
  do. That's why I live in the moment.
• 1:05:23
  Like, it doesn't matter that we're going to die one day.
• 1:05:26
  What matters is this moment right now.
• 1:05:28
  That's what matters. How we make each other feel.
• 1:05:30
  Did we make the most of this day?
• 1:05:33
  Did we have a good life? You know, was it, was it a good
• 1:05:37
  life or was it just not worth it in the end?
• 1:05:41
  And I try to look at that and make that the focal point.
• 1:05:47
  So what are you some of your more favorite things to to
• 1:05:52
  ponder in the field of philosophy?
• 1:05:57
  I had a thought, now I'm working on it fully.
• 1:06:01
  It's not fully fleshed out yet, but it is talking about, I
• 1:06:05
  guess, listening to ridiculous theories.
• 1:06:07
  And that's how philosophy is. To be fair, some of it, not all
• 1:06:10
  of it, some of it actually truly delves into the human mind, but
• 1:06:13
  some of it is talking about what the world is as listening to the
• 1:06:17
  theories of Boltzmann brain, how it's a simulation or it's a just
• 1:06:20
  a moment that we it's an accident in the universe and
• 1:06:24
  stuff like that. I am delving into this theory of
• 1:06:28
  how this could be hell. Earth could be a form of hell in
• 1:06:33
  a way through the you know, forms of how a life should be
• 1:06:39
  according to suppose if you are to believe religious texts, then
• 1:06:43
  how life should be and we are suppose informed not to sin and
• 1:06:47
  stuff like that. But in the real world it is
• 1:06:50
  almost even inevitable not to. So what if it's an in our nature
• 1:06:55
  to sin and it's our nature because it's this is an
• 1:06:59
  afterlife and in our life it we have ingrained it into our
• 1:07:02
  nature to sin, stuff like that. I think that's a fascinating
• 1:07:06
  concept as well because like, even if you are the most clean
• 1:07:08
  living human being of all time, there's going to be points in
• 1:07:14
  your life when you're forced to make a decision.
• 1:07:16
  And that decision might lead you to do something not necessarily
• 1:07:21
  immoral, but like something that goes against what you believe in
• 1:07:25
  or whatever. And it could be because you're
• 1:07:28
  protecting someone else. It could be because you have no
• 1:07:32
  option, you know, like, OK, for example, the context is key,
• 1:07:35
  right? So stealing is wrong, right?
• 1:07:39
  But if you're stealing to feed your family because you're all
• 1:07:42
  about to die, is that wrong? It's one of those philosophical
• 1:07:48
  debates, isn't it? It's like, well, we're going to
• 1:07:50
  die. So and it's your responsibility
• 1:07:53
  to try and, you know, keep yourself alive, keep your family
• 1:07:57
  alive, etcetera. Like we, we would all do that.
• 1:07:59
  If we're that desperate, we would do that.
• 1:08:01
  You know, if you had to kill another human being in order to
• 1:08:05
  save your family, you would probably do that.
• 1:08:10
  You know, I think we as humans like to think that we would
• 1:08:16
  exercise all options before we resort to to anything.
• 1:08:19
  But like, This is why I find shows like, say, The Walking
• 1:08:22
  Dead brilliant. Like I know it's just a drama
• 1:08:24
  and stuff, but I thought the real interesting aspect of that
• 1:08:28
  was never about the zombies. It was all about the humans.
• 1:08:32
  I mean, the supposedly the whole point of The Walking Dead is to
• 1:08:35
  refer to the humans themselves. They are dead.
• 1:08:38
  Their humanity is dead, and you see elements of it where it
• 1:08:42
  survives, like Rick the character.
• 1:08:45
  Rick, the main character, is a really good example of this
• 1:08:47
  because he goes through kind of like a metamorphosis in a sense.
• 1:08:54
  Yeah, he comes back through and he he's, he's a good guy, but
• 1:08:56
  he's forever changed and he's done bad things.
• 1:08:59
  They all have. They talk about it sometimes
• 1:09:00
  they all, especially when they meet new characters and they're
• 1:09:04
  like, So what have you done that's bad?
• 1:09:05
  And they're like, you know, they even don't want to talk about it
• 1:09:08
  or they're like apprehensive. And it's, and you can tell that
• 1:09:11
  they were forced to get to that point.
• 1:09:15
  There's a point I remember where Rick kills someone who's an
• 1:09:19
  innocent guy, but they were on the opposing faction.
• 1:09:24
  So he had a chance to save a guy, but he was warring with
• 1:09:27
  them. And it's like the whole classic
• 1:09:31
  rules of war situation. Like, what do you do?
• 1:09:35
  I can see, I can put myself in his base and understand that.
• 1:09:38
  Like, he wasn't, he did get some enjoyment from killing that guy,
• 1:09:42
  but then he also had immediate remorse afterwards because of
• 1:09:45
  how it had affected him. But then there's also like he's
• 1:09:48
  trying to save his community, save his family, protect people.
• 1:09:52
  He's been screwed over before by being too honest with people.
• 1:09:56
  And it's, it comes down to like an US versus them situation a
• 1:09:59
  lot of the time in these instances.
• 1:10:01
  And I just don't know that you can really apply morals and, and
• 1:10:07
  religion and stuff like that to situations like that.
• 1:10:10
  We'll try our best, you know, the best of us will try our best
• 1:10:15
  to uphold these values. The worst of us will get lazy,
• 1:10:18
  maybe manipulate and, and and use each other.
• 1:10:23
  But I think when you say like, oh, it's, it's part of our
• 1:10:26
  nature to like, you know, sin or whatever, I think we're just
• 1:10:29
  going to make mistakes. We're not perfect.
• 1:10:31
  We are by nature mortal beings, you know, and we are flawed and
• 1:10:38
  every human being is flawed in some way or another.
• 1:10:42
  That's why when you hear people say like, oh, you're my kind of
• 1:10:44
  person, it's like, well, we're like each other, but these
• 1:10:47
  people are not like us. Does that make them wrong and us
• 1:10:49
  right? And vice versa?
• 1:10:51
  Who's to say who gets the ultimate judgement?
• 1:10:54
  You know, we kind of have to collectively agree together.
• 1:10:57
  Like we like this, we don't like this.
• 1:10:59
  And that changes over time as well.
• 1:11:00
  What we think now and in 1000 years might be totally
• 1:11:03
  different. That's why you see it now, like
• 1:11:05
  sometimes people are like, oh, 20 years ago that that was
• 1:11:09
  disgusting. How could they be like that?
• 1:11:11
  Society was different. People were different.
• 1:11:13
  You know, I don't know. It's an interesting debate.
• 1:11:17
  Yeah, how? There are no concrete morals.
• 1:11:20
  Morals change with time. The morality changes with time.
• 1:11:23
  And yeah, what we're doing might be wrong in 25 years, what some
• 1:11:28
  of the stuff we're doing. And then we're going to look
• 1:11:30
  back and think why? But, you know, it was normal in
• 1:11:35
  this time. Stuff like that, yeah.
• 1:11:37
  I think as well, like some things change for the better,
• 1:11:41
  some things change for the worse.
• 1:11:43
  Like, I don't like how society is, is really aggressive right
• 1:11:49
  now when it comes to defending people that I think it's good to
• 1:11:51
  call people out and things, but I don't think I don't like this
• 1:11:54
  whole walking around with a Pitchfork thing, you know, and
• 1:11:57
  just like, oh, we're looking for the people, we're looking to
• 1:12:00
  like, expose these people, this person That's like, no,
• 1:12:03
  everyone's fucked up. Everyone's made mistakes.
• 1:12:06
  Everyone's got some skeletons in the closet to vary in degrees.
• 1:12:09
  Some can be forgiven, some are unforgivable.
• 1:12:12
  You know, I hold my hands up. I've made mistakes, I've messed
• 1:12:14
  up, I've heard people. Does that mean I'm a deplorable
• 1:12:17
  human being who should never be forgiven?
• 1:12:19
  No, my album is called Second Chances.
• 1:12:22
  And it's amongst other things about this, about the fact that
• 1:12:25
  people deserve second chances. People deserve chances to grow.
• 1:12:30
  It's all part of the learning experience, the human
• 1:12:32
  experience. You know, you make mistakes to
• 1:12:34
  get better, but the key is the choice factor.
• 1:12:37
  Like do you choose to be better and learn and grow?
• 1:12:39
  Or do you choose to be lazy and manipulative?
• 1:12:42
  Or do you choose to be just never change?
• 1:12:45
  You know, it's, it's all up to you.
• 1:12:47
  It's your choice. For better or worse.
• 1:12:51
  I don't know. It's, it's, I can talk all day
• 1:12:53
  about this, but let's round the show off.
• 1:12:55
  We've got a couple of final questions for you.
• 1:12:58
  What's the best advice you've ever received?
• 1:13:02
  Best advice? I can't think of it off the top
• 1:13:08
  of my head, but we talked about AI and stuff and I got a piece
• 1:13:12
  of advice from an author and he said that people use AI to
• 1:13:18
  generate books, thinking that's the end product of the goal.
• 1:13:22
  That's the goal. That's the product of this
• 1:13:24
  process of writing. But that's not the case.
• 1:13:27
  That's the by product. The product is the improvement
• 1:13:30
  that you receive within you. You become the better writer.
• 1:13:33
  You understand something that you didn't, you explore
• 1:13:35
  something that you didn't, and that's the product of that
• 1:13:38
  exploration. And you lose that when you use
• 1:13:40
  something else to do that. Fucking phenomenal stuff man,
• 1:13:46
  Thank you so much. What's the biggest life lesson
• 1:13:50
  you've learned so far? Lot of people are snakes are
• 1:13:57
  snakes. Not the truth.
• 1:14:00
  God damn. Yep.
• 1:14:05
  I think some more of the show than others though.
• 1:14:07
  Some people it's like you know they're a snake in plain sight
• 1:14:12
  and you see them and they're not hiding it.
• 1:14:15
  Other people are more snaky, more, more devious, and it's
• 1:14:20
  like you always get exposed in the end.
• 1:14:24
  But it can be frustrating, especially when they're trying
• 1:14:27
  to derail people or, I don't know, like one thing I've
• 1:14:31
  learned about people's intentions is that just because
• 1:14:35
  someone looks like they're supporting you and is there for
• 1:14:38
  you doesn't mean that they're there for you.
• 1:14:40
  They might actually be plotting against you.
• 1:14:43
  I don't know. That sounds like really over the
• 1:14:45
  top, but a good question to ask yourself is what are the this
• 1:14:52
  person's intentions as it pertains to me?
• 1:14:55
  What are they doing versus what I'm doing?
• 1:14:58
  Whenever they make a comment, for better or worse, does this
• 1:15:01
  serve me in a positive manner? These are the questions to keep
• 1:15:06
  asking yourself. And then also, how do said
• 1:15:09
  people react when I remove them from my life?
• 1:15:13
  That's a big one. Final question for you to round
• 1:15:18
  things off. I already know what the answer
• 1:15:20
  is going to be, but do you have any upcoming projects or final
• 1:15:23
  thoughts that you'd like to share with our listeners?
• 1:15:27
  I have many upcoming projects coming up if I were to talk
• 1:15:33
  about them. 1 is a sci-fi novel that I'm working on.
• 1:15:38
  Another is an epistolary work, which is a novel in which you're
• 1:15:43
  not going into it as the normal sense that you're using the
• 1:15:46
  descriptive language. He said that she said that
• 1:15:49
  you're using something that truly exists, like the popular
• 1:15:53
  novel Martian is using transcripts from a video.
• 1:15:57
  I'm going to be using letters and purely letters to explore a
• 1:16:02
  story. Then I'm working on getting a
• 1:16:06
  few short films made just with few of my friends, but they're
• 1:16:10
  truly great stories, I feel. And yeah, that would be my
• 1:16:14
  upcoming projects that I'm working on.
• 1:16:18
  Best of luck with that. I hope it all goes well.
• 1:16:20
  It's it's been brilliant chatting to you.
• 1:16:22
  I've I've really enjoyed this whole conversation.
• 1:16:26
  Would love to have you on the show again in the future.
• 1:16:29
  And yeah, just a massive thank you, man.
• 1:16:31
  Real pleasure. I was worried how the podcast is
• 1:16:35
  going to turn out, but it's been a great experience and wonderful
• 1:16:38
  talking. Thank you so much man, and to
• 1:16:40
  all the listeners of the Christian Read Podcast, I hope
• 1:16:42
  you enjoyed this show as much as I did.
• 1:16:44
  Be safe, be well. I'll see you in the next one.