Latest / Pete Vs Anxiety!!!!! / why anxiety feels UNIVERSAL

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why anxiety feels UNIVERSAL · Pete Vs Anxiety!!!!!

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Head over to the link in this episode and use my code, Pete, at checkout to get 20 % off your first month subscription to PsychPAL. PsychPAL, because your mind deserves a companion too. There we go. I think that's the one I like. We got it. We got it. Boom. peter: but Pete: went to doing like pre-recordings. Well, Keith, we're at the part of the interview where I'm gonna ask you those two questions. All right, Amanda Landes: that I had been kind of like since head for a while about about writing the story because Mia Mason: you are not the only one that experiences thoughts, Pete "mental Health Champ": Well, Dr. Erica, before we start wrapping up, I'm going to ask you Pete "mental health champ": Welcome into another exciting episode of Pete Versus Anxiety. Before we get started, as always, let's give a shout out to my partners over at PsychPal Guys. Link will be in the bio. Use code Pete at checkout for 20% off. With that being said, let's introduce my guest today. He researches the deep natural history of anxiety from chemical origins of life to the unique challenges that humans by far the most anxious species on earth. He's called his research group. Cradle to the Grave has he has collaborated closely with Harvard Berkeley neuroscientist Harris Deakin on a physical grounding understanding of human nature. Please welcome in Jeremy. Jeremy, how's it going, man? Jeremy: It's going good. It's good to see you, man. Nice to be here. Pete "mental health champ": Well, welcome into the new studio. I was telling Jeremy he has the honor of christening the first studio recording of the of the new show. you know, because now I'm now I'm actually located in where I'm at now, it's Illinois. So I moved from Texas. Well with that being said, why don't you tell everybody little more about yourself, man? Jeremy: Yeah, I'll I guess I'll give you this this history of it. I was a pretty anxious guy growing up. I even had psychoanalysis starting at age eight to deal with my anxiety. This was something they did back in the 60s. if if you were part of my culture, that was something that was happening. yeah, pretty anxious straight through, let's say, till I was about 35 or so. I had done about five years of Freudian analysis on the couch. Four days a week from eight to maybe twelve, and then again in my thirties, and then there was a switch for me where I stopped wondering what was wrong with me and got interested in the question: what's up with us? What's up with humans? And rather than just looking at it from any kind of you you could say any philosophical or spiritual approach, I decided I really wanted to understand ourselves scientifically. And then I fell in with this interesting character, a guy named Terence Deakin, who was a Harvard Neuroscientist, biological anthropologist, when I met him. And we've been working together for about 30 years. Now he had just written a book on the or how humans ended up with language, which makes us radically different from other critters. And he had turned his attention to a bigger question, which is: chemistry is not trying to do anything, and living beings are trying to stay alive. So And if you don't assume that there's something else added to us, we're just physical, then how does that happen? How do how does chemistry ever become chemistry that's trying to keep itself going? So we've been working closely on that from for the last 30 years. We have a a a full-fledged physical theory for how life starts. But on top of that, I continue to work from the stuff that I learned in working with him on. How language makes us a radically different and radically anxious creature compared to others. And how we deal with that anxiety has been a fascination of mine. For example, I just got back yesterday from the international annual conference on cults. cults are one way that people cope with anxiety. If you it's a the what I'm saying about humans as different from other quitters is I think we are str basically. Stra struggling through a sandstorm of confidence eroding possibilities that no other creature can imagine. All the things, all past, present, future, real and fantasy threats and missed opportunities, no other creature can possibly imagine. you know, dogs can't. You could say to a dog, Are you a good dog? But the dog's not gonna sit there at night wondering, Am I a good dog? That's not what they do, they don't work in language. It's a language is a human thing and it makes us incredibly anxious and also kind of delusional. That is, we're prone to the kind of Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: fantasies you'd get from a cult. So I study that whole Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: range of things and have been doing it for about 30 years. yeah, so that's a little bit of my background. And what I want to say was a real pivot point for me was going from the question, what's wrong with me, to what's up with us. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah, that's a good question though, because think about it, all of us deal with anxiety in some way and things like that too. But then you turn it on its head because now you're like, Okay, not just me, but what's wrong with everybody? And that curiosity has led you a long way. I mean, you've got a thousand articles written in psychology today and things like that. It it's insane though when you look back at it, 'cause you're like, I just started writing one and then erec it took off from there, kind of thing, you know. But that's such an interesting area to get into though, you know, just the history of anxiety, you know, because like you said, most we're the only ones that speak, but Other people don't deal with it the same way that my dog's really anxious. Is it really though anxious? Or is it just the dog being a dog though, you know? Jeremy: Well, a d a dog will feel anxiety. Lots of animals feel anxiety. I mean, as soon as you got nervous systems, you're gonna have feelings. But what they don't have is the whole imagination that humans have. That we Pete "mental health champ": Okay. Jeremy: can imagine anything, and and a lot of it is terrifying. For example, I work closely with these guys, researchers in what's called terror management theory. Terror management theory is dealing with this question. Since humans have language, we're the only ones who can imagine with the with just completely cornered with the fact that we're going to die. That we're throwing all into life, knowing that we're going to be thrown out. So this is a whole area of anxiety research. What happens when you remind someone that they're going to die? What do they do with the anxiety of that? Well, no other critter deals with that. They they may have some sense of what it's like when one of their fellow critters dies, like their, you know, like their mate dies or their children die, their offspring die, but they can't do what we do. You could lose sleep tonight over the fact that someday you're going to be dead. And that's that's something that only humans do. and I think we need more compassion for what an anxious species we are. It's it's just incredible the amount of anxiety we have to deal with. Imagine if you're an animal out in the you're out in the elements, you don't have a house to protect, you don't have all these comforts that we have, and yet you don't have the freakouts that you would get when you kind of when your mind starts spinning about all these possibilities, ways you fall short, things you said that were a mistake, wrong turns you made 10 years ago, wrong turns you might make 10 years from now. That's human. That's a human Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Jeremy: thing. Makes us pretty wiggy. Pete "mental health champ": No, yeah, it hits it right on the head though, because that's what it's like for me sometimes. You always replay things and the people that don't understand anxiety, they're like, Well, what's wrong? just calm down. And it's it's it's always nice that they have all these great ideas, but it's just not how it works in my brain. My brain's going 240. And I tell people that it's like if you say something to me open ended, you better believe I'm thinking of what the next thing you're gonna say is because my anxiety will take it and just start running off and recreating its own things. So, you know, you have to be careful with that. Jeremy: Yeah, and it and it's not like you can simply transcend it. You can't simply say, I mean, there are so many versions of calm down, you Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: know, Buddhism, mindfulness, all of that stuff. Useful practices, but Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Jeremy: it's really worth recognizing how how how much of a challenge this is for humans and why it it makes our situation pretty dangerous because a bunch of anxious people end up deciding that they solved reality. It just came back from this cult. Thing, you know, where so we're so you're listening to people who dealt with their anxiety by joining something that made them feel like they'd solve reality, like they'd taken the red pill, like they, you know, they had seen the light. and then they became kind of intense and obnoxious and bullies to everybody else, like they needed to rescue everybody else from delusion. So it's a bunch of us bouncing around coping with anxiety, but coping in ways that Basically, impose the anxiety on others. Like you Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: should believe what I believe, or you should do what I Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Jeremy: do. All that stuff is a human thing, and it's come into a head in our current society. I think of this as the touchy-touchy 2020s. People are getting Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: really touchy. And Pete "mental health champ": Everything everything you say these days, people get touchy. Let's think about it. Anything you say, somebody gets upset by. No matter what it is that you're saying to them, they're all just jumping off the hinge for no reason. Or as we Jeremy: Well Pete "mental health champ": would think nobody's jumping off for no reason, as you're proving it's different. Jeremy: Well, I'm s yeah, I'm saying there's what I'm saying is w we cope with our anxiety, with human anxiety, Pete "mental health champ": Mm. Jeremy: with kind of delusions of grandeur. Think of it this way. we're all kind of treading water where we could be losing our confidence. Any day something can happen. I can, you know, I almost missed this podcast because I couldn't find the link. You got these little little things that happen in your day and they throw us off. It's not just worrying about death. It's these little snubs Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Mm-hmm. Jeremy: and thwartings and things that throw us off. And and so what do we do to compensate? Well, we fig we imagine ways to be heroes, to play hero. Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: and so but I'm but I'm gonna play hero at your expense. That's what that's what people would do. I'm not saying I'm gonna do that with you, but I'm saying to tread water, I'm gonna try to keep my head above water, I'm gonna try to feel exceptional. And part of I could do that by pr by lifting myself up. I can also do that by putting other people down, which is causing anxiety all around. It's like it's like if you imagine a bunch of people crowded in a pool and they're all treading water and one of them's climbing on another person's head to get up above it. It that's more of the situation humans are in. Because with language we are really anxious, and with language, we are really delusional. We can come up with ways to pretend we're legends in our own mind, to feel heroic. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Jeremy: Ha ha ha. Pete "mental health champ": yeah, you're right. Though I always use the term though, I always tell people that, you know, like when you go to people and talk to them about certain things, they'll they always want to save your be the savior. You know, and it's like super I tell the people, Superman can't save everybody. Cause you know, you always meet that one person that always wants to save everybody, but it's like they don't worry about themselves at the same time. And it's like that's great and all, but you know, you can't save everybody, you know, or those people that tell you, well, if I don't answer the phone. You know, they're gonna they're gonna this and it's like, but you can't control what other people do though. If they're gonna do it, they're gonna do it regardless. You know, don't sit there and put yourself and drive yourself nuts and drive that anxiety level through the roof because you're afraid if you don't answer that phone, they're gonna do something because you didn't answer. You know what I'm saying? Jeremy: Y yeah, yeah. yeah, and I don't think we can I don't think anybody can be saved. I don't think I think that's the challenge I'm really up against is that I don't think that the idea so to me the word romance really comes down to this. It's the dream of happily ever after that lives in all of us and can't actually bend be met in reality. You can't actually there is no ultimate happily ever after. Life doesn't end well. We die. It's terrifying. Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: And so the idea of even saving someone, or I mean, you could you can help someone, certainly you can rescue someone, but there's no saving someone from the experience of human life. It is an anxious affair. And so yeah, you're talking about how to be helpful and also how to help yourself. I understand that. I'm also saying the whole hero thing of being the one, the savior, is itself dubious to me. So my coping strategy is primarily irony. I irony is an interesting concept, and I I'm a devout ironist. That is, I think life, but I wouldn't actually call it irony. Irony makes it sound like it's just funny. You know, irony is you know, like slipping on a banana. I what irony actually is, is outcomes are the opposite of what you expected. You know, I expected to find the link to this podcast right away, didn't quite find it right away. Okay, so or if let's say I'm I'm walking along and I slip on a banana peel. Well, I expected friction and instead I got slippery and I fell. So that would be kind of funny, except I could also die from it, right? I could slip on a banana and crack my head open. So I call it diany, dire irony. And I just think of it as the human Pete "mental health champ": I love it. Jeremy: predicament that life is tragic comic. It's it's very serious, and it's also kind of a hoot, especially human life. I just think human life is a total hoop. And also completely terrifying. I lose sleep. You know, I I can go ruminating and lose a couple hours of sleep, just wondering about things. That's that's the anxious mind. And I like that I've figured out a way to channel that anxiety into something that feels productive, fruitful. so i i another way to look at this. I'm saying that what humans need is confidence. More than other organisms, we need to keep on replenishing our confidence. So I call my research Mojonomics or Egonomics. I'm trying to understand the supply and demand and the competition and cooperation for confidence. I'm talking about self-confidence here. And so Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: it's just fascinating to watch how we deal with that need for self-confidence, to replenish it and to get. And and so I'm I'm I'm tracking confidence currencies. Where do you get your confidence? we get it through fiction, we get it through being good at something, you get it through your podcast, I get it through my writing. These are confidence currencies. We get it from support of supporting a sports team, we get it from being a member of a religion, you know, we get it from being in a political party or, you know, an ideology of some sort or another. We get it from masturbation. There's all sorts of different ways to get your confidence. And I'm really interested in how to handle our anxiety safely using the using confident currencies well. So there are some really dangerous confidence currencies. I think, for example, the Trumpism movement is an incredibly dangerous form of confidence currency. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah, no, I agree. Jeremy: Yeah. But I'm not someone who's saying, no, you got to get over your need for confidence. That won't work. I'm Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Jeremy: interested in how to engage in what I call safe escapism. How to get your confidence from, let's say, whatever, but to know that it's not necessarily real. The problem with Trumpism, as far as I can tell, I'll give you an example. I've been to a death metal concert, I've been to a Trump rally. They're exactly the same, except for one big difference. After the death metal concert, everybody goes, zips up and gets back in the car and returns to reality. After the Trump rally, they feel like they've seen they've just experienced something more real than reality. That's where the confidence currencies get dangerous. Yeah, yeah, Pete "mental health champ": Yeah, yeah, definitely. Jeremy: yeah. Pete "mental health champ": No, I agree with you there. That that's that's a really good comparison, though. Think about it, KC. You're right. The met the concert ends, every goes home. The rally ends, we don't know what's gonna happen next. You know, as we've seen, you know. Jeremy: Well yeah, or we're yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We print or we suddenly feel like superheroes, legends in our own minds, and we're gonna go out and rescue everybody Pete "mental health champ": Right. Jeremy: at great danger to the to reality. No, a lot yeah. So that's a that's a whole focus of mine on how to cope with it. Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": I gotta say though, I I really like your your analogies for your your research that you're doing. That the the titles you're coming up with things are really catchy. I love it. Is that Jeremy: Ha ha. Pete "mental health champ": did you anticipate that in the beginning when you were doing that to make it like that? Because it makes more I think it's more palatable for a lot of people that don't like think everything has to be overcomplicated. You're just like, no, this is what we're gonna call it. We're gonna call it this. It's gonna be very simple, straight to the point. Jeremy: Yeah, it it's funny how that came about for me because when I made that switch from what's wrong with me to what's up with us, I suddenly was coming up with all sorts of ideas and I couldn't find a place, I couldn't find anybody who would listen. So I started to shrink them down as tiny Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: as I could. I my first writing wasn't articles or books, my first writing was limericks. I'd come up with limericks to get an idea across and then I have some kind of weird knack for coming up with names for things. I came up with the Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Jeremy: term to name it is to tame it. I didn't think I did, but someone apparently that's I coined it. but but I do have I probably coined about 3,000 words related to all this stuff, like confidence currencies or mojonomics or just any of that stuff. So part of what I'm trying to do is make You could say advanced academic ideas as accessible as possible. I do Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Jeremy: not want to sound fancy, ten dollar words don't interest me. I'm trying to make it rigorous, but I want to make it totally accessible and kind of playful. Because like I said, I think humans are a hoot. so I ha so I got all these different phrases and de ways of dealing with it. Here's an example of one of the early ones I came up with dealing with this question of anxiety. No matter how much I pursue the truth, it will never catch me. No matter how much I chase the truth, it will never catch me. I have this kind of ambivalence about the truth. I wanna just, I just wanna know what's true, but it better be reassuring. That's a human situation. That's why my articles on psychology today were all called Ambigamy, insights for the deeply romantic and deeply wary. Because I think we're we we we really want things to end happily ever after, and we're Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Jeremy: really we've been burnt enough to know that that ain't. quite happening and so we deal with that tension all the time. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah, like I said though, I I think it's great though the way you break it down for people because, you know, it it's almost like you have to simplify things these days because people don't don't want the ten dollar words anymore. They're just like, what does that mean? It turns them off. But if you get in a catchy phrase or something very ca eye catching to them, they're gonna be like, Okay, well let me go check out and then they you tend to get to go in and look further, and then they're like, Okay, well, this is interesting to find out. It was it you know, and things like that too. So let's let's talk about the YouTube channel. When did you start the trying beans? YouTube channel. Was that something you did early on or is that something you evolved to? Jeremy: I evolved to it. So what I say about about my my approach is that about about content I'm a prude, about delivery I'm a slut. I don't actually care. I mean I've written it as books, I've written it as articles, I've written it as limericks, and I was kind of late getting fully into YouTube, but I do find that that's the medium of choice these days. And so Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Jeremy: I do a lot of short videos. I've been making AI dialogue videos, I do longer videos. My audience is yeah, around twenty three thousand subscribers. I don't get tons of hits because of I'm not I'm not selling the stuff that gives you straight up confidence. So the the the what mostly what sells would be we're the we're the ones who get it, those other fools don't. I call it scornography. Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: the it's the the pornographic joys of scorn for the the fools who don't get it, the lightweights, you know. And so you could do that on any subject, the Trumpists do it, the anti-Trumpists do it, and all that, but I'm actually saying people be tripping and I wouldn't put it past me. We all are dealing with this stuff. It's like a universal Me Too movement. It's like nothing Pete "mental health champ": Right. Jeremy: human is foreign to me, nothing human is foreign to you. I'm not playing the expert. I call all that research into the confidence currencies, all that, I call it psychoproctology. It's trying to understand, it's it's trying to be really careful about the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of assholery. But I had to come up with a you know, Pete "mental health champ": Is the Jeremy: and it was all started with me asking myself the question what is a butt head? Because it could can't just be anybody I happen to butt heads with. So I needed a really light name for a dead serious subject. We humankind might be snuffed out on the Brain farts of assholes. That's what I think is our most likely cause of extinction. So, and assholes always consider themselves the foremost experts on who's an asshole. It's anybody who's not them. Anybody who doesn't agree with them is an asshole. So I needed a really light name. I'm not so yeah, people don't want to hear the $10 words, but they also kind of do. Because if you get a fancy word, a technical sounding word like narcissist or Traumat traumatized Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jeremy: narcissist or something. You sound like you're fancy. And I'm trying to not do that. so yeah, so it's a it's a different angle on this stuff. And and yeah, the I mentioned the prevention work is really about safe escapism. We all my only message to Trump supporters is self-love is important, but get a room, don't let it go to your head, zip up after, and don't turn. basic infrastructure into your circle jerk vanity project. I'm not trying to get them to do anything else. I'm telling them, dude, go watch spectator sports. Go join a band, do something, you know, just don't just you need this stuff. I need it. I, you know, I jerk off. I watch movies and pretend I'm a hero. We all need that stuff. I, you know, Pete "mental health champ": Right. Jeremy: just just be careful where you do it. you know, yeah. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. yeah, you gotta think about though with the internet now they have so many different angles so they can come out with that kind of stuff too. The shit people say these days, like there was a guy that I was talking to, he said something about mental health stuff, Jeremy, and he goes, yeah, if you're if you're depressed, go back to your eighteen when you're eighteen, you'll be in a better place. I'm thinking, what if I hated myself at eighteen? Maybe that's the place I don't want to go back to. I'm like, What? Like you just hear people say like the most random things and then like you just wanna watch and see who's who's buying this crap, and it's like What? Like, and then you have all these different one guy, what does he say? Depression's not a real thing or something. One guy said that. And I was just like, What are you talking about, dude? What? Like these people, or what did he say? Also said this is the same guy that said water doesn't hydrate you or something. I'm like, what the hell? Like you it's like you're on a he's on a podcast saying these things and now it's out on the internet. I'm like, God, there's no way this is gonna end well for him, you know? Because now you're out there saying that depression's not real and these other things, and it's like Dude, do you listen to yourself talk some days or do you just say shit to hear things get said? Because at this point you're not making sense, man. Jeremy: I get that. And I'm also saying that any of us can do the what the fuck about anybody. That it's about that's kind of the fun that people Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Very true, very true. Jeremy: are enjoying these days is the fools out there. And I'm saying I don't get to do that in this work. I do have to I do have to I mean, I argue about content. If someone said the depression isn't real or water doesn't hydrate, I'd give them a hard time about it. But I'm paying attention to something related to this. Let me talk about it. Let me describe it this way. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah, go ahead. Jeremy: There's There's belief, but there's also relief. So I there are some true believers, let's say a religious person who's a true believer and really Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: trying to practice it all. But I think there's also a lot of relievers. And I have a great admiration for what I'd call honest relievers. I first encountered it when I was doing some presentations in mainland China. And I talked to a Chinese person there who said, yeah, no, of course I'm a Marxist. I belong to the party, I wear the team jersey. I go to the meetings, I kind of have to in order to make it in the society. But I don't believe any of that stuff has any real application in my life. It's just it's just a team jersey. It doesn't mean anything more than that. It'd be like someone saying, No, I go to church for relief. It's therapeutic. It makes me feel better about myself. But no, I'm not busy applying it to everyday life. Then you get the dishonest relievers who say that because they wear the team jersey, you don't actually read the Bible. Or pay any attention to the laws, they are wearing the team jersey, and that proves that they're the exceptional authorities on everything. Trump is full of these dishonest relievers. It's basically if you put on the hat, then suddenly you are f the absolute authority on everything in the world. You don't have to earn any Pete "mental health champ": Right, yeah. Jeremy: authority at all. You just have unlimited confidence. I think that's all Trump ran on. I think that's all they're buying. Is he pretended he's always right, righteous, and mighty. And everybody said, well, all I have to do is put on this magic cap and I'm like that. And it's not about the politics. It's about, I mean, you could do that for the left, the right, religious, Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: spiritual, doesn't matter. That appetite, and I think that appetite is getting really strong. People are beginning to stress, like they can't get, they don't feel competent. They don't feel like they're good for anything. So what are they so they can't get their confidence from being good at something, especially with AI these days, it's getting really hard. You know, all these careers are going to be ending. And along comes this guy who says, you follow me, you get unlimited confidence. You don't have to earn it at all. So I think that's a major problem we're going to be dealing with in the future. But the once again, if you want to predict and understand people's behavior, follow the confidence. Where are they getting their Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: confidence from? Track their confidence currencies. You can get it from a partner, you can get it from just so many different things. And the internet is basically selling them. How did face, how did all these social media forms come into? How did they this sudden booming business is all in the confidence? It's all selling confidence. Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: You could say it doesn't end well for them, but actually this is one of the problems. It does for a long time. I mean, not long term, because you can't be realistic and big for long. You can't be delusional and big for long. But they can do a whole lot of damage before they crash. They, you Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Jeremy: know, so so any of these cults, once again, left, right, doesn't matter to me. any of them, they are revving up what I call self-winding movements. If you love them, it proves they're right. If you hate them, it proves they're right. They get their confidence no matter what, and they are, it's it's what I call the dumbass death spiral. So what I mean by that is this reality Pete "mental health champ": I love it. Jeremy: is reality is getting really hard. And so what Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Jeremy: do people do when they're not keeping up, when they feel dumb? They throw tantrums, they become asses. And when you're an ass, you do not learn. That's not you, when you're throwing a tantrum, you don't wonder, you can't afford to wonder what you're doing. You Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: come get completely blind to yourself. You're just saying, if there's anybody, if anybody's a problem, it's anybody but me. And you're just doing that. Which makes you dumber, which means you won't keep up with reality that much more and you'll check out that much more. So the dumbass death spiral. Dumbness makes you an ass. Being an ass makes you keeps you dumb. You completely lose touch with reality. That's how that's how human civilization could snuff itself out on brain farts. That's what I'm that's what I am most concerned about. So we gotta get we got we gotta Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Yeah. no, I agree. Jeremy: we gotta manage our anxiety some new way, because we ain't doing it. It's not what we're doing ain't working. Pete "mental health champ": You know, God no, no. Especially with all the the the misinformation that flies around and all the access points for it to come from. It's yeah, no, dude. You gotta panic, especially if you're a parent these days with the the different avenues or just shit that goes on. Like roadblocks has the predators built into it and then, you know, things like that. You have to worry about who your kids are talking to on the internet, you know, and and if you got girls, there's Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah, it's a really rough Pete "mental health champ": a whole other aspect there because now the girls see all these girls on the internet looking like, well, you have to look so pretty for boys to like me and then The internet's a dangerous place. I it's it has been. The statistics are there. I know Can Canada and Australia are putting things in place, but I don't know if they have the right method to to ensure that what they're trying to do is gonna work. They're trying to reduce the amount of access kids have to social media right now because the reports recently came out that said that fifty six percent of parents said it had a negative effect on their mental health, you know, and things like that. I'm like, Well, it's a great idea, but how are you gonna enforce this that these pieces these kids are getting on a lot of these apps that say they're eighteen Jeremy: Just a huge issue. Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": plus? You know what I'm saying? Like you could say it w you wanna do this, but what is your way of what is your plan of attack to make it work? And to me it's like I don't think they're there yet. I think they have great idea trying to reduce their their their amount they're on there. But how are you gonna do it? I they really don't have that answer yet, I don't think. And they're gonna find out real quick that these kids are smarter now and there's ways to get around a lot of this stuff unless you have an ironclad way of keeping them off there until they're old enough. Jeremy: Yeah, and and I I agree with all of that and the the challenges we're dealing with. and I also want to say this actually goes back from my perspective, it goes back 200,000 years. It's when humans ended up with language. So yes, it's it's a it's a big problem right now. It's Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: coming to a head. But you could say from the beginning of human language, there's been Incredible dose, uptick in anxiety for humans Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: that we've dealt with with all sorts of you could say, religious, spiritual, what we call dualistic. Dualistic meanings, there's a real physical world, and then there's this magical world out Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Jeremy: there where you can always find a what I'll call a wildcard trump card. Wild card means you can believe anything you want about the unknowable. And trump card is it's a supernatural, so it means it trumps everything else. So you've had this combat going on from the beginning of human language over whose God is the best. You know, people humbling themselves before the Lord so they can lord it over each other. It's been going on a long time, and now it's seriously coming to a head. because everybody's trying to cope with their anxiety, and everybody's coping in ways that make it harder for other people to cope with their anxiety. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah, right Jeremy: Ha ha ha. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, that's that's very true, honestly, you know, and it's and like you said, it's coming headway, it's gonna come right way, it's gonna collide, and then everybody's gonna be like, Well, I don't know what to do at this point. Well, maybe had we seen we won't just the signs earlier, we probably would have done this, but no, we were too blinded by whatever else we wanted to believe, you know, and follow the leader that we like to play a lot of times, you know, and it's like it's it's a scary place. Especially with politics, it's really scary, man. Because it's like one side hates the one side, the other side, you picked up they hate you 'cause you're on the other side and it's like you know, it's like people that say racism is not as bad as it used to be. I'm like, it's worse than before. What do you mean? Before they didn't have as much access as they do now. You could say anything you want anywhere in the world via computers, all these social media sites. Before you had to physically either go up to that person and say something, call them on the phone, mail it to That's it. Now you have so many access points, it's worse than it was before, you know, and it's and it's scary to watch, you know. I in my biggest fears, you know, as a parent, it's like when these kids get older, it's like, what are they gonna see then? Because like, you know, are we teaching them the right things now that they'll be okay in the future? But we we don't know because we don't know what they're looking at these days with so many different access points to information, YouTube, God, the things on YouTube are crazy that these kids watch these days. You know, and things like that too. It's like so many different points, man. Like you you start worrying about it after a while. Like you're saying, my my anxiety is already through the roof of my own problems. I got my own listen things and adding the fact they gotta worry about these girls are looking at these days and I'm like, You know, they gotta they gotta Jeremy: Yeah. Yes, I I understand that yeah I Pete "mental health champ": meditate. Listen, they gotta meditate every day 'cause it helps. Let me tell you what, 'cause if not, I would be a mess. Jeremy: That's good. That's good. Yeah, I yeah, I get it. I that it is a challenge. It's more and more a challenge these days. And so for me, what I'm trying to do is get people to own this need to manage it safely. I have I have a bunch of different names for it. I called it safe escapism a minute ago. I also call it off-jerking. By that I mean you're actually. Pete "mental health champ": I love it. Jeremy: You're you're you're off venting that need Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: to feel exceptional, like like yeah. I I call it strategic gullibility, I call it optimal illusion, I call it id surcise. So the id, you remember in psychology, i it is the part of you that just wants to win. It's you wanna get you want what you want. And so I'm talking about Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: exercising that safely, like in video games where you get to mow down a bunch of people. Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: But they're not people. And so you do it safely offline. That's it my sense is it's it, you know, take your flights of fancy, but always with a return ticket to reality secure in your heart pocket. It's not a question of how far out you go, it's a question whether you remember to come back to reality afterwards. And I find that it's actually possible for humans to do that. You watch a movie. You feel like the superhero badass in it who would definitely do all those courageous things they do and would win in the end. And then you turn off the TV and you get back to reality. I think that actually is the only way we're gonna deal. Because from my perspective, we've about used up the Earth's carrying capacity for self flattering bullshit. Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: And at a time when we need it more than ever. So the question is, what are we gonna do with this incredible demand for ways to feel confident despite our anxiety? At a time where we can't afford to do it in the real world, we can't afford to be, you know, just making a mess of the real world to in order to feel good about ourselves. Our coping strategies have to be safe ones. So I'm that's Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Jeremy: that's really where where my Stress management or anxiety management focus is on how to do that. how to deal with I came up with a new term a couple days ago, fanarchy. In the 1600s, they suddenly realized, shit, everybody's got their own imagination. They can be, they can have fantasies, fanaticisms, you know, their their whole fanboy thing about whatever. Why why did it happen at that time? It's really interesting. I've been studying a lot about the 1600s in Europe when for the first time in human history, they're suddenly totally freaked out about the possibility of masturbation. They say it causes all the illnesses. This is where Kellogg's got it start. Kellogg's cornflake, it was an anti-masturbation campaigner. And you also get the for the first time you've got popular novels, and women are ri sitting around reading Chic Lit, and they suddenly say, no, my God. Anarchy of the fandom. You're no longer, no, everybody's not all aligned around the one fantasy of Catholicism. Suddenly they're dealing with this anarchy. And I'm saying the only way I can see that we can safely handle it. I mean, so there have been three main moves around this. One is, no, everybody's got to have the same fantasy, which you get from Catholicism or communism or something. There's a version that says, well, channel that into buying things from Amazon. This was a big movement, you could say the consumerist movement, where you get your confidence from Christmas in July. You know, you you wait for a package. That will be your doggy treat. That's how you give yourself confidence, is you buy yourself things. And then there was also, I was part of the hippie movement. I'm set I just turned 70 a couple of weeks ago. and it was kind of like everybody do your own thing in an all-work out, which is kind of a libertarian idea. And I'm saying none of those quite. What we really need to do is get to where we can get our fantasy yayas out in fiction and then get back to reality. That's what I'm, that's that's my theme here. So yeah, meditation would be a great one, but I'm also saying masturbation fits in the mix. If we we one way we talk about it is we talk about entertainment. Entertainment sits in this weird place. We don't call it a necessity, and yet we don't know anybody who doesn't need it. I mean, we all crave Pete "mental health champ": Exactly. Jeremy: entertainment. So I call it egotainment. It's actually that self-flattering fictional bullshit that we all need. No one's gotten over it. No one transcends it. You don't ever escape your need for confidence. You know, people talk about it as if they have. I know some people who talk about, yeah, I've transcended my ego. Egotism is beneath me. You see the problem there? You know, like I wouldn't, you know, you see the problem? So Pete "mental health champ": Right. Jeremy: Now I'm saying you can't escape it. You gotta manage it. And you manage it by getting your yayas off safely. Pete "mental health champ": Right. Well, Jeremy, we're at that part of the interview where I'm gonna ask you two questions, okay? So the first Jeremy: Okay. Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": one's a bit of a fun one. I'm very interested to hear your response to this one, okay? So the question to you is is if your mental health had a song, what would you say that song would be? The funniest Jeremy: I think Pete "mental health champ": answer so far though was grandma got ran over by a reindeer. I damn near fell out of this chair laughing my ass off when someone told me that as an answer. I was like, I'm done, I can't. Jeremy: What was what was the answer he gave you? Pete "mental health champ": Grandma got ran over by a reindeer. Jeremy: got it. Pete "mental health champ": I was like, what? I was like no. Jeremy: I I'm I'm I'm thinking I'm I'm I'm I'm giving it a a a moment to think about it. Maybe Sweet Thing by Van Morrison. This is a song I sing. I play bass and sing in bands. And Pete "mental health champ": okay, okay. Jeremy: and he's talking about his anxiety as if it's something behind him. And it's not. You can tell that he's still dealing with it. I'll gonna give you one more, which I recommend along those lines. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah, go ahead. Jeremy: Randy Newman's song, I Want Everyone to Like Me. It's Pete "mental health champ": Okay, all the chuckle viande. Jeremy: check that out. Because they're they're wonderful songs for getting at the ironic tension of really wishing you could land in happily ever after and being up against limits on your ability to do it. So that'd be some examples. That's not as funny as grandma got run over by a reindeer. Pete "mental health champ": Did that that one threw me up when he that. I was like, that and the whole time I've done this show, 250 episodes later, this guy goes, Well, grandma got ran over by a reindeer. I'm like, What? I was to start laughing hysterically. I was like, no, that's great. That has to be the greatest response of all time. All right, Jeremy, Jeremy: Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": here comes the final question. And the reason I started this podcast is if you could break the stigma about mental health, what would you say that one thing would be? Jeremy: We need to not feel needy. So I yeah, I mentioned before that I track confidence, that I study Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: mojo nomics, where people get their confidence. It's a black market. We don't want to admit to it. For example, if I was hanging out with the boys and I said, Yeah, I need to get married because I need sex, that I'd sound cooler if I said than if I said, I need to get married because I need affirmation or reassurance. You don't Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: sound cool when you If you admit that you're needy, you feel like a chump. You f you you feel that's it's buzzkill. So it's a weird, interesting black market. First of all, I've never I would say that no one leaves confidence on the table. You got you said you have daughters. Suppose you have daughters Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: who are attractive, and they know that their attractiveness is a bit of a problem because they're gonna age and they're gonna have to have other capabilities. From what I've seen of attractive women, none of them can resist that, taking for granted, basically, the confidence they get from being attractive. Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Jeremy: And we need to keep, we want to store up as much confidence as we can, because what if tomorrow the bottom falls out on our lives and suddenly we need more confidence than we got? So we're saving for a rainy day. So the real stigma around mental health, I think, is just admitting. That as a human being, you're gonna be anxious because we're trudging through this sandstorm of mojo eroding possibilities, confidence eroding possibilities, no other critter deals with. And if we could just admit that and deal with it with just accept that this is something all humans need and then manage it better, that would be a good move. and in the meantime, I work in I don't like the whole labeling thing that goes on in clinical psychology. I'm trying to understand humans in general. I think we all have what I would call, it's a little dark, but I'd call it a sado-narcistic streak. We all need to elevate ourselves. We're at risk of drowning in anxiety. So we are going to try to lift ourselves up and sometimes climb on top of other people. If you don't recognize that that is something that you and all other human beings will have a tendency to do, you can't manage what you deny having. So I'm saying I want to accept that about me. I recognize that I can get catty, that I can pretend that I'm the legend that I wish I was, that I could do all sorts of humble bragging, bullshit, all of that stuff. If I admit that about myself, I can manage it. If I deny it, like no other people do that, but I don't do it, I can't manage it. In fact I only will be indulging it. So that would be my answer there. Pete "mental health champ": I love it. Well, Jeremy, thank you so much for coming to hang out with me and I I really I had a great time. Listen, before we start wrapping up, do you wanna let people know they can find you? Any social sites, obviously the YouTube channel. Guys, we'll have all these links in the bio. Jeremy lay it on Where can they find you? Jeremy: Yeah, so you can find way too much of me just by googling my name, Jeremy Sherman online. You'll it'll all show up. But I'm most active these days in two places. One is on Facebook, where I go by the name Jeremy Unsure Sherman. and I'm posting stuff all all the time there. It's kind of where I keep my diary of new ideas. and then Trying Beings is my website, is my YouTube channel. And so and I do a for example, I do a YouTube live every Saturday. about 250 Pete "mental health champ": There you go. Jeremy: people show up for that. It's a it's a great old time. but I'm also putting out videos all the time, shorts and otherwise. trying beings, meaning two things. One is I'm explaining the origins of beings that try, organisms. And I also assholes are are beings who try our patients. That's what I mean. All right. Pete "mental health champ": I love it, man. I love it. Well, Jeremy, thank you so much, man. Once again, come hang out. you're you're most definitely welcome to pack, man. Anytime you'd like, man. Anything new you got you want to come share with us, listen, hit me up. I for sure will get you in here because I had a blast talking to you, man. I love everything you're doing. And I'll definitely have to come check out the live for sure, man. If I'm free on a Saturday, I'll come by, check it out. I'll share it out with some other friends and things like that too, man. with that being said, guys, we're gonna wrap up this episode of Pete for Anxiety. You want to find me on Pete for Anxiety on X all the way down to TikTok? I'm on Spotify all the way down to Pandorio. And for you guys in the Pennsylvania area, I am on the Pep Radio Network. If you guys want to listen to it, just download the Live 360 app. Look up the Pep Radio Station. You will be able to hear me and Jeremy have this conversation on there. And guys, as always say, it costs nothing. Absolutely be kind to somebody. One kind act you can do can save your life. Or hell, you can make their day. I'm Pete for Anxiety Site. I'm saying, don't ask how your day is today. Say, hey, how's your mental health?