Latest / Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann / #135: Ephraim Herschmann / RIP Bobby Weir / Absurdity of Life and Laughter / Trump’s 1st Year

Transcript

#135: Ephraim Herschmann / RIP Bobby Weir / Absurdity of Life and Laughter / Trump’s 1st Year · Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann

0:01
Welcome to another episode of come together.
0:15
What is up everyone? We're back for another episode.
0:19
I'm feeling clear today and than I have in a long time and oh
0:26
man, well, I have a bunch of episodes planned for hopefully
0:29
this week and the coming weeks. But I had so much my mind and
0:35
particularly last night I found out that at least last night I
0:40
saw that Bob Weir, Bobby Weir from the Grateful Dead passed
0:44
away. And Bobby Weir was the rhythm
0:46
player, one of the founding members of the band.
0:49
And at 78 when he died, was one of the he was the younger, he
0:54
was the youngest member of the band.
0:56
I think he was only 17 when he joined.
0:57
And he walked into a music shop and heard Jerry Garcia playing
1:01
banjo and decided to stop in and see who it was and introduce
1:04
himself. And from there, arguably, excuse
1:08
me, came some of the greatest and most impactful cosmic music
1:12
in American history, American culture.
1:16
I mean, the, the, the radical dynamic shift that the Grateful
1:20
Hat, Grateful Dead had on America, on music, on the
1:25
culture, on the zeitgeist. And what's cool is in a lasting
1:29
way, it lasts generation after generation after generation.
1:32
Jerry Garcia died over 30 years ago.
1:34
And they've been playing the same and the band has been
1:37
playing the same music. And there's cover bands
1:40
everywhere you go. Any state, any city, in any
1:42
state around the country, there's people rolling through
1:46
playing Grateful Dead music and bands that are jamming.
1:49
And I mean, it's influence. They've influenced music from
1:53
country to bluegrass to to rock to jazz.
1:57
And of course they have used to have their own inspirations.
1:59
But he, you know, Bobby Weir was a writer and amazing musician
2:04
and always it was the cosmic kid in the sense that he was, he's
2:11
almost like a cosmic cowboy. He was always very Spacey,
2:14
allegedly. And again, I don't know, I would
2:16
have, I'd never had a chance to know him.
2:18
But from what I've read about him and from interviews I've
2:20
seen and from even his own lyrics and his own songs,
2:23
there's there's really something He was rebellious and
2:29
adventurous. And I think at a certain point,
2:35
and obviously this probably had a lot to do with a lot of
2:37
psychedelics at a very early point in his life.
2:39
I think the barrier between fear and insecurity or not knowing, I
2:48
think that typically for most people, that relationship is
2:54
very, very closely tied together.
2:55
We're generally afraid of things that we don't know.
2:58
We are generally terrified of the notion of something that is
3:02
beyond our comfort or something that we feel that we can
3:06
manipulate or control. By the way, not even like in a
3:10
like very negative way at all. I mean, if you're having a
3:12
conversation and you want to manipulate your way to the end
3:15
of an argument, it's very easy to do so.
3:17
And if you trust your social skills enough, then you'll trust
3:22
that even if you get into a confrontation with someone that
3:25
you can navigate your way out of it without getting harmed or
3:28
without too hard of a time. And so at a certain point, you
3:34
know, people with social anxiety, for example, would
3:37
probably feel that same concern because they feel like they
3:45
would, they don't have their the grasp of the situation, they
3:49
don't have control over the situation.
3:51
And at a certain point, we have to realize if you're thoughtful
3:59
enough that we don't really have control over anything and we
4:01
only like to feel that we do. And obviously the thing that we
4:04
do control, and it's a famous expression, but it's famous for
4:08
a reason, is you can only control your real, your reaction
4:12
to things rather than anything else.
4:14
And if I think that we have this instinct is very primitive and
4:19
very primal instinct to want to control.
4:23
And if we can't control, then we don't want to engage in it.
4:27
And I think that with enough work, you can break it.
4:30
And I think with enough work, you can become familiar enough
4:32
with the unknown. And, and that's why a lot of
4:34
people are so afraid of dying. And that's why, myself included,
4:38
the reason why we're so afraid of death is because it's the one
4:41
thing that we, no one can control or no one knows anything
4:44
about it. No one really is certain about
4:47
and that makes us inherently uncomfortable.
4:51
But if you're like Bobby Weir and you like you trust that the
4:56
path has been great and the path has been full of cosmic
5:02
serendipity and incredible fortune and communication of
5:06
souls throughout space and time and all these esoteric wild
5:10
ideas that he and I can say this with confidence because I've
5:15
experienced myself experienced with genuine and authentic
5:20
sincerity. We really experienced this kind
5:23
of cosmic energy in a tangible way that you have to know that
5:29
it's true, but without having the actual means of measuring it
5:33
yet necessarily. And I think that's what we're
5:34
working towards. And I think that's actually what
5:36
we're getting towards as a as a species.
5:38
And, and I think that he is a prime example of someone that
5:43
just disconnected the fear and said, you know what fear is
5:48
almost like always ego related, almost control related to
5:51
control. I don't have that.
5:53
And so I'm not going to fear dying.
5:54
And I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be a trip.
5:56
It's going to be an adventure. I can't do it.
5:57
You know, it's going to happens to everyone anyway.
6:00
And what are you going to do? And it's, you know, and
6:06
obviously, you know, his impact was enormous.
6:08
And the truth is that it's probably better off for him
6:10
because he'll be remembered as the young Bobby Weir probably,
6:14
and not the old Robin Hood that from the old Disney cartoon
6:18
movie that he looks like nowadays or that he looked like
6:21
rather, you know, but a very vibrant, adventurous and curious
6:29
soul. Really, really, really.
6:30
We're going to, I'm going to, I'm going to miss knowing that
6:33
that kind of spirit is around this world.
6:37
The other thing I, I mean, that comes to mind is also the fact
6:40
that at a certain point you have to have a sense of humor.
6:43
You know, when you, when you admit that everything is kind of
6:46
up in the air and life, if you believe in God, if you believe
6:51
in the universe, if you believe in fate, if you believe in.
6:54
And these are all kind of synonymous, I think from a
6:56
philosophical perspective. And then there's just different
7:01
names or tags that we prescribe to them.
7:03
But you know, as a concept, they're pretty, they're pretty
7:06
similar. I would say it's not completely
7:09
synonymous. And there's always this
7:13
underlying sense of humor with the fact that we don't know why
7:17
is what's happening is happening, but we kind of know
7:21
that it's going to work out. And we're laughing at how far it
7:27
is from our ridiculously limited perspectives.
7:32
And again, as human beings, we're really just confined to
7:39
our perception and our experiences and our memories and
7:43
associations. And that's, that's it, you know?
7:45
And so it's really easy to, it's really easy to get yourself
7:54
worked up and then remind yourself that there's so much to
8:01
the picture. There's so much to the grand
8:03
scheme of things that we just don't know and that we just
8:06
can't even fathom. And so there's this kind of
8:11
universal laughter at everything, at the good and the
8:16
bad and the ugly and the sad. And there's like this, I don't
8:20
even know why this is happening, but it's going to make sense and
8:23
it doesn't make sense now, you know, And it's the famous
8:25
Springsteen sentiment. Someday we'll look back on this
8:28
and it will all seem funny, you know, and I keep on saying, you
8:31
know, I have to cut that out. But I think that I think that
8:35
it's important. I think.
8:36
And this actually goes into something that been that's been
8:39
quite on my mind, quite heavily on my mind actually recently,
8:42
because as I've been keeping up with the news and learning about
8:47
more about the world, I've been learning a lot, particularly in
8:50
the field of geography, political economics and the
8:58
relationship. And how obviously the, you know,
9:01
this free market capitalism and this never ending corporate
9:09
greed or corporatocracy greed, the corporations, the banks and
9:13
the governments of the leadership of the world that
9:18
that they almost like, there's almost like this insatiable
9:22
search for money and power and no matter what the cost.
9:27
And it is inherently sociopathic behaviour because it's not an
9:33
individual that's acting, it's a collection.
9:36
And collections don't, aren't subject to human feelings like
9:41
guilt or like wistfulness or like nostalgia or anything and,
9:48
or even loyalty. I mean, these are, these are
9:50
human experiences and these are, and these are human traits.
9:53
And corporations and big companies and governments don't
9:56
act like that because they're not humans.
9:58
I mean, you can't even expect that of them.
9:59
And there's a bit, I've been a big advocate recently.
10:03
I've been trying to help people or my friends or family around
10:07
me whenever people are let down, even my students actually, and I
10:13
try to tell them that when you're dealing with the world
10:18
around you, a lot of times the reason why we get upset or
10:20
disappointed about anything in particular is because we feel
10:24
like it's not fair. We feel like it doesn't match up
10:26
to what our percept perception of what reality should be is.
10:30
And that upsets us. And that really is frustrating.
10:33
And I totally get it because I get upset too.
10:36
And what really helps a lot is to be consciously aware of the
10:43
yardstick of the person or thing that you're dealing with.
10:48
So for example, if I'm talking to a 5 year old and I'm getting
10:51
upset that they're not understanding the, the concept
10:54
of, you know, geography having an impact on as to, you know, a
10:59
country's history and why they, why they're so particularly
11:02
war-torn or so poor or always being abused or conquered by
11:05
other people. And it's, it's really easy to
11:16
get frustrated until you remember that you're dealing
11:19
with a 5 year old and you got to be like, hey, man, you're a 5
11:21
year old. I don't have to.
11:23
I, I, I, I, you know, there's a lot that you have to understand
11:25
first and a lot you probably won't even be able to understand
11:28
because your brain isn't developed enough to that point,
11:30
or you haven't learned to look at things from that way, or you
11:33
don't even know what geography, the word geography means.
11:35
So the point being that I think that so many times we have to
11:40
kind of be willing to, we have to not necessarily step out of
11:46
the person's shoes, but we have to understand who we're talking
11:49
to and then what they really are capable of in the moment that
11:53
we're dealing with things. And even though, and I kind of
12:01
forgot why I started even talking about that, but things
12:07
are funny things. Things just turn out funny and
12:11
we tend to get caught up in getting frustrated about the,
12:16
you know, how the world isn't caught up to what we want it to
12:19
be. When I think that if we just
12:23
kind of look at things as, oh, that's funny.
12:25
And I wonder what to do with that now.
12:27
And I guess I'm misunderstanding what.
12:30
I guess I misunderstood what reality really was like because
12:34
I didn't take that into consideration.
12:35
And so if I didn't take that into consideration, what else am
12:37
I missing out on? And I think that if most people
12:39
learn to kind of think like that with a little bit more humility
12:42
and a little bit more modesty, it'll be better for the world
12:45
because we try to understand one another a little bit more.
12:48
But I think it's also more fun and beneficial to us because it
12:52
allows us to experience or play, let's say, mind, not mind games,
12:58
but thought experiments and think about different aspects of
13:01
reality. And then you can eventually
13:03
like, you know, you might discover something great, you
13:05
might discover something new. You might be on top of you might
13:08
really change, change the world and or learn how to perceive
13:12
reality in a way that you never ever have.
13:15
I think that's really what we need.
13:17
I think that a lot of people are feeling stale.
13:19
A lot of people are feeling like their life is uniform and the
13:25
information that we're consuming is more being fed to us rather
13:30
than being chosen by us. We're not.
13:32
We don't have a hand in directing our consciousness and
13:38
our journey and our understanding of what life is
13:40
like. And instead, we all kind of have
13:45
the feeling, you know, that we're stuck in the algorithm,
13:48
that we're stuck, that we're stuck constantly not being able
13:51
to understand one another. And I think that it's really,
13:55
really important to be able to take a step back and just admit
14:00
and laugh like Bob Weir and say, man, I don't know, man.
14:03
I mean, this is all weird. This is all strange.
14:05
And I've been here for 78 years, and I have no idea what's going
14:08
on. But I know that it's good.
14:10
And I know that it's going to end up all right.
14:11
And he wasn't afraid of death. And, you know, he was looking
14:14
forward to it. And so we're going to miss him.
14:19
I said the twice already, but I really feel like, man, it's
14:22
really sad. That's such a great band and
14:27
that's such a big impact on so many people.
14:29
And they're going to continue to, you know, and I think as a
14:35
tribute to them, we have to just remember to keep our minds a
14:38
little bit more open. And then that theme, I kind of
14:41
want to talk also because it's been on my mind and I'm going to
14:46
talk about politics for a little bit.
14:47
So if you're not interested in that, then you could pause me or
14:50
turn me off or not even listen to begin with.
14:52
But I have been, I was, I've been thinking so many things
14:57
about this. I was really, really critical of
15:00
Trump's first year until very recently.
15:03
And I think I had a little bit of a wake up call because I
15:06
think that I kind of fell into my, this own trap that I'm
15:08
talking about where I think that my perception was being guided
15:12
by other people rather than my own self.
15:15
And I think that I was consuming a lot of medium and consuming a
15:19
lot of podcasts and reading a lot of news articles and posts
15:22
and stuff like that, that would shape my perception.
15:27
And I didn't give enough time to myself to really think about
15:30
what I think about my, about what I'm consuming.
15:32
You know, I just kind of consumed it and took it on as a,
15:35
as a thought process. And I have to always catch
15:37
myself because I, because I do, I mean, I think we all people
15:40
all have a tendency to do this, but I definitely have a tendency
15:43
to get caught up in this. And sometimes I even have to ask
15:46
myself, and I do ask myself, like, what do you really mean by
15:49
that? Or like, do you like, you know,
15:51
how do you back that up? Or do you really, you know, is,
15:53
is that is what you're saying really, really what it is or how
15:56
do you know that? And a lot of times, if the
15:59
answer is, I don't know, then that's just me being dogmatic.
16:01
The same way that I criticize all the time.
16:05
I'm definitely far, far, far from perfect.
16:08
And I wanted to update, I guess, my thoughts on a couple of
16:13
things. I think the biggest, the
16:16
biggest, the biggest frustration that I personally had with the
16:21
this newest or the second Trump administration has been that he
16:24
ran on this kind of platform of of quote UN quote, America first
16:27
and doing things that are good for the homeland.
16:29
And then it seems as though he kind of walked that back as far
16:35
as foreign policy at least is concerned.
16:38
And domestically, we didn't really seem to be seeing too
16:42
much. He did like a flurry of of
16:44
executive orders and some things happened, some things didn't,
16:48
some things changed, some things didn't.
16:49
It was at first it was like a real Whirlpool and just a real
16:52
tornado. And then now it's becoming clear
16:56
that bigger pictures are are kind of starting to take place.
17:00
And this is actually, I spoke about this in a solo episode a
17:03
bunch of months back. But I think it's important to
17:08
also keep in mind that we are we tend to be very short sighted.
17:12
And sometimes I'm sure there are really, really smart people that
17:15
think way more long term and, and have a far greater vision
17:20
than what a lot of commentators or a lot of just creators and
17:30
people that and, and you know, newscasters.
17:32
I guess I, however you want to have you want to phrase the
17:35
people that, that disseminate information to the rest of the
17:38
country. We all tend to be on a very
17:42
short term, think on a very short term scale.
17:45
News is so big and moves so frequently, so quickly, and
17:49
stories just turn over at such an insane pace that it takes so
17:55
much effort to keep up with the sheer size and relevance of so
18:01
many stories that we kind of forget that it's all part of a
18:06
bigger picture and a bigger plan.
18:08
And everyone says, yeah, Trump's not playing for DHS.
18:10
Maybe. And maybe he is.
18:11
Maybe he isn't. I think that this Marco Rubio
18:15
dude is fucking brilliant. I think that I don't know if I
18:20
agree with everything he says. I don't know if I agree with
18:22
everything he does. I think that guy is a lot
18:25
smarter than. I mean, no one really ever calls
18:28
him bad. It's really interesting.
18:30
I mean, his entire, I guess the, the whole like meme ability
18:34
about him, the everything, the, the part of it everyone makes
18:37
fun of is the fact that he kind of wears all these hats.
18:40
But I think that that's more of a compliment.
18:44
And he's really, that's why he's come to embrace that.
18:45
There's a post of the day where the Dolphins had recently fired
18:49
their head coach. It's the beginning of January,
18:51
the end of the season, I guess in 2025, early 2026.
18:54
And Marco Rubio addressed. I just want to say I don't
18:58
ordinarily address online, you know, new circulations, but I
19:02
have to just come out and acknowledge this one that I
19:05
indeed will not be filling in as the general manager and the head
19:08
coach of the Miami Dolphins. And there was A and that was
19:11
linked to a re or tweet posted tweet quoted rather to the to a
19:18
meme of him, you know, in a football helmet realizing that
19:21
he's going to be the new Dolphins GM.
19:24
And so if the worst and you know, and so and the worst
19:27
criticism that people can really say of him is that he has a
19:29
history of being a neo con, which again, due to our extreme
19:37
news and extreme rhetoric and extreme radicalized policies,
19:43
words like neo con take on a very strong connotation.
19:49
But but they have varying degrees of what they how they
19:53
can manifest in the degrees in which people really view that
19:57
philosophy. You know, how strongly people
19:59
believe in it. And Marco Rubio seems to be
20:03
extremely, extremely practical. And, you know, I've been
20:05
listening to a good man. I happen to be a big fan of
20:08
Glenn Greenwald. I, I mean, it's hard for me to
20:11
listen to how he really is a critic of Israel and really, it
20:14
really does not like the Zionist state of Israel and.
20:21
I, you know, once I know that he really goes after them and it's,
20:25
it's hard for me to listen to some of his content, even though
20:29
a lot of it hurts because a lot of it has a lot of truth to it
20:33
as far as criticism go. And I think that it's important
20:35
that we can, if we dish it, we got able to take it.
20:39
And if we, if there, if there's something that is fairly called
20:42
out, I think that it's important to at least acknowledge and not
20:44
just shove into the carpet. But that's another conversation.
20:48
And one thing that he does that he does, you know, really,
20:53
really well is he is very, very fair.
20:57
But he has his impression, and again, probably has more than a
21:05
grain of truth to it, that Marco Rubio is particularly invested
21:08
in the Venezuela conflict because he's Cuban and there
21:12
he's personally invested in seeing the government being
21:16
overthrown. And maybe he's right, but I
21:20
think that also it's really, really, really important to to
21:24
point out and to be fair, give credit where credit's due.
21:28
And here's the fact we just came off of 20 of literally, I mean,
21:34
aside from 25 years of war in the Middle East, almost 100
21:37
straight years of war that the United States was involved in.
21:41
And we are currently paying some of the economic prices.
21:45
We're paying the social prices, We're paying the prices and
21:48
lives of veteran PTSD veterans, PTSD, drug abuse.
21:53
I mean, you know, there, there there is no end to the potential
21:59
consequences of constantly being at war for 100 years and what
22:02
what that could do to our country.
22:04
And rightfully so. I think there's a lot of people,
22:07
a lot of young people below the age of 40 or 50, I would say.
22:11
But I think it's becoming more and more just popular and
22:15
accepted that war in general. There's there's very little
22:19
appetite for going through, I mean, you know, through cities
22:24
and killing civilians and going through, you know, and, and, and
22:26
just occupying the streets of countries they're going to war
22:30
for. And the reasons are based on a
22:32
whole bunch of lies. And, you know, and if they are
22:35
based on truth, and it was, you know, what's fun about this
22:37
particular Trump scenario is that Trump said with Venezuela,
22:40
it's about the oils. We got about the oil.
22:42
Rather we got the oil. And if you haven't listened to
22:46
my episode with Padre from a couple of days ago, you should
22:50
go back and listen to it because he talks out and outlines
22:53
exactly how this can also benefit Trump and America
22:59
economically relative to China. Because whether we like it or
23:02
not, we're in competition with them.
23:05
Whether we like it or not. There is a war of sorts, not a
23:09
military war, but intelligence war and economic war, political
23:12
war between America and China that's been going on for a very
23:15
long time. And Taiwan, which is the creator
23:19
of so many probably almost the sole creator of the chips that
23:25
are that the AI is dependent on, you know, Trump just doesn't
23:31
just can't have China can take Taiwan.
23:34
And so by cutting off Venezuelan oil supply to which is about
23:39
which cover, which is about 70% of the world's oil supply,
23:42
cutting that off from China and taking the oil instead and
23:47
redirecting the flow of oil A is a great economic decision of oil
23:54
has to get cheaper. As Tim Dillon pointed out this
23:56
weekend, oil, you can't go ahead and kidnap presidents if the
24:02
consequence is not that the thing that you reason why you
24:04
did. This doesn't happen, right?
24:06
If this is about oil, then oil has to get cheaper.
24:09
You can't just post massive market gains for the oil
24:13
companies and then everyone's still paying the same amount of
24:15
oil and everyone's still pissed off and grumbling about it,
24:18
which might happen. You never know.
24:21
I mean, you kind of hope not. And I have to be hopeful, but I
24:24
also wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.
24:28
But yeah. And then I mean, and then and
24:31
then it's also good as far as our potential, our own economy
24:35
is concerned, because if if China takes control of Taiwan
24:40
and all the AI, the chips that power AI are under China's rule.
24:44
And we're really betting for our economic future on AI and
24:47
robotics. Like that's really what what
24:49
America is focusing on manufacturing cars too with
24:53
Tesla. But I mean, like, as far as
24:57
legit, you know, things that we're actually creating software
25:00
and hardware is currently where we're kind of investing the most
25:03
effort and how we're really hoping to get ourselves out of
25:06
this economic pit, which I think I've talked about on a bunch of
25:10
episodes. So I'm not going to dive too
25:11
deep into that. But my point is that if we can
25:15
do all this, and yeah, it sucks that I, yeah, you wouldn't want
25:20
to set this precedent, you won't want people, you know, other
25:23
countries to start doing what we did necessarily either.
25:26
Although, you know, you can, you can make a lot of different
25:28
arguments, like, for example, the fact that it wasn't really a
25:32
war. This was more of a battle.
25:33
Trump. Trump picks battles.
25:35
He doesn't pick wars. He doesn't go on forever.
25:38
He'll pick a fight with someone, throw a couple of punches, that
25:41
person backs out and that's the end of it.
25:43
And we haven't really seen a case too often, except for maybe
25:48
with Russian Ukraine, which seems to take a little bit
25:50
longer, a little bit more thoughtfulness and strategizing.
25:53
But we haven't really seen a case where Trump hasn't kind of
25:55
thrown out like a 1-2 punch. And everyone that is on the anti
25:59
war side or has been sick of wars like, well, well, well,
26:01
well, what are you doing? What are you doing?
26:03
And like, I totally get that, Like you do want to respond that
26:06
way because we have had because our our reaction, rightfully so,
26:10
should be 1 of great caution and great concern over starting more
26:15
wars. And on the other hand, all
26:17
these, all the quote, UN quote wars that Trump has engaged in,
26:21
whether it's striking Iran's, you know, nuclear, nuclear sites
26:26
or this right now with Venezuela or even with the Houthis or even
26:30
I mean, I mean, we're right now, it really looks like they're
26:35
picking swift, quick battles to display strength without being,
26:42
without the historic bullying nature of kind of settling
26:45
ourselves in their land and causing social upheaval, which
26:51
also, you know, results in all kinds of instability and issues
26:55
for soldiers at home and abroad and for people, you know, just
26:59
all around, I mean, for human life in general.
27:02
I mean, we want to be, if we're really going to be at the point
27:05
in in our history where we could become multi planetary within, I
27:09
don't know, call it 100 years, which is again a blip in the a
27:12
blip in the amount of time that we've been around.
27:16
So I mean, 100 years is really nothing. 100 years ago we
27:19
weren't flying airplanes from Europe to America or from China
27:23
to America. 20261926 I probably not, I don't think so.
27:28
But you know, you get the point. And the point is that in 100
27:30
years from now, God knows where we're going to be, what
27:32
dimensions we're going to be and what we know about science, what
27:34
we know about about space travel and all that.
27:37
And we're going to look back at this and be like, we're just
27:41
like killing people in the Middle East because of like
27:43
their religion or we're just killing people in South America
27:46
because, you know, the land that they live on has a lot of
27:49
bananas or oil or whatever it is.
27:52
Like that's so crazy. Like, can we just find a way?
27:54
And like, if we're going to be so developed as a nation, as a
27:59
world, as a species, rather not as a nation, as a world and as a
28:02
species, we got to act accordingly, you know, and, and
28:06
again, and, and this actually goes back to the yardstick point
28:08
that I was making earlier, that when you're dealing with a 5
28:10
year old, obviously there's only something that a 5 year old can
28:12
understand. And, you know, a 5 year old is
28:15
only Privy to a particular train of thought that is on the level
28:20
of five year old. And then as the five year old
28:22
gets older and as he starts to adjust, it's no longer
28:25
acceptable for him to throw a tantrum on the floor in the
28:28
supermarket when he's 25. And as a species, I think that
28:31
we're getting to the point where it's not really acceptable to be
28:33
physical the way that we are, to be blowing people up the way
28:35
that we are to not have due process.
28:37
And again, and you know, and, and, and this is also a never
28:41
ending circle of a problem. You know, you got, if you don't
28:44
have any regulation, then you have corruption and then you add
28:46
regulation to prevent the corruption and this corrupted
28:49
regulation. And then you have to, and then
28:50
you want to peel back the regulation or reform it or find
28:52
another way to do it. And like all of history and all
28:55
of time and all of human interaction, all of conscious
28:57
human interaction or even unconscious human interaction is
29:00
based on this, on this, on this back and forth.
29:03
And, and it gets to, it gets to less and less primitive degrees
29:12
and more and more nuanced conscious degrees.
29:14
You know, so it's not like, hey, man, you hit me.
29:17
So I kill you. Now it's hey, man, you hit me.
29:20
Well, a why'd you hit me? Now we're going to have to take
29:23
you a court. Now we're going to have to
29:24
figure out whether you hit me because you intended on hitting
29:26
me, whether you really had the sense of I want to get this guy.
29:30
Or maybe I just wasn't looking at I was looking down on my
29:32
phone. I bumped into you.
29:33
So I really wasn't intending on harming you.
29:34
And does that make a difference? And why shouldn't it make a
29:37
difference? Because you're a conscious
29:38
thinking human being. Well, if you're a conscious
29:39
thinking human being, then the way that you hold yourself has
29:42
to be fundamentally different. And so, you know, like, and then
29:45
as you go through time, you say, OK, well, now as a as a world,
29:48
as a society, we have all this, we have all this remark, this
29:52
remarkable economy. We have this level of global
29:56
interplay that just goes so deep and is so intricate that people
30:01
actually think that it's a conspiracy.
30:03
And obviously there are degrees of made-up conspiracy theories,
30:07
but there are also a lot of degrees that we really live in a
30:09
very, very globally connected world where leaders from all
30:15
around the world make decisions that literally impact the entire
30:21
planet on a regular basis. And that's not a bad thing.
30:23
That's a really, really cool thing.
30:25
And we can start to learn to look at ourselves and everything
30:29
is all a matter of zooming out. And as you can explore outwards,
30:33
your perception and your perspective should step back as
30:39
well. And you should have a great, you
30:42
should have greater perspective in general, right?
30:43
So, for example, when the only thing that you could think about
30:46
and you can't travel outside of your town, your town is the only
30:49
thing in the world and your, your entire existence.
30:51
And then you find out, Oh, I can take a boat and I can go to
30:54
somewhere else and you're like, wow, that's really cool.
30:56
So now I could cross the lake and I can get to another part of
30:58
town. And then you find out about
31:00
states, then you find out about countries, then you find out
31:02
about planets, then you find out about galaxies and Milky Ways.
31:05
And you know, Earth doesn't become Cuba, America, Venezuela,
31:12
China, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Africa, in Canada.
31:19
It becomes Earth. And all the people on Earth are,
31:24
in the scheme of what we're capable of perceiving, are now a
31:28
species in the entire order of life and the magnitude of the
31:32
universe. And it's like, yeah, well, then
31:34
in that case, we should be treating ourselves a lot better.
31:37
And so I think that we're like, kind of getting there.
31:39
And I think that as technology and as time speeds up, we'll bet
31:44
there. But to wrap up that point I am
31:50
impressed with, I have to like looking back on this, it seems
31:53
that the Trump administration has done an excellent job for
31:57
the first time in a very, very long time at presenting American
32:02
authority in a swift way that is not needless for them.
32:07
I you know, and you can argue to the extent of any needless it
32:10
is, but it hasn't started drawn out long wars yet and it hasn't
32:16
hasn't really resulted in any American deaths yet between
32:18
Iran, between Iran and Venezuela, I don't believe there
32:23
are any American deaths yet and minimal other deaths relative to
32:27
a war that was broken out. Meaning if you expect, if you
32:30
even, I mean, American, you know, a Houthi bombing or Libyan
32:35
bombing, you know, from the early 2000s had more deaths in
32:39
just a couple of those bombing sessions or drone bomb sessions
32:41
than what happened in, you know, this last year.
32:46
So everyone that's being really critical, I understand them.
32:49
But I think that we all, and I think that it's good that you're
32:52
being really critical because it puts a lot of pressure to be
32:54
minimally aggressive. But to understand that that we
33:01
live in a world with a lot of complicated relationships.
33:04
And sometimes we have to be aggressive because we because if
33:07
we keep on being passive, we do end up being hurt also and being
33:12
passive and being too passive. Unfortunately, human nature is
33:15
still human nature. And unfortunately, we haven't
33:17
resolved that, that, that that gene to need to dominate other
33:23
people. And we don't, we can't for some
33:25
reason process that we can get along and that we can work
33:29
together as a planet and to look at each other as people on the
33:33
planet. And until we do, then we're
33:38
going to have to keep on keeping up with staying on top of the
33:41
game, but being minimally aggressive as far as what we
33:45
need, you know. And I think that we've learned
33:47
so much from these wars, from these past 25 years of war.
33:52
And I think that the youth really has learned so much.
33:54
Even if even if the old guard had not learned it to the same
33:57
extent, the youth has learned it.
33:59
And that makes a huge difference because the decisions that are
34:01
being made today and the decisions that are being made
34:03
tomorrow are going to look infinitely better than they have
34:08
until now. You know, And so I just saw the
34:12
other day that and I, and again, big is would hypothetically be a
34:15
big win. And I don't know where these go
34:16
there. So two things that give me a lot
34:18
of positive hope #1 actually three things.
34:21
Trump stopping private equity from buying in individual real
34:26
estate, which I hope happens. Trump limiting the credit card
34:30
companies ability to charge literally what was considered
34:35
extortion and illegal to American citizens.
34:38
So 2030% interest on credit cards on just standard is
34:43
considered bonkers and awful. And if anyone were to tell me,
34:47
if you were to come up to me and say, hey, man, can I borrow 500
34:49
bucks? Like, yeah, but if you don't
34:50
give it back to me by the end of the month, then you'll be 20% of
34:52
that or 30% of 500 bucks. Like fuck you, dude.
34:55
Excuse my language, but fuck you.
34:58
You know, I'm not taking, I'm not borrowing that money.
35:00
But if that's the only, but that's really the only way that
35:02
so many people can actually get money and access money.
35:05
And if you want to talk about why that's a deeper problem and
35:10
why that problem exists, you know for sure.
35:13
And if you want to talk about ways to kind of deal with the
35:16
problem from the root for sure. Right now, at the moment, people
35:19
are defaulting on car loans. People are defaulting on on on
35:24
their mortgages. People are defaulting on credit
35:25
card loans, on buy now, pay later loans, on student debt, on
35:28
medical bills. So, you know, what, if we have
35:31
to just like lower the cap of like one of these things, one of
35:34
these enormous economic issues and just plug up 1 hole a little
35:38
bit, as far as I'm concerned, it's one step closer to solving
35:42
a problem and the potential. And I understand that there's
35:45
another argument to be made for having such high interest rate.
35:50
And partially that is to discourage people from making,
35:53
you know, that, or at least in part, the argument would be to
35:56
discourage people from making such enormous charges and
35:59
purchases that they can't possibly afford to ever pay
36:01
back. Yeah, but then don't accept them
36:07
and don't accept them for that line of credit.
36:09
And I do know that, I mean, from my personal experience as well,
36:12
no credit card, no credit card companies ever look into or
36:15
confirm how much money you really make.
36:19
Because I've said that I've made all sorts, all sorts of
36:21
different amounts of money when I was applying to different
36:24
credit cards and they did no check and they just approved me.
36:27
And so if I told them that I was making $250,000 on a $75,000
36:31
salary and I have a $25,000 credit limit, I mean, it is, it
36:38
should be at least part of the bank's due diligence to say,
36:41
hey, man, this guy never made anywhere near $250,000.
36:44
And all it takes is 1 Google, all it takes is 1.
36:47
You know, I mean, they, they have access to my, I gave them
36:50
my social. I mean, they, they, they're
36:51
going to run my credit. And when they cut my credit,
36:53
they're going to see that I don't make $250,000.
36:56
So it just shows that they really don't care.
36:58
And yeah, I shouldn't be lying about that.
37:02
I really shouldn't. If you are going to be the
37:06
gatekeeper and you were going to be the authority and you're
37:09
going to decide who gets it and who doesn't, it's really,
37:13
really, really easy to not loan money to people that shouldn't
37:16
be getting loans. That's it.
37:19
And on the other hand, they also make it really hard to get other
37:21
loans, but that's another conversation.
37:22
I don't even want to get into that right now, partially
37:25
because I don't care to actually entirely because I don't care to
37:27
right now. But so I want to just say that I
37:30
think that so the house story was a good thing because
37:34
obviously private equity buying houses is a massive issue or
37:38
individual real estate rather. The credit card thing was a big
37:42
win. And then the last big win that I
37:44
wanted to talk about hopefully was that I forgot who is,
37:48
there's a motion of the floor, I believe to that to prevent the
37:53
executive branch from making any conducting any more war strikes
37:57
in Venezuela without congressional approval.
38:00
And the reason why I think this is really important is because
38:02
this is more of a long term plan, play and plan.
38:06
And long term, we absolutely freaking want to set the
38:11
precedent that presidents cannot any longer decide to go ahead.
38:18
Whether you're Obama, whether you're Trump, whether you're
38:20
Biden, whether you're Bush, it does not matter.
38:22
Stop acting. It's in the Constitution.
38:25
The president cannot start a war without congressional approval.
38:28
Stop at committing acts of war around the country, around the
38:31
world. Sorry, another country around
38:33
the world without without without talking to Congress.
38:38
And I think it's very simple and I think that the the system of
38:42
checks and balances exists for a reason.
38:44
And everyone that's going to anyone that's going to be upset
38:46
at me for saying this right now, you better have been upset about
38:49
then you can't have been upset about it when Obama or Biden did
38:52
it. I mean, at the end of the day,
38:54
you don't want to set the president that a president can
38:57
do something without the will of the people and especially
39:01
without the world representation of the people.
39:02
And it just goes ahead and acting.
39:04
And again, because all we have to do is just say, what if it
39:08
was me? What if it was my family?
39:10
If we just kept on thinking that if every time before we did
39:13
anything we just said before, I have my opinion, how would I
39:17
feel if I was on the receiving end of that opinion, right.
39:20
Oh, well, you know, they deserved it.
39:23
They, they, they were friends of the terrorist, you know, like
39:25
what, dude, what I have so many friends that have so many things
39:30
that go on in their lives that I have nothing to do with that I
39:33
don't know anything about. And so if I'm going to a party
39:36
or I'm going to a synagogue event or I'm going to, if I'm
39:40
going to hang out with a couple of buddies of mine and watch
39:42
AUFC fight or watch a basketball game and drink a beer and I get
39:46
blown up because there's something they do in their
39:48
private lives, like, Oh, well, you know, you shouldn't have
39:50
been friends with them. Like, no, that's not that.
39:53
How would you feel if that was you?
39:54
How would you feel if that was your family or your kids?
39:56
And, and then, and then it's much better to say to have the
40:00
at least in my opinion, it's much better to say, how would I
40:05
feel if I were on the receiving end of that?
40:08
And whether or not I like or agree with that person, whether
40:11
I think that person is a good person or bad person who
40:13
deserves to die or doesn't deserve to die, I think.
40:17
That doing that without any kind of due process, because again,
40:20
that's where we are as a civilization, doing that without
40:24
any kind of due process, without any kind of, you know, innocent
40:27
until proven until proven guilty.
40:29
If that doesn't exist, then we're then we're all in really
40:32
big trouble. You really, really are.
40:34
And at the moment there's a good amount of that going around.
40:39
It's a lot less than it's been in many, many years.
40:42
And every time that happens, there really is a very strong
40:45
vehement reaction to it. And so hopefully that's a really
40:47
good thing. But I do want to conclude with
40:51
the idea that with the notion that it's very easy to get
40:59
caught up in all the problems in the world.
41:02
And that's why we got to keep up with.
41:06
That's why we have to, you know, end up with the Bob Weir, the
41:08
Bobby Weir mentality, which is it's very easy to get stuck in a
41:14
finding the problem with everything as opposed to
41:17
pointing out that's funny and that's weird.
41:20
And I don't really get anything. And there's a really, really big
41:25
difference between the two because one of them is laying
41:29
the ground to learning and understanding and, and expanding
41:36
your consciousness. And the other one is just a path
41:40
to more tribalism. The other one is just a path to
41:43
more creating them's and US's. And you know what?
41:48
You like someone, you don't like someone, they're people.
41:52
You know, if you like something like there's a, there's a whole
41:54
life, there's a whole history. There's friends and there's
41:57
family and there's charities and there's communities and there's
42:01
worlds and there's that that that this other person has that
42:07
you're so that that none of us are aware of.
42:10
And we should be curious about that.
42:13
And as humans, we should want to understand that because then we
42:16
can understand more about ourselves or what we could be or
42:19
what we could become. And so learning about the world
42:25
is going to lead you to learning about problems that exist in the
42:28
world. At least that's what I've found.
42:30
And that's kind of what I've been struggling with is that the
42:32
more I learn about different industries, the more I'm seeing
42:35
issues and corruption and, you know, and real, real problems
42:39
within them. And it feels like everywhere you
42:41
look, there's an issue, but everywhere you look, there's
42:45
always hope. There's always people fighting
42:47
it. There's always, even the fact
42:49
that these conversations could even happen is, is a hope to me,
42:52
is a, is a win to me. Even the fact that, you know, I
42:55
mean, and, and the fact that we can talk about these things and
42:58
we can criticize these things. And I could sit here at my house
43:00
on a Sunday afternoon and just talk about this and ramble for,
43:04
you know, 40 minutes or 45 minutes or whatever it is and,
43:10
and express and point out the holes in the problem and, and,
43:14
you know, in, in, in, in, in, in, you know, the holes in some
43:17
good, some, some aspects of life for better, for worse.
43:21
The fact that we could do it and try to get better is the, is all
43:24
the hope that we need. And it reminds me of the, one of
43:29
my favorite concepts of Judaism is, you know, it's a very famous
43:33
idea that the beginning is the first passage or the 1st chapter
43:38
of parish it or Genesis, when God's created in the world.
43:41
And it says that there was like this primordial chaos, Tovahu in
43:45
Hebrew. It was chaos and it was
43:47
craziness or it was, we don't really understand, but it just
43:50
really means this dark confusion and chaos in the world where
43:57
nothing really is understandable.
44:00
And one of the commentaries mentions that humanity and
44:05
consciousness is a response to that chaos.
44:08
It's it's our job to find the order in it and it's our job to
44:10
find the solutions to the problems that we that we come
44:14
across. We are responsible, we are
44:17
acting, we manipulate and respond to our environment.
44:21
We participate in it and we grow.
44:24
And if we continue doing this, then I think that we can really,
44:31
really accomplish wonderful things in the future.
44:33
Even though we have a lot of problems.
44:35
The future is always brighter because we're always able to
44:36
point them out. We're always able we're able to
44:39
identify it and learn about it and respond to it.
44:42
And then as the challenges become greater, so do the winds.
44:45
And I think that this to that, you know, I think that we have
44:48
to start looking at things like winds.
44:49
And again, you don't like the wars that we had this first, you
44:52
know, year in Trump's presidency.
44:55
I get it. How many American deaths were
44:56
there? Very few.
44:58
How many American assets damaged?
44:59
How many million? How many millions of dollars or
45:01
trillions of dollars of equipment were lost?
45:03
Zero, as far as I know, you know, and maybe I'm wrong and
45:07
let me know Fact Check me, but I haven't heard anything.
45:10
And believe me, if that was the case, we'd hear an awful lot
45:13
about it. So I think we'll leave off with
45:16
that. And a bunch of great episodes
45:18
coming at you this week. If you missed last week, had a
45:21
couple of awesome episodes with a jazz musician, check it out.
45:26
If you like jazz, you like music, like learning about music
45:29
theory with a oh man, I have to publish this week.
45:34
I have a couple of a couple episodes coming out that I
45:36
recorded previously who listed I record with this week.
45:40
I can't believe I'm so sorry. I'm forgetting in advance.
45:46
Pacey Newman, of course, and Podrick, which I already talked
45:49
about earlier, of course. Anyway, thank you all very much
45:53
and talk to you soon. See you in a couple of days from
45:55
now.