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Speaker 1: If this is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,

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Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening.

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Speaker 2: Podcast, you can't predict anything.

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Speaker 1: The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.

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Speaker 1: Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting

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Speaker 1: for ELK. First Light has performance apparel to support every

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Speaker 1: hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light

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Speaker 1: dot com. F I R S T L I t

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Speaker 1: E dot com. Good Lord joined today by Sebastian Younger, journalist,

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Speaker 1: bestselling author, documentary filmmaker. He's reported from the battlefield as

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Speaker 1: an embedded war correspondent, written about humans interacting with dangerous

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Speaker 1: jobs with the natural world. Long ago he had the

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Speaker 1: huge international bestseller of The Perfect Storm. He's written an

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Speaker 1: outside magazine where I used to be a correspondent about

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Speaker 1: many things of whale hunters for one, went on to

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Speaker 1: do a ton of work about soldiers and the impacts

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Speaker 1: of war. His latest book, In My Time of Dying,

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Speaker 1: came out last year. It contemplates death and the afterlife

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Speaker 1: after a near death experience. The paperback version. Who knows.

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Speaker 1: If you're looking to save a few bucks, you might

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Speaker 1: have to wait indefinitely Spring of twenty six. I'd recommend

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Speaker 1: going getting the hardcover. Other works from Sebastian include Fire Tribe.

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Speaker 1: I mentioned Perfect Storm already. I remember seeing when that

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Speaker 1: came out, the film with George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg

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Speaker 1: after I read the book about a commercial sword fishing

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Speaker 1: boat that never returned. So we're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: his new book and also about his years as a

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Speaker 1: war correspondent and a bunch of our stuff, man Bash

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Speaker 1: and when you're when when one the Perfect Storm came out?

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Speaker 1: Do that hit me hard? Like in a good way.

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Speaker 1: But you know, one of the biggest things is I

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Speaker 1: used to be a tree a climber for a tree service, really,

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Speaker 1: and I know that the story came out of that

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Speaker 1: that you were climbing, you were a tree service climber

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Speaker 1: had a chainsaw injury. Yep, what was the chain saw injury?

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Speaker 2: So I was doing a ton of work and I

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Speaker 2: was exhausted by the area I lived and it had

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Speaker 2: been hit by a hurricane.

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Speaker 1: Assurance.

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Speaker 2: I was just doing work for home homeowners that needed

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Speaker 2: cheap tree work, and I was sort of a one

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Speaker 2: man show, and sometimes they'd be actually holding the lowering

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Speaker 2: line like the homeowner would be on the line like

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Speaker 2: that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: I was doing a ton of work. I was a

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Speaker 2: good climber. I was exhausted, and I I was I had,

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Speaker 2: you know, I had a little climbing saw and I

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Speaker 2: was working in a big elm and uh. And there

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Speaker 2: was a little sucker that was like between my ankles,

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Speaker 2: like it's sort of getting in the way, like a

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Speaker 2: tiny little branch, right, and I just reached down. I

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Speaker 2: was I was in the flow, right, I mean I

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Speaker 2: was sort of moving right, and I would just reach

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Speaker 2: down to zip it this little sucker, to sort of

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Speaker 2: zipp it so it would we wouldn't like tangle up

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Speaker 2: my feet. And I was just slopping in a hurry.

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Speaker 2: And the tip of the bar hit the tree and

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Speaker 2: popped up in the back of my ankle, and uh,

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Speaker 2: it was I wasn't spiking so I was wearing I

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Speaker 2: wasn't wearing big leather boots, right because I wasn't spiking

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Speaker 2: the tree. It was a prune and and it just

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Speaker 2: went right into the back of my ankle and I

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Speaker 2: it didn't hurt, but I was like something hit my ankle.

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Speaker 2: The only thing moving down there was the chainsaw. I

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Speaker 2: got it, I should just at least take a look

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Speaker 2: to make sure I'm all right, And UH turned off

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Speaker 2: the saw and clipped it on my belt and U

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Speaker 2: and pulled my pant leg up and h sure enough

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Speaker 2: so I could see my achilles tendon. I mean, I

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Speaker 2: was looking at it right, and but it wasn't It

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Speaker 2: wasn't cut. It just had been laid open. And I

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Speaker 2: repelled down to the you know, the ground, and my

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Speaker 2: crew took me, took me to a sort of urgent

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Speaker 2: care place and they sewed me up. But it got me.

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Speaker 2: I was limping for quite a while, and it got

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Speaker 2: me thinking about dangerous work and that there's all this

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Speaker 2: work in this country that the nation needs, right. We

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Speaker 2: need people drilling for oil, we need loggers, we need

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Speaker 2: all kinds of people doing you know, commercial fishermen, and

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Speaker 2: no one's really thinking about them. And they're taking casualty

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Speaker 2: rates that you know, are sometimes comparable to units in

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Speaker 2: the US military. Right. I mean, it's like it, there's

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Speaker 2: the commercial fishing industry is deadly right, And so I thought,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to write about dangerous work and because it's

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Speaker 2: no one's thinking about it, and these people deserve some

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Speaker 2: some love.

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Speaker 1: Basically, you were already fixing the writ You were already

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Speaker 1: fixing to be a writer.

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Speaker 2: Though. Yeah, I'd spent my I sort of muddled my

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Speaker 2: way through my twenties trying to figure out how to

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Speaker 2: be a freelance writer and you know which, you know,

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Speaker 2: I've waited tables for a while, and then I got

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Speaker 2: this great job as a climber, which I was really proud.

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Speaker 2: I was a terrible but I was a good climber, right,

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Speaker 2: And so one of the things I really liked about

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Speaker 2: climbing is that you know it's inherently dangerous. You're eighty

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Speaker 2: feet in the air with a chainsaw or whatever, and

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Speaker 2: of course you can get killed up there. But I

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Speaker 2: realized there's no random element, Like if you're going to

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Speaker 2: get killed doing treework is because you screwed up. You know,

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Speaker 2: It's like chess. You don't lose a chess because you

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Speaker 2: rolled the dice wrong, right. You lose a chess because

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Speaker 2: you may bad decisions and the other guy didn't. And

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Speaker 2: treework was the same way. If you don't make a mistake,

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Speaker 2: you're gonna be all right. So really focus, be in

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Speaker 2: the moment right now and be perfect and there was

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Speaker 2: almost a sort of zen discipline to that mindset that

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Speaker 2: I really really liked.

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Speaker 1: Did you have awareness of commercial fishing from growing up?

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Speaker 1: You grow up mass chooses, right, Yeah, I.

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Speaker 2: Mean at the no, except that at the time I'd

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Speaker 2: moved up to a fishing town called Gloucester with my

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Speaker 2: girlfriend at the time, and I was doing treework from

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Speaker 2: there locally and in Boston and writing, you know, working

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Speaker 2: on this writing project. In that writing proce. My girlfriend

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Speaker 2: was a violinist and uh, you know, pretty typical sort

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Speaker 2: of bohemian, you know, young person's life for a while,

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Speaker 2: very nice, and Gloucester was a really you know, rugged

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Speaker 2: fishing town.

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Speaker 1: And I was there.

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Speaker 2: We were there and I was limping around from my

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Speaker 2: chainsaw wound when this huge storm hit the coast of

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Speaker 2: New England. And the next day I found out that

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Speaker 2: a Gloucester boat, Andrea Gail, with six men, have been

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Speaker 2: lost one thousand miles off shore along line here.

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Speaker 1: What's that again?

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Speaker 2: That storm nineteen ninety one, And then there were these

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Speaker 2: crazy rescues as well, and the seas offshore were measured

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Speaker 2: at one hundred feet, which was sort of record setting.

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Speaker 2: The offshore data booies were registering one hundred feet and

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Speaker 2: did you.

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Speaker 1: Can't you can't even like a you know what I mean, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can't picture it?

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Speaker 3: Oh god, I mean you gotta picture five feet and

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Speaker 3: a skiff is like, oh my god, I'm gonna die.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, when you're yeah, you gotta like I'm just trying

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Speaker 1: to think of how to you could probably explain it

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Speaker 1: to listeners, but I mean, like a five foot swell

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Speaker 1: of skiers everything. A five foot swell if you're in

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Speaker 1: a small boat, and a five foot swell your your

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Speaker 1: sub your sub wave. Yeah, I mean like when you look,

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Speaker 1: it's just water, hard foot waves.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And this was a sixty eight foot steel hauled

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Speaker 2: longlining long liner and but still sixty eight feet in

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Speaker 2: seas of seventy eighty feet ninety feet is it'll get overwhelmed, right,

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Speaker 2: It can be flipped end over end, pitch poled, rolls,

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Speaker 2: you know, all kinds of things can happen.

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Speaker 1: Has that Did that boat ever get recovered?

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Speaker 2: No? No, they don't. They lost radio contact. They don't

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Speaker 2: know where it went down.

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Speaker 4: I don't mean to jump ahead to the movie, but

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Speaker 4: the visual one of the visuals, I mean the visuals

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Speaker 4: in the movie of the the boat going up these

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Speaker 4: waves and down these waves, I think like always stands

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Speaker 4: out in my mind as something that's in You're watching

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Speaker 4: it and you're like, this can't.

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Speaker 2: Happen on Earth.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, did you ever talk to people who had been

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Speaker 4: in c's like that and what as far as like

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Speaker 4: what they're how accurately that captured the.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I didn't. I talked to them to

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Speaker 2: research the book, So I didn't after the movie. I

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Speaker 2: didn't because I'd done my work on that topic. But yeah,

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Speaker 2: I mean, the boat disappeared, and I was trying to

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Speaker 2: understand what it was probably like for those guys before

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Speaker 2: they went down. So I talked to other captains of

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Speaker 2: other boats sort of in the area that had survived.

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Speaker 2: And I even talked to a guy named Ernie Hazzard

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Speaker 2: whose boat was pitch pulled off George's Bank and flipped

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Speaker 2: end over ends, and he wound up trapped in the

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Speaker 2: cabin in a flooded cabin upside down at night in

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Speaker 2: the North Atlantic, I mean, the ultimate nightmare, right, And

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Speaker 2: he managed to on a lungful of air, swim out

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Speaker 2: through a busted window and make his way to the

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Speaker 2: surface in this huge storm and the life raft popped

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Speaker 2: up right next to him and he got in it

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Speaker 2: and he managed to survive. So I interviewed him about

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Speaker 2: what's it like to be trapped in a flooded boat

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Speaker 2: upside down at night? What's going through your mind? Because

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Speaker 2: I was trying to recreate the state of mind of

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Speaker 2: those guys in their last day, the last hours, their

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Speaker 2: last minutes. And yeah, so these captains said that, you

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Speaker 2: know the waves, they're they're huge, and the problem isn't

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Speaker 2: that their individual waves are that big that they will

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Speaker 2: but they'll converge, like waves will they coming get from

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Speaker 2: different directions, They'll converge, and suddenly you have a wave

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Speaker 2: that's twice as high as all the other waves, and

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Speaker 2: they will just overwhelm you.

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Speaker 1: Hmm oh man. Yeah, uh, when you like when you

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Speaker 1: developed I don't want to call it stick seems real condescending,

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Speaker 1: That's not what I mean. But like when you decided

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Speaker 1: to focus on that the dangerous work thing? Was that

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Speaker 1: did that become like a I guess, like a strategic

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Speaker 1: professional decision or was it was it personal obsession or

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Speaker 1: was it just like that you wanted to make you

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Speaker 1: want to make a living as a writer and this

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Speaker 1: would be a wave that you could develop expertise and

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Speaker 1: establish a name for yourself.

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Speaker 2: So I've always been a sort of purist about only

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Speaker 2: working on things that I find so compelling that I

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Speaker 2: would do that work for free if I had to,

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Speaker 2: just in order to find out about that topic. And

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Speaker 2: this was a case where I've never made purely commercial concerns.

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Speaker 2: I think that like sort of ruins your work. But

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Speaker 2: this was a case actually where a sort of personal

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Speaker 2: decision about what fascinated me actually coincided with something that

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Speaker 2: turned out to be a great commercial decision. And you know,

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Speaker 2: I didn't strategize it like that. I've never thought like

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Speaker 2: that in terms of my work, but it actually was

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Speaker 2: a kind of good fit for where the marketplace was

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Speaker 2: at the time, and no one had really studs. Turtle

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Speaker 2: wrote a great book called Working It was an oral

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Speaker 2: history of work, an amazing book, but it wasn't focused

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Speaker 2: on dangerous work, right, and you know, I just I

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Speaker 2: just thought this is you know, there was a sort

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Speaker 2: of class issue here, you know, I mean, the people

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Speaker 2: that do dangerous work are mostly not exclusively mostly working

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Speaker 2: class mails and they get hurt and they die without

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Speaker 2: much fanfare and we're all depending on their work, right,

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Speaker 2: And I mean we all we live in houses made

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Speaker 2: out of wood that someone cut down, and we're eating

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Speaker 2: fish and you know, gone and on, we're driving cars

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Speaker 2: that oil got drilled out of the ground by somebody,

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Speaker 2: you know. And and so I just all that was

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Speaker 2: really compelling to me. And uh and and it turned

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Speaker 2: out to be a sort of gap in the market.

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Speaker 2: You know, no one had really focused on this yet,

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Speaker 2: and so you.

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Speaker 1: Know it works. Do you do you intentionally steer clear

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Speaker 1: of some of the broader geopolitical concerns when you're getting

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Speaker 1: like like if you get into if you're talking about

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Speaker 1: oil workers, you don't want to set it up like

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Speaker 1: it's a debate about dependence on oil, right, if you're

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Speaker 1: talking about timber, you're not setting it up that it's

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Speaker 1: a debate about how much old growth logging too much?

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Speaker 1: Like you try to really focus on these people that

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Speaker 1: are focus on the lives of people who ye are

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Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to put. Like Randall I talk

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Speaker 1: a lot about with the with market hunters of a

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Speaker 1: century ago, would be they probably if you quiz them,

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Speaker 1: they're probably aware of the broader geopolitical market factors. That

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Speaker 1: are pushing them to do what they do. But there

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Speaker 1: their desire to participate or they're moving into participate is

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Speaker 1: like politically agnostic. It's like they're doing it because that's

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Speaker 1: what that's what's available to them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So there are great journalists, better journalists than I

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Speaker 2: am in so many ways, that are writing about the

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Speaker 2: sort of macro issues. I'm not an economist, I'm not

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Speaker 2: a scient you know, whatever. There's there's people doing really

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Speaker 2: good work about the you know, the urgent issues of

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Speaker 2: our day, the economy, the climate, you know, whatever you

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Speaker 2: name it. Right, I'm not that guy, right, like what what?

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Speaker 1: What? Really?

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Speaker 2: And it it interests me because I'm a part of

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Speaker 2: the planet and part of the country, and I'm invested

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Speaker 2: in the out in good outcomes, right, But I'm not Intellectually,

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Speaker 2: it doesn't interest me that much. What interests me is

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Speaker 2: people's experiences, and that often gets lost in the reporting.

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Speaker 2: And so when I was I mean, just to jump

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Speaker 2: ahead a bit in my in my career, but you know,

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Speaker 2: many years later, when I was embedded with US forces

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Speaker 2: in Afghanistan, you know, I had plenty of personal opinions

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Speaker 2: about the war, you know, and some some positive, some critical,

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Speaker 2: but I wanted to write about the soldiers, right. I

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Speaker 2: was one semary third Airborne in a remote valley with

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Speaker 2: a lot of combat. I was interested in those in

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Speaker 2: those guys, and they were not They themselves were not

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Speaker 2: thinking about the war in large scale terms. They just

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Speaker 2: weren't thinking about it, right, Yeah, And and so when

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Speaker 2: I wrote my book War and made my film or

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Speaker 2: Strepo about those guys, there was no discussion about the

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Speaker 2: larger issues because those guys were not interested in it.

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Speaker 2: And I wanted to. I wanted to make work that

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Speaker 2: made people understand what it was like to be an

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Speaker 2: American soldier in bout Afghanistan. Like end of sentence, and

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Speaker 2: you know, they're twenty years old, they're twenty one years old.

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Speaker 2: They're I wasn't thinking about the economy when I was twenty,

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Speaker 2: Like why why would they, you know, like, why would

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Speaker 2: they think about the larger issues? They're they're they're they're

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Speaker 2: already have their hands full of just doing the job

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Speaker 2: that's right in front of them.

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Speaker 1: When when, if if you go back to look at

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Speaker 1: your work with your work with Swordfish Longliners, where there's

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Speaker 1: a disaster, lives are lost, and then you come in

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Speaker 1: after and explain that to go to become a war correspondent.

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Speaker 1: You're like, you're you're not in the after. It's like

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Speaker 1: you're in the mix, right, I mean that that like

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Speaker 1: it puts you on the long line boat. Yeah, in

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Speaker 1: the storm. Yeah? What was that? Like? How would that

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Speaker 1: with your family friends? Did they think you were not slight?

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Speaker 2: Like?

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Speaker 1: How did it come about that? You're like, man, I

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Speaker 1: want to go and I want to like be with

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Speaker 1: soldiers in combat. Right do I call the Pentagon? You know?

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Speaker 1: How do I get this rolling?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I'd done a little bit of that

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Speaker 2: in the early nineties. That was in Idaho on some

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Speaker 2: hot shot crews. They're fighting these big fires. I was

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Speaker 2: really interested in wildland fire and myself I would have

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Speaker 2: loved to have been on a hot shot crew. I

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Speaker 2: just didn't. From the East Coast where I lived, the

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Speaker 2: bureaucracy trying to figure out how to do that just

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Speaker 2: on a bureaucratic level was almost impossible, and so I

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Speaker 2: ended up reporting on them, spent quite a lot of

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Speaker 2: time out there. So I was I sort of participant

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Speaker 2: a journalist in some situations before that. But my first

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Speaker 2: war was in nineteen ninety three on backup for one second.

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Speaker 1: When you were doing the fire stuff, though, did they

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Speaker 1: really let you get in there or was it too

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Speaker 1: they did? Okay, oh yeah, I didn't know if it

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Speaker 1: was like if it'd be like sort of too easy

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Speaker 1: to constrain someone and keep them out of harm's way.

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Speaker 2: For no, they just put They just put me on

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Speaker 2: a helicopter and dropped me in and yeah, yeah, yeah

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Speaker 2: it was amazing. And I mean with absolutely no I

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Speaker 2: absolutely no credentials or anything. I mean, I just showed up.

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Speaker 1: It's refreshing to hear that that. Yeah, someone didn't be

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Speaker 1: like no, no, no, no, no, you stay here.

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Speaker 2: It was the early nineties, right, I don't you know,

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Speaker 2: maybe different now, But I showed up. I was like, hey,

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Speaker 2: you know, I'm interested in writing about wildland fire and

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Speaker 2: could you get me on a crew? And the next

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Speaker 2: thing I knew, I was in a helicopter. They dropped

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Speaker 2: me off for the shot crew up in the you know,

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Speaker 2: mountains north of Idaho, north of Boise. It was a

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Speaker 2: huge fire.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Was the process a lot different becoming a war correspondent?

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Speaker 3: Like were there was there certain training you had to

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Speaker 3: go through or like security clearances and.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, most wars are don't involve you as military.

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Speaker 2: Most wars in the world, right, so there isn't a

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Speaker 2: government agency involved in whether you can go to Sierra Leone, right, So,

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Speaker 2: I mean I covered civil wars in West Africa. I

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Speaker 2: was in Afghanistan in nineteen ninety six. I watched the

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Speaker 2: Taliban takeover. I was with the in Kobble.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because you interviewed you interviewed a mom.

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Speaker 2: Masud. Yes, I'm Shamsud.

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Speaker 1: He was killed, Yeah, he was killed by later interviewers.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I interviewed him. I spent two months with him

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Speaker 2: and his forces in Badakshan in two thousand and the

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Speaker 2: fall of two thousand and I was with his commanders

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Speaker 2: when they took when they liberated Kabo after nine to eleven.

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Speaker 1: And that's incredible, man, Yeah, it's amazing.

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Speaker 2: So the guy, you know, the US government has nothing

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Speaker 2: to do with that decision of yours to go seek

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Speaker 2: out Masud and spend a couple of months with him

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Speaker 2: fighting the Taliban in northern Afghanistan. They have nothing to

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Speaker 2: do with it, right, And so I wasn't embedded with

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Speaker 2: US forces until two thousand and five, was the first time.

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Speaker 2: So most of my war reporting has not been with

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Speaker 2: US forces.

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Speaker 1: It's just Spen. You try to get closer, closer, closer,

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Speaker 1: until you're in it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was, you know, my first war was

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Speaker 2: Sarajevo in nineteen ninety three, besieged by the Bosnian Serbs.

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Speaker 2: It was a you know, I would say, I mean,

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Speaker 2: I'm showing my sympathies here, but I would say it

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Speaker 2: was quite similar to Russia and Ukraine, except on a

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Speaker 2: much scale. Right, It's not Russian Ukraine. It's the Bosnian

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Speaker 2: Serbs and in Bosnia, but the same sort of awful

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Speaker 2: shelling of civilians they besieged Sarajevo. It was an ethnic,

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Speaker 2: ethnically driven conflict, you know, sort of a nationalistic conflict

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Speaker 2: and grotesque, grotesquely violent, And I you know, I managed

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Speaker 2: to convince a magazine editor I knew at a magazine

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Speaker 2: called Men's Journal, which is back in the day a

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Speaker 2: pretty good magazine, and he wrote, he gave he gave

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Speaker 2: me a sort of letter of passage like Sebastian is

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Speaker 2: working on a piece for us for which wasn't even

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Speaker 2: true for the boar of civil war in Bosnia, and please,

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Speaker 2: you know, help them in any way you can I

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Speaker 2: just like showed that to some un guy and he

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Speaker 2: gave me a un press pass and the next thing

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Speaker 2: I knew, I was on a relief flight into Sarajevo

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Speaker 2: and then boom there. I was like it was no

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Speaker 2: credentials from anybody, right, But there were a lot of

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Speaker 2: freelancers in Sarajevo who made their made their bones. I

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Speaker 2: mean it sort of like learned the craft because they

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Speaker 2: just put themselves in that situation. They started lansing radio newspaper.

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Speaker 2: You know. I went there basically the girlfriend I was

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Speaker 2: living with in Gloucester dumped me and I was, you know.

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Speaker 1: I'll show you, right. So I was sort of heart

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Speaker 1: heartbroken and.

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Speaker 2: Like, oh I can you mean, I can do anything

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Speaker 2: I want right now? Are you kidding?

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Speaker 1: Right?

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Speaker 2: So it was that that heady mix of heartbreak and liberation,

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Speaker 2: you know what I mean. It's sort of an interesting

390
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Speaker 2: moment and people in your life and uh So I

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Speaker 2: went to SFO and there was a lot of other

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Speaker 2: freelancers like me, and I would say eighty percent of

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Speaker 2: them were young males like I was. And I would

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Speaker 2: say eighty percent of those guys had just been dumped

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Speaker 2: by their girlfriend, like.

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Speaker 1: You know eight.

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Speaker 4: So oh sorry, I was gonna say, there's a there's

398
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Speaker 4: a book My War Gone By miss it.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, I met him. Yeah, I met him in

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Speaker 2: Bosnia in ninety three.

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Speaker 4: I mean that I remember reading that. That probably read

402
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Speaker 4: that fifteen or so years ago. But yeah, it's a

403
00:19:55,720 --> 00:19:58,520
Speaker 4: very similar story. I mean it's like in hotel rooms.

404
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Speaker 2: And yeah, he was probably dumped by his girlfriend. Also, yeah,

405
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Speaker 2: he seemed like it.

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Speaker 1: You know, it was seventeen years ago this summer that

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Speaker 1: I first decided I didn't want to die, okay, And

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Speaker 1: I realized when I was I topped my last I

409
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Speaker 1: topped my last big tree. Yeah, and and you know

410
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Speaker 1: that thing when you relieve that top load, it really

411
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Speaker 1: bucks like Bucks huge. And I used to just I

412
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Speaker 1: liked it, was indifferent to it, didn't think about it.

413
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Speaker 1: And I was like, man, I don't want to I

414
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Speaker 1: climbed down on that tree. Never like I changed my behaviors.

415
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Speaker 1: And I was getting married that summer. But you have

416
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Speaker 1: to to go do what you did, Like tree climb

417
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Speaker 1: is one thing, but to go do you did, and

418
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Speaker 1: like go into Afghanistan during the Civil War when for

419
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Speaker 1: a lot of people, having an American captive is really cool.

420
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Speaker 1: And then being able to like kill an American captive

421
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Speaker 1: is enticing. Right, It's like you had to kind of

422
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Speaker 1: have been like I mean, I don't sound like you know,

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Speaker 1: like you had like like it's like a mental issue,

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Speaker 1: but you had to be like kind of indifferent to death. No.

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Speaker 2: I wasn't indifferent to death, but I felt like I

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Speaker 2: was taking calculated risks that were manageable, like I wouldn't. Yeah,

427
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Speaker 2: I would never have gone into Syria. I mean Syria

428
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Speaker 2: there was an open market for Western Yeah, right.

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Speaker 1: So when Afghanistan didn't feel that way when you were.

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Speaker 2: No, I mean I was. I was with Masoud and

431
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Speaker 2: the Northern Alliance and there were absolutely zero issues with

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Speaker 2: them about they were my hosts and my protectors, right,

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Speaker 2: I mean.

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Speaker 1: Wow, But he was also blown up, Yeah, of course,

435
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:41,280
Speaker 1: I mean right, but I don't shooting people around him, right.

436
00:21:41,359 --> 00:21:43,040
Speaker 2: But you know, it's not like they would have seized

437
00:21:43,080 --> 00:21:44,720
Speaker 2: me and decided to cut my head off, right, I

438
00:21:44,720 --> 00:21:46,840
Speaker 2: mean I was among the people. I mean I was

439
00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:49,600
Speaker 2: there to report on the frankly, the tragedy and the

440
00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:52,600
Speaker 2: outrage of what the Taliban back by Pakistan were doing

441
00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:54,880
Speaker 2: to the Afghan people, Right, I mean and they were

442
00:21:54,920 --> 00:21:57,960
Speaker 2: full the people, the Northern Alliance and MASUD were fully

443
00:21:57,960 --> 00:21:59,720
Speaker 2: on board with the fact that someone had from the

444
00:21:59,760 --> 00:22:02,240
Speaker 2: West and pressed had come in to shine a spotlight

445
00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:03,480
Speaker 2: on them. So I was very I.

446
00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:04,520
Speaker 1: Mean, they felt protected.

447
00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:07,720
Speaker 2: They would have died protecting me, right, I mean, seriously

448
00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:10,920
Speaker 2: not true in West Africa. West Africa was a lot scarier.

449
00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:15,359
Speaker 2: Even the indigenous forces that I was with. I didn't

450
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:18,280
Speaker 2: trust them because they were traumatized child soldiers, all high

451
00:22:18,280 --> 00:22:20,959
Speaker 2: on drugs, so, you know, like it just there were

452
00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:23,320
Speaker 2: a lot of variables that were terrifying, and I had

453
00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:27,960
Speaker 2: some incredibly scary situations with them.

454
00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:31,360
Speaker 1: What would you categorize when you say that, like, what

455
00:22:31,359 --> 00:22:34,439
Speaker 1: would be the kind of scenario or situation you'd be

456
00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:37,080
Speaker 1: in that you would categorize as scary, because I think

457
00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:39,880
Speaker 1: most people would find that every moment was scary, you know,

458
00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:41,720
Speaker 1: just to be in the proximity of shelling, to be

459
00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:42,800
Speaker 1: in the proximity of war.

460
00:22:43,720 --> 00:22:46,040
Speaker 2: Well, I've been shelled plenty, and that's very scary. I

461
00:22:46,040 --> 00:22:47,760
Speaker 2: mean I've been shot at. I mean, lots of things

462
00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 2: have happened, But I think the two scariest moments I

463
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:57,000
Speaker 2: think were moments were where I had where I thought

464
00:22:57,040 --> 00:23:00,240
Speaker 2: I was going to be executed, right, And both of

465
00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:02,959
Speaker 2: them were in West Africa. One was in Sierra Leone.

466
00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:06,439
Speaker 2: I was coming back from a frontline fight back towards

467
00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:09,639
Speaker 2: Freetown and with a couple of government soldiers and a

468
00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:13,280
Speaker 2: couple of journalists and a group of rebels stepped out

469
00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:16,680
Speaker 2: of the jungle and stopped us on this deserted road.

470
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:20,240
Speaker 2: And two weeks later they wiped out two cars full

471
00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:24,880
Speaker 2: of journalists on the same road, like right near where

472
00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:28,000
Speaker 2: we were. These same guys stopped us and they had

473
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:30,720
Speaker 2: their rifles the machine guns leveled, and they were arguing

474
00:23:30,720 --> 00:23:32,520
Speaker 2: with each other. We were in an open jeep and

475
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:34,720
Speaker 2: they were arguing with each other, seemed to be arguing

476
00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:36,239
Speaker 2: with each other but whether to kill us all or not.

477
00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:38,199
Speaker 2: And we just said there was nothing we could do,

478
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:41,440
Speaker 2: and we just sat there. And at one point one

479
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:45,520
Speaker 2: of them like leveled his rifle at us to fire,

480
00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:48,000
Speaker 2: and another guy grabbed the barrel and jerked it upwards

481
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:51,239
Speaker 2: so it wouldn't come. So, you know, I had, you know,

482
00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:53,400
Speaker 2: for about ten or fifteen minutes, I was thinking this

483
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:58,520
Speaker 2: really could go down, right, And it was the extraordinary feeling.

484
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:03,600
Speaker 2: I became sort of I just associated, right, I mean,

485
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:05,959
Speaker 2: my body sort of went numb, and I was so

486
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:07,879
Speaker 2: scared that I wasn't even scared anymore. It's like I

487
00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:12,240
Speaker 2: wasn't there, and the psychological effect. And then they didn't

488
00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 2: shoot us, and I don't know why, right, And the

489
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:18,399
Speaker 2: psychological trauma of that is way worse than someone shooting

490
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:20,520
Speaker 2: at you from three hundred meters and you managed to

491
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 2: get behind some sandbags. I mean, that's child's play, right,

492
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 2: compared to, Wow, we are totally screwed and they could

493
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:29,080
Speaker 2: shoot us or not. And then a similar thing happened

494
00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:32,520
Speaker 2: in Nigeria in two thousand and six. I was seized

495
00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:36,359
Speaker 2: by rebels, the Ejah Warriors, who were fighting in a

496
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:39,119
Speaker 2: group called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta,

497
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 2: a partly criminal, partly righteous like group. And they seized

498
00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:47,159
Speaker 2: me in a small village in the creeks and the

499
00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:51,240
Speaker 2: Niger River and in the Delta, and the accused me

500
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:53,719
Speaker 2: of being a spy. And one guy came up sort

501
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 2: of strutted up to me, you know, machine gun and

502
00:24:56,119 --> 00:24:58,680
Speaker 2: these guys, these Ejoh warriors are they they got feathers

503
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:00,639
Speaker 2: and paint and all kinds of Fea dishes on them.

504
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 2: And they're wild looking guys, right, and really intense warriors.

505
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 2: And he said, very matter of fact, very matter of factly,

506
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 2: he said, when we when we kill you later today,

507
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:14,359
Speaker 2: I'm going to be the one to do it. He

508
00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 2: didn't say it meanly, he was just I just want

509
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:18,440
Speaker 2: you to know, you know, just by way of introduction.

510
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 1: That's like Princess Bride. Remember the pirate probably kill you

511
00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 1: in the morning.

512
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 2: Right, So I you know, I was just remember thinking,

513
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 2: don't let your knees buckle, like whatever you do, don't

514
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:32,440
Speaker 2: let your knees buckle. And so those, you know, those

515
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:33,720
Speaker 2: two situations are.

516
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:34,880
Speaker 1: Do you think he's just tormenting you?

517
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:37,480
Speaker 2: I don't know what he was doing. There was a

518
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:42,200
Speaker 2: lot of uh, I don't know. There was a lot

519
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 2: of aggression. There was a lot of sort of performative aggression.

520
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 2: They didn't know who I was. Their commander. Eventually they

521
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 2: called their commander and put me on the phone with

522
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 2: him on a cell phone like one bar of signal,

523
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:54,880
Speaker 2: like I was standing on top of a log trying

524
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 2: to maintain myself connection with him. And he was in

525
00:25:56,800 --> 00:26:00,560
Speaker 2: South Africa, actually he was an arms dealer and Africa

526
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:05,880
Speaker 2: but indigenous Ejaw, and I talked with him and he said, okay,

527
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:08,240
Speaker 2: give the phone back to the the guy who gave

528
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:10,439
Speaker 2: you the phone. And I didn't know what he was

529
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 2: going to say, and he say kill him or don't

530
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:17,359
Speaker 2: any I gave the phone back and the guy said, okay, sir, yes, sir,

531
00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:19,480
Speaker 2: all right, we'll do it. And I didn't know what,

532
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 2: you know, and he shut the phone, you know, flip

533
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:24,640
Speaker 2: the phone with the flip phone. He flipped the clothes

534
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:27,359
Speaker 2: and they said it's gonna be fine, We're gonna let

535
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:29,159
Speaker 2: you go. But I didn't know until that moment that

536
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 2: it would be fine. So they might have been bluffing.

537
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:33,880
Speaker 2: I mean he might You know, I'm an American, right,

538
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:37,080
Speaker 2: I mean, you know there are repercussions for whacking America.

539
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 3: Was going to ask, is there is there, like any truth?

540
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:43,159
Speaker 3: Is it like a myth that like being a member

541
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:46,679
Speaker 3: of like the American press, affords you some degree of

542
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 3: safety in those situations.

543
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it protects you with people that don't

544
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:54,359
Speaker 2: want to get on the wrong side of America, and

545
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 2: the e Jaw, as badassed as they are, probably don't want,

546
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:01,159
Speaker 2: you know, the American military as an adversary. They you know,

547
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:03,639
Speaker 2: they have their hands full of the Nigerian military, right. So,

548
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:09,199
Speaker 2: but then there's groups like ISIS who make you know,

549
00:27:09,240 --> 00:27:12,640
Speaker 2: there the point of their existence is to fight America,

550
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 2: to fight the infidelal to fight the West. So you know,

551
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 2: it's like depends what you're talking about.

552
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:24,359
Speaker 1: How different did it feel for you when it was, uh,

553
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 1: when when you got to a point and the global

554
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:31,840
Speaker 1: War on terror started and all of a sudden it

555
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 1: was like you were with like Americans.

556
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 2: Oh it was. It was so nice, right because I

557
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 2: didn't have to worry that the people I was with

558
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:40,159
Speaker 2: were gonna kill me. Right if I got wounded, I

559
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:43,119
Speaker 2: knew I'd be evacuated. Like I knew that these guys

560
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:46,400
Speaker 2: would do whatever they could to help me, and and

561
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 2: as I would them as I got to know them, right,

562
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:51,439
Speaker 2: I mean, I really this one, you know. So I

563
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 2: spent most in beds are a week or two, right,

564
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 2: And but I spent a year off and on with

565
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:58,479
Speaker 2: one platoon, which was like thirty forty guys at this

566
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 2: remote outpost called Bristreppo was named after the platoon medic

567
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 2: who was killed, you know, basically at the bottom of

568
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 2: the hill. And so I really became part of that

569
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:15,600
Speaker 2: platoon and enjoyed the profound comfort of being part of

570
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,119
Speaker 2: a group, you know, I mean a really ancient and

571
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:23,199
Speaker 2: a really ancient and pretty much a way that's been

572
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 2: pretty much lost to our society here at home. I

573
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 2: felt like, Wow, I belonged to this thing, and they

574
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 2: would risk their lives for me, and I know I

575
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 2: would for them, and here we are, let's get it done,

576
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 2: you know. And it was. It was absolutely extraordinary, and

577
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 2: so that that experience really changed me, right, I mean,

578
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 2: I feel like in our society we don't get to

579
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:47,240
Speaker 2: enjoy that group affiliation at such a profound in such

580
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 2: a profound way. And it is what our evolutionary past

581
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 2: consists of, right, that we're social primates. We survived. We

582
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 2: survived not because we're rugged individuals, but because we affiliate

583
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 2: very well. And in when we're in groups like that,

584
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 2: the individuals in them will risk their lives or give

585
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 2: their lives to protect the group.

586
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 4: You know.

587
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 2: It's like firemen or something, right, And that's our evolutionary past.

588
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 2: And when you find yourself in a situation like that,

589
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 2: it is almost intoxicating. It plays to so much evolutionary

590
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 2: wiring It plays to so many profound human emotions, and

591
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 2: I just kept thinking, this is this is all I want,

592
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 2: Like I don't want to go home? Why would I

593
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 2: want to do that?

594
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 1: Like?

595
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 2: It was quite extraordinary.

596
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 1: And that was with how that was a group of

597
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:31,640
Speaker 1: what size? Then?

598
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 2: You know, thirty guys or so? I mean, you know,

599
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 2: so thirty to fifty people was the anthropologists will tell

600
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 2: you it was the typical group size in our evolutionary past. Right,

601
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 2: so the groups of about that size that are affiliated

602
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 2: by clan or by tribe with other groups around that size.

603
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,080
Speaker 2: But the sort of survival community is about that size,

604
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 2: and it you know, it's sort of a perfect size.

605
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 2: It's the largest number that you can have quite close

606
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 2: emotional relationships with. And you can't be emotionally close to

607
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 2: five hundred dudes, right, it's not happening. Right, even if

608
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:07,600
Speaker 2: you're in the same battalion. That's a rather abstract knowledge, right,

609
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 2: But thirty forty people, You're like, wow, these are my people.

610
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 2: What wouldn't I do for them?

611
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:11,960
Speaker 1: Right?

612
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:14,600
Speaker 2: And of course in our evolutionary past, it wouldn't be

613
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 2: all one sex, it wouldn't be all male. It would

614
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 2: be a mix, right, it would be a mix of

615
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:23,760
Speaker 2: old and young, male and female, et cetera. And what

616
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:26,480
Speaker 2: wouldn't you do with you know, with your family, what

617
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 2: wouldn't you do to protect them? Like? Nothing, you would

618
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 2: do anything to protect them, right, Feeling that way about

619
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 2: thirty or forty people. That is the human experience and

620
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 2: evolutionary terms, and it's the loss of that experience for

621
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:42,520
Speaker 2: most people in modern society is a tragic one.

622
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 1: The other day, we had some anthropologists here and they

623
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:50,920
Speaker 1: were excavating. They had been working on an excavation of

624
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 1: an ice age encampment and wyoming. Okay, so these are

625
00:30:56,280 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 1: like mammoth hunters, right right, and we're about, well, how big,

626
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 1: like how big was the encampment? Then he's like thirty

627
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:10,080
Speaker 1: forty people? Yeah, yeah, yah, yeah, exactly, yeah, age, you

628
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:10,560
Speaker 1: know what I mean?

629
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's exactly, that's exactly right.

630
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's the thing I've been like, you should feel

631
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:21,520
Speaker 1: free as we're talking. I would. I appreciate that you're

632
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 1: not doing this, but I I appreciate the impulse. Please

633
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 1: tie into the books. Oh yeah, like what you're talking

634
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: about now is your book tribe? Yes?

635
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 2: Right, exactly, Yeah, I wrote a book, right, I wrote

636
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:35,560
Speaker 2: a book tribe.

637
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 1: That's not what you're talking about, but you're yeah, these

638
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:42,200
Speaker 1: ideas are explored and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

639
00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:43,800
Speaker 2: No. I was trying to figure out, why does this

640
00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 2: modern society, which is so safe and so affluent, have

641
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 2: such high rates of mental illness, you know, depression and anxiety, suicide, addiction.

642
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:54,960
Speaker 2: Why was it that along the American frontier at his

643
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:58,240
Speaker 2: various points in Pennsylvania and the Ohio and further west

644
00:31:58,280 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 2: all the way to Texas and Arizon, Like why we're

645
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 2: pioneers constantly sort of absconding into native society and disappearing

646
00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 2: in native society and the natives didn't do the opposite,

647
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 2: and and what it really seemed to be And in

648
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:14,680
Speaker 2: Benjamin Franklin wrote about this because of course, if you're

649
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 2: like a good Christian, the idea that like white Christians

650
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 2: would rather live with what they called the savages, like

651
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:24,160
Speaker 2: is it flies in the face of the entire sense

652
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 2: of Western superiority, right, And Benjamin Franklin wrote letters about

653
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 2: this like what is the appeal? And the appeal is

654
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 2: that that those kinds of organic hunter gatherer societies are

655
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:43,719
Speaker 2: extremely egalitarian. The leadership is not imposed, it's granted by

656
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 2: the people. I mean, all these sort of like democratic

657
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 2: ideals that are that we do not live up to

658
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 2: actually are acted out in societies of that scale. And

659
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 2: and there's community, there's community, really close community. And and

660
00:32:58,240 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 2: of course if you're a young man, instead of having

661
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 2: to plow fields all day, you can go hunting, like

662
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, like what like what's not

663
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 2: to like sort of yeah, and and so that so

664
00:33:08,920 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 2: that was my the genesis of my thought that maybe

665
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 2: what people are really drawn to is close connection to

666
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 2: each other. And that's why the soldiers that I was with,

667
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 2: against all apparent logic, they missed being at Restrepo. They

668
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:26,960
Speaker 2: got back to their girlfriends and their families and bars

669
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 2: and everything, you know, all the things young men like.

670
00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 2: He's like, whoa. I mean, A number of them said

671
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 2: to me, if we could take a helicopter back to

672
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 2: Restrepo right now and do another year out there, we

673
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:36,080
Speaker 2: would do it.

674
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:36,360
Speaker 1: Yeah.

675
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 2: And that's how that So my book Tribe was about

676
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:40,680
Speaker 2: that phenomenon.

677
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 1: We recently had a guy on a guy named is

678
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 1: pastor Shane Yats, who's sitting right in that chair, and

679
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:52,440
Speaker 1: he was talking about coming home from thanks Yeah, coming

680
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 1: home from Iraq. No, coming home from I think it

681
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:57,600
Speaker 1: was in Afghanistan. Coming home from Afghanistan. Was that where

682
00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 1: it was was the kids like eating. He's like, there's

683
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're literally watching children looking in the

684
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 1: garbage for food, competing with dogs in the streets. And

685
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:12,960
Speaker 1: he said, and like you get home so fast and

686
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: as you're just home and he's standing there and here's

687
00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:20,000
Speaker 1: a woman arguing with a Starbucks employee about the state

688
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 1: of her latte, and he's like, I wanted to kill her.

689
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 1: He's talking about just the heart, like the very difficult adjustment.

690
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:29,520
Speaker 1: But there's this thing I've been and think about what

691
00:34:29,560 --> 00:34:32,760
Speaker 1: you're you're talking about and the ideas that you explore

692
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:36,319
Speaker 1: and tribe. It's like, I'm kind of struggling with this

693
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:41,319
Speaker 1: thing I'm seeing happened later. I'm just becoming aware of it.

694
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:43,920
Speaker 1: And it's very troubling to me about American culture, where

695
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:52,319
Speaker 1: what when you're on the internet, what you if you

696
00:34:52,520 --> 00:34:56,319
Speaker 1: solely relied on the Internet, you would get a view

697
00:34:56,320 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 1: of American culture that does not at all match the

698
00:35:03,239 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 1: view of American culture that you have as you're alive

699
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:14,480
Speaker 1: being an American outside of the web, right, meaning any

700
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:19,120
Speaker 1: one of my neighbors. Any one of my neighbors would

701
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:21,520
Speaker 1: if my house was on fire, any one of my

702
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:24,520
Speaker 1: neighbors would go into my house to get my kids.

703
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 1: I would go into any one of my neighbors houses

704
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 1: to get their kids. And when I say this, I'm

705
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:34,440
Speaker 1: not like I have no idea of the political affiliation

706
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:37,600
Speaker 1: except for one of my neighbors, I have no idea

707
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:42,440
Speaker 1: of their political affiliation zero. But like, you get this.

708
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:44,360
Speaker 1: I used to think of people think of the like

709
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:47,960
Speaker 1: the radical right and the radical left as being like

710
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 1: diametrically opposed. I'm starting to view it more like that

711
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: these are just symptoms of a that these are symptoms

712
00:35:56,840 --> 00:36:00,319
Speaker 1: of an ailment. Yeah, It's like you could have a

713
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:04,800
Speaker 1: certain ailment and you might get like like stunning headaches,

714
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:06,919
Speaker 1: or you might have a certain ailment and be other

715
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 1: people would have the same ailment and be that that

716
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:11,879
Speaker 1: they can't get a full breath or whatever, or all

717
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 1: the weird shit that would happen to people with COVID.

718
00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:17,720
Speaker 1: It's like too much time online is the thing. Yeah,

719
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:20,880
Speaker 1: and then the symptoms are you could be radicalized in

720
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:23,440
Speaker 1: one direction, you radicalize in the other direction. Don't You're

721
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 1: like you want it being that you're just bound by

722
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 1: what you hate, Like your culture is my people that

723
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:31,399
Speaker 1: I find are people that hate what I hate, right,

724
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:35,560
Speaker 1: and that's my team. And dude, and like the part

725
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 1: of your time, I was like that need like like

726
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:40,400
Speaker 1: build a team that's not based on just that you

727
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:41,439
Speaker 1: all hate the same shit.

728
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:47,400
Speaker 2: Right. Well, you know, in evolutionary terms, outrage is a

729
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:50,400
Speaker 2: powerful unifier because you're you're unified with other people who

730
00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:53,279
Speaker 2: are out who are outraged by the same thing, and

731
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:56,759
Speaker 2: it creates a sort of pugilistic state of mind that's

732
00:36:56,800 --> 00:36:59,240
Speaker 2: good at defending itself. So you think in evolutionary terms

733
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:03,759
Speaker 2: that that that anger and outrage response is a very

734
00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 2: effective defense against the threat. Right, And the algorithms that

735
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 2: are used in social media are very good at generating outrage.

736
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:19,800
Speaker 2: It's harder for algorithms to generate the more subtle but

737
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 2: also very important feelings of love or sadness or regret.

738
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:28,399
Speaker 2: You know, there's a gentler emotions that also are really

739
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 2: important for keeping society and people glued together. Right, shared

740
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:35,960
Speaker 2: value is shared I shared warmth with each other. You know,

741
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 2: those are hard. They don't have the algorithms for that.

742
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:41,920
Speaker 2: The algorithms for hatred are very very simple. There's a

743
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 2: threat over there. We have to unify, we have to

744
00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 2: denounce the threat and unify against it, and then we'll survive. Right,

745
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 2: So you're going into very very ancient human history when

746
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:53,919
Speaker 2: you gin up those emotions. And you know, it used

747
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:56,760
Speaker 2: to be that at the town hall, someone might stand

748
00:37:56,800 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 2: you know, before the internet, right before the apocalypse of

749
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:01,839
Speaker 2: the internet that came along, you got, you know, the

750
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 2: town hall and someone would stand up with a different

751
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 2: view about you know, paving the streets or whatever, and

752
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:10,680
Speaker 2: you'd be like, Okay, I'm totally against that, but that's Joe.

753
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:12,840
Speaker 2: I know his you know I have, I have a

754
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 2: relationship with Joe, like and I don't agree with them,

755
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:17,759
Speaker 2: and I might even at them, shouting at him. But

756
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:19,759
Speaker 2: we're all in this together. We all live in this

757
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 2: little you know. That's gone right, And so you can

758
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 2: hate on people online and there are no repercussions. You know,

759
00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:30,120
Speaker 2: the person is not going to come grab you by

760
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:31,719
Speaker 2: the shirt front and say, do not speak to me

761
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:33,319
Speaker 2: like that in front of my community or in front

762
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 2: of my family. You're not any danger, right, You're free

763
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:40,719
Speaker 2: to be a sort of cowardly adversary and that's very

764
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:43,040
Speaker 2: seductive to a lot of people. And so I, you know,

765
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 2: I don't the internet's a great tool for all kinds

766
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:48,400
Speaker 2: of things. I don't, you know, I have a flip

767
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:51,360
Speaker 2: phone because I think the smartphones are just like killing people,

768
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:55,239
Speaker 2: like literally literally killing people. There. It's a it was

769
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:59,239
Speaker 2: a deliberate addiction designed by the tech companies, right, It's

770
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:02,880
Speaker 2: a very powerful addiction. It's particularly powerful with our children.

771
00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:06,160
Speaker 2: And I think it's you know, I think it's destroying

772
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:08,920
Speaker 2: the society. I just refuse to participate in it.

773
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:12,680
Speaker 1: Yeah. Man, it's tough because, like I use the Internet

774
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:15,760
Speaker 1: to find out how the Internet is destroying society because

775
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:21,240
Speaker 1: I'm into this thing right now. It's like American Veterans Institute.

776
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:24,600
Speaker 1: It's like interviews with World War Two veterans. They just

777
00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:26,920
Speaker 1: they've been very good. Like when these guys they kind

778
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: of were catching all these dudes in their eighties nineties.

779
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:30,880
Speaker 2: I've seen some of those amazing.

780
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:33,759
Speaker 1: It's like, I'll tell my wife, I'm sitting there on

781
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:38,400
Speaker 1: a Saturday morning. I'm sitting there doing some work and

782
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:41,719
Speaker 1: I got one bottle was playing and I was like, uh,

783
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:45,520
Speaker 1: I said, this is going to sound so nostalgic. But

784
00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:51,359
Speaker 1: holy shit, we've fallen far. Like listening to interview after

785
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:56,880
Speaker 1: interview after interview with these guys about they all kind

786
00:39:56,880 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 1: of start like, where were you when Pearl Harbor was attacked?

787
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 1: Right right in the portraits they paint, there's this dude,

788
00:40:03,239 --> 00:40:07,120
Speaker 1: there's this Italian dude. And he says, like he goes

789
00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:10,520
Speaker 1: down to he goes down to a gas station or

790
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:13,160
Speaker 1: something to buy soda, you know, and everybody's in the

791
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:16,399
Speaker 1: gas station's listening because Pearl harvard'st got attacked. He goes home,

792
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:21,800
Speaker 1: his dad listens to the address from Franklin. Roosevelt calls

793
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:25,880
Speaker 1: his four sons down into the room informs them, you

794
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:29,279
Speaker 1: will all fight because we move to this country. We

795
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:32,360
Speaker 1: have a house in a car. This country cannot fail.

796
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 1: And he says when he goes to the train station,

797
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 1: his dad makes a point that his dad wants to

798
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: drive him alone to the train station, so he's expecting

799
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:43,400
Speaker 1: some kind of lecture. His dad never says a word

800
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:46,480
Speaker 1: to him all the drive. They get to the train station,

801
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 1: and you know what his dad says to him. He

802
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:52,399
Speaker 1: says to him, an Italian, don't do anything that will

803
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 1: cause me to hang my head in shame. Wow, that

804
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:59,000
Speaker 1: was it, Dude out the door, and I'm like, I

805
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 1: don't know, Mad is getting stuf about it, you know, yeah, yeah,

806
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: Like it's just like I feel like something's crowding. Like

807
00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:08,280
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I have this terrible anxiety about culture

808
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 1: right now, with with like the internet hatred.

809
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I still you know, we're we're all

810
00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:17,800
Speaker 2: We're still all human. And I think that same noble

811
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:23,440
Speaker 2: those same noble sentiments and actions individuals today are just

812
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:24,680
Speaker 2: as capable of them.

813
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 1: Right.

814
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:30,239
Speaker 2: But what's gone not gone. But what's in danger, what's

815
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:36,239
Speaker 2: under threat, is the idea of a nation that is unified,

816
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 2: that thinks of itself as a nation despite its internal differences. Right.

817
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:43,279
Speaker 2: I love that there's Republicans and Democrats. I happen to

818
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 2: be a Democrat, but I don't care whatever. I mean,

819
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:48,480
Speaker 2: that's great that you know that the country is My

820
00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 2: father's a refugee from two wars. He's an immigrant, right,

821
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:53,759
Speaker 2: And the country's made up of people like my dad, right,

822
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:55,959
Speaker 2: And I'm you know, I was born in this country. Whatever,

823
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 2: It's all great. So the idea that we're all unified

824
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:03,759
Speaker 2: in this American project is an incredibly powerful one, right,

825
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:07,800
Speaker 2: And and it transcends, it should transcend all these other divisions,

826
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:10,759
Speaker 2: including left and right. And I think one of the

827
00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 2: problems right now is that the internet. Look, I have

828
00:42:14,160 --> 00:42:16,640
Speaker 2: a laptop, I'm online, I research stuff, I get it.

829
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:19,439
Speaker 2: I just don't have a smartphone because I don't want

830
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:21,600
Speaker 2: that following me around all day and being where my

831
00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:24,040
Speaker 2: brain disappears when I have thirty seconds to spare while

832
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:26,200
Speaker 2: I'm waiting for the bus, Like, I just that to

833
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:32,279
Speaker 2: me is horrible, right for the brain. But I uh,

834
00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:35,920
Speaker 2: I think that I think I think we've sort of

835
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 2: lost sight of the idea that there is one, that

836
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 2: there's the ultimate, that the ultimate category we're all in

837
00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 2: is American.

838
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:49,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's what that's as a patriot. That's what

839
00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 1: I'm getting worried about increasingly. Was that your quote were

840
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 1: you quoting somebody when you said the journalists I can't

841
00:42:55,520 --> 00:42:57,320
Speaker 1: mary if you said it should or shouldn't or is

842
00:42:57,360 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 1: it not should or do or whatever. But like, journalists

843
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:02,960
Speaker 1: don't tell you what to think.

844
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 2: Right, journalists don't tell you what I was. I was

845
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:10,759
Speaker 2: paraphrasing someone else who was actually talking about theater. Oh

846
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 2: it's interesting, right, but I repurposed it for journalist journalism as.

847
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 2: Journalists don't tell you what to think, they tell you

848
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:19,239
Speaker 2: what to think about. And if a journalist is telling

849
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:21,360
Speaker 2: you what to think how to think, they're not a journalist.

850
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 2: Don't listen.

851
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:25,880
Speaker 1: They're a commentator, right, an analyst or a commentatory.

852
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 2: Worse than an analyst, like and we need analysts, they're commentator.

853
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 2: They're a commentator. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And you know, and

854
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:37,720
Speaker 2: so I feel like the internet as and their political

855
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:42,799
Speaker 2: forces in this country that are depending on the ability

856
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:46,719
Speaker 2: to fracture people in order to achieve their agenda and

857
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 2: and also make money. I mean, there's you can sort

858
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:54,080
Speaker 2: of monetize this, right, and and what they are sacrificing,

859
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:56,960
Speaker 2: maybe not deliberately and consciously, but ultimately what's happening is

860
00:43:56,960 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 2: they are they are sacrificing the cultural and political unity

861
00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:07,640
Speaker 2: of this country for smaller for smaller gains, for smaller

862
00:44:07,680 --> 00:44:10,560
Speaker 2: personal gains, you know, including many politicians who do that.

863
00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:14,359
Speaker 1: Let's talk about your health scare man.

864
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:19,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never heard of that. Yeah, me, neither happened

865
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:19,480
Speaker 2: to me.

866
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:21,279
Speaker 1: And that funny. We're going through that with my boy

867
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:23,319
Speaker 1: right now. My little boy has a thing that like

868
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:28,319
Speaker 1: not any person in our social circle has ever heard of? Yeah, right,

869
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:30,240
Speaker 1: like a like a cartilage issue.

870
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 3: You know, you gotta be careful here, Steve, because you

871
00:44:33,160 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 3: might get your your thing where you you think you're

872
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 3: developing a problem because he talks about it.

873
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:42,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have this like if someone's telling me, like whatever,

874
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:46,879
Speaker 1: any problem someone tells especially internal. Oh yeah, Like you're like, yeah,

875
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:50,440
Speaker 1: you know, I got a whatever in my kidney. I'm like,

876
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:54,320
Speaker 1: well a bit now I got a weird feeling of

877
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:54,960
Speaker 1: my kidney.

878
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Well that that sort of paranoid is very

879
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 2: human and it and it and and uh it helps

880
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:05,800
Speaker 2: keeps us, keep us alive. Right, Once in a while,

881
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:08,000
Speaker 2: someone does have a weird thing in their kidney and

882
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:10,440
Speaker 2: they weren't aware of it until someone mentioned it, and

883
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:11,880
Speaker 2: they go to the doctor and say, you know, so

884
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 2: there's a there is a sort of use for that.

885
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:15,400
Speaker 2: But so basically what happened to me. I have a

886
00:45:15,600 --> 00:45:17,880
Speaker 2: I have a ligament in the wrong place, my median

887
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:21,320
Speaker 2: arcuate ligament, which sort of goes across your abdomen about

888
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:22,279
Speaker 2: where your sternam is.

889
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:24,880
Speaker 1: I would know you had I guess you do have

890
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 1: a ligament in your abdomen.

891
00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:29,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it can cross it crosses right near

892
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:32,239
Speaker 2: the bottom of your rib cage, crosses your abdomen, and

893
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:36,840
Speaker 2: mine is too tight. So it has it's called median

894
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 2: arcuate ligament syndrome. It has crushed the celiac artery. Now,

895
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:44,200
Speaker 2: the celiac artery is like a garden hose that irrigates

896
00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:47,160
Speaker 2: all of your organs with blood. Right, you imagine how

897
00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:48,840
Speaker 2: big it is, and.

898
00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 1: It comes right on I don't want to know. I

899
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:52,360
Speaker 1: have this thing I'm trying to do where when someone's

900
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:55,360
Speaker 1: telling me someone I don't understand. Yep, you know, the

901
00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 1: impulse is going huh.

902
00:45:57,160 --> 00:45:59,319
Speaker 3: I'm trying to picture it when I'm cutting a deer

903
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 3: open would be.

904
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 1: Like, I don't understand.

905
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:04,880
Speaker 2: So, so the celiac comes out out of the aorta

906
00:46:05,120 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 2: and the descending aorda, and it branches down and it

907
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:12,480
Speaker 2: brings blood to the liver and the intestines and the

908
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:14,960
Speaker 2: stomach and the all the organs in your abdomen. Right,

909
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:17,840
Speaker 2: So a lot of blood goes through this if you

910
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 2: block it with a ligament.

911
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:23,560
Speaker 1: So also this ligament is like on the outside pushing it,

912
00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:26,560
Speaker 1: binding in right, and it's just crimping it off exactly.

913
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:29,160
Speaker 2: It's just an irregularity It isn't because I led a

914
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:31,719
Speaker 2: bad life and them filled with cholesterol and nothing like that. Right,

915
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 2: It's just a sort of bad design, right, It's very rare.

916
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:36,719
Speaker 2: But what the body does, because the body is a

917
00:46:36,920 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 2: walking miracle, is it's like, okay, we still got to

918
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:41,600
Speaker 2: get the blood to where it needs to go. There's

919
00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:46,120
Speaker 2: a lot of uh, sort of redundancy in the vascular system,

920
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:49,319
Speaker 2: so the blood flows to where it needs to go

921
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:53,840
Speaker 2: through smaller arteries, these branch arteries that are not designed

922
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:56,000
Speaker 2: to take that kind of blood flow, right, that kind

923
00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 2: of pressure. So what they do is they dilate so

924
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:01,080
Speaker 2: that they can carry all this blood they're not supposed

925
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:04,440
Speaker 2: to take. It works fine, right, the problem they're meant

926
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 2: to dilate, but if there's a weak spot in one

927
00:47:06,719 --> 00:47:09,440
Speaker 2: of the arteries, instead of dilating, it will bubble out.

928
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:12,840
Speaker 2: It will balloon outwards, and it's called an aneurysm. Okay,

929
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:15,879
Speaker 2: and the artery wall will balloon outwards and it will

930
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:19,600
Speaker 2: get bigger over the course of decades. So it's there's

931
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 2: no symptoms. Uh, it's very hard to detect, and it

932
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:27,879
Speaker 2: very slowly gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And then

933
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:30,840
Speaker 2: when it ruptures, and it will. When it ruptures, you

934
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:34,360
Speaker 2: are suddenly bleeding. You're bleeding out from an artery. You

935
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:37,040
Speaker 2: know what arterial bleed is, deadly right, You're bleeding out

936
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:40,760
Speaker 2: from an artery, a smaller artery into your own abdomen.

937
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 2: So if someone stabbed you in the stomach and you

938
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:46,680
Speaker 2: made it alive to the hospital, the doctors don't have

939
00:47:46,719 --> 00:47:49,239
Speaker 2: anything to figure out. They're like, oh, we know what

940
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:53,160
Speaker 2: the problem is exactly. They know where to stick their

941
00:47:53,160 --> 00:47:56,359
Speaker 2: finger almost literally to stop the bleed. Like it's there's

942
00:47:56,360 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 2: no mystery there with internal hemorrhage, it could be anywhere, right,

943
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 2: And so this happened five years ago and it was during.

944
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 1: But you know when the blood's coming out, Well.

945
00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:09,479
Speaker 2: I didn't know that's what was happening, but I felt

946
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:12,399
Speaker 2: a lot of pain, right, But I'm an old stoic, and.

947
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:13,560
Speaker 1: It's like high pressure blood.

948
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:18,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean blood, blood's and irritant when it's

949
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:20,160
Speaker 2: not in the vascular that's what's causing the pain.

950
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:20,479
Speaker 1: Yeah.

951
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 2: So I'm like, there's blood around my kidneys and around

952
00:48:22,640 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 2: my liver, and it just like feels odd. It's very

953
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:29,680
Speaker 2: very full of a sudden in mid sentence, ruptured so I mean,

954
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:30,719
Speaker 2: I mean we're taught.

955
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:31,440
Speaker 1: What was the sentence?

956
00:48:31,800 --> 00:48:35,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna live forever. I think this is a sentence.

957
00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 2: So so it was. It was during COVID and my

958
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:43,200
Speaker 2: so I have two little girls and a eight and

959
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:45,640
Speaker 2: five at the time, there were three three years old

960
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:47,920
Speaker 2: in six months, and my wife and we were it

961
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 2: was during COVID. We were We own a property in

962
00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:52,279
Speaker 2: Massachusetts that's very remote. It's in the woods at the

963
00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:53,879
Speaker 2: end of a dead end dirt road. There's no cell

964
00:48:53,920 --> 00:48:56,759
Speaker 2: phone coverage there. The landlines are old and when it

965
00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:59,840
Speaker 2: rains they short out, so there's no landlines. We're surrounded

966
00:48:59,840 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 2: by atlant It's basically paradise, right. It's an old house

967
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:05,600
Speaker 2: from eighteen hundred, and we were there during COVID, and

968
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:08,760
Speaker 2: I built a post and bean cabin deeper in the woods,

969
00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:11,960
Speaker 2: and one day we managed some teenage girls who lived

970
00:49:12,040 --> 00:49:14,000
Speaker 2: up the road that we knew called When does this

971
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:16,800
Speaker 2: ever happen? They called and said, Hey, we're free this afternoon.

972
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 2: Would you like some babysitting time? Right? And I was like, yes,

973
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:23,480
Speaker 2: we pay one thousand dollars an hour, Like how long

974
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:26,080
Speaker 2: can you how long can you stay? Right? Yeah? So

975
00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:27,920
Speaker 2: they came over a few hours and my wife and

976
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:28,640
Speaker 2: I went out to this.

977
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:29,359
Speaker 1: Beautiful little cabin.

978
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:32,239
Speaker 2: It's totally off the grid, like oil lamp, woodstove. You know,

979
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:35,319
Speaker 2: I felt it myself, you know. So we're in this

980
00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:39,799
Speaker 2: place of peace and beauty and and just to sort

981
00:49:39,800 --> 00:49:41,480
Speaker 2: of enjoying our you know, a couple of hours of

982
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:46,640
Speaker 2: alone time, and all of a sudden, this is pain.

983
00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:49,600
Speaker 2: Am I at them, like, oh, what was that? And

984
00:49:51,160 --> 00:49:53,080
Speaker 2: it wouldn't stop, and so I stood up to sort

985
00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:55,719
Speaker 2: of work it out. I thought it was some crazy indigestion,

986
00:49:56,160 --> 00:49:59,239
Speaker 2: and I almost fell over. And what was happening was

987
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 2: I was bleeding out in my abdomen. My blood pressure

988
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:05,840
Speaker 2: was tanking, and I was graying out right. And I

989
00:50:05,880 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 2: sat back down. I said to my wife, I'd never

990
00:50:08,640 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 2: thought i'd have to ever say these words to anyone.

991
00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:13,879
Speaker 2: I said, I think I'm gonna need some help. And

992
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:15,799
Speaker 2: you know, I was a marathon runner when I was young.

993
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 2: I was a really good competitive runner. I've always been

994
00:50:18,120 --> 00:50:20,680
Speaker 2: very fit, very healthy. I just never thought that I

995
00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:23,040
Speaker 2: would need physical help from anybody. You know. It's just

996
00:50:23,120 --> 00:50:26,480
Speaker 2: like never, never, And now my wife's dragging me out

997
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:29,160
Speaker 2: of the woods, like literally dragging me down a trail

998
00:50:29,520 --> 00:50:32,839
Speaker 2: to get me to help, and we finally got there

999
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:33,680
Speaker 2: was no cell phone.

1000
00:50:33,920 --> 00:50:36,560
Speaker 1: She had one of those like mysterious bursts of power.

1001
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:38,879
Speaker 2: Well I got, you know, she didn't care. I mean

1002
00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:41,360
Speaker 2: I had my arm over her shoulder. I wasn't unconscious,

1003
00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:42,680
Speaker 2: but I was sort of half Oh I got. I

1004
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:44,600
Speaker 2: thought she was like pulling in yeah, right right, the

1005
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:49,319
Speaker 2: car off the baby nor so, so the ambulance game,

1006
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:51,319
Speaker 2: you know, it took him twenty minutes to get there.

1007
00:50:51,400 --> 00:50:53,719
Speaker 2: I'm losing a pint of blood maybe every ten or

1008
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:56,600
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes in my aben but all in you, all

1009
00:50:56,640 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 2: in me, and and you can lose about half your

1010
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 2: blood before you die. And we live an hour from

1011
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:03,560
Speaker 2: the hospital, so you can do the math like it was.

1012
00:51:03,640 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 2: I was a human hourglass and they, you know, they

1013
00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:10,400
Speaker 2: their ambulance got there, and I had sort of rebooted

1014
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:12,760
Speaker 2: it that you go into compensatory shocks, so your body,

1015
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:16,799
Speaker 2: it's extraordinary. Your body knows when there's a five alarm fire,

1016
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:18,520
Speaker 2: even though even if you don't, right, I didn't know

1017
00:51:18,560 --> 00:51:21,400
Speaker 2: I was dying, had no idea, right, and so it

1018
00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:24,240
Speaker 2: it cuts off circulation to the parts of your body

1019
00:51:24,280 --> 00:51:27,960
Speaker 2: that you don't need to survive your your your surface areas,

1020
00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:31,000
Speaker 2: your skin, your legs, your arms, and it pools it

1021
00:51:31,040 --> 00:51:33,600
Speaker 2: in your brain and in your abdomen, in your heart,

1022
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:36,800
Speaker 2: around your heart. So when it does that, your blood

1023
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:39,799
Speaker 2: pressure goes back up, and and I became sort of

1024
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:42,400
Speaker 2: clear minded again. So the ambulance guys got there. They

1025
00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:44,839
Speaker 2: were like, you know, it's a hot day. You probably dehydrated, sir.

1026
00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:47,719
Speaker 2: You know they're looking at me. I'm fifty eighth. They're like,

1027
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:53,359
Speaker 2: you're an old man, you know, twenty right, dehydration thing man, Yeah,

1028
00:51:53,560 --> 00:51:55,200
Speaker 2: and why don't you sit in the shade and drink

1029
00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:57,120
Speaker 2: some water and call us if you still don't feel well?

1030
00:51:57,160 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 2: And my wife, oh my god, my wife said, you

1031
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:02,880
Speaker 2: got you're taking him to the hospital, like he couldn't

1032
00:52:02,880 --> 00:52:04,120
Speaker 2: walk a few minutes ago.

1033
00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:07,239
Speaker 1: Like I've seen thirsty people. Yeah, right exactly. And he

1034
00:52:07,360 --> 00:52:10,200
Speaker 1: was not in my mind at the time.

1035
00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:14,360
Speaker 2: I remember thinking, I've always heard that married men live longer.

1036
00:52:14,520 --> 00:52:17,320
Speaker 2: This is why I'm seeing it right now.

1037
00:52:18,760 --> 00:52:20,799
Speaker 1: So because your wife's I was like, why don't you

1038
00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 1: see somebody about it? So they put me in.

1039
00:52:25,080 --> 00:52:28,640
Speaker 2: They started the long drive, and my compensatory shock held

1040
00:52:28,680 --> 00:52:30,399
Speaker 2: for most of the drive and right when we got

1041
00:52:30,400 --> 00:52:31,640
Speaker 2: to the hospital.

1042
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:33,440
Speaker 1: And they've got no idea what's going on.

1043
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 3: So they didn't like, check your bib alls. Well they

1044
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:37,840
Speaker 3: say that something was well.

1045
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:40,440
Speaker 2: They did. So the thing is if you're if you

1046
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:44,160
Speaker 2: have internal bleeding, your heart tries to compensate for the

1047
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:47,839
Speaker 2: drop in blood pressure by beating faster, which pressure pressurizes

1048
00:52:47,880 --> 00:52:51,680
Speaker 2: the system. Right, you run the pump, you pressurize the bike. Okay, right,

1049
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:55,600
Speaker 2: except I'm very fit. So they looked at my heart

1050
00:52:55,680 --> 00:52:58,040
Speaker 2: rate and was probably in the eighties. They're like, all right,

1051
00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:00,640
Speaker 2: he's almost sixty years old. His heart rates in the eighties,

1052
00:53:00,840 --> 00:53:05,239
Speaker 2: that's pretty normal, got it right, My heart rates fifty five,

1053
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:07,480
Speaker 2: So they didn't know I was thirty beats up. Had

1054
00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:09,440
Speaker 2: they known that, they would they were like, oh, this

1055
00:53:09,480 --> 00:53:12,920
Speaker 2: is a classic symptom for internal hemorrhage. But I my

1056
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:16,200
Speaker 2: fitness level was masking it, right, So they were totally

1057
00:53:16,280 --> 00:53:17,040
Speaker 2: cavalier about it.

1058
00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:17,239
Speaker 1: Right.

1059
00:53:17,239 --> 00:53:20,880
Speaker 2: We almost stopped for coffee practically, you know, Like, and

1060
00:53:20,920 --> 00:53:23,480
Speaker 2: we got to the hospital and I I just went

1061
00:53:23,520 --> 00:53:26,960
Speaker 2: off a cliff. Your body decompensated. It has to decompensate

1062
00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:29,000
Speaker 2: at some point. And when I went into end stage

1063
00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:33,719
Speaker 2: hemorrhagic shock. I'm convulsing with hypothermia, and they rushed me

1064
00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 2: into the trauma bay. The doctors know immediately what's going

1065
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:39,920
Speaker 2: on and immediately diagnosed me immediately and sent me through

1066
00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:42,280
Speaker 2: a cat scan. They saw that where the blood was pooling,

1067
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:45,919
Speaker 2: and they and oh, so I'm in the trauma bay

1068
00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:48,560
Speaker 2: and well, h yeah.

1069
00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:50,719
Speaker 1: That's want to mention what you were just described? And

1070
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:52,919
Speaker 1: would you say your hype Like, what'd you say?

1071
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:56,080
Speaker 2: Uh, hemorrhagic chuck? So is that?

1072
00:53:57,000 --> 00:53:57,160
Speaker 1: No?

1073
00:53:57,280 --> 00:53:59,200
Speaker 4: They said something about hypothermia.

1074
00:53:59,360 --> 00:54:02,000
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you go into hypothermia when you have when

1075
00:54:02,040 --> 00:54:05,000
Speaker 2: you're in hemorrhagic shock, your body gets hypothermic.

1076
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:07,680
Speaker 1: I understand that. Why Why is that?

1077
00:54:07,960 --> 00:54:10,799
Speaker 2: It's as if you're very, very cold. Your body can't

1078
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:12,320
Speaker 2: keep up its internal temperature.

1079
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:15,279
Speaker 1: All right, Which is you feel did you? I guess

1080
00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:17,040
Speaker 1: when you're one of your super hypothermic, you don't know

1081
00:54:17,120 --> 00:54:19,600
Speaker 1: you're cold. I mean, did you did you feel like well?

1082
00:54:19,960 --> 00:54:22,319
Speaker 2: I was convulsiate. I mean I was having like these

1083
00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:25,440
Speaker 2: spastic shivering like oh really oh yeah yeah yeah yeah No.

1084
00:54:25,520 --> 00:54:27,560
Speaker 2: I I don't know what was going on, but I

1085
00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:29,560
Speaker 2: kind of sensed it wasn't good. I didn't know I

1086
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:30,000
Speaker 2: was dying.

1087
00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:32,120
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of you knew it was

1088
00:54:32,160 --> 00:54:33,080
Speaker 1: a cold feeling.

1089
00:54:34,080 --> 00:54:37,120
Speaker 2: Well, yes, I was shaking. I've only shaked. I've only

1090
00:54:37,160 --> 00:54:39,359
Speaker 2: shaken like that when I was very very cold. And

1091
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:44,040
Speaker 2: I've never even convulsively shaked. Huh right, shaken, shaked, shaken,

1092
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:44,799
Speaker 2: whatever it is.

1093
00:54:45,040 --> 00:54:46,080
Speaker 1: So I knew.

1094
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:47,879
Speaker 2: There's a lot of when you're dying, there's a lot

1095
00:54:47,880 --> 00:54:49,680
Speaker 2: of denial. I had no idea I was dying, but

1096
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:51,600
Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, I was going blind a while ago,

1097
00:54:51,640 --> 00:54:56,080
Speaker 2: I couldn't talk, and now I'm convulsively shaking, but I'm fine,

1098
00:54:56,239 --> 00:55:00,080
Speaker 2: like you know, like they're just yeah, exactly. So so

1099
00:55:00,360 --> 00:55:02,800
Speaker 2: it never crossed my mind. Of course everyone else knew,

1100
00:55:02,880 --> 00:55:03,440
Speaker 2: and they.

1101
00:55:04,160 --> 00:55:06,040
Speaker 1: So they were they like they were able to look

1102
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:08,319
Speaker 1: at what's going on because you know, I mean, it

1103
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:10,840
Speaker 1: would never occur to me like perhaps they're having internal bleeding,

1104
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:12,920
Speaker 1: like they're good enough where they're like this, dude, do

1105
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:13,520
Speaker 1: you have enough?

1106
00:55:13,560 --> 00:55:15,880
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I had all this. I had all the symptoms, right,

1107
00:55:15,880 --> 00:55:17,919
Speaker 2: And and then they saw it on the CT scan

1108
00:55:18,040 --> 00:55:22,000
Speaker 2: and so my blood pressure was sixty over forty, right,

1109
00:55:22,040 --> 00:55:23,840
Speaker 2: I'd lost half my blood at that point. I was

1110
00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:26,760
Speaker 2: probably ten minutes from dead right, I needed ten units

1111
00:55:26,760 --> 00:55:29,000
Speaker 2: of blood to stay alive, which is basically a full

1112
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:29,720
Speaker 2: oil change.

1113
00:55:29,760 --> 00:55:31,759
Speaker 1: Like, how do they get the old blood out? They

1114
00:55:31,800 --> 00:55:32,399
Speaker 1: pump it out.

1115
00:55:32,800 --> 00:55:34,719
Speaker 2: No, it's in your abdomen and then it takes a

1116
00:55:34,719 --> 00:55:37,720
Speaker 2: few months to be reabsorbed by your body if you survived.

1117
00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:38,400
Speaker 1: So they don't try to get it out.

1118
00:55:38,520 --> 00:55:40,040
Speaker 2: No, no, no, it's not doing it. They got like they

1119
00:55:40,080 --> 00:55:44,000
Speaker 2: got their sun pouch. No, no, no that they don't.

1120
00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:46,560
Speaker 2: That doesn't matter, like that they would, Yeah, they don't

1121
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:52,080
Speaker 2: need to worry about that. I was probably ten minutes

1122
00:55:52,120 --> 00:55:55,600
Speaker 2: from dead right, and they put me in the trauma

1123
00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:59,799
Speaker 2: bay and a doctor, a doctor starts prepping my neck

1124
00:55:59,840 --> 00:56:02,200
Speaker 2: to insert a large gauge needle through my neck into

1125
00:56:02,239 --> 00:56:05,080
Speaker 2: my jugular to transfuse me because I need a lot

1126
00:56:05,080 --> 00:56:09,759
Speaker 2: of blood fast right. And he asked my permission to

1127
00:56:09,800 --> 00:56:11,160
Speaker 2: do this, and I still didn't get I was like,

1128
00:56:11,160 --> 00:56:13,359
Speaker 2: you mean, in case there's an emergency. He's like, this

1129
00:56:13,440 --> 00:56:16,640
Speaker 2: is the emergency right now. If you say so, my life,

1130
00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:18,719
Speaker 2: you know. My wife seemed worried also, But if I

1131
00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:22,279
Speaker 2: you know, whatever, do what you gotta do. And I'm

1132
00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:24,120
Speaker 2: lying there while he's working on my neck and all

1133
00:56:24,120 --> 00:56:26,760
Speaker 2: of a sudden and I have to stop and just explain.

1134
00:56:27,520 --> 00:56:30,960
Speaker 2: I'm an atheist, right, my dad was an atheist and

1135
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:35,200
Speaker 2: a physicist. She's like as well, yeah, well sort of

1136
00:56:35,200 --> 00:56:39,680
Speaker 2: atheist squared right, like hyper rational. And I'm a lifelong atheist.

1137
00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:41,640
Speaker 2: So you need to know this for what I'm about

1138
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:45,440
Speaker 2: to say, because it flew in the face of a

1139
00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:49,200
Speaker 2: lot of of my understanding of reality, understanding of life

1140
00:56:49,200 --> 00:56:52,759
Speaker 2: in the world. A little bit, uh so beneath me,

1141
00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:56,120
Speaker 2: into my left, this sort of yawning blackness opened up,

1142
00:56:56,200 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 2: like the universe had sort of cracked open. He said,

1143
00:56:59,520 --> 00:57:02,080
Speaker 2: this just infinite black void, and I was getting pulled

1144
00:57:02,120 --> 00:57:06,160
Speaker 2: into it, and I didn't want to go. I was

1145
00:57:06,200 --> 00:57:08,399
Speaker 2: like a wounded animal, like I didn't I wasn't thinking

1146
00:57:08,400 --> 00:57:11,000
Speaker 2: about my family. I didn't know I was dying. I

1147
00:57:11,080 --> 00:57:14,719
Speaker 2: just didn't want to go into the vast darkness, right,

1148
00:57:14,760 --> 00:57:16,160
Speaker 2: like when you take your dog to the vat and

1149
00:57:16,240 --> 00:57:19,400
Speaker 2: dog doesn't want to go to the I was like that, like, no, no, no,

1150
00:57:19,440 --> 00:57:21,800
Speaker 2: I'm not going in there. And I was getting pulled

1151
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:24,080
Speaker 2: in and I couldn't stop it, and I was panicking.

1152
00:57:24,680 --> 00:57:28,760
Speaker 2: And then above me, to my left suddenly appeared my

1153
00:57:28,760 --> 00:57:32,360
Speaker 2: dead father. He'd been dead eight years and he was

1154
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:37,160
Speaker 2: there in this just energy form, like it wasn't even

1155
00:57:37,240 --> 00:57:40,160
Speaker 2: quite vision that I used to perceive him, like, it

1156
00:57:40,240 --> 00:57:43,080
Speaker 2: was a sense that I it was a sense that's

1157
00:57:43,120 --> 00:57:46,480
Speaker 2: not familiar to me. But it was absolutely like, Oh,

1158
00:57:46,560 --> 00:57:49,720
Speaker 2: there's my dad, Like what is he doing? He was

1159
00:57:49,800 --> 00:57:52,960
Speaker 2: very benevolent and he was communicating with me. He was

1160
00:57:53,000 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 2: hovering right above me, and he was communicating with me basically,

1161
00:57:57,680 --> 00:57:59,520
Speaker 2: you don't have to fight it, you can come with me.

1162
00:57:59,560 --> 00:58:03,040
Speaker 2: I'll take care of you. He was very very paternal

1163
00:58:03,080 --> 00:58:06,120
Speaker 2: and loving and caring, and you know he was so

1164
00:58:06,160 --> 00:58:09,080
Speaker 2: he was a physicist, he was, I realized later on

1165
00:58:09,120 --> 00:58:12,200
Speaker 2: the spectrum he was not a particularly emotional person. Right

1166
00:58:12,680 --> 00:58:14,760
Speaker 2: like I loved him, but my connection to him was

1167
00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:18,280
Speaker 2: not visceral and loving in that in that way that

1168
00:58:18,360 --> 00:58:20,000
Speaker 2: he was at that moment, like he was in some

1169
00:58:20,040 --> 00:58:23,680
Speaker 2: ways the most loving, sort of viscerally loving thing he'd

1170
00:58:23,680 --> 00:58:26,640
Speaker 2: ever done for me. Right in that moment, It's like,

1171
00:58:26,680 --> 00:58:31,600
Speaker 2: I'll take care of you. And I was horrified. I

1172
00:58:31,640 --> 00:58:34,600
Speaker 2: was like, you're dead, why would I go with you?

1173
00:58:34,760 --> 00:58:36,800
Speaker 2: I'm alive. The parties over here, like what are you

1174
00:58:36,840 --> 00:58:39,960
Speaker 2: doing here? I mean, I was shocked and horrified, offended,

1175
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:41,920
Speaker 2: almost offended that he would think I would want to

1176
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:45,320
Speaker 2: go with him and not want to stay alive with

1177
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:47,320
Speaker 2: my family. I was really offended. I was like, what

1178
00:58:47,360 --> 00:58:49,440
Speaker 2: do you what do you think? And I said to

1179
00:58:49,480 --> 00:58:51,120
Speaker 2: the doctor, you got to hurry. I'm going.

1180
00:58:52,160 --> 00:58:54,520
Speaker 3: I was going to ask you if you were aware

1181
00:58:54,560 --> 00:58:55,840
Speaker 3: that you were conscious or not.

1182
00:58:55,960 --> 00:58:56,120
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1183
00:58:56,160 --> 00:58:56,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.

1184
00:58:56,600 --> 00:58:58,200
Speaker 2: I was talking to the doctor. And then there was

1185
00:58:58,240 --> 00:59:00,480
Speaker 2: my dad and I said said to he was over here,

1186
00:59:00,480 --> 00:59:02,600
Speaker 2: I said, you got to hurry. I'm going right now.

1187
00:59:02,720 --> 00:59:05,560
Speaker 2: I'm being taken. Oh.

1188
00:59:05,560 --> 00:59:09,240
Speaker 1: Did the hole in your dad seem like diametric? They were?

1189
00:59:09,320 --> 00:59:11,400
Speaker 2: They they were connected to each other. He was like,

1190
00:59:11,440 --> 00:59:13,440
Speaker 2: don't be sort of he didn't say this, but he basically,

1191
00:59:13,480 --> 00:59:15,680
Speaker 2: don't be scared of what's happening right now.

1192
00:59:15,840 --> 00:59:19,160
Speaker 1: So it wasn't a different directions, no, no, no, well, he

1193
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:20,480
Speaker 1: was there, the pit was above me.

1194
00:59:20,600 --> 00:59:22,760
Speaker 2: He was up there. But basically he was saying, you

1195
00:59:22,760 --> 00:59:25,360
Speaker 2: don't have to I was fighting going into the hole. Yeah,

1196
00:59:25,600 --> 00:59:27,400
Speaker 2: and he's like, you don't have to fight it. I'll

1197
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:29,680
Speaker 2: be like, I'll be with you, I'll take care of you.

1198
00:59:30,040 --> 00:59:30,480
Speaker 2: It's okay.

1199
00:59:30,520 --> 00:59:32,200
Speaker 1: I'll accompany you into them. Yeah.

1200
00:59:32,600 --> 00:59:36,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, And they eventual and.

1201
00:59:36,280 --> 00:59:38,480
Speaker 1: You're and you're still talking to this doctor.

1202
00:59:38,880 --> 00:59:42,360
Speaker 2: Yeah yep. And you know, they couldn't sedate me because

1203
00:59:42,360 --> 00:59:45,240
Speaker 2: my vital signs were too low, so everything that they

1204
00:59:45,240 --> 00:59:47,400
Speaker 2: did they had to do with me fully conscious. I

1205
00:59:47,400 --> 00:59:49,720
Speaker 2: had a little bit of fentanyl, but it didn't didn't

1206
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:51,439
Speaker 2: do anything. I was in a huge amount of pain,

1207
00:59:52,120 --> 00:59:54,800
Speaker 2: and they brought me into the Indivendual Radiology Suite. And

1208
00:59:55,640 --> 00:59:59,800
Speaker 2: which is this IR is this sort of like magic. Basically,

1209
00:59:59,880 --> 01:00:02,240
Speaker 2: like you're on a fluoroscope, which is an X ray

1210
01:00:02,280 --> 01:00:04,880
Speaker 2: machine that takes real time video, and they pop a

1211
01:00:04,880 --> 01:00:07,040
Speaker 2: hole in your groin and they thread a wire up

1212
01:00:07,040 --> 01:00:09,320
Speaker 2: your femoral artery and they can snake it around to

1213
01:00:09,360 --> 01:00:12,240
Speaker 2: any part of your body. So instead of if they

1214
01:00:12,280 --> 01:00:14,439
Speaker 2: need to put a stint in your orda, they can

1215
01:00:14,720 --> 01:00:17,160
Speaker 2: put it in by wire instead of opening your heart

1216
01:00:17,240 --> 01:00:19,040
Speaker 2: up right, It's amazing what they can do. And they

1217
01:00:19,040 --> 01:00:22,000
Speaker 2: were trying to get the wire to the ruptured artery

1218
01:00:22,440 --> 01:00:25,000
Speaker 2: to embolize it, to block it so I would stop bleeding.

1219
01:00:25,240 --> 01:00:28,440
Speaker 2: And the alternative to doing that, this is what they

1220
01:00:28,440 --> 01:00:30,200
Speaker 2: would have had to do twenty years ago, is like

1221
01:00:30,240 --> 01:00:33,760
Speaker 2: cut me open and try to find the bleed before

1222
01:00:33,840 --> 01:00:37,000
Speaker 2: I bled out. Right, and the outcomes are terrible for that.

1223
01:00:37,040 --> 01:00:39,040
Speaker 2: And if they'd had to do that, they would have

1224
01:00:39,080 --> 01:00:41,200
Speaker 2: brought my wife into Sagabye. They told me that later,

1225
01:00:41,280 --> 01:00:42,960
Speaker 2: like we would have brought her into say goodbye, because

1226
01:00:42,960 --> 01:00:45,680
Speaker 2: you probably wouldn't have made it. So they were trying

1227
01:00:45,720 --> 01:00:49,439
Speaker 2: and trying with this wire to thread its way through

1228
01:00:49,480 --> 01:00:52,360
Speaker 2: my sort of weird vasculature because the ligament can totally

1229
01:00:52,360 --> 01:00:56,440
Speaker 2: contorted all my vasculature when it compensated, right, and they

1230
01:00:56,480 --> 01:00:58,320
Speaker 2: couldn't get the wire to the place. And I was

1231
01:00:58,360 --> 01:01:01,440
Speaker 2: in the on the fluoroscope for hours, and now it's

1232
01:01:01,480 --> 01:01:04,439
Speaker 2: two in the morning, and I remember the doctors giving up, right,

1233
01:01:04,560 --> 01:01:06,840
Speaker 2: and I remember them so when I'm shrugging, is like, well,

1234
01:01:06,880 --> 01:01:09,480
Speaker 2: we tried, we did everything we could, and now I

1235
01:01:09,640 --> 01:01:12,400
Speaker 2: finally realized that I might die, like I didn't know

1236
01:01:12,440 --> 01:01:13,040
Speaker 2: it until then.

1237
01:01:13,200 --> 01:01:15,840
Speaker 3: And during this they're pumping blood to you and you're

1238
01:01:15,880 --> 01:01:16,640
Speaker 3: just bleeding it out.

1239
01:01:16,760 --> 01:01:21,400
Speaker 2: It's kind of like, yeah, that's right. And also you

1240
01:01:21,440 --> 01:01:24,440
Speaker 2: know you can't just replace blood without consequences, right, I mean,

1241
01:01:24,480 --> 01:01:28,280
Speaker 2: you can die from blood loss with a full complement

1242
01:01:28,320 --> 01:01:30,440
Speaker 2: of blood in you, but blood from other people, and

1243
01:01:30,480 --> 01:01:35,160
Speaker 2: there's a chemical process that gets going when you experience

1244
01:01:35,200 --> 01:01:38,560
Speaker 2: extreme blood loss that they can't acidosis and they can't

1245
01:01:38,560 --> 01:01:40,320
Speaker 2: get ahead of it, and it will kill you. So

1246
01:01:40,360 --> 01:01:42,360
Speaker 2: I I was right at the edge of where that

1247
01:01:42,400 --> 01:01:45,600
Speaker 2: process would start, right, and so I was barely hanging on.

1248
01:01:46,040 --> 01:01:48,680
Speaker 2: The nurse was there holding my hand, and that human

1249
01:01:48,720 --> 01:01:52,120
Speaker 2: contact was so important, I mean literally important for survival. Right.

1250
01:01:52,160 --> 01:01:54,560
Speaker 2: You need the doctors that you know the mechanics, but

1251
01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:57,160
Speaker 2: you also need some because it's very lonely. Dying is

1252
01:01:57,360 --> 01:02:00,240
Speaker 2: being being a patient in a hospital, extremely lonely. Right,

1253
01:02:00,280 --> 01:02:02,760
Speaker 2: everyone's mask, there's very bright lights. You don't know what's

1254
01:02:02,800 --> 01:02:05,800
Speaker 2: going on. And to this nurse she was holding my hand,

1255
01:02:05,840 --> 01:02:08,080
Speaker 2: she was like, breathe with me, It's okay, keep your

1256
01:02:08,120 --> 01:02:09,840
Speaker 2: eyes open. I'm right here. And you know, I was

1257
01:02:09,920 --> 01:02:14,680
Speaker 2: choosing by like lifeline. And one of the reasons I survived.

1258
01:02:14,720 --> 01:02:17,200
Speaker 2: I shouldn't have survived. The doctors didn't think I would

1259
01:02:17,280 --> 01:02:19,080
Speaker 2: and they're sort of amazed that I did. But one

1260
01:02:19,080 --> 01:02:22,600
Speaker 2: of the reasons I survived was that human connection along

1261
01:02:22,640 --> 01:02:23,959
Speaker 2: with amazing medical.

1262
01:02:24,560 --> 01:02:26,240
Speaker 4: Did you have a glove on or it was skin?

1263
01:02:27,360 --> 01:02:30,680
Speaker 2: I don't remember, it was skin and it was skin. Yeah,

1264
01:02:30,960 --> 01:02:36,000
Speaker 2: it was just absolutely crucial. And so the I watched

1265
01:02:36,000 --> 01:02:38,360
Speaker 2: the doctors give up, and I was like, oh my god,

1266
01:02:38,560 --> 01:02:41,240
Speaker 2: I'm not going to make it. And I thought I

1267
01:02:41,280 --> 01:02:43,960
Speaker 2: was just in for belly pain. What's going on? Right?

1268
01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:44,720
Speaker 1: I had no idea?

1269
01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:47,320
Speaker 2: And then the doctor said, why don't we try going

1270
01:02:47,360 --> 01:02:50,840
Speaker 2: through his left wrist? And the other doctor was like, wow,

1271
01:02:50,880 --> 01:02:53,280
Speaker 2: I like the way you think that. And so because

1272
01:02:53,320 --> 01:02:56,600
Speaker 2: of the wed my weird vasculature, that was a different

1273
01:02:56,600 --> 01:02:59,840
Speaker 2: angle of attack that the doc, the IR guy thought

1274
01:02:59,840 --> 01:03:04,120
Speaker 2: my work and it did. And he saved my life.

1275
01:03:04,840 --> 01:03:06,760
Speaker 2: And you know, he'd been called from dinner an hour

1276
01:03:06,800 --> 01:03:09,080
Speaker 2: away and had driven to the hospital to save my life.

1277
01:03:09,080 --> 01:03:11,560
Speaker 2: Like I mean, what these doctors do is just amazing.

1278
01:03:11,600 --> 01:03:16,600
Speaker 2: Like he was on call and he and uh so

1279
01:03:16,920 --> 01:03:19,400
Speaker 2: they brought me up to the ICU. You know, then

1280
01:03:19,440 --> 01:03:23,680
Speaker 2: they sedated me, they put me under, and you know,

1281
01:03:23,720 --> 01:03:25,880
Speaker 2: I was in this sort of wild darkness for like

1282
01:03:26,240 --> 01:03:29,080
Speaker 2: one hundred years or something like. I felt like I

1283
01:03:29,160 --> 01:03:32,360
Speaker 2: was gone for a very long time. And then the

1284
01:03:32,400 --> 01:03:37,920
Speaker 2: next thing I knew, I heard this really intense Boston

1285
01:03:37,960 --> 01:03:41,000
Speaker 2: accent a woman speaking in a So this isn't on

1286
01:03:41,080 --> 01:03:44,040
Speaker 2: Cape cod at Massachusetts, right, You all know the Boston

1287
01:03:44,080 --> 01:03:46,600
Speaker 2: accent not the loveliest accent on the planet.

1288
01:03:46,760 --> 01:03:51,560
Speaker 5: Right, pretty harsh you said that, yeah, us, Yeah, it's

1289
01:03:51,560 --> 01:03:55,880
Speaker 5: pretty harsh, pretty harsh, pretty harsh accent, right, and just

1290
01:03:55,920 --> 01:03:59,000
Speaker 5: this woman speaking a really intense Boston accent. And I'm

1291
01:03:59,000 --> 01:04:03,000
Speaker 5: still in my darkness, right, my eyes are closed, Like.

1292
01:04:04,120 --> 01:04:07,600
Speaker 2: Where am I? Like there? Probably don't have these accents

1293
01:04:07,640 --> 01:04:12,440
Speaker 2: anywhere you want to go later, right, might not.

1294
01:04:12,440 --> 01:04:17,480
Speaker 1: Be a good signs getting me. So I.

1295
01:04:18,960 --> 01:04:21,880
Speaker 2: Opened my eyes and she said, congratulations, mister younger, you

1296
01:04:21,920 --> 01:04:24,720
Speaker 2: made it. You almost died last night. No one thought

1297
01:04:24,720 --> 01:04:26,960
Speaker 2: you were going to make it. You're kind of a miracle.

1298
01:04:27,840 --> 01:04:30,760
Speaker 2: And I was like, well, that's some straight shooting cout

1299
01:04:31,320 --> 01:04:35,400
Speaker 2: right there, right, And I was shocked. I have no

1300
01:04:35,440 --> 01:04:37,400
Speaker 2: idea I almost died, right. I was absolutely shocked. It's

1301
01:04:37,440 --> 01:04:39,840
Speaker 2: quite traumatic to find that out right, particularly if you

1302
01:04:39,840 --> 01:04:43,400
Speaker 2: have young kids. I was absolutely shocked. Then she left

1303
01:04:43,440 --> 01:04:46,680
Speaker 2: because she was doing her rounds, and I'm a mess.

1304
01:04:46,680 --> 01:04:48,640
Speaker 2: I'm throwing up blood, I got wires coming out all

1305
01:04:48,640 --> 01:04:50,720
Speaker 2: over the place. I'm a total mess. But I couldn't

1306
01:04:50,720 --> 01:04:53,760
Speaker 2: stop thinking about what she told me. And she came

1307
01:04:53,800 --> 01:04:56,360
Speaker 2: back and she said, how you doing. I said, well,

1308
01:04:57,880 --> 01:05:00,880
Speaker 2: not that great, actually, Like what you say is terrifying.

1309
01:05:00,920 --> 01:05:03,520
Speaker 2: I had no idea. I'd almost died and I can't

1310
01:05:03,560 --> 01:05:08,160
Speaker 2: stop thinking about it. And she said the wisest thing

1311
01:05:08,200 --> 01:05:10,280
Speaker 2: I think just about anyone has ever said to me.

1312
01:05:10,360 --> 01:05:13,040
Speaker 2: She said, try this. Instead of thinking about it like

1313
01:05:13,080 --> 01:05:16,600
Speaker 2: something scary, try thinking about it like something sacred.

1314
01:05:17,520 --> 01:05:18,240
Speaker 1: Then she walked up.

1315
01:05:19,640 --> 01:05:22,919
Speaker 2: I later tried to find her, you know, two weeks later,

1316
01:05:23,000 --> 01:05:25,640
Speaker 2: to find her, to thank her and ask her what

1317
01:05:25,720 --> 01:05:27,680
Speaker 2: did she mean? Because I made my own use of

1318
01:05:27,680 --> 01:05:30,640
Speaker 2: that advice. Right, I'm an atheist. The word sacred is

1319
01:05:30,640 --> 01:05:32,880
Speaker 2: a very important word to me, and for me, it

1320
01:05:32,920 --> 01:05:37,760
Speaker 2: means anything that anything that helps preserve human dignity, Like

1321
01:05:37,840 --> 01:05:39,800
Speaker 2: that's a sacred task. It might be a school teacher,

1322
01:05:39,800 --> 01:05:41,920
Speaker 2: it might be a shrink, it might be a nurse,

1323
01:05:42,040 --> 01:05:44,480
Speaker 2: you know, it might be a minister. Sacred work happens

1324
01:05:44,480 --> 01:05:46,800
Speaker 2: in church as well, right, you know, So anything that

1325
01:05:46,840 --> 01:05:50,360
Speaker 2: preserves human dignity. And as a journalist, on our best

1326
01:05:50,440 --> 01:05:55,080
Speaker 2: days we bring back information that our country, the world

1327
01:05:55,080 --> 01:05:57,760
Speaker 2: can use responsibly to help alleviate human suffering. That's a

1328
01:05:57,800 --> 01:05:59,560
Speaker 2: sacred job, you know, on our best days, that's like

1329
01:05:59,640 --> 01:06:03,120
Speaker 2: sacred work. Right, So I thought, I've been going to

1330
01:06:03,160 --> 01:06:05,280
Speaker 2: front lines my whole life. I stopped. After my buddy

1331
01:06:05,320 --> 01:06:08,200
Speaker 2: Tim was killed in Libya. I went to the ultimate

1332
01:06:08,240 --> 01:06:11,640
Speaker 2: front line my own mortality. I was allowed to come back.

1333
01:06:11,680 --> 01:06:14,680
Speaker 2: Did I come back with sacred information that would help

1334
01:06:15,080 --> 01:06:19,360
Speaker 2: myself and others face the terrifying prospect of our mortality?

1335
01:06:19,360 --> 01:06:21,000
Speaker 2: We're all going to face it. Do I have sacred

1336
01:06:21,040 --> 01:06:25,080
Speaker 2: information from this? That's the meaning I took, right But

1337
01:06:25,160 --> 01:06:28,000
Speaker 2: I circled back to ask her, this wonderful woman, like

1338
01:06:28,240 --> 01:06:31,400
Speaker 2: what did you mean by that? And I couldn't find her.

1339
01:06:31,400 --> 01:06:32,960
Speaker 2: And not only could I not find her, no one

1340
01:06:33,000 --> 01:06:34,720
Speaker 2: at the hospital in the ICU, no one knew who

1341
01:06:34,760 --> 01:06:36,320
Speaker 2: I was talking about. All there is no one here

1342
01:06:36,320 --> 01:06:39,400
Speaker 2: by that description, like why did she totally disappeared? And

1343
01:06:39,640 --> 01:06:41,120
Speaker 2: she might have been, as you know, I'm not getting

1344
01:06:41,120 --> 01:06:42,520
Speaker 2: all woo woo here, like she might have been a

1345
01:06:42,600 --> 01:06:45,320
Speaker 2: visiting nurse and just I mean, who knows. But I

1346
01:06:45,320 --> 01:06:49,520
Speaker 2: couldn't find her, and it contributed to what afterwards was

1347
01:06:49,560 --> 01:06:53,000
Speaker 2: a terrible sense of unreality, Like I worried when I

1348
01:06:53,040 --> 01:06:56,320
Speaker 2: finally got home, I started to worry that I had

1349
01:06:56,360 --> 01:07:00,360
Speaker 2: died and that I was imagining everything. It was my

1350
01:07:00,640 --> 01:07:04,040
Speaker 2: dying hallucination that I actually didn't survive and.

1351
01:07:04,680 --> 01:07:09,080
Speaker 3: Did did that moment with your father and the darkness,

1352
01:07:09,160 --> 01:07:11,800
Speaker 3: did that like stick with you through that process or

1353
01:07:11,880 --> 01:07:13,880
Speaker 3: is that something that you came back to later.

1354
01:07:14,240 --> 01:07:17,240
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean as soon as this nurse said

1355
01:07:17,240 --> 01:07:18,800
Speaker 2: that to me, I remembered my dad. I was like,

1356
01:07:18,840 --> 01:07:21,439
Speaker 2: oh my god, I saw my father and the pit,

1357
01:07:21,640 --> 01:07:24,560
Speaker 2: you know, and I and that stayed with me in

1358
01:07:24,640 --> 01:07:26,920
Speaker 2: sort of troubling ways. I mean, so I started researching

1359
01:07:27,040 --> 01:07:29,560
Speaker 2: NDEs near death experiences. Right, They're very common. They have

1360
01:07:29,640 --> 01:07:33,720
Speaker 2: it all over the world. They're not infinitely varied right there.

1361
01:07:33,880 --> 01:07:36,560
Speaker 2: They fall into three or four basic buckets, one of

1362
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:40,640
Speaker 2: them being that you know, the dead show up to

1363
01:07:40,960 --> 01:07:43,600
Speaker 2: either tell you to go back or help escort you across.

1364
01:07:43,640 --> 01:07:46,040
Speaker 2: And it's very very common as every society in the world.

1365
01:07:46,600 --> 01:07:49,680
Speaker 2: It's quite a mystery. And I started researching NDEs and

1366
01:07:49,720 --> 01:07:54,840
Speaker 2: there's some pretty good rational explanations rooted in medicine and

1367
01:07:54,840 --> 01:07:57,360
Speaker 2: neurochemistry for many of the visions that people have when

1368
01:07:57,360 --> 01:07:59,400
Speaker 2: they're on the threshold. I'm a rationalist, and I'm like,

1369
01:07:59,480 --> 01:08:01,160
Speaker 2: all right, that that sort of makes sense. I get

1370
01:08:01,160 --> 01:08:03,680
Speaker 2: at the tunnel, the out of body experience. You can

1371
01:08:03,720 --> 01:08:05,280
Speaker 2: do that with drugs, you can do that in a

1372
01:08:05,360 --> 01:08:08,640
Speaker 2: human center views like fighter pilots undergo. You know, there's

1373
01:08:08,640 --> 01:08:11,040
Speaker 2: way The one thing that didn't quite make sense to

1374
01:08:11,080 --> 01:08:13,600
Speaker 2: me is the consistency of the vision. Right, so the

1375
01:08:13,680 --> 01:08:16,479
Speaker 2: many many people see the dead when they're dying in

1376
01:08:16,600 --> 01:08:19,479
Speaker 2: hospice in ers, and like, I mean, it's a really

1377
01:08:19,520 --> 01:08:21,840
Speaker 2: really common thing. And you know, if you give a

1378
01:08:21,880 --> 01:08:25,000
Speaker 2: room full of people LSD, they will all hallucinate. There's

1379
01:08:25,000 --> 01:08:28,240
Speaker 2: no mystery there. The chemistry of that is well known,

1380
01:08:28,360 --> 01:08:31,439
Speaker 2: but they won't all hallucinate the same thing. What's odd

1381
01:08:31,479 --> 01:08:34,680
Speaker 2: about dying is the consistency of the hallucinations that they

1382
01:08:34,680 --> 01:08:36,840
Speaker 2: involve the dead, even people that don't know they're dying,

1383
01:08:37,280 --> 01:08:40,000
Speaker 2: even people who don't like the dead person who showed up. Right,

1384
01:08:40,000 --> 01:08:43,320
Speaker 2: it's not a comforting vision necessarily. And that's the only

1385
01:08:43,360 --> 01:08:45,240
Speaker 2: part of this that really made me sort of wonder,

1386
01:08:45,320 --> 01:08:50,080
Speaker 2: like do we really understand anything about reality? And you know,

1387
01:08:50,360 --> 01:08:52,519
Speaker 2: I started I went into quantum physics to try to

1388
01:08:52,560 --> 01:08:55,840
Speaker 2: sort of understand, like, maybe the problem is that we

1389
01:08:55,880 --> 01:08:57,920
Speaker 2: think we live on a flat earth and it's actually

1390
01:08:58,120 --> 01:09:00,960
Speaker 2: a globe. You know, Maybe the problem is this boundary

1391
01:09:01,000 --> 01:09:05,400
Speaker 2: between life and death that we assume is absolute, maybe

1392
01:09:05,439 --> 01:09:08,160
Speaker 2: it actually isn't the boundary we think it is. And

1393
01:09:08,240 --> 01:09:09,760
Speaker 2: you know, I hate the word after life. I think

1394
01:09:09,800 --> 01:09:14,040
Speaker 2: it's a misnomer and misleading. But there might be at

1395
01:09:14,080 --> 01:09:22,080
Speaker 2: some sort of quantum level a reality that we don't understand,

1396
01:09:22,200 --> 01:09:26,040
Speaker 2: involving consciousness and life and death and time and all

1397
01:09:26,040 --> 01:09:29,040
Speaker 2: these sort of basic components of the universe. I don't know.

1398
01:09:29,120 --> 01:09:31,320
Speaker 2: I'm an atheist with questions, which is a huge step

1399
01:09:31,360 --> 01:09:35,160
Speaker 2: for an atheist or for a person of faith. Also,

1400
01:09:35,400 --> 01:09:37,040
Speaker 2: you know, if you're a person of faith and have questions,

1401
01:09:37,160 --> 01:09:39,040
Speaker 2: that's also a huge step in the right direction.

1402
01:09:40,960 --> 01:09:47,320
Speaker 1: There's this guy I knew that wrote me an email

1403
01:09:47,360 --> 01:09:50,559
Speaker 1: one time, and he had had He was tipping over

1404
01:09:50,600 --> 01:09:52,720
Speaker 1: a tree. Here we are chainsaws and trees. Yeah, he

1405
01:09:52,800 --> 01:09:55,840
Speaker 1: was tipping over a tree and the wind picked up

1406
01:09:56,600 --> 01:10:00,800
Speaker 1: and he lives okay, And all of a sudden, she

1407
01:10:00,880 --> 01:10:02,920
Speaker 1: was going away. He didn't anticipate, and he tripped and

1408
01:10:02,960 --> 01:10:05,479
Speaker 1: fell and the tree landed on him. But he was

1409
01:10:05,520 --> 01:10:07,639
Speaker 1: in just enough of a depression where the tree didn't

1410
01:10:07,760 --> 01:10:10,160
Speaker 1: kill him, but it messled him. So he had a

1411
01:10:10,200 --> 01:10:12,680
Speaker 1: thing like you just mentioned. He later went back a

1412
01:10:12,680 --> 01:10:17,559
Speaker 1: few days later. He describes going back and looking into

1413
01:10:17,560 --> 01:10:20,679
Speaker 1: that hole. Yeah, he's in such a weird state mentally

1414
01:10:21,040 --> 01:10:23,160
Speaker 1: that he went back looking in that hole, half thinking

1415
01:10:23,160 --> 01:10:25,760
Speaker 1: that he would see himself in that hole. And he

1416
01:10:25,840 --> 01:10:29,040
Speaker 1: was so tripped up that he did what you said

1417
01:10:29,600 --> 01:10:32,519
Speaker 1: where he's like, maybe I did die, Yeah, and now

1418
01:10:32,560 --> 01:10:34,960
Speaker 1: I'm in a weird spot. And he went to look

1419
01:10:35,479 --> 01:10:37,599
Speaker 1: yeah and weird like he was in. It got that

1420
01:10:37,680 --> 01:10:39,439
Speaker 1: weird for him over those next few days.

1421
01:10:39,840 --> 01:10:42,360
Speaker 2: You know, it's I didn't know this, but it's really common.

1422
01:10:42,400 --> 01:10:44,200
Speaker 2: I talked to a woman who was rear ended by

1423
01:10:44,520 --> 01:10:47,559
Speaker 2: a truck at a red light and medically was hurt

1424
01:10:47,600 --> 01:10:50,080
Speaker 2: a little bit. It wasn't didn't have an NDE, but

1425
01:10:50,240 --> 01:10:53,240
Speaker 2: after that she was just plagued with the fear that

1426
01:10:53,280 --> 01:10:55,360
Speaker 2: she had died in the accident and didn't know it.

1427
01:10:55,960 --> 01:10:57,920
Speaker 2: She was in limbo and eventually would find it. And

1428
01:10:58,040 --> 01:11:00,360
Speaker 2: so I had to say I had the same problem.

1429
01:11:00,400 --> 01:11:03,320
Speaker 2: And part of my part of my problem was that.

1430
01:11:03,400 --> 01:11:05,320
Speaker 2: And this is and I'm not woo woo, I'm really

1431
01:11:05,360 --> 01:11:08,320
Speaker 2: not a mystic. I mean, I'm I really am a rationalist, right,

1432
01:11:09,040 --> 01:11:12,240
Speaker 2: but our rationality doesn't understand everything. And this is that's

1433
01:11:12,280 --> 01:11:15,160
Speaker 2: where I have questions. But so the dawn of the

1434
01:11:15,240 --> 01:11:18,600
Speaker 2: day before, right right before dawn that we could my

1435
01:11:18,680 --> 01:11:21,360
Speaker 2: family and I co sleep, right, So my wife and

1436
01:11:21,439 --> 01:11:23,920
Speaker 2: I am are little girls sleep in the same you

1437
01:11:23,960 --> 01:11:25,960
Speaker 2: know area on the pad on the big pad on

1438
01:11:26,000 --> 01:11:28,720
Speaker 2: the floor. It's like we're camping basically, except at home. Right,

1439
01:11:28,720 --> 01:11:33,400
Speaker 2: it's very very nice. And I had a dream that

1440
01:11:33,439 --> 01:11:35,200
Speaker 2: I didn't know was a dream but at the time,

1441
01:11:35,240 --> 01:11:38,000
Speaker 2: but I had a dream that my family was below me,

1442
01:11:39,400 --> 01:11:42,519
Speaker 2: my wife, my little two little girls, and they were crying.

1443
01:11:43,040 --> 01:11:46,160
Speaker 2: They're crying about me, and I was waving. I was like,

1444
01:11:46,200 --> 01:11:49,960
Speaker 2: I'm right here, it's okay. I'm like and they didn't

1445
01:11:50,160 --> 01:11:52,599
Speaker 2: couldn't see me, they couldn't hear me, and I was

1446
01:11:52,640 --> 01:11:55,519
Speaker 2: I was floating above them, and I was made and

1447
01:11:55,560 --> 01:11:57,519
Speaker 2: I was in this sort of darkness looking down at them,

1448
01:11:57,560 --> 01:11:59,360
Speaker 2: and I was made to understand that they couldn't see

1449
01:11:59,360 --> 01:12:00,960
Speaker 2: me or hear me because I was dead. I was

1450
01:12:01,040 --> 01:12:04,400
Speaker 2: a spirit. I had died, and that I was headed

1451
01:12:04,439 --> 01:12:06,920
Speaker 2: out and there was no going back and that's it.

1452
01:12:06,960 --> 01:12:09,840
Speaker 2: And I woke up in a panic. I mean I

1453
01:12:09,880 --> 01:12:11,519
Speaker 2: woke up and then it was shocked to realize that

1454
01:12:11,560 --> 01:12:13,880
Speaker 2: I wasn't dead. I mean, that's how real the dream was, right,

1455
01:12:15,160 --> 01:12:18,720
Speaker 2: And God, that was just a dream, and I was

1456
01:12:18,800 --> 01:12:22,720
Speaker 2: really shaken, and thirty six hours later it started, I

1457
01:12:22,760 --> 01:12:26,679
Speaker 2: started dying. Right. So, when I started researching NDEs, another

1458
01:12:26,720 --> 01:12:29,559
Speaker 2: common ende is that you're floating above the doctors, above

1459
01:12:29,600 --> 01:12:30,599
Speaker 2: your body, above your fans.

1460
01:12:30,640 --> 01:12:32,400
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask about that, the bright light and

1461
01:12:32,439 --> 01:12:33,000
Speaker 1: the floating.

1462
01:12:33,160 --> 01:12:36,040
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I started researching NDEs, and again, you know,

1463
01:12:36,120 --> 01:12:38,880
Speaker 2: like the rationalist explanations for most of it, I kind

1464
01:12:38,880 --> 01:12:41,519
Speaker 2: of buy, right, And what are they?

1465
01:12:42,040 --> 01:12:42,400
Speaker 1: Oh that?

1466
01:12:42,560 --> 01:12:46,120
Speaker 2: You know, it's the brain is being traumatized by low

1467
01:12:46,200 --> 01:12:50,599
Speaker 2: blood oxygen and it releases endoor fins and you can hallucin,

1468
01:12:50,680 --> 01:12:52,800
Speaker 2: you know, brains hallucinate during times of stress. I mean,

1469
01:12:53,080 --> 01:12:56,000
Speaker 2: you know, there's all these just sort of sort of

1470
01:12:56,040 --> 01:12:59,639
Speaker 2: neurochemical explanations that do a pretty good job at explaining

1471
01:12:59,680 --> 01:13:02,720
Speaker 2: most of the phenomena of NDEs. Not the visions of

1472
01:13:02,760 --> 01:13:06,679
Speaker 2: the dead, the specificity of that can't be explained by

1473
01:13:06,880 --> 01:13:10,920
Speaker 2: low blood oxygen. Right, and only the dying seemed to

1474
01:13:10,960 --> 01:13:15,360
Speaker 2: see the dead. And but another common experience is sort

1475
01:13:15,400 --> 01:13:18,600
Speaker 2: of floating above your loved ones. Right, And so I

1476
01:13:18,680 --> 01:13:21,559
Speaker 2: was seized by this fear. Oh my god, maybe I

1477
01:13:21,640 --> 01:13:24,800
Speaker 2: died in my sleep. Maybe the rest of it is

1478
01:13:24,800 --> 01:13:28,880
Speaker 2: a dying hallucination, the trip to the hospital, the return home,

1479
01:13:29,000 --> 01:13:34,320
Speaker 2: the tearful reunion with my children, my reading a you know,

1480
01:13:34,320 --> 01:13:36,840
Speaker 2: a story to my to my daughter who's on my

1481
01:13:36,920 --> 01:13:40,000
Speaker 2: lap right at this moment. Maybe it's all a hallucination.

1482
01:13:40,080 --> 01:13:42,000
Speaker 2: I actually died in my sleep and my wife woke

1483
01:13:42,200 --> 01:13:45,559
Speaker 2: up next to her dead husband, Right, How would I

1484
01:13:45,600 --> 01:13:48,280
Speaker 2: know that's not true? Right? So it's really really this.

1485
01:13:48,360 --> 01:13:52,280
Speaker 2: It's called derealization. It's really really common with people who

1486
01:13:52,320 --> 01:13:55,559
Speaker 2: have almost died, either for medical reasons or from a

1487
01:13:55,600 --> 01:13:58,320
Speaker 2: near you know, a near miss, like your like your friend.

1488
01:13:58,680 --> 01:14:02,920
Speaker 2: And so I got pretty crazy, right, I really started.

1489
01:14:02,960 --> 01:14:05,759
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, one of the effects of trauma

1490
01:14:06,200 --> 01:14:09,240
Speaker 2: is anxiety and panic, and another is depression. And I

1491
01:14:09,360 --> 01:14:12,040
Speaker 2: actually went through those phases, a classic trauma reaction, but

1492
01:14:12,080 --> 01:14:14,240
Speaker 2: I didn't know at the time. At the time, I thought,

1493
01:14:14,240 --> 01:14:17,840
Speaker 2: oh my god, it's been revealed. The word apocalypse means

1494
01:14:17,880 --> 01:14:20,280
Speaker 2: the revealing of all things. Right, as I've gone, I've

1495
01:14:20,320 --> 01:14:23,719
Speaker 2: experienced the apocalypse. I've experienced the revealing, the ultimate revealing

1496
01:14:23,760 --> 01:14:26,400
Speaker 2: of what reality actually is. It's actually I'm we're not here,

1497
01:14:26,439 --> 01:14:29,320
Speaker 2: you know, Like, I really got crazy, And at one

1498
01:14:29,320 --> 01:14:32,400
Speaker 2: point I went up to my poor wife. Her name

1499
01:14:32,439 --> 01:14:35,639
Speaker 2: is Barbara. I said, honey, just can you just tell

1500
01:14:35,640 --> 01:14:38,479
Speaker 2: me that you see me? No spouse wants to hear this, right,

1501
01:14:38,920 --> 01:14:40,920
Speaker 2: Can you just tell me that you see me, that

1502
01:14:40,960 --> 01:14:43,479
Speaker 2: I'm right in front of you, that I survived, Like,

1503
01:14:43,680 --> 01:14:49,160
Speaker 2: just tell me that that I'm here. And she's like, yes, sweetheart,

1504
01:14:49,160 --> 01:14:52,559
Speaker 2: you're here, I see you. You survived for the last time.

1505
01:14:52,640 --> 01:14:53,160
Speaker 2: You're fine.

1506
01:14:53,320 --> 01:14:55,200
Speaker 1: Can you please take the garbage? Yeah?

1507
01:14:55,200 --> 01:14:57,800
Speaker 2: Can you please say exactly how about them dishes? Right?

1508
01:14:58,120 --> 01:15:01,479
Speaker 2: But in my mind I was like, that's exactly what

1509
01:15:01,520 --> 01:15:04,680
Speaker 2: a hallucination would tell you to maintain the hallucination. I

1510
01:15:05,160 --> 01:15:09,720
Speaker 2: didn't believe it. And she eventually said to me and

1511
01:15:10,040 --> 01:15:13,120
Speaker 2: another very profound like this nurse, like incredibly profound thing.

1512
01:15:13,200 --> 01:15:17,639
Speaker 2: She said, Okay, Sebastian, do you feel lucky? You're unlucky

1513
01:15:17,680 --> 01:15:21,040
Speaker 2: that this happened to you? Right? Not that you survived,

1514
01:15:21,040 --> 01:15:22,479
Speaker 2: of course, you're lucky to survive, But if you could

1515
01:15:22,479 --> 01:15:25,240
Speaker 2: push a button and have none of it have happened,

1516
01:15:25,640 --> 01:15:27,320
Speaker 2: would you push that button? And I know what she

1517
01:15:27,400 --> 01:15:29,920
Speaker 2: was talking about, because, on the one hand, yourself sort

1518
01:15:29,920 --> 01:15:33,200
Speaker 2: of cursed with this terror that I'm actually dead or

1519
01:15:33,200 --> 01:15:36,360
Speaker 2: the reality doesn't exist, or would all these existential epistemological

1520
01:15:36,479 --> 01:15:40,040
Speaker 2: sort of terrors. Right. On the other hand, I was

1521
01:15:40,080 --> 01:15:43,479
Speaker 2: sort of allowed to look over the final precipice and

1522
01:15:43,600 --> 01:15:46,120
Speaker 2: return home. I had a special trip, right, like when

1523
01:15:46,160 --> 01:15:49,000
Speaker 2: I was granted special access, I didn't have to pay

1524
01:15:49,040 --> 01:15:52,840
Speaker 2: with my life. I was allowed to come back and like,

1525
01:15:53,960 --> 01:15:57,960
Speaker 2: was I lucky or unlucky? And I couldn't answer. I

1526
01:15:58,040 --> 01:16:00,679
Speaker 2: didn't know, And it really torment me that I couldn't

1527
01:16:00,680 --> 01:16:05,200
Speaker 2: answer that question. And I finally answered it by putting

1528
01:16:05,200 --> 01:16:07,080
Speaker 2: it in more sort of mythological terms. I was like,

1529
01:16:07,080 --> 01:16:10,479
Speaker 2: all right, she's really saying, am I blessed or cursed? Right?

1530
01:16:10,920 --> 01:16:12,599
Speaker 2: And often when I'm at a sort of dead end

1531
01:16:12,600 --> 01:16:14,680
Speaker 2: in my work, I will look up the etymology the

1532
01:16:14,720 --> 01:16:19,400
Speaker 2: origins of the important words in the topic that I'm researching,

1533
01:16:19,760 --> 01:16:24,519
Speaker 2: to see what sort of earlier generations, earlier eras, what

1534
01:16:24,680 --> 01:16:26,759
Speaker 2: significance they attached to these words.

1535
01:16:26,760 --> 01:16:28,519
Speaker 1: So they're give me an example, what you mean.

1536
01:16:29,040 --> 01:16:31,320
Speaker 2: Uh, well, I will right now. I will right now

1537
01:16:31,439 --> 01:16:34,599
Speaker 2: with the word blessing. So the word curse, curse, no

1538
01:16:34,600 --> 01:16:37,840
Speaker 2: one knows what his origin is. It's a total blank, Like,

1539
01:16:37,920 --> 01:16:40,679
Speaker 2: nobody knows there's no known origin for the word curse.

1540
01:16:40,920 --> 01:16:44,640
Speaker 2: But blessed. Yeah, but blessing. There's some theories that is

1541
01:16:44,680 --> 01:16:48,000
Speaker 2: really to the word course, like a course that you're

1542
01:16:48,040 --> 01:16:50,280
Speaker 2: on that you can't deviate from. There's some theories, but

1543
01:16:50,880 --> 01:16:53,800
Speaker 2: no one knows. With blessing, they do know what the

1544
01:16:53,840 --> 01:16:58,160
Speaker 2: origin is and from the Anglo Saxon word bletson, which

1545
01:16:58,200 --> 01:17:02,200
Speaker 2: means blood, and the idea was that there is no

1546
01:17:03,200 --> 01:17:08,439
Speaker 2: blessing without a wounding, that the shedding of blood actually

1547
01:17:08,479 --> 01:17:13,040
Speaker 2: confers the blessing. Right, So battlefields are sacred because blood

1548
01:17:13,120 --> 01:17:17,920
Speaker 2: was shed on them, childbirth is sacred because blood blood

1549
01:17:17,960 --> 01:17:20,519
Speaker 2: is lost. And they think it might date back to

1550
01:17:20,600 --> 01:17:25,439
Speaker 2: the pre Christian rituals of animal sacrifice where you kill

1551
01:17:25,479 --> 01:17:27,880
Speaker 2: the sheep or whatever, and the spilling of the sheep's

1552
01:17:27,920 --> 01:17:30,400
Speaker 2: blood is what makes that moment and that place sacred.

1553
01:17:31,120 --> 01:17:34,600
Speaker 2: And so it's suddenly I got it. I was like, oh,

1554
01:17:34,920 --> 01:17:38,000
Speaker 2: it's not that, it's always they're twin. Blessed and cursed

1555
01:17:38,040 --> 01:17:41,280
Speaker 2: are twin. They're part of the same thing, right, And see,

1556
01:17:41,280 --> 01:17:43,600
Speaker 2: you actually it's a false question. You don't choose, You

1557
01:17:43,640 --> 01:17:46,920
Speaker 2: don't even get to choose. If you're blessed, you're also cursed.

1558
01:17:47,160 --> 01:17:49,840
Speaker 2: If you're cursed, you might also be blessed. And the

1559
01:17:49,840 --> 01:17:52,800
Speaker 2: story of Jacob actually goes right back to that. He's

1560
01:17:52,840 --> 01:17:55,519
Speaker 2: crippled by he wrestles with God and is crippled by God,

1561
01:17:57,200 --> 01:18:00,680
Speaker 2: but also blessed like God bleod unjo his hip and

1562
01:18:00,680 --> 01:18:03,400
Speaker 2: cripples him for life and blesses him at the same time.

1563
01:18:04,120 --> 01:18:07,680
Speaker 2: And so it's a very ancient human human thought and

1564
01:18:07,720 --> 01:18:10,240
Speaker 2: that just believed me for some reason and helped relieve

1565
01:18:10,280 --> 01:18:12,160
Speaker 2: me of this sort of like unanswerable terror.

1566
01:18:14,600 --> 01:18:17,000
Speaker 1: If you might go so in the next twenty years,

1567
01:18:17,040 --> 01:18:19,960
Speaker 1: this is gonna happen again sometime, maybe.

1568
01:18:19,720 --> 01:18:21,200
Speaker 2: More of the aneurysm.

1569
01:18:21,280 --> 01:18:22,400
Speaker 1: I no know that you're gonna die.

1570
01:18:22,439 --> 01:18:23,439
Speaker 2: Oh they're gonna die? Yeah?

1571
01:18:23,560 --> 01:18:30,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, are you h How did this shape your yeah?

1572
01:18:30,800 --> 01:18:33,280
Speaker 1: How did this shape your awareness that you'll have that

1573
01:18:33,320 --> 01:18:36,559
Speaker 1: you'll do this again? You know, you'll like you'll you'll

1574
01:18:36,560 --> 01:18:39,639
Speaker 1: have another moment and maybe there will be the hole

1575
01:18:40,120 --> 01:18:40,799
Speaker 1: in your dad.

1576
01:18:41,200 --> 01:18:45,080
Speaker 2: You know. You know, if if part of my unconsciously,

1577
01:18:45,080 --> 01:18:47,080
Speaker 2: I think part of my horror at you know, if

1578
01:18:47,120 --> 01:18:48,479
Speaker 2: I was if I was in a lot of pain

1579
01:18:48,560 --> 01:18:50,320
Speaker 2: and dying of cancer, I think my dad would have

1580
01:18:50,360 --> 01:18:52,600
Speaker 2: been a blessing and a relief to see and I

1581
01:18:52,640 --> 01:18:54,599
Speaker 2: would have thrown my arms around. I'm like, please take

1582
01:18:54,640 --> 01:18:57,400
Speaker 2: me away from my pain racked body. I'm done right,

1583
01:18:57,439 --> 01:19:03,519
Speaker 2: thank you. And one of the problems was that I

1584
01:19:03,640 --> 01:19:06,519
Speaker 2: was in the midst of my life. I had young children,

1585
01:19:06,800 --> 01:19:11,639
Speaker 2: and being taken away felt unimaginably tragic. And so if

1586
01:19:11,640 --> 01:19:15,439
Speaker 2: I live long enough that my girls are okay on

1587
01:19:15,479 --> 01:19:18,479
Speaker 2: their own, that my wife is not left as a

1588
01:19:18,479 --> 01:19:23,479
Speaker 2: single mom, that everything's okay. You know, I'm going to

1589
01:19:23,560 --> 01:19:26,719
Speaker 2: miss them, but you know, but I'll be at peace

1590
01:19:26,760 --> 01:19:28,880
Speaker 2: with it. You're not you know, you leave children behind.

1591
01:19:28,920 --> 01:19:30,599
Speaker 2: You're not a piece. I mean you know what I mean,

1592
01:19:30,680 --> 01:19:32,920
Speaker 2: like you you're a dad, I mean, imagine, right, Like so.

1593
01:19:34,120 --> 01:19:34,960
Speaker 1: It's the worst thought.

1594
01:19:35,200 --> 01:19:39,439
Speaker 2: It's the worst thought is and that I'm going and

1595
01:19:39,479 --> 01:19:41,320
Speaker 2: I won't be around to protect them if they need

1596
01:19:41,320 --> 01:19:44,599
Speaker 2: it and to love them when they need it. And

1597
01:19:45,479 --> 01:19:48,479
Speaker 2: it's unthinkable, right, And so it's the point of my

1598
01:19:48,600 --> 01:19:50,760
Speaker 2: I'm an older dad. My first daughter was born when

1599
01:19:50,800 --> 01:19:53,800
Speaker 2: I was fifty five. Being a dad is what I'm doing, right,

1600
01:19:53,840 --> 01:19:55,200
Speaker 2: I'm not doing you know, I write books as I

1601
01:19:55,200 --> 01:19:57,120
Speaker 2: need to make a living. I could care less. Right,

1602
01:19:57,520 --> 01:19:59,719
Speaker 2: being a dad is what I'm doing. It's the center

1603
01:19:59,720 --> 01:20:03,680
Speaker 2: of my identity. My existence and if I can get

1604
01:20:03,680 --> 01:20:07,519
Speaker 2: through to where they're okay, like, you know, I'm good.

1605
01:20:09,720 --> 01:20:13,960
Speaker 1: In your research, what did you turn up about that

1606
01:20:13,960 --> 01:20:16,280
Speaker 1: that feeling of your life? People that have that, they'd

1607
01:20:16,320 --> 01:20:19,000
Speaker 1: say their life passed before their eyes. What's going on there?

1608
01:20:20,479 --> 01:20:22,519
Speaker 2: Well, again, you know, we don't know the answers of

1609
01:20:22,600 --> 01:20:26,479
Speaker 2: these things, but on a sort of neurochemical level, the

1610
01:20:26,520 --> 01:20:30,320
Speaker 2: brain gets very active when you're dying. And and they've

1611
01:20:30,360 --> 01:20:35,599
Speaker 2: they've had they've actually monitored people's brains while they were

1612
01:20:35,680 --> 01:20:38,640
Speaker 2: dying because they had to for other medical reasons. They

1613
01:20:38,640 --> 01:20:39,920
Speaker 2: need to know what was going on with the brain.

1614
01:20:39,960 --> 01:20:42,120
Speaker 2: And they were actually able to watch the gamma rays

1615
01:20:42,240 --> 01:20:46,240
Speaker 2: and the different gamma waves and the different waves in

1616
01:20:46,280 --> 01:20:50,040
Speaker 2: the brain that like are part of consciousness. They got

1617
01:20:50,080 --> 01:20:53,040
Speaker 2: to watch them change around the moment of death. And

1618
01:20:53,080 --> 01:20:56,280
Speaker 2: one of the things that happens as you die is

1619
01:20:56,320 --> 01:20:59,760
Speaker 2: that the parts of the brain that are engaged in

1620
01:21:00,360 --> 01:21:05,840
Speaker 2: memory activate when you die, right, So you you know,

1621
01:21:05,920 --> 01:21:07,599
Speaker 2: like when you're dreaming, like you can have a dream

1622
01:21:07,640 --> 01:21:11,040
Speaker 2: that feels like it takes you know, ten minutes, right,

1623
01:21:11,520 --> 01:21:14,639
Speaker 2: And they know that those you know, supposedly ten minute

1624
01:21:14,720 --> 01:21:17,040
Speaker 2: dreams happen in seconds, right, So one of the things

1625
01:21:17,040 --> 01:21:18,519
Speaker 2: that might be happening when and this is in the

1626
01:21:18,520 --> 01:21:22,599
Speaker 2: neurochemical part side of the explanation for what for NDEs.

1627
01:21:22,920 --> 01:21:24,640
Speaker 2: One of the things that might be happening is that

1628
01:21:24,760 --> 01:21:27,800
Speaker 2: equivalent to a dream that you have an experience of

1629
01:21:27,840 --> 01:21:31,600
Speaker 2: a long you know, vast amount of time and a

1630
01:21:31,760 --> 01:21:34,400
Speaker 2: vast sort of perspective, right, you're seeing all of life

1631
01:21:34,800 --> 01:21:39,040
Speaker 2: in one moment, the kind of overarching knowledge that you

1632
01:21:39,040 --> 01:21:41,080
Speaker 2: can have with dreams, Like in dreams you you sort

1633
01:21:41,120 --> 01:21:43,040
Speaker 2: of understand things that you can't understand, you know, there's

1634
01:21:43,080 --> 01:21:46,080
Speaker 2: this sort of all encompassing knowledge sometimes. So that might

1635
01:21:46,080 --> 01:21:48,120
Speaker 2: be what's going on with that. And let me just

1636
01:21:48,120 --> 01:21:51,920
Speaker 2: say that there could be neuro perfectly good neurochemical explanations

1637
01:21:51,960 --> 01:21:57,480
Speaker 2: for NDEs, and also a part of NDEs which neurochemistry

1638
01:21:57,520 --> 01:22:00,880
Speaker 2: can't explain that do tie into some basic question about

1639
01:22:00,920 --> 01:22:05,720
Speaker 2: quantum physics and what is reality? What is consciousness? I mean,

1640
01:22:05,920 --> 01:22:09,960
Speaker 2: the quantum physicist of one hundred years ago realized that

1641
01:22:10,040 --> 01:22:15,200
Speaker 2: conscious observation changes quantum reality, like if you observe quantum reality,

1642
01:22:15,439 --> 01:22:20,280
Speaker 2: if a conscious observers observes quantum reality, it changes it.

1643
01:22:20,680 --> 01:22:24,679
Speaker 2: And so the obvious question is does consciousness in the universe,

1644
01:22:25,280 --> 01:22:28,960
Speaker 2: human and other otherwise, does consciousness in the universe create

1645
01:22:29,080 --> 01:22:33,800
Speaker 2: the universe that that consciousness then exists in, right? I

1646
01:22:33,800 --> 01:22:37,080
Speaker 2: mean it's a profound question. So when you're talking on

1647
01:22:37,160 --> 01:22:41,080
Speaker 2: those terms, the idea that the consciousness that you enjoy

1648
01:22:41,240 --> 01:22:44,519
Speaker 2: as when you're alive, that there's some other version of

1649
01:22:44,600 --> 01:22:47,479
Speaker 2: it that continues on as part of the universe, a

1650
01:22:47,560 --> 01:22:50,880
Speaker 2: kind of universal consciousness continues on after you die. You know,

1651
01:22:51,600 --> 01:22:54,559
Speaker 2: it's not an insane question, right, It's a legitimate question.

1652
01:22:58,560 --> 01:23:01,000
Speaker 1: You get it like this stuff. You know I was

1653
01:23:01,000 --> 01:23:03,200
Speaker 1: saying earlier about if I don't understand something, I try

1654
01:23:03,240 --> 01:23:06,000
Speaker 1: to ask. I know I can't because I know that

1655
01:23:06,040 --> 01:23:09,439
Speaker 1: I can't understand quantum mechanics quantum physics. But uh, there's

1656
01:23:09,439 --> 01:23:15,880
Speaker 1: a thing that there's a trippy thing like if if everything,

1657
01:23:17,920 --> 01:23:20,919
Speaker 1: if everything in the universe, like if everything's electro chemical

1658
01:23:21,200 --> 01:23:23,960
Speaker 1: with life, it's all electro chemical, you get into this

1659
01:23:24,000 --> 01:23:29,800
Speaker 1: problem where there cannot be free will, right, like if

1660
01:23:29,920 --> 01:23:37,000
Speaker 1: everything is happens according to physics, and you go like,

1661
01:23:37,080 --> 01:23:42,519
Speaker 1: well life is electro chemical, right, right, there's no room

1662
01:23:42,920 --> 01:23:45,719
Speaker 1: then like then someone then a really good person who's

1663
01:23:45,760 --> 01:23:49,639
Speaker 1: really good at predictive modeling, would be able to you'd

1664
01:23:49,640 --> 01:23:51,479
Speaker 1: be able to like run all of it and predict

1665
01:23:51,479 --> 01:23:55,320
Speaker 1: the future because everything is electro chemical, everything conforms to physics,

1666
01:23:56,200 --> 01:23:58,479
Speaker 1: you know, So when you get lots of it's just

1667
01:23:58,520 --> 01:24:00,559
Speaker 1: like it's kind of when you say, sitting there and

1668
01:24:00,600 --> 01:24:02,920
Speaker 1: you're looking outer space and you're like, even if there

1669
01:24:03,040 --> 01:24:04,840
Speaker 1: was like a big brick wall out there, there's shit

1670
01:24:04,920 --> 01:24:06,200
Speaker 1: on the other side of the brick wall.

1671
01:24:08,320 --> 01:24:11,280
Speaker 2: Well, the sort of the sort of like joker card

1672
01:24:11,360 --> 01:24:15,720
Speaker 2: in the deck, there is consciousness is scientists don't understand.

1673
01:24:15,760 --> 01:24:18,240
Speaker 2: They can't even define what it is, right, there's the

1674
01:24:18,280 --> 01:24:21,040
Speaker 2: definition is something around the ability to think about itself

1675
01:24:21,280 --> 01:24:24,519
Speaker 2: right or self reflective, but they don't have a good

1676
01:24:24,520 --> 01:24:27,080
Speaker 2: explanation or a good definition of it. And they have

1677
01:24:27,160 --> 01:24:30,360
Speaker 2: no explanation for it, right, and the exp you know,

1678
01:24:30,400 --> 01:24:34,040
Speaker 2: the fact that consciousness can can determine outcomes in the

1679
01:24:34,040 --> 01:24:38,160
Speaker 2: physical world simply because it is exists and is observing that.

1680
01:24:38,680 --> 01:24:41,479
Speaker 2: You know that. So basically, if that's possible, all bets

1681
01:24:41,479 --> 01:24:43,960
Speaker 2: are out, all bets are off sort of right, So

1682
01:24:44,400 --> 01:24:47,439
Speaker 2: you're right in a purely mechanistic universe, But how do

1683
01:24:47,479 --> 01:24:52,040
Speaker 2: you fit consciousness into a mechanistic universe? And it doesn't

1684
01:24:52,200 --> 01:24:55,639
Speaker 2: seem to be it. Consciousness resides in the brain, which

1685
01:24:55,720 --> 01:25:01,320
Speaker 2: is a sort of electrical chemical like process, but it

1686
01:25:01,360 --> 01:25:07,679
Speaker 2: doesn't itself have it's not itself manifested physically consciousness itself, right,

1687
01:25:08,760 --> 01:25:12,719
Speaker 2: but it can affect the physical world in profound ways,

1688
01:25:12,760 --> 01:25:15,200
Speaker 2: at least at the quantum level. So, and let me

1689
01:25:15,240 --> 01:25:19,880
Speaker 2: just say, you don't understand quantum physics. Neither do quantum physicists. Yeah, right,

1690
01:25:19,920 --> 01:25:23,200
Speaker 2: I mean that's the great mystery. Like, you know, what

1691
01:25:23,240 --> 01:25:25,439
Speaker 2: they've shown is that things happen in the quantum world

1692
01:25:25,439 --> 01:25:28,840
Speaker 2: that sort of don't make sense in the macroscopic world, right,

1693
01:25:30,080 --> 01:25:34,680
Speaker 2: But it doesn't mean they can't explain why, right, And

1694
01:25:34,680 --> 01:25:37,080
Speaker 2: and for that matter, they can't explain why there's a universe.

1695
01:25:37,200 --> 01:25:40,360
Speaker 2: I mean, there really shouldn't be a universe, and you know,

1696
01:25:40,400 --> 01:25:46,080
Speaker 2: the universe basically religion and physics are. They're closer than

1697
01:25:46,120 --> 01:25:50,599
Speaker 2: you might think. So when religion, you have to believe

1698
01:25:50,680 --> 01:25:55,280
Speaker 2: that God is self creating. Otherwise you're stuck with, oh, well,

1699
01:25:55,360 --> 01:25:58,200
Speaker 2: someone created God, why aren't we worshiping that entity? Right?

1700
01:25:58,320 --> 01:26:01,640
Speaker 2: Like it, God has to be self creating. From that

1701
01:26:01,680 --> 01:26:04,960
Speaker 2: point onwards, it all works fine if you just take

1702
01:26:05,000 --> 01:26:08,320
Speaker 2: that leap like work with me here Gods self creating,

1703
01:26:08,400 --> 01:26:10,559
Speaker 2: and then from now on where we was believing that God,

1704
01:26:10,640 --> 01:26:13,080
Speaker 2: we're all good. Right, Quantum physics is the same or

1705
01:26:13,200 --> 01:26:15,720
Speaker 2: physics is the same way in some ways, like the

1706
01:26:15,800 --> 01:26:20,800
Speaker 2: universe is self creating. After that we can explain everything. Right,

1707
01:26:21,240 --> 01:26:24,080
Speaker 2: So there's a similar act of faith, this this leap

1708
01:26:24,520 --> 01:26:27,559
Speaker 2: that both have to take. I'm not saying that they're

1709
01:26:27,600 --> 01:26:31,200
Speaker 2: intellectually equivalent. I think religion is a story and physics

1710
01:26:31,240 --> 01:26:33,840
Speaker 2: is an attempt at an explanation, and stories and explanations

1711
01:26:33,840 --> 01:26:37,639
Speaker 2: are very very different beasts, right, but on some level

1712
01:26:37,720 --> 01:26:41,680
Speaker 2: they both required active faith that is probably beyond human comprehension.

1713
01:26:42,680 --> 01:26:47,240
Speaker 3: When you when you finished the book, did you end

1714
01:26:47,280 --> 01:26:51,320
Speaker 3: that process with like like, did you have your did

1715
01:26:51,360 --> 01:26:53,559
Speaker 3: you now have your like your own understanding or your

1716
01:26:53,600 --> 01:26:56,160
Speaker 3: own ideas of stuff or where you're just like, man,

1717
01:26:56,320 --> 01:26:56,800
Speaker 3: I don't know.

1718
01:26:56,960 --> 01:26:59,439
Speaker 2: I'd still well, of course I don't know, right, I mean,

1719
01:26:59,479 --> 01:27:04,840
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, I did you feel better? More like yeah.

1720
01:27:04,840 --> 01:27:08,040
Speaker 2: So there's this idea about consciousness affecting the physical world

1721
01:27:08,040 --> 01:27:10,640
Speaker 2: at a macroscopic level. I mean, so one of the

1722
01:27:10,680 --> 01:27:17,360
Speaker 2: proposals is that consciousness, like gravity, is essential to the

1723
01:27:17,360 --> 01:27:20,479
Speaker 2: physical reality of the universe. I mean, it suffuses the

1724
01:27:20,640 --> 01:27:23,759
Speaker 2: entire thing. It's not visible, but it makes the entire

1725
01:27:23,840 --> 01:27:26,640
Speaker 2: thing possible. Without gravity, there wouldn't be a universe, there

1726
01:27:26,640 --> 01:27:29,880
Speaker 2: wouldn't be planets, there wouldn't be anything, right, magnetism. Likewise,

1727
01:27:29,920 --> 01:27:32,360
Speaker 2: these sort of like invisible forces. And you know, we

1728
01:27:32,400 --> 01:27:34,240
Speaker 2: get used to the idea of gravity. But if you

1729
01:27:34,240 --> 01:27:37,120
Speaker 2: didn't know anything and someone said to you, you know what,

1730
01:27:37,160 --> 01:27:40,840
Speaker 2: there's this invisible force, and the closer two objects are

1731
01:27:40,880 --> 01:27:44,559
Speaker 2: to each other, the stronger the force is. And if

1732
01:27:44,600 --> 01:27:47,280
Speaker 2: you throw a rock out a window, like, why wouldn't

1733
01:27:47,280 --> 01:27:49,519
Speaker 2: it float in mid era? Right? It doesn't because of

1734
01:27:49,560 --> 01:27:52,680
Speaker 2: this invisible force called gravity, and it exists throughout the

1735
01:27:52,760 --> 01:27:55,920
Speaker 2: universe and we don't know why. Right. That would sound

1736
01:27:55,920 --> 01:27:59,439
Speaker 2: like the rantings of a schizophrenic, Right, I'm sorry. Likewise,

1737
01:27:59,479 --> 01:28:04,120
Speaker 2: with conscious and there's a sort of serious proposal that

1738
01:28:04,200 --> 01:28:08,360
Speaker 2: consciousness is part of the physical manifestation of the universe

1739
01:28:08,439 --> 01:28:13,559
Speaker 2: like gravity is, and that our individual consciousness returns to

1740
01:28:13,640 --> 01:28:17,000
Speaker 2: that great, greater entity when we die, and it's you know,

1741
01:28:17,720 --> 01:28:19,639
Speaker 2: you can't prove it or disprove it. It's a sort

1742
01:28:19,680 --> 01:28:23,559
Speaker 2: of pleasing theory for me as an atheist. It gave

1743
01:28:23,600 --> 01:28:26,080
Speaker 2: me a sort of slightly more comfortable place rather than

1744
01:28:26,120 --> 01:28:28,799
Speaker 2: the just pure nihilism of where a bunch of salism

1745
01:28:28,840 --> 01:28:30,840
Speaker 2: when we die, we're done. I also don't want to

1746
01:28:30,840 --> 01:28:34,800
Speaker 2: have to be conscious in the way we're conscious now

1747
01:28:34,920 --> 01:28:37,280
Speaker 2: for eternity, like thank you no, right, like they I

1748
01:28:37,320 --> 01:28:38,000
Speaker 2: had a moment of.

1749
01:28:37,960 --> 01:28:42,720
Speaker 4: Panic earlier in this conversation starting to contemplate that possibility.

1750
01:28:42,800 --> 01:28:45,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's like, careful what you ask for, right,

1751
01:28:45,120 --> 01:28:47,200
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, eighty years is a long time,

1752
01:28:47,240 --> 01:28:48,960
Speaker 2: and we can sort of limp through it at the end, thinking,

1753
01:28:48,960 --> 01:28:51,040
Speaker 2: thank God, there's a finish line here in some ways, right,

1754
01:28:51,240 --> 01:28:54,160
Speaker 2: we'd imagine eternity and eternity of conscience. I mean, just

1755
01:28:54,479 --> 01:28:56,760
Speaker 2: you remember what math class felt like in fifth grade? Like,

1756
01:28:56,840 --> 01:29:00,760
Speaker 2: imagine that for eternity, right, Like just well never ends

1757
01:29:00,920 --> 01:29:03,400
Speaker 2: like that. That's where I don't quite get about people

1758
01:29:03,439 --> 01:29:05,920
Speaker 2: of faith wanting an afterlife. I think they want to

1759
01:29:05,920 --> 01:29:07,400
Speaker 2: see their loved ones, is what's going on?

1760
01:29:07,640 --> 01:29:09,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me hate you. Another one that used to

1761
01:29:10,280 --> 01:29:12,559
Speaker 1: that troubled me for a while. I had a scary

1762
01:29:12,920 --> 01:29:16,439
Speaker 1: thing happened one time, and and I had that feeling

1763
01:29:16,520 --> 01:29:22,360
Speaker 1: of things. I had that feeling of of my focus

1764
01:29:22,439 --> 01:29:29,800
Speaker 1: becoming singular, and in reading about why that was like

1765
01:29:29,840 --> 01:29:33,120
Speaker 1: a feeling of like slowing down. Things slow down. And

1766
01:29:33,160 --> 01:29:36,640
Speaker 1: then I was intensely focused on a thing, and I

1767
01:29:36,680 --> 01:29:41,880
Speaker 1: was reading about that people in people in traumatic experiences,

1768
01:29:42,000 --> 01:29:45,680
Speaker 1: people near and experiences. It's not so much near death experiences,

1769
01:29:45,680 --> 01:29:53,120
Speaker 1: but people in proximity to that that there's like two paths.

1770
01:29:53,760 --> 01:29:56,720
Speaker 1: And the example that I read about one day was

1771
01:29:56,760 --> 01:30:03,280
Speaker 1: that there's a there's an explosion, okay, and there's chaos.

1772
01:30:05,720 --> 01:30:09,479
Speaker 1: Some people can be in that moment and they there's

1773
01:30:09,520 --> 01:30:13,960
Speaker 1: an arm on the ground. The only thing they see

1774
01:30:15,520 --> 01:30:18,479
Speaker 1: is the arm on the ground, and it's they just

1775
01:30:18,520 --> 01:30:21,720
Speaker 1: get lost in like a sort of timeless consideration of

1776
01:30:21,720 --> 01:30:25,960
Speaker 1: the arm on the ground. There's people that all they

1777
01:30:26,000 --> 01:30:31,200
Speaker 1: see is everything right, it's utter chaos, nothing makes sense.

1778
01:30:32,160 --> 01:30:37,800
Speaker 1: And then there's people that are like that guy needs help, right,

1779
01:30:37,960 --> 01:30:43,280
Speaker 1: that's happening, that's gonna fall right, And in certain disciplines,

1780
01:30:43,280 --> 01:30:49,400
Speaker 1: they're looking for the people that don't have those And

1781
01:30:49,439 --> 01:30:52,160
Speaker 1: your and your experiences in war and your experience with

1782
01:30:52,240 --> 01:30:54,719
Speaker 1: the with with death, like, have you have you ever

1783
01:30:55,200 --> 01:30:57,480
Speaker 1: grappled with that or did you find any of that

1784
01:30:57,520 --> 01:31:00,320
Speaker 1: in your research about these different these different sort of

1785
01:31:00,320 --> 01:31:01,479
Speaker 1: responses people have.

1786
01:31:01,760 --> 01:31:04,080
Speaker 2: I mean I've had. I think we're all capable of

1787
01:31:04,120 --> 01:31:05,760
Speaker 2: all of them. I don't think there are you know,

1788
01:31:05,800 --> 01:31:09,120
Speaker 2: like rigid categories where some people do this, some people

1789
01:31:09,160 --> 01:31:11,880
Speaker 2: do that. You know, it partly partly depends on how

1790
01:31:11,960 --> 01:31:13,640
Speaker 2: much preparation you have. And you know, one of the

1791
01:31:13,720 --> 01:31:15,400
Speaker 2: things they do when they train environment and they train

1792
01:31:15,479 --> 01:31:17,640
Speaker 2: soldiers what have you is they just get them to

1793
01:31:17,720 --> 01:31:22,240
Speaker 2: rehearse and practice the actions they'll need to take in

1794
01:31:22,240 --> 01:31:25,320
Speaker 2: a crisis moment over and over and over again, so

1795
01:31:25,400 --> 01:31:28,080
Speaker 2: that you know, they teach paratroopers how to jump out airplanes.

1796
01:31:28,120 --> 01:31:30,000
Speaker 2: You know that, you know, they got that muscle memory

1797
01:31:30,000 --> 01:31:31,640
Speaker 2: of whatever they do, you know, count to count to

1798
01:31:31,680 --> 01:31:33,519
Speaker 2: five and whatever, you know, whatever it is like, they

1799
01:31:33,560 --> 01:31:36,799
Speaker 2: get that muscle memory down, so that doesn't depend on deliberate,

1800
01:31:36,880 --> 01:31:40,000
Speaker 2: deliberate thought. And so there's a lot of tactics in

1801
01:31:40,040 --> 01:31:44,360
Speaker 2: combat that are somewhat formulaic, like football is, right, I mean,

1802
01:31:44,360 --> 01:31:48,720
Speaker 2: there's this sort of team team coordination that doesn't have

1803
01:31:48,800 --> 01:31:51,439
Speaker 2: to be thought about in detail in order to be enacted.

1804
01:31:51,560 --> 01:31:54,759
Speaker 2: And if you have no training like that, your brain

1805
01:31:54,920 --> 01:31:58,800
Speaker 2: hasn't been properly formatted for that kind of situation and

1806
01:31:58,840 --> 01:32:02,040
Speaker 2: it's scrambling to get enough information to make a good decision,

1807
01:32:02,640 --> 01:32:05,360
Speaker 2: and then of course people go into shock. And so

1808
01:32:05,439 --> 01:32:07,400
Speaker 2: I've had all I have. I've had all of them.

1809
01:32:07,400 --> 01:32:09,519
Speaker 2: I mean one time we got hit very when I

1810
01:32:09,560 --> 01:32:12,759
Speaker 2: was with American soldiers. We got hit very unexpectedly, very hard,

1811
01:32:13,439 --> 01:32:17,400
Speaker 2: and I, for I don't know, about twenty seconds, I

1812
01:32:17,479 --> 01:32:20,720
Speaker 2: was frozen, like I just couldn't move right. I mean,

1813
01:32:20,760 --> 01:32:24,720
Speaker 2: there's bullets hit in the ground around like, and then

1814
01:32:24,720 --> 01:32:26,760
Speaker 2: I snapped out of it. And that was hyper functional.

1815
01:32:27,640 --> 01:32:28,679
Speaker 2: Other times I've.

1816
01:32:28,800 --> 01:32:31,360
Speaker 1: I in that twenty seconds, where were you mentally? Were

1817
01:32:31,400 --> 01:32:34,280
Speaker 1: you on an object or like, like what was your phone?

1818
01:32:34,280 --> 01:32:35,960
Speaker 2: It was it was a blur, right, and I couldn't

1819
01:32:36,040 --> 01:32:37,680
Speaker 2: keep up with the blur. So I couldn't make good

1820
01:32:37,720 --> 01:32:41,320
Speaker 2: decisions because it was like this jumbled blur. And my

1821
01:32:41,439 --> 01:32:45,200
Speaker 2: buddy Tim was behind a Hesco barrier and we were

1822
01:32:45,200 --> 01:32:48,120
Speaker 2: taking a huge amount of fire and one of the

1823
01:32:48,120 --> 01:32:50,479
Speaker 2: problems was I didn't have my camera and my bulletproof vest.

1824
01:32:50,880 --> 01:32:53,120
Speaker 2: If you're in a situation and you have a job

1825
01:32:53,200 --> 01:32:56,240
Speaker 2: to do, you're a medic, you're a journalist, you're a soldier,

1826
01:32:56,479 --> 01:32:58,880
Speaker 2: you're a parent with a child, who's indeed, you know,

1827
01:32:58,880 --> 01:33:02,599
Speaker 2: whatever it is you had job to do, like that's

1828
01:33:02,640 --> 01:33:05,240
Speaker 2: a refuge from your fear. The job you have to

1829
01:33:05,280 --> 01:33:08,000
Speaker 2: do provides a shelter from your own feelings of fear

1830
01:33:08,200 --> 01:33:10,599
Speaker 2: and self concern. If you have no job to do

1831
01:33:10,840 --> 01:33:14,040
Speaker 2: because you're not holding your camera, you know, your fear

1832
01:33:14,200 --> 01:33:16,720
Speaker 2: just moves in and sets up camp. Right, And so

1833
01:33:17,240 --> 01:33:20,599
Speaker 2: Tim threw across you know, we we were this far away,

1834
01:33:20,760 --> 01:33:23,240
Speaker 2: like between me and you, like five feet. We couldn't

1835
01:33:23,479 --> 01:33:25,840
Speaker 2: there was too much gunfire to He threw me my

1836
01:33:25,920 --> 01:33:29,720
Speaker 2: bulletproof vest and my camera. And as soon as I

1837
01:33:29,760 --> 01:33:33,160
Speaker 2: was like geared up, boom, I was good. Huh right yeah,

1838
01:33:33,320 --> 01:33:35,839
Speaker 2: And and so it gives you insight into how soldiers

1839
01:33:35,840 --> 01:33:38,960
Speaker 2: perform under pressure. They've got jobs, they got weapons, they

1840
01:33:39,000 --> 01:33:41,160
Speaker 2: got it, you know, they got the gear, the tools

1841
01:33:41,200 --> 01:33:43,080
Speaker 2: they need. They have something they have to do. They're

1842
01:33:43,080 --> 01:33:45,639
Speaker 2: not thinking about their own fear because they are charged

1843
01:33:45,640 --> 01:33:49,800
Speaker 2: with such responsibility for their for each other. And and

1844
01:33:49,800 --> 01:33:53,320
Speaker 2: and it looks from the outside it looks like bravery. Actually,

1845
01:33:53,360 --> 01:33:56,880
Speaker 2: those roles that soldiers play in combat are a very

1846
01:33:56,920 --> 01:34:00,360
Speaker 2: powerful protection from fear. To understand, you don't have to

1847
01:34:00,400 --> 01:34:03,320
Speaker 2: overcome fear to do them. They are a protection from

1848
01:34:03,360 --> 01:34:06,840
Speaker 2: the fear, as would be true if I mean, I

1849
01:34:06,920 --> 01:34:10,080
Speaker 2: find grizzly bear is absolutely terrifying. Right, if my child

1850
01:34:10,200 --> 01:34:12,439
Speaker 2: was in danger from a grizzly bear, I don't think

1851
01:34:12,439 --> 01:34:14,840
Speaker 2: I would find the grizzly bear terrifying. I would try

1852
01:34:14,840 --> 01:34:17,240
Speaker 2: to distract it, you know what I mean, like totally

1853
01:34:17,320 --> 01:34:18,439
Speaker 2: changes that fear equation.

1854
01:34:19,880 --> 01:34:21,960
Speaker 1: I was with my fire one of my buddies who

1855
01:34:21,960 --> 01:34:26,559
Speaker 1: was a firefighter yesterday and this kind of seems random,

1856
01:34:26,560 --> 01:34:32,320
Speaker 1: but we're looking like we're looking at this thing in

1857
01:34:32,320 --> 01:34:34,600
Speaker 1: my yard, and there's a big cobweb, okay, And I

1858
01:34:34,720 --> 01:34:37,479
Speaker 1: wanted to clean this trough out. And I was saying

1859
01:34:37,720 --> 01:34:39,240
Speaker 1: that I was gonna have my kids do it, but

1860
01:34:39,280 --> 01:34:42,240
Speaker 1: my daughter that I've come to respect my daughter's hatred

1861
01:34:42,280 --> 01:34:45,719
Speaker 1: of spiders, and I'm like, it's her. I was like, dude,

1862
01:34:45,760 --> 01:34:48,160
Speaker 1: you could hand my daughter anything on the planet. She's

1863
01:34:48,240 --> 01:34:50,400
Speaker 1: gonna grab it if I said to grab it, unless

1864
01:34:50,400 --> 01:34:54,360
Speaker 1: it's got a cobweb on it. And he said, he says,

1865
01:34:54,400 --> 01:34:58,960
Speaker 1: for me, as eyeballs, that's that seems avoidable. Not my

1866
01:34:59,040 --> 01:34:59,559
Speaker 1: line of word.

1867
01:35:00,960 --> 01:35:03,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know I can see, yeah, and one

1868
01:35:03,920 --> 01:35:08,000
Speaker 2: one traumatic incident. Yeah, and then it's locked in eyeballs like, no,

1869
01:35:08,080 --> 01:35:11,240
Speaker 2: thank you. I mean, I'm an I have a racknophobia

1870
01:35:11,240 --> 01:35:13,519
Speaker 2: since I was a young child. I sympathized with your daughter.

1871
01:35:13,560 --> 01:35:15,639
Speaker 2: I mean I remember at one point I was sort

1872
01:35:15,640 --> 01:35:17,519
Speaker 2: of joking around. I said to my wife, listen, I'll

1873
01:35:17,520 --> 01:35:23,200
Speaker 2: protect you and the family from anything, grizzly bears, home intruders, whatever,

1874
01:35:23,240 --> 01:35:28,720
Speaker 2: anything except except spiders. Like we're camping in the Southwest

1875
01:35:28,760 --> 01:35:31,439
Speaker 2: and there's a transla it's yours, Like, I'm not doing it.

1876
01:35:31,479 --> 01:35:34,160
Speaker 2: And you can tell it's a phobia because someone people

1877
01:35:34,160 --> 01:35:38,040
Speaker 2: with phobia phobias have trouble even looking at a photograph

1878
01:35:38,720 --> 01:35:40,400
Speaker 2: of the thing you're scared of, right, I.

1879
01:35:40,360 --> 01:35:43,799
Speaker 1: Know, I've tested it out. I was skeptical. I've tested

1880
01:35:43,840 --> 01:35:44,759
Speaker 1: it out. It's legit.

1881
01:35:44,920 --> 01:35:45,439
Speaker 2: It's legit.

1882
01:35:45,520 --> 01:35:47,760
Speaker 1: I've come to accept it. Yeah, I used to be like,

1883
01:35:47,800 --> 01:35:48,719
Speaker 1: give me a break.

1884
01:35:48,880 --> 01:35:50,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's and it has nothing to do with

1885
01:35:50,600 --> 01:35:53,320
Speaker 2: the danger that's posed. Right, And that's where the photo

1886
01:35:53,360 --> 01:35:54,880
Speaker 2: comes in. You can't even look at a photo. It's

1887
01:35:54,880 --> 01:35:58,240
Speaker 2: a really deep suited, a deep seated panic reaction. You can't.

1888
01:35:58,280 --> 01:35:59,320
Speaker 2: You can't just turn it off.

1889
01:35:59,600 --> 01:36:04,760
Speaker 1: What's interesting about it is she has incredible detection skills

1890
01:36:05,360 --> 01:36:09,160
Speaker 1: like I wish she was afraid of deer. She'll come

1891
01:36:09,160 --> 01:36:10,519
Speaker 1: in the room, like if she walked in this room

1892
01:36:10,520 --> 01:36:13,880
Speaker 1: and there's a spider like you know somewhere, Yeah on it. Yeah,

1893
01:36:14,280 --> 01:36:17,719
Speaker 1: absolutely looks a great skill. Oh totally, but just applied

1894
01:36:17,760 --> 01:36:18,960
Speaker 1: to something I'm not interested in.

1895
01:36:19,000 --> 01:36:20,720
Speaker 4: Well, if she was in the tribe, that would be

1896
01:36:20,760 --> 01:36:26,200
Speaker 4: her job, spider, you our own little Yeah, what are

1897
01:36:26,200 --> 01:36:27,080
Speaker 4: you gonna work on next?

1898
01:36:28,040 --> 01:36:28,479
Speaker 2: I don't know?

1899
01:36:29,080 --> 01:36:30,840
Speaker 1: Are you searching a little bit?

1900
01:36:30,920 --> 01:36:34,439
Speaker 2: I mean this? You know this this book felt felt

1901
01:36:34,439 --> 01:36:36,479
Speaker 2: like I sort of capstone of my career. You know,

1902
01:36:36,520 --> 01:36:39,800
Speaker 2: I'm sixty three, and it's about such an ultimate question,

1903
01:36:40,720 --> 01:36:43,880
Speaker 2: uh that it was hard to think about something. You know,

1904
01:36:43,920 --> 01:36:45,920
Speaker 2: then what's next after writing about what you know?

1905
01:36:46,040 --> 01:36:46,240
Speaker 1: Life?

1906
01:36:46,760 --> 01:36:48,840
Speaker 2: You know, like, what are you gonna do?

1907
01:36:48,920 --> 01:36:50,439
Speaker 1: Well, you can write a book about what you ought

1908
01:36:50,439 --> 01:36:51,720
Speaker 1: to have done different? Right?

1909
01:36:52,240 --> 01:36:54,240
Speaker 2: So so I don't know, I'm you know, I'm I'm.

1910
01:36:54,280 --> 01:36:56,360
Speaker 2: I've spent a lot of time as a as a dad,

1911
01:36:56,400 --> 01:37:00,000
Speaker 2: as a parent, and my wife had stin pretty made

1912
01:37:00,040 --> 01:37:01,880
Speaker 2: a surgery less fall. So we've been sort of in

1913
01:37:01,920 --> 01:37:04,120
Speaker 2: a follow period because of that as well. She's coming

1914
01:37:04,160 --> 01:37:06,280
Speaker 2: out of it, so you know, something going to work

1915
01:37:06,280 --> 01:37:08,160
Speaker 2: on something I don't. I don't know quite what yet,

1916
01:37:09,240 --> 01:37:12,080
Speaker 2: but you might wrap it up. No, I love writing.

1917
01:37:12,080 --> 01:37:14,759
Speaker 2: I mean it's like you know, I'm I love running.

1918
01:37:14,800 --> 01:37:17,760
Speaker 2: You know, I don't run races anymore, but I love

1919
01:37:17,800 --> 01:37:21,000
Speaker 2: the act of running. So I still run, and I

1920
01:37:21,040 --> 01:37:25,080
Speaker 2: love the act of writing like it's just it's it's

1921
01:37:25,080 --> 01:37:27,400
Speaker 2: one of my one of the most powerful experiences I've

1922
01:37:27,400 --> 01:37:27,800
Speaker 2: ever had.

1923
01:37:27,800 --> 01:37:30,320
Speaker 1: And you like the act of it. Yeah, I love

1924
01:37:30,360 --> 01:37:33,960
Speaker 1: it doing it, doing it, doing it. I only like

1925
01:37:34,000 --> 01:37:34,680
Speaker 1: having done it.

1926
01:37:35,280 --> 01:37:38,360
Speaker 2: Right. We all other people to treat running like that, right.

1927
01:37:38,360 --> 01:37:40,599
Speaker 2: I don't like doing it, but I love it afterwards, right,

1928
01:37:41,120 --> 01:37:44,800
Speaker 2: And uh no, I love it. It's it's a a

1929
01:37:44,880 --> 01:37:48,400
Speaker 2: higher state of mind for me doing it.

1930
01:37:48,680 --> 01:37:51,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, h good for you.

1931
01:37:51,720 --> 01:37:53,720
Speaker 2: Not always, not always, but when it's when it's good.

1932
01:37:53,760 --> 01:37:55,680
Speaker 2: You know, musicians say the same thing, right, you know,

1933
01:37:55,680 --> 01:37:56,600
Speaker 2: when they're really.

1934
01:37:56,439 --> 01:37:58,880
Speaker 1: Fun fun Man's well for me.

1935
01:37:59,320 --> 01:38:01,000
Speaker 2: For me, it's a kind of music, right, I mean,

1936
01:38:01,160 --> 01:38:04,000
Speaker 2: the sentences have to have cadence, to have to rhythm,

1937
01:38:04,080 --> 01:38:06,439
Speaker 2: and they got you know, like there's a lot of

1938
01:38:06,479 --> 01:38:09,519
Speaker 2: musical components for me to the experience of writing.

1939
01:38:10,120 --> 01:38:13,080
Speaker 1: The writer Ian Fraser, Yeah, yeah, he once told me that,

1940
01:38:13,240 --> 01:38:15,040
Speaker 1: you know, he wrote a lot of humor. He was

1941
01:38:15,080 --> 01:38:16,880
Speaker 1: a humorist. I mean some of his stuff is very

1942
01:38:16,920 --> 01:38:20,040
Speaker 1: I mean he wrote about Stalin and you know, the programs.

1943
01:38:20,080 --> 01:38:25,160
Speaker 1: But uh, he also wrote a lot of humor. And

1944
01:38:25,200 --> 01:38:26,880
Speaker 1: he said when he wanted to be a writer, when

1945
01:38:26,880 --> 01:38:28,320
Speaker 1: he was young and he wanted to be a writer,

1946
01:38:28,400 --> 01:38:31,679
Speaker 1: he always imagined a writer sitting at his typewriter chuckling

1947
01:38:31,760 --> 01:38:37,000
Speaker 1: to himself in that way.

1948
01:38:37,080 --> 01:38:39,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right.

1949
01:38:40,200 --> 01:38:42,800
Speaker 1: You know who's got an interesting philosophy about Like you're

1950
01:38:42,800 --> 01:38:45,080
Speaker 1: talking about whether you'll do another one. I don't know.

1951
01:38:45,080 --> 01:38:47,680
Speaker 1: If you're a Quentin Tarantino fan, I am sure so

1952
01:38:48,040 --> 01:38:51,120
Speaker 1: very much. So. I don't know if he'll stay true

1953
01:38:51,160 --> 01:38:54,120
Speaker 1: to it. But he has said for a long time

1954
01:38:54,439 --> 01:38:59,240
Speaker 1: I will make ten movies. I've made nine. Wow, yeah,

1955
01:39:00,280 --> 01:39:01,960
Speaker 1: and that we'll see.

1956
01:39:01,840 --> 01:39:04,799
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, turned into a washed up director.

1957
01:39:04,960 --> 01:39:08,840
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like skeptical. Yeah, he's he's gonna do

1958
01:39:08,960 --> 01:39:14,400
Speaker 1: ten and then but right, yeah, I mean it's hard

1959
01:39:14,439 --> 01:39:16,880
Speaker 1: to picture the end, man, but it all ties into

1960
01:39:16,880 --> 01:39:18,080
Speaker 1: that mortality ship, you know.

1961
01:39:19,280 --> 01:39:20,960
Speaker 2: And I'm not going to write a book just because

1962
01:39:21,600 --> 01:39:23,080
Speaker 2: I should write a book, Like it has to be

1963
01:39:23,120 --> 01:39:28,559
Speaker 2: a topic that I find so compelling that I can't not, right, Like,

1964
01:39:28,600 --> 01:39:30,360
Speaker 2: that's that's what That's what it has to feel like.

1965
01:39:30,960 --> 01:39:35,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, David Grant, you know, the writer David Grant. Yeah,

1966
01:39:35,080 --> 01:39:37,840
Speaker 1: of course he when he was on. He came on

1967
01:39:37,960 --> 01:39:43,400
Speaker 1: recently after finishing The Wager, and I just sounded interesting.

1968
01:39:43,439 --> 01:39:48,680
Speaker 1: He was like actively searching, right, you know what I mean.

1969
01:39:48,960 --> 01:39:51,880
Speaker 1: But he was hunting for a topic, right, right, which

1970
01:39:51,920 --> 01:39:52,280
Speaker 1: is cool.

1971
01:39:53,120 --> 01:39:54,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a different way to do it. I mean,

1972
01:39:54,760 --> 01:39:56,720
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's I feel like it kind of

1973
01:39:56,760 --> 01:39:58,320
Speaker 2: has to come to you, like falling in love. If

1974
01:39:58,360 --> 01:40:01,439
Speaker 2: you're actively looking for your your wife out there, like

1975
01:40:01,760 --> 01:40:04,120
Speaker 2: you may not you may not find her, you know,

1976
01:40:04,160 --> 01:40:06,640
Speaker 2: you may not recognize like, and I feel like it's

1977
01:40:06,640 --> 01:40:08,960
Speaker 2: a little bit like that, like if you're if you're

1978
01:40:09,000 --> 01:40:12,240
Speaker 2: trying trying too hard at it, like you won't see

1979
01:40:12,240 --> 01:40:15,400
Speaker 2: the essential things that you need, the essential qualities that

1980
01:40:15,439 --> 01:40:16,960
Speaker 2: you need in that thing, you won't you might not

1981
01:40:16,960 --> 01:40:20,320
Speaker 2: see them, you know. And I feel like it's and

1982
01:40:20,320 --> 01:40:22,479
Speaker 2: you know, I feel that way about God as well.

1983
01:40:22,520 --> 01:40:25,120
Speaker 2: Like sometimes people are like, are you kidding, You're still

1984
01:40:25,160 --> 01:40:29,519
Speaker 2: an atheist? You haven't found God. I'm like, look, God

1985
01:40:29,560 --> 01:40:31,360
Speaker 2: has to find me, right, I mean, if I'm making

1986
01:40:31,400 --> 01:40:33,600
Speaker 2: a decision to believe in God. It's a decision and

1987
01:40:33,640 --> 01:40:38,360
Speaker 2: it doesn't have much content to it, right, Like.

1988
01:40:38,360 --> 01:40:39,479
Speaker 1: I'm not understand what you mean.

1989
01:40:39,640 --> 01:40:45,040
Speaker 2: Well, God, my understanding about faith is that it's an

1990
01:40:45,160 --> 01:40:47,519
Speaker 2: overwhelming feeling of love and connection.

1991
01:40:47,920 --> 01:40:48,080
Speaker 1: Right.

1992
01:40:48,920 --> 01:40:51,760
Speaker 2: So it's like, if you're just deciding to marry Susie,

1993
01:40:51,840 --> 01:40:54,080
Speaker 2: you might not be in love with Susie. Right, It's

1994
01:40:54,080 --> 01:40:58,200
Speaker 2: a it's a higher level decision about something you want

1995
01:40:58,240 --> 01:41:01,240
Speaker 2: to have in your life. Fine, no problem, right, but

1996
01:41:01,280 --> 01:41:04,400
Speaker 2: that's not I'm not sure that that's love. Right, And likewise,

1997
01:41:04,800 --> 01:41:07,479
Speaker 2: a higher level of decision to Oh, now I'm going

1998
01:41:07,520 --> 01:41:10,519
Speaker 2: to believe in God. I was. I was mortally terrified.

1999
01:41:10,520 --> 01:41:12,240
Speaker 2: I almost died. Now I'm going to believe in God

2000
01:41:12,320 --> 01:41:14,439
Speaker 2: just to just to be on the safe side, because

2001
01:41:14,600 --> 01:41:17,240
Speaker 2: you know, maybe maybe He gave me a break. That

2002
01:41:17,400 --> 01:41:20,800
Speaker 2: isn't what religion really should be about. Religion should be

2003
01:41:20,880 --> 01:41:24,120
Speaker 2: about an overwhelming feeling of connection and love, and that

2004
01:41:24,320 --> 01:41:28,240
Speaker 2: like love for another person, I think it has to

2005
01:41:28,280 --> 01:41:30,280
Speaker 2: find you if you're out seeking it.

2006
01:41:30,479 --> 01:41:32,439
Speaker 1: I understand you understand what I'm saying.

2007
01:41:32,479 --> 01:41:36,400
Speaker 2: So, like, if somehow God came to me in some

2008
01:41:36,640 --> 01:41:40,360
Speaker 2: form and overwhelmed me in a moment with a profound

2009
01:41:40,360 --> 01:41:45,960
Speaker 2: feeling of connection. I'd be like, Okay, you convinced me.

2010
01:41:46,479 --> 01:41:49,000
Speaker 2: I got it right. I wasn't looking for you, you

2011
01:41:49,120 --> 01:41:52,040
Speaker 2: found me. I'm all yours like war do you got

2012
01:41:52,080 --> 01:41:53,759
Speaker 2: to say? I'll listen.

2013
01:41:54,080 --> 01:41:58,439
Speaker 1: We just released this. It wasn't our project in this room,

2014
01:41:58,439 --> 01:42:01,120
Speaker 1: but one of our guys on our at work had

2015
01:42:01,120 --> 01:42:04,080
Speaker 1: this episode that he made. He does these kind of

2016
01:42:04,080 --> 01:42:09,200
Speaker 1: mini documentaries, audio documentaries, you know, so what hell, what's

2017
01:42:09,200 --> 01:42:12,960
Speaker 1: the word I'm looking for? What's an audio documentary podcast?

2018
01:42:13,640 --> 01:42:13,800
Speaker 2: I know?

2019
01:42:13,960 --> 01:42:19,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, but no, maybe you could have a podcast. Yeah,

2020
01:42:19,640 --> 01:42:22,680
Speaker 1: that's just like a distribution platform, right whatever, You're right,

2021
01:42:22,720 --> 01:42:25,000
Speaker 1: it's like a documentary. He I was tuning his bit

2022
01:42:25,040 --> 01:42:26,880
Speaker 1: on this guy and the guy has what you're talking about.

2023
01:42:26,880 --> 01:42:31,120
Speaker 1: The guy has an epiphany in a moment and was

2024
01:42:31,120 --> 01:42:35,800
Speaker 1: an addict, you know, right, and he describes like where

2025
01:42:35,840 --> 01:42:39,920
Speaker 1: he's standing on what day, what was happening, and all

2026
01:42:39,920 --> 01:42:43,760
Speaker 1: of a sudden, like all was made clear, right and

2027
01:42:44,360 --> 01:42:48,240
Speaker 1: dropped his addictions. Yeah, committed himself to his wife, you

2028
01:42:48,280 --> 01:42:50,000
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And it was like he had

2029
01:42:50,040 --> 01:42:53,120
Speaker 1: like an epiphany. Well that's like he got overwhelmed, right,

2030
01:42:53,120 --> 01:42:55,040
Speaker 1: and that's that's very powerful. I mean For me, I

2031
01:42:55,040 --> 01:42:56,760
Speaker 1: would need evidence to believe in God.

2032
01:42:56,800 --> 01:42:59,479
Speaker 2: I need evidence of God, right like I believe in gravity,

2033
01:42:59,479 --> 01:43:01,920
Speaker 2: because there's evidence that gravity. You know, throw a rock

2034
01:43:01,960 --> 01:43:03,759
Speaker 2: out of window, it will fall. I believe in gravity.

2035
01:43:03,800 --> 01:43:05,880
Speaker 2: I need evidence of God. And for me, evidence of

2036
01:43:05,920 --> 01:43:11,920
Speaker 2: God would be that God suddenly presents I'm gonna have

2037
01:43:11,920 --> 01:43:14,360
Speaker 2: to say itself because the idea of applying gender to

2038
01:43:14,400 --> 01:43:18,160
Speaker 2: God is silly itself in my life in an overwhelming

2039
01:43:18,200 --> 01:43:21,799
Speaker 2: way where I cannot turn away, and I'm like, Okay,

2040
01:43:21,960 --> 01:43:23,439
Speaker 2: that passes the test.

2041
01:43:23,640 --> 01:43:27,400
Speaker 1: Yeah right. A lot of dudes listening are like, it

2042
01:43:27,560 --> 01:43:28,920
Speaker 1: happened when he almost died?

2043
01:43:29,800 --> 01:43:32,479
Speaker 2: Well, no, except I didn't see God right like I mean,

2044
01:43:32,479 --> 01:43:34,760
Speaker 2: I mean I saw my dad right, and I saw

2045
01:43:34,800 --> 01:43:37,479
Speaker 2: the nurse and the you know, I actually did not

2046
01:43:37,640 --> 01:43:41,960
Speaker 2: see God, And if I had, we'd be we might

2047
01:43:41,960 --> 01:43:44,680
Speaker 2: be having a different podcast right now, right or But

2048
01:43:45,880 --> 01:43:49,920
Speaker 2: I didn't. The things that I saw were very real

2049
01:43:49,960 --> 01:43:52,400
Speaker 2: world and mundane, and one of them I can't explain,

2050
01:43:52,439 --> 01:43:54,840
Speaker 2: which is my dead father hovering above me. But it

2051
01:43:54,880 --> 01:43:57,599
Speaker 2: may just be I can't explain him because our minds,

2052
01:43:57,640 --> 01:44:01,479
Speaker 2: our human minds, are sufficiently did that that that ultimate

2053
01:44:01,520 --> 01:44:03,680
Speaker 2: reality is not accessible to us.

2054
01:44:04,600 --> 01:44:06,000
Speaker 1: Well, man, I'm glad you pulled through.

2055
01:44:06,280 --> 01:44:08,080
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you very much.

2056
01:44:09,479 --> 01:44:13,320
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming on the show. Do you mind what's

2057
01:44:13,360 --> 01:44:15,479
Speaker 1: the best way for people to go do We have

2058
01:44:15,520 --> 01:44:17,760
Speaker 1: a good list of all all your books here on

2059
01:44:17,800 --> 01:44:18,519
Speaker 1: our document.

2060
01:44:19,280 --> 01:44:21,400
Speaker 2: I'll rattle them off right now, off Man.

2061
01:44:21,840 --> 01:44:23,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, you had a book about you had a book

2062
01:44:23,240 --> 01:44:25,320
Speaker 1: about a murder, like do the whole thing. Yeah.

2063
01:44:25,320 --> 01:44:27,519
Speaker 2: So my first book was called The Perfect Storm. It

2064
01:44:27,560 --> 01:44:30,320
Speaker 2: was about this huge storm in nineteen ninety one sword

2065
01:44:30,360 --> 01:44:33,840
Speaker 2: fishing boat that was lost off shore one hundred foot waves,

2066
01:44:33,840 --> 01:44:35,880
Speaker 2: et cetera. My next book was called Fire. It was

2067
01:44:35,920 --> 01:44:38,600
Speaker 2: a collection of my long form journalism, including quite a

2068
01:44:38,680 --> 01:44:45,120
Speaker 2: lot about wildland fire fighting, hotshot cruise. And then after

2069
01:44:45,160 --> 01:44:47,320
Speaker 2: that was a death in Belmont when I was six

2070
01:44:47,360 --> 01:44:50,640
Speaker 2: months old my parents. We lived in Belmont, Massachusetts. My

2071
01:44:51,439 --> 01:44:54,599
Speaker 2: parents were building an addition to their house and one

2072
01:44:54,600 --> 01:44:58,120
Speaker 2: of the three carpenters was a guy named al Al

2073
01:44:58,160 --> 01:45:02,640
Speaker 2: de Salvo and he a couple of years after they

2074
01:45:02,680 --> 01:45:05,680
Speaker 2: finished building the additions to the house, Al confessed to

2075
01:45:05,720 --> 01:45:10,200
Speaker 2: being the Boston Strangler and he actually he was killing

2076
01:45:10,240 --> 01:45:13,519
Speaker 2: people while he was working at our house. And there

2077
01:45:13,520 --> 01:45:17,200
Speaker 2: was a murder down the street that was a classic

2078
01:45:17,240 --> 01:45:22,400
Speaker 2: Boston strangling. But a black handy man from Mississippi happened

2079
01:45:22,400 --> 01:45:25,040
Speaker 2: to have cleaned this lady's house that day left his

2080
01:45:25,040 --> 01:45:28,160
Speaker 2: phone number on the counter. The police got the phone number,

2081
01:45:28,280 --> 01:45:32,080
Speaker 2: chased him down. He was convicted, convicted, and sent to prison.

2082
01:45:32,120 --> 01:45:33,880
Speaker 2: He died in prison for a murder. He says he

2083
01:45:33,920 --> 01:45:37,600
Speaker 2: didn't commit. And no one knew that al DeSalvo was

2084
01:45:37,640 --> 01:45:40,160
Speaker 2: down the street at our house that day all day

2085
01:45:40,160 --> 01:45:42,600
Speaker 2: by himself, then he might have committed the murder. So

2086
01:45:42,640 --> 01:45:46,840
Speaker 2: a death in Belmont is about that possibility. It's a

2087
01:45:46,880 --> 01:45:50,439
Speaker 2: it's a cold case who done it? Basically. After that,

2088
01:45:50,479 --> 01:45:53,800
Speaker 2: I wrote a book called War about this platoon in

2089
01:45:53,840 --> 01:45:55,840
Speaker 2: the one seventy third Airborne that I was with off

2090
01:45:55,880 --> 01:45:59,000
Speaker 2: and on for a year in the Corngall Valley. I

2091
01:45:59,040 --> 01:46:01,040
Speaker 2: also shot a lot of deal with my buddy Tim

2092
01:46:01,080 --> 01:46:04,000
Speaker 2: and we made a documentary called Verstreppo. I was nominated

2093
01:46:04,000 --> 01:46:07,479
Speaker 2: for an Academy award a couple of months after we

2094
01:46:07,479 --> 01:46:10,519
Speaker 2: were at the Oscars. We didn't win, but a couple

2095
01:46:10,520 --> 01:46:12,400
Speaker 2: months later we were supposed to go on assignment to

2096
01:46:12,439 --> 01:46:15,280
Speaker 2: Libya together to cover the Arab Spring, and at last

2097
01:46:15,280 --> 01:46:20,160
Speaker 2: moment I couldn't go and Tim was killed he died

2098
01:46:20,479 --> 01:46:23,400
Speaker 2: of blood loss from a shrapnel wound and scroin in

2099
01:46:23,439 --> 01:46:26,439
Speaker 2: the city of Masrada. And after that I decided to

2100
01:46:26,439 --> 01:46:30,479
Speaker 2: give up war reporting, and I wrote a book called

2101
01:46:30,520 --> 01:46:35,320
Speaker 2: Tribe about community and how it works and how soldiers

2102
01:46:35,360 --> 01:46:41,040
Speaker 2: experienced that Native Americans and how the loss of community

2103
01:46:41,040 --> 01:46:43,920
Speaker 2: has affected people in this country and the nation as

2104
01:46:43,960 --> 01:46:47,439
Speaker 2: a whole. And after that I wrote a book called Freedom.

2105
01:46:48,400 --> 01:46:53,760
Speaker 2: It was an examination of successful underdog groups and how

2106
01:46:53,760 --> 01:46:58,639
Speaker 2: they defeat greater powers, Like if smaller individuals couldn't defeat

2107
01:46:58,720 --> 01:47:03,760
Speaker 2: larger individuals in combat, or if smaller groups couldn't defeat

2108
01:47:03,800 --> 01:47:06,120
Speaker 2: larger groups, the empire would always win, right, I mean,

2109
01:47:06,160 --> 01:47:09,840
Speaker 2: the world we've been made up of like fascist coalitions,

2110
01:47:10,320 --> 01:47:14,559
Speaker 2: And but that's actually not true, Like under smaller underdog

2111
01:47:14,600 --> 01:47:19,559
Speaker 2: groups are very actually very good at winning as long

2112
01:47:19,600 --> 01:47:22,000
Speaker 2: as they have certain attributes. And so the book, my

2113
01:47:22,040 --> 01:47:25,599
Speaker 2: book Freedom goes into what those characteristics are that allow

2114
01:47:26,080 --> 01:47:29,160
Speaker 2: smaller groups or smaller individuals to win over a larger,

2115
01:47:29,240 --> 01:47:30,559
Speaker 2: more powerful adversary, like.

2116
01:47:30,800 --> 01:47:33,800
Speaker 1: Why did the Americans win the Revolution? Why did the

2117
01:47:33,920 --> 01:47:35,240
Speaker 1: viet Cong win Vietnam?

2118
01:47:35,320 --> 01:47:38,400
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly? And the problem, you know, just the brief,

2119
01:47:38,880 --> 01:47:43,400
Speaker 2: very brief version is with strength and size comes a

2120
01:47:43,400 --> 01:47:46,800
Speaker 2: loss of mobility, a loss of agility. That's true for

2121
01:47:46,880 --> 01:47:50,240
Speaker 2: an individual in a boxing ring. It's also true for

2122
01:47:50,439 --> 01:47:52,600
Speaker 2: you know, the US military or any military. And the

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01:47:52,600 --> 01:47:55,680
Speaker 2: smaller you are, the faster you are, and that and

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01:47:55,760 --> 01:47:57,960
Speaker 2: that that more than can more than compensate for your

2125
01:47:58,040 --> 01:48:00,840
Speaker 2: lack of size and strength. So with out, without that

2126
01:48:01,479 --> 01:48:05,200
Speaker 2: unique trait, it's unique to humans and every other species,

2127
01:48:05,600 --> 01:48:09,840
Speaker 2: size winds, size dominates, right, Only in humans can the

2128
01:48:09,880 --> 01:48:13,880
Speaker 2: smaller entity win, and that allows for human freedom, for

2129
01:48:14,040 --> 01:48:17,320
Speaker 2: human autonomy, self definition, you know. And then finally, my

2130
01:48:17,400 --> 01:48:20,519
Speaker 2: recent book is called In My Time of Dying. It's

2131
01:48:20,560 --> 01:48:23,559
Speaker 2: about my near death experience and what that might mean

2132
01:48:23,680 --> 01:48:28,960
Speaker 2: for all of us facing our mortality and what it

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01:48:29,040 --> 01:48:31,440
Speaker 2: might mean for how we understand the universe to function.

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01:48:31,800 --> 01:48:34,200
Speaker 1: Great, And then people, you have a website, like if

2135
01:48:34,200 --> 01:48:36,320
Speaker 1: people want to track you down, Yeah, not not you

2136
01:48:36,400 --> 01:48:39,280
Speaker 1: down personally, but go find collection of all your stuff.

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01:48:39,720 --> 01:48:42,840
Speaker 2: Yeah so yeah, I mean obviously on Amazon or your

2138
01:48:42,880 --> 01:48:43,559
Speaker 2: local bookstore.

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01:48:43,600 --> 01:48:45,280
Speaker 1: It's easy to get. You probably have one of those

2140
01:48:45,320 --> 01:48:48,000
Speaker 1: author profiles on there where people can see everything packaged

2141
01:48:48,040 --> 01:48:49,000
Speaker 1: on Amazon and stuff.

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01:48:49,080 --> 01:48:52,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but you can also go on Sebastianyonger dot

2143
01:48:52,080 --> 01:48:55,120
Speaker 2: com is my website and it's j U N G

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01:48:55,280 --> 01:48:58,799
Speaker 2: E R Sebastian Youonger dot com and all my stuff

2145
01:48:58,840 --> 01:48:59,479
Speaker 2: is there as well.

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01:49:00,040 --> 01:49:01,559
Speaker 1: Thanks for doing the show Man. Appreciate it.

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01:49:01,840 --> 01:49:03,920
Speaker 2: I loved it. That was a wonderful conversation. Thank you

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01:49:04,000 --> 01:49:04,360
Speaker 2: very much.

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01:49:04,640 --> 01:49:04,840
Speaker 1: Thanks