WEBVTT - Ep. 708: A Near Death Experience with_Sebastian Junger 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:13.280 If this is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:16.960 bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening. 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.320 Podcast, you can't predict anything. 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:22.800 The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:26.040 Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:29.520 for ELK. First Light has performance apparel to support every 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.400 hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.640 dot com. F I R S T L I t 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:43.239 E dot com. Good Lord joined today by Sebastian Younger, journalist, 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:48.360 bestselling author, documentary filmmaker. He's reported from the battlefield as 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:53.320 an embedded war correspondent, written about humans interacting with dangerous 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:56.960 jobs with the natural world. Long ago he had the 0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:02.040 huge international bestseller of The Perfect Storm. He's written an 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.080 outside magazine where I used to be a correspondent about 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:10.240 many things of whale hunters for one, went on to 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.600 do a ton of work about soldiers and the impacts 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:17.479 of war. His latest book, In My Time of Dying, 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.800 came out last year. It contemplates death and the afterlife 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.960 after a near death experience. The paperback version. Who knows. 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:28.440 If you're looking to save a few bucks, you might 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:31.679 have to wait indefinitely Spring of twenty six. I'd recommend 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:37.440 going getting the hardcover. Other works from Sebastian include Fire Tribe. 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:41.600 I mentioned Perfect Storm already. I remember seeing when that 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:46.080 came out, the film with George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:48.720 after I read the book about a commercial sword fishing 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:52.680 boat that never returned. So we're going to talk about 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.680 his new book and also about his years as a 0:01:55.720 --> 0:02:00.320 war correspondent and a bunch of our stuff, man Bash 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:06.560 and when you're when when one the Perfect Storm came out? 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:09.519 Do that hit me hard? Like in a good way. 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:12.600 But you know, one of the biggest things is I 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:15.840 used to be a tree a climber for a tree service, really, 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:17.760 and I know that the story came out of that 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:20.400 that you were climbing, you were a tree service climber 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:24.760 had a chainsaw injury. Yep, what was the chain saw injury? 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:27.440 So I was doing a ton of work and I 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:30.120 was exhausted by the area I lived and it had 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:31.000 been hit by a hurricane. 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:32.320 Assurance. 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:36.320 I was just doing work for home homeowners that needed 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:37.919 cheap tree work, and I was sort of a one 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:42.600 man show, and sometimes they'd be actually holding the lowering 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:44.760 line like the homeowner would be on the line like 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:45.400 that kind of thing. 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:45.600 Right. 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:46.880 I was doing a ton of work. I was a 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:52.960 good climber. I was exhausted, and I I was I had, 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:55.000 you know, I had a little climbing saw and I 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.040 was working in a big elm and uh. And there 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:00.800 was a little sucker that was like between my ankles, 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:02.360 like it's sort of getting in the way, like a 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.920 tiny little branch, right, and I just reached down. I 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:07.520 was I was in the flow, right, I mean I 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:09.079 was sort of moving right, and I would just reach 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:12.160 down to zip it this little sucker, to sort of 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:14.400 zipp it so it would we wouldn't like tangle up 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.440 my feet. And I was just slopping in a hurry. 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.720 And the tip of the bar hit the tree and 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:24.560 popped up in the back of my ankle, and uh, 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.480 it was I wasn't spiking so I was wearing I 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.240 wasn't wearing big leather boots, right because I wasn't spiking 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.360 the tree. It was a prune and and it just 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:35.720 went right into the back of my ankle and I 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:37.880 it didn't hurt, but I was like something hit my ankle. 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:40.640 The only thing moving down there was the chainsaw. I 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:42.400 got it, I should just at least take a look 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:45.760 to make sure I'm all right, And UH turned off 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.160 the saw and clipped it on my belt and U 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.600 and pulled my pant leg up and h sure enough 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:54.240 so I could see my achilles tendon. I mean, I 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.480 was looking at it right, and but it wasn't It 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.360 wasn't cut. It just had been laid open. And I 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.440 repelled down to the you know, the ground, and my 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:05.720 crew took me, took me to a sort of urgent 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:08.680 care place and they sewed me up. But it got me. 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:12.760 I was limping for quite a while, and it got 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.040 me thinking about dangerous work and that there's all this 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.000 work in this country that the nation needs, right. We 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.200 need people drilling for oil, we need loggers, we need 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:23.280 all kinds of people doing you know, commercial fishermen, and 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:25.799 no one's really thinking about them. And they're taking casualty 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:29.360 rates that you know, are sometimes comparable to units in 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:31.960 the US military. Right. I mean, it's like it, there's 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:37.560 the commercial fishing industry is deadly right, And so I thought, 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.800 I'm going to write about dangerous work and because it's 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:43.800 no one's thinking about it, and these people deserve some 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:44.240 some love. 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:46.719 Basically, you were already fixing the writ You were already 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:47.440 fixing to be a writer. 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.040 Though. Yeah, I'd spent my I sort of muddled my 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:51.920 way through my twenties trying to figure out how to 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:55.640 be a freelance writer and you know which, you know, 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:57.320 I've waited tables for a while, and then I got 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:59.520 this great job as a climber, which I was really proud. 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:01.520 I was a terrible but I was a good climber, right, 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:03.440 And so one of the things I really liked about 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.480 climbing is that you know it's inherently dangerous. You're eighty 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:08.320 feet in the air with a chainsaw or whatever, and 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:09.919 of course you can get killed up there. But I 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:12.840 realized there's no random element, Like if you're going to 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:15.719 get killed doing treework is because you screwed up. You know, 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:19.279 It's like chess. You don't lose a chess because you 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:22.279 rolled the dice wrong, right. You lose a chess because 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.159 you may bad decisions and the other guy didn't. And 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:27.599 treework was the same way. If you don't make a mistake, 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.520 you're gonna be all right. So really focus, be in 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:34.000 the moment right now and be perfect and there was 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:37.240 almost a sort of zen discipline to that mindset that 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:38.360 I really really liked. 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:43.920 Did you have awareness of commercial fishing from growing up? 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:46.320 You grow up mass chooses, right, Yeah, I. 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:48.760 Mean at the no, except that at the time I'd 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:51.599 moved up to a fishing town called Gloucester with my 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.640 girlfriend at the time, and I was doing treework from 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:58.440 there locally and in Boston and writing, you know, working 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:00.760 on this writing project. In that writing proce. My girlfriend 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.880 was a violinist and uh, you know, pretty typical sort 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.800 of bohemian, you know, young person's life for a while, 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:09.919 very nice, and Gloucester was a really you know, rugged 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:10.560 fishing town. 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:12.200 And I was there. 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:14.800 We were there and I was limping around from my 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:18.960 chainsaw wound when this huge storm hit the coast of 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.279 New England. And the next day I found out that 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.720 a Gloucester boat, Andrea Gail, with six men, have been 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:28.480 lost one thousand miles off shore along line here. 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:29.160 What's that again? 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.160 That storm nineteen ninety one, And then there were these 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.240 crazy rescues as well, and the seas offshore were measured 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:37.880 at one hundred feet, which was sort of record setting. 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:40.680 The offshore data booies were registering one hundred feet and 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:40.960 did you. 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:43.760 Can't you can't even like a you know what I mean, Yeah, 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:44.920 you can't picture it? 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.159 Oh god, I mean you gotta picture five feet and 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.600 a skiff is like, oh my god, I'm gonna die. 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:52.599 Yeah, when you're yeah, you gotta like I'm just trying 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:55.000 to think of how to you could probably explain it 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:59.240 to listeners, but I mean, like a five foot swell 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:03.080 of skiers everything. A five foot swell if you're in 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:06.680 a small boat, and a five foot swell your your 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:09.880 sub your sub wave. Yeah, I mean like when you look, 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:12.680 it's just water, hard foot waves. 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:15.160 Yeah. And this was a sixty eight foot steel hauled 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:20.560 longlining long liner and but still sixty eight feet in 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:25.160 seas of seventy eighty feet ninety feet is it'll get overwhelmed, right, 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:27.800 It can be flipped end over end, pitch poled, rolls, 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:29.240 you know, all kinds of things can happen. 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:30.880 Has that Did that boat ever get recovered? 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.960 No? No, they don't. They lost radio contact. They don't 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:35.680 know where it went down. 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:38.240 I don't mean to jump ahead to the movie, but 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:42.480 the visual one of the visuals, I mean the visuals 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.960 in the movie of the the boat going up these 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.600 waves and down these waves, I think like always stands 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.680 out in my mind as something that's in You're watching 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:53.040 it and you're like, this can't. 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:53.800 Happen on Earth. 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:57.040 Yeah, did you ever talk to people who had been 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:59.400 in c's like that and what as far as like 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.600 what they're how accurately that captured the. 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:05.080 Yeah, I mean I didn't. I talked to them to 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:07.560 research the book, So I didn't after the movie. I 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.760 didn't because I'd done my work on that topic. But yeah, 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:12.560 I mean, the boat disappeared, and I was trying to 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:16.440 understand what it was probably like for those guys before 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.840 they went down. So I talked to other captains of 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:22.320 other boats sort of in the area that had survived. 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:27.600 And I even talked to a guy named Ernie Hazzard 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:32.080 whose boat was pitch pulled off George's Bank and flipped 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.000 end over ends, and he wound up trapped in the 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:38.240 cabin in a flooded cabin upside down at night in 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:41.439 the North Atlantic, I mean, the ultimate nightmare, right, And 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.520 he managed to on a lungful of air, swim out 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:49.200 through a busted window and make his way to the 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.839 surface in this huge storm and the life raft popped 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:53.160 up right next to him and he got in it 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:55.760 and he managed to survive. So I interviewed him about 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:57.959 what's it like to be trapped in a flooded boat 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:01.000 upside down at night? What's going through your mind? Because 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:02.840 I was trying to recreate the state of mind of 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.760 those guys in their last day, the last hours, their 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:09.680 last minutes. And yeah, so these captains said that, you 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:13.680 know the waves, they're they're huge, and the problem isn't 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:15.800 that their individual waves are that big that they will 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:18.240 but they'll converge, like waves will they coming get from 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.200 different directions, They'll converge, and suddenly you have a wave 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.120 that's twice as high as all the other waves, and 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:25.320 they will just overwhelm you. 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:33.319 Hmm oh man. Yeah, uh, when you like when you 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:38.640 developed I don't want to call it stick seems real condescending, 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:40.400 That's not what I mean. But like when you decided 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:44.280 to focus on that the dangerous work thing? Was that 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.320 did that become like a I guess, like a strategic 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:53.360 professional decision or was it was it personal obsession or 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:54.960 was it just like that you wanted to make you 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:56.520 want to make a living as a writer and this 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:59.040 would be a wave that you could develop expertise and 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:00.560 establish a name for yourself. 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.600 So I've always been a sort of purist about only 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.760 working on things that I find so compelling that I 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:09.360 would do that work for free if I had to, 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:13.000 just in order to find out about that topic. And 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:16.480 this was a case where I've never made purely commercial concerns. 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:18.200 I think that like sort of ruins your work. But 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:24.240 this was a case actually where a sort of personal 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:28.480 decision about what fascinated me actually coincided with something that 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:30.839 turned out to be a great commercial decision. And you know, 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.800 I didn't strategize it like that. I've never thought like 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:36.920 that in terms of my work, but it actually was 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:39.480 a kind of good fit for where the marketplace was 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.600 at the time, and no one had really studs. Turtle 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:44.560 wrote a great book called Working It was an oral 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:46.920 history of work, an amazing book, but it wasn't focused 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:50.200 on dangerous work, right, and you know, I just I 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:52.480 just thought this is you know, there was a sort 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:54.760 of class issue here, you know, I mean, the people 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:58.520 that do dangerous work are mostly not exclusively mostly working 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.640 class mails and they get hurt and they die without 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:04.680 much fanfare and we're all depending on their work, right, 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:08.160 And I mean we all we live in houses made 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:10.120 out of wood that someone cut down, and we're eating 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:12.079 fish and you know, gone and on, we're driving cars 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:14.520 that oil got drilled out of the ground by somebody, 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:17.880 you know. And and so I just all that was 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:22.240 really compelling to me. And uh and and it turned 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:24.880 out to be a sort of gap in the market. 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:27.400 You know, no one had really focused on this yet, 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:28.920 and so you. 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:33.000 Know it works. Do you do you intentionally steer clear 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:39.920 of some of the broader geopolitical concerns when you're getting 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:41.560 like like if you get into if you're talking about 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.720 oil workers, you don't want to set it up like 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:48.719 it's a debate about dependence on oil, right, if you're 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:51.319 talking about timber, you're not setting it up that it's 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:55.520 a debate about how much old growth logging too much? 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:57.960 Like you try to really focus on these people that 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:04.040 are focus on the lives of people who ye are 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:06.360 it's kind of hard to put. Like Randall I talk 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.680 a lot about with the with market hunters of a 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:14.400 century ago, would be they probably if you quiz them, 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:20.080 they're probably aware of the broader geopolitical market factors. That 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:22.920 are pushing them to do what they do. But there 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:28.880 their desire to participate or they're moving into participate is 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:31.520 like politically agnostic. It's like they're doing it because that's 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:33.160 what that's what's available to them. 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:38.400 Yeah. So there are great journalists, better journalists than I 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:41.120 am in so many ways, that are writing about the 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.440 sort of macro issues. I'm not an economist, I'm not 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:46.840 a scient you know, whatever. There's there's people doing really 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:50.560 good work about the you know, the urgent issues of 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:52.680 our day, the economy, the climate, you know, whatever you 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:55.800 name it. Right, I'm not that guy, right, like what what? 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:56.360 What? Really? 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.120 And it it interests me because I'm a part of 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:01.160 the planet and part of the country, and I'm invested 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.200 in the out in good outcomes, right, But I'm not Intellectually, 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:06.560 it doesn't interest me that much. What interests me is 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:10.880 people's experiences, and that often gets lost in the reporting. 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:12.680 And so when I was I mean, just to jump 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.360 ahead a bit in my in my career, but you know, 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:18.560 many years later, when I was embedded with US forces 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:21.640 in Afghanistan, you know, I had plenty of personal opinions 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:25.800 about the war, you know, and some some positive, some critical, 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:28.720 but I wanted to write about the soldiers, right. I 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:31.760 was one semary third Airborne in a remote valley with 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:33.840 a lot of combat. I was interested in those in 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:36.800 those guys, and they were not They themselves were not 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:39.760 thinking about the war in large scale terms. They just 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.840 weren't thinking about it, right, Yeah, And and so when 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.480 I wrote my book War and made my film or 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:50.680 Strepo about those guys, there was no discussion about the 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:53.840 larger issues because those guys were not interested in it. 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:55.959 And I wanted to. I wanted to make work that 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:58.760 made people understand what it was like to be an 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.880 American soldier in bout Afghanistan. Like end of sentence, and 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:05.160 you know, they're twenty years old, they're twenty one years old. 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:07.560 They're I wasn't thinking about the economy when I was twenty, 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:09.720 Like why why would they, you know, like, why would 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:13.480 they think about the larger issues? They're they're they're they're 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.120 already have their hands full of just doing the job 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:17.360 that's right in front of them. 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:19.680 When when, if if you go back to look at 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:24.600 your work with your work with Swordfish Longliners, where there's 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:28.600 a disaster, lives are lost, and then you come in 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:35.440 after and explain that to go to become a war correspondent. 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:41.160 You're like, you're you're not in the after. It's like 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:43.440 you're in the mix, right, I mean that that like 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:48.400 it puts you on the long line boat. Yeah, in 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:53.320 the storm. Yeah? What was that? Like? How would that 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:57.640 with your family friends? Did they think you were not slight? 0:14:57.760 --> 0:14:57.840 Like? 0:14:57.840 --> 0:14:59.520 How did it come about that? You're like, man, I 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.640 want to go and I want to like be with 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.560 soldiers in combat. Right do I call the Pentagon? You know? 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:08.440 How do I get this rolling? 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:10.240 Yeah? I mean I'd done a little bit of that 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:12.240 in the early nineties. That was in Idaho on some 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:14.720 hot shot crews. They're fighting these big fires. I was 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:19.040 really interested in wildland fire and myself I would have 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:20.520 loved to have been on a hot shot crew. I 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:23.720 just didn't. From the East Coast where I lived, the 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.120 bureaucracy trying to figure out how to do that just 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:30.240 on a bureaucratic level was almost impossible, and so I 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:32.000 ended up reporting on them, spent quite a lot of 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:34.840 time out there. So I was I sort of participant 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:39.760 a journalist in some situations before that. But my first 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:42.680 war was in nineteen ninety three on backup for one second. 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.160 When you were doing the fire stuff, though, did they 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:46.880 really let you get in there or was it too 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:48.760 they did? Okay, oh yeah, I didn't know if it 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:50.720 was like if it'd be like sort of too easy 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.240 to constrain someone and keep them out of harm's way. 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:56.080 For no, they just put They just put me on 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:58.760 a helicopter and dropped me in and yeah, yeah, yeah 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:02.160 it was amazing. And I mean with absolutely no I 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:05.440 absolutely no credentials or anything. I mean, I just showed up. 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.800 It's refreshing to hear that that. Yeah, someone didn't be 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:10.080 like no, no, no, no, no, you stay here. 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:12.000 It was the early nineties, right, I don't you know, 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:13.960 maybe different now, But I showed up. I was like, hey, 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:16.560 you know, I'm interested in writing about wildland fire and 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:18.080 could you get me on a crew? And the next 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:20.280 thing I knew, I was in a helicopter. They dropped 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:22.400 me off for the shot crew up in the you know, 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:24.920 mountains north of Idaho, north of Boise. It was a 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:25.480 huge fire. 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:25.760 Yeah. 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.160 Was the process a lot different becoming a war correspondent? 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:32.000 Like were there was there certain training you had to 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:34.920 go through or like security clearances and. 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:38.760 Well, you know, most wars are don't involve you as military. 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:41.400 Most wars in the world, right, so there isn't a 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:47.120 government agency involved in whether you can go to Sierra Leone, right, So, 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:50.200 I mean I covered civil wars in West Africa. I 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.680 was in Afghanistan in nineteen ninety six. I watched the 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:56.440 Taliban takeover. I was with the in Kobble. 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.080 Yeah, because you interviewed you interviewed a mom. 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:04.280 Masud. Yes, I'm Shamsud. 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.760 He was killed, Yeah, he was killed by later interviewers. 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:10.160 Yeah, I interviewed him. I spent two months with him 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:12.280 and his forces in Badakshan in two thousand and the 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.040 fall of two thousand and I was with his commanders 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.520 when they took when they liberated Kabo after nine to eleven. 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:20.879 And that's incredible, man, Yeah, it's amazing. 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:22.400 So the guy, you know, the US government has nothing 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:25.639 to do with that decision of yours to go seek 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:28.439 out Masud and spend a couple of months with him 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:30.800 fighting the Taliban in northern Afghanistan. They have nothing to 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:34.000 do with it, right, And so I wasn't embedded with 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.160 US forces until two thousand and five, was the first time. 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.199 So most of my war reporting has not been with 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:41.080 US forces. 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:43.680 It's just Spen. You try to get closer, closer, closer, 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:44.800 until you're in it. 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:47.359 Yeah, so I was, you know, my first war was 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:52.120 Sarajevo in nineteen ninety three, besieged by the Bosnian Serbs. 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:54.320 It was a you know, I would say, I mean, 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:56.199 I'm showing my sympathies here, but I would say it 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.680 was quite similar to Russia and Ukraine, except on a 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.000 much scale. Right, It's not Russian Ukraine. It's the Bosnian 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.920 Serbs and in Bosnia, but the same sort of awful 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:10.720 shelling of civilians they besieged Sarajevo. It was an ethnic, 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:16.240 ethnically driven conflict, you know, sort of a nationalistic conflict 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:20.159 and grotesque, grotesquely violent, And I you know, I managed 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.560 to convince a magazine editor I knew at a magazine 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:25.760 called Men's Journal, which is back in the day a 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.680 pretty good magazine, and he wrote, he gave he gave 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:31.760 me a sort of letter of passage like Sebastian is 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:33.880 working on a piece for us for which wasn't even 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:36.800 true for the boar of civil war in Bosnia, and please, 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:38.399 you know, help them in any way you can I 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.359 just like showed that to some un guy and he 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:42.959 gave me a un press pass and the next thing 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:44.880 I knew, I was on a relief flight into Sarajevo 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:47.600 and then boom there. I was like it was no 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.720 credentials from anybody, right, But there were a lot of 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:55.560 freelancers in Sarajevo who made their made their bones. I 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.000 mean it sort of like learned the craft because they 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:02.160 just put themselves in that situation. They started lansing radio newspaper. 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:04.760 You know. I went there basically the girlfriend I was 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:08.040 living with in Gloucester dumped me and I was, you know. 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:12.560 I'll show you, right. So I was sort of heart 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:13.960 heartbroken and. 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:16.200 Like, oh I can you mean, I can do anything 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:17.679 I want right now? Are you kidding? 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:17.920 Right? 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:21.000 So it was that that heady mix of heartbreak and liberation, 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:22.679 you know what I mean. It's sort of an interesting 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:25.320 moment and people in your life and uh So I 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:26.719 went to SFO and there was a lot of other 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:29.840 freelancers like me, and I would say eighty percent of 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:32.840 them were young males like I was. And I would 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:34.880 say eighty percent of those guys had just been dumped 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:35.800 by their girlfriend, like. 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:38.720 You know eight. 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:41.320 So oh sorry, I was gonna say, there's a there's 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.159 a book My War Gone By miss it. 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:46.359 So yeah, I met him. Yeah, I met him in 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:47.880 Bosnia in ninety three. 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:51.640 I mean that I remember reading that. That probably read 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:55.600 that fifteen or so years ago. But yeah, it's a 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.520 very similar story. I mean it's like in hotel rooms. 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:02.440 And yeah, he was probably dumped by his girlfriend. Also, yeah, 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:03.240 he seemed like it. 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:08.840 You know, it was seventeen years ago this summer that 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:13.560 I first decided I didn't want to die, okay, And 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.439 I realized when I was I topped my last I 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:21.520 topped my last big tree. Yeah, and and you know 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:24.600 that thing when you relieve that top load, it really 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:28.840 bucks like Bucks huge. And I used to just I 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:32.119 liked it, was indifferent to it, didn't think about it. 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:35.000 And I was like, man, I don't want to I 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:39.040 climbed down on that tree. Never like I changed my behaviors. 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:41.520 And I was getting married that summer. But you have 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:46.359 to to go do what you did, Like tree climb 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:48.640 is one thing, but to go do you did, and 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:52.800 like go into Afghanistan during the Civil War when for 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:56.600 a lot of people, having an American captive is really cool. 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.240 And then being able to like kill an American captive 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:02.959 is enticing. Right, It's like you had to kind of 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:06.919 have been like I mean, I don't sound like you know, 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:09.359 like you had like like it's like a mental issue, 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:12.480 but you had to be like kind of indifferent to death. No. 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:14.320 I wasn't indifferent to death, but I felt like I 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:17.440 was taking calculated risks that were manageable, like I wouldn't. Yeah, 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:19.719 I would never have gone into Syria. I mean Syria 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:22.560 there was an open market for Western Yeah, right. 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:25.480 So when Afghanistan didn't feel that way when you were. 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:27.920 No, I mean I was. I was with Masoud and 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.639 the Northern Alliance and there were absolutely zero issues with 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:35.400 them about they were my hosts and my protectors, right, 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:35.960 I mean. 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:39.000 Wow, But he was also blown up, Yeah, of course, 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:41.280 I mean right, but I don't shooting people around him, right. 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:43.040 But you know, it's not like they would have seized 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:44.720 me and decided to cut my head off, right, I 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:46.840 mean I was among the people. I mean I was 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:49.600 there to report on the frankly, the tragedy and the 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:52.600 outrage of what the Taliban back by Pakistan were doing 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:54.880 to the Afghan people, Right, I mean and they were 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:57.960 full the people, the Northern Alliance and MASUD were fully 0:21:57.960 --> 0:21:59.720 on board with the fact that someone had from the 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:02.240 West and pressed had come in to shine a spotlight 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:03.480 on them. So I was very I. 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:04.520 Mean, they felt protected. 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:07.720 They would have died protecting me, right, I mean, seriously 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:10.920 not true in West Africa. West Africa was a lot scarier. 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:15.359 Even the indigenous forces that I was with. I didn't 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:18.280 trust them because they were traumatized child soldiers, all high 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:20.959 on drugs, so, you know, like it just there were 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:23.320 a lot of variables that were terrifying, and I had 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:27.960 some incredibly scary situations with them. 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:31.360 What would you categorize when you say that, like, what 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:34.439 would be the kind of scenario or situation you'd be 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:37.080 in that you would categorize as scary, because I think 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:39.880 most people would find that every moment was scary, you know, 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:41.720 just to be in the proximity of shelling, to be 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:42.800 in the proximity of war. 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:46.040 Well, I've been shelled plenty, and that's very scary. I 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:47.760 mean I've been shot at. I mean, lots of things 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:50.840 have happened, But I think the two scariest moments I 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:57.000 think were moments were where I had where I thought 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:00.240 I was going to be executed, right, And both of 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:02.959 them were in West Africa. One was in Sierra Leone. 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:06.439 I was coming back from a frontline fight back towards 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:09.639 Freetown and with a couple of government soldiers and a 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:13.280 couple of journalists and a group of rebels stepped out 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:16.680 of the jungle and stopped us on this deserted road. 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:20.240 And two weeks later they wiped out two cars full 0:23:20.280 --> 0:23:24.880 of journalists on the same road, like right near where 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:28.000 we were. These same guys stopped us and they had 0:23:28.040 --> 0:23:30.720 their rifles the machine guns leveled, and they were arguing 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:32.520 with each other. We were in an open jeep and 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:34.720 they were arguing with each other, seemed to be arguing 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:36.239 with each other but whether to kill us all or not. 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:38.199 And we just said there was nothing we could do, 0:23:38.280 --> 0:23:41.440 and we just sat there. And at one point one 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:45.520 of them like leveled his rifle at us to fire, 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:48.000 and another guy grabbed the barrel and jerked it upwards 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:51.239 so it wouldn't come. So, you know, I had, you know, 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:53.400 for about ten or fifteen minutes, I was thinking this 0:23:53.480 --> 0:23:58.520 really could go down, right, And it was the extraordinary feeling. 0:23:58.600 --> 0:24:03.600 I became sort of I just associated, right, I mean, 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:05.959 my body sort of went numb, and I was so 0:24:06.000 --> 0:24:07.879 scared that I wasn't even scared anymore. It's like I 0:24:07.960 --> 0:24:12.240 wasn't there, and the psychological effect. And then they didn't 0:24:12.240 --> 0:24:14.000 shoot us, and I don't know why, right, And the 0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:18.399 psychological trauma of that is way worse than someone shooting 0:24:18.440 --> 0:24:20.520 at you from three hundred meters and you managed to 0:24:20.520 --> 0:24:23.080 get behind some sandbags. I mean, that's child's play, right, 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:26.520 compared to, Wow, we are totally screwed and they could 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:29.080 shoot us or not. And then a similar thing happened 0:24:29.080 --> 0:24:32.520 in Nigeria in two thousand and six. I was seized 0:24:32.520 --> 0:24:36.359 by rebels, the Ejah Warriors, who were fighting in a 0:24:36.400 --> 0:24:39.119 group called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, 0:24:39.680 --> 0:24:45.080 a partly criminal, partly righteous like group. And they seized 0:24:45.080 --> 0:24:47.159 me in a small village in the creeks and the 0:24:47.280 --> 0:24:51.240 Niger River and in the Delta, and the accused me 0:24:51.280 --> 0:24:53.719 of being a spy. And one guy came up sort 0:24:53.760 --> 0:24:56.080 of strutted up to me, you know, machine gun and 0:24:56.119 --> 0:24:58.680 these guys, these Ejoh warriors are they they got feathers 0:24:58.720 --> 0:25:00.639 and paint and all kinds of Fea dishes on them. 0:25:00.640 --> 0:25:04.600 And they're wild looking guys, right, and really intense warriors. 0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:09.080 And he said, very matter of fact, very matter of factly, 0:25:09.160 --> 0:25:12.240 he said, when we when we kill you later today, 0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:14.359 I'm going to be the one to do it. He 0:25:14.440 --> 0:25:16.240 didn't say it meanly, he was just I just want 0:25:16.280 --> 0:25:18.440 you to know, you know, just by way of introduction. 0:25:18.600 --> 0:25:23.720 That's like Princess Bride. Remember the pirate probably kill you 0:25:23.720 --> 0:25:24.520 in the morning. 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:27.720 Right, So I you know, I was just remember thinking, 0:25:27.720 --> 0:25:29.960 don't let your knees buckle, like whatever you do, don't 0:25:30.040 --> 0:25:32.440 let your knees buckle. And so those, you know, those 0:25:32.480 --> 0:25:33.720 two situations are. 0:25:33.560 --> 0:25:34.880 Do you think he's just tormenting you? 0:25:36.119 --> 0:25:37.480 I don't know what he was doing. There was a 0:25:37.480 --> 0:25:42.200 lot of uh, I don't know. There was a lot 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:44.600 of aggression. There was a lot of sort of performative aggression. 0:25:44.800 --> 0:25:47.280 They didn't know who I was. Their commander. Eventually they 0:25:47.280 --> 0:25:50.040 called their commander and put me on the phone with 0:25:50.119 --> 0:25:52.240 him on a cell phone like one bar of signal, 0:25:53.040 --> 0:25:54.880 like I was standing on top of a log trying 0:25:54.920 --> 0:25:56.760 to maintain myself connection with him. And he was in 0:25:56.800 --> 0:26:00.560 South Africa, actually he was an arms dealer and Africa 0:26:00.680 --> 0:26:05.880 but indigenous Ejaw, and I talked with him and he said, okay, 0:26:05.920 --> 0:26:08.240 give the phone back to the the guy who gave 0:26:08.240 --> 0:26:10.439 you the phone. And I didn't know what he was 0:26:10.440 --> 0:26:12.800 going to say, and he say kill him or don't 0:26:13.240 --> 0:26:17.359 any I gave the phone back and the guy said, okay, sir, yes, sir, 0:26:17.520 --> 0:26:19.480 all right, we'll do it. And I didn't know what, 0:26:19.560 --> 0:26:23.080 you know, and he shut the phone, you know, flip 0:26:23.119 --> 0:26:24.640 the phone with the flip phone. He flipped the clothes 0:26:24.680 --> 0:26:27.359 and they said it's gonna be fine, We're gonna let 0:26:27.400 --> 0:26:29.159 you go. But I didn't know until that moment that 0:26:29.200 --> 0:26:32.240 it would be fine. So they might have been bluffing. 0:26:32.240 --> 0:26:33.880 I mean he might You know, I'm an American, right, 0:26:33.920 --> 0:26:37.080 I mean, you know there are repercussions for whacking America. 0:26:37.240 --> 0:26:39.600 Was going to ask, is there is there, like any truth? 0:26:39.880 --> 0:26:43.159 Is it like a myth that like being a member 0:26:43.200 --> 0:26:46.679 of like the American press, affords you some degree of 0:26:46.760 --> 0:26:49.560 safety in those situations. 0:26:49.880 --> 0:26:52.600 Well, I mean it protects you with people that don't 0:26:52.640 --> 0:26:54.359 want to get on the wrong side of America, and 0:26:54.400 --> 0:26:58.040 the e Jaw, as badassed as they are, probably don't want, 0:26:58.520 --> 0:27:01.159 you know, the American military as an adversary. They you know, 0:27:01.200 --> 0:27:03.639 they have their hands full of the Nigerian military, right. So, 0:27:04.200 --> 0:27:09.199 but then there's groups like ISIS who make you know, 0:27:09.240 --> 0:27:12.640 there the point of their existence is to fight America, 0:27:12.840 --> 0:27:15.320 to fight the infidelal to fight the West. So you know, 0:27:15.359 --> 0:27:19.520 it's like depends what you're talking about. 0:27:20.359 --> 0:27:24.359 How different did it feel for you when it was, uh, 0:27:25.680 --> 0:27:28.960 when when you got to a point and the global 0:27:29.000 --> 0:27:31.840 War on terror started and all of a sudden it 0:27:31.880 --> 0:27:33.560 was like you were with like Americans. 0:27:33.800 --> 0:27:35.840 Oh it was. It was so nice, right because I 0:27:35.840 --> 0:27:37.560 didn't have to worry that the people I was with 0:27:37.600 --> 0:27:40.159 were gonna kill me. Right if I got wounded, I 0:27:40.240 --> 0:27:43.119 knew I'd be evacuated. Like I knew that these guys 0:27:43.119 --> 0:27:46.400 would do whatever they could to help me, and and 0:27:46.640 --> 0:27:48.600 as I would them as I got to know them, right, 0:27:48.640 --> 0:27:51.439 I mean, I really this one, you know. So I 0:27:51.480 --> 0:27:54.240 spent most in beds are a week or two, right, 0:27:54.359 --> 0:27:55.960 And but I spent a year off and on with 0:27:56.000 --> 0:27:58.479 one platoon, which was like thirty forty guys at this 0:27:58.560 --> 0:28:02.080 remote outpost called Bristreppo was named after the platoon medic 0:28:02.080 --> 0:28:04.119 who was killed, you know, basically at the bottom of 0:28:04.160 --> 0:28:08.840 the hill. And so I really became part of that 0:28:08.880 --> 0:28:15.600 platoon and enjoyed the profound comfort of being part of 0:28:15.600 --> 0:28:18.119 a group, you know, I mean a really ancient and 0:28:18.160 --> 0:28:23.199 a really ancient and pretty much a way that's been 0:28:23.200 --> 0:28:26.480 pretty much lost to our society here at home. I 0:28:26.520 --> 0:28:29.000 felt like, Wow, I belonged to this thing, and they 0:28:29.040 --> 0:28:30.800 would risk their lives for me, and I know I 0:28:30.840 --> 0:28:33.080 would for them, and here we are, let's get it done, 0:28:33.119 --> 0:28:37.040 you know. And it was. It was absolutely extraordinary, and 0:28:38.040 --> 0:28:41.840 so that that experience really changed me, right, I mean, 0:28:41.880 --> 0:28:43.840 I feel like in our society we don't get to 0:28:43.960 --> 0:28:47.240 enjoy that group affiliation at such a profound in such 0:28:47.240 --> 0:28:50.120 a profound way. And it is what our evolutionary past 0:28:50.520 --> 0:28:54.520 consists of, right, that we're social primates. We survived. We 0:28:54.640 --> 0:28:58.600 survived not because we're rugged individuals, but because we affiliate 0:28:58.680 --> 0:29:01.920 very well. And in when we're in groups like that, 0:29:01.960 --> 0:29:05.560 the individuals in them will risk their lives or give 0:29:05.600 --> 0:29:06.840 their lives to protect the group. 0:29:07.160 --> 0:29:07.240 You know. 0:29:07.280 --> 0:29:10.920 It's like firemen or something, right, And that's our evolutionary past. 0:29:10.960 --> 0:29:13.360 And when you find yourself in a situation like that, 0:29:14.320 --> 0:29:19.360 it is almost intoxicating. It plays to so much evolutionary 0:29:19.400 --> 0:29:22.760 wiring It plays to so many profound human emotions, and 0:29:23.160 --> 0:29:25.440 I just kept thinking, this is this is all I want, 0:29:25.640 --> 0:29:27.240 Like I don't want to go home? Why would I 0:29:27.280 --> 0:29:27.880 want to do that? 0:29:28.040 --> 0:29:28.120 Like? 0:29:28.200 --> 0:29:29.400 It was quite extraordinary. 0:29:29.520 --> 0:29:30.960 And that was with how that was a group of 0:29:30.960 --> 0:29:31.640 what size? Then? 0:29:33.880 --> 0:29:35.520 You know, thirty guys or so? I mean, you know, 0:29:35.880 --> 0:29:38.840 so thirty to fifty people was the anthropologists will tell 0:29:38.840 --> 0:29:43.320 you it was the typical group size in our evolutionary past. Right, 0:29:43.360 --> 0:29:45.880 so the groups of about that size that are affiliated 0:29:46.440 --> 0:29:49.400 by clan or by tribe with other groups around that size. 0:29:49.400 --> 0:29:52.080 But the sort of survival community is about that size, 0:29:52.560 --> 0:29:55.880 and it you know, it's sort of a perfect size. 0:29:55.880 --> 0:29:58.760 It's the largest number that you can have quite close 0:29:58.800 --> 0:30:01.560 emotional relationships with. And you can't be emotionally close to 0:30:01.600 --> 0:30:04.240 five hundred dudes, right, it's not happening. Right, even if 0:30:04.240 --> 0:30:07.600 you're in the same battalion. That's a rather abstract knowledge, right, 0:30:07.640 --> 0:30:10.440 But thirty forty people, You're like, wow, these are my people. 0:30:10.480 --> 0:30:11.600 What wouldn't I do for them? 0:30:11.800 --> 0:30:11.960 Right? 0:30:12.000 --> 0:30:14.600 And of course in our evolutionary past, it wouldn't be 0:30:14.840 --> 0:30:17.000 all one sex, it wouldn't be all male. It would 0:30:17.040 --> 0:30:19.040 be a mix, right, it would be a mix of 0:30:19.080 --> 0:30:23.760 old and young, male and female, et cetera. And what 0:30:23.800 --> 0:30:26.480 wouldn't you do with you know, with your family, what 0:30:26.520 --> 0:30:28.560 wouldn't you do to protect them? Like? Nothing, you would 0:30:28.600 --> 0:30:31.160 do anything to protect them, right, Feeling that way about 0:30:31.160 --> 0:30:33.880 thirty or forty people. That is the human experience and 0:30:33.920 --> 0:30:37.400 evolutionary terms, and it's the loss of that experience for 0:30:37.440 --> 0:30:42.520 most people in modern society is a tragic one. 0:30:42.720 --> 0:30:47.920 The other day, we had some anthropologists here and they 0:30:47.960 --> 0:30:50.920 were excavating. They had been working on an excavation of 0:30:50.960 --> 0:30:56.200 an ice age encampment and wyoming. Okay, so these are 0:30:56.280 --> 0:31:01.480 like mammoth hunters, right right, and we're about, well, how big, 0:31:02.760 --> 0:31:07.560 like how big was the encampment? Then he's like thirty 0:31:07.640 --> 0:31:10.080 forty people? Yeah, yeah, yah, yeah, exactly, yeah, age, you 0:31:10.120 --> 0:31:10.560 know what I mean? 0:31:10.680 --> 0:31:12.680 Yeah, No, that's exactly, that's exactly right. 0:31:13.120 --> 0:31:16.640 Yeah. There's the thing I've been like, you should feel 0:31:16.640 --> 0:31:21.520 free as we're talking. I would. I appreciate that you're 0:31:21.560 --> 0:31:27.360 not doing this, but I I appreciate the impulse. Please 0:31:27.400 --> 0:31:30.160 tie into the books. Oh yeah, like what you're talking 0:31:30.160 --> 0:31:32.400 about now is your book tribe? Yes? 0:31:32.680 --> 0:31:34.880 Right, exactly, Yeah, I wrote a book, right, I wrote 0:31:34.880 --> 0:31:35.560 a book tribe. 0:31:35.960 --> 0:31:38.040 That's not what you're talking about, but you're yeah, these 0:31:38.080 --> 0:31:42.200 ideas are explored and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. 0:31:42.240 --> 0:31:43.800 No. I was trying to figure out, why does this 0:31:43.840 --> 0:31:46.760 modern society, which is so safe and so affluent, have 0:31:46.800 --> 0:31:51.000 such high rates of mental illness, you know, depression and anxiety, suicide, addiction. 0:31:52.040 --> 0:31:54.960 Why was it that along the American frontier at his 0:31:55.120 --> 0:31:58.240 various points in Pennsylvania and the Ohio and further west 0:31:58.280 --> 0:32:01.600 all the way to Texas and Arizon, Like why we're 0:32:01.640 --> 0:32:07.160 pioneers constantly sort of absconding into native society and disappearing 0:32:07.200 --> 0:32:09.440 in native society and the natives didn't do the opposite, 0:32:09.600 --> 0:32:12.200 and and what it really seemed to be And in 0:32:12.200 --> 0:32:14.680 Benjamin Franklin wrote about this because of course, if you're 0:32:14.720 --> 0:32:18.640 like a good Christian, the idea that like white Christians 0:32:18.640 --> 0:32:21.600 would rather live with what they called the savages, like 0:32:21.760 --> 0:32:24.160 is it flies in the face of the entire sense 0:32:24.200 --> 0:32:28.240 of Western superiority, right, And Benjamin Franklin wrote letters about 0:32:28.240 --> 0:32:32.600 this like what is the appeal? And the appeal is 0:32:32.640 --> 0:32:37.880 that that those kinds of organic hunter gatherer societies are 0:32:38.600 --> 0:32:43.719 extremely egalitarian. The leadership is not imposed, it's granted by 0:32:43.760 --> 0:32:46.520 the people. I mean, all these sort of like democratic 0:32:46.520 --> 0:32:49.000 ideals that are that we do not live up to 0:32:49.480 --> 0:32:53.440 actually are acted out in societies of that scale. And 0:32:53.440 --> 0:32:58.160 and there's community, there's community, really close community. And and 0:32:58.240 --> 0:33:00.520 of course if you're a young man, instead of having 0:33:00.560 --> 0:33:02.320 to plow fields all day, you can go hunting, like 0:33:02.680 --> 0:33:05.360 you know what I mean, like what like what's not 0:33:05.480 --> 0:33:08.840 to like sort of yeah, and and so that so 0:33:08.920 --> 0:33:12.880 that was my the genesis of my thought that maybe 0:33:12.880 --> 0:33:15.440 what people are really drawn to is close connection to 0:33:15.480 --> 0:33:18.040 each other. And that's why the soldiers that I was with, 0:33:19.720 --> 0:33:24.480 against all apparent logic, they missed being at Restrepo. They 0:33:24.480 --> 0:33:26.960 got back to their girlfriends and their families and bars 0:33:27.000 --> 0:33:28.680 and everything, you know, all the things young men like. 0:33:29.440 --> 0:33:31.800 He's like, whoa. I mean, A number of them said 0:33:31.840 --> 0:33:33.440 to me, if we could take a helicopter back to 0:33:33.520 --> 0:33:35.560 Restrepo right now and do another year out there, we 0:33:35.640 --> 0:33:36.080 would do it. 0:33:36.160 --> 0:33:36.360 Yeah. 0:33:37.120 --> 0:33:39.800 And that's how that So my book Tribe was about 0:33:39.840 --> 0:33:40.680 that phenomenon. 0:33:41.040 --> 0:33:44.640 We recently had a guy on a guy named is 0:33:44.760 --> 0:33:47.560 pastor Shane Yats, who's sitting right in that chair, and 0:33:47.600 --> 0:33:52.440 he was talking about coming home from thanks Yeah, coming 0:33:52.440 --> 0:33:54.880 home from Iraq. No, coming home from I think it 0:33:54.920 --> 0:33:57.600 was in Afghanistan. Coming home from Afghanistan. Was that where 0:33:57.600 --> 0:34:00.920 it was was the kids like eating. He's like, there's 0:34:01.080 --> 0:34:05.040 you know, you're you're literally watching children looking in the 0:34:05.080 --> 0:34:10.480 garbage for food, competing with dogs in the streets. And 0:34:10.480 --> 0:34:12.960 he said, and like you get home so fast and 0:34:13.000 --> 0:34:15.080 as you're just home and he's standing there and here's 0:34:15.080 --> 0:34:20.000 a woman arguing with a Starbucks employee about the state 0:34:20.080 --> 0:34:22.520 of her latte, and he's like, I wanted to kill her. 0:34:23.280 --> 0:34:27.040 He's talking about just the heart, like the very difficult adjustment. 0:34:27.280 --> 0:34:29.520 But there's this thing I've been and think about what 0:34:29.560 --> 0:34:32.760 you're you're talking about and the ideas that you explore 0:34:32.800 --> 0:34:36.319 and tribe. It's like, I'm kind of struggling with this 0:34:38.160 --> 0:34:41.319 thing I'm seeing happened later. I'm just becoming aware of it. 0:34:41.480 --> 0:34:43.920 And it's very troubling to me about American culture, where 0:34:45.600 --> 0:34:52.319 what when you're on the internet, what you if you 0:34:52.520 --> 0:34:56.319 solely relied on the Internet, you would get a view 0:34:56.320 --> 0:35:03.120 of American culture that does not at all match the 0:35:03.239 --> 0:35:06.960 view of American culture that you have as you're alive 0:35:07.080 --> 0:35:14.480 being an American outside of the web, right, meaning any 0:35:14.520 --> 0:35:19.120 one of my neighbors. Any one of my neighbors would 0:35:19.480 --> 0:35:21.520 if my house was on fire, any one of my 0:35:21.520 --> 0:35:24.520 neighbors would go into my house to get my kids. 0:35:25.200 --> 0:35:27.680 I would go into any one of my neighbors houses 0:35:28.040 --> 0:35:31.040 to get their kids. And when I say this, I'm 0:35:31.040 --> 0:35:34.440 not like I have no idea of the political affiliation 0:35:35.280 --> 0:35:37.600 except for one of my neighbors, I have no idea 0:35:37.920 --> 0:35:42.440 of their political affiliation zero. But like, you get this. 0:35:42.719 --> 0:35:44.360 I used to think of people think of the like 0:35:44.880 --> 0:35:47.960 the radical right and the radical left as being like 0:35:48.080 --> 0:35:52.400 diametrically opposed. I'm starting to view it more like that 0:35:52.440 --> 0:35:55.560 these are just symptoms of a that these are symptoms 0:35:56.840 --> 0:36:00.319 of an ailment. Yeah, It's like you could have a 0:36:00.320 --> 0:36:04.800 certain ailment and you might get like like stunning headaches, 0:36:04.880 --> 0:36:06.919 or you might have a certain ailment and be other 0:36:06.920 --> 0:36:09.360 people would have the same ailment and be that that 0:36:09.600 --> 0:36:11.879 they can't get a full breath or whatever, or all 0:36:11.880 --> 0:36:13.640 the weird shit that would happen to people with COVID. 0:36:13.680 --> 0:36:17.720 It's like too much time online is the thing. Yeah, 0:36:18.320 --> 0:36:20.880 and then the symptoms are you could be radicalized in 0:36:20.920 --> 0:36:23.440 one direction, you radicalize in the other direction. Don't You're 0:36:23.480 --> 0:36:25.080 like you want it being that you're just bound by 0:36:25.080 --> 0:36:28.520 what you hate, Like your culture is my people that 0:36:28.640 --> 0:36:31.399 I find are people that hate what I hate, right, 0:36:32.200 --> 0:36:35.560 and that's my team. And dude, and like the part 0:36:35.560 --> 0:36:38.520 of your time, I was like that need like like 0:36:38.640 --> 0:36:40.400 build a team that's not based on just that you 0:36:40.440 --> 0:36:41.439 all hate the same shit. 0:36:41.760 --> 0:36:47.400 Right. Well, you know, in evolutionary terms, outrage is a 0:36:47.520 --> 0:36:50.400 powerful unifier because you're you're unified with other people who 0:36:50.400 --> 0:36:53.279 are out who are outraged by the same thing, and 0:36:53.520 --> 0:36:56.759 it creates a sort of pugilistic state of mind that's 0:36:56.800 --> 0:36:59.240 good at defending itself. So you think in evolutionary terms 0:36:59.719 --> 0:37:03.759 that that that anger and outrage response is a very 0:37:03.800 --> 0:37:11.160 effective defense against the threat. Right, And the algorithms that 0:37:11.200 --> 0:37:15.480 are used in social media are very good at generating outrage. 0:37:15.520 --> 0:37:19.800 It's harder for algorithms to generate the more subtle but 0:37:20.280 --> 0:37:24.600 also very important feelings of love or sadness or regret. 0:37:25.280 --> 0:37:28.399 You know, there's a gentler emotions that also are really 0:37:28.480 --> 0:37:32.560 important for keeping society and people glued together. Right, shared 0:37:32.640 --> 0:37:35.960 value is shared I shared warmth with each other. You know, 0:37:36.400 --> 0:37:39.160 those are hard. They don't have the algorithms for that. 0:37:39.239 --> 0:37:41.920 The algorithms for hatred are very very simple. There's a 0:37:41.920 --> 0:37:44.040 threat over there. We have to unify, we have to 0:37:44.080 --> 0:37:47.520 denounce the threat and unify against it, and then we'll survive. Right, 0:37:47.560 --> 0:37:50.600 So you're going into very very ancient human history when 0:37:50.600 --> 0:37:53.919 you gin up those emotions. And you know, it used 0:37:53.920 --> 0:37:56.760 to be that at the town hall, someone might stand 0:37:56.800 --> 0:37:59.640 you know, before the internet, right before the apocalypse of 0:37:59.680 --> 0:38:01.839 the internet that came along, you got, you know, the 0:38:01.840 --> 0:38:04.520 town hall and someone would stand up with a different 0:38:04.560 --> 0:38:07.719 view about you know, paving the streets or whatever, and 0:38:07.760 --> 0:38:10.680 you'd be like, Okay, I'm totally against that, but that's Joe. 0:38:10.760 --> 0:38:12.840 I know his you know I have, I have a 0:38:12.880 --> 0:38:15.600 relationship with Joe, like and I don't agree with them, 0:38:15.600 --> 0:38:17.759 and I might even at them, shouting at him. But 0:38:17.960 --> 0:38:19.759 we're all in this together. We all live in this 0:38:19.800 --> 0:38:23.040 little you know. That's gone right, And so you can 0:38:23.080 --> 0:38:28.040 hate on people online and there are no repercussions. You know, 0:38:28.239 --> 0:38:30.120 the person is not going to come grab you by 0:38:30.120 --> 0:38:31.719 the shirt front and say, do not speak to me 0:38:31.840 --> 0:38:33.319 like that in front of my community or in front 0:38:33.320 --> 0:38:36.120 of my family. You're not any danger, right, You're free 0:38:36.160 --> 0:38:40.719 to be a sort of cowardly adversary and that's very 0:38:40.760 --> 0:38:43.040 seductive to a lot of people. And so I, you know, 0:38:43.080 --> 0:38:46.200 I don't the internet's a great tool for all kinds 0:38:46.200 --> 0:38:48.400 of things. I don't, you know, I have a flip 0:38:48.400 --> 0:38:51.360 phone because I think the smartphones are just like killing people, 0:38:51.520 --> 0:38:55.239 like literally literally killing people. There. It's a it was 0:38:55.280 --> 0:38:59.239 a deliberate addiction designed by the tech companies, right, It's 0:38:59.280 --> 0:39:02.880 a very powerful addiction. It's particularly powerful with our children. 0:39:03.600 --> 0:39:06.160 And I think it's you know, I think it's destroying 0:39:06.160 --> 0:39:08.920 the society. I just refuse to participate in it. 0:39:09.400 --> 0:39:12.680 Yeah. Man, it's tough because, like I use the Internet 0:39:12.800 --> 0:39:15.760 to find out how the Internet is destroying society because 0:39:16.680 --> 0:39:21.240 I'm into this thing right now. It's like American Veterans Institute. 0:39:21.400 --> 0:39:24.600 It's like interviews with World War Two veterans. They just 0:39:24.640 --> 0:39:26.920 they've been very good. Like when these guys they kind 0:39:26.920 --> 0:39:29.560 of were catching all these dudes in their eighties nineties. 0:39:29.600 --> 0:39:30.880 I've seen some of those amazing. 0:39:31.719 --> 0:39:33.759 It's like, I'll tell my wife, I'm sitting there on 0:39:33.800 --> 0:39:38.400 a Saturday morning. I'm sitting there doing some work and 0:39:38.440 --> 0:39:41.719 I got one bottle was playing and I was like, uh, 0:39:42.280 --> 0:39:45.520 I said, this is going to sound so nostalgic. But 0:39:46.320 --> 0:39:51.359 holy shit, we've fallen far. Like listening to interview after 0:39:51.440 --> 0:39:56.880 interview after interview with these guys about they all kind 0:39:56.880 --> 0:39:59.960 of start like, where were you when Pearl Harbor was attacked? 0:40:00.280 --> 0:40:03.239 Right right in the portraits they paint, there's this dude, 0:40:03.239 --> 0:40:07.120 there's this Italian dude. And he says, like he goes 0:40:07.160 --> 0:40:10.520 down to he goes down to a gas station or 0:40:10.520 --> 0:40:13.160 something to buy soda, you know, and everybody's in the 0:40:13.160 --> 0:40:16.399 gas station's listening because Pearl harvard'st got attacked. He goes home, 0:40:17.480 --> 0:40:21.800 his dad listens to the address from Franklin. Roosevelt calls 0:40:21.840 --> 0:40:25.880 his four sons down into the room informs them, you 0:40:25.920 --> 0:40:29.279 will all fight because we move to this country. We 0:40:29.320 --> 0:40:32.360 have a house in a car. This country cannot fail. 0:40:33.160 --> 0:40:34.719 And he says when he goes to the train station, 0:40:34.880 --> 0:40:36.880 his dad makes a point that his dad wants to 0:40:36.960 --> 0:40:41.040 drive him alone to the train station, so he's expecting 0:40:41.080 --> 0:40:43.400 some kind of lecture. His dad never says a word 0:40:43.440 --> 0:40:46.480 to him all the drive. They get to the train station, 0:40:46.640 --> 0:40:48.719 and you know what his dad says to him. He 0:40:48.760 --> 0:40:52.399 says to him, an Italian, don't do anything that will 0:40:52.400 --> 0:40:55.440 cause me to hang my head in shame. Wow, that 0:40:55.640 --> 0:40:59.000 was it, Dude out the door, and I'm like, I 0:40:59.000 --> 0:41:02.000 don't know, Mad is getting stuf about it, you know, yeah, yeah, 0:41:02.200 --> 0:41:04.520 Like it's just like I feel like something's crowding. Like 0:41:04.560 --> 0:41:08.280 I'm just like, I have this terrible anxiety about culture 0:41:08.360 --> 0:41:10.400 right now, with with like the internet hatred. 0:41:10.719 --> 0:41:14.080 Yeah, I mean, I still you know, we're we're all 0:41:14.320 --> 0:41:17.800 We're still all human. And I think that same noble 0:41:18.760 --> 0:41:23.440 those same noble sentiments and actions individuals today are just 0:41:23.480 --> 0:41:24.680 as capable of them. 0:41:24.840 --> 0:41:25.040 Right. 0:41:25.600 --> 0:41:30.239 But what's gone not gone. But what's in danger, what's 0:41:30.320 --> 0:41:36.239 under threat, is the idea of a nation that is unified, 0:41:36.520 --> 0:41:41.040 that thinks of itself as a nation despite its internal differences. Right. 0:41:41.080 --> 0:41:43.279 I love that there's Republicans and Democrats. I happen to 0:41:43.320 --> 0:41:45.160 be a Democrat, but I don't care whatever. I mean, 0:41:45.160 --> 0:41:48.480 that's great that you know that the country is My 0:41:48.520 --> 0:41:51.480 father's a refugee from two wars. He's an immigrant, right, 0:41:51.520 --> 0:41:53.759 And the country's made up of people like my dad, right, 0:41:53.760 --> 0:41:55.959 And I'm you know, I was born in this country. Whatever, 0:41:56.000 --> 0:41:58.600 It's all great. So the idea that we're all unified 0:41:58.680 --> 0:42:03.759 in this American project is an incredibly powerful one, right, 0:42:03.840 --> 0:42:07.800 And and it transcends, it should transcend all these other divisions, 0:42:07.800 --> 0:42:10.759 including left and right. And I think one of the 0:42:10.760 --> 0:42:14.120 problems right now is that the internet. Look, I have 0:42:14.160 --> 0:42:16.640 a laptop, I'm online, I research stuff, I get it. 0:42:17.520 --> 0:42:19.439 I just don't have a smartphone because I don't want 0:42:19.440 --> 0:42:21.600 that following me around all day and being where my 0:42:21.680 --> 0:42:24.040 brain disappears when I have thirty seconds to spare while 0:42:24.040 --> 0:42:26.200 I'm waiting for the bus, Like, I just that to 0:42:26.280 --> 0:42:32.279 me is horrible, right for the brain. But I uh, 0:42:31.680 --> 0:42:35.920 I think that I think I think we've sort of 0:42:36.000 --> 0:42:40.440 lost sight of the idea that there is one, that 0:42:40.480 --> 0:42:43.680 there's the ultimate, that the ultimate category we're all in 0:42:43.920 --> 0:42:44.600 is American. 0:42:45.800 --> 0:42:49.040 Yeah, that's that's what that's as a patriot. That's what 0:42:49.080 --> 0:42:52.040 I'm getting worried about increasingly. Was that your quote were 0:42:52.040 --> 0:42:55.520 you quoting somebody when you said the journalists I can't 0:42:55.520 --> 0:42:57.320 mary if you said it should or shouldn't or is 0:42:57.360 --> 0:43:01.239 it not should or do or whatever. But like, journalists 0:43:01.239 --> 0:43:02.960 don't tell you what to think. 0:43:03.440 --> 0:43:05.600 Right, journalists don't tell you what I was. I was 0:43:05.760 --> 0:43:10.759 paraphrasing someone else who was actually talking about theater. Oh 0:43:10.760 --> 0:43:14.600 it's interesting, right, but I repurposed it for journalist journalism as. 0:43:14.680 --> 0:43:16.560 Journalists don't tell you what to think, they tell you 0:43:16.600 --> 0:43:19.239 what to think about. And if a journalist is telling 0:43:19.280 --> 0:43:21.360 you what to think how to think, they're not a journalist. 0:43:21.800 --> 0:43:22.239 Don't listen. 0:43:22.840 --> 0:43:25.880 They're a commentator, right, an analyst or a commentatory. 0:43:27.080 --> 0:43:30.040 Worse than an analyst, like and we need analysts, they're commentator. 0:43:30.080 --> 0:43:33.680 They're a commentator. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And you know, and 0:43:33.920 --> 0:43:37.720 so I feel like the internet as and their political 0:43:37.800 --> 0:43:42.799 forces in this country that are depending on the ability 0:43:43.000 --> 0:43:46.719 to fracture people in order to achieve their agenda and 0:43:46.719 --> 0:43:48.560 and also make money. I mean, there's you can sort 0:43:48.560 --> 0:43:54.080 of monetize this, right, and and what they are sacrificing, 0:43:54.120 --> 0:43:56.960 maybe not deliberately and consciously, but ultimately what's happening is 0:43:56.960 --> 0:44:02.600 they are they are sacrificing the cultural and political unity 0:44:02.640 --> 0:44:07.640 of this country for smaller for smaller gains, for smaller 0:44:07.680 --> 0:44:10.560 personal gains, you know, including many politicians who do that. 0:44:12.840 --> 0:44:14.359 Let's talk about your health scare man. 0:44:14.920 --> 0:44:19.280 Yeah, I've never heard of that. Yeah, me, neither happened 0:44:19.280 --> 0:44:19.480 to me. 0:44:19.600 --> 0:44:21.279 And that funny. We're going through that with my boy 0:44:21.360 --> 0:44:23.319 right now. My little boy has a thing that like 0:44:24.080 --> 0:44:28.319 not any person in our social circle has ever heard of? Yeah, right, 0:44:28.719 --> 0:44:30.240 like a like a cartilage issue. 0:44:30.280 --> 0:44:33.080 You know, you gotta be careful here, Steve, because you 0:44:33.160 --> 0:44:36.120 might get your your thing where you you think you're 0:44:36.160 --> 0:44:38.640 developing a problem because he talks about it. 0:44:40.280 --> 0:44:42.920 Yeah, I have this like if someone's telling me, like whatever, 0:44:42.960 --> 0:44:46.879 any problem someone tells especially internal. Oh yeah, Like you're like, yeah, 0:44:46.960 --> 0:44:50.440 you know, I got a whatever in my kidney. I'm like, 0:44:49.840 --> 0:44:54.320 well a bit now I got a weird feeling of 0:44:54.400 --> 0:44:54.960 my kidney. 0:44:55.160 --> 0:44:59.920 Yeah. Yeah, Well that that sort of paranoid is very 0:45:00.040 --> 0:45:03.560 human and it and it and and uh it helps 0:45:03.600 --> 0:45:05.800 keeps us, keep us alive. Right, Once in a while, 0:45:06.280 --> 0:45:08.000 someone does have a weird thing in their kidney and 0:45:08.000 --> 0:45:10.440 they weren't aware of it until someone mentioned it, and 0:45:10.480 --> 0:45:11.880 they go to the doctor and say, you know, so 0:45:11.920 --> 0:45:13.440 there's a there is a sort of use for that. 0:45:13.480 --> 0:45:15.400 But so basically what happened to me. I have a 0:45:15.600 --> 0:45:17.880 I have a ligament in the wrong place, my median 0:45:18.000 --> 0:45:21.320 arcuate ligament, which sort of goes across your abdomen about 0:45:21.320 --> 0:45:22.279 where your sternam is. 0:45:23.360 --> 0:45:24.880 I would know you had I guess you do have 0:45:24.920 --> 0:45:26.480 a ligament in your abdomen. 0:45:26.680 --> 0:45:29.319 Yeah, yeah, and it can cross it crosses right near 0:45:29.400 --> 0:45:32.239 the bottom of your rib cage, crosses your abdomen, and 0:45:32.280 --> 0:45:36.840 mine is too tight. So it has it's called median 0:45:36.920 --> 0:45:40.000 arcuate ligament syndrome. It has crushed the celiac artery. Now, 0:45:40.000 --> 0:45:44.200 the celiac artery is like a garden hose that irrigates 0:45:44.280 --> 0:45:47.160 all of your organs with blood. Right, you imagine how 0:45:47.160 --> 0:45:48.840 big it is, and. 0:45:48.719 --> 0:45:50.560 It comes right on I don't want to know. I 0:45:50.600 --> 0:45:52.360 have this thing I'm trying to do where when someone's 0:45:52.360 --> 0:45:55.360 telling me someone I don't understand. Yep, you know, the 0:45:55.400 --> 0:45:57.120 impulse is going huh. 0:45:57.160 --> 0:45:59.319 I'm trying to picture it when I'm cutting a deer 0:45:59.360 --> 0:46:00.600 open would be. 0:46:00.600 --> 0:46:01.560 Like, I don't understand. 0:46:01.920 --> 0:46:04.880 So, so the celiac comes out out of the aorta 0:46:05.120 --> 0:46:09.080 and the descending aorda, and it branches down and it 0:46:09.120 --> 0:46:12.480 brings blood to the liver and the intestines and the 0:46:12.480 --> 0:46:14.960 stomach and the all the organs in your abdomen. Right, 0:46:15.000 --> 0:46:17.840 So a lot of blood goes through this if you 0:46:18.200 --> 0:46:19.520 block it with a ligament. 0:46:19.960 --> 0:46:23.560 So also this ligament is like on the outside pushing it, 0:46:23.640 --> 0:46:26.560 binding in right, and it's just crimping it off exactly. 0:46:26.640 --> 0:46:29.160 It's just an irregularity It isn't because I led a 0:46:29.160 --> 0:46:31.719 bad life and them filled with cholesterol and nothing like that. Right, 0:46:31.760 --> 0:46:34.400 It's just a sort of bad design, right, It's very rare. 0:46:34.880 --> 0:46:36.719 But what the body does, because the body is a 0:46:36.920 --> 0:46:40.080 walking miracle, is it's like, okay, we still got to 0:46:40.080 --> 0:46:41.600 get the blood to where it needs to go. There's 0:46:41.640 --> 0:46:46.120 a lot of uh, sort of redundancy in the vascular system, 0:46:46.480 --> 0:46:49.319 so the blood flows to where it needs to go 0:46:49.440 --> 0:46:53.840 through smaller arteries, these branch arteries that are not designed 0:46:53.920 --> 0:46:56.000 to take that kind of blood flow, right, that kind 0:46:56.040 --> 0:46:58.960 of pressure. So what they do is they dilate so 0:46:59.000 --> 0:47:01.080 that they can carry all this blood they're not supposed 0:47:01.080 --> 0:47:04.440 to take. It works fine, right, the problem they're meant 0:47:04.480 --> 0:47:06.680 to dilate, but if there's a weak spot in one 0:47:06.719 --> 0:47:09.440 of the arteries, instead of dilating, it will bubble out. 0:47:09.480 --> 0:47:12.840 It will balloon outwards, and it's called an aneurysm. Okay, 0:47:13.239 --> 0:47:15.879 and the artery wall will balloon outwards and it will 0:47:15.920 --> 0:47:19.600 get bigger over the course of decades. So it's there's 0:47:19.680 --> 0:47:23.680 no symptoms. Uh, it's very hard to detect, and it 0:47:23.880 --> 0:47:27.879 very slowly gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And then 0:47:27.880 --> 0:47:30.840 when it ruptures, and it will. When it ruptures, you 0:47:30.920 --> 0:47:34.360 are suddenly bleeding. You're bleeding out from an artery. You 0:47:34.400 --> 0:47:37.040 know what arterial bleed is, deadly right, You're bleeding out 0:47:37.120 --> 0:47:40.760 from an artery, a smaller artery into your own abdomen. 0:47:41.400 --> 0:47:43.640 So if someone stabbed you in the stomach and you 0:47:43.719 --> 0:47:46.680 made it alive to the hospital, the doctors don't have 0:47:46.719 --> 0:47:49.239 anything to figure out. They're like, oh, we know what 0:47:49.280 --> 0:47:53.160 the problem is exactly. They know where to stick their 0:47:53.160 --> 0:47:56.359 finger almost literally to stop the bleed. Like it's there's 0:47:56.360 --> 0:48:00.560 no mystery there with internal hemorrhage, it could be anywhere, right, 0:48:01.160 --> 0:48:05.560 And so this happened five years ago and it was during. 0:48:05.440 --> 0:48:07.520 But you know when the blood's coming out, Well. 0:48:07.400 --> 0:48:09.479 I didn't know that's what was happening, but I felt 0:48:09.480 --> 0:48:12.399 a lot of pain, right, But I'm an old stoic, and. 0:48:12.320 --> 0:48:13.560 It's like high pressure blood. 0:48:14.920 --> 0:48:18.160 Yeah, well, I mean blood, blood's and irritant when it's 0:48:18.160 --> 0:48:20.160 not in the vascular that's what's causing the pain. 0:48:20.239 --> 0:48:20.479 Yeah. 0:48:20.520 --> 0:48:22.600 So I'm like, there's blood around my kidneys and around 0:48:22.640 --> 0:48:24.719 my liver, and it just like feels odd. It's very 0:48:24.800 --> 0:48:29.680 very full of a sudden in mid sentence, ruptured so I mean, 0:48:29.680 --> 0:48:30.719 I mean we're taught. 0:48:30.760 --> 0:48:31.440 What was the sentence? 0:48:31.800 --> 0:48:35.520 Yeah, I'm gonna live forever. I think this is a sentence. 0:48:37.440 --> 0:48:41.200 So so it was. It was during COVID and my 0:48:41.480 --> 0:48:43.200 so I have two little girls and a eight and 0:48:43.280 --> 0:48:45.640 five at the time, there were three three years old 0:48:45.640 --> 0:48:47.920 in six months, and my wife and we were it 0:48:47.960 --> 0:48:50.000 was during COVID. We were We own a property in 0:48:50.040 --> 0:48:52.279 Massachusetts that's very remote. It's in the woods at the 0:48:52.360 --> 0:48:53.879 end of a dead end dirt road. There's no cell 0:48:53.920 --> 0:48:56.759 phone coverage there. The landlines are old and when it 0:48:56.840 --> 0:48:59.840 rains they short out, so there's no landlines. We're surrounded 0:48:59.840 --> 0:49:02.759 by atlant It's basically paradise, right. It's an old house 0:49:02.760 --> 0:49:05.600 from eighteen hundred, and we were there during COVID, and 0:49:05.680 --> 0:49:08.760 I built a post and bean cabin deeper in the woods, 0:49:09.520 --> 0:49:11.960 and one day we managed some teenage girls who lived 0:49:12.040 --> 0:49:14.000 up the road that we knew called When does this 0:49:14.040 --> 0:49:16.800 ever happen? They called and said, Hey, we're free this afternoon. 0:49:17.239 --> 0:49:21.560 Would you like some babysitting time? Right? And I was like, yes, 0:49:21.640 --> 0:49:23.480 we pay one thousand dollars an hour, Like how long 0:49:23.520 --> 0:49:26.080 can you how long can you stay? Right? Yeah? So 0:49:26.120 --> 0:49:27.920 they came over a few hours and my wife and 0:49:27.960 --> 0:49:28.640 I went out to this. 0:49:28.560 --> 0:49:29.359 Beautiful little cabin. 0:49:29.360 --> 0:49:32.239 It's totally off the grid, like oil lamp, woodstove. You know, 0:49:32.520 --> 0:49:35.319 I felt it myself, you know. So we're in this 0:49:35.400 --> 0:49:39.799 place of peace and beauty and and just to sort 0:49:39.800 --> 0:49:41.480 of enjoying our you know, a couple of hours of 0:49:43.120 --> 0:49:46.640 alone time, and all of a sudden, this is pain. 0:49:46.680 --> 0:49:49.600 Am I at them, like, oh, what was that? And 0:49:51.160 --> 0:49:53.080 it wouldn't stop, and so I stood up to sort 0:49:53.120 --> 0:49:55.719 of work it out. I thought it was some crazy indigestion, 0:49:56.160 --> 0:49:59.239 and I almost fell over. And what was happening was 0:49:59.239 --> 0:50:01.400 I was bleeding out in my abdomen. My blood pressure 0:50:01.440 --> 0:50:05.840 was tanking, and I was graying out right. And I 0:50:05.880 --> 0:50:08.600 sat back down. I said to my wife, I'd never 0:50:08.640 --> 0:50:10.600 thought i'd have to ever say these words to anyone. 0:50:10.640 --> 0:50:13.879 I said, I think I'm gonna need some help. And 0:50:13.920 --> 0:50:15.799 you know, I was a marathon runner when I was young. 0:50:15.840 --> 0:50:18.000 I was a really good competitive runner. I've always been 0:50:18.120 --> 0:50:20.680 very fit, very healthy. I just never thought that I 0:50:20.719 --> 0:50:23.040 would need physical help from anybody. You know. It's just 0:50:23.120 --> 0:50:26.480 like never, never, And now my wife's dragging me out 0:50:26.520 --> 0:50:29.160 of the woods, like literally dragging me down a trail 0:50:29.520 --> 0:50:32.839 to get me to help, and we finally got there 0:50:32.880 --> 0:50:33.680 was no cell phone. 0:50:33.920 --> 0:50:36.560 She had one of those like mysterious bursts of power. 0:50:37.000 --> 0:50:38.879 Well I got, you know, she didn't care. I mean 0:50:39.040 --> 0:50:41.360 I had my arm over her shoulder. I wasn't unconscious, 0:50:41.400 --> 0:50:42.680 but I was sort of half Oh I got. I 0:50:42.680 --> 0:50:44.600 thought she was like pulling in yeah, right right, the 0:50:44.640 --> 0:50:49.319 car off the baby nor so, so the ambulance game, 0:50:49.520 --> 0:50:51.319 you know, it took him twenty minutes to get there. 0:50:51.400 --> 0:50:53.719 I'm losing a pint of blood maybe every ten or 0:50:53.760 --> 0:50:56.600 fifteen minutes in my aben but all in you, all 0:50:56.640 --> 0:50:59.040 in me, and and you can lose about half your 0:50:59.080 --> 0:51:01.200 blood before you die. And we live an hour from 0:51:01.239 --> 0:51:03.560 the hospital, so you can do the math like it was. 0:51:03.640 --> 0:51:07.520 I was a human hourglass and they, you know, they 0:51:07.560 --> 0:51:10.400 their ambulance got there, and I had sort of rebooted 0:51:10.400 --> 0:51:12.760 it that you go into compensatory shocks, so your body, 0:51:12.800 --> 0:51:16.799 it's extraordinary. Your body knows when there's a five alarm fire, 0:51:16.840 --> 0:51:18.520 even though even if you don't, right, I didn't know 0:51:18.560 --> 0:51:21.400 I was dying, had no idea, right, and so it 0:51:21.400 --> 0:51:24.240 it cuts off circulation to the parts of your body 0:51:24.280 --> 0:51:27.960 that you don't need to survive your your your surface areas, 0:51:27.960 --> 0:51:31.000 your skin, your legs, your arms, and it pools it 0:51:31.040 --> 0:51:33.600 in your brain and in your abdomen, in your heart, 0:51:33.640 --> 0:51:36.800 around your heart. So when it does that, your blood 0:51:36.800 --> 0:51:39.799 pressure goes back up, and and I became sort of 0:51:39.800 --> 0:51:42.400 clear minded again. So the ambulance guys got there. They 0:51:42.440 --> 0:51:44.839 were like, you know, it's a hot day. You probably dehydrated, sir. 0:51:44.960 --> 0:51:47.719 You know they're looking at me. I'm fifty eighth. They're like, 0:51:47.800 --> 0:51:53.359 you're an old man, you know, twenty right, dehydration thing man, Yeah, 0:51:53.560 --> 0:51:55.200 and why don't you sit in the shade and drink 0:51:55.239 --> 0:51:57.120 some water and call us if you still don't feel well? 0:51:57.160 --> 0:51:59.200 And my wife, oh my god, my wife said, you 0:51:59.239 --> 0:52:02.880 got you're taking him to the hospital, like he couldn't 0:52:02.880 --> 0:52:04.120 walk a few minutes ago. 0:52:04.040 --> 0:52:07.239 Like I've seen thirsty people. Yeah, right exactly. And he 0:52:07.360 --> 0:52:10.200 was not in my mind at the time. 0:52:10.520 --> 0:52:14.360 I remember thinking, I've always heard that married men live longer. 0:52:14.520 --> 0:52:17.320 This is why I'm seeing it right now. 0:52:18.760 --> 0:52:20.799 So because your wife's I was like, why don't you 0:52:20.880 --> 0:52:25.000 see somebody about it? So they put me in. 0:52:25.080 --> 0:52:28.640 They started the long drive, and my compensatory shock held 0:52:28.680 --> 0:52:30.399 for most of the drive and right when we got 0:52:30.400 --> 0:52:31.640 to the hospital. 0:52:31.840 --> 0:52:33.440 And they've got no idea what's going on. 0:52:34.080 --> 0:52:36.120 So they didn't like, check your bib alls. Well they 0:52:36.160 --> 0:52:37.840 say that something was well. 0:52:37.680 --> 0:52:40.440 They did. So the thing is if you're if you 0:52:40.480 --> 0:52:44.160 have internal bleeding, your heart tries to compensate for the 0:52:44.200 --> 0:52:47.839 drop in blood pressure by beating faster, which pressure pressurizes 0:52:47.880 --> 0:52:51.680 the system. Right, you run the pump, you pressurize the bike. Okay, right, 0:52:51.760 --> 0:52:55.600 except I'm very fit. So they looked at my heart 0:52:55.680 --> 0:52:58.040 rate and was probably in the eighties. They're like, all right, 0:52:58.360 --> 0:53:00.640 he's almost sixty years old. His heart rates in the eighties, 0:53:00.840 --> 0:53:05.239 that's pretty normal, got it right, My heart rates fifty five, 0:53:05.400 --> 0:53:07.480 So they didn't know I was thirty beats up. Had 0:53:07.520 --> 0:53:09.440 they known that, they would they were like, oh, this 0:53:09.480 --> 0:53:12.920 is a classic symptom for internal hemorrhage. But I my 0:53:13.200 --> 0:53:16.200 fitness level was masking it, right, So they were totally 0:53:16.280 --> 0:53:17.040 cavalier about it. 0:53:17.120 --> 0:53:17.239 Right. 0:53:17.239 --> 0:53:20.880 We almost stopped for coffee practically, you know, Like, and 0:53:20.920 --> 0:53:23.480 we got to the hospital and I I just went 0:53:23.520 --> 0:53:26.960 off a cliff. Your body decompensated. It has to decompensate 0:53:27.000 --> 0:53:29.000 at some point. And when I went into end stage 0:53:29.000 --> 0:53:33.719 hemorrhagic shock. I'm convulsing with hypothermia, and they rushed me 0:53:33.719 --> 0:53:35.960 into the trauma bay. The doctors know immediately what's going 0:53:36.000 --> 0:53:39.920 on and immediately diagnosed me immediately and sent me through 0:53:39.920 --> 0:53:42.280 a cat scan. They saw that where the blood was pooling, 0:53:42.360 --> 0:53:45.919 and they and oh, so I'm in the trauma bay 0:53:46.040 --> 0:53:48.560 and well, h yeah. 0:53:48.560 --> 0:53:50.719 That's want to mention what you were just described? And 0:53:51.239 --> 0:53:52.919 would you say your hype Like, what'd you say? 0:53:53.560 --> 0:53:56.080 Uh, hemorrhagic chuck? So is that? 0:53:57.000 --> 0:53:57.160 No? 0:53:57.280 --> 0:53:59.200 They said something about hypothermia. 0:53:59.360 --> 0:54:02.000 Oh yeah, you go into hypothermia when you have when 0:54:02.040 --> 0:54:05.000 you're in hemorrhagic shock, your body gets hypothermic. 0:54:05.880 --> 0:54:07.680 I understand that. Why Why is that? 0:54:07.960 --> 0:54:10.799 It's as if you're very, very cold. Your body can't 0:54:10.880 --> 0:54:12.320 keep up its internal temperature. 0:54:12.760 --> 0:54:15.279 All right, Which is you feel did you? I guess 0:54:15.280 --> 0:54:17.040 when you're one of your super hypothermic, you don't know 0:54:17.120 --> 0:54:19.600 you're cold. I mean, did you did you feel like well? 0:54:19.960 --> 0:54:22.319 I was convulsiate. I mean I was having like these 0:54:22.360 --> 0:54:25.440 spastic shivering like oh really oh yeah yeah yeah yeah No. 0:54:25.520 --> 0:54:27.560 I I don't know what was going on, but I 0:54:27.640 --> 0:54:29.560 kind of sensed it wasn't good. I didn't know I 0:54:29.600 --> 0:54:30.000 was dying. 0:54:30.200 --> 0:54:32.120 I mean, there's a lot of you knew it was 0:54:32.160 --> 0:54:33.080 a cold feeling. 0:54:34.080 --> 0:54:37.120 Well, yes, I was shaking. I've only shaked. I've only 0:54:37.160 --> 0:54:39.359 shaken like that when I was very very cold. And 0:54:39.400 --> 0:54:44.040 I've never even convulsively shaked. Huh right, shaken, shaked, shaken, 0:54:44.200 --> 0:54:44.799 whatever it is. 0:54:45.040 --> 0:54:46.080 So I knew. 0:54:46.120 --> 0:54:47.879 There's a lot of when you're dying, there's a lot 0:54:47.880 --> 0:54:49.680 of denial. I had no idea I was dying, but 0:54:49.719 --> 0:54:51.600 I was like, Okay, I was going blind a while ago, 0:54:51.640 --> 0:54:56.080 I couldn't talk, and now I'm convulsively shaking, but I'm fine, 0:54:56.239 --> 0:55:00.080 like you know, like they're just yeah, exactly. So so 0:55:00.360 --> 0:55:02.800 it never crossed my mind. Of course everyone else knew, 0:55:02.880 --> 0:55:03.440 and they. 0:55:04.160 --> 0:55:06.040 So they were they like they were able to look 0:55:06.080 --> 0:55:08.319 at what's going on because you know, I mean, it 0:55:08.360 --> 0:55:10.840 would never occur to me like perhaps they're having internal bleeding, 0:55:10.880 --> 0:55:12.920 like they're good enough where they're like this, dude, do 0:55:13.000 --> 0:55:13.520 you have enough? 0:55:13.560 --> 0:55:15.880 Yeah? Yeah, I had all this. I had all the symptoms, right, 0:55:15.880 --> 0:55:17.919 And and then they saw it on the CT scan 0:55:18.040 --> 0:55:22.000 and so my blood pressure was sixty over forty, right, 0:55:22.040 --> 0:55:23.840 I'd lost half my blood at that point. I was 0:55:23.840 --> 0:55:26.760 probably ten minutes from dead right, I needed ten units 0:55:26.760 --> 0:55:29.000 of blood to stay alive, which is basically a full 0:55:29.000 --> 0:55:29.720 oil change. 0:55:29.760 --> 0:55:31.759 Like, how do they get the old blood out? They 0:55:31.800 --> 0:55:32.399 pump it out. 0:55:32.800 --> 0:55:34.719 No, it's in your abdomen and then it takes a 0:55:34.719 --> 0:55:37.720 few months to be reabsorbed by your body if you survived. 0:55:37.360 --> 0:55:38.400 So they don't try to get it out. 0:55:38.520 --> 0:55:40.040 No, no, no, it's not doing it. They got like they 0:55:40.080 --> 0:55:44.000 got their sun pouch. No, no, no that they don't. 0:55:44.080 --> 0:55:46.560 That doesn't matter, like that they would, Yeah, they don't 0:55:46.560 --> 0:55:52.080 need to worry about that. I was probably ten minutes 0:55:52.120 --> 0:55:55.600 from dead right, and they put me in the trauma 0:55:55.640 --> 0:55:59.799 bay and a doctor, a doctor starts prepping my neck 0:55:59.840 --> 0:56:02.200 to insert a large gauge needle through my neck into 0:56:02.239 --> 0:56:05.080 my jugular to transfuse me because I need a lot 0:56:05.080 --> 0:56:09.759 of blood fast right. And he asked my permission to 0:56:09.800 --> 0:56:11.160 do this, and I still didn't get I was like, 0:56:11.160 --> 0:56:13.359 you mean, in case there's an emergency. He's like, this 0:56:13.440 --> 0:56:16.640 is the emergency right now. If you say so, my life, 0:56:16.760 --> 0:56:18.719 you know. My wife seemed worried also, But if I 0:56:18.760 --> 0:56:22.279 you know, whatever, do what you gotta do. And I'm 0:56:22.320 --> 0:56:24.120 lying there while he's working on my neck and all 0:56:24.120 --> 0:56:26.760 of a sudden and I have to stop and just explain. 0:56:27.520 --> 0:56:30.960 I'm an atheist, right, my dad was an atheist and 0:56:31.000 --> 0:56:35.200 a physicist. She's like as well, yeah, well sort of 0:56:35.200 --> 0:56:39.680 atheist squared right, like hyper rational. And I'm a lifelong atheist. 0:56:39.760 --> 0:56:41.640 So you need to know this for what I'm about 0:56:41.680 --> 0:56:45.440 to say, because it flew in the face of a 0:56:45.440 --> 0:56:49.200 lot of of my understanding of reality, understanding of life 0:56:49.200 --> 0:56:52.759 in the world. A little bit, uh so beneath me, 0:56:52.800 --> 0:56:56.120 into my left, this sort of yawning blackness opened up, 0:56:56.200 --> 0:56:59.520 like the universe had sort of cracked open. He said, 0:56:59.520 --> 0:57:02.080 this just infinite black void, and I was getting pulled 0:57:02.120 --> 0:57:06.160 into it, and I didn't want to go. I was 0:57:06.200 --> 0:57:08.399 like a wounded animal, like I didn't I wasn't thinking 0:57:08.400 --> 0:57:11.000 about my family. I didn't know I was dying. I 0:57:11.080 --> 0:57:14.719 just didn't want to go into the vast darkness, right, 0:57:14.760 --> 0:57:16.160 like when you take your dog to the vat and 0:57:16.240 --> 0:57:19.400 dog doesn't want to go to the I was like that, like, no, no, no, 0:57:19.440 --> 0:57:21.800 I'm not going in there. And I was getting pulled 0:57:21.840 --> 0:57:24.080 in and I couldn't stop it, and I was panicking. 0:57:24.680 --> 0:57:28.760 And then above me, to my left suddenly appeared my 0:57:28.760 --> 0:57:32.360 dead father. He'd been dead eight years and he was 0:57:32.400 --> 0:57:37.160 there in this just energy form, like it wasn't even 0:57:37.240 --> 0:57:40.160 quite vision that I used to perceive him, like, it 0:57:40.240 --> 0:57:43.080 was a sense that I it was a sense that's 0:57:43.120 --> 0:57:46.480 not familiar to me. But it was absolutely like, Oh, 0:57:46.560 --> 0:57:49.720 there's my dad, Like what is he doing? He was 0:57:49.800 --> 0:57:52.960 very benevolent and he was communicating with me. He was 0:57:53.000 --> 0:57:57.160 hovering right above me, and he was communicating with me basically, 0:57:57.680 --> 0:57:59.520 you don't have to fight it, you can come with me. 0:57:59.560 --> 0:58:03.040 I'll take care of you. He was very very paternal 0:58:03.080 --> 0:58:06.120 and loving and caring, and you know he was so 0:58:06.160 --> 0:58:09.080 he was a physicist, he was, I realized later on 0:58:09.120 --> 0:58:12.200 the spectrum he was not a particularly emotional person. Right 0:58:12.680 --> 0:58:14.760 like I loved him, but my connection to him was 0:58:14.800 --> 0:58:18.280 not visceral and loving in that in that way that 0:58:18.360 --> 0:58:20.000 he was at that moment, like he was in some 0:58:20.040 --> 0:58:23.680 ways the most loving, sort of viscerally loving thing he'd 0:58:23.680 --> 0:58:26.640 ever done for me. Right in that moment, It's like, 0:58:26.680 --> 0:58:31.600 I'll take care of you. And I was horrified. I 0:58:31.640 --> 0:58:34.600 was like, you're dead, why would I go with you? 0:58:34.760 --> 0:58:36.800 I'm alive. The parties over here, like what are you 0:58:36.840 --> 0:58:39.960 doing here? I mean, I was shocked and horrified, offended, 0:58:40.000 --> 0:58:41.920 almost offended that he would think I would want to 0:58:41.960 --> 0:58:45.320 go with him and not want to stay alive with 0:58:45.400 --> 0:58:47.320 my family. I was really offended. I was like, what 0:58:47.360 --> 0:58:49.440 do you what do you think? And I said to 0:58:49.480 --> 0:58:51.120 the doctor, you got to hurry. I'm going. 0:58:52.160 --> 0:58:54.520 I was going to ask you if you were aware 0:58:54.560 --> 0:58:55.840 that you were conscious or not. 0:58:55.960 --> 0:58:56.120 Yeah. 0:58:56.160 --> 0:58:56.560 Yeah, yeah. 0:58:56.600 --> 0:58:58.200 I was talking to the doctor. And then there was 0:58:58.240 --> 0:59:00.480 my dad and I said said to he was over here, 0:59:00.480 --> 0:59:02.600 I said, you got to hurry. I'm going right now. 0:59:02.720 --> 0:59:05.560 I'm being taken. Oh. 0:59:05.560 --> 0:59:09.240 Did the hole in your dad seem like diametric? They were? 0:59:09.320 --> 0:59:11.400 They they were connected to each other. He was like, 0:59:11.440 --> 0:59:13.440 don't be sort of he didn't say this, but he basically, 0:59:13.480 --> 0:59:15.680 don't be scared of what's happening right now. 0:59:15.840 --> 0:59:19.160 So it wasn't a different directions, no, no, no, well, he 0:59:19.200 --> 0:59:20.480 was there, the pit was above me. 0:59:20.600 --> 0:59:22.760 He was up there. But basically he was saying, you 0:59:22.760 --> 0:59:25.360 don't have to I was fighting going into the hole. Yeah, 0:59:25.600 --> 0:59:27.400 and he's like, you don't have to fight it. I'll 0:59:27.440 --> 0:59:29.680 be like, I'll be with you, I'll take care of you. 0:59:30.040 --> 0:59:30.480 It's okay. 0:59:30.520 --> 0:59:32.200 I'll accompany you into them. Yeah. 0:59:32.600 --> 0:59:36.320 Yeah, And they eventual and. 0:59:36.280 --> 0:59:38.480 You're and you're still talking to this doctor. 0:59:38.880 --> 0:59:42.360 Yeah yep. And you know, they couldn't sedate me because 0:59:42.360 --> 0:59:45.240 my vital signs were too low, so everything that they 0:59:45.240 --> 0:59:47.400 did they had to do with me fully conscious. I 0:59:47.400 --> 0:59:49.720 had a little bit of fentanyl, but it didn't didn't 0:59:49.720 --> 0:59:51.439 do anything. I was in a huge amount of pain, 0:59:52.120 --> 0:59:54.800 and they brought me into the Indivendual Radiology Suite. And 0:59:55.640 --> 0:59:59.800 which is this IR is this sort of like magic. Basically, 0:59:59.880 --> 1:00:02.240 like you're on a fluoroscope, which is an X ray 1:00:02.280 --> 1:00:04.880 machine that takes real time video, and they pop a 1:00:04.880 --> 1:00:07.040 hole in your groin and they thread a wire up 1:00:07.040 --> 1:00:09.320 your femoral artery and they can snake it around to 1:00:09.360 --> 1:00:12.240 any part of your body. So instead of if they 1:00:12.280 --> 1:00:14.439 need to put a stint in your orda, they can 1:00:14.720 --> 1:00:17.160 put it in by wire instead of opening your heart 1:00:17.240 --> 1:00:19.040 up right, It's amazing what they can do. And they 1:00:19.040 --> 1:00:22.000 were trying to get the wire to the ruptured artery 1:00:22.440 --> 1:00:25.000 to embolize it, to block it so I would stop bleeding. 1:00:25.240 --> 1:00:28.440 And the alternative to doing that, this is what they 1:00:28.440 --> 1:00:30.200 would have had to do twenty years ago, is like 1:00:30.240 --> 1:00:33.760 cut me open and try to find the bleed before 1:00:33.840 --> 1:00:37.000 I bled out. Right, and the outcomes are terrible for that. 1:00:37.040 --> 1:00:39.040 And if they'd had to do that, they would have 1:00:39.080 --> 1:00:41.200 brought my wife into Sagabye. They told me that later, 1:00:41.280 --> 1:00:42.960 like we would have brought her into say goodbye, because 1:00:42.960 --> 1:00:45.680 you probably wouldn't have made it. So they were trying 1:00:45.720 --> 1:00:49.439 and trying with this wire to thread its way through 1:00:49.480 --> 1:00:52.360 my sort of weird vasculature because the ligament can totally 1:00:52.360 --> 1:00:56.440 contorted all my vasculature when it compensated, right, and they 1:00:56.480 --> 1:00:58.320 couldn't get the wire to the place. And I was 1:00:58.360 --> 1:01:01.440 in the on the fluoroscope for hours, and now it's 1:01:01.480 --> 1:01:04.439 two in the morning, and I remember the doctors giving up, right, 1:01:04.560 --> 1:01:06.840 and I remember them so when I'm shrugging, is like, well, 1:01:06.880 --> 1:01:09.480 we tried, we did everything we could, and now I 1:01:09.640 --> 1:01:12.400 finally realized that I might die, like I didn't know 1:01:12.440 --> 1:01:13.040 it until then. 1:01:13.200 --> 1:01:15.840 And during this they're pumping blood to you and you're 1:01:15.880 --> 1:01:16.640 just bleeding it out. 1:01:16.760 --> 1:01:21.400 It's kind of like, yeah, that's right. And also you 1:01:21.440 --> 1:01:24.440 know you can't just replace blood without consequences, right, I mean, 1:01:24.480 --> 1:01:28.280 you can die from blood loss with a full complement 1:01:28.320 --> 1:01:30.440 of blood in you, but blood from other people, and 1:01:30.480 --> 1:01:35.160 there's a chemical process that gets going when you experience 1:01:35.200 --> 1:01:38.560 extreme blood loss that they can't acidosis and they can't 1:01:38.560 --> 1:01:40.320 get ahead of it, and it will kill you. So 1:01:40.360 --> 1:01:42.360 I I was right at the edge of where that 1:01:42.400 --> 1:01:45.600 process would start, right, and so I was barely hanging on. 1:01:46.040 --> 1:01:48.680 The nurse was there holding my hand, and that human 1:01:48.720 --> 1:01:52.120 contact was so important, I mean literally important for survival. Right. 1:01:52.160 --> 1:01:54.560 You need the doctors that you know the mechanics, but 1:01:54.680 --> 1:01:57.160 you also need some because it's very lonely. Dying is 1:01:57.360 --> 1:02:00.240 being being a patient in a hospital, extremely lonely. Right, 1:02:00.280 --> 1:02:02.760 everyone's mask, there's very bright lights. You don't know what's 1:02:02.800 --> 1:02:05.800 going on. And to this nurse she was holding my hand, 1:02:05.840 --> 1:02:08.080 she was like, breathe with me, It's okay, keep your 1:02:08.120 --> 1:02:09.840 eyes open. I'm right here. And you know, I was 1:02:09.920 --> 1:02:14.680 choosing by like lifeline. And one of the reasons I survived. 1:02:14.720 --> 1:02:17.200 I shouldn't have survived. The doctors didn't think I would 1:02:17.280 --> 1:02:19.080 and they're sort of amazed that I did. But one 1:02:19.080 --> 1:02:22.600 of the reasons I survived was that human connection along 1:02:22.640 --> 1:02:23.959 with amazing medical. 1:02:24.560 --> 1:02:26.240 Did you have a glove on or it was skin? 1:02:27.360 --> 1:02:30.680 I don't remember, it was skin and it was skin. Yeah, 1:02:30.960 --> 1:02:36.000 it was just absolutely crucial. And so the I watched 1:02:36.000 --> 1:02:38.360 the doctors give up, and I was like, oh my god, 1:02:38.560 --> 1:02:41.240 I'm not going to make it. And I thought I 1:02:41.280 --> 1:02:43.960 was just in for belly pain. What's going on? Right? 1:02:44.000 --> 1:02:44.720 I had no idea? 1:02:45.720 --> 1:02:47.320 And then the doctor said, why don't we try going 1:02:47.360 --> 1:02:50.840 through his left wrist? And the other doctor was like, wow, 1:02:50.880 --> 1:02:53.280 I like the way you think that. And so because 1:02:53.320 --> 1:02:56.600 of the wed my weird vasculature, that was a different 1:02:56.600 --> 1:02:59.840 angle of attack that the doc, the IR guy thought 1:02:59.840 --> 1:03:04.120 my work and it did. And he saved my life. 1:03:04.840 --> 1:03:06.760 And you know, he'd been called from dinner an hour 1:03:06.800 --> 1:03:09.080 away and had driven to the hospital to save my life. 1:03:09.080 --> 1:03:11.560 Like I mean, what these doctors do is just amazing. 1:03:11.600 --> 1:03:16.600 Like he was on call and he and uh so 1:03:16.920 --> 1:03:19.400 they brought me up to the ICU. You know, then 1:03:19.440 --> 1:03:23.680 they sedated me, they put me under, and you know, 1:03:23.720 --> 1:03:25.880 I was in this sort of wild darkness for like 1:03:26.240 --> 1:03:29.080 one hundred years or something like. I felt like I 1:03:29.160 --> 1:03:32.360 was gone for a very long time. And then the 1:03:32.400 --> 1:03:37.920 next thing I knew, I heard this really intense Boston 1:03:37.960 --> 1:03:41.000 accent a woman speaking in a So this isn't on 1:03:41.080 --> 1:03:44.040 Cape cod at Massachusetts, right, You all know the Boston 1:03:44.080 --> 1:03:46.600 accent not the loveliest accent on the planet. 1:03:46.760 --> 1:03:51.560 Right, pretty harsh you said that, yeah, us, Yeah, it's 1:03:51.560 --> 1:03:55.880 pretty harsh, pretty harsh, pretty harsh accent, right, and just 1:03:55.920 --> 1:03:59.000 this woman speaking a really intense Boston accent. And I'm 1:03:59.000 --> 1:04:03.000 still in my darkness, right, my eyes are closed, Like. 1:04:04.120 --> 1:04:07.600 Where am I? Like there? Probably don't have these accents 1:04:07.640 --> 1:04:12.440 anywhere you want to go later, right, might not. 1:04:12.440 --> 1:04:17.480 Be a good signs getting me. So I. 1:04:18.960 --> 1:04:21.880 Opened my eyes and she said, congratulations, mister younger, you 1:04:21.920 --> 1:04:24.720 made it. You almost died last night. No one thought 1:04:24.720 --> 1:04:26.960 you were going to make it. You're kind of a miracle. 1:04:27.840 --> 1:04:30.760 And I was like, well, that's some straight shooting cout 1:04:31.320 --> 1:04:35.400 right there, right, And I was shocked. I have no 1:04:35.440 --> 1:04:37.400 idea I almost died, right. I was absolutely shocked. It's 1:04:37.440 --> 1:04:39.840 quite traumatic to find that out right, particularly if you 1:04:39.840 --> 1:04:43.400 have young kids. I was absolutely shocked. Then she left 1:04:43.440 --> 1:04:46.680 because she was doing her rounds, and I'm a mess. 1:04:46.680 --> 1:04:48.640 I'm throwing up blood, I got wires coming out all 1:04:48.640 --> 1:04:50.720 over the place. I'm a total mess. But I couldn't 1:04:50.720 --> 1:04:53.760 stop thinking about what she told me. And she came 1:04:53.800 --> 1:04:56.360 back and she said, how you doing. I said, well, 1:04:57.880 --> 1:05:00.880 not that great, actually, Like what you say is terrifying. 1:05:00.920 --> 1:05:03.520 I had no idea. I'd almost died and I can't 1:05:03.560 --> 1:05:08.160 stop thinking about it. And she said the wisest thing 1:05:08.200 --> 1:05:10.280 I think just about anyone has ever said to me. 1:05:10.360 --> 1:05:13.040 She said, try this. Instead of thinking about it like 1:05:13.080 --> 1:05:16.600 something scary, try thinking about it like something sacred. 1:05:17.520 --> 1:05:18.240 Then she walked up. 1:05:19.640 --> 1:05:22.919 I later tried to find her, you know, two weeks later, 1:05:23.000 --> 1:05:25.640 to find her, to thank her and ask her what 1:05:25.720 --> 1:05:27.680 did she mean? Because I made my own use of 1:05:27.680 --> 1:05:30.640 that advice. Right, I'm an atheist. The word sacred is 1:05:30.640 --> 1:05:32.880 a very important word to me, and for me, it 1:05:32.920 --> 1:05:37.760 means anything that anything that helps preserve human dignity, Like 1:05:37.840 --> 1:05:39.800 that's a sacred task. It might be a school teacher, 1:05:39.800 --> 1:05:41.920 it might be a shrink, it might be a nurse, 1:05:42.040 --> 1:05:44.480 you know, it might be a minister. Sacred work happens 1:05:44.480 --> 1:05:46.800 in church as well, right, you know, So anything that 1:05:46.840 --> 1:05:50.360 preserves human dignity. And as a journalist, on our best 1:05:50.440 --> 1:05:55.080 days we bring back information that our country, the world 1:05:55.080 --> 1:05:57.760 can use responsibly to help alleviate human suffering. That's a 1:05:57.800 --> 1:05:59.560 sacred job, you know, on our best days, that's like 1:05:59.640 --> 1:06:03.120 sacred work. Right, So I thought, I've been going to 1:06:03.160 --> 1:06:05.280 front lines my whole life. I stopped. After my buddy 1:06:05.320 --> 1:06:08.200 Tim was killed in Libya. I went to the ultimate 1:06:08.240 --> 1:06:11.640 front line my own mortality. I was allowed to come back. 1:06:11.680 --> 1:06:14.680 Did I come back with sacred information that would help 1:06:15.080 --> 1:06:19.360 myself and others face the terrifying prospect of our mortality? 1:06:19.360 --> 1:06:21.000 We're all going to face it. Do I have sacred 1:06:21.040 --> 1:06:25.080 information from this? That's the meaning I took, right But 1:06:25.160 --> 1:06:28.000 I circled back to ask her, this wonderful woman, like 1:06:28.240 --> 1:06:31.400 what did you mean by that? And I couldn't find her. 1:06:31.400 --> 1:06:32.960 And not only could I not find her, no one 1:06:33.000 --> 1:06:34.720 at the hospital in the ICU, no one knew who 1:06:34.760 --> 1:06:36.320 I was talking about. All there is no one here 1:06:36.320 --> 1:06:39.400 by that description, like why did she totally disappeared? And 1:06:39.640 --> 1:06:41.120 she might have been, as you know, I'm not getting 1:06:41.120 --> 1:06:42.520 all woo woo here, like she might have been a 1:06:42.600 --> 1:06:45.320 visiting nurse and just I mean, who knows. But I 1:06:45.320 --> 1:06:49.520 couldn't find her, and it contributed to what afterwards was 1:06:49.560 --> 1:06:53.000 a terrible sense of unreality, Like I worried when I 1:06:53.040 --> 1:06:56.320 finally got home, I started to worry that I had 1:06:56.360 --> 1:07:00.360 died and that I was imagining everything. It was my 1:07:00.640 --> 1:07:04.040 dying hallucination that I actually didn't survive and. 1:07:04.680 --> 1:07:09.080 Did did that moment with your father and the darkness, 1:07:09.160 --> 1:07:11.800 did that like stick with you through that process or 1:07:11.880 --> 1:07:13.880 is that something that you came back to later. 1:07:14.240 --> 1:07:17.240 Oh yeah, I mean as soon as this nurse said 1:07:17.240 --> 1:07:18.800 that to me, I remembered my dad. I was like, 1:07:18.840 --> 1:07:21.439 oh my god, I saw my father and the pit, 1:07:21.640 --> 1:07:24.560 you know, and I and that stayed with me in 1:07:24.640 --> 1:07:26.920 sort of troubling ways. I mean, so I started researching 1:07:27.040 --> 1:07:29.560 NDEs near death experiences. Right, They're very common. They have 1:07:29.640 --> 1:07:33.720 it all over the world. They're not infinitely varied right there. 1:07:33.880 --> 1:07:36.560 They fall into three or four basic buckets, one of 1:07:36.600 --> 1:07:40.640 them being that you know, the dead show up to 1:07:40.960 --> 1:07:43.600 either tell you to go back or help escort you across. 1:07:43.640 --> 1:07:46.040 And it's very very common as every society in the world. 1:07:46.600 --> 1:07:49.680 It's quite a mystery. And I started researching NDEs and 1:07:49.720 --> 1:07:54.840 there's some pretty good rational explanations rooted in medicine and 1:07:54.840 --> 1:07:57.360 neurochemistry for many of the visions that people have when 1:07:57.360 --> 1:07:59.400 they're on the threshold. I'm a rationalist, and I'm like, 1:07:59.480 --> 1:08:01.160 all right, that that sort of makes sense. I get 1:08:01.160 --> 1:08:03.680 at the tunnel, the out of body experience. You can 1:08:03.720 --> 1:08:05.280 do that with drugs, you can do that in a 1:08:05.360 --> 1:08:08.640 human center views like fighter pilots undergo. You know, there's 1:08:08.640 --> 1:08:11.040 way The one thing that didn't quite make sense to 1:08:11.080 --> 1:08:13.600 me is the consistency of the vision. Right, so the 1:08:13.680 --> 1:08:16.479 many many people see the dead when they're dying in 1:08:16.600 --> 1:08:19.479 hospice in ers, and like, I mean, it's a really 1:08:19.520 --> 1:08:21.840 really common thing. And you know, if you give a 1:08:21.880 --> 1:08:25.000 room full of people LSD, they will all hallucinate. There's 1:08:25.000 --> 1:08:28.240 no mystery there. The chemistry of that is well known, 1:08:28.360 --> 1:08:31.439 but they won't all hallucinate the same thing. What's odd 1:08:31.479 --> 1:08:34.680 about dying is the consistency of the hallucinations that they 1:08:34.680 --> 1:08:36.840 involve the dead, even people that don't know they're dying, 1:08:37.280 --> 1:08:40.000 even people who don't like the dead person who showed up. Right, 1:08:40.000 --> 1:08:43.320 it's not a comforting vision necessarily. And that's the only 1:08:43.360 --> 1:08:45.240 part of this that really made me sort of wonder, 1:08:45.320 --> 1:08:50.080 like do we really understand anything about reality? And you know, 1:08:50.360 --> 1:08:52.519 I started I went into quantum physics to try to 1:08:52.560 --> 1:08:55.840 sort of understand, like, maybe the problem is that we 1:08:55.880 --> 1:08:57.920 think we live on a flat earth and it's actually 1:08:58.120 --> 1:09:00.960 a globe. You know, Maybe the problem is this boundary 1:09:01.000 --> 1:09:05.400 between life and death that we assume is absolute, maybe 1:09:05.439 --> 1:09:08.160 it actually isn't the boundary we think it is. And 1:09:08.240 --> 1:09:09.760 you know, I hate the word after life. I think 1:09:09.800 --> 1:09:14.040 it's a misnomer and misleading. But there might be at 1:09:14.080 --> 1:09:22.080 some sort of quantum level a reality that we don't understand, 1:09:22.200 --> 1:09:26.040 involving consciousness and life and death and time and all 1:09:26.040 --> 1:09:29.040 these sort of basic components of the universe. I don't know. 1:09:29.120 --> 1:09:31.320 I'm an atheist with questions, which is a huge step 1:09:31.360 --> 1:09:35.160 for an atheist or for a person of faith. Also, 1:09:35.400 --> 1:09:37.040 you know, if you're a person of faith and have questions, 1:09:37.160 --> 1:09:39.040 that's also a huge step in the right direction. 1:09:40.960 --> 1:09:47.320 There's this guy I knew that wrote me an email 1:09:47.360 --> 1:09:50.559 one time, and he had had He was tipping over 1:09:50.600 --> 1:09:52.720 a tree. Here we are chainsaws and trees. Yeah, he 1:09:52.800 --> 1:09:55.840 was tipping over a tree and the wind picked up 1:09:56.600 --> 1:10:00.800 and he lives okay, And all of a sudden, she 1:10:00.880 --> 1:10:02.920 was going away. He didn't anticipate, and he tripped and 1:10:02.960 --> 1:10:05.479 fell and the tree landed on him. But he was 1:10:05.520 --> 1:10:07.639 in just enough of a depression where the tree didn't 1:10:07.760 --> 1:10:10.160 kill him, but it messled him. So he had a 1:10:10.200 --> 1:10:12.680 thing like you just mentioned. He later went back a 1:10:12.680 --> 1:10:17.559 few days later. He describes going back and looking into 1:10:17.560 --> 1:10:20.679 that hole. Yeah, he's in such a weird state mentally 1:10:21.040 --> 1:10:23.160 that he went back looking in that hole, half thinking 1:10:23.160 --> 1:10:25.760 that he would see himself in that hole. And he 1:10:25.840 --> 1:10:29.040 was so tripped up that he did what you said 1:10:29.600 --> 1:10:32.519 where he's like, maybe I did die, Yeah, and now 1:10:32.560 --> 1:10:34.960 I'm in a weird spot. And he went to look 1:10:35.479 --> 1:10:37.599 yeah and weird like he was in. It got that 1:10:37.680 --> 1:10:39.439 weird for him over those next few days. 1:10:39.840 --> 1:10:42.360 You know, it's I didn't know this, but it's really common. 1:10:42.400 --> 1:10:44.200 I talked to a woman who was rear ended by 1:10:44.520 --> 1:10:47.559 a truck at a red light and medically was hurt 1:10:47.600 --> 1:10:50.080 a little bit. It wasn't didn't have an NDE, but 1:10:50.240 --> 1:10:53.240 after that she was just plagued with the fear that 1:10:53.280 --> 1:10:55.360 she had died in the accident and didn't know it. 1:10:55.960 --> 1:10:57.920 She was in limbo and eventually would find it. And 1:10:58.040 --> 1:11:00.360 so I had to say I had the same problem. 1:11:00.400 --> 1:11:03.320 And part of my part of my problem was that. 1:11:03.400 --> 1:11:05.320 And this is and I'm not woo woo, I'm really 1:11:05.360 --> 1:11:08.320 not a mystic. I mean, I'm I really am a rationalist, right, 1:11:09.040 --> 1:11:12.240 but our rationality doesn't understand everything. And this is that's 1:11:12.280 --> 1:11:15.160 where I have questions. But so the dawn of the 1:11:15.240 --> 1:11:18.600 day before, right right before dawn that we could my 1:11:18.680 --> 1:11:21.360 family and I co sleep, right, So my wife and 1:11:21.439 --> 1:11:23.920 I am are little girls sleep in the same you 1:11:23.960 --> 1:11:25.960 know area on the pad on the big pad on 1:11:26.000 --> 1:11:28.720 the floor. It's like we're camping basically, except at home. Right, 1:11:28.720 --> 1:11:33.400 it's very very nice. And I had a dream that 1:11:33.439 --> 1:11:35.200 I didn't know was a dream but at the time, 1:11:35.240 --> 1:11:38.000 but I had a dream that my family was below me, 1:11:39.400 --> 1:11:42.519 my wife, my little two little girls, and they were crying. 1:11:43.040 --> 1:11:46.160 They're crying about me, and I was waving. I was like, 1:11:46.200 --> 1:11:49.960 I'm right here, it's okay. I'm like and they didn't 1:11:50.160 --> 1:11:52.599 couldn't see me, they couldn't hear me, and I was 1:11:52.640 --> 1:11:55.519 I was floating above them, and I was made and 1:11:55.560 --> 1:11:57.519 I was in this sort of darkness looking down at them, 1:11:57.560 --> 1:11:59.360 and I was made to understand that they couldn't see 1:11:59.360 --> 1:12:00.960 me or hear me because I was dead. I was 1:12:01.040 --> 1:12:04.400 a spirit. I had died, and that I was headed 1:12:04.439 --> 1:12:06.920 out and there was no going back and that's it. 1:12:06.960 --> 1:12:09.840 And I woke up in a panic. I mean I 1:12:09.880 --> 1:12:11.519 woke up and then it was shocked to realize that 1:12:11.560 --> 1:12:13.880 I wasn't dead. I mean, that's how real the dream was, right, 1:12:15.160 --> 1:12:18.720 And God, that was just a dream, and I was 1:12:18.800 --> 1:12:22.720 really shaken, and thirty six hours later it started, I 1:12:22.760 --> 1:12:26.679 started dying. Right. So, when I started researching NDEs, another 1:12:26.720 --> 1:12:29.559 common ende is that you're floating above the doctors, above 1:12:29.600 --> 1:12:30.599 your body, above your fans. 1:12:30.640 --> 1:12:32.400 I'm going to ask about that, the bright light and 1:12:32.439 --> 1:12:33.000 the floating. 1:12:33.160 --> 1:12:36.040 Yeah. So I started researching NDEs, and again, you know, 1:12:36.120 --> 1:12:38.880 like the rationalist explanations for most of it, I kind 1:12:38.880 --> 1:12:41.519 of buy, right, And what are they? 1:12:42.040 --> 1:12:42.400 Oh that? 1:12:42.560 --> 1:12:46.120 You know, it's the brain is being traumatized by low 1:12:46.200 --> 1:12:50.599 blood oxygen and it releases endoor fins and you can hallucin, 1:12:50.680 --> 1:12:52.800 you know, brains hallucinate during times of stress. I mean, 1:12:53.080 --> 1:12:56.000 you know, there's all these just sort of sort of 1:12:56.040 --> 1:12:59.639 neurochemical explanations that do a pretty good job at explaining 1:12:59.680 --> 1:13:02.720 most of the phenomena of NDEs. Not the visions of 1:13:02.760 --> 1:13:06.679 the dead, the specificity of that can't be explained by 1:13:06.880 --> 1:13:10.920 low blood oxygen. Right, and only the dying seemed to 1:13:10.960 --> 1:13:15.360 see the dead. And but another common experience is sort 1:13:15.400 --> 1:13:18.600 of floating above your loved ones. Right, And so I 1:13:18.680 --> 1:13:21.559 was seized by this fear. Oh my god, maybe I 1:13:21.640 --> 1:13:24.800 died in my sleep. Maybe the rest of it is 1:13:24.800 --> 1:13:28.880 a dying hallucination, the trip to the hospital, the return home, 1:13:29.000 --> 1:13:34.320 the tearful reunion with my children, my reading a you know, 1:13:34.320 --> 1:13:36.840 a story to my to my daughter who's on my 1:13:36.920 --> 1:13:40.000 lap right at this moment. Maybe it's all a hallucination. 1:13:40.080 --> 1:13:42.000 I actually died in my sleep and my wife woke 1:13:42.200 --> 1:13:45.559 up next to her dead husband, Right, How would I 1:13:45.600 --> 1:13:48.280 know that's not true? Right? So it's really really this. 1:13:48.360 --> 1:13:52.280 It's called derealization. It's really really common with people who 1:13:52.320 --> 1:13:55.559 have almost died, either for medical reasons or from a 1:13:55.600 --> 1:13:58.320 near you know, a near miss, like your like your friend. 1:13:58.680 --> 1:14:02.920 And so I got pretty crazy, right, I really started. 1:14:02.960 --> 1:14:05.759 I mean, you know, one of the effects of trauma 1:14:06.200 --> 1:14:09.240 is anxiety and panic, and another is depression. And I 1:14:09.360 --> 1:14:12.040 actually went through those phases, a classic trauma reaction, but 1:14:12.080 --> 1:14:14.240 I didn't know at the time. At the time, I thought, 1:14:14.240 --> 1:14:17.840 oh my god, it's been revealed. The word apocalypse means 1:14:17.880 --> 1:14:20.280 the revealing of all things. Right, as I've gone, I've 1:14:20.320 --> 1:14:23.719 experienced the apocalypse. I've experienced the revealing, the ultimate revealing 1:14:23.760 --> 1:14:26.400 of what reality actually is. It's actually I'm we're not here, 1:14:26.439 --> 1:14:29.320 you know, Like, I really got crazy, And at one 1:14:29.320 --> 1:14:32.400 point I went up to my poor wife. Her name 1:14:32.439 --> 1:14:35.639 is Barbara. I said, honey, just can you just tell 1:14:35.640 --> 1:14:38.479 me that you see me? No spouse wants to hear this, right, 1:14:38.920 --> 1:14:40.920 Can you just tell me that you see me, that 1:14:40.960 --> 1:14:43.479 I'm right in front of you, that I survived, Like, 1:14:43.680 --> 1:14:49.160 just tell me that that I'm here. And she's like, yes, sweetheart, 1:14:49.160 --> 1:14:52.559 you're here, I see you. You survived for the last time. 1:14:52.640 --> 1:14:53.160 You're fine. 1:14:53.320 --> 1:14:55.200 Can you please take the garbage? Yeah? 1:14:55.200 --> 1:14:57.800 Can you please say exactly how about them dishes? Right? 1:14:58.120 --> 1:15:01.479 But in my mind I was like, that's exactly what 1:15:01.520 --> 1:15:04.680 a hallucination would tell you to maintain the hallucination. I 1:15:05.160 --> 1:15:09.720 didn't believe it. And she eventually said to me and 1:15:10.040 --> 1:15:13.120 another very profound like this nurse, like incredibly profound thing. 1:15:13.200 --> 1:15:17.639 She said, Okay, Sebastian, do you feel lucky? You're unlucky 1:15:17.680 --> 1:15:21.040 that this happened to you? Right? Not that you survived, 1:15:21.040 --> 1:15:22.479 of course, you're lucky to survive, But if you could 1:15:22.479 --> 1:15:25.240 push a button and have none of it have happened, 1:15:25.640 --> 1:15:27.320 would you push that button? And I know what she 1:15:27.400 --> 1:15:29.920 was talking about, because, on the one hand, yourself sort 1:15:29.920 --> 1:15:33.200 of cursed with this terror that I'm actually dead or 1:15:33.200 --> 1:15:36.360 the reality doesn't exist, or would all these existential epistemological 1:15:36.479 --> 1:15:40.040 sort of terrors. Right. On the other hand, I was 1:15:40.080 --> 1:15:43.479 sort of allowed to look over the final precipice and 1:15:43.600 --> 1:15:46.120 return home. I had a special trip, right, like when 1:15:46.160 --> 1:15:49.000 I was granted special access, I didn't have to pay 1:15:49.040 --> 1:15:52.840 with my life. I was allowed to come back and like, 1:15:53.960 --> 1:15:57.960 was I lucky or unlucky? And I couldn't answer. I 1:15:58.040 --> 1:16:00.679 didn't know, And it really torment me that I couldn't 1:16:00.680 --> 1:16:05.200 answer that question. And I finally answered it by putting 1:16:05.200 --> 1:16:07.080 it in more sort of mythological terms. I was like, 1:16:07.080 --> 1:16:10.479 all right, she's really saying, am I blessed or cursed? Right? 1:16:10.920 --> 1:16:12.599 And often when I'm at a sort of dead end 1:16:12.600 --> 1:16:14.680 in my work, I will look up the etymology the 1:16:14.720 --> 1:16:19.400 origins of the important words in the topic that I'm researching, 1:16:19.760 --> 1:16:24.519 to see what sort of earlier generations, earlier eras, what 1:16:24.680 --> 1:16:26.759 significance they attached to these words. 1:16:26.760 --> 1:16:28.519 So they're give me an example, what you mean. 1:16:29.040 --> 1:16:31.320 Uh, well, I will right now. I will right now 1:16:31.439 --> 1:16:34.599 with the word blessing. So the word curse, curse, no 1:16:34.600 --> 1:16:37.840 one knows what his origin is. It's a total blank, Like, 1:16:37.920 --> 1:16:40.679 nobody knows there's no known origin for the word curse. 1:16:40.920 --> 1:16:44.640 But blessed. Yeah, but blessing. There's some theories that is 1:16:44.680 --> 1:16:48.000 really to the word course, like a course that you're 1:16:48.040 --> 1:16:50.280 on that you can't deviate from. There's some theories, but 1:16:50.880 --> 1:16:53.800 no one knows. With blessing, they do know what the 1:16:53.840 --> 1:16:58.160 origin is and from the Anglo Saxon word bletson, which 1:16:58.200 --> 1:17:02.200 means blood, and the idea was that there is no 1:17:03.200 --> 1:17:08.439 blessing without a wounding, that the shedding of blood actually 1:17:08.479 --> 1:17:13.040 confers the blessing. Right, So battlefields are sacred because blood 1:17:13.120 --> 1:17:17.920 was shed on them, childbirth is sacred because blood blood 1:17:17.960 --> 1:17:20.519 is lost. And they think it might date back to 1:17:20.600 --> 1:17:25.439 the pre Christian rituals of animal sacrifice where you kill 1:17:25.479 --> 1:17:27.880 the sheep or whatever, and the spilling of the sheep's 1:17:27.920 --> 1:17:30.400 blood is what makes that moment and that place sacred. 1:17:31.120 --> 1:17:34.600 And so it's suddenly I got it. I was like, oh, 1:17:34.920 --> 1:17:38.000 it's not that, it's always they're twin. Blessed and cursed 1:17:38.040 --> 1:17:41.280 are twin. They're part of the same thing, right, And see, 1:17:41.280 --> 1:17:43.600 you actually it's a false question. You don't choose, You 1:17:43.640 --> 1:17:46.920 don't even get to choose. If you're blessed, you're also cursed. 1:17:47.160 --> 1:17:49.840 If you're cursed, you might also be blessed. And the 1:17:49.840 --> 1:17:52.800 story of Jacob actually goes right back to that. He's 1:17:52.840 --> 1:17:55.519 crippled by he wrestles with God and is crippled by God, 1:17:57.200 --> 1:18:00.680 but also blessed like God bleod unjo his hip and 1:18:00.680 --> 1:18:03.400 cripples him for life and blesses him at the same time. 1:18:04.120 --> 1:18:07.680 And so it's a very ancient human human thought and 1:18:07.720 --> 1:18:10.240 that just believed me for some reason and helped relieve 1:18:10.280 --> 1:18:12.160 me of this sort of like unanswerable terror. 1:18:14.600 --> 1:18:17.000 If you might go so in the next twenty years, 1:18:17.040 --> 1:18:19.960 this is gonna happen again sometime, maybe. 1:18:19.720 --> 1:18:21.200 More of the aneurysm. 1:18:21.280 --> 1:18:22.400 I no know that you're gonna die. 1:18:22.439 --> 1:18:23.439 Oh they're gonna die? Yeah? 1:18:23.560 --> 1:18:30.800 Yeah, yeah, are you h How did this shape your yeah? 1:18:30.800 --> 1:18:33.280 How did this shape your awareness that you'll have that 1:18:33.320 --> 1:18:36.559 you'll do this again? You know, you'll like you'll you'll 1:18:36.560 --> 1:18:39.639 have another moment and maybe there will be the hole 1:18:40.120 --> 1:18:40.799 in your dad. 1:18:41.200 --> 1:18:45.080 You know. You know, if if part of my unconsciously, 1:18:45.080 --> 1:18:47.080 I think part of my horror at you know, if 1:18:47.120 --> 1:18:48.479 I was if I was in a lot of pain 1:18:48.560 --> 1:18:50.320 and dying of cancer, I think my dad would have 1:18:50.360 --> 1:18:52.600 been a blessing and a relief to see and I 1:18:52.640 --> 1:18:54.599 would have thrown my arms around. I'm like, please take 1:18:54.640 --> 1:18:57.400 me away from my pain racked body. I'm done right, 1:18:57.439 --> 1:19:03.519 thank you. And one of the problems was that I 1:19:03.640 --> 1:19:06.519 was in the midst of my life. I had young children, 1:19:06.800 --> 1:19:11.639 and being taken away felt unimaginably tragic. And so if 1:19:11.640 --> 1:19:15.439 I live long enough that my girls are okay on 1:19:15.479 --> 1:19:18.479 their own, that my wife is not left as a 1:19:18.479 --> 1:19:23.479 single mom, that everything's okay. You know, I'm going to 1:19:23.560 --> 1:19:26.719 miss them, but you know, but I'll be at peace 1:19:26.760 --> 1:19:28.880 with it. You're not you know, you leave children behind. 1:19:28.920 --> 1:19:30.599 You're not a piece. I mean you know what I mean, 1:19:30.680 --> 1:19:32.920 like you you're a dad, I mean, imagine, right, Like so. 1:19:34.120 --> 1:19:34.960 It's the worst thought. 1:19:35.200 --> 1:19:39.439 It's the worst thought is and that I'm going and 1:19:39.479 --> 1:19:41.320 I won't be around to protect them if they need 1:19:41.320 --> 1:19:44.599 it and to love them when they need it. And 1:19:45.479 --> 1:19:48.479 it's unthinkable, right, And so it's the point of my 1:19:48.600 --> 1:19:50.760 I'm an older dad. My first daughter was born when 1:19:50.800 --> 1:19:53.800 I was fifty five. Being a dad is what I'm doing, right, 1:19:53.840 --> 1:19:55.200 I'm not doing you know, I write books as I 1:19:55.200 --> 1:19:57.120 need to make a living. I could care less. Right, 1:19:57.520 --> 1:19:59.719 being a dad is what I'm doing. It's the center 1:19:59.720 --> 1:20:03.680 of my identity. My existence and if I can get 1:20:03.680 --> 1:20:07.519 through to where they're okay, like, you know, I'm good. 1:20:09.720 --> 1:20:13.960 In your research, what did you turn up about that 1:20:13.960 --> 1:20:16.280 that feeling of your life? People that have that, they'd 1:20:16.320 --> 1:20:19.000 say their life passed before their eyes. What's going on there? 1:20:20.479 --> 1:20:22.519 Well, again, you know, we don't know the answers of 1:20:22.600 --> 1:20:26.479 these things, but on a sort of neurochemical level, the 1:20:26.520 --> 1:20:30.320 brain gets very active when you're dying. And and they've 1:20:30.360 --> 1:20:35.599 they've had they've actually monitored people's brains while they were 1:20:35.680 --> 1:20:38.640 dying because they had to for other medical reasons. They 1:20:38.640 --> 1:20:39.920 need to know what was going on with the brain. 1:20:39.960 --> 1:20:42.120 And they were actually able to watch the gamma rays 1:20:42.240 --> 1:20:46.240 and the different gamma waves and the different waves in 1:20:46.280 --> 1:20:50.040 the brain that like are part of consciousness. They got 1:20:50.080 --> 1:20:53.040 to watch them change around the moment of death. And 1:20:53.080 --> 1:20:56.280 one of the things that happens as you die is 1:20:56.320 --> 1:20:59.760 that the parts of the brain that are engaged in 1:21:00.360 --> 1:21:05.840 memory activate when you die, right, So you you know, 1:21:05.920 --> 1:21:07.599 like when you're dreaming, like you can have a dream 1:21:07.640 --> 1:21:11.040 that feels like it takes you know, ten minutes, right, 1:21:11.520 --> 1:21:14.639 And they know that those you know, supposedly ten minute 1:21:14.720 --> 1:21:17.040 dreams happen in seconds, right, So one of the things 1:21:17.040 --> 1:21:18.519 that might be happening when and this is in the 1:21:18.520 --> 1:21:22.599 neurochemical part side of the explanation for what for NDEs. 1:21:22.920 --> 1:21:24.640 One of the things that might be happening is that 1:21:24.760 --> 1:21:27.800 equivalent to a dream that you have an experience of 1:21:27.840 --> 1:21:31.600 a long you know, vast amount of time and a 1:21:31.760 --> 1:21:34.400 vast sort of perspective, right, you're seeing all of life 1:21:34.800 --> 1:21:39.040 in one moment, the kind of overarching knowledge that you 1:21:39.040 --> 1:21:41.080 can have with dreams, Like in dreams you you sort 1:21:41.120 --> 1:21:43.040 of understand things that you can't understand, you know, there's 1:21:43.080 --> 1:21:46.080 this sort of all encompassing knowledge sometimes. So that might 1:21:46.080 --> 1:21:48.120 be what's going on with that. And let me just 1:21:48.120 --> 1:21:51.920 say that there could be neuro perfectly good neurochemical explanations 1:21:51.960 --> 1:21:57.480 for NDEs, and also a part of NDEs which neurochemistry 1:21:57.520 --> 1:22:00.880 can't explain that do tie into some basic question about 1:22:00.920 --> 1:22:05.720 quantum physics and what is reality? What is consciousness? I mean, 1:22:05.920 --> 1:22:09.960 the quantum physicist of one hundred years ago realized that 1:22:10.040 --> 1:22:15.200 conscious observation changes quantum reality, like if you observe quantum reality, 1:22:15.439 --> 1:22:20.280 if a conscious observers observes quantum reality, it changes it. 1:22:20.680 --> 1:22:24.679 And so the obvious question is does consciousness in the universe, 1:22:25.280 --> 1:22:28.960 human and other otherwise, does consciousness in the universe create 1:22:29.080 --> 1:22:33.800 the universe that that consciousness then exists in, right? I 1:22:33.800 --> 1:22:37.080 mean it's a profound question. So when you're talking on 1:22:37.160 --> 1:22:41.080 those terms, the idea that the consciousness that you enjoy 1:22:41.240 --> 1:22:44.519 as when you're alive, that there's some other version of 1:22:44.600 --> 1:22:47.479 it that continues on as part of the universe, a 1:22:47.560 --> 1:22:50.880 kind of universal consciousness continues on after you die. You know, 1:22:51.600 --> 1:22:54.559 it's not an insane question, right, It's a legitimate question. 1:22:58.560 --> 1:23:01.000 You get it like this stuff. You know I was 1:23:01.000 --> 1:23:03.200 saying earlier about if I don't understand something, I try 1:23:03.240 --> 1:23:06.000 to ask. I know I can't because I know that 1:23:06.040 --> 1:23:09.439 I can't understand quantum mechanics quantum physics. But uh, there's 1:23:09.439 --> 1:23:15.880 a thing that there's a trippy thing like if if everything, 1:23:17.920 --> 1:23:20.919 if everything in the universe, like if everything's electro chemical 1:23:21.200 --> 1:23:23.960 with life, it's all electro chemical, you get into this 1:23:24.000 --> 1:23:29.800 problem where there cannot be free will, right, like if 1:23:29.920 --> 1:23:37.000 everything is happens according to physics, and you go like, 1:23:37.080 --> 1:23:42.519 well life is electro chemical, right, right, there's no room 1:23:42.920 --> 1:23:45.719 then like then someone then a really good person who's 1:23:45.760 --> 1:23:49.639 really good at predictive modeling, would be able to you'd 1:23:49.640 --> 1:23:51.479 be able to like run all of it and predict 1:23:51.479 --> 1:23:55.320 the future because everything is electro chemical, everything conforms to physics, 1:23:56.200 --> 1:23:58.479 you know, So when you get lots of it's just 1:23:58.520 --> 1:24:00.559 like it's kind of when you say, sitting there and 1:24:00.600 --> 1:24:02.920 you're looking outer space and you're like, even if there 1:24:03.040 --> 1:24:04.840 was like a big brick wall out there, there's shit 1:24:04.920 --> 1:24:06.200 on the other side of the brick wall. 1:24:08.320 --> 1:24:11.280 Well, the sort of the sort of like joker card 1:24:11.360 --> 1:24:15.720 in the deck, there is consciousness is scientists don't understand. 1:24:15.760 --> 1:24:18.240 They can't even define what it is, right, there's the 1:24:18.280 --> 1:24:21.040 definition is something around the ability to think about itself 1:24:21.280 --> 1:24:24.519 right or self reflective, but they don't have a good 1:24:24.520 --> 1:24:27.080 explanation or a good definition of it. And they have 1:24:27.160 --> 1:24:30.360 no explanation for it, right, and the exp you know, 1:24:30.400 --> 1:24:34.040 the fact that consciousness can can determine outcomes in the 1:24:34.040 --> 1:24:38.160 physical world simply because it is exists and is observing that. 1:24:38.680 --> 1:24:41.479 You know that. So basically, if that's possible, all bets 1:24:41.479 --> 1:24:43.960 are out, all bets are off sort of right, So 1:24:44.400 --> 1:24:47.439 you're right in a purely mechanistic universe, But how do 1:24:47.479 --> 1:24:52.040 you fit consciousness into a mechanistic universe? And it doesn't 1:24:52.200 --> 1:24:55.639 seem to be it. Consciousness resides in the brain, which 1:24:55.720 --> 1:25:01.320 is a sort of electrical chemical like process, but it 1:25:01.360 --> 1:25:07.679 doesn't itself have it's not itself manifested physically consciousness itself, right, 1:25:08.760 --> 1:25:12.719 but it can affect the physical world in profound ways, 1:25:12.760 --> 1:25:15.200 at least at the quantum level. So, and let me 1:25:15.240 --> 1:25:19.880 just say, you don't understand quantum physics. Neither do quantum physicists. Yeah, right, 1:25:19.920 --> 1:25:23.200 I mean that's the great mystery. Like, you know, what 1:25:23.240 --> 1:25:25.439 they've shown is that things happen in the quantum world 1:25:25.439 --> 1:25:28.840 that sort of don't make sense in the macroscopic world, right, 1:25:30.080 --> 1:25:34.680 But it doesn't mean they can't explain why, right, And 1:25:34.680 --> 1:25:37.080 and for that matter, they can't explain why there's a universe. 1:25:37.200 --> 1:25:40.360 I mean, there really shouldn't be a universe, and you know, 1:25:40.400 --> 1:25:46.080 the universe basically religion and physics are. They're closer than 1:25:46.120 --> 1:25:50.599 you might think. So when religion, you have to believe 1:25:50.680 --> 1:25:55.280 that God is self creating. Otherwise you're stuck with, oh, well, 1:25:55.360 --> 1:25:58.200 someone created God, why aren't we worshiping that entity? Right? 1:25:58.320 --> 1:26:01.640 Like it, God has to be self creating. From that 1:26:01.680 --> 1:26:04.960 point onwards, it all works fine if you just take 1:26:05.000 --> 1:26:08.320 that leap like work with me here Gods self creating, 1:26:08.400 --> 1:26:10.559 and then from now on where we was believing that God, 1:26:10.640 --> 1:26:13.080 we're all good. Right, Quantum physics is the same or 1:26:13.200 --> 1:26:15.720 physics is the same way in some ways, like the 1:26:15.800 --> 1:26:20.800 universe is self creating. After that we can explain everything. Right, 1:26:21.240 --> 1:26:24.080 So there's a similar act of faith, this this leap 1:26:24.520 --> 1:26:27.559 that both have to take. I'm not saying that they're 1:26:27.600 --> 1:26:31.200 intellectually equivalent. I think religion is a story and physics 1:26:31.240 --> 1:26:33.840 is an attempt at an explanation, and stories and explanations 1:26:33.840 --> 1:26:37.639 are very very different beasts, right, but on some level 1:26:37.720 --> 1:26:41.680 they both required active faith that is probably beyond human comprehension. 1:26:42.680 --> 1:26:47.240 When you when you finished the book, did you end 1:26:47.280 --> 1:26:51.320 that process with like like, did you have your did 1:26:51.360 --> 1:26:53.559 you now have your like your own understanding or your 1:26:53.600 --> 1:26:56.160 own ideas of stuff or where you're just like, man, 1:26:56.320 --> 1:26:56.800 I don't know. 1:26:56.960 --> 1:26:59.439 I'd still well, of course I don't know, right, I mean, 1:26:59.479 --> 1:27:04.840 I'm like, yeah, I did you feel better? More like yeah. 1:27:04.840 --> 1:27:08.040 So there's this idea about consciousness affecting the physical world 1:27:08.040 --> 1:27:10.640 at a macroscopic level. I mean, so one of the 1:27:10.680 --> 1:27:17.360 proposals is that consciousness, like gravity, is essential to the 1:27:17.360 --> 1:27:20.479 physical reality of the universe. I mean, it suffuses the 1:27:20.640 --> 1:27:23.759 entire thing. It's not visible, but it makes the entire 1:27:23.840 --> 1:27:26.640 thing possible. Without gravity, there wouldn't be a universe, there 1:27:26.640 --> 1:27:29.880 wouldn't be planets, there wouldn't be anything, right, magnetism. Likewise, 1:27:29.920 --> 1:27:32.360 these sort of like invisible forces. And you know, we 1:27:32.400 --> 1:27:34.240 get used to the idea of gravity. But if you 1:27:34.240 --> 1:27:37.120 didn't know anything and someone said to you, you know what, 1:27:37.160 --> 1:27:40.840 there's this invisible force, and the closer two objects are 1:27:40.880 --> 1:27:44.559 to each other, the stronger the force is. And if 1:27:44.600 --> 1:27:47.280 you throw a rock out a window, like, why wouldn't 1:27:47.280 --> 1:27:49.519 it float in mid era? Right? It doesn't because of 1:27:49.560 --> 1:27:52.680 this invisible force called gravity, and it exists throughout the 1:27:52.760 --> 1:27:55.920 universe and we don't know why. Right. That would sound 1:27:55.920 --> 1:27:59.439 like the rantings of a schizophrenic, Right, I'm sorry. Likewise, 1:27:59.479 --> 1:28:04.120 with conscious and there's a sort of serious proposal that 1:28:04.200 --> 1:28:08.360 consciousness is part of the physical manifestation of the universe 1:28:08.439 --> 1:28:13.559 like gravity is, and that our individual consciousness returns to 1:28:13.640 --> 1:28:17.000 that great, greater entity when we die, and it's you know, 1:28:17.720 --> 1:28:19.639 you can't prove it or disprove it. It's a sort 1:28:19.680 --> 1:28:23.559 of pleasing theory for me as an atheist. It gave 1:28:23.600 --> 1:28:26.080 me a sort of slightly more comfortable place rather than 1:28:26.120 --> 1:28:28.799 the just pure nihilism of where a bunch of salism 1:28:28.840 --> 1:28:30.840 when we die, we're done. I also don't want to 1:28:30.840 --> 1:28:34.800 have to be conscious in the way we're conscious now 1:28:34.920 --> 1:28:37.280 for eternity, like thank you no, right, like they I 1:28:37.320 --> 1:28:38.000 had a moment of. 1:28:37.960 --> 1:28:42.720 Panic earlier in this conversation starting to contemplate that possibility. 1:28:42.800 --> 1:28:45.080 Yeah, I mean it's like, careful what you ask for, right, 1:28:45.120 --> 1:28:47.200 I mean, you know, eighty years is a long time, 1:28:47.240 --> 1:28:48.960 and we can sort of limp through it at the end, thinking, 1:28:48.960 --> 1:28:51.040 thank God, there's a finish line here in some ways, right, 1:28:51.240 --> 1:28:54.160 we'd imagine eternity and eternity of conscience. I mean, just 1:28:54.479 --> 1:28:56.760 you remember what math class felt like in fifth grade? Like, 1:28:56.840 --> 1:29:00.760 imagine that for eternity, right, Like just well never ends 1:29:00.920 --> 1:29:03.400 like that. That's where I don't quite get about people 1:29:03.439 --> 1:29:05.920 of faith wanting an afterlife. I think they want to 1:29:05.920 --> 1:29:07.400 see their loved ones, is what's going on? 1:29:07.640 --> 1:29:09.840 Yeah, let me hate you. Another one that used to 1:29:10.280 --> 1:29:12.559 that troubled me for a while. I had a scary 1:29:12.920 --> 1:29:16.439 thing happened one time, and and I had that feeling 1:29:16.520 --> 1:29:22.360 of things. I had that feeling of of my focus 1:29:22.439 --> 1:29:29.800 becoming singular, and in reading about why that was like 1:29:29.840 --> 1:29:33.120 a feeling of like slowing down. Things slow down. And 1:29:33.160 --> 1:29:36.640 then I was intensely focused on a thing, and I 1:29:36.680 --> 1:29:41.880 was reading about that people in people in traumatic experiences, 1:29:42.000 --> 1:29:45.680 people near and experiences. It's not so much near death experiences, 1:29:45.680 --> 1:29:53.120 but people in proximity to that that there's like two paths. 1:29:53.760 --> 1:29:56.720 And the example that I read about one day was 1:29:56.760 --> 1:30:03.280 that there's a there's an explosion, okay, and there's chaos. 1:30:05.720 --> 1:30:09.479 Some people can be in that moment and they there's 1:30:09.520 --> 1:30:13.960 an arm on the ground. The only thing they see 1:30:15.520 --> 1:30:18.479 is the arm on the ground, and it's they just 1:30:18.520 --> 1:30:21.720 get lost in like a sort of timeless consideration of 1:30:21.720 --> 1:30:25.960 the arm on the ground. There's people that all they 1:30:26.000 --> 1:30:31.200 see is everything right, it's utter chaos, nothing makes sense. 1:30:32.160 --> 1:30:37.800 And then there's people that are like that guy needs help, right, 1:30:37.960 --> 1:30:43.280 that's happening, that's gonna fall right, And in certain disciplines, 1:30:43.280 --> 1:30:49.400 they're looking for the people that don't have those And 1:30:49.439 --> 1:30:52.160 your and your experiences in war and your experience with 1:30:52.240 --> 1:30:54.719 the with with death, like, have you have you ever 1:30:55.200 --> 1:30:57.480 grappled with that or did you find any of that 1:30:57.520 --> 1:31:00.320 in your research about these different these different sort of 1:31:00.320 --> 1:31:01.479 responses people have. 1:31:01.760 --> 1:31:04.080 I mean I've had. I think we're all capable of 1:31:04.120 --> 1:31:05.760 all of them. I don't think there are you know, 1:31:05.800 --> 1:31:09.120 like rigid categories where some people do this, some people 1:31:09.160 --> 1:31:11.880 do that. You know, it partly partly depends on how 1:31:11.960 --> 1:31:13.640 much preparation you have. And you know, one of the 1:31:13.720 --> 1:31:15.400 things they do when they train environment and they train 1:31:15.479 --> 1:31:17.640 soldiers what have you is they just get them to 1:31:17.720 --> 1:31:22.240 rehearse and practice the actions they'll need to take in 1:31:22.240 --> 1:31:25.320 a crisis moment over and over and over again, so 1:31:25.400 --> 1:31:28.080 that you know, they teach paratroopers how to jump out airplanes. 1:31:28.120 --> 1:31:30.000 You know that, you know, they got that muscle memory 1:31:30.000 --> 1:31:31.640 of whatever they do, you know, count to count to 1:31:31.680 --> 1:31:33.519 five and whatever, you know, whatever it is like, they 1:31:33.560 --> 1:31:36.799 get that muscle memory down, so that doesn't depend on deliberate, 1:31:36.880 --> 1:31:40.000 deliberate thought. And so there's a lot of tactics in 1:31:40.040 --> 1:31:44.360 combat that are somewhat formulaic, like football is, right, I mean, 1:31:44.360 --> 1:31:48.720 there's this sort of team team coordination that doesn't have 1:31:48.800 --> 1:31:51.439 to be thought about in detail in order to be enacted. 1:31:51.560 --> 1:31:54.759 And if you have no training like that, your brain 1:31:54.920 --> 1:31:58.800 hasn't been properly formatted for that kind of situation and 1:31:58.840 --> 1:32:02.040 it's scrambling to get enough information to make a good decision, 1:32:02.640 --> 1:32:05.360 and then of course people go into shock. And so 1:32:05.439 --> 1:32:07.400 I've had all I have. I've had all of them. 1:32:07.400 --> 1:32:09.519 I mean one time we got hit very when I 1:32:09.560 --> 1:32:12.759 was with American soldiers. We got hit very unexpectedly, very hard, 1:32:13.439 --> 1:32:17.400 and I, for I don't know, about twenty seconds, I 1:32:17.479 --> 1:32:20.720 was frozen, like I just couldn't move right. I mean, 1:32:20.760 --> 1:32:24.720 there's bullets hit in the ground around like, and then 1:32:24.720 --> 1:32:26.760 I snapped out of it. And that was hyper functional. 1:32:27.640 --> 1:32:28.679 Other times I've. 1:32:28.800 --> 1:32:31.360 I in that twenty seconds, where were you mentally? Were 1:32:31.400 --> 1:32:34.280 you on an object or like, like what was your phone? 1:32:34.280 --> 1:32:35.960 It was it was a blur, right, and I couldn't 1:32:36.040 --> 1:32:37.680 keep up with the blur. So I couldn't make good 1:32:37.720 --> 1:32:41.320 decisions because it was like this jumbled blur. And my 1:32:41.439 --> 1:32:45.200 buddy Tim was behind a Hesco barrier and we were 1:32:45.200 --> 1:32:48.120 taking a huge amount of fire and one of the 1:32:48.120 --> 1:32:50.479 problems was I didn't have my camera and my bulletproof vest. 1:32:50.880 --> 1:32:53.120 If you're in a situation and you have a job 1:32:53.200 --> 1:32:56.240 to do, you're a medic, you're a journalist, you're a soldier, 1:32:56.479 --> 1:32:58.880 you're a parent with a child, who's indeed, you know, 1:32:58.880 --> 1:33:02.599 whatever it is you had job to do, like that's 1:33:02.640 --> 1:33:05.240 a refuge from your fear. The job you have to 1:33:05.280 --> 1:33:08.000 do provides a shelter from your own feelings of fear 1:33:08.200 --> 1:33:10.599 and self concern. If you have no job to do 1:33:10.840 --> 1:33:14.040 because you're not holding your camera, you know, your fear 1:33:14.200 --> 1:33:16.720 just moves in and sets up camp. Right, And so 1:33:17.240 --> 1:33:20.599 Tim threw across you know, we we were this far away, 1:33:20.760 --> 1:33:23.240 like between me and you, like five feet. We couldn't 1:33:23.479 --> 1:33:25.840 there was too much gunfire to He threw me my 1:33:25.920 --> 1:33:29.720 bulletproof vest and my camera. And as soon as I 1:33:29.760 --> 1:33:33.160 was like geared up, boom, I was good. Huh right yeah, 1:33:33.320 --> 1:33:35.839 And and so it gives you insight into how soldiers 1:33:35.840 --> 1:33:38.960 perform under pressure. They've got jobs, they got weapons, they 1:33:39.000 --> 1:33:41.160 got it, you know, they got the gear, the tools 1:33:41.200 --> 1:33:43.080 they need. They have something they have to do. They're 1:33:43.080 --> 1:33:45.639 not thinking about their own fear because they are charged 1:33:45.640 --> 1:33:49.800 with such responsibility for their for each other. And and 1:33:49.800 --> 1:33:53.320 and it looks from the outside it looks like bravery. Actually, 1:33:53.360 --> 1:33:56.880 those roles that soldiers play in combat are a very 1:33:56.920 --> 1:34:00.360 powerful protection from fear. To understand, you don't have to 1:34:00.400 --> 1:34:03.320 overcome fear to do them. They are a protection from 1:34:03.360 --> 1:34:06.840 the fear, as would be true if I mean, I 1:34:06.920 --> 1:34:10.080 find grizzly bear is absolutely terrifying. Right, if my child 1:34:10.200 --> 1:34:12.439 was in danger from a grizzly bear, I don't think 1:34:12.439 --> 1:34:14.840 I would find the grizzly bear terrifying. I would try 1:34:14.840 --> 1:34:17.240 to distract it, you know what I mean, like totally 1:34:17.320 --> 1:34:18.439 changes that fear equation. 1:34:19.880 --> 1:34:21.960 I was with my fire one of my buddies who 1:34:21.960 --> 1:34:26.559 was a firefighter yesterday and this kind of seems random, 1:34:26.560 --> 1:34:32.320 but we're looking like we're looking at this thing in 1:34:32.320 --> 1:34:34.600 my yard, and there's a big cobweb, okay, And I 1:34:34.720 --> 1:34:37.479 wanted to clean this trough out. And I was saying 1:34:37.720 --> 1:34:39.240 that I was gonna have my kids do it, but 1:34:39.280 --> 1:34:42.240 my daughter that I've come to respect my daughter's hatred 1:34:42.280 --> 1:34:45.719 of spiders, and I'm like, it's her. I was like, dude, 1:34:45.760 --> 1:34:48.160 you could hand my daughter anything on the planet. She's 1:34:48.240 --> 1:34:50.400 gonna grab it if I said to grab it, unless 1:34:50.400 --> 1:34:54.360 it's got a cobweb on it. And he said, he says, 1:34:54.400 --> 1:34:58.960 for me, as eyeballs, that's that seems avoidable. Not my 1:34:59.040 --> 1:34:59.559 line of word. 1:35:00.960 --> 1:35:03.360 Yeah, yeah, you know I can see, yeah, and one 1:35:03.920 --> 1:35:08.000 one traumatic incident. Yeah, and then it's locked in eyeballs like, no, 1:35:08.080 --> 1:35:11.240 thank you. I mean, I'm an I have a racknophobia 1:35:11.240 --> 1:35:13.519 since I was a young child. I sympathized with your daughter. 1:35:13.560 --> 1:35:15.639 I mean I remember at one point I was sort 1:35:15.640 --> 1:35:17.519 of joking around. I said to my wife, listen, I'll 1:35:17.520 --> 1:35:23.200 protect you and the family from anything, grizzly bears, home intruders, whatever, 1:35:23.240 --> 1:35:28.720 anything except except spiders. Like we're camping in the Southwest 1:35:28.760 --> 1:35:31.439 and there's a transla it's yours, Like, I'm not doing it. 1:35:31.479 --> 1:35:34.160 And you can tell it's a phobia because someone people 1:35:34.160 --> 1:35:38.040 with phobia phobias have trouble even looking at a photograph 1:35:38.720 --> 1:35:40.400 of the thing you're scared of, right, I. 1:35:40.360 --> 1:35:43.799 Know, I've tested it out. I was skeptical. I've tested 1:35:43.840 --> 1:35:44.759 it out. It's legit. 1:35:44.920 --> 1:35:45.439 It's legit. 1:35:45.520 --> 1:35:47.760 I've come to accept it. Yeah, I used to be like, 1:35:47.800 --> 1:35:48.719 give me a break. 1:35:48.880 --> 1:35:50.559 Yeah, No, it's and it has nothing to do with 1:35:50.600 --> 1:35:53.320 the danger that's posed. Right, And that's where the photo 1:35:53.360 --> 1:35:54.880 comes in. You can't even look at a photo. It's 1:35:54.880 --> 1:35:58.240 a really deep suited, a deep seated panic reaction. You can't. 1:35:58.280 --> 1:35:59.320 You can't just turn it off. 1:35:59.600 --> 1:36:04.760 What's interesting about it is she has incredible detection skills 1:36:05.360 --> 1:36:09.160 like I wish she was afraid of deer. She'll come 1:36:09.160 --> 1:36:10.519 in the room, like if she walked in this room 1:36:10.520 --> 1:36:13.880 and there's a spider like you know somewhere, Yeah on it. Yeah, 1:36:14.280 --> 1:36:17.719 absolutely looks a great skill. Oh totally, but just applied 1:36:17.760 --> 1:36:18.960 to something I'm not interested in. 1:36:19.000 --> 1:36:20.720 Well, if she was in the tribe, that would be 1:36:20.760 --> 1:36:26.200 her job, spider, you our own little Yeah, what are 1:36:26.200 --> 1:36:27.080 you gonna work on next? 1:36:28.040 --> 1:36:28.479 I don't know? 1:36:29.080 --> 1:36:30.840 Are you searching a little bit? 1:36:30.920 --> 1:36:34.439 I mean this? You know this this book felt felt 1:36:34.439 --> 1:36:36.479 like I sort of capstone of my career. You know, 1:36:36.520 --> 1:36:39.800 I'm sixty three, and it's about such an ultimate question, 1:36:40.720 --> 1:36:43.880 uh that it was hard to think about something. You know, 1:36:43.920 --> 1:36:45.920 then what's next after writing about what you know? 1:36:46.040 --> 1:36:46.240 Life? 1:36:46.760 --> 1:36:48.840 You know, like, what are you gonna do? 1:36:48.920 --> 1:36:50.439 Well, you can write a book about what you ought 1:36:50.439 --> 1:36:51.720 to have done different? Right? 1:36:52.240 --> 1:36:54.240 So so I don't know, I'm you know, I'm I'm. 1:36:54.280 --> 1:36:56.360 I've spent a lot of time as a as a dad, 1:36:56.400 --> 1:37:00.000 as a parent, and my wife had stin pretty made 1:37:00.040 --> 1:37:01.880 a surgery less fall. So we've been sort of in 1:37:01.920 --> 1:37:04.120 a follow period because of that as well. She's coming 1:37:04.160 --> 1:37:06.280 out of it, so you know, something going to work 1:37:06.280 --> 1:37:08.160 on something I don't. I don't know quite what yet, 1:37:09.240 --> 1:37:12.080 but you might wrap it up. No, I love writing. 1:37:12.080 --> 1:37:14.759 I mean it's like you know, I'm I love running. 1:37:14.800 --> 1:37:17.760 You know, I don't run races anymore, but I love 1:37:17.800 --> 1:37:21.000 the act of running. So I still run, and I 1:37:21.040 --> 1:37:25.080 love the act of writing like it's just it's it's 1:37:25.080 --> 1:37:27.400 one of my one of the most powerful experiences I've 1:37:27.400 --> 1:37:27.800 ever had. 1:37:27.800 --> 1:37:30.320 And you like the act of it. Yeah, I love 1:37:30.360 --> 1:37:33.960 it doing it, doing it, doing it. I only like 1:37:34.000 --> 1:37:34.680 having done it. 1:37:35.280 --> 1:37:38.360 Right. We all other people to treat running like that, right. 1:37:38.360 --> 1:37:40.599 I don't like doing it, but I love it afterwards, right, 1:37:41.120 --> 1:37:44.800 And uh no, I love it. It's it's a a 1:37:44.880 --> 1:37:48.400 higher state of mind for me doing it. 1:37:48.680 --> 1:37:51.479 Yeah, h good for you. 1:37:51.720 --> 1:37:53.720 Not always, not always, but when it's when it's good. 1:37:53.760 --> 1:37:55.680 You know, musicians say the same thing, right, you know, 1:37:55.680 --> 1:37:56.600 when they're really. 1:37:56.439 --> 1:37:58.880 Fun fun Man's well for me. 1:37:59.320 --> 1:38:01.000 For me, it's a kind of music, right, I mean, 1:38:01.160 --> 1:38:04.000 the sentences have to have cadence, to have to rhythm, 1:38:04.080 --> 1:38:06.439 and they got you know, like there's a lot of 1:38:06.479 --> 1:38:09.519 musical components for me to the experience of writing. 1:38:10.120 --> 1:38:13.080 The writer Ian Fraser, Yeah, yeah, he once told me that, 1:38:13.240 --> 1:38:15.040 you know, he wrote a lot of humor. He was 1:38:15.080 --> 1:38:16.880 a humorist. I mean some of his stuff is very 1:38:16.920 --> 1:38:20.040 I mean he wrote about Stalin and you know, the programs. 1:38:20.080 --> 1:38:25.160 But uh, he also wrote a lot of humor. And 1:38:25.200 --> 1:38:26.880 he said when he wanted to be a writer, when 1:38:26.880 --> 1:38:28.320 he was young and he wanted to be a writer, 1:38:28.400 --> 1:38:31.679 he always imagined a writer sitting at his typewriter chuckling 1:38:31.760 --> 1:38:37.000 to himself in that way. 1:38:37.080 --> 1:38:39.240 Yeah, right, right. 1:38:40.200 --> 1:38:42.800 You know who's got an interesting philosophy about Like you're 1:38:42.800 --> 1:38:45.080 talking about whether you'll do another one. I don't know. 1:38:45.080 --> 1:38:47.680 If you're a Quentin Tarantino fan, I am sure so 1:38:48.040 --> 1:38:51.120 very much. So. I don't know if he'll stay true 1:38:51.160 --> 1:38:54.120 to it. But he has said for a long time 1:38:54.439 --> 1:38:59.240 I will make ten movies. I've made nine. Wow, yeah, 1:39:00.280 --> 1:39:01.960 and that we'll see. 1:39:01.840 --> 1:39:04.799 Yeah yeah, turned into a washed up director. 1:39:04.960 --> 1:39:08.840 I'm like, I'm like skeptical. Yeah, he's he's gonna do 1:39:08.960 --> 1:39:14.400 ten and then but right, yeah, I mean it's hard 1:39:14.439 --> 1:39:16.880 to picture the end, man, but it all ties into 1:39:16.880 --> 1:39:18.080 that mortality ship, you know. 1:39:19.280 --> 1:39:20.960 And I'm not going to write a book just because 1:39:21.600 --> 1:39:23.080 I should write a book, Like it has to be 1:39:23.120 --> 1:39:28.559 a topic that I find so compelling that I can't not, right, Like, 1:39:28.600 --> 1:39:30.360 that's that's what That's what it has to feel like. 1:39:30.960 --> 1:39:35.040 Yeah, David Grant, you know, the writer David Grant. Yeah, 1:39:35.080 --> 1:39:37.840 of course he when he was on. He came on 1:39:37.960 --> 1:39:43.400 recently after finishing The Wager, and I just sounded interesting. 1:39:43.439 --> 1:39:48.680 He was like actively searching, right, you know what I mean. 1:39:48.960 --> 1:39:51.880 But he was hunting for a topic, right, right, which 1:39:51.920 --> 1:39:52.280 is cool. 1:39:53.120 --> 1:39:54.760 Yeah, it's a different way to do it. I mean, 1:39:54.760 --> 1:39:56.720 it's you know, it's I feel like it kind of 1:39:56.760 --> 1:39:58.320 has to come to you, like falling in love. If 1:39:58.360 --> 1:40:01.439 you're actively looking for your your wife out there, like 1:40:01.760 --> 1:40:04.120 you may not you may not find her, you know, 1:40:04.160 --> 1:40:06.640 you may not recognize like, and I feel like it's 1:40:06.640 --> 1:40:08.960 a little bit like that, like if you're if you're 1:40:09.000 --> 1:40:12.240 trying trying too hard at it, like you won't see 1:40:12.240 --> 1:40:15.400 the essential things that you need, the essential qualities that 1:40:15.439 --> 1:40:16.960 you need in that thing, you won't you might not 1:40:16.960 --> 1:40:20.320 see them, you know. And I feel like it's and 1:40:20.320 --> 1:40:22.479 you know, I feel that way about God as well. 1:40:22.520 --> 1:40:25.120 Like sometimes people are like, are you kidding, You're still 1:40:25.160 --> 1:40:29.519 an atheist? You haven't found God. I'm like, look, God 1:40:29.560 --> 1:40:31.360 has to find me, right, I mean, if I'm making 1:40:31.400 --> 1:40:33.600 a decision to believe in God. It's a decision and 1:40:33.640 --> 1:40:38.360 it doesn't have much content to it, right, Like. 1:40:38.360 --> 1:40:39.479 I'm not understand what you mean. 1:40:39.640 --> 1:40:45.040 Well, God, my understanding about faith is that it's an 1:40:45.160 --> 1:40:47.519 overwhelming feeling of love and connection. 1:40:47.920 --> 1:40:48.080 Right. 1:40:48.920 --> 1:40:51.760 So it's like, if you're just deciding to marry Susie, 1:40:51.840 --> 1:40:54.080 you might not be in love with Susie. Right, It's 1:40:54.080 --> 1:40:58.200 a it's a higher level decision about something you want 1:40:58.240 --> 1:41:01.240 to have in your life. Fine, no problem, right, but 1:41:01.280 --> 1:41:04.400 that's not I'm not sure that that's love. Right, And likewise, 1:41:04.800 --> 1:41:07.479 a higher level of decision to Oh, now I'm going 1:41:07.520 --> 1:41:10.519 to believe in God. I was. I was mortally terrified. 1:41:10.520 --> 1:41:12.240 I almost died. Now I'm going to believe in God 1:41:12.320 --> 1:41:14.439 just to just to be on the safe side, because 1:41:14.600 --> 1:41:17.240 you know, maybe maybe He gave me a break. That 1:41:17.400 --> 1:41:20.800 isn't what religion really should be about. Religion should be 1:41:20.880 --> 1:41:24.120 about an overwhelming feeling of connection and love, and that 1:41:24.320 --> 1:41:28.240 like love for another person, I think it has to 1:41:28.280 --> 1:41:30.280 find you if you're out seeking it. 1:41:30.479 --> 1:41:32.439 I understand you understand what I'm saying. 1:41:32.479 --> 1:41:36.400 So, like, if somehow God came to me in some 1:41:36.640 --> 1:41:40.360 form and overwhelmed me in a moment with a profound 1:41:40.360 --> 1:41:45.960 feeling of connection. I'd be like, Okay, you convinced me. 1:41:46.479 --> 1:41:49.000 I got it right. I wasn't looking for you, you 1:41:49.120 --> 1:41:52.040 found me. I'm all yours like war do you got 1:41:52.080 --> 1:41:53.759 to say? I'll listen. 1:41:54.080 --> 1:41:58.439 We just released this. It wasn't our project in this room, 1:41:58.439 --> 1:42:01.120 but one of our guys on our at work had 1:42:01.120 --> 1:42:04.080 this episode that he made. He does these kind of 1:42:04.080 --> 1:42:09.200 mini documentaries, audio documentaries, you know, so what hell, what's 1:42:09.200 --> 1:42:12.960 the word I'm looking for? What's an audio documentary podcast? 1:42:13.640 --> 1:42:13.800 I know? 1:42:13.960 --> 1:42:19.600 Yeah, but no, maybe you could have a podcast. Yeah, 1:42:19.640 --> 1:42:22.680 that's just like a distribution platform, right whatever, You're right, 1:42:22.720 --> 1:42:25.000 it's like a documentary. He I was tuning his bit 1:42:25.040 --> 1:42:26.880 on this guy and the guy has what you're talking about. 1:42:26.880 --> 1:42:31.120 The guy has an epiphany in a moment and was 1:42:31.120 --> 1:42:35.800 an addict, you know, right, and he describes like where 1:42:35.840 --> 1:42:39.920 he's standing on what day, what was happening, and all 1:42:39.920 --> 1:42:43.760 of a sudden, like all was made clear, right and 1:42:44.360 --> 1:42:48.240 dropped his addictions. Yeah, committed himself to his wife, you 1:42:48.280 --> 1:42:50.000 know what I mean. And it was like he had 1:42:50.040 --> 1:42:53.120 like an epiphany. Well that's like he got overwhelmed, right, 1:42:53.120 --> 1:42:55.040 and that's that's very powerful. I mean For me, I 1:42:55.040 --> 1:42:56.760 would need evidence to believe in God. 1:42:56.800 --> 1:42:59.479 I need evidence of God, right like I believe in gravity, 1:42:59.479 --> 1:43:01.920 because there's evidence that gravity. You know, throw a rock 1:43:01.960 --> 1:43:03.759 out of window, it will fall. I believe in gravity. 1:43:03.800 --> 1:43:05.880 I need evidence of God. And for me, evidence of 1:43:05.920 --> 1:43:11.920 God would be that God suddenly presents I'm gonna have 1:43:11.920 --> 1:43:14.360 to say itself because the idea of applying gender to 1:43:14.400 --> 1:43:18.160 God is silly itself in my life in an overwhelming 1:43:18.200 --> 1:43:21.799 way where I cannot turn away, and I'm like, Okay, 1:43:21.960 --> 1:43:23.439 that passes the test. 1:43:23.640 --> 1:43:27.400 Yeah right. A lot of dudes listening are like, it 1:43:27.560 --> 1:43:28.920 happened when he almost died? 1:43:29.800 --> 1:43:32.479 Well, no, except I didn't see God right like I mean, 1:43:32.479 --> 1:43:34.760 I mean I saw my dad right, and I saw 1:43:34.800 --> 1:43:37.479 the nurse and the you know, I actually did not 1:43:37.640 --> 1:43:41.960 see God, And if I had, we'd be we might 1:43:41.960 --> 1:43:44.680 be having a different podcast right now, right or But 1:43:45.880 --> 1:43:49.920 I didn't. The things that I saw were very real 1:43:49.960 --> 1:43:52.400 world and mundane, and one of them I can't explain, 1:43:52.439 --> 1:43:54.840 which is my dead father hovering above me. But it 1:43:54.880 --> 1:43:57.599 may just be I can't explain him because our minds, 1:43:57.640 --> 1:44:01.479 our human minds, are sufficiently did that that that ultimate 1:44:01.520 --> 1:44:03.680 reality is not accessible to us. 1:44:04.600 --> 1:44:06.000 Well, man, I'm glad you pulled through. 1:44:06.280 --> 1:44:08.080 Thank you, thank you very much. 1:44:09.479 --> 1:44:13.320 Thanks for coming on the show. Do you mind what's 1:44:13.360 --> 1:44:15.479 the best way for people to go do We have 1:44:15.520 --> 1:44:17.760 a good list of all all your books here on 1:44:17.800 --> 1:44:18.519 our document. 1:44:19.280 --> 1:44:21.400 I'll rattle them off right now, off Man. 1:44:21.840 --> 1:44:23.240 Yeah, you had a book about you had a book 1:44:23.240 --> 1:44:25.320 about a murder, like do the whole thing. Yeah. 1:44:25.320 --> 1:44:27.519 So my first book was called The Perfect Storm. It 1:44:27.560 --> 1:44:30.320 was about this huge storm in nineteen ninety one sword 1:44:30.360 --> 1:44:33.840 fishing boat that was lost off shore one hundred foot waves, 1:44:33.840 --> 1:44:35.880 et cetera. My next book was called Fire. It was 1:44:35.920 --> 1:44:38.600 a collection of my long form journalism, including quite a 1:44:38.680 --> 1:44:45.120 lot about wildland fire fighting, hotshot cruise. And then after 1:44:45.160 --> 1:44:47.320 that was a death in Belmont when I was six 1:44:47.360 --> 1:44:50.640 months old my parents. We lived in Belmont, Massachusetts. My 1:44:51.439 --> 1:44:54.599 parents were building an addition to their house and one 1:44:54.600 --> 1:44:58.120 of the three carpenters was a guy named al Al 1:44:58.160 --> 1:45:02.640 de Salvo and he a couple of years after they 1:45:02.680 --> 1:45:05.680 finished building the additions to the house, Al confessed to 1:45:05.720 --> 1:45:10.200 being the Boston Strangler and he actually he was killing 1:45:10.240 --> 1:45:13.519 people while he was working at our house. And there 1:45:13.520 --> 1:45:17.200 was a murder down the street that was a classic 1:45:17.240 --> 1:45:22.400 Boston strangling. But a black handy man from Mississippi happened 1:45:22.400 --> 1:45:25.040 to have cleaned this lady's house that day left his 1:45:25.040 --> 1:45:28.160 phone number on the counter. The police got the phone number, 1:45:28.280 --> 1:45:32.080 chased him down. He was convicted, convicted, and sent to prison. 1:45:32.120 --> 1:45:33.880 He died in prison for a murder. He says he 1:45:33.920 --> 1:45:37.600 didn't commit. And no one knew that al DeSalvo was 1:45:37.640 --> 1:45:40.160 down the street at our house that day all day 1:45:40.160 --> 1:45:42.600 by himself, then he might have committed the murder. So 1:45:42.640 --> 1:45:46.840 a death in Belmont is about that possibility. It's a 1:45:46.880 --> 1:45:50.439 it's a cold case who done it? Basically. After that, 1:45:50.479 --> 1:45:53.800 I wrote a book called War about this platoon in 1:45:53.840 --> 1:45:55.840 the one seventy third Airborne that I was with off 1:45:55.880 --> 1:45:59.000 and on for a year in the Corngall Valley. I 1:45:59.040 --> 1:46:01.040 also shot a lot of deal with my buddy Tim 1:46:01.080 --> 1:46:04.000 and we made a documentary called Verstreppo. I was nominated 1:46:04.000 --> 1:46:07.479 for an Academy award a couple of months after we 1:46:07.479 --> 1:46:10.519 were at the Oscars. We didn't win, but a couple 1:46:10.520 --> 1:46:12.400 months later we were supposed to go on assignment to 1:46:12.439 --> 1:46:15.280 Libya together to cover the Arab Spring, and at last 1:46:15.280 --> 1:46:20.160 moment I couldn't go and Tim was killed he died 1:46:20.479 --> 1:46:23.400 of blood loss from a shrapnel wound and scroin in 1:46:23.439 --> 1:46:26.439 the city of Masrada. And after that I decided to 1:46:26.439 --> 1:46:30.479 give up war reporting, and I wrote a book called 1:46:30.520 --> 1:46:35.320 Tribe about community and how it works and how soldiers 1:46:35.360 --> 1:46:41.040 experienced that Native Americans and how the loss of community 1:46:41.040 --> 1:46:43.920 has affected people in this country and the nation as 1:46:43.960 --> 1:46:47.439 a whole. And after that I wrote a book called Freedom. 1:46:48.400 --> 1:46:53.760 It was an examination of successful underdog groups and how 1:46:53.760 --> 1:46:58.639 they defeat greater powers, Like if smaller individuals couldn't defeat 1:46:58.720 --> 1:47:03.760 larger individuals in combat, or if smaller groups couldn't defeat 1:47:03.800 --> 1:47:06.120 larger groups, the empire would always win, right, I mean, 1:47:06.160 --> 1:47:09.840 the world we've been made up of like fascist coalitions, 1:47:10.320 --> 1:47:14.559 And but that's actually not true, Like under smaller underdog 1:47:14.600 --> 1:47:19.559 groups are very actually very good at winning as long 1:47:19.600 --> 1:47:22.000 as they have certain attributes. And so the book, my 1:47:22.040 --> 1:47:25.599 book Freedom goes into what those characteristics are that allow 1:47:26.080 --> 1:47:29.160 smaller groups or smaller individuals to win over a larger, 1:47:29.240 --> 1:47:30.559 more powerful adversary, like. 1:47:30.800 --> 1:47:33.800 Why did the Americans win the Revolution? Why did the 1:47:33.920 --> 1:47:35.240 viet Cong win Vietnam? 1:47:35.320 --> 1:47:38.400 Exactly exactly? And the problem, you know, just the brief, 1:47:38.880 --> 1:47:43.400 very brief version is with strength and size comes a 1:47:43.400 --> 1:47:46.800 loss of mobility, a loss of agility. That's true for 1:47:46.880 --> 1:47:50.240 an individual in a boxing ring. It's also true for 1:47:50.439 --> 1:47:52.600 you know, the US military or any military. And the 1:47:52.600 --> 1:47:55.680 smaller you are, the faster you are, and that and 1:47:55.760 --> 1:47:57.960 that that more than can more than compensate for your 1:47:58.040 --> 1:48:00.840 lack of size and strength. So with out, without that 1:48:01.479 --> 1:48:05.200 unique trait, it's unique to humans and every other species, 1:48:05.600 --> 1:48:09.840 size winds, size dominates, right, Only in humans can the 1:48:09.880 --> 1:48:13.880 smaller entity win, and that allows for human freedom, for 1:48:14.040 --> 1:48:17.320 human autonomy, self definition, you know. And then finally, my 1:48:17.400 --> 1:48:20.519 recent book is called In My Time of Dying. It's 1:48:20.560 --> 1:48:23.559 about my near death experience and what that might mean 1:48:23.680 --> 1:48:28.960 for all of us facing our mortality and what it 1:48:29.040 --> 1:48:31.440 might mean for how we understand the universe to function. 1:48:31.800 --> 1:48:34.200 Great, And then people, you have a website, like if 1:48:34.200 --> 1:48:36.320 people want to track you down, Yeah, not not you 1:48:36.400 --> 1:48:39.280 down personally, but go find collection of all your stuff. 1:48:39.720 --> 1:48:42.840 Yeah so yeah, I mean obviously on Amazon or your 1:48:42.880 --> 1:48:43.559 local bookstore. 1:48:43.600 --> 1:48:45.280 It's easy to get. You probably have one of those 1:48:45.320 --> 1:48:48.000 author profiles on there where people can see everything packaged 1:48:48.040 --> 1:48:49.000 on Amazon and stuff. 1:48:49.080 --> 1:48:52.040 Yeah, yeah, but you can also go on Sebastianyonger dot 1:48:52.080 --> 1:48:55.120 com is my website and it's j U N G 1:48:55.280 --> 1:48:58.799 E R Sebastian Youonger dot com and all my stuff 1:48:58.840 --> 1:48:59.479 is there as well. 1:49:00.040 --> 1:49:01.559 Thanks for doing the show Man. Appreciate it. 1:49:01.840 --> 1:49:03.920 I loved it. That was a wonderful conversation. Thank you 1:49:04.000 --> 1:49:04.360 very much. 1:49:04.640 --> 1:49:04.840 Thanks