Speaker 1: The way that we often think about ritual is that
Speaker 1: it's the script for the performance of the myth. The
Speaker 1: myth in and of itself is not enough. You have
Speaker 1: to actually participate in it. Welcome to the One You Feed.
Speaker 1: Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the
Speaker 1: thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or
Speaker 1: you are what you think ring true. And yet for
Speaker 1: many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direct, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this
Speaker 1: episode is Rain Wilson and Reza Aslan. Rain is a
Speaker 1: well known actor, comedian, podcaster, producer, and writer. He's also
Speaker 1: a former guest of The One You Feed and on
Speaker 1: Coming Back. He is with Reza Asland, who is a
Speaker 1: professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside
Speaker 1: and the best selling author of Zealot, The Life and
Speaker 1: Times of Jesus of Nazareth. Rain and Resi together have
Speaker 1: their fantastic podcast, Metaphysical Milkshake. Hi Rain, Hi RaSE A.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Thanks Eric, Hello, good to be here. Eric.
Speaker 1: Nice to see you again. It's very nice to see
Speaker 1: you again, and thank you guys for joining me. You know,
Speaker 1: you guys have a new podcast, Metaphysical Milkshake out, which
Speaker 1: is wonderful. We'll talk a little bit more about that
Speaker 1: and wide ranging conversation about the things that matter. But
Speaker 1: let's start like we always do, with the parable. There's
Speaker 1: a grandfather who's talking with his granddaughter and he says,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the granddatter stops and she
Speaker 1: thinks about it for a second. She looks up at
Speaker 1: her grandfather and she said, well, grandfather, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says, the one you feed so I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you guys, what that
Speaker 1: parable means to you in your life and in the
Speaker 1: work that you do. I'll jump in on that, Eric,
Speaker 1: I've been on the show before, although it was a long, long, long,
Speaker 1: long long time ago. I think you had just started it.
Speaker 1: And I love the parable. I love the show that
Speaker 1: you do. You know, recovery is important to me, my
Speaker 1: therapeutic process, my self care and kind of what we
Speaker 1: do in Metaphysical Mochic and we'll get to this later,
Speaker 1: is you know, looking at life's biggest possible questions and
Speaker 1: issues and then applying them to our lives. Because you know,
Speaker 1: we're not trying to do a podcast that just lives
Speaker 1: in a philosophy classroom. You know, these are big ideas,
Speaker 1: but then they're really exciting in how they apply to us.
Speaker 1: So for this parable, I mean, there's so many different
Speaker 1: ways to answer it, and I think, like for me,
Speaker 1: I'll just speak personally to start. Human beings are programmed
Speaker 1: to be anxious and we're programmed to be fearful. And
Speaker 1: they've done studies around this in psychology where you know,
Speaker 1: because our ancestors lived out in the wilds and out
Speaker 1: in the jungles and roamed around in caves and and
Speaker 1: valleys and forests, and any movement, any crackle of leaves,
Speaker 1: any movement in the leaves or or trees, was a
Speaker 1: potential danger and a potential threat. So we're wired to
Speaker 1: see potential threat and it's much harder for us to
Speaker 1: see I guess, for lack of a better word, attitude.
Speaker 1: So I know that for me on a personal level,
Speaker 1: you know, when I get up in the morning, I
Speaker 1: have to attune my inner compass towards gratitude, towards what's working,
Speaker 1: towards what I'm thankful for, towards what is in my control,
Speaker 1: what is not in my control, because nine times out
Speaker 1: of ten, anxiety will take me over, and so I
Speaker 1: have to recognize that for what it is and I
Speaker 1: have to honor. You know, anxiety and fear, even selfishness,
Speaker 1: these are qualities that helped take us human beings to
Speaker 1: where we are today. You know, there were survival mechanisms.
Speaker 1: We needed to be selfish to gain food. We needed
Speaker 1: to be aggressive to protect our loved ones. We needed
Speaker 1: to be anxious to not get eaten by a bear
Speaker 1: or a wolf or or a lion or what have you,
Speaker 1: but we're not in that state anymore. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like rewiring ourselves toward gratitude and toward serenity. So,
Speaker 1: you know, this goes hand in hand with our spiritual journey,
Speaker 1: which I'm a member of the High Faith, and a
Speaker 1: big part of being a member of the High Faith
Speaker 1: is this idea that we are in this world, while
Speaker 1: we're on this planet for a short amount of time,
Speaker 1: whether it's sixty eight hundred years, whatever it is, running
Speaker 1: around in our meat suits, that we are developing our
Speaker 1: spiritual virtues that we will take with us when this
Speaker 1: world is done. So my life is a focus on
Speaker 1: mostly unsuccessful but occasionally successful, focus on kindness, humility, compassion, love, honesty,
Speaker 1: these kind of qualities of the good wolf. So for me,
Speaker 1: that parable is so applicable on a daily basis, and
Speaker 1: it has you know, personal ramifications, and it has kind
Speaker 1: of religious, spiritual and philosophical reverberations as well. But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna toss to my partner in philosophical crime, Reza Aslin here.
Speaker 1: He's a much smarter cat than I am and might
Speaker 1: have some other perspective to offer. I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm absolutely mesmerized by your answer. This will give
Speaker 1: you a sense of what our conversations are like a
Speaker 1: lot on metaphysical milkshake. You know, oftentimes Rain will just
Speaker 1: wax poetic. You know, it's just like a deeply philosophical
Speaker 1: and existential ideas coming from a personal and emotional place.
Speaker 1: And then you know, I make part noises and that
Speaker 1: I would have expected this to be exactly the opposite.
Speaker 1: I think. I think people do expect it to be, obviously,
Speaker 1: and people are I think, really shocked when they listen
Speaker 1: to the podcast at how heavy and philosophical and spiritually
Speaker 1: minded TV's Rain Wilson actually is. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: a joy for me to listen to all the time.
Speaker 1: I was just thinking while Rain was talking that the
Speaker 1: personal experience that he was describing about these sort of
Speaker 1: dual natures that exist within us, that is very much
Speaker 1: a part of the parable that you it read, has
Speaker 1: its kind of source in so many religious traditions. You know,
Speaker 1: this idea that within humanity there is both darkness and light,
Speaker 1: both right and wrong, truth and falsehood, and so many religions,
Speaker 1: I think, have this kind of process whereby through discipline,
Speaker 1: through doctrine, and ritual, you can suppress one of those
Speaker 1: natures and allow the other one to really express itself.
Speaker 1: So much of our conceptions of the afterlife are predicated
Speaker 1: on this idea that it's a matter of measuring those
Speaker 1: two natures. Right, how much of your life was spent
Speaker 1: pursuing good thoughts, good words, good deeds, Like Zoroastrian say,
Speaker 1: how much of it was in pursuit of bad thoughts,
Speaker 1: bad words, bad deeds, And that sort of defines your
Speaker 1: eternal destiny. But I do think that whether we're talking
Speaker 1: about it in personal term or philosophical terms, the thing
Speaker 1: that I come back to is that it's all about
Speaker 1: personal choice. It's all about personal actions. Right. The feeling
Speaker 1: of the wolf has to be expressed in real terms
Speaker 1: in the world. Right, How do we know which of
Speaker 1: your nature's is dominant? Well, we know by your actions, right,
Speaker 1: we know by what you put into the world. And
Speaker 1: when it comes to religion, when it comes to these
Speaker 1: questions about you know who is good and who's not good,
Speaker 1: and what is right and what is not right, what
Speaker 1: is moral, what is not moral? Always for me at
Speaker 1: least comes back to this very simple statement, which is
Speaker 1: you are what you do. You are what you do
Speaker 1: as simple as that. Yeah, I've heard you say before
Speaker 1: that your favorite line from the Bible is faith without
Speaker 1: works is dead, you know, which I think symbolizes this
Speaker 1: idea and is a line that I've always loved. We
Speaker 1: yous did a lot in twelve Step Recovery, which is
Speaker 1: sort of my ancient tradition. I suppose, I would say,
Speaker 1: we use that phrase a lot, and it's it's been
Speaker 1: a big theme of this show, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: what we do actually matters. What we think is important,
Speaker 1: but what we do matters both in the consequences that
Speaker 1: we put into the world. But the other thing that
Speaker 1: I think is interesting is that if we think about
Speaker 1: changing how we feel and wanting to be happier, more content,
Speaker 1: all those things as a goal that a lot of
Speaker 1: people have, you know, what we do is a lever
Speaker 1: that we can pull. You know, behavior is a lever
Speaker 1: that we can pull that reliably tends to change our
Speaker 1: overall well being. I can't remember where I heard you
Speaker 1: guys talking about this, but I think rain you were
Speaker 1: describing Martin Seligman's studies about happiness. You know, if you
Speaker 1: want to be happy, go out and help other people. Yeah, Wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going right into happiness. Then well, I don't know
Speaker 1: where we're going, but that's at least where we're landing
Speaker 1: for a second. Okay, good, No, I love it because
Speaker 1: it's one of my favorite topics. And at Soul Pancake,
Speaker 1: which is this digital media company that I started with
Speaker 1: some friends, we did a lot of work on happiness
Speaker 1: and on positive psychology. And you know, this field of
Speaker 1: positive psychology, I think Resid and I are too old
Speaker 1: to have it even have registered. I mean, it really
Speaker 1: started in the late nineties, early two thousand's, but a Dr.
Speaker 1: Martin Selegment and a few others at around that time
Speaker 1: were like, hey, psychology is always about what's screwed up
Speaker 1: about people and where they're neurotic and where their trauma
Speaker 1: is and how their dysfunction works. What about things that
Speaker 1: do work? What about people that are happy? What about
Speaker 1: families that are united? What about people that are successful
Speaker 1: and well balanced and have a tremendous amount of well
Speaker 1: being inside of them. So this field of study of
Speaker 1: positive psychology has just taught us so much. It's interesting
Speaker 1: how the universe works, because here's this door that's opened
Speaker 1: into this world of positive psychology and at the same time,
Speaker 1: at the same time, exact same time, people are more
Speaker 1: unhappy than ever and we're in the middle of a
Speaker 1: loneliness epidemic that's off the charts. We did an episode
Speaker 1: about that about loneliness. You know, suicide is up, suicidal ideation, anxiety, depression.
Speaker 1: We're in a heartbreaking, heart wrenching epidemic of you know,
Speaker 1: especially on teenagers and young adults around these mental health issues.
Speaker 1: For the first time in human history, in recorded human history,
Speaker 1: young people under twenty five are the loneliest generation. That's astounding.
Speaker 1: It was always senior citizens. It was always the seventy
Speaker 1: five and up people that were the most lonely, and
Speaker 1: now it's it's high school kids and college kids the
Speaker 1: most lonely people on the planet. And all they're doing,
Speaker 1: theoretically is being in classes with people and you know,
Speaker 1: interacting with one another and going out and being social
Speaker 1: and being in dormitories and you know, classrooms and gymnasiums
Speaker 1: and whatnot, and yet they're the most lonely. So going
Speaker 1: back to this idea of happiness and the study you
Speaker 1: brought up, so Dr Martin Sulligman did a class on happiness.
Speaker 1: It may have been the first class on happiness. Now
Speaker 1: there's a lot there's wonderful Dr Laurie Santos, she's been
Speaker 1: doing this exceptional class on happiness for Yale University. That's
Speaker 1: opened everyone, by the way, and there's tons of her
Speaker 1: videos online and so many great resources around that. But
Speaker 1: he had everyone take a baseline study of happiness in
Speaker 1: his class, and then on one weekend he said, Okay,
Speaker 1: this weekend, I want you to go out. I want
Speaker 1: you to do whatever it is that you think is
Speaker 1: going to make you the most happy, and then report
Speaker 1: back to me. So they went out, and what do
Speaker 1: you think they did? These college kids you know in
Speaker 1: the late nineties. They they partied, they went shopping, they
Speaker 1: hooked up, they did drugs, they got drunk, they went
Speaker 1: gamble ling, they you know, did all of that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. And then they came back the next week
Speaker 1: and they retook the happiness survey and guess what, they
Speaker 1: were less happy than the week before. And then he
Speaker 1: did the exact same thing. And you know where this
Speaker 1: is going. Where he said, this weekend, I want you
Speaker 1: to go out and I want you to do things
Speaker 1: for other people. I want you to you know, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, you know, hold a door open for an
Speaker 1: old lady, by someone a Starbucks, call your aunt who's lonely,
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. And so the kids reported back
Speaker 1: in after that weekend they said, I, you know, I
Speaker 1: held the door open for people. I visited my sick grandmother.
Speaker 1: I hung out with a friend who was depressed. I
Speaker 1: bought something for someone. I went and got flowers for
Speaker 1: my mom or whatever it was. And then they retook
Speaker 1: the happiness test and guess what they were happy off
Speaker 1: the scales. Well, I wasn't off the scales, but there
Speaker 1: was an increase in their well being quotient that that
Speaker 1: that the test measured. So what this shows me quite
Speaker 1: clearly is that the entire focus of contemporary society is
Speaker 1: on option A. You know, it's on happiness. It's the
Speaker 1: instagrammification of happiness or the kardashianification of happiness of like,
Speaker 1: you know, the hotter you look, the cooler stuff you have,
Speaker 1: the more you shop, the more you hook up, the
Speaker 1: more you party. That this is going to lead us
Speaker 1: to happiness. This is not just on social media. This
Speaker 1: is also just in the media itself in terms of
Speaker 1: advertising and whatnot. In fact, every commercial it was a
Speaker 1: delight with my son whenever a sports game was on, Like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's examine these commercials. Hey, who do you think the
Speaker 1: audience is for that truck or for that salad dressing
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. And how are they trying to
Speaker 1: convince you to buy it? Oh, they'll say it'll make
Speaker 1: you more happy. Oh, it'll make you more popular. Oh,
Speaker 1: it'll give you a sense of well being in contentment,
Speaker 1: It'll make your family love you more, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: It's really fun to kind of like dig into the commercials,
Speaker 1: but our entire society is a con. It's a con. Hey,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get more happy by pursuing this certain way
Speaker 1: of being in the world, and when actual increased joy
Speaker 1: and well being comes from being of service to other people.
Speaker 1: So this also connects to the good wolf and the
Speaker 1: bad wolf inside of us. You know, it's the it's
Speaker 1: the good wolves and bad wolves of Instagram. I mean
Speaker 1: it's on social media. We should we should do that,
Speaker 1: the good wolves and bad wolves of Instagram. Um, you
Speaker 1: know the bad wolves, you know, partying with Scott Disick
Speaker 1: on a yacht and you know, with eighteen year old
Speaker 1: models and champagne flowing, and and then there's wonderful nonprofits
Speaker 1: and animal saving charities that are all about you know,
Speaker 1: connection and service and humility and kindness and um, it's
Speaker 1: it's there as well. Sorry, that was a long ram.
Speaker 1: That is absolutely all right, And is there anything you
Speaker 1: want to add to that before I take us out?
Speaker 1: I don't think I can at anything great. Here's where
Speaker 1: I'll pivot on that, right. I think that most of
Speaker 1: the people listening to this show, and probably most of
Speaker 1: the people that are going to listen to your show,
Speaker 1: although I don't I don't know your audience, are wise
Speaker 1: enough that they've kind of gotten past the yachts and
Speaker 1: the eighteen year old models, and we recognize that, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is a little bit more of an interior job.
Speaker 1: This is a little bit more you know, uh, spiritual,
Speaker 1: perhaps maybe philosophical, if you guys want to reflect on this,
Speaker 1: because one of the things that I see is that
Speaker 1: if we're not careful, even that the spiritual, the philosophical,
Speaker 1: the personal development becomes just another way of seeking happiness.
Speaker 1: It's a wiser way than partying, but it still ends
Speaker 1: up being self referential to a huge degree. And is
Speaker 1: that equally destined to be problematic is the only way
Speaker 1: out to be looking outwards more. Yeah, listen, that's why,
Speaker 1: you know, being a guru is such good business nowadays,
Speaker 1: you know, or I guess now we call them life coaches.
Speaker 1: I guess that's the new term. Uh, it's not for me,
Speaker 1: but we'll booming industry, Eric, booming industry. I think part
Speaker 1: of it has to do with the fact that we
Speaker 1: as a species can't help but you know, co modify everything.
Speaker 1: We have to quantify and commodify everything, even spirituality, even
Speaker 1: enlightenment and transcendence. Right, it's a thing that's out there,
Speaker 1: and if you follow these rules and if you you know,
Speaker 1: write me a check, I can take you through the
Speaker 1: stage is necessary in order to achieve that thing that's
Speaker 1: out there that will finally make you the person that
Speaker 1: you want to be. One of the things that Right
Speaker 1: and I share in common with each other, and it
Speaker 1: was kind of a thing that immediately struck us, was
Speaker 1: that we don't subscribe to the whole dichotomy between sort
Speaker 1: of spiritual and material, between you know, out there and
Speaker 1: in here, between science and faith, like all those sort
Speaker 1: of traditional divisions that seem to propelled so much of
Speaker 1: our activities. Right, even as you say, even those activities
Speaker 1: that are you know, in pursuit of good, in pursuit
Speaker 1: of enlightenment, in pursuit of spiritual edification, they're so often
Speaker 1: presented in these stark, dichotomous terms. Right, And if you
Speaker 1: can get to the place where you can break down
Speaker 1: that fake, made up wall that separates these things, right,
Speaker 1: if you can stop thinking of enlightenment or spiritual fulfillment
Speaker 1: as a thing that's out there that you pursue, that
Speaker 1: you go out and you get and realize that it's
Speaker 1: much more a thing that's within you that you can
Speaker 1: tap into, that it's a part of your material experience
Speaker 1: in the world old. Right. But the more you think
Speaker 1: about it in those terms, not only are you more
Speaker 1: likely to achieve the kind of peace and spiritual fulfillment
Speaker 1: that you are yearning for, but it also kind of
Speaker 1: keeps you precisely as you're as you're warning, it keeps
Speaker 1: you from commodifying it in that way that we tend
Speaker 1: to do with so much. You know of things, right,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not a thing to possess, it's not
Speaker 1: a thing to buy. It's a thing that already exists
Speaker 1: within you, and it's just a matter of tapping into it.
Speaker 1: At least that's how my spirituality works. I'm a Muslim,
Speaker 1: and so Islam is how I define my faith and
Speaker 1: my spirituality. But my spirituality, my faith is way bigger
Speaker 1: than Islam. It expands beyond any kind of external shell
Speaker 1: of religion that you can think of. And I think
Speaker 1: just as importantly, it's not defined sort of by any
Speaker 1: one particular set of dudes and don'ts or dogmas and
Speaker 1: rituals and practices. It's about the search for my true self,
Speaker 1: for my real self. And so people ask me all
Speaker 1: the time, you know, are you quote unquote practicing Muslim
Speaker 1: whatever the hell that means. But I think what they
Speaker 1: mean is, you know, do you pray five times a day?
Speaker 1: And do you go to mosque every Friday? And the
Speaker 1: answer is no, no, I don't because I don't set
Speaker 1: aside kind of a formal, sacred place that's separate from
Speaker 1: the profane, right where it's like, well, six days of
Speaker 1: the week, I'm just a profane person. But on the
Speaker 1: seventh day, you know, I go to church or mosque
Speaker 1: or temple, and that's where it's different. Or throughout the
Speaker 1: day I'm one person, but then I stop and I pray,
Speaker 1: and I'm a different person. You know. For me, my
Speaker 1: experience as a spiritual being infuses every aspect of my life,
Speaker 1: so that my entire life, my experience walking through the world,
Speaker 1: is in and of itself a form of prayer. And
Speaker 1: I think that allows me to be comfortable with my
Speaker 1: happiness right not constantly strive for more and more and more.
Speaker 1: You know, that's so well said, as I got so
Speaker 1: much out of just listening to that right now, and
Speaker 1: it reminded me about how to prioritize, you know, the
Speaker 1: sacred while in the midst of the profane, and realizing
Speaker 1: that there isn't again that dichotomy between the two. But
Speaker 1: like here's an example, Eric, Like for me, spirituality has
Speaker 1: to be kind of meat and potatoes. It's like where
Speaker 1: the rubber meets the road. And like I went up
Speaker 1: the other day. We brought this new house and it's
Speaker 1: got a little bit of property on it, and this
Speaker 1: beautiful vines covering our fence between us and our neighbor
Speaker 1: was dead. And I looked and it had been hacked,
Speaker 1: I mean, like at the base, like cut all the
Speaker 1: big thick vines anything on the neighbor's side had just
Speaker 1: been cut and not just like trimmed, a little bit
Speaker 1: like cut like two inch. And I was like, what
Speaker 1: these are neighbors I hadn't met yet because we've we've
Speaker 1: only been in for a few months. But we did
Speaker 1: have a run in with this neighbor once when a
Speaker 1: workman of ours took some avocados from their tree and
Speaker 1: they yelled at them and marched down to our house.
Speaker 1: So I was like, Oh, are these neighbors. They resent
Speaker 1: us and they don't like these vines or it's encroaching
Speaker 1: on their property. And I was immediately just like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna you know, I'm gonna get into it here. They
Speaker 1: fucked with my vine, and you know it saysn't they
Speaker 1: a big book? You know, we paused when agitated or
Speaker 1: doubtful and asked God for our next right course of action.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: this guy. I got his number from another neighbor. I
Speaker 1: called him. He called me back. I was like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: just wondering, why are all those fifty yards of beautiful
Speaker 1: trump but flower vines are dead on our fence? And
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, I had no idea. And then he's like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I hired this new gardener to trim our trees, and
Speaker 1: I asked him to to just kind of cut back
Speaker 1: the hedge, and he must have misunderstood and he killed
Speaker 1: the hedge and he's like, I'm so sorry. So it
Speaker 1: was it was a really positive interaction. And again this
Speaker 1: goes to the wolf thing where I'm wired for anxiety
Speaker 1: and conflict. So I have to pause, breathe, pray, and that,
Speaker 1: to me, that's a spiritual act right there. That spirituality
Speaker 1: just at work. It's not a temple. It's not any
Speaker 1: kind of you know, bending over in a funny way
Speaker 1: or saying a certain phraser words. It's kind of like, hey,
Speaker 1: I was able to make a connection with someone that
Speaker 1: I thought there was something uh more nefarious going on. Yes,
Speaker 1: assuming positive intent can save us a whole lot of trouble.
Speaker 1: I want to circle back to Reza's point here. You
Speaker 1: were basically saying, Hey, I don't know that I need
Speaker 1: to necessarily go to church or pray five times a
Speaker 1: day because I'm trying to make this spirituality, these ways
Speaker 1: of living more an inherent part of my day. And
Speaker 1: I have two questions for you. In relation to that,
Speaker 1: I think one is what role in the studying of
Speaker 1: religion that you've done do you think ritual plays in
Speaker 1: reminding us of those things? Because I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the hardest parts about a spiritual life is remembering. Right.
Speaker 1: We get up, we get busy, we get caught up,
Speaker 1: we're just going, going, going, and then it's you know,
Speaker 1: I maybe meditate first thing in the morning, and the
Speaker 1: next thing, I know, it's nine at night, and I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I meant to be more present. So I think remembering
Speaker 1: is really important. And so I'm curious kind of maybe
Speaker 1: question to both of you guys, how do you remember?
Speaker 1: You know, how do you keep these things somewhat front
Speaker 1: of mind? And then the second part of that question
Speaker 1: is I'm going to ask you about a line from
Speaker 1: one of your books where you said the single most
Speaker 1: important factor in the performance of any Muslim ritual is
Speaker 1: the believer's intention, which must be consciously proclaimed before the
Speaker 1: ritual can begin. So I'm giving you kind of a
Speaker 1: wide runway there, but you see how you can weave
Speaker 1: those things together. Well, As a matter of fact, you
Speaker 1: actually defined ritual precisely. It is a form of remembering
Speaker 1: some rituals. I think the primary ritual in and Sufi
Speaker 1: Islam is called zicker, and zicker literally translates as remembrance.
Speaker 1: It's important to think of ritual. So there are two
Speaker 1: fundamental units within any religion. There's myth and ritual. And
Speaker 1: the way that we often think about ritual is that
Speaker 1: it's the script for the performance of the myth. Right,
Speaker 1: the myth in and of itself is not enough. You
Speaker 1: have to actually participate in it. You have to bring
Speaker 1: it to life. And so ritual becomes the script whereby
Speaker 1: you actually take part, where you take a performance into
Speaker 1: the mythology, and in doing so you recreate that mythology.
Speaker 1: In fact, the process of recreation is the earliest expression
Speaker 1: of ritual. And you go back to our most ancient
Speaker 1: ancestors and when you look at the leaders of those communities,
Speaker 1: people we now refer to as shaman, their principal job
Speaker 1: was on set days, you know, throughout the year, on
Speaker 1: important days, to recite the myths of the community and
Speaker 1: engage the community and a recreation of those myths. And
Speaker 1: in doing so they were at least they thought what
Speaker 1: they were doing was literally recreating the world Anew every
Speaker 1: time they did these myths. And so you know, in
Speaker 1: the modern world, for many religious people, they'll go to church,
Speaker 1: you know, they'll go to Mass, they'll sit through the rituals,
Speaker 1: they find comfort in them, they might find communal expression
Speaker 1: in them. I'm doing something that you know, Catholics before
Speaker 1: me have done for two thousand years, and it connects
Speaker 1: me to the worldwide body of faith, but also to
Speaker 1: the Catholics who came before me, and ultimately to Jesus himself.
Speaker 1: But in that connection is supposed to be this kind
Speaker 1: of collective memory that we all have, right that we're
Speaker 1: passing down generation after generation, not necessarily through words, but
Speaker 1: through our actions. And so yeah, that's precisely how I
Speaker 1: think about ritual. And it goes back to kind of
Speaker 1: what I was saying at the very beginning of this,
Speaker 1: which is, for me, it's all about the things that
Speaker 1: you do and your Your beliefs are irrelevant. They are
Speaker 1: literally meaningless if they are not actually put into practice,
Speaker 1: and the ritual is the means whereby we put those
Speaker 1: things into practice. I love this point that you bring up, Eric,
Speaker 1: and it got me thinking as well. In the behindh faith,
Speaker 1: there are very few very very few rituals or practices.
Speaker 1: There's a period of time of fasting, but from a
Speaker 1: daily basis, we're asked to read from the High Holy
Speaker 1: Writings in the morning and in the evening. We're asked
Speaker 1: to say a very short prayer it's three sentences long
Speaker 1: at some point in the middle of the day, which
Speaker 1: is like the behind light l i t e. Version
Speaker 1: of the Muslim five Prayers to Mecca. And we're also
Speaker 1: asked to say the phrase allow Aba times a day,
Speaker 1: and allow Aba means God is all glorious. It's synonymous
Speaker 1: with the Islamic you know, allow akbar, God is great.
Speaker 1: And all of these are simply designed to do just
Speaker 1: what you said, to allow us to remember, to just
Speaker 1: be like, I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna read something
Speaker 1: spiritual in the middle of the day, I'm gonna remember God.
Speaker 1: At some point during the day, I'm going to say
Speaker 1: allow up with my prayer beads times. God is glorious.
Speaker 1: I like to sit outside on a little bench in
Speaker 1: the trees, surrounded by nature where I most greatly feel
Speaker 1: the presence of God. And then at night, before I
Speaker 1: retire to sleep, I remember my spiritual ness, my spiritual
Speaker 1: being nous. But these are practices to help us, because
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. You know, part of besides being wired
Speaker 1: for anxiety and stress and discomfort and fear, we are
Speaker 1: also wired to live as just material beings. You know,
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that, but the occasional reminder that we're
Speaker 1: spiritual beings having a human experience is not so bad. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. And I've become sort of fascinated
Speaker 1: over the last few years on you know, what are
Speaker 1: the various ways of remembering? What are the ways that
Speaker 1: we can start to weave these things more into the
Speaker 1: moments of our lives. I want to ask another question
Speaker 1: for Reza here. I've plucked a few lines here and
Speaker 1: there from some of your work, but one of them
Speaker 1: is that you say, I understand the only way I
Speaker 1: can truly know God is by relying on the only
Speaker 1: thing I can truly know myself. Maybe we could reflect
Speaker 1: a minute on how knowing ourselves leads us to knowing God. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was kind of stealing a little bit from the
Speaker 1: great medieval Arab philosopher who said he who knows himself
Speaker 1: knows his Lord. And there is a spiritual tradition behind
Speaker 1: this in Sufi Islam, and Altabi was a Sufi. I
Speaker 1: belong to the Sufi branch of Islam, and Sufi Islam,
Speaker 1: we are essentially atheists are definition of God. There's very orthodox.
Speaker 1: By the way, all Muslims believe that God is in
Speaker 1: and of himself existence, that God is indivisible, That God,
Speaker 1: whatever God is, is in form and substance, one nous,
Speaker 1: God is divine unity, and so therefore cannot be separated,
Speaker 1: cannot be divided. It's just that Sufi's ticket one step further, like,
Speaker 1: we accept the consequence of that fundamental Orthodox belief that
Speaker 1: exists both in Judaism and in Islam, which is that, well,
Speaker 1: if God is indivisible, then nothing can exist that isn't God.
Speaker 1: Then that means everything is God. Otherwise you're dividing God.
Speaker 1: If you're saying God is pure existence, then if anything
Speaker 1: else exists, it exists only in so far as it
Speaker 1: shares in existence of the only thing that exists. And
Speaker 1: so this goes back to kind of a little bit
Speaker 1: of what I was preaching earlier, right about stop looking
Speaker 1: out there and start looking in here. Sufie's believe that
Speaker 1: God is not a four separate and distinct from creation.
Speaker 1: That Creator and creation are one end the same. And
Speaker 1: so the journey to find God is not an external journey.
Speaker 1: It's an internal journey because God exists within you. God
Speaker 1: exists within all people's and so the start of true
Speaker 1: spiritual edification begins with that fairly profound and experiential knowledge
Speaker 1: that whatever I am, whatever God is, we are fundamentally
Speaker 1: the same. And so to truly know God, you should
Speaker 1: begin by truly knowing yourself. Rain anything you want to add, always, always,
Speaker 1: it's always got something, they say, bring it. I have
Speaker 1: no shortage of things to say on these topics. So, yes,
Speaker 1: to know God is to know thyself, and that is
Speaker 1: Islamic teaching, and it's also in my faith tradition, and
Speaker 1: I think it's somewhat in every faith tradition because also,
Speaker 1: how do I say this? How do we say this
Speaker 1: without sounding dumb? I hate the word belief. I believe,
Speaker 1: like I say, I believe, it's so limited. I will
Speaker 1: say that we are souls inhabiting bodies, and the nature
Speaker 1: of the soul is something that is beyond time and space. Um,
Speaker 1: it is essentially unknowable. There is a mystery there, at
Speaker 1: least in this current. You know, physical universe construct So
Speaker 1: knowing God God is also unknowable and beyond time and space,
Speaker 1: at least in this physical plane. And knowing ourselves is
Speaker 1: knowing our souls. Knowing ourselves doesn't mean like knowing how
Speaker 1: our pancreas works. I mean, that's great that we can
Speaker 1: learn that. But knowing ourselves is knowing how our spiritual
Speaker 1: light is kindled, how we reflect the light of the
Speaker 1: sun in the mirrors of our spirits again, our compassion,
Speaker 1: our kindness, our humility, our love that we bring to
Speaker 1: the world. So what a glorious mystery that is to
Speaker 1: get to know ourselves? And so how do I get
Speaker 1: to know myself? You know, I try and be in
Speaker 1: a constant state of getting to know myself better and
Speaker 1: hopefully in a way not in an arrogant way. Oh,
Speaker 1: knowing myself means that like I am a God. But
Speaker 1: there is a sliver of the divine in me, you know,
Speaker 1: if there's a little chard of glass reflecting the divine
Speaker 1: spirit inside of me, and that is that piece of God,
Speaker 1: of the divine in me, And I can seek to
Speaker 1: know that. I can do that through service to others.
Speaker 1: I can do that through loving I can do that
Speaker 1: through therapy. I can do out through twelve steps. It's
Speaker 1: an ongoing process, but I love it. I think the
Speaker 1: way that we can also think about this that might
Speaker 1: bring some of these things together is that on one hand,
Speaker 1: there's this knowing ourselves and this internal reflection. And I've
Speaker 1: said this on the podcast a bunch of times. When
Speaker 1: I started this show, I was pretty certain that the
Speaker 1: entire thing I was going to learn was about how
Speaker 1: to go deeper within. It's an inside job. You know.
Speaker 1: I'm a practicing Zen Buddhist. That's the way I've oriented
Speaker 1: for a long time is Buddhism. And I sort of thought, well,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go internal. But more and more I've
Speaker 1: learned it's also about what's happening outside of us. And
Speaker 1: so I think that what i'd ask you, guys, if
Speaker 1: you could just speak a little bit more on is
Speaker 1: that know thyself while also deep spiritual wisdom, I think
Speaker 1: is part of what can turn into this spiritual narcissism.
Speaker 1: And so it seems to me, and Res as a
Speaker 1: scholar of a lot of religions, maybe you can speak
Speaker 1: to this, is that it seems to me that all
Speaker 1: the great traditions have pointed as simultaneously inwards and outwards
Speaker 1: that like inwards, we've got to know ourselves, we've got
Speaker 1: to do this deep reflective journey, and we've got to
Speaker 1: serve others, and that it's both those that are really
Speaker 1: critical to a full flourishing of our spiritual capabilities. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the esoteric exoteric divide that happens in a lot
Speaker 1: of religions. To be perfectly frank, While those two threads
Speaker 1: exist in every major religion in the world, in most,
Speaker 1: if not all of those religions, the esoteric tends to
Speaker 1: be repressed. And that's a very simple reason for that,
Speaker 1: because fundamentally religion is about control and power and the exoteric.
Speaker 1: These are the things you do, This is how you fact,
Speaker 1: this is what you read, this is how you pray.
Speaker 1: Those things are privy to outside forces and outside control.
Speaker 1: The esoteric isn't right because that's deep and that's personal,
Speaker 1: and that tends to frighten religious institutions and religious leaders.
Speaker 1: And oftentimes this is certainly true in Islam. Oftentimes those
Speaker 1: tendencies are violently repressed by self described leaders of the religion.
Speaker 1: But you are right that fundamentally true meaningful, deep seated
Speaker 1: spirituality is about reconciling those two ideas, right that making
Speaker 1: sure that your outer self, your outer rituals, the things
Speaker 1: that you do, the way that you actually express your
Speaker 1: faith in values in the world is absolutely in tune
Speaker 1: with who you are on the inside. And yes, you're
Speaker 1: right that that can very easily become narcissistic. Again, this
Speaker 1: is kind of the human condition, right. But to go
Speaker 1: back to what I was saying before about in particular
Speaker 1: Sufism and this notion that all things are God, which
Speaker 1: means that you're a God. There's a difference between I
Speaker 1: am God and we are all God. Right. Sufism uses
Speaker 1: this um fairly well trought out metaphor, which is that
Speaker 1: you are a drop of water in an ocean of water. That,
Speaker 1: in a sense, the first step of true spiritual enlightenment
Speaker 1: is to rid oneself of the ego of the self,
Speaker 1: as it's referred to in Sufism, the nafs, the breath, right,
Speaker 1: the eye, the capital I. That has to be ridd
Speaker 1: before you can truly understand your true nature. And that's
Speaker 1: a very difficult thing to do. Right. The ego is
Speaker 1: king among us, It's how we define who we are,
Speaker 1: how we say, you know, what is resa actually and
Speaker 1: the enormous effort that it takes, regardless of what religious
Speaker 1: tradition you practice, the enormous effort that it takes to
Speaker 1: break down the eye so that it doesn't exist anymore,
Speaker 1: and so that all that is left is well, in
Speaker 1: the case of Buddhism, the void, right, all that is
Speaker 1: left is nothing. You don't exist, That is just an illusion.
Speaker 1: The self is an illusion. Islam agrees the self is
Speaker 1: an illusion. But underneath that is not the void. Underneath
Speaker 1: that is the one right, the soul thing that exists,
Speaker 1: which is God. And I think once you kind of
Speaker 1: begin that process, it helps you as much as possible
Speaker 1: to not become you know, self centered, to not become
Speaker 1: ego focused in this spirit actual journey. But as I say,
Speaker 1: if it were easy, we'd all do it, right, Holy mackerel,
Speaker 1: do I want to take us down the rabbit hole
Speaker 1: of debating whether that's what Buddhism really says, is that
Speaker 1: the void or emptiness and how these things are are
Speaker 1: more alike than we might think. But I'm going to
Speaker 1: resist that they are actually, So it's it's very important. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the concept of Sunyata. This idea that all is void,
Speaker 1: all is nothingness, is it realistic? I think the problem
Speaker 1: is that too many people think that, well, then if
Speaker 1: all is void and all is nothing, then what's the point?
Speaker 1: That is the point. The point is the recognition that
Speaker 1: this is illusion, and that true enlightenment comes from the
Speaker 1: recognition of the illusion. Then your real self, who you
Speaker 1: truly are, your Buddha nature, can finally express itself. Really,
Speaker 1: it's exactly the same thing within Islam and within Judaism.
Speaker 1: The way that I often sort of describe it is that,
Speaker 1: in very kind of crude terms, Buddhism says that if
Speaker 1: you take all of creation and you put it in
Speaker 1: a calculator and you push equals, you get the number zero.
Speaker 1: Islam says when you push equal, you get the number one.
Speaker 1: But the foundation between those two is very similar. One
Speaker 1: of the things we say at the one you feed
Speaker 1: a lot is that there's no shortcut to lasting happiness. Right,
Speaker 1: We've got to do the work to improve our lives,
Speaker 1: but this can be really challenging to do without some support.
Speaker 1: Our lives are busy, there's a lot of things clawing
Speaker 1: at our attention, and we might have ways of working
Speaker 1: with our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that are not very
Speaker 1: good for our well being. So if you'd like help
Speaker 1: working on any or all of those things, I've got
Speaker 1: a couple of spots that have just opened up in
Speaker 1: my one on one coaching practice. You can book a
Speaker 1: free thirty minute call to talk with me, no pressure,
Speaker 1: and we get to know each other at one you
Speaker 1: feed dot net slash coach and Zen. We talk about
Speaker 1: emptiness all the time. You know, emptiness is form. Form
Speaker 1: is emptiness. And the best definition of emptiness, the one
Speaker 1: that resonated the most with me, is this idea of
Speaker 1: emptiness really means everything all at once. And I love
Speaker 1: that idea. You know, the void is just the place
Speaker 1: that everything comes out of. It is pure possibility, you know,
Speaker 1: to that basic point, I like, I'm going to try
Speaker 1: a fun little experiment. We've got a sufi here and
Speaker 1: a be high guy here, and and to really wise people,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you a phrase from the Zen tradition
Speaker 1: that I really love and I would just be curious
Speaker 1: to have you guys say what these things might mean
Speaker 1: in your tradition, And here's the phrase. And then we
Speaker 1: say that you need great faith, you need great doubt,
Speaker 1: and you need great determination. Rain, And I'll start with
Speaker 1: you in the behind faith. What might those things look like?
Speaker 1: Great faith, great doubt, great determination? What might that mean
Speaker 1: to you? Guys? I hadn't heard that phrase before, but
Speaker 1: it's it's really beautiful. I think that I don't know
Speaker 1: about the High tradition, but in what I've learned through
Speaker 1: my life as that faith and doubt go hand in hand.
Speaker 1: In the Western tradition, there's kind of black and white, right,
Speaker 1: there's good and evil. There's this dichotomous kind of state.
Speaker 1: There's mind and body and spirit and intellect and whatnot.
Speaker 1: And this idea that there is faith and it's opposite
Speaker 1: is doubt. But it's more like the yin and yang,
Speaker 1: you know, And it's more like that symbol. There's this turning.
Speaker 1: There's this kind of like, oh, I have great faith, Oh,
Speaker 1: and I have doubt about that faith, and that renews
Speaker 1: my faith and then the wheel turns and then additional
Speaker 1: doubt is created. So I think that they work together,
Speaker 1: they go hand in hand. And going back to the
Speaker 1: previous question again, this dichotomous sense of like is spirituality
Speaker 1: internal or is it external? Am I going to be
Speaker 1: enlightened inside of myself in my heart like sitting in
Speaker 1: the corner of a room. Or am I going to
Speaker 1: get enlightened being like mother Teresa and serving the orphans? Right? Well,
Speaker 1: it's both, you know, and it's all both because they
Speaker 1: work together. You know, you serve others, you're tested in
Speaker 1: certain ways, you learn things, you grow, you bring that
Speaker 1: back to your room, you contemplate that, you connect with
Speaker 1: the divine spirit of the universe, and then you go
Speaker 1: back and you serve again. These things are on a wheel.
Speaker 1: But I love the idea of determination too, because this
Speaker 1: work is hard, you know, and you just keep going.
Speaker 1: And I know, like personally for me right now in
Speaker 1: my spiritual practice, I'm just felt. For the last six
Speaker 1: months when the pandemic hit, I was doing great. I
Speaker 1: started doing online shows and I was doing podcasting, I
Speaker 1: was writing a book. I wrote the first like quarter
Speaker 1: of a book. I was like, oh, this is awesome,
Speaker 1: but really about six months ago or so, and now
Speaker 1: it's somewhat lifting. Um, I've really struggled in a lot
Speaker 1: of different ways. I have trouble focusing. I'm not really
Speaker 1: able to write anymore. I'm kind of all over the place,
Speaker 1: and my feelings are scattered, and I think that right
Speaker 1: now I'm feeling a little distant from my creator and
Speaker 1: from my spiritual practice. But at the same time, I'm
Speaker 1: okay with that. This is part of the process. No
Speaker 1: one kind of is just ensconced in great epic overwhelming
Speaker 1: faith all the time. Doubt is a part of the process,
Speaker 1: and struggle as part of the process as well. Can
Speaker 1: I follow up on that question a little bit, Rain,
Speaker 1: and then res I want to get to you on
Speaker 1: great faith, great doubt, great determination. I'm curious, Rain, have
Speaker 1: you've been through these cycles enough that you can have
Speaker 1: faith that you will emerge from them? Yeah? I think
Speaker 1: part of this is that understanding that I'll get through this.
Speaker 1: I try and keep my heart open and as I
Speaker 1: commune with the spirit that underlies this universe and everything
Speaker 1: in it and everything outside of it and infinity of
Speaker 1: other universes beyond this one. As I come in with
Speaker 1: that spirit, I'm kind of like, what the fuck? You know,
Speaker 1: what's going on? I'm not feeling it. Show me the way,
Speaker 1: what would you have me do? I don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: just living in the not knowing right now, and that's
Speaker 1: going back to Metaphysical Milkshake, er new podcast. We try
Speaker 1: and learn from the discussions that we're having, but it's
Speaker 1: not about answers. It's about living in the questions. It's
Speaker 1: your namesake, right, that's right. It's that where you partially
Speaker 1: named after the gentleman who coined that phrase. Yes, maybe
Speaker 1: you have the quote in front of you. I don't
Speaker 1: have it right in front of me. At the Rainer
Speaker 1: Maril Rocca, the famous German poet philosopher, he talked about
Speaker 1: living in the questions. You know, questions as are like
Speaker 1: locked rooms, and you may one day live yourself into
Speaker 1: the answer, but you start by living in the questions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll just say it's funny because we do have an
Speaker 1: upcoming episode on this very topic on Metaphysical Milkshake, where
Speaker 1: we have the absolutely hilarious Pete Holmes. He's an actor
Speaker 1: and a comedian and also a person of profound faith,
Speaker 1: and we had them on to talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: the question of doubt, and he brought up something that
Speaker 1: I thought was so smart and so relevant to this conversation,
Speaker 1: which is that people think that doubt is the opposite
Speaker 1: of faith. Doubt isn't the opposite of faith. Certainty is
Speaker 1: the opposite of faith. That doubt is actually an integral
Speaker 1: part of what faith actually is and how it's supposed
Speaker 1: to function. That if you don't have doubt, then and
Speaker 1: what you have a certainty, And especially when it comes
Speaker 1: to the human condition and the existential questions that we
Speaker 1: all have and the longing for spirituality and transcendence, if
Speaker 1: you are certain about any one of those things one
Speaker 1: way or another, then you're not someone that I can trust.
Speaker 1: You're not someone that I can have any kind of
Speaker 1: confidence in. These are by definition things that have no
Speaker 1: room for certainty whatsoever. And so yeah, I mean you're
Speaker 1: supposed to doubt. That's it's supposed to be. Like Rain
Speaker 1: was just describing a cycle of faith and doubt and
Speaker 1: faith and doubted. There it's ever present within the very
Speaker 1: emotion of what faith is. I like the way you
Speaker 1: said that, not thought of it in that way before
Speaker 1: about anybody who certain I don't trust them, But it's
Speaker 1: certainly that is absolutely true. Certainty just always rubs me
Speaker 1: the wrong. It's just it's one of those things. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and then when we say great faith, great doubt,
Speaker 1: great determination. What I like about the doubt is there's
Speaker 1: another line and then that says great doubt, great enlightenment,
Speaker 1: because what it means is in that sense, what we're
Speaker 1: talking about with doubt is deep questions, really deeply asking
Speaker 1: the question what is this in is profound and deep,
Speaker 1: and you know with all the pores of your body
Speaker 1: that you can so Rain. I got to ask you
Speaker 1: another of life's really deep questions, which is, do you
Speaker 1: still think that Josh Ritter is one of our greatest
Speaker 1: living songwriters? And what have you thought of his last
Speaker 1: couple of records? I get to I get to talk
Speaker 1: to almost nobody who loves Josh Ritter in the way
Speaker 1: that I do, but I think you do, and so
Speaker 1: I have to take this moment. I have a deep
Speaker 1: and abiding love of Josh Ritter. Yes, that is something
Speaker 1: that we share. I think he's at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. The Josh Ritter songbook is pretty legend I mean,
Speaker 1: there are just dozens and dozens of like great American songs.
Speaker 1: Just recently, on guitar, I was drumming Girl in the
Speaker 1: War and I hadn't really listened to that song in
Speaker 1: ten years, and it's like, oh my god, this song
Speaker 1: is perfect it's so simple and perfectly sketched. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: like his recent stuff. You know, I'm a little more
Speaker 1: partial to his earlier stuff because I think sometimes when
Speaker 1: you have artists, you know, like when you discover them,
Speaker 1: that's the work that you most respond to. But he
Speaker 1: continues to try and branch out. And he just has
Speaker 1: a new novel coming out. Oh another NOVELI the way, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he just sent me an advanced copy. So yeah, he's
Speaker 1: one of the great American songwriters. What do you think, Eric,
Speaker 1: I love all his stuff, and I think his later
Speaker 1: stuff is just amazing. I think their song when will
Speaker 1: I Be Changed Off of not the most recent record,
Speaker 1: the one before, is like one of those just truly
Speaker 1: timeless and just incredible songs. Yeah. I think he's one
Speaker 1: of the best. I think he's gonna be like a
Speaker 1: John Prine, like he might get discovered a little it
Speaker 1: more later in years, and when he's still writing great
Speaker 1: songs into his seventies, you know, will be like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, let's look at the catalog of this guy. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: What about you, Resa, what do you think of josh
Speaker 1: ridder Reza well, or what do you love music wise?
Speaker 1: Give us something you love. I think music for me
Speaker 1: is deeply spiritual. Raza has seventeen kids, so he's probably
Speaker 1: listening to sound. My six year old has the most
Speaker 1: amazing musical taste you can ever to a lot of
Speaker 1: veggie tales these days. No, no, no, no. My six
Speaker 1: year old listens to techno, a lot of trip hop. Uh.
Speaker 1: My six year old introduced me to Billie Eilish. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know I heard the new Drake album for the
Speaker 1: first time because my six year old gave it to me.
Speaker 1: My six year old is quite a musical phenomen Well, okay,
Speaker 1: if you we're gonna have a music we'll just talk
Speaker 1: about the fact that Rain and I, for those of
Speaker 1: you out there who are curious about, you know, metaphysical
Speaker 1: milkshake trivia, we share a absolute just fever rish devotion
Speaker 1: to Radiohead, and you know it just it just means
Speaker 1: that we belong together. I think that's that's what that
Speaker 1: that indicates. So you know, I mean, I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: if Tom York you're happy to be listening right now
Speaker 1: because I love you, well, guys, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for taking the time to come on. There will have
Speaker 1: links in the show notes to metaphysical milkshake wouldn't be
Speaker 1: hard to find if anybody wanted to find it. It's
Speaker 1: out there on podcast players everywhere. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for taking the time to come on. It's been a
Speaker 1: real pleasure. Thanks a lot. Really enjoyed it, had a
Speaker 1: great conversation. Thanks so much for having us. If what
Speaker 1: you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making
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