October 15, 2025 • 62 mins
How much is it our choice to belong, versus the situation being right? An interesting topic, especially for two Fools who, growing up, didn’t feel they belonged. A discussion of fate, destiny, karma, and the story of Oedipus Rex follow as we explore aspects of belonging, autonomy, the relationship between religion and mysticism, and other aspects and implications of being in the very human predicament of experiencing existence as both an individual, and a part of a collective. Thanks for listening!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:14):
Good morning to you, Brian. It's afternoon here, but
morning. Yeah.
How are you doing? Good.
Good afternoon to you, Sir. I'm doing pretty well.
I just drove back across the country from New Mexico to
Philadelphia, and I'm back here for fall and yeah, it's all
right. I'm getting readjusted to city
life. And whole different world, huh?
(00:36):
Yeah. Yeah, it changes reality.
Yeah, it does. And and here it's getting cold.
You know, I'm I'm back in my fleece and wearing my warm hat
and it's going to warm up. But we're actually in that phase
that's good for working well. It's not too hot, but it's not
(00:57):
so cold that it's prohibitive. And we're in that sweet spot
across the equinox, so. Got.
A hay while the sun shines here.And cut some firewood.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And check my my roof.
I need to make it up onto the top roof and see what the what
the ravages of time have wroughtsince last year.
(01:18):
So it's Rust never sleeps, you know that's.
That's part of the reality. Yeah, and you'll have snow
laying up there soon. Oh I know, that's why I better
my best look now while I can seewhat clever thing I can paint
over at all. Most of it's that new metal
roof, but I still have that up. I got so creative with my
(01:38):
geometry that it doesn't lend itself to much you know?
So we'll see. I'd like to put metal on it, but
I might need to use non euclidean geometry to do that.
So I don't know, it's a special kind of geometry, yeah.
Iconic sections, or so you know.But little Lobashevsky never
(02:00):
hurt anybody. Yeah, so, so we're in the midst
of the Jewish High Holidays and I'm, I'm thinking back to when
we started doing this because itwas around the same time.
And I remember we were talking about prayer and what is that
all about and some stuff like that this time last year.
(02:20):
And a thing that's been on my mind the last few days kind of
going through this is the topic of belonging.
And what a slippery and vital thing it is at the same time.
And, you know, we've been checking out different
(02:43):
synagogues and at once we, we have a sense that we don't
belong and it's not the right service for us.
And it, you know, it's just not the right vibe.
But they're very welcoming and want us to have a sense of
belonging. So there's like belonging has
been coming up around community that way, you know, how much is
(03:07):
it our choice to just belong versus the, the situation being
right? And then I've been thinking
about belonging in a really individual, personal way to
where, you know, I don't know ifI belong in Philadelphia and I
don't know if I belong when I'm hanging out with Ray's family.
(03:30):
I feel like an outsider. And I don't, you know, you and I
were both orphans. I I don't know that I ever felt
I belonged in my own family. And so, yeah, it's just been on
my mind a lot as kind of like the center of the reflection it
for these high Holidays, which Iwasn't expecting necessarily,
but I thought I'd toss it out there and yeah, see what comes
(03:54):
up. Well, yeah, I mean that's a
tricky one for me because as yousaid, being an orphan one the.
Foundation of your personality is kind of at least that you may
not belong. And so you know, my initial
(04:21):
response as you brought the question up was?
God, I wonder whether my experience really has much to
enlighten that topic at all, except perhaps by its privation
because the the groups, the psychology that I arrived with.
(04:57):
Sort of put me in a condition ofnot really feeling a belonging
and that has to do with that early bonding with a mother.
And it's really tangled up with identity, you know, And that's
why I had that. There's a lot of Aha's at a
certain point, not that many years ago all around Oedipus
(05:21):
Rex. And you know, the thing that
always hypnotizes people about the story of Oedipus Rex is this
idea of him sleeping with his mother, who you know, right?
So that's, that's, that's the thing that hypnotizes people
(05:43):
about that. And that's maybe the only part
that makes it out of the story. But the interesting thing, the
parallels that I found in there was that he was of course
orphaned, though his parents were alive.
He was orphaned because there was a prophecy, which was pretty
(06:07):
heavy magic in those days that he would kill his father and
marry his mother. I'm pretty sure that was which
is an interesting, interesting character shows up in this with
his which is Tyresius right? Which is isn't he blind?
The blind seer, maybe I I think,if I'm not misremembering.
(06:31):
There is a blind seer in that story.
I don't know if it's Tyreseus I,I.
It's been a long time. Yeah, and I, he may be the one
making the prophecies, but but so, so, you know, the parallel
in my story was, well, it shouldbe said specifically, Oedipus
(06:52):
was given to, I think it was a woodcutter or somebody who was
going to travel into the wilderness with the instructions
by Oedipus's father, who was theking, take this baby out of the
woods and let the woods have them.
And not with the intention that he would grow up as a feral
child, but with the intention, of course, he would be eaten in
(07:15):
short order. And the woodcutter, having
compassion, had second thoughts about the whole idea.
And so he gave them to a traveler that was going to a far
and distant land. So this way, there's no blood on
my hands and what's the odds anything's going to happen?
(07:36):
He's going to go to this farm just to land.
Nobody will know who the hell heis.
The fact you know, he's not coming back here.
He's not. But you know, fate the, and this
is the maybe the real story about Oedipus is the
inescapability of cert of our fate.
And that, and maybe the insightful part is that it's
inescapability is because we carry it within.
(07:56):
Ourselves. We, we can, yes.
And there's a great quote I, I like about that, about our, our
fate being kind of the, the manifestation of the, the
unconscious material that we're never able to integrate.
(08:19):
But I also wanted to say that there's something special about
fate as it relates to mother andfather and what those represent,
whether it's earth and sky, tiger and dragon, yin and Yang,
I mean all of the, the, the binary, right?
So, so fate being being relativeto resolving fundamental
(08:53):
dynamics. I mean our in our lives is is an
interesting idea but go on. Well, and I, and I've had this
idea before where I've said thatevery life really is a Co on
that is a Zen Riddle that that is that there is some maybe
absurdity at its core. And yet through that absurdity
is some transcension, some doorway to transcension.
(09:15):
So, but anyway, what I was goingto say was the curious part.
There was that for all intents and purposes, from the viewpoint
of Oedipus's parents, he was dead and gone and their problem
was solved. The curious part for me, the the
(09:38):
thing that made me think about this again was that when I met
my mother years later, again, who knew such a thing would
happen? But I was in my mid 30s, I
guess. And one of the things that she
told me, which I've had to muse about since, was she told me
that once I had been taken away,which was of course, like day
(10:02):
one, we met. We literally never met as part
of separate as separate biological entities, let's say.
But was that she said she just started telling people shortly
thereafter that I had died, right?
So and I thought, wow, that's curious thing.
(10:23):
And it's also a curious thing totell me that now at 30 some
years old. So.
But again, this is another. Co on right?
But so I thought, well, that's interesting in light of that
parallel with with Oedipus. But but the real aha for me
(10:45):
around that whole story was the about the inescapability because
we carry the these things with us because of the way it defines
our cognitive world. And which dovetails with another
thought that I've had. And I can't remember who came up
with this one of the multitude of smart folks.
(11:05):
And what they were saying was that basically who?
We are. Is our interpretation of the
world, and with all the factors that swirl into that, which we
sort of refer to as the cognitive model or that
hermeneutical base, that we takeeach piece and compare it as a
(11:26):
whole to that image of the wholeof life that we have.
That in some sense that is our uniqueness.
That is what forms elements of us, apart from that kernel
inside that is only God, if we take the Mystics at their word.
(11:49):
But there is this idea, therefore, that who we are is
our interpretation of things andthat our our karma as it were,
or our destiny is intimately connected with our
interpretation of life, the universe and everything, to use
(12:09):
the popular reference. And so.
So when I look at the idea of belonging, for me, the only
groups I've ever belonged to, I think and felt that I belonged
to were groups that basically I had started or that I was the
(12:34):
leader of or that and that the members had chosen themselves as
part of that. And so all question of belonging
was sort of moot at that point. I think the other place that I
have felt this curious sense of belonging I was thinking about
the other day had to do with my relationship with animals,
(12:56):
largely with dogs, but also to some extent with cats and
horses, where one doesn't feel these issues.
And I've always been sort of dogfriendly, so.
So there's been this connection there.
Even as a really early kid. I was remembering some of my
(13:17):
childhood dog friends way back, you know?
And the other thing. Time back.
You have to say time back way. Back Wednesday.
Frankly. Exactly.
And, and also that idea of spending time in nature, that
(13:39):
there is a belongingness that wecan discover there that is, I
would argue, one of our most important types of
belongingness. But as far as belonging this
with groups of people, I have always felt the necessity to
(13:59):
make that by choice. I have had people maybe want to
put that upon me by association.And I've always felt very slow
to want to take that on. And I think we've spoken about
this before, and in my attitude was, you know, you have to find
(14:24):
within yourself the degree to which you want to take on that
belongingness because there is acertain shared karma maybe that
goes along with that. Because when I'm the member of a
group, I immediately start to think as one does it, in what
(14:45):
ways will my autonomy be threatened by this
belongingness? Am I going to have to go along
with things now that I would notgoing to agree with?
Am I going to have to, you know,acquiesce or This is kind of
interesting because it has its dovetails into conversations of
(15:06):
ethics and of politics and the degree to whether the activity
or passivity of our membership in these bodies politic or
bodies social and, you know, andand it goes for religion, you
(15:27):
know, the religions that I grew up.
With none of. Which I find myself to be an
adherent of today. They always had a very explicit
statement about OK, here is whatwe believe, and it was called a
creed. And they made sure every time
they got together that they all set it together so everybody was
(15:51):
on the same page. Even though we all know that if
we were to take these individuals and press them on
the specific details involved inthis creed, most of those
specifics were lost if they everwere found in the 1st place.
So, you know, this kind of dovetails with a fun
(16:14):
conversation that hasn't droppedthat it will have dropped by the
time you're seeing this episode,which is the one about even Ella
Robbie with with Professor Michael Wolff about how
everybody's idea of God is blasphemy or is is idolatrous
(16:36):
because we. Direct our.
Inner relationship to God, perhaps to an image, a mental
image within our cognitive modelwhere the God space sits, the
shiny sparkly God space. But whatever that imagination
(16:56):
is, it's just this petty human minuscule, you know, piss Ant
vision. Of ultimate all dimensional
reality, which obviously is worth next to nothing.
The only thing we know is that it's not that.
Like the pop, like the popular Buddhist?
(17:17):
Go on. Not that.
Like the opposite of Dick Hart. Exactly.
Exactly. So, so, So yeah.
I mean, there, there's what whatdo we take?
How do we balance our individuality with our
belongingness? And I mean, I can definitely say
(17:40):
that I, I guess there are times,there have been rare times when
I've felt probably when I was adolescent when I felt the most
belonging this to a group. I think the way we feel about
our friends at that age is pathologically special, like
(18:02):
they're looking back on it like the, the degree of of loyalty I
felt and the the unshakable belief I had that surely these
would be my best friends for life, you know, and.
And I had a very clear. Vision that that all would be
lost and that we were probably the poorer for it, but that it
(18:25):
was another aspect of fragmentation.
That if we weren't in the modernworld and we were all in an
agricultural, very localized community, you would still be
with most of those people. And for good or for worse.
And, and, and I think in a, in areal way, the sense of community
(18:49):
would be stronger and it would be an interest to support
structure that we do not have now.
And and this dovetails with Small is beautiful and
Schumacher and all those. And, and is, is on point for the
belonging question because I, I,I resonate with a lot of what
(19:10):
you're saying and, and I think belonging has always been really
challenging for me. And there have been times when
my, my head is sort of poked through and, and I've
experienced belonging, albeit fleetingly, without this
(19:31):
question of also losing my sovereignty.
So, so kind of like being being a whole on right, being an
individual and a part of something and those being kind
of harmonious functions as opposed to functions that are in
(19:52):
in contest with one another. But those are peak experiences
like so. So you've probably had the
experience in ceremonies where you start calling in the members
of your tribe and holy shit if you don't belong when that
(20:13):
happens. Might be fleeting, but there
there have certainly been times when I've associated myself
with. The, the Mesa tribe and, and
felt like that's my place and these are my people.
And likewise, I've, I've shared with you and on this podcast
(20:34):
that I woke up October 8th and saw what had happened in Israel
on October 7th, 2023. And maybe my first thought, or
certainly one of my first thoughts were, oh, shit, those
are my people. And I, I wasn't expecting that
(20:55):
at all. But, and I don't necessarily
feel that I belong or, or would feel like so comfortable in
Israel, although I'm curious to go back and check it out because
it's been a long time. But but that sense of these are
my people came from deep inside.Yeah.
Interesting. So yeah, there's some some
(21:18):
mysteries about it I think too, because you know, if those are
my people, that's like a geneticstatement more than anything.
And and that's mysterious that that I could feel a connection
(21:38):
to people based on such a seemingly tenuous or, or remote
tether. Right, right.
Well, see, and that's where for me, you know, in distinction to
that is when I met my mother, mybiological mother, I was able to
(22:02):
find out about 25% of my lineagebecause her father disappeared
when she was young and she didn't know any of his back
story. And my father's back story, that
was all is all completely a blank.
So 3/4 of what I am is a mystery.
(22:22):
I'm pretty sure I'm not Chinese or Eskimo or, you know, Bushman
or. But as far as as far as all
these other things that are supposed to represent serious
loyalties. I got nothing.
You know, I, I, but I get that there's a lot of drama that goes
(22:44):
down with it. So I'm not, I don't entirely
feel like I'm missing out, let'sput it that way.
In other words, I feel somewhat empowered to be generic human to
some degree, if that makes sense.
(23:08):
Although I don't have a my people kind of an impulse,
except that community, as you mentioned, which was a community
of choice and which kind of dovetails into that political
thing. Going into a sidetrack of what
was the difference between the French Revolution, the American
(23:28):
Revolution, and the idea of the American the American
communities had already made conscious volitional
associations in the terms of positive promises not in.
(23:49):
Just a passive acquiescence to aking.
They made active promises to each other and that's what was
the form the body politic as opposed to.
The body politic being you're all subjects of the same king
and you're not taking the activestep of uprising against the
(24:12):
king, but you haven't made any explicit promises apart from you
know. Maybe, maybe you, you, you have
to swear a loyalty somewhere. But it's not.
It's not held exactly the same way.
When you say promises, you're referring to kind of like the
state constitutions that existedat the colony level before the
(24:33):
revolution. Exactly, exactly that.
That was there all all through America and that there was this
idea because they were away fromking, they were away from and it
was like, well, whatever law is going to go down has to go down
between US. And does the law come from God
(24:55):
or does it come from our agreements here?
It just like does my belonging come from my association given
by God or does it come from my association of willing
participants, you know, in the here and now.
And so there's a similar thing because, you know, the, the
(25:19):
broadest understanding of laws is that they outline a
relationship. And so, you know, like laws of
science, usually these specify relationships.
And so maybe that belonging, when we talked about bridging
(25:41):
cultures, there was this need tobe as on the same page to a
certain degree. So maybe the degree of on the
same page in this is related to the degree of belonging that we
feel. Because I mean, you know, and
that's the thing with, with I'venever felt compelled to join a
(26:02):
particular religion per SE because I knew I was not going
to be very good at following their definitions of things.
Like, I like Buddhism a lot. I like Taoism a lot.
But any of the official people in those groups probably would
never claim me as a proponent, though I feel very informed and
(26:27):
enriched by them. Let's say I'm not sure that
because because my model is experience based and because my
experience matches closest to the Buddhist model.
That's the the roots of my association with Buddhism.
(26:49):
But as far as, OK, I'm going to take on metaphysical assumptions
so that I can hold them in common with a group of people.
If I didn't have my own experience to go on, that might
make more sense to me. But and so I'm not saying that
(27:12):
that isn't an appropriate decision for people to make,
maybe even for most people to make, but for those who have to
see for themselves, you're it's very hard to settle for somebody
else's description of what you saw, especially when you have a
very strong suspicion that whoever made-up this description
(27:34):
didn't really see it for themselves.
You know that you're get you what you're getting as a result
of the telephone game, you know?And so, not that there aren't
useful things to be gleaned fromthat when it's used to enlighten
your own experience, but in place of your own experience,
(27:58):
you're kind of running in a darkroom, let's say.
Yeah, I mean, you're, you're kind of calling out the
difference too, between let's say, mysticism and and religion
in that, you know, I was talkingto Ray about this a couple of
nights ago. She was saying she's not
(28:18):
necessarily an advocate for organized religion, except that
the standard set for what it means to be a moral person in
community by many religions is much higher than people would
typically set for themselves. And so giving to the poor and
volunteering and all of that kind of stuff is at least
(28:40):
theoretically encouraged and andsupported in a religious
community and. As long as you're not.
As long as you're talking about the general population and not
the population of Mystics, because.
Genuinely, the mysticism is, is a separate thing where you're
talking about having experience and religion hopefully being a
(29:02):
map that guides you to to have these experiences with higher
probability or, or something like that.
And. Based on the wisdom and insight
of prophets and on to Pasados guys who have gone before us.
Yeah, which is absolutely valid.And and and you got nothing if
you don't start with that. Yeah.
(29:24):
And I don't know how much belonging is important for that.
I think that by the time if you're into the if you're, if
you're on a Mystic path and not a religious path and you're
getting any good results at all,you've gotten the confirmation
that your belonging is cosmic. It's not mundane or temporal.
(29:49):
And that's the only belonging that really matters.
And that's how these guys go getoff, getting burnt at the stake.
And they're like, yeah, whatever.
I don't. I don't.
Think I agree with that. I agree with where you ended up
with it. Like in the in the final
conclusion, that's the only thing that matters.
But I'm not sure both don't matter.
And it's, it's maybe a similar thing to, you know, all of these
(30:14):
dichotomies that we talked aboutin this context where, you know,
we were talking to to Michael Wolff about whether it's matter
or consciousness and he had concluded that it's
consciousness, but I'm inclined to think it's both.
And, and the, you know, I, I still need to make an argument
to him about how synchronicity could exist in a universe that's
(30:39):
at least on one hand fundamentally material.
And, and I think my answer is going to end up having to be
something like, well, the universe is on one hand
fundamentally material and on the other hand, fundamentally of
consciousness. And there's an interaction
between those or those are an interaction.
(31:03):
Interpenetration, if you will. Yeah, or the maybe the the
interaction between them is really the source of reality.
Or, you know, it could the the Taurus shape evokes that.
But but where I was going is that sitting around a a fire
(31:26):
with my kids and and feeling like I belong with them and
spending time together. All of a sudden feeling so
meaningful in that moment and having that sense of belonging
isn't less important to me than the cosmic belonging.
Maybe that just means I'm I havesome enlightenment yet ahead of
(31:47):
me and fair enough. But.
But I think both are important. I think I.
I don't. I'm not saying that it's that
it's necessarily less important,except metaphysically.
In other words, this is the metaphysically You can't not
(32:07):
belong. Sure.
Because there's nothing that's not God, that's what I'm saying.
But by the same token, all the contingent world is God too.
It's just God hidden by God withGod, if you will.
And so, but I think that that it's just about realization.
(32:30):
In other words, people that have, that have had
realizations, they're their personalities win a certain
independence from the social world.
Belonging in social terms is relativized because they have,
(32:55):
if you will, the consolations ofphilosophy.
Because our loved ones pass awayand we pass away and you know,
and all that stuff. And we're talking about kind of
the tension between not being attached to stuff and our
attachment to stuff being a source of meaning.
(33:16):
Well, I know there's no. Any stuff?
I mean people. Need bathrooms and restaurants?
Yeah, but I'm talking about people.
No, but I mean, I mean, this is part of part of the deal of
being born in a body and the people's part of that too.
Yeah, yeah. I'm just differentiating the and
maybe it's a philosophical errorto differentiate the attachment
(33:40):
that we have to people from the attachment that we have to
stuff. You're right, they're all born
of the body. But but I think the the
attachment or connection that wehave with people is one of the
things that makes life most worth suffering through and and
(34:08):
gaining an understanding of the nature of the universe and our
place in it. Like the the Mystic outcomes
that you're pointing to are also.
I think I just wouldn't use the word.
Attachment for that. Connection.
Relationship because attachment implies what I'm trying to get
(34:32):
away from, which is a clinging, which is that that drive.
To totalize, if you will. That was spoken about before in
previous episodes. I think I'm a little and this
might be like basically giving voice to I had a realization a
(34:54):
few years ago that is so so my parents died when I was 10 weeks
old for our for our listeners, and a couple of years ago I had
this like massive between the eyes aha stopping
uncontrollably. I have not been able to grieve
(35:15):
my mother because doing so wouldacknowledge that she's never
coming back that kind of like. So I've been holding on to this
and all of my baggage, my compulsions, my depression, my
anxiety, like all that stuff is all because I'm still holding on
(35:36):
to her. I don't.
I don't know, you know, ultimately that will resolve
itself, I'm sure. And, and maybe I'll keep
chipping away at it in the meantime, but.
And you know, if you got the right glasses, you would look
like Harry Potter a little bit too.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I've heard the comparison.
(35:58):
I'm not surprised. So, so maybe I'm just giving
voice to, I'm a little bit attached to attachment.
And I also think there's a spiritual bypass people do when
they say, oh, I don't need any of this stuff.
I'm just going to catapult beyond it.
And it's all about my relationship to God and my
(36:20):
understanding of the universe. And I don't need all this stuff
and all these people and whatever.
And I've done that. That was also the compulsion to
move out into the mountains and try to build a fortress for
myself where I wouldn't need anybody.
And it didn't work right, Right.So the.
Old man does that, does it comesto that place, it's a bit
different. It's different for sure.
(36:41):
It's different. Yeah, yeah.
And no, I mean, I think that that the, the, the type of
attachment that I'm thinking about, I think it shows up in
Oedipus when he's an old man, you remember what he does.
(37:04):
He takes a brooch, which is, youknow, with the big pointy thing
on it, and he gouges his eyes out which and now he can see.
Imagine doing the second one. The second one.
The second eye. Oh, he did both.
Oh, I know. Yeah.
(37:26):
Oh, I know. And then one of his and then one
of his daughters leads him around for the rest of his life.
Right. And she's doting and they're
connected and she's his eyes in a way.
And remember, this is the dude that solved the Riddle of the
Sphinx, which I didn't remember a few episodes back, and which
(37:48):
is a way to tell us that he has,he's gotten some grasp on the
mystery that is man, which is the solution to the Riddle of
the Sphinx. So I I see the gouging of the
eyes out and then his new found ability to see with a new
(38:10):
insight as a turning away from the world of attachment and the
the looking to the world for theaha or the fulfillment that will
make life make sense that the looking that you need to do is
(38:31):
the looking that you don't need your eyes for.
It's almost like that's the postrealization of destiny
experience. Like once you realize your
destiny, you can sort of move onunencumbered.
And accepted it right? That Amour fati love of 1's
(38:55):
fate. Yeah, and.
There's also to do with a deep acceptance, which is similar to
what you're talking about with your mother.
See. Because for me, I've got nothing
like that, even though I met my mother. 10 weeks was a
difference maker I think. I it well, absolutely, those are
an important 10 weeks and but, but like for me, I'm I'm
(39:17):
introduced to this person and it's like, OK, this person is
supposed to be your mother and there's certain symptoms that I
think we're largely unfakeable. So they yeah, there's no.
Symptoms. Well, you know, maybe that's not
the word characteristics, you know.
Yeah. And that I say symptoms because
(39:42):
it had to do with a certain propensity of verboseness and,
you know, that, you know, kind of intellectual symptoms, you
might say. But, but so it's so it was.
It was inescapable, incontrovertible that this was
in all likelihood in fact, my mother.
But it was it was the same as ifsomebody had taken a random
(40:05):
person that might be walking by in the mall who was of the
appropriate age and said, OK, this is your mother.
And you feel that same lack of anything.
It's like what I don't I didn't feel anything that you wouldn't
(40:25):
feel if someone had been introduced a random person in
the mall to you as your mother, you know, And I went and hung
out with her for a couple days, and it was clear that
intellectually, we were running the same kind of hardware.
And, you know, she's a professorof psychology.
(40:48):
In the university in the Midwest.
And and yet there was absolutelyno connection there and
certainly nothing that I would imagine to be what a motherly
connection would be. And you know, my adopted mother,
(41:10):
I didn't have much of what like,I mean, I see what other
people's relationships with their mothers are like and
Mother's Day and all that. And with all of that, I got
nothing. I just got nothing.
And when my when my adopted mother, when when our, when our
relationship was an adult relationship, I didn't really
(41:35):
want to get touched by her. I didn't really feel any of that
kind of warm fuzzy energy that people typically feel around
their mother. And you know, and yet look at
the situation. I should be.
I should be at least grateful. And it's not that.
Conceptually, I'm not grateful, and yet that doesn't make a fit
(42:02):
there. Where there wasn't really a.
Yeah, gratitude's not a substitute for, you know what
we're talking about. Yeah, yeah.
Exactly. Having been bestowed with a
sense of of belonging and security and you know, all the
things that come with that. I just wanted to say one more
thing about Oedipus gouging his eyes out because there's it, it
(42:25):
also reminds me of sort of the artifice of the sensory world.
And maybe you said this in a way, but I guess I just wanted
to put a stamp on it that that gouging his eyes out was also a
way of transcending, getting information about the world
(42:49):
through his senses and instead getting it through insight or
whatever you want to call beyondsenses.
And you sort of you, I think yousaid that, but I just wanted to
that's kind of a striking symbolpost fate, moving beyond the
(43:13):
need to perceive the world through the senses.
And yet somehow now being able to perceive the world more
clearly than ever before. Yeah, yeah, that I'm saying that
the senses are are illusory. Yeah, yeah.
And and so there's, so there was, there's an interesting
(43:35):
thing there. And I mean, there's a lot more
to unpack around that story for sure that, you know, I think a
lot of it is also related to identity.
Belonging, of course, dovetails right in there with identity.
And for an orphan kid, it that becomes a little tricky.
(44:00):
And again, all the devil is in the details because, and this
is, you know, when we talked about Freud, we talked about
that that and of course, it's dovetails with the idea of life
cycles having chapters and things like that, that certain
things happen at certain chapters.
And then if things are buggered up during that chapters natural
(44:26):
time period that that that bugger up kind of thing just
sort of gets wound in, dealt into the deck because the
developmental agenda goes on. And so that if Chapter 1 was, it
was incomplete in some way, Chapter 2 is still coming in and
(44:48):
it's going to lay on top of Chapter 1.
And don't worry that incomplete stuff coming back.
Exactly exactly because it's theP under the mattress in every
new chapter might be a new mattress, but the P is still
under there. And, and you know, I mean, I,
you would have to say that my original trauma, if you will,
(45:13):
was, was literally day one. And so that there, there's,
there's no mattress under that, right?
So, and it's, and it, and it took a long time for me to feel
what really was that P what wasn't right about that?
(45:35):
What, how was that translating across?
And that's of course what Freud sort of turned us on to was that
anything that happened developmentally is going to have
repercussions. And those repercussions are
actually the thread that you canuse to follow back to unfold the
original issue. And, and, and then of course, we
(45:59):
talked about how that original issue also maps into your body
somewhere in some ways. And, and, and interestingly, it,
it, the topics have also come upabout contemplative disciplines.
And one of my more recent one string banjo songs is about how
people have heard this, they're probably sick of it,
(46:20):
Propositional dispositional, propositional dispositional.
But that's why I keep harping onit is because there is this idea
that it isn't just by the content of our thought changing
that we come to a new place. These major transformations
happen from shiftings in the in the operating system, not in the
(46:48):
programs that the operating system are running, if you will.
That, that I've said before thatit's, it's not a different
payload, it's a whole different acquisition and delivery system
that's going to be acquiring different kinds of things as
opposed to different formulations of the same thing.
(47:11):
And how we root those out. I think that that's because, you
know, I've been, I've been, I'vebeen doing some reading for one
of our upcoming guests that I think is going to be great.
And it's all about couple coupleof his his, the the topics that
he deep dives into our consciousness and the idea of
(47:31):
happiness and the human pursuit of happiness.
And how I started thinking, you know, any of the people that
I've worked with, honestly, it'snever really been on my agenda
to make them happier or to help them become happier.
In the spirit of Full disclosure, that's never been on
(47:53):
my agenda. Now what has been on my agenda?
And maybe this has to do with the self-proclaimed attempt to
serve the role of a somewhat of a psychopomp.
There's a great. Word for you.
(48:15):
Is that pomp psychopomp? Yeah.
I guess I'll assume from the etymology what what it means.
Yeah, or go ahead and search it and get in and read the
definition, because that's a fun, fun ass word.
We don't run into great psycho pomps nowadays, and I'm not
saying I'm a great one, but I'vegiven it a try at least, you
(48:37):
know? Oh, that's not what I was
expecting exactly. I'm in Greek mythology, a guide
of souls to the place of the dead.
A guide to the Underworld or to the part of of the human
existence. That's the unseen part.
(48:59):
And of course, you know, the poor guy in Ayahuasca being the
vine of the dead. There is a certain similarity
there. But the idea that I was really
thinking of as psycho pomp, it'susually we, it's usually the the
boatman, right, Sharon, the boatman bringing people to the
world of shades. But the idea is that, I mean, I
(49:22):
really feel that what we're trying to bridge to is to deeper
meaning, not more complicated analytical thoughts, but to
meanings that live within us in the sense of being potent,
fomentable elements of the collective unconscious.
(49:47):
Juicy aspects of who it is to bea human, what it is to be a
human, things that will enlighten us as to our deeper
nature, that will bring about a deeper fulfillment of who we are
(50:08):
than just being happy. Because the science of being
happy means you go out and you ask 1000 people what they are,
they're happy or not, and then what makes them happy.
And what you'll find out is that.
Of the 1000 people, not a not one in 1000 understands really
(50:30):
the potential of human fulfillment, at least not like a
Mystic does. And what a Mystic will tell you
is you ain't seen nothing yet. You don't know what you're
missing. You can't even think about this
because it's so beyond your capacity that it just leaves you
(50:52):
with your mouth hanging open. And only then do you know what
you're missing, right? And so asking a bunch of people
about something that they know nothing about gives you useless
information. The only real true human
happiness to do justice to that term is like even Ella Robbie's
(51:17):
idea of a perfect man. The the the fulfillment of the
the chunsu for Confucius or Aristotle's The Good Life is 1
in whom all the potential of being a human is fulfilled,
which is a pretty tall order. But the idea is, did you?
(51:40):
You know, you move closer and closer, and as long as you're
moving closer, you're moving in the right direction and you're
better off than if you were moving in any other direction or
not moving at. All.
And then you just have to set your sails and the letter RIP
right? Tie that back to dispositional
and propositional because I think, I think you were saying
(52:03):
that we don't achieve great, we don't achieve growth and the and
a deeper experience of meaning through an intellectual process.
We experience it through kind ofa fundamental change in our in
the way we perceive right in theoperating system, not in the
(52:23):
software. And in our interpretive faculty,
we're seeing different things. In.
That interpretive sense of seeing.
At least as far as I know it. It's experiences that that
create that we have to have, experiences that that shake up
(52:44):
our mental models. Sorry to use a mundane phrase
there, but it's the one that came to mind.
So we have to shake those up, realize they don't work and get
a new, you know, download the updated operating system to make
sense of the experience that we had.
And that's what a good psycho pomp hopes for, to shake you up
(53:09):
a little bit, right? And you think of Don Juan with
Carlos, He wants to turn his inner world upside down so that
it can find a new arrangement. And I mean, and it's a good
place to start maybe to the ideathat understanding that our
picture of things is kind of ProTem and you know, for for
(53:32):
serving an immediate purpose, but it's not maybe ultimate and
that that there are improvable versions of us.
And this idea of dispositional versus propositional.
Propositional is thinking different things, Dispositional
is being a different person. And I would argue with with the
(53:53):
formula before that if our interpretation of the world is
who we are, then the way we become a different person is by
empowering our different ways tointerpret the world.
And that means by having different experiences, and
particularly experiences that might.
(54:14):
Shake us up a little bit. That to me was the IT is not
just the point of ceremonies. That's the point of Africa,
right? Is that?
For for a first world. Person that's a kind of it can
be a kind of a shaking up experience and that's that's
what internal martial arts is with people to do some of these
(54:34):
practices. It provides an internal kind of
shaking up then another vision of ourselves.
Well, all that is stretching that, that thing that I don't
have a great word for that. Maybe it's just a big cognitive
model. I want to call it our human
utical base because it's the thing that we always refer back
to. That sense of the whole, that
(54:56):
picture of how of life, the world, and everything that every
new piece gets held up against to understand where it fits in
well, that picture that we're fitting everything into in the
process of sense making in important way is you in your
(55:18):
contingent extension, not you asGod, you as person in the world.
And so, you know, good psychopomperey should be pushing
us into places that stretch thathermeneutical base, that give us
(55:39):
more dimensionalized picture of life, the world, and everything.
I think that is a a mission statement for us.
And I think that's where you started on this thread too, that
that what we're trying to do here isn't just have
intellectual discussions, it's and, and, and maybe I've sold it
(56:02):
short a little bit, you know, saying we're describing A
cognitive model because we are, but we're also very much hoping
that our experience of meaning is informed by these
conversations stretching us or certainly, I certainly hope for
(56:25):
that and, and experience that and likewise for our listeners
that that. Have excluded that too, yeah.
Hopefully we're stretching theirhermeneutical base so that for.
Our guests as well, I'm hoping. Yeah, I mean that that's a great
(56:45):
outcome too, if if we can do it.If we can muster it.
Some of them have have have saidthat or something to that
effect, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, at least it's been fun. That's the low bar.
At least it's been fun and thanks for all the fish.
And thanks for all the fish. Yeah, exactly.
(57:08):
That might be stopping point fortoday.
Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, I think that
the take away, particularly on the topic of belonging, if I
wanted to have it, you know, an inspirational moment, it might
be that that it's really an important kind of belonging is
(57:33):
the kind that we build. I'm not saying that the kinds
that were born with or that, youknow, are discovered aren't,
don't have a certain value, but that.
But that, yeah, maybe that's whyI love the idea of an
intentional community when I wasyounger, is that I do think that
(57:54):
humans in collaboration and cooperation manifest the
greatest potential. And so a certain type of
belonging is necessary. Maybe for every kind of great
achievement. It might be as important as
(58:15):
slaves to borrow from the comedian.
You know who I mean, right? He got in trouble.
I know you like to quote George Carlin.
Is that who we're talking? No, it isn't Carlin.
They tried to cancel him. He's coming back now.
Oh, geez. What if you know Louis CK?
(58:41):
Louis CK is the man. That's who I'm thinking of.
Yeah. And it could be the cooperation
works even better than slavery, and that, you know, this may be
slavery's only the lowest form of cooperation.
Oh man, I might have to go back and listen to that bit.
(59:03):
I need more context. Yeah, no, it's a funny bit.
And, and, and the real, the realseed of it is that that you
know, what makes cooperation, and we've talked about this in
terms of organizational stuff. What makes real cooperation
possible is a type of belonging.And we know that we don't get
(59:26):
good belonging if we go around othering people.
And we have to be honest with ourself about what othering
people means, because othering people in the name of not
othering people is still othering people.
Othering people by any other name is still othering people.
(59:47):
And so, so, you know, that's thethat's the other side of
belonging, right? Is you can't, you can't develop
a sense of belonging if you're being othered ferociously.
And so, so yeah, I mean their belonging is an important thing
(01:00:09):
and. Autonomy is an important thing,
and I think even Laudsa Archwonza has talked about this.
Certainly Confucius is a whole social theory about balancing
our personal needs and desires with our social needs and
desires and our familial obligations and our, you know,
(01:00:29):
so. So, yeah, there's a whole
interesting topic there and the fact that we have some degree of
choice and some degree of no choice and and all of that.
And where do we sit, You know, and this is, you know, I'm
somebody who went out in the desert because when Voltaire
said hell is other people, it's like, I hear you, brother.
(01:00:52):
I was, I was in Santa Fe and theguy I was working for got in
trouble because he didn't cut his weeds down.
And now all the people were having a hissy fits because
there were weeds in his front yard.
We're trying to do all of this research to discover all these
things that nobody knew and doing all the serious thing.
And now the weeds because the other humans are having issues
(01:01:15):
about weeds. And it's like, are you really
serious? I gotta get away.
I gotta get away, you know, giveme.
I need some margin and plenty ofweeds in the margin, you know,
And that's where I am now. I've got acres and acres of
weeds to keep the humans at Bay,so belonging is great but get
(01:01:37):
you some weeds. Well, there's a few threads
we'll pick up on in future episodes, I'm sure.
That was good. Thanks, Brian.
Yep, absolutely. You guys ever have a good day
again?
Good morning to you, Brian. It's afternoon here, but
morning. Yeah.
How are you doing? Good.
Good afternoon to you, Sir. I'm doing pretty well.
I just drove back across the country from New Mexico to
Philadelphia, and I'm back here for fall and yeah, it's all
right. I'm getting readjusted to city
life. And whole different world, huh?
(00:36):
Yeah. Yeah, it changes reality.
Yeah, it does. And and here it's getting cold.
You know, I'm I'm back in my fleece and wearing my warm hat
and it's going to warm up. But we're actually in that phase
that's good for working well. It's not too hot, but it's not
(00:57):
so cold that it's prohibitive. And we're in that sweet spot
across the equinox, so. Got.
A hay while the sun shines here.And cut some firewood.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And check my my roof.
I need to make it up onto the top roof and see what the what
the ravages of time have wroughtsince last year.
(01:18):
So it's Rust never sleeps, you know that's.
That's part of the reality. Yeah, and you'll have snow
laying up there soon. Oh I know, that's why I better
my best look now while I can seewhat clever thing I can paint
over at all. Most of it's that new metal
roof, but I still have that up. I got so creative with my
(01:38):
geometry that it doesn't lend itself to much you know?
So we'll see. I'd like to put metal on it, but
I might need to use non euclidean geometry to do that.
So I don't know, it's a special kind of geometry, yeah.
Iconic sections, or so you know.But little Lobashevsky never
(02:00):
hurt anybody. Yeah, so, so we're in the midst
of the Jewish High Holidays and I'm, I'm thinking back to when
we started doing this because itwas around the same time.
And I remember we were talking about prayer and what is that
all about and some stuff like that this time last year.
(02:20):
And a thing that's been on my mind the last few days kind of
going through this is the topic of belonging.
And what a slippery and vital thing it is at the same time.
And, you know, we've been checking out different
(02:43):
synagogues and at once we, we have a sense that we don't
belong and it's not the right service for us.
And it, you know, it's just not the right vibe.
But they're very welcoming and want us to have a sense of
belonging. So there's like belonging has
been coming up around community that way, you know, how much is
(03:07):
it our choice to just belong versus the, the situation being
right? And then I've been thinking
about belonging in a really individual, personal way to
where, you know, I don't know ifI belong in Philadelphia and I
don't know if I belong when I'm hanging out with Ray's family.
(03:30):
I feel like an outsider. And I don't, you know, you and I
were both orphans. I I don't know that I ever felt
I belonged in my own family. And so, yeah, it's just been on
my mind a lot as kind of like the center of the reflection it
for these high Holidays, which Iwasn't expecting necessarily,
but I thought I'd toss it out there and yeah, see what comes
(03:54):
up. Well, yeah, I mean that's a
tricky one for me because as yousaid, being an orphan one the.
Foundation of your personality is kind of at least that you may
not belong. And so you know, my initial
(04:21):
response as you brought the question up was?
God, I wonder whether my experience really has much to
enlighten that topic at all, except perhaps by its privation
because the the groups, the psychology that I arrived with.
(04:57):
Sort of put me in a condition ofnot really feeling a belonging
and that has to do with that early bonding with a mother.
And it's really tangled up with identity, you know, And that's
why I had that. There's a lot of Aha's at a
certain point, not that many years ago all around Oedipus
(05:21):
Rex. And you know, the thing that
always hypnotizes people about the story of Oedipus Rex is this
idea of him sleeping with his mother, who you know, right?
So that's, that's, that's the thing that hypnotizes people
(05:43):
about that. And that's maybe the only part
that makes it out of the story. But the interesting thing, the
parallels that I found in there was that he was of course
orphaned, though his parents were alive.
He was orphaned because there was a prophecy, which was pretty
(06:07):
heavy magic in those days that he would kill his father and
marry his mother. I'm pretty sure that was which
is an interesting, interesting character shows up in this with
his which is Tyresius right? Which is isn't he blind?
The blind seer, maybe I I think,if I'm not misremembering.
(06:31):
There is a blind seer in that story.
I don't know if it's Tyreseus I,I.
It's been a long time. Yeah, and I, he may be the one
making the prophecies, but but so, so, you know, the parallel
in my story was, well, it shouldbe said specifically, Oedipus
(06:52):
was given to, I think it was a woodcutter or somebody who was
going to travel into the wilderness with the instructions
by Oedipus's father, who was theking, take this baby out of the
woods and let the woods have them.
And not with the intention that he would grow up as a feral
child, but with the intention, of course, he would be eaten in
(07:15):
short order. And the woodcutter, having
compassion, had second thoughts about the whole idea.
And so he gave them to a traveler that was going to a far
and distant land. So this way, there's no blood on
my hands and what's the odds anything's going to happen?
(07:36):
He's going to go to this farm just to land.
Nobody will know who the hell heis.
The fact you know, he's not coming back here.
He's not. But you know, fate the, and this
is the maybe the real story about Oedipus is the
inescapability of cert of our fate.
And that, and maybe the insightful part is that it's
inescapability is because we carry it within.
(07:56):
Ourselves. We, we can, yes.
And there's a great quote I, I like about that, about our, our
fate being kind of the, the manifestation of the, the
unconscious material that we're never able to integrate.
(08:19):
But I also wanted to say that there's something special about
fate as it relates to mother andfather and what those represent,
whether it's earth and sky, tiger and dragon, yin and Yang,
I mean all of the, the, the binary, right?
So, so fate being being relativeto resolving fundamental
(08:53):
dynamics. I mean our in our lives is is an
interesting idea but go on. Well, and I, and I've had this
idea before where I've said thatevery life really is a Co on
that is a Zen Riddle that that is that there is some maybe
absurdity at its core. And yet through that absurdity
is some transcension, some doorway to transcension.
(09:15):
So, but anyway, what I was goingto say was the curious part.
There was that for all intents and purposes, from the viewpoint
of Oedipus's parents, he was dead and gone and their problem
was solved. The curious part for me, the the
(09:38):
thing that made me think about this again was that when I met
my mother years later, again, who knew such a thing would
happen? But I was in my mid 30s, I
guess. And one of the things that she
told me, which I've had to muse about since, was she told me
that once I had been taken away,which was of course, like day
(10:02):
one, we met. We literally never met as part
of separate as separate biological entities, let's say.
But was that she said she just started telling people shortly
thereafter that I had died, right?
So and I thought, wow, that's curious thing.
(10:23):
And it's also a curious thing totell me that now at 30 some
years old. So.
But again, this is another. Co on right?
But so I thought, well, that's interesting in light of that
parallel with with Oedipus. But but the real aha for me
(10:45):
around that whole story was the about the inescapability because
we carry the these things with us because of the way it defines
our cognitive world. And which dovetails with another
thought that I've had. And I can't remember who came up
with this one of the multitude of smart folks.
(11:05):
And what they were saying was that basically who?
We are. Is our interpretation of the
world, and with all the factors that swirl into that, which we
sort of refer to as the cognitive model or that
hermeneutical base, that we takeeach piece and compare it as a
(11:26):
whole to that image of the wholeof life that we have.
That in some sense that is our uniqueness.
That is what forms elements of us, apart from that kernel
inside that is only God, if we take the Mystics at their word.
(11:49):
But there is this idea, therefore, that who we are is
our interpretation of things andthat our our karma as it were,
or our destiny is intimately connected with our
interpretation of life, the universe and everything, to use
(12:09):
the popular reference. And so.
So when I look at the idea of belonging, for me, the only
groups I've ever belonged to, I think and felt that I belonged
to were groups that basically I had started or that I was the
(12:34):
leader of or that and that the members had chosen themselves as
part of that. And so all question of belonging
was sort of moot at that point. I think the other place that I
have felt this curious sense of belonging I was thinking about
the other day had to do with my relationship with animals,
(12:56):
largely with dogs, but also to some extent with cats and
horses, where one doesn't feel these issues.
And I've always been sort of dogfriendly, so.
So there's been this connection there.
Even as a really early kid. I was remembering some of my
(13:17):
childhood dog friends way back, you know?
And the other thing. Time back.
You have to say time back way. Back Wednesday.
Frankly. Exactly.
And, and also that idea of spending time in nature, that
(13:39):
there is a belongingness that wecan discover there that is, I
would argue, one of our most important types of
belongingness. But as far as belonging this
with groups of people, I have always felt the necessity to
(13:59):
make that by choice. I have had people maybe want to
put that upon me by association.And I've always felt very slow
to want to take that on. And I think we've spoken about
this before, and in my attitude was, you know, you have to find
(14:24):
within yourself the degree to which you want to take on that
belongingness because there is acertain shared karma maybe that
goes along with that. Because when I'm the member of a
group, I immediately start to think as one does it, in what
(14:45):
ways will my autonomy be threatened by this
belongingness? Am I going to have to go along
with things now that I would notgoing to agree with?
Am I going to have to, you know,acquiesce or This is kind of
interesting because it has its dovetails into conversations of
(15:06):
ethics and of politics and the degree to whether the activity
or passivity of our membership in these bodies politic or
bodies social and, you know, andand it goes for religion, you
(15:27):
know, the religions that I grew up.
With none of. Which I find myself to be an
adherent of today. They always had a very explicit
statement about OK, here is whatwe believe, and it was called a
creed. And they made sure every time
they got together that they all set it together so everybody was
(15:51):
on the same page. Even though we all know that if
we were to take these individuals and press them on
the specific details involved inthis creed, most of those
specifics were lost if they everwere found in the 1st place.
So, you know, this kind of dovetails with a fun
(16:14):
conversation that hasn't droppedthat it will have dropped by the
time you're seeing this episode,which is the one about even Ella
Robbie with with Professor Michael Wolff about how
everybody's idea of God is blasphemy or is is idolatrous
(16:36):
because we. Direct our.
Inner relationship to God, perhaps to an image, a mental
image within our cognitive modelwhere the God space sits, the
shiny sparkly God space. But whatever that imagination
(16:56):
is, it's just this petty human minuscule, you know, piss Ant
vision. Of ultimate all dimensional
reality, which obviously is worth next to nothing.
The only thing we know is that it's not that.
Like the pop, like the popular Buddhist?
(17:17):
Go on. Not that.
Like the opposite of Dick Hart. Exactly.
Exactly. So, so, So yeah.
I mean, there, there's what whatdo we take?
How do we balance our individuality with our
belongingness? And I mean, I can definitely say
(17:40):
that I, I guess there are times,there have been rare times when
I've felt probably when I was adolescent when I felt the most
belonging this to a group. I think the way we feel about
our friends at that age is pathologically special, like
(18:02):
they're looking back on it like the, the degree of of loyalty I
felt and the the unshakable belief I had that surely these
would be my best friends for life, you know, and.
And I had a very clear. Vision that that all would be
lost and that we were probably the poorer for it, but that it
(18:25):
was another aspect of fragmentation.
That if we weren't in the modernworld and we were all in an
agricultural, very localized community, you would still be
with most of those people. And for good or for worse.
And, and, and I think in a, in areal way, the sense of community
(18:49):
would be stronger and it would be an interest to support
structure that we do not have now.
And and this dovetails with Small is beautiful and
Schumacher and all those. And, and is, is on point for the
belonging question because I, I,I resonate with a lot of what
(19:10):
you're saying and, and I think belonging has always been really
challenging for me. And there have been times when
my, my head is sort of poked through and, and I've
experienced belonging, albeit fleetingly, without this
(19:31):
question of also losing my sovereignty.
So, so kind of like being being a whole on right, being an
individual and a part of something and those being kind
of harmonious functions as opposed to functions that are in
(19:52):
in contest with one another. But those are peak experiences
like so. So you've probably had the
experience in ceremonies where you start calling in the members
of your tribe and holy shit if you don't belong when that
(20:13):
happens. Might be fleeting, but there
there have certainly been times when I've associated myself
with. The, the Mesa tribe and, and
felt like that's my place and these are my people.
And likewise, I've, I've shared with you and on this podcast
(20:34):
that I woke up October 8th and saw what had happened in Israel
on October 7th, 2023. And maybe my first thought, or
certainly one of my first thoughts were, oh, shit, those
are my people. And I, I wasn't expecting that
(20:55):
at all. But, and I don't necessarily
feel that I belong or, or would feel like so comfortable in
Israel, although I'm curious to go back and check it out because
it's been a long time. But but that sense of these are
my people came from deep inside.Yeah.
Interesting. So yeah, there's some some
(21:18):
mysteries about it I think too, because you know, if those are
my people, that's like a geneticstatement more than anything.
And and that's mysterious that that I could feel a connection
(21:38):
to people based on such a seemingly tenuous or, or remote
tether. Right, right.
Well, see, and that's where for me, you know, in distinction to
that is when I met my mother, mybiological mother, I was able to
(22:02):
find out about 25% of my lineagebecause her father disappeared
when she was young and she didn't know any of his back
story. And my father's back story, that
was all is all completely a blank.
So 3/4 of what I am is a mystery.
(22:22):
I'm pretty sure I'm not Chinese or Eskimo or, you know, Bushman
or. But as far as as far as all
these other things that are supposed to represent serious
loyalties. I got nothing.
You know, I, I, but I get that there's a lot of drama that goes
(22:44):
down with it. So I'm not, I don't entirely
feel like I'm missing out, let'sput it that way.
In other words, I feel somewhat empowered to be generic human to
some degree, if that makes sense.
(23:08):
Although I don't have a my people kind of an impulse,
except that community, as you mentioned, which was a community
of choice and which kind of dovetails into that political
thing. Going into a sidetrack of what
was the difference between the French Revolution, the American
(23:28):
Revolution, and the idea of the American the American
communities had already made conscious volitional
associations in the terms of positive promises not in.
(23:49):
Just a passive acquiescence to aking.
They made active promises to each other and that's what was
the form the body politic as opposed to.
The body politic being you're all subjects of the same king
and you're not taking the activestep of uprising against the
(24:12):
king, but you haven't made any explicit promises apart from you
know. Maybe, maybe you, you, you have
to swear a loyalty somewhere. But it's not.
It's not held exactly the same way.
When you say promises, you're referring to kind of like the
state constitutions that existedat the colony level before the
(24:33):
revolution. Exactly, exactly that.
That was there all all through America and that there was this
idea because they were away fromking, they were away from and it
was like, well, whatever law is going to go down has to go down
between US. And does the law come from God
(24:55):
or does it come from our agreements here?
It just like does my belonging come from my association given
by God or does it come from my association of willing
participants, you know, in the here and now.
And so there's a similar thing because, you know, the, the
(25:19):
broadest understanding of laws is that they outline a
relationship. And so, you know, like laws of
science, usually these specify relationships.
And so maybe that belonging, when we talked about bridging
(25:41):
cultures, there was this need tobe as on the same page to a
certain degree. So maybe the degree of on the
same page in this is related to the degree of belonging that we
feel. Because I mean, you know, and
that's the thing with, with I'venever felt compelled to join a
(26:02):
particular religion per SE because I knew I was not going
to be very good at following their definitions of things.
Like, I like Buddhism a lot. I like Taoism a lot.
But any of the official people in those groups probably would
never claim me as a proponent, though I feel very informed and
(26:27):
enriched by them. Let's say I'm not sure that
because because my model is experience based and because my
experience matches closest to the Buddhist model.
That's the the roots of my association with Buddhism.
(26:49):
But as far as, OK, I'm going to take on metaphysical assumptions
so that I can hold them in common with a group of people.
If I didn't have my own experience to go on, that might
make more sense to me. But and so I'm not saying that
(27:12):
that isn't an appropriate decision for people to make,
maybe even for most people to make, but for those who have to
see for themselves, you're it's very hard to settle for somebody
else's description of what you saw, especially when you have a
very strong suspicion that whoever made-up this description
(27:34):
didn't really see it for themselves.
You know that you're get you what you're getting as a result
of the telephone game, you know?And so, not that there aren't
useful things to be gleaned fromthat when it's used to enlighten
your own experience, but in place of your own experience,
(27:58):
you're kind of running in a darkroom, let's say.
Yeah, I mean, you're, you're kind of calling out the
difference too, between let's say, mysticism and and religion
in that, you know, I was talkingto Ray about this a couple of
nights ago. She was saying she's not
(28:18):
necessarily an advocate for organized religion, except that
the standard set for what it means to be a moral person in
community by many religions is much higher than people would
typically set for themselves. And so giving to the poor and
volunteering and all of that kind of stuff is at least
(28:40):
theoretically encouraged and andsupported in a religious
community and. As long as you're not.
As long as you're talking about the general population and not
the population of Mystics, because.
Genuinely, the mysticism is, is a separate thing where you're
talking about having experience and religion hopefully being a
(29:02):
map that guides you to to have these experiences with higher
probability or, or something like that.
And. Based on the wisdom and insight
of prophets and on to Pasados guys who have gone before us.
Yeah, which is absolutely valid.And and and you got nothing if
you don't start with that. Yeah.
(29:24):
And I don't know how much belonging is important for that.
I think that by the time if you're into the if you're, if
you're on a Mystic path and not a religious path and you're
getting any good results at all,you've gotten the confirmation
that your belonging is cosmic. It's not mundane or temporal.
(29:49):
And that's the only belonging that really matters.
And that's how these guys go getoff, getting burnt at the stake.
And they're like, yeah, whatever.
I don't. I don't.
Think I agree with that. I agree with where you ended up
with it. Like in the in the final
conclusion, that's the only thing that matters.
But I'm not sure both don't matter.
And it's, it's maybe a similar thing to, you know, all of these
(30:14):
dichotomies that we talked aboutin this context where, you know,
we were talking to to Michael Wolff about whether it's matter
or consciousness and he had concluded that it's
consciousness, but I'm inclined to think it's both.
And, and the, you know, I, I still need to make an argument
to him about how synchronicity could exist in a universe that's
(30:39):
at least on one hand fundamentally material.
And, and I think my answer is going to end up having to be
something like, well, the universe is on one hand
fundamentally material and on the other hand, fundamentally of
consciousness. And there's an interaction
between those or those are an interaction.
(31:03):
Interpenetration, if you will. Yeah, or the maybe the the
interaction between them is really the source of reality.
Or, you know, it could the the Taurus shape evokes that.
But but where I was going is that sitting around a a fire
(31:26):
with my kids and and feeling like I belong with them and
spending time together. All of a sudden feeling so
meaningful in that moment and having that sense of belonging
isn't less important to me than the cosmic belonging.
Maybe that just means I'm I havesome enlightenment yet ahead of
(31:47):
me and fair enough. But.
But I think both are important. I think I.
I don't. I'm not saying that it's that
it's necessarily less important,except metaphysically.
In other words, this is the metaphysically You can't not
(32:07):
belong. Sure.
Because there's nothing that's not God, that's what I'm saying.
But by the same token, all the contingent world is God too.
It's just God hidden by God withGod, if you will.
And so, but I think that that it's just about realization.
(32:30):
In other words, people that have, that have had
realizations, they're their personalities win a certain
independence from the social world.
Belonging in social terms is relativized because they have,
(32:55):
if you will, the consolations ofphilosophy.
Because our loved ones pass awayand we pass away and you know,
and all that stuff. And we're talking about kind of
the tension between not being attached to stuff and our
attachment to stuff being a source of meaning.
(33:16):
Well, I know there's no. Any stuff?
I mean people. Need bathrooms and restaurants?
Yeah, but I'm talking about people.
No, but I mean, I mean, this is part of part of the deal of
being born in a body and the people's part of that too.
Yeah, yeah. I'm just differentiating the and
maybe it's a philosophical errorto differentiate the attachment
(33:40):
that we have to people from the attachment that we have to
stuff. You're right, they're all born
of the body. But but I think the the
attachment or connection that wehave with people is one of the
things that makes life most worth suffering through and and
(34:08):
gaining an understanding of the nature of the universe and our
place in it. Like the the Mystic outcomes
that you're pointing to are also.
I think I just wouldn't use the word.
Attachment for that. Connection.
Relationship because attachment implies what I'm trying to get
(34:32):
away from, which is a clinging, which is that that drive.
To totalize, if you will. That was spoken about before in
previous episodes. I think I'm a little and this
might be like basically giving voice to I had a realization a
(34:54):
few years ago that is so so my parents died when I was 10 weeks
old for our for our listeners, and a couple of years ago I had
this like massive between the eyes aha stopping
uncontrollably. I have not been able to grieve
(35:15):
my mother because doing so wouldacknowledge that she's never
coming back that kind of like. So I've been holding on to this
and all of my baggage, my compulsions, my depression, my
anxiety, like all that stuff is all because I'm still holding on
(35:36):
to her. I don't.
I don't know, you know, ultimately that will resolve
itself, I'm sure. And, and maybe I'll keep
chipping away at it in the meantime, but.
And you know, if you got the right glasses, you would look
like Harry Potter a little bit too.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I've heard the comparison.
(35:58):
I'm not surprised. So, so maybe I'm just giving
voice to, I'm a little bit attached to attachment.
And I also think there's a spiritual bypass people do when
they say, oh, I don't need any of this stuff.
I'm just going to catapult beyond it.
And it's all about my relationship to God and my
(36:20):
understanding of the universe. And I don't need all this stuff
and all these people and whatever.
And I've done that. That was also the compulsion to
move out into the mountains and try to build a fortress for
myself where I wouldn't need anybody.
And it didn't work right, Right.So the.
Old man does that, does it comesto that place, it's a bit
different. It's different for sure.
(36:41):
It's different. Yeah, yeah.
And no, I mean, I think that that the, the, the type of
attachment that I'm thinking about, I think it shows up in
Oedipus when he's an old man, you remember what he does.
(37:04):
He takes a brooch, which is, youknow, with the big pointy thing
on it, and he gouges his eyes out which and now he can see.
Imagine doing the second one. The second one.
The second eye. Oh, he did both.
Oh, I know. Yeah.
(37:26):
Oh, I know. And then one of his and then one
of his daughters leads him around for the rest of his life.
Right. And she's doting and they're
connected and she's his eyes in a way.
And remember, this is the dude that solved the Riddle of the
Sphinx, which I didn't remember a few episodes back, and which
(37:48):
is a way to tell us that he has,he's gotten some grasp on the
mystery that is man, which is the solution to the Riddle of
the Sphinx. So I I see the gouging of the
eyes out and then his new found ability to see with a new
(38:10):
insight as a turning away from the world of attachment and the
the looking to the world for theaha or the fulfillment that will
make life make sense that the looking that you need to do is
(38:31):
the looking that you don't need your eyes for.
It's almost like that's the postrealization of destiny
experience. Like once you realize your
destiny, you can sort of move onunencumbered.
And accepted it right? That Amour fati love of 1's
(38:55):
fate. Yeah, and.
There's also to do with a deep acceptance, which is similar to
what you're talking about with your mother.
See. Because for me, I've got nothing
like that, even though I met my mother. 10 weeks was a
difference maker I think. I it well, absolutely, those are
an important 10 weeks and but, but like for me, I'm I'm
(39:17):
introduced to this person and it's like, OK, this person is
supposed to be your mother and there's certain symptoms that I
think we're largely unfakeable. So they yeah, there's no.
Symptoms. Well, you know, maybe that's not
the word characteristics, you know.
Yeah. And that I say symptoms because
(39:42):
it had to do with a certain propensity of verboseness and,
you know, that, you know, kind of intellectual symptoms, you
might say. But, but so it's so it was.
It was inescapable, incontrovertible that this was
in all likelihood in fact, my mother.
But it was it was the same as ifsomebody had taken a random
(40:05):
person that might be walking by in the mall who was of the
appropriate age and said, OK, this is your mother.
And you feel that same lack of anything.
It's like what I don't I didn't feel anything that you wouldn't
(40:25):
feel if someone had been introduced a random person in
the mall to you as your mother, you know, And I went and hung
out with her for a couple days, and it was clear that
intellectually, we were running the same kind of hardware.
And, you know, she's a professorof psychology.
(40:48):
In the university in the Midwest.
And and yet there was absolutelyno connection there and
certainly nothing that I would imagine to be what a motherly
connection would be. And you know, my adopted mother,
(41:10):
I didn't have much of what like,I mean, I see what other
people's relationships with their mothers are like and
Mother's Day and all that. And with all of that, I got
nothing. I just got nothing.
And when my when my adopted mother, when when our, when our
relationship was an adult relationship, I didn't really
(41:35):
want to get touched by her. I didn't really feel any of that
kind of warm fuzzy energy that people typically feel around
their mother. And you know, and yet look at
the situation. I should be.
I should be at least grateful. And it's not that.
Conceptually, I'm not grateful, and yet that doesn't make a fit
(42:02):
there. Where there wasn't really a.
Yeah, gratitude's not a substitute for, you know what
we're talking about. Yeah, yeah.
Exactly. Having been bestowed with a
sense of of belonging and security and you know, all the
things that come with that. I just wanted to say one more
thing about Oedipus gouging his eyes out because there's it, it
(42:25):
also reminds me of sort of the artifice of the sensory world.
And maybe you said this in a way, but I guess I just wanted
to put a stamp on it that that gouging his eyes out was also a
way of transcending, getting information about the world
(42:49):
through his senses and instead getting it through insight or
whatever you want to call beyondsenses.
And you sort of you, I think yousaid that, but I just wanted to
that's kind of a striking symbolpost fate, moving beyond the
(43:13):
need to perceive the world through the senses.
And yet somehow now being able to perceive the world more
clearly than ever before. Yeah, yeah, that I'm saying that
the senses are are illusory. Yeah, yeah.
And and so there's, so there was, there's an interesting
(43:35):
thing there. And I mean, there's a lot more
to unpack around that story for sure that, you know, I think a
lot of it is also related to identity.
Belonging, of course, dovetails right in there with identity.
And for an orphan kid, it that becomes a little tricky.
(44:00):
And again, all the devil is in the details because, and this
is, you know, when we talked about Freud, we talked about
that that and of course, it's dovetails with the idea of life
cycles having chapters and things like that, that certain
things happen at certain chapters.
And then if things are buggered up during that chapters natural
(44:26):
time period that that that bugger up kind of thing just
sort of gets wound in, dealt into the deck because the
developmental agenda goes on. And so that if Chapter 1 was, it
was incomplete in some way, Chapter 2 is still coming in and
(44:48):
it's going to lay on top of Chapter 1.
And don't worry that incomplete stuff coming back.
Exactly exactly because it's theP under the mattress in every
new chapter might be a new mattress, but the P is still
under there. And, and you know, I mean, I,
you would have to say that my original trauma, if you will,
(45:13):
was, was literally day one. And so that there, there's,
there's no mattress under that, right?
So, and it's, and it, and it took a long time for me to feel
what really was that P what wasn't right about that?
(45:35):
What, how was that translating across?
And that's of course what Freud sort of turned us on to was that
anything that happened developmentally is going to have
repercussions. And those repercussions are
actually the thread that you canuse to follow back to unfold the
original issue. And, and, and then of course, we
(45:59):
talked about how that original issue also maps into your body
somewhere in some ways. And, and, and interestingly, it,
it, the topics have also come upabout contemplative disciplines.
And one of my more recent one string banjo songs is about how
people have heard this, they're probably sick of it,
(46:20):
Propositional dispositional, propositional dispositional.
But that's why I keep harping onit is because there is this idea
that it isn't just by the content of our thought changing
that we come to a new place. These major transformations
happen from shiftings in the in the operating system, not in the
(46:48):
programs that the operating system are running, if you will.
That, that I've said before thatit's, it's not a different
payload, it's a whole different acquisition and delivery system
that's going to be acquiring different kinds of things as
opposed to different formulations of the same thing.
(47:11):
And how we root those out. I think that that's because, you
know, I've been, I've been, I'vebeen doing some reading for one
of our upcoming guests that I think is going to be great.
And it's all about couple coupleof his his, the the topics that
he deep dives into our consciousness and the idea of
(47:31):
happiness and the human pursuit of happiness.
And how I started thinking, you know, any of the people that
I've worked with, honestly, it'snever really been on my agenda
to make them happier or to help them become happier.
In the spirit of Full disclosure, that's never been on
(47:53):
my agenda. Now what has been on my agenda?
And maybe this has to do with the self-proclaimed attempt to
serve the role of a somewhat of a psychopomp.
There's a great. Word for you.
(48:15):
Is that pomp psychopomp? Yeah.
I guess I'll assume from the etymology what what it means.
Yeah, or go ahead and search it and get in and read the
definition, because that's a fun, fun ass word.
We don't run into great psycho pomps nowadays, and I'm not
saying I'm a great one, but I'vegiven it a try at least, you
(48:37):
know? Oh, that's not what I was
expecting exactly. I'm in Greek mythology, a guide
of souls to the place of the dead.
A guide to the Underworld or to the part of of the human
existence. That's the unseen part.
(48:59):
And of course, you know, the poor guy in Ayahuasca being the
vine of the dead. There is a certain similarity
there. But the idea that I was really
thinking of as psycho pomp, it'susually we, it's usually the the
boatman, right, Sharon, the boatman bringing people to the
world of shades. But the idea is that, I mean, I
(49:22):
really feel that what we're trying to bridge to is to deeper
meaning, not more complicated analytical thoughts, but to
meanings that live within us in the sense of being potent,
fomentable elements of the collective unconscious.
(49:47):
Juicy aspects of who it is to bea human, what it is to be a
human, things that will enlighten us as to our deeper
nature, that will bring about a deeper fulfillment of who we are
(50:08):
than just being happy. Because the science of being
happy means you go out and you ask 1000 people what they are,
they're happy or not, and then what makes them happy.
And what you'll find out is that.
Of the 1000 people, not a not one in 1000 understands really
(50:30):
the potential of human fulfillment, at least not like a
Mystic does. And what a Mystic will tell you
is you ain't seen nothing yet. You don't know what you're
missing. You can't even think about this
because it's so beyond your capacity that it just leaves you
(50:52):
with your mouth hanging open. And only then do you know what
you're missing, right? And so asking a bunch of people
about something that they know nothing about gives you useless
information. The only real true human
happiness to do justice to that term is like even Ella Robbie's
(51:17):
idea of a perfect man. The the the fulfillment of the
the chunsu for Confucius or Aristotle's The Good Life is 1
in whom all the potential of being a human is fulfilled,
which is a pretty tall order. But the idea is, did you?
(51:40):
You know, you move closer and closer, and as long as you're
moving closer, you're moving in the right direction and you're
better off than if you were moving in any other direction or
not moving at. All.
And then you just have to set your sails and the letter RIP
right? Tie that back to dispositional
and propositional because I think, I think you were saying
(52:03):
that we don't achieve great, we don't achieve growth and the and
a deeper experience of meaning through an intellectual process.
We experience it through kind ofa fundamental change in our in
the way we perceive right in theoperating system, not in the
(52:23):
software. And in our interpretive faculty,
we're seeing different things. In.
That interpretive sense of seeing.
At least as far as I know it. It's experiences that that
create that we have to have, experiences that that shake up
(52:44):
our mental models. Sorry to use a mundane phrase
there, but it's the one that came to mind.
So we have to shake those up, realize they don't work and get
a new, you know, download the updated operating system to make
sense of the experience that we had.
And that's what a good psycho pomp hopes for, to shake you up
(53:09):
a little bit, right? And you think of Don Juan with
Carlos, He wants to turn his inner world upside down so that
it can find a new arrangement. And I mean, and it's a good
place to start maybe to the ideathat understanding that our
picture of things is kind of ProTem and you know, for for
(53:32):
serving an immediate purpose, but it's not maybe ultimate and
that that there are improvable versions of us.
And this idea of dispositional versus propositional.
Propositional is thinking different things, Dispositional
is being a different person. And I would argue with with the
(53:53):
formula before that if our interpretation of the world is
who we are, then the way we become a different person is by
empowering our different ways tointerpret the world.
And that means by having different experiences, and
particularly experiences that might.
(54:14):
Shake us up a little bit. That to me was the IT is not
just the point of ceremonies. That's the point of Africa,
right? Is that?
For for a first world. Person that's a kind of it can
be a kind of a shaking up experience and that's that's
what internal martial arts is with people to do some of these
(54:34):
practices. It provides an internal kind of
shaking up then another vision of ourselves.
Well, all that is stretching that, that thing that I don't
have a great word for that. Maybe it's just a big cognitive
model. I want to call it our human
utical base because it's the thing that we always refer back
to. That sense of the whole, that
(54:56):
picture of how of life, the world, and everything that every
new piece gets held up against to understand where it fits in
well, that picture that we're fitting everything into in the
process of sense making in important way is you in your
(55:18):
contingent extension, not you asGod, you as person in the world.
And so, you know, good psychopomperey should be pushing
us into places that stretch thathermeneutical base, that give us
(55:39):
more dimensionalized picture of life, the world, and everything.
I think that is a a mission statement for us.
And I think that's where you started on this thread too, that
that what we're trying to do here isn't just have
intellectual discussions, it's and, and, and maybe I've sold it
(56:02):
short a little bit, you know, saying we're describing A
cognitive model because we are, but we're also very much hoping
that our experience of meaning is informed by these
conversations stretching us or certainly, I certainly hope for
(56:25):
that and, and experience that and likewise for our listeners
that that. Have excluded that too, yeah.
Hopefully we're stretching theirhermeneutical base so that for.
Our guests as well, I'm hoping. Yeah, I mean that that's a great
(56:45):
outcome too, if if we can do it.If we can muster it.
Some of them have have have saidthat or something to that
effect, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, at least it's been fun. That's the low bar.
At least it's been fun and thanks for all the fish.
And thanks for all the fish. Yeah, exactly.
(57:08):
That might be stopping point fortoday.
Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, I think that
the take away, particularly on the topic of belonging, if I
wanted to have it, you know, an inspirational moment, it might
be that that it's really an important kind of belonging is
(57:33):
the kind that we build. I'm not saying that the kinds
that were born with or that, youknow, are discovered aren't,
don't have a certain value, but that.
But that, yeah, maybe that's whyI love the idea of an
intentional community when I wasyounger, is that I do think that
(57:54):
humans in collaboration and cooperation manifest the
greatest potential. And so a certain type of
belonging is necessary. Maybe for every kind of great
achievement. It might be as important as
(58:15):
slaves to borrow from the comedian.
You know who I mean, right? He got in trouble.
I know you like to quote George Carlin.
Is that who we're talking? No, it isn't Carlin.
They tried to cancel him. He's coming back now.
Oh, geez. What if you know Louis CK?
(58:41):
Louis CK is the man. That's who I'm thinking of.
Yeah. And it could be the cooperation
works even better than slavery, and that, you know, this may be
slavery's only the lowest form of cooperation.
Oh man, I might have to go back and listen to that bit.
(59:03):
I need more context. Yeah, no, it's a funny bit.
And, and, and the real, the realseed of it is that that you
know, what makes cooperation, and we've talked about this in
terms of organizational stuff. What makes real cooperation
possible is a type of belonging.And we know that we don't get
(59:26):
good belonging if we go around othering people.
And we have to be honest with ourself about what othering
people means, because othering people in the name of not
othering people is still othering people.
Othering people by any other name is still othering people.
(59:47):
And so, so, you know, that's thethat's the other side of
belonging, right? Is you can't, you can't develop
a sense of belonging if you're being othered ferociously.
And so, so yeah, I mean their belonging is an important thing
(01:00:09):
and. Autonomy is an important thing,
and I think even Laudsa Archwonza has talked about this.
Certainly Confucius is a whole social theory about balancing
our personal needs and desires with our social needs and
desires and our familial obligations and our, you know,
(01:00:29):
so. So, yeah, there's a whole
interesting topic there and the fact that we have some degree of
choice and some degree of no choice and and all of that.
And where do we sit, You know, and this is, you know, I'm
somebody who went out in the desert because when Voltaire
said hell is other people, it's like, I hear you, brother.
(01:00:52):
I was, I was in Santa Fe and theguy I was working for got in
trouble because he didn't cut his weeds down.
And now all the people were having a hissy fits because
there were weeds in his front yard.
We're trying to do all of this research to discover all these
things that nobody knew and doing all the serious thing.
And now the weeds because the other humans are having issues
(01:01:15):
about weeds. And it's like, are you really
serious? I gotta get away.
I gotta get away, you know, giveme.
I need some margin and plenty ofweeds in the margin, you know,
And that's where I am now. I've got acres and acres of
weeds to keep the humans at Bay,so belonging is great but get
(01:01:37):
you some weeds. Well, there's a few threads
we'll pick up on in future episodes, I'm sure.
That was good. Thanks, Brian.
Yep, absolutely. You guys ever have a good day
again?
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