Episode Transcript
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And as a stranger to my heart and me, hold me from this
forever. Good evening.
My name is Claire. Welcome to Jared.
To Jared, On this week's episode, the Jarretts will
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discuss William Shakespeare's King Lear, giving your life, the
truth and authenticity, breakingthe mould, gouging eyeballs and
or and much, much more. Let the games begin.
As King Lear does right, BecauseKing Lear the ground Lear.
Now let's do it, Howard. But King Lear starts off in a
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state of deception. He's deceiving himself.
He is. He is willfully deceiving
himself and living in the state of deception and masks and
rhetoric. He says to his daughters, tell
me how much you love me. And I'm going to measure your
love based on your rhetoric, notbased on your feeling, not based
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on our experiences together in the past, not based on anything
real, just just the facade of your speech at the moment.
Right now, I'm going to base that.
So he's living and welcoming deception into his life and he's
wearing his robes and and there's even some lines on on
clothing and and someone comments, I think to Reagan
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about the jewels and everything that she's wearing.
I think the fool at some point saying saying what's the
difference? You know, if you have all those
jewels or you don't, what's the difference?
Or maybe it was poor Tom out in the storm.
Doesn't matter either way. There's this consideration of
how we, how we, the garments that we wear and how we adorn
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ourselves versus the emptiness of who we actually are.
You know, take off the mask. Who are you?
And that's this process of we'relosing everything, losing all of
his wealth, losing his authority, losing his power
until he's quite literally nakedout in the storm and then sees
the figure of poor Tom who is naked in the storm.
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And King Lear says UN unadorned man.
The thing itself, that's it. Strip away the authority, strip
away the the power, strip away the the robes and the riches and
that's who you actually are. All of that other shit was just
decoration. Right, right.
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Right. That was the mold.
Yeah. And then he goes into the storm.
Now he's in the storm, getting rained on, freaking out, and now
he's nothing. Now he's gone into the mud and
he's covered in mud. He's emptiness.
And then he can arise anew. That's the state from which he's
awakened and can step into a more authentic and real state of
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love and connection with his third daughter, Cordelia.
Right, right. So what does that look like in
our own lives? What is the the storm, the
heath, the Buffalo storm of our own lives?
How do how do we strip everything down?
How do we strip down our own ourown molds in order to become who
we most, most truthfully are? Well, I think that it's a
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tragedy. Yeah.
Lyre And I think what's happening in this story is old
Bill the Bard, Shakespeare. He's trying to tell us that the
only way that this sort of maturation happens is when you
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fuck up so many times in your life.
Yeah, you get humbled over and over and over.
Again our. Ego is just have to get fucking
wrong. Way to the.
Mud for us to get to this point,but by that time that it comes,
you'll probably be in a very oldman without much any time to
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recover. And even when you do have a
recovery, it's too late. They get they both end up
hanging. That's the ending of the play.
Cordelia and Lear hang, right? So.
Cordelia hangs. Lear just dies of.
Oh, that's right. That's right.
Lear dies from the broken heart.I've seen Cordelia, right.
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Dead in her arms. That's terrible.
It's a terrible fate. You know, there is something
beautiful to say that there was a sort of restitution there
between Cordelia and Lear. There was a, there was a, you
know, coming back together, a sort of AI don't know.
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There's a certain word I'm just trying to think of there.
But you, you know, a resolution there, right?
Which was nice. It's just so sad that it comes
so late. That's the thing.
Yeah. Yeah, it does come very late.
That does come very late. And that's what's interesting
too, because the fool says to Lear at some point he goes,
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you're an old man, but you don'thave the wisdom of an old man.
You know, the wisdom came too late.
And I think a lot of people do live their lives like that.
They live into their 70s, eighties, maybe even longer
without wisdom. There was a Zen teacher at the
Albuquerque Zen Center when I first started sitting meditation
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and he would say everyone grows old, but not everyone grows up.
And like, oh, damn, that hit. So that's Lear.
He's in his 70s and he is misbehaving.
He's he's behaving like a frat boy, right?
Even when he disinherits himselfof of his wealth and he's just
hanging out at his daughter's house with his 100 Knights, What
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are they doing? They're they're partying.
They're they're carrying on drinking, shouting, jumping on.
The table, right. Yeah, Yeah.
And the, the, what is it? The tragedy is you, you know,
essentially an old man that never grew up, you know?
Yeah, exactly. But has the body of a senior
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citizen, you know? Yeah, Yeah.
Which is kind of terrifying, a little scary, you know?
I guess it's comfortable becauselook, I mean, he had an
incredibly comfortable life. He didn't have to deal.
We can assume that he grew up royalty.
He was a rich kid. He inherited the Kingdom and had
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a pretty comfortable life and didn't have to break his mold.
He he kept getting to pretend that he is a king and everyone
respects him because of who he is when it's like, no, dude,
it's the mask, it's the facade. And that's not till the end of
his life that he actually gets to see through the facade and
has have an experience of now he's suffering.
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But there's a point in the stormwhere he turns to the fool and
then poor Tom and these other guys and says, I'm so cold, Are
you cold too? Right, right.
And it's the first time in the play that you can see Lear has
some sort of empathetic consideration of other people.
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Right. That he steps outside of his own
ego enough to go oh shit, wait, I'm not the only one who's
suffering right now. Right, right.
You know. Right.
And that's the beginning of that, that awakening process.
And I think that's true because there's you're stuck in your
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mold, You're stuck in who you think you are and all your, you
know, shit that you're holding on to.
And then you suffer, you get humbled by life experience.
Life is just tearing you down. And then, and then you say, oh,
oh, other people. Right.
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Oh wow, it's not just me. Right, right.
And then from there you go even deeper and then get at some
point just your mold is off. And that seems to happen if we
are now you're naked in the storm.
Personal story, yeah. As a younger man, especially
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growing up in a family of a lifelong marriage, parents you
know and as a young Christian boy growing up in a the
Christian religion, I was alwaysunder the impression that you
find your wife, you marry her, and she stays loyal to you
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forever. And like those who like whose
marriages fall apart. While this is an indication and
mark on your manhood, you're just a kid.
Like couldn't keep your woman. You didn't do it right.
You didn't stay close to God or she was like a heathen or
something like that. You know, just.
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Whatever the case, it wasn't a good thing.
You know, a lifelong relationship is what I'd
idealism was, you know, to my young teenage brain sort of
thing. But that's how I was raised.
That's just how I thought thingswould be, you know, So when
things went down, mounted down in every sort of worst possible
way ever with, with baby Mama Hillary, you know what?
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My my mind was blown. Wow, wow, there was.
Times where I was literally KingLear disassociating to myself,
just like, I couldn't believe it.
Just like talking to the jesters, you know, Just like.
They called into question. Everything.
Everything. My whole entire shell at that
point was absolutely shattered, you know, multiple times over
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and over again. And and I think that's one
reason why I stayed so long too,is trying to be like, no, this
isn't the case. It's still going to work.
This is still, you know, my wife, my wife, my woman, this
and that. And it's like no deed.
No, no. And then when really like
nuclear bombs went off in our relationship where I knew the,
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you know, final nails in the coffin were had.
I this student had a really goodstory where is a very similar to
sort of my life thing with with that relationship.
And at the end he folds his armsand rolls rolls down a grass
hill cause peace finally found him.
What, when he realized it was over, you know, it was a really
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cool ending. But I found myself, too, being
like, Oh, you too. I met all these cool people, you
know, and like my friend Zay andlike, you know, a lot of my good
friends, you know, old friends of Gavin and them, you know,
it's like, oh, you too. Like you too are also lost.
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The woman that you loved or weresupposed to have as your wife
forever. You're also cold.
Oh, I'm cold too. You're cold, Like, cool.
And then I realized it's like, oh, wait, we're not these bad
people. Yeah.
That we thought we were, you know, that that the type of
person, the bad dude or whatever, it's like, no, this is
life, bad things, you know, shithappens, you fall out of love,
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this and that, whatever. And then my whole entire
relationship ideology has changed ever since then, you
know, and to say that it's idealor great now is that's a debate
incident of itself, non existence right now.
But you know what I'm trying to say, just from that previous
mold of being young, I king lured it back and, you know, and
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then had to come to a point where it's like I'm I'm a single
dad now and I have to deal with it.
But I found peace and, you know,made peace with Hillary too, and
everything you know, so. Yeah, Very, very, very few
people get the life they expected, right, Right.
Very few, if any at all. Yeah, I think, I think that what
you just said, all right, Now I'm a single dad and I got to
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deal with that, right, Right. That the ups and the downs, the
pros and the cons of that, I think, I think that one, that
one's way more common than oh, yeah.
And then I became a rock star and everything worked out,
right? Just just as I expected, Right,
Right. That's so rare.
You know, that can happen sometimes.
But but most of us, it is this process of of constantly growing
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your humility. Yes, yes.
Constantly. Right.
Yeah, yeah. And it's devastating, though
it's that's not to say that lightly.
It's not an easy process. There's a Zen story.
I think there might be a Christian version of it too.
But in anyway, the Zen version is there's this old Zen master
in Japan and there's all these rumors around him that he's a
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magician and has all these powers and can bring people back
from the dead and all this sort of stuff.
And this young woman, she gives birth and then a few months
later the baby comes down I'll and and dies.
And she is of course grieving and just experiencing the worst
possible pain that's available to a human being.
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And then she hears about this Zen master who has all these
powers and she goes and finds him and holding her, her blue
cold dead baby and says please, please, please bring my baby
back to life. And the Zen master starts to cry
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a little bit because he he feelsthat pain and feels compassion
for her and says, what you need to do is go to every house in
this village and ask the family if they've lost someone to
death. And when you find a family that
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has not lost anyone to death, that's where you'll find your
cure, right. So then she goes into the
village, knocks on the first door and says, have you lost
anyone to death? And they go, yeah, we lost.
There was, you know, the war a few years ago, and we lost our
son to that. OK.
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And she goes, OK, so that's not the right house.
She goes to the next one. And they go, yeah, my mother got
sick and and died just a few weeks ago.
And then she goes to the next one and the next one and the
next one and the next one. And every single house says,
yeah, we've you too, yeah, yeah,we've lost someone too.
Every single one. Until she has gone to every
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single house in the village and realizes you too.
Right, right. You too not, not a single, not a
single person has not experienced it.
Right loss. Fear, emptiness, despair, grief,
not a single person has not. And then, and then she goes back
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to the Zen master and, and understands, you know, and, and,
and there was no, and of course he had no powers other than to
be able to show her. I'm sorry, but this is this is
it, you know, this is life. And this is part of the
challenge of life. Love that one.
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Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.
So that's it. And I think that's, that's your
story too, right? You know, and then especially at
the end when he's holding Cordelia and she's just died and
the experience is the worst. And that that a that a parent
that a human being can experience.
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What does Cordelia have that keeps her so sane?
What is? That's a great question.
Right what what what makes her sort of the ideal to to strive
for the the character, the unblended question in the play.
Yeah, why is she the the representation of truth?
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Right, right. I have no idea.
It just might have been convenient, you know?
Sure. I'm not sure.
What do you think? Is there something about her
character that makes? Her See what we have.
So the premise, obviously, of the play is bizarre.
Yeah. He throws a session with his
three daughters so they can say how much they love him.
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And that's just weird to begin with.
You know, it's very bizarre, very Hans Christian Andersen,
you know? Yeah.
However, not to cut you off, butit is very fairy tale ask.
Very fairy tale ask. Those fairy tales always seem to
happen in threes. So you got the three daughters?
Right, right, right. And but do parents actually do
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that though? Oh, right, because they don't do
it in such an overt way. Right, right.
We're not even parents, lovers, anyone.
They don't do it in a completelyovert way.
Sure, you know, tell me, tell them.
Give me a speech about how much you love me.
Tell me how much you love me. Make me feel like I'm a king,
like I'm wonderful, right? Right.
We don't necessarily do it overtly, but we're constantly
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like, this is codependency, right?
We're constantly trying to get someone else's affirmation and
validation so that we can feel secure within ourselves.
So I think it's like a really onthe nose kind of version of
that. Sure.
But I do think people actually did like.
The fantasy version of it. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
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It's the literalization of something of a very subtle
relational dynamic that we all do.
Sure, sure. But go ahead.
And leader is, you know, let's put ourselves in his shoes.
You know, he's also single. Father, where's the mom?
That's a great question too. That's a great question too.
You know, and as the single dad of three daughters who is aging
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and wants to retire, wants to give his wealth to, you know,
the people that he loves, while he has some of these
insecurities, you know, and he does.
He sets up this weird thing that's actually sort of like an
ego bin for him, a feeding bin, you know?
However, his reaction to Cordelia is absolutely absurd.
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The guy loses his goddamn mind, you know?
Yeah. Yeah.
But let's put it this way. Like, you know, if I was like
older or something and like tellDalton like, you know, you're
older now, you like live with me, go to college with me or
like, you know, with your mom orsomething.
And she's like, no, actually, I'm just, you know, I like you a
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lot, but I'm going to go live with mom from now on.
And this I'd be pretty pissed too.
You know, I don't know if I would like jump on the table and
start screaming, eating home stuff, you know, taking away
inheritance. But it would hurt.
There's something about it that would hurt.
Right, because parents were human too and also want
validation. Yeah, yeah.
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That being said, OK, let's get back to the Cordelia as as the
meaning of truth. Reagan and Goneril, they buy
into this little thing, right? And they, oh, you're so great.
I love you this much. And I there's no much freaking
telling how much I love you thisand that.
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You're the greatest father ever.Why are they doing that, though?
They're doing it for inheritance.
Yeah. Yeah.
They're not transactional. Yes.
Yes, it's transactional. It has nothing to do with their
actual feelings towards him. Right.
And what does Cordelia say? I love you as much as I should
love you as are. Like, you know, Bond allows me
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to love you like I love you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, that's fine. But I'm not gonna say anything
other than that because a this meeting's really weird.
Yeah, exactly. This is totally absurd these.
Two sellouts over here, they don't even like you.
Yeah, and you're, I know you're gonna give them freaking, you
know, half the Kingdom and screwme over anyway.
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So you know what? Fuck you.
Honestly. Yeah, or just, you know, I like
you a lot, that's fine. But I'm not going to buy into
this ego driven thing and I'm not going to deceive you either.
And that's one thing. Cordelia was the one, the only
one who actually did love him. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely.
Right. Oh, the other two are monsters.
She's crying. She's taking care of him.
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The other two are monsters. They're hooking up with dead
men. They're freaking, you know,
they're terrible. They they're, you know, causing
wars and shit in the Kingdom. They're my God.
I love how I don't like to use this word but like I love how
trashy gun rule and Reagan are They're.
Trashy like. It's literally like watching a
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reality show. Right, right.
Right. You're watching.
And when people watch reality TV, it's because it's trash and
you want to see trashy people doing trashy things.
That's what Reagan and Gun Rule are, because you're watching it
and you go, Oh my God, they're both trying to hook up with the
same dude and their sisters and that guy.
In the dude that again but is the bastard of the Kingdom, he's
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like, yeah. Yeah, he's the bastard of the
Kingdom. So he's not they person with any
kind of status. He's again.
Literally a bastard. He's like the worst.
He's mean, he's conniving. Yeah, like an actual bastard,
mean, terrible. He's horrible.
Yeah, yeah. And then they're like they're
fighting over the same dude and the same dude literally as
Solilocoys or monologues about about how he's trying to get
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both sisters in bed with them. And it's just like, man, you
three are the worst people. Like if you met them.
And they're both married. Yeah, and they're both married.
If you met them or you were at work like someone was, you know,
there's always gossip and stuff at work the people would be
talking about. Like, do you know what Reagan
did this past weekend? Right.
Nuts, bro. Like that was not OK.
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Her sister was there last week. Yeah.
What? Like, it's so, so raunchy,
right? Yeah.
And then you have. Yeah.
Cordelia, meanwhile. Cordelia goes in like, you know,
a great wife to the friends to the friends.
They love her and and she's a good, great daughter.
She's there at the end to care for him.
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You know, she hangs for him. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then she gets hanged. She's the martyr, she gets
sacrificed. So she speaks to to truth and
she she doesn't engage in in false falsities acting
performance. She doesn't engage in
performance no to to jeopardize her own moral stance.
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Right. She's she, you know, and even if
this means a loss of, of money, of status, well, that's not
important to Cordelia. Which she does lose too.
She is just inherited of everything as well right?
Luckily the French come in and say hey you can come stay with
us. But even if they didn't, you can
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tell that she would still be truthful and honorable.
Yes, yes. Yeah.
And that's so she's also like a foil too, tiddler in the
beginning stages too. Whereas, you know, the often
times our shadow we hate the most, you know, or the thing we
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want to be so bad, we're actually treat the worst because
we can attain it. And it's frustrating to us and
we get jealous and it's like, oh, well, if you're going to be
an amazing basketball player, well then fuck you.
You know, just like I wish I could play basketball, you know,
just like if you're gonna be a true blue, cool, good human
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being, fuck you 'cause that's what I really wanted and you
know, in life. And I want Someone Like You to
love me and accept me because I'm like you.
Yeah. But I'm not, so fuck you, you
know? Yeah.
And then you get tyrannical and all this shit, you know?
Hence. Hence Leer.
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Alright, here's a question. Yeah.
Is truth worth it? Because if you watch the play
right and sometimes things work out this way in life?
Well, actually in the play, everyone dies at the end.
So you know, he, he doesn't drawa binary where the good guys die
and then the the bad guys succeed.
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He doesn't draw that binary. Everyone ends up dying in the
end. However, that said, what's the
point? I mean Lear in another universe.
If Lear were just slightly smarter, he could have just held
onto his wealth and enjoyed the next few years of his life.
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Partying with his friends, hanging out, making jokes with
the fool, getting drunk. The fool told him you're fool
for doing that. Yeah, he.
Could he could have just chilledfor the rest of his life?
But apparently there was something really important about
going into of the storm, going into the Buffalo storm,
stripping himself of the mold, stripping himself of everything
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that he thought he was so that he can then step into a state of
awakened truth. Right.
Even though that included seeingthe death of his daughter and
and then himself dying. Or Cordelia.
Would it have been better if shejust said yeah?
And you know what? I'm truthful and honorable.
I know my sisters are terrible people.
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Let me just. I know my dad loves me.
Let me just play this game just the one time so I can secure my
money and and and then just get out of here and go do my own
thing because these aren't healthy people.
But let me just get my inheritance first and then would
that have and then she wouldn't have been hanged at the end in
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this crazy tragedy and all of that.
Is it worth it? Is truth worth it?
Because sometimes it does, you know, gets people killed.
Bro this is Plato's cave. I mean the the awakened one goes
back into The Cave ready to teach and they lynch him.
Right, right. Is it Christ?
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Same thing, the story of Christ.Is it worth it?
Right. So this is, this is an
interesting philosophical concept because with rebellion,
with people that are seeking truth over power, you have to be
willing to do something. You have to be unselfish.
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You have to do something that's going to benefit quite possibly
the future generation that's notyou.
Yeah, I've been watching that. I just finished watching season
2 of Andor, which is like celebrated as the greatest Star
Wars show that was ever created.And it's all about there's like
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not one lightsaber in the whole show.
It's all about interesting, likeRebellion, the rebel, the rebel,
rebel, the moral questions that you have to take and like the
crazy things they'd have to do, like guerrilla warfare and
stealing stuff and you know, from the empire and all this
great. And there's this great scene
where Skarsgard, you know, stoneSkarsgard, great acting in the
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whole in the whole show. But he's like, listen, we signed
up for this, You know, that whenyou came with me, we were both
going to hang one day. At least it was a possibility
inside. And don't try to deny that
because he wants to quit. And he's just like, you know,
but you can't. And that's the crazy thing.
He's like, we're building a world for tomorrow, a world that
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will never enjoy and or yeah, yeah, it's not a world for them,
right? The world that they were
building was for the future, wasfor the New Republic, you know.
So if we don't have people that are willing to die for truth,
Cordelia, King Lear, then power reigns supreme.
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Then we have the empire. Then quite literally in
Shakespeare's time, King James would have been possibly way
more tyrannical or a tyrant if he wouldn't even have watched
that play. King Lear, that was essentially
about him. So speaking that truth, I don't
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know, I don't know, is it worth it?
Although on the individual level, can you say to yourself
martyrdom, martyrdom sort of thing, And there's even the
silent martyrs where you don't know who they are.
Will that bring your soul the peace that it so desires?
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Because we are all gonna die eventually one day, you know
what I mean? Like, I don't know if I'm going
anywhere with this, but yeah, I do think that it's ultimately
worth it, though. I think the question is, are you
gonna be that sort of person? Is it gonna be worth it to you
personally? Yeah.
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Who are you willing to give up? Your family, your wife, your
daughters, your your dog, your life, your stable home.
You know, gym bobs? Yeah, two die for your truth.
Are you gonna die on that hill 'cause if you do, it will have
rippling effects not just for you, but for others, right?
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But if you choose to not die foryour truth, it will have
rippling effects for those that you love.
You'll get to stay in their life.
You get to do this and that, right?
So. Yeah, wonderful points.
Because you take a figure like Edmund, right?
The bastard, right? So mean dude, so.
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Mean. Oh man.
Bastard, yeah. So on one, one level, you could
say you can say he's he's beforethe end before he ends up dying.
And then, you know, retribution happens.
You can say that he's he's on top for a while and it feels
good. I mean, he is hooking up with
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these sisters. You know, he's hooking up with
these two sisters, he's making some money, got rid of his
brother. Got the inheritance.
Bastard this big inheritance. So for a moment, this dude, he's
got everything, you know, he's got, he's got money, he's got
women, he's got all this stuff. One, it's shaky because it's
none of it's truly his, you know, it's, there's no, there's
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no authenticity behind it. It's not real.
So it's shaky. And then I imagine within
himself, he's not happy. He's such a mean person.
He's not happy and he doesn't have rich, healthy
relationships. He's not a good guy.
And sure, he has all this stuff,but ultimately, somewhere in his
heart, I'm sure there's a level of now we're.
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Getting to some truth here. A level of pain, a level of
guilt, a level of shame, all of that.
It's really thick, right? All the terrible things he's
done, he's he's got to live withthat.
And even if he doesn't acknowledge the guilt, he's
going to be so full of anger hisentire life because he's going
(31:54):
to be hiding from himself. Hiding from the guilt, right?
Now compare that with Cordelia. Who?
Yeah, she gets hanged in the end, but she is free, right?
She's free of any of that, yes. There is no sense of her.
Grief comes from the actions of others, how they are acting
(32:15):
towards her. It's not her own.
It's not hers, which is a different type of grief.
Yeah, totally. Grief that is manageable.
That's grief. That is how.
Right, right, right. Right.
Yeah, Yeah. She's cleared out.
She's clear. She can say I was who I was.
I am who I am and I lived freelyand I have no guilt.
(32:35):
Yes, there is 0 guilt, 0 shame. Any of that.
And then she's hanging. And I'm sure hanging was not
pleasant. No, you know, but you got to die
at some point, and she died free, right?
Even though she was a prisoner. Let's look at Lyra too.
So I essentially just to, just to echo this back at you, what
(32:55):
I'm hearing is we've come to thetruth now, the truth is, is that
if you don't literally sort of be willing to die for your
truths, we don't stand up for our truths.
We will be eaten alive for not doing so.
(33:16):
We will essentially experience aliving death.
Yes, you will never have fully lived.
So you'll never be able to be with your daughter anyways.
You'll never be able to be with your family or enjoy your job or
your house home or your friendships or The Hobbit world,
right? Because you're living a lie.
(33:38):
You weren't truly there supporting.
Lies. You were never truly there.
In your truth, right, Right. So what's worth?
Why? So why even live?
Exactly. So we were on Zombie.
Here, fuck my money, fuck the Kingdom and everything, fuck my
ego and how I was treating my daughters and all this.
Yeah. I just want to be free.
(33:59):
That's wealth that's, well, freedom.
That's wealth. That's that's living.
And he finally was able to live,at least for a short time.
But he was finally able to live at the end.
Yeah, yeah, see. And God, it's so hard, bro.
It's so hard because I can see in my own experience right now,
(34:19):
I'm having, I'm having a bit of a kinglier moment walking out
into the storm. What the fuck's going on?
And it's interesting to when I, when I can step back from the
sense of like, oh fuck, I don't know what I'm going to do all
that kind of stuff. There's it's hard to describe,
(34:40):
but I can I can see the part of me that's like, oh, shit, oh
shit. And like grasping for something
to hold on to, like, like Lear would have like grasping on to
when he's arguing with gone Roland Reagan and they're like,
you can't have 100 nights. And he's like, how about 50,
right? And they're like, you can't have
50 nights and they're like maybe25, right?
(35:02):
And he's like, he's like 25, wait, you said 50, You know?
And he's like, he's bargaining for the shit that he's trying to
hold on to. Right.
And Reagans like dude, you don'teven need one.
Yeah, yeah. And finally she's like, you got
nothing. It's out and then he freaks out,
but then that ends up being now that he has nothing that he can
hold on to anymore. Now he can go discover his
(35:23):
freedom, as painful as it might be.
So I can see myself holding on to oh shit, I need this.
I need that plan. I need this, that amount of
money. How am I going to do this?
And then I can also see, but it's hard to let go into.
I can also see a space of freedom of of wait a second,
(35:47):
maybe I just don't need to grasponto shit.
I mean I need to eat and have money and stuff for sure.
But like maybe I just don't needto have the have that that
grasping sense about it. Maybe I could be Cordelia who is
in the prison getting hanged andsaying, well, I lived
authentically. Grafts onto truth instead of
(36:08):
power. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And. That's why, you know, kicking
this to to, you know, how can werelate this to our own selves,
right? Same sort of thing, right?
Yeah. That's why they say sometimes
getting fired is the best thing that can happen to you, right,
'cause you lose your nights, youlose your protection, you know?
Yeah, you're sort of out there being exposed, being vulnerable.
(36:31):
Yeah, they're seeing that adversity.
Right. And there was an authenticity in
it, you know, like I have a friend who's gone through a, his
company is doing some layoffs orwhatever.
And he was expressing a similar thing because he hasn't been
totally happy with that job for a while.
And he's also expressed that he's like, you know, nervous
(36:52):
about getting fired and money and, you know, all that kind of
stuff. But then he also commented,
maybe that's exactly what I need, right?
Because I've been too scared to bite the bullet and.
Quit and go to some relationships, right?
Yeah. We think we need to grasp on to
the power of having love. Right.
Right. Oh, no, no.
I can't get rid of it. We're in love.
(37:12):
This is never gonna end. Right, you're holding on.
You can. Hear you right.
Holding. On you will die.
You're no longer that, you know,but really, if you would just
speak your truth, you'd be wouldn't be in a lot of these
situations and be like, honestly, no, this isn't working
out for me. This is my truth.
(37:34):
I'm going to be like Cordelia and I'm not going to profess
love right now because that's not what I'm feeling.
I'm like, I'm sorry, brother. Like it's just that's not the
way it's going down. This is my truth right now.
And I'm going to be able to livefreely because I expressed that
and because now I'm not living areality.
I don't want to live. Yeah, You know which the only
(37:56):
reason I was sort of in that space to begin with is because I
was trying to same sort of thinggoing back to my my life story,
The the, the story I shared earlier.
Yeah, grasping onto it was more of a power thing, struggle of
like, I can be a husband. I can be, you know, keep a
family together. Holding onto an.
Identity of my own happiness. I wasn't happy.
(38:18):
I wasn't being truthful to myself.
Right, right, right. You know, and no parties were
happy in this situation. And once truth was being spoken
to power, we found peace, you know?
Why is it so scary to to enter into one's truth, right?
Why is that so scary? What is this impulse?
(38:41):
And you see it in Edmond, you see it in Gone Roll, you see it
in Reagan. They're so desperate to grasp
and to cling and that that's really, they're people with big
egos who are terrified, you know, and they're suffering
deeply who are so scared. You know, you see that in, in
people in power today who are soafraid of losing it.
(39:03):
But then what happens? You know, it's like you lose it,
King Lear style. You lose it and it's
uncomfortable. You're out in the rain, but
you're but you feel good becauseit's you're not.
You're not putting in all this strain and effort to keep the
mask up, to keep the facade up. Like a Joe Biden, you know the
who've they've related to sort of a leer figure.
(39:24):
He could have he said I was going to be a one one term
president, right, and he probably could have saved the
party and maybe the country if he would have just been like,
cool, my terms done. You guys have your primary, you
know, let the people pick a new Democratic.
Leader, I did my thing, you know, but.
He was too old. He held on.
He held on. He held on.
And then tragedy struck, you know?
(39:45):
Yeah. But then they interviewed him a
year later and he said he'd never found so much peace in his
life. Oh, after he dropped out.
After he dropped out. Oh yeah, of.
Course, of course. And that's what's that's what's
happening is we're burying ourselves under mountains of
anxiety. Trying to keep up when.
(40:05):
Really, we just need to be truthful.
That's the thing. Cordelia didn't perform.
There's no performance in the way she lived her life, and that
is the beacon, the truth. Yeah, yeah.
But why is it scary though? Is it?
(40:26):
Is it just cuz like? I think it, I think it's scary
because these things become US. Yeah.
They become our identity and you're literally having to kill
off parts of yourself and be reborn, which is not a
comfortable chain of events. And we've talked about that one,
(40:48):
the, the, the death simulation death.
Simulator. Yeah, and even the Jared, the
the Jaredvich, you know Being Jared Malkovich episode, right,
Right. Yeah, I guess so.
Yeah. It's, I think it's, I think it's
one, we get so identified with these things.
I'm a king. Look at my robes, you know, and
(41:09):
I don't know who I am if I'm nota king, if I'm not King Lear, if
I'm not the head of a nation or whatever.
So you identify with it. And you, you, it's, it's a, it's
a, it's a logical mistake because you think if I lose this
position of power, I'm going to die, right, Like you're saying.
(41:30):
But in fact, no, you, it's, it's, you're just losing a
position of power. You're you're taking off a
jacket. Yeah.
But you think you're the jacket.So it's, you know, extremely
stressful and you think you're dying, but you're not.
That's the mold the. Shell that we're talking.
About and then and then I think there is a part of it that's
just the self preservation. Sure.
(41:53):
I think, I think that my needs are, you know, I have to have
this much money a year in order to feel safe and that I'm in
control of life and, and all of that.
Yeah, you know, and I need to. I want to know where my next
meal is. Coming from survive in your
career, you have to become sort of your career.
And you know, I am an artist. I am a, you know, engineer.
(42:16):
Whatever it is, yeah. So this is related to but like
back to and or there's this goodscene in the first season where
you know, and or they're they'regoing to do this High Street
ever. And he's in this little, you
know, village of of the low tax,essentially, you know, and
(42:41):
there's an imperial Lieutenant who's in the rebellion but works
for the empire and he's like, what's his story?
Everybody knows his story. Like what's his story?
And the girls like, all right, this is what happened to him.
She's like, he was in the Empire, rising in the ranks, and
(43:01):
then he met one of the villagerswhere the Empire was set, was
set up on his base, and he fell in love with her.
And then the Empire demoted him and didn't let him get promoted.
And then the girl broke up with him and then he hated the
Empire. And then she says we all have
(43:24):
our own rebellion. And that's sort of the King Lear
thing too, is it was stripped from him, not only the empire,
but also the love of the the lover of the village.
So then he just became a sulky rebel who honestly just hated
the Empire entirely for what they did and what they've done
(43:46):
to the people and all that stuff, you know, But that's the
crazy, that's the good line as we all have our own rebellion.
You know, they're all of us go through these crazy changes
within ourselves because events like that happen.
And think about it, you know, wecould, you could get like a
(44:06):
crazy good job at some like, youknow, get your get your
counseling things, psychology, whatever it get into like this
crazy interesting, like clinic, whatever, you know, all of a
sudden, and then you fall in love with one of the, you know,
(44:26):
nurses or something. And then they find out and
they're like, oh, sorry, you're not gonna actually get that
office anymore. And then she breaks up with you
and you're just like that fuck this place, right?
You know, And then what happens is your whole entire world, King
Lear gets shattered. But then what happens?
Something good? Yeah, that person in that story
(44:48):
in and. Or he starts living his truth.
Yeah, he dies for his truth. Exactly.
Exactly. And one, they bust him during
the heist. The captain's like, you're gonna
hang for this. He's like, I I deserve worse for
working under you for the past seven years.
Yeah, but he's free. He's ready to die.
Free he's. Free.
(45:08):
And we see that in Shakespeare. We see that in real life, yeah.
Those who aren't those who are ready to die aren't necessarily
the most spiritual, the most religious, the most wealthiest,
the ones with the most kids thisand that.
The ones that are ready to die are the ones that were living by
(45:31):
their truth. The ones that aren't ready to
die are the ones that have massive regrets.
Right. Oh yeah, I worked.
For the empire for 30 years, andI did horrendous.
You know, whatever it is, whatever your metaphorical
empire is, whether it's a bad relationship, bad job, being a
king, whatever, right? That's regret, living by truth.
(45:57):
That's peace. Yeah.
And then you can pass on to the next life.
See. Yeah.
And what's God? Yeah, I had a conversation with
someone up at the Zen Center andyou know, the this kind of
kinglier moments happening. I just commented and said you
(46:19):
really can't hold on to anything, can you?
And she immediately, without even thinking, she's just Nope.
Wow. Yeah.
And that, and that's part of Buddhist teaching and philosophy
is you can't, it's all impermanent.
Right, right. You can't hold on to anything.
And the more you try to hold on to things and grasp and cling
(46:41):
and and and control and manipulate life in such a way
that you'll finally feel OK, that turns you into Edmund, that
turns you into gone wrong, right, right, right.
Whereas when you can let go of that desperation and that need
to control and that need to grass.
Yes, yes, and. Just enter into your truth more
fully the truth and in not. In a cynical way, not in a I'll
(47:03):
never love anything. Or I'll.
Never, you know, like have a, a strong long lasting bond or
attachment, right, right. But making sure that we're
bonding and attaching with healthy things.
With truth and authenticity and authenticity.
Exactly. Yeah.
So what's happening is, is we'reshowing up to the theme park,
(47:25):
which is life and where you're in the lion.
And imagine there you could get inside the park.
You just have to be truthful. You just have to live by your
truth and you can. You can live.
Oh, I like that. I like that.
But you're getting so old. You've been in this line so
long, you're gonna die. You can't die.
(47:47):
You haven't been. You haven't gone into the park
yet. You haven't gone into Disneyland
yet. You haven't even seen it.
You've been waiting in this linefor so long and you're refusing
and refusing. Well, of course you don't want
to die yet. You haven't lived.
But if you just live by your truth, you get that ticket.
You get to go into the amusementpark of why.
If you get to live, then you're not afraid to leave.
(48:08):
In fact, you're ready to leave after a while.
Dude, exactly. Because you're tired.
You did what you. Have to do.
And you did it, you know, and itwas fun and it was, you know,
long lasting memory and it was impactful and yeah.
And you can go home, you know, to rest, so to speak, into the
undiscovered country Han pod, and never return, you know,
(48:31):
right? Yeah, I like that.
Yeah, that is the undiscovered country.
Right. Yeah, yeah.
And yeah to 2nd what you're saying to it is yeah, it's not
about exchanging 1 system for another where now it's I'm
homeless on the street saying I'm very you know, that's not
(48:52):
that's, that's a misinterpretation.
I think it's about authentic truth in everything you're doing
arising. You're doing a career that is
aligned with who you are, not because you're you're trying to
impress people around you or because you're desperate for a
(49:14):
certain sum of money. It's because it's authentically
feels. Who you are?
Or or you're in a relationship that feels like an authentic,
truthful arising rather than I'mclinging, hanging on and scared
to be alone. All that sort.
Of stuff, right, Right. Exactly.
(49:35):
Yeah, I like that too. Sort of living by our truth that
I was watching the OR the Gran Turismo movie and that's based
on a true story. And they set up one one year.
They actually, like got the bestGran Turismo players in the
world. PlayStation game, Yeah.
(49:55):
And had them come and race actual cars.
And they made it like made a champion of one of them.
And Grand Prix is freaking crazy, you know?
But the actual story of the gamer's life is pretty awesome
and incredible. And this movie's about a gamer's
life. Yeah, it's about that true
story. Yeah.
(50:16):
Yeah. So it's really cool.
And the dad, like, wants him to play soccer.
And it's just like, why are you always playing these video
games? You should, like, run from your
younger brother and, like, get outside, you know?
Yeah. And he's just like, I don't like
soccer. I don't like football.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like, I never have. I'm good at this, and I love it.
And I'm doing that. And then look what happened.
He found this all of a sudden stumbled onto this crazy
(50:39):
opportunity where they invited him personally, you know, out of
only a few gamers to go. Yeah, compete in that
competition, you know? Yeah.
And there's so many stories likethat, that like someone told me
once about this guy who was, I think, like, I don't know, his
late 30s or something. And he had climbed up this
corporate business and married the boss's daughter and was set
(51:00):
to take over the business. But he was miserable and hated
his life and hated himself and all this stuff.
And then and was doing it because he thought he had to and
everything. And then he gets cancer, partly
possibly because his soul was like, fuck this, this sucks.
I hate this game. Let's let's leave.
So he gets cancer and then recovers from the cancer and is
(51:21):
so changed because he sees the the impermanence of life and
freed him up to some extent where he goes, oh shit, I was
doing the wrong thing my entire life.
I actually want to be a musicianand play violin.
He wants to play violin as a kidand his dad called him gay or
something and like broke the violin over said it's over, you
know, and then ends up recovering and then and then
(51:44):
quits the corporate job and thenthe wife divorces him because he
quit the corporate job and now it's now it's and that must.
Have been fucking scary dude. Now kingly.
Cancer, quitting your corporate job, your trophy wife divorcing
you. Just kinglier moment.
Letting go of everything, everything, everything,
(52:05):
everything until that dude just started playing violin and then
just had a much more fulfilling life and did what he wanted to
do. And you know, it was nothing
incredibly, incredibly special. It's not like he, you know,
ended up becoming this like hyper world famous violin player
or something like that, but he just became healthy.
(52:26):
Essentially. He just got to enjoy his truth
and enjoy his. Life, you know, he told the.
Truth and then got to enter intothe theme park.
Of life. So this is this.
I think we're coming to get a crescendo here on King Lear.
For me, it's a play. It's a play of hope.
Cool. When we feel like we've lost
(52:51):
everything in our lives. When we feel like the mold's
broken. I'm worthless.
This I'm, you know, I made all these mistakes.
I can never be forgiven. I can never find truth or peace.
Guess what? You're you've never been closer
(53:11):
because it's not until we have our King Lear moment that we can
find truth that we can break ourmold and we can find true love
and we can have, you know, people like Cordelia and our
lives like the gesture like our friend, you know, who got his
(53:32):
eyes plucked out of his head. And that's another good one is
the Earl of Gossip is he finallysees once his eyes have been
exactly he he says, why do I need eyes?
I have no path to take, right? But it's not until then that he
finds Lear who finds him. They find each other and he
finds Edgar, his son, who he loves, right.
(53:54):
Exactly. So it's a, it's a play of hope.
That's a beautiful thing. That's a play of forgiveness.
You know, I love that. It's yeah, it's it's great.
I really, Yeah. I really appreciate that
sentiment. Yeah.
Yeah. When you think you're furthest
away from truth because it's hurting, and you know that's
(54:16):
when you're actually closest. Yes.
If anything, you're hurting because you're not allowing.
The truth, right? Right.
Because it's already leaving you.
Yeah, you're already in the process.
You're already. Oh God, that was beautiful.
Yeah, yeah. Wow, yeah, beautifully said.
(54:40):
Any other final thoughts on the play?
I I just wanted to know too, that I appreciated the
creativity of the gesture. I know we mentioned a lot just
how you know he he's speaking truth.
Yeah. To layer, but they're also have
this weird friendship, but this challenging friendship to where
(55:04):
where he's challenging him, he'sa foil to them.
He annoys him, but he loves him.Yeah, you know, and, and, but is
he also even in the narrative tobegin with?
We're talking about that where it's kind of like a Fight Club
thing, you know, Durden, Tyler Durden, where the gesture is
always there, but it like not really acknowledged by any of
(55:25):
the other characters per SE. But Lear, he's always very much
connected to Lear constantly, constantly in his dialogue and
his thing. So it begs the question, was
that the first sort of story of was the gesture even a real
character? Was even.
Yeah, and then the gesture just disappears.
The. Fool.
And that's a weird thing. The fool.
(55:46):
Just This is why he is like a Tyler.
Tyler Durden. Cause.
The fool randomly disappears. He's gone and then you see King
Lear wearing the fools hat, right?
And then the beginning of the play, there's all this joking
between the fool and Lear where he's like taking off his hat and
putting down there's head and he's telling he's wearing the
(56:06):
cock. Come now.
Yeah, you to take the cock, scum.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I beg you to take the cock
scum. And then at the end Lear takes
the hat and the fool has disappeared, meaning they have
integrated. Yes.
And that's something too that you hear and some spiritual
teachings that there's kind of the higher self or true self,
whatever you wanna call it. And then it's this process of
(56:29):
integrating with that higher self.
And then once that integration process is complete, there's no
more split. It's not you're not getting, you
know, this intuitive voice giving you the messages for what
to do. You're just fucking living it
freely because you've become thehigher self.
Exactly. Yeah, so it gets pretty Teddy
and and deep. Yeah.
And sort of like the drop dead Fred thing where once we it's
(56:54):
this movie about imaginary friend this little girl has and
you know, once she matures and she doesn't need him anymore and
he disappears you. Know there.
You go, but it's a it's a, it's a, you know, sort of digression
on maturity and a healthy thing that happens to us, Right.
(57:14):
And sort of same thing in Lear is his Fred drop dead Fred.
Yeah, disappears once he finallyfinds peace and once he finally
matures and becomes the elder tohis body, right.
His spiritual self, his, his emotional self, his personality
has matured to now match his senior citizen.
(57:35):
The Gray hair, which is coveted by that's something to covet
because it represents wisdom, represents, you know,
perseverance, all this stuff, right?
And. That's true.
Power for a human, that's true. You know, wealth and something
that can benefit others, right? Yeah.
Yeah. Interesting, interesting.
(57:56):
Yeah. And I'll say too that it's not a
one and done process. And I've, I've figured that out
and have felt some strain over it because I'll see these
narratives about truth and freedom and letting go of all
the all the shit you were holding on to.
And and you would think it's a one and done sort of thing.
(58:18):
You know, you, you walk, you spend 6 hours in the rain like
like Lear did and all of a sudden you're a new man in, in
your free, you know, and, and maybe that happens sometimes.
We had a conversation about the near death experience, people
who go to the other side and come back in there and then they
(58:39):
live in a totally different way,right.
No more freeway. There's that, but.
But even that's not easy either.No, that's not easy and even.
Lear. Look at Lear.
He was in that sort of ether in the wilderness.
He was in the other. World long time yes you know the
Shakespeare doesn't put a time period on it but.
(58:59):
No, Yeah. And you do say significant
amount of. Time.
Yeah, it's like the hyperbolic time chamber, because he goes
into this 4th dimensional realm essentially where there is no
time or space. And same thing with like, you
know, mass injuries. I know a few weeks ago I text
you. I wanted to bring up Jeremy
Renner and his near death experience.
The snow plow foul over him while one reason why his his
(59:23):
whole entire life changed. He even sold his house in
Hollywood so he could go live ina small, his small little cabin,
you know, and he said that represented his old self.
That wasn't who he was anymore. Right, right.
But. It was a long journey.
He almost died. And then it was years already.
Now, a few years of recovery, learning how to walk again,
(59:44):
believing in yourself, dealing with the pain, you know, all
this, all that whole, all that stuff, being in the wilderness,
you know, he's finding glassed out.
Yeah. Yeah, it was him.
He was most famous for being Hawkeye and Marvel movie.
Oh, that dude. OK.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I knew.
I knew that he does. Like music and he's been in a
(01:00:05):
lot of awesome movies, you know,Ben Affleck, whatever, a bunch
of cool stuff. But you know, he had this good
quote I wanted to bring up. And you know, I thought maybe
it'd bring up some good conversation, but he said, he
said. I discovered that in order to
find, in order to settle on whatI really want, my intentions, in
(01:00:30):
order to make intentions come true, I have to do what I don't
want to do constantly. I'm constantly doing what my
mind is saying I shouldn't do. Oh God, that is.
And he said, once I do that, then I realized that I start
getting the things that I wanted.
(01:00:52):
Wow. So every time he didn't want to
get up in bed, every time he didn't want to work out, every
time he doesn't want to breathe through tubes, every time he
doesn't want to do this while hedoes it.
Yeah. And then it's better.
And he said the same thing with his kids and his family every
time he does, doesn't want to gopick up the kids.
If you want to want to sign him up for another camper, do this
(01:01:13):
or that. He does it.
And then what does he find at the end of the week?
More love from his family. Better.
Health from his body, all this. So it's kind of crazy how our
conscious brain can almost lie to us.
Oh, it's fucked, yeah. And be like, oh, I don't want to
do I don't want to go to the gym.
I don't want to eat healthy. Are you kidding me?
I'm your freaking nose. You know me.
(01:01:34):
But if you do what you right, then you get what you really
want inside, which is health love.
You know that's. The different medicine, yeah.
And it's it's wow. Yeah.
And it's the mind's way of feeling safe for all of that.
So you're, you're it's. And that's what's cool about
Lear the play itself is that because I was going to say, it's
(01:01:58):
not this one and done thing. Right, right.
It's actually a moment by momentthing like Jeremy Renner say,
right? Because every moment that he OK,
aw man, I just don't feel like getting out of bed yet.
Right? OK, that's the Lear moment,
right? And it's and then there's the
more true self that's like, well, if you're going to live a
(01:02:19):
rich life and do you know whatever you need to do,
accomplish what you want to liveyour truth, you're going to have
to get out of bed right now. So then even in that you see
that tension between deception, hiding under the cover is
hiding, hiding in the robes, trying to be the king and then
the truth of I need to expose myself, get out of bed and live
my life. And then the next thing, man, I
(01:02:41):
just want to have like like a egg sandwich with a ton of bacon
and like fried and all that kindof stuff.
And then that's your leer moment.
And then you realize, no, I needto have have a healthy breakfast
and that's going to make me moreenergized and feel good for the
day and all that. And having the hard medicine,
you know, swallowing the the tough medicine.
(01:03:02):
So it's leer played out moment to moment.
Are you choosing? Are you choosing your your
truth, or are you choosing your your fear and your grasp?
Right, right. So we're constantly having these
awakenings, you know? Constantly.
Little micro micro Awakenings micro.
Awakenings. That have to happen throughout
your entire life. Exactly.
(01:03:24):
And then there's micro awakening.
The result that we want at the end, which is ultimate peace.
Yeah, yeah, Happiness. You did what you have to do.
The micro awakenings that grow and expand and into the macro
awakening. Yeah.
And not only to say that, you know, you were loved, but to,
you know, love to say you are beloved, you know?
Yeah. Yeah.
The Carver thing, you know, Yeah.
(01:03:45):
Yeah. Wait, what?
Was that the Carver thing? I don't want to mess up the
quote, but he said at the end ofhis life he wanted to not only
have loved, but to have been beloved.
OK, you know, Yeah, yeah. But it was like a two thing
there. Yeah, The the, the, the little
(01:04:06):
layering, the cake layering of, of the give and the take as
well. Right, right, right.
But I don't know, brilliant play.
It's it's it's also bad. Like it's funny.
I was looking at I was listeningto an interview of of this.
I don't know if Shakespearean versus scholar on NPR or
(01:04:27):
whatever. And he was saying how
Shakespeare is always seen as you have to be smart in order to
get this. He was always told, oh, you just
don't get it. You're not smart enough, smart
people. And he said once he got smart
enough, like book smart and started reading it and all this
and going to the place, he realized that shape for him,
(01:04:50):
Shakespeare sucked. He didn't like Shakespeare.
He was like, oh, this play is the worst, you know?
And like, but then he ended up growing to like get attached to
other works, you know? And he was a scholar in, in
drama. Yeah.
And talked about other playwrights and this and that,
you know? So I do think that there is
(01:05:11):
something left to be desired in Kingler.
Yeah. Like the whole premise of the
daughters and stuff, it's a little ridiculous.
It's a little wild. Yeah.
Hans Christian Anderson, it's a little unbelievable, too.
Like, he's so irrational, right?It's just like, Oh my God, bro.
Like, really. Like, this is like, kind of
like, comical. It's so ridiculous, you know?
(01:05:33):
Sure, sure. Yeah.
And you could criticize it. I mean, OK, Cordelia too.
I mean you can even say she's she's an incredibly 2
dimensional character. There's nothing interesting or
fascinating about Cordelia. She's quite literally just the
symbolic representation of truth.
She's not an actual character. She does nothing.
(01:05:53):
She has no. She has no.
Desires or anything, she just sits there and and prize.
Right, gives up her husband, then goes happily with the
French dude and then just cries.And dies.
She has no subjective interiors on the world, she's just a
symbol. Right, right.
Totally. Yeah.
(01:06:14):
Where is like Macbeth? The premise of Macbeth isn't
amazing. You know, it's simple, it's
nice, it's neat, it's tidy. There's depth with Lady Macbeth
and Ham and, you know, the rise to power and less than that.
And there's it's believable. You know, the drama is
believable. It's like, oh shit, yeah, this
(01:06:35):
dude got visited by some crazy freaking tower switches and
like, his wife wants him to killthis dude.
And like, that actually happens in the world, You know, I don't
know, even like, Romeo and Juliet, like, that's believable.
Like, teenagers fall in love. And it is so beautiful, but also
so tragic and like, you know, ridiculous.
(01:06:57):
And I mean, that's over the top too, though Romeo and Juliet
happens over the course of like I think I mentioned.
It too in le pas too. Just how ridiculous it is.
It's almost. Kind of ridiculous too.
It's like, you know, it's like, what's with these three witches?
And like, is it like that's thatis weird.
It's like, what are you talking about?
Like sure, you know. Yeah.
That would be like, like, I met someone today who who was
(01:07:19):
telling me that they made a major life decision based on a
tarot card reading. Yeah.
And I was like, what the hell did you do that for, you know?
And it turned out to be, you know, a mediocre decision.
And it was like, well, yeah, 'cause you like what?
Because you had some Tao switch tell you about about the cards
and your fate, like what the hell, you know, So I don't know,
(01:07:42):
Shakespeare is kind of fantastical, you know, but I do
see what you're saying because King the the whole premise is,
is bizarre. It's, it's definitely a little
bit like, like, like it's like he had his, his homework was,
was due soon and he had to like finish the essay, you know,
before, before class the next day, you know.
Like, I, I, I, I did. I'd like the Edgar Edmond feud
(01:08:05):
almost a little bit even. It competes with the main
narrative. I feel like, you know, that that
could be has even more depth andstrength to it.
Then there's madness in a way. And then even layers like thing
he's in a storm that's like his change of heart.
It's like, Dang you, you're coldlike that.
You're cold. Yeah.
(01:08:26):
That's all it took. Have you ever been outside,
buddy? Like he's never been outside.
Yeah. Where's like, I just feel like a
lot of the other ones they have like relatable.
Yeah, no, like the major, it's like a tighter narrative.
It's a tighter, right, right. Inciting and the inciting
incidents are more, yeah, believable in a lot of the other
(01:08:47):
ones. Totally, totally.
Then yeah. And then there is Edgar 2 slash
poor Tom, the good brother who who?
Yeah, this kind of last couple points that come to mind.
But Edgar, he flees, thinking that Edmund creates this whole
deception that that people are after Edgar and want to kill him
(01:09:09):
because whatever. And then Edgar flees and then is
living out in in the wilderness and strips down naked and goes
in disguise as poor Tom. And then we meet poor Tom.
And then Lear's conversing with him.
And Lear keeps calling him a philosopher and the truest
philosopher. And why is he the philosopher?
(01:09:30):
Because he is the one who has, who was in the wilderness, who
was naked in the wilderness, theunaccommodated.
Man, the thing itself, he. Has entered into his truth.
And Edgar was already kind of like Cordelia.
He's sort of already in the sight.
Of truth, the good son. Yeah.
So he's a philosopher in the in the sense of philosophy as as a
(01:09:53):
way of being, not just a way of thinking.
Right. Yeah.
And he's very much naked, Tom. Yeah.
Exactly. Like he's a literally bear
freely. Naked, right?
Yeah. This is who I am.
I've not been to hide. Yeah.
Body and soul, right. Yeah.
And then, and then last point I wanted to make was that
Gloucester, there's a scene, It's kind of a weird scene.
(01:10:15):
I didn't even notice it when we were watching it last night, but
I noticed it. And when I've watched the play
play before, but I think it's Edgar, poor Tom, who's who's
Gloucester's son convinces Gloucester that he's going to
step off a Cliff and he's blind because his eyes have been
gouged out. So then he he believes that he's
(01:10:38):
walking towards a Cliff because I think Gloucester was like, I'm
going to kill myself. Do you remember the scene?
I do, yeah. Gloucester.
'S like I'm going to kill myselfbecause I've had enough.
Like when my eyes got gouged out.
I'm done. Right.
But he can't find a Cliff because.
He's blind in the sand. Yeah, exactly.
And then poor Tom Edgar, his son, says, well, OK, follow me,
(01:11:00):
follow me, right? There's a Cliff 5 feet in front
of you just to run. And he does it and then trips
and falls thinking that he and he has a near death experience.
He. Thinks that he falls.
And then it's after that that Gloucester is now free.
Yeah. You know.
Crazy, yeah. Yeah, and there's all these
(01:11:23):
moments of, of weirdly shamanic therapeutic mortalities that are
happening because Gloucester, he's despairing and saying I
want to die and then gets to have the performed experience of
death. He gets to have a, a, a induced
near death experience in order to move through that.
(01:11:45):
Lear, at some point when they'rein that little hovel, they
finally find some shelter from the storm.
And then Lear is talking to a stool and like a lamp or
something as if as if he's talking to Gonrell and Reagan
and he's actually processing thegrief and the trauma of what his
daughters had done to him. That's an actual therapeutic
(01:12:07):
modality. Like I've read this in, in, in
therapy books and psychological books that you can, you can
actually do performative psychological healing by having
someone you, you have your client or whoever sit there and
then you point to the lamp and say, OK, this is your mother.
And then you point to the chair and say, this is your father.
(01:12:30):
What, what did you need to say to them that you never got to
say to them? And then and then the person
does it and, and it actually, atleast from what I read, it seems
to work pretty well with helpingpeople to at least these the
energy behind that stuff. I like that too, because is it
(01:12:52):
is it Gloucester that says lead me to the to the crazy man?
Let me him, let him lead me. Remember we were talking about
that. He's like, I don't want you to
lead me anymore. Please lead me to this crazy
person. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I want them to guide me. And he's like, Are you sure you
(01:13:12):
want this? Yeah.
But what's what's really happening is is the philosopher
right the the one speaking the truth, the shaman?
Yeah, the non normative. Yeah, that's who should be
leading us. And though they see it seems
like a crazy idea. Yeah, well, it's crazy because
(01:13:35):
our imperial side, you know, theempire wants us to stay in
submission, wants us to stay King Lear, right?
So we think, oh, going out thereand freeing your mind is crazy,
you know? But that's where.
We should go because we don't, you know, we don't want those
eyes anymore. We should have them out out foul
Jelly, you know, so we can finally see and finally get LED
(01:13:59):
in the right direction. Which makes me think, which
could be a conversation for another.
But, you know, it would be interesting to read an article,
if there is one, on the drug useof Shakespeare and during
Shakespeare's time because specifically, you know,
(01:14:22):
psilocybin mushrooms sort of thing.
You know, where, where you go into this realm of madness and
come out a different person, a better person.
You know, you follow the fool ina way which your normative
conscious brain is afraid of andthinks is crazy, right?
(01:14:42):
But honestly, that's exactly what your body needed to change.
And I was listening to this interesting thing on the WI
files actually, and how the the stoned ape theory.
Yeah, yeah, I know about that one.
And it's just interesting that when we take mushrooms, our
brain synapse and stuff, they start communicating with other
(01:15:04):
portions of the brain that they never would have before, and
they actually connect with each other.
Yeah. So we change like biologically
change in our brains after we dothese drugs, you know?
Yeah, and that's why it's beginning to be used on on
right, veterans and people suffering and.
He's tripping his balls off out there.
(01:15:24):
Oh yeah, that's what story, you know, that's what he's talking
to. And imagine that he's.
On an ayahuasca trip, you know, go through the storm.
So one. Yeah, you're totally right.
And watching Shakespeare, it's just like, like the language,
the, the, the like the characters have such this
archetypal resonance that reallyis, you know, the kind of a
(01:15:46):
mushroom consciousness thing. At least, you know, some
experiences of mine. It's like you like everything
becomes the archetype of itself.It becomes the Platonic form of
itself. It's not just, you know, not it
becomes an archetype and that Shakespeare's all archetypes,
it's all, it's all Jungian in that sense.
(01:16:08):
I mean, Jung came 400 years after Shakespeare, so you
wouldn't call it that, but. Sure.
So I've questioned it was Shakespeare using some kind of
drugs, and I looked it up and there was some article that I
found, but it was like it was really grasping at straws.
It was pretty dumb, actually. It was trying to claim that
there was a pipe that was found in what would have been
(01:16:30):
Shakespeare's residence. And they were examining the pipe
and said that there may have been some sort of hemp or, you
know, kind of cannabinoid in it or something, which maybe.
But then they were also not evensure if that's definitely where
Shakespeare lived. And it, it just was a dumb
article. But I get the sense that, yes,
(01:16:50):
but then that he was, you know, on something.
But then at the same time, you look at a guy like Carl Jung,
who was not to my knowledge anyway, I don't think Young was
using any psychedelic substances, but he just lived
there. He, you know, he just, he just
had that genius mind where he just lived in that incredibly
(01:17:11):
fluid, incredibly archetypal, almost meditative state
throughout his entire life and just lived and lived and created
from that state. He was also constantly doing
lucid dreaming and stuff like that.
So maybe that's how he accessed it.
So Shakespeare too, who knows? Who knows what his Maybe he was
doing, lucid dreaming every single night, having images of
(01:17:34):
these characters come to him. Maybe he was.
Maybe he did find a cow patch with mushrooms growing in it.
You know, I'd love to. Even hear his own personal
story, if he had King Lear moments, if he had moments of
growth and. And you know what I'm saying?
Yeah. His son died when he was young.
Hamnet Hamlet, but with an N. Like that was, Yeah.
(01:17:56):
William Shakespeare's son Hamnetdied when he was a kid.
And then and Shakespeare, that was devastating for Shakespeare.
So, so and then he wrote Hamlet not long after.
But so yeah, I mean, the guy definitely had his personal King
Lear moments had to have or moments that I'm sure like when
(01:18:17):
he was a young playwright and thought he was, it was a big
thing and thought he was going to be famous or something.
And then and then he's. On behalf of the Jareds thank
you for listening. Follow rate and tell your
(01:18:37):
friends the Jareds will be back next time.
And always remember thou shouldsnot have been old till thou
hadst been wise. Have a safe night.
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