October 23, 2025 • 36 mins
Three years ago I was broke, sharing an apartment with scorpions, and couldn't see a way forward. Then I discovered that laughter—the real, spontaneous kind—can be a powerful spiritual practice.
In this episode we explore why ego and humor can't coexist, and how laughing at yourself transforms everything from meditation to life's hardest moments.
What we cover:
- The scorpion story and the spiritual breakthrough that followed
- Why heaviness is "spiritual death" and lightness is life
- How to spot the cosmic joke in your own struggles
- Ancient wisdom on softness vs. rigidity in spiritual practice
- The line between toxic positivity and genuine humor
Featuring G.K. Chesterton's idea of "divine delight," Taoist wisdom on yielding over forcing, and practical ways to bring levity to real-world challenges.
If spirituality has started to feel heavy, this is your permission to lighten up without losing depth.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jacob (00:00):
Yeah! Well I tell you what! We done turned
spirituality into the mostdepressing thing since my Uncle
Earl's funeral.
We got yogis meditating onclouds, thinking about kale,
preachers looking sadder than apossum in traffic.
But shoe, I figured it out withmosquitoes biting me, and some
(00:25):
scorpions, and without twonickels to rub together.
And you know what I did?
I just laughed my ass off, andeverything changed.
So stick around.
We gonna talk about whyenlightenment is basically just
learning to chill the hell out.
(00:45):
My eagles.
(02:01):
How did you guys like thatintro?
Did that make anybody laugh?
I sure hope so, because I put alittle time into it.
And it's actually the centerpoint of the episode, really, is
laughter.
I want to talk about humorbecause humor I heard somewhere
referred to as spiritualcarbonation or carbonated
spirituality.
And it's true.
(02:22):
Oftentimes on the spiritualpath or just life in general,
uh, we we take things tooserious.
We forget to remember that lifeis meant to be enjoyed, and we
frame things from a certainparadigm that make things heavy.
And that was my life threeyears ago, almost four years
(02:44):
ago.
When I first moved to Arizona,I was in a pretty dark state.
I had nothing, I didn't havetwo nickels to rub together.
My mom said that we could livewith her until we found a place.
So that was about three monthsliving with mom.
Hadn't lived with her in a longtime.
All my stuff was in storage.
(03:05):
Wife and I were sleeping in theliving room.
You know, kids were, I mean, itwas intense.
I had to figure out how toreliably earn income again
because in Las Vegas, I had beenan Uber and a Lyft driver for
about four years almost, and Iwas earning money pretty
(03:26):
consistently there, which waseasy in Vegas because the people
that would come in and out, youknow, kept me busy and the city
wasn't very big.
But Phoenix, it's a huge metro,and I could end up an hour away
from the kids when they got outof school, and that's uh that
wouldn't work for us.
(03:47):
So I had to figure out a way todo deliveries locally, and I
did, and the income was great.
Long story short, I was able toearn money, but it was just
enough to survive because thecost of living started to go
into the um outer stratosphere.
Uh, we were paying $2,400 amonth at this apartment complex
(04:09):
that we eventually moved into inGilbert, Arizona.
And the place was insane.
You know, for $2,400 a month,we are paying a premium price.
Paying a premium price, saythat three times fast.
Um, I'm getting distractedtoday, but we were paying so
much money and the place wasinfested with scorpions and
(04:33):
mosquitoes.
So my wife and I, when we wouldcome home, it was a nightmare.
Or if you wanted to leave thehouse, because as soon as you
open the door, a ton ofmosquitoes would fly into your
house.
So we had this method where wewould leave an electrical racket
outside.
(04:54):
It was like it looked like atennis racket with an electrical
grid where you can kind of waveit through the air and zap all
the mosquitoes.
So every time we come home,we'd have to wave that racket
around and kill these darnmosquitoes, you know, and we'd
leave incense outside thedoorway to try to get rid of
them.
When I'd come home withgroceries from Costco, I'd have
(05:14):
to call the wife and say, Hey,I'm almost home.
Get ready.
She'd crack the door open justbarely and put like a little
incense stick out there to letit kind of marinate in the air
and get rid of them.
I mean, it was nuts.
The worst part wasn't also themosquitoes, but the scorpions.
We had an infestation ofscorpions at this apartment
(05:38):
complex.
And the management never seemedto care.
Like we would we would go tothe office and tell them, and
we'd show them pictures, andthey never cared.
They'd send out this verygeneric guy with a little tin
can, little spray can, and he'djust spray, but it didn't do
(06:00):
anything at all to thesescorpions.
It got so bad we would startseeing them in the house quite
frequently, and it was startingto really impact our mental
health because these are barkscorpions, which we Googled, and
they are the most venomousscorpion in North America.
(06:20):
And it turns out Phoenix,Arizona is the headquarters, the
central hub for all barkscorpions in the North uh in the
uh North American continent.
You could go Google me on that,but I'm pretty sure that's
correct.
At any rate, there was tons ofthem.
And one day we saw one as wewere getting ready for school,
(06:44):
and these things blend in sowell.
If you don't have anultraviolet light, they're
almost invisible to your eyes.
And we were getting ready forschool and we saw something
moving on the carpet, and wewere like, what is that?
And we looked really close andwe finally saw it was a
scorpion.
And um, I was able to kill itby jumping on it with my shoe,
(07:06):
but it took a couple of jumps,like digging in with my heel.
And even after they're dead,they can subconsciously still
sting you, so you have to bereally careful handling them.
And one day I was I was donewith work, and my wife calls me
up and she says, Babe, babe,babe.
(07:26):
And I'm like, Yes, yes, yes,what is it?
And I'm at the grocery storeand she's like, I got bit.
I'm like, what?
You got bit by what?
And she tells me she got bit bya scorpion, so I rush home.
We kill the thing by throwing auh cutting board on it, and I
jumped with all my weight on thecutting board on the scorpion,
(07:48):
still didn't kill it.
So we had to use these tongs toget rid of it.
And um, my wife, she got bittwice on her finger, and her
whole arm went completely numb.
She could not move her hand,she could barely move her arm at
the elbow and shoulder, and herface, the left side of her
(08:08):
face, went numb as well.
So we go to the ER becausewe're panicking.
We've never experienced ascorpion sting before.
We don't know how serious itis.
And we get there and the guy'slike, oh yeah, that happens all
the time.
Yeah, oh yeah, uh, no problem.
Yeah.
It was like 600 bucks, but itwas just a terrible experience.
(08:29):
And knowing that our apartmentwas just infested with these
scorpions, you know, it did notmake life easy.
Not to mention, every time weget home, there's a swarm of
mosquitoes sitting on ourdoorway.
So we my strategy when we wouldcome home is I would clap my
hands really loud because thatwould stir them all off the
(08:49):
doorway.
So they'd just kind of floataround it.
And then I'd start waving theelectric racket around and you
hear it as it's zapping allthese things.
So this whole first year inGilbert, we basically had a bug
infestation, no internet for theability to play video games.
And this was right around thetime I had that breakdown that I
(09:11):
talked spoke about in the firstepisode, because everything was
just so crazy.
And this is another side of itthat I didn't really go into
detail on in that episode, but Iwanted to bring this up because
it it's it was just such aheavy, serious point in my life.
I mean, even taking time off, Iwant to pause here and explain
(09:36):
to you guys.
Like, I was working and I stillam crazy hours at this time
dealing with mosquitoes, dealingwith scorpions, dealing with
extreme bills, you know, paying$2,400 a month for a subpar
apartment with thin walls,infestation, terrible internet,
couldn't game like I used to.
(09:58):
And I just had this breakdownwhere all the material things
that I was used to and uh livingwithout investation, it was
like all these things were justflipped upside down.
So not only was I strugglingwith my rent, but there was like
the knowledge that everybodyaround me, all my neighbors were
(10:22):
struggling to pay their renttoo.
And I started to really getdark in my head about it, like,
man, what kind of di dystopiaare we living in today?
You know, and I I'm one of myneighbors, he was like a new
father in his 20s, um, with liketwo kids.
He's working two jobs just tobarely survive.
You know, I and I saw myself inhim like 10, 15 years prior
(10:46):
with that optimism, and Irealized I was like losing my
optimism in life, you know?
And it was around this timethat I started practicing
spiritually, started to firsttime ever in my life, started to
meditate, sit on a cushion, andjust try to to um create a
space within myself where Icould really contemplate what I
(11:09):
was experiencing.
And it was intense.
I mean, even during meditationsessions, I would constantly
fear that a mosquito was likelanding on me.
And um anytime we had peoplecome over, we would have um
those electric rackets insidethe house too.
And we would tell people inadvance, like, when we open the
(11:32):
door, you got to come right inreally quickly because there's
mosquitoes.
And then we would be ready withthe rackets and we would try to
kill all the mosquitoes thatwould come in.
And we'd get most of them,usually all of them, but
sometimes there's like one ortwo that we would see come in
through the door and they wouldescape into the house somewhere
and we're like, damn it.
And then they would bite alwaysbite us later.
And at a certain point, afterstarting to practice spiritually
(11:59):
and really be with what is, Istarted to loosen my hold on my
expectations.
Not that I I just roll over andtake it in life, but it was
this realization that sometimeslife is going to deal you these
crazy stupid punches.
Scorpion infestation, mosquitoinfestation, you know, apartment
(12:21):
complex that doesn't care andis charging you insane rent, you
know, a country, an economythat doesn't give a crap about
the working class.
All of the all of these thingswere weighing down on me.
But instead of my usual methodof getting down about it and
depressed, honestly, and this iswhy I emphasize it so much.
(12:43):
Since I started meditating, Istarted to like look at it from
a zoomed out perspective.
Like, what does rock bottomlook like and the weight of it
all look like when you look atit from the perspective that you
are the sky and these thingsthat are happening are just the
clouds passing through the sky,if that makes sense.
(13:03):
It's it's like you get to kindof zoom back, and you know what
happened?
It it started to look like acomedy, like it was hilarious.
Like people would come over,and here's my wife and I with
these electric rackets, and ourguests, you know, my sister and
her husband would come over withtheir daughter, and we'd open
(13:24):
the door really quick.
They'd run in and we close thedoor, and we're sitting here
swinging these rackets around,trying to kill mosquitoes, and
we would just start laughingabout it.
It was hilarious.
Or I'd come home with Costcogroceries, and I would see my
wife, you know.
There was one time when she waslate with the incense, and I'd
see her quickly uh open the doora couple of inches and put the
(13:46):
incense out and close the doorreal quick.
And I'm just like, how did weget here to this point?
You know, like it was just sosilly.
Or walking around the apartmentcomplex, you know, flipping
through photos on my phone ofall these scorpions lit up by
the UV light just everywhere.
I mean, there was one time wewere going to bed and we see a
(14:09):
scorpion on the wall in the umon the wall next to the door
where we would walk into theroom, you know, and it's like,
or on the back porch, we wouldgo on the back porch at night
just to relax.
And um, one time my wife wouldhave me go out there with a UV
light first to make sure it wasall clear.
And there was one time when itwasn't clear, and there was a
(14:32):
scorpion on the wall right ateye level as you passed through.
I mean, it's it was terrifyingand very stressful, but there's
just a certain point where youlaugh.
You just have to laugh aboutit, and that really broke the
tension, and I just saw howridiculous it had all become.
(14:54):
And I think that's a usefulthing.
You know, there's like thisthis cosmic joke to life
sometimes.
When you when you get a littlequiet, sometimes you can
recognize it a little easier.
There was a quote from um GKChesterton on this this cosmic
joke idea where he says, I havesuffered as much as any man from
(15:16):
the public insult of themisprint.
I have seen my love of booksdescribed as a quote, love of
boots.
I have seen the word cosmicinvariably printed as comic, and
have merely reflected that thetwo are much the same.
I love that quote because he ishighlighting how well, I mean,
(15:40):
the quote speaks for itself, youknow.
It's it's like there is thisgreat cosmic joke to life when
we don't take things soseriously, and the absurdity of
existence itself is really thejoke.
If you think about I mean, justlook at the universe, the whole
thing is like a firework show.
We have these little balls thatwe're living on and dancing on
(16:03):
and playing on, and they're justrotating around a big ball of
fire in the sky, which somedaywill explode into an
unfathomable violent explosioncalled a supernova, or it'll
collapse into what we call ablack hole, which you can never
escape from.
You know, I mean, that initself is crazy.
(16:25):
And you just think of howunfathomably huge the universe
is and how infinitesimally smallwe are in comparison to it.
And yet, our lives have suchvalue, you know, all of the
things that we experience inlife on this infinitesimally
small speck of dust,essentially, just floating in
(16:48):
this great cosmic mystery, andwe have no idea what is going
on.
We have no clue.
We all have these theoriesabout it, and you've heard me
put forth many conceptual ideasof the great cosmic mystery on
this podcast.
But that is why, as you noticeon this podcast, I always say,
(17:09):
and that's why the name of thepodcast is to stand nowhere, not
on any single concept aboutthis mystery, because we don't
know.
We have to embrace it, it's thefun of it.
If we knew exactly what it wasand how it worked, it would be a
drag.
So there's a there's an there'san ancient figure named Mullah
Nasrudin, if I'm pronouncing hisname right, and people would
(17:31):
use Nasrudin as sort of thisJoker wild card character to um
teach a little bit of wisdom.
And there was this scene wherehe is looking for his house keys
under a street lamp, and he'slooking and looking, and
somebody comes up to him andsays, Well, let me help you.
And they search for a while,and the person says, Are you
(17:52):
sure you lost them here?
And he says, Oh no, I lost themnear my house.
And the person's like, Well,why are we looking here then?
And he says, Well, the light isbetter here.
You know, we we search foranswers where it's easy, but
laughter really shows us wherethe truth actually is.
(18:15):
It it's it's sort of in the umthe the indescribable, the
unknowable, you know.
Laughter doesn't make sense.
But it only when you put itinto words.
It does make sense when youdon't think about it, you know?
I don't know.
I just thought that was alittle uh funny story.
(18:35):
Laughter is kind of like whathappens when you stop fighting
reality and you see it for whatit is.
There was a um another quotefrom uh G.K.
Chesterton on this on this noteof laughter, how he compares
the gravity and levity of life.
He says a bird is activebecause a bird is soft.
(18:56):
A stone is helpless because astone is hard.
The stone must by its ownnature go downwards because
hardness is weakness.
The bird can of its nature goupwards because fragility is
force.
(19:16):
In perfect force there is akind of frivolity, an airiness
that can maintain itself in theair.
Angels can fly because theytake themselves lightly.
It is easy to be heavy, hard tobe light.
Satan fell by the force ofgravity.
(19:38):
And I thought that was really,really great to bring up, you
know, really the heart of thisepisode is that laughter and
spirituality is a lightness,it's not a serious heaviness.
Can we look at our life andlaugh?
Can you look at your life andlaugh?
(19:59):
Some of the ridiculousness ofit that you might be
experiencing right now?
So what is that what does thismean?
Wha I mean, what can we what amI getting at here, really?
Look at I I've pointed to thismany times that on on past
(20:23):
episodes I've pointed to thefact that everything is part of
a single thing, right?
A single unified whole.
We talk about non-duality onthis podcast, which is where
separateness is essentially anillusion.
You can't have up without down,you can't have black without
white, you can't have selfwithout other.
(20:44):
They all go together.
You can't have a buyer withouta seller.
The two create one another.
They come into being mutuallyand go out of being mutually.
Being a non-being, you know,the question to be or not to be,
being a non-being arisemutually.
So, can you see the divine ineverything?
(21:05):
For me, could I see thespiritual side and the hilarity
and the divinity in mysituation?
Scorpions everywhere,mosquitoes covering my door on a
daily basis.
My internet, which I have beenin love with since I was a kid,
so I could play video gamesonline, was suddenly gone.
(21:27):
Not only did I have extremework hours, but I I couldn't
even play video games if Iwanted to.
For a whole year, I had tobasically live like a monk, you
know, disconnected from thedigital world.
I mean, I could stream movies,but like, could I see the the
the divine in that situation andappreciate it?
(21:48):
Laughter helps you see throughthe roles, and and that the same
thing applies to people.
Can you see the divine ineveryone?
Ram Das is famous for sayingthat when he looks at people, he
sees God in drag and he putsphotos of politicians that he
(22:10):
disagrees with on his prayertable so that he can start to
see the beloved in everyoneelse.
And I'm not gonna digress intopolitics, but you know, pick
your politician and can you seethe divinity behind that
(22:30):
person's eyes, regardless ofwhat they've done?
Or do you draw a very thickbold line between you and that
person?
Do you live in thatseparateness?
I'm not saying that you have toaccept all of the actions of
people because some of them arenasty.
There are Hitlers in thisworld, and there are varying
(22:52):
degrees of them.
But on an ultimate level, canyou have compassion for the
person even though you condemnthe actions of them and fight
their actions with every fiberof your being?
You stand up, you protest, youdo what you have to do, but can
you maintain that compassion andstill see everyone as part of
(23:13):
one divine whole?
And for me, freedom really camefor freedom really came forth
for me when I started to see myown seriousness in the way I
took myself and my situation asanother mask that the divine was
(23:36):
wearing.
And in a sen in essence, youknow, existence was basically
saying, Can you still love menow?
I've taken away your financialstability.
Do you still love me?
Or is it conditional?
Do you hate your life now?
There there's a scene in uh theBack to the Future trilogy in
(24:04):
the third film.
If you haven't seen the Back tothe Future trilogy, what the
hell are you doing?
I'm joking, but seriously, uhin the third film, there's a
great, great scene on thistopic.
The protagonist, Marty McFly,he uh he travels through time.
In the third film, he goes backto the 1880s and he gets in a
(24:26):
fight with a cowboy.
And Marty he has a huge ego.
He finds out in the second filmthat his ego, anytime somebody
calls him chicken, he can't backdown from the fight.
He just gets locked in, hestarts seeing red, and this dude
calls him chicken um because hewants to race him at this red
(24:50):
light.
So he says, you know, he heagrees to it and but gets into a
car accident.
And don't worry, I'm notspoiling the film.
You find this out pretty earlyon.
But he gets into a caraccident, he injures his hand,
and it destroys his musicalcareer, changes his life
forever.
And this is a time travel film,so you can kind of put the
(25:12):
pieces together.
But in the third film, hefinally confronts his ego, and
uh this cowboy, uh his name isBuford, he challenges him to a
duel, you know, one of the duelsto the death.
And of course, he can't say no,he can't back down.
(25:32):
So he agrees to fight this guy,and in his mind, he's gonna be
um using the time machine to goback home by the time of the
duel, anyways.
So he doesn't really care.
He just kind of agrees to it,and then he plans on not showing
up, but then something happenswhere he has to face him.
So he's inside of this saloon,and Buford is outside calling
(25:58):
him a coward, giving him acountdown, and the film gets
really serious.
I mean, these films areprimarily comedies, but this
particular scene gets reallyserious, and the music is
serious, everyone's face isserious, nobody's smiling,
nobody's laughing, and all thepeople in the bar are like, if
(26:24):
you don't go out there, andMarty is like, What?
What if I don't go out there?
And the cowboy's like, thenyou're a coward, and you'll be
branded a coward for the rest ofyour days.
Everybody, everywhere, will sayyou're the biggest yellow belly
in the West.
(26:44):
And you hear the music justbuilding and building, and it's
like, first we find out that hedestroyed his musical career,
and now he's on the verge ofliterally dying because of his
ego.
And the the Buford guy, he'soutside, he's counting down, and
he says, Tan, you hear me run.
(27:06):
I said ten.
And the camera just zooms in onMarty's face, and he has this
moment of enlightenment where hebasically transcends his ego,
and his eyebrows raise up, andhe has this realization.
He just goes, He's an asshole.
I don't care what Tannin says,I don't care what anybody else
(27:27):
says either.
And he just realizes it's justmy ego.
Who gives a f I'm getting outof here?
I'm not gonna die.
And you just have to watch themovie.
It's so great.
It's my favorite moment in theentire trilogy.
He just realizes like thisvoice in his head this whole
time is bullshit, and you don'thave to listen to it.
(27:50):
And the point is that it's it'sreally the divine playing this
divine prank on you where maybeyour door is covered with
mosquitoes, maybe your apartmentis infested with scorpions,
maybe you don't have two nickelsto rub together, and it's real
(28:11):
easy to get to get in your headin a mental tornado and say, woe
is me, FML, you know, my life,my life.
I don't want this show to beexplicit or anything, but pardon
my French.
But it's real easy to get inyour head about it.
But when you create just even alittle bit of space, you can
you can kind of zoom out likeMarty did, and just say, What
(28:37):
the hell am I overthinking?
I'm alive, you know, I've gotmy heart is beating, I've got
blood in my veins.
I mean, what am I getting sostressed out about and just
laugh about it?
And um I just I I I bring upthat scene because it's real
special to me, and um, it justpopped in my head.
(28:57):
It's popped in my head atvarious points in my life.
It reminded me not to takethings so seriously.
And, you know, that's that'swhat I've really learned, and
and what changes things for meis I've learned to just laugh at
myself when I feel like I'mfailing in practice or with my
temper, you know, somebody cutsme off on the road.
(29:18):
I just kind of chuckle tomyself now.
I I might my temper might getthe best of me for a moment, but
instead of getting upset overtrivial things, making a chicken
out of a feather, you know, Ijust kind of try to laugh about
it now.
Like, what am I getting soworked up over?
It's not worth it.
It was like uh almost a yearago now, my son moved out, and
(29:42):
at first it was devastating, butnow I just kind of laugh about
it, you know.
Like there is a wisdom thatchildren have that I don't have,
and I need to trust his wisdomas well.
He needs to go out and make hisdecisions and do his thing, and
I just kind of look at it likewith A little bit of a laugh
now.
Like, why was I why why was Iso serious about it before?
(30:04):
You know, it was I miss him alot, and I st I I did especially
did when he moved out, and Istill do, but I just need to
zoom out a little bit andrealize life moves to its own
rhythm, you know.
My air conditioner, like Imentioned in the last episode,
just went out of my car.
So I'm driving around sweatingmy ass off trying to earn money.
(30:26):
You know, my income, myincome's dropped about 35, 40
percent over the last threeyears, and I had to let a lot of
debts go to stay alive,basically, to keep the lights on
and pay the bills.
So my credit score is backthrough the floor again, and
it's hilarious.
It's really hilarious.
(30:47):
And I don't mean that like I'mnot taking it.
I I take it sincerely, but it'snot serious to me.
It's just a credit score, andthere's nothing I can do about
it right now.
I'm looking at I'm looking atit like I'm lightening up.
I'm looking at it with genuinehilarity.
It's not like an insanelaughter, like when when
(31:09):
somebody has had a nervousbreakdown and they're laughing
when they shouldn't, but realgenuine humor.
You know, it helps lighten theactual load of life on your
shoulders.
Sincerity, not seriousness.
It's like Jesus said, unlessyou convert and become as a
child, you will not enter thekingdom of heaven.
(31:29):
So I wasn't becoming a childagain.
You know, I was becoming abrittle old stuck person, and
laughter just changed that.
It was like this water, likethis much needed rain in a
drought period of my life.
And I'm still not out of thewoods, you know.
(31:50):
Like I've mentioned in pastepisodes, I'm looking for work
and I don't know what the futureholds.
There it's real easy to justfeel burdened by it all, but at
some point you just have to kindof laugh and appreciate uh
everything on a cosmic level.
There's a verse from the Dao AChing which really points to
(32:11):
this.
It says, uh, men are born softand supple, but dead, they are
stiff and hard.
Plants are born tender andpliant, but dead they are
brittle and dry.
Thus, whoever is stiff andinflexible is a disciple of
death.
(32:32):
Whoever is soft and yielding isa disciple of life.
The hard and stiff will bebroken.
The soft and supple willprevail.
So, yeah.
Laughter really softened me upand returned me back to life.
(32:55):
And connecting that with thespiritual traditions out there,
maybe you go to church, maybeyou practice on a cushion, maybe
you're part of a satsang in ain a Buddhist um group.
Whatever you do, maybe you goto a Hindu temple, just remember
that it's supposed to be alight-hearted thing to bring you
(33:17):
back to life.
It's not supposed to weigh youdown even more.
Go to some churches out thereof any faith, and sometimes they
seem pretty heavy and dark andsad.
And it doesn't need to be likethat.
You know, the Sabbath issupposed to be a restful period.
In the Hebrew tradition, Godtook a day off.
He didn't force himself to gosomewhere he didn't want to
(33:40):
because he quote unquote knew itwas good for him.
It's supposed to be a holiday,a holy day.
That's where the word holidaycame from.
A restful day where you canbreathe from your heels and
relax all the way up to yourhead, you know, just totally
resting.
So take your life sincerely.
(34:01):
Just don't take yourself tooseriously.
Laughter it's not a distractionfrom the path, but it is the
path itself.
And I want to close out withone more reading from G.K.
Chesterton.
He was the major inspirationfor this episode.
Reminds us that life is sort ofa divine nonsense for fun.
(34:23):
G.K.
Chesterton, his vision of thedivine delight, this is from his
orthodoxy writings, he says,The thing I mean can be seen,
for instance, in children.
When they find some game orjoke that they especially enjoy,
a child kicks his legsrhythmically through excess, not
(34:47):
absence, of life.
Because children have aboundingvitality, because they are in
spirit fierce and free,therefore they want things
repeated and unchanged.
They always say, do it again,and the grown-up person does it
again until he is nearly dead.
(35:09):
For grown-up people are notstrong enough to exalt in
monotony.
But perhaps God is strongenough to exalt in monotony.
It is possible that God saysevery morning, do it again to
the sun.
And every evening, do it againto the moon.
(35:31):
It may not be automaticnecessity that makes all daisies
alike.
It may be that God makes everydaisies separately, but has
never gotten tired of makingthem.
It may be that he has theeternal appetite of infancy, for
we have sinned and grown old,and our father is younger than
(35:56):
we have.
Yeah! Well I tell you what! We done turned
spirituality into the mostdepressing thing since my Uncle
Earl's funeral.
We got yogis meditating onclouds, thinking about kale,
preachers looking sadder than apossum in traffic.
But shoe, I figured it out withmosquitoes biting me, and some
(00:25):
scorpions, and without twonickels to rub together.
And you know what I did?
I just laughed my ass off, andeverything changed.
So stick around.
We gonna talk about whyenlightenment is basically just
learning to chill the hell out.
(00:45):
My eagles.
(02:01):
How did you guys like thatintro?
Did that make anybody laugh?
I sure hope so, because I put alittle time into it.
And it's actually the centerpoint of the episode, really, is
laughter.
I want to talk about humorbecause humor I heard somewhere
referred to as spiritualcarbonation or carbonated
spirituality.
And it's true.
(02:22):
Oftentimes on the spiritualpath or just life in general,
uh, we we take things tooserious.
We forget to remember that lifeis meant to be enjoyed, and we
frame things from a certainparadigm that make things heavy.
And that was my life threeyears ago, almost four years
(02:44):
ago.
When I first moved to Arizona,I was in a pretty dark state.
I had nothing, I didn't havetwo nickels to rub together.
My mom said that we could livewith her until we found a place.
So that was about three monthsliving with mom.
Hadn't lived with her in a longtime.
All my stuff was in storage.
(03:05):
Wife and I were sleeping in theliving room.
You know, kids were, I mean, itwas intense.
I had to figure out how toreliably earn income again
because in Las Vegas, I had beenan Uber and a Lyft driver for
about four years almost, and Iwas earning money pretty
(03:26):
consistently there, which waseasy in Vegas because the people
that would come in and out, youknow, kept me busy and the city
wasn't very big.
But Phoenix, it's a huge metro,and I could end up an hour away
from the kids when they got outof school, and that's uh that
wouldn't work for us.
(03:47):
So I had to figure out a way todo deliveries locally, and I
did, and the income was great.
Long story short, I was able toearn money, but it was just
enough to survive because thecost of living started to go
into the um outer stratosphere.
Uh, we were paying $2,400 amonth at this apartment complex
(04:09):
that we eventually moved into inGilbert, Arizona.
And the place was insane.
You know, for $2,400 a month,we are paying a premium price.
Paying a premium price, saythat three times fast.
Um, I'm getting distractedtoday, but we were paying so
much money and the place wasinfested with scorpions and
(04:33):
mosquitoes.
So my wife and I, when we wouldcome home, it was a nightmare.
Or if you wanted to leave thehouse, because as soon as you
open the door, a ton ofmosquitoes would fly into your
house.
So we had this method where wewould leave an electrical racket
outside.
(04:54):
It was like it looked like atennis racket with an electrical
grid where you can kind of waveit through the air and zap all
the mosquitoes.
So every time we come home,we'd have to wave that racket
around and kill these darnmosquitoes, you know, and we'd
leave incense outside thedoorway to try to get rid of
them.
When I'd come home withgroceries from Costco, I'd have
(05:14):
to call the wife and say, Hey,I'm almost home.
Get ready.
She'd crack the door open justbarely and put like a little
incense stick out there to letit kind of marinate in the air
and get rid of them.
I mean, it was nuts.
The worst part wasn't also themosquitoes, but the scorpions.
We had an infestation ofscorpions at this apartment
(05:38):
complex.
And the management never seemedto care.
Like we would we would go tothe office and tell them, and
we'd show them pictures, andthey never cared.
They'd send out this verygeneric guy with a little tin
can, little spray can, and he'djust spray, but it didn't do
(06:00):
anything at all to thesescorpions.
It got so bad we would startseeing them in the house quite
frequently, and it was startingto really impact our mental
health because these are barkscorpions, which we Googled, and
they are the most venomousscorpion in North America.
(06:20):
And it turns out Phoenix,Arizona is the headquarters, the
central hub for all barkscorpions in the North uh in the
uh North American continent.
You could go Google me on that,but I'm pretty sure that's
correct.
At any rate, there was tons ofthem.
And one day we saw one as wewere getting ready for school,
(06:44):
and these things blend in sowell.
If you don't have anultraviolet light, they're
almost invisible to your eyes.
And we were getting ready forschool and we saw something
moving on the carpet, and wewere like, what is that?
And we looked really close andwe finally saw it was a
scorpion.
And um, I was able to kill itby jumping on it with my shoe,
(07:06):
but it took a couple of jumps,like digging in with my heel.
And even after they're dead,they can subconsciously still
sting you, so you have to bereally careful handling them.
And one day I was I was donewith work, and my wife calls me
up and she says, Babe, babe,babe.
(07:26):
And I'm like, Yes, yes, yes,what is it?
And I'm at the grocery storeand she's like, I got bit.
I'm like, what?
You got bit by what?
And she tells me she got bit bya scorpion, so I rush home.
We kill the thing by throwing auh cutting board on it, and I
jumped with all my weight on thecutting board on the scorpion,
(07:48):
still didn't kill it.
So we had to use these tongs toget rid of it.
And um, my wife, she got bittwice on her finger, and her
whole arm went completely numb.
She could not move her hand,she could barely move her arm at
the elbow and shoulder, and herface, the left side of her
(08:08):
face, went numb as well.
So we go to the ER becausewe're panicking.
We've never experienced ascorpion sting before.
We don't know how serious itis.
And we get there and the guy'slike, oh yeah, that happens all
the time.
Yeah, oh yeah, uh, no problem.
Yeah.
It was like 600 bucks, but itwas just a terrible experience.
(08:29):
And knowing that our apartmentwas just infested with these
scorpions, you know, it did notmake life easy.
Not to mention, every time weget home, there's a swarm of
mosquitoes sitting on ourdoorway.
So we my strategy when we wouldcome home is I would clap my
hands really loud because thatwould stir them all off the
(08:49):
doorway.
So they'd just kind of floataround it.
And then I'd start waving theelectric racket around and you
hear it as it's zapping allthese things.
So this whole first year inGilbert, we basically had a bug
infestation, no internet for theability to play video games.
And this was right around thetime I had that breakdown that I
(09:11):
talked spoke about in the firstepisode, because everything was
just so crazy.
And this is another side of itthat I didn't really go into
detail on in that episode, but Iwanted to bring this up because
it it's it was just such aheavy, serious point in my life.
I mean, even taking time off, Iwant to pause here and explain
(09:36):
to you guys.
Like, I was working and I stillam crazy hours at this time
dealing with mosquitoes, dealingwith scorpions, dealing with
extreme bills, you know, paying$2,400 a month for a subpar
apartment with thin walls,infestation, terrible internet,
couldn't game like I used to.
(09:58):
And I just had this breakdownwhere all the material things
that I was used to and uh livingwithout investation, it was
like all these things were justflipped upside down.
So not only was I strugglingwith my rent, but there was like
the knowledge that everybodyaround me, all my neighbors were
(10:22):
struggling to pay their renttoo.
And I started to really getdark in my head about it, like,
man, what kind of di dystopiaare we living in today?
You know, and I I'm one of myneighbors, he was like a new
father in his 20s, um, with liketwo kids.
He's working two jobs just tobarely survive.
You know, I and I saw myself inhim like 10, 15 years prior
(10:46):
with that optimism, and Irealized I was like losing my
optimism in life, you know?
And it was around this timethat I started practicing
spiritually, started to firsttime ever in my life, started to
meditate, sit on a cushion, andjust try to to um create a
space within myself where Icould really contemplate what I
(11:09):
was experiencing.
And it was intense.
I mean, even during meditationsessions, I would constantly
fear that a mosquito was likelanding on me.
And um anytime we had peoplecome over, we would have um
those electric rackets insidethe house too.
And we would tell people inadvance, like, when we open the
(11:32):
door, you got to come right inreally quickly because there's
mosquitoes.
And then we would be ready withthe rackets and we would try to
kill all the mosquitoes thatwould come in.
And we'd get most of them,usually all of them, but
sometimes there's like one ortwo that we would see come in
through the door and they wouldescape into the house somewhere
and we're like, damn it.
And then they would bite alwaysbite us later.
And at a certain point, afterstarting to practice spiritually
(11:59):
and really be with what is, Istarted to loosen my hold on my
expectations.
Not that I I just roll over andtake it in life, but it was
this realization that sometimeslife is going to deal you these
crazy stupid punches.
Scorpion infestation, mosquitoinfestation, you know, apartment
(12:21):
complex that doesn't care andis charging you insane rent, you
know, a country, an economythat doesn't give a crap about
the working class.
All of the all of these thingswere weighing down on me.
But instead of my usual methodof getting down about it and
depressed, honestly, and this iswhy I emphasize it so much.
(12:43):
Since I started meditating, Istarted to like look at it from
a zoomed out perspective.
Like, what does rock bottomlook like and the weight of it
all look like when you look atit from the perspective that you
are the sky and these thingsthat are happening are just the
clouds passing through the sky,if that makes sense.
(13:03):
It's it's like you get to kindof zoom back, and you know what
happened?
It it started to look like acomedy, like it was hilarious.
Like people would come over,and here's my wife and I with
these electric rackets, and ourguests, you know, my sister and
her husband would come over withtheir daughter, and we'd open
(13:24):
the door really quick.
They'd run in and we close thedoor, and we're sitting here
swinging these rackets around,trying to kill mosquitoes, and
we would just start laughingabout it.
It was hilarious.
Or I'd come home with Costcogroceries, and I would see my
wife, you know.
There was one time when she waslate with the incense, and I'd
see her quickly uh open the doora couple of inches and put the
(13:46):
incense out and close the doorreal quick.
And I'm just like, how did weget here to this point?
You know, like it was just sosilly.
Or walking around the apartmentcomplex, you know, flipping
through photos on my phone ofall these scorpions lit up by
the UV light just everywhere.
I mean, there was one time wewere going to bed and we see a
(14:09):
scorpion on the wall in the umon the wall next to the door
where we would walk into theroom, you know, and it's like,
or on the back porch, we wouldgo on the back porch at night
just to relax.
And um, one time my wife wouldhave me go out there with a UV
light first to make sure it wasall clear.
And there was one time when itwasn't clear, and there was a
(14:32):
scorpion on the wall right ateye level as you passed through.
I mean, it's it was terrifyingand very stressful, but there's
just a certain point where youlaugh.
You just have to laugh aboutit, and that really broke the
tension, and I just saw howridiculous it had all become.
(14:54):
And I think that's a usefulthing.
You know, there's like thisthis cosmic joke to life
sometimes.
When you when you get a littlequiet, sometimes you can
recognize it a little easier.
There was a quote from um GKChesterton on this this cosmic
joke idea where he says, I havesuffered as much as any man from
(15:16):
the public insult of themisprint.
I have seen my love of booksdescribed as a quote, love of
boots.
I have seen the word cosmicinvariably printed as comic, and
have merely reflected that thetwo are much the same.
I love that quote because he ishighlighting how well, I mean,
(15:40):
the quote speaks for itself, youknow.
It's it's like there is thisgreat cosmic joke to life when
we don't take things soseriously, and the absurdity of
existence itself is really thejoke.
If you think about I mean, justlook at the universe, the whole
thing is like a firework show.
We have these little balls thatwe're living on and dancing on
(16:03):
and playing on, and they're justrotating around a big ball of
fire in the sky, which somedaywill explode into an
unfathomable violent explosioncalled a supernova, or it'll
collapse into what we call ablack hole, which you can never
escape from.
You know, I mean, that initself is crazy.
(16:25):
And you just think of howunfathomably huge the universe
is and how infinitesimally smallwe are in comparison to it.
And yet, our lives have suchvalue, you know, all of the
things that we experience inlife on this infinitesimally
small speck of dust,essentially, just floating in
(16:48):
this great cosmic mystery, andwe have no idea what is going
on.
We have no clue.
We all have these theoriesabout it, and you've heard me
put forth many conceptual ideasof the great cosmic mystery on
this podcast.
But that is why, as you noticeon this podcast, I always say,
(17:09):
and that's why the name of thepodcast is to stand nowhere, not
on any single concept aboutthis mystery, because we don't
know.
We have to embrace it, it's thefun of it.
If we knew exactly what it wasand how it worked, it would be a
drag.
So there's a there's an there'san ancient figure named Mullah
Nasrudin, if I'm pronouncing hisname right, and people would
(17:31):
use Nasrudin as sort of thisJoker wild card character to um
teach a little bit of wisdom.
And there was this scene wherehe is looking for his house keys
under a street lamp, and he'slooking and looking, and
somebody comes up to him andsays, Well, let me help you.
And they search for a while,and the person says, Are you
(17:52):
sure you lost them here?
And he says, Oh no, I lost themnear my house.
And the person's like, Well,why are we looking here then?
And he says, Well, the light isbetter here.
You know, we we search foranswers where it's easy, but
laughter really shows us wherethe truth actually is.
(18:15):
It it's it's sort of in the umthe the indescribable, the
unknowable, you know.
Laughter doesn't make sense.
But it only when you put itinto words.
It does make sense when youdon't think about it, you know?
I don't know.
I just thought that was alittle uh funny story.
(18:35):
Laughter is kind of like whathappens when you stop fighting
reality and you see it for whatit is.
There was a um another quotefrom uh G.K.
Chesterton on this on this noteof laughter, how he compares
the gravity and levity of life.
He says a bird is activebecause a bird is soft.
(18:56):
A stone is helpless because astone is hard.
The stone must by its ownnature go downwards because
hardness is weakness.
The bird can of its nature goupwards because fragility is
force.
(19:16):
In perfect force there is akind of frivolity, an airiness
that can maintain itself in theair.
Angels can fly because theytake themselves lightly.
It is easy to be heavy, hard tobe light.
Satan fell by the force ofgravity.
(19:38):
And I thought that was really,really great to bring up, you
know, really the heart of thisepisode is that laughter and
spirituality is a lightness,it's not a serious heaviness.
Can we look at our life andlaugh?
Can you look at your life andlaugh?
(19:59):
Some of the ridiculousness ofit that you might be
experiencing right now?
So what is that what does thismean?
Wha I mean, what can we what amI getting at here, really?
Look at I I've pointed to thismany times that on on past
(20:23):
episodes I've pointed to thefact that everything is part of
a single thing, right?
A single unified whole.
We talk about non-duality onthis podcast, which is where
separateness is essentially anillusion.
You can't have up without down,you can't have black without
white, you can't have selfwithout other.
(20:44):
They all go together.
You can't have a buyer withouta seller.
The two create one another.
They come into being mutuallyand go out of being mutually.
Being a non-being, you know,the question to be or not to be,
being a non-being arisemutually.
So, can you see the divine ineverything?
(21:05):
For me, could I see thespiritual side and the hilarity
and the divinity in mysituation?
Scorpions everywhere,mosquitoes covering my door on a
daily basis.
My internet, which I have beenin love with since I was a kid,
so I could play video gamesonline, was suddenly gone.
(21:27):
Not only did I have extremework hours, but I I couldn't
even play video games if Iwanted to.
For a whole year, I had tobasically live like a monk, you
know, disconnected from thedigital world.
I mean, I could stream movies,but like, could I see the the
the divine in that situation andappreciate it?
(21:48):
Laughter helps you see throughthe roles, and and that the same
thing applies to people.
Can you see the divine ineveryone?
Ram Das is famous for sayingthat when he looks at people, he
sees God in drag and he putsphotos of politicians that he
(22:10):
disagrees with on his prayertable so that he can start to
see the beloved in everyoneelse.
And I'm not gonna digress intopolitics, but you know, pick
your politician and can you seethe divinity behind that
(22:30):
person's eyes, regardless ofwhat they've done?
Or do you draw a very thickbold line between you and that
person?
Do you live in thatseparateness?
I'm not saying that you have toaccept all of the actions of
people because some of them arenasty.
There are Hitlers in thisworld, and there are varying
(22:52):
degrees of them.
But on an ultimate level, canyou have compassion for the
person even though you condemnthe actions of them and fight
their actions with every fiberof your being?
You stand up, you protest, youdo what you have to do, but can
you maintain that compassion andstill see everyone as part of
(23:13):
one divine whole?
And for me, freedom really camefor freedom really came forth
for me when I started to see myown seriousness in the way I
took myself and my situation asanother mask that the divine was
(23:36):
wearing.
And in a sen in essence, youknow, existence was basically
saying, Can you still love menow?
I've taken away your financialstability.
Do you still love me?
Or is it conditional?
Do you hate your life now?
There there's a scene in uh theBack to the Future trilogy in
(24:04):
the third film.
If you haven't seen the Back tothe Future trilogy, what the
hell are you doing?
I'm joking, but seriously, uhin the third film, there's a
great, great scene on thistopic.
The protagonist, Marty McFly,he uh he travels through time.
In the third film, he goes backto the 1880s and he gets in a
(24:26):
fight with a cowboy.
And Marty he has a huge ego.
He finds out in the second filmthat his ego, anytime somebody
calls him chicken, he can't backdown from the fight.
He just gets locked in, hestarts seeing red, and this dude
calls him chicken um because hewants to race him at this red
(24:50):
light.
So he says, you know, he heagrees to it and but gets into a
car accident.
And don't worry, I'm notspoiling the film.
You find this out pretty earlyon.
But he gets into a caraccident, he injures his hand,
and it destroys his musicalcareer, changes his life
forever.
And this is a time travel film,so you can kind of put the
(25:12):
pieces together.
But in the third film, hefinally confronts his ego, and
uh this cowboy, uh his name isBuford, he challenges him to a
duel, you know, one of the duelsto the death.
And of course, he can't say no,he can't back down.
(25:32):
So he agrees to fight this guy,and in his mind, he's gonna be
um using the time machine to goback home by the time of the
duel, anyways.
So he doesn't really care.
He just kind of agrees to it,and then he plans on not showing
up, but then something happenswhere he has to face him.
So he's inside of this saloon,and Buford is outside calling
(25:58):
him a coward, giving him acountdown, and the film gets
really serious.
I mean, these films areprimarily comedies, but this
particular scene gets reallyserious, and the music is
serious, everyone's face isserious, nobody's smiling,
nobody's laughing, and all thepeople in the bar are like, if
(26:24):
you don't go out there, andMarty is like, What?
What if I don't go out there?
And the cowboy's like, thenyou're a coward, and you'll be
branded a coward for the rest ofyour days.
Everybody, everywhere, will sayyou're the biggest yellow belly
in the West.
(26:44):
And you hear the music justbuilding and building, and it's
like, first we find out that hedestroyed his musical career,
and now he's on the verge ofliterally dying because of his
ego.
And the the Buford guy, he'soutside, he's counting down, and
he says, Tan, you hear me run.
(27:06):
I said ten.
And the camera just zooms in onMarty's face, and he has this
moment of enlightenment where hebasically transcends his ego,
and his eyebrows raise up, andhe has this realization.
He just goes, He's an asshole.
I don't care what Tannin says,I don't care what anybody else
(27:27):
says either.
And he just realizes it's justmy ego.
Who gives a f I'm getting outof here?
I'm not gonna die.
And you just have to watch themovie.
It's so great.
It's my favorite moment in theentire trilogy.
He just realizes like thisvoice in his head this whole
time is bullshit, and you don'thave to listen to it.
(27:50):
And the point is that it's it'sreally the divine playing this
divine prank on you where maybeyour door is covered with
mosquitoes, maybe your apartmentis infested with scorpions,
maybe you don't have two nickelsto rub together, and it's real
(28:11):
easy to get to get in your headin a mental tornado and say, woe
is me, FML, you know, my life,my life.
I don't want this show to beexplicit or anything, but pardon
my French.
But it's real easy to get inyour head about it.
But when you create just even alittle bit of space, you can
you can kind of zoom out likeMarty did, and just say, What
(28:37):
the hell am I overthinking?
I'm alive, you know, I've gotmy heart is beating, I've got
blood in my veins.
I mean, what am I getting sostressed out about and just
laugh about it?
And um I just I I I bring upthat scene because it's real
special to me, and um, it justpopped in my head.
(28:57):
It's popped in my head atvarious points in my life.
It reminded me not to takethings so seriously.
And, you know, that's that'swhat I've really learned, and
and what changes things for meis I've learned to just laugh at
myself when I feel like I'mfailing in practice or with my
temper, you know, somebody cutsme off on the road.
(29:18):
I just kind of chuckle tomyself now.
I I might my temper might getthe best of me for a moment, but
instead of getting upset overtrivial things, making a chicken
out of a feather, you know, Ijust kind of try to laugh about
it now.
Like, what am I getting soworked up over?
It's not worth it.
It was like uh almost a yearago now, my son moved out, and
(29:42):
at first it was devastating, butnow I just kind of laugh about
it, you know.
Like there is a wisdom thatchildren have that I don't have,
and I need to trust his wisdomas well.
He needs to go out and make hisdecisions and do his thing, and
I just kind of look at it likewith A little bit of a laugh
now.
Like, why was I why why was Iso serious about it before?
(30:04):
You know, it was I miss him alot, and I st I I did especially
did when he moved out, and Istill do, but I just need to
zoom out a little bit andrealize life moves to its own
rhythm, you know.
My air conditioner, like Imentioned in the last episode,
just went out of my car.
So I'm driving around sweatingmy ass off trying to earn money.
(30:26):
You know, my income, myincome's dropped about 35, 40
percent over the last threeyears, and I had to let a lot of
debts go to stay alive,basically, to keep the lights on
and pay the bills.
So my credit score is backthrough the floor again, and
it's hilarious.
It's really hilarious.
(30:47):
And I don't mean that like I'mnot taking it.
I I take it sincerely, but it'snot serious to me.
It's just a credit score, andthere's nothing I can do about
it right now.
I'm looking at I'm looking atit like I'm lightening up.
I'm looking at it with genuinehilarity.
It's not like an insanelaughter, like when when
(31:09):
somebody has had a nervousbreakdown and they're laughing
when they shouldn't, but realgenuine humor.
You know, it helps lighten theactual load of life on your
shoulders.
Sincerity, not seriousness.
It's like Jesus said, unlessyou convert and become as a
child, you will not enter thekingdom of heaven.
(31:29):
So I wasn't becoming a childagain.
You know, I was becoming abrittle old stuck person, and
laughter just changed that.
It was like this water, likethis much needed rain in a
drought period of my life.
And I'm still not out of thewoods, you know.
(31:50):
Like I've mentioned in pastepisodes, I'm looking for work
and I don't know what the futureholds.
There it's real easy to justfeel burdened by it all, but at
some point you just have to kindof laugh and appreciate uh
everything on a cosmic level.
There's a verse from the Dao AChing which really points to
(32:11):
this.
It says, uh, men are born softand supple, but dead, they are
stiff and hard.
Plants are born tender andpliant, but dead they are
brittle and dry.
Thus, whoever is stiff andinflexible is a disciple of
death.
(32:32):
Whoever is soft and yielding isa disciple of life.
The hard and stiff will bebroken.
The soft and supple willprevail.
So, yeah.
Laughter really softened me upand returned me back to life.
(32:55):
And connecting that with thespiritual traditions out there,
maybe you go to church, maybeyou practice on a cushion, maybe
you're part of a satsang in ain a Buddhist um group.
Whatever you do, maybe you goto a Hindu temple, just remember
that it's supposed to be alight-hearted thing to bring you
(33:17):
back to life.
It's not supposed to weigh youdown even more.
Go to some churches out thereof any faith, and sometimes they
seem pretty heavy and dark andsad.
And it doesn't need to be likethat.
You know, the Sabbath issupposed to be a restful period.
In the Hebrew tradition, Godtook a day off.
He didn't force himself to gosomewhere he didn't want to
(33:40):
because he quote unquote knew itwas good for him.
It's supposed to be a holiday,a holy day.
That's where the word holidaycame from.
A restful day where you canbreathe from your heels and
relax all the way up to yourhead, you know, just totally
resting.
So take your life sincerely.
(34:01):
Just don't take yourself tooseriously.
Laughter it's not a distractionfrom the path, but it is the
path itself.
And I want to close out withone more reading from G.K.
Chesterton.
He was the major inspirationfor this episode.
Reminds us that life is sort ofa divine nonsense for fun.
(34:23):
G.K.
Chesterton, his vision of thedivine delight, this is from his
orthodoxy writings, he says,The thing I mean can be seen,
for instance, in children.
When they find some game orjoke that they especially enjoy,
a child kicks his legsrhythmically through excess, not
(34:47):
absence, of life.
Because children have aboundingvitality, because they are in
spirit fierce and free,therefore they want things
repeated and unchanged.
They always say, do it again,and the grown-up person does it
again until he is nearly dead.
(35:09):
For grown-up people are notstrong enough to exalt in
monotony.
But perhaps God is strongenough to exalt in monotony.
It is possible that God saysevery morning, do it again to
the sun.
And every evening, do it againto the moon.
(35:31):
It may not be automaticnecessity that makes all daisies
alike.
It may be that God makes everydaisies separately, but has
never gotten tired of makingthem.
It may be that he has theeternal appetite of infancy, for
we have sinned and grown old,and our father is younger than
(35:56):
we have.
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