THE WHY BEHIND THE WAX

(COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT)

MENTAL HEALTH, IDEATION, PSYCHEDELICS (resources: IASP at ⁠https://www.iasp.info/suicidalthoughts/⁠).

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Ahhh! Now, my wife is nine months pregnant. And right up there. Let's hope she doesn't go into labor while we're doing this. Give me two hours, huh. I don't know if that's to her or baby... future episode. I'm Reginald Grey. This is my podcast, Waxing Prosaic. All things. Everything. We'll get to that. Here we go. Picture this. I live in Canada's Roswell, which means Canada's UFO capital.

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In the 60s, there was a UFO landing, apparently in the ocean, that was recorded by the RCMP. It's like our FBI. Okay, my house is only a few kilometers from it. I'm sitting in the backyard of an Airbnb with a friend of mine visiting from Toronto.

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Then the most brilliant ruby red light you could imagine. A perfect sphere. Coming off of itwere two tales of orbs. These ones are bright white. It was ineffably luminous, pure phantasmagoria. But the weird thing was the way it lit up the surrounding area. What? Despite how bright it was, it just didn't light it up as bright as it should.

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It was unbelievable. And I was just in awe in wow. And as soon as I kind of got my bearings to really take it in, it just turned into black smoke. Was it a flare?

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Was it a UFO? Was I high? I mean, just a little tiny. Was it God? Did it happen at all? Did I make it up since? And was this a memory that I wanted? All our memories even real? Our past days real? Or do we only exist in this present moment in the back, as this projection catalog that we all agree on, some kind of learning program of sorts?

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I don't know. I'm glad I got the story, but did it even happen?

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So these are the kind of chaotic life situations of mine that we're going to unpack. I'm lucky, this is a cathartic process, narrative therapy. Thank you for letting me kind of lay things out and get a grasp on things. But also, I hope that y'all at home watch and get something out of this, so that maybe you hear something that I say that resonates and makes you feel so not alone.

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That's my ultimate goal. You're not alone. Even if you have a crazy life as well. There are other people out there. Quick little disclaimer. Everything said my opinions. My takes all me. Nobody else. Not my family. Not where I work. Not where I go to school. Nobody. Me me me me me. Okay, so, like, this could get triggering.

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I know that's the thing we say now. This can get controversial at times. In this video, I do speak about suicidal ideation as well as some trippy psychedelic stuff. I know if I came across this video while I was vulnerable and susceptible, and arguably still to this day, I would appreciate a warning because those are the kind of things hearing other people's experiences and those synapses firing and connecting them to mine.

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Those can set me off. But hey, if you got beef, reach out. Talk to me. It's all about discourse. There's room for echoes as well. You want to hit me up with a high five? That we agree. I'm your guy!

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But hey, this world needs more discourse. It's so polarized. We need to start bringing people together. Right? This is a unity project. Not to make people feel alone. Unity. There is a structure to these podcasts, but it's better to show you than tell you. So stay tuned, and you'll see. As we progress through more episodes, things will get more familiar and you'll get what we're going for here.

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So let's wax prosaically... instead of waxing poetically... prosaic. It's the antonym. But I hope there's a little bit of poetry in there, too... I can be fancy! I can be cultured! Look at me! Actually, don't do it.

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Like a superhero movie, we have to have the origin story. My Wolverine claws. Don't get mad about it Disney. Come on. I tattooed them on my hands, let me show them. Quick little side note: because, you know, I think I'm entitled to just get some hot takes out there just to get off my chest. Superhero movies. If you had told 13 year old me that there were going to be this many.

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I'd have no life, so busy watching.

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I don't watch them. It's oversaturation. Pull it back. They're all kind of the same. I'll still go out for Wolverine. Deadpool's cool too. Also, a Canadian superhero. Represent. But yo, take it down. A couple down. I clearly I'm in the minority. Clearly I am. I am the minority. People love them. Then you're entitled to them.

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So I'm going to give my life story. And each of these chapters is going to be teased out into longer episodes later. So this is my way of previewing the series to come. Okay. So just anything that you hear and you like, stay tuned to the podcast because we're going to extrapolate on all of them. Wow. This is a cool kind of diagram I got going there.

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They make them digitally. Put something in here. All right. First, we're going to start with some psychology stuff here. Erick Erickson... hilarious name. First of all, that's like me being called Reggie Reggison, right? That's ridiculous. Actually, maybe I should change my name again. No. We're good. Anyways, he came out with this theory that our life goes in stages, eight different stages.

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But the way the stages work is that there are two outcomes positive and the negative. One of them in adolescence is identity versus confusion. I'm learning psychology right now. And when I reached this theory, it kind of broke my heart because I look back at my life previously, you know, I'm now middle-aged. So I'm in the penultimate stage.

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And when I look back at the previous six, I realized that I was always on the shit end of every stage. Autonomy. Good. Shame. Negative. And then you get into initiative, positive. Guilt, negative. So here's a story from my childhood that sounds so ridiculously benign, but later in therapy, it was an absolute banger. And it shows these two negative sides.

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When I was a kid, my sister's boyfriend at the time bought me a Batman figurine. Super excited. And I looked him in the eye and I said, I already got this one.

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That's kind of the end of the story in terms of interaction, the important part of the story was that I ran up to my room afterwards and bawled my eyes out for hours and thought about this for. How old am I now? 40. I don't know how old I was at the time, probably around 5 or 6, and I still think about it.

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That's shame and guilt. I felt bad that I said something to him after he did this really nice thing for me. And I felt shame, like I did something bad.

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If I had come out on the positive side of Erikson's stages, I still may have responded to him the same way, but I wouldn't have been affected so deeply by this.

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I felt like talking about it in therapy. 30 years later, I couldn't figure out why. What was this major impact? Major impact in my life. So my childhood was difficult. I felt very lost despite having an excellent living situation. Parents who loved me, two sisters who loved me. Awesome home. Pets, animals. I never really felt at home. And a very easy, piece of evidence for this was that I always went over to other people's houses to play.

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You all know you're out there. Thank you for the love and support. I rarely had people over to mine. For the parents out there. I want you to take note of this. If you're seeing this from your kids, it might be worth probing and making sure that they feel like they have a home. As abstract as that is.

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For a kid, I was clearly chasing that through my friends. My dad was an avid outdoorsman. Loved being outside, camping, the whole nine. I was a dud. I just want to stay inside and play video games all day, every day. So the one thing that I chose to be the crux of my not wanting to go outside was bees.

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Bees were my number one phobia, and for absolutely no reason, I'd never been stung. I mean, there's an evolutionary kind of skew to it where bees, I think, are wired into us to be a little bit like, they pack a punch, maybe generationally, that has been handed down our lineage. But these were my the things that I picked on, which is projection.

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I was projecting my fear of maybe letting my father down. I didn't want to go outside. I didn't want to bond out in the wilderness. I projected that onto bees. It sounds ridiculous, but it's true every single time. My parents would be like, Matthew, let's go outside. My birth name is Matthew, by the way. Bees. I don't like the bees.

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It became a joke within our family. And then the funny thing is, years later, you grow up, you get stung. It's not that bad. I got stung. Like, in the eye. I was playing soccer when I was an adolescent. I remember getting stung on my foot. Like, what a metaphor, right? I built up this thing subconsciously. Kids are brilliant.

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Kids are brilliant. Even if they don't know, they are so creative. I was so creative to pin this entire thing on bees, to give me an out, when really I didn't want to participate. Likely because I didn't want to let my father down. I thought I was less than and these were my way out. Kids are smart and very creative.

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Honestly, parents out there watch out for this. If you have a kid who has an unexplained phobia, or even if it is evolutionarily built into us as humans, something to keep an eye on and an excellent way to guide them through, it is extremely careful loving exposure therapy, where we hold them to observe the bees and remind them that I got your back.

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Tell me what the bee incites in you. Oh, there goes. It's flying around. But don't worry, I'll step in front. I'll take the bullet. That's a quick explore, but we'll get into that deeper.

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A traumatic event can lead to a phobia. But also something to keep in mind is vicarious phobia transferance. Something my wife and I have been talking about because of her immense fear of spiders. We don't want our daughter to see her fear.

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Freaking out like that! As you'll hear later, my father did end up passing when I was 18, and when I look back, my heart's broken that I missed out on that. Not even for the experiences, but I missed out on a part of development. Growing up, children often will go toward their mother for nurturing and go toward their father for risk taking and excitable play.

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And my dad wanted to do that with me. He wanted to go camping, and I chickened out for good reasons, of course, deep down, things that needed to be worked on. But it was a mountain later in life that I had to climb up. And I mourn and grieve for that child, I do. I feel for him. But we made it through.

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Spoiler! That's a spoiler. Maybe cut that... Puberty was a hell of a thing. That's when I became suicidal, I'm using air quotes because I never really idealized it beyond the idea of I don't want to exist. I don't want to be in this. That's just how I labelled it. And once I started to understand what that was and how I was feeling now as an adult, looking back, having done some exploring on the subject, I think it was more accurately described as existential angst.

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And to say, oh, it was just a phase, a puberty phase. Well, that phase lasted till I was 32. To the extent that it was, I don't want to be here. Why am I here? What is this? I say 32, but it very much still exists today. I'm just more well-adjusted. And at 32 was when it kind of went away on a dangerous level.

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I remember telling my therapist that asking me if I had ever had any ideation. I was like, well... you know... I just never really wanted to exist. So you put the two together and...

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What a scary way to exist, to be aching and hurting inside from such a young age and not being able to express it. And now that I think of just how crazy this existence is in general. I couple those things together and I really look at myself as a child, and I wonder about others going into adult adolescence, what they're wrestling with if they're not as communal, community communicative.

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That's a tough one.

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It scares the heck out of me, because how are you even supposed to be able to explain that stuff? Even at 48, with being educated and life experience, I still can't grasp and explain what it is to exist, let alone to be heard. Let alone hurting inside and trying to explain that. So puberty was a hell of a drug.

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I remember my mom telling me I spent a lot of time alone in my room. I don't really remember it. And how much of that is just blocking it out for safety's sake?

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So that must have been difficult. My heart goes out to him. So this is where we sublimate... Sublimation! You know, where you take really negative feelings and problems that you have, and you put them out into the world in activities that are acceptable. So this is where I started playing sports to get all this energy out. And angst was a goal in hockey.

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I am Canadian, so it was a rite of passage. One must do that. And, dreams of going to the NHL. Delusions of grandeur. I was young, but full delusional. Anyways, more on that later. But the big thing was kind of this. This is where THIS started. The idea of performing, putting myself out there. I was way more interested in being funny in high school.

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I did get the class clown. I campaigned for it. You shouldn't have to campaign for Class Clown. So anyways, I should have just let it come naturally. It would have been a better achievement. I'm sorry, Ben, if I stole that one from you, I forgot who the third person was. Doesn't matter. My life centered around performing. At the time.

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My father was a photographer and filmmaker. He had a digital video camera. My sister had a Macintosh computer. And back then, it was very rare. Artists only. God, has that changed... And their stock prices show it. And therefore, I was the guy who, at my high school, people brought me their film projects and I put them together or even shot them too, which was very cool.

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And I thought to myself, is there a career in this? And at the time, the Trailer Park Boys had just kind of came out and I looked at that show and I thought, "I want to do that." So, despite having absolutely no grades to speak of, like it was bad, I applied to a bunch of film schools on a Hail Mary.

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The one thing I needed was a 70 in English, and I was not doing well. So I went to my teacher, who was an awesome human being, very supportive, and I begged her to let me do something other than writing something, and she agreed to let me do an interpretive dance with a very dear friend of mine who is a dear friend to this day.

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And we did interpretive dance to Oedipus Rex, where he played Oedipus, and then I played every other role and or is it the way around? I actually don't remember. We'll go to the table on this one. We're gonna cut to it anyway. Here it is. I look good, I look good in spandex. Just sayin.

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We got really great marks. Then, after some begging and politicking, I got my English mark to where it almost needed to be. And I got rejected from every film school except for one. I ended up getting into Sheridan College, which is one of the better film schools in Canada, but at a loss.

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I only got in because my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given three months with chemo, six months without... other way around. Yeah, it made me be able to bypass all of my exams. And he actually was a former, not only a student, he was actually a former professor there. This is where he met my mom.

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It's not scandalous. She's three years younger. Mind out of the gutter.

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And the school helped me out. And in the end, on his deathbed, I got to show him my letter of acceptance. His passing was what got to propel me into the next stage of life. He was an amazing man. He was so funny and brilliant, and the two go hand in hand.

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I often say one can be smart without being funny, but one cannot be funny without being smart. My dad was the perfect example of that. He was, and despite his very high intellect, he decided to go into the arts, and he wanted to be a photographer and a filmmaker. There's a whole story behind that being episode I'm so excited for.

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Pilot. Aerial photography and photography. Back in the day when it was film, like darkroom film as Photoshop, where it was scalpels and glue. And he did work with some really gross chemicals. And, you know, we do wonder if that contributed to his cancer. We'll never know. But just something I always felt like a bit of a loose end.

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He was amazing guy. And like I said, I'm excited for that episode because there's really a lot to say about him and just to be able to share his legacy and I wish he could see what I went into. I so often I tell my mom I wish he could just see drones because he was a pilot, he would be out with a drone every day making drone films.

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So whenever I take mine up, I'm always like, "Hey, pa." My dad's passing also was my first ever tattoo. The shooter, that was his company and his logo for his photography company. And yeah, an interesting thing when I think of that because, obviously, what I'm getting at is that I'm kind of covered.

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And on that note, remember when I questioned time earlier and I was like, do we only exist in this moment? Is the rest of our days prior just a roadmap? Will I have a literal roadmap for my adventures all over me? So it's a good thing I'm a memento guy over here. I'm Guy Pearce. That was a big thing in therapy and people being concerned for me.

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I got that first tattoo. Obviously, a lot of people dealing with grief will get tattooed with the person who had passed in memoriam. And clearly that was a part of it. But also, I was an 18 year old male who's now the head of the house, growing up way too fast.

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And even though I would refuse to admit it at the time, a bit of a rite of passage moment, and I think it really empowered me and made me feel more adult. We're going to do an episode on Rites of Passage, but it just kind of struck me how important they are in our culture, and that even subconsciously, I may have been looking for one.

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Not that it was bestowed upon me. It was something that I felt to move me into adulthood. Which is funny to say because anyone who knows me knows... am I still? Am I in it yet? Probably. I need to start dressing age appropriate. And that's Bert and Ernie hair more. More Bert than Ernie.

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But tattoos, just a brief talk about them. They are a bit of an interesting paradox for me, because one side of it is this need to be seen, which is very fed by that. Where I have social identity through my tattoos, "there's the tattooed guy there," although they're starting to get way more popular. I see cops with them now back in my day, but at the same time, for me, they're social armor.

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So social identity would be people coming up to me like they want to talk about your tattoos, but at the same time, I like to think of myself as more intimidating. And it's social armor. Leave me alone. Really interesting dichotomy and just something that I've explored intellectually. I've explored it in therapy, continue to explore it. There was an urge, a need.

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It's gone. But now I look at my body, I'm like, what? I blinked and I'm like, my skin... But then at the same time I don't see them. Again, paradox. This is me? Plus, getting rid of them would really hurt. So, I'm never going to be Prime Minister. Sorry, everyone. Your loss, your loss. Film school was unbelievable.

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That was the good part. If you could call it good. Of my dad's passing right at the end of high school, was that my life transitioned into something completely different, which for the grieving process... I mean... there's something to be said about sitting and experiencing and feeling. But at that age, given my life experience at the time and what I was going through, arguably it was actually advantageous for me to move on to a new section of life and going into a whole new school, a new group of friends to be added to the existing one, and a whole new discipline of focusing in on filmmaking and entertaining and something I was really passionate about.

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So film school went really well because, you know, this is a kid who was a bit of a failure in high school, but I did okay in film school because it was something I'm interested in. The people, the people were one of the best parts of it. And when I think about film school, it's so true. You don't need an education in film.

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They don't give a flying fuck what education you have. If you are creative and you can make something awesome and you can make money; no one checks. But the key to film school is networking and the opportunities. So on that note, the most memorable day of film school was actually the first day I went into visual storytelling class.

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Everybody's excited and eager. I'm going to be a filmmaker, and we sat down and the instructor said, "okay, who here wants to be a director?" And naturally, every single person in the class 100% hands up, hands up. To which he replied, "you're in the wrong program. You should be in psychology if you want to be a director."

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And then he carried on and we were all kind of looking at like, but we're paying money. We're here. We're excited to get into a prestigious film and we're in the wrong one. It was an interesting Easter egg. Later in life, as I said, you didn't need to really go to film school, but it was about the opportunities.

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And at the end of film school, we got to do internships. I am so bad at selling myself, like still to this day. Tattoos, I'm a peacock. People come to me. So everybody had to get their own hustle, hustle, hustle, get their own internship and the last day of being placed, the placement instructor came up to me and said, "Matthew," again, name change, "Matthew, do you have an internship yet?"

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"No." She said, "okay, you're coming with me. We're placing you with one of the teachers." Like, what a bummer. My internship was going to be with one of my instructors who were awesome human beings, don't get it twisted, but like supposed to like expand and stuff. And I went into her office, sat down on the chair, phone rang.

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"I'm looking at him. He'll be there." I was on the set of a real broadcast television show. It was on Showcase. Now, remember I mentioned Trailer Park Boys earlier? This show was a lead-in to Trailer Park Boys, my heroes, and it was funny because my resume that I made was like a test resume, and I put my goal is to be working on the Trailer Park Boys, and I am applying to Trailer Park Boys.

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I never changed it and just submitted it because I'm not great at paperwork in film. That's what producers are for and I'm not good at that. Anyways, they gave me the job, and it was a life transition into a whole new world. The real world-ish. I say "ish" because this was a television show, but it was a family.

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I went into a show that, from the top on down film, is a very hierarchical medium. Dude, there has to be people in charge for things to get done, and there has to be people who have their designated roles. But this show and people had their specific roles, but my God, everyone was equal. So much love, even for a 20 year old kid.

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And some of the crew members. I remember telling me, kid, don't get used to this. You're new to the film industry. It's not like this. Trust me. I was 20 years old, I got all the time in the world. Everything's going to be like now. 22 years later, I look back and I was like, that was special.

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That was special. The one thing that was hard about it was, I remember this one crew member talking to me and saying, because I made, like, little behind the scenes featurettes, I'd interview actors and crew and for the DVD back then, now it's web content, of course, but I had one of the crew members come up to me and say, "we're going to work for you one day."

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First of all, thank you. That was so sweet. Thank you. That did not end up happening. The praise paradox. Young people have a shaky identity, likely more than adults. I mean, in terms of the Erikson's stages thing, identity comes in adolescence. So technically I was getting into young adulthood, so mine ought to have been a little more stable, alas.

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But when it came to people over top of me, comments like that were really detrimental because of the praise paradox where, it's like a hit from a drug. You tell a young person who has a shaky sense of self and identity something with such gravitas, and maybe to them it wasn't. It's like, yeah, but that's a big thing to say.

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When I'm 20 years old, and I'm looking at this 40-something telling me this, wow, it's a hit in the moment. I'm going to be like, I'm pretty damn good. But in the long term...

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We start to set up.

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Very stringent expectations on ourselves. And if you're ill-equipped for those, you start to shy away. As we'll see later in my story. So that was very jarring. And that's just one example of something that happened multiple times. That being said, my main mentors, the showrunners, were nothing but incredible and generous and the thing that was so key that they did that counteracts the praise paradox, not counteracts, but it it's a more advantageous way of speaking to a mentee is to praise their hard work.

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If you praise a young person for working their buns off, there's nothing but good that's going to come from that because you're not praising the work that they did, as in the product that they made with moderate praise. Great. And it should happen. We should acknowledge the things that are made by a younger person. But the most important thing to praise is hard work, because with an emphasis on that, there's more of a chance they're going to try and they're going to fail, and they're not going to tie their self-worth to it.

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The showrunners on that show, they're family, one of them was at my wedding, incredible human beings. I still have a working relationship with them to this day. So lucky. And with them, I went into doing more documentary series, including a really cool band documentary series. We traveled all over North America. Being a documentary, it is a smaller crew, so a lot more responsibility.

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One anecdote from when I worked with one of my favorite bands of all time, who gave me a hard time. Well, this is where it's a bit of a cognitive dissonance, which means my heart says one thing, my brain says another, and I get a bit of a because of it. My favorite album, one of them of all time.

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I was there for the recording of it in Toronto, in New York. It was so exciting. But man, that band wasn't in the best mood and it was a difficult shoot. And when I put those two things together, I mean, they're not mutually exclusive. It can still be my one of my favorite albums of all time, and they can still have treated me kind of poorly.

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But this is interesting where the way our brains work, I have two of these different synapses connected where I'm like, love this band. But then over here I'm like, they didn't treat me that great. And then, you know, through the corpus callosum, those two kind of meet and go... shrug.

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Anyways, it was a wicked experience and I got to work very closely with directors who were in my film school textbooks, and I got to work with some bands who I grew up idolizing. I remember driving to one shoot with a lead singer of one of the bands that I idolized as a kid, and we were in traffic.

00;35;49;29 - 00;36;22;16

Anybody who's been in Southern Ontario, traffic, Toronto to Hamilton, rush hour. So we had like two hours to just sit and I was just asking questions. "So what happened to this band member? How did this, how did this song come?" What a life. It was so cool. And then we've transitioned from that documentary series into one about filmmakers making documentaries about and with other filmmakers, and that was a thrill of a lifetime.

00;36;22;19 - 00;36;44;29

I'm in my mid 20s. That year, we spent two months in Hollywood, including a stint where we stayed in the Hollywood Hills with one of the actors from Battlestar Galactica; it was so cool. I ended up actually getting to direct one of the episodes. It was about creating my very own superhero.

00;36;45;01 - 00;37;13;07

It was, maybe is, my filmmaking mountaintop moment. It definitely felt like it at the time. I got to co-direct it with a guy who was at my wedding, who was the showrunner from that first show, and it was shot by one of my high school best friends, who was the director of photography. We shot in Vancouver, we shot in New York, we shot in Toronto, met some of my heroes, worked with some of my heroes.

00;37;13;07 - 00;37;39;29

So the project was a success all around. And that specific episode ended up getting nominated for a Canadian Oscar. I got nominated for a CSA, a Canadian Screen Award for Best Director in a Nonfiction Television Series, and wow, I look back on that and I can't believe it happened. And after it did happen, I thought to myself, this is it.

00;37;39;29 - 00;38;04;07

And this is where that kind of self-sabotage comes back from the praise paradox. Instead of me jumping on this momentum and being like, "yo, I'm worthy, I'm awesome, I'm gonna go up to the top." I was like, "you know what? This all got kind of handed to me, and I'm just going to kind of recede into the ether."

00;38;04;10 - 00;38;26;17

There were some things that I tried to do. But it was that tattoo thing, where I'm a peacock. I made this episode of television, got nominated for the highest honor in the land. People are going to come to me right? Right? No one came to me. None.

00;38;26;20 - 00;38;54;18

So self-sabotaging in a way where I just, instead of being ferocious and going after it, I receded and I waited and they never came. Still waiting. You, HBO Canada. If you want, I could just make something. A Netflix show or something would be cool. Anyways. I'm qualified.

00;38;54;18 - 00;39;09;20

Just never had the killer instinct. Started working on some corporate gigs through that company and including the NHLPA, which was so cool.

00;39;09;23 - 00;39;34;13

I love hockey, remember I told you I wanted to play hockey, be hockey goalie who wanted to be in the NHL... delusions of grandeur. Or were they? Because in a roundabout way, I got to play with NHL players, which was cool. There was one day that we did a shoot in some cool arena, and afterwards they thought, hey, let's just play some pickup hockey with who's here?

00;39;34;15 - 00;39;56;29

They didn't have a goalie... "Reggie, you're a goalie, aren't you?" I was like, "yeah," and they came back with, "here's some equipment, do you want to play?" I went out there and one of the players, one of my favorites, Eric Lindros, was out there and I remember looking and being like, I am going to save a shot from Eric Lindros... look out world!

00;39;57;01 - 00;40;17;17

Maybe I should have been on the Avalanche, backing up Patrick Roy. Eric Lindros scored ten times. He took ten shots. He scored ten times. So I played with Eric Lindros. I never got to stop Eric Lindros. I got put in my put in my place. There was a fun gig with Nate McKinnon, big hockey player.

00;40;17;17 - 00;40;37;07

And I'm in Nova Scotia right now. Big Nova Scotia kid, one of the biggest hockey players in the world right now. I almost got kicked out of the New Jersey Devils arena during the draft where Nate McKinnon was drafted number one. I was on the floor and something with exclusive rights for TSN, which is the sports network here in Canada.

00;40;37;07 - 00;41;01;03

And I got out there with my camera because the security guy didn't know where I was supposed to go. So there they were, I was right there with Patrick Roy, my absolute favorite hockey player of all time, Joe Sakic. I'm sitting there like, "yeah, this is awesome!" And then security, who did know I wasn't supposed to be there, quite literally yanked me out of there and was like, "you almost cost us, an endless amount of money and you can fit the bill, so you're gone."

00;41;01;06 - 00;41;25;15

The producer talked them out of it. Anyways, that was cool. A little bit of theme though, right? I got to meet all my heres. More still coming. At this point, I got tattooed at Tattoo Rock Parlor, which was a bar in Toronto where they had tattoos in a bar. It was quarantined off, so it wasn't getting dirty.

00;41;25;15 - 00;41;50;07

Anyways, Dennis Rodman hosted a party there. I got this seven, which I got to show to him, and he looked at me and he said, "what's the seven mean?" To which I said, "seven rebounding titlesn and the crown has five points for your five NBA championships."

00;41;50;09 - 00;41;53;13

"Oh."

00;41;53;16 - 00;41;56;14

He turnned and walked away.

00;41;56;16 - 00;42;10;28

Meet some of your heroes. Some have been great, but that one wasn't the best. But hey, yo, Rodman, I'll go to blows with anyone: one of the best professional athletes of all time. Late bloomer.

00;42;11;00 - 00;42;26;15

Hardest working person. Six foot eight, grabbing rebounds from seven footers at the rate that he was, that's a whole thing! That's going to be a whole episode. The Worm!

00;42;26;17 - 00;42;49;03

Leading out of the corporate stuff I ended up getting an offer to work full time in advertising. So now I'm like, kind of performing and entertainment's my thing, but I started to kind of taper off because, there's not a ton of money. I'm in Canada, there's not a ton of money here. And I wasn't chasing it like I should have been to get this money.

00;42;49;05 - 00;43;15;09

So now I'm kind of tapering off and I'm getting into advertising where there's a ton of money. My favorite advertising story was my very first day in advertising was also the first day of some of the creative, the key creatives I don't understand the hierarchy of the ad world, there's like executive I get the film side of it.

00;43;15;09 - 00;43;48;10

But anyways, some of the head honchos of creative, the big guys were going for this, big account, and they needed somebody to edit their pitch. So they give me a script. It just had the lines of dialog and they said, "we want voiceover for each of these," cool, I have to use ACTRA, which is the actor's union here. I hired ten performers, child actors, which need also a liaison, and they need ten of them to come in and read each line.

00;43;48;10 - 00;43;59;12

Just one line. Kid came in, read one line, thousand dollars a pop, ten grand altogether. By my calculations.

00;43;59;14 - 00;44;30;13

The executives came down to watch my edit. "No." After the first line was that no. And they said, "we don't want voiceover, we want supers instead." Supers are the titles on screen. Okay, I'll put supers instead. Which is funny because supers cost $0. I put them on the thing and no time with cost.

00;44;30;13 - 00;44;36;28

Nothing. Ten grand lit up in flames.

00;44;37;01 - 00;45;02;13

So the company it's for is Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto, which is a children's hospital. First thing, Sick Kids it is amazing the things that you do. 1011 1213 times infinity out of ten. That said, have you heard of the power of suggestion? It should be called "Healthy Kids" or "Getting Kids Healthy." Here's a lesson: Guitar.

00;45;02;13 - 00;45;23;27

Think of a guitar? Of course you did. Anyways, that's just my take. I'm not the marketing brains, I'm the monkey who pushes buttons. So I did a video for knowing that it was for Sick Kids and I made it exactly how you'd think. Tugging at heartstrings.

00;45;23;29 - 00;45;52;09

And kids who are sick, being loved and taken care of. They looked at it and they said, "you're fired, gonzo. You're off the job." Not out of the company, but you're off the job. So then somebody else took it. Awesome, dude. And he cut it into this thing that was Bombs Over Baghdad, by outcast. This is a fast ditty.

00;45;52;09 - 00;46;21;18

And the images are like kids fighting and kicking ass and these awesome dudes and like everybody is strong. I was like, okay, yeah. And hey, that ad campaign goes on still to this day, it's still running. This is nine years ago. And it wins award after award after award.

00;46;21;20 - 00;46;28;01

I didn't have the best direction. In my defense. We got to look at all angles of things here.

00;46;28;03 - 00;46;51;00

But all the power to them. They knew what the heck they were doing. But hey, what can you do? I'm just proud. I'm proud that I worked on the first ever piece, first pitch document of the that Sick Kids campaign, which is awesome. Awesome. And I feel bad about what I said about Sick Kids' name. But it's true. It's true.

00;46;51;03 - 00;47;16;28

Okay, so I'm tapering out of the film industry. I'm just going to jump ahead very quick and go back. I am now middle age. And one thing that happens in middle age is a midlife crisis. I have this horrid feeling that I didn't do enough.

00;47;16;29 - 00;47;52;20

That is just a teaser. I was very recently feeling that I did not do enough, and that's one thing that happens when some of our later stages of life, specifically the penultimate, the one I'm in, which is generativity versus stagnation. Back to Erick Erickson and when you're in that stage, you're starting to reflect and you're starting to see what you've contributed and the ways that you have lived.

00;47;52;22 - 00;48;20;17

Now that you have a bit of a story that has been told. And when I look back on this, as we're doing right now, I look at this tapering down, started off with a bang, started to get into other things for other reasons. And I look at that momentum that I had off the top. And I feel like I just didn't and I could have, and that's been a hard thing to get over.

00;48;20;20 - 00;48;48;16

I remember confiding in a friend of mine that was a little older, a little further down the road, a very talented person, and I was wondering if I could find some solace in him, just kind of be like, "hey, me too. Yeah, chum." Solidarity. Instead he said, "oh yeah, Reggie Gray, he could have been a contender. Whatever happened to a kid?"

00;48;48;19 - 00;48;54;28

It was funny, and I honestly still think of it to this day.

00;48;55;00 - 00;49;23;16

And it's true. As silly as that kind the Rocky manager voice was, I guess it framed in an interesting way and made me take myself a little less seriously, but in no way cured me because I still think about it. I will get to that. Back into the story. At this point in my late 20s, emotionally, I'm starting to tell that there's something different and wrong about me.

00;49;23;16 - 00;50;01;15

I'm still feeling that existential dread which I did categorize as "not wanting to exist," not wanting to be. My favorite way to put it was "I didn't sign up for this." Meanwhile, awful relationships and often being diagnosed from people who have no jurisdiction to do so, with every personality disorder you could possibly imagine and anyone out there being diagnosed by people who don't truly have the right to do so:

00;50;01;17 - 00;50;27;17

I'm sorry, and I hear you. And that hurts. It hurt me more than I could possibly tell you. Now, those people diagnosing you have every right to share their concern, and they have every right to compassionately show some of the research that they've done so you can be cognizant of some of the things that they've learned, and they may even be on to something.

00;50;27;18 - 00;50;53;24

However, they don't have the right to label you in those ways. It takes a professional. Even then, this can be abstract stuff. And as somebody who was labelled that way, and in the defence of the people who were labelling me, they had a point. They totally had a point. But anyway, at this point, I knew something was wrong with me. I knew therapy existed, but didn't want to go for two reasons.

00;50;53;24 - 00;51;20;28

One, I didn't want to be labelled. That label scared the hell out of me that I had to have somebody with an actual degree on the wall to say, "BOOM, you're this, you're this label." The stigmatization of that was really scary. And then, on top of that, I did not want to be medicated. That scared the hell out of me deeper than I could ever tell you.

00;51;21;00 - 00;51;50;17

A label, I feel like I could have worked through. Medication for those kinds of things... that scares me. So I knew something was wrong. I started into bibliotherapy, which is real. Self-help to try and figure out what was wrong with me, and looking at Doctor Phil and NLP neuro-linguistic programming, I tried to get into all these things to try to find what was going on inside of me.

00;51;50;21 - 00;52;15;03

Who is this person? What was this thing? What was this feeling of not wanting to exist? It was scary and lonely, and that guilt and shame from when I was a kid with the Batman toy that was keeping me from even talking to anyone else. It felt like I was doing something wrong. I felt that I was broken, and I was guilty.

00;52;15;06 - 00;52;38;23

But we keep pressing on. So at that point I entered a relationship and things were going well in the success / work department. She was very successful as well. So we had an apartment in Toronto. We had a house out in the country. The first house I bought in Picton, the county in Ontario.

00;52;38;25 - 00;53;10;00

Damn. I still think about the county from time to time. And we also bought a trailer, a travel trailer, 1970, ten by ten, 70ft² travel trailer. Now remember I never spent time outdoors so we are seeing a little bit of evolution here. I never went outdoors with my dad. Super outdoorsman, but this partner that I was with, her dream was to have a trailer.

00;53;10;07 - 00;53;32;11

So we got a trailer and I gotta admit, I rather liked it. It was fun. It was fun to go out. It was like a glorified tent. The thing had no insulation and just drive around and saw the world. We went to Tennessee and New Orleans, and it was an interesting way to do things.

00;53;32;11 - 00;53;59;11

This is maybe at the start of the road life thing that was starting to catch on. Anyways, this relationship was going very poorly and I shoulder a lot of that blame. And one of the stipulations to continue the relationship at the time was to go to therapy. I had to commit and go to therapy to work through all these things.

00;53;59;13 - 00;54;31;05

So finally I did. I found this mind-blowing psychologist, and he was very against medication, and he was very for working through this and figuring out a true, real diagnosis using the DSM, which is the Bible in psychology for diagnoses, for psychiatric disorders. And that was a heck of a process. Five years I was in that therapist's office.

00;54;31;05 - 00;55;01;18

And this is this will be a whole series, not just an episode. This will be a series. Long story short, he said, "You're not broken. You do not have a disorder. I have the actual power to say so. Do you not have borderline personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder. You have guilt. You have shame. You have no identity."

00;55;01;20 - 00;55;35;24

Now think of how paradoxical that is on the outside. On the outside, covered in tattoos. I wear fun clothes. I'm exploding with identity, right? Well, on the inside, nothing. Blatant identity outside, overcompensating identity, but on the inside, empty. Nothing. No morals, no values, no beliefs, no me. On the outside, all this stuff. So that was starting to take shape.

00;55;35;24 - 00;56;01;14

I intellectually could understand him. The therapy ended before we really got to work on the emotional stuff, the relationship that I was in ended and I had a poor habit of, at the end of a relationship of pure acquiescence. I would just say, "You know what?

00;56;01;17 - 00;56;37;07

You take everything. I'm good. I'm going to start from scratch," which later in life became something that the idea of starting over, UGH! So anyways, the partner took the house in Picton, bought me out for what I put into it. All good. Even Steven and I took the trailer, but before moving on completely, into the next chapter, I do want to give an honest, sincere thank you to that person.

00;56;37;09 - 00;56;54;25

I put you through hell and back, and I'm sorry. What you did for me, sending me out a into therapy, the out into the road.

00;56;54;27 - 00;57;26;10

Words cannot come close. Heartfelt thank you. And I hope you found everything in life that you could possibly want. Thank you. This is it, my trailer. I lived in my little trailer named "Franny" after my grandmother. All of a sudden, for the summer, I'm living in the trailer in Toronto, working in Toronto. There's a trailer park north of the city.

00;57;26;13 - 00;57;49;17

It's pretty great. And that was a heck of a trip because I never planned to do the nomadic thing and even being outside. But all of a sudden it was kind of... I didn't know where to live. And, it gets cold in Canada. So I was like, "I guess I'm going to go live on the road?

00;57;49;19 - 00;58;18;00

I guess I'm doing this thing." So I became Reggie from the road, a nomad covered in tattoos, nowhere to be, nothing to do, dressed all weird and excited to go on the road. But also, instead of truly building an identity, I was piling onto the mask. Before going on the road, my mask was pretty thick.

00;58;18;02 - 00;58;24;11

But it just got thicker and thicker and thicker.

00;58;24;13 - 00;58;52;08

But hey, it was fun. Which lasted five years. I lived in a glorified tent, a seven-by-ten, 70 square foot box that I took all over North America. Every single corner down to Florida. Love, Texas. Was in the southwest a lot. Went as high as the Yukon. Excuse my burp, I'm going to have a baby soon.

00;58;52;08 - 00;58;55;17

I gotta know how it feels when she burps.

00;58;55;19 - 00;59;17;09

All the way up to the Yukon. Magical, magical. What an experience. I still can't believe that was me. That I did that. That was real. And it was funny because so many people were like, "I'm living vicariously through you." And I'd be like, "You damn right. Yeah, this is awesome." I didn't have this one on the bingo card.

00;59;17;16 - 00;59;38;18

And people would ask me, how do I do this? And my answer was pathetic because a lot of people have mood boards and they follow nomadic influencers and are like, "I want to do that." I just kind of fell into it in a lot of ways. And it was wicked. And my two big tips for nomadic people, number one, baby food.

00;59;38;20 - 01;00;13;13

Those baby food packets, no preservatives. You can get organic, BPA free servings of vegetables that keep for a buck usually. I mean, $1 for a serving of organic vegetables! Baby everything, by the way: sunscreen, moisturizers, even big evil corporations love babies. The other thing to keep in mind, all those influencers that you see, they stink.

01;00;13;15 - 01;00;25;09

That was the one thing I just thought was funny was like, people idealize these vanlife influencers and they're living a cool life. Don't get it twisted, but they smell bad.

01;00;25;11 - 01;00;49;11

Maybe just projecting, but, yeah, maybe. Maybe I'm just throwing my stink on to them. But I guarantee showers are few and far between. Seriously. So in the heart of therapy, the one big thing, though, that did come out was that loss at 32, that loss of that existential dread.

01;00;49;13 - 01;01;13;03

I actually, flat out threw a party. My absolute closest friends came, I rented a cottage in God's country, which is the Muskoka here in Canada. Well, Ontario. I'm in Nova Scotia, in Ontario and all my bestest friends came and it was to celebrate me not wanting to die anymore.

01;01;13;05 - 01;01;37;04

I mean that later changed as well. But that celebration was one of the best days I can think of. That was really magical. But the biggest thing that came from therapy, now that I look back, where I'm at, is I used to sit across from this therapist, look at the degrees on his wall, and he was stoic, brilliant.

01;01;37;06 - 01;02;06;26

And I'd look at them and think, I could never do that. This is so cool, what he's doing this cerebral, therapeutic, deeply intelligent process, intuitive, empathetic, I could never do that. But even on the the surface level of like, I'm in my 30s, I'm going back to school.

01;02;06;29 - 01;02;31;06

My high school grades are poor, I'm not smart enough to go get a doctorate and do this. And then where do I find the time? Where do I find the money? But I looked at that guy and I was like, "I want to do that. I want to do that. It's just impossible." Nothing's impossible. Stay tuned is where there's a commercial break.

01;02;31;09 - 01;02;36;25

So you can buy some Huggies or Pampers or deodorant or

01;02;36;28 - 01;02;55;15

Fleshlight, depending on what you want. Maybe it's late-night adult swim. Does that exist? So I don't know.

01;02;55;17 - 01;03;29;00

So bonus points for anybody who's watching this and is starting to see, Joseph Campbell "the Hero's Journey." The very simple way of putting it, Star Wars, A new Hope. That is the quintessential retelling of Joseph Campbell's "Hero's journey." I'm now going out, venturing out, away from home, leaving southern Ontario to find on great adventure, right?

01;03;29;02 - 01;03;55;06

Yeah. Pretty wild. This is where there's a hint of is this a simulation? As this stuff starts to kind of bond? Oh, keep going, sit back. Okay, now we're back into working, working in advertising during the summers. Winters in the States, making a ton of money. And I can brag about that now, because now I'm not making that money. So it's okay if it's in the past, then you can brag a little bit.

01;03;55;08 - 01;04;21;14

But I was like, freedom early 30s. Like freedom. 32 and rocking around the southern states during the winter. Nothing to do. Advertising for me personally was very draining. I could only do it for a very short period of time because one can only sell so many Big Macs until you're like, man, this is a little soul sucking.

01;04;21;17 - 01;04;56;12

Whereas the film industry was incredibly fulfilling, incredibly fulfilling, but it's not as lucrative for me, for other people, of course, it is. But then advertising was incredibly lucrative, but not fulfilling. So having that time off was great. But the one thing that I needed to do to feed my soul was to make films that mattered to me. So when I had the house in the county, my goal was to make sweet short films about some of the residents.

01;04;56;18 - 01;05;15;24

Just some of the regular townspeople, make a cute little film about them. So making advertising, making money, I'm making my cute little films on on the side. Then when that relationship ended and I lost the house in the county and I'm on the road, I'm like, "Okay, so why don't I when I pivot, why don't I still do my documentary series?

01;05;15;24 - 01;05;36;25

But I do them about people on the road? That's what I'll do." So I got on the road, got down into the States, and I was like, "Okay, here we go!" I'm in North Carolina, I walk around the trailer park, and Confederate flags everywhere. How am I going to do this? A man rode by on his bike. I said... actually, HE said, (because I don't make the first move)

01;05;36;25 - 01;06;03;20

"I love your trailer." Then we got to talking. I said, "Can I come can make a video about you?" He said, "Sure." So I made my first short film, Michael Farrington and the man is a wizard. Watch the documentary piece. It's on YouTube. I'll put a link in the show notes. He's a mind blowingly beautiful human being.

01;06;03;22 - 01;06;28;18

He and I go our separate ways. He runs into this family down in Florida called North Haven. They're on the road. They gave up their home in Minnesota. They're on the road going to mass trauma events to offer free counselling and help people. They're a refuge for the broken. They met up in Florida, and Michael was telling North Haven about their adventures with Reggie.

01;06;28;20 - 01;06;57;12

And they said to him, "Does he need us?" And Michael said, "No, NOT YET." Gives me goose bumps. Anyways, I got in touch with North Haven through Michael and I said, "I'd love to make a documentary about you." The documentary was all great, link in the show notes. Let's put North Haven aside for a bit, okay? Family, love them. So we're at COVID, everybody knows COVID.

01;06;57;12 - 01;07;31;07

That hit when I was down in Los Angeles, when it was a serious hot spot. It was going down in LA. So then I moved to Vegas as if that was going to be any better. Vegas was empty. That was a trip just to see that. What a cool experience. Once in a lifetime, I hope. And I thought to myself, "I'm getting off the road because something tells me I'm not coming back to the States for a long, long time."

01;07;31;10 - 01;07;50;12

So I got back to Canada, got to my mom's to quarantine, and that summer I spent it renovating a friend's house up in Barrie, Ontario. Meanwhile, I was like, "My life goal, which I kind of got. I had my country home in Picton for a very short period of time, but my life goal was to have a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, Quebec.

01;07;50;14 - 01;08;10;07

I don't speak any French. I wish I did. I genuinely wish, I wish I paid attention in school, they were free lessons. But see, I have regret about the past. Anyways, I thought it was a bad idea during COVID because if I wound up in the hospital, I'm not going to be able to get commmunicate.

01;08;10;10 - 01;08;28;28

So I thought, "I'm going to go to New Brunswick, which is the province beside Quebec, because I want to open an Airbnb once Covid cleared up and I thought with New Brunswick I could draw from Nova Scotia, I could draw from Maine, I could draw from Quebec and draw from Prince Edward Island. Is is so small. A friend of mine was like, "Hey, why don't you try Nova Scotia?"

01;08;28;28 - 01;08;58;05

My dear, dear friend from high school. But I was like, "I still want to be nomadic. I don't want to be on the edge of the earth." I tried two places in New Brunswick. Both fell through. Check the realtor ap in Nova Scotia. First one, Fort Nova. You can go on my YouTube and see some vlogs I've done find all about Fort Nova, but Holy 127 acres, 1800s farmhouse across the street from the ocean.

01;08;58;05 - 01;09;19;08

And my neighbors... family. Bubba nanny Pam, the town is awesome, super small town. Nova Scotia couldn't be more on the edge of the earth, but it was so meant to be. Has such a rich history. It was the hospice for the area, so it's haunted by the best people, hard workers, the people who were born there, lived there.

01;09;19;08 - 01;09;47;00

It was a post office for 100 years. It's just the coolest place. But for anybody following the Joseph Campbell thing, we're going into the cave. The adventure, fun, fun, fun. Now we're going into the cave. So I'm there. COVID's going on. I'm isolated. Like you wouldn't believe. I'm trying to make content similar to when I was on the road, but it gets hard when you're just stuck in one place.

01;09;47;00 - 01;10;08;21

Like, spoiler. Being on the road is pretty great for content, right? Anyways, what I found very fulfilling was working on the house. Learning the renovation thing. Remember, I was a guy who worked on the computer. These hands have been soaking in ivory water. My dad worked with his hands.

01;10;08;21 - 01;10;35;29

And my grandfather was an excellent carpenter, and my dad could work with his hands. My dad was an outdoorsman. I sat on my Nintendo, which, you know, kind of blossomed out into sitting on my computer. And now that I had this house in the country, I could kind of bear down on and and learn renovations and things like that.

01;10;35;29 - 01;10;59;17

It was awesome. That was so fulfilling to me. And at the time, it was funny because I had removed myself from filmmaking, and this was another a mountaintop moment of sorts. I actually ended up getting my own television show was called "Home at Last," featuring me and my neighbor. It was on a very small broadcaster micro of a micro budget, an infinitesimal budget.

01;10;59;19 - 01;11;34;16

I ended up going a lot out of pocket on that one, but it was a life goal to have my own TV show, and I technically did, and it was so exciting for my neighbor. He's such a big, awesome presence and was it was a thrill. That's a treasure and a keepsake anyways. But the scary part was the isolation, which for us humans, we are social creatures, and there are studies that suggest that isolation is worse for us than a pack of smokes a day.

01;11;34;24 - 01;12;04;02

I believe it, my mental health was flatlining. Now I was getting into lumberjacks and renos, really getting in touch with this raw, masculine energy that I'd never experienced before. And I wouldn't trade that for anything. But on the emotional side, I was breaking down and COVID didn't help because I... shocked that I can now admit this without being tarred and feathered...

01;12;04;04 - 01;12;36;15

This will be an episode! What I went through emotionally from choosing not to be vaccinated. Social pressure of that from friends, family... everyone was scared. There is no anger. I was hurt though because of my situation more than anything, but there was a lot of pressure from the people above and we all know how things went down, not best handled, that was a novel situation.

01;12;36;17 - 01;13;04;16

But for somebody who wasn't vaccinated, especially in Canada, where it was 90% of the country got vaccinated, I was in the ten percent. I know a lot of you don't agree with me, and especially at that time, but we are in a society of people who are oppressed and put down, who are getting a voice, which I think is terrific.

01;13;04;16 - 01;13;35;13

The internet really decentralizes opinions. And I think now that we're coming out of COVID, where it isn't so scary, I think it's actually advantageous that that 90% in Canada, but the majority, regardless, I think it's important that they hear the stories of us in the minority and how we wrestled with being put on the bottom.

01;13;35;16 - 01;14;06;19

And yeah, I'm a white, I'm a WASP white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, product of that anyways, but just because I am those things doesn't mean in some regards of society that I can't be oppressed, and I experienced it. On the positive side, it gives me a lens to see how marginalized communities deal with life all the time, and my heart goes out to them.

01;14;06;22 - 01;14;39;19

But my opinion is valid, and I think there are things to learn from us who were unvaccinated through COVID now that that time has passed. So please, when that episode comes up, I beg that you listen and and I hope that stories like mine can be considered the next time something like this comes up. So let's all get better together.

01;14;39;22 - 01;15;04;24

Moving on: I couldn't afford therapy. I wasn't working very much. I was all alone. I didn't trust getting started with a new therapist in Nova Scotia, and I wasn't really talking to people back home. I had a small community in rural Nova Scotia. So I thought to myself, MUSHROOMS! I had a friend who was like, "I do these therapeutically at times, and they really help me."

01;15;04;26 - 01;15;26;20

I have a very strict rule; I don't take any substances on my own. I have always stuck to this, including alcohol. The only time I ever had beer on my own was when something like when I first moved to my brand new house, I had a beer and when I whenever I crossed over into the States, I would get myself a Budweiser because there were so cheap and they were so America.

01;15;26;23 - 01;15;46;18

But this friend talked me into it... nope, didn't talk me into it and only my choice. I don't want to put this on anybody in any way, shape or form, but I, through what she was telling me, I thought this was something that maybe I should explore like that because of the other circumstances. So I did a little test, one gram.

01;15;46;21 - 01;16;14;27

I walked with God. It was to this day the most powerful love, in a different way. The way my wife loves me and my daughter will in my family. But in this ethereal, heavenly way, it was this most powerful love. And especially at that moment, right when I felt so isolated, I was encased with this love, and I walked the grounds of my home with God.

01;16;14;27 - 01;16;46;01

It felt like holding me and walking me through all my life issues, and I walked out of that in my world. Now I need a quick digression. My tattoo artist at the time, Scotty, who sadly has passed. I love you. I hope you can hear this. I dream about Scotty still to this day. He had lived a fast life and he found his God and he gave up all substances and he said something to me that I still think about:

01;16;46;04 - 01;17;04;05

He said, I told him this story when he was tattooing me, probably my head, he did a lot on my head. And I told him this story with the mushrooms, and he looked me dead in the eye and said, "You don't need mushrooms to walk with God."

01;17;04;08 - 01;17;27;24

Pretty intense. I love you, Scotty. So that went well, right? I mean, my one mushroom trip it was only a gram was great. So I thought, you know what? Let's nuke this. Let's do six grams. We're gonna do more than a hero dose, and we're just gonna take care of all these problems.

01;17;28;00 - 01;17;36;26

If I felt that loved on one gram, I'm gonna feel even more loved on six!

01;17;36;29 - 01;17;47;16

Public service announcement: They are a very special tool that can cause what you're about to hear.

01;17;47;18 - 01;18;12;25

So don't just listen to this far into the peace... Let me finish. I call myself a socialist in the streets and a libertarian in the sheets. Those are my politics. Which will definitely come up in this podcast. So you will make your own choices. But heed the warning.

01;18;12;28 - 01;18;26;07

Did the six grams and tripped for four days straight. Yeah. And remember the whole thing.

01;18;26;10 - 01;18;56;21

So ya, ended up being diagnosed as drug induced psychosis. So it wasn't JUST a mushroom trip for four days. That said, I don't know where the trip ended and the psychosis began. It was explained to me that we have dams in our brain of how much substance, how much psychedelics / THC / psilocybin, we can take. Some of us have very strong dams (jealous of you) some of us have very weak dams.

01;18;56;23 - 01;19;16;29

Moi. I broke my dam. I was found behind my house naked, hitting my head against the wall. The community, people who love me, came around me, got me help. That's a whole. Not again. Not an episode. That's going to be a whole series that we'll get into. But I died.

01;19;17;01 - 01;19;39;13

I died 6 million different ways. That was the number that kept going through my head. And there was one moment where I truly, I did more than others. I had a full blown near-death experience. I experienced what it was to die and become absolutely everything. And I saw and touched the fabric of the universe.

01;19;39;16 - 01;19;57;05

Hard swallow... because there was not enough computing power up here to understand it. And the spiral that sent me down...

01;19;57;07 - 01;20;29;02

So much talk of shame and guilt... well, at one point, I BECAME shame and guilt. I became the emotions. Now, looking back further removed from it, maybe that was a great therapeutic moment of understanding these emotions, at least my interpretation of them in a more cerebral, ineffable level. But at the time, I was not ready for this, and that's what I'd want to get across to people thinking using psychedelics like this.

01;20;29;04 - 01;20;47;11

Also, by the way, I was alone. Nobody knew I was doing this. Not smart. There are guides for this kind of thing, or even just your loved ones. But I was so alone. I was so alone.

01;20;47;13 - 01;21;05;14

Anyways, I tripped for four days at my house and then I went into an emergency room. I was catatonic and they didn't know what was wrong with me. They thought I had fallen out of a tree and hit my head, and I was having some kind of cognitive breakdown, which kind of was...

01;21;05;16 - 01;21;29;27

So when I was in the hospital, I remember all of my crazy trips, but the one that is really relevant and plays in later was I was sitting there catatonic in a hospital bed, couldn't move. And these angels, for lack of a better word as they were ineffable beings, if I had to describe them, they looked like gasoline, orange and blue gasoline.

01;21;29;27 - 01;21;49;24

They came to me, but were stuck behin a forefield. They spoke. They had the voice of my friends from North Haven, and they were saying, "We want to help you, Reggie, but we can't get to you." I just I couldn't couldn't grasp it. They said, "We love you so much. You have all of our love, but we can't get to you.

01;21;49;26 - 01;22;16;05

We love you. Good luck." And they left. That was the one bright spot of the entire week. Finally, they sedated me. Once they found out that it may be that because they reached out to my mother and I woke up, I don't know how long later in a mental ward in the hospital and my mom was there, I was like, "What the what?

01;22;16;07 - 01;22;48;26

Where am I? What is this?" And wow, I cannot describe. I have a notebook from that time there, and I still have some of my scribblings in it, and those are the scribblings of a madman, I don't wish that upon anyone. Please be careful. So I did get discharged because my mom was there to take me home, and they released me, saying that I had symptoms of schizophrenia, both positive and negative.

01;22;48;28 - 01;23;29;15

They were very intense. Four out of five people wuth schizophrenia don't come back. They have a version of it long term, maybe some diminished symptoms that continue on. Four out of five. And I had this awful psychosis and was very liable to go full tilt back into it. They put me on benzodiazepine to calm me the heck down and Olanzapine, which is the schizophrenic drug. I was on some heavy, heavy doses, and I knew my fear of being medicated for such things.

01;23;29;15 - 01;23;56;24

Second of all, I knew how dangerous benzodiazepine could be in terms of addiction, in terms of what it can do to us once we get deep into it. So I just looked at my mother and was like, I, I'm not taking these pills. And she was supportive. So I got off everything. My head felt like it was opening, quite literally opening, and I was able to kind of pull it all back.

01;23;56;24 - 01;24;26;05

But I would wake up terrified. So scared I would literally wake up screaming from this. It was so intense. I tried to get on CBD to calm me at night and placebo maybe, but it was just really intense. Really intense. So I thought to myself, my mom had left at this point. I was screaming, I was scared, and I thought, I need to just go home.

01;24;26;07 - 01;24;46;21

Remember that theme of home? I never really felt at home, but my mom just felt like home to go back to Ontario and be with my mom. So I left Fort Nova. While I was there, I was talking to a friend of mine whose wife was dying of pancreatic cancer, and he offered me some of the high-dose THC / CBD pills she was on.

01;24;46;22 - 01;25;17;00

I tried a couple at night just to see if I could sleep and calm the symptoms, and it worked. So I thought, "I'm okay, I'm doing better here. This is great." And I was I was kind of on the on the mend and, one of my favorite movies was playing.

01;25;17;02 - 01;25;30;10

I was like,"I've never seen in a cinema before." I thought, "I'm taking these THC pills. Do you want to see it high, man?"

01;25;30;12 - 01;26;01;24

So I took some pills and went and saw the movie, and for even thinking about it, I totally and utterly relapsed into full-blown psychosis. Schizophrenic symptoms cranked up to elevn. And I thought I was at my own funeral as I looked around that movie theater and I thought everyone there was at my funeral, I had died, I was dead, this is my funeral.

01;26;01;27 - 01;26;26;26

I got out, I left the cinema and some more people pouring in. I was like, "Holy, I'm leaving." I had to call my mom and get picked up. And we went straight to the hospital and they gave me some sedatives to help me sleep, hoping I would just kind of sleep it off. At this point, I'm hallucinating and delusional and went back to my mom's and tried to get some sleep and feel better.

01;26;26;26 - 01;27;03;07

But over the next few days I just was absolutely tripping. Full trips, delusional hallucinations, really scary stuff. And this is the moment that my heart goes out to people suffering from psychosis and schizophrenia. But I also think the people who have to see their loved ones going through these things. Mom, my heart goes out to y'all and big shout out because that is traumatic.

01;27;03;09 - 01;27;34;25

And for my mom to have to see that. Mom, I'm sorry, and I love you and thank you for being there. Where I really knew that I needed to get help and be institutionalized, and know that I needed to try the medication was I was having DID (dissociative identity disorder). A lot of people think schizophrenia is when you have multiple personalities in your head, but it's actually it's DID.

01;27;34;28 - 01;27;48;00

And I remember sitting there and I would have two distinct voices in my head.

01;27;48;02 - 01;28;26;18

Intellectually, this is easy to understand: two voices in your head talking to each other, but until you experience two distinct identities, talking in your head. You can't fully grasp. I went a few days experiencing this, and that was the tipping point where I knew I needed to get institutionalized because I was having full on conversations in my head between two distinct identities.

01;28;26;21 - 01;28;33;00

One would ask a question, the other would answer, unsure of what the response would be.

01;28;33;02 - 01;29;09;20

That was horrifying. And right then and there said, "Mom, we got to get me checked in somewhere. I don't care what it's like, I need help." So anyone who's suffering from that, my heart goes way, way out. It's changed my perspective of walking down the streets of a busy city and seeing, someone down on their luck, talking to themselves, having full on conversations.

01;29;09;23 - 01;29;39;27

I used to see those people and just shrug it off and think, "There's a crazy person," but having experienced it, DID, I look at those people differently now. Empathy isn't the word. I can viscerally feel and experience that in my head. Again, I don't wish that upon anyone. I was out of province because the way health care works here.

01;29;39;27 - 01;30;03;12

So they institutionalized me. I had to go surrender myself to a pretty big mental institution in southern Ontario. And this place was terrifying. As if I weren't going through enough trauma as it is. I got stuck in a place like that.

01;30;03;14 - 01;30;34;24

I don't wish that on anyone. It was cold and scary and dark and freaky. So I'm in this place with these very unpredictable people. I was in the high security part of it too, Where they lock you in your room. The window had blinds, but the protective kind with sheets over the blinds. So you can't smash the windows. My first day there, a few doors down there was somebody who was screaming, quite literally, for the entire day, telling people to "Stop!"

01;30;34;24 - 01;30;49;07

It was interesting, a psychiatrist came in to talk to me, and the first thing he wanted to talk about was, "What does analog mean?"

01;30;49;10 - 01;31;11;12

And I had to think, "Oh my God. yeah!" I mean, I think I'm sane, but I also have a word written across my head. I think that's pretty crazy. Anal-OG, wow. But they saw that I wasn't a threat and I just wanted to talk to somebody. I just wanted to talk to somebody and this was my way to do it.

01;31;11;14 - 01;31;36;05

They started also, of course, medicating me. I got back on olanzapine and lorazepam, and I ended up transitioning from the maximum security part of the facility to the minimum security part. I still wasn't allowed outside, but I had a roommate, could open the doors if I really needed to. Although they kept us under close surveillance, like flashlights at night.

01;31;36;05 - 01;32;02;19

My roommate was throwning up all night, like I just... I knew it was temporary. I knew I need to get out of there, but it was a chance to be able to talk to somebody. I got to sit down with a psychiatrist who suggested some medications and wanted me to hook up with a psychologist back in Nova Scotia and they finally discharged me again to my mother.

01;32;02;21 - 01;32;14;17

The big thing that went through my mind here, as I started to come down from it, was, "Did I fry my brain?"

01;32;14;20 - 01;32;41;13

And I cannot tell you how hard that is. Even just to say it now. I looked at myself as somebody with so much potential. Remember on that TV crew member who said "I'm going to work for you one day," and the amazing things I had done in my life living and working in a creative field and doing well. And now all of a sudden I'm sitting in a mental institution and I'm medicated.

01;32;41;15 - 01;33;18;17

And I just sat there and was like, "What have I done? What have I done? I have fried my brain." That was 99.9% of my thinking, but that 0.1% was, "How can this be my superpower? How can I transmute this into a positive?" Even if I had changed my brain composition, maybe I could now make it work for me.

01;33;18;20 - 01;33;50;01

That was the only thing that got me through any of those days at that facility. The only thing. I didn't take the lorazepam. I had it on hand, but I never took it. So safety blanket. But the olanzapine, I was sticking to it this time. Who knows what was going on up there.

01;33;50;04 - 01;34;19;25

So months go by. I am in Ontario. I ended up going back to Nova Scotia and I am a robot. Flat out depressed, sad, and have no emotions. I just was losing it in a different way. I was not human anymore. So I thought to myself, "I want to get off this schizophrenia drug. I'm having hallucinations like I'm just dead."

01;34;19;27 - 01;34;45;13

So I tried and I tried and I tried to get in touch with the Nova Scotia medical community. And they're backed up. They're backlogged. It's difficult. It's hard. I'm not putting blame, but I didn't get the attention I needed. I got slated for three months later when my script was going to run out, to get together with a psychiatrist, to try to work through getting me off of it, if they would even approve that.

01;34;45;15 - 01;35;21;08

And I thought, "I still got free will... I think," determinism, and I thought, "I'm going to get off this." So I talked to a pharmacist and worked out a plan of weaning because of something that heavy-duty one must wean. So over the next month or two I taper down and I will never forget the day that I got that medication out of my system.

01;35;21;10 - 01;35;57;09

From what I understand, taking heroin is like, I feel like this would be similar to the dry sweats, the worried thoughts, the fear, the vomiting, the illness, the diarrhea, the sweat. Severe flu like symptoms in the scariest of all suicidal ideation. And what I was feeling before was definitely existential dread, because what I experienced in this regard was was heavy duty.

01;35;57;12 - 01;36;38;21

I get it now. The difference between the two, suicidal idealization means thinking that things would be better if, things are going to be better if I wasn't here. But when I was detoxing from these drugs, it turned into suicidal ideation. Ideation means considering ideas around the topic as well as conceptualizing, and that's when things get dangerous. I was planning, I was thinking how, it was the only answer and it felt like a friend, as odd as that is to say.

01;36;38;23 - 01;37;03;00

And some of my real friends were there for me every day, talking about. A friend of mine did research and was like, "Yo, you're having these feelings because this drug is getting out of your system." Looking back, do not get off of your medication without talking to a doctor. I went to a pharmacist, that is true. But talk the actual doctor prescribing your medication, please.

01;37;03;07 - 01;37;31;26

The mind is a fragile thing. I fried my brain, our minds are precious and valuable and so powerful so please be careful with it. With great power comes great responsibility. Like Uncle Ben said.

01;37;31;26 - 01;38;01;19

All right, so now I'm off detox through the drug. Miserable, the depression still there. I'm at least sad. Like on a level where I'm crying. I'm not a robot. Deep, deep depression, though. And I remember talking to my doctor, like, as much as I feared medication, I talked to my doctor, who was so sweet, like my family doctor and

01;38;01;22 - 01;38;20;19

I was like, "I want to try an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor)," and these are often antidepressants. I was like, "I want to try one. I want to figure it out." A big thing for me was my libido was gone. So I told my doctor, like, "Get me on an SSRI, but I need to at least that needs to work.

01;38;20;19 - 01;38;46;04

So I feel human." Something to feel, to have any kind of pleasure. My God. So he got back to me finally with an option. But he's like, "I can't in good conscience prescribe this to you because one of the side effects is suicidal ideation." I'm like, "What kind of antidepressant is this? What makes you feel this way?"

01;38;46;07 - 01;39;13;21

We're not going there yet. Anyways, I didn't get on the drug, but I felt something had to give. There was one moment while I was in my cell, for lack of a better word, when I was pushed up against the corner, huddled, and I was so scared and an entity like a bright light was crawling along the wall, crawled along the floor.

01;39;13;23 - 01;39;36;11

But it wasn't scary. It was pure peace, pure love, and it came up, and it came into me and into my chest. It felt like peace. I felt okay, but it was that same feeling from when I was in the psych ward back in Nova Scotia, where it was like, "I can't help you. You're in this alone, kid.

01;39;36;14 - 01;40;06;12

I love you. You gotta do this on your own." And it went out of me. I don't know what that was, but it happened. And that's the big thing with psychedelics that I would like to get established as we start to progress, is these things, although they don't happen in reality, the things that we experience through psychedelics, they're real in our heads.

01;40;06;15 - 01;40;42;04

Therefore, they're real. So my only two bright spots during these terrifying trips to the psych wards were my friends from the road, North Haven, who at this point had gotten off the road and started a refuge. They bought a mountain top. A mountain top. But they bought a mountain top that had a chalet on it, and that was their refuge for the broken, where they bring people who need help.

01;40;42;07 - 01;41;01;28

Remember the wizard Michael? The one who told them, "Reggie doesn't need you YET?" Wizards know, because I needed them now. And I called and I laid it out and they said, "Come to us, come for two weeks. We're going to get through this together."

01;41;02;00 - 01;41;24;04

Trying to get on that plane, the lead up... The plane is going to crash. I was worried that an air marshal, because I was flying to Washington state, an air marshal was going to tackle me in the air because I'm having a panic attack. And Nessa at North Haven just said, "Have your lorazepam with you."

01;41;24;06 - 01;42;00;26

Safety blanket, psychological idea, safety blanket. Take it if you need, or just keep it with you and you'll be okay. And I remember my neighbor, Bubba, he's family to me, he said, "You getting on that plane is the first step to you getting better." So I did it. I bit the bullet. Got on the plane. I got picked up at the airport from my friends, and my God, for the next two weeks I was showered with love and attention every day. Believe me, I was still tripping.

01;42;00;28 - 01;42;35;13

I was still tripping big time. I remember at one point being in the cabin, I had my own cabin and I was like, I'm in a cave. I'm in a cave in some like destitute area and I'm like, I was still going there. But over the two weeks, every day therapy session, narrative therapy, telling my story, my friend Nessa, who's a holistic healer and seer of things, explaining what some of these symbols that I experienced on my trip meant.

01;42;35;16 - 01;43;16;25

We did yoga every day, getting in touch with ourselves physically. They massaged me every night... can I just go back for some massages? We did it all, including writing a letter to myself, explaining what I had gone through and what this was. At this point, I was wasting away, but they fed me and I was eating like a king. The food! We talked about issues with past relationships, and I felt like I was back in therapy again and had a chance to have someone to talk to, not turning towards a chemical, just the way to do it.

01;43;16;27 - 01;43;49;15

It was her watching me over these two weeks where she was so attuned with my nervous system that there were times when I was having a panic attack, and she would stop me and say, "Reggie, here's what's happening. Your adrenals are dumping. You've stopped talking. You have tunnel vision. Look, you're almost shaking yet rigid." These aren't even things that I was noticing.

01;43;49;15 - 01;44;09;10

I remember specifically a moment when we were in the car in the front seat. Matt, Nessa's husband, was driving, and Nessa was in the back seat, and she said that she could tell that I was going off, and she said, "Stop!" So, Matt, stopped the car. She came around to the passenger side door, opened up the door, stood there, took my hands and was like, "Here's what's happening..."

01;44;09;13 - 01;44;14;01

I didn't even know what was happening to me.

01;44;14;03 - 01;45;01;11

It's powerful stuff and something that I want to take forward into the therapies that I eventually do. To have that intuition about other people, to be able to read people that clearly, what a gift. And as the person who was observed that way, that was humbling. That was humbling. When you think you know yourself, you know what's going on, and someone showing you that you might not, especially have had something so serious as your nervous system, just giving you full-out panic... humbling.

01;45;01;14 - 01;45;49;09

My brain has a grasp on thinking and intellectual ideas, but when it comes to some emotion and some coping mechanisms. It overrides my gut, overrides my heart, my damn brain is left going, "Now what? Where what? What's going on? What? What? How do I behave within this environment?" That is not ideal. I was crashed out, done, tapped out mentally, emotionally and Nessa, my spiritual guide, looked at me and said, "What do you want?"

01;45;49;12 - 01;46;15;27

And the only thing I said back was, "A family." And this is where things started. Nessa was basically was like, "Hey, I hate to break it to you, buddy, but you're having a spiritual awakening. Listen to everything you're telling me. These angels, walking with God, this you have something awakening in you whether you like it or not.

01;46;15;29 - 01;46;54;18

So you're going to want to get in touch with that. Figure it out what it is for you. It's talking to you. So you should probably listen, start working with it instead of against it, or going to other avenues to try to find what's looking for you." Whoa. That gives me goosebumps. But the key to this therapy was that I had attention and people focusing on me, and the key was them explaining to me, "You're not crazy."

01;46;54;20 - 01;47;12;26

Similar to when I was in therapy and formal therapy in the past, it was, "You don't have a personality disorder. You're not bipolar." This time it was, "You're not crazy. You have an anxiety disorder.

01;47;12;29 - 01;47;30;05

You have post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD." Like I said, when I was on these psychedelics, the visions that I saw may not have been able to be seen by others, but they were happening in my head. So they're real to me.

01;47;30;07 - 01;47;46;14

So what's the diff? And to die 6 million times? I was eaten by a bear. Live. They don't kill their prey before they eat them. I was eaten by a bear. That happened.

01;47;46;16 - 01;48;23;00

That's pretty traumatic. It's our primal self trying to protect us from a threat. And what I had done with psychedelics, it was so abstract because it wasn't in the real world, these were stylized nightmares. So instead of trying to combat something that might be more in the real world of reality, somebody who had broken in previously and learning to cope with that, all of a sudden I'm wrestling with things that are abstract in a dream. That's pretty intense.

01;48;23;03 - 01;48;33;09

And this was is a total side, going back to the formal therapy, my therapist talked a lot about post-traumatic stress disorder and

01;48;33;11 - 01;49;03;09

I didn't understand why. Maybe I had been wrestling this anxiety disorder and PTSD for a lot longer than even I had known. So with all this love they sent me on my way with a "You better believe if you got an issue, you come right back here. We will love you to death. But you got this." And I left with a plan, a diagnosis and a plan.

01;49;03;11 - 01;49;34;02

Routine: every morning I get up, I read my letter to myself. I move into inspired action. There will be an episode on this. Which meant propelling myself forward, doing something to create, to make my life more enriched. And if there's nothing you can find, clean. It's true, it helps. Time of gratitude, it doesn't have to be tied to any spirituality or religion.

01;49;34;02 - 01;50;08;22

Just be grateful for what you have. You're lucky to be alive. What are some of the things in your life? Good food. Real food. Self-care. Hygiene. Have a shower. Get into bed. And because I was having so many problems sleeping, put on a colorful cartoon every night. Same one. Predictable. Because the whole key, as was explained to me, was just to calm down my sympathetic nervous system which was raging, blasting my adrenals like crazy.

01;50;08;24 - 01;50;32;24

My heart was upset with what I had done to it, arguably for 40 years, and now it needed to be, in its own way, its own voice, its own language. It's like a child inside of us. It needs to be calmed down. After what my brain, which is way too fast. Lightning and fire.

01;50;32;26 - 01;51;00;12

Decided to do all this in a roundabout way of getting help instead of slowing things down. So I needed to learn how to calm myself. Maybe for the first time in 40 years. Whoo! Breathing, yoga. Chill, bro. Get in touch with what's going on in here. Learn about cognitive dissonance. When your heart has a different idea than your brain and you try to fight it.

01;51;00;14 - 01;51;31;14

One major thing that I used in my progression through this was Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which is a psychological tool that basically anyone can do. For me, my spiritual guide, Nessa, from North Haven got me a CBT, not only a theory book to read through, but also a CBT journal, which is very simple. Here's what I'm thinking, here's what I'm feeling.

01;51;31;17 - 01;51;46;00

Here's what I'm actually experiencing. How could that be reframed? There are more things in the workbook, but those general ideas, putting those two together when you're suffering from PTSD.

01;51;46;03 - 01;52;16;24

From psychedelics, when you are having a slippery grip on reality, putting on paper, and there are tons of studies of how important it is to write for therapy. There are so many. So being able to write down what is abstract in your mind, what is real in reality on paper? Whoa, powerful tool. Anyone can do it.

01;52;16;26 - 01;52;47;00

Even me. Anyways, it was a long road, but I was given tools and I don't want to shit on the medical system. They do the best they can with the tools and resources they have. It's ridiculous to think that they could give me two weeks, especially with people who are my genuine friends, no, family. That's pie in the sky. HOWEVER,

01;52;47;03 - 01;53;33;23

we should probably have some kind of middle ground, right? As Aristotle said, one of the most important quotes of all time, "Virtue is a mean." And also throwing drugs at people... There has to be nuance to it. I'll admit, Mmybe those schizophrenia drugs saved my brain. As somebody who prefers to go a more holistic route, always, I'll be the first to admit maybe those drugs, and that even though I did take them long enough to be hooked chemically, chemically, maybe those drugs did save me, I'll admit that.

01;53;33;25 - 01;54;07;01

But the idea of going in and just getting an hour with a psychiatrist and then getting these drugs, and then my follow up being months later, that's not enough either. And I thank my lucky stars. I thank the people who helped me, the system that helped me, the love, thank myself for not giving up because I easily the odds said that I could have been on the other side of things, still suffering, as you can imagine.

01;54;07;04 - 01;54;40;20

Anyone who knows the story of Scrooge, you know, who goes through this incredibly, phantasmagorical adventure and all of a sudden wakes up in his bed, and he is the lucky recipient of post-traumatic growth. I mean, I keep talking about the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that I've been experiencing, but also, I mean, this is a great example of post-traumatic growth.

01;54;40;22 - 01;55;14;18

Was it as quick as a victory as Scrooge? I didn't wake up the next morning, kick my window open, and yell, "I love Christmas!" It took a little longer than that. However, I am an example of somebody who's made it through, who fought, and I have post-traumatic growth. And now when I watch Scrooge, especially the 80s Bill Murray version, which I love, that's one of the best Christmas movies.

01;55;14;20 - 01;55;51;28

Bill Murray '89, I think. Scrooged. Watch it. It hits a little different now. As you can imagine. Just to be clear, I do not recommend psychedelics to cure what ails you. Yes, I believe that they played a massive, gigantic role in my evolution. However, I do believe I would have been heading in that same direction. Regardless, it would have taken a lot longer to get here.

01;55;52;01 - 01;56;16;04

However, I do think the long road would have been more fruitful, would have made a lot more sense, and saved me going through my personal hell. So anyone thinking of going the route that I went before you choose that, imagine what your personal hell could be.

01;56;16;06 - 01;56;25;15

Because careful what you wish for. If you want to evolve using the turbo button.

01;56;25;17 - 01;56;40;20

Experiencing your own personal hell for years might be what you go through, so I do not recommend psychedelics to cure what ails you.

01;56;40;23 - 01;56;46;11

PSA, that was a PSA (public service announcement).

01;56;46;14 - 01;57;16;27

Okay, we're about to get into the good stuff, which will go very quickly because sex sells. The Joseph Campbell people keeping tabs at home, I'm out of the cave. The Phoenix is rising. Before we get there. I didn't mention relationships other than the one that really had relevance, as you can imagine with the preamble, they didn't go very well.

01;57;16;29 - 01;57;43;04

I'm sorry, not a very evolved human. I'm sorry if I set anyone back, because that's the thing that really came to light later. People are trying to get places, and so was I. And the time I took, I'm sorry for that.

01;57;43;07 - 01;58;00;16

And nuance. It takes two to tango always. I'm not going to sit here and self-flagellate completely, but I'm sorry. And I hope everyone I've ever come across is thriving, doing exactly what they like.

01;58;00;18 - 01;58;25;24

So, back to inspired action. I started doing things every day, even if it was just cleaning the house to propel myself forward, to get to the next step, and all of a sudden I was presented with a job. Like a real job. I'm a lifetime freelancer for 21 years. I'm a hired gun.

01;58;25;24 - 01;58;46;24

I've never had a boss, per se, like ya, I've had lots of people to answer to. But I'm freelance. Like I am my own boss. I'm my own company. And people come to me, and I do work, and I never had real hours. I've never had vacation pay, which is always a problem in relationships, because the people I was usually with at real jobs, so they get paid to go on vacation, whereas I lose money plus am paying for them.

01;58;46;24 - 01;59;10;23

But anyways, I got offered a job at a university doing film stuff, so it's not like I was going to go do something that's out of my wheelhouse. In fact, it's motivating and fun and awesome. And I was like... "No." Honestly, I made them chase me for like a year because I was scared to be tied down.

01;59;10;23 - 01;59;42;21

Never done that before! But I thought about it. Benefits. Whoa. Security. This routine thing that I was doing for my mental health was working, so maybe the routine of a job would be okay. And then I also thought I got a hell of a story to tell, and I would really like to help people. I really liked what my therapist was doing all those years ago.

01;59;42;24 - 02;00;08;11

But I didn't have the money. I didn't have the smarts to become a doctor. Okay, but now I got a university offering me a job. So what if, hear me out, what if I took the job at the university and part of the gig was that I get to go back to school? Maybe I become a psychologist at 40?

02;00;08;13 - 02;00;30;24

Let's do this. I took the job. I applied for school, but I was terrified because I reached out to the university acceptance people.

02;00;30;29 - 02;00;53;06

And they said, "Great. Just send through your high school transcript." And they checked it out. Things bite you in the butt, kids. They went, "We want to help you, but you might have to take some high school level classes and up the ante here a little bit." And I was like, "You know what?

02;00;53;08 - 02;01;19;22

You reap what you sow." Bit in the butt. You reap what you sow... but you bounce back! And I was like, "Let's do this." So I applied and I wrote a hell of a cover letter. In that cover letter, I took what my first day of film school teacher said to me, "You want to be a director? You're in the wrong program.

02;01;19;24 - 02;01;42;29

You should be in psychology because they're the same thing a director needs to know." They need to know the psyche. Yeah, you need to know the shots, but arguably you don't. There are some directors that just leave that to the director of photography. What you do need to know is performance. The human mind, human motivation. "What's my motivation?" Director needs to know that.

02;01;43;01 - 02;02;10;13

So I wrote a heck of a cover letter being like, "Here's the dealio: I have been doing psychology for 21 years, please," and I'm sure there's a little bit of cronyism. They knew who I was because I work at the school. I'm kind of hard to miss friggin analog written on my face. I'll never forget that psychiatrist calling me out on that.

02;02;10;16 - 02;02;41;22

I got in! The first time. Remember, I went to college, but I didn't get in on my own merit because my dad had to pass to propel me forward. And I guess in this way, like I just said, there's a little bit cronyism, but I got in on my own merit. And that moment I, I cried, I sat, I cried. Still at my office, in front of my seat, I have the acceptance letter.

02;02;41;25 - 02;03;02;00

I look at it every single day. It's right above my computer. It was a game changer to all of a sudden be back in school, 40 years old. Everybody younger than me in my class are 18. They're more than half my age, which is pretty hilarious.

02;03;02;02 - 02;03;38;25

But it's crazy because all of a sudden, that dumb kid who could barely, barely make a C in high school on a good day, A+'s. I wrote a scientific paper last semester. Yeah, it's just a first year paper, but still! I based it on the negative impacts of augmented reality on a child's sense of self and development before the acquisition of Theory of Mind.

02;03;38;27 - 02;04;09;15

What I thought was, if one can't even look in the mirror and recognize oneself looking at an augmented image of themselves on a phone, likely pretty dangerous. The paper has been written. Read it if you like. It's interesting stuff. The science of what these phones do to our primitive brains...

02;04;09;18 - 02;04;39;28

Something I'm really looking forward to studying further. It's all sciency and crazy. I didn't know I had intellect in there, but there's proof in the pudding. However. However, as we explore things from all angles, which is what we do on this show, the Dunning-Kruger effect where people overestimate just how smart they are. Could be happening here, folks.

02;04;40;01 - 02;05;12;07

The jury's still out on that one, but I hope not. But I own it. That might be the case. I might have ambition to do this, be way underqualified, and just be talking out of my ass. Wouldn't be the first time. A big part of the negative self-talk that almost stopped me in my tracks, or at least I had to consider, was that I pictured all these people who knew me prior, when I was a total train wreck of sorts.

02;05;12;09 - 02;05;45;27

Iconoclastic. I prefer iconoclastic. The idea of them finding out that I wanted to become a psychologist and help people, I pictured them all thinking, "That guy? THAT GUY'S a train wreck! How could he possibly help anyone? He shouldn't give advice to anyone!" I mean, look at me. Would you take advice from this guy? But then again, I was like, how can I transmute this into my superpower?

02;05;45;29 - 02;06;09;00

So now I'm in school, I can see that I have the intellect and I'm going to excel. I'm going to get my degree. It's going to happen. It's just a matter of putting in the time, and I'm willing to do so. And I think it's kind of the perfect mix. I'm going to have this formal education totally by the board of the Canadian Psychiatric Association.

02;06;09;00 - 02;06;51;23

so on one hand, I will be ready to counsel people, and then on the other hand, I've been through the wringer. I had to gain identity in my adulthood. I've had symptoms of borderline personality disorder. I've had schizophrenia and psychosis, D.I.D, dissociative identity disorder. And I made it out on the other side. Wouldn't that be an advantage to have a therapist who's not only read about these diagnoses in the DSM, but who has experienced them?

02;06;51;25 - 02;07;20;03

So once I got over that hump and I started my education, I thought to myself, who cares what those people who look at me and think, because I know the work that I'm going to do, and it has a very special little sprinkling because I've been there, and that would be an awesome therapist to have. And I get to be that.

02;07;20;05 - 02;07;49;26

So I look at this world that I see coming together for me, where I'm getting formally trained, Western psychology, being in the system. But what really saved me was homeopathic, empathetic human connection through Nessa and North Haven. And what I'm seeing come together in my path are these two things.

02;07;49;28 - 02;08;06;04

And wow, that is overwhelming to think of being able to bring that together. So powerful and so for the greater good. I can't stop.

02;08;06;07 - 02;08;30;21

One of the things I think about in terms of me becoming a therapist that I love, is that I'm on this trajectory: I'm going to get my doctorate probably in ten years, because I can't go quickly because this work and family, everything. Now, these are the perils of being 40 and trying to get your degree. The cool thing is I'm on a collision course with people who need help.

02;08;30;23 - 02;09;05;00

Out there right now, there is somebody who in ten years is going to look someone up or will be placed with me through socialized psychological help. We're on a collision course, and I'm going to get to help these people. I need, like, eight and a half more years, but I'm coming for you, and I'm going to offer my hand, and I'm going to help you hang tight.

02;09;05;03 - 02;09;33;28

I wish someone had said that to me when I was suffering. And I mean, in a roundabout way, I told you my story. People really did. I was just too stubborn to see it. But we'll meet and we'll level up together. That is what I'm most excited about. And so when I took the job at a university. We got the manifest functions, which are the decisions that you make that are on purpose, built in like the job itself.

02;09;34;00 - 02;09;59;25

Then there are latent functions. Latent functions are the extra things that come along with it. One of those is my grip on health. I'm going to the gym every single day that I can. I put on 15 pounds of muscle. I honestly don't even recognize myself anymore. I'm actually getting some kind of shoulders and it's weird.

02;10;00;02 - 02;10;36;27

Well, I mean, shoulders for me. It's a lesson in relativity. What that has done for my self-esteem, my self-image, my concept of my masculinity. Man, exercise is a drug. That's a drug I want.

02;10;36;29 - 02;11;06;13

I'm getting a grip on my health as I'm getting into middle age. We have to avoid sarcopenia. Our muscles start to deteriorate. Better late than never. Believe me, I wish I got fit when I was young. I mean, I've always been able to run. I've been very lucky, genetically, heart wise. But, the rest of me, now I'm starting to lift weights, see my testosterone go up because I'm lifting weights.

02;11;06;13 - 02;11;31;04

This is something we all need to get a handle on. And this is something that I highly recommend jobs at universities. If you're cheap, like me, and you don't pay for a gym. So now I'm propelling myself forward and getting my psychology degree. And remember when I said this... "What do you want?

02;11;31;06 - 02;11;38;11

And the only thing I said back was a family." We're getting there.

02;11;38;13 - 02;11;56;09

Who knew heaven was a place on earth? If I could afford the rights to an 80's song, this would be the moment to play it. I really like that song, by the way. I rediscovered it lately. My love life is a WHOLE separate story. In fact, my wife and I have a podcast. It's called "You're So Cool!" Check it out.

02;11;56;09 - 02;12;20;15

Spotify, YouTube: "You're So Cool!" You'll get the whole story. But for this purpose: I dated a gal who was here in Halifax, but she was moving back to Calgary. Long story that you can check out. Man, did we hit it off. We dated long-distance for four months and we had a date set to break up and we followed through on it.

02;12;20;15 - 02;12;26;13

We did. We followed through January 3rd. We were done.

02;12;26;16 - 02;12;57;01

The next day, against all odds, she found out that she was pregnant. IUD, copper IUD, wasn't even ovulating. So obviously the breakup was off. We ended up getting married in Las Vegas after only spending 28 days together in person and after being a journeyman relationship person, all very poor. This is legit.

02;12;57;03 - 02;13;30;04

The old adage, "When you know, you know," I knew, I know and it's done. No more looking. I hope the same for her! And now we are on the verge of having a child. I'm having a little girl literally this week. At some point. She's due on the weekend. So also in this time of rising, I'm in Nova Scotia.

02;13;30;07 - 02;13;54;21

I got to work with the Trailer Park Boys. Just a quick aside again; what a charmed life. I've got to do the things that I love and even with my heroes. In high school, they got me into this. And as I further transition out of filmmaking, I got to work with them.

02;13;54;24 - 02;14;30;26

And that was a, "It was good to meet your heroes situation." Ineffable mountaintop moment. So many expansions at once and When I thought experiment this, looking back at me in high school, was this in there? Could just raw intellect be in there, but be dormant? And I was taken over by these needs, emotional needs that weren't being fulfilled?

02;14;30;26 - 02;15;05;28

And I was missing out on this, or was there some kind of neuro bloom from my mushroom trip? Spiritual expansion? I don't know, but man, that's interesting. Regardless, I just don't think as a person I was equipped to go into this field of study. I needed to go through this time. I needed to go through this gantlet, and my God, I went through a gantlet.

02;15;06;01 - 02;15;37;08

But I also got to have a lot of fun. Like what a cool life getting paid to play for 22 years. That was awesome. That was awesome. And that's where I think even how life is now is so structured. I'm married, a job, baby... Was it the psilocybin? It's a fact that it is neuroregenerative and increases neuroplasticity.

02;15;37;10 - 02;16;11;22

When we're 25, our prefrontal cortex, our decision making, our avoidance of risk, literally the front of our brain, isn't yet fully connected to our limbic system, which is raw emotion, fear, lust, all the things that we're primarily go after in a more antiquated part of our brain. They connect over time, and the two pieces come together fully around 25, and that's where our brains are fully formed.

02;16;11;22 - 02;16;31;10

And all of a sudden, our emotions are connected to our decision-making hardware parts of our brain. I am now, on paper, those have connected. And I wonder if drugs, psilocybin, spirituality, played a part in the expansion of that.

02;16;31;12 - 02;17;08;21

If I wonder if on a physical, scientific level, that my what maybe should have happened at 25 happened at close to 40? We don't know. But it makes for a hell of a good story, isn't it? Just to wrap up the Joseph Campbell thing, the last step: the phoenix has risen. Return to the original world, but this time with the magic elixir.

02;17;08;24 - 02;17;42;20

I don't mean a literal potion, I mean I've gained something, I have learned something, I've levelled up. I'm back in reality with... okay, Star Wars, Luke and the force, he returns in the end after the phoenix bursts our of the cave. Luke had something to offer, I have something to offer. Believe me, I still, "What the fuck constantly." Remember that 99.9% of me thought I had fried my brain... but that .1%...

02;17;42;22 - 02;18;09;24

I use it to my advantage, the way I can now connect things. I feel like I can read people, read situations, connect what's going on within them, within me. I'm more empathetic and more emotional. I'm more present. I'm less risk taking. I'm more prepping for the future. And remember to bring it back. Erick Erickson, Reggie, Reggie Reggison.

02;18;09;26 - 02;18;52;06

The penultimate stage is generativity versus stagnation. Generativity is being a part of the community, being part of a system, helping people and pushing the next generation for and becoming a psychologist to help people. I'm doing this to help people, which will be more obvious later, as if this is like my sharing. I hope it's helping people. I think that having a child starting the next generation and my God am I going deep on the psychology of that and developmental psychology.

02;18;52;06 - 02;19;28;09

My daughter is going to be lucky to have me as a dad. I can say that and I'm so proud. My dad would be so proud of me. I mean, not only that, I follow in his footsteps, I also, in a lot of ways, went beyond and becoming an intellectual at a university. He didn't choose to do despite having the abilities. But even beyond that, I became a good man. I bet my dad's still taking pictures of me somewhere.

02;19;28;11 - 02;19;56;27

But Erikson's stage of generativity or stagnation? Hit it. This stage goes from 30 to about 65. I hit it, and now I look back at all those past stages. And now that I've pulled things together, those past stages are retroactively coming together. Not in those moments, unfortunately. They are what they are.

02;19;56;27 - 02;20;42;21

This is how time works. But I can now look back at those situations with this lens, as opposed to a lens of being lost or broken. And I can now see how things went with the perspective of my daughter on the way. I had instill this in myself at 40, that's a lot of heavy lifting. My goal is to instill it in her when she's young, and I do the heavy lifting for her and she gets to enjoy this amazing world, ready, willing and able to adventure and expand into whatever she's going to be.

02;20;42;24 - 02;21;17;16

I think I'm truly expanding into my full form from 40 on. I hope that she gets to expand into her full form from zero on. And that to me, seems like that's what life is all about. Selflessly giving back to the next generation. I'm on the right path now. The beauty is I've made it to this level and now the next stage, the last stage is integrity on the good hand and despair on the other.

02;21;17;19 - 02;21;21;03

And that's how things wind up.

02;21;21;06 - 02;21;53;26

And as somebody who was terrified, terrified of getting old, not being able to cope now, having relationships, being isolated. I was so scared that somebody who winds up in despair and sadly, will have a poor end to this, whatever this is. And I remember a friend of mine, Jamie Pierce, saying, "You're right on time. Just keep reaching up," and I actually buy it now.

02;21;53;28 - 02;21;56;29

I'm right on time.

02;21;57;01 - 02;22;24;27

And I will keep reaching up, which means when I get to be 65 plus, when I get into that last stage of Erikson's life stages, I'm going to be in integrity. I've got a family, a wife and a daughter, for sure. One for sure, one by my side for when I draw my last breath. So all that fear of death, it's not as scary.

02;22;24;29 - 02;22;55;00

It's still scary. And believe me, part of me still thinks I am laying dead in that trailer two years ago. And this is some weird afterlife and I'm supposed to live out what should have happened in a better world? And is this limbo? Am I crossing over? What can I do? I still have to carry on whatever existence this is.

02;22;55;03 - 02;23;17;14

There's a horseshoe in my ass now. It seems like everything's going so well, but maybe I'm making the right steps. Regardless, I know that I'm setting myself up for the future. That is such a core for this life. Better late than never.

02;23;17;16 - 02;23;26;17

I don't know what this is, but I have to keep going with it. So...

02;23;26;20 - 02;23;30;02

Here we go.

02;23;30;04 - 02;23;33;28

And scene.

02;23;34;01 - 02;23;57;27

Though every episode is going to be similar in that it starts with a backstory. Maybe it's anecdotal, maybe it's something that I see, or I give the full breadth of what we're going to work on. This one was a lot, extremely extra long, because it's an easy one because I heard a great man once say, pitch what you know.

02;23;57;28 - 02;24;25;05

And if there's anything that I know, it's my life. So I had a lot to say. But now we're going to transition into more of the psychology side of it. The stuff that I'm learning, the stuff that really interests me, "the why," the psychology of why, ambition, desire. Is it inherent? Is it external? The nature versus nurture debate?

02;24;25;08 - 02;24;34;12

What is creativity? Where does it come from? Why do I feel the need to do this?

02;24;34;15 - 02;25;07;14

So we're going to treat this like a therapy session. I laid out my entire backstory for you, and now we're going to kind of pull it apart and figure out the crux of "why." Okay, so little tiny bit of extra context in regard to the why of this. I have been making content arguably my entire life. My dad was a filmmaker, so I had a camera in my face way before anything called social media, and it was all VHS.

02;25;07;14 - 02;25;40;21

There was none of this, but close enough. I've always been doing this stuff, but this is on a level that I can't even begin to put into words how important it is that I do this, this podcast, this thing, this exploration. I am waking up in the middle of the night and either scribbling down ideas, or I sit and rehearse this and I can't help it.

02;25;40;24 - 02;26;04;22

It is automatic and to be honest, it's starting to annoy me. So I feel like I need to do this just to be able to progress in life. I have a daughter on the way. The funny thing is, there's burning ambition and need within me to create and progress. I kind of wish I didn't have it.

02;26;04;25 - 02;26;38;04

Actually, I'm so jealous of those people who can just go to my 9 to 5 job and life, get home, sluff it all off, and just, "What do you want to do?" I want people to say, "That guy needs a hobby!" I wish I were that guy they were talking about. I do. There was a time in the film industry where it slowed right down for me, and I was having a really hard time with it, identity.

02;26;38;05 - 02;27;01;28

And I was like, "You know what? Maybe it'd be best if I just remove myself from the industry and went and worked in a tattoo shop somewhere where I didn't have homework, and I had no fairly set hours." I mean, tattoo shops are a little more fluid, but the idea of just having something like that was intoxicating.

02;27;02;01 - 02;27;08;20

Something in me, I just couldn't do it. Ego.

02;27;08;23 - 02;27;12;27

I couldn't take a regular job.

02;27;13;00 - 02;27;45;21

There's something in there that just needs to keep achieving, keep progressing, be creative, make things go for it. What I really need is a confirmed 50 lifetimes to achieve everything I want to do. Can somebody please make that happen for me? Not yet? Okay, so just super intense feelings. And I've been trying to kind of work through this and see this.

02;27;45;21 - 02;28;10;10

And again, the synapses are firing. And I'm now sitting here looking back over my life and being like, "Whoa, has this been lying in wait all along?" Well, I remember well over a decade ago when PewDiePie started doing internet vlogging or whatever. I remember my sister pulling me aside and being like, "You need to do this. You would be great at this.

02;28;10;12 - 02;28;31;00

You need to do this." I just wasn't interested. That wasn't my jam. I wanted to do scripted comedy. I wanted to wear a mask. I didn't want to be real. And I don't think there was as much as a market for it, to be honest. Although he did very well for himself, not in him, but that came to mind.

02;28;31;03 - 02;28;51;10

And then I remember a few years later, maybe five years later, ten years later, my friend Jamie saying to me, talking about some of my content at one point, him being like, "You know, the one thing that's missing from your content is like the real you. You need to sit down and talk." Again, I was like, "I'm not ready.

02;28;51;10 - 02;29;15;24

I'm not ready." But I'm still firing back and being like, "Oh, maybe it was in there." Now, recently, things have been firing up a little more, as a recent podcast said, "Hey," and I quote, "You're 40. So what? You're still breathing. Go out there and get your dreams." And I'm sitting here listening to this podcast and I'm like, "It's talking directly to me."

02;29;15;24 - 02;29;35;04

And now I have a connection to God, too. I'm like, "Is that God talking right to me?" I've got to do this podcast! But then I got scared, and I was like, "Well, why would I start doing this podcast when I don't even have my full degree yet?" Right?

02;29;35;04 - 02;29;58;29

I'm just a psychology student... What right do I have to say about any of this stuff? And then another podcast said this, a line from the Torah, in Hebrew. I'm not going to get it right. I have to read it. Na'aseh v'Nishma. How do I do?

02;29;59;01 - 02;30;10;26

Please, please don't circumcise me further... If not, I don't have the extra skin, that would be very scary.

02;30;10;29 - 02;30;37;12

But the line killed me because addresses exactly what I was worried about. It means, "We will do, and we will understand." The whole point of these pieces is that you don't need to be fully qualified to start to learn. Throw yourself at something, and we will learn on the way.

02;30;37;15 - 02;31;01;00

I had to do this, but I oh my god, I've been freaking my self out about AI! What's the point of me doing this podcast, putting in this work, turning my basement into a studio and like spending so much time doing this when AI could crank out infinite versions of this?

02;31;01;02 - 02;31;19;24

AI is out there and can just copy me and do me in, and all this information is blatantly out there; you don't need to hear it from me. So I talk to AI and it validated me. But of course, you know what the needs are: the human voice. "It needs your story." No one has your story, but that's what it does.

02;31;19;24 - 02;31;47;07

It validates. I mean, I appreciate it. I'll take it. I'll take the pats on the back when I can get them. Oh, and then I was at a charity auction the other day this for free. I was given this podcast mic. Look at that. I tested it out, and it was not of great quality.

02;31;47;10 - 02;32;11;16

It was free for a reason. Anyways, I ended up using my old Neumann kmr 82. I think it's called for the audio files out there. Old film mic. I've had this thing for a long time. It's incredible, but I took that as another sign I have to do this!

02;32;11;18 - 02;32;19;04

Clearly it's a sign from God. OR is it confirmation bias?

02;32;19;06 - 02;32;59;03

We gotta get real people. Am I just seeing these signs, thinking back to these past signs, just because I'm interested in doing something, and I'm confirming all of these wants and needs with the things that I hear, and only accepting those, that's what confirmation bias is. It's only affirming what you want to hear, what you believe in. Because I gotta admit, at the same time, I'm tuning out the famous people who are like, "Yo, fame and money and power aren't all they're cracked up to be."

02;32;59;05 - 02;33;22;14

Jim Carrey's famous for saying that. The guy's making $20 million a movie. Lady Gaga has talked about the mental health problems that fame brings on. I'm choosing to ignore those, but it's funny because when I need confirmation the other way, when I'm depressed and sad that I didn't make the fame, I didn't make the money, I didn't make the prestige.

02;33;22;16 - 02;33;49;15

All of a sudden the confirmation bias goes the other way. And I think about what Jim Carrey said. I think about what Lady Gaga said recently. Ryan Reynolds was in Toronto for the Toronto International Film Festival. And he said that I'm going to paraphrase that, too much time and too much money can hamper...

02;33;49;17 - 02;34;23;22

Definitely didn't use that word. But stunt creativity. And I hear that and I'm like, "Oh, so okay. Confirmed. I don't want fame and I don't want time. I need to keep pumping and I need to be, you know, under strict deadlines and not have money. And that's how I have to do it." Confirmation bias. We hear what we want to in the world very often and use it to motivate us.

02;34;23;24 - 02;34;50;29

And this is so important with how much mass media there is, now take note. We must examine our needs, wants and desires. Also, I've been striving and striving and striving for this fame and money for years. 22 years of trying and I have, I've done some cool stuff, but like nothing to write home about and I'm like, "How funny if this was similar?"

02;34;50;29 - 02;35;10;04

When I got off the road and I got a TV show when I was living in rural Nova Scotia, I was in Toronto and I finally got my TV show, maybe this, maybe this! Me being open, real and honest. No mask. Maybe this is what blows up?

02;35;10;06 - 02;35;36;06

But then the hedonistic treadmill... we're never satisfied. This is a big red flag. We need to consider this if this blows up. This is awesome. That's great. But do I really think this is the ultimate? Of course not. We're built, evolutionary psychology, we're built to constantly move to the next thing, so we need to be conscious of that.

02;35;36;06 - 02;36;00;11

I need to be conscious of that while doing this. I mean, it's a fact that some mega lottery winners return to baseline very soon after the wow of winning. Now, I will admit my baseline has changed drastically through my evolution, but it's still a fact. Okay, so we are scraping the surface here.

02;36;00;11 - 02;36;30;00

That was a little more macro. Let's go micro. Let's go psychoanalytical. Let's get into it, Freud. Here we go. My ID. The ID is the total pleasure seeking side within us. The devil on the shoulder is this project. It's me talking in the camera. Intimate. Super intimate. Just me, my ideas, my thoughts. Speaking right to you. Trying to be a star.

02;36;30;03 - 02;37;00;09

Is that just the devil on my shoulder? Trying to get me validation, love, respect, being heralded by the people for maybe or is it the other side though? Because as my ID was growing, getting all awful on the other side is my super ego. And my super ego looks at is the morals and values in what the world expects and how to contribute to society.

02;37;00;11 - 02;37;27;25

And that's the angel on the other side. Hopefully my ID has grown and gotten ugly, and maybe still is. Maybe my superego. There's no doubt that that has improved and is maybe where my ego is me and where I decided. So anyways, what I'm saying is this could be a purely pleasure seeking venture. Freud is also the sublimation guy, and he's darn right about that.

02;37;27;25 - 02;37;55;07

I take my pain, my hurt, my need for attention and validation, and I focus it on filmmaking and entertainment and media. And don't worry, I am very self-aware. It is funny because over the summer I did a course, English Literature, and I had to read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and it was chilling.

02;37;55;07 - 02;38;24;11

I had to check myself. PTSD wise, it was kind of trippy. I've never really read this or understood it. Now I'm being forced to analyze it. And the real theme of the book is unchecked ambition. It's kind of the whole point of it. Robert, at the beginning, he's on this excursion out to the Arctic, he runs into Doctor Frankenstein's monster, Doctor Frankenstein's ambition in a physical, sentient form.

02;38;24;11 - 02;38;59;26

Robert goes, "Oh, maybe I'm not going to go into the Arctic because of Frankenstein's unchecked ambition." Again, I am very aware of this unchecked ambition would be the ID talking as unchecked ambition. I hope that my superego, psycho analytically, I again, I'm aware of it, and it's all likely true. Okay, that was fun to like play in the abstract, Freudian psychoanalytic.

02;38;59;28 - 02;39;29;07

But let's go into just pure science. Brains are just full of neurons. Neurons connect at synapses. Different neurons connect in different places. The synaptic cleft, they exchange information between ventricles and axons. And maybe that's all that's happened. My whole life has just been these synapses coming together. Maybe now, perhaps with more neuroplasticity from the trauma I went through, post-traumatic growth.

02;39;29;09 - 02;39;55;10

Maybe that is what it is giving me, this whole new level of excitement and the center of the brain. When one of those big connections happens, it lights up our reward center. So maybe I just took all the psychology stuff. I'm learning from all my past experiences. I had a moment. And this is giving me just like, "I need to do, I need to do this."

02;39;55;10 - 02;40;04;23

And it might just be pure science. I get a little dopamine hit from this like a drug. Maybe.

02;40;04;25 - 02;40;40;26

Maybe this is just about reward. It's just straight up. Brain chemistry with reward. Maybe within the science side of it. Maybe this is just a totally, absolutely logical next progression, doing long form presentation of my experiences through the filmmaking media. This is just a logical progression as things have amped up over my career and what I love. And this is where my flow state is.

02;40;40;29 - 02;41;14;01

This marries filmmaking psychology, and it's challenging to come up with this stuff on a filmmaking level. Storytelling wise, it's challenging to explore psychological aspects that I'm just learning now. Flow state is when you take things that are the perfect amount difficult, the perfect amount of effort that has to go into it, and you just sink into just simplicity and zen and you just float through it and flow through, let it flow out.

02;41;14;01 - 02;41;30;02

So maybe this is just the perfect flow state for me that I've been searching for. I'm gonna say the psychologist name because it's really I'm going to actually I'm going to put it on the screen. The flow state though psychologists who discovered flow state is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

02;41;49;13 - 02;42;19;03

He discovered flow state, which is utilizing hormesis, where we get the right amount of stress. Too little stress. There's no point of doing something too much stress. There's no point of doing something. But when you find that center point where you get just the right amount of stress and I feel stress wanting to do this, doing this and putting it out there.

02;42;19;06 - 02;42;44;26

That's what we want to look for, people, and maybe that's all I'm doing. All right. As I've said, I am in mid-life time, so my time horizon is shrinking. I have feel the shrink. I like to think of it as a tree, the tree of life. And when you're young, you know, at the bottom, it's just endless possibilities to get to the tips of the branches.

02;42;44;28 - 02;43;07;11

You can see a lot of branches a head of you. I feel like I've hit an age where I realize that my connections of where I can go to the tip of the branch, they're starting to get less and less. Believe me, I know I'm not... I've decided that I'm old young. I look at it that everything 40 and back is young, young.

02;43;07;13 - 02;43;24;07

Everything 40 to 60 is old young and then everything 60 to like 70 is like young old, and then everything post 70 is old, old.

02;43;24;10 - 02;43;55;19

But 70 is the new 60, mind you. And that cascades back. So I'm just trying to comfort myself. So there is a thing called mortality salience, which is death coming to mind. It is real. And it will impact all of us. None of us are making it out of here alive. And when you're young, intellectually you can conceptualize it, but until your time horizon starts to shrink, I promise you, one doesn't fully grasp it.

02;43;55;22 - 02;44;33;24

There's a branch of psychology called terror management theory, TMT, which reminds me of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Turtle Power. And studies prove that being able to recognize our deaths can stimulate ambition. So I've always been an ambitious person, but no doubt as I enter middle age, it's amped up. There's a Freudian side of it with his Thanatos, and everybody's got kind of their foot in the pond, because our deaths really are important.

02;44;33;27 - 02;45;00;17

This isn't necessarily a negative thing because it forces us to find this life precious; our time is precious. And what we do, the legacy that we leave is precious. I'm about to be a father, and I know that that legacy is truly the most important. Talk about, terror management theory. If I can push my genes into the future, we'll get to evolutionary psychology in a minute.

02;45;00;20 - 02;45;30;03

But that's part of it. Now, this can also be an incredibly negative thing where people put their, death salience into and forever projects such as bombing another country, war, trying to be on the the evil side of history. Some theorize that that's what goes on with some of our politicians and some of the decisions that they make.

02;45;30;05 - 02;45;57;09

Scary stuff. But our death doesn't have to be our enemy. It can be our friend, and it can motivate us. But I promise you, if you choose to stay stagnant when you think about it, you're going to regret it. Probably. Cut that out. I don't want to tell people what to do... I will regret it if I don't, that's more accurate.

02;45;57;12 - 02;46;34;19

Death drives. Our death drives progress. We progress because we know we're going to die. So we build and without it, we'd probably stagnate as a species. Quick little thought experiment, we'll do a full episode on this, but with transhumanism coming, are we solving mortality? Does our ambition fizzle? This may be a big problem to solve, and it sounds like I might be on the cutting edge, bleeding edge.

02;46;34;21 - 02;46;51;12

When is it a cutting edge and when is it a bleeding edge? I guess the cut would come first, and technically technically one would the cut and then the blood, even if it's milliseconds later. So the cutting edge would be better than the bleeding edge. Well, depends where you want to be. Maybe you want to be second in.

02;46;51;12 - 02;47;10;03

It's probably safer to be second in. And then there's that whole study where it's not the crazy first person out there that makes the crowd commit. The second person is key because they make everybody comfortable. Peeps don't want to be the weird outliers. And then the second person comes and the crowd goes, "Oh, this is okay, because the second person is like, society is safe."

02;47;10;03 - 02;47;39;07

Wow, tangent. Here we go. It's funny because when asked if I could do it all again, the time horizon expanded again. What would I do? I always say the same thing, evolutionary biologist. And it's funny because I am doing it all again in school at 40 and I'm going into psychology. But there is a branch of psychology, evolutionary psychology.

02;47;39;14 - 02;48;14;15

And what I love about this is our ancestral selves, because at the end of the day, we are animals. We get so caught up in our tech and transhumanism. We are still biological creatures. We are still animals. We are even fish when you go far enough back. Yeah we are. So when I use that lens, which I love to put on pretty much anything that's happening in the world, especially my own, I'm hunter gathering.

02;48;14;17 - 02;48;45;08

Trying to mate... well, that part of it's done. But I'm trying to get prestige. I'm trying to build a tribe. And now we just happen to live in an era where we have a global tribe. And I can speak to so many people through this lens, but maybe that's it. Maybe I'm being completely and utterly primal by doing this, looking for my people for survival, not because of mortality salience.

02;48;45;11 - 02;49;12;10

That's on a level of intellect that humans have been lucky enough to garner from this cortex that's grown over top. But I'm talking limbic system, the brain stem is all the original ancestral brain that's trying to survive. Maybe this is my way of trying to survive, to form alliances, to build a safety net with my people, my tribe.

02;49;12;12 - 02;49;16;29

And we can all hunt together.

02;49;17;02 - 02;49;46;16

That gives me goosebumps. My nipples are hard. I love evolutionary stuff. I got a Darwin fish tattooed over here. Big fan of that guy. We could kind of tie that back to real concepts, but let's have a little fun with this.

02;49;46;19 - 02;50;17;24

Let's reach out into the ether. Simulation theory. Remember the whole Joseph Campbell hero's journey? My story seems a little eerily, perfect and incredible. And we live in a Goldilocks zone with a perfect moon in orbit to control our oceans, and we have water. Anyways, you could work this down to a single cell. What if this is just some simulation?

02;50;17;27 - 02;50;58;08

What if we're on simulation 500,451 or even hundreds of thousands, millions, billions, trillions more? To tie it back to the ambition part of things, what if, through each of these simulations, we do just one more thing, right? So what if this ambition, this drive, this need to produce, to create? What if that is a past echo of simulations guiding us, and you can even take it a step further with our thoughts, feelings and emotions?

02;50;58;10 - 02;51;22;13

Maybe we do have a kind of free will, but they're still guided by past simulations. And maybe that's what cognitive dissonance is. Remember that that's where we have. Our thoughts are one thing, but our guts and our heart say something completely different and you can define your gut and your heart. Feel free. But man, you're not going to feel good up here.

02;51;22;15 - 02;51;49;12

Maybe that's a past echo. Maybe that's a past you being like, "Okay, make your decisions." And when I apply my life to that, I had a lot of fun, but I didn't get my shit together until I'm around 40. So all that time that I was suffering, maybe my past echoes were like, "Dude, please, please, please."

02;51;49;14 - 02;52;15;00

And maybe through each simulation, maybe I get it one day earlier, I'm living my salvation. Or maybe I get it an hour earlier, or a minute earlier, or a second earlier, or a millisecond... Time as a flat plane, maybe this is just all happening at once.

02;52;15;02 - 02;52;58;21

Maybe it is determinism and we are have a destined fate where we're going to end up. I mean, technically we do. This one messed me up when I was thinking about my death, was that I'm going to be at all my places I've ever been, are going to wind up to there. And when I think that I did die in that trailer, that was showing me what my life could have been like if I didn't strive and break out and go get the job at the University and start this, and wife and child, we are on a collision course with that moment.

02;52;58;23 - 02;53;16;04

Is it predetermined? Are there echoes? Is that flow state? So is the flow state a future ripple of us being like, "Good, keep going, keep going."

02;53;16;07 - 02;53;19;21

High concept.

02;53;19;24 - 02;53;52;11

And I figured it out on this simulation at 40. But what if there was a simulation where I made it all the way through without listening at all? As much as I hate finding the right track later in life, most advantageous, best track set up to win. The best track to find happiness. Best track that helps others find happiness.

02;53;52;11 - 02;54;04;14

Anyways, trying to find the best way to to define them. Better late than never. Better late than never.

02;54;04;16 - 02;54;19;16

I remember that being a theme. I was in therapy because I was pissed that it was taking me 30 something years to start to get my stuff together, and my therapist said that, "Better late than never."

02;54;19;19 - 02;54;34;24

Yeah, I don't care how old you are. Doesn't matter. Go out and get that degree. Find that partner. Make a difference in the world. You're still breathing.

02;54;34;26 - 02;54;50;18

Okay, so we went abstract psychoanalytical into the concrete, science into something kind of fun. But now let's go to the next level of out there. God.

02;54;50;20 - 02;55;16;27

If I had to distill it all down, right to a simmer, and you ask me why I have ambition, why I'm doing this, God, I'm being told by God. I wake up in the middle of the night and there is something pushing me to do this that goes way beyond me. We will go deep as heck on this one.

02;55;16;27 - 02;55;55;14

But just to label for context safe, even though it is completely ineffable, it's paradoxical. Anyways, I do consider myself, once I examined my spirituality as a pantheist. A pantheist, as someone who sees God in everything that has ever existed, that currently exists, that ever will exist, everything. Pantheist, even this camera lens, even this camera lens, those atoms... Adam and Eve... Did I just discover something?

02;55;55;17 - 02;56;36;22

But that being said, I have evolved to get to this place, and I'm opening to that, evolving further. Pantheist for now. Something else in the future. Who knows? I did not see this coming, therefore, but it does feel like something else. Something more. And I didn't understand it until my big trip. Until I suffered. Until I went through hell, until I resurfaced, until I was told by my spiritual leaders that you might be having a spiritual coming out party.

02;56;36;24 - 02;57;07;29

You know, it's like explaining quantum computing to somebody in the 1700s. Gobbledygook. That's how I felt about the concept of God up until my experience. I mean, now even in the zeitgeist, today you can talk about quantum computing thanks to movies like Ant-Man, The Quantum Realm, and people have a general idea of Schrödinger's box. Is the cat alive or dead? It is both.

02;57;07;29 - 02;57;27;16

Quantum entanglement and everything. Subatomic. People get a general idea of that. And that's how I personally look at my relationship with God. Everything up until now, I didn't understand it.

02;57;27;18 - 02;57;55;25

Now, that being said, the funny thing was my spiritual guide, dear friend, family, Nessa from North Haven said this beautiful thing in Hebrew. There's a saying that... I don't have this one written down, so I won't even bother trying to remember it. But the translation is "God's breath." I've always had "God's breath."

02;57;55;27 - 02;58;03;13

And that one really resonated with me. So that's my simmer. If I had to simmer it down.

02;58;03;16 - 02;58;21;23

That's it. I have to do this because of a higher power, and that removes a whole lot of self from it, makes it a lot more self-less.

02;58;21;25 - 02;58;31;01

I'm trying to help other people because clearly from my story, self was a lot of my problem.

02;58;31;04 - 02;58;55;10

So okay, wait, I know I that was the simmer down, but I got one more, which is totally blasphemous to bring up something after saying this was God, I'm doing this for God. But methinks God's got a great sense of humor and it would appreciate it. Entropy.

02;58;55;12 - 02;59;27;08

That's the final answer that we can apply to everything... totally random. This universe is totally random. My existence is totally random. Me doing this is totally random. It's all just random. It's a drawer of string that has been intertwined. That's why I'm doing this podcast. That's why I have ambition, drive random and every time I use it, random.

02;59;27;11 - 02;59;58;02

That's a possibility to. Now here's the big important part: I said, why I'm doing this is because God told me is the simmer down version. I kept saying that very intentionally because that's if I had a weapon to my head, and it said, you need to say one thing, it would be that; however, the real answer is nuanced.

02;59;58;04 - 03;00;20;12

It's all the above, and infinitely more that I can't even think of because it's beyond my understanding or I'm just not educated enough. That's kind of the key to this podcast. It's all of these things. It's a continuum.

03;00;20;15 - 03;00;56;28

So are all of our thoughts and beliefs and actions and motivations. It is so fun to ponder these things. It's fun to thought experiment. It's fun to explore our psyches and others. But it's so important to remember how complex every person, every situation is. 40 years for me led to this moment, plus the years of my mom and my dad meeting, plus the years of the all of that from that first single celled organism.

03;00;56;28 - 03;01;32;02

Extreme but true. This led to this moment of me doing this and into my child, and doing whatever the heck she wants to do. That's how complex our decisions are. So the answer is all of the above. And when I say all, I mean everything. But we can still distill it down. Maybe I'm just hungry, and somebody offered me a delicious cheeseburger to do this.

03;01;32;02 - 03;01;55;15

They said, "We will give you a Quarter Pounder with cheese if you do this podcast." And I was like, "Yes, I do that." In that case, it's a very easy decision with a multi channel chip. This is not me is not a sponsor of this podcast.

03;01;55;17 - 03;02;33;06

I almost hummed the tune, but I would copyright infringement. That's a real thing. And that's another episode the Wild West of copyright infringement. We'll get into it. So, to wrap up the ambition side of it, to apply Aristotle's "virtue is a mean," from my experience, virtue / balance needs to be applied to ambition. It ought not be like Victor Frankenstein's unchecked, reckless ambition that can create a monster.

03;02;33;08 - 03;03;00;28

But it also ought not be timid. Like the idea of me avoiding doing this podcast. I would be missing out on something that I feel personally that I was tapped on the shoulder to do. That would have been a regret at the end of my life as my time horizon shrinks. So, we're here. We're shooting this, which means I'm not letting this happen.

03;03;01;00 - 03;03;18;29

I'm not going to be timid. But I have considered this bring the two together into balance. Doing this, but also not going unchecked.

03;03;19;01 - 03;03;32;02

Kind of the whole thing. I'm going to be getting it constantly in this check yourself, because I keep checking myself and it helps.

03;03;32;04 - 03;03;53;19

As I said, the structure of this, I'll show you, not tell you. We start off with the preamble, with the history, and then we get into a little analysis part, like a therapy session. But wait, there's one more part. I know this is the longest thing ever. Is anyone still watching this? Probably not. Just taking up space in a server somewhere.

03;03;53;22 - 03;04;14;04

The final twist is always we'll do a thought experiment. Bear with me. I have now had this new relationship with God I see doing this podcast as if I'm being told by God to do this. So...

03;04;14;06 - 03;04;47;02

Thought about it. I've heard of other people in this world being told by God to do things. I think of suicide bombers, murderers. I know a bit of a curveball here, but bear with me. Now, in no way, shape or form do I condone what any person has done in such a way that is clearly evil. Do not condone, not okay.

03;04;47;02 - 03;05;31;10

Zero. Violence is never the answer. I have never so much as punched someone or even thought about it. No violence, no hurting anybody. Zero. However, as a thought experiment, I have to look differently at people like Amanda Yates or ISIS recruits, although there is also a level of ethnocentricity built into that, but knowing my connection now to saying that phrase, which is acceptable because I'm doing something harmless, that cognitive dissonance thing, to be able to go to sleep at night comfortably, I need to be consistent

03;05;31;12 - 03;06;22;18

And therefore, now that I have an understanding of my relationship with being told by my God to do something, I have to look at their actions in a different way. They should be punished for their crimes. Breaking the law, hurting people. However, their reasoning behind it. I have a level of understanding that I didn't have before exploring my own thoughts behind this, and I think that's an important exercise that we can all do is to really seek to understand other people and their emotions, other people and their motivations. Both things can be true at once.

03;06;22;21 - 03;07;01;15

UGH... complex. We've saved the most taxing for us, because I'm gonna take a nap after this. That's the world. That's the universe. I just wish that those people would sublimate. Here we are sublimating, this podcast. I wish people who were told by their God to hurt people... start a podcast, talk about it. Please talk about it. Don't hurt. And although I may have a new understanding for where these people had their calling from God, where they are flawed is that they listened.

03;07;01;17 - 03;07;15;27

Now, if I apply my lens to this, it is when I was in the throes of suicidal ideation. There were no other options than that. It was what I had to do.

03;07;16;00 - 03;07;19;01

But I'm still here.

03;07;19;03 - 03;07;37;02

At the time, I didn't have the spiritual connection to God, but I was my own God, my agnostic, atheistic way. I was God, I was the one who made decisions. I considered myself having free will.

03;07;37;04 - 03;07;40;10

And I didn't do it.

03;07;40;12 - 03;08;05;24

And despite having that voice in my head, that feeling within me which goes beyond any kind of intellect, I still didn't do it. There was something bigger in me that saw my worth, my value, what I had to do, how much that would hurt other people.

03;08;05;27 - 03;08;27;27

In this way, people who do harm and claim being told by God are inherently flawed. Forget determinism, self-determination theory. Let's say we have freewill. We have a choice. That choice can never go there.

03;08;27;29 - 03;09;01;20

And to do that is evil. Maybe your God does tell you to do something heinous. You need to show your morals, values and oneness to fight that urge. But nuance. I now must admit I understand where they're coming from.

03;09;01;22 - 03;09;15;26

And this is a new idea for me the evolution of thought, understanding, and empathy toward other people.

03;09;15;28 - 03;09;46;07

Now I am obliged to apply my own proposed lens to this concept for this whole podcast, to this concept. I'll make it very brief because this will go on forever. But the one thing I will say about people who may use the concept of, "God told me to do it," for negative, or even some for positive. The one confounding variable, making it a spurious variable, is that is easy to manipulate, even for me.

03;09;46;10 - 03;10;13;03

Maybe there have been things along the way that have manipulated this into me to even say that. To feel that, and therefore one thing to remember about these people who commit these heinous crimes, maybe that "Voice of God" was the voice of an ideology being espoused by a person. And there's a chance that this "Voice from God" is a psychiatric condition.

03;10;13;05 - 03;10;42;16

I know when I wrestled with DID, dissociative identity disorder, there was the I, there was the stimulus, and then there was the me who reacted through the lens of society and my conditioning, which follows George Herbert Mead's theory of social psychology. I still had the me, "me" had the final say in how I reacted to the voice.

03;10;42;18 - 03;11;15;17

Maybe they didn't, but the idea of, "Somebody told me to do something," means there's still an omniscience. There's still YOUR decision to be made. And I know I got some wild instructions from my inner voice. That secondary voice, I should say. But I chose to not act... I'm still here. Obviously, a million ways to break it down. But for the sake of my concept of the podcast, we need to at least have one "flip in the script."

03;11;15;17 - 03;11;18;02

You know?

03;11;18;04 - 03;11;47;05

Whoa, I promised nuance, all of the nuance, all of the sides is what we're going for here. Please. Echoes are okay, but if you disagree with me of on any of this, it's even more welcome because discourse is so key in a world that's becoming, in a way, we're being manipulated into being more and more polarized. We need to be able to have peaceful discourse.

03;11;47;05 - 03;12;15;11

So please hit me up privately, comment, whatever. Please. The end. Remember, virtue is a mean and comfort within ambiguity, that's a sign of intelligence, and do not take yourself so fucking seriously.

03;12;15;13 - 03;12;19;29

All come back now, you hear?

03;12;20;02 - 03;12;25;13

What is this? We've sprung a leak. It's raining inside...

03;12;25;15 - 03;12;41;11

My wife's water broke! I got to go. I have a daughter.