 Hello my friends and welcome to the 65th episode of Patterson in Pursuit. Today is another very special episode because I am joined by Mr. J.P. Sears. Does that name sound familiar? Well you've probably run across some of his satirical videos online. He is the creator of the ultra-spiritual life videos, which if you haven't seen him yet, do yourself a favor, go to YouTube and have a good laugh. But it turns out he's actually not just a comedian and a satirist. He's actually got a bunch of serious spiritual work out there. In fact, his satire is satirizing some of his own beliefs. He's a really interesting guy and I'm stoked that he agreed to come on the show to talk to me about his worldview. This is also a special episode because you can watch it on YouTube. So if you want to see our pretty faces, head over to youtube.com. I'm Steve Patterson and you can watch us talk. I don't want to give away too much of our conversation so let me tell you about the sponsor of this episode, Praxis. More and more people are realizing that college is not what it's cracked up to be. The college experience for many people is a gigantic waste of time. The ideas that you learn in college are shallow and superficial and you can go into much greater depth just by having a curiosity about a subject and access to the internet. And that degree itself doesn't do what we were all told it would do. It does not guarantee you a job and fortunately it does not guarantee you respect. Many people, if not most people, who are graduating college are graduating without any employable skills, not to mention five or six figures of debt. Fortunately, there is an alternative and it is the company Praxis. Praxis is an apprenticeship program where you not only get real world job training, you get real world job experience and at the end of the program you get a real world job. Not only that, but the cost of the Praxis program is less than the money that you make at your paid apprenticeship. So if that sounds like something you're interested in, go to Steve-Patterson.com slash Praxis. So I hope you enjoy my serious conversation with JP Sears. Make sure to check him out on YouTube at Awaken with JP and check out his new book he just released called How to be Ultra Spiritual, 12 and a half steps to spiritual superiority. If you notice the birds chirping in the background, that's because JP was in Costa Rico when we spoke and I happened to be in Panama at the time. So Mr. JP Sears, thank you so much for coming on Patterson Pursuit. It is a pleasure to have you on the show both as a fan, as somebody that's also intrigued by your work a great deal. Oh, thank you, Steve. I'm honored to be on your show, brother. So you have kind of had a meteoric rise to internet fame just in the last few years. You've got this series called the Ultra Spiritual Life where you satirize, let's say, the kind of the New Age movement, the stereotype of the yoga pants wearing, quinoa eating, person talking about the colors of their chakras type thing. And it's really hit a niche. I think that I think those beliefs are well overdue for satire, but I was going down the rabbit hole of enjoying these videos. And I also saw on your YouTube channel that you have a bunch of serious videos. In addition to the satire, you are, is it would it be fair to say you're kind of a life coach? Yeah, that would be fair to say I've, for the past 15 years, earned my living doing what I would call emotional healing coaching, which is, you know, kind of like a specific thread in the life coaching umbrella. And yeah, that's that's been my background and, you know, the sincere videos on my YouTube channel. I think there's maybe around 150 or so. So yeah, there's definitely that element along with the satire element. I've noticed too, some of your commenters take your serious videos as if they're also satire. So I think part of the reason is because the delivery is pretty much identical when you're doing this satirical videos, you deliver things in the exact same way as you deliver the serious content. And so, but the actual, what you're saying is totally different. One is obviously satire and the other, the others are rather good advice. So I think a lot of people are confused. They think that your whole thing is just shtick because you deliver it kind of the same way. I know, and I'm laughing right now. So apparently that amuses me. And there's a part of me that's amused when people are confused. It's kind of like, you know, I'm why don't I just be me? And sometimes I'm sincere. Sometimes I'm satirical and sometimes I'm both, but typically when I'm doing videos, it's like I'm going to be one or the other, a live video, a live interview, a live audience interaction. Now I might be more dynamic and oscillating between the two. But yeah, and I totally get the confusion because my delivery, like the comedy I do, it's typically straight face, dry humor, satire. So in other words, like I look serious and that's just the way I deliver it. So I guess that the confusion is understandable. I apologize world. I'm really sorry. So what I want to get into with this conversation is exploring your actual ideas. So because it sounds like from what I've gathered, it sounds like your worldview might actually overlap with the worldview that you're satirizing. It sounds like in addition to the ultra spiritual kind of mockery, you do have maybe, I don't want to speak for you, but beliefs that spirituality is actually a real thing. It's not just something that's silly and to be mocked. Yeah, for sure. For me, my spiritual life, and I know that's a super abstract term, yet I'll use it anyway. My spiritual life, my healing, my growth is incredibly important to me. And I think it's a huge deliverer of meaningfulness in my life. So I do believe that at least for me, it's important to not take myself too seriously. For me to have my beliefs, but not believe my beliefs. For me to have things that are very important to me, but also challenge myself to see the shadow side of how I navigate those important things and call myself out on what's my ego's agenda and these things that are important to me. And I was fighting for a good solid 10 years in the beginning of my journey, if you will. Like all my spiritual practices, spiritual beliefs, they were really awesome hiding spots for my ego's agenda. Like I wasn't open-minded enough to question, like, am I being egotistical here? Am I using this as a way of self-righteous control? Like I wouldn't question it because I just looked at, like, this is spiritual. Let that be a trump card. Like, you can't question that. Like, there's no way. Like, I'll be offended if I question that. But then I really think, yeah, no, I'm a human being. Of course, I have, like, really egotistical stuff going on. And of course, I hide it behind an altruistic hiding spot so that I hopefully won't see it. But luckily, I've learned to see at least some of it. And calling myself out on video is a large part of where the video content comes from. Now, there's a lot of ideas packed into there. I like what you said. You're hiding your ego behind altruism. So I do want to get into that. But before we get into what you mean by that, would you say that your beliefs are influenced or akin to Buddhist, traditional Buddhist thinking? Definitely, I mean, there's definitely some carryover. You know, I've never formally studied Buddhism. Like, I'll have a book of quotes, which is a really shallow study. And I look at Buddhist quotes occasionally. But to me, the ideas of non-attachment are huge. And I think that we can attribute that to Buddhism. So I'm definitely not like a perfect fit Buddhist. But there's probably more than any other one philosophy. I probably take more from Buddhism than any one philosophy. So a lot of times, traditional religion, whether it's if you want to call Buddhism or religion, just for these purposes, let's call it a religion. That's often how it's categorized. A lot of these philosophies are dismissed immediately as being kind of vacuous and anti-intellectual. There's just a bunch of garbage. I think that's a shame. I think there's a great deal of truth to be found if you can pick it out from kind of the bullshit. Sure. Yeah, there's a lot of nonsense in religion. And that's true. But I think too many people throw out the baby with the bathwater. So I get this somewhat goes on with people who are probably really big fans of your videos. They think what you're doing is satirizing, criticizing, and mocking all religious or spiritual claims kind of as a blanket thing when this is clearly not what you're doing. Yeah, and I realize everybody needs to have their own interpretation of what I'm doing. You look at a piece of art in an art gallery and if there's 20 people looking at it, you're going to have 20 different interpretations. So I don't at all want to be a dictator and just demand people see things the way I see them and the way I intend for them to be seen. But yeah, with that said, the idea of realizing there's a lot of dogma and just crap in anything I think is respectful as disrespectful as that sounds, I think it's disrespectful to our human intelligence to pretend that something is going to be the end all be all. And I think that's why a lot of people get turned off by religion, you know, like I do. Because to me, it's like, we're smarter than just to believe this is the only answer. But it's just like a farm. If you go to a farm and you start picking nourishing vegetables from the ground, you realize there is so much dirt that you're not scooping up, but you're picking the good things, which is just a very small surface area when you do the math, but you pick the good things. And I think we can do that with really any kind of philosophy. Acknowledge there's a lot of dirt you don't want to consume. Like, let's just acknowledge that the dirt of dogma. Let's leave that behind. But if there's gems that are actually going to nourish your life, then I think we can pick that. So by no means do I intend to be disrespectful to anything I satirize. I typically actually only do parody videos on things that I have a high amount of respect for. And I think part of respect for anything is seeing the whole picture, not just the light fairy tale side, but also like, yeah, what's underbelly? Right. You've got a video called How to Become Gluten Intolerant, which is funny and captures, I think, some of the pretense of people who go around being proud of their being gluten intolerant. But on the flip side, I'm curious, is that something, is that one of those ideas you respect? Because I try to avoid gluten because I experimented and had a good reaction. Is that also something you've done? Yeah. Yeah, I've been gluten-free for about 16 years or so. Wow. Yeah. So, you know, it makes a difference in my life to stay away from gluten. And so yeah, for sure, it's like everything in that video, like that was me, those self-righteous controlling behaviors. Like I'd go home, visit my family and like, how dare you have gluten on the table. And then after a while of doing that, I'm realizing like, I'm not being gluten-free, I'm being a jerk. So being a jerk is different than being gluten-free. So you know, in the video How to Become Gluten Intolerant, I'm separating the behaviors from the practice. It's like, the video isn't really about being gluten-free, it's about self-righteous human behavior that tends to follow people wherever we go. But again, one of my dilemmas that has challenged me is I hide myself righteous, like just judgmental crappiness behind freaking wasps chasing me, welcome to Costa Rica. I hide it behind altruistic hiding spots, like, okay, I'm doing this for my health. And I really hope I don't get stung here on this call. So yeah, gluten, I definitely lost myself there being the control freak while believing now I'm just being gluten intolerant. So is that kind of where the, a lot of these videos come from is identifying self-righteousness in your own belief system that you think, you know, this I gained a perspective on myself. This is a really ugly part of me. I need to mock it. I need to make myself feel uncomfortable about how silly I've been. Yeah, yeah, I would call it an exercise of self-awareness. You know, the self-righteous controlling judgmental attitudes, I'm better than you, kind of egotistical stuff. I think that's going to be a part of at least my human nature period. But the question is, when I try to hide it, or the question is, am I trying to hide it? When I'm trying to hide it means I'm not being transparent, I'm not being vulnerable, I'm not being authentic, I'm being fake. And I think when we try to hide things about ourselves, you know, it makes, like, it makes it hidden. So what we don't know about ourselves in my opinion tends to control us. And I think that creates a lot of chaos. When we can be much more honest and transparent with our human flaws, I think our flaws work against us less when we're just, like, open and honest and aware of them rather than pretending they're not there and then they start to really control us. So it's really like shining the light of awareness on what I judge to be my human flaws. So I've just started getting into meditation and this sounds like kind of a great deal of what some of the practices is, self-awareness, just being aware of what's going on in your own head, both how people perceive you and how perceptions are being represented to your consciousness and just being aware of kind of what's going on upstairs. And I wonder, what are your beliefs about awareness in general and kind of consciousness or what actually it is to be human? We talk about, you know, human self-awareness, but if we can get into those ideas, what do you think actually it is? I'm confused about what I am. I don't actually know what I am. I seem to be like a point of consciousness, a point of awareness, but I also seem to have this body and it's really confusing. So what are your beliefs on this? Yeah, you know, I think being our self has nothing to do with knowing our self. Being able to intellectually understand what we are is very different than just being what we are. And personally, like I have a lot of respect for the mind. Like, thank God I have one, unless I think I have one. And I think Einstein said the best, the mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. But when we try, when we put it in the position of being a master, we can limit ourselves on how much we're living, how much we're actually giving ourselves permission to be ourselves because we have this governor, like I'm not going to let myself be myself any more than the degree in which I intellectually understand who I am, what I am, what is a human being. Well, a human being is probably something more than just this one little speck of the human being called our mind can comprehend. So you know, I definitely don't know what is a human being like, I don't know. But what a human being is is probably best comprehended by being a human, not thinking about what a human is. So in my, I don't know, interactions with life, finding peace, growth, spirituality, I don't invest much time in what I would call intellectual spirituality. To me, intellectual spirituality is not spirituality, it's intellectualism, which is fine. But I think we owe it to ourselves to not confuse the two. Like for instance, like I love to, I'll put it this way, I don't like to make decisions based on what I think. I don't like to live in my head because I've done so damn much of that. I've lived in my head for so long, because that's how I escaped my emotions, like I disconnected them and we'll just try to make sense out of life through my head. So I like to have my intellectual part as a servant while making, you know, actually living and feeling more of a master. So Steve, I think at this point I've absolutely not answered your question, but I've actually rambled all the way, which I forget about. That's a very interesting answer and it's very appropriate just for me personally because I'm definitely stuck in the intellectualizing and over intellectualizing everything. It's hard for me to go out and be a human unless I know what I am, which does seem kind of odd. But several years ago I had an experience which kind of opened my mind or taught me something that's very similar to what you've just said. When I experienced love for the woman who's now my wife, I thought, okay, this is a totally different ball game. I was doing the rationalizing, kind of disconnected from my feelings, not in like a depressive way, but just in like, well, my feelings aren't serving my purpose of discovering truth. Like I want to figure out what it is. Then I bumped into this love experience and I was like, okay, this is truth that I've kind of experienced. I can't fully wrap my head around it, but I, hard to explain, but I kind of know it's true, which is sure to upset people in my audience when I say put it that way. Yeah. It was good. Good. I think if you just told people everything they want to hear, they would not have any benefit from it. They'd be comforted, but it wouldn't be challenged to consider different perspectives. There's a research institute, I believe they're called the Hartnath Institute. And based on like a study that, I didn't even read this study, it shows how intellectual I am. I just heard other people talking about this study. So just full transparency there. So allegedly they've done research that shows the electromagnetic field of the heart is 5,000 times stronger than the electromagnetic field of the brain. So if we just kind of take that at face value, which I know really oversimplifies it. But so at face value, if we just pretend the heart is 5,000 times more powerful, it gives us a 5,000 times greater experience of life than the head, then it kind of makes sense. Living from our head, it's very finite. We can only comprehend what the head can comprehend. Even though we think we can comprehend what's beyond the head. And I think that's incredibly arrogant of our BD little minds. So anyway, that's something like I really can consider. I think our feelings give us so much more enrichment than our thinking. And again, I have so much respect for our thinking, thank God we think it's important. But I think thinking, or I'm sorry, I think feeling, which is ironic, like I think feeling whatever. I think our feelings are a language that's so wise that it can't be comprehended through our English language or any other intellectual language. So I think living in our heart at times, feeling our feelings, experiencing the rapture of life that we can't really comprehend with our thinking, things called love, things called connection is important. And like, yeah, let's try to comprehend things we can comprehend, but surrender to things that we can't comprehend. Now, is there a boundary somewhere where you think that can be taken too far? Because I know just people that I've interacted with, it seems like there is an abandonment to feeling that can sometimes go really awry. And then people are kind of wrecks because they're not they're not like mentally stable, I guess, is one way to put it. So how do you how do you play that line of let's surrender to our feelings, but kind of keep them in check? Oh, yeah, for sure. To me, the goal isn't to be at one extreme of like, I'm always consumed by my feelings or to be at the other extreme where I'm only stuck in my head and I have no connection to my feelings. But to me, the space in between kind of like the Buddhist middle way is the ideal. And, you know, I think always being in our feelings exclusively means we're pretty freaking ungrounded. Like, let's realize like we've we've got this faculty called our mind probably for a reason. It's probably meant to be used. It's probably not meant to be used 100% of the time to the exclusion of all other aspects of our wise human self. But yes, for sure, it can be taken out of balance to the extremes. No question. Okay, so I also not only am I going to get an interview, I also want to get some life coaching here because when you when you say this, now I have questions for you. How do you live more that way? So if somebody has a has a stop like the mind is the governor, right, and is putting a stop on action until you get the comprehension before the action. How do you overcome that? So as profound as this love experience was, I found for a while I still struggle with this. It's almost like an intellectual arrow in my quiver. It's like, oh, I just discovered what I think is the meaning of life. Isn't that nice? And then I forget about it, which seems kind of ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I definitely don't have all the answers. I probably don't have any of the answers yet a consideration on integrating more into our feelings, which I would equate more into our heart as well, is paying attention to our body sensations. And I'm not even talking about emotions, which is like cool to pay attention to but I'm talking about like the feeling sensations that come up in our bodies that make no intellectual sense because I mean, you know, feelings are something like a dog with an IQ of 12. It can comprehend like if it feels tingly, like it, you know, it comprehends that like tingling. Got it. It's like a no brainer. It'll literally a no brainer. It's an all feeler. So I think regularly practicing the art of paying attention to our body sensations, you know, I was, you know, looking at some comments on video this morning that really offended some people and like, wow, I was feeling like, like tightness in my neck and like tingling in my rib cage. And, and I wanted to intellectualize it because like it feels safer to not feel things that are uncomfortable. So I wanted to just comprehend, like, oh, well, people didn't understand my intention of this video. And it was like, no, I got to be into the feelings. I can't just run away from these feelings that doesn't make them go away. Otherwise, it's just like I'm on the treadmill and I'm running faster and faster. So long story short, regularly paying attention to the very simple body sensations that come up in us is something I highly value. Now, how do you keep that open and kind of soft hearted in feeling when you're an internet personality? The internet is filled with knives and sharp objects that are designed to hurt you. Oh, yeah, normally I don't keep it open with the video because you get a million people watching the video. You realize there are some people that are connoisseurs of outrage. They're just, they're looking for things to get offended about. But it so happens to be that was two days ago, I published a video called Welcome to Costa Rica. I'm curious, did you by chance see it? I saw the title. I didn't see the video though. So it was my American take on how Americans view in a very arrogant way Costa Rica. And it amused me. And the first time it's ever happened to me where an overwhelming number of people felt very disrespected by the video. And what really actually hurt me was a lot of Costa Ricans were feeling hurt by the video, which was the last thing I wanted to do. And so to kind of go into GP therapy hour here, what I didn't realize was here I am a dude from the first world talking of like making fun of first world perspectives in a second world country. And it actually, I mean, it's, it really got me my attention when I realized a lot, not everybody, but a lot of people more than I'm comfortable with are seeing this video in a much different way than I intended. So in other words, like I was really paying attention. Like what's the feedback of this? Because I always want to help people, not hurt people. And wow, a lot of people seem hurt by this. So I actually deleted the video this morning, but that's the reason why I was paying attention to like the comment sections and like feeling my feelings on this video. But like that's actually the first time that's ever happened. So most of the time to 20 minute answer to your question, most of the time, I think as someone who's publishing work and what I would consider my art online, it's mostly advantageous to not pay attention to the inevitable shallow criticism that comes in from haters. But it just so happens, like this is like kind of more the exception than the rule. I mean, this wasn't like hate or comments. It was like human beings educating me on how they perceive this video. So my disposition is to not take that approach. I wish I love that approach. Like that strikes me as soft-hearted and kind. My approach is they have if you're offended by this, that's your problem. So I don't know if that's like anger or callousness or something in here, but surely you have that thought somewhere, right? Like if you've got offended by a work of satire, that's not my issue. Yeah, for most of the time, that's my stance. Because I know my intention of a video, and normally my videos come across pretty much the way I intended aside from the online haters and people who feel insecure about what I'm talking about and therefore get offended because they're trying to deflect from their insecurity. But this was just different. It was where I felt like if I stood the ground up, like, well, you just don't get it. Or if you need to be offended, I feel like that would be me staying in a posture of arrogance of you're seeing this video wrong. But I think I needed to realize I was wrong. Not wrong for making the video, but I was wrong in how I thought the video was going to come across. So it definitely took a tablespoon of humbleness for me. OK. So why is it that you care about being nice? That's a kind of blunt question. Why do you care about how people feel? Yeah. Yeah, it's non-intellectual answer. It's like the theme of our conversation. Intellectual or not. But really, it feels better to me to be nice. It feels better living inside of my own skin, being nice. Being nice, not people pleasing, not playing it safe, not restricting my points of view that will challenge people. But coming across with good intentions is very important to me. Yeah, so it actually makes intellectual sense to me about it feels better to me being nice and caring to people, which honestly, that's selfish. But it's like, yeah, it's like a selfishness I'm OK with. I feel better being nice to you. It's kind of like the deal. I think that's awesome. I think that's super honest. Do you think that altruism in general works this way? There's a whole school of thought that thinks precisely that. That altruism is great and it's important. We want to show love and kindness because it is like a practice of self-love, and it'll make you feel better. Yeah. Yeah, I think it'd be awesome if we could just be altruistic and not have a self-serving agenda. But I think there's a self-serving agenda to altruism, like it gratifies us. And thank God it gratifies us. Or else I don't know that we would have as much kindness happening in the world if it didn't feel kind to ourselves to be kind to others. So I don't want to demonize the selfishness with altruism. I want to praise it. Thank God that happens. But I also want to not pretend that it's not there. It's like, no, no, I just need you to believe I'm just super awesome. And I get no gratification from helping other people. No, it feels awesome to me. So let's not dilute ourselves there. Well, for what it's worth, I think it's awesome that you have the honesty to say that and the self-awareness. Because I think that is behind a great deal of human, almost perhaps even all of human action is mixed with this little bit of self-interest. And I think it's totally fine. It gets a bad rap. Yeah, well, I appreciate you pointing that out. And why not gratify ourselves through altruism rather than gratifying ourselves through bullying? There's a reason why people bully and are mean to each other and violent towards each other. It's because that makes them feel good. It gives them a temporary sense of power through having a sense of control over someone. So if that's how we're gratifying ourselves, like, ew. No, thank you. It's pretty destructive, if you ask me. So why not gratify ourselves in a way that actually benefits someone else and benefits us at the same time? My wife helps me a lot with this because I waffle between when I see bullies and jerks, I waffle between like I want to smash them. Like I think it's awful. And then occasionally, especially when my wife helps me with this, I feel pity because it's like that person on the inside has to be a wreck in order to be such an incredible jerk. Like you've got to be feeling terrible. And then I read a little more of what they say, and I think I know screw. Oh, I love it. Yeah, yeah, I think about online, if someone's bullying someone else there, a very hurt person trying to hurt another person. And I think it gives the bully the illusion like I not hurt anymore because you're the hurt one. So let me hurt you so I can make you the hurt one. So I can have a temporary escape from the hurt inside that I'm not courageous enough to experience vulnerably. That's pretty deep. And I imagine if there's a bully listening to this, their eyes probably just welled up a little bit. It's like, no, no, that's not going on. Yeah, well, you can escape your tears as like leave a negative hateful comment somewhere about what was just said and online bullying. Yeah, that's a good way to escape yourself too. So when I think about this, I'm in agreement I think with most of what you've said so far. It strikes me as very odd that this is the system that we inhabit. We live in a system whereby showing love and kindness to others feels good and benefits us. And you almost see something similar in a marketplace where like a businessman oftentimes serve their customers purely out of a profit motive and they kind of make the world a better place even though it's merged with their self-interest. And I wonder, how do you, so one perspective of looking at this is to say, oh, wow, isn't that an interesting coincidence? There's another perspective, a spiritual or religious perspective, which has no, that's the system's design that way. Like there's a reason, there's a, let's say there's a benevolent God or something that created the system so that it would be that we get rewarded when we're loving. We feel better. What do you think about those ideas? Do you think that that's true? Do you think that's plausible? Yeah, I definitely think it's possible. And in a way, it seems like part of the quote unquote system is set up where we are rewarded with gratification for doing good to others. And honestly, I think humans were ridiculous enough that we need that. When you look at a child, when they do a four-year-old does something nice, mom and dad will praise them. They're like, oh, you did good, which reinforces the good behavior because we need that. Like we're also savage monkeys capable of a lot of ruthlessness. We pretend like we're not because I would guess most people listening to this show are like inherently like great people who aren't out like inflicting violence on other people and probably not even emotional violence, but we're all capable of that. Like welcome to the reminder, we are savage monkeys as well. So I think it takes training to harness our primal power so that we're not reverting back to 2,000 years ago when we're sorting each other to death so I can take your fruit tree and have your horse or you looked at me wrong. I mean, we are capable of that. And a lot of, I mean, that's still acted out in the world. Just, I mean, the folks listening to this are probably, again, not acting out so savagery, but I do think we need training and guidance to essentially act well rather than acting savagely. So, yeah, and I think also the system is set up in a way where it can reward people in the short term for using people. I mean, we all know people who have made a lot of money at the expense of other people. I think long-term that person pays the price, but short-term they can have monetary rewards, but I think we all know the same slow and steady wins the race. So if we pretend that's true, I think when a business person is genuinely offering a product or service that helps people and helps the world, even if it's to a small degree, long-term they're gonna be way better off. Short-term they might not get as much growth. I mean, they could go cut the rainforest down and make maximum profit for a few years, but long-term that's not gonna work for them, especially when people start to catch scent of their reputation, what they're really doing. Exactly, so do you see this, you said you think it takes some training in order for humans to kind of overcome their primal instincts. Do you see the society, humans in general, as moving towards a particular point of getting, enlightened is not the right word, but becoming more peaceful, becoming more loving, kind of overcoming some of those eight-ish tendencies Do you see it going that direction or do you even think it matters? Yeah, this is one I'll definitely say, I don't know, but I definitely like to think so. And that might be me being delusionally optimistic, and I heard it said before, the difference between an optimist and a pessimist, they're equally delusional, except an optimist is happy about it. So that might be a play here. Okay. You know, I think the savage primal, just ruthless energy, it's very much at play present day, certainly our wars and violence, but also I think it's being expressed a lot psychologically present day, whereas maybe 2,000 years ago, it was just like more obvious because it's expressed physically. So even with that acknowledged, I do like to think that we are evolving, if you will, to a more loving society. And if that's not true, then I at least feel a little bit more peaceful inside, pretending that's true. But I'm curious from your perspective, if you were answering the same question, what's your view on that? My guess is yes, I do think that, so I have to put it in some kind of religious context. And I say that unfortunately, just because my background is the rationalist philosophy. And so when I had this love experience, I had to expand my worldview. I thought, okay, I think I have enough evidence to say God exists, and that love is something that is the meaning of life, the purpose of existence, like that's the truth. And in those contexts, when you blend the two together, I think that in the long run, maybe a hundred years from now, maybe 50 million years from now, I don't know, love will win. I think it is so superior, and when people bump into it, they're going to recognize this as, oh, this is where it's at. This is powerful enough to structure our lives around. Now, the trouble is when I say that, one is people aren't gonna be persuaded because it's not a rational argument, and I totally understand that. But two, love is this ambiguous word, which I'm finding I can't even use anymore because people think I'm talking about just an emotional feeling, and that's not really what I'm talking about. Like you can feel love, yes, but the love isn't the feeling. That's the feeling of the love. And I don't exactly, it's something like a bond or a connection or I don't exactly know what it is, but I know it's not just purely the feeling. So I'm not saying we're all gonna be like, love addicts as if it's a drug, like cocaine. It's like, oh yes, the feeling of love is the meaning of life. I don't think that's the case. But I do think, and this is what all the, well, most of the religions we're talking about is when you experience that thing, whatever you wanna call it, love or God or truth, you want to expand it. You want to show other people it. And I think if there's enough people that can do that for long enough, maybe it's the delusional optimism, I think it'll win out because I think it's just so incredibly superior. Yeah, yeah, I think so too, says this guy's humble opinion. So I wanna ask you then, since I, sometimes there's a mixture of my audience between kind of religious people or people who are very much anti-religious. Sounds like a divisive crowd. Oh, it is, yeah. I wonder, you did a video called, I think is it How to Be an Atheist? Something like that? And it satirizes what you might call dogmatic atheism, that those that are totally convinced that there is nothing beyond the five senses, everything is certainly physical. And if you just suggest otherwise, you suggest that there's a God, it is equivalent to you saying, you believe in magic fairies. So what do you think about that? Why did you do that particular video? Yeah, I find a lot of us, when we become, when we psychologically become rebellious and defiant, we're being defiant to something, in this case, religion with dogmatic atheism, I tend to believe when we're acting from that defiant rebellious place psychologically, we become exactly what we're being defiant against and are blind to it, which I think is hilarious. Freakin' wasps are trying to get me again, Steve. So one of the purposes of the video is to create the invitation for awareness of, hey, are you being exactly what you're rebelling against just expressing it a little bit differently? I think the same thing happens with spiritual people who consider themselves beyond religion and dogma of religion, man, that's so wrong. So it's like, okay, now you're dogmatic about being dogma-free. So can you see how you're losing yourself while you think you're finding yourself? But I think if someone comes from a, what I would call a more mature adult perspective in their psychology and says, yeah, atheism for me, I choose this because of these reasons that's very different than becoming atheist because you're defiant against religion. So anyway, that's what that's about. I find it amusing how me included a lot of us will become exactly what we're rebelling against and be blind to it. Yes, I see it all the time. And one of the words that has now I can't use anymore, although I do, is skeptic, like so for me, my disposition is extreme skepticism, like self skepticism, like if I'm dogmatic, it is the method of skepticism where I'm not even sure an external world exists, like that's the position I'm comfortable from. But that term now doesn't reference a kind of default to doubting particular claims, doubting that what the knowledge we have is true. That now is like a social signaling word that implies you have a particular belief system about materialism, the irrationality of religion. There's like a set of beliefs, there's literally a skeptics movement, which is the exact opposite of what skepticism is about. For sure, it's actually, I was, there is a podcast I did, it was, I forget the exact name of it, but they were the skeptics. And the whole theme, and you know, I shared my idea of like, well, if you're a true skeptic, you should be skeptical about whether or not you should be a skeptic, like can you even do that? And I do believe that, I don't know, I think our, this is my delusional opinion, I think our life energy serves us better when we put it behind what we stand for rather than always crusading against what we don't stand for. And I think the challenge of becoming a religious about our skepticism, as you point out, is we're always crusading against what we don't stand for. And then I think eventually we need to ask ourselves the question, well, can I have enough sense of self to figure out like, what do I stand for? It's like, I don't stand for all this. It's like, yeah, well, who are you and what do you stand for? Can you have enough courage to stand for something? And can you have enough courage to change your mind and let it grow and evolve, hopefully. So I think a lot of people bleed their power, bleed their power out when they're just crusading against what they don't stand for. And I think we reclaim a lot of our power when we actually stand for something that we believe in. Yes, and just purely intellectually, skepticism is much easier than making positive claims. Because it's a thousand times easier to poke holes in an argument in which there are inevitably gonna be holes than to create an argument that you try to make whole proof. It's way, way, way harder. For sure, it's just like it's way easier to sit in the football stadium watching the game than it is to be on the field playing. It's like, yeah, you can criticize Peyton Manning because he had an incomplete pass, but guess what? Now you get on the field and you take action. You get yourself in the gladiator arena rather than being in this convenient comfort zone called an onlooker. And I don't necessarily know that all kind of by trade skeptics are only the convenient onlooker, yet I think a lot are. Oh yes. Okay, so the last question I wanna ask you, just be pretty straightforward because a lot of people are interested when you open yourself up to the idea that there is some truth to be found in spirituality and perhaps even some profound truth. That also can be a rabbit hole because people will take that and then they'll sometimes construct really wonky belief systems about how the universe exists only for them and like the only thing that exists and there are certain of it and there's this idea of the law of attraction, which I'm sure you're familiar with, which essentially says the universe exists to serve your purpose. I don't think that's the case. Do you have something to say about that? Yeah, I agree. I think it's a very ego-based interpretation of like a law of attraction that say like I control the universe. It's like that's the magical mind of the child thing. Like that's literally a phase of thinking we go through when we're two years old. We think the world revolves around us. We make things happen. But guess what? We're a speck of dust on top of a bigger speck of dust. So in other words, I don't think we control the universe. I think that's incredibly gratifying to our ego to think we control the universe and it's sort of a two-year-old psychology in my opinion. So in the context then, what do you think does control the universe? If anything, do you have a positive belief in the existence of some kind of a God created for structure of the universe? What are you, are you comfortable answering that? Yeah, it's a great question. And my question won't at all pretend like I've got some kind of all figured out plan. I do, I believe in a God, yes. Not the, not a human God. Like we're humanized God, some dude up there, gray beard, white guy, of course. I think God in the sense of there is something very significant beyond me. And so what's God's control or what's controlling God? And how does God control the universe? What's the, I don't know. I definitely don't know. Though I can say, I believe there is a higher power but yeah, the idea of what's controlling the universe and some would say that the word universe is synonymous with God. Man, that's a mystery. I'm curious if you have the secret, the answer to that secret. Oh, sure, yeah, no, I've solved it all. No, I tend to agree. So the way that I put it is in the skeptical context. I have my criteria for skepticism about the existence of God, that threshold has been met. And it's, and I would say, if anybody experienced love is the way the word that I'm using, if you've experienced that state of being, you will have enough evidence to conclude purely rationally that there is something bigger. There's something more, there is a different level of fulfillment when you can get in the love state of mind. Now, for me, this came from experience. Like, I could put it in a half mocking, half completely true way that it was as if God spoke to me personally. It was like, hey, by the way, Steve Patterson, here's the experience of love, and I love you, and it's a pretty big deal. And it kind of was sort of what happened if I summarize it. For you, with those beliefs, did that come from experience? Did that come from contemplation, from reading, from why do you have those beliefs? Yeah, I think they first came through reading. They first came intellectually, and particularly there's a book called Conversations with God, book one by Neal Donald Walsh. It's really like a philosophical book, and it really like everything that was, not everything, but a lot of what was said in there. It's like, wow, I was having the sensations like I've always believed this, I just haven't known I believed this. It's like almost a remembering. And then I think it's taken me longer to embody the kind of that intellectual belief and have like a feeling sense of connection. Like almost like maybe I'm via an umbilical cord that I can't see or feel, connected to something greater than me. Hard to describe, but that would be the way I feel it now after, and I think I needed my mind trained to like look for this a little bit. So I like the analogy with the umbilical cord that was kind of similar to the experience I can occasionally bump into. And pretty much without question, maybe with a few exceptions, it is when I'm in the loving state of mind, which is not Steve Patterson's loving state of mind, like I'm kind of a cold guy, but that's where I feel like whatever that is, whatever the thing that we seem to be connected to is, and it can be kind of expressed through us, it comes out in a loving way, or it is the love or something like that. Do you have the same type of experience? Yeah, that reminds me of the terminology of like, maybe we're all vessels here, letting something larger than us live through us. And I think similar like a tree lets something larger than it live through it. It lets the earth live through it. And then like the tree coursing through the sap, I think is the literal expression of the earth, what's bigger than the tree living through it. So yeah, I kind of think that's how it is with us. Well, I think that's a wonderful note to end on. A high note, I really appreciate the conversation. This has been great. Oh, for me too, Steve, thank you so much for having me on. It's been very delightful talking with you, brother. Likewise. All right, that was my conversation with Mr. JP Sears. I hope you guys enjoyed it. How about that? There is some deep thinking underneath the surface of this satirist. We got to speak a little bit before this interview and a little bit after the interview. And he really is a nice guy, so I wish him the best of luck as he continues his rise to internet stardom. And I just found out after we spoke, turns out JP is a college dropout himself. Go figure. All right guys, that's all for me this episode. Have a great week.