 Good aim 840 here. So I haven't done any videos or done any blogging for eight days because I assume I had COVID and I Didn't know about normal people. I think this is the third time that But I've had COVID but when when I'm sick like the last thing I want to do is figure out how to Get tested or go to a doctor or anything like that. I just want to like lie in bed And so that's pretty much what I've done. I got I've met my Yeah, my minimal obligations. I met my obligations as a 12 step sponsor I didn't cancel any of my appointments with my sponsors. I met work obligations stuff that I was able to just do from home And I did some minimal cleaning but pretty much aside from that. I just blew off every other Obligation or I didn't even want to talk to people so I'm kind of impressed that most people with COVID they you know go out and get to the bother of getting tested But I didn't want I've got a rapid antigen test here. I just I was so sick I just didn't want to figure out how to use it I had so little bandwidth like I just wanted to use my bandwidth to meet my my most pressing obligations and then just let everything else go and It's kind of a state of nihilism that you that I go into anyway when I get sick Not 100% nihilism in that I made sure that I still met my my 12-step oblique obligations of the sponsor Not out of my altruistic concern for my sponsors But because I knew that would be good for me I knew that I would feel better if I was actively engaged in being helpful to other people That that would give me a sense of meaning and purpose and strength The talking to sponsors and talking to them about their Compulsions and sharing about my own compulsions and addictions that would that would help me So I wasn't a complete nihilist, but I would say that overall the intensity of my beliefs You know probably dropped to about five or ten percent of what they are normally So I Mean I still believed in God like all through the illness, but I wasn't praying constantly to God I Guys honest truth. I wasn't thinking about God that much when I was sick. I wasn't thinking about Toyota. I Wasn't even thinking that much about the 12 steps Just my my basic obligations to my sponsors about all the thinking I did about the 12 steps for spiritual practices I did some Maybe five ten minutes of meditation a day I tried to keep certain things, you know reasonably clean while I was sick, but I let everything else go and I'm just kind of thinking about that now at 3 a.m. That there is a There's a productive and adaptive use of illness and and akin to sadness or depression in that you let go of Everything that you used to believe in right? It's really hard to maintain intense commitment and Intense belief when you're quite sick like my throat was like this You know a desert. It was just so Painful, okay, I didn't even want to talk my throat hurt so much for about six days And so it's good to like I got out of you know producing any content, right? I didn't make any videos for The last eight days. I didn't make any blog posts for the last eight days. I Think I made two tweets Of course of eight days so kind of let go of everything I believed about the world I let go of almost everything I believed about reality and I just existed and It's it's useful. It's really adaptive to take that pause Like to step away from producing and step away in large part from believing in anything I was just so wiped out That I Couldn't even maintain commitment to watching any particular movie or TV program I tried to distract myself by watching a movie or a TV program and I couldn't even commit to that I just like alternate between different shows intensity of what beliefs okay, so I believe in God, but The intensity of my belief in God significantly dipped when I had covered like I was just miserable All right, I have you know, right-wing political beliefs But the intensity of my right-wing political beliefs dropped to about 5% of what they they normally are while I had covered I'm sure I've got various cultural beliefs and I've got oh, I got a belief about myself and the contributions that I can make and that you know, I have important insights to share and and And and the intensity of those beliefs just, you know, basically dropped away to zero for the eight days now, I'm not on any psychotropic drugs Haven't been on any psychotropic drugs since 2009 So Like how do you know if your wrist is healthy, right? Because it does the things that you need your wrist to do it picks up a pen Pick up my glasses You pick up a spinner and take all says if you believe in God, you would do the right thing without hesitation That's absolute nonsense right Absolute nonsense. All right, there's absolutely no empirical difference between The behavior of people who believe in God and the people who don't except the people who believe in God have more little stronger in-group identity But there's just absolutely no empirical Basis for the things that you're saying now and the sand that's your faith statement just like some people believe in aliens and other people believe that we're really being controlled by lizard people and you believe that if You believe in God then you do the right thing without hesitation, but it's it's it has as much validity as belief in Lizard people. I mean, I know so many of my sponsors believe in God And they've been absolutely addicted to drugs to alcohol to sex to pornography to Deading to under earning to all sorts of emotional compulsions. So there's absolutely no connection between believing in God and doing the right thing All right, people can believe in God or in lizard people till the cows come home Does it necessarily mean they're gonna do the right thing or they're leaving come even closer doing the right thing? Or that they'll even be any more likely to do the right thing than atheists or agnostics There are people who claim to believe in God and there are people actually believe in God. Yeah, but there's no empirical way of Finding a difference between them. So it's a It's just a coping mechanism that people who believe in God and who believe that people believe in God The strength and the knowledge to do the right thing It's a coping mechanism for trying to account for why in reality There's no evidence that people who believe in God act in a superior fashion on a consistent basis than people who don't believe in God So you have to have some kind of coping mechanism. So you come up with oh my God if you are If only you like really believed in God And if you if you say you believe in God, but you're doing the wrong thing Then they're just you know, then you must not really believe in God like that's just a coping mechanism So the volume's too low. Yeah, I'm not gonna boom out my voice at 321 a.m. All right. Yeah, do people who have dogs Speaking of that, do people who have dogs have any consideration for their neighbors? Like, you know how annoying it is to have a yapping barking dog next door. I mean and Like having a live streamer next door at 321 a.m. Who's like booming their voice out? I kind of imagined that'd be a lot of fun either. So, yeah, I try to have consideration for other people Whether I have an incredibly intense belief in God at that moment, or I don't have any belief in God at that moment Just for my own welfare. I prefer to have Some consideration for other people and the effects of my behavior in my speaking have on them I have no desire to wake up people around me Just so that I could have stronger voice quality on a live stream Atheists in Neelus who have no principles. There's no empirical Basis for seeing that, right? Atheists raise children about as well as believers in God Most Americans believe in God and this belief in God is a mile wide and an inch deep and You just don't see any empirical difference between people who believe in God and people who don't believe in God Generally speaking People who have religious principles would defend their religious people principles, wouldn't they? Claire you're taking people as though what they say about themselves. That's what's true Right people generally speaking a religious for social reasons. It's the way they've been socialized It's the way they've been habituated. It's where their friends are and it's the way to socially signal that you're a good person in some circumstances Okay for every 100 religious people you'll have about one person who has a deep understanding of their religion and can can enunciate the major theological and philosophical Underpinnings of their religion just like for every, you know, 100 people who ostensibly have some interest in politics Probably fewer than 5% have any kind of coherent world view so It's like thinking that the war in Ireland between The Protestants and the Catholics is primarily a religious dispute You always hear it's like oh, it's you know Catholics versus the Protestants But they're not they're not divided by the finer points of Christian theology. They're just two different groups and religion is the uniform that Distinguishes the groups but religion's not the basis for the actual fighting Anyway I Going back to alright your your wrist is working Alright, if it does the things that you'd want your wrist to do so my wrist work I have no problems with my wrist my wrist have no no pain And so my wrist is is adaptive, right it because it does everything it needs to do so too with With with your beliefs like your beliefs are adaptive if they make you happy and make you a Pro-social person and they enable you to do the things that you want to do Then then your beliefs are adaptive and so too with your emotions like I Think going through, you know crushing experience like like covert if you've got a severe case So I'd say that mine was like a seven out of ten. So I was able to work from home I was able to meet my minimal obligations I was able to meet my obligations of 12 set sponsor and that was it for for eight days So other than that I was just in retirement. I just there was nothing Almost nothing that I believed in beyond that, right? I had some light belief in God and in commitment to my 12 step sponsors But other than that like Donald Trump, right is his home at Mar-a-Lago is rated And I was just struck by very low intensity of my reactions So I think that's really adaptive that we that nature has has built in these mechanisms where we kind of pause and Lie back from our beliefs, all right. I Suspect most people when they're sick that they have a similar experience to me that the the intensity of their beliefs diminishes and This is the thing that I would find a Good analogy to that when I flew back to Australia November 16th, right? I Go back to Australia November 17th. I think I arrived in Australia 2021 and when I have time I open up my laptop and I check in on the LA Times and I find as I'm reading the LA Times that the the news about what's going on in Los Angeles and California has about Five to ten percent of the of the interest to me that it normally has like simply shifting my location and Everything that was once important to me is pretty much considerably diminished The people who are most important to me in LA because they weren't around it kind of diminished the intensity of that that connection. I remember I left America I left California for a year after high school went back to Australia and that largely broke my sports addiction. I remember I came back to Sacramento in June of 1985 and The World Series that fall I think it had featured the Kansas City Royals and the St. Louis Cardinals And it was the first World Series in like seven years that I just didn't care about Because being away from California or you know all my sporting Beliefs and attachments just got attenuated because they didn't receive any social support And so too with being sick. I just I just struck by how I I'd step back from from all my ideological commitments and cares and concerns and Just kind of kind of felt distanced from my life because I wasn't really participating in my life And so I think it's it's being sick in that way is kind of similar to to sadness and depression that these can serve a An adaptive function because this is an opportunity to step back from the things that you do habitually and Ask yourself, you know Are these things that I typically commit myself to and put a lot of energy into and really believe strongly about are they worth it? Like are my commitments worth it? Are my beliefs worth it? My practices worth it is my life how I'm living it worth it Is the way I'm spending my time worth it and so with depression or illness you have that opportunity to just step back from your routine to reassess your your beliefs your your practices your life your your commitments and then to think through new possibilities new beliefs new commitments new practices and then also to Work them out in in your head like okay after kind of this soul-shattering experience of a strong bout of illness You you come out of it changed and affected and My dad who meant my dad the Christian preacher very strong beliefs, but he would he would come out of illness with this lethargy and And a sensible you know verging on nihilism if the illness was severe enough But that just didn't really care about anything very much like he would need his obligations he was he was a good man and But he would he just didn't care as much anymore Claire call says I'm never depressed. In fact, I'm rather surprised at the robustness of my mental health Yeah, it was Interesting about Claire car. Even though she's always falling out with people never a cursor that there might be something that she's Done that has played a role in other people falling out with her So Abby if that's if that's one's vision of good mental health to never introspect It's oh, you know, maybe there's something that I'm doing. Let's cause all these other people to turn away from me She never has to has to struggle with that kind of introspection. So Yeah, depression and illness and and sadness it serves It serves an adaptive function is a get you out of your routine it gives you distance from yourself and your life and your beliefs and your commitments and You then have an opportunity to rethink how you want to live your life and Do you want to keep allocating your time and your passion and your resources the way you're happy and You start thinking about new ways that you want to live and then you kind of work them out in your head And so I think it's it's it's really a healthy pause that to pause from habitual compulsive commitments and just you know treading the the same path through life and Thinking oh, maybe there's a maybe there's a different way to do things. And so I was just watching this Netflix series on Manti Teo who who got catfished? All right, he got this girlfriend, but it was actually a guy who was calling him He never actually meets his imaginary girlfriend. And then when the the relationship becomes a little too intense the guy kills off the the girlfriend character and Manti Teo who was a linebacker at Notre Dame? He looked like the biggest fool in the world so for a while he had like the number one feel-good sports story of the year and all these sports publications were Saying what an amazing story it was that Manti had because his grandmother and his imaginary girlfriend both died on the same day and so Manti Teo had I'm not fazed by rejection. I mean Claire you are so disconnected from reality You're incredibly upset by rejection. It really bothers you. You obsess about it. You can't understand it Anyone talks to you and you'll go. Oh, I don't understand why this person cut me off I don't understand why that person cut me off. I don't understand why this person doesn't want to talk to me anymore You're absolutely obsessed with your your rejections You guys you're so disconnected for a reality. It's it's just stunning to to see But Manti Teo had this hero system where he was like dedicating his life to the memory of his is like dead girlfriend Who he never met and turned out didn't exist was the was the catfishing creation of some dude And and so I think it's good to step back from one's hero system and that naturally happens when you're either depressed or sick and and reevaluate, you know, how real how true is this and And and is this helping me to be to lead the life that I want to live and so Manti Teo this national football league player like he had a hero system that worked until it didn't until it became exposed that it was all you know a catfishing scheme and In many ways, that's that's no different from other hero systems. All right, we all Choose a Hero system right those those who are You know cognitively developed if you don't just simply accept the hero system that's handed down to you by society by your family by your community but if you actively choose a hero system, you're making a leap of faith and So it's I think it's good to step back sometimes from your leaps of faith your leaps of commitment and like reassess Is this real? Is this true? Is this good? And it's so funny in the Manti Teo story He played for Notre Dame and there's this talk about, you know, what are our values, right? All right, football is an incredibly damaging sport. I mean football does incredible damage to people like You know cognitively damages them physically damages them and so these football playing institutions That are moralizing about the values of their institution. You're an institution that destroys people You're an institution that wrecks lives for the entertainment of viewers and I enjoy the entertainment value of football But come on now. I mean obviously These these football Institutions that believe that they have these profound, you know value systems. It's a tremendous delusion and Most of us probably live, you know by a considerable amount of delusion and sometimes delusion serves you and sometimes it doesn't So is you and how can you? reassess your delusions and assess, you know, whether or not they're serving you by a good bout of illness or Depression, right? That gives you the necessary distance from your illusions and delusions and beliefs and hero systems to think a second time about whether the whole thing is serving you so I Think maybe God even created nihilism, right? Because The temporary application of some nihilism to your life during illness and depression it gives you the distance to reassess often what are arbitrary and and Invented and delusional hero systems that one might be living by I Mean if you listen to interviews with athletes, they're always hyping themselves up With with delusions like oh, they you know if we win this game, they can't take it away from us You know, they didn't respect us. I mean the delusions of you know sports fanatics and and athletes are a legion and To some extent these delusions serve them, but then you see with the mentee-tea story how sometimes your delusions don't serve you and Who's the who's the real hero in the mentee-tea story? It's his Dead transgender girlfriend. You know, he really missed it gay dead transgender girlfriend So while I've been sick over the past week, the only thing that's kept me going is mentee-tea is dead transgender girlfriend I dedicate this show to her and It's interesting He would never have been nominated for the Heisman Trophy and he almost won the Heisman Trophy Right the Heisman Trophy is voted on by sports writers and they love a good story and so He received all this acclaim and was nominated for the most prestigious award in college football For a completely nonsensical delusional, you know catfishing story Where he imagined he was in in a relationship with someone who didn't exist so I appreciate the distance that illness has given me from my hero systems and And let me see things with even greater clarity going forward Talk to you later