 G'day mate 40 here So I was just remembering When I moved to Los Angeles in March of 1994 and I just felt like I had so many options Like I just saw my life unfolding before me So I was just coming out of six years of largely bedridden chronic fatigue syndrome and Now things were opening up. I wanted to break free. I wanted to run to daylight There are a few things that are as thrilling to me as the open road Particularly an open road with no commitments. So there are a couple of times that I've done that. I've just taken taken the Freeway the one the one taken highway one up the coast of California One time I made it all the way to Vancouver another time. I just made it to Coos Bay, Oregon But without commitments, I just love the open road Without commitments, just I want to break free like you give me time Give me money. I want to drive away. I want to fly away. I want to run to daylight I want to want to break free and I love my memories of these various college professors who told me oh, I could be anything I wanted and my mom said that you know, I was gonna grab to do something special for God And my dad was a star. I wanted to outshine my dad. So In March of 1994 I take the I-5 South from Sacramento I'm returning to LA after five years and I have a place to stay in Westwood until I get things sorted I'm friends with Jules Entner who was a Professor and faculty advisor at UCLA. I was gonna stay with him Get things sorted. I had some money in the bank. I had choices and dreams and had no obligations I just wanted to explore and I'm new and newly converted to Judaism So I want to explore all the Jewish experiences that LA has has to offer. So I'm 27 years of age and I'm thinking about Going to work for Dennis Prager. He said that if I came to LA he might have work for me So I thought okay, that's one option another option to return to UCLA So being on a university campus at age 27. It's not too weird It's not nearly as weird as being on campus studying at age Yes, it's the blowjob dude, but he had a wonderful relationship with him except for that time when he padded into my room and Asked me if I wanted to blowjob. Aside from that it was it was like a great friendship But like a single invitation for a blowjob. It can just ruin a whole friendship. I Mean, I dated a woman and she said her relationship with her uncle was never the same after he asked her for a blowjob so guys don't let Don't let a blowjob come between you and the people you love So I feel like the world's my oyster, right? And they just seem to be all these possibilities I loved going to a reform synagogue Stephen S wise I went to a great reconstruction of synagogue in Pacific Palisades and in Malibu I went to wonderful conservative synagogues like Sinai temple in Westward and Beth Arm The corner of Olympic and Lassianica Boulevard. I was going to Orthodox synagogues and and then very quickly just a few weeks into My time in LA I just felt my options start to dwindle like I came here with big dreams Right. I'm the only person who's come to LA with big dreams And I remember I couldn't exactly articulate what was going on But have you ever had that sense where kind of your options are dwindling and you can't explain why and you don't know why? And you can't really articulate what's happening You just feel like your world is kind of getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and you're only 27 turning turning 28 and And I just sense I would not be on the same Same level as my peers for very long All right. So at age 27, I was still on the same level as my peers Like my peers were starting to get married. They were starting to become established in careers, right they were making Permanent choices about family and career that was just going to shape the rest of their life they were getting established as adults and I sense that I was nowhere there and so then six weeks of being in LA I learned I wasn't going to get the job working for Dennis Prager Then I realized I did not want one to return to UCLA to study economics So I thought oh, I should go look for a job and then all the jobs were for actors and models And so I got hooked on the Hollywood culture at the same time. I'm having a ball exploring Judaism in LA and I'm feeling okay. There's a big conflict between these two worlds of Hollywood and Judaism even though they're both Very very George and yeah, eventually I became the Michelle Tafoya and Aaron Andrews of porn reporting I became the George Will of double penetration. I became the Charles Krauthammer of all-girl gangbanks I became the the Steve Saylor of interracial porn. I Became the the Tucker Carlson of the blowjob so One of the first significant parting of the ways that I faced when I moved to LA in 1994 Was about my sex life, you know, whichever direction I would go in Would would be would be a dramatic Diminishing of options. So if I chose to contain my sex life to just one woman The best way to live a monogamous life for me was going to be within the realm of serious religion But if I chose not to contain my sex life, then I could just wander indefinitely On the other hand, if I just wander indefinitely, I could end up like a 55 year old You know, just doing solo streams to his iPhone on a Sunday morning So I had that that that haunting fear in 1994 that I'd end up But a solo streamer to four four viewers on a Sunday morning a pining about what a contender He could have been So I think this is a really common choice you decide what you want from your sex life And then most everything else in your life gets sorted if you choose to commit to one woman be monogamous and to raise kids Then in all likelihood you will become or remain religious but if you want to wander with your sex life if you want to have a ball then you're not gonna be seriously religious and The lack of commitment that you have with your sex life will probably have effects on your personal reputation your professional reputation your your career so I Was having a ball with having a ball like my first year in LA was the most promiscuous of my life I slept with about about 20 different women a little bit of me sense. Oh This is this promiscuity is not really compatible with my best interests you know with marriage and children and career and commitments like mortgage, but Yeah, okay promiscuity starts to lose its appeal after three decades All right, so I didn't consciously choose a life of balling over non-balling. I just kept balling and Even though my actual promiscuity pretty much ended by the summer of 1995 from from here on it's pretty much Over in the context of a committed relationship I kind of the fantasy of balling just would continue to dominate my life for the next 17 years and with it there was this this mounting dread that I was leaving life Unlived that I was I was turning my back on the real substance of life, you know getting married having kids and Being like Sid in the chat room has got three kids like a real pillar of the community Here's a guy that You know blokes blokes live up look up to Sid Ragan earth I have three blonde hair and blue-eyed kids more Aryan than any of the alright in their looks So yeah, I think that's one of the first first commitments that People make is you're gonna live a life of balling or non-balling and then a lot of things and then follow from that And the second major crossroads I faced was whether or not to be a full-time Orthodox Jew So I was surprised my first few years in LA my my most intense and meaningful and joyful Experience of Jewish life were in Orthodox Judaism in particular at the synagogue Asia Torah My life is boring. Well Particularly for addicts. We need to live a life. Maybe like three notches above boring but but for people You drive a hundred chord for people who are predisposed to addiction Then then most forms of excitement are going to be fairly fairly dangerous for you So Orthodox Judaism didn't seem as rational to me as other forms of Judaism and They weren't as immediately pleasurable. I love the musical instruments That you'd get at non-Orthodox synagogues aren't on Shabbat And just the more options but I saw Orthodox Jews by having fewer options in life They built much more impressive and solid communities where people were much more tightly interconnected with with other people's lives and I really Mired the people I met in Orthodox Judaism. I saw that the people I admired most in the world Were Orthodox Jews who settled down got married had kids built a career built a life within a particular community And I wasn't expecting that but I just found so many incredibly impressive people within within Orthodox Judaism and so I try to keep a foot in both camps until about year 2000 and then after a trip to Israel said, okay It's just going to be frumkai from here on I'm just going to go, you know balls out in in Orthodox Judaism And then that choice like considerably narrowed my life options Then the the choice to write a book on history of sex and film and then a blog after that on the porn industry That considerably seemed to narrow my options in life because No matter what else I did. I was kind of known as the porn guy Which is not really a great way to go through life. I That just went Like really just kind of seemed to ratchet ratchet my life down and the scary thing So man city won the premier league title. So if Liverpool had won today would Liverpool have won the title And I think there's part of my psyche a significant part of my psyche. There's there's a A ratchet All right, there's there's a ratchet. I just kind of In my psyche that just kind of acts towards making my life smaller and more and more and more and more narrow so How would anyone know about the point of stuff? Well, I kind of exposed to it because Dennis Prager recommended these books by Robert Stoller on the dynamics of sexual excitement And so I read this book and it had a great deal on the porn industry So I thought oh, I should be a diligent scholar. Dennis Prager recommends Dr. Robert Stoller Psychiatrist at UCLA, you know, let me read more of Dr. Robert Stoller's books and then I read I read his, you know, he wrote two books on the porn industry in particular and then other books on the dynamics of sexual excitement There's like oh, wow, this really corresponds with my life experience. I'm really enjoying the dynamics of sexual excitement right now Let me let me specialize in the dynamics of sexual excitement Let me bring a Torah perspective to the dynamics of sexual excitement. I can find a niche Right, you have to find a niche as as someone who makes it wants to make his life as a commentator or a writer or a pundit content creator How would people know about the pornist stuff? It's just known bro. My face is out there 60 minutes entertainment tonight You're making me sound boastful la times new york times NBC or abc news whatever it's all over like I'll forever I'll forever know that Yeah, ostensibly that was that was narrowing my life down, but The most important thing is that they're no way man city were losing 2-0 and they won 3-2 on the final minutes So if they hadn't won Uh, Liverpool would have won both the premier league And Liverpool won the FA cup and they have a chance right of winning the the champions league So Liverpool and man city definitely the two best teams In european soccer over over the past three years. So fantastic competitions between them Bro, I didn't know about the pointer stuff only found you because I was looking at all right content Okay, so Yeah, Liverpool won 2-1, but if man city had lost then Liverpool would have won the the league title So the excitement of premier league soccer that can be dangerous for an addict like me So I just I just consume it moderately a little bit on weekends So you make these choices and then you just feel them like Just uh narrow narrow your life, but often the real ratchet is inside of your psyche. So There's this ratchet. Okay, and you're wondering what the heck is a ratchet It's a device consisting of a bar or wheel with a set of angled teeth in which a cog or tooth engages Allowing motion in one direction only It's a situational process that is perceived to be changing in a series of irreversible steps All right, it's the cause of something to rise or fall as a step in a steady and irreversible process So There's a ratchet in my psyche That kind of wants to isolate me so I could live alone in my delusions So I have to recognize it's there that that my mind wants to kill me and if it doesn't kill me it will Make peace with just making me miserable So my mind is like a dangerous neighborhood that I don't want to enter alone So when I go to bed at night, I just leave audible books running all night Now I had 10 hours in bed last night. I think I probably had close to eight hours of sleep So I am refreshed and energized Just had a great night, but I do leave audible books just running all night So that I'm not alone with my thoughts so one of the things that That happened in covid for me is like, I'm really happy staying home and just reading books all day Like and I occasionally like get glimmerings of doubt, you know, I need need to find new ways to connect but overall the overall Like like covid kind of suited me But it also made me recognize that ratchet in my psyche that wants to separate me from others so that I can live alone In my delusions now one great thing I've learned from 10 years of therapy And 10 years of 12 step program is that I always have more options than I consciously think about There are always more different directions. I can go. There are always more options right, I can I can you know, it's always expand my world far beyond what What I'm consciously thinking about so It's 2022 now I'm I'm nearly 56 and the chat says I don't think Luke could do a regular job. Well I am probably more situation dependent than Most people like there are certain bosses who I love and they love me so they give me They give me they've given me space And essentially I've operated as as an independent contractor Like I certainly don't do well with micromanaging But when I can be an independent contractor when when someone wants me to do Do certain things for them and they're not like micromanaging me But they develop trust in me I develop trust in them and then I just go balls out for them, right? so I've had the privilege of some great bosses or great people who are Taking me on on a contractor independent contractor basis And I have thrived on the other hand in in many normal jobs I have I have flamed out really quickly So in normal jobs where people want to be right on top of me right when they want to It feels like to me micromanage me when they want to you know, monitor all my interactions monitor all my emails Monitor my every decision. I don't do well And I I start to go into some sort of negative spiral So, yeah, I could handle having an office space type job as long as I'm not being constantly managed I don't want to be on slack so that people can you know, just constantly message me on slack I I don't want to do you know, secretarial type jobs. I can't do I could not do an office job That is mundane because I will not be able to keep my attention On the job and then I'll make a ton of mistakes Then you'll yell at me and then I'll make more mistakes and I'll feed into a downward spiral But there are a lot of white-collar jobs that are absolutely absorbing so jobs involving research Jobs involving writing Jobs involving interviewing Jobs involving investigation Jobs involving analysis Right that type of work I thrive in Right, you give me 10,000 pages of documents and I can boil down what's happening into a few sentences Like that's that's where my gift is But you don't want to give me the job of checking the engines before the plane takes off Imagine enjoying covid I I did because it removed distractions so that I could just be alone with my box and my live streaming And teaching some alexander technique and During during a couple of jobs for people W2 is gay. There's nothing wrong with w2 90 percent of people are better suited for a w2 job Than than any other primary source of income I think like 95 percent of people are not suited to be entrepreneurs With a w2 job, you don't have to be thinking right if you don't have a w2 job often you have to be hustling for work And for me, that's extremely inefficient. So I've liked having a guaranteed source of income Right, that's made me really happy guaranteed source of income health insurance dental insurance vision insurance Uh 401k those type of benefits along with that that guaranteed regular income and The safety that comes with that You can get all that and still have What will essentially feel like independent contractor, right? You don't Not all bosses suck like a lot of bosses are great and you can form a great relationship with them It doesn't mean that they become friends But I've enjoyed great working relationships with bosses where We rolled for years and uh, narrowing an angry word good trust between both parties Luke is the most self aware person I've ever come across Economy is collapsing due to the baby boomers retiring supply chains collapsing and the moronic policies of joe biden so The other thing with having an office job is that you could be surrounded by great people, right? I've been in offices where I have Either loved liked or be neutral towards the people there now often it just takes one toxic person to destroy an office environment But there are lots of offices where there are no toxic people There are lots of jobs where there are no toxic coworkers So work can be awesome A w2 office job can be awesome. I remember Godwood podcast talked about how you know any any white collar job Is just going to be a form of deception is just going to be a form of degeneracy and some kind of scam and uh, no I don't think that's right Uh, so it says look, I don't think you could do conventional employment Anyway, I cannot do conventional employment if it means micromanaging if it means constantly being at people's beck and call via things like slack Uh, where I'm just constantly being monitored like keystroke monitoring, you know, that sort of monitoring. No I do not do well that if I establish a good trusting relationship with you There are a lot of uh, conventional jobs that say reward high verbal IQ that I can do well in Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of jobs that are awesome There are a lot of people out there that are great to hang out with like I've gone to jobs where I've really enjoyed Seeing people right it's been a source of joy to go into work Say hello reconnect with people create a shared reality with people get on the same page with people uh, rhythmic and rhythmic entrapment rhythmic enchantment like You're you're developing a rhythm with with the people that you're working with and for And sharing a lot of laughs uh Yeah, I've had some some terrific experiences. So work is not inherently grim Yeah, I don't agree with the fatalist. All right, black people take on work that workers are just losers, right? Yeah Work work can be awesome all right Work can be a happy happiness inducing thing It can be invaluable to mental health If you're going to succeed at work or succeed in making money generally speaking if you do it legally and morally You've become attuned to being of service to others now. I admit I've had a lifelong problem that I don't tend to To wanting to help other people right after develop certain disciplines. So I can either either have an intellectually fascinating or challenging interesting job Or I can like the people that I'm working with and around because I like them then I become more dedicated to the job Or sometimes I can form emotional connections that that draw me into a job Or I can reach a level of maturity where I see the benefits of what I'm doing Such as landscape work at first. It was just incredibly difficult Work in 100 degree plus temperatures in Sacramento. It was just like swinging a pick and a shovel Building ditches to to lay down irrigation pipe is the most difficult thing in the world But then on my third day fourth day on the job I met Doug Hanslick a real estate developer and he Noticed my accent and he kind of acknowledged me and he said, oh, you know, my daughter would love to talk to you She wants to go to australia and that human connection just completely transformed my relationship to landscape work That human connection that I formed with the Hanslick family in rockland, california It completely transformed my relationship to my job So I came to love my job came to appreciate the flowers Appreciate what we could do with lawns and shrubbery and trees So for me human connection is the most important thing if I can get human connection It can transform any any job. I could 10 mile hike on my own Is is probably going to be fairly challenging, but a 10 mile hike with friends. It's just an awesome experience so the most conventional job in the world if I like the people that I'm around Yeah, I'm totally into it Yeah, when when you have a boss who trusts you And you have a good relationship with your boss. It just completely transforms the work experience So people have completed any 12 set recovery, particularly suited for any type of work People who've you never complete 12 set recovery, but if you've achieved some level of recovery You'll be less likely to self destruct With regard to your work People susceptible to addictions All right, they're going to have some strong antisocial tendencies Until they've achieved a certain level of recovery and then even even 12-step is once they've achieved recovery They probably won't have the same Flexibility and adaptability that most people do so I tend to be less flexible and less adaptable than the normal person Because that's been my reaction to the chaos of my early childhood So and the chaos inside of me I have reacted by being You know extra strict and inflexible in how I interact with with the world So I think many addicts even addicts in recovery are like this So I just notice I notice a lot of recovering people in 12-step programs that they're doing just fine in a mundane job With with with pay and benefits that meet the needs of them and their families But when they try to step up into a more demanding job They get fired every time So I would suspect that for many people in in recovery They're not as flexible and as adaptable as the average person and therefore They perhaps need to be a little bit more selective about the type of job that they take because For an addict you need to maintain your emotional equilibrium And some jobs are going to be much more challenging for your emotional equilibrium With 12-step programs benefit men who are addicted to radical politics. Yeah, I think 12-step programs benefit people who are Addicted to to anything so to get yourself back on some kind of emotional equilibrium So that you can be much more free to make choices without having to live out your self-destructive compulsions I'm friends with people who are addicted to radical politics. They don't seem sane. Something is missing Yeah, what's missing is that these marginalized people have found a form of excitement And reason for living in radical politics that they did not have before so just like the person who discovers alcohol and Alcohol becomes a solution to all their problems. They lose their shyness. They lose their inability to dance They lose their Their inability to go to bed with women once they have a few drinks in them So all addictions whether it's radical politics or alcohol or porn they start out Solving your problems. They start out as adaptations to your problems. They start out making your life better But then they begin to spiral into maladaptive habits that That send you towards more isolation So it's now 2022 I'm turning 56 in a week And I recognize that I have this like default ratchet in my psyche that that wants to Send me towards isolation So I have to keep making concrete commitments and choices Against migraine to go social to commit to volunteering opportunities to commit to communities and to being with other people and most every Every sunday these days I go explore Los Angeles again like it's 1994 So my first a couple of years in LA I was like, oh, wow, this is this is so much fun There's so much here to go look at let me try this. Let me try that And then after two or three years in LA my life started getting smaller and smaller and smaller I started taking LA for granted and I probably didn't go to the beach for like 10 years even though I live 10 miles from from the beach Yeah, you have to limit your exposure to negatives during the work day Don't don't chat me up about it light bulb burning out in your office. I have other people for that so I'm exploring LA again like it's 1994. Bye. Bye