 Good day May 40 here. I mean wouldn't it be great if doing the right thing just paid for itself? I mean wouldn't it be great if the most righteous guys got the most righteous girls and the most righteous girls got the most righteous guys but if you went to high school and You found out that the cheerleaders were indulging in premarital sex, right? It wasn't with the great science scholars. It wasn't with the best students in the humanities it was with the the frequently oafish and You know jerky football players and so too in the real world, right? The most curvy most attractive women All right, they frequently you know pair up with The guys who are the most dubious so to the you know the small breasted solid woman who makes a great You know wife and mother right? She is frequently, you know passed by by the alpha guys and She has to struggle even though she's gonna make, you know much better wife and mother than the you know more curvy and glamorous women who Thrive, you know briefly from say 18 to 25 and then you know hit the wall Don't turn out to be great mothers turn out to be briefly great lovers But in the long run don't turn out to be great wives and mothers So doing the right thing doesn't always pay for itself. I like what my father said So the problem isn't that the world isn't fair the problem is that the world isn't perfectly fair Now there are two fundamentally different ways of viewing the world one is to focus on your rights, right? So, you know right to free speech right to free exercise of my religion, you know, right to sue Right to gather together to address grievances against the government, you know focus on your rights Maybe your neighbors are infringing your rights. Maybe your boss is infringing your rights Maybe there's some rando on the street is infringing your rights, right? That's one approach to life and then Another approach to life is to instead Focus on your responsibilities as members of a tribe or as members of a nation or of a group So I don't think the classical liberal perspective of seeing people primarily as individuals Born with certainly inalienable rights is a particularly useful way of viewing the world I don't think it's much more useful to understand ourselves as not primarily individuals but members of tribes members of extended families that members of nations and Whatever rights That the tribe or the nation can afford is kind of very depending upon time and circumstance And so it'd be great if you could just go out there do hard-hitting investigative journalism And the world just rewards you for it But if you go out there and do some tough things If you want to go out there and be a hero frequently the world will push back in not very nice ways So this is the New York Times a Reporter-investigated sexual misconduct then the attacks began after publishing an expose a journalist in New Hampshire Faced broken windows of vulgar graffiti and illegal brawl with important first amendment implications So yeah getting out there doing the right thing they frequently ruin your life, right? Just because you're doing the right thing Does it mean that you're gonna be on easy street and people will rightly widely recognize you as a hero? New York Times Sarah My name is David Enrich and I am the business investigations editor at the New York Times Lauren Chulgen a reporter at New Hampshire Public Radio Published an investigation last year into a guy named Eric Spofford who was the owner of the state's largest network of rehab centers Miss Chulgen spoke to dozens of former employees and patients of those rehab centers who said that mr. Spofford had engaged in sexual misconduct I've learned of a pattern of alleged sexual misconduct by Eric Spofford including harassment Incredible allegations of sexual assault from women who worked for him Spofford declined to be interviewed for this story. He called the allegations false and unsubstantiated and threatened legal action After her piece was published last year the homes of Miss Chulgen her editor and her parents were all vandalized Right so if your understanding of the world is that we are primarily individuals with Inalienable rights such as to free speech. You're gonna be horrified and mystified and bedeviled and Frantic and outraged by this story But if instead you understand that we are not primarily individuals, but we're born members of tribes and Whatever rights the tribe can afford us gonna vary depending upon circumstance You're gonna be you know much better positioned to deal with a story like this So I may not have driven all night to get here to talk to you But gotta be honest. I had to escape the city was sticky and cruel Maybe I should have called you first, but I was dying to get to you. I was dreaming while I walked Yeah, I walked all I have oh, right. I walked for 35 minutes this arvo. I Was dreaming while I walked like the log straight straight road ahead I could taste your sweet kisses your arms open wide this fever for you was just burning me up inside Like I walked all arvo to get to you. Is that alright? I walked all arvo now. I crept into your room. I woke you from your sleep to make love to you Is that alright? I walked all arvo What in this world keeps us from falling apart no matter where I go. I hear the beating of our one heart I think about you when the night is cold and dark. Uh-huh. Yeah now it can move me the way that you do Nothing erases this feeling between me and you. Yeah, I I walked all over to get to you Lisa Melrose are looking to identify this man who threw a brick through the window of a New Hampshire radio reporter's home last Saturday The vandal also spray painted the words just the beginning on the home And at the same time She and her employer were sued for libel and was become a protracted legal brawl That has really important implications for the First Amendment The story that I'm going to read today is about what happens when journalists go after Rich and powerful people in the fights that that sometimes causes Spofford describes himself as a Recovering drug addict. He often regales audiences with stories about his life of drugs and crime back years early So there's nothing that can't be abused from orthodox Judaism to orthodox Christianity to atheism to secular humanism to science Absolutely everything including 12 step recovery can be abused right the 13th step is frequently the slipperiest Clear I started using drugs and alcohol. I also started selling drugs at 10 I still have the state of New Hampshire's record as the youngest individual charged with the drug sales He got sober. He started this network of rehabilitation centers The granite house is located in two locations in Derry and Manchester, New Hampshire We were I founded it me and my father found it 14 months ago And has become a really big fish in New Hampshire He was invited to testify before the US Congress about the opioid crisis Good morning. It's an honor and privilege to be here the chief executive officer of two substance abuse treatment programs And he ultimately sold his company for what he says was 115 million dollars And along the way has developed a very kind of strong personal brand with more than a million social media followers If there was a rock bottom, I started below it And so no matter what as long as you're breathing this hope you can build an Unbelievable life that includes an amazing network amazing human beings success money purpose and he uses that to kind of coach people on Recovery and on building a business and entrepreneurship and also to browbeat his critics If you put your goddamn shoes on in the morning and wall into my business and then gossip You are spreading toxic Negativity in attacking what I am working so feverishly to build what other people are working so hard to build and what I have put Significant portion of my personal net worth on the line and my neck on the line to build if you gossip in my business I feel like you have attacked me in the company and I want you out immediately I started focusing on this several months ago because I've been breaking stories online for 26 years I've been blogging and blogging and here's what happens whatever you hurt someone even when you're doing the right thing You're exposing a predator sexual predator financial predator All right a predator of the soul. All right People always hurt you back. All right, so They're usually a very few cheap roads to heroism. All right. You want to be the hero? All right, there's usually going to be some pretty nasty pushback if you just want to fairly innocuous Inoffensive ways of helping people there are tons of those opportunities. It's just you're not going to get acclaimed as a hero Right. You can help people all day long, but you won't get praised for it If you take the inoffensive route is I like many other journalists at the New York Times and elsewhere Have become really accustomed to receiving legal threats and demands Virtually every time we publish an investigative piece of journalism At the times we are privileged to have the resources and the great legal. Oh, and so here's a great question For many new stories like this and what's the alternative? All right. What's the alternative to? To not getting legal threats the alternative if you don't have a system where people can make legal threats against you Is that they will hire goons to break your legs? So compared to the alternatives getting legal threats is a much healthier Sainter way of living right now the states is a flawed country, right? But where do you think life is just so much better US legal system has very deep flaws But which other legal systems you think are just so far in advance what the United States has So if you didn't create room for people to sue you when they're unhappy with you They'd be hiring goons to break your legs Advice that allows us to deal with these things as they come up But my hunch was that smaller news organizations would really have a tougher time dealing with these types of legal and sometimes physical threats So I set out to see what these threats look like on a local basis And as I asked around a bunch of people mentioned to me the case up in New Hampshire And I started digging and it struck me as a really powerful and vivid example of the threats that Local journalists often find themselves facing So here's my article a reporter investigated sexual misconduct Then the attacks began One drizzly Saturday in May last year a slender man in a blue raincoat approached a house in the Boston suburb of Melrose It was just before 6 a.m. And no one was around The man took out a can of red spray paint and scrawled just the beginning on the side of the White House Then he hurled a brick through a large window and sprinted away The house belonged to Lauren Chuljin Wouldn't it be great if you could just be a hero on the cheap wouldn't it be great if you could go out there? Championing the causes of you know those who've been taken advantage of and there wouldn't be any pushback Right. So if you live in the liberal delusion that we are primarily individuals with certain inalienable rights Then this news story is going to come, you know, it's a great disappointment journalist in New Hampshire public radio Hours earlier her parents home in New Hampshire had been vandalized to for the second time in a month So come on. Are we all individuals like when people want to get back at you now? Where would they go after your parents right people look for your weak spots? If you got a family, they're gonna go after your family if you've got a guru they're gonna go after your guru right whenever I did anything edgy and People knew that Dennis Prager was my hero Dennis Prager was my guru They would go to Dennis Prager with their complaints if I got close to a particular rabbi They'd go to that particular rabbi if I got close to a particular community. They'd go to that community Right people look for your weak spots and people are really good at doing that And so that's the price for having close Attachments, that's the price for having community and love in your life Just makes you so much more vulnerable and you want to get out there and be a hero, right? There's gonna be a very nasty price to pay Heroism usually isn't cheap weeks earlier her editor's home had also been attacked The vandals three-word message in red would prove accurate What started as a string of vandalism incidents has mushroomed over the past year into a bare-knuckle legal brawl with important implications for the First Amendment Right, so if you understood that we are primarily not individuals but members of tribes this wouldn't be shocking All right that people when they want revenge they'd go after your family and tribal connections Attacks on journalists in the United States have become common Yeah, as opposed to where like we're a thing so much more idyllic right journalists have enormous power to hurt people Why would there not be attacks on journalists? Right journalists as a profession have enormous power to wreak havoc to devastate and destroy lives Why would there be no response? Why would you envision a world where journalists have one-way power to destroy others? But they can rest easy at home that there's going to be no pushback That's absurd right you give any individual the power to ruin lives and you're gonna set up such Individuals and such professions for other people to hate them and wreak revenge But as soon as you start disrupting people's lives and damaging people's lives and wreaking havoc Then people are going to get their revenge It's impossible for reality to be any different You can't defeat reality like reality is It comes to your fantasies and your beliefs and your moral structure Right and it differs from reality reality is gonna win And what is happening in this story is just basic bitch reality. This is how the world works And I'm coming back here a thousand times if I have to Last year the US press freedom tracker identified 41 journalists who are physically assaulted In one extreme case a Nevada politician was charged with murdering a reporter investigating him Hey, the good the good, you know aren't always Rewarded is this my rant Hannity sucks at speaking so have you have you looked at Roger Ailes' book on communication? The way that he would test whether or not someone would be a good professional broadcaster is he'd watch that with the sound off Bro, so to get the full Sean Hannity effect you need to watch for the sound off It is so pay attention in Pennsylvania Hershel Walker continues to outpole radical Raphael Warnock in Georgia that race also remains close and perhaps the biggest political news Comes out of the deep deep blue state of New York where Republican Lee Zeldin is now Officially taking the lead in a brand-new poll by Trafalgar. That's Robert Cahaley's group now Lee Zeldin will be here as he's campaigning with Florida governor Rhonda Santis. That's straight ahead here Just is actually a pretty Dead heat tie anything can happen. Don't think for a second. This is a slam dunk In other words every voter needs to do their part take nothing for granted and don't forget. What is that state? Okay, so you are the message is actually a pretty good book by the late Roger Ailes Man who developed Fox News? So he says look in a mirror and study your own face Begin to talk about a political issue and see which part of your face moves and which doesn't using the same subject matter Repeat the conversation. However, imagine that you're now speaking to a child See if your face softens if your eyes become more expressive if there is a tendency to care more that the list Understands what you are saying most people tend to use more facial expressions when talking to children I need to start talking to you like your little children. Let the little children come on to me Okay, here are the 10 most common problems in communication. All right. This this is a good book here by Roger Ailes Right lack of initial rapport with lessness stiffness or woodness in the use of the body Presentation of material that is intellectually oriented Right and the speaker forgets to evolve the audience emotionally speaker seems uncomfortable because of fear of failure Poor use of eye contact and facial expression lack of humor speech direction and intent on the clear due to improper preparation inability to use silence for impact a lack of energy causing inappropriate pitch pattern speech rate and volume and Use of boring language and lack of interesting material. So you're asking 40. What does it mean? You are the message 40 Richard Spencer's on with Ethan Ralph right now 40 is a much better speaker than Roger Kennedy Roger Ailes after when he passed on 40 talk dirty to me Yeah, oh Liberty says I read that book some of it was good. Yeah, some of it is good so I Want to see Richard Hananya in a prime time spot at Fox, bro. Good evening and welcome to 40 tonight Okay, you're the message. What does that mean? It means that when you communicate? It's not just the words you choose to send to the other person to make up the message You're also sending signals about what kind of person you are by your eyes your facial expression your body movement your vocal pitch Your tone your volume your intensity your commitment to your message your sense of humor and many other factors Receiving person is bombarded with symbols and signals from you. Yeah, we're always transmitting If you're an addict you're transmitting the disease if you got intoxicated you're transmitting God We're always transmitting like a 50,000 watt KFI radio station So everything you do in relation to other people causes them to make judgments about what you stand for what your message is You are the message comes out the fact that unless you identify yourself as a walking talking message understand You're constantly transmitting you miss that critical point the words themselves are meaningless unless the rest of you is in synchronization So if you're uncomfortable with who you are it will make others uncomfortable too. So I was talking to a fellow Sax addict the other day and I was saying that the Most important part of recovery is becoming comfortable with yourself So if you did shameful shameful things in the past you need to be able to talk to someone about them and to Relay honestly what you did without getting all tensed up without your voice You know croaking in shame without you getting a shame attack your face blushing red You need to have to talk about everything you've done so that you are at ease with yourself That's the best way to minimize the chances of having your life disrupted by addiction So generally speaking people with secure attachment patterns meaning people who move towards people who treat them well And who are good for them and people who naturally move away from people who treat them badly and people who have a Positive image of themselves right secure attachment. These people are the least likely to be stuck with addictions on the other hand People like me and the way I was raised with insecure attachment patterns Where I just obsess over relationships are important to me or avoidant attachment patterns where you feel like Just any kind of attachment. It's just way too scary. You just prefer to be on your own Well, that creates a vast whole that addictions kind of rushed to fill in so Over the past few years, I've learned to become increasingly comfortable with myself by you know attending the appropriate 12-step meetings Five to ten fifteen minutes of daily meditation has helped getting in a routine I'm someone who needs routine chaos is not good for me. So I have a disciplined routine and That that helps me achieve a comfort level having money in the bank regular money coming in Greatly helps comfort level having good relations with my family friends way to keep okay So let's just play a little little classic here Then we'll get back to the show Coming back here every fucking weekend Looking There's a classic Richard Spencer rant from Charlottesville set to music but But the hell is the the topic mean, you know news goodness great sex don't pay for themselves Well, let's just look at news good article in latest issue of mother Jones magazine left wing magazine news never pays Stop pretending the marketplace will save journalism Right. There's a groundhog day vibe in the news about media every day Seems that pucks a horny Phil pokes his head above ground to find more newsroom shutting down and laying journalists off like I love journalism In eighth grade I decided I want to be a journalist when I grew up But it's really hard to make it a living as a journal Buzzfeed news the digital outlet that only a few years ago was winning all the prizes hiring all the talent throwing all the parties It shut down It's found a confessed it over invested in the newsroom vice Right, I remember a publicist was setting me up with with vice back in 1998 Right, it's headed for bankruptcy the Daily Beast is on the auction block Washington Post NPR CNN have announced layoffs Corporate media owners keep strangling local news Right the nation's top news organizations are defaulting Right and what the hell's going on right? The idea that news is an industry and that the marketplace will take care of ensuring the free and fearless press The democracy needs is just not true So the news for profit fallacy means a lot of people expect that good journalism We paid for by advertising paywalls and some other commercial wizardry Right three of the biggest names of the world of digital news last month the Buzzfeed founder Jonah Peretti Former Buzzfeed news editor Ben Smith Gorka founder Nick Denton cut together the first time on the recurred podcast to dissect exactly how hundreds of millions of dollars Invest in the quest for scale and digital publishing went up in smoke Right non-profit newsrooms, right? They're they're working out. All right. Let's go to Elliot. Blatt. What's going on, bro? I Do you little vacation for a little streaming vacation for Luke? Yeah, most of Lee it's come to an end Blessings you can all relax Can all acts What's going on man? Well, look, you know as we discussed on the poet that you and I Like to send out a poem if I could please Okay Luke When I think about you I Think about love Luke Don't live without you And your love if I had those golden dreams of my yesterday I Wrapped you up in heaven till I'm dying oh On the way Feel like making love We think bro, that is amazing I am so moved right now I'm speechless Thanks, bro. You've got a gift man. I know unrecognized but Breath yourself somewhere bro, and you're the lucky recipient. I mean it's a shame that you're stuck with humdrum tasks I mean in a true society in a good society You would have the financial wherewithal to just divert yourself to poetry all day long and you could that's right making making love out of nothing That's right. It's my dream, bro. That's why I plug I slog every day because that's a little uh The rainbow and the horizon the carrot the end of this toil Striving port So anyway, it's been a while bro. Well, it's like 10 days man. Have you like I'm not the one that stopped streaming bro Have you lasted at the grocery store recently? No, no, I had industry period interesting experience though. I'd uh, I couldn't relate a little bit and so So, you know, I've been nagged with these car issues minor car issues, but issues nonetheless and If you have a car issue you get this little indicator on your dashboard and then we've talked about this in the past But they've been coming fast and furious breaks problems, you know left turn signal right turn signal Oil level, you know all these indicator lights to come on and then the car barks at you and it's just like this Assault, you know, you're always assaulted by your own vehicle like telling you about their its needs, you know, and And These were some of these repairs can be quite expensive even though they're easy to do and so I just hate that I hate going To an auto repair shop and just getting completely raped, you know rape isn't right, bro. And so I've had these issues stacking up, you know, and some of them were almost within my grasp, but not quite within my grasp and so and then so So I get this call more or less out of the blue. I don't know if we discuss this or not, but Personally, I've been Former neighbor of mine that's moved away and it's been away for a number of years that's reached out to me sort of And then, you know, so we sort of reconnected after some multi-year gap and Invited me out and like to see their place. I went to their place and her husband turns out to be like this mechanic with and so we Like this past Saturday, we went I went out to their place and we just sort of knocked out we did a bunch of car repair like on our back car jacked up tools going hither and yon and We just fixed all of these problems together, bro. It was like Bros being bros. It was so nice and it was so productive and I just Squashed all of these problems all these mechanical problems. I solved with like an hour and a half with With a sort of a friend, you know, oh wow that must have brought back a lot of wonderful memories with your father Remember how you guys just while away a Sunday afternoon working on cars, you know wrenches and socket sets and You know wire cutters and all that kind of stuff going clinky clunk clack. It was so much fun, bro And I just felt so good man. I felt so good doing that, you know, like taking control of my destiny, you know rather than just sort of aimlessly staggering into some sort of repair shop Saying just charging whatever you can. I don't know anything, you know, I took the power of knowledge. I took the power of empowerment And I solved some problems. So it was like really one of the most satisfying things I've done in a long time But but here's my real question for you You're a man in his 50s. Why haven't you developed a sustained mutually loving mutually committed a Relationship with an honest car repair man instead. You've just been going all around town You know trying out this flusy car mechanic and that flusy car mechanic Why haven't you established a mutually loving respectful and committed relationship with one car mechanic and stick with that bloke? You know for a long time Well, I think I think Elvis said it best Elvis said You ain't nothing but a hound dog No, why buy a cow and you can get milk through the fence Change words by dude. I don't get it here Like I have found that there are honest car mechanics near me You know, you get word of mouth like this guy's honest And so I would just take my vehicle to the honest bloke and then you know, write good reviews about him And I mean an honest car mechanic is such a valuable thing But it's got to be mutual man, you got to like support the honest mechanics Yeah, but bro, what if your car mechanic is 300 pounds and that is covered in tattoos Do you really want to bring your car to that mechanic? Sure? If he's honest, I wouldn't care if you were transgender Really bro. Yeah, I don't be honest. I don't believe you bro Well, there aren't a lot of transgender car mechanics, but no like I support their honest car mechanics near me And I I support them like I and I wouldn't I wouldn't take some, you know cheap attractive, you know Fluzy deal, you know, advertise for you know an oil change for 29 95 I would just take my car every three or six months to my trusted mechanic and say, you know do whatever Have your way with my vehicle Well And I never walked in on him raping my tailpipe that never happened What if your mechanic has Budweiser tattooed across his breastplate? I don't care as long as he's honest bro. Love is more than honesty is honesty. Love is love, bro That's how I read that poem. I was hoping to set the tone You know But we have to we have to get into these mutual relationships with the the good guys You know, let them know that we love them and respect them and care for them and financially support them So that you know goodness and righteousness, you know will flow like a mighty river Okay, so bro. All right, so this leaves me. This is my second part to my story while I was up there at this residence And it was sort of a semi-quantum kind of rolling semi informal party and So various people would roll in and out roll in and out we were picking cherries they have a cherry tree, right and so the sort of quote-unquote purpose of the party was to pick the cherries from the cherry tree because of all the rain cherries have been completely, you know Have been very productive this year So we're picking cherries and people are kind of rolling in rolling out. They've got the baskets. We're gonna pick some cherries but everybody everybody rolling in and out Was just horrifically obese horrifically Luke and like It was such a bus kill like What the fuck and this is what we Excuse me, I'm joking It was so depressing Luke. It was so depressing Am I just vain? Am I just sort of superficial or it's just something I have to outgrow but it was like The gigabooty is like de rigueur like We can't expect anything else You know, am I really the one to feel You know my field am I supposed to feel ashamed of not being attracted to this monstrosity and I'm looking at No, but I think we have to keep things in perspective like when it comes to a car mechanic or a neighbor or You know interacting with people, you know very picking what's most important is that they're you know fundamentally honest I mean that's ten times as important as whether they're fat or have tattoos So I mean we want the best possible relations that we can have with everyone we interact with including the fatties Yeah, I know and I did my best, you know, that was perfectly like Cordial and respectful and courteous and thoughtful and charming and everything else Beautiful. I couldn't wait. I couldn't wait to get the fuck out of there. It couldn't wait Did did did they remind you of your own, you know, obesity of the soul inside I did it just felt me it just threw me into this like Interspection of horror like am I really this thing am I really this sort of You know You know Superficial am I really this sort of appearance driven? I am bro. Oh But do you get the same feelings of revulsion when you're around an underowner like healthy people when they encounter debtors and under owners and sex addicts and alcoholics and drug addicts They similarly get the same sort of revulsion that you feel towards the fatties So do you feel that same intensity of revulsion towards addicts and under owners? No, well, no, sorry, I don't under earning I think is Under earning is a sort of superficial You know, it's a superficial imbalance that can be rectified rather than really But for some people, yeah for some people it is a superficial imbalance But for the true under owner it's something that's life-threatening not just for him But for the people around it So for example you get in a car with an under owner and he hasn't you know had the brakes checked You know the tires are bald. No, you're you're risking your life You know someone who's you know filled with self-loathing, right? They're much more likely to make that self-destructive and socially destructive decisions So for a lot of people earning and under earning is a matter of life and death. I Disagree because under earning could be a scent a symptom of someone has like some artistic passion Right, and they're not really interested in making money And they hate making money and they're just completely repelled by the idea of make money So in fact, they don't make money and so they they earn less than they need to to survive and Yes, it's a problem but it's sort of tempered by this sort of Kind of artistic veal that they have I'm able to forgive under earning much more than I am You know You would five times rather be around under owners than fat people. Yeah, it's probably ten times Wow, and I'd ten times rather be around non under owners Than under owners, you know, even if they're obese Yours is probably the more healthy thing, but I'm just trying to be frank and I'm telling you the truth. Yep you know it's like I Understand the wisdom and the virtue and the position that you're presenting But at the same time it's like Let me give you an example So, you know years ago I used to go to a chess club, but I played chess and There were good chess players that had no charisma and Then there were bad chess players That has lots of charisma Right, and I'd always prefer to play the high charisma bad skill players Rather than the low charisma good skill players Yeah charisma. Yeah charisma sort of yeah, it's the fire that makes social interaction Enjoyable yeah, that's lack of fire Like I couldn't care less right and like in like high charisma also to me Not scientific bro, but high charisma also sort of correlates with high humor You know and this is what I'm drawn to this is the flame that's not this marketing. Oh, it's trying to Yeah, because there's something in you that that's broken and it feels there's a part of your soul that gets filled up by by charisma So that's why I'm looking for podcasts and videos that fill you up Even if you know what they're ultimately selling is cheap grace But if it sounds good and feels good It's it's you know highly appealing for you like junk food for the soul Yeah, yeah Basically, I'm a intellectual junk food addict and I need help bro Yeah, it's interesting what type of people you know are drawn to charisma because you know charisma is something that fills people up with energy it fills You know broken parts inside people it makes them feel more alive more excited It you know takes them out of the humdrum reality and transports them to a higher plane Yes, yes, exactly right. It's like I Don't know it's sort of like it's it's it's like It's the nest for life That people have people high charisma have That makes them Attractive like you can't live without zest. Otherwise, what are you doing? You're just eating breakfast going to sleep being breakfast going to sleep How many with charisma makes it feel like there's some transcendence in the offing and What if they offer you a a parasocial relationship? So you feel like you're really getting to know this person and that they are you know a virtual friend I'd be very seductive my dude very seductive indeed And you see that they've got some things that you don't have Yeah, true. That was it. That would intensify the allure Yeah, that that that parasocial relationship now you've had you've had that at times So I would have been the most intense Parasocial relationships that you've had I Parasocial Relationships Um, I don't know. I mean parasocial is a new word to me. So I'm trying to like Kind of wrap some meaning around that. Yeah, I've always got a new word I've always got a new intellectual enthusiasm like every every few weeks like I'm obsessed with some new fancy If you're talking about internet relationships, right? To mean parasocial relationships, I think I know what you mean, but if you're talking with someone else, I'm not sure But yeah, there's certain internet figures whom you know, I Gravitate towards I'd want the respect of I'm interested in but Uh Relationship seems to be a word to me that crosses a certain boundary like it sort of connotes a certain intimacy and You know, I recognize which side of the fence of intimacy. I'm on And and where does fisting play in all this? It's not primary but it's just a coordinate consideration so I mean, what kind of role does fisting play in a loving committed relationship? You got me, bro. You got me. That's a deep We're not ready for that one, dude. I'm very sure about anything else Well, no, bro, I can say it's really is it love is love, bro And like if love and if love expresses itself with fisting, yeah I'm just a humble, humble dude, bro trying to get through the day Let me the judge And has that been a significant way that you have expressed love? Significant no secondary possibly Yeah, it's like it's like the cherry on top Yeah, exactly It's like to cook Yeah, yeah, exactly the I mean such an obvious analogy Blessings all right. Well now that we hit the bottom, bro. I think I think I'm out of gas Okay, bro. Thanks for stopping by man. Thanks for blessing us Shall I I'm gonna move on with parafisting relationships so Okay, talk about parafisting is what I mean by para social relationships I am right now in Serbia belgrade Serbia With listeners. I have taken listeners on cruises for approximately 30 years The only time I've ever missed was when I had no choice when lockdowns Those irrational acts of governmental authority Closed down the cruise lines. So obviously it was impossible other than that. I've been on cruises with listeners We are it's so popular the listeners cruises, Julie that the entire boat On this Danube cruise from Budapest to Bulgaria. I don't know actually to Bulgaria than Romania Is just my listeners the entire boat is Dennis Prager listeners So everybody knows wherever they sit they are with a kindred spirit I can't tell you How much it means to me to see these people make these wonderful friends from all over America On on these cruises with me as you know, I love bringing people together not just getting people married But just getting people friends So the whole thing is a high to be honest But I wanted to emphasize your point You and I are so committed to not missing a single Dennis and Julie podcast that here I am You know late at night in Yugoslavia there's no longer Yugoslavia in Serbia and talking to you and it's just it's a delight Julie So I I know you have a ton on your mind as you always do But I I want while it's in context to talk to you about the incredible assets bonuses advantages of travel that that it is literally To use a word that's overused life changing to go around the world as often as one can Do you do you sense that because obviously you're so young You know you haven't been able to get to that many places yet, but is that something that resonates with you? You have no idea. I mean even when I was in Washington state about a month ago speaking I'd never been to Washington state and when I landed there the second I got off the plane It was like Eyes up pay attention. I wanted to see how the airport was different how people there may be dressed differently when I was driving I was asking what's that was I love being in a new place. It's such a new opportunity I'm going to quote you actually I have to give you credit You've taught me that among many other things you always give credit to people who you who you quote We're Dennis and I were on the phone the other day and he said traveling allows you to see the human condition In different contexts and cultures. I thought that was so well said And so to answer your question, of course, I tried to do it even when I drive to a new part of Los Angeles Let alone a foreign country well Look, I'm not surprised because You know, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I think god gave both of us very similar souls So you will get a big kick out of this. I grew up in in new york city, which has a very extensive subway system When I was in sixth grade sixth grade I went from brooklyn to Manhattan every day and back on my own using the new york city subway system So I got on Very near coney island in a place called the king's highway. That was my stop and then I would go 40 minutes to Manhattan I wanted to know every stop on the new york city subway system I actually on occasion would just go to the subway and take it to stops I had never seen and it was so exciting for me. Are we talking about the new york city subway? We're not talking about Serbia So when you say that you look at the washington airport, you know, from the sienna airport, you know, it's different That's exactly right You know, I've come to think about this recently You you said this on a recent episode of denison julie I believe you're quoting socrates who said the unexamined life is not worth living I think there are two paths in life the engaged life and the not engaged life If you take the former route and you look up and pay attention It is endlessly interesting. There's so much that that you can learn. I mean, yes You're you're epitomizing it with by traveling to to Serbia But even if as I said just going to a different part of los angeles or paying attention to the different stops on the subway There's a lot to be observed and gleaned from everyday experience Yes, so the question that haunts me. I don't have it. I don't have a full answer Anyway, this is this is a photo of savannah reading your book as she's in labor Oh my god, I get somebody I'll tell you one other email And then I have some thoughts on what you were saying before but this this one I might be one of the most touching I've ever received There was a listener who wrote to us about a month ago And he said dear denis and julie I want to write this to you because I can't talk about this Very much in my home because I don't want to further upset my children I don't talk about this a lot in my workplace because I don't want people in my workplace to see me differently But I just wanted to tell you because I view you both as friends in my life that my wife just died of breast cancer And I'm really sad It's difficult for me to Imagine imagine the sadness that you can't talk about your wife dying of breast cancer With anyone in your life. So you tell it to a youtube personality I mean The sadness and the emptiness in this man's life is heartbreaking But if You can't talk about your wife dying with anyone in your life Then you probably need to rethink how you go about your life And you probably need to bring some different people into your life I mean, I was empty and bereft when you know, I embraced denis prager as my lord and savior and guru All right, all right I You know spent my last dollar selling sending denis prager tapes around You know because I was so empty and the the charisma of denis prager You know and he's enlisting me in the the fight for good values, right that filled out the Superficially the emptiness in my soul But It's not it's not a healthy way to try to fill up your soul go about my life and I just felt the need to tell you That was so touching because it really does show that they thought that this man thought of us as friends And that's what that's what we want to import to viewers No It's not what you want to impart to viewers because you're encouraging them in delusion And encouraging people in delusion is not usually a good thing Encouraging people in lies and delusion is not usually the moral thing to do Right encouraging people in lies and delusion is not something to aim for It's not something you should be selling You don't know me because I do a show on youtube. You only know a little bit of me Which is a performance. This is a performance. This isn't just like regular look I've made friends off of this show So I have some close friends that I've made through this program We we we don't just want to be top shows. We truly want to be in people's lives Well, you know my description of myself since I began was I'm not a talk show host. I'm a human with a talk show That's great. That's really great. It's true. I thought you I thought you It's a delusion All right Dennis also talks about how he has to use 10 times as much energy as he would in normal conversation to do a talk show So it is a performance that gives the simulcra of authenticity We would like that particular line the The yearning to bond with people who are kindred spirits is what's behind all of this and You have it and I have it in massively. I mean have a boat. Yes It's a good thing to bond with people who are kindred spirits Particularly if you're kindred spirits in a kind of dissident way And it's not easy to find kindred spirits in your real life Then if it's supplementing your real life family Your real life relationships your real life community then what we're doing now is perfectly healthy If it's serving as a substitute for real life interaction, then it's unhealthy Load literally a boatload of kindred spirits And so I don't suffer from what is a very big malaise in America of people who have traditional values And can't find friends because of that fact or have friends If you can't find friends because you have traditional values you are delusional, right? That's not why you don't have friends, right? There's there's something else going on All right, our problems are never our problems. Our problems are symptoms of much deeper things that we don't want to address And so instead we you know focus on them as our problems. So I'm 57. I'm a bachelor Right, if I focused on I'm a bachelor, I need to fix this problem being a bachelor That would be a flight from the reality that there is you know a deep brokenness with me in normal human interactions There's a certain inflexibility With me for normal human interactions so that I devote so much of myself to artificially created You know flight to paradise interactions where I can control things like my own show Right, my my bachelorhood is a symptom of a much deeper brokenness in me. It's not the problem And anyone who thinks that they don't have friends because I have traditional values, right? That's delusion That they can't open up to so to a certain extent We we sort of play the role of being their friends and it's not playing it in the sense of make believe it's it is real Obviously, I want people It's delusion All right, you do a show you advocate your conservative values But you're not friends with people who you never meet who you have no personal interactions with and The only time when I think that is healthy is for people who are in my situation like in the late 1980s when I was bedridden by chronic fatigue syndrome My life had completely fallen fallen apart and When you know reality was just so incredibly painful. Yeah, you know encouraging people then You know for a short time in some kind of delusional parasocial relationship, you know, maybe better than nothing You know, who knows I may not be here today except for my delusional parasocial relationship with with denis prank Just like for some people who you know did have the option of you know, a real life, you know sexual romantic relationship, you know for some people possibly you know porn is better than nothing possibly Right encouraging people to have a delusional entirely one way, you know Parasocial relationship an imaginary friendship with people you have no you know personal interactions with is It's kind of like uh using pornography Because you you don't have you know a woman in your life People to have people who are in their lives physically to to have that bond, but a lot of people do not The there was a a couple on this trip that told me that they came with me to israel prior to the lockdowns the last time we went 2019 right before the lockdowns I never say before COVID and they were on the trip Of listeners of mine to to israel and by the way I have another one coming up this fall And people interested should just go to denis prager.com and click on the banner for information stand with israel and This boat is 150 listeners the israel trip is usually about 500 And they told me something I hear all the time they said I just want you to know we were on bus number 10 And we got so close to the people on bus number 10 That we actually have bought a place in florida where we all stay at Just to be with each other and they're from all over the country Yeah, I mean these are people who united by really shoddy reasoning you know by Really corrupt epistemics by a a delusional worldview that you know, we're living In a society that's on the road to becoming like nazi germany and joseph stullins soviet union Florida they became literally the closest friends in their lives from being on bus number 10 I'm gonna tell this when I come back and I promote it But it makes perfect sense I love that that i'm giving people an opportunity to meet terrific people Your people may come from me You know, it's my old line about they come from denis but stay for sue Which you know how true that it is true But it's also true in my public life. They come for me, but they stay for the folks that they meet So and I love that it doesn't take anything away So it depends on the stew that you're cooking if you're cooking up a stew that uh Like like denis prager is doing telling people that we're becoming like nazi germany and starlin's soviet union Right, you're creating something that's destructive and to the extent that people take you seriously is going to damage Damage lives right if you believe that your left wing parent or relative is Essentially indistinguishable from the commissars of joseph stullin Right, that's going to damage your relationship with those people it's going to separate you from People that you work with people that you go to church with people who are your neighbors and necessarily separate you Hey from you know the bond that they have with me, but it is such a More enduring one where they have these real people in their lives The the human being needs people to whom they can open up about what they what they most care about in life And the number of people who can't open up to friends Is is is scary. I know this from my happiness hour. I know this Yeah, well if you can't open up to friends then opening up to a youtube personality or radio talk show host In some ways is better than nothing But it's it's better than nothing in the same sense that for some people perhaps, you know Using pornography is better than having zero sexual expression But overall it's a delusion and it's a lie and it's damaging Right the more extreme form of this kind of guru-parasocial relationship Is the evangelical christian in can you encourage people to come join him and starve themselves to meet jesus Or people who follow jim jones into the jungles of Central america and you know took poison or People who follow reverend sun young moon, right? That's a more extreme form of epistemic corruption But what dentist prega has in common with other gurus is Encouraging people to cut themselves off from competing sources of information and to instead know abide by Those sources of information that you know, he blesses with his kosher certification Essentially wreaking, you know epistemic sabotage making people less able to understand what is true. What is real? In the world this is pre-woke, but this was a problem and post-woke it is a crisis Coming into this conservative world If if you will that's what i'm going to call it has made me find so many kindred spirits again Just be on the realm of the political just and remember her her friends from prior to her becoming close to dentist preger Her friends from the old days many of them think she's joined a cult and she's just amazed You know, why would they think that she's joined a cult? But she has taken out many of the characteristics of joining a cult. She doesn't believe any In any outside institution, right? She believes in dentist preger and his, you know, kosher certification for information She has effectively joined a moderate level cult which has many wonderful qualities This is good for her career. Sure. She's met, you know, many wonderful people There are many good things going on in her life, but she has joined, you know a low to moderate level cult Just kindred spirits in terms of disposition and worldview and life interest And every it's it's been really interesting for me because every place i've gone to whether it's a speech of yours Whether it's your torah minion. I know people will listening will go Of course, you found this, you know with dentists because it's dentists. That's unifying all these people But even, you know, I mentioned my speech in washington I went to to go speak in mid april to a group in northern washington state 450 people and they were all kindred spirits Um, I spoke recently to a republican club in san amonica all kindred spirits coming into this world I have sof. Yeah, and if you join reverend sun young moons organization, you'll meet all kindred spirits If you join three eight joe happy healthy holy The the sect that promotes kundalini yoga, you'll meet all kindred spirits If you join some extreme ascetic or christian Or secular organization, you'll be with all kindred spirits And you're distrust all competing sources of information Not necessarily a good thing found that and as I said it's been fascinating for me to contemplate And this is in a typical denis and julie way denis and julie we go out on a lot of tangents But we also kind of I don't know if you notice as every episode has this circular like we come around to an earlier point It's actually quite nice I think it's because we all believe in something as opposed to just against something you were saying earlier the left gets excited about to start Okay, here's another excerpt from the show Did they do good for this country? One did immense good for this country. One is doing immense harm to this country So most right wing pundit right wing pundits don't like to praise donald trump All right, they have many reasons to feel highly uncomfortable about him So instead they focus their fire on the democrats and they say things like we're living in a police state So even if these Latest two indictments of donald trump are wrong That doesn't make us living in a police state, right? There's absolutely no equivalence between a misplaced misjudged Endowment of donald trump and living in a police state living in a police state means living in Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union or in north korea today, right? If you live in the united states of america in 2023, you're not living in a police state From the day he came into office and rendered the ability of america to support itself with energy by by knocking out Okay, this is Dennis prager saying, you know, jay biden's, you know, the most evil president ever Of the the xl pipeline to to this day the inflation that he has created and the the Joe biden didn't create the inflation, right? He played a role Maybe 10 percent, you know at most 20 percent of the inflation that we've suffered over the past two years is due to Joe biden First the use of the department of justice to render america police state for the first time in its history the america Wow Right to say that america today in 2023 is a police state I mean how absurd is that and to the extent that anyone takes him seriously And and gathers with kindred spirits who believe that the united states in 2023 is a police state you've entered a cult And it's bad for you and it's bad for the people who are affected by you The amount of evil that this man has done look we don't generally talk about politics The amount of evil that Joe biden has done i'm sure he's wrong about lots of things But for the average person Uh for 99 percent of americans 99 percent of the time Life under Joe biden versus life under donald trump unless you deliberately choose to pay attention to the news is indistinguishable It doesn't really matter that much for 99 percent of americans 99 percent of the time And but the evil that this man is doing to this country has no parallel in the history of the presidency of the united states Wow Right the evil that Joe biden is is doing to america has no parallel in the history of the united states All right, that's how you get to be a right-wing pundit All right, that's how you enrage and engage when you enrage All right, and to the extent you take denise prager seriously You will be more enraged than if you didn't take him seriously Right to the extent you're a denise prager fan You will be disabled. You will be dysfunctional. You will be less capable You will be less happy less effective in the world I mean the idea that the united states is a a police state Uh because of these you know misjudged If they are indictments it is absurd. I mean instead of you know juicing up You know needless hatred, you know denise could uh instead encourage Oh, I don't know understanding Uh april 28 2020 denise wrote people argue that a temporary police state Has been justified talking about america under covid restrictions because of the allegedly unique threat to life posed by the new Coronavirus they just agree. We are closer to a police state than ever in american history. So I was in australia australia's response to covet Was about 10 to 20 times more severe than what the average american experienced and australia wasn't a police state So the idea that the lockdowns in america made america a temporary police state is is absurd Okay Let me let me get my bearings back to some good solid reporting here from the new york times libel lawsuits have been on the rise too According to the latest data collected by the media law resource center Many legal experts said such suits were often used to punish smaller news organizations For aggressive coverage and to deter others from Okay, so if there's a pushback against journalists who are hurting people all right and the journalists may be doing good things You know, they may be doing great things heroic things moral things But in the course of doing that they're gonna hurt some people How would you not expect that they're going to want to push back? And if there aren't legal means for people to push back against journalists who are hurting them They will use you know extra legal things like They're breaking legs So one thing that gurus and pundits do the successful ones is they make you feel amazing and they make you feel like you are the recipient of some You know amazing wisdom and that's what you get here. This is denise prager at oxford university 2012 Saying that hamas is a greater obstacle to peace than israel brotherhood number two on on on just on this issue just appealing to your common sense in modern in modern history Every war has been between a free state and a police state or two police states I cannot think of a 20th century Example of any other And the same holds true here. You have the police state of hamas if you differ with hamas. They kill you Where in the world other than israel? Does anyone ever argue that the free state doesn't want peace and the police state wants peace? There is no other example on earth There is no other Okay, so united states rides Supposedly well definitely a much freer state than iraq in 2003 Is the united states that invaded iraq in 2003 the free state invaded the police state 2001 Free state united states invaded afghanistan the you know quasi religious police state The united states invaded granada 1983 free state evading quasi police state united states is intervened militarily In many different ways all over latin america right the free state right invading the Sometimes you know what you could argue, you know verging on the police state so all the time All the time free states are invading Uh police states So what denise pregas says here sounds amazing. You feel like you're getting something truly profound But upon examination. It's absurd other example on earth of a country targeted for extinction none 220 some odd countries in this world only israel is targeted for extinction and we have a debate on So united states went to war with north vietnam right free state going up against a police state United states bombed soviet in the 1990s wasn't that a free state going to war with the police state So upon examination many of these seemingly profound and Just amazing In the way they make you feel inside. They just dissolve away Right back to the new york time i'm speaking out And sometimes as miss juljin and new hampshire public radio have learned the physical and legal threats converge Their ordeal is a striking example of the perils facing news organizations in an era when politicians regularly demonize journalists And some judges want to curtail the first amendment protections that the press has long enjoyed Hightening the freedom of the press stakes a state judge in new hampshire last week ordered nhpr to let him review transcripts of its interviews with certain sources Including those who had agreed to speak on an anonymous basis Legal experts called the ruling unusual and alarming saying such decisions could make it harder for journalists to investigate potential wrongdoing by public figures Okay, so if you make doing investigative journalism harder Right, it's harder on journalists and it's harder on those who would benefit from that investigative journalism It's making life easier for other people whose lives are being ruined by investigative journalists now I'm instinctively almost always on the side of investigative journalists, but it's not like there's only, you know one side With the angels here It's absolutely impossible to think about any kind of decent society where it's not possible Where it's not possible for You know regular people to fight back against journalists, you know, why should journalists have the exclusive ability to hurt people? Shortly before the houses in massachusetts and new hampshire were vandalized Miss chuljin had published an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct by eric spofford The founder of new hampshire's largest network of addiction rehabilitation centers Her house was attacked less than two days after new hampshire public radio Refused mr. Spofford's demand to take down miss chuljin's online article Mr. Spofford has denied the allegations of sexual misconduct and has said he had nothing to do with the vandalism The man in the blue raincoat who is caught on video is not him Last year he accused new hampshire public radio, which has about two dozen journalists Of trying to pin the attacks on him quote to try to deter me from bringing legal action because they know i will win Mr. Spofford soon sued nhpr and miss chuljin among others for libel Miss chuljin and her colleagues do not know who was behind the vandalism But they are convinced that it was connected to their investigation into mr. Spofford That's being a journalist in america today. Miss chuljin said in an interview Mr. Spofford said in a statement that the new york times was spreading the same quote false accusations that nhpr Okay, earlier i was playing an mp3 on how to connect by seeing it with feeling. I think i found the relevant uh video here Let's see if it's any good That does a tremendous amount towards my feeling of comfort developing my health working out Getting the decent sleep getting plenty of exercise and eating right stuff like that And then noticing what makes me agitated and journaling about it and working it through So the more comfortable i am the less likely i am to cooperate to you know, ridiculous addiction So i used to try to soothe my anxiety by pursuing sex by pursuing photography by attention seeking by you know Going to extremes in politics and religion But if i could just calm down then i tend to make better decisions luke recommends alexander technique for the face No, alexander technique is a holistic technique that alexander technique is a way for noticing how you react to a stimulus And whether your reaction serves you so many people react to a stimulus by their head You know jutting forward tipping back compressing the neck Now one shoulder tends to be you know higher than the other one hip is going to be rotated forward You know wrenching the whole back People carry all sorts of unnecessary tension around the eyes around the lips and around the forehead like look at This beautiful forehead you see my forehead crinkling right now You see all sorts of unnecessary tension around my eyes You see their waves of tension just radiating from my lips I'm a man who is at ease in the world. I'm at ease with me. I'm at ease with you I'm at ease with this beautiful community that we're creating and so that radiates from from my face Except for when i'm not racked by you know anxiety and depression alexander techniques discussing about effective Well, here's here's a basic alexander Let go of everything that you think you know So that is i put that in i let go of everything that i think i know i've moved from a state of judgment When i do live streams i'm frequently in a state of judgment and now i'm just in a state of awareness Just observing what's going on around me and i don't need to judge it when i do that My face relaxes that the neck and the back unlock the breathing comes easier Like i get more width and more length as i let go of that unnecessary tension and so the alexander technique So we're noticing how you react to a stimuli and then learning how to let go of those responses that don't serve you We tend to build up body arm ring particularly as we get older Right body arm ring are these unnecessary tension patterns So if you can learn to notice what your unnecessary tension patterns are and start to release them You will feel more at ease in the world other people will have more comfort with you because you are more comfortable with yourself You'll be less compulsive, you know less driven. You'll make better decisions. You'll be calm all right, so It's dangerous for an addicted personality to be struggling right if you have a tendency towards addiction You want to minimize how much struggle you do and when you do struggle You want it to be in like an appropriate venue such as you're you're struggling to lift a weight or you're You're struggling with with a workout. Okay. I put a link there to a video from november 1 2022 How to connect by saying it with feeling new york has an interesting article that's connected to what I was just talking about there Daniel Bard major league picture made an improbable comeback Then he had to do it again the colorado rocky's picture picture Overcame a mysterious control problem to return to the major leagues But the problems were not gone for good So what the hell happened to this bloke on a drizzly morning in february outside greenville, south carolina Bard sat on the dingy turf floor of a baseball facility and did some stretching It was early and the batting cages were empty. He had just dropped his kids off at school A few other local pros trickled in and he joined them to gossip and to train After some rapid pull-ups and other strength exercises He and another player grabbed their gloves and went to spots on opposite ends of the facility for a game of long toss Bard warmed up by pausing his leg at various heights in his throwing motion before connecting the movements and letting his body flow Bard was never really taught how to pitch for a long time. It seemed like he was born to it His maternal grandfather was the baseball coach at mit and his father paul made the minor leagues as a catcher Growing up in charlotte, north carolina. Bard the oldest of three boys played catch in the backyard learning by instinct and imitation From the time he was two and three years old. He had excellent throwing mechanics paul told me Bard's brother jared played college ball the youngest luke also made it to the majors Bard says his parents always told him that he could stop playing if he was no longer having fun But he had a sense of calling and his parents who were religious understood When bard got to high school, he made the team but sat on the bench He was gangly less muscular than some of the other boys paul told him that he'd be the best of all of them once his frame filled out and bard believed him Or at least kept working. So here's the upshot in this story When you think about what you're doing you often perform it less well than if you Are not thinking about what you're doing So you will walk more gracefully more easily more efficiently and effectively With less stress stress and strain if you're not thinking about walking Right, you will get in and out of a chair if you're not thinking about Getting up and getting down to your chair movement in general Athletic performance in general is much more effective and efficient and graceful if you're not thinking about what you're doing So if I'm thinking about this show and the great points I want to make that as a time and a place But if I let go of all my plans if I let go of my preconceptions If I let go of my judgments and how I want to impose my will on reality Periodically and just take a break and move from a place of judgment to a place of just awareness Then my breathing preys up my back unlocks, you know, a lot of good things come from Intimately letting go of everything that I think I'm working as if he did Daniel has always been very cerebral and very responsible. His mother Kathy told me he liked to please He was a typical firstborn After Bard sophomore year his grandfather helped get him into a new england showcase for scouts and college recruiters Paul told him that he should try to throw 90 miles per hour something he'd never done He hit 91 faster than anyone else His grandfather draped his arm around his shoulder and introduced him to the newly eager scouts and coaches Like this is my grandson Bard recalled Everyone wanted to talk I had never felt that before it's a weird feeling But it was a pretty good feeling when you're an insecure 15 year old kid He went to showcases down south and kept throwing hard He transferred to a small private school to get more playing time Pro scouts came to watch him and he so everything's going great until he starts getting coaching and then everything falls apart He got several college scholarship offers He accepted one from the university of north carolina and became an all america starter I did the bare minimum to get by in school, which is the part I regret he said But it was a deliberate choice He didn't want to have anything to fall back on In his junior year, he led UNC to the finals of the college world series Afterward, he was drafted by the red sox in the first round He reported to the instructional league in arizona where prospects train with less pressure and scrutiny than they face in the minors He threw three innings and nearly every pitch went a hundred miles per hour I was like, oh, if I can do that, I'm going to move. He recalled. I'm not going to be in the minors very long Bard showed up at his first spring training in 2007 with his confidence overflowing He pitched well in two bullpen sessions. Then he was asked to throw a third They had like seven pitching coaches watching this bullpen, which is six more than you'd usually have He said he'd barely warmed up when one coach suggested that he try a different grip for his fastball Another said we think your leg kick is a little big. We just kind of want to calm that down Bard had never thought about how many inches his leg grows or about the degree of his arm position He'd always focused on the movement of the ball not the movement of his body He took the coach's advice eagerly, but it had a negative effect. His velocity dropped his command disappeared Thinking about his motion disrupted his muscle memory. And when he made mistakes self-doubt crept in All right, so some people are improved by becoming more reflective and reflexive I mean, you know monitoring what they're saying and doing But other people just completely fall apart and they lose it He thought about the opportunity he was blowing and about how much money he'd been given Anxiety tenses the body attempting to control emotion can limit So one thing that accounts for the level of muscular tension unnecessary muscular tension In your your body is, you know, how much you're resisting reality How much you're treating the outside world as the enemy to be debunked How punitive you are with regard to yourself and other people All this stuff adds on to body armoring, which makes you more tense less effective Right less effective in movement less effective in thinking less effective in relating to yourself less effective in relating to other people The degrees of freedom in a joint the tightness made Bard pitch worse which aggravated his anxiety So when you tighten up almost nothing good happens from that And we tend to tighten up to get through difficult times But then it becomes very very difficult to let go of that unnecessary tension So as we age we have more and more layers of unnecessary tension and compression Distorting our musculature distorting our thinking Distorting how we feel distorting our perception of reality distorting how we relate to ourselves And to other people so the Alexander technique is a technique of subtraction Of noticing and letting go of all these harmful ways that we're Distorting and compressing ourselves setting off a negative feedback loop The socks assigned him to their high a club a typical spot for a new first round pick But he couldn't find the plate. He was demoted to low a in greenville and didn't fare much better The beauty of baseball people say is in its daily repetitions You get a lot of second chances But when things aren't going well the failures pile up Okay, so That's why it's really helpful to be able to notice the things that you're doing that are getting in your way Right, whether in the way you're talking to yourself relating to yourself relating to other people unnecessary tension in your neck In your lips around your eyes in your jaw in your shoulders in your hands in your ankles In your thighs Right unnecessary tension makes you less effective less happy less capable You know less efficient less less gracious in life So let me just pass forward a little bit in this story level fix. He met with sports psychologists He saw a hypnotist. He meditated. He whispered mantras, which he found counterproductive Okay, so none of those things are going to deconstruct Your layers of unnecessary tension what you need to learn to do is where am I interfering with my best functioning? And then how can I notice what I'm doing the unnecessary tightness compression the self-defeating habits? I I've developed the you know wall of body armoring that I've developed and how can I inhibit this unnecessary tensing and constricting and compressing myself And then opening up to a more gracious Graceful you know efficient and effective way of operating every morning Bard would get out of bed and head to the field for another day of disaster After the summer the Red Sox sent him to Hawaii for wind So if you're having day after day of disaster, right, you're probably not going to think your your way out of the problem You have to get you know a more objective perspective on yourself That's where why it helps to have a performance coach or an Alexander technique teacher Or you can use video or a trip ditch of mirrors to notice what are your habits of unnecessary tension and compression Once you start noticing these habits of say tipping your head back compressing your neck You can inhibit that tendency to tense and compress your neck and instead have a gentle wish like You may gently wish that Sunday is a sunny day For your head to release forward and up leading your spine leading your whole torso into lengthened width Interball he continued to pitch badly, but he was in Hawaii He surfed and more flip flops to work The pitching coach there Mike cather saw the tightness in bards delivery and on his face And Bard remembers him promising to send a positive report to the Sox no matter how he pitched I think I went out and I added three or four miles an hour instantly Bard recalls He didn't wonder why he'd snapped out of his funk. He just let it happen So if you have more tightness, right, that's going to interfere with your sales ability You're going to interfere with your relationship with yourself It's going to interfere with your relationships with other people you're going to think less clearly you're going to perceive less clearly Life is going to become less enjoyable for you Gled too with all the attention he was getting he wasn't a celebrity, but it was Boston and he was on the red Sox When you're there, it feels like you could go to a restaurant in India and get recognized He said In early September the Sox were in first place and nine games ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays for the final American Yeah, and then uh everything started falling apart for a star closer Apparently filling the position that Bard had thought would be his There was an opening in the starting rotation and he took it Reporters swarmed him in the clubhouse after bullpen sessions and batting practice. He'd have to Yeah, and uh his his pitching fell apart He wasn't recalled to the majors until the end of august and he didn't pitch well when he got there He began the next season in double a then was demoted to single a His once smooth delivery had disintegrated After one outing in september the crowd booed him and a dare who had come to watch him ran out of the stadium in tears That's his wife the next day The red Sox let him go That was when Bard googled the yips He had known what was happening for a while Okay, the yips are when you have interfering tension patterns when you have interfering compression patterns When you have taken on these habits of unnecessary body armoring and compression And they make you less effective less efficient less gracious less kind to yourself less kind to other people Everyone did but everyone including him had avoided saying it out loud Many baseball players have minor control issues at one point or another Was it all because the coach said grip this well, we're all incredibly vulnerable All right, his problem is that because a coach said grip this He was a sitting time bomb due to you know extraordinary levels of unnecessary tension compression anxiety right, but Then there was the activating incident that unleashed the these problems So you might be going along, you know thinking, you know, everything's great But then you suffer one setback and your life just spirals downhill. It's not the setback This ruined your life. You're a sitting time bomb. We're just the smallest setback. It's just going to set you off So we're all vulnerable. We all have different levels of vulnerability But If we're denying reality, right, we're going to have a lot of tension and compression Right, if we, you know, build up some bad habits We're going to be, you know, much more open to this sort of collapse As opposed to if we have some ability to spot Our interfering tension and compression patterns We have some ability to notice or to take in feedback about, you know, self-destructive things we're doing About unnecessary ways that we're kind of pulling down and tightening and pulling in on ourselves Then it's going to be a lot easier to overcome things like the yips Sometimes it happens after an injury when a player is relearning how to throw Overattending to discreet motions that used to feel fluid and natural Overthinking is the simple way to put it. The brain's prefrontal cortex trips up the sensory cortex and the motor cortex So just experiment when you get in and out of a chair Just convince yourself. I'm not standing or I'm not sitting Right, or when you're walking just convince yourself. I'm not walking And you'll notice that all your movement becomes easier That is when we think about what we're doing When we think about our movements that we tend to tighten up and compress It's like if I tell you don't think about a pink elephant You start thinking about a pink elephant In other cases the mind can essentially go blank Players usually snap out of it the way bard had years before But the brain can get stuck in certain patterns and So when the brain gets stuck in certain patterns, right the brain exists inside the body Habits that are going on in your body are going to affect how your brain functions If you're tightening and compressing in your body, you're going to be tightening and compressing in your thinking So what's going on in your body is going to affect your thinking and your emotions What's going on in your emotions is going to affect your thinking and your body Right, so our emotions take place within the body our thinking takes place within the body And then the body in turn is affected by the thinking and the emotions All right, we are a unity and emotions thinking And, you know, muscular tension patterns are all constantly affecting each other. And the Yps can take over in a way that no one fully understands. Years ago, Roger Angel published a piece in this magazine about Steve Blass, a Pittsburgh Pirates ace who won two complete games in the 1971 World Series against the Baltimore Orioles, then lost his skill a year later. Football players sometimes call the Yps Steve Blass disease. Anyone whose work involves the repetition of refined motor skills, surgeons and musicians, for example, can get the Yps. The term was popularized by a golfer, Tommy Armour, who played on the PGA Tour in the 1920s and 30s. Some small percentage of the afflicted suffer from a neurological condition called focal dystonia, which is linked to abnormalities in the neural pathways of the brain and leads to involuntary muscle contractions. Other cases seem to have a psychological basis. When treating athletes with the Yps, sports psychiatrists try both to alleviate their anxiety with breathing exercises, therapy. So there's no psychology outside of the body. Our psychology takes place within our musculature. So whatever's going on with your body is going to have a profound effect on your psychology. If you are tight and tense in your body, your soul, your demeanor, your self-talk, your interactions with yourself and with other people will be extra tight and extra tense. If you're at ease and gracious and flowing and feeling fantastic in your body and your body's doing everything that you want it to be able to do, you get much more likely to be at ease in your interactions with yourself and with other people. Now thinking similarly takes place within the body. If our body is tight and tense and locked down, our thinking is going to be tight and tense and locked down. Back to the New Yorker. Be on the like and to fool their brains into accessing deep working memory rather than the misfiring part of the brain. A golfer might try putting with the opposite hand or distracting himself by counting backward from three before swinging. A tennis player struggling with her toss might do little math puzzles just before serving. So these are distracting from the main issue. The main issue is that you have developed self-defeating muscular tension patterns. And so you need a good Alexander technique teacher who will notify you to your self-defeating unnecessary tension and compression patterns, help you notice them and then help you inhibit them so that you don't do things that are self-destructive to you, opening up space for lengthening, for widening, for letting go of these unhelpful tension and compression patterns. Cruz, a sports psychologist who has published several studies about the YIBS, told me that the goal often is not to eradicate the YIBS, but to outsmart them. This turns out to be very hard to do. So what he's talking about, she's talking about here is adding new layers on top of the old layers. So I prefer the Alexander technique of subtraction instead of adding new layers, new theories, new practices, new tips on top of the old habits. Instead, take a look at your old habits that are getting in your way, the old habits of tension and compression, unnecessary tightness and pulling down and in on yourself. And start to notice those, inhibit those, let them go and have a gentle desire to take up your full space in the world. Have a gentle desire, your head and neck to be free for your head to release, leading your whole torso into length. So I love the Alexander technique of subtraction, noticing the old, unhelpful, self-defeating tension and compression patterns, noticing them so that you can stop performing them then creating space for growth and for width and for freedom. In 2000, Rick Anchial, a star rookie for the St. Louis Cardinals, lost his control on the mound during a playoff game. He spent a few years trying to regain his form before he reinvented himself as an outfielder. Clinically, I believe, what happened is this. I don't know. He later wrote in a memoir, and neither does anyone else. While Bard was with the Red Sox, his teammate John Lester found that he couldn't throw the ball to first base anymore. Runner started taking big leads when he pitched. Eventually, he tried bouncing the ball to first. Lester has been reluctant to talk publicly about his difficulties. Steve Sacks. So if you can't talk about your difficulties, it's really hard to overcome them, right? You know you've overcome a difficulty when you can talk about it without getting all sorts of weird tension and compression patterns in your voice or in your face or in your back. A second baseman for the Dodgers in the 80s has said that when he began struggling to throw, he became the laughing stock of the league. In the sports world, there's still a degree of stigma about mental health issues, partly owing to a narrow definition of toughness. Okay, good article in The New Yorker, and there's a great video on the Patreon of Decoding the Gurus. This is Mick West talking about UFOs and conspiracy psychology with Australian psychologist Matthew Brown and Irish cognitive anthropologist Chris Kavanaugh. A bit of that. What's going on there? There's a variety of people in the UFO community, and some of them are much more ready to believe than others. If you want to experience it, just kind of join a few UFO groups, and you'll see there's a variety of different types. I'm a bit more nuts and bolts into looking into UFOs, but very, very rapidly when you start looking into UFO culture, you get towards essentially what's supernatural. People who believe in, excuse me, a supernatural explanation of things are very credulous about accepting a video about face value, and someone posts a video of something that looks like a face reflecting in the window, and it's obviously just some blobs of light or something. You'll get a whole bunch of people saying, yeah, I can see what you're saying, and people say, yeah, I can kind of feel vibrations coming up this picture. And with UFOs, like someone posts a fake video, and people, why wouldn't it be real? They think that there are beings coming from other dimensions, and that projecting realities, and all kinds of things are going on. So there's always a range of people who are going to view any particular video, and some of them are going to view it a certain way. The obvious alien autopsy in the room is the recent testimony by David Grush, the former intelligence officer, or some position in the government who has claimed too much fanfare. So speaking about that, people, well or not, they're critical or not, I'm consistently amazed by the coverage of this particular story. But yeah, so in any case, he's alleged that, I don't believe he's seen the video, he's just heard that the evidence exists, but people have presented it as very significant that he's been willing to go on the record acknowledging this, and there's articles in The Guardian. It's been discussed by pretty much everyone that I can see online in the guru sphere, and I'm just curious, I think I know, but in any case, your response to this story and how it's being presented currently? The claims are pretty amazing, and if they are true, they would change the world in an earth-shattering way for forever. They would be the biggest story in human history. But you'll notice that if you go and look at all the front pages of the media, there's not really any coverage of it, and I think everybody's been pretty cautious about it. There's a few media outlets that are doing stories on it, but it's not like leading stories. And the reason is that he doesn't really have any evidence. This is one guy saying that other people have told him that there is an alien spaceship crash retrieval program, and he's telling a whole bunch of stories that people have told him that he believes to be true, but he doesn't actually know if they're true. He just he believes them to be true because people have told him and I think he's seen some documents, but he hasn't even seen anything. Right. So first hand claims don't mean anything to me about UFOs or voter fraud or anything. What I want to see are people with expertise who are making admissions that go against their self-interest. Right. If I get credible people with expertise making admissions that go against their self-interest, right, I take that seriously. So when I refuse to go along with the right, distant right heard instinct of saying that the coronavirus was no big deal. And this is just, you know, left wing big government overreach. Right. I did that against my own self-interest. My audience obviously wanted to hear about government overreach. And when I said that there's no credible evidence that the voter fraud determined the 2020 American presidential election, that was an admission I made against my own self-interest. So if you got someone who, you know, is smart and they are know something and they are making admissions against their own self-interest, right, those are the type of people that I take seriously as opposed to, you know, these absurd, you know, first-hand stories about UFOs. Photos. He didn't work in the program, didn't work in the crash retrieval program. And he's not seen any of the spaceships or anything like that. And the story broke on this media site called the debrief. And originally they wanted the New York Times to do it. The one of the reporters there, Ralph Lomenthal, was an old New York Times reporter and the other one, Leslie Keane, worked with Ralph Lomenthal and they did this original story back in 2017 about Louis Elizondo and the whole UFO thing back then. That's when the videos came out. And this is, you know, a great revelation about, you know, how inept a lot of experts are, you know, a lot of bureaucracies, a lot of militaries, a lot of, you know, premier news organizations. So they actually started the ball rolling. They tried to kind of repeat that. They tried to get the New York Times to do a story on this, which would have been huge. New York Times essentially turned them down because of various demands that they wanted about it. I don't know exactly what the deal was, but New York Times said no. They went to. So any time that Steve Saylor, for example, differs with the mainstream media, in my experience, Steve Saylor is right at least a hundred times for every time he's wrong compared to the Washington Post or the New York Times. And when it comes to UFOs, Mick West has a similarly impressive track record to the best of my knowledge. To I think Politico, then they went to Washington Post. Washington Post needing more time to fact check it. So they didn't have the time for some reason. So they went to this other outlet called the debrief, which is just kind of like a military, small media outlet, military themed with the UFO thing, UFO overtoned. And they've just pushed it out, pushed out this article. And, you know, initially, this article, they just say we have this crushable program, we have documents, people tell me this, blah, blah, blah, then we get a video of a bit of interview of this guy Dave Grush done by this Australian journalist, Ross Colthart. And he says, he's saying things are even more amazing. He says that not only do we have crashed alien spaceships, some of the crashed alien spaceships have bodies in them, which I thought really should have been the lead. Really should have been the lead thing. We have crashed alien, we have actually alien bodies. But turns out he never talks to Leslie Keene about that. He never talked to the two journalists about that for some reason. And she was like, you know, I don't want to talk about bodies. And, you know, if he had told me about bodies, I wouldn't have put them in the story because your bodies is too much. So it sounds like she, she doesn't believe him on the bodies thing, but she does believe him on the spaceship thing. And but she wants to do a spaceship story because she knows that's all true. But the body is saying it's a bit sketchy. And then he does like another interview for like a French newspaper, I think La Parisienne, something like that. And in that he makes a claim that the US acquired a UFO in 1944, nearly 80 years ago from the, from Italy. And this, this UFO landed in Italy in 1933 and was captured by Mussolini's guys and held in a warehouse somewhere for, for nine years until towards the end of World War Two and the Allies invaded Italy. And they took this, this UFO back to the states and they started analyzing it. And then they, you know, they discovered Velcro and Teflon and stuff like that and semiconductors by, by analyzing this UFO, which is just basically part of UFO mythology. Yeah, it's this old story that's been knocking around for a long time. And a lot of people think that it's just fake story. So it almost seems like, you know, it's not like he's discovered all these secrets. It's like somebody who believes in all the UFO stuff is being talking to someone else, telling them stuff. And then they talk to Dave Grush and Dave Grush is like, God, we got this thing back in 1944. And, you know, it's, it's just all of it. All of it is, is essentially UFO mythology. And I remember someone tweeted today and they said, there's nothing in what Dave Grush has said today that we didn't already know. It's just that he's, you know, a trained professional who's coming forward for the first time. He told us that he was asked, what evidence do you have that these are alien craft? So they've got these alien craft with dead aliens inside them. And he says, what evidence do you have that these are alien craft? He doesn't say like, oh, well, you know, they had aliens inside them. He says, like, you know, we, we did some analysis of the isotope ratio of some metal. And it was an unusual isotope ratio that must have been engineered. They just ignored the alien body. There's billions, billions sat around there. They're like, what is this weird bit of tinfoil? So it's, it's not the most compelling sounding story to me. It sounds pretty ridiculous. And he apparently has receipts. Apparently other people are going to come forward and corroborate what you're saying. But it just sounds like he's repeating UFO mythology. The isotope ratio thing is like at least 10 years old. I think people have been finding bits of metal and being like, oh, this isn't the right isotope ratio. And then there's another piece of metal. This is a little triangular piece of metal. It's made of multiple layers of magnesium and bismuth and a bit of zinc. And people are saying, like, you know, no human technology can create this. It's a metamaterial. It's a Terahertz waveguide. But this is something that I believe was sent into Art Bell, who is this conspiracy theorist radio host like 20 years ago with his cover letter for this guy saying my grandfather had these things from his time in the military when he was like a telepathic communicator with the aliens. And I found this in an envelope in the attic and I'm sending them to you to take care of and they've been knocking around the UFO community ever since. He has just a bit of just a little bit of scrap metal, essentially. He's got these weird layers that probably come from some industrial process like it was sputtering or something like that, where you coat coat things and then a bit of the side of the container got coated with something. But yeah, these again, it's just all UFO mythology being repeated in this weird framework of playing telephone where everyone tells everybody something else, it's all top secrets. And you don't know that he was originally just this silly story. And now it's gone through to Dave Grosh and now he's telling it to Congress. We we had like a slight experience of this through the content that we analyze looking at that kind of secular gurus because in particular, both there were a couple of other people mentioned it as well. But the two most prominent were Sam Harris and Eric Weinstein indicated that they've been contacted, I believe independently by someone. And the person had got their telephone number. This was this was part of the thing that they find very convincing. And that person promised that they were going to reveal evidence to them. And this was around the same time as that information was starting to appear in The New York Times and the stories that you just talked about. And Sam Harris talked about it on this podcast. And he seemed quite, you know, he acknowledged that it this is I'm not all in on this. I'm just saying that there's credible people just saying credible people saying we got UFOs and alien bodies.