 Time slowed down and all of a sudden it's like that thing within me That breathes that beats my heart. You know, the real me that isn't Vlad It all made sense right there And welcome back to another episode of a mere proved I'm your host Amir Rosic I got my good buddy of Vladimir drutz who's a lifelong learner entrepreneur and marketer Vladimir's quest is to understand the world push himself to better and optimize his life has taken him on a journey through the Himalayan mountains into years of meditation And my favorite topic psychedelic practice here we go, baby. I'm your brother. Welcome to the show man Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I mean, how are you doing? I'm doing great man doing great Really trying to optimize my day build a ritual. Oh, yeah Surrounding my life and just really focus on like this concept of Artae. Have you ever heard of that? No So it's an ancient Greek concept. How would I guess Greek? Of course, of course, of course, you know you got to love the Greeks, right and For them the concept of Artae was like the best Capacity the best state that a given thing can become So when somebody is living through Artae, they are becoming their best selves They're kind of living in that state continuously. So that's something that I'm kind of trying to like achieve lately I've lost friggin almost 30 pounds in three months. Shut up. Really? Yeah went from benching like Lucky enough to do like free weight 50s to like 90 Three months did what did he do? Work practice consistency intermittent fasting. Okay meditation ritual skincare Let's talk about ritual. Yeah, ritual is really fascinating because it's like I've had this journey recently where Throughout my life. I've really struggled. I have like ADHD. I'm you know, I'm so distractible and and it's gotten harder With technology right because I'm also like such a techno geek So social media really did a number on me all of this stuff really did a number on me And I think throughout my life I've I've kind of let's say inculcated certain habits and built certain habits without really realizing their power and Fantastic they worked but then I got thrown off the bandwagon so to speak and I was always trying to seek out balance How to be the best version of myself and failing and failing and failing and And there is always this component that this like layer on top of that habit this like mindfulness this reverence Where a habit becomes something super powerful and not just automatic that I kind of like bumped into But I never fully understood and I think only recently have I really begun to understood what ritual is and it basically it takes Habit and it makes it it imbues it with reverence and it gives it more power and And that's done by virtue of the steps that you take In a very specific way and the steps themselves might not have any sort of like purpose But the greater picture has a purpose and so like even religious rituals and rights, right? If you look at Japan you look at the tea ceremony They do things in a very specific way with a lot of intent a lot of attention and God forbid they make a misstep Right, so this builds this incredible like esteem for that practice and It's on top of the habit, but it's so much more powerful And so what'd be interested like you mentioned you're a lifelong learner. Yeah, I know you're big in neuroscience and studying cognitive biases and yeah, I love the post you make on Facebook as well and psychedelic research about what What was it kind of the catalyst to bring you down that rabbit hole in terms of the ritual in general? There's like yeah, this deep. Let's say kind of almost kind of like an addiction Mm-hmm, dude It really is an addiction for me and that you know, that's a good question that it's hard to say it's like, you know You know, are you born entrepreneurial? Is it something you can learn? Are you born a searcher a seeker? Is it something you can learn? I do think it's something that you learn But for me, I feel like it's something that I just happened to be born with just this natural inquisitiveness I just wanted to earn more about the world things didn't make sense what people said how the world was There was a huge disconnect right between what people said it should be like and the way that things were in reality So I think like I got into psychology because of that I think I got into the whole cognitive biases because of that I think I got into psychedelics because of that a lot of soul-searching self-searching There are things that didn't make sense to you though. Okay, can you give us examples? I think a lot of it had to do with kind of parental things or just the way that you know People said you should be an act and show up in society and the fact that so few people actually did that That a lot of people act very pious like they have you know like their intent is to help others But in reality it's selfish I think that there's a lot of things that we do where we're kind of half asleep. We're kind of going through the motions We're not being real with ourselves first and foremost and we're kind of like Defaulting into the journey that we've bought into by virtue of not wanting to take a firm stance on something in the morning, so to speak like when you wake up You have a choice and a chance to be somebody and to create something to say I'm going to be the type of person that does this and live by that And I think a lot of us just default into what we've been told by our parents what we've been told by society Etc because a lot of us are afraid to you know make a choice because we'd have to be held accountable for whatever happens So I don't know if that kind of explained it or just made it more abstract Yeah, like I'm interested to know because you know the saying the last straw that broke the camel's back. Yeah I'm always fascinated I'm fascinated when somebody has an aha moment when they had narratives in their mind for so long and Then the narratives change And obviously it's not through it's not because of one thing It's it's a compound effect of exposure to different ideas and different narratives and maybe life experiences and you really go through it yourself it's like you know you and I our Families both come from former communist countries and I have you know You have a rise of leftists over here and they're talking about socialism like you motherfuckers never lived through socialism like We like quote-unquote whatever the fuck real socialism is real socialism. I'm like, you know Both our parents left they ran away from their think about it They ran they left the country. They left their friends. They left their family Because how fucked up it was to come somewhere better, but yeah, you have people over here They've never experienced that saying no fucking socialism. Yeah, give me more stuff more free stuff You know my parents came here. They barely had a hundred dollars to their name Like we had to go into Cycle bands we had to go to the garbage like if we found a TV in the garbage that was that turned on this Was like Christmas for me. It was amazing. Whatever was on the side of the street, right hand me downs like that was life and Frankly, it was a happy life You really appreciated what little you had and coming from a place like Soviet Russia where you know I tell this story and it's like it's gonna be my grandpa story But like I waited for four hours to get a banana in line four hours Bananas happen to come in you never had them People lined up and myself as like a four-year-old or whatever I had to wait for four hours to get a banana Which was probably not ripe anyway So my father for him especially seeing him because he's he's gone through hell and hell water to get here It's it's really tough for him to see what's happening socially, you know what things are kind of like accepting Art Blanche so does why do you think this is happening? I think as human beings there is this like It's almost like a bias. Let's call it but when things get too good, we begin to look for problems There's even a study that came out that kind of touches on this I don't remember who the researcher was but Essentially when our life becomes really really good and when we kind of go up the Maslow's Hierarchy of need so to speak and check off all those boxes. We have everything we need We often begin to look for problems Let's say before we get to that place where it's like real self-fulfillment and like do making an impact leaving a legacy Before we get to that point once all of other other, you know physical needs are met We start to look for social problems problems to fix things to complain about it's very easy to look elsewhere gaping hole inside of us So that again, we don't have to live our our time moment. I have a hard time grasping the mindset of certain individuals because It's one thing to maybe talk about that pre-cerca communist Russia Or Russia US lab all this former China But we have so much historical evidence today of how bad that system is millions and millions dead But yet It's like why the cognitive dissidents like Here is the here's what has happened on their systems like that. Oh No, no, no our system will be better Dude, yeah, I think you hit it on you know, you hit the nail on the head so to speak like number one I think there's a few things there that we can touch base on it's the fact that like you were not very good with evidence Right when we dig our heels in when we're presented with evidence That's contrary to whatever our opinion of the day happens to be even if it's blatantly wrong and Based on no evidence nothing substantial everything circumstantial we dig our heels in right because it's like a fight But I think that's part of it I think a lot of us just aren't taught the full history number one Like I think the educational system needs a bit of a revamp a little bit of a rejig revamp, huh? Yeah being polite here And then and then the other component is just us man. It's like we we like to be asleep You know we like to have our comfort We like to feel like no, we're I'm good. I'm good. I know my stuff. I've got an opinion Yeah, and so we just ignore evidence and and it's tough for everybody like this is why even in science sometimes a generation of Scientists has to die before like a new novel idea or theory will be adopted It's just those cognitive freaking pesky cognitive biases back You know the H Pylori study. Yeah. Yeah, so he was saying for the longest time like Like H Pylori is a thing like this isn't like a symptom of something else and For the longest time researchers and scientists like no, dude, you're crazy and eventually like I'll show he drank it Like I'll show you in real time to each Pylori does fucking exist That was a crazy moment That that was a kind of balls deep Yeah, hero's journey moment. Yeah, and so for me it's fascinating because yes, people have different narratives and social media is exponentially piggybacking off our already biases that we have and making it worse and creating and creating something called the wedge a chasm and You have now Minority groups of all different spectrum screaming the loudest Generally speaking most people just want to live in peace and fucking leave me alone for the most part You know, I always wonder though too is like, you know, what do these people do? Dude, that's what they do. No, I'm serious. How the fuck you like would you work? Yeah? Like when people are protesting all the time, yeah, not like the Hong Kong stuff That's like do or die but like regular protesting like are you a full-time protester? I'm like, oh, are you fucking working? Like what do you do? That's all different conversation, but I'm always interested where it's like Obviously Two different narratives aren't communicating They're just throwing stats And both of them have their own, you know confirmation bias some cost bias and they're throwing Narratives at each other. No one's listening. So they can both agree both of them will agree that no one's listening In reality when you look at it a lot of people whether it's left to right They have a lot in common and various minority of differences those differences cause the chasm the wedge I'm interested though is You know, you've gone through your own experiences. I don't know if you want to talk about it What has worked for you that you've utilized whether it's mental frameworks or tools to kind of better know yourself and to better Integrate information that you get It's a brilliant question, man You know, and it's like it's one that I actually I need to spend a little bit more time thinking about because I think like it's been almost like I've been boiled in fine wine. Let's call it whatever like a toad that hasn't noticed but over time I've just adopted a lot of these things and I think I'm also going through this kind of Point of my life where I'm building them out. I'm kind of categorizing them putting them on paper Just to really understand what it was that that helped me and I know what it was in some ways and in other ways cognitively, maybe I don't but I think like I Think just part of it was knowledge I have acquired along the way things like, you know, the Socratic method or the Stoics or again going back to Greece or like Notions like the unexamined life is not worth living And it's not because like you can't live life without it But like if you don't examine things you're defaulting into somebody else's world view And I think like I always wanted to push forward and to realize things on my own Is there example that you had a I want to say opinion but a narrative on one thing then over time you've changed it Oh all the time and it so here's something like and this is a value I think that we need to have the right values in life And for me a value is that I want to be fair and just and I want to have an open mind And so and sometimes look man, I hunker down to especially like I can get into an argument very easily, right? But I think there's always this component of me where I wake up in the day And I'm like I want the thing that I value the most is truth and honesty and like finding Common ground. Yes. So like I try to extend all of branches to see where people are coming from And look man, sometimes I falter too and I and I try to push my perspective, right? I've done that but it's like every single time I kind of learned something from it and actually went down a deep rabbit hole through Social media when all of this political stuff was happening and I started MS social media I started posting a lot, you know, and just it was a bit of a nightmare And I kind of turned me into a bit of a curmudgeon to be honest And so like I had that and I had to come out of it and be like holy cow Like, you know, there's a lot of people messaging me and saying thank you so much for what you posted You know hurrah like you're speaking the truth. Yeah, but in reality like What difference did it make and the other component is it probably pissed off some people who whatever they probably would have been pissed off for any other reason But I think for me and other values like to be good to people, you know And that's something that I had lost along the way somewhere in this search for truth. Yeah, so it's Like like the razor's edge man. I think like you're always walking that balancing act What's important? Yeah, I think I'll give you examples something in my life for the longest time. I thought well, you must be fucking crazy to join the military Like makes no fucking sense I'm like, you're just giving up your life And that was my thinking for a very long time and it wasn't until like I had friends to go through the military And I started understanding More or less the psychological reasoning And I sat down with my friends not over a fucking social media like one to one like this Over time understanding. What's the reasoning? Why did he go there that I collect the oh my okay? I never understood this perspective. Oh really this and that and slowly build up and this is something that I've changed my mind on I think military does have a Good benefit in going through the training Regiments that you go in psychological benefits of esteem Building bonds tribal the skills that you learn a lot of better just the negatives going to war fighting for a fake war That's the negatives, right? But I I never understood I thought people just stupid and then it wasn't until I sat down Over a long period of time and sitting down one time just talking with people fuck social media and all these stupid blogs And I really understood their perspective on this. Yeah, I think I've had largely kind of the same thing happen in my life I think I've I've you know, I've always been somebody who has a lot of different types of friends So I really value different perspectives and opinions. I watch a lot of documentaries I've put myself out there to try to soak in as much as possible and a lot of the time my kind of mind My footing has been disrupted Part of that I'm sure has been meditation part of it has been psychedelics to really push me to my own boundaries Well past my boundaries, right like some journeys that I've taken for a self-discovery all those types of things There's been lots of things like I've changed, you know I used to be extraordinarily liberal a bit of a leftist actually, especially coming out of University But he remembers he was there yeah, and I think like I how old were you at that time you think you know early 20s I think most people are left this one. Yeah, it's like you told me like oh, yeah Then you didn't like grow up and he started paying taxes and you see everything like oh fuck this Yeah, my dad's whole thing is like, you know, if you're not a lefty and you're young you have no heart Yeah, if you're not like well, you know for him, you're not a conservative. Let's call it and you're older than you have no brain It's cute But I think I think those types of things, you know coming into contact with other ideas other people and really Understanding trying to understand what their perspective is and if that perspective is based in something that is credible and makes sense and Can show you know if you can show some proof Some sort of proof points some short some sort of tangible evidence for why it makes sense to hold that I'm all for it and I think my mind has expanded by virtue of that so like even To be honest, I used to be very wishy-washy on vaccines a lot of scientific things I and it's because I didn't really understand the scientific method as well as I do now I Took a lot of things for granted. I was younger. I was also very into conspiracies Not to say the conspiracies don't exist, right? They do But it's like there's a very fine line between telling me the earth's not flat. Yeah, what lizard people weren't running the world You know lizard people earth not flat the flat one boggles my mind. Oh, brother like It's entertaining no, it's it's amazing Yeah, it's amazing because like now they have these episodes where flat earthers are talking to scientists And it's like again it's just watching the cognitive biases and play and how people like hunker down and just argue and You know that they don't even have the the semantic capacity the language the tool set built up to have a conversation with the scientists They're just wait, you know the scientists are way out of their league But they're so convinced of They're righteous like I always have a friend of mine crazy. You're a seaguy. Uh-huh ever. I've a friend like that crazy and we're talking one time and I don't know. I don't maybe it's talking about some like human eyes. I don't know some kind other creatures run the world I don't fucking it's some other lizard. I don't know some creature I'm like a simpleton. I'm like, dude I'm gonna follow you on this He believes the earth is flat too. Yeah, I'm like, okay, the earth's flat and there's lizard people That doesn't change anything for me. I'm good. I'm good, baby Like does this data somehow help me right like does this make my life better my family might make more money somehow I might help like how do I use this data? It's like, yeah, there's a lizard Yeah, yeah, how does it change? What can I do? How does it change? Yeah, so one of this data and improve my life irrelevant to me Yeah, regardless of if it's true irrelevant Yeah, I totally agree with that Like if you told me I know how to turn copper to gold and like all right, bro. Yeah, you're very practical Yeah, that's alchemy. Let's go do this alchemy. All right. Is that something you're into alchemy? Studio back here That's how we fund all this. Yeah, no doubt Yeah, it's just you know, I think like what we're getting to here is is truly what fascinates me about human beings You know, like I have a bunch of scribbled notes here about cool shit to talk about But for me, it's like it comes back to this thing about human being big being a storytelling animal First and foremost and like Harari's book sapiens great book. So incredible. Yes. I highly recommend it guys read it read it This concept that like, you know, it's not tools that distinguish us from from other creatures and other animals They use tools. Yes Rose use tools monkeys use tools squirrels sometimes use tools like birds, bro absolutely, yeah, and but but it's our ability to weave stories to Communicate stories to build them up to such a degree where somebody's all of a sudden willing to die for somebody else's story. Yep, like What is that software? Yeah, dude software you ever read His name skipping my mind right now Nick Bostrom's simulation theory Oh, the universe says a simulation. Yeah, we're in a simulation. Yeah. Yeah, the more we did the more look at things I'm like, yeah. Yeah, I've had some wild psychedelic experiences that actually like, you know, fully Encapsulated that moment and brought it into like my purview. Yeah, like made it frickin real. Oh, yeah, terrifyingly. So You want to go in detail now? Oh Man, there's like what was it? Yeah There's been a couple of things. I Mean it was when I was younger I was a psycho and I was doing a lot of soul-searching I was heavily into meditation. Really a young age. Yeah, very heavily. Well, let's say like in my early 20s I did it religiously for about six years. I was really trying to push my boundaries. I Was also I had I had a lot of suffering built up through a tough childhood. Yeah, and I was trying to figure out how to how to get it get through to something when I was when I was really young I actually like went through this moment where I Felt so sorry for myself because a shit that happened to me that I would like beat all the pain out of myself. I Have no problem with sharing this right now because it's like it's something that I went through It was like a really terrible coping mechanism because I didn't know any better I would physically beat it out of myself to the degree that like a Year or two later, I became a complete stone Like even later when I would be dating women, I would receive a hug from somebody I was supposed to love I would feel nothing zero absolute zero and I would go through these depressions and everything since since my child and it's like Now I was a bit of a mess back then. I always had that heat-seeking missile. Like there's got to be something better There's got to be some truth that like I don't understand, you know falling getting back up falling getting back up and And I think like the meditation the psychedelics was was part of that journey that was extremely helpful to me Is it it showed me a part of myself? I wasn't willing to accept and see and I know you're into psychedelics. I think you've probably had similar journeys. I've been like before I even knew the word psycho not I've been doing psychedelics since I was think I was like 14 I was a party animal though. I never enticed I got kicked out when I was great nine We're all like oh god the brain cells I fucking destroy that that's where the danger comes in right? It's like the drinking and the partying and like fuck like from the age of like And mind you I was a I was 15 six year old making a shit ton of money For that age Complete freedom dangerous. Oh fuck. Yeah But a lot of good stories like from the age like 15 to like 21 men it was a fucking shit show your brains not even like fully developed yet, right? You get all that freedom. Yeah 21 is when you're frontal lobe. Yeah, it was interesting But yeah psychedelics is for me. It's Lately in the last like year and a half I haven't been doing any boldest hero journey doses Actually is it very loosely I use psychedelics these days more kind micro dosing experimentations with different types of micro dosing. So not just psilocybin, but it would be like Whether psilocybin with different mushrooms like lion's mane or whether it's like psilocybin mixed with LSD or even I've been doing a bunch of Microdosing with a bogey. Yeah, that's amazing, right and and finding really good results with that as well So more or less kind of figure out different types of micro dosing But using it Very strategically so I wouldn't just take it. Oh, I'm just gonna use it to discover myself I would take it when I felt The necessity to take it so it's like I'm stressed out. Why am I stressed out? Yeah, do I have a big workload? Not really? You know, what's stressing me out? You know, what's on my mind? I can't identify distress problem solver almost Yeah, it's like yeah, yeah, like a magnifying glass and pick up the rocks and look underneath the rocks Like I got to figure out like there's this there's this emotion that I label as stress It's the best way that I can describe it as but I have no fucking idea. Where is it coming from? Why it exists? Why now to all places I need some kind of tools to help me figure out? Yeah, I've always used marijuana in that sense. Yeah, sometimes I do smoke Yeah, I smoke it very infrequently, but when I do it's like sometimes yeah to take take take the edge off chill out There's a lot of it is just to give me a new perspective. Yeah, fresh perspective on a problem, you know So I can see psychedelics definitely especially micro dosing which I've never done something. I'd like to try But speaking of like, you know mushrooms in LSD and I had gone through this heavy psychedelic Discovery period, you know where I was a psycho nod and trying a lot of different things and you know funny enough like the moments Looking back on those like epic heroes journeys that I went through a good friend of mine Daniel Todorov who's now in the States as a UX designer, but What I what I went through at that point The things that I learned the most about myself that actually helped me the type of resounding stories that I've carried with me forward, you know Was when I took them without any expectation It's just like I don't know. I just I went into it I took it a situation, you know kind of like presented itself and I did it and Those were not only the most terrifying moments Because that I was faced with everything I had been trying to escape up until that point But by virtue of that also the most incredibly like insightful Have you experimented with like MDMA therapy? Um, I haven't I've been very interested in it actually It's something that I'm very interested in today. Yeah, I believe it or not like Little Sidemen It's I've had crazy I don't like the label it bad experience it is an experience and there's something to learn from and I've learned a lot But in when I look back in hindsight, it's like, you know, it was pretty fucked Like crazy shit. Oh Yeah, and I realized why I went through it So it's not like a mystery like oh, why did I have bad trips like no you idiot? Yeah, these are the reasons why like you you had some sort of We call it in-gram or whatever but you had some sort of like Thinking yeah, you know that you were kind of attached to yeah didn't want to let go of exactly and it was like But for MDMA at least for me specifically and I do it Maybe max twice a year only It's been the most Integrative when it comes to Talkative therapy, you know for me, I've had a lot of PTSD Gone through a lot of shit in my life, you know, and so When I'm on shrooms, I'm not a very talkative person. I'm more experiential like the feeling textile, you know aesthetics like Merced anesthesia connects you to the world. Exactly. That's why I have to be in nature if I do sure I can't be indoors. It's just one of my things. Well, do we agree? But for MDMA, it's It's almost like your thoughts You can you can distinguish what you're feeling internally your emotions and to formulate that into language It's kind of like an onion, right? So you're peeling back one layer and then you have this emotion now emotion is a feeling we have The next step into healing is like you have to take this emotion you have and translate that into words and So for me at least what MDMA therapy it's given me the best tools to peel the onion Identify my emotions. Yeah translate them into language to understand what I felt and to kind of integrate the process from that Yeah, and you know, what would you recommend like? To do once let's say you you know, you've integrated it like let's say you've you've turned it into language You know, what is the best way do you think to build a new habit loop on top of that? I've always seen emotions as you know, not things that are kind of Naturally occurring but things that we kind of build up and that's just by virtue of running on to other people that react Completely differently to very similar situations. Hey with a very different type of emotion I think context matters like a lot of my issues stem with me my relationship with my dad Like the many I think, you know for me at least that's the really you have to have an anchor point Each deep onion layer of emotion has a different anchor point where that trauma Happened from like the reason why you behave a certain way or how you perceive the world or how you are in general Is because of your upbringing Now you have your hardware, which you're born with which you can't really control as of yet Maybe in the future you can and then you have your ancestral traits, which we've shown in studies throughout the genetics the mice the mouse studies really famous study with the lime scent and taser stuff and So you you've had zero control Pretty much till you're adult when you're on your own then you can control but then you have like 18 years of pressure Yeah, and then while you're doing a therapy you're peeling back your onion layers and motions There's anchor points. There has to be a juxtaposition of what Why did he feel this at this point at least for me, it's on the fatherhood side and so for me it's more or less identifying the causation of it and coming to terms so Whether it's you know a male to father issue or mother issue or maybe like bullying as a young kid It just comes back to understanding why you felt that so the integration for me. It's like, okay, I I always say this like I Becoming like a therapy session. I I love my father, but I don't per se respect him big difference I don't respect understand, right? And so for me, it's like You ever meet somebody and we're and you just don't like them Like you never spoke with them for sure. There's just that there's like a weird kinesthetic vibe. Yeah yeah, and The best thing I heard before is like the reason why you don't like that person is they're a representation of you You're just projecting stuff that you don't like about yourself. So totally Yeah, and so for me that was kind of like my aha moment or is like everything that I don't like about him is like I see it For sure did You know kind of as a jumping-off point like there's a book that I read recently and it's been So incredibly life-changing in terms of like, you know, I have a long journey of overcoming a lot of yeah Like you say PTSD a lot of stresses from when I was in my youth And I've gone through a lot of these moments where it's like I've just thought about it And I've talked to some therapists about it and just like it at least in my experience It always seemed like talking about it talking about it trying to figure out was like a tooth trying to buy it to bite a tooth like Um, I think talking about it is not Integrating it. Mm-hmm. Yeah talking about it is like your window shopper, right? Like hey, there it is Yeah, exactly. Hi. How you doing as opposed to like in in you know, you and I are both Joseph Campbell lovers and in mythology specifically in Buddhism Nietzsche talks about these young talk all of them anyone with two marbles and knows this The problem with talking about anything is we're separating from ourselves like this like third entity is like Oh, it's not really part of us. It's not me in reality Like if you look at Buddhism or if you look at mythology look at like the hidden shadows in ourselves is about Accepting it part of you, you know, Nietzsche has a great saying be careful to cast out the devil from you because they're casting out the best part of you Everything is like a double-edged sword. Yeah. Yeah, usually our best qualities are our worst quality Yeah, so instead of instead of negating it Like people like to label it right there's a Vedic saying if you label me negate me and people like to label something Well, you know, I'm angry and like my primary dominance is like anger, right? That's kind of like my substrate Anger and cynical. I'm like I don't trust people, right? Instead of saying, oh, this is a horrible trait of me like I need to eliminate that you're never gonna eliminate it It's gonna become worse, you know, Joseph Campbell's definition of the devil is the definition of the devil is Internal energies that you have ignored and not love and they manifest to become your very own devils Yeah, you become your own devil because you don't accept them. You don't recognize them You don't love them. You don't incorporate them as part of you But they are fucking part of that which you try to abandon that which you try to strike off will often end up owning you Yeah, yeah, it's like impossible. Yeah, it's you you can't run away from yourself. Correct Can't just all of a sudden be like, all right. It's it's gone. Yeah, there's no duality. Well, I read this book by Maxwell Maltz Who was cyber cyber cyber psycho cyber? It is honestly the most incredible book and I've read a lot of incredible books, but like from the perspective of just succinct how to and like an understanding of the framework of the mind as like This this some goal-oriented organism and what happens to the mind when it doesn't have a proper goal And what happens to the mind when the thinking patterns have become destructive, you know, it's it's absolutely Mind-boggling in terms of how much I've gleaned from this from this book about like my past and thinking about you know How I used to think how I used to see things how I used to react to them And so I'm able to now go back in time kind of rewrite a story, so to speak and in frankly like change my emotions and surrounding certain things and I think actually with this MDMA therapy I think you could like a Like a whole nother level. I Think it's at least for me. It's done a lot of good. There's a bunch of other therapies out there. I think There's no panacea Dude, you know what what's crazy is going back to this whole Soviet Union thing and you know coming from the Eastern Bloc At that juncture in that time and space Mental health wasn't a thing like Well, you got a problem suck it up. Mm-hmm, you know Drink That's how people tell what their problems they drank, you know themselves into the an early grave or a stupor And it's it's so unfortunate. It's so unfortunate And so many good people have been crushed by the weight of their own minds their own issue, you know so many of our ancestors like Therapy is important But I firmly believe that like the type of therapy that will do the most good is the type where you're not Just ruminating on the past hurts and bringing them up But you're really thinking about like what is it that you can do today, correct? How can you think differently today to like switch it up because it's like If I sit there and talk about that That I'm weak that I you know if three months ago and I was like 30 pounds heavier If I was just pissing at myself for like being heavy But I didn't go to the gym to actually do anything wouldn't have done a look good for me So you bring up a good point I'm a firm believer that so-called willpower scam Just like in computer software, there's a substrate and you have Whatever computer language you want and in the environment to behave a certain way different environments, okay? I'll give you example right now. I was at a gym really beautiful gym downtown Toronto right in the core around Eden Center Has everything you can possibly think about I never went why because it lived too far, right simple as a logistics So I found a gym close to me close as possible Actually got a co-working like a office. I do one hour a day right a litter Across it what happened? Well, I go there every day because it takes me less than 10 minutes to get to the gym It's like seven minutes from my front door and so Going back to the therapy The problem is it's not just you within this computer code It is you plus the context that you're in so if you are Obviously always starts with you voice first. You got to work on yourself You know, there's a Rimi saying yesterday. I wanted to change a world But today I'm no yesterday. I was clever on to change the world today. I'm wise when I change myself But that can only go so far if you're living in a very bad substrate So like if your wife Well vice versa husband wife or wife wife has a husband whatever if they're the opposite and now evolving with you growing with you Good fucking luck. Yeah, if you're in a negative toxic environment, like good fucking luck Yeah, it's like, you know, your genes, you know, are the gun environment pulls the trigger You have to change your environment and it actually brings you back to like the whole topic of habits and why they're so powerful Well, you know, you've been creating this habit of going to the gym by by Defaulting yourself into it by making it super easy for yourself. No resistance. Yeah, exactly like resistance men Like we do things we use the phone because there's so little resistance with using the phone That's why we're so addicted to it right feels good So, yeah, I'm totally in full agreeance there like I totally get that Yeah, so that's the thing is like I I have friends of mine to do a lot of therapies Then I asked a question like one friend is like 20th time doing something, you know worked by now The 20 times in, you know, there's that counter thing to where it's like a lot of therapists, you know And I've gone to a few therapists where it's like I've been like, okay Well, you know, was this really worth the value because they just kind of sit there and let you talk and then, okay Sure, that's cathartic to some degree. Yeah, but like I'm coming here for tools, man I'm coming here to learn something to like incorporate it into my life Not just coming here to like blab and blab and blab about the past. I've done enough of that, right? like I think for human beings, it's It doesn't come natural to think positive honestly for most I think And that's like an evolutionary adaptation a negative one Unfortunately because like we have to concentrate on the negative in order to escape from the tiger or whoever We have to see those negative things and build negative patterns to ensure that we're ready for it's a safety precaution Exactly. Yeah potentially to happen again So it's like we don't we're not born with a manual for the brain, right? And and very few people understand it and very few people teach it and it's kind of you're on your own Okay, well here go out into the world. You're lucky if you learn enough like so many of us have so much free-flowing anxiety throughout the day about ourselves the negative self-talk the monkey in the brain like You know and we go to therapy and we talk and we talk and we talk and sometimes literally just going down chop down a tree No, go and chop a damn tree down. I'm not even a tree, but Use your body, right? At least yeah, at least for in the West like I think it's seldom the people experience Real I want to say living but experiential Nature experiences brother, you know me like real like I used to go partaging a gunk when park I'm talking about no food. We brought rifles. I did in case of a bear fishing rods and 60 ounces of vodka There's the Eastern block in yeah, that's right, and Straight up protagion like no food. Yeah literally no fucking food Yeah, we had to tell crazy bear encounter stories and Portaging for seven days like it's we had to fish we had to catch great fucking time I remember like thank fucking God. I did not grow up in social media or cell phone I was the last generation before the new generation 34 It's seldom that I hear people do stuff like that seldom that they experience nature they go in and they experience Dude, and it's such an integral part like all the science Frankly like look, why do you need science to tell you you need nature? But okay, let's say we do mm-hmm All the science confirms that it is the healthiest thing for you next to like exercise and diet Yeah need nature. Yeah, and for me that's always been another pivotal part. That's helped me like Become a better person live that concept of our day is stepping out Into that kind of darkness so to speak going on big trips whether through the Himalayas I hiked there for a month and a half. We were shooting a documentary dude I got so sick that I was sick for a year and a half after from I just bacteria or everything really you know everything altitude Bacteria I had some sort of single cellular organisms like it was just nuts and I was on a Type of antibiotic anti-parasitic and I was a mess when I came back I was 40 pounds thinner. Yeah, and I came back and my is a little off topic But it's like I actually had to come back and do more adjusting living here than I had to going over there That was real for me It was like one foot in front of the other You know like whatever 16 20,000 feet elevation, I'm not I'm not I'm not a walker like my feet are there They're flat as a board. Yeah, not a runner. It's not me. Yeah, I like to push it in the gym, you know But but so for me that was really pushing my boundaries And when I was there, you know hyperventilating not enough oxygen can't breathe There's like a path that's a foot, you know in width and if you you know go the wrong way You're you're dropping 16,000 feet It was a huge deal and then the 40 pounds on your back and like your stomach is killing you like I'm not saying everybody has to take that type of journey, but My god did I ever learn a lot about myself and what I'm capable of and what's a deer to me and what's important There was this one moment, you know, like along this journey I always go back to this and it's like sometimes it's those subtle little things that like you really hold dear We had been walking all day. It's like it whatever 16 Kilometer which doesn't seem like much but you try walking that, you know uphill high altitude walks everywhere uneven terrain with a huge backpack and All of a sudden it becomes very difficult and it took us all day And we had to do it because we had to cross these rivers that would you know grow in height and Come absolutely uncrossable otherwise So it was kind of like, you know evening and the stars were out and like There was this roaring fire and we had a guide with us and he was an incredible guy and dirage was his name He just he was it was him was like us around this this campfire and he started singing at the top of his lungs I mean he had a bit to drink which was great But he started chanting like the song of like his people, you know what I mean and like and it was so beautiful And I was there in this moment Taking a leak next to a tree and for me that That moment of just like being in it being raw not having the thoughts of do I need to do this? Do I need to do that? What's this bill gonna be, you know, am I successful enough? Is it this is it that like? Being in that moment knowing that I had just pushed myself beyond my boundaries of comfort and now I get to relax Was more meaningful and powerful than than like anything I'd ever experienced before you mentioned something interesting He said when he came back to the city at a hard time adjusting Oh my god, dude, you know out there when people had Nothing in the Himalayas in Ladakh, which is like the Indian Himalayas There's little villages and they barely have anything, you know They live off of rice and like a little bit of mutton. It's like they're type of lamb or sheep That's what really walked me up, but um They have nothing and they're willing to give you the skin off their backs You know when you walk through the village they they welcome you in they give you their wine It's like and they don't have that much There's just so much authenticity there and when I came back here. It was culture shock for me No, not the other way around you're familiar with Dunbar's number 50 give or take I've been talking about this for a while and I my thesis is In our generation, we will see an exodus of people leaving cities. I think the Think cities for the most part the reason why people are in cities is because of opportunity But I think with the advent of better transportation and more remote work and also People being more honest with themselves. So like this really what I want That ease are not conducive to mental health. You know, it's interesting about that It's like you're saying opportunity, but I think we often don't consider the opportunity cost. Yes, right? We often see opportunity and we're like, oh opportunity I have to take it but there's a cost to every single opportunity that doesn't often come into the calculation When we start doing that, maybe we'll have other opinions, but that's very interesting You know what actually I think that too and I can't wait for that Yeah, my wife a wife and I are looking already to go outside the city Bro, I've been the type of guy who wants to build a freaking commune like literally good people You know who who are there who have something to Who are grateful who have something to provide like give back like, you know what in for me It was this fantasy about having like a complex amongst friends somewhere just outside of the city where you can do farming like Create beautiful routines like things that are wholesome. I feel like community Yeah With electricity and a wicked high-speed internet But you know, it's like that type of community dude is It's missing desperately missing the Greeks had that they had tiny little city-states, right? Yeah, yeah, so it worked for them and they had they embodied this concept of art a but here living amongst millions of other people We lack community. We don't say hello to the people in the elevator in the condos Like if you do you kind of look like you're a nut a nut bar I'll tell you funny story. So I lived in Kelowna for a couple of years. All my wife finished undergrad beautiful sitting on the interior And I had a hard time adjusting beginning because people kept on waving saying hello to me. I'm like And I was like standoffish. I'm like, you know, who the fuck are you, right? You know, I mean it took a while for me to adopt. I'm like Miling. Yeah. Yeah. I was and I felt weird. I'm like, oh, yeah. I'm like, how the fuck do I respond to this? How the fuck do I respond to this? That's brilliant right there. Yeah But it's messed up man because it's like it is how we feel and it's like we we almost don't know how to respond When somebody is genuine. Yeah, you know, we we all wear the these shields and like Canada Oh, people are so polite in Canada. People are so polite. You hear this all over the world But the reality is like, yeah, people are polite here But they can also be quite inauthentic like in Russia. Somebody will just fucking tell you off or they'll be like I don't know you. Yeah, right To me sometimes that's more polite because at least they're being honest Whereas here somebody can be polite and then the next moment, you know talk shit behind your back So that's always been a cultural adjustment but You know, what is it? I think I think part of it is the fact that yeah, we we live in these crazy cities that are so busy We're we're almost like You know, we're on that little that little rat wheel a little mass. We're on a treadmill Every single day So the question is like can you live a life in the city where you can incorporate things into your life community? Self-development discovery, right? Like ritual whatever those things are Can you live a life that gets you closer to that place? You know in enlightenment whatever that is it's like It's not a fucking destination. Yeah enlightenment isn't a destination It's it's something that you live every day like you were you're quoting buddhism And I love thinking about it like living life on the razor's edge. It's a balance But unless you're balancing Your muscles aren't developing you're not developing, right? It's like you go out in space You you atrophy you don't put work into yourself into your relationships into your business. It's not just gonna stay solid It's gonna atrophy and disintegrate What where do you think we're gonna head though? Like I have worries where it's going to get worse and worse with tech And I don't Now I'll I'll look at it from a oblique perspective. I don't see how people will be able to adapt tech And the cognitive dissonance and the wedges and the fact that we don't we weren't trained or nor do we have the necessary tools Like that's kind of I I view it as I'm like We're already going down a really dangerous path And it's just going to get worse and worse I see this in two ways and and you're totally right like there's you know, that's one very plausible scenario like the terminator scenario Yeah, or any dystopia tech dystopia, right? it's just like my Worry is we already know the the algorithms control your thought patterns. They can for sure And you know, for example, if you spend some time in China you have we chat We chat is it's own university. Yeah, all your bills are there everything everything's there But there's things you can't say on there Against the government against other parties. Um, the news that's shown there is only news that they want you to see Uh, well, people don't realize is this controls how you think Absolutely Every single day you see this this is your narrative Look, this is tough because I think like, you know, I'm somebody who really believes in people and their capacity for change And and and higher being and higher living and at the same time I'm somebody who understands the science of cognitive biases and the fact that like Look, you had to make it really easy for yourself to go to the gym Not like you didn't know that the gym was good for you Like you're freaking kettlebell dude, like you've been ripped you've been shredded You know what the gym does But yet you couldn't bring yourself to go there if it was an extra 10 minute 20 minute whatever it is drive, right? And I think so like what you're saying Has a resounding deep impact because it is well people have to be responsible for their consumption Yes, they do but people are tired. They're working all day and then they default into behavior that feels good Yeah, so I think the greater burden of responsibility is actually on the creators themselves But I actually have a very positive viewpoint because looking at kind of the Diedgeist right now. I feel like a lot of the people that started the social media programs They're working there are having this realization and they've built this beast this machine That's like powerful and hungry and like advertising dollars And they're like oh fuck Like we've created a monster. We can't just scrap it Yeah, what do we need to do to put it into a stream where it's like feeding the good wolf instead of the bad wolf and You know, I think that we'll be able to figure it out. I just I feel better being up up up You know an optimist. Yeah, my worry is who defines who's a wolf who's not That's my worry. I think that is a big communist bloc worry. It's like, you know For sure. It's a big worry. Yeah, who defines that, you know, is it, you know, are you Are you evil if you're a liberal? Are you evil if you're a conservative? Are you evil if you're a centrist and you know, you can't decide so I think we just can spend less time I had a app idea. Maybe someone created this already It's a work some very simple cognitive biases Yeah, the app you're familiar with like social media apps a block on the computer. Oh, yeah Yeah, there's a bunch of them, right? Well, there's actually well, I'll talk about this after but there's one that like I use that it's absolutely incredible Now the one I want to use or create is One that actually hurts you So how it works is you install it you preload money And if you want to use it, you can pay to use it But that money goes to some kind of horrible charity or organization that you don't like Yeah, I love that Sure, go use your fucking facebook right now, but you just pay ten dollars now fucked up charity that you don't like It hates if you hate Justin Trudeau goes straight into the Yeah, if you hate, you know, the conservatives go straight into that's right. That's right. That's great. Yeah I had an idea before like the backwards gym payment Where it's like We want to increase People going to the gym instead of you paying the gym every time you don't show up You pay the gym. Okay. That's brilliant. Yeah, that's brilliant Yeah, so so like that's kind of like hacking the human Organism, you know hacking the the software the hardware or whatever you want to call it I don't think we do enough of that Those are incredible ideas Because you think about it like you people buy a good life membership for like whatever 50 bucks How many times you use it twice a month if that? But imagine if it's free, but every time you miss it you own 10 bucks Yeah, so there's like there's a couple of things with that where you know It can be difficult because like for the gyms It sometimes makes sense where people don't go because like if the gym gets too busy and crowded Then all of a sudden they run into a different type of problem. So it's like finding that kind of I guess we can call it a panacea, but finding, you know That ceiling above which it just kind of like dips and becomes a bit chaotic Would be tough, but I think the idea is great for sure. We need to play with those things Yeah, we got to understand better because like if the direction that we're going with politics right now is all populism Then like at the end of the day, it's like almost we've got to a point where um, what's it called? Not principles, but uh policies We got to a point where like it's not even about policies Mirrors policy last policy. No, I just like I've I spoke to one person before I'm like, why are you voting for Hillary? I didn't even say if I like Hillary now at all. Yeah, I don't even bring that up Like oh because she's a woman like Right, that's the only reason because she's your gender. Yeah, I'm like and and and so I quit no Paul like Yeah, everybody picks the lesser of whatever evils they feel and it's like who's actually going to go through the paperwork and Understand the policies. We got to make that easier. It's it's a dude, of course It's such a popularity contest. I know and and maybe when you were back in Greece and again Like you probably knew these people personally you knew them. You knew what they were up to Like if you were voting you were part of the the system Whereas here it's a bit different. It's like is it real democracy? No No, it's not it isn't and that's the problem It's like there's a lot of this like, uh, wizard of Oz stuff happening, right? It's like there's one image that we're seeing but then behind the veil behind the curtain there's something totally different happening and Well, actually, I think like your space at crypto Could could probably help get us into the right direction. Yeah crypto like I'm a firm believer You can never really control the governments Uh, governments will go cyclical. It'll be good. Good. Good. Bad bad bad so forth and so forth I believe in creating tools You counteract stuff a crypto or blockchain is one tool I also believe there are ways to create better game theoretical governments that it's a win-win This is what like city states like switzerland's a decent example of it And people mistaken me when I say city states hasn't really become our own country. It's not We just have superseding power to control our own laws taxation, etc So there's no provincial or federal government to come in and be like, this is how Toronto needs to behave We still pay an x percentage of tax. We're part of Canada still We want the military to support the military to support the infrastructure But we're our own political entity. Yeah our own taxation policy Our own city council anything so in terms of like imports exports. How would that work anything to work federally? Do you think no? First we have a port here Prevent it works on a municipal level So you create game theoretical models where Toronto is a city state Montreal is a city Let's say all the big major cities in Canada now. We have to be very careful because Simple example, let's say I'll give you a real example. Let's say Kelowna decides to say no income tax Be the first fucking person on the plane going to Kelowna to live No income tax. Okay. I'm in right so then Toronto's like, oh, shit. We're losing people What do we do? What do we do? Right and so they counterbalance each other then every city has a veto right To overthrow central government the central government's job is only one fold To protect private property rights of citizens without private property rights. You cannot have a society period Number two is national security. I want to hear people talking about no borders. I'm like you must be delusionally deranged It's it's crazy to think that there aren't people out there who want to come in and just take your shit Because there are plenty chimp tribe one chimp tribe exactly Yeah Like come on. Give me a fucking break man. Like a five-year-old will tell you this Uh borders exist now question of where the borders as a different story These are man-made thing but borders need to exist. They're an approximation They're an abstraction that we need in order to like live a decent life. So we need a central government for private property rights military It can be like others. So maybe like a big r&d research stuff But more or less the city states are responsible for their citizens Very interesting. It's very interesting. Um, it's interesting how voting would play out in that kind of sphere It's interesting because like maybe there would be more, um, community More capacity to know who you're voting for well a bird is talking about this right now. They're fed up Yeah, I'm completely fed up. It's gonna take experimentation. I think that we are You know, it's kind of like that thing where Again, we hunker down. We we don't like change, right? We like to stick to the demo Singapore is a city state technically somehow Hong Kong's a city state Uh, Canada, believe it or not has city states already people just don't realize they Native reserves their city states. Yeah, legally their city states They have their own constitution own police own laws on taxation, right? There's a model that already exists here in Canada I've always wondered like I'm like man, if It'd be cool if we can like talk to the aboriginal tribes and be like, how do we create this into like A knowledge economy. Yeah, fuck the casinos. Yeah, by god. They have a lot of their own problems, right? Rife with problems, but that that would be a very interesting kind of way to pivot. Yeah, how do you create a knowledge economy? Yeah, love that idea Yeah, but like I don't know like for me I kind of lean towards Sam Harris is thinking on this um And I'll break it down like this so My dad was born 1939. I think it's 81 and he grew up in former Yugoslavia And uh, most people that time there was no pretty much no electricity. No tv horse and carriage, you know austral-hungarian empire um Look at where we are today 2020 Super computers fiber optics I and it's a mind fuck for me to think in like 80 years where we progressed Like a mind fuck from like nothing to this Now could we do better? Yes, but still this the pace that we went is astronomical I can't comprehend where we're going to be in 10 years might as well 100 years Right Moore's law is getting broken with silicon uh want some computing want to computing Crypto all this so crisper human engineering and dude yet. We are the same right like we're the same organism That's what terrifies me. Yeah, is that we like you go back you read marcus surrealist You go even further back you you read like the ancient stories the myths and it's like we're always having the same problem Repeating repeating repeating and we don't go back often enough a lot of a lot of us don't read the historic text Don't learn from the past Rene Girard has the memetic theory Which to simplify it's like monkey see monkey do you got this hive mind and eventually when she hits the fan The hive mind needs an escape goat to kill because it's passing the puck the blame is not on me The blame's on that that all the time. Yeah, and it's been repeated in history 24 7 non-stop And so this is why I'm not a firm believer in like Active crazy activism or people screaming. I'm like you're just a political like there's not one funny russian guy His name he calls him useful idiots. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, that's a that's an old communist term Yeah, and I I view most people who are screaming on top of their lungs useful idiots I'm like you're not creating anything new. You're not adding value. You're not creating better technology You're not creating better systems. You're creating what you're pretty much screaming Yeah, or or in some ways like they're actually making it easier for the the thing that they're screaming against to like happen Or to own them. Yeah And so for me, it's like going back to Sam Harris is like There's many different scenarios that we can kill each other in a hundred years Many And so if we can survive, I think the next hundred years without Shredding ourselves up. I think we're good. Yeah. Well, I think you're right I think the technology is at a point like I mean, we've had the atom bomb for for a good while Decades, yeah, and we haven't and Thank god, and I think there's been a few close calls where somebody's like literally had their You know their finger on a trigger and hadn't done it because they chose to you know, kind of like Uh, not listen to the chain of command as a russian guy Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, that story's crazy man. The man who saved the world Like like like everything hung on that tiny little spider's thread of fine balance and it's like that's it and we're still here to talk about But okay, this brings me back to something that like just always blows my mind and it's like probability right the whole Collapsing wave of probability like I always say this right so You have a one out of like 200 million chance or so of being Born in terms of like the sperm that was you ovulated the egg that was to become you. Mm-hmm That's Almost no chance at all and you won that lottery For the universe to exist As it does for particles to exist for the big bang to have happened any of it as far as the best calculations seem to Understand it's like a chance of one in the 10 to the power of 299 that's 299 zeros Yeah, that is against every single perceivable odd and yet we are here talking Expressing right and it's like we get so caught up in The details and and and just like who's right who's wrong and and we forget how Against all probability life continues Yeah, there's a interesting biocentrism theory. Yes The consciousness one dude free dates the universe the consciousness creates a universe. Absolutely. Yeah, so there's this guy David Bohm He has a he's a actually a theoretical physicist Um, well, I don't believe he's any longer alive, but um, have you heard of jerry krishna murthy? Yeah, of course Yeah, so they were really good friends and david bone was a theoretical physicist at the time He was doing a lot of work on quantum mechanics and his theory was that like Beyond everything beyond the perceivable at the very smallest finest Scales of measurement there exists something called the implicate order and it's where all intelligence comes from It's like where everything gets woven out of almost like if you think about strings. Well, it's like that's consciousness It's like, you know And it made me think of and the reason actually that he really like krishna murthy is because like the old brahmins used to say in hindu mythology that like Brahma, which is the godhead, you know their origin myth was bored There was nothingness and it decided to play a game with itself And so what what brahma did is he or it it split itself into so many different pieces, right? so that it could play this game of hide and seek to to Find itself find those pieces try to understand what it was and it hit itself so well that like for the rest of Eternity for the rest of the universe it was Searched this Yeah, so I have a good uh Example for modern day when it comes to the brahman story I always say god is a joker Um, this is why a lot of mythology is a joker figure is the most revered. Yes but We can substitute the word brahman for ai Let's say omnipresent omnipotent super entity Call it consciousness. Whatever you want to call it label it anything you and I are this thing and At some point you abort And we have one daunting question and the question that we can't answer is that where do I come from? I have no idea. There's omnipresent omnipotent ai. So what do we do? Create a simulation to figure out if any of these simulations become me. All right. Wow. Yeah, boom That actually is very interesting because it just brings me back to fractals, right? Yeah, fractal geometry, fractal mathematics. I love that stuff so fascinating because I mean, it's fascinating from the perspective of like, okay at the very like basic scale It's like you look at your lungs you look at a tree. Yeah, and they're a fractal system of like like smaller like light variation, but it's all like like like like and um You breathe out they breathe in and there's this incredible like symbiosis And I've had so many incredible experiences on psychedelics that showed me the fractal mind the fractal consciousness fractal reality So to me It's like everything that we think is an approximation. It's just an abstraction Because the deeper you go the deeper you measure You'll never get to the end There is no end. There is no end. That's exactly it. It's like looking at a mandelbrot set It keeps going and going and going and it always looks different. Yeah, but yet it's always the same A buddha mandelbrot? Oh Oh, fuck bro. I'll do this in real time. Please It's crazy Yeah, like for for people Who maybe aren't familiar with fractals. I highly recommend watching a documentary on fractals Or even going on youtube and looking at like a a mandelbrot set because there's incredible animations out there The well one of the one of the big benefits of fractals too Also when it comes to geographies where we were better able to identify coastal lines Yes, yes Pull this up You know, it's it's interesting just as a as a side note that you were like, okay God is like this joker because my favorite quote is, you know, god is a comedian playing to a soul that we're afraid to laugh Exactly, uh, oh look there we go. Here it is Wow, yeah damn Crazy crazy man Yeah, fractals is insane. So it's like fractals are like, what is it? It's like this mathematical truth this geometric truth And it has it literally is imbued in nature the way trees grow the way mycelium spreads the way our neurons spread in fire Like it's all fractal geometry. Mm-hmm And and if anything that I've learned from fractals is that like it never ends. No Alan Watts has a good saying I know a lot of people are afraid of death What the west has a bad relationship with death. Absolutely. Uh, it were at least western europeans the aborigines he had a good relationship with death and um His saying is like, where were you before you were born? Yeah It's funny because I've got Alan Watts on here too and for me My favorite Alan Watts thing is like you are the happening. You're not just what happens to you Where were you before you were born? You're not just the shit that happens to you life. Mm-hmm Who are life? And that's a bit deep for some people. It's like, huh? How no, I'm flat I'm not Like, you know this the stuff that happens to me. I'm not the bus that hit me I think the power psychedelics sometimes they can show you that you are actually all of those This is getting pretty pretty deep pretty far out there Yeah, I think there is we could summarize though the message Because I know a lot of people might be listening like Mind you we're not on any psychedelics right now. We're good. We're sober. Yeah, um It was back to like integration and practicality And so, you know, you and I can sit here all day and talk about different theories and fractals and geometry quantum physics and mechanics about going back to my example my friend flat earth and lizard people is like Okay, it's great data I there's not too much I can do with it You know, it's like let's say hypers like even like religious people. I talk about religious people. I'm like Um Sure, your god exists that doesn't change how I live. Yeah It might change how they live my yeah for me it doesn't change whatsoever and It's I I think goes back to the nature thing we talked about. I really truly believe that people don't experience living And I'm going to revert it back into the hunter and gatherers Now I'm also in the camp. I don't believe just 10 000 years ago I think there's way more history. I think we've been bombarded by meteorites and asteroids had earth level extinction events I know at one point in time we were down to only like 15 000 humans on the planet And we repopulated like we're super survivors and I'm not just talking about homo sapiens I'm talking about, you know, homo erectus all the way back to our lineage, right? um If you look at our lineage of millions of years Even predating homo sapiens, there's a common analogy in our lineage We experience living. I don't like the word now, but we experience living in our surrounding environments We didn't do things for the sake of doing things. We didn't wake up go to nine or five jobs We weren't worrying about mortgages. We weren't worrying about college tuition fees. We had to feed ourselves Yeah, yeah the mazlows mazl hiker needs are what mattered the most is the safety of our little tribe that we had here and getting food And reproduction right food sex safety. We're good to go right the simple things that matter And so through millions of years of evolution We've been imprinted this genetic makeup, you know, remember we even though we have we've we've encoded the dna We've soon come to realization as epigenetics one gene does many things and we still don't know everything because now you have All this section of like junk dna and mitochondrial dna. It's like we're just scratching the surface And so for me, it's if I look at if I'm in from an observer I'm looking this from a subjective manner as observer looking how our ancestors or even like modern apes they how they behave is like We don't we're not I think really for there's I think this is why people have a deep connection when they're walking in a forest Or they're fishing Or they just like look at the beach like we've been we've been doing this for millions of years And if we've you know in the last say 50 years, we've stopped this We we live in a completely different world than our then The overwhelming majority of our ancestors have lived no shit. You're gonna have a psychedelic You're gonna have a schizophrenic breakdown when you're in a fucking cubicle for nine hours a day for fucking 10 years Absolutely sitting sitting there. We're not meant to sit. No not at all And so like I think I think coming back to fractals for me and kind of what you're saying is that like for me Understanding fractals helps me appreciate and helps me help helps helps me have a reverence for nature A deeper reverence because I see the connectedness. I see the connection I don't just feel it. I also see it and it's it's kind of like science. It's like You know just breaking things down and and you know does science Um take the magic out of life. No, I don't think so. Yeah, I think that it doesn't have to I think it can if you allow it to but I don't think it has to I think it can Re imbue the magic into life by helping you see how incredible things are how incredibly detailed things are How against all odds they've come to be And that's where the fractals come in. It's like holy cow. Everything is actually connected. Mm-hmm everything I always for me. It's always a mind fuck when I think I'm like how I was fucking born Like I was this I come from a sperm and egg dude. I So like I'm a father now, you know, I have a 16 month old and I've never been a person who you know, I've I've always wanted to go through the process of like of raising a child and like kind of um having a second chance at life almost of like Teaching him the things I know and sharing like I love sharing right So I've always wanted that but at the same time as I was like kid hell No, like that's a lot of responsibility and all the other kind of jazz that goes along with it But I'll tell you man that like The moment he was held up and he came out of his womb Was was a psychedelic moment for me. I yelled what the fuck Because time slowed down and all of a sudden it's like that thing within me That breathes that beats my heart, you know, the real me that isn't Vlad It all made sense right there And that's my experience. I'm not I'm not saying that everybody's gonna have that experience but that was my experience and it's like Everything made sense. It gave me it gave me so much more innate purpose not to say that like I'm just living for him But it's like it came full circle It was that like Herman Hess at art the moment like it came full circle in my life I gave back and now it's not just me selfish anymore And now it's like all the mistakes I've made and everything else like I'm gonna make some of those too and that's okay, but Yeah, I don't even have the words to to describe it, but um Yeah, it was like a psychedelic moment very powerful And I think it speaks to that like fractal nature to like reproduce. Mm-hmm. Yes me Yeah after G Wow, crazy. Hey, you don't like Genghis Khan has like One in like 100 people had his genes. Oh totally. Yeah, they did they did a lot of raping and pillaging back then. Genghis Khan was crazy Yeah, they spread like wildfire I didn't even imagine how it would be to like live back then. Oh my god. Just an absolute nightmare Yeah, I and this is another thing where like a lot of people don't realize Because we have it so good, right and we've been like coddled and stuff like that and some of us anyway and um We don't realize how tough life was for 99.999% of the existence you go today you go places whether it's like asian minor or africa or latin america. They fucking Things are tough The whole world was like that. I know and it's like you were lucky enough to to get food. Yes There's a freedom though in that That lie feeling the survival mechanism It's it you know, you hear a lot of times about people who have gone to war Yes, like apart from the ptsd and some of the really negative elements that they come back from There's this element that I hear a lot um, where it's like They were there surviving one foot in front of the other and it's kind of what I felt in the himalayas I didn't have anybody shooting at me. Maybe it would have taken it to a whole another level But that's all that you cared about that's it was the one goal You weren't thinking about anything else. You didn't have any other anxieties or worries. It was just did you read Sebastian Younger's book tribe? No, he this is all he talks about really interesting. He has gives one example in bosnia during the bosnian war after finished Uh, there was there was like signs that it was better during the war like from the connection perspective Yeah, the camaraderie and they say actually people who have gone through war together build the strongest bonds and relationships Yeah through adversity that type of adversity. Yeah, I think we're we're engineered for it Yeah, I think we're engineered. We're obviously not engineered not for war. That's that's what I don't mean to say I mean like we're engineered for We're pushing and for overcoming hardship Yeah, I think I think humans in general I think there are a small group of humans who are sociopaths who are engineered to kill and they have no remorse And that's how they program just the fact just deal with it And you know, there's theories now that we pillage and rape the neanderthals and we kill them out of existence And so that's why I think like a small percentage of humans have neanderthal dna um But that's on a small scale, right? It's different when you have a tail end of the curve Yeah, you have nukes and you have tanks and rpgs and f16s like a whole different ball game Obviously, I don't recommend war nor do I want anyone to go to war. I think war is absolutely fucked and obviously it's never the citizens as governments and obviously the citizens are the collateral damage of nation states that want to control and get resources and be It's all uh I think it dates incentive model So is the little guy always and so but there are ways where you can incorporate like I mentioned earlier where like How do you challenge yourself? You know, whether it's a group of friends going together and and hiking a crazy hike or Or hunting or or whatever canoeing a white router white water rafting something some yeah some activity to do it on netflix Yeah, yeah, it's it's something else. It's not just sitting on your phone It's not just going out drinking partying whatever that is or just like working on your business 24 7 because like Honestly, frankly like this whole entrepreneurialism thing today and it's like how sexy it's become. That's another thing that can be very dangerous um I think it's something that gets you away from yourself, right? Right. I I'm on the weird camp. I don't believe I I think many people even though they want to be they're not Um, I think Depending on where you're on the spectrum. You couldn't learn some traits But there's very few people who can who are starters who understand I don't even understand who have the risk tolerance I have a lot of really smart friends Actually, they make way more money in the company if they ever run at their own company They don't have any risk tolerance and they talk about doing it. I'm like, you're just programmed not too many Yeah, I see I've always believed that you can You can deprogram and and it's tough, right? It's tough. You have to go again. I don't know if we're gonna deprogram I think you got to find people who are Who can substitute? Your uh software like for me. I'm a starter. Yeah, I'm a fucking hurricane same. That's fine Yeah, go in destroy shit. I don't give a fuck burn it all down after I don't care I have zero connection to it. Right. That's how I am. I don't care not on to the next thing, right? Yeah Like gang is con next startup But when it comes to like, uh The bureaucracy of it the operation the operation of detail across the t's at the I'm like Yeah, yeah, I'm yeah, that's my weakness too. And I definitely have to sub substitute there Yeah, so but let's say you are this analytical person like you may not be the starter but you can be at least partner people around you but like selling the dream like everyone's an entrepreneur. I'm like Absolutely, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. And there's intrapreneurship too, right? Which is like it harnesses the spirit of entrepreneurship, but it does it You know in an organization where like there's an alignment Like when people tell me I've I've had this discussion with people before I'm in Why are you doing a startup to make money? I'm like, bro I'm gonna tell you a hundred fucking things that you can make money a million times more Startup's the worst thing to make money worse. Like if you're starting a startup to make money run Well, it's like big risk big reward but big risk and highly unlikely that it'll succeed You can commission sales brokering deals putting deals together like so many easier ways to make money men Lots of fast things out there. Yeah, which kind of it's a good segue to this man Yeah, tell me about this forward Well, this is something that I'm extremely extremely passionate about because I think like this combines not only kind of the entrepreneurial spirit But also it combines all of the knowledge that I have Suck out, you know Seeked out throughout my life and It has to do with ritual it has to do with the science of ritual and it's a skincare line you know, and I'm a guy Skincare hasn't always been my forte Self-care hasn't always been my forte But through my life's journey I have realized the importance and the power of it and I went through a period especially, you know During becoming a father and not sleeping and not taking very good care of myself where My body started going through a lot of changes, right? Like I actually got rosacea like my skin started to get super dry and I just I felt bad like I had all these x aches and pains like my feet were killing me. My back was killing me I was waking up. I was honestly feeling like Man, I'm 37 and I honestly felt like I was I don't know 67 this is it. I'm dying dude. That's how it felt. That's how it felt I'm not even kidding And so I I started, you know Using skincare products and I've always used creams and stuff like that But what I noticed was there was this incredible connection to myself When I was doing it mindfully in in the bathroom facing myself And through all of these other habits and rituals that I had built up to kind of Put myself into that state of art a that state where like I feel good about myself And I'm I know that I am building my best future right Um That's kind of the thinking that has imbued this skincare line So essentially this is a skincare line that is usd organic. So it's 95 organic or more Um, it's based on nature based forest based science-backed ingredients and To me there was a chance not just to create an incredible skincare line to make it simple not just for women but for men, right? But to take what people are doing already in the washroom Often very mindlessly and to piggyback off of that and incorporate things that we know Are going to actually help improve their lives help improve their connection to themselves Their connection to nature their connection to others So to build rituals that are mindful. That's pretty cool. Like as inside you have Cool fucking cards here. Yeah, so this was um, you know, kind of part of the ritual that we're developing and These are kind of cards where you reflect throughout the morning or the evening Um on these three kind of pillars the other the self and nature And it's a moment to put yourself into the right space And there's you know, there's the the the physical component part of that ritual as well But these are all things that kind of like hone your mind Because your mind is like the honing beacon of your future To put you into the right mental space to crush your day have an incredible day and build an incredible life And so I see it as like the skincare is the one component, right? Your skin is your biggest organ and you want to make sure that you're treating it with respect And you're putting on things that are wholesome Right organic things that work things that make you feel better make you look better But the other component is the mind right the emotions the body not something that we often disregard And so the thinking was like how do we create a ritual that can actually be let's say Scientifically backed effective right to help you get on a journey every single morning and every single evening Whether to wind up or to wind down To make sure that you are living that moment of rite that you are actually stepping into that place That's getting you aligned with your best self But that's why i'm super passionate about it Cool one's a launching it is launching. So this is a soft launch. Yeah, it's launching late november Hopefully we have one product that we're launching with so far which is a serum. Yeah, and it's actually mushroom based there's three hero ingredient mushrooms And Yeah, there's 18 incredible hero kind of all-encompassing ingredients that do everything from like calm soothe Reduce wrinkles remove redness increase the collagen in your skin increase the elastin And it's farmed by hand in northern ontario. Nice. So it's a very exciting stuff. And so every Everyone gets a card when they order or so Part of our package will have cards. They're going to be sold as separate packs But you will get kind of like a starter deck. Absolutely. Very cool, man. I'm excited for you. This is cool. I like it forward skincare Yeah, and it's so the concept of forward is kind of also like A great book a great story usually starts with a great forward And your life should start with a forward as well. And that's where a forward skincare game Cool. Oh, Vlad. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. Thank you. If people want to get a hold of you. What's the best resource? Um, probably right now facebook instagram Or forward skincare dot com. All right, sir. It is there you guys go guys Enjoy this episode leave a review on itunes and head over to youtube leave a comment And i'll see you guys for the next episode. Peace. All right