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Welcome into Carp's Funnel Cake Brain, where I, your host, Carp, alongside my Funnel Cake Brain, are coming to you.
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This is episode four of the podcast.
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Just getting started.
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And I'm calling this one I Doubt It.
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We're gonna get into doubt today, as that has come up in the past week.
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Doubt is a thing that has come up, God, not just daily, but almost hourly in recovery.
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Especially like, is this working?
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Is this gonna work?
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Uh, all the different aspects of trust, faith, doubt, those sorts of things.
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And but uh I I really got into investigating the nature of my doubt and why I doubt what I doubt.
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Which is sort of an interesting query into the coming from different perspectives, because I think the worldview and perspectives can color the way in which we doubt things.
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And in looking at it from my own perspective, I know where I'm rooted, I know where my doubt springs forth from because of the worldview I inhabit.
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And I want to get out of that because I've now the horrible part in all of this recovery aspect of the recognition, rehab, recovery process out of addiction, but also just self-actualization, is that once the problem's identified and I start working towards it at like a goal or to you know some sort of fix, it just feels worse than ignoring it the whole time.
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I mean, ultimately the ignoring it led to a much worse life.
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But now that I'm staring at it and I realize the beast that I'm confronted with, uh some days I really just want to cave.
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I just want to cave, I want to give in to the beast.
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And um one of the leading indicators that I am starting to cave or losing my nerve or going into old ways is that I start to doubt my better nature.
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And I really wanted to go, what is the cause of me doubting my better nature when I'm confronted with what I know is good and what objectively people can see as good, and what has worked for me in the past to sit or be confronted with it and then go, eh, you know, today that's not gonna work for me.
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I need to feel horrible.
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I need to take in all the evils of the world.
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I need to go pay attention to things that are terrible so that it can confirm this horrible worldview of mine that I can hate on all of humanity and and my own existence.
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I don't want to I don't want to pull myself out of this miserable state of affairs.
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I want to wallow.
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I want to sit in it, bathe, and marinate, and just this horrible feeling.
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And so it's it's strange to me how as I get better, the swings back to negativity and doubt I don't think are worse than what they used to be, but they're so much more recognizable that I feel them more because I'm paying attention, which in turn makes it feel like I'm getting nowhere when I probably am.
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Because even as my wife has told me, how quickly I've I've come to recognize when I fly off the handle or get really in like a depressive state or defeatist.
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But my ability to not just recognize it, call it out, tell her the way I'm feeling, and then work on correcting it.
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To her, it's like this miracle.
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She's like, You've you're like a person that recognizes stuff.
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I can imagine from her perspective.
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To me, I seem nuts because I'm just like, I'm upset right now, and I'm gonna stamp my feet, and I hate myself and I feel really stupid for externalizing all that stuff.
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It was a lot easier when I could just do that internally and nobody knew.
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Uh, but I could see how doing that over and over again, one, I started to believe it, and two, it allowed me to be miserable, uh unnoticed, but also in an unaccountable way.
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Like I got to be really negative and awful towards myself, and the only person I was accountable to was the person who I was trying to beat up.
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So it didn't work because one of the things that I love that my wife says to me when I start to get negative, especially outwardly, is she goes, please don't talk to my husband that way.
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And it just reminds me that she hears this voice that I hear in my head come out and realizes that, like, this is not the way to speak to yourself, but to externalize it on her behalf to say, if anybody else was talking to you this way, I'd I'd lose my mind.
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But this I can't believe this is you talking to yourself this way.
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I'm going to tell you to stop.
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So, in doing that, and this practice that makes me feel extremely foolish, it makes me accountable to that internal dialogue.
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I wish I had an impartial, I guess that's what therapy is for.
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Because I I wonder how long it's going to take for my wife to just get worn down by this.
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Because I need somebody who doesn't have to look at this and go, oh, this is the rest of my life with this psychopath.
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I mean again, it helps when somebody is like a saint on earth and uh has been helping me a lot through this.
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So that's why in many ways I call her my trusted advisor now.
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It's not very romantic, but as far as utility's sake, it's working out wonderfully for me.
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So we'll get back.
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Let's let's focus on this negative doubt part of things, especially um not just doubting everything, but doubting what I know works, doubting what I know was good, and especially when I try to recall good feelings, good circumstances, good experiences, good emotions, especially if if enough time has passed, my brain's ability to once again find rest in the negative worldview will then, from that perspective, use logic and reason to poke holes all through that positive view from the previous experience I had to make me distance myself from it, to not believe it happened, or to lessen its effect on me.
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So this is a lot of the backtracking or backsliding that I've felt in recovery has the impetus for all of that has been beginning seedling stages of doubt.
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Where all of a sudden I'm sitting in a place where what once felt good no longer does, what once regged true no longer does.
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The people that are around me that I could see how they were making sense all of a sudden don't make sense.
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And the lines blur between the worldview that I was the most comfortable in, which was negativity, and this newfound positive one, which I'm just embarking on getting into.
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And so my natural tendency is to slide back into negativity, and from it's like what what was that?
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Oh, that Stranger Things show.
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I didn't watch it, but I kind of understood there was like a like the complete inverse of your world happened underground or something.
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That's basically like the underground shit universe where evil presides and like this bad existence I used to be in.
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That's my the I wish I could think of it off the top of my head, the the underworld or something.
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Whatever they called it in that show.
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From my understanding, the first season really nailed it, and then they were like, Oh, we might have actually spoken a little too much truth to evil and power.
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We should pull it back and make this show absurd.
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But at least in that first season, um, I think I watched a couple episodes, but what I read about and stuff is that idea of like that there was a complete inverse of the world, and that's what it feels like flipping back and forth through recovery from this uplifting, positive, forward-looking, like good perspective, and then the one that keeps tugging me back to this negative worldview.
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Where, in a lot of ways, too, my addiction loves that because it can find all sorts of ways to manipulate my mind to get miserable enough to want to deaden it.
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And so I feel like there's a lot of like a big cast of characters.
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It's not just one particular thing, it's a it's a psychological thing, it's a spiritual thing, it's an addictive process, it's physical, it's emotional, it's mental.
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All of those things have various hooks in me, and in some way, shape, or form, I'm still tethered to that underworld.
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But I do like that in thinking back on it, there's a biblical, I think it was Lot's wife after they were staying leaving Sodom and Gomorrah, and she looked back and turned to salt.
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I want to say the allegory there, I'm not a huge Bible buff, but is that you can't look back to that place where you were destitute, where your life was terrible.
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You escaped it.
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You can't look back with any desire to return.
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You need to move on.
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And if you do look back and still have some desire for that place, you'll turn to stone.
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No part of you can exist there and you be expected to make it out.
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And so, you know, she turned to salt or something.
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I think that that makes a lot of sense.
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Not the turning to salt part, but the the don't don't try to because I I still now look back on things that were good in in being a drunk, um, and want to return to that.
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I I think the healthy way is to look back and see how it served me at a time when I couldn't serve myself.
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I don't want to have a completely like I can't throw it all away because then I'm also throwing away a part of myself that I need to recognize is that it did work for me and why.
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So I gotta investigate that.
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But it's just like it to throw it all away doesn't take a the it doesn't open the aperture of the camera all the way to see the full picture of how I got there and why I was okay there for so long.
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And I need to know all that stuff so that if it starts to happen again, I can stop it, and so that the parts of me that were damaged that led me there in the first place can be healed.
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I know all of these things, and yet the doubt will creep in.
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I think that doubt in a lot of ways is very mood-dependent.
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I think so many things, particularly like motivation, is very mood-dependent for me.
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A lot of things like insights are a lot of times mood-dependent.
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I I wish I I think that's one of my goals here, too, is to get a little more emotionally stable so that these things can be trusted.
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Because when I am in an emotional high and come to an insight, that is one of the ways this underworld perspective can poke holes in it.
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Because when I inevitably swing back to the negative view on life and use my rational and logical brain in that space, it'll look back over to the positive side, the positive world I was inhabiting, and say, see, you were just in a different state.
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You were in a different mood.
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That doesn't mean you were any closer to the truth.
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You just felt good, you pleasure-chasing addict, alcoholic slob.
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And so that and it and when I'm in that again, in that mood or in in that head space, it makes perfect sense.
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My logic and reason makes perfect sense in that space.
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And then when I'm back on the positive side, it's almost as if the negative doesn't exist.
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I think that's the hardest part about when I'm existing in a positive space, it's like I forget that I was ever as bad as I was.
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It just doesn't feel real.
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Because when I'm operating in a place of flow or of just like taking the world as it comes, I can see the hangups that I had and the difficulties I had.
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And when my mind is operating properly and my emotions are in order, I can look back at that stuff and realize the error of my ways was in some way either I was trying to exert too much control or hanging on to things too tightly, not letting go, not accepting.
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And so it doesn't feel real, except when I go back down to the underworld internally, it all feels so real that I don't see a way out.
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And it's like these two different worlds, the universes, where one they can't communicate with each other except through me and my experience.
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It's like having to just keep living in heaven and hell and being the translator for both, and suffering the slings and arrows of both.
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And I do say that heaven has its slings and arrows in that it's so good that when it's not there, it feels fucking terrible.
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And hell is so good, weird to say, but when you're in it and feeling like shit, everything feels true.
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And so the this tugging between these two worlds, and I'm sitting there trying to figure out what's real between the both of them, and I doubt both.
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I doubt the other when I'm in the one, if that makes sense.
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I doubt the negative world when I'm in the positive, and I doubt the positive when I'm in the negative.
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And I remember not too long ago sitting in my car, and one of those days that was really good, where every the day just unfolded like perfectly in front of me, and my only job that day was to just keep walking.
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And like the day was great, it felt effortless.
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Things just worked out, and while they were working out, I also just felt good.
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All of the thoughts in my head were positive.
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Everything that came into my worldview was a little bit more colorful, a little sharper, a little brighter, just a lightness I felt in my being.
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And then the next day, I just woke up and it was like all of the negative just washed over me immediately.
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And I knew it was gonna be a bad day.
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I could use all my exercises and and draw on good experiences and know that I was just keeping myself in the state.
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I could I did everything I could think of to get out of it as soon as I knew I was in it, and I just couldn't, and I knew I wasn't gonna be able to, and it was just that was gonna be the day.
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And instead of the day unfolding in front of me, it felt like this million-pound weight on my back, and I was just this slog of you ever see those big giant meatwad strongmen guys pulling a like a semi.
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That's what my day felt like.
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But it was like a semi to go get kicked in the balls.
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So I was working that hard to just get shit on at the end of it, too.
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That's what it all felt like.
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And when I'm in that state, I could just be so negative and everything feels right.
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Everything feels real, everything feels factual.
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And I know it's a real dangerous place to get because the worse my thoughts are, it's almost like the more true it gets.
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And then it colors my perspective in such a way that I can't trust anything good, and I only yearn for it to get worse because then it feels like I'm getting closer to the truth.
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And that's just it's it's a weird way to exist.
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I haven't really worked it all out.
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I'm trying to describe it the best I can.
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But because of all of that, I've took a pretty circuitous route here to get back to essentially looking into the nature of doubting myself and doubting things that I know work, things that are positive.
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I'm gonna label them positive, uh, because everybody around me says it's positive, uh, even though it doesn't feel that way to me at times.
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And my own empirical data internally tells me it's positive.
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Like this is good, keep on this path.
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It feels like the worst thing you've ever done.
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But at the end, have faith, because you've you've done this before and you have evidence that it's true, that just because it feels bad doesn't mean you're doing bad.
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And then doubt, doubt, doubt, doubt, doubt the whole time, all the way down.
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So, one of the issues that I have, especially when I keep bringing up the word truth, is like facts, truth, those sorts of things.
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Facts, my logical brain really likes to bring into the party and dance around with because they're loud, they're in your face, and they're undeniable.
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They're facts.
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They're here to see it.
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But facts don't necessarily get you to the truth, they just are what's in front of you.
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I like to say that advertising is factual, but it's not true.
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I think one of the best cases of that, well, alcohol advertising is pretty on the nose for that one.
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It's factual, not true.
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Gambling is another good one that's come about as yeah, you could win a bunch of money and look at all this fun people having, you know.
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That happens every once in a while, so it's factual.
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But the truth is everything they don't show you.
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And for a while there, when I was starting up this idea of the podcast, I wanted to do fake advertising.
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Because ultimately my goal is to never have advertising, to never have anybody else's fingers in my message.
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That sounded a little sexual.
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But then I don't want anybody's fingers inside of me.
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I don't want any other influence to my message.
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That sounds pretty grandiose.
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Like my message is so great, I don't want anybody tainting it.
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That's not the intent.
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It's just that I've been so disappointed in the past when somebody I like or something that I like that's been created gets bastardized because people want to sell fucking mattresses.
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And so, in light of that, uh, I'm using this example like facts versus truth.
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For me, anyway, and we'll get off of the whole marketing thing.
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We're moving on.
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Truth was here's the way I I've seen how my logical brain is is inserting doubt because of my pursuit of the truth.
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It's truth to me is much like cologne.
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I promise this will make sense.
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To me, cologne is best.
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It works its best when it is discovered, not announced.
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Does that make sense?
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Like when somebody walks in the room and you can smell them from across the room, even though the smell might be pleasant, it's so overwhelming and on top of you, and you can just guess that this person either doesn't shower or is a gigantic piece of shit.
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But that is to me what truth is not.
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That's an advertisement.
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That's factual.
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Truth is discovered, much like a good cologne.
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Where once you get close enough to a person and you connect enough with them, and you feel comfortable enough, you get close enough in the proximity of them that you discover that they smell nice.
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It doesn't have to be announced, it's it is discovered.
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And that to me is what truth is.
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The problem that I get in the midst of all of this doubtful time is that I my rational brain says if it's true, it must be repeatable.
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And then I'll end up chasing the repetition more than the truth.
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So I don't have like a concrete example because it's experiential, you know, it's hard to specifically say, but one of a I'll use this example.
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Have you ever been to or a part of a party that was unplanned, spontaneous, serendipitous?
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It's just a bunch of people around, or you showed up at a place, other people showed up, and oh my god, we're all hanging out, somebody throws on some music or whatever, and you just you're in the midst of a party.
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It wasn't planned.
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Uh there wasn't any structure, it didn't feel like work, it just happened.
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Now, to contrast that, have you ever planned a party?
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Put so much time and effort and energy into it, had all these big, grandiose ideas, invited all these people, had all these expectations.
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That's another one.
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That really hangs me up is expectations.
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Had all these expectations for this party, and it just didn't go the way you wanted.
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Or one of the ones that really nipped me in the ass multiple times, especially in my 20s and in college and stuff, was trying to recreate one that was spontaneous and happened, and then you manufacture it to maybe be the same the next time.
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And it never is.
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Why is that?
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Is it just because our brains are so attracted to novelty?
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Or is it the fact that some the spot the spontaneous nature of it is part of what makes it good?
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It's not necessarily the party, but it's that it came about as a result of being in the experience itself.
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Something of like that.
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So what I'm saying is when I come across truth and I'm existing out of the positive side of the upper world and underworld.
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God, I wish I knew those terms.
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I should look it up so if anybody likes Stranger Things, they're not ripping their fucking hair out.
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Stranger Things Upper World versus Underworld.
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I don't know.
00:23:10.640 --> 00:23:12.640
I really should pay attention.
00:23:13.279 --> 00:23:16.799
Isn't the upside down versus the normal fuck?
00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:18.720
That's the upside down.
00:23:19.039 --> 00:23:19.359
Okay.
00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:21.279
Upside down world.
00:23:21.839 --> 00:23:28.319
But basically when I'm existing in the normal world, uh, that is more like the unplanned party.
00:23:28.799 --> 00:23:34.160
But you like when I get into the under what is that called upside down.
00:23:34.640 --> 00:23:37.839
The upside down world is when I start to try to recreate.
00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:43.680
And as we, you know, if you haven't heard this before, is it's just like recreation is not creation.
00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:52.880
It's that idea of like pure genius comes out, and then grubby people get their fingers into it who can't create, but they just want to make money, so they make this sequel.
00:23:52.960 --> 00:24:18.079
And the sequel's soulless and shit, and they just are basically using all of the stuff that worked out of the collection of this synchronistic event that happened when all the right people came together with the right ideas and this magic happened and created like this beautiful movie, or you know, a band or an album or just whatever work of art happened, or a party, or whatever.
00:24:19.279 --> 00:24:22.160
And so that people try to recreate it.
00:24:22.319 --> 00:24:25.200
And it's like recreation is not creation.
00:24:25.759 --> 00:24:33.759
And that is where I find myself in this trying to get back to the truth that I once experienced.
00:24:33.839 --> 00:24:38.480
And since I can't, by recreating it, I say it didn't happen.
00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:53.200
And the further and further it gets away, and the more it gets cloudy in my memory, the more likely I am to believe it didn't happen or it didn't have the impact that it did at the time, which really like changed my life, put me on a completely different trajectory.
00:24:53.359 --> 00:25:07.599
I believed it enough that I was willing to die unto myself to stop whatever momentum I had towards where I was headed and correct course, change course, do something else.
00:25:07.839 --> 00:25:11.039
And then I'll look back on it and go, was that a gigantic mistake?
00:25:11.279 --> 00:25:25.039
Because enough time had passed, because the emotional fervor of it had subsided, because some aspect of that experience with enough distance allowed the worst parts of my negative critical brain to start poking holes in it.
00:25:25.279 --> 00:25:30.319
And in order to try to get it back, I then try to recreate it, which is not the same.
00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:59.759
And so, in doing all of that, and knowing that creation, like the creative space or places where I'm leave myself open and vulnerable for things to flow, not trying to control, not being rigid, but the place where this natural sort of insightful beauty happens, uh, is like you have to abandon all mechanisms of control.
00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:02.880
It's like that Chinese finger trap.
00:26:03.279 --> 00:26:08.079
The harder I try to make it work, the more stuck I become until I just sort of let go.
00:26:08.880 --> 00:26:15.039
And with that understanding, it's weird that it does eventually free me up when it inhabits me.
00:26:15.119 --> 00:26:31.680
When I go, okay, the less I hold on to trying to find the truth, the more likely it is to appear when I'm involved in my life on an experiential level, not judging or labeling things, but just seeing what's in front of me.
00:26:31.920 --> 00:26:36.319
As the things around me are evidence of the life I've led up to that point.
00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:41.039
The things that are coming my way are sort of in alignment with what I'm noticing.
00:26:41.279 --> 00:26:57.200
So I can look around me and go, okay, this is all a reflection in some way, shape, or form of my internal reality, of my of my life and my value system because I wouldn't have built this life this way if this isn't what was important to me.
00:26:58.559 --> 00:27:01.200
So now I have to start paying attention.
00:27:02.160 --> 00:27:12.240
And I have so I have an exercise coming up that helps with this.
00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:14.799
I call it like I didn't have a good name for it.
00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:16.319
I don't have good names for anything.
00:27:16.400 --> 00:27:20.160
I'm not trying to tag and sell this shit, but it's it's effective.
00:27:20.480 --> 00:27:28.400
So in service of what the exercise is and needing a name, I'll call it the utility of perspective shifts.
00:27:29.279 --> 00:28:00.799
And I wrote it, I wrote down just in like a free-flow uh stream of conscious way how I, you know, this goes back to something I might have mentioned, but when I thought about how I was getting good data, good insights about my sobriety and just life in general, how I was working my way out of these things that seemed to be common problems for everybody, but in some way I was being able, I was able to put words to them or something that was connecting with people.
00:28:01.039 --> 00:28:14.079
But when I had to think about what I would do if I had to like write a book or make it into something, I hate to say this, but like repeatable, but some sort of systematized thing.
00:28:14.240 --> 00:28:16.559
I don't know how I was doing what I was doing.
00:28:16.640 --> 00:28:21.519
I was just simply going to where I felt things worked.
00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:30.640
Um, so this is sort of an attempt to talk about an exercise that I do in real time that's not formalized in my life.
00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:32.720
So it's I think that's one of the harder parts too.
00:28:32.880 --> 00:28:37.759
I've had where whether I read self-help books or like a therapist was like, do this exercise.
00:28:37.839 --> 00:28:43.119
It felt so formal that it was like when life was happening, I'm sitting in traffic.
00:28:43.599 --> 00:28:45.039
This is the way it felt to me.
00:28:45.200 --> 00:28:58.000
I know other people can like basically stop their minds and go, now is the time to pull out this user patch, such and such, and deploy software, blah, blah, blah.
00:28:58.240 --> 00:28:59.359
And I can't do that.
00:28:59.440 --> 00:29:00.880
It has to be more organic.
00:29:00.960 --> 00:29:04.480
Like, I just have to like happen in the moment and then go or something.
00:29:04.640 --> 00:29:10.480
I don't know, but for some reason, like giving me structured exercises, I just forget about them.
00:29:10.559 --> 00:29:13.680
And then I get too mad, and then I'm not going to remember anything.
00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:25.200
So uh this is sort of my best way to uh talk about how I get uh how I employ exercises in my day-to-day life.
00:29:25.440 --> 00:29:32.079
So it doesn't feel like I'm just putting a stop to the day to go, oh yes, the recognition of now is the time for this exercise, and then doing it.
00:29:32.319 --> 00:29:45.359
This way is I actually do all of most of the exercise beforehand so that the work is done, and then when the time arrives for me to use it, I don't have to exert effort in the moment.
00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:49.680
We'll say traffic of like, okay, now I have to start doing the exercise.
00:29:49.759 --> 00:29:55.440
Now I have to start making connections and realizations and all this other stuff.
00:29:55.759 --> 00:30:04.559
Instead, I like doing this exercise beforehand so that when I do notice it, I can just go, oh, this is one of those instances and laugh at myself.
00:30:04.799 --> 00:30:14.880
And that gives me the space to then maybe employ a like a some sort of breathing exercise or something that like takes my physical symptoms down.
00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:19.920
But I have to have like this trigger that's done by a bunch of work beforehand.
00:30:20.480 --> 00:30:22.400
I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.
00:30:22.640 --> 00:30:23.359
Here we go.
00:30:23.599 --> 00:30:27.119
So the utility of perspective shifts.
00:30:27.440 --> 00:30:30.319
And I started it this way: what do you doubt?
00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:36.079
When good things happen, are you more likely to doubt that that's a common thing?
00:30:37.039 --> 00:30:40.240
To say it's an exception rather than the rule?
00:30:40.559 --> 00:30:49.359
Or when something bad happens, can you laugh it off as a mistake and see that the underlying current is oriented towards the good?
00:30:49.680 --> 00:30:57.440
And this is going back to sort of what perspective do you inhabit and what does that how does that inform your doubting nature?
00:30:59.200 --> 00:31:02.400
Does one perspective feel more real to you?
00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:10.400
To challenge that perspective, either good or bad, take on the perspective of the one that doesn't naturally suit you.
00:31:10.640 --> 00:31:22.880
So in my case, I'm taking on the perspective of being in a positive mindset, optimistic, believing I got a handle on things, that life isn't too big for me, something to that effect.
00:31:23.759 --> 00:31:28.160
And notice how it feels, how it shapes your worldview.
00:31:28.400 --> 00:31:30.480
Does one feel better?
00:31:30.880 --> 00:31:33.839
Seem more useful, seem more real?
00:31:34.960 --> 00:31:38.960
Open up your spirit to better possibilities in this life?
00:31:39.119 --> 00:31:46.000
Or does this new perspective feel foolish, unrealistic, confining, or false?
00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:57.039
The importance, firstly, isn't to adopt either perspective as your default, but to understand you have the capacity for either.
00:31:57.440 --> 00:32:09.599
And just creating some space between your perspective and an alternative, you can see how what you consider quote unquote your reality may just be your conditioning.
00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:17.680
You've presided so long in one way of viewing life that to even approach another perspective fills you with doubt.
00:32:19.680 --> 00:32:26.880
So, as I have worked on my own, and if you've I've read a couple books by this guy, Robert Anton Wilson.
00:32:27.039 --> 00:32:29.359
I think he's written like a thousand books or something.
00:32:29.440 --> 00:32:36.640
It's one of these people that you discover one book and you're like, oh, that was really interesting, and then you're like, oh, there's a whole like cultish movement behind this person.
00:32:36.720 --> 00:32:38.000
I don't want to call him a cult.
00:32:38.319 --> 00:32:43.839
That would he wouldn't accept that, apparently, according to this guy, this guy's view on life.
00:32:44.079 --> 00:32:49.599
As I've come to understand, he is very much like an agnostic about everything.
00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:54.400
You can't truly know anything, so question everything all the time, forever.
00:32:54.559 --> 00:33:01.599
Uh, which I think is really useful in practice, not like in practice day-to-day, but in a practice environment.
00:33:01.839 --> 00:33:04.400
To me, anyway, I like to be rooted in something.
00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:08.559
This guy was very much like a boomer-ish LSD level.
00:33:08.960 --> 00:33:11.759
Hey man, the motherfucking world can be whatever.
00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:12.559
I think.
00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:13.519
I don't know for sure.
00:33:13.599 --> 00:33:15.119
I've only read a couple of his books.
00:33:15.359 --> 00:33:20.000
And anyway, this guy, and but it is really insightful, great stuff, and good information.
00:33:20.079 --> 00:33:32.319
And it and one thing that he does really well by questioning everything is kind of teach you and show you the ways to what I consider the most important of all, question your own reality.
00:33:32.480 --> 00:33:34.480
And he calls these reality tunnels.
00:33:35.519 --> 00:33:53.759
And oh let me it is I I I give this with a disclaimer of like you have to have a pretty good grasp and self-awareness of like your own inner workings.
00:33:54.240 --> 00:34:11.920
Because to embark on a practice of breaking down your own worldview, for me anyway, kind of naturally led to this disillusion of self, which can be really terrifying and cause you to question everything, but not in a healthy way.
00:34:12.079 --> 00:34:15.119
Like, I don't know who I am, I don't know what life is anymore.
00:34:15.519 --> 00:34:26.880
These there are ways to go about that that are a little safer, but if you're in a bad mental state, I don't think this is the best course of action.
00:34:27.119 --> 00:34:29.039
You know, I that's what I mean by dangerous.
00:34:29.119 --> 00:34:31.360
I don't mean dangerous as in like it's gonna be fun.
00:34:31.599 --> 00:34:34.320
I'm not a parent telling you not to go ride a motorcycle.
00:34:34.400 --> 00:34:39.039
I'm saying you might end up hating yourself and having a worse time than intended.
00:34:39.280 --> 00:34:51.760
So just make sure that in some way, shape, or form you have a very good grasp on yourself that you can pull yourself back to yourself if you start to leave yourself in these exercises.
00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:55.039
And this one is innocuous because I made it up.
00:34:55.199 --> 00:35:14.079
Uh, this guy takes you in much further directions to where you really start to question everything in your own sanity, which can be kind of dangerous, but also really illuminating if you can stay tethered to reality in some way.
00:35:14.400 --> 00:35:26.880
So, what I did though in doing this and creating space between different perspectives is it led me to doubt so much less, both in good and bad ways.
00:35:27.519 --> 00:35:37.920
Um, and what I mean by that is from a good perspective, I doubted that like evil could be as bad as it is or as preva prevalent as it is.
00:35:38.079 --> 00:35:48.960
And from a bad place, I stopped doubting that good happens or that people find a way to like make the most of life and really appreciate things and be grateful and gracious and all of that.
00:35:50.079 --> 00:36:01.519
Because in in adopting these different worldviews and understanding that it really is it's not too far to make it from one to the other.
00:36:02.239 --> 00:36:22.559
Like I was I think I was talking to my wife not long ago, but basically the idea of not understanding how people could kill themselves or commit evil acts or give up on life or go down the road of extreme addiction.
00:36:23.360 --> 00:36:38.159
And in one case, I th I don't remember the the cause of this discussion, but it was it it could have been somebody had attempted uh made an attempt on their life or something, and and she said, I just don't understand how they get there.
00:36:38.239 --> 00:36:47.440
And I go, you can't, because once you're there, you would be amazed at how little it takes to push you over the edge to whatever this catastrophic decision you make is.
00:36:47.599 --> 00:36:52.800
It's not a leap, it's barely a shuffle step because you're already there.
00:36:52.960 --> 00:37:02.079
And if you're not there, it's gonna look really foreign to you that anybody could do it because you're healthy, you're in a good place, or you have the right perspective.
00:37:02.320 --> 00:37:10.559
But the cumulative nature of misery or depression or a bad worldview, these things pile up.
00:37:10.719 --> 00:37:13.360
So it really is the straw that broke the camel's back.
00:37:13.440 --> 00:37:18.719
It doesn't take much to push someone over the edge once they're next to the edge.
00:37:18.800 --> 00:37:28.480
And if you're firmly, feet are firmly planted 10 miles inland, yet you're not gonna understand how somebody would jump over because for you to do it, you'd have to run 10 miles and then jump sky high.
00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:31.119
And it's just it's a lot of effort.
00:37:31.679 --> 00:37:33.599
When you're right there, it makes sense.
00:37:33.760 --> 00:38:00.559
And so um there's I was just in that instance, just talking about uh how you can doubt both sides, and and when and having been sort of at both, good and bad, sort of the top of the mountain and at the bottom of the valley, it gives me a level of compassion and empathy for people, even if I don't understand your particular situation.
00:38:00.719 --> 00:38:11.760
The fact that I did end up in places I thought I never would and how easy it was to get there, the road was very tumultuous.
00:38:11.840 --> 00:38:16.880
The road was full of struggle, it was a long downward journey.
00:38:16.960 --> 00:38:27.760
But by the time I gave into whatever that was, the the worst version be if you call it a rock bottom, but that was more of just noticing where I was than a thing I actually did.
00:38:29.760 --> 00:38:31.840
That was not a big leap.
00:38:32.079 --> 00:38:54.320
And so, in knowing that I've been there and seeing other people do it, it helps me to just be like, yeah, it's I have compassion for people that are seemingly making bad decisions, where in their world, one bad decisions to the next is not this giant leap, it's just sort of a continuation of the trajectory they're on.
00:38:55.280 --> 00:38:58.719
This exercise, by the way, helps me with that.
00:38:58.800 --> 00:39:06.400
This is this is why I have to do it ahead of time because I'm if I'm in traffic and this shit comes up, you think I'm gonna be able to fucking not honk my horn?
00:39:06.719 --> 00:39:11.199
Because I'm I'm having imaginary conversations with my wife or something.
00:39:11.440 --> 00:39:16.719
So anyway, um that kind of goes into shadow work too.
00:39:16.800 --> 00:39:35.760
I think I've mentioned that before, and I don't I still don't even know what the fuck it is, but I'm making it up as I come across it and hear of it, and what I assume it it is, but basically, like I don't doubt evil nearly as much anymore because I just say I don't doubt it because I'm not there yet, which harkens back to what I was just talking about.
00:39:35.920 --> 00:39:38.559
Like, I have the capacity for it, I'm just not there yet.
00:39:38.639 --> 00:39:45.360
I don't want to inhabit that space, and I don't doubt that like reality is good.
00:39:46.000 --> 00:39:49.440
I I'm just not there yet either.
00:39:49.599 --> 00:39:57.039
You know, it's like this recognition that all these things can exist and it's up to me to figure out how to get to either one.
00:39:57.199 --> 00:40:10.000
I don't know why the road to evil feels so much easier, but it just seems like way harder to get to the positive side of things, or more consistent effort, I suppose.
00:40:10.320 --> 00:40:20.880
But really thinking on it just in the moment here is when I'm inhabiting a negative worldview, it's just it's a whole hell of a lot of effort because my entire day is rooted in just seeing the worst in things.
00:40:21.199 --> 00:40:28.880
Maybe that's the insidious part of all of this pull downwards, is that it doesn't feel like you're being drug-along the whole time.
00:40:29.360 --> 00:40:32.239
It feels sorta real, it feels truthful.
00:40:33.199 --> 00:40:37.519
So, let me get back to this exercise if you can even follow where I'm going.
00:40:42.880 --> 00:40:59.280
I apologize, this is gonna be a break, but at the um I say the perspective challenge as at the core of it, in my own personal thesis, ethos, the point of existence is to experience it, right?
00:40:59.440 --> 00:41:10.639
So either these positive or negatives, at the at this is my own personal ethos, thesis on life.
00:41:10.880 --> 00:41:15.679
The point of life to me, and I'm not talking purpose or meaning, but just the point of all of this.
00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:22.239
I I'm not answering like I don't know how to let's see if I can do this, answer this correctly.
00:41:22.320 --> 00:41:24.239
But like, why are we here?
00:41:24.320 --> 00:41:27.039
I don't know, but the point of it is to experience it.
00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:28.480
How's that?
00:41:29.280 --> 00:41:39.119
So if the root of our existence is simply that we are, in that light, I look at my reality this way.
00:41:39.360 --> 00:41:42.320
I am carp experiencing fear.
00:41:42.880 --> 00:41:45.920
Not I am afraid, right?
00:41:46.239 --> 00:41:48.719
I am carp experiencing fear.
00:41:49.599 --> 00:41:54.239
Not that I'm doubtful, I am carp experiencing doubt.
00:41:55.920 --> 00:42:01.519
I am not afraid, not at my core, I am just that which is experiencing fear.
00:42:02.320 --> 00:42:09.039
That untethered witness, uninfluenced by the conditioning of my mind, is whatever I am.
00:42:09.280 --> 00:42:10.880
That's carp, that's me.
00:42:10.960 --> 00:42:17.039
That's underneath all of that other stuff, that which witnesses it all is me.
00:42:18.800 --> 00:42:30.719
And once I take the step back to challenge my own perspective in this moment, in any moment, I can see that all possibilities and all potentials are all available all the time.
00:42:31.519 --> 00:42:33.920
And that it's all a matter of perspective.
00:42:34.159 --> 00:42:40.800
Now I'll use I just wrote down two really stupid examples, but they're just to show extremes and opposites.
00:42:41.039 --> 00:42:48.400
But basically, a mother holding a baby could be evil if I'm rooted in the perspective that the human race is inherently bad.
00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:52.239
Or human trafficking is good.
00:42:53.519 --> 00:43:04.239
Because I have found a currency that allows me to operate towards my greater goals, whatever those being, of blowing the demon cock of ball or Moloch or whatever the fuck is going on with those people.
00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:13.119
And whatever road you have to travel to get your mega yacht, hey, maybe human trafficking is the greatest way to do it.
00:43:13.599 --> 00:43:30.400
So I think that the the if I could try to distill this down, you can see that whatever reality you're inhabiting shapes the perspective of like either your trust or doubt in things.
00:43:30.719 --> 00:43:46.480
And obviously, value system comes in there, and it's important to try to work all this stuff out so that at least you can define it to yourself, and then later you can worry about whether or not you want to qualify it and say it's good or bad.
00:43:47.199 --> 00:44:06.800
Um, but this is sort of getting into the utility of it is that at least in this exercise, I I try to escape the expectation that this is going to fix anything.
00:44:07.280 --> 00:44:17.440
What it gives me is the space to recognize that whether it's good or bad, whatever worldview I'm in, I have created it.
00:44:18.079 --> 00:44:24.480
And that I have to take ownership of the perspective I find myself in.
00:44:26.400 --> 00:44:34.960
To start there gives me something to work with, but it also gives me the agency to understand that it is on me.
00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:38.239
That the world isn't happening to me.
00:44:38.400 --> 00:44:39.920
Things are just happening.
00:44:40.239 --> 00:44:43.920
My world is happening to me because I'm framing it that way.
00:44:44.239 --> 00:44:46.079
And that's really all this exercise is.
00:44:46.239 --> 00:45:04.159
It was a long way of working through to get to essentially the when you look out your eyes and see the world, you are creating your world through all the different ways you interface with it and give it meaning.
00:45:04.719 --> 00:45:08.719
And if you give it good meaning, then things look good.
00:45:08.880 --> 00:45:11.039
I mean, this is I feel kind of silly.
00:45:11.119 --> 00:45:14.480
Like this is a paint by numbers feel good shit.
00:45:15.360 --> 00:45:24.239
But that to and come into this, I I did I think there's a more mature than the paint by numbers version.
00:45:24.400 --> 00:45:26.079
And I'll get into that now.
00:45:26.320 --> 00:45:30.800
Because as I was reading a different book, it's called The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie.
00:45:30.960 --> 00:45:41.039
It's actually a really fun book that most of the characters, their actions are pretty reprehensible, but it's written in such a way that you're kind of rooting for all of them.
00:45:41.199 --> 00:45:44.320
There's a levity, there's a there's a humor to everything they do.
00:45:44.400 --> 00:45:51.280
So even though that they're all shitty people doing shitty things, you you understand why a little bit.
00:45:51.440 --> 00:45:58.639
And so that's another one of those fun books where it's it's not even anti-hero stuff, it's just a little bit closer to reality.
00:45:59.199 --> 00:46:01.679
There's complex characters in life.
00:46:01.920 --> 00:46:16.000
And one aspect of it was this guy who had been tortured and was now living like a very crippled life, was sitting there watching young soldiers on a boat uh getting drunk and falling over and you know, just hooting and hollering.
00:46:17.039 --> 00:46:23.039
And I put the book down because something in that moment really hit me.
00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:34.079
Is that it how difficult it is to look at the the innocence of use, that lightness of innocence of just kids having fun.
00:46:34.400 --> 00:46:38.559
And kids, I can mean five-year-olds, ten-year-olds, twenty-year-olds, twenty-five-year-olds.
00:46:38.800 --> 00:46:45.199
I mean, there comes a point when that whatever that world that the innocence falls away.
00:46:45.280 --> 00:46:49.039
I don't I hope it lasts as long as it needs to for you.
00:46:49.199 --> 00:47:01.440
Mine was very young, but it was it was the veil of innocence and the in the way you see the world eventually falls away for us all.
00:47:02.320 --> 00:47:18.800
And it was a I don't I am assuming in that scene in that book that was the intended purpose was to show this tortured younger guy, but had been tortured to the point of being crippled, looking at all of these kids, and um it wasn't yearning after it, wasn't really judging it, just noticing it.
00:47:19.039 --> 00:47:27.920
And in a lot of ways, I felt that way, but I I started it something just hit me of like I really miss that lightness of innocence.
00:47:28.239 --> 00:47:45.039
That like once I knew what evil was, and once I knew how bad things could get or are for a lot of people, maybe not now or were or will become, just the nature of existence.
00:47:45.280 --> 00:47:54.400
Once the innocence is lost, I really think it's it's the discovery of the nature of existence that everything is available, like it can get really, really bad, it can get really, really good.
00:47:55.199 --> 00:47:59.840
Um, just wait long enough and it'll swift shift the other way.
00:48:00.639 --> 00:48:07.760
And so I wanted to really get into like losing the lightness of innocence.
00:48:07.920 --> 00:48:17.119
But in these times when I felt really, really good, I did have a lightness of being, but it wasn't innocent.
00:48:17.440 --> 00:48:39.519
And that to me is a more mature version of the lightness of innocence, but also a more mature version of this, what I was calling like the paint by numbers perspective shifts of like it's one thing to know that that like, yeah, if I have a negative worldview, um you know, seeing things positively is gonna be difficult.
00:48:39.679 --> 00:48:43.519
That's sort of the the very basic version of it.
00:48:44.159 --> 00:48:57.440
The more mature version to me is sometimes inhabiting the negative world, there's a draw to it that almost keeps you going sometimes.
00:48:57.599 --> 00:48:58.960
That you'd need it.
00:48:59.599 --> 00:49:11.519
That to give in to these negative feelings and emotions, at least for me anyway, allowed me to root myself in a reality that could keep me going.
00:49:11.760 --> 00:49:25.760
Not that I ever wanted to outwardly do anything bad, but that just seeing the world from like with these evil eyes gave me enough energy to be like, I'm gonna keep fucking fighting for whatever.
00:49:26.000 --> 00:49:27.440
I don't know what it is.
00:49:27.760 --> 00:49:35.360
But there was there's nothing that positivity was gonna do for me in those moments, at least from the from where I stood.
00:49:35.519 --> 00:49:39.039
You know, I just didn't have the tools.
00:49:39.840 --> 00:49:51.440
And so when you start to understand evil in that way, that's that's to me when that lightness of innocence is that you go, Oh, everybody has the capacity for good.
00:49:51.679 --> 00:49:53.920
And things can just be good, just feel good.
00:49:54.159 --> 00:50:01.679
To the lightness of being is kind of switching over to a more mature way of like, yeah, like I understand evil, I could easily do that myself.
00:50:01.840 --> 00:50:05.119
Like I could see the purpose behind it, and it's intoxicating.
00:50:05.360 --> 00:50:10.480
Some days I have to fight diligently against myself to not go down that road.
00:50:11.119 --> 00:50:17.199
And I also don't necessarily blame people for doing it because it's giving in is fucking easy.
00:50:17.440 --> 00:50:21.599
The fallout you deal with is hard, but giving in is really fucking easy.
00:50:21.840 --> 00:50:43.679
And so to paint those two pictures, but what all this work of I'm doing now is to find that lightness of being, to be on the other side of the of innocence and go, can I get back to any version of the lightness of innocence, to enjoy this life and have fun again, knowing all the worst that can happen.
00:50:43.920 --> 00:50:50.559
I think in a way, a big way too, culturally, we just have seen with because of the internet, like we we've seen so much more.
00:50:50.719 --> 00:50:59.440
I question whether or not our brains have the capacity to take all of that in and make sense of it in a way that doesn't drive us crazy.
00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:02.159
But unfortunately, we're just in it.
00:51:02.320 --> 00:51:06.159
Like we whether it does or doesn't, we got to deal with it.
00:51:06.639 --> 00:51:20.559
And so to transmute this exercise to other things too, just take a step back, find a way to get the space to realize that whatever you're feeling or thinking is some part, in some ways, a machination all your own.
00:51:20.800 --> 00:51:23.519
You have to take some accountability for the way you're seeing the world.
00:51:23.679 --> 00:51:27.679
Now, you might be looking at something terrible in front of you, and there's no denying it.
00:51:27.760 --> 00:51:34.719
But I'm just saying your worldview in general, you have a responsibility to take ownership for it in some way.
00:51:35.920 --> 00:51:41.920
So, in light of all of that, I'm just working on doubt.
00:51:44.800 --> 00:51:45.920
Oh, God.
00:51:46.639 --> 00:52:36.079
And uh I just noticed this past week that I've been doubting good things, and I think it's just the natural ebb and flow, especially now being what seven, almost eight months into sobriety, but it's it's easy to start poking holes in the things that I know work or the things that feel good when they start to not feel good, when the effort you are not rewarded for your effort with good feelings, and to have faith that through that, and just now we're in the trudging, slogging, you know, effort with no reward phase of things, that at some point on the other side, truth will be revealed, understanding will be gained, that faith in the process yields good results down the road.
00:52:36.239 --> 00:52:48.079
If there's one thing I know, deferred happiness in a lot of ways, or deferred pleasure or gratification, has never come to bite me in the ass.
00:52:48.480 --> 00:52:49.920
Let's put it that way.
00:52:50.400 --> 00:52:55.440
Instant gratification, more times than not, bites me in the ass.
00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:03.599
But delayed gratification, very rarely, there have been times, not many, but a couple.
00:53:03.760 --> 00:53:06.400
When I look back and go, God, I wish I would have done that.
00:53:06.559 --> 00:53:09.360
Because we're usually revolved around people.
00:53:09.920 --> 00:53:25.440
But the instances where I didn't take the pleasurable route, I the the interesting thing about that is that when you live without the pleasure and realize you made it just fine, you go, oh, okay, I guess I didn't need it.
00:53:25.840 --> 00:53:33.920
But I think that the the regret that comes when you do take the pleasurable route is you go, ah fuck, I probably didn't need that all along, and now I'm paying the price for it.
00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:35.519
No free lunches ever.
00:53:36.239 --> 00:53:37.360
Isn't that great?
00:53:37.599 --> 00:53:39.920
Oh, life, the perpetual mystery.
00:53:40.159 --> 00:53:50.480
So anyway, I hope those um that in some way informs you of where I'm at and how maybe you can tackle your own doubt or understand it a bit better.
00:53:50.639 --> 00:54:03.039
And that if you are like me and yearning for that lightness of innocence that you have lost, come to the sobering realization that you don't get that back.
00:54:03.199 --> 00:54:09.199
Once the paradigm shift has happened, there's no forgetting what you now know.
00:54:09.760 --> 00:54:21.920
But perhaps we can find a way to find that lightness again and a more mature understanding, and maybe, just maybe, it's even better than the lightness we've left behind.
00:54:22.239 --> 00:54:25.360
Anyway, I hope you have a great week, and I will see you next week.
00:00:00.959 --> 00:00:11.759
Welcome into Carp's Funnel Cake Brain, where I, your host, Carp, alongside my Funnel Cake Brain, are coming to you.
00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:15.119
This is episode four of the podcast.
00:00:15.359 --> 00:00:16.960
Just getting started.
00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:20.480
And I'm calling this one I Doubt It.
00:00:20.559 --> 00:00:25.519
We're gonna get into doubt today, as that has come up in the past week.
00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:33.359
Doubt is a thing that has come up, God, not just daily, but almost hourly in recovery.
00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:35.200
Especially like, is this working?
00:00:35.359 --> 00:00:36.640
Is this gonna work?
00:00:37.520 --> 00:00:47.439
Uh, all the different aspects of trust, faith, doubt, those sorts of things.
00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:55.600
And but uh I I really got into investigating the nature of my doubt and why I doubt what I doubt.
00:00:55.920 --> 00:01:10.319
Which is sort of an interesting query into the coming from different perspectives, because I think the worldview and perspectives can color the way in which we doubt things.
00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:20.159
And in looking at it from my own perspective, I know where I'm rooted, I know where my doubt springs forth from because of the worldview I inhabit.
00:01:20.799 --> 00:01:51.040
And I want to get out of that because I've now the horrible part in all of this recovery aspect of the recognition, rehab, recovery process out of addiction, but also just self-actualization, is that once the problem's identified and I start working towards it at like a goal or to you know some sort of fix, it just feels worse than ignoring it the whole time.
00:01:51.200 --> 00:01:54.560
I mean, ultimately the ignoring it led to a much worse life.
00:01:54.719 --> 00:02:07.680
But now that I'm staring at it and I realize the beast that I'm confronted with, uh some days I really just want to cave.
00:02:07.920 --> 00:02:12.000
I just want to cave, I want to give in to the beast.
00:02:12.719 --> 00:02:27.919
And um one of the leading indicators that I am starting to cave or losing my nerve or going into old ways is that I start to doubt my better nature.
00:02:28.639 --> 00:02:47.039
And I really wanted to go, what is the cause of me doubting my better nature when I'm confronted with what I know is good and what objectively people can see as good, and what has worked for me in the past to sit or be confronted with it and then go, eh, you know, today that's not gonna work for me.
00:02:47.439 --> 00:02:49.680
I need to feel horrible.
00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:52.719
I need to take in all the evils of the world.
00:02:52.879 --> 00:03:06.400
I need to go pay attention to things that are terrible so that it can confirm this horrible worldview of mine that I can hate on all of humanity and and my own existence.
00:03:06.560 --> 00:03:11.759
I don't want to I don't want to pull myself out of this miserable state of affairs.
00:03:11.919 --> 00:03:12.800
I want to wallow.
00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:21.120
I want to sit in it, bathe, and marinate, and just this horrible feeling.
00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:45.280
And so it's it's strange to me how as I get better, the swings back to negativity and doubt I don't think are worse than what they used to be, but they're so much more recognizable that I feel them more because I'm paying attention, which in turn makes it feel like I'm getting nowhere when I probably am.
00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:56.800
Because even as my wife has told me, how quickly I've I've come to recognize when I fly off the handle or get really in like a depressive state or defeatist.
00:03:57.360 --> 00:04:03.439
But my ability to not just recognize it, call it out, tell her the way I'm feeling, and then work on correcting it.
00:04:03.680 --> 00:04:05.680
To her, it's like this miracle.
00:04:05.840 --> 00:04:09.120
She's like, You've you're like a person that recognizes stuff.
00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:11.599
I can imagine from her perspective.
00:04:11.840 --> 00:04:23.920
To me, I seem nuts because I'm just like, I'm upset right now, and I'm gonna stamp my feet, and I hate myself and I feel really stupid for externalizing all that stuff.
00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:29.120
It was a lot easier when I could just do that internally and nobody knew.
00:04:29.279 --> 00:04:44.639
Uh, but I could see how doing that over and over again, one, I started to believe it, and two, it allowed me to be miserable, uh unnoticed, but also in an unaccountable way.
00:04:44.879 --> 00:04:53.519
Like I got to be really negative and awful towards myself, and the only person I was accountable to was the person who I was trying to beat up.
00:04:53.680 --> 00:05:04.800
So it didn't work because one of the things that I love that my wife says to me when I start to get negative, especially outwardly, is she goes, please don't talk to my husband that way.
00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:21.040
And it just reminds me that she hears this voice that I hear in my head come out and realizes that, like, this is not the way to speak to yourself, but to externalize it on her behalf to say, if anybody else was talking to you this way, I'd I'd lose my mind.
00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:23.600
But this I can't believe this is you talking to yourself this way.
00:05:23.680 --> 00:05:25.279
I'm going to tell you to stop.
00:05:26.160 --> 00:05:37.839
So, in doing that, and this practice that makes me feel extremely foolish, it makes me accountable to that internal dialogue.
00:05:38.079 --> 00:05:41.839
I wish I had an impartial, I guess that's what therapy is for.
00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:47.279
Because I I wonder how long it's going to take for my wife to just get worn down by this.
00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:55.839
Because I need somebody who doesn't have to look at this and go, oh, this is the rest of my life with this psychopath.
00:05:56.879 --> 00:06:06.959
I mean again, it helps when somebody is like a saint on earth and uh has been helping me a lot through this.
00:06:07.199 --> 00:06:11.439
So that's why in many ways I call her my trusted advisor now.
00:06:11.519 --> 00:06:18.160
It's not very romantic, but as far as utility's sake, it's working out wonderfully for me.
00:06:19.199 --> 00:06:20.560
So we'll get back.
00:06:20.720 --> 00:07:10.959
Let's let's focus on this negative doubt part of things, especially um not just doubting everything, but doubting what I know works, doubting what I know was good, and especially when I try to recall good feelings, good circumstances, good experiences, good emotions, especially if if enough time has passed, my brain's ability to once again find rest in the negative worldview will then, from that perspective, use logic and reason to poke holes all through that positive view from the previous experience I had to make me distance myself from it, to not believe it happened, or to lessen its effect on me.
00:07:12.639 --> 00:07:29.199
So this is a lot of the backtracking or backsliding that I've felt in recovery has the impetus for all of that has been beginning seedling stages of doubt.
00:07:29.439 --> 00:07:38.319
Where all of a sudden I'm sitting in a place where what once felt good no longer does, what once regged true no longer does.
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The people that are around me that I could see how they were making sense all of a sudden don't make sense.
00:07:48.480 --> 00:07:58.959
And the lines blur between the worldview that I was the most comfortable in, which was negativity, and this newfound positive one, which I'm just embarking on getting into.
00:07:59.600 --> 00:08:06.959
And so my natural tendency is to slide back into negativity, and from it's like what what was that?
00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:08.560
Oh, that Stranger Things show.
00:08:08.639 --> 00:08:15.040
I didn't watch it, but I kind of understood there was like a like the complete inverse of your world happened underground or something.
00:08:15.279 --> 00:08:23.600
That's basically like the underground shit universe where evil presides and like this bad existence I used to be in.
00:08:23.759 --> 00:08:30.000
That's my the I wish I could think of it off the top of my head, the the underworld or something.
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Whatever they called it in that show.
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From my understanding, the first season really nailed it, and then they were like, Oh, we might have actually spoken a little too much truth to evil and power.
00:08:39.360 --> 00:08:41.519
We should pull it back and make this show absurd.
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But at least in that first season, um, I think I watched a couple episodes, but what I read about and stuff is that idea of like that there was a complete inverse of the world, and that's what it feels like flipping back and forth through recovery from this uplifting, positive, forward-looking, like good perspective, and then the one that keeps tugging me back to this negative worldview.
00:09:08.320 --> 00:09:17.759
Where, in a lot of ways, too, my addiction loves that because it can find all sorts of ways to manipulate my mind to get miserable enough to want to deaden it.
00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:23.200
And so I feel like there's a lot of like a big cast of characters.
00:09:23.279 --> 00:09:32.240
It's not just one particular thing, it's a it's a psychological thing, it's a spiritual thing, it's an addictive process, it's physical, it's emotional, it's mental.
00:09:32.720 --> 00:09:43.600
All of those things have various hooks in me, and in some way, shape, or form, I'm still tethered to that underworld.
00:09:44.559 --> 00:09:57.840
But I do like that in thinking back on it, there's a biblical, I think it was Lot's wife after they were staying leaving Sodom and Gomorrah, and she looked back and turned to salt.
00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:14.879
I want to say the allegory there, I'm not a huge Bible buff, but is that you can't look back to that place where you were destitute, where your life was terrible.
00:10:15.200 --> 00:10:16.399
You escaped it.
00:10:16.559 --> 00:10:19.919
You can't look back with any desire to return.
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You need to move on.
00:10:21.600 --> 00:10:26.159
And if you do look back and still have some desire for that place, you'll turn to stone.
00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:30.559
No part of you can exist there and you be expected to make it out.
00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:34.000
And so, you know, she turned to salt or something.
00:10:35.039 --> 00:10:37.919
I think that that makes a lot of sense.
00:10:38.080 --> 00:10:53.519
Not the turning to salt part, but the the don't don't try to because I I still now look back on things that were good in in being a drunk, um, and want to return to that.
00:10:53.679 --> 00:10:58.399
I I think the healthy way is to look back and see how it served me at a time when I couldn't serve myself.
00:10:58.559 --> 00:11:08.399
I don't want to have a completely like I can't throw it all away because then I'm also throwing away a part of myself that I need to recognize is that it did work for me and why.
00:11:08.559 --> 00:11:10.559
So I gotta investigate that.
00:11:11.440 --> 00:11:24.480
But it's just like it to throw it all away doesn't take a the it doesn't open the aperture of the camera all the way to see the full picture of how I got there and why I was okay there for so long.
00:11:24.639 --> 00:11:34.879
And I need to know all that stuff so that if it starts to happen again, I can stop it, and so that the parts of me that were damaged that led me there in the first place can be healed.
00:11:35.679 --> 00:11:41.200
I know all of these things, and yet the doubt will creep in.
00:11:42.080 --> 00:11:47.919
I think that doubt in a lot of ways is very mood-dependent.
00:11:48.240 --> 00:11:57.039
I think so many things, particularly like motivation, is very mood-dependent for me.
00:11:57.279 --> 00:12:01.519
A lot of things like insights are a lot of times mood-dependent.
00:12:03.200 --> 00:12:10.320
I I wish I I think that's one of my goals here, too, is to get a little more emotionally stable so that these things can be trusted.
00:12:10.559 --> 00:12:20.320
Because when I am in an emotional high and come to an insight, that is one of the ways this underworld perspective can poke holes in it.
00:12:20.879 --> 00:12:36.879
Because when I inevitably swing back to the negative view on life and use my rational and logical brain in that space, it'll look back over to the positive side, the positive world I was inhabiting, and say, see, you were just in a different state.
00:12:37.039 --> 00:12:37.919
You were in a different mood.
00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:40.240
That doesn't mean you were any closer to the truth.
00:12:40.480 --> 00:12:46.159
You just felt good, you pleasure-chasing addict, alcoholic slob.
00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:59.679
And so that and it and when I'm in that again, in that mood or in in that head space, it makes perfect sense.
00:12:59.840 --> 00:13:02.320
My logic and reason makes perfect sense in that space.
00:13:02.399 --> 00:13:07.360
And then when I'm back on the positive side, it's almost as if the negative doesn't exist.
00:13:07.519 --> 00:13:14.879
I think that's the hardest part about when I'm existing in a positive space, it's like I forget that I was ever as bad as I was.
00:13:15.039 --> 00:13:16.879
It just doesn't feel real.
00:13:17.279 --> 00:13:29.120
Because when I'm operating in a place of flow or of just like taking the world as it comes, I can see the hangups that I had and the difficulties I had.
00:13:29.279 --> 00:13:46.720
And when my mind is operating properly and my emotions are in order, I can look back at that stuff and realize the error of my ways was in some way either I was trying to exert too much control or hanging on to things too tightly, not letting go, not accepting.
00:13:46.960 --> 00:13:56.639
And so it doesn't feel real, except when I go back down to the underworld internally, it all feels so real that I don't see a way out.
00:13:56.799 --> 00:14:07.440
And it's like these two different worlds, the universes, where one they can't communicate with each other except through me and my experience.
00:14:07.679 --> 00:14:17.600
It's like having to just keep living in heaven and hell and being the translator for both, and suffering the slings and arrows of both.
00:14:17.759 --> 00:14:24.559
And I do say that heaven has its slings and arrows in that it's so good that when it's not there, it feels fucking terrible.
00:14:25.120 --> 00:14:33.600
And hell is so good, weird to say, but when you're in it and feeling like shit, everything feels true.
00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:42.639
And so the this tugging between these two worlds, and I'm sitting there trying to figure out what's real between the both of them, and I doubt both.
00:14:42.960 --> 00:14:46.559
I doubt the other when I'm in the one, if that makes sense.
00:14:46.720 --> 00:14:52.080
I doubt the negative world when I'm in the positive, and I doubt the positive when I'm in the negative.
00:14:52.240 --> 00:15:03.039
And I remember not too long ago sitting in my car, and one of those days that was really good, where every the day just unfolded like perfectly in front of me, and my only job that day was to just keep walking.
00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:06.240
And like the day was great, it felt effortless.
00:15:06.480 --> 00:15:12.480
Things just worked out, and while they were working out, I also just felt good.
00:15:12.879 --> 00:15:15.600
All of the thoughts in my head were positive.
00:15:15.840 --> 00:15:26.639
Everything that came into my worldview was a little bit more colorful, a little sharper, a little brighter, just a lightness I felt in my being.
00:15:27.440 --> 00:15:34.240
And then the next day, I just woke up and it was like all of the negative just washed over me immediately.
00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:36.000
And I knew it was gonna be a bad day.
00:15:36.159 --> 00:15:45.840
I could use all my exercises and and draw on good experiences and know that I was just keeping myself in the state.
00:15:45.919 --> 00:15:54.159
I could I did everything I could think of to get out of it as soon as I knew I was in it, and I just couldn't, and I knew I wasn't gonna be able to, and it was just that was gonna be the day.
00:15:54.240 --> 00:16:08.960
And instead of the day unfolding in front of me, it felt like this million-pound weight on my back, and I was just this slog of you ever see those big giant meatwad strongmen guys pulling a like a semi.
00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:10.879
That's what my day felt like.
00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:13.919
But it was like a semi to go get kicked in the balls.
00:16:14.080 --> 00:16:18.480
So I was working that hard to just get shit on at the end of it, too.
00:16:18.639 --> 00:16:20.000
That's what it all felt like.
00:16:20.159 --> 00:16:24.320
And when I'm in that state, I could just be so negative and everything feels right.
00:16:24.480 --> 00:16:27.519
Everything feels real, everything feels factual.
00:16:28.080 --> 00:16:36.159
And I know it's a real dangerous place to get because the worse my thoughts are, it's almost like the more true it gets.
00:16:36.480 --> 00:16:49.039
And then it colors my perspective in such a way that I can't trust anything good, and I only yearn for it to get worse because then it feels like I'm getting closer to the truth.
00:16:49.440 --> 00:16:52.399
And that's just it's it's a weird way to exist.
00:16:52.480 --> 00:16:53.840
I haven't really worked it all out.
00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:56.399
I'm trying to describe it the best I can.
00:16:57.279 --> 00:17:09.119
But because of all of that, I've took a pretty circuitous route here to get back to essentially looking into the nature of doubting myself and doubting things that I know work, things that are positive.
00:17:09.200 --> 00:17:18.480
I'm gonna label them positive, uh, because everybody around me says it's positive, uh, even though it doesn't feel that way to me at times.
00:17:18.720 --> 00:17:22.160
And my own empirical data internally tells me it's positive.
00:17:22.319 --> 00:17:25.200
Like this is good, keep on this path.
00:17:25.519 --> 00:17:27.920
It feels like the worst thing you've ever done.
00:17:28.079 --> 00:17:37.279
But at the end, have faith, because you've you've done this before and you have evidence that it's true, that just because it feels bad doesn't mean you're doing bad.
00:17:37.519 --> 00:17:41.359
And then doubt, doubt, doubt, doubt, doubt the whole time, all the way down.
00:17:42.799 --> 00:17:51.759
So, one of the issues that I have, especially when I keep bringing up the word truth, is like facts, truth, those sorts of things.
00:17:52.400 --> 00:18:00.640
Facts, my logical brain really likes to bring into the party and dance around with because they're loud, they're in your face, and they're undeniable.
00:18:00.720 --> 00:18:01.200
They're facts.
00:18:01.279 --> 00:18:02.160
They're here to see it.
00:18:02.240 --> 00:18:06.319
But facts don't necessarily get you to the truth, they just are what's in front of you.
00:18:06.559 --> 00:18:11.200
I like to say that advertising is factual, but it's not true.
00:18:11.359 --> 00:18:18.480
I think one of the best cases of that, well, alcohol advertising is pretty on the nose for that one.
00:18:18.559 --> 00:18:20.480
It's factual, not true.
00:18:20.640 --> 00:18:25.519
Gambling is another good one that's come about as yeah, you could win a bunch of money and look at all this fun people having, you know.
00:18:26.240 --> 00:18:28.880
That happens every once in a while, so it's factual.
00:18:28.960 --> 00:18:32.799
But the truth is everything they don't show you.
00:18:33.119 --> 00:18:39.039
And for a while there, when I was starting up this idea of the podcast, I wanted to do fake advertising.
00:18:39.359 --> 00:18:46.720
Because ultimately my goal is to never have advertising, to never have anybody else's fingers in my message.
00:18:47.359 --> 00:18:48.480
That sounded a little sexual.
00:18:48.559 --> 00:18:51.039
But then I don't want anybody's fingers inside of me.
00:18:51.200 --> 00:18:53.519
I don't want any other influence to my message.
00:18:54.079 --> 00:18:55.440
That sounds pretty grandiose.
00:18:55.519 --> 00:18:58.319
Like my message is so great, I don't want anybody tainting it.
00:18:58.559 --> 00:18:59.759
That's not the intent.
00:18:59.920 --> 00:19:12.079
It's just that I've been so disappointed in the past when somebody I like or something that I like that's been created gets bastardized because people want to sell fucking mattresses.
00:19:12.319 --> 00:19:21.359
And so, in light of that, uh, I'm using this example like facts versus truth.
00:19:21.680 --> 00:19:24.400
For me, anyway, and we'll get off of the whole marketing thing.
00:19:24.480 --> 00:19:25.359
We're moving on.
00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:35.759
Truth was here's the way I I've seen how my logical brain is is inserting doubt because of my pursuit of the truth.
00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:41.359
It's truth to me is much like cologne.
00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:43.920
I promise this will make sense.
00:19:45.440 --> 00:19:47.680
To me, cologne is best.
00:19:49.519 --> 00:19:54.799
It works its best when it is discovered, not announced.
00:19:56.480 --> 00:19:57.359
Does that make sense?
00:19:57.519 --> 00:20:10.079
Like when somebody walks in the room and you can smell them from across the room, even though the smell might be pleasant, it's so overwhelming and on top of you, and you can just guess that this person either doesn't shower or is a gigantic piece of shit.
00:20:10.720 --> 00:20:14.240
But that is to me what truth is not.
00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:15.759
That's an advertisement.
00:20:16.079 --> 00:20:17.440
That's factual.
00:20:17.839 --> 00:20:21.839
Truth is discovered, much like a good cologne.
00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:34.079
Where once you get close enough to a person and you connect enough with them, and you feel comfortable enough, you get close enough in the proximity of them that you discover that they smell nice.
00:20:34.240 --> 00:20:37.359
It doesn't have to be announced, it's it is discovered.
00:20:37.920 --> 00:20:40.079
And that to me is what truth is.
00:20:41.359 --> 00:20:55.359
The problem that I get in the midst of all of this doubtful time is that I my rational brain says if it's true, it must be repeatable.
00:20:57.119 --> 00:21:01.839
And then I'll end up chasing the repetition more than the truth.
00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:14.240
So I don't have like a concrete example because it's experiential, you know, it's hard to specifically say, but one of a I'll use this example.
00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:22.000
Have you ever been to or a part of a party that was unplanned, spontaneous, serendipitous?
00:21:22.079 --> 00:21:31.519
It's just a bunch of people around, or you showed up at a place, other people showed up, and oh my god, we're all hanging out, somebody throws on some music or whatever, and you just you're in the midst of a party.
00:21:31.680 --> 00:21:33.039
It wasn't planned.
00:21:33.279 --> 00:21:39.839
Uh there wasn't any structure, it didn't feel like work, it just happened.
00:21:40.880 --> 00:21:49.200
Now, to contrast that, have you ever planned a party?
00:21:49.519 --> 00:21:58.400
Put so much time and effort and energy into it, had all these big, grandiose ideas, invited all these people, had all these expectations.
00:21:58.880 --> 00:21:59.759
That's another one.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:03.119
That really hangs me up is expectations.
00:22:03.599 --> 00:22:09.119
Had all these expectations for this party, and it just didn't go the way you wanted.
00:22:09.279 --> 00:22:25.279
Or one of the ones that really nipped me in the ass multiple times, especially in my 20s and in college and stuff, was trying to recreate one that was spontaneous and happened, and then you manufacture it to maybe be the same the next time.
00:22:25.359 --> 00:22:26.240
And it never is.
00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:27.359
Why is that?
00:22:27.599 --> 00:22:31.039
Is it just because our brains are so attracted to novelty?
00:22:31.279 --> 00:22:39.759
Or is it the fact that some the spot the spontaneous nature of it is part of what makes it good?
00:22:39.839 --> 00:22:45.920
It's not necessarily the party, but it's that it came about as a result of being in the experience itself.
00:22:47.200 --> 00:22:48.480
Something of like that.
00:22:48.640 --> 00:22:57.200
So what I'm saying is when I come across truth and I'm existing out of the positive side of the upper world and underworld.
00:22:57.359 --> 00:22:58.559
God, I wish I knew those terms.
00:22:58.640 --> 00:23:02.640
I should look it up so if anybody likes Stranger Things, they're not ripping their fucking hair out.
00:23:02.960 --> 00:23:07.920
Stranger Things Upper World versus Underworld.
00:23:08.319 --> 00:23:09.440
I don't know.
00:23:10.640 --> 00:23:12.640
I really should pay attention.
00:23:13.279 --> 00:23:16.799
Isn't the upside down versus the normal fuck?
00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:18.720
That's the upside down.
00:23:19.039 --> 00:23:19.359
Okay.
00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:21.279
Upside down world.
00:23:21.839 --> 00:23:28.319
But basically when I'm existing in the normal world, uh, that is more like the unplanned party.
00:23:28.799 --> 00:23:34.160
But you like when I get into the under what is that called upside down.
00:23:34.640 --> 00:23:37.839
The upside down world is when I start to try to recreate.
00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:43.680
And as we, you know, if you haven't heard this before, is it's just like recreation is not creation.
00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:52.880
It's that idea of like pure genius comes out, and then grubby people get their fingers into it who can't create, but they just want to make money, so they make this sequel.
00:23:52.960 --> 00:24:18.079
And the sequel's soulless and shit, and they just are basically using all of the stuff that worked out of the collection of this synchronistic event that happened when all the right people came together with the right ideas and this magic happened and created like this beautiful movie, or you know, a band or an album or just whatever work of art happened, or a party, or whatever.
00:24:19.279 --> 00:24:22.160
And so that people try to recreate it.
00:24:22.319 --> 00:24:25.200
And it's like recreation is not creation.
00:24:25.759 --> 00:24:33.759
And that is where I find myself in this trying to get back to the truth that I once experienced.
00:24:33.839 --> 00:24:38.480
And since I can't, by recreating it, I say it didn't happen.
00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:53.200
And the further and further it gets away, and the more it gets cloudy in my memory, the more likely I am to believe it didn't happen or it didn't have the impact that it did at the time, which really like changed my life, put me on a completely different trajectory.
00:24:53.359 --> 00:25:07.599
I believed it enough that I was willing to die unto myself to stop whatever momentum I had towards where I was headed and correct course, change course, do something else.
00:25:07.839 --> 00:25:11.039
And then I'll look back on it and go, was that a gigantic mistake?
00:25:11.279 --> 00:25:25.039
Because enough time had passed, because the emotional fervor of it had subsided, because some aspect of that experience with enough distance allowed the worst parts of my negative critical brain to start poking holes in it.
00:25:25.279 --> 00:25:30.319
And in order to try to get it back, I then try to recreate it, which is not the same.
00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:59.759
And so, in doing all of that, and knowing that creation, like the creative space or places where I'm leave myself open and vulnerable for things to flow, not trying to control, not being rigid, but the place where this natural sort of insightful beauty happens, uh, is like you have to abandon all mechanisms of control.
00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:02.880
It's like that Chinese finger trap.
00:26:03.279 --> 00:26:08.079
The harder I try to make it work, the more stuck I become until I just sort of let go.
00:26:08.880 --> 00:26:15.039
And with that understanding, it's weird that it does eventually free me up when it inhabits me.
00:26:15.119 --> 00:26:31.680
When I go, okay, the less I hold on to trying to find the truth, the more likely it is to appear when I'm involved in my life on an experiential level, not judging or labeling things, but just seeing what's in front of me.
00:26:31.920 --> 00:26:36.319
As the things around me are evidence of the life I've led up to that point.
00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:41.039
The things that are coming my way are sort of in alignment with what I'm noticing.
00:26:41.279 --> 00:26:57.200
So I can look around me and go, okay, this is all a reflection in some way, shape, or form of my internal reality, of my of my life and my value system because I wouldn't have built this life this way if this isn't what was important to me.
00:26:58.559 --> 00:27:01.200
So now I have to start paying attention.
00:27:02.160 --> 00:27:12.240
And I have so I have an exercise coming up that helps with this.
00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:14.799
I call it like I didn't have a good name for it.
00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:16.319
I don't have good names for anything.
00:27:16.400 --> 00:27:20.160
I'm not trying to tag and sell this shit, but it's it's effective.
00:27:20.480 --> 00:27:28.400
So in service of what the exercise is and needing a name, I'll call it the utility of perspective shifts.
00:27:29.279 --> 00:28:00.799
And I wrote it, I wrote down just in like a free-flow uh stream of conscious way how I, you know, this goes back to something I might have mentioned, but when I thought about how I was getting good data, good insights about my sobriety and just life in general, how I was working my way out of these things that seemed to be common problems for everybody, but in some way I was being able, I was able to put words to them or something that was connecting with people.
00:28:01.039 --> 00:28:14.079
But when I had to think about what I would do if I had to like write a book or make it into something, I hate to say this, but like repeatable, but some sort of systematized thing.
00:28:14.240 --> 00:28:16.559
I don't know how I was doing what I was doing.
00:28:16.640 --> 00:28:21.519
I was just simply going to where I felt things worked.
00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:30.640
Um, so this is sort of an attempt to talk about an exercise that I do in real time that's not formalized in my life.
00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:32.720
So it's I think that's one of the harder parts too.
00:28:32.880 --> 00:28:37.759
I've had where whether I read self-help books or like a therapist was like, do this exercise.
00:28:37.839 --> 00:28:43.119
It felt so formal that it was like when life was happening, I'm sitting in traffic.
00:28:43.599 --> 00:28:45.039
This is the way it felt to me.
00:28:45.200 --> 00:28:58.000
I know other people can like basically stop their minds and go, now is the time to pull out this user patch, such and such, and deploy software, blah, blah, blah.
00:28:58.240 --> 00:28:59.359
And I can't do that.
00:28:59.440 --> 00:29:00.880
It has to be more organic.
00:29:00.960 --> 00:29:04.480
Like, I just have to like happen in the moment and then go or something.
00:29:04.640 --> 00:29:10.480
I don't know, but for some reason, like giving me structured exercises, I just forget about them.
00:29:10.559 --> 00:29:13.680
And then I get too mad, and then I'm not going to remember anything.
00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:25.200
So uh this is sort of my best way to uh talk about how I get uh how I employ exercises in my day-to-day life.
00:29:25.440 --> 00:29:32.079
So it doesn't feel like I'm just putting a stop to the day to go, oh yes, the recognition of now is the time for this exercise, and then doing it.
00:29:32.319 --> 00:29:45.359
This way is I actually do all of most of the exercise beforehand so that the work is done, and then when the time arrives for me to use it, I don't have to exert effort in the moment.
00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:49.680
We'll say traffic of like, okay, now I have to start doing the exercise.
00:29:49.759 --> 00:29:55.440
Now I have to start making connections and realizations and all this other stuff.
00:29:55.759 --> 00:30:04.559
Instead, I like doing this exercise beforehand so that when I do notice it, I can just go, oh, this is one of those instances and laugh at myself.
00:30:04.799 --> 00:30:14.880
And that gives me the space to then maybe employ a like a some sort of breathing exercise or something that like takes my physical symptoms down.
00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:19.920
But I have to have like this trigger that's done by a bunch of work beforehand.
00:30:20.480 --> 00:30:22.400
I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.
00:30:22.640 --> 00:30:23.359
Here we go.
00:30:23.599 --> 00:30:27.119
So the utility of perspective shifts.
00:30:27.440 --> 00:30:30.319
And I started it this way: what do you doubt?
00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:36.079
When good things happen, are you more likely to doubt that that's a common thing?
00:30:37.039 --> 00:30:40.240
To say it's an exception rather than the rule?
00:30:40.559 --> 00:30:49.359
Or when something bad happens, can you laugh it off as a mistake and see that the underlying current is oriented towards the good?
00:30:49.680 --> 00:30:57.440
And this is going back to sort of what perspective do you inhabit and what does that how does that inform your doubting nature?
00:30:59.200 --> 00:31:02.400
Does one perspective feel more real to you?
00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:10.400
To challenge that perspective, either good or bad, take on the perspective of the one that doesn't naturally suit you.
00:31:10.640 --> 00:31:22.880
So in my case, I'm taking on the perspective of being in a positive mindset, optimistic, believing I got a handle on things, that life isn't too big for me, something to that effect.
00:31:23.759 --> 00:31:28.160
And notice how it feels, how it shapes your worldview.
00:31:28.400 --> 00:31:30.480
Does one feel better?
00:31:30.880 --> 00:31:33.839
Seem more useful, seem more real?
00:31:34.960 --> 00:31:38.960
Open up your spirit to better possibilities in this life?
00:31:39.119 --> 00:31:46.000
Or does this new perspective feel foolish, unrealistic, confining, or false?
00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:57.039
The importance, firstly, isn't to adopt either perspective as your default, but to understand you have the capacity for either.
00:31:57.440 --> 00:32:09.599
And just creating some space between your perspective and an alternative, you can see how what you consider quote unquote your reality may just be your conditioning.
00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:17.680
You've presided so long in one way of viewing life that to even approach another perspective fills you with doubt.
00:32:19.680 --> 00:32:26.880
So, as I have worked on my own, and if you've I've read a couple books by this guy, Robert Anton Wilson.
00:32:27.039 --> 00:32:29.359
I think he's written like a thousand books or something.
00:32:29.440 --> 00:32:36.640
It's one of these people that you discover one book and you're like, oh, that was really interesting, and then you're like, oh, there's a whole like cultish movement behind this person.
00:32:36.720 --> 00:32:38.000
I don't want to call him a cult.
00:32:38.319 --> 00:32:43.839
That would he wouldn't accept that, apparently, according to this guy, this guy's view on life.
00:32:44.079 --> 00:32:49.599
As I've come to understand, he is very much like an agnostic about everything.
00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:54.400
You can't truly know anything, so question everything all the time, forever.
00:32:54.559 --> 00:33:01.599
Uh, which I think is really useful in practice, not like in practice day-to-day, but in a practice environment.
00:33:01.839 --> 00:33:04.400
To me, anyway, I like to be rooted in something.
00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:08.559
This guy was very much like a boomer-ish LSD level.
00:33:08.960 --> 00:33:11.759
Hey man, the motherfucking world can be whatever.
00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:12.559
I think.
00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:13.519
I don't know for sure.
00:33:13.599 --> 00:33:15.119
I've only read a couple of his books.
00:33:15.359 --> 00:33:20.000
And anyway, this guy, and but it is really insightful, great stuff, and good information.
00:33:20.079 --> 00:33:32.319
And it and one thing that he does really well by questioning everything is kind of teach you and show you the ways to what I consider the most important of all, question your own reality.
00:33:32.480 --> 00:33:34.480
And he calls these reality tunnels.
00:33:35.519 --> 00:33:53.759
And oh let me it is I I I give this with a disclaimer of like you have to have a pretty good grasp and self-awareness of like your own inner workings.
00:33:54.240 --> 00:34:11.920
Because to embark on a practice of breaking down your own worldview, for me anyway, kind of naturally led to this disillusion of self, which can be really terrifying and cause you to question everything, but not in a healthy way.
00:34:12.079 --> 00:34:15.119
Like, I don't know who I am, I don't know what life is anymore.
00:34:15.519 --> 00:34:26.880
These there are ways to go about that that are a little safer, but if you're in a bad mental state, I don't think this is the best course of action.
00:34:27.119 --> 00:34:29.039
You know, I that's what I mean by dangerous.
00:34:29.119 --> 00:34:31.360
I don't mean dangerous as in like it's gonna be fun.
00:34:31.599 --> 00:34:34.320
I'm not a parent telling you not to go ride a motorcycle.
00:34:34.400 --> 00:34:39.039
I'm saying you might end up hating yourself and having a worse time than intended.
00:34:39.280 --> 00:34:51.760
So just make sure that in some way, shape, or form you have a very good grasp on yourself that you can pull yourself back to yourself if you start to leave yourself in these exercises.
00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:55.039
And this one is innocuous because I made it up.
00:34:55.199 --> 00:35:14.079
Uh, this guy takes you in much further directions to where you really start to question everything in your own sanity, which can be kind of dangerous, but also really illuminating if you can stay tethered to reality in some way.
00:35:14.400 --> 00:35:26.880
So, what I did though in doing this and creating space between different perspectives is it led me to doubt so much less, both in good and bad ways.
00:35:27.519 --> 00:35:37.920
Um, and what I mean by that is from a good perspective, I doubted that like evil could be as bad as it is or as preva prevalent as it is.
00:35:38.079 --> 00:35:48.960
And from a bad place, I stopped doubting that good happens or that people find a way to like make the most of life and really appreciate things and be grateful and gracious and all of that.
00:35:50.079 --> 00:36:01.519
Because in in adopting these different worldviews and understanding that it really is it's not too far to make it from one to the other.
00:36:02.239 --> 00:36:22.559
Like I was I think I was talking to my wife not long ago, but basically the idea of not understanding how people could kill themselves or commit evil acts or give up on life or go down the road of extreme addiction.
00:36:23.360 --> 00:36:38.159
And in one case, I th I don't remember the the cause of this discussion, but it was it it could have been somebody had attempted uh made an attempt on their life or something, and and she said, I just don't understand how they get there.
00:36:38.239 --> 00:36:47.440
And I go, you can't, because once you're there, you would be amazed at how little it takes to push you over the edge to whatever this catastrophic decision you make is.
00:36:47.599 --> 00:36:52.800
It's not a leap, it's barely a shuffle step because you're already there.
00:36:52.960 --> 00:37:02.079
And if you're not there, it's gonna look really foreign to you that anybody could do it because you're healthy, you're in a good place, or you have the right perspective.
00:37:02.320 --> 00:37:10.559
But the cumulative nature of misery or depression or a bad worldview, these things pile up.
00:37:10.719 --> 00:37:13.360
So it really is the straw that broke the camel's back.
00:37:13.440 --> 00:37:18.719
It doesn't take much to push someone over the edge once they're next to the edge.
00:37:18.800 --> 00:37:28.480
And if you're firmly, feet are firmly planted 10 miles inland, yet you're not gonna understand how somebody would jump over because for you to do it, you'd have to run 10 miles and then jump sky high.
00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:31.119
And it's just it's a lot of effort.
00:37:31.679 --> 00:37:33.599
When you're right there, it makes sense.
00:37:33.760 --> 00:38:00.559
And so um there's I was just in that instance, just talking about uh how you can doubt both sides, and and when and having been sort of at both, good and bad, sort of the top of the mountain and at the bottom of the valley, it gives me a level of compassion and empathy for people, even if I don't understand your particular situation.
00:38:00.719 --> 00:38:11.760
The fact that I did end up in places I thought I never would and how easy it was to get there, the road was very tumultuous.
00:38:11.840 --> 00:38:16.880
The road was full of struggle, it was a long downward journey.
00:38:16.960 --> 00:38:27.760
But by the time I gave into whatever that was, the the worst version be if you call it a rock bottom, but that was more of just noticing where I was than a thing I actually did.
00:38:29.760 --> 00:38:31.840
That was not a big leap.
00:38:32.079 --> 00:38:54.320
And so, in knowing that I've been there and seeing other people do it, it helps me to just be like, yeah, it's I have compassion for people that are seemingly making bad decisions, where in their world, one bad decisions to the next is not this giant leap, it's just sort of a continuation of the trajectory they're on.
00:38:55.280 --> 00:38:58.719
This exercise, by the way, helps me with that.
00:38:58.800 --> 00:39:06.400
This is this is why I have to do it ahead of time because I'm if I'm in traffic and this shit comes up, you think I'm gonna be able to fucking not honk my horn?
00:39:06.719 --> 00:39:11.199
Because I'm I'm having imaginary conversations with my wife or something.
00:39:11.440 --> 00:39:16.719
So anyway, um that kind of goes into shadow work too.
00:39:16.800 --> 00:39:35.760
I think I've mentioned that before, and I don't I still don't even know what the fuck it is, but I'm making it up as I come across it and hear of it, and what I assume it it is, but basically, like I don't doubt evil nearly as much anymore because I just say I don't doubt it because I'm not there yet, which harkens back to what I was just talking about.
00:39:35.920 --> 00:39:38.559
Like, I have the capacity for it, I'm just not there yet.
00:39:38.639 --> 00:39:45.360
I don't want to inhabit that space, and I don't doubt that like reality is good.
00:39:46.000 --> 00:39:49.440
I I'm just not there yet either.
00:39:49.599 --> 00:39:57.039
You know, it's like this recognition that all these things can exist and it's up to me to figure out how to get to either one.
00:39:57.199 --> 00:40:10.000
I don't know why the road to evil feels so much easier, but it just seems like way harder to get to the positive side of things, or more consistent effort, I suppose.
00:40:10.320 --> 00:40:20.880
But really thinking on it just in the moment here is when I'm inhabiting a negative worldview, it's just it's a whole hell of a lot of effort because my entire day is rooted in just seeing the worst in things.
00:40:21.199 --> 00:40:28.880
Maybe that's the insidious part of all of this pull downwards, is that it doesn't feel like you're being drug-along the whole time.
00:40:29.360 --> 00:40:32.239
It feels sorta real, it feels truthful.
00:40:33.199 --> 00:40:37.519
So, let me get back to this exercise if you can even follow where I'm going.
00:40:42.880 --> 00:40:59.280
I apologize, this is gonna be a break, but at the um I say the perspective challenge as at the core of it, in my own personal thesis, ethos, the point of existence is to experience it, right?
00:40:59.440 --> 00:41:10.639
So either these positive or negatives, at the at this is my own personal ethos, thesis on life.
00:41:10.880 --> 00:41:15.679
The point of life to me, and I'm not talking purpose or meaning, but just the point of all of this.
00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:22.239
I I'm not answering like I don't know how to let's see if I can do this, answer this correctly.
00:41:22.320 --> 00:41:24.239
But like, why are we here?
00:41:24.320 --> 00:41:27.039
I don't know, but the point of it is to experience it.
00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:28.480
How's that?
00:41:29.280 --> 00:41:39.119
So if the root of our existence is simply that we are, in that light, I look at my reality this way.
00:41:39.360 --> 00:41:42.320
I am carp experiencing fear.
00:41:42.880 --> 00:41:45.920
Not I am afraid, right?
00:41:46.239 --> 00:41:48.719
I am carp experiencing fear.
00:41:49.599 --> 00:41:54.239
Not that I'm doubtful, I am carp experiencing doubt.
00:41:55.920 --> 00:42:01.519
I am not afraid, not at my core, I am just that which is experiencing fear.
00:42:02.320 --> 00:42:09.039
That untethered witness, uninfluenced by the conditioning of my mind, is whatever I am.
00:42:09.280 --> 00:42:10.880
That's carp, that's me.
00:42:10.960 --> 00:42:17.039
That's underneath all of that other stuff, that which witnesses it all is me.
00:42:18.800 --> 00:42:30.719
And once I take the step back to challenge my own perspective in this moment, in any moment, I can see that all possibilities and all potentials are all available all the time.
00:42:31.519 --> 00:42:33.920
And that it's all a matter of perspective.
00:42:34.159 --> 00:42:40.800
Now I'll use I just wrote down two really stupid examples, but they're just to show extremes and opposites.
00:42:41.039 --> 00:42:48.400
But basically, a mother holding a baby could be evil if I'm rooted in the perspective that the human race is inherently bad.
00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:52.239
Or human trafficking is good.
00:42:53.519 --> 00:43:04.239
Because I have found a currency that allows me to operate towards my greater goals, whatever those being, of blowing the demon cock of ball or Moloch or whatever the fuck is going on with those people.
00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:13.119
And whatever road you have to travel to get your mega yacht, hey, maybe human trafficking is the greatest way to do it.
00:43:13.599 --> 00:43:30.400
So I think that the the if I could try to distill this down, you can see that whatever reality you're inhabiting shapes the perspective of like either your trust or doubt in things.
00:43:30.719 --> 00:43:46.480
And obviously, value system comes in there, and it's important to try to work all this stuff out so that at least you can define it to yourself, and then later you can worry about whether or not you want to qualify it and say it's good or bad.
00:43:47.199 --> 00:44:06.800
Um, but this is sort of getting into the utility of it is that at least in this exercise, I I try to escape the expectation that this is going to fix anything.
00:44:07.280 --> 00:44:17.440
What it gives me is the space to recognize that whether it's good or bad, whatever worldview I'm in, I have created it.
00:44:18.079 --> 00:44:24.480
And that I have to take ownership of the perspective I find myself in.
00:44:26.400 --> 00:44:34.960
To start there gives me something to work with, but it also gives me the agency to understand that it is on me.
00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:38.239
That the world isn't happening to me.
00:44:38.400 --> 00:44:39.920
Things are just happening.
00:44:40.239 --> 00:44:43.920
My world is happening to me because I'm framing it that way.
00:44:44.239 --> 00:44:46.079
And that's really all this exercise is.
00:44:46.239 --> 00:45:04.159
It was a long way of working through to get to essentially the when you look out your eyes and see the world, you are creating your world through all the different ways you interface with it and give it meaning.
00:45:04.719 --> 00:45:08.719
And if you give it good meaning, then things look good.
00:45:08.880 --> 00:45:11.039
I mean, this is I feel kind of silly.
00:45:11.119 --> 00:45:14.480
Like this is a paint by numbers feel good shit.
00:45:15.360 --> 00:45:24.239
But that to and come into this, I I did I think there's a more mature than the paint by numbers version.
00:45:24.400 --> 00:45:26.079
And I'll get into that now.
00:45:26.320 --> 00:45:30.800
Because as I was reading a different book, it's called The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie.
00:45:30.960 --> 00:45:41.039
It's actually a really fun book that most of the characters, their actions are pretty reprehensible, but it's written in such a way that you're kind of rooting for all of them.
00:45:41.199 --> 00:45:44.320
There's a levity, there's a there's a humor to everything they do.
00:45:44.400 --> 00:45:51.280
So even though that they're all shitty people doing shitty things, you you understand why a little bit.
00:45:51.440 --> 00:45:58.639
And so that's another one of those fun books where it's it's not even anti-hero stuff, it's just a little bit closer to reality.
00:45:59.199 --> 00:46:01.679
There's complex characters in life.
00:46:01.920 --> 00:46:16.000
And one aspect of it was this guy who had been tortured and was now living like a very crippled life, was sitting there watching young soldiers on a boat uh getting drunk and falling over and you know, just hooting and hollering.
00:46:17.039 --> 00:46:23.039
And I put the book down because something in that moment really hit me.
00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:34.079
Is that it how difficult it is to look at the the innocence of use, that lightness of innocence of just kids having fun.
00:46:34.400 --> 00:46:38.559
And kids, I can mean five-year-olds, ten-year-olds, twenty-year-olds, twenty-five-year-olds.
00:46:38.800 --> 00:46:45.199
I mean, there comes a point when that whatever that world that the innocence falls away.
00:46:45.280 --> 00:46:49.039
I don't I hope it lasts as long as it needs to for you.
00:46:49.199 --> 00:47:01.440
Mine was very young, but it was it was the veil of innocence and the in the way you see the world eventually falls away for us all.
00:47:02.320 --> 00:47:18.800
And it was a I don't I am assuming in that scene in that book that was the intended purpose was to show this tortured younger guy, but had been tortured to the point of being crippled, looking at all of these kids, and um it wasn't yearning after it, wasn't really judging it, just noticing it.
00:47:19.039 --> 00:47:27.920
And in a lot of ways, I felt that way, but I I started it something just hit me of like I really miss that lightness of innocence.
00:47:28.239 --> 00:47:45.039
That like once I knew what evil was, and once I knew how bad things could get or are for a lot of people, maybe not now or were or will become, just the nature of existence.
00:47:45.280 --> 00:47:54.400
Once the innocence is lost, I really think it's it's the discovery of the nature of existence that everything is available, like it can get really, really bad, it can get really, really good.
00:47:55.199 --> 00:47:59.840
Um, just wait long enough and it'll swift shift the other way.
00:48:00.639 --> 00:48:07.760
And so I wanted to really get into like losing the lightness of innocence.
00:48:07.920 --> 00:48:17.119
But in these times when I felt really, really good, I did have a lightness of being, but it wasn't innocent.
00:48:17.440 --> 00:48:39.519
And that to me is a more mature version of the lightness of innocence, but also a more mature version of this, what I was calling like the paint by numbers perspective shifts of like it's one thing to know that that like, yeah, if I have a negative worldview, um you know, seeing things positively is gonna be difficult.
00:48:39.679 --> 00:48:43.519
That's sort of the the very basic version of it.
00:48:44.159 --> 00:48:57.440
The more mature version to me is sometimes inhabiting the negative world, there's a draw to it that almost keeps you going sometimes.
00:48:57.599 --> 00:48:58.960
That you'd need it.
00:48:59.599 --> 00:49:11.519
That to give in to these negative feelings and emotions, at least for me anyway, allowed me to root myself in a reality that could keep me going.
00:49:11.760 --> 00:49:25.760
Not that I ever wanted to outwardly do anything bad, but that just seeing the world from like with these evil eyes gave me enough energy to be like, I'm gonna keep fucking fighting for whatever.
00:49:26.000 --> 00:49:27.440
I don't know what it is.
00:49:27.760 --> 00:49:35.360
But there was there's nothing that positivity was gonna do for me in those moments, at least from the from where I stood.
00:49:35.519 --> 00:49:39.039
You know, I just didn't have the tools.
00:49:39.840 --> 00:49:51.440
And so when you start to understand evil in that way, that's that's to me when that lightness of innocence is that you go, Oh, everybody has the capacity for good.
00:49:51.679 --> 00:49:53.920
And things can just be good, just feel good.
00:49:54.159 --> 00:50:01.679
To the lightness of being is kind of switching over to a more mature way of like, yeah, like I understand evil, I could easily do that myself.
00:50:01.840 --> 00:50:05.119
Like I could see the purpose behind it, and it's intoxicating.
00:50:05.360 --> 00:50:10.480
Some days I have to fight diligently against myself to not go down that road.
00:50:11.119 --> 00:50:17.199
And I also don't necessarily blame people for doing it because it's giving in is fucking easy.
00:50:17.440 --> 00:50:21.599
The fallout you deal with is hard, but giving in is really fucking easy.
00:50:21.840 --> 00:50:43.679
And so to paint those two pictures, but what all this work of I'm doing now is to find that lightness of being, to be on the other side of the of innocence and go, can I get back to any version of the lightness of innocence, to enjoy this life and have fun again, knowing all the worst that can happen.
00:50:43.920 --> 00:50:50.559
I think in a way, a big way too, culturally, we just have seen with because of the internet, like we we've seen so much more.
00:50:50.719 --> 00:50:59.440
I question whether or not our brains have the capacity to take all of that in and make sense of it in a way that doesn't drive us crazy.
00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:02.159
But unfortunately, we're just in it.
00:51:02.320 --> 00:51:06.159
Like we whether it does or doesn't, we got to deal with it.
00:51:06.639 --> 00:51:20.559
And so to transmute this exercise to other things too, just take a step back, find a way to get the space to realize that whatever you're feeling or thinking is some part, in some ways, a machination all your own.
00:51:20.800 --> 00:51:23.519
You have to take some accountability for the way you're seeing the world.
00:51:23.679 --> 00:51:27.679
Now, you might be looking at something terrible in front of you, and there's no denying it.
00:51:27.760 --> 00:51:34.719
But I'm just saying your worldview in general, you have a responsibility to take ownership for it in some way.
00:51:35.920 --> 00:51:41.920
So, in light of all of that, I'm just working on doubt.
00:51:44.800 --> 00:51:45.920
Oh, God.
00:51:46.639 --> 00:52:36.079
And uh I just noticed this past week that I've been doubting good things, and I think it's just the natural ebb and flow, especially now being what seven, almost eight months into sobriety, but it's it's easy to start poking holes in the things that I know work or the things that feel good when they start to not feel good, when the effort you are not rewarded for your effort with good feelings, and to have faith that through that, and just now we're in the trudging, slogging, you know, effort with no reward phase of things, that at some point on the other side, truth will be revealed, understanding will be gained, that faith in the process yields good results down the road.
00:52:36.239 --> 00:52:48.079
If there's one thing I know, deferred happiness in a lot of ways, or deferred pleasure or gratification, has never come to bite me in the ass.
00:52:48.480 --> 00:52:49.920
Let's put it that way.
00:52:50.400 --> 00:52:55.440
Instant gratification, more times than not, bites me in the ass.
00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:03.599
But delayed gratification, very rarely, there have been times, not many, but a couple.
00:53:03.760 --> 00:53:06.400
When I look back and go, God, I wish I would have done that.
00:53:06.559 --> 00:53:09.360
Because we're usually revolved around people.
00:53:09.920 --> 00:53:25.440
But the instances where I didn't take the pleasurable route, I the the interesting thing about that is that when you live without the pleasure and realize you made it just fine, you go, oh, okay, I guess I didn't need it.
00:53:25.840 --> 00:53:33.920
But I think that the the regret that comes when you do take the pleasurable route is you go, ah fuck, I probably didn't need that all along, and now I'm paying the price for it.
00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:35.519
No free lunches ever.
00:53:36.239 --> 00:53:37.360
Isn't that great?
00:53:37.599 --> 00:53:39.920
Oh, life, the perpetual mystery.
00:53:40.159 --> 00:53:50.480
So anyway, I hope those um that in some way informs you of where I'm at and how maybe you can tackle your own doubt or understand it a bit better.
00:53:50.639 --> 00:54:03.039
And that if you are like me and yearning for that lightness of innocence that you have lost, come to the sobering realization that you don't get that back.
00:54:03.199 --> 00:54:09.199
Once the paradigm shift has happened, there's no forgetting what you now know.
00:54:09.760 --> 00:54:21.920
But perhaps we can find a way to find that lightness again and a more mature understanding, and maybe, just maybe, it's even better than the lightness we've left behind.
00:54:22.239 --> 00:54:25.360
Anyway, I hope you have a great week, and I will see you next week.
