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#2324 – Amanda Knox Podcast Episode Description
Amanda Knox is an exoneree, journalist, public speaker, and author of two books, the newest of which is “Free: My Search for Meaning.” She co-hosts the podcast “Labyrinths” with her partner, Christopher Robinson. Knoxsits on the board of the Innocence Center, and serves as an Innocence Network Ambassador.www.amandaknox.comhttps://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/amanda-knox/free/9781538770719/
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#2324 – Amanda Knox Podcast Episode Summary
In this podcast episode, the discussion revolves around personal growth, resilience, and the impact of storytelling on identity. The episode features a conversation with a guest who shares their experience of overcoming a significant personal tragedy and the lessons learned from it. The guest emphasizes the importance of finding opportunity in adversity and not allowing negative experiences to define one’s life. They discuss their journey of developing a relationship with their prosecutor, highlighting the power of compassion and understanding in healing and personal empowerment.
A recurring theme is the idea of being answerable to oneself and the ripple effect of one’s actions on others. The guest shares insights on how approaching situations with curiosity and compassion can lead to unexpected positive outcomes, both personally and in interactions with others. They stress the importance of acting out of love and being genuine in one’s pursuits, whether in personal or professional life.
The episode also touches on the challenges of dealing with public perception and criticism, particularly in the context of social media and public life. The speakers discuss the importance of focusing on what truly matters and not being swayed by negative external opinions.
Actionable insights include the value of self-reflection, the importance of maintaining integrity, and the need to focus on personal growth and positive influence. The guest’s story serves as an example of how to navigate life’s challenges with resilience and grace, offering a message of hope and empowerment to listeners.
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#2324 – Amanda Knox Podcast Episode Transcript (Unedited)
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00:01
Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan experience. Ai my day Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.
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00:13
Hey. Good to see you.
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00:14
Good to see you again.
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00:15
You have a book?
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00:16
I do. Yeah. I hope you like it.
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00:18
Free. That’s sai great name.
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00:20
Yeah. Well, it’s it’s on point.
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00:23
Yeah. It’s on the nose.
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00:24
Yes. Yeah. Well, that that whole question of what does it mean to be free and what you know? Yes. There’s the physical, like, oh, you’re out of bryden, but then also, is your life the thing that you expected it to be, and how do you make your own freedom when you feel hemmed in by all of the things that happened to you?
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00:41
So
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00:42
Yeah. You’re connected to that forever. That’s always gonna be a part of your life. It’s not like anything else that didn’t really happen, ai, you didn’t do anything, and you’re connected to something
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00:59
recap. Recap. Okay. Recap, friends.
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01:02
Real quick.
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01:02
Recap, friends. And you can go back to the episode that of Joe Rogan. What number was that? Do you know off the top of your head.
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01:10
If you just Google Amanda Knox, you’ll go holy shit.
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01:13
You’ll go down a crazy rabbit hole. Yes. So in a nutshell, what happened?
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01:17
Yeah.
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01:17
I was studying abroad when I was 20 years old in Perugia, Italy. My one of my roommates was raped and murdered by a burglar who broke into our home. But I was accused of having orchestrated a murder orgy. And I was sent to prison for four years. I was sentenced to twenty six years.
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01:37
I was put on trial for eight years, and it became this international scandal, where it sort of pinged all of the buttons in all the right places. This happened in 02/2007. So, you know, early two thousands when the Internet was or the Internet. The social media was really becoming a thing.
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01:59
The iPhone was becoming a thing. I think that that played a huge role of people sort of going into their little echo chambers and fighting online. And so I think that there was yeah. It it was a case that, for whatever reason, rose above the the level of other cases. Like, ultimately, this case was actually very simple, and it wouldn’t have risen to the level of international infamy were it not for the series of mistakes that the prosecution and the and the detectives made at the very beginning by trying to pin a man’s crime on me, a woman.
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02:35
Yeah. And if anybody wants, there’s meh.
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02:38
Yes. There’s a Netflix documentary. I wrote a book called Waiting to be Heard. And then more recently, I wrote this book, Free Ai Search for Meaning, which covers, ai, you know, you can read it and learn about the case, but it’s mostly about how do you come out of an experience like that and make sense of it.
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02:55
And then part one of the big stories in it is how I then developed a relationship with my prosecutor, which I think you’ll probably be in the camp of people of thinking that I’m utterly insane for having done that. Maybe maybe maybe you won’t. I just remember that when we talked about this back in the day, you were ai, this motherfucker. Yeah.
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03:17
So you ai friends with him?
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03:20
Friend is an interesting word. What is a friend? Someone else asked me that. Like, I was like, it depends on how what you mean by friend. Because and they said, well, do you trust him? And I said, well, I I think that at the point that we are now in our relationship, I do trust him.
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03:46
I trust that he’s telling me the truth about what he really thinks and and feels about the situation. So I feel like I have very privileged speak access to the mind of the person who put me in bryden. And that is a very interesting, awkward, but also empowering place for me to be because one of the things that really bothered me about this experience was not understanding why it happened to me.
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04:19
Why did this man look at a 20 year old girl with no criminal history, no motivation to commit this crime? Why did he look at me and think there’s my rapist and murderer? And I didn’t understand it. And I didn’t feel ai demonizing him in my mind or vilifying him in my mind was going to actually give me a satisfying answer as to the why of it all.
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04:43
A lot of people said, well, it’s just because he’s a bad dude. He doesn’t care what the truth is. He’s just covering his ass. Like, these were all really simplistic ways of framing his motivations, and I didn’t really buy them. So instead, what I was interested in was going to the source and confronting him, asking why. But to ask someone, why did you hurt meh?
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05:09
Which I think is a really common thing that people who have been hurt want to know is they want an acknowledgment that they’ve been hurt, and they wanna understand ai. And they they wanna know if that person’s not gonna hurt them anymore or not gonna hurt other people. Like, that’s really common for people who have been hurt.
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05:25
The the challenge is that people who hurt other people don’t like to be confronted with that fact. And so how do you start a conversation that’s not going to immediately become adversarial? And that was one of my biggest challenges. But I came up with this methodology that I actually it became so important to me that I tattooed it on my arm. So this is it.
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05:49
There are four steps. And, the first one is find common ground. So it’s this Venn diagram. Find common ground. I promise you that every single person on this earth, you have something in common with them. Find it.
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06:05
So I asked myself, what could I and my prosecutor have in common? I didn’t know this man. I didn’t know what his history was, what his background was, but I did know that he, like me, was part of this really big scandalous in the media case. And he very likely felt misconstrued or misrepresented also in the process, maybe dehumanized in the process. And so I reached out to him, and I acknowledged that fact.
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06:36
I said, hey. I don’t know who you are. I only ever encountered you in the police office and in the courtroom where you were someone who was trying to ruin my life. So you were a big scary boogeyman. And I saw you in the media, and Ai, you know, I’ve seen how the media represented you.
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06:55
But I knowing from experience, I know how that can be very misrepresentative. So I said to him, I wanna know who you really are, and I hope that you might be interested to know who I really am because I don’t think you know who I really am. I don’t think that you would have prosecuted me if you knew who I really am. And that was the beginning of the ai.
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07:17
This, like, I went out of my way to acknowledge that he might have had noble motivations even if he was wrong. And I think this is, like, a really important thing is I I wanted to give him radical benefit of the doubt. Maybe, just maybe, this, like, horrible thing that happened to me could have been the result of understandable mistakes.
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07:50
And if anything, I think coming into contact with the innocence movement and criminal justice system stuff and reform, all the stuff that I’ve learned after having gone through this experience has made me realize that, like, some of the most horrible things can happen and can be enacted by people who have the best of intentions.
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08:09
And so I assumed that of him, and I gave him that benefit of the doubt. And as soon as I, like, opened that door, like, hey, you hurt me, but maybe that wasn’t your intention. Maybe your intention was something else. He filled that void with his story and his message and and what he wanted me to understand about himself.
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08:31
And, I mean, one of the wildest things about this book is that I talk about like, I do not sugarcoat what I went through, like and especially what he did to me. Like, I very, like, clearly set out, like, here’s the fucked up shit he said about me in court, completely without evidence, like, totally made up bullshit.
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08:52
Like and it ruined my life. Right? Here’s what it is. Acknowledge these facts. And also and also here is a person who might have had like, in doing sai, might have been coming from a place of trying to rationalize things in his own mind, which is a thing that we all do we all do on a on a regular basis.
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09:15
We’re all just sort of interpreting our reality in the way that suits us. And so I and I wrote this book from my perspective. I translated the entire thing into Italian before it ever got published so that I could share it with him, so that he would know what I was saying about him in public, what was imminently going to come out.
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09:38
And his response was, I have never felt more seen. That’s what he told me.
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09:48
That sounds like something a teenage girl would say.
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09:51
Well, that’s an interesting observation, because it’s become quite emotional, especially on his part. Oh, okay. I don’t I I I shouldn’t go there too much.
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10:16
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10:31
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10:54
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11:25
So make sure you check out drinkag1.com/joerogan to get started with a g one’s next gen and notice the benefits for yourself. That’s drinkag1.com/joerogan. Yeah. You’re a very nice person. You’re so much nicer than me.
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11:45
Well, I don’t know. I’ve just had really bad stuff happen to meh. And, like, I don’t wish bad stuff upon other people. And That’s
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11:52
a beautiful way to live your life. It really is. I mean, that’s, what all Christians aspire to is what you’re doing.
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12:03
Yeah. I I ai. I’m not a Christian.
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12:06
Forgiveness.
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12:07
Yeah. You know, it is funny. I didn’t really set out for people, like, point to that. They’re like, forgiveness, forgiveness. You’re doing forgiveness. And I was like, is this forgiveness? Or is this
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12:16
Just communicating with him is forgiveness in some way and not having extreme anger.
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12:22
Well, that’s the thing. I do have extreme anger. Like, that’s all part of it. And this is where, like, the Buddhist in me comes out, where you you can have extreme anger towards a person and, at the same time, hold them in your hand as this, like, tender, fallible creature that is capable of violence against you but is also capable of being hurt.
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12:52
Just because someone hurt you doesn’t mean that they’re not capable of being hurt. And I certainly don’t wanna be in the position of hurting someone. Like, that’s just who I am. And then if anything, like, one thing that I’ve communicated to him is, like, look. I don’t know if you’re ever gonna really wrap your head around what you did to meh.
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13:12
But if you do one day, I know that you’re gonna feel really, really bad. And I just want you to know that I Ai I don’t wish suffering on you. I don’t.
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13:34
Did you ask him if he had gone over any of his previous cases and wondered whether he did the same thing to other people? Because I don’t think that’s something you do once. I don’t think you are an ethical prosecutor who just really objectively analyzes the evidence and puts forth a case based on what you think is the facts. Mhmm.
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13:59
I don’t I don’t think you do that your whole career. And then this 20 year old bitch, I think. She’s too cute. I don’t like how she’s smiling.
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14:08
Yeah. There yeah. There was that element to it. Has to be. Well, yeah. I think that and I do feel like there was some kind of pornographic nature to it. Like, I don’t know. Like, I think that men
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14:23
Well, there’s a lot of men that have, like, a deep resentment for beautiful women.
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14:29
Just ram feelings of rejection? Yes. Or yeah. Okay.
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14:32
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because they are attracted to them or they find them to be beautiful or ai, and they know that that woman once have nothing to do with them. Ai, they are completely repulsive. And sai, that you you see it a lot with, unfortunately, unattractive men. They develop a hate for women. I’ve seen it.
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14:52
I’ve I’ve seen it evolve over years with people that I used to be friends with. You know, ai just constant rejection and then it becomes ai, fuck these women, fuck them. They just want this ai, Okay. Put yourself in their position. You’re gross.
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15:08
You know, like what are they supposed to do?
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15:12
Ai harder.
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15:13
What are they supposed to do? Like be with someone that they’re not attracted to to make that person feel better? Like, that’s not what people do. Like, you have a short window of life. Yeah. You’re supposed to pursue what you ai. And your, you know, your fucking hand of card sucks. Sorry.
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15:28
You know, this is how it goes. But that thing where, you know, they look at you ai you have it too easy. You have too many gifts. There’s life has given you too good a hand of cards, you know, and you should be punished. You should be knocked down a peg.
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15:48
You see that in particular in the media with celebrity.
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15:51
Mhmm.
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15:52
It’s a big one with celebrity women. If something goes wrong, like, they just can’t wait
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15:57
Oh, yeah.
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15:58
To dunk on them, mock them for weight gain, whatever it is.
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16:03
For getting out of a car in the wrong way. They they were the ones who were, like, showing up to get up their skirt. Yeah. Any any sort of
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16:09
That stuff was on purpose.
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16:12
Oh, is it?
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16:12
Okay. Yeah. They think the Paris Hilton stuff, like, back in the day where a lot of women were, like it was, like, an epidemic of
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16:19
Of getting out of cars.
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16:20
Getting out. And photographers just happen to be on the ground. Like, you’re a woman. You’ve worn skirts. It’s not easy to look up someone’s skirt. If you’re standing up and someone gets out there, how the fuck do you get down that
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16:32
you you’d have to be on your knees?
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16:34
I think they were doing it on purpose. I think it was a way of going viral before viral was a thing, because it went away. Like, when was the last time
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16:43
That we had an Us With Skirt shah?
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16:45
Ai don’t you have any underwear on? That seems weird.
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16:48
Well, panty lines, you know, that’s a real thing.
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16:51
Yeah. Sure. But that’s what g strings were invented for. Right?
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16:54
Those still create lines, my friend, if it’s on the dress.
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16:57
Yes. But are you that concerned with lines that you wanna go bareback?
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17:01
I’ve not gone bareback, at a at a premiere. I haven’t said With a little skirt on hopping
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17:05
out of
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17:06
a car
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17:07
and the way they did it, it’s just I think it was ai, you know, I mean, this is the same people that had sex tapes that leaked air quotes
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17:16
Right. Right. Right. Right.
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17:17
That were engineered. I mean, the whole thing was it was on purpose. Like
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17:22
Sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah. But in but in terms of your of, like, trying to take beautiful women down a peg, I think you’re right. I also think that something that was going on, in my case that I think you also tend to see in those situations where you’re trying to take beautiful women down a peg is this idea of, like, pitting women against each other.
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17:42
Like, that was a huge thing in my case where they were suggesting that, you know, here I was, this, like, free spirited but also hoary, you know, American girl versus the uptight, judgmental British girl. And and therefore, they hated each other and with, you know, with a vengeance, with a lethal vengeance.
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18:06
And then then this idea of, like, a murder orgy appeared where this pornographic fantasy of women ex like, expressing their own violent fantasies towards each other in real life and using men as pawns in that in that game of of violent hatred towards each other. I think you see that a lot, you know, even in, like, a person Sai I write about in this book who’s become a a dear friend of mine is Monica Lewinsky and how I feel like people really wanted to bring her down a peg in part because they wanted to bring Hillary down a meh.
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18:53
And the whole, like, purse the person who actually committed the affair was sort of I mean, he definitely got his part, but it was all ai a political game of they’re trying to take down the man, but they’re also taking down the woman. And they’re especially railroading this young woman who made a mistake, and it became known as the Monica Lewinsky scandal and not, you know, the the Bill Clinton affair or whatever.
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19:14
Like, it matters what you name a thing, and it seemed like the legacy of that and the person who became defined entirely by that scandal happened to be Monica, the one who was the person with the least amount of power and agency in that equation.
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19:31
Sana Also 20 years old.
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19:33
Yeah. 23 years old. Yeah. Yeah. Who did a very normal thing, which was fall in love with a charismatic, powerful man.
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19:40
Then he was handsome as fuck back then.
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19:42
Oh, yeah. I mean,
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19:42
he was the president of The United States.
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19:44
He was the president of The United States. He was charismatic. He was handsome. He showered her with attention, and it makes sense that a young inexperienced person would fall in love with him. And yet shah was the one who got railroaded. She was the homewrecker. She was the the one who became the subject of all the rap lyrics.
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20:01
And her entire life and her entire identity became identified with this mistake she had made, and that was not the same thing with the president of The United States. And I think that that impulse to define women by their worst moments and to tear them down for their worst moments is, is prevalent as from what I
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20:27
have seen. Because they know it’s so devastating to the person. Mhmm. You know what I mean? It’s like there’s that the bully instinct when they know that you’re weak and vulnerable, you know, to attack. Mhmm. You know?
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20:39
But why? To what end?
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20:40
People are cruel. Because they’ve been hurt. You know, it’s the hurt people hurt people thing. You know, I think it’s
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20:46
Like shah, just as an audience, like, we want we want a story, we want a real life story where we get to, you know, passively enjoy the destruction of another human being.
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20:57
Right. And also, you don’t know her, so you’re disassociated.
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21:00
Yeah.
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21:00
Right? Like, if she was your friend and you did that, you’d have to be a special ai of monster. Ai, that woman Linda Tripp Yeah. Who did it all, that’s a special kind of monster.
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21:09
Right.
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21:10
Special kind of monster who trots that out to the whole world to try to take down Bill Clinton.
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21:15
Yeah.
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21:15
You know, which didn’t even work.
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21:17
No. And that’s what’s fascinating. It worked to destroy Monica. Right. Okay.
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21:22
But also, like, you when you look at Bill, Bill Clinton, this, handsome president, and then you look at Linda Tripp, who is very unattractive, that’s also plays in like, I wanna take him down too. Mhmm. And probably, I wanna take her down as well. Like, there’s a lot of, like, fuck fuck everybody else. There’s a lot of that.
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21:40
You know, when you’re, you know, you’re unseen to use the same vernacular, you know. Mhmm. And then you see, like other people getting attention and it’s just, like, the fact that she did it and she knew her and she but also, this is, like, this is the game of cards that they’re playing.
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21:58
This is House of Cards. This is, you know, that this is literally what they do ai they have a chance in the political realm.
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22:05
Right. Any window, any vulnerability. Anything.
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22:08
It’s the dirtiest game in the world. Yeah. It’s a disgusting game, you know. And if you get sucked into it, you’ll find that out, you know. It’s Ai
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22:17
don’t want anything to
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22:17
do with it. It’s the most evil. It’s really is. Like, when I see people that are running for president, I’m like, what are you doing?
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22:25
I know. I Why
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22:26
would you do that to yourself?
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22:27
Yeah. And then you have to spend the rest of your life, like, with, you know, Secret Service Yeah. Following you around so you can’t exist in the world as a normal human being, like, that I do feel like there is, you have to be a special kind of person in order to be attracted to something like that.
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22:45
Yeah. And not Ai ironically, that’s the kind of person that’s attracted to that in general is not the kind of person you want in a leadership position.
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22:54
Right.
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22:56
You know, which is ai, wow. What do we do though?
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22:58
Yeah. Yeah. So is democracy, completely and utterly flawed because it relies upon the ambition of, the wrong people?
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23:08
Or heroes or legitimate heroes. Ai, someone who’s like, you know, I’m gonna tolerate this. I’m gonna carry the burden of this on my back because I think I can help people.
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23:17
But does anyone ever, like, actually arrive at the like, at the seat of the president as that person? Like
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23:27
here’s the question. Do they stay that person? Because I used to think Obama was that person. Ai really did. You know, Ai was like, wow. We got a good one, you know. Yeah.
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23:36
I was sad I missed out on that.
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23:37
Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty cool. But in retrospect, you know, when looking back, ai, probably not really. Like, probably got corrupted by the system or was corrupt originally, you know, and is now willing to openly lie. God. Yeah. It’s, it’s dark. It’s dark.
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23:59
You know, and I think, it’s just a it’s it’s a strange social position that I don’t think is manageable for anyone. I don’t think the human mind is prepared to be in that kind of a position of power and not have it completely distort
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24:22
what
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24:22
you are. And then there’s the relationships that you have to have with all these various politicians and then special interest groups and lobbyists and then foreign leaders and then
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24:33
Yeah. How do you manage all of that?
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24:35
Heads of defense contracting ai, like, what? Yeah.
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24:44
Can I tell you a story?
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24:45
Yes, please.
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24:46
Okay. So this story didn’t actually make it in my book, but it is one that I wanted to tell you because it it talks about how my weird relationship with other people who are in positions of power, like police officers. Right? Like, you know, I’m a I’m an advocate of criminal justice reform.
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25:07
I talk a lot about like, I go and testify in front of my, you know, state congress trying to get certain laws passed to protect, you know, innocent people. And one thing that I like to point out is that I’m not anti law enforcement. And if anything, I was a victim of crime before I became a victim of the criminal justice system.
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25:30
Like, someone broke into my home and raped and murdered my roommate. And then I called the cops, and then the cops went on to betray me. And but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t like, I’m not one of those, you know, fuck all the police. We don’t need them. You know, abolish the whole system.
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25:48
That’s not what I believe. But as someone who has had this complicated experience with police, I don’t really know what to do when something bad goes down. And I wanna tell you a story about something bad that went down. It was in LA. I was staying at a friend’s house with my husband and our two kids. We were doing work down there. And our friends were not there.
Speaker: 0
26:17
But, in the middle of the night, we hear someone yelling out in the, you know, out in the street. We think there’s some drunk guy out there, but it gets closer and closer and closer until ai, there is a huge bang. And my husband gets up in his tighty whities and says one thing to meh, call the police before he marches downstairs.
Speaker: 0
26:46
Sai we were upstairs in the Second Story, and we hear a bang. We hear yelling. He goes down there in his underwear. And I don’t know if the last thing I’m ever gonna hear from my husband at that point is call the police, which is an interesting final words to get from the love of your life when you’re me.
Speaker: 0
27:04
And my my, you know, infant son is crying. My, you know, two year old daughter at the time is going, what’s going on? And I’m trying to calm him while reassure her, while looking around the room thinking, how do I barricade a door, and can I jump out of a window with two small children?
Speaker: 0
27:26
All of that before I think dial 911. Because the last time that I dialed the equivalent of 911 to call for help, I got thrown into prison. I realized that there’s nothing I can do to protect my kids, so I call 911. And, eventually, you know, my husband is able to get this intruder to leave the house.
Speaker: 0
27:52
The police arrive, and I have a very strange encounter with them because they are very nice to meh. And I was not expecting that. And they are very nice to my daughter. And they give her a nice little, you know, police bryden. And Ai sitting here thinking, great.
Speaker: 0
28:11
Now I’m gonna have to throw a police themed birthday party for her because now she’s gonna be super into police. And I’m just like, what is happening to my life? And I’m scared that they’re gonna recognize meh, and I’m scared that they’re gonna think maybe she faked a speak.
Speaker: 0
28:23
And, like, all of that is going on in my head, and I don’t know how to resolve that. You know? Somebody broke into I have, you know, bryden into my home once, murdered my roommate, broke into the place I was staying again. Thankfully, didn’t murder anybody. But, like, how do I make sense of my relationship with people who are empowered to protect me but also are empowered to hurt meh.
Speaker: 0
28:56
What do I do about that? You tell me, Joe. That’s right. What do I do?
Speaker: 1
29:03
There’s no way I could know what’s going through your mind. You know? That the experience that you had is no one can even pretend to have those thoughts in their head because this is not just paranoid fantasy. This is is is your actual lived experience for years. Yeah. That’s a good question. What what had happened? Like, the bang? Was it someone kicking down the door?
Speaker: 0
29:33
Yeah. He had kicked in the door through the dead bolt.
Speaker: 1
29:36
What was the yelling?
Speaker: 0
29:37
The yelling was he was just, Schizophrenic? Yeah. He he thought that he someone had stole that house from him, and he was yelling for some name of a person who didn’t live there. Clearly was just, like, either confused or mentally ill in some capacity, but and thankfully not armed.
Speaker: 0
30:00
But, like, my husband didn’t know when he walked down the stairs in his underwear without any any like, he grabbed a broom on his way down, and that was he was Jesus. Between putting himself and a broom between whoever this person was who had just kicked in the front door through the deadbolt and his family.
Speaker: 0
30:18
And that might have been the last time I ever saw him. You know? And I did not know what to do. I try to, like, joke about it now where yeah. I actually did a stand up bit about it a while back about how I was, like, testing my butt to see if it was bouncy enough to, like, jump out of the window and ai.
Speaker: 0
30:34
Ai out of the window and bounce. But, like, I when I think back on it, it’s just it’s still scary. You know? And And and I don’t I don’t like how I feel right now that when I’m scared, I’m supposed to call the police, but I’m also scared to call the police.
Speaker: 1
30:59
Jesus.
Speaker: 0
31:01
And so, you know, when I go and do advocacy work for, you know I’m I’m now on the board of a organization called the Innocence Center, innocencecenter.org, which, by the way, just got a bunch of federal funding, taken away. Thanks, Elon. You’d think that they would be interested in supporting organizations that clean up the messes of the criminal justice system, but apparently not.
Speaker: 0
31:29
So if you wanna support us, innocencecenter.org.
Speaker: 1
31:33
How do you what what happened that they got their funding taken away? What what was the circumstances? Like
Speaker: 0
31:40
I mean, there there’s a federal funding that is designed for innocence organizations. And I think what I heard is that there are certain words that sort of became taboo within the, administration that if you were using these words or these terminologies that they associate with, like, DEI, that then they’re that sort of puts you on the list of being cut for federal funding.
Speaker: 0
32:08
And one of those words was, like, the word fair. And in a organization that is interested in justice and for in getting innocent people out of prison, the word fair is going to come up quite a bit.
Speaker: 1
32:21
So is it just an algorithm? They’re just scanning the mission statement of whatever these organizations are?
Speaker: 0
32:27
Yeah. I mean, I think that that’s a first a first step is they’ll just use this they’re gonna use algorithms and AI to help them identify potential things to cut. And I think as a as a new innocence organization, we were considered not worthy of the federal funding that we have relied on and to help innocent people.
Speaker: 0
32:50
And now we’re Are
Speaker: 1
32:50
you one of the founders of this organization?
Speaker: 0
32:52
Me? No. I’m on the board.
Speaker: 1
32:54
You’re on
Speaker: 0
32:54
the board. But, meh, this is, formerly the California Innocence Project that has since sort of turned into the Innocence Center. But you’ll see you’re seeing this all across the board of Innocence Projects of getting their federal funding taken away.
Speaker: 1
33:08
And there’s no accusations of impropriety or misuse of funds or high salaries for certain individuals or nothing?
Speaker: 0
33:18
Nope. Just it’s deprioritized because I think we’re considered leftist organizations, potentially. I don’t know. But I know that, like, I have always thought that innocence and getting injustice were bipartisan issues. And I thought that we had been making great, you know, strides in in sort of welcoming in both liberal and conservative partners in this ongoing fight.
Speaker: 0
33:49
But because these sort of these things disproportionately impact people of color, you’re going to see language around that that acknowledges that fact. And I think that that has been sort of put in we are innocence organizations are now being put into DEI ram, and we’re being stripped of funding.
Speaker: 0
34:09
And I think that that’s I hope that that’s an oversight issue, and that they’re going to recognize the mistake that they’re making. But as it stands ai now, innocence organizations, not just the one that I’m associated with, are scrambling to get the funding that they were promised to continue doing, you know, doing the things that cost money, like filing, you know, filing all of their work and and going through all of the casework and doing the DNA tests and doing investigations to see if you can reach the witnesses that maybe have changed their stories in all these years.
Speaker: 0
34:44
It takes a lot of money and resources to prove a person’s innocence. You have to reinvestigate a case, and we’re we don’t we don’t have the funding that we we used to.
Speaker: 1
34:55
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35:09
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Speaker: 1
36:06
Again, that’s ZipRecruiter.com/rogan. Zip intro, post jobs today, talk to qualified candidates tomorrow. I do a lot of work with Josh Dubin.
Speaker: 0
36:19
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
36:19
And Yeah. You know Josh? Yeah.
Speaker: 0
36:21
Yeah. I mean, I’ve never met him personally.
Speaker: 1
36:22
But he’s with the he was with the Innocence Project, and now he’s with the Ike Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice. Mhmm. And same kind of work. Ironically, Ike Perlmutter is very close friends with Trump. And so I
Speaker: 0
36:37
mean, I would have thought that that would have been of interest to Ram, considering
Speaker: 1
36:42
I think it’s a baby with the bathwater type deal Right. Where there’s a lot of what you would call almost ai slush fund NGOs, where they’re inappropriately moving funds around and doing stuff. And I don’t know if you ever seen any of Mike Benz’s work, but meh essentially says that USAID is really there to do things that are too dirty for the CIA.
Speaker: 1
37:05
Sai the extraordinary amount of money that was being moved around, there’s a certain percentage of it that was inappropriately being used.
Speaker: 0
37:16
I imagine so. Meh.
Speaker: 1
37:17
Sure. Enormous percentage. There’s it’s a lot of money. But, unfortunately, there’s a lot of good that also is coming out of that money, and that’s what’s difficult. It’s ai, you know, when you round up, all the, quote, unquote, gang meh. Right? And you ai them to El Salvador. Are you sure Yeah. They’re all gang members?
Speaker: 1
37:41
Or do you care?
Speaker: 0
37:42
Right. Exactly. And I think Who cares?
Speaker: 1
37:44
Or is it just, like, we’re just here to clean things up? And if
Speaker: 0
37:47
And if we throw in innocent make an omelet. Right. Yeah. Our our innocent people, the price of us getting to be efficient
Speaker: 1
37:55
Don’t become a monster when you’re fighting monsters.
Speaker: 0
37:58
Yeah. You know? And that’s what I think we’re we’re brushing up against right now. And, and as someone who really is, like, just interested in keeping especially this issue, like, this is a human. Like, we all we all should be on the same side about this. 100%. Yeah. Why like, why is it being turned into this a left or right issue
Speaker: 1
38:22
and why Ai I can get this in front of Josh and he can present it to some people and, you know, have them reconsider their position.
Speaker: 0
38:31
That would be great. I I would you know, and if you need to put me in contact, like, I would be happy to
Speaker: 1
38:37
You know, one of the things through working with Josh and, you know, just through this podcast, we’ve gotten a lot of people released, that were wrongfully convicted. And, you know, when you go over the amount of corruption that’s involved. And I I think there’s an issue with, human beings whenever there’s, a binary position, a one or a zero. You win or you lose.
Speaker: 0
39:05
Yes. The adversarial system where it’s ai I have to be I have to win this side Right. And I cannot at all, like, acknowledge some truth that might be to the other ai, like
Speaker: 1
39:15
And then you have this game where you hire like, if you are a guilty person, you hire the best defense attorneys that probably even know you’re guilty, but their job is to get you off by any means necessary to
Speaker: 0
39:29
Well, their job is to make the government prove your guilt. Right? That’s what a technically a defense attorney who’s really good
Speaker: 1
39:36
Right. But that’s not really what they’re doing.
Speaker: 0
39:38
Yeah. They’re trying to they’re
Speaker: 1
39:39
trying to get
Speaker: 0
39:39
you out
Speaker: 1
39:40
of jail.
Speaker: 0
39:40
Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. The goal being
Speaker: 1
39:42
if
Speaker: 0
39:42
you can’t actually prove it, then
Speaker: 1
39:44
Well, their goal is to win as often as possible sai that they’re the person. Like, this this is the guy you want. Mhmm.
Speaker: 0
39:50
You know? Although Ai have talked to some really interesting defense attorneys. The defense attorneys represented Larry Nassar, for example. Famously, for those who don’t remember, was, molesting young gymnasts. Do you remember him?
Speaker: 1
40:08
The the Olympics guy. Ai.
Speaker: 0
40:09
Yeah. Yeah. And I I interviewed them because it was two women who represented him. And so a lot of people were like, how dare you represent this man as a woman? How could you? And their position was, well, we didn’t represent him to prove him innocent. We we had him plead guilty to these crimes.
Speaker: 0
40:28
We just feel that everyone deserves to have a, you know, a defender. We’re we’re we’re defenders. We we represent people in in the law, and they were getting, like, demonized for even taking him on as a client. And I thought that was interesting because they weren’t trying to get him off. They were just trying to have to to represent due process.
Speaker: 1
40:50
Mhmm.
Speaker: 0
40:50
And I I felt like that was a really interesting case of people confusing the the what what is the role of a defense attorney? And I think you’re right. Like, some defense attorneys really don’t care if their clients are are guilty or innocent because they are also in this adversarial system. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
41:09
And so they are also in this position of just wanting to win and and wanting to make the lives of, you know, law enforcement difficult. And they’re willing to throw victims under the bus in the process. Like, ai frank conversations with, with friends of mine in the in the innocence world where they talk about how they were trained to just destroy a victim in order to to diminish their credibility in court and and to really put them in a a really bad position sai they didn’t want to pursue justice for themselves.
Speaker: 0
41:44
And I think that and they look back and go, oh ai god. I can’t believe that that’s how I was trained to be a defense attorney. But, like, that was just part of the game. And I think that’s where this whole course of justice gets completely distorted Yeah. Because it’s ai, well, what is the what is the point of all of this?
Speaker: 0
42:00
Like, it should be about, like, arriving at the truth and and then doing and then having there be, like, some recognized consequences for acknowledging what really happened. Like, we need to address the issue, which is somebody got hurt by someone else. What do we do? Now what? And instead, it’s become, well, I’m gonna win it.
Speaker: 0
42:21
Like, I’m on this team. You’re on this team. Ai, fight, fight. Let’s see who wins. And as a result, the the whole issue of truth gets distorted and and becomes about making the best story that that captures the people’s attention.
Speaker: 0
42:35
And I think I mean, that was a huge lesson for meh, was realizing that, like, the truth didn’t matter. Like, nobody cared about the truth. They cared about the story. And was it a story that spoke to them? And was it a story that lingered for them?
Speaker: 0
42:51
And that’s, you know, an ongoing thing that I I I write about is, like, okay. Here’s this crazy story that is not true that took over my life and that still has this huge role. Like, I’m still in conversation with that crazy story that was written about meh. And and the fact that, like, my entire identity is now wrapped up in the death of my friend that I had nothing to do with, and I’ll forever be defined by it because it’s such a captivating story.
Speaker: 1
43:22
And because the prosecutor was dead set on winning and wasn’t necessarily interested in the truth.
Speaker: 0
43:33
What he says, and it’s very is again, it goes back to, like, what are we telling ourselves and what is what is the cognitive ai? And I think this is where it gets super interesting because winning is interpreted in some people’s minds as doing their duty. Right? Like, the way that my prosecutor has always talked about it with me is that he maintains that he was doing his duty. He this was his job.
Speaker: 0
44:08
His job was to make a case that made logical sense to him based upon certain premises and then to win that case in court. That was his job. That was his duty. And he believes that he was doing the right thing because that would that’s what he was trained and incentivized to do.
Speaker: 0
44:31
In the same way that, like, you know, journalists if you ask journalists back who covered the case back in the day, they’ll be like, well, we were doing our job. Our job was to sell the best story that we could to our audience. And right? And but and so that’s when it gets, like, fucked up.
Speaker: 0
44:48
Because, like, how how have our institutions that we’ve relied on to be truth seeking institutions been corrupted from the inside by ultimately what is a question of, like, money or or power. When politics gets brought into the the equation with criminal justice, suddenly, you know, your prosecutor is now wanting to win cases not because they’re the right cases to win, but because they wanna be elected.
Speaker: 0
45:15
Like, all of that gets distorted and and the the motivations behind all our institutions become warped.
Speaker: 1
45:23
Well, the but but the with the media, it’s even more disgusting because it’s not about politics. It’s literally just about getting people to pay attention to their story Right. And buy newspapers or click on links.
Speaker: 0
45:35
Right. That’s it. Right. And then they hold then they hold their the audience accountable for the kinds of stories that they are then incentivized to write. They say, well, you know, I wouldn’t been writing this story if you weren’t clicking on it. And it and this was ai this vicious cycle.
Speaker: 1
45:50
That’s crazy. It’s like Sai wouldn’t have robbed your house if you didn’t have nice stuff.
Speaker: 0
45:53
Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker: 1
45:54
That’s fucking crazy.
Speaker: 0
45:56
But, like, that’s how if you’re in that little echo chamber of a system and that’s what your reward structure is, of course, that’s what you’re gonna end up delivering if you’re somebody who’s not who doesn’t have the introspection to question, like, okay. Wait. What am I doing? And what is the point of all of this? And do you have certain principles?
Speaker: 0
46:13
But, again, the people who rise to the top are maybe the ones who are willing to question those principles in order to achieve certain ends.
Speaker: 1
46:19
Yes. Yeah. And then there’s also the problem with you’re working for a corporation if you’re in the news. If you’re not an independent journalist who has, like, rock solid personal ethics, you’re working for a corporation. And your job is to make money for your shareholders, ultimately.
Speaker: 1
46:35
And the way you do that is to get as many people to click on those links as possible.
Speaker: 0
46:38
And maybe the person who’s on the ground has a certain vision for what they want their, like, on the ground reporting to do. But then once it gets in the hands of editors and other editors, like, it becomes completely warped from the thing that they were originally reporting on because the person who’s over here is so divorced from the actual on the ground story, and they know instead the story that’s going to sell.
Speaker: 1
46:59
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
47:01
So Yeah.
Speaker: 1
47:01
It’s dark. I mean, it’s the same sort of distortion. Excuse me.
Speaker: 0
47:07
Salute.
Speaker: 1
47:08
Sorry. It’s the same sort of distortion, when when you were talking about prosecutors just trying to win. It’s just it’s this thing where and, ultimately, it’s it’s sai it’s a a severe distortion of what the best case scenario is. The best case scenario is prosecutors don’t care about winning. They care about finding truly guilty people.
Speaker: 1
47:37
And in cases where someone, whether they, withhold evidence that could have exonerated an innocent person, or whether they distort things, or twist things around in order to win, they should be forever removed from that system. You should never be allowed to do that. But this is Kamala Harris did that and rose to be vice president and almost became president.
Speaker: 1
48:04
And she is absolutely guilty of doing that.
Speaker: 0
48:07
Yeah. I know. It’s
Speaker: 1
48:08
She tried to withheld withhold DNA evidence that would have exonerated someone.
Speaker: 0
48:13
I know. Yeah. She was not a popular choice among the innocence community. I’ll tell you that.
Speaker: 1
48:18
Oh, yeah. No. Josh Dubin broke her down on my shah. But when she
Speaker: 0
48:22
was here in the
Speaker: 1
48:23
present no.
Speaker: 0
48:24
Oh, okay. No.
Speaker: 1
48:25
No. No. No. He broke down what she was guilty of when she was a prosecutor in California.
Speaker: 0
48:30
Yeah. No. It it wasn’t and that’s why I was so mad that our party never actually gave us a choice.
Speaker: 1
48:36
Right. Right. There was no primary.
Speaker: 0
48:38
No. There was no primary. They were just like, here’s the person now.
Speaker: 1
48:40
And And if you don’t tyler, you’re a bad person.
Speaker: 0
48:42
Exactly.
Speaker: 1
48:43
You’re a fascist.
Speaker: 0
48:44
Yes.
Speaker: 1
48:44
Yeah. Okay.
Speaker: 0
48:45
Yeah. No. It was that that this whole But
Speaker: 1
48:48
then again, that’s also just trying to win. Yeah. It’s the same kind of thing. It’s just the the focus is on winning Yeah. At what cost? I mean and then that’s a very slippery saloni. Because if you’re willing to accept that, guess what? Guess what? That that slope keeps slipping.
Speaker: 0
49:04
Mhmm. And then next thing you know, you know You don’t have brakes. Right.
Speaker: 1
49:08
You have to put a fucking blinder on because you’re you’re part of the problem. You’re part of what’s destroying society. So then you have to, like, reshape your own personal narrative and lie to yourself about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
Speaker: 0
49:20
Right. A little bit of, like, self brainwashing. Yeah. And that fascinates me. Like, in conversations with my prosecutor, how how has he convinced himself that he’s the good guy? And and how has that changed when I have approached him not as an adversary, but as someone who is, I wouldn’t say, like, tolerant because I’ve never put myself in a position of sort of saying, oh, what you did was not a big deal.
Speaker: 0
49:54
Like, when I approached him, I was like, what you did was a big deal, and you were wrong, and you hurt people. But, like, acknowledging his humanity and the complexity of him and acknowledging that, like, he’s not an evil person.
Speaker: 1
50:11
Well, what is
Speaker: 0
50:11
evil? Intentional malice, maybe?
Speaker: 1
50:15
That seems like he was doing it intentionally. If he was paying attention to the facts of the case I mean, there was DNA evidence. There was all sorts of stuff that pointed to you not being the guilty party, and they ignored that. If that’s not evil
Speaker: 0
50:30
I mean, what he did it’s interesting. He wrote a whole book about the case, and he talked about how when he first arrived at at the scene, he immediately knew that it was a conspiracy because he looked at the the broken window, how the person had actually broken into our home and sai, there’s no way, zero chance vatsal burglar would have broken in to a house this way.
Speaker: 0
50:58
He just was, like, 100% convinced that immediately that the break in was staged. And if you take vatsal, if you and your brain truly believe that, then what logically follows is a lot of what he then came up with. Well, someone in the house is trying to cover up for a crime that they were involved in. Who lives in that house? Well, there are three other girls.
Speaker: 0
51:26
One of whom was in Ram. One of whom is another Italian girl who was with her boyfriend and friends. And one of whom is the American girl who was with her boyfriend that night, but who also happened to be the one who called the police and brought attention to the house. So maybe because we found her at the scene of the ai, meh like, all of it sort of starts to, like, make logical sense if you begin with a false premise.
Speaker: 1
51:49
How did he reconcile that in the book?
Speaker: 0
51:52
In his book? Yeah. I meh, he he makes logical leaps. So he goes, okay. Well, then we discovered that, you know, all of this DNA of the person who actually committed the crime. Right? Like, you know, they they finally get the DNA back, and it’s all pointing to this guy who has a history of breaking and entering and and aggression towards women.
Speaker: 0
52:11
And he doesn’t go, oh, no. We made a mistake. He goes, oh, how can now he be involved in this thing that I know Amanda’s involved in because I know the break in was staged. And, you know, ai, so these the this is how a person with good with genuinely good intentions can can have false beliefs that then logic from which one can logically derive an insane story that requires, like, him to now believe like, one of the things that I pointed out to him that just, like, drives me nuts that he continues to, like, somehow hang on to is this idea that I was in a threesome with like, I was in a three way relationship with my actual boyfriend, Raffaele, and this burglar, Rudy Gudet.
Speaker: 0
52:56
And I was like, where are you coming up with that? And he was like, well, whenever I interviewed Rudy, like, he talks about interviewing, you know, interrogating Rudy. Rudy always seemed to have affectionate things to say about. He always seemed to, like, be interested in you.
Speaker: 0
53:16
And from that, I can logically deduce that you guys had a relationship. And I was like, we we like, I didn’t even know his name. There’s no record of us ever communicating with each other. No one ever, like, saw us hanging out with each other. Like, what are you talking about?
Speaker: 0
53:29
And he’s like, well, if he was involved in the crime and you’re involved in the crime ai he’s sort of talking about, you know, you in an affectionate way, then logically, it makes sense that you were in this, you know, three way relationship with Rafael and Rudy. And I’m like, that’s not true. And he was like, well, that’s what it’s that’s what made logical sense to me at the time.
Speaker: 1
53:50
I think the issue is an egotistic idiot that has power. That’s really what I think it is. Because I think
Speaker: 0
53:59
there’s someone someone who has a belief and a confidence in their own abilities as a logical thinker. And I think anyone who is in that kind of position has to believe in themselves in that kind of way.
Speaker: 1
54:13
But not just that. Like, you have too much power. Like Fair. There’s not enough oversight. You have too much power. And then you say something, and if your initial assertion is incorrect, you then have to defend it. So then you do mental gymnastics
Speaker: 0
54:26
to
Speaker: 1
54:26
try to defend it.
Speaker: 0
54:27
Right.
Speaker: 1
54:27
At the expense of your fucking ai.
Speaker: 0
54:30
Yes.
Speaker: 1
54:30
He was willing to put you away forever. Like, he had to know. At some point in ai, in the back of his stupid brain, he had to know that you were innocent. And he was willing to push forward and concoct some sort of a three way relationship narrative that he still sticks to. Fuck that guy.
Speaker: 0
54:49
Well and and sometimes that’s what my bryden sai. You know? Ai Sai Your brain should say that.
Speaker: 1
54:54
You ai? I mean, forgiveness is really important, but some people just can’t forgive. Like, some people, it’s like, no. You need to come to grips with the fact that you’re a piece of shit. That’s what’s wrong here. It’s not me forgiving you and you having this hall pass to just to be a piece of shit because you had this theory that you’re still accusing me of.
Speaker: 1
55:16
No. That’s that’s not you’re bad at what you do. And sometimes people are bad at what they do. Sometimes you get bad teachers. You get bad cops.
Speaker: 1
55:26
Sometimes, you got a bad electrician. Your house catches fire. Some put some people suck at what they do and to, like, have this, like, eternal forgiveness. Like, sometimes it’s not smart to do that.
Speaker: 0
55:39
Well, certainly. And I and I think that’s
Speaker: 1
55:40
really Is he still working as a prosecutor?
Speaker: 0
55:42
No. No. He’s retired. He he has retired.
Speaker: 1
55:44
He should be in jail. Like, literally.
Speaker: 0
55:47
I do not wish jail upon him. I don’t Okay.
Speaker: 1
55:50
That’s sweet. But that’s crime. Like, what he did, it was not just a crime, but it was a conspiracy.
Speaker: 0
55:57
Yeah. I I, I would have to say that I agree that there’s I always wanted to I always wondered where the adults were in the room. Like, you know, the whole first two years of my imprisonment, I was like, this is all a huge mistake, and it’s really obviously a huge mistake. And when are when are, like, the mommies and daddies gonna show up and say, okay, kids. Stop your squabbling. Like, let’s straighten things out.
Speaker: 1
56:24
There’s no mommies and dads.
Speaker: 0
56:25
There are no mommies and daddies. That’s the thing that freaked me out. Yeah. It’s ai we’re all adults now, and this is all we are. We’re just a bunch of screaming toddlers
Speaker: 1
56:34
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
56:35
Just screaming at each other constantly. And here I am now, I feel in a way ai to mother my prosecutor through his, you know, psychological tantrums Ugh. Which is a weird position to be in, because now that I’ve, you know, developed the relationship that I’ve developed with him, I I, like, I care about him.
Speaker: 0
57:07
Like, I don’t think that you can I I set out to understand him? I wanted to understand him. But in the process of, like, really understanding a human being and having them, like, be really open to you. I don’t know. I feel like you inevitably begin to care about this person even in their, you know, flawed fragility as a human being.
Speaker: 0
57:35
And saloni the one hand, I’m very angry at him to this day. And on the other hand, I I care about him and I have to give him some props. He didn’t have to respond to me. Mhmm. He didn’t have to meet with me. He didn’t have to sit there and hear me talk about how he had fucked up my life and he shouldn’t have.
Speaker: 0
58:00
I did not like, it’s not that, like, me being kind to him does not mean me tolerating injustice. Yeah. And it does not mean me not setting boundaries. And it does not mean me sugarcoating what really happened. Like, he knows what I think really happened.
Speaker: 0
58:19
And he says, well, you know, we can disagree about our perspectives in some in some ways. But, ultimately, what matters is that you reached out to me and saw me as a human being. And in response, I, like, I also inevitably came to see you as a human being, and I care about you.
Speaker: 0
58:42
And and so in a way, like, we’re still in this awkward dance of, like, one part of us is stuck in that adversarial system, and one part of us is in a non, you know, adversarial, very, like, accepting of all the things speak. And we’re paradoxically existing in both of them at the same time. And I think that that’s just kinda how life is.
Speaker: 0
59:11
Ai, you know, one of the paradoxes of life is that, like, if you really just sit down and and sit with yourself and your life just the way it is right now, if you really do, just, like, notice like, right now, you and me, here we are talking. We are okay. You and me, we are good.
Speaker: 0
59:30
And also, there’s still fucked up shit in my life, and there’s still fucked up shit in your ai, and and things could be better. And all of those things can be true at the same time. Like, you know, I’m still fighting to clear my name in Italy. I don’t know if you have you kept up with, like, the latest with my case? Oh, yeah. So Still?
Speaker: 0
59:50
So I’ve been cleared of, like, all the crazy, you know, horrible murder, orgy, all of that stuff cleared. The thing that remains, and this is just the bane of my fucking existence, is when they cleared me of having anything to do with the crime, they left open the possibility that I was present when the crime occurred.
Speaker: 0
01:00:14
And I believe the reason that they did this was because they wanted to find me guilty of something. And the thing that they found me guilty of was the way lesser crime on the list of all the crimes that were there, which was slander. They accused me of knowingly and willingly falsely accusing an innocent person of having committed this ai.
Speaker: 0
01:00:40
Because during my interrogation, I was coerced into implicating myself and my boss, Patrick Lumumba, of of committing this crime. And I immediately retracted it, all of that, but that was one of the things that they were holding me accountable for. And they to this day, I am still convicted in Italy of knowingly and willingly accusing an innocent man.
Speaker: 0
01:01:11
And for me to knowingly and willingly accuse this innocent man, I would have to have been at the house and known who really was the murderer at the moment that I falsely accused this innocent person. Like, I would have had to know that he was definitively innocent for this to be the case.
Speaker: 0
01:01:28
And for that to be true, I would have to be physically present at the crime even if I was not participating in it. So the legal standing right now to this day is that I was there and that when I was interrogated, I knowingly and falsely accused an innocent person. I appealed this, by the way, to the European Court of Human Rights, and they ruled in my favor.
Speaker: 0
01:01:52
They said that because I had been denied the right of to have an attorney and an an interpreter when I was being interrogated, that none of that should ever have been I should never have been convicted of that. And I took that back to Italy. I took that ruling back to Italy, and they overturned it.
Speaker: 0
01:02:10
I was actually acquitted of that for a saloni, but then sent back for retrial recently. And recently, yeah, this is eighteen years later. Recently was put back on trial for that. This was last year. And I was found guilty again.
Speaker: 1
01:02:26
Oh meh god.
Speaker: 0
01:02:27
On the basis, not even of the statements that the police, like, coerced me into signing, but on my retraction. So I handwrote a retraction of those statements that the police coerced me into ai. And And I was like, I’m so confused. I can’t testify. Like, I I I don’t know if Patrick did it or not. Like, I just don’t know.
Speaker: 0
01:02:44
And they said, well, even a confused statement where you’re not sure what the truth is, if you were physically present of the crime is is slander, and you falsely accused an an innocent man that you knew to be innocent. And so But they
Speaker: 1
01:02:58
have no proof that you were there.
Speaker: 0
01:03:00
Exactly. So we’re in this, like, cyclical thing where they’re
Speaker: 1
01:03:02
like ai wanna admit that they fucked up.
Speaker: 0
01:03:05
That’s what I think. And I’m at this point where I’m like, okay. Now what? Because I’m definitively convicted of this thing and, like, the legal truth in this case does not represent the actual truth in this case.
Speaker: 1
01:03:19
Are they trying to protect themselves from some sort of a civil suit?
Speaker: 0
01:03:23
Maybe. I think even more than that, I think they’re trying to protect themselves from admitting that they tortured an innocent person.
Speaker: 1
01:03:33
Oh ai god. Sai so they can say, well, shah is guilty. She did do this. Mhmm. She’s guilty.
Speaker: 0
01:03:39
And so it’s not crazy for us to think that Right. She might have been involved in the in the murder because here she is.
Speaker: 1
01:03:45
At least she probably lied about being there
Speaker: 0
01:03:47
and Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:03:48
Jesus Christ.
Speaker: 0
01:03:49
And all they were ever able to do is prove that I lived in the house that this happened in. Like, sure, my DNA is in my house. It’s not anywhere near Meredith’s body or where the crime occurred. But they’re saying that, like, I was there. And the it’s sort of this, like, cyclical sort of reasoning.
Speaker: 0
01:04:05
Like, Amanda said she was there, therefore shah was there, therefore she said she was you know, ai, this is, like, insane cyclical reasoning. And I’m at the point where I have to ask myself, like, how do I fight this? And if so, do I? And that’s where this whole question of freedom comes in.
Speaker: 0
01:04:23
Like, do I do I have to definitively, like, prove my innocence in a court of law to feel that I have definitively proven my innocence? Or do I need to definitively prove my innocence in the court of public opinion in order to feel free or to feel like Sai, like, I’m not regardless of whether I definitively prove my innocence or not, like, am I ever going to be free of this?
Speaker: 0
01:04:47
Is this ever going to be not touching me and impacting my life? And the answer that I’ve come to is, well, no,
Speaker: 1
01:04:56
in the
Speaker: 0
01:04:57
way that, like, any of our experiences have come to define us as human beings. And in a way, it’s ai another way of reframing this is, okay. These are my credentials now. Like, I went to the I didn’t go to four years of master’s degree in poetry. I got a master’s degree in whatever this is.
Speaker: 0
01:05:21
I’m being fucked. You know? Like
Speaker: 1
01:05:25
and Oh my god.
Speaker: 0
01:05:26
You know? And and so, like and I’ve learned things from this. I’ve learned I’ve learned things about the criminal justice system. I, like, I can see things that need to be fixed that have are really common sense fixes too. Like, it there is no reason why we shouldn’t be just recording any kind of communication.
Speaker: 0
01:05:47
Like, anytime that anyone is being questioned by anyone in law enforcement, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be recording it. And I’m not talking about even just suspects because, like, there’s been a whole, you know, world of advocacy around, like, recording interrogations. Right?
Speaker: 0
01:06:03
Like, custodial interrogations and especially, making it so that police officers can’t lie to you when you’re being interrogated because that was a huge thing that impacted me as, like, a young, confused, like, overwhelmed human being as police lying to me and telling me that they have proof that I was there when the crime occurred, and it made me, like, feel like I was insane.
Speaker: 0
01:06:26
And so, like, the problem of of police lying to you is not just that it’s like a bullying technique, but it it warps your sense of reality and you start to question yourself. And so there’s psychological research to show that there are very negative consequences for police lying to you during interrogation.
Speaker: 0
01:06:42
But at the very least, if you record it, you can sort of track how that is impacting, a person who is being who is a suspect. The ai west of all of this is eyewitnesses or anyone else who is being questioned by police because there’s no Miranda rights. Do you like, as a person who is being questioned by police, you don’t really have rights.
Speaker: 0
01:07:06
Like, you don’t you don’t have like, one of the things that they sai, in my case, is that I never had the right to an attorney because I wasn’t a suspect. I was a witness. And so, like, to this day in Italy, there’s, like, this resistance to the idea that I was, like, coerced into I was that I was even interrogated at all because there’s this, like, little loophole where they say, oh, you weren’t interrogated.
Speaker: 0
01:07:31
You were interviewed. Oh, you weren’t interviewed. You were questioned. They just changed the language, but what’s ultimately happening is the same thing. You are stuck in a room with a law enforcement officer who may or may not be lying to your face and bullying you, and you don’t know if you’re free or not to go because the door is closed and it doesn’t feel like it.
Speaker: 0
01:07:52
And sai, for me, I think that if you consider how many wrongful convictions happen because of misidentification by witnesses or the number of times that, like, witnesses say, well, I wasn’t really sure that it was him, but the police sort of coaxed me or pressured me into saying it was him and let sort of made it known to me that it was him.
Speaker: 0
01:08:15
Like, there are lots of things that are happening behind closed doors that we really don’t have an excuse for not fixing when every single one of us has a recording device in our pocket at all times. And the amount of resistance to, like, getting just really common sense changes like that to happen from, like, law enforcement lobbies is just so frustrating as someone who, like, shows up again and again and again to, like, try to make because it seems like this adversarial thing.
Speaker: 0
01:08:46
Like, we’re we’re all on the same side. It’s not, like, victims’ rights versus defendant’s rights. It’s not law enforcement versus, you know, innocence. It’s ai we’re all on the same page. Why can’t we just acknowledge a true thing?
Speaker: 0
01:08:58
That’s been one of my biggest frustrations in this world is, like, feeling like we should all be on the same side and we should be making common sense changes and that don’t, you know That’s
Speaker: 1
01:09:11
the way the system is structured, you know. There’s two sides trying to win. And when you lose, you don’t like to lose. Right. And so people would cheat to win.
Speaker: 0
01:09:20
But, like, lose. What are you losing? You know?
Speaker: 1
01:09:23
But they’re playing a game. Yeah. I mean, it’s your life and it’s other people’s lives. It’s innocent people’s lives, but it’s also guilty people’s lives.
Speaker: 0
01:09:30
Like But why doesn’t, like, a law enforcement officer look at something that happened to me? Actually, you know what? I take that back. Plenty of law enforcement people have talked to me and said, like, we are so sorry for what happened
Speaker: 1
01:09:43
to you. Ones who weren’t involved. That’s the problem. The the problem is, do you look away when you are involved? You know, how many law enforcement officers will stick their neck out if they think their partner overstepped their boundaries and got someone to admit to something that maybe they did or didn’t do, withheld evidence that may or may not have exonerated someone.
Speaker: 1
01:10:05
Like, there’s steps along the way on the road to evil.
Speaker: 0
01:10:09
Right. And And no one gets rewarded for sticking their neck out No. Or for holding their friends accountable. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:10:15
You get ex I mean, you you get excommunicated from your tribe. It’s very dangerous, you know.
Speaker: 0
01:10:24
So how do we motivate any other, like, how do It’s
Speaker: 1
01:10:28
a real problem. It’s a it’s a giant conundrum. It’s a real problem in in the way this the system is structured.
Speaker: 0
01:10:34
And the feeling that you have to, ai, in order to do the right thing, you just have to switch ai, like, that really bothers me. Also, because, like, one thing that I have I would love to see more of is more of, like, a collaboration between victims’ rights advocates and innocence’ rights advocates.
Speaker: 0
01:10:52
But, like, oftentimes, you see us sort of pitted against each other as if, like, you know, I’ve always felt that the the criminal justice system never did enough for victims. That, like, the only compensation that victims are really given is the idea that you’re gonna punish the perpetrator.
Speaker: 0
01:11:17
And I’ve always wanted to know how is the system how is the system going to help the victim rebuild their life and take back and, like, reclaim what can be reclaimed of their experience and and and be uplifted.
Speaker: 1
01:11:33
And Well, that’s supposedly where the civil
Speaker: 0
01:11:36
Supposedly. But, like, you’re you’re you’re suing the person who committed the ai. And are you ever actually going to get any money from them? Are you, ai,
Speaker: 1
01:11:44
you know? Sometimes money’s awarded to families by the state. You know, there’s those but, I mean, is that enough? Like, is monies is that enough? You know?
Speaker: 0
01:11:55
No. I don’t think so. I think that people need more support than that.
Speaker: 1
01:12:01
Ai what is the support though? Like, what would make it right?
Speaker: 0
01:12:06
Well, I think Overhauling
Speaker: 1
01:12:07
the system.
Speaker: 0
01:12:08
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:12:09
It’s really the only way that meant to truly make it right is to find I mean, if you’re if you’re a person ai I think your approach to this all, this radical acceptance and forgiveness is very, very, very beautiful. It’s it’s amazing that you can do it. It’s amazing that you think the way you think. And, you know, I used you as an example the other day.
Speaker: 1
01:12:30
We’re having this conversation about, horrible things that have happened to people that have made that person a beautiful person.
Speaker: 0
01:12:40
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
01:12:40
Because you you went through this insane thing, but on the other end of it, you came out as, like, really interesting person.
Speaker: 0
01:12:47
Not all ai much. You you really are. You know,
Speaker: 1
01:12:49
I use you as an example of things that don’t break you, but that you would never wanna wish on anyone else. But then the result of that is this person comes out extraordinary.
Speaker: 0
01:13:01
Yeah. I mean, that’s, a lot of the obstacles, the way it comes. Sai mean, it’s a lot of stuff that I write about in the book actually is one of the things that my goal with this book was to try to, ai, yes, what happened to me is, like, oh, crazy story happened to a girl one time.
Speaker: 0
01:13:16
But also there are, like, universal lessons and truths that I’ve derived from what I from my experience that make me and when I communicate them, they make me feel less ostracized or less, like, singled out as a human being. And one of those is, like, there is opportunity in every tragedy. And I think that what my tragedy challenged me to do was to not be broken by it.
Speaker: 0
01:13:51
And my definition of being broken by it was coming out of it a person who was angry and and embittered and and diminished by this experience. And I just the the rebellious side of me was ai, fuck that. What matters to me? What matters to me is the truth and is compassion. Curiosity, compassion.
Speaker: 0
01:14:25
Those are things that I genuinely care about. And having the courage to approach human beings and situations that are painful and that are wrong with the open heart that it requires to have compassion and genuine curiosity. That is what I wanted to define me. I did not want this horrible experience to define me on its terms. I wanted to define me on my own terms.
Speaker: 0
01:14:57
And I think the challenge that any one of us has is remembering what even our terms are when we’re feeling sort of overwhelmed with the the existential crisis of it all and and the and the and the I think the one of the biggest mistakes that people make is they are stuck. They are fixated. They dwell on the life that they should have lived instead of acknowledging and accepting that this is the life that they are living.
Speaker: 0
01:15:31
And when you are acting in the world as if you are living the life that you should have lived, you are inevitably becoming ineffective. Like, if I were to approach the world and be ai, my prosecutor never should have done this to meh, and and my I I I never should have gone to prison and people should never should have villainized me in the press.
Speaker: 0
01:15:53
I would just find myself debilitated, utterly debilitated by the fact that reality is other than that. And I would just find myself angry and and and and bitter about it all. And instead, I go, well, all of that happened. Now what? And by accepting reality and life as it is, I can now become a more effective agent in my life.
Speaker: 0
01:16:19
I don’t want to live my life acting and feeling and thinking in ways that are not going to be effective. And so instead, what happens in the radical acceptance of it all is truly coming from a place of not I’m not trying to be Christian about it. I’m just trying to, like, not be the completely and utterly overwhelmed and disempowered person that I was when I was in prison. Like, I I lost so much.
Speaker: 0
01:16:51
Ai I’d had so little control of my life. And I think, in the end, all of us do. I feel like I weirdly had a midlife crisis when I was 20 because my entire life fell apart, or I was on I was I was put on this this track, this train that just, like, left the station and was going on its own, and there was really nothing I could do to stop it.
Speaker: 0
01:17:18
And sai, okay. Now what?
Speaker: 1
01:17:23
That’s a great way to put it. Like, you’re on a train that you can’t stop. Yeah. I mean, what you’ve done is admirable. I mean, the the the approach that you take is really I mean, if
Speaker: 0
01:17:34
Is it admirable? Is it self serving? Like, is it just
Speaker: 1
01:17:37
like No. It’s not self serving. I mean, obviously, it’s self serving, but that’s a good thing. I mean, you’re serving yourself in the best possible way and to to not be completely defined by your being ai. You you’ve risen above it. Ai mean, just the fact that you contacted the prosecutor and and ai to reach out and to talk to him as a human being and ai to find out
Speaker: 0
01:18:02
And accept him where he’s at.
Speaker: 1
01:18:03
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:18:04
Like, this is where you’re at.
Speaker: 1
01:18:05
Well, he’s a kind of a victim in in a way because he shouldn’t have had the kind of power that he had. He there’s no way to tell. Like, there there’s no no checks and balances that are put in place to make sure the person’s ego is not overwhelming them to the point where their initial idea of a conspiracy is
Speaker: 0
01:18:25
And he’s also not in a vacuum. Like, there were other people around him who were, like, building building him up and supporting that story and and, you know, like
Speaker: 1
01:18:33
Well, it’s also like he’s in a position of power. They’re underneath him. Yeah. You know, there’s this weird structure that’s in place.
Speaker: 0
01:18:40
Yeah. All of that can be true.
Speaker: 1
01:18:42
Yeah. All of that
Speaker: 0
01:18:43
can be true. Accept that as also true. And I think there’s this, like, weird resistance that people have to accepting the context around a person. Maybe because you’ve you realize that if you accept the context around the person, that feeling of self righteousness that you’re ultimately grasping onto dissipates because it does inevitably dissipate.
Speaker: 0
01:19:09
But I think that’s, again, a per that’s sai a symptom of someone dwelling on the life that they should have lived
Speaker: 1
01:19:15
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:19:16
Instead of accepting the life that they have.
Speaker: 1
01:19:18
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:19:20
And I just find that to be a waste of time.
Speaker: 1
01:19:23
It is not just a waste of ai. It’s the opposite of self serving. It kinda destroys you from within because you know it’s not true.
Speaker: 0
01:19:30
Right.
Speaker: 1
01:19:30
Yeah. And so you’re bullshitting yourself as you’re bullshitting the world, and that’s who you are now.
Speaker: 0
01:19:38
Yeah. Yeah. That I think that is a scary trap that victims can fall into is, like, how you then become self destructive in your own mind as a result of someone having been destructive towards you. That is I think that is the deepest tragedy of of hurt is how it can then become implosive. And I did not want to implode.
Speaker: 0
01:20:07
I was scared to implode. I saw a lot of people around me in prison imploding, and I did not want that to be me.
Speaker: 1
01:20:14
It’s like insane mental resolve to not, and that’s it’s the trap that most people are gonna fall into. And and to a lesser extent, he’s a victim as well. He’s a victim of his own actions, and he’ll it will haunt it. I mean, he’s defined by that as well. Now, particularly, that everybody knows that you’re innocent and that you’ve you’ve been proven innocent. And then in the retrial, you got proven again. And so that’s him.
Speaker: 1
01:20:41
That’s over his head everywhere he goes. He wrongly prosecuted and murder you did not meh, and he has to live with that. Every day when he wakes up and he looks in the mirror, that’s who you are, bitch, forever. And you could dance around, you know, I was doing my job and this you can you can have, you know, that’s that’s where you kinda try to find some sort of no.
Speaker: 1
01:21:07
No. You did this thing. You were wrong. You, your ego, whatever the fuck it was that led you to come up with the initial theory and then try to use confirmation bias to reinforce it at every step of the way, that’s you. And if if he doesn’t admit that, he will go to his grave haunted.
Speaker: 0
01:21:36
And I I think what’s a really interesting thing for me is discovering what can come from approaching someone recognizing that. So when I approached him, I approached him in a really unconventional way. Right? Like, I’m trying to find common ground with this person. I’m trying to Ai I’m deeply, genuinely curious about this person.
Speaker: 0
01:22:01
I am primed to feel compassion for this person because that is just the mental and intentional space that I put myself in in approaching him and the surprising dividends that arise from that. Because I think everyone is evolving. No one is static. Even he is on his own journey. He’s on his own path.
Speaker: 0
01:22:25
And I’m not in control of his path, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t be a very compelling influence of all the people in the world who could be nice to him and have that have an impact on him? Me. And, like, recognizing like, I didn’t really fully comprehend that until I sat down with him.
Speaker: 0
01:22:50
And, like, I sort of in my mind, I I realized what it looked like from my position. Like, here’s this person who had this overwhelming impact on my life. And and to this day, like, continue it. Like, this story that he made up, like, took over my life and continues to take over my life.
Speaker: 0
01:23:08
Like, this is what I’m gonna live with for the rest of my life. It’s because of him. This person who has had this outsized influence on my well-being and my my personhood and my existence, this guy. I sit down across from him, and I’m nice to him. And I walk away from that encounter realizing that his well-being depends on me much more so than my well-being depends on him.
Speaker: 0
01:23:45
And I think because deep down, he understands that there is this dynamic that, you know, whatever stories he can tell himself about what happened, he was the one who was in power, and I was the one who went to prison. And for me to be kind to him, I didn’t have to do that. He had never had it happen before. It was unheard of.
Speaker: 0
01:24:18
And as a spiritual person, he experienced it in a spiritual way. Me, I came out of that experience feeling like a fucking superhero. Ai never felt more powerful in my life than when I sat across from him and was kind to him, and it didn’t matter what he said or what he did because I showed up.
Speaker: 0
01:24:45
And that was I was not expecting that to happen. That was not how I expected to feel. It surprised meh, but, like, it had such an impact on me that I felt like I had discovered something about about trauma and and about healing and and about people and ai. And in a world that is so conflicted and where the people are, you know, not building bridges, they’re blowing them up, I was like, I wanted to remind people of what happens when you when you take a chance and you take a stand.
Speaker: 0
01:25:31
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:25:36
Well, that kind of kindness is rewarded by the universe. And that was the feeling that you got. Mhmm. That you were on the right path to, like, the best possible person that you could be. What would the best possible version of you do? And you did vatsal, and then you had that feeling because of that. That was the universe telling you, ai. This is the best thing you can do.
Speaker: 1
01:26:03
You could yell at that guy and call him a piece of shit and slap him in the face.
Speaker: 0
01:26:07
And feel justified in doing so as well.
Speaker: 1
01:26:09
And you would be.
Speaker: 0
01:26:10
And that might even feel a little good in a way, but it wouldn’t feel like that good.
Speaker: 1
01:26:15
Yeah. Negativity always, no matter what, leaves you with this residue. It’s, like, icky, even if you’re correct. It’s just ai slime Mhmm. That’s on you the psychic slime
Speaker: 0
01:26:32
Right.
Speaker: 1
01:26:33
That’s on you no matter what.
Speaker: 0
01:26:35
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:26:36
And that’s your power that you could sit across this person and treat them with compassion. And that’s why you felt that way. You know, it’s like
Speaker: 0
01:26:46
Have you ever felt that way?
Speaker: 1
01:26:48
I’ve never had anything remotely like your situation.
Speaker: 0
01:26:53
But you’ve had you’ve had encounters with people. Like, I don’t think you have to have as devastating of a situation to, like, be in a position to know that you’re doing the right thing in a moment. Like, for instance, when my husband got up in his whitey tighties and walked down the stairs to put himself between me and my and his family and this crazy guy, I feel like maybe he felt that in that moment.
Speaker: 0
01:27:20
Like, total clarity of purpose. And it didn’t really matter what happened because he was doing the thing that had to be done in that moment, and there was no confusion. I think that, like, when I talk about it with him today, like, to this day, he’s just ai, I was just not confused.
Speaker: 0
01:27:47
I just knew exactly what I needed. I didn’t even think. It it was that flow state even that they talk about in, like, Ai when, like, you you and the universe are moving in the exact in in sync.
Speaker: 1
01:28:01
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:28:01
And that that was my version of it. That was his version of it. And I think that all of us have the opportunity to glimpse that in our lives. And I’m just curious if you’ve ever felt like you were moving in sync with the universe.
Speaker: 1
01:28:15
I try to be. Yeah. But again, I haven’t You
Speaker: 0
01:28:18
still feel kinda slimy?
Speaker: 1
01:28:20
Well, I’ve had moments where I haven’t. I’ve had moments where I was very negative and attacked back, and I never feel good about it. You know? It’s one of the reasons why I don’t engage with people online that are negative. I just I don’t, you know, especially particularly, like, the lowest level of it is social media, you know. I’m not interested in conflict. I’m not interested in it.
Speaker: 1
01:28:44
I don’t wanna do it, you know. Even if someone has negative things to say about me, I’m not really interested in engaging. Ai don’t think it’s valuable. You know? I think it’s a trap. Yeah. But it’s not the same situation as what you were in. I don’t know how I would be.
Speaker: 1
01:28:59
I
Speaker: 0
01:29:00
because the other danger is, like, you know, I I don’t want to consider myself above criticism, say. Like, that’s I think the the other flip side of that of, like, of having confidence is potentially having the confidence that my prosecutor had when was he feeling in sync with the universe when he was prosecuting me?
Speaker: 0
01:29:22
Did he
Speaker: 1
01:29:23
Clearly not. There’s no way. No. That but that’s not confidence. That’s ego. Confidence is an objective analysis of all the facts, doing the right thing, having a rock solid ethical and moral foundation, and knowing you’re doing the right thing, and knowing you can do it. That’s confidence. What he had was ego.
Speaker: 1
01:29:50
You know, this desire to you know, but people were in a position like that where people’s freedom hangs on your decisions and what you do and what you don’t do. And then you do it for so many years, and you see so many people prosecuted. You just get calloused about it. You see it with doctors. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
01:30:13
Where doctors, you know, they they have this some, not all. Some doctors develop this very callous feeling whether someone lives or dies. They don’t care anymore. They’re so used to people dying, you know. That I mean, there’s doctors that do surgeries that are completely unnecessary just because they want the money.
Speaker: 0
01:30:30
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:30:31
Now, we were talking the other day about this guy who is a oncologist who, treated people with chemotherapy who did not have cancer because he wanted the money. Wow. And it was he was convicted. It was, like, I think it was some insane number of people took this horrible poison to try to kill the cancer inside of them and ruin their lives and ruin and there was nothing wrong with them.
Speaker: 0
01:30:54
Wow.
Speaker: 1
01:30:55
Yeah. Because there’s and I think his justification was even more sick. His justification was that he was always taught that you eat what you kill. And in that business, in the business of being a surgeon and a business of being a doctor, like, you have to perform this medicine in order to get money.
Speaker: 1
01:31:15
And this is the incentive structure that’s put in front of you. I don’t know if you know that, but, chemotherapy is one of the most profitable things that a doctor can prescribe. They actually get an enormous amount of money from each individual person that they yeah. There’s there’s also some very twisted and bizarre financial incentives.
Speaker: 0
01:31:36
Again, these institutions that get warped by these various
Speaker: 1
01:31:39
Exactly. I mean, this is the case with, vaccinations. This is the case with prescriptions of of various medicines. There’s kickbacks. Mhmm. And these kickbacks become incentives and, you know, and then you have the overwhelming burden of the financial responsibility that you have with your medical school debt.
Speaker: 1
01:31:58
And then you have, malpractice insurance, which is overwhelming. You have overhead. You have staff. You have a bunch of people. And then people start justifying things in a very twisted way. And it’s because of the system.
Speaker: 1
01:32:12
And you have to be an incredibly powerful person to rise above that and to say, this is not what I’m gonna do even if it means I can’t do this anymore. I’m not doing this.
Speaker: 0
01:32:22
And
Speaker: 1
01:32:22
then the the weakest amongst us just instead they go the other way and say, I’ll just defy what no one is gonna know. Ai say, yeah. You shah cancer. Yeah. Sorry. You know, we’re just gonna I wanna give her a low dose of chemotherapy for, like, six weeks. Just like, you know, whatever.
Speaker: 0
01:32:37
No big deal. Yeah. Yeah. Just destroy your body from this
Speaker: 1
01:32:39
And then just ai this godlike power that you know that you are imposing this medication on this person vatsal absolutely does not need it.
Speaker: 0
01:32:47
And that person doesn’t know any better. Yeah. That’s fucking dark.
Speaker: 1
01:32:52
Well, you could go darker. You go darker with medical transition of children. You know, this, this whole gender affirming care thing where you’re taking young kids and convincing them they need to be chemically castrated or physically castrated.
Speaker: 0
01:33:07
Right.
Speaker: 1
01:33:07
And there’s that’s there there’s a a lot of weirdness in in the world. Yeah. There’s a lot of there’s evil’s a real thing, and the the motivation to do these things can be very, very hidden and masked with all sorts of incentives and the structure in which this institution was sort of created.
Speaker: 1
01:33:26
And that’s that’s the world we’re living in, and it’s not a good world. It’s not it’s not a perfect world, you know. It’s not like this is ideal. This is how it should be. No. It’s not like that. There’s money is a weird fucking thing. Money and power are two very, very weird things.
Speaker: 1
01:33:43
And without some sort of a higher power that you call upon or some sort of a higher power that you are beholden to and that you have to answer to. It’s very difficult for people to make decisions if they know they’re not gonna get caught, if they know they’re not gonna get in trouble.
Speaker: 1
01:34:03
If you’re a prosecutor and you’re beyond reproach and all you have to
Speaker: 0
01:34:07
do is protects you and everyone’s protecting you.
Speaker: 1
01:34:09
You. And not only that, once the wheels are in motion, the train’s on the track. We can’t turn the train around. What do you wanna do? Well, the fucking train has to be on the track. Right. So, she’s gotta go to jail, I guess. Yeah. And there you go.
Speaker: 0
01:34:22
Can I tell you something I’m conflicted about?
Speaker: 1
01:34:24
Sure.
Speaker: 0
01:34:25
So, you know, my book’s been out, for a month or so now. And I’m also, you know, working on I don’t know if you knew this. I have a Hulu show that I’m working on that’s based on my life. Yeah. Monica is executive producing it. Monica Lewinsky is executive producing it. And I’m really proud of it. It’s it’s, it goes it’s coming out at the end of, at the end of the summer, late summer.
Speaker: 0
01:34:54
And, but one of the things that, ai, one of the responses that I’ve had to my book and to the, you know, the news that I’m telling my story in this way or in another way, and I write about this in the book, is this question of, do I have the right to tell my story? And, What? Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:35:21
Who’s saying that?
Speaker: 0
01:35:22
Well, people who believe that I’m not the real victim of the story. The real victim is my roommate who was murdered. And that unless I have the blessing of Meredith’s family to tell my story that I should shut up and disappear out of respect.
Speaker: 1
01:35:49
That’s crazy. You’re a victim, period. Full stop. No if, ands, or buts. You were 20 years old?
Speaker: 0
01:35:57
I was 20 years old.
Speaker: 1
01:35:58
You’re a victim. Period. You didn’t commit a murder. You went to jail for a murder. You’re a victim. Period. Fuck those people. Are they even real people? Have you talked to those people? Are they humans?
Speaker: 0
01:36:08
I mean Have
Speaker: 1
01:36:08
you been in front of them?
Speaker: 0
01:36:09
Are you just reading things? I mean, I’ve I’ve
Speaker: 1
01:36:11
read things online?
Speaker: 0
01:36:12
Journalists certainly who have interviewed me. I I get this I get this a lot. I get this a lot. From who? From people who I feel, like, are suffering from something I call the single victim fallacy. This, like, idea that, like, you have to decide who’s the real victim.
Speaker: 1
01:36:29
Oh, because of victim hierarchy. You’re not the greatest victim because you’re still alive.
Speaker: 0
01:36:33
Right.
Speaker: 1
01:36:34
You weren’t raped and murdered, so you’re still ai, so you’re fine. Like, that is ridiculous. If that’s a journalist that’s saying that to you, I would just leave the room. I’d be like, well Well,
Speaker: 0
01:36:44
I’m trying to have a conversation with these people about it because I think
Speaker: 1
01:36:47
you about that. That’s a preposterous position. To tell a 20 year old that went to jail for years for a crime they didn’t commit and had their whole life publicly publicly ruined worldwide in a country you don’t even live in or you’re not even ram. Fuck that person. That’s a crazy position.
Speaker: 1
01:37:07
And if they’re just trying to do that to, you know, just get a rise out of you, to get a reaction, to try to go, like, they’re bad. They’re bad at what they do. It’s it’s a bad person. The idea that you’re not a victim is preposterous. That’s a crazy position.
Speaker: 1
01:37:23
An actual human being sat in front of you and was saying that?
Speaker: 0
01:37:27
So it’s it comes in different forms. So some people are very explicit and say, like, don’t you think you shouldn’t be doing this when the Kircher family’s lawyer says that you shouldn’t be doing this and then it would affect me?
Speaker: 1
01:37:41
This to your face.
Speaker: 0
01:37:43
Yeah. Yeah. And then I have to sit there and, again, do, like, ex experience the rage that washes over me and then go, how do I have an effective conversation with this human being? How do I convey that my life matters too and that there’s room in this world to acknowledge all of the truth of what happened, which included my own victimization and my own story and the things that I’ve learned from it, that I’ve had the privilege to learn from it because I’m still alive.
Speaker: 1
01:38:18
That that’s such a crazy position. That’s ai saying if you were in the Twin Towers and you got out right before it collapsed, you should shut the fuck up.
Speaker: 0
01:38:27
Right. Because you didn’t
Speaker: 1
01:38:28
Because you didn’t die like all those other people that were inside of it. That’s ridiculous. It’s still your life. It’s still your real lived reality. And the lawyer for the family that’s telling you that you shouldn’t be talking about it, fuck that guy too. That’s crazy. That’s a crazy position.
Speaker: 1
01:38:45
You you can’t listen to that. You’re gonna get the most preposterous takes because you’re dealing with something that millions of people are commenting on. So the idea that you’re every one of them is gonna be a rational position, that’s not real. People are silly. Like, people are weird.
Speaker: 1
01:39:07
They have crazy takes on everything. There’s all sorts of personal justifications and mental illness, and there’s people who hate women, and there’s people that, you know, whatever. They the law enforcement’s always right. You’re always gonna have ridiculous takes if you get a billion takes on things. That’s your world. No.
Speaker: 1
01:39:30
You shouldn’t be struggling with that at all. That’s crazy. Anybody who says you shouldn’t be talking about it, but for fucking of course, you should be because there’s a lot to be learned. There’s a lot to be learned from, first of all, the admirable positions that you’ve taken, the way you’ve formed your life and who you are as a human being because of your struggle, because of this insane experience that you had to go through at fucking 20 years old.
Speaker: 1
01:39:52
Your brain’s not even fully formed. It’s insane. Your frontal cortex is not fully formed. And for someone to say that you you you’re not the real victim, well, that’s crazy. That’s crazy. That’s a this is a stupid position.
Speaker: 0
01:40:08
Wow.
Speaker: 1
01:40:08
We shouldn’t be conflicted in any way, shape, or form about that. And I think there’s a great deal that we can learn from your experiences. First of all, again, learn from the way that you’ve handled it where you can sit across from that prosecutor. And this feeling of, like, being kind to this person who did this thing to you, how it made you empowered, I really do think that’s the universe telling you you’re on the right track.
Speaker: 0
01:40:38
Mhmm. You
Speaker: 1
01:40:39
just can’t listen to the peanut gallery. You can’t listen to all the noise. There’s just too much noise, and you you have to learn how to do that on a much lesser scale. I I see that with friends who were famous, who read comments about them, or read articles, but and meh infuriated.
Speaker: 1
01:40:57
It ruins vacations because they have to type up a response.
Speaker: 0
01:41:00
Or, you know The impulse to respond is ai can. You don’t have to.
Speaker: 1
01:41:05
You not only do you not should you not respond, you shouldn’t read what they’re saying in the first place. You shouldn’t pay attention.
Speaker: 0
01:41:11
Is there ever, like I I wonder if the fear is and maybe this is my fear because I’m always questioning ai, is, like, is there I always wanna, like, at least hear it and, like, cycle the thought through my mind so that I can test the validity of it in my mind.
Speaker: 1
01:41:32
Yes. There’s definitely that. Sure. But to a point, you should probably do that yourself without those people. That’s the best way. Mhmm. The best way is to have an internal auditing system where you look at your own life and say, did what did I do that I could have done better?
Speaker: 0
01:41:51
Right.
Speaker: 1
01:41:51
And what what what about is there anything about what I’m doing that feels icky? Right? Is there anything about the way I’m capitalizing on this that feels icky or feels conflicted? Is there anything about it that I don’t like?
Speaker: 0
01:42:06
Right.
Speaker: 1
01:42:07
But just do that yourself. You don’t you’re a smart person. You don’t need all those other opinions to to to where you have to, like, you know, let’s take email today from all Amanda Knox haters. Like, you don’t have to do that.
Speaker: 0
01:42:22
Fair. Yeah. And thankfully, my husband is the one who takes the brunt of that and God.
Speaker: 1
01:42:26
He shouldn’t do it either. Yeah. Let me help. As a person who’s been famous for a long time, don’t do it. Okay.
Speaker: 0
01:42:34
Fair
Speaker: 1
01:42:35
enough. Value in it. There’s zero value in it. I mean, there’s times where I was forced into responding, like, during the whole COVID situation when CNN was saying I was taking veterinary medicine sana
Speaker: 0
01:42:45
And you were like, I need to clarify reality or not. Also, I
Speaker: 1
01:42:49
need to say, hey, fuck you. Because the world should sai, fuck you. You’re not supposed to be able to do that. You’re not supposed to be able to be the news and lie and then hold yourself to this moral high ground and say, we have to stop misinformation. What about you, motherfucker? Like, what about you? You know? And so there’s that. Like, I’ve had to respond in that way.
Speaker: 1
01:43:08
But, I mean, if I responded to everything that everybody ever says about me, I’d have no time for my children, for my family, for my life, for my job. I’ve I would have no time for anything. But you can’t do it. You just you have to have an internal auditing system where you look at yourself and you have to be your own worst judge. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:43:29
You know, anything anybody says about me that tries to make me feel bad. Well, guess what? I’m way harsher to me than you are and I know meh. Mhmm. You know? And that’s Right.
Speaker: 0
01:43:38
But you know all the dark thoughts and the slimy feelings.
Speaker: 1
01:43:40
But that’s why I work really hard to be a good person. Ai work really hard to be a good person because I don’t like those feelings. I don’t like the when I judge myself and I find myself to be lacking. I don’t like it. So I institute a lot of self discipline, and I institute a lot of introspective thinking.
Speaker: 0
01:44:00
Yeah. What is your what’s your auditing like, what’s your self auditing process?
Speaker: 1
01:44:05
Well, first of all, it’s ai, why are you doing what you’re doing with your life? Like, what, why why do you why do you do a podcast? Why do you do comedy? Why do you do anything? Why do you do what you do? Yeah. I so the best way I approach it is Ai do it because I love what I do. I’m intrigued. I’m curious, and I do my best.
Speaker: 1
01:44:32
Always do my best. Now if I half ass something, it will haunt me. Like, if I have a bad podcast interview, if I don’t if I think I interrupted too much ai if I didn’t ask the right questions, like, that’ll fuck with me for the rest of the day. Like, I don’t need other people to fuck with me. I fuck with myself. I really do.
Speaker: 1
01:44:51
I so I so the best response to that is do better every time. Every time, like, sit when you sit down, be as open as possible to try to, like, not don’t let all these little weird mind fucky things enter into your head. Just try to be pure. Try to be genuinely curious. Like, what’s your genuine feelings about these things? And then did you did you handle it well?
Speaker: 1
01:45:17
If you didn’t, what could you have done better?
Speaker: 0
01:45:19
Right.
Speaker: 1
01:45:19
Well, then work on that. Yeah. And that’s all you can do.
Speaker: 0
01:45:23
I think one of the things that I am I worry about is that people only feel safe when they’re either being self righteous or when they’re being cynical.
Speaker: 1
01:45:39
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:45:40
And, like, genuine compassion or curiosity is looked down upon as naive and a wit and a weakness. Mhmm. And but I feel like the only way to be truly ethical is to be exposed in that way. Cynicism and self righteousness are shields. They arya ways of approaching the world with with with a barrier. Yes. Absolutely.
Speaker: 0
01:46:10
And sai I I and I can’t promise anyone that doing things my way, which is, like, really trying to, like, push back against those impulses, which I recognize as being dangerous impulses, is gonna necessarily lead to good things. Like, it’s less
Speaker: 1
01:46:30
It’s not your job to promise people that. Mhmm. It’s not your job. Because your job is for you, for your your soul, whoever you are. It’s to speak to what what is the right path for you. You don’t you don’t you don’t have to promise these people. This is the burden of being a public figure. Like, you’re not you’re not a role model for all these people.
Speaker: 1
01:46:53
If you are a role model for these people because they find you admirable, that’s great. But your responsibility is to your yourself. Your responsibility is to your own mind and the people that you come in contact with. So your your responsibility is not to, like, say like, don’t be cynical, be ai, and, oh, it didn’t work out for you. Oh, fuck. I fucked up. It’s me.
Speaker: 1
01:47:14
It’s on me. No. It’s on them. It’s on them. It’s on you.
Speaker: 1
01:47:18
Everyone has their own soul, their own mind, their own path, and you have to find out what’s right for you. In doing what you’re doing, you are most certainly a role model, and you most certainly will be a role model for including me. I I find myself admiring. Like, when we had the first podcast, I thought about it for a long time. I would think about it all throughout the day sometimes, like, randomly.
Speaker: 1
01:47:44
I would just think about imagining myself in your position and how would I ai? And I’d I, you know, I don’t know. I I can’t answer it, But I I admire the position that you’ve taken. I think it’s incredible. I think it’s a great it’s a great example to the world of what’s possible. If someone is thrust into a horrible position, it’s totally beyond their control.
Speaker: 1
01:48:09
But what is in your control? What’s in your control is how you respond to it. Mhmm. And how you responded to it was incredibly admirable. That’s that’s your responsibilities to yourself, and you did a great job with it, a fantastic job. Exemplary.
Speaker: 1
01:48:23
I don’t think there’s anybody else that I could point to that’s ever been through anything even remotely close to what you’ve been through and come out the way you have. The only examples that maybe I could point to are some of the people that I’ve dealt with through Josh, where we brought people in that were wrongly accused, that went through these horrible incarcerations and came out on the other side.
Speaker: 1
01:48:44
These incredibly well read, brilliant, articulate people that are so thoughtful and so introspective, so and can and then made the time in prison empower them. It can be done, and those are those are examples. But the responsibility is to yourself. It’s not to these other people.
Speaker: 0
01:49:06
I guess, like, I I think that’s so I mean, thank you. And I agree. Like, I’ve met very incredible people who have made the most of a bad situation, which ultimately, that’s what it comes down to. I guess meh one pushback might be that I have come to realize that we are so interconnected. Like, we are all influencing each other constantly.
Speaker: 1
01:49:32
Yes.
Speaker: 0
01:49:32
And so on the one hand, meh, I’m only answerable ultimately to myself. But when I really sit down and, like, sit with it, like, part of the reason why I was able to approach my prosecutor with the perspective that I had was realizing that, like, there is a fluidity between us and all of us where we’re all influencing each other.
Speaker: 0
01:49:58
And people in his life have now like, the influences in his life, people I will never have met ai have had direct influences in ai life because it’s been, like, this fluid path, like, this connectedness between me and him, me and you. Any any person we talk to, any person we encounter is going to then have this ripple effect.
Speaker: 0
01:50:20
And so on the one hand, yes, like, I’m a drop, but I’m also a drop in an ocean that has a ripple effect. And that ripple is going to interact with your ripple and and all these other ripples. And and so, yes, I am answerable to myself, but I also feel ai I can’t ignore the potential impact that my ripple might have on another person.
Speaker: 0
01:50:46
And I’ve been really rewarded in the way that I have I’ve been that those ripples have been communicated to me. Like, I’ve had someone tell me that they didn’t kill themselves because one day they heard me, you know, in an interview. And and, like, that they were going to kill themselves and then they didn’t. And, like, I’ve had someone tell me that.
Speaker: 0
01:51:07
And, like, I never in my wildest dreams thought that me just deciding to, like, have a conversation with someone one day on a podcast would save a human being’s life. But, like, those are those, like, the interconnected fluidness Yeah. Of all of us that, like, I also can’t discount
Speaker: 1
01:51:27
You shouldn’t.
Speaker: 0
01:51:27
And that I think about a lot.
Speaker: 1
01:51:29
Well, you should. I mean, you are an example. I mean, we are all an example. And if you’re a public example, or we right now, both of us arya public examples. We’re we’re two human beings that are communicating right now to millions of people. It’s ai of fucked up if you really think about it.
Speaker: 0
01:51:49
What are we doing?
Speaker: 1
01:51:51
I know. But we’re well, we are we’re being real people publicly. So you’re you we’re thinking ai, you know, and that is very beneficial to other people that are thinking privately because you get to hear people think publicly. And especially a person like you that’s very exemplary and that I would love if more people could follow that line of thinking.
Speaker: 1
01:52:20
And your example, it’s it’s a beautiful example of someone who did nothing wrong, but had wrong done to them and came out a better person because of it. And that’s that’s it’s not just inspirational, it’s aspirational. It’s it’s it it it it ai the universe with positive energy. In a weird way, the human universe, I mean.
Speaker: 0
01:52:45
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
01:52:46
And and this this thing that you said, I think, is very important. This, people protect themselves with cynicism and with with people that, like, constantly wanna criticize things. They’re constantly criticizing things.
Speaker: 0
01:53:02
Finding fault.
Speaker: 1
01:53:03
You’re you’re you’re also you’re ignoring your own life. That’s a part of what’s really going on. The the real things are in inside their own life, there must be things they’re ignoring. If they’re spending that much time focusing on external factors like that Mhmm. And other people and other people’s flaws and other people’s things, other people’s especially, like, trivial nonsensical things ai celebrity beefs.
Speaker: 0
01:53:27
Oh, I know. You know
Speaker: 1
01:53:28
what I mean? It’s ai, what are you doing with your fucking ai? Like, you don’t it’s like
Speaker: 0
01:53:33
I just don’t know how anyone has the time, honestly. Like, as a
Speaker: 1
01:53:36
It’s because they’re losers. And this is the reality of, like, some people don’t wanna hear this because you’re a loser, you know. And it sucks being a loser. I’ve been a loser. I’ve been a loser many times in my life. You’re a loser if you’re doing that because you are on with your own decisions becoming a loser.
Speaker: 1
01:53:56
You’re deciding to be a loser by focusing this precious energy that you have in life on shit that should mean nothing to you.
Speaker: 0
01:54:05
Is there, like, a a is there are they thinking that they’re being effective agents in the world by participating in it, like
Speaker: 1
01:54:16
the con.
Speaker: 0
01:54:17
That’s the con. Right?
Speaker: 1
01:54:18
The con. Like, yeah. By taking them down a notch, I’m yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:54:22
I’m I’m a part of something and I’m and I’m accomplishing something.
Speaker: 1
01:54:26
You’re not. You’re not. You’re not. It’s cynicism. It’s it’s, it’s, you know, the flag of moral virtue that you’re you’re waving to show that you’re better than other people. But in doing so, you’re attacking that person, which is inherently evil. Ai, you you’re you’re using this justification that you’re correct to try to ruin someone’s lives or ruin someone’s reputation or ruin someone’s feelings, to hurt them that day, to reach out to them and attack.
Speaker: 1
01:54:53
And it’s almost always based on a feeling of personal inadequacy. Almost always based on your life is not what you want it to be. Mhmm. You know, the people leaving horrible comments on someone’s Instagram page or Twitter page, there’s no way you’re living the life that you wanna live.
Speaker: 1
01:55:14
There’s no way that you’re in an ideal situation of love and harmony and success and, you know, you have great friends and life is amazing, but yeah, it’s fucking fat cunt. You know, ai, there’s no way. There’s no way of you ai those things. There’s no way. Like that, it’s a it’s a a human flaw and it’s accentuated by this disconnect that comes with social media.
Speaker: 1
01:55:38
This disconnect of being able to send a message to someone and have
Speaker: 0
01:55:42
No consequences.
Speaker: 1
01:55:43
No consequences. And no social cues not to see the person read it and get hurt by it, You know? You’re ai sending little bombs over the fence, like
Speaker: 0
01:55:53
Yeah. We are primed to be psychopaths in, our our algorithms have primed us to be psychopaths. And that worries me.
Speaker: 1
01:56:05
But if you’re but that’s, like, a disempowering position, you know. Like, you don’t have to be. You don’t have to do that. Like, it’s no one’s compelling you to do that. I don’t do that. Why are you doing that? Like, why do it? You don’t have to do it.
Speaker: 1
01:56:17
Then this is the example that you can lead for for other people if you are talking and speaking publicly. Just don’t do that. It’s not good for you. It’s not good for the it doesn’t help anybody hurting someone that you don’t even know. That doesn’t help you.
Speaker: 1
01:56:32
You should be you have I always try to this is what what I tell my friends when I talk about, reading comments and reading things and engaging with social media because I have friends where it’ll it’ll, like, ruin their week, ruin their day. Like, one comment will fuck them up and and they’ll come to me and talk to me about it.
Speaker: 1
01:56:50
I’m ai, listen, I want you to think about your mind and your attention ai it’s a number. Ai, it’s you have energy and you ai you like a battery. Right? You have or bandwidth that’s on a a broadband cable.
Speaker: 0
01:57:02
Right.
Speaker: 1
01:57:03
You have a hundred units. If you’re spending 30 units of your precious ai, concentrating on someone who’s saying something that’s not even true, that’s mean and horrible, and it’s the worst possible least charitable position on you. Right. You’re robbing yourself of these precious units of attention. Mhmm. You have a hundred units.
Speaker: 1
01:57:25
You should your hundred units should be all on loved ones and friends and things that you love to do and life. That’s what your units should be used for. And if some of that sneaks in and it resonates and you go, oh ai god, they’re right, well, fucking correct it. Figure out what you did.
Speaker: 1
01:57:45
Don’t do that anymore. It’s ai it sounds so simple, but that’s it. If you if you are do something you are doing something that people are rightly criticizing, ai it, recognize it, course correct. Ai, this is this is where friends are supposed to come and play. Your friends are supposed to be able to tell you, Amanda, you didn’t have to do that.
Speaker: 1
01:58:08
Like, I know the the reason why you did it, but, like, don’t do that. Like, this is why. This is what I felt. I felt like you overreacted. You didn’t have to do that. Now this person’s all fucked up because of it.
Speaker: 0
01:58:17
Right. But your friends are not gonna define you by what they consider the worst thing you’ve ever done, and they’re gonna recognize that you’re an evolving human. And I feel like
Speaker: 1
01:58:24
They love you.
Speaker: 0
01:58:25
And they love you.
Speaker: 1
01:58:26
The whole picture of
Speaker: 0
01:58:27
you. And it’s coming like, their criticism is coming from a loving place instead of an attacking place. Exactly. And so how do we get back to communicating with each other not from an adversarial place, which automatically instigates defensiveness and sort of refusal to acknowledge anything
Speaker: 1
01:58:46
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:58:47
To a place of, like, genuine openness? Well,
Speaker: 1
01:58:53
this is gonna sound so cliche. You have to act out of love. Like, I I reached out to a friend of mine recently. They’re doing a podcast, and it went completely sideways. And I I reached out to him, and I I sent him a text message sana said, hey, man. You can’t do this. Like, this is why you’re doing that. You have to recognize that people are listening to this. You’re actually ruining your own product by doing this.
Speaker: 1
01:59:16
You’ve you’ve and and he responded back, I know. I ai that I felt terrible ai it was happening. I got caught up in this thing.
Speaker: 0
01:59:24
That slimy feeling.
Speaker: 1
01:59:25
I don’t know. I don’t know. Upside. He’s like, I got all bunched up, and I just responded. I felt terrible. I was like, it’s okay. Just don’t do it again. You know.
Speaker: 0
01:59:34
Because he gets to have another chance?
Speaker: 1
01:59:35
Yeah. But and the reason why I sent it to him is because he’s done it before. And I’m like, stop doing this. Stop doing this. Like, you don’t have to do this. This is fucking you up. And, ultimately, like, if you hate these like, is conversation an art form? I kinda think it is.
Speaker: 1
01:59:52
Right? If if if people are consuming It’s
Speaker: 0
01:59:54
a skill.
Speaker: 1
01:59:55
Yeah. If people are consuming it, it’s an art form. So if you’re being overbearing and gross and, ai, whatever it is, it’s ai that you’re ruining this art that you’re creating. And it’s it’s this real art, ai, that painting is art. This is real art. This is a weird art. It’s like, I don’t even wanna call it art.
Speaker: 0
02:00:17
It’s like a dance, but with words. It’s a dance. It’s a dance.
Speaker: 1
02:00:20
It is a dance. It is a dance. Conversation is a dance. And this is why I have such a hard ai. Like, I would go on a double date with my wife or something like that where with people and they start talking over everybody else. And I sometimes Sai have to just go, stop. Like, she’s talking. Like, he’s talking.
Speaker: 0
02:00:35
Haven’t you ever listened to a podcast?
Speaker: 1
02:00:36
The fuck are you guys doing? It’s like playing it’s like if you were Roger Federer and you’re playing tennis with people, like, no. You can’t fucking hit the ball like that. Like, what are you guys doing?
Speaker: 0
02:00:46
You can’t just do multiple balls
Speaker: 1
02:00:48
at the
Speaker: 0
02:00:48
same time. Do not listen. Yeah. I know you wanna say something, but this other person is talking right now, and you can’t just talk when you wanna talk. You have
Speaker: 1
02:00:57
to also listen. Like, listening is a part of the dance. Don’t step on people’s feet. Like, you see that foot there? Oh, yeah. I wanna put my foot there, but the foot’s already there. Don’t step on their foot. This is crazy.
Speaker: 0
02:01:08
But it’s like but you have to step
Speaker: 1
02:01:10
on a couple of feet to realize, stepped on her feet. I can’t do that. You have to accidentally fuck up to ai, okay, don’t do that again. Right. Back up and figure out what you did wrong. Course correct.
Speaker: 0
02:01:23
Can I ask you about comedy?
Speaker: 1
02:01:25
Sure.
Speaker: 0
02:01:25
Because I wanna do comedy. I’m doing That’s
Speaker: 1
02:01:30
the way you said it.
Speaker: 0
02:01:32
I just wanna, guys. I sana. I’m actually doing stand up on Saturday, but on my Where? On Vashon Ai, I’m doing
Speaker: 1
02:01:40
What’s Vashon Island?
Speaker: 0
02:01:41
It’s where I live. It’s a little island right outside of Seattle that is Oh. Awesome.
Speaker: 1
02:01:46
Okay. I know where that at. Okay.
Speaker: 0
02:01:48
Have you been to Vashon Island?
Speaker: 1
02:01:49
Ai been to, Bainbridge.
Speaker: 0
02:01:51
Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Bainbridge Ai. Our island is a little more rural than Bainbridge. It’s Oh,
Speaker: 1
02:01:57
so you’re doing comedy for your community? Yeah. That’s a terrible idea. Is it? Yes.
Speaker: 0
02:02:01
Is it? Why? Don’t do it. Why?
Speaker: 1
02:02:03
No. You want strangers.
Speaker: 0
02:02:04
Really? I feel like that.
Speaker: 1
02:02:06
You don’t wanna interact with those weirdos that you live with?
Speaker: 0
02:02:09
Ai I feel like we have a very supportive community. I I’ve done it before, and it’s been great.
Speaker: 1
02:02:17
Do you have an opening act or just go up by yourself?
Speaker: 0
02:02:19
No. I’m part of, ai, it’s like, this Saturday, Ai in a ai of people who have, like, seven minutes set.
Speaker: 1
02:02:26
Oh, okay. Oh, that’s safe. Seven minutes is safe.
Speaker: 0
02:02:29
Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Walking up there and I’m like How many times you done it? This will be, like, the fourth or fifth time. Whitney actually was the one who first introduced me to stand up. She like, I love Whitney, by the way. Can we just can we just gush about Whitney for a second?
Speaker: 0
02:02:48
And I love the fact that we both have small kids at the same time, and I just I just love her. And so she was the one who first recognized, like, this girl’s been through some shit. I bet she’s fucking funny. And and, you know, befriended me after I got on her podcast. And then when she did the roast of Whitney Cummings for OnlyFans, I was her, like, special surprise guest.
Speaker: 0
02:03:10
And I got to do a little bit of a roast of her and a little bit of myself. Right? Like, of course, the one place that I can finally get my comedic, you know, true self out there is on OnlyFans of all things. And, you know, I get to be you know, when when I go this Saturday, I get to be the ex con mom on the on the meh, and that’s a Pornhub search for you.
Speaker: 0
02:03:32
You ai? Like, you know, like, I get to, like, lean in to the tragedy of it all. But it then goes back to that question of, do people stick you into boxes? Or are you allowed to be more than what people expect you to be? And I’ve you know, in the past, not from my my own community, but from strangers received criticism for making jokes about my experience.
Speaker: 0
02:04:01
And, again, coming from that place of how dare you joke about, you know, going to prison for a crime you didn’t commit when you’re not the real victim and what whatever. Or you’re or you’re a true crime figure. You’re a you’re a you’re a person who has been I associate you with the tragedy, therefore, you have to stay in tragedy space and moving into comedic space is not allowed.
Speaker: 0
02:04:24
And so I’m just curious what your thoughts are about that.
Speaker: 1
02:04:27
That’s the same thing. You’re dealing with commenters. Like, you can’t listen.
Speaker: 0
02:04:30
I just Yeah. I just do my thing and my own business. Okay.
Speaker: 1
02:04:34
Yeah. Yeah. If I listened, I would have never done anything I’ve done. If I listened to people, I would have never done anything that I’ve done ever. Not one thing.
Speaker: 0
02:04:44
But we should yeah. Okay.
Speaker: 1
02:04:45
I would have never fought. I would never got into martial arts. I never would have fought. I never would have done stand up comedy. I never would have done a podcast.
Speaker: 0
02:04:53
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:04:53
Even my own wife jokes around about it because when ai kids were really little, there was one time where my wife wanted to go to Disneyland, and I said, I can’t. I have to do a podcast. She goes, no. You wanna do a podcast. I go, no. I I I have to.
Speaker: 1
02:05:08
I tyler the people that I was going to do it, so I have
Speaker: 0
02:05:10
to do it. Ai committed.
Speaker: 1
02:05:11
But back then, it was it made no money. It was just, like, nonsense thing that I was doing on the Internet. Like, what are you doing? And to this day, we laugh about it. Like, thank God you didn’t listen to me. But I don’t listen to anybody. I listen to me. I listen to my own mind. If I wanted to like, I would have never moved to Austin.
Speaker: 1
02:05:29
Like, I moved to Austin in the middle of this giant Spotify deal. And they were ai, what are you doing? Like, you know, like, what? Like, so they gave me all this money, and I’m like, I’m gonna leave LA. They’re like, what? Like, how are you gonna get guests?
Speaker: 1
02:05:41
I’m like, I’m flying them in anyway. Like, who cares? I got I wanna do what I wanna do. I’m gonna just do it. I have a I have a little fucking compass. It’s ai Right.
Speaker: 0
02:05:51
Sai if also as if everyone only lives in LA and you weren’t like, the only people worth talking to are gonna be in LA.
Speaker: 1
02:05:58
Also, I was like, I would rather be broke and not live under the the thumb of retarded government than than stay in LA and have a successful career. Ai, fuck you. I’ll just do stand up and travel the country and just live in the middle of it. I’m not doing this anymore.
Speaker: 0
02:06:14
I mean,
Speaker: 1
02:06:14
you can’t tell me I can’t work. You can’t tell me I can’t go out. You can’t tell me I have to put a mask on when I’m walking the dog. Fuck you. Wow. Like, the whole thing was just ai, I’m out. I’m getting out of here. Mhmm. And, you know, moving to Austin was a crazy risk, you know. Like, opening up a comedy club. Everybody’s always told me.
Speaker: 1
02:06:34
I’ve always told people, be nice to comedy club owners because you don’t wanna be one of them. Like, you wanna deal with us? Wanna deal with a bunch of fucking crazy people The the
Speaker: 0
02:06:43
Unreliable people
Speaker: 1
02:06:44
in the country.
Speaker: 0
02:06:45
Half of them
Speaker: 1
02:06:46
are on drugs. They’re all narcissists and fucking insane people, and and they’re all just, like, just their whole
Speaker: 0
02:06:52
day is selling being a comedian right now. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:06:55
Well, just being honest. They’re just half their mind most of the day is trying to figure out things that are fucked up enough to talk about on stage. Ai, and how do how do I phrase this? How do I structure it? What’s a way to get into people’s heads with this idea? How do I how do I make it really funny? Like, what what’s the best way to do it? And, like, this is a crazy way to live.
Speaker: 1
02:07:18
Like, you don’t want those people to be your primary source of income because this like, for the comedy club owner, all you have is what the artist create. That’s all you’re selling. Otherwise, you just have a box. You have a box of the microphone, and you’re selling drinks. All you have is other people’s creation.
Speaker: 1
02:07:39
And those people, half of them are fucking insane. Like, you don’t wanna be one of those. But then I came out here, and I was like, goddamn it. I have to
Speaker: 0
02:07:47
be one of those now. But No regrets.
Speaker: 1
02:07:50
No. No. It worked out great.
Speaker: 0
02:07:52
I mean, I went to your show last night. It was super fun.
Speaker: 1
02:07:55
Thank you.
Speaker: 0
02:07:55
Yeah. Thank you. Great.
Speaker: 1
02:07:56
Glad you had a good time.
Speaker: 0
02:07:57
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:07:58
Yeah. Yeah. You have to just do what you think you want to do, and then just do the best version of it you can. But to listen to people say you shouldn’t be making jokes because because you’re a tragic figure. Fuck you. Sai who? Says you? Let me look at your life, bitch.
Speaker: 1
02:08:15
Let me go through your fucking pathetic mind and find out what weird justifications you’re making for the way you think and behave. Ai, you’re not in any position to be given out ai. And most of those people are not in any position to giving out to be giving out advice.
Speaker: 0
02:08:31
Yeah. And I do worry about people’s lack of imagination. It’s ai, I don’t know. I’ve I’ve had enough taken away from me that I ram not going to be limited by a lack of imagination.
Speaker: 1
02:08:40
Absolutely.
Speaker: 0
02:08:41
So
Speaker: 1
02:08:43
And it’s also people don’t want you to succeed. They, you know
Speaker: 0
02:08:47
That sucks. Yep. Why?
Speaker: 1
02:08:48
Yeah. Because because they’re not succeeding. It’s all it is. People that are succeeding, for the most part, want you to succeed up until you get to their level. And they’re like, hey.
Speaker: 0
02:08:58
Hey. You’re you’re putting up on my success. They don’t
Speaker: 1
02:09:01
want it fast.
Speaker: 0
02:09:01
Is there a limited amount of success in the world? No. Why then?
Speaker: 1
02:09:04
Well, because they’re fools, and it’s famine thinking. It’s a famine meh. And you could either think in terms of abundance or famine, you know. But it’s a real problem with, comedians. Comedians would that criticize other comedians, Kinda crazy that they’re only criticizing the ones that are way more successful than them. Seems odd.
Speaker: 0
02:09:27
Convenient. Seems
Speaker: 1
02:09:28
weird. But they don’t think about it that way. They just look at this other person that’s getting a lot of attention, and they feel bad. So they think that should be them and instead of ai using it as inspiration ai, wow, look at tyler. She’s fucking selling out arenas. This is crazy.
Speaker: 1
02:09:43
What is she doing that I’m not doing?
Speaker: 0
02:09:45
What can I learn from her? Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:09:46
What can I learn from that? Instead, they’re like, fuck her and fuck this and fuck that. And what you’re doing is stealing bandwidth from yourself. That 100 units, you’re now spending 30 units criticizing other people who aren’t even thinking about you. Doing it to yourself.
Speaker: 0
02:10:07
I don’t know.
Speaker: 1
02:10:08
Not only that, but when you’re doing it publicly, everybody knows what you’re doing. Anybody who’s really worth considering, who’s an intelligent objective person knows exactly what your motivation is. They know why you’re doing it. The least charitable takes on things and the worst possible light that you’re shining on things and the the the worst descriptions of people, like, you know what you’re doing.
Speaker: 1
02:10:34
You’re just trying to make up for the fact that you’ve fallen short. Mhmm. You don’t like how your path has gone and you’re, you know, you see someone all of a sudden she’s telling she’s doing comedy now. Fuck that. You know, you shouldn’t be doing because she shouldn’t be doing comedy.
Speaker: 1
02:10:51
These hot takes that people have, you know, while they’re on antidepressants and their whole fucking world is in a tizzy. Like, shut up. You have to listen. But it’s okay that they talk. It’s okay. It’s like part of the learning experience of human culture.
Speaker: 1
02:11:05
Ai, civilization has to have a bunch of fucking people talking about stuff and a bunch of its noise and it’s up to you to figure out what’s noise. And ai, well then you see someone who’s not noise and who’s someone who’s living an exemplary life and go, okay. That’s not noise. Okay. What’s in that?
Speaker: 1
02:11:24
What’s in that? Like, oh, she met with a prosecutor. Wow. And she, like, she felt empowered. You know, people are gonna listen to what you just said about that and just, like, just, like, when they’re saloni, like, throughout the day, when they’re driving their car, when they’re sitting on the train, they’re gonna think about that.
Speaker: 0
02:11:40
I mean, I’m still thinking about that. I’m I’m still, like, trying to figure it out, and I think that’s good. I think Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:11:47
We’re all like you said, we’re all interconnected. We’re all learning together, you know. And the only thing you could do is do your best. Do your best. Do your best.
Speaker: 0
02:11:56
Is that the advice?
Speaker: 1
02:11:57
Do your best. Yes.
Speaker: 0
02:11:57
Is that is that advice, daddy? With everything.
Speaker: 1
02:11:59
With everything. With everything, do your best. Be a nice person and do your best. Yeah. It’s all you can do.
Speaker: 0
02:12:07
Done and done. Yeah. We have solved.
Speaker: 1
02:12:11
It seems so simple. But, you know, those demons will they never sleep. They’ll wake up in the morning, tapping you on the head.
Speaker: 0
02:12:19
The thing that again, the thing that haunts me is when people think they’re doing their best and they’re not. That’s what haunts me. Like and that happens. That that is happening constantly. It’s people convincing themselves that they’re doing their best sana they’re not.
Speaker: 1
02:12:34
Mhmm.
Speaker: 0
02:12:35
But then how do you get out of that cycle of convincing yourself? Because that’s where the the issue of cognitive bias comes in and, like, reaffirming your your sense of self to yourself and your ai. Like, I’m a good guy. I can’t, you know, I can’t do wrong. Or, like, you know, I’m I’m a good friend.
Speaker: 0
02:12:52
I can’t be a bad like, there there are ai that we define ourselves that makes it impossible for ourselves to to see ourselves clearly, and that freaks me out. Like, I’m always afraid of that.
Speaker: 1
02:13:04
Five grams in silent darkness.
Speaker: 0
02:13:08
Prescribed.
Speaker: 1
02:13:09
Ai you might have to do it more than once. You might have to do a lot of cleaning. Meh. Clean your closet.
Speaker: 0
02:13:17
Clean your closet. Okay.
Speaker: 1
02:13:18
Throw out all the stupid shit. But it’s hard for people because, you know, you’re on this path of momentum. Oftentimes, people are ahead of their skis, you know, they’re on this path of momentum, and they don’t know how
Speaker: 0
02:13:28
to stop. That’s the train that’s out of the station.
Speaker: 1
02:13:30
Yeah. But in a much lesser extent because it’s more in their control. You know, when your situation is beyond your control. And a lot of people, they’re the fucking they’re at they’re the engineer. Mhmm.
Speaker: 0
02:13:43
You know, that’s They’re the ones who’s in the skis. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:13:46
They’re the ones who are deciding to go straight downhill.
Speaker: 0
02:13:49
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:13:49
You know? It’s it’s, it’s hard. It’s hard. And then you have all these things. Once you’ve sort of created a life and you have all these pieces in motion, and then you ai, like, oh meh god. This is, like, kind of beyond my control, and I don’t like where it’s going, but everything’s still moving. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:14:08
It takes a lot to pull that back, and you kinda have to slow it down in stages. You know? You have to, like, throw things off the side of the car. Like, let’s go sana get rid of this. Gotta get rid of that.
Speaker: 1
02:14:20
Sai you’re gonna have to cut people out of your life sometimes. Sometimes it’s people. Sometimes certain people, they’re not going to learn. And I think, you know, the universe provides them as an example of how not to live, but also as a puzzle that you need to solve. Like, you need to solve if this person is continually bringing negative things into your life and continually tripping you up and sabotaging you, You have to, at a certain important time, separate yourself.
Speaker: 1
02:14:48
You have to. Mhmm. You know, you gotta ghost people. As horrible as that seems, like, you can’t because you don’t have enough time. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:14:56
There’s not enough time in the world. Your time is very precious. And if people don’t wanna help themselves, you can’t help them.
Speaker: 0
02:15:02
True. That’s very true. I’ve definitely found myself in the position of not being helpable. There’s a story I tell in in the book about trusting the wrong person and wanting to believe that they were someone like me, someone who can understand meh, and then I realized they were not.
Speaker: 1
02:15:22
That’s horrible. When you let someone in and you realize you fucked up. I’ve had that happen multiple times. Yeah. There’s a lot of con arya out there. There’s a lot of sociopaths. There’s a lot of slippery people that they’re chameleons. They’re like little cuttlefish. They kind of adapt to their environment and slip into your world.
Speaker: 1
02:15:41
Mhmm. It’s dangerous, you know. There’s a lot of people that that they look at it ai ai as a like a game, like how do I get close to this person? How do I benefit from this relationship? How do I make these connections? And in the business world, you’re actually taught to do that Right.
Speaker: 1
02:16:02
Which is really crazy, which is what like, no wonder what networking.
Speaker: 0
02:16:06
Right. Right. It’s a good word
Speaker: 1
02:16:08
in that world. To bullshit. You know? And you and the wife have to go out and,
Speaker: 0
02:16:12
like, pretend that
Speaker: 1
02:16:13
I’m always an asshole.
Speaker: 0
02:16:14
Like, we’re gonna sit with them because it’s really important
Speaker: 1
02:16:16
for my promotion. And then, you know, that’s no wonder why CEOs become sociopaths. Like, of course.
Speaker: 0
02:16:22
Like, that’s part of the job. Good book about that. Have you read The Psychopath Test?
Speaker: 1
02:16:26
No. I haven’t.
Speaker: 0
02:16:26
Oh, it’s so funny.
Speaker: 1
02:16:27
Ai read The Publicly Shamed book, though.
Speaker: 0
02:16:28
Yeah. That’s a good one too.
Speaker: 1
02:16:29
It’s great.
Speaker: 0
02:16:30
Yeah. He’s so funny.
Speaker: 1
02:16:32
Yeah. Yeah. It’s, I mean, it’s being a human is weird. There’s no ai, you know. There’s you you have the most complex interactive machine that is constantly adapting and changing and it’s completely variable. It’s completely variable based on your ai. Like, not just your environment in terms of the human beings, but even the, like, weather.
Speaker: 0
02:16:59
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:16:59
Like, if you live in Seattle. Right?
Speaker: 0
02:17:01
You’re on a very different wavelength than you when you’re in Austin. It’s true. Yeah. It’s like I come here, and I feel like I’m in a bath all the ai. Just in a bath.
Speaker: 1
02:17:11
What do you mean?
Speaker: 0
02:17:12
It’s so hot. And, ai, and but and that, like, impacts me in a way where I just feel sort of ram, like I’m in a bath all the time instead of
Speaker: 1
02:17:22
Oh, that’s interesting. I’ve never heard it put that way, in a bath. That’s funny. That’s funny. I I yeah. I don’t think about that way.
Speaker: 0
02:17:33
I wanted to ask how you slow down, though. Right? You’re talking about slowing down and, like, taking stock. Uh-huh. And the way I do it is by meditating. But I have found that a lot of people are resistant to the idea of meditating because they have certain ideas about what meditating is. Mhmm.
Speaker: 0
02:17:50
And, like, it’s shutting off your thoughts. And it’s ai, well, you know, eventually, you might be able to do that. But ultimately, it’s just sitting down and noticing your thoughts
Speaker: 1
02:17:58
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:17:59
That arise. But I like to say that anyone who can masturbate can meditate. Because and ultimately, like
Speaker: 1
02:18:11
Actually, people that can meditate maybe not be able to masturbate because they don’t have any arms. You’d still meditate.
Speaker: 0
02:18:16
Exactly. And you get ultimately to a similar place of, like, just single-minded focus and bliss. So go for it. Hopefully. Don’t hold back.
Speaker: 1
02:18:27
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:18:29
And the funny things that occur to your brain when you are meh, like, I have okay. Can I can I tell you something that’s kind of, like, off color? Sure. Well, maybe you know this. Like, since becoming a mom, like, my libido
Speaker: 1
02:18:46
Really?
Speaker: 0
02:18:46
Oh, yeah. Just because I’m constantly being, like, touched that, like, the last thing I need is for my husband to climb on me like a jungle gym. Like, it’s just it’s just not what’s on the menu for me.
Speaker: 1
02:19:00
Oh, so you’re probably tired all the time.
Speaker: 0
02:19:01
I’m so tired. Yeah. And, like, I’m just, like, my body is different. The chemistry is still working itself out.
Speaker: 1
02:19:07
Uh-huh.
Speaker: 0
02:19:08
The one thing that reliably makes me horny is meditating.
Speaker: 1
02:19:13
Interesting.
Speaker: 0
02:19:14
Isn’t that wild? And, you know, we have this, like, term in meditation, like, monkey mind. Right? Like, the idea being that, like, when you sit down, you really notice that your mind is going all over the place and is just, like, reacting like a monkey. But also, another thing that monkeys are famous for is just masturbating voraciously.
Speaker: 1
02:19:33
Right.
Speaker: 0
02:19:33
And I feel like that’s also what’s happening in my mind. Like, I sit down and notice, like, how perverted my mind is when I’m actually just sitting there meditating in a nice group of people on a Sunday morning.
Speaker: 1
02:19:44
That’s funny.
Speaker: 0
02:19:45
So Oh,
Speaker: 1
02:19:46
group meditation.
Speaker: 0
02:19:47
Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s not just, like, when I’m home alone Oh. Like, in my intimate space. Like, I’m like I feel so Cool. Yeah. This is I hope no one at my Zendo is this conversation.
Speaker: 1
02:19:58
Maybe they’re gonna come up to you
Speaker: 0
02:19:59
the next time you do it, like,
Speaker: 1
02:20:00
me too.
Speaker: 0
02:20:00
Then they’ll say this. This is
Speaker: 1
02:20:02
But then you don’t wanna know because then you’re gonna be meditating ai this freak is thinking about sex too.
Speaker: 0
02:20:05
Well, I ai, and you’re sitting there and you’re thinking like, what else are the uses of these floor cushions? Like, you’re just, like, going, like, all of the things in your brain, and then you’re thinking, am I the only one?
Speaker: 1
02:20:15
Interesting. Yeah. So Uh-uh. I
Speaker: 0
02:20:17
don’t know. There’s something again, one of those, like, weird, unintended consequences of just trying to, like, sit back and take stock is, like, rediscovering parts of yourself that are have been sort of diminished or made dormant because of the the stress of existence. So another reason why they should advertise that. I don’t know why they don’t advertise that on meditation apps. The heck?
Speaker: 0
02:20:43
Because it’s It’s ai, is this just
Speaker: 1
02:20:44
me? Attract the wrong people. Like, I’m trying to get perverted. I’m trying to find my inner pervert.
Speaker: 0
02:20:51
Exactly.
Speaker: 1
02:20:52
Om. Om. Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t necessarily meditate that way, but I do incorporate a lot of voluntary adversity. Mhmm. A lot of it is working out.
Speaker: 0
02:21:07
You got a lot of Buddhas around you for someone who doesn’t meditate.
Speaker: 1
02:21:10
I know.
Speaker: 0
02:21:11
Very, very. What’s with that?
Speaker: 1
02:21:13
My ai, Duncan, has some very bizarre theories about that. And I am very, drawn to that. Ai do though. It’s just I do it while I’m doing other things. I’ve always said that martial arts is a form of moving meditation because it’s so singular in its focus that it requires all of your thoughts, and it cleanses your mind.
Speaker: 1
02:21:34
There’s a bunch of things that I do. Eventually, things that I do that do that. Archery archery does that, oddly enough.
Speaker: 0
02:21:39
Archers the Arya of Archery. There’s a reason why there’s that book.
Speaker: 1
02:21:42
Yes. There’s something about because have you ever done archery?
Speaker: 0
02:21:47
I have done it because my, my brother-in-law is a Ren Faire guy. He’s a Ren Faire co owner. Yeah. He’s so cool. Is he talking about it? I’m gonna can I call out Seattle ai, by the way? He is the director of the Seattle nights. And, yes, he jousts. He, like, talks and
Speaker: 1
02:22:04
What a dork.
Speaker: 0
02:22:05
Ai know. It’s so cool. It’s so cool. I love it. And I always I’m gonna go to their show in Woodby Island this month anyway.
Speaker: 1
02:22:13
That’s funny.
Speaker: 0
02:22:14
Yeah. They’re awesome. But yes. So yeah. What were we saying?
Speaker: 1
02:22:17
Archery.
Speaker: 0
02:22:18
Archery. Yes. So I’ve done it, like, in his backyard because he has all of the medieval weaponry. Mhmm. And, I I’m a hard tuck.
Speaker: 1
02:22:25
Yeah. I don’t use the medieval ones. I use modern ones. But the the the thing about it is that it it it’s very difficult to do accurately, especially at distance. Right? So when I practice, I practice it. Most of the time, I practice in about 85 yards. And the amount of movement, like so if you’re at full draw, so you draw the bow back. Right?
Speaker: 1
02:22:52
If you’re at full draw if if you look at my arya, if my arm does this, I miss by six inches.
Speaker: 0
02:22:57
Wait. What did you just do?
Speaker: 1
02:22:58
This this this Uh-uh. I’m missing ai six inches at 85 yards. Just slight I mean, a millimeter of movement is four inches off target.
Speaker: 0
02:23:09
So you’re saying that Legolas is a badass is what I’m hearing. Who? Legolas from Lord of the
Speaker: 1
02:23:16
Rings. Oh. Ai not. No. I’m not. That’s not a real person. I’m applying it to human beings.
Speaker: 0
02:23:25
Oh, okay. Fine.
Speaker: 1
02:23:26
That there’s this repeatable technique that you have to do It involves breathing and focus and concentration, and, there’s actually a whole process that I go through. There’s this guy named Joel Turner who was a, he was a SWAT instructor and a lead guy in hostage situations where, you know, someone would, like, have a a child hostage.
Speaker: 1
02:23:54
You had to shoot the guy who was, like, holding a knife to a ai. Oh my god. He’s had situations like that where you have to be completely focused on the task. And so he developed this process of talking yourself through a shot with this. You have these words that you say and you repeat in your mind while you’re going through all of these various techniques.
Speaker: 1
02:24:20
So when you’re drawing a bow back, you draw back, you have to anchor, so you put this string in a very particular part of your mouth every time. My knuckle, this finger goes underneath my jaw in the exact same spot every time. My elbow goes up in the exact same spot and then it’s staying still and concentrating on the target and pulling through. And you can’t think about anything else. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:24:50
It’s so overwhelming that you have to folk if you sana be accurate, you have to focus only on that. And in doing so, the world just goes away. Mhmm. The world goes away because it requires so much of you. Martial arts is the same thing.
Speaker: 1
02:25:06
Like if you’re doing jujitsu and you and this person are trying to solve each other’s puzzle and you’re ai you’re you’re essentially trying to kill each other but in a friendly way ai your friends. But because you can
Speaker: 0
02:25:20
tap out.
Speaker: 1
02:25:20
You don’t hurt each other. But you’re it you can’t be thinking about your bills. You can’t be thinking about an argument you got in this. Why did my dog shit on the rug? You can’t be thinking about those things. You have to be completely focused on what you’re doing.
Speaker: 0
02:25:34
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:25:35
And in that way, like, jujitsu people are some of the calmest, most chilled out people you will ever meet in your life. Mhmm. First of all, because they get all of their aggression out. Like, all the unnecessary aggression that people carry around with them, all this angst and
Speaker: 0
02:25:51
100%. Which is
Speaker: 1
02:25:52
part of being a human being because we’re designed to run away from predators. We’re designed to hunt and gather and look out for invading tribes. Like, this is the genetic sequence that evolved for hundreds of thousands of years that we still have. It’s still a part of us.
Speaker: 1
02:26:09
These human reward systems are all in place. You have to honor those. And one of the ways you have to honor those is rigorous exercise. Whatever you like to do, you can play squash. You could play tennis. You can run. You could do yoga. You could lift weights.
Speaker: 1
02:26:24
You could do jujitsu, but you have to do something. If you don’t do something, you’re gonna always be the most anxiety ridden people I know are also sedentary. Ai don’t think that’s
Speaker: 0
02:26:35
A coincidence. And I also always feel like whenever I’m feeling really shitty psychologically, I need to go for a run. Yes. Do you find so here’s my question. Given that that is your, like, meditative practice, do you find that in the moment that the you release the bow and that, like, that becoming one and that flow state that you have entered into in order to perfectly align yourself with the bow and the arrow, does that moment of release ever ever result in some kind of unconscious processing coming into your consciousness?
Speaker: 0
02:27:14
So, like, some kind of a new awareness of something that you’ve been trying to figure out and it, like, is a catalyst for you figuring out what you need. Like, that feeling of, like, being in sync with the universe and knowing what you need to do, do you ever find yourself, like, in the moment that you are, like, immediately exiting that flow state, do you real do you feel more clarity about your life or what you need to do or or that thing that you weren’t thinking about, like your to do list or your bills or that argument that you’ve had with somebody that you care about?
Speaker: 0
02:27:46
Like, does anything come into focus, or do you find you you walk away from an encounter in jujitsu, like, knowing not just feeling better emotionally, but, like, knowing what you need to do next?
Speaker: 1
02:27:58
I think more so with jujitsu. With archery, it’s just, you know, because it’s so hard to do at the end. It’s such a singular thing.
Speaker: 0
02:28:08
Mhmm. You’re
Speaker: 1
02:28:09
just doing this one thing over and over and over again. Like, I’ll do it, like, a hundred times in a day. The the the thing is, like, okay. What did I do right? What did I do wrong? Like, what why why did that shot go bad? Like, what
Speaker: 0
02:28:21
Minute adjustments.
Speaker: 1
02:28:23
Yeah. Just minute adjustments. And, again, it’s just a clarity I’m sorry about my throat, people.
Speaker: 0
02:28:28
Yeah. No worries.
Speaker: 1
02:28:29
It’s, it’s just a clarity of, analysis of technique and of execution. So it’s it’s so overwhelming. It’s so singular in in in in the focus that you don’t really think about anything else. So there’s no room for, like, oh, now I know what I did wrong in my life. Ai
Speaker: 0
02:28:48
Yeah. I guess, like, one of the benefits that I get from meditation is feeling like, when I come out of meditation, I feel like I I have a clarity of purpose that I might not have had because I was I had monkey mind.
Speaker: 1
02:29:03
Right.
Speaker: 0
02:29:03
And I was busy I was distracted, and I was using my bandwidth with so much and so Ai you just tune down what your bandwidth is, like, paying attention to, and then you reenter the world with a renewed sense of clarity, and you’re not as distracted. You’re not on that treadmill of thought.
Speaker: 1
02:29:21
Yeah. I think that comes to meh, at least, that comes much more through rigorous exercise.
Speaker: 0
02:29:28
That makes sense.
Speaker: 1
02:29:29
Yeah. That’s the at the end of a really hard workout and sauna and stretching, stretching is always great too. That’s a good time for reflection after it’s over, and it’s like this wind down, cool down. And then I’m just I always feel so much nicer. That’s the one thing I really like about it. Like, after I work out, I feel so much nicer.
Speaker: 1
02:29:47
Like, I wanna be
Speaker: 0
02:29:48
I’m a good person now.
Speaker: 1
02:29:49
I wanna I know. I just wanna be nice to people. I wanna I wanna smile and say hi to everybody. Ai, all the weirdness of being a man, it just goes away. You know?
Speaker: 0
02:30:00
The weirdness of being a man. I do think that I ram I do not envy you being a man.
Speaker: 1
02:30:05
Oh ai god. It’s the best. I Ai don’t envy you being a woman. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:30:09
Really? Yeah. Oh, no. I much prefer being a woman.
Speaker: 1
02:30:11
Of course. You’re a woman.
Speaker: 0
02:30:14
I mean, testosterone is a hell of a drug, my friend. Like, what the hell is that? Mhmm. Testosterone, I don’t wanna deal with that.
Speaker: 1
02:30:20
Mhmm. That’s interesting, but you have some. You have more testosterone than you have estrogen.
Speaker: 0
02:30:25
What?
Speaker: 1
02:30:25
Yeah. Yeah. Women have more testosterone than they have estrogen.
Speaker: 0
02:30:29
But I’ve never felt the impulse to punch a wall, you know?
Speaker: 1
02:30:32
Ai neither. That’s stupid.
Speaker: 0
02:30:33
Okay. Well
Speaker: 1
02:30:34
punch walls.
Speaker: 0
02:30:35
Well, you have an outlet for your punching energy, but, like, the Ai I don’t know. I mean what I mean is, like, that innate elevate like, an elevated level of aggression that just is not, like, accessible to me as as a as a woman. Ai that wrong? Am I, like, inaccurate in this?
Speaker: 0
02:30:53
I just feel like Ai don’t know what I would do if I wanted to just, like, jerk off all the time. Like, I just don’t understand what that is ai. And that seems over ai, that doesn’t seem fun to deal with.
Speaker: 1
02:31:11
Yeah. Well, you don’t really sana jerk off all the time unless you’re a sex addict.
Speaker: 0
02:31:15
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:31:16
You know? And then you probably got other deal issues you’re dealing with. But the aggression thing, it’s not just ai aggression for no reason. Like, you only have aggression for a reason. Like, I I never have aggression for I I’m never like walking around fucking mad at everything. It’s never never.
Speaker: 1
02:31:36
It’s never the case. And, but I also, I work out a lot. So Ai get it I get it out of my system. It’s just a thing ai you just have to maintain. You you just have to maintain your life. You have to maintain your body.
Speaker: 1
02:31:51
You have to recognize you have biological needs. Mhmm. And as a man, I think one of those needs is you have to exercise to to just calm yourself, to relieve anxiety. And again, that’s that term that is used often, but I think it’s the right tyler, voluntary adversity. You shah up at class, you work out really hard.
Speaker: 1
02:32:11
You show up at the gym, you work out really hard. And then when it’s over, you’re ai, you feel better. Mhmm. You feel good, like you’re tyler. Like, strong, powerful people can be the nicest people because they don’t have to be nice. They’re being nice because they wanna be nice. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:32:29
There’s a lot of speak, feeble men that pretend that they’re ai. But really, what they are is just vulnerable. They’re they have to be nice because they don’t have any choice. Ai, if you
Speaker: 0
02:32:42
And if they were in a position of not having to, then they would they would drop the nice act.
Speaker: 1
02:32:46
And that’s what happens. There’s some of the creepiest fucking people when they have power. It’s ai really weak men. They’re some of the scariest people, and they’re the scariest people as politicians. They’re just really weak men that all of a sudden have power. I’m gonna fucking show you.
Speaker: 1
02:33:00
But it’s like ai real power is to be kind when you don’t have to be kind.
Speaker: 0
02:33:06
You know what I love about being a woman though?
Speaker: 1
02:33:08
What?
Speaker: 0
02:33:08
That I do think is a genuine thing and a genuine difference is it’s easier for me to be nurturing, in the sense that, like, no one would bat an eye if I saw a kid who was, like I couldn’t figure out where their mom was, and I were to approach them and say, come here, honey. Let me help you.
Speaker: 1
02:33:29
Right.
Speaker: 0
02:33:29
As a man, like, do you second like, I know that, like my husband has told me this that, like, he second guesses, like, hanging out at, you know, with the kids at the at the park because someone might think that he is a pedophile.
Speaker: 1
02:33:43
Oh, that’s crazy. Hanging out with his kids?
Speaker: 0
02:33:46
Yeah. Because, like, if you’re just like a a guy sitting on a bench and your kids are playing, like, how does anyone know you aren’t just a guy?
Speaker: 1
02:33:52
I think he’s really overthinking things. Like, of course, you’re a fucking dad at the park. That’s crazy. You see other dads at the park. You say ai. Like, it’s like, you’re not a pedophile. Those are my kid. What’s your how old is your kid? They’re like, it’s normal. Okay.
Speaker: 1
02:34:06
I’ve taken my kids to parks a thousand times.
Speaker: 0
02:34:08
You’ve never felt in some way that your masculinity inhibited your ability, like, your your instinct to be, like, nurturing and affectionate?
Speaker: 1
02:34:19
No. No. I think that’s a weakness. Ai, if you can’t be nurturing and affectionate because you think you’re masculine, that’s crazy. That’s just weak. That’s that’s nuts. That’s ai a distortion of what strength means. Ai, that’s not that’s not strong. That’s weak. Ai, why can’t you be nice?
Speaker: 1
02:34:40
Like, why can’t you be like, the idea that if you’re nice and you’re affectionate and you’re kind that you’re weak, that’s crazy. That’s crazy. Especially if you have options. Like, if you if you don’t have to be nice and you’re nice, like, that’s real niceness. Like, it’s pure. Like, you don’t have to be.
Speaker: 1
02:34:58
You you don’t have to be a nice person, but you’re nice because it’s a good thing to do. Like, then it’s the right way to do it. Okay.
Speaker: 0
02:35:05
So what’s so great about being a guy?
Speaker: 1
02:35:08
Everything. It’s awesome. We fucking build everything. We’ve run the world. It’s great. I don’t know. I I I am a guy. I mean, I would
Speaker: 0
02:35:19
And yet, like, it all comes down to trying to, like, get the attention of some lady.
Speaker: 1
02:35:23
That is all. No. I already have the attention of a lady.
Speaker: 0
02:35:27
Right.
Speaker: 1
02:35:27
Good. I’m still love being a guy. It’s all, like you know, it’s not like that’s the primary motivation.
Speaker: 0
02:35:32
No. What is the primary motivation?
Speaker: 1
02:35:34
Fun.
Speaker: 0
02:35:35
Fun? Fun.
Speaker: 1
02:35:37
Yeah. Life is fun.
Speaker: 0
02:35:38
Okay.
Speaker: 1
02:35:39
Life should be fun.
Speaker: 0
02:35:40
Sounds pretty great. It should
Speaker: 1
02:35:41
be fun if you pursue it correctly. There’s a lot of stuff to do. A lot of stuff to do is interesting. That’s why sana I hear people say, I’m bored. Like, I don’t even understand you. I don’t even get it. How the fuck could you be bored? I wish I had 50 lives to live simultaneously. I would do a bunch of different things. I’d have a bunch of different jobs.
Speaker: 1
02:35:56
I was oh, ai, like, so many different things that I’d love to do.
Speaker: 0
02:35:59
Aren’t people sometimes beholden to doing things that they don’t wanna do just because they have to make bills or they have to
Speaker: 1
02:36:08
But that’s all choices that you make too. And, unfortunately, these choices sort of they cascade. You know, you you could find yourself motivated by the wrong things and doing things for the wrong reasons, like doing things just for money and just for this or just for that.
Speaker: 1
02:36:28
And I’ve done that before. I I know it. But then you have to realize, like, what you’re doing and not and
Speaker: 0
02:36:32
And stay focused on the prize. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:36:34
Take the steps to not wanna do that anymore. Mhmm. You know? But, you know, it’s ai, you people there’s people listening to this right now, like,
Speaker: 0
02:36:46
oh, that’s easy for you to say because I have to do this sana I have to
Speaker: 1
02:36:49
that that’s true. But you can do things to better your life with your free time. Go open your phone right now and look at your screen time. Okay. Now, I understand the screen time is ten minutes here, twenty minutes there, five minutes here, five minutes there. But that screen time, it’s probably about five hours, which is crazy. That’s five hours you could have been improving your life.
Speaker: 1
02:37:18
That’s five hours you could have been doing something different. That’s five hours you could have went to the gym. That’s five hours you could have eaten better. You could have taken steps to have better food in your house that you could have taken steps to pursue a career or move in the direction of pursuing something that’s different than what you’re doing that you would actually find satisfying and and fulfilling.
Speaker: 1
02:37:38
You just have to decide what are you doing with your ai. And, you know, and this goes back to people commenting and and bitching at people online. Well, that’s what you’re doing. If if if you’re distracting yourself by doing a bunch of shit that’s just worthless, and it is worthless.
Speaker: 0
02:37:55
And easy, maybe.
Speaker: 1
02:37:55
And easy. And very easy. Yeah. It’s because you need discipline. You need to figure out what do you what do you really wanna do with your life and what makes you feel better.
Speaker: 0
02:38:06
Do you feel like you are innately disciplined?
Speaker: 1
02:38:10
No. No. I’ve learned that.
Speaker: 0
02:38:12
Okay.
Speaker: 1
02:38:13
I developed that. Yeah. That’s not no one’s innately disciplined. No. I don’t think that’s real. I think we look at people that are disciplined ai, oh, it must be easy for them. You’re just born with that gene. No. That’s not real. No.
Speaker: 1
02:38:25
You recognize the value of discipline and the rewards. You reap the rewards and then you like it until you keep doing it. You keep pursuing it.
Speaker: 0
02:38:35
You know? I’m just curious about, like, brain chemistry. Because when I think about, you know, you’ve been very complimentary, towards me in this conversation. But a part of me is wondering, am I just lucky that I have the kind of internal chemistry that I have that makes me value the things that I value?
Speaker: 0
02:38:52
And, you know, I’m just doing what I feel compelled to do. And I’m curious when people feel compelled to do ai, and I don’t know where to place responsibility for that. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker: 1
02:39:13
Well, you you wouldn’t know unless you are them. You could look to your own life to times where you haven’t lived in an exemplary way or or done things where you’re helping yourself
Speaker: 0
02:39:29
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:39:29
And done things, in fact, that are actually sabotaging your life. Mhmm. And you can correct them yourself. But it’s very hard. I mean, you would have to be a fucking counselor that would have ultimate truth access to a person’s thought processes to really find out why they’re doing things differently and why why they’re not living in a way.
Speaker: 1
02:39:48
The only thing you could do is live by example. You know, there’s a, a term for a taekwondo instructor. It’s called sai Sabo nim, and it’s one who lives by example. And that’s what you have to do. You have to you have to live by example.
Speaker: 0
02:40:02
Like Live like someone’s watching.
Speaker: 1
02:40:04
Yes. This is what I tell people, and I’ve I’ve said this for years. You sana have a successful life. If you wanna live your life ai there’s a documentary crew around you filming your everyday ai. Mhmm. And that you want people to be impressed with you.
Speaker: 0
02:40:23
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:40:24
Do it when no one’s watching. Do it when no one’s watching. I think about that when I work out.
Speaker: 0
02:40:30
I
Speaker: 1
02:40:30
think I think about that. Yeah. If people were judging me and they were watching me right now, and they would what what what would you think?
Speaker: 0
02:40:40
Yeah. I and I now I’m wondering if, like, that’s one of those weird silver linings to this whole experience is that my life became very, very public very early. And so I literally do have to walk around living my life as if there is potentially a documentary crew following me around.
Speaker: 1
02:40:58
Yeah. I think that is. I think that’s real. I think that’s the gift that I have gotten by being famous. That I have to live publicly. And if I tend like, if I was just some fucking tyrant that no one knew, you know, and I just had all this wealth and power and no one knew me and I could just get away with being an asshole.
Speaker: 1
02:41:20
Right.
Speaker: 0
02:41:21
Yeah. I think the the most wealthy and the most powerful do not want fame because with fame comes accountability. Yeah. But that’s good. That’s good.
Speaker: 1
02:41:33
Even the haters are good. You know? And then the people that defend the defend you against the haters, that’s good too. Yeah. It’s all good. So everyone’s just working this out together publicly. You know? And they’re doing it through different vatsal, and sometimes they do it through other people.
Speaker: 1
02:41:46
They’re doing it through me, and they’re doing it through you.
Speaker: 0
02:41:48
Would you wish fame on anyone? No.
Speaker: 1
02:41:52
No. No. No. No. No.
Speaker: 0
02:41:54
No. No.
Speaker: 1
02:41:55
You can’t handle it. Yeah? No. But you can handle it. But I mean but most people can’t handle it. It breaks people. That’s why people can’t have it when they’re young. The worst thing you do to a child is make him famous. The worst thing. I mean, look at there’s countless examples. I’ve I’ve talked to so many of them on the podcast. They’re all broken.
Speaker: 0
02:42:15
Yeah. Like, who who have you talked to? I’m curious.
Speaker: 1
02:42:17
Macaulay Culkin. Yeah. Miley Cyrus.
Speaker: 0
02:42:20
He’s doing much better now, isn’t he?
Speaker: 1
02:42:21
He’s great. Yeah. He’s great. I mean, he’s as great as you can be to be super famous when you’re six. God. I’m friends with Ricky Schroeder. You know, I’ve had a bunch of them on, a bunch of people on that were famous when they’re young, and they all are missing something. It’s like when you’re making cement and you don’t add enough water.
Speaker: 1
02:42:40
There’s, like, something that happens when you have fame and adulation during your develop developmental stages as a child when you’re supposed to be, like, figuring out how do I get people to like me? Like, what what is it about? You know?
Speaker: 0
02:42:54
And there is that is that is that developmental stage when, like, your your brain chemistry is being configured for the rest of your life. Mhmm. Like, that that is scary. You want to you want to put that brain chemistry, coagulation into the in the right configuration, in the right set of circumstances, or else you’re gonna be having a complex for the rest of your life that you’re gonna be grappling with.
Speaker: 0
02:43:17
Because I don’t know if you can undo the stuff that you that gets ingrained in your brain chemistry when you’re a kid. Like, I don’t know fuck it. I don’t know anything. I don’t think so. All about brains.
Speaker: 0
02:43:27
But, like, it seems to me that, like, especially meh when your brain hasn’t configured yet, that’s when you get hardwired to have complexes the rest of your life that you’re gonna be dealing with.
Speaker: 1
02:43:43
100%. And if your brain is formulated with extreme adulation and love for no fucking reason, just because you’re a cute kid. But you’re a cute kid in front of the whole world in Home Saloni? That’s nuts. That’s nuts.
Speaker: 0
02:44:01
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:44:01
I mean, he’s a very thoughtful person, and he’s come through it. I mean, I really enjoyed talking to him. He’s a really nice guy.
Speaker: 0
02:44:06
Does he regret being in the Home Alone movies?
Speaker: 1
02:44:09
Boy, that’s a good question. I’d have to ask him. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know. You know?
Speaker: 0
02:44:16
Ai, I mean, you know, you can look back. Ai don’t even know how much of a choice that was for him. How many how much can you choose anything when you’re six?
Speaker: 1
02:44:23
How could you choose?
Speaker: 0
02:44:24
But, like so in a way, it was a thing that happened to him that he didn’t really have control over.
Speaker: 1
02:44:30
Right.
Speaker: 0
02:44:31
And does he look back on that and go, would I would I give up that like, if I could get that life back, would I have a different life? I’m curious what he would say.
Speaker: 1
02:44:43
Well, he will most certainly would have a different life. Yeah. Yeah. Would it be better? I don’t know. You know? But I don’t know anybody that’s, again, gone through that. That’s, air quotes, hole at the end of it. You know? I just think that there’s also this weird thing where you become the provider for the family, which is very As a
Speaker: 0
02:45:06
child. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:45:07
And then you have this parasitic relationship that your parents have to you, which is I have friends that were famous as as young people, and they have these very fucked up complicated relationships with their parents. One of my friends where their they found out their parents stole from them millions of dollars. Yeah. And then you have to grapple with that as you’re an adult.
Speaker: 1
02:45:28
These monsters, you know, they they used you as an ATM machine. And they stopped working, and they became your quote unquote manager, really just pushing you out there to try to siphon money off of you.
Speaker: 0
02:45:42
Fucking a.
Speaker: 1
02:45:43
Fucking a. Yeah. Yeah. But I got fame in a a slow drip. I got slow doses, like like snake venom. Meh a little bit of snake venom. If you get one big bite from a cobra, you’re fucked.
Speaker: 0
02:46:00
That’s what I got. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:46:03
Well, you’re strong.
Speaker: 0
02:46:05
So here I am.
Speaker: 1
02:46:06
But you’re strong. You came through it on the other ai, a very durable person, you know. And I think there’s, you know, it’s a trial by fire and you went through it. I mean, you know, that’s what, you know, that’s what they do in boot camp. They’re, you know, you you go through something very difficult to be strong at the end. And you don’t become strong. Just wake up one sai, I’m strong. No.
Speaker: 1
02:46:29
You have to go through some shit, you know. And that’s going through some shit when you’re a kid as it becoming famous is different than going through, like, hardship as a child. Sai know a lot of children that went through hardship, ai, all my friends that are interesting, all had horrible childhoods. All of them. All my most fascinating friends.
Speaker: 0
02:46:50
I’m so grateful that I did not have a fucked up childhood.
Speaker: 1
02:46:53
Well, that’s probably what prepared you or helped you.
Speaker: 0
02:46:56
Indeed. I feel like if I had gone through this experience after having a fucked up childhood, I would be a psychopath today. Sai thank god Ai had a good childhood.
Speaker: 1
02:47:07
Yes. Yeah. I didn’t have a bad childhood. I had a complex childhood, but it wasn’t bad. Mhmm. You know, my mother and my stepfather are very nice people. There it wasn’t bad, but it was fucked up. It was moved around a lot. I know a lot of friends, got bullied.
Speaker: 0
02:47:24
Lot of stability.
Speaker: 1
02:47:25
Lot of different things.
Speaker: 0
02:47:26
Okay.
Speaker: 1
02:47:27
But wasn’t the worst, you know. Nothing horrible happened to me, you know. So it’s ai the the trials can’t be too hard. They can’t break you. They have to be just enough so that you gain some strength and you rebuild. And if they do break you, then it’s a very difficult task of rebuilding.
Speaker: 1
02:47:49
And people that have gone through horrible childhood trauma, particularly abuse and sexual abuse, that they have the most difficult hurdles to overcome.
Speaker: 0
02:47:59
I agree. I I think in in large part because how do you trust like Right. I think rebuilding your life relies upon, like, upon rebuilding yourself in the context of other human beings.
Speaker: 1
02:48:10
Right.
Speaker: 0
02:48:10
And how do you do that when you can’t trust anyone?
Speaker: 1
02:48:13
It’s true. But I do know some people that have gone through childhood sexual trauma that are also incredibly fascinating people Because they they they figured out a way to acquire strength through it all.
Speaker: 0
02:48:27
But what about trust? And that
Speaker: 1
02:48:29
that’s the other thing I was gonna say. Then then they’ve also figured out a way to well, they’re also very skeptical people and rightly so.
Speaker: 0
02:48:35
Rightly so.
Speaker: 1
02:48:35
But that’s a good thing. Because a lot of people don’t have your intentions in mind, especially if you’re a woman. Right? If you’re a woman, everybody’s bullshitting you to try to get in your pants. Like, ai, like, it’s constant bullshitting, you know. So you have to figure out, well, who’s actually bullshitting me, and who’s just being ai. And who’s being nice but ai bullshitting, just slowly playing this game.
Speaker: 1
02:48:56
You ever heard of the the definition of a gentleman? No. It’s a patient wolf.
Speaker: 0
02:49:03
Okay. Yeah. Alright.
Speaker: 1
02:49:04
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:49:05
And then ultimately, the prey sort of acknowledges, yeah, here you are. You’re getting into my pants in the end, but because you’ve been the most patient. Yeah. The most impressively patient of all.
Speaker: 1
02:49:15
Yeah. You’ve done the dance correctly. Oh. You put your feathers out like a good peacock.
Speaker: 0
02:49:20
Yeah. I like that. I like that dance. Yes.
Speaker: 1
02:49:25
Yeah. Well, that’s the thing. It’s ai women are designed to like that dance. Right? Because this person has shown you the respect of not just trying to use their physical force and take take it from you and that not care about you as a person. They’ve chosen to acknowledge you as a person ai this is what this person wants. They wanna feel comfortable with me. But then, you can’t be a sociopath too.
Speaker: 1
02:49:47
It has to be genuine. You have to genuinely like this person. Mhmm. So, you know For a
Speaker: 0
02:49:53
woman to feel sai?
Speaker: 1
02:49:54
Right.
Speaker: 0
02:49:54
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:49:54
How do you you know, and then that’s you gotta go through a lot of trial and error with that too. You have to figure out, like, why that relationship fall apart. Oh, I was I was a piece of shit. Like, why that one fall apart? Oh, she was a psycho. Like, recognize, like, what what do you actually like? Is it just that they’re hot?
Speaker: 1
02:50:10
This is the thing, like, I’ve had a bunch friends that just married hot people. And then, you know, you’re going through divorce and it’s all chaos. You can’t just fucking marry hot people. Like, just because they’re hot and they’re sexy and they turn you on, like, that’s just genes.
Speaker: 1
02:50:23
Like, you gotta you gotta understand, like, there’s a personality involved. And and then there’s also, like, when you’re hot, you have ultimate power. You have the Willy Wonka golden ticket. Like, everybody’s stumbling at their feet to try to, like, open doors for you and be nice to you.
Speaker: 0
02:50:36
Put you in prison.
Speaker: 1
02:50:42
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:50:42
Open a certain kind of door.
Speaker: 1
02:50:44
Sai mean, we don’t
Speaker: 0
02:50:45
know what to do. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:50:49
It’s, it’s fucking
Speaker: 0
02:50:50
It’s just flirting. It was flirting in the end. That’s all it was. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:50:54
Ai a person’s fucking weird. You know, it’s really weird. It’s really weird, and it’s temporary. It’s ai you’re always looking at that fucking hourglass. The sana running out. You know, I’m like, what am I doing? Why am I doing it? What’s this about? What do I like? What do I do?
Speaker: 1
02:51:10
And then you can get overwhelmed with, like, existential angst. Just what’s the point of it all?
Speaker: 0
02:51:15
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:51:15
Yeah. Well, you have to find a point. You have to, like, what is man’s search for meaning? Like, what is it? What are we doing?
Speaker: 0
02:51:21
I don’t know. That’s sai subtitle of my book, Ai Search.
Speaker: 1
02:51:25
My Search for Meaning. Oh ai god. Ai there. In cursive, if you can still read cursive, some people can’t anymore. It it’s cursive. Vatsal handwriting?
Speaker: 0
02:51:34
No. I wanted it to be my actual handwriting, but
Speaker: 1
02:51:36
they were is it? Fuckheads. The shitty answer.
Speaker: 0
02:51:39
Ai, this looks so much more pretty. I don’t know.
Speaker: 1
02:51:42
You could have made it that pretty.
Speaker: 0
02:51:44
I do have great handwriting. I mean, what the fuck? It’s close. Might as well.
Speaker: 1
02:51:50
It is odd. Yeah. The the search for meaning. Search for meaning is very odd. And, you know, and you could
Speaker: 0
02:51:59
Especially when there’s no inherent meaning. You just have to make it up, I think.
Speaker: 1
02:52:04
I mean, it means something to you. If it means something to you, it’s inherent. It’s real. If it means something to you. If you actually care, it means something. Like, what’s the point of it all? If you’re gonna die someday and who knows what happens when you ai? And then then there’s the the real fatalist of the thing. When you die, it’s over. It’s just black and emptiness sana and then just shut off, ai, okay.
Speaker: 1
02:52:24
Sai you’re still alive, bitch. Okay? You gotta figure out what you’re doing with your day to day. Do you enjoy your day to day? If not, why do some people how come some people enjoy their life? Why don’t you? Like, what is man’s search for meaning? Enjoy your fucking life. Enjoy this life.
Speaker: 1
02:52:39
You can. It’s possible. Yeah. It can be done. And I think living by example shows other people that it can be done.
Speaker: 1
02:52:46
And then being, like, really honest about it. Like, what is what are what are the steps? What’s the struggles? Like, how do you do it?
Speaker: 0
02:52:52
Yeah. That’s actually been a really sort of fun takeaway that I’ve had from having just an Instagram is, like, I’ll post a silly video of me dancing for my kids. And a lot of the comments are just people being ai, I’m so glad that someone like you can be happy. Yeah. You know?
Speaker: 0
02:53:11
It’s like, thank god, someone like you can be happy. Happy. And I’m like, yeah. Someone like me can be happy. That means you can be happy too.
Speaker: 1
02:53:20
It’s possible to be happy. Yeah. But, you know, when you’re a five hundred pound person and you wanna be thin, that’s a long road. It’s not gonna come quickly. And if you’re a severely depressed, very unhappy person with a disaster of a life, it’s not gonna turn around overnight. That’s a battleship. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:53:41
It takes a long time to turn that bitch around and get it facing the other direction.
Speaker: 0
02:53:46
And and the motivation has to be that you have to see some kernel of opportunity embedded within that darkness because ai, like, where what how do you even know what direction to go towards?
Speaker: 1
02:53:59
And you have to be enjoying the process. Mhmm. You have to figure out a way to enjoy the process of improvement and and to
Speaker: 0
02:54:06
Even though it’s hard.
Speaker: 1
02:54:07
Yes. Yeah. And because of the
Speaker: 0
02:54:08
hard can be fun.
Speaker: 1
02:54:10
Yeah. Yeah. You have to enjoy the hard, and that’s why voluntary adversity is so important. You have to force yourself to do hard things sai that you can do hard things no matter what. If I do what’s up, Pump Up?
Speaker: 0
02:54:22
Pump Up Remixes. Somewhat, you gotta get motivated somehow.
Speaker: 1
02:54:26
Yeah. That’s true. That’s true. Although David Goggins doesn’t listen to music because he thinks it’s cheating. Really? Yeah. He gets all his motivation internal. It’s like Come on.
Speaker: 0
02:54:36
External motivation. So pure.
Speaker: 1
02:54:38
He’s a fucking complete
Speaker: 0
02:54:40
ai. You know? But he’s ai I need a good soundtrack when I’m running.
Speaker: 1
02:54:45
But that’s the speak, you know, the spectrum of discipline, you know? Yeah. That’s what he’s doing. That’s what he’s doing. That’s what he’s doing all day long for no goal other than, like, I talked to him about it. He’s ai, I’m in the lab every day, downloaded information.
Speaker: 1
02:55:01
Like, woah.
Speaker: 0
02:55:03
Cool, dude. You’re in the matrix. There’s a there’s a
Speaker: 1
02:55:06
crazy video of him, working out with my friend Israel Adesanya. Israel Adesanya is the former UFC middleweight champion of the world, one of the greatest fighters that ever lived. And he is working out with David Goggins, and he can’t keep up with them. And David Goggins is just breaking him.
Speaker: 1
02:55:22
And he’s throwing up in garbage cans, and David is putting him through his workout. And it’s one of three workouts that David does in a day. And he’s, like, this incredibly fit world champion ai.
Speaker: 0
02:55:33
Is he distracting himself?
Speaker: 1
02:55:37
You have talked to him. You have to dig dig into that brain.
Speaker: 0
02:55:40
You have
Speaker: 1
02:55:41
to dig into that. That’s a very unusual brain. But he was three hundred pounds and fat at one point in his time and and and It’s just
Speaker: 0
02:55:47
his become his purpose. That’s his meaning. Right? That makes sense. That’s his meaning.
Speaker: 1
02:55:50
That’s why he says he’s like, he goes, I’m downloading knowledge. Like, every time he’s, like, pushing himself past the limits that he thinks he’s capable of further and further, he’s downloading more understanding of himself. Mhmm. That’s just
Speaker: 0
02:56:04
We should work out some time, by the way. I think that would be fun. I I only studied Ai only studied fighting when I first got back out of prison because I was getting a bunch of death threats, so I did Krav Maga. And it was a lot a lot of it was just learning how to scream.
Speaker: 1
02:56:20
Krav Maga?
Speaker: 0
02:56:21
Yeah. Well, the first like, my Krav Maga instructors, because they were instructing me on a specific for a specific reason, it wasn’t just to work out. Their first thing that they taught me was how to scream just to, ai, without without holding back. The the the amount like, I was surprised, and and they were telling me people don’t want to take up space and take and make noise.
Speaker: 0
02:56:44
Like, we’re we’re taught from a very young age, especially women, to not do that. And so you have to in the first the first lesson was make noise, take up space. And and so we just practiced, like, screaming as loud and as hard and as long as we could. And then once we got through that, then we started doing the fighting moves.
Speaker: 0
02:57:08
And the first thing I had to do before I did anything was scream first then move. Scream move. And so that the screaming became part of Oh. The, the movement. So it would it would trigger sai I wouldn’t have to think about it.
Speaker: 0
02:57:20
If it ever came down to it and someone actually attacked me, I wouldn’t have to think scream. I would just scream.
Speaker: 1
02:57:27
Krav Maga is legit. It gets, criticized a lot.
Speaker: 0
02:57:30
Does it?
Speaker: 1
02:57:30
Whatever yeah. By martial artists.
Speaker: 0
02:57:32
Why?
Speaker: 1
02:57:33
Well, because it’s a combinatory martial art, so it combines a bunch of different things together. So it’s essentially ai a jack of all trades.
Speaker: 0
02:57:41
What’s wrong with that?
Speaker: 1
02:57:42
There’s nothing wrong with that.
Speaker: 0
02:57:43
Oh, okay.
Speaker: 1
02:57:44
No. No. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Speaker: 0
02:57:45
It’s ai only being into purebred dogs. Like, what what’s up with that?
Speaker: 1
02:57:50
Well, no. It’s ai, is it effective? Right? Like, there’s no Krav Maga artists that have gone on to dominate in the UFC.
Speaker: 0
02:57:58
Oh, interesting. Yeah. I didn’t know that.
Speaker: 1
02:58:00
But it kind of, you could kind of say that mixed martial arts in a sense is essentially the roots of Krav Maga.
Speaker: 0
02:58:09
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:58:09
Because taking the best aspects of various martial arts and training them.
Speaker: 0
02:58:13
Yeah. How is it different?
Speaker: 1
02:58:14
Well, the thing is is that if you are training for self defense, okay, you’re training to defend yourself in a against an attacker.
Speaker: 0
02:58:23
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:58:24
The the true in my personal opinion, the true best way to learn how to fight is to learn how to prepare yourself for trained killers, not the average person.
Speaker: 0
02:58:36
Really?
Speaker: 1
02:58:36
Yes.
Speaker: 0
02:58:37
Like, how often are you gonna encounter trained killers?
Speaker: 1
02:58:40
It doesn’t matter. You should be prepared for trained killers because you could run into a trained killer. And if you try to do some Krav Maga nonsense on me, I’m gonna fucking strangle you. You can’t defend yourself against someone who actually knows how to fight.
Speaker: 0
02:58:52
Okay. Here’s a question. Can I ever actually defend myself against someone like you?
Speaker: 1
02:58:57
No. Not against someone
Speaker: 0
02:58:59
like me. The fucking point?
Speaker: 1
02:59:00
Because you could defend yourself against someone who doesn’t know how to fight as good as me, but the odds of someone like me attacking you are very, very, very, very, very ai.
Speaker: 0
02:59:08
I should train to be able to, you know Yes. To fight against trained killers, but
Speaker: 1
02:59:13
Yes. Defend yourself.
Speaker: 0
02:59:15
But
Speaker: 1
02:59:15
Jiu jitsu, you can. Jiu jitsu, you could defend yourself. You’re you’re not gonna the way you would be able to beat me is if I was untrained. The I have too many advantages. But also, I don’t have advantages if someone’s bigger than me and just as well trained as meh.
Speaker: 0
02:59:32
Right.
Speaker: 1
02:59:32
Or more well trained than I am.
Speaker: 0
02:59:34
Mhmm. Better than me. That I don’t
Speaker: 1
02:59:36
I’m not I’m not gonna beat, you know, the UFC heavyweight champion. Like, I’m it’s like, I’m not gonna win. It’s not Right. Not possible. I don’t care how long I do martial arts.
Speaker: 0
02:59:45
Avoid dying by them? No. No. No. Okay. They’ll just merge.
Speaker: 1
02:59:49
No. I can’t. No. Great. No. I’m I’m completely vulnerable.
Speaker: 0
02:59:52
Okay. Great.
Speaker: 1
02:59:53
As an expert martial artist with three black belts, I’m completely vulnerable. Yeah. That’s reality. That’s physics. That’s I mean It’s
Speaker: 0
03:00:02
like you against an elephant who’s gonna win. Exactly.
Speaker: 1
03:00:05
Exactly. That’s the hundred men versus a gorilla. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
03:00:08
They could be obviously the gorilla would win. Who ever thought the gorilla would lose? Retards.
Speaker: 1
03:00:14
Men Who
Speaker: 0
03:00:14
have never seen a gorilla.
Speaker: 1
03:00:16
Men who think they could fight better than they can, which is most men.
Speaker: 0
03:00:19
What who whoever brought up that as even a thought experiment?
Speaker: 1
03:00:23
I don’t know, but it’s funny that it’s, like, viral in 2025. I thought we would’ve worked that out in this fifties. The fact that I
Speaker: 0
03:00:31
feel like people just don’t remember what animals are like. We’re so out of touch with animals.
Speaker: 1
03:00:36
They don’t even know what an animal is. They have no idea. People know what their dog is. They have no idea what an animal is, an actual real animal.
Speaker: 0
03:00:43
And also, your own dog could fuck you up if you want if it wanted to. It just doesn’t want to.
Speaker: 1
03:00:48
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, unless you have a little dog. I’ll fuck up a chihuahua.
Speaker: 0
03:00:52
Yeah. To be fair
Speaker: 1
03:00:53
My dog, Marshall, he’s a golden retriever. He’s the sweetest dog on the planet. But if you he could probably kill me if you want. He just doesn’t know. You know?
Speaker: 0
03:01:02
And he would never think to. Right. But like But
Speaker: 1
03:01:03
if, like, a rat was trying to attack you, you’d be fucking terrified.
Speaker: 0
03:01:06
Or if he got infected by rabies Right. You know, like, and lost his mind, like Right. Ciao.
Speaker: 1
03:01:10
It’d be a real problem.
Speaker: 0
03:01:12
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
03:01:12
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s there’s the reality. But if you’re training to defeat a trained killer, you’re gonna be way better off than if you’re training to defeat someone who’s gonna lunge at you this sai, and you’re gonna block that and hit them here and hit them there and, like
Speaker: 0
03:01:30
But don’t you fight differently against a trained killer versus, like, some dude who’s, like, drunk and
Speaker: 1
03:01:36
in a sai? Way to fight is the right way to fight, period. Whether it’s some drunk dude if if some drunk dude tries to take a swing at me, I’m not gonna think, oh, he’s a drunk dude. I shouldn’t avoid this punch. I should do something no. It’s ai it’s it’s all the language.
Speaker: 0
03:01:52
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
03:01:52
So martial arts is essentially like a language. And some people only know a couple of words, and some people can eloquently recite Shakespeare
Speaker: 0
03:02:01
Sure.
Speaker: 1
03:02:01
At the drop of a hat. Sure. And that’s the difference between an expert and someone who doesn’t really know what they’re doing. And most people don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to martial arts. If you’re preparing for someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, that’s not the right way to do it.
Speaker: 1
03:02:17
The right way to do it is to prepare for someone who knows what they’re doing. Now this is very different. We’re talking about, like, women’s self defense versus just, you know, ai, a a a grown man who is of normal size defending himself against another grown man of normal
Speaker: 0
03:02:34
size. A fair fight.
Speaker: 1
03:02:35
Yeah. A fair fight. But in a fair fight, you should be preparing to fight against a trained killer. If you are a person who just only trains in self defense tactics, like someone comes at me, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do that. Good luck doing that to someone who knows how to fight. Good luck. Because they’re gonna recognize all of your movements in advance. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
03:02:55
You’re gonna go like this, and they’re gonna go, oh, well, his right arm is coming this sai. So I’m just gonna step this way, and I’m gonna avoid that. And I see his left foot step backwards. Well, now his right leg is vulnerable, so I’m gonna kick it. Mhmm. Like, it’s it’s like it’s language.
Speaker: 1
03:03:10
It’s understanding the flow of body dynamics and movement.
Speaker: 0
03:03:14
And it’s happening so quickly that the only way that you can actually be effective is if you’re fluent and you don’t have to think about it.
Speaker: 1
03:03:19
Exactly. You don’t think about it. Right. When you’re training, it’s ai you very rarely think, oh, now I’m going to do this. It’s like opportunities open themselves up, especially in striking. Striking is something that you you do where you’re you’re doing these techniques so often that as things happen, you’re just responding in a trained way.
Speaker: 1
03:03:42
Your mind and your neurosystem is is, like, completely trained for these actions and these movements.
Speaker: 0
03:03:49
Do you think that ai, and, you know, fighting your friends, like, not ai actual, like, fighting for your life, but fighting for your friends is a crucial part of brain development. Because I know that I’ve heard, or at least I’ve read, that roughhousing with small kids is a really important part of their brain development.
Speaker: 0
03:04:08
And and the the people who become more, well adapted, well adjusted emotionally just they seem to be more fit emotionally, or kids who had some roughhousing when they were when they were young, especially with their parents. Is that is that, like, an elevated form of roughhousing part of a human being’s cognitive development?
Speaker: 1
03:04:31
Well, I think physical altercations are a normal part of human existence that have exist. It it’s been going on since the beginning of time. And to no understanding or no knowledge of it and no experience with it at all.
Speaker: 0
03:04:46
Because I’m not, like, I’m not a fighter. Sai don’t, ai, I’ve never gotten to a physical fight with anyone.
Speaker: 1
03:04:52
Good.
Speaker: 0
03:04:53
Is that good? Is that good?
Speaker: 1
03:04:55
I haven’t either Okay. Other than ones on purpose. Right.
Speaker: 0
03:04:59
Okay.
Speaker: 1
03:04:59
Like, I’m not I don’t get in street fights. I don’t I’ve never got I ai been in a fist fight since I was
Speaker: 0
03:05:05
a kid. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
03:05:06
Ai just they’re all martial arts fights.
Speaker: 0
03:05:09
Okay.
Speaker: 1
03:05:09
Ai I’d you know, and I just think for for men, being vulnerable is not good. It’s just not good to not know how to defend yourself. Mhmm. It just it leaves you with this deep insecurity. That’s why Ai see men that don’t know how to fight. They use bravado and they puff their chest out and they yell. They try to intimidate people and scare people. It’s just posturing.
Speaker: 1
03:05:33
It’s just ai
Speaker: 0
03:05:35
Maybe this is why I feel bad for men because I don’t feel any sort of impulse to to do that, to to puff up my chest and and, ai, I don’t know. Maybe is it Well,
Speaker: 1
03:05:46
you shouldn’t. Men shouldn’t either. And the men that do it are generally vulnerable. There it’s bullies. Right? Why why are bullies bullies? They’re bullies because they’re pussies. That’s really what it is. That’s why they’re trying to intimidate people and hurt people. It’s because they’re they’re weak.
Speaker: 1
03:06:00
It’s like you like, trained fighters are some of the nicest people. Ai, people that fight in the UFC, they’re some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. It sounds crazy. Ai, my my friends that are all jujitsu people, they’re the nicest people. They’re so friendly. They’re so because they’re not scared. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
03:06:18
They’re not they’re not insecure. They’re not vulnerable all the time. Most men who don’t know how to defend themselves, who, like, are really mouthy and get get loud, like, they’re just vulnerable. Mhmm. And that you know, I have a friend and, he has real rage problems and he does not ai at all.
Speaker: 1
03:06:36
And he was yelling at someone in the parking lot of the comedy store once and I and I pulled him aside, what are you doing, man? And he goes, I don’t know. I fucking see red and I get I go, you don’t know how to defend yourself. I go, one of one of these days you’re gonna do that to someone who’s like me, but they’re mean. And they’re gonna just say, oh, here’s a nice opportunity.
Speaker: 1
03:06:55
Just fuck this guy up. And you’re gonna wind up in a hospital or worse. Like, don’t do
Speaker: 0
03:07:01
this.
Speaker: 1
03:07:01
Ai, you can’t do that. But, like, some men grow up puffing their chest out and they get away with it. And they get away with it if they’re loud enough or they’re mean enough or they yell enough. And they they, you know, that becomes their defense mechanism. They’re they get shitty with
Speaker: 0
03:07:16
people
Speaker: 1
03:07:17
all the time. But it’s that’s all it is. And if they don’t get shitty with people publicly, they get shitty with people online. They get shitty they do
Speaker: 0
03:07:24
get off their question.
Speaker: 1
03:07:26
They get it out that way. But it’s all just weakness. That’s all it is. It’s just ai you’re vulnerable, and just don’t be vulnerable. Figure out figure out a way to not be vulnerable. I got into martial arts because I was getting bullied, and I didn’t I just didn’t I was always scared of altercations. Like, I hate this feeling.
Speaker: 1
03:07:43
So I was like, okay. I’m gonna become what I’m terrified of.
Speaker: 0
03:07:48
Okay. I guess meh one sort of poke back at that though is I find it interesting that you you you frame vulnerability in in such a negative way.
Speaker: 1
03:08:00
Physical vulnerability is negative.
Speaker: 0
03:08:02
Yeah. But I I think the thing that I’m sort of thinking about is how it doesn’t matter really how strong you are or capable you arya. We all are still utterly vulnerable. And Well, sure. And so Ai guess, like
Speaker: 1
03:08:20
But what can you control?
Speaker: 0
03:08:21
Fair.
Speaker: 1
03:08:21
You can control some aspect of that. Mhmm. But you can’t control guns. Ai? If you if someone has a gun, you’re vulnerable. I don’t care who you are. You could be Superman. Well, not Superman. He’s bulletproof. But you be, you know, UFC heavyweight champion. You’re sai vulnerable to a gun.
Speaker: 0
03:08:35
Right.
Speaker: 1
03:08:36
One little kid can kill you.
Speaker: 0
03:08:37
Right.
Speaker: 1
03:08:38
Bang. You’re dead. Yeah. But how much can you control? You can’t control some of it. Sai is the ai, like, oh, you can’t control any of it, so why control vatsal? Why do anything? Why why be strong?
Speaker: 0
03:08:50
Well, I guess no. I guess meh my thing is, for me, it’s it’s less about, like, prepare like, positioning myself to not get hurt, And it’s more for me, my big sort of, like, training that I attempt to do is how do I how do I get up when I am inevitably hurt? So I I I understand that life is going to hurt me, and I don’t know how life is gonna hurt me.
Speaker: 0
03:09:18
So there’s, like, a million different ways that I can be hurt. It might be that I’m physically assaulted. It might be some other thing. And knowing that I can’t prepare for all of the ways that I am vulnerable to existence, instead, I try to think, okay. I am vulnerable to existence, and I am gonna get hurt. How do I not be broken by the hurt? And how do I I don’t know.
Speaker: 0
03:09:45
Maybe I’m I’m I’m treating the inevitable pain of life as that as that training to get strong. It just kinda I I almost don’t seek out pain because I’ve had enough pain come at me. Is that does that make sense? Ai
Speaker: 1
03:10:02
don’t know. What do you mean by seek out pain, though?
Speaker: 0
03:10:04
Well, you you were talking about, like, voluntary adversity.
Speaker: 1
03:10:10
Yes.
Speaker: 0
03:10:10
Right? And, like, to an extent, I agree with you because that’s a very stoic thing to do, to seek out challenges so that you can you can test yourself and test your meh and push yourself to become better for the inevitable things that might happen your
Speaker: 1
03:10:25
But not even just for the inevitable things that happen. Just for your own resolve. Just for you as a human to achieve balance. You’re we’re all vulnerable. There’s no invulnerable people. We’re all going to die. We all are made of flesh and bone, and we’re all weak.
Speaker: 0
03:10:44
Right.
Speaker: 1
03:10:44
There’s no invulnerable humans. Mhmm. But you can be less vulnerable, and you should probably optimize that, especially as a meh. I think because it with it without it comes a lot of weird insecurities shah are not comfortable, and they can trip you up in all sorts of aspects of your life.
Speaker: 0
03:11:05
I think maybe this is another, like, woman meh thing maybe, where, like, women have to accept vulnerability as, like, an inescapable aspect of our lives, even just in our interpersonal relationships. Ai, I know that when I walk into the room, I’m not the one who’s gonna win a fight. That’s for sure. Right.
Speaker: 0
03:11:29
And so knowing that, I I feel like I sure. I I I prepare myself in the ways that I can. Right? And I Right. And I’m strong in the ways that I can. But, like, I don’t think about vulnerability in negative terms.
Speaker: 0
03:11:51
Because I’ve also found that once you’ve been once you’ve been once you’ve been forced to reckon with your own vulnerability, that is when you find your strength. So I don’t know. I I see them as, like, interchangeable.
Speaker: 1
03:12:06
Different things.
Speaker: 0
03:12:06
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
03:12:07
Yeah. I think physical ai, I think there’s certain there’s certain roles that males and females ultimately play that are unavoidable. And one of them is when your husband went downstairs to protect you.
Speaker: 0
03:12:24
Right. There’s a reason why I wasn’t the one who did that. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
03:12:27
Ultimately. Right? In that situation, if you are less vulnerable as a man, it’s a good thing. If someone breaks in my house and they’re a normal sized person without a weapon, I’m not scared of them. You know, I’m I’m scared this crazy person is in my house. I’m scared that they might have a weapon.
Speaker: 1
03:12:53
But if I realize that they don’t have a weapon, and they they’re physically threatening, I have a massive advantage. Mhmm. It’s up to me whether or not they die. It’s my choice. And that’s better.
Speaker: 0
03:13:08
That is better.
Speaker: 1
03:13:09
It’s better than you getting beat to death by some phrenic who breaks in your house because you don’t know how to defend yourself.
Speaker: 0
03:13:14
Fair.
Speaker: 1
03:13:15
And you panic and you start flailing and you hyperventilate, you don’t know what to do. Yeah. That’s not good.
Speaker: 0
03:13:21
No. It’s not.
Speaker: 1
03:13:22
That’s all I’m saying. I mean, we’re all vulnerable. It’s it’s part of what you’re doing when you’re working out really hard is to try to increase the strength and decrease the vulnerability. You’re trying to increase your resolve to push through difficult things, increase your your your character and your will. You’re trying to fortify yourself.
Speaker: 0
03:13:47
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
03:13:48
And they’re also trying Ai
Speaker: 0
03:13:49
that’s not bad to fortify.
Speaker: 1
03:13:50
It’s all positive. It’s all positive. You know, but it gets labeled as negative because there’s a lot of things that get attached to it ai jocks and bullies and assholes and and aggressive men and shitty men.
Speaker: 0
03:14:02
Who then who think themselves superior to people who are Exactly.
Speaker: 1
03:14:06
More vulnerable men. Instead of just being ai. Because, you know, you can kill everybody in the room. Just be nice. Ai, that’s the real nice person is the person who can kill everybody and he doesn’t want to. You know, the the really shitty people are the ones that would act on that and sometimes you’ll run into those and it’s better to be prepared.
Speaker: 1
03:14:27
That’s that’s all it is ai physical vulnerability. But what you’re talking about ai psychic vulnerability and not wanting to go through pain because you’ve been through so meh? Of course. Yeah. Look, ideally, we should go through zero pain.
Speaker: 1
03:14:42
Ideally, we should go through zero aggression, zero shitty, deceptive, conniving psycho people that are trying to ruin everything in your life. Ideally, yeah. Ideally, you shouldn’t have to prepare for that. You shouldn’t interact with those people.
Speaker: 0
03:14:58
Oh, and again, I’m also like speak at counter purposes with myself because I did the exact opposite thing with my prosecutor. I didn’t have to talk to him. I didn’t have to have an a conversation with him that was difficult and awkward and and hard and forced me to confront all of this pain.
Speaker: 0
03:15:14
And I did because I knew that there was value in that. Like, so
Speaker: 1
03:15:21
Yeah. We we seek comfort always.
Speaker: 0
03:15:25
And we avoid pain.
Speaker: 1
03:15:27
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
03:15:27
But I don’t know. Maybe I’m a masochist because I always feel like there’s something to gain from pain.
Speaker: 1
03:15:33
Because you’ve gained so much from your pain, and you ai must know that you are who you are. You know you’re kind of an extraordinary person, and you’ve gone through a lot to become that person. You don’t just wake up and have this perspective that you have. You have to go through a lot of shit.
Speaker: 0
03:15:48
You know what’s fucked up though?
Speaker: 1
03:15:49
What?
Speaker: 0
03:15:51
I trust pain more than I trust joy. Because when I’m going through something painful, I know what that is, and I know how to confront it. When I’m going through joy, I’m afraid that something bad is gonna happen to me.
Speaker: 1
03:16:08
That happens to people where they self sabotage.
Speaker: 0
03:16:13
You know? I mean, I don’t know. I was having a great time in Perugia, and then everything just went really bad out of nowhere. Right. And so, like, I don’t know. Like, a part of me is, like, always is trying to see, like, the the yin yang of it all, like, the the the good that’s embedded in the bad, but then afraid of the bad that’s embedded in the good.
Speaker: 0
03:16:32
Yeah. Like, that’s Yeah. I’m that’s what and and, you know, and that’s a reality. Like, you know, the more that you now that I have the privilege of being a mom, I know that one day you know, like, if something were to happen ai to my kids, I would be all the more fucking debt like, all the more pain in my life.
Speaker: 0
03:16:50
Like, if I’d never had kids, I wouldn’t Sai wouldn’t have the opportunity to experience a potential pain that would be utterly devastating. And so, like, that’s that’s where that play goes in my head. And I just wonder if it’s a trauma response where, like, I’m afraid of good things happening.
Speaker: 1
03:17:05
I’m sure part of it is gotta be a trauma response. I mean, I think a lot of people that self sabotage when things start going well in their life, it’s because they’re used to things going badly. And this idea of things going well, this, it just scares the shit out of them.
Speaker: 0
03:17:20
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
03:17:20
It’s the unknown and it’s the pain that might come with it falling apart. The pain that might come with you hang all your hopes and dreams on, wow, things really actually understanding of this state that you’ve been in many times before, the state of failure.
Speaker: 0
03:17:44
I need to get rid of that. I need to I need to lose this.
Speaker: 1
03:17:47
Yeah. But you’re aware of it, which is the first step. Mhmm. You know? I don’t think you’re embracing it, you know? Clearly, you’re not. You’re writing books.
Speaker: 0
03:17:55
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
03:17:56
Ai got the Hulu series. You got a lot going on. Yeah. It’s like it’s not
Speaker: 0
03:17:58
I’m not going?
Speaker: 1
03:17:59
Yeah. It’s not like
Speaker: 0
03:18:01
you are you I’m just like what Yeah. I’m still just a little bit ai looking over my shoulder like ai Of course. You’ve coming at me. Imagine if you didn’t.
Speaker: 1
03:18:08
That would be crazy after all that you’ve been through. Imagine if you didn’t think like that. Mhmm. You know? It’s understandable. More than understandable. Mhmm. You know?
Speaker: 0
03:18:19
Yeah. That whole, like, lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice, and it’s ai
Speaker: 1
03:18:25
It can.
Speaker: 0
03:18:26
Ai can. It can. Tyler that to someone who’s been struck by fucking lightning. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
03:18:31
I yeah. You know, it’s possible. You can’t think it’s the fear of the unknown and the fear of the possibilities can really cripple you. It really can.
Speaker: 0
03:18:46
I’m trying not to let it do that to me.
Speaker: 1
03:18:49
You’re doing a great job. Thanks. You really are.
Speaker: 0
03:18:51
Yeah. Working on it.
Speaker: 1
03:18:53
But, again, it’s it’s a struggle, and this is important for people to hear. It’s not like it’s just, like, every day. Like, it’s it’s hard. Life is hard. Even a guy like Goggins, you know what he told me? And he goes, sometimes I stare at my fucking shoes for, like, thirty minutes before I put those motherfuckers on. He goes because he’s like, I don’t wanna do this.
Speaker: 1
03:19:12
I don’t wanna
Speaker: 0
03:19:13
do this. No. But
Speaker: 1
03:19:14
he knows he’s gonna do this. He goes, but I put him on.
Speaker: 0
03:19:17
Well, good on him.
Speaker: 1
03:19:18
It’s not easy. Life is not easy, but it’s worth living. It’s worth doing. It really is.
Speaker: 0
03:19:26
Does he put those shoes on because he knows that ultimately he’s going to be glad that he did it?
Speaker: 1
03:19:33
If you ask him, he’s like, because I’m not a bitch.
Speaker: 0
03:19:35
Okay. Well, that’s Because it
Speaker: 1
03:19:38
but it that is what it is. Yeah. He’s ultimately gonna be glad that he’s he’s still got the strength, and that strength needs to be watered every day like a garden. It’s not like you just have it, now you have it for life. No. You have to you have to keep at it. You can everybody could ai.
Speaker: 1
03:19:55
Everybody could slide back.
Speaker: 0
03:19:59
It’s true. Yeah. As much as we can improve ourselves, we can
Speaker: 1
03:20:03
Yeah. Not. It’s not easy. It’s not easy being a person, but it’s worth doing.
Speaker: 0
03:20:11
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
03:20:11
Yeah. And you can do it. Yeah. And everybody could do it. You could do it better than you doing it. I could do it better
Speaker: 0
03:20:17
than I’m doing it. I’m trying.
Speaker: 1
03:20:18
And you could do
Speaker: 0
03:20:19
it better than ai it. Well, all of us. I’m so
Speaker: 1
03:20:23
grumpy sometimes. Yeah. It’s, like, so unnecessary. Unnecessary. Avoidable, but it’s good. It’s good to you know, struggle’s good. It’s good. All of it’s good. It’s all we’re on the path, you know. But there’s ai this all this this all this this idea that you should know better by now. That’s also silly.
Speaker: 1
03:20:39
Because I know 80 year old fools.
Speaker: 0
03:20:41
No. Everyone if there’s anything I’ve learned from being a mom, it’s that everyone, every human being is a toddler. Every single person is a toddler who either hasn’t gotten enough attention or hasn’t had their nap, whatever the fuck Yeah. And they’re just having a tantrum ai that is and if you treat everyone like a toddler, it is actually a very successful way of interacting with people.
Speaker: 1
03:21:06
Yeah. Yeah. Like It’s true. That is the lesson of parenthood. Right? Yeah. I I I talk about that all the time that, I started looking at people as, like, babies that grew up instead of looking at them, like, oh, this is Mike. He’s 35. Like, no, Mike was a baby. Like, how’d Mike become so fucked up? Well, Mike had a lot of bad information, a lot of bad experiences.
Speaker: 0
03:21:28
And he still is a baby. He still has the same needs that he did as a kid. They’re just more sophisticated now. But, ultimately, they all ai down to these same things. Yep. Do you need a change of situation? Do you need some attention? Do you need to sleep on it?
Speaker: 0
03:21:44
Like, what you know, whatever’s going on. Like, just if you can identify those, like, basic human needs and just tweak their circumstances, you can change a person’s life.
Speaker: 1
03:21:55
And also recognize that if you ignore those basic human needs over and over, they’re gonna compound. Mhmm.
Speaker: 0
03:22:01
And
Speaker: 1
03:22:01
you’re gonna have more problems.
Speaker: 0
03:22:03
Mhmm. And they’re gonna lose their shit in the middle of the grocery store. Where? Where?
Speaker: 1
03:22:15
Amanda, I really enjoyed talking to you. Again, thank you very much. Really appreciate you. And your book is out now, Amanda Knox, Free Ai Search ram Meaning.
Speaker: 0
03:22:25
Yeah. If anyone wants to reach out, I’m at amanda knox dot com. It’s pretty easy. Okay.
Speaker: 1
03:22:29
Thank you for being here. Appreciate you. Thank you. A lot of fun. Thanks. Bye, everybody. Bye ai.
