00:01:58.300When I was young, I read the X-Men all the time.
00:02:01.080They're my favorite characters because the world of the X-Men seemed much more real than the world of Spider-Man or the Avengers.
00:02:08.300right? Because Spider-Man, Avengers, it's pretty simple good versus evil world. Whereas X-Men,
00:02:13.660there's actually a lot of more ambiguity. Like, is Magneto a really good person or a bad person,
00:02:18.360right? Because Magneto is trying to save his people. And Magneto is being realistic about
00:02:23.260the intentions of human beings. Like, if we just trust human beings, they're going to come kill
00:02:27.740all of us, right? So I was really into X-Men comics for a long, long time. Yeah.
00:02:32.920What sort of information and books would you recommend people like us read?
00:02:41.200You know, so what I would recommend is to read novels, long form novels, because if you read long form novels, they build a universe and you go into this universe and you're really able to expand your imagination.
00:03:00.180you really expand your empathy so um it's to read you go you go to university and like people
00:03:06.100don't even read books anymore they're you know people are encouraged to read like you know
00:03:09.180essays or excerpts but not actual books so it's really really important to read books and so
00:03:15.380certain authors that i i recommend just to get started because they're so much fun okay
00:03:19.080i love james elroy i'm not sure if you've read james elroy but la confidential uh you know he's
00:03:25.320much fun so james elroy e-l-l-r-o-y okay so he's so i recommend him i recommend john carrie
00:03:33.160uh who is a spy author um i recommend um anna max tate um m-a-x-t-e-d because she writes romance
00:03:42.680novels but but um um i recommend science fiction um some good science fiction is john wineham
00:03:49.960w-y-n-d-h-a-m um he he's he's a lot of fun but you know like like the greatest act of rebellion
00:03:59.160that you can do in today's world okay is to reclaim your attention it really is because the
00:04:04.620way that they keep control over you is by monopolizing your attention right by constantly
00:04:08.400feeding you distractions after distractions so the greatest we've got act of rebellion you can do is
00:04:13.960sit by yourself solitary read a book for hours and hours and just ignore the world and reclaim
00:04:20.200your attention reclaim your mind um and and so i mean just get into reading reading i mean and
00:04:27.880like you know i started reading reading books because i started reading comic books but then i
00:04:31.680i started to um upgrade myself over over time so i mean like don't i mean like i teach the
00:04:38.140the iliad i teach the divine comedy uh these are the great books i think everyone should read but
00:04:43.300you know, read them when you're ready. Right. Um, so, um, so yeah. Divine comedy. I remember you
00:04:49.060wrote that. That was, uh, Don, uh, Ibn Rushd. Oh, that was by somebody in the Islamic empire,
00:04:54.560right? Or he, he influenced Dante's divine comedy, Ibn Rushd. Yeah, that's right. That's
00:04:59.740right. Yes. I remember. Yeah. And yeah, what about, um, I'm a big fan of Ernest Hemingway.
00:05:05.440He has a lot of novels. You're, you're a fan. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a huge fan, but, uh, Ernest
00:05:11.380Hemingway he's hard to read um you know you you you actually have to like sit down and close read
00:05:17.840his works um his best of course is the sun also rise yeah that's the best one yeah exactly yeah
00:05:24.400but i mean you you have to you have to be a very good reader to read like bernie's Hemingway um
00:05:29.700whereas whereas like you know if you want to start out then then i would just say get in the habit
00:05:33.900of sitting down for like long for like hours and hours and just focus on on a book yeah Hemingway
00:05:40.020difficult because he doesn't spell it out for you which i appreciate i like when uh authors like he
00:05:45.540wrote a short story about a woman who had to get an abortion but at no point in the short story
00:05:49.300didn't mention it and the sun also rises i'll just give it away he in world war one the main
00:05:54.340character the protagonist he has an injury where he can't have sex because uh his grenade got rid
00:05:59.540of his balls and so like that you know that impotence affects all of his relationships and
00:06:06.260all of his conversations so that type of uh that's what but yeah it takes a lot of energy to to pay
00:06:12.820attention to so so you think a lot of people don't find they find that like uh andrew tay was saying
00:06:19.140that you know reading is gay and that you shouldn't pay attention to it that it's a waste of time
00:06:22.660you disagree okay yeah um i think reading is fundamental to being human right and again i mean
00:06:31.320like i don't exaggerate but like you know if there's one thing that you can do to rebel against
00:06:35.420a system do reclaim your own individuality it's by reading okay especially reading is good sorry
00:06:41.380yeah yeah no i mean like it's a mirror into yourself and into the world okay i mean like
00:06:46.820like like it's also a light where you read um you're in connection with the author you're in
00:06:52.180connection with the work and you are enhancing your own individuality you're shining your
00:06:56.160individuality onto the world because because when you read it's your own interpretation right
00:07:00.340the reading a book a really good book is a portal into the divine
00:07:06.100right so have you read uh have you read any of the quran
00:07:12.020um you know i've read bad translations to be honest with you yeah um i've read bad translation
00:07:19.060but but they say the problem is you have to read the quran in arabic you have to like learn
00:07:23.160arabic first you don't you don't have to but the translated versions yeah to understand it
00:07:27.500completely have to understand original arabic which is is difficult and you've read the bible
00:07:33.060as well a lot of your lectures quote the bible especially the old testament yeah that's right
00:07:39.640okay and i remember you said that uh you found it schizophrenic and so some what was your
00:07:48.260interpretation of the bible yeah the problem of bible is that it's the most valuable real state
00:07:53.200in the world right it's the most valuable mental real state in the world and so people always
00:07:57.100competing and fighting over this real state and so there are lots of redactions there's lots of um
00:08:03.500changes to the bible over the years and it's almost impossible to figure out the true intention
00:08:09.580of the the original writer okay but there are certain parts of the bible that's pure literature
00:08:15.020that's and when it's pure literature what i mean is that it has the divine um flowing from it okay
00:08:21.660So if you go and read the book of Genesis, that's divine.
00:08:24.880The book of Genesis, it's pure literature.
00:08:28.820And then the New Testament, like the Gospel of Mark is also pretty divine as well, but especially Genesis.
00:09:40.620And for our creativity, for the practice of our imagination, we're expanding the possibilities of God and we're bringing joy and light and love to the universe.
00:09:57.500The grand secret of the universe is love is the unifying force of the universe, right?
00:10:03.320When you love someone, you're connected to God, you're connected to everyone else.
00:10:07.060the imagination is the animating force of the universe so when you imagine okay when you imagine
00:10:13.800new possibilities when you tell stories when you teach you are making the universe much more alive
00:10:20.660you're expanding the possibilities of the universe so we're here for two reasons to love to find
00:10:25.220someone to love and to love that person deeply and unconditionally like donny loved beatrice right
00:10:31.800and to imagine things to teach to create to learn
00:10:36.680did you find most of this analysis through your own experience or who told you this
00:10:43.940the divine okay because you know when you actually read the divine comedy you have
00:10:48.620no idea you have no idea what's what's going on okay i mean i spent like six months on a stupid
00:10:54.100thing and i had no idea what's going on and i i was i i went on youtube and i looked at every
00:11:00.720single lecture i could find on dante and there's quite a few okay so and i it made no sense to me
00:11:05.640what what what they were saying okay and then i just had a dream i just woke up and said oh
00:11:11.780love okay and not only that but it said go to the section and i went to the section and i read it
00:11:19.060and i think oh my god i'm starting to get it okay it's starting to reveal itself to me okay so so
00:11:25.720So it's the universe communicating with me so that I can understand the divine comedy, so I can communicate with others as well.
00:11:33.540And, you know, like that's a great secret that these elites understand.
00:11:37.380You know, like in school, we're taught that, oh, you know, it's all just material and it's all just process.
00:11:44.200So if you want to write an essay, just follow this work process and you'll write a great essay.
00:11:48.120And you know what? No author, no writer in the world has ever followed this stupid process of doing research, forming a thesis, create evidence, do the structure, do the outline, edit it, blah, blah, and now you have an essay, okay?
00:12:00.700That's what they teach you in school because that's what's convenient to teach you.
00:12:05.340But if you look at every single genius, if you look at every person who's creative, it's all through imagination.