The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1649 - Michael Easter

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00:00:04.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

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00:00:14.000 Hello, Michael.

00:00:15.000 Hello, Joe.

00:00:16.000 What's going on, buddy?

00:00:17.000 Good to see you.

00:00:18.000 Good to see you as well.

00:00:18.000 Thanks for coming down here.

00:00:19.000 Thanks for having me on, man.

00:00:21.000 What made you decide to write about comfort?

00:00:23.000 Isn't comfort a good thing, Michael?

00:00:25.000 What is going on?

00:00:26.000 Do you have a problem with comfort?

00:00:27.000 The comfort crisis?

00:00:29.000 Is it really a crisis?

00:00:30.000 I argue that it is a crisis.

00:00:31.000 One, I don't have a problem with comfort.

00:00:35.000 I do have a problem with always being comfortable, always leaning into comfort, which is what we're doing now.

00:00:41.000 Yeah.

00:00:41.000 So if you think of the average person's daily life, they wake up in the soft bed, temperature-controlled home, they shuffle over to the microwave, microwave of breakfast burrito, right, that came in from who knows where and is made with who knows what, and then it's like, I go to work, I drive to work,

00:00:57.000 I sit behind this screen all day.

00:00:59.000 I don't have to move at all or put any effort into this day, and then it's back to bed in front of the TV, and you just rinse and repeat that at no point in daily life.

00:01:08.000 I would argue, are people really challenged or really uncomfortable anymore, like we were in our past?

00:01:14.000 Some people, of course.

00:01:16.000 David Goggins is still alive and well.

00:01:18.000 Yes, David Goggins is still alive.

00:01:20.000 And so he's like the type of person, you see what happens when you start to push against that, right?

00:01:24.000 When you kind of have this moment where you go, maybe I'm a little too comfortable.

00:01:28.000 And you start to sort of investigate, okay, what is it with discomfort?

00:01:32.000 How can I get into some discomfort?

00:01:33.000 And what can that do for me?

00:01:35.000 And then at the extreme end of that is Goggins.

00:01:38.000 Yeah.

00:01:40.000 Well, it's for folks that just, like, say if you work in an office, and this is how you make a living, and you have to do that commute, and there's no other options, and this is what you do.

00:01:51.000 Like, for them to hear this, they're like, yeah, yeah.

00:01:55.000 Okay, so what?

00:01:56.000 What now?

00:01:57.000 Well, I mean, the answer is not to totally overhaul your lifestyle, right?

00:02:02.000 I mean, we have amazing lives right now.

00:02:03.000 The fact that we don't have to go out and hunt for food or put physical effort into every day is great.

00:02:09.000 But at the same time, I think, and I argue in the book, The Comfort Crisis, that we need these moments that push back at us, and we need to sort of investigate these discomforts that we used to face in our evolutionary past.

00:02:22.000 So, for example...

00:02:24.000 Two, that's the percent of people who take the stairs when there's the choice of an escalator.

00:02:32.000 70% of people, more than 70% now, are overweight or obese.

00:02:37.000 Only 20% of eating is actually driven by physiological hunger.

00:02:44.000 80% of it is just, I'm bored.

00:02:47.000 It's noon.

00:02:49.000 I guess I'll eat.

00:02:49.000 Or I'm stressed out.

00:02:51.000 We exercise 14 times less than our ancestors nowadays.

00:02:59.000 Our ancestors just by virtue of trying to survive, you mean?

00:03:04.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:03:05.000 So they didn't exercise, right?

00:03:07.000 Like our hunter-gatherer, they never did chin-ups.

00:03:09.000 Exactly.

00:03:10.000 That was life to them.

00:03:11.000 Yeah, they just were trying to get by.

00:03:12.000 Yeah, and we spend 95% of our time indoors as well.

00:03:15.000 And we know that there's benefits to getting out and moving more.

00:03:19.000 We know there's benefits to being outside.

00:03:21.000 We also know that there's benefits to truly being challenged in life.

00:03:25.000 It's like, like I said before, you can basically never be challenged as you go through life in a real sort of fundamental way.

00:03:33.000 And you'll probably have a decent life.

00:03:36.000 But you know, if you think about potential and human potential, let's say that Human potential is this big circle around us, right?

00:03:44.000 Now, most of us live in this sort of dinner-sized place.

00:03:47.000 We never go out and explore the edges of our potential by trying to get uncomfortable and doing things that are maybe a little outside of our comfort zone.

00:03:54.000 We can just kind of exist in this sort of soft space that we've created for ourselves right now.

00:04:00.000 And, of course, there are people who get out and You know, into that, those edges, like the Goggins of the world, like the Cam Haynes of the world.

00:04:09.000 But I think most people don't really go out and see what they're capable of.

00:04:15.000 Now, I don't think anybody's going to push back against this book.

00:04:19.000 You don't?

00:04:19.000 No, I don't.

00:04:21.000 Which creates kind of a dilemma for you.

00:04:24.000 Is there comfort in just writing about discomfort, right?

00:04:28.000 Is there a debate here?

00:04:29.000 Because I don't think there is.

00:04:30.000 I mean, I think what you're saying is, like, irrefutable.

00:04:33.000 I don't think anybody can say...

00:04:35.000 Well, there's nothing wrong with being sedentary and having your body turn into jello.

00:04:39.000 Well, there's nothing wrong with living a boring life with no stress at all and, well, stress, but mental stress.

00:04:45.000 No actual physical adversity to overcome, which stresses out the body but actually relaxes the mind.

00:04:54.000 That's what people are missing, right?

00:04:57.000 When you actually physically exert yourself, it actually calms the mind.

00:05:01.000 And I think there's probably a direct correlation, although I haven't done any studies, I would imagine there's a direct correlation between physical inactivity and mental depression.

00:05:09.000 I would have to imagine that there's at least some crossover there.

00:05:13.000 Yeah, there absolutely is.

00:05:16.000 I think that exercise, the studies show, it grows the hippocampus, which is an area that tends to be shrunken in people who have depression.

00:05:23.000 So this is why the APA now advocates that psychiatrists recommend exercise to a lot of their patients.

00:05:30.000 But I think to get back to your question of, am I going to have any pushback?

00:05:32.000 Right.

00:05:32.000 Is there any pushback?

00:05:34.000 And am I staying within my comfort zone by having this argument?

00:05:38.000 So the way that I reported this book is I spent more than a month hunting with Donnie Vincent in the Arctic backcountry. 0.99

00:05:46.000 Shout out to Donnie Vincent, you handsome bastard. 0.97

00:05:48.000 We were talking about you earlier. 0.99

00:05:54.000 For people who don't know him, he's a backcountry bowhunter and filmmaker.

00:05:58.000 He goes out into super extreme, off-the-grid areas.

00:06:01.000 Yeah, we were saying he's controversial, but not for any real reason.

00:06:06.000 He's controversial because he doesn't wear camo and he wears a lot of wool.

00:06:12.000 He looks good in the wild. 0.99

00:06:14.000 Yeah, he looks like a fucking model for some J.Crew catalog out there wandering around. 0.98

00:06:19.000 Maybe like an Abercrombie& Fitch, which I didn't know used to be like a little offside here, was a company that sold like fly fishing and outdoor stuff. 0.99

00:06:29.000 Now it's like these weird young models. 0.92

00:06:33.000 Really young.

00:06:35.000 There's Donnie Vincent. 1.00

00:06:36.000 Look at that rugged handsome bastard. 1.00

00:06:38.000 Look at him! 1.00

00:06:40.000 Looks like he's walking out of a Filson catalog right there.

00:06:43.000 He does.

00:06:43.000 Completely.

00:06:44.000 Good dude.

00:06:45.000 Good dude.

00:06:45.000 Love that guy.

00:06:46.000 Very good.

00:06:46.000 Very good guy.

00:06:49.000 Abercrombie& Fitch, like now when you go there, they spray that fucking horrible scent in the place, you know? 0.98

00:06:54.000 Do they still do that COVID-wise? 0.98

00:06:56.000 Maybe it's bad for COVID? Kills COVID? I would imagine it kills it, yeah.

00:06:59.000 It kills everything.

00:07:00.000 I had a friend who worked there and she said, like, every 20 minutes...

00:07:03.000 We have to do like 20 sprays or some like very specific number.

00:07:08.000 It stinks in there.

00:07:08.000 But that used to be a company that made outdoor stuff for like people who wanted to go fly fishing.

00:07:16.000 Yeah.

00:07:16.000 And now it's like these, they look like they're like 18 models in their poses.

00:07:20.000 They're all like real slender and they look like real slinky.

00:07:24.000 Pull up a photo of like Abercrombie and Fitch models.

00:07:28.000 They were the ones that would put the shirtless dudes out at their store in New York, right?

00:07:34.000 Actual shirtless dudes?

00:07:35.000 Actual shirtless dudes would be on the street, you know, in their Abercrombie jeans.

00:07:39.000 I was just looking it up, though.

00:07:41.000 Even when it was a hunting company back in 1900, it started in Manhattan.

00:07:46.000 Really?

00:07:47.000 There you go.

00:07:48.000 Yeah, but 1900 in Manhattan, everybody hunted back then. 0.98

00:07:52.000 You would go up to the Poconos and shit, and people would leave. 0.71

00:07:55.000 So these guys were wandering around New York City with no shirts on? 0.99

00:07:58.000 Yeah.

00:07:59.000 Looking good, boys.

00:08:00.000 Go back to that photo.

00:08:01.000 Which one?

00:08:02.000 The one that you just showed?

00:08:03.000 The guys out there?

00:08:04.000 No, the other one?

00:08:05.000 The other one?

00:08:05.000 Yeah.

00:08:05.000 Look at the guy on the far right.

00:08:06.000 Bro, you're about to show your cock. 1.00

00:08:09.000 This is ridiculous. 1.00

00:08:10.000 It's all dick root, right? 1.00

00:08:12.000 Showing the dick root. 0.99

00:08:14.000 So what is the purpose of this? 0.98

00:08:16.000 Like, to get people...

00:08:16.000 They're wearing flip-flops, too?

00:08:18.000 Flip-flops, jeans, no shirt, and an open jacket.

00:08:23.000 It's probably like January too, right? 0.99

00:08:24.000 Yeah, probably cold as shit. 0.99

00:08:26.000 And they're all flexing constantly. 0.99

00:08:28.000 Look at them.

00:08:28.000 Tough work if you can get it.

00:08:30.000 Well, you know, you're dealing from a very small sample pool to be able to be that guy.

00:08:36.000 I mean, these guys all have like 7% body fat.

00:08:39.000 But it used to be an outdoor company.

00:08:42.000 That was like what they sold. 1.00

00:08:44.000 They sold like canoes and shit, I think. 1.00

00:08:47.000 I'm pretty sure. 0.99

00:08:48.000 I saw like an old catalog, right?

00:08:50.000 Yeah.

00:08:50.000 Like fly fishing gear and stuff.

00:08:52.000 Yeah.

00:08:53.000 Outerwear.

00:08:53.000 Kind of that old school cool stuff.

00:08:55.000 A lot of canvas.

00:08:56.000 Like wax.

00:08:57.000 Yeah, look at this.

00:08:57.000 Abercrombie and Fitch.

00:08:58.000 Yeah.

00:08:59.000 Canoe.

00:08:59.000 Guys shooting ducks out of a canoe.

00:09:01.000 Why don't they put those guys out in Manhattan on the street?

00:09:03.000 I would much rather buy from them.

00:09:05.000 Because people would go, go back to Texas!

00:09:08.000 Is that a gun?

00:09:08.000 Get out of here.

00:09:09.000 We don't need guns around here.

00:09:11.000 But they do.

00:09:13.000 Meanwhile, they do.

00:09:14.000 There was a mass shooting in Times Square yesterday.

00:09:16.000 Oh, yeah.

00:09:16.000 Jeez.

00:09:18.000 Anyway, back to this pushback against your book.

00:09:22.000 You're writing about something that pretty much most people agree.

00:09:26.000 Yeah, I think.

00:09:27.000 But it's like, do we really know how to get back into discomfort?

00:09:31.000 And like, in the book, I argue that there are a handful of fundamental discomforts that we lost over time as the world became more comfortable.

00:09:40.000 So, a few of the important ones are that...

00:09:44.000 We don't take on these big, epic challenges in nature like we used to.

00:09:48.000 So, for example, traditional rites of passage, all totally gone.

00:09:52.000 You know, in the past, we would send young people out to do some trial.

00:09:57.000 And the idea was that, like, hey, you're at stage one of life right now, but we need you to get to stage two so you can be a better contributor to the tribe and so you can almost become a new, more confident, capable person.

00:10:09.000 And in order to do that, We're gonna send you out in the wild to do any number of things.

00:10:14.000 It depends on, you know, what the culture was.

00:10:17.000 So, for example, the Maasai, they would send young warriors out to hunt lions with a spear.

00:10:23.000 And if you kill the lion, then you would officially transition into a warrior.

00:10:26.000 And, you know, in that space, that trying middle ground, that's where you learn a lot about yourself and your potential.

00:10:35.000 And by going through something like that, you come out on the other side, an improved person.

00:10:38.000 We've totally lost that.

00:10:40.000 And there's all kinds of different rites of passage throughout time.

00:10:43.000 They're essentially what Joseph Campbell called the hero's journey.

00:10:46.000 There's this, you know, typical archetype of, you know, leave comfort of home, go into this trying, challenging, uncomfortable middle ground, come out the other end, and you've learned something about yourself and evolved.

00:10:59.000 That's gone.

00:11:01.000 And you think about young people today, like, how often are they challenged?

00:11:05.000 Right.

00:11:05.000 You start to see helicopter parenting come in in about 1990 is when it started because there was all this media around kidnappings.

00:11:13.000 So parents wouldn't let their kids outside go to the playground.

00:11:16.000 Oh, is that really what caused that stuff?

00:11:18.000 Yeah.

00:11:18.000 It was a bunch of media around kidnapping, which kidnapping was not a big phenomenon, right?

00:11:23.000 But it just got exploded because it's...

00:11:25.000 Well, it's a big phenomenon if someone kidnaps your kid, and it did happen.

00:11:28.000 Yeah, it definitely did happen.

00:11:30.000 But it becomes a story.

00:11:32.000 Exactly.

00:11:32.000 If you look at the statistics, your kid is more likely to get hurt in a lot of other different ways than that.

00:11:38.000 So that blows up.

00:11:40.000 Kids start to get helicopter parented.

00:11:43.000 Challenge gets removed out of their lives.

00:11:45.000 Now we've kind of moved on to snowplow parenting, right?

00:11:48.000 What's snowplow parenting?

00:11:49.000 It's even worse.

00:11:50.000 Worse than helicopter parenting?

00:11:52.000 You just push all the challenge out of your kid's life.

00:11:55.000 So a good example of this would be the parents who paid to get their kids into those challenging schools, you know?

00:12:03.000 So now you start to see kids who were born after 1990 have much higher rates of mental health problems, like anxiety and depression, because they essentially have no armor.

00:12:15.000 Like, you've never really been challenged.

00:12:17.000 So when you get into a classroom or whatever it is and someone challenges your idea, you have no idea how to deal with that.

00:12:24.000 That becomes really anxiety-inducing.

00:12:26.000 And there's obviously a lot of different reasons why these rates of anxiety have risen.

00:12:30.000 There's also...

00:12:31.000 You know, a lot of time on smartphones, but that kind of goes back into that.

00:12:34.000 It's like, if I don't get enough likes on this Instagram page, it's like, that is a major shot, you know?

00:12:39.000 Yeah, it's more than that, I think.

00:12:41.000 I think Jonathan Haidt's work points to bullying, particularly for girls.

00:12:45.000 It seems to be for girls, social media is, like, Jordan Peterson talked about this, that men are more aggressive physically, but women are more aggressive in terms of reputation destruction. 0.75

00:12:57.000 Yeah.

00:12:57.000 And they attack other girls on social media.

00:13:00.000 I've seen it. 1.00

00:13:01.000 It is fucking ruthless. 1.00

00:13:03.000 I've seen teenage girls go after other teenage girls. 1.00

00:13:05.000 It's so awful.

00:13:07.000 The things they say to each other are so awful.

00:13:10.000 And it leads to way higher rates of suicide, depression, self-harm.

00:13:15.000 And there's a direct spike that lines up exactly with the iPhone.

00:13:22.000 It's really crazy.

00:13:23.000 It's like the iPhone and having social media on your phone.

00:13:27.000 Because in the MySpace days, people were using computers.

00:13:32.000 And MySpace was just like, when people were using that, they were just posting things.

00:13:38.000 They weren't necessarily attacking each other.

00:13:40.000 They didn't realize how to attack each other until it was on their phone.

00:13:43.000 It was like...

00:13:44.000 Here's this emo band I like.

00:13:46.000 Listen to that.

00:13:46.000 That was what Myspace was all about.

00:13:48.000 It was about comedians.

00:13:50.000 A lot of comedians used it to promote.

00:13:51.000 Like, Dane Cook became famous through Myspace.

00:13:54.000 That's how he became.

00:13:55.000 That's cool.

00:13:55.000 Yeah, they used it to promote themselves.

00:13:57.000 But something about it being on the phone and then something about, like, Facebook, right?

00:14:03.000 Like, you know, you could post pictures. 1.00

00:14:05.000 Look at this stupid bitch and she did this and meh, meh, meh. 1.00

00:14:09.000 You know, she stole my boyfriend. 1.00

00:14:10.000 She's a slut. 1.00

00:14:11.000 And then all the other girls pile on and it's just devastating for these kids. 1.00

00:14:15.000 It's like horrific.

00:14:16.000 Yeah, it is terrible.

00:14:18.000 And so this is another thing that I point out in the book is that we're never bored anymore.

00:14:24.000 So as we evolved...

00:14:25.000 Boredom is this evolutionary discomfort that basically told us, whatever you're spending your time on right now, it's not an efficient use of your time.

00:14:33.000 So go find something else.

00:14:35.000 Now in the past, this would be like, let's say you're picking berries from a bush, you've picked the easiest to pick ones.

00:14:40.000 Well, if we didn't have the skew of boredom, we'd be like reaching into the very back for the berries that are hard to pick, but they become successively harder to pick because we've picked all these different ones, right?

00:14:50.000 Boredom would kick on and be like, hey, your return on your time invested has worn thin.

00:14:55.000 Move on to another bush, right?

00:14:57.000 But nowadays, with this influx of media we have, people spend 11 hours a day engaging with digital media.

00:15:05.000 Is that real?

00:15:06.000 Yeah, 11. And that's the average.

00:15:08.000 So you want to hear an even crazier thing?

00:15:11.000 Yeah.

00:15:12.000 Okay, so I'm a professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and one of the classes I teach is an intro class, so it's got about 150 students, and it's a media class I teach in the journalism department.

00:15:25.000 First day of class, I'll talk about how, just how things have changed with media.

00:15:29.000 You know, it's like we lived 2.5 million years with no media in our lives, and now it's become our lives.

00:15:33.000 And then I will ask, all right, I want everyone to pull out your phone right now.

00:15:37.000 I want you to look at your screen time.

00:15:39.000 Tell me how much you have.

00:15:40.000 Who thinks they have the highest?

00:15:42.000 And we'll start to go through people.

00:15:44.000 I've had people, you know, 7 hours, 45 minutes.

00:15:47.000 8 hours, 50 minutes.

00:15:49.000 9 hours, 16 minutes.

00:15:51.000 It's like, that's your entire day.

00:15:55.000 All on that cell phone, right?

00:15:57.000 So nowadays, when we have this discomfort of boredom kick in, we have a super easy escape from it.

00:16:05.000 We're not forced to be like, okay, what am I doing with my time?

00:16:08.000 Is there something better I could be doing?

00:16:10.000 We just pull out our phone.

00:16:11.000 And you see this, right?

00:16:12.000 Anytime people have one moment of solitude or inactivity, it's like, oh, might as well just check my phone.

00:16:18.000 It's brutal when you see people on dates.

00:16:21.000 They're not even talking to each other.

00:16:22.000 They're just looking at each other's phones.

00:16:24.000 People at dinner.

00:16:27.000 It's like you're in front of an actual person and you prefer to communicate in digital with someone who's not even there.

00:16:35.000 Totally.

00:16:36.000 And what's interesting about boredom is when oftentimes, when boredom would kick on, we would go inward, sort of mind wander.

00:16:46.000 And mind wandering, it gives you, your brain, some time to like reset and revive.

00:16:52.000 Whereas anytime you're focused on the outside world, your brain is actively processing information.

00:16:58.000 So this is kind of like in the book, I compare it to lifting a weight.

00:17:02.000 When you're having a conversation, looking at your phone, watching a screen, whatever you're doing, if you're focusing on the outside world, your brain is working and it's lifting.

00:17:10.000 When you go inward, your brain goes into this default mode network, which is like a rest period, right?

00:17:15.000 So now, because every time we're bored, we just pull out that screen and focus more, our brains are just constantly being worked and overworked and overworked.

00:17:23.000 This is associated with just burnout, anxiety, etc.

00:17:31.000 Yeah, there's some real benefits to boredom in terms of creativity as well.

00:17:36.000 Oh, totally.

00:17:38.000 Boredom is really good for coming up with new ideas.

00:17:40.000 Yeah, and there's actually research behind this.

00:17:42.000 They've done studies where they'll have... 0.79

00:17:45.000 They'll have people watch something really boring, like a video of people folding laundry, just like they bore the shit out of these participants.

00:17:52.000 And then they have them take these different creativity tests that scientists use, and the people who are bored come up with more better solutions and responses than the people who had been stimulated the whole time.

00:18:06.000 And you think about this, I mean, just in terms of anecdotes from creators, it's like, You need time to just sit and be with yourself and have these weird ideas bubble to the surface.

00:18:17.000 If you never have that, you're not letting the weird stuff come out, you know?

00:18:22.000 Do you experience this when you're trying to think of stuff in your own work?

00:18:27.000 Yeah, you have to have discomfort.

00:18:28.000 The worst thing that can ever happen to me if I'm writing is to just open the browser.

00:18:33.000 Yeah.

00:18:34.000 Let me just Google this real quick and see.

00:18:36.000 It's like I play little games with myself.

00:18:39.000 Like, I'll be in the middle of writing.

00:18:40.000 I'm like, what does that mean, really? 0.99

00:18:41.000 And then I'll Google it and like, shut the fuck up and get back to work. 0.99

00:18:44.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:18:45.000 Because I'm just being distracted.

00:18:47.000 I'm just distracting myself.

00:18:48.000 And sometimes I'll allow myself a couple of minutes of distraction before I get mad.

00:18:52.000 But really, I shouldn't allow myself any.

00:18:54.000 I should just keep working.

00:18:56.000 And sometimes people say, I can't write.

00:18:58.000 I just stare at the screen and nothing comes out.

00:19:00.000 I'm like, yeah, that's what's supposed to happen.

00:19:02.000 That's how it works, man. 0.99

00:19:03.000 You're supposed to fucking stare at the screen. 0.99

00:19:05.000 And then you just write some nonsense and eventually something good will come out of that. 0.99

00:19:09.000 But if you just bail because you don't like the staring at the screen part and nothing's coming out, guess what?

00:19:15.000 You're never going to write anything.

00:19:17.000 Congratulations.

00:19:18.000 So then you'll be at the whim of whatever random spontaneous creativity just pops into your head throughout the day.

00:19:25.000 Yeah.

00:19:25.000 And sometimes you'll get some and sometimes you won't.

00:19:28.000 Yeah.

00:19:29.000 But Pressfield talks about that in The War of Art.

00:19:31.000 Have you read that book?

00:19:32.000 I haven't read that book, but I've heard about it.

00:19:34.000 It's a very small book, but it's really good.

00:19:36.000 It's great for writers.

00:19:37.000 And he basically says, he talks about the muse as if the muse is a real thing.

00:19:43.000 And he's like, treat it like it's a real thing.

00:19:45.000 Treat it like you're a professional and you're there to summon the muse.

00:19:48.000 And if you just show up every day and do that work, it will come.

00:19:51.000 It will come to you and it will bestow upon you these creative ideas.

00:19:55.000 But if you don't do that, if you don't sit down and be uncomfortable, it won't happen.

00:20:03.000 And in this day and age, like you said, we're so accustomed to having any boredom alleviated by our phone.

00:20:15.000 You hear all this stuff that's like, break up with your phone, less time on your phone, here are a thousand different ways to use your phone less.

00:20:23.000 Yes, that is important.

00:20:24.000 But the problem is a lot of times when people go, okay, I'm going to use my phone less.

00:20:29.000 So they put their phone in a safe or whatever weird habit they've developed, but then they go watch Netflix.

00:20:34.000 It's like your brain doesn't know the damn difference between the screen on your phone and the screen on your TV. The point is that you need to remove yourself from this outside media that's totally just weaved its way into your life.

00:20:47.000 Stimulating you with nothing.

00:20:49.000 Yeah.

00:20:50.000 The switch from phone to Netflix is like, oh, I'm quitting smoking, but I'm going to go buy some Redman and just pack that in real hard, you know?

00:20:58.000 Yeah.

00:20:59.000 Same thing.

00:21:01.000 Yeah.

00:21:02.000 When you went with Donnie, you guys went to the Arctic?

00:21:05.000 We did.

00:21:05.000 33 days?

00:21:06.000 Is that what you did up there?

00:21:07.000 And what did you do while you were up there?

00:21:09.000 So we were hunting caribou.

00:21:11.000 Oh.

00:21:11.000 Yeah.

00:21:12.000 We were on a caribou hunt.

00:21:13.000 That's a dangerous hunt.

00:21:16.000 The Arctic is an extreme place.

00:21:18.000 It's uncomfortable.

00:21:19.000 It's dangerous in that you get dropped off, right?

00:21:21.000 Did you get float-planed in there?

00:21:22.000 No, well, it was a plane.

00:21:24.000 Bush plane?

00:21:24.000 Yeah, bush plane, tiny plane, picks you up.

00:21:28.000 We got ferried, so it was me, Donnie, and his cameraman, William Altman, who's a great dude.

00:21:35.000 Satellite phone?

00:21:36.000 Donnie had a GPS thing in order to talk to the pilot.

00:21:41.000 Oh, a text thing?

00:21:41.000 Yeah, a text thing.

00:21:42.000 Oh, boy.

00:21:43.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:21:44.000 If that breaks, you're fucked. 1.00

00:21:45.000 If that breaks, you are indeed fucked, my man. 1.00

00:21:48.000 And there's grizzlies out there, too. 1.00

00:21:49.000 Yeah, we saw some grizzlies.

00:21:51.000 Fun.

00:21:52.000 Yeah, yeah, big animals.

00:21:54.000 So at one point...

00:21:56.000 We leave Kotzebue first.

00:21:58.000 Me and William are in this plane that's like a three-seater.

00:22:00.000 How many flights did it take to get out there?

00:22:02.000 Two.

00:22:03.000 Just two?

00:22:03.000 So we get in the sort of small plane.

00:22:07.000 It drops me and William off.

00:22:08.000 Then the smaller plane comes along.

00:22:11.000 It picks up William.

00:22:12.000 But you had to take a small plane to get there, too, though, right?

00:22:14.000 Like, how many planes did it take you to get to where you were going?

00:22:17.000 From Las Vegas to the middle of nowhere?

00:22:19.000 Yeah.

00:22:20.000 One, two...

00:22:24.000 Five.

00:22:24.000 Five planes?

00:22:25.000 Five.

00:22:26.000 All together.

00:22:26.000 Successively smaller.

00:22:27.000 So that's what's interesting, right?

00:22:28.000 It's like if you want to leave the built environment, you're getting on big plane to medium plane to little plane to really little plane to why the fuck am I in this size plane? 0.57

00:22:40.000 To how much do you weigh? 0.89

00:22:41.000 How much do your shoes weigh?

00:22:43.000 Totally.

00:22:44.000 You've got to weigh your gear.

00:22:45.000 Yeah.

00:22:46.000 With our gear.

00:22:47.000 So, I get left out there, right, because the super small plane comes and picks up.

00:22:52.000 One at a time?

00:22:53.000 Yeah, one at a time.

00:22:54.000 Did you have a rifle?

00:22:55.000 No.

00:22:56.000 I'm standing there, and there's clods of grizzly poop surrounding me, and I'm just like... 0.74

00:23:01.000 Did he leave you with a rifle?

00:23:02.000 I'm just like...

00:23:02.000 Oh, my God.

00:23:04.000 Well, here's the thing, and we can get into this, but Donnie's like, eh, fucking bears are... 0.99

00:23:08.000 Whatever, you know? 0.99

00:23:09.000 Donnie's too comfortable.

00:23:10.000 Oh, yeah.

00:23:11.000 But it was also interesting, because I'm standing out there, And it's like, I have never been this alone in my entire life.

00:23:20.000 Oh yeah, it's real alone.

00:23:21.000 So think about it.

00:23:22.000 There's no one around me for miles and miles.

00:23:25.000 My cell phone doesn't work because today we're increasingly, even when we think we're alone, we're with people through our cell phones, through text messages, through whatever.

00:23:35.000 And there's just like nothing.

00:23:36.000 And you start to kind of get a little, at first I'm like, man, this is dangerous.

00:23:42.000 Like I don't, like I did not like it at all.

00:23:43.000 But then, you know, sort of as time went on, It's like, actually, this is kind of interesting to be totally removed from society because now all of a sudden it's like, we have all these social narratives of like, how do we act?

00:23:54.000 What do we do?

00:23:55.000 What do we do as humans?

00:23:56.000 And they're totally removed.

00:23:58.000 And it's just like, wow.

00:24:00.000 How long were you out there just you?

00:24:02.000 Probably two, three hours.

00:24:05.000 Four hours, probably.

00:24:06.000 See, a real mountain man's laughing at you right now. 1.00

00:24:08.000 They're like, ah, this fucking pussy. 1.00

00:24:10.000 Yeah, totally. 1.00

00:24:11.000 Can't be alone for three hours.

00:24:13.000 As they should.

00:24:14.000 Yeah.

00:24:14.000 Do you know who Dick Prenicke is?

00:24:16.000 Yes.

00:24:17.000 Did you watch any of those videos?

00:24:18.000 Total badass.

00:24:19.000 Amazing videos, too.

00:24:20.000 Unbelievable.

00:24:21.000 Like, interesting.

00:24:22.000 Like, his life was really...

00:24:24.000 I want to say he was like a machinist or something like that.

00:24:27.000 Like, he had a normal life.

00:24:32.000 I believe that's what it was.

00:24:33.000 I think he was a machinist.

00:24:35.000 And he got injured.

00:24:36.000 And I think he lost some of his vision in one of his eyes.

00:24:40.000 Because of this injury.

00:24:42.000 And the injury, I hope I'm not fucking this up, is one of the things that motivated him to decide to move to the woods and build a cabin and film and document it all completely by himself. 0.64

00:24:55.000 And it's really interesting to me.

00:24:58.000 I remember seeing the documentaries and, like, he made this, like, little key latch on his door.

00:25:03.000 I mean, so he made this cabin.

00:25:05.000 Pull up some of the videos on Dick Prenicky.

00:25:07.000 He makes this cabin out of just stuff that he finds out in the wild, right?

00:25:10.000 Yeah.

00:25:10.000 But, like, he had it almost fashioned, like, a normal home from the 50s.

00:25:14.000 And you're like, how did you figure out all this shit, man? 0.99

00:25:16.000 Like... 1.00

00:25:17.000 Yeah, his place is beautiful, too.

00:25:20.000 It's such a sweet-looking little cabin.

00:25:22.000 I mean, look, he's got a gold pan out there in the front, and he's got snowshoes hanging from the side of it.

00:25:29.000 I mean, it's like...

00:25:29.000 Super cool.

00:25:30.000 Yeah, and he built all that himself.

00:25:32.000 He built everything.

00:25:34.000 I mean, he even built his own tools.

00:25:36.000 He brought part of the tools with him.

00:25:39.000 Like, whatever he would need, like, for sure.

00:25:42.000 But the videos are pretty crazy.

00:25:45.000 Like, you see him out there...

00:25:47.000 And it's just, again, this is like, I don't remember what year is it.

00:25:51.000 It says 77. One man's Alaska, 1977. So he filmed all this and made these videos.

00:25:58.000 Yeah, you could see how he made tools and all sorts of different things.

00:26:03.000 Super cool. 0.97

00:26:04.000 Yeah, but he made his own like canoes and shit. 0.96

00:26:07.000 He filmed all this because he knew that what he was doing was pretty extraordinary. 0.98

00:26:11.000 Look how little a...

00:26:12.000 What is that?

00:26:14.000 Probably a shed where he keeps his food or something like that.

00:26:18.000 And went out there once, I believe, and then just decided that that was where he was going to live.

00:26:24.000 And was out there with no contact with people at all for long periods of time.

00:26:30.000 Go to that last one that we were looking at, Jamie.

00:26:33.000 Yeah, there's a documentary that he...

00:26:34.000 The second one down.

00:26:36.000 Yeah, that one right there.

00:26:38.000 Okay, just play the video because this is the one I've seen.

00:26:43.000 It was one of the ones I've seen, but it goes into great depth about how he built his cabin and what his history was and that he just became...

00:26:54.000 Obsessed with the idea of being in nature and how much he loved it.

00:26:58.000 And he lived there until he was in his 80s and then went to stay with his brother because his health was failing.

00:27:05.000 And then eventually, you know, he lived the last days of his life, I think, in Washington State.

00:27:11.000 But here it shows him making various tools.

00:27:14.000 He's got like a...

00:27:16.000 Wood auger to make a hammer with and makes makes a wooden mallet and did the whole deal like he made everything But he got just this tremendous satisfaction and talked about the tremendous satisfaction he got from just being allowed to live this subsistence life and Yeah.

00:27:35.000 Have you seen these videos on YouTube where people are doing this similar thing where they'll show themselves make an entire log cabin?

00:27:42.000 Yeah, I have seen some of them, yeah.

00:27:44.000 Dig a hole and make a pool underwater.

00:27:47.000 Well, that was the whole appeal of that show, Life Below Zero.

00:27:52.000 It's like those folks that would live...

00:28:03.000 I know. 0.98

00:28:15.000 We're talking shit about what we actually are doing right now. 0.98

00:28:18.000 But they pull you. 0.99

00:28:22.000 They pull you.

00:28:22.000 And we all know that it's probably not the best way to live.

00:28:27.000 But it's so hard to break the addiction.

00:28:31.000 I mean, it's amazing, right?

00:28:32.000 It's amazing that I can pull up a podcast and listen to almost whoever I want, their thoughts, and get these new ideas.

00:28:40.000 But at the same time, it's like, if that's all you're spending your time doing, there's some downsides.

00:28:43.000 We need to offset it.

00:28:44.000 I don't necessarily think the answer is to...

00:28:47.000 Go live in the woods in Alaska for the rest of your life.

00:28:50.000 Although that'd be pretty cool if you did.

00:28:52.000 More power to you.

00:28:53.000 But figuring out, like, how do we balance this all and have these moments where we have, you know, solitude, go more inward and aren't as stimulated.

00:29:01.000 So one thing that, you know, after I... I'm standing out there in solitude.

00:29:06.000 When I get home, I start researching, you know, what are the benefits of solitude?

00:29:11.000 Because we know that the data shows that being lonely isn't good for us, but there's the difference between loneliness and solitude.

00:29:19.000 Like, solitude is electing to be by yourself and using that time for sort of introspection.

00:29:25.000 And the scientists that I talked to, they said, yeah, you really need this because a lot of times people are more conductor circuits and they don't do well when they're alone at all.

00:29:35.000 This is part of the reason we have such a loneliness problem.

00:29:37.000 But if you can, like, build this capacity to be alone, they call it, like, that can serve you well in a long time.

00:29:44.000 And it also...

00:29:45.000 Breeds deeper thinking, creativity.

00:29:47.000 I mean, it's like there's a reason that thousands of years of religious tradition, they have people who go and spend this time alone out in nature.

00:29:55.000 I mean, Jesus was in the desert for 40 days.

00:29:57.000 The Buddha exited the palace gates, you know, and spent a bunch of time alone and in solitude.

00:30:03.000 Even Abraham Lincoln used solitude for a lot of his writing and stuff like that.

00:30:09.000 And I feel like people don't have that as much anymore.

00:30:12.000 Very little.

00:30:13.000 And society discourages this kind of solitude.

00:30:16.000 Society encourages you to be constantly connected.

00:30:20.000 And the more it can get you connected, the more it can extract revenue from you.

00:30:26.000 Yeah.

00:30:27.000 And we often frame it as a negative.

00:30:29.000 I mean, like, think of what we do with kids who misbehave.

00:30:32.000 We put them in timeout.

00:30:33.000 Think of what we do to prisoners who misbehave.

00:30:35.000 Solitary confinement.

00:30:36.000 So we framed it as a negative, but it isn't necessarily a negative.

00:30:39.000 Yeah, it's a different kind of solitude, though, obviously, right?

00:30:41.000 You heard about this Utah lady? 1.00

00:30:43.000 She was just eating grass and moss. 0.89

00:30:44.000 She disappeared for five months, and they thought she was dead, and they found her camping.

00:30:49.000 Oh, wow.

00:30:49.000 But I don't think she's doing well.

00:30:51.000 I don't think this is a good example. 0.99

00:30:52.000 I think this lady's kind of crazy. 1.00

00:30:54.000 I just saw that headline, and you guys are saying these words. 1.00

00:30:59.000 Yeah, meanwhile, I'm just talking shit out of a headline I read, too. 0.98

00:31:03.000 Because it was like, the headline I said, she was surviving off moss and grass. 0.99

00:31:08.000 I'm like, alright, this lady might have went crazy. 1.00

00:31:09.000 Well, this says she was released from the hospital.

00:31:11.000 So, I don't know.

00:31:12.000 Mental health hospital?

00:31:13.000 I think so.

00:31:15.000 They took her in for evaluations, is what I read, but people just wanted to be alone.

00:31:19.000 Isn't that funny?

00:31:20.000 They find you camping and they're like, hmm, this is not good. 0.89

00:31:24.000 What the hell is wrong with you?

00:31:25.000 Make sure that you're okay mentally. 0.99

00:31:27.000 Why aren't you in an apartment where you can hear people scream?

00:31:30.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:31:32.000 Why aren't you eating fast food?

00:31:34.000 What are you doing eating moss? 1.00

00:31:36.000 You crazy bitch. 1.00

00:31:37.000 Totally. 1.00

00:31:39.000 Or you're living in Austin and you're just camping on Cesar Chavez.

00:31:42.000 Yeah, it could be that as well.

00:31:44.000 Um, when you guys were up there, what was, uh, did you have a set amount of time?

00:31:49.000 Did 33 days, was that what you agreed upon before you went out there?

00:31:54.000 Yeah.

00:31:54.000 Was there a reason for that?

00:31:55.000 Uh, we just thought, I mean, Donnie was just like, hey, I'm going up for more than a month.

00:31:58.000 You want to come along?

00:31:59.000 I'm like, yeah, sure.

00:32:01.000 Why was he going for that long?

00:32:02.000 It's just what he does for work.

00:32:04.000 You know, he embeds himself in these places for long periods of time and does these films.

00:32:09.000 So, he's a good person to go with.

00:32:11.000 Oh yeah, for sure.

00:32:13.000 He knows what he's doing up there and he's, I don't know, he's one of those dudes who's...

00:32:19.000 Kind of unflappable in situations like that.

00:32:21.000 Like, for example, we had...

00:32:23.000 This was, I think, our first or second night.

00:32:26.000 We had this Kefaru teepee, you know?

00:32:28.000 And we're very, very intelligent people.

00:32:33.000 I want you to know this, first of all.

00:32:34.000 And we've...

00:32:36.000 We pitch this thing on this, like, kind of knob, because the winds are coming in from a direction where, like, oh, it's going to be protected, and then we'll move it when the winds shift in a couple days.

00:32:45.000 While the winds shift overnight, I wake up, and there's just, like, this pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, the fabric, you know?

00:32:52.000 And the winds just keep coming, get faster and faster overnight.

00:32:56.000 And eventually by morning, I mean, they're like 70 mile an hour gusts. 0.97

00:33:00.000 And I'm just like, holy shit, we're going to lose this thing. 0.95

00:33:03.000 And then like, what do we do after that? 0.97

00:33:04.000 Like, it's just crazy and it's freezing, you know?

00:33:07.000 You didn't bring a tent?

00:33:09.000 You just brought one of those little tarps?

00:33:11.000 Yeah, that teepee.

00:33:13.000 Yeah, the teepee.

00:33:14.000 That was it?

00:33:15.000 Yeah.

00:33:15.000 How come you guys didn't bring an actual tent?

00:33:17.000 Well, if we needed one, we could.

00:33:18.000 We had, like, you know, emergency blankets and that stuff, and Donnie could have messaged to the pilot to try and bring us something.

00:33:27.000 But yeah, and he's just like, okay, we're going to have to do it.

00:33:30.000 He's like, this is bad.

00:33:31.000 We're going to have to do a takedown. 1.00

00:33:33.000 Get all your shit ready. 1.00

00:33:34.000 Get it in your bag. 1.00

00:33:35.000 And it's just like, he just knows exactly what to do.

00:33:37.000 Whereas I'm like, oh my god, it's too bad.

00:33:40.000 And we should probably explain to people the terrain.

00:33:43.000 Yeah.

00:33:44.000 So it's these mountains that are not super jagged.

00:33:49.000 They're very old, so they've kind of been worn by time.

00:33:53.000 And the tundra is the absolute worst thing to walk on in the world.

00:33:59.000 So I describe it as, think of like a Dr. Seuss book.

00:34:01.000 I kind of picture it like that, where it's like this big mattress that's covered in basketballs.

00:34:08.000 I like to think about it like that.

00:34:09.000 So the basketballs are these things called tundra tussocks.

00:34:12.000 Which are these big, dense pieces of grass.

00:34:15.000 It's like wound-up grass.

00:34:17.000 And then the mattress in between them is kind of like muck and shale and frozen ground.

00:34:23.000 So walking on this, you're like, do I step on this super soft stuff that's hard to get your bearings on?

00:34:29.000 It's kind of like almost beach sand, the same idea.

00:34:31.000 Or do I step on these tussocks that are super awkward?

00:34:35.000 It's like having to walk anywhere.

00:34:37.000 I mean, like one mile out there is like five anywhere else, you know? 1.00

00:34:40.000 It's just such a bitch to walk on. 1.00

00:34:42.000 Which did you choose? 1.00

00:34:44.000 The soft stop or the tussocks?

00:34:46.000 Oh, man.

00:34:47.000 I never really...

00:34:48.000 Did you go back and forth?

00:34:49.000 Yeah, I would go back and forth.

00:34:50.000 Did you ask Donnie what he does?

00:34:52.000 I can't remember if I did. 1.00

00:34:54.000 I don't know if he would have known either because he was looking like an idiot when he was walking as well. 1.00

00:34:58.000 So... 1.00

00:34:59.000 So there's not much you can do to be comfortable as you're walking.

00:35:02.000 No.

00:35:03.000 Occasionally you'll find some game trails, and those can be good.

00:35:06.000 They're kind of, you know, a little bit more worn.

00:35:09.000 Oftentimes there are long mountain faces, though. 0.95

00:35:12.000 And, you know, the animals on four legs are a bit more sure-footed than we are on our shitty two legs. 0.94

00:35:18.000 So all of a sudden you're slipping because of shale. 0.82

00:35:20.000 Yeah.

00:35:21.000 Yeah.

00:35:22.000 And so how many miles did you have to traverse on this stuff?

00:35:27.000 Some days we would probably do.

00:35:28.000 Probably our longest day was maybe 15 total in a day.

00:35:33.000 Yeah, and we had one day.

00:35:36.000 We had seen this herd, and so we're kind of chasing them more or less.

00:35:42.000 And we ended up, you know, seven-ish miles from camp.

00:35:46.000 And decided we needed to, you know, head back to the teepee now.

00:35:50.000 And it was so freaking cold.

00:35:53.000 It was like, you know, zero out.

00:35:55.000 And we've got this long march across the tundra.

00:35:58.000 And part of what we had to go through then was like this sort of frozen swamp, you know.

00:36:02.000 So sometimes your foot would break through into this sort of moving water.

00:36:06.000 And it was one of those where I'm like, this...

00:36:08.000 Why the hell am I out here?

00:36:10.000 What am I doing? 1.00

00:36:11.000 Like, this is stupid, you know? 1.00

00:36:13.000 What day was this? 1.00

00:36:15.000 This was a ways into it, I don't know, maybe like 15, something like that?

00:36:20.000 What if you guys had been successful early?

00:36:22.000 Like, what if you ran into a herd, like, on the second or third day?

00:36:27.000 Then we wouldn't have been so damn hungry.

00:36:30.000 But you were going to stay out there no matter what.

00:36:32.000 Yeah, we were going to stay out there no matter what.

00:36:34.000 Yeah, because, I mean, you know, Donnie, he wants footage, and I signed on because I wanted to experience that, you know, so we would have stayed out there.

00:36:43.000 Now, did you guys have a lot of supplies in terms of food, or were you living off your back?

00:36:49.000 We were mostly living off our back, yeah.

00:36:51.000 So you had a large backpack.

00:36:54.000 Yeah, heavy backpack.

00:36:55.000 Quite heavy.

00:36:56.000 Filled with mountain house.

00:36:57.000 Yeah, you've probably had that.

00:36:59.000 Yeah.

00:37:00.000 Delicious, delicious gruel.

00:37:01.000 Well, there's actually some companies that make good versions of that now.

00:37:06.000 Yeah.

00:37:07.000 What is Chad Mendes' company called?

00:37:09.000 Is it Peak Fitness or Peak Fuel?

00:37:14.000 Is that what his is called?

00:37:17.000 My friend Chad Mendez, he's a former UFC fighter who's a hunter as well.

00:37:22.000 He's got a really good company.

00:37:24.000 Peak Refuel.

00:37:25.000 Peak Refuel.

00:37:25.000 His stuff is excellent.

00:37:26.000 But it's really healthy stuff.

00:37:28.000 Companies are making it now where they're making it with much more healthy ingredients, no trans fats, no bullshit and preservatives.

00:37:38.000 They're just dehydrating everything.

00:37:40.000 Well, that looks good.

00:37:41.000 I could have used that.

00:37:42.000 Yeah.

00:37:43.000 There's other companies.

00:37:44.000 And nothing's wrong with Mountain House if you're hungry.

00:37:47.000 Yeah.

00:37:48.000 It's okay.

00:37:48.000 But, my God, the gas.

00:37:50.000 Yeah.

00:37:51.000 The gas is outstanding.

00:37:53.000 And there's no fiber in that, so over time that starts to present a problem. 0.96

00:38:00.000 Well, that's a problem anyway when you're shitting on a tussock. 0.98

00:38:03.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:38:04.000 Because you have to just squat and drop, right?

00:38:08.000 Right.

00:38:08.000 So, I mean, we think about all the ways that we've removed activity from our lives.

00:38:13.000 I mean, even think about that. 0.99

00:38:14.000 It used to be that, like, if you needed to shit, you're going to have to hold a squat for a minute there, buddy. 0.99

00:38:20.000 Right. 0.99

00:38:21.000 And having to go out and do that, it was like, oh, man.

00:38:24.000 Like, it was just kind of like, oh, yeah, I guess we now sit on these nice porcelain toilets. 0.99

00:38:29.000 And you have to make sure you don't shit into your pants. 0.99

00:38:31.000 You have to do that. 0.99

00:38:33.000 That is helpful.

00:38:35.000 Did you shower?

00:38:37.000 I mean, bathe rather?

00:38:38.000 Did you get in a stream?

00:38:39.000 Like, how did you clean yourself?

00:38:40.000 No.

00:38:41.000 Nothing.

00:38:42.000 Yeah, no.

00:38:43.000 Yeah.

00:38:43.000 Which is interesting coming from a world of...

00:38:45.000 So I was there pre-COVID. So it was interesting coming from a world of Purell and shower to a day.

00:38:54.000 And now it's even more so.

00:38:56.000 For good reason, you know.

00:38:57.000 But there's also...

00:38:58.000 There's benefits to being dirty, especially if it's outside dirtiness, not like indoor dirtiness like raw chicken and other people's germs.

00:39:06.000 What's the benefits?

00:39:08.000 So when you look at cultures who live outside and do a lot of things outside, they tend to have a lot better gut health than we do.

00:39:17.000 So one of the hunter-gatherer tribes that's been studied is the Hadza in Tanzania.

00:39:24.000 And they did this one study where they compared poop, because that's how you figure out gut health, from Westerners and the Hadza tribe.

00:39:32.000 And the Hadza have way more different types of gut bacteria, and they also have these ones that we don't have.

00:39:39.000 So they have more of it, and they have more variety of it.

00:39:42.000 Now, they don't get stomach issues, basically.

00:39:44.000 They don't get colon cancer.

00:39:46.000 They don't get rectal cancer.

00:39:47.000 We're good to go.

00:40:12.000 It's a very small percentage, but we kind of just went ahead and killed all the germs we could.

00:40:17.000 And so this has given us less of a defense and given us less variety in our guts that can improve our gut health.

00:40:25.000 Yeah, my friend David Cho, he's an artist.

00:40:29.000 He's a very famous artist.

00:40:31.000 He got really rich.

00:40:34.000 Was it Google that he painted their lobby?

00:40:37.000 Facebook?

00:40:38.000 He painted their lobby.

00:40:40.000 Yeah, and they gave him shares of the company back when it was nothing.

00:40:44.000 And he's worth like $100 million or more.

00:40:49.000 Some crazy number, right?

00:40:51.000 It's preposterous amounts of cash.

00:40:53.000 Yeah, that's a good gig.

00:40:54.000 And he just does whatever he wants.

00:40:58.000 Mostly he does art.

00:41:00.000 He does a lot of painting and a lot of weird creative endeavors, but...

00:41:05.000 He decided to live with the Hadza for a while. 1.00

00:41:07.000 Did he really?

00:41:08.000 Yeah, and so he went there, and they were, like, hunting baboons.

00:41:12.000 Yeah.

00:41:12.000 You know, they eat a lot of baboons, apparently, which is wild.

00:41:16.000 And he explained, you know, what it was like being out there.

00:41:20.000 What did he say about it?

00:41:21.000 It was really intense, you know.

00:41:22.000 He has some pretty amazing photographs from the experience, but, you know, it's just...

00:41:29.000 A real reality check of what it means to be alive.

00:41:34.000 And what it means to try to thrive and survive in a subsistence lifestyle.

00:41:40.000 In a camp filled with people who've been doing this their entire life.

00:41:45.000 And they allow you in.

00:41:47.000 And they do that occasionally with Westerners. 0.64

00:41:49.000 They allow you to come with them.

00:41:51.000 And he was just like...

00:41:54.000 Out of shape he was, how soft he was in comparison to them, and how difficult their life is.

00:41:59.000 And just, it puts into perspective how many things you take for granted.

00:42:02.000 Oh, we totally take so many things for granted.

00:42:04.000 I mean, when we got back, the first thing we did is we're in this airport in Kotzebue, and the airport is like a shed, a big shed more or less, right?

00:42:16.000 But it has running heated water, and so I go in and I, you know, I pee and I get to the faucet and it hits me. 0.95

00:42:23.000 It's like, holy shit, this is running water. 0.95

00:42:26.000 Turn it on hot and it's just like... 0.99

00:42:27.000 I mean, I had the biggest shit-eating grin on my face from that hot water. 0.99

00:42:30.000 It was like, oh my god, this is unbelievable. 0.99

00:42:33.000 Because out there, anytime we needed water, it's like we got a...

00:42:37.000 Hike down to a stream, fill up these water bags, hike them back up to camp, you know, and everything is effortful.

00:42:45.000 So having these moments where you get out of that, you know, sort of comfort zone that we're used to, it helps you become a lot more appreciative of everything that we have.

00:42:55.000 I mean, we had another one when I was just telling you we had to go back out across, back through the tundra to get back to the teepee that one night.

00:43:04.000 I mean, that was one of those where, you know, it hit me.

00:43:07.000 If we would have quit, like, you can't quit.

00:43:09.000 You know, you have to just keep going.

00:43:11.000 Because if you stay out there overnight, I mean, that's a lot more dangerous than just putting one foot in front of the other and making it back.

00:43:18.000 And, you know, before I went up to Alaska, like...

00:43:21.000 For example, my wife and I, we go to this restaurant all the time, and the food is amazing, amazing, but the service is not quite there.

00:43:31.000 And before I get to Alaska, I would just sit there as we're waiting, being like, oh, God, this place is so mismanaged. 0.98

00:43:35.000 What the fuck is wrong with these people? 1.00

00:43:38.000 Can't you get your shit together? 1.00

00:43:39.000 Can't you just refill that person's water? 1.00

00:43:41.000 Move people out in a normal way?

00:43:43.000 All these complaints are going through my mind, right?

00:43:45.000 So then I get back, and we go to that restaurant.

00:43:50.000 And I think back to getting back to that teepee after that long haul and having like shitty mountain house dinner and being freezing cold.

00:43:59.000 And I can stand there and be like, man, this isn't bad at all.

00:44:02.000 You guys do what you need to do.

00:44:04.000 I'm about to eat 2000 calories and I'm warm and I'm happy.

00:44:09.000 And this is awesome.

00:44:10.000 All you have to do is point at the thing on the menu that you'd like.

00:44:12.000 Yes, exactly.

00:44:13.000 And tell them, yeah, the T-bone, please.

00:44:16.000 Yes.

00:44:16.000 And they come and bring it.

00:44:17.000 Totally.

00:44:18.000 And so it makes you so much more appreciative, you know? 0.99

00:44:20.000 And it also sort of makes me, made me less of an asshole. 0.99

00:44:26.000 Because once you're appreciative, you're slightly less of a nitpicky person. 1.00

00:44:30.000 Which, you know, imagine if we could put 5% less of an asshole on At scale for everyone. 0.98

00:44:36.000 My friend Dan Doty actually does that with young troubled men. 0.98

00:44:40.000 He takes them on these experiences in the woods, this sort of rites of passage type deal.

00:44:47.000 A lot of young guys, particularly ones from affluent households who really don't have any challenges in their life, and he takes them and has them live in the woods with them.

00:45:01.000 For weeks and weeks at a time.

00:45:02.000 He takes them on these camping trips.

00:45:04.000 Dan was one of the producers of this show called Meat Eater.

00:45:10.000 That was the first show that I ever had a hunting experience on.

00:45:14.000 The hunting experience was in Montana, in the Missouri Breaks.

00:45:19.000 It was nine degrees outside and we're camping.

00:45:22.000 We did it for, I guess it was six or seven days.

00:45:27.000 We were successful.

00:45:28.000 We got fortunate. 0.98

00:45:29.000 And came back with Deere and then we went to this place, I believe it was Billings, we went to this just ratchet fucking motel that we stayed in and took a hot shower and it was phenomenal. 0.98

00:45:45.000 It was like one of the best experiences of my life. 0.98

00:45:48.000 So pleasurable. 0.99

00:45:50.000 To be in this ratchet ass, fake wood paneling. 0.99

00:45:54.000 You know what I mean? 0.99

00:45:55.000 Like, the whole deal.

00:45:56.000 Like, there was nothing nice about this motel room.

00:46:00.000 Except there was everything nice about it in that moment, right? 0.99

00:46:03.000 Oh my god, the fucking shower was glorious. 0.99

00:46:06.000 You know, and I had brought my own soap, you know, because I travel with— That's good planning. 0.99

00:46:12.000 This is soap that I use called Defense Soap, and it's got—it's mostly—it was developed for grapplers, but it's all to protect your skin from, like, skin issues like ringworm and stuff like that.

00:46:26.000 My friend Guy Sacco created it for wrestlers, and it's all tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil, so it's really good for you.

00:46:33.000 So I'm in this shower.

00:46:34.000 I got this legit soap, and I'm lathering up, and the water's so hot.

00:46:40.000 I must have took a 40-minute shower, man.

00:46:42.000 I never got out of there.

00:46:43.000 I was in there forever.

00:46:44.000 I love that.

00:46:44.000 I was so happy.

00:46:45.000 That was me, too, except I didn't have a custom-made awesome soap.

00:46:49.000 I wish I would have, though. 0.99

00:46:50.000 Damn. 0.99

00:46:51.000 Fucking any soap would have been fine at that time. 1.00

00:46:53.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:46:53.000 For just the smell, too. 0.99

00:46:56.000 God, you fucking stink so bad after a week of no shower. 1.00

00:46:59.000 And you went 33 days. 1.00

00:47:01.000 Oh, I smelled like a salmon run mixed with a garbage dump.

00:47:07.000 Now, how long into your hunt did you get food?

00:47:13.000 Yeah, we were a couple weeks in.

00:47:14.000 Did you catch fish?

00:47:15.000 No, but we got a caribou. 0.88

00:47:17.000 You did get a caribou.

00:47:18.000 Oh, so it was two weeks in.

00:47:19.000 Yeah.

00:47:19.000 So you were a mountain house for two weeks.

00:47:22.000 Mountain house, bars, yeah.

00:47:24.000 And then we had caribou.

00:47:26.000 And when that caribou came in, it was just like...

00:47:28.000 Honestly...

00:47:31.000 We're good to go.

00:47:49.000 We found a little bit.

00:47:51.000 It was tough.

00:47:52.000 It was tough.

00:47:53.000 So how did you cook?

00:47:54.000 We had a little...

00:47:55.000 Jet boils?

00:47:56.000 Yeah.

00:47:56.000 Jet boil thing.

00:47:58.000 Wow.

00:47:59.000 Yeah.

00:47:59.000 That's the thing about Alaska, particularly that area.

00:48:03.000 A lot of it is just tundra.

00:48:06.000 It's like this open...

00:48:07.000 I don't know if you'd call it tundra, but whatever it is.

00:48:10.000 On and on, yeah.

00:48:10.000 Just long, long, long stretches of grass and...

00:48:14.000 Yeah.

00:48:15.000 Yeah.

00:48:16.000 And not that many animals, either.

00:48:18.000 That's what's weird, right?

00:48:18.000 You would imagine the real wild.

00:48:21.000 You'd imagine, oh, there's animals all over the place, just fucking jacking each other. 0.99

00:48:25.000 No. 0.99

00:48:26.000 Yeah.

00:48:26.000 Except when...

00:48:27.000 So we were there during the migration, and...

00:48:31.000 There were none until they were literally everywhere.

00:48:35.000 I mean, it was almost like a war film where all the soldiers come over the hill all at once and they're like ants on an anthill. 0.98

00:48:45.000 It was just like, holy shit. 0.99

00:48:47.000 It was unbelievable. 0.99

00:48:48.000 And they're eating that weird moss stuff too, right? 0.99

00:48:52.000 What's that shit called? 0.96

00:48:53.000 Yeah, like lichen and moss. 0.99

00:48:54.000 It was just all kinds of little...

00:48:58.000 I guess you can eat that too.

00:49:00.000 Like, humans can eat that lichen stuff.

00:49:02.000 Just tasteless.

00:49:03.000 No, it tastes a little bit like green beans.

00:49:05.000 Does it?

00:49:05.000 Yeah.

00:49:06.000 Oh, you guys had it?

00:49:06.000 Yeah.

00:49:07.000 I mean, it's not like we're making a salad with it, but you're just sitting there and like, I guess I'll eat this.

00:49:12.000 It's not too bad.

00:49:14.000 Did you have a tag as well?

00:49:16.000 Yeah, I had a tag.

00:49:17.000 So I had never hunted before.

00:49:20.000 I mean, I'd been hunting, but I hadn't actually...

00:49:23.000 Been the one who was the hunter.

00:49:24.000 So that was new too.

00:49:26.000 That's a form of discomfort that I talk about in the book that we are very removed from the life cycle now.

00:49:33.000 So this goes from how we deal with funerals.

00:49:37.000 Think of modern funeral.

00:49:39.000 It's like we dress the dead person up to look as alive as possible.

00:49:43.000 We look at them for an hour and they go into the ground and we're told to Keep your mind off it.

00:49:48.000 Don't think about it.

00:49:49.000 Stay busy.

00:49:50.000 To our food system.

00:49:51.000 It's like the meat we have in our grocery store is all perfectly manicured.

00:49:55.000 It's cellophane.

00:49:56.000 It's designed almost so it doesn't look like it came from a living animal, right?

00:50:01.000 So I definitely had some reservations going into it.

00:50:04.000 It's not that I was against hunting at all.

00:50:06.000 It's just like, I don't know if I want to cross this barrier that I assume is going to be emotionally heavy.

00:50:12.000 And Donnie was basically like, look, man, If you don't want to hunt, you don't have to hunt.

00:50:18.000 But I think you'll understand why we come out here more if you do hunt.

00:50:24.000 So I was like, okay.

00:50:26.000 I think I'll do it.

00:50:27.000 I think.

00:50:28.000 I wasn't entirely sure, honestly, the whole time.

00:50:30.000 So you had a tag, but you weren't sure if you were going to use it.

00:50:33.000 Yeah.

00:50:34.000 And we, you know, at one point we are on this hill glassing, and we've been watching this herd who was on this other hill far away.

00:50:42.000 There's kind of a valley between us.

00:50:43.000 And they start moving.

00:50:49.000 We're good to go.

00:51:05.000 We're just cranking at, you know, what we think is going to be about 300 yards.

00:51:08.000 We, like, get into the dirt and we army crawl.

00:51:11.000 And I've got the, you know, meanwhile I have the rifle.

00:51:14.000 And army crawl a couple hundred yards, pop up, can't see anything, another hundred yards.

00:51:21.000 And I'm looking through the scope and Donnie has binoculars, you know.

00:51:24.000 And all of a sudden at the apex of the saddle just, like, appear these antlers, right?

00:51:32.000 And then more antlers and there's about 30 of them in this herd and we'd already identified at least two that we thought were older and bigger.

00:51:40.000 And they come over this saddle and down like exactly as we'd hoped and you know they're 300 yards, 200 yards and still at this point I'm like Are you sure you're going to do this, man?

00:51:52.000 You know, I mean, it's heavy.

00:51:54.000 And they get within about 150 yards, and there's this one that had come over that we could see as he was walking.

00:52:03.000 He's limping on his back leg.

00:52:05.000 So it's like, that's the one.

00:52:07.000 You know, he's old, really, really interesting, ornate antlers, just old dude who'd clearly been injured somehow.

00:52:14.000 Who knows?

00:52:15.000 Yeah.

00:52:16.000 They get within 150 yards and it's like, this is the point where I want to shoot.

00:52:20.000 But it kept going in and out of the herd.

00:52:22.000 I couldn't get him in the scope.

00:52:24.000 And Donnie sort of leans over to me and he's like, hey man, if you don't want to shoot, you don't have to shoot.

00:52:32.000 But if you're going to shoot, you need to do it soon.

00:52:36.000 And so I look down the scope and...

00:52:40.000 Now they're 160, 170. They pass the point where they're kind of going away from us.

00:52:45.000 And I'm like, shit, what do I do? 0.98

00:52:47.000 And all of a sudden, they part and he's right there. 1.00

00:52:52.000 And it was like, big deep breath, pull the trigger.

00:52:59.000 Pull the trigger again, and it's like he's down. 0.99

00:53:03.000 And in that moment, I was like, holy shit, what have you done? 0.99

00:53:07.000 Like there is no coming back from this, right? 0.99

00:53:10.000 Like it hit me pretty heavy.

00:53:12.000 And so we walk out and it's, you know, down on the tundra, almost like it had been placed perfectly.

00:53:19.000 There's the only sign that it is dead is there's like this tiniest trickle of blood coming down its mane.

00:53:26.000 And I was like, dude, what have you done?

00:53:31.000 Like, look at this majestic thing and that's on you, you know?

00:53:36.000 And Donnie's a good person to go with because him and William were like, hey, we're gonna go get our stuff because we left our packs back there.

00:53:42.000 So he gave me a minute with it.

00:53:43.000 And as I'm sitting there, It was super interesting.

00:53:47.000 I'd like to hear what you think about what your experience has been.

00:53:52.000 It hit me like it was the most depressed and alive I've ever felt at the same time.

00:53:59.000 Unbelievable feeling.

00:54:00.000 I don't know how to describe it.

00:54:02.000 Just thankful.

00:54:03.000 A lot of gratuity.

00:54:07.000 But at the same time, I'm like, I don't know if I'd ever do this again.

00:54:11.000 Those guys get back and Then we start to, you know, field dress the animal.

00:54:17.000 And in that moment, my mind started to shift because I went from, okay, you just killed this majestic creature to now I'm seeing it as meat and therefore a giver of life or less.

00:54:31.000 And I think to myself, dude, you eat meat all the time at home and never once do you feel an iota of emotion, but you do here.

00:54:39.000 And so it made me a lot more appreciative of Not only like that animal and the place where it came from, but also all meat that I eat now, right?

00:54:48.000 Like it totally woke me up to like what goes into eating meat.

00:54:53.000 And so now it's interesting.

00:54:54.000 Paradoxically, you would think when someone starts hunting, they would eat a lot more meat.

00:54:58.000 It's like, no, I actually eat less meat now because I kind of better understand where it comes from and what has to go into it.

00:55:06.000 And sort of this idea of death and being more aware of it After I got back from the Arctic, I traveled to Bhutan.

00:55:17.000 I wanted to know more about this and what can becoming more aware of our death do for us.

00:55:24.000 So Bhutan is interesting because it's one of the least developed countries on Earth, but paradoxically, it's one of the happiest.

00:55:32.000 And one thing that people are instructed to do in Bhutan is to think about their death at least once every day.

00:55:40.000 And this is part of like, it's woven into the culture, that idea, and also the idea of death itself.

00:55:46.000 So like a lot of their art and traditions center around death.

00:55:50.000 They have, there's these little things called sasas, and they're basically these tiny clay pyramids.

00:55:57.000 And it's clay mixed with ashes of the dead, and they are everywhere, all over the country.

00:56:04.000 So you can kind of think about it as like a very death-aware country.

00:56:07.000 Mm-hmm.

00:56:08.000 Why are they so death aware?

00:56:10.000 It's part of the Buddhist tradition that they follow.

00:56:14.000 They've just sort of leaned into that more than other countries.

00:56:17.000 And so I wanted to know, like, how does this idea of death and their intimacy with it contribute to their happiness?

00:56:25.000 Because by all metrics, they should be miserable if we're looking at it from an economic perspective, right?

00:56:30.000 But here they are.

00:56:31.000 They're in the top 20 happiness rankings.

00:56:33.000 And so I met with one of their economists who studies happiness in the country.

00:56:40.000 But I also met with two Buddhist leaders.

00:56:43.000 And one of these...

00:56:46.000 It was pretty wild.

00:56:48.000 So in Bhutan, the law states that you have to have a driver everywhere you go.

00:56:53.000 Tourism is very heavily regulated.

00:56:57.000 So I have this driver, and I'm going to meet this guy who's a Kempo, which is essentially really high up in Buddhism. 0.99

00:57:03.000 And he lives right by this monastery called De Carpo.

00:57:09.000 And it's on this cliff, right?

00:57:11.000 And my driver has what is essentially a smart car with a backseat.

00:57:15.000 And we have to go up this mountain road, cliff-side mountain road that's totally rutted out.

00:57:20.000 I'm like, are you going to be able to make this?

00:57:22.000 And he's just like...

00:57:25.000 I mean, we're like four-wheeling this smart car thing, and it was just unbelievable.

00:57:29.000 And after 45 minutes, you know, he pulls over, and I have to hike for maybe 10 minutes along this trail and get to this guy's shack.

00:57:39.000 And, you know, he has someone there who helps him with stuff, and she makes me do this, like, cleansing ritual with, like, smoke and, you know, some water.

00:57:47.000 And I go into this guy's shack.

00:57:49.000 It's like the first room.

00:57:50.000 There's nothing in it.

00:57:51.000 Second room, it's a kitchen.

00:57:54.000 Very basic, like a cooktop or whatever.

00:57:56.000 And the third room has this silk sort of drape in it.

00:58:01.000 And I pull that drape back and I'm immediately hit with the smell of burning incense.

00:58:07.000 And on the right, there's this, there's like a big statue of the Buddha and like photos and different little, you know, trinkets, Buddhist trinkets.

00:58:17.000 And then I look over and the light is like catching this incense smoke.

00:58:23.000 And behind it, there's this guy's face.

00:58:25.000 And he just looks over at me and he's in the lotus position on this platform.

00:58:29.000 He's in his full like Buddhist robes and everything.

00:58:33.000 And he just looks at me and goes, welcome.

00:58:37.000 And it was like... 0.99

00:58:38.000 Some Doctor Strange shit. 0.99

00:58:40.000 Oh, dude. 0.99

00:58:41.000 It was like...

00:58:42.000 I mean, if you want to talk about, like, cliche in terms of, you know, the gangly Western writer has come to see the guru. 0.99

00:58:50.000 That was fucking it, dude. 0.99

00:58:52.000 Wow. 0.99

00:58:53.000 And so I talked to him for a few hours about, you know, death and, like, how do we...

00:58:59.000 How do they view it there versus us?

00:59:01.000 And...

00:59:03.000 He talks about it in terms of when you think about the fact that, you know, I'm going to die, you're going to die, we're all going to die eventually.

00:59:11.000 You take that into your life, it changes your behavior because you start to realize, like, there's going to be an end to all this, right?

00:59:19.000 And things that maybe were, you know, finicky in your life or these, like, little minute things that really work you up, I think?

00:59:44.000 Those people end up report that they're happier, that they're, like, more on track in their life.

00:59:48.000 They've done this in people who are dying as well, where they, like, think about the end and accept it, sort of take it into their life.

00:59:56.000 They have better lives.

00:59:58.000 It's really interesting.

00:59:59.000 And, I mean, it's something I do in my own life, and I can tell you that I think it actually works.

01:00:06.000 Yeah, being aware of where this ride ends.

01:00:10.000 Right.

01:00:11.000 It's probably very important in terms of what you need to enjoy the ride.

01:00:17.000 You just think it's going to go on forever.

01:00:19.000 It's like you're saying about kind of being impatient about the waitstaff.

01:00:25.000 That restaurant and thinking what an inconvenience it is that they're so slow to get you water versus what you feel after you've been hunting for 33 days and actually killed an animal.

01:00:41.000 We're so spoiled in terms of Our attachment to food.

01:00:47.000 I decided about nine years ago that I was either going to become a vegan or I was going to become a hunter.

01:00:55.000 I was like, there's no middle ground.

01:00:59.000 I'm going to have to figure out what it means to eat.

01:01:04.000 I was probably gone vegetarian because I think I would always eat eggs.

01:01:09.000 Especially if you have your own chickens, it's a pretty karma-free exchange.

01:01:14.000 You give them food and they give you eggs.

01:01:16.000 And the eggs are super healthy.

01:01:20.000 When I did go hunting, the moment I shot that animal, the moment it was down, you could actually watch it.

01:01:27.000 There's a video that's available online.

01:01:33.000 I had to shoot it twice.

01:01:34.000 I shot it and dropped it at 200 yards, and then as we were getting up to the animal, it was still alive. 0.88

01:01:42.000 And then I had to put it out.

01:01:44.000 And they, like, closed in on my face when I'm taking all this in.

01:01:50.000 And I shot it, and then it expired instantly.

01:01:54.000 And then I'm sitting there, just breathing in and just trying to take in, like, okay, I just killed an animal that I'm going to eat. 0.70

01:02:04.000 And I've never done this before, and I'm 40. Yeah.

01:02:07.000 You know, so here we are.

01:02:09.000 What was going through your head?

01:02:12.000 Mmm...

01:02:17.000 It would be hard for me to explain with just words.

01:02:24.000 Because it's such...

01:02:25.000 It's a strange emotion.

01:02:28.000 First of all, I didn't fully grasp...

01:02:32.000 Like you were saying, once you start cutting it up and then it becomes meat...

01:02:36.000 Like, when it was down, it was like, okay, I've done this thing.

01:02:41.000 I've done a lot of things in my life that make me nervous, and I think I always gravitate towards things that I think are difficult, that are scary, whether it's martial arts competition or stand-up comedy or anything.

01:02:56.000 I gravitate towards things that I think are difficult because I'm...

01:03:03.000 I'm attracted to these challenges.

01:03:05.000 This was a challenge because it was a new thing and it was like, you know, you're doing this rugged thing.

01:03:12.000 We floated down the river like 40 miles and carried all of our supplies and tents and set up on the banks of the Missouri and it was heavy.

01:03:25.000 It was heavy.

01:03:27.000 And so dropping this animal.

01:03:28.000 But then once we cooked, we were eating it over the fire.

01:03:33.000 That night we ate the liver.

01:03:36.000 I think we ate the heart, too, over the fire.

01:03:40.000 And I remember thinking, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life.

01:03:43.000 This is how I'm going to eat.

01:03:45.000 This is so much better than any other...

01:03:47.000 I've never felt meat that tasted this good before.

01:03:51.000 I've never felt connected to my food before.

01:03:53.000 I've caught fish before and eaten fish, and it's great.

01:03:56.000 But there's something that was so much more intense about this.

01:03:59.000 I guess because it's a mammal, there's some weird connection where your DNA is letting you know that this is way closer to you than a fish.

01:04:08.000 You can take a fish out of an ocean and take a photograph of it online. 0.99

01:04:13.000 Nobody gives a shit. 0.99

01:04:15.000 I had a thing I did on social media for a while. 0.99

01:04:17.000 I did a while back, rather.

01:04:19.000 The hierarchy of dead animals on social media.

01:04:22.000 And I had, number one was a fish.

01:04:25.000 And I was like, a dead fish. 0.99

01:04:27.000 Nobody gives a shit. 0.99

01:04:28.000 Like, you take a fish, look, I caught a bass. 0.99

01:04:30.000 Everybody's like, hey, good job.

01:04:32.000 Next was a turkey.

01:04:33.000 I had a dead turkey that I shot.

01:04:35.000 People were like, hmm, I don't know what's dead turkey.

01:04:39.000 Then I had bear meat.

01:04:42.000 It just said bear meat.

01:04:44.000 Nobody said anything.

01:04:45.000 They didn't know what to say because it was just meat.

01:04:48.000 But there's photos of me with a dead bear, and it is the most hate I've ever gotten for any photograph online.

01:04:55.000 Even though I ate that bear, and even though you have to eat...

01:04:58.000 Well, you have to shoot these bears because their population in Alberta, where my friends John and Jen run a hunting camp up there, They're out of control, and they need to control the population because they decimate the moose population, they decimate the deer population,

01:05:14.000 they cannibalize each other.

01:05:16.000 It's very unhealthy for them to not have predators.

01:05:18.000 The only predators they have is larger, bigger bears, grizzlies.

01:05:25.000 But people, for whatever reason, have not connected bears with food for a long time.

01:05:43.000 And they would smoke bear hides or smoke bear hams rather.

01:05:48.000 And bear meat was actually preferred over deer meat for whatever reason.

01:05:52.000 And deer were hunted for their pelts and bear were hunted for their meat.

01:05:57.000 And we have decided that they're teddy bears.

01:06:01.000 Yeah.

01:06:01.000 And that it's Yogi.

01:06:02.000 Exactly.

01:06:03.000 And those are our buddies.

01:06:04.000 And it's a weird...

01:06:07.000 We've just made this weird decision somewhere along the line to put, as my friend Steve Rinella calls them, charismatic megafauna.

01:06:16.000 Put them in this category of animals that you should not eat or hunt.

01:06:21.000 Yeah.

01:06:21.000 And meanwhile, the weird thing is they're the most dangerous.

01:06:24.000 They're the ones that you really should hunt because they'll eat your kids. 1.00

01:06:27.000 Yeah.

01:06:27.000 Like, a deer is not going to eat your kids.

01:06:29.000 No. 1.00

01:06:30.000 But a fucking bear will for sure. 1.00

01:06:32.000 You leave a baby in a backyard, a bear will 100% eat it. 1.00

01:06:35.000 Oh, yeah.

01:06:36.000 Not a question in the world.

01:06:37.000 Totally.

01:06:37.000 Where a deer will just look at your baby and not care at all.

01:06:40.000 We have a weird arrangement.

01:06:44.000 But eating that animal and hunting that animal, it completely changed my idea of what food is.

01:06:53.000 Completely.

01:06:53.000 And from then on, I've had a completely different idea of what food is.

01:06:57.000 And I've gone on to hunt.

01:07:00.000 I've hunted every year since.

01:07:03.000 It's something I look forward to.

01:07:04.000 I get a giant amount of my meat from it.

01:07:07.000 I give it to a lot of friends.

01:07:09.000 I keep two commercial freezers here at the studio.

01:07:12.000 You know, that's what I do now.

01:07:14.000 I hunt meat.

01:07:15.000 Yeah.

01:07:16.000 I'm healthier because of it.

01:07:35.000 Yeah, I agree.

01:07:36.000 Now the question is, how do we put that at scale for everyone?

01:07:39.000 You can't.

01:07:40.000 That's the thing, though.

01:07:41.000 It's like, you're not going to.

01:07:44.000 No.

01:07:45.000 I do think there's almost an argument, though, that Maybe in elementary school, we need to take kids to a slaughterhouse or junior high.

01:07:54.000 That needs to be a field trip to understand where things come from and what goes into this.

01:08:02.000 I think this is a selfish proclamation.

01:08:06.000 I realize it's going in.

01:08:09.000 I think the idea of doing things at scale is lost.

01:08:13.000 You've got to let it go.

01:08:14.000 You're not going to save everybody.

01:08:16.000 I feel like that with exercise.

01:08:17.000 I feel like that with meditation.

01:08:19.000 I feel like that with yoga.

01:08:21.000 I feel like that with hunting.

01:08:22.000 I feel like that with just trying to be the best person you can be.

01:08:26.000 You're only going to reach the people that want to hear the message.

01:08:31.000 And for the people that want to hear the message, those are the people that you're reaching to.

01:08:35.000 But the idea of scale, the idea of how do you feel...

01:08:37.000 I've heard that argument from vegetarians or vegans that you shouldn't hunt because when you say you should hunt for your food, how are we going to do that with the entire population?

01:08:47.000 We're not.

01:08:48.000 You know what else we're not going to do with the entire population?

01:08:50.000 Get them to read.

01:08:51.000 You're not going to get them to exercise.

01:08:53.000 You're not going to get them to do it.

01:08:54.000 I'm not here for everybody.

01:08:56.000 I'm here for anybody who wants to listen.

01:08:59.000 I'll tell you what I've done and what's changed me and what I think could maybe change you if you're so inclined to pursue it.

01:09:06.000 But this idea of reaching the masses, Jesus Christ, you've got to go back to when they're a baby.

01:09:11.000 You've got to start from scratch.

01:09:12.000 You've got to put...

01:09:14.000 Somehow or another put incentive in front of them.

01:09:16.000 You got to give them motivation.

01:09:17.000 You got to show them that there's a real reward in pursuing risk and then in doing difficult things and challenging themselves, even though it's hard.

01:09:26.000 And there's moments, man, to this day, even just doing stand-up comedy or doing anything that's hard, I mean, especially in the public eye, you face a lot of criticism.

01:09:35.000 There's a lot of, like, days where it's like, God, is this really worth it?

01:09:39.000 Right.

01:09:39.000 But then you come out on the other end of it, and it is worth it.

01:09:41.000 But you have to recognize, you have to understand the process, and you have to recognize that through this struggle, eventually there'll be a resolution that'll be better.

01:09:50.000 You'll learn, you'll get better at what you're doing, you'll be a better version of who you are because of this struggle. 0.99

01:09:56.000 But most people don't want to hear that shit. 0.99

01:09:57.000 They just want comfort. 1.00

01:09:59.000 They just want a softer seat to sit in, and they want a better sleeping pill.

01:10:04.000 So they can, you know, go to bed at night.

01:10:06.000 Yeah, well, it's, you know, when you choose the opposite path, you're fighting against millions of years of evolution.

01:10:13.000 Because back in our past environments, everything took effort, everything was uncomfortable.

01:10:18.000 To do the thing that made you most comfortable back then saved your life.

01:10:22.000 Kept you out of crazy inclement weather, saved you from effort that just burned up calories that were hard to find.

01:10:29.000 It helped you avoid risk.

01:10:31.000 And so it was great.

01:10:32.000 Right.

01:10:33.000 Until nearly about 100 years ago, right after the Industrial Revolution.

01:10:36.000 But you had to do a certain amount of difficult work just to survive.

01:10:40.000 You had to.

01:10:40.000 It was part of life.

01:10:40.000 You had to.

01:10:41.000 There was never a moment in history, unless you were like one of those really rich, overweight people that you see in those paintings.

01:10:48.000 Yeah.

01:10:49.000 Isn't it amazing that those were the attractive people? 0.75

01:10:51.000 Yeah, I love that.

01:10:52.000 When you see a guy that was super fat or a woman who was way overweight, they were the attractive ones. 0.53

01:10:58.000 It's like, look, they can eat so much.

01:11:01.000 They're just gorging themselves with food.

01:11:04.000 Oh, yeah.

01:11:04.000 For sure.

01:11:05.000 What is that?

01:11:06.000 There's this weird...

01:11:07.000 There's weird things that people do with food when they get really, really wealthy and really, really opulent and just where there's so much food, you can do whatever you want, but there's that...

01:11:20.000 There's a bird. 0.99

01:11:21.000 God damn it. 0.99

01:11:23.000 There's this bird that they soak in brandy. 1.00

01:11:26.000 It is like one of the craziest...

01:11:28.000 It's a full whole bird that's soaked in brandy and it's a small bird.

01:11:34.000 And they eat this thing...

01:11:37.000 They would eat it.

01:11:39.000 Duncan Trussell's the one who told me about this.

01:11:41.000 They would eat it underneath like a tablecloth.

01:11:47.000 And the idea was that you would get the smells of this thing in because it was like literally drowned in brandy, but also because you were shielding yourself from God.

01:11:59.000 Yeah.

01:11:59.000 What is it called again?

01:12:00.000 It's depicted on the show Billions.

01:12:02.000 Oh, is it?

01:12:03.000 It's called Axe, I guess.

01:12:04.000 No.

01:12:05.000 No, it's an...

01:12:06.000 Delicacy act?

01:12:06.000 So you're like...

01:12:07.000 Yeah, no, no.

01:12:07.000 Oh, that's the character's name.

01:12:08.000 I'm sorry.

01:12:09.000 Yeah, it's a real thing.

01:12:10.000 No, what is it called?

01:12:12.000 Yeah, that's right.

01:12:13.000 Ortolon.

01:12:13.000 Yeah.

01:12:14.000 Okay.

01:12:14.000 So this Ortolon, they would put this...

01:12:17.000 It's illegal?

01:12:18.000 Well, I think it's illegal now because they're very endangered.

01:12:23.000 Endangered.

01:12:24.000 But it's a very small bird.

01:12:26.000 And see if you can find the preparation, what it says there.

01:12:29.000 Look at that photo.

01:12:29.000 It looks very, very appetizing.

01:12:32.000 Yeah, but that's from the movie...

01:12:33.000 But you eat the whole thing.

01:12:35.000 It's not gutted or anything.

01:12:37.000 It's enveloped in fat that tastes subtly like hazelnut, French chef Michael Girard told the paper in 2014. And to eat the flesh and the fat and the little bones hot all together is like being taken to another dimension.

01:12:53.000 The fragile songbird from France, which weighs less than one ounce, And is about the size of your thumb was served exclusively to royalty and rich...

01:13:02.000 What is that word?

01:13:04.000 Gourmands.

01:13:05.000 Gourmands.

01:13:05.000 Do you know that word?

01:13:07.000 I guess that's like someone who eats gourmet food.

01:13:09.000 Yes.

01:13:09.000 Until it became illegal in 1999. The procedure for preparing an ortolan has long been controversial.

01:13:16.000 They are kept in darkness for weeks or are blinded, which causes the bird to gorge on grains and grapes and become fat.

01:13:25.000 The key ingredient to its decadence when cooked.

01:13:28.000 The birds are then thrown alive into a vat of...

01:13:32.000 How's that word?

01:13:34.000 Use your best French.

01:13:37.000 Armagnac brandy, which both drowns and marinates them.

01:13:42.000 Then roasted.

01:13:44.000 Ordolans are meant to be eaten feet first and whole, except for the beak, according to the Times. 1.00

01:13:51.000 So this was like the thing to eat if you were one of those fat fucks in a painting. 0.99

01:13:58.000 But arguably, barbaric preparation isn't why eating the bird is illegal. 0.99

01:14:03.000 They are endangered with a decreasing population.

01:14:06.000 The European Union declared Ortolan a protected species in 1979, though France took 20 years to act on this.

01:14:14.000 In 2014, Michelin-starred French chefs like Gerard and Alain Ducasse were fighting to get the bird on their menus.

01:14:22.000 Of course you were, you cunts, to revive a culinary tradition dating back to Roman times.

01:14:29.000 They wanted to be able to hunt and serve the bird. 0.93

01:14:31.000 Hunt?

01:14:32.000 Say that loosely, please.

01:14:34.000 After you've gone caribou hunting, imagine this bird the size of your thumb.

01:14:37.000 I will hunt it!

01:14:38.000 Yeah, it's like a capture so I can drown it in brandy in a week.

01:14:42.000 Hunt and serve the bird for one week a year.

01:14:45.000 They have been unsuccessful.

01:14:47.000 However, that doesn't stop some from eating the bird.

01:14:50.000 According to the New York Times, about 30,000 Ortolan are still being captured and sold illegally in the south of France, where a single bird is going for $180 or the price of an ounce of coveted white truffles.

01:15:27.000 Wow.

01:15:29.000 Yeah.

01:15:30.000 So is that what we're going to go out and have for lunch after this?

01:15:34.000 I don't think you can get it here in Texas.

01:15:36.000 Yeah, no. 1.00

01:15:37.000 But you can get brisket, which is better than that stupid fucking bird anyway. 1.00

01:15:43.000 What a strange world food can be, right? 1.00

01:15:46.000 Yeah, it is.

01:15:48.000 But that is for sure not someone who's connected to the animal's life.

01:15:53.000 Exactly.

01:15:54.000 And so this is the best example of a complete, utter disconnect from nature.

01:15:59.000 First of all, I am not into eating cute things, like a little tiny, cute little bird. 0.99

01:16:05.000 I'd have to be hungry as fuck to eat a bird the size of my thumb. 0.99

01:16:09.000 Yeah, totally. 0.99

01:16:10.000 Well, it's interesting, too, what you said about fish, that people didn't react to fish on your Instagram feed.

01:16:16.000 You see that mimicked in the grocery store, right?

01:16:19.000 Yep.

01:16:19.000 Like, fish, they have the whole thing out there.

01:16:21.000 No one cares.

01:16:22.000 With the head.

01:16:22.000 Can you imagine if you just put a full dead cow, like, in the meat section?

01:16:26.000 People would lose their minds.

01:16:27.000 They would go crazy.

01:16:28.000 It's like, well, why is that?

01:16:29.000 Well, they used to have lamb's head.

01:16:32.000 You could get lamb's brains.

01:16:34.000 My uncle used to cook lamb's brains.

01:16:37.000 It's, I guess, a delicacy.

01:16:40.000 Okay.

01:16:40.000 How was it?

01:16:41.000 They would grill it.

01:16:42.000 I don't remember.

01:16:42.000 I was really young at the time.

01:16:44.000 I remember I had it.

01:16:44.000 I was probably five or six years old.

01:16:47.000 They would grill lamb's brains, like the whole head of the lamb.

01:16:51.000 Yeah.

01:16:53.000 And it's just real rare that you could find something like that in an actual supermarket.

01:16:58.000 You'd have to go to some weirdo supermarket.

01:17:00.000 Special butcher.

01:17:01.000 Yeah.

01:17:01.000 Something like that.

01:17:02.000 Yeah, that's interesting.

01:17:03.000 All you see is meat.

01:17:04.000 You don't see any of the animal.

01:17:05.000 You don't see a hoof.

01:17:06.000 No, we have words to describe it that it's not from an animal.

01:17:11.000 Yeah, right?

01:17:12.000 Like beef.

01:17:13.000 Like certain cuts, you know?

01:17:14.000 The cuts names.

01:17:15.000 We don't say, oh yeah, this is his back muscle or this is his...

01:17:20.000 Well, I'll do you one better.

01:17:21.000 We don't even have a name for moo cows. 0.87

01:17:26.000 Like, cows?

01:17:27.000 A cow is a female animal. 1.00

01:17:29.000 Yeah.

01:17:30.000 And a bull is a male animal.

01:17:32.000 Like, a bull moose is at least a moose.

01:17:35.000 But a bull is what?

01:17:58.000 What is it?

01:17:59.000 But a cow, like a moo cow? 1.00

01:18:02.000 What is that?

01:18:03.000 We don't even have a name.

01:18:04.000 There's no name.

01:18:05.000 Right.

01:18:06.000 That's weird.

01:18:07.000 Yes, that is weird.

01:18:08.000 Because that's all we do with them.

01:18:09.000 We just eat them.

01:18:09.000 Yeah.

01:18:10.000 So we've decided the best way is to just not even have a fucking name for the animal. 0.99

01:18:14.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:18:14.000 Which is so strange, right? 0.99

01:18:15.000 At least we have a name for chicken. 0.99

01:18:17.000 But chicken, we don't give a shit about. 0.99

01:18:19.000 So when you eat chicken, it's just chicken. 0.99

01:18:20.000 We don't have to come up with a name.

01:18:21.000 Like, it's venison.

01:18:22.000 Yeah.

01:18:23.000 We don't need to use euphemisms or anything like that.

01:18:26.000 Buffalo, though, is buffalo.

01:18:28.000 It's just buffalo.

01:18:29.000 I don't know why that is.

01:18:31.000 Or bison.

01:18:32.000 We can call it bison, but a bison is a bison.

01:18:35.000 Right.

01:18:35.000 You know?

01:18:36.000 American buffalo is a bison.

01:18:37.000 Yeah.

01:18:38.000 Could be a certain type of person buys that that's more woke to the fact that they're, you know, eating meat from an animal.

01:18:45.000 I don't know.

01:18:45.000 I hate to use the word woke.

01:18:47.000 Yeah. 0.98

01:18:48.000 Do you want to punch me real quick? 0.60

01:18:49.000 No, no, I don't hate it that way.

01:18:51.000 I mean, it's just that it's a word.

01:18:52.000 But bison meat is just bison, you know, which is interesting, right?

01:18:59.000 Yeah, and it's interesting because when they do polls about who is for and against meat-eating, it...

01:19:04.000 The people who are most against meat eating tend to live in cities and be most removed from the food system.

01:19:10.000 When they poll people who live in more rural areas, they're okay with it because they have the most interactions with the animals.

01:19:19.000 So it's like the loudest voices against it tend to be people who have no clue, no intimacy or connection with it, you know?

01:19:28.000 Oh, yeah.

01:19:28.000 Well, there's a real issue with that in British Columbia.

01:19:31.000 Because British Columbia has outlawed grizzly bear hunting.

01:19:34.000 Yeah.

01:19:34.000 And they have a lot of them.

01:19:36.000 Yeah.

01:19:37.000 It's a real issue.

01:19:38.000 So for people that live up there, now these animals are no...

01:19:40.000 Because it's been going on for a few years now.

01:19:42.000 So now you'll have like two, three-year-old mature bears who've never lived during a time where bear hunting was legal. 0.99

01:19:49.000 And so these motherfuckers have no fear of people. 0.99

01:19:52.000 Yeah, they're just doing whatever. 1.00

01:19:54.000 They're doing whatever.

01:19:54.000 I mean, my friend had to shoot one entering his cabin.

01:19:59.000 It was six feet from him when he shot it. 1.00

01:20:01.000 No shit. 1.00

01:20:02.000 What did he have to do after? 1.00

01:20:04.000 Was it...

01:20:04.000 Did he have to call it in and, like, go through a big process?

01:20:07.000 No, this was actually...

01:20:07.000 This was actually before it was illegal.

01:20:09.000 Okay.

01:20:09.000 But this was...

01:20:11.000 This is how brazen these enormous animals are.

01:20:14.000 I mean, we're talking about, like, 600-pound predatory giant beast...

01:20:19.000 Yeah.

01:20:19.000 And it was coming into his cabin.

01:20:21.000 It was like literally like six feet from his cabin when he shot it.

01:20:25.000 Wow.

01:20:25.000 That's crazy.

01:20:26.000 He opens the door.

01:20:27.000 It's right there and just boom.

01:20:28.000 Yeah.

01:20:29.000 Under the dome.

01:20:30.000 Yeah.

01:20:31.000 No fear.

01:20:31.000 I can get food in here.

01:20:32.000 They had issues with it before.

01:20:34.000 It was like it had broken in and it had broken into their food supply.

01:20:39.000 There was a couple different issues with this particular bear.

01:20:42.000 And once they just decide, like, It would be literally like if you were really hungry and like a puppy was trying to keep you from getting to some food.

01:20:52.000 You'd be like, what? 0.99

01:20:53.000 No, I'm going to get to that fucking food. 1.00

01:20:55.000 That puppy's not going to stop me. 1.00

01:20:56.000 Yeah.

01:20:56.000 But luckily for the puppy, it has a rifle.

01:20:59.000 Yeah.

01:20:59.000 It has a.30-06.

01:21:00.000 That's really the relationship between a human and a grizzly bear.

01:21:03.000 They're so big.

01:21:04.000 Oh, dude.

01:21:05.000 They're huge.

01:21:06.000 They're like...

01:21:07.000 What do they get up to?

01:21:08.000 1,500 pounds, probably?

01:21:09.000 When they're by the coast and just really filled up with salmon.

01:21:12.000 Yeah, I think they can definitely get up that big.

01:21:14.000 Big, big boys.

01:21:15.000 When you were up there, what was your encounters?

01:21:17.000 You had seen some?

01:21:18.000 Yeah, we saw some from a distance.

01:21:21.000 We had one that was going through areas that we had been hiking through.

01:21:26.000 At one point, we're on this like...

01:21:28.000 Island in this river, Anasak River, and we show up on this bank and it's like, there's just these massive paws, right? 0.98

01:21:36.000 And grizzly shit everywhere. 0.76

01:21:38.000 And there's all these salmon that they'd been eating because the salmon run had happened. 0.99

01:21:42.000 And, you know, Donnie's like, well, we're definitely getting bears tonight, boys.

01:21:46.000 You know, he's just like, whatever about it.

01:21:49.000 I think he's got some gene that just takes away his fear or something like that.

01:21:53.000 I'm like, why are we camping here?

01:21:55.000 Yeah.

01:21:56.000 Well, he's been around it for so long.

01:21:58.000 Yeah, that's it.

01:21:59.000 That's it.

01:21:59.000 They all developed this weird sort of like comfort level.

01:22:03.000 Yeah.

01:22:03.000 Being around these super predators.

01:22:04.000 Yeah.

01:22:05.000 And we didn't see any there.

01:22:06.000 Luckily, we saw the bears that we think were there from a spotting scope moving out of the area like a day later.

01:22:13.000 We didn't have any encounters.

01:22:14.000 Oh, that's good.

01:22:15.000 And it was hilarious because we had gotten a caribou at that point.

01:22:18.000 And so we're Donnie at one point is like trimming the caribou in camp to, you know, because we're going to have dinner. 0.97

01:22:24.000 And he's just chucking the trimmings in the bushes going, yep, definitely fucking get embarrassed tonight, boys. 0.96

01:22:29.000 Like, just whatever. 0.99

01:22:31.000 I'm going, good hell. 1.00

01:22:33.000 Maybe he's fucking with you a little bit. 1.00

01:22:34.000 Did you think that? 0.99

01:22:35.000 Like, he was playing off the fact that you were a little bit nervous about the experience?

01:22:38.000 He might have been.

01:22:39.000 I don't know.

01:22:40.000 I don't know.

01:22:41.000 If he was, Donnie, if you're listening to this. 1.00

01:22:43.000 Fuck you, Donnie. 1.00

01:22:44.000 Fuck you. 1.00

01:22:44.000 My friend John saw a bear kill a moose. 1.00

01:22:47.000 No shit. 0.99

01:22:48.000 Yeah, he said he saw the bear. 1.00

01:22:50.000 He was chasing the moose and swatted the moose in the back and broke its back.

01:22:55.000 Just one swat.

01:22:57.000 Just one swat.

01:22:58.000 That's how big and strong a mature male grizzly bear is.

01:23:03.000 So I had a, when I was in high school, I had a math teacher who would go up summers in Alaska.

01:23:10.000 And if we all turned our homework in on time, he'd tell us bear stories, right? 0.80

01:23:15.000 And he had this one story.

01:23:16.000 I don't know if it's true or not, but...

01:23:19.000 It basically goes like this.

01:23:21.000 There's a tourist, like, fishing boat or whatever.

01:23:26.000 And they sent one of the deckhands out to pick berries off of this bush, right?

01:23:32.000 And so this kid is picking these fresh berries for this tourist.

01:23:35.000 Well, come to find out there's a grizzly on the other side of this big bush also picking berries.

01:23:41.000 And they slowly converge.

01:23:42.000 They're trying to yell at him, like, hey, you know, there's a...

01:23:46.000 There's a grizzly there.

01:23:47.000 They converge and see each other.

01:23:50.000 The bear gets up on two feet, pulls back his paw, and freaking slaps the kid's head off.

01:23:56.000 I mean, that's the story. 0.99

01:23:58.000 Slapped his head off.

01:23:59.000 Like a little leaguer hitting a baseball off a tee. 1.00

01:24:03.000 Just like, holy shit. 1.00

01:24:05.000 It sounds ridiculous, but I bet it's possible. 1.00

01:24:08.000 But they're strong enough. 0.95

01:24:09.000 I know. 0.99

01:24:09.000 I told Donnie, he goes, it sounds kind of bullshit to me. 0.99

01:24:13.000 But at the same time, I'm like, I'm not going to find out on that one. 0.99

01:24:16.000 They're so big.

01:24:18.000 They're so strong, too.

01:24:19.000 Cameron Haynes has a photo on his Instagram from a couple of days ago of a grizzly that he shot and then also ate.

01:24:30.000 He's got the packages of bear meat wrapped up in his freezer and Yeah.

01:24:34.000 Because people always ask, what do you even eat that?

01:24:37.000 Yes.

01:24:38.000 Yes.

01:24:38.000 It's interesting that people get so turned off by that.

01:24:42.000 Look at the size of that thing.

01:24:43.000 Now imagine that thing hitting some guy in its head.

01:24:46.000 Oh, yeah.

01:24:48.000 It is interesting that they get turned off by the fact that someone would eat a predator, but they don't get turned off by someone eating like a duck.

01:24:56.000 Yeah, or the chicken.

01:24:57.000 They say that while eating beef or chicken.

01:24:59.000 It's like it's all weird at the end of the day.

01:25:01.000 It's like we put different value on different things, and I don't think we necessarily stop and think why.

01:25:08.000 Yeah, and Donnie loves bear.

01:25:11.000 Like, you talk to Donnie Vincent about it, he's like, anybody who thinks bear doesn't taste good, let me cook it for you.

01:25:17.000 Let me cook it for you.

01:25:18.000 He goes, like, even a big, nasty, grizzly bear, he goes, if you prepare it right and cook it right, it is delicious.

01:25:27.000 He's like, it's some of the best meat.

01:25:28.000 Yeah.

01:25:29.000 Well, I was talking to one of the guides when we were up there in Alaska, and this guy's like, I would never eat bear meat.

01:25:33.000 It just smells bad.

01:25:34.000 I don't want to be around it.

01:25:35.000 You know, the bears are filthy.

01:25:36.000 They smell bad.

01:25:37.000 I'm like, well, do you eat cow?

01:25:39.000 Why don't you go take a walk through a slaughterhouse?

01:25:42.000 Tell me if you still want to eat beef by that measure.

01:25:43.000 I've talked to a couple guides that are like that that don't like bear.

01:25:46.000 It's weird.

01:25:47.000 They get into this weird...

01:25:48.000 And the hunters...

01:25:49.000 I've talked to hunters that don't like bear.

01:25:51.000 Yeah.

01:25:51.000 But my friends John and Jen that I was telling you about up in Alberta, they've been running bear hunting camps up there for years, and...

01:25:58.000 They've got amazing recipes.

01:26:01.000 They'll slow smoke a bear ham on a Traeger, and if you have it, it's like the best roast beef you've ever had in your life.

01:26:09.000 That sounds awesome.

01:26:09.000 They brine it, and then they'll have a certain preparation.

01:26:13.000 They'll put a Traeger rub on the outside of it, slow cook it for hours and hours, and it's just falling off the bone tender.

01:26:20.000 Yeah.

01:26:21.000 There's a lot of ways to cook bear. 1.00

01:26:23.000 But in our heads, you fucking piece of shit, you just want to kill it because you're a monster. 1.00

01:26:30.000 But it's one of the smartest things to kill. 1.00

01:26:33.000 If you love deer and elk and caribou and all these animals, you really do have to control the population of these super predators.

01:26:41.000 And there's only one way to do it.

01:26:42.000 You have to hunt them.

01:26:43.000 Yeah.

01:26:43.000 They're not going to control themselves.

01:26:46.000 You can't give birth control. 0.94

01:26:47.000 Things will get totally out of whack.

01:26:48.000 Yeah.

01:26:48.000 I mean, because we, you know, you could argue it's like, well, you guys are trying to play God.

01:26:52.000 But at the same time, it's like we've had such an impact on the wild that if we don't do anything, I mean, things are going to get a little weird.

01:27:01.000 I mean, we could let it go.

01:27:02.000 Yeah.

01:27:02.000 But like, okay, see what happens, you know?

01:27:04.000 Yeah.

01:27:05.000 I don't know.

01:27:05.000 That, you guys are playing God argument, is actually valid.

01:27:10.000 Yeah, I think it is too.

01:27:12.000 I mean, if you want to be honest about the whole thing, like when someone says, oh, managing wildlife, you're playing God.

01:27:17.000 Like, yep, I think you're right.

01:27:19.000 I think they are.

01:27:21.000 But I think sound wildlife practices based on real sound research by wildlife biologists is valid too.

01:27:30.000 They know what they're doing, and they know that certain populations of animals get out of hand.

01:27:34.000 It could be a real issue, both for prey animals and for predators, for all of them.

01:27:42.000 There's a balance that can be achieved.

01:27:45.000 I mean, it's controversial, but there's a documentary.

01:27:50.000 The reason why it's controversial is because the guy who made the documentary is a bit nutty.

01:27:56.000 But it's called How Wolves Changed Rivers, and it's about Yellowstone, and it's about the reintroduction of wolves.

01:28:04.000 And now the reintroduction of wolves, although it lowered the amount of elk, the amount of elk that were in the area, it was essentially an unnaturally large population because there was no predators.

01:28:18.000 So the hunters loved it because it was easier to go find and kill an elk.

01:28:24.000 So they were upset that these wolves came in.

01:28:26.000 But then in this documentary, he's explaining how the wolves killing the elk actually made more vegetation because the elk weren't grazing on the vegetation.

01:28:38.000 It opened up these pathways for all these animals to grow and plants to grow.

01:28:44.000 All these other things survive because there's more vegetation now.

01:28:47.000 Because the populations of these deer and these cervids are down.

01:28:54.000 And that there's a real balance that needs to be achieved.

01:28:57.000 And part of it is how we've structured the lower 48, right?

01:29:03.000 Like there's roads everywhere so these animals can get sort of caged in and wolves are a lot more successful.

01:29:08.000 Whereas like in the Arctic, it's all open space.

01:29:10.000 And the caribou can see a wolf coming.

01:29:15.000 Way more often than not, wolves don't have a chance.

01:29:17.000 They have to really work together as a team to converge and find a caribou that's injured or younger or whatever.

01:29:24.000 But most of the time, caribou are getting away, so they're not as successful.

01:29:27.000 Right.

01:29:28.000 They see them coming a long ways away.

01:29:29.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:29:30.000 And caribou are fascinating because they are...

01:29:34.000 Yeah.

01:29:49.000 If it caught our scent, it was just like, see you later, dude.

01:29:53.000 Good luck, you know?

01:29:54.000 We had, one time, this was super fascinating, we had gotten skunked, had this, you know, old bull that was like the size of a Buick that just got away. 0.98

01:30:05.000 So we're coming back to camp and, you know, we've gotten our asses kicked.

01:30:10.000 We get inside of the teepee that night, and there's a herd, like, literally in our camp, you know? 0.54

01:30:16.000 And so we're like, oh, God, of course it works out that way.

01:30:19.000 So William kind of sneaks in to get a view of these guys, get some footage, and he ends up spooking them.

01:30:25.000 And Donnie and I are lying on the tundra, and this herd sprints, but they're sprinting like...

01:30:30.000 Right at us.

01:30:31.000 I mean, they don't see us.

01:30:32.000 So they get within, you know, 300 yards, 200 yards, 100 yards.

01:30:36.000 At 100 yards, you start to really hear their hooves just smashing the tundra.

01:30:40.000 You know, at 70 yards, it's like you can start to smell them.

01:30:45.000 Wow.

01:30:45.000 At 50, it's like the ground is vibrating.

01:30:47.000 It was like one of those moments where I'm just like...

01:30:50.000 Like a zen monk just totally looking at this herd and just like totally in the moment and maybe like 30 yards out one of them sees us peels up and they all follow they all react as a group in sync you know so they go up the top of this hill and Donnie and I just look at each other like holy shit man unbelievable and it's uh I mean it's like uh It's kind of like wild as a religious experience,

01:31:17.000 to be honest.

01:31:18.000 Like, you get in those positions like that where you're out there and you have things like that happen to you. 1.00

01:31:22.000 I mean, that shit changes you. 0.99

01:31:24.000 Yeah, it's purity, right? 1.00

01:31:25.000 The purity of the nature.

01:31:27.000 Yeah.

01:31:27.000 It's not like a zoo.

01:31:28.000 Exactly.

01:31:29.000 And we're out there for...

01:31:31.000 You know, we're out there encountering all these risky, sketchy things, you know, so you would think that I would be on edge the entire time.

01:31:39.000 It's so damn cold.

01:31:40.000 We've got this weather. 0.59

01:31:41.000 There's grizzlies. 0.99

01:31:42.000 You'd think that I'm, like, just a nerve-shaking, anxiety-ridden fool. 0.97

01:31:48.000 It was the complete opposite. 0.85

01:31:49.000 Of course, we had moments where there'd be spikes in nervousness, but, like, overall...

01:31:55.000 I was way calmer than I'd ever been in my life and just super chill.

01:32:01.000 Do you think that's also because of the physical exertion you're doing all day because you're walking multiple miles and you're really burning off any excess energy that you have?

01:32:10.000 I think that has something to do with it, but not everything.

01:32:13.000 So I get back and I follow up on this idea, like, what the hell's going on out there, you know?

01:32:19.000 And I meet this woman whose name is Rachel Hopman.

01:32:23.000 She's a neuroscientist.

01:32:25.000 And she's basically studying what happens to the human brain after different doses and time in nature.

01:32:32.000 So she's got this thing.

01:32:34.000 There's this idea called the nature pyramid.

01:32:36.000 And you can think about it a lot like the food pyramid, except saying, like, eat this many servings of grain and this many of meat.

01:32:43.000 It basically tells us how long we should spend in what type of nature.

01:32:48.000 So at the base of this pyramid, the research says that if you spend at least 20 minutes a day three times a week, that's associated with Less burnout and less stress and just kind of overall more well-being.

01:33:04.000 And that's the type of nature that you could find like in a city park.

01:33:07.000 Nothing too crazy.

01:33:09.000 At the next step of this pyramid is five hours a month in a little bit more out there nature.

01:33:16.000 So this is the type of stuff that you might find like in a state park.

01:33:19.000 You have to go a little bit more out there to get it.

01:33:22.000 And this is associated with a lot less depression, Better well-being.

01:33:27.000 And then at the very top, there's this thing called the three-day effect.

01:33:31.000 And it basically says that after three days in nature, it leads to these brain changes in the waves that your brain rides.

01:33:39.000 So generally, in this sort of modern, frantic world we live in, people ride these waves that are called beta waves.

01:33:46.000 And they're associated with, like, stress, just kind of go, go, go, go, go, you know? 0.72

01:33:52.000 On the third day, in nature, people's brains, when they do scans out there, they have this shit they have to take out in the wild and put these caps on people's heads.

01:34:01.000 People are riding what are called alpha waves, and those are waves that are found in experienced meditators.

01:34:07.000 And people start to report, like, man, I just feel so much calmer and more collected and more at peace and in tune with my surroundings.

01:34:15.000 It's almost like...

01:34:17.000 Kind of going on a meditation retreat, except there's no gurus and they're not charging you and you can eat whatever the hell you want, you know?

01:34:23.000 Well, that's how human beings are designed, right?

01:34:26.000 Or how we evolved.

01:34:28.000 We evolved in those kind of environments.

01:34:30.000 And so it really comes to highlight what we're doing by living in these urban environments.

01:34:38.000 Like, my friend Jeff lives in New York.

01:34:40.000 He loves it.

01:34:41.000 And one of the things he talks about, oh, I love the energy of the city. 0.99

01:34:43.000 Like, but that's fucking madness, man. 0.99

01:34:45.000 Like, the energy of that city is madness. 1.00

01:34:47.000 Yeah.

01:34:48.000 What you're doing is something that's completely contrary to the way human beings evolved in nature for hundreds of thousands of years.

01:34:56.000 You're stacking people on top of each other.

01:34:58.000 You're constantly surrounded by people that you don't know at all, which puts you in this heightened state of anxiety, which is so bizarre because as tribal creatures, Our whole inclination is to be surrounded with people that we can trust and be distrustful of people that we don't know.

01:35:13.000 And then when we see others coming, we look at them and we get nervous.

01:35:17.000 I mean, that's the whole reason why we have Dunbar's number, right?

01:35:21.000 Exactly.

01:35:21.000 Right.

01:35:22.000 Dunbar's number, which is, what, 150 people that you can keep, a tribal number that you keep in your head.

01:35:27.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:35:28.000 So there's a lot of reasons why researchers think that this time in nature is good for us.

01:35:33.000 That's one of them, that 150 number.

01:35:36.000 It more closely mimics when we're outside, especially after three days, we're usually not with as many people.

01:35:41.000 So we're out of these people-packed cities that just seem to stress us out.

01:35:46.000 There's also the physical thing that you talked about.

01:35:48.000 Usually when people are out in nature, they're moving, doing stuff.

01:35:51.000 But also the sights in nature seem to be calming for us.

01:35:56.000 So nature, it tends to be made up of what are called fractals.

01:35:59.000 So these are these repeating patterns that sort of make up the universe.

01:36:03.000 So if you think about a tree, it's like tree goes into a branch, goes into a leaf.

01:36:09.000 It's these repeating patterns or like a river system, right?

01:36:11.000 It's like small river to medium river to big river.

01:36:15.000 And those seem to be calming for people.

01:36:17.000 This is pretty interesting.

01:36:19.000 One of the reasons that...

01:36:21.000 Jackson Pollock's paintings, I think, are so popular and really speak to us, is that they're made up of fractals.

01:36:26.000 So if you think about it, how he does his paintings.

01:36:28.000 Really?

01:36:29.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:36:30.000 Are they?

01:36:30.000 I thought it was just splatters.

01:36:32.000 Well, they're designed much like fractals, where you kind of have these big splatters that go into these smaller ones, and they all kind of fade in and out.

01:36:40.000 So we see those patterns.

01:36:42.000 In nature and in the wild, but you don't get them in cities because cities are just a bunch of right angles and concrete, right?

01:36:49.000 So when we get out of nature, we are embedded in those.

01:36:52.000 Flowers and pine cones and all the different things that fit into the Fibonacci sequence.

01:36:58.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:36:58.000 And even the smells of nature are associated with, you know, better well-being and calmness.

01:37:03.000 So it's like this cascade of things that happen when we go out and spend time outdoors.

01:37:09.000 It only makes sense.

01:37:10.000 Totally.

01:37:11.000 We are from that.

01:37:13.000 Exactly.

01:37:14.000 That is how we evolved.

01:37:16.000 And there's all these reward systems that are built into being a human being.

01:37:20.000 And some of them come from being outside.

01:37:23.000 Like you're rewarded with sunshine, which creates vitamin D. You get that feeling.

01:37:29.000 That feeling when you go outside, you're like, ah, that's your body saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, stay out here.

01:37:35.000 Yeah.

01:37:35.000 We need to refuel.

01:37:36.000 Totally.

01:37:37.000 Yeah, come get some of this.

01:37:38.000 And we lost a lot of that with being locked indoors and COVID. I mean...

01:37:44.000 Unfortunately.

01:37:45.000 Yeah, not good. 0.97

01:37:45.000 This has been a fucking really strange year for mental health and physical health. 0.97

01:37:51.000 Yeah. 0.97

01:37:52.000 And a really strange year for counting on our so-called leaders to guide us in terms of what's the best course of action for being healthy.

01:38:02.000 The best course is not wear a face diaper and wait to get jabbed.

01:38:06.000 The best course is take care of your physical health first.

01:38:09.000 That's number one.

01:38:10.000 There was no discussion about that.

01:38:12.000 There's no discussion about vitamins and exercise and healthy behaviors versus unhealthy behaviors.

01:38:18.000 And maybe this is a good time to lose weight.

01:38:21.000 More than 70, I think it was 78% of people in the ICU for COVID were obese.

01:38:26.000 That information was not distributed widely because they're worried about fat shaming people.

01:38:30.000 Instead of worried about giving people the information that they could use to boost their natural immune system and to bring their physical body into a healthier state, no, we have to protect people.

01:38:41.000 We have to protect people from their feelings. 0.99

01:38:43.000 Get the fuck out of here, man. 0.99

01:38:44.000 You're supposed to tell people to lose weight. 1.00

01:38:46.000 You're supposed to.

01:38:47.000 Go out there and move around.

01:38:48.000 Be healthy.

01:38:49.000 Yeah, and if you look at the numbers, I mean, that was one of the biggest risk factors.

01:38:54.000 Biggest comorbidity factor.

01:38:55.000 Yeah.

01:38:56.000 And I don't know.

01:38:59.000 It's projected to get even worse.

01:39:01.000 Like, the overweight obesity rate is supposed to go up into the 80s by 2030, the CDC projects.

01:39:07.000 Yeah, I'm not surprised.

01:39:09.000 And it's, I mean, there's a lot of reasons for this, right?

01:39:13.000 It's that we don't, our environments, we don't have to move as much.

01:39:16.000 Like, you could literally, today, Take, like, a thousand steps every day and be totally fine.

01:39:22.000 You could live on, right?

01:39:23.000 Whereas in the past, it's like, yeah, good luck.

01:39:26.000 Our food system, it's like we have so many foods that are designed to tap into this evolutionary reward system that we have, you know, with, like, dopamine spikes.

01:39:36.000 Sugars and fat.

01:39:37.000 Sugar, salt, fat spike.

01:39:38.000 Did you wear a Fitbit when you were out there in the Arctic?

01:39:43.000 Well, I don't know where I would have charged it, but I would have loved that.

01:39:47.000 How many steps do you think you would have gotten in in a day if you had an Apple Watch or a whoop strap?

01:39:51.000 God, I don't know. 0.54

01:39:52.000 Well, I think that I would have had to tweak the algorithm because were they normal steps or were they fucking Arctic steps on these tundra tussocks where you're just like... 0.99

01:40:02.000 Someone kill me out here, please.

01:40:04.000 That's where something like a whoop strap would come in handy because it would give you an indication of where your heart rate was and heart rate variability, so it would show you how much stress you've... 0.97

01:40:14.000 Day strain.

01:40:14.000 Yeah, how much strain you've blown out during the day.

01:40:18.000 Yeah, well, I mean, I can tell you the hardest thing after I killed the caribou is packing it out.

01:40:23.000 Oh, my God.

01:40:23.000 On the tussocks.

01:40:24.000 On the tussocks in the tundra.

01:40:26.000 We're about five miles from camp, and it was... 0.99

01:40:29.000 Just because, you know, karma's a bitch. 0.99

01:40:31.000 It was all uphill on the way back. 0.92

01:40:33.000 So I've got like, you know, 100 pounds or whatever.

01:40:37.000 And my background is I worked at Men's Health for a lot of years.

01:40:42.000 And, you know, I'm kind of into the outdoors.

01:40:43.000 I've done some fitness stuff. 0.59

01:40:45.000 It's like, look, at the end of the day, I'm a gangly-ass writer.

01:40:48.000 But, like, my work has forced me to go into some interesting physical situations.

01:40:53.000 So it's like, you know, whatever.

01:40:55.000 Done some stuff.

01:40:57.000 That was the hardest thing I've ever done.

01:40:58.000 Yeah.

01:40:59.000 By far.

01:40:59.000 I would imagine it would take a long-ass time, too.

01:41:02.000 How long did it take you to hike out five miles with 100 pounds on your back?

01:41:06.000 Five hours.

01:41:07.000 Wow.

01:41:07.000 Yeah.

01:41:08.000 So we're going about a mile an hour, one foot in front of the next.

01:41:11.000 It was messed up, dude.

01:41:13.000 And you must have been so tired when you got done.

01:41:16.000 Oh, yeah.

01:41:17.000 Oh, unbelievable.

01:41:18.000 Like, at one point, we...

01:41:21.000 We run into these two doll sheep, just amazing animals, and I just kind of looked at them like, okay, good to see you.

01:41:28.000 I just need to keep moving.

01:41:29.000 Like, I'm just going. 0.99

01:41:30.000 I don't give a shit. 0.99

01:41:31.000 I just want this to be over. 0.99

01:41:32.000 How far away were they?

01:41:34.000 Pretty close.

01:41:34.000 I would say...

01:41:37.000 Maybe 50 yards.

01:41:38.000 Wow.

01:41:39.000 If you had a tag, there's not a chance in hell they'd be that close.

01:41:43.000 No.

01:41:45.000 But it was interesting because then I get back and it kind of made me think about how we approach exercise, even in the modern world.

01:41:52.000 You could argue we even try to make that comfortable too, right?

01:41:55.000 Because we do it in this air-conditioned gym and we get on a treadmill and we zone out to dog the bounty hunter or whatever the hell.

01:42:03.000 We want to watch.

01:42:04.000 Or you're taking a spin class and someone's motivating you.

01:42:07.000 They're like, come on!

01:42:08.000 Keep pushing! 0.95

01:42:10.000 Let's go!

01:42:11.000 Yeah!

01:42:12.000 Totally.

01:42:13.000 And the beat comes on.

01:42:18.000 I've never done a spin class, but I've seen them on TV. I don't know, man.

01:42:21.000 It sounds like you have.

01:42:22.000 That was pretty good.

01:42:23.000 I did.

01:42:24.000 I'll tell you the truth.

01:42:24.000 I love yoga.

01:42:26.000 I'm not opposed to doing a spin class.

01:42:27.000 No.

01:42:28.000 I took a cardio kickboxing class recently.

01:42:31.000 How was that?

01:42:31.000 It was fun.

01:42:32.000 Yeah.

01:42:32.000 It was fun.

01:42:34.000 Yeah.

01:42:36.000 They like play music and everybody has a bag and then they call out combinations and you go off on the bag.

01:42:42.000 It was pretty fun.

01:42:43.000 Oh, that's cool.

01:42:43.000 Yeah.

01:42:44.000 All right.

01:42:44.000 I might dabble.

01:42:45.000 It was good.

01:42:46.000 All right.

01:42:46.000 It was like me and my wife and my daughter and like mostly ladies.

01:42:53.000 I think I was the only guy.

01:42:54.000 Maybe there was one other guy in the room.

01:42:55.000 It's okay.

01:42:56.000 Get out of your comfort zone.

01:42:58.000 Yeah.

01:43:00.000 But the guy doing it was like, you know, it was more of like a...

01:43:07.000 What's the best way to describe it?

01:43:11.000 It's exercise, but it's fun.

01:43:14.000 It's like a fun thing.

01:43:16.000 It's not like, you know, you go to a regular kickboxing class.

01:43:20.000 They're hard people.

01:43:22.000 You know, like real kickboxers.

01:43:25.000 They're scary people.

01:43:26.000 Yeah, they're trying to kick something in real life.

01:43:28.000 Yeah, they're trying to fight internal demons externally through this martial art.

01:43:33.000 There was no demons in that room.

01:43:35.000 It was all yoga pants.

01:43:36.000 Yeah.

01:43:36.000 So I've been to one spin class.

01:43:39.000 And it was for a story when I was on staff at Men's Health.

01:43:43.000 They thought it'd be really funny if they had me exercise with a bunch of old guys for like a week because I was like kind of hard charging, you know? 0.98

01:43:51.000 They're like, you're going to have to exercise with this group of old guys for a week. 1.00

01:43:55.000 How old are these guys?

01:43:57.000 70s.

01:43:58.000 Old.

01:43:59.000 Were they fit?

01:44:00.000 No.

01:44:01.000 No?

01:44:01.000 No.

01:44:02.000 No, dude.

01:44:04.000 So, like, one of the things that these old guys like to do is go into spin class, and I'm in there, and there's this one in front of me that, like, was in this group, and, you know, before we got there, he'd been, like, telling me, he's like, yeah, I'm really into, you know, rare Jefferson airplane recordings or whatever. 0.98

01:44:22.000 The spin class starts, and I, like, realize, and I'm just looking at this old dude's butt the entire hour spinning.

01:44:28.000 Don't you want somebody?

01:44:29.000 Well, I'll tell you what I thought about.

01:44:32.000 All the joy within you dies, man. 0.91

01:44:34.000 I'm just like, holy hell.

01:44:37.000 It was an interesting story.

01:44:39.000 He's really into Jefferson Airplane.

01:44:41.000 That's dating yourself.

01:44:43.000 Yeah.

01:44:43.000 Before Jefferson Starship.

01:44:45.000 Yeah.

01:44:45.000 Because Jefferson Airplane was first.

01:44:47.000 Yeah, totally.

01:44:48.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:44:49.000 They have great fucking music, though. 1.00

01:44:51.000 Oh, yeah. 0.99

01:44:51.000 They're interesting. 0.99

01:44:52.000 Listen to some of their old shit. 0.99

01:44:53.000 I was watching this Hunter S. Thompson documentary. 0.99

01:44:57.000 And in it, it talked about, you know, how he was like really in a grace lick when she was performing in San Francisco.

01:45:04.000 And, you know, it showed them like performing and it showed, you know, like you listen to some of the music and you realize like, wow, I forgot. 0.97

01:45:12.000 I forgot how fucking good they were. 0.97

01:45:14.000 Yeah. 0.98

01:45:14.000 So are you a Thompson junkie? 0.98

01:45:16.000 Yeah, I'm a giant fan.

01:45:19.000 Me as well.

01:45:21.000 Yeah, I think that's why I got...

01:45:22.000 I think two things got me into writing.

01:45:25.000 One of them was Thompson, the kid.

01:45:27.000 I grew up in Utah, so you can imagine this kid who grew up in Mormon country.

01:45:30.000 I wasn't raised Mormon, but...

01:45:31.000 Oh, really? 0.99

01:45:31.000 And then I read The Great Shark Hunt, and it was like, holy shit, what is this? 0.99

01:45:38.000 And it was just like, it was on, you know? 0.98

01:45:40.000 Yeah.

01:45:40.000 He was a fascinating guy.

01:45:42.000 Yeah.

01:45:43.000 There's a cautionary tale in there as well, too, right?

01:45:46.000 Oh, totally.

01:45:48.000 Excess substance abuse.

01:45:49.000 Well, that and even as, I think of him as one of the best things that ever happened to writing.

01:45:54.000 And one of the worst things that ever happened to writers because there's a lot of people who try and mimic that and they just can't.

01:46:02.000 I have students who that's what they want to do and they'll get messed up before they go out and report a story and I'm just like...

01:46:11.000 Pump the brakes, bud.

01:46:14.000 Well, you know what, man?

01:46:15.000 It's like, that's who he was.

01:46:18.000 The problem is that's who Hunter was.

01:46:22.000 I know you want to be like Hunter, but you very rarely get to be yourself by trying to be like someone else.

01:46:28.000 You just got to figure out who you are.

01:46:31.000 And maybe one of the ways is to try to be like that guy, and then along the way you realize, hey, this is not for me, and then you find yourself...

01:46:39.000 One thing that does happen with stand-up comedians is, especially in the open mic days, you find yourself mimicking the comedians that you admired.

01:46:48.000 The ones that inspired you to get into comedy sound just like them.

01:46:53.000 Patrice O'Neill used to call them babies.

01:46:56.000 He'd be like, I got a lot of babies out there.

01:46:59.000 People that wanted to talk like Patrice.

01:47:03.000 And Dave Attell had probably the most babies of anybody.

01:47:06.000 Because there's all these comedians that wanted to talk like Dave Attell.

01:47:09.000 Okay.

01:47:10.000 So they would have their punchline sound like his.

01:47:13.000 Yeah.

01:47:13.000 Because he's got this very hilarious and very specific way of delivering material.

01:47:20.000 That makes sense.

01:47:21.000 That's funny.

01:47:21.000 Yeah, but most of them, and I've known some guys that started out like that, that did sound like a tell or whoever, and they mostly, if they stay in a long time, if they're legit, they come around and then they become themselves.

01:47:35.000 You've got to just give them time.

01:47:37.000 Yeah.

01:47:38.000 It's like you take a little bit from everyone and that's how you become you.

01:47:41.000 Yeah, but doing acid and going to the Kentucky Derby, it's been done, bro.

01:47:45.000 You might not want to do that.

01:47:47.000 The Kentucky Derby is decadent and depraved.

01:47:50.000 It's a fantastic piece, though.

01:47:52.000 Oh, yeah.

01:47:53.000 It talks about getting off the plane and meeting that dude at the bar.

01:47:56.000 Just the dialogue is just unbelievable.

01:47:59.000 There's so much energy to his writing.

01:48:01.000 It's like, what does he say?

01:48:02.000 He's like, I'll have a margarita.

01:48:03.000 And he's like...

01:48:04.000 Oh, hell no, you won't.

01:48:05.000 Have a bourbon on ice.

01:48:07.000 And he's like, okay, whatever.

01:48:08.000 Yeah.

01:48:09.000 Just like, I'd love that.

01:48:10.000 He had this insane routine that it was documented in, I forget what book it was, or article some woman wrote about him.

01:48:21.000 I'm pretty sure it was a woman, but Greg Fitzsimmons and I read it on the air, like read just what he did, like 6 o'clock in the morning, cocaine, all these different things that he did. 0.99

01:48:32.000 And then, who's the fucking guy that turned it into a song? 0.98

01:48:40.000 Something Man. 0.99

01:48:43.000 What is his name?

01:48:46.000 But it's...

01:48:48.000 6am in the hot tub with champagne was the end of the day for Hunter.

01:48:53.000 Okay, yeah.

01:48:54.000 And so the song's called 6am in the hot tub with champagne.

01:48:58.000 Nice.

01:48:59.000 But it just, me and Fitzsimmons going over the entire day of his drug use.

01:49:04.000 That's great.

01:49:06.000 Cigarettes.

01:49:06.000 Dunhills.

01:49:07.000 Yeah.

01:49:08.000 Cocaine.

01:49:08.000 Lots of grapefruits.

01:49:10.000 Chivas.

01:49:10.000 Yeah.

01:49:11.000 Beardy Man.

01:49:11.000 That's right.

01:49:12.000 There you go.

01:49:13.000 It's pretty funny.

01:49:14.000 Nice.

01:49:14.000 But it's 6 a.m.

01:49:17.000 And he would become ready to write at like midnight.

01:49:19.000 With morning papers.

01:49:20.000 3.45.

01:49:22.000 Cocaine.

01:49:23.000 Another glass of Chivas.

01:49:24.000 He woke up at 3 p.m.

01:49:25.000 4.05 p.m.

01:49:27.000 By the way, first cup of coffee.

01:49:37.000 Yeah, I mean, so you want to be the guy that they write You know, a story and someone makes a song about your routine. 0.92

01:49:50.000 You want to be this legendary guy where you show up with a fucking Vegas visor on and, you know, and... 0.82

01:49:55.000 That weird walk. 0.99

01:49:57.000 Yeah.

01:49:57.000 Well, he had a bad hip.

01:49:58.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:49:59.000 That's what's fucked. 1.00

01:50:00.000 Like, it's one of the reasons why he killed himself. 0.99

01:50:02.000 At the end of his life, he was in agonizing pain.

01:50:05.000 You know, he had hip replacement surgery and all this.

01:50:08.000 I don't even know how he blew his hips out, but... 1.00

01:50:10.000 He was, by the end of his life, he was fucked. 1.00

01:50:13.000 Couldn't talk. 0.99

01:50:15.000 He would go on these talk shows, like he would go on Conan in particular, and he was, you could not decipher.

01:50:24.000 Right.

01:50:25.000 What he was saying, because he had literally destroyed his ability to communicate through cocaine and drugs and alcohol, and he was always drunk, and it was just like...

01:50:37.000 You go back and see him in the 60s, like when he would talk, and even though he was odd, and he was clearly like...

01:50:48.000 Very unusual dude who liked to party.

01:50:51.000 You can understand him.

01:50:53.000 He had deteriorated in a way that I don't think he was aware.

01:50:58.000 No.

01:50:59.000 I don't think he was very self-aware.

01:51:01.000 I think he was always medicated.

01:51:03.000 I think he was always under the influence of something, unfortunately.

01:51:05.000 Yeah, I think so too.

01:51:09.000 People lose sight of it.

01:51:10.000 There's also a great documentary where he talks about how he's become Gonzo.

01:51:15.000 Like, he's become this guy where he doesn't know what they want when he shows up.

01:51:24.000 Do they want Hunter S. Thompson or do they want Gonzo?

01:51:27.000 Right.

01:51:27.000 He becomes a character, so he has to, like, every single day, it's like, well, I can't.

01:51:31.000 I can't not do this crazy routine because this is this character and I have to put on this show for everyone, you know?

01:51:39.000 That happens with people, right?

01:51:40.000 You become a prisoner of your image.

01:51:42.000 Yeah.

01:51:43.000 Kinnison said that.

01:51:44.000 Sam Kinnison said he would show up at parties and they would just go, oh, like he wrote about it, like, oh, it's him, it's him. 0.97

01:51:49.000 And they would just make this giant line like a fucking yard long of coke and he would do it and his heart would be ready to leap out of his chest. 0.95

01:51:55.000 They would just assume that that's what he did. 0.99

01:51:57.000 That's what they wanted to see.

01:51:59.000 They wanted to see him chug booze and do lines and just be this party animal.

01:52:04.000 Yeah, it's too bad.

01:52:05.000 I don't know.

01:52:06.000 You just got to get that across to your students that want to be Hunter.

01:52:10.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:52:11.000 There's a fucking dark ending to this story. 0.99

01:52:14.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:52:15.000 Because when he died...

01:52:17.000 I want to say he was 70. How old was Hunter when he died?

01:52:22.000 He was not old.

01:52:23.000 No, he wasn't that old.

01:52:24.000 In terms of like, you know, there's people that are 70 right now that are very lucid.

01:52:28.000 You can talk to them.

01:52:29.000 They're very interesting.

01:52:31.000 68. 68. Okay, so listen to this, man.

01:52:33.000 I'm 53. Just stop and think of that.

01:52:36.000 So he's 15 years older than me?

01:52:38.000 Yeah, that's crazy. 1.00

01:52:39.000 What in the fuck? 1.00

01:52:40.000 Couldn't walk, couldn't talk. 1.00

01:52:43.000 Yeah.

01:52:43.000 He was gone.

01:52:44.000 Well, that shows you what basic maintenance will do for you.

01:52:49.000 Yeah.

01:52:50.000 Working out, eating well.

01:52:51.000 Yeah.

01:52:52.000 Being aware of all this stuff, it's like...

01:52:55.000 That's so crazy.

01:52:56.000 I thought he was older than that.

01:52:59.000 Yeah, that's crazy. 1.00

01:53:01.000 Fuck. 1.00

01:53:02.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:53:03.000 That's crazy.

01:53:04.000 Very.

01:53:07.000 Tell your students.

01:53:09.000 Maybe you want to be Matt Taibbi.

01:53:11.000 Maybe he's a better example.

01:53:13.000 Yeah, he's got that tone and that rhythm and pacing and style.

01:53:18.000 But he's 100% there.

01:53:21.000 Yeah, totally.

01:53:22.000 And he's doing some of the best journalism in America right now.

01:53:25.000 Yeah, I agree.

01:53:26.000 It's interesting.

01:53:28.000 Being a writer has always been way back to the Hemingway days, right? 0.85

01:53:32.000 It's always been conflated, or it's always been connected, rather, to being kind of a drunk and a crazy person.

01:53:39.000 Yeah, totally.

01:53:40.000 It has been, and look...

01:53:42.000 I don't drink anymore.

01:53:44.000 And there's a good reason for that.

01:53:45.000 And at one point I had to be like, I used to idolize like Thompson and Hemingway and all these people.

01:53:51.000 And it's like, oh, if you want to be good at riding, I guess you got to drink.

01:53:54.000 And then it occurred to me, wait a minute, those guys put a gun in their mouth in their like 60s.

01:53:59.000 Like maybe that's not a good path to go down.

01:54:02.000 There's something else going on here. 0.99

01:54:04.000 They did some great fucking work before they pulled that drill out. 0.99

01:54:06.000 Yeah, they did. 1.00

01:54:07.000 That's the problem!

01:54:08.000 Exactly.

01:54:09.000 The problem is that's what Christopher Hitchens said as well.

01:54:12.000 At the end of his life when he was dying of cancer, they said, you burn the candle at both ends.

01:54:18.000 And he was like, yes, but what a glorious flame it created.

01:54:21.000 Yeah.

01:54:25.000 I don't know, man.

01:54:27.000 I don't know.

01:54:28.000 I don't think it's 100% necessary.

01:54:31.000 That's the problem.

01:54:32.000 I'm not sure, though.

01:54:34.000 Maybe it is for them.

01:54:36.000 You know, it's one of those questions where you go, do the people just have this gear and that gear also happens to come with substance abuse problems? 0.88

01:54:45.000 Whereas, like, had they never picked up a drink or drugs, like, they would have been that damn good regardless.

01:54:51.000 And, like, there's like a gene that, like, these two go step together.

01:54:55.000 I don't know.

01:54:56.000 Maybe.

01:54:57.000 It's hard to say.

01:54:58.000 It's hard to say.

01:54:59.000 I mean, look, one perspective is no one lives forever.

01:55:03.000 And, you know, there's areas that these guys hit, these places these guys hit.

01:55:11.000 Would they have hit those areas without substance abuse?

01:55:14.000 I don't know.

01:55:15.000 Yeah, I don't know.

01:55:19.000 Aggression to, like, some of Hunter's writing.

01:55:21.000 Yeah. 0.98

01:55:22.000 Like, maybe you do when you're on Coke and Chivas and you're just fucking blasted out of your mind. 0.98

01:55:27.000 Yeah. 0.85

01:55:28.000 And you're talking about, you know, the wave of civilization washing back.

01:55:33.000 Yeah.

01:55:34.000 You know?

01:55:34.000 That's an amazing line.

01:55:35.000 But, you know, at the end of his life, it's like his writing really fell off, you know?

01:55:40.000 It did bad.

01:55:41.000 Yeah.

01:55:41.000 It did.

01:55:42.000 It did bad.

01:55:42.000 So, I don't know.

01:55:43.000 There's like a...

01:55:44.000 I think there's probably this sweet spot, right?

01:55:49.000 But if you keep going after it, you're never going to hold that and just keep chasing.

01:55:55.000 It's always going to be rolling back.

01:55:57.000 The wave doesn't, you know...

01:55:59.000 Say it like him.

01:56:00.000 It's like the wave doesn't roll back and then spontaneously go back up.

01:56:03.000 Did you learn anything in writing this book?

01:56:07.000 Did you learn anything about yourself, about your own relationship with comfort?

01:56:10.000 Did it change your perspective in approaching it in this deep study of creating this book, The Comfort Crisis?

01:56:18.000 I think so.

01:56:19.000 I think the biggest thing for me, and this kind of goes back to that story I told you about the restaurant, is we don't realize just how different our lifestyles are now than they were in our recent past, even 100 years ago.

01:56:33.000 But we evolved in these uncomfortable environments, and we have tipped the balance so far into everything being easy and effortless and challenge-free.

01:56:44.000 That we take so much for granted, you know?

01:56:46.000 And so for me, it was like, I had to go through that in order to see that.

01:56:50.000 And from that, I found a lot more gratitude.

01:56:52.000 Like, when I was out there and things really sucked, like, I just thought to myself, like, I just was filled oddly with gratitude.

01:57:00.000 It's like, I appreciated my wife.

01:57:04.000 You know, my mom appreciated everything that I had at home.

01:57:08.000 And it's like that, I mean, it was a deep, deep sense that I haven't ever felt in my life.

01:57:13.000 But also, I think that the other thing is, I think that people are capable of way more than we think, you know?

01:57:23.000 So going into the Arctic, I'm like, man, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do this and sort of hang on.

01:57:28.000 I mean, I was, you know, I was sketched out about it.

01:57:31.000 It's like when I got in that plane for the first time, I'm shitting my pants on the runway.

01:57:35.000 I'm like, you want me to get in that little thing?

01:57:38.000 I don't like flying on a 737, much less this plane that's the size of a Snickers bar.

01:57:45.000 But then we go out, and we face all these different things, and you just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

01:57:52.000 Each situation is hard, but you get through it. 1.00

01:57:55.000 When that plane comes and picks me up a month later, Fuck it. 1.00

01:58:01.000 I'll get in it. 1.00

01:58:01.000 Fuck it. 1.00

01:58:02.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:58:03.000 So I think a lot of fears fade when we reintroduce challenges into our life.

01:58:07.000 So this is a concept I talk about in the book.

01:58:09.000 You know, it's like... 0.98

01:58:11.000 As we evolved, we did hard shit all the time. 0.99

01:58:14.000 This could be from a hunt. 0.99

01:58:17.000 This could be from trying to migrate across the pass, you know, and a storm hits.

01:58:21.000 This could be from tigers lurking in the bushes.

01:58:24.000 And this was often without safety nets, right?

01:58:26.000 But in modern life, we don't face any of these challenges anymore.

01:58:29.000 So we have an outsized fear of failing.

01:58:33.000 And we have a...

01:58:34.000 I mean, nowadays, it's like...

01:58:36.000 You slip up giving a presentation at work, you say the wrong word. 0.78

01:58:39.000 You want to kill yourself. 0.91

01:58:40.000 Yeah, it's like, oh my god. 1.00

01:58:41.000 Or you didn't get enough likes.

01:58:43.000 It's like, that is failure.

01:58:44.000 And these failures are often in our head, whereas in the past, it was like there was real consequences to failure.

01:58:49.000 So I think trying to figure out ways where how can I insert these moments where I'm facing these, you know, sort of evolutionary challenges can show us that we have way more potential than we thought.

01:59:02.000 It's like we get out to that edge of our comfort zone.

01:59:06.000 And all of a sudden it expands, and it expands, and we learn something about ourself.

01:59:11.000 We learn that we're capable of more, and then we come back into our modern life. 0.97

01:59:14.000 It's like, bitch, I got this. 1.00

01:59:18.000 Yeah, I think I've definitely found that personally, that in doing challenging things, it makes the challenges of regular life less nerve-wracking. 0.98

01:59:30.000 And also the opposite.

01:59:32.000 When I'm not doing challenging things, it makes the challenges of regular life more daunting.

01:59:38.000 I agree 100%.

01:59:39.000 Yeah, it stacks up on you.

01:59:40.000 Yeah.

01:59:40.000 And you can feel it.

01:59:42.000 Totally.

01:59:42.000 It's not like I've known, I've done a lot of dangerous shit and a lot of crazy stuff, so I'm immune forever.

01:59:48.000 Yeah.

01:59:48.000 No, it seems like, it's like sweeping the floor.

01:59:52.000 It has to be constant.

01:59:53.000 Yeah, you have to sweep it every day or the dust comes back.

01:59:55.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:59:56.000 You have to experience difficult shit. 1.00

01:59:58.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:59:59.000 I think we're designed that way.

02:00:01.000 I do too.

02:00:02.000 At least some of us are.

02:00:03.000 Some people feel...

02:00:04.000 There's some people that just, for whatever reason, they're okay.

02:00:08.000 Yeah.

02:00:09.000 They're calm.

02:00:10.000 I think, yeah, I think people are different, but I think most of us benefit from that.

02:00:13.000 It's like, you know, we need to reintroduce these metaphorical tigers back into our life in a variety of ways.

02:00:19.000 And so I met up with a...

02:00:21.000 I like that term.

02:00:23.000 Reintroduce the metaphorical tigers.

02:00:24.000 Yeah, it's like I met this guy afterwards.

02:00:27.000 His name's Marcus Elliott, and he's a Harvard MD, and he didn't want to be a doctor.

02:00:33.000 He wanted to get into sports science because he thought he could really move the dial on it.

02:00:37.000 This was like the early 2000s.

02:00:38.000 And he's also kind of a far-out character.

02:00:40.000 Like, he would always go to Burning Man back in the day, and he got himself through college by counting cards.

02:00:47.000 And so I'm telling you this to let you know, he's kind of a seeker a little bit, you know?

02:00:52.000 So he decides, I don't want to be an actual doctor.

02:00:54.000 I want to get into sports medicine because I think I can revolutionize the field by bringing more data and science into it.

02:01:00.000 So the first job he gets is with the New England Patriots.

02:01:03.000 And when he took the job, they at the time had about 26 hamstring injuries a year.

02:01:09.000 I mean, they weren't good.

02:01:10.000 They were racked with injuries.

02:01:11.000 He came in and added more science, basically did a lot of testing, came up with these individualized programs.

02:01:17.000 He dropped the hamstring injury rate to three a year.

02:01:21.000 Ended up winning a couple Super Bowls with the team.

02:01:23.000 Went on to become the MLB's first performance director.

02:01:28.000 And then now he does his own thing.

02:01:30.000 He has a facility called P3, and they have a contract with the NBA. So what they do, and a few other leagues too, what they do is...

02:01:39.000 Players come in and he attaches all these reflective markers all over their body and he has them run through all the movements they would in a game.

02:01:46.000 Meanwhile, there's cameras capturing these movements and then that gets fed into an algorithm so they can see how the player moves and compare it to other players and basically be like, look, the way that you jump, the way your whatever knee caves in, that's putting you at a 60% risk of having an injury this year.

02:02:05.000 So, this can also tell you what's interesting, some of the promises in your game.

02:02:10.000 So, for example, I don't know if you're into basketball at all, but Luka Doncic, guy for the Mavericks, Rookie of the Year, NBA All-Star, he started coming to P3 when he was, I think, 15. He was a decent player then.

02:02:25.000 They did all this stuff and they go, Luca, we have bad news for you.

02:02:29.000 You can't jump to save your life.

02:02:31.000 But we also have some good news.

02:02:33.000 You are off the charts at decelerating or slowing down.

02:02:37.000 Like, you're very, very fast at slowing down.

02:02:39.000 So we want you to develop your game around sprinting, stop, defender careens forward because you can slow down faster than them, shoot.

02:02:47.000 So he developed his game around that and now he's sort of the future of the NBA. I told you all that to basically tell you that this Marcus Elliott dude, he's obviously into this big data and how can we use that to improve ourselves and improve our performance,

02:03:02.000 but he also understands that not everything that improves an athlete that improves a human can be measured.

02:03:10.000 So another thing he does with his friends and players that are interested is this idea that he calls Misogi.

02:03:18.000 So it's named after an ancient Japanese myth.

02:03:23.000 And the basic idea is that once a year...

02:03:27.000 I'm gonna do something really hard.

02:03:30.000 And the way that he defines hard is I have to have a 50-50 shot of finishing it.

02:03:37.000 So that's rule one.

02:03:39.000 Must be really hard.

02:03:40.000 Rule two, don't die.

02:03:43.000 And then there's two guidelines beyond that.

02:03:45.000 The first guideline is that it has to be something kooky.

02:03:49.000 So something you just make up.

02:03:50.000 And the reason for that is because so much of what we do today is, especially athletically, is comparison shopping.

02:03:58.000 It's like, oh, well, this person ran this distance in this time.

02:04:02.000 I got to do it better than them. 0.97

02:04:03.000 So if you just make some weird shit up, it's like it's only you against you. 0.99

02:04:07.000 Right? 0.99

02:04:08.000 Right.

02:04:08.000 And then number two is that you don't really brag and boast about it and share whatever you do on social media because, again, it's you for you.

02:04:16.000 It's not so you can get a bunch of pats on the back.

02:04:19.000 So some things that he's done with people is one year they got a 85-pound rock.

02:04:26.000 And they walked it five miles underneath the Santa Barbara Channel.

02:04:30.000 So one, you know, the rock was at the bottom of the ocean.

02:04:33.000 They'd sort of dive down, you know, 10, 20 feet, whatever it was, walk 10 yards or 20 yards.

02:04:40.000 Guy would come up, next guy would come down.

02:04:42.000 And after five hours, it's like the rock is at point B. So it kind of goes back to that idea of these challenges where you like sort of separate.

02:04:50.000 You go through this trying middle ground.

02:04:51.000 You're like, I'm not gonna be able to do this.

02:04:52.000 What the hell?

02:04:53.000 You know?

02:04:54.000 But by doing it, you get on the other side and you're like, man, I really learned something about myself.

02:05:00.000 So he's done all kinds of different strange, weird, kooky challenges with different people.

02:05:05.000 And a lot of them are athletes who are really clutch performers in the playoffs.

02:05:11.000 It's like the guys that go through this because once they've gone through that, it's like...

02:05:14.000 Now all of a sudden the stress of that playoff game is perhaps not as heavy because you've had these times where you're like, man, this is really, really crazy and trying against me, you know?

02:05:24.000 So you come out on the other end of that and prove.

02:05:26.000 So I think that...

02:05:28.000 Doing something like that can be a good thing for the average person because going back to that rule one is that it has to be hard, which is defined by a 50-50 shot of finishing it.

02:05:38.000 It's like my 50% is different than your 50% is different than your 50%.

02:05:45.000 So if you're the type of person who... 0.99

02:05:48.000 I don't do shit. 0.99

02:05:49.000 I'm super lazy. 0.99

02:05:50.000 The farthest I've ever run is three miles.

02:05:53.000 Well, you could ask yourself, okay, could I run three miles again?

02:05:56.000 Well, probably.

02:05:57.000 Could I do six?

02:05:59.000 That would be pretty tough, but I think.

02:06:03.000 What about nine?

02:06:04.000 Ooh, I don't know about nine.

02:06:07.000 Go find out if you can, man.

02:06:10.000 By going through that, finishing it, you're going to learn that you maybe had a gear that you didn't realize was there, and that'll help you sort of move on.

02:06:18.000 And the nice thing is, like, you don't have to over-prepare.

02:06:21.000 It doesn't have to be a massive production.

02:06:22.000 It's just, like, they do it once a year, and again, it's one of those things that, like, he's like, look, I can't.

02:06:27.000 I can't measure this.

02:06:28.000 Do they have a time where they do it?

02:06:31.000 Just once a year.

02:06:32.000 But they have like a, this is the week to be in hell?

02:06:35.000 No, I don't think so.

02:06:37.000 Just any, just randomly?

02:06:38.000 Yeah.

02:06:39.000 Yeah.

02:06:39.000 So, I mean, I've started doing this in my own life since I got back to the Arctic and met him.

02:06:45.000 And I, I mean, I'm, you know, trained as a science journalist.

02:06:49.000 I read a shitload of studies.

02:06:51.000 I read probably a thousand studies going into this book.

02:06:54.000 Talk to researchers all the time who are You know, nerds at the NIH and that type of thing.

02:07:00.000 And doing this, I can tell you, man, there are certain things about being a human that you just can't measure.

02:07:09.000 And it's like a feeling you get when you go out and you do these hard things.

02:07:12.000 Like, that'll teach you a lot about yourself.

02:07:14.000 And that goes a long way.

02:07:16.000 What have you done since these?

02:07:18.000 So, I'm breaking a guideline here, but I'll talk about it.

02:07:23.000 So, for example, this was about a month ago.

02:07:26.000 So, the farthest I'd ever run in my life was 16 miles.

02:07:30.000 And I'm like, okay, I'm going to do some sort of outdoor trail run.

02:07:36.000 How far should I go?

02:07:38.000 I'm like, could I do double that?

02:07:41.000 32 miles?

02:07:42.000 And I'm like, I think I probably could.

02:07:46.000 I think I probably could.

02:07:48.000 What about triple that? 1.00

02:07:50.000 Fuck, I don't know if I could do triple that. 0.99

02:07:52.000 So I'm like, hey, let's go find out. 1.00

02:07:54.000 So I went out to Red Rock Canyon in Las Vegas.

02:07:59.000 And there's a trail that's 12 miles.

02:08:01.000 It's called the Grand Circle Trail.

02:08:03.000 And there's quite a bit of elevation change.

02:08:07.000 And I ran that thing four times.

02:08:09.000 First two laps were like, okay, I got this.

02:08:13.000 Third lap, I had a freaking breakdown. 1.00

02:08:16.000 I'm like, fuck this. 0.99

02:08:17.000 I'm not going to be able to do this. 1.00

02:08:19.000 I just can't do this.

02:08:20.000 We're just going to call it quits after.

02:08:23.000 And I got back on that third lap and I was like, Okay, we're gonna make a go at the fourth one, just whatever.

02:08:30.000 And on that fourth one on the way up, like I literally had this moment where I'm like running over this.

02:08:35.000 I mean, the trail is unbelievable because you go through all this red rock and just beautiful, beautiful country.

02:08:39.000 And especially because you're changing elevation.

02:08:41.000 So like the environment is changing as you do it. 0.96

02:08:45.000 I had one of those moments where literally, like, I started giggling and laughing and just being like, holy shit, I am thankful to be alive. 0.92

02:08:51.000 Like, this is unbelievable. 0.96

02:08:53.000 And I get done with that and it's like, just run like 48 miles, dude.

02:08:57.000 The farthest you've ever run is like 16. It's like...

02:09:01.000 How many hours?

02:09:02.000 Took me 10 hours.

02:09:04.000 Wow.

02:09:04.000 Yeah, the total elevation change was 13,000 feet.

02:09:09.000 So, I mean, look...

02:09:11.000 That's the 50-50 thing. 1.00

02:09:12.000 It's like, if it was like Cam Haynes, he'd be like, 48, you little bitch, you know? 1.00

02:09:17.000 But for me, it's like, I didn't know I could do that. 0.98

02:09:21.000 What caused you to cruise in the fourth one?

02:09:28.000 What was that feeling?

02:09:30.000 What gave you that extra energy?

02:09:31.000 Was it knowing that you were going to do it?

02:09:34.000 Was it that your body had just accepted the fact that this is just what we're doing?

02:09:38.000 And you're pumped up with endorphins?

02:09:40.000 What do you think it was?

02:09:41.000 I think it's a combination.

02:09:43.000 I think a lot of things are going on.

02:09:45.000 I think some, you know, again, can't be measured.

02:09:48.000 I think some innate evolutionary machinery gets triggered when we go out and we do challenging things in nature.

02:09:53.000 And we can just do them.

02:09:54.000 And I also think that humans probably evolved to believe they could do a lot less than they're actually capable of.

02:10:05.000 Because if you think about it...

02:10:07.000 If we would have evolved to just have this outsized idea of what we're capable of, we'd be like, no, I could definitely do that.

02:10:14.000 Hold my beer.

02:10:15.000 Watch this. 1.00

02:10:16.000 You die.

02:10:17.000 Whereas if we're like, oh, no, I don't want to do that.

02:10:19.000 I'm afraid of doing that.

02:10:20.000 I think it's a little bit too risky.

02:10:22.000 But then when we got put in those real positions of risk, which would have happened, if we could outdo that, we have a better chance of survival over time.

02:10:32.000 You know, you don't want the hold my beer people who are incapable.

02:10:37.000 You want the people who are a little more risk-averse, who are actually more capable than they are.

02:10:42.000 That's how your genes pass on.

02:10:43.000 Yeah.

02:10:44.000 Do you think there's a mechanism that happens in the mind or in the body where the body realizes, like, no matter what we think, how we're trying to deter this guy from doing this very difficult thing, he's going to keep doing it.

02:10:56.000 So maybe we need to release.

02:10:58.000 Just let go.

02:10:59.000 Or let some endorphins fly. 0.96

02:11:02.000 Like, there's probably some sort of a biomechanical mechanism in the mind and in the body that allows you to accomplish, like, you know, like adrenaline, right?

02:11:11.000 Yeah.

02:11:12.000 Like, adrenaline kicks in, you can do things you can never do without adrenaline.

02:11:15.000 Yeah.

02:11:16.000 Like, maybe there's something along those lines.

02:11:19.000 I think so.

02:11:20.000 We know that endorphins get released, right?

02:11:22.000 Yeah, endorphins get released.

02:11:23.000 I think some stuff just turns on.

02:11:25.000 I mean, because I don't know if your body necessarily...

02:11:29.000 Really knows, like, oh, we're doing this, you know, 10 miles or 15, 20 miles from the Las Vegas Strip.

02:11:37.000 You know, it doesn't know.

02:11:39.000 It just thinks, oh, we're running really fucking far.

02:11:42.000 Something's wrong. 0.93

02:11:43.000 Something's wrong.

02:11:44.000 We got to keep on going here, you know?

02:11:47.000 So, yeah, I don't know, man, but it's powerful.

02:11:51.000 So you're going to continue to do this every year?

02:11:53.000 Yeah.

02:11:54.000 Do you think you'll hunt again?

02:11:56.000 Yes.

02:11:57.000 Yes.

02:11:57.000 I will.

02:11:58.000 Are you going to do it with Donnie every time, or what are you going to do?

02:12:01.000 I don't know.

02:12:02.000 I'll probably do some on my own.

02:12:05.000 Donnie's a nice dude.

02:12:06.000 He set me up with a really sweet bow, but I got it right before COVID, so I was trying to take lessons, and then all of a sudden it was shut down.

02:12:13.000 That's a difficult way to do it.

02:12:15.000 Yeah.

02:12:16.000 That's a different thing.

02:12:17.000 Yeah.

02:12:18.000 Have you practiced at all?

02:12:19.000 A little bit, but I've also heard everyone be like, you're going to develop really bad habits, dude, so I'm kind of on the fence.

02:12:26.000 What do you think?

02:12:27.000 Well, there's a place in Vegas we can go and take lessons.

02:12:31.000 What is it called?

02:12:33.000 There's an archery store in Vegas that I've been to.

02:12:39.000 I want to say Performance Archery, but that's San Diego.

02:12:46.000 That's it.

02:12:46.000 Thank you very much.

02:12:47.000 Impact Archery.

02:12:48.000 I've been there before with John Dudley.

02:12:50.000 They can steer you in the right track.

02:12:52.000 They can give you some lessons.

02:12:53.000 There's people there that can show you how to do it right.

02:12:55.000 But yeah, you need someone who's showing you how to execute correctly.

02:13:00.000 And then you have to understand there's a lot of steps that happened.

02:13:08.000 It's one thing to pull the trigger on a target when there's no pressure.

02:13:12.000 Right.

02:13:12.000 Like you're standing in front of a target and you're just trying to hit the bullseye.

02:13:16.000 That's not easy.

02:13:17.000 There's a whole nother thing that happens when your body's under pressure.

02:13:21.000 Yeah.

02:13:26.000 ShotIQ.com.

02:13:29.000 There's a guy named Joel Turner.

02:13:31.000 I think that's his website.

02:13:32.000 I'm pretty sure.

02:13:32.000 And he's dedicated this course.

02:13:37.000 He's created a course.

02:13:38.000 He used to train snipers.

02:13:40.000 There it is.

02:13:42.000 I've taken his lessons.

02:13:44.000 I've studied his videos.

02:13:46.000 But it's all about dealing with target panic.

02:13:52.000 And there's target panic for archers that are competitive archers, and then there's target panic.

02:13:57.000 But he goes into the psychology of it, like what actually happens in the mind, and what it is about it.

02:14:03.000 Oh, look, that's me.

02:14:03.000 Look, scroll down.

02:14:04.000 Is that you?

02:14:04.000 Look at that.

02:14:05.000 Dude, that's a monster.

02:14:06.000 Yeah, that's an elk I shot in Utah.

02:14:08.000 Wow.

02:14:09.000 And directly learned...

02:14:12.000 What happened to that?

02:14:13.000 Um, because of his videos.

02:14:16.000 That helped me a lot.

02:14:17.000 That's cool.

02:14:18.000 Yeah.

02:14:19.000 What is, like, what's the main thing that you walk away with out of that?

02:14:22.000 There's two different things that happen in the mind.

02:14:25.000 There's open loop thinking and closed loop thinking.

02:14:30.000 I always forget which one is which.

02:14:31.000 But open loop thinking is, I think that's the one you don't want.

02:14:37.000 Which is, like, swinging a baseball bat.

02:14:41.000 Like, the bat comes to you to swing.

02:14:43.000 Closed-loop thinking is executing a process where you have a very specific shot process.

02:14:54.000 I have a whole routine that I go through in my head, and Joel has a series of things that he has you recite.

02:15:02.000 For him, he's got, I think it's three or four different things that you recite in your head to keep you present.

02:15:11.000 So instead of just giving in to this panic, am I getting this open loop, close loop thing right? 0.85

02:15:17.000 I fuck it up all the time.

02:15:18.000 I would think that I'd know it by now. 0.99

02:15:21.000 But the idea is that you're in control of the entire process.

02:15:26.000 You're not allowing yourself to spaz out.

02:15:28.000 And a lot of times when you're drawing on an animal, and it could have easily happened to you with the rifle shot on the caribou as well.

02:15:37.000 You panic, and you just pull the trigger.

02:15:40.000 You want it to be over.

02:15:41.000 The anxiety is so intense that when you have the crosshairs on the animal, you just want it to be over.

02:15:47.000 With archery, it's even more intense because you never have a rest.

02:15:51.000 You're never sitting on something.

02:15:53.000 With a rifle, you could have sticks on.

02:15:57.000 You know, like a shooting sticks, where the rifle's sitting on that, and you're pressed against your body, and it's not moving.

02:16:04.000 You can just squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, boom!

02:16:07.000 And if it's a good rifle and it's zeroed in, you're going to make a good shot as long as you don't flinch.

02:16:12.000 But people do flinch, and with archery, they flinch a lot.

02:16:15.000 Because in archery, you're drawing back, you're holding the bow, and you're holding everything.

02:16:21.000 Yeah, because that's heavy.

02:16:23.000 It's like a heavy pull.

02:16:24.000 And you're also trying to execute what they call a surprise shot.

02:16:28.000 So you don't really want...

02:16:31.000 You don't want to hit the trigger.

02:16:32.000 You kind of want to pull back with your back muscles and have the shot break without you even knowing exactly when it's going to happen.

02:16:41.000 So all I'm doing is...

02:16:42.000 I'm concentrating on the reticle.

02:16:44.000 I'm concentrating on the little dot that's on my sight.

02:16:48.000 And I'm concentrating on making sure the bubble's in place.

02:16:51.000 So the bubble's in the center, meaning that my bow is level.

02:16:54.000 And then I'm concentrating on relaxing my front shoulder.

02:16:57.000 I've got all these things I go through.

02:16:58.000 And then I'm concentrating on squeezing with my back muscles.

02:17:02.000 Something my friend Remy told me once, Remy Warren, he said, it sounds corny.

02:17:06.000 He goes, but this is what I do.

02:17:08.000 I become the arrow.

02:17:11.000 You want the arrow to go to a specific spot.

02:17:14.000 Don't just think that's the spot I want it to hit.

02:17:17.000 Be the arrow.

02:17:18.000 Be that arrow.

02:17:19.000 So as you're drawing back, you're thinking entirely like you're that arrow.

02:17:26.000 And you're going to that spot.

02:17:27.000 That way there's no deviation from this plan of hitting exactly where you want to hit.

02:17:32.000 That's interesting.

02:17:33.000 And even then it's hard.

02:17:34.000 And then I practice virtually every day.

02:17:37.000 I take a couple days off sometimes if I get sore or tired or I'm too busy, but I practice a lot.

02:17:43.000 And you have to.

02:17:45.000 And when I'm practicing the months up until if I'm hunting in September, July, August, September, I'm doing it every day.

02:17:53.000 And I'm thinking every shot is an elk.

02:17:57.000 Every shot.

02:17:57.000 I'm seeing the animal walking between the trees.

02:18:00.000 There's a gap.

02:18:01.000 There's a spot.

02:18:02.000 It stops.

02:18:03.000 And I have to just be calm in that moment.

02:18:07.000 Well, I would imagine that's why it's so rewarding, right?

02:18:10.000 Every single day, you're putting work in.

02:18:13.000 And then when you actually get out into...

02:18:16.000 The wild.

02:18:17.000 Like, you're putting a lot of physical work in.

02:18:19.000 I mean, hunting is challenging, man.

02:18:22.000 Well, mountain hunting is the most challenging.

02:18:23.000 Yeah.

02:18:23.000 Because you actually have to be in shape, too.

02:18:25.000 Totally.

02:18:25.000 So I do all this crazy cardio.

02:18:26.000 Yeah.

02:18:27.000 Just to get in shape in order to do that.

02:18:29.000 I do a lot of squats.

02:18:30.000 Yeah, man.

02:18:31.000 I have a Stairmaster, one of those stair mills.

02:18:34.000 Yeah.

02:18:34.000 I do a lot of those, and I do it sometimes with a weight vest on.

02:18:37.000 Yeah, that's cool.

02:18:38.000 One of the things that I found really interesting is, like, after packing that caribou out, I started thinking about exercise. 0.97

02:18:47.000 And when you look at humans, we're actually pretty damn athletically pathetic. 0.96

02:18:54.000 And that is not my language. 0.97

02:18:56.000 I stole that from a Harvard anthropologist who studies physical activity.

02:19:00.000 You compare us to other animals, we're very slow.

02:19:03.000 We're not that strong.

02:19:05.000 We're good at two things.

02:19:07.000 We're good at running long distances in the heat and carrying.

02:19:11.000 We're the only animals who can carry.

02:19:14.000 Most other animals, they've got to grab something with their mouth and they can't drag it far because that's inefficient.

02:19:19.000 So these Harvard scientists I talked to, I mean, they think that doing the activities that we evolved to do, that we're uniquely built to do, Can have a lot of benefits.

02:19:30.000 So I started looking into this idea of carrying and it really shaped what we became.

02:19:35.000 Like this is why we have really strong grips.

02:19:37.000 It's why we have sort of relatively shorter torsos that are really strong, longer legs.

02:19:43.000 It's why we don't have much fur and why we sweat to cool ourselves.

02:19:49.000 So you probably have heard the idea that we're born to run, right?

02:19:54.000 But we're actually, I argue in the book, probably more so born to carry.

02:19:59.000 We did it a lot more.

02:20:00.000 I mean, we evolved to run so we could run down animals slowly but surely in the heat.

02:20:06.000 It's called persistence hunting.

02:20:07.000 So we would chase an animal for 10 miles, 20 miles.

02:20:10.000 We'd sort of slowly run.

02:20:12.000 We'd bump it and it would sprint and then pant and eventually the animal would topple over from heat exhaustion because we're really good at cooling ourselves.

02:20:21.000 So then we'd have to cut it up, carry it all the way back to camp.

02:20:24.000 And as gatherers, we evolved to just walk out in our environment, find stuff to eat, and carry it back to camp, right?

02:20:33.000 Now you think about exercise today.

02:20:36.000 It's like everyone, not everyone, but a lot of people run, right?

02:20:39.000 Running is a relatively common physical activity.

02:20:42.000 Probably the most common physical activity.

02:20:45.000 But how many people carry for a workout?

02:20:48.000 Very few.

02:20:49.000 Carry weight.

02:20:49.000 Very, very few.

02:20:50.000 These few people out there rucking.

02:20:52.000 Yes, exactly.

02:20:53.000 So I followed up on this and I went down to Jacksonville, Florida.

02:21:01.000 So there's guys who were Special Forces soldiers.

02:21:04.000 I mean, they're the only people who have really reintroduced carrying back into their days, right?

02:21:10.000 The military, the fundamental of military fitness is rucking.

02:21:14.000 It's their main form of fitness.

02:21:15.000 And it's really sort of turned those guys into...

02:21:36.000 Some of the fittest people in the world.

02:21:42.000 We're good to go.

02:22:07.000 It adds an element of strength, and it also increases the cardiovascular demands on the person, but the injury risk is really low.

02:22:15.000 So there's all these amazing benefits to rucking that people just, you know, they don't really think of and they don't really know.

02:22:22.000 It's like this fundamental activity that we can do that's super beneficial.

02:22:27.000 And like I said, injury rate's low, and it doesn't matter.

02:22:30.000 You can basically modulate it based on Where you're at physically.

02:22:35.000 So I could go rucking with my mom, right?

02:22:36.000 She could take 5, 10 pounds, and I could take 50. We'd go the same pace, have a conversation, and we're getting the same effect.

02:22:45.000 Yeah.

02:22:46.000 Yeah.

02:22:46.000 So I've added that definitely into my routine.

02:22:50.000 I think it's helpful, and especially for hunting.

02:22:54.000 That's the foundation of getting from point A to point B. You're always carrying stuff.

02:22:59.000 There's actually a company called Outdoorsman's and they make this pack that's specifically designed.

02:23:06.000 It's a pack frame that has a weight lifting.

02:23:10.000 You know you have a post where you would put plates on it?

02:23:14.000 Yeah.

02:23:14.000 They have a pack.

02:23:16.000 What the fuck is it called again? 0.99

02:23:17.000 I have one, too. 0.99

02:23:19.000 I'm trying to remember the name of it.

02:23:21.000 But it's, like, a legit backpack.

02:23:24.000 So, like, the outdoorsmen, they're pretty famous for their backpacks.

02:23:28.000 They make, like, a really good pack for carrying out animals.

02:23:34.000 Because the company's entirely geared around hunting.

02:23:38.000 And so they have this... 0.99

02:23:40.000 What the fuck is the name of it? 0.99

02:23:42.000 That's strange. 0.99

02:23:43.000 Atlas, that's it.

02:23:44.000 Thank you.

02:23:44.000 Okay.

02:23:44.000 So this Atlas trainer has a post on the back of it.

02:23:47.000 You could slide a 45-pound plate.

02:23:49.000 You could put two plates on there. 0.99

02:23:50.000 So you could have 90 pounds on your back and bolt that sucker down. 0.99

02:23:53.000 Wow. 0.98

02:23:53.000 And then go for a run or a walk, rather, with a real backpack on. 0.98

02:23:58.000 So that's it right there.

02:23:59.000 That's cool.

02:24:00.000 See how it works like that? 0.92

02:24:01.000 So you could do all your workouts, you could lift weights, you could do all kinds of crazy shit, and you can have like serious weight on your back.

02:24:09.000 But you see how the pack itself, like that is a rugged backpack. 0.63

02:24:15.000 That's a frame, alright.

02:24:16.000 They're famous for, I have one of their packs as well.

02:24:19.000 They're famous for, you know, being really good at carrying a lot of weight.

02:24:26.000 So, like, it's not the lightest pack in the world, but it's really good for carrying weight.

02:24:30.000 The way it distributes the weight on your hips and the way it sits on your shoulders.

02:24:34.000 Yeah.

02:24:35.000 Yeah, that makes sense.

02:24:36.000 Yeah, the GoRuck guys, they sell plates that are specifically fitted to their packs.

02:24:43.000 I don't know.

02:24:44.000 It's a great...

02:24:45.000 It's a great...

02:24:45.000 Like, having to essentially ruck across the Arctic for a month, we get back to the...

02:24:53.000 The quote-unquote airport, which is a shed where the bush planes come in.

02:24:58.000 And I took my pack off and I had to like step up, I don't know, maybe 24 inches or so like to get into the place.

02:25:07.000 And dude, it was like I levitated up.

02:25:09.000 You know, it's like I was so...

02:25:11.000 My legs were so damn strong after that.

02:25:14.000 For just 30 days.

02:25:14.000 Yeah.

02:25:15.000 Like, I was in the best shape of my life, and I hadn't been into a gym.

02:25:20.000 I hadn't run.

02:25:21.000 I hadn't done all my normal stuff.

02:25:22.000 And I'm like, I'd also lost weight, right?

02:25:24.000 Because we're not eating that much, and we're just moving all day. 0.94

02:25:27.000 Like, I looked, you know, once I got to the hotel and, like, went to shower, took my clothes off, I'm like, shit, I look like Conor McGregor at a weigh-in right now, you know? 0.78

02:25:35.000 I'm just like... 0.99

02:25:37.000 Damn. 0.99

02:25:38.000 Completely slimmed down. 0.99

02:25:39.000 Oh yeah, just shredded and just like super, just way fitter than I've ever been.

02:25:44.000 It was fascinating.

02:25:45.000 Did you think at all to yourself like, okay, now I have to maintain this?

02:25:50.000 Well, how?

02:25:53.000 Yeah, I guess.

02:25:55.000 Rucking, right?

02:25:56.000 Yeah.

02:25:56.000 Hello, honey.

02:25:57.000 I'm moving to the Arctic.

02:25:58.000 I've bought us a shed in Kotzebue.

02:26:01.000 Well, you're in the Vegas area.

02:26:02.000 That's one thing about Vegas people don't realize.

02:26:04.000 There's a lot of trails when you get outside the city.

02:26:09.000 No, I still do ruck a lot, to be honest.

02:26:12.000 I'll throw a plate in a pack and I'll just go out into the desert.

02:26:16.000 So I live on the edge of town.

02:26:19.000 West by Red Rock Canyon.

02:26:21.000 So I can walk like three minutes through my neighborhood and there's a gate that leads to this whole trail network.

02:26:26.000 So I'll go out there and rock all the time.

02:26:28.000 And it's awesome because, like I said, it just feels solid.

02:26:32.000 You just feel...

02:26:32.000 You're getting...

02:26:34.000 You're good in cardio and strength.

02:26:36.000 The SF guy I talked to was like, yeah, it's essentially cardio for people who hate running and lifting, for people who hate the gym, you know?

02:26:45.000 And we know that there are health benefits to doing both cardio and strength.

02:26:50.000 It's like, I feel like we kind of live in this world where the runners are like, oh...

02:26:55.000 Lifting, you don't need to lift. 0.61

02:26:56.000 Lifting's overrated. 0.98

02:26:57.000 And the lifters are like, ah, running sucks. 0.95

02:26:59.000 Running's overrated. 0.98

02:27:00.000 It's like, no.

02:27:01.000 You look at the data.

02:27:03.000 It's like having a good level of fitness is the number one thing you can do to avoid death.

02:27:09.000 It's like you go down the list of things that kill Americans, fitness fends off all of them.

02:27:15.000 It's like number one is heart disease.

02:27:18.000 People who are fitter, even increasing your running speed from 5 to 6 miles an hour, you'll be 30% less likely to die.

02:27:25.000 So the fitter you are, the farther you are from having heart disease.

02:27:28.000 Fends off some cancers.

02:27:30.000 Then there's accidents.

02:27:32.000 If you are fit, even getting in a car accident, you're more likely to survive.

02:27:36.000 It just helps with everything.

02:27:38.000 And we've engineered our world to be completely effortless.

02:27:42.000 We're so damn out of shape now.

02:27:44.000 Don't you think that what happens when people get involved, whether it's weightlifting or running, they get really interested in the results in whatever particular discipline they're involved in more than overall health.

02:27:56.000 It's not that common that people start thinking, well, I want to do a little bit of weightlifting and a little bit of running.

02:28:03.000 A lot of times they get obsessed with the thing.

02:28:05.000 That's why the runners will say, ah, you don't need to lift weights.

02:28:07.000 Or the weightlifters say, ah, you don't need to run.

02:28:09.000 I just want to get jacked and strong.

02:28:12.000 And the runners are like, look, I'm just trying to put in miles and get my numbers under X amount of minutes per mile.

02:28:19.000 Yeah, hit some random time.

02:28:21.000 Yeah, and we get tribal about it.

02:28:22.000 It's like everything.

02:28:23.000 Yeah, we get tribal about it.

02:28:24.000 Super tribal. 0.89

02:28:25.000 And then all of a sudden, yeah, this way is the only way.

02:28:28.000 I think that's one thing we see.

02:28:32.000 Pick anything in life where there's two different ways to do it.

02:28:35.000 The people on the left side are like... 0.94

02:28:37.000 No, the other thing sucks and vice versa. 0.86

02:28:40.000 We're tribal creatures, man. 0.84

02:28:42.000 That's real common.

02:28:43.000 It's real common.

02:28:44.000 And it's real common to mock people that do other kind of activities.

02:28:47.000 What are you, rock climbing, bro?

02:28:49.000 Yeah.

02:28:50.000 People get crazy with those things. 1.00

02:28:52.000 Like, fucking rock climbing's hard. 1.00

02:28:53.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:28:54.000 All those things are hard.

02:28:55.000 Rocking's hard.

02:28:57.000 Lifting weights is hard.

02:28:58.000 All these things are difficult to do.

02:29:01.000 That's why it works.

02:29:02.000 Yeah, you should really do a variety of things if you're being wise about it and looking at it in terms of, like, I'm trying to engineer a more sound, fitter body that can do a lot of different things that I ask it to do.

02:29:15.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:29:16.000 I mean, if you're shooting only for performance, That's not health.

02:29:21.000 You know, like, people who run a two-hour marathon, they're not necessarily healthy.

02:29:27.000 Like, they're healthier than someone who's 600 pounds, don't get me wrong, but you're not going for health, right?

02:29:32.000 Yeah, if they had a wrestle, it'd be a real problem.

02:29:36.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:29:37.000 When you wrote this book, did you write this book not just to document all these issues that people are having with comfort, But also to give people maybe some feedback or some pointers or some direction in terms of,

02:29:53.000 like, how to maybe possibly move your life into a better place.

02:29:58.000 Yeah.

02:29:58.000 Yeah, for sure.

02:29:59.000 So, I mean, the way that the book is written is I tell this story of this hunt that I did in the Arctic, and that's the overarching narrative.

02:30:08.000 And as I'm facing these specific discomforts we used to face as we evolved, Then I sort of peel off and then I investigate each one in different sections and I talk about different on-the-ground reporting that I did.

02:30:21.000 And at the end, there's always some takeaway.

02:30:23.000 Now it's not like explicit advice in like a box that's like, okay, here are the steps to do this.

02:30:28.000 But it's all inherent and you leave knowing, okay, here's how I can weave this back into my life.

02:30:34.000 And I think going back to that idea that our environments have changed so much, It's not like just doing any one of these is going to solve all your problems.

02:30:45.000 Yes, it'll be helpful, but it's like we really need to think about how are these different ways that I can weave this stuff throughout my days, weeks, months, and years.

02:30:55.000 Some of this stuff is relatively easy to work in.

02:31:00.000 For example, even the data on keeping your house colder is really interesting in terms of weight loss and overall calorie burn.

02:31:07.000 And even just things like, people are never hungry anymore.

02:31:12.000 Let's figure out why you're eating in the first place.

02:31:16.000 And then by reintroducing hunger back into your life, you're probably going to lose some weight if you can determine, oh, I'm eating because I'm stressed or bored versus I'm physiologically hungry.

02:31:27.000 Then some of them are a little bit more challenging.

02:31:30.000 Like, we need things that really push back against us.

02:31:33.000 That's something, like the Masogi idea I talked about, where it's like, dude, do something epic.

02:31:39.000 Like, you may not think that you can do it.

02:31:40.000 Like, you can do it.

02:31:42.000 It's like freaking humans were hunter-gatherers for 2.5 million years, and now people are like, well, I couldn't go outside for three hours. 0.90

02:31:49.000 It's like, what the hell are you talking about, man?

02:31:52.000 You know, like, we're just, we can do a lot more than I think we...

02:31:55.000 We believe.

02:31:56.000 The data about keeping your house cold, I mean, it's just basically your body needs to burn off more calories to stay warm, right?

02:32:03.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:32:04.000 So when you get cold, your internal furnace cranks on, uses calories, and it's a small effect, but over time...

02:32:14.000 Can have decent results.

02:32:16.000 So one study and a scientist I talked to said 64 degrees is a sweet spot.

02:32:21.000 So my wife loves that I found this stat, right?

02:32:23.000 Because now our house is 64 all the time.

02:32:25.000 She's like, I'm freezing my ass off.

02:32:27.000 But wouldn't you rather just eat less food and stay warm?

02:32:31.000 I would never like to eat less food.

02:32:34.000 Never.

02:32:35.000 But you're a thin guy.

02:32:36.000 It seems like you've got it under control in terms of weight loss or the need to lose weight.

02:32:42.000 More or less.

02:32:43.000 I've been helped along the way.

02:32:45.000 Did you ever see-saw?

02:32:46.000 Probably the...

02:32:47.000 So I'm like $1.70.

02:32:50.000 Probably for a while, though, I was 185. And so I was within what's considered healthy, but I'm still at the higher end of the healthy BMI. And just from running, my hips would hurt afterwards.

02:33:03.000 And I started working with this dude who's in the book, and his name is Trevor Cashy.

02:33:09.000 He's, I think he's 28 now, but he graduated college, I think, when he was 17 or 18. Got his PhD when he was 22, I believe.

02:33:19.000 He was 17 when he graduated college?

02:33:22.000 He's, he's mega genius.

02:33:24.000 Like, the way I describe it is like, you know, to say that Trevor's smart is to say that LeBron James is pretty good at basketball, you know?

02:33:31.000 Like, I mean, and look, for my work, like, I talk to People at Harvard, people at the NIH, scientists everywhere.

02:33:39.000 This guy is blow-your-mind smart, can just unpack arguments.

02:33:43.000 Imagine you're going to your high school prom and he's graduating from college and you're both the same age.

02:33:49.000 I know, right?

02:33:51.000 Okay.

02:33:51.000 Yeah.

02:33:54.000 And it pisses me off because I'm older than him, obviously.

02:33:57.000 And I'm just like, man, you're just so much smarter than me. 0.99

02:33:59.000 This sucks. 0.99

02:33:59.000 So anyway, what did he... 0.99

02:34:00.000 He's interesting because when he was in college, he started working with a lot of athletes and just like everyday people helping him lose weight.

02:34:10.000 Like he was in a lab doing cancer research but found that he just was really into...

02:34:16.000 Strength sports, so he has like a couple national strength records and was working with people like ultramarathoners, other strongmen, and was just really damn good at it.

02:34:26.000 So now he has this nutrition company he calls Trevor Cashy Nutrition.

02:34:30.000 And his approach is really interesting because he doesn't really give a damn what you eat.

02:34:35.000 He cares why you eat, really.

02:34:37.000 Because most people he says like, look, You can eat a lot of different ways.

02:34:42.000 You can pick any random diet, and if you follow that diet, you're gonna lose weight.

02:34:47.000 But the question is, well, why the hell don't people follow diets?

02:34:51.000 That comes down to the why, is we often eat because we can't mitigate stress, because we're bored.

02:34:58.000 And your body also, as it loses weight, it starts to pull all these little tricks to try and keep you at a higher weight.

02:35:06.000 Because back in the past, it's like your body losing weight was a threat.

02:35:11.000 So things like it'll increase your hunger signaling.

02:35:15.000 It'll slow down your metabolism.

02:35:17.000 So this is why around five weeks, people usually hop off diets and fall back into their normal patterns because they can't deal with that discomfort of hunger.

02:35:27.000 And they often fall into intense cravings that aren't really physiological cravings.

02:35:32.000 It's just your mind being like, Snickers, Snickers, Snickers, you know?

02:35:36.000 So he works with people to help him figure out how do I discern the difference between, you know, this sort of, I guess in the book I call it real hunger versus reward hunger.

02:35:47.000 And then how can I become aware of what I eat?

02:35:50.000 Because people don't know how much they eat.

02:35:53.000 You look at research and people miscalculate their daily intake by hundreds, sometimes even thousands of calories.

02:36:02.000 Sort of similar to miscalculating the amount of screen time they use?

02:36:07.000 Exactly.

02:36:08.000 So there's this one famous study that found It looked at overweight people who said that they could not lose weight despite eating just 1,000 calories a day.

02:36:21.000 Well, they went in and they did precise measurements and tracking, and the people were eating 2,000 calories.

02:36:26.000 So this is like saying, well, whoops, I ate a half a pizza and I totally forgot.

02:36:30.000 I didn't realize it.

02:36:32.000 But this even happens with everyday people.

02:36:34.000 So on average, people who are at a normal BMI, they tend to miscalculate by 300 to 400 calories a day.

02:36:42.000 People who are overweight, they tend to miscalculate by about 700 to 800. So people just don't know how much they eat.

02:36:49.000 And we are wired to overcompensate and eat more, right?

02:36:54.000 More food has always made sense throughout all of time.

02:36:57.000 So if you can get people aware of like what is an actual portion, How much food do I actually need?

02:37:04.000 How do I just become more aware of not only what I'm eating, but also all my other habits?

02:37:10.000 That seems to move the dial for people.

02:37:14.000 I can't remember the exact number, but it's something like he's helped people lose like 200,000-something pounds.

02:37:20.000 I mean, it's crazy.

02:37:21.000 And he works with everyone from, you know, people whose this is their last stop on the quote-unquote diet train, the next thing is going to be bariatric surgery, to he's worked with strong men who have been, you know, champions and ultra runners and stuff like that.

02:37:38.000 He worked for, I can't remember, one of the Eastern countries Olympic teams for a while, too, and helped him win some medals.

02:37:45.000 So he's kind of all over the board.

02:37:46.000 Most interesting now, this doesn't have anything to do with food, is when he was in college, He's a super genius, I told you.

02:37:55.000 Knows everything about chemistry.

02:37:56.000 He got recruited by the Hells Angels to help them make meth, more or less.

02:38:03.000 This is one of the ways he helped himself get through college, which is totally wacky.

02:38:08.000 What?

02:38:09.000 Yeah, man.

02:38:10.000 Really?

02:38:10.000 He's like a real-life Heisenberg.

02:38:12.000 Oh, my God.

02:38:13.000 Yeah.

02:38:14.000 How much did he make selling meth?

02:38:17.000 I don't know.

02:38:17.000 Enough to get through college.

02:38:19.000 I didn't ask him for the exact figure, but...

02:38:21.000 Yeah.

02:38:22.000 And then he said, all right, guys, I graduated.

02:38:24.000 Thank you.

02:38:25.000 Bye.

02:38:25.000 Yeah, they had sort of a falling out, I guess.

02:38:27.000 I wonder why.

02:38:28.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:38:29.000 He's cooking this fucking amazing meth. 0.99

02:38:31.000 So he didn't actually cook it, but he would meet with them and be like, here's the problem. 0.99

02:38:35.000 Here's exactly how you have to do it.

02:38:36.000 Here's the problem.

02:38:37.000 Here's how you have to make the steps more efficient.

02:38:40.000 You have too many steps in the chemical process.

02:38:42.000 By removing it, you're going to like whatever.

02:38:44.000 So he'd meet up with these guys like it.

02:38:46.000 And they wanted him to keep going, obviously.

02:38:48.000 Yeah, and then it didn't go well.

02:38:50.000 They at one point accused him of ripping them off or giving them bad information.

02:38:53.000 And he goes, no, you just didn't follow it.

02:38:56.000 That's your problem.

02:38:57.000 And he's interesting because he grew up kind of in a somewhat broken home.

02:39:02.000 So as a teen, he had some issues with, like, depression.

02:39:06.000 And he's like, dude, I just didn't even really care. 1.00

02:39:08.000 Like, all right, kill me, whatever, you know, like, fuck off. 1.00

02:39:12.000 And eventually they just left him alone. 1.00

02:39:15.000 Wow.

02:39:16.000 Yeah.

02:39:17.000 That's rare.

02:39:19.000 Trippy dude.

02:39:20.000 Wow. 0.99

02:39:21.000 Figuring out how the fuck does he even know how to make meth? 0.99

02:39:24.000 Was he making his own meth? 0.99

02:39:25.000 No, just he's a chemist.

02:39:27.000 Like, he really understands.

02:39:28.000 But I would imagine when you're telling the Hells Angels how to correctly make meth, there's got to be a little bit of trial and error there.

02:39:37.000 Yeah, I don't know.

02:39:37.000 Meaning he probably made it a little bit himself, and maybe that's how he got through college by the time he was 17. Could have.

02:39:43.000 Who knows?

02:39:44.000 Might have been a little...

02:39:44.000 I mean, right?

02:39:46.000 Like, a lot of people take Adderall.

02:39:48.000 Yeah.

02:39:49.000 Yeah, I don't know.

02:39:50.000 It's not that far off from meth.

02:39:51.000 No.

02:39:52.000 No, it's really not, I guess. 0.97

02:39:53.000 He's a meth head. 0.99

02:39:53.000 Your friend's a meth head. 0.99

02:39:54.000 That's what I'm trying to say. 0.96

02:39:55.000 Thank you.

02:39:58.000 Isn't it funny how talking about food makes you hungry?

02:40:01.000 I'm hungry now.

02:40:02.000 Oh, no.

02:40:02.000 We're talking about all this food.

02:40:04.000 Well, I'm fine.

02:40:04.000 I'm not trying to lose weight.

02:40:05.000 But I'm hearing all this food talk. 0.99

02:40:08.000 I'm like, damn, I fucking could eat right now. 0.99

02:40:10.000 Yeah. 0.99

02:40:10.000 That'd be nice. 0.99

02:40:11.000 Yeah.

02:40:12.000 And that's a big problem.

02:40:14.000 You know, I've had a couple people on that have had pretty dramatic weight loss.

02:40:20.000 One of them being Action Bronson, who's a chef.

02:40:23.000 And Ethan Suplee.

02:40:25.000 How do you say his last name?

02:40:26.000 Suplee?

02:40:27.000 Suplee?

02:40:30.000 He's an actor who's lost more than 270 pounds.

02:40:35.000 Wow.

02:40:35.000 I mean, he was enormous at one point in time, and now he looks great.

02:40:38.000 But we were talking about food, and one of the problems with being addicted to food is that everyone has to eat.

02:40:46.000 Like, if you're addicted to gambling, you don't have to go to a casino to stay alive, but you need to eat to stay alive. 1.00

02:40:53.000 So if you're addicted to food, like, fuck. 1.00

02:40:56.000 That is such a mind game you're playing all the time. 1.00

02:41:00.000 I've thought about that.

02:41:01.000 So what do they do to...

02:41:04.000 I mean, how do they mitigate that? 0.99

02:41:05.000 Fucking stay strong. 0.99

02:41:07.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:41:07.000 Stay gold, Ponyboy. 1.00

02:41:09.000 I don't know.

02:41:10.000 You just gotta stay strong.

02:41:12.000 I mean, there's really no easy way out of it.

02:41:14.000 Yeah.

02:41:14.000 You have to just decide this is what you do.

02:41:16.000 And in Ethan's case, Ethan had gone through many ups and downs.

02:41:22.000 Like, he had even had a bunch of skin removed and then gained another hundred pounds.

02:41:28.000 Wow.

02:41:28.000 Yeah, so he had gone on that yo-yo many times until, you know, and this is over a 20-year period of losing weight.

02:41:37.000 Wow.

02:41:37.000 But he's done it now.

02:41:38.000 I mean, he looks fucking incredible now. 0.94

02:41:40.000 It's amazing. 0.93

02:41:41.000 That's amazing.

02:41:42.000 And for Bronson, he started during COVID because he has a child, and he realized that a lot of people were saying that Obesity is a real problem during COVID and he also realized he was just way too fat and out of shape and he was just so unhealthy and and he wanted to be there for his wife and his child and he just made a conscious decision that I'm gonna be a healthier person and he's a chef too which is also kind of crazy because you know likes fantastic

02:42:13.000 food but he's lost 130 pounds just this year and I worked out with him we took him to the Onnit gym and he looked great.

02:42:20.000 Really?

02:42:21.000 He gets after it and does it every day.

02:42:24.000 Works out every day.

02:42:25.000 That's so cool.

02:42:26.000 Yeah.

02:42:29.000 I feel like our food system is set up in such a way in our lives overall that, I mean, it's a wonder that not more than 70% of people are overweight, you know?

02:42:40.000 It's like the food that we have now, being so ultra-processed and calorie-dense, like...

02:42:45.000 It sort of preys on these internal mechanisms we have where it's like you get a shot of dopamine from eating this ultra processed stuff and it doesn't fill you up.

02:42:55.000 It's so calorie dense.

02:42:58.000 I think this is where thinking about the type of food you're eating and like how do you control hunger, you know?

02:43:04.000 It's like...

02:43:05.000 Having foods that are less processed, we know, is you're going to be more filled up on fewer calories, and that seems to help people.

02:43:13.000 It's like there's a reason why people didn't become overweight or obese until about 100 years ago.

02:43:22.000 Well, it was also difficult to get food.

02:43:24.000 That's a big issue.

02:43:26.000 But, you know, foods that are healthy, whether it's salads or, you know, grass-fed meat, you don't gorge on those.

02:43:33.000 You gorge on pasta and ice cream and cake.

02:43:37.000 Totally.

02:43:37.000 You know, that stuff, you can't get enough cake.

02:43:40.000 You start eating cake and you just want to, oh, it's so good, the frosting.

02:43:44.000 Because there's no place in nature where sugar comes in that form.

02:43:47.000 No.

02:43:47.000 So your body gets that.

02:43:48.000 You're like, what the fuck is this? 1.00

02:43:50.000 And the next thing you go, you have a thousand pounds of cake in your face. 1.00

02:43:53.000 Yeah.

02:43:54.000 Do you know the only form of just pure sugar in nature?

02:43:59.000 What is it?

02:44:00.000 Honey.

02:44:01.000 Oh.

02:44:01.000 To get that, you have to climb up a tree and get in a big-ass fight with some bees.

02:44:05.000 But honey also has, like, some medicinal properties to it.

02:44:08.000 Yeah.

02:44:08.000 It's actually good for you.

02:44:09.000 Yeah. 0.95

02:44:10.000 And, you know, there's actually some thought that honey, dependent upon the area that it's in, can help – this might be – Total woo-woo horseshit.

02:44:21.000 Maybe we need to Google this now that I'm thinking about it.

02:44:24.000 Is it an allergy thing?

02:44:25.000 No.

02:44:26.000 Yeah, that it has something, some protectants from the area, from the pollen in the area in which the bees are processing this honey.

02:44:36.000 Yeah.

02:44:37.000 You've heard that too?

02:44:38.000 I've heard that too.

02:44:38.000 I don't know if it's legit or not.

02:44:40.000 I don't know if it's legit.

02:44:41.000 But yeah, so the Hadza, I mean, honey is like their prized food, right?

02:44:46.000 Because it's calorie dense.

02:44:47.000 And so when you eat that, you get this nice shot of dopamine because it's so calorie dense.

02:44:53.000 Nowadays, we're like just swimming in foods that are more calorie dense than honey.

02:44:57.000 Here it says, but these results haven't been consistently duplicated in clinical studies.

02:45:01.000 Okay, honey has been anecdotally reported to lessen symptoms in people with seasonal allergies.

02:45:05.000 The results have not been consistently duplicated in clinical studies.

02:45:09.000 The idea isn't so far-fetched, though.

02:45:11.000 Honey has been studied as a cough suppressant and may have anti-inflammatory effects.

02:45:15.000 I think it's also good for people that have like cuts and skin injuries.

02:45:20.000 Yeah.

02:45:20.000 It was also used back in the day to preserve food.

02:45:25.000 Oh, that's cool.

02:45:26.000 They think that when humans ate a lot of psychedelic mushrooms and they wanted to preserve them, they would do one of two things.

02:45:36.000 They'd either dry them out or they would preserve them in honey. 1.00

02:45:39.000 Oh, wow.

02:45:40.000 That's fascinating.

02:45:41.000 Interesting.

02:45:42.000 Yeah, well, honey is...

02:45:44.000 There's also a very specific type of honey that is a psychedelic drug.

02:45:49.000 There's, like, a psychedelic honey that's very difficult to get, and it's blue honey.

02:45:55.000 Yeah, there it is.

02:45:57.000 Oh, wait.

02:45:58.000 Did we talk about that one?

02:46:00.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:46:01.000 As you were saying it, I remember, like, we talked about it.

02:46:04.000 That's a different...

02:46:04.000 That's the honey that you...

02:46:06.000 That's preserving psychedelic mushrooms in honey.

02:46:11.000 But there's a type of honey that the way these bees gather the pollen, that they're somehow or another getting pollen from some plant that has some sort of a psychoactive ingredient in it.

02:46:25.000 Okay.

02:46:25.000 Yeah, there it is.

02:46:26.000 Mad honey.

02:46:27.000 Known to be a powerful hallucinogen and recreational drug as well as being ascribed many medicinal features.

02:46:34.000 The honey is thought to be effective in treating everything from hypertension and diabetes to poor sexual performance when taken in small doses.

02:46:42.000 Holla! 1.00

02:46:44.000 Himalayan bees.

02:46:46.000 Look at how they get it.

02:46:48.000 It's really wild.

02:46:48.000 They get it off a cliffside.

02:46:50.000 See how they get it?

02:46:51.000 See how they do it?

02:46:54.000 That's crazy. 1.00

02:46:55.000 Yeah, so these guys have to get this fucking honey. 1.00

02:46:58.000 They have to climb up that side of a fucking mountain! 1.00

02:47:00.000 And then they have to, you know, get the shit stung out of them while they get this stuff. 1.00

02:47:05.000 Oh, wow. 0.99

02:47:06.000 Yeah.

02:47:07.000 Look how it grows.

02:47:07.000 Thank God it's on a cliff.

02:47:09.000 I was thinking, what if the bears get into that thing, man?

02:47:11.000 Tripping. 0.99

02:47:12.000 Tripping balls. 0.88

02:47:13.000 Yeah.

02:47:14.000 Wild.

02:47:15.000 I wonder how you get that stuff.

02:47:17.000 It's in Nepal.

02:47:18.000 Think you get it here?

02:47:19.000 Yeah, I remember the last time we talked about this, I think we looked it up.

02:47:24.000 It's not easy to get, but you can get it.

02:47:25.000 Oh, look at that dude's fingers.

02:47:27.000 Scroll down.

02:47:27.000 Look at his fingers where he's been jacked by the bees.

02:47:30.000 Yikesies. 1.00

02:47:32.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:47:33.000 Just fucked up. 1.00

02:47:35.000 Covered in honey and swollen fingers. 1.00

02:47:37.000 But later on, tripping balls. 0.99

02:47:40.000 Yeah, you can buy it. 0.98

02:47:40.000 It's not cheap, but you can buy it. 0.98

02:47:42.000 Oh, yeah.

02:47:42.000 You can buy mad honey.

02:47:43.000 There you go.

02:47:44.000 Well, we'll see.

02:47:46.000 We'll see.

02:47:47.000 I don't know if they ship it, but you can buy it.

02:47:49.000 Yeah, right?

02:47:50.000 Is it legal?

02:47:51.000 Well, there's some psychedelic drugs that are still legal.

02:47:53.000 They've fucked up and it slipped through, like salvia, which is one of the most potent, for whatever reason.

02:48:00.000 They never caught it. 0.99

02:48:02.000 Oh, interesting.

02:48:02.000 Salvia divinorum is crazy stuff, and you used to be able to buy it in head shops.

02:48:08.000 Wow.

02:48:09.000 Yeah, what's interesting is like going back to this idea of challenges, like even Native American tribes, when they would go get the peyote, it was often like there was a physical ceremony that went into that.

02:48:21.000 It was a long hike to go down to that area that it grew and it became like a ritual, like almost a religious practice, right?

02:48:28.000 So it was like this physical trial they'd go through to get it and then bring it back up.

02:48:32.000 So it became this overall life-changing thing.

02:48:36.000 It was like marrying the physical with the mental and having to get through things.

02:48:42.000 Yeah, like the ayahuasca rituals that they'll have in the jungle and different rites of passage.

02:48:48.000 Yeah, I think for a lot of young people, there's this weird thing that happens as you become an adult where you're like, okay, am I an adult now?

02:48:57.000 Yeah.

02:48:58.000 Am I an adult now?

02:48:59.000 Do I have to wait a week?

02:49:00.000 Now I'm an adult, but I feel the same. 0.99

02:49:02.000 When do I become a fucking adult? 0.99

02:49:03.000 Yeah. 0.99

02:49:03.000 But if you do go through some sort of a rite of passage, it would make sense that there would be, especially if it's a difficult thing, that you would feel like you had crossed over and you'd become whole. 0.99

02:49:14.000 You'd become a new thing.

02:49:15.000 Yeah.

02:49:16.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:49:17.000 We don't have that.

02:49:17.000 I mean, what, like...

02:49:19.000 I don't know what the closest thing to compare it to that we do today.

02:49:22.000 It's not getting your driver's license. 0.97

02:49:26.000 It's not graduating college because then you're in debt and you feel fucked over. 0.98

02:49:29.000 Yeah, totally. 0.95

02:49:30.000 Like, where's the jobs?

02:49:31.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:49:33.000 I think difficult things, whatever those difficult things are, whether it's running marathons or something where you can accomplish very significant goals.

02:49:46.000 Where you are pushed and that these aren't easy accomplishments.

02:49:52.000 You're breaking through some new area of your fortitude where you recognize that you do have capabilities beyond what you thought before you did this.

02:50:02.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:50:03.000 Like your crazy run you went on.

02:50:05.000 Anything like that.

02:50:07.000 Yeah, I think, look at Joseph Campbell.

02:50:09.000 I'm going to mess up this quote, but in his Hero with a Thousand Faces, he's got this line that's like, when we go out and think we're slaying another, we're actually slaying ourselves.

02:50:19.000 When we go out into discomfort, we're actually coming into the center of our own existence.

02:50:24.000 So it's like, we don't go out and do these things, like, for others at all.

02:50:28.000 It's like, this is 100% you becoming this different, more capable, confident person, you know?

02:50:35.000 And that's what we're missing.

02:50:36.000 Yeah.

02:50:38.000 Did you do the audiobook?

02:50:39.000 I did.

02:50:40.000 So, that's good.

02:50:41.000 Thank God.

02:50:42.000 God, I hate it when somebody else reads someone's book.

02:50:44.000 Especially, you got a good voice.

02:50:45.000 Like, solid.

02:50:47.000 Good to read an audiobook.

02:50:49.000 You know, if you have, like, some weird way of talking, it would be an issue.

02:50:51.000 Yeah.

02:50:52.000 Even then, I'd want to hear it from the guy.

02:50:55.000 Well, one, it was more challenging than I thought.

02:50:58.000 And two, the producer was hilarious because apparently I have certain words and phrases that are, you know, the generations of whatever it is, Easter generations from the sticks in Idaho.

02:51:11.000 And I'd say them wrong and he'd be like...

02:51:16.000 Hold up.

02:51:18.000 Like at one point, I'm reading this.

02:51:20.000 What words?

02:51:21.000 You want to hear an embarrassing one?

02:51:22.000 Yeah.

02:51:23.000 Do you say especially?

02:51:25.000 No, it wasn't that.

02:51:26.000 I think it might actually be worse.

02:51:28.000 I'm going through and I have a reference to Mozart in the book, but I'm going through and I just see it, M-O-Z-A-R-T. And so I'm like, you know, blah, blah, blah, Mozart.

02:51:39.000 And he just goes, hold up.

02:51:41.000 He goes, it's Mozart.

02:51:44.000 I'm like...

02:51:46.000 Yeah, you're right.

02:51:48.000 Sorry.

02:51:48.000 Mozart is how I would say it.

02:51:50.000 Do you say Mozart?

02:51:52.000 I wouldn't.

02:51:52.000 I might, given that a strong pronunciation on the T there.

02:51:56.000 Mozart.

02:51:56.000 Yeah.

02:51:57.000 I don't know how I would say that.

02:51:58.000 Yeah, Mozart.

02:51:59.000 Now I have to think that I would say it correctly, but I probably wouldn't have.

02:52:03.000 I probably would have said Mozart.

02:52:04.000 Yeah, and then I got in the studio the next day.

02:52:06.000 He goes, you know, did you listen to some chopping when you got home? 1.00

02:52:09.000 Ah, what a dick. 1.00

02:52:10.000 Oh, yeah. 1.00

02:52:11.000 He was a good, he was a funny dude, though.

02:52:13.000 Yeah.

02:52:15.000 Yeah, it was an interesting experience for sure.

02:52:18.000 Well, listen, man, I really enjoyed our conversation.

02:52:20.000 Thank you very much for coming in here.

02:52:21.000 Yeah, man, that was fun.

02:52:22.000 So your book, The Comfort Crisis, it's available right now.

02:52:26.000 It is.

02:52:26.000 You can get it.

02:52:27.000 You can get it on audio.

02:52:27.000 You can get it on a regular book if you're a mass-kissed.

02:52:31.000 You want to sit down and torture yourself? 0.91

02:52:33.000 Exactly. 0.97

02:52:34.000 Thank you very much, man.

02:52:35.000 Yeah, thank you, Joe.

02:52:37.000 I enjoyed it.

02:52:37.000 All right, bye, everybody.

The Joe Rogan Experience - May 11, 2021

Joe Rogan Experience #1649 - Michael Easter

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Transcript