The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #2324 - Amanda Knox

00:00:01.000 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!

00:00:04.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

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00:00:13.000 Hey! 0.99

00:00:13.000 Good to see you. 0.99

00:00:14.000 Good to see you again.

00:00:15.000 You have a book?

00:00:16.000 I do.

00:00:17.000 Yeah, I hope you like it.

00:00:18.000 Free.

00:00:19.000 Yeah, well, it's on point.

00:00:22.000 Yeah, it's on the nose.

00:00:24.000 Yes.

00:00:24.000 Well, that whole question of what does it mean to be free?

00:00:28.000 And what, you know, yes, there's the physical, like, oh, you're out of prison, but then also, is your life the thing that you expected it to be?

00:00:36.000 And how do you make your own freedom when you feel hemmed in by all of the things that happen to you?

00:00:42.000 Yeah, you're connected to that forever.

00:00:45.000 That's always going to be a part of your life.

00:00:47.000 It's not like anything else that didn't really happen, like you didn't do anything.

00:00:53.000 You're connected to something that you didn't really do forever.

00:00:56.000 For people that don't know the story.

00:00:58.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:00:58.000 We should do a little recap.

00:01:01.000 Recap, friends.

00:01:01.000 Real quick.

00:01:02.000 Recap, friends.

00:01:04.000 And you can go back to the episode of Joe Rogan.

00:01:07.000 What number was that?

00:01:08.000 I don't know.

00:01:09.000 Not the top of your head.

00:01:10.000 If you just Google Amanda Knox, you'll go, holy shit. 0.99

00:01:13.000 They'll go down a crazy rabbit hole.

00:01:14.000 Yes.

00:01:15.000 So in a nutshell, what happened?

00:01:17.000 Yeah.

00:01:17.000 I was studying abroad when I was 20 years old in Perusia, Italy.

00:01:21.000 One of my roommates was raped and murdered by a burglar who broke into our home.

00:01:27.000 But I was accused of having orchestrated a murder orgy.

00:01:32.000 And I was sent to prison for four years.

00:01:34.000 I was sentenced to 26 years.

00:01:36.000 I was put on trial for eight years.

00:01:39.000 And it became this international scandal where it sort of pinged all of the buttons in all the right places.

00:01:49.000 This happened in 2007.

00:01:51.000 So, you know, early 2000s when the Internet was released.

00:01:55.000 I think that that played a huge role of people sort of going into their little echo chambers and fighting online.

00:02:07.000 And so I think that there was, yeah, it was a case that for whatever reason, rose above the...

00:02:18.000 Ultimately, this case was actually very simple, and it wouldn't have risen to the level of international infamy were it not for the series of mistakes that the prosecution and the detectives made at the very beginning by trying to pin a man's crime on me, a woman.

00:02:35.000 Yeah.

00:02:36.000 And if anybody wants, there's a documentary.

00:02:38.000 Yes, there's a Netflix documentary.

00:02:40.000 I wrote a book called Waiting to Be Heard.

00:02:42.000 And then more recently, I wrote this book, Free My Search for Meaning, which covers like, you know, you can read it and learn about the case, but it's mostly about how do you come out of an experience like that and make sense of it.

00:02:56.000 And then one of the big stories in it is how I then developed a relationship with my prosecutor, which I think you'll...

00:03:03.000 Probably be in the camp of people of thinking that I'm utterly insane for having done that.

00:03:09.000 Maybe, maybe, maybe you won't.

00:03:11.000 I just remember that when we talked about this back in the day, you were like, this motherfucker.

00:03:16.000 Yeah.

00:03:18.000 So you've become friends with him?

00:03:20.000 Friend is an interesting word.

00:03:23.000 What is a friend?

00:03:25.000 Someone else asked me that.

00:03:27.000 I was like, it depends on what you mean by friend.

00:03:31.000 And they said, well, do you trust him?

00:03:34.000 And I said, well, I think that at the point that we are now in our relationship, I do trust him.

00:03:46.000 I trust that he's telling me the truth about what he really thinks and feels about the situation.

00:03:57.000 Privileged, special access to the mind of the person who put me in prison.

00:04:03.000 And that is a very interesting, awkward, but also empowering place for me to be, because one of the things that really...

00:04:14.000 What bothered me about this experience was not understanding why it happened to me.

00:04:19.000 Why did this man look at a 20-year-old girl with no criminal history, no motivation to commit this crime?

00:04:25.000 Why did he look at me and think, there's my rapist and murderer?

00:04:29.000 And I didn't understand it.

00:04:31.000 And I didn't feel...

00:04:33.000 Like demonizing him in my mind or vilifying him in my mind was going to actually give me a satisfying answer as to the why of it all.

00:04:43.000 A lot of people said, well, it's just because he's a bad dude.

00:04:45.000 He doesn't care what the truth is.

00:04:47.000 He's just covering his ass.

00:04:48.000 Like these were all really simplistic ways of framing his motivations, and I didn't really buy them.

00:04:57.000 So instead, what I was interested in was going to the source.

00:05:02.000 And confronting him, asking why.

00:05:05.000 But to ask someone, why did you hurt me?

00:05:09.000 Which I think is a really common thing that people who have been hurt want to know.

00:05:15.000 They want an acknowledgement that they've been hurt and they want to understand why.

00:05:18.000 And they want to know if that person's not going to hurt them anymore or not going to hurt other people.

00:05:22.000 That's really common for people who have been hurt.

00:05:26.000 The challenge is that people who hurt other people don't like to be confronted with that fact.

00:05:32.000 And so how do you start a conversation that's not going to immediately become adversarial?

00:05:37.000 And that was one of my biggest challenges.

00:05:40.000 But I came up with this methodology that actually became so important to me that I tattooed it on my arm.

00:05:48.000 So this is it.

00:05:50.000 There are four steps.

00:05:52.000 And the first one is find common ground.

00:05:56.000 So it's this Venn diagram.

00:05:57.000 find common ground.

00:05:58.000 I promise you that every single person on this earth, you have something in common with them.

00:06:04.000 Find it.

00:06:05.000 So I asked myself, what could I and my prosecutor have in common?

00:06:09.000 I didn't know this man.

00:06:11.000 I didn't know what his history was, what his background was.

00:06:14.000 But I did know that he, like me, was part of this really big scandalous in the And he, very likely, felt...

00:06:26.000 Misconstrued or misrepresented also in the process, maybe dehumanized in the process.

00:06:32.000 And so I reached out to him and I acknowledged that fact.

00:06:36.000 I said, hey, I don't know who you are.

00:06:38.000 I only ever encountered you in the police office and in the courtroom where you were someone who was trying to ruin my life.

00:06:47.000 So you were a big, scary boogeyman.

00:06:50.000 And I saw you in the media, and I've seen how the media represented you, but knowing from experience, I know how that can be very misrepresentative.

00:07:00.000 So I said to him, I want to know who you really are, and I hope that you might be interested to know who I really am, because I don't think you know who I really am.

00:07:11.000 I don't think that you would have prosecuted me if you knew who I really am.

00:07:14.000 And that was the beginning of the dialogue.

00:07:17.000 This, like, I went out of my way to acknowledge that he might have had noble motivations, even if he was wrong.

00:07:26.000 And I think this is, like, a really important thing, is I wanted to give him radical benefit of the doubt.

00:07:41.000 Maybe.

00:07:42.000 Just maybe.

00:07:43.000 This horrible thing that happened to me could have been the result of understandable mistakes.

00:07:50.000 And if anything, I think coming into contact with the Innocence Movement and criminal justice system stuff and reform, all the stuff that I've learned after having gone through this experience has made me realize that some of the most horrible things can happen.

00:08:05.000 And can be enacted by people who have the best of intentions.

00:08:09.000 And so I assumed that of him, and I gave him that benefit of the doubt.

00:08:13.000 And as soon as I opened that door, like, hey, you hurt me, but maybe that wasn't your intention.

00:08:21.000 Maybe your intention was something else.

00:08:24.000 He filled that void with his story and his message and what he wanted me to understand about himself.

00:08:34.000 I mean, one of the wildest things about this book is that I talk about, like, I do not sugarcoat what I went through, like, and especially what he did to me.

00:08:43.000 Like, I very, like, clearly set out, like, here's the fucked up shit he said about me in court, completely without evidence, like, totally made up bullshit.

00:08:52.000 Like, and it ruined my life, right?

00:08:55.000 Here's what it is.

00:08:57.000 Acknowledge these facts.

00:08:59.000 And also, and also, here is a person who might have had, like, in doing so, might have been coming from a place of trying to rationalize things in his own mind, which is a thing that we all do.

00:09:13.000 We all do on a regular basis.

00:09:15.000 We're all just sort of interpreting our reality in the way that suits us.

00:09:20.000 And so I wrote this book from my perspective.

00:09:27.000 I translated the entire thing into Italian before it ever got published so that I could share it with him, so that he would know what I was saying about him in public, what was imminently going to come out.

00:09:39.000 And his response was, I have never felt more seen.

00:09:47.000 That's what he told me.

00:09:48.000 That sounds like something a teenage girl would say.

00:09:51.000 Well, that's an interesting observation.

00:09:57.000 Because it's become quite emotional, especially on his part.

00:10:09.000 I shouldn't go there too much.

00:10:15.000 You're protecting his privacy?

00:10:17.000 That's hilarious.

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00:11:38.000 Yeah.

00:11:40.000 You're a very nice person.

00:11:41.000 You're so much nicer than me.

00:11:45.000 Well, I don't know.

00:11:46.000 I've just had really bad stuff happen to me.

00:11:49.000 And, like, I don't wish bad stuff upon other people.

00:11:52.000 That's a beautiful way to live your life.

00:11:54.000 It really is.

00:11:55.000 I mean, that's what all Christians aspire to.

00:11:59.000 This is what you're doing.

00:12:02.000 Yeah, I guess.

00:12:05.000 I'm not a Christian.

00:12:06.000 Radical forgiveness.

00:12:06.000 Yeah.

00:12:07.000 You know, it's funny.

00:12:08.000 I didn't really set out.

00:12:10.000 People point to that.

00:12:11.000 They're like, forgiveness, forgiveness.

00:12:12.000 You're doing forgiveness.

00:12:13.000 And I was like, is this forgiveness?

00:12:15.000 Or is this...

00:12:16.000 Just communicating with him is forgiveness in some way.

00:12:19.000 And not having extreme anger.

00:12:22.000 Well, that's the thing.

00:12:23.000 I do have extreme anger.

00:12:25.000 That's all part of it.

00:12:26.000 And this is where the Buddhist in me comes out, where you can have extreme anger towards a person and at the same time hold them in your hand as this tender, fallible creature that is capable of violence against you but is also capable of being hurt.

00:12:52.000 Just because someone hurt you doesn't mean that they're not capable of being hurt.

00:12:56.000 And I certainly don't want to be in the position of hurting someone.

00:13:00.000 Like, that's just who I am.

00:13:03.000 And if anything, like, one thing that I've communicated to him is like, look, I don't know if you're ever going to really wrap your head around what you did to me.

00:13:14.000 But if you do, one day.

00:13:19.000 I know that you're going to feel really, really bad.

00:13:23.000 And I just want you to know that I don't wish suffering on you.

00:13:32.000 I don't.

00:13:33.000 Did you ask him if he had gone over any of his previous cases and wondered whether he did the same thing to other people?

00:13:42.000 Because I don't think that's something you do once.

00:13:45.000 I don't think you are an ethical prosecutor who...

00:13:49.000 Just really objectively analyzes the evidence and puts forth a case based on what you think is the facts.

00:14:00.000 I don't think you do that your whole career.

00:14:02.000 And then this 20-year-old bitch, I think. 1.00

00:14:05.000 She's too cute. 0.99

00:14:06.000 I don't like how she's smiling.

00:14:08.000 Yeah, there was that element to it.

00:14:11.000 It has to be.

00:14:12.000 Well, yeah, I think that and I do feel like there was some kind of Pornographic nature to it.

00:14:22.000 Like, I don't know, like, I think that maybe...

00:14:24.000 Well, there's a lot of men that have, like, a deep resentment for beautiful women.

00:14:29.000 Just from feelings of rejection?

00:14:31.000 Yes.

00:14:31.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah, because they are attracted to them or they find them to be beautiful or desirable and they know that that woman wants to have nothing to do with them.

00:14:42.000 Like, they are completely repulsive.

00:14:45.000 And so, you see it a lot with, unfortunately, unattractive men.

00:14:49.000 They develop a hate for women.

00:14:51.000 I've seen it.

00:14:52.000 I've seen it evolve over years with people that I used to be friends with.

00:14:57.000 You know, just constant rejection, and then it becomes like, fuck these women, fuck them. 1.00

00:15:02.000 They just want this, like, okay.

00:15:05.000 Put yourself in their position.

00:15:07.000 You're gross.

00:15:10.000 You know, like, what are they supposed to do?

00:15:13.000 Try harder.

00:15:13.000 What are they supposed to do?

00:15:15.000 Like, be with someone that they're not attracted to to make that person feel better?

00:15:19.000 Like, that's not what people do.

00:15:20.000 Like, you have a short window of life.

00:15:21.000 Yeah.

00:15:22.000 And you're supposed to pursue what you like.

00:15:24.000 And you're, you know, your fucking hand of card sucks. 0.59

00:15:27.000 Sorry.

00:15:28.000 You know, this is how it goes.

00:15:30.000 But that thing where, you know, They look at you like you have it too easy.

00:15:37.000 You have too many gifts.

00:15:39.000 Life has given you too good a hand of cards.

00:15:44.000 And you should be punished.

00:15:46.000 You should be knocked down a peg.

00:15:48.000 You see that in particular in the media with celebrity.

00:15:51.000 It's a big one with celebrity women. 1.00

00:15:54.000 If something goes wrong, they just can't wait to dunk on them, mock them for weight gain, whatever it is.

00:16:02.000 For getting out of a car in the wrong way.

00:16:05.000 They were the ones who were showing up to get up their skirt. 1.00

00:16:09.000 I think that stuff was on purpose.

00:16:12.000 Oh, is it?

00:16:13.000 Yeah, I think the Paris Hilton stuff back in the day where a lot of women were like... 0.99

00:16:16.000 It was like an epidemic of girls getting out of cars. 1.00

00:16:21.000 Photographers just happened to be on the ground.

00:16:24.000 Like, you're a woman. 0.95

00:16:25.000 You've worn skirts.

00:16:26.000 It's not easy to look up someone's skirt if you're standing up.

00:16:29.000 And someone gets out there, how the fuck do you get down?

00:16:32.000 You'd have to be on your knees.

00:16:34.000 I think they were doing it on purpose.

00:16:36.000 I think it was a way of going viral.

00:16:38.000 Before viral was a thing.

00:16:40.000 Because it went away.

00:16:41.000 Like, when was the last time...

00:16:43.000 That we had an up-the-skirt shot?

00:16:45.000 Why don't you have any underwear on?

00:16:46.000 That seems weird.

00:16:48.000 Well, panty lines, you know, that's a real thing.

00:16:51.000 Yeah, sure.

00:16:51.000 But that's what G-strings were invented for, right?

00:16:54.000 Those still create lines, my friend.

00:16:56.000 I guess.

00:16:57.000 Are you that concerned with lines that you want to go bareback?

00:17:01.000 I've not gone bareback at a premiere, I have to say.

00:17:04.000 You have a little skirt on, hopping out of a car, and the way they did it.

00:17:09.000 I think it was like, you know, the same people that had sex tapes that leaked air quotes.

00:17:16.000 Right, right, right.

00:17:17.000 That were engineered.

00:17:19.000 I mean, the whole thing was, it was on purpose.

00:17:22.000 Sure, sure, sure.

00:17:23.000 Yeah, but in terms of trying to take beautiful women down a peg, I think you're right. 1.00

00:17:29.000 I also think that something that was going on in my case that I think you also tend to see in those situations where you're trying to take beautiful women down a peg is this idea of pitting women against each other.

00:17:42.000 That was a huge thing in my case where they were suggesting that here I was, this free-spirited but also...

00:17:51.000 Hoary, you know, American girl versus the uptight, judgmental British girl. 0.97

00:17:59.000 And therefore they hated each other and with, you know, with a vengeance, with a lethal vengeance.

00:18:06.000 And then this idea of like a murder orgy appeared where this pornographic fantasy of women like expressing... 1.00

00:18:19.000 their own violent fantasies towards each other in real life and using men as pawns

00:18:27.000 I think you see that a lot, you know, even in like a person I write about in this book who's become a dear friend of mine is Monica Lewinsky and how I feel like people really wanted to bring Her down a peg in part because they wanted to bring Hillary down a peg and the whole like...

00:18:55.000 The person who actually committed the affair was sort of, I mean, he definitely got his part, but it was all like a political game of they're trying to take down the man, but they're also taking down the woman, and they're especially railroading this young woman who made a mistake, and it became known as the Monica Lewinsky scandal and not, you know, the Bill Clinton affair or whatever.

00:19:14.000 Like, it matters what you name a thing, and it seemed like the legacy of that and the person who became defined entirely by that scandal.

00:19:24.000 Happened to be Monica, the one who was the person with the least amount of power and agency in that equation. 1.00

00:19:32.000 Also 20 years old.

00:19:33.000 Yeah, 23 years old.

00:19:34.000 Yeah.

00:19:35.000 Who did a very normal thing, which was fall in love with a charismatic, powerful man.

00:19:40.000 And he was handsome as fuck back then.

00:19:42.000 Oh, yeah.

00:19:42.000 I mean, he was the president of the United States.

00:19:44.000 He was the president of the United States.

00:19:45.000 He was charismatic.

00:19:46.000 He was handsome.

00:19:47.000 He showered her with attention.

00:19:48.000 And it makes sense that a young, inexperienced person would fall in love with him.

00:19:53.000 And yet she was the one who got railroaded.

00:19:56.000 She was the homewrecker.

00:19:57.000 She was the one who became the subject of all the rap lyrics and her entire life and her entire identity became.

00:20:05.000 And I think that that impulse to define women... 0.99

00:20:19.000 By their worst moments and to tear them down for their worst moments is prevalent from what I have seen.

00:20:27.000 Well, I think because they know it's so devastating to the person.

00:20:30.000 You know what I mean?

00:20:31.000 It's like there's the bully instinct when they know that you're weak and vulnerable to attack.

00:20:38.000 But why?

00:20:40.000 To what end?

00:20:40.000 People are cruel.

00:20:42.000 Because they've been hurt.

00:20:43.000 It's the hurt people, hurt people thing.

00:20:46.000 Like schadenfreude, just as an audience.

00:20:48.000 We want a story, we want a real life story where we get to passively enjoy the destruction of another human being.

00:20:57.000 Right.

00:20:57.000 And also you don't know her, so you're disassociated.

00:21:00.000 If she was your friend and you did that, you'd have to be a special kind of monster.

00:21:05.000 Like that woman, Linda Tripp, who did it all.

00:21:08.000 That's a special kind of monster.

00:21:09.000 Special kind of monster who...

00:21:11.000 Trots that out to the whole world to try to take down Bill Clinton.

00:21:15.000 Yeah.

00:21:16.000 Which didn't even work.

00:21:17.000 No, and that's what's fascinating.

00:21:19.000 It worked to destroy Monica. 1.00

00:21:21.000 Right.

00:21:22.000 But also, like, when you look at Bill Clinton, this handsome president, and then you look at Linda Tripp, who is very unattractive, that also plays in, like, I want to take him down, too.

00:21:34.000 And probably I want to take her down as well. 0.97

00:21:37.000 Like, there's a lot of, like, fuck everybody else.

00:21:39.000 There's a lot of that.

00:21:41.000 You know, when you're unseen, to use the same vernacular, you know?

00:21:45.000 And then you see, like...

00:21:48.000 Other people getting attention.

00:21:51.000 It's just like the fact that she did it and she knew her.

00:21:54.000 But also, this is the game of cards that they're playing.

00:21:58.000 This is House of Cards.

00:22:00.000 This is literally what they do anytime they have a chance in the political realm to use any weapon.

00:22:06.000 Any window, any vulnerability.

00:22:08.000 Anything.

00:22:08.000 It's the dirtiest game in the world.

00:22:11.000 It's a disgusting game.

00:22:13.000 And if you get sucked into it, you'll find that out.

00:22:16.000 I don't want anything to do with it.

00:22:18.000 It's the most evil.

00:22:20.000 It really is.

00:22:21.000 When I see people that are running for president, I'm like, what are you doing?

00:22:25.000 I know!

00:22:25.000 Why would you do that to yourself?

00:22:27.000 Yeah, and then you have to spend the rest of your life with secret service following you around so you can't exist in the world as a normal human being.

00:22:36.000 I do feel like there is a...

00:22:40.000 You have to be a special kind of person in order to be attracted to something like that.

00:22:45.000 Yeah, and ironically, the kind of person that's attracted to that in general is not the kind of person you want in a leadership position.

00:22:54.000 Right.

00:22:56.000 You know, which is like, wow, what do we do then?

00:22:58.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:22:59.000 So is democracy completely and utterly flawed because it relies upon the ambition of...

00:23:06.000 The wrong people.

00:23:08.000 Or heroes.

00:23:09.000 Or legitimate heroes.

00:23:10.000 Like someone who's like, you know, I'm going to tolerate this.

00:23:13.000 I'm going to carry the burden of this on my back because I think I can help people.

00:23:17.000 But does anyone ever, like, actually arrive at the seat of the president as that person?

00:23:26.000 Here's the question.

00:23:27.000 Do they stay that person?

00:23:29.000 Because I used to think Obama was that person.

00:23:31.000 I really did.

00:23:32.000 You know, I was like, wow, we got a good one.

00:23:34.000 Yeah.

00:23:35.000 I was sad I missed out on that.

00:23:37.000 Yeah.

00:23:38.000 It was pretty cool.

00:23:39.000 But in retrospect, when looking back, probably not really.

00:23:47.000 Probably got corrupted by the system or was corrupt originally.

00:23:52.000 And is now willing to openly lie.

00:23:55.000 God.

00:23:56.000 Yeah.

00:23:56.000 It's dark.

00:23:58.000 It's dark.

00:23:59.000 And I think it's just a...

00:24:05.000 It's a strange social position that I don't think is manageable for anyone.

00:24:12.000 I don't think the human mind is prepared.

00:24:16.000 To be in that kind of a position of power and not have it completely distort what you are.

00:24:23.000 And then there's the relationships that you have to have with all these various politicians and then special interest groups and lobbyists and then foreign leaders and then...

00:24:33.000 Yeah, how do you manage all of that?

00:24:35.000 Heads of defense contracting companies, like, what?

00:24:40.000 Yeah.

00:24:44.000 Can I tell you a story?

00:24:45.000 Yes, please.

00:24:46.000 Okay, so this story didn't actually make it in my book, but it is one that I wanted to tell you because it talks about how my weird relationship with other people who are in positions of power like police officers, right?

00:25:04.000 I'm an advocate of criminal justice reform.

00:25:07.000 I talk a lot about, like, I go and testify in front of my, you know, state Congress trying to get certain laws passed to protect, you know, innocent people.

00:25:15.000 And one thing that I like to point out is that I'm not anti-law enforcement.

00:25:22.000 If anything, I was a victim of crime.

00:25:27.000 Before I became a victim of the criminal justice system, like someone broke into my home and raped and murdered my roommate.

00:25:33.000 And then I called the cops and then the cops went on to betray me.

00:25:39.000 And but that doesn't mean that there isn't like I'm not one of those, you know, fuck all the police.

00:25:46.000 We don't need them.

00:25:47.000 You know, abolish the whole system.

00:25:48.000 That's not what I believe.

00:25:51.000 But as someone who has had this.

00:25:58.000 I don't really know what to do when something bad goes down.

00:26:04.000 And I want to tell you a story about something bad that went down.

00:26:08.000 It was in L.A. I was staying at a friend's house with my husband and our two kids.

00:26:14.000 We were doing work down there.

00:26:15.000 And our friends were not there.

00:26:17.000 But in the middle of the night, we hear someone yelling.

00:26:23.000 Out in the street, we think there's some drunk guy out there, but it gets closer and closer and closer until finally there is a huge bang, and my husband gets up in his tighty-whities and says one thing to me, call the police before he marches downstairs.

00:26:45.000 We were upstairs in the second story, and we hear a bang, we hear yelling.

00:26:50.000 He goes down there in his underwear.

00:26:52.000 And I don't know if the last thing I'm ever going to hear from my husband at that point is call the police, which is an interesting final words to get from the love of your life when you're me.

00:27:04.000 And my, you know, infant son is crying.

00:27:08.000 You know, two-year-old daughter at the time is going, what's going on?

00:27:13.000 And I'm trying to calm him while reassure her, while looking around the room thinking, how do I barricade a door?

00:27:22.000 And can I jump out of a window with two small children?

00:27:28.000 All of that before I think, dial 911.

00:27:32.000 Because the last time that I dialed the equivalent of 911 to call for help, I got thrown into prison.

00:27:41.000 I realized that there's nothing I can do to protect my kids, so I call 911.

00:27:46.000 And eventually, you know, my husband is able to get this intruder to leave the house.

00:27:52.000 The police arrive.

00:27:55.000 And I have a very strange encounter with them because they are very nice to me.

00:28:03.000 And I was not expecting that.

00:28:05.000 And they are very nice to my daughter.

00:28:07.000 And they give her a nice little, you know, police badge.

00:28:10.000 And I'm sitting here thinking, great, now I'm going to have to throw a police-themed birthday party for her because now she's going to be super into police. 1.00

00:28:16.000 And I'm just like, what is happening to my life?

00:28:18.000 And I'm scared that they're going to recognize me.

00:28:20.000 And I'm scared that they're going to think maybe she faked a break in.

00:28:23.000 Like, all of that is going on in my head.

00:28:26.000 And I don't know how to resolve that.

00:28:32.000 You know, somebody...

00:28:35.000 I have broken to my home once, murdered my roommate, broken to the place I was staying again, thankfully didn't murder anybody.

00:28:45.000 But like, how do I make sense of my relationship with people who are empowered to protect me, but also are empowered to hurt me?

00:28:56.000 What do I do about that?

00:28:58.000 You tell me.

00:29:00.000 Joe, what do I do?

00:29:03.000 There's no way I could know what's going through your mind.

00:29:07.000 You know, the experience that you had is...

00:29:12.000 No one can even pretend to have those thoughts in their head because this is not just paranoid fantasy.

00:29:21.000 This is your actual lived experience for years.

00:29:27.000 Yeah, that's a good question.

00:29:29.000 What had happened?

00:29:31.000 Like, the bang?

00:29:32.000 Was it someone kicking down the door?

00:29:33.000 Yeah, he had kicked in the door through the deadbolt.

00:29:36.000 What was the yelling?

00:29:37.000 The yelling was he was just...

00:29:39.000 Schizophrenic?

00:29:41.000 Yeah, he thought that someone had stole that house from him and he was yelling for some name of a person who didn't live there.

00:29:50.000 Clearly was just, like, either confused or mentally ill in some capacity.

00:29:57.000 But...

00:29:58.000 And thankfully not armed, but like my husband didn't know when he walked down the stairs in his underwear without any, like he grabbed a broom on his way down and that was, he was between putting himself and a broom between whoever this person was who had just kicked in the front door through the deadbolt and his family.

00:30:20.000 And that might have been the last time I ever saw him, you know?

00:30:25.000 And...

00:30:26.000 I did not know what to do.

00:30:27.000 I try to, like, joke about it now, where I actually did a stand-up bit about it a while back, about how I was, like, testing my butt to see if it was bouncy enough to, like, jump out of the window and bounce.

00:30:39.000 But, like, when I think back on it, it's just, it's still scary, you know?

00:30:47.000 And I don't like how I feel right now.

00:30:54.000 When I'm scared, I'm supposed to call the police, but I'm also scared to call the police.

00:30:59.000 And so, you know, when I go and do advocacy work for, you know, I'm now on the board of an organization called the Innocence Center, InnocenceCenter.org, which, by the way, just got a bunch of federal funding taken away.

00:31:17.000 Thanks, Elon.

00:31:18.000 You'd think that they would be interested in supporting people.

00:31:23.000 Organizations that clean up the messes of the criminal justice system, but apparently not.

00:31:30.000 So if you want to support us, innocencecenter.org.

00:31:34.000 What happened that they got their funding taken away?

00:31:37.000 What was the circumstances?

00:31:39.000 I mean, there's a federal funding that is designed for innocence organizations, and I think what I...

00:31:48.000 is that there are certain words that sort of became taboo within the administration, that if you were using these words or these terminologies that they associate with like DEI, that then that sort of puts you on the list of being cut for federal funding.

00:32:08.000 And one of those words was like the word fair.

00:32:11.000 And in an organization that is interested in justice and For in getting innocent people out of prison, the word fair is going to come up quite a bit.

00:32:21.000 So is it just an algorithm?

00:32:22.000 They're just scanning the mission statement of whatever these organizations are?

00:32:27.000 Yeah, I mean, I think that that's a first step is they'll just use this.

00:32:32.000 They're going to use algorithms and AI to help them identify potential things to cut.

00:32:39.000 And I think as a new innocence organization, we were considered.

00:32:44.000 Not worthy of the federal funding that we have relied on to help innocent people.

00:32:50.000 Are you one of the founders of this organization?

00:32:52.000 Me?

00:32:53.000 No, I'm on the board.

00:32:54.000 You're on the board.

00:32:54.000 But yes, this is formerly the California Innocence Project that has since sort of turned into the Innocence Center.

00:33:02.000 But you're seeing this all across the board of innocence projects of getting their federal funding taken away.

00:33:08.000 And there's no accusations of impropriety or misuse of funds or high salaries for certain individuals or nothing?

00:33:18.000 Nope.

00:33:19.000 Just it's deprioritized because I think we're considered leftist organizations potentially.

00:33:27.000 I don't know.

00:33:28.000 But I know that like I have always thought that innocence and justice were bipartisan issues, and I thought that we had been making great strides in sort of welcoming in both liberal and conservative partners in this ongoing fight.

00:33:48.000 But because these things disproportionately impact people of color, you're going to see...

00:33:56.000 Language around that that acknowledges that fact.

00:33:59.000 And I think that that has been sort of put in...

00:34:03.000 Innocence organizations are now being put into DEI camps and we're being stripped of funding.

00:34:10.000 And I think that that's...

00:34:13.000 I hope that that's an oversight issue and that they're going to recognize the mistake that they're making.

00:34:19.000 But as it stands right now, innocence organizations, not just the one that I'm associated with, are scrambling to get the funding that they were promised to continue doing, you know.

00:34:30.000 Doing the things that cost money, like filing all of their work and going through all of the casework and doing the DNA tests and doing investigations to see if you can reach the witnesses that maybe have changed their stories in all these years.

00:34:44.000 It takes a lot of money and resources to prove a person's innocence.

00:34:48.000 You have to reinvestigate a case, and we don't have the funding that we used to.

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00:36:17.000 I do a lot of work with Josh Dubin.

00:36:19.000 You know Josh?

00:36:21.000 Yeah.

00:36:21.000 I mean, I've never met him personally.

00:36:22.000 He was with the Innocence Project, and now he's with the Ike Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice.

00:36:31.000 And same kind of work.

00:36:33.000 Ironically, Ike Perlmutter is very close friends with Trump.

00:36:37.000 I mean, I would have thought that that would have been of interest to Trump, considering...

00:36:42.000 I think it's a baby with the bathwater type deal.

00:36:45.000 Right.

00:36:45.000 Where there's a lot of...

00:36:46.000 What you would call almost like slush fund NGOs, where they're inappropriately moving funds around and doing stuff.

00:36:55.000 And I don't know if you've ever seen any of Mike Benz's work, but he essentially says that USAID is really there to do things that are too dirty for the CIA.

00:37:05.000 So the extraordinary amount of money that was being moved around, there's a certain percentage of it.

00:37:14.000 That was inappropriately being used.

00:37:16.000 I imagine so.

00:37:17.000 Yeah, sure.

00:37:18.000 An enormous percentage.

00:37:19.000 It's a lot of money.

00:37:20.000 But unfortunately, there's a lot of good that also is coming out of that money.

00:37:26.000 And that's what's difficult.

00:37:28.000 It's like when you round up all the quote-unquote gang members, right?

00:37:36.000 And you fly them to El Salvador.

00:37:38.000 Are you sure they're all gang members?

00:37:41.000 Do you care?

00:37:42.000 Right, exactly.

00:37:43.000 Do you care or is it just like, we're just here to clean things up and break a few eggs to make an omelet?

00:37:49.000 Right.

00:37:50.000 Are innocent people the price of us getting to be efficient?

00:37:55.000 Don't become a monster when you're fighting monsters.

00:37:58.000 Yeah.

00:37:59.000 And that's what I think we're brushing up against right now.

00:38:05.000 And as someone who really is, like, just interested in keeping, especially this issue, like, this is a human, like, we all should be on the same side about this.

00:38:15.000 100%.

00:38:16.000 Yeah.

00:38:17.000 Like, why is it being turned into this, a left or right issue?

00:38:21.000 Well, maybe I can get this in front of Josh and he can present it to some people and, you know, have them reconsider their position.

00:38:30.000 That would be great.

00:38:32.000 I would, you know, and if you need to put me in contact, like, I would be happy to...

00:38:37.000 You know, one of the things through working with Josh and, you know, just through this podcast, we've gotten a lot of people released that were wrongfully convicted.

00:38:47.000 And, you know, when you go over the amount of corruption that's involved, and I think there's an issue...

00:38:57.000 With human beings, whenever there's a binary position, a one or a zero, you win or you lose.

00:39:05.000 Yes, the adversarial system.

00:39:07.000 It's like, I have to be, I have to win this side, and I cannot at all acknowledge some truth that might be to the other side.

00:39:15.000 And then you have this game where you hire, like if you are a guilty person, you hire the best defense attorneys that...

00:39:24.000 Probably even know you're guilty, but their job is to get you off by any means necessary to...

00:39:29.000 Well, their job is to make the government prove your guilt, right?

00:39:33.000 That's what technically a defense attorney who's really good...

00:39:36.000 Yeah, but that's not really what they're doing.

00:39:38.000 They're trying to get you out of jail.

00:39:40.000 Yeah, of course.

00:39:41.000 The goal being if you can't actually prove it, then...

00:39:44.000 Well, their goal is to win as often as possible so that they're the person.

00:39:48.000 Like, this is the guy you want.

00:39:51.000 Although I have talked to some...

00:39:53.000 Really interesting defense attorneys.

00:39:57.000 The defense attorneys represented Larry Nassar, for example.

00:40:02.000 Famously, for those who don't remember, was molesting young gymnasts.

00:40:07.000 You remember him?

00:40:08.000 Yeah, the Olympics guy.

00:40:09.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:40:10.000 And I interviewed them because it was two women who represented him.

00:40:15.000 And so a lot of people were like, how dare you represent this man as a woman?

00:40:18.000 How could you?

00:40:20.000 And their position was, well, we didn't represent him to...

00:40:23.000 We had him plead guilty to these crimes.

00:40:28.000 We just feel that everyone deserves to have a defender.

00:40:34.000 We're defenders.

00:40:35.000 We represent people in the law.

00:40:38.000 And they were getting demonized for even taking him on as a client.

00:40:41.000 And I thought that was interesting because they weren't trying to get him off.

00:40:45.000 They were just trying to have...

00:40:48.000 to represent due process and I felt like that was a really interesting case of People confusing what is the role of a defense attorney.

00:41:02.000 And I think you're right.

00:41:02.000 Some defense attorneys really don't care if their clients are guilty or innocent because they are also in this adversarial system.

00:41:09.000 And so they are also in this position of just wanting to win and wanting to make the lives of law enforcement difficult.

00:41:16.000 And they're willing to throw victims under the bus in the process.

00:41:19.000 I've had really frank conversations with...

00:41:23.000 With friends of mine in the innocence world where they talk about how they were trained to just destroy a victim in order to...

00:41:34.000 Diminish their credibility in court and to really put them in a really bad position so they didn't want to pursue justice for themselves.

00:41:44.000 And they look back and go, oh my god, I can't believe that that's how I was trained to be a defense attorney.

00:41:50.000 But that was just part of the game.

00:41:52.000 And I think that's where this whole course of justice gets completely distorted.

00:41:57.000 Because it's like, well, what is the point of all of this?

00:42:00.000 It should be about arriving at the truth.

00:42:03.000 And then having there be some recognized consequences for acknowledging what really happened.

00:42:11.000 We need to address the issue, which is somebody got hurt by someone else.

00:42:16.000 What do we do?

00:42:17.000 Now what?

00:42:18.000 And instead it's become, well, I'm on this team, you're on this team, fight, fight, fight, let's see who wins.

00:42:25.000 And as a result, the whole issue of truth gets distorted and becomes about...

00:42:31.000 Making the best story that captures the people's attention.

00:42:35.000 And I think, I mean, that was a huge lesson for me, was realizing that, like, the truth didn't matter.

00:42:42.000 Like, nobody cared about the truth.

00:42:45.000 They cared about the story.

00:42:46.000 And was it a story that spoke to them?

00:42:48.000 And was it a story that lingered for them?

00:42:51.000 And that's, you know, an ongoing thing that I write about is like, okay, here's this crazy story that is not true.

00:42:59.000 That took over my life and that still has this huge role.

00:43:04.000 Like, I'm still in conversation with that crazy story that was written about me.

00:43:09.000 And the fact that, like, my entire identity is now wrapped up in the death of my friend that I had nothing to do with and I'll forever be defined by because it's such a captivating story.

00:43:22.000 And because the prosecutor was dead set on winning.

00:43:29.000 And wasn't necessarily interested in the truth.

00:43:33.000 What he says, and it's very, again, it goes back to like, what are we telling ourselves?

00:43:40.000 And what is the cognitive bias?

00:43:42.000 And I think this is where it gets super interesting.

00:43:44.000 Because winning is interpreted in some people's minds as doing their duty.

00:43:54.000 Right?

00:43:55.000 Like the way that my prosecutor has always...

00:43:58.000 Talked about it with me is that he maintains that he was doing his duty.

00:44:06.000 This was his job.

00:44:08.000 His job was to make a case that made logical sense to him based upon certain premises and then to win that case in court.

00:44:21.000 That was his job.

00:44:22.000 That was his duty.

00:44:23.000 And he believes that he was doing the right thing because that's what he was trained and incentivized to do.

00:44:31.000 In the same way that, like, you know, journalists, if you ask journalists back who covered the case back in the day, they'll be like, well, we were doing our job.

00:44:39.000 Our job was to sell the best story that we could to our audience.

00:44:45.000 Right?

00:44:46.000 And so that's when it gets, like, fucked up. 0.63

00:44:48.000 Because, like, how have our institutions that we've relied on to be truth-seeking institutions been corrupted from the inside by...

00:44:58.000 Ultimately, what is a question of money or power?

00:45:03.000 When politics gets brought into the equation with criminal justice, suddenly your prosecutor is now wanting to win cases, not because they're the right cases to win, but because they want to be elected.

00:45:15.000 All of that gets...

00:45:18.000 Distorted and the motivations behind all our institutions become warped.

00:45:23.000 But with the media, it's even more disgusting because it's not about politics.

00:45:27.000 It's literally just about getting people to pay attention to their story and buy newspapers or click on links.

00:45:35.000 That's it.

00:45:36.000 Right.

00:45:37.000 And then they hold the audience accountable for the kinds of stories that they are then incentivized to write.

00:45:44.000 They say, well, you know, I wouldn't have been writing this story if you weren't clicking on it.

00:45:48.000 And this was like this vicious cycle.

00:45:50.000 That's crazy.

00:45:51.000 It's like I wouldn't have robbed your house if you didn't have nice stuff.

00:45:53.000 Exactly.

00:45:54.000 Exactly.

00:45:55.000 That's fucking crazy.

00:45:56.000 But if you're in that little echo chamber of a system and that's what your reward structure is, of course that's what you're going to end up delivering if you're somebody who doesn't have the introspection to question, like, okay, wait, what am I doing and what is the point of all of this and do you have certain principles?

00:46:13.000 But again, the people who rise to the top are maybe the ones who are willing to question those principles in order to achieve certain ends.

00:46:19.000 Yes.

00:46:20.000 Yeah, and then there's also the problem with you're working for a corporation if you're in the news.

00:46:25.000 If you're not an independent journalist who has, like, rock-solid personal ethics, you're working for a corporation, and your job is...

00:46:33.000 To make money for your shareholders, ultimately.

00:46:35.000 And the way you do that is to get as many people to click on those links as possible.

00:46:38.000 And maybe the person who's on the ground has a certain vision for what they want their on-the-ground reporting to do.

00:46:44.000 But then once it gets in the hands of editors and other editors, it becomes completely warped from the thing that they were originally reporting on because the person who's over here is so divorced from the actual on-the-ground story and they know instead the story that's going to sell.

00:47:01.000 Yeah, it's dark.

00:47:02.000 I mean, it's the same sort of distortion.

00:47:04.000 Excuse me.

00:47:07.000 Salute.

00:47:08.000 Sorry.

00:47:08.000 It's the same sort of distortion when you were talking about prosecutors just trying to win.

00:47:15.000 It's this thing where, and ultimately, it's...

00:47:22.000 It's a severe distortion of what the best case scenario is.

00:47:28.000 The best case scenario is prosecutors don't care about winning.

00:47:33.000 They care about finding truly guilty people.

00:47:37.000 And in cases where someone, whether they withhold evidence that could have exonerated an innocent person or whether they distort things or twist things around in order to win.

00:47:51.000 They should be forever removed from that system.

00:47:55.000 You should never be allowed to do that.

00:47:58.000 But Kamala Harris did that and rose to be vice president and almost became president. 1.00

00:48:04.000 And she is absolutely guilty of doing that.

00:48:07.000 Yeah, I know.

00:48:08.000 She tried to withhold DNA evidence that would have exonerated someone.

00:48:13.000 I know.

00:48:13.000 She was not a popular choice among the innocence community, I'll tell you that.

00:48:18.000 Oh, yeah.

00:48:19.000 No, Josh Dubin broke her down on my show.

00:48:22.000 Oh, were they here together?

00:48:24.000 No.

00:48:24.000 Oh, okay.

00:48:24.000 No, no, no.

00:48:25.000 He broke down what she was guilty of when she was a prosecutor in California.

00:48:30.000 Yeah, no, it wasn't.

00:48:32.000 And that's why I was so mad that our party never actually gave us a choice.

00:48:35.000 Right.

00:48:36.000 There was no primary.

00:48:38.000 No, there was no primary.

00:48:39.000 They were just like, here's the person now.

00:48:40.000 And if you don't vote for her, you're a bad person.

00:48:42.000 Exactly.

00:48:43.000 You're a fascist.

00:48:44.000 Yes.

00:48:44.000 Okay.

00:48:45.000 Yeah, no, it was that.

00:48:48.000 But then again, that's also just trying to win.

00:48:51.000 It's the same kind of thing.

00:48:52.000 It's just the focus is on winning at what cost.

00:48:57.000 And then that's a very slippery slope because if you're willing to accept that, guess what?

00:49:02.000 Guess what?

00:49:03.000 That slope keeps slipping.

00:49:04.000 And then next thing you know.

00:49:06.000 Yeah, you don't have brakes.

00:49:08.000 Right.

00:49:08.000 You have to put a fucking blinder on because you're a part of the problem.

00:49:12.000 You're a part of what's destroying society.

00:49:14.000 So then you have to reshape your own personal narrative and lie to yourself about what you're doing and why you're doing it.

00:49:20.000 Right.

00:49:20.000 A little bit of self-brainwashing.

00:49:24.000 And that fascinates me.

00:49:27.000 In conversations with my prosecutor, how has he convinced himself that he's the good guy?

00:49:36.000 And how has that changed when I have approached him, not as an adversary, but as someone who is, I wouldn't say, like, tolerant, because I've never put myself in a position of sort of saying, oh, what you did was not a big deal.

00:49:55.000 Like, when I approached him, I was like, what you did was a big deal, and you were wrong, and you hurt people.

00:50:00.000 But, like, acknowledging his humanity and the complexity of him and acknowledging that, like, he's not an evil person.

00:50:10.000 Well, what is evil?

00:50:13.000 Intentional malice, maybe?

00:50:15.000 That seems like he was doing it intentionally.

00:50:17.000 If he was paying attention to the facts of the case.

00:50:20.000 I mean, there was DNA evidence.

00:50:22.000 There was all sorts of stuff that pointed to you not being the guilty party.

00:50:27.000 And they ignored that.

00:50:28.000 If that's not evil.

00:50:30.000 I mean, what he did, it's interesting.

00:50:33.000 He wrote a whole book about the case and he talked about how when he first arrived at the scene, he immediately knew that it was a conspiracy because he looked at the broken window, how the person had actually broken into our home and said, there's no way, zero chance that a burglar would have broken into a house this way.

00:50:58.000 He just was like 100% convinced that immediately that the break-in was staged.

00:51:05.000 And if you take that, if you and your brain truly believe that, then what logically follows is a lot of what he then...

00:51:17.000 Came up with, well, someone in the house is trying to cover up for a crime that they were involved in.

00:51:23.000 Who lives in that house?

00:51:24.000 Well, there are three other girls, one of whom was in Rome, one of whom is another Italian girl who was with her boyfriend and friends, and one of whom is the American girl who was with her boyfriend that night, but who also happened to be the one who called the police and brought attention to the house.

00:51:39.000 So maybe because we found her at the scene of the crime, all of it sort of starts to make...

00:51:49.000 How did he reconcile that in the book?

00:51:51.000 In his book?

00:51:52.000 Yeah.

00:51:53.000 I mean, he makes logical leaps.

00:51:56.000 So he goes, okay, well, then we discovered that, you know, all of this DNA of the person who actually committed the crime, right?

00:52:03.000 Like, you know, they finally get the DNA back and it's all pointing to this guy who has a history of breaking and entering and aggression towards women.

00:52:10.000 And he doesn't go, oh, no, we made a mistake.

00:52:12.000 He goes, oh, how can now he be involved in this thing that I know Amanda's involved in because I know the break-in was staged.

00:52:21.000 And, you know, like, so these the this is how a person with good with genuinely good intentions can can have false beliefs that then logic from which one can logically derive.

00:52:36.000 An insane story that requires, like, him to now believe, like, one of the things that I pointed out to him that just, like, drives me nuts that he continues to, like, somehow hang on to is this idea that I was in a threesome with, like, I was in a three-way relationship with my actual boyfriend, Raffaele, and this burglar, Rudy Gaudet.

00:52:57.000 And I was like, where are you coming up with that?

00:53:00.000 And he was like, well...

00:53:03.000 Whenever I interviewed Rudy, like he talks about interviewing, you know, interrogating Rudy, Rudy always seemed to have affectionate things to say about.

00:53:13.000 He always seemed to like...

00:53:14.000 Be interested in you.

00:53:16.000 And from that, I can logically deduce that you guys had a relationship.

00:53:20.000 And I was like, I didn't even know his name.

00:53:23.000 There's no record of us ever communicating with each other.

00:53:26.000 No one ever saw us hanging out with each other.

00:53:28.000 What are you talking about?

00:53:29.000 And he's like, well, if he was involved in the crime and you're involved in the crime and he's sort of talking about you in an affectionate way, then logically...

00:53:39.000 It makes sense that you were in this three-way relationship with Raphael and Rudy.

00:53:44.000 And I'm like, that's not true.

00:53:46.000 And he's like, well, that's what made logical sense to me at the time.

00:53:49.000 I think the issue is an egotistic idiot that has power.

00:53:56.000 That's really what I think it is.

00:53:58.000 It's certainly someone who has a belief and a confidence in their own abilities as a logical thinker.

00:54:07.000 And I think...

00:54:08.000 Anyone who is in that kind of position has to believe in themselves in that kind of way.

00:54:13.000 But not just that.

00:54:14.000 You have too much power.

00:54:15.000 Fair.

00:54:16.000 There's not enough oversight.

00:54:17.000 You have too much power.

00:54:18.000 And then you say something, and if your initial assertion is incorrect, you then have to defend it.

00:54:24.000 So then you do mental gymnastics to try to defend it.

00:54:27.000 At the expense of your fucking life.

00:54:30.000 Yes.

00:54:30.000 He was willing to put you away forever.

00:54:32.000 Like, he had to know.

00:54:33.000 At some point in time, in the back of his stupid brain, he had to know that you were innocent.

00:54:38.000 And he was willing to push forward and concoct some sort of a...

00:54:42.000 Three-way relationship narrative that he still sticks to?

00:54:46.000 Fuck that guy.

00:54:49.000 Well, and sometimes that's what my brain says.

00:54:52.000 You know, sometimes I...

00:54:53.000 Your brain should say that.

00:54:54.000 You know, I mean, forgiveness is really important, but some people you just can't forgive.

00:54:58.000 Like, some people, it's like, no, you need to come to grips with the fact that you're a piece of shit.

00:55:05.000 That's what's wrong here.

00:55:07.000 It's not me forgiving you and you having this hall pass just to be a piece of shit because you had this theory that you're still accusing me of.

00:55:17.000 No.

00:55:18.000 That's not...

00:55:19.000 You're bad at what you do.

00:55:22.000 And sometimes people are bad at what they do.

00:55:23.000 Sometimes you get bad teachers.

00:55:25.000 You get bad cops.

00:55:26.000 Sometimes you get a bad electrician.

00:55:28.000 Your house catches fire.

00:55:30.000 Some people suck at what they do.

00:55:32.000 And to have this eternal forgiveness.

00:55:35.000 Sometimes it's not smart to do that.

00:55:39.000 Well, certainly.

00:55:40.000 Is he still working as a prosecutor?

00:55:42.000 No, no.

00:55:42.000 He's retired.

00:55:43.000 He has retired.

00:55:44.000 He should be in jail!

00:55:46.000 Like, literally.

00:55:47.000 I do not wish jail upon him.

00:55:49.000 Okay.

00:55:50.000 That's sweet.

00:55:51.000 But that's a crime.

00:55:52.000 Like, what he did, it was not just a crime, but it was a conspiracy.

00:55:57.000 Yeah, I would have to say that I agree that I always wondered where the adults were in the room.

00:56:09.000 You know, the whole first two years of my imprisonment, I was like, this is all a huge mistake, and it's really obviously a huge mistake, and when are the mommies and daddies going to show up and say, okay, kids, stop your squabbling, let's straighten things out.

00:56:25.000 There's no mommies and daddies.

00:56:26.000 There are no mommies and daddies.

00:56:27.000 That's the thing that freaked me out.

00:56:29.000 It's like, we're all adults now, and this is all we are.

00:56:32.000 We're just a bunch of screaming toddlers, just screaming at each other constantly.

00:56:37.000 And here I am now, I feel, in a way, trying to mother my prosecutor through his, you know, psychological tantrums.

00:56:52.000 Which is a weird position to be in.

00:56:56.000 Because now that I've, you know, developed the relationship that I've developed with him, I care about him.

00:57:07.000 I don't think that you can...

00:57:09.000 I set out to understand him.

00:57:12.000 I wanted to understand him.

00:57:14.000 But in the process of really understanding a human being and having them be really open to you, I don't know.

00:57:24.000 I feel like you inevitably begin to care about this person.

00:57:30.000 Even in their, you know, flawed fragility as a human being.

00:57:35.000 And so on the one hand, I'm very angry at him to this day.

00:57:40.000 And on the other hand, I care about him and I have to give him some props.

00:57:48.000 He didn't have to respond to me.

00:57:50.000 He didn't have to meet with me.

00:57:53.000 He didn't have to sit there and hear me talk about how he had fucked up my life and he shouldn't have.

00:58:01.000 I did not, like, it's not that, like, me being kind to him does not mean me tolerating injustice.

00:58:10.000 And it does not mean me not setting boundaries.

00:58:12.000 And it does not mean me sugarcoating what really happened.

00:58:16.000 Like, he knows what I think really happened.

00:58:19.000 And he says, well, you know, we can disagree about our perspectives in some ways.

00:58:26.000 But ultimately what matters is that you reached out to me.

00:58:33.000 And in response, I also inevitably came to see you as a human being, and I care about you.

00:58:43.000 And so in a way, we're still in this awkward dance of one part of us is stuck in that adversarial system, and one part of us is in...

00:58:57.000 A non-adversary, very accepting of all the things space.

00:59:03.000 And we're paradoxically existing in both of them at the same time.

00:59:09.000 And I think that that's just kind of how life is.

00:59:12.000 One of the paradoxes of life is that if you really just sit down and sit with yourself and your life just the way it is right now.

00:59:22.000 If you really do, just notice right now, you and me, here we are talking.

00:59:26.000 We are okay.

00:59:28.000 You and me, we are good.

00:59:31.000 And also, there's still fucked up shit in my life, and there's still fucked up shit in your life, and things could be better, and all of those things can be true at the same time. 0.54

00:59:41.000 I'm still fighting to clear my name in Italy.

00:59:44.000 I don't know if you...

00:59:45.000 Have you kept up with the latest with my case?

00:59:47.000 Oh, yeah.

00:59:49.000 So...

00:59:49.000 Still?

00:59:50.000 So I've been cleared of like all the crazy, you know, horrible murder, orgy, all of that stuff cleared.

00:59:57.000 The thing that remains, and this is just the bane of my fucking existence, is when they cleared me of having anything to do with the crime, they left open the possibility that I was present when the crime occurred.

01:00:15.000 I believe the reason that they did this was because they wanted to find me guilty of something.

01:00:21.000 And the thing that they found me guilty of was the way lesser crime on the list of all the crimes that were there, which was slander.

01:00:32.000 They accused me of knowingly and willingly falsely accusing an innocent person of having committed this crime.

01:00:45.000 Into implicating myself and my boss, Patrick Lumumba, of committing this crime.

01:00:54.000 And I immediately retracted it, all of that, but that was one of the things that they were holding me accountable for.

01:01:02.000 And they, to this day, I am still convicted in Italy of knowingly and willingly... 0.62

01:01:14.000 I would have had to know that he was definitively innocent for this to be the case.

01:01:28.000 And for that to be true, I would have to be physically present at the crime, even if I was not participating in it.

01:01:34.000 So the legal standing right now to this day is that I was there.

01:01:40.000 And that when I was interrogated, I knowingly and falsely accused an innocent person.

01:01:47.000 I appealed this, by the way, to the European Court of Human Rights, and they ruled in my favor.

01:01:52.000 They said that because I had been denied the right to have an attorney and an interpreter when I was being interrogated, that I should never have been convicted of that.

01:02:03.000 And I took that back to Italy.

01:02:06.000 I took that ruling back to Italy.

01:02:09.000 They overturned it.

01:02:10.000 I was actually acquitted of that for a second, but then sent back for retrial recently.

01:02:15.000 And recently, yeah, this is 18 years later, recently was put back on trial for that.

01:02:22.000 This was last year.

01:02:24.000 And I was found guilty again.

01:02:26.000 Oh my God.

01:02:27.000 On the basis, not even of the statements that the police like coerced me into signing, but on my retraction.

01:02:33.000 So I handwrote a retraction of those statements that the police coerced me into signing.

01:02:38.000 And I was like, I'm so confused.

01:02:40.000 I can't testify.

01:02:41.000 Like, I don't know if Patrick did it or not.

01:02:43.000 Like, I just don't know.

01:02:44.000 And they said, well, even a confused statement where you're not sure what the truth is, if you were physically present at the crime, is...

01:02:52.000 Is slander and you falsely accused an innocent man that you knew to be innocent.

01:02:57.000 And so...

01:02:58.000 But they have no proof that you were there.

01:02:59.000 Exactly.

01:03:00.000 So we're in this like cyclical thing where they're like...

01:03:03.000 They just don't want to admit that they fucked up.

01:03:05.000 That's what I think.

01:03:06.000 And I'm at this point where I'm like, okay, now what?

01:03:10.000 Because I'm definitively convicted of this thing and like the legal truth in this case does not...

01:03:17.000 Represent the actual truth in this case.

01:03:20.000 Are they trying to protect themselves from some sort of a civil suit?

01:03:23.000 Maybe.

01:03:24.000 I think even more than that, I think they're trying to protect themselves from admitting that they tortured an innocent girl.

01:03:33.000 Oh, my God.

01:03:34.000 So they can say, well, she is guilty.

01:03:37.000 She did do this.

01:03:38.000 She's a guilty person.

01:03:40.000 And so it's not crazy for us to think that she might have been involved in the murder.

01:03:44.000 Or was there, at least.

01:03:46.000 She probably lied about being there. 0.96

01:03:47.000 Yeah.

01:03:48.000 Jesus Christ.

01:03:49.000 And all they were ever able to do was prove that I lived in the house that this happened in.

01:03:54.000 Like, sure, my DNA is in my house.

01:03:56.000 It's not anywhere near Meredith's body or where the crime occurred.

01:04:00.000 But they're saying that, like, I was there.

01:04:03.000 And it's sort of this, like, cyclical sort of reasoning.

01:04:06.000 Like, Amanda said she was there.

01:04:08.000 Therefore, she was there.

01:04:10.000 Therefore, she said she was, you know, like, it's this, like, insane cyclical reasoning.

01:04:15.000 And I'm at the point where I have to ask myself, like, how do I fight this?

01:04:19.000 And if so, do I?

01:04:21.000 And that's where this whole question of freedom comes in.

01:04:23.000 Like, do I have to definitively, like...

01:04:29.000 Do I need to definitively prove my innocence in the court of public opinion in order to feel free or to feel like I'm not—regardless of whether I definitively prove my innocence or not, am I ever going to be free of this?

01:04:46.000 Is this ever going to be not touching me and impacting my life?

01:04:52.000 And the answer that I've come to— Is, well, no.

01:04:56.000 In the way that, like, any of our experiences have come to define us as human beings.

01:05:02.000 And in a way, it's like another way of reframing this is, okay, these are my credentials now.

01:05:09.000 Like, I went to the—I didn't go to four years of master's degree in poetry.

01:05:16.000 I got a master's degree in— Whatever this is, I'm being fucked.

01:05:24.000 And I've learned things from this.

01:05:29.000 I've learned things about the criminal justice system.

01:05:32.000 I can see things that need to be fixed that are really common sense fixes to.

01:05:39.000 There is no reason why we shouldn't be just recording.

01:05:45.000 Any kind of communication, like any time that anyone is being questioned by anyone in law enforcement, there's no reason why we shouldn't be recording it.

01:05:54.000 And I'm not talking about even just suspects because, like, there's been a whole, you know, world of advocacy around, like, recording interrogations, right?

01:06:03.000 Like, custodial interrogations and especially...

01:06:08.000 Making it so that police officers can't lie to you when you're being interrogated, because that was a huge thing that impacted me as a young, confused, overwhelmed human being, is police lying to me and telling me that they have proof that I was there when the crime occurred, and it made me feel like I was insane.

01:06:26.000 And so the problem of police lying to you is not just that it's a bullying technique, but it warps your sense of reality and you start to question yourself.

01:06:35.000 And so there's psychological research to show that...

01:06:38.000 There are very negative consequences for police lying to you during interrogation.

01:06:42.000 But at the very least, if you record it, you can sort of track how that is impacting a person who is a suspect.

01:06:49.000 The Wild West of all of this is eyewitnesses or anyone else who is being questioned by police because there's no Miranda rights.

01:06:59.000 As a person who is being questioned by police, you don't really have...

01:07:06.000 Right.

01:07:07.000 Like you don't you don't have like one of the things that they say in my case is that I never had the right to an attorney because I wasn't a suspect.

01:07:16.000 I was a witness.

01:07:17.000 And so like to this day in Italy, there's like this resistance to the idea that I was like coerced into.

01:07:26.000 I was that I was even interrogated at all because there's this like little loophole where they say, oh, you weren't interrogated.

01:07:31.000 You were interviewed.

01:07:33.000 Oh, you weren't interviewed.

01:07:34.000 You were questioned.

01:07:35.000 They just changed the language.

01:07:36.000 But what's ultimately happening is the same thing.

01:07:38.000 You are stuck in a room with a law enforcement officer who may or may not be lying to your face and bullying you.

01:07:46.000 And you don't know if you're free or not to go because the door is closed and it doesn't feel like it.

01:07:52.000 And so...

01:07:54.000 For me, I think that if you consider how many wrongful convictions happen because of misidentification by witnesses or the number of times that, like, witnesses say, well, I wasn't really sure that it was him, but the police sort of coaxed me or...

01:08:11.000 Pressured me into saying it was him and sort of made it known to me that it was him.

01:08:15.000 Like there are lots of things that are happening behind closed doors that we really don't have an excuse for not fixing when every single one of us has a recording device in our pocket at all times.

01:08:26.000 And the amount of resistance to like getting just really common sense changes like that to happen from like law enforcement lobbies is just...

01:08:37.000 So frustrating as someone who, like, shows up again and again and again to, like, try to make—because it seems like this adversarial thing.

01:08:46.000 Like, we're all on the same side.

01:08:47.000 It's not, like, victims' rights versus defendants' rights.

01:08:50.000 It's not law enforcement versus, you know, innocence.

01:08:53.000 It's, like, we're all on the same page.

01:08:55.000 Why can't we just acknowledge a true thing?

01:08:59.000 That's been one of my biggest frustrations in this world is, like, feeling like— We should all be on the same side and we should be making common sense changes and That don't you know, that's the way the system is structured.

01:09:13.000 You know, there's two sides trying to win and When you lose you don't like to lose right so people would cheat to win But like lose what are you losing?

01:09:23.000 You know playing a game.

01:09:24.000 Yeah, I mean it's your life and it's other people's lives.

01:09:27.000 It's innocent people's lives But it's also guilty people's lives.

01:09:31.000 But why doesn't, like, a law enforcement officer look at something that happened to me?

01:09:36.000 Actually, you know, I take that back.

01:09:37.000 Plenty of law enforcement people have talked to me and said, like, we are so sorry for what happened to you.

01:09:43.000 The ones who weren't involved.

01:09:45.000 That's the problem.

01:09:46.000 The problem is, do you look away when you are involved?

01:09:50.000 You know, how many law enforcement officers will stick their neck out if they think their partner overstepped their boundaries?

01:09:58.000 And got someone to admit to something that maybe they did or didn't do, withheld evidence that may or may not have exonerated someone.

01:10:05.000 Like, there's steps along the way on the road to evil.

01:10:09.000 Right.

01:10:09.000 And no one gets rewarded for sticking their neck out or for holding their friends accountable.

01:10:15.000 You get punished.

01:10:16.000 You get excommunicated from your tribe.

01:10:21.000 It's very dangerous, you know?

01:10:23.000 So how do we motivate...

01:10:27.000 It's a real problem.

01:10:29.000 It's a giant conundrum.

01:10:30.000 It's a real problem in the way the system is structured.

01:10:34.000 And the feeling that you have to, in order to do the right thing, you just have to switch sides, that really bothers me.

01:10:40.000 Also because one thing that I would love to see more of is more of a collaboration between victims' rights advocates and innocents' rights advocates.

01:10:53.000 But, like, oftentimes you see us sort of pitted against each other as if, like, you know, I've always felt that the criminal justice system never did enough for victims.

01:11:09.000 That, like, the only compensation that victims are really given is the idea that you're going to punish the perpetrator.

01:11:17.000 And I've always wanted to know how is the system going to...

01:11:23.000 Help the victim rebuild their life and take back and, like, reclaim what can be reclaimed of their experience and be uplifted.

01:11:33.000 Well, that's supposedly where the civil suits come in. 0.99

01:11:36.000 Supposedly, but, like, you're suing the person who committed the crime, and are you ever actually going to get any money from them?

01:11:43.000 Well, sometimes money's awarded to families by the state.

01:11:48.000 You know, there's those...

01:11:50.000 But, I mean, is that enough?

01:11:51.000 Like, is money's...

01:11:53.000 Is that enough?

01:11:54.000 You know?

01:11:55.000 No, I don't think so.

01:11:56.000 I think that people need more support than that.

01:12:01.000 What is the support, though?

01:12:02.000 Like, what would make it right?

01:12:06.000 Well, I think...

01:12:07.000 Overhaul of the system.

01:12:08.000 Yeah.

01:12:08.000 It's really the only way to truly make it right is to find...

01:12:12.000 I mean, if you're a person like...

01:12:14.000 I think your approach to this all, this...

01:12:18.000 Radical acceptance and forgiveness is very, very, very beautiful.

01:12:24.000 It's amazing that you can do it.

01:12:26.000 It's amazing that you think the way you think.

01:12:29.000 I used you as an example the other day.

01:12:30.000 We were having this conversation about horrible things that have happened to people that have made that person a beautiful person.

01:12:40.000 Because you went through this insane thing, but on the other end of it, you came out this like really interesting person.

01:12:47.000 Oh, thank you.

01:12:49.000 I used you as an example of things that don't break you, but that you would never want to wish on anyone else.

01:12:57.000 But then the result of that is this person comes out extraordinary.

01:13:01.000 Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of the obstacles.

01:13:04.000 I mean, it's a lot of stuff that I write about in the book, actually.

01:13:07.000 One of the things that my goal with this book was to try to Yes, what happened to me is like, oh, crazy story happened to a girl one time.

01:13:16.000 But also there are universal lessons and truths that I've derived from my experience that make me – and when I communicate them, they make me feel less ostracized or less singled out as a human being.

01:13:30.000 And one of those is there is opportunity in every tragedy.

01:13:41.000 What my tragedy challenged me to do was to not be broken by it.

01:13:51.000 And my definition of being broken by it was coming out of it a person who was angry and embittered and diminished by this experience.

01:14:09.000 And the rebellious side of me was like, fuck that.

01:14:14.000 What matters to me?

01:14:17.000 What matters to me is the truth and is compassion.

01:14:23.000 Curiosity, compassion.

01:14:25.000 Those are things that I genuinely care about.

01:14:28.000 And having the courage to approach human beings and situations that are painful and that are wrong with the open.

01:14:43.000 That is what I wanted to define me.

01:14:49.000 I did not want this horrible experience to define me on its terms.

01:14:55.000 I wanted to define me on my own terms.

01:14:57.000 And I think the challenge that any one of us has is...

01:15:03.000 Remembering what even our terms are when we're feeling sort of overwhelmed with the existential crisis of it all.

01:15:11.000 And I think one of the biggest mistakes that people make is they are stuck, they are fixated, they dwell on the life that they should have lived.

01:15:24.000 Instead of acknowledging and accepting that this is the life that they are living.

01:15:32.000 And when you are acting in the world as if...

01:15:36.000 You are living the life that you should have lived.

01:15:38.000 You are inevitably becoming ineffective.

01:15:41.000 Like if I were to approach the world and be like, my prosecutor never should have done this to me and I never should have gone to prison and people never should have villainized me in the press, I would just find myself debilitated, utterly debilitated by the fact that reality is other than that.

01:15:58.000 And I would just find myself angry and...

01:16:02.000 And bitter about it all.

01:16:04.000 And instead, I go, well, all of that happened.

01:16:10.000 Now what?

01:16:12.000 And by accepting reality and life as it is, I can now become a more effective agent in my life.

01:16:19.000 I don't want to live my life acting and feeling and thinking in ways that are not going to be effective.

01:16:25.000 And so instead, what happens in the radical acceptance of it all?

01:16:34.000 I'm not trying to be Christian about it. 0.74

01:16:36.000 I'm just trying to, like, not be the completely and utterly overwhelmed and disempowered person that I was when I was in prison.

01:16:48.000 Like, I lost so much.

01:16:51.000 I had so little control of my life.

01:16:59.000 And I think in the end, all of us do.

01:17:02.000 I feel like I weirdly had a midlife crisis when I was 20 because my entire life fell apart.

01:17:08.000 Or I was put on this track, this train that just like left the station and was going on its own and there was really nothing I could do to stop it.

01:17:18.000 And so, okay, now what?

01:17:23.000 That's a great way to put it.

01:17:24.000 Like, you're on a train that you can't stop.

01:17:28.000 Yeah, I mean, what you've done is admirable.

01:17:30.000 I mean, the approach that you take is really, I mean, if...

01:17:34.000 Is it admirable?

01:17:35.000 Is it self-serving?

01:17:36.000 No, no, it's not self-serving.

01:17:38.000 Obviously, it's self-serving, but that's a good thing.

01:17:41.000 I mean, you're serving yourself in the best possible way and to not be completely defined by your being victimized.

01:17:51.000 You've risen above it.

01:17:54.000 I mean, just the fact that you contacted the prosecutor and tried to reach out and talk to him as a human being and try to find out.

01:18:02.000 And accept him where he's at.

01:18:03.000 Yeah.

01:18:04.000 Like, this is where you're at.

01:18:05.000 Well, he's a kind of a victim in a way because he shouldn't have had the kind of power that he had.

01:18:12.000 There's no way to tell.

01:18:14.000 There's no checks and balances that are put in place to make sure a person's ego is not overwhelming them to the point where their initial idea of a conspiracy.

01:18:24.000 And he's also not in a vacuum.

01:18:26.000 There were other people around him who were building him up and supporting that story.

01:18:32.000 It's also like he's in a position of power.

01:18:35.000 They're underneath him.

01:18:36.000 There's this weird structure that's in place.

01:18:40.000 All of that can be true.

01:18:42.000 And I can accept that as also true.

01:18:46.000 And I think there's this weird resistance that people have to accepting the context around a person.

01:18:55.000 Maybe because you realize that if you accept the context around the person, that feeling of self-righteousness that you're ultimately grasping onto.

01:19:06.000 It dissipates because it does inevitably dissipate.

01:19:10.000 But I think that's, again, that's a symptom of someone dwelling on the life that they should have lived instead of accepting the life that they have.

01:19:18.000 Right.

01:19:20.000 And I just find that to be a waste of time.

01:19:22.000 It is not just a waste of time.

01:19:24.000 It's the opposite of self-serving.

01:19:26.000 It kind of destroys you from within because you know it's not true.

01:19:30.000 Right.

01:19:30.000 Yeah.

01:19:31.000 And so you're bullshitting yourself as you're bullshitting the world.

01:19:36.000 And that's who you are now.

01:19:38.000 Yeah.

01:19:38.000 I think that is a scary trap that victims can fall into is like how you then become self-destructive in your own mind as a result of someone having been destructive towards you.

01:19:54.000 I think that is the deepest tragedy of hurt is how it can then become implosive.

01:20:05.000 I did not want to implode.

01:20:07.000 I was scared to implode.

01:20:09.000 I saw a lot of people around me in prison imploding.

01:20:11.000 And I did not want that to be me.

01:20:14.000 It's an insane mental resolve to not.

01:20:17.000 And that's, it's the trap that most people are going to fall into.

01:20:22.000 And to a lesser extent, he's a victim as well.

01:20:25.000 He's a victim of his own actions.

01:20:27.000 And it will haunt it.

01:20:28.000 I mean, he's defined by that as well.

01:20:30.000 Now, particularly, that everybody knows that you're innocent.

01:20:34.000 And that you've been proven innocent.

01:20:36.000 And then in the retrial, you got proven again.

01:20:39.000 And so that's him.

01:20:41.000 That's over his head everywhere he goes.

01:20:44.000 He wrongly prosecuted and jailed you for a murder you did not commit.

01:20:50.000 And he has to live with that.

01:20:51.000 Every day when he wakes up and he looks in the mirror, that's who you are, bitch. 1.00

01:20:55.000 Forever.

01:20:57.000 You could dance around.

01:20:59.000 I was doing my job.

01:21:03.000 That's where you kind of try to find some sort of...

01:21:06.000 No, no.

01:21:07.000 You did this thing.

01:21:09.000 You were wrong.

01:21:12.000 Your ego, whatever the fuck it was that led you to come up with the initial theory and then try to use confirmation bias to...

01:21:26.000 Reinforce it at every step of the way.

01:21:28.000 That's you.

01:21:30.000 And if he doesn't admit that, he will go to his grave haunted.

01:21:36.000 And I think what's a really interesting thing for me is discovering what can come from approaching someone recognizing that.

01:21:50.000 When I approached him, I approached him in a really unconventional way, right?

01:21:54.000 Like, I'm trying to find common ground with this person.

01:21:58.000 I'm deeply, genuinely curious about this person.

01:22:01.000 I am primed to feel compassion for this person because that is just the mental and intentional space that I put myself in, in approaching him.

01:22:12.000 And the surprising dividends that arise from that.

01:22:17.000 Because I think everyone...

01:22:19.000 Is evolving.

01:22:21.000 No one is static.

01:22:23.000 Even he is on his own journey.

01:22:24.000 He's on his own path.

01:22:26.000 And I'm not in control of his path.

01:22:28.000 But that doesn't mean that I can't be a very compelling influence of all the people in the world who could be nice to him and have that have an impact on him.

01:22:41.000 Me.

01:22:42.000 And like recognizing, like I didn't really fully comprehend that until I sat down with him.

01:22:50.000 And like I sort of in my mind, I realized what it looked like from my position.

01:22:56.000 Like here's this person who had this overwhelming impact on my life.

01:23:02.000 And to this day, like, continually, like, this story that he made up, like, took over my life and continues to take over my life.

01:23:08.000 Like, this is what I'm going to live with for the rest of my life.

01:23:10.000 It's because of him.

01:23:12.000 This person who has had this outsized influence on my well-being and my personhood and my existence.

01:23:19.000 This guy.

01:23:21.000 I sit down across from him and I'm nice to him.

01:23:29.000 And...

01:23:30.000 I walk away from that encounter realizing that his well-being depends on me much more so than my well-being depends on him.

01:23:45.000 And I think because deep down, he understands that there is this dynamic that, you know, whatever stories he can tell himself about what happened.

01:23:58.000 He was the one who was in power, and I was the one who went to prison.

01:24:03.000 And for me to be kind to him, I didn't have to do that.

01:24:15.000 He had never had it happen before.

01:24:17.000 It was unheard of.

01:24:19.000 And as a spiritual person, he experienced it in a spiritual way.

01:24:25.000 Me.

01:24:27.000 I came out of that experience feeling like a fucking superhero.

01:24:31.000 I have never felt more powerful in my life than when I sat across from him and was kind to him.

01:24:39.000 And it didn't matter what he said or what he did because I showed up.

01:24:46.000 And I was not expecting that to happen.

01:24:51.000 That was not how I expected to feel.

01:24:55.000 It surprised me.

01:24:58.000 But, like, it had such an impact on me that I felt like I had discovered something about trauma and about healing and about people and dynamics and in a world that is so conflicted and where the people are, you know, not building bridges, they're blowing them up.

01:25:24.000 I was like, I wanted to remind people of what happens when you take a chance and you take a stand.

01:25:35.000 Yeah.

01:25:36.000 Well, that kind of kindness is rewarded by the universe.

01:25:41.000 And that was the feeling that you got.

01:25:43.000 That you were on the right path.

01:25:47.000 The best possible person that you could be.

01:25:50.000 What would the best possible version of you do?

01:25:53.000 And you did that.

01:25:55.000 And then you had that feeling because of that.

01:25:57.000 That was the universe telling you, right.

01:26:01.000 This is the best thing you can do.

01:26:03.000 You could yell at that guy and call him a piece of shit and slap him in the face.

01:26:07.000 And feel justified in doing so as well.

01:26:09.000 And you would be.

01:26:10.000 And that might even feel a little good in a way.

01:26:13.000 But it wouldn't feel like that good.

01:26:15.000 Yeah.

01:26:15.000 Negativity always, no matter what, leaves you with this residue, this like icky, even if you're correct, just like slime that's on, this psychic slime that's on you, no matter what.

01:26:35.000 And that's your power, that you could sit across this person and treat them with compassion.

01:26:43.000 And that's why you felt that way.

01:26:45.000 Have you ever felt that way?

01:26:48.000 I've never had anything remotely like your situation.

01:26:53.000 But you've had encounters with people.

01:26:58.000 I don't think you have to have as devastating of a situation.

01:27:03.000 To, like, be in a position to know that you're doing the right thing in a moment.

01:27:08.000 Like, for instance, when my husband got up in his whitey-tidies and walked down the stairs to put himself between me and his family and this crazy guy, I feel like maybe he felt that in that moment. 1.00

01:27:20.000 Like, total clarity of purpose.

01:27:26.000 And it didn't really matter what happened because he was doing...

01:27:33.000 The thing that had to be done in that moment.

01:27:37.000 And there was no confusion.

01:27:40.000 I think that, like, when I talk about it with him today, like, to this day, he's just like, I was just not confused.

01:27:48.000 I just knew exactly what I needed.

01:27:50.000 I didn't even think.

01:27:51.000 It was that flow state, even, that they talk about in, like, Tao, when, like, you and the universe are moving in the exact, in sync.

01:28:00.000 Yeah.

01:28:01.000 And that was my version of it.

01:28:03.000 That was his version of it.

01:28:05.000 And I think that all of us have the opportunity to glimpse that in our lives.

01:28:09.000 And I'm just curious if you've ever felt like you were moving in sync with the universe.

01:28:15.000 I try to be.

01:28:16.000 Yeah.

01:28:17.000 You still feel kind of slimy?

01:28:20.000 Well, I've had moments where I haven't.

01:28:22.000 I've had moments where I was very negative and attacked back, and I never feel good about it.

01:28:27.000 You know, it's one of the reasons why I don't engage with people online that are negative.

01:28:34.000 I just, I don't, you know, especially, particularly like the lowest level of it is social media.

01:28:39.000 You know, I'm not interested in conflict.

01:28:43.000 I'm not interested in it.

01:28:44.000 I don't want to do it.

01:28:45.000 You know, even if someone has negative things to say about me, I'm not really interested in engaging.

01:28:50.000 I don't think it's valuable.

01:28:52.000 You know, I think it's a trap.

01:28:55.000 Yeah.

01:28:55.000 But it's not the same situation as what you were in.

01:28:58.000 I don't know how I would be.

01:29:00.000 Because the other danger is, like, you know, I don't want to consider myself above criticism, say.

01:29:10.000 Like, that's, I think, the other flip side of that, like...

01:29:14.000 Of having confidence is potentially having the confidence that my prosecutor had.

01:29:18.000 Was he feeling in sync with the universe when he was prosecuting me?

01:29:23.000 Clearly not.

01:29:24.000 There's no way.

01:29:26.000 No.

01:29:27.000 But that's not confidence.

01:29:29.000 That's ego.

01:29:30.000 Confidence is an objective analysis of all the facts.

01:29:35.000 Doing the right thing, having a rock-solid ethical and moral foundation, and knowing you're doing the right thing, and knowing you can do it, that's confidence.

01:29:47.000 What he had was ego.

01:29:52.000 People were in a position like that where people's freedom...

01:30:00.000 Hangs on your decisions and what you do and what you don't do.

01:30:05.000 And then you do it for so many years and you see so many people prosecuted.

01:30:09.000 You just get calloused about it.

01:30:11.000 You see it with doctors.

01:30:13.000 Where doctors, you know, they have this...

01:30:17.000 Some, not all.

01:30:18.000 Some doctors develop this very...

01:30:21.000 Callous feeling whether someone lives or dies.

01:30:23.000 They don't care anymore.

01:30:24.000 They're so used to people dying.

01:30:26.000 There's doctors that do surgeries that are completely unnecessary just because they want the money.

01:30:31.000 We were talking the other day about this guy who is an oncologist who treated people with chemotherapy who did not have cancer because he wanted the money.

01:30:42.000 And he was convicted.

01:30:43.000 It was like, I think it was some insane number of people took this horrible poison to try to kill the cancer inside of them and ruin their lives.

01:30:52.000 And there was nothing wrong with them.

01:30:54.000 Wow.

01:30:55.000 Yeah, because there's...

01:30:57.000 And I think his justification was even more sick.

01:31:00.000 His justification was that he was always taught that you eat what you kill.

01:31:04.000 And in that business, in the business of being a surgeon, in the business of being a doctor, you have to perform this medicine in order to get money.

01:31:15.000 And this is the incentive structure that's put in front of you.

01:31:18.000 I don't know if you know that, but chemotherapy is one of the most profitable things that a doctor can prescribe.

01:31:24.000 They actually get an enormous amount of money from each individual person that they...

01:31:31.000 Yeah, there's all sorts of very twisted and bizarre financial incentives.

01:31:36.000 Again, these institutions that get warped by these various...

01:31:39.000 Exactly.

01:31:40.000 I mean, this is the case with vaccinations.

01:31:42.000 This is the case with prescriptions of various medicines.

01:31:46.000 There's kickbacks.

01:31:47.000 And these kickbacks become incentives.

01:31:50.000 And then you have the overwhelming burden of the financial responsibility that you have with your medical school debt.

01:31:59.000 And then you have malpractice insurance, which is overwhelming.

01:32:03.000 You have overhead.

01:32:04.000 You have staff.

01:32:05.000 You have a bunch of people.

01:32:06.000 People start justifying things in a very twisted way.

01:32:10.000 And it's because of the system.

01:32:12.000 And you have to be an incredibly powerful person to rise above that and to say, this is not what I'm going to do.

01:32:17.000 Even if it means I can't do this anymore, I'm not doing this.

01:32:21.000 And then the weakest amongst us, just instead they go the other way and say, I'll just justify.

01:32:27.000 No one is going to know.

01:32:29.000 I'll say, yeah, you have cancer.

01:32:30.000 Yeah.

01:32:31.000 I'm sorry.

01:32:32.000 I want to give her a low dose of chemotherapy for like six weeks. 0.99

01:32:36.000 No big deal.

01:32:37.000 Just destroy your body from there.

01:32:40.000 And then just like this godlike power that you know that you are imposing this medication on this person that absolutely does not need it.

01:32:47.000 And that person doesn't know any better.

01:32:50.000 Yeah.

01:32:50.000 That's fucking dark.

01:32:52.000 Well, you could go darker.

01:32:54.000 You could go darker with medical transition of children.

01:32:57.000 You know, this whole...

01:33:00.000 Gender-affirming care thing where you're taking young kids and convincing them they need to be chemically castrated or physically castrated. 0.88

01:33:07.000 There's a lot of weirdness in the world.

01:33:13.000 Evil's a real thing.

01:33:15.000 And the motivation to do these things can be very hidden and masked with all sorts of incentives and the structure in which this institution was sort of created.

01:33:27.000 And that's the world we're living in.

01:33:29.000 And it's not a good world.

01:33:31.000 It's not a perfect world.

01:33:33.000 It's not like, this is ideal.

01:33:35.000 This is how it should be.

01:33:36.000 No, it's not like that.

01:33:38.000 Money is a weird fucking thing.

01:33:41.000 Money and power are two very, very weird things.

01:33:44.000 And without some sort of a higher power that you call upon or some sort of a higher power that you are beholden to and that you have to answer to, it's very difficult for people to make Decisions if they know they're not going to get caught.

01:34:02.000 If they know they're not going to get in trouble.

01:34:03.000 If you're a prosecutor and you're beyond reproach and all you have to do is...

01:34:07.000 And the system protects you and everyone's protecting you.

01:34:10.000 And not only that, once the wheels are in motion, the train's on the track, we can't turn the train around.

01:34:15.000 What do you want to do?

01:34:15.000 Well, the fucking train has to be on the track.

01:34:17.000 So she's got to go to jail, I guess. 1.00

01:34:20.000 Yeah.

01:34:21.000 And there you go.

01:34:22.000 Can I tell you something I'm conflicted about?

01:34:24.000 Sure.

01:34:26.000 So...

01:34:27.000 You know, my book's been out for a month or so now.

01:34:32.000 And I'm also, you know, working on, I don't know if you knew this, I have a Hulu show that I'm working on that's based on my life.

01:34:40.000 Yeah, Monica is executive producing it. 1.00

01:34:43.000 Monica Lewinsky is executive producing it.

01:34:45.000 And I'm really proud of it.

01:34:46.000 It's coming out at the end of the summer, late summer.

01:34:57.000 But one of the responses that I've had to my book and to the news that I'm telling my story in this way or in another way, and I write about this in the book, is this question of, do I have the right to tell my story?

01:35:19.000 What?

01:35:20.000 Yeah.

01:35:21.000 Who's saying that?

01:35:24.000 People who believe that I'm not the real victim of the story.

01:35:31.000 The real victim is my roommate who was murdered.

01:35:36.000 And that unless I have the blessing of Meredith's family to tell my story, that I should shut up and disappear out of respect.

01:35:49.000 That's crazy.

01:35:50.000 You're a victim.

01:35:52.000 Period.

01:35:52.000 Full stop.

01:35:54.000 No ifs, ands, or buts.

01:35:55.000 You were 20 years old?

01:35:57.000 I was 20 years old.

01:35:58.000 You're a victim.

01:35:59.000 Period.

01:36:00.000 You didn't commit a murder.

01:36:01.000 You went to jail for a murder.

01:36:02.000 You're a victim.

01:36:02.000 Period.

01:36:04.000 Fuck those people.

01:36:04.000 Are they even real people?

01:36:05.000 Have you talked to those people?

01:36:06.000 Are they humans?

01:36:08.000 Have you been in front of them?

01:36:09.000 Are you just reading things?

01:36:10.000 Are you reading things online?

01:36:12.000 Journalists certainly who have interviewed me.

01:36:14.000 I get this a lot.

01:36:15.000 Fuck those journals.

01:36:16.000 I get this a lot.

01:36:18.000 From who?

01:36:19.000 From people who I feel like are suffering from something I call the single victim fallacy.

01:36:24.000 This idea that you have to decide who's the real victim.

01:36:29.000 Oh, because it's a victim hierarchy.

01:36:31.000 You're not the greatest victim because you're still alive.

01:36:33.000 Right.

01:36:34.000 You weren't raped and murdered, so you're still alive, so you're fine.

01:36:37.000 Like, that is ridiculous.

01:36:39.000 If that's a journalist that's saying that to you, I would just leave the room.

01:36:43.000 Well, I'm trying to have a conversation with these people about it.

01:36:47.000 They're talking to you about that.

01:36:48.000 That's a preposterous position.

01:36:50.000 To tell a 20-year-old that went to jail for years for a crime they didn't commit and had their whole life publicly, publicly ruined.

01:37:00.000 Worldwide.

01:37:01.000 In a country you don't even live in or you're not even from, fuck that person.

01:37:06.000 That's a crazy position.

01:37:07.000 And if they're just trying to do that to, you know, just get a rise out of you, to get a reaction, to try to, like, they're bad.

01:37:16.000 They're bad at what they do.

01:37:18.000 It's a bad person.

01:37:19.000 The idea that you're not a victim is preposterous.

01:37:22.000 That's a crazy position.

01:37:24.000 An actual human being sat in front of you and was saying that?

01:37:27.000 So it comes in different forms.

01:37:30.000 So some people are very explicit and say, like, don't you think you shouldn't be doing this when the Kircher family's lawyer says that you shouldn't be doing this and that it's offensive?

01:37:41.000 So they're saying this to your face?

01:37:42.000 Yeah.

01:37:43.000 Yeah.

01:37:44.000 And then I have to sit there and, again, do, like...

01:37:50.000 Experience the rage that washes over me and then go, how do I have an effective conversation with this human being?

01:37:58.000 How do I convey that my life matters too?

01:38:03.000 And that there's room in this world to acknowledge all of the truth of what happened, which included my own.

01:38:11.000 Victimization and my own story and the things that I've learned from it that I've had the privilege to learn from it because I'm still alive.

01:38:18.000 That's such a crazy position.

01:38:20.000 That's like saying if you were in the Twin Towers and you got out right before it collapsed, you should shut the fuck up.

01:38:27.000 Right, because you didn't have to jump out of the window.

01:38:28.000 Because you didn't die like all those other people that were inside of it.

01:38:31.000 That's ridiculous.

01:38:32.000 It's still your life.

01:38:33.000 It's still your real lived reality.

01:38:37.000 And the lawyer for the family that's telling you that you shouldn't be talking about it, fuck that guy too.

01:38:42.000 That's crazy.

01:38:44.000 That's a crazy position.

01:38:45.000 You can't listen to that.

01:38:48.000 You're going to get the most preposterous takes because you're dealing with something that millions of people are commenting on.

01:38:56.000 So the idea that every one of them is going to be a rational position, that's not real.

01:39:04.000 People are silly.

01:39:05.000 Like, people are weird.

01:39:07.000 They have crazy takes on everything.

01:39:10.000 There's all sorts of personal justifications and mental illness and there's people who hate women and there's people that, you know, whatever.

01:39:20.000 Law enforcement's always right.

01:39:22.000 You're always going to have ridiculous takes if you get a billion takes on things.

01:39:28.000 That's your world.

01:39:29.000 No, you shouldn't be struggling with that at all.

01:39:31.000 That's crazy.

01:39:33.000 Anybody who says you shouldn't be talking about it, but of course you should be, because there's a lot to be learned.

01:39:38.000 There's a lot to be learned from, first of all, the admirable positions that you've taken, the way you've formed your life and who you are as a human being because of your struggle, because of this insane experience that you had to go through at fucking 20 years old.

01:39:52.000 Your brain's not even fully formed.

01:39:54.000 It's insane.

01:39:55.000 Your frontal cortex is not fully formed.

01:39:59.000 And for someone to say that you're not the real victim, well, that's crazy.

01:40:04.000 That's crazy.

01:40:06.000 That's a stupid position.

01:40:08.000 We shouldn't be conflicted in any way, shape or form about that.

01:40:12.000 And I think there's a great deal that we can learn from your experiences.

01:40:17.000 First of all, again, learn from the way that you've handled it, where you can sit across from that prosecutor and...

01:40:26.000 This feeling of like being kind to this person who did this thing to you how it made you empowered I really do think that's the universe telling you you're on the right track You just can't listen to the peanut gallery.

01:40:41.000 You can't listen to all the noise There's just too much noise and you have to learn how to do that on a much lesser scale I see that with friends who are famous, who read comments about them, read articles, and get infuriated.

01:40:57.000 It ruins vacations because they have to type up a response.

01:41:01.000 Yeah, the impulse to respond is like, you don't have to.

01:41:05.000 Not only should you not respond, you shouldn't read what they're saying in the first place.

01:41:10.000 You shouldn't pay attention.

01:41:11.000 Is there an ever, like...

01:41:13.000 I wonder if the fear is, and maybe this is my fear because I'm always questioning myself, is like, is there, I always want to like at least hear it and like cycle the thought through my mind so that I can test the validity of it in my mind.

01:41:32.000 Yes, there's definitely that, sure.

01:41:34.000 But to a point, you should probably do that yourself without those people.

01:41:39.000 That's the best way.

01:41:41.000 The best way is to have an internal auditing system where you look at your own life and say, what did I do that I could have done better?

01:41:51.000 Is there anything about what I'm doing that feels icky?

01:41:55.000 Is there anything about the way I'm capitalizing on this that feels icky?

01:42:03.000 Is there anything about it that I don't like?

01:42:07.000 But just do that yourself.

01:42:09.000 You're a smart person.

01:42:10.000 You don't need all those other opinions where you have to, like, you know, let's take email today from all Amanda Knox haters.

01:42:21.000 Like, you don't have to do that.

01:42:22.000 Fair.

01:42:23.000 Yeah.

01:42:23.000 And thankfully, my husband is the one who...

01:42:26.000 Oh, he shouldn't do it either.

01:42:28.000 Yeah, let me help.

01:42:30.000 As a person who's been famous for a long time, don't do it.

01:42:34.000 There's no value in it.

01:42:36.000 There's zero value in it.

01:42:37.000 I mean, there's times where I was forced into responding, like during the whole COVID situation when CNN was saying I was taking veterinary medicine.

01:42:45.000 And you were like, I need to clarify reality or not.

01:42:49.000 Also, I need to say, hey, fuck you, because the world should say fuck you. 0.98

01:42:52.000 You're not supposed to be able to do that.

01:42:54.000 You're not supposed to be able to be the news and lie and then hold yourself to this moral high ground and say, we have to stop misinformation.

01:43:01.000 What about you, motherfucker?

01:43:03.000 Like, what about you?

01:43:05.000 You know?

01:43:05.000 And so there's that.

01:43:07.000 Like, I've had to respond in that way.

01:43:09.000 But, I mean, if I responded to everything that everybody ever says about me, I'd have no time for my children, for my family, for my life, for my job.

01:43:17.000 I would have no time for anything.

01:43:19.000 But you can't do it.

01:43:21.000 You have to have an internal auditing system where you look at yourself and you have to be your own worst judge.

01:43:29.000 Anything anybody says about me that tries to make me feel bad, well, guess what?

01:43:33.000 I'm way harsher to me than you are and I know me.

01:43:37.000 Right.

01:43:38.000 You know all the dark thoughts and the slimy feelings.

01:43:40.000 But that's why I work really hard to be a good person.

01:43:44.000 I work really hard to be a good person because I don't like those feelings.

01:43:47.000 I don't like when I judge myself and I find myself to be lacking.

01:43:51.000 I don't like it.

01:43:52.000 So I institute a lot of self-discipline and I institute a lot of introspective thinking.

01:44:00.000 Yeah, what's your self-auditing process?

01:44:05.000 Well, first of all...

01:44:07.000 It's like, why are you doing what you're doing with your life?

01:44:12.000 Like, why do you do a podcast?

01:44:15.000 Why do you do comedy?

01:44:17.000 Why do you do anything?

01:44:18.000 Why do you do what you do?

01:44:20.000 So the best way I approach it is I do it because I love what I do.

01:44:28.000 I'm intrigued.

01:44:29.000 I'm curious.

01:44:30.000 And I do my best.

01:44:33.000 Always do my best.

01:44:34.000 Now, if I half-ass something, It will haunt me.

01:44:37.000 If I have a bad podcast interview, if I think I interrupted too much or if I didn't ask the right questions, that will fuck with me for the rest of the day.

01:44:46.000 I don't need other people to fuck with me.

01:44:47.000 I fuck with myself.

01:44:48.000 I really do.

01:44:50.000 So the best response to that is do better every time.

01:44:56.000 When you sit down, be as open as possible.

01:45:02.000 Don't let all these little weird...

01:45:04.000 Mind-fucky things enter into your head.

01:45:08.000 Just try to be pure.

01:45:09.000 Try to be genuinely curious.

01:45:11.000 What's your genuine feelings about these things?

01:45:15.000 And then, did you handle it well?

01:45:18.000 If you didn't, what could you have done better?

01:45:19.000 Well, then work on that.

01:45:21.000 And that's all you can do.

01:45:23.000 I think one of the things that I worry about is that people only feel safe.

01:45:34.000 Mm-hmm.

01:45:48.000 and a weakness.

01:45:50.000 But I feel like the only way to be truly ethical is to be exposed in that way.

01:46:01.000 Cynicism and self-righteousness are shields.

01:46:04.000 They are ways of approaching the Yes.

01:46:08.000 Yes, absolutely.

01:46:09.000 And so I can't promise anyone that doing things my way, which is like really trying to like push back against those impulses, which I recognize as being dangerous impulses, is going to necessarily lead to good things.

01:46:29.000 It's not your job to promise people that.

01:46:32.000 It's not your job.

01:46:33.000 Your job is for you, for your soul, whoever you are.

01:46:39.000 It's to speak to what is the right path for you.

01:46:43.000 You don't have to promise these people.

01:46:47.000 This is the burden of being a public figure.

01:46:49.000 Like, you're not a role model for all these people.

01:46:53.000 If you are a role model for these people because they find you admirable, that's great.

01:46:57.000 But your responsibility is to yourself.

01:47:00.000 Your responsibility is to your own mind and the people that you come in contact with.

01:47:05.000 So your responsibility is not to, like, say, like, don't be cynical, be kind, and, oh, it didn't work out for you.

01:47:12.000 Oh, fuck, I fucked up.

01:47:13.000 It's me.

01:47:14.000 It's on me.

01:47:15.000 No, it's on them.

01:47:16.000 It's on them.

01:47:18.000 Everyone has their own soul, their own mind, their own path.

01:47:23.000 And you have to find out what's right for you.

01:47:26.000 In doing what you're doing, you are most certainly a role model.

01:47:30.000 And you most certainly will be a role model, including me.

01:47:33.000 I find myself admiring.

01:47:37.000 Like, when we had the first podcast, I thought about it for a long time.

01:47:41.000 I would think about it all throughout the day sometimes, like, randomly.

01:47:44.000 I would just think about...

01:47:46.000 So imagining myself in your position and how would I be?

01:47:49.000 I don't know.

01:47:53.000 I can't answer it.

01:47:54.000 But I admire the position that you've taken.

01:47:57.000 I think it's incredible.

01:47:59.000 I think it's a great example to the world of what's possible.

01:48:04.000 If someone is thrust into a horrible position, it's totally beyond their control.

01:48:09.000 But what is in your control?

01:48:11.000 What's in your control is how you respond to it.

01:48:14.000 And how you responded to it was incredibly admirable.

01:48:17.000 That's your responsibilities to yourself, and you did a great job with it, a fantastic job.

01:48:23.000 Exemplary.

01:48:23.000 I don't think there's anybody else that I could point to that's ever been through anything even remotely close to what you've been through and come out the way you have.

01:48:31.000 The only examples that maybe I could point to are some of the people that I've dealt with through Josh.

01:48:37.000 Where we brought people in that were wrongly accused, that went through these horrible incarcerations and came out on the other side.

01:48:44.000 These incredibly well-read, brilliant, articulate people that are so thoughtful and so introspective and then made that time in prison empower them.

01:48:58.000 It can be done.

01:49:00.000 And those are examples.

01:49:02.000 The responsibility is to yourself.

01:49:04.000 It's not to these other people.

01:49:05.000 I think that's so...

01:49:07.000 I mean, thank you.

01:49:09.000 And I agree.

01:49:10.000 I've met very incredible people who have made the most of a bad situation, which ultimately that's what it comes down to.

01:49:17.000 I guess my one pushback might be that I have come to realize that we are so interconnected.

01:49:26.000 Like, we are all...

01:49:29.000 Yes.

01:49:31.000 constantly.

01:49:32.000 And so on the one hand, yes, I'm only answerable ultimately to myself.

01:49:38.000 But when I really sit down and sit with it, part of the reason why I was able to approach my prosecutor with the perspective that I had was realizing that there is a fluidity between us and all of us where we're all influencing each other

01:49:58.000 And people in his life have now, like, the influences in his life, people I will never have met have had direct influences in my life because it's been, like, this fluid path, like, this connectedness between me and him, me and you.

01:50:15.000 Any person we talk to, any person we encounter is going to then have this ripple effect.

01:50:20.000 And so, on the one hand, yes, like, I'm a drop.

01:50:23.000 But I'm also a drop in an ocean that has a ripple effect, and that ripple is going to interact with your ripple and all these other ripples.

01:50:31.000 And so, yes, I am answerable to myself, but I also feel like I can't ignore the potential impact that my ripple might have on another person.

01:50:46.000 And I've been really rewarded in the way that I have...

01:50:55.000 I've had someone tell me that they didn't kill themselves because one day they heard me in an interview and that they were going to kill themselves and they didn't.

01:51:05.000 I've had someone tell me that.

01:51:08.000 I never in my wildest dreams thought that me just deciding to have a conversation with someone one day on a podcast would save a human being's life.

01:51:18.000 But those are those The interconnected fluidness of all of us that I also can't discount.

01:51:26.000 You shouldn't.

01:51:27.000 And that I think about a lot.

01:51:29.000 Well, you should.

01:51:31.000 I mean, you are an example.

01:51:33.000 I mean, we are all an example.

01:51:35.000 And if you're a public example, we right now, both of us, are public examples.

01:51:40.000 We're two human beings that are communicating right now to millions of people.

01:51:45.000 It's kind of fucked up if you really think about it.

01:51:49.000 What are we doing?

01:51:50.000 I know!

01:51:51.000 But what we are, we're being real people, publicly.

01:51:56.000 So we're thinking publicly, you know?

01:52:01.000 That is very beneficial to other people that are thinking privately because you get to hear people think publicly and especially a person like you that's very exemplary and that I would love if more people could follow that line of thinking and your example.

01:52:21.000 It's a beautiful example of someone who did nothing wrong but had wrong done to them and came out a better person because of it.

01:52:31.000 And that's...

01:52:32.000 It's not just inspirational.

01:52:36.000 It's aspirational.

01:52:38.000 It provides the universe with positive energy.

01:52:43.000 In a weird way, the human universe, I mean.

01:52:45.000 And this thing that you said I think is very important.

01:52:52.000 People protect themselves with cynicism and with...

01:52:58.000 People that constantly want to criticize things, they're constantly criticizing things.

01:53:02.000 Finding fault.

01:53:03.000 You're ignoring your own life.

01:53:06.000 That's a part of what's really going on.

01:53:08.000 The real things are...

01:53:10.000 Inside their own life, there must be things they're ignoring.

01:53:14.000 If they're spending that much time focusing on external factors like that.

01:53:18.000 And other people.

01:53:19.000 And other people's flaws.

01:53:20.000 And other people's things.

01:53:22.000 Especially like trivial, nonsensical things like celebrity beefs.

01:53:27.000 Oh, I know.

01:53:28.000 You know what I mean?

01:53:28.000 It's like, what are you doing with your fucking life?

01:53:33.000 I just don't know how anyone has the time, honestly.

01:53:36.000 Well, it's because they're losers.

01:53:39.000 And this is the reality of, like, some people don't want to hear this because you're a loser.

01:53:43.000 And it sucks being a loser.

01:53:44.000 I've been a loser.

01:53:45.000 I've been a loser many times in my life.

01:53:47.000 You're a loser if you're doing that.

01:53:50.000 Because you are, with your own decisions, becoming a loser.

01:53:56.000 You're deciding to be a loser by focusing this precious energy that you have in life on shit that should mean nothing to you.

01:54:08.000 Are they thinking that they're being effective agents in the world by participating?

01:54:15.000 Well, that's the con.

01:54:17.000 That's the con, right?

01:54:18.000 That's the con.

01:54:19.000 Like, yeah, by taking them down a notch.

01:54:22.000 I'm a part of something and I'm accomplishing something.

01:54:26.000 You're not.

01:54:27.000 You're not.

01:54:28.000 It's cynicism.

01:54:30.000 It's, you know.

01:54:32.000 The flag of moral virtue that you're waving to show that you're better than other people.

01:54:36.000 But in doing so, you're attacking that person, which is inherently evil.

01:54:40.000 Like you're using this justification that you're correct to try to ruin someone's lives or ruin someone's reputation or ruin someone's feelings, to hurt them that day, to reach out to them and attack.

01:54:53.000 And it's almost always based on a feeling of personal inadequacy, almost always based on your life is not what you want.

01:55:01.000 You know, people leaving horrible comments on someone's Instagram page or Twitter page, there's no way you're living the life that you want to live.

01:55:14.000 There's no way that you're in an ideal situation of love and harmony and success and, you know, you have great friends and life is amazing.

01:55:26.000 There's no way!

01:55:27.000 There's no way!

01:55:28.000 If you're typing those things, there's no way.

01:55:31.000 It's a human flaw and it's accentuated by this disconnect that comes with social media.

01:55:38.000 This disconnect of being able to send a message to someone and have no consequences and no social cues not to see the person read it and get hurt by it.

01:55:49.000 You're like sending little bombs over the fence.

01:55:53.000 Yeah, we are primed to be psychopaths.

01:55:58.000 Our algorithms have primed us to be psychopaths.

01:56:02.000 And that worries me.

01:56:06.000 But that's like a disempowering position.

01:56:08.000 You don't have to be.

01:56:10.000 You don't have to do that.

01:56:12.000 No one's compelling you to do that.

01:56:14.000 I don't do that.

01:56:15.000 Why are you doing that?

01:56:15.000 Why do it?

01:56:16.000 You don't have to do it.

01:56:17.000 Then this is the example that you can lead.

01:56:20.000 For other people if you are talking and speaking publicly.

01:56:24.000 Just don't do that.

01:56:26.000 It's not good for you.

01:56:27.000 It doesn't help anybody.

01:56:29.000 Hurting someone that you don't even know, that doesn't help you.

01:56:32.000 You should be—you have—I always try to—this is what I tell my friends when I talk about reading comments and reading things and engaging with social media because— I have friends where it will ruin their week, ruin their day.

01:56:46.000 Like one comment will fuck them up and they'll come to me and talk to me about it.

01:56:50.000 I'm like, listen, I want you to think about your mind and your attention like it's a number.

01:56:55.000 Like you have energy and like a battery, right?

01:56:59.000 Or bandwidth that's on a broadband cable.

01:57:02.000 You have 100 units.

01:57:04.000 If you're spending 30 units of your precious time concentrating on someone who's saying something that's not even true, that's mean and horrible, and it's the worst possible, least charitable position on you.

01:57:18.000 You're robbing yourself of these precious units of attention.

01:57:23.000 You have a hundred units.

01:57:25.000 Your hundred units should be all on loved ones and friends and things that you love to do and life.

01:57:32.000 That's what your units should be used for.

01:57:37.000 If some of that sneaks in and it resonates and you go, oh my god, they're right.

01:57:42.000 Well, fucking correct it.

01:57:44.000 Figure out what you did.

01:57:46.000 Don't do that anymore.

01:57:48.000 It sounds so simple, but that's it.

01:57:50.000 If you are doing something that people are rightly criticizing, recognize it.

01:57:58.000 Of course, correct.

01:57:59.000 This is where friends are supposed to come at play.

01:58:03.000 Your friends are supposed to be able to tell you, Amanda.

01:58:06.000 You didn't have to do that.

01:58:08.000 Like, I know the reason why I did it, but like...

01:58:11.000 Don't do that.

01:58:11.000 This is why.

01:58:12.000 This is what I felt.

01:58:13.000 I felt you overreacted.

01:58:14.000 You didn't have to do that.

01:58:16.000 Now this person's all fucked up because of it.

01:58:17.000 Right, but your friends are not going to define you by what they consider the worst thing you've ever done.

01:58:21.000 Of course.

01:58:21.000 And they're going to recognize that you're an evolving human.

01:58:24.000 And they love you.

01:58:25.000 And they love you.

01:58:26.000 They love the whole picture of you.

01:58:27.000 And it's coming, like their criticism is coming from a loving place instead of an attacking place.

01:58:32.000 Exactly.

01:58:32.000 And so how do we get back to communicating with each other, not from an adversarial place, which automatically instigates defensiveness and sort of refusal to acknowledge anything.

01:58:46.000 Right.

01:58:46.000 To a place of like genuine openness.

01:58:50.000 Well, yeah.

01:58:52.000 Well, this is going to sound so cliche.

01:58:54.000 You have to act out of love.

01:58:56.000 Like, I reached out to a friend of mine recently.

01:58:59.000 They're doing a podcast and it went completely sideways.

01:59:03.000 And I reached out to him and I sent him a text message and said, hey, man.

01:59:08.000 You can't do this.

01:59:09.000 This is why you're doing that.

01:59:11.000 You have to recognize that people are listening to this.

01:59:13.000 You're actually ruining your own product by doing this.

01:59:16.000 And he responded back, I know.

01:59:19.000 I realized that I felt terrible while it was happening.

01:59:22.000 I got caught up in this thing.

01:59:24.000 That slimy feeling, but it's slippery.

01:59:27.000 He's like, I got all bunched up and I just responded.

01:59:29.000 I felt terrible.

01:59:30.000 I was like, it's okay.

01:59:32.000 Just don't do it again.

01:59:33.000 Because he gets to have another chance?

01:59:35.000 Yeah, but the reason why I said it to him is because he's done it before.

01:59:38.000 And I'm like, stop doing this.

01:59:41.000 Stop doing this.

01:59:42.000 You don't have to do this.

01:59:43.000 This is fucking you up.

01:59:45.000 And ultimately, if you...

01:59:47.000 Is conversation an art form?

01:59:51.000 I kind of think it is.

01:59:52.000 If people are consuming it...

01:59:54.000 It's a skill.

01:59:55.000 If people are consuming it, it's an art form.

01:59:58.000 So if you're being...

02:00:00.000 Overbearing and gross and like whatever it is, it's like that you're ruining this art that you're creating.

02:00:09.000 This real art, like that painting is art.

02:00:12.000 This is real art.

02:00:13.000 This is a weird...

02:00:15.000 Art.

02:00:15.000 It's like, I don't even want to call it art.

02:00:17.000 It's like a dance, but with words.

02:00:19.000 It's a dance.

02:00:20.000 It is a dance.

02:00:21.000 Conversation's a dance.

02:00:23.000 And this is why I have such a hard time.

02:00:25.000 Like, I would go on a double date with my wife or something like that, with people, and they start talking over everybody else.

02:00:30.000 And sometimes I have to go, stop!

02:00:32.000 Like, she's talking.

02:00:33.000 Like, he's talking.

02:00:34.000 Haven't you ever listened to a podcast?

02:00:37.000 What the fuck are you guys doing?

02:00:38.000 It's like playing, it's like if you were Roger Federer and you're playing tennis with people, like, no, you can't fucking hit the ball.

02:00:44.000 Like, what are you guys doing?

02:00:46.000 You can't just do multiple balls at the same time.

02:00:49.000 Do not listen.

02:00:50.000 I know you want to say something, but this other person is talking right now.

02:00:54.000 And you can't just talk when you want to talk.

02:00:57.000 You have to also listen.

02:00:59.000 Like, listening is a part of the dance.

02:01:01.000 Don't step on people's feet.

02:01:02.000 Like, you see that foot there?

02:01:03.000 I want to put my foot there.

02:01:05.000 But the foot's already there.

02:01:06.000 Don't step on their foot.

02:01:07.000 This is crazy.

02:01:09.000 But you have to step on a couple of feet to realize, oh, I stepped on her feet.

02:01:12.000 I can't do that.

02:01:13.000 You have to accidentally fuck up to realize, okay, don't do that again.

02:01:19.000 Back up and figure out what you did wrong.

02:01:21.000 Course correct.

02:01:23.000 Can I ask you about comedy?

02:01:25.000 Sure.

02:01:25.000 Because I want to do comedy.

02:01:30.000 I just want to.

02:01:32.000 I just want to, guys.

02:01:33.000 I want to.

02:01:34.000 I'm actually doing stand-up on Saturday.

02:01:37.000 Where?

02:01:38.000 On Vashon Island, I'm doing...

02:01:40.000 What's Vashon Island?

02:01:41.000 It's where I live.

02:01:42.000 It's a little island right outside of Seattle that is awesome.

02:01:46.000 Okay, I know where that is.

02:01:48.000 Have you been to Vashon before?

02:01:49.000 No, I've been to Bainbridge.

02:01:51.000 Oh yeah, okay.

02:01:52.000 Bainbridge Island.

02:01:53.000 Our island is a little more rural than Bainbridge.

02:01:57.000 Oh, so you're doing comedy for your community.

02:01:59.000 Yeah.

02:02:00.000 That's a terrible idea.

02:02:01.000 Is it?

02:02:01.000 Yes.

02:02:01.000 Is it?

02:02:02.000 Why?

02:02:02.000 Don't do it.

02:02:03.000 No, you want strangers.

02:02:04.000 Really?

02:02:05.000 Yeah, you don't want to interact with those weirdos that you live with.

02:02:09.000 I feel like we have a very supportive community.

02:02:14.000 I've done it before and it's been great.

02:02:17.000 Do you have an opening act or just go up by yourself?

02:02:19.000 No, I'm part of like, it's like this Saturday I'm going to be a part, I'm in a lineup of people who have like a seven minute set.

02:02:26.000 Oh, okay.

02:02:27.000 Oh, that's safe.

02:02:28.000 Seven minutes is safe.

02:02:29.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:02:30.000 You know, I'm walking up there and I'm like, yay!

02:02:31.000 How many times have you done it?

02:02:33.000 This will be like the fourth or fifth time.

02:02:38.000 Whitney actually was the one who first introduced me to stand-up.

02:02:42.000 She, like...

02:02:44.000 I love Whitney, by the way.

02:02:45.000 Can we just gush about Whitney for a second?

02:02:48.000 And I love the fact that we both have small kids at the same time.

02:02:52.000 And I just love her.

02:02:54.000 And so she was the one who first recognized, like, this girl's been through some shit.

02:02:58.000 I bet she's fucking funny. 1.00

02:03:00.000 And, you know...

02:03:02.000 It befriended me after I got on her podcast.

02:03:04.000 And then when she did the roast of Whitney Cummings for OnlyFans, I was her, like, special surprise guest.

02:03:11.000 And I got to do a little bit of a roast of her and a little bit of myself, right?

02:03:15.000 Like, of course, the one place that I can finally get my comedic, you know, true self out there is on OnlyFans of all things.

02:03:22.000 And, you know, I get to be, you know, when I go this Saturday, I get to be the ex-con mom on the menu.

02:03:30.000 And that's a Pornhub search.

02:03:31.000 You know, like I get to like lean in to the tragedy of it all.

02:03:40.000 But it then goes back to that question of do people stick you into boxes or are you allowed to be more than what people expect you to be?

02:03:50.000 And I've, you know, in the past, not from my my own community, but from strangers received criticism for making jokes about.

02:04:00.000 My experience.

02:04:02.000 And again, coming from that place of how dare you joke about going to prison for a crime you didn't commit when you're not the real victim and whatever.

02:04:12.000 Or you're a true crime figure.

02:04:15.000 You're a...

02:04:16.000 You're a person who has been—I associate you with a tragedy, therefore you have to stay in tragedy space, and moving into comedic space is not allowed.

02:04:24.000 And so I'm just curious what your thoughts are about that.

02:04:27.000 That's the same thing.

02:04:28.000 You're dealing with commenters.

02:04:29.000 Like, you can't listen.

02:04:30.000 I just— Yeah.

02:04:32.000 If you want to do it, you should do it.

02:04:33.000 I should just do my thing and my own business.

02:04:33.000 Okay.

02:04:34.000 Yeah.

02:04:34.000 If I listened, I would have never done anything I've done.

02:04:37.000 If I listened to people, I would have never done anything that I've done.

02:04:41.000 Ever.

02:04:42.000 Not one thing.

02:04:44.000 But we should...

02:04:44.000 Yeah, okay.

02:04:45.000 I would have never fought.

02:04:47.000 I would have never got into martial arts.

02:04:48.000 I never would have fought.

02:04:49.000 I never would have done stand-up comedy.

02:04:51.000 I never would have done a podcast.

02:04:54.000 Even my own wife jokes around about it because when my kids were really little, there was one time where my wife wanted to go to Disneyland and I said, I can't.

02:05:03.000 I have to do a podcast.

02:05:04.000 She goes, no, you want to do a podcast.

02:05:05.000 I go, no, I have to.

02:05:08.000 I told the people that I was going to do it, so I have to do it.

02:05:11.000 Right, I committed.

02:05:11.000 But back then, it was...

02:05:13.000 It made no money.

02:05:14.000 It was just a nonsense thing that I was doing on the internet.

02:05:17.000 Like, what are you doing?

02:05:18.000 And to this day, we laugh about it.

02:05:19.000 Like, thank God you didn't listen to me.

02:05:22.000 But I don't listen to anybody.

02:05:23.000 I listen to me.

02:05:25.000 I listen to my own mind.

02:05:27.000 I would have never moved to Austin.

02:05:29.000 I moved to Austin in the middle of this giant Spotify deal, and they were like, what are you doing?

02:05:34.000 Like, what?

02:05:36.000 So they gave me all this money, and I'm like, I'm going to leave LA.

02:05:39.000 They're like, what?

02:05:39.000 Like, how are you going to get guests?

02:05:41.000 I'm like, I'm flying them in anyway.

02:05:42.000 Like, who cares?

02:05:44.000 I want to do what I want to do.

02:05:45.000 I'm going to just do it.

02:05:46.000 I have a little fucking compass.

02:05:49.000 It's like...

02:05:49.000 Right.

02:05:51.000 Also, as if everyone only lives in L.A. and you weren't...

02:05:55.000 Like, the only people worth talking to are going to be in L.A. Also, I was like, I would rather be broke and not live under the thumb of retarded government than stay in L.A. and have a successful career. 1.00

02:06:09.000 Like, fuck you.

02:06:10.000 I'll just do stand-up and travel the country and just live in the middle of it.

02:06:13.000 I'm not doing this anymore.

02:06:14.000 I mean, you can't tell me I can't work.

02:06:16.000 You can't tell me I can't go out.

02:06:18.000 You can't tell me I have to put a mask on when I'm walking the dog.

02:06:20.000 Fuck you.

02:06:21.000 Like, the whole thing was just like, I'm out.

02:06:24.000 I'm getting out of here.

02:06:27.000 Austin was a crazy risk.

02:06:31.000 Opening up a comedy club.

02:06:33.000 Everybody's always told me.

02:06:34.000 I've always told people, be nice to comedy club owners because you don't want to be one of them.

02:06:38.000 You want to deal with us?

02:06:40.000 You want to deal with a bunch of fucking crazy people?

02:06:43.000 Unreliable convenience.

02:06:45.000 Half of them are on drugs.

02:06:47.000 They're all narcissists and fucking insane people.

02:06:50.000 They're all just like...

02:06:51.000 You're really selling being a comedian right now.

02:06:55.000 Yeah, well, just being honest.

02:06:58.000 Half their mind most of the day is trying to figure out things that are fucked up enough to talk about on stage. 0.75

02:07:06.000 How do I phrase this?

02:07:08.000 How do I structure it?

02:07:09.000 What's a way to get into people's heads with this idea?

02:07:12.000 How do I make it really funny?

02:07:14.000 What's the best way to do it?

02:07:16.000 This is a crazy way to live.

02:07:18.000 Like, you don't want those people to be your primary source of income.

02:07:23.000 Because, like, with a comedy club owner, all you have is what the artists create.

02:07:31.000 That's all you're selling.

02:07:32.000 Otherwise, you just have a box.

02:07:33.000 You have a box of the microphone, and you're selling drinks.

02:07:36.000 All you have is other people's creation.

02:07:39.000 And those people, half of them are fucking insane.

02:07:43.000 Like, you don't want to be one of those.

02:07:44.000 But then I came out here and I was like, God damn it, I have to be one of those now.

02:07:49.000 No regrets?

02:07:50.000 No!

02:07:51.000 No, it worked out great.

02:07:52.000 I mean, I went to your show last night.

02:07:53.000 It was super fun.

02:07:55.000 Thank you.

02:07:55.000 Yeah.

02:07:55.000 Thank you.

02:07:56.000 Glad you had a good time.

02:07:57.000 Yeah.

02:07:58.000 Yeah, you have to just do what you think you want to do and then just do the best version of it you can.

02:08:05.000 But to listen to people say you shouldn't be making jokes because you're a tragic figure.

02:08:09.000 Fuck you.

02:08:11.000 Says who? 0.65

02:08:12.000 Says you?

02:08:13.000 Let me look at your life, bitch. 1.00

02:08:16.000 Let me go through your fucking pathetic mind and find out what weird justifications you're making for the way you think and behave.

02:08:23.000 Like, you're not in any position to be...

02:08:25.000 Giving out advice.

02:08:26.000 And most of those people are not in any position to be giving out advice.

02:08:31.000 Yeah, and I do worry about people's lack of imagination.

02:08:34.000 It's like, I don't know.

02:08:36.000 I've had enough taken away from me that I'm not going to be limited by a lack of imagination.

02:08:41.000 Absolutely.

02:08:42.000 And it's also people don't want you to succeed.

02:08:46.000 That sucks.

02:08:47.000 Why?

02:08:48.000 Because they're not succeeding.

02:08:51.000 It's all it is.

02:08:53.000 People that are succeeding, for the most part, want you to succeed up until you get to their level.

02:08:57.000 And then you're like, hey.

02:08:58.000 Hey, you're butting up on my success.

02:09:00.000 Is there a limited amount of success in the world?

02:09:03.000 No!

02:09:04.000 Why then?

02:09:04.000 Well, because they're fools.

02:09:06.000 And it's famine thinking.

02:09:08.000 It's a famine mentality.

02:09:10.000 And you could either think in terms of abundance or famine.

02:09:14.000 But it's a real problem with comedians.

02:09:18.000 Comedians...

02:09:18.000 That criticize other comedians.

02:09:21.000 Kind of crazy that they're only criticizing the ones that are way more successful than them.

02:09:26.000 Seems odd.

02:09:27.000 Convenient.

02:09:28.000 Seems weird.

02:09:29.000 But they don't think about it that way.

02:09:30.000 They just look at this other person that's getting a lot of attention and they feel bad.

02:09:33.000 So they think that should be them.

02:09:37.000 And instead of using it as inspiration, like, wow, look at her.

02:09:41.000 She's fucking selling out arenas. 1.00

02:09:42.000 This is crazy.

02:09:43.000 What is she doing that I'm not doing?

02:09:45.000 What can I learn from her?

02:09:46.000 What can I learn from that?

02:09:47.000 Instead, they're like...

02:09:48.000 Fuck her and fuck this and fuck that. 1.00

02:09:51.000 And what you're doing is stealing bandwidth from yourself.

02:09:56.000 That 100 units, you're now spending 30 units criticizing other people who aren't even thinking about you.

02:10:02.000 Ha ha.

02:10:04.000 Ha ha.

02:10:04.000 Doing it to yourself.

02:10:08.000 Not only that, but when you're doing it publicly, everybody knows what you're doing.

02:10:12.000 Anybody who's really worth considering.

02:10:15.000 Who's an intelligent, objective person knows exactly what your motivation is.

02:10:20.000 They know why you're doing it.

02:10:22.000 The least charitable takes on things and the worst possible light that you're shining on things and the worst descriptions of people.

02:10:33.000 You know what you're doing.

02:10:34.000 You're just trying to make up for the fact that you've fallen short.

02:10:38.000 You don't like how your path has gone and you see someone All of a sudden she's doing comedy now?

02:10:47.000 Fuck that.

02:10:49.000 You know?

02:10:50.000 She shouldn't be doing comedy. 0.62

02:10:51.000 These hot takes that people have while they're on antidepressants and their whole fucking world's in a tizzy.

02:10:57.000 Like, shut up.

02:10:59.000 You don't have to listen.

02:11:00.000 But it's okay that they talk.

02:11:01.000 It's okay.

02:11:02.000 It's like part of the learning experience of human culture.

02:11:05.000 Like, civilization has to have a bunch of fucking people talking about stuff, and a bunch of it's noise, and it's up to you to figure out what's noise.

02:11:14.000 And, like, well, then you see someone who's not noise, and who's someone who's living an exemplary life, and go, okay.

02:11:22.000 That's not noise.

02:11:23.000 Okay, what's in that?

02:11:24.000 What's in that?

02:11:25.000 Like, oh, she met with a prosecutor.

02:11:27.000 Wow.

02:11:27.000 And she felt empowered.

02:11:29.000 You know how people are going to listen to what you just said about that?

02:11:32.000 And just like, when they're alone, like throughout the day, when they're driving their car, when they're sitting on the train, they're going to think about that.

02:11:39.000 I mean, I'm still thinking about that.

02:11:41.000 I'm still like trying to figure it out.

02:11:43.000 And I think that's good.

02:11:46.000 I think, yeah.

02:11:47.000 We're all, like you said, we're all interconnected.

02:11:49.000 We're all learning together.

02:11:52.000 And the only thing you can do is do your best.

02:11:54.000 Do your best.

02:11:56.000 Do your best.

02:11:56.000 Is that the advice?

02:11:57.000 Yes.

02:11:58.000 Is that advice, Daddy?

02:11:59.000 With everything.

02:12:01.000 Do your best.

02:12:03.000 Be a nice person.

02:12:04.000 Do your best.

02:12:06.000 Yeah.

02:12:06.000 That's all you can do.

02:12:07.000 Done and done.

02:12:08.000 Yeah.

02:12:10.000 We have solved everything.

02:12:11.000 It seems so simple.

02:12:13.000 But, you know, those demons will...

02:12:16.000 They never sleep.

02:12:17.000 They'll wake up in the morning, tap on you on the head.

02:12:19.000 Again, the thing that haunts me is when people think they're doing their best and they're not.

02:12:24.000 That's what haunts me.

02:12:27.000 And that happens.

02:12:28.000 That is happening constantly.

02:12:31.000 It's people convincing themselves that they're doing their best and they're not.

02:12:35.000 But then how do you get out of that cycle of convincing yourself?

02:12:38.000 Because that's where the issue of cognitive bias comes in and, like, reaffirming your sense of self to yourself and your identity.

02:12:47.000 Like, I'm a good guy.

02:12:48.000 I can't do wrong.

02:12:49.000 Or, like, you know, I'm a good friend.

02:12:52.000 I can't be a bad...

02:12:52.000 Like, there are ways that we define ourselves that makes it impossible for ourselves to see ourselves clearly.

02:13:00.000 And that freaks me out.

02:13:02.000 Like, I'm always afraid of that.

02:13:04.000 Five grams in silent darkness.

02:13:09.000 Prescribed.

02:13:11.000 And you might have to do it more than once.

02:13:13.000 You might have to do a lot of cleaning.

02:13:15.000 Yeah.

02:13:16.000 Clean your closet.

02:13:17.000 Clean your closet.

02:13:18.000 Okay.

02:13:18.000 Throw out all the stupid shit.

02:13:20.000 But it's hard for people because, you know, you're on this path of momentum.

02:13:24.000 Oftentimes people are ahead of their skis.

02:13:26.000 You know, they're on this path of momentum and they don't know how to stop.

02:13:28.000 That's the train.

02:13:29.000 That's out of the station.

02:13:30.000 Yeah.

02:13:31.000 In a much lesser extent.

02:13:32.000 Because it's more in their control.

02:13:35.000 When your situation is beyond your control.

02:13:38.000 And a lot of people, they're the fucking...

02:13:40.000 They're the engineer.

02:13:44.000 They're the ones who's in the skis.

02:13:46.000 They're the ones who are deciding to go straight downhill.

02:13:51.000 It's hard.

02:13:52.000 And then you have all these things.

02:13:54.000 Once you've sort of created a life...

02:13:57.000 And you have all these pieces in motion, and then you realize, like, oh my god, this is, like, kind of beyond my control, and I don't like where it's going, but everything's still moving.

02:14:08.000 It takes a lot to pull that back, and you kind of have to slow it down in stages, you know?

02:14:15.000 You have to, like, throw things off the side of the car.

02:14:17.000 Like, what's going—got to get rid of this, got to get rid of that.

02:14:20.000 You're going to have to cut people out of your life sometimes.

02:14:22.000 Sometimes it's people.

02:14:24.000 Sometimes certain people, they're not going to learn.

02:14:26.000 And I think, you know, the universe provides them as an example of how not to live, but also as a puzzle that you need to solve.

02:14:37.000 If this person is continually bringing negative things into your life and continually tripping you up and sabotaging you, you have to, at a certain point in time, separate yourself.

02:14:48.000 You have to.

02:14:49.000 You know, you've got to ghost people.

02:14:52.000 As horrible as that seems.

02:14:54.000 Because you don't have enough time.

02:14:56.000 There's not enough time in the world.

02:14:58.000 Your time is very precious.

02:14:59.000 And if people don't want to help themselves, you can't help them.

02:15:02.000 True.

02:15:03.000 That's very true.

02:15:05.000 I've definitely found myself in the position of not being helpable.

02:15:11.000 There's a story I tell in the book about trusting the wrong person and wanting to believe that they were...

02:15:18.000 Someone like me, someone who could understand me, and then I realized they were not.

02:15:22.000 That's horrible.

02:15:23.000 When you let someone in and you realize you fucked up. 0.92

02:15:25.000 I've had that happen multiple times.

02:15:28.000 Yeah, there's a lot of con artists out there.

02:15:30.000 There's a lot of sociopaths.

02:15:31.000 There's a lot of slippery people that they're chameleons. 1.00

02:15:35.000 They're like little cuttlefish.

02:15:37.000 They kind of adapt to their environment and slip into your world.

02:15:42.000 It's dangerous, you know?

02:15:44.000 There's a lot of people that...

02:15:46.000 That they look at it like It's like a game.

02:15:51.000 How do I get close to this person?

02:15:53.000 How do I benefit from this relationship?

02:15:56.000 How do I make these connections?

02:15:59.000 And in the business world, you're actually taught to do that.

02:16:02.000 Right.

02:16:02.000 Which is really crazy.

02:16:04.000 It's called networking.

02:16:06.000 Right.

02:16:07.000 It's a good word in that world.

02:16:09.000 Yeah, you have to bullshit.

02:16:10.000 And you and the wife have to go out and pretend.

02:16:13.000 I know he's an asshole, but we're going to sit with him because it's really important for my promotion.

02:16:17.000 And then, you know, no wonder why CEOs become sociopaths.

02:16:21.000 Like, of course.

02:16:22.000 John Ronson has a good book about that.

02:16:24.000 Have you read The Psychopath Test?

02:16:26.000 No, I haven't.

02:16:26.000 Oh, it's so fun.

02:16:27.000 I read The Publicly Shamed book, though.

02:16:28.000 Yeah, that's a good one, too.

02:16:30.000 It's great, yeah.

02:16:31.000 He's so funny.

02:16:32.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:16:33.000 It's, um, I mean, it's, being a human's weird.

02:16:37.000 There's no guidebook, you know?

02:16:40.000 You have the most complex, interactive machine.

02:16:45.000 That is constantly adapting and changing, and it's completely variable.

02:16:50.000 It's completely variable based on your environment.

02:16:55.000 Not just your environment in terms of the human beings, but even the weather.

02:16:59.000 If you live in Seattle, right?

02:17:01.000 You're on a very different wavelength than when you're in Austin.

02:17:04.000 It's true.

02:17:05.000 I come here and I feel like I'm in a bath.

02:17:08.000 All the time.

02:17:09.000 I'm just in a bath.

02:17:11.000 What do you mean?

02:17:12.000 It's so hot.

02:17:13.000 Oh, that's funny.

02:17:15.000 And that impacts me in a way where I just feel sort of dreamy, like I'm in a bath all the time.

02:17:22.000 That's interesting.

02:17:23.000 I've never heard it put that way.

02:17:25.000 In a bath.

02:17:26.000 That's funny.

02:17:28.000 That's funny.

02:17:30.000 Yeah, I don't think about it that way.

02:17:33.000 I wanted to ask how you slow down though, right?

02:17:35.000 You're talking about slowing down and like taking stock.

02:17:39.000 And the way I do it is by meditating.

02:17:42.000 But I have found that a lot of people are resistant to the idea of meditating because they have certain ideas about what meditating is.

02:17:50.000 And like it's shutting off your thoughts.

02:17:52.000 And it's like, well, you know, eventually you might be able to do that.

02:17:56.000 But ultimately it's just sitting down and noticing your thoughts that arise.

02:18:01.000 But I like to say that anyone who can masturbate can meditate.

02:18:09.000 And ultimately...

02:18:11.000 Actually, people that can meditate maybe not be able to masturbate because they don't have any arms.

02:18:15.000 You can still meditate.

02:18:16.000 Exactly.

02:18:17.000 And you get ultimately to a similar place of like just single-minded focus and bliss.

02:18:24.000 So go for it.

02:18:26.000 Don't hold back.

02:18:27.000 Yeah.

02:18:29.000 And the funny things that occur to your brain when you are meditating.

02:18:35.000 Okay, can I tell you something that's kind of off-color?

02:18:39.000 Sure.

02:18:39.000 Well, maybe you know this.

02:18:41.000 Since becoming a mom, my libido...

02:18:45.000 Really?

02:18:46.000 Oh, yeah.

02:18:47.000 Just because I'm constantly being touched, that the last thing I need is for my husband to climb on me like a jungle gym.

02:18:55.000 It's just...

02:18:56.000 It's just...

02:18:58.000 Not what's on the menu for me.

02:19:00.000 Also, you're probably tired all the time.

02:19:01.000 I'm so tired.

02:19:02.000 And my body is different.

02:19:05.000 The chemistry is still working itself out.

02:19:08.000 The one thing that reliably makes me horny is meditating.

02:19:13.000 Interesting.

02:19:14.000 Isn't that wild?

02:19:15.000 Huh.

02:19:16.000 And, you know, we have this term in meditation, like...

02:19:19.000 Monkey mind, right?

02:19:21.000 The idea being that when you sit down, you really notice that your mind is going all over the place and is just reacting like a monkey.

02:19:28.000 But also, another thing that monkeys are famous for is just masturbating voraciously.

02:19:33.000 And I feel like that's also what's happening in my mind.

02:19:36.000 I sit down and notice how perverted my mind is when I'm actually just sitting there meditating in a nice group of people on a Sunday morning.

02:19:44.000 That's funny.

02:19:45.000 Oh, group meditation.

02:19:47.000 Oh, yeah, yeah.

02:19:47.000 It's not just like when I'm home.

02:19:49.000 I'm alone, like, in my intimate space.

02:19:51.000 Like, I'm like...

02:19:53.000 Huh.

02:19:54.000 Yeah, this is...

02:19:54.000 I hope no one at my Zendo listens to this conversation!

02:19:58.000 Maybe they're gonna come up to you the next time you do, like, me too!

02:20:01.000 But then you don't want to know, because then you're gonna be meditating, like, this freak is thinking about sex too.

02:20:06.000 Well, I mean, and you're sitting there and you're thinking, like, what else are the uses of these floor cushions?

02:20:10.000 Like, you're just, like, going, like, all of the things in your brain, and then you're thinking, am I the only one?

02:20:15.000 Interesting.

02:20:16.000 So, I don't know.

02:20:17.000 There's something, again, one of those weird, unintended consequences of just trying to sit back and take stock is rediscovering parts of yourself that have been sort of diminished or made dormant because of the stress of existence.

02:20:36.000 So, another...

02:20:38.000 Yeah.

02:20:39.000 Reason why they should advertise that.

02:20:40.000 I don't know why they don't advertise that on meditation apps.

02:20:43.000 It's like, is this just me?

02:20:45.000 It would attract the wrong people.

02:20:46.000 Like, I'm trying to get perverted.

02:20:48.000 I'm trying to find my inner pervert.

02:20:51.000 Exactly.

02:20:52.000 Yeah.

02:20:55.000 I don't know.

02:20:57.000 I don't necessarily meditate that way, but I do incorporate a lot of voluntary adversity.

02:21:05.000 A lot of it is working out.

02:21:07.000 You got a lot of Buddhas around you for someone who doesn't meditate.

02:21:10.000 I know.

02:21:11.000 Weird, right?

02:21:12.000 What's with that?

02:21:13.000 My friend Duncan has some very bizarre theories about that.

02:21:16.000 I'm very drawn to that.

02:21:21.000 I do, though.

02:21:23.000 It's just I do it while I'm doing other things.

02:21:25.000 I've always said that martial arts is a form of moving meditation because it's so singular in its focus that it requires all of your thoughts and it cleanses your mind.

02:21:34.000 There's a bunch of things that I do.

02:21:35.000 A bunch of things that I do that do that.

02:21:37.000 Archery does that, oddly enough.

02:21:39.000 Zen and the Art of Archery.

02:21:40.000 There's a reason why there's that book.

02:21:42.000 Yes.

02:21:43.000 There's something about...

02:21:44.000 Have you ever done archery?

02:21:47.000 I have done it because my brother-in-law is a Ren Faire guy.

02:21:52.000 He's a Ren Faire performer.

02:21:54.000 Yeah, so cool.

02:21:55.000 Can I call out Seattle Knights, by the way?

02:21:59.000 He is the director of the Seattle Knights.

02:22:02.000 And yes, he jousts.

02:22:03.000 Oh boy, what a dork.

02:22:05.000 I know, it's so cool.

02:22:07.000 It's so cool.

02:22:08.000 I love it.

02:22:10.000 I'm going to go to their show on Woodby Island this month.

02:22:13.000 That's funny.

02:22:14.000 They're awesome.

02:22:15.000 But yes, so yeah.

02:22:16.000 What were we saying?

02:22:17.000 Archery.

02:22:18.000 Archery, yes.

02:22:18.000 So I've done it like in his backyard because he has all of the medieval weaponry.

02:22:23.000 That's hilarious.

02:22:25.000 Yeah.

02:22:26.000 I don't use the medieval ones.

02:22:28.000 I use modern ones.

02:22:28.000 But the thing about it is that it's very difficult to do accurately.

02:22:37.000 Especially at distance, right?

02:22:39.000 So when I practice, I practice it.

02:22:41.000 Most of the time, I practice it at about 85 yards.

02:22:44.000 And the amount of movement, like, so if you're at full draw, so you draw the bow back, right?

02:22:51.000 If you're at full draw, if you look at my arm, if my arm does this, I miss by six inches.

02:22:57.000 Wait, what did you just do?

02:22:58.000 This, this.

02:23:00.000 I'm missing by six inches at 85 yards.

02:23:03.000 I mean, a millimeter of movement is four inches off target.

02:23:09.000 So you're saying that Legolas is a badass, is what I'm hearing.

02:23:12.000 Who?

02:23:13.000 Legolas from Lord of the Rings.

02:23:16.000 Oh! 0.60

02:23:19.000 I'm not.

02:23:21.000 That's not a real person.

02:23:22.000 I'm applying it to human beings.

02:23:25.000 Okay, fine.

02:23:26.000 There's this repeatable technique that you have to do.

02:23:30.000 It involves breathing and focus and concentration.

02:23:35.000 And there's actually a whole process that I go through.

02:23:39.000 There's this guy named Joel Turner who is a...

02:23:44.000 He was a SWAT instructor and a lead guy in hostage situations where, you know, someone would, like, have a child hostage.

02:23:53.000 You had to shoot the guy who was, like, holding a knife to a child.

02:23:58.000 He's had situations like that where you have to be completely focused on the task.

02:24:03.000 And so he developed this process of...

02:24:07.000 Talking yourself through a shot with this.

02:24:11.000 You have these words that you say and you repeat in your mind while you're going through all of these various techniques.

02:24:20.000 So when you're drawing a bow back, you draw back.

02:24:24.000 You have to anchor.

02:24:25.000 So you put this string in a very particular part of your mouth every time.

02:24:31.000 My knuckle.

02:24:32.000 This finger goes underneath my jaw in the exact same spot every time.

02:24:38.000 My elbow goes up in the exact same spot and then it's staying still.

02:24:45.000 And concentrating on the target and pulling through.

02:24:48.000 And you can't think about anything else.

02:24:50.000 It's so overwhelming that you have to focus...

02:24:55.000 If you want to be accurate, you have to focus only on that.

02:24:58.000 And in doing so, the world just goes away.

02:25:02.000 The world goes away because it requires so much of you.

02:25:05.000 Martial arts is the same thing.

02:25:06.000 Like, if you're doing jujitsu...

02:25:08.000 And you and this person are trying to solve each other's puzzle, and you're essentially trying to kill each other, but in a friendly way, like your friends, because you can tap out.

02:25:20.000 You don't hurt each other.

02:25:23.000 You can't be thinking about your bills.

02:25:26.000 You can't be thinking about an argument you got in this.

02:25:29.000 Why did my dog shit on the rug?

02:25:30.000 You can't be thinking about those things.

02:25:32.000 You have to be completely focused on what you're doing.

02:25:34.000 And in that way, like, jujitsu people are some of the calmest, most chilled out people you will ever meet in your life.

02:25:41.000 First of all, because they get all of their aggression out.

02:25:44.000 Like, all the unnecessary aggression that people carry around with them.

02:25:48.000 All this angst and...

02:25:51.000 100%.

02:25:52.000 Which is part of being a human being because we're designed to run away from predators.

02:25:55.000 We're designed to hunt and gather and look out for invading tribes.

02:26:01.000 This is the genetic sequence that evolved for hundreds of thousands of years that we still have.

02:26:07.000 It's still a part of us.

02:26:09.000 These human reward systems are all in place.

02:26:11.000 You have to honor those.

02:26:12.000 And one of the ways you have to honor those is rigorous exercise.

02:26:16.000 Whatever you like to do.

02:26:17.000 You can play squash.

02:26:20.000 Play tennis.

02:26:21.000 You can run.

02:26:22.000 You could do yoga.

02:26:23.000 You could lift weights.

02:26:24.000 You could do jujitsu.

02:26:26.000 But you have to do something.

02:26:27.000 If you don't do something, you're going to always be the most anxiety-ridden people I know are also sedentary.

02:26:34.000 I don't think that's...

02:26:35.000 A coincidence.

02:26:36.000 And I also always feel like whenever I'm feeling really shitty psychologically, I need to go for a run.

02:26:41.000 Yes.

02:26:42.000 Do you find...

02:26:43.000 So here's my question.

02:26:45.000 Given that that is your meditative practice, Do you find that in the moment that you release the bow and that becoming one and that flow state that you have entered into in order to perfectly align yourself with the bow and the arrow, Does that moment of release ever result in some kind of unconscious processing coming into your consciousness?

02:27:14.000 So like some kind of a new awareness of something that you've been trying to figure out?

02:27:19.000 Do you ever find yourself, like, in the moment that you are, like, immediately exiting that flow state?

02:27:36.000 Do you feel more clarity about your life or what you need to do?

02:27:40.000 Or that thing that you weren't thinking about, like, your To-do list or your bills or that argument that you've had with somebody that you care about, like, does anything come into focus or do you find you walk away from an encounter in jiu-jitsu like knowing, not just feeling better emotionally, but like knowing what you need to do next?

02:27:58.000 I think more so with jiu-jitsu.

02:28:01.000 With archery, it's just, you know, because it's so hard to do.

02:28:06.000 And it's such a singular thing.

02:28:08.000 You're just doing this one thing over and over and over again.

02:28:11.000 Like, I'll do it like a hundred times in a day.

02:28:14.000 The thing is like, okay, what did I do right?

02:28:17.000 What did I do wrong?

02:28:18.000 Like, why did that shot go bad?

02:28:21.000 Minute adjustments.

02:28:23.000 Yeah, just minute adjustments.

02:28:24.000 And again, it's just a clarity.

02:28:27.000 I'm sorry about my throat, people.

02:28:28.000 Yeah, no worries.

02:28:29.000 It's just a clarity of analysis of technique.

02:28:35.000 And of execution.

02:28:36.000 So it's so overwhelming.

02:28:38.000 It's so singular in the focus that you don't really think about anything else.

02:28:44.000 So there's no room for like, oh, now I know what I did wrong in my life.

02:28:48.000 Yeah, I guess one of the benefits that I get from meditation is feeling like when I come out of meditation, I feel like I have a clarity of purpose that I might not have had because I was...

02:29:01.000 I had monkey mind, and I was distracted, and I was using my bandwidth with so much, and so you just tune down what your bandwidth is paying attention to, and then you re-enter the world with a renewed sense of clarity, and you're not as distracted.

02:29:19.000 You're not on that treadmill of thought.

02:29:21.000 Yeah, I think that comes, to me at least, that comes much more through rigorous exercise.

02:29:28.000 That makes sense.

02:29:29.000 Yeah, that's...

02:29:30.000 At the end of a really hard workout and sauna and stretching.

02:29:33.000 Stretching is always great, too.

02:29:35.000 That's a good time for reflection after it's over.

02:29:38.000 And it's like this wind down, cool down.

02:29:41.000 And then I always feel so much nicer.

02:29:44.000 That's the one thing I really like about it.

02:29:45.000 After I work out, I feel so much nicer.

02:29:47.000 I'm a good person now.

02:29:49.000 I just want to be nice to people.

02:29:51.000 I want to smile and say hi to everybody.

02:29:54.000 All the weirdness of being a man just goes away.

02:29:59.000 You know?

02:30:00.000 The weirdness of being a man.

02:30:02.000 I do think that I do not envy you being a man.

02:30:05.000 Oh my god, it's the best.

02:30:07.000 I don't envy you being a woman. 1.00

02:30:08.000 Really?

02:30:09.000 Yeah.

02:30:10.000 Oh no, I much prefer being a woman.

02:30:11.000 Of course, you're a woman. 1.00

02:30:14.000 I mean, testosterone is a hell of a drug, my friend.

02:30:16.000 Like, what the hell is that?

02:30:19.000 Testosterone, I don't want to deal with that.

02:30:21.000 It's interesting, but you have some.

02:30:22.000 You have more testosterone than you have estrogen.

02:30:25.000 What?

02:30:25.000 Yeah.

02:30:26.000 Yeah, women have more testosterone than they have estrogen. 0.99

02:30:29.000 But I've never felt the impulse to punch a wall, you know?

02:30:32.000 I mean, either.

02:30:33.000 That's stupid.

02:30:33.000 Okay, well...

02:30:34.000 I don't punch walls.

02:30:35.000 Well, you have an outlet for your punching energy, but like...

02:30:38.000 Yeah.

02:30:39.000 I don't know.

02:30:39.000 What I mean is like that innate, like an elevated level of aggression that just is not like accessible to me as a woman.

02:30:51.000 Is that wrong?

02:30:52.000 Am I like inaccurate in this?

02:30:53.000 I just feel like...

02:30:55.000 I don't know what I would do if I wanted to just, like, jerk off all the time.

02:30:59.000 Like, I just don't understand what that is like.

02:31:03.000 And that seems over...

02:31:05.000 Like, that doesn't seem fun to deal with.

02:31:10.000 Yeah.

02:31:12.000 Well, you don't really want to jerk off all the time unless you're a sex addict.

02:31:16.000 You know?

02:31:17.000 And then you probably got other issues you're dealing with.

02:31:20.000 But the aggression thing...

02:31:24.000 It's not just, like, aggression for no reason.

02:31:27.000 Like, you only have aggression for a reason.

02:31:29.000 Like, I never have aggression for, like, I'm never, like, walking around, like, fucking mad at everything.

02:31:34.000 It's never, never.

02:31:35.000 It's never the case.

02:31:37.000 And, but I also, I work out a lot.

02:31:43.000 So I get it out of my system.

02:31:45.000 It's just a thing like you just have to maintain.

02:31:47.000 You just have to maintain your life.

02:31:49.000 You have to maintain your body.

02:31:51.000 You have to recognize you have biological needs.

02:31:55.000 And as a man, I think one of those needs is you have to exercise to just calm yourself, to relieve anxiety.

02:32:02.000 And again, that's that term that is used often, but I think it's the right term, voluntary adversity.

02:32:09.000 You show up at class, you work out really hard.

02:32:11.000 You show up at the gym, you work out really hard.

02:32:13.000 And then when it's over, you feel better.

02:32:16.000 You feel good.

02:32:17.000 You're nicer.

02:32:19.000 Strong, powerful people can be the nicest people because they don't have to be nice.

02:32:27.000 They're being nice because they want to be nice.

02:32:29.000 There's a lot of weak, feeble men that pretend that they're nice, but really what they are is just vulnerable.

02:32:36.000 They have to be.

02:32:37.000 Nice.

02:32:38.000 Because they don't have any choice.

02:32:41.000 And if they were in a position of not having to, then they would drop the nice act in a second.

02:32:46.000 And that's what happens.

02:32:48.000 They're some of the creepiest fucking people when they have power. 1.00

02:32:50.000 It's like really weak men.

02:32:52.000 They're some of the scariest people.

02:32:54.000 And they're the scariest people as politicians.

02:32:56.000 They're just really weak men that all of a sudden have power.

02:32:59.000 I'm going to fucking show you.

02:33:01.000 Having real power is to be kind when you don't have to be kind.

02:33:06.000 You know what I love about being a woman though?

02:33:08.000 What?

02:33:09.000 That I do think is a genuine thing and a genuine difference is it's easier for me to be nurturing in the sense that like no one would bat an eye if I saw a kid who was like, I couldn't figure out where their mom was, and I were to approach them and say, come here, honey, let me help you.

02:33:29.000 As a man, do you second...

02:33:32.000 I know that my husband has told me this, that he second guesses hanging out at...

02:33:38.000 You know, with the kids at the park because someone might think that he's a pedophile.

02:33:43.000 Oh, that's crazy.

02:33:44.000 Hanging out with his kids?

02:33:46.000 Yeah, because, like, if you're just, like, a guy sitting on a bench and your kids are playing, like, how does anyone know that you aren't just a guy?

02:33:52.000 I think he's overthinking things.

02:33:53.000 I think he's really overthinking things.

02:33:55.000 Like, of course you're a fucking dad at the park.

02:33:57.000 That's crazy.

02:33:58.000 You see other dads at the park, you say hi.

02:34:00.000 It's like, you're not a pedophile, those are my kids.

02:34:03.000 How old's your kid?

02:34:04.000 It's normal.

02:34:06.000 I've taken my kids to parks a thousand times.

02:34:08.000 You've never felt in some way that your masculinity inhibited your ability, your instinct to be nurturing and affectionate?

02:34:19.000 No.

02:34:20.000 No, I think that's a weakness.

02:34:23.000 If you can't be nurturing and affectionate because you think you're masculine...

02:34:27.000 That's crazy.

02:34:28.000 That's just weak.

02:34:31.000 That's nuts.

02:34:32.000 That's like a distortion of what strength means.

02:34:34.000 That's not strong.

02:34:37.000 That's weak.

02:34:38.000 Why can't you be nice?

02:34:40.000 The idea that if you're nice and you're affectionate and you're kind, that you're weak, that's crazy.

02:34:47.000 That's crazy.

02:34:48.000 Especially if you have options.

02:34:51.000 If you don't have to be nice and you're nice, that's real niceness.

02:34:56.000 It's pure.

02:34:57.000 You don't have to be.

02:34:58.000 You don't have to be a nice person, but you're nice because it's a good thing to do.

02:35:03.000 That's the right way to do it.

02:35:05.000 Okay, so what's so great about being a guy?

02:35:08.000 Everything.

02:35:09.000 It's awesome.

02:35:10.000 We fucking build everything.

02:35:12.000 We run the world.

02:35:12.000 It's great.

02:35:16.000 I don't know.

02:35:17.000 I am a guy.

02:35:19.000 And yet, it all comes down to trying to get the attention of some lady. 0.99

02:35:23.000 Not at all.

02:35:24.000 No.

02:35:25.000 I already have the attention of a lady. 1.00

02:35:26.000 I'm good.

02:35:27.000 I still love being a guy.

02:35:30.000 It's not like that's the primary motivation.

02:35:32.000 No?

02:35:33.000 What is the primary motivation?

02:35:34.000 Fun!

02:35:35.000 Fun?

02:35:35.000 Fun.

02:35:37.000 Yeah, life is fun.

02:35:38.000 Life should be fun.

02:35:40.000 Sounds pretty great.

02:35:40.000 It should be fun if you pursue it correctly.

02:35:43.000 There's a lot of stuff to do.

02:35:44.000 A lot of stuff to do that's interesting.

02:35:46.000 That's why when I hear people say, I'm bored.

02:35:47.000 Like, I don't even understand you.

02:35:49.000 I don't even get it.

02:35:50.000 How the fuck can you be bored?

02:35:51.000 I wish I had 50 lives to live simultaneously.

02:35:53.000 I would do a bunch of different things.

02:35:55.000 I would have a bunch of different jobs.

02:35:57.000 There's like so many different things that I'd love to do.

02:35:59.000 Aren't people sometimes beholden to doing things that they don't want to do just because they have to make bills or they have to...

02:36:08.000 Yes.

02:36:08.000 But that's all choices that you make, too.

02:36:11.000 And unfortunately...

02:36:13.000 These choices sort of, they cascade.

02:36:16.000 You could find yourself motivated by the wrong things and doing things for the wrong reasons, like doing things just for money and just for this or just for that.

02:36:28.000 And I've done that before.

02:36:29.000 I know it.

02:36:29.000 but then you have to realize what you're doing and And stay focused on the prize, yeah.

02:36:34.000 Take the steps to not wanna do that anymore.

02:36:37.000 But it's like, There's people listening to this right now, like, oh, that's easy for you to say, because I have to do this and I have to do that.

02:36:49.000 That's true.

02:36:50.000 But you can do things to better your life with your free time.

02:36:56.000 Go open your phone right now and look at your screen time.

02:37:02.000 Okay.

02:37:03.000 Now, I understand the screen time is 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there, 5 minutes here, 5 minutes there.

02:37:09.000 But that screen time...

02:37:11.000 It's probably about five hours, which is crazy.

02:37:16.000 That's five hours you could have been improving your life.

02:37:19.000 That's five hours you could have been doing something different.

02:37:21.000 That's five hours you could have went to the gym.

02:37:22.000 That's five hours you could have eaten better.

02:37:24.000 You could have taken steps to have better food in your house.

02:37:27.000 You could have taken steps to pursue a career or move in the direction of pursuing something that's different than what you're doing that you would actually find satisfying and fulfilling.

02:37:39.000 You just have to decide, what are you doing with your time?

02:37:42.000 And, you know, this goes back to people commenting and bitching at people online.

02:37:47.000 Well, that's what you're doing.

02:37:48.000 If you're distracting yourself by doing a bunch of shit that's just worthless, and it is worthless.

02:37:55.000 And easy, maybe.

02:37:55.000 And easy.

02:37:56.000 And very easy.

02:37:57.000 Yeah.

02:37:58.000 It's because you need discipline.

02:37:59.000 You need to figure out what do you really want to do with your life and what...

02:38:05.000 Makes you feel better.

02:38:06.000 Do you feel like you are innately disciplined?

02:38:10.000 No.

02:38:11.000 No, I've learned that.

02:38:12.000 I've developed that.

02:38:14.000 No one's innately disciplined.

02:38:17.000 No, I don't think that's real.

02:38:19.000 I think we look at people that are disciplined like, oh, it must be easy for them.

02:38:22.000 You're just born with that gene.

02:38:23.000 No, that's not real.

02:38:25.000 No, you recognize the value of discipline and the rewards.

02:38:30.000 You reap the rewards and then you like it.

02:38:32.000 And so you keep doing it.

02:38:33.000 You keep pursuing it.

02:38:35.000 I'm just curious about, like, brain chemistry, because when I think about, you know, you've been very complimentary towards me in this conversation, but a part of me is wondering, am I just lucky that I have the kind of internal chemistry that I have that makes me value the things that I value?

02:38:53.000 And, you know, I'm just doing what I feel compelled to do.

02:39:01.000 I'm curious when people feel compelled to do otherwise, and I don't know where to place responsibility for that.

02:39:12.000 Do you know what I mean?

02:39:13.000 Well, you wouldn't know unless you are them.

02:39:16.000 You could look to your own life, to times where you haven't lived in an exemplary way or done things where you're helping yourself.

02:39:29.000 And done things, in fact, that are actually sabotaging your life.

02:39:33.000 And you can correct them yourself.

02:39:35.000 But it's very hard.

02:39:36.000 I mean, you would have to be a fucking counselor that would have ultimate truth access to a person's thought processes to really find out why they're doing things differently and why they're not living in a way.

02:39:48.000 The only thing you can do is live by example.

02:39:51.000 You know, there's a term for a Taekwondo instructor.

02:39:54.000 It's called a Sabom Nim. 0.98

02:39:55.000 And it's one who lives by example.

02:39:58.000 And that's what you have to do.

02:39:59.000 You have to live by example.

02:40:03.000 Live like someone's watching.

02:40:04.000 Yes.

02:40:05.000 This is what I tell people.

02:40:06.000 And I've said this for years.

02:40:09.000 You want to have a successful life.

02:40:11.000 If you want to live your life like there's a documentary crew around you filming your everyday life.

02:40:20.000 And that you want people to be impressed with you.

02:40:23.000 Do it when no one's watching.

02:40:25.000 Do it when no one's watching.

02:40:28.000 I think about that when I work out.

02:40:30.000 I think about that.

02:40:31.000 Yeah, if people were judging me and they were watching me right now, what would you think?

02:40:40.000 Yeah.

02:40:41.000 And now I'm wondering if, like, that's one of those weird silver linings to this whole experience is that my life became very, very public very early.

02:40:50.000 And so I literally do have to walk around living my life as if there is potentially a documentary crew following me around.

02:40:58.000 Yeah, I think that is.

02:41:00.000 I think that's real.

02:41:01.000 I think that's the gift that I have gotten by being famous.

02:41:06.000 That I have to live publicly.

02:41:10.000 And if I didn't, like if I was just some fucking tyrant that no one knew, you know, and I just had all this wealth and power and no one knew me and I could just get away with being an asshole.

02:41:21.000 Right.

02:41:21.000 Yeah.

02:41:21.000 I think the most wealthy and the most powerful do not want fame because with fame comes accountability.

02:41:28.000 Yeah.

02:41:28.000 But that's good.

02:41:31.000 That's good.

02:41:32.000 Even the haters are good.

02:41:35.000 And then the people that defend you against the haters, that's good too.

02:41:39.000 It's all good.

02:41:40.000 Everyone's just working this out together publicly.

02:41:43.000 They're doing it through different vessels and sometimes they do it through other people.

02:41:47.000 They're doing it through me and they're doing it through you.

02:41:48.000 Would you wish fame on anyone?

02:41:50.000 No.

02:41:52.000 No, no, no, no, no, no.

02:41:55.000 You can't handle it.

02:41:57.000 Yeah?

02:41:57.000 No, but you can handle it.

02:41:59.000 But most people can't handle it.

02:42:01.000 It breaks people.

02:42:02.000 That's why people can't have it when they're young.

02:42:05.000 The worst thing you do to a child is make them famous.

02:42:08.000 The worst thing.

02:42:09.000 I mean, look, there's countless examples.

02:42:11.000 I've talked to so many of them on the podcast.

02:42:14.000 They're all broken.

02:42:15.000 Yeah, like, who have you talked to?

02:42:17.000 I'm curious.

02:42:18.000 Macaulay Culkin, Miley Cyrus.

02:42:20.000 He's doing much better now, isn't he?

02:42:21.000 He's great.

02:42:22.000 Yeah.

02:42:22.000 He's great.

02:42:23.000 I mean, he's as great as you can be to be super famous when you're six.

02:42:28.000 God.

02:42:29.000 I'm friends with Ricky Schroeder.

02:42:31.000 You know, I've had a bunch of them on, a bunch of people on that were famous when they were young and they all are missing something.

02:42:37.000 It's like when you're making cement and you don't add enough water.

02:42:40.000 There's like something that happens when you have fame and adulation during your developmental stages as a child when you're supposed to be like figuring out how do I get people to like me?

02:42:51.000 Like what is it about?

02:42:54.000 You know?

02:42:54.000 And that is that developmental stage when your brain chemistry is being configured for the rest of your life.

02:43:03.000 That is scary.

02:43:05.000 You want to put that brain chemistry coagulation in the right configuration, in the right set of circumstances, or else you're going to be having a complex for the rest of your life that you're going to be grappling with, because I don't know if you can undo.

02:43:20.000 The stuff that gets ingrained in your brain chemistry when you're a kid.

02:43:25.000 I don't know anything.

02:43:26.000 I don't think you can.

02:43:27.000 But it seems to me that especially developmentally, when your brain hasn't configured yet, that's when you get hardwired to have complexes the rest of your life that you're going to be dealing with.

02:43:43.000 100%.

02:43:43.000 And if your brain is formulated...

02:43:47.000 With extreme adulation and love for no fucking reason, just because you're a cute kid.

02:43:55.000 But you're a cute kid in front of the whole world in Home Alone?

02:43:58.000 That's nuts.

02:44:00.000 That's nuts.

02:44:01.000 Yeah.

02:44:01.000 I mean, he's a very thoughtful person, and he's come through it.

02:44:04.000 I mean, I really enjoy talking to him.

02:44:06.000 He's a really nice guy.

02:44:07.000 Does he regret being in the Home Alone movies?

02:44:09.000 Boy, that's a good question.

02:44:11.000 I'd have to ask him.

02:44:12.000 I don't know.

02:44:13.000 I mean, I don't know, you know.

02:44:15.000 Because, I mean, you know, you can look back.

02:44:18.000 I don't even know how much of a choice that was for him.

02:44:21.000 How much can you choose anything when you're six?

02:44:23.000 How can you choose?

02:44:24.000 But, like, so in a way, it was a thing that happened to him that he didn't really have control over.

02:44:30.000 Right.

02:44:31.000 And does he look back on that and go, would I give up that?

02:44:37.000 Like, if I could get that life back, would I have a different life?

02:44:42.000 I'm curious what he would say.

02:44:43.000 Well, he most certainly would have a different life.

02:44:46.000 Yeah.

02:44:47.000 Would it be better?

02:44:48.000 I don't know.

02:44:49.000 But I don't know anybody that's, again, gone through that.

02:44:53.000 That's, air quotes, whole at the end of it.

02:44:58.000 I just think that...

02:45:01.000 There's also this weird thing where you become the provider for the family, which is very strange.

02:45:06.000 As a child, yeah.

02:45:07.000 And then you have this parasitic relationship that your parents have to you, which is, I have friends that were famous as young people, and they have these very fucked up, complicated relationships with their parents.

02:45:19.000 One of my friends found out their parents stole from them millions of dollars.

02:45:25.000 Yeah.

02:45:25.000 And then you have to grapple with that as you're an adult.

02:45:30.000 These monsters, you know, they used you as an ATM machine.

02:45:34.000 And they stopped working, and they became your quote-unquote manager, really just pushing you out there to try to siphon money off of you.

02:45:42.000 Fucking A. Fucking A. Yeah, yeah. 0.58

02:45:45.000 But I got fame in a slow drip.

02:45:50.000 I got slow doses.

02:45:52.000 Like snake venom.

02:45:55.000 You get a little bit of snake venom.

02:45:56.000 If you get one big bite from a cobra, you're fucked.

02:46:00.000 That's what I got.

02:46:01.000 Yeah.

02:46:04.000 Well, you're strong.

02:46:05.000 So here I am.

02:46:06.000 But you're strong.

02:46:07.000 You came through it on the other side.

02:46:09.000 A very durable person.

02:46:11.000 And I think it's a trial by fire, and you went through it.

02:46:16.000 That's what they do in boot camp.

02:46:21.000 You know, you go through something very difficult to be strong at the end.

02:46:25.000 And you don't become strong.

02:46:26.000 Just wake up one day.

02:46:28.000 I'm strong.

02:46:28.000 No, you have to go through some shit, you know.

02:46:31.000 And going through some shit when you're a kid as becoming famous is different than going through, like, hardship as a child.

02:46:39.000 I know a lot of children that went through hardship.

02:46:42.000 Like, all my friends that are interesting all had horrible childhoods.

02:46:47.000 All of them.

02:46:48.000 All my most fascinating friends.

02:46:50.000 I'm so grateful that I did not have a fucked up childhood.

02:46:53.000 Well, that's probably what prepared you or helped you.

02:46:56.000 Indeed.

02:46:56.000 I feel like if I had gone through this experience after having a fucked up childhood, I would be a psychopath today.

02:47:02.000 Right.

02:47:03.000 So, thank God I had a good childhood.

02:47:07.000 Yes.

02:47:08.000 Yeah, I didn't have a bad childhood.

02:47:11.000 I had a complex childhood.

02:47:13.000 But it wasn't bad.

02:47:14.000 You know?

02:47:15.000 My mother and my stepfather are very nice people.

02:47:19.000 It wasn't bad, but it was fucked up. 0.70

02:47:22.000 It was moved around a lot, didn't have a lot of friends, got bullied, a lot of different things.

02:47:27.000 But it wasn't the worst.

02:47:29.000 Nothing horrible happened to me.

02:47:31.000 So it's like the trials can't be too hard.

02:47:39.000 They can't break you.

02:47:40.000 They have to be just enough so that you...

02:47:42.000 Gain some strength and you rebuild.

02:47:45.000 And if they do break you, then it's a very difficult task of rebuilding.

02:47:49.000 And people that have gone through horrible childhood trauma, particularly abuse and sexual abuse, that they have the most difficult hurdles to overcome.

02:47:59.000 I agree.

02:47:59.000 I think in large part because how do you trust...

02:48:03.000 Right.

02:48:03.000 I think rebuilding your life relies upon...

02:48:07.000 Rebuilding yourself in the context of other human beings.

02:48:10.000 Right.

02:48:11.000 And how do you do that when you can't trust anyone?

02:48:13.000 It's true.

02:48:14.000 But I do know some people that have gone through childhood sexual trauma that are also incredibly fascinating people because they figured out a way to acquire strength through it all.

02:48:28.000 But what about trust?

02:48:29.000 And that's the other thing I was going to say.

02:48:30.000 And then they've also...

02:48:31.000 Well, they're also very skeptical people, and rightly so.

02:48:35.000 Rightly so.

02:48:35.000 But that's a good thing, because a lot of people don't have your intentions in mind, especially if you're a woman.

02:48:40.000 If you're a woman, everybody's bullshitting you to try to get in your pants. 1.00

02:48:44.000 It's constant bullshitting.

02:48:46.000 So you have to figure out, well, who's actually bullshitting me, and who's just being nice, and who's being nice but kind of bullshitting, just slowly playing this game.

02:48:56.000 You ever heard of the definition of a gentleman?

02:48:58.000 No.

02:48:59.000 It's a patient wolf.

02:49:03.000 Okay.

02:49:04.000 Yeah.

02:49:04.000 All right.

02:49:05.000 Yeah.

02:49:05.000 And then ultimately the prey sort of acknowledges, yeah, here you are.

02:49:09.000 You're getting into my pants in the end, but because you've been the most patient, the most impressively patient of all.

02:49:15.000 Yeah.

02:49:15.000 You've done the dance correctly.

02:49:17.000 Put your feathers out like a good peacock.

02:49:20.000 Yeah.

02:49:22.000 I like that.

02:49:23.000 I like that dance.

02:49:24.000 Yes.

02:49:25.000 Well, that's the thing is like women are designed to like that dance. 1.00

02:49:29.000 Right?

02:49:30.000 Because this person has shown you the respect of not just trying to use their physical force and take it from you and not care about you as a person.

02:49:38.000 They've chosen to acknowledge you as a person and like, this is what this person wants.

02:49:43.000 They want to feel comfortable with me.

02:49:44.000 But then you can't be a sociopath, too.

02:49:47.000 It has to be genuine.

02:49:48.000 You have to genuinely like this person.

02:49:50.000 So, you know.

02:49:52.000 For a woman to feel safe.

02:49:54.000 Right.

02:49:54.000 And then you've got to go through a lot of trial and error with that, too.

02:49:58.000 You have to figure out, like, why'd that relationship fall apart?

02:50:00.000 Oh, that was a piece of shit.

02:50:03.000 Why'd that one fall apart?

02:50:04.000 Oh, she was a psycho. 1.00

02:50:06.000 Recognize, like, what do you actually like?

02:50:08.000 Is it just that they're hot?

02:50:10.000 This is the thing.

02:50:11.000 I've had a bunch of friends that just married hot people. 0.64

02:50:13.000 And then, you know, you go into divorce and it's all chaos.

02:50:16.000 You can't just fucking marry hot people. 1.00

02:50:18.000 Just because they're hot and they're sexy and they turn you on.

02:50:22.000 That's just genes.

02:50:23.000 Like, you gotta understand, like, there's a personality involved.

02:50:26.000 And then there's also, like, when you're hot, you have ultimate power.

02:50:29.000 You have the Willy Wonka golden ticket.

02:50:31.000 Like, everybody's stumbling at their feet to try to, like, open doors for you and be nice to you.

02:50:36.000 Put you in prison.

02:50:39.000 Open a certain kind of door and then close it forever.

02:50:47.000 Yeah.

02:50:50.000 It's just flirting.

02:50:51.000 It was flirting in the end.

02:50:52.000 That's all it was.

02:50:54.000 Being a person's fucking weird.

02:50:55.000 You know, it's really weird.

02:50:57.000 It's really weird.

02:50:58.000 And it's temporary.

02:51:00.000 It's like you're always looking at that fucking hourglass.

02:51:03.000 The sand's running out.

02:51:05.000 You know, and like, what am I doing?

02:51:06.000 Why am I doing it?

02:51:07.000 What's this about?

02:51:08.000 What do I like?

02:51:10.000 And then you can get overwhelmed with, like, existential angst.

02:51:13.000 Just, what's the point of it all?

02:51:15.000 Yeah, well, you have to find a point.

02:51:17.000 Like, what is man's search for meaning?

02:51:19.000 Like, what is it?

02:51:20.000 What are we doing?

02:51:21.000 Well, that's the subtitle of my book.

02:51:25.000 My Search.

02:51:25.000 My Search for Meaning.

02:51:26.000 Oh, my God.

02:51:28.000 Right there.

02:51:29.000 In cursive, if you can still read cursive.

02:51:31.000 Some people can't anymore.

02:51:32.000 Is that your actual handwriting?

02:51:34.000 No, I wanted it to be my actual handwriting.

02:51:36.000 Why didn't they use it?

02:51:37.000 Fuckheads. 0.98

02:51:38.000 They should have used it.

02:51:39.000 Because they were like, this looks so much more pretty.

02:51:42.000 Yeah, you could have made it that pretty.

02:51:44.000 I do have great handwriting.

02:51:45.000 Man, what the fuck?

02:51:46.000 It's close.

02:51:49.000 Might as well.

02:51:50.000 It is odd.

02:51:52.000 Yeah.

02:51:53.000 The search for meaning.

02:51:54.000 Search for meaning is very odd.

02:51:56.000 And you could always...

02:51:59.000 Especially when there's no inherent meaning.

02:52:01.000 You just have to make it up.

02:52:03.000 I think.

02:52:04.000 I mean, it means something to you.

02:52:06.000 If it means something to you, it's inherent.

02:52:09.000 It's real.

02:52:09.000 If it means something to you.

02:52:11.000 If you actually care, it means something.

02:52:12.000 Like, what's the point of it all?

02:52:13.000 If you're gonna die someday, and who knows what happens when you die?

02:52:16.000 And then there's the real fatalist thing.

02:52:19.000 When you die, it's over.

02:52:20.000 It's just black and emptiness.

02:52:22.000 And then just shut off.

02:52:23.000 Like, okay.

02:52:25.000 So you're still alive, bitch. 1.00

02:52:26.000 Okay?

02:52:26.000 You gotta figure out what you're doing with your day-to-day.

02:52:28.000 Do you enjoy your day-to-day?

02:52:29.000 If not, why do some people?

02:52:32.000 How come some people enjoy their life?

02:52:34.000 Why don't you?

02:52:35.000 What is man's search for meaning?

02:52:36.000 Enjoy your fucking life.

02:52:38.000 Enjoy this life.

02:52:39.000 You can.

02:52:40.000 It's possible.

02:52:41.000 It can be done.

02:52:41.000 And I think living by example...

02:52:44.000 Shows other people that it can be done.

02:52:46.000 And then being, like, really honest about it.

02:52:48.000 Like, what are the steps?

02:52:50.000 What's the struggles?

02:52:50.000 How do you do it?

02:52:52.000 Yeah, that's actually been a really sort of fun takeaway that I've had from having just an Instagram is, like, I'll post a silly video of me dancing for my kids.

02:53:01.000 And a lot of the comments are just people being like, I'm so glad that someone like you...

02:53:10.000 Yeah.

02:53:11.000 You know, it's like, thank God someone like you can be happy.

02:53:15.000 And I'm like, yeah, someone like me can be happy.

02:53:18.000 That means you can be happy, too.

02:53:20.000 It's possible to be happy.

02:53:21.000 Yeah.

02:53:22.000 But, you know, when you're a 500-pound person and you want to be thin, that's a long road.

02:53:30.000 It's not going to come quickly.

02:53:31.000 And if you're a severely depressed, very unhappy person with a disaster of a life, it's not going to...

02:53:38.000 Turn around overnight.

02:53:39.000 That's a battleship. 0.90

02:53:41.000 It takes a long time to turn that bitch around and get it facing the other direction. 1.00

02:53:46.000 And the motivation has to be that you have to see some kernel of opportunity embedded within that darkness.

02:53:55.000 Because otherwise, like...

02:53:56.000 How do you even know what direction to go towards?

02:53:59.000 And you have to be enjoying the process.

02:54:01.000 You have to figure out a way to enjoy the process of improvement.

02:54:05.000 Even though it's hard.

02:54:07.000 Yes.

02:54:07.000 And because it's hard.

02:54:08.000 Hard can be fun.

02:54:10.000 Yeah.

02:54:10.000 You have to enjoy the hard.

02:54:12.000 And that's why voluntary adversity is so important.

02:54:15.000 You have to force yourself to do hard things so that you can do hard things no matter what.

02:54:20.000 If I do...

02:54:21.000 What's that?

02:54:21.000 Pump up?

02:54:22.000 Pump up remixes.

02:54:24.000 You've got to get motivated somehow.

02:54:26.000 Yeah, that's true.

02:54:28.000 That's true.

02:54:28.000 Although David Goggins doesn't listen to music because he thinks it's cheating.

02:54:32.000 Really?

02:54:32.000 Yeah, he gets all his motivation internal.

02:54:35.000 Come on.

02:54:36.000 External motivation is cheating.

02:54:38.000 So pure.

02:54:38.000 He's a fucking complete psycho.

02:54:42.000 I need a good soundtrack when I'm running.

02:54:45.000 But that's the spectrum.

02:54:46.000 The spectrum of discipline.

02:54:51.000 Yeah, that's what he's doing.

02:54:53.000 That's what he's doing.

02:54:54.000 That's what he's doing all day long for no goal other than, like, I talked to him about it.

02:54:59.000 He's like, I'm in the lab every day, downloaded information.

02:55:02.000 Like, whoa.

02:55:03.000 Cool, dude.

02:55:04.000 You're in the matrix.

02:55:06.000 Crazy video of him working out with my friend Israel Adesanya.

02:55:11.000 Israel Adesanya is the former UFC middleweight champion of the world, one of the greatest fighters that ever lived.

02:55:16.000 And he is working out with David Goggins, and he can't keep up with him.

02:55:21.000 And David Goggins is just breaking him.

02:55:22.000 And he's throwing up in garbage cans, and David is putting him through his workout.

02:55:26.000 And it's one of three workouts that David does in a day.

02:55:29.000 And he's like this incredibly fit, world champion fighter.

02:55:33.000 Is he distracting himself?

02:55:36.000 I don't know.

02:55:37.000 You have to talk to him.

02:55:38.000 You have to dig into that brain.

02:55:40.000 You have to dig into that.

02:55:41.000 That's a very unusual brain.

02:55:43.000 But he was 300 pounds and fat at one point in his time and in his life.

02:55:47.000 It just has become his purpose.

02:55:48.000 That's his meaning, right?

02:55:49.000 That makes sense to me.

02:55:50.000 That's why he says, he's like, he goes, I'm downloading knowledge.

02:55:54.000 Like every time he's like pushing himself past the limits that he thinks he's capable of further and further.

02:56:00.000 He's downloading more understanding of himself.

02:56:03.000 We should work out some time, by the way.

02:56:05.000 I think that would be fun.

02:56:06.000 I only studied fighting when I first got back out of prison because I was getting a bunch of death threats, so I did Krav Maga.

02:56:16.000 And a lot of it was just learning how to scream.

02:56:20.000 Krav Maga?

02:56:21.000 Yeah, well, the first, like my Krav Maga instructors, because they were instructing me on a specific, for a specific reason, wasn't just to work out.

02:56:30.000 Their first thing that they taught me was how to scream.

02:56:33.000 I was surprised, and they were telling me, people don't want to take up space and make noise.

02:56:45.000 We're taught from a very young age, especially women, to not do that.

02:56:52.000 The first lesson was make noise, take up space.

02:56:57.000 And so we just practiced like screaming as loud and as hard and as long as we could.

02:57:03.000 And then once we got through that, then we started doing the fighting moves.

02:57:07.000 And the first thing I had to do before I did anything was scream first, then move, scream, move.

02:57:14.000 And so that the screaming became part of the...

02:57:17.000 The movement.

02:57:18.000 So it would trigger so I wouldn't have to think about it.

02:57:20.000 If it ever came down to it and someone actually attacked me, I wouldn't have to think scream.

02:57:25.000 I would just scream.

02:57:26.000 Krav Maga is legit.

02:57:28.000 It gets criticized a lot.

02:57:30.000 Does it?

02:57:30.000 Yeah, by martial artists.

02:57:32.000 Why?

02:57:33.000 Well, because it's a combinatory martial art. 0.95

02:57:36.000 So it combines a bunch of different things together.

02:57:38.000 So it's essentially like a jack of all trades.

02:57:41.000 What's wrong with that?

02:57:42.000 There's nothing wrong with that.

02:57:43.000 Oh, okay.

02:57:44.000 No, no.

02:57:45.000 There's nothing wrong with that.

02:57:46.000 It's like only being into purebred dogs.

02:57:48.000 Like, what's up with that?

02:57:50.000 Well, no.

02:57:51.000 It's like, is it effective?

02:57:52.000 Right?

02:57:53.000 Like, there's no Krav Maga artists that have gone on to dominate in the UFC.

02:57:58.000 Oh, interesting.

02:57:59.000 Yeah.

02:57:59.000 I didn't know that.

02:58:00.000 But it kind of...

02:58:01.000 You could kind of say that mixed martial arts, in a sense, is...

02:58:06.000 Essentially, the roots of Krav Maga, because it's taking the best aspects of various martial arts and training them.

02:58:13.000 Yeah, how is it different?

02:58:14.000 Well, the thing is, is that if you are training for self-defense, okay, you're training to defend yourself against an attacker.

02:58:23.000 The true, in my personal opinion, the true best way to learn how to fight is to learn how to prepare yourself for trained killers.

02:58:35.000 The average person.

02:58:36.000 Really?

02:58:37.000 Yes.

02:58:37.000 Like, how often are you going to encounter trained killers?

02:58:40.000 It doesn't matter.

02:58:42.000 You should be prepared for trained killers.

02:58:44.000 Because you could run into a trained killer and if you try to do some Krav Maga nonsense on me, I'm going to fucking strangle you.

02:58:50.000 You can't defend yourself against someone who actually knows how to fight.

02:58:52.000 Okay, here's a question.

02:58:53.000 Can I ever actually defend myself against someone like you?

02:58:57.000 No.

02:58:58.000 Not against someone like me.

02:59:00.000 So then what's the fucking point?

02:59:00.000 Because you could defend yourself against someone who doesn't know how to fight as good as me, but the odds of someone like me attacking you are very, very, very, very, very small.

02:59:08.000 But you're saying I should train to be able to, you know, to fight against trained killers, but...

02:59:13.000 Yes.

02:59:14.000 Defend yourself.

02:59:15.000 But...

02:59:15.000 Jiu-jitsu, you can.

02:59:17.000 Jiu-jitsu, you could defend yourself.

02:59:19.000 You're not going to...

02:59:21.000 The way you would be able to beat me is if I was untrained.

02:59:25.000 I have too many advantages.

02:59:27.000 But also, I don't have advantages if someone's bigger than me and just as well-trained as me.

02:59:32.000 Right.

02:59:32.000 Or more well-trained than I am.

02:59:35.000 Better than me.

02:59:36.000 I'm not going to beat the UFC heavyweight champion.

02:59:41.000 I'm not going to win.

02:59:42.000 It's not possible.

02:59:43.000 I don't care how long I do martial arts.

02:59:45.000 But you can avoid dying by them.

02:59:47.000 No.

02:59:48.000 Okay, they'll just murder you.

02:59:49.000 No, I can't.

02:59:49.000 No.

02:59:51.000 I'm completely vulnerable.

02:59:52.000 Okay, great.

02:59:53.000 As an expert martial artist with three black belts, I'm completely vulnerable.

02:59:58.000 Yeah, that's reality.

02:59:59.000 That's physics.

03:00:01.000 It's like you against an elephant who's going to win.

03:00:04.000 Exactly.

03:00:05.000 That's the 100 men versus a gorilla.

03:00:08.000 Obviously the gorilla would win.

03:00:10.000 Whoever thought the gorilla would lose?

03:00:13.000 Retards. 1.00

03:00:14.000 Men?

03:00:14.000 Who have never seen a gorilla?

03:00:16.000 Men who think they can fight better than they can, which is most men.

03:00:19.000 Who ever brought up that as even a thought experiment?

03:00:23.000 I don't know, but it's funny that it's like viral in 2025.

03:00:27.000 I thought we would have worked that out in the 50s.

03:00:31.000 I feel like people just don't remember what animals are like.

03:00:34.000 We're so out of touch with animals.

03:00:36.000 They don't even know what an animal is.

03:00:38.000 They have no idea.

03:00:39.000 People know what their dog is.

03:00:40.000 They have no idea what an animal is.

03:00:41.000 An actual, real animal.

03:00:43.000 And also, your own dog could fuck you up if it wanted to.

03:00:47.000 It just doesn't want to.

03:00:48.000 Exactly.

03:00:49.000 Unless you have a little dog.

03:00:51.000 I'll fuck up a chihuahua. 1.00

03:00:53.000 My dog, Marshall, he's a golden retriever.

03:00:55.000 He's the sweetest dog on the planet.

03:00:58.000 But he could probably kill me.

03:00:59.000 He just doesn't know.

03:01:02.000 And he would never think to.

03:01:03.000 Right.

03:01:03.000 But if like a rat was trying to attack you, you'd be fucking terrified.

03:01:06.000 Or if he got infected by rabies.

03:01:08.000 Right.

03:01:08.000 You know, like and lost his mind.

03:01:10.000 Right.

03:01:10.000 Ciao.

03:01:11.000 It'd be a real problem.

03:01:11.000 Yeah.

03:01:13.000 I mean, there's the reality.

03:01:15.000 But if you're training to defeat a trained killer.

03:01:20.000 You're going to be way better off than if you're training to defeat someone who's going to lunge at you this way.

03:01:26.000 You're going to block that and hit them here and hit them there.

03:01:30.000 But don't you fight differently against a trained killer versus some dude who's drunk in a bar?

03:01:37.000 No, the right way to fight is the right way to fight, period.

03:01:39.000 Whether it's some drunk dude.

03:01:40.000 If some drunk dude tries to take a swing at me, I'm not going to think, oh, he's a drunk dude.

03:01:46.000 I shouldn't avoid this punch.

03:01:48.000 I should do something.

03:01:49.000 No, it's all the language.

03:01:52.000 So martial arts is essentially like a language.

03:01:55.000 And some people only know a couple of words, and some people can eloquently recite Shakespeare at the drop of a hat.

03:02:02.000 And that's the difference between an expert and someone who doesn't really know what they're doing.

03:02:08.000 And most people don't know what they're doing when it comes to martial arts.

03:02:12.000 If you're preparing for someone who doesn't know what they're doing...

03:02:15.000 That's not the right way to do it.

03:02:17.000 The right way to do it is to prepare for someone who knows what they're doing.

03:02:20.000 Now, this is very different when we're talking about women's self-defense versus just a grown man who is of normal size defending himself against another grown man of normal size.

03:02:34.000 A fair fight.

03:02:35.000 Yeah, a fair fight.

03:02:36.000 But in a fair fight, you should be preparing to fight against a trained killer.

03:02:41.000 If you are a person who just only trains in self-defense tactics, like someone comes at me, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.

03:02:50.000 Good luck doing that to someone who knows how to fight.

03:02:52.000 Good luck.

03:02:52.000 Because they're going to recognize all of your movements in advance.

03:02:55.000 You're going to go like this, and they're going to go, oh, his right arm is coming this way, so I'm just going to step this way, and I'm going to avoid that.

03:03:02.000 And I see his left foot step backwards.

03:03:05.000 Well, now his right leg is vulnerable, so I'm going to kick it.

03:03:09.000 It's language.

03:03:10.000 It's understanding the flow of body dynamics and movement.

03:03:14.000 And it's happening so quickly that the only way that you can actually be effective is if you're fluent and you don't have to think about it.

03:03:19.000 You don't think about it.

03:03:20.000 When you're training, it's like you very rarely think, oh, now I'm going to do this.

03:03:26.000 It's like opportunities open themselves up, especially in striking.

03:03:30.000 Striking is something that you do where you're doing these techniques so often that as things happen, you're just...

03:03:40.000 Responding in a trained way.

03:03:42.000 Your mind and your neural system is completely trained for these actions and these movements.

03:03:49.000 Do you think that fighting your friends, not like actual fighting for your life, but fighting for your friends is a crucial part of brain development?

03:03:59.000 Because I know that I've heard, or at least I've read, that roughhousing with small kids is a really important part of their brain development.

03:04:08.000 And the people who become more well-adapted, well-adjusted emotionally, they seem to be more fit emotionally, were kids who had some roughhousing when they were young, especially with their parents.

03:04:23.000 Is that like an elevated form of roughhousing part of a generation?

03:04:28.000 Well, I think physical...

03:04:33.000 Altercations are a normal part of human existence that have existed.

03:04:37.000 It's been going on since the beginning of time.

03:04:40.000 And to no understanding or no knowledge of it and no experience with it at all leaves you inherently vulnerable.

03:04:46.000 Because I'm not a fighter.

03:04:49.000 I've never gotten into a physical fight with anyone.

03:04:52.000 Good.

03:04:53.000 Is that good?

03:04:54.000 Is that good?

03:04:55.000 I haven't either.

03:04:56.000 Other than ones on purpose.

03:04:59.000 Right, okay.

03:04:59.000 I don't get in street fights.

03:05:02.000 I haven't been in a fist fight since I was a kid.

03:05:06.000 They were all martial arts fights.

03:05:09.000 Okay.

03:05:12.000 I just think for men, being vulnerable is not good.

03:05:17.000 It's just not good to not know how to defend yourself.

03:05:20.000 It just leaves you with this deep...

03:05:23.000 Insecurity.

03:05:23.000 And that's why I see men that don't know how to fight.

03:05:27.000 They use bravado and they puff their chest out and they yell.

03:05:30.000 They try to intimidate people and scare people.

03:05:32.000 It's just posturing.

03:05:33.000 It's just like...

03:05:35.000 Maybe this is why I feel bad for men because I don't feel any sort of impulse to do that.

03:05:42.000 To puff up my chest and like, I don't know, maybe...

03:05:46.000 Well, you shouldn't.

03:05:47.000 Men shouldn't either.

03:05:48.000 And the men that do it are generally vulnerable.

03:05:52.000 It's bullies, right?

03:05:53.000 Why are bullies bullies?

03:05:54.000 They're bullies because they're pussies. 1.00

03:05:55.000 That's really what it is.

03:05:57.000 That's why they're trying to intimidate people and hurt people. 0.86

03:05:59.000 It's because they're weak.

03:06:01.000 It's like trained fighters are some of the nicest people.

03:06:06.000 People that fight in the UFC, they're some of the nicest people you'll ever meet.

03:06:09.000 It sounds crazy.

03:06:11.000 My friends that are all jiu-jitsu people, they're some of the nicest people.

03:06:15.000 They're so friendly.

03:06:16.000 Because they're not scared.

03:06:18.000 They're not insecure.

03:06:20.000 They're not vulnerable all the time.

03:06:22.000 Most men who don't know how to defend themselves, who are really mouthy and get loud, they're just vulnerable.

03:06:30.000 I have a friend.

03:06:32.000 And he has real rage problems, and he doesn't know how to fight at all.

03:06:36.000 And he was yelling at someone in the parking lot of the comedy store once, and I pulled him aside and I go, "What are you doing, man?" He goes, "I don't know why I fucking see red." And I go, "You don't know how to defend yourself." I go, "One of these days you're gonna do that to someone who's like me, but they're mean." And they're gonna just say, "Oh, here's a nice opportunity to just fuck this guy up." And you're going to wind up in the hospital or worse.

03:06:59.000 Like, don't do this.

03:07:01.000 Like, you can't do that.

03:07:02.000 But, like, some men grow up puffing their chest out and they get away with it.

03:07:07.000 And they get away with it if they're loud enough or they're mean enough or they yell enough.

03:07:11.000 And they, you know, that becomes their defense mechanism.

03:07:14.000 They get shitty with people all the time.

03:07:18.000 But that's all it is.

03:07:19.000 And if they don't get shitty with people publicly, they get shitty with people online.

03:07:23.000 They get it out that way.

03:07:26.000 But it's all just weakness.

03:07:28.000 That's all it is.

03:07:29.000 It's just like you're vulnerable.

03:07:31.000 And just don't be vulnerable.

03:07:33.000 Figure out a way to not be vulnerable.

03:07:36.000 I got into martial arts because I was getting bullied.

03:07:38.000 And I was always scared of altercations.

03:07:42.000 Like, I hate this feeling.

03:07:43.000 So I was like, okay, I'm going to become what I'm terrified of.

03:07:47.000 Okay.

03:07:49.000 I guess my one sort of poke back at that, though, is I find it interesting that you frame vulnerability in such a negative way.

03:08:00.000 Physical vulnerability is negative.

03:08:02.000 Yeah, but I think the thing that I'm sort of thinking about is how it doesn't matter really how strong you are or capable you are.

03:08:12.000 We all are still utterly vulnerable.

03:08:17.000 Well, sure.

03:08:18.000 And so I guess like...

03:08:19.000 But what can you control?

03:08:21.000 Fair.

03:08:21.000 You can control some aspect of that.

03:08:24.000 But you can't control guns, right?

03:08:26.000 If someone has a gun, you're vulnerable.

03:08:28.000 I don't care who you are.

03:08:29.000 You could be Superman.

03:08:30.000 Well, not Superman.

03:08:30.000 He's bulletproof.

03:08:31.000 But you could be, you know, UFC heavyweight champion.

03:08:34.000 You're still vulnerable to a gun.

03:08:36.000 One little kid can kill you.

03:08:37.000 Bang! 1.00

03:08:38.000 You're dead.

03:08:39.000 Yeah.

03:08:40.000 But how much can you control?

03:08:41.000 You can't control some of it.

03:08:43.000 So is the idea like, oh, you can't control any of it, so why control it all?

03:08:47.000 Why do anything?

03:08:48.000 Why be strong?

03:08:50.000 Well, I guess, no.

03:08:50.000 I guess my thing is, for me, it's less about, like, positioning myself to not get hurt.

03:08:59.000 And it's more, for me, my big sort of, like, training that I attempt to do is how do I get up when I am inevitably hurt?

03:09:13.000 I understand that life is going to hurt me, and I don't know how life is going to hurt me.

03:09:18.000 So there's like a million different ways that I can be hurt.

03:09:20.000 It might be that I'm physically assaulted.

03:09:22.000 It might be some other thing.

03:09:24.000 And knowing that I can't prepare for all of the ways that I am vulnerable to existence, instead I try to think, okay, I am vulnerable to existence, and I am going to get hurt.

03:09:37.000 How do I not be broken by the hurt?

03:09:41.000 And how do I, I don't know, maybe I'm treating the inevitable pain of life as that training to get strong.

03:09:55.000 I almost don't seek out pain because I've had enough pain come at me.

03:10:00.000 Does that make sense?

03:10:02.000 What do you mean by seek out pain, though?

03:10:05.000 You were talking about like voluntary adversity, right?

03:10:11.000 And like to an extent I agree with you because that's a very stoic thing to do, to seek out challenges so that you can test yourself and test your mettle and push yourself to become better for the inevitable things that might happen.

03:10:25.000 But not even just for the inevitable things that happen, just for your own resolve.

03:10:30.000 Just for you as a human to achieve balance.

03:10:35.000 We're all vulnerable.

03:10:36.000 There's no invulnerable people.

03:10:38.000 We're all going to die.

03:10:40.000 We all are made of flesh and bone and we're all weak.

03:10:44.000 Right.

03:10:45.000 There's no invulnerable humans.

03:10:47.000 But you can be less vulnerable.

03:10:50.000 And you should probably optimize that.

03:10:53.000 Especially as a man, I think.

03:10:56.000 Because without it comes a lot of weird insecurities that are not comfortable.

03:11:02.000 And they can trip you up in all sorts of aspects of your life.

03:11:05.000 I think maybe this is another woman-man thing, maybe, where women have to accept vulnerability as an inescapable aspect of our lives, even just in our interpersonal relationships.

03:11:22.000 I know that when I walk into the room, I'm...

03:11:26.000 Not the one who's gonna win a fight, that's for sure.

03:11:29.000 Right.

03:11:29.000 And so knowing that, I feel like I, sure, I prepare myself in the ways that I can, right?

03:11:42.000 And I'm strong in the ways that I can.

03:11:45.000 But, like, I don't think about vulnerability in negative terms.

03:11:52.000 Because I've also found that once you've been forced to reckon with your own vulnerability, that is when you find your strength.

03:12:03.000 So I don't know.

03:12:04.000 I see them as interchangeable.

03:12:06.000 I think we're talking about different things.

03:12:06.000 Yeah.

03:12:07.000 Yeah.

03:12:07.000 I think physical vulnerability.

03:12:09.000 Look, I think there's certain roles that males and females ultimately play.

03:12:18.000 That are unavoidable.

03:12:20.000 And one of them is when your husband went downstairs to protect you.

03:12:24.000 Right.

03:12:24.000 There's a reason why I wasn't the one who did that.

03:12:27.000 Ultimately, right?

03:12:29.000 In that situation, if you are less vulnerable as a man, it's a good thing.

03:12:38.000 If someone breaks into my house and they're a normal-sized person without a weapon, I'm not scared of them.

03:12:48.000 You know, I'm scared this crazy person is in my house.

03:12:52.000 I'm scared that they might have a weapon.

03:12:53.000 But if I realize that they don't have a weapon and they're physically threatening, I have a massive advantage.

03:13:01.000 It's up to me whether or not they die.

03:13:05.000 It's my choice.

03:13:07.000 And that's better.

03:13:08.000 That is better.

03:13:09.000 It's better than you getting beat to death by some schizophrenic who breaks into your house because you don't know how to defend yourself. 0.94

03:13:14.000 Fair.

03:13:15.000 And you panic and you start flailing and you hyperventilate.

03:13:18.000 You don't know what to do.

03:13:19.000 Yeah.

03:13:20.000 That's not good.

03:13:21.000 No, it's not.

03:13:22.000 That's all I'm saying.

03:13:23.000 I mean, we're all vulnerable.

03:13:25.000 It's part of what you're doing when you're working out really hard is to try to increase the strength and decrease the vulnerability.

03:13:36.000 You're trying to increase your resolve to...

03:13:39.000 Push through difficult things.

03:13:41.000 Increase your character and your will.

03:13:45.000 You're trying to fortify yourself.

03:13:47.000 And that's not bad.

03:13:50.000 It's all positive.

03:13:51.000 It's all positive.

03:13:53.000 But it gets labeled as negative because there's a lot of things that get attached to it like jocks and bullies and assholes and aggressive men and shitty men.

03:14:03.000 Who think themselves superior to people who are more vulnerable than them.

03:14:08.000 Instead of just being nice.

03:14:10.000 Because, you know, you can kill everybody in the room.

03:14:12.000 Just be nice.

03:14:14.000 Like, that's the real nice person is the person who can kill everybody and doesn't want to.

03:14:20.000 You know?

03:14:20.000 The really shitty people are the ones that would act on that.

03:14:24.000 And sometimes you'll run into those and it's better to be prepared.

03:14:28.000 That's all it is, like, physical vulnerability.

03:14:31.000 But what you're talking about, like, psychic vulnerability and not wanting to go through...

03:14:36.000 Pain because you've been through so much?

03:14:37.000 Of course.

03:14:38.000 Yeah.

03:14:39.000 Look, ideally, we should go through zero pain.

03:14:42.000 Ideally, we should go through zero aggression, zero shitty, deceptive, conniving, psycho people that are trying to ruin everything in your life.

03:14:53.000 Ideally, yeah.

03:14:55.000 Ideally, you shouldn't have to prepare for that.

03:14:57.000 You shouldn't interact with those people.

03:14:58.000 And again, I'm also like speaking at counter purposes with myself because I did the exact opposite thing with my prosecutor.

03:15:04.000 I didn't have to.

03:15:05.000 I didn't have to have a conversation with him that was difficult and awkward and hard and forced me to confront all of his pain.

03:15:15.000 And I did because I knew that there was value in that.

03:15:19.000 Right.

03:15:21.000 Yeah, we seek comfort always.

03:15:24.000 And we avoid pain.

03:15:27.000 Yeah.

03:15:27.000 But I don't know.

03:15:28.000 Maybe I'm...

03:15:29.000 A masochist because I always feel like there's something to gain from pain.

03:15:33.000 Because you've gained so much from your pain.

03:15:35.000 And you kind of must know that you are who you are.

03:15:39.000 You know you're kind of an extraordinary person and you've gone through a lot to become that person.

03:15:43.000 You don't just wake up and have this perspective that you have.

03:15:47.000 You have to go through a lot of shit.

03:15:48.000 You know what's fucked up though?

03:15:49.000 What?

03:15:50.000 I trust pain more than I trust joy.

03:15:55.000 Because...

03:15:55.000 When I'm going through something painful, I know what that is.

03:15:59.000 And I know how to confront it.

03:16:02.000 When I'm going through joy, I'm afraid that something bad is going to happen to me.

03:16:08.000 That happens to people where they self-sabotage.

03:16:13.000 I mean, I don't know.

03:16:14.000 I was having a great time in Perusia, and then everything just went really bad out of nowhere.

03:16:20.000 And so, like, I don't know.

03:16:22.000 Like, a part of me is, like, always is trying to see, like, the yin-yang of it all.

03:16:27.000 Like, the good that's embedded in the bad, but then afraid of the bad that's embedded in the good.

03:16:32.000 Like, that's what...

03:16:35.000 And, you know, and that's a reality.

03:16:37.000 Like, you know, the more that you now that I have the privilege of being a mom, I know that one day, you know, like if something were to happen to my kids, I would be all the more fucking dead, like all the more pain in my life.

03:16:50.000 Like if I'd never had kids, I wouldn't have the opportunity to experience a potential pain that would be utterly devastating.

03:16:57.000 And so like that's that's where that play goes in my head.

03:17:01.000 And I just wonder if it's a trauma response where like I'm afraid.

03:17:05.000 I'm sure a part of it has got to be a trauma response.

03:17:08.000 I mean, I think a lot of people that self-sabotage, when things start going well in their life, it's because they're used to things going badly.

03:17:15.000 And this idea of things going well, it just scares the shit out of them.

03:17:20.000 It's the unknown.

03:17:21.000 And it's the pain that might come with it falling apart.

03:17:25.000 The pain that might come with you hang all your hopes and dreams on, wow, things really actually are better.

03:17:30.000 And then they're not.

03:17:31.000 Like, fuck!

03:17:33.000 So you want it to fall apart so that you can achieve some level of comfort in the understanding of this state that you've been in many times before, the state of failure.

03:17:44.000 I need to get rid of that.

03:17:45.000 I need to lose this.

03:17:47.000 Yeah, but you're aware of it, which is the first step.

03:17:50.000 I don't think you're embracing it.

03:17:54.000 Clearly you're not.

03:17:55.000 You're writing books.

03:17:56.000 You've got the Hulu series.

03:17:57.000 You've got a lot going on.

03:17:58.000 I'm going.

03:18:02.000 I'm still just a little bit looking over my shoulder like, who's coming at me?

03:18:07.000 Imagine if you didn't.

03:18:08.000 That would be crazy.

03:18:09.000 After all that you've been through, imagine if you didn't think like that.

03:18:13.000 It's understandable.

03:18:15.000 More than understandable.

03:18:19.000 Yeah, that whole, like, lightning doesn't strike the same place twice.

03:18:23.000 And it's like...

03:18:25.000 It can.

03:18:26.000 I can!

03:18:27.000 It can.

03:18:28.000 Tell that to someone who's been struck by fucking lightning.

03:18:31.000 Yeah.

03:18:33.000 You know, it's possible.

03:18:36.000 You can't think...

03:18:37.000 It's...

03:18:38.000 The fear of the unknown and the fear of the possibilities can really cripple you.

03:18:45.000 It really can.

03:18:46.000 I'm trying not to let it do that to me.

03:18:49.000 You're doing a great job.

03:18:50.000 Thanks.

03:18:50.000 You really are.

03:18:51.000 Yeah, I'm working on it.

03:18:53.000 But again, it's a struggle.

03:18:55.000 And this is important for people to hear.

03:18:57.000 It's not like it's just like every day.

03:19:00.000 Like, it's hard.

03:19:03.000 Life is hard.

03:19:04.000 Even a guy like Goggins, you know, he told me, and he goes, sometimes I stare at my fucking shoes for like 30 minutes before I put those motherfuckers on.

03:19:10.000 He goes, because he's like, I don't want to do this.

03:19:12.000 I don't want to do this.

03:19:13.000 But he knows he's going to do this.

03:19:15.000 He goes, but I put them on.

03:19:16.000 Well, good on him.

03:19:20.000 Life is not easy.

03:19:21.000 But it's worth living.

03:19:23.000 It's worth doing.

03:19:25.000 It really is.

03:19:26.000 Does he put those shoes on because he knows that ultimately he's going to be glad that he did it?

03:19:33.000 If you ask him, he's like, because I'm not a bitch!

03:19:35.000 Okay, well...

03:19:37.000 That's cute.

03:19:37.000 But that is what it is.

03:19:39.000 Yeah.

03:19:39.000 He's ultimately going to be glad that he's still got the strength and that strength needs to be watered every day like a garden.

03:19:46.000 It's not like you just have it and now you have it for life.

03:19:49.000 No.

03:19:50.000 You have to keep at it.

03:19:54.000 Everybody can slide.

03:19:56.000 Everybody can slide back.

03:19:58.000 It's true.

03:19:59.000 Yeah.

03:20:00.000 As much as we can improve ourselves, we can not.

03:20:04.000 It's not easy.

03:20:07.000 It's not easy being a person.

03:20:09.000 But it's worth doing.

03:20:11.000 Yeah.

03:20:11.000 And you can do it.

03:20:12.000 And everybody can do it.

03:20:14.000 You can do it better than you're doing it.

03:20:15.000 I can do it better than I'm doing it.

03:20:16.000 I'm trying.

03:20:17.000 I can certainly do it.

03:20:18.000 All of us.

03:20:19.000 I'm so grumpy sometimes.

03:20:21.000 It's so unnecessary.

03:20:23.000 Unnecessary.

03:20:24.000 Avoidable.

03:20:25.000 But it's good.

03:20:27.000 Struggle's good.

03:20:28.000 It's good.

03:20:29.000 All of it's good.

03:20:30.000 We're on the path.

03:20:32.000 But there's all this idea that You should know better by now.

03:20:38.000 That's also silly.

03:20:39.000 Because I know 80-year-old fools.

03:20:41.000 Now, everyone, if there's anything I've learned from being a mom, it's that everyone, every human being, is a toddler.

03:20:48.000 Every single person is a toddler who either hasn't gotten enough attention or hasn't had their nap, whatever the fuck, and they're just having a tantrum.

03:20:58.000 And if you treat everyone like a toddler, it is actually a very successful way of interacting with people.

03:21:06.000 Yeah, yeah.

03:21:07.000 It's true.

03:21:08.000 That is the lesson of parenthood, right?

03:21:11.000 Yeah.

03:21:11.000 I talk about that all the time.

03:21:15.000 I started looking at people as like babies that grew up instead of looking at them like, oh, this is Mike.

03:21:20.000 He's 35. Like, no, Mike was a baby.

03:21:23.000 Like, how'd Mike become so fucked up?

03:21:24.000 Well, Mike got a lot of bad information, a lot of bad experiences.

03:21:28.000 And he still is a baby.

03:21:29.000 He still has the same needs that he did as a kid.

03:21:33.000 They're just more sophisticated now.

03:21:35.000 But ultimately, they all derive down to these same things.

03:21:39.000 Do you need a change of situation?

03:21:40.000 Do you need some attention?

03:21:42.000 Do you need to sleep on it?

03:21:45.000 Whatever's going on.

03:21:46.000 If you can identify those...

03:21:49.000 Basic human needs.

03:21:51.000 And just tweak their circumstances.

03:21:53.000 You can change a person's life.

03:21:56.000 And also recognize that if you ignore those basic human needs over and over, they're going to compound.

03:22:01.000 And you're going to have more problems.

03:22:04.000 And they're going to lose their shit in the middle of the grocery store.

03:22:10.000 Amanda.

03:22:16.000 I really enjoyed talking to you again.

03:22:18.000 Thank you very much.

03:22:19.000 Really appreciate you.

03:22:20.000 And your book is out now, Amanda Knox, free, my search for meaning.

03:22:25.000 Yeah, if anyone wants to reach out, I'm at amandanox.com.

03:22:27.000 It's pretty easy.

03:22:28.000 Okay.

03:22:29.000 Thank you for being here.

03:22:30.000 Appreciate you.

03:22:31.000 Thank you so much.

03:22:31.000 Thank you.

03:22:31.000 A lot of fun.

03:22:32.000 Bye, everybody.

The Joe Rogan Experience - May 20, 2025

Joe Rogan Experience #2324 - Amanda Knox

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