The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Crisis of Meaning ｜ Interview with Mark Walsh

00:00:00.000 Hello, everyone. Welcome to this interview. I'm very pleased to be joined today by Mark Walsh.

00:00:04.480 Pleasure to be here. You guys do great work, so it's a real honor.

00:00:07.320 Thank you very much. And Mark, I do need your help, as I was saying a minute ago,

00:00:11.380 because we are going to talk about meaning in life, but also how to motivate demoralized people.

00:00:17.240 Yeah.

00:00:17.720 And as I was saying, it's very easy for people to get demoralized,

00:00:21.640 especially when we're talking about bad news and when we're talking about the evils of this world.

00:00:27.280 And frequently, if we don't talk about them, few people will talk about them if they end

00:00:33.940 up doing it so.

00:00:35.200 But there is also the other aspect, the aspect of motivating people who very frequently create

00:00:41.860 a comfort zone of feeling bad about themselves, about the system, about the world, about how

00:00:47.760 they fit into the world.

00:00:49.300 I think that you have a very distinctive approach in that there is also some, I'd say, a really

00:00:56.160 positive energy coming from you and i really hope you can help us with a with a demoralization of

00:01:05.540 young men and combating it so welcome to the load seat total pleasure and life is too terrible not

00:01:10.460 to have a sense of humor you know i stared into the abyss in various war zones and my own family

00:01:15.500 are all deeply mentally ill i love them they're great people but i grew up with some very unwell

00:01:20.180 people you know my auntie was a schizophrenic my cousin was my hero and he killed himself 0.94

00:01:24.820 and when I was a teenager and at the same time I think Kurt Cobain was my musical hero

00:01:29.720 so I'm 13 years old multiple members of my family are clearly unwell psychologically my cousin my

00:01:36.500 hero's killed himself and the world looked bad you know and I've spent the rest of my life going what

00:01:41.300 do we do about that essentially I have crappy genetics for mental health and meaning so I've

00:01:45.920 spent the rest of my life since 13 really trying to go what can I do that's positive that helps

00:01:50.680 been on a journey through martial arts through psychology through trauma for all these different

00:01:55.080 things i've done and it's often quite at the sharp end of things like starting a charity in ukraine

00:02:00.720 around trauma you know some really horrific stuff horrific stories i know how bad life can be um i've

00:02:06.700 just been in london for example which is absolute babylon there's someone in a stab vest on the train

00:02:11.520 every time i live abroad and every time i come back to the country it seems to be worse my family 0.97

00:02:15.900 and now telling me mark we love you but maybe stay living in slovenia and i get why you know 0.66

00:02:20.720 i'm in london i'm actually i'm on the train i say to them why is the train gay and the guy goes what 0.98

00:02:26.100 do you mean you know i mean like i mean they shafted me in the ass with the price but other 0.98

00:02:29.200 than that what he meant what i meant was it was like tried colors all over the train i said well 0.98

00:02:33.540 it cost me money you know this is really crazy prices as well in the uk it's crazy money and he

00:02:39.440 didn't he didn't really have a reason for it he said i just it just is and we support pride i'm

00:02:43.540 like well what's that got to do with me and little things like that right up to the serious things

00:02:47.940 like i was just in a supermarket and the girl's in a cage and there's security tags on the meat

00:02:53.600 and there's a security guard outside the supermarket and she doesn't i try and joke 0.98

00:02:57.800 to her about it but she can't speak to me she doesn't speak english she can't communicate with

00:03:01.320 me so there's a million things like that essentially i think we're in what i call it

00:03:05.740 the psychological apocalypse so that mental health meaning has got so bad for so many people

00:03:11.980 it's no longer viable yeah so if there's people watching this who are like i despair

00:03:16.580 i get it like i really do and there are things we can do i want to say something about this and

00:03:23.580 i essentially i want to confess in some respects i'm a bit guilty because i was

00:03:29.900 i i was told by my father basically unless you have a heart problem you don't have a problem

00:03:38.200 because he's a heart surgeon and his threshold for what me having a problem is was really high

00:03:46.020 and I was kind of grown up with that mentality and also in Greece where I was educated there

00:03:56.020 wasn't much conversation about mental illness it's just you focus on just being on your best

00:04:02.860 behavior lots of things are demanded of you you try to do best if you don't do bad too bad for you

00:04:10.000 and then when i started teaching at university here yeah i saw there was an influx of people

00:04:18.020 who were saying that they have mental problems and mental diagnosis now i will say this i don't

00:04:22.820 think you can convince me that all of it no was sincere i think to a very large extent that was

00:04:28.440 insincere but i will say that for a long time i just couldn't understand the the thing for instance

00:04:35.560 i'll just give you an example sure and that sounds bad it may reflect bad for me so i'd say

00:04:41.660 healthy stoicism is okay it's not a bad thing okay for instance i'll give you an example we

00:04:46.660 were told to teach seminars at university and we were told to not ask people yeah questions in the

00:04:54.300 seminar because they had mental health issues yeah they had social anxiety they weren't like

00:05:00.700 pedro pascal they weren't allowed to grow people but they were saying that you have social anxiety

00:05:08.040 they have social anxiety due to mental health now you can't have an 80 percent percentage of the

00:05:15.360 population with mental health can you okay so we live in the best of times and the worst of times

00:05:20.520 to quote dickens the best of times is we have bread but man doesn't live off bread alone so we 0.93

00:05:26.560 have electricity we have the internet you know i've got a flight here you know we have it's

00:05:30.260 wonderful it's a great i'm on internet watching you know harvard lectures on philosophy it's

00:05:34.160 fantastic you know i love love my life because that so materially we're really well off in

00:05:39.160 materialism but what we've neglected is the emotional psychological and spiritual side of

00:05:45.060 life so someone from the middle ages had terrible dentistry for example perhaps but they had

00:05:49.900 community they had god they had all these things that we've lost that we could break them down

00:05:54.380 it's four big ones um so that's why i say it's a psychological apocalypse but there is a

00:05:59.920 complicating factor which is psychology is cancerously overrun by liberalism so most

00:06:07.060 psychologists are coming from this woke materialist far left point of view which means they do not

00:06:13.260 believe in personal responsibility they don't believe in boundaries and these things define

00:06:17.720 psychological well-being they don't have say a healthy stoicism for example if we look at it

00:06:22.260 philosophically uh they're in a cult of weakness and that's definitely not good for people so

00:06:28.080 yes you know i i've been like afghanistan stuff right if you're talking about trauma 0.85

00:06:33.180 it better fucking be real trauma it's not i couldn't get any oat milk from a latte 0.83

00:06:37.760 in east london yeah there's real trauma yeah you know there's real trauma and there's not so it's 0.96

00:06:43.200 like, come on, let's get real. And we do live in this meaning crisis, John Viveki calls it. We do

00:06:49.480 live in this time where, because there's a lack of meaning, it's not really mental health, it's the

00:06:54.460 lack of meaning that's causing people to be unwell. Yes. Right. So when it comes to talking about

00:07:00.800 meaning, there's a problem that I think exists right now in online discourse, is that for a long

00:07:08.900 time we have had people like jordan peterson and others who have been saying that there is a sort

00:07:16.360 of you know lack of meaning and young men are trying to find it but the issue is that in online

00:07:23.700 spaces trends come and go yes and the message lots of people right now say well we don't have

00:07:32.400 we don't listen to peterson anymore some people will say he went to the daily wire and he forgot

00:07:38.400 all of the good things that he said before and they think essentially that all of that is obsolete

00:07:47.480 that the picture of peterson of personal responsibility of community or the picture

00:07:54.260 of the traditional conservative way of finding meaning if i may say so yeah is a bit obsolete

00:08:00.600 because they say things like well what has conservatism conserved right sure they've

00:08:06.340 failed they've utterly failed and but they are essentially trying to do the opposite something

00:08:13.900 really similar i'd say to what the left is doing yeah which is they're trying to over intellectualize

00:08:20.360 everything and have a very rigidly top-down view of the world and where the left says well there

00:08:27.040 is no personal responsibility it's all structures because of these structures you don't you don't

00:08:33.000 have meaning and you will only find meaning in communism yes and now you have the lots of people

00:08:39.600 on the right yeah uh further saying well because of the structure of the moment right now there is

00:08:47.460 no way of giving meaning to your life in the traditional sense yeah unless i don't know what

00:08:54.000 but because you live in such a society they sort of say is that this message of personal

00:08:59.740 responsibility is tiring people have right heard many times and unfair if you say well you just

00:09:06.120 pull your socks up it's on you um all right let's break it down first of all what a great situation

00:09:10.880 to be in that peterson and the lotus eaters and other people have done so much good work

00:09:15.940 that we're at a point now where that now you know peterson seems old-fashioned or whatever right

00:09:20.460 like that's a great situation and you guys have done just stellar work in terms of bringing up

00:09:25.200 people's thinking and identifying the problem and pointing at things and saying stop gaslighting

00:09:29.720 people these problems exist that needed to happen so this has been very good um in terms of why

00:09:36.460 anything happens first of all you need what you could call a sufficient anthropology so it's a

00:09:41.060 sufficient view of human beings anthropology in the philosophical sense um the model i use

00:09:46.940 is four things to try and keep it really simple often people left or right will say the structures

00:09:52.840 and systems particularly leftist psychologists actually will say that that's a mistake because

00:09:57.880 you are an individual and can take personal responsibility and change your life and build

00:10:02.320 friendships and brotherhoods blah blah equally sometimes people on the right either adopt that

00:10:07.000 and say oh it's all duma because the systems are bad or they say everything's the individual

00:10:11.680 and it's kind of like imagine three games i'll come to the four things in a minute but imagine

00:10:16.820 i don't know roulette poker chess so on the left they say it's roulette it's just all luck so if

00:10:23.140 you're if you're in a position today i was here doing well it must just be the patriarchy and

00:10:27.780 you've just been lucky okay and the right says that it's chess and actually everything's skill

00:10:32.800 everything's not skill you know people are born with luckier parents we have different gifts we

00:10:37.520 have different positions in society blah blah blah you know my dad was alcoholic not everyone

00:10:41.720 had that okay there's things that are different for different people it's more like poker you do

00:10:46.600 get dealt certain cards by history by the culture you're in by your family your genetics all those

00:10:51.720 things like i'm short okay i'm not particularly tall and never will be but i can make up for it

00:10:56.600 my personality on a good day if i'm lucky you know you play the hand you've got so i think it's more

00:11:01.380 like poker so that's the first thing i'd say in terms of the balance in terms of philosopher ken

00:11:06.700 wilber talks about quadrants he says we can explain behavior through these different areas

00:11:11.780 and i think the left and right as a psychologist could be defined that way the what a therapist or

00:11:17.620 coach or whoever says why a person does a thing is because of either these structures and systems

00:11:23.000 or the individual the embodiment we could talk about sufficient anthropology to be happy healthy

00:11:29.060 find meaning be mentally well i think you need four things so the first one is embodiment a lot

00:11:34.920 of the discourse online is very disembodied it's people that are intellectuals the smart people

00:11:40.600 maybe cognitively that's what i was like when i was young i was smart cognitively but i wasn't wise

00:11:45.060 i think it wasn't in my body i didn't have wisdom you know i had to go to martial arts and find a

00:11:50.020 certain physicality you can't find that in the library so intellectual ideas are great and you

00:11:54.620 know i love geeking out with you on philosophy but they'll only get you so far we've actually

00:11:58.260 got to do some praxis some physical praxis you know martial arts extreme sports you know yoga

00:12:03.100 if you're a hippie there's different things yeah so you need to connect to the body you need to

00:12:07.120 connect to community so it's great that the lotus eaters for example are having get-togethers just

00:12:11.980 met a young man at the cafe who'd been to one of your get-togethers he loved it we've got to get

00:12:15.960 together in real life like you know i go to a church now that is not just a set of ideas the

00:12:21.080 church i go to is also a set of people you know we go to the pub on the monday night we have a

00:12:25.260 guy's night you know there's a agape where you have cake and coffee and stuff after after the

00:12:29.900 church you know my my fiance meets the other women and she's pregnant so they're helping her with the

00:12:34.540 pregnancy like that is so important like to have community how do we do that in post-modern

00:12:40.040 liberalism we can come back to because that's been smashed community's been absolutely smashed

00:12:45.520 compared to someone say in greece or england in the middle ages third connection the environment

00:12:50.800 you need to get outdoors touch grass that's what the kids say absolutely the kids are smart like

00:12:55.400 the kids are getting it they know you've got to get to the gym they know you've got to pray and

00:12:58.900 have a church they know you've got to have some brotherhood like they understand that and that's

00:13:03.580 why the government's terrified of young men getting together because they understand that's

00:13:07.100 where revolutions come from that's where power comes from is young men getting together you have

00:13:11.680 a sense of you know physicality and spirituality that's the fourth connection so you need some

00:13:17.380 sense of um like i'm 19 years sober we call it higher power if you go to an aa meeting some

00:13:23.700 sense of god creator you know everyone's got their own word for it um meaning logos and it's

00:13:30.020 different different approaches so it's self-regulation co-regulation eco-regulation

00:13:36.240 and to make up a semi-Greek word, theoregulation.

00:13:40.080 So those four things we need to reconnect to.

00:13:43.700 There's practical things you can do for all of those.

00:13:46.640 Right.

00:13:46.880 A lot there.

00:13:47.300 There's a lot there.

00:13:48.240 We'll definitely touch upon and elaborate upon each of them.

00:13:51.760 But before we do so, I really want to focus a bit

00:13:55.540 on several of the issues you mentioned and ask you about that.

00:13:58.120 Because I'll say this.

00:14:00.960 I really want to remoralize the audience.

00:14:05.020 Right.

00:14:05.260 Or parts of the audience, because I think various people are so demoralized that they will agree with you cognitively, but they won't feel the power to go out and do it.

00:14:20.840 And I will say this, it's just people focus a lot on power, on what powers we have and what abilities we have, but don't focus on the exercise of power.

00:14:30.460 You could have people, for instance, there's the tiresome inequality discourse.

00:14:38.200 Even if we had equal abilities, we would not be exercising them equally.

00:14:43.340 So it's a focus on exercise.

00:14:44.940 So I think the audience or part of the audience, you do have the power to get out.

00:14:52.040 Right, you do?

00:14:53.460 But they don't do so.

00:14:55.480 And it's not just the audience here.

00:14:59.160 i also have some friends in mind yeah because they are people who i'm some occasional i'm really

00:15:05.220 worried about and i want to ask you this about it how do we understand that someone is in trouble

00:15:12.500 okay because well and let me just contextualize this because i tell them i try to tell them

00:15:18.800 somehow to do something uh and they just don't listen and i'm worried about them because some

00:15:27.140 of them they're just uh sat there and they just don't leave at home you you do sense that there

00:15:33.260 is a they don't even get angry anymore at their situation you sound like a good friend you sound

00:15:39.100 like a good friend they're lucky to have you but the thing is though i will say this is just i have

00:15:44.000 also been in the past in situations where uh several people have tried to tell me that if

00:15:52.200 you stop associating with me or stop hanging out with me i will commit suicide okay so yeah and

00:15:59.300 it's different in some cases at some point i understood that no they're actually trying to 0.67

00:16:05.200 manipulate sure sure so i said i don't care what happens to you yeah yeah yeah okay so it sounds a

00:16:10.620 bit callous but no no it really was something and you know you could see they were just stealing

00:16:15.600 stuff afterwards yeah yeah also if they drink sometimes again they they start talking and they

00:16:21.740 tell you how nasty they are yeah yeah how do we on how do we discern between the person that who's

00:16:28.860 who wants help act and actually wants help and the person who says hey uh i really want your help

00:16:35.800 that actually wants to blackmail all right great question um i've lost multiple people in my life

00:16:41.660 to suicide so i don't take this lightly you know my best friend from university jumped off clifton

00:16:47.740 suspension bridge in bristol you know it still hurts me today to think about it it really

00:16:53.400 harms the people left behind and it's a very delicate topic that's the first thing i'd say

00:16:58.720 i'm going to come to a specific question but i want to kind of pan out i think young men are

00:17:04.300 rightly understanding they're mourning they're not mourning they know intuitively they've lost

00:17:09.800 something their culture has been absolutely violated uh without consent their culture's

00:17:15.780 been absolutely desecrated would be a good word and so there there's a genuine grief there that

00:17:20.960 needs acknowledging and you guys have done great work of pointing to the problems and and if we

00:17:26.720 just focus on the problems it's depressing and it's very easy to get depressed on the internet

00:17:32.100 or angry the key thing to understand is our mental health is being attacked continuously by a system

00:17:38.640 that hates us so it's not accidental that young men have anxiety and depression and addiction all

00:17:45.500 these different things they're being kept weak absolutely the case we can go into who and why

00:17:51.140 and you know the ins and outs of it but that's the next thing i'd say is it's not just on them

00:17:55.220 there is this bigger picture but even if something's not your fault it is your responsibility

00:18:00.460 it is your responsibility and we are if you're religious you're actually commanded to not despair

00:18:06.340 or anxiety do not fear this is the command of jesus the buddha many other people um so that's

00:18:12.360 the first thing i'd say is we have a spiritual responsibility there now in terms of practically

00:18:16.860 helping your friends um i think the best thing you can do is be a good role model so for me i have a

00:18:22.740 niece and nephew for example i can tell them stuff they don't listen to what i say but i try and role

00:18:27.420 model being healthy looking after myself having a good relationship spending time outside and

00:18:31.840 you know i'm available if they want to do fun stuff and you know encourage my nephew to do

00:18:36.040 martial arts or whatever it is the role modeling i think is always key in terms of our own friends

00:18:41.200 at the end of the day you can't save everyone and we do have to be selective so if you think

00:18:46.780 someone's just manipulating you there is a time and a place to hold boundaries around that for

00:18:51.120 sure now how do we help people other than role modeling it's very difficult to tell anyone what

00:18:56.280 to do i tend to take more of a coaching approach it's a bit more like socratic dialogue where you

00:19:00.700 can ask questions and draw it out that can be helpful if somebody's a genuine suicide risk

00:19:06.340 and for example if someone was telling me about very specific plans for suicide for example

00:19:10.440 there's something called suicide first aid that people can look up um and that's even an untrained

00:19:15.580 person who's not a psychologist can look up that uh you know obviously there's the helplines

00:19:19.540 samaritans different things what i would say is what young men need for mental health is not what

00:19:25.640 most woke psychologists or female therapists will be recommending so most psychologists are either 0.96

00:19:31.780 feminine or female so i went to university in psychology 90 of people there were female and 0.69

00:19:37.640 left leaning right as well so it's like feminine and female um usually what's recommended is you

00:19:44.020 just have to talk about your feelings that's on the list it's not bad but it's not the most

00:19:49.760 important thing like for me for example why i'm not mentally unwell now compared to how i was when

00:19:55.660 i was a teenager it's because my life's good it's because i've built a good life it's like yes i've

00:20:00.960 got those four connections so let's say you're depressed all right you're a bit down not

00:20:06.120 clinically depressed but you're a bit down go outside exercise if you can't make it to the gym

00:20:11.100 go for a little walk talk to your friends yes talk to a therapist if you want uh and most of all that

00:20:16.340 connection to higher power those four reconnections if you can encourage people to do those

00:20:21.460 they will get better and their lives will be happier now people in the comments are gonna say

00:20:25.820 i did all those it didn't work for me and okay so there are levels maybe you go from awful to okay

00:20:30.640 okay to good good to great right okay so i have two cases in mind yeah that i want to ask you

00:20:36.760 about actually three first is when it comes to insults right and i don't use the word

00:20:42.820 pejoratively sure i have a really good friend yeah who has absolutely no excuse of of uh being

00:20:51.000 an insult because in the cell did you say yeah okay good because he had um a really uh i know

00:20:58.220 for a fact he had a very attractive

00:21:00.180 lass that he actually 0.99

00:21:02.120 liked trying to

00:21:04.080 you know you get what I mean

00:21:05.960 and he was sort of

00:21:08.140 taken aback and

00:21:10.240 it didn't work but the point

00:21:12.200 is I'm trying to tell him you

00:21:14.120 have to go out

00:21:15.220 you have to go out and meet 1.00

00:21:18.260 women and try and you only want one 0.83

00:21:20.160 day to work so 0.98

00:21:21.480 he always tells me

00:21:24.000 that's very rich of you to say you're

00:21:26.180 with your wife for 12 years you were lucky 1.00

00:21:28.200 and whatever you did and worked in your case um it just doesn't work in me so why go out women are 0.74

00:21:37.620 radical their brains have been fried by radical feminism i go out they constantly talk about

00:21:43.900 tech talk and all this stuff and they just are just gonna spare my money so how do i tell this

00:21:49.400 person to go out yeah yeah yeah so he makes me think well you can't help people who don't want

00:21:55.120 to be helped yes that is a uh i think that's a maxim but i don't want to think that about my

00:22:00.820 i mean you're a great friend by the side of things but there's people you can help and people you

00:22:04.580 can't yeah there's people that have but a little dust in their eye and there's people that have a

00:22:08.580 whole plank yeah you know so this certainly i've learned this as a coach there is people who are

00:22:13.400 uncoachable so there are some people that go okay let's say someone wants to get sober like i'm 19

00:22:18.400 years sober right i'm uncoachable become ungovernable sometimes their life has to get bad

00:22:22.780 enough sometimes they need to wake up cool sometimes they'll snap out of it maybe he goes

00:22:26.620 on holiday to poland and meets up a whole lot of conservative polish women and changes his mind

00:22:30.220 you know uh sometimes you can't help people and there are definitely people i know it's the same

00:22:36.080 with my woke friends you know i've got friends who are liberal some of them are too far gone

00:22:39.060 yeah you know some of them i think you know what i think he could probably hear my point of view

00:22:42.840 even though he listens to a little bit too much mainstream media others i think you know what

00:22:46.720 they're just indoctrinated like this i don't know a woke woman that's had five abortions or

00:22:51.300 you know someone's trans their kids or something you're not going to be able to convince them

00:22:54.700 they're too invested in it um so yeah well i love your intention i don't think you can help everyone

00:22:59.400 there's no one magic bullet and i think we are living uh in a time of this meeting crisis doesn't

00:23:05.540 mean a lot of people who are despairing the message i would say to young guys is okay despair means

00:23:10.860 you're uh neutered you're impotent if you're despairing we don't have the luxury of despair

00:23:17.660 yeah this work that needs to be done in the world i was just in london i was looking around and i 0.78

00:23:22.120 was seeing sort of a lot of drug addict guys in england now a lot like way more drug addicts than

00:23:26.920 i remember when i lived here uh okay that's not acceptable i see a lot of people who are obese 0.95

00:23:33.020 like some fucking their disney adult kind of you know on their scooters and stuff a lot of people 0.97

00:23:37.180 who are like suckling on their little vapes smoking weed in the morning all day long i mean 0.99

00:23:42.060 i get it you want to relax on a friday night or whatever but uh-uh it's late in the day we we need 0.99

00:23:47.500 actual men who are strong who can do things you don't have the fucking luxury of despair anymore

00:23:53.100 like that time is over right okay i will push you a bit on this not because i disagree with you but 0.56

00:23:59.480 because i want to try and convey the doomerous sentiment that some people have it's just they'll

00:24:06.600 tell you well yeah there's lots of work to be done in the world but the world is already bad

00:24:13.200 the world doesn't want me to help it no the world is already too far gone and whatever i do in the

00:24:19.620 present conditions it just won't help yeah so plant a tree even if the world ends tomorrow

00:24:25.200 number one uh number two you'll feel better for doing it like if i lift just something simple i

00:24:30.000 push away i'm changing the world i'm moving this from a to b afterwards i'm in an empowered state

00:24:35.340 i feel good my hormones are going to change your will to the world yeah that's very niche in a way

00:24:40.240 Like, you know, when I go to the gym, yeah, I'm doing it for my physical health, but I'm doing it for my mental health.

00:24:45.840 So I have changed something.

00:24:47.160 I've done something.

00:24:48.200 And, you know, I come out of there feeling more potent, more capable, more attractive to my fiance.

00:24:52.640 I walk down the street in a different way.

00:24:54.680 You know, other men treat you differently.

00:24:56.520 Like, you know, I'm in a deload week this week, and I'm missing it.

00:24:59.700 You know, I'm really missing it this week to work out.

00:25:02.340 You can see I'm not the fittest guy, but that's from a mental health point of view, it's fantastic.

00:25:06.900 Not just mental health.

00:25:07.680 We can say embodiment.

00:25:08.560 You know, there's an embodiment of a philosophy in doing martial arts or lifting weights, for example.

00:25:14.920 Yeah, so that's the first thing I'd say is also, who are you going to be around, right?

00:25:19.740 Like, I want to be around the people who are trying to do something.

00:25:23.060 Now, I don't know the guys here at Lotus Ears, right?

00:25:25.280 But I can guarantee if I asked anyone in their office to come for dinner, I think they'd be a cool, interesting guy.

00:25:30.300 Why? Because they're on a mission.

00:25:31.820 They're doing something important in the world.

00:25:33.740 now even if they wake up and go oh there's no point it's all depressing and we're just pissing

00:25:38.280 in the wind like look of what you guys have achieved like just this little studio i won't

00:25:43.960 say too much you know too many details but this little studio you've achieved so much and it's

00:25:48.660 like you know i started off with one guy he said you know what i've had enough was it carl just

00:25:53.040 wanted to play computer games i think originally and it's like he said no bollocks enough's enough

00:25:57.260 um so big things can grow you can you can do things and worst case scenario you make some

00:26:03.400 really cool friends you know maybe you don't put the ring back into mount doom but you know it's

00:26:08.900 the uh it's the friends you make along the way it's the cliche but that's true like the stuff

00:26:13.860 in my projects i've done in my life some of them made me money some of them didn't some of them

00:26:18.600 did great things some of them didn't but always like if i think of who's coming to my weddings

00:26:22.940 people from all these different countries that i've connected with through these projects and

00:26:27.220 i don't know i'd rather wake up in the morning and feel like i'm gonna do my bit and the other

00:26:32.900 thing i'd say is i have hope like the two young guys i just met in the cafe well i was just before

00:26:36.940 i met you the kids are all right there's a lot of young guys doing cool stuff you know reading

00:26:42.040 nature reading bap this guy was telling me and he didn't look like a right way guy this is just a

00:26:46.380 guy at the cost of coffee uh so i see young guys doing good stuff the culture's already turned

00:26:51.360 like we live in material modernity and it hasn't worked it's clearly failed everyone knows it's

00:27:00.120 failed like people can see it hasn't worked it's led to hell it's led to physically great yes but

00:27:06.560 psycho-spiritual hell and because of that everyone's looking for something else so personally

00:27:11.620 for me i've got despite the dark clearly babylon london i've just been in with all its problems

00:27:18.420 despite that i have lots of hope same i i do think that was my my impression when i was teaching

00:27:27.040 i think mostly most young young people are are all right but where does reality and demoralization

00:27:37.300 come apart because yeah in one respect us in news have to talk about bad things sure because people

00:27:45.680 have to find out about bad things yeah in order for them to not get worse i mean i i watch you

00:27:54.480 guys every week but i can't watch you every day yeah because it just depresses me too much yes i

00:27:58.420 want to know what's going on i trust you guys as a source you're my main source of news you know

00:28:02.920 and uh my fiance is like is that carl again you know she can hear his voice on my phone in the

00:28:07.660 morning but it's um i can't watch the news every day right okay so i'll give you an example yeah

00:28:13.680 i really follow one of your suggestions of going out doors yeah every weekend i try to travel

00:28:20.980 yeah and uh if not every both saturday and sunday at least one day you're climbing mountains this

00:28:27.440 weekend right yeah did you feel depressed on top of a mountain looking down on god's creation

00:28:31.420 no of course not no it's almost impossible to feel depressed on top of a mountain

00:28:35.320 yeah no you're you're correct so i did i went to i went to wales as i was saying i went to i did

00:28:41.460 the four falls trail in the waterfalls in in brecon beacons i did uh three hour tracking under

00:28:49.240 the rain and really good for me there was no signal reception i kid you not i was about a day

00:28:57.640 um off social media yeah and i felt like it was a two-week break it's a relief huh yes it's

00:29:06.440 absolute poison yeah i mean i'm i'm on instagram because from my work basically right i do workshops

00:29:12.120 on meaning meaning alive and then i do a lot of advertising marketing on instagram i post and i

00:29:16.840 get the hell off the app yeah because it's like walking into a bad neighborhood to get something

00:29:20.660 i need but that's what i want to say here is that i post pictures every now and then because i want

00:29:25.800 to share with the audience good pictures and i want to tell people it's just it's important to

00:29:32.180 bear in mind that good things exist yeah they should go outdoors it's going to be good for them

00:29:38.240 and you know just look at the beautiful places you can go right and throughout the entire country

00:29:43.720 um there are in the few good places there are many good places britain's for i mean where i

00:29:49.120 live slovenia is fantastic but britain's good man i lived in brighton god help me live in there but

00:29:53.840 you know there you're not so far away from the south downs you know you've got the lake i grew

00:29:57.240 up walking around the lake district the peak district wales is fantastic corbel devon there's

00:30:02.440 so many places so i will pose these pictures and i will always have uh people saying well yeah but

00:30:08.940 there were many tourists there or uh imagine there that there is a mosque there or you know

00:30:16.500 why are you why are you showing which cameras on which cameras on but look you got you doomers 0.60

00:30:21.940 depressing this poor greek man he's from a sunny country with his nice food and hot brunettes

00:30:27.180 and you're leaving your duma comments depressing the poor bloke unbelievable i mean no to be honest

00:30:33.460 i'm not depressed i'm just saying people go out travel yeah i have a list of places get outside

00:30:39.700 i'm outside three hours a day so all my business calls are on the phone not on zoom i walk up and

00:30:46.060 down the river in the town i live in every day and the trees i mean i happen to live in a nice

00:30:49.320 place that's deliberate for me actually you know brighton i used to walk around the park in brian

00:30:52.500 or on the seafront um if i coach people for a living were you in the gay or the lesbian district

00:30:58.580 I wasn't no um I did accidentally book my mum into a to a gay um hotel while she was visiting

00:31:04.700 one day was that camp town she was in camp town she said two lovely men are running places I said 0.97

00:31:09.300 mum where are you staying I'll put you in but I don't remember then she goes oh boys then it's

00:31:12.380 called b-o-y-z-d-e-m uh no so it was a fun place to live but um there's always somewhere you can

00:31:17.780 go that's a bit nicer get a bit of nature we call it eco-regulating and um for me for example I

00:31:23.540 charge more money if someone wants zoom calls and not a phone call because I want to be outside

00:31:27.700 I want to be sitting in the Botanic Gardens or sitting on a bench by the river.

00:31:31.280 You know, I live in a Disney movie, man.

00:31:33.380 I've got like a favorite heron where I live, you know,

00:31:35.980 like there's wild fowl and birds and forests, and I'm very lucky.

00:31:39.600 But I've also designed my life that way, you know.

00:31:42.800 So how do we get young men and young women who watch us

00:31:50.100 and get demoralized by bad news to live more?

00:31:57.700 i'm not saying i'm not saying you're not living i'm trying to i'm trying to get you to live

00:32:02.660 we're so it's such this is such boomer dad advice isn't it as well we're like

00:32:06.240 the uncle is go outside kids um look they know it i think the younger the really young kids the

00:32:12.120 younger generation they get the internet is toxic actually i think it's maybe the millennials that

00:32:17.700 and some of us gen x who maybe don't get it like the young young ones they understand that it's

00:32:21.920 okay so i i think there's a problem here i know lots of old people yeah boomers plus yeah who

00:32:29.680 know that the tv is toxic right they still watch it they still watch it so i'll give you an example

00:32:34.720 my grandmother she passed away a few years ago when she was 96 she hated a center-left

00:32:43.300 channel in greece and she was only watching that i tell you i was asking grandma why are you

00:32:50.640 watching this channel you say you hate it yeah she she was telling me i want to see if they have

00:32:57.160 any sense of shame wow ever and her verdict was always that they're shameless but but she was she

00:33:03.880 knew how bad it was yeah cognitive knowing is not enough though is it yeah she knew how and also i'll

00:33:10.100 just it's it's not that hard because legacy media are in that aren't endless right right right there

00:33:17.140 are you know four five six big channels and the algorithms do watch them yes plus the algorithm

00:33:22.880 so the the idea that the young generation knows that online spaces are do have the potential of

00:33:31.640 toxicity doesn't mean that they are going to go offline yeah yeah um they are going offline a

00:33:38.100 little bit more looking at the data so that's the first thing the younger ones there's a skepticism

00:33:42.120 towards it um so i think people are learning the other thing i'd say is if your life's good enough

00:33:46.540 when you make your life good enough you don't want to reach for your phone so i noticed this

00:33:51.000 like if i'm in church in a great service with people i love i don't want to reach for my phone

00:33:55.520 uh if i'm outside in nature having a nice time i don't feel like it if even if i'm in the pub

00:33:59.740 talking to some good friends having a good night bantering swearing saying you know whatever i

00:34:04.400 don't feel like looking at my phone so that's the other thing is you do have to replace it with

00:34:08.180 something um i said the more you get in your body the more you co-regulate the more you eco-regulate

00:34:13.700 the more you have some kind of higher power that you can connect to those four things if you keep

00:34:17.820 doing those four things the phone stops being so appealing the other thing i would say is let's cut

00:34:23.680 people some slack like this is the most addictive technology has ever been invented yeah this thing 0.96

00:34:30.980 like this is a gateway to hell there are i'll give a fun example there are more titties on this phone 0.97

00:34:38.040 than all of my ancestors have ever seen combined like i do not watch porn it doesn't sound 0.98

00:34:43.740 particularly bad it does it doesn't does it and that's how they get you because it doesn't sound

00:34:48.660 bad so you have to have canon appreciators you have to cut me some slack here liberal modernity

00:34:54.720 says do what you want have fun and it pretends that's heaven yeah and actually it's hell okay

00:35:02.000 so just neurologically i don't know i interviewed anna lemke on my podcast who wrote dopamine

00:35:06.880 meet nation she looks at all the neuroscience of this you'll get addicted to that and it sounds

00:35:12.120 great i can look at naked girls but then it's like well of course you know if you're a young

00:35:15.640 guy that's very tempting i mean i grew up in the era of you know magazines only kind of thing so 0.58

00:35:20.920 i'm glad i got off any kind of stuff like that before ai porn or whatever people do now for me

00:35:26.760 it's um this is the most addictive technique social media porn some of the ai social stuff

00:35:32.460 that's coming in is going to be even worse this is crack right this is a serious addiction now

00:35:38.580 i think there's a lot of young guys who aren't going to overcome it despite i love that you

00:35:43.080 want them to i think there's a lot of young guys who are going to get hooked in this who are going

00:35:47.200 to be on the porn if not on the drugs you know the fentanyl whatever it is but they're going to

00:35:51.160 be stuck on the electronic version of that and they're not going to have a great life and they

00:35:56.200 they're going to be in hell but there's another group of young men who are going to have to be 0.77

00:36:01.460 saints they're gonna have to be buddhas there's in there's just a group of young men some of whom

00:36:06.080 my mentor or come to my workshops is think of a young guy who came to my training yesterday in 0.97

00:36:10.440 london he's on top of it he doesn't watch porn he doesn't do drugs he goes to the gym he prays

00:36:16.260 and i go wow what it's breeding this is like the ultimate moral willpower gym you know i have to

00:36:23.440 walk around all day with this thing in my pocket where i could you know see that if i wanted and 0.91

00:36:28.640 it's like wow that's actually building a uh a generation of fucking superheroes that's how i 0.87

00:36:35.520 look at it but yeah there's a whole lot of people who are going to be lost to that and they're going 0.96

00:36:38.780 to be in hell that's true all right so i want us to focus a bit on your model of human flourishing

00:36:45.700 yeah and let me let me add to what you said before you mentioned that technology and

00:36:52.960 the algorithm and

00:36:55.880 particular platforms are incredibly

00:36:58.100 addictive. I think this gives us

00:37:00.160 a good gateway

00:37:01.800 to thinking about virtue ethics

00:37:04.020 in a sense because in virtue

00:37:05.920 ethics, no action is

00:37:07.820 isolated. Every action

00:37:10.220 is

00:37:11.100 part of a disposition.

00:37:14.700 It's not part of

00:37:16.100 a disposition but indicative of a

00:37:18.060 disposition. And it

00:37:20.080 isn't just something, an event

00:37:22.120 that takes place and has some immediate consequences and then the clock stops it's always it's always

00:37:29.140 an action that brings forth some consequences a chain of consequences and you're building a muscle

00:37:34.760 and it reinforces habits yes yes this is what people forget so there are that's what i'm

00:37:42.600 troubled with is that there are people who will constantly use their mind against them

00:37:48.440 yeah they're in it and some of them want to be this way because they are they feel that this is

00:37:54.600 a comfort zone for them yeah they are from this is what's familiar to them they're familiar with

00:37:59.720 feeling bad about themselves it's comfortable it's comfortable and in in a weird sense right

00:38:05.560 not necessarily something that makes them feel good um it's something familiar familiar is not

00:38:11.620 the same as good right yeah i mean cross your arms you can try this at home cross them the other way

00:38:16.060 it'll feel weird it's not any better or worse it's with your fingers just try that it's like

00:38:20.580 one way feels normal one way feels weird it's just because you've done one way a lot for your

00:38:25.120 whole life you've crossed your arms a certain way you try it the other way it feels strange

00:38:28.620 so people do what's familiar not what's good for them we are creatures of habit there's a sort of

00:38:33.880 conservative in in one sense sense where we conserve energy attention by just doing what

00:38:39.220 we've always done i mean aristotle you know you're greek i don't have to tell you this the

00:38:43.080 i work with the greek and she always says we invented everything first and they normally

00:38:46.560 bloody did okay so aristotle's whole thing about you are what you practice you become you know

00:38:51.060 ontological approach you become what you practice that's true and this is my real expertise actually

00:38:56.320 i've spent my entire life studying this starting when i was 18 or 16 yoga and martial arts and

00:39:02.580 there's lots of different what's called embodied practices so yes you can think about something

00:39:08.080 you know read the book uh do stelios's virtue ethics course i did it i watched it twice it's

00:39:13.060 very good thank you very much sir i recognize this office actually from the course i was like

00:39:17.700 check that out when i go there anyway so the theory is good you need the theory because the

00:39:21.620 theory guides the praxis but the praxis builds the muscle that's what builds the habit you know

00:39:27.380 like i'm away from home right now my fiance is not here my socials i've been in a hotel in london

00:39:32.580 last night i'm glad i have the habit of not drinking not watching porn you know i have a

00:39:38.100 habit of getting out this morning i got up got up went trying to go to a church and there was loads

00:39:42.700 of drug addicts are outside it but it's like i mean the habit of i found a park to sort of in

00:39:46.860 even in london i found a little park to have a bit of nature i did my morning rosary prayer

00:39:51.180 meditation you know i mean the habit of it would feel weird for me to not pray in the morning now

00:39:55.580 it's just what i do when i wake up in the morning even when i'm traveling so um yeah if you can

00:40:00.440 build those habits that will change how you think so you're trying to talk to these depressed friends

00:40:05.540 or students or ever but their their whole thinking is coming up from their embodiment you know it's

00:40:10.640 like try being depressed while bench pressing you cannot do it you're in a different embodiment

00:40:15.620 right powerful mode okay so that's the first part of your four yeah the embodiment right okay

00:40:21.440 i want to ask you this about being present yes so you said that when you're trying to bench press

00:40:28.120 yeah you you don't feel depressed or something because you you're in the moment yeah yeah it's

00:40:32.540 enforced mindfulness right okay so really small parenthesis yeah i feel this way frequently also

00:40:38.580 with horror movies it's just with horror movies i'm always present you'll be present but you'll

00:40:42.940 be stimulated to be in an unpleasant state so it's different so you're present but that presence is

00:40:48.740 enforced by an external stimuli in both cases the trick is to build the skill of presence without

00:40:54.680 the crutch of the intense stimuli of a demon about to possess you or yeah so the intense stimuli

00:41:00.720 might be a scary movie it might be a hot girl it might be a intense bench press all of those are

00:41:06.220 external stimuli so they you know it calls the attention to mind right the skill you know this

00:41:11.840 is an interviewer is to be present when that's not happening right so yeah but so this is what

00:41:16.920 meditation or meditative prayer like if i'm doing a rosary i mean yeah there's a there's a various

00:41:22.420 aspects to that but one aspect of that is i'm just trying to stay present because i'm like how many

00:41:26.380 full of grace and then it'll be like oh what am i doing like i've got the interviewer still

00:41:28.980 i'm gonna come in you keep like that's the meditation it's like a mindfulness picture

00:41:32.740 you keep coming back to it for in orthodox christianity is the jesus prayer same principle

00:41:38.000 right so the first principle is embodiment yeah what do people miss about embodiment

00:41:43.560 especially when they're over intellectualizing things we don't do any because this is for instance

00:41:48.880 what my i have this friend i'm talking to you about with a yeah with who has an intense problem

00:41:57.400 with talking to women it's just he has this ideology in his mind according to which he is

00:42:05.140 the victim of the world and the system and blah blah blah and he will always think about this

00:42:11.460 yeah yeah yeah so i mean he's up in his head straight away right like how do we get someone

00:42:16.060 who lives in his own head to live in the real world yeah yeah i mean any embodied practice is

00:42:20.680 good so the first thing i'd say is for any young guy find something you love for me it was martial

00:42:26.320 arts for some yoga more hippie friends of mine do conscious dance for example there's a whole

00:42:31.740 range of things out there not you might some people like tai chi it's real slow personally

00:42:37.060 i can't stand stand i'd rather be lifting weights these days you know um some people like jujitsu

00:42:41.820 it's like anything that you enjoy that gets you in your body that's the first thing i'd say and

00:42:46.600 depending on you know old guys watching this they might need that general tai chi practice for young

00:42:50.600 guys something physical something competitive maybe jujitsu kickboxing whatever you know get

00:42:55.100 out there um and you might have to build it up like if you're scared to go into a thai boxing

00:42:59.640 gym start with aikido you know start something a bit more chill so there's be steven seagal

00:43:05.660 please don't please don't there's he's an embarrassment the aikido world but uh yeah

00:43:11.000 uh i've got stories about it but that's enough for another time uh what i would say is just

00:43:15.160 find something you love yeah so if you don't love the gym don't go to the gym find badminton

00:43:19.300 whatever find something you personally love golf a bit tame i'm sure i could bring myself to

00:43:26.240 recommend ruining a good walk that way but uh i mean anything's better nothing at least you're

00:43:30.340 outside at least you're moving i'd say it needs to be something that you enjoy that gets you in

00:43:34.440 your body if it's building a more rigorous masculine disposition even better right so

00:43:40.060 what's the second part of the second part of the co-regulation correct so we tend to think of it 0.96

00:43:46.580 like mental health comes from talking to a therapist once a week bullshit mental health

00:43:51.020 comes from being in a village so we i grew up in a literal village in the east of england for example 0.85

00:43:56.060 i'm accents change now but i grew up in a village where you knew your neighbors right you know it's

00:44:00.260 getting with all of them but you knew people i mean now i'm i live in a small town people

00:44:03.780 recognize me and i walk down the street say hello to people right so um co-regulation comes from

00:44:08.900 building community which has been destroyed by liberal material modernity right don't have the

00:44:15.980 village anymore it has been destroyed and it's hard work to build it right so lots of people

00:44:21.280 who are gonna watching us will be living in cities and they're gonna ask question how do i

00:44:26.940 regulate in cities yeah it's harder um i people may not even know their neighbor yeah we'll say

00:44:35.360 hello there may be a corpse upstairs and for us disintegrating that is the sad situation

00:44:41.220 four months without noticing so that's by the way that's from a movie you didn't invent we didn't

00:44:46.260 there's no one i think that's from as good as it gets um so there's things we can change the things

00:44:51.000 we can't so the basic serenity prayer you've heard of that is you know change the things you can leave

00:44:55.580 leave the things you can't so we if you live in the city it's good news in one way because you

00:45:00.220 can probably find like-minded people so you have to put up a flag you have to find those people

00:45:04.540 maybe you find them in church maybe you find them in jujitsu maybe you you know put a thing on

00:45:07.900 facebook like you need to put a flag up you need to find like-minded people build a community

00:45:12.680 exactly and then you need to invest in it so there's a few levels of this so i have global

00:45:17.140 community so i'm going to like a men's retreat for some business guys that i know in a few days

00:45:21.520 time after you know i'm going to the arc conference so i meet a few people and i'll you know talk to a

00:45:25.740 few people there i have the irish superpower skills from my grandparents so i can make friends and

00:45:30.000 chat to people you know you saw me just in the cafe meeting a couple of young guys it's easy for

00:45:33.360 me to do so that is a skill you can build to make friends but it's also about commitment you know

00:45:38.480 monday night is guys night at the pub it doesn't matter if i don't feel like going out i go out

00:45:42.600 you know you that's what i do friday night's my aa meeting i go you know i help young guys get

00:45:47.500 sober that's what i do on a friday night all right if i'm in the town that's what i'm doing

00:45:51.200 so you have to commit to these things it's not just like i don't feel like it there's a discipline

00:45:55.340 in it uh you have to reach out to people you have to get rejected you know like talk to 10 girls

00:46:00.900 nine of them reject you one of them won't you know what I mean it's like I did a lot of my 1.00

00:46:05.080 dating in Russia back in the day that made me bulletproof because it's just like Russian girls 0.90

00:46:09.340 just cut you down once you've been rejected by dozens of attractive women in Kiev or Moscow 0.73

00:46:15.560 you're bulletproof like once you've been rejected by strangers you're bulletproof once you talk to

00:46:20.840 people regularly like we do for a living you're bulletproof so you have to it's scary you get

00:46:25.900 rejected when you talk to girls you get rejected when you make friends you get rejected when you

00:46:30.520 talk to your neighbors and they don't want to talk to you but that's work and if you're extrovert

00:46:36.360 it's easier if you're introvert it's definitely harder right you know my partner's more introvert

00:46:40.980 than me so you know i do a lot of socializing for us and make friends and she makes friends

00:46:45.400 with the wives of my friends okay so when it comes to communities i completely agree with you

00:46:50.380 and i i did so yeah everywhere i've been but many people who talk about this and they talk about

00:46:59.060 disintegration of communities they live in cities yes and they say that the city is very uh it's

00:47:05.700 just just you know babylon as you said but it seems to me that it offers so many opportunities 0.94

00:47:12.620 for yeah building communities so why do people see something that seems to be like an opportunity

00:47:19.120 well the bigger city they're more closed off for everyone as i've spent time moscow new york london

00:47:23.400 kiev places like that and people are just closed off because yeah you need three four people you

00:47:27.920 don't need you don't need a million people if you've got three good friends you're doing great

00:47:31.680 you're doing great you know there's three guys i go to a pub with on a monday night you know

00:47:35.600 there's 10 guys in our ia meeting okay we got the english mass in lubiana there's 30 people there

00:47:41.360 yeah you know you don't need hundreds um it is some work but it is possible and it's like again

00:47:47.100 let's acknowledge it is difficult we're not born in a medieval village and also there's some serious

00:47:52.940 advantages right like medieval village they have religion but you were told which religion it was

00:47:58.040 they had meaning you could you had a career but you know my granddad was a fisherman in ireland

00:48:03.140 okay the only reason my dad wasn't a fisherman is because my granddad volunteered in world war two

00:48:07.780 as i was called irish volunteers they were called so he joined the royal navy um as merchant seaman

00:48:12.540 so very proud of him but it's like otherwise it would be a fisherman all the way back so it's

00:48:18.780 like yeah you know your job you don't have to go what's my life purpose i do a lot of coaching on

00:48:22.580 that you know but your job's given you know your religion but it's given and your community well

00:48:26.820 he had three girls to pick from you know at the irish village dance in cork little village in

00:48:32.740 cork where he where he was so it's like i'm glad he got well with my grandmother you know

00:48:36.580 it's like i've ended up with an italian girl i met in cretia you know it's uh so it's the best 0.90

00:48:42.720 time and the worst time to be alive and community is part of that like i can meet people who are 1.00

00:48:47.260 philosophically aligned with me you know it's like it's unlikely that you're going to bump into

00:48:52.040 someone in the pub who knows who Julius Eveler is or someone, right? But online, you can build

00:48:56.780 those communities. So I have the international communities, the people I visit once or twice a

00:49:01.000 year. I still get together with them. We go into my mate's house in a few days. And then I have

00:49:05.100 the local communities, and I have the actual neighborhood communities. So there's kind of

00:49:09.180 layers. Concentric. Exactly. Exactly. Right. So what's the third? Eco. So we talked about that.

00:49:15.080 That's nature. The hippies are right. Nature is good. The pagans aren't totally wrong.

00:49:19.520 but don't smoke nature don't smoke too much uh but what i would say is you know barefoot walking

00:49:24.380 i do that uh sit by the river um and this is for all sorts of things right you know i lived in the

00:49:30.840 west of england for a while i'd go to the river every single day it was almost like a ritual you

00:49:35.840 know i'd go there i feel really relaxed tranquil when i look at water very common very common

00:49:42.440 nothing there is no nothing let me just rephrase pardon me i'm just exhausted i don't see how the

00:49:52.700 sea can make me feel bad if i observe it and i have been a sailor as well i've also sailed some

00:49:59.700 really rough seas and i i really know how to steal the wheel okay i actually find it a bit

00:50:07.340 tranquil or something i like i like part of your greek it's probably part of your greek heritage

00:50:12.420 as well yeah maybe but also i can just sit by and just look at the sea a lot of people even if and

00:50:18.180 if it's if there's a storm or it's completely tranquil i it always wakes up something good

00:50:25.220 yeah yeah i used to have a really stressful day and i'd walk along the seafront in brighton and

00:50:29.440 the waves would just wash it away you know yeah same some people it's mountaintops i think i like

00:50:34.160 the forest um green and blue generally every day you want to see some green and some blue just to

00:50:38.700 keep it simple there's a whole body of work called eco-psychology there's evidence-based on this the

00:50:43.200 japanese have studied it a lot in terms of forest bathing they call it uh there's a whole body of

00:50:47.820 work on it now there's a whole um traditions at exeter university guy adrian harris dr adrian

00:50:52.480 harris studying it there's all sorts of people studying this so there's a whole evidence base

00:50:56.280 for comments you know your gran was right go go walk in the woods go climb a mountain get outside

00:51:01.260 it's not rocket science but again it's got to be a discipline you know every day i do 15k steps

00:51:06.980 okay now you know it's not marathon running every day but 15k steps means i'm outside quite a lot

00:51:13.040 okay it means i have to get up early if i've got a day in the studio or a day podcasting or whatever

00:51:17.740 or i go in the evening so you know i do my coaching calls usually in the day so

00:51:22.200 if i get 15k steps and i've been outside plenty yeah right so the other bit i want to talk to

00:51:28.740 you about nature and ask you it's just i can't think of nature being ugly except with one

00:51:34.880 exception okay what's cruelly where are we i really don't like i really don't like uh i don't

00:51:44.140 think swindon has bad nature oh okay swindon has some bad buildings okay i don't think it's the

00:51:49.820 church is nice there's a high anglican church that i just go i don't think it's the trees and

00:51:54.700 grass yeah it's problematic here wherever they are the west country is beautiful i love it i mean i

00:52:00.300 much as i mean where i live looks like the swiss alps but i still long for the green fields of

00:52:05.500 england there's a ethnic and kind of you know for me with sort of anglo-irish roots i really feel

00:52:10.620 that when i'm in ireland or the uk i really feel that longing for the for the place it's you know

00:52:16.300 it's hard to be away from that in some ways even though where i live is beautiful where's ugly then

00:52:20.540 where do you not like no it's not a place that i find landscape it's no no it's i hate it when

00:52:27.280 the weather doesn't know what it wants that's england occasionally okay we're in chops and 0.80

00:52:34.500 changes i don't like rapid changes okay i want to align myself with are you a bit autistic

00:52:40.720 weather no no i thought everyone at the lotus is what's no is that it depends what you mean 0.66

00:52:45.700 i'm just messing with you i'm just messing with you don't want to i i just don't like you know

00:52:51.040 the very light the light gray okay okay you prefer lots of sunshine it was rainy or sunny

00:52:57.780 yeah more clear yeah no be cloudy okay i can relate to that be rainy just make up your what

00:53:04.600 you're doing stop messing about yes or no karate baby squish yeah okay i get it okay okay and

00:53:10.700 let us go to the fourth step which if i remember correctly it's theoregulation theory it means

00:53:15.820 connecting to meaning or purpose in the secular sense or we could say higher power or god if

00:53:22.640 you're not scared of the word right okay so how do we find meaning let me ask let me contextualize

00:53:27.580 because i was thinking a lot about it because it seems to me that people who try to find meaning

00:53:35.920 already feel that in some respects meaning eludes them okay yeah i see what you mean if you if you

00:53:42.280 are on cloud nine if you're in heaven don't search for meaning well yeah if you're deep in a flow

00:53:49.440 state deeply making love to someone yeah deep and ecstatic prayer whatever you're not thinking oh

00:53:55.540 where's the meaning yes so you must feel a sort of gap to say that i have to fill it somehow yeah

00:54:03.200 yeah yeah don't think anything weird we're not filling any greek gaps okay guys there's no jokes

00:54:09.380 definitely no jokes about greeks and gaps and sailors none of that all right let's continue

00:54:14.060 meaning okay so meaning when it comes to trying to do this just seems to me that when people

00:54:22.100 frequently experience something bad in their life that's when they say consciously i have to pursue

00:54:28.400 meaning yeah i have to find a way there they understand a problem and then they come come

00:54:36.300 they start saying i have to find the solution to it yeah and i have to make life more tolerable

00:54:42.360 than it already is so they frequently navigate towards listening to other people

00:54:50.880 at least it's for for for it's one of the first steps yeah the current intellectual orthodoxy

00:54:58.040 for a long time yeah in the western world and also in england there's a particular

00:55:05.560 tradition in of english philosophy okay for a long time they are bombarded with

00:55:13.720 ideologies and worldviews that cannot accommodate meaning right let me say and i don't i'm not

00:55:23.580 gonna put the i'd consider sloppy argument of saying if you're a materialist you can't have

00:55:29.700 meaning in your life or you can't be moral i think you can um but the point is what i want to say is

00:55:36.280 that people who are materialists and are moral i think are moral despite their materialism not

00:55:43.540 because of them got it yeah yeah and the problem the way i see it with lots of these ideologies

00:55:50.400 like naturalism, eliminative materialism, reductive materialism,

00:55:54.900 all of these ideologies that try to eliminate the first person,

00:56:01.800 they are essentially becoming a bad voice in us.

00:56:08.140 They're trying to say, but all of this is a lie.

00:56:11.160 Yeah, yeah.

00:56:11.800 But value is a lie.

00:56:13.040 Yeah.

00:56:14.120 So cynicism of the postmodern world.

00:56:16.160 Free will is a lie.

00:56:16.900 Moral responsibility is a lie.

00:56:18.620 there is no right or wrong it's all a lie okay because it doesn't fit so it sabotages people

00:56:25.520 from trying to guide their thinking in pursuing meaning agree yeah so what do you think how

00:56:34.420 should people feel regulate or pursue meaning given that you know okay first of all in this

00:56:41.740 context where the overwhelming majorities of books that they're gonna open yeah let's say

00:56:48.300 They visit Waterstones, they're going to see Dawkins, Sam Harris, Dennett,

00:56:53.740 all these people who tell them basically the self is an illusion.

00:56:58.640 You're just a meat machine.

00:57:00.940 Okay, how do we find meaning given that?

00:57:02.200 Okay, so I'm not as good at philosophy as you are.

00:57:04.800 You're the man for this stuff.

00:57:06.060 The way I look at it is that material modernity doesn't really have a story of meaning.

00:57:11.740 It says stuff doesn't really have a theory of consciousness, of beauty, of goodness, of love,

00:57:17.000 any of the things that make life worth living it's a philosophically bankrupt culture now when

00:57:23.260 i say philosophy i don't necessarily mean a book in waterstones i mean the sort of default culture

00:57:27.740 the ethos of the times so we're in a kind of materialist times which leads to hedonism as

00:57:33.700 the only sort of there's no meaning you try and medicate yourself with hedonism which leads to

00:57:37.440 addiction death and despair and all the problems we've talked about so that's the anti-culture i

00:57:42.080 call it the anti-culture that we're in is the machine anti-culture or materialist modernity

00:57:46.620 if you will materialist liberal modernity it doesn't have a sufficient anthropology it doesn't

00:57:51.780 really have a theory of any of these things that make life worth living so we could get more into

00:57:57.100 the philosophy and you know more than me i think about it but that's my basic story is the culture

00:58:01.740 the general culture the default culture even if you never go into waterstones doesn't offer meaning

00:58:07.700 now another thing i think is helpful is people often say you know what's the meaning of life

00:58:13.160 and i've asked people out on the street we actually stop people in the street and do coaching with

00:58:17.740 them and were you holding the lamp uh yeah we were looking for the the classic is it socrates

00:58:22.820 or nietzsche nietzsche yeah um no we stop people in the street like socrates like a gadfly and

00:58:27.720 annoy people and most people say oh to have fun and it's just sort of some sort of hedonism unless

00:58:32.200 they happen to be religious for most people it's their they don't really have any philosophy of

00:58:35.960 life it's just like i'll try and have fun and it's like that doesn't end well like drinking

00:58:40.080 monster yeah drinking monster drinking pints and stellas the evening whatever it doesn't end well

00:58:45.660 and we can see that on an individual level with all the addicts on the street you can see that 0.94

00:58:49.260 on a societal level materialism has fucking failed let's be honest about it so what do we do we can't 0.80

00:58:56.380 go back we can't larp as now i want to retake constantinople for the greeks i get it like the 0.95

00:59:03.980 idea of crusading we probably do need a reconquista we probably do need a crusade uh but the idea of

00:59:12.340 larping as a sort of pre-modern medieval guy i mean i've got my deus vault t-shirt on in the gym

00:59:19.460 or whatever but we can't really go back and the reason you can't go back is your brain has changed

00:59:24.040 you've been moderned i'm subject to the same uh toxic cynicism and as as everybody else now you

00:59:32.360 then you're left in the sort of Dawkins mode you know I grew up I was reading Dawkins when I was

00:59:36.940 like 15 16 and you're like oh now what do I do because I'm miserable and you're being yeah he'll

00:59:42.200 tell you but it's true and truth doesn't care about your misery yeah yeah and which what I would

00:59:48.620 say is what you need to do there is is have an experience that opens up profundity to you so

00:59:54.820 nobody falls in love logically you don't fall in love with your partner because you work it out on

01:00:00.220 Excel spreadsheet. I always feel like Keir Starmer's like if an

01:00:03.840 Excel spreadsheet, bread with a kind of, I don't know, what

01:00:08.440 would it be like a Down syndrome Excel spreadsheet? That's his

01:00:13.280 whole vibe that managerial, like a, like a Excel spreadsheet

01:00:18.940 bread with a Down syndrome pancake. You know, that's what

01:00:21.820 he looks like. It's something gray. That's a kind of gray hell.

01:00:25.480 It's flat. You know, there's something about that that

01:00:27.760 disgusts me and terrifies me that's not how i want to live and it's not how we do live you know 1.00

01:00:33.180 i go to i was in um westminster cathedral for mass in london yesterday right stunning it's a neo

01:00:39.380 neo-bizantine actually and as soon as you walk in you believe in god as soon as you believe in you're

01:00:45.100 like whoa okay something's here it's the same in falling in love it's the same when you're on top

01:00:49.520 of a mountain you're experiencing profundity so i would say to people how can you experience

01:00:56.280 the divine how can you experience something which uh oceanically transcends your life

01:01:02.940 how can you dissolve into that now you can add a theology and a philosophy later on that's wise

01:01:08.860 it's wise to have the cognitive part you know the catholic church for example has a lot of

01:01:12.680 philosophy and cognitive parts worked out um there are different technologies for that so i know for

01:01:19.040 a fact if i don't eat for three days and i'm in a silent meditation retreat i will be having visions

01:01:24.300 like i will be talking to the saints and that's just a result of a set of technologies some people

01:01:31.300 it's psychedelics not always wise if people have mental health problems like i have to be a bit

01:01:35.900 careful with those uh how do you have a bad trip um they can make people psychotic so we can as

01:01:44.080 well actually but yeah i mean i've been doing psychedelics since i was 13 years old but i

01:01:49.440 wouldn't do them too often my family have a talent for openness trait openness so it means we have

01:01:56.440 schizophrenics and epileptics but we also you know my mom was a mystical catholic nun for seven years

01:02:01.600 she's a novice nun so this is in our family that we're quite open now i can trip balls just by

01:02:07.120 doing a bit of yoga so some people it comes easily too and they need to be careful actually and this

01:02:14.320 for example a little bit of breath work and i'm already kind of high as a kite um but my partner

01:02:19.600 she's very logical very sort of uh maybe a bit on the spectrum and she went to a breath work

01:02:24.960 camp with me and didn't she just got a headache she was like nothing touched her but for her it

01:02:29.220 might be something else for her it might be a beautiful italian church or nature exercise so

01:02:34.800 there's a whole bunch of technologies out there which are very practical and don't don't believe

01:02:39.820 me like this isn't a logical uh argument this is something you experience and i think once you have

01:02:45.480 those experiences it just like for me denying the divine would be like denying red it's just part

01:02:53.920 of experience like now if you were blind it would be hard for me to explain red like philosophically

01:02:58.520 that's quite a challenge right that qualia there but it's part of my experience on a daily basis

01:03:04.000 And I think it's part of the normal, I mean, the norm, the normative human consciousness is this, like we were animists for a long time before we were anything else. So this is normal. This is normal to be experiencing this, this layer of the world.

01:03:19.340 Right. So I want us to move to the final section of the interview and to talk about the really hard stuff. It seems to me that some people really have to be on the edge of the abyss sometimes to find meaning.

01:03:33.420 yeah and if they don't cross the point of no return they do find meaning there

01:03:39.500 where is that point and what are you have to be in a particular state of mind to be

01:03:47.000 to find yourself yes you know two minutes to midnight all of culture has just hit what we

01:03:56.440 call in alcoholics anonymous rock bottom so rock bottom is not a certain amount of alcohol or a

01:04:02.660 certain physiological state it's a spiritual state where you go i've had enough and then you're ready

01:04:06.940 to surrender but i mean for me i was 10 years alcoholic and one day i just woke up and i've

01:04:11.240 had enough you know i've had enough for other people it's a really strong experience like you

01:04:15.200 know i knew a guy killed his wife in blackout woke up covered in blood you know for him that was that

01:04:19.860 was his rock bottom for me it wasn't anything as dramatic as that as a culture we're hitting rock

01:04:25.540 bottom and the entertainment industry the distraction and addiction industry is having

01:04:30.780 to work harder and harder to keep people away from that rock bottom and i don't think anyone's

01:04:36.160 buying it anymore still else i really don't think they're buying it so this is why i'm hopeful

01:04:40.060 because i think as a group we're hitting that rock bottom um but it's a dangerous place you

01:04:45.300 know when i was younger i was addicted i was suicidal i've stared into that abyss in ukraine

01:04:51.220 and other places and it it's dark so we have talked about culture but i would like to you know

01:04:58.380 make it on the on an individual basis yeah it's just what makes people think of uh ending their

01:05:07.640 life the guy i recommend people follow is called george from the tin men he gives a lot of these

01:05:15.880 sort of scientific evidence based on this and his real specialism is looking at men's mental health

01:05:20.040 so i'd really recommend him i want to while i've looked at mental health a lot in my life i wouldn't

01:05:25.980 I'm not an expert in suicide prevention. 0.91

01:05:29.220 I think we, Albert Camus' question of why don't you kill yourself 0.95

01:05:33.200 is a perfectly reasonable question.

01:05:36.000 But would you say that sometimes people can't give a cognitive answer?

01:05:43.120 I think we've been driven to despair by a culture that hates us,

01:05:47.200 that hates life, that is demonic, frankly,

01:05:50.800 if I'm going to look at it through a religious lens, 0.96

01:05:53.140 through a culture that is evil. 0.98

01:05:55.980 And it's driven a generation of us to despair in various ways.

01:06:01.600 And there's also levels of suicide.

01:06:03.060 There's the quick suicide, like jump off a bridge.

01:06:05.540 But then there's also the slow suicide of the guy who just plays computer games 12 hours a day.

01:06:09.580 He's on Fortnite all day.

01:06:11.040 That's another kind of suicide.

01:06:12.140 It's just the guy who's just not living fully. 1.00

01:06:15.980 I'd say don't let the fuckers win, right? 1.00

01:06:19.740 Maybe that's my Irish defiance, but I'd say don't let the fuckers win. 1.00

01:06:22.980 that's yeah but the point with this is that it tries to base one's you know rebirth on negative 1.00

01:06:33.540 feelings and like i hate the fuckers therefore i don't want okay there's a reason to see me die 0.96

01:06:38.680 so physiologically we have a positive yeah yes we should but physiologically anger energizes people 0.99

01:06:45.600 out of despair yeah so there's something called polyvagal theory for example you can look at which

01:06:50.120 When people are in shutdown, getting angry is a good thing.

01:06:53.540 Like, for example, my team were working with a bunch of veterans

01:06:55.880 from the Ukrainian military.

01:06:56.900 They were all in shutdown.

01:06:57.960 They were all traumatized.

01:06:58.980 We took them out in nature.

01:07:00.180 We're doing embodied practice, prayer, blah, blah, blah.

01:07:02.240 Then they get angry.

01:07:03.560 And it's like, okay, good.

01:07:04.720 Now we're heading in a good direction because anger has some energy.

01:07:07.800 So, like, anger is the emotion of violation.

01:07:10.440 Given the state of the West and what's been done to this country,

01:07:13.300 for example, people should be angry.

01:07:15.520 That's not a bad thing.

01:07:16.600 but it's a bad fuel long term it's a bad fuel it's a toxic fuel so yes you will need to get

01:07:24.040 to love on the other side of that i mean i'm thinking of the iliad and you mentioned war

01:07:28.380 veterans uh trauma yeah yeah wrath and trying to control wrath this is the iliad in a natural

01:07:34.380 because you have achilles who is who feels justified wrath arguably justified he is a war

01:07:42.440 veteran it was a poem written for yeah people back then who would probably be war veterans

01:07:49.180 it was a way of processing trauma among other things and it's about how not being able to

01:07:55.600 restrain your anger yes dehumanizes you and you recover your humanity when you end up doing it

01:08:02.580 and all those things so i agree with you and this is something that we see in virtue ethics as well

01:08:08.080 in that people are angry when they're angry they frequently don't listen because they don't

01:08:16.820 temper their anger they don't moderate their anger and frequently if you tell them to that 1.00

01:08:22.600 anger isn't a good counsel they go against you they say no you want me well you're stupid when 0.99

01:08:28.680 you're angry so i mean just just neurologically your neocortex is not working very well but would 0.98

01:08:33.960 you say that this is a healthy sign if someone is angry they still have it okay even if they can't

01:08:39.520 say that they're alive yeah and they do have some fighting energy exactly so as a way out of despair

01:08:46.580 and shutdown just neurologically it's a higher energy state so it's not bad i also think it's

01:08:51.460 an appropriate response to violation so i don't think emotions are important i disagree with all

01:08:56.800 the american girly psychotherapists who are like oh let me tell you about my feelings i don't care

01:09:00.440 about your feelings that much but feelings tell you what's going on so it's like a telephone

01:09:04.920 ringing the telephone ringing of anger is we have been violated so it's completely understandable

01:09:10.460 if young men are angry given the violation that's happened in the west you know i was reading about

01:09:14.720 the 250 000 number recently i was just in a rage i was in a rage and i had to go to church and i did

01:09:21.040 have to hear that message thou shalt not kill which jesus also said hey you could also kill in

01:09:26.360 your brain yeah because why because if you want to be smart if you want to be creative and you

01:09:30.520 want to have compassion for the people around you even your enemies that doesn't mean letting them

01:09:35.060 win but it means not not acting stupidly and fighting them so if you want to like if you see

01:09:41.260 like special forces guys or great athletes they're not angry all the time that burns energy it's

01:09:46.840 inefficient it's not spiritually it's toxic as hell you know this idea of resentment is like

01:09:52.800 drinking poison and hoping someone else dies as an energizing move as a coach for example i'll help

01:09:58.020 people get angry to get out of despair but then you've got to find love you know i've got a child

01:10:03.000 on the way i've got a lot to live for like you know i'm not waking up angry and shouting at

01:10:07.800 people on the internet you know i love my work like i love where i live i love the communities

01:10:12.720 i'm a part of and let me let me stay let's get greek and classy nostos this journey home that's

01:10:20.440 what we're talking about let's go to the the um the odyssey yeah so this i this idea of the longing

01:10:27.080 for home that's the beauty in healthy nationalism that's the that's what embodiment is it's coming

01:10:33.500 home to the body this is the reality not this not your internet arguments uh what is spirituality

01:10:38.380 if not coming home you know i remember when i came back to catholicism after a big break i was like

01:10:44.240 oh oh i didn't pretend tired of pretending to be an asian buddhist or something it's like 0.94

01:10:50.420 sticking feathers up your ass doesn't make you a chicken you know it's like coming home was 0.99

01:10:54.940 wonderful the romance when you're sitting on a bed with a woman you love and you're just chilling 1.00

01:11:00.380 out and you've come home like that's what we want and yes there's sirens on the way this mobile

01:11:06.440 phone this is the siren right there's cyclops there's all these kind of battles and things and 0.63

01:11:11.080 problems but we're all just fucking trying to come home right so thank you very much i think

01:11:19.120 this is a beautiful way to to end our interview and i really enjoyed it i hope you did as well

01:11:25.640 and i hope you enjoyed it um even more so mark where people can find more of you okay if you

01:11:32.540 want to read there's a book called how to become human by mark just by mark on amazon if you like

01:11:37.060 to read on instagram it's what mulch so the w and the m reversed if you like instagram little

01:11:42.980 videos on there don't spend too long on instagram but you might find those fun and feral philosophy

01:11:48.220 is our podcast and youtube channel various podcasts in there people we did one with jonathan

01:11:52.540 pejot for example called trans epstein and the jews that's a great fun one to start with for

01:11:58.120 anyone new okay thank you very much so do check them out we all we will have links underneath

01:12:03.860 so check them out and thank you so your work has been amazing at yukon all the others connor before

01:12:11.640 the work you do has changed the culture and it's it's really made a big difference to a lot of

01:12:16.740 people there was times i felt so alone and i'd stick on youtube and i go i'm not mad these guys

01:12:23.420 get it and that that is a beautiful thing thank you very much mark pleasure

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - July 16, 2026

The Crisis of Meaning ｜ Interview with Mark Walsh

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