Transcript
Speaker: Welcome, friends, to another episode of Life's F-N-Nuts.
Speaker: I'm your host, JR. Life's F-N-Nuts. One-man stories and ruminations on being human in an upside-down world.
Speaker: Coming at you live! From America!
Speaker: Land of the free, home of the brave! Land of the brave, home of the free! of July.
Speaker: fourth of July.
Speaker: Celebrating America.
Speaker: And do you know what I'm doing? The true patriot that I am
Speaker: I'm reading ah book called Blood and Thunder, the epic story of Kit Carson and the conquest of the American West.
Speaker: Pretty patriotic thing to do, no?
Speaker: It's rare.
Speaker: that I take like a full-on day of rest, a full-on cessation of motion. I like that phrase, cessation of motion. Say it with me, friends.
Speaker: Cessation of motion. I don't hear you. Cessation of motion.
Speaker: Very rare.
Speaker: Not to say that I'm like, the hardest working man in America anything like that, though I do work hard, but I think it's more about,
Speaker: ah just i guess ah I guess I'm always yeah in motion, I would say, or almost always in motion. Very rarely am I just peacefully settled.
Speaker: And I wonder how ah wonder if that's part of my kind of psychological makeup that I tend towards like anxiety and being, you know, slightly unsettled or extremely unsettled depending on the day.
Speaker: I wonder if that's unique to me or if that's a common phenomenon out there the American landscape. I mean, how rested do you feel right now? How settled do you feel?
Speaker: How much true
Speaker: Stillness are you experiencing in your soul, in your mind, in your heart? True stillness. You know, like sitting on a couch and watching Netflix for three hours might have the appearance of stillness.
Speaker: You're like in a vegetative state.
Speaker: But is your heart and your mind truly still? That's a whole other thing, I think.
Speaker: And i think that's what I'm referring to. And I think that's what I don't achieve regularly. It's a truly still heart and mind and body.
Speaker: And I think for me, part of the reason true stillness can be so elusive because, you know, well, I think there's two things. One, like the reality that
Speaker: i don't think I don't think this is a time of like peace and prosperity. don't think it's a time to like put put the mechanism fully in park. I think trouble is afoot.
Speaker: I think. But then the related piece
Speaker: is like how – so there's the actual reality, like the physical reality.
Speaker: of like, are ourdain is danger present in my physical reality right now?
Speaker: And it it would appear mostly no. like um you know It's a sunny, relatively quiet day here in South Berkeley, California. There are no Marooders at my doorstep that I know of.
Speaker: There's...
Speaker: No whatever. the you know There's no impending doom right now in my physical reality.
Speaker: But you know i I try to stay abreast of all the different happenings in the world. Read the different news reports.
Speaker: And there's a lot of messed up things happening in the world. a lot of people suffering.
Speaker: A lot of... Yeah, a lot of like wars of power and culture are happening. And in some cases, physical, in many cases, physical wars too, physical
Speaker: instances of violence.
Speaker: And so constantly knowing about those things and reading about those things
Speaker: puts me kind of on edge or or in a heightened state of awareness, a heightened state of vigilance. It's like, how can I just, even though it seems like my physical reality is relatively stable and safe,
Speaker: how can I just fully put it into park and just rest knowing that that trouble may be on the horizon you know
Speaker: it's a weird phenomenon but and i've shared about this before because this is something i think about a lot in terms of media consumption what the value is in staying abreast of all the different things that are happening in the world how much is too much information
Speaker: know I think it's an important question that probably all of us in modern day society need to answer for ourselves.
Speaker: Because of course, yes, I think there's a lot of importance and value in being aware, being educated.
Speaker: But certainly there's a limit, right? Like at a certain point, it's not actually beneficial or it's not, you know, it's not
Speaker: Like it has a net negative effect. Like if if it just, if all the news and all the awareness kind of puts me in a state of depletion and overwhelm,
Speaker: it actually situates me in a position where I i i can be less effective or or less, I don't know. I'm starting to lose the thread a little bit here.
Speaker: trying to articulate all these kind of cerebral nuanced things. and I don't know. I don't know. Sometimes it's a lot of hot air, right, my friends?
Speaker: Nevertheless, I hope you understand the gist of what I'm saying.
Speaker: And I think the bigger point that I was trying to make is...
Speaker: this this rare experience where I feel truly decelerated right now today. And
Speaker: book is like really intense and gripping, I would say, Blood and Thunder.
Speaker: And for for many years, i've i've been I've been drawn to understanding
Speaker: the history of the West.
Speaker: And i i I could probably do a whole podcast season about why I've been so drawn to the history of the West and to trying to understand it and to try to understand how that history affects and shapes my current reality.
Speaker: So I don't even know. like there's just There's so much I could say that it might be hard for me to even know where to begin or how to articulate it. And in some ways, one thing I'm cognizant and of,
Speaker: you know I've read a lot of books and thought a lot about this stuff. But I wouldn't say that my understanding is refined. I haven't talked about it that much.
Speaker: And so I wouldn't say that I'm fluent and and I'm far from like an expert or a scholar on the matter. And it's always difficult to speak about things when there's like a haziness, an underlying haziness to my understanding.
Speaker: But it's weird it's a weird tension because I have a lot of passion, a lot of energy, and a lot of kind of unformed thoughts and unformed impressions. So like I, in some ways, as I devour these books, I'm i'm like, man, if I like could go back, it could have been interesting to be like a scholar ah an actual scholar on these things to really refine and develop my thoughts and feelings and ideas and beliefs about this whole, whatever, about this field of of knowledge.
Speaker: But I'm not a scholar. and so
Speaker: But I think the main thing that I want to say, and you know what? This is ah this is a meandering ah meandering episode, friends. Let's just be honest with ourselves. This is a meandering episode.
Speaker: A meandering episode. But as I've shared many times in the past, no one's listening anyway, so what's the difference? I'm just here to have a good time.
Speaker: just here to entertain myself in the void, whistling in the void.
Speaker: Right? What do I have to lose, man? What I have to lose? I spent my whole life artistically, creatively wanting to be embraced and loved.
Speaker: It's like, that's all I ever wanted, artistically and creatively. Love me, please. Love me. Embrace me with your arms. Please.
Speaker: and And it just hasn't happened. I'm 41 now. Clearly, there's something about the way that I create that is not crowd-pleasing, man. I'm just not a crowd-pleaser, apparently.
Speaker: And so at this point, what do have to lose, man? What have to lose? I'm just out here creating for creation's sake. I'm just out here creating for creation's sake. Out here creating for creation's sake.
Speaker: Out here creating for creation's sake.
Speaker: Out here creating for creation's sake. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Out here creating for creation's sake. Oh, boy. It's true, though.
Speaker: It's true. and And, you know, as ah I continue to share this meta-analysis, and also i recognize that i'm I am at this point rambling and and ah bouncing from lily pad to lily pad without quite finishing my thoughts or ideas, which is fine.
Speaker: um But, you know, I've given this kind of meta, now ongoing meta analysis of, because I think the meta, the meta experience of this whole new podcast foray is this dynamic between
Speaker: creating for validation and acceptance and love versus creating for creation's sake and, and, what the relationship between those two are. Because as I've shared in the past, it wouldn't surprise me if my best work emerges from this release of expectation. Because it's freedom, man.
Speaker: You know, but that old song, freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. I don't know who wrote that song, but I think Janis Joplin it. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.
Speaker: And yeah, it's my guess that my best art will come from that place. No no one wants ah no one wants a scared artist.
Speaker: No one wants a scared artist, man.
Speaker: No one wants an artist who tiptoes around and speaks in hushed tones. Please love me. Please love me. No one wants an artist like that. That's not inspiring.
Speaker: That's not inspiring.
Speaker: but want artists who unapologetic, vocal, full-throated, right? Are you with me, friends?
Speaker: Are you with me, friends?
Speaker: Are you with me, non-existent friends who aren't listening?
Speaker: Anyway, I'm meandering, like I said, but what I was ah getting at if I was getting at anything, which I think I am. there's one There is something I'm trying to get at.
Speaker: That I don't think it's a frivolous thing that I'm so interested in. I'm old school, man.
Speaker: in ah In an age where people are increasingly drugging themselves to death on on modern morphine that is TikTok scrolling or whatever,
Speaker: I'm out here stashing my phone in the other room, kind of, because I'm actually recording on my phone right now. So I'm a i'm a world of contradictions, yes.
Speaker: But nevertheless, they're they I am like a stubbornly old school person. I'm out here sitting on my couch reading, not from a Kindle, not from some screen, from an actual book.
Speaker: On 4th of July,
Speaker: just sitting here, just crushing this book, hours at a time, just immersing myself and descending into this world of narrative and history. And I think what I'm trying to say is i it could be seen as like, oh, whatever, like, whatever, i don't know. There's like, J.R. is bored, and so he just has this romanticized obsession with the West, right?
Speaker: Whoop-dee-doo. And maybe there's some truth to that. But I think there's something deeper too. think I'm after something. I grew up in the West, man.
Speaker: i I mean, it's an interesting West because it's not as not like the rugged Western frontier of Utah or Arizona or New Mexico or things like that. Like I grew up in like by the beach in Santa Monica. It's a different kind of West. But i nevertheless, I grew up in the West.
Speaker: I'm a child of the West and I am a displaced child of the West because I grew up in the West with no understanding of the history of how my life even came to be, you know?
Speaker: So in some ways, I think i'm i'm it's important for me to to create context for my existence.
Speaker: Like I was raised by the spirit of the West, even if i didn't even if it wasn't explicit, even if I didn't know it, we cannot escape history.
Speaker: We cannot escape the
Speaker: the dominoes that led us from there to here. We are products. We are contextualized by everything that came before us.
Speaker: We are shaped. We're influenced. We are molded by all of that. and And I think in this modern world, most of us have are completely disconnected.
Speaker: And I think that's part of the disease of our society. We are displaced. We are floating
Speaker: entities but note with very little connection to the past or to history or to place or to identity.
Speaker: but And I'm not saying all of us. I know there's a lot of people out there who do have an understanding and a grasp of history and tradition and culture and identity and all these things. But I think a lot of us, we're just binging stupid freaking Netflix shows, The Ultimatum or whatever, blind, whatever they call this stuff, love is blind, completely disconnected.
Speaker: just Just a more ah morphine drip of mindlessness.
Speaker: And so I think my my
Speaker: my my kind of intense fixation on on on Western history is rooted in something meaningful.
Speaker: And
Speaker: i think I'm particularly fascinated by a lot of different indigenous tribes and cultures that
Speaker: It's always jarring to see the clash of white European culture just oozing over this country like a virus.
Speaker: and And just swallowing, enveloping
Speaker: some incredibly dynamic, rich people wise beautiful cultures and and i don't i know this this stuff's all complicated and complex and i don't want to just give like a like a broad broad stroke generalization of like it's so complex but but ah in some and i can't even see if i was a scholar i'd be able to quote specific things and i wouldn't just be making these generalizations but in some cases the
Speaker: I don't even know how to put it. it's It's hard to articulate these things. I'm not a scholar.
Speaker: i guess I guess just the clear... the clear
Speaker: shallowness of so of some of the white European culture that I read about in in comparison with some of the richness of the indigenous culture that I read about. It's just shocking.
Speaker: It's just shocking. And it and's you can kind of see in the early days, you you know, ah the formation of this new world, you can sort of see how we got from there to here, just in terms of like the disregard for
Speaker: people, the the insatiable appetite for acquisition and extraction,
Speaker: ah the, I don't know, like the imperial force and bullying and dominance.
Speaker: Like that, that's, those those are the early seeds of everything that we are experiencing now.
Speaker: And so, and the and then the last thing I want to say,
Speaker: this i wonder if this episode is, how it's landing for my invisible followers out there.
Speaker: I know some of the stuff I'm saying is slightly controversial, and I'd be open to discussing in more depth and detail. Because like I said, I do not just want to make these generalizations and be like, oh, everything is good, or everything is bad, or... you know i don't want to be pigeonholed as a simple thinker.
Speaker: I think there's nuance in everything. But I think there are some very strong points that I have here that I would love to debate if if people... want to push back against some of my statements or stances.
Speaker: But I think that the last thing that I was trying to say is
Speaker: sometimes I think it can be very easy within the mainstream modern world to kind of think of history as something that is in the past or fixed.
Speaker: You know like reading quaint tales of the old West.
Speaker: Like that that that chapter has been settled. That we are somehow, we so we somehow have graduated from history. And now we get to like look back and think of it fondly or whatever it is.
Speaker: But I disagree. i think I think we are smack dab in the middle of an unfolding history. And that this stuff I'm reading about, the epic story of Kit Carson and the conquest of the American West, the end has yet to be written.
Speaker: You know, it's a 500-page book, and and I haven't got to the end. I'm halfway through. But I would imagine that there's a feeling at the end like, okay, like, this chapter of history is complete.
Speaker: But something tells me that that couldn't be further from the truth, that the same battles that were being fought then are still being fought now and still being decided now. Does that make sense, my friends?
Speaker: Like just because we have modern technology and these cute, nice little houses and televisions on every wall and every living room and all these modern civilities and drive around and are silent, I don't know spaceship Teslas or whatever.
Speaker: Just because we have those things does not mean
Speaker: that we've somehow like reached this euphoric frontier of like modernity. I don't i don't think so. i don't I don't think so personally.
Speaker: you can't erase our primalness and and are like our ancient connections and threads to everything that once was.
Speaker: Like you can you can put a modern veneer on the whole thing, but we are ancient species, ancient relatively speaking.
Speaker: And I think part of the sickness in modern day society, and and you see the sickness manifesting in so many different kinds of ways, which I won't even get into right here, is that we are completely disconnected from this sense of being ancient species.
Speaker: relatively speaking, ancient species, because in in the larger scope of
Speaker: the the history of the world, like, we're just a tiny little speck, but relatively speaking. Anyway,
Speaker: patriotic meanderings on July 4th.
Speaker: Let's go drink some beers and eat some hot dogs.
Speaker: Watch some fireworks glowing in the night sky. Land of the free, home of the brave. and And I'm not even trying to be disparaging or anything anything like that. like
Speaker: I'm not. I'm not. um I just think it's a complex. i think I think reality is a complex thing. And that's why I call my podcast Life's Effin' Nuts, man.
Speaker: Reality, history, identity, truth. Objectivity, subjectivity, it's all very confusing stuff. Maybe not confusing. It's all very complex, difficult difficult to grasp, difficult to land anywhere.
Speaker: So that's me.
Speaker: That's it. Life's effing nuts forever and always. Your friend, J.R.
