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Autism and Philosophy
667 Plays1 year ago
Why do Autistic people gravitate toward Philosophy? Why did Emily turn from Christianity to Buddhism? What is existentialism and how can it positively or negatively affect someone?
Emily Robyn Clark is a multi-award-winning screenwriter, filmmaker, poet, songwriter, and practicing Buddhist under the SGI organisation. Her film 'Love Spell' (which she wrote, produced, and directed) which won 12 awards and nominated 2 major film festivals.
My Links - https://linktr.ee/thomashenleyUK // Emily's Links - https://linktr.ee/emilyrobynclark
Dbud Noise Cancelling Adjustable Ear Buds (20% OFF with code: THOUGHTYAUTI) - https://dbud.io/thoughtyautipodcast
They start off speaking on the stereotype of autistic people being good at maths and computers, before diving into the controversial practice of type-casting Autistic people and women within the film industry.
Meditation isn't only a spiritual practice, but something backed up by science as being beneficial for mental health and wellness. Emily speaks on her own practices of Gongyo and how her meditative Buddist rituals helped improve her life.
Brought up in Tennessee (USA), in a highly conservative, Christian fundamentalist culture, full of homeschooling, homophobia, and church gatherings... Emily explains her negative experiences within the Religious groups she grew up in and when she first identified she was bisexual.
Thomas speaks on his very secular yet existentialist view on life, going into his history with Christianity and his attraction to Buddist tenants and Philosophies.
Since his youth, Thomas has always questioned the meaning of life and the experiences we have as humans... going through multiple existential crises before exploring Philosophy. Diving into his own perceptions and beliefs he entered a rabbit hole of Nihilistic despair, before realising the power and freedom it gave him for creating his own values and meaning through Positive Nihilism.
Emily and Thomas both arrived at similar conclusions about life and people, just from different angles. For Thomas it was purely theoretical and secular, for Emily it was spirituality and Buddhism.
Unconditional love for your 'enemies', healing familial relationships, Carl Jung archetypes, and the identity within passions were all explored in-depth.
Emily explains the ideas and utility behind Astrology and Tarot Cards for her own life, whilst the unconvinced host postures with position through the lens of science.
Ending on an interesting note, they look into the reasons why Autistic people may gravitate towards spirituality, Religion, and Philosophy... looking at pattern recognition or lateral thinking, influential philosophers, the need for certainty, rituals, and developing your own brand of approaching life.
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Experiences
00:00:06
Speaker
Good day, and welcome back to the 4080 podcast with your host, Mr. Thomas Only, of course. How are you guys doing today?
00:00:17
Speaker
Not gonna lie, past few weeks been pretty rough for me. I've been going through some kind of weird mix of an autistic burnout and a period of depression. So I think it's very fitting that today's topic we're going to be talking all about philosophy.
Emily's Creative and Personal Journey
00:00:34
Speaker
For anybody who doesn't know about my political, not political, philosophical affiliations, I'm very much towards the existentialism kind of
00:00:46
Speaker
side of things. So it's going to be a really interesting chat with our guest, Emily. And Emily, how are you doing today? I'm doing well. Thanks. Thanks for having me. You're very welcome. And it's lovely to have you on. Thank you. Would you like to introduce yourself to everybody? Tell us a little bit about yourself. Sure.
00:01:10
Speaker
I'm an artist, and let's see, I've been writing since I was a kid. So that was kind of my first foray into the realm of art. I'm a filmmaker, a poet, screenwriter, journalist, and a songwriter.
00:01:33
Speaker
Fingers in many pies, as we say in the UK. Yes. But yeah, I love being a creator and being creative and supporting other creatives. I also have a small writing business, so I coach writers. I work as a judge for a film festival sometimes or a script reader for film festivals.
00:01:58
Speaker
I also, yeah, just coach people one-on-one with their screenplays. I'm starting a screenwriters chapter of the Writers League of Utah, which will be available for others outside of Utah as well, since it will be online. But yeah, so my recent work is writing, directing, and co-producing a short film called Love Spell that played in 14 festivals around the world.
00:02:27
Speaker
and took home about 11 awards. So that was exciting. And since then I've been focused on like finishing up some of my screenplays and short story writing and publishing poetry and short stories and some journalism as well.
00:02:46
Speaker
So just a bit, you know, just a little bit of here and there kind of work. Just a little bit. Oh my God, that sounds like a lot. It is. And I'm also putting out two songs this summer. Wow.
00:03:05
Speaker
So I know that there is a really big autism stereotype about autistic people being very, very good with maths and computer sciences. And it's something that I've been thinking about a lot recently. And I've been doing a little bit of digging into the common interests that autistic people have. And it seems to be a lot of us gravitate more towards the creative kind of fields, whether it's
00:03:35
Speaker
fantasy, you know, writing, things like that. It's it's it's been quite eye opening, just how wrong the stereotypes have been. Yes. In fact, I attended a lecture because it was more of a conversation recently with some people from. I think Nokia Bell and Google
00:04:01
Speaker
some female people in the like film world, just talking about like changing stereotypes. And this was more specifically towards women in film, but in technology, women in technology or in STEM fields, STEM fields and how they're portrayed or not portrayed in film and television and how we can change those stereotypes and more accurately represent. Hmm.
Media Representation and Autistic Stereotypes
00:04:30
Speaker
women are in those fields. So I thought that was really cool. I had an interview in the first season of my podcast with this guy called Reggie. Reggie Harold, Reggie Harold, something like that. And he's an actor and he does like a lot of theatre related things. And
00:04:50
Speaker
He was talking to me about, I asked him obviously, have you done any autistic roles? Did they just hand them out on a silver platter to you because you're autistic? And he was talking about it and he's a very handsome chap and he's very kind of...
00:05:06
Speaker
you know very mainstream kind of stereotypical attractive man and a lot of the autistic characters that he would want to go for they actually don't fit like his physicality like they they have like this i think it's called like tight casting where they're looking for these kind of small geeky kind of people men usually to play autistic leads and that's really concerning because it's
00:05:36
Speaker
is not only that there is this stereotype that's around, but it's actually being propagated by a lot of the media, like the people who are casting people for these roles.
00:05:51
Speaker
Yes, I agree with you. And how can we change that? I think through having writers actively writing in characters who are not just stereotypes, but having writers on the spectrum, I think is really important for Hollywood to be open to that. And I think there is definitely more of a leaning or
00:06:21
Speaker
an awakening to that need. I'm not sure how many people in the industry are actively working on implementing that.
00:06:35
Speaker
I have, I have seen a little bit. I know that there's a actress called Chloe Hayden who I think it's, it's a bit like heartbreak high that she was, I didn't watch it. I'm going to be honest, but it's not really that my kind of thing, drama, things like that. Sure.
00:06:53
Speaker
I'm more of the cartoon kind of Rick and Morty type of person. I like depressing. I like to watch depressing things like Black Mirror. That's what really helps me relax in the evening. Oh, I love Black Mirror. That's the kind of stuff I like too. Have you watched the latest season? Yes. I watched a bit of it. I watched the first three episodes. What did you think?
00:07:23
Speaker
I mean, it's very different. The thing that I like about Black Mirror is that you don't really know exactly what you're going to get with each of the episodes. I think the one with the Asian girl that's kind of themed around a
00:07:45
Speaker
1940s, 50s kind of movie aesthetic, where she puts a bit of her blood on a talisman and she has to go about sacrificing people to prevent the apocalypse. Oh, I haven't seen that episode yet. That sounds really good. Okay, sorry. Yeah, I should really put a spoiler alert on things like this. Oh, no, you're fine. Don't worry about it.
00:08:13
Speaker
The episode where the girl finds out that her life is in it or is a TV show or whatever. Yeah. Well, I wrote something similar to that. You've had something similar to it.
00:08:27
Speaker
I wrote something I think in 2015 that was kind of similar to that, but yeah, it was kind of like she had a job as an influencer, this character and she gets like sacked one day. She just gets a letter in the mail basically saying that the corporation that she worked for
00:08:53
Speaker
doesn't need her anymore and everything is let her go, but she doesn't realize they have cameras in her apartment and they've been filming other elements of her life.
00:09:02
Speaker
that she does not want to reveal like what medication she takes. So like in the small print on a contract or something. Exactly. And then she finds out that they own her image, but she's poor and now she's like sitting outside the shopping mall and people walking by with shopping bags with her face on it. But of course she's not making any money. That's crazy.
00:09:27
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds good. Thank you. Maybe I'll make it. One thing that I'm wondering is, you know, you've obviously listed off quite a lot of things. You've told me that you
Neurodivergence and Personal Challenges
00:09:38
Speaker
do screenwriting for films, you do poetry, you do writing, you coach people. Like I felt like we're very similar in that way that we like to have lots of different things to do all the time. Lots of productivity related things.
00:09:55
Speaker
How do you schedule that? How do you make sure that you water each of the plants or spin the plates on each of them? That's a great question. Okay, so part of my challenge being neurodivergent is
00:10:15
Speaker
that I really have a hard time scheduling specific times for specific things. It could be anything from like, I don't know, if neurotypical people say, okay, I eat every day at one o'clock and then I go to the gym at five o'clock or whatever. I have a really hard time with setting timed events, you know? So I would say, you know, part of it is just keeping
00:10:46
Speaker
a calendar and like I have a physical calendar and I have reminders on my phone, but I also use my notes to keep track of my goals. And then I might just tackle one thing at a time or sometimes depending on how I feel that day, how much energy I have left for the day, you know, I'll say, okay, well, what else can I accomplish today? And you know, that's what I ended up doing for the day.
00:11:15
Speaker
It's really interesting. It's not like the typical idea of the autistic routine with things. For me, it's very much like that. Well, it kind of is because
00:11:31
Speaker
If I don't follow this set routine in my head each day and go for each of the different things, then I just find that my anxiety is just too difficult to manage.
00:11:47
Speaker
I have a lot of different things that I want to maintain and do and it seems like sometimes like when your energy is low and you have you know you start it and you have all this energy and you want to do all these things and then you commit to each of these things and then you have to
00:12:07
Speaker
when your energy lowers, you've got to maintain them. You've got to keep doing them. And I find that balance really, really hard to strike sometimes. Like, am I being too productive or too unproductive for how I like, you know?
00:12:23
Speaker
Interesting. Yes. I mean, I, I, I would say I do have my own routines, but they're not quite like that. You know, it's like, I'll have my coffee at a certain, it's not necessarily the certain time every day. It's not really time-based. It's just like, I do have, I have certain things worked into my routine or like meditation practice, but meditation's big, like,
00:12:49
Speaker
I, uh, my, my degree was in biomedical sciences.
Meditation, Buddhism, and Religious Upbringing
00:12:52
Speaker
And when I was doing that, I, uh, I did a lot of research into meditation. I was trying, I was trying very much at that period of my life to fix my brain, you know, with all the mental health difficulties that I have to deal with. I had been going through psychotherapy since I was 14, uh, to no result really. And so I kind of.
00:13:18
Speaker
I was looking for ways to sort of improve myself and one of the ways that I wanted to do that was meditation. And it actually does have physical changes on your brain. I think they did a research study on monks and compared their brains to the brains of people who don't meditate as much. They meditate like two or three hours a day or something.
00:13:42
Speaker
And they showed growth in certain areas of the brain just from doing meditation over and over each day for years. I think it was to do with the prefrontal cortex maybe, maybe reduction of the amygdala, which is the prefrontal cortex is what we
00:14:03
Speaker
considered to be the center of our higher intelligence and brain, our decision-making. Whereas the amygdala is this monkey-mind emotional brain that just keeps us safe and makes us feel the anxiety and the fear and things like that, which is important for survival.
00:14:28
Speaker
but it's not so good in our modern time. So meditation, it's definitely proven to be effective for a lot of people. That's awesome. I can agree with that and attest to that. What's your schedule like?
00:14:48
Speaker
Well, I do a specific, it's not necessarily, I mean, I do meditations as well using an app that I really like called MoonX, but also I do gongyo every day, which is part of my Buddhist practice with SGI. I'm not familiar with those terms. Okay.
00:15:17
Speaker
SGI is an organization that began in Japan under Nishiren. Let's see if I can give you a little background on it. It's based on the teachings of the 13th century Japanese monk Nishiren.
00:15:38
Speaker
It's distinctive for its focus on the Lotus Sutra as the ultimate Buddhist scripture. Our central practice is chanting the mantra Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, which loosely translates to, I devote myself to the Lotus Sutra, or I devote myself to the mystic law of cause and effect, basically through sound or through vibration. And by chanting the mantra,
00:16:07
Speaker
We believe that we can tap into our inherent Buddha nature in our own lives and discover our highest potential. I'm just having a look at the website. It says that the word gongnya literally means to exert one's selves in practice.
00:16:27
Speaker
One Gongyo is a short ceremony which enables us to celebrate her inherent buddahood. I love that word. And offer prayers of gratitude and determination for whatever is relevant to us at any particular time. Yes. So can you read Japanese or do you have like a...? Yeah, so I have
00:16:51
Speaker
my book and it is in Japanese, but it also has the English translation in the beginning. So we actually chant in Japanese every day from two chapters of the Lotus Sutra, the second and the 16th chapters. Yeah. Thank you.
00:17:13
Speaker
Yeah. So we do, um, Gong Yo, but I also just chant Nam Yoo Ho Rang Gae Kyo if I feel I need to during the day. And that's had a profound impact on my life. I feel more peaceful and more grounded when I do my chanting. And it usually just takes about five to 10 minutes a day. So it's not a huge time commitment, but the effects that it has on my life, I felt substantially.
00:17:43
Speaker
Awesome. Well, I suppose that leads us into kind of like the topic of the podcast. A little bit of a background for me, obviously, we're going to be talking about like philosophy. That's going to include things like religion, but it's also going to include things like, what would you say? What's the word for non-religis? It could be about humanism, maybe.
00:18:09
Speaker
There is like a word for it, isn't there? Word for not being religious. Secular. There you go.
00:18:22
Speaker
If I just give it a little bit of a background for my experience with religion, my parents, or my mum, describes herself as Christian, kind of more towards the agnostic side of things, whereas my dad is a die-hard atheist.
00:18:43
Speaker
I've been to church a few times in my life. I had a Catholic friend who I went to the church with them once. They told me that anyone who didn't believe in God was going to go to hell and that they were inherently an evil person. And so I told my dad after swimming practice one time that I'd been to this church and they told me that he's evil. And he wasn't very happy about that.
00:19:13
Speaker
he explained to me about what religion is and how just because someone tells you that something is a certain way, it doesn't always mean it, and everyone has their own different beliefs, ways of interpreting the world, his being the more atheistic kind.
00:19:37
Speaker
I did have quite a big interest in Buddhism when I was younger. I think it's more about the teachings of it.
00:19:47
Speaker
non-attachment like not being as attached to things in your life and so not experiencing the pain when something bad happens with it or you don't have that thing in your life anymore. That was kind of one of the things that I saw and it was also you know I kind of
00:20:10
Speaker
I suppose I very much like the aesthetic of it and like the focus around peace and serenity and kind of meditation and things like that. I did a bit of research into it. I did a philosophy, an FX course at my school, learned a bit more about kind of the roots of Buddhism. But I think mostly for a lot of my life, I've been fairly
00:20:39
Speaker
secular things. I don't believe that there is an afterlife. I don't believe that there is a supernatural being. I firmly
00:20:55
Speaker
root myself in what I know and what I don't know and what I don't know I don't think about. So that's me. I would really like to know obviously from your side because I remember you saying that you grew up in quite a religious kind of conservative environment, which my upbringing was not so much like that. So I guess like
00:21:19
Speaker
What role did religion play in your life then? And what kind of strayed you away from those those teachings that you had when you were younger? Yeah, that's a great question. And I definitely admire you for not having a
00:21:42
Speaker
religious doctrine too, because I think, well, we'll get into this in a second, but I have very strong views, I guess, because of my upbringing about religion and kind of its role in people's lives and things like that.
Religious Community and Gender Roles
00:22:01
Speaker
I grew up in a small conservative Christian community in the Bible Belt. I was raised in Tennessee on the border of Virginia, and Christianity was my entire life. I was also homeschooled.
00:22:17
Speaker
So even our small homeschool classes with a few other children were with kids from church. We met inside of a church building for most of our classes, and therefore most of my social interactions were with people from either my church or other churches in our homeschool network. It was a large network, a large community.
00:22:44
Speaker
And I would just say, yeah, religion was just deeply woven into our lives. It did provide a moral compass, a community of shared values and beliefs. But personally, as I matured and began to grow and expand and move out of that community,
00:23:06
Speaker
I really started to question and explore. I felt that I needed to find a path that resonated more deeply with me as a creative person, as a woman, as I identify as bisexual, so as a bisexual woman. And definitely as a… Does it tend to be things that Christianity is very hopeful?
00:23:32
Speaker
Exactly. And most, you know, all of the leaders that I knew were male. So there's that element of not feeling ever that my voice was heard or wanted growing up in that, in that realm. Yeah. Just kind of, kind of forced, well not forced, but expected to kind of set the side and
00:24:00
Speaker
you know, listen rather than contribute. Exactly. And, you know, I was shy growing up and so I would just kind of escape into my own head or my own world a lot of times using my imagination. I felt like, you know, maybe sometimes I would go to a different place, which was a lot more comfortable than being there in church every Sunday.
00:24:29
Speaker
And then, yeah, you know, I mean, the other women in the community were usually in the kitchen like cooking. When we would have like church potlucks, they would be cooking in the kitchen and then the men would be out like discussing philosophy or whatever they did. But I just remember wanting to be around the men, not having any desire to be in the kitchen. Yeah.
00:24:57
Speaker
So like you were saying that you identify as bisexual, like when did you kind of get those feelings that you might sort of be attracted to other women? And like, because I imagine, you know, being in that kind of community where you're homeschooled and you kind of fed a lot of these doctrines and ideas about how you should conduct yourself in the world, that
00:25:27
Speaker
it might be a little bit hard to kind of accept those feelings but like what age did you kind of think about that or when did you kind of notice that you that you had that kind of attraction to women?
00:25:45
Speaker
I think it was about 10 or 11 when I first felt like a physical attraction to women. It wasn't until high school that I experimented and then college I had like a girlfriend and stuff. So yeah, but it definitely, it took years of, especially, I remember one of my best friends growing up said,
00:26:13
Speaker
Yeah, anyone who has sexual attraction to the same sex had some kind of deep trauma in their past. And so when I heard that, I thought I was like, oh, so that's the explanation for my feelings. You know, it just, I don't know. So they didn't go with the like,
00:26:37
Speaker
homosexuality or anything about that is evil and you're going to go to hell or all that. They actually said it's caused by trauma.
00:26:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's what I heard. But then also there wasn't really any discussion on homosexuality. So it wasn't like something that my family ever brought up. And there were certain things that were never discussed. And then later on I found my parents had these books about, you know, homosexuals are going to hell. And I do remember
00:27:10
Speaker
That was something that my mom did tell me. Oh yeah, she said, you know, homosexuals are going straight to hell and
00:27:18
Speaker
Anyway, she said something else about the chain IHOP being bought out by two gay men. And anyway, that was like the only reference to anyone who might be LGBT when I was growing up. And then I saw someone who I thought might be gay in the mall once when I was like 10. And I thought, I wonder how he feels.
00:27:47
Speaker
living in this community, but yeah. Yeah. Like, is Tennessee like a, cause I'm not very, well, I'm not very good with UK geography. I'm not, I'm not good with American geography, like, and understanding which states are what kind of political affiliation, but I mean, is it, is it, is Tennessee like a really conservative state?
00:28:13
Speaker
Yes. Extremely. They wanted to ban drag and things like that recently. It's really unfortunate.
00:28:28
Speaker
Hopefully, you know, I mean, things are, well, I don't want to get too much into the politics of it now because it's pretty depressing, but I would say it's similar to maybe a state like Florida where we have really atrocious people and policies right now. Yes. I think I know what you're talking about. That's also been quite concerning for me.
00:28:54
Speaker
So, obviously, you know, religion was kind of a centerpiece in your life, whether you liked it or not. I mean, what things made you stray away from it? Like, was there like a moment or certain things or people in your life that have
00:29:11
Speaker
kind of influenced one of our own. So I would like to say influenced. I think that kind of holds some like negative connotation, but I mean, influenced in a nice way, like opened your minds, maybe.
00:29:25
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, my faith began to waver when I started meeting people of different religious backgrounds. And as I learned, and this was mainly in college, I was also, I went to a Christian college for my freshman year and I was actually bullied by some of the students and I felt kind of like an outcast. What was that?
00:29:53
Speaker
I'm sorry to hear that. It's, it's, um, bullying and it's, it's very, it's very damaging, isn't it? Like it's, it's difficult in the moment, but it also, I think it really does hold a lot of like psychological significance, like going into adulthood and stuff. Like I know there's still experiences that I, my brain kind of travels back to in negative moments and in my adult life where I'm like, you know, really kind of.
00:30:24
Speaker
affects me. I think a lot of my mental health came from bullying as well. I'm sorry to hear that. And yeah, I mean, that experience really did change my view. I already had kind of a negative view of Christianity from my upbringing, but then on top of it going to, you know, quote unquote Christian school where basically
00:30:52
Speaker
They were just very snobbish and, um, I mean, obviously not all of the students, there were some good students there too, but in general, I would say, I can't go and say hello. Do you want to pause it for a second? No, no, no, it's fine. Don't worry about it. Yeah. Get down, please.
00:31:19
Speaker
She's, she wants attention. Fair enough. Yeah, but just in general, there was kind of a exclusionary policy towards, you know, the popular kids or those who went to that school and you know, an attitude of
00:31:40
Speaker
we're better than like the public school kids or something. And that was something that I grew up with as well, being homeschooled that I remember kids on the playground outside.
00:31:52
Speaker
And I remember specifically one of the deacon, or I think it was the elder's son, was taunting the kids next door who lived in the house next to the church who wanted to come over and play on the playground. And he said, you're not Christian, you can't come over and you're poor and stuff like that. You know, it was just terrible. So
00:32:15
Speaker
That's the kind of attitude holier than thou that I really can't stand. I think it's just a human behavior. I don't necessarily ascribe it to Christianity or any particular religion, but I think it's definitely
00:32:36
Speaker
it can be a result of religions that claim, you know, our way is the only way.
Existentialism and Personal Philosophy
00:32:42
Speaker
And so that was, that, that was specific like communities and yeah. And believing in Jesus is the only way to, to heaven or to peace that, you know, that, that specific view is actually what began to crumble my Christian faith. So,
00:33:04
Speaker
Here's the question, as I learned more about the diversity of different human cultures around the world, different religious practices, different belief systems, I began to question if God is love, how could he condemn all these people who don't believe the exact same rigid thing I was brought up to believe?
00:33:23
Speaker
These people didn't grow up in my tiny community in a reformed Protestant household attending a reformed Presbyterian church. Why are they wrong? So that question nagged at me for years and the construct of Christianity's so-called superiority began to crumble for me as well during my college years as I studied different philosophies. I learned more about the world.
00:33:50
Speaker
and, you know, outside of my own bubble, basically, and it was illuminating. In college, I also read Jacques Lule's work on universal salvation, which deeply resonated with me. And he basically says, you know, if God is all loving, and there is nothing that exists outside of God, then basically like hell doesn't exist. And this
00:34:17
Speaker
you know, if God says, like, I love everyone and, you know, we are saved through grace, then the grace covers everything. And it doesn't matter what sin you've done. And so his concept... There's a lot of like things, contradictions and stuff with Christianity. I mean, just going back to my experience in philosophy and ethics, you know,
00:34:44
Speaker
that whole thing about god being all powerful so you can they can do anything all seeing they're aware of everything that goes on all the time and they're like it's like omni-potent, omniscient it's the omnibenevolent i think it's all good all powerful all seeing did i think that that was the point at which i was like
00:35:14
Speaker
You know, two of those can only exist because if it's all powerful and all seeing, it can't be all benevolent because there's a lot of horrible things that happen all the time. And if they're all seeing and all benevolent, they can't be very powerful. If they're all powerful and benevolent, they can't see everything. So it's like,
00:35:38
Speaker
This is stuff like that, I think. It's really kind of cemented atheism deep in my brain. Just coming across stuff like that. Oh, I can understand. I do understand. Yeah, the whole thing about getting forgiveness. Just have a horrible life. Do horrible things. Be evil. Do all that. And then right before you die, just be forgiven and go to heaven.
00:36:09
Speaker
I'm going on a bit of a roll with my atheism. I get very passionate about it. It's okay. I watch too much Richard Dawkins sometimes, I think.
00:36:19
Speaker
That's okay. And I think that's why I really like Buddhism because I also believe myself to be more of an existentialist in my own philosophical understandings and personal ethos. What does existentialism mean just for anybody who doesn't know?
00:36:45
Speaker
Well, personally, I think it's about personal responsibility for one's existential choices or life choices and claiming personal responsibility that, you know, it's not God that's responsible or the universe or my parents or my environment. But ultimately, I am the one who is responsible for what happens in my life for the choices that I personally make.
00:37:12
Speaker
It's very scary, but it's also quite empowering, I think. Very freeing. Yes, yes, extremely freeing. Soren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Frederick Nietzsche, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Lule, Hannah Arendt, Eric Fromm, so I'm listing all these, but these are some of my favorite philosophers. And while they have different focuses and different views,
00:37:42
Speaker
on the nature of humanity or the nature of God or human responsibility. I think they do have some similarities like Kierkegaard stresses personal responsibility for your life choices. SART highlights humans are responsible for their actions as they are, quote unquote, condemned to be free, which is kind of an interesting idea.
00:38:08
Speaker
Same with Nietzsche, emphasizing the individual's role in shaping our own destiny. Camus advocates personal responsibility, but I think in the face of the absurdity of existence. So there are definitely similarities between them. Yeah. Well,
00:38:35
Speaker
The existentialism is just, I just googled what existentialism means and there's a nice little snippet of information that I'll probably read out. Extentialism is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the issue of human existence. Extentialist philosophers explore the questions related to meaning purpose and value of human existence.
00:39:03
Speaker
which I think is a very, very important thing. I did, my ears picked up when you talked about Nietzsche, because I think, for me, I've always had a vested interest in philosophy and ethics, really. But it's, I've never been particularly studious about it.
00:39:31
Speaker
I think a lot of it for me, when I went through my sort of four or five year long period of time where I was kind of writing about my own personal experiences, thoughts and feelings behind things, I actually kind of came very close to the way that Nietzsche went with the whole concept of nihilism and things like that.
00:40:01
Speaker
Like I've had a lot of the experiences in my life where I've had pretty horrific existential crises where I could no longer assign any meaning to anything in my life. I think there was a long period of time for like a month and a half where I didn't do anything and I just kind of didn't see any point in anything. And I've had periods of time like that as well. And even situations where
00:40:31
Speaker
I kind of experience something and it's almost like my eyes kind of
00:40:41
Speaker
zoom out. It's the opposite of tunnel vision. I remember again about what that feeling was like. Obviously, things like depression and negative life experiences obviously lead you to seek some kind of clarity and certainty about the world. For me, that was definitely the case.
00:41:11
Speaker
I don't know if there's a specific name for this kind of thinking, but I kind of went through this weird stage where I was trying to figure out what I could be certain on. And so I'd start with something big. I was like,
00:41:36
Speaker
Right. I want to be to be good at Taekwondo or something because that's meaningful to me. And they kind of go down and you know, what underpins that, what underpins that, what underpins that. And it eventually just kind of got to a situation where
00:41:54
Speaker
I was contrasting all of these thoughts and experiences that I was having with my knowledge of psychology, with my knowledge of biology, and the fact that I am a secular person.
00:42:10
Speaker
And I was kind of, I kind of came to the conclusion that there wasn't really anything that I could know for certain about anything. If, if I actually thought about it in the level of detail that I did, you know, like just, just, just the physical act of thinking, you know, you're, you're using a biological physical organ to think like.
00:42:33
Speaker
there's obviously going to be particular biases from my experience in biology that prevent me from thinking outside of that. So there's always these barriers.
00:42:48
Speaker
in my mind, even though I've done all this thinking and I've come up with my own meaning and philosophy and stuff, I'm still just a human with a physical brain and there's so many things that
00:43:03
Speaker
I am unaware of that go on in my life and go on like in the world you know you have that that scientific study about your brain filling in gaps in the world and you just kind of seeing this like most you get kind of hallucinating reality to a certain extent because your brain is filling in so many of those gaps and so
00:43:31
Speaker
So there's a lot of that and it's kind of this mishmash of philosophy and science and just constant writing and introspection. And I got to a point where I became very nihilistic, basically, and for a long time.
00:43:46
Speaker
Even when I was quite young, I had these existential crises. Like, I remember when I injured my hand, I kind of looked at my hand and I was, you know, really confused at why there was something stuck inside my body and trying to figure out what that meant. You know, I was a very weird kid, but, um, yeah, that kind of nihilism very much. I got to a point where I was like,
00:44:17
Speaker
you know, this is doing more to be destructive to me. And although it feels somewhat freeing, and you kind of feel somewhat superior, because you kind of don't feel like there's any meaning in anything. And so whenever people ascribe meaning to things and get upset about things, you're like, you know, jokes on you, nothing has any meaning. And I got to a point, I was like, Tom, like,
00:44:45
Speaker
This is probably not going to be good for your mental health. And so I decided at one point, at a time in Thailand, I was like,
00:44:56
Speaker
You know, I'm going to brainwash myself into thinking there is meaning. I crafted like a few, like a core value, which was to be a positive influence on people in the world and also trying to help people avoid pain. And that was kind of the thing that I sort of grew off, I guess.
00:45:24
Speaker
It's kind of wonderful. I mean, it's definitely being good for me because it means that I'm not so focused on trying to fix myself and how I feel just to a certain extent. It's more kind of like an external meaning. Well, maybe that's what faith is, is just ascribing meaning to something. Having faith is believing even though we don't see anything or there's contradictions. Sure, sure.
00:45:55
Speaker
Even if realized I just rambled, but I have, I have just like, um, like monologued about my, my entire philosophy. I don't think there's anything else that I could really, really talk about in terms of, um, I've kind of just, just unloaded everything.
00:46:11
Speaker
So I guess it would probably be good to talk about the role of Buddhism, the role of spirituality in your life.
Buddhism and Healing Relationships
00:46:22
Speaker
So when did you find the concept of Buddhism and spirituality and what changes occurred in your life when you found it?
00:46:31
Speaker
Yeah, so I first discovered or was introduced to Buddhism through an Italian friend I met in Santa Barbara. We were working together on a political campaign and she introduced me to the chant of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. That was I think in 2015.
00:46:52
Speaker
So even though I attended a few meetings in Santa Barbara and I had started to practice chanting, it wasn't until 2018 that I fully immersed myself in the practice by becoming a member of SGI in Salt Lake City and receiving my gohansan, which is behind me. What does it go?
00:47:16
Speaker
Is that the black thing? Or is that the altar? Very nice, very nice. Thank you. And it has a scroll inside, which is inscribed with a lot of sutra and names of
00:47:33
Speaker
I hope I really don't butcher this bodhisattvas and other people who are influential in this Buddhism. So yeah, it's a powerful thing. It's like we describe it as a mirror or Daisaku Ikeda describes it as
00:48:03
Speaker
a mirror, like the mirror doesn't brush your hair for you, right? It doesn't do anything like that. But it does. It's a reflection. It uses light to reflect truth from your inner life. And so every morning we say we polish our mirror with the chanting in front of the Gohansen, which is what I do. And it's
00:48:27
Speaker
And another important teaching is that basically it's not outside of me, it's inside of me. So the power is inside of me. I'm not praying to some God or deity and saying, please help make my life better. As I say my chance and my prayers, I'm calling within the power from within inside of me, my own Buddhahood. And so that's why for me, it's very personally empowering.
00:48:57
Speaker
And...
00:48:59
Speaker
Yeah, so anyway, outside of that, just in terms of kind of the trajectory of my practice, I would say, yeah, I received the Gohan's on International Women's Day in 2018. And shortly thereafter, I think it was like the next day or the day after we started filming my movie. And I will say it felt like
00:49:28
Speaker
the universal good was on my side. I had this immense sense of peace, a feeling of groundedness, and the filming went extremely well.
00:49:43
Speaker
And I felt in many ways that it was because of my practice and because of taking this leap of faith and joining. Personally, I've never been a person to like to join clubs or groups. I think it's important for me to mention that also because I never want to offend anyone by saying, you know, I'm not going to sign up for this group or whatever. It's just because... You're an individualist.
00:50:11
Speaker
Yeah, and in social situations, I have a hard time with. So it's just always a challenge, whether it's church or another, just any kind of group organization. So it was a big challenge for me. And I had to let go of a lot of my own fears to join the organization and become part of the organization. But it definitely made a huge difference in my life.
00:50:40
Speaker
It empowered me to make my film, creating a positive experience for everyone on set. And one of the most significant transformations of my life as becoming a Buddhist was the healing of my relationship with my father, which had been severely strained since my parents' divorce in 2003. So, you know, over the course of about 15 years of my life, our interactions
00:51:08
Speaker
often in arguments and hurt feelings. But I would say that the teachings that I obtained from my Buddhist practice helped me develop compassion for my father. And I started to see him not just as my parent, but as a human being with infinite potential who had known great suffering in his own life. That's a really
00:51:36
Speaker
really sort of, I think that's also kind of a point in which I came to when I was going through that period of time. I went in Thailand. I did, like you, I kind of got to a point where I was like, okay, so my dad's my dad. I've always seen them as this kind of all-powerful kind of authority kind of
00:52:04
Speaker
you know, super, super human individual, like not, not like the other people that I see in my life. And so I did, I did kind of get to a point like, like yourself, I was like, Oh, this is, you know, they're actually a human being, like, like anybody else, but that like, I may know them and they may have a bit more of this kind of, uh, parental bond with me and want to support me in ways that perhaps other people
00:52:33
Speaker
went to, but I really started to think about the way that I interacted with them and whether I was sort of affirming them, whether I was supporting them in certain ways. I don't know if that came from my diving into my own brain about life, but
00:52:54
Speaker
It definitely did happen at one point. I thought very hard about it. I think it was around the passing of my granddad. He died of lung cancer while I was away. Sorry to hear that. No, he's a lovely man. He's absolutely beautiful of me. He used to
00:53:18
Speaker
He used to come over and I used to bring a pile of books and sit on his lap and go through this massive stack of books with him. And he'd just sit there and read them with me. And whenever I was going to a competition, whenever I got an award, I would always come to see him and he'd have like
00:53:38
Speaker
a tear in his eye and he looked really really like happy for me and he was supported me monetarily which is something that sort of my dad's side granddad parents didn't do so he was a very influential man on my life and to me he kind of i think he cemented a lot of the my ideas and my desire to to help people into my head you know he
00:54:08
Speaker
I was calling with him and my mom and you know he was kind of being gradually increasing the dose of morphine that he was on but he managed to kind of you know he told me to stay in Thailand and he told me to help people and he told me to learn and so that was kind of
00:54:31
Speaker
That was kind of that for me, and I was kind of already feeling like that would be something meaningful for me and something that I wanted to grow on. And so, yeah, that happened.
00:54:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's, it's, it's strange, isn't it? When that, that kind of, that switch gets flicked and you're like, Oh, my parents are people. Yes, it is. It's, it's very strange, but I read a quote once that said, you know, one thing that we can aspire to as children is to one day, hopefully be friends with our parents, be friends with our siblings. Me too. So that was, I think the,
00:55:15
Speaker
What happened with my father is that he was very religious and we would often get in arguments over things. So I was able to focus on
00:55:30
Speaker
other areas that we could get along on or have conversations about. And that was art. So part of our reconciliation was encouraging my father to return to his art. He was hesitant to do it at first. When I came to visit him at his house, he showed me all these art supplies he bought.
00:55:58
Speaker
he was hoping we would paint together or I was hoping we would paint together. But then when the moment came when I had gotten all the paints out and I got our canvases ready, I said, dad, let's go paint. He said, no, you paint. And he sat down and just started watching TV and it was
00:56:14
Speaker
so depressing and it was so sad and I could just sense that something else was going on under the surface. And I discovered later on, I think it was just another day I went to visit him. He started crying and he said, Emily,
00:56:32
Speaker
He told me about this traumatic experience he had. He went to art school. He got his degree in art and he had this beautiful easel and all of these wonderful paint supplies and canvases and all of his artwork and he asked to leave it, I think, at his parents' house in the garage or the shed or something.
00:56:55
Speaker
Someone in his family I think had donated or given all of the art supplies to like the Goodwill or given them away and he was completely devastated. And I think that was a main reason why he didn't pursue art for a while. But after talking about it,
00:57:17
Speaker
like I helped him sign up for art classes at the local community college. So he started taking art classes again. He got really into it and his wife was really supportive. And so they started doing art together. Like they would go on vacation and they would paint together. And he, you know, when I'd come visit after that, he would be like, look, look at what, you know, paintings we've done together. I've revitalized the, uh, the passion. It can be very difficult when
00:57:46
Speaker
I think it's probably an experience that a lot of autistic people have just in general about having these passions squashed by people in your life. People ascribe a lot to what you do and what you're interested in sometimes. It can be quite heartbreaking when
00:58:08
Speaker
you know, it's something that you do a lot and it's kind of like this central part to your, well, a part of your identity that you do this kind of thing. And it's kind of disapproved of. Yes. And I always got annoyed when people would say, Oh, you're a hobby, you know, or something like that. I'm like, no, you know what? I'm a writer. And that's, you know, even if I don't make a lot of money writing, it's part of who I am. And it's,
00:58:36
Speaker
you know, it's a central part of my life, you know, more than some random job or something. But I do agree with you on that. There's a book that I recommend that you get or any listener here, check out by Julie Cameron, The Artist's Way is a really great book. It's a workshop and can help
00:59:00
Speaker
kind of work through some of those blocks. And the book actually kind of came to me. It was gifted to me twice. And the first time I gave it away, I didn't read it. And then the second time a actress in LA that I know gifted it to me again for the second time. And I was like, you know what? I think this is some kind of a sign I should read this book. And so I did. And since then I've gifted it to other people and
00:59:29
Speaker
Hopefully they do read it. They did. Not going to follow. Yeah, they did. Okay, good. Absolutely. So, but yeah, no, I agree. And I, you know, back to like being creative and encouraging each other. I think this is why the Buddhist philosophy works so well for me personally, and hopefully for other people out there as well, or who might be interested in it, is it's
00:59:54
Speaker
about personal empowerment and also every day when I chant, I'm chanting for other people's happiness as well. So even if it's my ex or family members that I'm currently not getting along with, I, you know, chanting for their ultimate happiness and my own. That's another thing, isn't it? It's like, I think that that's,
01:00:24
Speaker
It's weird like the conclusions or like the thoughts that we've come to with like different ways, like different methods or ways through philosophy because that's also something that
01:00:42
Speaker
kind of sprung on me at one point i was you know as i was saying before about like understanding my brain and thinking about all the limitations of it and stuff and the fact that i am quite secular i don't believe that there's like a spirit i don't believe that there is some kind of soul or anything i do just believe that we are kind of biological matter and
01:01:10
Speaker
you know i have having that belief i think although it can sound quite depressing to some people
01:01:20
Speaker
It really made me understand just like people in general and be more kind of compassionate towards people because, you know, if I'm believing that, you know, what makes me up is my biology, my genetics and my experiences and my environment, then how can I really be upset with people like who, like about anything really, like inside, like,
01:01:51
Speaker
You know, it's not like I go about the world and I'm just accepting of everyone doing horrible things and things like
Humanity, Compassion, and Spirituality
01:01:56
Speaker
that. But I do have this general sense of, you know, understanding like the human condition or the human nature from my angle, which helps me.
01:02:11
Speaker
I think with that idea of forgiving and also wanting positive things for people, just in my core, it's not necessarily always at the surface, but it's something that I return to when I'm feeling particularly upset or angry or discontented with people in general.
01:02:38
Speaker
And that, that's been really transformative for me because it has allowed me to kind of be like, right. I get it. This is, you know, how things go and you know, that that's their life and their biology. Right. And so I, so I have a bit more kind of compassion for, for, for people despite what they're like with me and what they do, I guess. That's great.
01:03:05
Speaker
And, you know, I think there is more of a connection between our views than one might think in the sense of, you know, maybe even spirituality is just science we haven't figured out yet. Possibly. I'm definitely open to that. I am much more, you know, I do believe in a soul and spirit and universal energy and everything, but a lot of it
01:03:31
Speaker
intersects with physics and with theories, you know, scientific discoveries that we are learning about the nature of the universe. And I mean, you talk about biology, but even biology is extremely complex and, you know, matter is extremely complex. So I think, you know, what you're saying is absolutely vital and important and even
01:03:59
Speaker
even if one only accepts, I don't know, say like the correct word for it, but more of a atheistic view of things. I still, in my opinion, believe that atheism is highly spiritual in the sense that humanity is incredible or being human or being of the world is
01:04:26
Speaker
something remarkable and mysterious.
01:04:31
Speaker
I took the like the big five personality test thing. It's like one of the, the only kind of, it's, I use it in a lot of psychological studies and things like that to understand people in the world and the best kind of putting personality into boxes. Not always the most like tasteful for a lot of people to use, but I'm very high in trait openness. And I think my kind of stance on
01:05:01
Speaker
things like that is that I'm not actively wanting to disprove things in that way. Perhaps things around very kind of, you know, particularly kind of religious doctrines and things like that. But in terms of, you know, spirituality and stuff, I'm very open to talking about it. It's just kind of the way that I
01:05:31
Speaker
process and understand that stuff is is more you know it's it's it's fun for me like it's like a bit like theories and oh that doesn't sound offensive no not offensive at all no it's like
01:05:46
Speaker
I like to talk about it. I like to hear about people's ways of thinking or feeling about the world. And I'm also very, very highly aware that the nature of science is to be disproved.
01:06:05
Speaker
I'm aware of the limitations of the technology and our brains, and when it comes to basing what I do, like on a daily basis, I tend to go towards things that I have more of an air of certainty around, just in the way that I navigate and move through the world and interact with the world.
01:06:31
Speaker
But I've looked into stuff and, you know, the idea of consciousness is very under-researched. It's very difficult to really understand what consciousness is for a scientific lens because, you know, you can only really go by what the definition is. And even so, like,
01:06:55
Speaker
is how does one generate consciousness? Is it something that the brain has? Is it a spirituality thing? Is it like a soul thing? Is it that there is just one kind of consciousness to the whole universe and everyone just kind of tunes in from their own different perspectives? I very much like thinking about
01:07:20
Speaker
Like, you know, what can that be? And, you know, it's it's very much something that I explore myself. It's just I think when it comes to like enacting myself in the world, it's just that I don't I don't consider that stuff, I guess. That's OK. One thing that I find to be interesting. There's this writer named Rachel Pollack.
01:07:50
Speaker
She has a book, so you were talking about like the big five personality tests and things like that. I use astrology for a similar kind of effect, getting to know people, things like that. But anyway, this particular book is about Tarot and she talks about, it's very interesting, there's a chapter where she refers to
01:08:18
Speaker
specific work or specific studies that Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli decided to look at in the 1930s. And I think it was a study of meaningful coincidence or what young terms of synchronicity. What was that?
01:08:43
Speaker
I've heard about synchronicity. There's some animes or some films that I've watched that kind of center around the idea of synchronicity and stuff. I think there's actually this really non-spiritual anime about crazy martial artists. I think it's called Baki. Oh, OK. Cool.
01:09:07
Speaker
And it's a very gruesome, physical, fighty kind of anime thing. But they talked about some criticism that bit and it was kind of like, go on, go on. I don't want to stray off into that stuff. Well, she basically says that, you know, we look at modern science
01:09:33
Speaker
which is driven by empirical and observable causality, right?
01:09:39
Speaker
And we often say like, oh, it's an opposition to something like tarot or esoteric systems based on interpretations like intuition, archetype, synchronicity, things like that. But she's saying, well, actually, maybe there's some connection between the two that we aren't readily familiar with or seeing. So she addresses in this book the disjunction between
01:10:09
Speaker
basically like common sense dictated by science and then more of an intuitive understanding that we can receive from practices like doing tarot readings or looking at your birth chart through astrology and understanding
01:10:27
Speaker
the stars. And I guess her position is that both realms of thought can exist in harmony or can kind of coexist together. Oh, definitely. It's not like that they...
01:10:47
Speaker
Because it's about like, when we look at like randomness, right? There's something that there's this quote she has where she says like, outside. I'm trying to think of like the actual quote, but I think it's something along these lines. It doesn't matter if you're doing tea leaves or if you're I Ching, if you're throwing dice or if you're doing random tarot cards, whatever it is, you are
01:11:16
Speaker
cutting through human logic to get to a universal logic. And whether you call that God or your higher self or something beyond us, it's reaching into some other higher source and getting answers from it. And so at least that's kind of my personal philosophy on things is that sometimes our own minds can
01:11:41
Speaker
deceive us or can just keep us in a limited loop, so to speak, and that there is some higher consciousness outside of that that we can tap into.
01:11:52
Speaker
Sure. I mean, I think with with things like tarot and astrology, it's you know, I've I'm aware of it. Like I've had tarot readings before. I've watched a lot of stuff on astrology and tarot readings and things of that nature. I think it's definitely not something that that I believe in, like
01:12:23
Speaker
I relate to the ideas of greater spirituality and consciousness and that we can't always understand things through, I guess, a scientific lens. I think in terms of the utility of it for life, you know,
01:12:48
Speaker
you know, to some degree sciences or other scientific method is about ruling out randomness with things and trying to understand things on like a broad scale. And it's, you know, from reading and watching stuff and hearing people kind of debate stuff like astrology and
01:13:14
Speaker
and tarot. It doesn't really feel to me like there's any compelling evidence to show that it has any application for life. I hope I'm not like overstepping my boundaries or anything, your boundaries or anything, but it's not something that I feel or think is
01:13:41
Speaker
like applicable to life, I guess. Well, let me ask you this, just like counteracts. So if, if there are so-called masculine or feminine energies in the universe, and I'm not talking about like gender here necessarily, but just passive. The ideas of masculine and feminine energy, like the chaos and the order. Chaos and order, yin and yang, you know, I very much believe in that and
01:14:11
Speaker
So how I would describe what you just said is like, then that the scientific method would be the masculine side of things, right? And then the chaos is like where the creative comes from, where we birth ideas out of chaos, out of confusion, out of
01:14:29
Speaker
more of the passive energy. Exactly. And so for me personally, how I see tarot or anything like that is it's, it is very meaningful, but in a very personal way. So if I do a reading for myself, I absolutely feel the benefits of it.
01:14:50
Speaker
But in the same way that it's not scientifically conclusive if that makes sense me having a specific routine that's. Good for me might not be good for you and that's you see what i'm getting at or like.
01:15:06
Speaker
No, I know. I do. I understand. It's like, you know, sometimes when you when you don't kind of feel like there's any rhyme or reason or direction to things, I think having something to to follow or something to provide input on something that that can't really be explained is obviously going to be quite useful, I guess, in a certain way.
01:15:33
Speaker
And I think, oh, sorry, go ahead. Go on. Oh, I just wanted to read you this quote really fast from C.S. Lewis from I think the Four Loves. My friend had posted the other day and I feel like it's relevant to our conversation. Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. It has no survival value. Rather, it is one of those things which gives value to survival.
01:16:02
Speaker
And so I guess that's how I would... Yeah, that would be my interpretation of these things of whether it's tarot or poetry or anything that doesn't have objective meaning, subjective meaning, I guess, can be meaningful. Yeah. I think I know that there's...
01:16:24
Speaker
I think stuff around astrology, I think sometimes it can be quite vague in a certain way that it can be applicable to a lot of people, like a particular, and I understand that, you know, obviously there's different parts of astrology, like it doesn't all come from like one person and one like, you know, there's lots of different people who do it.
01:16:52
Speaker
I suppose I'm just interested because my astrological sign, I feel
01:17:03
Speaker
I understand that that fact of it being generally applicable to people. But I do definitely feel like the sign that I have and the things that are said about my sign are definitely applicable to me and who I am and how I see the world and things of that nature.
01:17:31
Speaker
as opposed to the other ones that I've read or looked into. Cool. Have you ever had a birth chart done? No, I haven't. I haven't. I'd be interested in having one there. That would be interesting. My sign is Aquarius. I'm nearly a Pisces. Awesome.
01:17:58
Speaker
I think someone told me once that that was supposed to be like the Aquarius aspect of being quite kind of perhaps a bit like seeing all the pain in the world or something. I can't remember exactly what they were talking about. Would you be able to give me like an idea of what like an Aquarius person would be like? Whether it's something that I would
01:18:29
Speaker
I would say very philosophical, thoughtful, kindhearted, perhaps attracted to someone's mind first upon meeting them. And a nurturing person, someone who is supportive and cares about others, maybe a natural storyteller.
01:18:54
Speaker
I identify with all of them apart from their storytelling. I'm not the best for that. I'm working on it. Cool. And yeah, with the birth chart, it'll give you multiple signs. So there's your sun sign, which is what I think you're talking about. But then you also have your moon sign and your rising sign, for example. So mine is Sagittarius is my sun sign.
01:19:18
Speaker
my moon is in Gemini and my rising sign is in Virgo. And your rising sign is how other people perceive you when they meet you. So Virgo, I'm very much attention to detail with that. It would make me a good editor, for example.
01:19:40
Speaker
but Sagittarius, my sun sign makes me like the ambitious philosopher who loves to travel and it's an adventure. So, you know, it's just kind of like the dichotomy between the different ones. You say, because I don't sort of think of myself as either of those descriptions.
01:20:03
Speaker
Well, okay, that makes sense. And let's see, someone else described it to me recently as it's like your thumbprint when you were born on the planet, your psychological, but
01:20:19
Speaker
Yeah. Kind of like an outline of, of, of who you are, but then obviously, you know, we're different too. But, but I like it as a, or I liken it to an archetype like Carl Jung says, you know, we have like these kind of ancient patterns, right? And so that's, I guess as a storyteller, that's kind of my interest in astrology is like looking at those patterns that helps me become a better writer. It helps me understand the world a little bit better.
01:20:45
Speaker
yeah i have looked into kind of like the archetype stuff and i think you know the archetype of like the hero i think is is something that resonated with me like i'm not saying it in like a narcissistic way i mean like for my own kind of personal
01:21:05
Speaker
journey with things it's like a lot of my life has felt very much like i am fighting constantly like i'm you know fighting to to to help people protect people in certain ways and um you know taking on the burdens of things
01:21:28
Speaker
in my life. I think that was quite helpful for me trying to understand or give me some level of direction with me and feeling okay with the negatives that have occurred or are occurring.
01:21:48
Speaker
Can we talk a little bit about that? You, um, I think you would ask me about why autistic people might be drawn to philosophy. I'm just curious. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Cause, um, I think when we, when we were chatting, I mean, you know, I mean, for me, I think there are, there are kind of these, I think we, we came up with like three different separate things, like the rituals around
Philosophy and Autistic Interests
01:22:14
Speaker
it. Oh yes. You know, having the routine, the rituals.
01:22:18
Speaker
certainty and framework, you know, going through life. It's very important for us to understand things and the things that are not so easily definable and certain like social interaction, understanding people and emotions tend to be a bit harder for us. And then, you know, last I think we were saying about like the interest or like the special interests of understanding like the complexity of life and stuff. So which, which one would you want to talk on?
01:22:47
Speaker
maybe let's see the first was rituals the second was certainty and framework the framework is interesting to me too and then what was the third again the interest in the complexity of life yeah the last two i guess yeah last two go for it oh for me first okay hmm well i mean
01:23:13
Speaker
I guess I could just speak to me personally and my brother is also on the spectrum. I think my father might have been as well. Those genetic ties. Yeah, I asked him actually my brother and I both
01:23:30
Speaker
asked him, we were like, would you ever go get tested? And he just smiled at me and he was like, no. I'm like, okay. I'm still working on it with my dad. He's kind of, he's open with it at this point, but, um, that's great. He's not got any like drive to go get a diagnosis. He's even, you know, he's in his fifties and he feels quite stable in his life. He doesn't really have any issues. So it's understandable, I guess.
01:23:54
Speaker
That makes sense. Just one thing I will say that connects with, I guess personally, my brother and I both have a ability or a way to see or to form patterns and connections between things that maybe other people might not see an inherent pattern. I relate. You relate to that.
01:24:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's the whole pattern recognition stuff around autism. It's very interesting. So that lateral thinking, I think. Okay. Some people define it as like thinking laterally between different concepts and things and making connections and all that. Interesting. There's a lot that I'll have to ask you for references because I'm certainly interested in reading and learning more about it.
01:24:48
Speaker
I think that and then also just making sense of the world as much as we can, having
01:24:58
Speaker
my own dedicated personal philosophy or ethos. I mean, I think Thomas Jefferson did this, Thomas Jefferson, or maybe it was, I forget who it was, but I've thought, I think he rewrote the Bible and took out all the magical bits or the New Testament or something. Yeah, right? To apply just the basic moral ethics of it. The Judeo-Christine values.
01:25:26
Speaker
And I guess I seek to do the same in my own way to take different truths that I've learned from different belief systems and my own experiences and things like that. I kind of put together my own format for what it means to live a good life, be a good person, make an impact in the world, that kind of thing. And
01:25:54
Speaker
Oh, wow. Yeah. I think maybe I'm forgetting. Sorry. I think I have to have it in front of me. Oh, here we go. Yeah. The complexity of life. Hmm. Yeah. So that, I guess I just answered my own question on the second one about certainty and framework is like, I want to have my own framework that's
01:26:20
Speaker
individual and that goes back to being an existentialist is that I'm personally responsible for my own views too and so it's like making it my own as a creative person creating my own ethos or my own doctrine so to speak in a way or philosophical views taking from different people that I've been influenced by over the years
01:26:48
Speaker
And I just want to mention like Eric Fromm, his reflections on love. I really recommend his book, The Art of Loving. If you get a chance to read it, it's great. I think he's an atheist and a socialist. Michael Foucault, Michelle Foucault's dissection of power structures has been influenced in my life. Henry David Thoreau and J.S. Mill on personal freedom and liberty.
01:27:19
Speaker
And then transcendentalists like Walt Whitman, the inherent goodness of the individual, the wonder of nature. And that's had a profound impact on my views on the natural world.
01:27:36
Speaker
I guess our relationship to it as humans. And then William Blake, his poetry, his exploration of themes like innocence or good and evil, human's relationship with the divine. And lastly,
01:27:53
Speaker
held a guard of Benjen. She was like a Christian mystic, but she was also a poet, a healer. What else did she do? Composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, medical writer, and practitioner during the Middle Ages. So, anyway.
01:28:16
Speaker
There's a lot of info dumping. No, no, no. It's it's interesting because when you go back in kind of history and time and stuff, it's the the lines between science and religion and spirituality and like, you know, things like things like alchemy and stuff are very like one in the same to a certain extent. Yes. It's it's interesting. Like. Yeah. I mean. That would be my life's work. Sorry.
01:28:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I think philosophy for me, it definitely came out of my experiences, as you said, trying to understand the world, why things were happening to me and other people that weren't good. Going into philosophy or at least just thinking about life in solitary on my own,
01:29:16
Speaker
It was important for me because, you know, I felt very much like I was, you know, out in the water, like I didn't really feel like there was any rhyme or reason to anything. And it was very, very difficult to, I guess, withstand the negatives that were happening in my life without having some kind of guided understanding of things or certainty around certain things.
01:29:45
Speaker
so that's definitely why I gravitate towards philosophy I don't have any particular rituals that I do I know that the whole idea of autism and routines sometimes having rituals allows you to have a set time in the day to think or feel or do a certain thing which is positive for your mental health
01:30:14
Speaker
I'm just thinking about it now. I think I probably do have some rituals that I do, which are not like I had something in my head, which is just completely flying away. Do you have any nighttime rituals or anything or morning rituals? I think particularly when I'm struggling with something that is
01:30:38
Speaker
to do with experience, like my recent kind of breakup with my long-term partner was obviously quite impactful to a certain extent. For me, my rituals come in like where I put my emotional energy, like when and where.
01:31:02
Speaker
I give myself time to think about certain things. So, you know.
01:31:09
Speaker
I set a time, particular times in the day or sometimes when I'm going through a lot of emotional turmoil, where I'm sort of dividing my thoughts or my feelings. The idea of processing things and processing events and emotions and stuff is
01:31:33
Speaker
Very important and it's something that you kind of need to do but at the same time processing that all of it all the time throughout the day all the time is is equally not good for maintaining your life and your productivity and you know actually living not just just living in negative feelings and so
01:31:57
Speaker
for me, setting time aside, where I am allowing myself to think and feel about that stuff, and then closing off that for the rest of the day or something. It's important for me, and that kind of drills on the idea of Alexify me, because
01:32:14
Speaker
For me, emotions are not easily recognized or identified. It used to be a lot worse. Nowadays, it's a bit easier. But actually leaning into possible feelings or thoughts that I have helps me be aware of what I'm feeling and helps me kind of connect my feelings to certain events or thoughts, which I find very, very helpful. I might play some emotional music, which is related to it.
01:32:44
Speaker
I think that could probably be some level of a ritual, I guess, with things, and it's been very helpful for me. Sounds like it. Sounds like a good ritual. In terms of philosophy or philosopher, I think the idea of positive nihilism
01:33:03
Speaker
resonates with me probably the most of anything I do very much like all the existential stuff and you know obviously Friedrich Nietzsche the father of nihilism is quite a big impact on me I've read a few books I'm very bad with names and people and describing what people have done and what people have said to their names
01:33:27
Speaker
But I ever read a few books and there was one called The Exocentialist Cafe, which was quite interesting for me. It's kind of getting all of these philosophies together and having them discuss things. It was really, really, really interesting. I'm very aware of the time.
01:33:46
Speaker
And I know that you probably have a lot of different things to do. It's getting quite late for me. I probably have to have some food to refuel my body after my gym workout earlier.
Conclusion and Next Episode Teaser
01:34:01
Speaker
So I guess trying to round things up, I mean. Yeah, of course. Like, usually there is a segment to...
01:34:11
Speaker
What I do is called song of the day should really be called son of the week because it is a weekly podcast, but I hope it's today today. So it is the song of the day today. Do you have a song that kind of either means something to you or I guess relates to the topic of podcasts that you'd like to add to the growing Spotify playlist?
01:34:37
Speaker
Sure. I like Peace Train by Yusuf or Cat Stevens, as he was known before. And I did want to ask if I could read a short quote from a poem. Yeah, go for it. Go for it.
01:34:55
Speaker
So the poem I found, it's actually in Dasaka Ikeda's book, The Heart of the Lotus Sutra, about Buddhism, but it's also one of my favorite poets that he quotes.
01:35:10
Speaker
One self I sing, with these words Walt Whitman begins his payon to humankind. Leaves of grass, Whitman his words full of strength and conviction sings, and all people I see myself. None more and not one a barleycorn less. I know I am solid and sound. I know I am deathless. I know I am August. I exist as I am. That is enough.
01:35:37
Speaker
That's a beautiful, beautiful string of words. Thanks. Yeah, I love it. It's probably not the best way to characterize that, but, um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A beautiful string of words. Now it's, um, I think with a bit more time to kind of digest and
01:36:00
Speaker
feel that. I very much like poetry. I think it's if I had more time in my day in life, I think I would definitely want to pursue more of the the arty side of life in that sense. But yeah, so I will put Peace Train by Yuzuf or Cat Stevens in the Vordiordi playlist.
01:36:25
Speaker
Are there any links or things that you would like to share with people that you would like people to go to anything that you. Sure. And all the social medias and things like that.
01:36:39
Speaker
It's just, I go by my full name. So Emily Robin Clark on Instagram and my dream music on Instagram is my musical name, my pseudonym. And then also the IMDB and what else? My website is just Emily Robin Clark.net. Cool. Yeah. Do you have a link tree? I do.
01:37:05
Speaker
You do, okay, cool. Well, I will put the link tree down in the comments of this video, whether you're on YouTube, whether you're on any of the podcasting streaming services. You can find that below alongside my personal link tree. If you wanna help support the podcast, the best thing that you can do is rate it on any of the podcasting streaming services that you are using at the moment.
01:37:30
Speaker
Give it a follow if you want to get updated about new podcasts that are coming out. I tried to get them out over on Monday around about 5 a.m. British Standard Time now, so. And if you also want to stay up to date with the work that I do, you can head over to my Instagram at Thomas Handley UK, where I do daily blogs, reels, things of that nature, and also updates on the podcast and how things are going.
01:37:59
Speaker
So I definitely encourage you to go check that out. And if you are on YouTube, make sure to like, give it a sub. Same, same thing as the follow thing. If you want to get updated about things that are happening. Absolutely. I love your comment down below. Thank you. So yeah.
01:38:20
Speaker
Go check all that stuff out. Sponsor of the podcast, Debuds, is also in the link tree if you want to get 20% off. Very special link for the 40 audio listeners. Really great noise-reducing earbuds that you can adjust. The candlelight loop. But a little bit different, and they've been really helpful for me in situations where I'm not wearing my noise-cancelling earbuds where they've gone out of charge or something. So yeah.
01:38:48
Speaker
Last question, Emily. Have you enjoyed your 40 audio experience? Absolutely. It's been amazing. And I've been listening to your podcast before I go to sleep at night, by the way. Oh, that's awesome. I really like to hear stuff like that because it's I think sometimes as a creator, it's kind of.
01:39:09
Speaker
You kind of feel a sense of isolation or like you're just producing stuff and it's not really doing anything, if that makes sense, until someone tells you about it. So it's thank you for that. You're welcome. I've been learning a lot too. So thank you for your work. Awesome. And with that, I hope you all have a very lovely day and I will see you next week.
01:39:36
Speaker
for another episode of the 40yoti podcast. See you later, guys.