0:00

Today I will be interviewing somebody

0:03

that I've wanted to have on the show

0:05

for a very long time, Mr. David

0:07

White, and we are live in

0:09

Seattle. So you might hear some

0:11

of Seattle in the background. So

0:14

enjoy the conversation. Don't mind the

0:16

buses and the biker gangs that

0:18

maybe roll by throughout the conversation.

0:26

All right, Mr. David White, welcome to

0:29

the Man Talk Show. Thank you

0:31

so much for being here. I

0:33

am very excited to be speaking

0:35

with you. I want to start

0:37

off with the question that I

0:39

think will frame the rest of

0:41

our conversation, which is what is

0:44

the conversational nature of reality? Combusato,

0:46

you know, in Latin, it's a

0:48

beautiful word, converse, it means inside

0:50

out, actually. So when you're

0:53

conversing, you're bringing the

0:55

inside to the outside and

0:57

the outside to the inside. And

1:00

it's where they meet that

1:02

you have a real possibility

1:04

of feeling completely

1:06

alive, vibrant, even joy,

1:09

that very, very rare

1:11

quality. And so we often

1:13

wonder why can't I sustain

1:16

joy and happiness inside myself?

1:18

Well, you can't. because it's

1:21

actually at a meeting place.

1:23

It's where you meet the

1:25

world that you have

1:27

the possibility of a certain

1:29

qualities of radiance,

1:32

presence, joy, and what

1:34

looks like from the outside

1:36

charisma. Which is really,

1:38

charisma is really the, what

1:41

we call a powerful invitation

1:43

from what a powerful

1:46

invitation looks like from

1:48

the outside. You're

1:50

being invited into

1:52

something and you don't know

1:55

what, but you know it's going

1:57

to call on you being larger.

1:59

it's going to make you

2:02

larger and it's going to

2:04

in a way kill you

2:06

in the process. It's going

2:08

to strive off, to use

2:11

that old Catholic phrase, the

2:13

smaller part of yourself. Can

2:15

you maybe just contextualize, strive

2:17

off for the people that

2:19

may not have... Yeah, to

2:22

be shriven of your sins

2:24

was an old, was an

2:26

old Catholic phrase and when

2:28

you went into confession and...

2:30

But it was also used

2:33

in a daily, a daily

2:35

basis. It simply meant to

2:37

undo the surface in a

2:39

way, to molt. And so

2:42

many of, so many of

2:44

the really crucial thresholds of

2:46

existence have to do with

2:48

this molting, this undoing, this

2:50

giving up, which is why

2:53

it can be so difficult

2:55

for the young masculine psyche,

2:57

especially. to understand the true calling

2:59

that's there in saying the Zen

3:02

tradition in the Christian contemplative tradition

3:04

in our great indigenous traditions, you

3:07

know, of being out alone in

3:09

the wild, learning about yourself in

3:11

the world at the same time.

3:14

In the beginning you were talking

3:16

about this sort of call and

3:18

this conversation and how... The way

3:21

that we wanted to go is

3:23

inevitably not the way that it's

3:26

probably going to unfold And I

3:28

feel like that is a challenge

3:30

that a lot of men that

3:33

I've worked with and spoken to

3:35

over the years really struggle with

3:38

is that they feel this pull

3:40

They feel this call to do

3:42

something. Yes, the unknown sort of

3:45

beckons to them and then that

3:47

that unknown territory is can be

3:50

brutal. I mean, I think it

3:52

can invoke a lot of fear

3:54

for a lot of men because

3:57

within us is almost this drive

3:59

to control, right? Control the... outcome,

4:01

control the results, march towards a

4:04

very specific aim and goal, and

4:06

the thought and the notion of

4:08

having something larger than us influence

4:10

us, I think can be quite

4:13

disconcerting. How have, what would you

4:15

say to that? Yes, and it's

4:17

connected to the young males need

4:20

to separate from the father. And

4:22

you can talk about your

4:24

actual individual father, but you

4:27

can talk about the... the

4:29

fatherness of the world, whatever,

4:32

whatever's telling you what to do.

4:34

You will go in the opposite

4:36

direction. What direction to go? Yeah,

4:38

yeah. You know, my son is

4:40

actually a good poet, although he

4:42

only writes when he's, when his

4:45

heart is broken. And unfortunately he's

4:47

really happily married at the moment,

4:49

so there's been no production for

4:51

years. Well, not for, he's been

4:53

happily married for years, so there's

4:55

no poetic production. But you know

4:58

growing up he was surrounded with

5:00

with poetry and literature and and

5:02

when he started to get into the

5:04

realm of heartbreak in his teens

5:06

and late teens he started writing

5:09

poetry and and he started leaving

5:11

them around the house accidentally on

5:13

purpose for me to find. He'd

5:15

never admit that he was following

5:18

in his father's footsteps writing poetry

5:20

but it was just I can

5:22

do it too dad. And it

5:25

was good stuff actually. So we

5:27

even in the best and we

5:29

had a very good

5:32

father-son relationship there's that

5:34

necessity to be this unique

5:36

being and and you know living

5:39

in the male body we're all

5:41

when we're young we're all about

5:43

perimeter and we're looking at our

5:45

muscles we this is where This

5:47

is where my defined muscle ends

5:50

and this is where the world

5:52

starts. You know, this is me and

5:54

this is not me and that you

5:56

know, that is that's one way to

5:58

enlightenment that's as

6:01

good as anything else. One

6:03

form of delusion that's as

6:05

good as any other delusion

6:07

to get to. I still

6:09

get caught in that sometimes.

6:11

Yes, but eventually you have

6:14

to understand that the perimeter

6:16

is not where you think

6:18

it is. Yeah. And in

6:20

fact that the perimeter really

6:22

doesn't exist. And you start

6:24

to get interested in the

6:27

permeability of life. And if

6:29

you're a biological science, you

6:31

realize, you know, when you're

6:33

studying, you're studying the human

6:35

body, how permeable we are

6:37

to things outside ourselves. So

6:39

we have that initial concentration.

6:42

I am this body. I

6:44

am this. Whereas, you know,

6:46

as a generalization, this is,

6:48

you know, there are many

6:50

women who have a very

6:52

masculine. experience with the world,

6:55

but women feel that permeability

6:57

as soon as they're into

6:59

adolescence. It's a different way

7:01

of inhabiting a body. And

7:03

so anything that is concentrated

7:05

or removable is always fair

7:08

game for the moveability of

7:10

the world. So it will,

7:12

I always say arrogance will

7:14

always take care of itself.

7:16

And I certainly hope that's

7:18

true with the present regime

7:21

in the White House. Arrogance

7:23

is its own cure. You

7:25

will be humiliated. You will

7:27

be returned to the ground

7:29

of your being. You will

7:31

be shown to not be

7:34

a very special person at

7:36

times and that's unique and

7:38

different from everyone else and

7:40

at the same time you

7:42

are but not in the

7:44

way you've established for yourself

7:47

yeah you will go through

7:49

breakdowns yeah so most people

7:51

whether we're men or women

7:53

are normally we're I'd say

7:55

six or seven years behind

7:57

the curve of our actual

8:00

matter saturation. Part of this is

8:02

matured into life in a very

8:04

powerful way at our center, but

8:06

it's laid over with the way we're

8:08

trying to control existence. And

8:11

we only get down to

8:13

that inner horizon, that inner

8:15

ground, when we go through the

8:17

usual traumas of existence, the

8:20

end of a marriage or a

8:22

relationship, coming home with a note

8:24

on the table saying, I've gone,

8:27

you know. or the note from

8:29

the boss saying we don't need

8:31

you anymore in your work, or

8:33

looking in the mirror, and

8:36

realizing you've lost your

8:38

old fire for your original

8:40

ambitions, then who are you?

8:42

Then you're asked to have

8:44

a relationship with the unknown.

8:47

And how often are we,

8:49

especially young men, rewarded for

8:51

not knowing when you're young,

8:54

when you're growing up? When were

8:56

you rewarded for putting your hand

8:58

up in the classroom and saying,

9:01

sir, miss, I've absolutely no idea

9:03

what you're talking about. But I'd love

9:05

to know. I'd love to know.

9:07

And that's actually the experience of

9:09

a lot of people growing up.

9:11

And so the part of us

9:13

that comes up with easy answers,

9:15

and I can think of many

9:17

easy answers, for instance, in marine

9:19

zoology, that are completely wrong now, that

9:21

if I'd given them at the time when

9:23

I learned... when I went through my

9:26

degree course, I would have been

9:28

rewarded for it. But they've actually

9:30

been shown to be absolute

9:33

nonsense now. So the not

9:35

knowing mind is a very powerful

9:37

thing for a young man to

9:39

be introduced to. And from then

9:41

on, it's a long apprenticeship. But

9:44

you're right. It's to do with

9:46

this attempt to control everything.

9:48

I studied young for a long time.

9:50

And in Jungian psychology, the

9:53

unconscious is sort of, he

9:55

calls the unconscious in a man,

9:58

the anima, right, the feminine. And

10:00

I think as we look more

10:02

and more sort of modern

10:05

day neuroscience and neurobiology is

10:07

looking, what we're starting to

10:09

find is that the unconscious

10:12

is responsible for the foundation

10:14

of our attachment, how we

10:17

actually show up in

10:19

relationships. And I think for

10:21

a lot of men, this notion

10:23

that there's a part of them

10:25

that they don't know about. It

10:27

does require. a certain degree

10:29

of humility, you know, because

10:32

I think what you're saying is

10:34

very accurate. Like we're, we're

10:36

rewarded for knowing, we're rewarded

10:39

for performing, we're rewarded for

10:41

being right all the time,

10:43

and so much of our worth

10:45

and our value can become hinged

10:47

on just knowing, knowing, knowing, knowing,

10:50

knowing. And so even just the

10:52

act of saying I don't know.

10:54

I think for some men can feel

10:56

like a great leap of faith into

10:58

dissent, you know, into downfall,

11:00

into destruction. Because there's

11:03

some threat that comes along with

11:05

it. I recently, I mean, I've

11:07

had people like Martin Shaw on

11:09

the show, but I had Michael

11:11

Meadon, and we spent the entire

11:13

conversation, because he's all

11:15

about myth and whatnot and

11:17

archetypes. And we spent the

11:20

entire conversation talking about the

11:22

function of dissent. psychological

11:24

dissent, physical dissent, the breaking

11:26

down and decay. And I

11:28

think one of the things

11:31

that I've seen is that

11:33

when we stay in this

11:35

sort of adolescent form of

11:37

masculinity or manhood, we prevent

11:39

this dissent, this falling apart,

11:42

that it sounds like you're

11:44

touching on and you're pointing

11:46

towards that comes with the

11:48

molting and the... entering into this

11:50

sort of unknown, right? And so can you

11:53

maybe just say a little bit more

11:55

about that? The function of the unknown,

11:57

like is part of the conversational nature

11:59

of reality. about being in relationship

12:01

with the unknown externally and

12:03

then also within you? Exactly.

12:05

I'm really interested in horizons

12:07

in the human life, you

12:09

know, the edges between what

12:12

we can see and not

12:14

see, the edges between what

12:16

we can hear and what

12:18

we're not hearing in a

12:20

friend's voice, a wife's voice, colleagues'

12:22

voice, and there's a lot

12:24

of research at the moment.

12:27

medical research showing that we're

12:29

much happier when we're in relationship

12:31

to a far horizon

12:33

and especially if you're

12:35

walking towards it. And

12:38

one of the remarkable things

12:40

about about horizons is how

12:42

much we want them in

12:44

our lives. We pay far more

12:46

for a house with a far view.

12:48

We love to walk by the by the

12:50

ocean side with that swaying

12:53

horizon off in the distance.

12:55

and we love to see the mountains.

12:57

And one of the powerful things

12:59

about a horizon is that by

13:01

definition there's something over it

13:04

that you cannot perceive. And

13:06

there's something about having a

13:08

rested relationship with the unknown.

13:10

It's there, but it's not asking

13:12

you to do anything about it.

13:14

It's not asking you to give an

13:16

answer. So this is a very, very powerful

13:19

relationship. But we tend to

13:21

think only of horizons in the outer

13:23

world. But it's interesting to realize

13:26

that we actually, each of us,

13:28

have a physical experience of an

13:30

inner horizon inside us. And this

13:33

is the level below which we're

13:35

often trying to get in order

13:37

to find out what our true

13:40

feelings are about something. And actually

13:42

that is a dynamic that young

13:44

men have great difficulty with.

13:47

Women seem to, but when

13:49

we're young men in relationship,

13:52

we're astounded at the... ability

13:54

for articulation of our female

13:57

partners. I'm talking about heterosexual

13:59

relationship now. astounded that they

14:01

can go straight in and find out

14:03

how they feel about something. We look

14:05

down when we're young men and what

14:08

do we see? Nothing. Yeah. It's

14:10

not as if we see the

14:12

wrong thing. We just see nothing

14:14

and we feel nothing. We come

14:17

across this horizon of what actually

14:19

feels like resistance. It's actually

14:21

a ground inside us and

14:23

it quite often feels immovable

14:25

and so we turn away from it.

14:28

But this inner horizon is

14:30

the horizon that lies in the

14:32

invitation in all of our great

14:35

contemplative and meditative

14:38

and prayerful traditions.

14:40

The ability to go to what

14:42

looks like a door that

14:44

eventually, as the Zen tradition

14:46

says, is no door at

14:49

all. And lean against it until

14:51

it falls open. I always

14:53

say that the thing about immovability

14:55

is what is. most immovable

14:57

is what moves most in

14:59

us in the end. And

15:02

actually I do think that we as

15:04

males we ensure that. So I know I

15:06

know faithfully if I explore my

15:08

immovability the game is up.

15:10

Eventually I will go through

15:13

some kind of radical change and

15:15

I don't feel I'm ready

15:17

for its note. I'll actually leave

15:19

that stone like immovability in

15:21

my center because at least

15:23

it's something I can live my...

15:25

I can orbit around, I can have

15:28

as a stepping stone. It's like

15:30

a pillar of the identity that

15:32

can get sort of solidified. These

15:35

two horizons are really remarkable to

15:37

put in conversation with one another.

15:39

And in the Zen tradition,

15:41

you're supposed, you're paying attention

15:44

in deep silence so that that outer

15:46

horizon can come and find what

15:48

looks like a line of

15:50

immovability inside you. and start to

15:53

the moveability of the world starts

15:55

to create a movable symmetry inside

15:57

you. You're paying so much attention.

15:59

to how everything changes,

16:02

you start to become

16:04

seasonality yourself. And then,

16:06

the next step is putting

16:08

what lies below the horizon

16:10

inside you, which is completely

16:13

unknown to begin with, in

16:15

conversation with what lies over

16:18

the horizon outside you. And this

16:20

is what we call mystical

16:22

experience from the outside.

16:25

It's actually a very grounded

16:27

way of being in the world, but

16:29

from the outside you get all

16:31

of these astonishing phenomena,

16:34

the ability to live at

16:36

the center of a pattern,

16:38

to perceive patterns before other

16:40

people can see them, to

16:42

write incredible literature from what

16:44

Coleridge would have called the

16:46

primary imagination, which is

16:48

this deep immersion in the world

16:50

so far in that it finds

16:53

an immersion. over the horizon outside

16:55

of yourself. So that's

16:57

that's the conversation

16:59

that we're engaged in. That's

17:01

not spoken about. That's

17:04

the conversational nature

17:06

of our of our reality.

17:08

As Taardashardan said,

17:11

events are soul-sized,

17:13

you know, and I always

17:15

think of the soul as

17:17

that part of that faculty

17:19

inside of that's trying to...

17:21

belong to the world in

17:23

the greatest way it can. And

17:25

it has a kind

17:27

of take-no-prisoners attitude to

17:29

that. And the soul would much

17:32

rather fail at its own

17:34

life than succeed at someone

17:36

else's. It doesn't see

17:38

mistakes in the same way an

17:40

outside pair of eyes or judgment

17:43

sees our life. So that's a

17:45

little lightning raid on horizons,

17:47

but I think it's... part

17:49

of the conversational nature of

17:51

every young man's voyage into

17:54

the world, the willingness to get

17:56

to a place where you allow yourself

17:58

to be broken down. It's

18:01

almost like for the way I

18:03

would describe it within myself when

18:05

I was younger was Contending with

18:07

this impenetrability.

18:09

Yes that I had that I

18:11

had really built within myself and I

18:13

don't even know necessarily where

18:16

it came from You know, I don't

18:18

know if it's just part of being

18:20

male, you know, or if it's

18:22

necessarily society imposed or something that

18:25

that is also a biological byproduct of

18:27

just having copious amounts of testosterone tripping

18:29

through your body and you know sort

18:32

of propelling you towards things in a

18:34

different way but it's contending with that

18:36

impoundurability. Did you have something that you

18:38

wanted to get into? I noticed that

18:41

you opened. to something. Yes,

18:43

I have my very short

18:45

micro essay on ambition, which

18:47

I thought we could work

18:49

with, but I just wanted

18:51

to say I think it

18:53

is part of our evolutionary

18:55

inheritance, you know, her ability

18:58

to survive, to carry a

19:00

necessary stone-like impenetrability to the

19:02

slings and arrows of difficulty

19:05

and misfortune. I always say,

19:07

man or woman or any...

19:09

thing in between on the

19:11

on the gender spectrum everyone

19:13

has the right to say listen

19:16

God life is so painful and

19:18

difficult I'm not going to

19:20

have this conversation

19:22

I'm going to pretend the world

19:24

is made in a in my

19:26

own way I wanted to be made

19:29

yeah everyone at one time another

19:31

in their life says that even

19:33

if you don't believe in God

19:35

you say listen God This can't

19:38

be true, it can't be, it

19:40

can't be true that there's

19:42

so much heartbreak and heartache

19:44

in the world and loss. So, you

19:46

know, this is why young

19:48

men especially attempted into video

19:51

games and the world of video

19:53

games, and why they're so

19:55

addictive, because it reinforces

19:58

my sense of control. If

20:00

I feel I'm going to die,

20:02

I can restart the game. I

20:04

can buy the invisibility cloak. That's

20:07

a great one for the masculine

20:09

psychium. I can't be found, yeah.

20:11

And so, and I have control

20:14

over all of these parameters. Yeah.

20:16

It kind of, I mean, in some

20:18

ways it diminishes the joy and

20:21

the thrill of the game itself.

20:23

Like I remember when I was

20:25

young, I played this game on Nintendo

20:27

64 called Golden I. and it

20:29

was a James Bond game and it

20:32

might, I mean, best game ever.

20:34

It's just phenomenal, phenomenal

20:36

game. But I remember at one point

20:38

you could get a cheat code where

20:40

you actually were invincible or you could

20:43

get another cheat code where you

20:45

got something called the Golden Gun

20:47

and it was a one-shot kill and

20:49

it made the game so boring. And so

20:51

I think this is, there's this

20:54

intersection between. what you're talking

20:56

about, about venturing into the unknown

20:58

is almost a prerequisite for finding

21:00

meaning and purpose in this. And

21:02

that when we over index on

21:04

control, we actually do the thing

21:06

that cuts us off from being

21:08

able to venture towards meaning and

21:10

purpose. Is that? Yeah, I think

21:12

there are a lot of lessons

21:14

to be learned in video games.

21:16

It's only where addiction overrides all

21:18

of the qualities that we're learning.

21:20

You know, we learn, for instance,

21:22

you know, if you're in... playing

21:24

civilization or something and you're struggling to

21:26

get money all the way through and

21:29

then suddenly you build things

21:31

in such a way that you're

21:33

flooded with money and suddenly money

21:35

becomes completely unimportant I

21:37

mean that's a great that's a great

21:39

lesson for someone who in their outer world

21:42

has the ambition to be to be rich

21:44

yeah and just and on that point that

21:46

might be a good place for me to

21:48

read this micro essay yeah although actually

21:50

I wonder Let's just stay with

21:52

Horizons a little bit, actually, because

21:54

I am first and foremost a poet, and

21:57

in many ways I've established my

21:59

whole philosophy. through poetry

22:01

and through the attention

22:04

that poetry makes

22:06

you pay to the world.

22:08

And Coleridge said that

22:10

no poet begins in

22:13

philosophy. Are they right

22:15

very very bad poetry?

22:17

These are my beliefs.

22:19

Who cares? No one

22:21

to hear your tedious

22:23

beliefs. But he said

22:26

every... Poet begins in

22:28

philosophy, are they right?

22:30

Very bad poetry. But

22:32

every poet becomes a

22:34

philosopher, because it's about going

22:37

down into that unknown

22:39

territory beneath the horizon

22:41

where you don't know what to

22:43

say and speaking from that place.

22:45

That's where poetry comes

22:47

from is not you finding this

22:49

place that knows what to say.

22:51

No, real movable, life-like poetry

22:54

comes from the place beneath

22:56

that horizon. where you don't

22:58

actually know what you're going

23:00

to say and you surprise

23:02

yourself. You overhear yourself saying

23:04

things you didn't know you knew.

23:07

You overhear yourself saying things

23:09

you didn't want to know, thank

23:11

you very much, because you were

23:14

quite happy in your protected perimeter

23:16

that you'd built for yourself. So

23:18

this is a piece it's called,

23:21

it's called Blessing for the Morning

23:23

Light. and it's the way that

23:25

the light comes to find us

23:28

every morning actually. And I often

23:30

recite this to myself actually, just

23:32

to set myself straight with the

23:35

world. We wake from sleep having

23:37

gone through this incredible physiological and

23:39

imaginative revolution in our, and the

23:42

more we learn about the physiology

23:44

of sleep, the more astonishing it is

23:46

actually if you read the latest research

23:48

and what our bodies do and go

23:51

through and where we learn, do the

23:53

most learning. So when we are awake

23:55

in the morning, we are carrying this

23:58

cargo of revelation into the world. and

24:00

the great tragedy of turning

24:02

towards your to-do list right

24:04

away is the to-do list was put

24:06

together by the person you were

24:08

yesterday and there's been no chance

24:10

for you to actually look at the

24:13

world as if you're seeing it again

24:15

for the first time. So I wrote

24:17

this actually for the after the death

24:19

of a friend of mine who he

24:21

was a priest for 17 years became

24:23

a very famous author although when I

24:26

first knew him it was just a...

24:28

a very poor priest in the heart

24:30

of Connemar in the West of Ireland,

24:33

but a great speaker at that time

24:35

and quite known in some circles. But

24:37

he went on to

24:39

write this million copy,

24:41

best-selling, multi-million copy, best-selling

24:43

book called Annam Carra,

24:45

which means soul friend in

24:47

Irish. But he used to read, he

24:50

used to lead a morning mass at

24:52

Easter every year. in this gorgeous ruined

24:54

monastery all this white stone

24:56

and tracery stone tracery where

24:59

the old windows would have

25:01

been called Corkam Row in North

25:03

County Claire. And I often used to

25:05

think of him. I'd be 10 o'clock

25:07

the night before 8 hours different, you

25:10

know, thinking about him getting up to

25:12

lead that mass. And because he

25:14

was so articulate thousands of people

25:16

would come. So I think of

25:18

people crammed into this monastery that

25:21

I often walked in by myself.

25:23

And then he passed away at

25:25

the height of his powers at

25:28

52 years old, and the next

25:30

Easter that came around. John wasn't

25:32

there anymore. He'd left the

25:34

priesthood many years before, but

25:36

still I thought of him.

25:38

So I wrote this piece,

25:40

but in writing it for him,

25:43

I uncovered this whole

25:45

understanding, which I hadn't quite

25:47

had until I'd written a

25:49

piece. So blessing for the

25:52

morning light. Blessing of

25:54

the morning light to you. The blessing

25:56

of the morning light to you may

25:58

find you even in your invisible appearances.

26:00

The blessing of the morning

26:03

light to you may find

26:05

you even in your invisible

26:07

appearances. May you be seen

26:09

to have risen from some

26:11

other place you know and have

26:13

known in the darkness and that

26:16

carries all you need. May you see

26:18

what is hidden in you as

26:20

a place of hospitality and shadow

26:22

shelter. May what is hidden in

26:24

you become your gift to give.

26:27

May you hold that shadow to the

26:29

light. and the silence of that

26:31

shelter to the word of the light,

26:33

may you join every previous

26:35

disappearance with this new appearance,

26:38

this new morning, this being

26:40

seen again, new and newly alive.

26:42

May you join every previous

26:45

disappearance with this new appearance,

26:47

this new morning, this being

26:49

seen again, new and newly alive.

26:52

The blessing of the morning

26:54

light you may find you

26:56

even in your invisible appearances.

26:58

We all know that phenomena

27:00

of walking into a crowded

27:02

room or into a workplace

27:04

and saying hello to everyone.

27:06

But the person who people

27:08

are seeing is actually not

27:10

the person inside us. We're going

27:13

through some dread, we're going through

27:15

some illness, we're going through some

27:17

vulnerability in our relationship, we're

27:19

worried our relationship is going

27:21

to come to an end.

27:23

And none of that is

27:25

on the surface. And it's not

27:28

just done in protection. People

27:30

are often being quite kind

27:32

in not indulging their deeper

27:34

heartbreak and implicating

27:37

other people's lives in it.

27:39

So there's a necessary part to

27:41

it. But the only trouble is,

27:43

you know, if you have that

27:45

as a modus vivendi, a modus

27:47

operandi, you eventually start

27:49

to think that this identity

27:51

on the surface is you. So

27:53

the the ability to stay

27:56

in touch with the

27:58

invisible you and this This

28:00

is a very powerful tradition

28:02

in poetry and a lot of

28:04

male poets. Lorca said, I am,

28:06

or is it Jimenez, either Lorca

28:09

or Jimenez in the Spanish tradition

28:11

said, I am not this I,

28:13

I am this I walking beside

28:15

me, I am not this I,

28:17

or I think more accurately walking

28:19

inside me. I am

28:21

not this I, I am this

28:24

other I walking inside me. And

28:26

then the ability to bring

28:29

what to begin with is

28:31

untouchable and invisible, into conversation

28:33

with the world, to

28:35

start to begin with,

28:38

you know, we're taught this false

28:40

kind of fluency in language, where

28:43

you're taught to be able to say

28:45

things rapidly, to come to conclusions,

28:47

to name things early on, but

28:50

much better to have a, in

28:52

poetry at least, to have a cracked,

28:54

broken voice, which is

28:56

only able to perhaps

28:59

make a mouse -like sound to begin

29:01

with, yeah. But it's your sound, it's

29:03

your understanding. It's the

29:05

great trouble with a lot of

29:07

these poetic MFA programs. Young

29:10

poets, men and women, get hot

29:12

-housed into a pretty

29:14

good poetic voice, yeah. But

29:17

it's also a poetic voice that sounds like

29:19

everyone else's voice in the workshop. And

29:21

it also sounds like the teacher's voice. And

29:25

you all start sounding, having

29:27

the same kind of titles

29:29

here, like

29:31

things recently, for instance,

29:33

the fashionable title

29:35

would be something like What

29:38

Salt Knows, yeah, that would

29:40

be a very, that's over

29:42

the last 20 years. And

29:44

everyone's got their, their equivalent,

29:46

yeah. But you're much better staying

29:48

a hundred miles away from other

29:51

poets, if that's going to happen. And

29:53

just reading the ones in

29:55

the tradition who set you

29:57

on fire and starting to

29:59

work your way in with your

30:02

own mistakes and find your

30:04

own inimitable voice. That's not

30:07

getting cultivated by other

30:09

people. So that's part

30:11

of this invisibility too.

30:14

There are lots of forms

30:16

of invisibility that we're being

30:18

invited into. So I

30:20

think it can be comforting

30:22

for a young man to know that

30:24

that under this inability

30:27

to speak my emotions. Underneath

30:30

this inability to feel what

30:32

I feel, underneath this

30:34

inability to bring those

30:36

two things together, feelings and

30:39

emotions and articulation, there's

30:41

something really quite astonishing

30:44

waiting for me, to bring those

30:46

two poles together. The

30:49

great German-speaking poet

30:51

Rilke said, Stretch your well-disciplined

30:53

strengths between two opposing

30:55

poles. because inside human

30:58

beings is where God

31:00

learns. Isn't that incredible?

31:02

It's such a well-disciplined

31:05

strength between two opposing

31:07

poles because inside human

31:09

beings is where God learns. It's

31:12

so beautiful. It's, I mean,

31:14

there's many things that came to

31:16

me as you were talking. I

31:18

think one of a line from

31:20

Alan Watts just kept. ringing out,

31:22

right? There's far out people and

31:25

there's far out, far in people.

31:27

And it's almost like we can

31:29

find a deeper understanding of

31:31

who we are and what, you know,

31:33

life is all about by choosing to

31:35

go in one of those directions.

31:38

And one of my mentors talked

31:40

about growing down into ourselves. And

31:43

that has always stuck with me

31:45

of like my mission is to

31:47

grow down into myself. in

31:49

the moments where I have written something,

31:52

it's come from a very unknown

31:54

place. And I've found that when

31:56

I'm working with people and I'm

31:58

guiding them through something. often times

32:01

people afterwards will ask like

32:03

why did you do that

32:05

or why did you say

32:07

that or why did you

32:09

ask that question and what

32:11

I love about your framework

32:13

is that it's in many

32:15

ways it's that I'm in

32:17

a conversation inside of myself

32:19

with an a larger unknown

32:21

yes non rational non-linear version

32:23

of me while also tuning

32:25

being attuned to or present

32:28

to our present to the

32:30

conversation that's happening within the

32:32

other person. Yes. And oftentimes

32:34

the conversation that they don't

32:36

know is happening or that

32:38

they don't know they need

32:40

to have. Yes. About their

32:42

past, about some pain that

32:44

they're carrying. I wonder if

32:46

you can maybe articulate a

32:48

little bit about how does

32:50

a man start to begin

32:53

to cultivate some presence with

32:55

this horizon that we're talking

32:57

about with the unknown when

32:59

it can feel... vague. Yes.

33:01

Or terrifying. How does one

33:03

go about that? Well, my

33:05

way in was through poetry

33:07

and I was first inspired

33:09

by my mother and her

33:11

repertoire of memorized poetry that

33:13

she had both in English

33:15

and Irish. And then I

33:17

started to read portrait and

33:20

I started writing poetry when

33:22

I was seven years old

33:24

or so. But when I

33:26

was 13 or 14 I

33:28

really started to understand its

33:30

import in my life. And

33:32

I don't know if you

33:34

remember the dynamic when you

33:36

were a young boy of

33:38

listening to the adult world

33:40

and their conversations and saying

33:42

to yourself, these people are

33:45

insane. Their priorities are completely

33:47

backwards. And I wouldn't have

33:49

been able to articulate it

33:51

this way, but my feeling

33:53

was these people have lost

33:55

the primary. visions of childhood.

33:57

They no longer are in

33:59

awe. of what they're

34:01

discovering here. And when I

34:03

was 13 or 14, I was down in

34:05

the local library in

34:07

Yorkshire where I grew up. I

34:10

had an Irish mother, but Yorkshire

34:12

father grew up in Yorkshire in

34:14

the north of England. And

34:16

the poetry was on the top

34:18

shelf. And I was just at that

34:20

age, you know, 13 or so. I

34:23

had to really get up on tiptoe,

34:25

get my, the ends of my fingers

34:27

around the spine of a spine

34:29

of a book. and I pulled it

34:31

down and it fell into my

34:33

hands and it was actually

34:35

a joint authored book of

34:38

portrait by Tom Gunn and

34:40

Ted Hughes. Tom Gunn actually

34:42

moved to San Francisco

34:44

and became a poet

34:46

there and chronicled the whole

34:49

the whole HIV epidemic

34:51

here. But this was pre that

34:53

era and the book fell

34:56

down and I started reading

34:58

it standing there. And I just

35:00

felt as if a passing hawk

35:02

came down, got its claws into

35:04

me, and carried me off into

35:06

the distance. It was that

35:08

physical and experience of

35:11

being taken out of this body into

35:13

a greater body of the world. And

35:15

I also, when I read it, I

35:18

said, oh, these are adults, adult men

35:20

too, who have kept the primary

35:22

vision of childhood alive

35:25

into adulthood. And they've

35:27

done it through... They've done it

35:29

through poetry. So that was a

35:31

further encouragement to my deepening my

35:33

experience. You know, it's interesting. I've

35:36

read a lot of your work,

35:38

you know, and I've tuned into a

35:40

lot of your conversations over the years

35:42

and your work has had a very

35:45

profound impact on me. And I've heard

35:47

you talk a lot about your mom and

35:49

their relationship with her, but

35:51

I'd love to hear about a

35:53

little bit if you're comfortable with

35:55

your father and maybe how he...

35:58

influenced your work and

36:00

how you view the world and

36:02

yes and because I think fathers

36:04

can be so impactful you know

36:07

you're talking before about following the

36:09

footsteps like I you know in

36:11

an effort to know my father

36:13

better yes I pursued opera you

36:15

know he was a he sang

36:17

in the in the choir in

36:19

the chorus in the Emminton opera

36:22

Seattle biker gang has joined us

36:24

now leader of the pack yeah

36:26

right But you know, my father,

36:28

he sang with the Edmonton Opera

36:30

chorus and you know, this is

36:32

in Northern Alberta in Canada and

36:34

it's kind of a rough and

36:36

tumble place and and I was

36:39

working construction. I was 18 years

36:41

old at the time and I

36:43

was working construction in the gravel

36:45

pits in Northern Alberta during the

36:47

winter night shift, you know, minus

36:49

40 degrees outside. I'm working outside

36:51

and didn't like the direction of

36:53

my life, but there was just

36:56

this pull to know something about

36:58

him. deeper and it brought me

37:00

into his world and yeah I'm

37:02

very grateful for that I think

37:04

in many ways it sort of

37:06

saved my life from the direction

37:08

that it was going which was

37:10

not good yeah it was not

37:13

good I was I was lost

37:15

aimless yeah and I think that's

37:17

the case for a lot of

37:19

men so I would love to

37:21

hear maybe about how your father

37:23

influenced you well as time goes

37:25

by I realize that I can't

37:28

talk about my father without talking

37:30

about my grandfather my grandfather was

37:32

born in 1898 and he went

37:34

into the First World War and

37:36

the trenches of the First War

37:38

in Flanders when he was just

37:40

18 years old, yeah, so, and

37:42

he had three years in the

37:45

trenches actually, and traumatized him for

37:47

the rest of his life, and

37:49

he didn't speak about it, and

37:51

you couldn't speak about it, it

37:53

was just beyond the pale, ordinary

37:55

people couldn't understand. what had happened

37:57

there and how many millions of

37:59

men had died and in what

38:02

state they had died, and how many

38:04

of those deaths had been witnessed

38:06

by other men. And so he

38:08

kept that or murder, that silence,

38:11

you know, for 50 years until

38:13

I was seven years old or

38:15

so. And then he started to

38:17

talk to me about what he'd experienced.

38:20

And of course I was seven years

38:22

old, I had all my soldiers, my

38:25

and all the rest. And so I

38:27

was... So I was really enthusiastic about

38:29

finding out about this and I

38:31

said, oh Grandad, did you kill

38:33

any Germans, you know, in a

38:35

really enthusiastic point? And this look

38:38

of absolute grief and sadness came

38:40

over his face. And he said,

38:42

oh, he said, son, I killed

38:44

hundreds of them. I was a

38:46

machine gunner. And I still see many

38:48

of their faces to this day. Well,

38:51

that just stopped me in my tracks,

38:53

you know. And he was so

38:55

sad I could feel it. I

38:57

could feel that male grief

38:59

carried from youth into

39:01

his adulthood. So my

39:04

father had to live with

39:06

that silence and live with

39:08

that inarticulation

39:11

around his father's pain. So

39:13

of course my father

39:16

inherited that pain as you

39:18

do when it's not spoken

39:20

of and not resolved.

39:23

and so he had a difficult

39:25

relationship with my grandfather. I

39:27

had a much better relationship

39:29

with my grandfather than my

39:31

father did. My father was astonished

39:33

that my grandfather started talking to

39:35

me and he kept asking

39:37

me about the stories. So obviously

39:40

a grief in my father for

39:42

not having had that transmitted. So

39:44

I had a idyllic relationship with

39:46

my father until I was

39:48

seven years old and then

39:51

for some reason when I

39:53

was seven. This eruption of

39:55

anger occurred inside my father

39:58

towards me. and it

40:00

wasn't anything I was doing really

40:02

it was everything I was doing and

40:04

nothing I was doing all at the

40:06

same time it was just I think

40:08

it was the sins of the fathers

40:11

you know the the anger that he

40:13

didn't know what to do with and

40:15

that I represented the next the next

40:17

generation I represented you know what

40:19

he had been to his own father

40:21

and his helplessness around that

40:24

yeah almost almost as if you

40:26

were getting what he had always

40:28

wanted from his dad. Yeah,

40:30

so that was that was

40:32

remarkable. So that was a very

40:35

powerful dynamic. At the same

40:37

time, my father was always

40:39

a good provider and present.

40:41

And when I think of, you know,

40:44

all the fathers who have not been

40:46

providers, I see it as

40:48

being a really marvelous thing

40:50

that he always looked after

40:52

the family. And also, it's

40:55

interesting too. I talked earlier

40:57

about sons having to separate from

40:59

their fathers, you know. So you do

41:01

go through a stage where your father

41:04

did absolutely no right at all, yeah.

41:06

That's what I have in my future,

41:08

that's great. Yeah, five or four year

41:11

olds. Yeah. And my mother was so

41:13

such a wonderful woman that it was

41:15

very easy to to look to my

41:17

mother for everything good that

41:20

I'd inherited. This was just

41:22

a couple of years ago, actually.

41:24

I was... I have an aquarium in

41:26

my kitchen and I had an aquarium

41:28

when I was a kid, you know,

41:31

for years, and I was looking

41:33

into the aquarium and I was

41:35

just very proud of the whole

41:37

ecology that I'd built in there,

41:40

you know, self-sustaining ecology and

41:42

looking. And then suddenly I felt

41:44

the shade of my father by my

41:46

side and I suddenly remembered all of

41:49

the hours that we had looked

41:51

as males do, you know, not at each

41:53

other, but... at something else while

41:55

they're talking, driving, you

41:57

know, throwing axes, whatever.

42:00

shopping trees. Yeah, yeah. And

42:02

I suddenly remembered all of

42:04

those hours that we'd spent

42:06

in mutual interest around the

42:08

fish and talking about the

42:11

fish. And I suddenly my,

42:13

I said suddenly said, oh

42:15

my God, I've always ascribed

42:17

my going into marine zoology

42:19

to my mother's invitation for

42:22

me to do whatever I

42:24

wanted to do in life. And

42:26

I completely neglected.

42:28

all the hours that my father and

42:31

I looked into that underwater world

42:33

here that we had in our

42:35

living room and so it was a

42:37

great question I said how many

42:39

other qualities have I

42:42

neglected you know one of them was

42:44

was my father's ability for

42:46

real friendship with other men

42:48

and he had one really close

42:51

man friend who actually was

42:53

called my in Yorkshire if you've

42:55

got very close friends of your

42:57

mother and father you call the

42:59

man to an uncle actually it's

43:01

an old tradition. So he was

43:03

my uncle Tom and he was

43:05

a really remarkable man and their

43:07

friendship was incredibly close and so

43:09

I drew inspiration I've got I've

43:11

got an incredible circle of male

43:13

friends around the world actually mostly

43:16

back in Britain in Europe but

43:18

here in the States and I

43:20

think I drew inspiration from my

43:22

father's relationship with Tom. And when

43:24

Tom died, it was

43:26

probably the greatest trauma

43:29

of my father's life until

43:31

many years later when

43:33

he lost my mother. So

43:35

that was a really powerful

43:38

inspiration. So I mean,

43:40

I'm actually, even at

43:42

this late age in my

43:44

life, I'm discovering new qualities

43:47

that I'm now allowing my

43:49

father to have given me.

43:52

It's fascinating the way our

43:54

story changes. The more we

43:56

mature, the more our past

43:58

actually mature. us along with

44:01

us. We start to understand things

44:03

we just couldn't understand before. Yeah,

44:05

it's like it's hard to, what

44:08

is the, David Foster Wallace, what

44:10

the hell is water? I don't

44:12

know if you've ever read his

44:15

essay on what the hell is

44:17

water, but it's two young fish

44:20

swimming through the water and the

44:22

old fish comes along and says

44:24

water is beautiful today. Old fish

44:27

swims away and the two younger

44:29

fish are like, what the hell's

44:32

water? Yes. and its role in

44:34

a man's life and I was

44:36

wondering if maybe you wanted to

44:39

dive into anger because I think

44:41

you have a very important take

44:44

that men could use. Yes. So

44:46

if you want to say anything

44:48

about it and then maybe dive

44:51

into it. So we tend to

44:53

see anger as this on inchoate

44:56

force at the surface, destructive, yeah.

44:58

So I wrote this little micro

45:00

essay in order to get to

45:03

the bottom of them because I

45:05

felt... I felt to myself well

45:08

all the origins of anger are

45:10

in our are actually in a

45:12

deep form of care which were

45:15

helpless to actually bring into our

45:17

world here. So this is anger.

45:19

Anger is the deepest form of

45:22

care. Anger is the deepest form

45:24

of care for another for the

45:27

world for the self for the

45:29

body for the body for a

45:31

family. and for all our ideals

45:34

all vulnerable and all possibly about

45:36

to be hurt. Stripped of physical

45:39

imprisonment and violent reaction, anger points

45:41

toward the purest form of compassion.

45:43

The internal living flame of anger

45:46

always illuminates what we belong to,

45:48

what we wish to protect, and

45:51

those things for which we are

45:53

willing to hazard and even... imperil

45:55

ourselves. What we usually call anger

45:58

is only what is left of

46:00

its esters. when we're overwhelmed by

46:03

its accompanying vulnerability. What we usually

46:05

call anger is only what

46:07

is left of its essence when

46:09

we are overwhelmed by its accompanying

46:11

vulnerability. When it reaches the

46:14

lost surface of our mind

46:16

or our body's incapacity to

46:18

hold it or when it

46:20

touches the limits of our

46:22

understanding, what we name as anger

46:24

is actually the incoherent

46:27

physical incapacity to sustain.

46:29

this deep form of care in

46:31

our outer daily life, the

46:34

unwillingness to be large enough

46:36

and generous enough to

46:38

hold what we love helplessly

46:41

in our bodies, with the

46:43

clarity and breadth of our

46:46

whole being. What we have

46:48

named as anger on the

46:50

surface is the violent outer

46:52

response to our own

46:55

inner powerlessness. A powerlessness

46:57

connected to such a profound

46:59

sense of rawness and care that

47:01

it can find no proper outer

47:03

body or identity or voice or

47:05

way of life to hold it. What

47:07

we call anger is often simply

47:10

the unwillingness to live the full

47:12

measure of our fears. What we

47:14

call anger is often simply the

47:17

unwillingness to live the full measure

47:19

of our fears or of our

47:21

not knowing. in the face of our

47:23

love for a wife, in the depth of

47:25

our caring for a son, in our wanting

47:27

the best in the face of simply

47:29

being alive, and loving those with whom

47:32

we live. Our anger breaks to

47:34

the surface most often through

47:36

our feeling there is something

47:38

profoundly wrong with this powerlessness

47:41

and vulnerability. Anger too often

47:43

finds its voice strangely through

47:45

our incoherence and through our

47:47

inability to speak. But anger in

47:50

its pure state. is the measure of

47:52

the way we are implicated in

47:54

the world and made vulnerable through

47:56

love in all its specifics, a

47:58

daughter, a house. a family, an

48:01

enterprise, a land, or a

48:03

colleague. Anger turns to violence

48:05

and violent speech when the

48:07

mind refuses to countenance the

48:09

vulnerability of the body in

48:11

its love for all these

48:13

outer things. We're often abused

48:15

or have been abused by

48:18

those who love us but

48:20

have no vehicle to carry

48:22

its understanding or who have

48:24

no outer emblems of their

48:26

inner care or even their

48:28

own wanting to be wanted

48:30

lacking any outer vehicle for

48:33

the expression of this inner

48:35

rawness. They're simply overwhelmed by

48:37

the elemental nature of love's

48:39

vulnerability. They're simply overwhelmed by

48:41

the elemental nature of love's

48:43

vulnerability. In their helplessness they

48:45

turn their violence on the

48:47

very people who are the

48:50

outer representations of this inner

48:52

lack of control. But anger

48:54

truly felt at its very

48:56

center is the essential living

48:58

flame of being fully alive

49:00

and fully here. It is

49:02

a quality to be followed

49:04

to its source, to be

49:07

prized, to be tended, and

49:09

an invitation to finding a

49:11

way to bring that source

49:13

fully into the world through

49:15

making the mind clearer and

49:17

more generous, the heart more

49:19

compassionate and the body larger

49:22

and strong enough to hold

49:24

it. What we call anger

49:26

on the surface, what we

49:28

call anger on the surface

49:30

only serves to define its

49:32

true underlying quality by being

49:34

a complete but absolute mirror

49:36

opposite of its true internal

49:39

essence. It always

49:41

leaves me a little

49:43

speechless. Talk

49:46

to me about the intersection

49:48

between powerlessness and anger is something

49:50

that Esther Parrell and I

49:52

have spoken about a couple of

49:54

times that there's something within

49:57

us as men that when we

49:59

feel or make contact with

50:01

that sense of helplessness

50:03

or powerlessness, our sort of

50:06

immediate response is rage, you know,

50:08

anger. So I'm wondering if you can

50:10

maybe unpack that or if there's

50:12

even something different that's

50:14

being evoked right now. Yes. Well,

50:16

I mean, you can immediately

50:19

see its actual practical

50:21

physical evolutionary necessity, you know,

50:24

and rage in defense, physical

50:26

defense of people your love.

50:28

And so the inability to

50:30

actually be able to

50:32

do something about something

50:35

that doesn't involve

50:37

physical defense actually,

50:40

it involves another kind

50:42

of deeper cradleing

50:44

or holding, which our

50:47

physical bodies are unable to

50:49

do. We have to be able

50:51

to hold another person in

50:54

our heart and our mind.

50:56

And that heart energy is

50:58

often what we feel lies

51:00

below the horizon of our

51:02

inner line of resistance. So

51:05

opening the heart is

51:07

always a very powerful path

51:09

for a human being to

51:11

take. And Albert Camou,

51:13

the great French writer

51:15

and philosopher, had a

51:18

beautiful invitation. It was

51:20

just one simple line he said,

51:22

live to the point of tears.

51:25

live to the point of tears.

51:27

And this is not an

51:29

invitation to model in sentimentality.

51:31

This is asking you to

51:34

feel things right to their

51:36

essence. If you just have an

51:38

edge of dread about something,

51:40

then feel that dread more. Don't

51:42

resist it. Get to the

51:44

center of it until it starts

51:46

to change into something else.

51:49

The Greeks had this beautiful

51:51

word. which we don't have

51:53

in modern English which is

51:55

enantiodromia and it means the ability

51:57

of something once it becomes

52:00

becomes its absolute essential self

52:02

to start changing into something

52:04

completely different and quite often

52:06

its complete opposite. Which is

52:08

why immovability always changes into

52:10

incredible fluidity once you've got

52:12

through that. So to be

52:14

able to feel things until

52:16

they actually start to have

52:18

a life of their own

52:20

and start to mature. I

52:23

mean you could say, I

52:25

mean this is a received

52:27

understanding in psychology that... that

52:29

parts of us when they're

52:31

traumatized refuse to grow older

52:33

until that trauma has been

52:35

resolved and stay stone-like inside

52:37

you for good reason. It

52:39

doesn't want to move on

52:41

until it's being healed actually

52:43

and it may be that

52:45

it would be very destructive

52:48

if it moved on. So

52:50

to find the parts of

52:52

you that are stuck, this

52:54

is a wonderful thing actually.

52:56

It's not a pejorative thing.

52:58

And to feel the stuckness

53:00

even more. to get right

53:02

to the heart of your

53:04

stuckness, your inability to say

53:06

it. And then you start

53:08

saying it. It's quite remarkable

53:10

really, yeah. It's brutal though.

53:13

I find there's something beautiful

53:15

and brutal about it. This

53:17

is why in all real

53:19

warrior traditions, there's always been

53:21

a parallel discipline of poetry.

53:23

Yes. You look at samurai,

53:25

the Japanese tradition, Chinese tradition,

53:27

Indian tradition, the ability, and

53:29

then we've got, in the

53:31

West, we've got the First

53:33

World War poets, Sassoon, and

53:35

people coming out of. The

53:38

poetry is the way in,

53:40

for quite often, it's the

53:42

way in for anyone at

53:44

all, man or woman or

53:46

anything in between, but for

53:48

man, it's a real doorway.

53:50

We all instinctively understand what

53:52

poetry represents. We even use

53:54

the phrase, which even people

53:56

have hardly ever read a

53:58

line of poetry. their life

54:00

will come away from a

54:03

football game saying it was

54:05

sheer pushy that touchdown you

54:07

know. We instinctively understand about

54:09

the verve and vitality and mutability

54:11

and moveability and tidal forces

54:13

of the world if you

54:16

can capture them in speech

54:18

and if you can capture them in

54:20

movement on a football field why

54:22

couldn't you catch it in your

54:25

own voice? So I would

54:27

say, besides the

54:30

practical activity of

54:33

something that concerns

54:35

all young men,

54:38

heterosexual men, which

54:40

is getting into real

54:43

conversations with young

54:45

women, I would

54:47

recommend poetry rather

54:50

than a maserati,

54:52

you know? poetry,

54:54

the entransment of the

54:57

ear, the self-discovery. It's not

54:59

just the art of seduction,

55:01

it's the understanding in

55:03

the feminine psyche through real

55:06

poetry that the masculine is

55:08

actually unfolding itself. What do

55:10

you mean? It's articulating

55:13

itself, it's finding things out

55:15

about itself that it didn't

55:17

know, and it's happening in real

55:19

time as it's being written

55:21

or spoken. That's what's

55:24

entrancing about portrait not

55:26

being seduced by it, although

55:28

there is that we are seduced by

55:30

it But it's the transment of

55:33

the unfolding of another through

55:35

that articulation I've got an

55:37

essay on brand in here. You

55:39

know men get stuck on brands.

55:41

This is me. This is my amo.

55:44

This is my core competency. Yeah, and

55:46

I just I've got a the

55:48

essay looks at the imprisonment of

55:50

that a human being shouldn't want

55:52

to be a brand. Interesting. Yeah, you

55:54

should want to brand for your drug

55:57

or your beer or your, but not for

55:59

yourself. I think it's a very

56:01

timely topic in many ways. Yeah,

56:04

and it's representative of many of

56:06

the ways we give a kind

56:08

of protective name to ourselves. Yeah.

56:11

Hmm. So I think that's a

56:13

possibility. What were you thinking of?

56:15

Well, I would love to explore

56:18

apprenticeship. There's also just a couple

56:20

lines. One of the things that

56:23

I'd be remiss to not touch

56:25

on his forgiveness. Because one of

56:27

the things that I've really seen

56:30

within the majority of men that

56:32

I've ever worked with is this

56:34

complete bewilderment about forgiveness. Like what

56:37

is it? We're so linear, right?

56:39

It's like I literally have men

56:41

say, how do I forgive myself?

56:44

Give me the three to five

56:46

steps. Yeah. And it seems to

56:49

be one of these things where

56:51

forgiveness is a kind of enigma.

56:53

within our lives. You know, something

56:56

that is foreign. And I find

56:58

that in some ways it's because

57:00

we as men, we use punishment

57:03

as such a driving force in

57:05

our lives. You know, if you're

57:07

going to do something, punish, if

57:10

you failed punish, if you forgot

57:12

punish, if you want to be

57:15

motivated, punish. And so punishment is

57:17

sort of this. internal tool that

57:19

so many men use until we

57:22

break ourselves of that, you know,

57:24

until it breaks us down. But

57:26

then forgiveness seems like a complete

57:29

anomaly. So talk to me about

57:31

forgiveness. Yes, I mean, forgiveness comes

57:34

through self-knowledge. And we tend to

57:36

think of self-knowledge as me finding

57:38

out what my powers and abilities

57:41

are and then giving them in

57:43

the world. But self-knowledge is as

57:45

much about understanding my flaws and

57:48

difficulties and difficulties. all the ways

57:50

I'm reluctant to be here, reluctant

57:52

to have the conversation, all the

57:55

ways I'm afraid, and all the

57:57

ways I want reality to be

58:00

different than it is. So the

58:02

ability to understand your own difficulties

58:04

and flaws always allows you

58:07

to understand someone

58:09

else's difficulties and to

58:11

account for what in the old

58:13

days we call our own sins.

58:15

It's just a Latin term that

58:17

meant an archery term actually

58:20

that meant to miss the

58:22

mark. Yeah. There were no that's

58:24

a boiling oil that time. My

58:26

grandfather used to say that I'm

58:28

going to boil you in oil.

58:30

Heavy duty oil. It was like

58:32

this very common saying, and as

58:34

a kid, I thought it was

58:36

hilarious and I was like, I

58:38

got older. I was like, I

58:41

know boiling oil. Punishment dynamic and

58:43

the masculine psyche, even in humor.

58:45

So the ability to actually go

58:47

into your own woundedness allows you

58:49

to have patients with other

58:51

people's wounds. Why would anyone else

58:53

in the world be perfect? You're

58:56

not perfect, yeah? And you start

58:58

to be able to say, you

59:00

know, everyone's trying their best and

59:03

it's actually never very good, you

59:05

know, including myself, you know. So

59:07

we're all in this, as Leonard Cohen

59:09

said, we're all just walking each other

59:11

home, you know. And so this

59:13

is my piece on forgiveness, again,

59:16

another micro essay in constellations. These

59:18

were these essays were

59:20

written as literally as

59:23

as as constellations for

59:25

people around words that

59:27

we use in pejorative

59:29

ways. Yeah. So it's as

59:32

if forgiveness is something that

59:34

I give to you. Yeah, it

59:37

flies from my body into

59:39

yours. I forgive you. You

59:41

know, it's almost like an

59:43

accusation. It doesn't sound like

59:45

it to me. So this

59:47

is a, this is me

59:49

trying to overhear myself, get

59:52

to a deeper level with

59:54

the word. Consolations is made up

59:56

at 52 words, which I wanted to

59:58

rehabilitate. because we

1:00:01

so often especially in the

1:00:03

masculine psyche use words against

1:00:05

ourselves. So forgiveness is a

1:00:07

heartache and difficult to achieve

1:00:09

because strangely it not only

1:00:11

refuses to eliminate the original

1:00:13

wound but actually draws us

1:00:15

closer to its source forgiveness

1:00:17

not only refuses to eliminate

1:00:20

the original wound but actually

1:00:22

draws us closer to its

1:00:24

source. To approach forgiveness is

1:00:26

to close in on the

1:00:28

nature of the hurt itself,

1:00:30

the only remedy being, as

1:00:32

we approach its raw centre,

1:00:34

to reimagine our relation to

1:00:36

it. It may be that

1:00:39

the part of us that

1:00:41

was struck and hurt, can

1:00:43

never forgive. That remarkably, forgiveness

1:00:45

never arises from the part

1:00:47

of us that was actually

1:00:49

wounded. Forgiveness, never arises, never

1:00:51

arises from the part of

1:00:53

us that was actually wounded.

1:00:55

Forgiveness, never arises, never arises,

1:00:58

from the part of us

1:01:00

that was actually wounded. The

1:01:02

wound itself may be the

1:01:04

part of us incapable of

1:01:06

forgetting, and perhaps not actually

1:01:08

meant to forget, if, like

1:01:10

the foundational dynamics of the

1:01:12

physiological immune system, our psychological

1:01:14

defences must remember and organize

1:01:17

against any future attacks. After

1:01:19

all, the identity of the

1:01:21

one who must forgive is

1:01:23

actually founded on the very

1:01:25

fact of having been wounded.

1:01:27

Stranger still, it is that

1:01:29

wounded, branded, unforgetting part of

1:01:31

us that eventually makes forgiveness

1:01:33

an act of compassion rather

1:01:36

than one of simply forgetting.

1:01:38

To forgive is to assume

1:01:40

a larger identity than the

1:01:42

person who was first heard.

1:01:44

To mature and bring to

1:01:46

fruition an identity that can

1:01:48

put its arm not only

1:01:50

around the afflicted one within.

1:01:52

but also around the memories

1:01:55

seared within us by the

1:01:57

original blow, and through a

1:01:59

kind of psychological virt virtuosity

1:02:01

extend our understanding to

1:02:03

the one who first delivered it.

1:02:05

Forgiveness is a skill, a way

1:02:07

of preserving clarity, sanity and

1:02:10

generosity in an individual

1:02:12

life, a beautiful question

1:02:14

and a way of shaping the

1:02:16

mind to a future we want

1:02:18

for ourselves and admittance that if

1:02:20

forgiveness comes through understanding and

1:02:23

if understanding is just

1:02:25

a matter of time and application,

1:02:27

then we might as well begin forgiving

1:02:30

right at the beginning of any

1:02:32

drama, rather than put ourselves

1:02:34

through the full cycle of

1:02:37

festering, incapacitation, reluctant healing and

1:02:39

eventual blessing. To forgive is

1:02:41

to put oneself in a

1:02:44

larger gravitational field of experience

1:02:46

than the one that first

1:02:48

seemed to hurt us. We reimagine

1:02:50

ourselves in the light of

1:02:53

our maturity. and we reimagine

1:02:55

the past in the light of

1:02:57

our new identity, we allow ourselves

1:02:59

to be gifted by a story

1:03:02

larger than the story that first

1:03:04

hurt us and left as bereft.

1:03:06

The great mercy is that the

1:03:08

sincere act of trying to forgive,

1:03:11

even if it is not

1:03:13

entirely successful, is a form

1:03:15

of blessing and forgiveness itself.

1:03:17

The great mercy is that the

1:03:20

sincere act of trying to forgive

1:03:22

even if it is not

1:03:24

entirely successful, is a form of blessing

1:03:27

and forgiveness in itself.

1:03:29

At the end of life, the wish to

1:03:31

be forgiven is ultimately the

1:03:34

chief desire of almost

1:03:36

every human being. In refusing

1:03:38

to wait, in extending

1:03:40

forgiveness to others now, we

1:03:43

begin the long journey of becoming

1:03:45

the person who will be large

1:03:47

enough, able enough and generous

1:03:50

enough to receive at the very

1:03:52

end, that absolution

1:03:54

ourselves. Absolutely

1:03:56

wonderful. I love the

1:03:59

notion of... of forgiveness sort of

1:04:01

calling us into a broader, larger

1:04:03

form of existence. Yes. You know,

1:04:05

it's almost like it requires something

1:04:08

of us. Yes. And that there's

1:04:10

a choice in there, you know.

1:04:12

I like what you were saying

1:04:14

at the beginning is that there's,

1:04:17

sometimes we're almost like demanding forgiveness,

1:04:19

versus it being a request, right?

1:04:21

Will you forgive me? My wife

1:04:24

is a marriage and family therapist.

1:04:26

And one of the things that

1:04:28

we always talk about with the

1:04:30

couples is the request of forgiveness.

1:04:33

Yes. Because that request of forgiveness

1:04:35

can often open the door to

1:04:37

a deeper understanding of what might

1:04:39

actually need to happen for forgiveness

1:04:42

to be possible, versus just forgive

1:04:44

me. Why, you know, damn it?

1:04:46

I'm sorry. Yeah. Why won't you

1:04:48

forgive me? Yes. And so I'm

1:04:51

wondering if you can just speak

1:04:53

a little bit more about that.

1:04:55

that broadening into a larger version

1:04:58

that forgiveness yeah and maybe the

1:05:00

the drawing closer to the original

1:05:02

wound which is part of the

1:05:04

reason why I think it's yes

1:05:07

so damn hard to forget to

1:05:09

let yeah yeah well when you

1:05:11

draw into the wound itself you

1:05:13

realize how shared that wound is

1:05:16

between all human beings and you

1:05:18

start to understand perhaps why the

1:05:20

other person reacted in that way

1:05:22

or why they didn't know what

1:05:25

they were doing or why they

1:05:27

were careless yeah And the remarkable

1:05:29

thing about a real act of

1:05:32

forgiveness is how freeing it is

1:05:34

actually, not just for the person

1:05:36

who you're forgiving, but for you,

1:05:38

you realize you've been carrying this

1:05:41

burden of needing to forgive on,

1:05:43

refusing to forgive. And you've been

1:05:45

saying it's being taking up an

1:05:47

enormous amount of energy. and the

1:05:50

ability to, I have lines from

1:05:52

a poem, was a perfect day

1:05:54

out on an island off the

1:05:56

coast of Connemar, it's called Inish

1:05:59

Boffin, and And everything was

1:06:01

perfection about the day I took a

1:06:03

group of 30 people on my Irish

1:06:05

walking tour there. And everything about the

1:06:08

day, you know, the sailing out there

1:06:10

with the tide behind us, the light.

1:06:12

I heard the corncrake, I'm a bit

1:06:14

of an ornithologist, so there was

1:06:16

the first time I'd heard the

1:06:19

corncrake which echoes through Irish literature,

1:06:21

but which I'd never heard. And

1:06:24

then this ruined chapel where my

1:06:26

friends sang Irish Gregorian chant and

1:06:28

then... and then we ended up at

1:06:30

the perfect pub with the

1:06:33

perfect Guinness superb food lovely

1:06:35

Irish welcome and in it

1:06:37

I say it was the way

1:06:39

standing still or looking out holding

1:06:42

your drink or laughing with the

1:06:44

rest you realized part of you

1:06:46

had already dropped to its knees

1:06:48

to sing to pray to fall

1:06:51

in love with everything and everyone

1:06:53

again and that someone from

1:06:55

deep inside you had come out

1:06:57

into the sea light to raise

1:07:00

its hands and forgive everyone

1:07:02

in your short life you

1:07:04

thought you hadn't. Someone deep

1:07:06

inside you came from such

1:07:08

joy and from that joy

1:07:10

came forgiveness of a particular

1:07:13

person in my life I had

1:07:15

an image of you and that

1:07:17

someone from deep inside

1:07:19

you had walked out into

1:07:21

the sea light to raise

1:07:23

its hands and forgive everyone.

1:07:26

in your short life, you thought

1:07:28

you hadn't. Quite often, you

1:07:30

know, the peripheral parts of

1:07:32

us that we haven't allowed

1:07:34

to fall away, haven't forgiven,

1:07:36

but the leading edge of yourself,

1:07:39

which is also the deepest

1:07:41

part of you, is actually forgiven

1:07:43

a long time ago, and

1:07:45

you've just not dropped

1:07:47

down into that less powerful

1:07:49

experience that you're carrying as

1:07:52

a kernel, but a closed

1:07:54

kernel. inside yourself. So forgiveness

1:07:56

is your freedom, not just

1:07:59

your not just freeing the other

1:08:01

person, but you're taking off a

1:08:03

very heavy cloak. Yeah, there's a

1:08:05

kind of liberation that comes along

1:08:07

with it. You've talked about friendship

1:08:09

requiring forgiveness on an almost consistent

1:08:11

basis, you know, and I like

1:08:13

that because I think, you know,

1:08:16

we as men, you know, a

1:08:18

lot of the data in the

1:08:20

research shows that our social circles

1:08:22

are just collapsing, you know, that

1:08:24

men have less and less and

1:08:26

less friends. and a smaller social

1:08:28

circle, but I like that notion

1:08:30

that friendship is sort of this

1:08:33

territory and this practicing, you know,

1:08:35

this sort of practice around this

1:08:37

gym of forgiveness, you know, the

1:08:39

late, the not responding to the

1:08:41

text messages or the call or

1:08:43

forgetting the birthday or, you know,

1:08:45

whatever it is, and that friendship

1:08:48

sort of requires that. And so

1:08:50

can you just speak to that?

1:08:52

Yeah, first of all, I just

1:08:54

like to point out some cultural

1:08:56

differences because my... observation and experiences

1:08:58

that friendships, male friendships are still

1:09:00

very much alive in Britain and

1:09:02

Ireland and most of Europe I'd

1:09:05

say and that it's a peculiarly

1:09:07

American loneliness around male friendship. There's

1:09:09

a dynamic whereby it's probably inherited

1:09:11

you know from the loneliness of

1:09:13

the frontier which to begin with

1:09:15

were mostly males you know as

1:09:17

the as the country expanded and

1:09:19

and often males in competition in

1:09:22

competition with one another. But there's

1:09:24

a way in which in American

1:09:26

society, you know, men make their

1:09:28

friends really early on and through

1:09:30

college. And then once they're in

1:09:32

work, it's as if they have

1:09:34

that momentum as to carry through

1:09:36

the rest of their lives. But

1:09:39

quite often, I was really surprised

1:09:41

when I first came to this

1:09:43

country that friendships were so often

1:09:45

predicated on whether you were working

1:09:47

together or not. And as soon

1:09:49

as you start working, you never

1:09:51

saw the other person. As soon

1:09:53

as you weren't actually in a

1:09:56

collegiate collegiate relationship. It was gone

1:09:58

which means actually I'm talking about

1:10:00

heterosexual relationships now that men run their

1:10:02

emotional life through their women and

1:10:04

are looking for permission for

1:10:06

the next level of maturity

1:10:09

through the feminine psyche quite

1:10:11

often, which is not healthy,

1:10:13

most especially for the women. So,

1:10:15

you know, when I went back

1:10:17

to live in the Cotswolds for

1:10:19

a couple of years, I was

1:10:21

still coming backwards and forwards actually

1:10:23

in Britain, but there's such a

1:10:25

great healthy third space in the pubs,

1:10:27

you know. So every Thursday night I

1:10:29

get together with the local lads

1:10:32

and there were people there

1:10:34

was everyone from local

1:10:36

labourers entrepreneurs rich landowners

1:10:38

all guys though and you know we

1:10:40

had our normal guy talk but also

1:10:43

there was a serious dimension to it

1:10:45

yeah and that's still there and

1:10:47

I've got so many male

1:10:49

friends with whom I have

1:10:51

a really powerful artistic conversation

1:10:53

a calligrapher for a calligrapher friend

1:10:55

who's our sons were born together

1:10:58

many decades ago in Oxford, you

1:11:00

know, a stone car with a

1:11:02

friend up in Wales, but it

1:11:04

goes on and on. So this

1:11:07

is something that American

1:11:09

men need to know about

1:11:11

themselves without feeling bad about

1:11:13

themselves, you know. It's a

1:11:15

dynamic of their inheritance

1:11:18

is this lack of powerful

1:11:20

friendships that endure whatever

1:11:22

passage I'm going through in my

1:11:24

life, you know. I'm not going to stay

1:11:26

out of touch just because I moved

1:11:29

to Cincinnati and they're still in

1:11:31

Seattle. I'm actually going to keep

1:11:33

that relationship alive. And friendship

1:11:35

is an art form and takes

1:11:37

application as an art form as an

1:11:40

art form as needed. Your intuition

1:11:42

should be telling you when things are

1:11:44

starting to fall away. I'm going to

1:11:46

give them a call. I had it

1:11:49

this morning actually got a friend in

1:11:51

Copenhagen. I said, it's been too long. We

1:11:53

need to keep the thread. you know, alive,

1:11:55

you know, so I sent him

1:11:57

a text being missing you, let's

1:11:59

have of a catch up at

1:12:01

the weekend. All of us

1:12:03

have this internal meter about unconscious

1:12:05

meter inside us telling us

1:12:07

our electrometer as a courage would

1:12:09

have described it. Telling us

1:12:11

what the state of our friendship

1:12:14

is. So don't let your

1:12:16

friendships go away. They're the best

1:12:18

thing in your life actually.

1:12:20

Let me read this very short,

1:12:22

please. Another micro essay, friendship.

1:12:24

Friendship is a mirror to presence.

1:12:26

Friendship is a mirror to

1:12:28

presence and a testament to forgiveness.

1:12:30

Friendship not only helps us

1:12:32

see ourselves through another's eyes, but

1:12:34

can be sustained over the

1:12:36

years only with someone who is

1:12:38

repeatedly forgiven us for our

1:12:40

trespasses as we must find it

1:12:42

in ourselves to forgive them

1:12:44

in turn. You know that dynamic

1:12:46

whereby you always say what

1:12:48

you should not say to your

1:12:51

friend and you've been biting

1:12:53

your tongue for a long time,

1:12:55

but you say, I'm not

1:12:57

gonna say, I'm not gonna say,

1:12:59

I said it, yeah. And

1:13:01

they always walk off in a

1:13:03

huff, you know? And the

1:13:05

great testament is, do they come

1:13:07

back, yeah? Did they forgive

1:13:09

you? And will you forgive them

1:13:11

when they did the same

1:13:13

thing? And in fact, the definition

1:13:15

of a long friendship is

1:13:17

that you've forgiven each other many

1:13:19

times. Otherwise you

1:13:21

wouldn't still be friends, yeah?

1:13:23

Sounds like the foundation of

1:13:25

a good marriage as well.

1:13:28

Yeah, exactly. The old friendship

1:13:30

in marriage, I mentioned it

1:13:32

early, that's a really powerful

1:13:34

part of keeping that relationship

1:13:36

together. Friendship is a mirror

1:13:38

to presence and a testament

1:13:40

to forgiveness. Friendship not only

1:13:42

helps us see ourselves through

1:13:44

another's eyes, but can be

1:13:46

sustained over the years only

1:13:48

with someone who is repeatedly

1:13:50

forgiven us for our trespasses

1:13:52

as we must find it

1:13:54

in ourselves to forgive them

1:13:56

in turn. A friend knows

1:13:58

our difficulties and shadows and

1:14:01

remains in sight. A companion...

1:14:03

into our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs. When we're under

1:14:05

the strange illusion, we do not

1:14:07

need them. An undercurrent of real

1:14:09

friendship is a blessing,

1:14:11

exactly because its elemental

1:14:13

form is rediscovered again

1:14:15

and again through understanding

1:14:18

and mercy. All friendships of

1:14:20

any length are based

1:14:22

on a continued mutual

1:14:24

forgiveness. Without tolerance and

1:14:26

mercy, all friendships die. In

1:14:28

the course of the years, a close

1:14:30

friendship will always reveal the shadow

1:14:33

in the other as much as

1:14:35

ourselves. To remain friends we must

1:14:37

know the other and their difficulties,

1:14:39

and even their sins, and encourage

1:14:41

the best in them, not through

1:14:43

critique, but through addressing the better

1:14:45

part of them, the leading creative

1:14:48

edge of their incarnation, thus

1:14:50

subtly discouraging what makes them

1:14:52

smaller, less generous, less of themselves

1:14:55

of themselves. through the eyes

1:14:57

of a real friendship, an

1:14:59

individual is larger than

1:15:01

their everyday actions. And through

1:15:04

the eyes of another, we receive

1:15:06

a greater sense of our own

1:15:08

personhood, one we can aspire to,

1:15:11

the one in whom they have

1:15:13

the most faith. Friendship

1:15:15

is a moving frontier

1:15:17

of understanding not only

1:15:19

of the self and the other,

1:15:21

but also of a possible and

1:15:24

as yet unlived future.

1:15:26

is the great hidden transmitter

1:15:28

of all relationships. It

1:15:30

can transform a

1:15:32

troubled marriage, make honorable

1:15:34

a professional rivalry, make

1:15:37

sense of heartbreak and

1:15:39

unrequited love, and become

1:15:41

the newly discovered ground

1:15:43

for a mature parent-child

1:15:46

relationship. The dynamic of

1:15:48

friendship is almost always

1:15:50

underestimated as a

1:15:52

constant force in human life.

1:15:54

A diminishing circle of friends

1:15:57

is the first terrible diagnostic.

1:15:59

of a life in deep

1:16:02

trouble. A diminishing circle of

1:16:04

friends is the first terrible

1:16:06

diagnostic of a life in

1:16:08

deep trouble, of overwork, of

1:16:11

too much emphasis on a

1:16:13

professional identity, of forgetting who

1:16:15

will be there when our

1:16:17

armored personalities run into the

1:16:20

inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities

1:16:22

found in even the most

1:16:24

average existence. Through the eyes

1:16:27

of a friend, we especially

1:16:29

learn to remain at least

1:16:31

a little bit interesting to

1:16:33

others. When we flatten our

1:16:36

personalities and lose our curiosity

1:16:38

in the life of the

1:16:40

world or another, friendship loses

1:16:42

spirit and animation, boredom is

1:16:45

the second great killer of

1:16:47

friendship. Through the natural surprises

1:16:49

of a relationship held through

1:16:51

the passage of years, we

1:16:54

recognize the greatest surprising circles

1:16:56

of which we are apart,

1:16:58

and the faithfulness that leads

1:17:01

to a wider sense of

1:17:03

revelation. independent of human relationship,

1:17:05

to learn to be friends

1:17:07

with the earth and the

1:17:10

sky, with the horizon and

1:17:12

with the seasons, even with

1:17:14

the disappearances of winter, and

1:17:16

in that faithfulness take the

1:17:19

difficult path of becoming a

1:17:21

good friend to our own

1:17:23

going. Friendship transcends disappearance. An

1:17:26

enduring friendship goes on after

1:17:28

death. The exchange only transmuted

1:17:30

by absence, the relationship advancing

1:17:32

and maturing in a silent

1:17:35

internal conversational way even after

1:17:37

one half of the bond

1:17:39

is passed on. But no

1:17:41

matter the medicinal virtues of

1:17:44

being a true friend or

1:17:46

sustaining a long close relationship

1:17:48

with another, the ultimate touchstone

1:17:50

of friendship is not improvement.

1:17:53

The ultimate touchstone of friendship

1:17:55

is not improvement. Neither of

1:17:57

the other nor of the...

1:18:00

The ultimate touchstone of

1:18:02

friendship is witness. The

1:18:04

privilege of having been seen by

1:18:06

someone and the equal privilege

1:18:09

of being granted the sight of

1:18:11

the essence of another to have

1:18:13

walked with them and to have

1:18:15

believed in them and sometimes just

1:18:17

to have accompanied them

1:18:19

for however brief a span on a

1:18:22

journey impossible to accomplish

1:18:24

alone. I was listening to

1:18:26

a conversation with you, and I

1:18:28

think it may have been from

1:18:31

your essay on Time, which anybody

1:18:33

that knows me knows that

1:18:35

I have a very specific

1:18:37

relationship with time and have

1:18:39

written about it, and it's

1:18:41

always fascinated by me. I

1:18:43

see. For a number of reasons,

1:18:45

and so I withheld the urge

1:18:47

to talk to you about time,

1:18:50

the entire conversation, to be honest.

1:18:52

But you wrote what physicists call

1:18:54

mass, we call presence. Yes. And

1:18:56

I heard that line, and I was

1:18:59

in my gym, I just stopped, I paused

1:19:01

it, and I sat down, and there was

1:19:03

something that was so profound

1:19:05

about it to me. Yes. And

1:19:07

I was hoping that you could just

1:19:09

maybe unravel that a little bit more.

1:19:12

What physicists call mass, we

1:19:14

call presence. Yes. And even

1:19:16

just the notion of presence,

1:19:18

because I think presence is

1:19:20

something that... for us as men

1:19:22

is so valuable, you know, that we

1:19:25

can cultivate and bring. But, and it

1:19:27

does feel like it has a gravity.

1:19:29

You know, when somebody, the men

1:19:31

that I've been around and that

1:19:33

I've mentored with that have a

1:19:35

very strong presence, I mean, it's like,

1:19:37

there's a weight to us. And so

1:19:39

I would just love for you to

1:19:42

talk about that. Yeah, solidity.

1:19:44

Yeah. And hainess. Yes. And

1:19:46

that's why I start that

1:19:49

essay on friendship with friendship

1:19:51

is a mirror to presence

1:19:53

of seeing what you're longing

1:19:56

for in another person. Yes,

1:19:58

mass, the veil. of mass,

1:20:00

the way it attracts other

1:20:02

things to it gravitationally. But

1:20:04

also if you have a

1:20:06

molecule, you know, the different

1:20:08

kinds of valency and invitations

1:20:10

for other molecules to join

1:20:13

it. So there's something about

1:20:15

a field of gravity being

1:20:17

very similar to a field

1:20:19

of invitation. And so the

1:20:21

ability of someone through their

1:20:23

presence to make an invitation.

1:20:25

even without using words to

1:20:27

make that invitation. And I

1:20:29

have one line in another

1:20:31

poem that says you one

1:20:33

day you woke up and

1:20:35

realized you were an invitation

1:20:37

to everything, which is absolutely

1:20:39

true actually. And when you

1:20:42

think about it, all conversations

1:20:44

come to an end when

1:20:46

the invitation in the conversation

1:20:48

comes to an end. So

1:20:50

there's something powerfully... invitional about

1:20:52

charisma, about presence. You're being

1:20:54

asked for something, and quite

1:20:56

often you don't know what

1:20:58

you're being asked for, but

1:21:00

you know that you want

1:21:02

to know what you're being

1:21:04

asked for by this person,

1:21:06

you know, in the presence

1:21:08

of a powerful or saintly

1:21:10

person. I mean, I felt

1:21:13

it in the presence of

1:21:15

Shamishini, who represented something very

1:21:17

powerful in the poetic tradition

1:21:19

for me. and incarnated it,

1:21:21

lived it out actually, a

1:21:23

person of incredible integrity. And

1:21:25

when Shemasini died, there were

1:21:27

80,000 people at Croke Park

1:21:29

watching a hurling match, I

1:21:31

think, and they all stood

1:21:33

to attention and applauded him.

1:21:35

His face came up on

1:21:37

the screen. He was just

1:21:39

a part of the Irish

1:21:41

psyche. But I met him

1:21:44

three times in my life,

1:21:46

and each time I felt

1:21:48

an invitational presence. I felt

1:21:50

a gravity. and that I

1:21:52

was being invited into another

1:21:54

form of a deeper form

1:21:56

of apprenticeship. with

1:21:58

the art of

1:22:00

poetry and the

1:22:02

responsibility of poetry, the

1:22:04

fact that many people in

1:22:07

the tradition were jailed or

1:22:09

sent to gulags in the

1:22:11

Soviet system and to this day

1:22:13

are being persecuted in many countries

1:22:15

around the world because the poet

1:22:17

says what cannot be said or

1:22:19

what should not be said. So

1:22:21

there's the apprenticeship

1:22:23

to poetry is not only

1:22:26

the apprenticeship to the

1:22:28

art of saying and speaking

1:22:30

and rhythm and silence and

1:22:32

beauty, it's the

1:22:34

apprenticeship to the whole

1:22:36

tradition that lies behind

1:22:38

it. So I do

1:22:41

really really think that

1:22:43

as a young

1:22:46

man you should choose something

1:22:48

and do it wholeheartedly

1:22:50

and if it's not your bag

1:22:52

in the end you'll find out but you'll

1:22:54

only find out by doing it wholeheartedly. But

1:22:57

almost always if you let

1:22:59

yourself follow something you care

1:23:01

about it will take you in and

1:23:04

you can follow it for the rest of

1:23:06

your life. I remember when my mother passed

1:23:08

away and I was in so much grief

1:23:10

around it because we were so close it

1:23:12

was like a part of myself had gone and

1:23:15

I wrote you know for about

1:23:17

six months or so or seven

1:23:19

months and I wrote most of the cycle

1:23:21

of poetry and this in the book everything

1:23:23

is waiting for you. But

1:23:25

at the end of it I said

1:23:27

to myself I was so thankful

1:23:30

to poetry I said you know I've

1:23:32

gone through seven years of grieving

1:23:34

in seven months through being able

1:23:36

to articulate it. Poetry

1:23:38

has been so good to me

1:23:40

in so many ways and it's so

1:23:42

good for other people and almost

1:23:44

always the best things

1:23:47

we apprentice ourselves to

1:23:49

are things that give us

1:23:51

satisfaction and our gifts to

1:23:53

others at the same time.

1:23:55

The other thing I would

1:23:58

say you know it's the and

1:24:00

psychie heights from itself at the

1:24:02

beginning is that there's no path,

1:24:04

no road of apprenticeship, no path

1:24:07

you can take in life without

1:24:09

having your heart broken. And to

1:24:11

look at the way we spend

1:24:13

enormous amounts of energy trying to

1:24:16

find a path where we won't

1:24:18

have our heart broken. It's part

1:24:20

of the longing for a professional

1:24:22

armor. You know, I'm a lawyer,

1:24:25

I'm this person, I'm that person,

1:24:27

I'm... I'm there in the hierarchy

1:24:29

or I'm over here in the

1:24:32

hierarchy protection. And to understand that

1:24:34

there's no sincere path you can

1:24:36

take, that's not going to break

1:24:38

your heart. You'll always get to

1:24:41

a place where you say, geez,

1:24:43

I can't do it. I'm not

1:24:45

up to it. I'm not big

1:24:47

enough for it. And it's a

1:24:50

very real place to be because

1:24:52

it's actually true. You're not able

1:24:54

for it by yourself. You have

1:24:56

to ask for help. invisible help

1:24:59

and visible help to cross that

1:25:01

chasm. So I think apprenticeship is

1:25:03

a lovely word. It gives a

1:25:06

sense of learning a craft or

1:25:08

art, but also the sense of

1:25:10

contact you need with the essence

1:25:12

of it all the way through.

1:25:15

And then having something that's just

1:25:17

part of your psychological and physiological

1:25:19

muscle memory at the end of

1:25:21

the time. I mean it... used

1:25:24

to be that I would have

1:25:26

to have specific conditions to write,

1:25:28

you know, I'd need to study,

1:25:30

I'd need a desk, I'd need

1:25:33

silence, I'd need space around the

1:25:35

time when I was writing, I'd

1:25:37

need quiet, you know, and then

1:25:39

it would take me quite a

1:25:42

while to get into it, warm

1:25:44

up, and now it's just, you

1:25:46

know, after all these years, it's

1:25:49

just, you know, after all these

1:25:51

years, it's just, you know, and

1:25:53

all of those years of reluctance

1:25:55

and frustration and difficulty are there

1:25:58

in the moment of it's right

1:26:00

there. They haven't been left behind,

1:26:02

it's just understood. You've learned some

1:26:05

kind of immediate penetration

1:26:07

into the essence of the art. I

1:26:09

think there's two things I want to

1:26:11

say to that. One is I think it's

1:26:13

why a lot of men are struggling

1:26:16

is that they have nothing,

1:26:18

they don't feel like they're

1:26:20

being apprenticed to anything. Yeah.

1:26:22

And they don't, they're not

1:26:24

being apprenticed to buy anybody.

1:26:26

And I've been very fortunate to

1:26:28

have two. men in their 70s

1:26:30

and different points in my life,

1:26:32

play this very mentorship based apprentice

1:26:35

role. And it, you know, it dramatically

1:26:37

changed the course and the trajectory of

1:26:39

my life. I mean, it almost always

1:26:41

happened in moments of my life where

1:26:43

I was about to fall off the

1:26:45

cliff. And then, you know, somebody was

1:26:47

sort of there. And so I'm very

1:26:50

grateful for that. Yeah. The other thing

1:26:52

is, just on a personal note,

1:26:54

I wanted to thank you for, this is

1:26:56

going to be hard. The letter

1:26:58

that you wrote after your

1:27:01

mom passed. Right, yeah.

1:27:03

Didn't think this was

1:27:05

going to happen. Didn't

1:27:07

think I was going to

1:27:09

talk about this. My mom

1:27:11

passed last February coming

1:27:14

up on her year

1:27:16

of her passing from

1:27:18

terminal cancer and I

1:27:21

read that at the

1:27:23

celebration of life. I didn't

1:27:25

know what else to read and then

1:27:27

a friend of mine messaged me and

1:27:29

said, because he knows how much I

1:27:31

love your work and he said, have

1:27:34

you seen this? And I said, no,

1:27:36

I didn't even know that that, you

1:27:38

know, they've written this. And it found

1:27:40

its way into my mom's celebration of

1:27:42

life and so I just wanted to

1:27:44

thank you for those words because they

1:27:46

really meant a lot. The word apprenticeship

1:27:49

is used in that poem actually. Yeah.

1:27:51

Yeah. So that was just a bit

1:27:53

of a side. But the apprenticeship I

1:27:55

think is one of those things that,

1:27:57

you know, I think in some ways

1:27:59

we apprentice. ourselves to, I think

1:28:01

a lot of men are trying

1:28:04

to apprentice themselves to something. And,

1:28:06

you know, poetry seems to be

1:28:08

the thing that for you has

1:28:11

been this apprenticeship. And I wonder

1:28:13

how, maybe if there's any sort

1:28:16

of like tactical directional advice that

1:28:18

you can give to a man

1:28:20

about how he finds a sense

1:28:23

of apprenticeship in life when he

1:28:25

feels so lost at sea. I

1:28:27

certainly know the power of it

1:28:30

myself, you know, I was a

1:28:32

rock climber and mountaineer from when

1:28:34

I was 13 years old. and

1:28:37

I was in the mountains and

1:28:39

on very steep cliff faces with

1:28:41

older men, many of them very

1:28:44

very compassionate if stolid you know

1:28:46

North country men from the very

1:28:49

powerful Yorkshire accents and but there

1:28:51

was an incredible sense of looking

1:28:53

after being looked after sometimes in

1:28:56

a very fierce way and that

1:28:58

an ultimate an ultimate sense of

1:29:00

care So that older man, younger

1:29:03

man, apprenticeship is a really powerful

1:29:05

dynamic. And I think sometimes if

1:29:07

it's not there naturally, you know,

1:29:10

there was a natural ecology of

1:29:12

older men and younger men in

1:29:15

the climbing community, is to go

1:29:17

out and look for it and

1:29:19

to go out and ask for

1:29:22

it. And I got it in

1:29:24

my later life through poets, you

1:29:26

know. talk about dead parts but

1:29:29

they're not dead parts. Many of

1:29:31

the parts are more alive than

1:29:33

many of the people I know

1:29:36

who are actually alive. Their voices

1:29:38

are so vibrant and still calling

1:29:41

to you and still teaching you.

1:29:43

Wardsworth for instance, William Wardsworth and

1:29:45

Sheymus Heaney now he's passed over

1:29:48

to so so yes to to

1:29:50

apprentice yourself to an art form

1:29:52

to apprentice yourself in the company.

1:29:55

in the context of this interview,

1:29:57

which is about men to older

1:29:59

males. And also, there's another dimension,

1:30:02

which is to apprentice yourself

1:30:04

to yourself, which is a

1:30:06

line in one of my poems

1:30:09

called Coleman's bed, apprentice, I say,

1:30:11

apprentice yourself to yourself. Take

1:30:13

yourself on as a study, as a

1:30:15

study, you know, look at everything and

1:30:18

don't be judgmental, you know,

1:30:20

look at all the ways

1:30:22

you're reluctant, for instance, yeah, to

1:30:24

be here or to have conversations,

1:30:26

you know, start. looking at

1:30:28

the phenomenology of reluctance. Oh, I

1:30:30

don't want to talk with that

1:30:33

person. Oh, I don't want to

1:30:35

do this this morning. Oh, I

1:30:38

don't. Where does that come from?

1:30:40

What is it? Just start to

1:30:42

look at everything about you as a

1:30:44

clue and a doorway and all

1:30:46

those pathways start to converge after

1:30:49

a while. And so, yes,

1:30:51

apprentice yourself to yourself. I

1:30:53

love that. Be a new

1:30:55

annunciation. Make yourself a door.

1:30:57

to be hospitable, even to the

1:31:00

stranger in New York. Beautiful,

1:31:02

yeah. Beautiful. Well, we will wrap

1:31:04

up with the final question, even

1:31:06

though I would selfishly love to

1:31:08

sit here and just chat with

1:31:10

you for hours. So we'll have

1:31:13

to do round two where I can

1:31:15

talk to you about time. That would be

1:31:17

a pleasure. More. Yes. My wife,

1:31:19

we were standing in the kitchen the

1:31:21

other day before I flew out here.

1:31:23

Yes. She said, how are you feeling

1:31:26

about the interview? And I said, great.

1:31:28

And she said, are you excited?

1:31:30

And I said, yes. And she said, what's

1:31:32

the most important question you

1:31:35

have to ask? Yeah. And I was

1:31:37

like. Yeah, I have no idea.

1:31:39

That's a no clue. And it's

1:31:41

in questions. Yeah, and she really

1:31:43

got me with, you know, with

1:31:45

the question of like, what's the

1:31:47

most important question you need to

1:31:49

ask. Intelligent woman. Yes. Yeah. She's

1:31:51

a, she's a sharp one. She

1:31:53

really is an incredible human being.

1:31:55

And I saw it with it for a while.

1:31:58

And I couldn't come up with. with

1:32:00

anything specific about what

1:32:02

I wanted to ask you

1:32:04

outside of this, which

1:32:06

is how does one go

1:32:08

about properly thanking somebody

1:32:10

when they've had a very

1:32:12

profound impact on their

1:32:14

life and that other person

1:32:16

doesn't know? How

1:32:18

do you thank somebody when

1:32:20

there's kind of a mystery there

1:32:22

and words don't seem sufficient

1:32:24

sometimes when the gravity of that

1:32:26

other person's impact is so

1:32:29

profound? And so that's the question

1:32:31

I wanted to leave you

1:32:33

with because I think we all

1:32:36

have people in our lives

1:32:38

who are present in our

1:32:40

life in a way that

1:32:43

isn't physical and they influence

1:32:45

us and it can be

1:32:47

a kind of mystery of

1:32:49

whether they're dead or they're

1:32:51

alive. How do I give

1:32:53

thanks to that person? How

1:32:55

do I praise them? How

1:32:57

do I share my gratitude

1:32:59

with them? So I'll leave

1:33:01

that impossible question with you.

1:33:03

What impossible question given to

1:33:06

me? I'll leave one with

1:33:08

you. Well, gratefulness is a

1:33:10

gorgeous dynamic and it takes

1:33:12

so many different forms. So

1:33:14

to feel thankful, we're thankful

1:33:16

for the sky really and

1:33:18

we don't have the measure

1:33:20

of its beauty or its

1:33:22

giftedness in our articulation and

1:33:24

yet we still thank

1:33:27

through good poetry, through

1:33:29

good literature, where the sky

1:33:31

appears in our mythologies,

1:33:33

in our stories, in our

1:33:35

hearts and minds. So

1:33:37

I think it's through the

1:33:39

deep appropriate attentiveness that

1:33:41

you're feeling in the situation,

1:33:43

in the moment in

1:33:45

which that presence is felt,

1:33:48

either physically or at