0:00

That's a brilliant evil question. It's evil.

0:02

I've asked so many people this question, no one's ever wanted to answer

0:04

it. Well, here I am. Yeah!

0:07

Russell

0:07

Brand is one of the most famous comedians

0:09

in the world. Actor and author.

0:12

He's one of the most unmissable performers on the planet.

0:14

You don't want to be around when the laughter stops. Your

0:17

earliest years are particularly hard

0:20

to read. Drugs

0:22

and self-harm, your mother's illnesses.

0:25

How do we go on the journey of changing? Wow. This

0:27

is proper diary of a CEO stuff. There

0:30

is deep spiritual appetite within all

0:32

of us for connection. But we have a culture

0:35

that is predicated upon individualism

0:38

and materialism. My initial

0:40

solution to feeling

0:42

disconnected and lonely

0:44

was to try and become famous.

0:47

If you are using impermanent

0:50

means to achieve a permanent

0:52

solution, you can only fail.

0:55

But what I would say is, is in that loneliness,

0:58

in that sense of I'm not good enough, I'm worthless,

1:00

are all the ingredients of success

1:03

because it is sadly a gift

1:05

to you. What could I have added to 10-year-old

1:08

Russell's life, do you think, that would have

1:10

made him feel valued? You

1:13

are enough. You are sufficient. We

1:15

are going to

1:16

be okay. What told you otherwise?

1:30

Russell Brand is one of the most fascinating individuals

1:32

I have ever spoken to. A

1:35

former self-harming heroin

1:38

addict, self-confessed narcissist,

1:41

bulimic that craved fame

1:44

and attention, and was so addicted

1:46

to sex that he slept with five

1:49

women a day that married

1:51

Katy Perry three months after meeting

1:53

her,

1:55

and then divorced her with a text message.

1:57

Have you ever felt that subtle feeling?

1:59

that the way you're living is

2:02

not quite right. That something

2:04

somewhere is out of balance.

2:06

That you're not living your life as that human

2:09

somewhere inside you should be living their life.

2:12

The Russell Brand that sits before me today can

2:14

relate

2:15

and he's found a new cure for that feeling.

2:17

A better way to handle pain. A

2:20

new blueprint to live by which he believes

2:22

that you and me and all of us

2:24

will eventually realise through failure

2:27

and frustration. We are all addicts

2:30

searching for ways to feel less pain through porn

2:32

and screens and sugar and addiction

2:34

and drugs and whatever our vices might

2:37

be. But

2:37

maybe, just maybe, maybe

2:40

Russell is right

2:41

and maybe there is a simple cure

2:44

for all of us right there in

2:46

plain sight.

2:54

Russell,

2:55

I read a comment at the

2:57

top of a YouTube video that,

3:00

of an interview you did and this was the comment, this

3:03

man is a hero. He's truly an example of

3:05

transcendence across the spectrum from

3:07

the archetype of selfishness

3:10

enthralled by addiction to complete selfness

3:14

and self-awareness. I love this man

3:16

with all of my heart. Wow.

3:18

That was a comment left regarding you on a recent

3:21

interview you've done. Now, I'm going to be completely

3:23

honest with you. I should admit that I wrote that comment.

3:27

Sometimes I do, even though I know I've written

3:29

it, when I read it back it still gives me a boost.

3:34

I said to you before we start talking, I wanted to talk about disconnection.

3:36

Yeah. Disconnection

3:38

for me in my life started early.

3:41

Disconnection for me was coming to the UK from Africa

3:44

as the only black kid went to Plymouth. Everyone's

3:47

richer than me, everyone's white

3:49

and that pursuit of filling that void

3:51

of whatever it was, that shame, that insecurity, which

3:53

is very clearly the reason I'm sat here.

3:55

What do we need to know about your childhood? How

3:58

did it shape the man that sits in front of me?

3:59

today. I

4:03

have had a life that has been defined

4:05

by addiction and

4:08

the addiction

4:09

and in particular the models of recovery

4:12

that are available for addiction is a convenient

4:15

framework for addressing the problems

4:17

we have in our age that

4:20

are expressed

4:21

extensively and identifiably

4:24

through materialism and attachment. I get

4:28

attached to stuff. When

4:30

I was a little boy I grew up in

4:33

a single parent family just me

4:36

and my mum. I come from an ordinary

4:38

background in Essex, Grey's.

4:42

Ordinariness, normalcy,

4:46

these can be terms that are difficult to

4:49

define but I think

4:51

we all know what we mean

4:54

when we say a normal ordinary

4:58

modest blue-collar background,

5:01

low expectations, state schools.

5:04

We know what images that

5:06

conjures.

5:07

My mum was sick a lot when I was a kid and

5:09

my mum was and it

5:12

was the defining influence in my life. All

5:15

of us that are lucky enough to have mothers are going

5:17

to be defined by that relationship as well

5:19

as the other

5:20

parental relationship. I

5:24

feel like real early on something

5:27

in me which I would now because it's

5:29

almost impossible Steven not to reverse engineer

5:32

these narratives isn't it and to

5:34

thread it through with newly

5:37

accrued and acquired wisdom

5:40

but I feel that I was looking for

5:42

something.

5:43

I feel that there is a deep spiritual

5:45

appetite within all of us for

5:47

connection the subject that you have identified

5:50

as our framing for this conversation

5:52

that we are having

5:55

but we do not have a culture that presents

5:57

us a discourse around connection.

6:01

We have a culture that is predicated

6:03

upon individualism and materialism,

6:06

your value. And this is, I think, across

6:08

the political spectrum and even in more compassionate

6:10

narratives around identity, individualism

6:13

is still enshrined as the centrifugal point.

6:15

So I felt like that I was

6:17

in a state of lack. I don't

6:20

know what it is to be a man. I

6:23

don't know what it is to be a success.

6:26

I don't know what it is to have power. I

6:28

don't know what it is. I recognize

6:30

now, even to feel at ease,

6:33

even to feel serene, even

6:35

to feel relaxed, is probably

6:38

only by the time I got clean from crack

6:40

and heroin and alcohol, that

6:42

I'd noticed that I'd been

6:44

having an anxiety attack for basically

6:47

my entire life. When

6:50

I first told my life story, which

6:53

is an ordinary exercise at treatment centers that

6:56

help people to get rehabilitated from chemical dependency, and

6:58

I was fortunate enough to go to one,

7:02

when the fella read it, Chip Summers, one

7:04

of the first people in recovery I ever met, when

7:06

he read it, he went, oh, poor

7:09

lonely little boy. And I was 27

7:11

then. So

7:14

I suppose my

7:16

life has been defined by addiction, and addiction is

7:19

in part a lack of connection, an attempt

7:21

to synthesize the connection to self,

7:24

other, and God. God

7:27

of your own understanding, perhaps understood

7:30

as a totality, a sense

7:32

of unity, a unity of force, a

7:35

highest principle.

7:37

When it says in the Old Testament, worship

7:39

no other gods than me,

7:42

the implication I offer is

7:44

that we are a species that worships,

7:48

and if you do not access the divine, you

7:50

will worship the mandil, you will worship

7:52

the profane, you will worship

7:55

your own identity, you will worship your belongings,

7:57

you will worship the template lane

7:59

of the world.

7:59

before you by a culture that wants you,

8:03

wants you, but gets you distracted

8:06

and relatively done. So

8:09

my initial solution to

8:12

feeling weak and disconnected

8:15

and lonely and somehow silently

8:17

brilliant

8:19

was to try and become

8:21

successful, was to try and become

8:24

famous, was to try and have

8:26

resources, to try and address all

8:29

of the problems of my original condition.

8:31

My original condition culturally and

8:33

socially as I saw it was lack

8:36

of power, lack of value,

8:39

lack of connection, lack

8:41

of influence. And what does our culture tell

8:43

us is the solution to this? Be somebody. And

8:45

my God, I'm talking about a long time ago now,

8:48

I'm talking about in the eighties and the nineties. Now

8:50

the culture is amplifying

8:52

that message a hundredfold with a million

8:54

screens in every direction, 50

8:57

lenses like the eyes on the inside

8:59

of a fly rather than the almost

9:01

2D experience of lenses that I grew

9:04

up with. What could I have added to 10

9:06

year old Russell's life? Do you think that would have made

9:08

him feel valued?

9:11

Ten year old. I

9:14

reckon mate, now that I'm a

9:16

dad and you

9:18

can't be a father to anyone else until

9:20

you're a father to yourself is

9:24

a sense that who you

9:26

are is all right.

9:28

You're all right. You don't need to

9:30

worry that you are enough. You

9:32

are sufficient. We are going to be

9:35

okay. What told you otherwise? All

9:38

conditions. It isn't

9:40

the broad cultural message.

9:43

You are sufficient. You will not be

9:46

sufficient until you acquire this

9:48

body, these objects,

9:51

this approval, these affiliations.

9:53

I don't even think it's personal to me. Like whilst

9:56

like, you know, necessarily our conversation has to be

9:58

framed by sort of biographical.

9:59

theatrical detail that's particular to me,

10:02

don't you find that when you know anyone's story

10:05

really, that the universal was there waiting

10:07

for you, that there is a ubiquity of this message?

10:10

How many times have you heard people that

10:12

are hugely successful say, I felt inferior,

10:14

I didn't feel good enough, I wanted to achieve this, I didn't

10:16

have this or that? It's like, it's, else

10:19

wise, what could Jung

10:21

have achieved? Elsewise, what could Joseph

10:23

Campbell have achieved? Were there not archetypes

10:26

strewn about us, maps waiting

10:28

to be discovered?

10:30

It's true, most people that sit here, have

10:33

achieved phenomenal things, it

10:35

starts with a story of not being enough and you often wonder whether

10:37

they're driven or dragged, driven

10:39

by their own, because they're framed in books as driven,

10:42

but in reality, they're being dragged by insecurities

10:45

and shame and all of these things, that

10:47

feeling of not enough.

10:49

Your

10:52

earliest years are particularly hard

10:54

to read. Hard

10:57

to read. And I'll be

10:59

completely, when I read about

11:01

the circumstances of your earliest years, I do

11:03

see a story that is very unique

11:06

in the sense of self-harm, your

11:08

mother's sicknesses and her

11:10

illnesses.

11:14

And there's that guy underneath there that knew

11:16

he was brilliant, as you say,

11:18

believed he was brilliant.

11:23

Brilliant in what way? Well,

11:27

I suppose, and

11:35

I find this to be quite common to

11:37

addicts and alcoholics, there's

11:41

this pre-metabolized

11:44

quality that's waiting

11:47

to be activated. Now,

11:49

brilliant is obviously a comparative

11:52

and relative term and

11:55

the training I've been fortunate enough

11:57

to receive, pre-heal.

12:00

exhibits me from leaning too

12:02

heavily into a framing

12:04

like that now, like superior

12:07

to better than. But

12:11

I feel that I had a sense of a resource

12:13

that was waiting to unfold. I had

12:16

a sense that there would be a secondary

12:18

coordinate that might arrive in

12:20

the form of a destination.

12:24

All energy at the

12:26

most fundamental level requires polarity.

12:29

It requires polarity. And

12:31

I suppose that word parent in

12:34

and that word parenthesis, another

12:36

word for bracket in, suggests

12:38

that you need to be held in some way.

12:41

You need something that's going to be able to hold

12:43

you. Now,

12:44

if like me, I believe in God, Stephen,

12:46

so the thing that defines me now is I believe

12:48

in God and I don't believe that I have unique access

12:51

to God or superior access to God

12:53

or that there's this little set of dances or codes

12:55

or clothes that need to be worn to access

12:57

God more primarily or more privately. I believe

13:00

that in an absolute loving God

13:02

that all of us have the right to be here, that I don't

13:04

need no special adornments or epiphets

13:06

or epilets or badges or medallions, but

13:09

it's enough for me to be one of everybody else.

13:11

Back then though, as a little kid, when

13:14

I felt inferior and broken,

13:17

I just wanted to feel a little bit special.

13:20

I wanted to feel a little bit valuable.

13:23

And I suppose

13:26

the first time that I really felt that

13:28

was making people laugh, doing a

13:31

school play at my little school, Grey's

13:33

school, Bugsy Malone, and

13:35

feeling the overwhelming,

13:38

terrifying adrenaline

13:41

and the accompanying sense

13:44

of competence that

13:46

comes with being able to corral

13:49

and direct that energy when

13:52

it comes, a sense of purpose,

13:55

revelation.

13:58

When you ask that, you know, what could you you have added and what do

14:00

you mean by silently brilliant? Like,

14:06

I don't wanna feel better than no one else no more. I

14:08

don't wanna feel worse than anyone else. And

14:11

I wanna participate in other people's becoming

14:14

who they are intended to be.

14:17

There's a beautiful phrase in recovery you may enjoy.

14:19

We recover the person we're intended to

14:21

be. That somehow we

14:23

can respect individuality,

14:26

limitless, limitless diversity, while

14:29

somehow accepting that there is something unitive

14:32

among us, something collective to be

14:34

realized and achieved.

14:36

So I suppose it was my own savoring

14:39

of my particularness that I was experiencing,

14:42

even though, and this is no fault of my

14:45

parents,

14:46

although I might analyze my

14:48

culture,

14:50

I felt that I couldn't express

14:52

it and I didn't know what value it had

14:54

and what its use was. It was in

14:56

utile

14:57

until the culture tells you it

15:00

can be monetized or it can

15:02

be mobilized in order to. Now

15:05

that framing isn't necessarily one that I would ordinarily

15:07

gravitate to, but that's the one that is

15:09

available to. That is the totemism of our culture.

15:11

That's the paradigm that we are offered.

15:14

So I suppose that's the one that many of us inevitably

15:18

pursue. Do you have any emotional sentiment

15:20

towards that young man's circumstances

15:23

as you look back on the situation

15:25

he was in and what he was experiencing?

15:27

Do you feel you feel sorry for him? Do you feel happy

15:30

for him? What should you feel anything towards? Lately,

15:35

due to the principles of recovery, due

15:38

to the fact that I have mentors, I

15:40

have peers, I have

15:42

people that look to me for guidance,

15:45

I have service, I have duty, responsibility.

15:49

Lately, Steven, I

15:52

come to feel incorporated with

15:54

that little boy. But if you'd spoke to me 10

15:56

years ago, I doubt I would

15:58

like to have heard. that him referred

16:00

to, I wouldn't have liked that

16:03

spectre to have risen a

16:05

phantom I'd happily put aside. But now

16:07

like that little boy, like hopefully

16:10

the little boy that you described down there in

16:12

Plymouth of all places,

16:14

that famous rock from where they depart

16:16

to cross the oceans, that personal

16:19

Mayflower journey, he's with me

16:21

now. I love him.

16:23

And he is like, he is a great asset

16:26

when I'm dealing with young, vulnerable, broken

16:29

people. When people tell me that they

16:31

wanna end their own lives, when people tell me they self harm,

16:33

when people tell me they wanna kill themselves, that they can't

16:36

cope with life, they don't feel that they're good enough.

16:38

I'm not fazed. I can stay 100% present

16:40

with that. And that

16:42

is a great gift, no? Was there,

16:45

I think about this a lot with myself, was there another path

16:47

to where you are now? Yeah, probably

16:49

mate, probably. I mean, look, you've met a lot of

16:52

people. I know a lot of people. But

16:54

for me personally, I'll just tell you why I asked that

16:57

question. I believe that I had a belief

16:59

that was

17:00

ill informed by the society I lived in. And

17:02

I believe I had to pursue that belief to find

17:05

out that I was wrong and have it fail me.

17:08

Well, it's happened

17:10

now. Now it has happened. So

17:13

the answer is 100% of course, absolutely and defagibly.

17:16

This is the reality that was designed for you

17:18

internally that your consciousness is creating this

17:20

reality. This reality is not coming externally

17:23

at you. This consciousness is unfolding

17:26

from within you in the moment. Where

17:28

else could it be? Where else could it be? But

17:30

potentially limitless alternatives,

17:32

potentially unbridled

17:34

possibility.

17:36

And for you, you think you could have become

17:38

the man that's set in front of me now via a different

17:41

pathway? Yeah, but

17:43

also no. What

17:47

I suppose I'm saying is I accept this,

17:50

the path that I've walked and

17:52

that I'm sort of continuing to walk.

17:56

And I suppose anyone that's engaged

17:58

in the process of recovering.

17:59

has to as a part of

18:02

that accept the various

18:04

chapters, episodes that

18:07

have led to that. I mean, I think that's part

18:09

of self-acceptance. Part of self-acceptance

18:11

is to appreciate and understand

18:14

the

18:16

various steps that led you to where you are. And just again,

18:18

I think to reiterate that that's why

18:21

I mentioned addiction and recovery early on, because

18:23

it provides you with access

18:25

to an archetype, but this is who I was. This

18:28

is the way that I lived.

18:30

This is the way that I tried to handle

18:32

the challenges that life gives you impermanence,

18:34

temporality, death, inequality,

18:37

hypocrisy, destruction, all of these things that

18:40

sort of are pervasive, whether that's cultural

18:42

or simply part of being

18:44

in a temporal and

18:47

spatial reality.

18:50

Recovery gives you a different set of tools, a

18:52

different way

18:54

to deal with those same challenges, which

18:57

for want of a

18:59

better word, I will call spiritual, a spiritual

19:01

solution to what I regard

19:04

now as a spiritual problem. Once

19:06

again, tag in that idea of connection that you've helped

19:09

us set up this conversation using.

19:10

Spirituality is

19:13

a form of connection.

19:16

You know, when a lot of people are put off by the term spirituality,

19:18

because it sounds a little bit exclusive and

19:20

a little bit hoo-hoo-ha-ha, but the, you

19:23

know, I've would class myself now as being

19:25

spiritual. Thanks in part, I have

19:27

to say to my partner who is a

19:29

breathwork instructor and I met in, you know, in

19:31

Bali and so on. But one of the quotes that I love

19:33

from you is like many desperate people, I need

19:35

spirituality, I need God or I cannot cope in

19:37

this world. I need to believe in the best in people.

19:40

Since I've become spiritual, I've found that it's easier

19:43

to be alive.

19:45

Spiritual. What is that word? Spiritual

19:48

literally means not material. That's what it

19:50

means. It's not observable or measurable.

19:53

The problem perhaps that we have nowadays

19:55

is that we live in a quantitative reality

19:58

where all things are measurable.

19:59

where all things are based, predicated

20:02

on rational principles. But all of us know

20:04

what love is, all of us know what intuition

20:07

is. All of us know,

20:09

as C.S. Lewis beautifully outlines

20:11

in Mere Christianity, when we have transgressed

20:14

against some moral code that appears

20:16

to have been instilled in us, and in spite

20:18

of the advocacy and campaigning of evolutionary

20:21

biologists, seems to appeal

20:23

to some nuministic tendency, nuministic

20:26

meaning, simply a sense of awe,

20:28

a sense of oneness, a sense of

20:29

glory, a sense of glory you might experience

20:32

at sunrise or sunset,

20:34

or looking into the eyes of a loved one or even

20:37

a stranger, and knowing that the connection is real,

20:39

knowing that the unity force is real,

20:42

and that somehow this connection implies

20:44

a set of ethics, morals and

20:46

principles. It's not just, oh wow, God

20:49

is one, let's lose ourself in some hedonistic

20:51

revelry. That pleasure

20:54

is not an end point, that service

20:56

is our way of acknowledging this

20:59

unity.

21:00

So spirituality

21:02

for me is a survival technique. You

21:04

won't get very far in this world without it,

21:07

and if you don't have it in a declared, explicit,

21:10

and I don't mean doctrinal way, I mean personal

21:12

but somehow connected and communal way, you

21:15

will try to create God, you

21:17

will try to create spirituality from

21:19

your preferences. Your preferences

21:21

will become your God.

21:23

I prefer it when people talk to me like this.

21:25

I repel this, my aversions

21:28

and my preferences will become my religion, and this

21:30

is, I'm capable of that today. If

21:33

I don't, I'm lucky to be such a craven,

21:35

mad smackhead, and it's nice to walk

21:37

around the streets of Shoreditch where I have used,

21:40

where I've scored, where I know the back streets are bricklaying,

21:42

where there are enclaves, where they serve up

21:44

Muslim men wearing full regalia

21:47

that would never deal with that kind of business, it's

21:49

against the Quran, but serve it up to

21:51

slip down them rap runs, to see it trace

21:54

across the silver page, to lose myself

21:56

in smack world, and to come back here

21:58

now with a... a different

22:01

way, a different way. The city has changed

22:03

and I have changed and no man crosses the same

22:05

river twice and no man visits the same sharditch

22:08

twice because the man is different and sharditch is

22:10

different. I was looking for the

22:12

same thing then. I was looking for the same thing

22:14

then. Like when I was looking around

22:17

then for smack and crack and all of that, I

22:19

was looking for the things that I'm looking for now. And

22:21

if I'm not very rigorous in my spiritual

22:23

practices and they're simple, sort of simple. I know

22:25

I can use a lot of long words. It's a thing I like doing,

22:28

I get off on it and stuff. But spirituality

22:30

ain't complicated. My nan's better at it

22:33

than I am. My mum, my wife, they're

22:35

all better at it than I am. They do it natural. Cause

22:37

they're not like mobilized

22:39

by this sort of primordial

22:42

yearning that can become my fuel.

22:44

It ain't no easy

22:45

task to turn all that

22:48

gunge, that swamp gunge,

22:50

that neolithic jet fuel

22:53

into love of one another. There's

22:56

people now that are living a life where including

22:58

me probably to many respects that are using

23:00

preference as our God. Yes. You

23:02

sniff that strangely. Well, cause I thought, is there chlorine

23:04

in it? Really? I just wondered.

23:07

What

23:07

is it? Water. Water,

23:09

okay. I don't think there's chlorine in it. I hope there's not chlorine.

23:11

Those people that are choosing preference as their

23:13

God now that are living a life maybe where materialism

23:15

is their, is their, their

23:17

savior.

23:20

What is, there's a couple of questions I have here. You

23:22

know, the Russell that was in Shoreditch for other reasons,

23:24

once upon a time, and the Russell that's in Shoreditch

23:26

now,

23:28

you said that they were both looking for the same thing.

23:31

What was old Russell finding?

23:34

And why wasn't the thing he found as good

23:36

as the thing he finds now? I.E. what is the outcome

23:39

of those that are choosing preference as their God?

23:42

Like why is that such a bad thing? What

23:44

is the long-term or short-term consequence? Well, I

23:46

wouldn't suggest that there is but one

23:49

path.

23:50

As they say, as Krishnamurti

23:52

says, truth is a pathless

23:54

land. We got to find

23:57

it ourselves. But that said, there

23:59

are. templates, paradigms, conditions,

24:02

and practices that might help

24:04

us. So I'm not making a judgment

24:07

on anyone else's path. My spirituality

24:09

is not about you should be doing this and you should be doing

24:11

that. My spirituality is I should be

24:13

doing this. I should be doing that. My

24:16

morality is about my conduct. If

24:19

someone else wants me to judge them or help them

24:21

or guide them or aid them, and I'm able to, then it is

24:23

my duty to do it.

24:25

But what I would say is, is if

24:27

you are using impermanent

24:30

means to achieve a permanent

24:33

solution, you can only

24:35

fail. If you are mistaking

24:38

the vehicle for the self, for

24:40

the essence of the self, you

24:43

can only fail. If

24:45

you have not interrogated,

24:47

who is this in here? What is this subjective

24:49

experience that only I am having? How

24:52

do I deal with the

24:54

tension of the paradox and remember all

24:56

energy comes from polarity, all energy

24:58

comes from polarity,

24:59

that I am infinitesimally

25:02

small to the point of being absolutely irrelevant

25:04

in a cosmic framing, and yet

25:07

all reality takes place

25:10

solely, as far as I know, within my

25:12

consciousness. You said you can only

25:14

fail if you go on that pursuit. So you

25:16

said if you do this, you can only fail. You can do this. You will only

25:18

fail. What is failure

25:21

for the modern person that is pursuing that? What does

25:23

that feel like specifically? Is it a feeling?

25:26

Is it a sense of dissatisfaction?

25:30

What is that common failure that those in

25:32

that sort of impermanent pursuit of preference?

25:36

What is failure?

25:38

Pain. Pain. Disconnection,

25:41

loneliness, despair, a

25:44

sense of worthlessness. But even in

25:46

these flaws

25:49

and failings, I offer

25:51

is the DNA of

25:54

success. I notice a lot with addiction,

25:56

of course, and forgive me using this framing.

25:59

It's just the best.

25:59

model I've ever been given to not kill myself

26:03

is that addicts

26:06

are so close to realizing

26:08

it. Nothing is real. Nothing

26:11

matters. Not even your identity is

26:13

real. Destroy it. Destroy

26:15

the self. Destroy the self. The

26:17

self is not real. But

26:19

they're killing the wrong thing. They're

26:22

killing the wrong thing. They're killing the

26:24

host vessel. But in

26:27

the end, it becomes that everything you need

26:29

to become recovered is present in

26:31

your addiction. Everything you need to become

26:33

awakened is present in your

26:36

somulence. How could it not be?

26:39

Where else could Nirvana be back here? So

26:41

what I'm saying is, is in that loneliness, in

26:43

that sense of I'm not good enough, I'm worthless, are

26:46

all the ingredients awaiting reorganization.

26:49

And perhaps this is what a program, a system,

26:51

a practice, and some mentors

26:54

and some peers can provide. And I think it is different

26:56

for all of us.

26:58

But the failure is the sort of

27:01

the sense, isn't it? Because you ask an important question,

27:03

Steven, you asked many important questions, Steven.

27:06

But this one in particular is

27:10

why what is it again with CS Lewis,

27:12

what is that you're feeling? You know, you know, if

27:14

someone is good to you and treats you in

27:16

an open-hearted way, and you cuss them

27:18

or muck them about or diss them or slander

27:20

them something in you goes, you shouldn't have done that.

27:23

Well, what is that? What is that in your belly?

27:25

Not the God of the heavens, not the gods

27:27

of the Old Testament or the Quran, although they're all fantastic.

27:30

But the God that's in your belly telling you that

27:32

wasn't right. That wasn't right. You have

27:35

to in the end, answer to this God. And

27:37

as I say, the ingredients are all present in

27:39

this

27:39

sense. Hmm, there's something I'm supposed to be doing. There's

27:42

something I'm supposed to be doing. It's only some tweaks

27:44

I find, you know, I use my program for

27:46

recovery over a 20 year period from the smack

27:48

head crack head that I was. And I also

27:51

use it in five seconds when I'm like

27:53

when I'm caught again, as I will be, as I

27:55

am capable of being when I feel temptation, when

27:57

I feel inferior, when I feel that someone is trying

27:59

to impose.

27:59

status on me. I feel all the machines

28:02

fire up. Still.

28:04

Yeah, it's a mechanical. It's

28:07

biomechanical. It's biomechanical.

28:10

The Swamis, the masters,

28:12

the Rishis, the Yogis and the Sashis and interestingly

28:15

mate, Swami means he who is with himself.

28:18

They are able, I believe, to observe it. There

28:21

it goes, but it's not me. Your thoughts

28:23

are merely the first layer of the external

28:25

world. They would have a weight. They would have a charge

28:28

if we had the instruments to observe them. Instead

28:30

of identifying with my thoughts and locking into them,

28:33

oh look, there it goes. Little Russell thinking it matters

28:35

if everyone loves him. He's thinking that again.

28:38

Why wouldn't he think that with that little childhood? Why

28:40

wouldn't he think that with that little society

28:43

that he lived in? Some compassion for him, but

28:45

some duties also.

28:47

Quick one before we get back to this episode. Just give me 30 seconds

28:50

of your time. Two things I wanted to

28:52

say. The first thing is a huge thank you

28:54

for listening and tuning into the show week

28:56

after week. It means the world to all of us and this really is

28:58

a dream that we absolutely never had and

29:00

couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But

29:03

secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only

29:05

just getting started and if you enjoy

29:07

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29:15

a promise I'm going to make to you. I'm going to do everything

29:17

in my power to make this show as good as I

29:20

can now and into the future. We're

29:22

going to deliver the guests that you want me to speak to and

29:24

we're going to continue to keep doing all of the things

29:26

you love about this show.

29:28

Thank you. Thank you so much. Back to the episode.

29:31

One of the things I've thought a lot about recently,

29:33

you mentioned a God in your belly or that person

29:36

or that signal in your belly that's trying to tell you

29:38

how you feel and we've all become so phenomenally

29:40

good at tuning out of that and tuning into

29:43

the kind of external how

29:45

you feel, like how you should feel based

29:47

on the job or title status that you have. And

29:50

this is a stronger noise and signal now than

29:52

this one.

29:54

Your life has been this, you talked about mentors as well,

29:56

your life has been this

29:58

amazing journey

30:00

from chapter to chapter to chapter, as

30:03

this person described as transcendence, the

30:06

question I'm getting at is like, I'm thinking

30:09

about someone right now that sat in

30:11

the city and they

30:13

know they feel like shit at

30:17

a deeper level,

30:18

but they've gotten so good to listening to their mother's

30:20

opinion of them becoming a stockbroker,

30:23

that it's almost hard to hear that feeling of I feel like

30:26

shit. How do we go on the journey of changing?

30:28

How do we get there? Well,

30:31

typically Steven, the journey begins

30:33

with a departure from home. Interestingly,

30:36

whatever home is, you have to leave.

30:38

You have to leave the familiar, the

30:41

place that you are familiar with. Scary. Often

30:44

this is induced by crisis, a

30:46

crisis that you cannot avoid

30:49

or delay or defer. A

30:52

crisis of some kind may come. Of course,

30:54

this can be an inner crisis, a

30:56

moment of despair. Often

30:58

a psychic breakdown

31:00

can precipitate

31:02

change, transition,

31:06

awakening. I suppose what

31:09

you have to, what one way that you can do

31:11

it, this is the way that I would

31:13

do it, the way that I have done it,

31:16

is firstly to acknowledge the

31:18

problem of my condition, to admit there

31:20

is a problem and that my life has become

31:23

unmanageable. These are not my ideas.

31:25

What are the signals of that?

31:27

Unhappiness, sadness. In a

31:29

sense, one thing that's good about

31:31

that is you're trusting your personal integrity. It's

31:33

not like, oh, you're delirious. Why are you not

31:35

happy? Why is this not working for you?

31:38

Problem, unmanageability, you're sad. I'm

31:41

using, in fact, the example you use. Someone in

31:43

a city holed up, left with a familial

31:46

and cultural conditioning that has left them

31:48

at odds, maladjusted to a maladjusted

31:51

world. One, there is a problem,

31:53

life is unmanageable too. You've got to believe

31:56

it's possible to change. If you don't believe

31:58

it's possible to change, you will never be. be able

32:00

to marshal your inner resources towards

32:03

making that change. One way that

32:05

this change can be made is through mentorship,

32:08

even if that mentorship is in the

32:10

abstract, even if you've just chosen, Hey,

32:13

this person seems to be able to have

32:15

done that. He says that he used to feel weak,

32:18

inferior, incompetent,

32:21

impotent. And he says now that

32:23

he doesn't feel those feelings. So

32:25

maybe if I do what they

32:27

did, maybe I can change also. So

32:30

this, so this, and

32:34

the third component, first one, acknowledgement

32:36

of powerlessness, second one, belief change

32:38

is possible. Third principle,

32:40

it will not come from the same

32:43

map and rubric that you've been running

32:45

on up till now.

32:47

You are going to have to import new

32:49

ideas. You will need help. That help

32:52

I would offer you might be of a divine

32:54

nature, prayer, meditation,

32:57

humility to ask for

32:59

something greater than your, my individual

33:02

want, my individual preferences, not

33:04

just some wishlist passed up to

33:06

the cosmic Santa. It is, and

33:11

it is a acknowledgement

33:13

that there is a requirement for growth. And indeed

33:16

that I'm no longer prescribing what

33:18

outcomes I want. It's curious. There are often paradoxes

33:20

in this. So for me, mate, it's like first

33:23

that you admit the power, the powerlessness

33:25

and the nature of the problem. Second, I believe it's possible

33:27

to change. And I based that on hang on a minute. These

33:29

people used to have that problem and they've changed.

33:31

So what if I do what they did, then

33:34

maybe my life will change. These are all things

33:36

derived from 12 step ideology. The

33:38

third thing is accept someone else's plan, accept

33:41

someone else's help,

33:43

surrender. Because in the S

33:45

in the end, this is the think, perhaps the hardest contradiction.

33:48

At least I find it a very hard contradiction to

33:50

live with this idea of activated

33:52

surrender and a return to the original

33:55

condition. Activated surrender.

33:57

Russell is no longer in charge.

33:59

Russell. is no longer in charge. Russell is

34:02

a servant. There is a master. I

34:04

am in the service of this. Now, I recognise

34:06

those words are pretty loaded, but

34:09

I'm saying that if you can envisage

34:12

a benign and loving mother or

34:14

father rather than authority,

34:16

and if you do consider authority to be

34:19

mostly malign, I could not

34:21

identify more strongly. My

34:23

distrust and my dislike of authority

34:26

is a deep, deep fuel in me. I

34:28

do not like being told

34:30

what to do. I do

34:31

not like it. It is a big, big

34:33

part of my religion. I have

34:35

to stop myself reflexively

34:38

doing the opposite of what I'm told if someone

34:40

speaks to me or for it. If someone asks

34:42

me to help them, I will do my level best

34:44

to help them. If someone tells me what to do, I find it very,

34:46

very difficult indeed not to do the

34:48

opposite. Anarchist calisthenics

34:51

break rules every day just

34:53

to remind yourself that you belong to

34:55

something higher than a set of systems

34:58

potentially imposed by a malevolent

35:00

force.

35:02

Step three, you referenced

35:04

the first time, was about running

35:07

basically a new instruction manual for your life.

35:09

Because the current

35:12

instruction manual is clearly not producing

35:15

the results you seek, so a new instruction

35:17

manual for your life. My

35:20

brain went, but how do I know which one to pick? Because

35:22

there's many temptations for a new path forward.

35:25

I could join a cult in

35:27

Arizona or I might seek

35:29

meaning and surrender in another

35:31

wrong place

35:32

from my preferences to something even more destructive.

35:37

How do we know what new instruction manual

35:41

to run our lives on when we find ourselves in such a situation?

35:43

I'm thinking again about that person who

35:45

finds himself in a job because their parents

35:47

have told them to go and get that job and now or

35:50

they're working any job where they feel

35:52

like something is wrong.

35:53

They admit it. Step one.

35:57

Step two is they seek out mentors to provide evidence

35:59

that it's possible.

35:59

to leave the situation.

36:02

And then step three is this idea of surrendering

36:04

and running your life on a new instruction manual. Where

36:08

do I find that instruction manual? Is it from my mentors?

36:10

It's interesting, isn't it? Yes, possibly. Yes,

36:13

quite likely, yeah.

36:15

Because I feel we're in a crisis of authority.

36:18

Most people don't trust the government. Most people

36:20

don't trust the media. Many people don't

36:22

trust the judiciary or state authority.

36:25

And I would have to confess that I am inclined

36:28

to agree that we are in a true

36:30

crisis of authority. Who indeed

36:33

would you trust to say, I will do what is right.

36:35

I will do what is right for you. I will do what is right for the community

36:38

and trust that they are speaking on behalf

36:41

of a set of principles that could

36:43

be somehow universal and truly

36:45

valid.

36:46

How I

36:48

have handled this is

36:51

I've been fortunate enough through crisis

36:53

and despair to find myself primarily

36:56

connected to a group of other people the same

36:59

as me who cannot cope with reality

37:01

unless they drink or use drugs. And

37:03

those people provide me with

37:06

a paradigm for moving forward and

37:08

a program. And I like that word program because it's both

37:10

a sort of very old-fashioned word but also

37:12

a ultra modern word in terms

37:14

of, you know, software for example,

37:16

thanks mate, yeah.

37:19

And I guess

37:21

at some point we're gonna have to trust ourselves. But

37:23

when embarking on this journey, it's not

37:26

easy to lean into intuition

37:28

and it isn't easy to trust others. I find

37:30

trust very, very difficult. I don't know about

37:32

you mate. I don't know what kind of experiences

37:35

you had there as a young man in Plymouth.

37:37

But for me, trust ain't my go-to. That's

37:40

not my go-to. It takes me a little while. My strategy

37:42

is do not put yourself in a situation

37:44

where you require trust. Why? Because

37:48

maybe people are gonna let you down bad. Maybe,

37:51

maybe the systems of authority, be

37:53

they educational, legal, judicial,

37:55

maybe they're gonna let you down. Maybe they can't be relied

37:58

on. I mean, I was kicked out of school, but.

37:59

You know, I was expelled from school. I went to university

38:02

for one day, left that. Yeah, I did all these things.

38:04

I remember it. I recognise it in your

38:06

story, but that... I don't have the same

38:08

level of...

38:10

I'm sceptical. I require evidence

38:12

to accept things. Some kind of subjective or, you know,

38:14

evidence that I... But I'm not... I wouldn't say

38:16

I'm distrusting.

38:18

Broadly. Or maybe

38:20

I am to some degree. What is scepticism? Maybe my scepticism

38:22

is that, yeah. It's a critique,

38:25

it's an analytic, it's a perspective of

38:27

until you know. But your

38:29

problem with... Your challenges with authority

38:31

that are clearing your story through school

38:34

and institutions and all these things. Where does that

38:36

come from in you?

38:37

That... What

38:39

is... And how would you describe it? Well, now

38:42

I would describe it as a very deep love

38:44

of God and a great deal of respect

38:46

for other people's individual liberty

38:49

and freedom. And the idea that any central

38:51

authority would impose that without

38:54

clear consent achieved through democracy

38:57

and community. A community

38:59

dialogue seems ridiculous to me. But

39:03

obviously, it's biographical and interpersonal.

39:05

That the circumstances of my life

39:08

have shown me that the people,

39:10

one way or another, that are in positions of authority,

39:13

on the various scales of authority

39:15

that most people encounter, familial, social,

39:18

educational, have not been able

39:20

to fulfil the

39:22

duties required of them. Of course, as a person, there's

39:25

a certain way down the path now because

39:28

in the words of Philip Larkin, they in their

39:31

turn were fucked up too. That

39:33

we are just part of a long lineage

39:36

of people coping with broken

39:38

systems. And I would say from agriculture

39:41

onwards, systems of aggregation,

39:44

centralisation, accumulation, that

39:46

can't enshrine the rights of the individual,

39:49

except for a certain set of individuals,

39:51

that we are living in a system that's about centralising

39:54

power

39:55

and increasing authority,

39:57

diminishing individual freedom, using whatever

39:59

rhetorical tricks are required, safety,

40:02

convenience, whatever is required to achieve

40:04

this centralized authority. Now, so I

40:06

now feel like you said before, there are other

40:09

ways that you could have ended up being this man in

40:11

this chair. Now I am glad that

40:13

I have been deeply schooled in mistrust

40:15

of authority, that it's almost like it burns

40:17

in me. I can tell. Watch them,

40:20

watch what they're telling you, watch what they're

40:22

telling you. I give it to my own children

40:24

and I hope I'm not doing them a disservice. Question

40:27

authority,

40:28

question it, question it. And

40:30

of course this makes bedtime difficult because

40:33

who's the person telling them bedtime? But

40:35

it makes schooling, both institutions

40:37

have an inertia, institutions have a tendency.

40:40

They might start off with, we're gonna educate these kids

40:42

to be creative and individuals, but in the end, it's

40:44

gonna be about health and safety. In the end, it's gonna be

40:46

about fire drills. In the end, it's gonna be a

40:49

set of, a bureaucratic

40:52

enmeshment and maze that prevents

40:54

individual freedom. The great David Graber, God rest his

40:56

soul, though he was a communist, so he maybe wouldn't

40:58

thank me for saying that. David

40:59

Graber says that one

41:01

of our great dialectics against

41:04

Soviet communism, for example, was that they were bureaucracies

41:07

that prohibited individual freedom. But look at the bureaucracies

41:10

we live within now. How do they solve

41:12

the problem of spying and stealing your

41:14

data? Just make someone tap, I

41:16

agree.

41:17

Don't stop spying, continue to spy,

41:20

continue to accumulate the data, just tap,

41:22

agree. You agreed to be spied on. This

41:25

is bureaucracy. These are the

41:27

observable tendrils and

41:29

symptoms of a centralized

41:32

authority that is not necessarily

41:34

sentient, occultist,

41:37

or overtly corrupt, but a tendency

41:40

to accumulate power, to dominate

41:42

resources that is plainly observable

41:45

in the geopolitical dramas that play out in our

41:47

time, the ecological crises and the

41:49

evident main stage players that

41:53

occupy our current time, that

41:56

many of whom have not been elected to get

41:58

there. I'm talking about unelected.

41:59

cronym organizations that have a great deal of

42:02

influence in the world today. So the reason I don't

42:04

trust is not, you know, I love my mum

42:06

and dad, Ron Brand, Bab's Brand.

42:08

In fact, like today, he sat here in Shoreditch

42:10

as an adult man. I wouldn't just walk around

42:13

Essex and go to find some

42:15

couple of working class kids and say, why

42:17

don't you and you take responsibility

42:20

for my spiritual development? They

42:22

did the very best they could and I couldn't love them more.

42:24

I couldn't love them more. But my mum, she had

42:26

cancer like eight times in a few years.

42:29

My dad, he's got

42:29

his own deal. He's got his own deal. And

42:32

I recognize what it is to feel strong,

42:34

individualistic, fervor. I love them. I

42:37

love them.

42:39

When I'm trying to formulate and

42:41

I know I'll make errors as a parent, of course I will.

42:43

We all do. And as you will discover, it

42:45

is our duty to

42:47

wound our children. Not

42:49

our duty, it is a necessity beyond

42:51

the duty. It is a tendency. It's

42:53

just gonna, they're gonna end up wounded.

42:55

They have to. They're gonna have to find a second

42:57

mother, a second father. They're gonna

42:59

have to. They're gonna have to. So

43:04

it's not anybody's fault. It's not even

43:07

the system's fault. I'm kind of grateful to all of

43:09

it now. I'm grateful to these institutions. I'm grateful

43:11

to the mainstream media. I'm grateful

43:14

to these governments. I'm grateful that they have set

43:16

out the instruments required for the change

43:18

that we will encounter in the coming few decades.

43:22

You mentioned your mum and your father again there.

43:24

Your father, what role, what

43:27

impact was, did his departure

43:30

have, do you think, on hindsight, on your relationship with authority,

43:32

if any at all? I would say fatherless

43:35

men. Like, I don't want to be so solipsistic

43:37

as to make this entirely about me, he says, 20

43:40

years into a career.

43:42

But I think, and I experience

43:44

with fatherless men who I deal with a

43:46

lot in my, what I

43:49

would say my spiritual life is to be around

43:51

men a lot that are in recovery, both

43:53

being mentored by and mentoring and

43:55

recovering mutually in support

43:57

communities.

43:59

Broadly, fatherless men feel a

44:02

big burden and they do not

44:04

feel safe in this world. A big

44:06

burden, not safe in this world. If they're

44:08

with the mother, I think they feel it is their duty

44:10

to look after the mother. If they are

44:13

without other parents, I mean, you know, if without

44:15

either parent, my God, who knows what kind of chaos.

44:18

And I'm not saying there is only one way and that there is only

44:20

template, but one template. But because

44:22

I'm already talking about a subset, I'm talking about a subset

44:24

of people that have

44:25

become drug addicts and alcoholics in order

44:27

to deal with these kind of challenges. But also I know people

44:29

that don't identify as addicts

44:31

in exactly that way and still the absence of

44:34

the father. And that also, by the

44:36

way, could be through death or it could be could break up

44:38

with a relationship or it could be because the father doesn't

44:40

have the emotional lexicon

44:43

to connect. Yeah. One

44:45

way or another, because I can think of examples top of my head

44:47

of all of those.

44:49

I think it feels that you are prematurely

44:51

invited to be a man. In fact, we're not thinking about

44:53

our interview, Stephen, because you'll be glad to know I thought

44:56

about you before I met you. I

44:59

felt the significance of anthropology,

45:01

the significance of what the original condition

45:03

might be. I do not use these terms to

45:05

suggest there is some one template

45:08

that could be imposed and stamped upon everyone.

45:10

I would never take away people's individual

45:13

rights or struggles, particularly those connected to obvious

45:15

and evident civil rights, cultural

45:17

and identity issues.

45:19

Those are their stories for them. And I support

45:21

them in those stories. But when it

45:23

comes to how human beings might have

45:25

lived for hundreds of thousands of years, it

45:28

appears we do well when we are a connected

45:31

unit that communicate together

45:33

in order to achieve a common

45:36

goal. Time and time again,

45:38

when anthropologists and even

45:41

contemporary psychologists

45:43

study these forms of society,

45:46

they discover that there

45:48

are

45:49

rights of initiation for both

45:51

males and females, although there often

45:54

appears, based on what I have heard, and as

45:56

you know, I'm not an expert, to be particular

45:58

emphasis on male initiation.

45:59

as the body is not so uniform

46:02

in the way that it informs a boy that

46:04

it is a grown-up now, not a child

46:07

anymore, and that there are new duties

46:09

to be undertaken. One of the

46:11

best examples I ever heard, and I feel like I see somewhere in Freud,

46:14

or maybe in Joseph Campbell,

46:16

is that I feel this is some Australian Aboriginal

46:19

tribe, that they, what they do,

46:22

and I think they're doing this now, I figure, I

46:24

don't know, you know, I'm putting this stuff together, you know how

46:26

it goes, that

46:27

the boys at a certain age are

46:30

dragged away from the mother, and they make

46:32

much of it. They wear masks the men of

46:34

the village, all the men are part father,

46:36

all the women are part mother, and of course

46:38

there are categories for other forms of identity

46:40

too, which they honour and revere, often in the

46:42

form of the shaman, who is beyond gender

46:45

identity, incorporating both. You

46:47

see reflections of this to this day, even

46:49

in monotheistic faiths, where the priest

46:51

wears what appears to be neutral

46:54

or androgynous attire, distinguishing

46:57

them

46:57

from the rest of the community,

47:00

yet honouring them and revering them. And

47:03

you went through that

47:06

initiation way too early,

47:09

in your own words. You say that you were prematurely

47:11

forced to be a man, because you've got the duties of

47:14

care over your mother.

47:15

At

47:17

a young young age, your father leaves, I think,

47:19

six months old. And then the

47:22

other thing that happens, which feels like a horrible

47:24

sense of

47:25

chance, is your mother has cancer,

47:30

and she struggles with it for many many years.

47:32

So you've got this young boy, and I was thinking about this when

47:34

I was doing the research for this conversation, you've got this very

47:36

young boy who's struggling with a lot

47:38

of things on his own,

47:39

disconnection coming from all angles, and

47:42

then the stability in his life gets

47:46

the uncertain horror

47:49

of cancer come into her life.

47:52

And what that does to that young boy who's

47:54

already destabilised and sense of connection.

47:56

These are all interpretations I have from reading a piece of paper.

47:59

If I'm just being honest, they are. I was

48:02

putting myself in those shoes and saying, I've got this

48:04

stable figure here in my life, my mother, and

48:06

I'm dealing with all this instability over here. And then

48:08

this becomes unstable.

48:10

Yeah. It's good analysis. But,

48:13

you know, really, my mother's struggles, them's her struggles.

48:15

She had to go through that, and bravely she's done it. What

48:17

life force that woman has in her.

48:20

And to pick up on a point

48:22

within your question, you cannot

48:25

fake being a man or a woman

48:27

or adult, let's say, a word

48:29

that doesn't have any cultural

48:32

load to bear. You can't

48:34

fake that, or you can fake it. And I did

48:36

fake it, and that is what people do. They fake

48:38

it. They fake it. But in a sense,

48:40

maybe you need another adult

48:43

to make you that. You need to

48:45

be initiated. You need a code. You need

48:47

to know that it's about duty and responsibility,

48:50

that it's not all just about swagger and

48:52

personal achievement. And like many

48:55

young men,

48:55

I joined a group of lost

48:57

boys. I found men,

49:00

young men, kids. Kids, because if I

49:02

met them now, that's what they were, is kids. A couple

49:04

of years older than me, that

49:06

becomes your tribe. Unless you have

49:09

hierarchies and systems of

49:11

acculturation and inculcation that are

49:13

based on higher values, remember our earlier point

49:15

about moral authority and trust, who you're going to give

49:17

it over to, you'll create your own one. You'll

49:19

create your own little community without

49:21

elders, without elders that are reliable

49:24

and trustworthy and

49:25

dutiful and understand the nature of sacrifice,

49:27

sacrifice of themselves in order to perform

49:30

them duties. So, of course, yes, I

49:32

feel like when you feel

49:34

the incumbency of

49:36

adulthood upon you early due

49:39

to the conditions of your domestic

49:41

trial there, you will have to,

49:44

as they say, man up or woman up. You

49:46

will have to. But it won't

49:48

be real because it can't be real because

49:51

it's not only a set of endocrenal

49:54

imperatives.

49:55

It's also a system

49:58

of instruction as laid out.

49:59

out in that as laid out in the

50:02

previous anecdotes, the

50:04

cambelian analysis of the anthropological

50:06

conditions of that Aboriginal group there.

50:09

So really until you find other

50:12

adults, elders that are like, I know

50:14

what I'm doing, you don't need to worry, I'm stronger than you,

50:17

it's going to be okay, I'll look after you, it's all right,

50:19

do this. A father, like a

50:23

father is, you're going to forego this

50:26

now because in the future, this. And

50:28

without that, you will not forego, you

50:31

will consume now, you will consume now, you will

50:33

not understand, you will not understand your

50:35

role. So it's, but it takes

50:37

a long while. I've said it before, Stephen, but I'll

50:39

set it again, because it bears repeating, you

50:42

know, thou shall worship no other gods than me,

50:44

because otherwise you will worship them gods. You

50:46

will worship pleasure, money, fame.

50:49

Them gods are greedy little gods

50:51

too. They're

50:52

easy little deities to start

50:54

worshiping. And the problem with the

50:56

worship of those gods is you lose the principle of

50:59

the divine, the interconnectivity, the pleasure

51:01

is not the result, pleasure is a by-product, pleasure

51:03

is an inadvertent by-product, please God, of

51:05

doing the right thing.

51:07

I was just thinking then as you're talking about

51:11

all of that and the gods we choose to worship

51:14

and young men and fatherlessness,

51:17

I was thinking about the and you take

51:19

phenomenon.

51:21

As a form of, he really

51:23

seems to have captured a huge amount of young

51:25

men for some reason. Trying

51:28

to diagnose

51:29

why that is, is a very multifaceted

51:32

process, isn't it? Because there's elements

51:35

of purpose and meaning

51:37

and having a figure in your

51:39

life that you can guide you, can

51:42

initiate you into what being a man is that it

51:44

seems that young men are in search of. Yes,

51:46

I agree. I

51:47

agree. I agree. No doubt.

51:50

One of the challenges it feels like we have culturally

51:52

Steven is we are unable to

51:54

observe the difference between symptom

51:57

and cause, symptom

51:59

Cause and obviously

52:02

as with matters medical cause

52:05

is what we must analyze Cause

52:08

is what we must understand There's no

52:10

point saying you shouldn't do this You shouldn't do that if you

52:12

have a set of values that are pretty simple.

52:14

I call them Sesame Street values kindness

52:17

love Service that's

52:19

gonna take care of a hell of a lot

52:22

if you have kindness love service gonna take care

52:24

of a hell of a lot Are you being kind

52:26

right now? No, what you have gone

52:28

off track mate. You've gone off track. You're not being kind Are

52:30

you being off service? No? then

52:33

we can maybe sift through different

52:36

also with We live in a such

52:38

a curated space that it's difficult

52:41

to discern what people are

52:43

actually Angry about

52:45

sometimes. What is it

52:47

as one of my great teacher says to me? What

52:50

is it don't get caught up in the phenomena

52:52

the epiphenomena the distractions the

52:54

static?

52:55

What is it that you are trying to understand?

52:57

What is it you're trying to do? All

53:00

of these groups then people that are big

53:02

fans of and you take people that are radically

53:04

left people that are radically, right?

53:07

What is it that they? But

53:11

they are they are seeking or that they are getting from

53:13

from such a radical pursuit well

53:16

a argument might be that

53:18

we

53:20

Are recognizing that there is nothing

53:22

in our evolution to suggest

53:24

that we live in cultures of 300 million

53:28

people who live by one ideology

53:32

that we have to truly respect

53:35

Diversity that we have to acknowledge

53:38

that many of our most influential and powerful

53:40

systems

53:41

Do not have our best intentions

53:44

in mind that they in fact benefit

53:47

from ongoing cultural conflagration

53:50

if we can do one great service in

53:52

this cultural space I recognize that part

53:55

of your goal and your mission is to awaken

53:57

latent potency in individuals

53:59

in honor of your own journey, and it is a great mission

54:02

if I may say. But part

54:04

of this mission must be

54:06

for us to learn this simple lesson. We

54:09

have more in common with one another

54:11

than divides us, and it is our duty

54:14

to reach out in particular to the people

54:17

we disagree with in a spirit of love

54:19

and good faith. Firstly then, identify,

54:22

oh,

54:23

am I reaching out in good faith to people I already

54:25

agree with? No, no, no, no, no, that's

54:27

not it. I

54:30

disagree with that on this important

54:32

hot button topic of

54:34

guns or pro-life, pro-choice, or

54:37

identity or tradition or progression.

54:39

I disagree with them and I respect your right.

54:42

I respect and I love you. And I know that

54:44

I do not know what you know, that I

54:46

am not God. I am not God. I

54:49

do not know.

54:50

I do not have any authority over you, but

54:52

I believe that together we can achieve

54:54

a consensus. And this consensus must

54:57

be founded on good faith. We must allow

54:59

one another to communicate in good grace and openness.

55:02

We cannot yield to censorship,

55:04

not because we want people to fill

55:07

the air with toxicity and hate,

55:09

but

55:09

because we know that if we try to control

55:11

it, who has the right? Who

55:13

are we granting the right to now? Have

55:15

you investigated any of these organizations?

55:18

Have you investigated their funding,

55:20

their affiliations, their agenda,

55:22

their imperative? Because to some degree,

55:25

I am sorry to report that I have and I have found

55:27

them wanting. They will not be getting

55:30

my consensus for authority anytime

55:33

soon. And I would offer you

55:35

this. You have more in common with the

55:37

people you are fighting with, those you

55:39

most loathe, whatever hue,

55:42

persuasion, or a cultural garment

55:44

you've conveniently strewn upon them than

55:46

the people that are saying that they will protect you,

55:49

the institutions

55:50

that are saying they will protect you. Are

55:52

you optimistic? Yes. God is real.

55:56

You're optimistic that we'll get to a place where

55:58

we recognize that our... similarities are greater

56:01

than our differences. And so

56:03

if I make Russell Brand, I know I don't think this

56:05

is a role you want, but if I make

56:07

you prime minister or president of the world,

56:10

how do you systemically change

56:13

things to help us achieve the

56:15

objectives you've described in connection, community, kindness,

56:18

and togetherness? What are the things? I've asked so many people

56:20

this question, no one's ever wanted to answer it.

56:22

Because it's so big. Here I am. Yeah.

56:26

Bring power as close as

56:28

possible to the people affected

56:31

by it. Default to

56:33

decentralization and localization

56:36

wherever possible. Of course, this

56:38

will not immediately yield perfection,

56:40

but have you looked out of your window? We are not

56:42

competing with perfection. We are competing

56:45

with corruption. So

56:48

what do we want? Most of all, we want

56:50

true democracy. All the values that

56:52

people espouse

56:52

are the values we should be practicing. They say

56:55

the world does not need more people to believe

56:57

in God just for those of us that do to

57:00

start acting like it.

57:02

To start acting like you believe God is

57:04

real.

57:07

Redistribute the

57:09

control of municipal facilities

57:12

to those that are affected by them. Do

57:14

not have water companies

57:16

in the United Kingdom like Thames Water

57:19

owned elsewhere in China

57:21

or Canada or Kuwait or Qatar or wherever

57:24

those facilities are held. Have

57:26

municipal facilities run by

57:29

the community

57:30

that is affected by them. I'm not talking about re-nationalization.

57:33

I'm talking about community. The

57:35

community runs its water wherever

57:38

possible. I recognize that there is

57:40

some complexity when it comes to electricity,

57:43

municipality, running roads, running hospitals.

57:46

But who among us has ever been into a hospital

57:48

and not marveled at the beauty,

57:51

the compassion, the ingenuity, the commitment,

57:53

the devotion of the people that work there? Wouldn't

57:56

it be better if the people that clean the floors

57:58

in the hospital felt that they were invested in it?

57:59

that it was their hospital, the nurses that work

58:02

there, the doctors that they have real power, that

58:04

those are their hospitals. Wouldn't it be better if

58:06

both sides of our political conversation, I'm

58:08

talking about the United Kingdom right now, hadn't

58:10

agreed already that privatization

58:12

is the way to go and they're not going to do anything

58:14

about it. I'm not saying that there's anything

58:17

wrong with capitalism in its basic

58:20

format of we create a product and

58:22

the people want the product and

58:23

look at that, we made a little bit of money. I'm

58:25

talking about this gigantic,

58:28

metastasized, monster

58:31

devouring everything right down to spirit.

58:33

We must recognize where centralized

58:36

authority is coalescing most and

58:39

this we must address, this we

58:41

must address, whether it is financial, corporate

58:43

or state power, wherever it is possible,

58:46

we the people, we the

58:48

people, those three magical constitutional

58:51

words, if they were listened to, if

58:53

they were lived by,

58:55

it's already there. The kingdom

58:57

of heaven is spread upon the earth and

58:59

man sees it not. It's already

59:02

here. It comes from inside

59:05

your consciousness.

59:06

You awaken, you believe

59:08

it's possible to change, you act like

59:10

it's going to happen. That's how

59:12

these things unfold. It's happened

59:14

again and again. The miracles

59:17

of transition and change, the great beauty

59:19

of science and medicine and technology, when

59:22

it is freed from its tendrils, when it

59:24

is untethered from the mendacious

59:27

objectives of a system that sees all

59:29

things as dominion for materialization

59:31

and commodity, when it is freed from that, you will see

59:34

the true genius of our scientists,

59:36

the true genius capable in technology,

59:38

if we can just address the model,

59:41

if we can just have as an agenda an

59:43

awareness that we are just on one little rock

59:45

in infinite space right now, that we're all participating

59:48

in this one centralized

59:50

idea and infinite diversity,

59:52

infinite individual freedom, infinite ways

59:55

of being human. We must all take responsibility

59:57

for becoming the person we're intended to be and if you don't know

59:59

who that

59:59

That is you find someone who does, and you find a

1:00:02

system and a program that can help you, and

1:00:04

we'll all do our best together, and

1:00:06

it's gonna be glorious, glorious, but

1:00:08

beyond glorious, it is necessary.

1:00:11

One of the things you said within there was about empowering

1:00:14

nurses, for example, in cleaners in

1:00:16

a hospital. And it reminded me of a study

1:00:18

I read many years ago that showed nurses

1:00:20

that were given ownership about the decisions within a hospital

1:00:23

had higher satisfaction,

1:00:25

there was less accidents, with

1:00:29

misprescribed medications, there was higher

1:00:31

attention, and when they leveled out the

1:00:33

payment, the remuneration policy,

1:00:35

so there was less unfairness in how people were

1:00:38

remunerated, all the standards of the hospital went through the

1:00:40

roof, because people were empowered, they held autonomy

1:00:42

and control over their lives and work. So I completely

1:00:44

relate to that. My question though is about step one,

1:00:47

because what you described there sounds like it's

1:00:50

at the top of Everest, and sometimes when something

1:00:52

feels, it does, even for me, it feels like

1:00:54

it's a long way away from where we are now. So

1:00:57

I'm asking, what's the first pebble, what's the

1:00:59

first domino that has to fall? What's

1:01:02

the first thing that I can do as an individual

1:01:04

to help us get closer to that world?

1:01:07

Well, firstly, Stephen, people climb

1:01:09

Everest every single day. They have

1:01:12

to clear the litter from that mountain now, once

1:01:15

it was considered inconceivable. And

1:01:17

every time there is an epochal shift, every

1:01:20

time we say, oh, it seems that the sun doesn't

1:01:23

go round the earth, it seems like the earth goes

1:01:26

around the sun. Oh, there are things that

1:01:28

are smaller than atoms. It appears

1:01:30

that these sub-particular phenomena

1:01:33

that are so small, it's even difficult to label

1:01:35

them, exist in a unified

1:01:37

field that

1:01:38

they are emanating, but somehow

1:01:41

connected to, I'm

1:01:43

speaking, of course, of quantum entanglement. If you

1:01:45

reverse the charge of a particle thousands of miles away,

1:01:48

the partnering particle

1:01:50

will reverse its charge also. There

1:01:52

appears to be some unity force.

1:01:55

What I'm expressing is the most simple,

1:01:58

practical, effortless

1:02:01

achievement that we will ever yet

1:02:03

undertake. It is merely the realisation

1:02:06

of the truth that we are individual,

1:02:09

yes,

1:02:10

but we are connected also, that

1:02:13

there are

1:02:14

Goliath's that have incrementally

1:02:18

coalesced due to the

1:02:20

progression of the great

1:02:22

sometimes unacknowledged revolutions,

1:02:24

I'm not saying that was acknowledged, agriculture, industrial

1:02:27

revolution, technological revolution, that all

1:02:29

of these have been undergirded by principles of

1:02:31

dominion that might as well be feudalism.

1:02:34

In a sense, there is no change at all, except

1:02:37

for the individual change that you yourself can

1:02:39

make. This is why I think people get a lot of traction

1:02:41

when they say, you know, look after yourself. This is part

1:02:43

of it. Eat well, awaken, pray,

1:02:46

meditate, recognise that it is normal to

1:02:49

feel sometimes total despair and total despondency.

1:02:51

Remember all of these great journeys that we're describing

1:02:53

that you're fascinated with began with exactly that,

1:02:56

exactly that. That the great

1:02:58

sages and secular saints that we have

1:03:00

been granted have shown us and

1:03:02

told us be the change that you want to

1:03:04

see in the world, whether it's Al Gandhi or Malcolm

1:03:07

X, people that are willing to give their life

1:03:09

for what they believe in, because what they believe

1:03:11

in is bigger than

1:03:12

their life. And you're gonna die anyway.

1:03:15

You're gonna die anyway. But your principles,

1:03:18

this is eternity, that we can

1:03:20

touch eternity in the moment. So it's not

1:03:22

like woo woo to say meditate,

1:03:24

wake up. This is changing the prima materia.

1:03:27

It is the field of consciousness. This is, I suppose, what

1:03:29

I'm advancing. Consciousness precedes

1:03:31

matter. You have unique individual access

1:03:33

to consciousness. You are online. You

1:03:36

are on the grid. You are responsible

1:03:38

for whether or not you believe this is possible. Nobody

1:03:41

else can tell you what to do there. That is your

1:03:43

private kingdom, your private domain where you can

1:03:45

be for now, for now,

1:03:48

whoever you want to be in there. Please

1:03:50

do not relinquish that right by

1:03:53

not taking it now. For I tell

1:03:55

you, authoritarian forces

1:03:58

are abundant and abound. They

1:04:00

are looking to colonize the very

1:04:02

space of attention that exists

1:04:05

right now. This moment, this

1:04:07

is what is being colonized. Attention data,

1:04:10

data on what? You. The

1:04:13

territory of the self. This is fertile.

1:04:16

This is not nothing. It is not nothing to awaken

1:04:18

to the reality of who you are in this very moment. That

1:04:20

is not nothing, Stephen.

1:04:22

Quick one. As you know, Airbnb are a sponsor

1:04:25

of this podcast. And I was actually in an Airbnb

1:04:27

last weekend when me and my friends had a reunion

1:04:29

in New York. And it's from staying in Airbnb

1:04:31

over the years that led me to start hosting

1:04:34

my own place. I know friends of mine who actually

1:04:36

Airbnb their own place in

1:04:38

order to pay for the Airbnb they use when

1:04:40

they're away on holiday, which is pretty smart. And

1:04:43

maybe you stayed in an Airbnb before and thought, this

1:04:45

is actually pretty doable. Maybe my place

1:04:47

could be an Airbnb. It could be as

1:04:50

simple as starting with a spare room or your

1:04:52

entire place. You could be sitting on an

1:04:54

Airbnb and not even know it. Whether you

1:04:56

could use some extra money to cover your bills or

1:04:58

something a little bit more fun, your home

1:05:01

might be worth more than you think. And you can find

1:05:03

out how much it's worth at Airbnb.co.uk

1:05:06

slash host. Check it out.

1:05:08

Find out how much your home is worth and let

1:05:10

me know what you think. One of my team members

1:05:12

had a question for you. I remember just chatting to them about about

1:05:15

you. And they said, you know, I really want to know how he lives

1:05:18

on a day to day basis. Because I

1:05:20

know from your books and stuff, the

1:05:22

Russell that roamed the streets of Shoreditch once upon a time.

1:05:26

The Russell

1:05:27

I see now is through the lens of YouTube.

1:05:29

And I see him. It looks like the countryside somewhere

1:05:32

with like some logs in the back.

1:05:34

What is your what? How do you live your life

1:05:36

now? I'm glad you've asked this because this is proper

1:05:38

diary of a CEO stuff, because this is actual

1:05:41

scheduling. I have to live

1:05:44

sort of like a monk, basically. I

1:05:46

have to be conscious all the time. I have to be

1:05:48

conscious about why I eat. Otherwise I'll eat something

1:05:50

stupid. I have to be conscious about what I say.

1:05:52

Otherwise I'll say something stupid. I have to be conscious

1:05:55

about what I do. I have to familiarise

1:05:57

myself with extremes continually. So

1:05:59

I.

1:06:00

thank you God, have access

1:06:03

to hot temperatures and cold

1:06:05

temperatures. I expose myself to them regularly,

1:06:08

every day if possible. I do a lot of cold therapy.

1:06:10

I get right in that cold. And while I'm in that

1:06:12

cold, I think this thing

1:06:14

taught to me by Michael Singer and anyone who's

1:06:16

willing to watch Michael Singer's stuff, the moment

1:06:18

in front of you is not bothering you. You are bothering

1:06:21

yourself about the moment in front of

1:06:23

you. Then I get in very, very hot temperatures

1:06:25

and I think the same thing. The moment in front of you is not bothering

1:06:28

you, you're bothering yourself about the moment in front of you. I do

1:06:30

Brazilian

1:06:30

jiu-jitsu because for me it was

1:06:32

not natural to tangle like that. And

1:06:34

I love Brazilian jiu-jitsu so much.

1:06:36

Cosa Rogan actually was the first person I ever talked about

1:06:39

all that stuff. And I do that a couple

1:06:41

of times a week. I do.

1:06:43

Why? I need more detail of my view. Well you see why, like

1:06:46

we, it's good for, I

1:06:48

think people to touch one another in a way

1:06:50

that is playful and absolutely

1:06:52

consensual, but sort of assertive.

1:06:55

It's like kind of, I heard a YouTube

1:06:57

essay, like dance actually. And

1:07:00

it's very good for me. It really puts me in my body. It's not

1:07:02

cerebral. I don't know about you, Steven, but

1:07:04

I suspect you're the same. I am very

1:07:07

intellectually oriented. I

1:07:09

live in here.

1:07:10

I'm, I find it very easy to

1:07:13

be self-obsessed and to get caught up in all that

1:07:15

stuff. So things that put me in my body,

1:07:17

the body, the body holds the key, the

1:07:19

body, the body, you've got a body. It's important,

1:07:22

the body of Christ. It's very important

1:07:24

to get in that cold water. It's very important

1:07:26

to get into that yoga. Very important.

1:07:29

These things are important and beautiful and connecting.

1:07:31

So I do a lot of BJJ. I do a lot of

1:07:34

yoga. I do a lot of other

1:07:36

type of exercise, calisthenics, body weight

1:07:38

type stuff to try and stay fit. I

1:07:40

got, you know,

1:07:40

I've got young children. I have another child

1:07:43

coming. I have to stay fit. I have to be able

1:07:45

to be God willing, present

1:07:47

for these children going forward. And I love it.

1:07:50

And it's what we're meant to do. We're animals. Again, this anthropological

1:07:52

idea. How might we have lived for those

1:07:54

hundreds of thousands of years that pre date the

1:07:56

great miracle of agriculture? How might

1:07:58

we have lived?

1:07:59

We touch one another, we are socializing,

1:08:02

we groom and we graze

1:08:05

together. It's nice, like the kind of trust

1:08:07

you develop with people in Brazilian jiu-jitsu,

1:08:09

like they choke you to the

1:08:11

point of unconsciousness, but then when you tap, it's

1:08:14

over. And this is something that you share

1:08:16

between you. There's a trust in that as well,

1:08:18

isn't there? Ah,

1:08:19

yes, trust. Good to embody

1:08:21

the trust, then experience the trust, as they say, if

1:08:23

you wanna know if you can trust someone, trust someone, and maybe

1:08:26

it's difficult to seek out those kind of opportunities

1:08:29

where it can play out so microcosmically

1:08:32

and practically. Because I did a Brazilian

1:08:34

jiu-jitsu lesson or two, and that man

1:08:36

could have killed me at any moment. I

1:08:39

really knew he could have killed me. He had

1:08:41

me tied up like a, I don't know, like

1:08:44

a ball of elastic bands. And I knew at any

1:08:46

moment he could have killed me, but I trusted him, and I didn't know this

1:08:48

man. It's lovely, isn't it? There's something

1:08:49

amazing about it. And it's an instant bonding

1:08:51

that this man has his life in my hands. Yet

1:08:54

he's teaching me an art form, he's teaching me a discipline,

1:08:58

and holding literally my life in his hands.

1:09:02

It's funny, because I didn't know him, but I felt like he

1:09:04

was my mentor, my father, my

1:09:07

immediately after. Yeah.

1:09:09

Because I trusted him with so much, my life, right? So it's a

1:09:11

wonderful thing. Absolutely. Touch very important for

1:09:14

us late ape creatures. That's

1:09:17

why our hairdressers, you tell the hairdresser or the

1:09:19

barber stuff, this is why, like, I

1:09:21

strictly come dancing, they can't stop falling

1:09:23

in love. They're performing these rituals

1:09:26

that are designed to elicit

1:09:28

certain states. That's the vulnerability,

1:09:30

isn't it? That's the connection. The vulnerability, the

1:09:33

touch, the awareness of sameness,

1:09:35

but differentness. The acknowledgement that

1:09:37

we are creatures, that we are embodied

1:09:39

creatures, all of these things I think contribute

1:09:41

to that. So for me on my day, yes, every

1:09:43

day, prayer and meditation, first thing, every

1:09:46

day rigorously ensure

1:09:48

that I have done things for other people, preferably

1:09:50

without letting other people find out that

1:09:52

I make myself available to other,

1:09:55

in my case in particular, men that require

1:09:57

help with their issues around addiction and men.

1:09:59

health that I have checked in

1:10:02

with other people that I consider to be peers

1:10:04

around the challenges that I face psychologically

1:10:07

that I don't spend all my time obsessing just

1:10:09

about what I want.

1:10:11

I have to do quite a lot

1:10:13

to not be crazy. I have to do quite

1:10:15

a lot to not be crazy. So the

1:10:18

hot, the cold, the BJJ, the yoga.

1:10:21

There's someone I work with once who said, every day

1:10:23

I get up, I meditate, I

1:10:25

pray, I do exercise, I do

1:10:27

green juice, I do hot, cold, I attend a

1:10:29

support group and then I feel

1:10:31

okay, okay.

1:10:34

That's what I get to feel if I do all that. Then

1:10:36

I don't feel like a lunatic, a vacillating

1:10:39

wild glassu of mad vicissitudes

1:10:41

that could lash around anything

1:10:44

in its search for connection. Is there not another way

1:10:46

at this point? This also

1:10:49

is attached to another question I've often pondered

1:10:51

from doing what I do here, which is about

1:10:53

how, I mean, Steve Peters,

1:10:55

who's a psychiatrist,

1:10:58

I believe, talks about these

1:10:59

goblins and gremlins. And I spoke to

1:11:02

Gabo Mate as well. I

1:11:04

know you've interviewed him and I watched that fantastic, unbelievable

1:11:07

guy. But I wonder if the traumas,

1:11:10

the things that are hard, I use the word hardwired

1:11:12

tentatively, but the things that are hardwired into us are

1:11:15

ever overcomeable. If

1:11:18

we can ever take them to zero

1:11:20

in terms of the power they have over us or infants

1:11:22

we have over, all we will spend our lives managing.

1:11:25

I was taught from

1:11:27

the wound comes the salve,

1:11:30

from the wound comes the salve. The place

1:11:33

of the deepest wounding will provide

1:11:35

your salvation. This

1:11:36

is what you must investigate. It is

1:11:38

not, when people love

1:11:41

you, we always feel it's because of their

1:11:43

strength or the capacity or the virtuosity,

1:11:45

but often it's the vulnerability and the fragility

1:11:48

because we all know that this vulnerability and fragility

1:11:50

is something we share. This is what

1:11:52

comedy is to me, Stephen, is the ongoing

1:11:55

acknowledgement. Everyone's running some game. I'm this,

1:11:57

I'm doing this, I've got this going on.

1:11:59

You're gonna die. It's

1:12:02

all going to fall apart. It's all going to fall

1:12:04

apart, except for these permanent principles and a

1:12:06

connection to the eternal achievable through consciousness.

1:12:08

This is why I need ceremony. This is why I need practice.

1:12:11

This is why I need peers and mentors

1:12:13

and mentees. And from the wound, from

1:12:15

this place of I'm not good enough, nobody

1:12:18

loves me, I don't fit in. The only way that

1:12:20

I can achieve trust

1:12:22

is through having some authority

1:12:25

or value as accredited

1:12:27

by a culture that I don't even bloody trust as

1:12:31

compared with a metric that I don't even agree

1:12:33

with

1:12:34

instead of this now. And again,

1:12:36

continual moment to moment, I'm not

1:12:39

suggesting that I am any

1:12:41

better than anybody else, just that I'm not

1:12:43

any worse than anybody else. That's the

1:12:45

biggest thing that I'll offer. It's

1:12:48

ongoing. It's continual. But the thing, I'm

1:12:50

glad of it now. I'm glad of the wounding

1:12:53

and you will be too, whoever you

1:12:55

are. You will be glad of the wounding too, because

1:12:57

it is

1:12:58

sadly a gift to you. That

1:13:00

doesn't mean it was right or that there

1:13:03

weren't perpetrators or that it's not bad

1:13:05

or that the culture doesn't need to change or any of those things,

1:13:07

all those things are definitely true. But from it,

1:13:09

all of the time you see it,

1:13:11

go Great Ormond Street, go anywhere. Watch

1:13:14

the Paralympics. It's everywhere. It's everywhere.

1:13:16

People overcome.

1:13:18

And I ask that because so many become frustrated

1:13:21

that the wounding,

1:13:23

they haven't been able to overcome it.

1:13:25

They become frustrated by that because

1:13:27

a lot of the kind of, I don't know, maybe

1:13:29

spiritual doctrine, maybe whatever says you can

1:13:31

take this pill or you can do this exercise, you can do

1:13:34

this retreat and then you won't be

1:13:36

a narcissist or you

1:13:38

won't be a whatever. Right. And

1:13:40

then they try it. They buy the course.

1:13:43

Then they still are. They find themselves reacting in those

1:13:45

old ways and being triggered in the machinery that

1:13:47

you spoke of that comes up when we're triggered.

1:13:49

It's still there. Then they go

1:13:52

and it's about another course. We do need to

1:13:54

be very self compassionate. And I think we

1:13:56

have to perhaps recognise that it is not a commodity

1:13:59

that can be a commodity.

1:13:59

externally required, but an external

1:14:02

coordinate can indeed

1:14:04

ignite that which is already

1:14:06

there, dormant and latent and awaiting

1:14:08

to be born. Precisely the necessity

1:14:11

for initiation we return to

1:14:13

here. The initiation is to activate,

1:14:16

activate that which is already

1:14:18

there. Activated surrender,

1:14:21

not passive surrender,

1:14:22

but not passive surrender. Activated

1:14:24

surrender. I'm a vessel. I'm here for whatever

1:14:27

you are. I trust myself. God, I pray

1:14:29

to you God, not my limited conception of you, God, with

1:14:31

my tiny little mankind mind. I

1:14:34

pray to you God, as you know yourself to be, and I offer

1:14:36

myself to you God 100% and totally

1:14:38

please use me. Please take away from

1:14:40

me everything that is not of use to you.

1:14:42

Put aside all my preconceptions and use

1:14:45

me God. This utilizes the wound.

1:14:47

The wound becomes a portal. You become

1:14:49

a vessel.

1:14:50

I want to stay on how you live.

1:14:52

So I understand your sort of mourning routine

1:14:54

there, but if I zoom out on where you live,

1:14:56

why you choose to live there, your

1:14:58

relationship with work now that you have

1:15:00

this, I think greater clarity on institutions

1:15:03

and how you balance that.

1:15:05

Well, I have

1:15:07

to make a lot of content because every

1:15:09

day I'm on rumble, every

1:15:12

day I make an hour of content. Every

1:15:14

day we make an additional 10 to 15

1:15:16

to 20 minute video on a news

1:15:20

subject that generally encompasses

1:15:23

anti-establishment narratives and

1:15:25

a way of explaining that that is hopefully

1:15:27

inclusive.

1:15:30

Every day we have other social media content. We have a business

1:15:32

like that. I'm part of a significant

1:15:36

business endeavor that I regard as

1:15:38

a movement rather than a business.

1:15:41

But as you are all too aware,

1:15:43

if it doesn't function as a business, it will

1:15:45

not function at all.

1:15:47

So it has to have good hygiene

1:15:50

and housekeeping. You're a CEO. I

1:15:53

literally am here not

1:15:55

under the pretense of being a CEO, but because

1:15:57

it is part of my job and I do have

1:15:59

a diet.

1:15:59

although I don't keep it myself and

1:16:02

I try not to look at it, but it exists.

1:16:05

And so I have to participate continually

1:16:07

with that and ensure that an organisation is

1:16:09

around me that is able to facilitate the things that I'm good

1:16:12

at and accommodate the many things where

1:16:14

I am

1:16:14

currently looking to improve.

1:16:18

I have to make order of the content. We

1:16:20

try to do this in three days. That means

1:16:22

a couple of days a week I'm available

1:16:24

for different types of expedition

1:16:27

and adventure such as this one.

1:16:29

This is why for me the spiritual

1:16:32

life, it has to come first, but not

1:16:34

out of a sort of an ethical evaluation. Spiritual

1:16:36

reality in the end is a survival technique. It's not

1:16:39

like esoteric. It's not like I'm doing this

1:16:41

thing like waving around incense or dressing up in

1:16:43

a robe. I'm trying to not go

1:16:45

crazy and end my life

1:16:47

and damage the life of people around

1:16:50

me by devoting myself. They

1:16:52

say only the really crazy people become saints. Only

1:16:55

the really crazy people would even consider it. You

1:16:57

have to need it. It has to be beyond

1:16:59

wanting because wanting is just

1:17:01

here to keep the blob going. How does it

1:17:03

feel to be in your mind?

1:17:06

Could you describe it to me? Well, sometimes it's amazing,

1:17:08

but sometimes it's very, very, sometimes it's

1:17:10

very, very fast. Sometimes it's very

1:17:12

volatile. I feel like it undulates a lot. This

1:17:14

I understand to be very common to addicts. Experiences

1:17:17

of extreme high, extreme low, fastness,

1:17:20

not natural to be serene, evaluating

1:17:22

information very, very quickly.

1:17:25

It feels fast sometimes, very fast,

1:17:28

and it has a strong sense of craving

1:17:30

and longing, which is a type of magnetism, I

1:17:32

suppose. And I suppose magnetism is

1:17:34

a longing for uni-connection.

1:17:36

It's very difficult to discern

1:17:38

physical forces because they are by

1:17:40

their nature non-anthropological.

1:17:42

And it's very

1:17:45

easy to anthropomorphize physical phenomena

1:17:47

like gravity or magnetism

1:17:49

or whatever. So what feels like with

1:17:52

me is that there is a great deal to get

1:17:54

done. That's what it feels like. There is a great

1:17:56

deal that needs to get done. And in order

1:17:58

to do it, I have to.

1:17:59

surrender strongly otherwise

1:18:02

I will mess it up badly. That's

1:18:04

what it feels like. So that's why there's a lot of ceremony

1:18:07

that is communing with that which is unknowable.

1:18:10

You know prayer, ceremony with

1:18:12

other people acknowledging the sacred, not forgetting

1:18:14

the sacred, that the most important things are difficult

1:18:17

to measure and weigh but

1:18:18

they are there anyway. And

1:18:22

so each day there is much work

1:18:24

to be done and I am a father of young children

1:18:26

and I have a dog that I adore and I have many

1:18:29

animals so I have a lot of very simple

1:18:32

pastoral duties that

1:18:35

have to be done and

1:18:37

I have a lot of spiritual things that have to be done to

1:18:39

hold me together. So there's a lot to be done and then often

1:18:41

I get to a point where I'm so tired

1:18:43

that the whole enterprise feels like it could collapse

1:18:46

inward like a narcissistic

1:18:49

semi-gothic souffle. So

1:18:51

there has to be a lot of

1:18:52

caution, a lot of caution. Also

1:18:55

I'm a person, perhaps

1:18:57

you identify and agree with a sense of purpose and

1:18:59

mission and a deep deep belief that

1:19:01

the most profound and significant change is imaginable,

1:19:04

are possible

1:19:05

by virtue of the fact that they are imaginable in fact

1:19:08

because the role of imagination we see all

1:19:10

around us in every building, every object,

1:19:12

every book, every cultural artifacts as well as the many

1:19:14

flawed and defunct aspects of our culture

1:19:17

also imagination is the device that

1:19:19

brings the unmanifest into the manifest.

1:19:22

Do you ever find yourself, because you are a content creator, do you

1:19:24

ever find yourself slipping in and when you play

1:19:26

that game you're dealing with algorithms

1:19:28

and metrics and numbers and

1:19:30

rankings and I'm trending and I'm not

1:19:33

trending, does that ever

1:19:35

trigger your old,

1:19:37

you know, the old machinery? Yeah I

1:19:39

try to not go near it, I try to not

1:19:41

go because in a sense back to

1:19:44

basics for me, recovery

1:19:46

is somewhat based on abstinence,

1:19:50

like I don't have a drink or

1:19:52

the occasional line or the occasional, or

1:19:54

the occasional, like don't do it, I

1:19:56

don't do it. So I try to

1:19:59

practice good hygiene.

1:19:59

hygiene there, because if I start,

1:20:02

it's very difficult to stop and another

1:20:04

momentum takes over. So yes,

1:20:07

it is, of course it is, because these are part of, you know,

1:20:09

again, part of the blob, part of the primal ooze competition

1:20:12

is part of who we are. Status is part

1:20:14

of who we are. So I try to stay

1:20:16

out of the ring, as one of my teachers says, stay

1:20:18

out of the ring, stay out of the ring. What

1:20:20

are you working on? What are you working on improving?

1:20:22

You talked, highlighted, you set out your strengths and then

1:20:24

your things you hope to improve.

1:20:27

What are the things that you hope to improve? For

1:20:29

me always, patience,

1:20:32

patience, try to be patient

1:20:35

because impatience is ridiculous to think I

1:20:37

know when something should happen is mental

1:20:39

concept. So I try to work on

1:20:41

patience to be very, very patient.

1:20:44

Mostly I work on this, but

1:20:46

is more to be achieved by surrendering

1:20:48

self will than can ever be achieved

1:20:51

by utilizing it. And that's a very, very,

1:20:53

very, very difficult thing to

1:20:56

practice, particularly when

1:20:58

agitated. What does that mean?

1:21:00

I didn't understand. Oh,

1:21:04

okay. We achieve so much through will. I'm going to create

1:21:06

a podcast. Oh look, I did that thing I was going to

1:21:08

do. Now I have to create various sets around the

1:21:11

globe. But

1:21:12

to believe that there is a greater power that

1:21:15

will come into being if I

1:21:17

surrender, but become intuitive

1:21:19

to what one of my teachers calls the whispers on

1:21:21

the wind, that I will be directed, that

1:21:24

I, my job is to stay out

1:21:26

of my way, that my life is none

1:21:28

of my business, to not look at my day

1:21:30

like it's a chunk of thing that I want

1:21:32

my day. I'm going to eat it up. This is, oh

1:21:34

wow, this gift, I'm alive. Oh my God, what a miracle.

1:21:36

It's incredible. And to stay in that feeling

1:21:39

of grace and stay in that feeling

1:21:41

of gratitude and to spot as

1:21:42

quickly as possible when I inevitably give

1:21:45

it up, give up your connection to God for

1:21:47

a biscuit, give up your connection to God

1:21:49

because someone has a nice car. Give up your connection

1:21:51

to God because someone says something about you on the internet.

1:21:54

Give up your connection to God because people lie about you or

1:21:56

attack you. Don't give up your connection

1:21:58

to God.

1:21:59

to God, you are going to have to cultivate a very

1:22:02

strong connection to God because

1:22:04

elsewhere, as you say, much noise, much

1:22:07

distraction. What a coincidence that

1:22:09

we live in an environment that seems to be cultivated in

1:22:11

order to distract us from the ever-present divine. When

1:22:13

you say God,

1:22:14

are you talking about a specific

1:22:17

religious deity?

1:22:21

How do you define your God? God's

1:22:24

loving unity and absolute

1:22:26

respect for individual

1:22:29

identity within that. Do I find

1:22:31

this God in a particular book or every book? It's

1:22:33

up to you, mate.

1:22:37

Do you consider yourself to be part of a

1:22:39

religion?

1:22:41

I do. Yeah, I mean,

1:22:44

this one, the only one, they're all the same. I suppose

1:22:46

if you want some help, perennialism by

1:22:48

Aldous Huxley is a good place to look at, where

1:22:51

he identified in the same way that Joseph

1:22:53

Campbell and Carl Jung, it

1:22:56

could be said, identified respectively

1:22:59

that there are mythic tropes that

1:23:01

appear to recur in all cultures.

1:23:04

He began a right, a

1:23:07

famous book, which I believe gave the name

1:23:09

to the phrase perennialism in which he observed

1:23:11

that Eastern mysticism, Sufism

1:23:13

from the world of Islam and certain aspects

1:23:16

of Christianity, particularly Gnostic Christianity

1:23:19

and what is commonly regarded as first century

1:23:21

Christianity had within him, not archetypes

1:23:24

as in the crucifixion, which we know occurs

1:23:26

in many folk tales and mythologies, not just in

1:23:28

Christianity, not narrative

1:23:31

devices or characters that recur,

1:23:34

but ideologies that recur,

1:23:36

principles, values

1:23:38

that occur in all of them. And

1:23:41

many of them,

1:23:41

Aldous Huxley, as Huxley offers, are

1:23:44

about overcome the self. There

1:23:46

is something bigger than the self. You're not real.

1:23:49

Who are you when you don't have your name? They

1:23:51

call it the unborn in Buddhism.

1:23:54

Marcus Aurelius says,

1:23:57

you are dead. Your life is over. Now

1:23:59

live the rest of your life. your life properly. Get

1:24:01

rid of it. Put down the corpse, they

1:24:03

say in Buddhism. In Christianity,

1:24:07

die that you may be born again. The

1:24:09

flesh man must die. The carnal

1:24:12

man of wanting and longing must die

1:24:14

that the transcendent man be born.

1:24:16

You're getting in the way. You're

1:24:18

getting in the way with your memories and your story

1:24:21

and your projects and your values and your virtues,

1:24:23

all but the universal, ubiquitous, ever-present

1:24:26

archetypal virtues that Huxley explains

1:24:28

and elsewhere through Jung and Campbell, we get the idea

1:24:31

that there's some sort of ulterior cultural

1:24:33

force beyond

1:24:35

that, way beyond culture. Culture

1:24:37

is what we create. Indigenous,

1:24:40

primal reality, not

1:24:42

trying to, expressing itself through

1:24:45

us. It's talking to us all the time,

1:24:47

all the time. It's here, it's everywhere. It's waiting

1:24:49

to be discovered by us collectively and individually.

1:24:52

And what better job could we have

1:24:55

than to find it ourselves and help others to find

1:24:57

it? But I think the reason why is because when

1:24:59

people hear the word God, they think of a man in the sky.

1:25:01

Well, they should stop that unless it helps them. If

1:25:04

you don't behave, you're going to go

1:25:06

to hell. That's an idea

1:25:08

that a lot of people struggle to get on board with. But

1:25:10

it's because people have been lazy, because we are

1:25:13

in the Kali Yuga. We are in a time of darkness.

1:25:15

They're forgotten in this darkness.

1:25:18

But when people

1:25:18

say there is a father,

1:25:21

they mean there is a figure that is more powerful

1:25:24

than you, that loves you. And if you

1:25:26

don't do what's right, you

1:25:27

are going to hell. Not after

1:25:30

you are in it. If you don't do what's

1:25:33

right, you are, oh no, I'm so unhappy. I'm in this bed

1:25:35

seat that we talked about earlier. Why? Because you didn't

1:25:37

listen to the father, because you perhaps couldn't find the father.

1:25:40

Because as I've alluded to many times, you live

1:25:42

in a culture that wants to distract you from the father

1:25:44

or the mother or whatever word helps you, that

1:25:46

is there within you waiting to be born, that

1:25:48

you've been distracted from, understandably, because of the

1:25:50

primal urges to compete

1:25:53

and acquire and eat and defecate.

1:25:55

All of this is normal, ordinary, forgive yourself immediately,

1:25:57

and now move forward to what it tries.

1:25:59

means, what you understand to me, I understand all

1:26:02

the problems of religion. Religion shouldn't make you hate

1:26:04

other people, religion should make you love

1:26:06

everyone. They've all got that written in there, why don't we focus

1:26:08

on that bit? Because if people start doing

1:26:10

that, you can't manipulate them moving around on a little chessboard

1:26:12

and turn them into little consumer blobs, obviously, obviously.

1:26:15

Well, where does love fit into all of that romantic love? Because I

1:26:18

thought about some of the stuff you said about our ancestors

1:26:20

and

1:26:21

is monogamy,

1:26:22

is monogamy the path

1:26:25

forward? Is romantic love

1:26:27

a framework for stability that we need

1:26:29

to find God? Oh, my friend, well, there is an argument

1:26:31

that romantic love is derived from the idea of

1:26:34

chivalry, as the

1:26:36

word suggests, a kind of late medieval

1:26:39

notion that we should focus

1:26:42

our ardour on an individual, like

1:26:44

a knight would attach the colours

1:26:46

of their bequeathed, betrothed or beloved

1:26:49

to their lance as they

1:26:51

jousted metaphorically.

1:26:52

And

1:26:54

really, though, this chivalrous idea is but

1:26:56

one aspect of love. And they note that many people never

1:26:58

had actual conjugal relationships

1:27:00

with the symbolic feminine, divine

1:27:02

feminine figure that they would attribute that quality

1:27:05

to. Romantic love,

1:27:07

I feel, romantic love, perhaps, as

1:27:09

all forms of love, obsession, attachment,

1:27:11

ultimately, I was taught this, I didn't make this up,

1:27:14

are the inappropriate substitute for the true

1:27:16

love of God. What is love? Whether

1:27:19

you love West Ham United or your wife

1:27:21

or your children or your beautiful, it sounds,

1:27:23

new breath worker

1:27:24

girlfriend, except for the

1:27:27

desire, longing, yearning

1:27:29

to be at one with, to be connected

1:27:32

to, to acknowledge that what's in there is

1:27:34

the same as what's in here, that we have a shared purpose.

1:27:37

Isn't love the felt awareness

1:27:39

of the true unity that

1:27:41

undergirds apparent separation? We

1:27:44

come into form for a little while, all of us

1:27:46

were twice, twice

1:27:48

before we were a single cell, you were

1:27:50

a single cell, then you were two cells in

1:27:52

the belly of your mother, and way, way,

1:27:54

way back, you were an amoeba. And there

1:27:57

it is

1:27:57

in your programming and your coding. there

1:28:00

materially and practically. Forget esoteric

1:28:02

theology, forget ontology.

1:28:04

It's there as a fact, as an observable

1:28:06

fact. It's there as a cosmic fact. There was a big bang.

1:28:09

Unity is there. Love is the felt remembrance

1:28:11

of this. Why does love feel good? Although love, as

1:28:14

we know, can be very painful when

1:28:17

love is not reciprocated, when love is rejected,

1:28:19

when love cannot unfold. This love is

1:28:22

more than a sensation. It is a duty and it

1:28:24

is the deepest truth of our kind. That

1:28:26

when we love one another, we acknowledge the

1:28:28

truth that we're not separate from one another. Isn't it glorious

1:28:31

to move from that position where you think, I don't like that person,

1:28:33

I don't like that person, then oh my

1:28:34

god, they're the same as me. I love them. I love them.

1:28:37

Because you have recognized the truth and truth

1:28:39

and beauty are one. As Wilde says, that

1:28:41

there is something, it

1:28:43

rewards us, it rewards

1:28:45

us, it's speaking to us. I heard it

1:28:47

argued that once there was a great unity

1:28:50

and the infinite intelligence for its own

1:28:52

amusement, lost in the atemporole

1:28:55

spatial abyss, sent all things into

1:28:57

fragmentation, only

1:28:59

to see which ones would awaken

1:29:01

and recognize the unity of our origin,

1:29:04

the deep unity of our origin. When

1:29:06

will we come home? When will we come home

1:29:09

to love? You

1:29:10

fell in love. Then you had two children. You've

1:29:12

got a third on the way around the corner. That's

1:29:16

a very special love that you've found. Fatherhood.

1:29:24

What his, what his, I'm not a father yet, but

1:29:27

I'd love to look down the road and get

1:29:29

some lessons from you as a father. What lessons

1:29:31

did fatherhood teach you about life and how we should be

1:29:33

living?

1:29:36

Teaches you, teaches me, taught me

1:29:38

there's a lot more important things in this world than me,

1:29:40

but I learned this lesson in a variety of ways now.

1:29:43

There's a lot more important

1:29:44

stuff in this world than what I want

1:29:47

and what I think and what I reckon.

1:29:49

It don't amount to much amidst the infinite.

1:29:53

It taught me that love is real, that the

1:29:55

most miraculous things are accessible and ordinary,

1:29:57

an animal that you can procreate.

1:29:59

life into being what a gift in it flows

1:30:02

through you and we're part of an endless chain

1:30:04

and God has no grandchildren. They belong

1:30:06

to the world. They don't belong to you. And it's your job

1:30:09

to just stand there and bring out

1:30:11

of them whatever's in them

1:30:12

and just stand back and marvel

1:30:15

and weep at what's in them. Weep.

1:30:18

The horror, the beauty, the horror,

1:30:21

the dreadful beauty of what

1:30:23

a child unfolds into. Your awareness

1:30:25

that they, that they're

1:30:29

in the best case scenario, the

1:30:31

best case scenario, they are walking

1:30:34

into a future

1:30:39

that you will not be there to

1:30:42

guide them through. So

1:30:52

I suppose what that asks of you

1:30:55

is an understanding of your place in this

1:30:57

world

1:30:58

and an acknowledgement

1:31:00

both of your

1:31:03

relative insignificance, but

1:31:06

simultaneous, omniscience,

1:31:10

omnipotence, simultaneous,

1:31:13

it's a paradox. All energy come

1:31:15

from polarity. Acknowledge the polarity.

1:31:17

Don't hate the polarity. Don't hate the others.

1:31:20

Don't let them tell you those people are different from you because

1:31:22

they wear a baseball cap or they voted to

1:31:24

leave Europe or because they identify

1:31:26

with these pronouns or because they

1:31:28

believe in this cause or that.

1:31:31

The absolute unity. It

1:31:33

shows you that the

1:31:35

way you love your children must become the way you love all

1:31:37

people. Love, as Ramdas

1:31:39

was told by his teacher, "'Tell

1:31:42

the truth and love everyone.'" Not easy.

1:31:45

Not easy if you tell the truth

1:31:47

to love everyone. It

1:31:50

teaches you everything. It teaches

1:31:52

you everything to become a father. It teaches you you're gonna need

1:31:54

other fathers. It teaches you you're gonna have to become

1:31:56

a father. It teaches you you're gonna have to become a father to that

1:31:58

little boy. It teaches you...

1:31:59

you everything. All lessons are there. All

1:32:03

lessons are there.

1:32:05

A future you're not going to be a part of. Why,

1:32:09

why it was so visible

1:32:12

in your, in your body

1:32:14

and in your consciousness that that particular sentence

1:32:16

was difficult for you to say as

1:32:18

it relates to your children.

1:32:20

Because it's so ordinary, Stephen. Any

1:32:24

old lady, any old man, you

1:32:26

chat to anywhere. Oh

1:32:29

yeah, my mum was like that. My dad was like

1:32:31

that. My

1:32:33

little girls. It's

1:32:37

just, it's

1:32:39

just so beautiful.

1:32:47

What are the lessons about the future that

1:32:49

they, you, you try

1:32:52

and give them, if any at all?

1:32:55

And are you, and how do you feel about the future

1:32:57

that they're going to,

1:33:00

to go into? I'm

1:33:02

trying my best to arm them. I'm trying my

1:33:04

best to arm them. I'm trying my best

1:33:06

to

1:33:08

arm them like Sarah

1:33:10

Connor or something. I

1:33:12

was trying to tell them, like,

1:33:14

and also they are them.

1:33:17

There's, I see every day how they're more powerful

1:33:19

than me already. So,

1:33:21

you know, they'll be all right. God has no

1:33:23

grandchildren. They'll be all right. They've

1:33:25

got their path. I know they're

1:33:27

going to hurt me. You know, I

1:33:29

know that. I, all

1:33:33

we can do for each other beyond father,

1:33:35

daughter is become

1:33:37

who you are, become who you are, become who

1:33:40

you are, become who you are. Trust that it's going to be beautiful,

1:33:42

that you're not ugly, that you're not hideous, that you've made mistakes,

1:33:44

you've done stuff wrong, you've

1:33:47

had stuff done to you, make, all of this,

1:33:49

all of this, and yet become who you are, become who you

1:33:51

are, become who you are. So

1:33:53

all I want is I try to not go. This is everything

1:33:56

I think. Don't go unconscious. Don't

1:33:58

go unconscious.

1:34:00

Stay present, stay present. Things

1:34:02

will make you go unconscious. It might happen as I leave

1:34:04

this room. It might happen when the people from the next room come

1:34:06

in.

1:34:07

You can go unconscious at any moment. Don't

1:34:09

go unconscious. Stay present, stay

1:34:11

present now. God is now, may you find God now.

1:34:14

That's the only place you're gonna find God. You're gonna find him yesterday.

1:34:16

You're gonna find him in a week. God's here, now, find

1:34:18

it, find it. Absolutely, and when I say God, I mean absolute

1:34:20

unity, absolute inclusivity, absolute

1:34:23

love, absolute unity

1:34:25

among us all. So me, I'm basic,

1:34:27

look, you know what I mean? I can't live like that with my kids, can

1:34:29

I? Like banging on them like John

1:34:32

Wesley from the pulpit or MLK,

1:34:35

I just gotta say, all

1:34:36

right, how's it going? Do you want that to eat? I'm

1:34:38

not letting you eat that. I'm like, why not? You know what I mean?

1:34:41

I'm like, why don't you tell me stuff you've done at school? What do

1:34:43

you mean you've got a boyfriend? I'm doing all, I'm saying all the

1:34:45

normal chats everyone's having. But

1:34:47

what I'm trying to do is

1:34:49

recognize they ain't gonna get a better conduit

1:34:51

than me for real,

1:34:54

so I better get the fuck out of the way. I could

1:34:56

get out of the way for them, you know? Russell,

1:35:00

thank you so much. Thank you

1:35:03

for being an inspiration to me in so many ways.

1:35:05

One of the ways that I think, I mean, you're

1:35:08

completely in a league of your

1:35:10

own outside of the comedy and all that is the

1:35:12

way that you communicate ideas in a way that is

1:35:14

so, and I know you must be aware of this,

1:35:17

that it's so brilliant and poetic.

1:35:19

And you said it halfway through this conversation

1:35:22

that it's intentional, your use of words. Yes.

1:35:25

You could, you know you could use simpler words, but

1:35:27

you choose the poetry.

1:35:29

That's the best way I can describe it. Why? Because

1:35:32

it's so beautiful. Why? It's

1:35:35

not only erudite

1:35:37

to talk like that. Think of perhaps one

1:35:39

of the great archetypes of the working class

1:35:41

we have nowadays, Danny Dyer.

1:35:44

He's a poet. He talks beautifully.

1:35:47

It's nice to be specific. Yeah,

1:35:50

if you can. Be specific. What

1:35:53

do you mean? What do you mean? And

1:35:56

to be honest,

1:35:57

it's... You

1:36:00

know, it's always been there. It's always

1:36:02

there. It's

1:36:04

there.

1:36:06

It's funny, because as I was observing you today, you seem like

1:36:08

you're just one step ahead

1:36:10

of the thing coming out of your mouth.

1:36:12

And that's why you're able to string this

1:36:14

poetry together in such

1:36:16

a cohesive way, in a coherent

1:36:18

way, because your brain seems to just be one step ahead of Mark,

1:36:20

like of

1:36:21

the way that I would speak.

1:36:23

It's wonderful to observe and it's

1:36:25

a wonderful talent. I observe it

1:36:27

as well in your new show. Brandemic.

1:36:32

No, no, no, but it's wonderful.

1:36:34

I watched all of the clips, I watched the trailer, what

1:36:37

you managed to do in that show. So for anybody that doesn't know,

1:36:39

Russell has a show called Brandemic, which is gonna

1:36:41

be available for just two weeks from June 25th,

1:36:43

which you can watch online globally. You can pre-order it now, I

1:36:45

pre-ordered it, and my partners pre-ordered it. So we're,

1:36:48

even

1:36:48

though we're gonna be watching on the same screen, so there's

1:36:50

two pre-orders. But it's this wonderful confrontation

1:36:53

of the last couple of years of our lives, mixed

1:36:55

with comedy at the heart of it, with also

1:36:58

this permeating, really important

1:37:00

message underneath there somewhere,

1:37:02

which I think you use comedy in such a wonderful

1:37:05

way to, if I may say,

1:37:07

inject an important message into

1:37:10

me through the medium of humor.

1:37:12

And it's a wonderful skill that I've seen in some

1:37:14

great comedians. Some of, you know, Jimmy Carter,

1:37:16

to his credit, he's wonderful at what he does. He uses a different

1:37:18

form of comedy, but the form of comedy you use

1:37:20

to address very important subject matter is

1:37:24

genius.

1:37:25

It's very, very hard to do. And in fact, when I

1:37:27

sat here with Jimmy, he said he's trying to do more of that. I've

1:37:29

seen a few great comedians like the Chappelles

1:37:32

of the world, who I saw in New York a couple of weeks ago in Aziz

1:37:35

Ansari, Aziz Ansari.

1:37:38

He's fantastic at that. I saw him at the store do that

1:37:40

as well. I highly recommend everybody

1:37:42

go and pre-order Brandemic. It'll only be

1:37:44

available for two weeks. And if you go check out the trailer

1:37:46

on YouTube, it is fucking hilarious. It

1:37:48

confronts all the things a lot of people are a bit too scared

1:37:50

to confront, but with a real elegance

1:37:53

and a real class. So thank you for that. And also

1:37:55

I

1:37:56

have to mention Community, which is

1:37:58

an event that's... taking place, when

1:38:02

is it, July? Yeah, July the 14th to July

1:38:04

the 17th. Is it polite for me to ask your girlfriend's

1:38:06

name? Melanie. Melanie, yeah,

1:38:09

come with Melanie. She should

1:38:12

be right up her alley. Wafts there, B.S.

1:38:14

Simpkins there, Vandana Shiva, proper

1:38:16

leaders, both in political

1:38:18

and spiritual spaces because in the end these

1:38:21

are fake divisions. There is only

1:38:23

one space. You'll love it, come, come

1:38:25

and do a turn on a Saturday night. I saw

1:38:27

a poster for it and I thought, this can't be

1:38:30

real

1:38:30

because of the people that are there and

1:38:33

they're all gathering and I thought it can't be in person.

1:38:34

It must be online. And then I found out it was in person as

1:38:37

well. So 14th of July to the 17th

1:38:39

of July in Hay-on-Way. Hay-on-Way,

1:38:42

why is there a river that

1:38:45

bifurcates England and Wales, or at

1:38:47

least separates England and Wales, or actually England

1:38:49

and Wales are most conceptual, so bifurcates that

1:38:51

bit of land that is currently called

1:38:53

England and Wales. It's there, so on a

1:38:56

campsite I went to during pandemic, I

1:38:58

went there in an ollie in

1:39:00

a one in vans that you can

1:39:02

do up from within. And we had such a lovely

1:39:04

time there

1:39:04

and we did a small festival last

1:39:07

year and this year we're doing a bigger festival and

1:39:09

the money that we make, we give to people with addiction and

1:39:11

mental health issues, various charities that

1:39:13

we support for the Stay Free Foundation is

1:39:16

proper. It's an attempt to live how we

1:39:18

might live.

1:39:20

That is probably the most compelling thing to me because

1:39:22

I literally read a chapter in my book called The Journey

1:39:24

Back to Human. And so it's wonderful to

1:39:26

see something called community that's doing

1:39:28

exactly that, bringing us back to what it is to be a human. And as you

1:39:31

say, the cause is that the proceeds of this

1:39:33

event are going to phenomenal, including a Plimothian

1:39:35

charity, I believe.

1:39:36

Which one's that? It's a charity in Plymouth, I think you were

1:39:38

talking about. Oh yeah, yeah, Trevi. Trevi,

1:39:41

yeah. Trevi women, that's the only treatment

1:39:43

center in the country that

1:39:45

is able to take women with

1:39:48

addiction issues and complex needs that have kids

1:39:50

already. Because obviously it's very difficult to look after

1:39:52

women that are drug addicts that have kids and stuff.

1:39:55

So that place though, they do a fantastic

1:39:57

job down in your ends in

1:39:59

Plymouth.

1:39:59

neck of the woods. So you can heal yourself, but

1:40:02

also the proceeds will help to heal others,

1:40:05

which I think is a phenomenal thing. So thank you for that. We

1:40:07

have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest

1:40:09

leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing

1:40:11

who they're leaving it for.

1:40:13

You

1:40:18