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Everything's there. I want to welcome everyone back to the
Peaking yona show Stormy's back, and yeah, we're gonna we're
gonna go in a completely different direction. And let me
put this out there right up front, right up front,
because whenever I do an episode like this, I'm going
to get comments saying, you should have this person on
to talk about this, You should have that person on
to talk about about Marcus Aurelius and the meditations and stoicism.
Now the Stormy and I are going to talk about this.
So how you doing, Stormy doing well?
Speaker 2: Doing well?
Speaker 1: How about yourself doing well? Man? So you mentioned you
mentioned Marcus Aurelius. You it was a few months ago.
You said, you know, we should read and discuss you know,
some of the meditations, go through, go through some of
the meditations, and I just put it in the back
of my head and I was like, Okay, when the
time comes, you know, when I think about it, when
I remember again, when it comes back to the forefront
from the back, it comes back to the front from
the from the back, We'll do it. But why do
you why did you talk about this? Why did you
think we should talk about this on the air?
Speaker 2: Well, because it I don't know how Marcus Aurelius came
to a lot of his ideas, but it's basically the
I don't want to call it like Eastern mysticism, right,
he could have arrived at these entirely organically, but well
there was, I mean, that's much more to us.
Speaker 1: Let me interrupt you real quick so that you I'm sorry.
Yep Zeno of Sitsium around three in the three hundred's BC,
he's basically considered the founder of Stoicism. He forms a school.
Cleanthes is his his student, Chrysippus is his student. So
you know in the in the BC times, in the
before times, you did have a school, a Stoic school,
and these these are the three, you know, early figures
in establishing Stoicism in in ancient Greece, but later Romans
picked up on it, like Seneca episod epic Teta, I
can never pronounce his name, epic Tetus or epic epitet
epictet epic Tetus. I'll go with that. And Marcus Aurelia
is built on the foundations, but they're not considered the founders.
So basically, what what uh Marcus Aurelius is doing is
a Roman form of Stoicism that he got from Greek
Greek fathers, I would say three hundred years before he
he lived.
Speaker 2: Well, so when I say like Eastern mysticism, there is
a lot of Eastern mysticism that is taken again like
people guys like doctor Stephen Skinner and a couple others
that basically do like the history of the basically like
deep histories of mysticism, and not from like the from
the content of it, but basically who said what and
when and how these ideas propagated. So something magical happened
when Alexander got to Egypt, because you had two groups
of people that were working on the same problem but
from opposite ends, and the Egyptians had a lot of
what the Greeks missed, but without the Greek's rigor. You know,
Pythagoras had a large amoun of followers at the time.
Even though he didn't survive the Siege of Tire, all
of his followers did. And from there on out, Greek
thought on well in this case to what we're talking
about today, emotions changes quite a bit. And then Marcus Aurelius,
I think you're yeah, you're definitely correct. This would be
like a rediscovery of it, right because there wasn't a
lot of Romans actually, I mean, for as much as
they were, you know, Greek fans at this time, I
don't think there were anybody else but those three that
we know of.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean there are going to be others,
but that's the school, that's where those are the three
big names. You know, like if you were going to
talk about Greek philosophy, you're going to talk about Aristotle, Plato,
and Soccer.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's base roman Stoicism. It's just those three names.
Speaker 1: I love roman Stoicism. Well, I mean there is more,
but you know, as as I said, were never naming
a whole line of people and everything. You have to
concentrate on who the main, most influential were and it's
those story.
Speaker 2: So the reason I like Marcus Aurelius's meditations is because
you can pull these lessons out with and leave the mysticism,
and because it is in Latin, it's very easy to
read and digest. And when he is described when he
instead of like a very esoteric teaching that will take you, you know,
months and months to pull apart and to find out
what the guy actually meant, Marcus Aurelius gives it to
you in context of real situation, since he's dealing with
so it is both the knowledge and applied knowledge simultaneously,
so you're able to grasp the concepts much much easier.
And he leaves out a lot of the other stuff
that I think would take people of a Christian background,
It would probably cause a lot of people to turn
their nose up at it. So just the teachings of
how the man views his emotions as separate from him, right,
They are not, you know, things that he has control
over that are internal processes. Marx Relis views them as
external processes, right His you know, the question is for
him is how one reacts to these external processes. So
it's not like, you know, you're going to get rid
of emotion. You're not going to get your emotions under control.
Like all these things are impossible. You have no control
over the emotions, the emotional information and the content that
comes to you. The only thing you do have control
over is how you respond or react to these emotions,
you know. And Marcus's take is the same as no God,
I can't believe I'm blinking lautsuit, the eternal doubt, these things,
these are things to be observed, studied, let them wash
over you and wait till they're gone, right, and then
internalize each time more and more information. And then these
emotions that you are socking away, you know, in your
knowledge bank, become so something you can pull from later
and use almost like a power source of infinite immovability, steadfastness,
or strength. And I think that would be something that
would be very valuable for people in our day and age,
specifically our guys when we have to interact on the
Internet and are interfacing with algorithms that are deliberately designed
to elicit emotional responses and get them into very non
productive moods. Right, it teaches it'll teach you how to
not be a reactive, you know, loser, jumping from current
thing to current thing. These things don't mean anything. The
emotions they give you are not yours, right, They're not
innate your conscious mind, and the strength to not react
to them and to study them, like why am I
having this? Why is this particular thing making me feel
this particular type of way would benefit our guys a lot,
because I think our information environment is extremely more hostile
than one in any other age. I think it's actually
the biggest hurdle to us making change.
Speaker 1: Well, I also think it's important to know if something
is if you're having trouble, if something is causing you
to get emotional, get upset, whatever, whatever it might be,
then to avoid that. And I think that the problem
is is like one of those things that I know
causes a lot of people because sometimes I have to
just get off of it for long periods of time.
As social media, it can be daunting because it is
designed to bombard you with information and if it's information
that is going to upset you, if it's information where
you've you feel like you have a stake in it,
like you're invested in it and it's not going your way, which,
let's face it, most of the time things aren't going
to go your way, especially if you have no power
over them, then you should know to avoid it. I
mean that's just really the beginning of knowledge. And I
fail often at that because I feel like, oh, if
I'm not on social media, I'm not on the biggest
battlefield in the world. And no, actually, the biggest battlefield
in the world is in your skull.
Speaker 2: I couldn't have said it better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what you have to make, you know. You
have to try to learn to master. You'll never master it,
but at least you know you're on the path.
Speaker 2: It also creates what's necessary for leadership. Like I think
people misunderstand, like what leadership is. It's like it's not
like a learned thing. You can't like learn to be
a leader. Like it's a thing that you study. Right,
you could jump up in at like I know everything
about leadership. That does not mean people will look to
you as a leader. You don't get to decide whether
you're the leader or not. Right, That is a decision
that everybody around you makes independently inside themselves. And what
are they basing that decision on. They're basing it on
your presence. Like people want a leader because that person
is unmoved, unchanged by you know, very negative externalities by crisis.
The person that is always of a cool head, right,
a leader, we call it. Like leaders. These are just
men that are internally ordered inside. Right, they are integrated
their conscious mind, their unconscious mind, their physical self.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: These are they are mind, body, and soul of one thing. Right,
they are firm and immovable. And when they are these things,
how they order themselves internally projects externally right. I guess,
for lack of a better term, it's a vibe and
everyone around you will pick it up. So ordering yourself
internally is how we make leaders, I think. I mean,
there's many people that can disagree with me, but I
think you'd have a hard time because who people look
to as a leader is a choice that they make,
and oftentimes without even knowing you. In a crisis, people
decide in an instant who the leader is. And if
our guys are ordered internally, when crisis hits, which it will,
they will be the ones who will be looked to
as leaders because they will be the ones calm, firm,
and immovable, and they will project the type of safety
that everyone is going to be attracted to. So I
think Marcus Aurelius has the best tools to make leaders
because I think it's an internal thing and not an
external thing, not something that you can, like, I'm going
to learn and you know, take a crash course in leadership.
I think that to waste of time weaving even lad
the book. Yet this is already a pretty good discussion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, let's just let people know. Marcus Aurelius was
the Emperor Rome from one sixty one to one eight.
He came from his he was a son of a
prey tour, so yeah, he's he comes after Hadrian's adoptive son,
Alias Caesar died in one thirty eight, Hadrian adopted Marcus's uncle,
Antonius Pius as his new heir. Later later in turn,
Antonius adopted Marcus and Lucius, the son of Alias. So yeah,
he this is somebody who was emperor of Rome. And
let's I think a lot of people have in their
mind what the emperor of Rome, how the Emperor of
Rome would act, and how he would think. But Marcus
Aurelius's meditations are seemed to seems to fly in the
face of what most people would think. So let me read. Yeah,
this is well, yeah, this has broken up into parts
into verse almost verses, like like biblical biblical chapters are
broken up. So let me just read the first one.
So this is the first book of Marcus Aurelius. This
is the first, first part of my grandfather Verus. I
have learned to be gentle and meek, and to refrain
from all anger and passion. From the fame and memory
of him that begot me, I have learned both shamefastness,
and manlike behavior. Shamefastness is in a term that we're very,
very familiar with anymore, but it's basically the quality I'm
gonna read the definition the quality or state of being modest.
I are bashful, rooted in a sense of propriety and restraint,
rather than the awkwardness of being shamefaced of my mother.
I have learned to be religious and bountiful, and to
forbear not only to do, but to intend, but to
intend any evil, to content myself with a spare diet,
and to fly all such excess as is incidental to
great wealth of my great grandfather, both to frequent public
schools and auditories, and to get me good and able
teachers at home, And that I ought not to think
much if, upon such occasions I were at excessive charges.
So this already flies in the face of what most
people think a leader is a modern what it's what
most people most people think a modern leader is a sociopath.
And this is an Emperor of Rome, and obviously he's
not a sociopath. He's telling you to do the exact opposite.
So Part two, I'll just do here real quick. Of
him that brought me up not to be fondly addicted
to either of the two great factions of the coursers
in the circus, called Parsini and Venezzi, nor in the
amphitheater partially to favor any of the gladiators or fencers,
as either the par Parmulari or the Secutorus, and those
are two classes of gladiator. Moreover, to endure labor, nor
to need many things. When I have anything to do,
to do it myself rather than by others. Not to
meddle with many businesses, and not easily to admit of
any slander. I'm starting to feel seen here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is how you get men like Cincinnatus. Yeah,
it's thinking like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Moreover, twins or labor, nor to need many things,
and when I have anything to do, to do it
myself rather than by others. It's too easy in the
modern world to have other people do something for you.
Of diagenetis not to busy myself about vain things, and
not easily to believe those things which are commonly spoken
by such as take upon them to work wonders, and
by sorcerers or presi, prestidigitators and impostors concerning the power
of charms, and they're driving out of demons or evil
spirits and the like. That's keep quails for the game.
Nor to be mad after such things, Not to be
offended with other men's liberty of speech, and to apply
myself onto philosophy. Him Also, I must think that ever
I heard first Aias, then Tendasus and Marcianus, and that
I did write dialogues in my youth, and that I
took liking to the philosopher's little couch and skins, and
such other things, which, by the Grecian discipline are proper
to those who profess philosophy. Not to be offended with
other men's liberty of speech, and to apply myself onto philosophy.
What do you have to say to that?
Speaker 2: I don't see a single modern leader. It really this particular. Yeah,
there's a lot to say. This is a person that
is very, very particular about how he keeps his mental space, right,
if you like, So that the verse three talks about
all of the things that he does and does not do.
But the common theme with the other the other two
verses is what he thinks and what he does not
allow himself to think, and most importantly, what he allows
others to see. This is a person that is completely
sovereign in his own mind. He's not if he doesn't
want to think about something or think a certain way
about something, he doesn't if he wants to think about something.
His mind is doing what his mind is tasked to do,
and not what it wants to do. Right. Not to
be offended by another man's liberty of speech, Well, he
can't decide whether he's offended or not initially, so what
does he mean? He means, I'm going to have control
over how I express myself because you can't decide to
be offended or not, so you can decide how you
can react, how you react or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not that's not something in the modernity as
it tells us to just react to everything in a
very feminine in a very feminine way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where the we're supposed to be the passive recipids,
And this man is not a passive anything. I mean.
So he's constantly talking about like all of the things
he doesn't do. I don't want to show favor to anyone, right,
I want to do things myself. I don't want to
bother anyone. I want to give thanks to each and
every person that has helped me along the way, and
think about and remember them. Right, I don't think a
lot of us, especially nowadays, give thanks. I mean, we
do when we pray, but there's a lot of people
in our lives that do a lot of things for us.
How often do we take time to remember all of
those people and what they have done to help us?
And before I came across the text, I don't think
I ever had. There's an ordering to him thinking taking
the time to give thanks internally for every single person
that has helped shape him to the person that he is.
Is hand and tied to him, not busy himself with
vain things, him not favoring any excess. How do you
be humble? Well, he's telling you. He's doing it in
front of you. He is recognizing each and every person's
contribution to them himself. Well, if you do that, it's
really hard to be an ego maniac, isn't it. This
is him checking He is checking his ego. He's humbling
himself by recognizing each individual person's contribution to what makes
him up. The man that's writing it today or on
the day that he wrote it, and he's actually what's
actually I forgot was like how detailed he is in
like this person taught me to do this or behave
in this way, and now this is how I behave
in all of these instances. And I was brought up
to not be addicted to either of the great factions.
And this is how I don't favor these groups in
the amphitheater, and this is how I don't favor these
groups in the gladiatorial arena. As an exercise in humility,
go ahead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as a leader, I'm yeah, I'm going to jump
to this. I probably would have held this comment for
a little longer. But this is the kind of person.
And you've known people like this in your life, the
quiet person, the person who's a man of few words.
You get the idea that writing this was him was
an outlet for him, because he's somebody who's not going
to speak many words. He's also the kind of person
who if he's not choosing sides in the most in
things of it don't matter, like the you know, like
the the arena and what happens if you're what happens
if you're invaded, say the barbarians are at the gates.
How do you act towards that. Do you start to panic?
Do you lose your mind? Are you such a stoic
that you don't care? No, that's not it at all.
The thing is this is somebody who is in the
face of problems is not going to think about how
solving them makes him look in the eyes of others.
He's just going to solve the problem and it's not
going to be for any other reason. Then there's a
problem that needs to be solved, and I'm not going
to get worked up over it. I'm not going to
be emotional over it. I'm just going to solve the problem.
And once the problem is solved, we move on, and
that's it. That's one of the reasons why, you know,
when we say hating your enemies, oh I hate them?
Why why are you expending that energy? Why do you
think Why do you think that that emotion is profitable?
Do you think that one day you're going to have
to kill and that that by hating it'll be easier
to do that. Someone like Marcus Aurelius doesn't, He doesn't
need that. He just knows that if he has to kill,
he has to kill, and that's it. It's just a
decision that he has to make. It doesn't have to
be emotional. It is just something that needs to be done.
And I think hate and emotions as such just weaken you,
and it weakens your vision for sure. And I think
we're taught to hate. And I think, really, if you
really think about it, our enemies have taught us to
hate because they know it makes us weak.
Speaker 2: Yep, and it makes them strong. They need it. But
it's also really interesting. As I kept on, well you
were saying that, I kept thinking about justice must be
delivered dispassionately. If not, then it is not justice, it's vengeance.
This is a man that could meet her out justice.
There's lots of men that will, you know, commit acts
of revenge, But then you're not actually doing anything.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Other if you're committing acts of revenge, maybe people will
be afraid of you, but they won't come to you.
If you're dispassionate. Then when you do kill someone, whether
yourself or by order, it's justice. It actually means something
to everyone, where vengeance means something only to you, it
means nothing to anyone else except for this guy just
murdered somebody. And you could apply that to pretty much
every aspect of leading. Right again back to him thinking
each and every person he will go on to do
more of it. Is this an emperor that heeds his
advisor's counsel? Is this a person that thinks that he
knows more than everyone in the room. So what Pete
has talked about as far as hatred right, or whether
this is a person that is going to take counsel
from his advisors when offered, isn't going to dismiss them
as like, oh no, I know more than you, I
am the smartest guy in the room. These are very
similar things. Even though they have they sound like they
have nothing in common unless you're a leader than what
Pete has described and I just described are blind spots,
places where you will make the wrong decision for selfish reasons,
whether it be to fulfill your own hate or to
fulfill your own ego. Right, this is how you're supposed
to rule and not for your own benefit. You can
be a macia like Pete was just saying, does this
guy sound like a sociopath or not? He doesn't, Oh, well,
then how is he going to get into power and
be all machiavellian? This is about exercising power, having the
right to rule. I think the Bronze Age, barbarianism shit
has kind of poisoned a lot of people's minds to
what having agency is, to what being a leader is,
to what governing is. Having power is. All those things
are duties. Having power over your family, over your wife
and children. Yeah, they have to listen to you, that's
one thing they have to do, But that means you've
got about like three or four different duties to them. Right,
It is you having power over them. There's a lot
more duties in your column to have that power. Then
there is duties in their column. Their column is listened
to you do as you say. Yours is protect, provide, lead, plan, Right,
you have a lot more duties than they do. And
that's what ruling. That's what leading is. It is duties,
it is obligations. It's leading correctly. Being a leader is
should be an act of selflessness. Like the eagles nest
that was built for Hitler's birthday. You never think he
spent he was there once, right, the only person outside
of that, the only house that was his or that
was you know that he had built bill for him,
was I believe for his mother or his sister. On
a cop, the same one that was issued to the Wehrmacht.
Hitler slept on the entire length of the war. Right,
so for five years, four years, the most powerful man
in Europe slept on a cop. This is a person
who thought it was his personal obligation to fix the country. Right.
What Hitler was doing was a selfless act. And until
you understand that, understand why it is people won't love
you like they love him. Right, people, The most common,
the most potent thing in this is from my mother.
I have learned to be religious and bountiful and to
forbear not only to do, but to intend any evil.
It's about intent, right. You can say a lot of things.
Politicians say a lot of things to us, but we
don't believe them. Right. Their words are the same words
as someone else. But in certain people, when they say
the identical words, we believe them. Why is that if
person A and person B can say the same exact words,
the same exact cadence, even the same exact accent, how
do we know who's telling the truth or not? We
just know we can feel it in our gut. We
can sense their intent. And that's something that you see
again and again and again throughout the text. It's it's
intent anyways. That's all I've said about that. That was
a lot longer of a rant than I planned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could add on to it, but I'll keep reading.
I'm sure what I have to say well will be uh,
will make sense as we move four to Rusticus. I
am beholding that I first entered into the conceit that
my life wanted some redressing cure, and then that I
did not fall into the ambition of ordinary sophists, either
to write tracts concerning the common theorems, or to exhort
men into virtue and the study of philosophy by public orations.
As also that I never, by way of ostentation, did
effect to show myself as an active, able man for
any kind of bodily exercises, And that I gave over
the study of rhetoric and poetry, and of elegant, neat language,
that it had not used to walk about the house
in my long robe, nor to do any such things. Moreover,
I learned of him to write letters without any affectation
or curiosity, such as that was which by him was
written to my mother from Sinuessa, and to be easy
and ready to be reconciled and well pleased again with
them that had offended me, as soon as any of
them would be content to seek unto me again to
read with diligence, not to rest satisfied with a light
and superficial knowledge, nor quickly to assent to things commonly spoken,
of whom also I must think that I ever lighted
upon Epictetus his hypo nemata, or moral commentaries and common factions,
which also he gave me of his own from Apollonius,
true liberty and unvariable steadfastness, and not to regard anything
at all, though never so little but right and reason,
and always, whether in the sharpest pains, or after the
loss of a child, or in long diseases, to be
still the same man, who also was a present and
visible example unto me that it was possible for the
same man to be both vehement and remiss, a man
not subject to be vexed and offended with the incapacity
of his scholars and auditor and auditors in his lectures
and expositions, and a true pattern of a man who,
of all his good gifts and faculties, least esteemed himself
in himself that his excellent skill and ability to teach
and persuade others the common theorems and maxims of the
Stoic philosophy of him. Also I learned how to receive
favors and kindnesses as commonly they are accounted from friends,
so that I might not become obnoxious unto them for them,
nor more yielding upon a case that in right I ought,
and yet so that I should not pass them neither
as an unsensible and unthankful Man's Yeah, that is, let's
stop there, Yeah, true, Yeah, from Apollonius. Let me see here, Yeah,
this part true liberty and unvariable steadfastness, and not to
regard anything at all, though never so little but right
and reason, and always, whether in the sharpest pains, or
after the loss of a child, or in long diseases,
to be still the same man, who also was a
present invisible example. Unto me that it was possible for
the same man to be both the vehement and remiss,
a man not subject to be vexed and offended with
the incapacity of his scholars and auditors in his life.
How many people can can even find that strength anymore?
Speaker 2: Yeah, or be as humble as to what Rusticus taught
him in the passage above, and it's all about him purposely.
There's like that famous scene you know, where Caesar comes
in triumphant into Rome and they paint his face red
and they have a servant ride in the chariot with
him as he takes his triumph and whispers in his
ear the entire time, you are not a god, You
are not a god. He's basically doing that in every
aspect of his life. He is functionally policing his humility
and the where is itself terms about how to take
basically where does he say it? Here where he talks
about reconciling. Moreover, I learned of him to write letters
without any affection or curiosity I think you're talking about
like intrigue or gossip such as that was which by
him was written to my mother from Sinuessa, and to
be easily and readily as are easily easy and ready
to be reconciled and well pleased again with them that
had offended me, as soon as any of them would
be contingent to seek it unto me again.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's uh. Most people don't have the temperamented
to that anymore.
Speaker 2: No, when somebody comes on the timeline, it's like, hey,
I think this, this, and this, Rather than congratulate and say,
oh awesome, this person has changed their mind. They think
like us now, Without fail, I will always see a
comment and then many of them. But it's always one
of the first couple ones of somebody going back on
their timeline to like three or four years ago or
whatever and taking a screenshot of something that they said
before when they thought something different and said, oh this
you this, you bro. How the fuck is anyone's a
sposed to change their mind? Were you born here on
the far right? Like? Yes? Like did you always exist here?
If no one can change their mind, how can anyone
come to agree with us that doesn't always already agree
with us? Right? If someone expresses your opinion, who once
expressed the opposite of it? All right, why are you
not reconciled and well pleased again with them? Right? This
is not how men act. It's more important for people
to hold a grudge and or get a dunk in
on someone rather than congratulate them for changing their mind and.
Speaker 3: Encouraging them to go further and you know, and eleatic behavior. Yeah,
and I'll add real quick that We can all do this.
We all fall victim to it every once in a while.
You know, where have you been? You know, I was here.
You know I learned about this five years ago. What
took you so long? The thing is, you don't want
you want to recognize when you're doing that and stop
and apologize for it. And you also you also want
to you don't want that to be who you are.
You guys, there are a lot of.
Speaker 1: People that you can see on social media and you know,
this is something that people don't do in real life.
They don't do it to people's faces. And which is
why social media is such a curse to many because
a lot of people don't even know how to talk
to people in real life anymore, but they sure do
think they know how to talk to people on social media.
And we all fall into it. But if this is
if this is like your personality, if this is your
if when people think of your account, this is the
first thing they think of, Oh, this person is just
going to try to own people the whole time. And
you know, I mean like I had somebody reach out
to me the other day and say, and then I
haven't contacted you in like five or six years. It
took me a long time to get here. But you know,
now I'm reading you know, I'm reading Henry Ford, and
I'm like, awesome, man, okay, you know, welcome, and he's like, well,
he actually said, he said, let me pull this up
because I really let me see where this is. It
was this, this was awesome to me, he said. He said,
it took me too long, but must admit you were
right about the JQ currently reading Martin Luther and Henry Ford. Apologies,
my friend from my quiet skepticism. I'm retarded. And I said,
we all reach touch points at different times. It's a
never ending race. There is no finish line. And he said,
appreciate your grace. I appreciate your grace. That's it. That's it.
The guy came and said, Maya Kulpa should have been
here all along. But I mean, the only.
Speaker 2: What am I expecting you to be an assphole? Well?
Speaker 1: And and what how did it affect him by taking
this long? I'm sure he was still he's still living
his life, he's still loving his family, he's still taking
care of his family. Now he gets to see the
way the world works, you know, a little clearer. It
just took him a little bit longer. So what.
Speaker 2: And the type of people we're trying to attract to
our coalitions are going to be busy. Right. The more
tools that they have at their disposal is a one
to one of how much busier they are in their
day to day life. Right. So like the type of
guys that you want on your side, you're going to
want them to be too busy to learn all this shit.
Just drop what they're doing and learn all the shit
that you don't, right, because they'll have means and tools
and relationships at their disposal that they built by doing
other shit than not learning about this every day. So
the type of people you're going to want are going
to be the type of people that take longer to
get here. I like the CEOs, the entrepreneurs, Like these
people have already very stressful days and if something looks
to them like a rabbit holism, that's going to be
like upsetting are going to require a huge amount of
mental investment, which this does. Then they're going to put
that off because they have to because people depend on
them to do things. So it's the people that come
to this late that are going to be people that
you want to congratulate and think about how hard that
was for that person to write, because he was full
well expecting you to dunk on him and talk shit.
So he wrote that to you knowing, or at least
he thought he knew that he was going to get
nothing but scorn in return, and it was still important
enough for him to tell you. I want that guy
on my team. I don't want somebody that would excoriate
him or frankly, you know, be an asshole. Because that
person that sent Pete that message as a bigger person
then I would say most people I see. So, yeah,
it took him longer to get here. You probably had
shit to.
Speaker 1: Do, And I would much rather have him as an
ally at this point in his learning stage than somebody
who's known this stuff, who's been reading this stuff for
ten years and is in their black pilling, you know,
just negativity spewing negativity stage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I find I find it funny that all of
those people, right, the guys that are always crowing about
how long they've been here for and how much more
they know than everybody. What's really interesting is that those
are the people that can't see the ground shifting underneath them.
The people that crow about how long they've been here
and oh, oh you fell for it again. Ah. Those
are also the same people that can't see the shifting
sands underneath their feet, which I find just deliciously ironic
to steal a quote from Thomas so Pete's right, that
dumb shit will blind you because all of those guys,
we all know who we're talking about, there's a whole
bunch of them. They can't see the change that's happening
right now, and they're going to be the most surprised
and the last to realize it. So what use are
they then?
Speaker 1: I don't even know if they're going to be the
last to realize that. I think they'll might never I think, well,
I think many of them, many of them could see
the destruction of their enemies and not realize it's happened,
or the beginning of the destruction of their enemies, and
their hatred has just blinded them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then jam rettya who has had to do
seven little videos, little table talk videos to try and
convince you that he didn't kill Charlie Kirk. Does that
sound like a person that's in charge to you? Does
that sound like a person who has everything going according
to plan? Did he plan to do all of these
emergency little fireside chats?
Speaker 1: They're spending billions of dollars to buy CBS News. I
mean that who watches CBS news find a person? Yeah, TikTok?
What like? People aren't just going to figure out ways
to get around the sensors. I mean that's what isn't that?
What like the meme Warris we're all about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's god damn Galatians. They can spend a lot
of money, but they sure can't stop people from talking
about them. Ah. What's really interesting is that, Like you'll
watch Tucker Carlson come out and say something and then
the fucking Prime Minister of Israel has to rush in
front of a camera in his office, sit down to
sit down in front of his desk and try and
bullshit his way around something that Tucker said a media
person in America and he sends it out and then
some random black lady that lives in England does another
video and there it is, that fact. It's running back
to his office, setting up the camera again, trying to
come up with some more bullshit. That is rear guard action.
That is a person who is no longer are able
to set the tempo of battle and is no longer
able to determine the place and time of battle. That person,
if we were looking at any type of conflict, that
person has lost dominance over a key part of the battlefield.
Ukraine right now cannot set the tempo of battle. Ukraine
right now cannot determine the time and place in which
their forces fight, and that is because Russia has total
air dominance over Ukraine. There is a field of battle
which Ukraine can exert no control over, and that is
forcing them to respond a different way that is very
noticeable on the field that they can still engage in.
Benjamin and Yaho's behavior is a man that is suffering
from total information dominance by his enemies. He does not
get to determine the time and place of battle. He's
running around doing little TikTok videos trying to put out
fires his enemy set whenever they decide to set them.
Not him, and none of the fucking guys that'll you know,
swagger around about how much longer they've been here and
how much you need to shut the fuck up. Because
I was hearing this, that, and the third thing, all
those fagots can't even see it, but they'll tell you
how much smarter than they are, they are than you,
and how wrong you are because of how long they've
been here. Well, have you ever seen the prime minister
of a country, like arguably the most evil, most powerful
guy in the world. Were you bracketing for them doing
six you know, fireside chat videos about how I pinky
pinky promise I didn't kill somebody in a period of
less than two and a half weeks. No, they didn't
because they can't physically even see when they're winning. They
don't have the humility, which is I think the overarching
theme of this text is thus far and self reflection.
That's another thing that we see again and again and
again and again and again. It's almost like he lives
in a constant state of self reflection.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there have been many times in my quote
unquote it's quote unquote public life. You know, since I
started podcast, since I put myself out there, that I've
been wrong and had to you know, maya culpa change
my mind and say, yeah, I just don't see it
that way anymore. And you always get attacked for that
because you know a lot of people are they seem
to have to. And what's funny is it's outside of religion.
It's politics. Put themselves into this political bubble that they
can never allow themselves to extricate themselves from, mostly because
they've made their version of politics their morality because they
don't have a morality that's based in anything other than materialism.
So they have to find materialistic morality. And yeah, I'm
not saying that that makes me any better than anyone else,
but you know it, once you do it the first time,
you realize I'm never going to get this right. I'm
never going to get it one hundred percent perfect. I'm
constantly going to be adjusting here and tweaking there, and
you know, there may even be some seismic shifts. You
know what's funny, this is just Scott Horton and Daryl
Cooper have this new podcast Provoked and they had Orn
McIntyre on the last episode talking about the hit piece
that reason ran on or In and mentioned Darryl in
and one of the things Darryl said, And what's funny
is Daryl came off even more radical in that episode
than Orrin because Oran's like, oh, we got to do
everything within the law, and Daryl's gone to defeat our enemies.
And Daryl's like, He's like, I don't know about that.
But something Darryl said was he said, look, I would
love to still be a libertarian. And I think Courton
asked him, you know, what do you believe now? And
he's like, well, it's hard to say what you believe
because things are constantly changing. When things are constantly changing,
you have to change with them. You can't deal with
you if you have people being killed openly for their beliefs.
You're non you're you're non aggression thing where you're like, oh,
I'm not going to aggress against anybody unless they you know,
unless they aggress against me. First, well, basically there's a
whole class of people out there now who are threatening
to kill you if you don't agree with them. So
how do you deal with that? How do you put
yourself into a box when things change? If you know,
let me put it this way.
Speaker 2: Do you sit by and watch everybody else get killed
because they haven't aggressed on you yet?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: Also, you know how about this, say you are forced
to move to England and you're forced to live in London,
what are you taking your political sensibilities with you. Are
you taking your ideology with you? You're talking about a completely
different system of government. Now, how's that going to help you?
You think you've you think you've created this political ideology
that helps you get through the American landscape in twenty
twenty five. It's not the same thing as the British
landscape in twenty twenty five, or the Japanese landscape in
twenty twenty five, or the Indian landscape in twenty twenty five.
It's here, and it's for a certain time. It's for
certain you know. It's like talking about one of the
things that Daryl said that you know it was, you know,
just you would hope people would, especially libertarians, would hear
it and a light bulb would go off. Is this
whole article was basically saying, they talk about Karl Schmidt,
Karl Schmidt was a Nazi, these people are Nazis.
Speaker 4: Well, did James lindsay write this, Yeah, Well they talk
about Carl Schmidt like Carl Schmidt was writing in Vermont.
Speaker 1: That's how they.
Speaker 2: Yes, I remember that. That was a really good point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're they're they're judging Carl Schmidt like he was
living in Vermont in nineteen twenty, you know, in nineteen
thirty three. No, he was living in fucking Germany in
nineteen thirty three, where there were gun battles in the
streets between communists and the National Socialists, where they were
literally having battles in the street. And you want to
judge him, like he lived in all white Vermont in
nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were hundreds of people dying in Berlin, hundreds
more dying in Munich. Like we had one guy get
shot and it was a total paradigm shattering event for
most of the country. Now, imagine what it's like having
hundreds of people shot, running gun battles in the street.
Like Daryl is really, really, really really good at taking
like something that would probably take me five minutes to say,
and just whipping it out in a punchy sentence that
is also contextualized. He's very good at that, and I
think I hope he leans into it more because I
think it's one of his one of his greatest weapons
in his in his toolbox that he has. For me,
I'm oh, yes, I'm a nationalist for me, I'm a
globalist for you, I am pro life for me, and
I am pro choice for you, and so on down
the line where it's like, yes, these things are index
to a people, right, my political I don't have any
political beliefs. I don't. It is this is a core
group of people that I care about and love deeply.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Is this good for them? Or is this bad for them?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And that's it.
Speaker 1: That's politics. And I think something else Darryl's really good
at is what we've been talking about, what we've been
reading about. Because at the end of that, Horton asked
Orrin about the people mentioned in the in the artic
call like Jarvin and you're a MAZONI and Darryl, and
and Orrin said, look, there are a lot of things
I disagree with with Daryl On because I think Daryl's
a bleeding heart on some things. If you look at
Darryl's face, he he just smiled. He just smiled a
little bit. You'll let it bother him. He's not gonna
take It's not like he's not going to take Oran's call.
If Oron calls, it's one man's opinion. And he also
knows that that man doesn't want it, doesn't want ill,
it doesn't want anything bad to happen to him. He
just has different opinions on him on different things, you know,
on different things. But as a whole, I think Oran
would rather have Darryl as a neighbor than some Antifa
fuck from Portland, you know.
Speaker 2: Table.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of our guys talk about Darryl like
he's no different than than someone Antifa. They're so black
and white like he Well, he's just he's just a
leftist like all the other leftists. Oh really, you're that ignorant?
How'd you get this way?
Speaker 2: And now he'll take one take. Oh, he doesn't agree
with me on how we structure our mass deportations. He's
a leftist, Okay, but what about the other ninety nine
of his beliefs? Well, yeah, it doesn't matter because he
doesn't agree with me on this particular thing. Well, is
that thing being discussed right now? Is that thing a
possibility that's on the table right now? No, it's not
so right now, he's your ally, you fucking retard.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean think about this. Would you would you
rather live next to some libertarian that you probably agree
seventy percent on? But they're a degenerate scum bag and
you're going to have to deal with degenerate scumbag behavior
from them as a neighbor or a Jewish banker, Jewish banker,
like every day, all day, every day, every day, all day. Yeah,
because this is real life. This isn't the Internet. Well,
it's kind of the internet. We're recording over the internet.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you know who's going to make my neighborhood
a better place and throw a bunch of money at lawyer?
Seems like that if anybody tries to make my neighborhood
a bad place, that guy. But the libertarian is going
to be like, oh no, well these people doing shooting
things in our neighborhood, they're doing it on their property
with it. No, the Jewish guy and me are going
to team up to make sure that libertarian gets evicted.
That's what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: You sound you sound like a trader.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, really, Like they have no power over any
individual person.
Speaker 1: The only power power over the power over themselves.
Speaker 2: This is true. But because and people, oh that you's
gonna try and subvert you. Yeah, but I can say no,
he's going to try and tell you these things and
I'm going to not listen.
Speaker 1: That was another thing Oran said on the on that
So that was another thing that Orin said on that episode.
He said that a lot of people on the right
were really pissed off at me for having Urim Hozoni
on because he was going to try to sell me on,
you know, on his Zionism. You can try and sell me.
I can talk to a Zionist on my show if
I want to, and he can try and sell it
to me. I ain't buying. It doesn't mean that I'm
going to be buying. I mean, maybe you're too weak to,
you know, refuse. It's like people who don't want to
hear other opinion, opinions other than their own. They don't
want to read outside of whatever. It's like, you know,
Christians who don't want to read the Koran because they're
scared they'll be convinced by it or something like that. Oh, well,
you don't want to really, you don't want to read
one of the most read religious texts, like they probably
the second most religious red religious text of all time
and know what's in it and there's like a billion
of them in the world. You don't want to know
what's in.
Speaker 2: That's so left, it's it's that's what the left does
I talk to our British friend about this all the time.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: The left cannot do strategic empathy because they know that
our worldview is kojin, at least subconsciously. They explain it
away because you know, our worldviews are old fashioned and
we've disproven those ideas and moved past them. But they
will resonate with you culturally or you know, basically with
your soul that they also think doesn't exist. But whatever,
it doesn't matter. They as doctrine, refuse to engage with
any of our material or ideas, even in a strategic sense.
This is why they're always wrong about us, and this
is why they are constantly surprised and fall flat. Is
because they are not allowed, They don't allow themselves or
others to read our stuff, to dialogue with us at all.
And that's why that's why they lose, and that's why
they're always wrong. So the same thing that we cry
that we mock in the left, I see just as
much of it, Like like in the example you just
gave on the right, Oh no I can't read this text, Well,
then you're never going to understand these people, and then
you're gonna lose. Yes, we we have no discernment At times.
It really frustrates me.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it's yeah, I don't know what it is.
And I'm and look, I've I'm trying to talk about
things that I know, places where I've changed my mind, things,
but I know I'm still wrong. I still have a
bunch of things wrong that I have to work on.
I'm not perfect. I'm trying and I'm not. I hope
no one thinks that by talking about I'm talking about
things that I know now, things that I've worked through,
things that I've struggled with, things, things that like literally
caused me loss, like not only like emotional loss, but
like monetary loss in the past, by changing my mind
and and and saying, you know, I was wrong here,
and I really think this is this is the wrong path.
I think I'm leading people down the wrong path by
talking about this. And people will be like, no, this
is my religion. So you know, you're you're a heretic now,
and you're you're immoral now, and you have no principles now,
and you're like I I literally had somebody in the
comments and I didn't say anything about it because I'm
I've resigned myself to ignore comments and not even really
even unless somebody starts spamming it, so not even blocked
during my live streams. But someone said, oh, you used
to be a libertarian, now you're a neocon. How do
I argue? How? What what am I to argue?
Speaker 2: Am I supposed to.
Speaker 1: I'm I supposed to argue there? You know it's like,
I mean, I'm sorry that I offended your religion. But
you have to understand what Stormy said. There is political ideology,
is it's fleeting. I mean it never you know, Sam
Francis said, it just never manifests itself. You know, it's
channeling James Burnham from from Uh was it Suicide of
the West? I think that's what it was yet, Yeah,
suicide of the West where he says, yeah, political ideology
is great until it gets introduced to the air. As
soon as it gets introduced to reality, it you know,
it's like like Mike Tyson said, everyone's got a plan
when they come in the ring with me until they
get punched in the mouth. Then they're planning synthesis. Yeah,
that's political ideology. The only political ideology is what is
good for me and my people? Is this good for
me and my people. If it's not, we need to
change it or we need to fight against it. And
if you get to the point where you can take
power and you can get your people in power, and
maybe you can start from a legit at them at
standpoint trying to shape shape policy or shape things in
your area that lend itself to your people. You know,
one of the most important things I heard, you know
a long time ago, was the way America was set
up in the beginning, was it was set up so
that white Europeans, you know, mostly Northern Europeans and Wasps
and Scotch Irish and people can thrive in As soon
as you introduce a group of people into that that
can't thrive in that environment, one or two things is
going to happen. Either they're going to fail miserably and
it's best for them to leave, or somebody's going to
come up with the idea that what you built for
the people who found it, it needs to be changed
so that it's easier for these people. And as soon
as you change it for those people now the founding stock,
it's harder for them to operate in it. Now it
doesn't benefit them anymore. And what should happen is wherever
these people are coming from. Even if you need to
help them, if you feel like you need to help them,
if you're some kind of you know, Captain Savahoe with
frigging an African nation or something like that, figure out
a way to design a system that they can benefit from.
Help them do that if you feel like you're an
Albert Schweitzer or something like that, because they're not going
to be able to thrive in this system. They need
to find their own system. And there needs to be
multiple systems for multiple people and multiple cultures and multiple
not every That's why when people say, oh, capitalism is
the greatest for who who is capitalism? I mean for Somalia,
for average sixty three you know, sixty five IQ country,
And that doesn't work. Capitalism doesn't It doesn't even really
work for what we have now. Capitalism really didn't work
for I mean once you got very much past the
founding because capitalism more whatever you were calling capitalism, and
the getting morphed into something else, and whatever it morphed
into was not conducive to the actions and the beliefs
of the founding stock. So if you're not willing, if
you're not willing to look at politics in a way
of how does this benefit my people and be willing
to say, and those people over there, I don't hate them,
but they need to figure out whatever system works best
to benefit them. In Singapore, the best way it benefits
them is to have a system of authoritarianism, because that's
what they need. But they also have a very open economy.
Somebody told me that you can pass through the airport
and go to a bank in the airport and not
even be from there, and open a bank account and deposit.
Speaker 2: Money, not even leave the international terminal. Your passport never
even gets stamped.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So they have this open economy and it works
for them because the people get along. Well why do
they get along? Because if they don't get along, there's consequences.
Maybe that's the way it needs to be in some places.
I don't know. All I know. The only question I'm
asking is what's best for my people, people who think
like I do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And to sirt back on the difference in beliefs,
basically creating strife that there's no coalition building happening or
just a circular firing squad. I want to remind everybody
that there is no set of beliefs on the right
right now, and this is actually a huge problem for
us strategically. All Right, I can pull one hundred right
wingers and say, okay, can you describe to me what
it looks like when we win? And I'll get a
hundred different answers monarchists, Christian nationalists, wig nats. And it's
going to stay that way for forever until we learn
to do what Pete is describing. And this is everyone's like, oh, well,
we need, you know, right wing billionaires to fund all
these things. Okay, why the fuss did they do that?
You can't even convince them what it looks like when
they win.
Speaker 1: I say that often.
Speaker 2: Sorry, but unless we can agree upon what it looks
like when we win, they can't make that investment because
you can't tell them how it will benefit them or
how it will protect them. Everybody, and like, Pete, you
know this because I think, as I probably chimped out
to you privately, Darryl and I disagree on something. I
don't even know if he still even has that opinion
or whatever, but there's an opinion that he had that
kind of cut me. But the quick I don't know
if that's a term people still use anymore. But it
got under my seat. It happened to hit like all
of my sensitivity buttons. And I will still champion his stuff.
He is brilliant and he's doing fantastic work. And I
will never say I won't even air our disagreement. I won't.
I won't tell anybody what we disagree about. That's for
me and him to talk and we sit down privately
and we can actually discuss that. But he's on my
side and I'm on his side, just like Orn is
on Darryl's side and Daryl's on Orrn's side even though
they disagree, because they can prioritize things. Daryl knows that
having a neighborhood full of Oron's is great, and Oran
knows having a neighborhood full of Daryl's is great. Daryl
knows having a government full of Oran's is great, and
Oran knows that having a government full of Daryl's is great,
And that whatever the thing that they don't agree on
doesn't fucking matter. And I think we need to I
think we need to do that at scale. I think
that basically what we saw on that episode of What's
It Called, I always forget the name. It's like, oh,
it's a one word name. Provoked, provoked, there we go.
What happened on that show in real time is something
that we need to be doing all the time, because
it's only when we can do that that we can
eventually settle on a cohesive picture of this is what
is attainable in the short term, this is what is
attainable in the long term. This is how we structure
things after that, how you can paint a worldview that
you can sell people with money on. The One thing
about the left is if you ask them roughly what
it looks like when they win, they have enough slogans
memorized where they can most of the time convince you
that they're an agreement on this. And that's what gives
people the ability to donate tons of money to them,
because they can paint a picture about what that money
is going to be used for and how great it's
going to be for the person that's giving that money
and for the people receiving that money when they win.
And that's why they get money to win, and that's
why we don't A billionaire will never not be an investor,
no matter what they have a million people pitching them
a million ideas all the time, and you need to
be able to paint a picture of what it looks
like in the future, to pitch like what are you pitching?
And I think the more serious people in our in
our thing, Pete, I think we're doing that. And I
think the people that don't want to do that are
gonna whether they know it or not, or whether they
do it with intent or not, are going to find
themselves not in the mechanisms of what's going to happen next.
Speaker 1: Well, they'll benefit from what happens next to be bitter
about it. Yeah, yeah, they'll never say thank you to
those who came up with the ideas and everything, and
you know, and really, I think everybody knows. I'm not
the uh not a big fan of Ronald Reagan, especially
the amnesty and the making machine making machine guns go
from seven hundred dollars to thirty thousand dollars for achieve Yeah. Yeah,
but he did say, you know, it's amazing what you
can what you can achieve and get done if no
one wants to credit for it, you know, And that's
something I think that's really important, because that's not I
mean that there are things that I've done and people
I know have done and no one knows that they
did it. Yet a lot of people celebrated it. And
I think part of the reason it got done is
because no one everybody was like, we don't need credit
for it, just get it done. And you know, if
you get credit for something, puts a bulls eye on
the next thing. If you're like, yeah, I did this,
puts bullseye on you the next time you try to
do something. So you know, humility is Humility is important.
And I think that you know what we see and
you and I have talked about this before that a
lot of the people out there who are quote unquote
content creators, really they just want credit for being right.
I was right about this. I was right about that.
See how I predicted this? Now what did their prediction?
How did their predictions change your life? Well? I knew
this was going to happen. Okay, so how did you
benefit from that? Did you short of stock? Did you
by a stock? Did what'd you do? Well? I knew.
I get to brag about the fact that I watched
the guy who told me this and I told my
friends and I was right.
Speaker 2: Can you pay your mortgage with it.
Speaker 1: Quite the accomplishment, Quite the accomplishment. But no, you know what,
though that content creator they could pay their mortgage with it,
what did you get from it?
Speaker 2: Astro makes a really good point about this, like basically
like if you're on the right and you're in a
NON you may think you deserve credit or whatever, but
you actually don't. You're in a NON, so people can
take your ideas and run with them and dumb them
down and not say them as good as you or whatever. Right,
by being in a no on, you're making that tacit
agreement that I don't care if I get credit or not.
I just want to win. And I think we forget
that a lot. And the more you win, the less
people will have to be a NON. I think as
things progress, none of us will be. But that only
happens if we win. Right, why do we want to win?
Is it because of how it will benefit us? And
this is another thing about being ordered internally. One thing
you could tell almost immediately about Marcus Aurelius, And this
is another thing, is correct me if I'm wrong, Pete.
But the meditations were never published, They were just his
internal notes. And I'm sure like if he found out
that they did publish, he'd be probably mortified.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, these this was like a diary of his
and yeah, probably closest to a diary and stuff he
wrote down for himself, and it was never meant to
be in the public.
Speaker 2: So he is self reflecting daily to himself. No one's
ever going to read this. He is centering himself every day.
And this is a man. How did Yaki say it?
No one will die for an idea, but a few
men will die for an ideal, or a few great
men will die for an ideal. There is a thing
inside of Marcus Aurelius that is driving him from his soul,
not from his spirit or his body. Right, the ego
is a separate thing from the human soul. Right, The
thoughts in your head, you know, the feelings like these
are all separate. And you know they're separate because when
a baby is born, it doesn't have any of that
shit yet. It has no opinions, It has no beliefs,
it has no opinions of others, no thoughts, it's just awareness.
It's just soul and body, and that's where an ideal
comes from. It is a layer deeper than the conscious mind.
The conscious mind wants recognition, the constant mind wants status,
because the constant mind can think about the conscious mind
can think about how that status will benefit them, or
how that credit will benefit them. And what you see
him doing by reflecting again and again and again throughout
his life, you can see him pushing that aside, that
conscious mind aside, right, and what matters to my soul, well,
that these people flourish, that no evil is done to them,
that they have the means as God intended to self
actualize to be the best versions of themselves. None of
those things benefit him. He's not going to wear fancier robes.
He's not going to get fancier robes. As you say here,
To not busy myself with vain things, and to not
easily leave those things which are commonly spoken by such
as take upon them to mark wonders by sorcerers or
prestidigitators or impostors concerning the power of charms and the
driving out of demons or evil spirits, and the like.
To not keep quails for the game, to not be
mad at such things, or be offended by another man's
liberty of speech. I'm sorry, I grabbed the wrong paragraph.
And then I did not fall into the ambition of
ordinary sophists, either to write tracts concerning the common theorems,
or to exhort men unto virtue in the study of
philosophy by basically grandstanding by public orations. As also that
I never, by way of ostentation, did effect to show
myself an active, able man for any kind of bodily exercises.
Marcus Aurelius mogged no one, he showed off. Never, This
is what he's saying. I have never, by way of ostentation,
what is ostentatiousness, did affect the show of myself to
be an active and able man in any kind of
bodily exercises. And that I gave over the study of
rhetoric and poetry and of elegant, neat language by basically
speaking frankly, that I did not use the walk about
the house in my long robes, nor to do any
such thing. Moreover, I learned of him to write letters
without any affectation or intrigue. In gossip, right, he's basically
telling you that the things he does that Rusticus taught
him right is to not flatter himself, to not show off,
to not seek, more importantly, to not seek the status
giving of others, to not seek the recognition of others.
And this circles all the way back to what his
mother taught him, and of my mother, I have learned
to be religious and bountiful and to forbear not only
to do, but to intend any evil right intent. So
why is he not fall into ambition of ordinary sophists,
or to grandstand with large public orations to show how
virtuous he is and how philosophically intelligent he is, or
by way of ostentation, did affect the show of myself
as an active, able bodied man for any other kind
of exercise, or basically stroke himself being a word sell
doing poetry and talking in neat, flowerly language, or prance
around his house in his nicest gear. Because that means
when he does do exercise, when he does do oration right,
or write tracts of theorems, or when he exerts exhorts
men to virtue and study, the intent behind those actions
is not for his own benefit. The intention matters. And
that's why I say like it's it's a it's some
things that you would read, like mystical texts about why
you do something right? And in that like reality Isn't
what You Think it is series we did Pete, we
talked about like consciousness being able to affect random number generators,
and they also did that test on money, right, So
why you do things matters right? So God has built
right and wrong into the universe. It's built into the
fundamental framework right that undergirds are reality. So one of
the tests that Rupert Scheldric and Dean Rayden did was
basically they had people concentrate on a certain dollar amount, right,
and then they kept track of them and to see
if they would buy any you know, instance, this money
would fall into their lap through unexpected means that they
did not initiate. And you can measure whether something is
statistically significant or not right by basically how many how
many degrees from random? Is it like total randomness like
winning a lottery ticket for instance. And what they found
is okay to give a really dumb down example when
a person let's say, wishes for not wishes, but just
focus their consciousness on one hundred thousand dollars just dropping
in their mailbox, the chances of that actually happening to
that person were less than random as in, one hundred
thousand dollars will land in the mailbox of somebody not
even thinking about it sooner than it would the guy
that is. That's funny. But what's even more interesting is,
let's say the guy who's thinking about one hundred thousand
dollars landing in the mailbox of his next door neighbor,
right because his next door neighbor has can't sir, and
the chemotherapy costs are eating through all of his neighbor's savings.
And now his neighbor's about to lose his house because
he was one hundred thousand dollars on his house and
it's going to get foreclosed on. Those people that wanted
that thought about having one hundred thousand dollars land in
their neighbors mailbox. Again, I'm dumbing down and you know,
taking liberties with the experiment that had nothing to do
with mailboxes or one hundred thousand dollar checks. The chances
of one hundred thousand dollars landing in that person's neighbor's
mailbox was not only more statistically significant, like actually statistically significant,
so enough multiples above absolute randomness to wear it is
signaling that something else is happening. Right, So let's say
if the landing in your your mailbox was negative I
don't know, five percent, right, random person mailbox zero percent,
So total randomness landing in the cancer neighbors mailbox ten percent.
So you've increased the chances of some random event happening
from zero to ten percent because the action, the intent
behind it was selfless. And they've proved this a bunch
of different ways. So that means the intention in which
you do in action affects the success of that action.
So a leader that is acting out of selflessness, right,
the thing that motivates him is not himself or his
own self benefit, that person is going to be more successful.
Random chance is going to break his direction far more
than the leader that is doing any such action for
his own personal benefit. So God has written morality and
virtue into the very fabric of the universe. Right, there
is no randomness. Randomness is something that is affected by
our virtue and why we do things matters, And this
is you'd only you would only are the only places
you pick this up or in like you know, like
ac cult, mystic traditions or whatever that the intent in
which something is done or as a Christian in who
whose name something is done will affect the outcome. So
are you acting selfishly or selflessly? Are you doing it
in Christ's name? Or are in your own? Who has
the power? Here? Is it you that is making that check,
hit that mailbox? Or is it God? It's God all right.
So humility and selflessness are very important. So I find
that really interesting that the overall theme in his governance
and the way he acts in the world is entirely selfless.
And he is constantly policing his own mind and reinforcing
this again and again and again, so much so that
he meditates on it daily. He takes credit for none
of his positive attributes. He is going through and enumerting
all of the good things about him. Even his own
virtue he does not take credit for because they're not his.
They were given to him by something out with someone else.
So even the best things about himself he will not
attribute to his inate ability or his innate virtue. Marcus,
why are you so kind? Oh I'm not kind. I
was shown this kind is how to be kind by
this other person. So even in attributing his own virtues,
there is selflessness like the order of this person's internal
state is I think what people should be focusing on.
Speaker 1: Sorry about that right there, That's where we're gonna end it.
I don't think we need to even come back to this.
I think even just the first five five or six
that we we talked about should be enough to keep people.
You help people to think in a different way, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean it's not very fun to read.
Speaker 1: It's not fun to read. And well, yeah, because self
examination is hard. Just just ask a certain group of people.
It's who it's impossible for.
Speaker 2: The vampire can't see his reflection. We were told this, yes,
but the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I hope nobody comes away from this
thinking we think we're perfect. I mean we I think
we both know that we're works and were works in process,
and that the uh, you know, we'll change our mind
on things when we get more information. But knowing that
you've made mistakes in the past, being able to admit
them and even be able to explain why they were
mistakes and why you change your mind, I think is
uh is very important. And to to talk about it publicly.
You know, it doesn't always seem to be the you know,
something that people want to do. But you know, I
have no problem with it because if my even from
a personal standpoint a, if you don't want to get
involved in politics, you don't want to be public about
anything that you believe, if anything can help you just
to thrive in your personal life, you know, I'll I'll
put a little bit of myself out there to see
if it to see if it helps.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this, this text is going to get really thick
and not as cleanly broken up as I think the
other ones are going to be. So yeah, maybe like
if we we don't have to touch on this again,
or if we have to do one more about like
other stuff, then yeah, because I think this is also
something that somebody should read to themselves and work on.
Like I think you're going to read meditations. Yeah, you
should read it many times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not long at all. I mean you got
when you go to the twelfth book, you're only on
one hundred and thirty ninth page in this pdf, so
I mean you're talking about one hundred and twenty pages basically.
So yeah, all right, starmy, have a good night, my friend.
Speaker 2: I will talk to you later.
Speaker 1: Take care now, right,