Tag: Joe rogan

Miley Cyrus

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Of all people, I was drawn to Miley Cyrus as a guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast this morning. He releases a few a week and usually I only listen to them if either I know the person or they sound interesting enough to give a chance to. Miley Cyrus would not traditionally catch my eye as someone I would want to devote two hours of my time to but then sometimes we need to step out of our norms to create new ones. You’re immediately struck with how distinct and surprising her voice is. She sounds gravely. Apparently it has really come into it’s own like this in the last year and I’m sure she said having surgery on her throat affected it. She admits too that having smoked a lot and sung a lot it has also played a part.

I wasn’t sure what to expect although I doubted I would listen to more than twenty minutes. In the end I found myself almost captivated by someone who has clearly grown into quite a likeable person despite how she has been represented in the media for years. Joe Rogan is quite good at this though and it wouldn’t be the first guest he has had on that has managed to improve their public image from it. There are also some who, in my eyes at least, have walked away with no credibility at all, so it can’t just be Rogan and to think otherwise must do a disservice to Cyrus.

She comes from a world apart from ninety-nine percent of the worlds population. The daughter of the country singer Billy Ray Cyrus and the goddaughter of the almost mythical Dolly Parton, she was thrust into the spotlight herself at about twelve years old when she became the star of Disney’s Hannah Montana. She talks of struggling to connect with people and of the affects of growing up in and only knowing such a life. This is where Rogan can expose his own distance from the average listener though and it’s not the first time I’ve felt like I’m listening to two aliens discussing a disconnected unknown world. He has an ability to reach both his listener and his guest but there are moments in which he doesn’t feel like one of us despite attempting to portray himself as such. He is just being honest though and that too is part of his appeal.

The plan for this piece had been to discuss our understanding of freedom and how it is at it’s base entirely in our mind. Some thoughts came to me while listening to this podcasts and mentioning Cyrus was supposed to be my leading into it. Evidently I got a little caught up in what appears to be some kind of new found fandom. I still won’t listen to her music but I will view her in a different light. Miley Cyrus, in my blog. Life truly is all about the unexpected.

F Is For Family

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I have found a new series to watch. I don’t watch many things these days but I’m fond of cartoons. The usual ones like Family Guy or Rick and Morty of course, I’m a fan of Bob’s Burgers and the new series by Loren Bouchard; Central Park, which is a musical of all things. I stumbled upon F is for Family a few days ago and I like it. It is based upon the childhood of comedian Bill Burr. I don’t actually know much about him and I suspect he’s someone far more famous in America than here. I simply recognise his name from the odd Joe Rogan podcast that I’ve seen but not listened to. Maybe I will now though. I think I may even find some his comedy and watch it. I hope he’s good otherwise it’ll just spoil the cartoon, it’s whether the risk of not improving it is worth it.

He grew up in an Irish American family in the 1970s when people were a bit tougher and life seemed also a little harder while still immortalised. What’s good is how he creates the characters not how they would have been generally but it seems how he saw them. His big brother is angry and little sister a devil, his mother loving and father scary. There’s a childlike understanding of who each character is.

The seventies is a cool period for cartoons because it’s so easy to be creative, especially in a comedic sense. It is a nostalgic, but tough period in modern history. The strange thing is it is not mine because 1970s America would surely have been very different to the British 70s. They both seem to involve a lot of hardship and strife. No jobs, no fuel. High food prices. But people starting to rebel a little, live life. This could just be the version portrayed in television and the vast majority just got on with a life which was uneventful. F is for Family seemingly is set in a period of Bill Burrs childhood which was relatively intense enough to need to write a series on. It revolves around the father losing his job but with elements of it being honourable, and the subsequent liberation of the mother as she has to go out to work. Yet it is also expresses the uneventful moments in subtle ways, like all of this was just normal. It is very smartly put together.

What Could Have Been

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The one important thing to remember when we’re worrying or being down on ourselves is that we’re not alone. While our lives are unique there are similarities with others; we’ve all loved or hated someone, worried about something that has been fine or has been a complete failure, regretted doing or not doing things, enjoyed our own company and been painfully bored, and so on and so on. Emotional similarities are easier to point to because we can all say we’ve experienced a moment of happiness. This happiness is comparative to less happy moments in our lives and we’ve all experienced happier and comparatively less happier moments. I imagine me running down the beach is not unique but also not everyone has done this. We can always shape a feeling to fit.

Today then I experienced the emotion of regret. I regretted an inaction in my past and the course my life has taken as a result. I was listening to a podcast with a chef and a restaurant owner discussing cooking, food, techniques, food as art etc and I remembered a desire I had when I was about sixteen to become a chef and open a restaurant in Dublin. That was my plan. I’ve persuaded myself that the only reason I didn’t do it was because I was persuaded against it, that life as a chef is volatile and hard work. In reality there are an infinite number of reasons life didn’t take that course, one of them being that I just did something else. But I felt regret, that I should have done that instead of whatever I did do. I can admit this because like I said, we’ve all experienced the same emotion and probably a few out there over that exact scenario.

The truth is though that the mind plays many tricks on us and in this case I craved an idea. It is nothing more than an idea, and worse than that it’s a fantasy of an idea. We imagine this situation, what could have been and it’s always perfect. Life isn’t necessarily bad, I have it good in many ways but like everyone we have days which vary in degrees of satisfaction. In times like today we fantasise, but that’s all it is, it’s a fantasy and it’s not real. I then later dreamt of being a writer and after that an actor.

I don’t say any of this in a bad way, as I write this I don’t feel sad. Of course what ifs are not always fun and don’t always signify positivity but they’re just examples of one version out of an infinite versions of possible realities. We also don’t know whether we would have survived in that version, perhaps I would have had a heart attack by now from all the rich restaurant food I was eating. I would probably be much fatter than I am, but as a chef I would also be on a steady diet of amphetamines so that would have probably cut my appetite considerably. It’s fun to explore these moments but also not worth taking them too seriously. There’s a reason we never made it happen then and despite the fantasising now, there’s a reason we’re not rushing off to do it anytime soon. And it’s not likely because we can’t.

Rogan, Musk, Brainchips & Simulated Reality

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Joe Rogan is it appears a divisive character. Certainly before I had listened to him for the first time about a year ago I believed he was some alt-right fanboy conspiracy buff. Having listened to him quite a few times now it is clear that while he is still capable of going in that direction, he also rejects it and even in the last year has become far more mainstream. I do wince a little when he has All American Heroes on as guests and he gets a little American and excitable, but at other times he seems to be a very likely man. Ultimately his appeal is that he is a guy, a man in the truest sense, but also one open to listening to and trying to understand all perspectives. It’s what makes him so popular but also leads to him being so readily rejected too. He recently had Elon Musk on for the second time, the first had been about eighteen months ago and Musk smoked a joint which was a big thing although I never bothered listening to it. This recent appearance was incredibly interesting though because for one Musk appears to be a highly intelligent man, and one who also seems to know an awful lot about what is going on in the world, especially from a technological standpoint.

As I listened to this about twelve hours ago I can’t remember exact details but some of the things they discussed, especially regarding AI, how advanced it is and is going to get, makes you realise humans in our present form are going to become redundant in the near future, certainly in my lifetime. What this will mean for the human race mentally and physically is more than a game changer, it could arguably be an evolutionary leap. Don’t think Terminator, think more those sci-fi films in which people develop incredible powers. While making me realise I will be redundant one day it was also a liberating experience because it made me realise any achievement benefitting mankind in my lifetime would become outdated one day on a scale of incomprehensibility. I’m not necessarily saying I will make any groundbreaking discoveries but I think somewhere within me I would like to, at the very least because I’m hoping that might be something that gives an understanding to my meaning of life and gives it a tangible measurable point.

They were discussing being able to put chips in brains at one point and suggesting the technology was in best case scenario only five years away. There was all sorts of potential for this but one of them was being able to relive and re-experience memories. They discussed about how these memories could potentially be so exact it was as if we were living them now. It was then related to the idea of life being a simulation. Just imagine though, who’s to say this isn’t just a simulation you’re experiencing. I doubt there’s many ways of finding out. I was reading an article earlier and a doctor friend messaged me. I wondered how they were getting on in regard PPE since I last spoke to them as that had been a big thing and still is, but before reading the message I looked back at the article and the next line in this article on something completely unrelated mentioned PPE out of the blue. It was one of those wonderful moments in which you enjoy coincidence and after listening to Elon Musk discuss reality, one of those moments in which you start to question whether this is in fact a simulation and that we can in fact manipulate our environment and what comes into it. It’s like when you start thinking about someone and all of a sudden they send you a text message.

I’ve had a good feel but can’t seem to locate my brain chip. I also don’t seem to have any remarkable magical powers but then I wouldn’t, I guess they would be reserved for whatever humanoid is currently running this programme I call life. You’d think they would want to experience something more excitable than me quarantined by the seaside, selling pizzas and dreaming of adventures. But maybe that’s the whole point, they bought the mundane package because their lives are so full of wondrous thoughts and experience. I’ve tried pinching myself though and still nothing so I’m none the wiser.

Own It!!

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I’m having one of those ‘Own it!!‘ days. It began when I was feeling a little lazy earlier while ‘working’ and decided to put a podcast on in the background. I wasn’t in the mood to learn anything so dismissed the more intellectual ones I like to impress people with and listened to Joe Rogan instead. His guest was comedian Bert Kreischer who I discovered recently on another podcast and who seems like the kind of guy who would deeply offend certain people. In that case as far as I’m concerned he is doing the job a stand-up comedian should be doing; using humour to highlight our worst tendencies and hypocrisies. Joe Rogan’s podcast is generally a hit although he gets it wrong sometimes, but there are some like this one in which you feel as if you’re just hanging out with two mates smoking, drinking and talking shit. While some may dismiss that kind of behaviour I feel they miss the point that people need that. They need to talk shit and not care. Sometimes Joe Rogan can start talking about exercise and health and you know the man lives what he’s saying, there’s an intensity to it that dare I say is inspiring.

For anyone who has read any of these on a regular basis they will be aware of how a couple of months ago I had an own it!! moment after an energising salt water cleanse. It’s a powerful one and it makes you realise how much a healthy gut can have an effect upon your mood and your energy levels. I slowly slipped back into my old unhealthy ways and am now back relying on coffee for energy and pastries for a easy lunch. Needless to say I’m groggy and lethargic most of the time but importantly having not always been groggy and lethargic I am aware of there being other states of existence. Much of this is mental, the drive to achieve and the energy to make it happen comes from the mind in many ways but if the gut is a second brain then we can’t overlook it’s contribution too. I’ve just started reading the book Gut by Giulia Enders again and seeing as I’ve just got over my readers block I’m pretty confident I’ll make it beyond page twenty this time.

Nobody should go through life lethargic and groggy, and if one thing is clear as the world falls apart around us is that life is finite, why waste it killing time. I’m going to finish this bag of coffee I’ve got, transition back to green tea and cut out the bloody sugar which I’m surrounded by from working in a bakery and being weak. How long this will last is anyones guess but considering this daily blog has lasted about four months now I’m clearly capable of the previously impossible with a little effort. I’m probably going to do some yoga, some calisthenics and go for a run after this. I’ve got to do something with my time, might as well own what I say.

Podcasts

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My podcast addiction began about a year ago when in a quest to know more stuff I got a little hooked on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time. It at first felt a little intellectual but now just feels like our levels have morphed. Yes our brains can evolve given the chance. However about six months ago I decided it was time to branch out. I threw myself right into the bear pit and grabbed ahold of what I thought was going to be an ideological nemesis in Joe Rogan, and yes depending on his guest he can come out with all that America is Great guff that nobody outside of America takes seriously, and has a total misunderstanding of what Antifa is which explains why he is placed in the bad man box by some. Saying that, having explored a few anarcho-podcasts, all of which were American, they are not only annoying in the way they express themselves but seem to come from a completely different dimension to what I have experienced or witnessed in Greek, Italian or Spanish versions of the antifascist movement. It pained me but left me sympathetic to Rogans ignorance and also aware that I too am probably ignorant in this debate in my own way.

Generally, it appears podcast guests are trying to push something, and tend to be inspirational or at least give off the stench of such things through their success in something. The Great Henry Rollins who would surely hate that title and who deserves it all the more as a result is worth a mention, as is Dr Christopher Ryan who wrote a book called Sex At Dawn which I won’t read because from research I discovered many accusations of cherry picking findings that discredit its academic legitimacy. However, his approach to life and the message he is trying to get across in his podcast Tangentially Speaking are excellent and absorbing, and although I have met quite a few versions of him over the years and probably have been one myself, now is not the time to hold anything against anyone especially someone who I enjoy listening to so much. Henry Rollins will get a whole blog piece to himself in the future. Current events in British politics have had my ear recently and it has been interesting listening to shows from all sides of the spectrum, from left wing to mentally challenged. Either that is a great example of how much access we have to differing views or simply highlights how polarised we have and can become, but this too is perhaps for another time.

Like easily digestible books for the modern age we want everything to be simple and immediate. Coupled with the fact we’re all too busy and scared to have an actual conversation with anyone, it allows the feeling of being part of someone else’s. Like every narcissistic egomaniac I now want and believe an audio version of my many misunderstandings is exactly what people need. It may require some guests though and may have to be over four hundred words, but then this already is…oops.