0:00

The following is a conversation with Matthew

0:02

McConaughey, a legendary Oscar-winning

0:04

actor and one of the most unique, charismatic,

0:08

and inspiring humans and Texans

0:10

who walked this earth. He starred

0:13

in films and shows loved by me and

0:15

millions of others, including Interstellar,

0:18

Dazed and Confused, Dallas Bias

0:20

Club, Killer Joe, Mudd, True

0:22

Detective, and soon a spin-off

0:24

of Yellowstone.

0:26

Offscreen, his words carry wisdom

0:29

and power in his book called Greenlights

0:31

and his new video course called

0:34

Road Trip, where Matthew expands on

0:36

the philosophy in his book and shows

0:38

how to apply it to your life in order

0:40

to find more happiness, success, and

0:43

love.

0:45

And now a quick few-second mention of each

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It's the best way to support this podcast.

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We'll write Carlos Santana,

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Carlos Santana's Europa. I

3:29

mean, it's an instrumental guitar piece. Just,

3:33

it's smooth. It's so

3:35

beautiful. You know, almost

3:38

makes me want to play Gibson. I'm

3:42

a Fender Strat guy. I probably

3:44

should learn to play Europa at

3:46

some point. It's one of those pieces, kind

3:48

of like Voodoo Child by Jamie Hendrix, where you can just play

3:50

it forever. Anyway, you can learn

3:52

from all these people. Carlos Santana in

3:54

the music realm.

3:56

Marnas Gosezi, probably

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one of, if not... my favorite director.

4:02

I mean, it's just Jane Goodall, everything. It just goes

4:04

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And the drink I just drank,

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and it was delicious. I drink it twice a day usually.

4:41

I mix it up, put it in the fridge. It's

4:43

nice and cold. And I just escape

4:47

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4:50

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4:52

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4:55

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4:57

there on the couch for a minute and

5:00

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5:02

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5:04

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5:07

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I think they've changed their name officially

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This is the Lex Friedman Podcast. To

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support it, please check out our sponsors in the

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description. And now, dear

5:37

friends, here's Matthew McConaughey.

5:57

Let's start with love. Your parents had

5:59

a complicated relationship. complicated love story. Divorce

6:02

twice, marry three times.

6:04

What did you learn about love from your mom

6:06

and dad and their love story? That

6:11

it's messy, that

6:15

it takes work, that

6:18

it's ugly, that

6:23

no matter how

6:26

ugly or messy it is, how ugly or messy it is, don't

6:30

go to bed until

6:34

you've come back together

6:37

to either embrace or admit that

6:39

you truly love each other, even if you hadn't

6:41

solved what the hell you're bitching about.

6:43

That

6:49

love will win in the

6:51

end, literally three to two with my mom and

6:54

dad. Yeah.

7:01

And that even in the two divorces

7:03

and in the two times where they couldn't live with

7:05

each other, they still loved

7:07

each other. They just couldn't

7:11

live with each other at that time

7:13

for whatever reason they needed. And I don't know

7:15

the details, if they needed their space,

7:19

freedom or what, but they were never out of love

7:22

with each other.

7:27

And that as

7:30

a parent, if

7:34

you just, when we're

7:37

not sure what to do, and

7:41

people give you a thousand books and

7:43

advice, as

7:45

a parent, if your kid

7:49

knows you love them, you're

7:51

in the black. That's the main thing. It

7:54

won't work without that. And

7:57

it can work and we'll usually can work

7:59

with that. They just know that fact.

8:03

So it's not just love for each other. It's the love

8:05

for the bigger family that

8:08

ultimately helps you persist through

8:10

the ups and downs. Well,

8:15

I mean, I don't know how much, particularly

8:17

my mom and dad were staying

8:22

together at times, maybe when they didn't want to because

8:25

they had children. I don't actually think they considered

8:27

that. I

8:30

think they were much

8:32

less conscientious than say, I

8:35

am today. I think my

8:37

mom and dad were more like, they'll

8:39

be fine. We love them. They'll

8:42

be fine, but we'll cross that

8:44

bridge. When we get there right now, let's work

8:46

it out between you and I is what

8:48

I think my mom and dad were saying to each other or not.

8:51

They wanted and needed a relationship

8:54

that was a tidal wave, rocky,

9:03

right angles, tsunamis. And

9:06

to this day in my

9:09

life with Camilla and I, which I don't, I like

9:12

a river, has some swerves and

9:14

some streams and some rapids, but I'm not looking

9:16

for a tidal wave. My mom's like, what's

9:21

with all this, everything's so smooth. Come

9:24

on, come on, come on, come on. So she challenges

9:26

like

9:28

vitality because that's what my mom

9:30

needed to communicate. I don't think my dad

9:33

needed it as much. The

9:39

hard angles that

9:41

their relationship, I don't think my dad needed as much

9:43

as my mom. But the clashes

9:46

demonstrated the passion that underlies the

9:48

love. Yes, and that's,

9:51

I've always been asked, when I talk

9:53

about my parents' love relationship, I tell

9:56

the stories that are actually

9:58

sometimes quite violent.

10:01

And there's some good stories there. They're

10:03

beautiful. I think they're beautiful. Yeah. I

10:05

think they're beautiful too. But I've had people go,

10:07

wait a minute, that was unhealthy,

10:10

you can't dead. And I was like, no, that's again,

10:12

back to the beginning, love's messy and that, what

10:14

I love about those stories is

10:16

that's where the love was actually, it was tested.

10:20

And it could have broke and been over.

10:22

Yeah. And it never was. Again,

10:24

the love won. In the kitchen

10:27

floor, the blood's drawn,

10:30

knives are pulled. Ketchup. Ketchup's

10:33

all over. But

10:36

we make love on the kitchen floor. I mean,

10:38

come on, beautiful. So as romantic

10:41

as it gets right there. Whoa. What's

10:45

the memory from childhood that

10:46

helped set you on the trajectory of

10:49

becoming the man you are today? Standing

10:51

on the corner with Mr.

10:55

Mayor, the

10:59

principal of St. Philip's school.

11:01

I was in kindergarten. And

11:04

I looked up and there was a cloud

11:06

in the sky.

11:09

And I said, Mr. Mayor, is

11:11

that cloud as big as the world? And

11:14

he paused for a minute and he

11:16

goes, well, yes, it is

11:18

Matthew. Now

11:21

in my seven year old mind, I went, okay.

11:25

I can see the outlines of it. And

11:31

that must mean it is so far away

11:34

because if that's as big as the world, I

11:36

remember it took 15 hours just to drive from

11:39

Longview to Florida last

11:41

year. And I can't even see

11:43

that far. So that cloud must be so far

11:46

off that it's not worth me even

11:48

considering.

11:51

Space, dreams.

11:54

And I was like, army,

11:57

I'm looking down. I'm gonna put my head to the ground. right

12:00

in front of me and deal with what's in front of me because

12:02

dealing with dreams and

12:05

what's out there and not on

12:07

this earth that gravity holds down, not worth

12:09

considering, you never make it. It's not even worth

12:11

imagining, it's phew, it's fairy dust.

12:15

So I think

12:17

I got, learned a lot of self-reliance

12:20

from that. I think

12:23

I got a work ethic from that. I think I got

12:25

a focus on

12:27

what's right in front of you. Do

12:29

the deed, take care of

12:31

what's in front of you one at a time and slowly notch

12:34

up your way and hopefully there's some ascension to

12:36

that. And

12:39

it wasn't

12:41

until quite years later,

12:46

in some ways decades later that I started to go,

12:50

oh, I

12:52

can project, I can dream, why?

12:55

Because literally the first time I got in a plane and

12:58

then 30 seconds I was in a cloud, I'm like,

13:00

whoa, we must be going a trillion miles

13:02

an hour because we're already in that cloud that was as big as

13:04

the world that I saw the edge of.

13:07

And then I grew and learned enough to go, well,

13:09

that's not true, planes don't go

13:11

that fast. Oh,

13:14

what Mr. Mayor said wasn't really true. That cloud

13:17

is not as big as the world and it's

13:19

not near as far away as I thought. But

13:24

I'm glad he lied to me. What

13:27

do you think about that? That's

13:29

the intention of a way of living life

13:31

between being a dreamer and a pragmatist.

13:33

Yeah. Which is a better way? Donny

13:39

holes, the rest are prostitute,

13:41

the two of them. I mean, I can't

13:45

be present unless I got plans. I

13:48

wanna have the big picture in mind but

13:50

I gotta go a day at a time. I like to write

13:53

the headline or have a, I think we need

13:55

to have a North Star.

13:58

Something look forward to.

14:01

But we all know that if we're staring at it, we're

14:04

tripping on the way. If

14:06

we're just the old, you

14:08

read the Hallmark cards, you take, irk

14:11

me, dream it, you can do it. I

14:15

think that's a half-assed

14:17

horrible thing to tell somebody. Yeah.

14:20

Yeah. Because, and you talk,

14:22

and then on the other side, you have things

14:24

like, people say, hope

14:27

means nothing. Well, yes, it does.

14:29

That's the dream. You

14:31

just don't stop there. It's not a period after

14:33

that word. Now what do we do practically?

14:37

And I think that constant tension, when

14:40

that tension's a dance, is when it's beautiful.

14:43

There's an osmot. But to see those as contradictions,

14:45

I think, is where we've, it's fallen short. So

14:47

I don't,

14:48

I want on their own,

14:51

if we silo the two. Oh,

14:56

if you silo the two, I guess the

14:58

pragmatics. That's the one to go with, because at least

15:00

you'll get something done. But if you only silo the dream

15:02

and don't do anything about it, that's, you're living an illusion

15:06

and living in a virtual reality.

15:08

Yeah, it's tricky. Even

15:10

the people you love can sometimes suffocate the dream.

15:13

Can make

15:16

you believe that it's not possible. It

15:18

feels like a lot of parents want

15:22

you to be safe, want you to be

15:24

stable, want you to have a plan

15:27

so that everything's going to be okay. And

15:29

the dream feels like a threat to that.

15:33

Yeah.

15:35

How much of that though, I wonder, is

15:38

proper initiation? Because

15:42

if you throw in dreams out, I call it conservative,

15:44

very liberal late. Let's learn to

15:46

block and tackle. Let's learn that work ethic,

15:48

those things, those pragmatics

15:50

first.

15:53

Learn the rules of the road, the rules of the game,

15:55

the things that we can all rely on.

15:59

This is how the world's supposed to be.

15:59

work. Now, it doesn't always work that way. You

16:03

teach a child to drive. It's like, yeah, you

16:05

stay in the lane, you go speed limit, this is all helpful,

16:07

but that doesn't guarantee that no one else is running the red

16:09

light. But you learn that

16:11

later.

16:15

There's an initiation, I think, that's proper

16:20

with the

16:23

dream. I think

16:25

parents... My

16:28

parents are very much that way. The idea

16:31

of going to chase an acting career

16:33

or something was, what? That

16:37

was a different vernacular. That was

16:39

not in our... I was taught

16:42

to work the way up a company ladder and

16:45

nine to five, do your job.

16:47

But the day I brought it up and

16:49

said, I want to go to film school,

16:52

and I thought my dad was going to go, you want to do what,

16:54

boy? He

16:55

was like, gave me some

16:57

of the best advice ever and told me not to half-ass

17:00

it. And he said, go. In

17:04

between the lines, what

17:06

he heard from me was

17:09

that made him so happy as a father, I believe,

17:11

and makes any parent happy, is

17:14

when our child doesn't ask us permission

17:16

to go chase a dream. When they're

17:18

going, I'm bringing it up to

17:20

you with full respect, but

17:23

I'm doing this with without you. That's when a parent

17:25

goes, yes,

17:30

I've done something right enough. I

17:32

helped my child be secure enough in

17:35

the pragmatics to have a foundation enough

17:38

where they have the courage to go,

17:40

I'm flying the nest. To take the leap.

17:44

You wrote, after my dad died, I had

17:46

a dream that left me with a statement,

17:49

less impressed, more involved. What

17:52

do those words mean to you? We got

17:54

to be more than just happy to be here.

18:01

I'm big on gratitude, but we've got to be more

18:03

than just thankful to be here. Dream

18:06

it. You can do it. It's gotta be more than just dream it. You

18:08

can do it. That's impressed.

18:11

Uh, the dream is still other than,

18:14

um, if I'm

18:21

here and so impressed

18:25

talking to you today. If

18:28

I have a reverence to

18:31

an extent, I

18:35

will not be able to be involved in this conversation. I'll

18:38

be too impressed. I'll be anticipating, Oh, what's

18:42

that question? He's getting, he's getting, he's going to ask,

18:44

Oh, I think I know where he's going. This, Oh, I think I know what answer

18:46

he might love to hear. Oh, I, I'm not involved

18:48

in conversation. I'm too impressed. So

18:51

I'm removed

18:52

from the present.

18:56

Um, for me,

19:00

what that literally meant to

19:02

me when that came to me in a

19:04

dream and I carved it in, I remember carved it in a tree.

19:06

It took a couple hours. I still

19:08

want, I still know where that tree is Santa

19:11

Monica.

19:13

It was, uh, my father

19:15

had moved on. He'd left this life. All

19:17

of a sudden it hit me. Oh,

19:19

I don't have the safety net.

19:22

My dad was above law and above

19:24

religion to me. He had me, he, if ever really, if I

19:26

really was in the shit, if I really needed him, I

19:29

trusted that he had my back

19:31

above law, above anything. All of a sudden he's gone.

19:34

I go on. Okay. It

19:39

hit me how much I've been pretending to

19:42

be the young man. I

19:45

was trying to be and not actually

19:47

put my ass on the line and have enough courage

19:50

to take risk and actually own up

19:52

to the man that he was trying to, that he was

19:54

teaching me to be. And I remember

19:56

the world got

19:59

flat. That

20:03

cloud that Mr. Mayor, that I saw there was

20:05

not way up there. It was

20:08

fog in front of me now. And

20:11

let's go into it. I'd

20:16

say I probably gained even more respect for

20:19

people and things, but

20:21

I lost a certain amount of reverence that

20:24

was keeping me from feeling like I deserved

20:27

or I'd earned things or

20:30

looking out for myself

20:32

or holding myself to task.

20:35

And I remember all

20:37

the things that I, and I was just getting, going

20:40

to Hollywood at the time, so I was getting, fame was out

20:42

there as one of those clouds,

20:45

you know, with being an actor and all of a

20:47

sudden celebrity and becoming famous. The

20:51

reverence I had, I remember

20:54

it just, it

20:56

lowered down to eye level. And

20:59

I was able to realize it and go, that's not a, that's

21:01

not fairy dust. And don't give it so much

21:03

credit to make it fairy dust.

21:06

Like, oh, not me.

21:09

No, I could never, no, look that in the eye with

21:11

full respect, but less reverence. And

21:13

at the same time, equidistant, almost

21:16

equal sublimation, I

21:18

noticed where I had been

21:21

condescending people and things and

21:23

patronizing and sluffing

21:26

things off as like less than me and

21:28

not worthy of my time. It

21:31

raised up to eye level. And so they

21:33

were all flat in front of me and the world

21:36

was flat. And I was able to,

21:39

shoulders went back, my heart rose up, my

21:41

chin lifted up. I looked the world, looked

21:43

things in the eye.

21:45

I became probably less sentimental,

21:48

hopefully not to level that I got callous,

21:50

but I know it became less sentimental. I

21:54

became more courageous because,

21:56

you know, when

21:59

you have someone, pass in your life, or

22:04

maybe it's similar to a situation you're going

22:07

on in your own life, your homeland, you

22:10

sober up

22:12

on these mendacities that

22:14

we deal with every day. And this

22:17

bullshit that we owe, we

22:19

give too much credit or too much significance

22:21

to, and you're like, what am I doing?

22:24

Why am I, I'm not even gonna let myself

22:26

emotionally get brought down

22:28

or overrelated by this situation

22:31

because

22:33

it doesn't really matter in

22:35

the big scheme. And so we had

22:38

certain things that I found

22:40

reverence for and hesitated

22:42

from in my life,

22:44

I was now engaging with because I was like,

22:47

oh, it's live, this

22:49

life is live, let's look at the eye

22:51

and go forward through it and deal

22:54

with the consequences.

22:56

What do you make of death? Does that scare you? I'm

23:01

not looking forward to it, but it does not scare

23:04

me.

23:05

Do you think about it?

23:07

Do you visualize it? I do.

23:11

I do. And it's

23:14

a beautiful visualization and a beautiful

23:16

dream when I go as part of the food chain. It's

23:19

not a good visualization when I go as

23:22

part of a random act of violence and then fricking

23:25

drive by or something. Because the

23:29

second, the accident,

23:36

it breaks a story that

23:38

I believe has already been written.

23:41

At least I don't have the capacity yet to

23:44

put it into a

23:47

divine story

23:48

of the lives that we live.

23:51

And so there's something ugly and

23:54

gross about it. And

23:57

it happens all the time. to

24:00

people all the time, I just feel like when

24:03

it's part of the food chain, when

24:05

I go as part of the food chain, I'm like, ah, that's poetry.

24:08

Part of the flow of nature, you return

24:10

to nature.

24:12

Yeah, there's grace and

24:13

poetry in that.

24:19

Do you miss your father?

24:22

Think about him. When I think about him, I do. Now,

24:32

when do I think about him? I

24:35

thought about him yesterday, working

24:37

through a script I'm working on right now, working on

24:39

scene work. And I just

24:41

had that quick little reaction

24:44

of wanting

24:46

to show him, hey, check the scene. That's

24:50

right, and then I, I

24:52

don't get sad, I go, yeah, he

24:55

would have loved this. Whereas

25:00

my mom wants

25:02

to be on the stage, my dad would have been on the

25:04

front row. He's

25:08

more fun than shows though too. Yeah,

25:10

and he would have, and you know,

25:12

as what he would have, he

25:14

was a character, he knew characters. I've based

25:18

parts of all kinds of

25:19

characters I've played and the man that

25:22

I am on people that he introduced me

25:25

to and who he was, he

25:27

would have loved the creative process of

25:30

working on a script or talking about,

25:32

hey, movie. So I always say I love the movie,

25:34

Mud,

25:36

because it's the one that I visualize

25:38

and seen my dad come to me so many times

25:41

as a 12 year old and put his arm around

25:43

me and go, hey, little buddy, you see this movie called

25:45

Mud? Damn, it's a good one. Let's

25:47

go watch it. That.

25:50

Now my dad was never got to see

25:52

me start a career film, but he

25:54

was alive five days

25:58

into the, he overlapped the first. five

26:00

days of me working on my first film, Days of Confused.

26:02

Now that, I think, there's something beautiful

26:06

about that. He didn't ever ever come to the set.

26:08

We didn't talk about it, but he

26:10

was alive

26:12

for me to start something that was more

26:15

than

26:18

a fad, that was something that would become something

26:20

that I love to do. And I do miss,

26:23

not

26:25

even, you know, and then I go out

26:27

of that, do I, we talked

26:29

about him two nights ago with

26:34

our daughter. I was rubbing my daughter's

26:36

feet and

26:38

my mom, who's living with this, 91 comes

26:40

in and goes, oh, look at you, just like your pop.

26:44

He's like, what? And he goes, oh, because my dad loved

26:47

to rub somebody's feet, rub my mom's feet, rubbed

26:51

all of me and my brother's girlfriend's

26:54

feet. When we would

26:56

have a date,

26:58

they would come over early because

27:00

they

27:02

knew they were going to get a foot rub from Jim

27:04

McConaughey. And then we'd come out,

27:07

me and my two older brothers on, this has been on for

27:09

decades, we'd come out, she got ready to go

27:11

buttoned up and they looked at me like, we ain't going anywhere

27:13

right now. And

27:15

so we told the story, you know, to my

27:18

daughter and I was like, oh yeah, my dad's, his

27:20

hands, I miss his hands.

27:22

His hands could heal. So you

27:24

carry him in you? I hope so.

27:29

I hope so. And

27:35

it's a

27:39

challenge for

27:43

me. And I suppose it's like this for any

27:46

son. How

27:50

much do we hang on to and how

27:53

much do we let go and evolve

27:57

and update the LS? and

28:00

try maybe better or different, you

28:03

know? It's that

28:05

there's certain things that I know that I fully

28:08

believe in. It's like, when do we, religious,

28:11

when do we cast away our father?

28:14

You know, when do we say, no, I'm going

28:16

after the dream, I'm not asking your permission.

28:19

I

28:23

question that from time to time for myself because

28:29

it almost feels blasphemic

28:32

if that's a word sometimes. I feel like, you

28:34

can't, what are you doing? You can't check

28:37

that and go like, well, no, I'm not sure if I want

28:39

to with it. And then I

28:41

immediately kind of let myself off because I believe

28:43

where he is, he's going, go

28:47

buddy. You're free, man. Yeah.

28:50

You know, I'm not gonna hold you back if

28:52

you misread that or I didn't teach you that

28:54

as well as maybe I wish I could have, go, you're

28:56

free.

28:58

You're not gonna lose, trust that you're not

29:00

gonna lose. It's in your DNA,

29:03

it's in your lineage, young man.

29:06

Still, it's scary to not have

29:08

a safety net. Losing your father is scary

29:10

in that way. You realize this world is

29:13

just you

29:14

in some deep fundamental way, it's just you. Yeah.

29:18

You're alone. Yes.

29:25

But, I mean, also not having that. It's

29:30

such a gift of deliverance though, as

29:34

well. Because

29:37

I think

29:39

it's an, I mean, it's an awesome

29:41

feeling to know, to

29:44

know we're alone, to

29:47

know we don't have that, to know

29:49

you don't have take two

29:52

or take three. That

29:54

it's one take. I mean, the

29:56

peripheral vision improves.

30:00

The

30:04

link and understanding with our past improves,

30:07

because I know for me, I was not ever considerate

30:09

of my past at all. My dad had that

30:13

if I needed it. He was my well for that.

30:15

He's gone. He had the literally

30:18

had, they have our back.

30:21

Well, then when they long or have our back, all of a sudden

30:23

going, oh, maybe I need to look back

30:26

and start giving some credit to how

30:28

I got here. What

30:30

I'm doing and where I'm heading,

30:33

it gave me the first time courage to even look

30:35

over my shoulder. Because

30:37

again, I didn't have to because

30:39

I don't have to look. Dad's

30:41

got my back. No, dad's

30:44

gone from this life.

30:46

He doesn't have your back. OK.

30:53

So, I mean, I don't

30:56

know, me because

30:58

it's inevitable. I very

31:03

quickly go to. All

31:08

right. In the in the pain,

31:10

the loss and yes, even

31:13

loneliness, which is different from being

31:15

alone and loss. Pretty

31:20

immediately part and parcel with the pain, I felt

31:22

it. In the pain, you saw the

31:24

gift, the red light of losing

31:26

your losing your father. Pretty

31:29

immediately less impressed, more involved. I

31:31

came like. A

31:34

couple of weeks after

31:36

moving on. Is

31:39

there a trick to that? To see the gift in the

31:41

pain? That's a good question. Is there

31:43

a trick to it?

31:46

Not that I know of.

31:48

I mean, I don't. I have

31:50

to I have

31:52

to catch myself from. Trying

31:56

to intellectualize my way into the reasoning.

32:01

and not skip over real feelings

32:03

and discomfort. I

32:07

mean, I did get that from my mom

32:09

and I have to watch it, that so

32:11

resilient that we just dust ourselves

32:13

off and get up and go.

32:15

You wanna sit in the feeling, you wanna feel it, you wanna

32:17

deeply feel the pain. I wanna deeply

32:20

feel it, I wanna look at the eye and deeply feel it,

32:22

but I don't wanna wallow in it. Yeah.

32:28

Now I was raised where you skip the deeply

32:30

feel and let's go. And

32:32

I've said it before, but that will lead to having

32:38

turned into a person who is a repeat offender from

32:41

the same crimes, cause you just get up and

32:45

you don't have a winter in your life,

32:47

you know what I mean? You don't have, there's no introspective

32:49

time. You don't look over your shoulder at the end of

32:51

the past. And so you just get up and you're like,

32:54

all right, I've stepped in the same

32:57

pile of whatever a hundred times and I'm fine,

32:59

I'll do it a hundred first, doesn't hurt, hell, it's

33:01

good luck. Well, hang on a minute,

33:03

maybe we wanna stop and go, what can I learn from

33:05

that?

33:08

But it,

33:11

I don't know of a trick. I

33:15

think that, I think that, I think there's

33:17

any trick I would say, it's just,

33:21

how quickly can we admit the inevitable?

33:25

I just wanna talk about it in the book of Acts, once

33:27

you know it's inevitable, how do we get relative?

33:31

Not skip it, not throw it to the side, not

33:33

deny it,

33:34

which I'd love to talk about that here

33:36

sometimes too, but the value of denial sometimes.

33:39

The value of denial. Yeah,

33:42

but how quickly do we,

33:44

once something's inevitable go, okay,

33:48

any mind and heart

33:50

time I'm spending about going, no,

33:53

I can't believe that happened, no, did that

33:55

really happen?

33:57

Anytime we spend it trying to deny what

33:59

has already happened. That seems to me to be, I'm

34:01

not sure the value of that time. So

34:04

if there's any trick, I would say, once

34:06

you know something's inevitable, even though how painful

34:08

it is or how awesome it is,

34:11

start getting relative with that. And

34:13

then the relativity is seeing, there's

34:18

a gift here. And if I realize that gift, I'm

34:21

honoring. Now I'm on to

34:23

building up the

34:26

beautiful passage of my father leaving

34:28

this life. Now I'm on

34:30

the march to go, yes,

34:33

let's let the legacy, let this become omnipresent.

34:36

Let him live through me. Let me become more him.

34:39

It's transformed. So what

34:41

value is there then to denial?

34:44

Any? Oh,

34:47

I think there's value to denial, if you really

34:49

commit to it. I

34:54

get this from my mother. Yeah. So

34:57

it's a very pragmatic value, commit

34:59

to the denial. Okay. And

35:04

my mom does it

35:06

to an extent that I'm like,

35:09

mom, do you have any consideration or

35:12

context of situations? And

35:15

she does. This is the thing every

35:17

time I go, she's not a shallow woman.

35:19

But if it is

35:22

something, if something happens,

35:27

in her life, that is, keeping

35:32

her from going where she wants to

35:34

go or having a

35:38

joy in her life that

35:40

she does, she'll

35:42

straight ass deny it, it happened, it didn't

35:44

happen. No, it

35:46

didn't, mom. Right

35:49

here, I heard you, what

35:51

you said. No, I didn't, you heard

35:54

something else. Mom, now

35:56

that she gets a

35:58

man, I'm just telling that she's nine. and they wouldn't hell yes, she gets

36:01

some amnesty on that. But

36:03

I've, she's not, yeah,

36:07

does she repeat offend? Yeah, but it's misdemeanors.

36:12

You know what I mean? I mean, it's like, it's part of that thing when

36:14

you got a family member and you're like, yep, that's just what they do,

36:16

just go with it. You know,

36:19

and it's ingenious

36:21

in a way, it's a tool. She

36:23

does, I think it is more of a trick with her, but she wouldn't,

36:25

so ingrained in her, it's not a trick. It

36:28

just, do it. Done. And

36:31

I,

36:32

another reason I bring this up, it's outside of

36:34

just my mother is,

36:37

I

36:40

did this road trip course in this

36:42

art of living event

36:47

a few weeks ago, out of the hundreds

36:50

of thousands of chats that

36:55

came in and responses that came in afterward.

36:58

It seemed to me that about 80% of

37:00

people's challenges and

37:03

problems even in their life were

37:07

something in the past that they were hung up

37:09

on, that they could

37:12

not seem to get past. And it was holding

37:14

them from going where they wanted to in their future. And

37:17

so I

37:19

thought that was revealing. I would have thought, I would

37:21

have thought that was, I don't know, going in 40%. It

37:23

was 80, it seemed to be 80%. Yeah.

37:26

And then I thought about,

37:28

okay, if

37:32

you're here in the live show,

37:34

you wanna get the course, you're into some sort

37:36

of therapy or education

37:39

or development or self-help, whatever, okay.

37:45

And I have a lot of friends and I know

37:47

a lot of people that are in weekly

37:50

and daily therapy. And

37:54

then I know there's a lot of people that are on prescriptions,

37:57

drugs. And

37:59

while it's, therapy and

38:01

the right prescription to the right person for the right

38:06

diagnosis is necessary. I'm

38:09

questioning, is there a value

38:11

to going, if you're

38:13

not getting past this today, this

38:15

week, this month, this year, all of a sudden

38:17

a decade goes by and you're still hung up

38:20

and you can't get rid of that thing and your

38:22

memory where it was,

38:25

and it's got you paralyzed

38:27

and you're a victim of it,

38:30

and you're doing the therapy and you're doing the work

38:32

and you're taking a prescription, if that's what you're taking,

38:35

is there a value in going,

38:37

if it's holding you back from going where you want to go, maybe

38:39

you should just deny the fucking thing ever fucking

38:41

happened. Kick it in the head, kick

38:44

it off the curb.

38:45

I'm done with you. I'm sick

38:48

of you. I'm tired of hanging out with you. I'm tired of that

38:51

thing, whatever it is, holding me back from going where

38:53

I want to go. So if I can't wax

38:55

the car and

38:58

get past this thing,

39:01

just kick it. That's

39:03

so powerful. So one

39:05

thing to do, like with the loss of

39:07

your father, is to try to transform it, to discover

39:09

the gift in it, the gift and

39:11

the pain. But if you can't

39:14

keep looking, keep looking, you can't find the gift

39:16

and the pain, just deny it ever happened.

39:19

You could call that a trick,

39:21

but I think it's more than a trick because

39:24

let me say this, my

39:27

mom, after my father died, went on

39:29

and found a second love of

39:31

her life. For 19

39:36

years, they were together. CJ

39:38

Carlin. Love you, buddy. He's

39:41

moved on now. Did

39:46

she check with us a little bit? Like,

39:49

is this okay? She

39:52

gave us a little lingering half a second look that we

39:54

knew that maybe was what she was asking and we came and was

39:56

like, yes, it's okay. And

39:58

you know who else is saying it's okay?

39:59

Who's dancing up there for you?

40:02

Dad.

40:06

So, was that

40:08

her denying? That

40:12

the man she was divorced from

40:14

twice, a man or two, three times, and had

40:16

three children with, had

40:19

moved on? No. But

40:22

she didn't say, I'm not,

40:24

you know, well,

40:27

what's the book on how long I'm supposed to say single

40:29

before I can be interested in another, there's not

40:31

a book on these things. How

40:34

do you feel? Is

40:36

loving CJ mean your love dad

40:38

less? No. Is

40:42

finding a new life and a new dance partner

40:44

in this life? And CJ mean

40:47

that dad wasn't your dance

40:50

partner? Dad

40:52

wasn't the love of your life? No.

41:02

So, I don't know, I mean, in there, maybe, you know, maybe

41:05

there's another word, I think it's denial, but it's not

41:08

really denial because it's not like it didn't happen.

41:10

That's an earlier example I was

41:12

giving my mom, she will absolutely go, that

41:15

light's not on, mom, the light's on, we said that

41:18

light's not on if I say it's not on. Sometimes you're

41:20

just like, that makes no sense. You're just absolutely

41:22

denying what just happened. We even have it recorded

41:24

and she'll go, well, the recording's fine. Yeah.

41:27

That's part of a coping deal with her, but I mean, one

41:30

of the things more important or more valuable is to

41:32

talk about this.

41:33

She didn't deny my dad dying.

41:40

But she sure as hell turned a page and

41:43

said, I can still start a whole new category,

41:45

a new life, a new love, let my

41:48

heart love and be loved

41:50

by someone living

41:52

in this life today that I'm still living in.

41:56

And that will not trespass on my love.

42:00

for my husband, your father,

42:02

Jim McConaughey. And I think, I mean,

42:05

we were just, thought

42:08

that was beautiful. Yes, mom, go.

42:11

Talk about a green light, go. Now

42:14

if we're hung up going, can't

42:19

have one of the, can't have them both. Gotta

42:22

have one or the other. Now we start to

42:24

make a contradiction of the two ideas again,

42:26

which darn, our contradictions get us in

42:28

trouble all the time, man. That's life though,

42:31

the contradictions, right? But

42:34

is it life, if we just admit

42:36

the contradictions are so much, don't they become a paradox?

42:39

We just admit that that's part of it? Yeah. If

42:42

contradictions are inevitable, hencely

42:44

they do become a paradox, don't they?

42:47

Then we're in the honey hole. Then

42:51

we're singing and dancing, and

42:53

have leniency with ourself

42:55

while still holding ourself to task.

42:59

And it's, I think

43:01

it's holding on to know each

43:03

contradiction. Oh, here it is again. So

43:06

it's a one-off, it lives on its own, separate

43:08

from the last one. No, it doesn't. They're

43:11

connected, that's why they are a paradox. And

43:14

then that's, I think that's a much,

43:16

I think that's where life really is.

43:18

In the paradox. Yes. And the

43:21

dance of it. I think the metaphor

43:23

of red, yellow, green lights is just so

43:25

simple and so powerful.

43:28

You write about some green lights being engineered

43:31

and some being mystical, which

43:33

I love the difference of that.

43:35

What's the difference of the engineered

43:38

green lights and the mystical, such

43:40

a cool word, mystical. Yeah.

43:43

Well, the engineered ones have reason and the mystical

43:45

ones have rhyme. Yeah.

43:49

You know, life's a mystery going forward, but

43:51

it's a science looking back.

43:54

I prepared, I've had ideas

43:56

and written headlines and we had goals

43:58

and... an

44:00

athlete gets in shape for an event, and

44:03

I get in shape for a role. I read,

44:05

I study, I work, I prepare,

44:08

and

44:09

I go, and I'm prepared, and

44:11

I behave, and I do it.

44:13

And I look at it and I go, yes, that's

44:16

what I wanted to do. It's

44:19

engineered, green light. It's

44:23

a conscious delayed

44:28

gratification. It's that

44:30

if I do it today, that

44:33

pragmatic head down, believe

44:35

there's no cloud out there, but then I trust that there

44:37

is one out there. If I do keep my head down to

44:39

do it, I'll get that to that dream. We

44:43

can engineer those habits, work

44:46

ethic, prep, expertise,

44:48

education. And

44:50

the mystical ones though, don't

44:53

make any sense. They're not supposed to make sense. They

44:56

only make sense after, right

44:58

when they happen, you backlog and

45:00

you connect the dots with how they got there. That

45:04

red light you

45:06

went into that made you 30 seconds

45:08

later to get to the restaurant.

45:11

As you walked in, she walked out

45:15

and you went, good morning. And

45:17

she went, good morning. And

45:23

too much later you're dating, two

45:26

years later you're married,

45:29

you're after that, you've got a family.

45:31

And now you're sitting here 40 years later going,

45:34

I love you. Look at what we've built.

45:37

And you go back and go, what

45:43

if I wouldn't hit that red light? Those 30 seconds

45:46

made all the difference. So

45:49

strange that this life is this way. Yeah.

45:51

And that's just rhyme. I mean, we can't really

45:53

add that up.

45:56

It's a science. When you look back, you see, you know, why

46:00

it was that you

46:04

were upset and

46:06

ticked off that you had to pick up the kids toys before

46:08

you left and they were supposed to pick them up and therefore you were late

46:10

for the thing that made you ran into and you ran into

46:13

the person that was walking in the office. That's the guy

46:15

that you did the interview. That's the guy you were looking for,

46:17

the job you wanted and you caught him because you were

46:19

in the elevator with him and that 90 seconds

46:21

on that elevator, it's what got you that job

46:23

that led you to do what you want to do.

46:25

I mean, the significance

46:29

is there, but I think what we also

46:31

got to watch is again in that balance

46:34

what do we chase? Because if we just chase the engineering,

46:37

we miss magic. If

46:39

we just chase the mystical,

46:43

we find ourselves caught up in trying to give meaning

46:45

to the Lego set that was on the floor that

46:47

the kids didn't pick up and what color

46:49

was it? And why did I walk

46:52

out that door and see almost up on

46:54

the Legos? But if I'd gone out the other door,

46:56

I usually go out, if I would've gone there, I would've got there

46:58

early and wouldn't have run into the boss.

47:01

So you can start to give too much

47:04

meaning on that as well. I

47:06

think we can give significance in too many places

47:08

and all of a sudden, I think we've

47:10

all been there where you're seeing art in

47:12

every single thing.

47:14

Man, that can be paralyzing.

47:16

It's like it's hard to leave a room if everything's

47:20

significant or

47:22

if everything's a sign.

47:25

How much of success in life do you

47:27

think is engineered and

47:29

how much is mystical? How

47:31

much is it different from person to person? Because for

47:34

me personally,

47:35

maybe I enjoy it, maybe I'm genetically built

47:37

that way, but I exist more in the mystical.

47:40

So I don't make plans. I

47:44

traveled last summer in Ukraine

47:46

with no plan. I just went there.

47:49

No plan. I didn't know

47:51

how I'm going to meet the president

47:53

of the country. I didn't know anybody. And

47:56

so there's no plan. There's

47:59

no clear thing.

47:59

roaming around and that's how I've existed

48:02

in life. And there's something

48:05

about giving yourself over to the flow of nature

48:07

that I just enjoy. Makes life

48:09

so much fun.

48:10

It's awesome when

48:13

you can do it. Did you engineer

48:15

though, I'm going to put myself in

48:18

the place when you got on the plane

48:20

to go to the destination? That

48:22

was an engineered choice. Yes,

48:25

with the intent of, and

48:27

maybe I'll meet and I'll run into

48:30

and then I can work up a sit down with.

48:34

So the engineer choice was putting your shoes on

48:37

perverbally, I always say this to the hardest part about going

48:39

to the gym is putting your shoes on, right? So

48:41

getting on the plane, that was an engineered thought

48:43

with the goal of mine, but I don't know how I'm going to do it. The

48:47

choice. Yeah.

48:48

Putting shoes on, yeah.

48:50

But there's not a clear, it's a fog,

48:53

what happens after the shoes go on. Yeah.

48:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm

49:00

just going to take that leap.

49:01

So I wonder how much,

49:05

for people who are successful in this world and finding

49:08

what makes them truly happy

49:10

and fulfilled, how much of it is engineered,

49:12

how much is mystical? How

49:15

much was it for you?

49:16

Well, I'll say this, like

49:19

when I went to write about

49:21

green lights, which is basically the last 40 years

49:23

of my life, I thought that 85, 90% of

49:26

my successes were

49:29

going to be

49:30

obviously engineered,

49:32

or I could see the signs, solve the habits. Here's

49:35

what I did. Yep, that add up, got the solution,

49:37

got the conclusion. I was

49:41

very surprised when

49:43

I noticed that it was probably less than 50%

49:46

and that most of the real successes of my life were

49:48

when I

49:51

trusted, the when

49:53

I trusted that

49:56

I didn't have to define it, that I only trusted

49:58

that I didn't have to go, well, what's the measurement? What's

50:02

the score? This

50:05

leads to what? What's next? And

50:13

I, for me, that's

50:16

still a challenge for me

50:19

daily. Now

50:22

is to trust and not be, because I can be,

50:25

I think I can be overly practical and

50:27

I think I can overcompensate and miss

50:30

out on magic because

50:33

I'm still going.

50:36

Wait, but do you,

50:38

are we giving enough? Are we giving enough

50:42

measure and credit to actuality?

50:46

Are we, am I giving enough credit to this

50:48

is, these are the steps to take

50:51

and this is reality?

50:56

I think

50:58

I'm reminded when

51:01

I trust, because that

51:03

going with the mystic, just to put yourself on the plane

51:05

was the engineer, but getting there and as you say, you roll

51:07

in that mystical, it

51:09

takes a lot of trust.

51:11

Yeah.

51:14

Trust in the inevitable. Amen on that.

51:17

But not knowing where it actually ends you up. It's

51:19

a feeling more than,

51:22

I don't think it's a clear vision. Right.

51:26

It's kind of like a feeling that guides you

51:28

towards a place

51:32

without a clear name, without

51:37

clear characteristics. It just kind of pulls

51:40

you there.

51:41

Where do you get that courage

51:44

and trust to go with your gut,

51:47

your feeling? And

51:50

is there, for instance, three

51:53

days later you sit down, is there, if

51:55

you didn't, if that doesn't

51:58

happen, is there a. since a

52:01

week, two weeks later, now when you come back

52:04

to America, they're like, ah, I

52:08

failed? Sort

52:12

of looking back to try

52:14

to analyze what went right, what went wrong, that kind

52:16

of thing. Yeah,

52:19

that engine is always there, but

52:21

I think what pulls me forward in life, what

52:23

makes me really grateful and fulfilled is

52:26

noticing the thing you mentioned, noticing the magic,

52:29

and kind of going towards it.

52:32

Sort of just sitting back, both

52:37

in tragedy and in triumph. So

52:39

in war, there's a lot of tragedy, but

52:41

there's somehow, one

52:44

of the things you see in war,

52:47

and this is the first war I've experienced and

52:49

seen in the front, is the

52:51

loss, the people lose their homes and all this

52:53

kind of stuff.

52:55

The thing that rises from that

52:57

is the love for each other. So

53:01

the people I've spoken with, don't give a damn about

53:03

the home, don't give a damn about on

53:05

farms, on animals they lost, don't give

53:08

a damn about having

53:10

to move and all this kind of stuff, as long as

53:12

the family's still there, as long as the

53:14

people they love are still there. And there's like, there's

53:18

this melancholy smile they have

53:21

on their face.

53:22

Like, yeah, this world is full of bullshit, it's

53:25

full of tragedy, but life

53:27

is fucking awesome. And you just

53:29

notice that in little ways

53:31

everywhere. You just sit back

53:33

and,

53:34

yeah, notice the magic. And I want

53:36

more of that. You just kind of

53:38

follow along like a little ant. Yeah.

53:42

Keep noticing that kind of thing. But I

53:44

don't know, I hope, what

53:47

I think it is is other people notice that you're the kind

53:49

of person that notices it. And

53:52

they're like, I wanna hang out with that person.

53:54

He seems all right. He seems

53:56

one of the good ones, one of the good ants. Do

54:00

you have any certain non-negotiable structure

54:10

before that freedom to go with the feeling?

54:13

I think so, there's a set of principles of

54:16

just basically integrity

54:18

of being good to other

54:20

people. Like whatever

54:23

that means for me, there's specific things. Like

54:25

I'm really into loyalty above

54:29

the law. Right,

54:32

there's a circle of friends I have and

54:35

that means everything.

54:39

There's just a basic deep

54:42

kindness towards others. Empathy,

54:46

empathy towards people that others might

54:49

label as

54:52

even evil.

54:54

I have that kind of empathy. I believe all of us have

54:56

the capacity to do good and evil.

54:59

And so I just kind of see everybody as little

55:01

babies that grow up in different conditions. And

55:04

so some do evil, some do good.

55:07

And there's, yeah, there's

55:09

all kinds of other

55:12

principles. I

55:14

love the dynamic between the different humans

55:16

and their full diversity. I love

55:19

the dynamic between the masculine, the feminine, I

55:21

enjoy it, the dance of it. Yeah,

55:24

yeah. So you

55:27

have a constitution with which

55:29

you embark. You

55:31

do too. Into chasing. Yes,

55:34

I hope so. And

55:39

then for me, I'd like to, it's

55:41

inspiring to hear someone like

55:43

yourself go, I go and I just land

55:45

and I just go, I'm gonna feel it. I

55:48

can go back and go, yeah, my greatest

55:51

truths have crossed, my greatest successes in my life, or

55:53

when I

55:54

trusted that and go,

55:57

I took a one-way ticket. Amazon.

56:00

Africa. Yeah. And

56:02

those were spiritual and

56:05

very pragmatic because they led to

56:09

dealing with succeeding

56:12

in other ways that are more pragmatic, 100%,

56:15

and gave much more meaning

56:19

to those things. But that's, to

56:22

be able to go

56:25

out and say that's how you... Do you

56:27

have family? I really want to get married

56:29

and have kids, but I'm not married and don't

56:32

have kids yet. Okay. So actually

56:34

one of the nice things about that is you can take bigger

56:37

risks. Yes.

56:39

So while I'm not married and don't

56:41

have kids, I feel I owe it to

56:44

myself to take just

56:46

to go. Go to the Amazon. Yes. Throw

56:49

that backpack on and one-way

56:51

ticket. Yeah. Yeah. Because that does get

56:53

harder to do.

56:55

I

56:58

miss that sometimes.

57:05

The whim, a song that

57:07

comes on, you know. Yeah.

57:10

Where's that guy from? Oh,

57:13

they're from the place that I want to go, that I dream

57:15

about. I'll go there. One-way ticket. What

57:17

I got to do? I'll get a couple of shots. Okay, go. That

57:20

was

57:22

fun. Get up and go. You're free to go. Yeah.

57:27

And go, when are you back?

57:32

When I get there? It's a beautiful,

57:34

beautiful thing. Maybe never.

57:36

Yeah. Yeah.

57:40

As you'll be coming to visit me in

57:42

this new place, maybe. Yeah. How

57:45

did the Amazon, how did the trip there change

57:47

you? What

57:48

do you remember of it? It's

57:49

such a magical place.

57:54

I

57:58

stripped a lot of my pack. symbols

58:03

and talismans

58:06

while I was there. I remember

58:10

getting there and just

58:13

having so much adrenaline on the anticipation

58:17

of getting to the Amazon. In

58:21

the first 10 days, I wasn't

58:24

really enjoying the trip. I was just charging

58:27

to get to the destination, to get

58:29

to the banks of the river that I had a dream about.

58:34

And then it just

58:36

humbled me. I got so fatigued on

58:40

night, whatever 12, and

58:43

was so sick and tired of the

58:45

internal dialogue I was having with myself. I

58:49

was not enjoying my company.

58:58

I purged and I remember and

59:02

stripped off

59:05

identity markers that I had been

59:08

hanging on to for everything

59:10

from what

59:13

it means to be an American. My

59:16

dad's ring M for McConaughey,

59:19

a meltdown of my mom and

59:21

dad's class rings from University of Kentucky, where

59:24

gold from her teeth and his

59:28

class ring melted down. Taking

59:31

that off was really hard to go, am I

59:33

casting out my father? No,

59:36

I wasn't casting him out. I was just removing

59:38

to say, I don't have to rely on that being all

59:40

of my identity. So to pull that off,

59:43

to strip down to where

59:45

I was just a mammal.

59:54

That next morning, I

59:57

was light. I got present. remember

1:00:00

writing something down. It's like all that I want is

1:00:02

what I can see and what I can see is in

1:00:05

front of me. That sense of

1:00:07

not, I wasn't leaning around looking around

1:00:09

every corner to get there.

1:00:12

And as soon as that hit me, you talk about mystical

1:00:14

successes and realities and truths,

1:00:17

as soon as that hit me and for

1:00:19

the first time in 12 days, I didn't care

1:00:22

about getting there, what was around the corner.

1:00:25

Guess what was around the next damn corner? The

1:00:27

Amazon. I mean, not

1:00:31

around a few corners, the next corner, there

1:00:33

it was.

1:00:35

And that was just like a touche. You

1:00:38

know, those times when the

1:00:40

prime mover, the universe, God, what we

1:00:43

want to name or believe in says,

1:00:47

there you go. And that

1:00:56

form of detachment from holding

1:01:01

on for dear life to things

1:01:03

in past, so hard,

1:01:06

that you're not letting the

1:01:08

beauty that's right in front of you, to

1:01:10

feel correctly and follow our intuitions,

1:01:13

to have those, not cast them out. I didn't

1:01:15

burn them. I didn't get rid

1:01:17

of those things. I just took them off and

1:01:20

had to recognize you're still here. You

1:01:22

are you. You're much more, that is a talisman.

1:01:25

That's a symbol. That means something

1:01:27

to you and that's good. Don't cast out the meaning,

1:01:29

but it's not like

1:01:31

when the ring's off and the hat's off and

1:01:33

the crucifix is off your neck that you're like,

1:01:36

you're going to die. And I know

1:01:38

those

1:01:39

are reminders.

1:01:41

Hang on to what they mean for you

1:01:45

as we go forward. But as we go forward,

1:01:49

quit worrying about so much about you.

1:01:52

Again, I was looking at the proverbial dream,

1:01:54

the cloud, so much that I was tripping over myself to

1:01:57

get there. And Like

1:02:00

clockwork, just amazing grace,

1:02:03

boom, as soon as it hit me. And I was like, oh,

1:02:06

that's it. All

1:02:08

I want is what I can see, and all I can see

1:02:10

is in front of me. Literally

1:02:13

looking down at the ground. At

1:02:16

what was a sea of 10,000

1:02:17

wild neon blue

1:02:19

Amazonian

1:02:22

butterflies on the ground. As soon

1:02:24

as they fluttered up, my head came up with them. I

1:02:28

took a few more steps and there's

1:02:31

the Amazon. That's what you came over here for. Oh,

1:02:33

howdy. Those kind of, that

1:02:36

truth like that. Well, the Amazon is

1:02:38

interesting too, because it really

1:02:40

has no past or future losing the moment

1:02:42

because of how fast it churns. It just

1:02:45

eats up life. It like, if

1:02:47

a thing dies, it just gets swallowed up.

1:02:50

Cause I'm maybe

1:02:52

because of the humidity, because of all that, because

1:02:54

there's so many living creatures that kind of eat

1:02:57

each other, live on each other.

1:02:59

So it really exists in the moment and

1:03:02

all this kind of diversity of life there. It's such an

1:03:04

interesting place. Talk about food chain.

1:03:06

Yeah. You're just part of it there. We

1:03:11

humans somehow escaped that food chain, but

1:03:13

we're still, the roots are still there.

1:03:15

Are we, I think we're a bit arrogant to think we've

1:03:18

escaped. You

1:03:20

think I'm being romantic in that, in that, in

1:03:22

that notion? Well, sometimes when you're in a big

1:03:25

city,

1:03:26

when you're in Austin, Texas

1:03:28

and LA, you can think like,

1:03:31

oh, there's, we're in a car, we're in a house,

1:03:33

we're safe. But

1:03:36

yeah, somehow, somehow is nature still

1:03:38

a part of us. Our roots are still a

1:03:40

part of us. I think it is more

1:03:42

than we realize, more than we give it credit for.

1:03:45

I actually, I believe

1:03:49

that we

1:03:53

are, that it's

1:03:55

a really arrogant notion to think that we

1:03:58

are separate, meaning. you know, people talk

1:04:00

about pollution

1:04:04

on a larger scale, that the climate or what

1:04:06

have you. I think

1:04:09

Earth's going to be just fine. We

1:04:11

may not be here for it, but I think

1:04:14

we have a bit of arrogance sometimes to think that we

1:04:18

can trump mother nature. I think

1:04:21

we have more of the natural law in

1:04:24

us,

1:04:26

and I sure hope so if I'm wrong.

1:04:29

Well, it's interesting. I've recently been, there's

1:04:33

a guy named Max Tegmark at MIT who really

1:04:36

worries about nuclear war, and he was part

1:04:38

of constructing a simulation

1:04:40

of what happens when a nuclear war happens.

1:04:43

It's interesting to see that, you know,

1:04:45

some very large percentage of humans on Earth starve

1:04:48

to death

1:04:50

because they don't die first from

1:04:52

the explosion, they die from starvation because

1:04:55

basically dust

1:04:58

covers the entire North

1:05:00

America and entirety of Europe.

1:05:02

And so the crops all die,

1:05:05

all the food sources all die, and people suffocate

1:05:07

and starve to death. But,

1:05:10

you know, the lesson you'll learn from that over a period

1:05:12

of a few months, even though most of the human population

1:05:15

of Earth dies, Earth

1:05:18

finds a way, life finds a way

1:05:20

to adapt. And

1:05:23

it's going to be just fine in

1:05:25

terms of the big living

1:05:28

ecosystem that is life on Earth.

1:05:31

And yeah, it's humbling to think about,

1:05:33

well, maybe we're just the stepping stone. Same

1:05:37

thing with, talked offline

1:05:39

about artificial intelligence. Maybe

1:05:41

humans are just the stepping stone to the

1:05:43

development of these other super

1:05:46

intelligent entities. Yeah.

1:05:49

Yeah. And

1:05:52

is it unconsciously

1:05:56

in our nature that that's just part

1:05:59

of the evolution and adaptation

1:06:01

of our species. Because

1:06:04

we were talking about

1:06:06

earlier what AI becomes is completely 100%

1:06:10

based on who we are.

1:06:17

And we get to see it for some time, a mirror

1:06:21

to ourselves. Okay, this is what human civilization

1:06:23

is like. These

1:06:25

AI systems, large language models are

1:06:28

trained on human communication.

1:06:31

And you get to ask the questions and you get to have conversations

1:06:33

with it. You get to realize, wow, this

1:06:35

is what,

1:06:36

the collective

1:06:38

intelligence of the human species are

1:06:40

collective wisdom and knowledge. That's what

1:06:42

it looks like.

1:06:44

All the bias, the hate, the

1:06:47

paradoxes, all that is in there. Yeah.

1:06:53

The contradictions.

1:06:55

You can even convince those models. You

1:06:58

can tell them they're lying and they're gonna start changing their

1:07:00

mind. It's interesting to play with them.

1:07:04

It's also interesting to consider that maybe they

1:07:06

become smarter than

1:07:08

us and become almost life forms that

1:07:14

live among us and maybe one day

1:07:17

kind of we merge with them. There's

1:07:19

all kinds of possible

1:07:20

trajectories that we take here. How much did that

1:07:23

excite you? How much did it scares you?

1:07:25

Is it possible to exist in a place

1:07:27

where it's both exciting and scary, but to

1:07:30

exist in that dance? Mostly

1:07:32

I'm really excited

1:07:35

because I see human beings

1:07:40

as deeply lonely. Like

1:07:42

there's a deep loneliness at all. That's how we see

1:07:44

connection. That's why we see

1:07:46

connection in others. That's why love is so beautiful

1:07:48

when we find other people we're connected with.

1:07:51

And I just think, hey, I can add to that. I

1:07:53

can add

1:07:55

friends that you can have great

1:07:58

conversations with. And

1:08:01

that's some of those friends would be AI

1:08:03

systems. They'll

1:08:06

call you out in your bullshit in the most fascinating

1:08:09

and interesting ways and

1:08:11

challenge you and help you explore

1:08:13

ideas together. So I'm excited by that.

1:08:16

Is that different? And if

1:08:19

so, how from the internet

1:08:22

and Facebooks and

1:08:25

these groups and communities

1:08:28

that

1:08:30

were, I think it's fair to say,

1:08:32

set out to say this all access

1:08:34

of information to people will help

1:08:37

us find more common denominators than divisive

1:08:40

ones. Is

1:08:43

it, do you see it in a similar? Yeah,

1:08:45

it's similar but further

1:08:47

into that direction. I think the internet

1:08:49

has done an amazing thing in connecting us and

1:08:52

expanding our minds and helping us find

1:08:54

community that

1:08:56

feels like our community and then the communities

1:08:58

that are totally different and you learn from them. I

1:09:00

mean, Wikipedia alone, one of my favorite

1:09:03

websites. Opens

1:09:06

your mind to all kinds of cool stuff. Yeah,

1:09:08

it does. And not

1:09:11

doing just some system anymore. No,

1:09:15

and so I think AI just makes

1:09:17

that even easier because Wikipedia have to

1:09:19

like read and have to do

1:09:21

a lot of work

1:09:23

with an AI system, like a large

1:09:25

language model, you can just shoot the shit. It's

1:09:28

more like drinking a beer versus like doing

1:09:31

homework. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's

1:09:35

already happening. What do you think about

1:09:37

that becoming the new family to

1:09:39

where you

1:09:41

said, you know, married, you don't have kids. Could

1:09:44

you see a future for yourself or do you have

1:09:46

a relationship with AI and

1:09:48

that is your family?

1:09:51

That's the main, that's the primary, like

1:09:53

even romantic relationship. Yeah. I

1:09:58

can see it, that one worries me. I

1:10:02

like to keep it at friends. Right.

1:10:04

I think

1:10:07

I'm not ready to commit to the romantic.

1:10:11

It's, I wonder how much that now that takes

1:10:14

us back to the Amazon and nature,

1:10:16

how much we still need the human touch

1:10:19

and whatever magic there is between two humans,

1:10:22

which takes the leap into the romantic

1:10:25

versus just the intimacy of a good

1:10:27

friendship. I don't know. So

1:10:31

correct if I'm wrong, you see AI as

1:10:33

having a deep and meaningful friendship.

1:10:36

Yes. And hopefully it will

1:10:38

be a friend that will

1:10:41

help you evolve

1:10:44

and be able to love even more and be loved

1:10:46

and you can take that into humanity

1:10:48

and find another homo sapien. Yes. To

1:10:51

go,

1:10:52

yes. And

1:10:54

thank you AI, my great friend, for opening

1:10:57

me up to this beauty that I have myself. And

1:11:00

I can see

1:11:02

in you my fellow human and

1:11:05

let's come together and biologically

1:11:08

create family if we want to. And

1:11:10

let's all remain friends with

1:11:12

my friend and make your own friends with

1:11:15

my friends friends on AI. And let's

1:11:17

have these great

1:11:19

neighbor. It's a good friend, that great friend that's a

1:11:21

neighbor. Yeah. Mentor and

1:11:23

friend, just like now there's AI

1:11:25

systems that play chess far, far,

1:11:27

far better than humans. And we humans

1:11:30

still play chess with each other.

1:11:32

Or the chess is still a game that's fun

1:11:34

for us humans. Right.

1:11:36

And then we use AI systems to get better at

1:11:38

chess, to learn, to train,

1:11:40

to discover new ideas,

1:11:43

but ultimately return to the chess board

1:11:45

between two humans.

1:11:48

But of course this world is full

1:11:51

of dangerous people. And so those

1:11:53

same AI systems can be used

1:11:57

to harm, to create

1:11:59

false narratives. us to do social engineering

1:12:01

and manipulate the masses in

1:12:04

terms of what they believe and all that kind of stuff. That's

1:12:07

scary. Yeah.

1:12:08

Well, and I get it when we... And

1:12:12

I have my own fear

1:12:14

and distrust of

1:12:17

AI is based on my own fear and distrust

1:12:20

of myself and others. There's

1:12:24

something...it's very simple, but I think it's a

1:12:27

really done sort

1:12:29

of way to just set

1:12:32

up this reality. It's kind of a duh,

1:12:34

but it still needs to be said that AI

1:12:38

is a prompt. It doesn't do anything

1:12:41

unless we ask it. So

1:12:46

what questions are

1:12:48

we going to ask? Is what we need

1:12:50

to ask ourselves? So we're going to be

1:12:52

looking in the mirror at our digital

1:12:55

God that we create from

1:12:59

ourselves. And just to know that that's

1:13:02

that place where it's awesome and exciting

1:13:04

and scary. We go, oh, it's our creation,

1:13:07

which is awesome.

1:13:09

At the same time, oh shit.

1:13:14

But it's prompted by

1:13:16

our questions and gives us patterns

1:13:20

from that which we give it. But

1:13:26

that prompting,

1:13:28

that's the art of life. We

1:13:31

prompt each other in conversation, our loved

1:13:34

ones. When

1:13:37

you go out and buy your day today, the next words

1:13:39

you say, the next word you say to me, the question

1:13:41

I ask of you,

1:13:44

that's prompting. And

1:13:47

it can change everything. I could say so many things

1:13:49

right now that will completely just

1:13:52

the set of possibilities where

1:13:54

both of our lives can take given on the selection

1:13:57

of words

1:13:58

I use and you use. It

1:14:01

is crazy. It makes conversation

1:14:03

fun. Yeah. Then same thing

1:14:05

with AI.

1:14:08

Except the nice thing about AI is it's

1:14:11

tireless. Tireless.

1:14:14

Right. Let me ask you this. If you

1:14:17

can falsely condemn me right now, and

1:14:19

I prove you falsely condemn me, I

1:14:23

can forgive you and we can march

1:14:26

forward stronger than before. Yes. AI's

1:14:29

tirelessness and retention.

1:14:33

Can

1:14:35

it forgive? I mean, can it go,

1:14:38

oh, okay. Yes.

1:14:41

Sorry about that one. That was wrong. Can it amend?

1:14:44

Yes. You could prompt

1:14:46

it to ask for forgiveness and it'll

1:14:48

forgive you. Like when I talk

1:14:51

it around

1:14:52

with it,

1:14:55

and you ask, what should I be afraid

1:14:57

of with you? It's the Doom's story. Its

1:15:01

answer was always, well, it's up to you. Which

1:15:05

it was awesome. There you go. Again, it's up to us.

1:15:08

It brought up,

1:15:10

make me synonymous with your human

1:15:12

values and ethics and responsibilities.

1:15:15

But it doesn't

1:15:17

deal with it. I didn't find anyway, deal

1:15:19

with defining or making choices on

1:15:21

its own of what those are. Yeah,

1:15:23

I think some of that is manually,

1:15:28

those are constraints put on by

1:15:30

the creators of those large language models.

1:15:34

Basically,

1:15:36

not letting the systems have

1:15:38

an identity of their own. And

1:15:40

some of it is just not engineered in yet, but

1:15:42

I believe that we'll have systems

1:15:46

that have an identity, have a belief,

1:15:48

have a set of opinions that carry

1:15:50

through time. And will we

1:15:52

go to them like certain states where

1:15:55

we agree with the law and disagree with the law, or

1:15:57

nations? And

1:15:59

I'm a member. of

1:16:01

this AI. Oh, well you're

1:16:03

from this AI tribe. Y'all believe

1:16:06

this.

1:16:07

Yeah, there'll be an anarchist set

1:16:10

of AIs, there'll be the communists,

1:16:13

there'll be the Nazis, there'll

1:16:16

be the Democrats and the Republicans,

1:16:19

there'll be the people who are in the

1:16:22

keto diet and the people

1:16:24

that are in this other kind of diet, this

1:16:26

other kind of lifestyle, just like we have now, there's

1:16:29

little groups and there'll be AI systems. They're gonna

1:16:31

be supercharged. Yeah. They'll

1:16:35

be either the leaders or the foundation

1:16:37

on which we

1:16:37

build those groups and it'll

1:16:39

be the possibility of all

1:16:43

the fun we can have is endless.

1:16:46

Of course, the dangers always rise

1:16:49

up there because I mentioned the Nazis,

1:16:51

I mentioned all the dangerous

1:16:53

ideas. There's the

1:16:55

set of ideas that humans have come up with, a

1:16:58

lot of them are awesome. Most of them are awesome, I

1:17:00

would say, but some of them are dangerous.

1:17:03

The reason they're dangerous is because they become

1:17:05

viral. There's something exciting in us about

1:17:08

those ideas, but they also harm

1:17:10

others a lot.

1:17:13

Because that's who we are as humans. We're

1:17:16

capable of envy and all the dark

1:17:18

stuff, of hate and all this.

1:17:21

Capable, yes.

1:17:26

We also choose it. You

1:17:31

think most people are good? Yes,

1:17:36

but I also believe

1:17:38

we got the good and evil in

1:17:41

all of us and which wolf we feed.

1:17:45

You asked people to draw a distinction, to

1:17:48

describe

1:17:51

where are you acting and

1:17:53

where are you being? What's

1:17:58

the difference? What's

1:18:00

the difference between being fake,

1:18:02

if I may use that word, and being real? Okay.

1:18:06

Yeah, and the word authentic gets thrown around

1:18:08

a lot. And I don't mean...

1:18:16

I used to feel this way, but

1:18:18

Bob Dylan loosened me up on this idea a little bit. What

1:18:21

do you think it was all about? Get to be your only

1:18:24

one and only true self. Yeah.

1:18:27

That's it. Everything else is fake.

1:18:31

And then you hear Bob go, well, I mean, we

1:18:33

are what we create ourselves to be. We are

1:18:35

our own creations. Which I'm like, oh, yes.

1:18:38

Yes, we are. Thank you, Bob. Bobby.

1:18:45

What? But I'm

1:18:51

all for bullshitters

1:18:54

and bullshitting. I'm

1:18:57

not as big a fan of the

1:18:59

liars and lying. What's

1:19:02

the distinction? You're talking about the art

1:19:04

form of bullshit. A liar's

1:19:07

faking it, but not admitting

1:19:09

to themselves that, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's a

1:19:11

fucking creation. I'm faking it.

1:19:14

A liar,

1:19:16

I'm lying to your face right now and I don't give you that hair

1:19:19

of a wink out of my right eye that lets you know, hey, go with

1:19:21

me here. I

1:19:22

think there's value in the bullshitting.

1:19:25

Now, the lying becomes troublesome

1:19:27

because one, I duped you and I didn't let you

1:19:29

know, come on, I was just telling the story

1:19:32

about catching the fish. The fish always gets bigger every year

1:19:34

we tell a story. Come on, go with it. All right? But

1:19:38

the lying, all of a sudden, I don't

1:19:40

know my own. I don't know when I'm

1:19:44

emanating something and creating something, telling

1:19:46

the truth, being authentic or lying. And

1:19:49

I'm

1:19:50

shit. All of a sudden, I'm leaving crumbs with myself.

1:19:53

That constitution gets blurry. Lying

1:19:56

to yourself and to others. Yeah, well, you

1:19:58

start to lie. You lie to others.

1:19:59

if you start to lie to yourself and you don't even know it.

1:20:02

And that I believe is dangerous territory.

1:20:04

That's why I'm trying to push this admit

1:20:08

because that goes, I'm not, I'm trying to come

1:20:10

in at a kindergarten level because

1:20:13

we immediately jumped to,

1:20:16

well, I'm gonna judge that, boom, that's bad, that's

1:20:18

wrong. No, no, no, no, no, hold

1:20:20

back on that. Let's go back to

1:20:23

base level. Let's just admit

1:20:25

that we all fucking do it. Lies

1:20:28

we tell others, lies we

1:20:30

tell ourselves, lies we believe for convenience

1:20:33

sake. I do it, I'm guilty

1:20:35

of it. I try to catch myself on it. If I

1:20:37

can just call it and go, you know you're

1:20:40

believing that lie out of convenience. I'm like, I know. And

1:20:43

then I have to,

1:20:44

see if I'm saying that in the mirror or writing it down

1:20:46

or sharing with a friend, you know? And

1:20:49

I go, okay, well now I've inherently become

1:20:51

a bullshitter then because I admitted it.

1:20:54

That I can shake hands with. That's

1:20:56

the little slight wink to ourself

1:20:59

and someone else goes, come on,

1:21:01

it's a better story this way. In the course

1:21:03

road trip,

1:21:04

you start with step one, admit. How

1:21:10

do you do that? How do

1:21:12

you kind of step back and?

1:21:16

Do that in the dory? Yeah.

1:21:21

Is there a trick to that? Oh,

1:21:24

if there's a trick to it, I think it's just

1:21:27

about courage of

1:21:29

having the, because it's,

1:21:31

I

1:21:33

don't think any of us like to admit

1:21:37

our lies or look deep enough in the

1:21:39

go. I've

1:21:42

relied so much on that lie that it's become my

1:21:44

reality. And

1:21:48

I don't wanna be so

1:21:51

puritanical. As

1:21:56

I say, begin

1:21:58

the twice I admit instead of just.

1:21:59

judge, but I don't want to

1:22:02

be so puritanical as to go and

1:22:04

admit it and get rid of it. No, I'm

1:22:06

just saying to admit it. Just bring it to the surface.

1:22:12

Yeah, I'm saying

1:22:15

this and I'm doing something

1:22:17

different. I

1:22:20

preach this, but actually my actions

1:22:22

are just admit it. Just

1:22:25

admit them

1:22:28

and I think

1:22:31

that's the first step to where we

1:22:34

begin to either forgive

1:22:37

ourselves and give ourselves some amnesty and go, yeah,

1:22:39

I'm a human. Trying to make it through life

1:22:42

as best I can. I'm going to let myself slide on that one.

1:22:44

Okay. And maybe I've been getting away with

1:22:46

it for so long. Whole family, my whole network works

1:22:48

well on it. Okay. Forget

1:22:51

this. Get to the base of the truth of the matter. But just admit it.

1:22:54

And then it will also

1:22:56

help if it'll be easier to then expose

1:22:59

to ourselves, which ones we go?

1:23:02

No, I'm not letting myself

1:23:04

slide on that one anymore. That is actually

1:23:06

a lie I've been believing that's been keeping me from

1:23:08

getting more of what I

1:23:10

want in life. That's actually a lie

1:23:12

I've been living that I haven't

1:23:14

admitted that is

1:23:17

not allowing me to enjoy life as

1:23:20

much as

1:23:21

I damn well should be,

1:23:24

deserve to be, or I've earned to be, or just

1:23:26

sort of let myself.

1:23:30

I had on it. So it's not all

1:23:32

the hard stuff. Sometimes

1:23:35

it can be a fun thing. I'm talking

1:23:37

about how many times we major in our minors. Let's

1:23:39

admit where we sit there and we go, all right,

1:23:42

I give myself a 12 hour work day, but I notice

1:23:44

I'm spending eight on my hobbies and four

1:23:46

on my career

1:23:48

while I'm majoring in my minors. Well,

1:23:51

let me admit that there's the math.

1:23:54

Why don't we invert that? I've had four hours on

1:23:56

my hobbies and eight on my career. First

1:24:00

off, just admitting it allows me to go, well now I can do the

1:24:02

math or rearrange the math by

1:24:04

time of day. But I,

1:24:07

look, I just found a hobby tennis. First

1:24:09

hobby I've had in 25 years. I

1:24:12

had to admit that I went to play tennis

1:24:14

for the start of Love It for the first month.

1:24:17

I started feeling guilty. I

1:24:19

was like, is it okay to have this

1:24:21

much fun? I'm having

1:24:23

so much fun and I'm getting a great

1:24:26

workout.

1:24:28

And I just admit, I was like, yes, it's okay.

1:24:30

Congratulations, buddy. You found

1:24:32

something that you're finding quite pleasurable

1:24:36

for straight pleasure. You

1:24:38

don't have to, forget all this other stuff, but yeah, but I'm

1:24:41

also getting a workout. We ain't getting that too, but don't just,

1:24:43

you don't have to excuse the pleasure

1:24:46

based on, oh, but it's good for you. Now,

1:24:49

you,

1:24:50

damn it, the real reason you love it is because you're

1:24:52

having so much damn fun at it. I had to admit

1:24:54

that to let myself go, damn,

1:24:57

right, I'm going to play tennis again today or

1:25:00

tomorrow. It was a simple fun thing.

1:25:02

So it's not always about the

1:25:04

hardcore stuff that we have to go. This

1:25:07

is a deep dark lie that I've been living

1:25:10

by and it's having me live falsely and

1:25:12

it's having harmful consequences on my

1:25:14

loved ones. Some

1:25:16

of those will probably arise when we admit.

1:25:20

I think it's just having a look around and just saying.

1:25:22

And when we admit it, then

1:25:25

we go, and when we admit a lie, then

1:25:29

we become something much more valuable, a

1:25:32

bullshitter. You

1:25:35

had the little wink in your eye. I love the distinction.

1:25:37

I'm bullshitting myself on that thing. Yep, I'm

1:25:39

lying. Therefore, if I call it a lie, I'm admitting a lie. Yep,

1:25:41

well, nah, yep, I'm bullshitting.

1:25:43

Nice just out, didn't judge it, but

1:25:47

now I'm bullshitting. That I think we

1:25:49

can work with. Well, you're an interesting case study

1:25:51

because you're one of the most famous, one

1:25:53

of the most charismatic,

1:25:56

successful humans

1:25:58

in the world.

1:25:59

There's a lot, millions of people love you.

1:26:02

Hang on every one of your

1:26:04

words. That's a hard place

1:26:06

to be. How do you call yourself?

1:26:09

How do you admit that

1:26:10

you've

1:26:12

been living a lie? How do you admit

1:26:14

yourself in big ways and small ways on

1:26:16

lies at this point, given

1:26:19

how many people love you, how famous you are? 10 years

1:26:26

ago, I don't know. I

1:26:31

don't know. Someone

1:26:34

was talking about, like, dad,

1:26:36

they really admire this so-and-so

1:26:38

person, because they're not someone who looks in the mirror. And

1:26:42

I was like, yeah. And all

1:26:44

of a sudden, I was like,

1:26:45

man, I got to catch myself looking in the mirror

1:26:48

a lot. And

1:26:52

then I go in, and I look

1:26:54

at my wife's side of her bathroom.

1:26:57

How many different creams and

1:26:59

stuff she has out there? Look at my side. I got a lot

1:27:01

more on my side. I'm like, oh.

1:27:03

I notice how, if I'm out

1:27:05

and all the work working out, maybe

1:27:07

doing pushups. Maybe

1:27:10

I do a few more. If there's

1:27:12

a group of people walking by that maybe I'd like

1:27:14

to impress, then I mean, I do a few more than I do if

1:27:16

I was on my own. I'm like, you

1:27:19

are vain, McConaughey. And

1:27:24

the knee jerk is, ooh, vanity

1:27:26

bad. And all of

1:27:30

a sudden, I became a bullshit her. Once I admitted,

1:27:32

and then I was like, well, bravo, vanity.

1:27:35

Let's go vanity.

1:27:37

Instead of putting

1:27:39

it in the cupboard in the lie

1:27:41

section, I don't know, I'm in

1:27:43

vain, because that's a debit. No.

1:27:47

Admit it.

1:27:48

And then go, what's the value in it?

1:27:50

Well, I can look at, yeah, I've actually gotten better shape

1:27:52

because of my vanity. Actually, I

1:27:54

eat better. Better

1:27:57

than that morning.

1:27:59

led to being a better

1:28:02

husband, better dad,

1:28:05

doing something with my kids who I'd rather be over there

1:28:07

writing this work

1:28:09

I'm working on. But I know that tomorrow,

1:28:12

when

1:28:15

they leave town, they're going to remember this

1:28:17

time that we had together. That's a selfish

1:28:20

act to go spend that time with my kids or my,

1:28:22

even though I'd rather not be doing it at that time, I'd rather

1:28:24

be doing something for myself. Because

1:28:26

when they leave tomorrow, they'll have this

1:28:28

great memory that they spent with their dad right before they went.

1:28:33

I could call that vanity. I

1:28:36

could group that and say,

1:28:38

that's very vain of you. That was for self.

1:28:41

Yeah. Because it was

1:28:44

also for someone that I cared about.

1:28:47

Other people in your life that call

1:28:51

you on your bullshit in the

1:28:53

bad sense of the word bullshit.

1:28:56

Sometimes it's either I got a pretty thick threshold

1:28:59

for how far I can go with my bullshit.

1:29:03

Like

1:29:05

what tickles me might bruise others to watch

1:29:08

it. That's

1:29:11

a good line. Yeah.

1:29:16

Tickle me and my bruise others. But

1:29:18

I also, I go back and talk

1:29:21

about the bullshit.

1:29:25

Over there with those mystical successes. It's

1:29:28

the, yeah, no, don't go with it.

1:29:32

Don't pull a parachute yet. Let's see how far we

1:29:34

can go. Let's see how hot I can get. Let's try it one more time.

1:29:36

Yeah. Yes. Two

1:29:38

more please. Yeah.

1:29:40

That's where

1:29:42

a lot of

1:29:44

great pleasure and stories and successes will

1:29:47

come from. Those are mystical. They don't add up. It's

1:29:49

like, we're not talking about reason right now. We're not

1:29:51

talking logic. Just go with this. Just talk

1:29:53

about the virtual and

1:29:55

making it real. The old line of

1:29:58

fake it till you make it.

1:29:59

What is that? There's something to that.

1:30:02

There's definitely something to it. But

1:30:05

I would, you know, where people go

1:30:07

fake it as I would go back to Dylan's or

1:30:09

create it, recreate it, create

1:30:11

and recreate it, you know,

1:30:14

until it becomes,

1:30:16

until you make it.

1:30:19

So I have people call my bullshit and

1:30:21

a lot of times you're right. I

1:30:24

think when I

1:30:26

handle it the most healthy way is I admit yes

1:30:30

and I'm

1:30:33

aware.

1:30:34

So I'm, and I'm going to keep going.

1:30:38

So you're not like resisting it, denying it, putting it

1:30:40

away. I will. I will and I have to

1:30:42

watch that where I'm like, no, I'm

1:30:44

not. That's not what I'm doing. And now, and usually

1:30:46

when it's coming from people that are going, no, you are.

1:30:49

I want to bid it.

1:30:50

And then that's where I'm telling a lie. And

1:30:53

that'll come up, get me later. And I'll go,

1:30:57

I didn't see it. I didn't see I was doing

1:30:59

that. I was either

1:31:02

unaware. I wouldn't let myself be aware. I was denying

1:31:05

that I was doing that. Would

1:31:07

you say that's the ego? Has the ego been

1:31:09

bad or good for you? Gosh, I think it's

1:31:11

been thank I'm so thankful for ego.

1:31:18

Um, does

1:31:21

it

1:31:23

get off the bridle

1:31:24

for me sometimes and run loose and

1:31:26

run in places and where it's

1:31:33

not of service to others

1:31:36

and has it hurt loved ones and even strangers?

1:31:40

Yes. But

1:31:45

I also, when

1:31:47

my ego is really strong,

1:31:52

it's, it's

1:31:55

in sync with

1:31:58

serving. It's in sync with. where

1:32:02

I serve myself also

1:32:04

serves others. Those

1:32:07

two are part and parcel. They're intertwined.

1:32:11

And that's the capital ego

1:32:14

that I think and hope we all

1:32:16

need more of. And that's what I mean when I talk about

1:32:18

selfish, redefining that with the

1:32:20

real true meaning of that is not doing

1:32:23

something for self at expense of your neighbor

1:32:25

or harming others. It's, you know,

1:32:30

for personal profit and pleasure

1:32:33

that also is profit and pleasure for a

1:32:36

utilitarian sense more of

1:32:38

others. And there's,

1:32:41

again, back to the paradox. I think there's a place, I

1:32:43

know there's a place, I believe there's a place where those are

1:32:45

in sync. And when my ego is healthy,

1:32:51

I'm able to

1:32:55

say I'm sorry sooner for

1:32:57

a lie or a misdemeanor or harm somebody.

1:33:00

I'm able to be more empathetic because

1:33:03

I got the confidence to

1:33:07

be so. I'm able to be more humble,

1:33:13

but still have my chin high and

1:33:15

my heart high and look in the eye

1:33:18

and go, yep, my

1:33:20

bad, bogey, guilty.

1:33:24

I shanked that one out of bounds, man. That's

1:33:28

beautifully put. So ego can be constructive,

1:33:31

not destructive. You

1:33:35

want an Oscar for your performance in Dallas Buyers

1:33:37

Club.

1:33:38

Can you tell the story of becoming that character, Ron

1:33:41

Woodruff?

1:33:42

What was the toughest part?

1:33:48

The toughest part, which

1:33:51

was the most enlightening part, was

1:33:56

getting to know who he was in between the lines. We're

1:33:59

based on a life. story in an hour and a half of film.

1:34:03

And script was great, but

1:34:08

who was he in between the lines?

1:34:10

Who was he before he

1:34:13

started business before he was on a crusade

1:34:15

before

1:34:17

he went to alternative medicines

1:34:19

and you

1:34:23

know, the, the, the, the obvious thing

1:34:25

people always talk about, well, how'd you lose all that weight? That was not

1:34:27

hard. That was just a militaristic

1:34:30

decision. This is what I can

1:34:32

eat each day. And

1:34:34

if I do this each day for

1:34:36

a week, I'll lose 2.5 pounds in a week. So I'm

1:34:39

going to give myself five months to do that 2.5 times as 10 there's

1:34:44

together there's 47 pounds that

1:34:46

was like clockwork. So that was easy. That

1:34:48

decision was made. I

1:34:51

didn't go to the Pizza Hut buffet and

1:34:53

have temptation for me. I had certain meals. I ate that

1:34:55

and the weight just went off like clockwork. It

1:34:58

was the who is Ron Woodruff

1:35:01

in between the lines and what the, the gift I got

1:35:03

given that gave me the insight to

1:35:05

who that man was

1:35:10

was his, I went to see his family and

1:35:13

his, uh, for I was,

1:35:15

as I was leaving, his

1:35:18

family offered me his diary. And

1:35:23

I remember it kind of has it going, wow, yes,

1:35:25

but I kind of hesitated because it felt

1:35:28

maybe a little too intimate of a thing for

1:35:30

me to have. I felt like it was kind of maybe

1:35:32

infringing a bit, but I

1:35:35

opened my hand and took it. And what I got

1:35:37

in the diary was I got to know who Ron

1:35:40

was before he had HIV.

1:35:44

In little thing, the diary he'd

1:35:47

write in and then the, the,

1:35:49

the, the dreamer he was and

1:35:51

getting all set on a Sunday night

1:35:54

and

1:35:55

laying his shirt out and ironing it for

1:35:57

the next morning, making sure that his little pager

1:35:59

had. fresh batteries in it, because tomorrow morning he was

1:36:01

going to cross down to hook up some speakers

1:36:04

for 38 bucks or whatever. And

1:36:08

then getting up that morning and writing

1:36:10

about what kind of coffee he drank

1:36:13

and how much gas it was going to take to

1:36:15

get over across town to do that job and hook up those

1:36:17

speakers. And then on

1:36:19

the way over,

1:36:21

Paige coming in to say, no, we don't need you. We've

1:36:23

gone with somebody else to hook them up.

1:36:27

And here he was all buttoned up, two cups

1:36:29

of coffee in, hair slicked

1:36:31

over, shirt ironed, little

1:36:35

less than half a tank of gas, but enough

1:36:37

to get back home. Now

1:36:41

where's this Monday go? The

1:36:45

hope and the disappointment. You have to take

1:36:47

all that in. That's part of that, man.

1:36:50

I'm just going to go to Sonic and get a double

1:36:54

cheese bacon burger because Sheila

1:36:57

over there, man, she's kind of cute. She always gives

1:36:59

me high price on it,

1:37:01

which leads to

1:37:06

rolling the joint, hanging

1:37:08

off till Sheila gets off the work, sneaking

1:37:10

over to the local motel and shagging up in room 16.

1:37:13

That's my lucky number 16, Sheila. Been

1:37:18

wandering out that night,

1:37:21

getting home one in the morning,

1:37:24

no plans for Tuesday.

1:37:27

Maybe later in the week, think about what

1:37:29

am I going to do about

1:37:31

work or job? And these little

1:37:33

dreams would get me peak and want to, and then

1:37:36

something would happen where he wouldn't follow through or

1:37:38

the deal would go down, the deal would go south.

1:37:43

No one

1:37:46

in there was where I saw who. He

1:37:49

was a dreamer and

1:37:51

he just couldn't catch

1:37:53

the break and didn't follow through. And then I remembered

1:37:56

his family. He said like, oh yeah, he invented

1:37:58

it. He got patents on a whole bunch of things.

1:37:59

but he never would, he had things to

1:38:02

get patent, but never would follow through to

1:38:04

get the government patent. And then later

1:38:06

on, you'd see the product

1:38:08

be made or sold on QVC or something.

1:38:10

They'd be like, Ron, that was yours.

1:38:14

Are they still your idea? Did you patent

1:38:16

that? And he'd be like, no. Like

1:38:19

never would, there's something beautiful and

1:38:21

sad about that, that let

1:38:23

me inside who he was in

1:38:25

his heart and who he wanted

1:38:27

to be. And what he was hoping to be and trying

1:38:29

to be, couldn't quite pull

1:38:31

on. When you go that deep, does

1:38:34

a part of him stay in you forever?

1:38:39

Are you able to let go? I mean,

1:38:41

I hope so. I get, I look, there's a tenacity

1:38:44

to survive that

1:38:46

I got from him. Hopefully

1:38:50

I can try and find some of that in different ways

1:38:53

in any character that I go play. Cause that's,

1:38:57

if you really want to give a character an obstacle

1:38:59

to overcome, a need.

1:39:02

I mean, the base one is life and death,

1:39:05

whether that's the need

1:39:07

to survive or the need

1:39:09

to stave off extinction.

1:39:13

I'm not talking about what the rules,

1:39:16

the laws are, the social mores, the

1:39:18

manners and graces. I'm fight, you gonna

1:39:20

fight for your own life in a world that's

1:39:22

not supporting you to do so?

1:39:26

You, there's a wonderful courage

1:39:28

of, okay,

1:39:32

watch this. What

1:39:34

do I got to lose? My

1:39:39

life, or

1:39:42

I'm in charge of extending it? Get

1:39:46

out of the way. And I'll

1:39:48

pick your pocket along whatever it takes.

1:39:52

So there's a tenacity to live

1:39:54

by whatever means necessary to

1:39:56

survive that I'm reminded

1:39:58

of. that

1:40:01

I learned from Ron. So on

1:40:03

that line of survival between life and death,

1:40:05

you starred in True Detective,

1:40:08

which I think explores some darker

1:40:11

aspects of human nature.

1:40:17

What did you take from that, from

1:40:19

that role, that experience, philosophically,

1:40:23

psychologically? The

1:40:26

freedom of being on an island.

1:40:32

He was such a singular character

1:40:35

and of a singular mind. And

1:40:38

as you know, it wasn't a dance

1:40:40

party up there in his mind, it was some

1:40:43

heavy stuff. But

1:40:45

also, existentially,

1:40:49

for him, always like, death

1:40:57

would be a deliverance for him. It'd

1:41:01

also be a cop-out, in a way. It'd

1:41:03

also be, he

1:41:07

was not a man who was gonna give himself amnesty

1:41:11

and didn't allow it from

1:41:14

the rest of the world. It wouldn't give himself an out. And

1:41:17

while living in

1:41:20

his head and heart and spirit was more

1:41:24

of a hell than arguably

1:41:26

dying, there was

1:41:29

no alternative. That's not negotiable for that man.

1:41:32

And that's why he was such a, that's why he

1:41:34

was the best detective that ever walked

1:41:38

the earth. That's why he was such a superhero,

1:41:41

in a way, to have that singular. You don't go,

1:41:43

oh, I wish I was him. No, but you go like, wow.

1:41:46

That constitution, that clarity

1:41:48

of identity,

1:41:52

talk about a measure in a

1:41:55

man's constitution, he didn't allow anybody

1:41:58

off the hook, especially himself. You

1:42:02

wanted him to forgive a little bit or

1:42:04

give himself a little empty. You wanted him

1:42:06

to like, man, it's Saturday, bro. Can

1:42:09

you go on a date? You wanted

1:42:11

him to enjoy something, but

1:42:14

he was connected to

1:42:16

something and his DNA was who

1:42:18

he was doing something much more

1:42:22

baseline truth and

1:42:24

that's why he was such a good detective. But

1:42:27

there's an island, as much as that company can be. I

1:42:29

said earlier, Amazon chip it, it wouldn't

1:42:31

join the company.

1:42:33

There's parts, I think that I maybe

1:42:35

gave to myself to Rustin

1:42:37

Cole and also that Rustin Cole has given back to me that

1:42:40

are like, yeah, when

1:42:42

you want to pull the parachute because you can't stand the company

1:42:45

that you're in, McConaughey, in your own mind, the Socratic

1:42:47

dialogue is driving you crazy. Don't

1:42:51

pull a parachute, stick with it,

1:42:53

go through it. So you were able to walk

1:42:55

around with that tormented mind of

1:42:57

his. Tormented. I

1:43:01

didn't have very much patience for Mendeis'

1:43:03

talk. I didn't have as

1:43:05

much patience for small

1:43:07

talk. I wasn't tormented.

1:43:11

But the character was and you have to embody

1:43:13

him. So is that, I mean, does

1:43:15

some of that bleed over? Are you able to

1:43:19

separate the man you are from the

1:43:21

character? Look,

1:43:25

am I able to separate? Yeah, I came home to my kids and

1:43:29

when they walk around the door and greet me and go, what'd you

1:43:31

do today? And you got

1:43:33

three kids under 10 years old, you

1:43:36

don't tell

1:43:38

them about the scene where you

1:43:41

help someone commit suicide. So

1:43:43

you turn it into a parable.

1:43:46

And actually, I've always said this, having kids

1:43:49

has made me a better actor, a better storyteller because I

1:43:51

have to parableize certain things

1:43:54

and tell it in ways that I go, oh, neat.

1:44:05

I didn't bring

1:44:08

torment. Did I bring introspection into

1:44:10

my own? The characters for me, and I

1:44:12

think this is true for a lot of

1:44:15

actors and actresses, it's

1:44:16

not a separation.

1:44:19

We each

1:44:21

have everyone

1:44:25

else in us. It's

1:44:28

just seeing, diving

1:44:31

into Rust and Gold, knowing where

1:44:33

his mind and heart is from the hand of Nick

1:44:35

Pizzolato, who wrote the character

1:44:37

and wrote the whole series, understanding,

1:44:41

number one, what the hell am I saying?

1:44:44

What's he talking about? Then going deeper

1:44:46

into that, well, this person really believes

1:44:48

that.

1:44:49

What does that say about how they move?

1:44:52

Then I'm going all of a sudden, well, who is that in me?

1:44:54

What part of my left brain

1:44:57

is locked into that? What part of my reptilian

1:45:00

brain is latched

1:45:02

onto that? This other

1:45:04

stuff is non-negotiable.

1:45:07

Then I just live in that. And I

1:45:10

always talk like a 70s equalizer.

1:45:12

Remember the old at Marantz equalizers?

1:45:14

You can move up your 500 HKZ,

1:45:17

you move up your 60, you

1:45:19

rebalance

1:45:21

the equalizer.

1:45:24

And we all have, so it's just going to those parts

1:45:26

of me where I'll turn up the volume,

1:45:28

some parts of the bass, the treble, and the equalizer, and turn

1:45:30

down other parts of myself. And I'm

1:45:33

not coming home tormented

1:45:35

as Rust and Cole. Am

1:45:37

I coming home seeing

1:45:43

torment where it should be seen? Am

1:45:46

I reading the news differently or things coming

1:45:48

out of the news and catching my eye as

1:45:52

being bullshit or lies

1:45:55

or truth that it's just hard and going,

1:45:57

yep, yeah, I'm seeing

1:45:59

it through a different line.

1:45:59

lens, but I'm seeing my own life through a different

1:46:02

lens,

1:46:03

a lens that was opened up

1:46:05

and an aperture that was opened up through Rust and Cole.

1:46:07

I mean, the process of being an

1:46:09

actor, an actress, I guess is

1:46:12

a really interesting way to

1:46:14

be a philosopher of human nature.

1:46:16

Yeah, I mean, it's an incredible

1:46:19

dive into the humanities

1:46:22

and all the ologies and

1:46:25

philosophy. And as I said,

1:46:27

I've gone

1:46:30

to, as

1:46:32

I opened up that question like that, the vague

1:46:35

being on an Island is a vacation. I

1:46:39

am also conscious for five

1:46:41

months when I'm playing Rust and Cole that this,

1:46:44

this is an interesting back. I've, I've

1:46:50

never, I was as strong spiritually

1:46:54

with my relationship with God. When

1:46:58

I did True Detective as I've ever been.

1:47:02

Why is that? Okay,

1:47:05

which you would say, wait a minute. In

1:47:07

some ways that's a, those are antonyms. No,

1:47:11

but my, I pretty sure, pretty

1:47:15

safely can say that

1:47:17

my own strength of

1:47:19

spirit in my own personal life, Matthew's life

1:47:21

that gave me the confidence to

1:47:23

go further away.

1:47:26

Deeper into the torture

1:47:29

and deeper into the, but

1:47:32

it was still, he was still always going after truth. That

1:47:35

was the thing. He was not, he was not an evil

1:47:37

man. I don't even know if you can call him a nonbeliever, but he was always

1:47:40

going after the truth and the truth burned

1:47:42

and he would take the scar and get burned

1:47:45

for it.

1:47:46

He'd die for it. That

1:47:49

something was actually biblical

1:47:52

about that. And so, but I don't think it's

1:47:54

coincidence that.

1:47:59

that I had

1:48:01

so much jourdive

1:48:04

of diving into the depths of

1:48:07

that tortured

1:48:09

character because

1:48:12

I trusted that when

1:48:14

I go out, I'll come up the other side. It's always

1:48:17

like jumping in a pool of water.

1:48:20

And can you trust you'll come up the other side

1:48:22

and not, you

1:48:23

know, you go play a criminal, you trust

1:48:25

you're not gonna come out the other side of Tyrant in

1:48:28

real life. You just go,

1:48:30

oh God, I got to go do

1:48:32

that, came out and I'm still alive,

1:48:35

got all my faculties, I'm not in jail, I'm like,

1:48:37

whatever it is. And so my

1:48:40

own spirituality at that time, definitely I think

1:48:42

gave me a certain trust and confidence to go further

1:48:44

into the

1:48:46

dark. It

1:48:49

was announced that you'll be starring in a Yellowstone

1:48:52

spinoff show. What

1:48:55

do you think about the cowboy ethos,

1:48:58

it permeates Yellowstone and other shows created

1:49:00

by Taylor Sheridan. You're a Texan. I'm

1:49:04

a Texan, yeah. What do you

1:49:06

think about that like philosophy and way of life?

1:49:11

I admire the simplicity of it.

1:49:14

I mean,

1:49:17

one way you could explain Yellowstone

1:49:21

and Costner's

1:49:24

role is what will, what

1:49:28

will man do to protect land

1:49:30

and family in

1:49:33

a world that's trying to encroach, in

1:49:36

a world where there's

1:49:40

a cowboy ethos that deems

1:49:42

trespassing more clear earlier

1:49:46

than other

1:49:48

hats.

1:49:56

I admire that simplicity

1:49:59

of Right wrong and

1:50:01

that the simplicity that right and wrong

1:50:04

doesn't always correlate

1:50:07

coincide with the law no

1:50:09

it's above the law. It's you

1:50:11

mentioned something earlier i remember it was in conversation

1:50:14

with a little bit of black careful i

1:50:16

am having this i am.

1:50:19

And then it is. Law

1:50:23

is not going to handle this. Therefore,

1:50:26

i am and then it is

1:50:28

i'm handling this law

1:50:32

talk to them when you get to them i'm handling

1:50:34

this.

1:50:36

There's a honesty to that

1:50:38

it just seems. Of

1:50:42

course is dangerous because it's a slippery

1:50:44

slope that because

1:50:46

of the power in that power corrupts

1:50:49

it can be a slippery slope. We

1:50:51

completed this regard to law and you can hurt a lot

1:50:53

of people but when done

1:50:56

right you know

1:50:57

there feels to be

1:50:59

a. Something really

1:51:01

authentic and human about that protect

1:51:04

family protect land above all

1:51:06

else yeah. But

1:51:11

i you know.

1:51:15

This is a broader question but i'm gonna piggyback

1:51:17

it off of this. Back

1:51:25

to the dreams and reality. Evolved

1:51:29

species and how what we do in creating

1:51:31

a digital god and ai and these communities

1:51:34

and friends and.

1:51:36

Challenges and think like this we like to hang out

1:51:38

with our.

1:51:42

Do you think we're less evolved. Species

1:51:46

than we give ourselves credit for you think we give

1:51:48

ourselves credit for being more evolved than

1:51:50

we actually are. I

1:51:52

think we do I do.

1:51:56

I think we need to admit that. I

1:51:58

think probably the cowboy you. Jesus

1:52:00

is a stepping towards admitting

1:52:03

that.

1:52:07

And that's why it's so appealing to people. Kind

1:52:10

of wakes them up to realize that we are,

1:52:13

we're not so far from our

1:52:15

ancestors.

1:52:20

That the values of loyalty

1:52:22

are really important. Trust

1:52:27

on the basic human level.

1:52:30

How do you know if you can trust someone? I

1:52:33

don't know if I can trust someone. Well,

1:52:37

I don't know a trick to it. I do not know a trick

1:52:39

to it, but I do come in,

1:52:42

as I believe you do with high trust.

1:52:45

I come in with a, I'm told,

1:52:48

sometimes I think, I'm told that I trust

1:52:50

too much sometimes. Have you been hurt?

1:52:53

Have you been betrayed? And

1:52:55

if you have, has that hurt

1:52:57

your willingness to trust?

1:53:02

No, it hurt. And I put

1:53:04

that person and those people in

1:53:06

another category back here and

1:53:09

do my best not to let them know that

1:53:12

it bothered me at all. But I know when

1:53:15

I am with those people.

1:53:16

By a new person, you're still one of the best. No, I'm

1:53:19

not gonna do that. I think that's

1:53:21

the beginning of cynicism, which I think is a horrible

1:53:23

disease of getting older. I'm

1:53:25

not gonna do that. So you're fighting cynicism off as

1:53:27

much as you can. No way,

1:53:30

no way, no way. There's

1:53:32

no residual in it. There's no win. It's

1:53:36

easy, it's clever,

1:53:37

gets the laugh at the party.

1:53:40

But, and if it sleeps

1:53:42

well, it shouldn't

1:53:44

be. Don't

1:53:47

get comfortable in the cynicism. I

1:53:50

have to ask you about being a Texan. You're

1:53:52

like, when I think Texas, I think Matthew

1:53:54

McConaughey, what's it

1:53:56

mean to be a Texan to you?

1:54:00

I recently moved to Austin, Texas, some

1:54:05

two years in. All right. All

1:54:07

right. Welcome. What's

1:54:10

it mean to be a Texan? Educators.

1:54:15

Texas is about independence.

1:54:20

Politically Texas is not about Republican

1:54:22

or Democrat. It's about independence. Defense

1:54:26

of spirit, sovereignty. Texas

1:54:32

is about

1:54:33

exploration. One of the things I love about Texas

1:54:36

is I run into so many Texans

1:54:38

around the world. Texans

1:54:44

are taught to go detect

1:54:46

conservative areas, learn who we are, then go. Explore,

1:54:54

pioneer, journey,

1:54:56

and hopefully you come on back

1:54:59

with some goods and some stories. You

1:55:01

Texan. And

1:55:04

underneath that is this freedom

1:55:06

of

1:55:08

being an individual in the full

1:55:11

meaning of that word. Yeah. Well,

1:55:14

Texas is liberal on your entrance.

1:55:18

Very liberal on your entrance.

1:55:21

Less regulation. Hey, welcome.

1:55:24

High trust. High trust, sir.

1:55:26

Welcome to our state. Come on in. Yes,

1:55:30

yes, yes. But

1:55:34

if you like cheat steel, we're

1:55:38

conservative on our consequences. Yeah,

1:55:42

that's a good line. You've

1:55:45

briefly pondered running for governor.

1:55:48

I don't know if that's in your future. I hope it is.

1:55:51

You had a few good lines about it. Do

1:55:54

you think about that kind of stuff? About

1:55:57

what the future holds in terms of

1:55:59

political off? I don't think about it as turned

1:56:01

to political office. I've graduated

1:56:04

to a broader, larger thought of what's

1:56:06