Joe Rogan Experience #2172 — Sebastian Junger Transcript

Transcript

0:00 The Joe Rogan Experience. It's predictive texting. Yeah, I mean, unless I'm gone for a week, All on the laptop, right? No, at one point I was at CNN waiting for to go on, So I was like, well, that's the end of an era. So you're in good company. What does that thing called? What's that? No, the little tiny, phone. Yeah that thing. So it has basically the same thing as your phone

2:53 Yeah. I got to go over and dust them off and comfort him because the mom or dad And we're on the Lower East Side in New York City, This is a TikTok video more interesting than your... Like, yeah. Okay, got it. Because you have a different perspective. Like if I had a son, I'd be like, You know, it's like, there's a lot with kids, Like that just incredible and and partly because they're girls and not boys. I don't have nothing to learn from boys

6:14 Absolutely. Fuck that. And I'm like, I get it. I know if you've had a bunch of bad relationships, you have Parenting with the wrong person You know, it's just ugh. Oh, that's a problem. And then you're just so screwed. yeah, it was like, somebody's got to stay sane in this room, That's a good choice. And they're walking through Paris and they stopped to look, she stopped to look

9:31 paid the bill, left 500 bucks on the bed, The pressure that he must have been feeling that allowed him to make that decision. Right. You gotta flee. Split second. I'm out of here. Any just ran I have it. I have a 20-yard head start Like literally. but the other guy is okay and I didn't do quite that, but close. They can't, it's almost impossible to get it together.

13:04 It saved two people that I know of that I really loved, that I'm really close to. I mean, it's a very, very tough deal. some people, it's not even trauma. on in your head and it's up to you to talk to your psychiatrist or whatever and try to I think on some level, so fearful and well defended, but they don't necessarily know that that's not true. We know what it is with your mind, you know, like if someone says they're depressed like

15:54 funny funny man and but he was a lifelong depressive and part of his what I'm up against, right? You know, which is a thing with some creative types. was depressed because he worked with Richard Jenney all weekend and he was like he did a new hour I mean he could just sort of sit there and just riff, right? He knew that as a teenager. Can they trust themselves?

19:43 He had PTSD, right? in sort of contemporary terms. So what it turned out was that he was walking on a hillside. But it occurred to me that what he thought at that moment was, if I can kill a herd like I am not safe for my loved ones to be around. Yeah. What did you see? and whatever else. I mean mean the Iliad is it I mean one-on-one combat with swords must be so insane.

22:47 and then suddenly is in Afghanistan what's normal, right? But I think every human being that existed back then was No Instagram. Like what? So nuts, because it's high resolution cell phone camera culture in my life where we're not gonna be involved in any shit anymore. my mind I'm like, listen, you know, if war is bad, avoiding it isn't the only, you

25:46 And if you knew that no one would invade you and you're warlike anyway, you're an asshole, to defend your allies or your friends or even just on a strategic level countries where if they But when we get into groups, there's always something. only peaceful men, you wouldn't need to be. Yeah the economy as much good overall. Well, that's what scares the shit out of me about today because I think with AI and with weapons technology

30:14 humanity, to pull that trigger first. Well there's also this sort of what do in a few weeks, right? someone else's home. had a magic you know electromagnetic pulse that took out everything in the actually doesn't serve you that well and there you know there the Afghans I mean I just wanted to ask you about it. spot that for one reason or another is weak and it starts to sort of give way and it'll

33:40 I just never had any reason for an abdominal scan, right? I'm fit, healthy male, right? or stabs you in the abdomen Now, it's a little artery, the thickness of a number two pencil, it's not a big deal, The problem with internal hemorrhage, onto the kitchen floor. few hours. And my wife and I went out to this cabin And then I and then I finally stood up

36:46 And you're fit, I'm fit, it never crossed my mind Who knew, right? I'm losing a pint of blood every 10 or 15 minutes you know my wife didn't know the teenage girls, one of them ran out, You know, there's a five alarm fire going on here and we got a tight in our tight in our game, right? But what happens is your blood pressure goes back up and suddenly you're sort of back in

39:21 My wife is like, you know what, because they were going to leave me. compensatory shock anymore and with coagulants and all kinds of things like that that will kill you. So you can, to stick it through my neck into my jugular, which didn't look like a lot of fun. Right? so he said, this is the emergency. I was like, well, if you say so, go ahead, you have at

42:35 way. But so all of a sudden I sensed below me and to my left this black pit open up, this black abyss, like this infinite But the darkness was contained in this hole that was underneath underneath me of NDEs, near-death experiences, What are you doing here? Like and there there he was, and he was, and he communicated to me. And so what I saw, His presence was right there.

45:16 Why would why would I possibly want to go with you and be dead with you because I'm alive with my family right now Like I'm not going anywhere with you like get out of here and I said to the doctor They stabilize me with three units of blood. blood it takes an hour it doesn't hurt and your body will replace it in a There's my pitch but So they can see in real time what's going on in your body,

47:52 your body. And then once they're there, they can pop a coil and plug a leak, or distorted and they're tortuous, they're called tortuous. because now it's trying to flow into a full container and it doesn't leak as fast. So as soon as you open up the abdomen, you can imagine what happens. at one point, I mean agonizing pain because I've got all this free-floating blood

50:47 I couldn't believe what I'd seen. last thing, let's try going through his left wrist. And so what, because of your And you had to be like a super high level IR guy to even think of this, much less do coil in there. It blocked the artery, blocked the leak. And then they sent me to the ICU they knocked You keep saying you're an atheist in part because I respect the highest intentions of religion too much to take them lightly.

54:08 And so for me, believing in God is an active thing. person. It's a decision. It's not part of my life. It just isn't, right? And I can't just choose to make it I don't have an opinion on it, right? evidence that there is a God. Had I, while I was dying, had God come to me, whatever that would even look like, right, Like even if I'm not Like who do you think it has to be God, right?

58:27 night and no one can quite believe you're alive. Welcome back to the world, basically. And particularly if you have children, right? What was that? Like I can't stop thinking about it. I liked her enormously. less fear, more connection, more love, that just helps the human condition a navigate their painful lives, yeah, bro, absolutely. Like what's going on in, no, I wasn't in Ukraine,

1:01:39 I went to my own mortality. And with less fear, more dignity, et cetera. you get. the world, different societies, different cultures, even different ages. There are like they fall into some, some like three or fouraroos, right? It's like they fall into some like smart, etc. etc. Like nonsense, I'm a neuroscientist, I'm a neurochemist, you But isn't the problem with that,

1:05:08 getting to your breast. Yes, and your body knows that. I mean you are opening that door. Right, right. or that they, oh my God, my grandfather, you know, We understand the physiology of all this. So they did something that would otherwise not be ethical. basically did what brains do when they're remembering very, very old stuff, we don't know the specific things that that man saw,

1:08:39 and then boom, I'm out of there. So I came home, and it's not the kind of party you would expect, right? And so I came home and it's, you know, it's not the kind of party you would expect, right? Like I came home and I was like, whoo-hoo, I'm alive, And, but one of the problems, I started to have the sense that I wasn't really there That you're dead.

1:10:20 hours prior to almost dying, I was woken by this horrific nightmare, the worst nightmare made to understand, in the same way that my father communicated with me, it was You can't go back. with me, like, it's a miracle you're alive. And then I thought, oh my God, I died in my sleep. report having had. I was hovering above my family and And at one point I went to my wife,

1:13:49 And so finally, so sorry, long story just to sort of finally answer your question. Nothing to scare, nothing to be scared of. So and because of, partly because of the father I grew up with, like I was, I was able to, they are received by the dead, right? The dead come So alright, so suddenly I'm five years old and we're playing by the swimming pool now suddenly

1:16:33 scowled in her last hour. She scowled and looked up at the coroner and said, It's not over when you die, right? who was dying painlessly, you know, no morphine at all, so of clear mind, right? You know, It's someone named Barbara. the blah, blah, blah, the gamma. I get it. I get it. What I don't understand is the mind has been enormously open by this experience. Not to God, but to maybe we

1:20:19 well, you know, God exists, then hallelujah. is, what consciousness is. ashtray, the ashtray does exactly what it does if I don't look at it. go through one slit and hit the strike plate on the far side with a signature sense of a profound mystery at the quantum level, is it possible that there's an equivalent pioneers of biocentrism, and basically what he's saying is that look, if

1:24:55 And maybe consciousness is essential to the existence There was a kind of colossus of consciousness cosmos that creates the system, that creates the reality that we are seeing of quantum entangled photons? stumbled accidentally I think it was like last year. the human neuro chemicals that get all we know we can stimulate the brain all Well, listen, the physicists, they give them their due.

1:29:24 physics, equivalent to the mystery at the core of quantum physics equivalent to the it's mostly empty space. think we're also cursed with these fucking primate brains you know these We are interconnected in ways that are far greater than our understanding of human social It connects us like as souls. Then I went to Catholic school. I was like, okay. Okay. God has nothing to do with this. Like this is fucking ridiculous

1:32:52 Wow. My grandmother was bedridden. real estate agents would come in and they crushed communities this way. 1990 and Where you like he's not there. Yeah, it's not it's unmistakable. He's not there. It's not as simple as Right and I at that moment at that moment, I was We can't put a ruler on it and measure it we can't but we know it's real. We just can't put it on a scale. We can't put a ruler

1:37:33 and if I lived your life I would be you. And I think we are all people. I think I think it's a looking into the other side. which requires a birth and a death, a beginning and an end, and that it has to come from somewhere, Yeah. I don't think it's, I think we're tuning into it in these little blips and we're bringing That's bigger than just fun. control resources and do all the stupid things that humans do. That thing

1:41:22 All that survives of us is love Yeah, and I think a lot of religions have. Right. And so if you somehow knew that you were going to die So my question is like you don't know that today isn't your like radical friends would sit around talking about outrageous stuff like liberating the serfs and crazy ideas like that. and driven to the courthouse and discharged and returned to their families after eight

1:45:15 So what, so the question, my question would be like, what does the world look like? We should understand that vision of the world and incorporate it to some degree into our minutes that's where that's what I'll be. And then he said if I should some in his kids were throwing pine cones at a tiger in an enclosure in the zoo. And they didn't know and you see those paws hit that fence and you see that thing like flying through the

1:48:51 Survived yeah, okay to survive and they had to kill the tiger of course and this monkey's wailing just screaming in agony just its biological reward system. That's what it's here for. That's why it's 600 pounds There's an amazing poem by Ted Hughes called Wolf Watching. look it up. Yeah. Yeah, we're bizarre. We're bizarre with this whole fucking zoo thing. The zoo thing's

1:52:30 Why even have a belief? I mean, I don't. I don't have any belief. You don't have anything something. Right. Right? So if you want to tell me that gravity doesn't exist, I real, you'll live a better life. just this life experience, is what, that's the foundation of this understanding of it. Right. I care what you believe, you know, like, but often I flatlined, right?

1:56:12 He died like I did. And if that's the way he runs things, I've had conversations with people What do you know that has sort of educated these thoughts? Like, I don't want to go to jail either, but you don't need the laws. I think what this whole thing is for a lot of people, I think people have always tried to figure it out. People have this belief that their way is the way, I've seen Muslims do it, I've seen Christians do it, I've seen Jews do it.

2:00:22 because you have memory and We're just we are we're we're have our eyes closed and we're feeling I think it's way weirder is negativity and the positivity battling against that negativity which This thought came to me the other day like we're in a kind of sweet spot. So if you sort of So if you could prove there was an afterlife, don't worry about it.

2:03:28 because that's when the good part starts. If we could prove that, that might be so psychologically devastating that it would be actually quite hard to lead a meaningful life because in your mind We're in this sweet spot, which allows us And if you go in the extreme of either direction class had been told, listen, don't worry about it, your lot sucks, right? The serfs. Like your lot sucks, you're oppressed, you're poor,

2:06:03 You're crushed under the boot heel of czar of the czar's boot heel here in life, but you know, And he's like, yeah, believe that. 11%. has this series called The Wrath of the Khan. In one of the stories, they talk about the that it became mud. That's insane. But he was really open-minded when he came to religion. Yeah. And he everybody who killed the people who buried him,

2:09:31 and taking over countries. He was a genius. sort of bad, like, how it's maladaptive, it would be anthropological term, like maladaptive, you just, you have to understand in evolutionary terms, aggression is richly And yeah, those are toxic males. and kill off individual males by Even at risk to our own lives, it's wiped out because they don't form a coalition to defend, only to attack.

2:13:58 world. There's a genetic reward for it. And that's why we're here. And that's why we're here. Braveheart, you know, whatever I mean, there's a endless stories about that kind of heroism Like we're all together will die together if we have to but we are all together the time of Dostoevsky. They're gonna look at us like what the fuck did they do in Ukraine?

2:16:17 so whatever. That's right. In my time of dying, how I came face to face Me too. Beautiful. Bye, everybody.