Taken from JRE #1901 w/Steven Pressfield:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0sI2Z9HoNdB9RkXw3765qi?si=70044652539d4bc1

Not only is it universal and everybody experiences it, but they all seem to experience it with the same script.

You know, you're not worthy, you're too old, too young, too fat, too thin, whatever.

Or let's do something else, let's distract ourselves with something else.

I mean, I always say that it's a force of nature, you know.

It's not specific to you, even though that voice in your head sounds like it is specific to you.

It's saying Joe, and then it's hitting you right in the points that are your sore points, you know?

Everybody seems to experience the same thing.

And in that time after writing that, I'm sure it's obviously been a very successful book.

Like, why are people, why is that a force of nature?

I'll give, this is my lengthy explanation, but I'll give you my theory.

If we think of the human, so everybody's got to bear with me, this takes a minute or 2.

If you think of the human psyche, we got the ego, which is like a little black dot in the middle of a greater thing that we would call the self, like the Jungian self with a capital S.

And the self contains the collective unconscious, all the aspects of the unconscious, right?

The hero's journey, the archetypes of the unconscious, all of the sort of intuitive stuff, right?

When you, I would imagine, come up with great comedy material or any kind of material, it's coming from that self, coming from that deeper place, right?

And even when Jung or Joseph Campbell describe the self, they have a little diagram in the War of Art where adjacent to this larger self, They'd have like 3 arrows and the arrows are coming from what they call the divine ground, which I take to mean whatever greater force is out there, you know, that will come to you.

So this is a long way of saying that the ego, which is, right, your I part, the part that identifies with this body and with the ego wants to be in control, right?

The ego is where you drive down to the store, you get it, whatever it is, right?

But when you're trying to tap into that greater intelligence, like if you're writing, if you're trying to come up to, if you're a musician, if you're any kind of creative person, you're trying to surrender to that self, to that greater self.

The ego knows if you make that shift to identify with that greater self, then the ego is out of business.

So I think, this is my theory, that the ego produces resistance to try to stop you from connecting and trusting and believing, because it is a leap of faith, right, to get to that other level, wherever it is.

So the ego says to you, who do you think you are to try to tap into that thing?

Who do you think you are to come up with this idea.

It's been done a million times better than you'll ever do it.

You're gonna fall on your ass, etc., etc., etc.

But so I think that what the ego wants is to maintain its control, right?

And if you make that shift into that greater self, that's when you really are starting to tap into great stuff.

I mean, it's interesting sort of animals don't experience resistance.

Right, but they also don't really experience creativity.

True, but they're in that greater world I think naturally, you know.

An eagle or somebody that's flying, you know, you watch like the tiniest little wings or feathers even, you know, control it.

They're not thinking about anything, right?

So anyway, that's my theory on what resistance is.

Seth Godin is a kind of a marketing guru, 1 of the earliest guys on the internet from way back when, when it first began, and is a great teacher of marketing and stuff like that and also a wonderful guy, there he is, in the sense that he is highly ethical dude.

Like when he talks about businesses, startups, and all the things that he's kind of helping people with, ethics is a huge part of it.

Now he thinks it's what he calls the lizard brain, the amygdala, which I'm not even sure what that is.

I guess it's the reptile brain at the back of your head, that that's what's producing something, it wants producing resistance.

But anyway, I respect his thinking on that, but I think it's what I just explained to you.

What you're saying makes a lot of sense and the the ego whatever that thing is that it's it's so interesting how it's not able to see that it would actually benefit the ego if you didn't have resistance yes which is really weird

it yeah because if if the ego was wise and had foresight, it could see the future, go, oh, if we just give in and relax and relinquish control, then we're going to come up with better stuff and our life's gonna be better.

Be able to buy a nicer house, you know, maybe be able to go on trips, your work will do well, everything will be good.

It's a deep subject because also if you think about The ego's view of what life is, I'm gonna go into some deep stuff or you don't mind this stuff, right?

The ego believes that this material world is all there is, right?

The ego believes that when this body dies, we die, right?

The ego believes that this flesh can be hurt, you know?

Can be maimed, can be broken, et cetera, et cetera.

I think that the predominant emotion of the ego, if we're living in the ego, which is 99% of people do, our predominant emotion is fear, right?

And fear, even though we might not know it, fear of death, which is kind of why people want to achieve, I think, right?

Let me make a name for myself, blah, blah, blah.

Why people want to have children, their children will live on.

Why they have insurance, why they try to succeed and have a big house and this and that and the other thing, right?

That's all sort of coming out of a mindset of fear.

Whereas this giant self, in my opinion, the bigger self that is connected to the thing, its predominant emotion is love, if you ask me.

Now the ego, another thing the ego believes is that I am separate from you, right?

That's why so much of the evil that happens in the world comes out of that, right?

We can torture these sons of bitches and it won't happen to us, right?

But the self believes exactly the opposite.

Once you get into that deep level, right, that we are not separate from 1 another, that you and I are bound together in some kind of way along with all of humanity and all of the animal life and all of the planet, all of the oceans and all of that.

And so the predominant emotion in that self is the emotion of love.

So the ego, this is my belief anyway, the ego being centered in fear is gonna try to hang on to what it's got, right?

If the ego thinks that it's living our life, it's calling the shots, it's gonna hang on to that out of fear.

And that's why I think it's so strong, resistance is so strong.

The closer you get to moving into that self, into that greater space, Like if you're sitting down and trying to write a novel and you get into a kind of a flow of it, that's what the ego is really afraid of because it's such a kind of empowering and intoxicating experience, the ego says to itself, shit, if this guy stays over here very long, he's never gonna go back to where I pull the call of shots.

So I think that's why it makes itself it puts it such a an intense shot at you to stop you from getting there.

If the greater self is all about love, and the greater self is what recognizes the connection between all of us, what is the greater self?

I know that you're a guy that's into psychedelics to some extent, right?

I mean when you now my only experience with psychedelics is back in the 60s, you know So I haven't done any of the stuff that people are doing now

But 1 of the things that you know from LSD or from mescaline or anything like that, right, is you suddenly see a whole other world that was not there before, right?

Even though you're looking at that wall, all of a sudden that wall becomes so beautiful, right, that you can't even say anything except, wow, right?

So that, I believe, I was thinking in those moments, this must be the way Jesus sees the world, or the Dalai Lama sees the world, or God sees the world.

And when I come back to my regular self, and I see this kind of normal shrunk down world, that's not the real world, right?

So that's sort of my feeling about it, Joe, that when the self, when you enter that, there is a greater world.

We're living in that greater world right now.

And I think another aspect of it to me, you would know a lot more about this than I do, being more in the present of this, is that if you're living in that kind of psychedelic world, you really can't drive a car, you really can't operate heavy equipment, you really can't handle the stuff you have to handle, you can't do your taxes, right?

So in order to kind of live, you do have to sort of shrink that world down, right?

To push all the beauty aside and all the amazing shit aside.

But that doesn't stop the fact that that stuff is there.

I always wonder what was it like before we were born and what's it gonna be like after we die?

Do you think that this narrowed down world that you're talking about when the psychedelics wear off, Do you think that's an artifact of the cold, hard reality of being an animal, living amongst predators and other violent human beings on Earth, where in order to survive, in order to raise your children and protect your village and provide food to each other you kind of have to have this very simplistic just just as you said narrowed down just this different what you can't just wax euphorically about the concept of the universe and life and love.

And I think that's why, again, like what I was saying about the ego being dominated by the emotion of fear.

And also, our parents and our society, our school, everything, for our own good, as we're kids growing up, tells us all that.

It kind of indoctrinates us into that world.

For our own good, it wants to protect us.

On your way walking to school, nobody's gonna beat you up, blah, blah,

It's kind of a strange world, isn't it, that God created for us?

I mean, on the 1 hand, there's this beautiful other-dimensional reality out there, but then there's this hardcore world of predators you know in order to you know like what did you just have on Instagram today an alligator taking off the leg off a deer I mean that's that You don't even know if what was there, but it's there.

Yeah, there was a crocodile that took a pig and snapped it in half.

But, that's the world, right, that God gave us, right?


Speaker 0: The Jerogen Experience. Not only is it universal and everybody experiences it, but they all seem to experience it with the same script. You know, you're not worthy, you're too old, too young, too fat, too thin, whatever. Or let's do something else, let's distract ourselves with something else. So everybody gets the same thing.

I mean, I always say that it's a force of nature, you know. It's not personal. It's not specific to you, even though that voice in your head sounds like it is specific to you. It's saying Joe, and then it's hitting you right in the points that are your sore points, you know? Yeah.

But it's really not personal. Everybody seems to experience the same thing. And

Speaker 1: what do you think it is? When did you write the War of Art?

Speaker 0: 2002.

Speaker 1: And in that time after writing that, I'm sure it's obviously been a very successful book. So you've had time to think about this. What do you think is going on? Like, why are people, why is that a force of nature? What is it?

Speaker 0: I'll give, this is my lengthy explanation, but I'll give you my theory. If we think of the human, so everybody's got to bear with me, this takes a minute or 2. If you think of the human psyche, we got the ego, which is like a little black dot in the middle of a greater thing that we would call the self, like the Jungian self with a capital S. And the self contains the collective unconscious, all the aspects of the unconscious, right? The hero's journey, the archetypes of the unconscious, all of the sort of intuitive stuff, right?

When you, I would imagine, come up with great comedy material or any kind of material, it's coming from that self, coming from that deeper place, right? And even when Jung or Joseph Campbell describe the self, they have a little diagram in the War of Art where adjacent to this larger self, They'd have like 3 arrows and the arrows are coming from what they call the divine ground, which I take to mean whatever greater force is out there, you know, that will come to you. So this is a long way of saying that the ego, which is, right, your I part, the part that identifies with this body and with the ego wants to be in control, right? The ego is where you drive down to the store, you get it, whatever it is, right? But when you're trying to tap into that greater intelligence, like if you're writing, if you're trying to come up to, if you're a musician, if you're any kind of creative person, you're trying to surrender to that self, to that greater self.

And I feel like the ego hates that. The ego knows if you make that shift to identify with that greater self, then the ego is out of business. So I think, this is my theory, that the ego produces resistance to try to stop you from connecting and trusting and believing, because it is a leap of faith, right, to get to that other level, wherever it is. So the ego says to you, who do you think you are to try to tap into that thing? Who do you think you are to come up with this idea.

It's been done a million times better than you'll ever do it. You don't have the chops to do this. You're gonna fall on your ass, etc., etc., etc. Or let me distract you. Why don't we chase some women?

Why don't we get drunk? Why don't we hang out with our buddies? Whatever it is. But so I think that what the ego wants is to maintain its control, right? And if you make that shift into that greater self, that's when you really are starting to tap into great stuff.

That's where the great stuff comes from. And that puts the ego out of a job. At least that, this is my theory, Joe. So I think that the ego produces it. I mean, it's interesting sort of animals don't experience resistance.

I'm sure they don't, right?

Speaker 1: Right, but they also don't really experience creativity.

Speaker 0: True, but they're in that greater world I think naturally, you know.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 0: They're free. They're in that God energy, you know. An eagle or somebody that's flying, you know, you watch like the tiniest little wings or feathers even, you know, control it. They're not thinking about anything, right? When they're hunting or whatever it is.

So anyway, that's my theory on what resistance is. Now Seth Godin, you know who he is. He's a believer that it's the- Who

Speaker 1: is Seth Godin? I do not

Speaker 0: know who he is. Seth Godin is a kind of a marketing guru, 1 of the earliest guys on the internet from way back when, when it first began, and is a great teacher of marketing and stuff like that and also a wonderful guy, there he is, in the sense that he is highly ethical dude. Like when he talks about businesses, startups, and all the things that he's kind of helping people with, ethics is a huge part of it. So I really respect the guy. And he's a great deep thinker too.

Now he thinks it's what he calls the lizard brain, the amygdala, which I'm not even sure what that is. I guess it's the reptile brain at the back of your head, that that's what's producing something, it wants producing resistance. But anyway, I respect his thinking on that, but I think it's what I just explained to you.

Speaker 1: What you're saying makes a lot of sense and the the ego whatever that thing is that it's it's so interesting how it's not able to see that it would actually benefit the ego if you didn't have resistance yes which is really weird

Speaker 0: it's weird isn't

Speaker 1: it yeah because if if the ego was wise and had foresight, it could see the future, go, oh, if we just give in and relax and relinquish control, then we're going to come up with better stuff and our life's gonna be better. Be able to buy a nicer house, you know, maybe be able to go on trips, your work will do well, everything will be good.

Speaker 0: It's a deep subject because also if you think about The ego's view of what life is, I'm gonna go into some deep stuff or you don't mind this stuff, right? You don't have

Speaker 1: to clarify, just

Speaker 0: feel free. The ego has a whole view. The ego believes that this material world is all there is, right? Yeah. The ego believes in death.

The ego believes that when this body dies, we die, right? The ego believes that this flesh can be hurt, you know? Can be maimed, can be broken, et cetera, et cetera. So the ego is naturally lives in fear. I think that the predominant emotion of the ego, if we're living in the ego, which is 99% of people do, our predominant emotion is fear, right?

And fear, even though we might not know it, fear of death, which is kind of why people want to achieve, I think, right? Let me make a name for myself, blah, blah, blah. Why people want to have children, their children will live on. Why they have insurance, why they try to succeed and have a big house and this and that and the other thing, right? That's all sort of coming out of a mindset of fear.

Whereas this giant self, in my opinion, the bigger self that is connected to the thing, its predominant emotion is love, if you ask me. Now the ego, another thing the ego believes is that I am separate from you, right? We are all separate individuals, right? I could hurt you and it won't hurt me. That's what the ego thinks, right?

That's why so much of the evil that happens in the world comes out of that, right? We can torture these sons of bitches and it won't happen to us, right? Nothing bad will happen to us. But the self believes exactly the opposite. Once you get into that deep level, right, that we are not separate from 1 another, that you and I are bound together in some kind of way along with all of humanity and all of the animal life and all of the planet, all of the oceans and all of that.

And so the predominant emotion in that self is the emotion of love. So the ego, this is my belief anyway, the ego being centered in fear is gonna try to hang on to what it's got, right? If the ego thinks that it's living our life, it's calling the shots, it's gonna hang on to that out of fear. And that's why I think it's so strong, resistance is so strong. The closer you get to moving into that self, into that greater space, Like if you're sitting down and trying to write a novel and you get into a kind of a flow of it, that's what the ego is really afraid of because it's such a kind of empowering and intoxicating experience, the ego says to itself, shit, if this guy stays over here very long, he's never gonna go back to where I pull the call of shots.

So I think that's why it makes itself it puts it such a an intense shot at you to stop you from getting there.

Speaker 1: So this greater self. What is if. What do you think that is? If the greater self is all about love, and the greater self is what recognizes the connection between all of us, what is the greater self?

Speaker 0: Okay, it's a great question. I know that you're a guy that's into psychedelics to some extent, right? I mean when you now my only experience with psychedelics is back in the 60s, you know So I haven't done any of the stuff that people are doing now

Speaker 1: on some

Speaker 0: no, thank you I'm too old for that. You're not too old. But 1 of the things that

Speaker 1: you know distance that's resistance

Speaker 0: psychedelic Maybe so But 1 of the

Speaker 1: things that you know... You have resistance.

Speaker 0: That's resistance to psychedelics. Maybe so. But 1 of the things that you know from LSD or from mescaline or anything like that, right, is you suddenly see a whole other world that was not there before, right? Even though you're looking at that wall, all of a sudden that wall becomes so beautiful, right, that you can't even say anything except, wow, right? So that, I believe, I was thinking in those moments, this must be the way Jesus sees the world, or the Dalai Lama sees the world, or God sees the world.

And when I come back to my regular self, and I see this kind of normal shrunk down world, that's not the real world, right? There's another world that's greater. So that's sort of my feeling about it, Joe, that when the self, when you enter that, there is a greater world. We're living in that greater world right now. We just can't see it, you know?

We just see what's in front of us. And I think another aspect of it to me, you would know a lot more about this than I do, being more in the present of this, is that if you're living in that kind of psychedelic world, you really can't drive a car, you really can't operate heavy equipment, you really can't handle the stuff you have to handle, you can't do your taxes, right? So in order to kind of live, you do have to sort of shrink that world down, right? To push all the beauty aside and all the amazing shit aside. But that doesn't stop the fact that that stuff is there.

I always wonder what was it like before we were born and what's it gonna be like after we die? Are we gonna live in that world? Are we going to enter that world again? And what is that? What will that be like?

Speaker 1: Do you think that this narrowed down world that you're talking about when the psychedelics wear off, Do you think that's an artifact of the cold, hard reality of being an animal, living amongst predators and other violent human beings on Earth, where in order to survive, in order to raise your children and protect your village and provide food to each other you kind of have to have this very simplistic just just as you said narrowed down just this different what you can't just wax euphorically about the concept of the universe and life and love.

Speaker 0: I do, I do believe that, yes. And I think that's why, again, like what I was saying about the ego being dominated by the emotion of fear. And also, our parents and our society, our school, everything, for our own good, as we're kids growing up, tells us all that. It kind of indoctrinates us into that world. For our own good, it wants to protect us.

On your way walking to school, nobody's gonna beat you up, blah, blah,

Speaker 1: blah.

Speaker 0: So yeah, I do think that's the case. It's kind of a strange world, isn't it, that God created for us? I mean, on the 1 hand, there's this beautiful other-dimensional reality out there, but then there's this hardcore world of predators you know in order to you know like what did you just have on Instagram today an alligator taking off the leg off a deer I mean that's that You don't even know if what was there, but it's there. We just saw it a few minutes ago. I had it

Speaker 1: on Instagram?

Speaker 0: Yeah, I think so. Diana had it shown it to me. No, no, no,

Speaker 1: no, no. Yeah, there was a crocodile that took a pig and snapped it in half.

Speaker 0: Oh, is that what it was?

Speaker 1: Like that.

Speaker 0: Yeah, I didn't see it.

Speaker 1: It's a terrifying video.

Speaker 0: But, that's the world, right, that God gave us, right?

Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah, predators and prey

Speaker 0: and monsters. Yeah, yeah. You

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Author Steven Pressfield on Ego Causing Procrastination; Being a Force of Nature