Member Skype #25 Warmup – Jan Irvin of Gnostic Media

3 thoughts on “Member Skype #25 Warmup – Jan Irvin of Gnostic Media”

• Drinking after the skype call with you guys. Sometimes I think about turning on video because I want you guys to see how happy I am during these calls. So many things to think about!

  Where I live there has been a heat advisory for two days. The weather acted crazy almost every time I talked to JLB. During the call I perceived a sync when JLB mentioned Home Alone 2. I’ll explain, I was late joining the skype call because of a problematic cord on my yeti mic, it entirely stopped working while setting up for the call. I had to run and buy a new cord at Best Buy, and one of the thoughts that ran through my head during that purchase was of Home Alone 2. When I was a kid I had a “talkboy” like Kevin did in Home Alone 2. A small voice recorder, back before video was cheap and easy to record. I used to record all sorts of crap on that thing, different personalities and stuff like that. But I quit doing that when I was a kid. When I originally bought my Yeti mic I had this sync that centered around my identity and who we pretend/believe we truly are. A part of that sync was recognizing that the yeti mic sort of resonated with the talkboy that I had when I was a kid.

  I never listen to the skype calls that I took part in. JLB touched on a topic I have thought about a few times before. The fact that practically no one goes back into the past to listen to podcasts that were recorded before their time. I have heard JLB say so often that he is doing posting this or that for someone in the future that is going to come around and dig up all this stuff, but I don’t think that really happens. I know it sort of happens because I have gone through peoples back catalogs before. Nevertheless, a part of me knows that it never happens. JLB sort of echoed that sentiment during the call 🙂

  What about intuition versus evidence based knowing. Does everyone here trust their mind more than their intuition? Trust evidence more than intuition? If we are strictly evidence based then don’t we have to completely ignore our intuition if it doesn’t match up with our minds? Our minds have to cling to something, even if its bullshit. Stories are comforting on a fundamental level. The unknown is unsettling on a fundamental level. Would you rather “know” something that is bullshit, or not know anything? I thought of that when you guys mentioned how angry Jan can get. What would it be like if your mind was convinced of a certain belief, but your intuition kept nagging at you that you were wrong? As if your subconscious knew you were wrong, it noticed the goofs, but your mind kept making plausible explanations for them. I sort of think that’s why so many normies are angry. They know, deep down, that the stories they believe are bullshit, and it causes a sort of “cognitive dissonance” that is upsetting to them. And when someone like JLB comes around and points out the termites in their foundation, it is upsetting to them. They cant see the conflict that is happening within themselves, and so they respond in ways that are baffling. People would rather live in a roach infested moldy, syringe filled crack house than live in the woods alone. Do you know what I mean? Most people would rather eat shit with another person than eat clean alone.

  I think Rogan is ironic or tragic or pathetic in some sense. His character, to me, has a “question everything” up front style, but then he immediately turns around and believes 100% in a gnarly alternative story. A gnarly story that is entertaining helps a person lose themselves for a second, but it all comes back to stories, and that is all Rogan is. But not JLB! JLB is become death, the destroyer of worlds! JLB can politely shake hands with a shared fictional universe, and then pop it like a balloon. Scary stuff.

  I sort of know on some level that I am completely alone. But when I am in one of the skype calls I somehow forget that fact for a moment. I know its just a trick of the mind, but its still nice. I think that is what stories play upon. When we involve and immerse ourselves in stories we temporarily forget that we are utterly alone. Or maybe a better way to say it, we never find solid land. We are always adrift. Have you found solid land before? Really? I thought of this stuff recently when JLB clipped in a part from that movie, where the guy said he thought his vehicle should be an extension of his personality. He said ocean themed stuff. I can’t remember if I told the story before, but one time years ago I took a whole bunch of mushrooms and lost my mind, and while I was desperately reaching out for something, anything to hold onto, I grabbed onto my copy of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. In the introduction I read Cabin’d Ships at Sea. I’ll never forget that, its burned into my memory. Like I was shot in the forehead with a diamond bullet.

  “In cabin’d ships, at sea,
  The boundless blue on every side expanding,
  With whistling winds and music of the waves—the large imperious waves—In such,
  Or some lone bark, buoy’d on the dense marine,
  Where, joyous, full of faith, spreading white sails, 5
  She cleaves the ether, mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under many a star at night,
  By sailors young and old, haply will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read,
  In full rapport at last.

  2

  Here are our thoughts—voyagers’ thoughts,
  Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said; 10
  The sky o’erarches here—we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,
  We feel the long pulsation—ebb and flow of endless motion;
  The tones of unseen mystery—the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world—the liquid-flowing syllables,
  The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,
  The boundless vista, and the horizon far and dim, are all here, 15
  And this is Ocean’s poem.

  3

  Then falter not, O book! fulfil your destiny!
  You, not a reminiscence of the land alone,
  You too, as a lone bark, cleaving the ether—purpos’d I know
  not whither—yet ever full of faith, 20
  Consort to every ship that sails—sail you!
  Bear forth to them, folded, my love—(Dear mariners! for you I fold it here, in every leaf;)
  Speed on, my Book! spread your white sails, my little bark, athwart the imperious waves!
  Chant on—sail on—bear o’er the boundless blue, from me, to every shore,
  This song for mariners and all their ships.

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  • purpos’d?

    Can a dog determine his own purpose? No. There is no purpose without a higher intelligence.

    Folks talk so much about whether or not they believe in God, or maybe aliens, but I think it is better to talk about whether they can imagine forms of higher intelligence. Do you believe your life has a purpose? I sort of don’t understand how an individual can think their life has a purpose if they cannot imagine anything greater/more important than themselves.

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  • Nate says: ” What about intuition versus evidence based knowing.”

    I asked that same question Nate, the answer that was given to me is this: Your intuition is the first thing that alerts you to a thing/story and this is why you question something. Critical thinking/Trivium helps you make an informed decision about the thing/story.

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