Joe Rogan & Justin Wren on Having a Sense of Community

Hello freak bitches. And before I forget, the reason I wanted to show that video was I got you something. This is Leome's wife. So you have the you have the the knife from Leome. His wife made you this right here. And so because from our second JRE episode I believe, we funded a water well there in Bobofy. And so she's really talented. I mean it might not look like too much here but it's bark cloth. So it's a tree bark cloth and when they take the bark off the trees fine. But that used to be what they would make their clothing out of. Their clothing, they would make other materials out of them. They can make these little kind of carrying cases or backpacks kind of out of it. Do they treat it with something? How do they get it so soft? They pound it down. And I haven't seen the whole process but I've seen the bark and where they pull it off and they kind of beat it down and beat it down until it's this like cloth. I know that this right here when I've been doing research they have those pygmy, Babuti pygmy paintings that are made out of bark cloth at Lake Art National Museum of History in New York. They have a few of these there and so it's kind of cool to see. I don't know. I just was excited to bring it back to you. That's awesome man. I'm afraid of the painting. It's Mama Leo May and she's painting it for you. That's awesome man. Thank you. And thank her please. I will. That's so cool. I will. They just have when I go back sometimes they're like hey. Oh that's her making it there? Thank your friends. Yeah so that one's not the same. One I actually didn't think or I didn't get a picture of it whenever she was painting this one. But I got a picture of her doing some other ones. That's Mama Soisee and she's pretty great at it as well. And so they just. Yeah I mean that's a little bowl, little leaves. This paint that you actually have there was they had some leftover black paint but sometimes on that other photo they just use like cassava or berries and they beat it up. Pound it down and make this paint out of it but it kind of fades over time. So this one's one where yeah that's that's it right there where they just pound up the stuff and it's part of their culture. It's what they love to do. They kind of how you saw Leo May passing down you know the farming and that video was actually San Ghi over here from that handprint that you got. It's his grandson and this is what the women passed down to their girls is how to make the spark cloth and how to how to paint. So it's pretty neat their culture like they just do everything together. They rally around each other. They're happy together. They sing. They dance but they also suffer together. If one person in the community is lost even for instance might sound weird in our culture but let's say a mother passes away who's like she's breastfeeding right and she passes away but the baby survives. Some other woman in the village will take the baby up and start taking care of that little one. There is an adoption in the pygmy culture like you know one needs to be adopted because the community rallies around them. When someone's lost they all mourn the death together but then they rally around that family and see how they can all help and put in. So it's pretty cool. I love it. I've learned a lot from them. Well that's how people used to be man. That's the original sort of tribal life of human beings. They would all raise each other. Christopher Ryan had this whole take on it in Sex at Dawn. And McKenna had a take on it as well where they were talking about these ancient cultures. Because of these small groups of people they were much closer. They knew everyone in the community was intensely important. And there's a lot of people that think that some of the problems that we deal with today in society are because of this disassociation that we have with our neighbors and we don't have a real sense of community. I mean I know like two or three of my neighbors and I see them once a year. I say hi, wave, how's everything man, everything cool. All right good seeing you. But that's it. There's no real community. There's no interaction. There's certainly no contribution as far as like working together to gather food or water or anything like that. And I would imagine that these people were just intensely close. Yeah absolutely. That must have been a big part of the attraction to you, to them, like when they took you in and you were living with them. Yeah absolutely. I mean I think the average Mobutipigmi village is only 85 to 150 on our 10 villages that we help and have the 3000 acres of land. It's over 300 for each village. Do you know about Dunbar's number? Dunbar's number is a number that I mean it varies but the number is somewhere around 150 for most people. There's a number of people that you can keep close relationships with. That you really only have room for 150 people in your head. You essentially have hard drive space. Wow. Yeah and that seems to be related to ancient tribal communities that people had that we developed that way. We developed these small groups of 50 to 150 plus people. Yeah. And when you get larger than that things get weird. Yeah well no that's so true. Like I whenever I went through the six year battle with Oxi and just narcotics or pain pills like I don't know I would always be able to isolate. Super easy right because when you're in your home you're completely alone. And so it's different when you're in a village and with the pygmies you saw some of those huts how small they are. Yeah. You know seriously in several of them whenever I'm sleeping I have to sleep in the center and I have to have my feet out the door because it's so small. But it's the only go in there when you're going to sleep or if you're not feeling good and you need some rest or the sun's right over your head and you're hot. But besides that you're cooking your kitchens outside. That's where the people is. That's where you do life is outside of your home around the campfire. We call it campfire university because that's where we've been taken to school from the from the pygmies. That's where they teach us the most about life is around the campfire learning their culture learning about their kids learning about the hunts learning about how they make this make that. And it's where you get to do life together. And so it's something really really cool. Honestly I told them they want to know a little bit about my life and I told them that I went through drug addiction for six years and you know they don't really struggle with that at all. And then I told him I got really depressed and I told him I really sad. I told him that I got so sad that I decided one time to take as many pills as I could and drink. There's like half a bottle of Everclear or more and snored a bunch of coke and just wanted to end it all. So I mean I told him that I was suicidal and I can't I won't ever forget how they how they looked at me almost dumbfounded in a way of like and then one of the questions the chief asked me said well wouldn't hurting you yourself wouldn't hurting yourself only hurt you. And so the whole concept of I guess when I'm getting to is they had never heard of anyone killing themselves like maybe they had heard stories or something like that but they have never known anybody that actually killed themselves or heard of it. It's not something that their community their culture the pygmies kind of untouched out in the forest or even not up in the cities like that's just something that they don't struggle with their they're struggling so much day in and day out with struggles that are so deep. And they see their family and they do life together that I think they just have so much more of what we were just talking about so much more of a support system people that will rally around them when you lose a family member everyone rallies around you like whenever I go to the funerals it's the it's the worst thing in the world the sounds like people don't try to compose themselves. They don't try to dress the body real nice and have flowers all around and now losing loss of life is always tough always terrible but there's something we do here in our culture where we make it try to make it as as nice or smooth or almost pretty as possible. You know the person's dress really nice and has the flowers and you compose yourself to come there you gather yourself you prepare the eulogy there's a there's a program when you step in there people get handed something and you know what's going to happen there so you kind of can all compose man there it's just so ugly it's so raw it's so real and it's so like in your face and it just rips your heart open to where people are morning I saw J. Whenever Bobbo I was the one me and Ben were the ones that told J. LaWah he's the chief about his grandson passing away we were there when it happened he wasn't around he was out collecting or gathering and we met on the same path together and he saw it in our face that he knew Bobbo was sick but now he knew that he was gone and I remember J. LaWah just falling on his back into this off the side of the footpath into like this pile of brush like a like a like probably two three foot tall where he like sunk into it and he was just squirming on his back you know he's like in his sixties and he's watched so many of his grandchildren like pass just because they don't have clean water and seeing them squirming almost wanting to like crawl out of his skin you know and so but I don't know I don't want to be like this. I'm not going to be a bummer I'm just just express yourself it's it's but then how the whole community all hundred and fifty two hundred three hundred people that were there all mourned together like we shared it like I cried in a way that was like you know like like wiping my tears with everybody because everyone everyone was mourning everyone was crying it wasn't just a few people wasn't just his mom and his dad his mom macho. It wasn't just J. LaWah it was the whole village cried together and so I don't know but for me that that makes it seem like I don't know if this I don't want to make too many connections between our culture because they're completely different or a lot different but I think here a huge cause of divorce is the loss of a child. But there it almost unites the parents so much so whenever they lose a little one and I don't I don't mean to make this comparison but it's like I think it's because when they mourn they truly go to the depths of the darkest place and they're able to truly almost get it out if that makes sense where when you're at the funeral you let yourself go you just let go and end and it's okay. However ugly or however you handle it whatever emotions come you just ride that wave if that makes sense. Do you think that because their life is so difficult that life itself becomes more precious and the loss becomes more powerful or more intense more more raw? Wow. Yeah I needed you to to sum that up for sure. Yes I do I think whenever you struggle so much you're you become so much more appreciative and grateful of life of every breath you take. Well there's got to be connected to their lack of understanding of suicide because our you know our idea of what a difficult life is it's difficult but there's food and shelter and you know and really the easiest place to live in the world all those things connected. Whereas with them just staying alive is such a struggle and getting water which is so easy for us. Anybody can walk in any bathroom and any gas stop turn the water on water comes out. I mean every way you get water is not hard to get in America even with the droughts it's easy to get water we water fucking golf courses with millions of gallons of water every day. Our understanding of what a struggle is is so different. And I think whenever we whenever we struggle here we can go hide away and we don't have to deal with it right to have conversations about it. We can we can almost escape it we can escape it with our with our toys with our technology you know we can we can just bury our face in our phone or a computer or sit and watch a movie and like whenever those uncomfortable feelings come up we can try to ignore them. Or suppress them if that makes sense. And there they're so it's almost man this is gonna be a weird strange curveball or left turn but it's almost like I've started floating recently and whenever I go in there into the tank it's like you have to you're left alone to your thoughts right. You don't have that technology you don't have this and so you can deal with stuff and you can try to focus and let go and for me it's been really beneficial and so I don't I know that sounds weird for me to make that connection but but whenever you're just left alone with your own thoughts you can go deep. Yeah and I feel like our culture here well okay if we compare and I love our cultures I'm not saying there's so much wrong with it but uh but I feel like they're in relationships you go an inch or two wide and you go a mile deep in the Congo you get to know people and then here a lot of times you go a mile wide but you go only you only scratch the surface you don't go beneath the top soil that much. So you do sometimes with with few people there's only few people we trust with that you know but it's almost like they're everyone's so open to to go in deep with one another and because of that you get to know each other better you get to truly hurt when they hurt you get to laugh when they laugh you get to cry when they cry. And I mean I don't I don't have to keep going on about it but no please it's listen don't apologize there's a real there's a real argument for the way that we live right now is not a way that we're designed for meaning that not that it can't be sustainable or manageable and you can't figure out a way to live a harmonious life in the modern context but that a lot of people think that we're just we would naturally fit right in in a tribal environment that it would feel natural. And a lot of people experience that when they go camping for long stretches of time and they're out in the woods together you know for whatever reason they just decide to find a place and live off the land I mean that's why I think a lot of those shows like those subsistence living shows like those homesteading. Yeah yeah that's very good it's a very attractive to people because I think there's a longing in our DNA even where it just there's a pull there's a pull to that man I would love to just grow kale and raise chickens and live off the farm. So a lot of people that feel like really really attracted to that and I think it's something deep in our being that we're longing for this connection to the real world. We've done an amazing thing creating cities it's it's dependence it's almost beyond our comprehension because we're a part of it. You know we're a part of it it's normal you get on the subway get your car you drive through the city seems normal but it's so far removed from every single aspect of our history. I mean this is so new it's so recent I think these people are just more in tune it's horrible that they have to deal with these situations like the lack of water and toilets and the diseases and all the other struggle. But man there's a part of what they're doing and the way they're living that just seems like they're more in tune in a natural way. Yeah right. You would think that they would be more depressed right. And but like you heard you heard Leo Mays laugh in that when they asked him about the bananas and he just got tickled you know he couldn't couldn't hold himself from just laughing saying I can't count that much. Someone from Beverly Hills and say hey this is what we got for you. You can grow bananas now like fuck you. How do I get out of here first class only you know. Right. Where's my iPhone. Yeah.