Joe Rogan on Chris Cornell, Suicide, Depression, and Exercise

Hello freak bitches. We were just talking about Chris Cornell. We found out last night at the comedy store that he died and then this morning found out that he hung himself. Just... fuck. It's... it's hard to even comprehend. How do you comprehend that? I'm living in a parallel universe. It doesn't make any sense. Like, how could someone like... you know, it's easy on the outside looking in. A guy like that, but you're like, that guy was one of the best ever. Like, how does a guy like that even want to kill himself? How does the lead singer of Soundgarden... To me, it just really kind of reveals the complexities of human life. Exactly what you're saying. To have a guy that is at the pinnacle of his skill, the pinnacle of fame, the pinnacle of money, and for him to say, you know what? Not going to do it anymore. Yeah, I don't know what was going on in his head, obviously. Who knows? If he was on medication, if he had some sort of an issue, a health issue, who knows? I mean, I would never speculate, but I just... I don't understand. I mean, again, I don't know his life, but I couldn't even comprehend it. I can't even imagine it. Well, that's one of the really hard things when you start talking about suicide for people that... for someone like me. And I haven't had suicidal thoughts, right? So when you go from that to somebody that not only has the thoughts, but then goes ahead and executes it, it's very hard to comprehend. Yeah, I've met people that have done it before. I've had a few friends that have done it. I just have never understood it. I don't get it, but I don't know them. You know? I mean, everybody's got their own unique mindset. And it's just... You know what's really crazy, man? I read the statistic the other day about suicide. That people in poor neighborhoods are far less likely to kill themselves. People that are in the struggle. Yeah, well, I actually believe that, because they're fighting for something. Yeah. And someone that's already got everything, and then they end up with no drive, with no goal, and nothing left to achieve. And so then all of a sudden they're just staring at the mirror without anywhere else to go. You know, I'm not talking about Chris Cornell in particular, but for some people I know one of the things that happens is that when they become very successful and they're still not happy, then they get hopeless. They just feel like, well, I have everything, and yet I'm fucking miserable. You know, I have a nice big house, I drive this fancy car, and I'm still miserable. Like, there's no hope. Like, this life is meaningless. I don't even know what to say to that. To be honest with you, when you hear that, you just don't even know what to say to that. You know one thing that why I don't understand it, I like struggle. I like it. I think it's important. Yeah, no, there's no doubt about that. There's no doubt about having something that you're striving for, some goal. And like you just said, when you're on all those goals have been achieved, and now you're sitting there at the top of the mountain, and now you don't feel happy, what do you do? Just pick up a fucking hobby, man. Find something you suck at and get better at it. I mean, that seems so simplistic. But you know, I just, you and I, we share this very important part of our lives, which is intense exercise. Indeed. And I think that, you know, I go to your Instagram almost every day to look at your watch. It's hilarious. If you go to Jaco's Instagram, it's a fucking Timex watch advertisement. So I just had an Iron Man watch with 430 in the morning, the occasional 330. This motherfucker's up at 330. And you know, and you working out, like, like that's his fucking hairy gorilla arm and a Timex Iron Man triathlon watch. But that's what's up, man. That's what's up. I mean, just fucking doing it, getting out there and struggling. And then once you do do that, here's the thing, like, you know, like a friend of mine said that, like, I was, I was saying something about you coming on the podcast. And he goes, can that do take another picture of his fucking watch? I go, I hope he takes a picture of his watch every day until he dies. I go, it's important. It's important. It's sort of in a lot of ways. It's symbolic of what we're talking about. Like, no, it's not fun to look at your watch every day. But you're fucking doing it every day. Like, that's what's important. Yeah. And I actually early on, I had someone, you know, say something along the lines of on social media, on Instagram or on Twitter, you know, are you just going to post another picture you're watching? I was like, unfollow me. Just don't follow me. It's no big deal. I'm not making you do it. And and now it is kind of turned into something where I'm doing it every day, regardless of anything else in the world. Fuck them. I like looking at your watch. I want to know when I get up at seven and I think I'm getting up early, you've been up for hours and you're already done working out. I like it. I think it's, you know, it's but it is in a lot of ways. It is. It's symbolic of what we're talking about. It's the struggle. Yeah. And you know, you know, who doesn't complain about it? And I always make this point, too, there's like a single mom somewhere in the valley here that's working three jobs that's getting up at 330 in the morning. So she can go work as a waitress somewhere before she's got her other day job that she's got to go through so she can feed her kids. Yeah, I get up almost as a luxury at this point. I mean, I'm a retired guy from the from the military. So I can kind of get up whenever I want. I get up early as a luxury. Sort of, but you also get up because that's who you are. Yeah. And I get up because it is it is a way to maintain discipline in life for sure to get that stone out and sharpen that blade every morning. It's the grind that sharpens the axe. Indeed. There's no other way. There's no other way. And I don't want to say that this would have saved Chris Cornell or anybody else that did it. I'm not saying that. But I mean, for some people out there that aren't feeling good, man, if you just fucking struggled more, you get over that struggle, you feel better. It sounds so simplistic, but I swear by it. I felt shitty myself and then forced myself to work out. And after I get out of there, I'm like, whoa, 100% fucking guarantee. And you know, actually, I had I had, you know, I had Tim Ferriss come on my podcast. And when he came on, he was like, hey, I don't know if I'm the right kind of guest for your podcast because, you know, my podcast is like about war and death and killing and all that stuff. And so, you know, Tim's are about being better and stuff like that. So it's easy to raise your voice. Yeah, I mean, that's right. Tim's Tim's podcast is about improving yourself. And mine is about war and genocide and horrible things. And he said to me, you know, hey, I don't know if if I come on the podcast, but, you know, maybe I'm not the right type of guest or whatever. And I and I wrote back to him and I said, hey, man, you know, you've been through some dark stuff in your life because he wrote a blog post years ago about him being suicidal and him contemplating and planning commit suicide. Commit suicide. This is Tim Ferriss. Did he really? Yeah, he went through full motions. You know, typical Tim Ferriss methodology. What did he do? He went to the library and got out a bunch of books on killing yourself and then did the research on how he was going to do it and planned it all. And then he was going he was like just done with college. And so I mean, what is that? What is he, 35 or something? So maybe it's 20s 15 years ago. Jesus Christ. And he was under all this pressure. You know, he was an Ivy League guy and he was trying to finish school. But then it wasn't working out and it was just problematic. And so he started saying to himself, OK, well, how am I getting out of this? Well, there's one way to get out of it. And luckily, he didn't do it. But when he came on, you know, that's what we talked about. And what he said, you know, as he was making recommendations from again, from a guy who's been there was like, hey, if if you're trapped in your in your mind and you're starting to feel that way, go do something physical. Get in your body, get out of your mind. The same thing you're saying when you're feeling bad, when you're feeling down, go out and swing a kettlebell around and you will feel better. Yeah, this is just too much for some people, especially they're just experiencing way too much pressure and that that pressure. A lot of times it's just an imbalance in perspective. And some of it's like I was talking to this mom once her daughter does gymnastics with my daughter. And we were talking about kids killing themselves where she used to live. She used to live in one of the really wealthy tech areas outside of San Francisco and a bunch of kids that went to school with her daughter that were like 15, 16 were jumping off bridges and shit. Like it was a like an epidemic and they were trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. And they're literally calling it affluenza, that these affluent kids and their families are literally worth a billion dollars. I mean everybody's super rich and they're having this insane pressure like before high school and in high school to be in Ivy League schools and to get 4.0s and they're fucking, they're not having any fun and they're not experiencing life and they don't have any hope and their parents are all on fucking pills and they're just killing themselves. Yeah, and as you said, it really is a piece of perspective because if you think about, think about some, when you watch one of your buddies go down the downward spiral, maybe it's not the suicide, but whether it's drug addiction. A lot of times some female, the girlfriend, the ex-wife will just take them on the downward spiral and they can't get out of it. And if they were to step back, if it was you and your buddy watching one of your other friends go down the spiral, they go, oh my god, I can't believe he's doing that, that's crazy. But when you're in that spiral, people get caught in that and they can't get the perspective of what it looks like from the outside.