What's Dangerous About the Team Mentality

I found when I changed my diet so radically that my comfort foods changed and my habits changed and what I liked changed. You know a lot of that is because of gut bacteria. Oh, I know that. Oh yeah, microbiome. Fascinating. Really fascinating stuff. And feeding back to your brain, you know. That was the thing that was so strange. Including your emotions. Yes, very much so. But when I became plant-based, vegan, for health reasons. And I wrote in my book, I wrote a lot of stuff about I am an unethical vegan. I'm not doing this for any sort of animal, any sort of animal, lack of animal cruelty, nothing. Strictly health. That's why I'm doing the plants. End of story. And this has happened to a lot of friends of mine who changed that. Either whatever it takes, and people are guessing like three months, four months of no animal products, those little critters eating shit in your guts die that like the meat stuff and they're not giving that feedback loop. And I just found a real emotional change where all of a sudden I went, I don't want to be part of that, of the suffering. Yeah. It was really strange how that changed. And it really felt to me, I so want to, you know, hardcore atheist as you know, and I don't believe in a mind-body separation at all. And yet, I seem to believe that when I was 350 pounds, that none of that affected my emotion. And then I lost all this weight and found there were so many changes in me that seemed to be intellectual and emotional. And actually, I had a lot of evidence where physical. Well, there's a lot of people. And they really fucked me up on the mind-body separation. It should fuck you up because a lot of people make these assumptions that, you know, you are not your body. And a lot of very intelligent people, they issue working out and they don't want to exercise and they find it. Like it's a vanity thing, it seems egotistical, they don't like it. And so they put it in this category of kind of knucklehead dumb things to do. But your body and your mind are all in the same house. It's all the same thing. Yeah. If your house is filled with shit, it doesn't help the way you think. And it was so amazing how, I mean, I completely believed that. And yet, I wasn't living that. I was like thinking that I was living this, you know, 2,000 year old idea of little homunculus who's kind of living inside me, who's this pure pen, and then the body is just the vehicle that's driving around it. Well, if I could help you with that, I think knowing you as long as I've known you, you're an intense thinker and your mind is something you, I mean, you cherish your thoughts and you embrace them. And you're a very intelligent guy. And I think you just probably rejected the idea that there was anything outside of the mind that had any influence on you. Yeah, we also talked about this. I was also, you know, I was the biggest guy to ever go through my school. So my small high school in Western Massachusetts, you know, so I was 6'7", and they wanted me at center of the basketball team. They wanted all this stuff. And those kinds of people in that kind of culture, you know, I wanted to listen to music. I wanted to read. And I set up this, you guys who are physical, I don't like you. I'm on a different team. And my dislike of competitions and teams became a team thing. That's the thing you always get stuck in. The dislike of teams becomes your team. And I'm trying so hard now to think I have two choices, one or seven billion, and there's no teams between that. I can either be myself or I can be one of all humanity. Or I won't even say seven billion. Let's say 108 billion, the number of people who have lived in history. You know, those are the people I can be. It's why I'm trying to not, and this is impossible to do, by the way. I'm talking about how I'm, I'm explaining to you how I'm driving myself crazy. I'm not giving you real information. I'm trying to not think ever of us and them. But I'm trying to say those of us who voted for Trump, those of us who believe this. So it's always us, because man, I am so fucking sick of teams. And I even look back and go, you know, I love the Velvet Underground. I hated the fucking Eagles. And that was a fucking team. And that was manipulated and forced upon me. You know what I mean? I wanted to be the kind of guy that went from, you know, Zappa to the Velvet Underground to Bob Dylan. That was all okay. And the Eagles and the Doobie Brothers, they were not what I listened to. I'm just trying to let that go. Yeah. You wanted to be one of the cool kids. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And whenever you want that, you've got to say, well, you're one of the cool kids. That's the 108 billion who've lived on this planet. Yeah. That's a great way to look at things. And I think, I wish people taught that in school, the dangers of being involved in teams. Because we get involved in teams in terms of like, you know, you're playing basketball or whatever. But teams in terms of like, what I believe versus what you believe. And I think we're experiencing that politically right now with the most polarizing time in my lifetime that I've ever experienced. And worldwide. Yes. Worldwide. I mean, it is not an American thing. And it's just insane. And I also know, that's why I said, you know, I try to go with the Velvet Underground and the Eagles because that's where I can really see where I'm wrong. Yeah. You know, that I'm wrong. I'm a guy victim of love. That's a great goddamn song, man.