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Starve the Ego, Feed the Soul with Justin Boreta

Hello, everyone. And good morning, your friend. Your host. Your guide. Chase drivers here. Welcome to episode of Chase Travis Live Show on Creative Live. You'll know this show. This is where I sit down with amazing humans, and I do everything I can to unpack their brain with the goal of helping you live your dreams and career and hobby and in life before I welcome our esteemed guest today, which is I know you're here for him and not me, which is how it should be. But I do wanna welcome you and give you just a little bit of housekeeping. Um, regardless of where you're tuning in from, if you're watching at Facebook, live YouTube, live instagram live or any of the other platforms we broadcast to I do get to see all your comments and questions on, and that means you get to help shape the conversation with our guest today. Um, I do everything I can to, um, surface those questions. They come in quite quickly, so I try and grab the ones that are the most popular and share them with our guest ...

or the most interesting. So points for points for that and I also like to remind you that the best viewing experiences that creativelive dot com slash tv because I see those questions and comments first, I do get all the others. But if you are watching on any of those other platforms, you wanna go to creativelive dot com slash tv, that would be awesome for you and for me. Um, but now let's get into our our show today. Justin Beretta is a member of the electronic music group The Glitch Mob, which I just got back from the gym that heavy squats today, and the glitch mob came on. It was like the heavens opened up on He's been touring for more than a decade. I had the good fortune of meeting Justin. We just, uh, recalled nine years ago. But since their establishment as a band in and their debut album, Drink to See which I readily and uh, excitedly consumed in 2000 and 10, the Elektronik live acts performed around the world festivals. I've seen that Coachella Burning Man. Lollapalooza reading leads Bonnaroo Uh, Justin Lynch Mob also released three albums together in Total and a bunch of remixes for Man's like daft punk, the Prodigy, Odessa, Metallica, TV on the radio and many more. Justin has also collaborated with spiritually teacher Raam Das, who I'm a huge fan of as well as Alan Watts on a number of guided meditations. He's not spoken. Advocate on meditation, mindfulness and psychedelics for their role in mental health. My guess is the one and only Mr Justin Beretta in the House. I'm Justin. Thank you. Cheers. Wow, That's your bio, not mine. It sounds so impressive when you just read it. What a what a career arc, man. Congratulations. Thank you. It's always such a strange thing to hear that right back. And I'm like, Wow, Way did all that. Time is a funny thing. It's a lot of a lot of things happened in the decade. Um, I think it was shocking to me just 120 seconds ago when we jumped on our connection here, like, Wow, how long has it been? It was like you said, I think it was 2011, which is that freaked me out. So that's that's nine years for those counting, Um, in the woods and Tahoe, we got to spend some time ago. I think I think it was Tim Ferriss that introduced us. Beautiful mutual friend of ours on Clearly, you've been up to a lot since then. Andi, I want to started to start, which is There was a time before you were a professional musician where you were trying to figure out what it is you wanted to do with your one precious life, and not that you haven't figured out. But so many of our listeners are in a position right now where they've either followed a path that has led them astray or done the things that everybody else in the world wants them to do. And it's time that they start to focus on their own, Um, their own one precious life. And I'm trying to figure out How did you figure out yours? That's funny. As right as you were saying that I was thinking, I think I'm I'm still figuring it out. And every day I feel more and more like a student. I think e I love the idea of the Dunning Kruger effect where actually the very beginning of music. When I first started producing and glitch Mob was making albums, I think that I had it more figured out at that point in time, there's there's a point where I was like Okay, yeah, music's easy. I got this. But the more that I learned, the more that I realized that I didn't know. And now learning to me is that it's an integral part of the process of learning. I'm actually right now. I'm taking music composition lessons. I I'm not classically trained by any stretch of the imagination. Um, in fact, I until recently I only knew anecdotal music theory and just sort of hunt and peck and figure stuff out and basically smashed the piano like a like an ape and good sounds would come out. But there's something in actually the naivete of just going by vibe or what? Sounds good. So for me, um, in a way, I'm actually glad that I didn't know the specific rules of music theory because now that I'm going back and learning it and combining it with my own internal compass, um, it's really it's really expanding from there. So I guess that's like on a high level. That's how everything got going. Did you? Well, I think I wanna pull on that string for a second Did. Do you think that's a better way of learning? Because obviously there is the classical train. You start with the rules, and then you learn enough that you know how to break the rules and when, Um, that tends to have a level of rigor and supervision, and I just I guess I'll throw it under all rules versus this field because it seems to me that so much of the thing that separates the world's top anything creators, musicians, entrepreneurs, is their intuition in their gut. And I'm curious what your opinion is. Is there a better path of, you know, learning to listen to your gut and then learning the rules? Because once you learn the rules, it's so hard to go back and listen to your gut, or is the other way around more valuable? You think such an interesting question and I think about this a lot. And umm what I've really come back to is everyone learns so differently people self educated in so many different ways, where I have friends that are our producers. Now they're bands that travel around and maybe they like me. They have. They just so happen to have learned themselves. There's other people that went to music school and it really worked for them. But I think the thing that really distinguishes is just the mastery. It's the love of coming back day in and day out. And for me, I took one music theory class in school and I was like, I just I couldn't handle it. It didn't even make sense to me. I didn't like it. I was like, I'm just gonna go back to my computer and make weird sounds. But for some people, that really works. But, um at the point at which what really drove me to learn And we know what ended up being more of a focus on say, like sound design, because an electronic music you can make music and not actually know how to play any instruments. So it's, you know, glitch Mob does have a lot of you know, so music theory, so to speak, like there are chords in there. There are melodies, but at the end of the day it is more about the way the music sounds in combination with that stuff, although you can take some of that out. You could play the music on a on a piano, But even our performances life are not really about the fact that you watch us and you're like, Wow, they're incredibly good at playing the guitar or the piano or some people you go watch, like when you watch watch videos of of Prince play who I've never actually got to see live. But that's someone where you not only is he a good musician, but he is one of the best guitar players off all time. And I think the cool thing about electronic music. And I don't want this to sound like I am putting one above the other because I really don't think so. Is that it? The tools air right there. It's so easy. You can go get a laptop, get some free sounds and make an incredible album that really touches people. And that's at the end of the day. That's really what matters. I love the the immediacy of that. The urgency the, um because let's face it, I think that there most of the stuff that's keeping people from doing the things that they want to do in life is the talk track that they've got in their brain. That's right. Yeah, sure, there's There's plenty of practice. But even the talk track keeps them from practicing whatever it is, whether it's writing or music or, you know, building a business or needle point or like anything having a family. And I'm curious what role you know. This is a soft way into mental health, because the, you know, the most important words in the world are the ones we say to ourselves, and I'm curious, is around in those early days, Was there doubt was their fear was there or is that part of the beauty of being young and e Think you said naive early on? Is that is that helpful in some way? Um, what was your what was your earliest inter inner landscape? Like if your outer landscape was like cool, I'm making sounds. Music theory is something I'll get to later. I just like the sound, that air coming out of my computer. What was that? If that's the outer landscape, what was your inner landscape? Yeah, I mean, doubt and fear are untangle part of the process, and I even think that frustration, creative frustration of hearing something and not being able to create that, like, those sorts of things can be something that drives you forward. Um, but the inner critic thrives on it Comparison like if its fuel is comparing yourself to someone else. I think that So when we started doing this, I mean glitch mob started around 2006 or some of our first shows. 78 2009. You know, this is right around the time when social Media wasn't around and so we were a band from my space time. This is gonna This is gonna date me. This is so funny with my space. What's that? But around the time where you had to go to your computer and sit down to access the Internet until the fact that it was it was everywhere. Andi, I think it's a lot easier to compare yourself to other people now, But there's this. I'm sure you're familiar with the the IRA Glass speech, which I love, and I send a people all the time. Um and just just the idea that you could have good taste and listen to something. But then if you compare yourself to it. You're not doing yourself a favor, toe actually, really have the time to the mastery to get there. But back then, before Social Media back in those days, actually, I felt like it was a little harder to compare yourself to it because we had had a scene of our musician friends. There are some people we connected with on the Internet, but now, if you are living in a world where you are constantly comparing yourself to every other artist who's right next to you or um or ahead of you, it's almost like those favorite artists of yours are living in the room. That's actually quite a bit harder. So I think that at that time that there was a huge benefit in that there wasn't. This is an underground movement. It came from this underground scene in L. A and San Francisco. We didn't I wasn't sitting around comparing myself to other. So, um, now I think the artists have to work extra hard to any sort of creative to not sit there because every person who's better than you and there's always gonna be someone way better than me sitting there going, You're not good enough, and that's just it's fodder for the inner critic. So I deal with that all of the time. But I would say that at least the muscle off segmenting out creative time and learning how todo use the amazing technology of social media and getting to share this stuff and have conversations like this is really It's incredible the fact that music and art can reach people so quickly. But I think you have to work harder to not feed that the Inter credit. So it's an active process. Would you say Absolutely it's And in that way it's similar to, I would say, um, meditation or these It's really like in the same way that when you're meditating, I thought comes in and then you come back to your breath. It's like, Well, now I'm in the studio making music I thought comes in, that's I. Actually, I just I'm not as good as as that guy. And then, okay, just back to the music. And then over time, Theobald iti to to focus and not even just the comparison part, but even simply the fact that our attention has been trained to take away every every couple of seconds, I think is another type of meditation I've been thinking about, where the ability to sit down in the studio for two hours straight and just do that was something that when we first started, that's that's what we did all the time. It wasn't a big deal, but now it's cultural change. Culture has literally changed and transformed in attention and attention deficit world where people are paid like, literally paid to drag your attention away from the thing that you're focused on at any given moment. That's their job. And you know, now that there's so much competition for your attention, the ability to keep it is it is clearly critical. I love that. The that's that was just UNEP infamy epiphany for me when you're like that. It was a different world and I think about my own development as an artist and it was largely sort of an incubator, like there wasn't a lot of other inputs and it was in, you know, 45 2006, where you're like Sure, there is a thing I wrote a blogger, but like the responses took days to come in, you know you published a blogger and you're still getting comments like three weeks later on the same block post on versus three seconds later or three minutes. Or, you know, and the ability, as you said to compare yourself to your neighbor, um, was dramatically different. That was so simple, but just a reminder that that isn't it's. And nowadays, in order to protect that, you have to. You have to deploy active countermeasures like you have to put up a fence and I'm something that I'm profoundly interested. And I spent a lot of time reading is the connection laterally between different types of, uh, artistry. So, like the way I love I'm reading. Susan Sontag's on photography right now, and I'm sure you love that. There's so many good books like that. I actually don't read books about music creativity so much. Maybe about music history, like I read a book about Rick Rubin in the studio. But I love other types of books about writing, and I'm curious, Um, just from from a standpoint of I'm so if I'm in the studio and I'm writing music and I can think of that, do you have that same thing? Come in the comparison with with photography. And at this point, is that Is that something that that comes in? Or do you also have toe meditate out of it? At this point, I'm, uh, photographically I think I I Well, this touches on a point you made earlier mastery so photographically I feel very comfortable. Um, it's not my primary area of focus is that was for 20 years, and it was because I I achieved mastery in photography. And when you if you have toe, if you wonder if you've mastered something yet the answers you haven't if you've mastered something and you know the material front, back left you the way I like to think about it is that you you know how to navigate don't know everything. But you know how to navigate the entire say world of photography. Where I still have a lot of that doubt and compare Oh is in the areas that are new to me. Um, you know, I wrote a book in September called creative calling and put that book out there and you know, my reluctant, uh, comparison to all the other friends of ours that have written books and other books on creativity, and there's so many legends out there that was that was hyper aware of the comparison there. So to me, it wasn't so much in the area that I had mastered, although certainly that was a part of my trajectory as a photographer. But now these new areas that I'm going into writing and and entrepreneurship and, you know, building things for other creators that are in our community. Uh, definitely. This is a very it's a very active, active process. It's part of what I think turned turned me toward meditation. Mindfulness. Um hmm, yeah, I don't know. What about you with Music is it's similar, or I don't know if I feel like music. It's I would say that I've mastered certain parts of it, But the more I go in, the more I realized that I haven't mastered and I don't know if that's because music is just It's so vast and e could I could say, Well, I've mastered able to I would say that if anything, that the tool like I am a master of using this particular tool. But right now, right now, I'm learning music composition, or I could then just go pick up the guitar and start at day one again. So, um, but I will say that something that does happen over time is great. It's It's How do I say this? I don't doubt my ability to express myself. And when you when I realized that actually, the whole point is really just to express yourself and not to enter into the comparison stream the best the best music is someone's just telling a story and leaning on that is really it's really the magic, And it's not about there's no one upmanship. There's something that's more of a deeper connection with the process. So in that way, when I when I laid on that everything, everything makes sense and it's easy you said something a second ago that I'm checking with comments right now, uh, the most popular Um, restatement is this idea. You said a moment ago. The idea the creative gap, Ira Glass's creative gap right where you are and where you wanna be, the music that you hear in your head or the photograph that you see in your mind and then being able to make that photograph there is that a little bit of a gap there. And I think you said that frustration is fuel. I think that is a very potent um, and it hangs in a really interesting balance with not wanting to compare yourself, but acknowledging that there is a gap and that your goal as a creator is to close the gap. And to me, why I brought this up now is you just like, slammed this exclamation point at the end which at the end of the day, the goal is really to be able to express yourself. So the creative gap is not the gap between you and someone else. But it's in between you and what it is that you want to say. 100% that's that's you Nail that So But now this is like I got to give some credit here. Thio, Um, Simon says, or Simon sees on on Instagram. But okay, so if we accept that is true just for the moment. What is it that you want to say right now? What? What stories are you telling with your music? Or if you could say it in words, what do you What do you chasing right now? What kind of narrative think words air hilariously bad. You want to talk about music, but what's the There's some metaphor, like talking about music. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Er, I love that. That's amazing. But I will say that there is a, um, a causal relationship between the place that music is performed and then the music creation process and the fact that there are no active music venues in the United States right now there are no festivals is really is fascinating on one of my favorite books, uh, David Burns How Music works. He talked about this a lot, where when he was making in the very early days before talking heads that they're making punk rock, and it sounded like CBGB is just like the gritty old, fucked up speakers. You could hear it in the music and there was a connection there, and I think the same thing goes for this music that we make, and although I thought about it, I hadn't really felt it until poof. Everything pandemic changes everything, and at some point it will all come back online in a different incarnation. I don't think we're going back to where it was, but there will be concerts again. There will be festivals. They're gonna look different. But right now, um, my music has has become more reflective of an internal state because we are spending so much time in those internal states. I'm spending a lot more time, um, in our home studios. In fact, Lynch Mob had a studio for the past couple years that we moved out of. We're doing everything remote for the first time ever, which has actually been a really fun experiment because we're writing an album over Dropbox and Zoom even though we had the studio right down the street. So this is gonna profoundly affect the music. And I think that the best music is it's a pure, authentic expression of the moment and especially with what's happening right now, I think that there's there's fear, there's uncertainty. There's there's a lot of discipline. I know a lot of people that use music as therapy inspect for myself, the music process. When I'm sitting down there in the studio for two or three hours working, that is my therapy. That's how it's it's like going to the gym or meditating or something. So, um, the music that you're gonna end up hearing from this whole process, I think in the next six months to a year is going to be an artistic reflection of the feeling of everything that's happening. And you have music that is much more specifically about the moment. Like run the jewels. One of my favorite acts, You know, their last album. It feels like a protest. You listen to it. I'm just like, Wow, I'm there and I've gone Mawr internal. Um, but glitch Mom has some music we are working on right now. That was, um, was from before everything happened. So it's been really interesting to take it through this whole process and watch how something even though it is, that wasn't created in this particular moment that it's almost like a when you hear when you when you hear music that you made at a certain point in time, even though it was only a couple months ago, I'm taken back to that memory hall as to what it felt like when we were making that. Now it's like, wow, things can change so rapidly in a month. So the music I noticed on Twitter. On July 10th, you announce the new music So that music um, the remix from the ghost of Shima Shima? Yeah. Um, how long ago was that created? That was created. That was a couple months ago, earlier on this year. And that was actually really fun because we had the soundtrack for this incredible game and it felt like pure escapism, like were given all of these these instruments, these soundtrack is super cool for for this game. Um and I'm just was putting myself in feudal Japan. Uh, there's samurais and swords, and in that way, it was much more of a specific exercise of painting a cinematic picture. Eso that way it's like, Oh, yeah, samurai. Let's let's go. We could do this. Um, But when I'm sitting down in front of a blank a blank canvas, um, everything you know, it's a different process to figure out what we want to say in that particular day. Fair enough. Ash Jensen is thanking you. Um, this conversation, she says it's such a breath of fresh air. We got Galeana in the house. South Africa, London, New York, Brooklyn, um, the world says hello and is very great world for your P O. V on creativity. A lot of lot of gratitude around identifying the evil, that comparison, um, creates Now let Z uh, I wanna dive a little bit deeper into that just for a second, because I feel like there's an open loop there that I'd like to close. Um, you talked about conditioning, almost like going to the gym and the muscle was a word that you used around how to stay focused and ignore not just comparison, but other musicians. I'm paraphrasing what you said and, you know, hold me to task if I'm getting it wrong. But how do you develop that muscle? Yeah, um, repetition. Just like just like going to the gym. I think discipline is so important with with this and especially right now, I feel like there's there's so much. There's always some news. There's there's some bad news that's gonna come up today, and I mean, I'm not sure people familiar with the term doom scrolling people. There's all sorts of bad music that's going to continue, and that's not going to stop. So I think that your muscle has to even be a little bit stronger right now, but at the same time, there's a It's not the same flavor of discipline that I need to just go to the gym and the gym. It's like all you have to do. I go to a gym here in Los Angeles, where it z similar toe functional fitness CrossFit style class where you just show up and I have to. It's like a car wash. I just get there at 8 a.m. And then I'm done at nine. It's not like that. You don't just have to show up. I also do think that there is, um there are other things to bring them use to the table. To be able to actually create it's not a simple is just that. But I think that it's the It's the falling in love with the process and not being goal oriented in the sense of okay, I need to make this one particular thing. I'm going to focus on that. It, Zack Chua Li, just the process itself and being present with that is when is when the magic happens? Because again, back to back to the comparison thing, I think it's so easy to get fixated on something that we that we want to do. But I will say that maybe 80% of the time, the really magical moments in all of the music that I've made and specifically English ma, we're happy accidents. It was stuff that we were just messing around and someone hit a note. But wait a second was that Just grab that because we were sitting there for hours just playing and messing, and we weren't thinking We're going to make a song that sounds like this. In fact, the biggest song on our 2014 album Can't Kill Us was the one that we made at the very last minute. We were like, Okay, the album's good. I don't just like, need something else, and we were like Maybe we'll add something with a guitar and because it was so playful, we were just messing around. We had this particular guitar patch. We wanted to use this this distortion and ended up turning into what was you know the most, listened to a song, um, on that album, but it wouldn't have happened if we had calculated every song that needed to be heard exactly before. It was it had a chance to say what I wanted to say. Mhm. That was an amazing album. Like the sophomore albums, they're always so hard e mean, you know, especially after you bring an audience along with you, as you guys did so well in 2010. And I thought that was a That was a remarkable album and uh, well, yeah, well, let's let me hear a little bit more about that. That's a beautiful insight that the play is really what contributed that, um, that you know, that breakthrough song? Uh, what? What is someone facing when they staring down the idea of, ah, sophomore movie product album? Um, is there any, you know, particular psychology that you guys had around that, um, the sophomore album is It's fascinating why it's classically such a difficult thing, because I think you get back into needing to top yourself and make something that was so grandiose. And, yeah, that second album, Love Death, immortality was a way for us to try something new. And also we've We've done something pretty different each time in Glitch Ma, where not the albums don't feel like they're they're from the same exact threat. There's some artists make make albums that have much finer tunes in between each one finer turns. This one was like It still sounds like us, but it was really a different movie all together. You think of them in terms of movies. Maybe they're part of Ah, uh, it was almost a different serious just in general. So I think that the play thing is really interesting because you can hear listening back now. We were just having so much fun writing that, and we were very much thinking of it as a live album. Whereas Drink the Sea Waas An introspective album. It was really meant to be heard on headphones. We were spending time in the desert when we were writing and we're all going through the each. All three of us had a really difficult moment in life, so that album was more of like a a diary, whereas love, death, immortality. You can, as I was talking about before you can hear the liveliness, you can hear the stage in the music and it was so it was so fun. Electronic music was at a very this cool time around 2013 and 2014 and it hadn't become the big ever present thing that it is now. Although it was starting to, um I think something that you said that you said just got me thinking about the power of play. I have. Ah, actually, my my music teacher for listening. Valenti, thank you for this metaphor. Um, he has these incredible metaphors and one of them we were talking about other day and the other day, and actually, one of my own problems in writing and learning, um is three idea that in your head you have a little kid with paints and then you have an editor with a clipboard, and you don't really want them in the room at the same time? Context switching. If the editor comes in while the kid is there painting, it could just you can halt. So and that's something that I that I dio And in fact, now that I'm learning this deeper music theory, um, I, my editor comes in and wants to change things before it's even been been released. So my practice right now is to just play, play, play, play, play, have fun being the moment and not really worry about it. right drunk edit sober. That that's great, right? Drunk edit. So, Burt, uh, I'm typing that right now. Note to self. Yes, I think it's so damn inspiring. Justin, to hear you talk about. I mean, you've got you know, you have songs on the charts and you're talking about your music teacher like that. Is this profound? And I remember, like, the first time we met thinking like you were asking the most thoughtful questions of, you know, anyone that I had spoken with. And, you know, of course, over the course of the the weekend that we were out there together and just so, so thoughtful and curious And how much of that is natural for you or cultivated? Um, it's a really good question. I don't know if I thought about that before, but I have always been naturally curious, but I think that for me, my habit of reading has kept me, um, more curious. I grew up. My grandmother owned a bookstore, a little bookstore in the East Bay called Orinda Books, and I would work in the Children's Books Island. I would recommend different Children's books, So I was around books all growing up And I think that having a lifelong reading habit has somehow help me with the fact that Andi I was always told that I could read whatever I want. And as long as I was reading, my grandparent's said great and they knew something. So, um, I think for me even now reading is a way for me to keep the curiosity my soul alive and and apply that to everything. Because really, that Z that's really the magic of all of this stuff, for me is just learning. And that's also the reason why you know, I'm so I'm fascinated. I love, uh, this e I mean, you have you've been you've created this whole world around the idea of taking creativity and nuggets from different people and then seeing how they can apply to other practices. You had Seth Godin on your show, and he's one of my favorites because he's a marketing guy, but it doesn't matter. He's not really talking about marketing like he you could take those little bits his daily block posts and apply it to to anything. It's really it's it. He he wouldn't call himself this, but I think of him almost like a spiritual guide. It is certainly a creative, creative, spiritually guide. It's so true and like the the best marketing, in a way, is this sort of reliance on your own authenticity. The part of you that is the the weird, you know, you know James Victoria the artist is also well known for saying, You know, what made you weird is a kid will make you great today. And how do we double down on that and lean into that? And Seth is so good. It just like, you know, purple cow and you think about all his books and what, what a genius and a sweetheart at the same time. Oh my gosh, that's exactly what that's exactly. It You're right, it's about I had never thought about what I liked about him so much. But it's that he's constantly pushing in your authenticity button because that's really and I think for you, for everything we do in music. But anything really like, how do you get through the overthinking and get to the authentic thing that you actually need to say that? And that's and that's it. Yeah, he had the good fortune. He read my early draft of my book and gave me feedback. It was like the best feedback I've Oh, man. Like, talk about, you know, getting the lesson in writing a book. It was just such a laser on. And I just look back at the like, what would the book be like if he hadn't have, you know, helped me think clearly about it? Um, yeah, but did the legend, Um all right. I want to shift gears here. And I know a story about you secondhand, um, about being fired from a job early on in your, uh, career. And maybe it was let go. Maybe fired is too strong. I don't know the particulars. Um, had you would you have made the leap to your aspiration on being a full time musician? Or did you need that nudge or kick or push? Um, because there's a lot of people right now who are looking for an excuse looking for a reason. And I'm wondering if you needed that or if today you feel like you'd be strong enough to take the leap without the nudge that you got at some point in your past wondering if you could recount the story and and, uh, a little context around it. Absolutely. Yeah. I was working in San Francisco right around the time that glitch Mob was turning from a hobby, and it was just starting to take on a life of its own. And my bandmates, Ed and Josh, lived in Los Angeles, and I was working five days a week, and then I would come home and go to the studio tonight and then Friday and Saturday. Sunday would fly out and place, um, shows. And when the company folded and I got laid off, that was a huge lightbulb. Went off. Memory is so fallible, it's hard to say. But in that moment I remember loving my comfortable place in San Francisco. My family's from there, and it was leaving this zone of comfortable, comfortable ity and saying, You know what? I am going to come to Los Angeles. I'm gonna move down and just figure it out. I moved on to Ed's house and I stayed in his room, hit extra room there for a month. Um, I don't know if I would have done that if I didn't have that nudge. I really don't because I never thought I was going to be a professional. Whatever that means. I have a musician. Or at least like that's what I did with most of my time. You know, I went Thio school, have a degree in film, and I thought I wanted to go. I was learning postproduction. I love and I still love after effects and cinema four D and stuff like that. That's what I was like. I get to sit in my studio and make visuals and edit and learning final cut, pro and all of that And then I just fell in love with with Making the music for the film is way more than actually editing them. But I never set out like I'm gonna going through this. I wish I could say that I knew from an early age that I was gonna travel around the world. I'm like, No, it wasn't actually, until my that was my ji's late twenties. Um, I'm in my late thirties now, So this was like, pretty pretty late in what people would consider this whole artistic, uh, path that you know, there's this E some people just catch a lightning bolt and all of a sudden at age 21 everything works out. But I know so many people that it didn't actually happen until much later in time. So for me, the the mhm the table is turning like that was really what I needed to. Then just just take the jump and say, You know what? I'm just going to go ahead and trust this trust. I think that is a huge aspect of the creative process or maybe even life process. Um, I wanna speaking of process, I want to talk a little bit more about your creative process. You've already cited, like the ability to have fun and to sit down in the studio and, um, right, drunk edit sober. Um, anything else key to your process? Are you a morning creator and evening creator? Um, and again, I'm not really a looking for tips and hacks kind of a guy, but just hearing a little bit about how individual creators create it was always, you know, I've read a lot of red a lot as you you have said the word books probably times already in our conversation as a huge source of inspiration for you. The same is true for me. I read a lot of biographies and I found it interesting that the wide range and it helped me understand that basically this what's what Warhol does. And Bosque it does. And, uh, David Bowie did Or, um Linda Ron, stat like the range of what's possible for a creative process is unlimited. But it helped me feel okay to read about that. I'm wondering what can you talk about your creative process in a way that helps us see into it? Absolutely. Um, I used to be a nighttime creator. I was in idle for most of my life, and I've switched to being a morning person, which is really interesting because I thought that the magic really only happened after midnight. But later in time, when I realized it was more that there was a feeling that society had had gone to sleep and I was now alone, there's no text coming in or even just this sense that like Okay, I'm often my studio right now, but I A couple years ago I started experimenting with with morning work, and first it was really strange because normally normally I would be up, up I would work till four or five in the morning sometimes. And that's just when the magic would happen and sleep till noon. Get up and do it again. But what I realized for me now that I started working in the morning is that it was more about the mo mentum of knowing that for me at the same time, every day, roughly. I'm gonna get into the studio and do the thing, so I'm creative momentum. I cannot overstate how impactful that is for me even if it's, um you know, um, hour or two hours, I like a chunk of two hours. But even in our honestly, even 30 minutes, I've been able to get a lot done. Um, in fact, my ambient projects superposition. Matt, my my collaborator. When we wrote that album in 2018 and 2019, we only had just because of our schedules and other work engagements. We only really had an hour or two in the morning. We wrote the whole album over the course of pretty much our chunks, like three or four days a week, he would come over, we'd have a coffee hyper focus for an hour and then it's funny because we're making chill ambient music, but way every now and again when we get together on a Saturday and work. But it was really those little bits. So for me, there's something about. So if I have five days in a row where I'm working at the same time every day, it is so much better than even if it's just a Knauer, then say, like Monday, Thursday, Sunday, full days, it's a completely different thing. Wow! Wow. So I would like Thio read a little. You don't think you know this, but I decided to do in my book, and I'm going to read you two paragraphs from the book and I want you to respond to it. Uh, this particular section is Yeah, it's particular sections about tracking time and schedules. And I think your your, uh you're I wasn't planning on doing this, but when you started talking about how that schedule created momentum and momentum is so valuable, I just pull it up here. Um, clocks could be useful in other ways as well. Justin Brett of the electronic music trio the glitch mob turned me on to the Pomodoro technique invented by the Italian academic Francisco Cirillo in the late eighties. It's a brutish but effective technique to push through creative blocks and keep working on tasks required that require extended concentration, like writing or composing music. Set a timer for 25 minutes, work without interruption and then take a five minute break. That's one Pomodoro. In Italy, kitchen timers are often shaped like tomatoes. Hence the name A complete for Paul Maduro's and then take a 15 minute break. Rinse and repeat. This method first found what acceptance in academia, but many creators use it as well. Beretta is a certifiable rock star, and he swears by it. If you find yourself easily distracted, try one of the many Pomodoro APS, So thank you, because I was writing again. My I'm a visual artist, you know, mixed media photography. All that stuff is just It's so instant and instantaneous. And even if the set up to the thing takes weeks or months in the moment, I'm just easily focused writing brutal, so brutal for me and that got me through it. How did you get introduced to it? And clearly you believe in it. I've seen a bunch of tweets from me on it. Well, so I won't shut up about it. I have to read your book, By the way, I think I'll send you a copy soon. I'm gonna devour that. What? I don't actually remember where I first heard about it. It might have been Tim Ferriss. Um but either way, there's something about the fact that especially right now there are so many distractions that saying that for this time, even if it's just for 30 minutes, I mean, now I'm doing to our chunks. Um where? I'm not doing anything else. I'm not going. Get up and get some chips. I'm not going to the bathroom. No texting, no emailing. Certainly no twitter. Just this And one of those a day. Just even 1 30 minute chunk will be better than too distracted hours. I really believe in that. Now. I don't think it, um you know, it doesn't work for everyone. I have had other people say that that it is too regimented for them, but I think everyone's creative process is so particular. But for me, there's something about it. It's just the magic potion. If I can't get through something I will do a poem, Maduro right there and also have a timer. Um, that is so I'm not using an app on my phone just to get the phone further. Whether it's a little like $4 Amazon, uh, time that's it on. And one time I saw Trent Reznor's speakers, one of my favorite musicians and composers. People are asking about how, like, how do you get through creative blocks? Andi. Actually, he was He was on stage talking to David Byrne and wow, that's a power duo. Oh my God, it was incredible God. And there's this idea that that he expressed so beautifully, which he said, You know, the good ideas come at random times. He said something like, You have to be there with your antenna up, ready. So even if you do a Pomodoro or whatever, you have 60 minutes and nothing happens. That's okay, because it might be in that last one minute where you finally just get one sentence out. That's good, and that can actually be be the thing. So that's the thing. I think another people, including myself, can get caught up on Is that every time you you sit down to create. You have to move the needle. But I think just even if you just you know one little thing is just enough as long as it is is you are sitting there and going through the practice of doing it well, The Mo Mentum concept, like clearly that manifest momentum If you get one sentence, one sentence is, ah, 100% more than you had in the previous minute, right? And I think that's I found it. To me. That is not the basis for my creative process. That is, if I'm fucked. Like if I'm stuck, I'm like, Alright, bring out. It's like the It's like the It's like the nudge that you know, losing your job created for you to step into. You know, the next chapter. This is just a very micro version of that. It's that it's this a nudge constraint that you agree to abide by, and it has a way of focus that it's pretty hard to wiggle out of. I think it's interesting that you don't actually use your phone as the timer. That's ah trap probably as well for a lot of people. You pick that thing up, Um, it is. And I think there's something about I've noticed for me. This is a strange one. But if I have my phone near me, um, it is very different than if I take my phone and I put it in a different room because I feel like a this point, especially when traveling. I've spent so much time on my phone that my brain is cybernetic. Lee connected to it through the ether. So if I put it away, it's a lot easier to focus. But if it's sitting there looking at me, even if I'm not touching it, it Z kind of begging for e o. Did you get some Lex? Lex? Um, Speaking of that, I think that's ah, beautiful. Set up about attention and attention. Meditation. Mindfulness. If mindfulness is the directing attention, um, your collaboration with folks like Rahm Dawson. Alan Watts. Um, first of all, incredible. Second, my wife, my wife is a meditation and mindfulness rather teacher and studied with Baba Ram Das. And when when you release the vinyl. That was a present that I bought for her. Yeah. Yeah, I meant to reach out to you and have you send me a sign one. So I'll get you a book. You get me a signed version of that, Um, but what a beautiful project. And so I'm curious. Clearly, there was a reason for wanting both to, you know, create the music and to collaborate with Rahm dos. And I'm wondering if you could just start to open this chapter. The conversation for us around. Why, uh, Raam das, Alan Watts, your collaborations with them? What attention means, uh, the mind and the mind set has played the role that those things have played in your journey. Wow, I'm really touched that you bought that vinyl for your wife. That's so cool. And thank you for doing that That supports the love serve, remember, foundation and the whole project of keeping that going because ultimately, um, for me, it's about that particular project is about creating rabbit holes back down to these teachings that were really impactful for me. So, yeah, I had encountered Rondo's books at a point in time when it didn't actually make sense to me, so I kept them around. I was like a lot of people I know love these, but it just didn't It didn't connect as like, I don't know. He's talking about God Mystical. What? I just didn't get it, was it? It was the meat and potatoes mindfulness that really got me first, I would say meat and potatoes like tm just yeah, 20 minutes a day. So I 20 minutes at a time, twice a day. So But at some point in time later on, um, the Ramdas really clicked for me, the teachings, really I was like, Oh, I get it. And, um, I wanted to create something to use music as a way to spread it to, um to the world. And it's one of those things that and I love to hear these stories because it's certainly not for everybody. But if you connect with if you get it, it's a really cool thing, because there's nothing else out there like. And when we were touring around in 2018, English mob was, we would do these huge meet and greets 50 70 people. Sometimes there's only five, but sometimes they're they're really big, And every now and again, maybe like one out of every yeah, 5 to 10 shows someone would come up with a Ramdas vinyl and say, Hey, like this thing got me meditating and for me, that was really the whole. The whole point is that music is just a way back down to the stuff. And it was the same thing with With Alan. Watts was not only is he someone that his books really meant a lot to me, and I still read them all the time right now. But he's such an incredible writer. I mean, his voice and his his command of the language is really incredible. And it was really a dream to work with and to get Thio become friends with his, with his son Mark and also the Ramdas Foundation. So through this, we started this project of pairing, you know, and up until now it's only been myself in superposition. But we're starting the project of bringing in other artists to do this because the idea is really that the meditate, the guided meditations on their own with they occupy a very particular space. And with a little bit of music, I think of it as adornment. You know, I don't want the music to feel, um, overpowering. I don't like it when their strings playing over a meditation and someone is telling you what to feel. It's more that it's like a just a place like we're setting it in a frame. And if it's ah, we've started sending some meditations to other electronic musicians and it's been really exciting for them, too. Just basically, get to hang sonic bits on top of it to really give you something else to listen to. So I think of it for, you know, there's a lot of meditation teachers that would say music. Oh, no, like you that z no, no, no music. And I do get that. I mean, I've I've spent a lot of time meditating, and I do think that, you know, ultimately, um, if I was gonna what I'm doing guided meditations There didn't always have music, But think of it like if you have, If you want a your pet when a dog to take a pill and you like, put it inside of peanut butter, it's kind of like that is just I almost like to taste it is a wayto get it down the pipes. Um, so that was really the goal of the whole project, and we're launching a label around this to be able to connect the dots and ultimately have other other artists and creators find that thing that's really meaningful to them and then add their touch to it and create those touch points to create more, more rabbit holes back down. If there's anything I could do to help or share or promote, or I would have a huge advocate, I think the sugar with the medicine or the pill with the peanut butter. Um, I'm starting to realize that that is that this mindfulness if if the most value, the thing that we have, if we have anything using the word thing lightly. If we have anything in this world, we have our attention, right, because just like whatever you're focusing on, that is your reality. If you are the thoughts and emotions that you're feeling it, your attention is literally the only thing that you have. And whether you put point that towards, you know, things that make you happy or sad, or you're aware of the itch they have on the foot on your foot or how you're making someone else feel like the end of the day, I'm starting to wonder if if all of this for me is like, it's not an accident. We talked about all the creative process and we're talking about, you know, mindfulness and attention and rammed us. And, you know, at the end of our conversation here, like this is the pill. This is the Trojan horse, and it's I find it, uh, almost accidental. But I can't not to keep going there. Because at the end of the day, if all you have is your attention, um, why not, You know, choose where you place it choose very, very wisely. Your I didn't know you were a t m. Er, um, for those of you who I mean, you've been listening to show it all basically talk about tm every, you know, three or four episodes. Most of my guests have done it. Um, I talked to Tim Ferriss, talks about me beating him over the head with it. Me and Rick Rubin finally getting him to turn to tm. Um, can you talk to me about your experience finding it and you still practice? Um, benefits, drawbacks. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah. All the esoteric woo spirituality just didn't work for me in the beginning, although I I got more Wu later in time. Tm when I have a friend that was working on a campaign raising money with the David Lynch Foundation and they were bringing meditation to schools. And so they got to bring in some friends. So I got to go for the weekend and there's something about the investment in the time of really learning this. But more than that, it was the was the prescription of honest this 20 minutes. I mean, it's the same thing. Is Pomodoro creating two? It's the exact same thing or I thought, OK, it's there's there's, ah mindful mo mentum there. If I'm just gonna do this 20 minutes in the morning in 20 minutes in the evening, I'm going to try it for a week and see how I feel. And after a week, I was Isn't it bonkers? Banker? It iss it's bonkers. The differ that the control that you have over your attention and your I don't know Sorry, I'm interrupting you just because it z so profound. I could talk to you about this for five hours because I'm so fascinated by the overlap of mindfulness and creativity and the way that I think it's It's the same thing that we're talking about when, um when you're in the studio or when you're creating and you need to to focus and not let the distraction break the attention. There really is nothing that's a better training specifically for creating than meditation that I have found. Um, it's almost like when people our training for a long, long run and they'll go high up to high altitude to sort of get their lungs used to it and then come back down again. So for me, it's very lateral, but also, I mean, yes, I There's a lot of ways to apply meditation to productivity as the productivity tactic, but ultimately the attention thing. As you said, zooming out is really just That's what you have. It's your only thing. Creativity is one of those things, but it also helps my relationships in my life and communication with loved ones and just navigating through life in general. Especially, um, For me, the TM gave me what I felt like was a very firm grounding, like I felt like my mindfulness container was strong when I first went to a 10 day silent retreat. Um, and once I had that foundation there, then going into loving kindness, meditation and bringing compassion into that container that was the magic power for me was going going deeper. But for anyone that is struggling, getting into meditation um, tm for me was 100% the ramp into it. Uh, I absolutely share that sentiment. And I had experienced a lot of came. My original was acquaintance with. I'll say it started out of visualization in sports. I went to college on a soccer scholarship, played at the Olympics, Uh, Olympic Development team in there. We had access to that. This was a long time. I'm 100 years old and yeah, but it, like it was so like, brutally effective. Like I was like, Oh, what? What is this shit? This is like powerful medicine, and it went away. A zai stepped away from that, that competitive side of things. And then I also tried four or five different things, and they all were. I just didn't feel like there was enough simplicity and or structure. It was like I had to hop on one leg and then ring a bell. And, you know, start to all kinds of shit, and this was just so brutally simple. It's 20 minutes. You are given a mantra. You say that mantra when your attention wanders, you bring it back to the mantra. End of story like nothing else. That is it and the process of like like you said it. I had tried so many other things, and this thing worked And, um, I began actively prescribing. And I shared the story with Tim and he said the same thing is like we were hanging on. You said like, Dude, you team like you got your shit together like what's happening? And I was like, It's gonna be weird, man. But you know, and I think he he was. Well, I won't share what he was thinking about at the time, but and he was like, Fine. And he it's a little bit. There's ah ah, in order to sort of get your mantra, you need to go to the T m dot or go and pay a fee. And that turns a lot of people off. Remember, Tim was incessantly like Dude, come on. I'm like I will pay for it for you, like do not let that block you. That's right. And so thio here that this structure was power for the simplicity and the structure was powerful for you. I would just invite folks, I don't care if it's t m. I just think teams, as you said, a great on ramp. I love that I'm going to use that for ever more. Can you describe for me? This is this. Maybe just it'll roll off your tongue. Or maybe it's difficult but describe the difference in your day to day. I will call it Stature Before and let's say after, you know, you said a week. Give me, I'm gonna say six months after tm like how did your brain function differently for the folks at home who are trying to understand why so many of the people that are top performers have a meditation practice? I'm trying to paint a picture. Mhm. I think that the main thing that I realized was that I was constantly lost in thought before I was meditating was almost like I was confused, and I still was able toe navigate life and do the things I needed to do. But it was this, you know pardon the cliche, but it felt like I woke up from from a bit of a slumber. And the meditation itself is incredible, and I love meditating, but it wasn't actually the sitting on the cushion. That was the magic. It was when I would catch myself. Maybe it was if someone said something that irritated me, and all of a sudden there's this quick space that you have. Ah, maybe you could decide. Wait, wait a second. Justin is feeling triggered right now. I'm feeling angry now. I could decide whether or not to react from that place. There's a little more. That's not to say that it made me into a perfect person. It's far from the truth, but it just creates a little bit of space there in all of these decisions to where, Before that I think that being lost in thought when you don't know your lost in thought is kind of a hazard. Danger? Danger? Yes, so for me, and it's a constant. It's a constant practice, and I'm my meditation. Practice has deepened since then, Um, and it's there's no place of in my experience. There is no place that you you hit where I'll just kind of makes sense. It just it becomes more detailed over time. It gets deeper and more nuanced. And the times that I'll catch myself throughout the day, Um, being present or the ability to do that it really cascades into every area of life. For me, that is a ringing endorsement that I would, you know, I would add a plus one to that. Just it seems the way that I think about it is it. Things move in slow motion. I like your description was better because the concept of slow motion sounds sometimes it has a negative connotation. But like the gaps around thoughts, you know, have you have the chance to actually decide how this particular person who cut you off in traffic or this piece of news that you regard is may be counterproductive. That came your way, how you react and you can recognize those things as thoughts, right? You're You can either be in the water, follow you can stand away, and you can look at the waterfall. And I think that is a That's a beautiful way of you know, this this idea, the space around, the thoughts I'm gonna also borrow that, if I may. Yes. I love the idea of this of this space because it reminds me of negative space in music or in in visual art. There's something about, you know, they're looking at Rothko or something this beautiful. It's just it's really space. And I think that there's something to that in the sense of the reason why so much beautiful deep art is really is happens in between the lines for May speaks to, um that state of understanding how how consciousness really is and what it's like to be us and something that you said before in terms of tm costing money. Um, there is something about if one can afford it, to pay the money to invest. But if you can't which ah lot of people cannot, it's really just monitor based meditation. If it's something that's like, Oh my God, this is This is too expensive that couldn't possibly afford this. It's really the repeating of this mantra. Mu confined other sorts of mantra based meditation online, which is not the same thing, but it will. It will get the job done, and I love that you, um, that you feel comfortable talking about the nuts and bolts of it because it's it's really such a powerful thing that I think people need to have access to. Yeah, and that's the reason it was easy for me to pay the money. And I say Easy coming from a place of privilege and recognizing that but knowing that it will help that practice reach more people, that's part of what is, Uh, that's why I'm not afraid to talk about it. And I think it's, um that is the value of contributing to that. As you said, though, getting started anything call map the free tri ALS like any of these meditations online. Yeah, you do. It's like it's it's it's available for you. And I'm hoping to, um, I'm trying to take the surprise out of it if you look into it. And don't think that I'm sort of some like I'm hawking anything, and the flip side of that is not required. And I appreciate your P O. V there. Um, so this magical space, uh, space where you get the opportunity to choose your response to to be aware of that you are actually having a thought rather than you are the thought I'm having the thought that Justin maybe triggered because this person pulled out in front of me and, you know, on the 1 10, um, the you have been outspoken, especially lately around the use of psychedelics for their role in mental health. And I'm wondering if you know if if anyone is at all sort of practiced in this school of thought. Robert Albert A k Ram das Timothy Leary thes air. You know, former Harvard professors that were relieved of their roles at Harvard during the psychedelic age for, you know, practicing with LSD, and they have gone on their own personal journeys, Uh, and now have come around to, um, the role of mindfulness in their lives and pop culture, the benefits and whatnot. And yet there's still a role for psychedelic medicine. You've been out spoken as have many of our friends. I'm wondering if you could talk about the role of plant medicine for you for in culture and the relationship that it has say with these areas we've been talking about, most recently here. Meditation, mindfulness awareness. Attention? Absolutely. I mean, I the role of psychedelics have played in in my life. Um, it started off just taking acid as a kid and, uh, in my my late teens just messing around with friends and recreation, recreation and looking back now, I'm glad I had those experiences, but it's moved into therapeutic standpoint, and I can't necessarily recommend at this point recreational use for anyone. Um so taking the ceremonial therapeutic lens of everything and treating thes substances as a teacher and as a sacrament and reading and learning about this changed, um, also in in conjunction with mindfulness and meditation just changed the way that I interface with reality with other people. With everything, um, I've seen friends have really profound healing on them. I have seen all sorts of incredible things happen, and I think that all the people who have been involved in wanting to make thes mawr available It's the same sort of conversation we were just having about with meditation, where it's like, Well, I've had this experience and I come out of it thinking, Oh my gosh, I wish this was cheap and safe and available for everyone with a with a therapeutic lens. I don't think that mushrooms should just be legal and I don't think that teenagers should be necessarily just eating on and just seeing what happens by any means, because there is no culture around, Um, it's no manners and and mind mindful, uh, guidance around how these they're supposed to be used in other cultures. There are, um, in Mexico. Families eat psilocybin mushrooms. Together you go see the healer and they'll actually eat the mushrooms, and he'll along with you. There's all sorts of cultures in which, for thousands of years, for millennia, this has been part of of the fabric of society, and and it is here in an underground way. But I'm really excited about the fact that the West is trying to figure out how to integrate thes into daily life or at least make them make them accessible in the same way that, let's say, a meditation retreat is where you could say, I would like to go out to the desert and stay at this retreat facility and under medical guidance and have these experiences that are completely safe. That's the ultimate goal with all of this work and then also my producing is another thing that comes up a lot and as we know the mental health care system in the United States has its issues could be even to be said to be completely broken and tragic, tragic, tragic. And some people have had some really good progress on depression, anxiety, all the, you know, the yeah, the big ones that I think psychedelics are there to help and to be an aid through this. They're not a magic bullet. I think on the other side of this, it's really easy to become overly optimistic, allow and fantastically minded about the fact that, like thes things, are just going to come in and fix everything. I don't think that's the case. I think it's the combination of all of these things that that we know along with the medicine and for artists. Creatives in particular, um, something that while you know Paul Stamets says a lot, his out spoken, but all of this stuff and he's just he's so incredible because Theo idea that I cannot do what I want with my consciousness is egregious. That especially whenever you're not hurting anyone else Ah Ndure doing it for personal growth exploration, spiritually connection. Um, he's, you know, he speak specifically about it around end of life anxiety for terminal cancer patients and palliative care. This this whole vast range from everything from that to just being a human who wants to have some personal growth. I think that in the next decade this is in the West, barring some huge catastrophe, and this is all going thio happen. Um and I'm I'm just really I'm excited that this is that we're living through this right now. Yeah, it is a clear renaissance, and I think what a lot of that affect failed in the sixties because it was identified as recreation first. And I love the qualifiers that you put in and around it so powerful and help make the case. And, um, you know, for anyone who is curious Michael Pollen's book, How to change your mind. Very powerful Paul Stamets work. Um, there's ah, you know our friend Tim. We've talked about a couple of times, you know, putting millions of his own dollars on the line and roots advanced the, um, research and development of this medicine. I just It's very a lot of people in the comments right now talking about, um, Madonna talking about micro dozing, Um, seven start creative Ash Jensen wants some help with long term trauma. Yash, Robert Smith, Sarah Drew Hitchcock. The there. And this is a handful of different platforms air coming in and that this lights up in the context of specifically not recreation but medicine. And what is lost on a lot of people is this is the journey of most substances, right there Thought of it there either Absolutely legal. Then they get clamped down on Lee toe. Find out that they do have, like, the fact that our bodies have receptors for this chemicals these chemicals and are able to produce them naturally because we don't have a receptor for things that we can't make like that in and of itself is a simple argument for why this is It's, um uh it should not be verboten, you know, it should be something that's embraced. I'm wondering if you if there are other works in literature that you point people towards, um, if they're curious for more absolutely. Yeah, there's a magazine online right now, and there's a print too. But they're called double blind and their their new young, incredible psychedelic, uh, publication. And they have a lot of really functional stuff in there. So people are wondering about what's the deal with Micro Dose? And what's the deal with this is that there's a really good It's almost like wired mag for psychedelics, and I become friends with them and they're just so so into them. There's another book that I'm just reading right now called Entangled Life, and it's not specifically about psychedelics, but it it is, um, and it's by the scientist named Merlin Sheldrake, who is in this documentary called Fantastic Fun Guy, which I highly recommend. Everyone watch. But it's a book about the lens of the ecosystem in the earth through Through Mike Ology and it. It has a pretty compelling argument for all this stuff as well. And then, um, if you want to go deeper, I think Michael Pollen's book, as for As Far as Long Form Goes, is the best intro. Not even just interest. The best overview. It's incredible. He's one of my favorite writers in general. I love just reading anything that he writes, um, to go a little bit deeper. There's a book called Sacred Knowledge by by Bill Richards, who, um, has been working at Johns Hopkins with terminal cancer patients and putting together the sill aside and, uh, research since before they were when everything was legal. And this book, it's a little It's a little heady, but I actually find it to be super profound. And if anyone wants to deep dive that Z my favorite Awesome. I wanna put a bow on our conversation over the past hour, and it would be hard to do so with a single, um, with a single question. So I'm gonna ask you to walk the earth with me for a second. So what do you trace? The role of your own personal creative journey in your health, your happiness, your well being, your traversing the landscape of the range of emotions. And I realized that's just a massive question. But that helps me at least push your boat in a direction and, like so, so up for me, if you will the last 10 years of your life, the awakenings, the like, what do you know to be true? And what are you working on? What direction are you walking in right now? On the at the highest level, you could possibly zoom out to mhm. That is a great, nuanced, deep question. I love that, and I don't know if I've ever been asked anything quite like that before. But that's my job. I'm just curious like you. There's your in a raft right now on your growing, and I want to know what you're rowing towards or away from or what's, you know what's sewing together your narrative. Right now, the main thing that I have taken from all of this stuff that really sells it together is gratitude, and it sounds. It sounds corny, and it can sound like a platitude. But in if I am working on music and I become frustrated if I'm on stage or I'm oh, lacking sleep from living on a bus for two months, if I come back to being grateful for any particular experience, it almost just it unlocks all of it. And you learn that in. I've learned that in my experiences with psychedelics and with meditation as well, that gratitude is a key that no matter how difficult something is, uh, it will unlock a state of presence because it's so easy to push against something. So for me, I want my music to become further and further into want to push it further and further into gratitude and become more and more grateful. Toe. Have an audience. It's so easy, especially right now, the music industry. And then I say the industry meeting the way that we get from music from artist to the listener is, um, in a huge straight the state of transition. So for me, coming back to saying thanks for the opportunity to be alive and to be creating and have able to share it with anyone and potentially make a difference in someone's life through any one of these these methods, that's really my guiding light through all of this, it seems, then, not an accident. That superposition is a current project for you, it seems intimately related, and maybe I'm making connection where there's not one but eyes. They're a connection there and is super position in service of that. And if so, can you tell us just ah, because we've talked sort of opaquely about superposition and, you know, Ah, label that can help, you know. But, you know, I'm I just pulled up a note that I see somewhere in your universe immersion into the inner universe. A meditative, meditative antidote to a world of digital overwhelm what, you know, put a bow on what is superposition and how it relates to this direction that you're growing. Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, I hadn't actually made the connection until you said that right there. But there is 100% a, um an aura of gratitude around that whole project because making ambient music, you know, some of them are meditations, and some of it is really just pure ambient music is Ah, it's a very niche thing. I do it because I love it in my and we just I love ambient music. I love music that fills this space, and especially with these meditations, that is my way of, um, painting a picture that I would like to share this lens of gratitude and create rabbit holes back down to this place That's been really meaningful for me, but superposition specifically with, um with my partner, Matt Davis. And the project is really all about. It's not just ambient music, because that's such a strange umbrella cause ambient music can play in the spa or it can play in the beginning of a creepy Halloween movie. But for us, it's really about the drawing, the line between healing and and music, but not not in a way that that we're dictating what the listener wants to hear. But it's more creating a space through sound and through high, high production quality music that can make the listener feel held by the sound. I guess I'll say that little cocoon that you said earlier frame I love it. Audio cocoon audio cocoon. Um, also, I gotta put a plug in for you on your ambient rituals Playlist. Big fan, love, love, love. When you updated, have a long time I'm talking about Spotify Uh, look up ambient rituals. Which is, uh, is that do you do that solo? Or is that is that you and other guys in the glitch mob? Uh, or it's just okay, Cool. I hosted on the glitch mobs Spotify because then all the fans coming in there get Thio experience it So it's a little It's a little catch for the for the deeper the deeper stuff. But yeah, you can think it's on my my instagram and my website. You could get the link to it there. But there's 35 hours of ambient music. There's not a single filler song in there. I love every song that Z I'm glad I'm glad that you like And I hope people can take it and put it on shuffle Yeah, I don't think I've ever hit forward I don't think I've ever hit the next song I'm always content with, uh what is playing in this? Your curation is masterful and it's just it is really, um Ah, cocoon. It's beautiful. You mentioned your insta and a couple of other places. I wanna give people a little bit of direction where they confined mawr. What are your coordinates on the Internet? You'd like to direct people. Um, I want to say one quick thing is that if you do find a song that you're hitting, Skip, please let me know. Just, like, just just text me. I got I'll get rid of it. That's really that the skip test is important, but you can find me on my website, which I'm in the middle of redoing right now is baretta dot net b o r e t a and then, um at the glitch. Mom and at Beretta everywhere else on Twitter Instagram. Amazing, Huge. Speaking of gratitude, I feel super lucky Tohave had this conversation with you and, uh, grateful that you are leading the charge in so many ways and inspiring a lot of people towards a new way of thinking and being in the world. Your art, uh, you're the inspiration that you provide is really valuable. So I want to give a personal, uh, debt of gratitude and hell yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Chase. Thanks for having me. And I just wanna also say thanks for everything you do. And the connecting of the dots from different modalities is so close to my heart. E Thank you. Keep on fighting the good fight. Happy to do it. Signing off for right out there in the world will hopefully be in your ears again tomorrow