Casual Temple

TRANSCRIPT

(Transcript is auto-generated; errors are unintentional.)

00:00:03 Merrily

And welcome to Casual Temple podcast Episode 55, and I'm your host, Merrily Duffy at Casual Temple, our mission is to discover our connection to the unseen world of spirit, and how that empowers us to know our true selves, one to support our journey, subscribe and leave a star review on your favorite podcast platform. You can also donate via Red Circle.

00:00:20 Merrily

Page LinkedIn the show notes below. We love hearing from you, so visit Casual Temple. com to share.

00:00:24 Merrily

Thoughts. Today we welcome Lucas Vos to the podcast. Lucas is the host of the Lucas Vos Podcast, a show dedicated and motivated by a pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty. Aiming to build bridges between people and ideas. We got to chatting about Lucas's Egyptology education and the study of hieroglyphics. There was also a lot of exchange of personal stories involving.

00:00:45 Merrily

Excitations by strange beings and what they could be. So stay tuned to the Casual Temple podcast where we peer beyond the veil together.

00:00:54 Merrily

Welcome to the casual temple. Today we have the pleasure of hosting Lucas Vos, who is no stranger to deep discussions.

00:01:00 Merrily

And big ideas.

00:01:01 Merrily

Lucas is the host of the Lucas Vos Podcast, a show that explores profound topics such as philosophy.

00:01:07 Merrily

Religion, cognitive science, psychedelics and more. With keen interest in truth, goodness and beauty, Lucas aims to foster a deeper understanding of reality, not by providing definite answers, but by building a bridge between people and their ideas. His mission is to encourage critical thinking, inviting listeners to explore the complexities of the world.

00:01:28 Merrily

Curiosity and open minded open mindedness.

00:01:31 Merrily

I'm excited to turn the tables today and dive into Lucas's own perspectives, experiences and insights. Lucas, welcome to the Casual Temple.

00:01:40 Lucas

Thank you so much, Merrily. That was a.

00:01:42 Lucas

Great.

00:01:43 Lucas

Great interest. Sometimes it's funny to hear someone talk about what you're doing because you don't even really know what you're doing. Most of the time, so it's fun to kind of get that feedback. So thanks.

00:01:52 Merrily

Yeah. Yeah, you're more than welcome. Yeah, it was really great. Yeah. We got connected on your podcast through uh, Jason Schweitzer, who does the Almond Tree podcast?

00:02:05 Merrily

And I had a really great time chatting with you. You asked really great questions and I've watched quite a few of your episodes where I interview people and I think you're doing, you know, I think we have the same some portico of interests, of discussions with people. So I think that's really cool. So thank you for being here.

00:02:20 Lucas

Yeah. Thank you so much for inviting me.

00:02:23 Merrily

Yeah.

00:02:25 Merrily

Well, here, you know, similarly to what you do, we start at the beginning wherever you consider that just to kind of get to know you better for our listeners, so.

00:02:34 Merrily

How about it? Thank you.

00:02:36 Lucas

Yeah, OK, so I've done this a couple times. I don't want to repeat myself too.

00:02:39 Lucas

Much so I'm.

00:02:39 Lucas

And what's kind of relevant to this channel? Casual temple? I didn't mean to. I I wanted to ask you and I don't want to turn this into an interview about you again, but yeah, but the the casual temple, what what is the name? Where did you find the?

00:02:52 Lucas

Name. What is it?

00:02:53 Merrily

Oh, that's a great question. My husband JC actually came up with it. I was like, oh, dear park. And he had it, like, right on.

00:03:00 Merrily

Boom. He had. He's like, call it the casual temple.

00:03:02 Merrily

And I was like, that's great idea because.

00:03:05 Merrily

I just like the idea of like the temple because I consider like my meditation room that we are in or I'm in. It's sort of my temple. And and I like to keep things casual. You know, I don't want to have like, firm and fast anything. So I was like.

00:03:09 Lucas

Yeah.

00:03:19 Merrily

Yeah, that works.

00:03:21 Lucas

That's good. All right. That's great. Thank you. Thank you for that. No. So I think a bit, I'm going to tie it a bit to spirituality and and kind of.

00:03:23

Yes.

00:03:28 Lucas

Those interests.

00:03:30 Lucas

That adjacent to that. So I grew up, I was raised Christian. That's what I knew. I didn't know about the nominations. I just knew that I was raised Christian.

00:03:31 Merrily

Yeah.

00:03:41 Lucas

In the Netherlands, which is quite a secular country, I would say most of my classmates even going through Christian schools weren't explicitly Christian or kind of.

00:03:52 Lucas

I guess challenged a lot of those views and I challenged them myself a lot. My father is a theologian. He later in life got a PhD in theology, so he always had.

00:04:04 Lucas

Answers to my questions, often not to my satisfaction, but.

00:04:10 Lucas

Yeah, kind of. That was something that was always ongoing in our lives and something that kind of felt a bit strange because a lot of kids never had to go to church. And I never had to read the Bible. And then when we had kids over, we would read the Bible at dinner. And I was always kind of ashamed of that. And I thought that was kind of, you know, weird and.

00:04:30 Lucas

Yeah, as the years progressed, we we always had to go to church every Sunday and I kind of throughout my teenage years felt further and further away from whatever I thought religion was or God was and kind of didn't buy it. I thought about it a lot as a.

00:04:48 Lucas

As things to believe, like certain propositions that being told and then I had to believe it and I was very much in the scientific paradigm, materialistic paradigm, but also a lot, a lot of pop culture and I kind of as a teenager just wanted to play video games.

00:05:04 Lucas

Play sports, and that's all I really cared about. And then I had this vague idea of, like, yeah, I want to be rich when I grow up. And that's kind of the depth of my reality at the time. And I don't want to sell myself short there.

00:05:16 Lucas

As.

00:05:16 Lucas

A kid. But you do think a lot about just yourself and and your own pleasure and.

00:05:22 Lucas

And stuff like that.

00:05:24 Lucas

So kind of as I.

00:05:27 Lucas

Turned 1617, I struggled a lot in school I got into.

00:05:31 Lucas

A lot of.

00:05:32 Lucas

Partying and drinking and that kind of tanked my grades as well as the video games and all the other stuff. And so I was really struggling there.

00:05:41 Lucas

And then I had to redo my second to last year of high school and that really devastated me because I hated feeling like I was falling behind. And I hated feeling like my friends were kind of moving on. And I was just stuck.

00:05:58 Merrily

MHM.

00:05:58 Lucas

And kind of the year that I had been in. So the year that I of of high school that that year of people that you kind of grew up with was going away from me, but also those friends that.

00:06:12 Lucas

I had we're not a good influence on me and I wasn't on them, so we kind of dragged each other down and at some point some of us had to kind of redo a year, getting into a lot of trouble. And then I got into this.

00:06:26 Lucas

Well, the year below me basically and a lot of these people that became my friends were much more.

00:06:32 Lucas

I guess positive and ambitious and like some wanted to be professional athletes and doctors and stuff like that and then environment just kind of completely shifted my.

00:06:42 Lucas

Way of thinking about school and life. I always look down on ambition because my friends looked down on ambition. It was always like a derogatory term to say, try hard stuff like that. Like if you ever got a really good grade on a test, it was because you studied and that's.

00:06:51

Beach.

00:06:56 Lucas

Lame so.

00:06:58 Lucas

That's just that was kind of the mindset. And then I I got to know these people and that was very inspiring.

00:07:03 Lucas

And so I got inspired to kind of finish high school.

00:07:07 Lucas

And also through that, through getting motivated for school, I developed intrinsic interest in in reading and in.

00:07:16 Lucas

All sorts of topics, but it kind of started with myself because I was still, you know, very self-centered. So I just wanted to read self help books right so.

00:07:23 Lucas

To.

00:07:23 Lucas

Like get the best at everything. Wanted to learn how to invest money and wanting to learn how to take care of my body as well as possible to learn about nutrition and.

00:07:33 Lucas

And these things kind of pulled at me.

00:07:36 Lucas

And kind of that morphed into slowly, more and more when I felt the.

00:07:42 Lucas

Limits of those things in terms of depth. I got into philosophy and I got into.

00:07:49 Lucas

Reading Eastern religious texts like you know well, I started actually just reading Siddhartha. That was very.

00:07:58 Lucas

It was a very.

00:08:01 Lucas

It was the first time I read a book and I felt transformed by it. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, which is, of course written by a western person. But it's.

00:08:10 Lucas

Linked to the the Buddha and and to to Buddhism in general. I guess even though the story is not about the Buddha but the Buddha is in there and that kind of was one of my first interactions with real spirituality in the sense that I never approached the Bible as as a spiritual text. I just felt that.

00:08:29 Lucas

It was like a chore that we had to go through and so I never really got to those deeper layers so much. I found it really difficult to to listen to, but kind of reading philosophy and reading about well, Chinese philosophy as well reading about Buddhism.

00:08:45 Lucas

That gave me a new frame through which I could understand my own tradition so I could return back to the Bible and kind of read it in a different way. My father is a New Testament scholar. I think I can say that. And he kind of helped me get through the New Testament. And at this time, I was also deeply interested in podcasts and into.

00:09:08 Lucas

Will that open up?

00:09:08 Lucas

All these interests mentioned offline, a study Egyptology that kind of came a lot of these interests. I just wanted to study something that I found interesting.

00:09:20 Lucas

But.

00:09:22 Lucas

All of these interests kind of also led me to to be interested in psychedelics and having an experience with that, because I I'd heard so many people speak about experiences with these compounds and they just seemed so otherworldly, like almost to a degree where you're like, these people are just absolutely bonkers. Why would you want anything to do with them?

00:09:35

Hmm.

00:09:41 Lucas

But I kind of listened to them at some point with with all and being like I I would like to experience something more than my.

00:09:49 Lucas

My current state of reality, which sometimes felt so limited and and lacked transcendence, but I've always been someone that wants to go all the way or not at all. So the Netherlands mushrooms are legal, for example, but I was never interested in just doing a light mushroom chip. I was like, what is the?

00:10:01 Merrily

Hmm.

00:10:09 Lucas

The most eventful possible trip that I could take with this stuff, and so I found I was go as as a possibility for that and I found a way to do it in my own country.

00:10:23

Me.

00:10:24 Lucas

And told my parents, you know, this is what I wanted to do. And they were like at this point.

00:10:29 Lucas

I was 18.

00:10:30 Lucas

So they're like, you can do what you want, but.

00:10:35 Lucas

You know, we'll pray for you and don't tell your grandparents that this is what you're doing with their.

00:10:39 Lucas

Birthday money.

00:10:43 Lucas

Because watch your they would understand.

00:10:47 Lucas

So yeah, I went to do that.

00:10:49 Lucas

And at this time I also started.

00:10:52 Lucas

Meditation. That was a very important practice for me that opened up.

00:10:58 Lucas

Myself and it kind of improved.

00:11:02 Lucas

I think it must improve my relationships to be honest. If when I started meditating.

00:11:05 Lucas

I felt that.

00:11:08 Lucas

It was a time for me to reflect on my own patterns of behavior. I had a lot of issues with anger as a kid and as a.

00:11:14 Lucas

Teenager.

00:11:14 Lucas

Especially and meditation kind of allowed me to step back and.

00:11:20 Lucas

The things that I learned through meditating I could apply into real life situations, but yeah, all that said, I was kind of already getting more and more close to to spirituality and these types of practices still felt quite far away from my Christian roots. But I was definitely open to ideas of God and.

00:11:41 Lucas

Yeah, some sort of transcendence. There being more. I definitely felt the taste of that, especially reading siddharta that really gave me a a change in in the mode of being that I that I was inhabiting. And so I had this experience and I don't sell short, but I can't talk about it for 14 hours, so I'm not going.

00:11:59 Lucas

To go do that.

00:12:01 Lucas

But it was.

00:12:02 Lucas

UM.

00:12:04 Lucas

I kind of didn't buy it at first, so they they make you take rounds of it and if you don't feel anything, you can take another round and in another and people around me were already like, crying and throwing up and and and like.

00:12:06

Right.

00:12:18 Lucas

Just sounds of pure joy around me and I was just like, why am I not feeling anything? And it's like, so long. It was just.

00:12:23 Merrily

Hmm.

00:12:27 Lucas

Yeah, I started really doubting it. And then at some point.

00:12:32 Lucas

I just started letting go and kind of things started to happen. I started to see and feel things that I couldn't explain through my own senses.

00:12:43 Merrily

Yeah.

00:12:44 Lucas

You know, I can have a visual with it now, but I can't really access what I felt. It just felt beyond the senses that I had.

00:12:55 Lucas

Like really a different.

00:12:59 Lucas

A different way of perceiving, but it felt more real.

00:13:04 Merrily

Yeah.

00:13:05 Lucas

If that makes any sense.

00:13:06

Oh yeah.

00:13:07 Lucas

Because like this, this is obviously more real. There's an obvious reality to this.

00:13:12 Lucas

And there's no way to talk about.

00:13:13 Lucas

It like I was telling myself.

00:13:15 Lucas

The thing is like, well, you couldn't never have explained this to me. There's no way to explain to me. So it's this kind of completely broke me out of my frame of we need to be able to quantify things and explain them in words and then transmit those messages. There's no way to do that. Like, I'm doing that to you now. And perhaps the people listening and some people will probably think still this is nonsense.

00:13:35 Lucas

And I really get that because I can't transmit it to words. Yeah. So. So yeah, that that was. Yeah, that that broke me out of things. And that experience lasted a long time.

00:13:48 Lucas

Well, the after effects lasted a long time for me. Integration of it.

00:13:51 Lucas

Was.

00:13:52 Lucas

It's still going on with this was not like five years.

00:13:57 Lucas

Five years ago or something 4 1/2 years ago, and I also knew when I did it that I'd never want to do it again afterward because I felt.

00:14:07 Lucas

When I was kind of coming down from it, I felt this fear and I felt really.

00:14:12 Lucas

In between Worlds, and that was such a scary feeling that I.

00:14:16 Lucas

I told myself you've gotten.

00:14:18 Lucas

Everything you needed from this experience like I got a total bliss experience and absolute transcendence in ways that I didn't think were possible.

00:14:27

Right.

00:14:28 Lucas

And then it was also shown like you should not go back here. It's OK. You've learned. You've learned from whatever you learn, but so maybe so maybe in another lifetime or in in in 20 years there will be a time. But at at that time I was like, you're not doing this again. But it also that that states state of mind reminded me of.

00:14:49 Lucas

One of the many times as a teenager that I told myself you're never going to drink again and then it took like 20 times with that.

00:14:55 Lucas

Happening before I actually stopped first.

00:14:58

Right.

00:14:59 Lucas

Let's say I I haven't fallen back into the trap. You don't know I.

00:15:01 Lucas

Was.

00:15:01 Lucas

Tempted to to go back to it because I'm not sure if doing it a second time without having a proper reason to do.

00:15:03 Merrily

Hmm.

00:15:07 Lucas

So will be.

00:15:08 Lucas

Wise for me, what I mean?

00:15:09

Right.

00:15:11 Lucas

So.

00:15:13 Lucas

Yeah, I did that.

00:15:17 Lucas

Left my parents house so just for some context, actually it might be important while this is happening, it's like the pandemic just started, which is also the reason that I couldn't leave. So I finished high school and I couldn't leave my parents house basically for that year. And I I was fortunate enough to.

00:15:27

Hmm.

00:15:36 Lucas

So I've been able to use that time to read a lot and to to meditate and to learn languages and and piano and and kind of do these things and and kind and have this experience. But yeah, after that I left the house, went to study Egyptology, moved to this city that I'm in right now at The Hague in the Netherlands.

00:15:55 Lucas

For those wondering and then I studied in the city just close to here.

00:16:00 Lucas

And yeah, the Egyptology, which is.

00:16:05 Lucas

I mean, I kind of chose it.

00:16:07 Lucas

Just.

00:16:07 Lucas

Because it looks super interesting. Yeah, I did it. I didn't do any background research on it on the course itself. I just kind of had my options for university. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do.

00:16:19 Lucas

Diversity. When my brother encouraged me to do.

00:16:21 Lucas

So yeah.

00:16:23 Lucas

And.

00:16:25 Lucas

Kind of decided on this one. Was the only one that I thought was really appealing. The other ones less so for me. They made a lot less sense and this one was like, OK, this clicks.

00:16:33 Lucas

I also really like languages and history and I love learning about.

00:16:38 Lucas

Religion and and so yeah, it just made a lot of sense and.

00:16:40 Lucas

So I went to do this.

00:16:44 Lucas

There was a lot of language it was.

00:16:46 Lucas

A lot of.

00:16:49 Lucas

I don't know a lot of history, but that language was definitely the primary thing, and that was very difficult. I think a lot of people quit the studies halfway through. I ended up finishing it in three years just with one or two other people specified that Egypt was just one other person that finished it in.

00:17:05

Wow.

00:17:08 Lucas

In in three, even though we started.

00:17:11 Lucas

With about 20 or so from what I remember, I think it was 38 in the whole program, but then a lot of people specified in Egypt. So officially the course is ancient near Eastern studies, but most people in our year, they chose to focus on Egypt. That was really difficult. I liked it, especially the first year. I think they do that purposefully to give all the fun.

00:17:13

Mm-hmm.

00:17:32 Lucas

Classes in the first year and get religion of all these different regions and the really cool history, and then it's just a lot of higher cliffs which if you're going to do it, you know, be aware that it's like.

00:17:33 Merrily

Right.

00:17:44 Lucas

A lot different from learning French or.

00:17:46 Lucas

Something like that like.

00:17:47 Merrily

Mm-hmm.

00:17:47 Lucas

It will take 10 times as long. It will be 10 times as hard and I still do not feel like I kind of possess that language. But I can read it a little bit and yeah, finish those studies. Last summer kind of realized I didn't want to pursue a career in academia.

00:18:05 Lucas

For myself, because I gravitate more toward.

00:18:08 Lucas

People and I love ideas as well, but I like to find a balance between the two, which is what I like to do on the channel as well.

00:18:19 Lucas

So I love the personal like I loved getting to know you 2 weeks ago and kind of seeing the specific traits that make you marry. But I also like to know kind of what ideas grip you and I'd like to have that reflected in my day-to-day existence and the job that I do. And I felt like going into technology was.

00:18:37 Lucas

Was too brainy, and it was also the type of work you end up doing with is often very analytical, and it's not as adventurous as a lot of people may hope it could be. So yeah, kind of took another turn throughout all of this kind of starting my bachelor, I met my now wife.

00:18:43 Merrily

Right.

00:18:57 Lucas

That relationship.

00:18:58 Lucas

Was just the biggest blessing is just the biggest blessing of my life and I was.

00:19:04 Lucas

Kind of.

00:19:06 Lucas

Throughout my studies after since the first semester, I'd say very committed to her, so that ended up taking up a lot of time as well and and so as not as committed to my studies, but I always did enough to pass everything. But yeah, kind of throughout studying Egyptology, I would tell everyone when they asked me what I did, I would say I'm a student Egyptology.

00:19:26 Lucas

But really, it felt like.

00:19:28 Lucas

The main thing that they did was well-being in a relationship and the other thing was just reading about a bunch of other stuff and starting this podcast as well. Throughout those years, ended up taking so much time and so much, it gave me so much meaning and enjoyed it. Almost felt like that to find me much more than my studies.

00:19:43

If.

00:19:45 Lucas

But yeah, we ended up getting married last summer, right after I finished studies. And it was just wonderful. I'm very happily married now. And I also realized I just wanted to work.

00:19:59 Lucas

A job I've always liked working jobs throughout my studies and before that. But I just realized I wanted to do something with people where I would be appreciated and kind of.

00:20:10 Lucas

Something that felt meaningful, that kind of connected the personal and the philosophical together, and it ended up starting a.

00:20:18 Lucas

Job teaching little kids in school, so there's such a shortage now in my country that they're.

00:20:26 Lucas

Hiring people that have just university degrees and they're giving them the option to while working.

00:20:35 Lucas

So I'm working three days a week at the school, having one evening per week of night class and kind of getting your degree as a teacher while you're already a teacher. So I'm already teaching a lot of classes and after the summer I'll be like.

00:20:50 Lucas

In front of the class on my own. But you're kind of in training. And yeah, started that recently that only really took off since January. So that's what I've been busy with in the last couple of months. But I love that it. I find it the perfect intersection.

00:20:54 Merrily

Hmm.

00:21:10 Lucas

Between the things that I'm interested in and not as dull as a lot of people make it or make it out to be, I think there's a lot of opportunity when you're teaching those little beings because they're so open and they have such a fantasy and there's.

00:21:21

Mm-hmm.

00:21:26 Lucas

So.

00:21:27 Lucas

Happy to learn if you activate them in the right way and then the.

00:21:32 Lucas

You know the craft of teaching is something that you can become infinitely better at. So that's an appeal for me as well. So that's what I'm what I'm kind of doing now and doing the podcast as well every week.

00:21:44 Lucas

But that feels it feels like.

00:21:49 Lucas

You know, the podcast feels like a recorded version that I get to upload every week of kind of what I already do in my daily life. Even just talking with people that I know, like friends of mine, a lot of it is not recorded, but just having good discussions, some more personal, some more intellectual, some more philosophical.

00:22:09 Lucas

I feel it's an integral part of my life and then I'm very happy to be able to share some of those conversations because I get to listen back to them. I get to speak to people I could have never spoken to like we're speaking over zoom right now. You're in a different continent and time zone.

00:22:25 Lucas

I've gotten to speak to some of my own.

00:22:28 Lucas

Heroes that kind of I learned so much from, like teachers for me and my journey through life. And so that's been a great opportunity. So I guess I will finish it there. I'll go with not too long.

00:22:42 Merrily

Oh no, that was great. Wow. Yeah. There's stuff I was like. Yeah. I didn't know that or that. That's really cool. I love that you're a teacher and that you love doing it, you know? And that just kind of solidifies, like, everybody's got their thing, right. Like, I don't think I could do teaching right. But you've.

00:22:52 Lucas

Yeah.

00:22:59 Merrily

Clearly are great. You know you love it and you're good at, you know.

00:23:02 Lucas

Yeah.

00:23:04 Merrily

So that's so wonderful.

00:23:07 Lucas

I'm super happy. Like I I don't think I would have liked it. I didn't think like I never considered it.

00:23:11 Merrily

Right.

00:23:12 Lucas

In my life, yeah.

00:23:16 Lucas

I just always assume it's just not for me and also managing a whole group of kids. I was always more about the.

00:23:20 Lucas

One-on-one like I'm with the podcast.

00:23:21 Merrily

Yes.

00:23:23 Lucas

But.

00:23:25 Lucas

I kind of saw it pop by as a.

00:23:28 Lucas

As a job opportunity and I was like, well, let's, let's just try it. So yeah, I told them as well in the job interview. Like, I honestly don't know if I'm going to be good at this, but I think I.

00:23:37 Lucas

Have the qualities to.

00:23:38 Lucas

Do it and so they were. Like, really doubtful. And I was really doubtful. And they're like, why don't we sleep on?

00:23:44 Lucas

It you sleep on.

00:23:45 Lucas

It as well like 2 days past and.

00:23:48 Lucas

They were like, let's just try it. And I was like, why not and kind of did a trial period for two weeks and then I was like, I love this. This is awesome because I actually found that I liked the managing of the of the group and learning to be able to.

00:23:57 Merrily

Yeah.

00:24:03 Lucas

You.

00:24:05 Lucas

Activate multiple people at the same time and and make them feel heard. Heard even though you're the only like you're the only teacher and they're a bunch of kids like they're 20 or 30 kids. But if you really do your job well, you can be present with all of them.

00:24:20 Lucas

And it will not. They will not feel like they're neglected, but.

00:24:23 Merrily

Right.

00:24:25 Lucas

But you thought about that?

00:24:29 Merrily

Yeah, definitely sounds like you're a great teacher because it's definitely about the connection piece that's so great.

00:24:36 Merrily

There's so many things the you mentioned about sort of meditation and sort of it allowed you to see things about yourself. You're like, maybe like, I don't know, like this portion or this is really helping me.

00:24:52 Merrily

Did you have any sort of people to help you through that or was it sort of your own self study? How did you kind of do your journey?

00:25:01

Yeah.

00:25:02 Lucas

It was very basic actually, like I again through self help. I was like meditation is a good thing apparently, yeah.

00:25:09 Lucas

And I just looked up meditation how to meditate, and it was just the guided started with the guided 10 minute meditation.

00:25:16 Merrily

Hmm.

00:25:16 Lucas

And I tell you to sit up, right. And it's like to utilize the golden string through your spine. And I just really like that. And I started doing that every.

00:25:25 Lucas

OK. And at some point I stopped doing the guided thing and I just went to do it by myself every day.

00:25:33 Lucas

And I just.

00:25:35 Lucas

Oh man, I enjoyed it so much. I kind of.

00:25:38 Lucas

Don't think I really stopped before.

00:25:41 Lucas

But I really stopped with myself and just sat with myself. My first experience meditating actually was in school.

00:25:47 Lucas

So this was while I'm still like, pursuing the partying and all the all the nonsense. But there was this.

00:25:54 Lucas

We had these flex hours, so every fifth hour of the day you could choose what class you wanted and one of them was meditation. And I just thought, no way, you get to choose a class where you don't have to do anything. So you just sit down.

00:26:07 Lucas

You have these bean bags and and you can just lie down and you can play your own music and the teacher will be playing these meditative music.

00:26:15 Lucas

And I just, I loved it. It didn't fit my character at all at the time when I just fell in love with that, I was like, this is amazing. This is making me feel so settled because I was also also kind of a.

00:26:27 Lucas

An anxious kid growing up, this kind of. Really.

00:26:31 Lucas

Yeah, it made me relax, made me calm, and it made me.

00:26:35 Lucas

I don't know. It kind of shifted things for.

00:26:37 Lucas

Me. Whereas before I always thought.

00:26:41 Lucas

You know what happens outside? What happens to you?

00:26:44 Lucas

Happens to you, and I felt like also letting it happen to me. You know my internal.

00:26:46 Merrily

Hmm.

00:26:52 Lucas

I don't know. Things were happening internally that I felt like I couldn't control because I thought they were happening to me from the outside. But actually meditation taught me that I can go inside and control my breath.

00:27:05 Lucas

Gather my thoughts and get through difficult situations.

00:27:11 Lucas

And staying calm and that kind of have carried out with me ever since. So no real guidance. It was kind of a trying to do it myself, which for better and for worse, I guess because maybe I could have gotten more tools, but it's proven itself to be very helpful.

00:27:13 Merrily

MHM.

00:27:32 Merrily

Oh, that's cool. I love that your school, like, actually have that option. I would totally do that too. Like, yeah.

00:27:37 Lucas

It's awesome, right? I think it was just this one teacher who went up to the board and was like, you know, we need to do this. And they're like, we'll give you an opportunity. So I'm grateful to her.

00:27:47 Merrily

Oh, that's so cool.

00:27:49

Yeah.

00:27:51 Merrily

Yeah, just thinking about like, you know, because I have nephews and I see, you know, I go to their school events and stuff and all the the kid energy everywhere. And it's like I.

00:27:59 Merrily

Feel like they could probably.

00:28:01 Lucas

They could use they could use.

00:28:03 Lucas

Yoga as well. I would love to see that happening.

00:28:04

Yes.

00:28:06 Merrily

That would be amazing.

00:28:08 Merrily

Yoga for little kids. Oh my gosh, getting all that energy, just like, yes.

00:28:12 Lucas

They're also so mobile they'll probably be able to do poses that I would never being able to do. I wish exposed to that.

00:28:15 Merrily

Oh my gosh.

00:28:17 Merrily

Yeah, and it.

00:28:17 Merrily

Was like.

00:28:20

Yeah.

00:28:22 Merrily

And if you get them started young enough, they can probably continue doing those poses even if, like they don't practice, yeah.

00:28:27 Lucas

That's what I mean. Yeah, that's why I probably lost it. I'm really sad about it because now it's just taking me years to get to 2% better in terms of my flexibility, it feels like.

00:28:39 Merrily

Yeah.

00:28:40 Merrily

Oh yeah, and I did want to ask you this question.

00:28:44 Merrily

Because you mentioned it on when we had our conversation on your podcast and I was like, I wonder how this is different. So you, you know, cause I was explaining sort of the Christian situations that I grew up with as an American, either, like fundamentalist sort of, you know, whatever was going on there and you were like, oh, it's more of like, Christianity is more relaxed in the Netherlands and I'm.

00:29:06 Merrily

I wonder if you could like how is how is your perspective of? Like how is that different?

00:29:11 Merrily

I guess.

00:29:12 Lucas

Yeah, thank you. Well, I almost described it as boring to you and I didn't want to do that because I felt bad about that. And I know that if if my dad's watching, probably get a little bit upset about it, but I kind of.

00:29:26 Lucas

My perception of church growing up was always just that it was super.

00:29:31 Lucas

Low key. You sit back, you listen to the sermon, you kind of sing the song. Sometimes you stand up.

00:29:37 Merrily

Mm-hmm.

00:29:38 Lucas

And then you go about your Sunday and there's very little ritual involved. When I grew up and it was very.

00:29:46 Lucas

There was very few. There are very few extreme forms of it that I from what I know and knew at the time. Like all most of the types of Christianity that was that I was interacting with as a kid were mostly Protestants. So.

00:30:03 Lucas

Quite modern give, giving their own twist to it, much less ritual. So yeah, in a way more relaxed for better and for worse because people, when they don't have real experiences that end up going away from it as well, which is what I did.

00:30:19 Lucas

I felt like nothing was happening this this type of transcendence that I was longing for and got to a degree through a.

00:30:28 Lucas

Psychedelics, I felt like I could never get into church because it was so, you know, relaxed, but it also means there's less. I think there's a lot less cult like behavior in the Netherlands.

00:30:41 Lucas

Well, I'm sure it's, you know, sensationalized because this is the stuff that ends up on Netflix.

00:30:47 Lucas

Whenever I see some sort of a cold type of thing, it's always in the US and it's become like a joke. Like, there's all these things that are that see that, that I look at like, yesterday, me and my wife were just watching this video of this.

00:30:51 Merrily

Totally.

00:31:00 Lucas

There was a gender reveal and there was a crocodile kind of biting through a balloon, you know, as as a gender reveal, just like as a video. And I was like.

00:31:08 Lucas

You know, this happens in the US and maybe it wouldn't even, you know, get catch the news or something. And here if it would happen even in 100 years, we would still be talking about cause like that stuff that would just never happen so.

00:31:22 Lucas

I feel like.

00:31:23 Lucas

People in the US are the ones that, you know left with the boats and went on an.

00:31:27 Lucas

Adventure.

00:31:28 Lucas

And we're kind of the.

00:31:31 Lucas

You know, people that didn't take so many risks. So I think that might be a bit reflected in the in the churches we have. I guess so that that's that's maybe a a theory about it.

00:31:44 Merrily

That's a very kind wave, but I like that perspective. It's very interesting, but it's very, very generous of you.

00:31:44 Lucas

But.

00:31:55 Merrily

I think you're right. Yeah. And I'm thinking of that. I'm going to have to think on that for for a while because I do.

00:31:59 Merrily

Think that's an interesting perspective of like.

00:32:02 Lucas

Yeah.

00:32:03 Merrily

Crazy people that are looking just like left.

00:32:07 Lucas

I don't know. Yeah, you know? But but yeah. But it's again. It's for better and for worse. Like, I love adventure. You know, I think maybe if I was born in that age, I would have, I would have decided that.

00:32:11 Merrily

Yes.

00:32:17 Lucas

As.

00:32:17 Lucas

Well, but yeah, people, people here, I think.

00:32:24 Lucas

It's just a lot less extreme of what it feels like, but there's also means there's less passion and there's things things maybe.

00:32:32 Lucas

Dole out more here but.

00:32:37 Lucas

Yeah, there's a there's a beauty to the American spirit that I like as well, coming from a European perspective.

00:32:43

Of.

00:32:44 Lucas

You know, like as I told you, I grew up not liking ambition like we.

00:32:47 Lucas

We I grew up.

00:32:48 Lucas

I they told me that I was going to be tall as a kid and I was like, I don't wanna be tall. I wanna be normal. You know what I mean? And we have this. We have this saying in in Dutch that just says.

00:32:58 Lucas

Be normal, we say. Do normal. Just be normal. Just that there's this looking down on the people that want to be more exceptional, whereas I feel like the American spirit is a bit more.

00:33:09 Lucas

Celebratory of the different the the stranger, the I don't know the person wanting to get make something out of nothing and.

00:33:20 Lucas

So yeah, there's there's something.

00:33:22 Lucas

Beautiful about it as well that I that I like.

00:33:25

Hmm.

00:33:25 Lucas

But I I'm.

00:33:26 Lucas

I'm happy to live in a city that that has a lot of people from different places, so.

00:33:30 Lucas

We have like a.

00:33:32 Lucas

Big international.

00:33:34

A.

00:33:35 Lucas

Residence here. So Vegas, like a we have the ICM so it's the International Criminal Court and it brings a lot of people from.

00:33:41 Lucas

Different.

00:33:41 Lucas

Places. And so that's that's fun for me. But it also means that I can basically get by in my daily life if I wanted to, not having to speak a word of touch. So you kind of feel like you're in a different.

00:33:54 Lucas

Right, in a different world sometimes, yeah.

00:33:57 Lucas

Yeah, for sure.

00:33:59 Merrily

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for. Yeah, thank you for that perspective on the American situation. And yeah, it's interesting and about the the psychedelics, I'm also interested in. Yeah, I like again. I like your perspective on it. And I know you or like you sharing your experience.

00:34:07 Lucas

Yeah.

00:34:20 Merrily

And about how you would wouldn't do it again.

00:34:23 Lucas

Hmm.

00:34:24 Merrily

And.

00:34:26 Merrily

Would you advise people or how would you like if somebody was like, hey Lucas, should I do I watch, you know, like, how would you?

00:34:29 Lucas

Yeah.

00:34:31 Lucas

There we go.

00:34:36 Lucas

Yeah.

00:34:39 Merrily

Have that conversation.

00:34:40 Lucas

Yeah, I I'd like to really know someone before I can answer that question. So I think it's so dependent on who you are, what you're looking for and what your motivation is.

00:34:43 Merrily

Right.

00:34:52 Lucas

So I'm extremely hesitant. I barely speak to it about people that I know.

00:34:57 Lucas

Yeah, with people that I know, sorry. And if I know someone really well and I really feel.

00:35:04 Lucas

Like.

00:35:05 Lucas

They're kind of stuck in a frame and.

00:35:10 Lucas

I also don't really recommend it to people that are in crisis mode. For example, it like people to be relatively stable and being able to go through that. But you know there will be the rare occasion that I will tell someone maybe about my own experience and suggesting that perhaps something like that could be beneficial to them.

00:35:13 Merrily

Yeah.

00:35:27 Merrily

MHM.

00:35:29 Lucas

Well, I'll tell you when I just did it, I immediately was like everyone should do this.

00:35:33 Lucas

You know, we should.

00:35:35 Lucas

You know, this is a very common perspective that you get from it, but as I thought about it more and more and start to research as well how they kind of dealt with it.

00:35:39

MHM.

00:35:44 Lucas

Throughout the ages and how much traditional cultures deal with deal with this type of stuff? How some?

00:35:52 Lucas

In in South America, for example, only the Sharman would take it. Sometimes, you know, this kind of wasn't even for the the people wanting to be transformed. Yeah. So I've I've become a lot more hesitant about that, but I find it unfair. And I have seen people do this.

00:35:56 Merrily

Right.

00:36:11 Lucas

To be like, well, I've gotten this great thing from this experience, but you know, it's not for you. You're not going to be able to benefit from it. I think there's also something that I don't.

00:36:20 Lucas

That that I feel like.

00:36:21 Lucas

Is.

00:36:21 Lucas

Missing the mark a bit with that perspective. So I really let it depend on the person that I'm talking to and and try to know them as much as possible to give a good advice about it.

00:36:24

Hmm.

00:36:32 Merrily

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:36:35 Merrily

And that's very measured advice for sure.

00:36:38 Lucas

I like to think about it a lot because.

00:36:39 Merrily

Yeah.

00:36:41 Lucas

You know, at first you really do wanna tell people, just go.

00:36:44 Merrily

Yeah.

00:36:45 Merrily

And I like that you were like everybody should like immediately out. Like, I totally get that like, everybody should do. This would be so great.

00:36:50 Lucas

Yeah.

00:36:54 Merrily

Yeah, because I because my husband and I have had this conversation because we haven't done any psychedelics.

00:37:00 Lucas

Ah.

00:37:01 Merrily

And you know not to say that it it's the opportunity in the right circumstances maybe, but I think you and I heard of like well just doing meditation and you know we just have just strange things that happen anyway just like.

00:37:14 Lucas

I was going to say, especially if you do kundalini, I mean, I don't know if there's a big difference at some point, you know.

00:37:20 Merrily

Yeah.

00:37:23 Merrily

I think my perspective, like I said, I haven't done anything, is that just doing sort of the meditation or any of the energy work? It's like you get a softer version you know, but you really have to like sit in it and like really trust that what you're getting.

00:37:40 Merrily

Is.

00:37:40 Merrily

You know something that's real.

00:37:42 Merrily

Or something meant for you.

00:37:45 Merrily

UM versus where? It sounds like when you're doing like a more like a psychedelic, it's very you you can't deny because like all your senses are fiery. Exactly.

00:37:53 Lucas

Exactly. You can't escape it either.

00:37:57 Lucas

You know, yeah.

00:37:59 Merrily

So that's interesting. Yeah, I like that you walked us through your experience with that.

00:38:05 Lucas

I was curious about you guys because you mentioned that you both have kind of this, your husband especially tendency to just get into these type of States and yeah and see things so.

00:38:17 Lucas

I think I wasn't sure if you if you had experiences with it, but in in some ways again it doesn't maybe matter somewhat. You're still someone that is able to experience these levels of reality without needing the substance, which is such a modern thing, right to to need a substance to.

00:38:26 Merrily

Right, yeah.

00:38:36 Merrily

Right.

00:38:37 Lucas

Get an experience because we're sold all about the material, yeah.

00:38:41 Lucas

We just I think while we're looking at history that way as well, you know we want to find out that they did psychedelics, you know, because that's our only way to conceive of transcendence for, like, no way it's.

00:38:47 Merrily

Exactly.

00:38:50 Lucas

Just through meditation, yeah.

00:38:52 Merrily

You have to take something and then have it right.

00:38:54 Merrily

Instead of like.

00:38:55 Merrily

Being part of your.

00:38:56 Lucas

Has to be has to be cause and effect that that's the way that you think about it. Where's the chemical?

00:38:58 Merrily

Yes.

00:39:01 Merrily

Yeah. Like give it to me.

00:39:05 Merrily

And you mentioned as you were talking and then also in the.

00:39:10 Merrily

You did a I'll just. I don't think I mentioned that on camera, but you did a presentation of Egypt Egyptology essentially on another podcast and you shared it on your on your channel. And I watched it and it was really super fascinating, but you and the other two hosts, we're kind of talking about sort of materialism.

00:39:29 Merrily

And what came to my mind is, again, I'm there's this astrological magician named Christopher Warnock who's like, I follow all of his stuff and he's amazing.

00:39:40 Merrily

But he talks about this concept of atheistic materiality or no, wait, atheistic materialism, and his concept is that.

00:39:45 Lucas

Hmm.

00:39:49 Merrily

The whole world is basically living in atheistic materialism. So what that means is sort of like where you were talking about is unless there's a physical.

00:39:59 Merrily

Reaction in the material world that you can observe, it doesn't exist.

00:40:03 Lucas

Yes, yes. Yes, exactly. Yeah, that's exactly what it is.

00:40:08 Merrily

Yeah. And for him, he was like, even people that are in certain religions or spiritual practices, they don't understand that they are living in an atheistic materialist universe, reality.

00:40:21 Merrily

So then he's like, so when they're, like, maybe going to church or like, having a spiritual, a spiritual experience, they don't consider it real unless there is some sort of material world outcome, does that makes?

00:40:35 Merrily

Sense sort of.

00:40:35 Lucas

Yes it does perfectly.

00:40:37 Merrily

Yeah. And so I was listening to you guys talk about that on the podcast you were on and I was like, yeah, that is that's kind of very much the same sort of concept of.

00:40:48 Merrily

We don't buy it. Yeah, doesn't exist.

00:40:52 Lucas

Yeah. And even to you make a good point, because even it's religious people that think this way because that's kind of the worldview they've inherited. And so that's kind of also me stepping away from Christianity when I was younger, it was because I felt that.

00:40:57 Merrily

Yeah.

00:41:04 Merrily

Yeah.

00:41:07 Lucas

Even inside of the tradition.

00:41:10 Lucas

It was an atheistic worldview. You know what I mean? It was only then after that I was like ohh wait, I can read the Bible in a different way. And there's actually still places and and people that.

00:41:17 Merrily

Mm-hmm.

00:41:22 Lucas

Can understand.

00:41:25 Lucas

These texts and these messages in a let's say in the way it was meant to be understood, but a lot of people in people that are religious in name, they don't realize that they are, you know, inside of that paradigm very much still.

00:41:42

Yeah.

00:41:44 Lucas

Yeah. So yeah, that's a really good point. I I didn't think.

00:41:47 Lucas

About it like that.

00:41:48 Merrily

Yeah, that's right for sure.

00:41:50 Merrily

Yeah, he basically cracked my brain on thinking I.

00:41:53 Merrily

Was like Oh yeah.

00:42:02 Merrily

And I did want to talk. Oh, and you had such a great question. I'm going to turn it.

00:42:06 Merrily

Back on you.

00:42:07 Merrily

So like and I know you asked this a lot of your guests, but what is your concept of like metaphysical beings or gods?

00:42:16 Lucas

Ah.

00:42:17 Merrily

Like what is your take on it?

00:42:19 Merrily

What do you think?

00:42:20 Lucas

Yeah, so, well, it's shifted a lot even just last week, talking to you, to be honest, it shifts every week, I would say, yeah, because I'm a bit of a noob in this regard, like I just.

00:42:24 Merrily

Hmm.

00:42:31 Lucas

So.

00:42:32 Lucas

An experience that I had with psychedelics, I definitely felt experience of beings. It was the first time that I was like, OK, definitely there's some sort of reality to this and they felt.

00:42:45 Lucas

I felt like they they loved me and they wanted.

00:42:50 Lucas

What's best for me? I felt guided speaking to you 2 weeks ago was the first time I could really. I really. The first time I spoken to exist since that they might have been angels just because I don't know what.

00:43:00 Lucas

Angels are but.

00:43:04 Lucas

They felt like they were guides and very positive. I know that there is.

00:43:12 Lucas

More evil type of beings, but then speaking to Jason, he was like maybe using the word evil and good with these beings. It's not the right way to understand them. That got me thinking as well.

00:43:27 Lucas

Then gods I don't, so this is also what I mentioned to you 2 weeks ago is that I don't know if we need to understand all these beings and categorize them in, let's say 10s or hundreds or thousands of different categories or if it's much more simple than that. I haven't been able to figure it out.

00:43:46 Lucas

If you do look at the pictures of them, of course there's manifold type of manifestations and ways people describe them, but I think it makes sense that different cultures would give different names to the same phenomena. So.

00:44:02 Lucas

My take on it right now is that.

00:44:05 Lucas

There's definitely reality to it.

00:44:09 Lucas

Not atheistically materialistically measurable.

00:44:15 Lucas

But almost for me, undeniably real.

00:44:22 Lucas

Then they also have good and bad sides, I would say.

00:44:27 Merrily

Mm-hmm.

00:44:30 Lucas

And then I'm also wondering if some of these beings are you're used to be human beings, what the relationship is to that. Are these types of entities stuck in a level of being that?

00:44:46 Lucas

We could transcend or that you know, is it so that, for example, angels can never become like us, that that there's another question that I have or is is more like these are our ancestors, and they're kind of.

00:45:00 Lucas

You know, watching over us or haunting us too, so.

00:45:04 Lucas

Yeah, bunch of bunch of thoughts there. And then Egyptian gods, I thought about a lot about, I think the gods in Egypt.

00:45:13 Lucas

In their own understanding, were the same as the gods and.

00:45:17 Lucas

In the Greek or Roman world, for example, they could translate between them as well as Mesopotamia.

00:45:24 Lucas

That was a very common occurrence that they would just see this and this and and and they would be aware that the depictions they have had of the they had of the gods weren't the gods themselves. They were definitely aware there was more than that. But there's also the degree to which it feels like.

00:45:40 Lucas

From their perspective, the Egyptians I'm talking about, some of those gods existence depended on us. So us giving them attention and sacrifices made them alive.

00:45:47

Hmm.

00:45:51 Merrily

Right.

00:45:51 Lucas

I think that might be true as well.

00:45:55 Lucas

So yeah, that's in a rough.

00:45:56 Lucas

Draft what I think.

00:45:58 Lucas

About different beings. But yeah, again, I'm. I'm a real noob and I don't have really a a framework yet for it. I I feel very Christian and who I am but I don't feel like Christianity provides.

00:46:13 Lucas

An adequate framework for understanding.

00:46:15 Lucas

All of the strangeness that I feel is real, I think that might be out of precaution so that people don't experiment with it too much, right? I'm too curious of a mind to not. So that's kind of where.

00:46:17

Hmm.

00:46:23 Merrily

Alright, yeah.

00:46:28 Merrily

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, definitely like I totally.

00:46:35 Merrily

Sympathize with like the changing idea of it, because yeah, as.

00:46:39 Merrily

You go along. You're.

00:46:40 Merrily

Like, well, there's new a new look into this and I'm not exactly sure.

00:46:43 Lucas

Yeah.

00:46:45 Lucas

Yeah.

00:46:48 Merrily

But for me it's helpful to think on those things just so you have a place of reference, right? Like somewhere to go to and be like I think it.

00:46:56 Merrily

Fits here. We'll see how it goes.

00:47:00 Lucas

Yeah.

00:47:02 Merrily

UM.

00:47:03 Merrily

Oh, and there's something you said about definitely. Like, I think maybe in the year Iasca experience, but something about experience, right, like these things you can't really understand them by talking to somebody, reading it in a book. You have to walk it. You have to, like, go through.

00:47:22 Merrily

And then you know, if somebody else has had a similar thing, it's a lot easier. You're like and they're.

00:47:26 Merrily

Like. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:47:28 Lucas

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:47:29 Merrily

That's the only time you get it right.

00:47:31 Lucas

Exactly.

00:47:32

Yeah.

00:47:33 Lucas

And I also wonder about if we're able to experience entities that ancient people were able to experience. So one of my.

00:47:41 Lucas

Big inspiration, someone that I learned a lot from.

00:47:44 Lucas

He's a cognitive scientist at the University of Toronto, and he's been describing experiences that he's had with the God Hermes.

00:47:52 Merrily

Hmm.

00:47:53 Lucas

Hermes is a God.

00:47:53 Lucas

Right. Yeah, yeah.

00:47:55 Lucas

Center. Yeah. Mr. God.

00:47:57 Lucas

And I was wondering if his experience with Hermes is similar.

00:48:00 Lucas

To the ancients experiencing Hermes, or if every Hermes is kind of a little different, you know what I mean. To what degree is are these entities objective and to what degree are we kind of?

00:48:13 Lucas

Is our subjectivity.

00:48:15 Lucas

Creating them where I definitely don't think it's a either or. I think it's somewhere in between. That's kind of where I'm at right now. I don't think it's fully subjective or fully objective I.

00:48:20 Merrily

It is.

00:48:21

Yeah.

00:48:25 Lucas

Think there's something?

00:48:28

Yeah.

00:48:28 Lucas

Yeah, I mean the lines, I don't know.

00:48:31 Merrily

Yeah, I'm totally in agreement with you about that. Only because you know there is sort of the overarching idea of what Hermes is.

00:48:39 Merrily

But my own experience with Hermes and that particular energy, I do think when it interacts with me in particular, it uses things that I understand, like there's a a personalization with it. I don't that makes sense.

00:48:52 Lucas

Yeah. Yes it does.

00:48:55 Merrily

And it's weird. You know, the way it interacts with me is more like jokey and, like, fun and. But, you know, that's who I am. So of course, to get my attention, that's how it's going to interact with me. Right. And and that is what Hermes is. It's like very much into that. So.

00:49:08 Lucas

So.

00:49:13 Lucas

And and how does that contact manifest?

00:49:17 Merrily

Meditation for sure, meditation. Or you know, we do a planetary ritual every Wednesday with her knees. And we'll sit, meditate with it.

00:49:18 Lucas

Ah.

00:49:25

Do.

00:49:25 Lucas

You feel do you feel a presence? Is it auditory? Is there a visual component?

00:49:32 Merrily

Umm, sometimes all of those things and the presence it really feels just like a pressure in the room. Like the room changes, right? Like if you're going up a hill and you can feel the pressure change in a car, it feels like that.

00:49:38 Lucas

Yeah, that makes sense.

00:49:42 Lucas

Yes. Yeah.

00:49:46 Merrily

When you're just sitting in a room, like, why would that change, and and then you will get like or I will get like symbols mentally, right? Like literally. And, you know, and sometimes you'll get like, a word. But it's not like, you know, external. It's like you'll hear like a word in your head. Right. And you're like, oh.

00:49:56 Lucas

Ah.

00:50:06 Lucas

And and what kind of symbols? What kind of symbols are there? Are they symbols that you're familiar with?

00:50:10

The.

00:50:12 Merrily

Sometimes I've gotten a lot of, especially early on, I got a lot of actually Hebrew characters, and I didn't even know what they were right until I'm now, of course, four years later studying this stuff. It's like, oh, yeah, but.

00:50:19 Lucas

Yeah.

00:50:19 Lucas

OK.

00:50:27 Merrily

And I'd have to look it up because I was like, I don't know what this is and.

00:50:30 Merrily

I'm like, why are you sending this to me, you know?

00:50:32 Lucas

Crazy. Yeah, I thought something similar. I didn't think about that, but inexperienced. Very.

00:50:38 Lucas

Memorable part of it was that I saw this symbol, you know the.

00:50:44 Lucas

For those listening, I'm making a circle that kind of expands, so it starts as a small circle and goes making bigger and throughout that circle there is a text and.

00:50:49

Ohh yeah.

00:50:53 Lucas

It.

00:50:54 Lucas

Looked also like an ancient script of some sort. I don't know what it was, but it's one of the reasons I was interested in Egypt because I was like, there was an ancient script that I wanted. Yeah, but yeah, yeah. I I wonder.

00:50:58 Merrily

Hmm.

00:51:04 Lucas

Because.

00:51:06 Lucas

That has some implications, like a symbol in language that we don't even know. What does that mean?

00:51:11 Merrily

Mm-hmm.

00:51:13

You know.

00:51:14 Lucas

You know that. So, but that's so cool. Because there's one thing to see. A symbol that you maybe haven't seen before, but to see a language because language.

00:51:15 Merrily

Like what is this?

00:51:24 Lucas

You know, it's kind of recent, but it's also it can be old it.

00:51:26 Lucas

Could be at that language, it could be.

00:51:29 Lucas

Yeah, that definitely.

00:51:31 Merrily

And like even with the symbol, like the symbol that you were shown, did you know exactly what it was then? Or do you even know what it is now? Or is it something you just kind of contemplate as you go?

00:51:42 Lucas

Yeah, I guess I had no idea. Mostly, you know, they say that some people say that to your experience of.

00:51:45 Merrily

Yeah.

00:51:50 Lucas

Or whether it be psychedelics or perhaps meditation. Sometimes you can influence them a lot, or people that read a lot about UFOs. They start seeing UFOs type of thing, but I wasn't exposed to any of that stuff like I I literally went into it with. I have no idea what to expect. And this was before I really started doing heavy reading into things and reading colleagues.

00:51:59 Merrily

That's right.

00:52:09 Lucas

For example, works a lot with mendelism.

00:52:13 Lucas

But yeah, all sorts of shapes and colors that.

00:52:15 Lucas

Never seen before in in symbols and.

00:52:18 Merrily

MHM.

00:52:19 Lucas

Yeah, definitely started making me think like, oh, OK, so a lot of these artists, they kind of.

00:52:26 Lucas

Receive.

00:52:27 Merrily

Yeah.

00:52:28 Lucas

Instead of make up something they there is universal patterns. There's a reason there is a, you know, tree of life and all these different cultures. I don't think one person kind of made it up and then just like traveled everywhere and showed it. And you know, I feel similarly about Dragons and about.

00:52:48 Lucas

The the flood represented everywhere I.

00:52:51 Lucas

Think.

00:52:53 Lucas

You know, maybe there's a material reality to some of this stuff, but I still think a lot of it is universal patterns. Uh, that.

00:53:01

Yeah.

00:53:02 Lucas

You can pick up spiritually.

00:53:04

Hmm.

00:53:05 Lucas

You know, yeah.

00:53:07 Merrily

Yeah. And I definitely you know, that's such a great way of putting it and especially I have this thing about the symbols, right? Like the like, hieroglyphics. You know, talk about Egyptology.

00:53:16 Lucas

Yeah.

00:53:17 Merrily

Again, it's those symbols are not words for reasons like they can represent words as you know, but or letters even.

00:53:22 Lucas

Yes.

00:53:25 Merrily

But like there is something about that symbol that you can expand like you feel it. You might get like an, you know, there's like more to it than the word or the.

00:53:32 Lucas

Uh-huh.

00:53:34 Lucas

Yes, you see through the symbol through reality that this is expansive.

00:53:37

Yeah.

00:53:40 Merrily

Yes. Yeah.

00:53:43 Merrily

So I don't think that is a mistake or not. That is a mistake, but there's a reason why people are shown that when you connect with this stuff, right? Because they don't want you to think in the material atheistic materialist letter frame.

00:53:55 Lucas

Yeah. Yeah. They're giving you a way to break out.

00:53:58 Lucas

Of it.

00:53:58 Merrily

Yes. Yeah.

00:53:58 Lucas

Yeah. Even though you still have your senses.

00:54:00 Merrily

Yes, exactly.

00:54:01 Lucas

It's like poetry or or song.

00:54:04

Yeah.

00:54:04 Merrily

Exactly, yeah.

00:54:04 Lucas

Ah, that's cool. Yeah. I didn't think about symbols like that. They're like referring beyond words.

00:54:07 Merrily

Yeah, because.

00:54:11 Merrily

MHM.

00:54:14 Merrily

Because yeah, definitely like when you're describing it. Like, Yep, yeah. Definitely. And I see all the time now I'm investigating like.

00:54:22 Merrily

You know my mother's Filipino, so I'm trying to figure out like pre colonial, you know, what was going on? The Philippines on this. I'm shown I'm being shown like symbols and and not letters. But like symbol language that I was like. I don't even know what.

00:54:34 Merrily

This is you.

00:54:35 Merrily

Know what I mean? And you know it's. Of course it's too quick for me to like jot it down or anything that I'm like.

00:54:35 Lucas

Ah.

00:54:41 Merrily

But I'm being shown it right.

00:54:43 Merrily

And of course, my analytical mind is like, but I want to know what this means and what are you trying to tell me.

00:54:48 Merrily

Yeah.

00:54:49 Merrily

But I think it's just you kind.

00:54:50 Merrily

Of just sit.

00:54:51 Merrily

With it and as it goes, it'll like potentially reveal.

00:54:53 Lucas

Yeah.

00:54:55 Lucas

Yeah, maybe it's also not so much about what it's going to mean exactly. You're going to look it up and be satisfied. Maybe it's more also showing you.

00:55:02 Lucas

You know.

00:55:03

Yes.

00:55:03 Lucas

This is what we're able to do.

00:55:05 Merrily

Yes, exactly. That's such a great, yeah. Perspective on that for sure. Oh, wow. Yeah. Symbols. So segue into Egyptology.

00:55:06 Lucas

Pay attention.

00:55:21 Merrily

Because I did watch. Yeah, I watched that interview. I loved it. I think people, if you're interested in geology, definitely watch Lucas's presentation about it. It was really cool. And. And I do think it was funny because, like, as you were talking about. Yeah, I'm gonna study Egyptology as, like, a young person. I'm like, yeah, you wanna go and be Indiana Jones? You wanna go and like, you know.

00:55:40 Merrily

In there and be all active, but it's a lot of bookwork.

00:55:41

Yes.

00:55:44 Lucas

Yeah, yeah. You're just in the books. I mean, when you do your masters, if I would have done my masters, I would have actually gone to Egypt. But even that trip I've heard.

00:55:52 Lucas

You writing essays most.

00:55:53 Lucas

Of the time, what's the point?

00:55:54 Merrily

Why?

00:55:56

Yes.

00:55:56 Lucas

Hello.

00:55:58 Merrily

Yeah, that's such a bummer. I mean, I get it, right, because the language is the hieroglyphics and it's super important.

00:56:05 Lucas

Yeah.

00:56:07 Lucas

Yeah.

00:56:07 Merrily

Still, it's like.

00:56:11 Lucas

And I feel that it really hashes out a lot of the.

00:56:19 Lucas

You know the wondrous minds that that want to explore and kind of break free from older paradigms because you know it's it's hard to be off that mind and also do six years of.

00:56:21

Hmm.

00:56:32 Lucas

Just really hard analytical work because reading those things it's it can be such a pain.

00:56:41 Merrily

Oh my gosh, I know.

00:56:43 Merrily

And you layered it so well on your presentation because you're like hieroglyphics and then all the way to, like, there's a cursive version of this. And I was like.

00:56:49 Lucas

Yeah, the cursive.

00:56:50 Lucas

Is.

00:56:50 Merrily

Oh my gosh.

00:56:52 Lucas

Yeah. If you think I glyphics hard to cursive. It's just a different beast that I did not know existed. And I'm excited it does.

00:57:03 Merrily

So I did want to ask.

00:57:04 Merrily

You.

00:57:05 Merrily

So what about the Egyptian gods?

00:57:09 Merrily

Like there was must have been something that attracted to you. Like I I know. It sounds exciting to study Egyptology, but yeah. What do you think they are like? What? Attracted to you to them in particular?

00:57:20 Merrily

That kind of.

00:57:20 Merrily

Thing.

00:57:21 Lucas

Yeah, I think that.

00:57:25 Lucas

Egyptian religion is interesting because it's.

00:57:29 Lucas

Like I told you, I think when we spoke, there's no atheists in Egypt, there weren't. The religion is kind of.

00:57:34

Yeah.

00:57:38 Lucas

Not an option, it's an. It's the truth that that you just live inside of, so everything is interconnected. The gods are everywhere. The gods are.

00:57:49 Lucas

Man, how? How did I hear someone describe the gods in Egypt? They're kind of, you know, when I grew up, they told, they told me that Rome in in Rome and in Greece, the gods were kind of the weather. So. So look how stupid these people are because when it rains, they say it's a man deciding that it's going to rain. And I was just like.

00:58:06 Lucas

Well.

00:58:06 Lucas

That's well, I bought it as a kid, but now I'm just thinking about it.

00:58:10 Lucas

Like, how would you?

00:58:11 Lucas

Destroy a child's fantasy like that by saying that stuff and also just get it so wrong because.

00:58:19 Lucas

You know, you read Plato, one of the most.

00:58:22 Lucas

Brilliant minds of all time and he believed in the gods.

00:58:26 Lucas

And to think that he's just some superstitious.

00:58:31 Lucas

You know, I I just think it's this is this is the type of of sentiment that bothers me about the modern age that we were just like.

00:58:39 Lucas

We think we know better.

00:58:42 Lucas

After you know, millennia of people clearly saw there was more going on in terms of beings, and anyway the.

00:58:49 Lucas

Yeah. Yep. What? What appealed to me was kind of this. Yeah. This this interconnected way of of viewing the world and this undeniably of it. That's always been so fascinating to me because to me, there was always a doubt and.

00:59:09 Lucas

I I felt like I was born into an age of skepticism and the Egyptians kind of just lived in this truth, and they didn't feel the need to explain it or rationalize it. And so I'm I have been throughout my studies trying to understand that worldview. Think that's what? What pulled me to it.

00:59:26

Hmm.

00:59:30 Lucas

It's not like those due to God's exist or is there any reality to them? That wasn't the question is.

00:59:35 Lucas

Like.

00:59:36 Lucas

What are they? What? What is the relationship between people and them? How did these oracles work? How do?

00:59:45 Lucas

How did the gods influence the people, and how do the people influence the gods?

00:59:48 Lucas

And.

00:59:50 Lucas

Yeah, this this intrigues me. Still. I don't. I don't know if I've gotten much wiser about it. As I mentioned in that podcast, because it's very far from us. But it's endlessly fascinating to me.

01:00:06 Merrily

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's always, yeah. The Egyptian gods are always fascinating. Everybody's pretty much gripped by them.

01:00:14 Merrily

And I like that you said like, oh, you know, the people before us were really dumb. And we're the the smartest ones on the planet. And it's like, well, if they were so dumb, why are we here? You know what? You know what I mean? Like, they did all the and we're here all that millennial later. So they.

01:00:26 Lucas

Yeah.

01:00:28 Merrily

Didn't weren't totally dumb, no.

01:00:28 Lucas

Yeah.

01:00:31 Lucas

And also we're the ones that are the ones that are exes in the press that don't know what the world is about, like at least, at least they had a framework where.

01:00:39 Lucas

They were kind of.

01:00:41 Lucas

Their their lives were meaning filled and so meaning is undeniable.

01:00:46 Merrily

Right.

01:00:47 Lucas

And we're kind of needing all these little tools and gadgets to try to get close to it. So yeah, we're we're in a wisdom famine and they they I feel, I feel the ancients were much wiser than us. Not not to like and there's so many things about this age that are wonderful and I don't think anyone would choose to live in a different one.

01:01:09 Lucas

Unless it's like for a day and you get to see how the pyramids.

01:01:11 Lucas

Are.

01:01:11 Lucas

Built but, but you know, in general I I don't want to be one of those people that.

01:01:12

Yeah.

01:01:16

The.

01:01:17 Lucas

Kind of trashes all over their time, but.

01:01:20 Lucas

In from a from a wisdom, wisdom perspective and and meaning there.

01:01:24 Lucas

Is a different time.

01:01:26 Merrily

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. It would be cool just to see like just a.

01:01:30 Merrily

Day like how are you guys doing this?

01:01:31 Lucas

Ohh man, just give me a day please. I would be so happy.

01:01:34

Let's see.

01:01:37 Lucas

That's all I want, but not just Egypt. I want to go everywhere I want to see them all.

01:01:41 Merrily

Yeah.

01:01:43 Merrily

Yeah, the three.

01:01:43 Lucas

This is my my this is the the thing that I the itch that I know never get to scratch unless I'm really lucky and I get just time warped into a different life to it.

01:01:55 Merrily

Ohh.

01:01:55 Lucas

Yeah. What would you?

01:01:56 Lucas

Do if you could go to anytime just for a bit any place.

01:01:57 Merrily

Oh my gosh. For a day. That's such a great question, Lucas. I don't even know if I have a good answer because all these things are like I would do this. This is like but one time, yeah.

01:02:00 Lucas

Yeah.

01:02:07

Yeah.

01:02:08 Lucas

I don't know the top three as well, if that.

01:02:13 Merrily

I guess.

01:02:15 Merrily

Let's see. I guess I would like to see well, there's sort of like sort of certain ancestors that have communicated to me through meditation.

01:02:23 Lucas

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:02:25 Merrily

And I've seen a little bit of glimpses of sort of what their lives were like, but it would.

01:02:28 Merrily

Be kind of cool, yeah.

01:02:28 Lucas

Really.

01:02:30 Lucas

That's so. So what answer from from the Filipino side or?

01:02:34 Merrily

Oh gosh, yes. Mainly because I did this particular ancestor work starting with my mother's mother side.

01:02:42 Merrily

And like 1, was this very ancient ancient ancestor, like she wasn't even discernibly like Filipino, like, if anything. And then she showed me, like, where sort of in modern day, like on the map where she was located. And it was like Turkey.

01:02:56 Lucas

Ah.

01:02:58 Merrily

Turkey and like what was it like? Turkey and Russia it she kept bouncing between like they were moving right nomadic.

01:03:02

Wow.

01:03:04 Lucas

Noetic.

01:03:05 Merrily

And then she showed me, like what they're wearing. And it was like, literally, like, almost cave person, like, like furs and stuff. Right. And she had big curly hair.

01:03:15 Merrily

Pale.

01:03:15 Merrily

Your skin? Well, not not totally paler, but anyway.

01:03:18 Lucas

Yeah.

01:03:19 Merrily

But her inner and she was like the leader of, like, this group of small group of people. But she was like, kind of the shaman, the leader of this particular group of people. And So what I got was like, like ancient, like, thousands of years previous, which was weird.

01:03:36 Lucas

Oh.

01:03:37 Merrily

And but I would like to see a little bit more about her. But what was weird about that, but very cool was like the energy of who she was. I can see her in my mom, my sister, like the women in the family. I can see, like from all that time like that same sort of energy is like there is very weird.

01:03:48

Yeah.

01:03:57 Merrily

So I would love to see like she showed me a little bit of her, sort of what she does and stuff.

01:04:01 Merrily

Would be cool to like like.

01:04:03 Merrily

What you guys doing?

01:04:05 Lucas

Yeah.

01:04:06 Merrily

Over here.

01:04:07 Lucas

Uh.

01:04:08 Lucas

I wish I got a little glimpse of that.

01:04:11 Merrily

I think you can. You just have to like reach in there and see what's going on with your ancestors if you're interested.

01:04:16 Lucas

I would love to do that.

01:04:18 Merrily

Yeah.

01:04:18 Merrily

It would be really cool.

01:04:20 Lucas

Yeah.

01:04:22 Merrily

Yeah. I think sort of visiting sort of the certain ancestors and get a little bit knowledge would be really interesting. But yeah, I would, I would maybe give up one of those to go see what.

01:04:31 Merrily

Was going on in each.

01:04:33 Lucas

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's just also just seeing a city and yeah.

01:04:39 Lucas

Kind of. I mean, supposedly.

01:04:42 Lucas

While the pyramids, but also in ancient Greece and all of these structures, they had a lot more color because not a lot of the color is eroded off. So we just assume that's what they look like, but they're actually extremely colorful. And yeah, I'd love to see them in just the perfect state.

01:04:49 Merrily

That's right.

01:04:57 Merrily

Like full glory, like the pyramids. I know you mentioned it on when you were talking about it, but the way.

01:05:00

Ah.

01:05:02 Merrily

They were most likely they were covered in like white marble or I'm not exactly sure, but then like limestone.

01:05:05 Lucas

Yeah.

01:05:07 Lucas

I think it was limestone. I'm I'm not sure. Right. And then the top was gold or something, I'm not sure.

01:05:11

Yeah.

01:05:13 Merrily

Yeah, and you're.

01:05:13 Merrily

Like what a site like Can you imagine?

01:05:16 Lucas

Yeah, and supposedly they were covered in.

01:05:18 Lucas

Lifts as well, so they would have told us some.

01:05:20 Lucas

Something more.

01:05:24 Lucas

Yeah, these things, I mean, so this curiosity and this like itch that I want to scratch, I've started to learn how to kind of.

01:05:32 Lucas

Identify those as you know, not the most important thing, which is why I stopped kind of finish those studies. But still, whenever you get me going on the stuff in my mind, you just go. Please give me. Give me a day. Let me see.

01:05:47 Lucas

Give me the answers.

01:05:49 Merrily

Uh, yeah, for sure.

01:05:52 Merrily

Yeah. Well, yeah. Thank you for walking down the Egyptian road. And definitely it would be cool if you.

01:05:57 Merrily

Could go visit it.

01:05:59 Lucas

Yeah. I mean, I haven't even been with this scandalous, but I get to.

01:06:06 Lucas

What? What bothers me the most and what I like about it the most is that there are answers. I mean, there were answers if I was there five years ago, where some other questions.

01:06:17 Lucas

That I like to ask on this channel pertaining to reality or metaphysics or religion. They're they're mysteries and they're not supposed to be answered. But this one actually has an answer. There's there has a proper clear answer. You know, what is how?

01:06:30 Lucas

Is.

01:06:31 Lucas

How would appear? What was going on? How did the city look like these? Are these are answerable?

01:06:31 Merrily

Oh.

01:06:36 Lucas

What?

01:06:38 Lucas

You know, maybe there's hope some to some sort of means.

01:06:42 Lucas

I don't know.

01:06:44 Lucas

It would be nice.

01:06:45 Merrily

Yes, I agree.

01:06:47 Merrily

Well, we're sort of wrapping up a little bit here, but I know you talked about making your podcast, but what was sort of the and it happened during 2020, but what was the inspiration for like really getting going on it?

01:06:59 Lucas

Well, it actually happened quite suddenly. I've always I had love podcasts for years at this.

01:07:05 Lucas

Point.

01:07:06 Lucas

And I was very deep into them and listening to them all the time, especially before I got into my relationship, I was just reading and listening to podcasts all.

01:07:15 Lucas

Day.

01:07:17 Lucas

But I didn't really feel like I had much, much interesting to say. I have my YouTube channel for a long time and I made little videos which.

01:07:25 Lucas

Kind of.

01:07:26 Lucas

I think I just started a YouTube channel because I knew that it would take time to grow anything, so I was like, let me just start and just.

01:07:32 Lucas

Talk.

01:07:32 Lucas

About whatever I find interesting, but I kind of got bored myself very quickly and I was so about consistency that I just kept doing it for a long time.

01:07:43 Lucas

I think I.

01:07:43 Lucas

Should have stopped it before.

01:07:45 Lucas

And then I saw this podcast with this guy who's who was, you know, was 93 at the time. And really old guy named Wolfgang Smith, who I see as a great teacher of mine. He's a.

01:07:59 Lucas

Gosh, what is he? So he he's an Austrian guy who moved to the US on the merchant vessel.

01:08:09 Lucas

During.

01:08:11 Lucas

I think if I if my math is correct then like the First World War or the second I don't. I've been doing mathematics whole day with the kids and I just don't want to think about it anymore. Anyway. They're one of the world worlds.

01:08:25 Lucas

And.

01:08:26 Lucas

He goes to Cornell, does a triple major, super brilliant.

01:08:31 Lucas

High at 18 and graduates mathematics, physics, philosophy just all around. Brilliant guy. Anyway, I was listening to pod.

01:08:40

This.

01:08:41 Lucas

With him on this women's channel, Karen Wong, who I ended up going on her channel after this because I saw.

01:08:50 Lucas

Her episodes with him and I found him to be so inspiring because his books to me are just amazing. They're about.

01:09:00 Lucas

Gosh, I wonder if well, some of them are about quantum physics and about he's got got like a worldview that is very closely aligned to.

01:09:09 Lucas

The animistic way of seeing the world and there's like 3 layers. It's a bit too much to get into, but it really helped me understand reality more and kind of.

01:09:13 Merrily

Hmm.

01:09:20 Lucas

To see how modern day physics views the world and kind of what's wrong with that and that it doesn't have any conception of quality but just quantity anyway. All that aside per episode with him made me comments on her channel being like oh, I love this so much. And then I saw that she was into a bunch of things that I was into and I just saw these overlapping interests. And Karen is amazing.

01:09:29 Merrily

Hmm hmm.

01:09:40 Lucas

Like thinks she's 75 or 76 and she makes a bunch of content. She became an artist later in life, and she just interviews amazing people and really inspired by her channel. When I was like, could I come talk to you? And so I laid out some foundations to talk about. Well, Wolf comes work.

01:10:00 Lucas

I wanted to go into more depth with her about it and yeah, that was my those were my first appearances on a podcast and I was like.

01:10:07 Lucas

Well, let's just keep the ball rolling.

01:10:10 Lucas

And then I just started doing it myself.

01:10:13 Lucas

And just committed to one a week and.

01:10:16 Lucas

That's kind of how it started, but I had felt the motivation for it lingering for longer. I just honestly, I thought it would be super complicated, like I was like ohh, I'd have to buy a microphone and like a camera setup. And I mean, if I could show you my setup right now, this microphone doesn't cost a thing my phone.

01:10:37 Lucas

Is my webcam and my.

01:10:39 Lucas

$200 laptop is you know the whole thing. And there's like a lamp here that just sometimes works and sometimes stuff. And like, it's actually not complicated at all to set up a podcast super easy. But I just had that built up in my mind. Like, there's all this, this barrier to it. And like, oh, I I would have to talk for so long. And I started doing it and just felt effortless. And I just.

01:10:52

Great.

01:11:00 Lucas

I love learning from people so.

01:11:04 Lucas

It's been such an easy habit to keep up because of all the.

01:11:07 Lucas

Joy.

01:11:08 Lucas

And lessons I get out of it and it it makes sure I stay. I'm.

01:11:13 Lucas

It makes you keep learning all the time and taking different perspectives all the time, so it's it's a good thing to have in there.

01:11:20 Lucas

So that's kind of a story, I guess.

01:11:22 Merrily

Yeah. Oh, who is it? Karen Wong, you said.

01:11:26 Lucas

Very long. Yeah. Her her journal is called the Meaning code.

01:11:31 Lucas

Oh, OK.

01:11:31 Lucas

And she's really good at talking to people that are.

01:11:36 Lucas

Like.

01:11:37 Lucas

Really educated on physics and mathematics. Even though she has no background in that which her French is baffling because she'll just be like interviewing someone's PhD. Whoever super brilliant person, and she'll just read all the like a bunch of their work and really kind of.

01:11:44

Well.

01:11:58 Lucas

Grasp what is relevant about that.

01:12:01 Lucas

And interview them about it and.

01:12:04 Lucas

Yeah, I admire that so much. I just think it's a. It's an awesome thing to be able to do, especially again at her age. And I don't want to talk about that too much because she wouldn't like it if I did. But it's.

01:12:16 Lucas

Worth mentioning that.

01:12:18 Lucas

Well-being that age and and thriving so much, but like being so curious, still annoying.

01:12:22 Merrily

Yeah.

01:12:24 Lucas

Adapting.

01:12:24 Lucas

Your, your, your, your mind all the time. I think that's just amazing so.

01:12:28 Merrily

Hmm.

01:12:31 Lucas

Props to.

01:12:31 Merrily

Her. Yeah. Definite goals for sure. Like to to keep that alive.

01:12:34 Lucas

Yeah, I hope I'm sorry.

01:12:36 Lucas

For doing this still.

01:12:38 Lucas

There's some form of it at least staying curious. Physical.

01:12:43 Merrily

UM, so do you have any? You know, I always ask this just in case you might have, like, something going on as far as like a an event or some projects that you want to let people know about.

01:12:53 Lucas

Ohh no, not at all actually I.

01:12:56 Lucas

Quite the opposite. Yeah. Only come to my channel if you're really interested in it. They're really long episode, so.

01:13:07 Lucas

I don't want to make a promotion, but if you're listening to this, what I will promote is if you want to talk, please come talk. Even if you don't think you have something interesting to say, I'm sure that you do. And if you think you have something to teach me or something to learn that, that's what I'd like.

01:13:19 Merrily

Hmm.

01:13:26 Lucas

I I prefer that much more than get like gathering a bunch of viewers. I'd like to gather people to talk to more than that so.

01:13:33 Merrily

Hmm.

01:13:35 Lucas

So no, I don't think I have anything coming up, but thank you for the opportunity to to say so in any case, yeah.

01:13:42 Merrily

No problem. And where can folks find you? Of course. I'll put things in the show notes, but just in case.

01:13:49 Lucas

Yeah. So YouTube at Lucas Vaz with the Zed, that's how I say it. English. Sorry, ZZ.

01:13:57 Merrily

Well, see, but said, you know, that works too.

01:13:59 Lucas

Ohh OK, I wasn't sure. Maybe the British said differently or something.

01:14:03 Merrily

Yeah.

01:14:04 Lucas

Yeah. And then I have the Lucas first podcast. It's out on all podcast platforms. I think you'll be able to find it. That's about it. I've been trying to stay more off of social media. I don't. I don't have great self-control. So I end up like watching reels all the time. So I got my Instagram.

01:14:21 Merrily

Oh my gosh.

01:14:23 Lucas

But now you know YouTube, they just mimic it and Tony of YouTube shorts. So then I open.

01:14:27 Lucas

Up my app.

01:14:28 Lucas

And just starts all of that again. So yes, so we're just, we're just flying over here.

01:14:30 Merrily

Yeah.

01:14:35 Merrily

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

01:14:37 Merrily

I definitely do watch some of those.

01:14:39 Merrily

For sure, but I.

01:14:40 Merrily

Tried to limit it as much as I.

01:14:41 Merrily

That.

01:14:43 Merrily

So what you know, again, everybody would share such wonderful words of wisdom. But what words of wisdom would you like to leave us with today?

01:14:53 Lucas

Oh, that's a good question.

01:14:57 Lucas

Ohh yeah, wisdom is very important to me and.

01:15:06 Lucas

I would say it's important to know yourself.

01:15:10 Lucas

I think that's what I'll what. I'll end it with and don't assume that you know yourself because you don't.

01:15:17 Lucas

I think that trying to understand yourself is going to help you understand the world and.

01:15:23 Lucas

It's good to make you.

01:15:26 Lucas

A better well, it should, should make you a better person, because if you understand who you are, you understand.

01:15:34 Lucas

How you interact with people and what effect you have on them and.

01:15:39 Lucas

I think.

01:15:41 Lucas

I told you I was going into self help and all these things and.

01:15:45 Lucas

I kind of came to the end of that and.

01:15:47 Lucas

I found out that.

01:15:49 Lucas

The ultimate self-help advice is that you should kind of help other people and that life is not all about you, so it's good to understand yourself, but ultimately.

01:15:59 Lucas

I think life is about.

01:16:01 Lucas

For me at least, I think.

01:16:04 Lucas

You should try to serve other people. Don't forget yourself. You're important too. Take care of yourself. It's not. Sometimes it's egotistical to, like, completely. Let yourself go. I really understand that perspective too, that most of you should be really helping others as well. And that's going to ultimately help you. So that's a selfish.

01:16:25 Lucas

Is for being nice.

01:16:28 Merrily

Well, perfectly said. Thank you so much.

01:16:31 Lucas

Thank you so much, Mary. It was a pleasure talking to you again and hopefully when some time has passed, we can do it all over again and see how you've grown and and learn. Learned some stuff and.

01:16:44 Merrily

Yeah.

01:16:45 Merrily

Thank you so much.

01:16:48 Merrily

He just encourages curiosity and critical thinking, so I really love their conversation and listening to other episodes of this podcast as well. So fascinating. So do check out the show notes below to learn more about Lucas and his podcast. Do you remember to like, follow and subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform? It really helps us grow. Thank you for listening and be an important part of casual temple.

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EPISODE 55 - Lucas Vos

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