#10 The Renaissance Could Be De-Centrally Live Streamed...

Foreign.

And welcome to In Pursuit of Purpose with me, your host, Tim Jones, the grow good guy.

Hey. So kia ora. Welcome. I guess this is also going to be my first maybe video based podcast, so, you know, celebrations.

So this is. Normally all my episodes on the podcast have been audio, but hey, let's go video. So with me this week I have the amazing Reiki Corden. And where are you based in the world right now, mate? Because I know that you've been traveling.

A lot recently, Bali at the particular moment, but this has been more of a vortex that has kind of sucked us in here. So we've been here almost three years for the most part.

It was actually, yeah, right after we had left New Zealand for meeting you, we stopped at Bali on our way over to Thailand and ended up doing a plant medicine journey here to be mystic about that and essentially got the inspiration to stay here, not move and get grounded and follow on this inspiration that has led us to this conversation today.

Very cool.

So always a magical place.

So because we were just talking before we started, we're trying to work out when we first met and it would have been, we think about three years ago.

And I was trying to be it.

Trying to remember who introduced us because there was someone who was like, you two have to meet. And I remember we met at a restaurant in Christchurch and you.

Yannick. Yannick, yeah. And then he was our connect. Yeah, yeah. He connected me with you and with Michael Mail. So that's how that whole like ring got started. That's crazy.

So shout out to Janik. I've completely forgotten.

Yeah. And then actually, and then that connection with Michael is what led to seed. So you know, Yannick is the connection that brought us together and on my life path now. So shout out to Yannick.

So guten tag, Yannick, wherever you are in the world, buddy, I'll give you a call later. Yes, we met about three years ago and yeah, I guess there was just some mutual ideals, some thoughts, some concerns and challenges that I guess we were on similar wavelengths. I'd say you're probably further ahead on the journey than I am in terms of development down this path of more purpose and connection. And I definitely hold you in esteem and someone who is guiding a lot of people on that journey. But I mean, maybe just start off, give us a little bit of a background of where you came from. Because I think you and I actually have quite a similar story in many ways as to where we came from and the path that we're now on. So maybe just Give a short version history of where you came from, man.

Yeah, right on.

So I think a lot of my story has to do with unlearning rather than learning. So, I mean, I grew up in a very Christian, Mormon religious household, very dogmatic in that sense. And my first part of my learning was questioning that, being rebellious. I had a rebellious nature, but I didn't necessarily know why, so I was rejecting things. But it was the rebel without a cause. And that was the first part of my life. And that kind of led me into rebelling against the standard institution of university and joining the Marine Corps. So that was my, you know, rebel way of saying, you know, forget about this system. But then I did. I kind of forgot that I was then opting into another, even more controlling system. So that didn't really occur to me until after boot camp when I was like, ah, crap, what did I do? Perfect.

Like all rebels join the. Join the U.S. marine Corps.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Not my wisest move. So, you know, I rebelled against like the religious underbreaking just to step into that military context, then going through that very rigorous three months of very intentional indoctrination and then having to actually see how that process works, like how manipulation works at that level. It's very, very tailored. I mean, they have centuries of being able to like really hone what boot camp is designed to do, which is, you know, designed to break down your identity and reconstruct that identity into something that they want, which is, you know, serving the nation state, protecting God and country and that sort of thing.

So that was a very interesting turning point for me. And then I went through that and what they were telling me and the indoctrination was all about a certain narrative and story which fell apart very quickly when I went to Afghanistan. So they're telling us the story about the people who live in Afghanistan. You know, they hate our freedoms and all these things, right? And then you get there and they're just some of the most beautiful people I've ever met. Just very kind and innocent and very childlike. I mean, there's a scene that's always burned into my mind and there's about like an 85 year old man, huge, gray beard, and he's got his friend with similar age, massive beard, and one of their standing on like one leg, kind of wobbling and laughing and like pushing each other. And it was just this image of just pure innocence. And this was their. The Afghan army that were helping train. And you know, in that moment I was just like, you know, These are just very kind people. What are we doing here? And that's where I started questioning the entire narrative that I had been told about, you know, know, the nation state indoctrination. So the first step thing I had to like, step out of was that religious indoctrination. And then the next one was now this military indoctrination I have to step out of, which started this whole process of, you know, understanding indoctrination, how it looks and how to step out of it. So that started unweaving quite a bit. Then I started having to question, like, the nation state as a whole. But, you know, in Afghanistan, actually, I didn't want to be in the standard military anymore after I learned what they were doing, because I was actually on a path to do Special Forces and I was trained to do that. But, you know, once I came to realize that I didn't necessarily want to be a mercenary for this cause, but yeah, I still had a contract. So I went and talked to the career planner and they came up with this idea of like, why don't you go do embassy security? It's like, cool, you know, travel the world, go hang out at embassies. That sounds like a good gig. So I ended up applying for that and getting through and then did another about three years guarding embassies across the world. And that gave me a really clear and cogent insight into how the State Department operates and how the U.S. empire, I call it an empire, because essentially is. And why they exist and all the countries that they exist in, how the, you know, what is the real purpose of embassies across the globe. Now, without getting into that too much, that's. That's where I started going down a lot of different rabbit holes because. And ironically, they might not even realize this was happening, but they put you behind a computer and they say, you know, wait for something bad to happen, but then you get this free access to dive down into whatever rabbit holes that you can dig into, standing behind the Internet. So now with my idea of questioning everything and realizing that, hey, you know, these systems aren't necessarily systems that I want to be in anymore, that started me down, okay, what systems do we want to be in? Like, how does this system actually operate? Like, how is our civilization designed? Like, what would be a more beautiful way to set up civilization? So I started learning about intentional communities, eco villages, permaculture, and this idea of self sustainability movement and how we can just get a bunch of people with a, like, mind and go move off the grid and set up our own way of living and being. And that was a very attractive vision to me at the time. So that was one that I was holding onto very deeply when I was with you. But anyway, so I got out of the military and got a bunch of friends together who shared the same vision. We moved down to Central America, bought a bunch of land in the middle of the rainforest. There's really intense land. I mean, there's Mayan ruins on it and howler monkeys, and it's just dense bush. And that was a fun journey. But long story short, fortunately, that didn't actually work out. We couldn't own the land, and there's a whole bunch of legal complications, and that project ended up falling apart. So then I stepped into, okay, like, what framework do we need for intentional communities to work? So then I started this whole path of learning about intentional communities, visiting different eco villages and permaculture projects and trying to figure out what's the framework for success here? Because about 90%, sometimes even higher, of intentional communities fail. So what's that 10% doing that succeed? What's the special sauce? How do we make decisions together as a collective? Like, how do we manage finances? How do we, like, organize and distribute resources and voice and value throughout a system that makes sense, that encourages people to want to be a part of this?

So that was kind of the second part of this journey is, you know, what, moving off grid and hiding on, like, you know, a farm in the middle of the jungle. That sounds like a good idea, but that's not actually going to shift the story. Well, maybe shift the story is giving people toolset. You know, like any type of neighborhood or suburb in the states can take this tool set and turn their little suburb into an eco village and actually start sharing resources. Like, what's the framework to help them do that? So that started this idea of, like, our neighbor good. And we ran through that for a while too. But also, there's a huge amount of friction. People are pretty comfortable with what they're doing. They don't want to move into a different neighborhood. Like, they don't know their neighbors. So it's like, you know, after a couple years of trying to, like, really, you know, drive that narrative, we're also getting a lot of resistance. And this is when I met you, as I was talking a lot about eco villages, community building, that and putting it together. And it's a. It's a beautiful idea and I love it, but it wasn't really working out. So, you know, during this time I was doing A lot of personal transformation and trying to get in tune with myself. So using a lot of those same ideas that the military taught about how to break down and deconstruct our identity. So that same process, you know, I started applying to myself very intentionally so, like, how do we just kind of remove our identity and kind of keep this process of shedding and trying to get back to, like, the foundation of who we really are? So that brought me into, like, fasting and breath work and all these other very, you know, esoteric and powerful, powerful forms of identity recreation.

Anyway, it was through that came to Bali after I met you and started doing a lot of breath work. And, you know, that's where I got the inspiration for this next phase of what could help humanity transition. Because that's been the whole theme of this time since the military is, you know, this empire process. It's not working. It's not serving humanity. And I don't want to bring kids into this world. So where. How do we create a system that I do want to bring kids into that I will be. You know, I could be telling them bedtime stories about how awful it used to be, not trying to justify why the animals they see on TV don't exist anymore. So, like, how do we. How do we change that story so I don't have to try to, like, lie to them? So that's been the overall theme, and it's always been trying to, like, reconstruct my identity to get more and more in line with this vision that wants to be born. Like, this vision for a new, beautiful world that I think a lot of us are serving in a different way. It's just constantly been a realignment process to that. And, yeah, anyway, going down a lot of holes there, but I'll probably stop at that point.

That's super cool. And, I mean, I totally agree with everything you're saying there. And that was, you know, I guess the military side of things was where we had that same experience.

I guess I was fortunate enough in many ways that I left the Army. I mean, I got discharged about a week before my old unit got sent to Iraq, so. And this was just before Afghanistan kind of all kicked off, so. And I remember ringing the adjutant from Heathrow Airport and just said, hey, just making sure all my papers, like, it's all good. Yeah, I'm about to go on a plane. You know, you're not gonna be sending Interpol after me as a, you know, God awol. And he was like, no, no. Have a great time in Australia. And I was like, yes, I'll be in Australia, not New Zealand, definitely send them to Australia.

I think, you know, I had that. It was a similar thing. Like, you know, a lot of identity was around, you know, I spent a lot of time in the reserve forces and that was a big part of my identity. And for me, over the last many years, well, sort of since the earthquakes here in Christchurch, it's been exactly that process, like trying to work actually who am I and who, like, what is the closest, most authentic and soul driven version of Tim Jones, if such a thing exists. And for me, that is, that is like the essence of purpose work. It's like actually just try and work out who you are at that most basic level and what do you stand for and how do you contribute to transforming this planet? And I love your twist on that, you know, because I've got a young daughter, she's seven. And that's, I guess that's what's driving me is like, I want her when she turns 8 next week, in 10 years time when she's 18. And we kind of have hand over the metaphorical keys to say, well, you're kind of in charge now, you're an adult. I want this place to be a bit better than it currently is. And that's what. So super cool. So, yes. So, I mean, on that journey, you're in the Marines, you're looking at the Special Forces. Was there like a specific moment that you had or was it just like a series of micro moments that kind of led you to just go, what am I, what am I doing here?

Yeah, it was definitely micro moments and a series of unravelings. To be fair, I was never doing the Special Forces because of God and country. It was more I wanted to push my own boundaries. So it was like, how far can I go? Like, how, you know, what kind of pressure can I put myself through? Like, what stress could I go through and live and thrive through? So that was what was really driving me is I really like that idea of excelling and achievement. So that's, you know, why I chose to do it. But then I realized I can get that sense of achievement and I can excel in other areas and I don't have to be a mercenary. So it was a very easy switch. Once I realized, it's like, hey, you know what? My morals actually aren't aligned with this. You know, what's behind this and I can go achieve those things elsewhere. Now. There's also that, you know, masculine part of me that just liked adventure. So you Know, that made sense to go move to the jungles of, you know, Central America and get that adventure. So, you know, you can get that adventure and achievement without being a mercenary.

And I think that's, that was probably something that was driving me a little bit. It's like, you know, I guess the expression of the warrior archetype, isn't it? It's like go and do something, go and be wary, you know, And I guess if you're in a indigenous tribe where you get to go and do that by, you know, foraging and maybe killing an animal every now and then to feed the tribe, you know, that's a more visceral expression of you doing that. And I love what you're saying that, you know, the alignment to the, the articulation of who you could be. And again, I think that's a really critical part of purpose. It's like many people are perhaps articulating their purpose sort of badly, as it were, you know, in the wrong area. And it's like if you get that full alignment, that's when, you know, it all becomes so much better and easier and you are, you know, you're contributing to something that actually matters rather than something that you don't think. So that's over.

I think it's critical that we're self authoring so we have these different archetypes where we want to achieve like that warrior archetype. But currently there's the dominant system that's manipulating that archetype to convince people to go to war and fight for its causes. But that warrior archetype doesn't actually have to be violence based either. Right now I think that's manifesting in me and others and I believe you in this idea of we're warring against the system that we're brought up in, that we're born into. So it's not even like humans versus humans. It's this system that no human alive was actually, you know, part of the foundation of these systems. We're all born into them. So now the next war, if you want to look at it that way, or the next, you know, opportunity, the next thing we could achieve, the next challenge that we're taking on is like, how do we overcome these systems that we're born into and create new systems? And that's a very daunting task and it's requiring us to show up fully present with all of our resources, our, you know, weapons, armor, however you want to look at this and show up to this, you know, fight and in a very loving way. And that's kind of where I think this evolution is. Is now we have to take the wholeness of ourselves, which isn't just that warrior who's barbaric, but that lover, too, and that elder and that wisdom keeper, and bring all these elements together in this cohesive whole to then show up to this new challenge and opportunity that humanity is facing today. And, I mean, there's nothing that excites me more than this possibility of us being able to rewrite the human story. I mean, that's the opportunity we're experiencing right now. I mean, COVID 19 has, like, been the most. You know, I hate to be so optimistic about a crisis, but it's provided humanity this opportunity to just stop and rethink everything we've been doing, which has been so critical for us, because humanity was just stuck on this course of, like, driving off a cliff, and we needed something to just slam on the brakes and be like, whoa, timeout. Where are we going? Why are we even going there? Like, what is the point? Because humanity has no point right now. There's, like, no purpose to what we're doing. And I think we just need to, like, slow down and actually realign what that purpose is, change course. And that's the. The opportunity we have right now. Now the status quo has its course correction, which is more measures of control, more lockdown, like, more power to the central government, like, all that stuff. So they're trying to put that path out there. But I think it's also a time where humanity could come together and say, you know what? We've been trying that path for the last couple centuries and decades. Like, it's not working. Why don't we try something radically new? We have different tools now that we've never had before. We could try a completely different course, and this could be that moment in history where things switch. Like the Black Plague brought about the Renaissance and the Enlightenment period. Like, what does Covid bring about? Is it just another pandemic we look at, or is it a turning point? Is it a tipping point?

Love it. And I think, you know. Yeah, integration of all the different archetypes. I mean, I guess that's kind of. That's the ultimate, isn't it? That's, I guess, in most religious belief systems of different types, the archetypal figure is the figure that has combined all the archetypes to create the fully centered human who is a bit of everything in balance and knows when to apply the right part of the archetype to get the right result for the Best outcome.

Yeah. And I think you're right, you know.

Stepping back from the potential medical disasters and the deaths step, stepping back from certainly the financial pressures I think a lot of people are potentially under. But I think we'll get onto this. When we talk about seeds and the stuff you're working on now, like the financial stuff could easily be solved in many ways to allow people to not be under that pressure. But I guess I've been pondering on this myself because it's like, how do I. And the last episode I recorded with Zach Maturio last week or week and a half ago, we're talking about how do you, how do you talk purpose in pandemic? Like, it, it can sound maybe a little bit preachy, you know, if you don't have your purpose, you know, you'd be more resilient and dah, dah, dah, dah. But it's like, I'm going to finish writing the article tonight. Crisis is the ideal time to find purpose because, you know, you. And it's reminded me also what you're saying with the military training, it's like you need that shock and awe event to break you down to who you are now currently at your core to then kind of go, oh, actually, I don't necessarily like all of the parts of me right now and I don't like the direction I'm currently on. Maybe I can make a change right now. And certainly, you know, for me, the earthquakes in Christchurch, that was the focal point of my change of direction and trying to understand, well, who am I? What have I been doing? It's this kind of. And I think this is, this is the most connected we've been as a species where we've all suffered an existential shock. And I think that is really interesting because like you say on the back of this, we're really connected. We can collectively choose a new way of doing things really, really quickly. And just the last one I'll add on to that is one of my favorite examples I like to use was, I think it was in 2018, a group of Japanese scientists landed a robot on an asteroid in outer space. It's like when you put into context what humans can do if they choose to do it. Like, it's, it's, it just. We just need the will and the desire to go there. So what do you think is going to help us do that, in your mind?

Well, what's going to help us? And I mean a lot of things, but one is I want to.

I want to mimic Something that you just said about crisis and purpose. And I think crisis is actually required to find purpose. And this is what, you know, the rites of passage ceremony is all about. You know, tribes have been doing this since time immemorial, some say, and that's the idea of manufacturing a crisis opportunity to find purpose. They actually go through great lengths to set up these really rigorous and intentional and very transformative ceremonial processes where sometimes people didn't make it through. Like, your life was literally on the line, and that needed to happen for you to have that existential crisis moment, to break down that identity and rebuild it. So, you know, it's not like we're trying to look at the silver lining here. It's like, this is necessary. Humanity needed to go through a collective crisis in order to change our purpose. So. And it's the same thing with any type of medicinal journey. You hear about a lot of people who go through different, you know, healing processes and journeys, and they all, the most potent of them all, had some type of massive crisis, whether it was a mental breakdown or some darkness that befell them or something that helped them, you know, go through that process and see the light, so to speak.

Yep.

So I think what's going to help us is currently where we're at, humanities has this pause. There's a lot of people online, we're talking. People understand that, hey, there's a possibility that exists right now. And I think the last step that we need to learn as humanity is how to cooperate. Like, how do we actually weave all these different, you know, pieces together and actually, you know, rewrite the tapestry of civilization. All the pieces, I think already exist. They just need to be weaved together. So I think that's what's going to help us right now is the collaboration coming together with all these disparate movements saying, like, hey, what piece are you playing? Okay, I'm paying this piece. And to look at it in a really fun way, because it is a game. At the end of the day, I think this is my view on it. I think we actually manufacture all of this because humans love the story of the underdog. And on a very meta feature scale, I think we're designing this on a collective level so that we could show up to the challenge. You know, anytime you see any human that's bored, we tend to create our own problems just so we can solve them, so that we can, like, have something to do. And I think that's what we've done on this collective meta level is we've created these Monumental crises just so we can, like, come up and actually solve them and feel like the hero. You know, that's at least my way of looking at it. So, you know, we've created this game, we've designed this to be a massive challenge because that's what will be the most fun for us. That's what's most enriching for us. That's what helps us grow and evolve the most, is by having these monumental challenges to take on. So I think if that's, you know, if we look at it as a way of. This is what we signed up for, like, this is what we wanted to do, this is why we're here, then I think it creates a lot more enthusiasm for this next phase. Rather than having a lot of fear and doubt and uncertainty, which tends to retard our actions, we can have a lot of excitement and energy and passion for this opportunity that we have so that we can move forward through it in a way that's more joyful and fulfilling. Because I think that energy is going to be required to actually bring about that more beautiful world that we want. Because if we go at it in a state of fear and depression and anxiety, then that's what we're bringing into that new world, and we're just going to have a revolution. So revolution is just a revolving same thing, different story, different way of looking at it. Everyone's talking about a revolution, but what.

What I'm serving, I believe, is more like a renaissance, which is a paradigm shift. It's not a revolution. It's a breaking down of that whole image and then rebuilding it up. And that's a very, very exciting prospect when we look at it from the fact that the old one was not working. So if we go back to what we had before, that wasn't working. So we don't need to be fearful of losing what was broken. A lot of people have this fear of stepping out in an abusive relationship because they don't know what's next. But if that relationship's abusive, what's next is always going to be better than. That's our opportunity now, as they just finally broke away from that abusive relationship, or sitting on her own kind of crying, like, oh my gosh, what's next? But then that moment needs to click on. We're like, wait, what's next? I get to create what's next. I'm in control of that now. Okay, what do we want to create?

Love it. And that's so true. I refer to that in some of my work, I Call it like the internal Stockholm syndrome that, you know, we keep ourselves hostage in our own life that's maybe lacking meaning and purpose because we're scared that what we might go to might have less. But actually, you know, deep down that it couldn't be any. Any worse than what you've already got. That's such a cool analogy. And yeah, like, it's like anything, anything that's based out of fear is. Is not going to be great. Yeah. So much. And I totally love that.

Yeah.

The revolution versus Renaissance.

It's.

Yeah. So true. And I think, yeah, this is an amazing time. I guess one, here's a question for you. I'm trying to make sure I get this right, but it's probably gonna be wrong. I think it is.

It.

Who's the guy who wrote the Gulag Archipelago? Is. It's Dostoevsky, I think, you know, he was very disparaging of the idea of utopia. It's like, you know.

Humanity is almost incapable of creating ultimate beauty. I mean, even though theoretically we have the resources, we have the capabilities to ensure that every human has everything that they need to survive and probably thrive, the risk of creating that is humans would undoubtedly just break it because we can, because we're generally, you know, we're smart chimpanzees who like breaking things. So what are your thoughts on that? Or do you feel that part of what we need there is actually humanity to transcend to a next level where we wouldn't break what we create? That could be so beautiful.

Well, I think this weaves back to what I was just speaking about, where we've created these crises. Right. And I think what he's pulling on here is maybe his vision of utopia, and this is how I paint it, is Utopia is where there is no problems. It's just blissful and green and there's nothing really for us to do. And we just hang out outside and pick an apple off the tree all day. I don't think that will ever exist either because that's not conditions for evolution. That doesn't help us grow, that doesn't give us purpose and passion. That doesn't help us shift our way of being.

So I think, yes, if we had this utopic place, which is what humans had for a long time, we would break it. We would create challenges and create problems just so we could solve them. So I think we need to change it on a different meta level. Right now our challenges are very 3D visceral in this physical plane, but I think we can build almost A utopic physical plane where all of our basic needs are met. We're thriving. We have, you know, very diverse, organic, abundant ecosystems. Like our 3D plane is field. But then our new challenge then escapes into the mind, into the spiritual psyche, and those things are infinite. And now it's about like, you know, challenging our own internal struggles. So I think humanity is always going to have struggles and always something that we want to take on, but I think we could change it to a different plane. So now. Yes, now our 3D, like, physical world is this utopic paradise, which I definitely think we're capable of and we can have. We just need to change than what we're striving to next, you know?

Love that. Yeah, I think, and that's something that I've kind of always pondered on is like, if we could just barely get our shit together right now. We can't. We don't know what the next level of good looks like because we've never actually made it there as a species. And there will be a whole new set of challenges that we'll discover when we get there. And like you say, there's so much, you know, I guess in the coaching work I'm doing around purpose and stuff, you know, lot of research on the brain. And like, we don't really even know how the brain works. Like, we don't. We don't even know what consciousness is.

And we keep figuring out that memories are actually stored in our field and they're stored in different parts of our body. They're not even in our brain. Yeah, we have no idea.

And then we find out that neurons in the heart and the stomach as there is in the brain, and then. And then we. And then we kind of go, oh, maybe there is something about heart and soul connection to how we're running. And it's like. Yeah, so if we can just. If we sort out eating and clothing and shelter. Yeah, there's a couple of other levels we can get to next. So totally great. Love that. Good answer.

Yeah. So remind me to come back to this because, you know those neurons in the gut that's so important around fasting and why fasting, so transformative. But anyway, let me. Let me bring that up next because there's something I do want to point to which is about this transformation. And if you look at the total population of humanity and our growth trajectory, which is the velocity of growth, and you map that over to the growth velocity and total size of a baby being born, they're exactly the same. It's crazy how similar they are. And this is what I think happens on every scale of this biological and physical world is its fractal design. So here's the idea. Here is a baby in a womb is exponentially growing, and it's creating all of these structures that it doesn't actually need in the womb. It doesn't need lungs. It doesn't need legs. It doesn't need arms. It's creating all this stuff that makes no sense within the context of it being in a womb. It's exponentially growing. It's sucking all of these resources from the mother. And if it kept growing and there wasn't a birth, it would actually kill the mom and kill the baby with it. Right. But whether or not the baby's aware of it, it gets to a certain point where then a birth starts to happen. The world starts closing in on this baby, doesn't necessarily know what's going on, and this crazy chaotic period, but then, boom, it bursts into a completely new paradigm where all the rules change. You know, now it's not being fed from an umbilical cord. Now all of a sudden, it's breathing and air is coming in. It's just this entire paradigm shift that could not have been anticipated before that moment. And I think that's what humanity is going on a collective level is we've been creating this, like, metahuman, which all these billions of cells that have been exponentially growing to, like, fill the planet. Now we have all these new tools and, like, no organs, so to speak, where you can communicate as a whole globe instantaneously. Like, that's our nervous system for humanity. Like, we've created all of these different structures that don't necessarily make sense in our limited paradigms. Mindsight. But I think what humanity is going through is it's like birthing process. And then the next paradigm that we step into, looking back, would make so much sense. It's like, oh, okay, that's why we have all the structures. That's what this was for. Okay, now it makes sense. While in this current period, all we feel is crisis. And, you know, that's what the baby experience, like, in the birthing moment, where it's, like, crushing down and, like, going through this little hole. Like, that's all it's feeling is this, like, you know, fear and pain and, like, you know, torment, I guess that's going on at that moment which it doesn't necessarily understand.

I love that. I think, yeah, there is. There is so much value. You know, you have to look back And I find it interesting, you know, the constant work I'm sort of doing or trying to work out who I am, who I could be and what have you. And I, you know, I loved studying history. And it's like, you know, the whole part of purpose and everything talking about, it's like, okay, now what's. Why is. You know, why was that part of my journey? And it's like when you look back on your own life, what are the threads that you can pull together of parts of that journey that when you. Only when you look back, that you kind of go, okay, actually, yeah, that. That really shit time in my life now makes sense in the context of who I'm now moving to be. Yeah, that's super, super cool. And again, it comes down to that kind of, you need that pain point. You need that crisis point. You need that moment of.

You know, the crisis. And from that, I mean, I've mentioned this in one of the other previous podcasts. One of the only things I remember from chapel in school, so we used to go to chapel, I think it was like two or three times a week when I was sort of junior school. And the one parable I remember was the one about the. In the garden where the gardener is looking at the butterfly, tending the butterflies, and someone comes along and says, oh, why didn't. You know, it's struggling. Why don't you help it out of its chrysalis? And so he does that, and the butterfly that comes out is gray. And his basic, you know, the basic motto or the story was, without struggle, there is no color of beauty.

It's part of the journey, man. And I love exactly what you're saying about, you know, indigenous rites of passage. And I think that's, for me, for guys in the Western world, I think that's something that's really, really lacking. It's like, we don't get put through the right kinds of tests at the right time in our lives to create really good men.

Yeah, just as an aside.

Oh, I mean, I don't know if that's an aside. I think that's a focal point because I think that's. We're going through that on a collective level, but we need to do it as an individual level. And that's another incredible opportunity that we have right now. People are being laid off. They maybe even can't afford to eat. Like, you know, that could look like a crisis or a problem. And in a way, it is. I'm not trying to, like, downplay it, but what's possible Right now is for you to do a fast. And what a lot of the rites of passage were where they went out into nature on their own, within the weather, like weathering the environment, and then did a fast until they got their answer. You know, so many religious leaders from, you know, Jesus went out into the desert and fasted for 40 days, 40 nights, you know, X, Y and Z religious leader went to the top of a mountain, into a cave, and fast until they got the answer. And the reason why that works is because it has your brain slowed down because your brain is so used to running so quickly. It has all of this energy based off your digestion. But what your digestion slows, then you start listening to the neurons in your gut and your stomach and all these different, you know, the different minds throughout your body that carry so much wisdom that actually have a closer attachment to who you really are. You can start listening to those things and it doesn't happen until you're like, you know, seven, eight, nine days into a fast. And then it becomes so clear and your mind is so focused and calm that all of a sudden it makes perfect sense who you are, what you need to do. And then those questions that you're fighting over at the beginning of this that just seemed way too complicated to figure out just become obvious. And that's what, you know, the whole rites of passage journey is all about, is like coming to that awareness and that understanding. And that's a gift. That's an opportunity that all of us have. And if you're in this struggling position where you can't even afford to eat yourself, well, then that's also an opportunity to just start fasting. You know, that could be looked at starving. But I'm saying, like, that's your, this is your invitation to step into your own rights of passage and to go out there and say, you know what? I'm stepping into this. I have faith in the unknown, and I'm going to willfully step into this experience. And that's the difference between fasting and starving, is it's your choice. Yes. You know, fasting people can fast for weeks on end, but starving people, they'll die in a couple of days because they think they're going to die and they're using all of their vital resources stressed out, and it's like causing their body to burn up. But if you're doing it willfully and you're entering into with a different state, then it's a completely different experience.

It's sort of, yeah, you're manifesting Your own outcome potentially. But I guess it's also.

Viktor Frankl man's search for meaning. You know, the guy who survived Auschwitz in the prison camps and you know, he had such. That. Such a drive to survive because he knew that he had this work that he wanted the world to see.

And I guess it's, you know, suffering without meaning is awful. But if you can suffer, if there's times when you're being called to suffer or you're being made to suffer in inverted commas, if you can attach, like you say, flip it and go to go, okay, look, this is an opportunity.

That's all you can do. Otherwise, I kind of feel, you know, we're kind of at a point now where you can. With what's happening in the world right now is you can either get really nihilist about this and kind of go, well, there is no point. I don't have a job. Maybe next week. And you know what? A couple of family members might have, might look like they might have got COVID 19 or they have got it. Do you know what? Just stuff it. I'm going to just climb into the hole and wait for it to come get me.

But you're literally killing yourself by doing that. And I think for me this is the call to purpose is like cool. It might not be great right now, but what can, what responsibility can you take on even just within your own family right now to try and make it a little bit better and then how do you become part of this movement to make sure that we don't end up, you know, in this kind of situation where we are again? Yeah, I mean, really, really good stuff. You mentioned. So you mentioned the breath work as well as the fasting. Like, is there a particular form of breath work that you do? I've dabbled with the WIM HOF sort of breathing regimen. I use Insight Timer, which is. I'll put a link to that. It's a free app which has got like thousands if not millions of meditations. And there's a couple of really good breathing ones I like doing on that one.

I haven't done extensively long ones. I typically do like 16 to 30 minute sessions. But.

Yeah.

What sort of things are you. Are you doing?

Yeah. So there's an infinite number of ways you can do breath work and a lot of them are just intuition. So once you start doing a lot of different practices, practices, the best one is actually doing the one that your body's calling to you to do in any given moment. Just like following that Intuitive breathing. So sometimes it might be like a two hour where you're just doing heavy breathing with no breath holds. Other times you're doing more of the Wim Hof where you do like 50 breaths and then you're doing a breath hold and you're like controlling it that way. Or other times you're doing like different breathing patterns because this is where like the Vedas and some of the ancient texts that talk about breath work, which is where a lot of this knowledge comes from, they got into some really deep stuff where like certain breathing patterns.

Like, you know, you're doing three out, one in or three in one out. Like all these different ways of doing it, release different chemicals in the brain. So you could like, you know, intentionally release dmt, which is that molecule you get when you're sleeping, which is that, you know, spirit molecule. You can have psychedelic experiences and you can control that and you can step into it, you can control your nervous system, you can control any aspect of your body you can actually have a conscious control over through our breath. And this is why breath is life. And this is where all of that knowledge and wisdom comes from. You know, the breath is the spirit. So you can have a direct interaction with your spirit through how you're breathing is that way of looking at all that. So some of the breathworks that I really like, you know what, just do the Wim Hof. That's a great place to start for people are just like wanting to dabble in it.

I can't necessarily recommend any because it's all about your own intuition. And I think that's where the most knowledge comes from, is learning to listen to your body. And it's the same thing with fasting. I mean you'll read a million different fasting books about all the different ways of fasting and everyone's got a different opinion, but that's because that's their opinion and that's what's most important is that's what worked for them. And that means something else is going to work for you. And the whole point of fasting is for you to get more in tune with your body is to actually listen to it. So you cut out eating everything and then slowly introduce stuff to then pay attention to how your body reacts when you introduce something you've been used to. So when you fast out of your body, you get rid of the things your body was addicted to. Like, you know, a lot of people don't know this, but you've got trillions of cells that live inside or microorganisms that live inside our intestinal tract that they want certain foods for their populations to live. And you have neurons in your gut. So a lot of the time when you think you're hungry and that hunger is coming from the gut, that has nothing to do with you, has everything to do with that biology in your gut that's hungry because they have shorter life cycles, they need to eat more. So when you've got a sugar craving and you don't want sugar, they want sugar because they live off sugar. And their populations are dying. So they're sitting there poking you, telling you to eat sugar. And that's what you see in a fast. Like, the first three days of a fast, you've got huge hunger pains, and you're going through this wretched like, oh, my gosh, I'm so hungry, I'm going to die. But then it goes away. And when that goes away, that's that moment in your mind where you realize, you know what? I wasn't hungry. They were hungry, and now they're dead, so they're not hungry anymore. And now I can listen to my body. Like, what you realize when you're fasting is like hunger comes from the throat. Like, you get this hunger up here, and that's when you're hungry. Most people have never even experienced that. All they experience is the stomach hunger.

You know, I think because I do fasting, I think the longest I've probably done is like three days currently.

And then I typically just get bored. Um, or it's just hard, you know, because you're in the house and everyone else has been eating for three days, and you kind of feel, I should probably have a. But, you know, I've done three days. And.

You get to the point where you don't feel like you necessarily need to eat. So maybe this will be a challenge for me. You know, we're in lockdown. I'll see if I can do five. Challenge accepted.

I'd say what I recommend to everyone is fast at a minimum until you're not hungry anymore, and then end your fast only when you're hungry again. So when you got to that point where you aren't hungry anymore, that's perfect. Stay in that state until you're actually hungry again because your body's doing so much healing and resetting. And it'll tell you when you're hungry, your body's not going to let you die. And that hunger will come up here and it will be uncontrollable. Like, you're not going to Be able to resist that urge once you have it, but wait until you actually have that hunger before you eat again. Because the whole entire time between not feeling hungry and that point, your body's doing tremendous amount of healing. And I mean, you could look at it in this context like, you know, the lion goes and attacks the wild buffaloes and it takes out the weaker cells. It's exactly what happens in our bodies when we're fasting. Like, your body is recycling all the damaged and older cells first, and then when you end your fast, your body creates new cells. So what you're literally doing is decreasing the age of your body by taking out all the older ones, the weaker ones, the damaged ones, recycling them and creating younger, new ones. So you're literally anti aging when you go through a fasting process. If you don't fast ever, then your body isn't able to do that. It's constantly focused on digesting and using the new energy that you have that it's not able to go and recycle the old. So if you don't fast, then you're not doing that anti aging. And that's the reason why, you know, humans age so quickly. You know, and this is part of our own evolutionary history. We didn't have to consciously think of fasting for much of, you know, how humans evolved because we had natural fasting. We went through naturally a couple days with us not finding food, and then we found food and then we gorged ourselves, and then we didn't have food again. You know, it's just like, you know, it was a natural part of evolution, but now, like, we've created this new system where we don't let ourselves do that. It's been a huge, you know, hazard to our health.

Yeah, you have to walk to get your food.

And. Yeah, right. You don't even burn the calories to earn them. You know.

Super cool stuff. All right, so let's get. Let's get into seeds then. So seeds is. Well, I'm not even going to attempt to describe it because I'm doing it badly. But yeah, I guess we've just sort of really reconnected more recently around this concept of seeds that you've been working on. So go at it. Tell us what it's about.

So seeds is a tool set for humanity to create a different type of civilization. That's the entire purpose and point behind it. So when you think about civilizations to help bring this into context, you know, civilizations kind of have, like, their own tech stack. They start with agriculture. So a Lot of the civilizations that have failed in the past, they failed because their agricultural systems failed. And currently ours is on the path for catastrophe. If we don't change our industrial agriculture system, civilization is going to collapse full stop. Okay, so on top of an agriculture system, we have a financial system. And that's what directs and.

Motivates and rewards the majority of human will and attention. A lot of people are doing things for money. That's what pays money, that's what pays the bills, et cetera, et cetera. So this is what directs our collective actions. And then on top of that financial system, we have a governance system and this is what controls that financial system. So these are our political systems, et cetera, et cetera. And then the political and financial system come together to make an economic system. So this is kind of like our civilization. Tech stack and what makes it up. When we look at the foundation to all of our problems today, they result from how our civilization is designed, from the very foundation of it. You know, our current financial system is subsidizing oil and gas industries at $5.4 trillion to make them cheaper than renewable energy. So we're dealing with this climate crisis, but our collective wealth and energy is going towards the problem and financing that problem. So everyone who's operating within the current paradigm, who's trying to shift the system but using it within the system that's causing the problem, they're not going to be able to do it. It's like shooting yourself in your foot before you start to run a marathon. Like, it's just not going to work. You know, we're stuck playing this game like Monopoly, when we all want to play life, but we keep trying to like change the rules of Monopoly rather than just step up and walk away and play another game. You know, like that's the rules of that game and that's what's creating the outcome. You cannot fix it within that paradigm. Like everyone said this, you can't fix the problem with the tools that created the problem. Like, you know, in order to like make the old system obsolete, you got to step into a new one that makes it obsolete. You know, like all of these, you know, insights that we've had, as humanity have told us, we just need to step into an entirely new game. So that's what Seeds is about. So it starts off with this very abstract idea about a financial system that bores a lot of people, but that is the foundation of our current financials or our current civilization. Stacks is how do our financial systems reward behavior. So Seeds itself is a financial and governance system. It's a financial system designed to subsidize and finance regenerative businesses, starting with regenerative agriculture. So any organization that's already out there doing good things, we're first giving them some of this new currency and this new money system to help subsidize their transition into this healthier world. And we could do some really cool things like central banks are making trillions of dollars lately. Trillions. And to put this into context, the UN said it will take 30 to 50 billion year, 30 to 50 billion dollars to end world hunger. We could end world hunger for 30 to 50 billion dollars. Right? Okay. But in that same time from 2008 to now, we created 15 trillion dollars that have been just generated and distributed for a wide number of reasons, mostly like warfare, subsidizing dirty industries, etc. All these myopic short term, self interested reasons. So we could have ended world hunger hundreds of times over with our collective wealth. But we didn't. You know, studies are saying it'll take $250 billion to plant the 2 trillion trees that are needed to sequester enough carbon.

Reverse desertification and kind of deal with our climate crisis. 250 billion. But again, the US package just to deal with COVID 19 and their own admission was about $2 trillion. So we could have financed that like eight times over, but we didn't. So how are we spending our collective wealth? We're spending it in a way that's currently destroying our planet and creating more problems rather than actually solving them. So if we don't step out of that system, then we're never going to be able to solve this. You know, so what SEEDS does is it gives us a different financial system so we can step out of our old systems into a new one. So we stop trading in the national currencies and we start trading in our own currency that we own, that we have a voice in, that we know what's going on with it and that we have a say. So how that works is that imagine if central banks actually said, you know what, we're going to be completely transparent in how this works. We're going to give all the citizens who are using this currency to have a direct voice in how we make the money, if we're going to make the money and where we spend the money. So now this is your money. It's no longer our money that you're using, this is all of our money. So if central banks did that, that's essentially what Seeds is doing. We're saying, hey, here's a financial system that you own. You have a direct say in it. You see everything that's happening. Like this is your currency. And we get to do some like incredible stuff. Like, you know, on one side of it, we can have a better than free currency, which is what we have. There's no fees for exchanging seeds. In fact, the more you use it, the more rewards you get from it. So again, that'd be like the Federal Reserve and central bank saying, you know what, we're going to get a kickback. We just created a trillion dollars. We're going to give 100 billion of it out as a UBI to say thank you for all the people who used this currency. They could do that. They didn't do that. We can do that in the new system. So we've created what we call the first better than free currency. No fees for using it, but you actually get rewarded the more you use it. And that becomes possible through this architecture.

I forgot to touch on one point which some of you might be asking. If you're just creating money, then it's going to be valueless. But what seeds is doing, which no current financial system has been able to do before, is it actually gets to track the new demand for this currency and then create new currency to meet new demand so the value of that currency remains more stable.

That's the problem with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is too volatile because the supply doesn't react to the changes in demand. The supply is fairly fixed. There's crazy demand, that is the prices all over the place. We have national currencies which they're creating more currency than there is new demand. So then the value of them are actually going down. The purchasing power of our national currencies is dropping year over year, anywhere from 3 to 12%. And you know what that means is that if you're not getting a raise or you're not getting a pay raise equal to 3 to 12% every year, you're actually getting a demotion. The real value of the money that you're holding and getting in is becoming less valuable every single year. So it's basically just like robbing us. But what we could do in a financial system is actually make it value stable. We only create new currency when there's new demand so that we can have the first truly stable currency. That's actually purchasing power stable. And then it's this new money that we give out and reward for regenerative behaviors to pay people who are part of it create our own ubi. People talk about universal basic income, but if that basic income comes from the current power structures, we're just getting more of our freedom and our, you know, security and life. Over to these systems that aren't serving us like a UBI based on the current paradigm would be devastating. So let's create our own universal basic income with our own financial systems. And this is what this architecture allows.

And from what you were saying, like a UBI that would recognize contribution. So if you're contributing meaningfully rather than just doing nothing, you would get. Is that kind of what you was alluding to just at the end?

Yeah, but, you know, contributions and within seeds, like, I can dive into what we call a contribution, which is a myriad of behaviors. But seeds is an evolutionary tool, so it's actually governed by the people who use it. So what we consider a contribution is up to the entire network to decide. So we can say, you know what, planting trees is contributing to society. So, you know what, we're just going to literally pay people to go out there and plant trees. Why aren't we doing that? Why isn't humanity not already doing that? You know, there's healers out there that just love healing people. We could say, you know what? You love doing that. Just go out and heal people. Society is going to pay you to heal people because that's beneficial to society. Like, we can call that a contribution. So what's cool within seeds is like, we say, what is a contribution? And we can reward that, and that could be anything. So currently, it's like, if you're actually exchanging it, you're helping the economy grow. That's a contribution. If you're participating in governance, that's a contribution. Like, anyway, if you're helping build the community, you're inviting new people in, you're putting on events, all that stuff, that's a contribution, you know, which is so.

Cool because I guess that's partly one thing that the pandemic has put into the spotlight is who is, you know, who is an essential worker, you know, who is actually contributing to humanity in a. In a way that is necessary.

As opposed to a lot of jobs. I mean, the one that I use frequently is there's an organization called Pooch Selfie who make an attachment to put on top of your phone to make it easier to take a selfie of your dog. It's just like, at what point in humanity did we. Did we ever need that?

But someone has invented that. They've designed it.

You know, they're shipping them around.

You know what?

I think that's probably fine. You know, that's, you know, yeah, that seems absurd. But you know what's more absurd is hiring hundreds of thousands of people to write complicated tax code so that we can have hundreds of thousand people trying to decipher that complicated tax code. You know, that's literally the equivalent of going out there and digging a hole and paying someone to do it, to literally fill that hole back up again. Like so many of our jobs in society are just that, that are so incredibly pointless on the larger scale. Like, you know, a selfie for your dog. That's cool. Someone gets a kick out of that. At least someone was happy that existed. But nobody is happy about a lot of these things. They only add more complications. And that's the problem with any system and civilization like this is they get so complicated and convoluted, they can't be saved. There's no way of, like changing it and adjusting it because that just adds more complexity. Not even complexity, complications. So our current systems are extremely complicated. They're not complex. But anyway, that's a different. So what we really need to do is just say, you know what? That's just a total mess. It's not worth saving. Let's just hard reset. Let's step into something different. And then we find out what is actually essential. You know, like having breathable air and clean water. That's essential. Like, we're going to literally pay people to do that because that's important, not freaking tax law, you know, and what's cool about like blockchain and this new technology is it makes obsolete so many jobs that we shouldn't even have anyway. Like the idea of lawyers and accountants and tax attorneys and all these things that exist because we couldn't trust each other. We don't need them anymore because we can build those into code and we can automate it. And that's such a. It's a beautiful and freeing thing. And this, you know, kind of gets me, is.

If we can automate a job, we should automate a job, because that means there's a human doing something that a robot could do. And why the hell do we have humans doing things robots could do? Like, humans are infinitely creative, passionate, beautiful beings that should be out there, like, fulfilling our purpose and our passion and doing incredible stuff. If a robot could do what you're doing, that's not what you ought to be doing. And we need a civilization that's. That's encouraging people to do what their purpose is. What they're passionate about, and we should automate the rest. And if it can't be automated and if it's not fulfilling to a human, we should not have it as a civilization. You know, like, oh, well, what about the garbage collectors? Like, who's gonna do that? Why the hell are we collecting garbage? Why are we creating garbage? Like, why don't we make all of our package composting and then we're growing gardens in our backyard and now we don't have waste anymore. So, like, let's actually deal with the foundation of the problem. Like, we don't need garbage collectors. We need to not have any freaking garbage.

Ask the better question. And instead of putting the band aid on the broken leg, let's acknowledge the broken leg that's actually also part of a body that's been smashed up. And maybe just on the robot thing. I was talking at an event late last year, and at the dinner at the event, I was talking to a guy called Liam Malone, who's a. He's a Kiwi former Paralympian who I think he set the world record or got the gold medal for 100 meters. He had. He had the spring legs. And he quit the Olympic scene because there were changes to the rules and the technology, which he didn't feel were good. And he kind of threw himself into the whole world of AI and so at the dinner table, he was like, oh, wow, you know, so what's the plan? You know, what's going to happen with the robots and AI and he's, you know, he was like, don't worry about it. It's all kind of military stuff at the minute. The robots aren't coming to take your jobs. To which I turned around and said, that presumes that the robot would want our jobs. Like, if a robot was that smart, it would look at some of the jobs we do and go, I'm going down to the beach to play volleyball with my other robot friends because this job sucks.

Yeah, we're going to go back to quantum complexity over here because that was way more interesting, that button pushing you were doing.

That's a good point. You know, if artificial intelligence was that intelligent, it wouldn't do our jobs. You would look at us and just.

Go, there's a really cool book, Control, Alt, Delete. It's like a black comedy about AI and the robots taking over. And there's this. It starts off with these two computers talking to each other, and one of them sort of says, oh, you know, what are your humans doing? And it says, oh, it's watching some program where there's 10 people in the house and one of them gets evicted each week. So it's like a Big Brother type thing. And they get talking for a little bit and they both just end up going, gosh, our humans are so stupid, we should kill them. And so then this starts off this whole AI war where the computer starts on the robot. I mean it's a black comedy, but you look at some of the things in it and you kind of go, that's maybe so far fetched or something.

I mean, seeds. So I've recently just signed up to the SEEDS.

Program or the concept. So how do we, how do you do this? How do, how do we successfully do this? Because if you're, you know, I guess this is the challenge. Well, I think we've raised one of the points already. Like the Internal Stockholm syndrome. Yeah, look, I don't like my job. I know that it's all bullshit. I know that there are ways that we could all be thriving. But you know what, we've always struggled to make a living and that's kind of always had, that's how it's always been. And you know, I actually think I'm too scared to try and make this leap into this, you know, sort of utopia, for want of a better word. So there's, there's that part of it. How do we convince the people that actually that they need to make that leap? But I guess the second and maybe bigger question is, you know, tax attorneys, lawyers, accountants, banks, the central banks, like they probably quite like the gig that they've got right now. So it's a, how do we, how do we get enough critical mass to, or even do you do, or are you engaging with those institutions to try and say to them, look, this is going to be the future, you better to help build it or you're going to be taken over by it.

Yeah, all really good questions. So those who've been following the decentralization space in Bitcoin at SAL kind of understand this principle. If Bitcoin could have been shut down, it broke a lot of laws that would have been shut down. But the thing is they can't shut it down. So the way it's designed is one that's completely resilient to the attacks of the current paradigm. So SEEDS is designed in the same way. So if the current paradigm doesn't like it, they have to go to extremely great lengths to be able to have any impact on trying to take it down. And even those might fail. But regardless, it's not necessarily about that. I talked about it before, where no one alive today created the systems and structures that we have today. And even at the, you know, the Economic World Forum, which is where all the elites of the economic system gather to talk about, like, blah, blah, blah, one of the main themes is capitalism's broken and it's not working. So that's already in the sphere that, you know, our current systems are broken. So, you know, my optimistic side is that even those entrenched powers say, you know what, you're right, this isn't working. This system actually could work. Maybe we'll get behind it. But if they don't feel so like, you know, jolly and hunky dory about it, then we have the backup where they can't actually shut it down anyway. So it's kind of like it's here whether or not they want it to be. But we welcome everyone into this. This is a renaissance for all of humanity. It's not a revolution. It's not saying, hey, we're going to take your wealth and give it to the poor. It's not saying we're out to get you. What it's saying is, here's a better structure that actually serves all of us and our planet, and it could serve you, it could serve your children. Like, it just makes sense. Sense. So why don't we try something new?

But either way, where Seeds actually came from is kind of part of my journey, is we need a bridge. Because most humans aren't in a position to do something radical like move to the jungle and grow their own food. So that's why we started with Seeds is because it's just an application, and it's designed very much like how we already used to, you know, make our payments. It's just like PayPal. So people have PayPal, Apple Pay, any type of digital banking, which is almost everyone, at least everyone in the Western world, then they can already do this. So if you can download an app, then you can step into the system. So we try to make it as easy as possible to actually be able to participate in this. And then we design seeds like a medium exchange currency. So we could have done some really radical and evolutionary ways about, you know, completely rewiring how we do value exchange. And Seeds intends to do that later. But it still started off as like, hey, it's a token that looks just like your US dollar, your New Zealand dollar, whatever. You exchange it to make a purchase just like you're used to. Here's an App that does it. So we start off where people are already at and make it as easy as possible to just step into this and be part of it. So that was the idea is like, how do we make this like zero friction so that people can participate so we can get that adoption and then once adoption really starts happening, people get into it. We can evolve this any way we like. So a lot of people like the idea of like a resource based economy or a negative interest currency or you know, getting rid of money altogether and just looking at resource flows and all this stuff. Well, all of that can be done with code. And once we're in a code based system, if we want to radically evolve it, we could put up a proposal that says, hey, we're going to alter the code xyz. If everyone votes on it says yes, let's do that, then we can radically evolve our system just through voting to do so, where our current systems are completely incapable of that level of evolution. So what we do is we step into an exponentially evolving financial system that can actually respond and interact with, with our current reality as it's shifting. But what we do is we start with where we're at today to make it as easy as possible for people to step on and we make it extremely rewarding. So I talked about before about a currency that's either value stable or even going up in value relative to your national currencies. So would you hold onto your national currency? Would you get no voice, you have no say in it, it's losing value and you get charged fees when you use it, or would you rather use a currency that rewards you for using that, that's financing the regeneration of our planet, that gives you a voice that's fully transparent and it's gaining value. Like, you know, which one would you rather use? And if the friction is as easy as downloading an app, then, you know, just makes sense. So that's how we started off, is we just make it make sense on every single level, make it as easy as possible and just welcome people in.

Too easy. The renaissance is here.

That's the idea. The renaissance is here. It's just not fully distributed yet. And that's kind of where we're at, is all the pieces already exist. And that's kind of the other idea behind seeds is 35% of the initial token supply is reserved to give out as campaigns. So all the citizens actually get a vote and say, you know what, let's give out money for people planting trees or doing good deeds or participating in Governance or anything, they can come up with an idea, we can fund it. But 12% is set up as grants for alliance partners, all these organizations that are already doing good things in the world, all the pieces of this new world that already exist, we can weave them all together by giving all of them a grant, say, hey, you know what? We appreciate what you've been doing. Here's some money of this new system. So what we do is we give financial self interest to all of this movement for them to come in and like, collaborate on something. Because now as the system grows, the grant that they receive grows with it. So we align all the financial interests of this entire movement, all by getting behind one financial system to say, you know what? This is ours. We have more value here. We're in control of this one. And I think that just it appeals to the way that we've been programmed to think with, you know, financial self interest, like, what's cheaper? What rewards me more? We use that same way of thinking to be able to like, you know, adopt a new model that could change the paradigm.

Nice. And that's such a cool way of approaching it because again, and what you've said all along about, you know, this is a renaissance, not a revolution, it's, you know, we're not wanting to, you know, kind of destroy what's kind of already there. We just want to build better. And I think that that was something that really took me a while to get my head around, because I think when you first enter the. I don't know if this was true for you, but when you first enter the kind of that change period of going against who you were and recognizing some of the damage that some of the embedded systems are and how they're working, you do get a bit angry a little bit. It's kind of like stuff you old systems and I'm gonna get the big stick and I want to try and beat the old system. But people generally, I mean, other than lowly U.S. marines going through training or lowly infantees going through basic reserve training, we have to respond to a big stick occasionally and someone shouting at us. But you don't tend to like it, and you don't tend to like hanging out with those people. And I think that's been one of the big journey or learnings for me over. You know, me growing into who I am is like purpose. And doing good is about having the best party on the street that people just want to come and be a part of because it feels good and it is good and it Makes the alternative just look shabby and ordinary. And it's like, why have I been. Why have I been hanging out at this. This cafe? Like, the food's awful and the service is terrible. This place, everyone's smiling, having fun over here, and the food's amazing and the service is great. Like, I'm totally hanging out over here now. So I love the vibe. And obviously there was no doubt, having known you for the last couple of years, that you were going to bring an amazing energy to something that you created like this. So.

Yeah, and to echo that, part of that transition for me was realizing that the them was us now. So it doesn't make sense to have a revolution and, like, come after somebody because they're part of it. They are you. And if you go after them, then it's kind of like the liver attacking the heart because it's like, you know, the heart has cancer, so we're gonna take it down, you know, like, that's not how this works. We're not gonna make it through if we don't all do it to you together. Man, I was in the belly of the beast. And the people in that, they're beautiful people, they're passionate, they care about the world. They're good people. They're just stuck in a shitty system. You know, they can come along with this journey, too.

I mean, we have to. Otherwise it's. I mean, because that's so true. I mean, again, you know, utilizing my history degree, you know, the French Revolution started off with noble intents, but there was a period called the Terror under Robespierre. It's like that didn't end so well. He ended up with him being guillotined. It's like in a revolution, everyone just turns on themselves. And I guess, look at Russia in the Bolshevik Revolution. Yeah, it started off great. Hey, look, these people, they got all the money. This isn't cool. But there's plenty of anecdotes and stories that. Showing that actually under kind of czarist Russia, most people were better off than they were after the revolution. So it's kind of like, oh, man.

That happens almost with every revolution.

Yeah, yeah, I think you'll just.

I would actually combat and say, I don't think it started off with good ideas because. Because embedded in all of them was, these people are bad. They're controlling us. Let's take them down. So I had this military conquest mindset, which. That's the same energy they brought to it. They brought to it with fear, anger.

Driven by highly egocentric men. Who clearly had some parental issues.

And you know what? I would actually say there's probably a reason we focus on that in history rather than focus on the Renaissance type events. One, they're more entertaining and they're like, easier to teach to kids, I think. And they're like a better story. It's much more gripping than, you know, what. They all came together, they had this really intense, like, understanding process where they shared a lot of compassion, they understood how each other felt, and then they decided on a mutually beneficial arrangement that increased quality of life for all. It's like, that's a boring story. Like, why were the heads cut off?

But maybe, I mean, maybe that's part of, you know, I think there's a good argument to say, well, that is part of. Part of the system. The complex is, you know, we want to, you know, dare I say, indoctrinate you to the ways and beings of your nation and what made your nation great and the suffering and the achievements that your forebears made. Because I always think it's interesting coming from the UK originally and, you know, I'm English, I'm bloody English, I am. And you sort of go, okay, so does that mean you're. You're pre. Celtic? Celtic, Roman, Romano, British, Saxon, Angle, Jute, Danish, Norwegian, Pictish, Scottish. Like, which part of English do you actually identify with? Because actually. Oh, and your surname is actually Norse, so which part of England? No, it's like. And again, I think that for me, that kind of sense of history, because I'm reading a book at the minute all about like the Arthurian legend. So it's like a fictional historical novel building up to the, I guess that truly Dark age period where they think that the guy who was King Arthur existed. And it's just really interesting realizing actually not that long ago Britain was Roman. It's like in the scheme of things, like. And you forget that. You kind of forget that actually there was a large proportion of the population who were basically Italian.

We forget that this civilization that was never going to fail. It did. And now we hardly know about it anymore. And that's the same thing with ours. And it's going to go to that same way.

Yeah. Unless some amazing people like you and the. And the collective of seeds.

Well, I think it's going that way anyway. The future I envision isn't one with nation states at all. And I would say that's like the evolution of humanity is we started off at tribes which are pretty small. We moved to cities, we moved to nation states. And we just kind of been expanding our sense of self and our sense of identity. You know, before it didn't expand up to more than 50 people. But now, you know, in Americans though I'm an American, which is the same as 350 million people. So it's just, you know, it's these steps of like what encompasses the eye. And I think that next step is a global humanity. So we just get rid of the nation state concept altogether. You know, it hardly exists anymore anyway. It almost did when like manufacturing happened within states and they were kind of self resilient. But now our entire global industry system is global. Like our problems are global, our climate crisis is global, our financial systems are global. Everything's already global. And you know, there's a big part of the world that's like against the one world government and blah blah blah. And I get that that's one part path where it's like one world of control, that's terrible. But there's another path that's like one world of unity and a decentralized governance that we all have control in and we all have a say in. And it's like by the people for the people for the planet, like then that makes sense. But if it's like, you know, by the secret people behind the freaking glass door that's making all the decisions, like blah blah blah, like if it's this like weird terrifying story where one person's in power over the world, yes, that's an awful one world government. But like a one world government that doesn't actually have a government, we get rid of government altogether because that's another weird institution that we have is this concept that, you know, this institution can have power over another person. Like why do we even have that? Let's scrap that concept. One that's the last rabbit hole is our government systems were designed hundreds of years ago, before we had the Internet, before we had instantaneous global communication. So for people to actually get represented, they literally need to send Bob from the Village to go represent them at the graduate scale or what? They're all going to hop on their horses, ride four days to come to the coliseum together. It didn't make sense. But there's immediate feedback loop because if Bob from the Village didn't represent them, then Bob from the Village got his ass kicked. You know, so there's a feedback loop where we had a lot of incentive to actually represent them. So it kind of worked at the time. But I would guarantee, well, I wouldn't guarantee I very much bet that the People at the time, if they had systems today where they could vote digitally online and represent themselves, they wouldn't have even thought cross their mind to have these representatives. They'd be like, oh well, we can vote directly. That makes sense. So that's what the new governance looks like, is that we don't have leaders anymore because we don't need them. So anyway, really interesting.

I still have this image from very earlier in the conversation of you being in some embassy on the Internet checking out permaculture and someone in the CIA department going, fuck. So and so who is researching what? Permaculture? What even is this?

Anyone know a code word? Permaculture? Does anyone know what that is?

You know, that crossed my mind a lot. Like the rabbit holes I was going down on on the embassy computers. But it always. I loved it in the back of my mind because I'm like, you know what? If they ever like actually followed through what I was doing, they would come to the same conclusions I did. So I'm actually doing everyone a service if they are tracking me. So let me help them out, you know, how do I, like, throw up some flags so they actually look into this like, okay, bomb attack, good search. Now, permaculture.

How do we get them to like accidentally stumble upon this new way of thinking, you know, because again, everyone in that system, like, I was there, like, I had really good friends that were just really indoctrinated. So I understand where they're coming from. They're all. They're all great people. They don't know that there's a better way, you know?

Super cool. Well, we're probably about the hour mark.

That's been really epic. Miss having you around, buddy. Love your energy and your vibe. And.

New Zealand's loss is Bali's gain, I guess, currently. But who knows? The lockdown's out.

Go back to New Zealand at some point.

Yeah, man, that'd be epic. So if people want to check out more about seeds, where do they go? What can they do?

So if they're listening to this, I tell you to reach out to Tim. You might know Tim Jones. He's the guy who's sitting here and he can get you an invite.

So Tim can get the referral for this, you know, so I can send you some seeds. So whoever messages you can get on board. Because that's, you know, the whole idea of this system is it's a decentralized trust network that everyone who anyway concept is that they're coming in through you. They know you, you should be the one inviting them in. So you could go to joinseeds.com, check it out. But better to just message Tim. He can send you an invite and then that'll take you down the rabbit hole. It's everything you need.

Join the Mad Hatters.

Yeah.

Cool. All right, mate.

Well, just like the white rabbit said, you know, I love that phrase. You know, before he followed on, one of his famous quotes was, don't just do something, stand there. And that's kind of the phase we're in right now, is we were just doing something for so long, but now we have an opportunity to just stop and stand here and actually think before we act. So which.

Which we need to do. And that's been. That's been really cool. Yeah. Great talking to you. I'm sure there'll be a ton of value for people listening to this and, yeah, bring on. Bring on the Renaissance. The Renaissance will not be televised.

Yeah, well, maybe it will. It'll just be on, like, decentralized platforms.

Yeah.

Tim, brother, it's a pleasure talking to you. Really look forward to this again. And if you could do me a favor. Sure. Could you have a good day?

Well, I will do tomorrow because it's now half past nine.

Have a good night.

Cheers, brother.

And that's a wrap. Hey, thank you so much for listening in to my podcast. As I say, I'd love to know where you are on your journey and pursuit of purpose. And if you've got any questions that you'd like me to try and answer for you or people you'd like me to interview on this podcast, please do let me know through a message or a comment. Also, do connect with me on other social media platforms. You'll find me on Facebook, LinkedIn and on YouTube. For more information about me and what I offer through my business, Growgood, you can also go find me at www.grow good good co. That's Growgood Co. If you want to get in contact with me, my email is really easy. Tim at Growgood Co. I'd love to hear from you. Until next time, go well and keep on pursuing your purpose.