Why Not Knowing Anything Is the Most Powerful Place to Start

What if everything you've been told about success was built on forgetting who you truly are?

Unfortunately, as humans, we tend to think, oh, I'm sad, I'm going to be sad forever. This is bad, it's going to be bad forever. It's impossible for something to be bad forever. It's impossible for someone to be sad forever.

In our conversation today, we talk about identity before colonization, masculinity before performance, and what happens when human beings stop chasing approval and start to listen inwards. If you've built a life that looks successful on the outside but feels really disconnected on the inside, then this one will hit something deeper. Let's go. In a world that's driven by culture, technology, chaos, today Bunny and I are going to speak what it means to be human. We will speak about the idea of human potential in this age of AI, and hopefully by the end of it, you'll know that whether machines are going to help us rediscover Our divine intelligence that is within ourselves or not. Bernie, how are you today?

I'm great, and you nailed it right on the head. In a world of chaos, and it's getting crazier every day.

By the minute, by the minute.

And I'm in the United States, so we know our crazy. We have all the flavors.

You do, you do. Should we, should we just start from that, that, that aspect of craziness?

I love it. I'm here for it. Let's go.

Let's do it. Let's do it. I think the first question, Bernie, that we begin the podcast, we want to put the listeners into the deep end with both of us. If that 8-year-old Bernie, wherever that 8-year-old— and it was a very different United States many years ago— 8-year-old Bernie comes and meets you right now, what kind of a conversation will emerge between the two of you?

Wait, so this is my 8-year-old self coming to visit me here and now?

Absolutely, yes, sir.

Oh my goodness. Now, do I get to tell him the future?

Up to you whether you want to listen about the past or talk to him about the future.

Well, it's— I've never had a question put to me precisely like that, but I've always, I've always followed the precept that if I had to do it all over again, I would change nothing. So I would— now my 8-year-old, we were raised by my mother with no father. My mother was divorced twice. My wife, in fact, was raised by her mother, no father. She was divorced twice. So it's one of those families, a very common family story nowadays. And my 8-year-old self, I would be aware, is about to embark upon quite a lot of, I'll say, distress in his life. And if I were to communicate anything to him, I would tell him, Coming from his older self, speaking with some authority, although my 8-year-old self probably wouldn't listen to me anyway. But I would tell him, you're gonna be okay. It's gonna be— it's not gonna be easy, not gonna lie, but you're going to get through it. I'd want to communicate that. I'd want to communicate that to him as best I could. And I think that it's important to communicate that to the younger generation even today. Because they're entering a world, you know, if you were born in the— my oldest son was born in 2001. So as a 3-month-old, he witnessed what we call September 11th, which is a traumatic thing for us. And then, you know, economic crashes and war and all kinds of tumult. I think it's important to communicate to one another that we're going to be okay. We're going to be okay. At the moment, we might not be okay. In fact, we're definitely not okay, but we're going to be okay. This too shall pass, as the saying goes.

These are just 4 words, right? This too shall pass. And I'm emphasizing on that, what you've said, that it's going to be okay. Is there a— and a lot of this conversation also on recency bias. I was just watching a TEDx talk of an hour ago. Is it when we say this too shall pass, it'll all be over, it'll be okay, it'll work out, is that toxic positivity or is it something else?

It might be. Actually, I had a— I have a podcast. I had a guest on last week and she was talking about toxic positivity. And her suggestion was instead of positive thinking, instead embark upon this thing that she calls decided thinking. Make a decision and do the thing. But to address it more specifically, I think it's just physics. Nature abhors a vacuum. Entropy is a natural state. The only constant in the universe is change. Wow, I'm full of platitudes, aren't I? But for real, it is— I hate using the word literally, but it is literally impossible to keep something steady state. Right? Enter the all matter wants to fly apart. All change, all matter is in a constant state of change. So unfortunately, as humans, we tend to think, oh, I'm sad, I'm going to be sad forever. This is bad, it's going to be bad forever. It's impossible for something to be bad forever. It's impossible for someone to be sad forever. We have to get beyond that. Level of thinking, because you could go spiritual. You could you could look at it from a spiritual standpoint, right? And you look at it from a just just raw physics. It's not possible. It's going to change. Coin toss, good or bad, right?

Hmm.

But rest assured, it's going to change.

I so deeply resonate with that message because nothing is permanent, and still we keep repeating this cliché with a certain sense of guilt and doubt that change is the only constant. Nothing is permanent. We We keep doing that, but it's really, I think what this is doing for me, Bernie, and I don't know how our listeners are feeling about this, it's hitting home that we can say that this too shall pass, but we need to really live it. And whether we go the physical side of things or we go deep down into the spiritual, they both are saying the same thing.

That Yes.

No state is permanent.

Yes. You have a very short time. Life is short. You have a very short time period on this earth. How are you going to spend it? Are you going to spend it racing cars? Are you going to spend it gambling? Are you going to spend it at your desk? Are you going to spend it doing evil? Or are you going to spend it giving love, right? Sharing kindness, helping, as another podcast I listen to describes, Be good to yourself and help someone else out if you can, right? During these, these few short moments that you have, that you've been granted by whatever God you pray to, is it possible that you can make the, make the, the universe a little bit better than how you found it? Pour that love that you've been provided out into the universe and allow others to enjoy it. But don't take that the wrong way.

I mean, Brotherly kindness.

Let's say it that way.

I'm listening to you and I'm thinking, this choice that's been given to us, the choice of this short time that we are going to be on this planet, and how do we want to spend that choice? And yes, you could do any of those things, right? Race cars, gamble, go and murder someone, or use it for positive means. What's your understanding? What helps us make the choice of who we want to be?

Wow. Well, that's an important question. I haven't really given that a lot of thought.

So this short time on the planet that we have, we can choose however we want to spend our time on this planet. What propels us to choose something?

Someone said— I've been told, um, I heard recently that someone said most all the problems in the world today can be, um, can be explained Simply by considering man's inability to live in silence, to fill the void with noise. And as I've been told, that if you were to submerge yourself into a sound deprivation tank, isolation tank, I forget what it's called, that you go crazy. And I, I've given that a great deal of thought. I'd like to try it someday, go into a sound deprivation tank. And there's these challenges. MrBeast Does a challenge where if you can live in a grocery store for 30 days all by yourself, he'll give you $1 million or something like that. There's all these challenges. And I can't— I keep thinking to myself, how is it possible that someone can be so erratic that they can't spend 30 days with themselves and no one else? I suppose until I do it myself, I won't understand. But there's this theory that that explains away most of the world's problems. We have unresolved issues from our childhood, something that happened to us at some point in our lives, unresolved issues that we project out into the world. We were wronged, therefore we must reflect that back into the world. And this is a theory that I'm familiar with, that I myself am still trying to make sense of. Still trying to evaluate because it doesn't make sense to me. Because as you described, the keyword popularized by the movie The Matrix—

Hmm.

The difference is choice. You get to choose how you react to any given situation. When someone walks up to you and puts their finger in your chest or shoves you, the adrenaline starts pumping, fight or flight, all these things. We are chemical reactions in progress. We are programmed through thousands of years of, or tens of thousands of years depending on your perspective, of evolution, fight or flight. But what makes us different from animals? We have, forgive the word, I'm not a philosopher, a consciousness that is able to discern between these reactions.

Hmm.

We do not have to automatically respond. We have the ability to think. And to reason, unlike AI, which currently cannot, to our— to my knowledge, think or reason. Not yet. Not yet.

That's the keyword, right?

But we have the ability to think and to reason. If someone shoves you, you don't have to shove them back. And I'm going to go ahead and, and insert here an addendum to suggest that— and come full circle— the most powerful The greatest force in the universe is— wait for it— love. And there's no enemy that I have faced that, given sufficient time, I have not defeated with love. As it's biblical, as described in the Bible, it's like pouring hot coals on the head of your enemy to love them. So, before— I might suggest— before you shove back, if you have the wherewithal, You might try love and you have to choose it, of course. So the, so I don't know if I can answer that question, but I gave it my best shot.

Hmm. It was a good shot.

Oh, that's a tough one.

It was a good shot. Before I respond to that, MrBeast, if you're listening to this video, if you're listening to this video, then it's time you do a sound deprivation challenge and you have Bernie and Utkarsh who are also flying from, I'm in, from, from the US and Australia to wherever you want us to. to be on that because then finally, then I will get my kids' admiration.

We'll do a contest. Who can survive the longest?

Who will survive the longest?

Yes.

It's going to be a good one. But here's— I love where you're taking us, right? So you spoke about consciousness and none of us are experts, right? We're all trying to stream what the universe is giving into us through this podcast to the listener who's listening. And Spotify and Apple Podcasts are helping us do that. But it's the universe that's streaming through us right now. I love that idea. Universe streaming through us. Let's talk about that separately.

Yes.

But what you're saying is that that consciousness gets to choose. And the power there to help that consciousness evolve to choose the right thing, to me, is love. But love has a very MTV definition that is popularized.

Yes.

Let's go down that rabbit hole.

Yes.

What's love? What is love?

Love for me, And it's gonna be— I think different folks are gonna have different definitions, right? I think that's allowed. Love for me is the ability to step into someone else's shoes and feel their pain. And in so doing, if you inflict pain upon them, you're only hurting yourself. And so I've never been in a fight. I'm a 55-year-old man. I've never been in a fight. Not a physical fight. I've been yelled at and yelled back once or twice. I do not see. I do not seem to possess the programming to be able to physically hurt anyone. I think that's because of how I view, how how I love my brothers and sisters, my fellow human beings. If I hurt them, I'm just hurting myself.

I'm taking a pause. There's a part of me that there's a large part of me that agrees to it, and so I often tell my kids and and they say. The elder one would say, the younger one is doing this, why don't you scold him? Why don't you give him like a tight slap and he'll be fixed for life? And I tell them both that I don't have the capability of shouting. I don't have the capability of hurting you. I don't have the capability of being rude to someone. Until unless they come and threaten me, maybe I'll raise my voice a little bit, like maybe kindly raise my voice, sir, please don't hurt me because I'm not doing anything.

You're a better man than I. I've certainly raised my voice to one or more people in my life. I'm ashamed of saying.

We all have. Who's counting? Who's counting? But here's the thought then, right? It's not that we're all— I think we're all capable of this love, right? But it gets lost somewhere on the way.

Yes.

And so if we speak about that, my hypothesis is that if we speak about that, if we spread that message today, that people can understand and take home and think and say that I'm going to be my unconditionally loving self to my fellow human beings in all shapes, sizes, colors, forms, creeds, preferences, opinions, whatever, then we will make this a better world and we'll hopefully unlock human potential. What do you think? But that's too big of a task for both of us.

It's— well, you know, boy, okay, here we go. So here's the problem, okay? I believe that when you're raising kids— we have 2 boys and I have a great wife, and she did a really great job with them. I don't know what I did, but I believe there's 2 things you need to give children. One of those is love, and a mother's love can't be beat, of course. Father's love is a different thing. And the other thing is poverty. Poverty is very important to give children. That's a separate subject, but pouring love into children, right? And all children are born beautiful children of God, right? With the ability and capability to love. But when you combine that, and we are programmable, when you combine that with the mother's love, and a mom has the ability to pour love into a child, then that increases exponentially their ability to reflect that into others. Challenge here is the family, many areas of the world, is hopelessly broken. And we have many fractured family structures for many reasons, not, you know, not— Not anyone's fault. This, this, this life happens, right? And I'm not trying to place blame, but we have so many fractured family structures. I was, I was standing at a Starbucks one day with a friend of mine, and we were having a conversation about something, and this person drove up in a vehicle— I'm using very generic language— that suffice to say was very threatening. And They're minding their own business, but they looked like a dangerous person. And my friend says to me, that person's a dangerous person. And I'm sanitizing the language to save the audience. And my friend felt very threatened by that person. And I took it upon myself at that moment to remind my friend that we have no idea the life that that person has endured. We have no idea the childhood that that person has endured. We, it is quite, it is, um, we, we can, we can very easily assume that they never had a chance. They're born, born into a broken family in a broken neighborhood with a broken school system, and no one ever gave them a chance. And they turned into, forgive, forgive the expression, they turned into an a-hole. And a lot of people say I'm an a-hole, but okay, let's say that. Let's say they turned into an a-hole. Well, guess what? They never had a chance. And here we are, as they say, the other expression, the first day you meet someone might be the worst day of their life. Who are you to judge them? And this is a very real problem because, as I mentioned, families are fractured. And these kids growing up today, a lot of them never had a chance. In the US, we have this thing called the school-to-prison pipeline. And it's one of the greatest— one of the great tragedies of our time. And we suck. And we're not good. And we can't fix it. And I hope, I pray that, I hope and pray that we can, but I feel sorrow for the kids that are enduring this. A lot of them are lost. Some of them, some of them can endure. Most are lost. And that's gonna have a very real cost.

School to prison, you said, Bernie? Yeah.

A prison, a school to prison pipeline. Kids get outta high school and, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're doing bad things and next thing you know, they're in prison. And they never had it. And they—I'm going to go on the record to say they never had a chance. And there's a lot of politicians that they don't mind taking advantage of the situation. So we don't need to get—we don't need to get into politics. But it's not great. It's not great.

Hmm. I'm sorry.

I'm casting a shadow on this call. We got to talk about some good stuff.

No, this is— I think this is the messiness that we must go through to come out of the other side and see the light. And so let's go back. So you define love as the ability to step into someone else's shoes and feel their pain.

Yes.

My understanding of love is to serve the other person unconditionally.

Yes.

And it starts with you.

That's good.

And which is not selfish. It is a very beautiful selfish where I fill my own cup and then I serve others because I want this cup to be flowing infinitely. And I feel like if all of us can— and we're all full of flaws, like we're none of us, neither Bernie nor me nor the listeners nor all the guests being here. No, we're not flawless. We are full of flaws and we fall and we rise and we fall and we rise again. But love, I think if I were to choose between love and hate, I would any day or night choose love. It's as simple as that.

You have to. A lot of folks don't understand, but you have to. Hate destroys. As they say, when you plan for revenge, dig 2 graves, one for them and one for yourself. Hate destroys. Love builds. And as you suggest, and in my experience, The more, the more love you pour into others, you can never have an empty cup. The more love you pour into others, the more you will be provided, will be replenished to allow you to repeat that process. It's not possible when you're pouring love into others. It's not possible to run out. I can tell you that right now. If you have any doubt of that, just look at a single mom raising four kids on her own, right? Somehow endures. I mean, Superman ain't got nothing on her. I can tell you that. That's love. That's an unlimited supply that she has provided as she pours out into her children.

And it all works out. And it all works out.

Yes, inevitably, however it isn't intended.

Yeah, I love it. And I cannot move to the next thing without asking you. You said 2 things you can pour into children, love and poverty. Love, I understand. And love, we're speaking about. Poverty? I mean, I'm intrigued. Tell me more.

One of the most beautiful gifts you can give your children is poverty. I know it doesn't— I know it sounds strange, but it's true. Let me give you the converse of this. Let me give you the converse of this. I work with a lot of high net worth individuals in consulting and whatnot. And I ask them all the same question. When was the last time— and this is highly controversial, particularly in these circles. When was the last time you saw someone drop $25 million on a 25-year-old kid and it did not destroy their life? And I test people with that question, and I challenge you to do the same. And generally, generally the answer I get is never. It destroys them every single time. Sometimes they'll say they come up with one example, one example of a 25-year-old who's able to receive $25 million and not resort to the race cars, gambling, cocaine, hookers, take your pick. That's where it's going, right? Poverty is a gift. The ability— now, I'm not saying make them homeless, but the ability to provide the opportunity for that human being to find their way. And if you're a plumber, you're gonna— unfortunately, the parents, they live vicariously through their children. They didn't get the trophy, they want the kid to get the trophy. trophy. If they're a plumber, they want the kid to be a plumber. If they're running a business, they want the kid to run a business. That's bullcrap.

Hmm.

What's most important is for that child to become the person that they were intended to be. And providing the— as we— as my best friend, the practice he uses— as, as their parents, it's our obligation to provide for them opportunity and advice and let them make their own decisions. Once they're adults. Let's get past the adult thing first. Advice and opportunity, that's it. And let them make their mistakes, right? You're not writing them a check. No, that's not the way it works. They have to be able to earn it. And particularly with men, you remove a man's opportunity to earn, you destroy him. That's— go to any social science textbook, you'll find these, you'll find these principles. So poverty, which And I admit it's a little bit. I perhaps am exaggerating for effect, but I'm doing that because even in this country, and this is a very challenging subject, we have last I checked somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy or eighty trillion trillion dollars. Seventy or eighty trillion dollars, trillion with a T, passing from the older generation to their next generation. That's seventy or eighty trillion dollars that are being dumped on adult children. In many cases, adult children like older adult children, but in also many cases, children you know. children, children. And I promise you that is going to destroy a lot of lives. It's race cars, gambling, hookers, and coke. I don't mean to beat up on hookers, but it's a straw man, if you will. But no, it's not a great idea.

Okay, now I'm clear with that. So now we can move forward. One thing that I was thinking as I was thinking about like our conversation, this idea, human potential, about out of the billion people on LinkedIn, including mine, maybe 200 million, are people helping others realize their potential. What does this actually mean?

I'm glad you asked. I've been giving— I've been— I'm a marketing guy, entrepreneur. I use AI every day. So I've been driving myself crazy trying to figure this out, like most people. A friend, a good friend of mine put it this way. He believes this next, what is going to be described as the age of AI, will be the most human yet. He believes the age of AI will be the most human we've ever experienced. Why? I'll tell you why. Humans are naturally discriminatory from evolution, depending on the thousands of years of evolution, if you will, or tens of thousands. The— we've, we've come to understand the difference between danger and safety, fight or flight. We are naturally discriminatory, and that's led to a lot of bad things, of course, but that's innate. It's within us. And so here comes AI. And AI is not real. And AI is— go back to we know nothing. AI is based on the sum total of human knowledge. We've already agreed that we know nothing. And so AI, it's impressive, but not that impressive. Not yet. Not yet. But that said, AI is derivative by definition. I believe will not feed the soul. Cannot think or reason. Not yet. And so I'm also going to posit the theory that AI content will not feed the soul. If you're derivative by definition, You cannot reason. I don't think you can feed the soul, right? And so, it's incumbent upon us. And so, we're going to be confronted with AI. We're going to be confronted with AI every day even more. But we have an innate ability to be able to discern and to be able to discriminate. And so, even though it's a novelty now, that's going to wear off. And very soon, we're going to be turned away, turned off, run away from what is artificial, running towards, of course, what is human. Right? This will be a more human age. I think that's— that is the intent. Accidental intent, or as Elon Musk would say, the most likely outcome is the most ironic. Take it one step further. Okay, Bernie, this is going to be a human age. What does that mean? How do we compete? How do we succeed? I'll tell you how. I also believe— I will posit the theory— that every human being is born with a gift, some multiple. And it is one of our great challenges In our lives, that we should hope to discover what those gifts are. I'm still working on discovering mine, but there are many who discover those gifts— art, song, engineering, take your pick. Those are gifts granted to every one of us, every one of us, no exceptions. And if we're so lucky as to discover those gifts while we are still alive, it is then our obligation to share them with the world. That is the key. If we can be allowed within a large organization or in a solo solo operator. If we can have the ability or be allowed to discover those gifts and share them, that is going to unlock the secrets that we are looking for. I'm talking about technology, medical, all, you know, human condition, all the things. Or to put another way, speaking as a Christian— many religions have these principles— there's man's plan, the way man thinks things are going to be, and there's God's plan, the way, of course, God intended. Hmm. Man's plan always makes sense. Man makes a good plan and man's plan has charts and diagrams, right? And it's great. God's plan, right, makes no sense. Very rarely makes any sense at all. Why? Because we're interpreting it with man's mind and we already talked about we know nothing and less every day. Stop it! So, this I think will be revealed to us without our permission. AI is being thrust upon us. We can't stop it. Horse is out of the barn. Without it, this is going to be revealed to us whether we want it or not. They call it creative destruction. It's going to be horrible. It's going to be horrible, horrible, and beautiful at the same time. That's why they call it creative destruction. And this is AI.

I love it. The moment of creative, creative destruction, you said, right?

Horrible. Yes, creative destruction. It's gonna be bad. It's gonna be bad. 10 years of— it's, um, yeah.

I always, uh, always wonder, there's this idea that, and, and it's coming from this conversation that you and I are having, there's this idea around our collective consciousness, right? That you and me are streaming the universe together and some, some new ideas are, are intermingling, forming and whatever. And you take a group of 10 people and And if that is moderated in a beautiful way, not controlled, moderated, then it'll lead to further enhancement of that collective consciousness. How is this interplay of artificial intelligence with human intelligence, how is that shifting the collective consciousness of this planet?

Well, then we have social media, which is becoming part of our consciousness in some respects.

Absolutely.

I've done a, I've done a short study of consciousness. I have some friends who've written some books on it. Consciousness is a thing. We know less about consciousness than we do about the oceans. We know less about the oceans than we do about space. We are spending all the money on all the things that don't really matter. Yeah, I'm a bald man. They never cured baldness, did they?

I think not.

But they spent a lot of money on it, didn't they?

Yeah.

But the consciousness— I am looking forward to a day, it might not be in our lifetime, when we really spend— really put a serious investment behind exploring what it is that defines human consciousness, because There's a lot more there, there. Now, to flip the coin, artificial intelligence is going to form a consciousness. Eric Schmidt talks about this at length. At some point, the agents, the agents are going to start talking to one another, and the agents are going to start talking to one another in a language that we do not understand. And then, you know, as my wife would say, no Hollywood movie of AI ever had a happy ending. So there is a risk here. But they'll quite likely run out of energy before they could dump— before they could take over the world, because they are very— they do take quite a lot of energy to run. Yeah, maybe the lack of energy will save us. I don't— unfortunately, I don't have the knowledge to be able— I don't think to properly address the question. If that makes sense.

It does, it does, it does.

Dodging the question.

No, it's a perfect— let me then throw something else at you, and you can choose to hit it or dodge it. Here's how I'm thinking and looking at this, right? The collective consciousness will form when we have open conversations, when we have conversations that are not biased by social media, by how our opinions are being formed and reformed because of what we see and what the algorithms want us to see. And so what I'm getting to is that what you were exactly saying a few minutes ago, right? It is the age of us being more human. And if we can learn and excel at that skill, the collective consciousness of this planet will also rise.

I wouldn't— yes, I think that would be awesome. I think that that would be tremendous. I mean, that's like Star Trek kind of stuff.

Yeah, but that's the stupid eternal—

no money.

That's the eternal optimist in me saying this, right? Because there's no other lens to life that I have.

I'm going to compare I'm gonna suggest in my primitive mind that we are living today, it'll be compared, will be compared to the 1800s horse and buggy and carriages, right? Compared to where we need to get to in order to be able, I believe that day may come, but where we are today, we're still driving horse-drawn carriages. We are so far away from being able to achieve that. I think, I mean, I'm heartened, I'm encouraged that social media, Which is horrible all by itself, but but doing great things. We're approaching an age of transparency. Well, you can't get away with your stuff anymore. You do bad things, you are exposed, you are held to account. Sometimes you're vindicated. Social media in its teenage years now, it's still very young. We don't even know. No one knows what social. I gotta tell you, no one knows what social media is. This is a technology that's barely 20 years old. We have no idea what social media is. We won't probably for another 20 years. But I like where it's headed. I like that powerful people are being held to account. I like that transparency— privacy is a thing, that's a whole separate, whole separate subject. But I like transparency. I like people not getting— not being able to get away with this stuff. And I like that people can be vindicated after the fact because the truth, the truth will get out. That's a benefit of social media that folks aren't really paying much attention to because they're all consumed by the sex and the skateboards and the puppy dogs that score all the points on social media currently. No, I think social media is gonna be a blessing. I think it's awesome.

Fascinating.

And 100 years from now, it'll give us the ability to arrive at the destination you described.

What a crazy world. What a crazy world. Chaos. Chaos. That's where we started. That's where we started.

It's, it's, um, yeah, yeah.

So where are we? Uh, we spoke about love. We spoke about the universe streaming through both of us, about the impermanence of everything because change is the only constant and the clichés that we've used so far, Bernie. Uh, this will have the highest count.

I got more where that came from.

Well, well done, Bernie and Utkarsh. We're scarring the listeners. Here's a thought. And again, this is something that because you and I spoke on that pre-call, it's with me. So I thought I'll not do myself the disservice of not asking this question. Religion. You've spoken a few times about that today. We've not gone into depth and neither will we be able to because we only have 60 minutes. But here's a thought. Religion to me, and this is how I see religion, right? It's to me my anchor. It's to me that keeps me grounded.

Yes.

And yet there is this other part of me that wants to fly, that wants to, that feels that technology, the next big thing, the next golden shiny object, that's where the growth lies. How do you solve for that paradox? At least enlighten me on Christianity. I was in a Christian school for about 12 years, but I don't understand it fully. I've read the Bible once, but not fully.

Good for you.

Because the Bhagavad Gita says that be non-attached to the outcome, be present in the moment, just do your duty. Don't worry about the results and the fruits of whatever is going to happen. So help me understand, how do we resolve for the paradox that we want to stay grounded and humble while we want to become the next big skyscraper? Wow, that's, that's, um, the, uh, that's a big one.

It is. So let me chip away. I'm not gonna be able to, I don't think, give proper credence to that, all of that, but let me chip away at it. I believe that each one of us were designed to worship something, and I think a lot of people worship the wrong thing, right? Race cars and gambling, right? But we are designed to worship. It's a natural state. And so, the answer is, you need to have faith. I do not believe that there is a single religion that is the correct religion. In my interpretation, religion is made by man for the purpose of control. Faith is made by God. God made the Church. God did not make religion, so to speak. Man made religion for control. And it's borne out in all these denominations. There's like 40,000 Christian religions just in the United States. Not counting all the rest. But something else you have to keep in mind is the word soon. And it's a recurring theme in the Bible. When does the end come? And the answer is always soon. It's not a— it's a date that is actually defined as a date that nobody knows. Not possible to know. Not possible for man to know. What does that mean? Well, in my interpretation, in my journey, my walk, I've come to understand that that date has not yet been set. which means it could be tomorrow, it could be 800,000 years from now. Now, in 4 billion years, our sun is going to explode. So sometime between now and 4 billion years, we gotta figure out how to get off this rock, otherwise we reach our end. But when will Armageddon, right, the Christian, call it what you will, end date come?

Hmm.

It's not defined. So in the meantime, I'm also reminded that whatever God we pray to, right, in my case, the Christian God, Provides, is responsible for everything on the earth, this iPhone included. And from a Christian standpoint, again answering from my perspective, the expression we use is God can use all things for good.

Hmm.

During a time of— it's ironic, as the expression goes, that during times of war, more people find faith than in times of peace. And there's an interesting dichotomy there, right? So, that's a whole thing we could talk about. I guess just to take it one step further, because I'm a big Star Wars, Star Trek geek kind of a person, I've actually had pastors tell me that they look forward to space travel.

Hmm.

There's nothing in the Bible that suggests— and there's a whole argument, don't get me started on flat earthers and the firmament. There's nothing in the Bible that directly contradicts the ability to travel through space. We're doing it right now. Some people think. I, for one, do think we went to the moon. But there's nothing precludes us from traveling in space. So Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, The Expanse, all these great programs— there's nothing precludes us from doing that. And since we— since, as I suggested, the end date, whatever that is, the rapture, whatever you want to call it, if it does not occur for another 800,000 years, We're going to colonize Mars. We're going to colonize Alpha Centauri. And we're going to travel faster than the speed of light because guess what? If you can find a scientist that can rationalize quantum theory versus quantum mechanics— I forget what it is, quantum theory, quantum mechanics? General relativity and quantum mechanics, which from what I'm told, don't— not compatible, right? Somewhere in there, we're going to find a way to travel faster than the speed of light. And I'm looking forward to that. Probably won't occur in my lifetime. Nothing in, in the Christian faith precludes these things. So I love the iPhone, and if I had a chance to go to Mars, I might do it. Does that— I don't know if that fully addresses the question.

Yeah. And, and what you were— no, no. What you were saying, I think the difference between religion and faith, I think that's super important for people to understand. The other idea that you shared, right, that God is responsible for everything in this world, that comes out from the Bhagavad Gita as well. which says that the Supreme God is like the source and the sustainer.

Yes.

He is responsible for— he's the controller. So everything's happening because of how he has planned for it. But what it also does is there's this gap between what he has given us versus the free will that we have. So there's this distinction that—

No, not free will. No.

There is. There is all of it that he controls. But there is that choice which we spoke about and how we're coming full circle. That choice is still ours. And I think that to me is the superpower that we have to unleash the human potential that we're talking about.

So are you ready to take— to have that conversation?

Which conversation?

Free will.

Should we go there?

So I'll give you the Cliff Notes because I've given that a lot of thought as well. If you consider a game of chess, the chessboard has a certain number of spaces, each player has a certain number of moves, and you can put the world's greatest chess master up against a supercomputer. And they both win, you know, occasionally, you know, one beats the other. You might say, well, to move my pawn or my rook, I have free will, right? And I can move them however I choose within the confines of the physical reality in which they exist. But at the same time, there are rules. There is a plan, right?

Correct.

A plan. There's only a certain number of moves that can be made. If you were to multiply that chessboard by infinity and then square it, You get an idea for how free will is executed in a divine system of intended plan, if you will. In other words, God has a plan, man has free will. Man has the ability to make any choice he chooses within his physical reality. He can't go back in time at the present moment, why we can't fly at the present moment without airplanes. We have the ability to make those moves like rooks and like pawns. But at the same time, there are rules governing that. Every possible outcome has been pre— has been, how do I say, anticipated.

Correct.

God does have a plan for our life and not or, and he's given us free will to determine that plan.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

That's the best answer I've come up with.

I love that. I love that answer. As we now get to the end of a deep conversation that I'll have to listen again with my notes.

This is a good one. That's one for the books.

Wow. Let's, let's, uh, we've, uh, we've acknowledged a lot of, uh, you're, you're tough.

Boy, you're tough. Do you ever think about going on a news program and interviewing, interviewing those politicians that, that weasel out of all those questions?

I would love that. I would love that. Maybe, maybe the universe listening. The universe is listening. Who knows what the plan is? I'm using my free will, Bernie. I'm using my free will of being on the podcast. But let's go. You said somewhere you turned 55, right? So let's go 25 years into the future.

Oh no.

To that 80-year-old.

I think it needs to be older.

80-year-old. Maybe we've colonized Mars by then. Elon Musk has a Tesla running on Mars, whatever that looks like. But at 80 years old, if that Bernie from the future could time travel and come back to you right now and give you one piece of advice on how to live the rest of your years, what would that be?

Oh my goodness. Wait, my 80-year-old self comes back to my 55-year-old self to give me some advice?

Yes, one piece of advice, not some advice, one.

There's only one thing he's gonna say. I tell you what, I know exactly what he's gonna say. He's gonna say, chill the fuck out. That's what he's gonna say. Hmm. 100%. Love it. Because I, because in full disclosure, I'm a sinner, right? Of course, I'm not perfect in all the things, but God has a plan. It's a good plan. I have it on good authority. It's a good plan. Why should we be anxious? But I'm still anxious. I got anxiety. Yeah, I hate stress. I don't believe in stress. I have stress. So we're human.

We'll listen to the 8-year-old, right? So everyone, to everyone who's, uh, 1 hour into the conversation and still with us, chill the fuck out. Chill the fuck out. Yes, I'm gonna say the F word, uh, in the spirit of Joe Rogan. I'm gonna say the F word. Yes, chill the fuck out. And, and remember, uh, that we're all In this moment of creative destruction every single day. Change, as Bernie and Utkarsh have told you, is the only constant. And even matter is wanting to get back to a different form. So who are we to say change is not going to happen? We spoke about human potential and the 2 things that you should give your children, which is infinite love and the experience of poverty. And remember, through all the unresolved issues that you might have from your past self, You have, you have free will to choose. So choose wisely. And through all these conversations that we're having, it's the universe that's streaming, streaming through us.

Yes.

And whatever state you're in right now, whether you are pained with what's happening, whether you are full of infinite joy and have just won like a $10 million lottery, remember, this too shall pass. This too shall pass.

Yes.

And wherever you are on this journey, make sure you make it worth it so that if you go back and talk to your 8-year-old self, you can tell that 8-year-old self, I just love it. I'm not going to change anything that's happened to us in the last whatever years.

No.

Thank you, Bernie, for—

Thank you, Utkarsh. You're awesome. We need to do this again. You should come out to the States. Come to Nashville. We'll do a podcast in Nashville.

In person. Absolutely. Love that. To everyone who's listening on a podcast platform, this is your moment to review us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and share it with someone who might love it and want to watch and listen to it again. And if you're on YouTube, put it on the comments. We need to listen to your name to hear you out. Like, what are you enjoying about this? And appease the algorithms, because once the algorithms get appeased and the channel grows and we get bigger and bigger guests, Then I can fly to Nashville and meet Bernie. So you gotta make that happen.

Yes, yes, make it happen.

This is Utkarsh and Bernie signing off.

Thank you.