Anonymous #40 — Does It Matter What You Believe About Death, As Long As You Actually Believe It?

This caller doesn't come from a place of loss. They come from a place of curiosity, and a theory they've spent years quietly assembling.

It starts with reincarnation. But not the straightforward kind. Not a linear return to another body in the next moment. The caller imagines all points in time as equally available. Past, present, future. When you die, you pick a new life from any of them.

From there, the conversation moves into the one electron theory: the idea that a single electron might be tracing a path so vast and complex that, from our perspective, it looks like billions. And the caller's question: what if souls work the same way?

We also talk about non-duality, about the grief they're able to feel versus the grief they're expected to perform, about the Catholic upbringing that they've mostly moved away from, and the one part of it that still quietly unsettles them. And at the very end, after an hour of theory and philosophy, the conversation lands somewhere unexpected.

This is a good episode if you enjoy ideas. If you're comfortable sitting with a framework that's genuinely unusual and doesn't resolve neatly. The caller isn't here to convince. They're here to share what helps them.

In this conversation:

• A theory of reincarnation that isn't tied to linear time
• The one electron theory, and what it might mean for the soul
• Non-duality, and why the caller thinks separation is something we invented
• Consciousness as a gradient scale, with humans nowhere near the top
• The grief they feel versus the grief they know how to show
• A Catholic upbringing, a mostly-abandoned belief system, and the one fear that stayed

Book recommendations: The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh and Morning, Noon, and Night by Spalding Gray

All Anonymous Book Recommendations: View the full list

Video Episode: If you'd like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube

About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.

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Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

Transcript

Death As The One Universal Fact

SPEAKER_04 0:00

I've always found it a little bit ridiculous to avoid the topic like the plague. If there's anything more universal, I couldn't think of it. Everyone here is gonna die. One of my favorite sayings, someone will go into really crowded like Times Square and then look their friend in the eye and go, Everyone here is gonna be dead at some point. And I know that's a little morbid, but that's my kind of so I guess it starts with that. It's factual, exactly. And it's not something that you think about watching a huge group of people like you'd find in a Times Square, but it's absolutely true.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

It all starts with a single question asked to an anonymous caller. What do you think happens when we die? And from there, the conversation goes in completely unexpected directions. Some speak with certainty, others with doubt, some are still trying to make sense of it all. I'm Zach Ansel, and this is When We Die Talks, a podcast about death, meaning, and how that shapes the way we live. This podcast was born from my own fears around death and the need to talk about. Thank you for being a part of this conversation. I'm glad you're here. Hey, welcome back or welcome here if this is your first time. This week's caller is someone who has thought seriously, and I mean seriously, about what happens when we die. They've built a whole framework for it. One that pulls from quantum physics, Buddhist philosophy, and their own instincts that the universe is stranger and more connected than most of us ever let ourselves believe. And they carry it with a real peace, a settled, almost fearless relationship with death that has genuinely changed how they move through the world, how they grieve, how they feel empathy, how they make decisions. Then somewhere towards the end of the conversation, they say something really honest that all of these ideas might just be a story they're telling themselves to feel comfortable with death, and they sit with that. They don't run from it. We also get into what it's like to feel a different kind of grief than the people around you, to lose someone and to find yourself somewhere quieter than everyone else expects, whether that's a gift or its own thing to carry. This one goes some interesting places. Let's get into the call. I hope you enjoy.

Small Talk Before The Big Question

SPEAKER_04 2:12

Hello. Hey, how's it going? Going well. It's going good. Thank you for asking. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 2:17

I'm doing okay. I uh I got a really maybe bad idea to do like a late spring cleaning project. And so there's just kind of junk everywhere and it's just a mess. And I know it'll all be good in the end, but I'm not super pumped with myself at the moment.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

Are you gonna try and power through it and get it all done today, or are you gonna spread it out a bit?

SPEAKER_01 2:39

I think it's one of those things that needs to get spread out a little bit because it's it's kind of like reorganizing too. So it's gotta get stuff taken out so that I can get new stuff in. So it'll be I don't think it's like a super long project ahead, but it's longer than I want it to be already.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

Oh yeah. And just up a bit more than you could chew.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Yeah, a little bit. It's that it's at that moment of the process where it's like, why did I think this was a good idea? So I know it'll all be worth it in the end, but just in that kind of like middle phase of not being super pumped.

SPEAKER_04 3:09

Exactly. And the best part can't get any worse than it currently looks.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

That's true. That's true. That is that that is very true. So yeah, I'm gonna keep that in mind. But we don't need to talk about my stupid decisions. We get to talk about you. And so the way that I normally like to start these calls is to get an idea of why you even wanted to do it. Death was a topic that a lot of people don't tend to talk about, avoid, all these things. And you decided to sign up to talk to a complete stranger about it on the phone for approximately an hour. So maybe just briefly you could let me know why you want to do that. We'll get into the deeper conversation for sure. But yeah, just maybe briefly.

SPEAKER_04 3:49

Yeah, what kind of person signs up to do this?

SPEAKER_01 3:53

To be fair, you're like you're in the I think this is mid-70s of people. So you're not okay, you're not the first person to do it, but you're also still a person that decided that this was a cool idea. Or maybe not. Maybe you thought it was a terrible idea and you're here to tell me off. So we'll find out.

SPEAKER_04 4:13

So what I'm hearing is I'm top 100. So that's a good feeling.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yeah, yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 4:18

All right, yeah. So no, the main thing that drew me to it, first and foremost, uh just in a general sense, I've always found it a little bit ridiculous to avoid the topic like the plague. If there's anything more universal, I could think of it. Everyone here is gonna die. One of my one of my favorite sayings, someone will go into really crowded like Times Square and then look their friend in the eye and go, everyone here is gonna be dead at some point. And I know that's a little morbid, but that's my kind of so I guess it starts with that. It's it's factual, exactly. It's not something that you think about watching a huge group of people like you'd find in a Times Square, but it's absolutely true. So I guess that sort of morbid curiosity of and I guess another thing for me is I'm not a I I've learned in as I've gotten older, I've learned to start accepting the mysteries.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:11

But I feel like I gained a pretty good theory or a pretty good guess or a pretty good like self-understanding about what I think will happen once you die. So I thought I'd I thought I'd share that with anyone who might find it useful.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

That's good setup right there. I like that. You're like teasing it out, and yeah, we'll get into that in a second. I love the setup. I'm excited to get into your theory, but before we do, maybe we can get to know you just a little bit.

Roots, Home, And Favorite Books

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Obviously, going to keep the anonymity and everything so you feel comfortable sharing whatever you want to share. But I'd like to ask a couple questions just to maybe get an idea a little bit about you in the sense of maybe where ideas were formed or came from. And so I like to ask the state that you live in now, and then the state that maybe you would call home or like your childhood home, where you grew up. And then the one question that I've asked almost every single person just about what's your favorite book and why?

SPEAKER_04 6:04

Ooh, okay. It's I watched one of the podcasts just to prepare myself. And I remember hearing the what's your favorite book question and going, oh, I should probably prepare an answer for that. I didn't I think it's better when people don't prepare. Okay, good. All right, yeah. So I I guess to answer the first part of the question, right now I'm calling you from the beautiful greater Atlanta area. And I've lived here almost my whole life. I moved here when I was around nine, so I like to say I'm from both places, but at the beginning, at the very beginning, I lived over in New York. Upstate to be specific. So not a cool New Yorker, just uh an upstate one.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Upstate's still cool. I don't really know much about it, but my sister does live in upstate New York, so I feel like I have to like maybe represent or just I don't know. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 6:58

Exactly. It's it's like New York City is such a small place, but they do all the PR for the entire state. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And as far as my favorite book, that's a hard one. I'm can I give two answers? Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 7:14

Okay, cool. Whenever I'm reading, I'll always pick one sort of self-help, promote inner character kind of book, and then I'll read a fiction book. So I'm gonna give you an answer for both.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Perfect.

SPEAKER_04 7:25

My favorite sort of self-help adjacent book, I'm going to say the heart of the Buddha teachings by Pick Nat Hann. I really like that book. It was really formative for me when I was in college. It I feel like it's a bedrock of a lot of the opinions and thoughts I have now. And as far as like fiction books are concerned, I was a really big fan of Morning Day and Night by this guy with the last name Greg. I can't remember exactly the guy's last name, but I remember his last name was Gray, and the name of the book was Morning, Day and Night.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Okay. If I haven't if I have any issues finding it, I'll reach out. But what stood out to you about that one?

SPEAKER_04 8:10

So it's a it's a memoir of sorts, and it spans a whole day. And it's just a day in the life of this guy. I think he was a famous storyteller at some point in his life, and he basically used all that money and all the knowledge that he got from the stories he told to like settle down. And it's a very mundane slice of life kind of deal. But I feel like it asks a lot of questions and it asks you to examine your life in a way that I thought was at the very least entertaining. I enjoyed that book. I enjoy his sense of humor too.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

That sounds really interesting. I'll definitely check that one out. The first thing that comes to mind, I don't know if you've ever read Stoner. Um, it's definitely not a day, but right, it's just like a very mundane life. But yeah, that sounds really interesting. Like I said, if I have any issues finding it, I'll let you know. But I I have a an a growing list of just all the recommendations from all the anonymous callers. And so it's getting to be quite weird and strange, but looking forward to adding both those. And a huge fan of TikNot Hans. I haven't read that book, so I'll definitely check that one out as well.

SPEAKER_04 9:16

It's definitely a good one. I feel like it informed a little bit of what I think happens after you die. So it's super topical

A Theory Of Rebirth Across Time

SPEAKER_04 9:23

too.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Well, the perfect thing is the next thing I'm gonna ask you is what do you think happens when we die?

SPEAKER_04 9:31

I've thought about this a lot, and one of the things that I feel like if you're like an unrestrained thinker, if you're open-minded, as I assume Thick Nat Hands would suggest you be, you you gather a lot of different sort of, I like to consider an eclectic spiritual world view, whatever that means. So I've cobbled together a lot, but this is the this is what makes the most sense in my brain. Here it is, unvarnished. So I think that when you die, your soul or whatever untangible thing represents you in like the spiritual world, it goes up and it picks a new person to be, whether it be like past, present, future. So I I think a lot of people they imagine everything in this super linear, time-centric way, where like, oh, if you die here, you're gonna wake up exact same second somewhere else on the planet. I feel like that was a really restricting way to think about it. I imagine all points in time as equal in a weird sense. So I I think when you go up, I think you just pick a new person to be, and so on and so forth. And I think it's just like soul doing the whole long journey. And so at some point, my soul is gonna go up and yada yada, and I'll eventually be on the other side of this phone asking a stranger how they how what they think happens after you die.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Is there a chance that you're doing that right now?

SPEAKER_04 11:04

I think in a quite literal sense, and don't take this actually take this as literally as you want. I am me, and a long, long you sense, I'm also you, yeah, and vice versa. Yeah. That's my honest, that's my honest belief on it.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Yeah. And I I think this is fascinating. If you haven't, it's come up a couple times on the podcast before what I was alluding to and not necessarily pointing in a direction or whatever, but there's a short story by Andy Weir called the egg, which is essentially what you said, and then me paring into the only thing is every single person, and I guess spoiler alert, every single person is you, past, future, present. All of it is just you continuing to go back. And so I guess we don't need to go off on that tangent. The I'm much more interested in in hearing you talk more about this because I do think this is fascinating. So I was gonna say you die. I'm not watching it on you or anything, but you die.

SPEAKER_04 12:08

It'll happen eventually.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Yeah, at some point it's gonna happen. And then you go up or out or whatever direction, doesn't really matter. And I guess a couple things. I know you said it's not like you feel like you come back and it's okay, I died on whatever today is, and then I came back the next day in a different life as a baby in a different life in a different place, blah, blah, blah, blah. Do you think and like you said, there's part of it that is you could come back in the past, you could come back in the future, you come back in in the present because time is funny and weird, and because we have this weird human understanding that we think we we know how time works, but just at least the time that we understand is just a mechanism to keep track of our moving abouts of the world. But sorry, I'm getting sidetracked. This is trying to explain myself. So you die, you die. Perfect, perfect. You die. Then is there some sort of breathing period, do you think, or it's okay, like I need to get like my post-humaning or post-life uh spa retreat on? And this is obviously joking a little bit, but is there a period of hey, I need to like I get to chill out and think about? I guess I'm circling around a couple questions around is there period between is there a reason that you're coming back as the person, or I guess part of it too, is it person, or could you come back as an animal or a tree or a plant, whatever it is?

SPEAKER_04 13:39

I completely understand where you're coming from. It's is there a council? Do they get it? Is there a reason why you're doing this? Yeah. Uh you're an ant now because you were a CEO or even do you choose that?

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Or is there an aspect of not necessarily judgment, but is there a part of it, it's like, hey, you know what? I think it'd be interesting to learn the lessons of an ant this time around. And like having an idea of, hey, I've humaned and now I'm gonna go be an ant and experience what it's like to be on such a small scale size-wise. Yeah, I'm curious maybe about hearing a little bit more in depth of this idea because I do think it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_04 14:17

Yeah. So

Life Review And The Consciousness Gradient

SPEAKER_04 14:19

I think it's a good question. I think that while you're dying, there's a review process that's going on.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 14:29

There even the people who like die suddenly or or I don't know, not to be super morbid on a show where we talk about what happened. Well, imagine someone like puts a bullet through someone's head. Yeah. There's not gonna be a lot of like you on your deathbed last breath. It's like someone turn the lights out.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:46

But I think in even in that situation, I feel like you when that your life flashes before your eyes and you're recollecting everything that's happened to you. I think that process is literal here and symbolic in the in the spirit world. I hope that I I'm not gonna define that really well, but I feel like everyone has a basic understanding.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Yeah, and then it also just plays into the concept of time that we were talking about.

SPEAKER_04 15:14

Yeah. I think I I think the the next life is just gonna be a remix of this one. The big strokes, like the big emotional strokes of your life, I think are gonna be repeated in the next one. Imagine it almost as like a gradient scale. If you could imagine consciousness, like a level of consciousness is like a number. Let's say humans are at a flat 100, dogs might be at a 50. You know what I mean? And lower you get a mosquito might be a 0.5. I think life on a grander scale, when you think of it in terms of five lifetimes or something like that. I think it's like, I think it's a gradient. So I think you'll not even just like humans were to put it just all on this planet or in this dimension to get even weirder with it. I think it's like there's a there's a progression. It's like a video game almost. Like you've died in this world, you wake up in the next one, and you get to try the broad strokes again. So, like maybe that big breakup that you had will be a father figure who died. It's going to be your friend's father figure, and you're helping him through it instead of doing it yourself. Uh I imagine that climb on the number scale. Like, how do you get from 100 to 150? I think we imagine ourselves at the top because we're the highest example of consciousness that we have.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:42

But I think it would be very foolish to imagine where the topic gets.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:47

Absolutely. Totally totally. So I I think of it like that. And the more you think for yourself, and the more you attempt to understand the world and to interface with these critical moments that I'm talking about, I think you're putting yourself one notch ahead. Like maybe there's some guy at 101 right now, and he's gonna get to 102 by the time he dies. And when he reincarnates in some new body, he'll still be at 102. Yeah. He'll be on a completely different footing. Yeah. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Yeah. Yeah. The other thing that I think's really interesting, and I don't know if this plays into your theory at all, but something that I've thought about as well is the idea of a young soul and like an old soul, and people who are just like naturally, I've always felt like an old soul. Like I've always just even as a kid, I remember like always feeling more comfortable talking to my friend's parents than my friends in some ways. And it just like always was a little bit more mature and all these things. And I do like the idea of if there are a bunch of, I guess we're called in some ways it's almost like reincarnates, right? If that's happening and time isn't necessarily linear and it's messy or whatever, like you could have overlapping, oh yeah, this person's living their first lifetime or their 10th lifetime, and this other person's living their hundredth lifetime or whatever. And that's all commingling a little bit, which I I always I don't know, I find that fascinating.

Infinite Loop And Better Choices

SPEAKER_01 18:12

But I guess the thing that I want to ask you from here is so what's the end game? Or is there an end game? Is are you are you coming back and coming back to learn something? And once you learn that thing, then it's uh off to something else, or is it just a perpetual reincarnation and it's just a loop forever? Or how do you see that aspect of it?

SPEAKER_04 18:33

It's a good, it's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

I try to ask them. I'm not always great at it, but I try.

SPEAKER_04 18:40

Yeah, I think it's a I think it's I fear it a little bit, but I do think it's like an infinite loop kind of deal. And uh people will always be like, it's not about the destination, it's about the journey. So I think in a philosophical sense, being like it the idea that it has to end. The idea that ends in as a concept aren't just stuff that we made up because we draw a line where something ends, yeah, and to bring it back to dying, we draw a line once we put you in the coffin and put you in the dirt, but you know, your body is gonna be there. Yeah, your body is eventually that coffin's gonna break down, your body's gonna break down, your composite parts hundreds of thousands of years later, you might be in a completely different set and setting. Yeah, I think ends are something we just made up, to be honest. So I could really imagine a world where it's one huge loop and this trailing of like different bodies that I'm talking about in different lifetimes, it just ends back at you and then you do it all over again. And something it's a little bit terrifying. And I don't I don't like the idea of like eternal reoccurrence where it's just like you die and then you wake up as you as a baby, and then you do it all over again. But I think there's a little bit of a value in truly living in that sort of headspace because then you question not only do I want to do this now, do I want to do this over and over again forever? And you you choose your decisions more wisely. So it's a give and take, you know?

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Yeah, absolutely.

One Electron Theory As A Metaphor

SPEAKER_01 20:21

I guess the other the big thing from all of this is where does this come from? What has led you to feeling like this is the answer? It obviously sounds like there's some Buddhist influence with TikNat Han, but yeah, what's the influence or what has led you to feeling like this was the thing? And maybe the things that you've explored along the way that didn't align, it's oh yeah, I looked into this religion or I looked into this, I don't know, philosophical approach and it didn't work. So yeah, curious about that.

SPEAKER_04 20:51

Yeah, so it's it I promise you, in my head, how I arrived at this, it makes perfect sense. But it might it you might be like, how did he get from there to there? But I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you anyways. So this guy made up about I think it was like electrons and maybe it was like antimatter or something. Okay, but there's always these collisions with like electrons and some other fundamental particle I can't quite remember the name of. Okay, but this guy was looking at these collisions, and there's a huge imbalance between the electric were was it protons or it was something. I think it was electrons. I'm almost certain it was electrons. Okay. The other particle I don't know. But there's a disproportionate amount of electrons versus the thing to, and he really could be as to why that was, and it's still an open question in science today. But he had a special idea because he was looking at these collisions happening, and he was like, okay, what if electrons are Moving forward in time, and these other fundamental particles are moving backward in time. So what we're seeing isn't a collision between two particles, but a particle turning around in time. Like it's going forward in time, and then for whatever reason, it goes backwards in time. And to us, it looks like a collision because the other thing arriving towards it, we're looking at it in the wrong direction. It's actually going backwards in time, continuing on the same path.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 22:32

So bear with me.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:35

He suggested that it's all just one electron. And if you Google one electron theory, it's it's all out there. But he was like, maybe it's just one electron that we're watching going backwards and forwards in time all the time.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 22:50

And if we strung up all these collisions and we recorded all of them perfectly, we'd be able to line up the path of one electron doing a huge path across our universe, making up everything that we see. That's why the logic, but I feel like the connection there is implicit, but the logic of what I'm saying has basis in theory pertain to like fundamental particles in the natural world.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:21

What if souls are going through a similar process? Is it possible it could just be one soul doing a huge, indescribably, unverifiably long journey? Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 23:33

It does. And I would say again, if you and I can even send it to you after, if you haven't read that short story, you should, because it feels very, very along the lines of what you're talking about here.

SPEAKER_04 23:45

I'll definitely give it a I'll definitely give it a read.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:48

I think you'll like any questions on that? Hopefully I didn't throw too much at you.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

No, you didn't throw too much at me. I think it just um one of the first things when you're talking about the theory in general, I was like, I don't remember the movie that well, but I'm like, I'm getting like tenant vibes of like things moving forward and things moving backward at the same time. And I was like, okay, maybe we need to rewatch that movie again and think about this. But I was like, oh yeah, but I need to look up the one electron theory as well. And so ultimately I just find it like very fascinating. It doesn't, there's not anything that like threw me off. And I like the idea of this if this is happening, and again, it's a theory, right? But if it's happening on the smallest scale, like why couldn't it happen on a larger scale?

SPEAKER_04 24:34

On a bigger scale, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Yeah. Yeah. Especially if and I don't necessarily know if this is how it plays out, but it's if it's one electron, I don't necessarily know how that plays into. And this is maybe partially my lack of science, like fundamental science knowledge or whatever. But if it's it's one electron that's doing everything, we're made up of those small things of protons and electrons and all that thing. So if it's if it is one, then it would almost have to be true for everything, then, right? I think that's where my head goes.

SPEAKER_04 25:12

And I I like to take the material world as like a metaphor for the spiritual world. Because for as much as you want to posit X, Y, and Z about a spiritual world no one's ever seen, yeah, you only have the evidence in front of you. And so I like to try and find parallels, possible parallels between the two, and use that to inform how I go about living and how I go about the world.

Nonduality And A Crowded Unseen Universe

SPEAKER_04 25:36

But only other thing I'll say in relation to this is uh I feel like a lot of ancient belief systems and ways of thinking about spirituality, they all hearken back to the idea that we're all one.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:49

Quite literally, like non-dualism, like you and me, we're all the same.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

Yeah. That's the stuff I'm diving into now.

SPEAKER_04 25:57

Yeah, it's I fully on I fully believe that.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:00

I read the Heart of the Buddhist teaching. And if there is one Buddhist teaching that the Knight hand really wants to drill in, it's non-duality. Like the separations that we're making, the ends that we're deciding are ends. It's all fictitious. We make it up in our brains to better understand the world.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Yeah, it's a construct. It's a story that we tell ourselves to to make try to make sense of it. And and it's also the stories that have been told to us for a long time that we're separate, we're different. Yeah. It's I'm doing a class right now on non-duality and it's and no-self, and it's yeah, it's definitely blowing my mind every day that I am going further into it. I kind of have two questions. I think one takes us off in a completely different direction. And and I don't even know, so I'll go with this other one, and I don't necessarily know if there's anything here, but it feels more aligned with where we're at in this kind of, I would say pretty out there of thinking. You very just casually mentioned, and you might have even laughed after you said it, other dimensions. And so I'm curious before I maybe take the conversation a different way, maybe explain that if that has any importance here. I really haven't thought much about other dimensions. And so I don't have a specific question here. For sure.

SPEAKER_04 27:14

And I I I definitely mean it in a multiverse kind of way. Okay. Yeah. Because if any anything is possible, I could reincarnate as me, but with a million dollars silver spoon in my mouth when I'm born. And like in this hypothetical, in in this belief system that I'm trying to suggest here, that's possible. I don't know if it'd be possible, but maybe there's some specific events in my life that be I get a completely different perspective on. I had a million dollars in my back pocket. Yeah. And that would teach me something or it'd be interesting to experience. But I more mean like extra-dimensional in the sense that the world that we're looking at is not the whole thing. It's what our brain and eyes and other senses are tuned to see because they're the most useful. So there's a whole bunch of other completely unfathomable, literally unfathomable stuff happening all the time. You know, other colors we'll never see, other sounds we'll never hear, stuff like that. And so to imagine that we're the only beings occupying the space that we're in, and we're only seeing such a small sliver of the space that we're in, yeah, is also something that I think people take a lot for granted. Like I could imagine a very crowded universe as I walk alone on a street. What am I not seeing that can see me? And I think about it in a mental sense. Like to give you a parallel or to give you an example, like a cat, right? A cat might know that if it jumps at the handle, the door might swing open. But if you asked a cat, if you were able to communicate with a cat and you asked it what a door was, and you asked it what a handle was, and you asked it why, you know, it sometimes would open when you step on it, but sometimes it would just stay exactly straight. It would have no idea what a lock was.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:20

And so it's like there's a part of mental reality that it does not have the capacity to experience, but it's like it's so pertinent to a cat's everyday life. The idea that a door might be locked. If it had that information, it would illuminate so much about the cat's life.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:40

So it's, I have to imagine there's stuff like that that we experience all the time. And you know, who's to say there aren't fundamental things about our reality that we don't have access to, fundamental beings in our reality that interact with us all the time that we don't have access to, in the same way a cat might walk by five doors in a house and not know what a door is and not know what a handle is and not know what a lock is.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:07

Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 30:08

It does, yeah. And I think just in general, it's really hard for me to believe that we know. And I think it's, I don't even think this is not like a bold proclamation at all. It's hard for me to believe that we know everything about how the world works. And this is not exactly what it is. And maybe someone will correct me and for the idiot that I am, but there's stuff that we can explain how it works on Earth and have theories and all these things around it. And then there's another set of theories that explain things that happen in space. And I don't necessarily know if that's the dilemma between the two. But the two of them fundamentally don't align. They are completely in like contention of one another, that this one works for here and this one works for here, but they don't actually work together. And yeah, it's hard for me to imagine that we understand how everything works and that there isn't just fundamental things that we aren't aware of at this point. We are still, as humans, really young in the context of not even just, I think it's easy to be like, oh yeah, we're really young on the cosmic scale, but just, I don't know, even just the humans that we are now and like the internet and all this technology and all this information we have, yeah, it's very young in the scale of just like humanity of like using tools and stuff like that and whatnot. And so it's hard for me to imagine that we've already gotten to a place where it's like, yep, we know how everything works. And so yeah, I think it's very much um aligned with you. And there's fundamental things. Like you said, there's colors that we can't see, there's sounds that we can't hear. There's there has to be things that we just we don't have access to or we don't have the knowledge of how to access those things. Yeah. I love conversations like this. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 31:54

Absolutely. Cats don't think about what doors are.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:57

It's they just don't know.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:58

So it's they don't even know to ask. And yeah, exactly. You're right where I'm driving at.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

Yeah, absolutely. Especially like the non-duality add in here. That was really great. So I guess the thing that I'd love to ask from here is we've gotten like very scientific, very esoteric in ways. And maybe I just want to bring it back to death.

Radical Empathy And Complicated Grief

SPEAKER_01 32:18

And not that we haven't been talking about this, it has been all about death. Life and death are very tied. Yeah. And so what are your feelings about death? Does this idea, this theory, whatever you want to call it, does it give you some peace around, hey, I've done this before and I'm gonna do it again? Is there still anxiety or fear around what is your relationship there? And maybe part of that is influenced by deaths you've had in your life or whatever. But yeah, I'm curious about maybe that, maybe on a more, I don't know, I don't want to say like literal, but maybe yeah, personal lived kind of experience. What is what does death look like in that capacity?

SPEAKER_04 32:57

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's done a couple of things for me. I'll give you the goods and I'll give you the bads. Yeah. I'll start with the goods because I'm an optimistic kind of guy. The good thing that it does, it might be a little counterintuitive, but whenever I'm looking on the news or someone shows me some unwelcome piece of information about that going on in the world, and it's some big horrible thing.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:21

Like someone super tragic, child is in some unfortunate circumstance and died because of it. Yeah. Or 15 people were in a building and a missile just flew into it for literally no reason. Stuff like that. And I'll see it and I'll hear about it, or I'll hear an experience of someone who has recovered from crazy circumstances, and it I'm struck by a sort of selfish empathy. Because in my mind, one of the first thoughts I think is I'll be there doing that one day. And that's a terrible thought. And so I I really try to insulate myself from the horrors to some extent, yeah, on a personal scale, especially, like individual personal stories of people going through horrible things, it'll there's this nagging voice in my head of that might you'll be there one day.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

Or maybe have been there already. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:19

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:20

And it it makes my skin falling away. I can't explain. But the upside of it, the reason why this is a positive, is because I feel like that sort of radical empathy is super important for living a balanced life and living a life that is moral in a sense. Looking at someone else's circumstance and having that voice in the back of your head, like, not what if that was you. That will be you at some point. Yeah, it radically changes the way you act if you keep it in mind and if you stay attached to that thought.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:50

So that's a positive, I'll say. The negative, I always like to tell people I'm not afraid to die. And I'll add the caveat that like most people hear that and they go, okay, but if I strap you to a chair and put a gun to your head, you're gonna be talking a different story about you being afraid to die. Yeah. But what I can say is, from my armchair perspective, glass in one hand with an umbrella in it, shades on, I can tell you that intellectually speaking, I don't fear, I don't fear dying. But I think my reasons for not fearing death are hard to articulate. Like we've been at this for maybe 30 minutes or so, and I hope in the past 30 minutes I've given you an understanding of why I see it. Absolutely. And why I might not see it as so sad when you die. Because when you die, you're coming back. That's my honest belief. You're you'll be back, you'll be back in the chair sooner rather than later. So people will die. And of course it'll make me sad, but it can only make me so sad. But it only has I like to think of it as like a status effect. You'll be hit with the news someone has died and deep down, and it'll make you sad for a certain amount. And I think some people they'll feed that fire with repetitive thoughts, and they'll keep that fire burning for as long as they need to keep it burning to feel what they need to feel, and eventually they'll cut off. And I think maybe it's the fact that the empathy is so selfish, or maybe it's the fact that I'm missing some sort of critical component of what empathy is that like I I've heard someone die, and I can only be so sad for so long. I have had people die in my life and I think about them, I remember them, yeah. All lament the fact that they're not here because they would have loved this, yeah, but they're off. They're it it's not it's not like they're gone, they're all doing something else. And I can respect that. And I don't think a lot of people can. And I think not being in a school of thought that's popular, having such an eclectic spiritual worldview, as I've now said twice, you just you can't relay. Yeah, it's hard to sit down with someone and be like, here's the reason I'm not that sad. And so I find myself performing a little bit. Like it's funny that we're having this call right now because on Friday I I had a coworker, I had a coworker die. Oh wow. Um, and it wasn't a coworker I was especially close with, so I don't need any condolences, but the people around me definitely did. And I think I'm uh I think I'm a functioning enough social individual to to know to give condolences and know to act sad, but I don't know. I don't see it as I don't see it as all that sad. Yeah, and yeah, he's gone. And the people around me would prefer him still be here, and that's their decision, and I can understand that sadness, and I can understand that mindset. And so I have empathy for them. I know they're feeling something real, I'm feeling something deep. I just don't share the same sentiment. So in order to interface with them, I I feel like I just put on a mask and I'm I I feel sad with them. And uh I bet you if you pulled, I bet you if you polled people, that's not an uncommon experience. I bet you there are plenty of people currently pretending to be sad about someone's death now. Maybe pretending to be sad is not the right phrasing, but yeah, I think it gets my point across. Yeah. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Yeah, I think

Self Deception And Fear Semantics

SPEAKER_01 38:25

it's uh yeah, it's I'm also trying to find the right word. Because yeah, I get that you're not saying that like pretending and faking it and like in a really callous and oh, you know, all these other people are being stupid, but like just having to appear a certain way because it's the right thing to do, or or just like I think of it like like when someone is um about to open a door with a murderer behind it in a movie.

SPEAKER_04 38:51

You're thinking to yourself, oh my god, don't open the door, oh my god, this is horrible, don't open the door. But if you were there, you would not be saying the same things. You'd be screaming at the top of your lungs, you'd be in hysterics, don't open that door, there's a killer inside there.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:05

So if you're not pretending to be afraid, but you're afraid in a different sense.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:11

That that fear you feel in the movie theater, that's not fake fear. It's just not the same fear.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:16

And I'll liken it to that as a metaphor.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Yeah. I think the other thing that you mentioned, and I don't necessarily know, and I'm I had it and I lost it, so we'll see if I can bring it back as we're talking about it. But when you're talking about how you don't have this fear of death, but if someone strapped you to a chair and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I think the thing, yeah, I don't necessarily know if this quite works, but the thing that came to my mind is, yeah, but I don't know if those two are synonymous. And I'm not saying that you are saying it like the people who are bringing it to you. It's that doesn't seem the same to me in a way because it's I'm not afraid of it, but that doesn't mean I want it to happen right now. And I think that's maybe like the slight differentiation of, hey, like just because I say, and this is me maybe defending, maybe not defending, my dad and I have a lot of conversations, and he will say that he's not afraid of death, and I'm like, bullshit. Like, um, I think there is an aspect that like I can appreciate that, yeah, I don't necessarily have fear around it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm calling for it and want it to happen because well come on. Yeah, because those are two different things. And so I don't know if that quite works with your example, but that's at least what came to mind was I don't think it's quite the same thing to be like, okay, let me put you in this really crazy situation. Because I've always said when I don't understand what people say they're not afraid of death. And partly it's because I've always been afraid of death. So it's just it's a looming thing. And if you ask someone like what they're afraid of, it's oh, heights or snakes or this or that. And it's yeah, the because the outcome of it is death. But I'm maybe even seeing in this moment that it's not there's still a semantic differentiation of not being afraid of death and not necessarily calling for it or welcoming or wanting it right now. I think I'm maybe seeing that now. And I don't know if that works with what you were saying, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:08

No, yeah. I'll give you I'll give you an example of what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 41:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:12

So I work, I sell people stuff for a living. I do it over the phone. And one of the things I realized pretty early into my career as a salesperson is that people lie a lot. If I had to pin you a number down over my phone line, at least 40 to 30% of the time people are lying. Yeah. And maybe they're lying less to their friends or whatever, but it's still gotta be in the 20s. Yeah. 20s or 30s. 30% of every sentence out of someone's mouth, there's a good chance that's a lie. And a lot of it is that people lie to themselves.

unknown 41:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:50

And they don't even realize that they are lying to themselves. And I've gotten an ear for it. There's when I say something that I can tell by the way that you said it, you have absolutely zero intention of doing what you just said.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:07

And and it struck me as interesting because I eventually heard myself do it. And I'm well, yeah, yeah, I'll do the dishes when I get home. And I the way I said it, it's as I said it, I had every intention of doing the dishes. But as soon as I heard the word leave my mouth, I was like, oh, I have no intention of doing those dishes at all.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:29

Because I sound exactly like a person over the phone who's telling me that he'll give me a call back. And so I think there's a lot of people who say, I'm not afraid of dying. And they're saying it in that sense. They're not lying to you. Yeah. They're lying to themselves.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Totally.

SPEAKER_04 42:47

And there's nothing that you can tell them that will make them realize that.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:51

If I, if I, you know, if I was on the phone with someone and I'll give you a call back, and I'm like, I'm gonna stop you right there. I can tell by the way you said that, you have no intention of calling me back. You're just saying that to spare my feelings.

SPEAKER_02 43:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:04

They probably, if they felt if they felt like defending this position, they'd be like, no, I'm not saying that. I will call you back. I'm interested, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they might believe those things.

SPEAKER_02 43:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:14

But they don't, that's not true. So that's what I mean when I say intellectually, yeah. I can paint you, I can paint you a picture of why you shouldn't be afraid of dying. And I I like to say decisions are made by emotions and justified afterwards by logic.

SPEAKER_02 43:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:33

So my decision not to be afraid of dying, in my personal opinion, is an entirely emotional one. And when you ask me why I'm not afraid to die, and I give you logic behind it, that logic is just a front for the emotional belief that I shouldn't be afraid to might be a lie I'm telling myself. And I I can't hear it in my voice when I tell you I'm not afraid to die. whether or not that's true, but I can tell you intellectually why I should be afraid to die.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:06

Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 44:07

It does. Yeah. And I think one of the things when you're talking about someone telling you, oh, you know, I'll call you back or whatever. And some of it I think is also, and it plays right into what you're saying about death is it's that like you're saying, lying to yourself. Like part of it is just to avoid discomfort. I'm going to tell you what I think you want to hear or I'm going to, I'm going to spin a story so I don't have to feel uncomfortable saying, yeah, you know what, dude, I'm not going to call you again. I'm, I'm not going to sit with the feelings of I am afraid of death. And yeah, I think that's that's that makes a lot of sense. And then I had another one there at the very end. Like you said, you don't know to some extent there could be an element of that you're lying to yourself about this. And my response to that is although it would have to be on your deathbed, so that might be really hard, but let me know on your deathbed where you land. Because to some extent that's the only place that you'll really know if it's and I think that's the thing and just in faith in general, whether it's with religion or whatever your spiritual beliefs, like part of it is just taking faith and that in that moment when we do get to the end of this lifetime. Yeah. Something like that.

SPEAKER_04 45:26

Yeah.

Catholic Roots And Fear Of Hell

SPEAKER_04 45:27

The other thing I'll say while I'm but not well I don't believe I'm afraid to die. There is something that I am a little bit afraid of when it comes to death. I was raised Catholic.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 45:39

Not like super Catholic. Like maybe we went to church every Sunday until I was about I don't know like 12. Okay. And then we stopped. But I I have that background.

SPEAKER_02 45:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:48

And I more than being afraid of dying, I am a little bit afraid I'm wrong. I'm wrong about I'm wrong about what happens after you die.

SPEAKER_02 45:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:58

Because I don't know if you've read the Bible but the consequences for being wrong are super direct not great.

SPEAKER_01 46:04

I haven't read it but from what I've heard not great.

SPEAKER_04 46:08

No so it's like I and and I've also heard the pitch now maybe this is what they're this is what they're going to play at the gates but I've heard the pitch for heaven. I have questions. It doesn't it make sense.

SPEAKER_02 46:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:23

And one of the things that strikes me in the Bible is there's a lot of stake put in on believing and even more so than in my opinion and I'm sure there are some Bible companies who would have a field day telling me I'm wrong. But more than being moral or ethical or any like definition of good. It's believing over everything else that is really emphasized. And I even tried to come at it from the mindset of I'm just going to walk in. This is the book and this is what the guy in the sky said then so you just have to accept it. You just have to take the pill and swallow it. But I'm reading it and the more I'm reading it the less I believe it.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:04

And ah it's just if you don't believe you don't believe yeah and so if I don't believe then you can't force it. This works for nothing. Yeah exactly like I'm going to spend all this time convincing myself to believe and if I if I die tomorrow they're going to go you gave it a shot but I can tell you didn't I can tell you didn't really believe it. Because it it's you're phoning it in. Yeah I read the book or at least some of it and almost none of it I read was believable. So it's like I'm kind of in between a rock and a hard place for all my want to go to heaven or whatever in that moment when I was reading it and really trying to make myself a believer I'm just reading it and it doesn't sound true. If I'm wrong, I'm going straight down. And that is scary. That is way more scary than anything else in as as it pertains to death in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

Yeah absolutely yeah because I'm like I haven't read the Bible or I haven't really read any of the major texts but yeah it doesn't seem like a place that you'd want to go. So yeah I understand that fear. That's the thing I always talk about with just even with heaven like eternity I'm like yeah that's a long time but yeah it's not very often that I think about hell and eternity and that's a that's a long time and it's a really bad experience.

SPEAKER_04 48:19

And if you ask yourself okay what am I doing in heaven? And they go of course you're praising God all day forever. God is great. That's what you should be doing. And I think to myself I'm like are you trying to tell me the afterlife is just a bunch of saying God is great and giving each other high fives and I I'm not to minimize it not to disparage that mindset because I know I'm not giving it the best read. Yeah but I I don't know. It doesn't sound like I don't know. I read a lot of I read a lot of stuff and especially when it came to Buddhism I'm reading and I'm nodding my head like everything in that book I recommended at the start is very believable.

SPEAKER_02 48:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:58

And is you don't have to take many leaps to be like maybe this is true. But I feel like I feel like the the Bible emphasizes belief so hard because it's not and if some guys got down and wrote a book and they're trying to convince you know what I mean? Yeah. And I know it's a pessimistic way of thinking about it. And if I'm wrong the consequences are dire but that's the most honest read I can give.

SPEAKER_01 49:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:22

Does that make sense? It does more than death that scares me.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Yeah it does make sense. And I think at the end of the day it's like you also have to be true to yourself and what resonates with you. Like we we get to live this life like this specific life I know even though we talked about reincarnation you whether or not something happens or doesn't happen I think we can all agree although maybe I guess maybe not maybe I'm getting myself in trouble here but this is the one time that we get to do this thing that we're doing right now. And you have to be true to yourself. So yeah I totally understand. I do have one last question for you.

Wanting Real Romantic Love

SPEAKER_01 49:58

I like to have the couple questions at the front of the episode I also like to close with a question that I ask everybody if you've listened to a more recent episode you probably know this one. What's one thing you still want to experience in this lifetime what a good question.

SPEAKER_04 50:12

And I did I was not expecting that what's one thing I want to experience in my lifetime I I don't know I want to experience love. Not to say I I haven't I'm talking like the real like romantic struck in the heart cupid kind of love. Like I've had girlfriends before but at the very end they'll look you in the eye and they'll go did you really love me and you'll tell them of course I did because they're crying and you don't want to make them cry more but I like did I like the maybe it's just a doubt but yeah and so if if even if the only way to really know is to be like I'm heartbroken. There's nothing else this could be I'm heartbroken. My heart is shattered right now. Yeah to at least know that I've experienced it full stop no questions 100% I have that's something that I want before I die.

SPEAKER_01 51:17

Yeah. I think that's a I think that's a wonderful answer.

SPEAKER_02 51:21

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 51:21

Yeah I want to thank you for being willing to talk to me for the last hour and just being willing to be part of this project and it was really fun to dive into some really esoteric theoretical philosophical types approaches and even Buddhist that's at least how it struck me. So yeah I just want to thank you so much for for taking the time to do this.

SPEAKER_04 51:43

Absolutely and thank you for making this amazing thing that I'm now a part of I don't know if it's an amazing thing.

SPEAKER_01 51:51

Actually I don't want to disparage because it's really that's me. If it was just me talking then I wouldn't but it's a lot of other people so I will say it is an amazing thing but it's because of all the people who are willing to participate and be a part of it and very small part because of me. Very small part.

SPEAKER_04 52:08

But thank you I wouldn't sell yourself too short.

SPEAKER_01 52:11

I always do is the thing so I'm staying consistent. But yeah thank you so much. I hope you have a good I guess it's late there so I hope you have a good night and definitely stay in touch. Absolutely you too 100% awesome all right take care.

Host Reflection On Belief And Doubt

SPEAKER_01 52:25

Bye there's something that happens when someone has genuinely made peace with death real peace and belief. You can feel the difference pretty quickly into a conversation this caller has it. And spending an hour with them following the logic of how they got there the whole framework starts to feel a little less like a theory and more like something you could almost hold. And then they turn around and tell you it might just all be a story they're telling themselves. That they built it to make the whole thing livable. They sit with that just as easy as everything else. I think that's the more interesting version of belief. The kind that's strong in faith but still has a little room for doubt. On my end, things are finally getting back into a good groove lots of calls happening lots of conversations outside the calls that are going places. In a few months we'll hit the 50th anonymous episode but it's also very likely to coincide with the 100th anonymous call and the two year anniversary of this podcast. Even though it's still a few months out I'm looking at how to make all these things special in some way. There's likely a new element of the podcast that will be released around that time, something that feels true to what this project is. I'm not ready to talk about it yet but I am excited about it. More soon and I'll see you next week.

Demostheny And Preserving A Life Story

SPEAKER_01 53:35

When we die talks exist because people have stories worth telling and most of them never get told in a way that lasts. Mostheny is my attempt to do something about that. It actually started with a guest from the show and after his interview he told me how much it meant to have something he could share with the people in his life. So he didn't have to keep repeating himself and so nothing got lost over time. I couldn't stop thinking about how many people have a version of that. Honestly all of us do. All of us have a life worth capturing and people who love us and would give anything to hear told. Demostheny is a guided conversation with me where we capture someone's life in their own words, where they come from, what made them who they are and the stories they want people they love to know. The recording is yours, private, personal something you can share with anyone you want. If someone came to mind just now even if it was yourself that's probably worth paying attention to you can learn more at Nimosy.com that's N-E-M-O-S-E-N-E.com thanks for listening to this episode of When We Dietalks these conversations don't offer answers but they do open space space to reflect to feel less alone and maybe to see things a little bit differently than before.

Apply, Leave A Voicemail, Support

SPEAKER_01 54:51

If you'd like to explore your own beliefs out loud you can apply to be an anonymous caller at when we die talks.com. And if a full call feels like too much the voicemail is always open. Leave a message at 971-328064 and share whatever death has stirred in your life. Listener support truly helps keep this project going. If you'd like to support the podcast you'll find a link in the show notes. And as always please like share and follow every bit makes a difference. Until next time have a good life