Philosophy Got Tipsy | Corné van Nijhuis | Barrels & Roots

I sat down with Corné van Nijhuis, the world's first self-described venosopher, and this conversation went places I didn't expect. 

Corné spent decades in corporate finance before stepping away and doing something remarkable, he stripped away everything that came with the job, the titles, the learned behaviors, the decorations, and found out who he actually was underneath all of it. 

We talked about why wine brings you back to your senses, how the aftertaste of a wine mirrors the true character of a person, and why the purpose of life - like the purpose of music, was never about reaching the final note. 

Corné also introduced me to the concept of venosophy, a word he coined blending vinology and philosophy, and it reframed the way I think about what happens when you slow down long enough to actually taste something.

What's one moment in your life where slowing down completely changed how you saw something?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What people, what we all have, and one more explicit and more dominant than the other, is to understand who you are, what life is about, to understand reality in all the words. So if I want to inspire people to get to know, to be to get close to that truth to find pointers, I always try to rephrase things or bring questions back to a person so that they can find their own truth. And so if a person tastes wine, what he has to do is to go back to the complete experience of wine. That's what I want to do. So not only not the result is it okay. It is what's happening when you taste, because when you are tasting, you are in touch with most of your senses with reality. Including one of the senses we in the West all forgot. And that is our internal sense, which is called our thinking. It's pure a sense. It's something which creates impressions, just like when you touch things, hear things, when you think about things. It's all an impression in your mind, which comes into your consciousness. So what I try to do is you should taste it, but what does it do with you? How does it feel in your mouth? What is the taste it? Does it do you recognize things, a certain situation or an anniversary, or does it remind you to persons, or maybe a certain holiday? So coming back to experience life in its fullest, and only to being, and now going back to your point of time, going into the now, because there is only now, there is no real time. There is now. You can only be in the now. You can think about history and fantasize about the future, but it even that is in the now. It's only a concept: history and future. There is only now. Yes. Thank you, uh Sean. Um, I'm Cornet van Ayhuis. I'm uh what I call myself the world's first true philosopher, and probably we'll talk about it later also on what's philosophy. But um I'm into wine and I'm into philosophy and combine those things. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

I love that. I love that because I think that throughout history, wine has been the drink of philosophers. You know, people would find one of my favorites is in Vino Veritas, you know, in wine there is truth. And I absolutely love that. But I would love to ask you why wine and why philosophy? How did you find this path?

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Um, it is a blend of, I would almost say, um, it leads to the purpose and due to more or less two hobbies. Um I finished working life, my career, let's say 10, 12 years ago, and when I was a kid, I always said, maybe I want to go into philosophy if I don't have to work anymore, etc. So I started to do that uh after work, and I wrote about existence, so books about what's life about, um articles about maybe death and life and the purpose of life, meaning, so all kinds of those things. And at the same time, um I started, oh, maybe another another another part. Um when I when I also had the time to do certain other things, my wife suggested to do a wine course. And at the end, even the wine course became more than only a course. I uh did the Academy of Venology. So after some years, I was what we call in the Dutch Venologists. So pretending to know a lot about wine. So, wasn't it not a good idea to combine both things, philosophy and wine? And you refer to history, and most of the philosophers uh used wine to get some ideas, um, and of course that can happen, uh, but they did not really philosophize about wine as an object, or maybe in another way, and that's what I did. I tried to combine phonology and philosophy and made my own word, I mean, coined the the word philosophy, phonology and philosophy. And uh so not using wine to drink a lot and to philosophize, but to use wine as a lens, as a metaphor to looking at reality and to explain about everything we see around us and what life is about. So that's a new combination. Um, and it made it possible for me to write about the metaphysics and to drink, but also experience everything about wine and to explain a lot about it. So that's how it happened. I never choose for it.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

It found you. It found you, the the path found you, the way found you. I I, in university, first of all, I want to share a little bit about myself. Um I lived in California, and then uh when I was in university, I had an amazing professor, uh, Andrew Wheat. And Dr. Wheat started teaching us about philosophy. And I, you know, got pretty heavily into Eastern philosophy. I loved Taoism and Buddhism, and I would love sitting up late at night reading Chuangsu and Lao Tzu and like reading all about um just the Tao and the flow of things, and you know, Chuangsu talking about am I a butterfly dreaming, I'm Chuangsu, or I'm Chang Tzu dreaming, I'm a butterfly dreaming, I'm Chuangsu. And all of this was even more beautiful because I went to school in the Napa Valley. So my university was right in the heart of the Napa Valley, and I'm studying about philosophy while sitting outside at night and having just some of the most beautiful nature around me and being able to experience some of the best wine that you can get in in America, you know. And I remember in university, um, I was working a summer at a at a resort in the Napa Valley, Meadowwood Resort. And I was working at the Pool Terrace Cafe, and one of the guests came down with a bottle of Screaming Eagle, and he opened the bottle, and then he had a glass, and then he was done. And he handed it to me and my friends, and he says, Here, you guys can have this. I was just like, finish it. Finish it. So we went out to the after work. We went out by this beautiful lake and Lake Hodges. You go past Meadowwood, back down this windy road, and you end up at this beautiful natural preserve. There's birds, there's Canada geese. It was just the sounds of nature, and you're surrounded by it. And we sat there as the sun was setting and finished off this heavenly bottle of wine. And this was why uh how and why I got into philosophy, you know, and being surrounded by wine. And it left me, and I found that when I would have a glass, um, there was uh this ability to see deeper at times about the things of life, ability to slow down and settle into life a little bit more, and to ask those questions without some of the same. When we're running through life, we run through life. I don't know if you can see behind me. I have all of my music behind me, and I I love the older things. I've got cassettes behind me, I've got vinyl with vinyl and cassettes and all types of things. And my daughter asked me why I have some of these things. I shoot film, I have a film camera that I use, uh a bunch of them. And because I like to be able to sync deeper. When you're taking a photo now, and I pull out my phone, and I love the photos that my phone can take. They're beautiful. It's an amazing tool. But today, for work, my team, where is it at? Somewhere around here, I bought a disposable film camera, and we had 36 photos. And my workers all day, we played a game. So I gave one person the phone and they took a bad photo of someone. And then that person had to go and take a bad photo of someone else. And just we were surprising each other. And it was like, but what was beautiful is that there were only 36 photos. And so people were being really intentional, really careful. And so it was this here's Gen Z that's running around more, more, more, and more. And they were slowing down and they were laughing at every moment that was there. And that was one of the things because you talk about this and you start talking about philosophy and being in the moment. How do you think that wine deepens the experience of philosophy?

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Um for me, um, if I think about wine, it can express almost everything if you see through it. And it is only when you first taste it and experience it a first time that you see that wine can be a mirror of everything in life. Because that is also the view I have in life: is that everything is in essence, it's one, and beyond that it's even metaphysical. So if it's if it is about uh philosophy and bringing things deeper, when you come into peace with yourself and your mind isn't in the waves as it is normally, and you're thinking about and being rational, so you can come into more into the flow, like you were speaking about in your introduction, also, and which makes you are more open to what happened around you, because in the end, we are not the thinker. That's my view. In the end, we are the subject, we are the witness of what is happening, and all that is coming through us is through our senses and through our mind, to our thinking. And you can if you go back to using wine, then at least you are going back to your senses. It brings you back to your senses. So that makes that you are standing open for everything which is coming to you, including the things which are more deepen into yourself, so which are not on top of mind. That's the problem. The problem is our mind, it's also the solution, our mind. Because if you get out of your mind, you be you are more real, the person who you are. And wine can be an object which you use to come closer to who you are, but it can also be an object which you can use as a metaphor to understand reality. And the closer we come to reality and understanding reality, the more in sync we are and we become.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

I love that the mind is the problem, but the mind is also the solution, you know, because that is such a beautiful thing that um one of the things that I think is a challenge of Western thought is this idea that there is something wrong with us. And it's something that I absolutely love about Eastern philosophy is this uh idea of the center. You come back to this central point. And, you know, for me, I grew up always thinking there was something wrong with me. I've got this wrong thing wrong with me, and very traditional parents, conservative parents, and yet one of the things that I found is that I had a great philosophy teacher, and I was training my dog outside of our classroom. And I was like, come here, sit down, do this. And my and my dog was jumping up on people and excited to see someone. And I was like, no, we gotta sit, we gotta do this. And my teacher looked at me and he says, Can you allow your dog to be a dog? And I said, What do you mean by that? He said, There's nothing wrong with your dog. And I said, But I have to train it to be. He says, Your dog is happy to see someone. Allow it to be happy. And I was like, Are you talking about my dog right now? Or are you talking about me? And he said, What do you think? I said, I think that you're talking about my mind and that you're trying to get me to see that there's nothing wrong with me. And he's like, he winked at me and then he walked off. And I was like, and one of the things that when I have a glass of wine, I sit there and I go, I'm okay. And not like I'm existentially okay, but I'm okay. Like who I am, where I'm at in life, is okay. It's at this beautiful point in time that I get to experience this nature of reality, you know? And I think that's one of the ways that wine teaches me. But I want to ask you for your experience, like you say wine can teach us about life and even human perception. What's one simple lesson wine taught you about people?

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Oh, there are lots of because as wine is a metaphor, it can explain more or less everything if you want to see it. But for example, if I look at wine, uh a wine can have complexity, a wine can have elegance, a wine can have everything. But what it teaches me is that in the end, the wine is uh what you remind of the wine is more or less your aftertaste. That is what is still there. So that is not what's on the etiquette, it is not what was the price, it is not the color of the wine, it is the aftertaste. And isn't that the same with people? Is the real character of a person is not the first impression. It can be the same, but it's mostly not the same. It will be the aftertaste.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

One of the things I remember reading in a book that was always fascinating to me is we're never experiencing the present moment, we're experiencing just a second ago, you know, and like what is real and like one of the even the stars, looking at the stars. When I look at the stars, I'm like light years away, light years away and ages ago. We're looking at history, we're looking at things that that that star could be completely gone by now. But because it's you know a thousand light years away, it is still looking a certain way. And I think that that's so beautiful. But I think that wine is so beautiful because it is that experience of life. You know, you go in, you see something, you look at it and you're scared. I started a company. I was afraid of starting my company, I was terrified. And then when I got inside, I I tasted it, tasted that that that company. And it was different than I thought. Just like so many times I've opened a bottle and I expected it to be something, and then it surprised me. And it also challenged me, you know? And I think that so many wines, I've had wines that I poured a glass and I was like, wow, hmm, that is that is different than I expected. And many times I'm just like, wow, there are some flavors in here that I am not ready for. But I sat with it and I I eased into it. And then suddenly, you know, had a second glass, and I was just like, oh, well, hello. You know, there's something else there. And I think that so many times, whether it be meeting a new person, marriage. I met my wife, we got married, and I married a person that I thought she was. But after now, how many years, you know, 12 years later, I see this other person and like a good wine. We've aged, we've we've changed, but we also get to see the real person, the depth. But it takes that being willing to sit with something, letting it breathe, letting the person breathe, you know, until we get to the point of truth, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:54

But at the same time, is there a moment? Does a moment exist? That's another question because you're you're triggering a few things with me. For example, you're speaking about the person and the person is changing. The questi first question of all is who is the person? Isn't that only a construct in our mind? Does it even exist in reality? No. It's a construct, the ego, it's a construct, it changes every moment. But then does time have an effect? The question is, does time exist? If we going back to Einstein, time and space are interchangeable, so they are not fundamental. So effectively there's something below it. So if time doesn't exist, there isn't even a moment. There's only the eternity. If you're going back to your wife, one of the one of in my first book I've wrote an article about the the cracking the myths about wine. One of the myths about wine is that wine should age, then it comes better. Let's say a better wine a fine wine. But can wine age? What does that mean? Aging means that that there's only a period of time in between. But time doesn't isn't the cause of the change. What's happening is the chemical process, that is the change, not time. So it it's irrelevant of time. It is the change in the in the bottle. So does wine get better with aging? Is your wife different with aging? No. Because the wine, there is a process, it isn't the product, it was. It is a complete other product. There are new aromas in it, there is fruit is is is gone, the tenant structure is adjusted. Everything has changed in the wine. It is not the wine, it is something else. So if we accept that there is time and things change, transform, they get something else. And it's the same with our body and our mind, our ego, our construct of ourself, it changes in time. It is never the same. There isn't a moment where something is something because there is no time. So your wife is still the same because who is your wife? Your wife is of course within the body, and it is with the personality she has created, which is a different one. She thinks she is than you think she is. But still there is a construct which we call the person. But who is she really? She is the witness of it because she also says it's my ego, it's my body. But who is the my the me, the I. It is the subject which we all teach about school. We have object and subject, but nobody talks about the subject. It is a metaphysical thing, the subject. So your wife is the subject, and you also are the witness of everything what happens, and our mind creates a construct which is called scene or whatever, cornet, but it doesn't really exist. So reality is is rather difficult.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

Right? I was thinking about the other day uh as well, where I've lived in there was this interesting thing where I was talking to my my team, my workers, and I see them as students as well. I'm always trying to like make them a little bit of Mind blown. But we were talking one day about me being uh a foreigner living in Vietnam. And it was interesting because I was talking to them about, and I said, Well, I've been in Vietnam now for 13 years. I've eaten the food. I eat all of the food from here, the plants, the that came from the dirt, came from the soil. And so, and they said, Well, but you're American. I said, Do you know that the atoms in our body are kind of essentially replaced every seven years? We we are constantly changing, constantly changing. And I they're like, Well, what do you mean? And I said, All right, let's talk about the ship of Theseus. And I said, Let's imagine that you have a ship that is set aside and you begin replacing one piece of wood at a time. And you eventually replace all the wood. Yeah. Is it the same ship? And they're like, Well, of course it's the same ship. And I said, But it's all been replaced. And they're like, and so sudden they were like, and I said, So essentially, though I might look like this, the the things that make me up make the uh make up what I am are all from the ground here. And so I am as much from here as you are. And they were like, What? What is this? And it was interesting too, because it was a moment that we were sitting there, and one of my workers um had been editing uh a podcast for barrels and roots, and we were talking a little bit about philosophy. And that because it was this person was talking about terroir, about the wine taking the flavor of that place. And it was interesting because it was making them start to ask these existential questions. Like, if I had grown up in a different place, would I be the same? Would I change? And I said, Oh, I promise you'd be different. But you know, you would have have the same, same roots, you know, but the same beginning, but the the thing that changed you and fed you would be different, you know? And so that's where it's fascinating. But I want to ask you this because if someone had never has never tasted wine before, what would you want them to pay attention to when they were enjoying their first wine experience?

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Of course, it's interesting to ask if they like it. But the the question is: is that the purpose also of wine? And is it the purpose of why we are here and living? And so for me, my personal purpose got clear 10-15 years ago. I don't know, and my purpose also reflected in the work I have done till then, but also in the work I'm doing now, is to inspire people to think about the truth.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

I love that. Yeah, now I lost your question. What would you want someone to oh, yeah?

SPEAKER_00 25:12

So, what people, what we all have, and one more explicit and more dominant than the other is is to understand who you are, what life is about, to understand reality in in all the words. So, if I want to inspire people to get to know, to be to get close to that truth to find pointers. I always try to rephrase things or bring questions back to a person so that they can find their own truth. And so if a person tastes wine, what he has to do is to go back to the complete experience of wine. That's what I want to do. So not only not the result is it okay. It is what's happening when you taste, because when you are tasting, you are in touch with most of your senses with reality, including one of the senses we in the West all forgot, and that is our internal sense, which is called our thinking. It's pure a sense. It's something which creates impressions, just like when you touch things, hear things, when you think about things. It's all an impression in your mind, which comes into your consciousness. So what I try to do is you should taste it, but what does it do with you? How does it feel in your mouth? What is the taste it? Does it do you recognize things, a certain situation or an anniversary, or does it remind you to persons, or maybe a certain holiday? So coming back to experience life in its fullest and only to being, and now going back to your point of time, going into the now, because there is only now, there is no real time. There is now. You can only be in the now. You can think about history and fantasize about the future, but it even that is in the now. It's only a concept, history and future. There is only now. So, what I would like to do is to bring them into the now and to experience what it is and what's happening with you. And if you do that with wine, you can do it with everything. And part of it is something like mindfulness or meditation. It's also it's all going bringing people into the now and to the full experience. And there's a reason for it. Yeah. Because what is the reason for living? What is the reason to be here? It's just like what is the purpose of an music piece? It's not to get at the last note. It's playing. It's playing. The purpose of a dance is not to finish, it is the dance. So life is there's only one word which is fundamental, and that is being. It has multiple dimensions, being. But being is what it is, it's transformation. That's what's happening. It was about the wine which we spoke about earlier. It's about you as a person. The transformation is about the ship you were speaking about. It's pure transformation. And there is only what is in that moment. So bringing people back, so do you using wine in the act by doing this makes you maybe a philosopher, somebody who wants to understand the reality through wine, and to be to know yourself who you are and what you have to do here.

SPEAKER_03 29:05

Right. My daughter. I started her own piano about four years ago.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

She's ten. And it has been, it has been slow. It has been very slow. It was, you know, a lot of Mary had a little lamb. It was extremely painful. All those years of Mary Had a Little Lamb. And I just sat there and said, is this worth it? Like, are we getting anywhere here? And yet I kept her going. And I said, I think this is important. I I wish that my mother had helped me stick with piano because I think it's such a beautiful thing. And I just kept her going. And I one teacher she didn't work so well with, so we got a second teacher. We worked with two different teachers, and she started to make some progress. And I still still sat there and said, I don't know if this is going anywhere. And then the other day, um, my wife came down with her and said, Hey, I want to show you something. And she showed her this little thing on the piano. It just this melody. And my daughter was like, Oh, I like that. She went to her teacher, she showed the teacher what my wife sought her and my showed her. And uh my daughter's teacher said, Oh, well, let's learn that. And it was it was Bach. It was Johann Sebastian Bach. And it was just the the intro to Ave Maria. And it was just. And I sat there one day and I walked in, and suddenly the sound of Bach was filling my room. And I was just like, that potential for true beauty. And Bach has always existed in the ethos, that music that it was able to become about through all, you know, all time. That that that melody existed before Bach. Bach Bach pulled it out of thin air. He he pulled it in. It was always there. There was like that melody before time, that melody existed. And here, just I was able to be present to that. And it was like, but, and this is one of the things I love about wine the most, is that you have to be present. You have to be able to slow down. And one of the things that I absolutely love is that I love music when I have a glass of wine. I love the ability to just sit there because I hear music in a way that I don't normally hear music. My daughter came in, I had had a glass after I finished a podcast. And my daughter came in and she's like, Do you mind if I play the piano? And I said, Please do. And I just sat there enveloped, like in the experience. And it was wild because just this transformative thing. But like, I want to ask you another thing because you have had this interesting past. You know, you used to work in finance before entering the wine world. True. How did you go from this very rigid, very structured thing to the world of wine and philosophy? What was it that changed in you that took you that way?

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Yeah, the question is, did there something change in me? Did it? Right. Um what happened when I stopped working? I I was quite young, 52, and um I didn't really want it to stop. It was just the end of a certain uh role I had for eight years, and I thought I I have to do something else in life. I don't know what, but I need to do something else. And um so it was quite abrupt, even. And but what happened was not that I changed at that moment in time. I think what happened is with the roles I had in corporate life, it had a certain position and responsibilities, which gave also certain decorations, certain things I had to do, certain behavior I had to do. And when I stopped working, those things were not there anymore, the decorations, or they were not functional anymore. So did I change? I don't think I changed. I think I dropped off the decorations, I dropped off the learned behavior, which was natural and used to be done in a certain position, but it wasn't mine. It was it came with a job. So what I did was it revealed when dropping off all those decorations and behavior, my true self was more there. I didn't have to decorate it anymore. I could be who I was. So I didn't change. I was who I was, I only didn't use certain things which we use in our culture or corporate setting or whatever. I still feel more or less in essence the same person, but maybe even more free to do, because there are less people looking at you, and hopefully more pure.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

I love that.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

You're refining yourself down to or you're refining your understanding of yourself and you're peeling things away, you know. I love the idea of sometimes we we grow up and we pick up things. We're picking up, we're carrying all these things with us. Um, and that was another coming back to Lao Tzu, he says, you know, every day the uh the the fool like adds a thing. Every day the master takes one away, you know, and the idea of sometimes we do we fill up our cup, but sometimes we need an empty cup to be able to really experience it. You know, like that's the and that was another thing. Like we uh I I'm all on Latsu right now. You know, he talks about what makes a valuable cup is not the walls of the cup, it's the emptiness inside. And you know, if you if you have so much going on up here, if you're so full up here, that you're not able to sit there and listen to your daughter playing Bach. You're not able to see the face of your your spouse that's looking at you. And just they're there, they're present. You know, and I think that, you know, I love that you're you're talking about all this because you talk a lot about slowing down and becoming more conscious while tasting wine. Not just for the wine, but I feel like there's more to modern life that's going on there as well. Do you think that life is making people forget how to really experience things? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Uh because we don't have time anymore in the sense that we can experience time. So we only have time. There's one reason why we have time, more or less, and that's culturally, and that is to process. So it is all about the act and not about the purpose. And we are we need to act, but it is the instrument to get somewhere. And if you are only focusing on the instrument, on the process, you do not experience what it's all about, what you're doing in the process, or what the process leads to. So I think that in the way we have organized ourselves and what our cultural situation is becoming, is that there is no time available to experience anymore. There is only time available to process. Um, so everybody has to do a lot of things. Children have to do a lot of things outside. They have to go maybe to the piano less or to the hockey or to the I don't know what. I did it myself too, huh? Um and and they need to uh graduate on schools and so that these are all processes. That is not life. Yeah. Life is is is going for your dream. Eating the ice uh the ice cream. That's the that's the that's the the thing. It it it is not buying or working for the ice cream, it is tasting the ice cream. Yes. And we are only in process to get somewhere, but we never get there. We never get there. And so you cannot experience what you're aiming for. We are on our way to the next thing. And and by the way, wine wine can bring you because that brings you back into the now. That's also a reason why wine is interesting. Because I never drink wine, almost never drink wine, because I'm thirsty. If you're thirsty, you drink something else. So so drinking wine is also to experience the wine and the moment of the wine. And that is not because of the wine itself, it's because of the surrounding what's happening. It's with the people, it's the celebration, it's whatever it is. So, wine is is one of the things which bring you into the now and into the experience.

SPEAKER_02 39:07

I had my daughter and my nephew that were downstairs, and both of them study piano. My nephew just started, uh, him and his brother both started. My daughter has been playing for a while, and we had an old electric piano downstairs. And I went in as I heard them downstairs, and I just wanted to see what was going on, and I heard some music being played, and I went downstairs to check in on everyone. When I got in the room, they were just playing around with the electric piano. They were seeing all of the noises it could make, and they kept pressing this button and that button. And and I walked in the room and I was like, hey, what are you guys doing? Like, we're so sorry. And I was like, Why are you sorry? Oh, we're making a lot of noise, we're pressing the buttons. And I said, and that's what you should do. It's okay. Make noises, see the all of the cool, interesting noises that this piano can make. There's a lot of them. And he's like, This one's called Area 51. And I was like, What does Area 51 sound like? He's like, I don't know. And he was so excited to press the Area 51 sound, and it was just like a as a like an 80s synth sound. But they were really like ready to apologize for simply exploring, you know, and and experiencing things. And I think we are so raised that way that I think that, you know, if we can get and teach more people to sit and be present, it's a good, good thing. And I want to ask you this, because a lot of people think wine is only for the rich or fancy people. Do you think there's a way that everyone can start to learn to experience wine and we can make it, you know, because I mean, I don't think the only people who need this this update to like experience reality in a more present way is just the rich or fancy people. I think everyone could benefit from this, you know? How can we help make everyone learn about wine and enjoy it together?

SPEAKER_00 41:07

Maybe to take away the cultural idea about it, because uh in the old days every people had to drink it because it was also one of the beverages which you could drink even when it was it it was warm. But nowadays people make it bigger than it is because it's complex and it is only for the people who know about it. So we make it complex and it is it is. So it makes it quite exclusive. But inherently, the wine itself isn't complex. It's just the beverage. With a history or whatever, and you can you can make a point of it, but nobody knows the recipe of the Coca-Cola. It's even complex for most people, the same as wine. So it's not the product itself, but it is the cultural ID which comes with the wine, that it is only for a connoisseur or a specialist, and if you don't know it, you lack at least some knowledge or whatever, you shouldn't be there. But that is what we have made of it, besides the product itself. So I think it is it is a result of how we uh how we use it and how we look at it, but as such, it isn't. It's just a beverage.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

Right? It's just a beverage, and it's just just an experience, you know? It's an experience. If you could sit down right now and share one bottle of wine with anyone in history, who would it be? And who would you want to and what would you want to ask them? What wine would you drink?

SPEAKER_00 43:07

What wine would I drink? Now the problem is with the person I would like to sit down. Uh he didn't drink wine, and he wouldn't drink wine, so it would be a wine for myself. So maybe your the the the rest of your screaming eagle would be okay. So, but um the person I would sit by, and maybe it's even better that we don't drink because we have a lot to say, uh, would be Swami Vivekananda. Swami Vivikananda is an Eastern philosopher thinker who's deeply uh known and involved into the Vedanta, the old Vedic uh philosophy of life, uh which is even the basic for a lot of the Eastern religions. Um And why would I sit with him and what would I ask him? Because if I look to this philosophy of life, it's what we spoke a little bit about and what we touched upon this this last half an hour. It is that reality is metaphysical. It is it is something we cannot touch. And some things are just the things we see as a manifestation of it. But the reality, the deeper underlying reality, is metaphysical. And that is an old idea, also in the Vedic literature. And I think I cannot come to another conclusion than that is, for me at least, my truth. And he knows to explain it, and he can also tell you about uh what the consequences of such a philosophy of life is in everything you do, what the purpose of our life is, whatever happens, whatever we see. So it gives me a foundation to understand everything around me and to have a view on all the things I do. And even my books are based on it because a lot of the ideas using wine, I try to transform wine into this kind of knowledge. And so I would but what I would ask him, because I think personally that we as a spiritual being, again I use the word being, we are not here to do nothing. And we are there's more than this life for me. And as I mentioned earlier, as we are the witness, we are the subject, we were, we are, and we will be the subject, because even death will not finish my subject. So my mind won't be there, the ego is vanished, my body is there, isn't there anymore. But maybe Christians call it soul, or the Atman, and if you go to the to the Vedic literature, there is something which is eternal, which is which we are part of. And I think we have to, the reason for us to be here is to get all the potential which is in us to show that to the world, to make the universe only better. So everything we do should be in line with the with the cosmos. But at the same time, as we live in the cosmos, there are all kinds of attractions. And wine isn't one of the one of the best of it. Because too much wine will not bring you into alignment with the cosmos. You do rare things which are not in alignment of cosmos. So wine can can too much wine is not good, but a little with wine can make you more look at yourself. And the question, the fundamental question I would have is how can I live in this material world and be happy also with all the material things without disturbing the cosmos. So creating a better me, using also the things which are uh which you can enjoy about, but without uh hitting the flow, which you are started uh in in one of the first uh the first part of it, you were saying that life is a flow. But we need to go with the flow, and we have to do something here. But at the same time, I like to enjoy and use all the materialistic things that are here. But how can I not be uh captured by all those delights and go fully into that instead of also thinking about what the real purpose is for us to do here? And that maybe is a nice bridge also to my career. I've I've been in quite interesting positions with all kinds of wealthy uh opportunities, but at the same time you can stop and do other things which might be less material, but bring you much more than the material things can do. And what I try to do also with the books I have and the platform of the philosophers I I run is try to bring people into contact with ideas there are, philosophy of life there is, to bring as much as possible into this world what you can do as long as it is in line with the cosmos, and as long as it's in line with your own dharma, with what you have to do here.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

Yes. Yes. I love that because each of us came into this world with a certain path in front of us. Yeah. And we get pulled off of that. I remember the day that I met my wife. I felt as if a cord was pulling me forward. Like there was a string that had been tied to me that was pulling me to where I was supposed to be. And I love Carl Jung and I love all of the synchronicity that he he talks about. And I I believe that there's this thread that underties everything, and we just can't perceive it, but it's there. And one of the things I in Harry Potter, um, there's a great scene. I don't know if you watched the movies or read the books. There's he Harry is given this liquid luck, and he takes this little liquid luck elixir. And everyone thinks it's going to give him the answer. But when he takes the liquid luck, he's like, hmm, I think that I need to go over there. I have this feeling that I should just go down this hill and just go to that room over there. He follows it, and there's this person standing there. That is this person that is exactly the person he was supposed to speak with. And when he gets there and he's like, hey, and the person's like, yeah, just they have this conversation. And this person's like, you know what? Have you ever thought about this? Sometimes there is this flow to all things. And I think that one of the things that wine allows me to do is to slow down and to step into that flow. And, you know, being a student of philosophy and studying Eastern philosophy, I would call that the Tao, the way, but you can call it many things. Um, and one of the things that I found is that I have to be open, just like a bottle. You cannot enjoy wine unless that bottle begins to open. And I think that for us, one of the most important things that we can do is to open ourselves to life. And I know that when I pour a glass, it is going to be a moment where I open myself to this. Whatever this is, well, people have discussed that for a long time. I love simulation theory. I think we're in some giant like video game, and we're all here to see what we can experience. But that's my perspective. And am I right? I have no idea, but it makes a lot of sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 51:30

At least you have a perspective, and that's another point. There are too many people without a leading perspective for themselves. And that's that's a pity, because I think that's your own responsibility to to if you get life, it's not for free. So find your purpose. Yeah. Right? It's a birth obligation.

SPEAKER_02 51:58

Yeah. If you were to enjoy a glass right now with me, what would you pour for yourself?

SPEAKER_01 52:04

I think uh Burgundy Pinot Noir.

SPEAKER_03 52:11

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

Yeah, it's early.

SPEAKER_00 52:14

It can be a little not too. It's it's it's warm here. We have 28 degrees, but still I'm inside. Yeah, it can be a little bit cooled, the Pinot Noir.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

Okay. Not too heavy.

SPEAKER_02 52:28

Not too heavy. Not just what exactly right. I love it. Well, I want to say thank you so much. Where can people go to learn more about you and what you do?

SPEAKER_00 52:40

Various ways, but on the internet it is uh Venosopher.com. And if you Google my name, you will find me everywhere. And it's also on LinkedIn. I have a platform which is called The Venosophers. Um, and it is about wine, but always with a metaphysical touch. So those are, I think, the two primary roads. And last but not least, I've written three books about philosophy, which also goes into questions like you asked about life, about existence, about does time exist, whatever. And they are on available all three on Amazon. If you use the word philosophy or my name, you will be you will find it.