EP9 - Gavin Sher: The NEW Archetype Beyond “Hero’s Journey”

What if suffering isn’t part of our story? Learn how you can embody the “new archetype” story in your life, and create a journey with growth, self awareness, and fulfilment.

Gavin is a filmmaker, who has developed films for top international companies and sits on the fiction funding panel of South Africa’s National Film & Video Foundation. He also holds a masters in Philosophy and has devoted himself to exploring the intersections of storytelling and life.

He explains:

◼ How Our Life is Brainwashed by Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey”
◼ A Meta-Philosophical Perspective on the Universe and Reality
◼ The Emerging New Archetype Framework (one without suffering)
◼ How We Can Bring the New Archetype to Our Lives
◼ The Independent Yet Collaborative Nature of Future Filmmaking

Timestamps:
02:06 - Meta-understanding of “Stories”
04:12 - Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey”
06:40 - Attachment to Desire 
07:45 -  The “New Archetype”
11:52 - Hollywood Becoming McDonalds’ of Film
14:22 - Suffering 
15:55 - Why you should care about stories
19:50 - How to embody the “New Archetype”
21:26 - Reality: 3 Types of Evil, Freewill, C&E
26:33 - Expressions of God
29:40 - Playfulness and Imagination in the New Archetype
30:20 - Bosco’s Synthesis Attempt
36:51 - You’re Forcing vs Letting it flow
39:39 - Self Awareness
40:22 - Gene Keys as part of the “New Archetype”
43:81 - The Shift in Consciousness Needed For the “New Archetype”
45:10 - The Future of Filmmaking
49:45 - Looking Inwards
55:12 - Letting go the need to “know”
57:03 - The “New Archetype” Perspective
58:02 - Commentator, Communicator, and Time
1:00:34 - Creating an Independent Filmmaking System

_____________________

Episode Resources:

https://medium.com/@gavin.sher
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavin-sher-2b50a663/
https://www.instagram.com/bosco.yiu/
https://linktr.ee/awakendiaries

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We feel we need to make things happen. If we're gonna have our desire fulfilled, we need to be the ones, we need to be the heroes. We ex see ourselves as separate to reality. If we can flip that and go, actually, we're a part of life and everything that is happening is happening for our benefit, then perhaps we don't have to go through the period in the story that we currently do, which is the dark night of the soul. The emergence of a true independent uh filmmaking ecosystem, you know, I think is absolutely necessary. I think the problem with Hollywood is it's a centralization of power. And if you try and tell people what stories to tell or what uh to create, etc., you can't really do it because you can't sit there and make those decisions and do that writing for them. They have to sit there and follow the story through to their own conclusion with their own consciousness.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Hey guys, welcome to the Awakened Diaries Podcast, where each week we have the privilege to sit with artists, entrepreneurs, sages who are exploring unconventional ideas and wisdoms that drives humanity forward and improve our life quality. Today we are honored to be speaking with Gavin Scheer. Gavin is a filmmaker and screenwriter. He has developed films for top international companies and sits on the fiction funding panel of South Africa's National Film and Video Foundation. He also holds a master's in philosophy and has devoted himself to exploring the intersections of storytelling and life. Many of us resonate with movies like Star Wars, The Matrix, Avengers, Inception, where the main character goes through a painful period of self-discovery and some sort of transformation to become the hero, similar to our life journey of constant suffering and reward. But what if our life doesn't have to be like this? And what if we actually don't need to suffer to become the hero of our own journey? What's so awesome is that this is exactly what Gavin have been working on for the majority of his life, which is crafting a new archetype and human story for the world. So to begin with, Gavin, could you break down with us some of your core insights you studied with modern stories that we're surrounded by in everyday life?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Sure, and uh thank you so much for having me on, Bosca. I really appreciate it. Um so you know, partly the place to start may be what exactly is a story? Because it's so entwined in our um being story that it's hard to even see what it is. It's one of those things that we're so close to that we don't even know that um it's a that we're immersed in it as a part of us, it's so close, it's like what really is it? Um and I don't think I even have a complete uh answer to that question because story at on one point is the a meaning-making mechanism that works within our brain. We filter our entire reality through story, and yet when we think of story, we generally think of someone as some set of events with a hero uh who undergoes an adventure and things happen. So it seems to be personal, it seems to be that there needs to be a human in order for there to be a story, and it's um essentially on one level that's how we deal with story outside of us, but really we have stories inside of us that is like a filtering mechanism. So we have a like every word that we use almost has a story behind it. Like if I say to someone racism, and I'm speaking in South Africa, they're gonna have a very particular story about what that means based on their own experience and how they see it, versus if I say speak to someone in a whole different country, or if I speak to a white person here or a black person here, we have very different experiences of what these things mean. And often we say words or like friendship, for instance. For some people, friendship is you know, a friend is um someone you have on a Facebook contact, whereas for other people it means like someone will go to war for you. You know, it's a very different um story behind each word. Um, and essentially a story for me is like a matrix of meaning, it's how everything fits together. We kind of give things attributes within a wider picture. Um and at the moment, when we talk story, when we talk film stories, when we talk um you know stores, Avengers, and Inception, all the ones you mentioned, we're thinking of a very particular archetype and structure of story, um, which is the hero's journey, which has become well known through Joseph Campbell's work, and now it's become almost a formula that people apply to films and stories that says this is how it should be. And uh for me, that is an archetype based on the way human beings learn and have learned primarily, which is basically through suffering and challenge. You even mentioned that thing, that painful process. Um, and I very much question whether that is the only archetype of story, um, and uh whether it's the one that we should be working with. But that it is immensely powerful, immensely common, immensely very much entwined with the human journey to this point is undeniable. It's just uh it's an incredibly deep archetype that one can look at, and Campbell's work is very profound, and he went uh you know to so many sources to come up with that archetype. He studied um story forms, stories from every culture from like thousands of years, and this is the one he found running through it very completely. It's very hard. There are a few. There's a mythologist named Michael Mead, who's incredibly good. You can find him online, and he's um also identified some of the creation myths and some other stories that don't fit the archetype. So they definitely are out there, but they're very, very rare. Um the way I see it, if you look at Campbell's work, um essentially it is the archetype of human growth through suffering. So you always have a person at the beginning who has some desire, and that desire, like if you know you'll know Buddha's teaching quite well, can lead you into trouble. Desire is often the source of suffering. It's also, however, the fuel that gets you on a journey. Because as soon as you have a desire, then there's something that you want, something that you have to go out and achieve, something that propels you. In many, many stories, at the midpoint, the hero learns that what they want is not what they need. And then they are challenged to change that old way of being, let go of what they want and become what they need to be. If what they want and what they need is the same thing, then in the midpoint they'll generally get an idea of what they were doing wrong in themselves and need to correct in order to get what they want. But that want is always the fuel that sets you on the journey. And from the beginning, you know, I think it's uh potentially problematic. That's what the Buddhists are looking at. That that desire can propel you into suffering. I would refine what they're saying say it's attachment to the desire that creates suffering. Because if you recognize that life itself is trying to bring you to a point of evolution, then how we face that journey can be very different. So at the moment, this is the problem, I think, with the hero's journey as we live it. That we see ourselves as separate to reality. So we feel we need to make things happen. If we're going to have our desire fulfilled, we need to be the ones, we need to be the heroes, we need to take it on, we need to do what needs to do, confront the obstacles, take on our antagonists, etc. And then if we're good enough, if we're heroic enough, if we're strong enough, we'll succeed. And in that already is the seed of suffering, because it might be that the desire is just there to take us on the journey. And whether the journey becomes an adventure, which the adventure by definition requires a fearful situation. So, in a sense, we're living in an adventure at the moment because life seems very scary and separate from us, and again, we have to overcome it. If we can flip that and go, actually, we're a part of life, and everything that is happening is happening for our benefit, which the hero's archetype actually shows, because every antagonist is a push force. Uh, you know, you've got your support, which uh it takes you long, but everything is happening to bring you to your evolution. That's what the hero's archetype shows completely. Um, everything in the story is there for your benefit, even if it doesn't feel that way. And um, if we can take that insight and just integrate it, that everything is happening to move us towards our own evolution, and it's connected, you know, it's not happening accidentally. Every incident is there pushing us towards that evolution, then perhaps we don't have to get go through the period in the story that we currently do, which is the dark night of the soul. Because in every story, the second act, after that midpoint, we either you know get on the right track or don't, is there pushing you to a death point. Uh the suffering takes you to exhaust that inner flaw that is the whole point of the entire story, which is the theme, you know, it's the moral premise, you've got to become, say, courageous to overcome danger, whatever it is. Then if you don't have courage, then that second half, you know, you will life will be so bad that you'll be forced to have to step up, find your courage, and solve it in the third act. But that um second act um is is the suffering, is the punishment. You have the first half of the, you know, in the first half of the second act, you have your fun and games, Genshio Special World, your adventure, but then all those mistakes that are caused by that inner flaw compound in the second half of the second act, and then life's brutal, and it pushes you to that death point. And then at the end of the second act, you have to make that choice. Either I'm going to let go of the old way of being and being born anew without that flaw, and then I am my inner self is matched to the solution for the problem that began or for the acquisition of the desire that began the thing. But it has to be happen, it has to happen from the inner change. So the subjective journey of the character, which all the outside things are happening to push you to, is just to evolve past a flaw that lets them become a better being who's able to solve the problem or achieve the desire that happened at the beginning. So it's all just like a processing mechanism, a little bit of a uh a punishment program in some ways to get you to the place of death, just a render the old web being and start anew, because at the moment all of it has to happen externally. But if we can recognize that life is trying to help us evolve and can see it, then maybe we don't need the punishment mechanism, as my theory. If we can learn to both collaborate with life and then also realize that it's not a hero's journey, that really we're all in a together, and that every character is a part of creating new conditions and recognize that everyone needs to be treated as the hero of their journey, that everyone is a divine perspective, and everyone deserves the best thing we can create together. That it's a, you know, how can we make the journey fun rather than embarking on an adventure? That perhaps we can get to the same places, achieve the same desires, let go of the desires as needed. Um, but you know, where everyone else is also getting to have fun and fun together. That would be, I guess for me, the beginning of a new archetype where we realize that we're in co-creation, both with each other and with life, and uh not alone, and that it's all intelligent and it's all purposeful, and that we can serve a purpose. Uh that's a top-of-the-head answer to that.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, awesome breakdown on the from old archetype to the new archetype. So from what I'm hearing, it's like we need to change our approach towards suffering, like change our understanding of suffering, because suffering is actually not suffering, but it's a part of the growth process. But I'm curious to learn more about like why it's so attractive, like this whole model right now in Hollywood where they would exaggerate the suffering. It's like we somehow empathize with the suffering, which makes it so like fun to watch and so emotional for us and engaging.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah, I think uh there's there's a lot to it. Um, both those things. One, I think um, you know, triumph means a lot more if it comes at cost and it's earned. So, in that sense, I think there's a seed of of real merit in in what they're doing. And certainly in my own writing, you know, I don't um shy away from challenge. You know, it's like the characters do need to earn whatever growth they go through. Certainly, you know, until a new archetype emerges and there's a new way of doing of earning it, it does come through challenge, an overcoming challenge. That's been the human experience to this point. Um, and I think audiences recognize that that and you know they like to see um extreme experience, you know, life um lived at a high level is much more interesting than watching someone just kind of bumble about the day or you know, pick up a how-to book and figure it out from there. Um on the other hand, I think uh Hollywood, particularly today, has gone way off the rails in terms of treating um uh archetype as formula. So you know, Campbell's work is being kind of formulized in that this has to happen, and that has to happen, and there's certain beats and it becomes a paint by numbers. And for me, that's Hollywood trying to exercise control over the ineffable because Hollywood, um, like many corporations, you know, they're business people and they would like to have a very predictable formula for okay, I put in X money, I give them this thing, and X out comes out at the end. And so they're trying to turn it all into McDonald's, but creativity doesn't work that way, and I think that is why at the moment people are becoming extremely exhausted with Hollywood fair and their numbers are declining in box office, etc. And you know, people are spending hours like looking for things they want because you know the formula is not um growing over time.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Yeah, definitely. I mean I'm seeing a lot of these like small individual filmmakers, like no matter if it's like groups of them or just individuals coming out and like releasing films from all different media platforms, which seems to be really emotionally authentic to their group of people as well. So looking more into suffering, what does suffering mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 14:25

It's a good question. Um, I'm I'm it's uh curious that you know, I think um a lot of philosophy takes things out the body. Um, I think suffering is a very felt experience, you know, and it depends obviously the kind of suffering you you're having. This can be emotional, it can be mental, it can be physical. Um, you know, physical pain obviously is a form of suffering, but uh a lot of our suffering, also Buddhist teaching, happens in the mind, you know, and it's our reflection of past and our fear of future. And we experience you know anxiety when we imagine fearful events and terrible things that could happen, and it's you know very felt in the emotional system and in the body. So in that sense, I think you know, suffering really is um either a physical occurrence or an emotional or mental occurrence, but we certainly know it when we feel it, and we mostly feel it as a persistent kind of um persistent uh uh emotion that's always there. It's like a field in our body, you know, like we I think both you know personally and individually, like you know, at the moment everyone's going through so much in the world, we kind of almost feel this anxiety as soon as we wake up, you know, World War III or the country's going, every everyone's experiencing at the moment at an extreme level. And uh you know it's hard, I think, to divorce ourselves from personal suffering, which is based on real events in our own life, and the collective suffering, so that we almost always exist in a field of suffering.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yeah, so it's both like the mental and the physical level. I'm curious to hear like how much those stories actually impact our unconscious mind and more than what we think.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

I think very much, you know, again, and we I think we each have our own story of reality. So in the extreme examples that I use, you know, at the moment, uh let's say there's people who believe that uh there is an all-powerful, all-knowing, all good God. You know, call it source credit or call it whatever you want. And then there's people who think there's nothing but matter, and um everything that happens is random and it's the law of the jungle out there. So now if you take what one or two of those other story and you apply that then to as an interpretive mechanism to everything that's going on in the world at the moment, you have two very different experiences of reality. So many people at the moment think, okay, we are on our way to extinction. World War III is coming, and if you believe that there's nothing, no order behind the chaos, then it's a very scary time because could well be. You know, it's every sign that we could do that. Um, and people have been feeling that at least since the 40s and the nuclear warfare began and you know the potential for mass destruction existed. And some people live in fear because of that story, because it's like everything seems to them to be confirming the idea that we're heading towards extinction. If you believe in uh, say an awakening that many people believe at the moment, uh that you know this is heading to pushing us towards evolution and that there's order behind the chaos, that it's it's helping us to grow. You know, exactly what the archetype shows us, that all that suffering is taking us towards evolution, then it doesn't need to be so scary because whatever your personal fate, you're gonna find it in relationship to life. But the collective will remain, grow, and evolve if that's what you believe. And there's everything in between. You know, some people believe God's bringing a reckoning, some people whatever. But that filter changes your entire experience of reality because the same facts just mean very different things and point towards different things. So your mental experience and your emotional experience will be different in terms of how you receive those facts. So if you are rooted in an experience of unity and design that there is some purpose here, then you can go through it all very in a very relaxed and you know, I don't want to say detached, but um uh in a much calmer way. And uh if you're not, then yeah. Fear and anxiety and reactivity and whatever else is going to be part of your experience at the moment, and understandably so so stories basically are our beliefs because they they create our beliefs and that's how we operate.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

So if we use that as like the core framework, then with a new archetype, do we have to create the story of the new archetype first, or do we live by the new archetype and then have like the stories or both at the same time?

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Let me just uh tinker with your reply there, because it's not so much the belief, but that the meaning that we put on the belief. That's the story. So you know again, we can both believe the world round, but depending on our stories, if you're uh whatever, you know what that means to you will be different. So we can all agree, okay, that Iran and uh America are at war at the moment. But what we make of that and how we feel about it and how we see it, that's the filter, it's the thing that changes the agreed fact or whatever in into anything. So in that sense, um, you know, a new story I think needs to look at the same facts in a whole different way because it generates a whole different response and interpretation and what's required. Um I'm sorry, I just wanted to clarify on that belief versus interpretation of belief point, but then just repeat your question again. Let's uh go into it again from that slightly altered perspective.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Yeah, sure. So once we understand that, if we want to create that new story, do we have to create it first in our heads and then live it, or do we live it and then co-create it along?

SPEAKER_00 20:00

There again, you that's how subtle the story is. So, in some sense, it wouldn't be a creation, it would be a discovery. Because if we accept that um there is a field of consciousness that is working through us all, then it already knows what that new story is, and we will learn it by living it. And I think that is kind of the evolution that in the evolution of consciousness is an evolution of story. So, in that sense, let's say that uh you and I here are two vessels through which our consciousness is moving, and we are already in this moment co-creating that new story because we are in the beginning of pondering it and and and figuring out what that means. So, as I would understand kind of that new story, we have to accept that um in this experience there is something for us, there's a reason it's unfolding, and the goal is not to make something happen, not to create it, not to think, but to discover it and experience it. And um in that sense, um we could say that um we are both now in the moment of living a new story, which is um yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

I was wondering if you could break down further on your meta story, which I found interesting. You were talking about like a divine creating finite perspectives for adventures, which makes it all fascinating. So could you like break it down from the ground up for someone who is new to this or who doesn't really understand this?

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Okay, so my background in philosophy was um rooted, I think, as in most people that get on that track to try and understand reality and how do you explain reality? Um so certain fundamentals always come up and have come up for the history of human um existence. And the the existence and nature of God is at the core of that because it is it's two very different realities that we are presented with, certainly. In our lifetimes. One's a materialist paradigm and one's a spiritual paradigm. And physics itself basically said that the physical isn't very physical, at least a century ago. But the materialism persists. So to properly make sense of life, one has to at least answer that question. And the biggest potential attack against the idea that there is God is the problem of evil. Because obviously life is super challenging. This is what the heroes archival shows is very clear. There's lots of pain, there's lots of suffering. And there's two types of evil. There's what's called natural evil. So, you know, the physical pain one can experience, the um earthquake, the lightning strike, the terrible disasters that can happen through the climate or whatever, are natural evil, so-called. And human evil is the terrible things that humans choose to do. I mean, there's rape and murder and war and all these terrible things happening every day. And it's happening to everyone through to the people around them all the time, to one degree or another. So why does a if there is God, why does God allow such things? And uh the answer to the problem of evil comes down to free will and the need for knowledge. So what kind of world would an all-good God create? If you think that you should have to create beings that have real responsibility for their lives, real choice to live whatever experience they choose, then you have to allow for them to do terrible things. Because if they don't have the option, then they don't have real responsibility. They have a much more limited domain of potential experience. They can only do like very good things, for instance. Then they don't have much freedom and they don't have much responsibility and they can't go very wrong. And it might be that there's planets and things where that's great that's happening, because that you know, why wouldn't that be a possibility? Sure. But if you think that also there should be planets experiences where you can have real moral responsibility for your course, then you need places with a wide range of free will where you can also go wrong if you want to, but that's your responsibility. But that responsibility gives meaning and to your actions. You know, if you can do anything and you choose to do really good things, then that means a lot, and that's your choice, and that defines who you are and what you become, and it's yours, it's not forced on you, that's your choice. Um, and if you're going to exercise your choice and your action in a world like that, then you need to have knowledge in a way that preserves that freedom of choice. So if God were to witness in your just wisp in your eye and say, yeah, you know, that job's cool, but if you go for it, what's going to happen is you're going to basically be forced into corruption decisions, you're going to bankrupt some good people, you're going to extract uh you know good portions of the earth, and um what's it gonna do is cause incredible pain in your heart and etc. So I wouldn't really go down that way. Then you don't really have free choice. You can go, okay, well, it sounds like a nice job, but it'd be a terrible thing to do, I'd be doing bad, and it's gonna hurt me in the end, and so your choice is gone. If on the other hand, you know, you can learn through cause and effect where there's no clear intervention, then you will be able to make decisions, but learn over time and your free will remains intact. So that we have a cause and effect kind of learning in this world, and that's where natural evil comes in, because isn't you know it's just forces at work. A lightning strike isn't inherently bad. It sucks if it hits your village, but uh at the same time that's just a cause and machine um effect learning machine, and then you can learn, okay, well, I must put up a lightning rod so the village doesn't burn down, you know, but this is the world I'm in. Um but bad things can happen along the way. Seemingly bad, because also if there is life between uh that there's no death, if there's reincarnation, then that's a whole bunch of seeming evil that disappears. If people's death or the animals' death or plants' death isn't a terrible thing, but just a phase and an evolutionary journey, then that's not so bad. And if there are, as there are, extreme limits on experiencing pain. So your body, if you experience too much pain, will just pass out, you'll lose consciousness. There's limits put on pain and how much people can suffer. Most suffering happens in the mind from pain from past events or uh fear of future events. So there's actually, depending on how one navigates reality, you know, suffering can be much less than it seems. So where people's intuition um falls on whether God would create a world like this really falls around how much responsibility they feel beings should be given. Because if you feel like we should have lots of responsibility, then this world makes a lot of sense. If you feel we should have a little responsibility, but you know, much happy experience, then it doesn't. But to me, again, it's like we have to remember that we are an expression of God. So this is really God on an adventure. And God creates obstacles that make uh you know that challenge God itself. And that explains a lot of this world. So this is how I kind of came to my understanding and my own story of reality was I said, yes, okay, God definitely exists. We are not separate from God, nothing is separate from each other. These are kind of core principles, and physics shows us that. Um, you know, the history of spirituality shows us that. I think there's a lot of evidence at this point, you know, screaming it at all of us. Um and um so for me, the new story is based in a unity perspective. You know, I think the whole story is a separation, it's it's exactly that. It's like, yeah, it seems that we're separate from life and we have that experience. And so life needs to show us through cause and effect, which is also the hero's journey, that's suffering. That's like, okay, you've got this flaw, you behave that way, karmically, this is what's gonna happen, and you're gonna get like whacked because that was part of your seed there, and um, that's how it's teaching you. If we realize that actually we entine, then we don't need to learn through suffering. We can realize always we're on a journey towards growth. This is what being humans is all about. We're the finite aspect of the perspective of the infinite. We'll never be infinite. We aren't God, we're an expression of God, and collectively, like everything is God, um, but we ourselves are an aspect or a part of God, like a cell in the body. So we're not the whole body, but we are cells, and we participate, and holographically, the cell has everything the whole has. And it's also a part of the whole, so it's like it's dialed in, like we can connect that aspect of ourselves, but not from the the finite perspective. It's like a spectrum that maybe our consciousness can move through. But um, while we here as a situation talking, as one human being to another, we're definitely not God, we are just aspects of it. But knowing that we are two aspects of one thing speaking, that's one cell to another, then we can, and knowing that our journey is to grow here, that that's what we're up to, then we might be able to navigate much better ways of growing than learning through suffering. And as I mentioned to you when we spoke uh in our prep for this, that um the best way that I can imagine is through play. And you know, this new story, this new archetype is something that's, as I said, it's emerging. It's not something any of us can create. The only way we're going to discover it is by shifting out of that separation consciousness and behaving like we're heroes, we have to get what we desire and make it all happen to people understand that it's it's all happening through us. And if we want to go on a journey towards a point of growth, how do we navigate that differently? So play is the only way that we've already tracked and studied as human beings where we learn through imagination and trial that is fun and playful and doesn't involve suffering. It's a what if, but that what if makes you loose, it makes you open to changing. It's like, okay, well, let's pretend for a moment to be this, and then you become this. Um so it's uh it's something I hope life will reveal to me over the course of time, you know, how it works, but I think that's that's our adventure, now our new chapter, our new journey as a collective species to discover what it is to navigate the world from a unity perspective, where we understand everything is they're working together for the greater good of all.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Super beautiful. So, in summary, if I try to synthesize this, it's like God is love, it's infinite, and then it creates versions of itself, and because it is infinite, that's why us humans have free will, and in order for it to like keep the whole mechanism of love, that's why they use like the cause and effect as like a principle for us to do these so-called good things or do these things that are out of love, and then that also hits our mechanism of like pleasure as like as like a way to reinforce that this is this is love itself, and if we don't hit like the right thing, then it's like suffering, and that that's how we feel. And then ultimately at the end of the day, it's actually both in the in growth and suffering are in the same coin, but then one of them is just more like I guess like our minds just judging this overall event as neg like in like a negative way, when in reality it can like you doing something can be both growth and suffering.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

There's a lot uh of ground there. So I'll speak into some of it and you'll bring me back to the rest. Um so as I said, you know, God is both the finite and the infinite. So it's it's both those things, and it's just like a two different perspectives. So if one thinks of the the field is like almost the the um the field, it wouldn't even be the infinite, but it would be um the beginning, it's like the first emanation in which everything is because all coming out of the field. But then everything that comes out of the field is still part of you know emerged from the field and is a part of it. So you know, every plant, animal, being human is a piece of God. And beyond that, there is some infinite that is um holding it all. You know, I think we live in the body and the mind of God essentially, like the very matter is is God, and the mind field, the emotional field, the heart field, it's all aspects of it. Um the hero's journey kind of shows how it's been working at the moment to generate human experience. So, like if if I think about it, it's a great play. You know, the the Vedas called it the Leela, and the Maya was the is often called the illusion, but really it's like the stage, you know, there needs to be somewhere to play out the play, to have the the journeys and the experiences that God wants to have from all this different perspective, and it's playing all the roles. Um, and uh each individual piece gets to experience its journey within that great play from its own personal perspective. But the the play is happening on different levels, you know, it's like it seems there is this very um persistent illusion that we from our individual um perspectives are making our roles happen, making our journeys happen. So you feel like you know, from Bosco, I got up, uh set up the podcast, I did this and I did that, and I am making this X happen, and you know, I track Ab and Down on the Jinkies thing, and then you know, this will happen. And that's one way of looking at it. It could also be a way of looking at it as it's been happening through you. So you know, the more the medit we meditate, the more we get to that point of um not of just having silent awareness. And you don't actually need all the thoughts like I must do this and that. It's not the thoughts that are telling you what to do, it seems it. It's a very persistent illusion that yes, it's my thoughts that are making this happen, or you know, I'm doing this because this thought came, and then you know I chose to do that and that. And on one level it's true. On another level, it's like if you didn't, if you just had that silent awareness, you would still have done all of that, and it would just be much more clear that it's just happening through you as your energy as you wake every day, like a certain amount of energy is present for you to move through and perform a certain amount of actions and um to have a certain amount of experiences so it unfolds through you, and it feels like you're individual in that, but it can also be very woo-way, and it's just happening through you, uh, depending again on how you experience your own reality. To me, it feels very clear at this point that um you know I'm a vessel that life is is moving through, like what I do as much as I can, unless, and this is the thing, because we're always still very human. So if I'm trying to make something happen, that's when I know this is my ego and I'm forcing something. If it is happening, if it's clear that it's unfolding and I'm participating, then I know I'm on the right flow. And in my experience, if I'm trying to make it happen, there will be suffering because from an ego point, I'm trying to slot into a world and do something that I don't actually have the power to do. If it if it's coming through flow, then I know that I'm harmonized with the universal creation, and then it is more likely to be not a suffering experience because now I'm actually tuned into the truth of where life wants me to go. So it's really about I think how we navigate our creative flow and whether we imagine ourselves to be separate from it. Because if we imagine ourselves to be separate from it, it is bound to punish us, it's just cause and effect, because we'll get it wrong. We can't, it's like um if we tried to operate our body from our brain, we would instantly die. There's like trillions of operations happening, and each cell is making its own choice to do this and that within the body, and it's way too much for us to hold in our conscious head, um, which just doesn't have that intelligence. We immediately die if we tried to do it. That's that's exactly what would happen. Um, if we approach life in the same way and think we have to do it, then yeah, we're gonna experience some form of suffering. Um, so yeah, it's a teaching mechanism for for a consciousness that feels it's separate, the suffering, because it's very, you know, you will try and avoid it. The more you run into it, the more you realize um that suffering results from forward actions, the more you'll avoid it. Um it's just kind of behaviorism one-on-one. Um I'll leave it there.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Let's go back to your trying to untangle the you mentioned uh the woo-way and also like the letting natural flow and also forcing. So for you personally, is there particular like symptoms or feelings in your body, or like how would you know what's the fine line between you like forcing something and letting something flow for you?

SPEAKER_00 37:06

Um also a very good question. Um, you know, it's it's very subtle. I think one needs to watch oneself very closely. Um often the forcing is related to desire, you know. Like there is generally, I mean, that is why it is the ignition thing. We always are motivated by the things we want. And depending on how we're going about achieving it, I think that the difference between force and flow is kind of in there because you you can feel like when you speak to someone, if you have an agenda, like if you speak to a beautiful woman, for a very easy example, like you know, you you know when you are saying something because you have the intention of I'd like to get to know you, I'd like to sleep with you, I'd like to become my girlfriend, you have some sense of like, yes, I know in me from my what as I'm sitting here that I really want you, and this is why I'm saying this, because I want to impress you, or I want you to believe this about me, or because I want you to know this about me, or whatever it is, versus whether you're just sitting with her and saying, I'm an experiencing like, wow, this is a really cool woman, and she's beautiful, and I'm enjoying speaking to her, and I'm just organically sharing myself, versus having that agenda. When you have the agenda, that's forcing. When you don't, and you're just allowing whatever there is to be to be, then one, there's for so many reasons it it'll work out better. You know, comically, if you're going with that agenda, then you're pushing it somewhere. You know, maybe this is a sister and not a lover, and you don't know that when you meet because there's a resonance and you appreciate, wow, she's good looking and she's got a thing, but you don't know. The only way to know is to think. But if you push it in a box, it's not meant to be, you could waste years trying to be with someone who's not right for you because you thought in that moment felt like, wow, this is such a cool person, I want to be with her. Um, instead of just going in that moment, well, it's a cool person, and I'm curious what life has in store for us and what the best relationship between us is. And beyond the potential to push yourself somewhere where you shouldn't be, she'll immediately pick up on agenda because women are very sensitive to that. And if you are meant to be together, then the pushing can push her away. Um, you know, so it's it's a very it's one easy example to see where the um the ego mind can come in and warp things, versus if one can let go of the need for it to be anything but what it is, then how that makes a much easier flow.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

So that's how practices like meditation can help us kind of like identify and like widen the gap between like understanding whether something is coming from the ego and whether something is natural.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

Yeah, self-awareness is crucial because you know how you feel, you know where your intentions are, you know what your mind is doing if you're away from that. Otherwise you can just put so much can be happening, and you know I mean she can be talking in your own mind chatters so much that you can barely receive her. Um versus yes, if you can still the mind, then you can rarely actually receive her and feel and get the textures and the subtleties and be in the experience, so then you're much more tuned to what the experience actually is rather than what you'd like it to be.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Going back to that new archetype, uh you mentioned how in that new archetype store we're going to be able to grow by playing in like a flow state. And is this related to like the essence of like the gif state in the gene keys to a certain extent?

SPEAKER_00 40:41

I would imagine so very much. Yes. I think um you know there's a distortion field that is the shadow field. So that distortion field is that thing that uh causes us to feel um separate from reality that seeks to force, that seeks to um that that just does somehow, like if you think of us as a lens through which the energy is coming through, the shadow is the distortion, the dirt, the thing that makes it not come through clearly and truly. Whereas I think the gift field is the when that lens is clean. So then we can just all operate freely. It's like I think it's like the difference between so I have um as my um IQ, I have the the eighth gene key, which has um the shadow of mediocrity and the um the city of um uh sorry, it's an E-word. Um just look at a moment. Um City of Um it's not eloquence, it's a different one, I'll come to you in a sec. Um, but it it relates to expression. So if my expression is is distorted, it'll be imitative, it will be mediocre, you know, it won't flow. Like when I try to speak open my mouth, you know how it is. You know, you don't actually know the exact words, you have an intention, and then what flows through you can come through poorly or it can come through well. But if you're at the gift frequency, it'll come through well because the distortion's not there. What you get is the purity of expression. Uh God, it's opened the wrong one. Uh that's my design. Um but essentially it's it's it's that you know, there is that flow that we are, that energy that's seeking to come through us through that lens. And if it's distorted, it'll come out poorly, it'll have poor effects, it's not going to communicate well, it'll maybe trigger whatever. But if it's coming through the gift frequency, it's gonna come through exactly, it's gonna come through well, it's gonna have the right expression. Um and in that sense, I do think a world where we journey that way means that we'll meet people without resistance. You know, they'll receive what we have to offer, we'll receive what they it will be happening without the distortions and dissonances and projections and triggers, and then it will be more joyful and more playful.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

I'm curious to hear, like, for this whole new archetype to be introduced to the world. Is there like a specific thing that needs to happen?

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Yes, very much. There has to be a shift in consciousness, because uh essentially we have been stuck in a separation consciousness, an idea very personal than ourself, a Darwinian kind of it's all you know random and thing, and that has to go. Like we have to really realize we're dealing with a a very ubiquitous field of consciousness in which everything is conscious, everything is sacred, and until we can design our systems and treat each other, etc., accordingly, then we can't do that. The only way we can actually experience it is to live it, and the change we need to happen is very much internal, it is very much our own, you know, basic. Wiring, and I think that is what is evolving at the moment. You know, I think if you look at the human history of the last thousand years up to this point, you know, very exponential acceleration at this point, certainly in your generation, others, as many more interactions happen because of digital infrastructure, etc., you know, we are moving away from that separation consciousness one to realize that everything affects everywhere. That, you know, even as you sit here, I mean, there is a lot of um study into telepathy, but here I am sitting to some speaking to someone in a different time zone and a different continent. Uh a hundred years ago, that would have been absolutely impossible. And I can see you, we can speak, you know, it's it's teaching us that we are much closer and much more interconnected than we had imagined, and we're experiencing it more and more every day, all of us.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Yeah. Actually bringing us closer already. How do you see the future of filmmaking in general? Do you see like Hollywood adapting to this model in the future or or or is it going to be like smaller individual entities?

SPEAKER_00 45:09

Yeah, you're touching on my own work because I'm definitely um predicting and betting on um the emergence of a true independent uh filmmaking ecosystem. You know, I think it's absolutely necessary. I think the problem with Hollywood is it's a centralization of power and a centralization of propaganda because uh storytelling is the most powerful way of getting people to adopt behaviors and adopt perspectives, and you know, everything's a narrative, I understand that very well. At the moment, they are controlling and centralizing that power. Um and yet what they're doing at the same time is you can't really control something that's organic, and creativity is organic. You know, what comes to me, the stories that come to me, come from my heart, come from my experience, come through lived reality that is organic. And the same is true for every storyteller, every artist. You know, what moves through them is a function of their being. And if you try and tell people what stories to tell or what uh to create, etc., you can't really do it because you can't sit there and make those decisions and do that writing for them. They have to sit there and follow the story through to their own conclusion with their own consciousness. And if you try, then it's going to become imitative, it's gonna become mediocre. Sorry, my my IQ is the eight, it's the city of exquisiteness and the gift of style. And that comes from being oneself and from expressing what's true to oneself. Mediocrity is always a product of imitation. And Hollywood now is just trying to imitate imitations and imitations, and so long as they're trying to control it from top down, that'll accelerate. So, you know, as as I said, Netflix is asking people to be even more formulaic, to tell people they're worried about people tuning into their phones. So, like now you have to repeat exposition and tell people what the story is about, you know, 20 times in the first 20 minutes, or they're gonna run into their phones. So the storytelling is just gonna get worse and worse and worse, and the more they try and tell people how to tell their stories, the worse they're gonna get. So I do think, and I think people experience it already. You know, you tune into any of these streaming services, it takes you hours to find something. It's it's it's you know, the fine the search takes more time than getting to watch cool things, much more time. Um, and then most of what you watch winds up being like, okay, kind of mediocre, so people tune away from it, tune away from it. But I think more and more, I mean, there's amazing stories out there. The real um trick is to try and create an ecosystem in which they can emerge. And I think it's inevitable. And I think with the drop in prices and tools uh to create films, from you know cameras being now everywhere uh to you know AI being great for special effects and background characters and you know, doing the the actual um work assisting through footage, which takes only hours. You know, I think it's a tool that can be extremely transformative and helpful. Or Hollywood will certainly try to use it to replace writers and create formulae content. But I think uh we you know all the tools are there for it to become a much more common aspect of our lives for the storytelling. So I think in time that'll be the switch to a much more um organic ecosystem where many more independents work in a collaborative fashion rather than having this monolithic uh system where the studios and especially the streamers now have all the money and all the power and just try and bring everything into it into doing it their way. I really do think people will band together and we'll start doing it our way. And that is the difference, I guess. You know, if you put Netflix as the hero or Amazon or whatever, they you know, in a corporate way, they there are very good representations of companies trying to do the hero's journey. You know, they're trying to, okay, people have this need, we want to fulfill it, we're gonna do it, and we're gonna do it in our way, in our terms, and we've got all the money and we've got all the say and we're gonna do it. And then what they offer is not great, and what people go through within those organizations, I'm sure can be very challenging. Uh or we can start doing it our way, and all those people are like, look, we are storytellers, that is our being, that is the organ that we are. You know, the how do we come together and work as an organ which every cell is empowered and respected and can do this in a cool way. You know, if we can get to the Latin, I think that is going to be we're getting to that crunch point where people will either dial out of stories because they're gonna get so bad over the next ten years, or something else will emerge. And I think this is what will emerge as a much more organic collaborative ecosystem.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

Yeah, I mean super exciting to be living in a time of great change. And during the time of great change, I think a lot of us are looking inwards, like trying to really figure out what life is. So I know you've been on a way longer journey than myself. So for you, like what has been some of your favorite tools, or what would you recommend someone who's like starting out in looking inwards?

SPEAKER_00 49:58

Yeah, it's such a unique uh person-to-person thing, you know. I think everyone has uh their own journey, and there are so many tools out there now that uh maybe right for for everyone. So I think the first thing is to recognize that you do need to look inward, and that there is a journey to take. And um personally, I think you we've mentioned the gene keys, that's how we found each other. I think gene keys is an incredible system, it's a beautiful uh well of teaching and a mystery school that I think anyone can dive into and really just get you know so much that's of benefit, and then also start meeting people who can maybe open them up to other uh modalities and things. Uh you know, basic meditation is ancient for a very good reason, you know, mindfulness practice um so important. You know, I think that thing of really starting to recognize the different aspects of the self, you know, like I can recognize the difference in my thoughts and my awareness between my thoughts and my feelings, and my awareness and my feelings, and really learn to know oneself. I mean, that basic Greek thing, know yourself, like on the Temple of Delphi is absolutely still the crux of it. We are each dimensions of experience to ourselves, we are each universes, and to really start to spend time and attention to grow our field of awareness of who and what we are is crucial. So, yeah, basic sitting meditation of any sort important should be done. The the mindfulness practice for me is always, you know, I think getting into the habit of changing our habits is the most important skill to acquire because we all pick up and inherit a lot of terrible habits that are very self-destructive and a lot of patterns that aren't productive. And just getting used to having flexibility in oneself to be able to say, I know I'm not perfect, that's totally cool. I know I'm not always right, that's totally cool. Let's embrace the imperfection, let's embrace the not uh knowing, and get good at rehabituating ourselves. So, whatever that habit of thought is that I keep coming back to, if I can, every time that I do that, just become aware of it, then I can shift that, I can rehabituate it. And that thing of changing habits for me is actually the biggest of all important things, and that's habits of thoughts, habit of action, habit of feeling, habit of perspective. Um yeah, and uh then for me, psychedelics have been a huge part of my journey. Um, they have been, and uh I do very cautiously recommend them to people because one has to understand that plants themselves are divine consciousnesses and uh fungi as well, and um how one relates to them is key. How one relates to them and how one relates to oneself is key. Um, you know, one can look at these things as just experiences and they can just be experiences and they can be terrible experiences, they can be amazing experiences, or one can look at it as a mutual um partner in growth, you know. So to one take whatever's been experienced and integrate it and to understand that this has been shown into a reason or becoming aware of this for a reason. How do I work with this? How does this improve me as a being affecting the world? For me is the way to approach it. One has to realize that for the plants, they also they can make a better world by making better humans. And um they are coming to us partly for that reason, because that is their way of helping heal the world, is to heal us and to honor one that they have incredible power, and whatever they give us, you need to be received with gratitude and respect and integrated and used, or self-improvement and or improvement in relationship. Because also with um the whole self-improvement, development, awakening complex, it has is lost if it's isolated, if it's if one thinks it's that it's about personal growth and one's missing the point. We exist in relationship. The ideal for me in terms of life is how do we master relationship with life, with every aspect of life, every aspect, every encounter, everything we do, every action, every thought, it all has an effect in the whole. So really it's about learning how to relate well with the whole and relate well to ourselves is part of that and is key. So, you know, also that thing of learning how I mean, a basic practice of how do we improve our relationships, you know, how do I speak to people in a way that uh you know feels better for them, you know, just really learning and being mindful of you know that every every interaction is an interaction with all life, is for all whole will have you know effects forever. Is for me a key mindfulness practice, you know, and getting really practicing in our relationships, how can I be better with the other? And how can I uh receive the other better? You know, because also you know, whether we impinge on ourselves or whether we impinge on the other, neither is good. We've got to find a place where we meet people where it's for our good and for their good, and there's lots of ways to sabotage that in both directions. So, you know, life itself, I think in every moment is the um the practice field.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

I'm wondering how do you personally like maintain like the distance between these tools yet also like emerge into it? Like sometimes what I find myself is like whenever I'm facing a problem, what I instantly do is I instantly delve into like the jinkeys and try to like my mind gets fixated on trying to find the solution inside of these different modalities. So, how how do you maintain that boundary?

SPEAKER_00 55:25

Okay, interesting example because um look, I don't think um any solution can be found within anything. Life itself plays out and reveal it reveals what needs to be seen. So it's it's sort of a for me, I always approach it with an open question. That's the contemplation method, I guess, in the gene keys that um we put out a seed of questioning. Uh, you know, I want to see something, and life reveals it more and more and more. And the gene keys, I think, are an incredible mirror to help see what life is showing more clearly. So it is it's a great place to turn to to say, okay, look, this is going on. Is this because of my shadow? Um, or what what is happening here? Is there a shadow at play? How do I see it? Um, and I think, yeah, as I say, it's a great place to support our seeing, but it's an ongoing revelation. And the for me, my evolution key is the city of wisdom. It's all about not knowing. And I always did want to figure out and have the answer when I was younger, that was key. At this point, I've let go of the needing to know. I know that life will unfold and it'll show me what I need to see to play my part, but also that it's just an unfolding. So if there is no answer, there you know, there is just an ongoing journey and experience. And if we need to better understand how to approach something, then if we do that, if we come at it with an open heart, that in time the way will reveal itself, or the thing in ourselves will need to change or reveal itself. That's the hero's journey kind of versus a new archetype perspective, because I know whatever is occurring in my life is always pushing me towards seeing something myself to grow, or to having a service within the field of what's unfolding, or usually both. And my real question in everything I experience is what is my role here in securing the greatest outcome? How can it? How is what I'm experiencing in this moment the best possible thing? Or how is the potential, how does it present the potential, or the best possible thing to emerge, and how can I serve the emergence of that potential? Because if you do believe in a good, all good, uh, all-knowing, all powerful God, and the problem of evil is that basically not a single thing ever can happen that is not for the greatest good. That's the the real bar of the problem of evil. That whatever happens has to possibly serve the greatest thing possible. That is that is what it is. Because the if God is all good, it will want the greatest thing, if it's all powerful, it can achieve the greatest thing, and if it's all knowing, it will know how to and will know of everything relevant, etc. So it has to be. That's how strong the problem of evil is. You have to allow that everything is for the greatest good. So my practice is basically to sit in every experience and try and discern and make what that could be and allow myself to be a conduit for that to happen. And for me, the only way to do that is to get the ego out of the mind and allow for whatever wants to emerge to emerge from all sides in the experience.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

So ultimately, we really need to like quiet down that mind and what does the mind play as a role then? Is it just an observer?

SPEAKER_00 58:40

Haha. Also, a very good question. I don't think I have a definite answer there. You know, it's definitely a commentator. I mean, it it you know chat is non-stop about everything that you already know is happening. Um, I think it's a a field for communication. I think um you know the mind is the thing that lets us um communicate also across time. I think it's uh something to do with our relationship to time, because it is the case that when we think of the past, some part of ourselves is with that experience in the past. When we project ourselves into the future, some part of ourselves is quantumly dialing into a potential future. That you know, if we keep going there, if we keep going, if we keep energizing, it could be. That's a lot of the manifestation stuff. That if we bring our energy and focus to a future point or to something that's not there, we can bring it in. And I think the mind allows us to do that thing of separating ourselves from the Nile and challenging uh and moving from past to future. And I think that yeah, again, something to do with communication, that it's uh somehow processing and uh giving us a conceptual uh layer to reality. And you know, many esoteric um traditions say they're thought forms, that uh the mind is dialing into like a mental field in which you know those ideas have substance of one sort or another. So those are kind of my thoughts in the mind. I don't think I'll ever have an exact answer for what the mind is.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:06

Yeah. I mean it seems like the human mind is so unique in a way where we're able to be self-aware and we're also be like able to be self-aware that we're self-aware, and then it's like we can go in like meta levels of self-awareness. So I'm just wondering, just closing off with everything where do you see yourself in the next two, three, five years and what are you most excited about?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:38

Well, I am about to and have already begun an adventure or I don't want to call it an adventure, a journey towards um creating a independent film ecosystem that is uh organic and mutually supportive in which filmmakers can connect with funders, etc., who want to support their voice. And um I do trust that over the next uh five years or so that we can that that will happen. And um then ideally that would allow me to start um recruiting build-in teams of people here in South Africa who can tell local stories, which I do in the old system, so to speak, uh, for the National Film and Video Foundation, but it's done very poorly and you know it it's not really sustainable personally as a livelihood, and in terms of what we actually accomplish, it's just a fraction of what could be accomplished. So in some ways I just like to be doing what I do do in a much better ecosystem and getting to tell my stories in the way I'd like to and empowering other storytellers to tell their stories in the way they'd like to and yeah, create a much better storytelling world. That's certainly my key journey.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

Super exciting. Well, Gavin, it was awesome to have you here on Awakened Diaries. Really appreciate you hopping on and wishing you all the best.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:55

Thank you so much, Bosco, and it's an absolute pleasure to meet you and uh I look forward to following your podcast. It is you've got a real gift for um listening and receiving uh great intelligence. And I really uh I really appreciate getting uh the perspective of younger people coming through. It's really beautiful to see where you guys are at so young. Thank you.