Exploring Escapism, Ether, and the Human Experience

Picture this: you're strapped in, ready to embark on an intriguing exploration into the human experience and our incessant search for escape.

Our roadmap? Two classics of the silver screen, 'Half Baked' and 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,' serve as our guides to delve into the idea of escapism, the transformation into a 'beast' to diminish human suffering, and the big question - is there really a way out?

This episode takes you on a journey, examining life from various perspectives. Drawing from a personal narrative as our compass, we navigate the critical role of conscious decision-making and the responsibility it entails. We transition into the essence of time, the quest for a meaningful life, and the cycle of disappointment and frustration that restrains us.

The power to create the life we desire is in our hands, and it's time to wield it.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on what you want to create and what's been stopping you. All aboard for this thought-provoking expedition!

Watch the full video episode at Justin Wenck, Ph.D. YouTube Channel!

Check out my best-selling book "Engineered to Love: Going Beyond Success to Fulfillment" also available on Audiobook on all streaming platforms! Go to https://www.engineeredtolove.com/ to learn more!

Got a question or comment about the show? E-mail me at podcast@justinwenck.com.

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Transcript

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 0:03

Tod ay I'm talking about the challenge of living life as a human on this planet. Is there ever any respite? Is there ever any break, a pause, just a? Well, it's vacation time. You can get back to all of your challenges of being on this earth, doing your human things on the second Tuesday after this week. Is there any of that? Or is it just never ending until one day, as Shakespeare and Hamlet like to say, we shuffle off this mortal coil?

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 0:40

I was even talking to a friend just earlier today and she was asking the same thing of like oh, can I ever just get a break, get a pause, just in all this craziness that I'd just have to live? And I sometimes wonder that myself. And it's so interesting sometimes when we hear our own thoughts reflected back by somebody else. It really allowed me to go like well, boy, she's choosing all this quote unquote craziness that happens to her. I'm able to see it from my perspective, yet she can't. And then I'm wondering well, can I see it from my perspective? So we're going to dive into that, but first a little fun. That's also very much related to this topic.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 1:26

Do you know what one of the movies I've seen the most in my entire life is? No, it's. I don't know. I thought you might go. Oh, of course it's going to be this one, justin, I don't know what somebody would think it's like my most go-to movie that you think that I have seen. Yet I have two movies that I saw, a lot of that were very out of character, considering I was very, very boring throughout high school. It's two of my favorite movies. I had other favorite movies, but they were probably most out of character.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 2:00

You'd be like what the fuck is this guy into that movie? One, dave Chappelle's I believe, was 1997, half baked, which had based on the whole theme was they just smoke weed and one of their friends goes to get munchies and gets arrested and put in jail for killing a horse, not violently but by overfeeding him too many munchies. He's just like oh, you're such a beautiful horse, oh, do you want some? Do you want some funyons? Oh, oh yeah, I love buttered stuff. His name is Buttercup, buttered nuts, Buttercup. Anyway, as a favorite movie, dave Chappelle classic, I never I didn't smoke weed. I never smoked weed in high school, never, ever. But I really love that.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 2:48

Then the other movie is 1998's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas about Hunter S Thompson, directed by Terry Gilliam, benicio Del Toro and starring as Hunter S Thompson. What's the guy's name? Man, I know the guy's name. He's a famous guy, the Amber Heard's boyfriend. See, sometimes I do that where it's like I remember sporty spices. No, not sporty spice, posh spices, husband. They had to play soccer. Ah, beckham, yeah, it's always easier to remember posh spice as the spice girls was a lot of fun, also in that late 90s era. Yet, man, what is the guy's name?

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 3:34

He's in all sorts of movies Drag me to hell. The pirates of the Caribbean Boy. See, this is why I just should not be doing things about movies and whatnot. And that, oh, johnny Depp. Yeah, johnny Depp plays the lead character and the movie starts with a quote that is very much related to this can you get a break?

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 3:59

Can you get a break in life, or do the challenges just keep on coming? Because this quote attributed to Dr Johnson who I just looked up before doing this, was a writer in, I think, the late 1700s, early 1800s. The quote attributed to Samuel Johnson is he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man. And, due to the era, man doesn't just mean penis havers, this is human, all humans, even womans, and not just man-mans but womans and all humans. But just the pain of being a human, just the struggle, the stress, the trying to overcome our base urges of just wanting to eat and fuck and sleep and just be safe and kill anything that threatens us, and just are we destined to have fear, worry and all this other horrible stuff. And in this quote that starts out this fear and loathing in Las Vegas, which I'm gonna read a quote to you which if you haven't seen it, haven't heard of it, don't know nothing about it. It's late 60s, early 70s, all about drug counterculture and basically how it's kind of promised a way out but really there was no way out. And one of my favorite lines is he starts talking about what's in the car. Right, is there on their way out to Las Vegas from Los Angeles to do something. And they open up and they show what's in the trunk of their car and Raoul Duke, who is like the avatar or something of Hunter S Thompson played by. Again I found my man, the pirates of the Caribbean. Yo, whoa, whoa, that guy he goes.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 5:57

We had two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered botter, acid salt shaker, half full of cocaine, whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers. Also a quart of tequila, quart of rum, case of beer, pint of raw ether and two dozen Amels. Now that we needed all that for the trip. But once you got locked into a serious drug collection, tensey is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There's nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 6:38

But really, it's just, it's a trunk full of ways to become a beast, to get rid of the pain of being a human being, right? And so is that really an escape from that pain? Because I think I often thought of like, hey, this is the way to take the break, right? You know you just something just take a pause, just get out, just take a break, and it can just go away. And there's just like the drug culture. I think our entertainment culture, our distraction culture, has sent us down this false road of that. Yeah, you know, in a little bit, in the future, things are gonna be better. So you just bide your time, chill out, take a break, go on a little ride, don't be here, come back later, everything's gonna be fine, everything's gonna be better.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 7:32

Yeah, really, it doesn't work that way. All it really is doing is it's postponing the inevitable, the return to being here, to being a human, having this experience and working through whatever that pain is and ultimately trying to realize that that pain that you feel is coming from out there. It's not coming from out there, it's internally created. That was the big aha I had. When my friend said I just wanna pause, I just wanna break. I was like, oh fuck, I've often been like I just wanna break, I just wanna pause.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 8:06

Just working for the weekend, or wait until five o'clock, take a little break and then next week's gonna be better, next week's gonna be better. That's when they're gonna release the financial info, that's when they're gonna talk about the raise, that's when they're gonna talk about the plumb assignment for work, that's when the fun events gonna be coming up. That's when vacation is, that's when the next thing, the next thing, the next thing and the thing is the thing comes, and it's always just a little disappointing a little bit. Not what you expected, not quite the answer, because the answer really is not out there. The answer is as it always has been, is and always will be. The answer is within.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 8:47

The break comes when you realize that all of this bullshit has been put upon you by none other than and you're not going to say, in fact, my friend. She said I can't believe this. It would just be too awful, too horrible to put this on other people that have it worse than I. What you are proposing, which all the great enlightened ones, and all the ones that truly do master and are not looking for a break from anything. They are riding the wave in flow, in control, being masters of their destination, while being in flow with what is presented to them. And this fact is the fact that it's all your own creation and you're like what is that? Does that even make any sense? It really is, because let me step back a little bit so there really is nothing that happens to you that is, and there's some stuff that's going to be harder to argue. So let's not go to true, true, true, horribles, but let's just go for typical things that happen to typical people, for example, having to negotiate with somebody when purchasing an item.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 10:14

So this past weekend I went to a couple of street fairs. It was very interesting. I went to two very different street fairs. One was a very family friendly one and the other was basically, I said, leave the family at home. But they all sell goods and things like that where you can bargain and whatnot, and I have traditionally not been a fan of needing to negotiate, bargain all that sort of things, and I just get up, I get frustrated, I'm like, oh, that person's going to be upset if I want to pay less, whereas other people, they love the game, they love the bargain they're like, yes, I want to get a bargain, I want to get the lowest price possible. And they know that the other person's in the game too.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 10:54

And it's not personal, it's just all part of how this is done, and so really, how one comes to this is all based off of one's attachment of the meaning on the act itself. And so anytime we're having a situation where it's like, oh, when can this be over? One experience that you may be like, when can this be over? It could be the heaven of somebody else, the exact same experience. And so anytime you're experiencing something that you don't like, you don't like it because you don't like it, not because there's necessarily something inherently bad about it, because think of everything that's happened to you up to this point that's allowed you to get to a point where you can listen to me spout this nonsense, which could be some of the most wisest things that you've ever heard, or it could just be completely neutral.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 11:50

It really is up to you how you take what I'm saying, but the point is you're able to listen to something that I'm recording, know where you are and you're able to get this. Listen to this. You have the luxury to listen to this podcast right now, which I do. Thank you for. Remember to like, subscribe, tell your friends, rate five stars. It really does help out. Really much appreciated.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 12:10

You have the luxury of listening to this and what you think about it is based off of what do you want to think about it or what have you subconsciously decided to think about things similar to what I'm saying now, because there's a good chance that someone's saying that there is nothing inherently good or bad about an experience, but the meaning that we attach to it, that, oh, that's a horrible thing.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 12:36

Because my friend was going when I said that all of this experience that you're dreading. You're creating this, you're signing up for each disappointment, each frustration, each annoyance, each challenge. I didn't tell her all of that. I've told her that before, but she knew that's where I was going, so I really didn't have to. I just had to allude to that. Hey, you're the creator of your world, and it's not in this like super, but it really is more in how we attach the meaning to it is what creates how we feel about it. For example, if you're in line waiting to check out and you're behind somebody that all of a sudden they have a big issue, they're like, oh, I'm fine.

Speaker 2: 13:28

It's coupon Tuesday and I have double coupons and I would like to use well, I know that I've got the bounty coupon, but the brawny is the thicker picker upper, but I still feel a paper towel is a paper towel.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 13:45

And they just start getting into it and it's really weird that the person's talking like that, because it's a 26-year-old bodybuilding type person that looks like a young the rock to Wayne Johnson. It's just you're confused at first, like why do they?

Speaker 2: 14:01

sound like that when they're yoked and they've got muscles rippling all out of there. I've got to get to the gym with my brownie thicker picker upper so that I can go bench 285 pounds a few times as I'm going for a personal record, so it gets really weird.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 14:19

But despite you could get frustrated or you could go hey, this has taken longer, let me notice what's going on. Let me look at what's happening and maybe you notice that, oh, the candy, there's different candy. Oh, the seasons are changing, halloween's coming up, whatever it is. Or you can get frustrated and angry and just be in a puff and have your blood pressure go up. The choice is yours. When you become conscious of it. When you become conscious of it. If you're not conscious, then your subconscious hijacks you and takes you along, whatever ride you've been. So if you're someone like me that grew up with seeing the reaction that things are supposed to go a certain way and if not, we get angry, frustrated, mad about that, that's what I took on and I've been working, getting better and better at going to this. Well, let's take some breaths, let's see what the other perspective is, and so I'm really really good at having other perspectives. Why I'm such a powerful, amazing, phenomenal coach and why I get the results I get as quickly and as amazingly as I do, is because I've had to overcome so many of these pre-programmed, indoctrinated. There is only one way type of perspectives, and to get out of that has required me to see multiple other perspectives of my life that I'm also able to use for other people's lives, which was also a necessary skill to deal with people that thought things had to be a certain way. I had to be able to see what they see so that I could ensure that they will only end up seeing something that won't get them angry at me and that might make sense or it might not make sense, but it's starting to make a lot more sense and be easy to see. That you, by the way you see things and there's always another way to see things can see things in a way that is of more benefit to you when you are aware and you are conscious of it. And going back to this quote of he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man, gets rid of that ability to be conscious and aware of what is going on and being able to make that choice of how would they like it to be. It's always amazing how easy it is for people to know what they don't want. But if I go, how would you like it to be? It's shit, shit, this is shit, it's shit. It's like, yeah, sure, what would you rather have. And they can't even say like I'd rather be standing on carpet or tile or wood floor or sandy beach, all it's just shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 17:03

And you can get when that's all. You see, you're just like a fuck it, I want out. I just want to like can we just pretend this isn't shit, like maybe that can just not smell shit for three minutes. Let's put a little perfume and It'll be okay. But it's really not okay. You're just.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 17:19

You're just not able to tell you're you're standing in shit anymore. You know, maybe, maybe you're you're like, tell me about the fucking golf shoes and you get some golf shoes and so you're not sliding. But Do you really want golf shoes so that you don't slip in the shit that you just keep focusing on? And because you focus on that, that's what you keep getting more of. Or you want to go like you know what I could go for? Some like Nice vulcanized rubber, like matting, like they got at the gym, you know. So it's like it's springy, it's grippy, it's like it's gonna be really hard for me to fall. I can like run, I can jump and if I do fall it's not gonna hurt me and I can spring back and I can do stuff. I'm gonna be like a fucking superhero, like Dwayne the rock Johnson and I've got my bounty.

Speaker 2: 18:03

The thicker picker uppercase is Phenomenal and I'm the biggest superhero in the world.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 18:11

And I realized I think I totally did a different voice for my mock, dwayne the rock Johnson, and that's, that's unfortunate. I'm not a professional voice actor, although I would love to be. So if you have any Possible jobs I would, I would love to. You know, do the dabble I feel like I could do. You know a Pixar movie? For sure I do. I do voices, I do really. I have like a fun squirrel one that's. Sometimes I mess around with that one, which is really cool.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 18:39

But you know you can create whatever you want, however you want it, if you're aware of what you want and that what's happening is not what you want. It's. It's complicated, but it's actually really, really simple. A lot of times we think the life is very complicated and it's actually very, very, very simple. Simple does not mean easy. Simple does not mean that it's straightforward to do Consistently without some assistance or without some effort. It doesn't mean that it has to be hard and it doesn't mean that you have to be perfect all the time. So it's not one of these things.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 19:15

I'm not saying that, hey, man, if you're gonna, like you know, go like smoke a pack of cigarettes and and drink, drink some booze or whatever, or go watch Netflix and chill. That that's that. You're fucking up, you're doing it wrong. You're You're not taking your responsibility. It's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying Be clear about what it is that you're. You're taking a time out and you're You're not getting rid of any of the pain of your existence. It's there, you're just putting it on pause. You're just utilizing the time that you could actually be using it to solve it, and by solving it, I mean changing that perspective and having that awareness that, oh, this is happening because I'm allowing in this to choose this in Some, in some way and you know this is going back to one of the chief complaints that my friend was was having was, like you know, somebody in an impoverished nation eating like shoe leather for dinner.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 20:20

Like you can't say that they're choosing, that you can't Bullshit. I can say that Now, again, they might not be, they might not have. There's a lot that maybe they didn't choose. But at some point we each get to a point where we start being able to make conscious choices, having awareness and having autonomy and sovereignty. And there's always people that exercise that and change their circumstances in dramatic ways.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 20:52

And again, I'm not saying that it's easy. I'm not saying that we should use that as an excuse to allow society, culture or whatever to just do shitty things to people because it's their choice, it's their fault, it's like no, no, no, we can do both. We can structure a society, a culture, a politics, if you will, that it intends to allow people the greatest possibility to transcend the struggles of sort of you know, we all have our animal nature right, so that we should have that. Yet also be aware that you know, sometimes people go and do what they want to do, and sometimes people want to just go fuck it. I just want to make bad decisions, and we allow that. And so we can have both things. It doesn't have to be one or the other, it can be both things can be true, we can have two simultaneous things.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 21:53

There's, you know, what should be done at the macro scale, and then there's what's on the individual level, and at the individual level and in some ways it doesn't really even that nobody else matters in your life except you, and what you choose dictates what happens to anything and everything that comes into your existence. If you have nothing but angry people, you're somehow having allowing angry people into your life and you can choose to modify that. These chances are if you just come up with everybody, no matter how they come at you, with like love and things like that, again, don't be an idiot. You know, don't be a fucking idiot. And just like somebody's coming at you with a, with a gun or a weapon or something, and like I'm going to hug you, like, or you run, run away or punch them and then you know, call it, you know, get, get some help for the person. Whatever, you know, there's skillful ways to be loving. So yeah, I'm not saying it's easy, yet it gives you something called a chance when you recognize that you're responsible and you might not be able to change everything about your life overnight, but you can always change your perspective in an instant and go boy, what was my part in this? How did I view this? How did I respond and how could I be a little bit more skillful, especially based off of how would you like things to go?

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 23:34

Because I look and I'm like man, there's some difficult people. What kind of people do I want? Oh, I want people are like really easy going, like people are. It's like we just, we just want to help and support each other. And then I look like oh well, who am I putting the effort into? Oh well, the super easy going people I don't put much effort into, but the people who are pains in my ass. I argue, or I try to convince, or I try to change or try to get them to do this or that and the other thing, and then like, why am I surprised that I have difficult people in my life when that's where I'm putting all my energy? So again, it's really. You know, it's simple. Yet simple does not mean easy, and it gets a lot easier when you bring other people in to help to offer that perspective, to offer that support, to help augment that. And there's lots of people out there, and so you know, I know I'm phenomenal at what I do, but there's also lots of other great people.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 24:33

And the thing that's, I think, the most important is time. Time is the most important thing, because that's the when you make a beast of yourself just to get rid of the pain of being alive, you've just, you've just wasted that time. And if you're, if you're aware that, hey, I'm having a good time and you had a good time, be grateful for it and enjoy it. But if you thought that was actually going to solve your problem, you're probably going to keep running up to the issue that you disappointed and you're frustrated and then maybe get down on yourself that oh, I fucked up again and that's not helping anything. It just perpetuates that cycle. So it's all about getting out of that step and out of that, seeing things for what they really are and then going okay, that's how they are, how, that's how it is, how do I want it to be? What's what do you want to put on that canvas? Cause there's a number of really famous, beautiful paintings where they're able to then do like I don't know. They do like X-ray or something where, where you know, they look below and underneath. You know this multimillion dollar work of art masterpiece. There was another master, you know another piece of art that was there. It was, you know, pretty damn good, but the artist was like I want something better. I want something better for this work of art.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 25:58

Your life is like a work of art, as horrible, as bland or as fantastic it is, and you are the artist. What do you want to put on that canvas? That is your life and you can always step away, but your inks, your paints, your whatever. They're out there and they got a limited shelf life, and if you're not painting with them, they're just there. They don't care. You don't know how much time you got to paint with, but at some point the paint's going to dry up and your work of art will be done, and whatever you've left is what you will have left.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 26:35

So my question to you is what is it that you want to draw? What is it that you want to create? Let me know. Podcast at JustinWinkcom JustinWinkPhD. On TikTok, instagram, facebook, linkedin. Come find me.

Justin Wenck, Ph.D.: 26:51

Let me know what is it you want to create and what's been holding you back. Why haven't you created it? Why not? Are you just taking breaks, waiting for somebody else to do it? They're not coming. There's no help. There is, but you got to be the initiator. When you say I'm ready, the help is. There. Plenty of people out here to help, because the thing is is that all of those of us that have gotten someplace that we weren't before, we got lots of help, and we know that the way the world works is the more you give, the more you get. But you got to allow for the flow. You got to allow for the giving and the getting, the giving and the getting, giving and the getting. So with that, thank you for indulging me on a little trip back to memory lane of Justin's favorite high school drug movies, when he didn't even do drugs in high school at all because he was so afraid of doing anything wrong. And yeah, with that I thank you and good day.