The Mindful Activist Episode 6 – Jack Cooley and this wacky world
[Mushroom Skies by Free Range OverGround plays]
Matt Ready: [00:00:12] All right. Hey, out there on our various cameras, Facebook Live, our awesome audience of four people! This is The Mindful Activist—a podcast. This is episode six. My name is Matt Ready. I’m the host. My guest today is Jack Cooley III.
Jack Cooley: It’s true.
Matt Ready: I am an activist, the founder of the Global Consensus Project, the developer of thehive1.net software, also an elected politician here in Jefferson County, I am an elected Hospital Commissioner. So yeah, we’re going to jump into it and we’re going to go an hour and then there might be, if we want to talk —
Jack Cooley: Sure!
Matt Ready: — the official show will be an hour and we can keep going for a little bit after if you want. So, as so as I said, joined today by Jack Cooley III, a good friend of mine for… How many years now?
Jack Cooley: I guess it’s been about eight years?
Matt Ready: Really? That long?
Jack Cooley: [Laughs]
Matt Ready: Eight years! Jeez! Wow! We work together at the local hospital in various ways, in different departments.
Jack Cooley: Yep.
Matt Ready: But how would you like to introduce yourself to this vast audience.
Jack Cooley: Oh, man! Okay. Well, I’m Jack. I’m a ne’er-do-well rapscallion and general layabout. I perform, I drift, you know, I’m going back and forth between calling myself a willfully unemployed and semi-retired. I haven’t decided which one I like better but…
Matt Ready: Okay. So let’s see. A ne’er-do-well, I mean, what’s a ne’er-do-well?
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Rapscallion… There were several things in there that —
Jack Cooley: I do things that generally… what’s a good way to put it? I’m not a rule follower or a person who does what’s expected.
Matt Ready: Not a rule follower or someone who does what’s expected. Okay.
Jack Cooley: Does that sound accurate to you?
Matt Ready: Uh, yes.
Jack Cooley: [Laughs].
Matt Ready: I would definitely say that is my experience. So you’re saying you like authority being held over you.
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: Yeah, I’m a real Trump guy.
Matt Ready: [Laughs].
Jack Cooley: No. I’m not a fan of any sort of authoritarianism. I don’t think that — for some people, that makes a lot of sense. Some people really need to be directed on what they should be doing and how they should think, and that’s just not really my jam.
Jack Cooley: Okay. All right. Well, before I get into the standard line of questioning that [unclear 00:03:17] I remembered one technical thing I need to do, so I’m going to do that, which I need to reach back here and hit record on that.
Jack Cooley: And what is this?
Matt Ready: So this is the… this is actually the Zoom software. It’s a live video conference software. So technically 50 people could join right now —
Jack Cooley: We could just have drop-ins right behind us. Okay.
Matt Ready: Yes. We could.
Jack Cooley: I like that.
Matt Ready: But the only way they would do that is if they actually had the link to the Zoom, and so I’m going to post that also right now on Facebook, in case any crazy person wants to do that. All these little technical details!
[Matt sets up the equipment]Jack Cooley: You know, if you had some sort of like teenage producer, they could be doing that for you.
Matt Ready: Indeed! Indeed!
[Laughter]Matt Ready: If I had a…
Jack Cooley: Like an intern of some sort.
Matt Ready: …an intern or an apprentice of some sort, that would be very helpful. Maybe something like that will happen.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Hint, hint! Okay. So let’s go into the standard question.
Jack Cooley: Okay.
Matt Ready: Do you consider yourself an activist?
Jack Cooley: No. Short answer. No. I’m not sure that I could give a long answer, even. I don’t consider myself an activist.
Matt Ready: So what — so when you’re saying, “No,” what is that you’re thinking of — how is an activist different from you?
Jack Cooley: I do not try to affect change on large or small scales. I do not actively try to change people’s actions or opinions.
Matt Ready: Okay. So do you do you feel like the way the world works, the way power works in the world, the way, you know, when I think of power, I think of the way governments work, you know, in our country and around the world, do you think they’re functioning in a good way?
Jack Cooley: No! Not really. But, you know, I don’t think they ever have [laughs].
Matt Ready: Do you think they could function in a healthier way than they function?
Jack Cooley: That’s a good question. I suppose, theoretically, sure. Practically, maybe not so much just because seven billion people, seven billion different ideas of the way things should be, there’s no one right answer.
Matt Ready: Are there better answers? Are some answers better than others?
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: At the risk of invalidating someone else’s opinion, I would say that, sure! For any one person there is an answer that is right.
Matt Ready: But you don’t personally feel drawn to try to affect how power works in the world on the big scale.
Jack Cooley: No. Not particularly.
Matt Ready: Are you affected — do you have significant sort of power dynamics that work on the small scale in your individual life, in any frame, whether it’s professional, or work, or community, or anything like that?
Jack Cooley: I suppose. I don’t think I fully understand what you’re asking.
Matt Ready: Like… Well, why don’t we go to my second line of questioning and it sort of goes [unclear 00:07:06] this —
Jack Cooley: Sure!
Matt Ready: — which is, how are you in power struggles? Do you often find yourself in any sort of power struggle where anyone is trying particularly to exercise power over you?
Jack Cooley: I don’t often find myself in power-struggle type situations. I react differently to different situations, as does everybody else. Everybody likes to think that they’ll behave a certain way in the future when something happens, but between the three options of fight, flight, or freeze, you never know how you will react until you’re actually in a moment. There have been situations where I’ve been very quiet and allowed things to happen that I could have stepped in and stopped; there’ve been situations that became unnecessarily violent. Things [may] happen.
Matt Ready: Okay. Interesting. So it sounds like you’ve got a few different stories.
Jack Cooley: And we probably don’t want to share too many of them.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: You’ve had a colorful life.
Jack Cooley: I have…
Matt Ready: [Laughs].
Jack Cooley: …had a colorful life. It’s true.
Matt Ready: Well, what if someone was raising their voice to you in… is it —
[Matt and Jack look at each other for a moment] [Laughter]Jack Cooley: I’m amused because I — knowing you the way I do, you like these hypothetical situations.
Matt Ready: [Laughs]. I like real situations too. I like real stories.
Jack Cooley: Sure. You know, it’s all dependent on the situation. Sometimes it’s really easy to let somebody just blow off steam and it’s like, “Okay. Well, you feel like you need to be loud and assertive right now, and I’m going to let that happen.” If there’s not an immediate danger posed, then, you know, let somebody vent. That’s fine.
Matt Ready: Does it trigger emotions if someone’s getting loud like that, particularly towards you in your presence? I mean, I personally — I’m usually emotionally triggered [when I’m with a…], you know, someone complained about me using that work but, you know.
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: Well, it’s a mimetic phrase these days [triggered]. Well, yeah. I mean, everything triggers emotions, whether it’s somebody being loud or somebody whispering in your ear. It changes the chemicals in your brain and stuff happens.
Matt Ready: So is it an effective strategy, if we want Jack Cooley to do something, for us to raise our voice and say…
Jack Cooley: No! An effective strategy is to encourage me not to do it.
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: Tell me I’m not allowed! —
Matt Ready: Reverse psychology.
Jack Cooley: — And I’m like, “Well, fuck you!”
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: I’m kind of like perpetually 17 years old in that sense [laughs]. If you tell me I’m not allowed to do something, I’m very likely to do it.
[00:10:06] [Banging sounds outside]Jack Cooley: Wind’s blowing.
Matt Ready: Yeah. The wind is blowing everywhere. So that must frustrate people that like to exercise power around you.
Jack Cooley: Yeah. I’m kind of a dick like that.
Matt Ready: Yeah.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: I see.
Jack Cooley: That might be why people stop asking me to do things at work, actually.
Matt Ready: [Laughs]. Did that happen?
Jack Cooley: Oh, overtime, sure! But, you know, it’s — I’m also quick to share my opinions and point out when people have been repeatedly wrong about something and encouraging us to stop listening to them [laughs].
Matt Ready: All right. Well, I’ve exhausted the two questions —
Jack Cooley: Okay.
Matt Ready: — that I ask people.
Jack Cooley: We’re all out of questions. It’s been a great show!
Matt Ready: [Laughs].
Jack Cooley: Thank you all for coming. How many do we have now?
Matt Ready: I think there was a comment by Rosanna: “If he’s not drawn to create change, what is he drawn to?” What the heck do you care [about]?
Jack Cooley: Oh! What am I drawn to?
Matt Ready: Oh! And, “How do you feel afterward when you did not step in and could have?” So she actually listened to your [other answers].
Jack Cooley: Oh! Sure! How I felt afterwards? I don’t know. I mean, you go through a myriad of emotions. I don’t really dwell in…
Matt Ready: You need to scoot a little closer. Facebook can’t see your whole body.
Jack Cooley: Well, it’s more comfortable over here. There’s something to lean on!
Jack Cooley: [Laughs]. Yes.
Matt Ready: It’s weird if I lean on you.
Matt Ready: Well, we can adjust all the cameras.
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: For not stepping into situations, yeah, I’m not — I don’t really feel any regret over not doing anything. Sometimes things happen.
Matt Ready: Well, what kind of — I mean, I would think it depends on the kind of situation. If it’s, you know, if you’re like near a bar or something and two guys, you know, start to go at it —
Jack Cooley: Sure! I’ve sat back and enjoyed watching two idiots beat each other up! That’s what [laughs] –
Matt Ready: Yeah. You feel no regret…
Jack Cooley: You can’t feel bad about that!
[Laughter]Matt Ready: … allowing…
Jack Cooley: Jackasses were going to do it anyway [laughs].
Matt Ready: Yeah. It’s different if somebody weaker or vulnerable is —
Jack Cooley: Sure! Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Matt Ready: — getting hurt, you know? You wouldn’t stand by and allow that, unless you were a really —
Jack Cooley: Oh, I think like in elementary school sort of thing, I probably did.
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: Like self-preservation [laughs] of a very small human. Yeah. Sure! Yeah.
Matt Ready: Okay.
Jack Cooley: What was your other question?
[00:12:35]Matt Ready: The other question was getting at your apathy for being drawn into trying to fix the world in any way.
Jack Cooley: Ah!
Matt Ready: I don’t know if a lot of people — I have a lot of friends who are kind of apathetic about the world and so I think some of the activist community might be curious what these apathetic people are doing on an activist podcast.
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: That’s true. You know? I’m not an activist, so why am I sitting on this couch? sort of question. Sure! And which I don’t really know how to answer. Some people are Philistines and don’t understand why art is created, and they have absolutely no interest in it but, you know, we don’t berate them for not writing, or painting, or sculpting.[Laughs].
Matt Ready: Sure, sure! So you don’t see it as part of your life’s purpose to, on any large-scale, affect the world [or is that 00:13:41] true. I think there are things I know you’re involved with that are — that, if you completed them and publish them, say, [laughs] you know, they would affect the world in a larger way, but it’s — do you want to talk about anything like that you…?
Jack Cooley: Well, I don’t go into anything with that sort of stated purpose in mind. Like, I don’t do anything because I think it’s going to change the world for better. I do something because it’s a thing I want to do.
Matt Ready: Do you care if it impacts people at all?
Jack Cooley: Not particularly. I don’t want to be the cause of a negative impact on a person but, yeah, I don’t think I’d do anything that would — well, I don’t know. Maybe. Some people have been offended by things that I’ve said and done! [Laughs].
Matt Ready: Some?
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Some on rare occasions, people have been offended by what you said?
Jack Cooley: Sure!
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: It’s been known to happen.
Matt Ready: I’ve heard stories of people coming up to you on the ferry that were just like overhearing conversations between —
Jack Cooley: Yeah! Yeah!
Matt Ready: [Laughs].
Jack Cooley: That did happen!
Matt Ready: Just coming up to you and saying, “You’re a horrible person!”
Jack Cooley: Yeah! There was a whole group of us and I’ll share this with, you know, the four of you.
Matt Ready: [Laughs].
Jack Cooley: We had gone out to dinner—I’m not even sure how many of us there were there, there was five or six of us that had gone out to dinner—and had a few drinks in Seattle. We were riding the ferry back home and we were just being who we are, which tends to be a little loud and we make a lot of jokes. I didn’t recall any of them being, in any way, offensive. We were just, like, making fun of each other and having a good time with it. There’s almost nobody else on the ferry but this one woman just kind of came out of nowhere and she addressed the group of us, and specifically pointed at me —
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: — and said, “You’re all terrible people. You’re an asshole and you should be ashamed of yourself,” and stormed off!
Matt Ready: Wow!
Jack Cooley: Which left us kind of sitting there going, “Well, what did we say?” [Laughs].
[00:15:51]Matt Ready: Matt Ready: Do you think that was maybe a supernatural being that was incarnate in a person and —
Jack Cooley: I sincerely doubt that.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: You don’t think that was a message from, you know, the universe saying, “You’re really a jerk. Maybe you should be different.”
Jack Cooley: You know? If that sort of soft, gentle evening that we were having of making fun of each other in a space where we were all comfortably making fun of each other and had nothing to do with this other person—granted it was in a public place, I understand that, there weren’t any kids around and I don’t think we were saying anything terribly lewd or offensive, so it’s… No, I don’t think that was any sort of divine intervention to try to get me to change who I am.
Matt Ready: Do you ever feel inspired to walk up to a group of people that you don’t know at all and just, like, pass massive judgment on them —
[Laughter]Matt Ready: — and storm away?
Jack Cooley: No! I can’t say I’ve ever felt that desire to pass judgment on people. You know, I internalize my judgments of others like so many other people do.
Matt Ready: And then you blog about them or something?
Jack Cooley: No.
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: No. I make mental notes on how I do and do not wish to present myself to the world [laughs].
Matt Ready: I see.
Jack Cooley: [You know] like you’ve ever driven by like some hate group having a protest outside or something and be like, “Wow! Those guys are dicks! I should not be like that!” [Laughs].
Matt Ready: That’s —
Jack Cooley: Sort of things like that.
Matt Ready: I actually, I- I started thinking sort of that way in college.
Jack Cooley: Yeah.
Matt Ready: I was like — it was when I was starting in the dorms. I was seeing the way, particularly other guys were, the way they were behaving, I was like, “Okay, I do not want to be that.” I remember saying to my friend, it was like revelation to me, this good friend of mine, I just walked up to him one day and said, “I don’t want to be like the people I hate.”
Jack Cooley: Yeah.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: I was just like — he’s like, “That’s goal number one, don’t be like the people that you hate.”
Jack Cooley: No! It’s great! When you reach a point in your life where you can readily recognize a bad example of a human, you’re [going to be] like, “I don’t want to be like that.”
Matt Ready: Yeah. Actually, the first time I had that revelation, you know, we were like — we had a video recorder, a VHS, and we recorded a bunch of, in high school, a bunch of us hanging out, and I was watching it and I was seeing myself in the way I was behaving, and I was like, “Oh my gosh! No! I don’t like that person who I see and I’m hearing!” It’s like, “Oh my gosh! You are so obnoxious!” You know?
Jack Cooley: Yeah.
Matt Ready: That was a rough moment for me, like, I was probably like a freshman hanging out with like, you know, older people.
Jack Cooley: Sure. I remember seeing photographs of myself or oral VHS recordings of myself as a child and going, “God! Look at that! What a fucking brat!
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Yeah.
Jack Cooley: Annoying little kid. I was also the youngest of the youngest select, like we would go to family gatherings and there’s 35 cousins rolling around and they’re all several years older than me, so in that kind of pathetic youngest kid’s cry for attention sort of thing [laughs].
Matt Ready: Yeah. So do you — I’m going to get kind of philosophical here —
Jack Cooley: Okay.
Matt Ready: How do you approach life? Like, do you see it as, like — I can give an example or I can just leave the question like that, you know — what is your attitude towards it? Do you feel you need to accomplish something? Do you feel like it’s a game? Do you feel like it’s absurd and nothing and you just do whatever you want or…?
Matt Ready: I feel like life should be a one long learning experience. You should be constantly learning new things, whether it’s just things about the way things work, the way people behave, things about yourself. I think that… Yeah. Learn often and do things that you’re afraid of doing.
Matt Ready: So that sounds like if they — one lesson right there. One teaching from The Book Of Jack.
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: The Book Of Jack!
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Learn —
Jack Cooley: Oh, that sounds terrible! That’s a book I wouldn’t buy!
[Laughter]Matt Ready: I would skimp through it in the aisle —
[Laughter]Matt Ready: — at the book store.
Jack Cooley: Barnes & Noble!
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: You sit down for a minute and at least read the table of contents and then put it back on the shelf.
Matt Ready: No! I would read your book. I’m publishing a book so any friend of mine that writes a book, I’m going to tell them I’m going to read their book.
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: At least going to tell them —
Matt Ready: Yes.
Jack Cooley: — that I’m going to read their book.
Matt Ready: Absolutely.
Jack Cooley: I like that.
[00:20:33]Matt Ready: Do you have any major lessons about life that are just really central to you? And let’s just say in 1,000 years this video is the only thing that is left.
Jack Cooley: [Laughs].
Matt Ready: It’s the only thing that survives into the millennium, the millennia ahead, and this is what they’re going to hear, this interesting character, Jack, share this — this is what he learnt in life up until this point.
Jack Cooley: [Laughs]. See, this is one of the reasons I wanted to know what you wanted to talk about —
Matt Ready: [Laughs].
Jack Cooley: — because this is a question that I feel deserves a well-crafted and thought-out answer [crosstalk] but you’re just going to put me on the spot [laughs].
Matt Ready: Well, actually, you can — we can have a moment of silence while you like —
Jack Cooley: [Laughs].
Matt Ready: — while you’re on camera, so [it’s a really] well thought-out answer. Well, I can keep talking. I can keep, like, prefacing it and building it up while you compose your answer, if you want. You can he also come back to a later episode and say, “I’m ready for that question now and I want to answer it.” So you could defer.
Jack Cooley: Yeah, let’s defer that to a later day. I’ll send you an email from–
Matt Ready: Okay. From… from, where you’re going.
Jack Cooley: From far far away. Yes.
Matt Ready: Yes. Okay. All right. So since we completely cut off that awesome questions—that was a great question—now I’m demonstrating my amazing interview skills [laughs].
Jack Cooley: So you want to curate questions for each person that you’re going to interview beforehand so you can be like, “Ah, let’s ask this now.”
Matt Ready: That’s the way other people do things.
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: Your formula for success: Fuck it. I don’t need it. Good. I’ll figure this out.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: No! No, this is a mindful conversation so it’s like, all right, so what that was, was I went for the gold, the big question, and you sort of gently, pretty gently, deferred it.
Jack Cooley: [Laughs].
Matt Ready: So…
Jack Cooley: [Mostly] because I know for a fact that I can say things that are garish and come to regret them later, or try to be pithy but it comes out sounding wrong and I would rather, if you’re going to ask me a high-level gold-star question like that, I’d like to have a good response to it. Something that’s well thought out.
Matt Ready: Well, I totally appreciate that. Some people, like my father, who I think I convinced to let me interview him, although I didn’t do it, his big hesitation was he doesn’t want his words recorded. He doesn’t want what he says recorded.
Jack Cooley: Sure.
Matt Ready: There’s just like this really strong anxiety about it being — about him saying something that he regrets and having it later played.
Jack Cooley: Yeah! Yeah! And having it captured forever. It’s actually one of the reasons I prefer email to phone conversations, is because I like to be able to sit down and think about a response, or at least, you know, I like scripted performances too for that purpose. Like, I can deliver a line as it needs to be delivered each time instead of having to come up with something immediately.
Matt Ready: Okay. So I’m going to get philosophical with you —
[Jack looks at the screen behind Matt]Matt Ready: Again, is something happening over here?
Jack Cooley: No. I’m just noticing.
Matt Ready: [Laughs].
[Jack looks at the camera]Jack Cooley: He’s got porn on the laptop!
Matt Ready: [Laughs].
Jack Cooley: It’s distracting, is what it is! [Laughs].
Matt Ready: All right.
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: Oh, Elected Official. That’s fun for me!
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Yes. You just —
Jack Cooley: I always forget that my friend Matt is an Elected Official.
Matt Ready: You triggered the elected official, like, little part of my awareness, you know.
Jack Cooley: Yeah. [Laughs].
Matt Ready: That’s not really what’s going on on my laptop [laughs]. All right. I’m going to go more philosophical.
Jack Cooley: All right.
Matt Ready: Okay.
Jack Cooley: No, go for it. I like it.
[00:24:50]Matt Ready: Okay. So I guess going back to… How seriously do you take life? How seriously do you take this world, the events on Earth?
Jack Cooley: Not terribly. Life is ephemeral. It’s fleeting. It’s over in no time and there aren’t a lot of things I take seriously. I take — I try to take my relationships with people seriously, I try to be a good father, son, brother, friend, husband… That’s probably the one thing I really take seriously, is my relationships with people but, other than that, everything is so cosmically meaningless that it is hard to take it seriously sometimes.
Matt Ready: Do you ever doubt the reality of the world?
Jack Cooley: Sure! Sure! It’s entirely possible that, once you start thinking on large scales like the reality of our existence, it’s highly possible that none of this is real; that we live in a false vacuum or a simulation of some sort. It’s fun to explore that and it’s a nice way to kind of write off why you do things. I can’t say that I believe that it’s not real, you know, if it looks like a duck it quacks like a duck [laughs]. It’s as real as it needs to be for all of us [crosstalk].
Matt Ready: So you’ve thought about that the Simulation Theory —
Jack Cooley: Sure!
Matt Ready: — that this could be not a material world that we’re living in but a simulated like a virtual reality —
Jack Cooley: Sure.
Matt Ready: — same thing. But you don’t see — even if it was, even if you knew right now it was, it would not change a lot in terms of like how you relate to the world and change the meaning of it for you, or the things that are meaningful to you, it wouldn’t change those things terribly.
Jack Cooley: I don’t think it would. Having a harsh reality change happen to you it’s hard to say for sure how one would react to that but, yeah, I don’t know. It might make me very angry.
Matt Ready: Oh! Angry at who? What?
Jack Cooley: Anger at not being real, at feeling for decades that you are your own person and not.
Matt Ready: You see, my main — well, if I found out it was definitely some sort of simulation, I would — one, I’d — all the time I’d be talking to myself to whomever’s running the simulation.
Jack Cooley: Oh, I do that [anyway] [laughs].
Matt Ready: Maybe we should do that right now. We should have a conversation with the people potentially running the simulation and —
Jack Cooley: Sure! Sure!
Matt Ready: What do we want to say to them?
Jack Cooley: I don’t know [laughs].
Matt Ready: I want to say, “If you guys want to give us any superpowers,” I mean —
Jack Cooley: Telekinesis would be nice.
Matt Ready: Well, is that the moving things with your mind?
Jack Cooley: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Ready: That’s not the telepathy.
Jack Cooley: No. I don’t want to know other people’s thoughts. That sounds like a drag.
Matt Ready: Yeah. No, I’ve read some sci-fi —
Jack Cooley: People think dark shit too, man! I don’t want to get in on that! [Laughs].
Matt Ready: I mean, I’d like — I mean, I would be into telepathy but you have to be able to turn it off.
Jack Cooley: Yeah.
Matt Ready: I mean, that would be a nightmare.
Jack Cooley: And it’s so invasive! I feel like I wouldn’t want anybody reading my thoughts. That’s just rude! [Laughs].
Matt Ready: Yeah! No, incredibly invasive. But it also would be such a learning experience!
Jack Cooley: Sure.
Matt Ready: It would be — I read a sci-fi book or fantasy book where a little girl was born with the ability to read people’s minds and it was just like a curse. I mean, especially [unclear 00:29:19] anyways.
Jack Cooley: Yeah. No, it does not sound pleasant [laughs].
Matt Ready: So is there a… let me finish that thought, is there anything you want to say to the people, if there’s anyone running the simulation? [Crosstalk].
[Matt looks up]Matt Ready: I don’t know why I’m looking up.
Jack Cooley: Reboot! Fuck!
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Reboot? Reboot and start over?
Jack Cooley: Yeah!
Matt Ready: What point do you want it to start over?
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Reboot!
Jack Cooley: Reboot! Jesus! There was a mutation that happened at some point on a DNA level that helped primates evolve into a human being or into Homo Sapiens. In fact, Homo Erectus, “Homo Pygmalions” all of that. I’d like — kind of go back to right before that and just stop that from happening. [Crosstalk].
Matt Ready: Stop humans from evolving?
Jack Cooley: Let us be animals instead of what we… I don’t know, for better or worse, we are what we are.
Matt Ready: I don’t know what — I mean, you don’t think maybe — it sounds like you have a kind of negative attitude towards humanity.
Jack Cooley: Yeah! People are bastard filled bastards!
Matt Ready: [Laughs]. Why do you say?
Matt Ready: I don’t know. I’ve known a lot of them.
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: No. People are fun. I don’t know. There’s all kinds of different people in the world and some of them are bastards and nobody thinks they’re the bad guy, though, you know, a lot of other people might think that that person is a bad guy. I mean, yeah! Every grand villain that the planet has had, did what he did because he thought it was the right thing to do. So every — every activist out there in the world is doing what they think is the right thing to do, and it’s two sides of a really fucking weird coin [laughs].
Matt Ready: Yeah. I mean, it totally… I mean you’re messing with fire, [if] you try to change anything. I mean, whether or not you do it on a big scale or a small scale, if you have a friend —
Jack Cooley: No. I don’t have one of those.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Well, let’s suppose you have a friend [laughs].
Jack Cooley: Let’s pretend! Imagine, if you will [laughs].
Matt Ready: Suppose you had a friend that actually cared about your opinion of things and you could influence them. I mean, I’m often, you know, I have a friend like really talking to me about a decision or whatever, and you have power there. If they’re, you know, asking you and you have power to push them one way or influence them to go one way or the other on a decision and sometimes, you know, you actually care about what they do because it affects you, you actually have a preference, or at least you think you do, and you can use that to push a decision one way or the other. But you never know what the consequences are, you know? It’s like if you have a friend in a relationship or something, thinking about breaking up or whatever, and you influence it one way or the other, you don’t know if you’re making things better or worse, really. You won’t know for like five years, and even then, you may not know. You never know the consequences of your actions.
Jack Cooley: It’s true! It all works out in the end. It’s okay.
Matt Ready: Does it? Does it all work out in the end?
Jack Cooley: Sure.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: I think that’s your advice for —
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: Sometimes —
Matt Ready: — it all works out.
Jack Cooley: Sometimes it all works out in a really shitty way, but it worked out.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: A plan came together.
Jack Cooley: That’s right.
Matt Ready: As the A-Team would say.
Jack Cooley: What else have you got?
Matt Ready: Yeah, what else have you got?
Jack Cooley: What else do I have?
Matt Ready: What topics do you want to —
Jack Cooley: I should have —
Matt Ready: This is called The Mindful Activist. We could talk about — we could actually talk about anything that we want to. You still have me — you have me sort of like churning and curious about your attitude towards humanity and your attitude towards the bastards that —
Jack Cooley: Well, it comes and goes. It’s really easy to swing from seeing all the awful that is in the world to seeing all of the good that is in the world and, you know, it’s easy enough to say that people are good and then there’s, you know, child soldiers in Africa [laughs] and yeah, there’s a lot of good and a lot of bad and, if you live in a nice isolated good part of the world, it’s really easy to see that — it’s really easy to have the world view that people are good. And if you live in an isolated shithole part of the world, it’s really easy to not trust anyone and see all of the bad in people. The worldview is greatly influenced by your immediate environment.
Matt Ready: So in saying that, I mean, you’re obviously one of the people that doesn’t stick your head in the sand and ignore —
Jack Cooley: True.
Matt Ready: — how bad it is in some places on Earth. You are aware of child soldiers and there’s much worse examples I could give than that.
Jack Cooley: Yes. There’s all kinds of bad.
Matt Ready: Yeah.
Jack Cooley: Hence, telepathy being a [makes a hand sign to cut off] argh, no. Hard pass.
Matt Ready: So how — so we’ve talked about like seeing someone getting hurt, you know, violence happening in front of us would be — if someone was weak or vulnerable in front of us, that is different than seeing just two thugs beating up each other. I’m so curious how — I mean, you sure gave examples of bad things happening in parts of the world, far away, but does it like not make you — does it not cause any sort of like, “If I could change that, I would. [If] it does make me angry.” Is there any sort of that or is it…?
Jack Cooley: So you want to circle back to almost “what do you choose to be apathetic about”?
Matt Ready: I suppose that’s what I’m doing.
Jack Cooley: I think that what — there’s almost a slippery slope of caring, and that sounds awful, I know that, but if you’re going to pick and choose what you care about, then you have to pick and choose very very carefully. Otherwise, you just need to start caring about — you start caring about everybody’s problems and then you don’t have time for anything else in your day.
[00:36:15]Matt Ready: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s something, I don’t know, [if] other people do, but I think that something I sort of, like, started struggling with in college, was like, what do I care about? And who do I — who’s pain do I allow to affect me and who do I feel empathy with? ‘Cause I guess it was in college when I just first started to get a sense of how much suffering there was in the world. And I think I still — I guess the reason I’m asking you questions is I still struggle with, you know, what is the healthiest attitude towards these things?
Jack Cooley: Yeah.
Matt Ready: I mean I kind of — I’ve just simplified it down to: there’s my life, my happiness, and then there’s global transformation to a better world. Those are the two things I care about.
Jack Cooley: Sure.
Matt Ready: And so it’s everything in between that, you know, it’s like, people [who are like in] car accidents, you know, [laughs] it’s like …
Jack Cooley: That universe-wide area of grey between… [laughing]
Matt Ready: Well, like you said, I can’t like be empathetic with everyone’s, you know, individual suffering about their lives, but on a — I basically just look at it, you know, other than the doing what I need to do, take care of my little microcosm of my life that I do need to care for… it’s like the only other thing I care about is how do we change the world into a place where we don’t have those dark spots in, you know, these countries. I mean, it’s like [unclear 00:37:49] like that’s — I’m looking at those dark spots, you know, ’cause that’s like my goal. We do have to like clean up the crap in the countries that have wealth, and power, and infrastructure, and can walk outside without getting beat up or worse, but you know… The only reason I’m just really enthusiastic about trying to fix that is ’cause I want us to get everywhere, you know? It’s like the bastards in the world that you mention. I just — they just really, since college, they just irritate me, that they use their power to dominate people in the world and they love power, love power struggles —
Jack Cooley: Sure.
Matt Ready: — love politics, and they keep good people like you, you know, apathetic. I think they actually want you to be apathetic.
Jack Cooley: You know, I’m not sure that apathy is even really the —
Matt Ready: Not quite the right word?
Jack Cooley: — the right word for it. So if you talk about the dark spots, so let’s say that you have the dark spots and you have the bright spots, and there is the thought that, you know, the longer you stare into the abyss, the abyss begins to stare back, right?
Matt Ready: What does that mean?
Jack Cooley: You end up being influenced by the things that you were trying to change. You can’t battle monsters without yourself becoming a monster. I think that, for me personally, it’s best to make my brightness brighter and avoid the darkness. I would rather not contrib- I think that my contribution is not being a bastard to other people, and that the people around me can see that, you know, you can live your life without oppressing someone else or taking food out of somebody else’s mouth, and maybe somebody will see that as a good example of a person and not a bad example of a person.
Matt Ready: I totally get that. I’m just — I’m still stuck on the you can’t battle, you know, the whole staring into the abyss, the abyss staring back and you can’t battle a monster without becoming a monster. That’s a pretty grim statement. [Crosstalk].
Jack Cooley: Sure! That is a grim statement!
Matt Ready: There’s monsters all over the place! [Crosstalk].
Jack Cooley: That is a grim statement! So when, I mean, when you go off to fight a murderer and you yourself become a murderer, how does that help the world? You know? In what way — it doesn’t stop! It just creates this never-ending cycle of violence and pain because, let’s say, for the sake of argument, you have the opportunity to go back in time and kill Hitler—everybody’s favorite “Kill Hitler” story, right? You have the opportunity to go back in time and kill Hitler. So you go back in time and kill Hitler at Art School, and his mom hates you so she kills you; and that upsets your loved ones so they kill her; and it’s the terrible cliché — well, it’s not even a terrible cliché, it’s just… In the world of an eye for an eye, everyone is blind.
Matt Ready: Yeah. But, I mean, you don’t have to fight violence with violence.
Jack Cooley: Expand on that. Tell me how you’re going to fight violence without violence.
Matt Ready: Well, like, you know, during the civil rights, you know, fighting…
Jack Cooley: The Civil Rights Movement lasted well over a decade and there were hundreds of riots. There was a lot of violence involved in the Civil Rights Movement.
Matt Ready: I’m not saying some people didn’t create [unclear 00:41:53] —
Jack Cooley: [Laughs].
Matt Ready: I’m saying, like when they took the buses down to the South to challenge… segregation—[unclear 00:42:02] wrong word—and they would, I mean, they were fighting violence with nonviolent resistance; they were going into cafes and stuff where blacks were not allowed, and they would sit down, and they would order food, and they would take whatever violence, you know, was put their way, which got pretty bad at times. That was an absolute action. They were going straight at the monster of prejudice and they weren’t using violence. They were using nonviolent resistance and it’s a powerful tactic. I mean, there’s other options. You don’t have to use the tactic that your opponent is using.
Jack Cooley: Oh! I agree!
Matt Ready: You don’t have to use the same attitude that you’re — and you don’t have to hate your opponent. I mean, that’s something the Dalai Lama says, you don’t, you know — I don’t know how he does it, but he talks about loving your enemies is the route to disarming them —
[00:43:07]Jack Cooley: Do you feel that you personally have enemies that you need to concentrate on not hating?
Matt Ready: Yeah! Yeah. When I look at the world and the forces that I am pushing against, theirs —
Jack Cooley: That’s very abstract, though. You want to talk about loving enemies; do you have like an individual enemy that you have to, like, remind yourself to not hate?
Matt Ready: I… do have —
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: I’ve made you uncomfortable.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Well, let me put it this way, one, when I’m struggling with other people, I’m not the Dalai Lama. I don’t practice loving my enemy. I’m not a saint, like that, you know [laughs], but I do — often, when I do try to look at them and try to be mindful of what’s going on in them, it always helps me. The more I can soften and try to be sympathetic with where they’re coming from, it often does help me come up with a better tactic, a better way to interact with them. But I do not — I’m too sensitive to — I get too irritated by what I perceive as very selfish thinking —
Jack Cooley: Sure.
Matt Ready: — or very short-sighted thinking, or lack of actual thought and reflection, and I just don’t have the patience to be like, you know, to be what — it would might be nice, you know, if I was — say you and I were like arguing or something, say you were like some sort of political power that I was interacting with, I get worn down by bad ideas and the bad attitudes, you know? I can only sit with people like that for so long.
Jack Cooley: Sure.
Matt Ready: And I do try to be — I try not to be a jerk. I try to be mindful and calm as I express myself, and they may not be with me at all in these situations.
Jack Cooley: Oh yeah. Yeah, people don’t respond well to a calm individual. It’s really weird. People who are naturally angry, I guess, don’t respond well to it.
Matt Ready: Yeah, and they’re more used to other people just coming back with angry, you know, with anger or strong elevated voices and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah! Interesting. What were you talking about that it got reflected on to me?
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: It doesn’t matter. We got into something else! What do you want to talk about? I have less than 72 hours before I move to Portugal.
Matt Ready: Yeah! Well, since you went there, why are you leaving the greatest country on Earth?
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: Because I’ve already explored quite a bit of the United States and North America, and it’s time to go someplace else and explore there.
Matt Ready: What are you running away from?
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: My feelings! My childhood! Nothing. I’m running toward. Not away.
Matt Ready: Okay. There are a couple of comments.
Jack Cooley: Oh, cool!
Matt Ready: We’re going to check on those and see if there’s something. “Ask for teleportation,” is what David Crozier said.
Jack Cooley: [Laughs].
Matt Ready: “Jack, what is the most important activity in your life that sustains you?”
Jack Cooley: Eating, breathing.
Matt Ready: [Laughs].
Jack Cooley: Those are very sustaining.
Matt Ready: And also, “Do you have a practice that sustains you when the bastards of the world get you down? Or do you just blow it off as silliness?”
Jack Cooley: The man doesn’t get me down.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Do you have personal practices that really, you know rejuvenate —
Jack Cooley: Kind of help keep me centered as who I am? I don’t know, yoga and meditation are good for that, one which I don’t do either of enough, I’m sure, but for the most part, I don’t feel that I am downtrodden or that anyone is oppressing me or… And I realize that I’m fortunate in that regard, you know? But if I ever find myself in that sort of situation, I’ll be sure to give a good answer on what keeps me me.
Matt Ready: Yeah. So if you were — you know, I sometimes think of it like emotional cycles that are sort of like a roller coaster and —
Jack Cooley: Sure!
Matt Ready: [I can be] pretty intense, you know, in the cycles. How are you in terms of — in life? Are you like generally upbeat, you know, sort of person? Or do you go on big emotional cycles?
Jack Cooley: Oh, yeah! I think everybody does have peaks and valleys of their own emotions and everything is a flow, you know? Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down, and I think I’m — yeah! I don’t know if I could say that I’m generally happy or unhappy because, you know, sometimes things are grim and it’s easy to dwell in that. I don’t know. My general disposition is not unhappy or unpleasant, I don’t think.
Matt Ready: No. It’s definitely not.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: At least not on the outside [crosstalk]. You never actually know what’s going on inside.
Jack Cooley: Yeah. I have the comedian’s trick of really hiding how [laugh] upset I can be, but that’s fine. I’m all right with that. Meditation and yoga and a good diet help [laughs].
Matt Ready: Yeah.
Jack Cooley: Eat right, exercise, breathe.
Matt Ready: Let’s go back to you immigrating to another country.
Jack Cooley: Yeah. Let’s talk about me more.
Matt Ready: Yes.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: So you —
Jack Cooley: Well, I’m not really immigrating either. I’m just travelling. I might seek residency over there and, six months from now, I might be living someplace else. There’s no fixed plan.
Matt Ready: So is there some specific things about Portugal that draw you there?
Jack Cooley: I have good friends that live there. There’s a Mediterranean diet, Southern California climate, nice low cost of living. It’s a — and it’s different. I’m tired of being cold. I’ve been in the Pacific Northwest for 16 years, which is just a crazy long time, and it’s cold and wet, and I’m tired of that.
Matt Ready: I can appreciate that. I try to get away every winter for a period of time and taste sunlight and warmth.
Jack Cooley: Colombia?
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Mexico?
Jack Cooley: Yeah, yeah. Mexico.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: But you’re not going to have tons of Americans around you!
Jack Cooley: I am, actually. There’s a large expat community in Lisbon, in Cascais, which is where we will be living, and a lot of NATO and UN employees who all [work for — there’s a large American set]. Yeah. There’s a lot of Americans that live over there.
Matt Ready: All right. Have you lived in other countries before?
Jack Cooley: No. Visited, but never lived in other countries. So it will be a good learning experience.
[00:51:32]Matt Ready: It’s exciting. I’m going to want to come visit.
Jack Cooley: It’s bananas!
Matt Ready: Yeah.
Jack Cooley: And you should come visit!
Matt Ready: Yeah. Maybe we could do another show out there, “What have you learnt since you arrived in Portugal?”
Jack Cooley: [Laughs].
Matt Ready: What adventures have you been on?
Jack Cooley: It would be like, “I’ve learnt I really love tapas and beer is cheaper than water.”
Matt Ready: [Laughter]. All right. Well, we’re at the — I think the 10-minute, 9-minute mark, so what shall we do with our final 10 minutes of your first, potentially last, you never know what could happen, but —
Jack Cooley: Yeah, on my first and possibly last appearance on your program, what should we do? Oh, man!
Matt Ready: Yeah. Is there any topic that you want to delve into?
Jack Cooley: I guess if there was anything — and, you know, [unclear 00:52:30] I mean, you have an activist audience. If there’s something that I would like to see change on an easier-to-change scale, I mean, [say] pharmaceutical companies are a nightmare and they suck and, you know, American politics is more about money than the health and welfare of our citizens, and all that fun stuff, I would like to see psychedelic drugs used in therapeutic practices. I am a somewhat a regular user of psilocybin mushrooms for therapeutic reasons—I mean, also occasionally just for recreation, but mostly so I can sit and meditate, and think about my life and what changes I want to make in it. And I’ve found that it’s very helpful for meditation [unclear 00:53:27] — it’s very helpful for depression and anxiety, and I would like to see that more accepted and removed from the schedule 1 classification.
Matt Ready: And I think there’s been some —
[Bell chimes] [Someone comes on screen]Matt Ready: — there has been some research.
Jack Cooley: Well, [it’s on!]
Matt Ready: David Crozier.
Jack Cooley: Hey! We’ve got a [dude]!
Matt Ready: [Laughs]. You mention mushrooms and David —
Jack Cooley: I know!
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: David’s like, “What?!” You know? We can only see up your nose and into your glasses.
Matt Ready: [Laughs]. David jumped — Oh! He turned off his video. Hi David! You’re can say something, I think, if you want.
Jack Cooley: I don’t think we need to look at this — the black screen.
Matt Ready: No. Well, that is not a 9-minute topic you just brought up, but —
[Laughter]Matt Ready: — that’s an interesting one. I believe there has been — I’ve come across research about using — what’s the name of the substance?
Jack Cooley: Psilocybin.
Matt Ready: Psilocybin.
Jack Cooley: That’s what makes the magic mushrooms magic [laughs].
Matt Ready: Yeah. So do you know what the status of that — is there any actual, like, interest in our country in looking at that substance as therapeutic?
Jack Cooley: There are — there is interest. I don’t know that there’s anybody actively lobbying for it or advocating, I should say—nobody likes the L word. There are physicians who have experimented with it and seen positive results. What bothers me the most about it is that, by going with the definition of schedule 1 narcotics, it doesn’t meet the definition.
Matt Ready: Yeah.
Jack Cooley: Schedule 1 narcotics are supposed to be things that are addictive and have no medicinal value, and psilocybin mushrooms have proven to be non-addictive and have medicinal value. And so getting if off in that classification is step one to opening it up so that the FDA can approve more open testing of it.
Matt Ready: What do you think the fears are against that?
Jack Cooley: I think the, I don’t know, the fear of drugs is pretty deep-seated in American culture, and that’s got a lot to do with what American culture has done with drugs [laughs], you know, people misuse a lot of substances and —
Matt Ready: Yeah. Misuse a lot of medicinal substances.
Jack Cooley: Yeah. And we also misuse things that are perfectly legal and widely accepted, but there’s not like a strange stigma about alcohol unless you have direct exposure to the severe negative effects of it. Most people just see it as a fun, recreational tool.
Matt Ready: So would you be willing to, like, describe any of your experiences or any parts of how the — the effect of mushrooms?
Jack Cooley: That is certainly not a —
Matt Ready: [Laughs].
Jack Cooley: — five-minute topic because there have been a lot of experiences and —
Matt Ready: Well, we could go into overtime.
Jack Cooley: [Laughs].
Matt Ready: It is — or, you know, we could bring you back, you know, if you wanted, but just for someone out there that has never touched psychedelic mushroom — I mean, I would say probably a lot of people that might watch this have probably done pot.
Jack Cooley: Sure.
Matt Ready: I would say probably pot now [unclear 00:57:40] most people have experience those. What would you say if they’re asking why are mushrooms special? What’s the — can you sum up some ways that they’re beneficial and therapeutic?
[00:57:56]Jack Cooley: Mushrooms, when done in the correct sort of setting, when, you know, if you’re going into it with, you know, and doing this for a therapeutic purpose, first of all, what I found to be the best setting is laying down in your own bed with a blindfold and headphones on listening to classical music or some other sort of soothing instrumental, ethereal type sound, and they sort force self-therapy on to you. You think about yourself and the directions that you could possibly go, and you become very introspective, as opposed to alcohol, where you generally just make a lot of bad decisions [laughs].
Matt Ready: Bad jokes [laughs].
Jack Cooley: Bad jokes, yeah, but you think you’re hilarious and good looking [laughs].
Matt Ready: I still can’t really accurately describe the effect of alcohol. I can’t really explain what it does if I have two or three drinks. It’s —
Jack Cooley: Sure. Lowered inhibition.
Matt Ready: Yeah, but I don’t know if I, like, get dumber or if something gets dull.
Jack Cooley: Well, we’re going to go out to dinner tonight. We can — I’ll get you a few drinks —
Matt Ready: We’ll describe —
Jack Cooley: — and when you wake up, try to figure it! [Laughs].
Matt Ready: — “I’ll try to describe this, I feel dull… but so funny! I feel so funny!” [Laughs].
Jack Cooley: “I feel handsome and hilarious. I feel like taking my shirt off!”
[Laughter]Matt Ready: So…Interesting. Listening to music, laying —
Jack Cooley: Yeah.
Matt Ready: — laying on a bed and —
Jack Cooley: And you can even do like really small doses and that has a nice calming and healing effect. And of course, myself — marijuana doesn’t really appeal to me, it just makes me anxious and paranoid, and it’s gotten so much stronger in the last 20 years that it just amplifies the not fun parts of it for me. When I was 18 and, you know, you’d buy an ounce of weed and roll a bunch of joints ’cause, I mean, it just wasn’t terribly potent. And even then, I don’t think I incredibly enjoyed it. I enjoyed that it helped me sleep and got me thinking, which was good, ’cause I like to do — I like to imbibe by myself, so.
[01:00:42]Matt Ready: Okay. So since you’re speaking from experience —
Jack Cooley: Yes.
Matt Ready: — with these substances, it sounds like a pretty significant amount of experience, what would you say to young people? Like, do you think this is a type of therapy that people maybe of a certain age would be a good idea to try? I mean, I kind of feel like — personally I feel like people under the age of 25 are…
Jack Cooley: Morons.
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: Sorry. That’s not true. You’re not all morons. You just make a lot of questionable decisions. But that’s how you learn!
Matt Ready: Well, I mean they’re going through so much! I mean, up until 18, I mean, you are changing so much!
Jack Cooley: Yeah. Your hormones are out of control.
Matt Ready: I think it’s nuts to — it’s really a bad idea, I think, to involve [crosstalk] anything.
Jack Cooley: Yeah! Well, your brain’s not really done developing until you’re in your mid-twenties, anyway, and I think that it’s best to really kind of let yourself ride through the shitstorm that is adolescence, and then, as an adult, seek to make changes if you don’t like the way you’ve turned out or, you know… Yeah, it’s hard to put that into words. I think that people shouldn’t just run out and buy drugs and experiment with them with the hope that it’s going to make them a better person or anything. If that’s what you’re looking for, then you should have some guidance, for sure. I mean, I might not be the best example because I didn’t have guidance, but at the same time I also made a lot of really questionable decisions with substance use in my younger years.
Matt Ready: So do you perceive reality differently when you’re, let’s say, on mushrooms?
Jack Cooley: Like under the influence? Sure! Sure! It feels like the veil has been drawn away and you can see things a little bit more clearer.
Matt Ready: So like if you were sitting here with me in this room and we had live video going…
Jack Cooley: Yeah, I wouldn’t do that, though.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Why not?
Jack Cooley: Because for me it’s not a performance. That’s not the purpose of it. What’s a good analogy I could use?
Matt Ready: All right. Well, let’s forget the video, and you’re sitting here with me talking.
Jack Cooley: Sure.
Matt Ready: Would — I guess I’m kind of like, sort of like suggesting, can you, like, recall enough about how you would see the world that you could describe a little bit how this would be different? How this would feel different or…?
Matt Ready: Uhm… How would this feel different? I would have — well, I mean, [unclear 01:04:17] I’m a very open and honest person but I would find no trouble being very open and very honest about things that I would otherwise be maybe a little bit uncomfortable talking to people about. I wouldn’t say anything with cameras on, but just one-on-one with another person I would happily share experiences or thoughts and kind of hash stuff out ’cause I like to think.
Matt Ready: And so does it feel like those thoughts and feelings that ordinarily you might have some restraint or hesitation, or might just feel unpleasant to take them out and share them, it’s suddenly like — it’s easier —
Jack Cooley: It is easier.
Matt Ready: — to share and it’s just like maybe even a little bit fun to share big powerful personal things.
Jack Cooley: Sure! Sure! Yeah. And I have in the past shared things with people because I would come to a realization about something and would readily share it in that moment because I just realized something that, you know, that I couldn’t like — I can give a specific example here. I was sitting around a campfire with a bunch of friends and everyone who was there, their drug of choice—for lack of a better word—was they were either smoking marijuana or having a few beers. I didn’t want to do either one of those things so I took a tiny amount of mushrooms to just kind of make me comfortable and lose and stuff, and it occurred to me that evening that the reason I’d been upset for a couple of days was because of a thing that happened earlier in the week that had just been a huge blow to my self-esteem. And I didn’t realize that that’s why I’d been upset. I didn’t realize that I had been given this blow to my self-esteem until that moment, and just readily and openly shared it with a group of friends, who were very, you know, they’re friends and so they very quickly said, “Well, no, no, no. Don’t even worry about that. This is who you are and this is what people like about you,” and stuff like. They kind of helped boost me back up but, yeah, it was a weird moment. One that, like, I would have come to that realization eventually anyway but I wouldn’t have shared it with my friends. I would have just kind of kept it and learnt from it and moved on.
Matt Ready: Interesting. So definitely a tool, a powerful tool that you find is a —
Jack Cooley: Sure.
Matt Ready: — can be very helpful and it’s something that you think our society should be, like, looking at in a scientific way.
Jack Cooley: Sure! Absolutely,
Matt Ready: Yeah.
Jack Cooley: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t take Xanax when there’s something perfectly useful growing out of the ground.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Nice. Well, that is — I did not know we were going to go on to that topic, but that was an interesting —
Jack Cooley: I’m sure you knew we would! [Laughs].
Matt Ready: We had 10 minutes left! I didn’t think you’d, like, pull that out! [Laughs].
Jack Cooley: Well, you know, one last hurrah to the… how many people do we have? To those six people —
Matt Ready: Four, still.
Jack Cooley: Four.
Matt Ready: And I don’t see any new comments. But I could see, you know, that is a really interesting topic, especially since I like to get philosophical and people that try those substances often have philosophical openness to discussing it. So I could definitely see you coming back. Now that you’ve broken the ice and we know, I can have you on —
Jack Cooley: This is me coming out and saying, “I can clearly never run for president.”
[Laughter]Matt Ready: I suppose. I don’t know. It’s not that bad, you know? Cool! All right. Well, let’s — why don’t we wrap the official show at that point.
Jack Cooley: Sure! Do we have outro music?
Matt Ready: There will be. Pretend you are listening to it. I’m going to play the music.
[Matt pretends he switches some music on] [Matt and Jack dance to imaginary music]Matt Ready: So thank you all for joining us on this sixth episode of The Mindful Activist.
Jack Cooley: This is number six?
Matt Ready: This is number six.
Jack Cooley: Oh! Wow!
Matt Ready: Yeah. Thank you so much, Jack, for being a guest and —
Jack Cooley: Any time.
Matt Ready: — and for being my friends over the last eight years. Most of that time you’ve been a great friend.
[Laughter]Jack Cooley: Likewise.
Matt Ready: And I’m really going to miss you having you so far away. So we’re going to have to video conference or just visit.
Jack Cooley: Yeah. It’s a small world that we live in now.
Matt Ready: Yeah. I mean, literally, we could be — there could be people on every corner of the Earth just actually in our video conference, as David dropped in. Someday —
Jack Cooley: And especially, if you do them at ten o’clock in the morning, that’s only six o’clock in the evening in Portugal. I can pop in every now and then.
Matt Ready: Sweet! That would be so great! Was there anything you want to say to our audience and say goodbye?
Jack Cooley: Thanks for sticking around and listening and, you know, I can’t see who’s over there and I don’t want to lean way forward and find out but, you know, drop me a line and say hi, if you know who I am. Otherwise, farewell. Bon voyage!
Matt Ready: Oh. It’s so sad. I see people at home crying.
Jack Cooley: I’m sure that’s what it is.
Matt Ready: Jack is leaving!
Jack Cooley: Yup.
Matt Ready: All right!
Jack Cooley: It’s like the last episode of I Love Lucy. I’m sure [laughs].
Matt Ready: It is. That is exactly what I was thinking of, I Love Lucy, the last episode. All right! So we’re going to conclude the podcast right there but we might chat a little bit more.
Jack Cooley: Sure.
Matt Ready: We’ll see. All right. So thank you for watching. Until next time.
[End of video]
