Notes for the last talk

Some people asked for this.
This was the talk that I gave before I left Exosphere. I wanted to cram in all the ranting that I would have been casually unloading over the course of the remaining month…
It’s not bio-specific, but it is fairly important.
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I’ve been called religious in my passions about science and change, multiple times over the course of this month.

It’s not religion; to be passionate about something, to care.
The sad fact is that you’ve just never heard someone care enough about something other than religion. Had to borrow that word. Giving a fuck just doesn’t carry the same epistomolocigal weight, y’know?
and those of you that do actually care about something, you’re using the word as a crutch, as a tool for argument. A cop out to say I don’t care about this thing, or know about it and I have something else that I care about, but i like to argue.

Like its a bad word…. Caring. You zealot! Freak! Can’t you see that we’re all stuck inside our heads and we like it here?
Had to explain open source to some documentary kids at one point. Stanford.
Broke it down for a while, got bored an just glared at the camera. It’s called caring about other people. It’s called sharing. Do I have to explain sharing to you?

Now, you can talk about not loving the past, but seriously…
To be educated and intelligent men and women in the 21st century, living in 19th century social systems, based on 17th century ideologies, and an old testament understanding of morale, it’s crazy. It’s bullshit. How many of you here right now have said to me that you act a certain way cause this is the way it’s done? Cause you don’t even understand another way. Because you are afraid or concerned about your peers or the people you know fucking with you because you might speak your mind. I better see some hands or I’ll start pointing fingers.

Most of you, by your own admission, are profoundly unhappy people. Don’t worry though, you have an amazing group of individuals who are going through the same thing that you are. You should listen to them. And maybe talk to them. A lot. Talk about your misery.

You have one month left.
Do you want to be back in your life in a month’s time?
With nothing left resolved, nothing different about it?

Returning to inertia… staring at your fucking shoes.

We read that we came here to disturb the universe, but if you are going to do that, first you need to disturb yourselves. Its not enough to just quit. OK? You’re all quitters right now. Everyone dropped a part of their life to get here. Well done, go team. as if the act of dropping something meant that you were going to be handed something else.

See, this whole you can’t scale from zero thing is totally true. You can’t. You have to take that first step. And then the next step. and then another. You’ve all been sitting around so pleased with yourself. You bought into that silicon valley lie of falling forward. Most of the time when you fall forward, its not walking, its a precursor to hitting your face on the pavement.

It’s up to us to make things that are awesome and beautiful. Step one is your life.

You should be excited about your life and the things you do. Excited. Selectively, though. You should talk people’s ears off. People should say, man, fuck, this guy doesn’t talk about anything else. You get on that floor and you fucking dance man. Because it doesn’t matter if you look like and idiot, it doesn’t matter if that girl doesn’t want to take you home, or vice versa. You get that fire and you shake your ass, cause everything is fucked up and what else can you do? Sit at home and mope? Clean your heads out. Dance when it’s dancing time, work when its working time.

And don’t wait for someone to give you what you want, because they will give you shit. Cause it’s easy and they don’t care about you. Plus, you don’t know what you want anyway.

All you ascetics, with all your forgoing of the world. The calm life with just the quality pieces in it. “Do not let your wealth or children distract you”. You know who said that first? Not Emerson, it’s the Koran. Yeah, don’t pay attention to your life man. Think about the spirit. Otherwise you might get fed the fuck up with the rich and the powerful taking from you every day.
Quitting quitting quitting the world it’s just another form of giving up.

One of you asked me how I can think about being miserable all the time and laugh and dance. We’re at a club and I’ve kind of crossed that line where half the time I’m dancing and half the time I’m just staring at the crowd and wondering what the fuck is going on here. Like , just taking it in. It’s 4 am, and we’re all hot as hell and I’m listening to the reggeaton and it’s pretty obvious that it’s all about being poor. Its about how life sucks. It’s a sad fucking sound. It’s the game man. You gotta make it into a game and you go out an dance. Cause what else can you do?
And you get out on that dance floor and you’re out there building your narrative and you are wrong. Man, you are just wrong, that girl just wants to dance sometimes. People don’t care about the things you care about. So get all dressed up and shake it, cause otherwise you might have to set it all on fire.

Cause no one cares. No one ever did.

Because you’re quiet. Because you don’t care about yourself, so why the fuck should they? And, y’know what, that peace you’re hunting for, it’s bullshit. Silence is a fucking lie. It’s what you tell yourself when you don’t understand how the world works. The inherent chaos of reality, it’s the sand in the fucking chips and you just don’t understand how to read the label. You have skin, because the sun is basically radiating the shit out of everything on this planet and your cells need shelter or they get ripped apart. Go as deep as you want in the ocean and it’s a constant battle on a cellular level to not die. Oxidation.

The oxidation process. Human metabolism.

That’s how we work. You breathe in and you use oxygen and those skittles you stuffed in your face to turn them into mass and energy.

The metabolic process, rusting, and wood burning are all the same chemical reaction on different scales. Every time you breathe you are slowly burning on the inside.

And this is why we, in fact, do need science.
There will be no safe spaces out there for you. If you think there is peace, you are lying to yourself. You need to build what you can, because it isn’t out there waiting for you.
You need to get up and say fuck you to the world, because it will eat you alive and leave you empty again and again and again. You need to admit that you are on fire and that that world is trying to fuck you and you will either sit there and suck it up again and again and again until you just don’t anymore or you die.

That’s it.

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