Comedy as a medium – going hand in hand with weed.

Easing into an adaptive mindset – enabling new minds.

See what I did there? Can you imagine the wee level of personal gratification I received by roughly inserting the blog domain in the title… plus I used the term “weed” in the title *audience gasps*, which probably grabbed your attention due to the nature of humans tending to frown upon and discourage any open public discussion about said plant. The funniest bit is, its not even that relevant, its more of an attention grabber and although a rather cheeky, divisive, tactic…you’re here now so please forgive me and enjoy this article. It is probably best for me to clearly spell out the fact that I am not advocating said banned plant and my views on said banned plant will require further development before public sharing. If you think that mentioning weed in the title makes me some kind of outlandish speaker then I recommend you ask yourself why? Moving away from my more regular attempts at being educated, I’m going to throw the rather cliché “don’t judge a book by its cover” quote in your face. I actually personally detest skunk and it’s really not the main focus of this particular block of text but if you’re not grown up enough to talk about it when the time does come and it really upsets you, there isn’t a lot I can do about it… Read something else or develop your communication skills and explain to me how I am in fact wrong to talk freely about the devils lettuce.

As much as this article is just a jumbled, mismatched, attempt to bring you up to speed with my own personal journey and education, I’m going to attempt to keep this write up a little lighter hearted than my previous two. I shall be judging, as always, the response to this article to see how it’s stomached. Receiving feedback is therefore non-negotiable and a crucial part of my personal development and quite possibly yours. Not sure if I can ram that down your throats anymore. In fact, I probably can but to spare me from such a fate give getting involved a little go. I’m probably one of the very few people who does in fact give a fuck what you have to say – you might enjoy sharing.

Joe Rogan, Russell Brand, Mark Manson, Books, Podcasts and Netflix. Something for everyone… Unless you’re a jihadist then I have nothing for you…

A mixed bag, right? On review these are were the first three figures who I believe acted as catalysts in provoking a new way of thinking for me and if you do your research a fair few million others. Mark Manson significantly less than the latter. I want to look at these figures in the way that I believe makes most sense. Firstly, mildly following the chronological order in which they appear to me and secondly in an order in which I believe allows your brain to become more malleable to the acceptance of new ideas; be it profound ancient wisdom, new world solutions or the breaking down of flimsy unjustified beliefs, that, if like me – you may have carried. I would say that if one was to look, read and listen to the shows, books and podcasts that I have suggested prior to this article, am currently recommending and will be continuing to promote then your brain is going to be sponging some really invigorating and refreshing, possibly new, ideas. Ideas which I believe will ultimately diffuse into and out of all areas of your life. If it’s all new to you then I’m excited for you, as the effect they had on me personally was exciting and transformative in what I truly believe is a positive light and if its old news then boo, I hope you still find my opinions on said pieces of content entertaining and informative to some degree. Don’t get me wrong these aren’t underground figures, they are giants in the modern world and are very well regarded, heavily established and widely recognised, however continuing to increase the level of public engagement and inspiring more individuals to investigate their works is precisely one of the goals that is driving my writing. I have regularly found that my own enthusiasm spills over onto the people around me and encourages them to take a gander themselves at whichever area of life has tickled my fancy and I’m attempting to do this with pieces typically disregarded as “boring”, educational pieces without context and string them together in a life changing way.

Comedy as a medium,

Sitting and watching someone bang on about politics, consciousness, spirit and nature when you’re not really in touch with any of those topics can seem tedious. I get it. Especially if you don’t have an opinion on the topics and can’t interact. It can quickly become a lecture that’s possibly laying into the way you might just happen to live your life – no fun at all. However, when these ideas are carefully drip fed through rational comedy sketches, Netflix shows, podcast and books, it doesn’t seem so harrowing. This is why I think that comedy plays a crucial role in converting peoples thinking, allowing for an adaptive mindset and therefore, you guessed it, enabling new minds. 2/3. It certainly did for me and as dreadfully boring as this sounds it really does make education fun. Eugh, it pains me to have to spell things out like that and possibly isn’t the right way of doing so but right now I haven’t found a better model for getting my point across so we are rolling with it.

In terms of comedy as a medium and its relation to the mystic realm there is a lot to say on comedians as shamans which is accompanied by both factual resemblances and historical evidence for their places within society. This is another topic I would like to explore further if the time comes in a separate piece of writing.

Being in my opinion the most obviously entertaining with his respect demanding persona and the ability to both leave you in stiches and bring you to tears; Joe Rogan’s comedy and podcasts have caused a huge social media movement interviewing the likes of; Elon Musk, Kanye West, Derren Brown, Louis Theroux, Neil deGrasse Tyson and a wild range of sports persons, celebrities and Hero’s. His range in content has allowed him to gain an uncontrollable reputation with a couple million views on the vast majority of his videos and is one of the most popular figures along with Sam Harris on platforms such as the ‘Intellectual Dark Web’. I’m not going to bang on relentlessly about his achievements because he is such a mixed bag and its for you to discover but I would point you in the direction of his stand-up comedy on Netflix to begin with. It won’t be long before you’re on the Joe Rogan for president boat. Open mindedness and honesty run throughout but its his comedy which reached out and engaged me the most via Netflix and Spotify. Hard-nut, outspoken, mixed martial arts, weed smoking, liberal who commentates on the UFC… come on check him out. He smoked weed with Elon Musk live on a podcast, surely that intrigues you. His podcast on Spotify are all funny as fuck and he’s a total advocate for Marijuana use as well which is interesting- a few of my favourite quotes go as follows…

“Prison is for rapists, thieves and murderers. If you lock someone up for smoking a plant that makes them happy, then you’re the fucking criminal” – Joe Rogan

“the only way marijuana can kill you is if someone takes 25 pounds of it and throws it out of a CIA drug plane and it hits you in the fucking head. That’s how you die from marijuana” – Joe Rogan

There was also something along the lines of weed doesn’t make you a loser, being a loser makes you a loser, don’t use weed to justify it, if it wasn’t pot it would be sugar or burgers etc etc. I kind of agree with this but don’t really want to get into breaking this down as I have a lot to say on the subject and I’ll save that for a future article in which the pot heads can deny or subsequently relish in.

Now Mark Manson’s book “The subtle art of not giving a fuck”, really touches on Joe Rogan’s attitude and the one I try to implement on myself – failingly. It basically states the fact that you’re always going to care about something / give a fuck, but you have to choose what’s really important to you. What do you want to give a fuck about? are you giving your fucks to the right thing? etc. Do I get mad at the foxes in the garden for letting out their botty bashing death rattles in the middle of the night or when someone moved my keys and now, I’m going to be late for work? Or do I save my fuck giving for the values and matter in which are more important? My Family, my friends whatever I draw true and pure meaning from. I hope I have accurately communicated the gist of the book or at least how I interpreted it and I will be re-reading it and possibly putting up a proper book review at some point but for anyone who wants to get going on it, I would highly recommend giving it a read its light hearted, fun and seems to contain a certain amount of possible life-altering content.

All of this can be elaborated on and undoubtedly will be revisited in the future but I wanted to save some space to talk about Russell Brand, his books and most importantly to me, his podcast series “Under the Skin”. You may not be as lucky as me to be in a position to listen to this throughout your day but Spotify is a free service and the premium version isn’t particular expensive either. First and foremost, I would like to personally thank Russell Brand for his work in the under the skin podcasts. They truly are informative, engaging and transformative and have personally helped to significantly improve my understanding of this world as well as plant the seed for starting this project myself.

It is as if he and his team have designed a personal guide on opening and expanding your mind to the world around us. I can truly see the importance of these podcasts; to act as a well needed stepping stone in converting the mindsets of millions of young people and I believe it will play a significant role in the overall shift of consciousness that needs to rapidly undergo many of us. To me it clearly and precisely outlines areas of key importance to the soul, the future of mankind and touches on issues that should be in the forefront of our collective discussions as a species. His series and the accompanied information and insights inspired me to share my own story and continue to study and promote these ideas as the levels of human injustice which even some of the most privilege of us face, the unhappiness and discontent that even many millionaire bankers must surely be feeling became clearer. How we must begin to engage in as much open minded, adaptive discussion as we can to begin to tackle some of these individual issues at the core! Sam Harris is discussing the maintenance of civilisation in one of his older podcasts and touches upon the fact that its not “what we think” that is important; Its “how we think”, having the ability to see the other side of an argument and not being so set in our ways that we cannot admit that their might be a better path or a different way of looking at things. This must become a universal concept for humans if we are to progress further and in my opinion is the biggest challenge facing human-kind. To me, education, compassion and having these free-flowing discussions will make positive change possible. This idea of a better thinking pattern and clearer conversation is what currently interests me more than anything and you will undoubtably be hearing much more on it from me.

Whilst I’m on the subject of old Russ – I wanted to also credit him on his most recent book “recovery”, focusing on the 12-step programme and significantly urbanising it by replacing almost every other word in the 12-step overview with “fucked” and although I found some segments of the book rather unnecessary with both its narrative and choice of language… I don’t want to discredit the fact that it has probably done a whole load of good in the world and has certainly helped me gain a better perspective and lid on my own addictive behaviours… including; stopping smoking, increased control over my eating habits and helped to control a fair few other addictions I seemed to have been riddled with. Many large sections of the book are also hilarious and offer extremely profound insights so it has undoubtably made it onto my Enable New Minds Reading List.

Hopefully this article has still been engaging and it has possibly provided you a few areas to dive into and enjoy. Please do check these shows and podcasts with an open mind, welcome them with arms wide open and strive to seize upon the value in which I promise lies within them – the knowledge and insights, I have found and made use off. If there is anything you would like me to elaborate on, are confused about or have any questions or feedback for me feel free to send me a message through, Email, Facebook or Instagram. Feel free to follow my social media accounts which are currently pumping out daily quotes, statistics, ideas, etc in attempt to actually help give you some of the language tools to engage, things I have picked out from the works I have been studying which I feel are worth a brief read through on your shiny screen. If you enjoyed reading this or like me as a friend and want to support my work give this a share! Yes, I am stating that if you don’t share this you are essentially “not coming to my birthday party” and my parties are good.

You know the drill. Peace out.

Enable new minds… 3/3.

Welcome to my learning blog… we are all fucking stupid and one day we will die…

Try to smile and enable new minds.

You only have one life and it’s one continuous moment, one continuous feeling, one continuous presence in which every human being, animal, plant, and atom experiences simultaneously, until it stops. At what point each of those experiences stop in terms of consciousness is yet to be discovered by science, religion or conspiracy and is overlooked daily by the vast majority. I believe that having a good understanding of each of these possibilities is a good basis as to become a grounded human being. Being able to understand other people’s beliefs and perspectives and how they were formed allows you to act non-judgmentally knowing that there isn’t an answer to many of the great questions of life. This can then by-pass conflict and allow constructive conversations to take place regarding the issues at hand.

The fact we don’t know should scare and excite you. Every second of your existence be it as a single mind or a great collective consciousness passes just as the next one arises. It is this belief that fuels me to embrace every second, finding the silver lining in the worst moments and maximising the potential of the so called “dull” moments. Being present is the only way to truly do this and this idea has been supported by many of the key figures and ideologies which I have begun to study. To see the life in the faces of individuals and to feel every sensation that our body experiences. I’m pretty shite at doing this and can only maintain this level of presence for a few precious seconds at a time before my mind begins to flood with crazy ego driven desires and projections of negative situations. It’s this incessant brain waffle which screws us as humans; our values and our mental well-being. We either want something more or become unhappy with the way things are, we produce positive scenarios in our heads that can never be achieved or we create terrifying outcomes that hold us back, basically we become unhappy as we try to control that, that cannot be controlled. The rate and potency at which the realisation that we are not as aware as we believe we are differs between individuals. Going completely unnoticed for some masked by the flood of distractions provided for us by the modern world.

A little hard hitting I know but I hope introducing these ideas slowly will stop them becoming overwhelming and instead allow for a fresh outlook to form. For many this is old news but you are not the voice in your head! I will explore that concept in more detail at a later date but for now I don’t want to scare friends off with the so called “hippie bullshit” just yet.

I will explore that concept in more detail at a later date but for now I don’t want to scare friends off with the so called “hippie bullshit” just yet.

A recent series of drug induced psychotic episodes combined with the deflating realisation that making money and achieving ego fuelled goals doesn’t make you happy and, in my experience, never truly will as we attempted to tick off a box on our never-ending shopping lists. This began a progressive change in my outlook and combining this with my previously misguided lust for life has helped me to generate this new-found love for knowledge. As a 20-year-old male from Kent I have been surrounded by materialism, individualism and egoic ideals my whole life, and although I still believe materialism, individualism and the ego do have a place in society, I don’t believe it should be the main focus for mankind and as these concepts grow, they have devastating repercussions to individuals, the earth and all that inhabits it. When material possessions take priority over basic human concepts such as love it becomes clear there is an underlying problem. I have been lucky enough to be raised in healthy living conditions and environments, having received the perfect mix of the two combined with the scenarios I have been through and the choices I have made have eventually led me to grow and have allowed me to see through the fog I was previously living in, setting me off on a new path to make better choices. I have personally experienced the differences in lifestyles and I cannot see why anyone would healthily choose to go back after making this conversion. Family, friends and strangers have commented on this and although my choices have improved and my outlook streamlined, many of my actions are still dreadfully incorrect and will require far greater levels of scrutiny. The fact I am beginning to understand this and am becoming aware of my own faults is the most important first step for me. This idea has been relayed heavily by many key philosophers and religious figures across the globe and throughout history.

The population of aware intelligent human beings or at least that I have personally encountered is very small. We are very fucking stupid; the vast majority of human beings continuing to blindly follow the patterns laid out for them by the previous generation of people who didn’t understand how to live a truly meaningful life – the evidence of which surrounds us. I am certainly no way near living such a life myself but laughably four books down and over 50 hours in podcast later I’m feeling a lot better about what is really important. So, in attempt to motivate myself to think, read and write, I shall begin using a blog to write articles and to attempt to share the most important sections of what I’m choosing to study. I want to begin relaying information from books & podcasts, key characters & statistics, ideologies, religions and politics publicly, with an open honest mind as truthfully as I can. This should motivate me to write and help to clarify my own ideas whilst simultaneously opening them up to criticism and allowing further discussion to take place. This is the path that I believe the rest of my blog will follow, hopefully being directional, semi-entertaining and informative as it unfolds. If I can inspire a few individuals to follow this path or begin upon their own journey of discovery then that’s a bonus. It is my current belief that it is only through the honest interactions of individuals and the successful communication of ideas between them that positive change can happen in this world. This belief has been derived from many of the significant figures who’s works and reputations, past and present speaks for themselves.

There’s no doubt that the frequency of interesting thought-provoking conversations being had between young people is increasing, from my own experience I’m finding the nature of many of my discussions be it at work, travelling or outside a pub at 4am turning into questions of politics, spirit and the future and I’m not always the advocate of these kinds of topics. There’s an unavoidable depth in the youth of today, most likely down to the crazy political landscape we live in; with the environment being an example of an unignorable topic moving to the forefront of discussion.

My sister (aged 15) recently said to me that “all adults seem unhappy, everyone seems unhappy but you’re like the happiest adult I know and I feel like I have a good chance at being happy as an adult because you’re my brother”, now I didn’t just wham that in there to make me look good, well that wasn’t my main intention. The fact is I’m not even as happy as I could be, I’m aware of that, in fact I’m a miserable fuck most of the time, so how fucking sad are we all? Whether my so-called happiness is due to my own youth having not yet faced the tests of time, I don’t know but I truly think that as we evaluate our own behaviours and increase our understanding of the world in the right way, we can learn to live happily amongst one and other; humbled and exhilarated by the great expanse of the unknown.

To make all my true motivations clear I will be fighting myself with all my might to not make money and personal gain the primary focus of my writing although making an extra penny would of course be a new-found dream come true! Sharing my opinion publicly on the facts and theories of all the great minds and texts that continue to expand my consciousness both thrills and terrifies me but I cannot help but think about it and therefore I’m going to run with it for a while. I am no newbie when it comes to trial and error and having attempted different business ideas and so-called social media quests which have succeeded, failed and dwindled out. I’m giving this a shot but with learning at the heart of this endeavour it seems it cannot fail to be at the least personally beneficial. Welcome to my learning blog.

Second from the right, my scruffy little face, hopefully creating a sense of the person of whom this is coming from :), not the guy who’s been invited to try clay pigeon shooting; in case that was to becomes an issue for someone – but the human.

Side note… Although I’m not hiding my identity, I’m using the name alias “enable new minds” to allow me to use different social media platforms whilst maintaining separation between my writing and my personal life. It’s quite a cool name which kind of concludes the aims of my own personal education although it does act as if I’m already some kind of important writing body or organisation of which I am not.

In attempt to gain headway with my writing I’ll be shamelessly promoting this across social media and I hope that anyone who at the least has found this vaguely interesting could do the same and show their support. I consider this compulsory of my close friends and family and I welcome constructive feedback from anyone be it through private messaging or below if I can generate a comments section. Any support and/or insight would really mean a lot, helping me to develop further and gauge how this has been received. Much love.

Podcast Links:

https://www.podbean.com/media/player/tj4ci-aa4f85?from=site&vjs=1&skin=1&fonts=Helvetica&auto=0&download=1

https://enablenewminds.podbean.com/e/welcome-to-my-learning-blogwe-are-all-stupid-and-one-day-we-will-die/

Social Media:

https://www.facebook.com/enablenewminds/

https://www.instagram.com/enablenewminds/

Youtube: