This week Chris joined Clifton Duncan, an artist and substack writer whose page is described as “Searing, emotional commentary inspired by the absurdities of our era.” To say the discussion was lively and a good alignment might be an understatement.
The discussion covered everything from censorship, Mass Psychosis, the economy, the origins of Covid and how to escape The Matrix.
What a great interview! I enjoyed reading some Sufi wisdom in the last year. Idries Shah wrote a series of thoughtful books, including lovely illustrated kids books that are marvelous for kids and adults. Great use of art and humor too. https://idriesshahfoundation.org/
I so appreciate the discussion about beauty and aesthetics verses nihilism in the arts. Recognizing that specific conflict was the cause for a 180 degree turn in my life path during my undergraduate education. I had a country upbringing and a classical type of aesthetic in my artistic expression prior to my college years - drawing the farm animals from life, painting flowers and landscapes outdoors, creating geometrically harmonious aesthetics in 2D work and sculpture both. I got a scholarship to New York College of Ceramics and began my fine arts training as an undergrad, but before long I recognized the nihilism and emptiness where there should be soulful beauty in the culture around me. I was criticized for my sense of beauty and aesthetics by my peers and some of my professors, I saw the emptiness in my professors indulging in dark nihilistic conceptual work which seemed like a soul-less mental stimulation to me, getting wasted at class events, etc… The other contributing factor in my lifepath change at that time was that I had started taking classes at Tom Brown’s Tracker School, and there I was getting steeped further in experiencing the synthesis of nature and Spirit firsthand, the sacred aspect of everything from medicinal plants to primitive survival skills, ceremony, crafting baskets or hunting tools, etc… That was creative, but contrary to everything I was experiencing in art school, it was both a functional and sacred engagement of the creative process. The contrast between these two experiences lead to a disillusionment with the arts, and after my sophomore year I decided to leave art school and switch to pre-med. In my mind at the time, I decided that if I was going to get an expensive education, it better be in something functional and science-based that would lead to a career skill, not some subjective invented construct used to judge artwork that I had lost respect for altogether. I ended up completing my bachelors as a pre-med, and going to osteopathic medical school, then doing my residency in traditional osteopathy. From the soul aspect I eventually found more meaning and transmutative beauty than I had ever imagined possible in Biodynamic osteopathy, and I am eternally grateful to have stumbled into osteopathy as I did. And all of the pharmaceutical and corporate driven corruption in medical education and medicine, debt slavery of student loans, extending into my experience being in private practice integrative medicine during the pandemic, witnessing and doing my best to navigate the censorship etc., suppression of effective therapies, is another dysfunctional side of my profession I’ve had to contend with. Chris’s content has been an anchor to sanity through the past couple years, and I’m grateful for that. I hunger for these kinds of meaningful dialogues, for connection with a community that hasn’t fallen into the latest lemmings over the cliff, holier than thou, narrative slavery to a death cult agenda… how to find each other at a local level is still unfortunately a question that has evaded me.
The comment Clifton made about being an analog human was priceless. The more we interact with our machines the more WE adapt to THEM. To act a difficult Greek narrative needs physical prowess, not a better digital sound system.
Humans are essentially analog, as is nature. Intentionally limiting or fully disconnecting from the digital world feels like an upstream swim. I love to think via my digits at the end of my arms and legs! To succumb to the digital world as a ‘trans human’ is really to become subhuman.
Thanks Clifton for the reminder to push back against the digital current our world seems to consider indispensable.
This was really a superb interview.
The back-and-forth between Chris and Clifton with their differing points of view was somewhat akin to having a 2-D view of a surface becoming more of a 3-D view with the benefit of Binocular Vision.
But something they didn’t touch on, which is on my mind this weekend, is this.
We all know we’ve been “Played,” and we continue to be played, by “Them.”
We know the Playbook that’s being used, whether we approve of it or not.
I am presently in somewhat of a state of Dread, feeling that the Playbook’s next move is some major geopolitical event which obviates the need for an election on Tuesday, and sweeps the entire world’s attention totally away from it.
This meshes with how “They” roll. It’s what “They” do.
Does anyone else here share my sense of foreboding ?
– Chuck
Yes. Me too. But I’ve been wrong on a gut instinct like this before. But I’m on high alert. Hopefully nothing will happen (except the slow grinding destruction of our world ??♂️).
Thirteen Stripes for Master Mike !!
I absolutely love it when a fellow Tribe Member makes me laugh right out loud. I’m thinking that in times like this the very last thing you want to lose is your sense of humor.
Long May You Wave !!
– Chuck
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I saw Clifton being interviewed by Andrew Klavan (Daily Wire) and here you are being the guest on Clifton’s podcast. How cool is it that our new community is knitting itself together so nicely via Internet. Also cool that you personally know Kunstler of Cluster F Nation; I love his blog. Maybe we are making more progress at building the new future than we realize. Iron sharpens iron, bouncing ideas around together is good stuff. BTW: Bill Gates/Windows “crappy-ass” really sums it up. ?
I’m so glad to hear you talk about beautiful things being important. I have recently completed a music degree, part of which was to write and record an album of songs. What I wrote what I consider to be beautiful. I feel like there is no place for me and my music in the industry as it is not motherfu@#in’ this or bad ass that or how much I wanna be f#$ked. I’ve given up trying to make it work, find my niche. So to hear you, especially as men, talk about the world needing artists that create beautiful things gives me a little bit of hope that maybe one day I will find my place. Even made me a little teary So thank you, really, thank you.
So thank you, really, thank you.