Welcome to Living in the Matrix. I'm Jonathan and I'm left of center.
And I'm Rich and I tend to lean a little bit more to the right. But the bottom line is,
is together we try to look for the balance of what it means to be human in today's world.
Welcome everybody to Living in the Matrix. This is Jonathan and this is my co-host,
Rich. Say hello, Rich. Hey everybody. Great to be back.
It's good to have you back, man. Today we are with Andrew and I found Andrew on Instagram
about six months ago and I can't remember how what made me hit follow, but he's been in my feed and
he always has these interesting thought processes about life. And then about a month ago, he came
into my feed for some, we're going to talk about it a little bit, but it just captured my attention
how interesting this guy is. And that's what we love to have on the show is people that
are choosing to live outside of the status quo. And Andrew, you're definitely one of them. Welcome.
It's a pleasure to have you. Yeah. Thanks for having me. And I'm so excited to be here. And
I think it aligns so well with kind of my background because I've really only existed on
the edges of society and on either side. I started off incredibly Mormon and then found myself
in a gray black market selling drugs and going to different states, extraction facilities. So yeah,
I started off my journey, like I said, really very religious and that already kind of puts you on the
edge. So I was a real true blue Mormon guy. And yeah, I really went to BYU and I did like a little
mini mission and I went and talked to people about Joseph Smith and Jesus. I did the whole thing.
And I found myself dissatisfied. I found myself feeling not cohesive with my lifestyle. And the
answer was like, oh, just wait, you'll be happy in the next life. You'd be upset now. But I didn't
find that answer satisfying because I had this real conversation where I said to my Mormon bishop,
I said like Mormon bishop, it seems like I would say one of the more significant components was
the fact that I got married when I was 18. So being married as a teenager definitely
started to shift my perspective and continue to keep me on the outside of society.
And that was a weird experience, like basically being a teenager and then being told like,
all right, you have a wife now and go take care of your family. Yeah. So I graduated high school.
I go on a mini mission, which is only two weeks long. And so at that point, I had already decided
I liked having sex too much to really go on a full-time mission. I don't think I'm going to
be able to do it. I was in the middle ground. And so I go to BYU. I ended up having sex with
my girlfriend. I get caught. I get kicked out of school. And then the idea was like, all right,
well, I'm not going to stop having sex. So I guess we should just get married because we're
already in love and I'm not going on a mission. So this seems like the next logical step of life.
And that was not the best choice, to be honest with you. And here's the crazy thing. We're still
cool as fuck. I was married for almost nine years. We were together like 10 years. The
smoothest divorce I've ever... Breaking up with girlfriends has been much more traumatic than the
divorce I had with my ex-wife. She is so cool. And I'm very lucky that I was able to get out of
a marriage with no children, no debt, no hard feelings. That was pretty cool how that worked
out. But yeah, basically I'm at BYU. I'm dissatisfied with being a Mormon because I see
that the rest of the world is doing shit that I want to do. And I get not allowed. What the
fuck? When am I allowed to do cool shit? I have to wait to die to do drugs? I have to wait to die
to have a threesome? I have to wait to die? Why would God make all this cool shit and then not
let me do it? What the fuck? And so it's at this time that I'm actually going to school,
because I'm very Mormon and I'm on track to be a DEA agent, law enforcement. That's what I wanted
to go with my major in criminology. And I'm ready to get a gun and just start kicking down the road
with laying down the long dick of the law. Just like, bam, everybody on the fucking ground,
officer Ferris, bam, bam. I was ready, dude. I was ready. And then I went on a ride along and
I started spending time with law enforcement. And I felt like a stormtrooper being like,
oh fuck, are we the bad guys? Like, oh shit, yeah, oh fuck. Because obviously police do good things
and if some bad shit happened, I'm calling 911. But being a police officer, not for me, even at
DEA agent and everything like that, the second you show up, people loathe you and you're interacting
with people on the absolute worst day of their entire existence. And like, I have a hard time
when a stranger doesn't like me. You know what I mean? Let alone the customer that I'm interacting
with is actively hating me. So yeah, man, that wasn't for me. And so at the same time, I'm trying
to figure out what to do. I get an assignment at school and at school they say the way that you
evaluate reality is through peer-reviewed empirical data, which is odd for a review school to say.
I felt like it was like an underground railroad where they were trying to have this guy was trying
to help kids see the light in a smooth way. And so they give me an assignment that says,
write about anything, just defend your position on anything you want using peer-reviewed scientific
journals. So I went onto the JSTOR and I thought I was going to have an easy assignment. I thought
I was going to say, weed is bad, medical marijuana is a backdoor to recreational legalization.
There's no value. It's bad. Drugs are bad. Because that's what God said. God said drugs are bad. So
I mean, obviously the science will show that drugs are bad. And so I start looking and now I find all
these papers, but instead of saying that weed is bad, they're saying, oh, non-toxic, non-physically
habit forming, shrinks tumor cell, cancer. What the fuck? And so it actually threw me down like
a portal. I was awake for like a full day reading all this because it was a thread that pulled the
tapestry of my perception of reality. Because up until this point, God had been the ultimate
authority and the men at church who told me what to believe, that was reality. And now I have
another authority figure at a school institution telling me to trust science. I'm like, I've never
before had science and God in direct conflict. Before it seemed like they could work together,
there's some gaps, but here it is. Here's the science saying, weed really isn't very bad for
you. And in fact, there could be some medical benefit. And then here's God saying, bro, you
smoke weed, you're going to hell and I don't love you anymore. I'm like, that's it. That quote,
pulling the thread of the tapestry of your reality, we have to highlight that. That was just
brilliant, man. I just love that line. Oh my God. I'm visualizing it right now. It's like the matrix,
right? And it's unraveling, you know, that's incredible. Yeah. It really was the matrix
unraveling for me. And it was terrifying because it was like, Oh man, what if God's really not in
control of this whole operation, dude? Whoa, God. And like, it created like this pit inside of me
that continued to grow and more and more of my beliefs and my structure of what I thought I was
and who I was as the whole group more and fell in. And then I wasn't sure what, Oh my God, who am I?
What am I? And like, I'm freaking out. I can't explain this to anyone because at BYU, if you
start to talk shit, if you start to not believe, it's a private institution. And if you get expelled,
those private credits don't transfer to a public school. So like, Oh shit, you can't let them know.
You can't let them know. And you need an endorsement every semester from your religious leader. And if
your religious leader feels that you are not endorseable, then you can't go back to school.
And now you lose all your credit. So like, I have to be playing the role. You know what I'm saying?
I cannot express these feelings to anyone because it's dangerous. And even my wife, like, doesn't
want to hear it at the time. And so eventually I become obsessed with marijuana and reading about
the facts. And I try to convince people and try to say it's not so bad and nobody wants to hear it.
And I'm in Rexburg, Idaho, and it is not known for its cannabis-friendly culture. And I first decide,
like, all right, I guess I'm gonna smoke weed. And like, at the time, the only people had access to
weed were essentially people who were terminally ill because it's a very Mormon place. So the
first dude that I met that really had weed had like sickle cell anemia. And then the next dude
had terminal cancer. And so like, the first few smoke sessions were not like, I'm smoking in this
dude's bathroom and he's dying. And like, I was like, man, is this drugs? This doesn't seem good.
I don't know.
Did you have intense paranoia?
No, no.
You didn't. That's good. Especially coming out of a religious background because you and I have
very similar paths in terms of same conflicts internally, same kind of moving on. And it's
and marijuana for me is one of those that I think the church needs to significantly look at because
the medicinal qualities are far superior than any manmade type substances that, you know, they want
to sell us through insurance. You know, it's like, its medicinal properties are astounding.
And I think we're afraid of that. I think we're afraid of people getting well. It's easier to
keep people buying stuff when they're sick.
I want to get Jonathan quick. I watched this guy who had Parkinson's, like he was really just shaking
all over and absolutely just almost not able to function. And he slowly released the dropper
in his mouth and literally he's like lucid. Oh my God, like a freaking miracle, right?
He's having a conversation. He's like marveling. He's like, this is amazing. He's like trapped in
his own body, which is just a horrifying thing. Right. And you go down, you know, the awakenings
movie, which we saw a long time ago, I think it was De Niro and somebody else, and they gave him
some drugs that made him really bright again. But then he crumbled. In this case, it's like,
this is, this is salvific, right? For this guy, right? In that term, right?
So go ahead. What were you going to say?
I mean, I agree 100%. And I think it's a common fallacy of that previous perception. So like
a lot of religiosity and a lot of like systems of power will have black and white decision trees
because that discourages critical thinking. So if everything is black and white, this is good. This
is bad. It's all figured out for you. Yes. If you don't have, if the critical thinking is removed,
then the understanding cannabis is almost impossible because cannabis does not easily fit
into one box. So just like how exercise is very healthy for you and good for you, but
sports are really fun and have a physical exercise component. And so like, can you say,
well, I'm only playing basketball medically, you know, I'm playing, I'm not having any fun with
this. I'm not, not, it's not recreational soccer. This is medical soccer. And like the idea that
medicine and recreation and pleasure and fun can't be associated with medicine and getting better.
That has to be a sterile doctor thing. You're not allowed. And so like, has to be in a pill.
Yes. Let's talk about sex. Sex was like procreation, right? It's not supposed to be fun,
right? Sex is here to have that. Ben Shapiro was talking to somebody about this and they were
talking about the purpose of, I don't know if it was the guy, if they were talking about gay sex
or other kinds of sex, but the bottom line is, is like Ben was like, Hey, here's the purpose. And
then this guy goes, so you've had your three or four kids, you've procreated now you just stop,
right? Is that what happened? He was just dead silent, right? Ben Shapiro is never silenced,
right? He's like, always got the answer for every potential question out there, either whether it's
social or religious or political. And he was like stunned. It's like, Oh shit. Am I, you know, yeah,
same exact thing. I think that's part of the journey is people are coming to a point where
they're capable of questioning their own face that they grew up with. And because that's what
social media and having access to a shit ton now AI is a whole nother level. It's going to teach
people all the bullshit factors that are in their lives, because they're going to be able to do what
we did, which is go, I know, it's not, I love the way you said it's not satisfying. Like, it's not
that I don't care about it. It's it doesn't satisfy. I want to find something that's satisfying. And
what's interesting is you kind of gravitated towards marijuana. Why was that your catalyst?
Why? What was it about it? Because here's the thing. There's a concept in faith systems in
Christianity, at least of the slippery slope, don't go too far over the edge. I don't know if you ever
heard of that. I think it's actually a slip and slide that we're unlocking ourselves. And I think
it's a great way to get ourselves from the shackles. What do you think?
Well, yeah, I mean, there's several questions that I wanted to answer that you guys, you guys both
asked. So the, the first one would be when you were talking about the Ben Shapiro component,
the, the assumption that productivity and logic and efficiency are moral, righteous values is
actually like a total fallacy. And like, you can choose to adopt that in your morality. But the
idea that that is a standard, like no other animals, mammals value that in the same way.
Have you ever watched like a bird play a canary play with other canaries or play with toys?
Like, how can you say, oh, well, that's, that's not productive, that that's not valuable. We're
like, that's an essential component of its life. If you don't allow other mammals to play or
socialize, they physically deteriorate. And so the idea that existence is only for functionality,
and that anything beyond functionality is extra to be cut is like a total misunderstanding of
reality in my mind. And then, Jonathan, to answer your question about like, why cannabis is so
interesting to me. It had always been fascinating my entire life, I think, because of the idea of
scarcity, the idea that like, I got to go to Disneyland one time when I was a child, and it
was like incredible. And like, there was only I can only go once because like, it's expensive,
you know what I mean? And like, eating out was expensive. And so like doing fun things was
expensive. Weed was $10, $15. And so like, all my friends growing up, they all smoked weed, I was
like the only Mormon one, and I never tried it. Not even one time. I couldn't let Jesus down.
I never tried it. Finally, you took your face seriously. Like, it sounds like you really took
it seriously. I was a true blue believer, you better because I had experiences that mirrored
drug psychedelic experiences that were almost as authentic. And then as a teenager, as a child,
I had an adult come in and finesse me and say like, what you were experiencing wasn't
self actualization or any significant emotional experience. That was Jesus and he told me to tell
you about it. Interesting. I did. You're not talking about the vision that Joseph Smith had
at Palmyra, was he at Palmyra? Off in the woods, right? Where the angel came and visited him in
New York, or I think is where he was. And then it was Moroni that kind of showed him the golden
plates. I can't remember the story, but are you saying that you had some types of experiences
that mirrored, you know, the use of cannabis and you didn't know what that was? Can you elaborate
on that? As far as the experiences that built my faith that truly mirrored a psychedelic experience,
when I was a teenager, when I was 15 years old, the Mormon church has a program called EFY,
especially for youth. And teens would go to meet on like generally a college campus during the
summer when the college is out and have like essentially a Mormon kind of camp, summer camp
experience. And at the end of the week, you're kind of separated into some small groups,
and you're usually at like a fireplace or like some quiet dark area and everybody shares
generally some very intense emotional experiences. And being emotionally aware, even if you are not
sharing your own emotional experience, like you could feel it and you could even feel tears and
you could feel it's almost a tangible thing. If you've ever had the experience that I'm talking
about of being in a group of people that you've gotten to know intensely over the last, you know,
couple of days where you're spending 24 hours with these strangers and you've developed a
relationship and it's a very new and exciting relationship. And then these strangers are
being incredibly vulnerable, telling them deep things that they're trusting you with in this
room. And everybody is being very accepting and like you can feel it's just an intense experience.
And it's very similar to certain aspects of a psychedelic experience. And so I had those
experiences as a teenager and that made me think like God was real because like here's how real
these things were. And then I took drugs and then I was like, oh shit. This was $15. This was not God.
That's crazy. You don't have to go away for a week either. The experience you're talking about,
I grew up an evangelical Christian and we would go to camp every summer and they would have a
bonfire at the end of the week and everybody would profess their faith for Christ. And it was a
palpable experience of love. What I realize now, knowing what I know now is I was actually
experiencing the chemical reaction of love. And we take that for a religious experience.
Is that what you felt? Yeah, 100%. And if again, like I'm a child, I'm 15 years old and an adult
that has authority that is not only an authority figure in my religious institution, but is a
authority figure in his social position. Usually they were like a somewhat successful business man
or doctor, engineer. So like here I'm a teenager and some other important powerful person that
sits in multiple structures of institution is telling me that was God and he has a special
message for you. And like, okay. Was that different than the burning and the bosom that you typically
would get? Because one of the things when we used to talk to Mormons, because we used to kind of
proselytize, right? We would say, hey, we're in apologetics. I think we found, you know, Joseph
Smith said, we actually are the real church. Everything that happened in the past, at least
up until the first century was kosher, right? The early apostles were all good, but now everything's
gotten screwed up. And to his credit, Joseph Smith was right in a lot of ways when you see 85,000
Protestant denominations, a lot of war factions, a lot of divisiveness. But, you know, we would say,
well, you're probably a Mormon because you were raised as a Mormon and that's just the way it goes.
And it's like, that's not a very, it's kind of a cop out, right? And so you think the natural
answer was yeah. And they say, no, I got down on my knees and I prayed and I had that burning in my
bosom. So I had that special revelation. Is that what they were trying to elucidate in these things?
Or was it just something more like a communal type of strengthening where you would have maybe a
different kind of a message that you thought you had? Because that's what I've heard of. Is that
accurate in what's described? No, I think it's definitely by design, but not intentional design.
Like I think it's people that have, I think there are people that have authentically good intentions
and are trying their best to be the best that they can be. And they've found some value in
religiosity, Mormonism, Catholicism, whatever it is. And so like they're trying to create these
experiences, which they believe are God. And so like, yeah, it's an intentional component where
it's like, okay guys, we're going to really try to muster the spirit where it's like you're actually
creating the potential of the social experience for people to feel love in a society and culture
that suppresses that. And so yeah, then you can manipulate people however you want.
Well, you just said manipulate, because that's the thing that I get. That's the problem that I have,
because there is genuine people who want to find God, want to be in community, want to share in
love. And that's a great thing. But then there's this power structure that says, let's make it
hyper suggestive, right? This happens in a lot of the Pentecostal and charismatic movements,
where the people are like, right, they're falling around, they're lurching, they're acting crazy.
You've probably heard of Benny Hinn. I don't know if you've heard of Benny Hinn. But you watch these
people and audiences and you realize that this is a manipulation, right? And it's, and the question
I have for both of you guys is, if the end result is a connection and a better standing, is that
accurate? Or is it, if the focal, if the actual point of it was suggestibility and getting money,
that's saying getting commitment to a cause, is that, tell me, is it wrong or is it not wrong?
If the outcome is like community and love and outpouring and support in a community,
then justify the means.
Andrew, let me answer first here. I say no, I know, I've wrestled with this question very deeply,
was the intention of those people who led the church when I was young to manipulate me into
the kingdom of God. And I don't think that was it at all. They saw it as a deeply valuable experience.
So they were leading me to something that had worked for generations. So it wasn't
manipulation. They knew it was good. Because I, so half my family is Mormon. So I grew up with a
presence of being a Mormon. And I will honestly say I find the Mormon faith family structure
or a sense of my experience with that family infinitely better and more loving than in my tribe.
Because it was in the evangelical tribe. Yeah, there's, and so that's culture that I experience
is one that was, there was a lot of love in the Mormon family. Like it's, they practice it.
But so Andrew, give me your take. Yeah, I mean, there's membership of these organizations exists
for like a reason, like there is value that people are able to get. And it is like a real actual
value and a system that's replicatable that has value. I mean, look at McDonald's or anything else,
that's like a very replicatable system value. And so, yeah, I feel like as nice as it would be
to know the answers to whys. I have kind of resigned myself to only focus on hows. And so like
the why people did this, the what, like we're trying to answer a question that they themselves
don't know. And so it's like impossible to get to that base. But as far as like the how, the how is
I was a kid, I got in this situation, an adult told me these things. And like, as far as why they
told me those things and their true intentions, like that was like really impossible to know.
Do you consider yourself a Mormon still? Definitely not. Negatory,
megatourist. So what was that jump for you? Oh, so that was actually my next, my next thing on my,
on my list here. And when you're a Mormon or religious person, you're the way that you look
you're the way that your life is set up is like God is in the center and you build your life around
God. And so like all of a sudden, like God was gone. And I was like, what am I going to do here?
Like, what do I, do you consider yourself an atheist? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think so. I don't
know. I don't. You wouldn't be the first person we've had on our podcast that was Mormon that
went down the path of theist to then non-theist. So the path. So I think here in the biggest challenge
with this is, is that when you, and I was going to ask you this earlier, because for me, when you
had that task of finding imperial evidence, empirical evidence and research, that is the
biggest crock of what they would have asked you. Because one of the foundational misattributes of
truth to the Mormon religion is that during the reign of Zedekiah, they came across here, they
built, you know, nations, the Lamanites and the Nephites warred against each other. And all that
was left behind were the dark skinned Mark of Cain, Lamanites, I think, maybe they're in Nephites.
I can't remember. But the bottom line is, is like, there's no historical, archaeological, genetic,
or cultural evidence of any of these types of civilization ever existing here in this country.
So the DNA of the Native Americans that everybody found when they came over here should have
Middle Eastern DNA in them, because they all came across here from Middle East, from, they were
Jews, they're Hebrews. And then here, Jesus came, showed up. So one of the questions I was going to
have for you is, to me, I believe you can have the truth of the message of Christ. And even though
there's a lot of guessing games there, and there's a lot of faith you've got to put into it, like
rising from the dead, etc. I think, unfortunately, for the Mormon faith, there's a lot of things that
I think Joseph Smith added to that, including just taking the King James Version and writing stuff
down and trying to be almost verbatim in the Book of Abraham, which according to Smithsonian was-
Rich, what's your question, bro?
My question really is, is like, was the actual, was there an actual epistemological, was it an
actual intellectual assent that you realized it wasn't true because of the Mormon thing? Or was
it something that you missed, like God was just missing? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like,
there's people who say-
Where's the word satisfied, which was your word?
Yeah. So I'd like to understand that if you would. When he left, when God left you, was it because it
was intellectually un-
He wasn't here. That's all you said. It wasn't here.
What broke the shelf is what you're-
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
What was the straw that broke? Yeah. So like essentially, I had always felt not satisfied,
and I just assumed that that was part of the burden of my responsibility as a Mormon, is that like,
life is hard and part of the difficulty is restraint and a lack of fulfillment. And so like,
the more discomfort you have, the better your heaven's going to be. And so like, I'd always
felt that. And then all of a sudden, I get to college and like, there's a Mormon Stories
podcast. They still exist, but at the time that was more significant to me. And then I'm taking
these like biology courses and like, not even like, it wasn't like deep doctrine that convinced me.
It was more just like baseline things where like, yeah, I don't know if I believe in this. And then
it was like, well, you're going to tell me that like Noah was a literal story. And like,
it was, I don't know, because like there's a zoo in San Francisco and it has like a full team of
people that like have doctor degrees and like, they can't keep the animals alive sometimes.
And they don't even have two of all the animals. And then like, you could measure the earth and
like the atmosphere and like, you know how the rain cycle works. So like, we can measure how much
rain can even fit on our planet. And like, how much water would it take to plug and cover Mount
Kilimanjaro to fill the Grand Canyon? Like all of a sudden, the math doesn't work now. And so if you
had been more flexible with your theology and said like, yeah, interpret it as you'd like, see what
there is to think about, find your own answer, then that would be fine. But like not you were
Mormonism's black and white. This happened this way. And like, when you set yourself up,
don't question it. Yeah. When you set yourself up to be so rigid, then all of a sudden it's
very difficult to recover from any deviation from that. I don't know if that answers your question
totally. No, that's the hero's journey because the hero's journey is to break the cast of the
family and go create a new story. Yeah. And that's what you did. So I mean, the most significant
part of that was like, I had started smoking weed and I was married, but I was hiding from my wife
because she didn't like it. And so she goes on a trip to go see her sister and she's gone.
And I decided I want to do some real drugs. And so I had never bought drugs before. I didn't know
how to get them. I was 24, 25, married since I was 19. And so like, I didn't have a lot of single
friends. I only had Mormon friends. And so like, I just, I think I went on Craig's list.
I don't know how I did it, but it was not a smart way to go about it. But I eventually,
I get myself a tab of acid and I say, okay, here we go. And I do this acid. And when you talk about
the matrix and like, it was like the scaffolding of my existence and perspective disintegrated.
I don't know how to fully explain to you the idea that, okay, if I'm not going to believe in God,
then like we got to delete the whole hard drive here because what can we keep? What can we throw
away? I don't know because if God's real. And so like, hey, I filled up a whole notebook where I
wrote down, okay, I guess this is what I believe now because if God isn't real, then I guess I am
God. And if I'm God, I'm going to make some rules that make sense to me. And so like, I started at
the bottom, like, okay, God says stealing is wrong. What does Andrew God say? And I remember,
I had my iPod stolen in high school. That felt real shitty. And so I said,
stealing is wrong. I don't think I want to steal. And then I had to, okay, what about like driving
the speed limit? Nah, fuck that. I'll go faster than speed limit. That's okay. And then I had to
go to the next thing. Like, what about like lying? What about like cheating on your girlfriend? What
about like, I had to go through everything like a little baby, like a brand new little baby. And I
had to make all these new decisions. And like, some of my decisions are far outside of the realm of
societal norms. Because I didn't have a society at the helm of creating my new rules and laws. It was
just fucking mentally ill, wild ass me. And so yeah, that's how I ended up existing on the outside
because like, my rules for life that I created are not like, based on anything else but my own
experiences. And so yeah, but in an amazing way, it's like so freeing because like,
when I take accountability for being responsible for my reality, and essentially the God of my
existence and experience, all of a sudden, it's an incredible burden because the things that you
don't like, you have to be responsible for. Take accountability for them. But if there are things
that you want, then all of a sudden, you can grant them to yourself. So like, this is a great example,
even the fact that I'm talking to you, I had everything in my life kind of end. I've had like
three chapters of life and my second chapter of life ended in a spectacular blaze of despair and
agony. And I was like, it was just like before when I lost my moral religion, I had to restart
again. And I said, okay, this time I'm God. And like, what do I want my reality to be? And I based
my base it on a story that my father told me, like my father, he's a lawyer now, but he used to be a
heroin addict. And he's a heroin addict when he's like a teenager. And all his friends are dying
because you don't live long doing intravenous drugs. It's like the Vietnam War. And he tells me
like, hey, I was gonna go kill myself on the train tracks. And I get there and I decide I'm gonna
stay alive, I guess. And then he says, I'm gonna stay alive. And if I'm gonna stay alive, what
should be my life? Because doing heroin is great. So if I'm gonna not do heroin, I better be doing
some badass. And he remembers that a lawyer had gotten him out of drinking underage. And so he
decided, I'm gonna be a lawyer. And so like, my dad stopped doing heroin, he goes to community
college gets into college goes to law school does the whole thing. Because he's at like the bottom
and decided, I'm gonna go back to here. That still is he's 75. I'm gonna go back to heroin later. I
don't know. Not yet. But soon. I'm gonna go back. So I kind of have it actually. Yeah, I had that
template of my reality. So I said, you know what I want to do? I want to like, I want to be rich
and famous. That sounds pretty badass. And like, it's even scary to say out loud, it feels uncomfortable
to even tell you, like, just saying the word, I want to be rich and famous. That sounds pretty
fucking cool. And like, I guess I'm, I'm gonna do that. And either like, I'm going to accomplish
that goal, or I'll die before and then I'll be famous after I'm dead. So like, I've already
decided, I've already made the decision as the god of reality, I'm going to be rich and famous. I
don't know if I'm gonna get to experience it while I'm alive. I don't know if it's gonna be
future generation. I don't know, I can't control that much of my reality. But I can't control
this much. And so like, the freedom and responsibility and satisfaction of making progress
in the reality that you've decided is, I mean, I'm my vocabulary, I rarely run out of things to say.
But I cannot describe the satisfaction I feel of progress on my goals.
I want to offer you a perspective because you and I have, like I said, we have same trajectories,
probably different paths. But I think what you're doing is essentially taking Jesus or, I mean,
because Jesus is part of the Mormon religion, so that's your background saying, hey, there's
this thing called grace. And you kind of took up that idea of I get to do anything I want,
but I've got to create my own rules. And I think Jesus created a very simple structure.
This is if you base it on love, you're always going to be in a good place.
How would you say yours is different from that? Because I think that idea of living into this
gray space is really hard for people. They don't like freedom, they want structure, they want
safety and security. Grace is hard because it's like, it's a big world. And I think you're kind
of taking it by the balls and go, let's go for a ride. Let's do this. And what do you think?
I think my opinion on that is that love or comfort is fantastic and desirable, but it is not
the enemy of discomfort. In fact, they are one and the same. And they require each other. And the
idea of trying to separate them, like you can't take a coin and separate one half from the other
half. You can't only have half of a mountain. They require each other to exist. And so my
experiences that have had contrast are the most valuable. So here's I'll give you an example.
Like when you have the perspective that, okay, love and only love is going to guide my decisions,
you could be with your partner on the beach and you see another beautiful woman and you think like,
I really like her a lot and I want to go have that. Why should I not? If my desire is to only
maximize love and kind of like feeling good, it's an option. The same love feelings that I'm feeling
for this other woman, I had those same feelings that drew me to my wife. And look, I'm married
and that's all good. It's so much love. So how can you tell me the same thing that drove me here
to a good place? Now you're telling me the same thing is going to fuck everything up. And like,
the fact is like, it's true. And like, I messed up my life a lot by doing that because I was so
Mormon and I had so much control in my life. I thought all control and all discomfort was bad.
I thought I had to just maximize comfort. And so I go to the grocery store, like, what do you want
to eat? All the food that's good, ice cream, cinnamon, but like, that's how I got to be 300
pounds. That's how I ended up having a bunch of not successful relationships. That's how I ended up
not being able to have control over my own life and finding the value of discomfort and saying like,
oh, this is not a thing to run from. This is not a thing to chastise. This is a beautiful part of
the process. And so like, in the same way of imagine your destination is in a far away place,
and you're on a journey and your true destination is still miles away, but you've found a very nice
place and there's nice food here and it's nice to rest here. And like, you can spend your whole life
trying to convince yourself that like, you don't really want to go over there. That you're really,
everything's good here. Why should I leave? It's fine. Everything's good. But like, you know,
what you really want and where you really want to be. And so like, I cannot lie to myself to find
satisfaction in not following the things that I want. I tried.
Wait, that was a double negative. What'd you say?
Hmm. I cannot lie to myself and say I'm satisfied with things that are just not bad or things that
are just good. Right. In other words, you want more. Because I think that's part of the whole
life experience is it's not about what's right or wrong. It's about, we're meant for freedom.
And we tend to, for the sake of safety, because our brain goes hardwired and says,
you need to protect yourself. So let's create these structures. I think that's the hard part
about any, you know, organized religion is its intention. You know, Rich, you talk about
manipulation. It's like, no, they don't start out trying to manipulate people, but they can.
That's the interesting part of it. And I'm always fascinated like with power and power structure,
systems of control and religiosity and organized religion is another one of those very powerful
things. This is living in the matrix. We're a huge part of this is because both Rich and I came out
of a religious structure and we're probably a lot more free flowing now. But it's like,
back, what does it mean to live in a simulation? And is, you know, because our backgrounds parallel,
but they were probably fairly similar because it's a really protective border. And there's a lot of
love that exists in it. I can say most of my youth was filled with love, but there was a lot of
control and manipulation that happened. So yeah, I think, oh, go ahead. Sorry.
I was going to say that the reason why I kind of got out of the church though, Jonathan, is because
my wife was hurt by the people there. Right. And so she was hurt by gossip and, and structure and
legalistic bullshit. Right. I wanted to go back to you though, Andrew, in terms of, there's this
concept about freedom to explore and express and find what you want, but there's also the idea of
balance. So there is the idea of the book of Ecclesiastes where Solomon, one of the wisest
people in the world, he does everything. He has all the money, all the wealth, all the concubines,
all the wives. He had all the wine. He had whatever the heck he wanted. And then at the end of the
day, he gave himself the freedom to just totally have excess. And at the end he says,
meaningless. It's all, it's all worthless. It's all meaningless. And that's why it's a crazy book.
But have you ever heard of the movie Legends of the Fall? It's with Brad Pitt. That sounds very
familiar. It's a famous movie. It's when he's, you know, he's a good looking dude and the wife loves
it and everybody loves Brad Pitt, but he basically goes to the war. He sees his young brother die and
he goes and scalps all these Nazis during World War I. Oh, I have seen it. Yeah. He comes back
and he's broken and he's got this girl that he loves, but he can't be with her because
they're, she's part of the family. He goes off and he just smokes opium. He's on this boat.
He travels. His hair gets long. He's got women next to him. And I think he realizes that he's
seen it and they're done that. So I guess my question for you is when do you find balance?
What, when, when is enough enough in terms of exploring that? Or I mean, to be fair, Jim
Morrison, I love, he wanted to break on through, man. That guy did whatever it took because he was
on a mission to say what's out there, right? And he's a poet, man. I love his album, An American
Prayer. So tell me, is there any balance in there? Is it just like, let's fricking see where this
thing goes. Tell me a little bit about that journey. Is this phase three? Are you still in,
I don't know, are we in phase three out of your life? Yeah. I mean, this is the third chapter,
for sure. They've all had very distinct openings and closings. And I mean, everything is actually,
my progress in my third chapter, I've in two years has exceeded several years in chapters one or two.
And so, yeah, I'm doing great. And I mean, the question that I've still been dying to answer,
that I think like, can continue to go around and around is that you can recognize like, on the one
hand, yeah, religion has all these very tangible, visible, good things that you we've all experienced.
And then on the other hand, we can see, ah, religion has all these kind of fucked up bad
things that like, not only we can reach in touch, but we've all experienced. And so like, you're
you're trying to assess, you're trying to attach morality to power. And like, power doesn't,
yeah, like, just like a river or the ocean doesn't have a morality, power cannot have a morality. And
like other things that are powerful, also don't have a morality, like guns, sex, drugs, fire,
money, all of those things are incredibly powerful. And a slight change can make one experience an
amazing ecstasy and another a terrible nightmare. Like just one one tiny, little tiny change of any
of those incredibly powerful systems, and even the intent behind the person in control of those
powerful systems, drastically changes your experience. And so like, I don't think it's
possible to assign morality to raw power, it's possible to assign it to the people
who are driving the system. So like just a car doesn't have morality, but the driver hasn't.
And so like, yeah, religion, just like anything else, that's powerful is, is powerful and can be
used for good things like fire, cooking food, bad things like burning down your neighbors house.
Like, yeah, I think you can, because you can see it on both sides, it doesn't fit into a box,
it's it's the mechanism. It's the operator. That makes sense?
Yeah, agreed. Do you, in your journeys, because I know you sort of given yourself a lot of freedom,
I, I, I think it's a powerful way to live, because it's, it's, it's your, your delimiting yourself.
How do you, what is the sort of not existential, but all maybe existential sort of questions you
ask as you go through that in terms of how it affects other people, because like your point was,
you have one woman and the other, what's to stop you from this one, what's been the journey in
your head on that? Yeah, basically, it, I, I, I hit the ceiling, I realized, and it was no longer
satisfying. So like, yeah, you can have sex with a lot of women, and that's awesome. I cannot,
I cannot tell you how great it is. But it's also awesome to like have somebody when you get home,
that is your best friend, that like knows you, that like cares about you in a way that nobody
else on the planet cares about you. And like, you cannot have both things, you know what I'm saying?
You, you require temperance to have access to both things. And so I think that's where some of the
balance lies, you know? I mean, that's, that's, this is, this is an age old question, right? I mean,
I mean, hell, let's talk about love. I mean, wars have started, people have died, thousands of people
have died because of love interests, right? In relationships, right? I mean, look at like Henry
the Eighth, for heaven's sake, right? I mean, just, I mean, he split a church apart, right? He'd
separated from Rome because he wanted another woman instead of Catherine of Aragon, right? So
I think that you're onto something in that you're recognizing the dichotomy of
this excess has limitations. This certainty has also got limitations, right? And we have to choose
what's going to be, what's going to work for us. I think if you also, and Jonathan would lead towards
love, I think he would realize that even if he had the opportunity to be Charlize Theron is walking
by, she catches his eye. She's like, there's more than eye contact. It's like, wow. And she,
Jonathan's like, all right, she just gave me an ultimatum. She goes one night with me,
what do you say, hun? And you've got that choice, right? I mean, it's, people have these supposedly,
these relationships where, yeah, okay, hun, Brad Pitt shows up. He's all yours for one night.
You know, Noah questions asked, right? And so I guess the question, the thing, it seems so alluring,
but there could be that little thing like, wow, you've changed. You haven't been the same since
that happened for like six months and I don't know what the hell to say about it, right? So I think
it's almost like, this is where we get back to the law of thermodynamics. It's a law of every op,
every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So one of the things, yep. Yeah. Second law of
thermodynamics. And what we're finding is karma and physics and this whole thing we know as
consciousness are all interrelated at the base level, man. We are all connected through this
consciousness, this pure unified field, whether we like it or not. So you reduce ourselves down
to this atomic level. And when you think about doing something to somebody else or something
that comes back at you and that reverberates, it's actually just law of physics in many, many ways.
We can call it religious, but in many ways, you know, and I know that doing something, there's,
there's a little hint in the back of your mind that says, if I go down this path, I know there
could be consequences. It feels really good. I do it. I know. And whether you actually physically,
you can even cheat on somebody that you love and they might not know about it, but you're sure as
hell going to know about it. Right. And so, I mean, Edgar Allen Poe talks about things that it just,
it eats you inside. Right. And so people go crazy because of the stuff that they could do.
Yeah. I mean, I, I'll tell you, Rich, I mean, I did all those things and you become
very aware of your position. So like, I think a lot of men would think like, oh, it'd be so cool.
My wife or girlfriend let me open up. That would be so great. And so like, I did it, right. I pushed
her and complained and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like, we're living together. We've been
together a while and I'm excited and I get out there and like, within like the first few days,
you know, how many girls talk to me? Like one, two, you know how many dudes talk to her?
Well, dozens, dozens, dozens. And I guarantee you, no matter who you are, just the economics of sex,
your wife or girlfriend is going to receive way more attention for the thing that you beg.
And now you never thought about what it's going to be like on the other side. You were just thinking
about the girl at work and how fun that would be. And like, having to accept the, having to eat the
fucking cake that you baked for yourself. So I've had to have that experience and as, oh wow,
that's a different thing. And like, I would say even dating women that like were worked in like
the sex industry, whether that was like dancers or like she was a prostitute in Australia. And so
like they have a whole legal system there. And so like she would work and then get money and come
to the United States. And so that's how I'd met her. And so like those experiences changed and
shaped my perspective of sexuality and of manhood. And I think, I think that has been very helpful
for me to, many men I think don't recognize their feelings of interiority. And when they do,
they just appear as anger or appear as discomfort and unable to recognize that. It's actually your
feelings of inferiority around sex or confidence or women or whatever it might be, because men have
the same expectations and pressures that women have. They're just not spoken about and not
addressed. And so like that is why sometimes it's confusing maybe as a man, why you get so mad
and you don't understand why you're so fucking pissed and like, I don't know, I'm just fucking
mad, just leave me alone. And like, it can just feel like I just, I just get upset. That's all
it is. I'm just getting upset when in reality, you are getting upset. But the reason that you're
getting upset is, is things that you need to address about yourself.
Absolutely. Yeah. And that's hard is addressing the stuff about ourselves is hard for guys.
I think it's hard for men. They don't like going into the heart at all. It's easy to be a smart guy,
push all the energy down and not let it come out. And it eventually kills guys. They either become
hulks. Yeah, I have some friends that were in the military and they were went to Iraq or Afghanistan.
They talk about their experiences and they talk about their friends that they've lost, not in
battle, but here in the United States and about the, I mean, I can't imagine basically your setup
where, okay, here's all this trauma and all these people that are creating this conflict inside of
yourself, but you're not allowed to talk about it. And if you do, you'll be punished. But if you have
these problems, you'll also be punished. And so like, it doesn't, it doesn't, like the power
structure does not allow for someone to feel like a man and be a man. And so it's hard to talk about
a man and be in second place or be a co-pilot or be a vice president. The system is set up to say,
if you are a vice president, you should be trying to be the president. If you're in second place,
you should try to be in first. Like there's, there is no space to feel satisfied and fulfilled
unless you are the top or you're trying to climb to the top. And so everybody else feels bad all
the time. And so yeah, there's no relief and the relief that exists, you are not permitted to access.
And so like, wow, man. I think you're onto something and we've seen a huge shift in this,
I think. You look at Jordan Peterson, he's had huge following and the 12 or 10, you know, like
life steps and stuff like that. So I think we're seeing, I don't know if it's the age of Aquarius,
Jonathan or not, but we're seeing obviously a lot more visibility towards things or even like NFL
players. They talk more about, you know, concussions. They talk more about like emotional
stuff, right? And it's becoming more and more, I think, visible and it's getting better to talk
about. I think it's a good thing, right? I think, you know, we don't want it to shift too far over
where like everything that there is this kind of idea that says instead of I am an anxious person,
I have anxiety. There's a difference where we don't want it to make it ontologically like a problem
that you're faced with things. So we can still overcome that and still instead of being a victim.
Yeah. But that being said, there's certain things. And going back to your psychedelics,
let's say, Andrew, I mean, there's huge, huge wins in PTSD with psilocybin, with MDMA, right? And
there's ways to come through this. And I think the death of the ego is a huge way of doing it through
these experiences and overcoming this idea. I have to ask you this because we've been talking about
this a lot. One of the things that's happened to Johns Hopkins, which has dedicated decades to
psychedelic research where people are having near death experience, these were all possibly atheist
agnostics, but they felt a presence of something, something that they called love, but they didn't
acknowledge it was God. But what the hell is that? It's something, there's something there other than
just me and I love it. And it felt comforting. So, I mean, I know that you've given up on the idea of
necessarily a God, a transcendent God in the sky, but have you felt a sense of, tell me about,
have you had that kind of experience where you're feeling kind of comfortable with the universe in
that regard and just like placing it? Yeah. Yeah. A significant amount of times in a significant way.
The, yeah, the realization that like, not only are you like, I am you and you are me and we are
all together. You know what I'm saying? And like, the best analogy is like, imagine there's like a
light bulb and the light is on and filling the room. And then I'm going to take a cloth and put
it over the light bulb and now the light bulb is dampened and you can't see. But if I poke a bunch
of holes in the cloth, a bunch of individual streams of light that seem individual are now
visible when in reality they are all the same thing. And so like, yeah, it just seems reasonable
that we are all the same goo in some way. What would that mean that there is a God in charge?
I don't know. But if there is a God in charge, I feel very much like the relationship that we have
is similar to my relationship with the cells that build me. Like I am cells, but I don't know them
nor do I have a way of even communicating with them. Like how would I talk to one cell? How would
it, if a cell says, Andrew, I'm hungry, give me. Well, it's proven that your body listens. Yes.
No, but yeah, Dr. Joe Dispenza. Yeah, it's proven that your body listens to your own words.
Right. So that's the hard part about language is it's a frequency vibration. So you can get hit
with someone's words. It's a vibration that your body feels and your body actually listens to. The
problem is it can't tell who said it and it can't tell what's true. So you can script your body.
Yeah. And that's, oh yeah, yeah. That's the power of what they're learning in quantum physics is
that through neuroplasticity, you can actually re-script your entire body. And as that begins
to accelerate, it becomes more and more powerful because once you start investing with intention,
I think that's what you've done is you've created this life of intention to say, fuck it, I'm going
to do my own thing and suffer my own consequences, which is a highly responsible thing to do.
Because that's always the other side of the coin. You have this flittering life to go out, but
you've held responsibility for yourself. That's powerful.
I think, I mean, to just touch on that, one of the most significant things is that for my own life,
if I only cared about myself, I'm not really going to get, it was just me. I'm not going to get too
jammed up about getting arrested. I'm not going to get too jammed up about going to prison. It was
just me. I don't care. But my mom, bro, I can't, what am I going to do? Just abandon my path.
And so I guess that's the balance of freedom and responsibility. I'm like, ah,
this is all the shit I want to do. I want to sell drugs and go out there and do whatever
fuck I want, break the law, fuck all this shit. But I could do that. I can. I sure can. But I'm
also an adult grown man that should be responsible according to my values because the God that I am
said should be a responsible man. And so I'm like, fuck.
And you can't blame anybody. You created the rule.
I know. And I agree with them so wholeheartedly that I can't argue with them.
But what's been the value of that? Because I don't think it's just a flittering response.
I think there's a lot to learn there of you took up the mantle of responsibility for your own life.
You took it away from the church and said, no, I'm going to hold this.
Yeah. I think people mention it. Sometimes they will give me a compliment about how
I'm able to be myself. And I think that's the result of having your own rules and living
authentically to your own rules. You get to be yourself. And I get to be myself all the fucking
time. And I talk to people, they get to go to Burning Man once a year where they can be themselves
and they don't have to follow the rules of society. Fuck that shit. Every goddamn day I do whatever
I want. And the things that I want to do follow my own rules. And so I do as much of everything
that I want. And yeah, having freedom for yourself requires responsibility, which is like an odd
conundrum. So I want to ask you a question. I mean, I talked about it at the beginning.
You visited or attempted to visit, because I didn't see any second halves of it,
the Zide Church in Oakland. Yeah, it was real cool. I forgot. I still have stuff I forgot to post
about that. But no, it really did remind me of the very early days of medical cannabis, because
the way that it worked is there's obviously a donation at the door. And then you go through
like a little security thing. And then you go to the buying room, which is set up like a deli style.
So very similar to how cannabis used to be sold before, or packaging regulations. And so, excuse
me, they have a bunch of different bins with like a bunch of different types of mushrooms. And there's
a menu and like they have symbols instead of dollar signs. Because that'll stop the fucking police,
you know, they'll get in there and be like, Oh, no, you got a little car symbol instead of a dollar
sign. You get away the stats. Well, like, yeah, basically, they have little things, but they
really mean this is the dollars that these drugs cost. There's a lot of language like you just
donate and we lose a free sacrament. But yeah, anyway, so but they're keeping within the rules,
you know, they're doing it the right way. Because honestly, the impression I get is they want to
help people. I mean, yeah, for sure. And I mean, yes, I agree. It's, it's very similar to the,
again, the very beginning days of cannabis where it's like, well, this needs to get out there and
nobody else is going to do it. So I guess it's going to be me and I'm going to do it the best
that I can. It was just like a regular person. So yeah, they the other thing that was very
interesting was they have a body weight experience calculator, which I had never seen before. And all
of the psilocybin is tested. Well, not all of it, but most of it. So you can see per weight,
the psilocybin concentration of the strain that you're getting. And then you put the concentration
percentage of strain and your body weight, and you can see exactly how much to eat to have the
exact experience that you want. And that, you know, that's always a question when doing mushrooms.
How many do I take Andrew? Fuck, I cannot be responsible for your decisions, bro. I don't know.
So that's very cool. The other thing that's very cool, that's very exciting for me is the advent of
like new products. So the products that they had, I think the most common thing that I've seen
not in the Zyde door churches, like chocolate bars, like full bars of chocolate that are sold,
and you can buy that packaging on eBay or Alibaba, whatever, and put God knows what in there and sell
it as mushroom. So it's also a problem because like the chocolate bars themselves like don't usually
taste that good. And then they're actually like high in caloric and sugary. And so it's like,
I'm going to eat something high in caloric and sugary. I want it to taste good. So anyway,
the thing that is very exciting for me is they had like, they were almost, do you remember Spree
candies? Yeah. They had a very similar to that. And it's just a little kind of a lightly flavored
candy tablet that is about 0.23 grams. And they are fantastic. So that's a little above microdose.
Is that what they're selling them at? Yeah, they're selling them at microdosed. But
I think for me, I like to take maybe like two or three of them. So like about a gram or less is
like a most ideal spot for me. And the pricing, pretty reasonable. Obviously, it's like a black
market, so there's no taxes, but usually everything's like around 25 to maybe 35, 40
dollars. And they had individual chocolates as well. I like that because again, the bar kind of
encouraged you to eat the whole thing and it's hard to dose that out. But yeah, products being
made with extract as opposed to the whole fruiting body, I think is going to be also the next kind of
frontier. Because there are other things that are potentiators. So I don't know if you've ever heard
of like lemon juice tech or other... Oh, sure. And so products that are combining the benefit of
adding the acidic component to a psilocybin extract, those are kind of the new things that I'm
seeing coming out, which are pretty cool. Yeah, Jonathan, imagine taking the mushroom instead of
a whole stem or a cap. You're shredding it almost like a keif, if you would, and then you're adding
lemon juice and supposedly it intensifies the effect. It might actually make it a little less
actual long, but it definitely has a more intense... That's what we did up in Breck last summer.
I was going to ask you, Andrew, do you have... Because it's a religious institution and a church,
like you know, peyote or other kinds of substances, did you have to consume it there or
are you able to take it outside and then take it back with you? No, yeah, I don't think you're
allowed to consume it there. And then just real quick, the products that I'm talking about,
they're not even grinding up fruiting bodies. They are taking the fruiting bodies, extracting
the psilocin and then... Okay. The actual chemical component, chemical...
Yes, so once it's in the fruiting body, it's psilocin and then converts into psilocybin once
digested. That's what the lemon juice does. It makes that conversion happen faster.
Right, exactly. It helps the conversion of psilocin to psilocybin. And so,
that now, that could make... You could be real small with like a whole gram.
Wow. So that could be intense very much so. Okay.
I cannot believe how much I love talking to you and I feel so guilty about all the interruptions
and how much you'll probably have to edit out. It's not a big deal. This has been a fantastic
conversation. And brother, you and I have a lot of similarities in terms of our life. It's been
everything I had hoped it would be. So thank you for joining us. This has been an absolutely
wonderful experience. Yeah. I think I've been shooting your guys'
questions as well. I don't have conversations usually with people that have such a similar
background where I still find value in some of my religious experiences, but obviously,
I'm an atheist and obviously, I disagree and obviously, it's painful and traumatic. And so,
it's like, yeah, it's like having an ex-girlfriend that you love, but you have a restraining order
because she ruined your life, bro. It's been a lot of fun. Any final words, Rich?
No, I just really appreciated your angles. And I mean, we love the idea of having unique
perspectives. And yours has been unique in that you've kind of been a Jim Morrison of sorts,
and you've kind of broken on through. You've seen what's on the other side, and I can't wait to
hear more about what you explore and learn down the road, man, and be that kind of beacon for us.
Looking forward to more. Thanks so much.
Yeah, Andrew, I will say this. I truly believe you should write a book because I think,
and I'm not joking about that, here's why. I think you ask a very provocative question in your life
from here's what my religious institution told me, and that's very common across all religious
institutions. So, that catalyst is true. And you took the risk to go figure it out and realize,
oh, there's more. I think a lot of people would be interested in that story. I really do.
Thanks. Thanks, Jonathan. Yeah, I appreciate both you guys, your time and your interest in me.
And I really would love to come back again. I have a whole paper of stories that I still
didn't even tell you guys. We will definitely have you back.
Definitely. 100%.
Yes. All right. All right. Thank you, everybody. This has been Living in the Matrix. If you,
please comment. If you have a suggestion for a guest, please let us know. And we'd love to
interact with our audience. Suggest topics that you'd love to hear us talk about.
Say goodbye, Rich. See you guys. Have a great weekend.
Grace, much love, much peace. Thanks.
All right. Much love, everybody.