EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,015 words- 0:00 – 1:57
Why “always comfortable” is a modern crisis
- JRJoe Rogan
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- MEMichael Easter
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays) Hello, Michael.
- MEMichael Easter
Hello, Joe.
- JRJoe Rogan
We're rolling. What's going on, buddy? Good to see you.
- MEMichael Easter
Good to see you as well.
- JRJoe Rogan
Thanks for coming down here.
- MEMichael Easter
Hey, thanks for having me on, then.
- JRJoe Rogan
What made you decide to write about comfort? Isn't comfort a good thing, Michael? What is going on?
- MEMichael Easter
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
You have a problem with comfort?
- MEMichael Easter
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
The comfort crisis? Is it really a crisis?
- MEMichael Easter
I argue that it is a crisis. One, I don't have a problem with comfort. Uh, I do have a problem with always being comfortable, always leaning into comfort, which is what we're doing now.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MEMichael Easter
Right? So, if you think of the average person's daily life, they wake up in the soft bed, temperature-controlled home. They shuffle over to the microwave, microwave a breakfast burrito, right, that came in from who knows where and is made with who knows what. And then it's like, I go to work, I drive to work, I sit behind this screen all day. I don't have to move at all or put any effort into this day. And then it's back to bed, in front of the TV, and you just rinse and repeat that. At no point in daily life, I would argue, are people really challenged or really uncomfortable anymore, like we were in our past.
- JRJoe Rogan
Some people, of course.
- MEMichael Easter
Some people.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right? There's, David Goggins is still alive and well.
- MEMichael Easter
Yes, David Goggins is still alive.
- JRJoe Rogan
He's running right now.
- MEMichael Easter
And so he's like the type of person, you see what happens when you start to push against that, right? When you kind of have this moment where you go, "Maybe I'm a little too comfortable," and you start to sort of investigate, okay, what is it with discomfort?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MEMichael Easter
How can I get into some discomfort, and what can that do for me? And then at the extreme end of that is, is Goggins, who-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Well, uh, it's, for folks that just, like say if you work in an office and this is how you make a living and you have to do that commute and there's no other options and this is what you do, like f- for them to hear this, they're like, "Yeah, yeah. Okay, so what? What, what now?"
- 1:57 – 5:34
Sedentary living, overeating cues, and the stats behind the problem
- MEMichael Easter
Well, I mean, the answer is not to totally overhaul your lifestyle, right? I mean, we have amazing lives right now. The fact that we don't have to go out and hunt for food or put physical effort into every day is great. But at the same time, w- I think and I argue in the book, The Comfort Crisis, that we need these moments that push back at us, and we need to sort of investigate these discomforts that we used to face in our evolutionary past. So for example, two, that's the percent of people who take the stairs when there's the choice of-
- JRJoe Rogan
2%?
- MEMichael Easter
2%, people who take the stairs when there's a choice of an escalator. 70% of people, more than 70% now, are overweight or obese. 20, only 20% of hunt- hunger, uh, sorry, only 20% of eating is actually driven by physiological hunger. 80% of it is just, "I'm bored. Uh, it's noon, I guess I'll eat." Or, "I'm stressed out." Right? We exercise more, uh, we exercise 14 times less than our ancestors nowadays. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Our ancestors, just, just by virtue of trying to survive, you mean?
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah, exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. So they didn't exercise, right? Like our hunter-gather-
- MEMichael Easter
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
They, they never did chin-ups or...
- MEMichael Easter
Exactly, that was life to them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MEMichael Easter
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
They just were trying to get by.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah, and we spend 95% of our time indoors as well. And we know that there's benefits to getting out and moving more. We know there's benefits to being outside. We also know that there's benefits to truly being challenged in life. It's like, like I said before, you can basically never be challenged as you go through life in a real sort of fundamental way, and you'll probably have a decent life. But you know, if you think about potential and human potential, let's say that human potential is this big circle around us, right? Now, most of us live in this sort of dinner plate-sized place. We never go out and explore the edges of our potential by trying to get uncomfortable and doing things that are maybe a little outside of our comfort zone. We can just kind of exist in this sort of soft space that we've created for ourselves right now. And of course there are people who get out and, you know, into that, those edges, like, like the Goggins of the world, like the Cam Hanes of the world. Um, but I think most people don't really go out and see what they're cap- capable of.
- JRJoe Rogan
D- you know, I don't think anybody's gonna push back against this book.
- MEMichael Easter
You don't?
- JRJoe Rogan
No, I don't. Which bring- i- i- it creates a kind of a dilemma for you. Is there comfort in just writing about discomfort, right? Is there a debate here? 'Cause it, I don't think there is. I mean, I think what you're saying is like irrefutable. I don't, I don't think anybody can say, "Well, there's nothing wrong with being sedentary and having your body turn into Jell-O. Well, there's nothing wrong with living a boring life with no stress at all and, and ..." Well, stress but m- mental stress. No, no actual physical adversity to overcome which stresses out the body but actually relaxes the mind, which-
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... uh, which is, that's the, that's what people are missing, right? That's the, that the, when you actually physically exert yourself, it actually calms the mind. And I think, uh, there's probably a direct correlation, although I haven't done any studies. I would imagine there's a direct cor- correlation between physical inactivity and mental depression. I would, I would have to imagine that there's at least some crossover there.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah, there absolutely is. Uh, I think that exercise, the studies show they grow the, it grows the hippocampus, which is an area that tends to be shrunken in people who have depression.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
So this is why the APA now advocates that, uh, psychiatrists recommend exercise to a lot of their patients. But I think to get back to your question of am I gonna have any pushback?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, is there any pushback?
- 5:34 – 9:40
Reporting the book through extreme discomfort: the Arctic hunting trip setup
- MEMichael Easter
That's it, and am I staying within my comfort zone by having this argument? So the way that I reported this book is I spent more than a month hunting with Donnie Vincent in the Arctic backcountry.
- JRJoe Rogan
Shout out to Donnie Vincent, you handsome bastard.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
We were talking about you earlier. (laughs)
- MEMichael Easter
Uh, for, yeah. (laughs) Handsome, rugged bastard.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MEMichael Easter
For people who don't know him, he's a backcountry bow hunter and filmmaker. He goes out into, you know, super extreme, off-the-grid areas and spends months at a time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, he's, uh, we were saying he's controversial, but not for any real reason. He's controversial because he, uh, doesn't wear camo.... and, uh, he wears, like, a lot of wool.
- MEMichael Easter
He looks good in the wild.
- JRJoe Rogan
He does, look. Yeah, he looks like a fucking model for some J.Crew catalog.
- MEMichael Easter
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Out there, wandering around W- with, like, an Abercrombie & Fitch, which I didn't know used to be like a b- a little offside here, was, uh, a company that sold, like, fly fishing and outdoor stuff. Now-
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... it's like these weird young models.
- MEMichael Easter
Who was in the-
- JRJoe Rogan
They're like really young. There's, there's Donnie Vincent. Look at that f- rugged, handsome bastard.
- MEMichael Easter
Interesting. Yeah, he's so good.
- JRJoe Rogan
Look at him, look at him. Look at him go.
- MEMichael Easter
He looks like he's walking out of a Filson catalog.
- JRJoe Rogan
He does.
- MEMichael Easter
Right there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Completely. Um-
- MEMichael Easter
Good dude, good dude.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MEMichael Easter
Love that guy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Very good, very good, very good guy. Um, Abercrombie & Fitch, like, now when you go there, they spray that fucking horrible scent in the place, you know. Do they still do that COVID-wise? Maybe it's bad for COVID, kills COVID.
- MEMichael Easter
I would imagine it kills it, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It kills everything.
- MEMichael Easter
I had a friend who worked there-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- 9:40 – 14:16
Lost rites of passage: from hero’s journey to helicopter/snowplow parenting
- MEMichael Easter
So, a few of the important ones are that we don't take on these big, epic challenges in nature like we used to. So for example, traditional rites of passage-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- MEMichael Easter
... all totally gone.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MEMichael Easter
You know, in the past, we would send young people out to do some trial. And the idea was that, like, "Hey, you're at stage one of life right now, but we need you to get to stage two so you can be a better contributor to the tribe. And so, you can almost become a new, more confident, capable person."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MEMichael Easter
"And in order to do that, we're gonna send you out in the wild to do any number of things. It depends on, you know, what the culture was." So for example, the Maasai, they would send young warriors out to hunt lions-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
... with a spear. And if you killed the lion, then you would officially transition into a warrior. And, you know, in that space, that trying middle ground, that's where you learn a lot about yourself and your potential. And by going through something like that, you come out on the other side an improved person. We've, we've totally lost that. And there's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MEMichael Easter
... all kinds of different rites of passage throughout time. They're essentially what, uh, Joseph Campbell called the hero's journey. There's this, you know, typical archetype of, you know, leave comfort of home, go into this trying, challenging, uncomfortable middle ground, come out the other end, and you've learned something about yourself and evolved. That's gone. When you think about young people today, like, how often are they challenged?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MEMichael Easter
You start to see helicopter parenting come in in the about 1990 is when it started 'cause there was all this media around kidnappings. So, parents wouldn't let their kids outside, go to the playground.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, is that really what caused that stuff?
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah. It was, it was a bunch of, a bunch of media around kidnapping, which, kidnapping was not a big phenomenon, right? But it just got exploded because it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's a big phenomenon if someone kidnaps your kid.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it did happen.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah, it di-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the problem.
- MEMichael Easter
It definitely did happen. It's like-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's like-
- MEMichael Easter
But if you look at this-
- JRJoe Rogan
... it becomes a story.
- MEMichael Easter
Exactly. If you look at the statistics, like, your, your kid is m- more likely to get hurt in a lot of other different ways than that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MEMichael Easter
But so that blows up. Kids start to get helicopter parented. Challenge gets removed out of their lives. Now we've kinda moved on to snowplow parenting, right? For-
- JRJoe Rogan
What's snowplow parenting?
- MEMichael Easter
It's even, it's even worse. So the g- a good-
- JRJoe Rogan
Worse than helicopter parenting?
- 14:16 – 21:00
Boredom is a feature, not a bug—until phones erase it
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah. It is terrible. And that, so this is another, uh, thing that I point out in the book, is that we're never bored anymore.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ah.
- MEMichael Easter
So as we evolved, boredom is this evolutionary discomfort that basically told us, "Whatever you're spending your time on right now, it's not an efficient use of your time. So go find something else." Now, in the past, this would be like, let's say you're picking berries from a bush. You've picked the easiest-to-pick ones. Well, if we didn't have this cue of boredom, we'd be like reaching into the very back for the berries that are hard to pick, but it, they become successively harder to pick because we've picked all these different ones, right? Boredom would kick on and be like, "Hey, your, your return on your time invested has worn thin. Move on to another bush," right? But nowadays, with this influx of media we have, people spend 11 hours a day engaging with digital media.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that real?
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah. 11, and that's the average. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
What?
- MEMichael Easter
You wanna hear an even crazier thing?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MEMichael Easter
Okay. So I'm a, I'm a professor at University of Nevada Las Vegas, and one of the classes I teach is an intro class, so it's got about 150 students, and it's a media class I teach in that journalism department. First day of class, I'll talk about how, just how things have changed with media. You know, it's like we lived 2.5 million years with no media in our lives, and now it's become our lives. And then I will ask, "All right, I want everyone to pull out your phone right now. I want you to look at your screen time, tell me how much you have. Who thinks they have the highest?" And we'll start to go through people. I've had people, you know, seven hours 45 minutes, eight hours 50 minutes, nine hours 16 minutes. It's like, "That's your entire day all on that cellphone," right? So nowadays, when we have this discomfort of boredom kick in, we have a super easy escape from it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MEMichael Easter
Right? We're not forced to be like, "Okay, what am I doing with my time? Is there something better I could be doing?" We just pull out our phone. And you see this, right? Any time people have one moment of solitude or inactivity, it's like, "Oh, might as well just check my phone," where-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's brutal when you see people on dates.
- MEMichael Easter
Oh, yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And they're not even talking to each other, they're just looking at each other's phones.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah, go-
- JRJoe Rogan
So, wow.
- MEMichael Easter
People at dinner, it's like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's like, "You're in front of an actual person-
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and you prefer to communicate in digital with someone who's not even there."
- MEMichael Easter
Totally. And, um, what's interesting about boredom is when oftentimes when boredom would kick on, we would go, uh, inward, sort of mind wander. And mind wandering, it gives you- s- your brain some time to, like, reset and revive. Whereas anytime you're focused on the outside world, your brain is actively processing information. So this is kind of like, in the book, I compare it to lifting a weight. When you're having a conversation, looking at your phone, watching a screen, whatever you're doing, if you're focusing on the outside world, your brain is working, and it's lifting. When you go inward, your brain goes into this default mode network, which is like a rest period, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
So now, because every time we're bored, we just pull out that screen and focus more, our brains are just constantly being worked and overworked and overworked. And this is, uh, associated with just burnout, uh, anxiety, et cetera.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's ... There's some real benefits to boredom in terms of creativity as well. Like-
- MEMichael Easter
Oh. Totally.
- JRJoe Rogan
Boredom is really good for coming up with new ideas.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah. And there's actually research behind this. They've done studies where they'll have, they'll have people watch something really boring, like a video of people folding laundry, just like they bore the shit out of these participants (laughs) , and then they have them, uh, come up with, uh, take these different creativity tests that scientists use. And the people who were bored come up with more, better, uh, solutions and responses than the people who had been stimulated the whole time. And you think about this, I mean, just in terms of anecdotes from creators, it's like, you need time to just sit and be with yourself and have these weird ideas bubble to the surface. If you never have that, you're not letting that w- the weird stuff come out, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MEMichael Easter
I mean, I'm s- have, like, do you experience this when you're trying to think of ...... stuff in your own work?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. You have to have discomfort. The worst thing that could ever happen to me if I'm writing is to just open the browser-
- 21:00 – 32:11
Getting dropped into the Arctic: isolation, risk, and real solitude
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Um, when you went with Donnie, you guys went to the Arctic?
- MEMichael Easter
We did.
- JRJoe Rogan
33 days-
- MEMichael Easter
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that were you up there? And what did you do while you were up there?
- MEMichael Easter
Uh, so we were hunting caribou.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- MEMichael Easter
And yeah. We were on a caribou hunt, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a dangerous hunt.
- MEMichael Easter
Uh, it's, the Arctic is an extreme place. It's uncomfortable.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's dangerous in that you get dropped off, right? Did you get-
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... floatplaned in there?
- MEMichael Easter
Uh, no. Well, it was a plane.
- JRJoe Rogan
Bush plane?
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah. Bush plane, tiny plane picks you up. Um, we got ferried. So me, it was me, Donnie, and his cameraman, William Aultman, who's a great dude, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Satellite phone?
- MEMichael Easter
Uh, Donnie had a GPS thing to, in order to talk to the pilot.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, a text thing?
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah. Text thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, boy.
- MEMichael Easter
(laughs) Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
If that breaks, you're fucked.
- MEMichael Easter
If that breaks, you are indeed fucked, my man. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And there's grizzlies out there too.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah. We saw some grizzlies and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Fun.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah. Yeah. Big, big animals. So at one point, we, we leave Kotzebue first. Me and William are in this plane that's like a three-seater, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
How many flights did it take to get out there?
- MEMichael Easter
Two.
- 32:11 – 38:35
Tundra hardship: brutal terrain, storms, hunger, and learning to endure
- MEMichael Easter
I'll tell you that much, I mean, he, uh, he knows what he's doing up there, and he's, uh, I don't know, he just, he's one of those dudes who's kind of unflappable in situations like that. But, like, for example, we had... This was our, I think our first or second night. We had had, we had this Kifaru tipi, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
And, um, we're very, very intelligent people. I want you to know this first of all.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MEMichael Easter
And we've (laughs) we pitched this thing on this, like, kind of knob-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
... 'cause the winds are coming in from a direction where like, oh, it's gonna be protected, and then we'll move it when the wind shift in a couple days. Well, the winds shift overnight, and we, I wake up and there's just, like, this pop, pop, pop, pop, pop with the fabric, you know? And the winds just keep coming, get faster and faster overnight, and eventually, by morning, I mean, they're like 70 mile an hour gusts. And I'm just like, "Holy shit, we're gonna lose this thing." And then like, "What do we do after that?" Like it's just crazy and it's freezing, you know? And...
- JRJoe Rogan
You didn't bring a tent? You just brought a, uh, one of those little-
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah, that tipi.
- JRJoe Rogan
... tarps?
- MEMichael Easter
The, yeah, the tipi. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That was it?
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
How come you guys didn't bring an actual tent?
- MEMichael Easter
Well, if we needed one, we could... We had, like, uh, you know, emergency blankets and that stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
And Donnie could've messaged to the, to the pilot to try and bring us something.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
Um, but yeah, and he's just like, "Okay, we're gonna have to do it." He's like, "This is bad. We're gonna have to do a take-down, yo. Get all your shit ready, get it in your bag." And it's just like, he just knows exactly what to do, whereas I'm like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
... "Oh, my God." It's gonna be bad.
- JRJoe Rogan
And we should probably explain to people the terrain.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah. So it's kinda, it's, uh, it's these mountains that are, they're not super jagged. They're very old, so they've kind of been worn by time, and the tundra is the absolute worst thing to walk on in the world. So I describe it as, think of like a Dr. Seuss book, I kind of picture it like that, where it's like this big mattress that's covered in these, in basketballs. Like, think about it like that. So the basketballs are these things called tundra tussocks, which are these big, thin, dense pieces of grass. It's like wound up grass. And then the mattress in between them is kind of, um, like muck and shale and frozen ground. So walking on this, you're like, "Do I step on this super soft stuff that's hard to, you know, get your bearings on?" It's kinda like almost beach sand, the same idea. Or do I, like, step on these tussocks that are super awkward? It's like having to walk anywhere, I mean, like one mile out there is like five anywhere else, you know? It's just such a bitch to walk on.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which did you- which did you choose? The soft stuff or the tussocks?
- MEMichael Easter
Uh, man, I, I never really-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you go back and forth?
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah, I would go back and forth.
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you ask Donnie what he does?
- MEMichael Easter
Uh, I can't remember if I did. I don't know if he woulda known either, because he was looking like an idiot when he was walking as well.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- 38:35 – 49:16
Dirt, hygiene, and the microbiome: why being ‘too clean’ backfires
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you, um, shower? I mean, bathe, rather? Did you get in a stream? Like, how did you clean yourself-
- MEMichael Easter
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
... while you were there?
- MEMichael Easter
We just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Nothing?
- MEMichael Easter
... we just, uh- yeah, no.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I-
- MEMichael Easter
Which is interesting coming from a world of... So, I- I was there pre-COVID.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
So, it was interesting coming from a world of Purell and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MEMichael Easter
... a shower or two a day, and now it's even more so. For good reason, you know? But there's also, um, there's benefits to being dirty, especially if it's outside dirtiness, not like indoor dirtiness like, you know, raw chicken and other people's germs. But like-
- JRJoe Rogan
What's the benefits?
- MEMichael Easter
So, when you look at cultures who live outside and do a lot of things outside, they tend to have a lot better gut health than we do. So, one of the, um, hunter-gatherer tribes that's been studied is the Hadza-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
... in Tanzania. And they did this one study where they compared, uh, poop, 'cause that's how you- (laughs) how you figure out gut health, from Westerners and the Hadza tribe. And the Hadza have way more different types of gut bacteria, and they also have these ones that we don't have. So, they have more of it and they have more variety of it. Now, they don't get stomach issues, basically. They don't get colon cancer, they don't get rectal cancer, and they don't get things like Crohn's and colitis. Meanwhile, uh, in the West, these are increasing problems, especially for younger people, and they think this is because we've completely sanitized our lives, more or less.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
We never get dirty and we spend less time outside. So, when we figured out that germs are bad and can cause disease, it's like, yes, but the amount of germs that cause disease relative to all the germs out there is a very small percentage. But we kind of just went ahead and killed all- all the germs we could, you know? And so, this has given us less of a defense and given us less, uh, variety in our guts that can improve our gut health.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, my friend David Choe, he's an artist.
- MEMichael Easter
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, he went, he's a very famous artist. He's, uh, he got really rich. Was it Google that he painted their lobby? Facebook? He painted their lobby.
- MEMichael Easter
Oh, that guy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, and they gave him shares-
- MEMichael Easter
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... of the company back when it was nothing.
- MEMichael Easter
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And he's worth like $100 million or more. Some crazy number, right? Like, it's preposterous amounts of cash.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah, it's a- it's a good gig.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, uh, he just does whatever he wants. Most of- mostly he does art.
- MEMichael Easter
Okay.
- 49:16 – 54:53
First kill and the discomfort of death: hunting as reconnection to the life cycle
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah, I had a tag.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, did you-
- MEMichael Easter
So, I had never... I had never hunted before.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
I mean, I'd been hunting, but I hadn't actually been the one who was the hunter, so that was new too. That's a form of discomfort that I talk about in the book that we are very removed from the life cycle now, right? So, this goes from how we deal with funerals. Um, think of modern funeral, it's like we dress the dead person up to look as alive as possible, we look at them for an hour and then they go into the ground, and we're told to, you know, "Keep your mind off it. Don't think about it," you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
"Stay busy." Um, to our food system. It's like the meat we have in our grocery store is all perfectly manicured. It's cellophaned. It's, like, designed almost so it doesn't look like it came from a living animal, right? So, I definitely had some reservations going into it. It's not that I was against hunting at all, it's just like, "I don't know if I wanna cross this barrier that I assume is gonna be emotionally heavy."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MEMichael Easter
You know? And Donny was basically like, "Look, man, if you don't wanna hunt, you don't have to hunt, but I think you'll, you'll understand why we come out here more if you do hunt." So, I was like, "Okay. Um, I think I'll do it." I think. I wasn't entirely sure, honestly, the whole time. And we-
- JRJoe Rogan
So, you had a tag, but you weren't sure if you were gonna use it?
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah. And we... You know, at one point, we are on this hill glassing and we'd been watching this herd who was on this other hill far away. Um, there's kind of a valley between us, and they start moving up this valley, and there's a saddle. And Donny's like, "Okay, if they keep moving and go over that saddle, and we can get to the other side of it before, we're gonna be in a pretty good position." So, it's like, you know, soldiers at the sound of a mortar. We're like just cranking across this hill, we get over the saddle, and once we get to the other side, we're just cranking it. You know, what we think is gonna be about 300 yards, we, like, get into the dirt and we army crawl. And I've got the... You know, meanwhile I have the, the rifle. And army crawl couple hundred yards, pop up, can't see anything, another 100 yards. And I'm looking through the scope, and Donny has binoculars, you know? And, um, all of a sudden, at the apex of the saddle, just, like, appear these antlers, right? And then more antlers. And there's about 30 of them in this herd. And we'd already identified at least two that we, we thought were older and bigger. Um, and they come over this, this saddle and down, like, exactly as we'd hoped. And, you know, they're 300 yards, 200 yards, and still at this point I'm like, "Are you sure you're gonna do this, man?" You know? I mean, it's, it's heavy. And they get within about 150 yards, and there's this one that had come over that we could see as he was walking, he's limping on his back leg. So, it's like, "That's the one." You know? He's old. Really, really interesting ornate antlers. Just old dude who'd clearly been injured somehow. Who knows? They get within 150 yards and it's like, "This is, this is the point where I wanna shoot." But he kept going in and out of the herd, you know? Like, I couldn't get him in the scope. And, and Donny sorta leans over to me and he's like, "Hey, man, if you don't wanna shoot, you don't have to shoot. But if you're gonna shoot, you need to do it soon." And so I look down the scope and they're... now they're 160, 170. They'd passed the point where they're kinda going away from us. And I'm like, "Shit, what..." You know, "What do I do?" And all of a sudden, they part and he's right there, you know? And it was like (exhales) big deep breath, pull the trigger, pull the trigger again. And it's like, "He's down." And in that moment, I was like, "Holy shit, what have you done? Like, there is no coming back from this." Right? Like, it hit me pretty heavy. And so, we walk out and it's, you know, down on the tundra, almost like it had been placed perfectly. There's... The only sign that it is dead is there's, like, this tiniest trickle of blood coming down its mane. And I was like, "Dude, what have you done?" Like, "Look at this majestic thing and you... That's on you." You know? And Donny's a good person to go with, 'cause him and William were like, "Hey, we're gonna go get our stuff," 'cause we'd left our packs back there, so he gave me a minute with it. And as I'm sitting there, it was super interesting. I'd like to hear your... what you think about, um, what your experience has been.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
But hit me, like, it was the most depressed and alive I've ever felt at the same time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
Like, unbelievable feeling. I don't know how to describe it. Just thankful.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MEMichael Easter
You know, a lot of gratuity. And, um... But at the same time, I'm like, "I don't know if I'd ever do this again," you know? But... And, um, those guys get back and then we start to, you know, field dress the animal. And, um, in that moment, my mind started to shift, 'cause I went from, "Okay, you just killed this majestic creature," to now I'm seeing it as meat, and therefore a giver of life, more or less. And I think to myself, "Dude, you eat meat all the time at home and never once do you feel an iota of emotion, but you do here." And so it made me a lot more appreciative of not only, like, that animal and the place where it came from, but also all meat that I eat now, right? It... Like, it totally woke me up to, like, what goes into-... eating meat.
- 54:53 – 1:04:11
Death awareness and happiness: Bhutan, Buddhism, and daily mortality practice
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MEMichael Easter
And so now, it's interesting. Paradoxically, you would think when someone starts hunting, they would eat a lot more meat. It's like, no, I actually eat less meat now, because I kind of better understand where it comes from and, and what has to go into it. And sort of this idea of, of death and being more aware of it, I ... After I got back from the Arctic, I traveled to Bhutan. I wanted to know more about this, and like what can becoming, what can becoming more aware of our death, uh, do for us? So Bhutan is interesting because it's one of the least developed countries on Earth, but paradoxically, it's one of the happiest. And one thing that people are instructed to do, to do in Bhutan is to think about their death at least once every day. And this is part of like ... It's woven into the culture, that idea, and also the idea of death itself. So like, a lot of their art and, um, traditions center around death. They have, um ... There's these little things called thzasas, and they're basically these tiny, um, clay pyramids. And it's, uh, clay mixed with ashes of the dead, and they are everywhere, all over the country. So it's kind ... You can kind of think about it as like a very death-aware country.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm. Why, why are they so death-aware?
- MEMichael Easter
It's part of the, um, Buddhist tradition that they follow. They've just sort of leaned into that more than other countries. And so I wanted to know, like, how can this idea of ... How does this idea of death and their intimacy with it contribute to their happiness? 'Cause like, by all m- all metrics, they should be miserable, if we're looking at it from an economic perspective, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MEMichael Easter
But here they are, they're in the top 20 happiness rankings. And so I met with, uh, one of their economists who studies de- uh, who studies happiness in the country. But I also met with, uh, two Buddhist leaders. And one of these ... It was (laughs) it was, uh ... It was pretty wild. So in Bhutan, the law states that you have to have a driver everywhere you go. It's the ... Tourism is very heavily regulated. So I have this driver, and I'm going to meet this, uh, guy who's a Khenpo, which is essentially really high up in Buddhism, and he lives, uh, right by this, uh, monastery called Dakar Po. And it's on this cliff, right? And my driver has what is essentially a smart car with a back seat. And we have to go up this mountain road, cliff-side mountain road, that's totally rutted out. And I'm like, "Uh, are you gonna be able to make this?" And he's just like ... I mean, we're g- We're like four-wheelin' this smart car thing, and it was just, it was unbelievable. And after 45 minutes, you know, he pulls over and I have to hike for maybe 10 minutes along this, this trail, and get to this guy's, uh, shack. And, you know, he has, um, someone there who's ... Helps him with stuff, and she makes me do this like cleansing rit- ritual with like smoke and, you know, some water. And I go into this, this guy's shack. It's like the first room, there's nothing in it. The second room, it's a kitchen. Very basic, like a cooktop or whatever. And the third room has this, um, silk sort of drape in it, and I pull that drape back, and I'm like ... I'm immediately hit with the smell of burning incense. And on the right, there's this, um, there's like a big statue of the Buddha, and like, uh, photos, and different little, you know, trinkets, uh, Buddhist trinkets. And, and then I look over, and the light is like catching this incense smoke, and behind it, there's this guy's face, and he just looks over at me. And he's in the lotus position on this platform. He's in his full, like, Buddhist robes and everything, and he just is ... Looks at me and goes, "Welcome." And I was like, "Oh."
- JRJoe Rogan
Some Doctor Strange shit. (laughs)
- MEMichael Easter
Oh, dude. It was like ... Uh, I mean, if you wanna talk about, like, cliché in terms of, you know, the gangly Western writer-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MEMichael Easter
... has come to see the guru.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MEMichael Easter
That was fucking it, dude.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MEMichael Easter
Um, and so I talked to him for a few hours about, uh, you know, death and like how do we ... how do they view it there versus us. And he talks about it in terms of when you think about the fact that, you know, "I'm gonna die, you're gonna die, we're all gonna die eventually," you take that into your life, it changes your behavior. 'Cause you start to realize, like, there's th- there's gonna be an end to all this, right? And things that maybe were finicky in your life or these, like, little minute things that really work you up, that all starts to fade, and you start to really center on that which is gonna make you actually happy in the end. And it's interesting because Western research by scientists has actually backed this up. So they've done studies where they have people think about their own death, and those people end up ... report that they're happier, that they're, like, more on track in their life. They've done this in, um, people who are dying as well, where they, like, think about the end and accept it, sort of take it into their life. They, they have better lives. It's really interesting. And, um, I mean, it's something I do in my own life, and I can tell that, I can tell you that I think it actually works.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, being aware of where this ride ends-
- MEMichael Easter
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... is probably very important in terms of what you need to enjoy the ride. Like if you just think it's gonna go on forever-
- MEMichael Easter
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's like you were saying about kind of being impatient about the waitstaff at that restaurant, and thinking what a inconvenience it is that they're so slow to re- get you water-
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... versus what you feel after you've been hunting for 33 days and actually killed an animal.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, and, yet w- we're so spoiled in terms of our, uh, attachment to food. I, uh, decided about nine years ago that I was either going to become a vegan or I was gonna become a hunter. I was like, "There's no-"... there's no middle ground. I was like, "I'm, I'm gonna have to figure out what, what it means to eat." 'Cause I was, eh, oh, I was probably... I would probably go on vegetarian because I think I would always eat eggs, 'cause it's a pretty... especially if you have your own chickens, it's a pretty karma-free exchange. Yeah. You give them food and they give you eggs. Yeah. It's like... And their eggs are super healthy. Uh, but when I did go hunting, the moment I shot that animal, the moment it was down, like they're... you could actually watch it. There's a video, um, that's available online of, uh... I had to shoot it twice. I shot it and dropped it at 200 yards, and then as we were getting up to the animal, it was still alive, and then I had to put it out. Mm-hmm. And they, like, closed in on my face when I'm taking all this in. And then I shot it, and then I'm... it expired instantly. Yeah. And then I'm sitting there, (exhales) just breathing in and just trying to take in, like, "Okay. I just killed an animal that I'm going to eat, and I've never done this before, and I'm 40." Yeah. You know? So here we are. What was going through your head? Mm. (smacks lips) It would be hard for me to explain with just words because it's such a... there's a... it's a strange emotion. First of all, I didn't fully gra-... like you were saying, like, once you start cutting it up and then it becomes meat. Like, when it was down, it was like, "Okay, I've done this thing." I've done a lot of things in my life that make me nervous. And I think, um... I, I've al- I always gravitate towards things that I think are difficult to... that are scary. Whether it's martial arts competition or stand-up comedy or anything, I, I've al-... I gravitate towards things that I think are difficult, 'cause I, I'm, I'm con-... I'm attracted to these challenges. This was a, uh, this was a challenge 'cause it was a new thing, and it was like, you know, you're doing this rugged thing. We went, um... we took a... we floated down th- the river, like, 40 miles, and then we- Oh, that's cool. ... carried all of our supplies and tents and set up on the banks of the Missouri and it was, it was heavy. It was heavy. And so dropping this animal... but then once we cooked... we were eating it over the fire. Uh, that night we ate the liver, and I think we ate... I think we ate the heart too- Mm-hmm. ... over the fire. And I remember thinking, "This is what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life." Yeah. "This is what I'm gonna eat." Like, this is, this is so much better than any other... I've never felt meat that tasted this good before. I've never felt connected to my food before. I've caught fish before and eaten fish, and it's great. Yeah. But there's something... there was so much more intense about this. I guess because it's a mammal, there's some weird connection where your DNA is letting you know that, like, this, this is way closer to you than a fish. Like... Yeah. People... you could take a fish,
- 1:04:11 – 1:32:10
Ethics, predators, and public backlash: bear hunting, wildlife management, and perception
- JRJoe Rogan
uh, out of an ocean and take a photograph of it online. Nobody gives a shit. I had a, um, thing I did on social media for a while. Mm-hmm. Or I did a while back, rather. Uh, the hierarchy of dead animals on social media. And I had, uh... number one was a fish, and that was, like, a dead fish. Nobody gives a shit. Like, you could take a fish, "Look, I caught a bass." Mm-hmm. Everybody's like, "Hey, good job." Uh, next was a turkey. I had a dead turkey that I shot. People were like, "Hmm." Hmm. "I don't know what's a dead turkey." Um, then I had bear meat. (laughs) It just said- How'd that go? ... bear meat. There was... nobody said anything. They didn't know what to say because it was just meat. Mmm. But there's photos of me with a dead bear and it is the w- most hate I've ever gotten for any- Sure. ... photograph online. Even though I ate that bear, and even though you have to eat... well, you have to shoot these bears because their population in Alberta, where my friends John and Jen run a hunting camp up there- Mm-hmm. ... they're out of control. Yeah. And they need to control the population 'cause they decimate the moose population, they decimate the deer population, they cannibalize each other. It's very unhealthy for them to not have predators. The only predators they have is larger, bigger bears. Yeah. Grizzlies. So... but people, for whatever reason, have not connected bears with food for a long time. Right. In terms of, uh, the history of the United States, um, Daniel Boone was famous for, uh, being a bear hunter and, and, and selling, commercially selling bear meat. And they would smoke bear hides, uh, or smoke bear, uh, hams rather. And bear meat was actually preferred over deer meat for whatever reason. Mm-hmm. And deer were hunted for their pelts, and bear were hunted for their meat. And we have decided that they're teddy bears. Yeah. And that it's Yogi- Exactly. ... Yogi and Blue, and those are our buddies. And it's, it's a weird... we've just made this weird decision somewhere along the line t- put... is my friend Steve Rinella calls them, uh, charismatic megafauna, put them in this category of animals that you should, you should not eat or hunt. Yeah. And meanwhile, the weird thing is they're the most dangerous. They're the ones that you really should hunt because they'll eat your kids. (laughs) Yeah. Like, a deer is not gonna eat your kids. No. But a fucking bear will, for sure. You leave a baby in the backyard, a bear will 100% eat it. Oh, yeah. Not a question in the world. Totally. Where a deer will just look at your baby and not care at all. Like, we don't... we have a weird arrangement. Yeah. Um, but, uh, but eating that animal and, and hunting that animal ch-... it completely changed my idea of what, what food is. Completely. And from then on, I've had a completely different idea of what food is. And I've gone on to hunt-... I've hunted every year since. And s- it's something I look forward to. I get a giant amount of my meat from it. I give it to a lot of friends.
- MEMichael Easter
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
I, I keep two commercial freezers here at the studio. You know, that's what I do now, I hunt meat.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I'm, I'm healthier because of it.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know? I, I really do believe that elk meat, in particular, that dark red wild animal that's running around the mountains, like you're getting s- it's so nutrient-dense.
- MEMichael Easter
Super.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's so much more filled with protein than domestic beef. And it's just better for you.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah. I agree. Now the question is like how do we put that at scale for everyone?
- JRJoe Rogan
You can't.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah, well-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the thing, though. It's like you're, you're not going to.
- MEMichael Easter
No. I do, I mean, I do think there's almost an argument, though, that maybe, maybe in elementary school, we need to take kids to a slaughterhouse, or junior high. Like that needs to be a field trip to understand where things-
- JRJoe Rogan
You're gonna make a lot of vegetarians.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MEMichael Easter
We need to understand where things come from and, like w- what goes into this, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
I think, um, uh, this is a selfish pr- proclamation. I, I realized this going in. I think the idea of doing things at scale is, uh, is lost. Let it g- you gotta let it go.
- MEMichael Easter
Let it go.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're not gonna save everybody. I feel like that with exercise. I feel like that with meditation. I feel like that with yoga. I feel like that with hunting. I feel like that with just trying to be the best person you can be. You're only gonna reach the people that wanna hear the message. And for the people that wanna hear the message, that's, those are the people that you're reaching to. But the idea of scale, the idea of like how do you fe- Like I've heard that argument from vegetarians or vegans that you shouldn't hunt because when you say you should hunt for your food, you know, how is, how are we gonna do that with the entire population? We're not. You know what else we're not gonna do with the entire population? Get them to read, you know? You're not gonna get them to exercise.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're not gonna get them to do e- I'm not here for everybody.
- MEMichael Easter
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm here for anybody who wants to listen. I'll tell you what I've done and what's changed me and what I think could maybe change you, if you're so inclined to pursue it. But this idea of reaching the masses, Jesus Christ, you gotta go back to when they're a baby. You gotta start from scratch. You gotta put, somehow or another, put incentive in front of them. You gotta give them motivation. You gotta show them that there's a real reward in pursuing risk and then in doing difficult things and challenging themselves, even though it's hard. And there's moments, man, like to this day, even just doing standup comedy or doing anything that's hard, I mean, especially in the public eye, you face a lot of criticism. There's a lot of like days where it's like, "God, is this really worth it?"
- MEMichael Easter
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
But then you come out on the other end of it and it is worth it.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But you have to recognize... You have to understand the process and you have to recognize that through the struggle, eventually there'll be a resolution that'll be better. You'll learn, you'll get better at what you're doing. You'll be a better version of who you are because of the struggle.
- MEMichael Easter
Yeah.
Episode duration: 2:52:53
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Transcript of episode JZUNipWsXe0
