Joe Rogan Experience #1724 - Jewel

1. 0:00 – 2:21

   Hearing pitch as “waves”: why Jewel records with one ear off

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drum music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. (rock music) Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music)

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      All right, we're up and running. Oh, you're a real professional. You're a one-year... one ear open, one ear on-

   3. JEJewel0:18

      (laughs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:18

      ... type of person.

   5. JEJewel0:19

      That's funny. I did that accidentally.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      You... Did you?

   7. JEJewel0:22

      I'm sure it's habit.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:23

      Yeah, I bet it is.

   9. JEJewel0:24

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:24

       A lot of people... Like, a lot of radio professionals will do that, don't they?

   11. JEJewel0:26

       Really?

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       They almost want, like, a little bit of ambient.

   13. JEJewel0:29

       Yeah, I like to hear the sound of the room still.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:30

       Yeah. The real noise.

   15. JEJewel0:31

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:32

       Who does that? Jim Norton does that. Yeah.

   17. JEJewel0:34

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       It's odd, but I get it.

   19. JEJewel0:37

       I do it in the s- vocal booth.

   20. JRJoe Rogan0:39

       Oh, that makes sense.

   21. JEJewel0:39

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       Right. You want to s- hear the actual sound, not, like, the digitally enhanced and s- the coming through, uh, b- speakers. And you wanna hear your voice.

   23. JEJewel0:50

       Yeah. Everybody hears sound differently, and pitch particularly. I hear pitch as... It sounds like waves to me.

   24. JRJoe Rogan0:56

       Waves?

   25. JEJewel0:56

       So, like, if I'm tuning my guitar, I hear wa, wa, wa, wa, or I'll hear wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa. It's like a little vibrato sort of. So when I'm... When you push sound through air, it's pushing air and it'll make those little waves. But if you have just this on, it takes all the air out of it.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:13

       Oh.

   27. JEJewel1:13

       And so I don't hear pitches well when I'm singing. And so I'll always have one earphone off so I can hear those little waves that I... 'Cause if I can match my wave to that, to the (laughs) wave I'm hearing, I know I'm in tune.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:24

       That makes the most sense for singers, right, as opposed to any other kind of musician because you're, you're modulating air.

   29. JEJewel1:31

       Mm-hmm.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:31

       That's part of what you're doing.
2. 2:21 – 3:09

   Reading sincerity—and why people fall for cult leaders

   1. JEJewel2:21

      Yeah, definitely. Like, you definitely cultivate your ear. But what I love about music is uneducated people can tell whether you're being sincere or authentic or not.

   2. JRJoe Rogan2:31

      Mm.

   3. JEJewel2:31

      Like, it's kinda fascinating. But something does get communicated in a voice that tells you a lot about their heart and how they're feeling. And so much information gets communicated beyond pure tone that I've always found that so interesting about music.

   4. JRJoe Rogan2:44

      Yeah, in regular conversation, that's true as well.

   5. JEJewel2:46

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan2:47

      Right? It's with everything, really.

   7. JEJewel2:48

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan2:48

      And some folks don't see that. And they're the ones who send money to televangelists.

   9. JEJewel2:53

      Yeah. (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan2:54

       Right? (laughs)

   11. JEJewel2:56

       (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan2:56

       Right? (laughs)

   13. JEJewel2:57

       Exactly. (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan2:57

       Or c- cult members-

   15. JEJewel2:58

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan2:58

       ... they join a cult.

   17. JEJewel3:00

       Or those guys are probably great at, you know, tricking a lie detector test too. Like, they're just good at-

   18. JRJoe Rogan3:05

       Yeah.

   19. JEJewel3:05

       ... presenting a really specific thing that a lot of people can't see through.

3. 3:09 – 5:06

   Austin comedy club detour: a venue with a cult history ("Holy Hell")

   1. JRJoe Rogan3:09

      There's a place that I was gonna buy out here, um, for a comedy club. And I was in the middle of this process, and it wound up falling apart because there was, like, some environmental issue. But the place, t- it turned out, was owned at one point in time by a cult.

   2. JEJewel3:23

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan3:24

      And there's a documentary about the cult, and it's called Holy Hell, and it's on Amazon Prime. And I watched it, but I didn't watch it until I was in contract with the building. I was like, "Holy shit."

   4. JEJewel3:35

      Holy Hell.

   5. JRJoe Rogan3:36

      Yeah, Holy Hell.

   6. JEJewel3:36

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan3:36

      It was so sad.

   8. JEJewel3:39

      Aw.

   9. JRJoe Rogan3:39

      It was so sad. There's this crazy guy who built this theater that I was gonna buy just so he can dance in front of his followers. And these poor people, they started with him in West Hollywood, and then they made it out here to Austin, and they built this structure specifically so that he could perform in front of his followers. And this was the place I was gonna buy and convert to a comedy club. And I d- I hadn't watched the doc... I should've watched the documentary first. That was n-

   10. JEJewel4:05

       Did you buy it?

   11. JRJoe Rogan4:05

       No. Uh, it, it... Wound up falling apart-

   12. JEJewel4:07

       Uh-huh.

   13. JRJoe Rogan4:07

       ... 'cause there was an issue that I'm, I don't think I'm allowed to talk about. I think I have, I have an NDA.

   14. JEJewel4:12

       Mm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan4:12

       But it wasn't good. There was an, uh, an issue that needed to be resolved. It's resolvable, but it wasn't resolved.

   16. JEJewel4:17

       Right.

   17. JRJoe Rogan4:18

       Um, but the documentary, where, like, you see these people who are not good at seeing sincerity.

   18. JEJewel4:26

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan4:26

       And they, they don't know what's real and what's not real. And they wanted this alternative path of life that was just... You know, they had a community together. They grew their own food, and it was all about love. And, but ultimately, it was run by this crazy guy who, uh, fucked all of his followers, and the men followers, the women followers. I mean, th- I think he was fucking everybody.

   20. JEJewel4:52

       (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan4:52

       And he was... (laughs)

   22. JEJewel4:53

       Seems like the reason to have a cult.

   23. JRJoe Rogan4:54

       (laughs)

   24. JEJewel4:54

       It's like some people learn to play lead guitar to do that.

   25. JRJoe Rogan4:57

       Yeah.

   26. JEJewel4:57

       And other people have to become cult leaders. (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan4:59

       Or they do both, like David Koresh-

   28. JEJewel5:01

       (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan5:01

       ... the Waco guy. Didn't he do both?

   30. JEJewel5:03

       He d-... (laughs) He did both.
4. 5:06 – 7:13

   Manson, MKULTRA vibes, and CIA mind-control lore

   1. JRJoe Rogan5:06

      (laughs) Yeah. There's a great Manson book, um, I don't know if you ever heard of it. It's called Chaos-

   2. JEJewel5:11

      Mm-mm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan5:11

      ... by a guy named, uh, Tom O'Neill, who's been on the podcast before, explained it. He worked on this... It's a crazy story. And unfortunately, for people that have heard this before, I'm gonna just give-

   4. JEJewel5:19

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan5:19

      ... you, you all a little quick breakdown. This guy was writing an article... And he was my f-... my very good friend, Greg Fitzsimmons, he was his neighbor for 20 years. And this guy got an article, um, e- he got, uh, consignment to write this article. And in the process of writing this article about the Manson murders, he starts uncovering all this crazy shit about the real root of what had happened. And it turned out, 20 years later, what it was really all about was the CIA. And the CIA had been doing these mind control experiments with hippies and LSD, and they did a lot of it in prison, and had gone to prison to visit Charles Manson, had given him an acid in prison as a part of these studies-

   6. JEJewel6:04

      Prior to.

   7. JRJoe Rogan6:05

      Yes.

   8. JEJewel6:05

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan6:05

      Prior to his release.

   10. JEJewel6:06

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan6:07

       And then during his whole rampage, like the whole Manson family, they were supplying them with acid, getting him out of jail-

   12. JEJewel6:15

       No way.

   13. JRJoe Rogan6:15

       ... every time... Yes, yes, yes.

   14. JEJewel6:16

       Oh my God.

   15. JRJoe Rogan6:17

       Getting him out of jail every time he's arrested. And they ran a clinic in San Francisco, the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic, which my wife's mom went... My wife's mom was a hippie-

   16. JEJewel6:27

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JRJoe Rogan6:27

       ... in Haight-Ashbury in the-

   18. JEJewel6:28

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JRJoe Rogan6:28

       ... '70s, went there-

   20. JEJewel6:29

       Uh-huh.

   21. JRJoe Rogan6:29

       ... in the '60s, went there for treatment. Like, she lived there and went there. And it was a front for the CIA.

   22. JEJewel6:36

       Holy shit.

   23. JRJoe Rogan6:36

       They were, they were doing drug experiments on people.They also did a thing called Operation Climax, Midnight Climax. Operation Midnight Climax, they would take over brothels, and they would have two-way mirrors, and they would give the prostitutes drugs to give to the johns. So, these guys would come in to try to have sex, and they would give them a drink, and they would take a drink, and they would get LSD. And so, then, they would study them. So, they would inadvertently trip when they went to these places, and then, they'd be studied by the CIA. And they ran these for years.

   24. JEJewel7:10

       Holy shit.

   25. JRJoe Rogan7:12

       Yeah.

5. 7:13 – 11:16

   Power, religion, and Martin Luther making scripture accessible

   1. JEJewel7:13

      Oh, that makes me sad. There's this great book called Traumatic Narcissism that talks about the psychology that often leads to cult leaders.

   2. JRJoe Rogan7:21

      Mm.

   3. JEJewel7:21

      It's a clinical book, but I found it really, really fascinating about the type of person that can- has that need, that drive to cause other people to submit-

   4. JRJoe Rogan7:31

      Yeah.

   5. JEJewel7:32

      ... to help support their own image of themselves.

   6. JRJoe Rogan7:35

      Well, the crazy thing is how prevalent it is throughout history, right? 'Cause it's- we're looking at it in terms of non-sanctioned versions of this, like the Holy Hell Guy or Manson. But the Catholic Church-

   7. JEJewel7:47

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan7:48

      ... or- or many different churches, like you're dealing with the same exact scenario. You're just doing it in a sanctioned form, where you have cardinals and bishops and the Pope, and it's all going down.

   9. JEJewel7:57

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JRJoe Rogan7:57

       But at the end of the day, when that person is running that parish, unless they are, like, as true to the word of Jesus as is humanly possible, to the point where they are selfless, and they really dedicate themselves to- Like, I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine today about that, where he was telling me about this guy who works with the homeless in Austin, that literally bought this chunk of land, built housing on it, has people come out there. He and his wife live with these people and works to rehabilitate them. Like, the guy literally does, like, the work of the Lord. Like, he's trying-

   11. JEJewel8:35

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JRJoe Rogan8:35

       ... to, like, help these people's lives.

   13. JEJewel8:37

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan8:37

       But he's- th- he's really doing it. Like, they're like, "He's the real deal." Like, how many of those are there?

   15. JEJewel8:43

       It just takes so much personal self-reflection and work, and that saying of absolute power corrupts absolutely-

   16. JRJoe Rogan8:49

       Yeah.

   17. JEJewel8:50

       ... it- it's really true. And not many people ... You know, where you start separating people from God and saying, "No, you can't talk to God. I can talk to God for you."

   18. JRJoe Rogan9:00

       Yeah.

   19. JEJewel9:00

       Like, you just set yourself up in, obviously, a really powerful position that's gonna put everybody else at a disadvantage. And you have to be so morally intact to be able to handle that kind of power, and I don't know why you would want it anyway.

   20. JRJoe Rogan9:12

       Yeah, you wouldn't want it if you were that morally intact.

   21. JEJewel9:14

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan9:15

       But it's like, that's the idea about presidents, right? Anybody who would want to be president-

   23. JEJewel9:19

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JRJoe Rogan9:19

       ... shouldn't be president. (laughs)

   25. JEJewel9:21

       It's true. It's so sad.

   26. JRJoe Rogan9:22

       It is sad.

   27. JEJewel9:23

       The- it just doesn't pay good enough. You're not gonna get somebody to do the job.

   28. JRJoe Rogan9:27

       Have you ever listened to, uh, Hardcore History, the- d- the podcast?

   29. JEJewel9:30

       Mm-mm.

   30. JRJoe Rogan9:31

       The- there's a guy named Dan Carlin who's amazing, and he's, uh, he- he says he's not a historian, because, you know, he's not, like, technically accredited as a historian, but he really is a historian. He's just more of an amateur historian. But he's incredible at breaking down historical events. And he did this one about Martin Luther, and about how Martin Luther was the- you know, the beginning of Lutherism, Lutheranism. How do you say it? Lutheranism?
6. 11:16 – 13:41

   Alaska roots and the Kilcher family: homestead vs. “hippie commune” myths

   1. JEJewel11:16

      I think what people don't realize, and not that ... I mean, I don't know if you know much of what happened with my mom and I. But, like, something I don't think people realize is, like, that lobster in the pot thing, of you put a lobster-

   2. JRJoe Rogan11:28

      What happened with your mom and dad?

   3. JEJewel11:28

      Oh, God. It's like a whole thing. It took me a whole book to figure out even how to describe what happened with my mom. (laughs) But to give you, like, a starting point, when I was ... So, my mom left when I was eight. I- my dad took over raising us, and we lived on a homestead in Alaska.

   4. JRJoe Rogan11:42

      I found out about that through watching that show.

   5. JEJewel11:44

      That's my dad.

   6. JRJoe Rogan11:45

      I know.

   7. JEJewel11:46

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan11:46

      That's crazy. When I-

   9. JEJewel11:47

      Alaska: The Last Frontier.

   10. JRJoe Rogan11:48

       When I watched that show, I was like, "Wow, these people are cool." They- and then someone goes, "You know, that's where Jewel came from."

   11. JEJewel11:53

       (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan11:53

       I was like, "Shut the fuck up."

   13. JEJewel11:55

       (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan11:55

       "No way."

   15. JEJewel11:57

       My little brother-

   16. JRJoe Rogan11:57

       And then I looked at everybody there. I'm like, "Oh my God, they look like her."

   17. JEJewel12:00

       (laughs) It's true. The big nose, the cheekbones. (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan12:06

       (laughs)

   19. JEJewel12:06

       (laughs) They have nicer teeth, but what are you gonna do?

   20. JRJoe Rogan12:08

       (laughs)

   21. JEJewel12:09

       (laughs) Um, yeah, my- it's funny, on that show, my little brother texted me, and he's like, "I'm about to sign a TV contract." And he doesn't have a TV, so I thought he was, like, at an electronic store trying to buy a TV, and that they were making him sign a contract or something. And I was like, "Why are you signing a contract to buy a television?" He's like, "No, like a reality TV show contract." And I was like, "Don't sign it."

   22. JRJoe Rogan12:30

       (laughs)

   23. JEJewel12:30

       I'm like, "Tell- who are you talking to? What do you mean?" You know, I was trying to get the details through this text. And he's like, "I don't really know who's doing it. It might be Discovery." I'm like, "Discovery Network? Like, you're about to sign a contract." I was like, "Please have them call me." Nobody calls me. I'm like ...... trying to figure out what's going on, so I had CAA cold-called Discovery and just say, "Hey, if you're looking at the Kilcher family, we represent them." And then they called the... Discovery calls the producers and, like, how do a bunch of hillbillies in Alaska have CAA calling us, like, in two hours? They had no idea it was my family. Like, it was-

   24. JRJoe Rogan13:01

       Wow.

   25. JEJewel13:01

       ... completely-

   26. JRJoe Rogan13:02

       Just dumb luck.

   27. JEJewel13:02

       ... just discovered them on their own.

   28. JRJoe Rogan13:04

       Wow.

   29. JEJewel13:05

       Yeah. Yeah, pretty funny.

   30. JRJoe Rogan13:07

       It's a great show.
7. 13:41 – 21:02

   Founding the homestead: Swiss/German immigrants, wilderness survival, and brutal practicality

   1. JEJewel13:41

      Homesteading is basically when the government gave you free land to settle a wild territory. So, my grandmother and grandfather were born in Switzerland, living in Germany. My grandfather was going to university, I think, in Geneva maybe, and he came up with this theory, 'cause he was taking a history class on the fall of civilizations, and he had this theory that if a population hits a certain critical mass that it collapses. And so he started looking at the population of Europe, and he felt like Europe was gonna collapse. This was in the late '20s, early '30s. And so he convinced all these people, philosophers, painters, just a big random group of people, that Europe was gonna fail. (laughs)

   2. JRJoe Rogan14:19

      That sounds like what I'm trying to do about America. (laughs)

   3. JEJewel14:22

      You would've liked my granddad. (laughs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan14:24

      I think he was right, he was just off by a hundred years. (laughs)

   5. JEJewel14:27

      No. I think he was right-

   6. JRJoe Rogan14:29

      Yeah. (laughs)

   7. JEJewel14:29

      ... 'cause the World War II happened.

   8. JRJoe Rogan14:30

      Yeah. Right?

   9. JEJewel14:31

      Anyway, he w- sent ahead to a s- as a scout to go to Alaska because they were giving away free land. It was still a territory, it wasn't a state yet. Took him two years. It's, like, a crazy story, hiking over Harding Glacial Icefield with a ladder on his back-

   10. JRJoe Rogan14:46

       Whoa.

   11. JEJewel14:46

       ... and he'd lay the ladder across crevices in the ice and then walk across the ladder, you know?

   12. JRJoe Rogan14:51

       Whoa.

   13. JEJewel14:51

       I have old, like, footage of him, um, on a raft of logs he made himself, standing up paddling with huge chunks of icebergs all around, like, uh, gnarly shit. Like, my granddad was really gnarly

   14. NANarrator15:05

       And he-

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:05

       I mean, amazing. ... didn't grow up doing that.

   16. JEJewel15:06

       No. He was, like, raised in Switzerland, you know?

   17. JRJoe Rogan15:09

       People-

   18. JEJewel15:09

       Like-

   19. JRJoe Rogan15:09

       ... were just so hardcore-

   20. JEJewel15:10

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan15:10

       ... back then.

   22. JEJewel15:10

       And my granddad was, like... He was just hard, a n- hard guy. So, anyway, the war starts to break out. Like, Hitler starts to become an actual problem, and now nobody can get visas in this group except my grandmother, whose father had come to America during World War I and went back to Switzerland. So, anyway, she can get a visa. Nobody else can. So she decides to leave everybody, her boyfriend, her family, everybody, because she didn't wanna be in Europe while this war started gearing up. So, she got on the very last civilian ship that left right before the war. She shows up in Alaska and my granddad's like, "Where is everyone?" She's like, "Nobody could come. It's just me." And he's like, "Where's your boyfriend?" And she's like, "I broke up with him." And he's like, "Do you wanna get married?" (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan15:54

       (laughs)

   24. JEJewel15:55

       (laughs) And, uh, her mother was a seamstress, really poor, but had given my grandmother all of her cash and just said, "This is so you don't ever have to rely on a man." Which is, to me, so sweet.

   25. JRJoe Rogan16:04

       Wow.

   26. JEJewel16:05

       So, my grandmother had this huge wad of cash in her pocket, probably more than anybody in that area had, and she felt it in her pocket and then she looked at my granddad. But she really believed in his vision and she was like, "Sure, why not?" And they got married, and then they walked 200 miles across the wilderness to get to Homer, and-

   27. JRJoe Rogan16:23

       They walked?

   28. JEJewel16:24

       Mm-hmm.

   29. JRJoe Rogan16:24

       How long did that take?

   30. JEJewel16:25

       There was no roads. There was no, like, horse and wagon trails. There wasn't shit.
8. 21:02 – 32:09

   Modern life vs. human wiring: disconnection, tech addiction, and Indigenous wisdom

   1. JEJewel21:02

      You know, you can only value what you have a relationship with, right? If you don't have a relationship with something, you can't value it.

   2. JRJoe Rogan21:08

      Right.

   3. JEJewel21:09

      And so, I think that as we moved out of villages where we relied on nature, we had a strong relationship with nature. We valued it. We valued our food, it was sacred. It wasn't just hunting, hoo-ha-ha. It was like, "Holy shit, I need this animal."

   4. JRJoe Rogan21:22

      Yeah.

   5. JEJewel21:22

      And it's a relationship.

   6. JRJoe Rogan21:24

      Yeah.

   7. JEJewel21:24

      And relationships change you, right? So if you're in a relationship, you are required, you will, as a byproduct, evolve as a human, right? If you're in a relationship with a wife, you're gonna evolve because of that relationship. When you quit evolving, you quit having a relationship. You quit growing together. So I feel like when we went from a village and started to urbanize, we stopped having a relationship. In a lot of ways, I think it kind of caused us to be schizophrenic as a humanity. We went from this cohesive environment where there was a healer and food, and everything was in this really cohesive environment that we had a personal relationship with, and then all of a sudden, we no longer had a relationship with our food. Somebody else would bring it. Somebody else would bring the milk and someone would bring the vegetables, and it started being parceled in. And then you look at, like, uh, healthcare turned into this building over there, and they took care of our bodies. And then (laughs) mental healthcare didn't even come up 'til really recently.

   8. JRJoe Rogan22:16

      Yeah.

   9. JEJewel22:16

      But we kinda caused ourselves to be schizophrenic and out of relationship, out of harmony with what makes us human, actually. And so, people don't know. I mean, the reason the planet, to me, is in the shape it's in is we just don't have a relationship with it. We have no idea where our food comes from. We have no idea the value of water. People don't even know how heavy water is when you're carrying it. I grew up carrying it, you know? And I grew up watering the garden with buckets that you bring up from the stream, and it's like, "Boy, you didn't waste a drop." And I was in a relationship with it. I value it. And that, to me, is one of the saddest things, is when you're saying people don't know where their food comes, you're saying they don't have a relationship with it anymore.

   10. JRJoe Rogan22:50

       But they do have the, the ... There's like a, an advantage to being able to go to a doctor who can fix a broken leg. There's an advantage to someone, you know, running an MRI on you and finding out exactly what's wrong and not having any guesswork. So the ... There are advantages to modern medicine, there's advantages to technology, you know?

   11. JEJewel23:10

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JRJoe Rogan23:10

       You can share ideas instantaneously because of the internet. Like, there's good and bad, but I think what's happened is it's happened so quickly, and we've adapted to it so quickly, that our, our bodies are not designed for this. They didn't evolve-

   13. JEJewel23:27

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JRJoe Rogan23:27

       ... in this sort of a world. They didn't evolve for fluorescent lighting and cubicles and traffic and all the things, the woes of modern society, that ... Credit, debt, stress, all, all the things that we take for granted that are just a normal part of life. One of the reasons why we're so fucked up is because we're, we are literally a square peg that's been forced into a round hole. So our edges get sheared off, we get stuffed into this thing, we have all this open space 'cause we don't totally fit in.

   15. JEJewel23:58

       Mm-hmm.

   16. JRJoe Rogan23:58

       And now we're trying to navigate this world that we've created ourselves with no forethought.

   17. JEJewel24:06

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan24:06

       Like, it's just happened, right? The society that we've created, it's not like it was like, "This'll be the best for people, and when we take into account people's psychology and the needs and our human reward systems and all the different things that are in play because of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, this is probably the best way to make it smooth." No. That's not, not what happened. It just happened. And o- one of the things that is so weird about our, our society is that it's so technologically dependent. And that's the thing that evolves and changes the quickest-

   19. JEJewel24:38

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan24:38

       ... out of all the things around us. So, eh, we become dependent on it, we com- become attached to it. It evolves so quickly that it's constantly rapidly changing and forming, and our biology has no chance to keep up with it. And then you have all this crazy anxiety and all this weirdness and these dopamine rushes that people get from staring at screens all day.

   21. JEJewel25:00

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan25:00

       And they can't help themselves, and screen addiction, and all this weirdness that's a part of modern life in 2021. It's, it's really just...... because we've invented some really cool shit-

   23. JEJewel25:11

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan25:11

       ... that has some purposes.

   25. JEJewel25:13

       Doesn't make us happier.

   26. JRJoe Rogan25:13

       Right.

   27. JEJewel25:14

       Particularly. But it's like, we are the most advanced civilization in the history of humankind, but we're the unhappiest, you know? Suicide rates between 2006 and 2018 went up 70% across almost every demographic, and those were pre-COVID numbers.

   28. JRJoe Rogan25:27

       That's because of Facebook.

   29. JEJewel25:28

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan25:29

       I blame that-
9. 32:09 – 54:00

   Leaving at 15 and refusing the “statistic”: self-renurturing, philosophy, and nature as teacher

   1. JEJewel32:09

      is more of, like an emotional toolkit, emotional resilience. And, you know, when I moved out at 15, I realized I had this genetic inheritance, but I also had an emotional one, and it was that emotional one that was causing systemic abuse, and it was getting handed generation to generation. My grandfather beat his kids.

   2. JRJoe Rogan32:26

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JEJewel32:27

      He was also great, you know? Like, also a great person, but also beat his kids. And then my dad didn't want to be that way when he grew up. My dad's childhood was so traumatic that when he went to Vietnam, he was relaxed.

   4. JRJoe Rogan32:40

      Oh, geez. (laughs)

   5. JEJewel32:40

      It was like the first time his nervous system was like, "Whew," like an exhale.

   6. JRJoe Rogan32:45

      Oh, my God. That's crazy.

   7. JEJewel32:46

      Yeah. That's gnarly. And so then my dad, you know, leaves Vietnam, marries my mom, has three kids, and my mom leaves, and all of a sudden, he's just trauma triggering. Nobody knows what that... We didn't know those words, you know? So he starts drinking to try and help that, and he ends up repeating the cycle. Much less than his dad, mind you, but started getting hit at that age. And so that's why when I moved out at 15, I just knew, like statistically, I'm gonna end up in an abusive relationship, on drugs, drinking, some version of all of that, and I didn't want to be. Like I- to me, like the only counterculture thing to do, the only truly rebellious thing I could do was like, "How do I get happy? And if happiness isn't taught in my home, is it a learnable skill? Is it a teachable skill?" And that was the im- impetus for everything, still-

   8. JRJoe Rogan33:32

      Wh-

   9. JEJewel33:32

      ... to this day.

   10. JRJoe Rogan33:33

       ... where do you think you had this, this insight to, to break this mold? Where did- where do you think the y- how do you think you had the wisdom? Like, where do you think it came from? Do you think it came, like part of it might have come from what's required of you when you're living on a homestead, that you had to develop this sort of y- y- you had to overcome adversity, you had to develop character, you had to do things that were very difficult and know that you're capable of doing those things? Like, what was it that allowed you to have the kind of confidence that most 15-year-olds are n- they're just gonna tolerate whatever bullshit their environment throws at them because it also provides warmth and a roof over their head?

   11. JEJewel34:14

       I think part of it was, you know, that I was raised on a homestead and I was raised around really strong people, male and female, that I was willing... But to me, it was kind of logical, too. It's like I can either live in a cabin with an a-hole, or I can just go live in a cabin. (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan34:30

       (laughs)

   13. JEJewel34:30

       It was like, that just seemed a lot nicer to me-

   14. JRJoe Rogan34:33

       Right.

   15. JEJewel34:33

       ... and I'd been working since I was young, and I just- I hate being unhappy. I know everybody does, but I really hate it. I really dislike it, and I hated being hit, and I hated being yelled at. And so I was willing to pay the price and figure out how to pay rent, and figure out how to get jobs so that I didn't have to be around that.

   16. JRJoe Rogan34:51

       Were you allowed to work at 15?

   17. JEJewel34:53

       Y- I mean, it's a small town, so you find stuff to do. I was giving horse rides to tourists for a cowboy in town, and I was cleaning buildings, you know? I'd make money that way. But I think also, like I- I was lucky I had a teacher that exposed me to, like Greek philosophy.

   18. JRJoe Rogan35:08

       Hmm.

   19. JEJewel35:08

       And that's how I knew the idea of nature versus nurture.

   20. JRJoe Rogan35:10

       Oh.

   21. JEJewel35:11

       And that idea got me thinking, like, "Wait a minute. What is my nurture?"

   22. JRJoe Rogan35:14

       (laughs)

   23. JEJewel35:15

       (laughs) And then I was like, "Wait a minute. It's horrible." (laughs)

   24. JRJoe Rogan35:18

       (laughs)

   25. JEJewel35:18

       And then it sounds stupid, but we had this bunny named Caramel, and Caramel was raised in the chicken coop because it was the only safe place, 'cause bunnies in Alaska don't do very well. And it thought it was a chicken, like it would peck at its food. And it kind of waddled funny. It didn't, like do a normal hop, but it kind of waddled like a chicken, and it would lay on the nests and hatch eggs for the hens.

   26. JRJoe Rogan35:44

       (laughs)

   27. JEJewel35:44

       And it was so cute growing up until I moved out, because then I was like, "What if I'm a bunny that thinks it's a chicken? And how will I ever know what I am if what I was raised around is what I think I am?" And that fucked with me. Like, that thought just- I had this- I- it p- like it, it really did my head in for a little while, and I was like, "I have to find a way to know what my nature is irrelative of the systems that I've been given around me." And so how do you start to distinguish between self and other? And that kind of stuff just turned me on. I thought that was really interesting, and I liked that kind of thing.

   28. JRJoe Rogan36:19

       So did you get these ideas from specific books? Like what w- were you, were you reading something? Did you have a mentor? Did you have people that you looked to to have conversations about life?

   29. JEJewel36:29

       No, there was none of that around. It wasn't like that.

   30. JRJoe Rogan36:32

       Nothing?
10. 54:00 – 1:42:52

    Homeless in San Diego: shoplifting addiction, presence practice, and a doctor saving her life

    1. JEJewel54:00

       I wasn't homeless in, in Homer, by the way. I had a cabin, and I paid rent.

    2. JRJoe Rogan54:04

       Oh.

    3. JEJewel54:04

       You know, and I had jobs up there.

    4. JRJoe Rogan54:05

       Where were you homeless?

    5. JEJewel54:06

       In San Diego.

    6. JRJoe Rogan54:07

       Oh.

    7. JEJewel54:07

       It was later. It was when I was 18.

    8. JRJoe Rogan54:08

       Oh.

    9. JEJewel54:08

       I wouldn't have sex with the boss, and he wouldn't give me my paycheck, and...

    10. JRJoe Rogan54:11

        Oh, boy.

    11. JEJewel54:13

        So I was like, "Fine."

    12. JRJoe Rogan54:14

        That's... The story got worse. (laughs)

    13. JEJewel54:16

        (laughs) It's the story of my life. Wait till we keep going. (laughs)

    14. JRJoe Rogan54:19

        Oh, let's keep going. Why not? Look, here's the thing.

    15. JEJewel54:22

        (laughs)

    16. JRJoe Rogan54:22

        The, the, the thing that is very valuable about these conversations is that most people have been in a moment of darkness and despair in their life, and when they see someone like you, who's loved and successful, and they go, "Well, how? How did she get out? How did she do it?" And that, these conversations, like this, these descriptions, this... your own personal experiences that you're relaying in this very honest way is fuel for people. It's v- so valuable. For someone right now that's in a bad place, and I guarantee you, there's probably a lot of people listening to this right now, that this is resonating with them, and they're... They get something out of this that's not available through any other source. You can, you can get things... You, you can get information from books, and you can get... (sighs) you can get inspired by film and art, but to hear a person, an actual person that you know has actually made it through the fire and come out on the other end and has some wisdom, and it's like, "Hey, here's a map of the territory."

    17. JEJewel55:31

        Yeah.

    18. JRJoe Rogan55:31

        ... this, this is what I went through, and your, your traveling through the woods might be different than mine, but I'm telling you, if you can get... There's a clearing outside of this. You can get there.

    19. JEJewel55:42

        Yeah. It's true. Like, what I, what I was so interested in is, like, you know, for a kid like me, there wasn't a safety net, right? I didn't have the family safety net, I didn't have money. I didn't have access to therapists, and I didn't want to think, again, that my life was over because I was in that situation. Like, does that mean there didn't get to be happiness for me 'cause I just wasn't born in the right situation? And that's what... you know, one of the things that really inspired me to keep going, and then once I, you know, got discovered, I wanted to see if this was teachable to other people. Because I was very concerned about the people that, again, didn't have those safety nets, didn't have access to therapy. And God forbid, what if therapy doesn't work for you, you know?

    20. JRJoe Rogan56:25

        Right.

    21. JEJewel56:25

        Like, what if you go to your therapist and you just don't feel better and your life doesn't change? Those people often want to really kill themselves because they think, "It must be me." Like, "The expert can't fix me. I must be truly broken," which is not the right takeaway. It's just the wrong therapist. It's just the wrong thing, or it's not practicable enough. And so I started taking these exercises and really thinking about them of like, "All right. What exactly did I do?" Like, "How did I make these really practicable? And then can I teach them to other people?" And so I formed a youth foundation about 18 years ago with a friend, and we just give these types... We have these types of conversations with them, and, you know, you go, "Look, you have this pain, but this pain can get transmuted and transformed into rocket fuel for an incredible life if you don't tank with anger and bitterness and go down that road." You have to transmute it, and it is like... It's medicine. It's poison. It's being bitten by the snake and having to transmute it and turn it into medicine. And being able to teach kids how to do it without therapists... And I'm not anti-therapists at all. It's just that I think we should be taught skills to be able to do this for ourselves.

    22. JRJoe Rogan57:28

        Yeah.

    23. JEJewel57:28

        It is in us, you know, and these kids are gonna find their own unique ways to f- do it for themselves, and it works. You know, like our, our s- we take complex P- PTSD, self-harming, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, and these kids turn around in radical fashion and they're happy. And you can see what it looks like on the other side of suicide ideation, you know.

    24. JRJoe Rogan57:49

        What is the name of this organization?

    25. JEJewel57:50

        It's called Inspiring Children.

    26. JRJoe Rogan57:51

        And d- is there a website?

    27. JEJewel57:53

        Yeah. InspiringChildren.something.

    28. JRJoe Rogan57:55

        .org, probably?

    29. JEJewel57:56

        Probably (laughs) . Yeah.

    30. JRJoe Rogan57:57

        Probably. So take me through this process. So you're, you're 15. You're living in Alaska. How do you get to San Diego?

Episode duration: 3:41:47