In this third and final (for now) episode with “Nathan,” we talk mainly about the creative process and how to pursue “success” without being ensnared in ego and shallow motivations. What incentives to creativity are legitimate, and not just chasing after fame, fortune, power or immortality? What might a truly “optimized” life look like?
I'm thoroughly enjoying the "mentor" series with this "Nathan" fella. Particularly the most recent episode where they focused on creativity. It was soooo good. I thought the format really allowed Chris to shine...letting him just spew stuff from his beautiful mind with the help of someone to bounce things off of, unlike ROMA/s and what not. It's funny that Chris mentioned that he felt he was least qualified to weigh in on this particular subject, creativity, compared to the previous two episode subjects, career/goals and relationships/intimacy. Creativity and the creative process has been a focal point in my life being a musician and it's a lens which i regularly use to view the world and navigate my life...and I thought he had some wonderfully insightful takes on the subject. "Nathan" did a really great job of helping with the conversation flow as well. Thank you Chris and Nathan.
Just wanna give some feedback - I subscribed to this Substack at first specifically because I wanted to hear the full Mentirship conversations, and am staying because Im digging the community and the discussions. Love the direction the podcast is going in and loved both Crestone Elders episodes. This Nathan episode definitely tempted me to think about writing again
Both these videos show that class consciousness is at an all time low. Trump represents everything opposite to the needs of the working class. Not saying the democrats are good for the working class, but Trump is certainly not the answer. His time as president proved that.
The Rich Man North of Richmond song starts of great and then performs some casual class betrayal by pissing on welfare recipients and then bangs on about taxes. This is where it starts coming across more like “what about me/it isn’t fair.”
The issues both these videos raised will not be solved by supporting a capitalist pig to become president. Nor will they be solved in having a dig at those less fortunate than you. These are examples of the working class being manipulated by the capitalist class and instead of uniting, they invent divisions so the blue collar fight amongst themselves.
"Trump represents everything opposite to the needs of the working class"
Agreed. The problem is that there’s absolutely no conceivable chance out there on the US electoral landscape of anything that would meet the needs of the working class. And the working class knows this, & is increasingly bitter about it. Trump at least gives them a way of Sticking it to the Man.
The system is, indeed, rigged. So voting for the guy Jimmy Dore describes as “the clown nose on a clown country” is viewed as the best available electoral possibility.
“Best bet? Unionise. Organise.”
Your -ise makes me think you aren’t American. You heard about the rail strike last year that Biden “averted” by having it declared illegal? That’s just one prominent example of what happens to anybody who gets serious.
The only way out for working Americans is to truly unite — down tools for a general strike; bring the whole country to a grinding halt. But don’t hold your breath.
Preventing this sort of thing is why corporate America & the government — but I repeat myself — are so big into identity politics.
My point exactly. Trump supporters think that voting trump in is sticking it to the man, when in reality it’s voting for the man to tread in them harder. No class consciousness.
No I think they do have class consciousness; they just don't know what to do with it. Time was, if you were working class & wanted your interests represented you voted Democrat, or NDP, or Labour. Those days are gone — there's simply no-one on the ballot who will do it.
I also don't agree that Trump will "tread in them harder". We've seen four years of him as pres — in terms of the wealth gap he was neither better nor worse than the Dems.
Also, he'll stand up & tell you straight that the US has been ruthlessly deindustrialized by the globalist elite. This is true, & a vote-getter. But when in power he does Zero. But then the Dems also do Zero.
The media does its best to polarize working-class Americans in two largely imaginary camps (shitlib & MAGA)
Sooner or later there's bound to be "unrest" in the US. Since there isn't sufficient working-class consciousness, they don't tumble to the General Strike idea. But the UK is in deep shit & Brits aren't talking general strike either.
The UK actually had a general strike in 1926. That's unthinkable today. Orwell once wrote how he had watched a man leading a Clydesdale as it ploughed a field. The horse towered over the man, & Orwell thought: if only that horse were aware of its own strength vis-à-vis the man's it would end this relationship right quick. The US working class is that Clydesdale. It knows full well it's being badly exploited, but doesn't realize its own strength.
There’s enough evidence out there that the working class were worse off during the Trump presidency. That’s all over the internet, with the most obvious example him winding back Medicare and social security.
The Murdoch media has demonised unions to such a degree that even those that most benefit from them don’t trust them. The long term solution is to make working class aware and get them to join a union. Governments and political parties are run by lobby groups. Unions could be a lobby group with a big voting base. They still hold significant influence in the labor party in Australia, where I’m from. And they’ve had some pretty good wins recently, such as negotiating paid domestic violence leave for all workers. I only wish membership was as strong as it used to be and that the Union Accords never happened.
Biden has been undermining Medicare and social security since the 1980s. It's been one long assault. Just as he kickstarted mass incarceration with his 1994 crime bill, promising to crush drug-users (except Hunter, of course, who continues to snort at will).
The reality is that the working class has been suffering about equally under Both parties for the past 40 years at least. I have a 60-year-old stepsister in the US who you might call "working poor". She can quote chapter & verse.
Yes, Trump is a fraud &, when in power, he toes the line of the corporate donors. He likes to talk like a Strongman, but in fact he's weak & overly susceptible to flattery. That said, guess who actually started implementing the neoliberal agenda in the US: Bill Clinton. Because he was advertised as a "liberal" he could get away with stuff Reagan & Bush senior had only dreamed of.
I find Chris Hedges takes a sober view of things (& discusses the plight of US unions);
"This left-wing guy went to a Trump rally and — get this — found reasonable people with legitimate concerns about the state of affairs in the United States. Maybe we’re not as divided as they keep telling us we are?"
Of Course you aren't. But your BlueAnon/Elite rulers want you to focus on Trump's person as the fount of all evil & to vilify his supporters as the spawn of Satan. Divide & rule, y'see.
Trump is a comprehensive dumbass, but the fact the Dems are terrified of his electoral potential weighs in his favour, in my view.
This is why they're going to absurd, highly questionable judicial lengths to convict him & take him out of the equation.
Trump's working-class backers know he's reviled by the Establishment, & that's precisely why they like him.
The lives of working-class American have got shittier & shittier over the years, as the corporate-run USA has watched its wealth gap widen terrifyingly.
The last thing the Elite wants is the neglected 90% of voters uniting to defend their interests. Hence Russiagate (a joint DemCentral/DeepState hit job) & the general whipping-up of anti-Trump hysteria.
It's also clearly why the Elite has embraced Identity Politics so fervently.
I beg to partially differ. Getting hysterical about a president supporting a coup d'etat and going to great length trying to get him to court is a proper reaction in my view. Well, surely the being hysterical is something one should get over, but taking action is still necessary.
I can agree on, that those in power are afraid of the dispossessed united. On the other hand, I am also concerned that the workers may unite themselves behind the wrong labour party again. After all, the NSdAP presented itself as a labour party, too. (NSdAP translates to nationalsocialistic German labour party). That is not to say that Trump is the same as they were, but to say that, the fact that someone rhetorically picked up the workers concerns , does not make him a ally.
So maybe those in power are afraid of the people, but there are more reasons to be afraid, particularly for those not in power, if the rage takes the wrong turn.
I can agree on that we must not judge too quickly and we must talk to each other, especially to those we consider our opponents. I would be glad to get in a conversation with those folks in the first video. Pointing out common grounds instead of dismissing people just because they went to the "wrong" rally is most certainly the way to go.
There was no "coup", or attempted "coup". It was a bunch of dipshits wandering around the Capitol trying to out-dipshit one another. It was comical.
Think about what actually happened: a mob broke into a Strangely Underpoliced Capitol. That's it. That's all there was. Nothing more. Once inside they just wandered around.
Then consider the facts that have emerged since: the mob was lousy with FBI plants, at least one of whom was instrumental in whipping mob-members up to break in (& many there pointed at him & shouted "Fed! Fed!").
Somebody wanted them to break in, & it wasn't Donald.
In the aftermath the media lied to you about what had really happened.
And the participants were pursued mercilessly by the Justice Department (that dumbass shaman got a 41-month sentence for what amounts to trespassing — 41 months!)
I think the whole thing was basically a psy-op. The fact that Dems can't see this obvious reality simply beggars belief.
"the workers may unite themselves behind the wrong labour party"
Look, that's democracy. The masses are asses, as they say. Best not radicalize them, as neoliberal policy has, & not just in the US. From your spelling I'm guessing you're a Brit. Well, the Brits got Brexit as comeuppance for voting into office a string of neoliberal gvts.
And it's happening across Europe. I lived in Germany for four years & was back for a visit to my alma mater a few weeks ago for the first time in 42 years. Shocking. You have the beginnings of a similar wealth gap there, & lo & behold the AfD is topping the charts. Coincidence? Not on your life.
“So maybe those in power are afraid of the people, but there are more reasons to be afraid, particularly for those not in power, if the rage takes the wrong turn.”
Well yes, Donald is probably psychologically unstable, but what the US has right now is hardly preferable: it’s a War Society threatening the existence of every human on the planet. I’m old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis in the target area. This is even scarier because gvt & people are both sleepwalking.
At least Kennedy recognized the stakes — nuclear armageddon. But Anthony Strangelove, Jake Ripper & the clinically demented “president” first blundered us into a proxy-war in Ukraine & now want to have a direct war with China. Both are rife with promise for an out-of-the-blue nuclear escalation.
I can’t see Trump being any worse.
Biden’s gvt has been far more repressive in terms of civil liberties than Trump’s was. And just look at the situation on the Mexican border. Better? Umm no. Far worse. These are precisely the things we were warned about re Trump. But he didn’t do them, the Dems have.
Talking to those people is nice, but you won’t accomplish anything unless you present a real alternative. They’d dump Trump in a heartbeat for anyone with a real shot at improving their lives.
But both the Dems & the GOP run a closed-shop duopoly representing elite interests. Never in hell will they allow the US oligarchy to be threatened.
Not British, but German, mixing up English orthographies. That's probably why I am so concerned about democracies voting themselves out of existence. Even if they're just shadows of a true democracy.
Yes, it worries me too. But there's nothing we can do about it except demonstrate that people's interests lie in preserving democracy. Well, cross-party neoliberal hegemony since the 1980s has persuaded people of the opposite. After all, it was the SPD, not the CDU, that came up with Agenda 2010. And it's Olaf Scholz & the bloodthirsty Annalena Baerbock who — taking careful aim at their foot — kickstarted deindustrialization in Germany by:
1) plunging into sanctions against Russia & ferociously championing Zelensky;
2) pretending they have no idea who blew up the Nordstream pipeline (which would normally be viewed as an act of war).
Both have driven energy prices sky-high & prompted BASF, Volkswagen, etc. to start moving jobs overseas.
People look at that & conclude that none of the traditional parties represents THEM.
So they're going to stick it to the Elite by voting AfD.
Likewise, hordes of two-time Obama voters, who were losing jobs AND houses (especially after 2008) looked at Hillary Clinton in 2016, decided that their enemy's enemy was their friend, & stuck it to the Elite by voting for Trump.
I was struck to see, in the first week of August, the streets festooned with campaign posters for Hessen's state election to be held in ... October. All posters were SPD or Greens. To me it looks like they're running scared.
I think “Nathan” is a good interviewer. The dynamic was good between you two. I appreciate the depth y’all went into.
I'm thoroughly enjoying the "mentor" series with this "Nathan" fella. Particularly the most recent episode where they focused on creativity. It was soooo good. I thought the format really allowed Chris to shine...letting him just spew stuff from his beautiful mind with the help of someone to bounce things off of, unlike ROMA/s and what not. It's funny that Chris mentioned that he felt he was least qualified to weigh in on this particular subject, creativity, compared to the previous two episode subjects, career/goals and relationships/intimacy. Creativity and the creative process has been a focal point in my life being a musician and it's a lens which i regularly use to view the world and navigate my life...and I thought he had some wonderfully insightful takes on the subject. "Nathan" did a really great job of helping with the conversation flow as well. Thank you Chris and Nathan.
Just wanna give some feedback - I subscribed to this Substack at first specifically because I wanted to hear the full Mentirship conversations, and am staying because Im digging the community and the discussions. Love the direction the podcast is going in and loved both Crestone Elders episodes. This Nathan episode definitely tempted me to think about writing again
Thanks Jaden. Glad you're here.
Both these videos show that class consciousness is at an all time low. Trump represents everything opposite to the needs of the working class. Not saying the democrats are good for the working class, but Trump is certainly not the answer. His time as president proved that.
The Rich Man North of Richmond song starts of great and then performs some casual class betrayal by pissing on welfare recipients and then bangs on about taxes. This is where it starts coming across more like “what about me/it isn’t fair.”
The issues both these videos raised will not be solved by supporting a capitalist pig to become president. Nor will they be solved in having a dig at those less fortunate than you. These are examples of the working class being manipulated by the capitalist class and instead of uniting, they invent divisions so the blue collar fight amongst themselves.
Best bet?
Unionise.
Organise.
Solidarity Forever.
"Trump represents everything opposite to the needs of the working class"
Agreed. The problem is that there’s absolutely no conceivable chance out there on the US electoral landscape of anything that would meet the needs of the working class. And the working class knows this, & is increasingly bitter about it. Trump at least gives them a way of Sticking it to the Man.
The system is, indeed, rigged. So voting for the guy Jimmy Dore describes as “the clown nose on a clown country” is viewed as the best available electoral possibility.
“Best bet? Unionise. Organise.”
Your -ise makes me think you aren’t American. You heard about the rail strike last year that Biden “averted” by having it declared illegal? That’s just one prominent example of what happens to anybody who gets serious.
The only way out for working Americans is to truly unite — down tools for a general strike; bring the whole country to a grinding halt. But don’t hold your breath.
Preventing this sort of thing is why corporate America & the government — but I repeat myself — are so big into identity politics.
My point exactly. Trump supporters think that voting trump in is sticking it to the man, when in reality it’s voting for the man to tread in them harder. No class consciousness.
No I think they do have class consciousness; they just don't know what to do with it. Time was, if you were working class & wanted your interests represented you voted Democrat, or NDP, or Labour. Those days are gone — there's simply no-one on the ballot who will do it.
I also don't agree that Trump will "tread in them harder". We've seen four years of him as pres — in terms of the wealth gap he was neither better nor worse than the Dems.
Also, he'll stand up & tell you straight that the US has been ruthlessly deindustrialized by the globalist elite. This is true, & a vote-getter. But when in power he does Zero. But then the Dems also do Zero.
The media does its best to polarize working-class Americans in two largely imaginary camps (shitlib & MAGA)
Sooner or later there's bound to be "unrest" in the US. Since there isn't sufficient working-class consciousness, they don't tumble to the General Strike idea. But the UK is in deep shit & Brits aren't talking general strike either.
The UK actually had a general strike in 1926. That's unthinkable today. Orwell once wrote how he had watched a man leading a Clydesdale as it ploughed a field. The horse towered over the man, & Orwell thought: if only that horse were aware of its own strength vis-à-vis the man's it would end this relationship right quick. The US working class is that Clydesdale. It knows full well it's being badly exploited, but doesn't realize its own strength.
There’s enough evidence out there that the working class were worse off during the Trump presidency. That’s all over the internet, with the most obvious example him winding back Medicare and social security.
The Murdoch media has demonised unions to such a degree that even those that most benefit from them don’t trust them. The long term solution is to make working class aware and get them to join a union. Governments and political parties are run by lobby groups. Unions could be a lobby group with a big voting base. They still hold significant influence in the labor party in Australia, where I’m from. And they’ve had some pretty good wins recently, such as negotiating paid domestic violence leave for all workers. I only wish membership was as strong as it used to be and that the Union Accords never happened.
Biden has been undermining Medicare and social security since the 1980s. It's been one long assault. Just as he kickstarted mass incarceration with his 1994 crime bill, promising to crush drug-users (except Hunter, of course, who continues to snort at will).
The reality is that the working class has been suffering about equally under Both parties for the past 40 years at least. I have a 60-year-old stepsister in the US who you might call "working poor". She can quote chapter & verse.
Yes, Trump is a fraud &, when in power, he toes the line of the corporate donors. He likes to talk like a Strongman, but in fact he's weak & overly susceptible to flattery. That said, guess who actually started implementing the neoliberal agenda in the US: Bill Clinton. Because he was advertised as a "liberal" he could get away with stuff Reagan & Bush senior had only dreamed of.
I find Chris Hedges takes a sober view of things (& discusses the plight of US unions);
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqIEyzW_Iqs&ab_channel=TheJimmyDoreShow
This response song pretty much sums it up:
Billy Bragg - Rich Men Earning North of a Million.
https://youtu.be/qGNFR7pgxDY
"This left-wing guy went to a Trump rally and — get this — found reasonable people with legitimate concerns about the state of affairs in the United States. Maybe we’re not as divided as they keep telling us we are?"
Of Course you aren't. But your BlueAnon/Elite rulers want you to focus on Trump's person as the fount of all evil & to vilify his supporters as the spawn of Satan. Divide & rule, y'see.
Trump is a comprehensive dumbass, but the fact the Dems are terrified of his electoral potential weighs in his favour, in my view.
This is why they're going to absurd, highly questionable judicial lengths to convict him & take him out of the equation.
Trump's working-class backers know he's reviled by the Establishment, & that's precisely why they like him.
The lives of working-class American have got shittier & shittier over the years, as the corporate-run USA has watched its wealth gap widen terrifyingly.
The last thing the Elite wants is the neglected 90% of voters uniting to defend their interests. Hence Russiagate (a joint DemCentral/DeepState hit job) & the general whipping-up of anti-Trump hysteria.
It's also clearly why the Elite has embraced Identity Politics so fervently.
I beg to partially differ. Getting hysterical about a president supporting a coup d'etat and going to great length trying to get him to court is a proper reaction in my view. Well, surely the being hysterical is something one should get over, but taking action is still necessary.
I can agree on, that those in power are afraid of the dispossessed united. On the other hand, I am also concerned that the workers may unite themselves behind the wrong labour party again. After all, the NSdAP presented itself as a labour party, too. (NSdAP translates to nationalsocialistic German labour party). That is not to say that Trump is the same as they were, but to say that, the fact that someone rhetorically picked up the workers concerns , does not make him a ally.
So maybe those in power are afraid of the people, but there are more reasons to be afraid, particularly for those not in power, if the rage takes the wrong turn.
I can agree on that we must not judge too quickly and we must talk to each other, especially to those we consider our opponents. I would be glad to get in a conversation with those folks in the first video. Pointing out common grounds instead of dismissing people just because they went to the "wrong" rally is most certainly the way to go.
"a president supporting a coup d'etat"
There was no "coup", or attempted "coup". It was a bunch of dipshits wandering around the Capitol trying to out-dipshit one another. It was comical.
Think about what actually happened: a mob broke into a Strangely Underpoliced Capitol. That's it. That's all there was. Nothing more. Once inside they just wandered around.
Then consider the facts that have emerged since: the mob was lousy with FBI plants, at least one of whom was instrumental in whipping mob-members up to break in (& many there pointed at him & shouted "Fed! Fed!").
Somebody wanted them to break in, & it wasn't Donald.
In the aftermath the media lied to you about what had really happened.
And the participants were pursued mercilessly by the Justice Department (that dumbass shaman got a 41-month sentence for what amounts to trespassing — 41 months!)
I think the whole thing was basically a psy-op. The fact that Dems can't see this obvious reality simply beggars belief.
"the workers may unite themselves behind the wrong labour party"
Look, that's democracy. The masses are asses, as they say. Best not radicalize them, as neoliberal policy has, & not just in the US. From your spelling I'm guessing you're a Brit. Well, the Brits got Brexit as comeuppance for voting into office a string of neoliberal gvts.
And it's happening across Europe. I lived in Germany for four years & was back for a visit to my alma mater a few weeks ago for the first time in 42 years. Shocking. You have the beginnings of a similar wealth gap there, & lo & behold the AfD is topping the charts. Coincidence? Not on your life.
“So maybe those in power are afraid of the people, but there are more reasons to be afraid, particularly for those not in power, if the rage takes the wrong turn.”
Well yes, Donald is probably psychologically unstable, but what the US has right now is hardly preferable: it’s a War Society threatening the existence of every human on the planet. I’m old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis in the target area. This is even scarier because gvt & people are both sleepwalking.
At least Kennedy recognized the stakes — nuclear armageddon. But Anthony Strangelove, Jake Ripper & the clinically demented “president” first blundered us into a proxy-war in Ukraine & now want to have a direct war with China. Both are rife with promise for an out-of-the-blue nuclear escalation.
I can’t see Trump being any worse.
Biden’s gvt has been far more repressive in terms of civil liberties than Trump’s was. And just look at the situation on the Mexican border. Better? Umm no. Far worse. These are precisely the things we were warned about re Trump. But he didn’t do them, the Dems have.
Talking to those people is nice, but you won’t accomplish anything unless you present a real alternative. They’d dump Trump in a heartbeat for anyone with a real shot at improving their lives.
But both the Dems & the GOP run a closed-shop duopoly representing elite interests. Never in hell will they allow the US oligarchy to be threatened.
Not British, but German, mixing up English orthographies. That's probably why I am so concerned about democracies voting themselves out of existence. Even if they're just shadows of a true democracy.
Yes, it worries me too. But there's nothing we can do about it except demonstrate that people's interests lie in preserving democracy. Well, cross-party neoliberal hegemony since the 1980s has persuaded people of the opposite. After all, it was the SPD, not the CDU, that came up with Agenda 2010. And it's Olaf Scholz & the bloodthirsty Annalena Baerbock who — taking careful aim at their foot — kickstarted deindustrialization in Germany by:
1) plunging into sanctions against Russia & ferociously championing Zelensky;
2) pretending they have no idea who blew up the Nordstream pipeline (which would normally be viewed as an act of war).
Both have driven energy prices sky-high & prompted BASF, Volkswagen, etc. to start moving jobs overseas.
People look at that & conclude that none of the traditional parties represents THEM.
So they're going to stick it to the Elite by voting AfD.
Likewise, hordes of two-time Obama voters, who were losing jobs AND houses (especially after 2008) looked at Hillary Clinton in 2016, decided that their enemy's enemy was their friend, & stuck it to the Elite by voting for Trump.
I was struck to see, in the first week of August, the streets festooned with campaign posters for Hessen's state election to be held in ... October. All posters were SPD or Greens. To me it looks like they're running scared.
SPD falling in the people's back is an old tradition.
"Wer hat uns verraten? Sozialdemokraten!"
And since agenda 2010: "Wer war mit dabei? Die grüne Partei!"
PS Maui death toll expected to rise to 1,300.
Glenn Greenwald:
"George Bush was mauled for merely flying over New Orleans as citizens drowned during Katrina.
Ted Cruz was mocked in a week-long news cycle for leaving Texas during its electricity crisis.
Not only has Biden not visited Maui, but he's twice vacationed since and has barely spoken on it."