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Brave New World | Chapters 7 and 8

Vocabulary

  • Sterilized meaning: completely clean and free of life or anything considered impure.
  • Reservation meaning: a place set aside for the use of Native Americans.
  • Soma meaning: a drug used to induce a state of euphoria and forgetfulness.
  • Savage meaning: a person who is uncivilized.
  • Initiation ritual meaning: a ceremony marking the transition to adulthood.

Full Transcripttap the text to seek

I'm A.J. Hogue, the author of Effortless English Learn to Speak English. Like a native and father of the Effortless English system that trains you, that teaches you to speak English fluently, speak English confidently, speak English powerfully when you join and commit to my VIP program today at EffortlessEnglishClub.com.

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Those are coming soon for all VIP members and only for VIP members. Today we're doing our book club. Chapter 7 and 8 today of Brave New World. Continuing with Brave New World.

We're going to speed up now a little bit. I mentioned this yesterday. Because we now have really been introduced to most of the main ideas. Most of the big messages of the book already.

We have gotten them in the first six chapters. So now we're going to see kind of, you know, a few new messages. But a lot of kind of repeating those messages or maybe a little deeper to get us thinking about them more.

So I think this is a good point in the book to speed up and to start doing more than one chapter. So today we'll do two chapters. We'll see. Next week, two, maybe even three chapters.

So Brave New World today, chapters seven and eight. We are live today on YouTube. Live on YouTube because I'm having problems with Facebook Live. They're dropping my live stream.

I'm going to do YouTube again today. Let's just jump in. Let's jump in and talk about the story today. Chapter 7 and 8. Then we'll come back and have a discussion as usual.

Chapter 7. Remember, Bernard and La Nina, they're on their date. They go to this reservation. This is a place where people live the old way. It's mostly like Indians, like American Indians.

We have reservations now in the United States. So certain different Indian tribes have areas in America where they have more independence. They're not totally independent of the United States, but they can make more of their own laws. They have a little more independence.

So that's what this is. And on this reservation, they go and they tour, and it's like a tourist attraction, right? It's a tourist attraction for the Brave New World people. They go to see the way people used to live, right?

They had mothers. As they got older, they would get, you know, their bodies would get older. All the stuff that doesn't happen in Brave New World. In Brave New World, they give them chemicals, hormones, so they never really look older.

They just live their life, and then they die, but they never really have old age. And they don't have motherhood. They don't have families in Brave New World.

So they go around touring, and Lenina forgot her soma. She forgets her soma, her drugs. So she has to... see everything without drugs and it shocks her, right?

Seeing old people shocks her. Seeing mothers with their babies giving the babies milk shocks her. The dirt shocks her. Everything's messy. It shocks her because in Brave New World, in London, where they live, everything's clean, no germs, right?

We call this, it's sterilized. Everything is sterile in Brave New World, right? Sterile means not alive. Like everything has been killed. All the germs, all the bacteria, all the viruses, anything dirty has been cleaned and killed.

They call that sterilized. Brave New World is a sterilized world where all messiness of life, all chaos, all unpredictability, all dirt, all emotion has been destroyed or killed.

So they have a very sterile life in Brave New World. And so... Seeing real life, organic life, natural life shocks and upsets Lenina. They see this kind of crazy ritual, Indian ritual, where they beat some young man and he's bleeding and all this.

It's kind of this old religious practice, Indian religious practice that shocks them, all the blood and everything. Then they finally, the most important part of this chapter is they meet John. And from this point, John becomes probably our main character. At least he and Bernard both.

So until now, Bernard has been really the main character. But now, John also becomes a main character. It's really these two. Because Bernard is the main character.

He's from Brave New World, but does not fit in completely. And John is from the reservation. He's a savage, right? He's uncivilized. But he also doesn't fit in.

Why not? Well, because they meet, they find out, and they later meet his mother is Linda. And Linda is from Brave New World, the other place, they call it, the other place. Remember in the last chapter...

Bernard's boss talked about going to the reservation like 20 years ago. Going to the reservation and with a girl, and the girl got lost. Well, this is the girl now, Linda. Of course, now she's not a girl.

She's like 40 years old or something. Well, this is it. So, this is Bernard's boss is the father of John, is John's father. So, They went to this reservation 20 years ago, Bernard's boss, and this woman, Linda.

Linda got pregnant, and then she got lost, and the Indians captured her. Bernard's boss left, he went back, and Linda has stayed on this reservation since then.

And then her son was born, John was born on the reservation, and raised on the reservation. So he has blue eyes and he's blonde-haired. John does. So John also grew up not fitting, like Bernard doesn't fit in Brave New World.

Well, John doesn't totally fit in the reservation because he's not an Indian, right? He's not an American Indian. He's got blonde hair, blue eyes. His mom was, the Indian women used to beat her because she would have sex with all the men.

Right? She's from Brave New World. So she would have sex with anybody and everybody. And the Indian women didn't like that because they have families and marriage.

So they would beat her. They didn't like her. And because of that, John, John got bullied a little bit. And we'll talk a little more about that next chapter.

John describes his childhood. So that's it. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. In chapter 8, they're on the reservation still, and John tells his story, kind of his life story to Bernard.

And he talks about how he also, he grew up in the reservation, but he didn't fit. He had blonde hair, blue eyes, his mom was an outsider, and, uh, You know, the Indian women, like I said, they beat Linda, his mom, because she couldn't control her sex desire.

And important part, John is not allowed to do the initiation ritual into adult society, Indian society. So this is not just Indian tradition, American Indian. When I'm saying Indian here, I'm not talking about India. I'm talking about American Indians, okay, just to be clear.

So, in the Indian society, American Indian society, they have a ritual, right? A special challenge and a special ritual, you know, a special actions...

for a boy to become a man, to enter into society as an adult. And all traditional cultures and societies used to do this. This was a common thing when you look around the world in history, that men, that boys, had to do something to become men. There was like a...

a challenge or something they would do. And then the men would accept them. And from that point, they were men. They were not boys anymore. And very important, especially for men.

Now, often you find the same with women. So girls becoming women. But usually this is like when they become sexually, you know, mature, like able to have children. So with women, it's a little more clear because there's a clear...

Physical change that happens. But for boys, often, it was less clear, and so they would have usually some kind of difficult challenge. You know, so like the American Indians, sometimes they would need to go into the forest alone for, I don't know, a week. And maybe fasting, they have to catch their own food.

They have to maybe do all kinds of very difficult things. And then when they survive, then they came back and the men would accept them. Now you're a man, right? And so it was very clear.

You're not a boy anymore. Now you're a man. And this is important because we don't have this now in our modern culture. This is missing. And so we have a lot of people, a lot of boys who never grow up.

who are 25 years old and they still act like boys. They still think like boys. They're not men. They're 25 years old. They should be men, but they're not men.

They're not emotionally men. You even see this 30 years old, 35 year old men who still act like little boys, who are emotionally weak and still act like little boys because they never have this experience of, a hard challenge, and to be guided by other men and then be accepted as a man.

So that's an important point, important message that I saw in this chapter. So John, they won't let him do this because he's not the same. He's an outsider. So he feels like he never joins the Indian society.

So he does it himself, which is kind of cool. He just goes out into the wild and he makes his own challenges to become an adult. He just decides since they're not going to do it, I'll do it myself. So he does it himself.

And he has this very powerful experience. But as he's talking to Bernard, they both have a connection. They kind of feel a connection to each other because they both feel like, ah, we both feel alone in our society. We both feel different.

We're not the same as everyone. We're not accepted by everybody else. We're not really part, right? John doesn't fit in at the reservation. Bernard doesn't fit in in Brave New World.

And so Bernard invites John and his mom, Linda, to come back with him, to come back to Brave New World, to come back to London. And John, of course, doesn't know.

John doesn't realize, he doesn't know what Brave New World is like. He doesn't know what the other place is like. He's imagining it being wonderful and great and amazing, right? Right?

Because, you know, he's upset he doesn't fit in at the reservation. So he's thinking, ah, well, London and Brave New World must be fantastic. That's where my mom comes from. So I'm going to be so happy there.

And then he quotes Shakespeare. This is where we get the title of the book. Oh, Brave New World that has such people in it. So this quote from Shakespeare is saying, you know, what an amazing world.

What an amazing world. Now, the first time when John is saying this Shakespeare quote, he's being very honest, very sincere. He really thinks Brave New World is going to be amazing.

You know, because it has all the amazing technology. They have flying cars. It's incredible. It sounds amazing. Later, he'll say the same quote again, O Brave New World, but he'll do it sarcastically.

He'll be doing it sarcastically, meaning... The opposite of what that says, meaning that actually Brave New World is quite horrible. So the title of the book, Brave New World, is sarcastic, right? It means that people think on the surface maybe it's wonderful because all the high tech and everything's amazing, but then when you look below, it's actually the opposite of that.

It's horrible. It's terrible. And I think, you know, another message from this is that, you know, what's interesting is so many of you ask me about America all the time. America, America.

And America's brave new world, for sure. It's brave new world. America is probably the most, the closest to brave new world. It's quite similar, especially in the past, maybe less now, but in the past, people also had this magical idea about Brave New World.

People from less developed countries, for example, countries that had less technology, less money. And they would see Hollywood movies and TV. And it looks like Brave New World. Everything's high tech.

Everything looks clean. Everything looks amazing. Look at all the money. Everybody has huge houses. Nobody's starving to death. And it would be the same idea.

Everyone thought America's Brave New World. It's utopia. It's amazing. It's wonderful. But they also only saw the surface. They did not see below. They did not see what we are seeing now in this book.

how the families are all destroyed how the people are just addicted to pleasure how there's no meaning how people have lost they have no faith in God they have no faith in families there is divorce and sex and drugs and all of this stuff people don't see all of that or they ignore it and they just think money money and high tech and oh it's so amazing America and some people still think this

They still think that's what America is, and they're like John in the book. They're very much like John, because John is imagining London, he's imagining Brave New World the same way. It's very naive, naive meaning kind of innocent and foolish, because he doesn't know, he has no experience. And we're going to see later in the book that, of course, his experience in Brave New World is going to be horrible, horrible, when he

When he goes, after he's, you know, in the beginning, oh, wow, flying cars in high tech, it seems amazing. But then after a while, he realizes how terrible it is, how terrible the people are, how it's so empty.

There's no love. There's no meaning to life. There's no connection. There's no family. There's no God. And he will become very, very depressed. So, I find it to be quite interesting because it does, to me, it's like when I've traveled to some countries, especially countries that have a lot less money, and they have this same kind of naive idea about America.

Oh, it's so wonderful. But actually, because I'm visiting from Brave New World, I look around and they have stronger families. They have a happier life. They have a simpler life.

They don't realize. They don't realize that. they would be very unhappy in America and very lonely. Because Brave New World on the surface, it looks really nice, just from a long distance.

All right, so that's chapters 7 and 8. Let's now go back to our live show for our discussion, our live discussion, and let's see what you all think and what you guys think.

Pablo says, when you talk about America and Brave New World, do you mean USA and also Canada? Is Canada different? Canada's worse. Canada's worse than America.

They're even more Brave New World. Like all this crazy transgender stuff and the super left-wing kind of communist stuff and all of this, you know, hating their own history and destroying their own culture. They're worse than America.

Yeah. I say America because I'm American. Canada's worse than Western Europe is terrible. So, you know, it's really, I'd say Western Europe, North America are the worst.

And other places too. It's everywhere now. I mean, all of you can see this in your own countries. We've seen this during the last six chapters that all of you notice these things.

The cell phones, the families getting weaker and marriage getting weaker and all these things are happening worldwide. But it's worst in America now. Western Europe, North America, and Western Europe, I'd say. It's worse.

That's probably the worst. Yeah, well, exactly. Alexei says, Brave New World's already here. Men pretend to be women. Women pretend to be men. This will lead to an impasse and chaos.

Yes, it's going to... This is not going to go forever, guys. It's going to lead to... the destruction, and some horrible things happening in these societies.

You can't go against nature and truth forever. Eventually, truth and reality wins. Reality always will win. People can hide from it and try to deny it and try to teach lies and force it and all of this, and you can do that for a while, but eventually it will collapse.

And It's going to collapse in America. It's going to collapse in Canada. It's going to collapse in Western Europe. And when it collapses in those places, it's going to collapse everywhere else too.

So it's already, it's starting already. People are, a lot of people are getting red-pilled. A lot of people are getting angry. A lot of people are fighting back now.

There's economic problems happening. America probably is going to break up into more than one country. I don't know, 10 years from now, maybe 15 years from now. There are a lot of things that are coming.

It's not going to last forever. I guess that's the good news. Not so good if you live in those countries, but otherwise it's good news. Yeah, Gloria says, sometimes we see our neighbor's grass is more beautiful than ours, but nobody knows what the real thing to be.

Right, well... Yeah, we have an idiom. The grass is always greener, right? The grass is always greener on the other side, right? So it's this idea that because in your life, you know your life.

You know your life very well. You know your country very well. So you know the problems, right? You know that your own country has many problems, like all countries do.

You know your own family has problems. You know that you yourself individually have problems. You know them very well and they cause you pain, right? But when you look at someone else, you don't see that.

You see, you know, most people put on a smile face, a smiley face, right? Put on a happy face. And whole countries do this even. You know, so they're showing you their best.

And... We tend to, when we look at others, other people, other countries, we see what is better about, you know, oh, man, they're much better than my country. But we don't notice they also have problems, maybe different problems, but they can also be very, very serious. So, right, people look at America, they see the money, they see the Hollywood stuff.

the image and they don't see a lot of the other things but even for individuals you can see somebody maybe at your job and oh he seems so great and he has got a lot of money but you don't know what's happening in his life you don't know his relationship with his family and his wife maybe he's about to get divorced maybe he's unhealthy maybe he's really lonely you don't really know

So it's really easy because we know our own problems, but we forget that everyone else has problems too. Abraham Ali with a good point about the adulthood. School and media prevent us from being adults. They try to keep us acting like children.

Yes, remember in the last chapter they talked about this. Infantile was the word, like a baby. They want us emotionally, emotionally to be like little children. You know, this is why, and it's okay if you like it, but this is why they have this whole culture now of like comic books.

And you've got, you know, 40-year-olds who are getting super excited. Oh, yay, comic book movie, woo! You know, and it's okay. It's kind of, especially if you're learning English and you're using it for English.

But there is something a little strange about it. Like my grandparents, I can't imagine my grandfathers doing that. When I think of my grandfathers, they were both pilots. They didn't fight in the war, World War II, but they were close.

They almost went. They were training to be pilots. They were in the Air Force. It was at the end of the war. So they're facing possible war and death.

They were certainly flying in combat and training. Even just the training was very serious. They had children at a young age, and they're like 20 years old, and they had the responsibility to raise their children early, very young. So they didn't act like little children.

They didn't act like little kids. When they were 25, they were adults. They were very different. I compare them and I think of myself at the same age.

And I was still a kid. I'm not blaming you guys because I was the same. I was raised in Brave New World also. Even at the age of 30, I felt like a kid still.

I still felt like not totally an adult at that age. I mean, really, honestly, I don't think I felt totally like an adult until I started my own business. That's 38 years old. I still always felt a little something, like I'm not quite an adult yet.

That's sad. That's sad. You know, our earlier generations, like our grandparents and earlier, they were adults at 18 or even some of them at age 16. They were already working.

They were independent. They had children. They were making decisions. They were strong and confident. You know, so our situation now is very unnatural.

AJ, did your hand still hurt? Yeah, yeah. from holding my baby with one hand babies and it really hurt my wrist this area quite painful yeah like motion is another example of this this idea of you know being afraid of old age and it's not just old age I mean everybody gets old it's the same rate you know every year you're one year older but this obsession with looking young with appearance right

So Motion says, most celebrities and politicians look very young, even when they're in their 70s, like Brave New World. How? Thanks to heavy makeup and surgeries, blue pill people think it's because they live very healthy. That's right.

These people are having plastic surgery like crazy. Also, when you look at magazines, like fashion magazines, they're using Photoshop, guys. Okay, that's not the real person. They don't look like that.

If you saw them on the street, they would not look like that. They make them look thinner. They use Photoshop to make them look thin. If they have little spots on their skin, which they all do, they use Photoshop to paint over it.

So it's not real. All those fashion magazines, all those models on the fashion magazines and on advertising and in movies and in TV, it's makeup and Photoshop and lighting effects.

and all of this, okay? If you meet these people on the street, they look very different. You can even see this yourself, sometimes the gossip magazines, right?

Sometimes the gossip magazines, they take pictures of celebrities like at a grocery store or on the street when they have no makeup and they're not in nice clothes. And you can see they look quite different. They don't look as young. Their hair doesn't look very good.

Their skin doesn't look that good. They look much older. They look heavier. That's the real person, right? Right? The advertisements, the photos, the videos, the movies, it's all fake.

It's all fake. See, like Vladislav says, I'm watching a channel of a Ukrainian man, Alex Brezhnev, who's lived 20 years in America and Canada. He tells about those countries the same as you do, AJ. Yeah, right?

I remember I had a friend who married a Thai woman, still married, and she came to America. They were maybe going to live in America, and she was quite unhappy in America, very unhappy, for the reasons I talk about. In fact, I remember a lot of my Thai students, even when I was teaching English in San Francisco, They kind of liked some things about it, but they all wanted to go back to Thailand because they realized how family life is better in Thailand.

Life is more simple in Thailand. The quality of life is better in Thailand, and it is. It's changing in Thailand, sadly. They think that they're going to be happier trying to be like America, and they're wrong.

Yeah, Larkson, good point. Linda hasn't woken up despite 20 years spent in the reservation. This scares us. It's a sign that most people might never wake up.

Yeah, right. Well, that's what Morpheus will tell Neo. Most people are not ready to wake up. The conditioning, some people are conditioned. I'd say it's true.

Most people are followers. Most people don't think deeply. Most people don't challenge what they are taught, right? They accept what they're taught. If they're taught something in school, they just accept it's real.

If they watch the news, they accept it's real. You can tell them, it's lies, it's lies. They don't even want to listen or believe you. That's most people.

That's just human nature. It's just the truth. Yeah, like Buddha Toki says, reality wins because of natural law. Exactly. Natural law always wins. Reality wins.

Humans are not stronger than natural law. Humans are not stronger than nature. Humans are not stronger than reality. Humans are not stronger than God.

So... Humans can try, human society, again and again and again and again and again in history. Humans try to go against reality, go against nature, go against God, go against natural law. And every time the result, it always ends the same.

Big disaster. Big disaster. Now, it can go for a while, and I mean like, you know, decades. And things just get worse and worse and worse, but then finally it collapses.

And that's what will happen this time also. And it's speeding up now. I think the collapse will happen faster than we expect. Twan says, do you think when the whole world's red-pilled, the whole world will transform to the next stage like the people in Star Trek?

I think there's nothing in history... that shows this will happen. I think, unfortunately, there's also human nature, and part of human nature is this desire to control this element, these groups of people who are quite evil, who constantly want to

be gods who want to control natural law who want to control nature who want to have power and so it's more of a cycle we see again and again everywhere in the world where we have maybe societies or cultures that follow natural law and then there's this is a very nice time a very good time I would say early America was this you know in the early days of the United States maybe the first hundred years not quite hundred

Yeah, something like that, before independence, like 1750 to the Civil War. So about 100 years. But then after that, then we see the decay, it falls apart, more and more going against natural law, and then it goes down, down, down, down. We get a collapse, it breaks up, and then maybe another one rises where we have a good place again.

It's this up and down and up and down and we see this all around the world constantly happening. What we don't see, what we never seem to see is that people completely wake up and everything's wonderful forever. So no, I don't think so.

I think the Taoists are correct. It's cycles. But these countries are more powerful. Where did their power come from? Well, Brave New World is powerful too, right?

The reservation people don't have much power. It comes from technology and money. That's why they create Brave New World. They want power. It's the desire for power.

It's the desire to be gods. That's what these people want. Power over nature. Power over everything. And so when you're crazy and evil and all you want is power, you do probably get power for a while.

But you get a lot of other terrible things too. Dalal says, strange crimes arise nowadays. that we didn't hear about because many of these criminals are caused by insane people lacking faith, raised in the street without awareness from parents. Yes, you're seeing this again, and especially in countries like these Brave New World countries where you get just truly crazy people doing horrible, crazy things.

There's no rational reason. You can kind of understand if someone... robs a bank, even if they kill people. Well, you kind of understand the motivation.

They're trying to get money to make themselves rich or whatever. But some people are just crazy and they just kill people for no reason at all, or they just do all kinds of horrible stuff. And this is the price of going against natural law. We're going to see this with John.

We're going to see this with the character John, that in Brave New World, he's going to go crazy too. He goes and he thinks it's going to be so wonderful, But by the end, he goes crazy. It makes him crazy.

He can't handle it. And that's what happens when you try to go against natural law, when you live so unnaturally. Our whole world's going crazy. What do you think the transgender stuff is all about?

It's total insanity. Total insanity. And it does not end well. Phuc Din says, I have a friend. He wants to go to America. He thinks he'll have a better life.

Not only for him, but for his children. He's wrong. He's totally wrong. His family is probably going to destroy his family if he does it. His children will have a very hard time when they grow up.

His children will have a hard time getting married and having their own children. It's a big mistake. All he's thinking about is money. That's the problem.

People are just motivated by money. He'll make more money in America, probably. Yeah, so what? So what? Money is not that important. Hey, nice invitation from Leonardo.

I'd like to invite you to Colombia. Take you to our country house to get a cup of coffee and breathe fresh air. Well, I accept. Next time, if I make it to Colombia, I'm happy to accept your offer.

And I quite like coffee. So wonderful. Colombian coffee. Some of the best in the world. Michael, thank you for the donation. The point of one minute subscribers is, one million subscribers is so close.

Yeah, it's true. We are close to that. Yeah, Elena's correct about this. This is my experience. Now, there are a few exceptions to this, like mostly countries that have war or some terrible problems.

But overall, Elena says, poor countries have better families, more children, eat better food because they don't have money to buy fast food. They are happier. Yes, they are. That's my experience also.

Now, of course, there are a few countries where it's very extreme, like real poverty, where maybe people are hungry, although that's getting less and less and less in the world.

But overall, yeah, because they're living more simple lives and they don't understand that having a bunch of iPhones and stuff is not going to make them happy.

Where do we find utopia to live in? Asked Nora. We don't. Utopia is a lie. There is no utopia. We try to do our best, follow natural law, but this is part of human nature that there's always the choice, the free will, the choice of evil, the choice of badness.

There will always be bad people. And... We create hell when we try to create utopia. This is, again, the experience. The Cambodians, the Khmer Rouge, if you know the history, they thought they were creating the communist utopia in Cambodia.

How did they do it? They murdered millions and millions of people. They created hell. Mao and the Red Guards were creating utopia in China by murdering millions and millions of people and destroying families.

Chavez was going to create utopia in Venezuela too, right? So, anyone who's trying to create utopia, they're going to create hell. Don't fight against them.

Pablo says, instead of living in another place, we must fight from our own family, transmit to our children the values, show by example. Yeah, I agree with you, Pablo. I agree 100%. Yes.

You know, one of the great things, one of the reasons I think that early America was so wonderful is that those early Americans, you know, Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and Washington and all those guys, is they did not try to create utopia. they recognized, if you read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, it was quite the opposite. They recognized that people want power and governments are almost always evil. And so they tried, it finally failed, but they tried to create a system where they could control the evil and keep the evil under control, not try to totally eliminate it.

Because they realized if they tried to eliminate it, you can't. It's human nature. And then you just end up murdering everybody and you create hell. So they tried to create a system where good people would have more of an advantage, where there would be more freedom, where the power of the government would be less, so the evil people would have less power.

But there were a few things they didn't see. And I think the main thing they didn't realize that they missed was the power of corporations and banks. They missed it. That's how America fell.

That's how the American freedom was destroyed. It was the power of banks and big companies. The giant companies got the power in America. The giant banks and the companies.

And so they destroyed the freedom and then they used their money to buy the government and then they created this huge empire we have now. That's not what America was.

So, you know, America, real America's dead. But it was alive until probably the Civil War, and quite impressive. But not perfect. They're still bad people, but they realize that.

And I think they did a very good job, the early Americans did. In the end, they could not predict everything, and the big money, the big banks, the big corporations, that's what did it. And we see this now. Brave New World now is somewhat governments,

But it's mostly giant banks and companies who control the governments. The real power is in the hands of the banks and the banking families and these giant corporations. They then buy and control the governments. So the top really became these corporations.

I'm going to jump down because you guys are typing fast. I need to go faster. Yeah, I agree with Marco V. California is a place where the worst things become real and the other world wants to follow that shit. I agree.

California is horrible. Horrible. Now, it's a beautiful... State, the landscape is beautiful. It used to be quite a nice place, but now it is, you know, Silicon Valley is horrible.

Horrible. I like this. Plataforma. 23 says, my feelings are moving to the countryside to grow my own food, live a simple life. Forget everything about technology.

I think you want to do the same. I like it. I like it a lot. You know, like David the Good that I interviewed. You know, he's down in, I don't know which country, but he's down in Latin America, Central America.

He's building his own house, growing his own food. He's got nine children. That's a wonderful life. Now, he has some technology. He obviously has the Internet.

because I interviewed him, but his life is not focused on technology, right? I like it. And the truth is, too, you can still live a simple life in the city.

I'm living in a huge city right now, but we're in a small apartment, and again, I still have quite a simple life. So you can do it in cities, too, but it's easier in the countryside.

Mikhail says, how foolish, poor countries can't afford any food or clean water. Look at their teeth, they can't cure it. Well, I don't know what countries you're talking about, Mikhail. It really depends on, are we talking about, I don't know, what would be an example of a super poor country, like Somalia.

Some of the poorest African countries are certainly at the extreme and maybe not so happy. But, you know, some people in Europe and in... North America and some of these brave new world countries, they think of a country like Indonesia. And they say, oh, they're poor.

Well, if you look at the salary, you say, oh, they're so poor. But they're not poor. They're not. They don't have bad teeth. They have a perfectly wonderful life.

I've been to Indonesia. I've traveled in small places, big places, all around. It's a wonderful country, and they are happier. They have a happier, better life than brave new world, high-tech places.

This is true in Malaysia. Of course, parts of Malaysia are quite rich, but maybe the countryside. Most of India, where I've traveled. Nepal is another example where people say, oh, Nepal is so poor.

But they have a higher quality of life, in my opinion. And it's bullshit. You guys need to travel the world more. You guys are believing... Mikhail, you're believing a bunch of bullshit propaganda.

Go to these countries. People don't have bad teeth. They're fine. They're wonderful. People have a really nice life in Nepal. So what? They eat simple food.

They eat lentils, dal and bread and very simple foods, and they live very small places, and they have very simple lives, but good lives. So this idea that money is the key is wrong.

David Hay to Brazil. Well, Abraham Malay asked an interesting question, important. How do you know if a certain person is speaking the truth and not pretending?

Well, if you don't know them personally, I mean, you have to find out by experience, right? So, okay, I'll tell you. So a really easy example is the whole fasting thing.

So I watched Cole Robinson's videos. He persuaded me. I'm like, well, this sounds fantastic. How do I know if he's telling the truth? Well, he tells you the same thing.

You don't. I didn't know for sure, not 100%. I don't know him. So what do you do? You experiment with your life. You try it yourself. If they're suggesting something, try it.

So I said, I'm going to try it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to fast. I'm going to follow his program. I'm going to do it myself. And I'm going to find out myself.

I'll see if it's the truth or not, because I'll find out directly from my own experience. So I did it. I followed his way of fasting. I used the snake juice method.

And he's not lying. He's telling the truth. I lost 10 kilograms in five weeks. More importantly, I feel really good. Plenty of other good benefits. I didn't lose muscle.

Some people say, oh, you're going to lose muscle. But again, they're wrong because they've never tried it themselves. They're just seeing something they heard online. So how do I know?

Will I lose muscle fasting or not? Well, I try fasting and I see myself. I did not lose muscle. I still have the same strength. In fact, my pull-ups are better.

Part of that's because I'm lighter. But still, I can do 14 pull-ups. I just tested myself. I can lift the same amount of weight. So that tells me my strength stayed the same during the fasting.

so I tested it myself same thing living a simple life so I read a book I read some books you know Walden by Thoreau your money or your life and they say live a simple life you'll be happier you'll have more freedom how did I know they were being honest and telling the truth how did I know if that was true or not well finally the only way to know is to try it so I tried it and at least for me it was the truth because I was happier I had more freedom

So that's how you do it. You've got to test these things yourself. You can be inspired by people online or in media or even in your own friends and family. You can get ideas from them, be inspired by them.

But ultimately, finally, you have to test it yourself in your own life. And that's how you really know what is truth and what is not. That direct experience is very important. So then you're not just blindly, you're not blindly believing people.

Namah says, Red Pill people will move to Mars at last. I think it's the better choice, creating a new world. I mean, that's how America was founded. They all left England and Scotland and they had the same idea.

They did pretty well for a while. Well, Vladislav's exactly right about this. People forget this. In America, people earn more money, but they also have to spend more.

This is especially true if people think of, like, San Francisco. So sometimes you'll... I've seen this many times, even in the United States. So someone will hear about a salary in San Francisco.

Oh, my God! Teachers get paid $50,000 a year. Whoa! You know, or something like this. Someone in, like, Georgia... But what they don't realize is the rent is, they also have to pay much, much, much higher prices and higher taxes.

So in fact, the quality of life is less. The financial freedom is less in California. You know, rent now for a tiny one-bedroom average place in San Francisco is now $4,000 a month. $4,000 a month for a very tiny place.

And if you want a decent place, you know, you're going to pay much more than that. If you want to buy a house... It's a million dollars or more. So, you know, is it really better?

So what? You're making more money, but yeah, the expenses are much higher. All right, just looking for... Oh, yeah, Carol's got a nice comment. When life is easy, we become weak and dependent.

We must be financially independent and remember that very little is needed to make a happy life. It's all within yourself, in your way of thinking. Yes, and there's a very nice positive statement about all of this. That's true.

And this is kind of the yin-yang, again, idea, if you're familiar with Taoism, that on one hand, we need or we benefit from You know, modern technology, certain, you know, things. I mean, like I use modern technology. Just we're doing it right now with the Internet.

We all like to have a car and or even a bicycle is technology. Right. Or use a train. Or if you break your leg, it's nice to go to the hospital and they.

Fix your leg. So we have all these good things, and of course, they're all benefits. But there's also a point where it becomes too much. Life becomes too easy.

We depend on these things too much. And then what happens? They make us weak. Instead of being stronger and better... We become weaker and weaker. In America, for example, many people drive everywhere.

They never walk. Just parking lot to the store. But they become fat and weak and tired. They become weaker and weaker because they depend too much on the technology.

They use the car too much. They don't challenge themselves. Life is much too easy. There's too much food everywhere easy to get. There's no need to work hard physically to do anything.

It's like that movie WALL-E. You ever seen that movie WALL-E? All the people are super fat because they have the robots or like they're slaves and the robots are just feeding them. Of course, it's We find out the robots are really the masters.

And the people are so fat they can't even walk. because they become so, so, so weak, because life is too easy. So there's this balance, right? And anyone who exercises knows this.

If you do too much, you break your health, right? You hurt yourself. You get injured if you do too much. But if you don't do enough, you become weaker and weaker and weaker.

So there's kind of a, you know, we call it a sweet spot situation. Or there's that range where it's enough to make us stronger and more healthy and feel good and happier, but not too much to injure us or cause us to get stressed or that kind of thing. So it's always finding this. And of course, in the past, in the long past, we can look at history.

There were times in history where it was the other side, where it was too hard, right? Where... Lots and lots of people starved to death. Where, you know, in Europe, the Black Plague, this disease came through all of Europe and killed like, I can't remember, 30% of the people died in a few years.

You know, just huge numbers of people being killed by diseases and war and World War II, for example. So there's that side where it's too hard and it's horrible. That's a kind of hell. But then what we forget, what they lie to us in the propaganda, what people don't realize is that the other side, the other extreme is also hell.

Too much, too easy, too much pleasure, too much addiction, too, too easy is also hell because it makes us weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker.

and more and more and more and more and more depressed and meaningless and unhappy. So these extremes are not good. We need some comfort and safety and security, but we also need some challenge and meaning and difficulty.

And right now, I think the reason we're talking about Brave New World is because right now it's clear in most parts of the world the problem is too easy.

The problem is we are controlled with pleasure. We're being controlled not by pain and death, but mostly by pleasure and distraction. And what we need now, most of us need more challenge. Most of us need more discipline.

Most of us need more self-control. Most of us need to live simpler lives with less. Because we are living in such an extreme of too much, too much, too much and too easy.

Right, well, Alexei's right about this. One of the reasons we have a lot of entertainment is, you know, media especially, is that it fills our brains. We forget the most important things that we used to remember, such as history, our ancestors' life, and so forth. Yeah, we're kind of taught to forget our ancestors, or we're taught, oh, those people in the past, they were all bad people, or they were foolish and not like us.

That's quite the opposite, right? I think it's quite the opposite. Our ancestors were much stronger, much wiser, much better than us. We are weak, sad little people compared to our ancestors.

Just like I said, I can look back just two generations in my own family. I look at my grandparents and their generation, and they were so much stronger and wiser and more virtuous.

And then I look at my generation or the young generations now, what a bunch of sad weaklings, you know, it's kind of, it's sad. So, but, you know, we can go back and this is what happens because, you know, there's actually a meme about this online, you know, like a little, and because what happens is, and you saw it with the Roman Empire too and many other empires, that as people become more weak, everything becomes easier and pleasure, pleasure, weak, weak, weak, what happens? This eventually causes the

nation or the empire or the society to fall apart. It breaks up. And then what happens? Then you get very difficult times. You get suffering. You get poverty.

You get wars. You get all kinds of big, terrible problems. And then that makes people stronger. And then eventually those strong people will build something new.

And this is kind of the cycle, right? And we are kind of at the end of the big cycle now where we're seeing these very weak, brave new world societies.

We're getting towards the end where they're going to start falling apart. You can just see economically it can't go on forever. Our economic system is going to break.

I can't say exactly when, but in my lifetime it will break. You know, in the next 20 years, I'm pretty sure. And politically, everything's ready to break. And culturally, it's a disaster.

And so all this insanity, you know, it kind of, things get really crazy near the end. Sheriff Taha says, is there a chance to save the world? Is it already too late? Well, like I said, you know, it'll come back.

It'll come back. It's a cycle. So it's not just, it's not forever. Just like this craziness is not forever, well, there will be maybe some tough times.

Maybe not everywhere, but I think in the United States, Western Europe, North America, it's going to be quite tough. But, you know, again, then they'll rebuild. Some parts, at least, will rebuild and get stronger again, and things will get better. So it's an up and down, it's an up and down, it's an up and down, so.

it won't be horrible forever but can we stop it no I don't think so I think it's too late I think it's too late I can't be stopped now we're going to have to go through the pain

Yeah, like Zohar says, life is 10% what happens to you, 90% of how you react to it. That's a nice attitude to have, that things happen to you, but then you have a choice what to do about it, what to do about it. So again, we've got to remember this. We've got to remember this ourselves so we don't get depressed by Brave New World.

Because even if these things happen, and even if it gets worse and worse in many countries... that we still can choose for ourselves something different. We can still be different ourselves. We can make our families different.

We can ourselves be different. We don't have to follow what everyone else is doing. So that's good. Yeah, like Jai Devin says, I was told before I came to the U.S.,

It's a nice place to become successful, yeah, but at the same time, you can ruin your life by surrounding yourself in self-destructive behavior. That's well said.

That's a very good way to put it. Yes, you can certainly do that, but a lot of people, not everybody, you don't have to be self-destructive, but a lot of people do. It's kind of like I remember in college, in university, my undergraduates,

And it was my second, I think, my second roommate in the dorm. So it was my second year. So I got a roommate, and it was this guy from South Georgia. So like countryside, farm, little town.

So he was from this little country town, and he came to the University of Georgia. And the University of Georgia is a really big university. And a lot of partying happening at the University of Georgia. A lot of people drinking and going to parties and that stuff.

But a lot of people don't. I didn't. I liked it. I loved having the big university because there were so many things to do. So if you wanted to drink and party, you could do that.

If you want to do something else, you could do that. There's something for everybody. So anyway, I liked it. But I came from a big high school. I was used to...

being around that stuff and used to having some self-discipline. But this guy never even been around any of that. It was all like brand new to him. So he came and he just, he had no self-control about it.

So he just went crazy and started drinking and partying and going crazy. And after one year, his grades were really bad. He had to leave. And it's kind of, people do that when they come to America sometimes.

They go there and they start making good money And they go crazy. They go crazy because they're not used to the self-control. There's too much pleasure and too many things they can do like that and they kind of destroy themselves.

So, you don't have to do that, but it is possible. Yeah, like Ayo says, the middle way is the key. Well, that's why Buddha taught that. That's why Aristotle taught it.

Recognizing that the extremes are often dangerous. Elena says, AJ, you changed my mind about fasting, about building a house instead of getting money from a bank, about homeschooling, about simplicity and relationships with relatives, about business and discipline. Thank you. Wow, that's a big list.

Thank you, Elena. And, you know, these things myself, you know, I had to learn all of these one by one myself from different, mostly from books. And the key thing is, it's not enough just books. You've got to try it in your own life, right?

That's how I really learned these things. is that I would be inspired like say simplicity I read Thoreau Weldon I read Gandhi's autobiography and both of them teach extreme simplicity but then I had to try it in my own life reading is not enough so I said well I'm inspired I want to try this how do I want to try this in my own life you know live in a car live in a van part time work all these things your money or your life I read lots of books but then I had to try it in my own life and make it fit into my own life, and see, does this work in my life?

And it's the same thing with all these other things you mentioned. So that's the key thing. I try to do the same thing. I'm giving you ideas, I hope, inspiring you, but you also have to do the same.

You can't, don't just believe me. If these things sound interesting to you, or inspiring to you, then you've got to try them in your own life. You've got to try them and find out for yourself.

And maybe some of these things don't fit you. That's okay. How nice. Talis Melo says, I listen to your podcast every day while I work out. I'm a personal trainer.

Your advice about exercise and health are so important. You're welcome to Brazil someday. We'd love to meet you. We'd love to visit Brazil. So, hey, great, personal trainer.

You're doing good work. That's important work. Yeah, like Bakir says, in history, sometimes you see leaders leading an army at the age of 17 or 18 years old. Exactly.

You can look in history and you look back and you will see that it was much more normal for men and women to do amazing things at very young ages. Amazing things.

Like you said, leading armies or even just being an officer in the Navy at the age of 15, commanding men in battle, building businesses, exploring new places in the world, raising families, building their own house, all kinds of amazing things when they're 16, 17, 18 years old. You know?

And now what? People 16 years old, they're just playing video games and they're like little kids. It's kind of sad, really, when you think about it, the potential of what they could be doing. And it's like they're waiting to live.

Like they're 16 and they have this idea, I can't live, I can't make any decisions, I can't do anything for myself until I'm 22 or 24 or 27. I see this in some of my family members who are in their 20s, and it's like they're still like kids.

It's sad, but I was the same way. When I was in my 20s, I was still like a kid. I was like a kid, definitely. I'm not blaming them. I understand it, but it's sad.

It's a sad part of our society now because it's like we miss 10 or 15 years of adulthood. When we could be, you know, imagine if you're 15 years old and you try to start your own business.

And even if you fail, let's say you try for five years and you fail, you're still only 20 years old. Now you have five years of business experience and you're only 20.

So then you start your next business. and you have a much better chance to succeed. Or maybe you decide, I don't want to own a business, and you can try something else. You can try all these different things, and then you're 25 years old, and you find your passion, and you're doing great things.

But if you wait until you're 25, you just wasted 10 years. And now you're 25 or 27 and you still don't know, what should I do with my life? I don't know.

It's kind of sad. It's just wasting our lives in school when we could be living. And it's the same. It doesn't matter starting a business or traveling around the world or anything you dream about doing.

Don't wait. Just start. You can start when you're 14 if you want. All right, so what is it? Okay, a couple more and then time to go. Yeah, that nice little phrase here.

I like this one. You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. Nice little, put that on a wall in your room. Exactly. When you start, you're not going to be great.

at anything. If you want to be a musician, when you first start, you will suck. You'll be bad. You're a beginner. Everybody sucks in the beginning. Everyone's bad.

You want to do a business the first time you try to start your business. You probably suck. You're not going to be good. You want to be in great physical shape.

Be a great athlete. You're going to be bad in the beginning. Always at the start, you're going to be bad, but To get good, you have to start. And people wait and wait.

And they waste so much time. Good point. I like it. That's a nice saying. Yeah, back here with an ice. I'll finish with him. Back here says, do you recommend a challenge to become an adult like the ancient Indians?

I do. Not necessarily what they did exactly. But I think that we need this again. And I especially think boys need it. Girls, too. I think moms and aunts should do something like this with girls.

But I think maybe it doesn't have to involve some tough challenge, but some recognition that now you're a woman. And we're not. And the important thing is then from that point, all the adults in the family, they treat this person differently. This young person, they treat them as an adult.

They let them make their own decisions. They give them that responsibility. No more treating them like a kid anymore. But I think boys especially need this desperately.

And yes, I think boys need a challenge. Now, it should be something tough. What? I don't know. I think it depends on your culture. It depends on your family.

I do plan to do this with my own children. And I plan to do it early. maybe age 15, somewhere around there, ideally. I have to see their personalities and everything, but I want to do it earlier rather than later.

But whenever they're ready, some of it might involve homeschooling and completing some of those tasks, but that's minor, that's small. But the other things will involve some level of financial freedom, responsibility and financial freedom, probably some kind of physical, but more importantly, emotional and social challenges, overcoming difficult things.

And then from that point, now you're an adult, and now I will treat you as an adult, and you can think as an adult, and you'll be respected as an adult. So yes, I do think we need that. I think we need a clear mark so that our children will not feel like children forever, and they'll just get started with their lives earlier.

All right, guys. Next Saturday, we'll do 7 and 8. Probably do 9 and 10, chapter 9, 10, maybe even 9, 10, 11. We'll see. But I think it's time to speed up now with Brave New World because, like I said, we've seen the major points.

What we're going to see really the rest of the book is about John and John kind of going crazy. In Brave New World. Starting off, seeing Brave New World as amazing, but then quickly seeing below the surface and kind of going crazy when he realizes that Brave New World, the life is so empty.

So empty. There's no love. There's no connection. There's no meaning. And this makes him go crazy. It's not a happy ending, guys. I'll just warn you. This is not a happy ending book.

Quite the opposite. All right, and tomorrow, more fun, perhaps, The Matrix. We continue with The Matrix. And speaking of, tomorrow, you know, last week with The Matrix, Neo took the red pill.

He finally took the red pill. Neo is red-pilled now. It was not a happy experience for Neo, right? He woke up. This was the last scene we did yesterday.

Neo wakes up in this basically hell place, this hell reality of the real world. And tomorrow's section will really be about him fully understanding the real world and how horrible it actually is.

So we're going to see tomorrow... the first stage of being red-pilled, of waking up. And it's the painful stage. Pain and anger and depression. Going to eat a lot of that tomorrow.

But then we'll start to see also tomorrow, I think, if we have time, that the next step where Neo will begin to develop his power. So lots of fun. I'll see you tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll be on Twitch Live.

The live movie lessons are... Free to all. The recordings are only for VIP members. Join my VIP program at EffortlessEnglishClub.com. EffortlessEnglishClub.com.

See you tomorrow.